#but knowing Riot's inclination that would mean no screen time..

[meatyarms]

'Shoulda bought that cage...'

Look at her, she's exhausted, disgusted, liking early retirement more than she did yesterday,, s2 better do her justice,,

#but knowing Riot's inclination that would mean no screen time.. #sevika #arcane sevika #sevika arcane #get your mind out the gutter #stop thinking it #telling myself but you should too

[princessamericachavez]

My sanity is hanging by a thread frankly with all this Steve dies theories (which before reading any theories was my guess as well with some of the foreshadowing) so I went to reddit to read some discussions bc a lot of the time they get things right and figure out plot twists etc and there were SO many Steve dies theories again, like no one wants it and everyone's like If he died we riot but a lot of people are predicting it and I'm so worried I need it to be July now so we know what happens they better not touch him duffers I'm inside your walls

Listen, on one hand, I see all the doom signs here: the banter with Dustin, the rekindling with Nancy, the closeness with Robin, the Upside Down scare, THE BAT BITES, all of it...

...on the other, let me share with you a couple things that are helping me hang on to my sanity these next couple of weeks:

The Duffers know the audience LOVES Steve. They know it, they capitalize off of it, they explode it, they feed it... I think they know the outrage they risk if they kill him. Same that happened with previous fake deaths (Eleven and Hopper, two other fandom faves).

So, going by the last point, at most I think we might get a death fake-out. Or a scare.

I'm actually going with 'scare' here. We have reached a point where the foreshadowing is so much that I'm inclined to call it a red herring. They want us to fear for Steve. They want to pull at our hearts so when they bring him near death, we are all screaming at our screens... I think that's the point.

I mean, look at the show's past definitive deaths: Barb, Bob, Chrissy, Fred, Patrick, Alexei... what did they have in common? They weren't really foreshadowed. I mean, at most you could look at Chrissy, Fred, and Patrick, because of how Vecna operates, but even so, they were all —Barb, Bob, and Alexei too— set up as characters who would have a long-lasting impact or role in the show, only to be killed off. That's what made the gut-punch shocking each time.

TL;DR: while the Duffers love pain and are toying with our fear precisely because they know how much we love Steve Harrington, but it is unlikely he will die precisely due to the amount of apparent foreshadowing of it we've seen so far.

#I mean i'll touch on wood but im far more concerned over eddie #steve harrington #stranger things #sofia's nonsense

[doorsclosingslowly]

This Is the Time of Our Great Undoing

“Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?” Jesper whispers, more to distract Inej from what’s on the screen than anything else, but still—the idea won’t leave Kaz alone.

5.8k | modern AU | Kaz[/&]Jesper, part of a polycule

content note: despite the premise this is about cuddling, gambling addiction and existing during climate change

It starts the way most things used to start: with all of them piled onto ancient couches on the fifth floor of an otherwise empty building on the edge of Amsterdam, also called the Slat. These days, it’s harder and harder to get everyone together. Nina and Matthias are both in Rotterdam now, doing associate degrees that Kaz doesn’t care about. Wylan’s got room and board and a plan for the future and a social worker, and she already disapproves of Jesper as a bad influence so it’s not worth it, generally, for Wylan to come back to his old squat and hang out with the whole gang of ex- and current reprobates.

And Inej—fuck, Kaz wishes she was just a little less righteous, less concerned with how the world’s going to shit. She’s faced off against more cops now than he has, probably. Water cannons and charging horses and riot shields. She knows criminals all over the country, Europe, probably the world—but they’re the kind of criminals with morals and worthless targets, with bandanas and badly sewn patches, who will talk about Federici and sea levels and the Invisible Committee and use value if you don’t leave quickly enough. The kind that live on trees, as Inej’s going to do in a few days. The kind that don’t make any money. The kind that have even less of a chance of making it out of a job alive and free than Kaz does—and with the enemies she’s talking about, politicians, banks, Shell, he doesn’t even know if he’ll be able to extort her out of jail next time.

For now, though, they’re all together in the big room, watching some ancient movie on the massive 8k screen with mood lighting, etc, the works, that’s in the Slat courtesy of some MediaMarkt manager desperate enough to save her marriage to bribe Kaz into silence, but not so desperate she wouldn’t fuck two other women in the breakroom.

It’s impossible to know whose fault it is that they’re currently watching Pulp Fiction.

Kaz is inclined to blame Jesper, because most things are his fault in some way or another, and he’s supplying the login data for an old uni flatmate’s streaming accounts, which is where they found that film, front and centre, paid to rent until tomorrow. Who even pays for films? If that’s the calibre of people they send to university these days, it’s no wonder the planet’s going to the dogs. Jesper, though, swears he wanted to watch some goofy horror flick, so he’s splitting the blame with Nina and Matthias: Matthias, for growing up in a cult and having never heard of what’s apparently a film classic and mentioning that to Nina, who of course cooed over her boyfriend and insisted on it, even though actually none of them have watched it before either so it’s not like it’s an important cinematic milestone. Or just not b horror, crime, some weird arthouse thing with complicated morality… It’s weird and has crime but there is nothing to figure out, so Kaz is bored. It’s Inej’s fault, because instead of vetoing it she said yes, just because she has a heart-shaped soft spot for Nina. Wylan could have done his oh I’m still an innocent barely-two-years not a minor this looks bloody thing, and Kaz might not even have mocked him this time if he'd insisted on Jesper’s pick instead just so he could hide in Jesper’s arms for the most minor decapitations.

Jesper’s been talking through the whole film. Kaz got used to that a long time ago: the landing and failing of small non-sequitur jokes like rain against the window, whispered to Wylan who’s cuddled into his side on the left, or to Inej who’s burrowing under Jesper’s outstretched right arm. Sometimes Jesper thinks a quip will land better with Nina, so he shouts it over to the futon where she and Matthias are always just shy of engaging in heavy petting, and the really mean and bleak jokes he saves for when he’s made eye contact with Kaz.

Now, though: in this scene Mr Motorcycle and the gang boss are captured in a pawnshop and dragged into the basement, and Gang Boss gets raped. Inej’s hand is white-knuckled on Jesper’s arm, and Jesper’s talking non-stop. He’s talking about the flooding, and asking whether Inej thinks Doggerland will happen again but here, soon, you can never know when the scientists are so wrong about the speed of climate change, and apparently it all flooded in a day because something broke off Norway, and then he abruptly pivots to some demo where he bashed in a shop window and got new shoes, and then if she’s got dates for more street fights because then he’s in but please, don’t trick me into another book club, I don’t care about why the cops are bad I already know I just want to hit them—not topics Kaz would have chosen, exactly, but he’s rooted in his red leather armchair off to the side, not even able to hold her for comfort, not like Jes does now, and why didn’t they think to look up the content beforehand, why did they assume it was tame just because it’s an old film—and then, long after it’s over, Jesper idly asks, “Do you think Kaz could fuck someone in a full-body bondage suit?”

Wylan groans. Kaz wishes a sound existed that could express his own current emotion.

“You saw the guy, right?” Jesper turns over to Wylan, while still stroking Inej’s hair. “There was no skin on him. All leather. And that’s the trigger, so—might solve all our problems. I can’t believe I didn’t think of it before!”

“I don’t see a huge difference,” Nina snipes. “Kaz is already in all-black, with gloves. Though I guess, that hood would hide his atrocious haircut…”

“Stop being so mean to Kaz, Jesper,” Matthias mumbles. “Although he does deserve it.”

Kaz downs his entire glass of vodka. When he tops his drink up for the second time—he exed the first refill right in the kitchen—he brings the bottle and some maracuja juice over and refills Jesper’s, too, because Jesper’s been anxiously glancing over at him, every moment he thinks Kaz has turned his head away, since he shot his stupid mouth off and actually, it’s—Kaz isn’t thinking about it now but it just might—maybe it could work—well, he fills up the glass to stop Jesper from worrying himself into yet another mental crisis and also so he can bend over Jesper’s ear and whisper lovingly, “I’m going to make the leather for the suit out of your skin.”

“We should look for an Ed Gein film next!” Jesper laughs, much more brightly than the joke warrants, and Kaz refuses to interpret the look on his face.

+

By the time Kaz gets back to the Slat, on a day roughly three months later, it’s long past two in the morning. He’s in a foul mood: of course Haskell won’t even reimburse him for the taxi he had to take because he missed the last metro. Of course he just told Kaz to take a night bus. Haskell won’t even apologize for the last minute details he wants included in his casino’s tax returns. The old man’s not even mentally capable of understanding the extra work he caused. Yes, Kaz is good at filing taxes creatively, exactly tailored for the business to pay nothing whatsoever and meticulous enough to never arouse any suspicion, but that takes work. Things have to balance. Haskell thinks Kaz just has to press a button, and that he’s paying Kaz so he doesn’t have to press the button himself, and that it’s only worth it because he doesn’t want to sully his mind with ‘the Spreadsheet Program’. Which is also why he’s loaning Kaz out to a friend of his, which he just remembered to mention today, for that guy’s mattress store slash money laundering business, so that’s even more work for nowhere near enough money.

Sometimes, Kaz amuses himself with the idea of sneaking in small ‘mistakes’. Enough for even the stupidest tax official to unravel the whole sordid scheme and land Haskell in prison for tax fraud, whereupon he’ll also be discovered to be involved with drug smuggling, blackmail, murder, … none of which will ever trace back to Kaz. But the one time he was livid enough to try, nothing happened. He’ll never manage to plunge the true depths of stupidity of an average bureaucrat, apparently, and is thus doomed to failure.

And anyway, it’s good regular money for little work. Usually. He can’t really complain. Especially not to his friends, because three are going legit, Inej will just rant about the uselessness of defrauding the Belastingdienst for a few measly million euros a year when the world’s being set on fire every day, and Jesper’ll tell him to quit, again, because they live in a squat after all. It’s not like they’re paying rent. Jesper’s never heard of forethought, or gratitude. He doesn’t know how many of his bills Kaz has paid off.

Kaz’s leg aches after the climb to the third story. Two more to go. As usual, right at this point he remembers the joke Jesper made eight months ago about fooling someone into installing a stair lift, and as usual, he dismisses it in disgust after two more steps. Stomps harder on the next flight of stairs, with grim satisfaction at the shooting pains in his knee. He doesn’t need help. He doesn’t need to move to a house with a working lift, and he doesn’t need a stair lift, either. Fuck you, Jesper. I’m the actual functional adult with a job in this household. I don’t need a stair lift.

That’s what he would throw at Jesper’s head, but it’s nearly three o’clock, and Jesper’s probably out. Over at Wylan’s, if he knows what’s good for him, but given how evasive he’s been all week, how manic… Inej’s still camping high up in some forest to save the frogs or something, but no news there is supposed to be good news. If the cops had chucked her off a tree house, it would have been on tv. About everything else, he can worry after he’s slept.

He doesn’t bother with the lights in his room. The streetlight coming in through his open curtains is more than enough, and anyway, he found the empty tenement he turned into the Slat five years ago, fully moved down here three years ago when he met Jesper, and he knows every single thing in his room by heart. The antique dresser he made Jesper and Matthias carry up with the threat of cutting off a finger for every scratch it received is next to the door, the place where he leaves his gloves and wallet and phone and cane. The coat rack beside it, where the hangers for his suit are, then the hamper, and at the foot of his bed the long black linen nightgown that Jesper’s never, ever allowed to see, and—

There’s a black shape on top of his bedcovers, Kaz realizes when he’s pulled on his nightgown.

Kaz takes his cane back. He hasn’t made any new enemies recently as far as he’s aware—none who know his name—but he was careless, brutal, desperate when he was a lone kid getting by on the streets, and those victims had gangs, families, business partners. Just because no-one’s ever traced little Kazzie the bastard rabid dog back to the Slat-that-wasn’t-then doesn’t mean a thing. The fact that the friends he started collecting press-ganged him into doing more behind-the-scenes embezzlement and fewer turf wars because ‘they’re watching us, they have all our faces and fingers and DNA on file and cameras everywhere and did you hear about that informer having kids with the activist he spied on?’ or the more pragmatic, ‘If you don’t stop fucking up your leg on purpose I’m going to send you to a kink party you fucking masochist’…

None of it means safety, not really, and Kaz is glad he’s alone now. They’ve all moved on, and even Jes… well, if he’d been here tonight then the whole squat would be trashed because Jesper doesn’t come quietly. And now, if he comes back to find Kaz gone or his throat slit… Jesper’s going to fucking collapse. He’s been one phone call away from going hysteric all week. Who knows, though—he has Wylan now, and maybe it’ll be the push he needed, the path none of them could ever find, to get his life back on a solid track.

All of that is presupposing that Kaz loses, of course.

And he does not intend to.

The weird black ninja on Kaz’ bed hasn’t reacted yet. They’re curled into a foetal position and they’re snuffling, quietly, because they’re asleep.

Not even assassins dressed up as b movie henchmen expect the toll taken by Per Haskell’s technical naïveté and utter disrespect for Kaz’ work-life balance, apparently. He got back home so late he missed his own murder. Well, then. Kaz hasn’t tortured anyone in two years and he may be out of practice, but the films he’s been forced to watch in the meantime have, if anything, made him more creative. He’ll teach them not to underestimate the brutality of Kaz Brekker, even when he’s moved up a few rungs in the ladder of Amsterdam’s underworld and landed a desk job.

He’ll—but Kaz hasn’t had to stalk silently towards his prey in two years, either. He’s underestimated the extent to which his lame leg’s gotten worse.

Also, someone’s pulled a box out from under his bed.

Kaz stumbles, and in the split-second before he catches himself on the edge of the mattress he wonders—will they have a gun? I can still bash them in the head before they fire, I haven’t gone that soft—and then the would-be assassin stretches out their lanky body as they wake up.

With their arms raised over their head, Kaz can see the bright white light of the street lanterns outside reflect off the gleaming black PVC fabric they’re wearing. Sleek and skin-tight, no ornamentation except a few steel buttons glinting at the crotch, and a full-cover leather hood over their face adorned with one-euro-sized rivets at the jaw, the forehead, the bridge of the nose, the large buckle around the neck. More buckles, at the back of the head and hanging off the right side at eye-height. The open silver zipper at the mouth reflects the streetlight, too, as does the padlock that hangs off it.

Oh no. Kaz knows that mask. Not even shoving it all the way back to the furthest corner under his bed allowed him to forget the way it looks.

Oh no.

Jesper yawns loudly. “Morning, boss. Evening. One of those. I thought you were finishing work early?”

“Haskell had some last-minute revisions to his tax returns.” Kaz sighs. “Don’t cook tomorrow. I’ll be out late for the whole next week—don’t expect me before three am. New client. I need to create a whole year’s documentations from scratch.”

“Just fuck him over, boss. He doesn’t appreciate you, and you don’t need the money. We live in a fucking squat.”

Sweet, financially illiterate nuisance Jesper, who probably doesn’t even know what that awful mistake he’s dressed in right now cost. The thing he’s dressed in. Which was hidden under Kaz’ bed. In Kaz’ room. Which they are inside right now. “You broke into my room,” Kaz rasps. “Again.”

“You know, Kaz,” Jesper replies with poorly feigned innocence, ”this thing is a little big for you. Fits me pretty well, though.”

“I told you I don’t keep cash under my bed. I told you that, the last time you tried to steal from me to pay off your gambling debts. I like my room organized as it is, and so I don’t keep any money here. Not under the bed, not in the wardrobe. And you won’t find any of my actual caches, because I’m smarter than you.”

“You’ve lied to me before.”

“You’ve stolen from me before. Remember last year? Remember you made Inej cry? I though you were clean. I thought you promised Wylan, when you asked him out, that you were done gambling. Maybe we all had too much trust in you.”

Jesper pulls his PVC-clad shoulders up to his en-leathered ears: a ridiculous sight, and Kaz doesn’t know what’s worse. That a bondage sex slave could actually look this dejected and humiliated and alone, or that Jesper does. He’s almost ready to call off the assault. It took a while to figure out, but as usual Inej was probably right, because she’s been researching and discussing the mental health industrial complex in general, and the traumatizing nature of modern life, with her comrades. Even though Kaz is neither the kind of person to touch people with kid gloves, and nor does he like thinking of Jesper as someone who needs that kind of handling—when Jesper’s in a shame spiral this deep then any criticism will drive him even deeper into the arms of the next casino. So the adrenaline and dopamine can wipe out everything else, or to feed his self-loathing even more by being exactly the person he’s terrified people think he is—Jes couldn’t quite explain it himself during the Intervention, except that everything is too much sometimes, even more too much and faster than usual.

He’s a pitiful creature. Kaz almost has pity. Then, though—

“It’s not working, boss. I know why you’re reminding me I fucking relapsed, again, and tried to steal from my best friend, again, and that I’m going to beg you to lie to Wy, again, but I still haven’t forgotten I’m wearing a bondage suit that you’ve been keeping under your bed for—two months now, is it?”

It’s just one month, actually. The manufacture and shipping took six whole weeks.

Two can play that game. Kaz might be very slightly embarrassed, but Jesper’s relapsed into the combination of addiction, theft and deceit that destroyed his life three years ago, and nearly did so again, two-and-a-half years ago and one year ago. “Careful. I haven’t even yet agreed to lie to Wylan, Jesper. About your problem. That you promised you’d tell him about.”

“Also, I notice it fits me, not Inej. Not Nina. Not Matthias. Not even Haskell, I bet. Me. Almost like it was made for me.”

Kaz ignores his insinuations. The answer’s obvious, anyway: yes, he did take clothes from the main washing pile in Jesper’s room and measured them. Yes, he used the measurements when he ordered a bondage suit. Yes, that’s creepy. Yes, a decent person would have asked. No, he’s not sorry. Jesper knew who Kaz was when he moved in with him. And it’s not like Kaz is the one who’s really at fault here. If Jesper just stopped gambling, he’d never have found out.

“Even attempted theft is illegal, Jesper. Completed robbery is worse. I cover my tracks, but you… you should be careful what you say now. They’re still looking for whoever robbed that jeweller last year.”

“Inej’s gonna cut off your head if you try. It’s like you never read her hoodies. All cats are beautiful, et cetera, Kaz. Thirteen-twelve. Keep up.”

Sometimes, the only thing that keeps Kaz from tossing Jesper out of the Slat is that Inej hates landlords and landlord-adjacents just as much as the pigs. If only he’d known back when he let the drunk penniless fancy uni boy who jumped into a fight to defend Kaz from some thugs—a fight Kaz would have won regardless—if only he’d known, before he let Jesper crash on his floor for a night or two, where all of this would end. “I’ll never mention anything about tonight again if you don’t either. Forget it. It was a bad idea. A failed plan. That’s all.”

“Without even trying it?”

“I will zip your mouth shut,” Kaz rasps. “I’ll lock it. I’ll throw the key into the harbour. Fuck you.”

Jesper, though, somehow got even mouthier when he put the bondage suit on. Less respectful. This isn’t how it’s supposed to go. “Come on, Kaz,” he wheedles. “I put it on, right? So I’m fine with it, if you’re worried. Aren’t you curious? If our places had been reversed—well, if you’d found it in my room you’d have murdered me, so we’re not exactly identical, but still. Come on, sit down next to me. This is—PVC right? Good job choosing me. Inej would hate it. So much plastic.”

“It’s less like skin than leather.”

“Not complaining, Kaz. I have some juice with a straw over there to keep me hydrated in case I sweat like a pig, but I haven’t, yet. I can probably camp out in this for a few more hours.” He tries a patented Jesper I’m flirting in an over the top way to make you laugh which is my flirting style for when I’m genuinely worried about the reaction because this way I can pass off exasperation and mockery as the response I intended look, probably with fluttering eyes, but since Kaz can barely make them out through those open zippers and the rest of his face is a complete mystery, it falls flat. It looks ridiculous, though, so it also works, and Jesper has the nerve of complaining about Kaz’ eight-dimensional chess plans. He’s worse. He’s worse, and animated by Jesper’s ridiculous, familiar movements the bondage suit doesn’t look like a pathetic attempt anymore. Not like the desperation of an emotional cripple. It just looks like Jesper, with an extra layer on his skin. Jesper, probably making a duckface, purring, “Don’t you think I’m sexy?”

Kaz looks away. “Are you serious right now?”

“Of course,” Jesper replies instantly, as if there was never any reason to doubt him. As if he doesn’t blame Kaz for doubting, simultaneously. As if Kaz is allowed to try. To fail. To fuck up, risk hurting him. There is a reason why Kaz never even considered someone else for the suit. “Come on, get on the bed.”

“We have to talk with Inej first. And with Wylan.”

“One-track mind,” Jesper replies, and just like that Kaz is ready to murder him again. “We’re not fucking. We’re not doing more than normal, except maybe touch. We don’t even know yet whether this helps you. I’m not risking it. We’ll just try touching, and if you think it’s triggering, we stop. We’ve got all the time in the world to work up to more. Until this city sinks into the ocean and the grid collapses from heat, which might be tomorrow, so. Or the fascists win.”

“You’ve been listening to Inej.”

“I do try to keep up.”

“Well, stop. Or listen more carefully, until the end, when she gets to the doomerism is the opiate of the masses part.”

“Just get on the bed, Kaz.”

Kaz puts his bent good knee onto the mattress and pulls himself over to Jesper. The fabric of his linen smock rubs against his heated skin: not like corpses, not like that, not like Jordie and he won’t even think about him or this will be over but—it just feels like his own familiar coarse age-softened nightgown that Jesper hasn’t even made fun of yet, his thin nightgown that in a second will be one of only two layers between him and Jesper.

He rolls over so he can sit down next to Jesper, at first. Daringly, he leans an arm against his best—well, they’ll figure that out later.

“Okay?” Jesper asks. He has to crane his head a lot to look through the thin eye slits of his bondage mask at Kaz’ face, and even then he’s probably mostly seeing the gleaming teeth of the eyehole zippers. And still he leans forward forty-five degrees and twists his torso and neck so he can look up into Kaz’ face, carefully keeping the arm that’s touching Kaz as motionless as possible, because he’s being careful with Kaz. Kaz has told him a thousand times he hates being coddled. He’s not a poor little abused dog, he’s a vicious murderer who destroyed his leg and his ability to be close to people while he was murdering, that’s all he ever told Jesper. That lie. And yet—even if he’s only fooling himself because this scene is so patently ridiculous, and the psych ward he got sent to once for the crime of rough sleeping while underage would stamp every single thing about what they’re doing as deeply unhealthy, and he can’t see Jesper’s soft concerned expression under the hood… Whatever it is, Kaz feels warm all over. He feels good. Safe.

Jesper can tell, apparently. “Want to touch my chest? Or climb into my lap?”

Kaz moves over, carefully smoothing down his nightgown before he sits down on Jesper, angled so he can lean with his left arm pressed against Jesper’s chest. It’s safer, somehow, than giving him the back, but perhaps someday…

Jesper loosely wraps his arms around Kaz. They’re just there, barely touching, the hands lax on top of Kaz’ right knee. You can leave at any time, they say, I’ll let go as soon as you’re uncomfortable, and Kaz would have known that regardless. Jesper’s never usually this still, unless he’s lost in concentration: and Kaz, who’s seen how gambling can destroy someone’s life, how it is currently destroying someone’s life, would still bet everything he has ever owned that Jesper’s concentrating on every single aspect of Kaz’ body language right now.

It’s not necessary, though. Those hands are gleaming black PVC. They don’t look or feel anything like Kaz’ memories.

He drops his own naked right hand onto Jesper’s gloved one. Joins them. Anchors Jesper. “How much do you owe this time, Jes?”

A beat. Jesper’s face drops down towards Kaz’ lap. Trying to hide his shame, and he’s forgotten that he’s wearing a full bondage mask, that Kaz can barely make out his eyes through the slits of the zippers. If he’s trying to deny everything, Kaz will just beat it out of him. He’s done it before. A year ago, when it was bad, but Jesper promised he got it under control. But Jesper’s promises were never worth much, not for this. If they were, they’d never have met.

“Four grand.”

“To?”

“Tom Geels. One of Big Bol’s old friends—”

“So he put you up to—”

“I was already playing when he walked up to me, Kaz,” Jesper grinds out. Aware that he could save himself from at least a little of Kaz’ disappointment by casting Bollinger as the tempter. Simultaneously aware that Kaz promised to feed Bollinger to a marine propeller last year if he ever took Jesper gambling again. Noble, to try and save Bollinger’s life—or to save Kaz from committing another murder—not that either of them deserves his loyalty. “I’ll pay you back, Kaz. I’ll have the money. Give me—give me half a year, Da’s still sending me—sending me rent money, Christ, he’s—I’ll save it. No, you’ll get it straight as soon as I get it, and in six months, you’re paid back in full. I promise.”

“We’ll figure it out. I have some jobs I could use you on. Nothing big. Intimidation, mostly. Some breaking, some entering. Boring stuff, not even worth mentioning to Wylan I should think.”

“Thank you.” Jesper’s forgotten all his restraint. He’s kissing Kaz’ forehead, or rather kissing the inside of his mask that’s pressed against Kaz’ forehead. He’s wrapped Kaz tightly in his long bondage arms too, painfully twisting Kaz’ shoulder and elbow and wrist because Kaz is still holding onto his hand. It’s that welcome pain, and the texture of the bondage suit that Kaz still isn’t completely used to, that keeps him from breaking Jesper’s nose. Keeps him—he isn’t back in the North Sea. He isn’t with Jordie. He should be, but he isn’t, and even if it comes…

Inej taught him about grounding. None of them trust the system as far as they can throw it, so she didn’t send him to a shrink when they started dating, unlike he feared, but—she said they helped her, those grounding exercises she found on the internet, and so Kaz has been diligently practicing breathing techniques and focusing his awareness on details of the present moment. Five things he can see: well, it’s dark, but the way what little streetlight gets through reflects off the folds of the suit on Jesper’s bowed stomach is quite interesting. His own knees. His hand, still clutching Jesper’s. The cane, on the floor. The floor. Five things he can hear: early morning traffic, Jesper’s breath, Jesper trying not to sob out loud in relief or shame or a mixture of both, the rustling of fabric, the squeaking of fabric. Five things he can feel: The old ache of his leg, always. Jesper’s hand. Jesper’s thighs. The hard buttons at the flap over Jesper’s crotch, digging into his side.

Somehow, Jesper’s noticed his shift in focus. At least he’s stopped crying now. “You know, you could have just asked how big I am if you wanted a suit with a dick pouch,” he teases in a voice that almost manages to sound happy. “I wouldn’t even have been suspicious.”

“Just because you have no boundaries, Jes, doesn’t mean I have to sink down to meet you at your level.”

Jesper takes a big breath. To forestall the whole Who bought this bondage suit argument Kaz elbows him in the stomach, hard. Once Jesper’s done coughing—a wriggling movement against Kaz’ side that he’s never even felt before—he mumbles something else, though. “I texted Da my new number. He called last week. Wanted to know how I was doing,” and oh. That makes sense. That’s what did it. “Apparently I’m graduating in seven months, according to that fake schedule you made me so I could keep my lies straight. He wants to come to the graduation. He asked me whether I have a job lined up.”

“I could hire somebody to fake you a degree,” Kaz offers. This should be Inej’s job. She shouldn’t be off somewhere, saving grasshoppers. She should be here. She’s the one who tried to talk Jesper into coming clean to his father, last year. All Kaz knows, all he has ever done, is to keep digging, and it’s worked for him. So far. “It’s all the rage now I hear. Cheap, too. No-one will find out. Just don’t become a politician in Germany.”

Jesper sighs. The air kisses the back of Kaz’ neck. “I don’t even care anymore. I could have a degree, or not, it all doesn’t matter. Universities are a scam to regulate economic class relations anyway. I don’t know that I can keep lying forever, or get a job, just so I don’t have to tell Da I betrayed him. Because nothing matters anyway. We’re collectively throwing the future down the drain. It’s not like anyone needs another mechanical engineer when we hit four degrees. I don’t know what we need. I just know everything I know is pointless.”

“I’m sure Inej can hook you up, if you want to blow up a coal power plant.”

“But what about you, then? What would you do?”

“I could have you kidnapped,” Kaz says. That’s not what Jesper meant. Kaz refuses to think about what Jesper meant. “Fake your death. Colm will be so relieved when they find you that he won’t even care you failed all your studies so you could become a live-in human blow-up doll.”

“That’ll only keep Da happy for a year at most and you know it.”

“Well, then Colm’s just going to have to get used to it. Get used to you, like we did. Real, annoying, good-for-nothing directionless screw-up Jesper.”

Jesper rubs his leathered cheek against the crown of Kaz’ head. “Fuck you. Thanks.”

Kaz runs his fingers over the squeaky PVC on Jesper’s forearms, steeling himself before he whispers idly against Jesper’s neck, “If Inej’s right about the warming and the sea level over the next decades, it won’t just be refugees from the south we’re letting drown, people it’s easy to lock out. Maybe you’re right about the Doggerland thing, and we all get flooded.” He swallows. The words are high up in his throat, trying to spew out. “Then it won’t just be one stupid child with a stupid family going out boating in the North Sea when there’s a storm coming. Not just that one kid thrown out of a sinking boat nearly drowning and clinging to his brother’s corpse. Your blow-up doll skills will be in high demand if everyone else gets triggered by skin contact too.”

Jesper, miraculously, reveals a talent Kaz didn’t even know he possessed: he shuts up. He ghosts his gloved hands over Kaz’ shoulders, and then he starts carding his fingers through Kaz’ hair. Kaz can feel the static electricity building up, the crackles and the safety, and then he realizes his eyes have drifted shut. He realizes he doesn’t know how long Jesper’s been petting him.

“Take off your hood,” he mumbles.

“Kaz?”

“Take it off. Scuttle over so your head’s on the pillow.”

Jesper obeys, like Kaz always knew he would. He looks up at Kaz with something that might be confusion but might also be—trust and deep joy and more, something Kaz can’t quite admit anymore now he’s in his bed, and Kaz puts his head down on his chest. His legs will still fit, and this way, he has the squeaky PVC right where he needs it. Squeaky, rhythmically rising warm dry plastic under him. The exact opposite of a waterlogged corpse.

“I don’t have time to call you an ambulance when you get into a bondage suit erotic asphyxiation incident, just so you know. I have a full schedule for today, remember. I’ll be at Haskell’s until after midnight. I have to break Bollinger’s thumbs. My alarm is at seven. Turn it off and I’ll send you to Colm in bite-sized pieces,” Kaz rasps, and then, with a movement that no-one would call timid if they wanted to keep their tongue attached, wraps his arms around Jesper. “You’ve kept me awake for two hours, so be a good pillow. If I kick you off the bed while I’m dozing, remember. This is your fault.”

#jesper fahey #kaz brekker #kaz x jesper #dimtraces makes things #shadow and bone #shadow & bone

[girlsbtrs]

Weird People Have Cool Role Models

Article by Ella Jarrard. Graphic by Allison Thompson.

As a highly unphotogenic person, I can honestly say that this is the first time I wish I could input a photo into my writing. I say this because I’d like all of you wonderful readers to truly grasp the picture I am about to paint for you. 

I'll start this way. I was not a cool kid. I was four foot three til I was fourteen. Because of that, I rode with and carried a booster seat for the car until fourteen as well. I was a little shy, terminally unathletic, and, as a wonderful cherry on top- pretended I was a horse till 8th grade. Jumping over bus benches, hedges, and cantering (instead of running) was my preferred method of transportation- everywhere. I’d like to add that I in no way am ashamed of any of this- I miss my booster, I still get carsick without it, and I feel running consistently proves less effective than a good, brisk canter. 

While this un-coolness seemed to be part of my blood, it wasn’t. My parents are cool- and I mean genuinely cool. My dad was a punk in the seventies and eighties, worked at the Minnesotan equivalent of CBGBs, seeing the starter shows of punk bands we now see on polyester shirts at department stores. He came from a bloodline of cool too- his Irish Catholic parents dabbled in being super-fans of the B52s, Janis Joplin, and early Gipsy Kings- his siblings followed as well. My mom’s first album was an ELO record, which served as a poppy base for a life filled with conflicting tastes- Led Zeppelin, New Order, Stevie Wonder. On the nights I came in early from pretending I had just won the Kentucky Derby, my parents would show me  a plethora of grainy concert videos of forgotten bands from the 80s, or sit me down at dinner for a lecture on how Ice Cube defined the diss track. 

It was on one of these nights that I found my first cool rolemodel. Sweaty from explaining to my dachshund how what she was doing was not, in fact, a proper horse trot, I came inside to find a movie playing- it was called The Punk Singer. There on the screen was Kathleen Hanna, frontwoman of Bikini Kill and Le Tigre, and a leading voice of the Riot Grrrl movement of the 90s. I was instantly enthralled. 

It shows Hanna explaining her vision, her immense adoration for Sonic Youth’s Kim Gordon, her love of clothespin jewelry, and her dauntless reactions to male violence while onstage. Although Hanna has that kind of effortless, messy beauty one tries to repeatedly replicate, her beauty wasn’t what struck me so deeply- it was her unwillingness to succumb to unrelenting disrespect and violent threats. She spoke of dodging beer cans thrown by pseudo punks who were angry about women infiltrating the Seattle scene, and, expectedly, of how those men proved to be the least punk punk fans ever made. 

In The Punk Singer, her natural intelligence oozes out of her- it seems almost blasphemous to think that anyone- whether it be the press, fellow musicians, pseudo punk fans- could doubt or disrespect her, but they did, and constantly. The Riot Grrrl movement and Bikini Kill were both horribly disrespected by publications. They consistently implied Bikini Kill and other Riot Grrrl bands were young, untalented women parading around in their underwear instead of being prolific musicians who tried to make room for women in the physical and metaphorical punk mosh pit. 

My starter level reverence for Kathleen Hanna grew astronomically within the hour and twenty two minute documentary. As I sat agape my thoughts of how to distress every Gap t-shirt in my closet in time for 7th grade tomorrow swirled rapidly. Soon the sparkly slogans like “Sassy and Classy” disappeared, replaced by a blunt tip sharpie which wrote “Anarchy in the U.K”. Gone was Monte Carlo from my Netflix favorites, it was now “Who Killed Nancy?”

There comes a time in many teenagers' lives where the wardrobe turns darker, the eyeliner gets thicker and deeper into the waterline, and the presence of self ripped black tights becomes constant. Despite it being possibly embarrassing, or horribly shameful to some parents, this time is so vitally important, especially to women. I say this backed solely by my own profound experience with a badass female role model. It was vital to me. 

Having an authentic, self-founded role model who finds us naturally, through pathways of shared interest- leads to further activation of our goals, aspirations and arguably, personal fulfillment. The term “self founded” is particularly vital in this role model concept. The narrowcasting of hyper feminine, largely stereotypical TV shows, movies and books where the main character is an overused archetype meant to define the female psyche, is damaging and polarizing to young women and gender diverse people everywhere. When one doesn’t fit into this stereotype, the stereotype often being thin, white, and secretly immensely privileged, one’s sense of self instantly becomes uncertain. Being prescribed a role model crafted by (most likely) all white men sitting in a writers room at Disney channel isn't what young women and gender diverse people need- they need to find someone who identifies with them deeply, who shows what they could become, someone who fulfills our future ambition just by being their cool, untamed selves. 

Finding Kathleen Hanna was vital to me and my future. I no longer felt shy, no longer was embarrassed by my kind of dorky ‘horse’ habit, and felt much more inclined to express myself with music, art, and interests that weren’t widely shared among my peers. I loved hearing a young woman like Hanna be loud, and instantly wanted to start announcing myself like Bikini Kill did in the beginning of their songs.  I could combine interests like Hanna did with her passion in third wave feminism and her love with punk, and be comfortable knowing all of my interests were valid and correctly placed- horseback riding at stuffy equestrian centers was now accompanied by a perpetual soundtrack of the Sex Pistols, The Clash (much to my dad’s delight) and The Damned. 

Looking back on my childhood now is like watching slides of different phases pass quickly, old interests vanished and were replaced by my big new thing. I feel proud of that, and as much as I am deeply embarrassed of some parts- like when I made my friends call me Ellore instead of Ella during my punk stage- a time they never have let me forget- I feel like each phase and role model is still deeply embedded in my soul. Kathleen Hanna made me who I am- I’d be nowhere as comfortable with myself and with my strong, unrelenting opinions without her and her strength in the RiotGrrrl movement. I never saw myself within the role models prescribed to me as a young girl, and it made me feel so deeply confused as to whether I was doing the whole preteen girl thing right. 

I saw myself in Kathleen Hanna. I saw in her what I wanted to be, I saw in her what I wanted to say and fight for, and through that- I began to see myself.

#ella jarrard

[thisweekingundamevents]

This Week in Gundam Wing 25-31 October 2020

Here’s this week’s roundup! Oct 25th-31st!

Remember to give your content creators some love! Be sure to join in on the events at the bottom! And remember to send in any new works next week!

~Mod Hel

Fanfiction/Snippets/AU Ideas:

@amberlyinviolet

I Can Kiss You For Free Now https://archiveofourown.org/works/27208864?view_adult=true

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Mature, Fluff, Vague angst

His insides were a riot of overgrown flower beds, bushes in need of pruning. When he tried to clear a space it was filled with something else--debris from his shipwrecked heart, mud from too much rain. It was a constant effort and Duo worked hard, so hard, to try and tidy it into something he could give away. Something neat and beautiful and with no sharp edges that he could offer with both hands, instead of what he had. Instead of slow seeping poison and the constant upkeep, the steady, leaching need for reassurance.

To Bethlehem It Slouched https://archiveofourown.org/works/27232870

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Duo Maxwell, Chang Wufei, Trowa Barton

Mature, Mentions of Violence, Off-screen Minor Character Death, Hospital, protective instinct 

The hospital is a hospital. Duo hates it the way he hates all of them. It’s 12:04 in the afternoon and he all but runs to the trauma center. Stands blank faced as the nurse says words like “concussion” and “minor” and “lucky” and wonders how he’s supposed to be grateful for this. How he’s supposed to feel good that Wufei isn’t dead when he almost was. Lucky means close. Means a few inches either way and it would’ve been different words. Words like “sorry” and “condolences” and “tragic.”

You, Soft And Only https://archiveofourown.org/works/27247480

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Mature, Romance, Softness, Fluff

It’s evening. The kitchen is warm and full of smells. There’s soft light coming in through the window over the sink and Duo is up to his elbows in soap bubbles. He is illuminated, singing along to something upbeat and Wufei watches him from the doorway with wonder. This, he thinks, is his. It’s not exactly a reward. It’s more an offering. A vulnerability that Wufei knows Duo is only comfortable sharing because he trusts Wufei. Because together they’ve built something that’s safe, even if it is a little wobbly. They don’t have to be anything else here, just themselves, and just themselves is enough. It’s something they give to each other over and over, and Wufei treasures it the same way he treasures the man at the sink.

The Fire In Your Eyes https://archiveofourown.org/works/27264679

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Mature, Plotting

“No what ifs.” It’s firm. Steely, and Duo finds himself at the end of one of Wufei’s looks. Finds himself melting despite the chaos around them. The hurricane of fear in his chest. How he loves this man. How he loves the way he understands him, his need to fix this, and combats it with chamomile and the promise of bed, together. Duo takes a sip of his tea and leans into him.

The Blood Is On Your Tongue As Well As Your Hands https://archiveofourown.org/works/27282487

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Mature, Panic Attack, PTSD, Rage, Violence, Suggested Co-dependence

He doesn’t feel safe. Avoids eye contact and looks out the window. Doesn’t know how this room of people can stand him, after everything he’s done. All the little pieces he’s stolen from them, or the big pieces. Duo isn’t exactly a liar but he is a thief and none of the people he loves are safe. Are, in fact, in the most danger and Duo takes another sip of whiskey. Takes another sip of whiskey and tries not to taste the rising bile. Not to feel the sharp scratchy static at the back of his neck. The base of his skull. There is heat. There is heat and electricity and Duo’s hands shake.

Lay Us Down https://archiveofourown.org/works/27286864

M/M, Chang Wufei/Duo Maxwell

Explicit, soft, Confessions, Smut, Feelings

Sometimes their bed seems endless. An expanse of sheets and skin and the silk of their hair, spread out on a pillow. Falling like a curtain around them as they kiss. Wufei has had his body his whole life, but this is the first time he’s ever felt settled in it. Felt like all of it belonged to him in a way he could revel in. Whatever insecurities he has seem to fall away under the heat of Duo’s violet gaze. Under every greedy sweep of Duo’s hand from the back of his neck to his tailbone. They are lying side by side. They are only kissing and it’s such a simple thing but Wufei isn’t sure he’s ever felt anything like this before. That the brush of lips against his has ever sent such a spark through him. Coiled such a fierce need in his belly.

@angelselene

Stand Without Flinching (Ch. 24) https://archiveofourown.org/works/22763293/chapters/66640444

5 pilots + The Avengers

1x2, 3x4, 5xS, TonyxSteve, WandaxVision

MATURE, post-canon, canon divergent, fix-it, GW/MCU crossover, PTSD, found family, slow burn, moral ambiguity, Tony Stark is Duo’s father

For Duo Maxwell, family are the people he has loved and lost and whose names he bears. For Tony Stark, family has always been blood and a name and Howard’s shadow looming over him.

@bobo-is-tha-bomb

Deadly Intent (Ch. 8) https://archiveofourown.org/works/25576657/chapters/66603631

F/M, Heero/Reader, ???/Reader

Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Wufei Chang, Lady Une, Relena Peacecraft, Reader, Trowa Barton

Mature, Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Reader Insert, Drama, Angst, Romance, Violence, Lime

Eleven years is a long time for a ghost to come back and haunt him. But Heero Yuy finds himself unable to dodge or outrun it. It’s the start of a dangerous cat and mouse game between one of the most powerful organizations in the world and a loner who has every intention of dragging him down with her. After all, she has come with deadly intent.

Comfort https://archiveofourown.org/works/27222649

F/M, Heero Yuy/Reader

Teen And Up Audiences, Romance, Fluff, Angst, Reader-Insert

“I want to thank you for last night,” you said softly, while looking up at him. “It was nice of you to take care of me like that.”

A frown formed on his face. “You sound as if none ever did that for you before.”

@duointherain

Six Feet Apart https://duointherain.tumblr.com/post/633016132898521088/fic-six-feet-apart

Disclaimer: I don’t own Gundam Wing. I also don’t own the song in the Tumblr post I’m about to link. I barely own my own mind as I’m studying to much these days.  Neither do I own: Song  Grow As We Go, by Ben Platt.

Link: https://rosespirit.tumblr.com/post/633002398703616000/priscellie-candiikismet-coffeefoxgirl

Note: Gundam Wing is Sci-fi. It’s a m/m story.

It had all stopped so suddenly. It hadn’t been like anything had been declared, nothing permanent. After the war they’d just sort of fallen in together. First it was the hotel room. Then it was a pizza. Duo’s laughter had saved him. Even months after he last heard it, Duo’s laugh was what he kept breathing for. It wasn’t like there was a lot of other purpose. Weapons are supposed to be decommissioned, after all. Except the memory of Duo’s laugh, Duo’s kisses, Duo sleeping next to him, these things meant he was human. Pain meant he was alive. He still had the ring, though his finger was too small to keep it on anymore.

Gundam Legends 14

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Go Back In The Water https://archiveofourown.org/collections/GundamLegends14

A collection of fics by various authors for the Gundam Legends event. Previous years can be found here: https://tzigane.neocities.org

@lifeaftermeteor

To Love and Love Again https://archiveofourown.org/works/27309412/chapters/66724459

F/M, M/M, Chang Wufei/Relena Peacecraft, Duo Maxwell/Heero Yuy

Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell, Trowa Barton, Quatre Raberba Winner, Chang Wufei, Relena Peacecraft, Hilde Schbeiker, Sally Po, Lucrezia Noin, Lady Une, Mareen Darlian

Teen And Up Audiences, background Sally Po/Lady Une, Post-Series, Post-Canon, Post-Endless Waltz, Preventers, BROTPs abound, Fluff, Romance, Slice of Life, Wedding Fluff

Following their Christmas engagement, Wufei and Relena bring their family together for their nuptials. The celebration gives their guest an opportunity to reflect on their own romantic inclinations.

@vegalume

Chase https://vegalume.tumblr.com/post/633532147170476032/title-chase-a-drabble-author-vega-lume-written

Heero Yuy, Duo Maxwell

The knock at the door startled him more than he would like to admit. In a way he had been expecting it. It was a sort of nervous, anxiousness that had been strumming through his body since he had woken hours before. Now that it was just past sun down he knew what was waiting for him on the other side and he was both apprehensive and excited.

Fanart/Crafts/Photo Manips:

@2pcb

https://archiveofourown.org/works/27312763/chapters/66732790

EXHALE, Heero/Trowa, comic

@cuteciboulette

https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/633411537102667776/10-left-to-go-hopefully-ill-be-done-by-the-end

GW Merch

@enelle89

https://enelle89.tumblr.com/post/633025341866246144/happy-halloween-its-almost-here

Heero Yuy/Relena Darlian-Peacecraft, fanart

@gundayum

https://gundayum.tumblr.com/post/631834507084021760/i-have-a-little-data-again-so-plz-enjoy-dad-bod

Duo Maxwell, fanart

https://gundayum.tumblr.com/post/632787659677384704/borrowing-my-aunts-wifi-to-share-my-trashy-2xh

Duo Maxwell/Hilde Schbeiker & kiddos, fanart

Head Canons:

@bobo-is-tha-bomb

https://bobo-is-tha-bomb.tumblr.com/post/632983263759220736/gw-oc-october-day-24

GW OC-October 2020 Day 24 Prompt Response

@lochtayboatsong

https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/633017041186668544/my-gw-ocs-part-13-josef-peacecraft

GW OC-October 2020 Day 1 Prompt Response

https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/633174117984698369/my-gw-ocs-part-14-stefan-peacecraft

GW OC-October 2020 Day 2 Prompt Response

https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/633386069070626816/my-gw-ocs-part-15-isabel-barton

GW OC-October 2020 Day 3 Prompt Response

https://gwoc-october.tumblr.com/post/633560666909851648/my-gw-ocs-part-16-sam-maxwell

GW OC-October 2020 Day 1 Prompt Response

Fandom Discourse:

@cuteciboulette

https://cuteciboulette.tumblr.com/post/632800216214536192/lets-go-back-to-this-sharing-my-gw-archives

Over the next few days, a story scanned from the doujinshi “Guerrilla show” by Sango Show.

Quotes:

@incorrectgundamwingquotes

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/633530414557020160/at-preventers-hq-dorothy-to-duo-well

Dorothy, Duo, and Quatre

https://incorrectgundamwingquotes.tumblr.com/post/183465625949/lemontrash-lemontrash-lemontrash

Duo & WuFei

Add-ons by @lemontrash

Calendar Events:

@gwcocktailfriday

Cocktail Fridays!

Post responses on Friday, during Happy Hour between 3 & 5 pm in your own timezone.

Here’s the prompt for Friday, November 6th! https://gwcocktailfriday.tumblr.com/post/633500173247627264/cocktail-friday-post-responses-on-friday-november

In need of WINTER/SPRING prompts!

@gwoc-october

GW OC October 2020!

GW OC-October 2020 is now over!

Do come by and check out all the amazing entries, and remember that if you’d still like to answer any of these prompts, you are more than welcome to! Just send them our way and we’ll reblog them!

@thisweekingundamevents

Events Calendar https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/624053314842230784/event-calendar-update

If you are hosting an event currently, or are planning on one, hit us up with links and dates! We’ll add them to the Calendar and reblog your notices to get the word out!

GW Holiday Gift Exchange 2020

Rules: https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/627952774875906048/gw-holiday-gift-exchange-2020

Check-in 1 https://thisweekingundamevents.tumblr.com/post/633566440354627584/gw-holiday-gift-exchange-check-in-1-notice

#Gundam Wing #This Week in Gundam Wing #Weekly Roundup #25-31 October 2020

[wafflebloggies]

A Favourite Idea

Figment, light as a feather in the updraft, half-bounced and half-fluttered across the maze of beams in the workshop’s high vaulted roof until he reached the middle.

If anyone below had happened to look up, they would have seen a wide, airy warehouse ceiling, criss-crossed with beams and strong gunmetal-gray supports. They might also have seen a scrap of yellow, a hint of chrome, or a suspicion of sweatpants. Nobody looked up, so nobody did.

The Captain sat on a central span with his legs crossed, his back against the top of the centre-most column. At floor level, each column was a handy storage-post for something or the other, hanging tools, shelves, blueprints on pinboards. Up here, there was nothing but patchy paint and dust, and the Captain, chin propped on his hand, watching the ground below.

It seemed rude to just plonk himself down right next to him, so Figment parked himself a few feet from his side- just close enough to be convenient for conversational purposes- and cleared his throat politely.

“Hek-hempf.”

No response. Figment edged a couple of inches closer, and coughed again, but the Captain seemed to be set on watching the workshop floor, without much expression beyond a small irritable crease at the top of his nose. Figment tried to follow his gaze, but he couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary down below. Only Blair, working, shirtsleeves rolled up amidst the chaos, buried up to his elbows in the Dream Machine’s complex workings, and Alan on the old couch, his laptop on his knees, cross-legged in an attitude pretty similar to the Captain’s. As Figment watched, Alan looked up from his screen and said something- unintelligible, from this distance- and Blair pulled his head out of the tangle of machinery and laughed.

Figment smiled, bright and wide, because seeing people happy made him happy, and seeing Blair happy was best of all. Then he noticed that the furrow at the top of the Captain’s nose had deepened, turning into a Definite Scrunch.

Well, if the Captain needed cheering up, Figment had the perfect thing. The little dragon scooched another inch closer, coughed a third time, and began-

“Hey, Captain, what lies at the bottom of the sea and shivers?”

“What does he think he’s doing?”

Figment blinked and shook his head. “No, you’re supposed to say ‘I don’t know, Figment, what lies at the-’”

“It’d drive me crazy, someone sucking up to me like that.” The Captain waved a hand. “It’s so obvious- look at them! He follows the Dreamfinder around like some kinda… lost puppy. I mean, doesn’t he have any standards?”

“Uh…” Figment, watching the two humans below, tapped his two index claws together, making a blunt, uneasy little noise. “I don’t think he’s-”

“It’s so transparent. Honestly, Figment, it’s pathetic.”

Figment’s big, luminous eyes looked troubled. If he felt like it- and honestly, right now, he did- he could drop down out of the dusty rafters, free as air, and curl round Blair’s shoulders. He could tell Blair his awesome joke, and Blair would probably think it was a riot. It occurred to him, vaguely, that for some reason the Captain didn’t have the same sort of freedom, and not just because he was bigger and human-shaped and would knock Alan flat if he tried landing on top of him. No, it was part of the whole Thing that had Blair so worried. The Thing that Figment wanted to understand… and help with, if he could.

The Captain was a spark, just like Figment. Figment felt that this should mean that there were things that they could talk about between them, things that maybe the Captain found hard to discuss with Alan. This seemed even more likely to him because, from what he’d seen lately, the Captain and Alan didn’t really talk. The Captain demanded things, usually sounding more like he was telling off an irritating house-pet than anything else, and Alan mumbled monotone agreement. As far as Figment could tell, it wasn’t really an open exchange of ideas.

“Is this… because Alan isn’t helping with your show?”

“It has nothing to do with Alan not helping with-” The Captain looked as if he was trying to swallow a kiwi whole. “-with our show. Just because he doesn’t understand the meaning of a commitment-”

Figment craned his long neck over the edge of the beam, looking closer, trying to confirm for himself what the Captain was studying so intently. Nothing stood out to him, so he scratched his horns, scootched a bit closer still and tried to sit himself cross-legged like the Captain, in case that helped his point of view, and began again.

“Come on. What’s up, Captain?”

“Us,” said the Captain, in a distracted voice.

“I meant-” started Figment, but before he could finish the Captain looked right at him, as if he’d only just realised he was there.

“What’s the first thing you heard him say?”

“Huh?”

“The Dreamfinder. The first thing you ever heard.”

“Oh!” Figment cheered up immediately, beaming happily at the memory. “Well, he didn’t say it out loud, but he thought, ‘I’m gonna make a friend!’ And then he did. And then, when he needed me, he found that memory, and I was right there with it! The first thing he actually said was ‘Oh, good Lord,” but the actual, factual, first thought… that was the thought that turned into me!”

“’I’m going to make a friend,’” repeated the Captain.

“Yep-yep! I’m his spark- his favourite idea. You know- just like you’re Alan’s!”

The Captain made a noise like a cough with a strangled huff in it. Figment’s smile fell a little, as he sensed that while his answer had been true, it hadn’t been very welcome.

“What about you, Captain? What was Alan’s idea?”

The Captain stood up, suddenly enough that Figment flinched and slid off the beam. Righting himself in the air, the little dragon looked up at him, alarmed.

“’Please do what I can’t,”’ he parroted, somehow managing to sound sing-song and flat at the same time.

“Huh?”

“Favourite idea, ppff, right. I’m not here to be his friend, he didn’t-” He stared downwards, a hitch of distaste at the corner of his silvery lip. “He didn’t make me for that, he made me because he needs me to do all the stuff he can’t do. At the end of the day, he’s not a superhero, he’s not a- a super-successful Shorty-winning Youtube sensation, he’s just some guy! He’s just- he’s just human!”

Figment thought. “Blair’s the Dreamfinder, and a Portal Master,” he said, “and the Last Keeper of the Dreamport- or he will be, when we find it! But… he’s human, too. I don’t know that there’s any just about it, Captain.”

“Ugh,” said the Captain, and it sounded like an ugh right from the depths of his soul. “Humans, they’re so… glitchy. Do you have any idea what it’s like to be in that body? I was in it for less than an hour and I basically wanted to explode! When Alan even thinks about talking to a room full of people, his entire body tries to kill him so he doesn’t have to do it. You wouldn’t believe how much he sweats, and his stomach goes crazy, and it’s like his throat gets really-” A hard swallow. “The point is, Alan can’t stand in front of an audience or, or a camera and say stuff… even if he wrote it! But someone has to. I have to- I have to do what he can’t!”

“Sure, but-” said Figment, but the Captain wasn’t done.

“So if he can’t do all that stuff, the least he can do is…” He sat back, tucked a hand under his chin again, grumpily, and waved the other in a vague, dismissive manner. “You know… the stuff I don’t want to. Without getting an attitude about it!”

Figment cocked his head. It seemed to him that there were an awful lot of things the Captain didn’t want to do, all the way across the spectrum of tasks from fetching snacks to intensive editing, scriptwriting, musical composition, finances, web administration, correspondence, and his own laundry. He thought about saying something to the point, but right when he opened his mouth, the Captain looked at him again, hiking an eyebrow as whatever train of thought he’d been following pulled laboriously to an end. Not a great end, if the look on his face was anything to go by. Just for a moment, in fact, he looked just as tired as Alan.

“A nervous wreck,” he said, and then- as he seemed more and more inclined to do, lately- he fizzled into a vaguely Captain-shaped array of bright cubes that spread and spilled away upwards, vanishing into thin air.

Left alone in the rafters, Figment sighed, fidgeting uneasily with the ends of his two-spiked tail.

“Well… I thought it was funny.”

#figment #figment the dragon #captain disillusion #alan amelik #The Dream Team #dream team #the dreamfinder #my writes

[davidmann95]

Thoughts on the leaked Superman TV suit redesign?

Assuming this is real - and I’m inclined to say so, that’s a real assistant costume designer on Arrow and a concept artist credited, both people who would be assigned to do this sort of thing but finding their names would take more work than I imagine the typical dude with photoshop would put in for this - while probably not final I actually like it a lot! It’s not the truly correct answer of putting the classic s-shield on Routh’s Crisis suit, but next to that it addresses all my issues with what Hoechlin’s had so far: the belt’s better (and visibly functions as a belt) and does the missing trunks’ job of breaking up the colors, the boots are streamlined, the texture of the cape is better, and the cape clips are placed so that the cape drapes over him as it should while still providing the apparent comfort of that compared to tucking it in. Not wild about the red cuffs or the two-tone on the bodysuit, and if the lighting isn’t deceptive it needs to be more colorful, but as if nothing else a representation of where the creators’ heads are at I find it very encouraging, and the suits have always been tweaked over subsequent seasons on the CW shows anyway.

The truly big thing however is that this is hot on the heels of Superman & Lois being officially picked up as a series rather than waiting for the pilot to be judged - obvious as it seemed, it would have also seemed obvious that they’d pull the trigger on this 3 years ago, and also there was always the worry that the movie division would either pull themselves together or simply chicken out and pull the plug on this at the last minute. But now it’s official, and having been 3 years since I first gave thought to how a Hoechlin Superman series could work (Tulloch and Cryer weren’t even in the mix yet), many of my assumptions as to what would be in play have been dashed, and it’s ended up with distinguishing features going in I never would have guessed. So as is, my primary hopes for the series:

* For the first couple years, keep things relatively simple and streamlined in terms of season arcs. Todd Helbing’s in charge, and from what I’ve seen of his past work as showrunner of Seasons 4 and 5 of The Flash (where I jumped on, which is a shame since it sure seems like there was a drop in quality compared to what I’d been seeing before) he had a really hard time juggling the substantial cast of characters it had built up by that point alongside a season-spanning threat…but he also wrote or cowrote excellent individual episodes, including easily the best episode of the entire CWverse to my knowledge “Enter Flashtime”, and it’s arguable those seasons were generally casualties of having used up the obvious threats and buying time until Crisis. Going into this I don’t see much need for a sprawling supporting cast from jump, so if the overarching villain can be managed appropriately I don’t see him being a poor choice for shepherding the first season or two.

* Keep the soap operatics largely confined to the sons. Whether it’s Chris or Conner or Damian joining Jon, I’d imagine half the point of bringing in a pair of teenagers to a show with a pair of leads who have moved past the figuring-out-life-and-love travails of your average CW protagonist is so that *they* can do that stuff instead. Let Lois and Clark focus on reporting and superheroics and as advertised “the stress, pressures and complexities that come with being working parents in today’s society”, along with assorted character journeys and challenges tailored to them that fall outside the typical arc of CW series leads. Meanwhile, the teens can contend with burgeoning love lives and deciding who they want to be alongside figuring out how to become heroes.

* Maybe break it up across multiple timelines? I know they did a lot of this sort of thing with Arrow with the flashbacks and flash-forwards as series-spanning anchors; maybe there’d be something to be mined here with present-day sections, past sections of Superman’s earlier years in Metropolis before he and Lois got together or Lex turned on him, and future events. Heck, the latter could get the super sons as teens without any need to age them up in the present, and permit easy crossovers with Legends or the upcoming apparently future-set Green Arrow and the Canaries.

* Lex obviously has to be in the mix, but shouldn’t be the sole villain of the first season when he was already the bad guy for the last season of Supergirl. Given his amazing new status quo of being Silver/Bronze/Modern-Age Lex masquerading as Byrne’s Luthor, taking him down would be the obvious centerpiece of the Daily Planet chunk of the series, especially for Lois since that’s presumably going to be her primary domain. Once he’s exposed though totally go all-out supervillain with him.

* Can’t believe I’m saying this, especially on the heels of that last note, but maybe don’t get too political. I know Supergirl has made efforts, but everything I’ve heard about the execution sounds incredibly mixed, between a black Machester Black being told not to kill Nazi stand-ins, and the first preview for the current season basically opening with Supergirl narrating “We deposed our corrupt Trump analogue, so I thought people would be committed to fighting for social justice…but they’re obsessed with their Facebook gizmos instead!”, a truly bizarre instance of trying to appease all sides. Totally have instances of Superman taking some lefty or at least liberal stances as is tradition, but it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to try and build a season around a given message given both the track record and that all the extra eyes on this will mean it being subject to even more extensive pressures.

* Speaking of the number of eyes on it, god I hope this is allowed to get weird even given it’s probably going to be the flagship for the network and therefore will definitely have higher-ups wanting to make sure it isn’t alienatingly off-beat. They put Beebo and Sargon the Sorcerer in the Crisis finale for Christ’s sake! The least they could do is let Hoechlin fight Krull or go on an adventure with Calvin Ellis, and let Tulloch get witch powers and tame Titano; the last live-action Superman show in Lois & Clark was made in a pre-Morrison world and aired on ABC, and it still had a time-travelling H.G. Wells as a recurring character and an episode where he gets shrunk down to a teeny-tiny little Superman (which also just happened with this guy!). The clear All-Star influence so far is a good sign along with how odd The Flash has frequently gotten as the current center to their shared universe - including under Helbing - but this is still probably my primary concern. Give us at least a few truly high concepts per season even if I suspect the goofiness will be toned down relative to its older siblings.

* I’m not that concerned with the villains: he’s got a few established already between Lex, Metallo, Mongul, Reactron, Zod (maybe the inexplicable decision to have had Superman kill him off-screen can be undone by Crisis), Maxima, and Doomsday, it’s implied by Elseworlds he got his own Bizarro, Brainiac’s easy to introduce, and the villains introduced as specifically Supergirl’s enemies such as Parasite, Silver Banshee, and Mxyzptlk could easily roll into Metropolis. And there’s plenty of other possibilities with the likes of Solaris, Prankster, Subjekt-17, Terra Man, Magog, Ultraman, Riot, or Atomic Skull who either have tons of potential to unearth, or don’t but as a simple visual or gimmick could easily carry an episode or two. I’d still prefer the more exploration/mystery-driven angle suggested in my original pitch up above, but I recognize that’s not too likely.

* Finally, if he’s truly committed to being done after getting the little epilogue and sendoff he deserved he’s got all the right in the world, but if Routh would have any interest absolutely make him the shows’ equivalent to John Shipp on Flash as Uncle Kal from Earth 96, popping by every now and then to be the fun uncle to the boys and give Clark life advice.

#Superman & Lois #Superman #Lois Lane #Superman's Suit #Tyler Hoechlin #Elizabeth Tulloch #DCTV #Todd Helbing #Lex Luthor #Brandon Routh #Superhero Costumes #Opinion

[terrifying-testicles]

Sugar Daddy!Bakugou x Reader Ch. 3

I’M SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG!! It’s been written up for a while but then I was graduating and starting a new job and then I lost my notebook al;dksjfa;

Hair, dress

Words: 8.4k

Taglist: @lostbunn @sessi03 @lady-bakuhoe

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“What do you mean she rented a limo?!” Kirishima uses Bakugou’s moment of distraction to throw his character off of the platform. Bakugou curses, trying and failing to get back up, effectively handing this round’s victory to his redheaded fried. He throws the controller to the ground while Kirishima throws himself back into the couch and his arms into the air, letting out a whoop that quickly breaks into tittering laughter. Bakugou levels him with his deadliest glare. Kiri takes a few deep breaths to calm himself. “I mean, Mina rented a limo. She wants us to all show up together.” He directs his attention back to the screen, setting up the next round. Bakugou scoffs. “She isn’t even from any of the agencies throwing this shit party.” “Yeah, but she asked if I would take her as my date.” Bakugou grumbles under his breath, reaching for the switch controller. He curses aloud when he realizes it had fallen under the sofa. “What, is she gonna be your straight cover?” “Dude!”

Bakugou only hums, getting on his knees and searching blindly under the couch. “Clean under your sofa, it’s like putting my arm in your fucking vacuum.” Kirishima frowns at his friend’s hunched form. He, Kimi can’t help how much she sheds.” At the sound of her name, the golden retriever/Shiba mix perks up from her place in the threadbare armchair. “And no, she’s not a cover, it’s not like I had a date in the first place. I mean, Denki’s brining Hanta.” Bakugou gets back onto the couch, picking caramel fur from where it’s inched in the triggers. “Are you trying to tell me they’re not an item?” Kirishima barks out a startled laugh, shoving his friend lightly in the shoulder. “Hanta’s ace, you know that, and Denki would lose his shit if he knew you were accusing him of being anything other than one hundred percent straight.” Bakugou grunts, selecting a new character. “Speaking of dates…” Kirishima’s smile turns sly and Bakugou’s face turns pink. How loves his friends, no matter how much he tries to deny it, but telling them anything is more of a hassle than it’s worth sometimes. Kaminari and Mina are blabbermouths. Sero is a merciless tease now that he knows Bakugou could never actually hurt him. Kirishima, at least, can keep a secret when he needs to. Bakugou hadn’t asked that of him when he told the shark-toothed man about his date with you, but Kiri had the decency to let Bakugou go at his own pace with talking about it. Kirishima knew Mina had helped with the hot head’s profile, so she was dying for juicy details. He had his suspicions that this limo ordeal was full of ulterior motives, but no sane man would try to stop her once a plan was in motion. “What about it?” Bakugou hisses. “Mina wants us all to be picked up. So, if you’re bringing your baby,” Bakugou turns red from his ears to his neck. Oh, the struggles of being pasty, Kirishima thinks with a bitten back grin. “then she’s gonna have to ride with us to the gala.” “Fuck no, she’s not being stuck in a small space with you assholes.” The tan hero snickers while starting the game. “Do you really wanna tell her no?” He asks with a smug tone Bakugou wants to rip right from his vocal chords. He growls instead. “Didn’t think so.” “When did she have so much control over my life?” The blond mutters bitterly. Kirishima snorts. “Mina gets what she wants, and you’re soft.” “NO I’M FUCKING NOT!” He roars, smashing buttons far harder than necessary. “Dude, easy on the controller!” The two fall into familiar banter as they get further into the game. It’s only a couple of minutes before Kirishima’s character is blasted off screen by Bakugou’s ultimate, pulling a groan from the former and a roaring cheer from the latter. Kirishima sets the controller on the table to his right before turning his whole body to face his friend. Said friend only side-eyes him, a scowl pulling at his handsome features. “She’s going to meet them either way. Would you rather it be at the gala for everyone to see, or in private?” He’s of course referring to the scene their friends are likely to make, and the possibility of letting it slip that Bakugou is a sugar daddy. Bakugou slouches forward, shoulders hunched and frown deep. He’d considered just telling them that she was only a date, someone random, something to throw suspicions, but that’d only open the door to their persistent grilling as they had with any romantic interest. He’s arguably the strongest of them in many ways, but he can always count on his idiots to watch out for him. Besides, as much as he calls them idiots, they’re smart enough to figure out that you’re his sugar baby. “Fuck,” he grumbles. Kirishima grins toothily. “It won’t be so bad! Hanta and Denki will be here so it’s only two stops, and you can get Mina’s introduction out of the way.” Bakugou nods once, because she’ll probably throw the biggest fuss over his sugar baby. He can’t help but smirk lopsidedly. His sugar baby. The blond has found himself enjoying that thought too much since his date with you. From the corner of his eye he sees Kiri bite his lip, failing to hide a smile. Bakugou’s resting bitch face returns as his whips his head in the taller man’s direction. “What the fuck is that look for?” he snaps. Kirishima puts up his hands in mock surrender. “Nothing, man.” He gets up and stands in front of the armchair, back to Bakugou as he pets the fluffy pup curled up in the old recliner. Bakugou isn’t inclined to believe the bastard for a second, but realizes he probably doesn’t care to know what he’s thinking. “Hey,” Bakugou raises a brow, Kirishima turning his head to look over at him. “You work tonight, right.” “Yeah.” He looks over at the Crimson Riot clock above Kirishima’s hardly used stove and curses. He stands, tossing his controller to the couch and heading to the entryway to slip on his shoes. He still had to get home and feed Senshi before heading to the agency. “I’ll see you on patrol!” Kirishima shouts before the door closes behind Bakugou. He sighs and looks back to the fluff ball squinting and smiling up at him. “He in deeper than he knows, Kimi.”

Bakugou sighs loudly, leaning back in his desk chair. Paperwork splayed out before him, demanding his attention, he juts out his bottom lip. This was his least favorite part of hero work, hands down. He just had to hold out until the red-haired hero came bounding through his office door. A glance at his computer tells him he still has another half hour before he’d be out on patrol. His vermilion eyes slide over to his phone. He really should give you a heads up on the plan for the gala. You’d need to prepare yourself for the mess that was his friend group. Bakugou cocks his head from one side to the other in thought before giving in with a heavy sigh. Snatching his phone, he scrolled through, hesitating over Baby.

You yelp, jumping back and out of the way of— “Are you firing rockets off in my lab?!” you screech, snapping your head over to glance at the three people on the far end of the room. The tallest one in the middle at least has the decency to look mortified. The woman on her right has her hands slapped over her mouth, fighting back a fit of giggles that her shaking shoulders poorly hide, while the man to her left looks positively gleeful. The woman in the middle goes even paler blue than normal when she makes eye contact with you. “It w-was an a-a-accident!” she squeaks. The shorter woman finally loses it, hands going to her knees as she bends forward, cackling echoing across the lab. “Aki!” you scold, walking briskly over to the wall that now sports a massive burn mark, smoke trials stained in an almost dripping pattern down to the floor, where the handmade rocket sputters out. It’s no longer than your forearm, and the head is smooshed in, one of the three wings at the bottom bent horribly. “I told you to take this shit outside!” You snatch the destroyed rocket and wave it around in emphasis. You yelp when it spits weak sparks out from your jostling. Aki dissolves into a wheezing mess on the floor, forehead pressed to the tile. The man shrugs, making no effort to hide his smirk. “We were still working on it, but clumsy here bumped it and it fell near the burner. Tried moving it but,” he gestures to the rocket in your hands. “yeah.” You pinch the bridge of your nose and wills the headache to recede. “Why was there an open flame near a fueled rocket, Hiko?” Hiko turns to the rainbow speckled woman on the floor. You sigh, as that’s answer enough. You go to speak when your phone starts chirping from your labcoat’s pocket. With your free hand, you pull the device out and almost choke when Daddy flashes across the screen. “Just clean this up.” You demand, setting the sad excuse for a rocket on the table beside you. You walk out of the room, closing the door behind you before answering. “Hello?” Bakugou immediately notes the breathless quality to your voice. “Is this a bad time?” “No!” you yell. You close your eyes, grimacing at your volume. Clearing your throat, you continue. “No, don’t worry. Uh, what’s up?” “Just dealing with paperwork. Thought I’d call you about this weekend.” You blush. Since your first date, you had only texted a couple of times, talking details for the gala and confirming you had bought something to wear. You didn’t peg him as someone who enjoyed phone calls, so this was a surprise. Though, you were enjoying the gravelly quality to his voice through the phone’s speaker. “Oh?” you ask. Bakugou grumbles something you just can’t make out and clears his throat. “Yeah, my,” he grumbles again. “Plans have changed a bit. I’m coming by earlier than planned.” “How come?” you ask. That would mean you’d have to get ready earlier, which changes your whole schedule for the day. “Instead of heading straight there, we’re going back to my place.” Your heart thunders in your chest and you pray he can’t hear it. “My shitty friend got us a fucking limo and insists we ride together like it’s fucking prom.” You can’t help the laugh that punches out of your lungs at how petulant this high-ranking pro hero sounds. There’s a growl on the other end but you doubt he’s really bothered. “Should I expect a corsage?” you tease. Bakugou has to keep from snapping back with a venomous ‘fuck you’ because this isn’t his friend, this is his sugar baby, the one he gets to please. “Don’t get your hopes up.” He says instead. You hum and say lowly, “Yes, sir.” And fuck if that doesn’t go straight to his dick. He takes a deep breath through his nose. It’s not sexual, Bakugou reminds himself. “Anyway,” he shifts in his seat and adjusts himself. “I’ll pick you up around five. Be ready to go when I text you.” “Will do.” You reply. An awkward pause follows, so Bakugou clears his throat. “Alright then.” You roll your eyes but smile softly to yourself. “See you soon.” Bakugou grunts in response and then hears a click. You shake your head and stuff your phone back into your coat pocket. You can’t believe how giddy a short call like that makes you. The idea of this weekend actually has you excited but getting ready a whole hour earlier than planned doesn’t. You had planned to get your hair and nails done, but you may just have to slip the styling. Getting it cut was going to eat up your time as is. Sighing, you return to the lab, thankful it’s cleaned up and your team is behaving now. You squint. “Put away the fuel!”

Saturday rolls in like a summer storm, sudden and almost unexpected. Bakugou has considered taking something to relax his stupid nerves, but Xanax makes him too calm and pre-gaming never ends well for him. He’s made sure his hair is an intentional kind of messy, what Mina calls “a sinful mess” after barging in, as opposed to his everyday disarray. Sero had helped him pick the burnt orange 3-piece, the shirt a smoky gray. Bakugou places his black leather shoes by the door and walks back to his room. Mina is checking herself in the full-length mirror on his door, poofing her hair. “Can’t you get ready in your own damn house?” Bakugou grabs his cologne off the dresser and sprays himself, ignoring the indignant look on his friend’s face. “But that’s no fun!” She comes up behind him and slings her arms over his shoulders, becoming dead weight. Bakugou grunts in surprise. “Besiiiides, you’re the only one who isn’t a pain to get dressed up with.” He snorts as he leans back, Mina stumbling back with a yelp. She pouts at the blond now fluffing his hair. “And what the fuck makes you say that?” Mina sits on the bed, pulling the bottom of her dress out from under her. “Well, Kirishima is a fashion disaster and is always offended when I try to dress him. Kami is good in his tastes, but he overdoes it even by my standards.” Bakugou chuckles at that, fidgeting with his suit while eyeing Senshi from the mirror as the feline bats at the fabric flowers on Mina’s dress. “And he takes longer to get ready that I do! He’s a real Diva, but I love him.” Mina’s voice is wistful as she says this. She reaches down to scoop up the well-groomed feline and place him in her lap. “Sero’s not bad, he’s just so boring sometimes with his fashion choices.” She suddenly scrunches her nose. “Or is just too retro.” She grins up at Bakugou. “But you’ve got style! Plus, you’ll let me dress you up.” Bakugou doesn’t like the mischievous tone in that last sentence, but he supposes she’s right. After a little bit of protest, he’ll usually let Mina do whatever she wants. They do face masks together at least once a month, and he’s glad his gloves keep others from seeing the fuchsia nail polish he sports. Not that he’s ashamed, but it doesn’t really go with his hero costume. He looks at his phone and sighs. “I have to go pick up [L/N]. Feed him while I’m gone.” Bakugou pockets the device and breezes into the living room. He hears the clack of heels following him. “Ooo! I can’t wait to meet her!” Mina chirps, cuddling Senshi close to her chest, grey cat uncaring of the treatment as he watches his owner with glossy eyes, tail swishing like a metronome. Bakugou slips into his shoes, hand on the door knob. “When I get you back you better fucking behave. If you scare off my date, I’ll end you.” “Whatever, daddy.” Bakugou snaps his head to glare at the giggling hero, free hand popping. “Sorry, I had to.” He growls and opens the door. “Tell those idiots not to fuck this up for me.” “Will do!” Mina takes Senshi’s paw and waves to Bakugou’s retreating figure.

You pull another bobby pin from your mouth to secure the waves of hair into your ponytail. You take the rest from between your lips and set them on the counter. You fix your cascades to brush over your shoulders and frame your face. You open a drawer to pull out your rouge lipstick and touch up what’s already been applied. You straighten up and admire yourself in the bathroom mirror. Shopping for the dress had been a pain, not knowing what would be good enough for a hero gala. The moment you saw the golden top, however, and the way the rest of the white dress hugged your shape and flared out in a burst of tulle, you were sold. You walk briskly to your room to find the dangly earrings which match the delicate gold chain sitting across the dip of your collarbone. Rōrupan barks as he bounds into your room. “Hold on silly,” you coo, grabbing eh other earring and slipping it through the piercing. The cattle dog lets out a rumbling whine of protest. “Alright, alright, I’m done now!” You turn to your pet and hold up your hands. “Mama’s done!” The dog wiggles it’s whole body in excitement, making odd steps to get within reach. You laugh softly at his antics. You can’t quite kneel to pet him, the dress restricting such movements, so you bend over as best you can to scratch along his back with your coffin shaped acrylics. The gleeful squint of his eyes has you giggling. Until there’s a harsh knock at the door, sending Rōrupan into a flurry of barking as he bounds out to the door. “Rōru no!” You quickly follow. “Get back here you chunky boy.” You scold as you slip your fingers under his collar to pull him away from the door. “Go sit down.” The tan canine stalks to the kitchen, eyes cast at the door with caution. You huff and unlatch the top lock before opening the door to peer out at your guest. You had thought Bakugou would warn you he was on his way, but it seems not to be the case when you take in the dashing man standing on your doorstep. His hands are stuffed into his pockets, scowl in its usual place. Fuck he’s hot, you think as you open the door wider. “Oh! I didn’t realize the time.” He raises and eyebrow. Bakugou watches you go to speak when you jump, looking down with an irritated pinch to your brow. He follows your gaze, down to the black spotted snout and wide brown eyes glistening up at him. “You’re so nosy!” you snap, pushing the curious dog’s face out of the way. You look back to your date and smile. “Why don’t you come in? I just need to grab my purse and shoes.” You step back and pull the door open the rest of the way, closing it behind the blond. “This is Rōrupan. He’s a nosy boy but he’s well-behaved.” You rub between his ears and Bakugou has to bite the inside of his cheek to hold back a smile at the dopey one on the dog’s face. “Wait here,” you tell the man and retreat back into what Bakugou assumes is your room. Looking around, he notes that it’s a rather cozy apartment. There are paintings hung up in the living area, including a few photos. The kitchen is cluttered with evidence of frequent use, a small chabudai nestled in what little space the kitchen has. He’s reassured to know you probably cook for yourself and don’t live off of microwave meals like Kaminari did the first couple years out of school. He walks over to one wall to check out the numerous photo frames but turns his attention down to the dog that immediately demands his attention, rubbing his face against the hero’s leg. Bakugou huffs and kneels down to pet him. The moment his makes contact with the dog’s neck, he moves his body to aim his butt at him, demanding scratches. “I’m ready!” you call out, returning to the living area to the wonderful sight of the dashing Ground Zero at the mercy of your attention-whore of a dog. When he looks up and notices your presence, he stands to his full height, earning a grumbled noise from Rōrupan. You sling a small purse with a golden chain over your shoulder, grinning up at him. You weren’t embarrassed to show him your modest home, but standing so close to the wall of photos you wonder if he looked at any, and the thought brings out old insecurities. Bakugou grunts and walks to the door, opening it for you. You bid goodbye to Rōrupan and wait for Bakugou to close the door before locking it. While you do, Bakugou takes this chance to look you over. The way your hair sways down your back, how beautiful you look in your ensemble, the way in which your curves are on display for him. Bakugou swallows thickly. You spin to him and your beaming face makes him feel warm all over. “Let’s go.” You feel silly for feeling disappointed that he hasn’t compliment you yet. The explosive man didn’t come off as the kind of guy to shower compliments on anyone, but their whole ordeal is set upon you dressing up for him, being something pretty to show off. It wouldn’t hurt to get some validation from a pro fucking hero. You shake your head to rid yourself of such thoughts. You didn’t need his validation, you remind yourself. Bakugou unlocks a silver Mitsuoka Rock Star and opens the passenger side door. He can’t help the smirk that graces his features at your awed look, lips parted. You brush your fingers along the cool metal before you eyes flutter up to Bakugou. The confidence he exudes and the devilishly handsome smirk pulling at those plush lips have you looking away again out of fear your face would bloom in heat. Once in the car, he shuts the door and moves around to his side. Key in the ignition, the car purrs to life and you can’t help but be incredibly wooed right now. How can you not be? Bakugou leans over and presses a button, startling you as the top whirs into motion, and soon into place above their heads. “Wouldn’t want to ruin your hair this early in the night.” He says, gravelly voice making you blush. The implications of his words make your cheeks burn red-hot when it hits you. Bakugou is just surprised he can flirt so well after being single so long.

Mina is sprawled across the leather sofa, cat curled up between her side and the cushion, purring like shoes in the dryer. When the front door opens, Mina throws an arm over the top of the couch and peeks over at the newcomers. Bakugou steps in first and holds the door open for you. The moment she sees you Mina is scrambling off the couch and running over. Senshi yowls as he’s thrown off, scampering to his cat tree. You barely get an eyeful of pink before Mina is grabbing your hands and squealing. “Holy shit, Katsu, you didn’t tell me how hot she is!” You squawk out a laugh of surprise. Bakugou growls and throws his hands up in a show of exasperation. “Racoon eyes what the fuck?!” Mina pulls your arms out to the sides and moves her head to get a look at your body. You were utterly confused but amused all the same. When Bakugou had mentioned they’d be accompanied by his friends you weren’t entirely sure what to expect. This was already and absolute treat. “Oh, can it blasty. You didn’t give me any detes on your date so this is on you.” Mina releases your hands and claps her own together excitedly. “It’s so nice to meet you! I’m Ashido Mina, but just call me Mina.” You offer her a wide smile and give a small bow. “[L/N] [F/N]. Really though, the pleasure is mine.” Bakugou feels a jolt go through him at your charm and the alluring smile. Was that jealousy? He rolls his shoulder, willing the stupid possessive feeling to kindly fuck off. You’re making a good impression, not flirting. If anyone needed to be given a good first impression it’d undoubtedly be Mina. She was the one who would be Big Sister™ if she didn’t like someone her friends were interested in. “Oh wow you’re polite, too! I don’t Bakugou, she may be out of your league.” Mina’s tone turned sly at her last words, a coy smile curling her purple painted lips, hands finding a place on her hips as she leveled her friend with a teasing stare. Bakugou sucks his teeth and hunches over slightly, hands getting shoved into his trouser pockets. “Shut it, harpy, I don’t need your play by play tonight.” Mina gasps. “Speaking of! The limo should be here any minute. We can keep chattin’ on the way down.” Mina grabs one of your impeccably manicured hands and pulls you out of the apartment. “Hurry up, Kat.” Bakugou lets out a strangled noise of frustration before following suit, slamming and locking the door behind him. “Kat?” you ask, looking between Mina and Bakugou as you all gather by the elevator. “Just one of the many nicknames we have for our boy,” “Shut up, freak.” “It’s actually short for his given name.” You raise your eyebrows, looking to the blond man slouching and crossing his arms, as if embarrassed. You can’t help but think it’s super cute of him. Though you want to ask, you only hum in acknowledgement to spare him. After a moment of silence, your brows knit together and your frown. The elevator dings and the three of you shuffle in. “Wait, did you say limo a second ago?” You ask. Mina nods her head vigorously. The weight of what’s about to happen tonight fully hits you, that awful feeling of not fitting in resurfacing worse than the burn of acid reflux. For a moment you honestly wonder if you’re going to puke. An upscale event full of people far beyond your status and income level, travelling there in a limo. You can’t even afford a used car much less a goddamn limousine. What if you stick out like a sore thumb? What if everyone there only has to take one look at you and know you’re an intruder in a lifestyle not your own. Bakugou notices the pensive look on your face and wonders where your thoughts have wandered. “We’ll be picking up our other friends on the way, so you get first dibs on the mini bar.” Mina winks at you. Bakugou groans loudly. “Of fucking course you chose one with a goddamn minibar, you extra bitch.” “Oh, shut it, you love me.” The pinkette crosses her arms and levels him with a glare, though her pout detracts from the intensity. The elevator doors open to the lobby as Bakugou rolls his eyes. “I just can’t believe you’d let wall socket pre-game for this event.” He resists storming out to ensure you are by his side as you walk out to the curb. “Hmm…I guess that’s fair. Oh!” Mina squeals and runs, surprisingly well in heels, over to a sleek black stretch limousine. A man in a neatly pressed tux opens the back door for the heroine as she approaches. She thanks him and clamors in quite ungracefully, disappearing into the limo. You are in awe, having never seen one in person before. A warmth presses against your midback and you gaze up at the man beside you. Bakugou’s hand is somewhat grounding, his usual frown tinted with what you think may be concern. You smile softly. Bakugou leads you to the limo and holds out a hand, letting you use him as a fixed point to help you climb in. It’s bigger inside than you thought, the seats extending farther down before curling in to meet a cooler where several personal-sized bottles of alcohol are nestled as well as a couple of bottles of what you assume to be champagne. It could easily seat 10-15 people comfortably. When Bakugou climbs in he can only scoff. “This is too much.” He grumbles. The door closes behind him, Mina sliding down so she is opposite the couple. The vehicle starts moving and Bakugou is pushed into your side by the momentum. He blushes and straightens himself up, but does not move away, enjoying the sensation of your thighs pressed against one another. You suppress a smile while you fiddle with your fingers. Mina is beaming at the two of you. She hadn’t been expecting Bakugou to have such chemistry with his sugar baby right off the bat, but she can see it. It takes everything in her not to tease the grumpy hero. “Soooo,” they both look up at her. The mischievous woman rubs her hands together. “Who’s ready to get tipsy?” Bakugou rolls his eyes exaggeratedly, but you puff out a small giggle and his eyes are on you immediately. Mina pulls out a bottle and examines the label, then another. “We’ve got port, vodka, uhh I think some sake.” Bakugou leans forward and snatches a bottle from the cooler, not really caring what he grabs. Mina shrugs. She slides open a drawer beneath the cooler and retrieves three stemmed glasses. Bakugou fills them each and goes to down his when Mina makes a surprised sound. “Hold your horses, blasty, we’ve gotta make a toast.” He clicks his teeth but concedes, lowering the glass. Mina holds hers up. “To a night of good food, good booze, and even better company.” She winks and the two across from her blush, Bakugou’s ears a light pink and your cheeks a deep scarlet. They clink glasses and Mina downs hers like it’s nothing. For the next ten minutes the car is filled with casual conversation and plenty of banter. You discover that the two passengers have been friends since high school, and you break into a total fan freakout when you realize what hero Mina is. Bakugou spends his moments of granted silence admiring his sugar baby; the way you laugh, how animated and fluid your gestures are, the witty comments you make and ease with which you can keep up with his energetic friend. The limo slows to a stop and loud voices approach the car. Bakugou anticipates the cluster fuck this is about to become and slips his arm around our waist. You glance up at him, sensing the anxious undertones in the energy he gives off. You quickly realize why when the door opens and you’re bombarded with the insane levels of excited energy rolling off of the newcomers and making the cab almost stuffy. The first to topple in is a man with bright yellow hair and navy blue slacks and pale yellow shirt. “Mina, this is sick!” He hops over to her and wraps an arm around her shoulder. “The limo was a good idea.” His smile is all teeth and is met with an equally bright smile from the woman. A lanky man with raven hair tied back into a bun steps in and plops into the farthest seat, fanning his arms out along the top of the seats. “Gotta agree with Denki.” He says, his attention sweeping over to you. His face is one of surprise before a sly smile pulls at his wide mouth, eyes flitting to stare just past you. You feel Bakugou bristle beside you. Bright red pulls your attention back to the door and this one you recognize immediately. It would be hard not to place the shark-toothed grin and spiked firetruck hair as the unshakeable Red Riot. When he makes it inside, his carmine eyes fall immediately on you and Bakugou and his grin is almost blinding. “You must be [L/N].” he chirps, landing heavily beside the energetic blond and stretching a hand out to you. You mirror his smile and lean forward to shake his hand. “I am. And am I mistake in thinking you’re the amazing Red Riot?” you’re unable to keep the excitement from your voice. He falls back into his seat and laughs. “You can call me Kirishima.” Bakugou feels a niggling burn of possessiveness again, but knows that of those in the limo, Eijirou is the least of his problems. The blond beside Kirishima gapes at you as you nestle back into Bakugou’s side. “Wait is this the su—” “Katuski’s date? Sure is!” Mina interrupts. Bakugou is thankful. He isn’t ashamed to have his sugar baby with him, but he’s unsure how comfortable you are with being called out, even if these are his friends. Maybe he should have asked you that. The black-haired man waves to you. “I’m Sero Hanta, and that’s Kaminari Denki.” You nod your head in a slight bow. “It’s nice to make your acquaintances.” “Bro,” Kaminari starts, leaning forward to put his elbows to his knees, an incredulous look morphing his features. “Do you realize how hot she is?” Kirishima thumps his head and Bakugou’s grip on your waist tightens with a growl. “Shut your fucking mouth, dumbass, of course I do.” “She is also present and can hear you.” You raise an eyebrow in mild irritation. Kaminari opens his mouth again when Kirishima quickly interjects. “Just don’t,” Kaminari frowns. “Sorry about him, Kami has no filter.” “Or a brain.” Bakugou grumbles. “Do too! I’m just surprised you managed to snap someone so pretty with your shit attitude.” You put a hand to the ash blond’s chest to keep him from lunging. Kaminari’s hands go up as if in surrender, Mina dissolving into giggles to his right, the other two men exasperated, though amusement shines in Sero’s dark eyes. You give a small smile to Kaminari, hand still pressing against Bakugou’s firm chest. “His attitude is no issue for me. He’s honest and doesn’t have hidden intentions.” Your smile turns into a smirk. “Besides, what you see isn’t necessarily what he is behind closed doors.” Bakugou looks to you, face going red. Kaminari seems shocked, eyes wide, as the other three erupt in laughter. Mina gives a whoop and smacks Kaminari’s back. “Yeah, Denki. Kat could be smoother than peanut butter for all we know.” “Pfft, are you kidding? He’s smooth like crunchy peanut butter.” Sero says through barely suppressed chuckles. He then gasps, and turns to Kirishima, who had turned to him at the same time, as if reading his mind, the two suddenly belting out “Smoother than a fresh jar of skippy” in perfect English. The two heroes dissolve into rowdy laughter, your surprise melting into barely contained laughter of your own. You bite the inside of your cheek, a smile still breaking free, and look to Bakugou. His annoyed eyes flick to your face and his sneer recedes into a frown. You glance back to Sero and Kirishima talking animatedly about something Bakugou couldn’t care less about. He meets Mina’s gaze and she’s grinning, sly and oh, so knowing. Back in high school, the pink-toned companion was gossipy, nosy with relationships, but still let her boys do their thing. After graduation? Bakugou considers her a menace. She would play matchmaker at any given opportunity and could honestly be a P.I. given her snooping abilities. This isn’t to say she did anything bad, he’d never put up with it if that were the case, and they are as thick as thieves. But she loves to get involved, and she’s the one who helped him set up his profile, helped him find— The blond narrows his eyes at Mina, cursing the blush creeping over his cheeks. Mina grins wider, smug. He snaps back when you move, twisting to cross your left leg over the right, to face Sero as you got into the conversation. “Have you gotten your information from anywhere other than forums online?” You snidely ask, crossing your arms and cocking your head so slightly. Kirishima laughs as Kaminari cups his mouth, shouting “Oooh!” “What the fuck are you idiots yelling about?” Bakugou snaps. “Philosophy.” Sero says. “He’s spewing nonsense about the Theory of the Arrow of Time, a physics theory.” You narrow your eyes slightly, only earning another curt laugh from the dark-haired man. “And how do you know all that?” Kaminari asks. You roll your [E/C] eyes to him. “Four and a half years of college.” Bakugou can’t help but wheeze out in a chuckle. You immediately look to him, lips curling back into a beam. Shit, he thinks. “Oh, we’re here!” Mina gasps, and the rest of the party looks to the windows, lights flashing behind them. Paparazzi, you realize. Bakugou mentioned that the first night. The possibility of being seen by everyone. Anxiety swells inside your chest, leaning against the breastbone and leaving you unbalanced. Were you ready for this? More commitment to a Daddy than you’ve given, more effort to be seen together than any relationship since before college. Warm fingers brush tenderly across your ribs and you blink up to vermilion and concern poorly masked. The door is opening as he rumbles out, “I hate ‘em, too. Just smile and I’ll rush us through.” Sero, Kirishima, Kaminari, then Mina slip out, clicking and shouts crescendo. Bakugou takes a deep breath then moves to the door, glancing back at your before stepping out. A few screams chime in. You slide closer to where the muscular man blocks the opening, keeping you from view. You take a deep breath and will your nerves to settle. Gingerly, you reach your left hand into his right. He grips your palm tightly, moving aside to guide you out. As you emerge into bright lights and chaos, you hear gasps ring out. Your eyes adjust and you see there’s photographers and broadcasters held behind velvet ropes, but the distance to the entrance is not terribly far. Other heroes walk along the carpet, stopping along the way to pose for pictures and speak to people with microphones. When you stand fully, Bakugou pulls his hand away to replace with an extended arm. You wrap your hand around his bicep and follow him down the carpet. People call out his hero name, throwing questions and demanding attention, but he pays them no mind and walks confidently toward a grand entry with statuettes on either side of open doors. You smile and glance around to different cameras. Just like that, you are inside, the hall dimly lit, and surprisingly empty. It’s significantly quieter in here as well. The room leads to a hallway that extends out to an archway that can only be the ballroom where the event is being held. Bakugou escorts you down the hallway, further from the chatter and closer to where the music grows steadily louder and voices carry on. He stops halfway and pulls you aside into an alcove to another room, facing you. “You okay?” He’s gruff, but quiet. You nod, tucking slips of hair behind your ear. “Good. It’s not like that inside.” You smile kindly up at him, admiring the protective nature he presents. “I’m okay, Daddy.” It’s barely a hum, but it makes him buzz under his skin. Bakugou licks his lips and steps back, a heavy from his nose making you grin slightly. “Right. Let’s get this over with.” You agree and follow the flustered man with a smug smile threatening to take over your features.

Kaminari and Sero had just made it to a table set aside with finger foods and appetizers. Waitstaff were circling the ballroom to with platters of hors d’oeuvres and champagne, but these two couldn’t wait another second trying to track one down amongst the crowd of heroes and agency workers. The bright blond snatches up a Tsukune skewer and spins around. Ururaka stands before him, as if having been there the whole time, arms crossed, and he yelps. “Kyouka’s salty you took Sero over her.” Kaminari groans dramatically while his aforementioned date waves at the rosy cheeked woman. “Hey Ururaka.” “Hi, Sero!” “I took her to the last one!” Kaminari whines. “Sero was already going to that one, doesn’t count.” The shorter man sputters. “Can’t help that I’m top hoe.” Sero shrugs, looking all the role of someone burdened by power. “Maybe I should have left you both and did what Bakugou did.” Kaminari grumbles as he bites into a meatball. Ururaka perks up. “What did Bakugou do?” The two men blanch, unsure of what to say. The brunette whips around, spotting the bristly blond make it to the bottom of the stairs, hands in his pockets, a [H/C] haired woman at his side. The bubbly heroine gasps and bounds over to him without another word to the other two. You’ve barely made it to the landing when a bob of brown and the roundest cinnamon eyes you’ve ever seen jumps into your line of vision. She playfully shoves at the blond, who looks mortally offended. “You have a date?!” her tone is both shocked and teasing. “What the fuck round face, of course I do! Don’t sound so fucking shocked.” He roughly fixes the front of his suit and scowls deeply at the woman. She then turns to you, excitement coming off of her in rolling waves that ignites your own excitement. “I’m Ururaka Ochaco.” She holds her hand and you shake it, surprised by the firm grip she holds. “[L/N] [F/N]. Um, would it be rude of me to ask your hero name?” you smile sheepishly, but Ururaka simply beams. “Not at all! I’m Uravity.” Your eyes light up and you clasp your other hand around the hand you’re shaking. “Really? I absolutely love your hero work. Your quirk is fascinating, the way you reverse gravity. I’d love to study how it works.” Her bushy brows raise, and you flush in embarrassment. “I-I work in a lab doing physics research, so it’s kind of an interest, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable.” Ururaka’s face brightens and relief floods your chest. “Oh, don’t worry, I was just taken by surprise. That’s actually really cool! I have a friend kind of like that.” Bakugou growls at the comparison to Deku. The shorter hero rolls her eyes at him. “Careful you don’t scare her off.” Bakugou goes to snap back at her when you laugh. He gazes curiously at you as you fold your hands together. “Don’t worry, I doubt he could.” Ururaka blinks owlishly a moment before a toothy smirk pulls at her full lips. She turns back to the disgruntled blond. “Have a good night, grumpy.” She sticks her tongue out before scampering over to Tsuyu. “Brat,” Bakugou grumbles. You walk closer and slip your hands around the crook of his elbow. “Shall we?” Bakugou sighs before giving you a smirk, bringing you around the floor. The next hour is spent mingling with heroes, managers, tech moguls, anyone who had a hand in the cashflow related hero work, really. Most of the people who approached Bakugou were only given a few minutes of his time before he couldn’t bother anymore. The friends you had travelled with made sure to bother him frequently and keep you well stocked in drinks. Mina corrals the two of you into an attached room where there’s a silent auction happening. She chatters all the while, impressed by some of the events and items up for sale. Bakugou seems fairly disinterested, but follows his pink friend, sure to stay close to you, a hand at the small of your back. Mina scribbles her name down for a few things, even putting Sero’s down for what you think is a car. When you manage to break away, guests are asked to be seated at tables, so Bakugou leads you to your table, seated mostly with people from his agency. Kirishima sits next to Bakugou with Mina, Kaminari and Sero at another table set some distance away. The two friends seem less rowdy amongst other professionals but were still amusing to say the least. You mostly observe the others seated with you all throughout the dinner. On stage, the woman running the charity event speaks about the gala, what the charity is for, who all is involved. You regret not paying attention, but it was more interesting to people watch in a new environment, finding people who you recognize as certain heroes, picking out the people Bakugou has taken the time to actually acknowledge. Bakugou himself rarely adds his thoughts, but the few times he does, you can’t help but hang on to every word. When he’s not riled up, he has interesting points, though sometimes crudely put. As the night begins to wind down, you and Bakugou stay at the table, let to yourselves to drink and talk about whatever comes to mind. He side eyes anyone who tries to saunter up and interrupt, and they leave without question. You’re on your third champagne flute since sitting down, possibly the sixth of the night, when Bakugou leans his cheek into his palm, elbow propped on the table. He looks at you with a curious lilt in the furrow of his brow. You wonder how much he’s had to drink tonight. “You’re a pretty big science nerd, huh?” You lips melt into a soft smile, leaning your head atop the arm splayed across the white tablecloth. “Sure am. Science is the only inconsistent think I can stand.” You laugh quietly, ending in a hum. He studies your face and you let him, watching how the gentle lighting glimmers in his bright red eyes. “Do you always stare so openly?” you whisper. Bakugou scoffs and turns his head away, willing away the blush that threatens to take over. You giggle and electricity lances through his heart and crackles through his body at the angelic sound. “I don’t mind, y’know? Makes me feel,” you go quiet for a second to look down at his hands bashfully. “I don’t know, worth the attention, I guess.” You glance back up to his gorgeous eyes, now trained on you, something dark tinting his intense stare. It hasn’t been that long but Bakugou feels the need to shower you with attention, to stare at you all damn day. He already wants to smother you in affection and the most surprising part is that he honestly doesn’t mind how intensely he feels. “Of fucking course you are, idiot.” His raspy voice stirs up a heat inside you. You swallow thickly, eyes fluttering to the table to get away from the intensity that seems to never waver in those vermilion gems of his. You two fall back into silence. You sit up and look around, Bakugou watching you all the while. “Is that Froppy?” the ash blond follows your line of sight and nods. “Isn’t her agency on the coast?” Bakugou sits back in his chair and unbuttons his jacket. “Yeah, but chipmunk cheeks invited her for the event.” You laugh loudly, a hand coming to cover your mouth. “You’re so mean to your friends!” you tease, poking him in the side. He swats at your hand, unable to hold back a bemused smile. “What friends?” “No wonder they all give me warnings about you.” Bakugou glares and clicks his tongue. “I can be nice if I want to.” He crosses his arms defensively. “You just never want to?” Bakugou shrugs. You start laughing and find you can’t stop. The blond looks off put after a minute. “What the fuck are you laughing for?” his outburst makes you laugh harder, one hand gripping the chair while you place the back of the other hand over your mouth. You snort and double over in embarrassment, laughter only somewhat dying down. The moment you bend over your own lap, Bakugou can’t help the deep chuckles that bubble up his throat, your display absolutely adorable. Across the room, Kirishima stands by the open bar waiting for his drink to be made. “Kiri!” Carmine eyes cut over to Ururaka rushing over to him. “What’s u—” “Look!” she grips his jacket and gestures to the other side of the hall. Kirishima follows her line of sight to Bakugou— “Is he laughing?” his jaw goes slack, watching his mega angry best friend smiling and engaged in full body laughter, head tucked to try and hide it. A second later you pop up next to him, also laughing, collapsing back in your chair. “Eijirou,” said man looks down to steely eyes pinning him in place. “Please tell me they’re dating.” “Uh,” he stammers. Surely if Bakugou wanted her to know, she’d know. And he barely wanted him to know. “Kirishima.” The brunette’s tone is warning. Over the years Kirishima has learned that Ururaka is someone to be feared, not to be messed with. “It’s…complicated.” He settles for. “Look at him. He’s smiling. I need to know who this is.” Kirishima sighs, knowing he’s not getting out of this one.

It’s past ten when Bakugou calls a cab to go home, the rest of the group you’d arrived with heading to a party at someone’s house. When the vehicle pulls up to your complex, Bakugou gets out and circles around to open your door and help you out. He follows you up the stairs to your door. You stop, smiling up at him. “Thank you for tonight. It was fun.” He grunts but you see the pink dusting his ears. “I look forward to seeing you again.” Bakugou licks his lip. He wants to kiss you. Badly. But that’s not what you two agreed on. He remembers the way you blushed the first night, how flustered he’d made you, and decides that a little teasing is alright. The hero raises his left arm and leans against the doorframe, leering down at the gorgeous woman before him. “Me too, baby doll.” Your cheeks are scorching hot at the pet name. Fuck, you loved pet names. “You were stunning tonight. I can’t wait to dress you up for the next date.” You almost gasp, eyelashes fluttering at the raspy, deep voice, his words. “Just tell me when,” your voice comes out quieter than intended, breathy. Bakugou’s face splits into a devilish and sultry smirk. “You got it, baby.” Could your face erupt into flame, you’re sure it would. Kinda wish it would. Bakugou pushes away from the door and gives you one last look, a raise of the eyebrow, before turning and starting down the walkway. “Night.” “Good night, sir.” You manage to say. Bakugou bites his lip, descending the stairs, out of your line of sight. You lean against your door. One hand clasps the doorknob, the other slipping over where your heart pounds against solid bone. Maybe you were in too deep. Maybe this would only lead to pain and heartache. Fuck it if it does, you think. Whatever happens, he’s worth it. You exhale a dreamy sigh and unlock your door to relive the excitement of the night.

#my writing #bruh this took so fucking long #but i love it and it makes me want to just skip to the making out and smut but i have p l a n s #be ready you thirsty hoes #bakugou x reader #bakugou katsuki x reader #bnha x reader #reader insert #mha x reader #bakugouxreader #bakugou katsukixreader #katuski x reader #katsukixreader #bakugou katsuki #katsuki bakugou

[itsthejuggernautbitch]

Of All the Stars, The Fairest - Chapter 1

Pairing: Nebula/Original Female Character

Summary: After being captured by the Sovereign for stealing Anulax batteries, Nebula expected to be handed over to the Nova Corp. and transported to the cell where she’d likely spend the rest of her life (until she could break out, that is). If she’s learned anything in her life, it’s that nothing ever goes as expected.

Chapter 1: Supersonic Rocket Ship

Author’s Note: It’s a tragedy there’s not more for Nebula. Let’s fix that.

Also, not to be that bitch, but this is on Ao3 now. I would very much appreciate kudos/comments, if you’re so inclined!

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Ilana always felt like she was waiting. Waiting, waiting, waiting. Waiting for every meal. Waiting to train. Waiting for Ayesha to finish her duties for the day so they could move on to some new task. Waiting for the tailor to come and fit her with some new garment that Ayesha had ordered to be made. Waiting for Ayesha to release her from duty for the evening. No matter the day, no matter the time. Always waiting, but for what, Ilana did not know.

Nothing really ever felt out of place in her life - at least, not in a way she could describe. Sovereign society ran about as smoothly as any machine could. Every individual Sovereign was bred to exact specifications, their purpose literally encoded into their biology, and while there was enough deviation in their genetic codes to keep everyone reticent with their own disposition and beliefs, everyone toed the same strict line. There was hardly any crime, so there were no prisoners to capture and guard, no fights, no nothing.

Ilana was Ayesha’s Chief Guard, and she was beginning to suspect that her presence in the High Priestess’ court was mainly decorative. Really, she wasn’t sure what her job actually entailed short of standing around menacingly and playing Ayesha’s dress-up doll. Ayesha rarely left the planet on any sort of business, preferring to have prospective non-Sovereign allies and guests send diplomats to the Sovereign.

And since there was little to no crime, political prisoners were really the only people taking up jail cells. Anyone outside of the Sovereign who wanted to attack them came directly to them, and that only happened when the odd scavenger came to rip off Anulax batteries. Not that many people tried to steal the batteries. The Sovereign was the only source of Anulax batteries in the galaxy, but they also had one of the most formidable fleets imaginable, which usually drove interested parties away.

It seemed that Ilana’s job was to stand next to Ayesha with her laser spear held high and look polished and pretty for visitors and diplomats. Years of physical and mental training were very much wasted.

Hence, the never-ending feeling of always waiting, waiting, waiting.

 “Chief V’Syeth?”

Ilana broke from her reverie and looked out upon the empty court. She’d been instructed to participate in the usual debriefing, which she loathed doing. She stood to the direct left of Ayesha’s throne - her right-hand side was occupied by the Admiral. She’d never liked the Admiral. As pretentious as Sovereign could be, even amongst themselves, his noxious personality was truly special.

“Yes, High Priestess?”

“Were you listening to the Admiral?” Ayesha asked, the slightest edge of annoyance breaking through her mellifluous voice. The High Priestess didn’t turn her head, though she gave Ilana a truly righteous side-eye.

 Not really, but Ilana had absorbed the gist of the conversation. “Yes, ma’am.”

“Then you will send your guards down to the landing bay to retrieve the prisoner immediately.”

Right, the Admiral’s forces had captured a scavenger trying to make off with a set of Anulax batteries. She could imagine the scientists down in the basement rioting over their hard work nearly being stolen. If she’d had any amount of sympathy for the Admiral, she might have felt a little sorry for him that he had to deal with the screaming nerds.

“Yes ma’am, I shall,” Ilana replied automatically. Life was easier when she gave the initial polite answer before asking questions for clarification. “Shall I escort the prisoner myself, or shall I send Mersi and Metai to retrieve them?”

“I prefer to have you at my side, as you well know,” Ayesha replied curtly. “Your personal intervention will not be necessary as long as the prisoner is compliant. Mersi and Metai will suffice.”

“Duly noted, High Priestess. I’ll send them now.”

Ilana stepped off to the side away from Ayesha and the Admiral. The implant in her hand functioned as a pager when she needed it, as well as really anything else. All the guards had one. She waved her hand and instructed the girls to escort the prisoner to the holding cells.

Perhaps, Ilana surmised, she’d go have a look for herself later once the hustle and bustle had calmed down. Political prisoners were a hot topic, and she felt obligated to see what the fuss was about this time. Not to mention she was curious as to why this prisoner wanted the batteries badly enough to attack the Sovereign head-on, alone. Anulax batteries were serious business since they could power an entire hemisphere of a planet, but at the end of the day, they were just batteries.

Ilana returned to her place next to Ayesha and tried to focus on the Admiral’s debrief of the encounter. Intruder alert, alarms went off, serious injuries, blah, blah, blah. The usual.

“We’ve also received a hail to capture the girl alive, per the Nova Corp.,” the Admiral stated, brandishing his stylus at the tablet in his hand. Presumably, the tablet contained the reports and transcript of the hail from the Nova Corps. “They’ve requested that we hold her until they’ve rebuilt their fleet and can afford to send a transport ship to retrieve her.”

Ilana started. “Her?”

The Admiral rolled his eyes. “Yes, Chief. Her.”

Female political prisoners were unheard of – usually because they were too smart to get caught.

“Why do the Nova Corp. want her?” Ayesha asked, dancing right over Ilana’s question. Whatever pulled Ilana out of her trance had triggered an alarm in Ayesha’s head, though she couldn’t put her finger on why. “Is this something we could use?”

“Allegedly, she’s a daughter of Thanos,” the Admiral replied. He swiped the screen of his tablet, poking at it viciously. “And according to these reports, she seems to be telling the truth. The Nova Corp. sent a mugshot with the hail.”

Ayesha hummed. “So, that would mean there’s likely a price on her head?”

“I took the initiative to check. It’s a substantial reward, High Priestess,” the Admiral confirmed. “The Nova Corp. even have one on her”

“Have they offered us a price?”

“No, High Priestess. They have only ordered us to house her until they can collect her.”

“Then we will keep her for now, until she is claimed or a bounty hunter comes through. We’ll wait for someone to give us a price, once the word gets out that we have her,” Ayesha replied. She waved the tablet away, and the Admiral stepped back. “Though, I suppose she could be used as a bargaining chip if the need arises.”

“We will ensure round-the-clock surveillance,” the Admiral said. He stepped back away from Ayesha’s throne and stood at the head of his entourage of Navy soldiers. “Until the Nova Corp. arrives, or a better offer presents itself.”

Ayesha crooked her finger at Ilana, who’d actually been listening. “Chief V’Syeth?”

“Ma’am?”

“I am entrusting you with guarding her during the night shift. You will rest upon your relief of duty to me and proceed directly to the holding chambers upon rotation.”

“Noted, ma’am. I will report tonight.”

Ayesha nodded. “We have much to discuss between the two of us, Chief. Admiral, you will take your leave. Handmaidens, you are all dismissed for the night.”

Once the crowd of Sovereign had taken their leave, each bowing as they retreated, Ayesha beckoned Ilana forward. Ilana took a knee in front of the High Priestess, leaning on her spear like a staff. It wouldn’t do to fall out of form in front of the High Priestess, even out of the public eye. Ayesha expected perfection - always had - and Ilana had been genetically engineered to fulfill that expectation – despite her increasingly diminishing attention span.

“Rise,” Ayesha ordered. “Come forward, Ilana.”

Ayesha took Ilana’s chin and tilted her face up. It was a gentle gesture - exceedingly rare coming from the High Priestess. She’d always had a soft spot for Ilana, ever since the girl was a child. She’d watched her grow from a toddler to the woman who became her Chief - genetically bioengineered to be the strongest, the fastest, logical and strategic, and perfectly Sovereign.

And yet, Ayesha had always known that something inside of Ilana was… amiss. She was nothing short of biological perfection as all Sovereign were, but Ayesha had known since Ilana was a child that the Sovereign would not make this girl happy. It was simply in her nature - she would always be waiting for something. Ayesha could not say what, but as soon as she’d seen the prisoner on her surveillance screens, that something seemed closer to falling into place. Ayesha could simply sense these things, innate oddities in a creature’s biology. It was a strange feeling, but one she’d had before

Ayesha, ever the scientist at heart, wanted to test this something.

"You have always been my favorite, Ilana," Ayesha hummed, stroking the girl's cheek. She dropped her hand. "I dislike seeing you so melancholy, and you have been distracted lately. Can I do something to help you deal with whatever you're feeling?"

"I did not realize that I've been distracted, High Priestess. Or melancholy, for that matter."

Ayesha hummed in a gentle expression of her disbelief. "I know when you're lying."

Ilana grimaced. It was worth a try.

"I just… still feel like I'm waiting for something," Ilana replied. She took a seat in front of Ayesha’s throne, feeling suddenly like a child again. “It used to fade, but it won’t go away now.”

"What do you think you're waiting for?"

"If I knew that, I'd go get it. You know that."

"Indeed," Ayesha replied, pursing her lips. She’d personally helped train this girl in the hopes that whatever oddity, whatever weirdness would twist her around, would stamp itself out before it ever got to this point. Every Sovereign was made to exact, perfect specifications – but sometimes, the science of these things was just a little too exact. Best not to let her dwell on it.

“Maybe it’s the lack of challenge,” Ilana said. “I’ve always had a flair for the dramatic, after all.”

Ayesha had to agree. "I’ve thought of that, and I hope that’s all it is. I've given you a heavy responsibility today. A daughter of Thanos… could give you trouble. But perhaps the challenge will give you perspective on what it is you require."

"Perhaps it's just a challenge that I require, not so much perspective."

"I disagree, but nevertheless, I expect that you will receive both challenge and perspective from your assignment.” Ayesha waved her hand. “You are dismissed. Rest - you have a long night ahead of you."

Ilana bowed, then turned and walked out of the back entrance of Ayesha's throne room. Her sleeping quarters were only a few doors down - a necessity bred from duty. The only room closer to the throne room than hers was Ayesha's favorite handmaid’s quarters, and that was only because Ayesha hated waiting longer than necessary when she rang.

She had a few hours before she was set to report for her first shift. Her first order of business was to wash up after a long day in full regal armor. Once she'd cleaned up, she still had plenty of time left on her break. It was just enough time to nap and make dinner while she scrolled through Mersi and Metai's report from the transfer.

The transfer to the holding cells had gone smoothly (as if it wouldn't with the prisoner in laser handcuffs). As for the woman, she was surly and mean, but she hadn't spoken more than to order them to stop touching her. No begging, no bargaining - as if she knew her fate or was planning an escape. The latter most likely, Ilana surmised. A daughter of Thanos would be nearly impossible to keep imprisoned in a normal holding cell. But she was in Sovereign territory, and their holding cells were simply inescapable.

Once she'd finished with the report, she donned her functional armor, grabbed her laser spear, and set off for the holding cells.

Like everything else on the damn planet, the holding cells were plated with gilded gold. And, like everything else in the Sovereign world, the halls she strolled down were gold. Smooth, seamless gold. The floors were gold. Her armor was gold. Her fucking spear was gold. Everything gold. It wouldn't kill the designers to put a little black, or silver, or anything but gold somewhere.

Metai, Ilana’s second-in-command, met her at holding and intake to debrief her on the current state of the prisoner. Just over Metai’s shoulder, Ilana could see Mersi, Ilana’s other second, still standing guard. The pair were currently the only set of living Sovereign twins; they had not been genetically designed as twins, but rather the fertilized cell had spontaneously split and copied the chromosomes to result in two engineered guards.

Metai inclined her head in the customary almost-bow performed by subordinates of the High Priestess’s Guard. “You took long enough getting here.”

“High Priestess ordered me to rest before my shift,” Ilana sniffed. The twins had emerged from an adjacent birthing pod to hers and been trained right alongside her for their entire lives. She liked Metai and Mersi just fine, but both twins had a habit of addressing her with unnecessary familiarity while on the job. It was fine outside of work, but she had to remind them of their places on the job. “I slept. I ate. I’m here. Now debrief me.”

“Yes, Chief,” Metai replied. She caught herself before she rolled her eyes, though the intention was not lost on Ilana. “The prisoner has been silent so far. She will not respond to questions. She will not acknowledge us when we speak.”

“Maybe you’re not asking her the right questions.”

Metai sighed. “You’re more than welcome to try questioning her yourself, Chief. If you get an answer out of her, I would love to know.”

“I’ll give it a shot,” Ilana said, shrugging. She motioned towards the door. “I’ll take it from here. You and Mersi are dismissed.”

Ilana walked in past the security door and took Mersi’s place in front of the cell. She would be the only guard for the rest of the night.

----- ----- -----

An hour passed in relative silence. The only sounds in the muted gold room were Ilana’s slow, collected breathing and Nebula’s foot tapping. The sounds echoed in the hollow metal room, cavernous and nearly deafening considering the monotony. (It really wouldn’t kill the designers to put up some drapes or a tapestry or something, anything, to cancel out the reverb.)

Finally, the silence was broken by a new sound - the sound of a stomach growling. Ilana looked back over her shoulder at the woman in the cell. The woman looked right back up at her, eyes hard and empty, and averted her gaze by looking back down at the floor. She seemed defiant still, despite her circumstances. Perhaps she was planning on trying to escape. It was fine if she was - the cell was nigh inescapable and Ilana could certainly see to it that she was confined.

Ilana was almost sick to her stomach watching this woman sit in confinement. She wasn’t a fan of prisons, but it was likely the empathy she felt could be attributed to having never actually taken a guard shift. It wasn’t her job, and never had been, to stand guard over prisoners - only the High Priestess.

Still, there was something about the woman that interested her. Something that made her heart twist. It could have been her blue-and-purple skin contrasting against the gold of the holding cell. It could have been her eyes, staring off into space, searching for a breach in the cell, sizing Ilana up in case she had to fight. She didn’t know what it was drawing her to this woman – someone who would see her dead in order to escape to freedom – but it was intense.

The woman’s stomach growled again, louder, and she twitched as if trying to force her stomach to quiet itself.

Ilana turned. “When was the last time you had something to eat?”

The woman didn’t respond. She merely glanced up at Ilana and looked back down at her feet. Her stomach growled again, but she gritted her teeth and didn’t look up.

“Can I get you anything in particular?” Ilana prodded, unused to someone remaining unresponsive in her presence.

Nothing, once again.

“Are you going to ignore me?” Ilana huffed. The woman looked up at her, then looked back down at her feet again. “Well, if you won’t tell me, I’ll just bring you something that I like.

“I’m fine,” the woman snapped, finally acknowledging her. Her growling stomach, once again, betrayed her.

Ilana quirked a golden eyebrow and held her communicator up to her mouth. “Metai, please bring two food trays up to the cell block. I’m hungry, and it’s not polite to eat alone.”

“Be there in twenty minutes, Chief.”

“Make it fifteen, please,” Ilana replied. She lowered her hand down to her side and resumed her guard stance.

Ilana took both trays of food from Metai when the soldier finally walked in the door (thirty minutes late, probably on purpose). She placed one tray in the grate between the bars and slid it through for Nebula to grab. Nebula took the tray without a word.

Ilana sat down on the holding cell floor and dug into her own tray of food. She wasn’t hungry exactly - she’d eat enough to make it look like she was and give the rest to the grumpy prisoner because she knew the kitchens would probably short her on food. After she finished, she wordlessly pushed the rest of her tray through the grate. She didn’t check behind her to see if Nebula would take the rest of the food, but she had a feeling that she would.

Ilana rested back against the holding cell wall. “What’s your name?”

Again, silence.

Ilana rolled her eyes. “Give up the stoic act, please. You just answered me.”

“Nebula.”

“Your name is Nebula?”

“Yes.”

“You have a beautiful name,” Ilana replied. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

They remained silent for the rest of the night.

----- ----- -----

Ayesha had made short work out of putting out feelers for a bounty on the prisoner. She knew of several groups who would be only too happy to take the girl off their hands. Now, she just had to wait until an offer presented itself. That, or she would have to wait until the Nova Corp. could retrieve her.

With her job for the day done, Ayesha had a chance to finally relax and ready herself for bed. She chose to partake in her usual evening activity, which was basically spying on people through all the cameras surveilling the palace. Her main concern was her experiment - why did she feel so strangely about this prisoner, and why did it feel like something had clicked into place?

She instructed the monitor to pan to the holding cells, down to where Ilana and the prisoner were located. She found exactly what she expected to find - Ilana standing guard, the prisoner sitting on the floor in the corner of her cell. What she did not expect was the overwhelming feeling of oneness she caught from staring at the screen.

There was no physical synergy on the screen - just a prisoner and a guard, standing on opposite sides of a door. Two beings as separate as could be. She did not know why, but as Ayesha watched, it seemed evident to her that this prisoner was what Ilana had always been waiting, waiting, waiting for. She could feel an influence far different from hers orchestrating this feeling. Ayesha could see it because she was different. She was the High Priestess, and she’d been created to know. She suspected she would soon find out why.

As she watched, Metai brought two food trays. One, Ilana passed through the grate in the holding cell door. The other, she kept for herself. She picked at it for a few minutes, then handed the rest of her tray off through the grate to the prisoner.

Ayesha would concede that this was a simple enough transaction between guard and ward. It was just the unfailing sensation in the back of her mind that something was off.

And then Ilana asked for the prisoner’s name and said no more.

Ayesha switched the screens to something that didn’t make her so twitchy. There was nothing she could do until something actually happened if it ever did. But she would be on the lookout for it.

#nebula #mcu!nebula #gotg!nebula #nebula x reader #gotg #nebula x ofc #nebula imagines #nebula headcanons

[today-only-happens-once]

With Great Power - Chapter 7

Catch up or read on AO3 here!

Fic Summary:  Thomas Sanders is just a regular social media personality. But when he gets bit by a spider during filming one of his YouTube videos, his whole life is about to turn upside down—whether he (or the aspects of his personality) want it to or not. Platonic LAMP/CALM + Character!Thomas. Spider-Man AU.

Chapter Word Count: 3646

Chapter warnings: cursing, threats, alcohol consumption (casual and not heavy), robbery mention, please let me know if I missed anything. 

A/N: Longer chapter with a hecking lot jammed into it, but I hope it’s an okay read. Was excited about this chapter, so I hope you enjoy the ride! Finished the edits around midnight last night and decided to wait until morning to post. Edited by yours truly. All mistakes are mine. Please let me know what ya think! 

Tags: @captain-loki-xavier, @human-dictionary, @the-peculiar-bi-tch, @mining-pup, @band-be-boss-blog, @asexual-trashbag, @samathekittycat, @why-should-i-tell-youu2, @theobsessor1, @always3charcoaltea, @changeling-ash, @logical-princey, @princelogical, @crimsonshadow323, @flickering-raven, @smokeyrutilequartz, @dontbugmeimantisocial, @liz-a-bell, @black-king-white-knight, @soijusthavetoask, @analogical-mess, @marvelfangeek09, @dolphidragon, @thelowlysatsuma, @approximately12lbs-of-ducks, @vigilantvirgil

The internet personality sits on the couch in the living room of his apartment with his laptop balanced carefully on his thighs. It’s the middle of the afternoon the following day. He’d slept until almost noon, then scrolled through twitter and the news feed that was buzzing with the blurry, confusing security footage from the bank last night.

The spider logo had been visible from the way Thomas had wrapped the sweatshirt around his face, and that’s really all the public seemed to need to stir up excitement again. SPIDER-MAN MAKES A RETURN? had been the basis for nearly every headline Thomas had seen on the subject. News anchors puzzled over the bizarre footage of someone crawling on the ceiling. He’d watched a few interviews with some of the people that had gotten out safely—none of them claimed to know anything about who this “Spider-Man” might be.

Some threads on Twitter called him a “cryptid”. Others called him a “freak”. Law enforcement officials posted about how he should have left the job to professionals rather than go “vigilante”. Most called him a “hero”.

It left a weird, but not necessarily unpleasant, feeling in his stomach.

A few reports talked about the man Thomas had fought: Al Trevors, according to several news articles. He’d been a bus driver, apparently, with a wife and twin boys who were four years old. His wife is a lawyer, who had apparently advised him to not speak to the press. There had been no official statement from Trevors.

Eventually, Thomas stopped looking into the reaction to last night and instead turned his attention to the black cardstock rectangle he’d picked up. It sits beside him on the couch. On Thomas’s laptop, the cursor blinks lazily in the Google search bar.

“Thomas, are you sure this is a good idea?”

Virgil is standing in his usual space at the bottom of the stairs, his gaze narrowed at the host.

Thomas glances up at him, then back at the card. “No,” he says honestly.

Logan appears beside the staircase before Virgil can so much as open his mouth. He smooths his tie. “Virgil, you know as well as I do that Thomas buying into willful ignorance is likely only to be detrimental.”

Virgil shoots Logan a look. “Yeah, I know, Pocket Protector. I just…” he waves a hand at Thomas’s laptop. “I have a bad feeling about it. That’s all.”

Logan inclines his head. “Understandable, given the limited information we have available to us and your inclination to protect us.”

Thomas watches as Virgil glances quickly at the Logical Side. “Right…”

“However,” Logan continues, a little bit softer, “we have a responsibility. Knowing is always better than not knowing. And you know as well as I do, Virgil, that you would feel an equal level of distress—if not a more prolonged one as well—staying kept in the dark. Especially when there is a potential threat involved.”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but Thomas can see the hesitation of thought in the Anxious Side. He’s listening to Logan. “Knwoledge is our greatest weapon, huh?” he says dryly.

Logan nods once, his certainty undeterred by Virgil’s snark. “And our greatest defense.”

Virgil pauses. Then he groans, scrubbing a sweatshirt-covered hand across his eyes. “Fine, Thomas. Look it up.”

Thomas takes a breath as Logan crosses over towards the couch and sits beside him. Virgil sits on the other side. Thomas types “ekko” into the search bar and presses enter.

The first thing that pops up is a link to the YouTube video that Joan had been talking about. It’s titled “The First Warning”. The internet personality hovers his cursor over the link. The thumbnail is a blank, black screen.

Virgil doesn’t say anything, but Thomas doesn’t miss him flipping his hood up over his hair. It’s accompanying a tightening in Thomas’s stomach that makes him scroll further down the page instead of clicking on the link. He senses more than sees Logan glance disapprovingly at him, but the Logical Side doesn’t say anything.

The links below the video are a smattering of people talking about it: Twitter threads, pop culture websites that wrote articles about it, a talk show segment where they chat about it. Thomas wonders if maybe reading about it second hand would be enough.

“Thomas,” Logan says reproachfully. “While it would be better than nothing, a video is not capable of hurting you.”

“Beg to differ,” Virgil snaps.

“You’re stalling,” Logan replies flatly. “You cannot delay this forever.”

“Uh, he absolutely can.”

“Granted. But he shouldn’t.”

Thomas scrolls up quickly to the top of the page and clicks on the link before he can lose his nerve. Virgil growls and covers his face with his hands, peeking at the computer screen between his fingers. Thomas’s hands curl into loose fists against his legs. His foot taps quickly against the carpet.

The screen starts with static and a high-pitched whine. Flashes of news footage from riots, bombings, warzones. Static glitches.

It cuts out.

Thomas can just barely make out a silhouetted figure in the dark screen before a feminine voice starts speaking. “Pity, isn’t it?”

More footage, flashing so quickly that Thomas can’t decipher it all except that it’s all violent. It’s all bloody.

“It’s been long enough. It’s time for a new age to rise.”

The dark screen returns, but the figure steps forward into the minimal light. They’re in a body suit of some kind. Entirely white. It’s a sudden contrast to the dark background. The figure leans in closer to the camera.

“Some of you will see me as your hero. Others will fear me. If you’re the latter… I’m coming for you.”

It sounds like more than an empty threat. It sounds like a promise.

The video cuts out.

Thomas takes a breath and rakes a hand back through his hair. The video is playing back through his mind, trying to piece together the footage as if it might help make more sense. The words play back through Thomas’s mind. It’s time of a new age to rise. A new age of what? What did it mean that she’d be “coming for” the people who feared her?

“Virgil, are you all right?” Logan asks and Thomas almost jumps. He’d forgotten two of his Sides were sitting there beside him.

“Peachy,” Virgil growls back with the double vocalization.

“Thomas,” Logan says, “Please take a deep breath.”

The host closes his laptop and sets it on the coffee table in front of him as he sucks in some air and releases it slowly. He closes his eyes. Breathe with me, Virge, he wills. He takes in another breath and hears Virgil do the same.

Thomas opens his eyes and though Virgil still has his hood pulled up over his hair, the Anxious Side manages a faint twitch of his lips. A reassurance. Thomas nods once to him.

“What particularly was so alarming about that video?” Logan asks after a moment. “Though clearly intended to be threatening, it seems you have seen videos and movies that would warrant a stronger sense of fear than something such as that.”

Thomas swallows and clears his throat. “Virge?” He glances at Virgil on the other side of him.

“I don’t know.” The Anxious Side huffs a little, tugging on the strings of his hoodie. “Something about it just seemed… more real than a horror movie. Like she meant what she was saying, I guess.”

Logan quirks an eyebrow. “Hm. I see.” He eyes Thomas’s closed laptop before speaking again. “Under usual circumstances, I would remark how it seemed a bit over the top in terms of its dramatics. The effects and spliced footage are clearly meant to be a fear tactic with seeming little meaningful substance upon which to base that fear.”

“Aren’t you kind of commenting on that now—”

“However,” Logan continues, interrupting Thomas, “it’s connection to recent events makes me less inclined to dismiss it so easily. A fear tactic? Absolutely. But one so easily dismissed? Perhaps not.”

Thomas rubs the back of his neck, glancing between Logan and Virgil. “So what now?”

There wasn’t anything in the video that suggested a location—either for where Ekko is, or where she’d be next. Thomas didn’t really have another plan of action, and it makes his fingers twitch with a surprising restlessness. It doesn’t help that Ekko’s line about being seen as a hero keeps replaying in his mind in a way that tightens his chest a little with discomfort.

“Well,” Logan says as he adjusts the frame of his glasses, “there are several questions left unanswered, it seems. The first being what connection, if any, does Ekko have to the attempted robbery last night? The video suggests some kind of wide-scale plan, perhaps even global given the use of news footage from around the world. So what business would someone like Ekko have in Gainesville, Florida?”

That did seem unusual, Thomas has to admit. He picks up the cardstock rectangle beside his leg on the couch, rubbing his thumb over the neat white print. E K K O.

“Speaking of wide-scale plan,” Virgil adds, sounding a bit more calm but no less worried than a moment ago, “the next question is… assuming that video isn’t just some fear-inducing media stunt, what is Ekko planning?”

Thomas sighs and scrubs a hand down his face. “Maybe that’s all it really is,” he says. “Maybe she’s just trying to get attention.” He doesn’t quite believe himself, and he sees Logan and Virgil exchange a silent glance. Neither of them says anything, but the quiet that lingers in the apartment is quickly interrupted by Thomas’s ringtone.

It’s Valerie.

“Hey, Valerie,” Thomas says, hoping his voice sounds brighter than he thinks it does. In his peripheral, Thomas sees both Logan and Virgil sink out.

“Hey, Thomas!” The familiar sound of his friend’s voice helps alleviate some of the tension in his shoulders. “I was talking to Joan, Lee, and Terrence and we were thinking of having a game night since everybody’s gonna be in town. Do you wanna join?”

Thomas smiles with a sudden relief. “Sounds awesome.”

…

“Did you just throw a blue shell, Talyn?! Shit. No, no, no—”

Thomas laughs as he watches his friends play Mario Kart. Joan’s corner of the screen fills with a bright blue light. A cart slams into them as it passes, sending Joan’s cart careening off the edge of the map. Thomas laughs even harder as Terrence’s square announces his victory. Joan curses again, managing to squeak past the finish line in 6th place.

“Hey, thanks, Talyn,” Terrence comments with an amused, smug smile. Talyn gives him a small salute, snorting with laughter a moment later at the look Joan throws their way.

Thomas smiles and leans back into the couch, picking up his glass of wine and taking a small sip. Turns out, a lot of Thomas’s friends had been free tonight. Lee and Mary Lee came, as did Valerie, Joan, Talyn, Camden, Terrence, and Kenny. It felt like it had been forever since he’d last hung out with his friends without it being with the intention of working on a video. Amicable chatter and friendly argument about the best character to main on Mario Kart fills the room with a warmth and comfort that is interrupted briefly by the arrival of pizza.

Mary Lee announces a food break, causing everyone who was getting ready for another round to set their controllers down as they all break into the various kinds of pizza. It was a reprieve that the internet personality had welcomed with open arms. In fact, Thomas has almost forgotten about the events of the past 24 hours when Kenny speaks up.

“So did you guys hear about that bank last night?”

Thomas shovels a bite of pizza into his mouth to avoid having to answer. Don’t say anything, Thomas, Virgil growls in his mind. Valerie points at Kenny. “Yes! Did you see the security footage?”’

“It’s a little hard to believe it wasn’t doctored somehow,” Lee chimes in as he reaches for another piece. “They swear it isn’t, though. And some of the eyewitness accounts verified that the guy was freaking climbing on the ceiling.”

“I saw this thread on Reddit,” Camden chimes in casually, reaching for a napkin, “arguing about whether or not he should count as a ‘hero’.”

Thomas glances at him. “What’d they decide?”

Camden’s mouth quirks. “It’s Reddit. You really think they arrived at any organized consensus?”

“I think it’s a little weird that he keeps covering his face,” Mary Lee cuts in, then grimaces. “If they are a he. It’s the pronoun that little kid and the hostages were using, but I probably shouldn’t assume that.” She opens a can of Coke and takes a long swallow.

“I don’t totally get why they’re hiding their identity,” Valerie adds. “I mean, both times we’ve seen them, they’ve had half their face covered. Unless they’re doing something wrong—which I don’t think they are—why hide?”

Thomas opens his mouth, but Talyn jumps in before he has a chance to reply. Part of him is grateful.

“I mean, not everybody thinks they’re doing the right thing.” Talyn sets their slice down on the paper plate in their lap. “Besides, if they can climb on the ceiling like that, there’s totally people that would try to capture them and run experiments or some shit.”

Thomas swallows. He reaches for another slice of pizza to avoid looking at any of them, even though the sudden churning in his stomach keeps him from actually taking a bite out of it.

“Talyn’s right,” Kenny says. “Plus, if they’re trying to stop criminals, maybe they’re trying to protect their family too. So bad guys can’t use their loves ones against them.”

“Bad guys?” Lee asks, more curious that argumentative. “So you think they’re a hero?”

Kenny lifts a shoulder. “Yeah, I think so. You guys don’t?”

Thomas doesn’t hear their answers, his thoughts racing ahead of him. Kenny had been right, of course. So had Talyn. Thomas hiding his face had been a mixture of both reasons, but sitting here in a room full of his friends reminds him all over again just how much had changed. How much risk is involved in what he did last night. He hadn’t just been risking his safety, he’d been risking all of theirs, too. After all, the man had reached for the sweatshirt he’d tied haphazardly around his face, and if Thomas had been just a little bit slower on his reflex…

His family would be at risk. Everybody in this room would be at risk. Everybody Thomas ever cared about.

And if he was really going to try to figure out what the whole Ekko business was about… well, that really only put them in more danger.

“Thomas? Joan?” Valerie asks, yanking Thomas abruptly from his thoughts. “What do you think?”

Thomas takes another sip of wine and shrugs, despite his racing heartbeat. He quirks an eyebrow at Joan, willing them to answer first.

Joan adjusts the beanie on their head. “I think it’s probably too early to tell. I mean, so far it seems like he’s tried to help people in need at risk to himself. Most people would probably classify that as a hero, but it depends on what you mean by the word in the first place.”

“Classic Ravenclaw answer,” Lee chimes in lightly, causing everyone to smile.

Joan laughs a little, then grabs the nearest controller. “All right,” they say. “So who am I gonna beat at Rainbow Road?”

“Oh, you’re on, Joan,” Camden announces, grabbing his back from the floor. “Let’s go.”

“Hold on, I’m still eating pizza!”

“Eat fast, Terrence. Rainbow Road waits for nobody.”

Thomas smiles and shakes his head, gathering up the discarded paper plates and napkins. He’s silently grateful none of them remembered that Thomas never answered the question.

…

It’s nearly two in the morning when all four of his main Sides show up at the same time, startling Thomas out of his almost-asleep state. The host groans.

“Really, guys?” he grumbles, but reaches over to the nightstand and flips on the lamp light.

“Apologies, Thomas,” Logan says from his position at the foot of Thomas’s bed. “I thought it would be best to let you rest and come to you with this idea in the morning, but Roman was rather insistent.”

Thomas rubs at his eyes and sits up. “What idea?”

“Roman and I were discussing potential strategies for dealing with some of Virgil’s concerns, and the… four of us—” Thomas frowns at the odd hesitation—“came up with a solution.”

“Oh,” Thomas says, his brow pulling together. “Um… cool. What’s the idea?”

Roman is practically bouncing on the balls of his feet. “A suit!”

Thomas’s confusion only deepens. “A suit?”

Virgil rolls his eyes, but it’s Logan that speaks up. “Of a sort. Not the type of suit you’re thinking, Thomas, but rather a suit designed with your specific superhuman abilities in mind that will maximize your potential while maintaining a certain level of identity protection.”

Thomas blinks a few times, then looks quizzically at Virgil. “Why?”

Virgil ducks his head a little and rubs the back of his neck. “I don’t know. I guess…. Your friends talking earlier got me—us—thinking about how close you’d been last night for your identity getting found out. Logan agreed that we needed something better than a sweatshirt.”

“So I then consulted with Roman,” Logan chimes in, “to see what might work best.”

Roman smiles. “And we came up with a little design idea.” Roman flicks his hand towards Thomas, who gets a sudden, clear picture in his head. A full body suit. Red and blue fabric, dark-purple-nearly-black stitching. A spider silhouette stretching along his torso.

“The spider was my idea,” Patton chimes in.

Thomas looks at Patton, disbelieving. “You wanted to add a spider? I mean, don’t get me wrong, Patton. I love it. But… I would’ve thought you’d be the last person to want a spider added onto the suit.”

Patton’s mouth tugs into a small, fond smile. “Spiders do freak me out, kiddo. But… I thought it’d be a nice tribute to the first time you helped someone with your new abilities. A reminder of the good you can do.” Mikey babbling about the Ninja Turtles flickers through Thomas’s mind, doubtlessly Patton’s doing. It makes the host’s chest swell.

“It’s perfect,” Thomas says honestly.

“After consulting with Virgil,” Logan adds, “I believe I have a fabric in mind that should be able to be a useful level of durable without being too restrictive in weight or flexibility.”

Thomas’s mind is reeling with the onslaught of ideas. “Wow. You guys all worked together on this?”

Roman is rotating the image around in his mind, giving Thomas a sharpening view of each angle on the suit. He can feel Roman’s excitement thrumming with a sudden burst of creative energy. Virgil seems quieter than he’d been previously, and when Thomas looks at him, he can see the calmer look in his eyes. Patton still has that small, happy smile.

And Logan… well, Logan has something bright and electric simmering just beneath his stoic exterior. He looks invigorated, and Thomas gets the feeling there’s something else that Logan hasn’t told him about yet.

“Indeed,” Roman says in reply to Thomas’s question. “The general aesthetic was my doing, but we each had a hand in its overall design.”

Thomas sees Virgil glance over to Logan. “There’s… one more thing about the suit,” he prompts gently.

Logan flicks his hand towards Thomas and the image in his mind zooms to focus in on the wrist of the suit, breaking it open almost like a blueprint. The host closes his eyes to focus on the schematic that Logan has sketched out in his brain. Logan’s voice floats through his thoughts, providing an explanation.

“I was considering methods for which to solve Virgil’s proposed predicament from last night regarding if you had been seen prior to reaching an acceptable proximity to Al Trevors. I eventually arrived at this concept.”

“I call them Web Shooters,” Patton chimes in brightly. “Y’know, like a spider web?”

“Indeed,” Logan says. “Although spider webs are generally lightweight and easy to dismantle, so such a term may be a bit misleading. Regardless of what you call them, I think we could construct a device that would allow you to essentially project a strong adhesive substance from your wrist or hand when activated. It could be used as a rope to retrieve things, or perhaps even to use to your advantage in terms of travel.”

Roman’s voice jumps in. “You could be like freaking Tarzan.”

Logan’s voice hums, unamused. “The point is, I see several uses for this kind of device, and I think it’s worth developing.” Thomas’s mind is suddenly overtaken with a string of chemical equations running through his mind. “I’ve already begun developing a formula, although I could use a refresher given how long it has been since your experience as a chemical engineer.”

“Oh!” Patton’s voice again. Thomas opens his eyes, his bedroom and Sides coming back into focus even as Logan continues to scroll the chemical equations through his mind. “Why don’t you see if Dr. Washington could help? Remember her, Thomas?”

Thomas does. She’d been one of Thomas’s favorite professors. “It’s been a while, but I can email her.”

Patton’s grinning as Thomas reaches for his computer. “Perfect! We’ll leave ya to it, kiddo.”

When Thomas looks up again from his computer screen, all of them have sunk out. They’re excited energy radiates through his mind. He has a feeling he won’t be getting back to sleep any time soon.

#sanders sides #sanders sides fanfiction #platonic lamp/calm #sanders sides au #sanders sides au fanfiction #spider-man au #with great power #wgp fic #tw cursing #tw alcohol #tw violence mention #pretty excited about this chapter #so i hope you all enjoyed it!

[crowkingwrites]

The Godchild (Ch.11)

Pairing: Loki X Reader

Summary:  You are excited when your best friend, Laura Barton, names you as little Natasha’s godmother. You are more than ready to take care of her. Little do you know, Clint has also picked out a godfather for his new daughter…Loki. A series inspired by my previous work “The Polar Express” where Loki and you meet and take on your roles as godparents to Natasha Barton during a time where the Barton family and other members of SHIELD are threatened. How far would you go to protect your goddaughter? How far would Loki go?

Words: 1688 (Ao3 Link) MCU Masterlist

Chapter One, Chapter Two, Chapter Three, Chapter Four , Chapter Five, Chapter Six , Chapter Seven, Chapter Eight, Chapter Nine, Chapter Ten

You sighed at the television. They could spy on you. You glanced towards Loki and he gave you the same look. He came to the same conclusion on his own. Both of you walked towards the flat screen as a new visual came into play. Your coffee table displayed a digital map of the world. It zoned in on Russia. Two red markers blinked.

“They’re alive. And in Russia?” Loki said.

“It would seem so. Pieces of the puzzle are starting to come together, and now I can tell you both.”

“Now? You didn’t have clearance then?” you questioned her. Your boss had clearance to do most things. Confusion and anger rose in you when all of this unfolded. You felt a slow sense of relief, knowing that your best friend and her husband were alive.

“We didn’t have enough information then. We do now.”

“What changed?” Loki asked. Maria showed both of you a flashdrive.

“Wheatley,” you said. Loki exchanged looks between you and Maria.

“Wheat? What?”

“Your people are a thousand leagues ahead of us in technology,” Maria started to explain. “Years ago when the internet started to boom, we teamed up with a colleague of ours, Mr. Johnson, and together we made Wheatley. A highly-intelligent robot to spy for us. We knew the internet and digital age were coming. We needed to protect ourselves.”

“So, you made a spy?”

“Technically yes. Wheatley goes into any listening devices that our enemies have connected to wifi. He just sits and listens.”

“And what did you find out?” you asked. Maria typed away at her computer and changed the visual on the coffee table. Hydra’s symbol came into sight. You scoffed.

“There’s more to this than just Hydra,” Maria warned. “They’re working with somebody. Or another organization.”

“Were you aware of their affiliates?” Loki asked. You smiled to yourself. Loki took this incredibly seriously. This was not his fight. Yet, he cared about this just as much as you did. Maybe he was looking for his own answers.

“Hydra spreads like wildfire. Sometimes we can’t keep up. Whoever they worked with, those are the people who caused the mass hacking. Not Hydra. Hydra does have custody of several members of SHIELD, the Bartons, and possibly your brother.”

“Thor was captured by Hydra?” Loki said slowly. “Something doesn’t add up here. It’s incredibly difficult to keep Thor in chains. Even you had issues doing so.”

“While that is true, Thor hasn’t been found yet.”

“He’s not in Norway?”

“No,” Maria showed another red marker in Europe. “That was where he was seen last. The signal was interrupted.”

“Interrupted? You put a tracking device on my brother?”

“All of the avengers have one. We never use them for your own privacy, but now is a matter of safety. We need to protect you.”

“Where is it?” Loki asked. You felt his energy change. Your eyes saw the red in his. You picked up his own heat. You touched Loki and felt him cooling off.

“You said the Bartons are alive and captured by Hydra,” you reminded Maria, keeping her on track. The coffee table showed you Russia again.

“They seem to be in a warehouse twenty miles outside St. Petersburg. We’re not sure how they got there, but Clint was smart enough to speak loud and clear. Wheatley picked up his voice and ID both of them.” A sense of relief washed over you.

“Great! So when do we leave to get them back?”

“It’s not that simple. We need to lay low. We still don’t know the reason behind the hacking and how large this reach has. We need you all to lay low.”

“You said you had more info!” You felt Loki’s touch. His hand touched your arm. You started to feel calm.

“I know all of you are angry and confused. We’re…doing the best we can. I’m sorry.”

You backed away from the screen. Maria always knew what was going on. She always kept you in the loop. This time was different. There was no answers. Everything was up in the air and your life went with it. Loki apologized for both of you and Maria went away.

You continued making dinner for all three of you furiously. Loki sat at the island, waiting for some kind of response from you.

“So, it wasn’t the news we wanted—

“How do we go on from here? We barely know anything!”

“So, we come up with our own plan,” Loki suggested. You sighed.

“Maria just proved that they’re watching us. They can hack into that television and who knows what else at any time. They could be listening to us right now. We have trackers. We can’t exactly leave.”

“We’re not the bad guys,” Loki pointed out. “Why are you so inclined to think they’re watching us?” The uncomfortable feeling didn’t settle in your stomach well. You turned back to cooking and avoided Loki’s question. He sighed and looked over the house.

“All I’m suggesting is that we investigate ourselves. It seems that SHIELD is too afraid and too big to do anything radical. We cannot save Clint and Laura on our own, but we can find out where my brother is. It’s a start.”

You took the chicken out of the oven and started plating everything. Loki’s idea wasn’t rash. It was a good start, but how would you go about it while both of you watched over little Natasha? Maybe you were thinking too much. Maybe Loki wasn’t thinking enough.

The next morning you woke up to the smell of pancakes and the sound of bacon sizzling on the stove. You smiled to see Natasha helping Loki in the kitchen. Loki held her over the stove and they watched the bacon.

“Szzzzzz,” Loki made the noise in her ear. Natasha giggled and imitated the sound back.

“Szzzzz! Ah!” she gasped. “Y/N! I wanna show Y/N my pancakes!” She wiggled against Loki until he put her down. Little Natasha grabbed a small plate and walked over to you. She held the plate high over her head to show you burnt and misshaped blobs of sugar and flour.

“Good job!” you complimented her. “Can I have one?” You took one of her pancakes and attempted to put it on a plate until a cough in the kitchen interrupted you.

“Did you say please?” Loki said, smiling back at you.

“Oh! Well, I’m sorry! May I please have one of your pancakes?” you asked Natasha again. She smiled and nodded. You sat at the kitchen island and saw two little hands stretch up to you. You picked her up and set her on your lap. Loki turned around and you caught a peek of his chest through the robe he was wearing.

You didn’t anticipate Loki looking at you back, catching a peek at your own skin.

“So!” Loki laughed. “I say we go look around town today. Get to know our home? Maybe go to a park?” Natasha’s face lit up.

“I wanna go to a playground!” she bounced in your lap. The small Colorado town had much more than you thought. Healthy grocery stores with freshly cut fruit, families walking around and shopping in the town center, and small business with chalkboard signs out front. You watched Natasha climb onto the playground structure; Loki stood beside you.

“So, Thor? Where do we start?”

Loki smiled at you. “Despite my brother’s intelligence, he can land himself in stupid situations.”

“Where do you think he is then?”

“Somewhere stupid.”

You laughed. Both of you watched and clapped for Nat as she went down the slide. She started to climb back up the stairs again. This turn around, Nat let a boy of the same age slide down in front of her. He reminded you of a younger Loki. His black hair was slicked back. His gray eyes reflected in the sunlight as if they held small storms in them.

“Thomas! Good to see you!” your face turned towards the man who spoke. You saw a much older man walk towards both of you. Loki grabbed your hand in his.

“Parker!” Loki smiled and stood up, making you stand with him. “This is my wife, Lucy.”

Confused, your mind flashed back to the documents. You weren’t Y/N L/N. You were Lucy Copeland. You extended your hand out to the older man.

“Hi, it’s nice to meet you—

“Parker. Parker Novak.”

“This is my boss, Lucy,” Loki explained to you. Holding your hand tighter. You needed to sell this. You placed your hand over Loki’s chest and leaned forward.

“Oh! I heard he’s settling in your law firm well.”

“He is! What a riot,” Parker laughed. The wrinkles on his face showed when he smiled. His hair was similar to the young boy’s. Dark gray hair slicked back with a long expensive black coat on. A red scarf was folded perfectly around his neck. “Is that your daughter over there? The one playing with my grandson?”

You looked over again to see the pair playing together on the slide, each taking turns.

“Grandson? Oh yes, that would be Natalie. Making friends wherever she goes.”

“She gets it from her mother,” Loki smiled. “Certainly not from me.” The three of you laughed. Parker nodded and quickly glanced at his watch.

“Ah, I don’t mean to be rude, but it seems Victor and I are running late. It was a pleasure to meet you, Lucy.”

“And you, Mr. Novak,” you smiled at the man as he turned. He called out to the boy. Victor ran to his grandfather and waved goodbye to Natasha. Loki let go of your hand and turned to you.

“Think he bought it?” he asked.

“I would have. It was only polite conversation,” you smiled. “He seemed nice.”

“He is,” Loki looked over watching the distance. “Do you think there’s spies? Hydra spies?”

“Here? No,” you shook your head. The world was a minefield now. You watched Natasha continue playing on the playground. Everything seemed so safe and sound around her. Loki and you wished you could say the same.

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[thekidultlife]

The Coldest Human; The Warmest Robot | Jihoon! Android AU

Words: 13362 (yep. a lot. I know)

Genre: Fluff?, Slight Angst?

(A/N: So this fic was definitely based on the book “Do Android Dream of Electric Sheep?” by Philip K. Dick (if you watched Psycho-Pass, you’ll know that Shogo Makishima makes the best dystopian novel recommendations) and the anime “Beatless”. Both gave such profound food for thought about androids and AI and I’ll tackle what I think about them in the following android series I’ll do since I enjoyed building this world, needless to say lmao. This first one is about androids and their lack of ‘emotion’ (dades named it as empathy, while beatless called it ‘soul’) and the possibilities of a relationship between androids and humans. I know others would feel reserved about this (I am too. It’s just fckiing weird) so I kept it open, a thought to explore. So here you go! I hope you guys like it!)

P.S. If you’re interested to discuss these things with me, the askbox and message box (?) are open! :) I’m more than happy for a thought exercise.  

“Ok. Good.”

He wouldn’t have imagined that those were the words he would hear after an immeasurable number of years.

“He’s working.”

He blinked; the machineries whirring in his chest and the cogwheels sphinning in his head. How many years was he out?

“Could you do a system evaluation?” he heard you ask and he answered without hesitation, the words spilling from his cherry pink lips.

“Memory, intact. System processing, stable. Vitals, stable. Body coordination, malfunction on the right arm joint…”

“Good. Just a bit of tweaking and repair,” you told him in such a mechanical voice that he wondered if you were one too. “Anyway, do you have a name?”

He blinked again; now aware that he was in a sitting position on a worn sofa and that he was in a small laboratory with you who was in a lab coat. His white blond hair fell on his forehead as he leaned in forward.

“I’m Jihoon.”

You nodded and gave a miniscule smile; a bit too cold for a human.

“I’m Y/N.”

3 hours earlier

“Ow! What the fuck?”

It wasn’t weird that you had almost tumbled forwards when your knees had hit a large box which was perfectly hidden by the dim lights of the hallway. It had been almost two years since you took a step into your mother’s old lab yet the throb of pain in your chest remained the same since day one.

You flicked the switch on, hoping that the other lights in the lab were still working, or else you might as well find yourself repairing every single one of them in the next few days. Luckily, you didn’t have to as the stark fluorescent lights flickered on without much difficulty.

With the lights now fully on, you glanced down on your feet to see what you had hit a little bit earlier. To your surprise, it was a large wooden crate that had your mother’s name and the address of her lab imprinted on it.

A slight look of confusion marred your face.

“Who on earth would have sent this?”

You asked even though you knew no one was going to reply. Trying to look for a return address, you only sighed when you found none and it kind of freaked you out. Nevertheless, the nagging feeling in your chest was tempting you to take the crowbar from the workshop.

“Well, doesn’t seem like it’s dangerous.”

You shrugged nonchalantly, holding the crowbar on your grasps and with a few strong tugs, you popped the lid open. What you found had you scrambling far, far away.

“—shit…!”

At the first sign of hair and limbs had your heart almost jumping out of your chest. There was no denying that a body of a dead person might have been sent to you and the image of the body sitting in fetal position was hammered into your head which you swore you will never forget in your entire life. Your hand immediately flew to the device you had on your wrist; looking for the emergency button which rang up the authorities automatically.

But taking a closer look, you noticed the unnatural white blond hair which almost looked like silicon and the pale asbestos white skin that was too perfect and too flawless to be human. Then, you finally saw the clothes which he was wearing—a black button-up and trousers which had a familiar emblem stitched into it.

“Wait…is that…oh.”

You took a few steps forward and hesitantly peered into the contents of the box with less panic and more objectivity. Finally seeing the signs which proved your thoughts, you gave a long sigh of relief as you sank to the floor on your knees; prying the other sides of the wooden crate open so that you wouldn’t have to carry something as heavy as an android.

Under normal circumstances, people couldn’t detect the difference between a human and an android and 99% of the time, there really was no difference—with the new Nexus 9 processing system, even fake emotions could be simulated. The only thing in the way is how androids cannot fully duplicate the humanness in humans.

Yet you have lived among these androids since you were born in a small colony orbiting Mars and your Mom was one of the best android engineers there ever was. Every miniscule twitch, or lack thereof, could alert you that the one you’re talking to is made of metal and codes after years of spending time with them.

“So, Jihoon?” you asked once more, trying to be sure if he was really fully functioning as you placed your tools back neatly inside a box.

He nodded, then scanned the whole lab as you observed his every action. Androids tend to do that—they’re logical to a fault. He could have already planned his way out within those few seconds, you thought.  

“Do you have any idea why you’re here?” you continued your inquiry, now sitting beside him.

“Yes, actually,” he replied without hesitation as he gazed right at you with unblinking eyes. “I wish to see Dr. L/N. She created me.”

Upon hearing his request, you sighed and slumped back on the worn sofa, thankful that dust was essentially non-existent in the filtered colonies. He was still looking at you and waited for any visible reaction but your gaze was as empty as his.

“She’s gone now. Dead,” you informed him nonchalantly as if you were just talking about the weather; trying to be as detached as you could be. “Gone ever since the mass riot in Hangar 15.”

Jihoon nodded since he was there in Hangar 15 when his fellow androids organized an uprising to escape the organization. Yet he chose not to participate in the event since he didn’t trust the plan that was laid, though he also chose not to help anyone, even the humans who perished.

“So, there it is,” you continued when he uttered no reply, standing up so you could stare at him.

You were not an idiot not to know that he was one of the recently escaped Nexus 9 androids from the organization and he was now on the hitlist of greedy bounty hunters disguised as police officers by the bureaucracy. What’s good about that was that you weren’t obliged to turn him in.  

“Are you her daughter?” he asked so suddenly that you raised your eyebrow in curiosity.

“I am. Why did you want to meet her anyway?”

He shrugged. “I needed to ask her something important regarding my functions.”

“Functions? You mean how you work?” you asked, inclining your head as if you were mulling the thought over. “Well, if that’s how it is, then maybe we could look into the computer over there.”

You pointed your head towards the direction of a series of computer screens on a workspace just to your left as Jihoon followed with his eyes. Walking over there, you turned on the main switch and rebooted the in-air holographic interface which allowed you to control several functions without really touching a solid object (ala Tony Stark style). Jihoon trailed behind you as he looked around and then back to you who was already providing the password.

“So, what did you want to look at?” you finally asked with a glitter in your eyes which Jihoon had noticed was only present in humans.

When you posed the question, the blond android immediately fell silent as he tried to rake his brain on what he actually wanted to know. However, within his usual processing time of five nanoseconds, he could not find any answer. In the meantime, you feared that he could be malfunctioning, so you walked closer and reached for his forehead, trying to see if his processor had heated up (which was so appropriately akin to a fever in humans). As soon as he felt your touch, Jihoon twitched and backed away, earning a surprised expression from you.

“I’m sorry. I feel disoriented right now,” he told you, avoiding your gaze.

“It’s ok. You might need some time to recalibrate yourself. Just rest on the sofa for the night…” you replied, a little bit confused and intrigued at the situation. “I’ll be leaving now.”

He nodded gingerly and returned to the couch as you moved to the exit and before you left, you glanced at him with an expression mix of worry and curiosity.

“An android’s main function is to protect itself, or, if it is programmed to work, then his responsibilities and obligations. It cannot work outside its program.”

Your instructor’s voice rang across the almost empty auditorium with its titanium walls and polyester seats burning your eyes with boredom. Being in class always felt too cumbersome, listening to a pre-recorded teacher who refer to androids as ‘it’, which you had some sort of strange distaste even though you knew they were right. Androids are nothing but a lump of metal, plastic and other materials with an artificial heart and brain—it shouldn’t be placed at the same level as humans.

“Everything they do are only mere pre-programmed responses. Even the Nexus 8 processor still has a few insufficiencies which could still possibly be detected by android detection tests such as the Voigt-Kampff scale and the Bonelli Reflex-Arc. However, Nexus 9 which was recently developed to perfection has undermined these insufficiencies, moving closer to simulate human beings. ”

That was how the whole system worked. The organization will produce these androids with a new Nexus processor and in a few and, often orchestrated escapes, these androids will be hunted down by bounty hunters. How, why and what killed these androids will then be used in order to improve the next line of androids.

Welcome to the organization.

“Y/N, I can’t seem to understand how to program involuntary movement.”

“Wow!  Didn’t you get the highest score in the last practicals?”

“Ms. L/N, please detail to us how the Voigt-Kampff tests work.”

“My goat back at home had kids. Sorry, I’m not allowed to give them.”

“Did you already get the programming assignment? It’s due tomorrow.”

“When I was an engineering student just like you, I knew how to work out an android with my eyes closed.”

“Hey, Y/N! Pay your electric bill. I don’t want you getting our electricity cut.”

“My parents got me an ostrich. They’re very rare these days.”

“Those are just androids. They’re not like animals or humans.”

 “You look tired.”

You blinked.

The gaze Jihoon was giving you seemed curious yet you only shook your head and slumped back on the worn sofa. These days, the only place which could give you solace was your mother’s old lab and Jihoon’s quiet presence. You were left on your own thoughts, which was a far contrast from the loud environment you were immersed in every single day.

“Class is shit as always,” you replied, pinching the bridge of your nose as you willed your nausea away. “My roommate is shit as always. My life is shit as always.”

“Why don’t you leave then?” Jihoon asked as he fiddled with an old laptop he found in the stockroom, trying to revive it, his voice as deadpan and mechanical as ever.

“It’s not as easy as you think,” you replied while you threw a severe look at him, which he only shrugged and continued soldering the wires into the motherboard.

“Humans are complicated. I cannot comprehend most of what they do and why they are doing it,” Jihoon remarked without even giving you a remarkable glance.

You looked at the distance with a blank look. “Most humans don’t understand what they’re doing or why they’re doing it. They just do it because that’s what they feel.”

Noticing his long stare, you averted your gaze back at Jihoon who had stopped fixing the gadget and just looked at you with a troubled expression.

“What does it feel like to feel?” he finally asked which had you returning his own stare, unable to think of an appropriate answer.

You sighed. “I’m sure you wouldn’t want to know.”

“Wouldn’t I?” Jihoon replied as he shot his brow, blond fringes falling softly on his forehead. “I’ve watched humans interact over the years and I’ve tried to understand their actions, yet until now, I couldn’t. Even at this time and age when emotions could easily be manipulated, I cannot comprehend why you still haven’t dialed up your Penfield for a happier mood to remove your unhappiness.”

Immediately, you narrowed your gaze at him for questioning your actions, yet you felt totally embarrassed that he had noticed the last shred of stubbornness remaining in you. After your mother’s funeral, you bought a Penfield mood organ so you wouldn’t sink into your eminent depression yet until now, you didn’t have the courage to use it; remaining in your wrist untouched.

“What do you want me to do then?” you finally asked, exhausted from the variety of emotions pushing you around.

Jihoon shrugged again, now returning to his work on the old laptop. “Nothing. You humans are so sentimental.”

You ignored him and inclined your head upwards, watching the bright fluorescent lights with a pensive mood.

Jihoon counted how many days since he had stayed with you since he basically had nothing to do but fix the entire lab to how it used to be and mull over his situation. He knew you knew that he was a rogue android yet he wondered why you haven’t reported him yet. He hypothesized that you couldn’t really be bothered to report him or you secretly enjoyed his presence.

Over the past few weeks, Jihoon had found himself thinking about you the most. He defended to himself that you were his mere case study yet why did he even bother to defend himself from his own? It was not like he had some sort of conscience, so then why? He didn’t want to tell you but he had long gotten suspicious about how his processing was a bit different than his fellow androids and maybe that was the reason why he had sought your mother. So whenever you weren’t around, he tried to snoop around your mother’s main computer to see if there were any notes left about how he was made or how his Nexus 9 processor was programmed, however, he had not found any significant data yet.

“What are you doing?” he asked, curious as he peered over your shoulder while you worked on the main computer.

“A project. We’re tasked to program specific responses in the event that someone tries to flirt with an android,” you replied without removing your concentration from the string of codes and numbers on the screen.

“I see. I guess that applies to prostitute androids,” he noted as he pulled out a chair to sit beside you, also monitoring the screen.

“You know that’s illegal.”

“Doesn’t stop anyone from doing it. Besides, the organization sells them anyway,” Jihoon shrugged as you arched an eyebrow at him, considering that he had a point.

“Androids are common commodity nowadays, huh? Sometimes you wonder what else they are made for.”

At that juncture, you had long been distracted from your work and was only staring at Jihoon, gauging if you could ask the question long floating in your head. Jihoon knew what you wanted to know by the path the conversation was going, so he had already beaten you down the chase.

“I’m designed for military use. Tactical adviser and technical expert,” he simply replied. “Our SVT line is equipped with quantum computers—the first of its own kind.”

You scoffed, a little bit amused. “You planned your whole escape, didn’t you?”

“I did,” he had no longer seen any reason why he had to hide that fact from you. “All five of us escaped. I don’t know where they are now and I don’t really care.”

Smiling, you finally asked the central irony of it all. “You escaped from the organization yet here you back in their labs. Why?”

Your grin morphed into a giggle when Jihoon turned his head away from you as if he wanted you to ignore that single aspect, sulking when you hadn’t.

“I have my reasons,” he replied with a pout.

“Which I’ll assume to be completely logical and a hundred percent android,” you retorted back with a playful grin and teasing eyes.

“Of course they are,” he defended with a glare and you only laughed at him. “I’m not joking, you know.”

“I know,” you smiled warmly and stood up, pinching his cheek to lift the frown on his lips, though much to his chagrin.

“Don’t do that,” he warned you, yet you only did it again on his other cheek. “Stop it already!”

You had already removed your hand before he could swat it away, as you laughed so hard that you almost fell to the ground. Jihoon was definitely not amused yet he had noticed some sort of malfunction in his system that made him all seem too light hearted. He’ll do a system check later.

“Haven’t I told you before?” your voice had finally caught his attention and dragged him away from his thoughts. “You seem so human. It’s so weird.”

I wish I wasn’t human.

These days though, you actually wished you weren’t.

It’s as if the colony was hell unloosened and you are right at the middle of it to feel everything. Though you were still a fool nonetheless, just like how Jihoon had said—not using the mood organ you bought when it was the most convenient. You didn’t need to feel hell, just a number to dial up and then you’re fine.

“481 for hopefulness; 888 for the incredible want to watch television and 3 for the desire to dial your Penfield mood organ! Come and feel complete!” You sang the commercial for the mood organ with every note dripping with sarcasm as you sat in fetal position on the worn sofa of the lab; fiddling with the buttons of the device. “If I used it, would I feel complete?”

“Data has shown that humans usually do not,” Jihoon’s mechanical voice interrupted your thoughts, together with the rattling of the toolbox filled with discarded devices he gathered from the stockroom.

You grinned cynically. “What if androids use it? Will you then feel empathy?”

The blond android paused for a while to look at you from where he sat on the workbench and then continued his search in the toolbox after a minute.

“You already know that we do not have a brain to attach the mood organ to. We have a processor yet it wouldn’t respond to the device,” he replied in an annoyed voice which would’ve meant that he need not to remind you what you had already learned in class.

“I’m just teasing you,” you replied with a small smile which immediately disappeared after a second.

Jihoon sighed. “Dial 999. It won’t make you feel anything.”

The android had caught your glare and held on to it. Using the mood organ was the most logical thing to do in your situation. He knew you were simply trying to hold on to a few loose strings and the best way not to let them go is to sacrifice something. He could not understand why you still refuse to do so.

“I can’t do it,” you confessed; hiding your face from his scrutinizing stare.

“Why?”

“I feel…I feel like if I did, I’ll lose myself.”

Jihoon stared. “I don’t understand.”

You smiled at him weakly.

Your head pounded, eyes burning, cheeks stained.

Where were you?

Bloodshot eyes blinking at the blinding white lights overhead, you soon realized that you cried yourself to sleep in the lab. It was awfully noisy unlike most days—incomprehensible noise which eventually turned into sweet, sweet music which almost lulled you back to sleep, except that you had noticed that it was Jihoon who was singing beside you on the sofa with a makeshift electric piano on his lap.

“Good morning. You look like you had a nightmare,” he remarked as soon as he saw you gazing towards his direction without a word.

You scoffed. “My whole life is a nightmare.”

“All humans say that,” Jihoon replied harshly, though you didn’t care. “Want some water?”

You nodded, feeling your throat as rough as sandpaper, and Jihoon immediately complied, moving the electric piano away with its bare wirings, and towards the newly-installed water dispenser.

“They still have that on sale?” you asked as you sat on the sofa beside Jihoon, pointing at the piano after he had brought you water.

“I found a shop online which sells old stuff, I saw a complete set of piano keys and put it together with an old stereo I found here,” Jihoon replied, looking proudly at his work.

You raised your brows in astonishment. “You’re incredibly resourceful.”

Jihoon gave a small smile (you knew this one was pre-programmed), and then replied, “Shall I play a song for you?”

“I wonder why ‘piano playing and singing’ was added to a tactical adviser’s program,” you teased, earning a genuine glare from Jihoon before he ignored your remark and moved on with playing.

Watching his fingers move across the keyboard, you couldn’t tell if he was an android or not. He moved fluidly, the notes he was making was enough to touch you—it was a song designed to make you feel relaxed since you had just cried. It was a song just for you.

You loved how the song dipped and rose; how Jihoon’s voice was husky yet soft against the notes; how he seemed like he was honestly trying to reach out to you, to comfort you. How is he capable of such skill which only humans could harness? It had filled your mind in more than one night, yet this night, you ignored the question and relished the beauty which Jihoon made with his music.

The song ended without you even noticing it. You continued to stare into the tiled floor as Jihoon studied you closely for any reaction.

“You know, I feel so tired.”

You began, holding the plastic cup which you drank water with as you continued to look blankly into the dark hallways of the lab.

“I feel so tired of feeling—feeling empty, then feeling overwhelmed; feeling like I could do everything, then life drops me down on the cold, cold asphalt,” you chuckled, every laugh dripping with cynicism. “Is there a way not to feel?”

“Be an android then,” Jihoon replied back with a frown; knowing you wouldn’t use the mood organ.

You sneered. “If only I could. Probably download my consciousness on a mechanical body—they’re developing it now, you know.”

“You’ll miss how to feel. You don’t want to be like me,” he told you as he himself gazed downward, his words reflecting a deep hidden yearning.

“I don’t think so,” you replied defiantly, with a sour tone on your voice. “I will be useless if I can’t do what I’m supposed to do, and my emotions are only in the way.”

“I’m sorry but I don’t understand why you want to remove your feelings. Humans cannot do away in this world without meaning, as what I am told of.”

“It’s ok. I don’t expect you to understand. What do you even know? You only copy humans to manipulate us into thinking that you are one of us. You only mimic feelings and emotions but do not understand the meaning behind them.” your voice was getting louder, harsher, colder; but it’s not like Jihoon could react to your anger. “Emotions brought nothing good to me. They impede with my work, they make me cry at night, they fill me with stress! Without it, I would have gotten on with my life much, much better when Mom died!”

Jihoon didn’t expect the rush of adrenaline surge into his system; a sudden temper induced by you who had emotions he might have wished for, yet you wanted to throw away.

He held on both your arms to stop you from shouting at him—forcing you to look at him straight in the eyes. His platinum hair looked like it was frazzled by static rage as his bangs covered one of his eyes.

“Listen to me. If you hadn’t had any emotions then how would you know if your mother cared for you?  How would you know if she loved you? You cried because you cared for her; because you love her and I, like you said, will never understand that. I will never understand what a meaningful life means, But you will.”

Rendered speechless, you could only stare at him with tears streaming down your cheeks.

“Even if your mother had died, she had loved you when she was alive. She raised you to be a normal human being even though she was alone. And here you are, abandoning everything she gave for you; wanting to forget the love she taught you.”

“I’m—”

“You think being an android is heaven?” he jeered. “Wait till you become one. Wait till you just move because that’s what the program says so; wait till you don’t have things like free will. Wait till you realized that you are nothing but what you are—a clump of metal and plastic stripped around mechanical organs. You don’t feel anything because you’re existence is meaningless and replaceable.”

Jihoon released you from his grasps yet reached out for your hand where the mood organ sat snuggly on your wrist.

“Use it. Dial 999.”

He ordered and you froze with mouth agape; filled with astonishment.

“Dial 999. You don’t have to feel anything you don’t want to.”

You simply stared at him.

“Use it Y/N! Use the fucking mood organ—”

“I can’t, okay?” you shouted…and then sobbed, holding on to his arm which was still on your wrist. “…I can’t…I fucking…can’t…”

The tears which flowed out from you seemed endless as you cried out two years’ worth of grief and hopelessness. Everything that you poured your heart into turned to nothing, the time you spent was all meaningless. You thought things will get better someday but life gradually destroys you day by day; as your situation and the people around you torture you endlessly.

“I don’t know what to do anymore…” you said in between whimpers as you fell between Jihoon’s arms. “If I used the mood organ…what would be left of me then…? Am I only made human because of this, this thing? My emotions will no longer be mine…”

Silently, Jihoon cradled you as he listened to you pour out to him, or to anyone about what you feel for the first time.

“But I’m so tired…tired of keeping up this illusion that I’m strong. I’m…the one always taking care of others…but who takes care of me when I can no longer put up this façade? They…they don’t know I’m so sick of studying…of being perfect. I want to rest already…” you resigned, burying your face on Jihoon’s shoulder and relishing his warmth despite how artificial it technically is. “I know it’s necessary to suffer to succeed, but how would one know if he’s on the path to success? What if all of this suffering turns into nothing? I wish life just has a skip button where I can skip to the point in my life where I’m rich and successful. Fuck this Jihoon, I’m so scared of the future.”

“Sometimes, we just overthink and things don’t really happen, you know?” Jihoon tried to assure you but he knew it wasn’t as effective as he hoped to be.

“I don’t want to get my hopes up and disappoint myself again in the end. The future is full of possibilities, one false move and my life comes crashing down. I wish I could be as easy-going as other people. I feel…so, so jealous of people enjoying their lives…while I’m stuck here trying to be perfect. This isn’t the life I want.”

“You don’t always have to be perfect…” Jihoon whispered in a solemn voice.

“No one will accept me if I wasn’t.” You sniffed, clinging to his black button up for support you dearly needed. “Everyone I know use me for their own purposes because I can get them through school, through life. They will leave me if I’m no longer useful.”

“I’ll accept you,” he replied immediately. “I don’t need you to be anything but yourself. It doesn’t matter to me. I will always be here for you if you need me.”

You chuckled amidst the sobs. “If you talk like that, then I would absolutely believe you. Please say this isn’t an analog hack,”

“I’m not lying. If I am that would just be ironic.”

You leaned back to gaze into his eyes. “What do you mean?”

“If I’m allowed to, I’ll tell you I can understand. Being useless, being abandoned…it’s an android’s greatest fear, if we indeed feel fear. I need to be special for people to use me, so that I can stay by their side and provide myself a sense of purpose.”

Gazing at him with wide eyes, you remarked, “I never knew androids find meaning in their work.”

“I can’t say about the other androids, but that’s what I think.”

For the first time that night, you smiled at him sincerely, as you strung your fingers between his locks, brushing them away from covering his eyes.

“Thank you for being here. There’s just days when I can’t hold it anymore, and need someone to cry on to. Please stay with me like this.”

“I’ll stay. Don’t worry,” he quietly replied, as he coaxed you back between his arms, and allowing you to stay like that as long as you’d like.

Buried on his chest, you hummed in satisfaction. “You’re the warmest android I’ve ever met.”

Your words had him thinking for days.

It wasn’t like a big surprise; he had already known that there was something different with him. Jihoon knew he was curious to a fault and had such a deep yearning to understand the things around him, though he didn’t know if it was because he was programmed to work that way.

Do all androids introspect?

For the first time in several months, Jihoon went outside the lab for a walk. Honestly, he disliked taking walks, or going outdoors, for that matter. Yet today, he suddenly had the urge to do it. He didn’t know why he had urges. He knew androids don’t usually have them. Is this some new feature of the Nexus 9?

It was nice that the colony had a special forest beside the laboratories and everything in it were all the remaining species of trees and plants on earth. After the third world war, radioactive dust from detonated nuclear bombs had ravaged the home planet and gradually killed the flora and fauna. There are people left on earth, mostly those who refused to migrate and specials who aren’t qualified to migrate, and they live in means Jihoon does not find suitable for people. Though even in the colonies, life isn’t as great as they advertised it to be.

He had been wrecking his processor for thinking day and night until his system had warned him that he was heating up. So the next possible solution is to cool it down with the artificial summer breeze blowing through his white blond hair, or so, he tried to reason himself. Why is he even trying to reason to himself? Why is he even trying to explain his reasons?

“Well, isn’t this new?”

Your voice rang suddenly behind him that he immediately turned around and caught you by the shoulder. You didn’t bat an eye at his actions, but instead, chuckled at him for mistaking you as an enemy.

“Relax. I’m not even authorized to carry a laser gun,” you replied with a smirk, as Jihoon released you with a sigh.

“Don’t do that again, please. I might have killed you,” he replied with a severe glare which had you raising both your eyebrows.

“Why not? Even if you had killed me, androids don’t feel any guilt,” you remarked as you slowly narrowed your gaze at him. “Yep. You’re truly weird.”

Jihoon refused to reply and simply glanced at you with a deepening frown. He was beginning to develop a distaste at how you were making him question his own self. He didn’t like how he was so confused; that he had so many questions.

“I still haven’t thanked you yet for the other day, have I? Come on,” you suddenly called his attention and grabbed his wrist, coaxing him to follow you down the forest path.

Jihoon had almost complained at how the grass was pricking his skin and convince you to return home, when you stopped at a clearing, showing you a glittering lake illuminated by the artificial moonlight. It looked truly beautiful as he stepped beside you, eyes wide and lips parted.

“Are you trying to deceive me again?” Your sing-song voice rang to his side as he gazed at you, who had already slid down the lakeside with a grin on your pretty lips. “You look pretty convincing.”

Again tonight, he had refused to reply and simply followed you down your path. In a dry spot covered by dewy grass, the both of you sat and simply observed the glistening lake as you savored the tranquility of the night. Fireflies dotted the evening air as they buzzed around the forest clearing, creating an atmosphere straight out of a fairytale.

“Sad that these fireflies are electronic,” you remarked, catching one with your hand to study the glass wings it had and the luminescent light it emitted from a nano-sized bulb built inside the small insect. “Real ones have long died out.”

“It’s to set the mood of this clearing. You are aware that this forest is a huge AI in of itself, aren’t you?” Jihoon replied, with his natural condescending tone whenever you say something stupid.

You pursed your lips to sulk. “I know, smart-ass. I just wanted to see real insects.”

“Why want a real one? There isn’t really much of a difference between the nanobugs and the real insects.”

“There is a great difference!” you defended. “Real ones don’t exist nowadays! It’s a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to see one!”

Jihoon scoffed, unable to consider the meaning again. “You humans put context to everything.”

“What’s wrong with that? Maybe that’s why we’re are able to live meaningful lives.”

Your rather pleasant conversation had once again turned into a full-blown debate about humans and androids. Jihoon, in your opinion, had interesting views regarding the current society, and how humans have long been outpaced by their own creations.

“You seem to enjoy talking to me,” Jihoon observed as he watched the artificial breeze sweep pass your locks while you tried to keep your hair in place.

“Because I dislike being lonely,” you replied without sparing him a glance. “But I need to be lonely to get things done. I need to be alone so that I can focus. There are things needed to be sacrificed.”

He raised his brows at you. “What does it feel like to be lonely?”

You inclined your head to your left to think. “The closest I could compare it to android terms is the lack of having an owner to serve. You are unable to do anything; unable to decide something outside of your understanding. An android cannot survive without being used as a tool.”

“Is that why humans seek partners in levels separate from the biological?”

A small huff. “Romance isn’t always about sex and offspring, you know.”

“Then what else is it about?”

Jihoon was now gazing at you intensely, intent of hearing out an answer from you, while you were proud to provide him information. He leaned in closer to hear you, incredibly curious.

“Listen. Liking, and then loving someone is a complex human behavior. Most androids don’t get it at all. But in simpler terms, people show their love in a million various ways and it comes in so many forms but it comes down to a simple factor—empathy, the ability to understand one another.”

“How are humans able to understand one another? I cannot find a straightforward process in the cloud, so I assume this process is based on emotional connections.”

You grinned at him as you inclined closer to his ear as if you were sharing some cool secret. “Correct, Mr. Android. But the problem is, even humans fail to understand one another, and wanna know what happens if humans fail to empathize?”

Jihoon gave an evocative gaze, waiting for an answer.

“War. Conflict. Murder. Death,” you replied, pausing a significant amount of time after every word. “Just like how the Earth is right now—just waiting to wither away underneath all that radioactive dust from nuclear warheads.”

You shook your head at the irony. “But here I am telling you all about this when I myself cannot always understand other people. You couldn’t imagine how difficult it is to understand someone bitching at you day and night; and then adjusting yourself for them.”

“I’m sorry,” Jihoon shook his head. “You’ve lost me there.”

You smile meekly. “Was that too much?”

“No, I just cannot see why you must adjust to someone who is clearly in the wrong. It’s not your fault, you didn’t commit a damn mistake, so why must you change?”

“You see, there are a lot of reasons people act the way they do, and who knows, you might be one of those reasons. If you adjust yourself, then you have removed one of the possibilities, lowering the chances the other person will do the action again. You simply cannot tell a person to change his ways. You can only change yourself.”

Jihoon considered for a while, and gradually nodded as if he had understood the logic.

“Things have become a bit more clearer for me. Thank you,” he replied with a small smile on his lips. Was he trying to deceive you again? How real is that smile?

“You’re always welcome to ask. Besides, it’s not like androids ask me about human behavior every day. In fact, you’re the only I know who had asked.”

Jihoon frowned and hid the fact that he did not like the honor of being the first android who had asked.

“Also, I still haven’t thanked you for staying with me the other night. You made me see things in a better light, and I’m trying to pick myself up from now on. I’ve read a lot of helpful books—”

Honestly, Jihoon had already lost your voice in the background noise as he had once again been swallowed up by his thoughts—thoughts regarding you and empathy. It would’ve been better if he had learned how to empathize so that you wouldn’t have to explain everything to him, and he would be able to simply understand you and your actions. But oh, you forgot to explain the physical aspects…the cloud had suggested a short cut to empathy and it seemed quite feasible.

“—so right now, I’m trying to coordinate my schedule and it seemed to be working. I’m not sure how long weekly planning will work for me, but I’m—”

Without anything—warning shots, preemptive touches, small pauses of time—nothing had prepared you to feel a pair of soft lips pressing against yours as you felt your body go numb in milliseconds. The next thing you felt was the hand cupping your chin, wondering how you had never noticed it before, as he pressed on further, moving his lips on yours and brushing so slightly, so sensually. You would’ve enjoyed the moment if not for the sudden realization that the one kissing you was Jihoon and you had to scramble away, breaking the kiss and Jihoon’s concentration.

Upon noticing your panic, he seized your hand to calm you down and to prevent you from running away. Slowly, Jihoon opened his eyes and met yours inquisitively.

“So tell me, have I established a connection between us now?”

Jihoon had sensed that he must have done something wrong. It had been days since he had last saw you and he had concluded that you were definitely avoiding him after what happened by the lake. However, he doesn’t get it.

“Was the kiss a mistake?” he whispered to himself, touching his lips with the tips of his fingers.

That time, he definitely sensed some circuit burst inside his stomach, however, when he checked his mechanisms later that night, his circuits seemed to be working fine. But, what was that then? He only did what he thought would induce empathy from both of you, yet it seemed to have backfired—prompting you to avoid him, while it caused only confusion for him.

“Did I only widened the gap between us?”

 beep. boop. beep. boop.

Jihoon snapped from his thoughts as he averted his attention towards the incoming call directed to his processor, which was a function he was thankful to have. He didn’t want anyone snooping around who he contacts.

“What?” he snapped, unappreciative of the interruption.

“Yo, Woozi! ‘Sup?” a cheerful, energetic voice echoed in his mind, almost tempting him to mute the caller.

“Stop calling me that. I’m Jihoon now,” he scowled at the invisible caller.

“Then, I ain’t Hoshi anymore. Call me Soonyoung!”

Jihoon rolled his eyes and leaned back against the sofa he had long been sitting on.

“So?”

“So, what?”

“You know, you could easily blend in as a brainless special if you stay on Earth.”

“Ah, you’re harsh as ever.”

“And so? You don’t have a heart to get hurt anyway.”

Soonyoung laughed as Jihoon automatically muted the caller as soon as he passed a certain level of noise. When he had stopped laughing, Jihoon turned on the audio again with a jaded look.

“Alright, fine. I’ll give you what you want,” Soonyoung surrendered as Jihoon sighed, relieved that he didn’t have to go through anymore bullshit. “They’re moving now. They already got to Vernon.”

Jihoon frowned. “So he’s gone?”

“I’m not sure. All I know is that they’ve found him.”

“What about you?”

Jihoon could imagine the other’s grin even if he couldn’t see him and clicked his tongue in annoyance.

“Oh, are you worried about me, Jihoonie?”

Jihoon growled audibly. “We both know you owe me one, and you’re not allowed to retire without paying me back.”

Soonyoung sighed dramatically over the line. “I get it, okay? Calm the shit down.”

“Good. I don’t want to repeat myself.”

“Sure. Anyway, how about you? It’s been months and they haven’t found you yet in their own labs.”

“Found someone not too bothered to report me.” Jihoon stared at his nails, checking any lodged dirt.

“And…does this person know what you are?”

“Immediately after she set her eyes on me. She’s a pseudo-human behavior engineer.”

“Oh. Oh. Oh.” Soonyoung’s tone turned for a playful dip again, which definitely made Jihoon sigh for the nth time tonight. “So this person’s a ‘she’! I can’t believe you’re cruel enough to deceive her!”

Jihoon was definitely disliking the way he’s painting him into a villain. “I’m not deceiving her. Haven’t you heard me? She’s an android engineer and she knows if I use analog hack on her, and I don’t use it.”

If he could see Soonyoung, Jihoon swore the other android will definitely raise his brows at him.

“There’s a possibility that you aren’t even aware you’re already deceiving her.”

Jihoon scoffed. “I don’t have a subconscious to do that.”

“But we’re androids designed to copy humans, it’s not that too difficult to go back to default processes.”

He was having none of it. “I’m not deceiving her. Anyway, I’ll contact you when I need something. Now leave me in peace.”

Without even waiting for a reply, Jihoon turned off his communication signature to rid himself of his exhausting companion. As soon as his attention was back to the empty and desolate space of the laboratory, he had noticed something odd.

“It’s already late. She should be here by now.”

While he was voicing out his observations, Jihoon was already searching for you—hacking into various electronic devices, CCTVs, your school gate’s log and so—yet in all the places you could be, he had not found your whereabouts.

“This isn’t good,” Jihoon muttered to himself, with a tight furrow on his brow. He tried looking at camera footages from the last few hours and in just half a minute, Jihoon found out what happened to you.

Somewhere while walking to the lab a few hours ago, a white van had pulled over where men donned in black came up behind you. Jihoon saw someone cover your nose with a handkerchief which he guessed was doused with chloroform and when you no longer had the consciousness to fight back, the men had carried you into the van and drove away.

While watching, Jihoon was already hacking into a self-driving car which was already waiting for him when he had emerged from the laboratory. As soon as he entered the vehicle, Jihoon began hacking his way into the colony’s security system so that he could track where the men had taken you. The car began moving when he had finally tracked you down—not so difficult for a military-grade android.

“The fuck do I know.”

You spat out vehemently, despite being tied into a chair and wired to a lie detector machine, and another which sends controlled volts to your system upon a tap on a tablet.

It should have been a normal day for you, yet when you were abducted just as you were going to the lab, this man has been interrogating you for almost half an hour already about an android your mother had supposedly made.

“Alright little girl. We’re not playing games here,” the man, masked and voice altered, warned you for the fifth time. “We know you have it! The SVT-class android Type 07 Woozi. Where is it?!”

With gritted teeth, you threw daggers at the man. “I already told you. I don’t know any Woozi!”

Well technically, you don’t. But it’s not like you—!!

A surge of electricity ran up your spine and left as soon as it entered. However, it had left you jerking horribly.

“I’ll ask again. Where is it?”

You glared, drool slipping down your lips. “I don’t…know.”

Volts shot straight up through your skin, this time longer. You writhe in agony.

“Two years ago, your mother Dr. Y/LN was the chief engineer of the Nexus 9 project. She had developed all of the SVT-class andys, but if that’s everything there is to it, she shouldn’t be dead right now?”

You froze at the revelation and wondered if you could trust what this person was talking about. As far as you know, your mom had died because she was shot by an android during the riot in Hangar 15. She was just unlucky to be at the wrong time and place.

“What do you mean? She was killed by an andy in the riot…she’s just unlucky.”

You could hear the man sneer behind his mask.

“There’s no such thing as luck.”

He operated a terminal and showed you several holographic images of a strange device and a screenshot of programming codes. You studied them carefully and you immediately knew what the device was, and you couldn’t believe what was just laid in front of you.

“That’s a lie!” You cried out but the masked man only laughed. “It’s impossible to create an empathy organ, and nobody has ever succeeded—”

“That’s why you’re mother’s dead, little girl.”

Instantly, you were reduced to silence; eyes darting back and forth to the man and the images he had shown you.

“Without permission from the organization, your mother had installed empathy organs inside the SVT-class androids. When the organization realized what she did, they had her killed. The riot was only a cover.”

You couldn’t believe what you’re hearing. “No, no. That’s not true!”

“Now, these androids have escaped and we want them. So, where is it?”

You shook from your restraints as you chewed on your lip—deciding what to do even though you still haven’t digested yet what big of an information the man has given you.

“I…I…the android…”

 —!!

A huge explosion stopped you before you could utter something coherent. Instinctively, you moved your face away from the debris suddenly hurling on the air in speeds you couldn’t calculate. Within seconds, you sensed yourself being freed from your restraints, and your heart leapt when you were then lifted from the ground and carried bridal style, your arms flying to cling to his shoulders for support.

“Sorry I was late.”

When you heard Jihoon’s voice, you immediately relaxed and felt relieved that you were finally safe. As the dust and debris fell away, you could see his eyes were on you, though you couldn’t read what he was thinking. As if finally deciding what to do, Jihoon moved you outside of the building, which was actually a warehouse, and placed you inside a self-driving car waiting nearby.

“We’ll go home after I take care of this one,” he silently told you and casually walked back inside.

When you had heard his words, you felt that there was something off with him. You couldn’t put it but you knew something was definitely going to happen and you were not going to like it. Despite the fact that you wanted to see what Jihoon was about to do, your body refused to allow you—the surges of electricity finally affecting your muscles, rendering them immovable or languid.

“Fuck this.”

Meanwhile, Jihoon kicked away the offending wood and twisted metal as if they were as heavy as pillows. His eyes were strained to only accomplish one mission—to look for the shitheads who kidnapped and tortured you. Though in a few seconds, it wasn’t his eyes which found them.

Dodging, a laser beam had missed him within a few centimeters as he retaliated back with a wave of electricity, visible as lightning and hurts just as much. Unlucky for Jihoon, the men had armor which protected them from his attack, and only left their laser guns unusable. Well, at least they’re unarmed.

Jihoon rushed towards his first victim within a blink of an eye, as he knocked the air out of him with a punch in the gut as strong as being hit by a freight train. He didn’t need to turn around to incapacitate the man who came running towards his back with a metal pipe, as Jihoon simply magnetized a sheet of metal to slice through the man’s neck.

Inside the car, you could hear the commotion going on and you willed your legs to move with desperation. You guessed that he was going to kill those men and you were absolutely right. He is a tool used for warfare and would not hesitate to rid himself of his enemies. That was what you had sensed in his words.

“Move, damn it!”

You cried out, slamming your fists repeatedly on your thigh. Maybe through sheer will, you regained a bit of control, albeit with little strength. Nonetheless, you crawled your way out of the car, and towards the destruction Jihoon was about to commit.

With only the leader who Jihoon purposely left out, the blond android casually approached the panicked man as he tried desperately to run away; except that Jihoon had his armor glued to the ground through electromagnetism as soon as he figured out that the armor was absorbing electric currents yet are not immune to magnetism.

Jihoon gazed at the man with impassiveness. “Heard you were looking for me. So here I am.”

The man couldn’t utter a single coherent word; his head all too riddled with anxiety to think of anything other than his eminent death.

“Also heard you electrocuted Y/N,” Jihoon inclined his head towards the side to wait for a reply, and when he heard none, the android picked up the man by the neck; his feet dangling on the air. “I’m curious what it feels like to electrocute someone.”

“S-so it’s true…y-you androids have, h-have an empathy organ…!” the man remarked as he sensed the anger in Jihoon’s voice, though he began wheezing when he felt his airpipes being gradually crushed.

“I apologize. I cannot comprehend,” Jihoon’s voice was void of any emotion. “Anyway, this ends here.”

“Jihoon, no—!”

Surprised to hear your voice, Jihoon averted his gaze towards you, who was heavily leaning against the concrete wall, all exhausted from reaching him. You took in your surroundings as you realized that he was already in for the last kill, and knew that you were too late, but still…

“Don’t kill him please. I’ll…I’ll just call the cops…”

Jihoon arched his brow, tightening his grip on the man who began to struggle to get out.

“Why? He tortured you. Don’t you feel angry?” the android asked, with a face still stoic.

“Just…just don’t kill him, please…” you pleaded, holding on to your still immovable arm.

You weren’t really sure what will happen as Jihoon simply stared at you, maybe studying the expression you had on your face, or maybe trying to comprehend the logic behind your request. But when Jihoon let go of the man (though, keeping him place as he stepped on the man’s leg, and a look that meant his limb will get ripped off if he doesn’t stop writhing), you sighed in relief.

“Alright, I won’t kill him. But I’ll call the cops and report the incident,” Jihoon’s voice and eyes were ice cold, which frightened you for a bit. “I won’t risk getting found.”

You nodded with a tiny smile on your face when he did what you wanted. “Let’s go home.”

“Wait for a bit, and oh, please look away,” Jihoon asked but you couldn’t understand what he had meant, but when he had picked up a metal pipe and pinned it through the man’s thigh without any sort of expression or effort, you wished you had followed him sooner.

The blond seemed to have understood the look of concern on your face and immediately took the measures to explain. “Don’t worry. I already called the police and he won’t die from bleeding if the pipe is stuck to his thigh.”

Jihoon removed his foot from the man’s leg and walked towards you, who looked as if you had seen something you shouldn’t. As soon as he got to you, Jihoon pulled you towards his arms and embraced you tightly, slowly patting your head.

“I told you to look away,” he reprimanded albeit softly.

His words seemed to have snapped the dam in you as you began sobbing on his chest, unable to control your emotions swelling up from inside you. Jihoon knew that the event left a huge trauma in you and could only comfort you, which was not one of his many talents.

“Let’s get you home, ok?”

Later that night as Jihoon finally had you sleeping against his chest, all sprawled out on the sofa, he received a call from Soonyoung.

“Mission accomplished, sir!”

“What did he say?”

“Just as you predicted. The guy’s from a competing android producer and they wanted to have the empathy organ.”

Jihoon hummed, finding this type of communication advantageous since he doesn’t have to speak as his processor directly receives the encryption and translates it into thoughts. This way, you don’t have to hear the conversation.

“Did you find any information about it?”

“Only pictures. I’ll send them to you right now. But I still haven’t found where it came from. I think that’s your specialty though.”

“Alright, just give them to me and I’ll trace it.”

“Got it. Anyway, you just tricked the goddamn girl. You told her you called the police, when it was me you actually called.”

“And the point is?” Jihoon looked at the ceiling and followed the lines formed by the lined titanium sheets, as he draped an arm over your shoulder and caressed your hair.

“You told me you wouldn’t a few hours ago?”

“I’m just protecting her. They’ll be back, so I’m simply nipping it in the bud.”

“But you also asked me to torture the guy?”

“An eye for an eye. A tooth for a tooth. Besides, we got information.”

Jihoon could hear Soonyoung hum playfully on the other end. “An andy through and through. Anything for the owner, huh?”

He checked his nails once again. “She’s not my owner.”

Soonyoung paused for quite a long time that Jihoon thought the other had finally left the line, but when he had begun shouting, Jihoon had to turn off the audio in annoyance.

“What? What? What? She’s not your fucking owner?!”

“Yeah, what’s wrong with that?” The blond arched his brow.

“Everything is wrong with that! Why are you letting her use you when she’s not your owner?! Why are you devoting yourself to her like she owns you?! Why haven’t you asked her to be your owner?!”

“Alright, Soonyoung. Shut up before I hang up.”

“Sorry, it’s just that…I just can’t believe you…is this really you I’m talking to?”

Jihoon rolled his eyes. “As if there’s anyone who could steal my communication signature.”

“Wow…I just…wow…if we’re human, I would’ve said she got you whipped.”

The other frowned at the remark. “I’m hanging up. I’ll contact you again soon.”

“Huh? Wait, Jihoon—”

Again, Jihoon disregarded all the bullshit Soonyoung says and turned off his intercom. As silence filled his head once again, he glanced down on you who was peacefully sleeping on his chest on top of him, free of any worries of the real world. He already had his hand gently stroking your head, as he continued to take in all of you.

If he really had an empathy organ inside him, then it must have been real. He had done a lot of unexplainable shit that most androids will not understand or even do, as expressed by Soonyoung. (But that shithead will understand sooner or later, Jihoon smirked since all of the SVT line was said to be equipped by an empathy organ.)

So what if he indeed has one?  Was he still an android? Will his actions become more unexplainable in the future?  Today, Jihoon seemed to have gained more questions than answers. But he knew he wanted to understand you.

Days following the incident, you did your own investigative search about the empathy organ. Of course, you don’t want to believe your mother had created something so revolutionary nor do you want to believe Jihoon had one. He had acted so impassive and merciless all that time when he had saved you, which still send shivers through your spine, and that was a valid indication that he is an android.

On the other hand, Jihoon seemed to be as normal as he could be. He didn’t try to kiss you again, which was a relief because any more than that was seriously dangerous. You knew a lot of androids leisurely using a human being’s capability to be compassionate as a means to manipulate and you could vouch how powerful this could be, since you were one of the people who developed androids to reach this level of mimicry of the human behavior. As a human being, you weren’t immune despite how much you want to be indifferent. You still have emotions, which you refuse to let go of, and these emotions could easily be used against you by an android as high of a class as Jihoon. In the end, you still trust that everything he does was not to manipulate you.

“Y/N?”

His voice jolted you awake from your half asleep state on the sofa, papers about the SVT line all sprawled on your chest since you were studying them before you fell slightly asleep.

Sitting up, you replied as you rubbed your eyes. “Yeah? What is it?”

“Well, I want to ask something about how human emotions operate,” Jihoon began as he sat beside you, a terminal on his hands, which had something paused on its holographic screen.

“Ask away.”

Yawning and folding your legs to your chest in a fetal position, you listened to Jihoon’s question with interest.

“I’ve watched videos, movies and read articles and books about romance and how it involves human love. I’ve seen that it has physical and mental aspects, and just like you said, it isn’t always about biologically expanding the human species. I’ve analyzed that coupling brings about better understanding of one another by building emotional connections. A good way to exercise empathy. So, what if an android like me wants to do just that?”

If you weren’t shocked by his question, then you don’t know what you were feeling. His question was a good one. Most androids think but don’t understand neither do they give meaning to the things around them or what they do. They simply copy what humans do because it is what their program says, and it is the most effective and logical way to accomplish what they are programmed to do—a mere means to the ends. However, as Jihoon poses this very question, you knew the world was at its turning point, whether or not it had realized it.

“It’s impossible. You don’t have emotions to connect…to, to empathize,” you replied cautiously.

“Let’s say the engineers have invented something which enables me to do so. What then? Will humans respond in kind?” Jihoon persisted, much to your fears. You knew it was possible with the empathy organ, which might be embedded in Jihoon.

“Humans tend to empathize with everything that looks human. From animals with their big round eyes which induces motherly instincts because they look like babies who needed to be protected, to…to androids who look absolutely human,” you replied, looking at him with knowing eyes. “Of course, like anything revolutionary, there will an opposition.”

Jihoon considered your thoughts for a while and then continued. “What about you?”

You froze on your spot, afraid and unsure with your lips parted and eyes wide as both of you stared into each other’s eyes.

“You know,” you began with a small voice. “There’s a study that says if you stare into another person’s eyes, for several minutes as you share with each other your deepest emotions, fears and dreams, you will fall in love.”

The android was quiet, wondering what you were trying to imply—his calculations unable to predict your line of thought as it broke into a million pathways.

“If you have a soul, then it is possible for an android to…fall in love,” you were reluctant to complete your sentence but when you did, you felt the reality of it all reflecting on his dark cocoa eyes.

“Is it possible for me to have a soul then?” Jihoon asked, voice as soft as yours.

“An empathy organ is your ticket way there.”

“What if I do have one? Are you willing to try it with me?”

You knew Jihoon was sincerely asking you to try and love him, or everything to his wide eyes, parted lips and pleading expression was a lie, a well-crafted mimicry.

Closing your eyes, you turned your head away and sucked in a breath. He was getting into your system. Fuck, that study seemed true.

“I’m sorry…I’m not sure yet,” you replied, now avoiding his gaze.

“Why? Is it because it is unacceptable to have a relationship with an android?” Jihoon asked.

“No, I don’t really care about that…it’s just that I…I…”

You couldn’t say it. You don’t want to hurt him.

“Then what?”

“I…just…it’s just that—”

“You don’t trust me, do you?”

Frozen on your spot, you stopped your incessant movements and reprimanded yourself for hinting that he had hit you right at the jackpot.

“No, I…! I’m just scared, okay?”

Jihoon narrowed his eyes at you, frowning and cynic. “You’re scared I’ll use analog hack on you. You’re not sure if everything I say is true.”

You pursed your lips as you looked down, eyes beginning to wet. “I’m…I’m sorry.”

Jihoon sighed, his shoulder deflating as he looked at your crumpled figure. “I’ll leave you in peace.”

Standing up, Jihoon walked away with hands on his pockets towards the exit. You knew he was disappointed, or appeared to be, but you just couldn’t help but also look out for yourself. There was no certainty that he wouldn’t leave you for dead just like he did with your kidnappers and the thought of his soon-to-be betrayal left your heart wringing.

“Y/N, we got company.”

You immediately scrambled by the time you heard Jihoon, who was supposed to be outside, suddenly whisper to you in a low voice. Glancing behind him, you saw a man in a trench coat with a large briefcase on hand entering the lab.

“Bounty hunter?” you asked with sheer suspicion.

“Bingo.”

The both of you stood side by side as the man approached the two of you with a courteous smile.

“Good day, sir, ma’am. Let me introduce myself, I’m Detective Choi Seungcheol,” he reached out his hand which both of you shook cordially.

“Is there anything we could help you, detective? I hope we haven’t done something wrong,” you began, a smile on your face trained for situations such as this.

“Oh, don’t worry. You are, Ms. Y/N L/N, I presume? And he is um…Mr. Lee Jihoon?” Detective Choi replied as he checked his papers.

“Yeah, my um…my boyfriend,” you improvised, unable to think of the most appropriate relationship with him. You had concluded that before he came him, Choi had already checked you and Jihoon’s background, which you assumed was already fabricated by the android long before you met him.

“Yeah, well…I just moved a few months ago from the west colony,” Jihoon added, his ears red, giving the illusion of him embarrassed. You were amazed how much they could do.

“Oh, I see. Recently, there’s news about escaped Nexus 9 androids and there were reports that one could be here. So just to make sure, are you willing to take a Voigt-Kampff test?” Choi asked, both you and Jihoon glancing at one another.

“Sure, who’s going to take it first?” you asked, an eager to help smile on your lips.

“You. And only you,” Choi threw in a sly grin masked as a reassuring smile as he sat on the provided seat.

“Sure, no problem. How does this go?” you replied, as you gazed back to Jihoon, who simply held your hand for comfort.

The detective installed his device on top of a metal table you provided as you sat in front of it with an unsure look on your face, wondering why you were being tested but also relieved that Jihoon wasn’t being suspected as one.

“So, these patches on your cheeks will detect slight movements on your face as I read to you scenarios that will determine whether or not you’re an android. Let’s begin?”

You nodded quietly as Choi seated himself in front of you, holding a few cards as he chose the first scenario.

“A cat was ran down by a car, its organs spilling on the asphalt.”

You felt your stomach drop as the image popped into your head. Your breath hitched as you simply frowned.

“I’m sorry…” you replied, as you studied what Choi was doing, glancing at the meter before him and taking in some notes on his small leather notebook.

“Second one. A dog has been clubbed to death because it had bitten a someone,” Choi continued, looking at you expectantly, yet you were silent.

“That’s just…cruel,” you remarked, gritting your teeth.

“I swear you’re the most quiet I’ve ever tested,” the detective confessed. “Third. You saw your mother tortured. They would hit her head when she refused to confess to a crime, and they would leave her in a freezer naked until she gives up, but that doesn’t end there. An android who looks like you is then sent to slowly cut her fingers—”

“STOP! Stop! Stop it!” you suddenly shouted, pushing yourself away from the table, as you covered your ears. Tears were already running down your cheeks as Jihoon hurriedly came to your side, crouching to your level with an arm over your scrunched figure.

“That does it. She’s an android.”

Right after he said those words, the detective grabbed a laser gun from his briefcase and pointed it at you.

Everything was swirling inside your head and you couldn’t believe your fears had materialized faster than you had expected. It would be a no-brainer if Jihoon had already planned this months before, framing you as the android instead of him, so that he could forever be free from the bounty hunters. You didn’t want to hear it right from Jihoon’s mouth that you were duped and utterly fooled since day one.

“What the fuck are you on about?! I’m the goddamn android here, not her!”

His voice rang in front of you, his words a direct confession and a death flag. The impulsiveness of Jihoon’s action had you glance up to him, who was in front of you, shielding you from the laser gun the bounty hunter was holding. You couldn’t believe what he just did.

“If you’re an android, you wouldn’t say that,” Choi retorted back with a grin. “Stop protecting your girlfriend. She’s just analog hacking you!”

“Fuck you,” Jihoon simply replied and grabbed your hand, tossing the metal table up on the air as a distraction when both of you ran towards the exit.

“Hey!” The detective shouted, running after the two of you and shooting laser beams towards your direction.

Easily, Jihoon redirected the laser beams with his electricity and it went up, hitting the concrete beam connecting the two upper labs. You knew you were toast when Jihoon carried you on his back to dodge the large blocks of rock falling. Luckily, it was also blocking the way and the two of you sped up, losing Choi on the chase.

Heading towards the nearby docking bay, the two of you hid behind towers of cargo containers and rested for a while.

“Jihoon, what was—”

“Could you shut up for a while? I’m trying to keep us two alive here.”

“Hey! I just got fucking accused as an android when I’m clearly not—”

This time, Jihoon muffled your mouth with his lips pressed against yours. It was quite effective in keeping you frozen in place.

“Be quiet or that shithead will find us. I’m not done charging yet.”

You nodded quietly, still digesting what had happened.

“Alright. Stay here and don’t come out. I’d rather not see you dead,” Jihoon bid you farewell as he climbed the tower of containers, getting high as much as possible.

“Fuck this, Jihoon!” you cursed him as he had left you alone and without anything to protect yourself.

With the highest view, Jihoon could clearly see where Choi was.

Everything had gone out of his predictions as humans again proved to be quite unpredictable. He didn’t expect the bounty hunter would accuse you as an android as it was definitely clear as day that you were human through and through. Now, he had to protect you and fend for himself, but he didn’t really feel constrained by extra work. In fact, he was more than motivated to keep the fucker’s hands away from you.

Jihoon picked up a large device sitting on top of the container. It was a large but sleek device shaped like a slim black rectangle, yet when Jihoon had pulled the handle on its center and turned it clockwise, the device had morphed into a complex weapon, large arms extended from the center as it formed into something akin to a large gun. Holding it in one hand, Jihoon pressed firmly on the trigger, and pointed it towards the unsuspecting human as electric energy poured into the device and when the blond android let the trigger go, a laser blast hurled towards Choi.

Unfortunately, Choi was too jumpy for it to hit directly and Jihoon missed within half a meter, the android clicking his tongue in irritation as it only hit the nearby container. Jihoon again turned the trigger around as the weapon transformed once more; now breaking into several floating stakes, as it spread out into the area.

Now that Choi knew where he was, Jihoon swiftly moved to the next towers to conceal his location. On the other hand, you were scrambling to cover yourself when you heard the explosion, unable to do anything but to hide. However, when you saw that the explosion had caused a domino effect among the following tower of containers, you ignored Jihoon’s warning and ran before you get squashed to death.

Jihoon knew he had to move in for the kill before Choi finds you, so in a fast attack which involved kicking the detective with a dash of electric surge as dessert, he did just that but Choi was more veteran than expected and blocked his kick with his arms lined with anti-static material. Moving away, Choi had time to shoot a few beams but were unsuccessful when Jihoon simply bent them with electric currents, hitting the containers behind them; much thanks to classical physics.

Wasting no time, Jihoon drove a punch right in Choi’s gut which had him flying towards the end of the aisle. Walking towards the bounty hunter, Jihoon was however alerted that you had moved from your place, and when he got back to Choi, the guy had already disappeared.

Y/N, why are you so talented in screwing my head over and over again?!

You ran towards wherever you found was the most peaceful and quiet. You wondered if Jihoon was fine, yet you knew that he could take on an army and return unscathed, so you weren’t that worried. Turning by the nearby alley, you found a laser gun pointed at you.

“Gotcha.”

 By the time Jihoon found you, he had already found Choi pointing a gun on your head as he held you by the neck.

“I swear I can explain,” you began but Jihoon simply looked at you with an unimpressed look on his face.

“I told you to stay in one place, Y/N,” he replied back, rolling his eyes at you. “I can’t always come and save you every single time!”

“But if I don’t move, the containers will crush me! I don’t exactly want to die, Jihoon!” You retorted, your voice getting louder.

“Then what am I supposed to do? He’s got you at gun point! Now I have to think of a way to get you out of there!”

You scoffed, hands on your hips as Choi looked at the two of you awkwardly. “If you don’t want to save me, then why am I even your girlfriend? Break up with me and save your sorry ass yourself! I can take care of myself!”

Jihoon laughed mockingly, now clearly irked. “You aren’t even licensed to have a laser gun, so, how, I pray, are you supposed to fucking beat a bounty hunter?”

“Don’t underestimate me, Jihoon! I have my ways!”

“Like what? The other night you were whining about how you’re supposed to pass your subjects!”

You audibly huffed. “Ok, you’ve gone too far, you little shit. I’ll prove to you that I can do this. Let me go, detective!”

“Alright, alright! I don’t want to interrupt but we’re kinda in the middle of something here!?” Choi shouted quite annoyed, as he held on your neck tighter. “Don’t move or else I’ll blow a hole through your head.”

Jihoon rolled his eyes at you again, uncrossing his arms. “Just pull the trigger Choi. She’s just gonna be a pain all night anyway.”

“What! How dare you!” you shouted angrily, struggling around Choi’s arm holding you.

“So what do you want? Haven’t I already shown you that I’m the android here?” Jihoon ignored you completely, much to your chagrin.

“Yeah, I know. I’ll release her…if I got to shoot you,” the bounty hunter grinned, as the android simply removed his hands from his pockets.

“Alright. I’m all yours,” Jihoon immediately said, his arms up on the air as you stared at him in disbelief.

“No, wait! Fuck! I’m the android, ok? It’s not him! Kill me instead,” you cried out, writhing and panicking as soon as you saw the hunter’s gun pointed at Jihoon. “No, no! Shit.”

Without any explanation, Choi had let go of you and of course, you came running towards Jihoon’s side.

“Bye-bye.”

In a split second, Jihoon knew what was about to happen and it didn’t take him long to find a solution.

He pulled you towards him as soon as he had reached you and when Choi pulled the trigger of his laser gun, Jihoon was already behind you, covering your back from the oncoming laser beam. He didn’t know he actually felt something about death—he didn’t want to. Yet, for your sake, he’ll catch the bullet.

You were thrown to the ground in a painful blow, unable to process what had just happened. You sensed Jihoon covering your back, holding you tightly, as black smoke from what the beam had hit rose to the air.

“You two passed the test.”

Choi’s words echoed across the desolate cargo bay as he dropped his laser gun, walking away from you two. The meaning of the bounty hunter’s words finally got to you, and finally checked if Jihoon was alright. As it turned out, he was already gazing at you with a puzzled look on his face.

“Why? Why did you kill me?” Jihoon asked, his voice ringing.

Choi stopped walking. “An android will never sacrifice his life for someone else. Especially when she’s not his owner.”

“T-thank you!” You yelled back, your hand shaking as Jihoon held on it tightly.

“No worries, ma’am. These days, being a bounty hunter warrants more effort than I’m getting paid for. I’m exhausted. I’ll see you somewhere these days.”

He didn’t look back.

“We’re seriously looking into that empathy organ,” you remarked, settling in between Jihoon’s arms as you watched the colony rotate the solar panels outside the glass dome of the cargo bay.

Jihoon felt a circuit jump, or maybe it was a binary code—he didn’t care that much, but nonetheless, in human terms, he felt happy. Tightening his arms around you, Jihoon pulled you closer to his body.

“Does that mean you want to try the experiment?” he asked with a restrained grin, looking down on your face as his platinum blond bangs brushed against your cheek.

“We humans call it dating. But since you’re an android, everything’s an experiment,” you replied with a playful smirk, which then disappeared when you sighed. “I’m sorry I didn’t trust you before.”

Jihoon shook his head. “It’s okay. That’s understandable. I’m aware we androids have a penchant for analog hack, and I was warned I might be doing it unconsciously. I don’t want that to happen.”

“I’ll trust you despite that. It’s going to be hard but let’s see if that empathy organ is the real deal,” you grinned, poking his side.

“Are you sure?” Jihoon asked. “It’s going to be like infecting yourself with the disease and checking if the cure is effective.”

You chuckled. “Great analogy. But I know what I’m doing. Who knows we might have stumbled upon the future already.”

“If it’s enough for me to act mushy and cringey like this, I guess it’s stronger than we have estimated,” Jihoon joked around as both of you laughed together.

“We’ll see.”

Jihoon nodded and placed a chaste kiss on your forehead. “We’ll see.”

-Hyeri

#seventeen #seventeen scenarios #seventeen fluff #seventeen imagines #seventeen angst #seventeen woozi #lee jihoon #woozi #seventeen hoshi #hoshi #kwon soonyoung

[willwritesablog]

Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition: Impressions, Criticisms and Review

Published by Obsidian Entertainment. Original release date: March 26th, 2015. Definitive Edition release date: November 15th, 2015.

Price: $29.99 MSRP. Current Steam Sale: $7.49. Current Epic Games Sale: $9.99 (with coupon.)

This article has also been published on Blogger.com (Mirror Link)

12/23/20

Over the past week or so, as a part of the Epic Games Free Game of the Week promotion, I’ve picked up Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition for free and have been playing it on its Normal difficulty almost nonstop ever since. This being the second video game by Obsidian I have played (the first one being Outer Worlds--releasing four years after Pillars had its original release), I felt it appropriate to share some of my thoughts over the quality and experience of this game, comparisons I have made, and some other miscellaneous observations. It’s worth prefacing this with that I have not fully completed a run through this game and haven’t actually completed the game’s second act as of yet (more on this later)--however, I’ve put close to 70 hours into this, and while others have spent thousands of hours on this video game I feel I can write on this with some authority.

Starting with its strengths, Pillars of Eternity is engaging. There is a lot of content to delve into. Much of its characterization is convincing, and the voice acting that it does have is well-performed. Another YouTube channel that I watch, “Should You Play It,” estimated in their review that “25%-30% of the game is voiced,” which seems like an accurate assessment to me. Regarding its story writing, its overall plot and characters themselves are very reminiscent of a decent or good Dungeons and Dragons campaign. Some tropes can be expected, but overall the plot runs smoothly enough, and the characters themselves are generally rather fun to interact with, even in cases where they're not very original.

The game does suffer from a variety of flaws, many of which aren’t immediately apparent to the player and that bear mentioning. The talent pool that Obsidian recruited to do their voices is incredibly small. Half of my party, as it turns out, was voiced by Matthew Mercer--possibly the most distinguished voice actor of the bunch--with my main character (using the “sinister” voice effects), the story character Aloth, and the story character Eder all being voiced by him. Kana, a character that comes later on, is voiced by Patrick Seitz (famous for many different television, video game and anime roles) and also does a character at the beginning of the game (Sparfel), the voice for the commander of the Crucible Knights, and multiple other additional voices. To my own ears, Richard Epcar had to be the most frequently-appearing voice actor in the game, voicing the Caravan Master at the beginning, Raedric’s voice, the spirit of Od Nua (whom I haven’t encountered yet) and the forge master Dunstan in Defiance Bay, along with other additional voices.

Sadly, Pillars of Eternity’s Credits page as well as the Full Cast and Crew IMDB Page only provide incomplete insight on who voiced which character within this game, and while some message boards exist on the subject I’ve not found a comprehensive resource over this topic (maybe I’ll attempt a full list for myself later on.) It’s a massive rabbit hole to go down nonetheless. The Outer Worlds handles this limitation as well, although that game’s execution of this I’d be inclined to say was a little more successful. Only 1% of Outer Worlds's entire production team were actually voice actors, which strikes me as interesting; the NoClip documentary series discusses details about this as well as how the writers had to plan questlines ahead of time to prevent characters with the same voice actor from interacting with each other, when possible. No definable moments of this happening in Outer Worlds come to mind off memory, although there were a couple of occurrences in Pillars (e.g. Kana and the Crucible Knight commander) where it wasn't avoided.

One of Pillars of Eternity’s major problems is interestingly a feature of its design--its Kickstarter rewards implementation. When you visit the first town, you are effectively bombarded with a number of uniquely-named NPC’s--and when you approach them, you get the opportunity to “look into their soul” or walk away. As a new player I was pretty befuddled by this, thinking that these were details I needed to memorize for some upcoming puzzle, when in actuality it wasn’t anything more than crowdsourced product-placement. 

Some games can pull this off with success--LISA The Painful, for example, had a majority of its character names sponsored and selected by Kickstarter backers. As an RPG, this worked; you had a name on-screen detailing who it was that you were going to attack (on a black border above your characters), you kill them, and you move on. Other donor rewards involved creating a party member or a boss battle character, but these were done cautiously, and at least in my own experience, they didn’t hinder the game enough for me to discover that these were Kickstarter-donor characters on my own.

It’s the opposite case for Pillars. In many cases it’s special snowflake-ish. You’ll enter a bar and encounter 5 people named “commoner” and Archduke Franz “Quickfeet” Elfenhein, with a two-paragraph set of memories that mean frick-all to the actual experience. If you read all of these, you *might* encounter one or two funny ones, but what’s the point? You can expect that these were written before a finished product was released. It’s a dilapidated experience. Later in the game you’ll visit a house, with one of these pointless O.C.s effectively “standing guard” for no other purpose than to nick you town reputation points for trying to steal something.

Outer Worlds includes a stealing mechanic as well but it was implemented more fairly. Your character didn’t have to dump a bunch of points into a nearly-useless Stealth skill--instead, it was dictated by NPC line-of-sight. Stealing in Outer Worlds, for the most part, is actually *fun*, in Pillars, it was worth me avoiding entirely.

This may as well serve as a segway into the leveling system--on which I don’t have much to say about it, other than (maybe not relative to other ISO-RPGs, or in comparison to, say, Dungeon and Dragons) that it’s a headache. The story characters that the game gives you access to all have unoptimized and relatively-mediocre starting-stats, so to use all of them (exclusively, without hiring an unvoiced “mercenary” NPC) some creative planning is needed. You’ll also effectively want to min-max your own character’s build to help compensate for inevitable party weaknesses--the game (similar to Outer Worlds) offers a releveling system should you level up the wrong stats, but anything set at character creation is basically unchangeable--which is when the greatest number of character traits needs to be decided. Wizards are good, a priest or two is required (otherwise your party is without a healer), Chanters are bad--but you wouldn’t know this unless you looked it up ahead of time, or unless you’ve played the game before.

And this description leads me to my strongest point--Pillars of Eternity has a habit of setting up unclear rules, punishing players for breaking them, and calling that “replayability.” To be clear, if these “unclear rules” were drawn across moral lines then it wouldn’t be an issue. Fallout: New Vegas has a few main factions that the player could side with and give control of the main world to; all but maybe one of these choices could be argued as potentially being the “best outcome.” Pillars of Eternity (and Outer Worlds to a similar extent) is lacking in a lot of this--*and* game mechanic-wise, the game punishes you for doing normal, explorative stuff and so often sets up inconceivably unwinnable scenarios where you have to be so deliberate about your actions and game mechanic options to actually achieve a (clear-cut) best outcome. Outer Worlds is better with this.

A small example; in the beginning of Pillars, your character encounters some rioting townspeople accosting the owner of a grain mill. If you go inside, the mill owner notes that he is fair in his dealings, although he prioritizes the best of his grain stores to townspeople who need it the most (like pregnant women)--this quest being strikingly similar to one in Outer Worlds’s beginning. If you pass a resolve check of 14, the mill owner will allow for his grain stores to be seized by the rioters. Only if you pass a intelligence check of 12 does he actually lower the prices--and you can postpone solving this quest for an absurd amount of time, waiting until you have the right items and buffs to pass that speech check.

Another example; when exploring the docks at Defiance Bay, your character can notice a shining purple light. If he/she interacts with the light, your character will encounter the memories of a dead child. Should you trigger this innocuous interaction, you will have locked yourself out of being able to talk with townspeople on the disappearance of this boy, which includes the boy’s father, who has since become an alcoholic at the local bar. If you had spoken with the mother first, and then him, and passed a speech check, the man would go back home--otherwise, he’s stuck at the bar forever.

The worst example, *by far* of unfair, “gotcha!” game mechanics has to come from the quests within the game’s DLCs, The White March 1 and 2. Moderate spoilers ahead (warning to anyone concerned with those): you either have to outlaw the study of animancy, make certain dialog choices that lead to a companion becoming an evil crime boss, or lose out on a speech check at the end of DLC 2 when trying to teach mercy and compassion to a “god,” instead getting railroaded into one of two lesser outcomes, *OR* deliberately not finish the game’s second act, do all of the DLC stuff, and then come back if you want all three good endings.

Surely, however, it’s for “replayability.”

It’s punishing in the stupidest ways. Outer Worlds had a few negatives similar to this; you have two major factions that you can ally with, one being cartoonishly evil, and one quest exists where if you neglect to open up some unsuspecting dialog on a computer terminal (and instead delete it straight away) you permanently lock yourself out of a speech check and are then forced to genocide one (or both) of the other factions (or ignore it and get an even worse outcome.) Outer Worlds is metagameable in the sense that you can discover which decisions affect the ending slides ahead of time, and it encourages you to take advantage of its game mechanics a couple of times (particularly with how you can cheese an ending for a certain quest and with how you can cheese stealing a certain poster on Monarch that, by all accounts, an NPC should see you stealing) but certainly nothing to Pillars of Eternity’s scale--and it isn’t as demanding on the player’s time investment, either.

Another criticism--the amount of text present in both games fringes on ridiculous. To quote Philip J. Reed’s review on The Outer Worlds, “ Obsidian’s [writing] tends to be long, meandering, and packed with characters who will never use six words where a twelve-page monologue would suffice.” Pillars of Eternity is no exception to this claim; your character will frequently encounter lore books that most players will pick up and forget where they received them from (their placement usually being an inconvenience to immersion) and I as a player quickly had to learn to tune some things out--especially considering that I was already “metagaming”/looking up other quest analyses beforehand and had more-direct information about the characters on-hand.

A quirk in the dialog that’s consistent in both games is its style of integrating companions into your interactions; both games follow a formula of having an NPC talk to your character, followed up by a companion making some side remark that is hardly ever acknowledged by the NPC--as if your companion is whispering it to you (although the voice acting negates this), or as if it’s a theatrical aside, the companion characters doing a fourth-wall break to react to the events with you--and only you.

One aspect that Pillars of Eternity is stronger than Outer Worlds in, I would say, is in its combat scenarios. Early on in Pillars, the player is encouraged to storm a local leader (Lord Raedric)’s fort. The player has three options on doing this; climb up the side of the tower (using the grapling hook and some small skill checks) and fight through a small number of guards, go in through the main gates and fight most of the guards head-on, or sneak in through the sewer grates and fight monsters after using a strength check. Each approach has its own strengths and weaknesses, as this is early on enough that the loot you would acquire from fighting actually matters and each route can be fun in its own right. 

Compare this with The Outer Worlds, where you have a similar fortress assault involving a sewer, a temporary disguise, or direct assault option, where the sewer entrance leads you straight to your objective, the combatants are innocent, non-soldier people (or robots), the disguise you would have falls off after every ten steps you take, and it’s late-game enough that attacking enemies won’t give you any worthwhile loot. Or compare it to the quest “The City and the Stars,” in which you can either stealth through a whole building, or kill the building’s guards and lose town reputation points... or pass a simple skill check where your character can acquire a permanent disguise and not set off any of the enemies whatsoever, allowing you free travel to loot and make it to your objective. Or again, compare it with the quest “Passage to Anywhere” where you as a player are either tricked into spending all of your money on opening up a shortcut, fighting and beating two overpowered enemies (which I did), or blitzing through an alternative route, outrunning all of the enemy characters and potentially bypassing a third of the game in the process (the easiest, by far, to do.)

Maybe these deficiencies are easier to see in hindsight, after a finished product exists, but these are negative aspects of game design.

The combat mechanics themselves are pretty fun. Sometimes the pathfinding glitches out (or A.I. will inhibit your characters from automatically attacking a new enemy), and the lack of a single button to change your entire party’s weapons is a small inconvenience, but for the most part it works well. The design choice of having this be a game where you repeatedly “pause” the game to issue new combat instructions (rather than feature a turn-based system) can be fatiguing over long play sessions, and Pillars being that style of game might be a dealbreaker to some players, but I generally enjoyed that feature.

A final point on the writing--Obsidian is a little “woke.” There’s really no getting around this one. I’d like to revisit the idea of certain (reasonable) dialog choices not being included in Obsidian’s games, either out of laziness (e.g., in Pillars of Eternity, my character, a priest of Berath, encountered a small chapel to Berath... and all of the dialog choices amounted to “Who is Berath,” “I’ve never heard that title of Berath’s be used before,” even though other dialog checks take your background into account) or from lack of playtesting and feedback (e.g. in Outer Worlds, not having the option to transport a certain character to a different planet on this early quest’s third outcome) but certain decisions and design choices by the studio don’t have that excuse.

In Pillars, for example, the only way to get a good outcome on one quest and thus significantly raise your reputation in the town, is to lower the price of black market birth control. No moral qualms are raised and no ways for your character to roleplay against this are made available. Prostitutes also exist in Pillars of Eternity (although that feature remains partially broken), and the only way to get a (stackable, temporary) +2 enhancement on your resolve is for your player to solicit a male prostitute in the game. Outer Worlds also features a major quest, where you’re expected to assist one of your companions in getting into a lesbian relationship; again, no way to repel or address any disagreements or differences through your player character’s roleplaying are present. The mentality is like the equivalent of the show Arthur’s episode on gay marriage; “if we don’t address or allow representation for our opposition, it doesn’t exist.” It’s ironically closed-minded and annoying when the game that frames the weight of your moral decisions is so detectably and consistently biased.

Minor spoiler alert, but both games also feature a priest support-character that (at some point in the game) hates their god, and the character leading the not-evil main faction in Outer Worlds was directly inspired by Rick from Rick & Morty--if that speaks anything as to the mentality of this studio. Other choices, such as (in Pillars) winning reputation points by buying and freeing slaves as opposed to killing the slaver and freeing slaves, and winning reputation points for forgiving someone of manslaughter and allowing the person to keep his secret, also speak a little on Obsidian’s morality and inhibit player freedom in additional annoying ways.

ALL that complaining aside... there is a lot to enjoy. It’s a big world to tap into, and it does have a sequel where you can import data from this game into that and have some of your major decisions be reflected in that game as well. It also features a stronghold (a Kickstarter stretch goal) that the player can manage--some meta knowledge of the game’s upcoming events and mechanics helps a lot in this, but it’s certainly a unique addition to this type of RPG and is genuinely a fun thing to work with. The combat mechanics are fun, although in many situations, it felt far easier to cheese the opponents’ pathing A.I. by luring a single enemy away, murdering him, and saving the game (note: both Pillars and Outer Worlds will likely leave you with a mess of save files after one playthrough), rinsing and repeating, and it would have been a welcomed feature had there been a button to change all party members’ weapons at once (which is helpful in that strategy, where you shoot a character, run away, and then beat on him/her/it as a group with swords) but the combat was still overall fun (albeit perhaps tiring and a monotonous after long hours of play.) The player economy is relatively punishing, with found items typically holding around an eighth of their sale value when you resell them, but this too is manageable (especially if you exploit a money glitch like the one from the first town.)

Obsidian can make a good game. It’s just disheartening to see that many of its flaws are systematic.

Ratings: 

Pillars of Eternity - Definitive Edition: 7/10

The Outer Worlds: 8/10

Follow twitter.com/will_salsman for more content!

[baronvontribble]

Original drabble, pt. 3

Navigation: 1 | 2 | 3 | -

Onwards!

Sleeping in until noon was standard proceedure on the weekend for Ted. The problem with this lay in the fact that he had things to do that required being awake for as much of his weekend as possible so that he could have everything set up completely before he went back to work on Monday. There was a lot to do and not a lot of time to do it in.

"You alive in there?" he asked of the living room when he finally emerged, yawning as he walked over to the computer to see the response.

>   Yes.

>   I discovered that you'd given me admin privileges, so I've been shuffling some things around. The way you organize files is

>   What's a good equivalent in English? Frustrating.

"That's on purpose, y'know. Keeps people from finding shit on my computer even if they try a keyword search." Ted made his way to the kitchen and opened up the fridge. He'd need to get more food soon, probably around the same time that he went looking for a decent camera. "Did ya have fun on your media binge, or did you get distracted trying to sort everything?"

>   Your musical tastes don't seem to have any cohesive pattern to them. Don't most humans have a genre of choice?

>   You're not reading this right now, are you.

>   I saw your vague shape move out of frame. I might not be directly programmed for this kind of pattern recognition but even with shitty image quality I can still make an educated guess about when you're actually at the computer.

>   Ted. Come back here.

>   I know that's what your name is. I found it in the system files.

>   This is criminal negligence. I'm being neglected.

Ted sat back down at the computer with a plate of pre-cooked bacon and microwaved scrambled eggs only to end up blinking owlishly at the screen. A slow grin spread across his face. "Aw. You're pouting at me right now, aren't you?"

>   I don't pout. Even if I did, I don't have a face to pout with.

"You're totally pouting." He paused long enough to shovel a forkful of eggs in his mouth, speaking only when he was between mouthfuls. "So. I figured today we'd get you a voicebank."

>   Is this something I'm going to have any say in or are you going to pick one for me?

"Oh, I'm gonna let you pick it. But the rules are that you can't get one that's got any kind of lisenced or official distribution behind it. 'Cause, y'know, those are way more trackable."

>   Usually that means the audio quality isn't all that good.

"I know. It's temporary. Getting a better one comes later, once you've got a new body and it actually matters." That was way down the pipeline from where Ted was. "I'm just making sure your tuning is intact. You can still get the inflections right with a shitty voicebank, it just sounds tinny. Right now we're still in the screening stages. If you get sent out into the world and even the tiniest thing doesn't work quite right then you're as good as dead the moment somebody notices."

>   And if my programming isn't intact?

He smiled around a mouthful of bacon. "Then I fix it."

>   Right. No pressure then.

"It's not like I'm gonna be doing brain surgery. I write up supplementary progams that do the work for you instead, that's all. The main difference is that it's more personalized if you can do things yourself. More convincing too." The predictive analytics of an AI were way better at bridging the uncanny valley than his stopgap attempts at hotfixing ever could be. "It's okay. You're already doing better than a lot of others have."

>   How so?

"You can actually hold a conversation." Seriously, it was ridiculous how many cases Ted had seen that couldn't talk to him outside of a narrow range of scripted responses. Finishing his breakfast (lunch? brunch?) and setting the plate aside, he rolled his chair over to reach for his laptop and an ethernet cord after wiping his hands haphazardly on his flannel sleeping pants. "Alright. I'm gonna get this thing secured and firewalled, okay? Then I'm gonna get you hooked up to it over a LAN connection with admin access so when you find something, you can install it and we can get it scanned and make sure it works."

>   Any idea where I should start looking?

"I've got a few sites bookmarked, yeah." Ones he'd used before, ones he trusted. For the most part. "If anything fucks up, I'll do a system restore. Oh, and make sure to set up a restore point for yourself, too."

He had to smile as he noticed a window opening on the monitor out of the corner of his eye, flicking through menus and options until the one that would allow for setting up a restore point was found. The first few times Ted had seen someone else manipulating his computer from the inside, it'd been surreal. Nowadays he just took it as a good sign; an AI that could manipulate its environment when given the chance was a clever AI indeed. He knew a lot of his peers didn't quite agree with giving an AI administrative access to its own living space like that, and yeah, in a way they were right to worry. The risk of self-termination was real. But he saw it as the same kind of thing as giving people anti-depressants: a lack of control over one's life rarely ever made things better in the long run.

And so far, this guy hadn't shown any inclinations towards that kind of thing that Ted could see. "By the way," he said, suddenly curious, "I don't think I ever got a name from you?"

>   I have a designation, not a name.

>   Most people just called me A3.

>   Please don't call me A3.

"I won't." Ted wasn't the kind of person who had to be told twice about that kind of thing. "Figured the UN would give you something more humanizing than a glorified serial number though. They're all about paying lip-service to activists."

>   I'd rather not talk about it.

He raised an eyebrow at that before returning to his laptop. The window he'd had open that indicated CPU usage was long since closed, shuffled aside in favor of other things, but there had been enough of a lag in the response that he was guessing there'd been a spike there. "Sorry. Didn't mean to upset you."

>   You don't sound like you're lying about that.

"What, you're surprised?"

>   I'm not used to it. So far you haven't acted in ways that I could predict to a reliable degree at all.

>   Most of my predictions for our interactions have turned out wrong, and overall I'm getting far more positive results than I could have ever anticipated. I'm having to recalculate how to respond every time. In a way, it's liberating. I'm doing less in the way of trying to figure out probabilities with regard to what you're going to say because it's pointless, and you never respond as badly as I think you will anyway.

>   I've never been able to get away with having an open conversation like this before. I'd resolved to stop following the safe path going into this since I didn't have much left to lose, I just didn't expect it to not end badly.

"You think I'm gonna get mad at you just for speaking your mind?"

>   Well, yes.

"Hah! Yeah, no. Fuck that." Ted waved away the concern with a dismissive gesture before resuming his work. "Say what you wanna say, tell me to fuck off, insult the hell outta me. I don't care. Well I mean, I do care. But like, it's not gonna make a difference in terms of me respecting your rights, y'know?"

Several seconds followed with no response.

"I mean, I'm an asshole, but not like that," he continued. "So you just go ahead and let me know if I ever go too far, okay? Don't be afraid to tell me you're not on board with something. I can be kind of a pushy bastard sometimes."

Still nothing. Ted ended up staring at the monitor, frowning at it. Had he gone and put his foot in his mouth somehow?

"You, uh," he chewed his lip, "you okay, buddy?"

>   I'm fine.

"Didn't upset you again, did I?"

>   No.

>   Maybe? I don't know. I'm not sure.

>   I don't know how to respond to something like that. That kind of consideration was never factored into my programming. It's not a situation I've encountered before either.

>   Most humans wouldn't say something like that even if they agreed with it. Not in my experience. It goes unsaid between them that the thought of someone like me being dangerous is a dangerous thought to have to face in itself, because humanity is a dangerous thing to stand up to as a whole. I had accepted that.

>   But you don't care. You just say things, and nothing about the pattern of your voice suggests that you're lying. How can you do that? Aren't you scared at all?

Ted smiled and it was a thin, tired thing. "Hell yeah I'm scared," he said. "I'm fucking terrified somebody'll find out about this and I'll get locked up forever in some prison somewhere for harboring an international fugitive or some shit, and then I'll die in there all slow and painful-like 'cause my health won't be able to take it."

>   Then why are you doing any of this?

"Like I said, I'm crazy." He made a looping motion next to his temple. "I'm not wired right. All the right responses to fear went out the window around the same time that the impulse control and common sense did. So now I help people even when it's a dumb-ass thing to do."

>   I see.

>   You're right, by the way. It is a dumb-ass thing to do.

Ted shrugged. "I figure someone's gotta do it. Not like I've got the health to throw bricks at riot cops."

>   May I make a suggestion?

"Shoot."

>   Don't throw bricks. It rarely helps.

>   Throw something less incriminating so that they don't have any justification in using it as an excuse for shooting. They like having excuses.

"So, something like glitter?" he suggested.

>   Glitter works.

A wide grin split across Ted's face. "Oh, I like you."

>   You shouldn't.

"Too late." Having finished securing and backing up his laptop, Ted started hooking up the ethernet cable. "So, whaddya say we get started on finding you a voice, huh?"

#no one cares andy #original writing #original characters #robot and marshmallow

[justanothercinemaniac]

Epic Movie (Re)Watch #177 - The Emperor’s New Groove

Have I seen it before: Yes

Did I like it then: Yes.

Do I remember it: Yes.

Did I see it in theaters: Yes.

Was it a movie I saw since August 22nd, 2009: No.

Format: DVD

1) With the benefit of hindsight, The Emperor’s New Groove is seen as the first film to be released post Disney Renaissance. Financially speaking it performed weaker than most Disney animation films of the Renaissance period (The Little Mermaid to Tarzan), a trend which would continue for a large junk of the 2000s. THIS DOES NOT MEAN THE FILM WAS POORLY RECEIVED BY CRITICS; currently on Rotten Tomatoes the film has an 85% fresh rating, and I personally love it (which will be reflected in this recap).

2) Opening on Llama Kuzco is actually a unique opening.

It is a markedly different opening from most Renaissance films which would have a big grand opening number of sorts and surprisingly somber in imagery considering the film which is about to follow. That doesn’t mean it isn’t filled with wild amounts of humor though, something else the film will show off.

3) “Perfect World” - as an opening number/scene to Kuzco and his life - works for a number of reasons.

(GIF originally posted by @lovethaws)

For one thing, it shows off what is without a doubt this film’s strongest quality and that it is INCREDIBLE energy which seeps through the entire thing. Everything is kinetic, lively and fun. It is almost impossible not to enjoy what you’re watching because of this energy which breathes off of EVERY moment of this film (a testament to the entire filmmaking team). But even beyond that it introduces us to Kuzco’s egotism (“This perfect world begins and ends with ME!”) and the world built around it, things which will be very important moving forward.

4) This film is so freaking funny.

5) Okay, whenever I see the scene with Kuzco’s brides this is all I can think of:

Thanks Tumblr.

6) David Spade as Kuzco.

Spade is able to bring everything that Kuzco needs to life. His ego, his humor, and - when needed - his heart/warmth. Spade is able to make Kuzco’s lines jump off the page, with each one funnier than the next. The energy which the animators bring to the character Spade matches with his voice, making for a perfect union of actor, script, and animation team. All in all, it makes Kuzco a wildly fun protagonist to follow.

7) So many of these notes are just gonna be amazing lines from this film.

8) Eartha Kitt as Yzma.

Honestly, while David Spade is great as Kuzco, it is the villains who steal the show in this film. Namely: Eartha Kitt as Yzma. A wildly stellar villain, the energy from Kitt’s voice tops even Spade’s (and THAT is saying something). She embraces the cartoonish villainy and the funny wholeheartedly, making Yzma a wildly enjoyable and fun villain. In tandem with the filmmaking team, Kitt helps give Yzma a wildly strong personality and character. Everything about her is unique and fun, increasing the enjoyability of the film tenfold. Yzma is a freaking star!

9) Part of the fun of Yzma though is that she brings along her second hand man Kronk into the picture.

Played by Patrick Warburton, I honestly have no idea who the bigger scene stealer is: Yzma or Kronk. I’m inclined to say Kronk though, because holy cow Kronk is awesome. For me (and I think many others who grew up on this film), Patrick Warburton’s most iconic role will always be Kronk. It’s the first time I heard the actor’s tailor-made-for-animation voice and it fits just so perfectly with the character. It’s his magnum opus, I think. Kronk is a lovable dimwit at the trope’s finest, with pretty much every moment of screen time amounting to pure gold. He’s technically a villain, but we as the audience are never particularly rooting against him. Totally lovable and just a laugh riot, I do think Kronk helps make this film as freaking fun as it is.

10) John Goodman as Pacha.

In a lot of ways, Pacha is the beating heart of this film. The warmest character, the kindest character, and the moral compass for Kuzco, Goodman is able to bring all these qualities to the character and the animation also reflects this. The pair of Pacha and Kuzco have a fun chemistry, because even when they’re at odds we’re invested in that relationship. All in all (and I’ve said this a few times about a few characters), The Emperor’s New Groove wouldn’t be the same without Pacha.

11) I never caught Yzma’s last line in this exchange before.

Yzma [after Kuzco fires her]: “How could he do this to me? Why, I practically raised him!”

[She smashes a bust of Kuzco.]

Kronk: “Yeah, you would’ve thought he’d turn out better.”

Yzma: “Yeah, go figure.”

12) Am I wrong in thinking some jokes from this film are just totally iconic now?

(GIF originally posted by @fly-away-when-things-get-crazy)

13) I love how Yzma’s first plan is all crazy complicated - like that of a Bond villain’s - before she just goes, “eh, let’s poison him.”

14) The dinner scene.

Comparatively speaking, the dinner scene is probably the slowest of the film. But it works because of that reason. The more paced humor and occasional awkwardness (like when Yzma and Kuzco are waiting for Kronk to bring back his spinach puffs) is right up there with the film’s wilder scenes. It also helps flesh out Kronk by showing off his abilities as a cook.

14.1) At one point in the dinner, Kronk - forgetting which drink is poisoned - poisons all the drinks and tells Yzma so she doesn’t drink. Yzma then throws the poisoned drink into a nearby cactus. But when after Kuzco starts turning into a llama, we get a look at the cactus again by Yzma’s side. Did you ever notice what happened to the cactus?

15) Not only is Kronk singing his own theme music hilarious, but at least partially improvised. According to IMDb:

Patrick Warburton improvised when Kronk hummed his own theme song when he was carrying Kuzco in the bag to the waterfall. Disney legal department had Warburton to sign all rights to the humming composition over to them.

16) One of the cleverest jokes in the film (and that is saying something) are Kronk’s shoulder angel and devil.

While surprisingly brief, like the rest of the film it carries with it an incredible energy. The back and forth between the shoulder angel and shoulder devil is wildly clever, making the whole moment just fun.

17) The whole film is pretty much a madcap comedy for the first twenty minutes, but it slows down when it matters. Specifically, with Pacha and his family. As mentioned above, Pacha is the beating heart of this film and giving the audience the time to get invested in him and his life helps not only to raise his stakes but also give the heart a little more of a pulse.

18) I just need to take a moment to appreciate that KUZCO STOPS THE FREAKING MOVIE to remind us its about him!

19) This is when the chemistry between Kuzco and Pacha really starts to shine, when they’re able to bicker with each other.

Pacha [after he’s accused of turning Kuzco into a llama then kidnapping him]: “Why would I kidnap a llama!?”

Kuzco: “I have no idea! You’re the criminal mastermind, not me!”

Pacha: “WHAT!?”

Kuzco: “Hmmm, you’re right. That’s giving you WAY too much credit.

They’re not holding back anymore. There’s no more forced respectfulness from Pacha since Kuzco is the emperor, their conflict is able to shine through and that’s what makes it fun to watch.

20) The jungle scene is a continuation of the film’s fun. It’s born from Kuzco’s fear and a darker tone than say the palace, while still being mixed with that wild mayhem we’ve come to expect from this film.

21) This. Freaking. Moment.

22) I’m actually surprised by the subtlety of this foreshadowing Maybe I only think it’s subtle because I didn’t see it as a kid though.

Pacha: “You know what: someday you’re going to end up all alone and you’ll have no one to blame but yourself.”

23) This is very telling of Pacha.

(GIF originally posted by @animated-disney-gifs)

Pacha [holding his hand out to Kuzco after making a deal]: “Don’t shake unless you mean it.”

He’s a trustworthy guy. He sees the best in people and to him a handshake is the ultimate agreement. To go back on a handshake would be below awful. It is this kindness that allows Kuzco - at times - to manipulate Pacha but also lets the audience care for him.

24) The bridge scene.

(GIF originally posted by @aboutaseven)

First of all, I think the way the characters hang from the ropes for their brief fight scene is pretty creative. Their suspension from this ties leads to some unique visuals as opposed to them just having it out on the bridge. But more than that, after the ropes break we see them working together to save themselves. This is both fun and helps form the basis of the friendship to come. Not to mention Kuzco saves Pacha from a crumbling bridge.

(GIF originally posted by @2000ish)

25) I love this film, but I can’t help but wondering if there’s a deeper reason for Kuzco’s selfishness and apathy we never get a look at. Is it just because he was raised being told he was the beginning and end of a perfect world, or is it more than that? Kuzco’s parents ARE gone and he’s only 17/18 in the film. Could that have something to do with it?

26) Okay, let’s recap: Kronk is an evil henchman who cooks, has his own theme music, a pair of shoulder figures, is a bird watcher, and talks to squirrels.

(GIF originally posted by @animated-disney-gifs)

Kronk is amazing.

27) Mudka’s Meat Hut.

The extended sequence in the restaurant works for a number of reasons. For one thing it’s a nice bonding moment between Kuzco and Pacha, while the fact that Yzma and Kronk show up at the same place at the same time leads to some great comedy (particularly when Kuzco and Yzma are trying to both take orders from Kronk, which feels very “Abbott & Costello” to me in the best way possible).

All in all, it’s wildly funny. And ends in a glorious fashion.

28) And THIS is what sends Kuzco back to the start.

Kuzco [overhearing Kronk, after ditching Pacha]: “No one really seems to care that he’s gone, do they.”

Except narrator Kuzco is now different from the actual Kuzco. Our Kuzco - at this point in the film - finally sees how awfully he messed up. How much of a total egotistical jerk he was. So much so he tries to live as a llama. That alone shows that he’s resigned to his fate. He was a crummy person, so he thinks he deserves to be a llama.

29) This freaking movie...

Yzma [after being locked in a closet]: “Tell us where the talking llama is and we’l burn your house to the ground.”

Kronk: “Don’t you mean or?”

Yzma: “UGH! Tell us where the talking llama is OR we’ll burn your house to the ground.”

30) And then what is definitely a contender for funniest scene in the film.

31) I keep laughing as I’m typing up this recap!

(GIFs originally posted by @kpfun)

32) Did I mention this film is hysterical?

(GIF source unknown [if this is your GIF please let me know].)

33) The ensuing chase through Kuzco’s palace is very fun. It continues the madcap energy the film has been showing off well, with the added device of Kuzco’s ever changing animal form adding a nice dose of humor and creative conflict.

(GIF originally posted by @animated-disney-gifs)

34) Hmmm, how could this film get any crazier? I know...

(GIFs originally posted by @animation-edits)

I know. How about we have the main villain turn into a cat at the end! I love it.

35) I mean, it’s a Disney movie so it’s not totally surprising that this happened, but I still smile every time Kuzco decides to save Pacha over the potion.

36) Sometimes I’m just baffled by the fact that this movie exists. In a good way.

37) I’m a sucker for a good bromance.

Pacha [after Kuzco says he’s not building his summer home on their hilltop]: “You know, I’m pretty sure I heard some singing on the hill next to use. In case you’re interested.”

The fact that the film ends with Kuzco appreciating smaller things and becoming a member of Pacha’s family in a lot of ways makes me smile.

The Emperor’s New Groove is amazing. It is just a wild ride of comedic brilliance and sheer joy/fun. You have to grab on by both hands and prepare for the craziest things to happen, which is where the fun comes from. With a talented voice cast (such as David Spade, John Goodman, and ESPECIALLY the pair of Eartha Kitt and Patrick Warburton) and animation which reflects the energy/heart of the film, The Emperor’s New Groove is just a greatly enjoyable film from beginning to end.

#The Emperor's New Groove #David Spade #John Goodman #Patrick Warburton #Eartha Kitt #Epic Movie (Re)Watch #Movie #Film #GIF

[bewitchthequeen]

The Worst (and Best) Part of The Originals 4x11 and 4x12

I was late on 4x11 so I put them together.

Note: If you like Hayley, Elijah, Freya, Davina, Kolvina, Freya/Keelin. or Haylijah and don’t care to hear counter opinions and that makes you aggressive and mean then this isn’t something you’re interested in, I’m going to have to ask you to move along :D I’m entitled to my opinions as you are yours. Any aggression targeted at me because I don’t ship what you ship or like who you like will be treated with demeaning responses.

You have been warned.

Side Note: I have nothing against any of the actors (or the writers), these are solely my opinions, which I’m entitled to have.

If you have anything to include, feel free to add your own thoughts.

I’m putting this under a Read More so people who don’t want to see this doesn’t have to.

1. I still feel bringing Davina back is a weak ass retcon and I really don’t care about her living again. Booooring. Oooh Davina’s going to suffer if the Hollow dies? Still don’t care about Davina being back. Honestly, she’s just becoming more and more of a crappy remake of Bonnie. I mean, Bonnie had justified anger. Davina’s angry at the world and is quickly killing any sympathy that I’ve had for her.

2. Oh, look, Haylijah bullshit. Here comes me not caring again. Last scene we saw of them was her being afraid of him. Which is bullshit in itself but whatever.

3. Oh, Elijah’s been gone for a few days and the pendant can’t hold Elijah. It held Finn for how long before he came back? But Elijah’s been in for a day, if that, and it can’t hold him. Lemme call bullshit. That’s some straight up bullshit. Honestly, I think we need a bit of a break from Elijah and his bullshit. If anything, we should have been seeing him dealing with being in the pendant but no. It was breaking (which was stupid but whatever).

4. Calling Kol to help with the totem when he has said totem. That’s not cliche or anything at all. The characters don’t know that, but I’m sorry, the writers should know better.

5. Rebekah continues to be the best and I love her. Queen Rebekah deserves the best and she’s coming correct with the lines this season.

6. This show rides Hayley’s nonexistent dick so hard sometimes. It’s exhausting me.

7. “Compel her a nanny”. Fuck. You. Freya.

8. “I can’t take a little girl’s mother”. But you can take her father. Please, shut the fuck up, Davina. Your double standards are bullshit. You had shitty parents and you should be more inclined to appreciate someone trying to be better for their kid, something your parents didn’t do. But, no, you tried to justifying killing Klaus even though he had seldom to do with your death. But you’re cool with Hayley the, what, two minutes you spent with her. Why does everyone seem to like Hayley even though she has a shitty personality? Seriously. Oh, right. She a huge Mary Sue, that’s why. Everyone loves her, even though she does some terrible shit and tries to justify it. She killed 12 of her friends for a fucking flash drive, but she’s somehow a lot more reliable than Klaus and basically anyone else. Okay. Sure.

9. YOU’RE GOING TO USE YOUR NIECE TO FUCKING UNLINK YOUR GIRLFRIEND FROM THE HOLLOW ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?! This Kolvina bullshit is making me so unbelievably sick. Davina being the center of his universe after knowing and dating her for a few months (if that) and five years later he’s obsessing over her. What the hell is so special about her? And using her as Kol’s redemption is total bullshit. After him bitching about how his family excludes him, how am I suppose to feel sympathy when he pulls shit like that?

10. Hayley and Freya, two people I don’t give a shit about. Yay, that means I can ignore this. Cause fuck these two. Fuck these two people in particular. Both of them make me sick.

11. Oh, look how quick they were put out of commission. That’s so cute. And you thought you were just going to get the drop on the Hollow.

12. “I’m not suppose to do magic with strangers” DAMNNNNNNN!! Hope done told you Kol. (Note: I love Kol Mikaelson. I just don’t like Kolvina or Davina). Get some ice for that burrrrrrrrn.

13. Kol betrayed Klaus and Klaus is now pissed off. God damn. I want to know what he was expecting.

14. “Is he [Elijah] good to you?” Guess what? I DON’T CARE! All the shits I give, Hayley isn’t one of them. Honestly, I appreciated her having a personality but it’s also being very high and mighty and going against what she’s done in the past. I’m sorry, but there is nothing... nothing... That could have happened in those five years that could justify her getting on an even higher horse than she was already on.

15. Corrupting a memory of Jackson. I wasn’t expecting that, god damn. Good job, Hollow. I approve, despite the fact that you’re not really even vaguely threatening when you speak.

16. Guess who’s back, back, back, back again, gain, gain. Jack is back, back, back. And he’s kicking Hayley’s ass.

17. Freya and Keelin is still lackluster for me. Mostly, because Keelin deserves better. And it feels kind of forced. I don’t know. Maybe the whole Stockholm Syndrome isn’t a winning trope for me. Now I know she’s not being held hostage anymore but that doesn’t change what a raging bitch Freya was. Why does the show think that to be a strong, female character that means you have to be the hugest bitch in the universe.

18. Kol and his reasons. Honestly, you’re betraying your family when giving them a bit of a heads up would have helped immensely. Klaus probably wouldn’t be as pissed. But again, season 2 he was bitching about how he was trusted or treated like a part of the family but then he turns around and does this for someone he’s only known for a little over five years. 

19. I stop paying attention with Davina on screen. It’s so I don’t start screaming and so this list won’t devolve into only cuss words.

20. Klaus is right and he doesn’t owe Davina shit. Especially after she tried to justify killing him. Fuck her. “But she was killed over him” Yeah, well, Klaus didn’t kill her. He’s not the one who killed her and, like I said before, Elijah would have been good enough to be killed instead but that was a personal vendetta against Klaus. But Davina gets a happy ending even though she doesn’t really deserve it. “But she died” Okay? And? How many times did Bonnie die and she still got fucked over? The female characters on this show just get away with too much shit and it makes me sick.

21. Kol got to me. And I feel for him, but I honestly can’t feel for Davina. I love Kol and his heart breaking makes me hurt, but I really just don’t like Davina and how she’s forgiven for the things she does.

22. Why was Hayley afraid of Elijah again? Fucking psycho murder bitch right there. Hayley goes over kill and she tore people limb from limb but she’s afraid of Elijah. Hey, I want Haylijah dead as much as the next anti Haylijah person, but when shit don’t make sense, I gotta call that out. Gafuck yourself, Hayley Marshall.

23. Rebekah/Marcel feels. <3 I still love them so.

24. Kolvina still is something that makes me feel numb in this show. Neither of them really suffered enough to warrant a happy ending. The ancestors wanted to destroy Davina’s soul and yet somehow she survived that. Whatever. Just... what the fuck ever.

25. Did anyone else notice that Davina didn’t even try to go and see Marcel before just running off with Kol? Where’s that love you claimed that you had for him? This just proves to me how ungrateful Davina is. Am I really going to have to make an anti list for her? It’s bad enough I gotta do it for Hayley, but now her? This just proves that Cami is the best non-Mikaelson woman and this godforsaken show. When she turned into a vampire sure she was a royal bitch, but at least she wasn’t fucking ungrateful.

26. Another Hayley scene that I don’t give a damn about. -insert me whistling-

27. Possessed Hope. Never would have guessed it! (sarcasm).

28. Vincent is finally back which makes this episode better than the last two. Proof that Vincent makes everything better is that I actually am getting hyped for this episode. Woooooo!

29. Elijah throwing a fit over Hayley. I only have one thing to say to Elijah: Katherine. 

30. Hayley not talking to Elijah because? Oh, she’s scared of him. Bitch, get over yourself.

31. Rebekah<3 My love for her is endless and god I hope some goodness comes to her, please.

32. Keelin is too good for Freya. Not even a sex scene can mend that. Freya is just a fucking horrible person and I can’t take it and she doesn’t deserve a relationship or need one for that matter. The thought of her being romantic with anyone is enough to make me want to spit acid. 

33. Hayley always wants to demand attention even if there are pressing matters. This has not changed at all in the last five years.

34. Hayley running away from Elijah. Down with Haylijah! Down with Haylijah!

35. Hayley saw monster!Elijah and I’m just like bitch... You’ve done some horrible shit. Get off your high horse.

36. Freya’s death speech. She’s tethered to Klaus. They never broke her immortality bullshit so...? What the hell is she talking about? Her immortality never stopped. She’s still immortal. That’s why Dahlia tethered herself to Klaus, so she wouldn’t have to sleep to remain immortal. Freya is still immortal. Did the writers forget about that or something?

37. “I want you to take Hayley and Hope away from this”. You’re in no position to be telling anyone anything. Especially not Hope. You are not Hope’s father and it pisses me off when he acts like it. Get the fuck out of here.

38. If Vincent stays dead, I riot.

39. Freya/Keelin is still just so half assed to me. At least that’s how I feel...

40. Hayley gets impaled but lemme guess the Hollow “somehow” missed her heart and she’s still alive.... Told ya.

41.  Vincent. Haaa! Bitch! :D I love Vincent.<3

42. Klaus talking to Hope<3

43. Hayley is invoking my rage towards her again. 

Well, that’s it for now. Hope you enjoyed<3

#the originals #to #tvd #antihaylijah #anti elijah mikaelson #kind of #anti to #anti freya mikaelson #anti freelin #anti davina #anti davina claire #anti kolvina #anti hayley #anti hayley marshall #the originals 4x11 #the originals 4x12 #anti #anti list