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m-y-fandoms · 1 year

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COMMISSION: TW - SDR2 Boys Stop You from Committing Suicide (comfort endings)

Some scenarios take place during the DR3//No Despair era at Hope’s Peak and some during the SDR2 island killing game. SDR2 SPOILERS INCLUDED

Word Count: 10K Words

TRIGGER Warnings: DO NOT READ IF YOU CAN’T HANDLE THESE TYPES OF SCENARIOS. All sections are angst or depressing but end with the character comforting or saving the reader and the reader’s plan isn’t successful. Self-harm and plans of suicide are discussed and detailed. Situations and objects like drowning, pills, guns, knives, poor mental health, and more are included. PLEASE KEEP IN MIND DANGANRONPA IS RATED M for 17+ and canonically includes themes of murder and suicide. You are responsible for the media you consume. Keep reading below with these warnings in mind if you so choose.

Hajime Hinata

It’d been days without food and you felt like you were officially going crazy. Apparently it wasn’t enough that you’d been forced to see your classmates die in the most painful, cruel ways, betray each other, lie, and scheme, now you had to starve on top of it all? You couldn’t take it anymore: the dryness of your mouth, the grumbling of your stomach. One thing right after another, days turned into weeks of misery, of despair even. But that was Monokuma’s goal all along. You barely ever left your cabin these days, fearing you’d see the worst side of one of your classmates in the form of a swift knife to the back as soon as you stepped out. You barely trusted anyone other than your best friend Hajime anymore. It was so hard to, when you’d trusted Mikan, the meek nurse, Peko, the intelligent and disciplined swordswoman, Nagito, the chill dude putting up an entire act to hide his craziness. Your cabin was always locked with you inside. You hated leaving, and now you were stuck in this damned funhouse, tricked here by that monsterous bear. You felt delirious: mental health declining, hands shaking, mind drifting.

You looked around your room - one of the average rooms in the funhouse’s living quarters - dimly lit like some villain’s secret hidden cave. Scattered around the floor were weapons you’d obtained as a reward for clearing the Final Dead Room, along with scraps of paper lined with scrawled plans and ideas. The ravings of a mad person it would likely seem to anyone else who viewed them.

Your plan seemed simple enough: Kill Nekomaru, make it obvious that it was you, get executed as the blackened and confess and insist, should it not be obvious enough. You wanted people to witness, to be convinced it was you so you could leave this wretched island forever. You felt like you were taking the coward’s way out, but you just couldn’t push yourself to do the job on your own. Maybe you were a coward, but you just wanted out, as soon as possible.

The plan was to make it as painless as as possible for the robot, if he even felt pain. That’s why you chose him as the victim in the first place. Honestly, it was adding to your rapidly plummeting downward mental spiral, the way your peers were treating Nekomaru. It was driving you fucking crazy. They acted as if it was just… normal. None of this was normal. Nekomaru was your friend, flesh and blood, and now he was just this… thing, this metal abomination. It’s not him in there, you’d repeat over and over like a mantra in your head when you saw the bot. It was disrespectful to his memory. Were you the only sane one here, side-eyeing the bot, avoiding him out of discomfort? You found yourself asking: If they uploaded an AI of my personality into a computer, is that me?

No.

It’s not. You all should have just accepted that the real Nekomaru was gone forever. It would be merciful to kill his replacement instead of a real human. It’s wouldn’t even be an actual murder, no guilt on your conscience. Monokuma wouldn’t see it that way though, and that’s all that mattered.

“(Y/N)?” You are shaken out of your mindless planning, sucked out of your thoughts by a knock at your door. Hajime. You recognized his voice and panicked at the state of the room around you. Hajime was a dear, always doing rounds to check on his friends, especially in this particularly stressful situation. As you and he were a closer as friends, he tended to check on you a little more often. You ignored his knocks, sent into an frenzy as you started kicking papers under the bed and hiding as many weapons as you can. You hear the handle jiggle and the door opens quickly behind you. Hajime spared no time when he’d gotten no reply from you. He’d lost too many to take his time anymore. A second too late could mean death for a friend, as he’d learned. You could’ve been dead, passed out from hunger, injured.

He freezes as you turn to face him like a deer in headlights, taking in the insane scene before him. He was definitely looking at the pile of weapons scattered everywhere - definitely noticing how unhinged you looked - and immediately begins questioning you, closing your door behind him for some privacy. It’s when you start stuttering, sputtering out excuses and deflecting that he truly takes in your mental state. You look completely deshelved and unwell, worse than everyone else though you were all starving and on edge.

“Where did you even get all of these?!” He gestures to the murder tools in desperation, just wanting an honest answer from someone he actually trusted. When you reveal the existence of the Octagon beyond the Final Dead Room, he presses you further: “Well what were you planning to do with all of them?” He is apprehensive of your answer. Seeing the genuine look in his eyes that seemed ever-present, you broke down, sighing deeply. You run your hand down your face, defeated,exposed. He sees you visibly sink into yourself as you prepare to finally give it to him straight.

“Look, Hajime, you and I have always been honest with each other. You’re one of the few here I can truly trust so I’m just going to admit what’s going on here… I feel like I owe you that much. I’m not proud of this but…” You hesitate, feeling like finding conviction in your words was an insurmountable task. Your bottom lip began to quiver. You’d held these plans confidently inside your head, but you’d yet to acknowledge them aloud. “... I was going to take a life tonight… I was going to make myself the blackened and then confess, taking someone with me…” Your voice breaks, ashamed of your words.

The room goes quite for a while, as Hajime just stares at you, thinking, not sure what to even say. He hadn’t expected you to be so blunt, though his assumptions were confirmed. You can see his chest heaving in the silence, hearing only and his loud exhales. You’d seen Hajime carry your class through trial after trial, seen him peice together complex evidence. He wasn’t stupid. He inferred in his mind as he stared that your target would be Nekomaru. You see the gears turning in his head. It made sense, as you loved hanging around the boisterous team manager before his transformation, and after… you seemed to avoid him like an ex at a party. He knows… but he doesn’t want to say anything, doesn’t want to have this difficult conversation.

Slowly, so gently, he simply sinks down to your level as you sit there resting on your shins on the ground. He pushes some of the mess aside, looking you in the eyes before wrapping his arms around your starving body. You let him, not moving an inch, taking in his warmth. Maybe this is what was intended for you, maybe you needed only to hear his next words:

“You’re not going to do this, okay?” You feel him nodding, his chin tucked into your shoulder. “I’m going to be here for you, so I need you to be here for me too, right?” Hajime wasn’t always the best at comforting others in his own opinion, but you knew he was trying his best. Rather, others would say he was good at comforting his friends, but he felt awkward while doing so, like he wasn’t built for mushy moments. “We’ll escape this together: you, me, and everybody else. You have to keep trying for them, too. You can’t do that if you’re dead, right?” He chuckles, trying to lighten the mood as the stress rolls down his brow in the form of sweat. He felt like cringing at his own words, wondering if he was helping at all. “If you do this, Monokuma wins, and I sure as hell know that you don’t want that. You’re needed here and wanted here, and I know you’re stronger than this.” He feels his shoulder become soaked as your silent tears roll down your face and through his shirt. “H-hey, can I stay here tonight, with you?” He was asking, but you were going to have to physically remove him if you said no.

Nagito Komaeda

You’d been staring down at the knife in your shaking hands for what felt like an hour. In reality, it couldn’t have been more than fifteen minutes. The blade was long, sharp, gleaming silver. How easy it would be to just… end it. You hesitated, thinking about the pain. How much would it hurt, based on the location of insertion? What was the quickest method to just get it over with?

You sighed. You’d miss playing games all night with Chiaki to avoid thinking about more dismal matters. You’d miss discussing true crime with Sonia, late night snack runs with Akane - whom you always felt safe with. Most of all though, you’d miss Nagito, who you’d developed quite the friendship with. His complex thought process and quirky personality fascinated you, and it was never a boring time when he was around. He seemed to like being a loner, always planning or deep inside his own head, but he didn’t seem to mind when you tagged along. In fact, he sometimes remarked that he didn’t deserve your company, and complimented you skills as an Ultimate student. You’d miss knowing someone as unique as him and having them actually enjoy your friendship.

The room around you made you shiver. The ambiance was so cold and hostile. Now past the Final Dead Room, you’d found yourself rewarded by stepping into the Octogon, a hidden room just beyond. Honestly, if you hadn’t picked up better problem-solving skills through trials and the help of your more intelligent friends like Nagito and Hajime, you may have never completed the Final Dead Room. The Octogon, different from the escape room before it, seemed to be a bunker, a weapons cache filled wall to grey wall with deadly tools of every kind. There was even a fridge that contained lethal poisons. When Monokuma described a reward for passing the Final Dead Room, you’d expected a secret passage out of the funhouse, or maybe some food at least. You should’ve known better.

Tearing your eyes away from the knife, you are startled as the door back to the Final Dead Room behind you bursts open. Nagito Komaeda of all people stumbles into the Octogon, his usual casual lanky form slinking in. His expression was carefree, that standard stoner-adjacent look glazed over his face… as if he didn’t just complete a deadly game of Russian roulette to get here.

“Nagito?! What are you doing here?” You panicked, not expected to be walked in on in this vulnerable state.

“I could ask you the same thing, (Y/N)...” He smiled mischeviously. “I followed you here, of course!” Oh yeah, of course! Why hadn’t you thought of that? “Couldn’t let you have all the fun! To my surprise, when I tried to enter the Final Dead Room behind you, Monokuma stopped me and said I had to finish when you were done. Everyone’s expected to take on the Dead Room on their own, apparently.” He held his hands up and shrugged. “So, after I passed the Final Dead Room, Monomi confirmed that you were through the door at the end.” He sighed. “What a pain to have her in there as a distraction though. I was hoping to catch up with you immediately. Oh well…” You stood stock still, the knife still in hand, so unsure of what to do. How was he always so nonchalant? “So this is what Monokuma’s been hiding back here, huh?” He looked around, taking in the myriad of weapons like they were nothing of note. Then his gaze trailed back to you, scanning you up and down. “By the way, why are you holding that knife like that?”

You suddenly feel extreme embarrassment run up your spine, your skin heating up. Your lack of words tells Nagito everything he needs to know. He was highly astute and intuitive, and you could see him analyzing the emotions laid bare all over you face. Nagito was always a step ahead. You could see it every time you were with him, from playing a simple card game in your cabin, to the seriousness of a class trial. It was near impossible to get one over on him. You feel sweat run down your forehead as you realize he’s figured you out. You’re too kind-hearted to kill someone else, and you’d confided in him at length about your ongoing poor mental state, how you couldn’t take this anymore and felt drained.

Over the many times you’d hung out with him, he’d grown to care about you enough to stop this path you were going down, and sensed the potential for a great wellspring of hope to burst forth from inside of you. He saw you as worth saving, and found himself genuinely caring about your fate, so slowly, he approached you, reaching out for the knife in your hand. When you don’t resist, he coaxes it out of your grip and quickly moves to distract you.

“Huh, that’s weird. Wonder where that window leads…” Gesturing over your shoulder, he leads you over to the very small square window, the only window in the entire room in fact. He hopes silently that the embarrassment of being caught and the knowledge that he’s watching you is is enough to stop you from attempting in the future.

It was now well into the night, and your new plan was in motion. This time you’d move at night while Nagito was sound asleep in his luxury sound-proofed room. Everything was seeming to fall into place.

It was already established and agreed upon that Grape Tower and Strawberry Tower were the same location with Chiaki’s eHandbook test. It was still debated amongst your peers just how they could be the same room or how the elevators worked, but now you and Nagito knew better. The window in the Octogon had revealed to only you two what the true secret of the funhouse was. The two towers were one big column, and the floor shifted up and down like an elevator. Your plan was solidified as soon as you realized this fact. A fall might hurt far less than a slow bleed-out. It could be instant death if you did it right.

You’d made a deal with Kazuichi, the Ultimate Mechanic. He trusted you enough to let you keep it vague, and his hunger exhuastion certainly helped with him not giving a fuck about your reasoning. You all knew that the doors to Grape and Strawberry Tower couldn’t be opened at the same time. Everyone assumed it was so that they appeared to be different places to trick you all, but now, you and Nagito knew it was so the floor of the towers could move up or down, concealing the risk of a fall. You simply asked Kazuichi if he could disable this function in the doors so that both tower doors could be open at any time. He was tiny bit hesitant at frist, but nearly started drooling when you showed him a huge toolbox you’d allow him to keep if he used it to do what you asked. It was so very tempting, but led him to worry about where you obtained this treasure in the first place, and if Monokuma would be upset about him meddling with the doors. You alleviated his fears by assuring him that there were no rules against it in the eHandbook and that you’d take the heat if Monokuma got mad. While he paced, you pushed him, stating that the offer was quickly expiring along with the precious toolbox. In the end, he just couldn’t resist those new toys, especially when trapped in the monotony and starvation in the funhouse.

So now here you stood, looking down at the perilous drop from the high-up door to Strawberry Tower onto the floor of Grape Tower. You felt empty inside, both literally and emotionally as you hadn’t eaten in days. There was a hollow, grim feeling to the neon tower at night, something uncanny. Unlike the knife, once you lept, that was it. It would be freefalling, out of your hands. It might even feel like a relief. There was no pushing a blade in further, this would be much easier. You’d left a note in your room stating it was suicide, and trusted your closer friends to confirm your handwriting. Hopefully they didn’t think it was some trick by a real blackened.

Your heart was racing, blood pounding in your ear. You take a deep inhale, and hold your breath. Closing your eyes, you step a single foot out over the ledge to the fatal fall.

Silently and sudden as a gust of wind, a lithe pair of arms wrap around your waist and pull you back. The movement is desperate, sudden and jarring. You gasp and stumble back, falling on top of your rescuer with a thud. Nagito groans beneath you with the force, knocked over with your weight. You knew it was him, by the voice, the smell, the paleness of the arms clasped in a vice-like grip around your waist.

You both say nothing for a while as the severity of the situation sinks in. Suddenly, like a tsunami, a wave of emotions hit you, and you begin to sob at the reality of what you were about to just do. Your chest hurts and your tears flow freely down your face and onto Nagito below you, spattering onto his skin. You want to yell out, to scream What was I thinking?!, to curse yourself. He squeezes you once, as if to say:

You don’t need to say a thing…

“It’s a good thing I happened to be out for a walk, huh?” He speaks after a long while, letting you calm down. He continues his deflection: “Looked like you were about to slip!” He clears his throat and begins to run one bony hand through your hair to comfort you, allowing you to lay there on his chest for just a little longer.

Nekomaru Nidai

There was a simple beauty to the warm, sunny beach out behind the diner on the second island. The sand was soft and the water always looked serene. Usually, you’d come with friends and swim or have a little picnic, but today you were there alone, and for much less pleasant reasons. The beaming sun and tropical scenery stood in stark contrast to the dark clouds inside your mind.

You were floating out in the middle of the water, pondering. It was all too much. Something was so off: this island, the killing game, even your classmates at times. Nothing about this all felt real to you. You didn’t feel real, lost in your own head, a prisoner in your own body. It was bad enough you’d watched Togami and Teruteru die gruesomely, or that you’d just recently sent Fuyuhiko to the hospital after the deaths of Mahiru and Peko. It was traumatizing, and yet it felt so… unreal. And it would only continue. You were sure of that, despite the naive positivity of some of your classmates.

You wanted out, to just disappear without a trace. You felt hopeless and trapped each and every day on this maddening island. You hated the mocking feeling of being stuck in a killing game in a beautiful paradise like this, the irony. If everything went according to plan today, you’d successfully swim down as far as you possibly could, hold your breath, and when you couldn’t take it any longer, hopefully not have enough air to make it to the surface. Hopefully, you’d sink to the bottom of the ocean with a big gulp of water in your lungs. Maybe if your body was never found, there would be no trial. That was the only selfless part of this plan if you managed to pull it off: no trial, no work put on your classmates to solve it. After all, a body had to be found to start an investigation.

Without hesitation, you began your last journey, swimming straight downwards into the deep water, making sure to take a pathetic inhale beforehand to make this all go faster. Maybe, just maybe, you’d wake up on the other side, feeling real again. Once you reach the bottom, you sink into the sand bed and begin to pass the time by thinking of the few things you would miss about this island hellhole, the friends you’d made even though you seemed to lose another each week.

Your heart started to race as you thought about Chiaki letting you win in that first person shooter. Your lungs began to sting and you think of Ibuki and Sonia forcing you out of your comfort zone with new music, activities and movie genres. The sting turns into a burn, and you try to push back any second thoughts as Akane’s tough love and Nekomaru’s beaming smile come to mind. The tried their best to make you feel better, support you, uplift you. They actively put time into making you stronger, in both body and mind. The valued mental fortitude just as much as a healthy body. They made you feel seen, like your company was never a burden, like a big brother and sister. Their blunt honesty could be so refreshing.

Lost in your thoughts, you begin to feel it in your throat. It’s coming… You begin to gag, choke, drown. Struggling on instinct, you kick your feet and grasp at your chest. You look up to see the sun shine down through the water, and feel… sad. It was the last thing you’d expected to feel. You were sure you wanted this…

The last thing you see before your world goes dark is a large shadow swimming in your direction. The muffled sound of movement, an object rushing toward you is all you hear before you let yourself go.

Without warning, you’re conscious again. You have a feeling you’re not on the other side when you feel your back being slammed down onto the sand of the beach. There’s a pressure on your lungs, nearly bursting them and your eyes fly open in shock. Sputtering, you flip onto your side and spit out what feels like a gallon of salt water. You cough up a lung, so dazed that you nearly miss the large shadow completely eclipsing the sun, looming over you.

Nekomaru spoke, and the sheer volume of his deep voice startles you. You turn to face him and find that he looks sad, a rare expression for him. You’d seen him jolly, determined, angry even, but rarely sad. He looked… disappointed, on his knees right before you, so close. You hated that look on his face, even more knowing you caused it. After a long sigh, he began to speak:

“I was in the diner eating lunch… Through the windows I saw you swim out and go under but… after a while, you weren’t coming back up. I’ve seen you swim many times before… you’re an amazing swimmer, I know it. I really hope this was an accident… but-” Before he can finish, you throw yourself up and into his arms before he could see you cry. You hid your face over his shoulder, begging him not to finish his sentence. You didn’t want to acknowledge it, to hear the hurt in his voice. You just wanted someone you cared about to touch you, to make you feel real. He was always on your side, rooting for you, you didn’t mean to hurt him like this. The sand stuck to your soaked bodies as you held him, begged him to hold you back. When you whimper, trying to hold in your cries, he finally does.

“When you’re ready, we can talk about this, and for as long as you need,” he grumbles.

Gundham Tanaka

Gundham, although he was an amazing friend - your best friend in fact - wasn’t the best person to vent to. He had a ton of shit of his own to deal with, you could tell. He came with a lot of emotional baggage locked deep inside. The facade and dramatics, it was all an act, a wall he put up to protect himself from the world that hurt him as a child, the world that made him feel irreparably different. You couldn’t exactly vent about your long-term depression and anxieties to someone who would turn it into a lecture on demonic energies or a pep talk about how you were one of the most powerful mortals he’d ever come across as the Supreme Overlord of Ice. Sure, it would cheer you up sometimes, his theatrics would often make you laugh, but it was always temporary. Besides, he wasn’t a therapist, trauma dumping on him all the time wouldn’t be cool, and he obviously coped by escaping into his realm of fantasy. Why would you want to possibly rehash any old wounds of his by bringing him back down to the realities of Earth? You had too much love for him to do that.

You spent as much time with him as possible, though. It was one of of the few things that brought you joy anymore. You’d lost interest in most if not all of your old hobbies. He sensed it, you knew, but became awkward and nervous, never knowing quite how to both cheer you up and stay on script.

Hope’s Peak provided Gundham with a building of his own on the large campus. It tripled as a sort of animal reserve, rescue, and clinic. Most Hope’s Peak Ultimates had their own space dedicated to honing their talent, and this was his. That was the most important part of their school day after all. The other subjects were second priority. Gundham referred to the Ultimate Breeder’s building as his dark temple, his sanctuary of gloom, always something to that effect. He rarely let anyone who wasn’t in the breeding club enter, and even then he kept a close eye on its members. You joined the club because you cared for him, but you doubted he would ever kick his best friend out regardless. He often made exceptions to his rules for you, using some excuse about how he’d baptized you in shadows to make you worthy, or placed a protection spell first.

The breeding club building was truly impressive. There were medical wings, feeding stations, training rooms, even outdoor yards and runs for the animals to feel free. Everything was so well kempt. The place was split up to accommodate different animals and keep prey and predators apart, and there were some dangerous predators to be found there. You’d even seen Gundham bring a perfectly trained bear to class before. Everyone was in awe that day.

In the clinic area, you sat waiting for Gundham to bring some restock supplies. Sitting there with only your own sadness to keep you company, you began to drift into the dark recesses of your mind yet again. It felt like a daily occurrence lately. You felt insecure, worthless, dangerous. Across the room, you gazed into the cage of a particularly nasty breed of snake. It was deadly venomous, and seemed to be calling out your name. Without thinking, as if in a trance, you raise to a standing position. It feels like you’ve lost all control of your limbs as you hover over toward the testy reptile. Unlocking it’s cage door with a click, you reach in, letting the snake coil around your hand with no reluctance, like a person possessed. Like you had nothing to lose.

Being Gundham’s ward, it’s pretty well behaved already, but still new to the rescue and with a slight feral side not yet trained out completely. With your free hand, you grab its head gently and press its mouth into your wrist. You bump its nose into your skin, not enough to hurt the snake, just irritate. Gudham wouldn’t approve of you hurting any animal. You could never. With a small hiss, it pulls back slightly and strikes forward, latching its fangs down deep into the flesh of your wrist. You cry out, feeling something for the first time that day. The fangs were long and dug in snuggly.

Gundham’s deep voice startles you, booming as he enters with the box of supplies in his hand. He’s boasting, something about how the check-ups would go smoothly with you there to assist today when his words are cut off by the sight before him.

The snake in your hand was just now pulling its fangs out of your skin, and you had a horrified look on your face at his sudden appearance, like you didn’t want him to see. His mind started racing, instantly in fight or flight mode - more like save or let die mode - fitting for a man who spends so much time around creatures that run on survival instinct. You drop to your knees, the venom already beginning its work. Your rapidly numbing hand fell to the ground, the snake safely slithering down and onto the floor. Gundham rushed over to the snake, scooping it up and locking it safely back into its cage to secure the area.

You started feeling woozy, feeling heat creep up your arm and spread through your veins to your shoulder and chest. It both hurt and felt tingly, like a limb that had fallen asleep but was simultaneously on fire. Your head began to pulse like a searing migraine, and you were sure the stress of having Gundham there to watch your downfall was making it worse. Your vision was now swimming, blurry and dimming. Gundham is rushing over to you, grabbing you up into his arms, but his yells are muffled as if there were cotton balls in your ears. And then, with a sudden surge of pain in your lungs, you black out.

When your eyes finally crack open, you find them sensitive to the light above. You look around slowly, taking in the familiar surroundings of Hope’s Peak Academy’s hospital wing. You gasp softly when you try to move your right hand and feel resistance tugging back. You glance down, tearing up when you see a bandaged hand firmly clasped around your own. Gundham is pulled up in a comfy chair next to your hospital bed, his head resting on the bed beside your thigh. He’s sound asleep, probably sleeping off the stress you put him through. The curl at the end of his striped hair lays across your blanket. He looked intense even unconscious, his brow furrowed, scrunched up in worry. You said a quiet thank you to his sleeping form, running a hand through his hair lovingly. You assumed that if it weren’t for Gundham quickly administering one of the antivenoms he kept on hand in his clinic, you would’ve been dead before you could even reach the main building’s hospital across campus. You imagined that the view of him carrying your limp body across the grounds in a sprint would’ve been a sight to see.

Fuyuhiko Kuzuryu

You’d been friends with Fuyuhiko for years. You, him, and Peko formed an inseparable trio growing up. Peko felt an overwhelming urge to protect you at all times, but you constantly begged her not to, to lay off, as her job was to live to protect Fuyuhiko, and nobody else. You didn’t want to get her in trouble, and his parents already hated you. They saw you as a pest, a bad influence on their son and a distraction from his destiny of being the clan’s leader one day. You had no yakuza ties, you were just a kid from the same side of the city who got mixed in with little Fuyuhiko as kids. Boss Kuzuryu would’ve loved to be rid of you, and it would’ve been easy too, but his stubborn son convinced him years ago that if he wanted his blood in Hope’s Peak Academy one day, he would have to be used to being around “normal” people his age sooner or later.

You, Fuyuhiko and Peko would sneak around Kuzuryu territories and never get caught or scolded. Being in the company of the boss’s son did help of course. With Fuyuhiko’s knowledge of his father’s empire, you learned where not to go and when, patrol schedules, enemy territory lines, meeting spots and so on. It was like some kind of adventure. As kids, it felt like playing pretend: criminals, thugs, crime lords, avoiding police. Except it was all real. Your parents rarely knew where you truly were, as you lied to spare them from heart attacks.

After over a decade together, you truly loved Fuyuhiko, maybe even as more than a friend, though you’d rather die than ever admit it. He was easier to get along with than people gave him credit for. They were intimidated by his family’s reputation, but you knew the real him. He could be a hothead, but he genuinely cared about the people in his life. He was unlike many other yakuza member’s you’d met, often only putting up an uncaring front because he felt like he had to. You’d always been close, but as you began school at Hope’s Peak, a distance began to grow between you. As you got older, you’d begun to feel this odd, uncontrollable sense of sadness deep within. Each year as another birthday passed, it got worse. It was getting harder and harder to ignore. You’d often withdraw from Fuyuhiko and Peko, not wanting to burden them with this depression you couldn’t seem to shake. Fuyuhiko wasn’t good at talking about feelings anyway. Peko was no better. They certainly were no one’s therapists, and you didn’t want to put that on them anyway. How could they fix you when you yourself didn’t know what was wrong? You were starting to feel pushed to the edge by your own mind. You couldn’t go to therapy either. It felt humiliating. Your best friend was the toughest guy in the world. He would never step foot in a therapist’s office.

You’d had thoughts lately, unsafe thoughts about a permanent solution to the problem. You’d try to push them back, but without support, with your own mind betraying you, you felt more and more hopeless each day. You felt like you needed him, to talk to your best friend before you did something stupid. So right after classes were finished for the day, you headed off campus to the Kuzuryu complex. You knew he’d be there right after school on this day of the week. You also knew that weren’t supposed to go there alone, that it was extremely dangerous to be on Kuzuryu property without an escort, but you were desperate. You’d held onto this for far too long.

It wasn’t until you were skirting along the brick wall to the back entrance of the main Kuzuryu mansion that your heart began to race with second thoughts. The inital gut feeling that stopped you from reaching out to Fuyuhiko in the first place months ago was back in full force. Maybe this was the wrong choice. Fuyuhiko had so much on his plate. He didn’t need your cry baby ass dumping your feelings onto him. Maybe he and Peko would be better off without you in their lives at all. Maybe… the initial thoughts you’d woken up with this morning were the right ones.

You peeked around the corner of the wall. This was dangerous territory. Everyone in town knew to avoid this area if they valued their lives. Non-clan members who entered were liable to be shot or shanked on sight. That didn’t happen often though, as the locals had enough common sense. Fuyuhiko had to be inside, and would’ve come out to get you if he knew you were coming.

But you didn’t want him to know anymore. You wanted to just end it, to fade away and never bother anyone ever again, to never feel this way again.

Before you can change your mind yet again, you round the corner into the courtyard preceding the back entrance, and the guards are alerted immediately. Their guns are trained on you with practiced percision. You prepare for your life to be over, for the pain of bullet fire and screw your eyes shut. The yelling and swearing of the guards, prepared to pull the trigger is abruptly halted when you sense a presence in front of you. You open your eyes to see Fuyuhiko standing before you, arms outstretched in a protective stance. He’s swearing like a sailor at his underlings, face red as a tomato with rage.

“Fuyu..hiko?” You sniffle, barely above a whisper. This feels unreal, that a miracle like this would happen to you in what should be your last moment. The petite gangster guarding you was burning with a level of anger too hot to even have your meek voice register in his mind.

“How dare you point that damn gun at (Y/N)!” He was ranting, on a temper-high, and his subordinates were cowering with every word. Upsetting the boss’s son was not a good look for them. Finally satisfied with the amount of fear he’d struck into them, he ordered them to get lost, before things got worse for them. Now alone with you in the empty courtyard, he turned to face you, taking a deep breath to calm himself. That anger should be reserved for the deserving, and he hated when you saw him get like that. He knew he could be a dick, a tempermental jerk at times, but he had a soft spot for you and hated to see you upset. Seeing your forlorn expression finally for himself, he grabbed your shoulder, ushering you off and into the side room he’d entered from when he first saw your foolish ass step into the courtyard alone. Bringing a thumb up, he wiped a tear from the corner of your eye that threatened to fall. “Come on, we have to talk.”

Teruteru Hanamura

Your best friend on campus, Teruteru Hanamura loved cooking for you. Of course he loved cooking, he was the Ultimate Cook after all, but he found it especially rewarding to cook for someone he truly cared about. He was like his mother in that way. You always taste tested his newest culinary creations and were brutally honest about your reviews so he could improve. He spent many lunch periods making you extravagant meals. He refused to let you pack your own, order out, or eat at the cafeteria. It was a win-win: the school saw every minute he spent cooking as him honing his ultimate talent, and you got free food. You guys would chat it up for hours, playfully flirt, and just enjoy each other’s company.

Much to his chagrin, he started to notice you coming to your lunch meet-ups less and less these past few months. When you did show up, you didn't seem as excited as you used to be. He assumed it was normal for most students at one point or another. School work and the pressure to excel at such a prestigious school were probably just stressing you out. He was more of a glass-half-full kind of guy, so the possibility of it being anything more serious than that rolled right off his back. It was out of the question. He didn’t even want to think about such negativity.

It wasn’t until you stopped coming altogether that he realized he might have to.

You’d miss lunch, and plans to hang out after school hours, and stopped texting back as much. It deeply saddened him. Food was his way to show he loved you and cherished your friendship, the way he expressed his creativity and feelings to the world. If he couldn’t share it with his closest friend, he didn’t want to share it with anyone. In his mind, he’d already attributed your behavior to stress, but maybe you also just weren’t interested in being his friend anymore? You sounded more solemn than usual on the phone, and even with your tone through texts. He wouldn’t be surprised if you didn’t like him anymore and just wanted to let him down easy. He was a bit much for most people.

After pacing and getting into his own head for hours in the kitchen, he worked up the courage to go to your dorm room and finally have the talk, to confront you directly and ask if he’d done anything to upset you. Sweating bullets outside your door, his fear of confrontation and hatred of negative energy was creeping up on him. With a big gulp, he swallowed before knocking with false confidence. He knew you were in there, he heard your TV through the door and somewhat knew your schedule. This is were you would most certainly be at this time after classes. He called out to you, and when you didn’t answer, he jiggled the door handle, suddenly fearing that maybe the situation was worse than he might’ve once thought. Finding the door unlocked, he gently pushed the door open and crept in.

He finds the room completely dark save for the light of the TV. In the flashing of the screen, he can see the piles of garbage and clothing all over your floor. He scanned the environment anxiously, shocked at the state of your dorm. Then he finds you, sitting up in your bed, blankets covering your legs, silent as the grave, You’re just staring, as if in a trance, completely emotionless. He can see your phone lighting up on the bedside table, notifications buzzing, but you make no move to react.

“(Y/N)?” He can’t believe he’s seeing you like this. You were like a zombie, an empty shell of the person he knew and loved. When you don’t answer, he moves to sit on the side of the bed, concerned. He tiptoes over cautiously, not wanting to trigger any negative response from you. What he sees now, up close to you in the dimly lit room makes his eyes widen in horror.

On your lap, on top of a plastic plate is the cheapest, most unappetizing plate of budget spaghetti he’d ever seen, likely from some cafeteria or corner store. It looked like something a student would keep as a midnight snack in their mini fridge just in case they were starving when everything was closed, a quick fix. That wasn’t the worst part though.

No, the worst most definitely had to be the entire bottle’s worth of pills you’d seemingly emptied on top of the depressing-looking noodles. A plastic fork sat nestled in between the noodles and the pills, as if you were just about to begin eating before he arrived (perhaps in the nick of time).

It’s in that moment he realized exactly what was going on here. This was all so overwhelming to him, but his first priority was saving his best friend. Again, with the intention not to trigger anything, to not overstimulate or make anything worse in mind, he moves slowly, constantly checking your expression or any change or sign of stress. His shaking hands take the plate in their grasp, and he pulls it back and safely away from you. His voice cracks when he finally speaks again.

“H-hey! (Y/N), y-ya know… food is love… food is…” he struggles for the right words, so unsure of his ability to be what you need right now, “... food is beauty, and a very, very good thing! Food is meant to heal and nourish your body, never hurt it!” He smiles weakly, taking one of your limp hands in his own, and you feel his warmth transfer over, flooding into you. “We don’t have to talk right now, but I’m gonna stay, o-okay? I’m gonna stay right here.”

Kazuichi Souda

Kazuichi was stressing. He’d never felt this much in a bind in his entire life. When it came to his own negative feelings and problems, he usually felt fine expressing himself, often yelling or crying if he needed to, letting someone know they’d upset him. When it came to comforting others, it always felt so damn awkward, and it was a feeling he’d like to avoid if he could. He was just no good at it. He was torn now, as it was his own best friend who needed his emotional support, and he’d run away like a selfish coward, hidden from the stress of the situation. He was afraid, and now the situation seemed to be boiling over, to the point of no return.

You were obviously going though something, and could tell. He was closer to you than anyone. He’d be lying if he said he hadn’t noticed a definite decline in your energy, the amount of sleep you were getting, and general happiness lately. He’d also be lying if he said he wasn’t avoiding a direct conversation about it. He didn’t even know what to say, or if his advice would help. He was no professional, and growing up with a dad that abused him verbally and sometimes even physically, he’d learned to cope with trauma and depressive episodes in his own ways. There were times that he’d have to push back his own feelings to move on when his dad was involved, so how could someone like him help others?

Something that always helped him feel a bit better about himself was altering his outward appearance to satisfy his own sense of self expression and aesthetic. He’d once advised that you get a piercing, dye and cut your hair, buy some new clothes when you were in a particularly dismal mood. You didn’t seem to go for it. In fact, he later felt like a dick for even suggesting it, like maybe now you thought he wasn’t taking you seriously. You’d made an excuse to go back to your dorm almost immediately after the conversation.

He’d felt like an asshole for being a little more distant with you the past few days, but he just felt like a colossal loser for not being able to help one of the most important people in his life. It was overwhelming. What if you wanted to be alone right now? What if him trying to help ended up making it worse? Pacing his mess of a room, he ran his hands through his pink hair, clawing over his scalp in stress. He felt overstimulated, mind bouncing dozens of thoughts around at once.

He stopped, taking a deep breath to try and narrow these thoughts down and make an actual, reasonable plan. At the end of the day, the most important thing was the well-being of his friend. The end goal had to be to get you help or help you himself so that your friendship could get back on track to the normal, happy every day routine that you both loved. The end goal was for sure in his mind: to see his friend smile again and see a familiar glow of happiness radiate off of them. To exorcise this depression permanently, or to at least take the first steps in that direction. If he had to put aside his own feelings of embarrassment and anxiety to achieve that… well, he felt like that goal was worth almost any level of uncomfortableness.

He put his foot down, now resigned to just do what he’d wanted to do deep down for days. You would do the same for him if the situation were reversed, and he knew that. From his room on the opposite side of the dormitory wing, he made his way down the long hall until he reached your own dorm room. You were so very close, but felt so far away when he shut you out for the comfort of his own room. Now he was here, ready to finally give his all to help you like he should’ve the whole time. Even if you just needed a shoulder to cry on or someone to vent to, he wanted to pull through and be there for you until he could guide you through the next steps.

Silent before your door, he was about to knock when he picked up a sound from the other side. He recognized your voice instantly, and you were crying, weeping quite loudly inside your room. This triggers something in him, like a need to protect you, like hearing you in pain hurts him as well. Without thinking, he grabbed the door handle and threw the door open. It’s unlocked, carelessly as if you were just coming in from class and thought of nothing else but your current goal, one-track mind not even bothering to lock your door for safety or privacy. Your school bag and books are thrown haphazardly on the ground and he looks for you, following the source of the cries to the small side bathroom that every dorm room contained.

He nearly lets out a shrill scream of shock when he sees you standing in front of your bathroom mirror, holding a little silver razor blade up to your wrist. It looked like you were building up the courage, so ensnared by your own miserable thoughts that you didn’t even notice him until he was already leaping forward and yelling out your name. You looked up, wide eyes streaked with tears and puffy with redness.

“Kazuichi?!” Your voice is hoarse from crying and you feel so taken aback by his sudden appearance, so small and vulnerable. You felt foolish, caught in this compromising situation, embarrassed that someone you cared about so deeply would ever see you in this state. He didn’t seem to care about that though, only concerned with getting you back down to a safe mental state in this moment. He eyed you, then the razor blade in your hand.

“Please… please don’t do it. Please,” he begs you, one calloused hand reaching out toward you, palm outstretched. “I can’t let you go there. Please, don’t make me watch you do this because I refuse to leave, so…” His voice shook, and he inched closer, hand still ready for you to make the next move. Exhuasted, humiliated, and ready to submit to his help, you concede. You place the razor safey flat-side down into his palm, and he quickly discards it into the trash bin behind him, itching to get it out of his hands expeditiously. With that out of the way, he grabs you around the shoulders, pulling you into a hug that’s almost suffocating. He crushes you against his chest, and feels you shaking, breathing slowly evening out in his embrace. You let your eyes fluttered closed, let him help you stabilize.

“I am… so sorry for not taking this as serious as I should’ve. I never thought it would get this bad!” You could hear him crying. Kazuichi was never one to be afraid to shed tears when he was overwhelmed. You liked that sensitive side of him. “I’m sorry from running from your issues. I’m here now… I’m here.”

Byakuya Twogami

You were fascinated by the self-appointed leader of your little group. Ever since the killing game began, people kind of looked to him for guidance because he had a sense of authority and true confidence in his voice. There was a commanding tone and conviction to his words that you assumed was native to one of his status.

You were interested in his family business and the very different world of the elites like him in general, as you’d made it to Hope’s Peak on pure talent alone and not due to any nepotism or financial status. Attending the academy was the first chance you really had to get out of your old neighborhood and see how other people lived. It had been a miracle that you’d been scouted. The Togami family was just so vastly different from yours in every way. You wanted to know how it all worked. You often found yourself following him around and asking him questions that he probably found tedious and trivial. They were questions that he was probably asked in every interview, or with every new friend who tried to cozy up to him for his money and influence, but those were never your intentions. What began as curiosity for his different way of life turned into you simply enjoying getting to know him. He could even have a sense of humor on occasion, even if he didn’t see it that way.

Eventually, he would start to delegate you to little tasks to help him out, as if you were one of his retainers. In his mind you were competent and he respected you enough to trust you with the work. Overthinking, you took it as him just trying to get you out of his hair. You felt kind of bummed out, like you were probably getting on his nerves and bothering him. His style of communication was so different from your own that you would’ve never guessed that him getting rid of you and spending less time with you could mean he respected you, even if there was a task involved taht required you to move on your own. What made it worse was that you spent so much time with him that you really hadn’t gotten to know any of your other classmates. You weren’t close with any of them so it felt awkward to be walking around without Togami by your side. Interacting with a bunch of people who had already seemed to sort out their friendships might be a bit awkward and uncomfortable. Fortunately, there were a lot of extroverts in this group that would probably pull you in and make you feel right at home as soon as you reached out even mildly.

You couldn’t believe what you were hearing right now. Everyone had agreed that the killing game was absolute nonsense, because none of you would ever stoop so low as to actually kill someone for any reason. Yet here you were eavesdropping on a concerning conversation between the seemingly harmless Nagito and the careless Teruteru. Nagito was planning to start up the killing game at the party you all were planning tonight and it didn’t seem like anything would stop him. You could hear the fear in Teruteru’s voice as he tried to speak sense into the much taller, lanky boy. Nagito already had a weapon hidden under a dining table, had sent threatening notes out, left little hints to put his plan into motion. It sounded completely and utterly insane!

You were there in the first place because Togami asked you earlier that day to scope out the party building stealthily and quietly. He wanted someone he trusted to gather any dangerous instruments or note any faults in the architecture that could cause an injury or allow secret entry. Nagito and Teruteru were there cleaning and setting up the food and decorations for the class party later that night, but Byakuya seemed suspicious of the both of them when he spoke on it. It wasn’t hard for you to see why now, when not too long after sneaking into the building, you happened upon this conversation. You had to tell someone, of course, but who would believe you except maybe Togami himself? Nagito and Teruteru could always deny it and it would be your word over theirs. The class might believe you over Teruteru, but Nagito seemed really well liked within the group.

When you relayed Nagito’s plans to Togami later, it felt like he already knew somehow, like you only just confirmed his feelings. You didn’t know how he knew, but he seemed to be taking it seriously. He asked that you share this info with no one else, and told you not to worry as he had it all under control.

How could you not worry about it? Now, at the actual the party you’re unable to relax, on edge even in the presence of amazing food and happy people. You’re nearly shaking with worry, trying to psych yourself into believing that Nagito would change his mind. He was bluffing… he’d chicken out. Everything would be okay. Togami would handle it! Maybe he talked to Nagtio on the side before the party, maybe that natural intimidating aura of his convinced Nagito to let go of his nefarious plans. Teruteru sure seemed to be perky and proud of his food spread tonight, so surely the whole murder plan was off the table. Why would he be so calm otherwise, when he was terrified earlier?

When the lights abruptly went out, everything changed. You panicked, and everything seemed to move in slow motion. Your heart rate spiraled out of control, adrenaline kicking into high gear. You followed your instincts to dash over to the back table, the one Nagito was standing next to just before the lights went out. You had to get to that weapon before him, You wouldn’t be able to live with the guilt of knowing you could’ve prevented this by warning the entire group if Nagito succeeded in killing someone. You knew this plan was in the works. You trusted Togami to stop it before now and here it was: the moment of truth. You had to act. You weren’t close with any of these people, but they all seemed to already care for each other, if even just a little bit. It was better if you died here over anybody else. It had to be your duty after the information you chose to withhold from them. It wouldn’t have been fair.

As you were about to dive under the table in the dark, you feel a strong grip on your arm. You are lifted and thrusted backwards and away from the table. You yell out, fearing an altercation with Nagito and preparing for a fight, but as you fall back onto your butt with a thud a few feet from the table, all physical contact ceases. There’s a commotion, and you scramble backwards in the dark. There’s confusion and chaos, and then the lights turn back on.

You wouldn’t know until you were gathering evidence for very the first class trial later that night, that Togami had taken your place under that table. The arm that pushed you back had been his. While you couldn’t see him, he used night vision goggles to see you and died in your place. You couldn’t help but think that maybe if you trusted him when he said to trust him, let him handle it and didn’t get in the way of the table, he would’ve had a second or two more to think and react… and maybe he wouldn’t be dead. It could’ve been you, and you would be eternally grateful for his sacrifice, even if he didn’t plan for it that night,

You vowed to spend whatever time left you had on this miserable island avenging him by and honoring his memory while you all worked together to stop Monokuma.

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lordkingsmith · 3 months

Text

@whatwedointhecraft they’re immediately so banter-y lol

He sent the message asking about the state of the tree and how much it’d cost to get it to England, and left the laptop to get mail. When he came back, there was a reply.

lol a what now?

Embarrassingly he still didn’t notice the fact he wasn’t messaging Nathan and assumed he was tired due to time zone differences. So carefully copy and pasted the little ad and reiterated his message with more clarification.

Man I think you’re talking to the wrong person lol

Which actually made him look. And yes. He was. Neil Breaker. He didn’t even know who that was. He quickly looked at the man’s page and realized he was a teacher in Seattle. He was 40. And they’d friended each other months ago over the same PennyThought Arcade game, for extra perks. The travesty of not being able to will yourself into sinking through the floor whenever an embarrassment occurred. Chancy swallowed around it and went back to the DM’s.

-I am so very sorry. I didn’t realize I wasn’t messaging my friend. I apologize again, I just haven’t really been all here since my wife passed a few years ago

Why he put that he didn’t know. Impulsive, embarrassed, and wanting to make sure the other knew he was fully apologetic. He got to Nathan and left an a dm about the seedling, double and triple checking he had the right person this time.

Nah, I get it. Happens. Sorry bout your wife tho

You ok???

Was waiting for him from Neil and his heart did a double flip.

-I mean. I’m 55. I have a retirement I didn’t want, I’m a single parent of a daughter I did want, and I’m a widower. Financially I’m fine. Everything else is empty, I suppose. The one person I thought was going to be here to enjoy this with me isn’t. I barely talk to anyone in person much less anything physical. The only time I’m happy is when I’m with my daughter or when I’m in my garden.

He took a deep breath, hands lightly shaking as he finished writing. He hadn’t admitted any of this to anyone. And here he was, telling a perfect stranger he was horny and lonely and depressed. Too much information to just share on the internet as well, he knew.

Another long stretch of silence on Neil’s end and he took the time to wash dishes while waiting, anything to expend the jittery nervousness.

“C’mon Chance” he scolded himself as he angrily washed a bowl. “You’re not some seventeen year old about to cop a feel in the movies. You are fifty five years old. Act your age.” But this was the closest he’d gotten in years to. Well. Anything.

You realize you’re talking to a dude, right?

And an American

Christ on a pogo stick I’m across an ocean to you, my guy

<control=io>bot will explain function</control>

Chancy felt another embarrassed flush creeping down his neck. Alright, yes he probably did sound like a bot. He found, copied and sent the song “Guess What? I’m Not a Bot” by a singer his daughter loved. A few moments later he got the cry laughing emoji and smiled faintly.

Ok fair enough, I’m sorry. Can’t be too careful.

Look

My school’s just hit break. Not expected to do anything for the summer but do course planning. So I can. I dunno. Take a vacation

Why not

Chancy about choked.

-Really? You don’t have to

-I was just ranting

-But I wouldn’t say no

-You’d just…I can book you a hotel?

He ran his hands through his mildly curly brown hair, staring at the screen. He couldn’t believe he’d just typed this. Was entertaining this.

You wanna try something over video chat first or..?

-I’m not a robot

No no I get that. I mean sex, dude.

Or talking. Either works

Just so we know each other, you know?

And then yea, sure, after that I’m down for you booking me a hotel

Gimme a week tho

I gotta find a place to take my dogs while I’m over there

-you have dogs? I have a dog and a cat

-Rumor and Sneeze Master

I’m guessing Sneeze Master is the cat

-mhm lol

And now you’re talking like a person lol. I shoulda mentioned cats sooner

-it’s always cats, isn’t it?

Always

-If you’re in Seattle, you should perhaps go to bed

Man don’t tell me how to spend my vacation lol

-never!

-you’re just planning a sexual encounter and neither of us are exactly spring chickens lol

Man fuck you

-That’s the plan. Unless you want it the other way?

JFC

😂😂😂🥵🥵🥵

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chookity-dookity · 3 years

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THE HIDDEN LIGHT

A lot happened to our characters in this episode--the key word there being to. They were kidnapped, questioned, and generally bossed around--whether by Arachnitects, KVNs, or mad scientists--but didn’t actually end up doing all that much. With few exceptions, they were denied the opportunity to make their own decisions. Instead, they were propelled ever onward by the demands of the plot.

That’s not such a bad thing. Most stories are not purely character-driven. But it’s a bit hard to get emotionally invested in a character’s story when they have so little influence on what’s going on. “The Hidden Light” wasn’t a bad episode, but it was a pretty forgettable one. It felt more like an extended set up than its own story, carefully moving pieces into place and dutifully advancing the plot.

So. Let’s talk about plot.

THE SHIP The acquisition of a replacement ship is probably the biggest plot development in this episode. In many ways, it was a return to the S1 status quo. It kind of makes me wonder why we even bothered with the Crimson Light and HUE-the-garbage-bot in S2. But I’m not complaining--I think the S1 formula was a lot more effective, and I’m glad we’re returning to it.

The reveal that Nightfall made the arrangements for the ship was an interesting one for sure, and I’m not quite sure what to think of it yet. In some ways, it seems at odds with her S2 characterization. Why would she have set this plan into motion? None of the other timelines ever progressed to this point. But perhaps there will be future revelations about Nightfall that will put this all into perspective. I’m raising my eyebrows, but I’ll withhold judgement for now.

THE OTHER SHIP Olan has sworn up and down that this season will be the one that gets people who were skeptical about the Gary/Quinn relationship to finally like it. And I, contrarian that I am, find myself feeling the exact opposite. As much as Gary’s stalkerish behavior in S1 was uncomfortable, he and Quinn had a nice rapport by the end of it. And it never felt like she was just his love interest--she was her own character with her own motivations, and she was the primary driver of the main plot.

But this entire episode was framed from Gary’s perspective. I mean that in a quite literal sense. Not only does the story follow Gary when he’s separated from Quinn, but the literal animation is focused on Gary’s point-of-view. He gets more closeup and extreme closeup shots than Quinn does. When she reacts to something, he’s often in the frame with her--but not the reverse. He gets more reaction shots overall, and the ultimate effect is that Quinn’s feelings take a back seat to Gary’s. It’s a bit of a letdown, especially after we were told that this season would be particularly focused on Quinn.

NEW CHARACTERS On a related note, I can’t help but notice that in the last few episodes we’ve lost two female characters and replaced them with three male ones. (Quatronostro’s gender is a bit ambiguous, but for the time being at least we seem to be treating them as a man.) And this is probably my single biggest concern about S3. The near-total absence of female characters was a real flaw in S1, and female representation was one of the few improvements S2 actually made. But here, it feels like much of that progress has been reversed. Not only are female characters still playing second fiddle to Gary and the Catos, now we’ve traded in Jane Lynch for yet another catman. Talk about adding insult to injury.

ATTACK ON TITAN Meanwhile, Bolo is apparently on a mission to kill all the Titans. While all his scenes so far have been cool as hell, we still don’t know that much about his story. Does he have a plan beyond just getting revenge? And what’s the deal with the other Titans, anyway? This is one plotline that could definitely use some fleshing out. I feel like this episode would have been better served by making this the B-plot and relegating Team Avocato to the next episode. Speaking of which...

ARACHNITECTS How sad is it that we introduced three new Arachnitects only to immediately kill them off? RIP, my dudes. I hope you are avenged next week.

#3.0 stars #solidly okayish #final space #fs spoilers #the hidden light #episode thoughts and analysis

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heyheydidjaknow · 3 years

Text

Can I have a lighthearted chapter? No, I cannot. Can I upload at the due date? Also no. But you can always count on me to make characters suffer. I would say that I'm sorry, but then I would be a liar.

Chapter 8

“Will you shut up?”

Donatello looks up from his computer. “Huh?”

Raphael’s eyes do not leave his magazine. “You’ve been muttering under your breath for the past hour and it’s starting to get on my nerves.”

“You’ll live.”

“You won’t for long if you don’t cut that shit out.”

He sighs. “Are you ever content with just leaving me be?”

“As your brother? No.” He sets the article down. “You’ve been acting weird all week. Usually, I could not care less, but you wreck enough shit without the added benefit of being distracted.”

He looks back at the screen. “So, I’m a ticking time bomb to you?”

“Yes.”

He looks back at the screen as he tries to think of how to answer. “It’s just that…”

“Oh, wait, don’t tell me.” He smirks. “You’re all depressed because your girlfriend has a life.”

He goes red. “I don’t care if—she’s not my girlfriend, first of all.” His voice rises.

“Sure, sure.” He stretches. “You know, typically, girls aren’t into guys who obsess over them.”

“Look, I’m worried about her!” He sets the computer down.

He blinks. “Why?”

“Are you kidding?” He throws his hands up in exasperation. “She killed a man!”

“Yeah,” he nods, “and I’m pissed I wasn’t the one to do it. What’s your point?”

“True,” he smiles cooly. “What you fail to consider, however, is that the rest of us aren’t psychotic.”

“I’m hurt.” He places his hand on his chest. “I will have you know that I’m definitely sane.”

“See, this is why nobody comes to you about their problems.” He leans his head back. “You ask why I’m down, and you immediately give me a hard time.”

They both turn their heads toward the entrance as their two other brothers walk back into the lair.

“How’d it go?” Raph gets up to meet them.

“You didn’t miss anything.” Leo sits down next to Donnie, glancing at his laptop before staring at the empty television screen. “Nobody was there.”

“Really?” Donnie’s eyes tear away from his computer screen. “Nobody?”

“Man, it was weird.” Michelangelo stays standing. “It was, like, two bots and then nothin’.”

“That is incredibly suspicious.” The tallest brother saves his work. “You used the stuff, right?”

“Worked like a charm.” Leonardo stretches. “So, what’d we miss?”

“Donnie bitching about not talking to his girlfriend for a whole week.”

“Can it,” he hisses.

“Donnie,” his brother speaks from next to him, “I’m sure that Y/N is perfectly fine. If you’re worried about her, you can and should go check on her.”

He groans. “If it were that simple, I would’ve done that by now.” He holds his head. “But what would I even say?”

He sighs, “I’m not going to say the same thing every time.” He gets up. “Mikey, you try. I’m going to go meditate if anyone wants to join.”

“Hey!” Mikey sticks his tongue out at him. “How come I have to do it?”

“Because Raphael is as cuddly as an eel.”

Raph glares. “Do you wanna go right now?”

“See?” He walks off. “And I did it last time. Your turn.” They hear the doors to the dojo slide closed behind him.

Mikey sits down in Leo’s spot. “If you want,” he offers as his brother walks off to the dojo, “I can try talking to her.”

“Would you?” He sighs. “I’m not good at this sort of thing.”

“For sure, man.” He gives him a thumbs up. “What are brothers for?”

“If you don’t make him do things,” Raphael warns, “he’s never going to learn to do them.”

“Man, he’s our bro.” He wraps an arm around his neck. “You can’t just leave your bro out to dry.”

“The hell I can’t.” He gets to his feet. “You guys have fun with that. I’ll be in my room.” He walks off, taking his pet turtle with him.

“Don’t listen to him.” He shoots his brother a thumbs up. “I’m sure everything will work out.” Mikey hopped to his feet. “Be back in a bit.” He waved, running out of the lair. “I’ll be back in ten.”

The look on his face is less than reassuring.

“Well?” Donatello, who has been checking the time religiously, is sitting at the door like a dog waiting for his owner. “How did it go?”

He smiles tightly. “I have good news and bad news.”

He groans, holding his head in his hands. “Just tell me.”

“Well,” he says hesitantly, crouching down in front of him, “she’s not dead.”

“That isn’t exactly a high bar to hurdle.” He takes a deep breath. “What’s the bad news?”

He pauses. “She’s… freaked out.”

“On a scale of one to ten,” he asks slowly, “with one being—”

“Nine.” His younger brother nods certainly. “At least a nine.”

He stands up. “I should go check on her.”

“Yeah, I don’t know what to do.” He rubs the back of his neck. “I think I made things worse, actually.”

“What else is new?” He runs out. “Tell Leo I’m going out,” he calls over his shoulder. He does not wait for a reply.

He does not blame himself entirely for the events currently happening; he is well aware that her inclusion into their mess was not willed by him. However, a part of him can not shake the belief that he and his brothers have, by virtue of their lifestyle, caused her more pain than he had ever wanted. A part of him, still, believes that he or someone else should have bitten the bullet; of them, you should be the last person in line to murder.

‘I should’ve said something, done something.’

He lands down on your roof, starting to scale down the building. You have left your window open: he can see your floral curtains fluttering in the autumn breeze. Artificial light streams from your apartment as soft music plays from inside. He lands on your windowsill carefully, reaching in past the curtains to knock on your wall. “Y/N?”

He hears the music shut off the shuffling of bedsheets, three steps. You pull the curtain open.

You have not slept in a week. You have continued to go to school, scared as to what would happen if you did not, but you have not eaten or drank in a while either; more accurately, nothing has stayed down. You have contributed these things, easily, to the newly introduced variety in your nightmares. You wonder, now, if seeing his body would have been such a bad thing; your head has conjured up every possible position he might have fallen in, anyhow. At least, if you knew, you would only have one image torturing you as opposed to the seemingly different variations your head could come up with.

Donnie is not a psychologist. He has never been able to fully grasp the subject as much as the others in the scientific field; all of medicine, for that matter, has, regrettably, been hard for him to wrap his head around, what with how different he and his brother are from humans, physiologically. His master was the closest he had to an actual human until you had shown up, but he was hardly exemplary of your typical human. However, be it by what knowledge he does have or by the way you hold yourself, he can easily tell you are off. The color in your face is gone, the bags under your eyes larger than he has ever seen them on you, and every move seems oddly sluggish to him.

“Oh, hey.” You smile tiredly. “If you’re here about Michelangelo, he was just here a few minutes ago.”

“I’m not.” He climbs inside. “He got back to the lair ten or so minutes ago. Are you alright?”

Your eyes are flooded with black for a moment, a wave of numb pain and vertigo washing over you as you spread your stance slightly, not wanting to trip over your own feet. You hold your face in your hand as you steady yourself. “Totally.” You wince as you nodded. ‘Let’s not move our head more than we need to.’

Years of attentiveness and common sense tell him that you are blatantly lying. “What happened?”

“Huh?” You close your eyes. “Oh, nothin.” You take a couple steps back, slowly sitting back down on the bed, which was covered in packets. “Please,” you insist, “make yourself comfortable.”

He shuts the curtains, crouching down in front of you to look your features over more closely as he tries to identify what, exactly, is wrong with you. “Am I allowed to touch you?”

You look down at him from your seat. “I mean,” you sigh, “you _can_, if you want. Just not anywhere a general physician wouldn’t touch, alright?” You give him a half-hearted thumbs up. “I trust you to know where you can and can’t put your hands.” You highly doubt that he has any bad intentions, really, but you want to make your intentions clear.

“O-oh, of course,” he nods quickly. “I wouldn’t do anything you wouldn’t—well, not that you wouldn’t—” his face went red. “I-I mean—”

“Dude, relax.” You roll your eyes good-naturedly. “Take a deep breath or I’m gonna the wrong idea.”

He does “S-sorry.” He rubs the back of his neck. “That was weird.”

“You’re all good.”

He presses the back of his hand against your forehead. “You don’t have a fever,” he notes, still red in the face. “Did you eat anything you normally wouldn’t?”

You give him a thumbs down. “I’ve only had soup. Do you want some?”

He blinks. “Soup?”

“Yeah.” You look back at the kitchen, where a pot of soup is sitting on the counter. “Ran out of leftovers a couple days ago.”

His eyes widen. “Days?”

You nod, wincing as you feel your brain pounding against your skull. “Yeah,” you sigh. “It’s been hard to keep things down. Glad I ran out, actually; I think I got a—”

He cuts you off. “How many days do you take between meals?”

You pause. “Now?” You shrug. “One meal every day or two.”

“Day or two?”

“Again,” you repeat, very confused as to why he looks as though he is about to have a heart attack right then and there, “it’s been hard keeping stuff down lately.”

“How are you not dead?”

You blink. “I beg your pardon?”

His voice rises as his speech sped up. “How many cups of that do you eat in a sitting?”

You sit up properly. “Maybe three or four and a couple pieces of toast?”

He looks about ready to pass out. “Are you insane,” he cries, an octave higher than usual.

You cover his mouth with your hand. “Shut up,” you hiss. “You’re gonna wake my neighbors up.”

He stops talking, grabbing your hand and pulling it off his mouth. He gets up, muttering something about being ridiculous as he pours you an unusually large bowl of soup and placing it in your lap. “Eat.” He stands there, glaring at you pointedly.

You are, admittedly, surprised by his icy, commanding tone. You do as instructed. “You act as though I’ve poisoned myself,” you point out between bites. “It won’t kill me, you know.”

“I’m not a licensed dietitian,” he informs you, clearly upset, “but the recommended caloric intake for a woman is approximately four thousand calories—”

“That’s wrong.” You are already halfway through the bowl. “It’s two.”

“Do you seriously want to get into a debate on something science-related right now?” You are genuinely scared by his expression; every word sounds oddly lethal, as if they themselves could kill you.

You swallow, standing your ground. “We can look it up, if you want,” you offer. “I know for a fact I’m… right…”

He has glared directly at you. It almost shuts you up.

You quietly eat the rest of the bowl. You set your spoon down with a gentle clatter, clearing your throat as you try to ignore the way he was staring at you as if he were trying to dissect you with his eyes. “Done.” You showed him the empty bowl.

“You genuinely see nothing wrong with your dietary choices?”

You shake your head, immediately regretting it. “I know it’s unhealthy, but not to the same degree you seem to think it is.”

“And you honestly believe that you only need to eat two thousand calories to be healthy?” His tone was softer now, likely in reaction to how quickly you had recoiled.

You nod hesitantly, ignoring the way your head pounds.

He pauses. “We’ll talk about that later,” he decides. “For now, I have to ask: why can’t you keep food down, exactly?”

You lean back, placing the bowl on the nightstand. You stay like that, closing your eyes. “I just keep seeing it,” you explain simply. “Hearing it, too; it’s kinda like tasting really bad and then having the aftertaste stuck on your tongue, but for memories. Or like doing something embarrassing and, every once and awhile, having something happen to remind you of it.”

“It? Oh.” As soon as he says the words out loud, he knows what you are referring to.

“Yup.” You pop the P. “I dunno if you knew, but it doesn’t splat.”

A heavy silence smothers you both, despite the sounds of the city.

You feel the bed shift. Your eyes glance over at the man lying next to you, hands folded across his stomach as he stares at the ceiling.

“I honestly don’t know what to say.” He sighs. "I wish I knew how to do right by you.”

“You don’t have to—”

He cuts you off. “I want to, though.” He rubs his face with his hand. “I want to be able to invent something that makes things easier for you, to keep you from getting hurt.”

“Dude, it’s fine.” You punch his arm lightly. “I’ll be fine, eventually. Just not right now.” You smile weakly. “But, hey? At least my dreams have a bit of variety, right?”

“Dreams?”

You chuckle tightly. “It turns out my head is rather creative when it comes to ways the body can bend. I almost wish I had seen the bodies; then they could all be consistent.”

He groans. “See, it’s stuff like that that makes me feel bad about not being able—not that it’s your fault,” he back peddles. “I just—”

“Stop stressing so much,” you cut him off. “That’s my job. Don’t put yourself into a tizzy on my account.”

“How could I not?” He threw his hands up in the air. “I care about you, Y/N. I’m obviously going to care if you’re alright.”

You pause. “My mental stability should be the least of your concerns right now, what with Shredder and all.” You close your eyes. “The only reason he hasn’t beaten you and your brothers within an inch of your lives is that I knew where he’d be when. All things considered,” you roll over to face him, “my having bad nightmares is a small price to pay.”

Another silence.

You sigh. “You should probably get going.” You pull yourself onto your elbows, leaning forward onto your knees. “I gotta stake out Shredder’s lair tomorrow so you guys know when to come in.”

He sits up next to you. “Y/N, I—”

“You should stop worrying so much, alright?” You smile gently. “I have some sleep meds if your dad needs them.”

He opens his mouth to say something, pauses, closes it again. “Alright.” He stands up. “I’m sorry for bothering you.”

“You didn’t.” He didn’t.

He stops in his tracks.

You rest your head on your legs. “Yeah?”

“Will we see you tomorrow?”

You purse your lips. “I don’t know,” you admit. “I’ll definitely call you, though; it’ll be something of a feat to hijack a hijacked chemical truck.”

He looks back at you. “Please, be safe.”

You nod.

“Eat, too.”

You nod again.

“And drink?”

You roll your eyes teasingly. “Yeah, Dad, I’ll eat.”

His face flushes again. “Then I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“You got it, buddy.”

You look so small.

‘I did that.’

He climbs onto the windowsill, hesitating to leave. “Goodnight.”

You wave lazily. “Goodnight, Donatello.”

He climbs out of your apartment.

You wait a minute or two before you close and lock your window. You pull the curtains shut properly behind him, walking back to the kitchen to put the food away.

You sigh, doleful. “Sorry.”

You were maybe thirteen years old. It feels like longer, but you were most certainly in middle school

Driving home after school one day, you had stared out the window, the radio playing something you half paid attention to. You don’t remember, now, what prompted the conversation—you figure it was some sort of assembly you had mentioned—but, somehow, the question of what to do if you were tied up in the back of someone’s car had been brought up. This was not an unusual line of conversation, considering your family’s conviction that you would be kidnapped someday, but you remember it specifically because, after he brought it up, you had run the scenario over in your head what felt like a thousand times.

“It depends on where you are in the car,” he had said. “If you’re in the back seat, you have to reach forward and try to choke the driver out, if you can’t get the doors open.”

“And if I’m in the front?”

“Ram your body against his. Get a hold of the wheel and swerve the car.

The line of thinking had confused you. “But,” you countered, “then the car would crash; we would both get hurt.”

“You have a better chance of surviving a car crash than whatever would happen to you once you get to wherever you’re going.”

You two had not spoken for the rest of the drive.

Now, you stare ahead at the road, eyes occasionally glancing at the man in the driver’s seat as you try to come up with a plan. You wish, now, that you had gone with your initial instinct to call instead of sending Leonardo a text message; who knows when he will get it?

“I feel almost sorry for you,” the man sneers. “You would be better off getting killed in the explosion than what’s going to happen to you.”

You say nothing.

“Hey?” He barks out a laugh. “You’ll get to see what happens to them.” He sighs happily. “I can see it now. The smoke, the fire, the smell.”

You eye the door. ‘Locked. Shit.’

“Those freaks won’t know what hit them.” He leans forward, staring at the truck in front of them. “Shouldn’t have messed with us if they didn’t want to meet their maker.”

‘Could I even survive it?’

“You know somethin’, kid?” He grips the wheel tighter. “I gotta give ya some respect; not a ton of kids would’ve come this far. Personally,” he shrugs, “I would’ve killed you right then, but Shredder wants more out of ya, apparently.”

‘Would he?’ You shift your feet to your right.

“I’ll thank you for one thing, though; I was getting sick of that pompous asshole.”

‘I just gotta get his hands away from the wheel. There are people in the back of this van. They’d survive, right?’ You fight to keep your breathing steady.

“For someone who hangs with those freaks, you ain't slick, hangin on the street corner.”

‘They’re ninjas. I gotta believe they’d be fine.’ You shut your eyes, stealing yourself.

“How you got Bradford is be—hey!”

You slammed your torso against him, eyes squeezed shut.

“What are you, fucking suicidal?” He yelled, trying to push you off.

You pull away, slamming one foot against his cheek and stuck the other into the wheel. You hear honking as you desperately bang your foot into what you pray is his body. You feel the car speed up as he screams obscenities at you. You force the wheel away from you as hard as you can.

The next few moments are a blizzard of broken glass, voices, and blackness as the metal deathtrap tries to shake the life out of both of you.

You figure that you must have passed out a second, for the next thing you remember is the smell of gasoline.

Your eyes snap open. You look over at the man stuck half out the window. You reach back, trembling hands fumbling with the buckle strapping yourself in. You slam yourself against the front window as you hear it click open. You use your arms to pull yourself through the hole, the rope slicing against a stray piece of broken glass.

Your head is spinning. The only thought currently on your mind is to get away from the car.

For some reason, you find yourself unable to stand. You, instead, crawl, dragging your body desperately away from the wreckage. You do not feel yourself doing it, ignoring the glass shards sticking themselves into your palms and under your nails, the way they slashed into your stomach and sides as you drag yourself over them completely irrelevant as you claw towards the sidewalk.

You hear the explosion.

You pull yourself into an alley, waiting for the ringing in your ears to stop as you hear the conflict happening a few blocks down. You swallow your vomit as you stare forward blankly, the smell of smoke filling your nostrils.

Another.

You fall forward, tears filling your eyes as the pain settles in. You do not know what happened to your legs, only knowing for sure that they could not and would not support your weight. Every muscle and every tendon is vibrating. Your hair sticks to your body as your clothes soak in some sort of warm liquid.

You do not like that smell.

‘Why is everything spinning?’

You hear yelling, the screeching of wheels against asphalt.

‘I’m going to die.’

The sentence repeats in your head over and over again as you lay there in the alleyway.

‘I’m going to die here.’

You do not know why you are shaking right now.

‘I don’t want to die here. Not now.’

“Help,” you beg. “Please, God.” You feel a sob rise in your throat. “I don’t… wanna…”

You hear screaming.

“Help,” you breathe.

You black out.

Table of Contents

Chapter 7

Chapter 9

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moonlightchn · 4 years

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𝖂𝖊𝖗𝖊𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖘, 𝖜𝖔𝖑𝖛𝖊𝖘

and basic shit you should know before interacting I guess~

*Disclaimer: all the information this post contains will be based on things I’ve learned over the years and my personal modifications are NOT to be taken as the general rule. This is MY abo concept for this bot in particular. Yall are free to agree, disagree, take ideas, adapt to your own bot, etcetcetc. Bye. Also sorry this doesn't have a read more;;;; I tried :(

Hello, this is (not) JYPe,

and welcome to the first episode of “Admin’s abo concept isn’t probably what you think so we gonna go in dept on this shit hehe ”. This was originally going to be a one part documentary but I realized I would probably keep coming up with or remembering stuff and these would be so LOOONG so I decided to just do it as I go and I’ll use the hashtag “admins abo tmi ” for this yeah. But also remember you can ask questions if you have any or if you don’t understand something because I usually ramble a lot.

Today we’ll be talking about 3 things that seem to be the most important since they’re the most brought up on my RP’s and they are:

Turning/Transforming.

Heat vs Rut.

Mates.

So let’s begin!

🌙 𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌/𝕿𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌…

There’s two meanings to this concept, one is the concept of turning from human form to wolf form, and the other one is being transformed into a wolf by different means (these usually depends on which story you’ve heard, it can be being the 7th boy child in a family, it can be a bite or a scratch, it can be eating raw meat, etcetcetc).

*This change has now also been added to the Chan’s pack introduction.

What are the definitions of this words? Cambridge Dictionary defines them as:

Turn: to (cause to) become, change into, or come to be something.

Example: “Chan turned into his wolf form”

Explanation: Chan, already a werewolf, turned and changed into his wolf form.

Transform: to change completely the appearance or character of something or someone, especially so that that thing or person is improved.

Example: “Changbin was transformed into a werewolf.”

Explanation: Changbin, a regular human, was transformed /by a wolf/ into a werewolf.

𝕿𝖚𝖗𝖓𝖎𝖓𝖌…

In the classic folklore, turning consists of 2 phases, human with NO wolf characteristics whatsoever, (which is what makes it so hard finding out who the werewolf in town is) and fluffy wolf with some human like characteristics (being biped, having arms instead of four legs, body structure humanlike. The best examples I can think of are the underworld lycans mmm tasteful). Another general rule for classic werewolves was that the person and wolf were two different minds, the person never remembered turning and had no idea they were the werewolf terrorizing town. While being human, the person didn’t even have the wolf skills like hearing or strength. They were just regular boring humans. Another thing was that they had no control whatsoever and ONLY turned during full moon, but I’m not getting into that yet.

Here are some examples (it’s basically furries oop).

Moving on to my concept, I decided to have 3 phases of turning, consisting on:

Human: Basic, simple, boring human. No presence of wolf features whatsoever. YET they can still make use of their skills such as sensitive hearing, smell, extra strength among others.

Half-turn: Heavily inspired by Teen Wolf tbh, SOME features are present and can generally be controlled, such as eyes, ears, tail, fangs, claws. Can even be confused for hybrids. (sumn like this please appreciate my art)

Full-turn: they become big scary fluffy puppies. Let’s remember how they look like.

Channie Chan Chris

𝕿𝖗𝖆𝖓𝖘𝖋𝖔𝖗𝖒𝖎𝖓𝖌…

As mentioned before, transforming depends on which story you know and what you’re settling for. Generally we always talk about bites and deep scratches. Some of the most known stories about how to become a werewolf are being the 7th boy child born in a family on a full moon, or in Greek mythology, Zeus transformed some dudes into wolves after they tried to feed him human meat. There’s many different stories you can pick from, they’re just one Google away~

On my concept, though, the only way to transform is through a bite, even though I always keep options open.

I will probably be talking about the 3 types of wolves and deepening this a bit more later on.

🌙 𝕳𝖊𝖆𝖙 𝖛𝖘 𝕽𝖚𝖙.

Imma give you a wolf biology class because I know too much useless info and I WANT TO.

Rut: The rut is the mating season of certain mammals. The rut is characterized in males by an increase in testosterone, exaggerated sexual dimorphisms and increased aggression and interest in females.

Heat: The estrous cycle or oestrous cycle is the set of recurring physiological changes that are induced by reproductive hormones in most mammalian therian females. Estrous cycles start after sexual maturity in females and are interrupted by anestrous phases or by pregnancies. This cycle presents four phases, the one known as “heat” being the second one, estrus or oestrus, that refers to the phase when the female is sexually receptive.

What are seasonal breeders and what is mating season?

The breeding season is when seasonal breeders reproduce. Seasonal breeders are animal species that successfully mate only during certain times of the year. These times of year allow for the optimization of survival of young due to factors such as ambient temperature, food and water availability etcetc. Male seasonal breeders may exhibit changes in testosterone levels, weight, and fertility depending on the time of year. Female seasonal breeders will have one or more estrus cycles only when she is “in season” or fertile and receptive to mating.

Wolves fall in all of these descriptions.

What does all of this shit mean and why do I care lmao?

This means that if this was a logical bot I should only be doing NSFW like one week during 4 months a year LMAO no frfr

This basically means that RUT and HEAT are the seasons when the MALE and FEMALE respectively are ready to mate with each other to reproduce.

I’ve seen many male idol hybrids having heats instead of ruts, which I have no problem at all with and am sure no one else does really, but I think you should KNOW that a heat would not make them want to fuck, but get fucked. Heat would be the need to be filled and not fill others. A heat and a rut does NOT have to equal dominance or submissiveness in bots, anyway, that would be like saying being top or bottom determines who is dom/sub and that’s wrong, so just a PSA I guess.

Now, how does this affect my CB and ABO concept?

I’ve never, anyway, read anywhere of classic werewolves reproduction, which leads me to believe that they’re probably sterile. So I will stick to real life wolves rules but on my own way. Wolves are even monogamous and I dont go by that one lmao.

Reproduction rules on my ABO are really simple, ruts are once a month, around 5 days, and each of the guys have different characteristics for them. They’re only capable of getting someone pregnant during ruts, too. I just generally believe all girls are on the pill tbh and I never really use condoms but guys irl please practice safe sex wrap your or your partners willy before going freaky and stay safe.

Not sure if there’s something else to mention here? Let me know.

🌙 𝕸𝖆𝖙𝖊𝖘…

Mates are the wolf equivalent of soulmates, but that’s bullshit. I mean, I’m not gonna say they’re not real, I just mean that the general idea of only one person for the rest of your life and if it’s not them you’re miserable is dumb when we’re talking about beings with feelings. Did you know wolves irl are monogamous and mate but if their mate dies they just look for another one and move on? Now you know.

The thing with mates and marks, in my humble opinion, is that they don’t mean anything. Peoples hearts change, feelings come and go, and my wolves are NOT about to drop everything they have for some person they don’t know who happened to be their true mate. In fact, Channie is the only one who believes in them. The mates issue is a bit complex if we think about it over each of the Chan’s, but on a general idea, the mates are not exclusive for the guys, and I’ll probably make a tmi on the boys at some point, but Chan met his mate and it didn’t work out, for example. Mates go further than the marking, btw, mates are a special, cosmic bond. Marks are just that, marks.

And talking about that, we do not vibe with marks. The original folklore states marks as the way a wolf has to claim their partner as theirs and keep away others, especially from an alpha, and they’re supposed to go both ways, so marks between human/wolf, for example wouldn’t be possible. There’s also two marks.

The first bonding mark is generally given during sex between mates and heals, and the second one in front of the pack (there’s a whole social status thing involved here but were not touching that yet) and its permanent. Also marks are literal WOLF BITES so no, they’re neither small nor cute. Just look at these teethies and picture the scar in a neck-shoulder. That’s your bonding mark.

(they're cute tho I uwuuu)

What I’ve been reading around in fanfics and seeing around is that bots have been mated and claimed with marks, which is ok if you’re into that. My chan’s, though, find physical marks archaic, possessive and toxic. And honestly I personally do too.

You may have noticed by now that even though the boys are quite possessive, they’re never trying to scare away others and their sole way of marking is love marks that heal eventually and scenting. Permanent marks are a nono.

They will NOT mark anyone as their mate. Especially Channie plz he’s baby.

This is a personal decision and it does not mean that marking is RIGHT or WRONG. I just personally see marking bites as marking your partner with fire or something and I dislike the idea a lot.

ALRIGHT I THINK THAT’S ABOUT IT FOR TODAY I FEEL LIKE I WROTE TOO MUCH ALREADY??? Feel free to ask questions or request certain topics! I think next topics will be Social Structure, Skills and maybe Self control or Moon Cycles.

If you read all of this WOW CONGRATS??? I LOVE YOU EXTRA MUAH

One question I got on the asks was “since their fur color seems to correspond with their hair color, what happens if they dye their hair?”

Nothing happens babe! When they’re half turned they will have really funny colorful hair, but when they fully turn their fur stays the same! hehe Don’t worry, Chan won’t be a clown red wolf heh

OK BYE MUAH MUAH

Tags (hmu for removal:] if you don’t care about this hehe)

@yandereminholee @bunjihyo @shinhaneul-oc @sub-chungha @song-mingi-cb @grungeyuta @yourhwaa @bunny-woong @princess-yeji @xash-axx @7deadlysins-chan @camgirl-jihyeon @hybrid-wooyoung @vampirehhj @ghoulxbaekhyun @mafiaxnct127 @deadly-skz-gods-cb @mafia-chaeyoung @vampiresanha @sub-minho @starsirah-oc @femboy-minho @subbyhyunjinchatbot @weeb-wonwoo @yandere-wendy @musiclovermino @galaxy-ateez @chanlix-koalas @vampirechangbinnie @mafiafelixlee @madmanwoodam @sweetandsleepyjamie @yanderedahyun @hunter-chaeyoung @hwangyeji-cb @artsydahyun @gamer-yeji @yourminju @seulgi-foxy @kittensua-cb @softbabieinnie @softboyfriend-cb @iceskater-sana @irregularchatbot @yandere-miya @doll-seungmin @skz-cb @subbylino @babie-sanie

#admins abo tmi

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writeyouin · 5 years

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Swerve X Reader – Changes - Chapter 2

Chapter 2 – Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow?

A/N – Welp, this is the best I can do after that trip to A + E. It’s great being off work to write this.

Warnings – Mild Swearing.

Rating – T

Swerve grinned at his holo-form’s reflection, enjoying the winter look he’d just added. It was finally time for a visit to the next planet, Enpluam. The planet itself was said to be something of a winter wonderland, and as such, all of the crew had been ordered to adapt their holo-forms to have warm clothing so none of the natives got suspicious.

Swerve’s smile faltered as he caught sight of you behind him, failing to hide your frown. He spun around, suddenly insecure about his new outfit. “You don’t like it?”

You held up your hands defensively, “No, no, I love it, it’s just-” You shook your head, smiling instead, “It’s nothing.”

Swerve hugged himself self-consciously, “Please (Y/N), if you don’t like it… If you don’t like me-”

“Swerve,” You almost hissed, hurt by his suggestion. “It’s not your outfit, I love it. I love you. I just- I don’t understand why all these stupid bloody planets have to hate Cybertronians so much. I get that the war was horrible but it’s over now, it should be entirely up to you whether you want to go as a Cybertronian or not.”

Swerve reached out to caress your cheek lovingly, “(Y/N), it’s alright. We’re used to it. Besides, you know how much I like playing dress-up.”

You had to smile at the joke. Using it as an opportunity to change from your previously bitter thoughts about how Cybertronians were treated, you replied, “Yeah, well maybe you can dress up as a doctor tonight. I can think of a few places you haven’t examined on me yet.”

Swerve blushed, his vocaliser crackling with static like it always did when he was flustered. He swore to himself that one day, he would have a witty retort for your seductive comments.

You pecked his cheek, “Better not make that sound on-planet, or they’ll see right through you’re disguise.”

“Yeah,” Swerve finally managed to laugh, though he was already planning a doctor outfit in a sub-folder of his processor which he aptly named ‘Dr Sexy cosplay.’ “You looking forward to this planet?”

“I will be if you tell me what you’ve been planning.”

Swerve became rigid, “Plan- Uh planning? I- I haven’t been planning-”

You smiled knowingly, “Oh I know you’ve got something up that parka sleeve of yours Swerve. You’ve been quiet this week, so I know you’ve been hiding something. Want to tell me what it is now or save it for later? I promise I’ll act surprised if you do.”

There wouldn’t be much acting involved when Swerve told you about the mini-con shell he’d had built for you, he was sure about that. Swerve knew he had promised himself that he would tell you this week about his plans for you, but now the moment had been laid in front of him and he was too anxious to say anything. He’d planned to tell you on the icy planet below after taking you on the perfect date, which would hopefully serve as a reminder of how much he loved you so that you wouldn’t leave him after the news. He needed that extra time to tell you, and it would only be one cycle’s difference.

“Can you wait one more cycle?” He asked solemnly.

You raised your eyebrows, “Oh, a serious tone? Must be important.”

You pulled his hand towards yours, hooking your little finger around his own, “I pinkie-promise that I can wait one more day.”

Swerve vented a sigh of relief and pulled you into a hug which somehow felt less intimate than the silliness of the pinkie-promise. “Good. Great. One more day, and you’ll know.”

While you laughed, Swerve felt nauseated. Sure, you would know what he had been planning for over a year, but would you still love him afterwards.

The alarm beeped incessantly and you shot up unusually quickly from your sleep. “I’M UP! I’M AWAKE… I’m regretting setting this so damn early.”

Swerve couldn’t help laughing at your owl-eyed expression as you stumbled from the berth, barely keeping your balance when you landed. He hadn’t slept that night, not needing to as often as you did, but he had stayed with you because you made him promise to, though you’d neglected to tell him why.

“We’ve got a few hours before we get there you know,” He told you. “You can sleep a little-”

“No,” You said, running to the bathroom to shower. “No time. You and me have to be the first off this ship.”

“Loving the enthusiasm, but that’s usually me. The last time I woke you up this early, you threatened to petrol-bomb my bar.”

“MOLOTOV!” You yelled from behind the shut bathroom door. “I THREATENED TO MOLOTOV YOUR BAR. NO PETROL HERE. HAS TO BE BOOZE.”

“All the same, why the early wake-up?”

“Megatron and Ultra Magnus.”

“Sitting in a tree K-I-S-S-I-N-G?”

“No.” You came from the bathroom dripping wet and wrapped in a towel that had Brainstorm’s face printed on it, blowing a kiss without his mouth-plate. You shook your head energetically, “Not kissing. Yelling. At me specifically. Before we go to any planet, they pull me aside and give me a lecture like I’m a kid. Don’t mention Cybertron, (Y/N). Don’t start a bar-fight with Whirl (Y/N). Don’t eat that weird fruit (Y/N), it could kill you. You don’t get any of those talks.”

“Okay, but in their defence, you did do all of those things on the last planet we went to.”

“Hey, first off, that dude should not have been listening, it was a private conversation and I could have been saying that Cybertron sucks for all he knew. Second, Whirl started that fight, after he dropped his holo-form and locked me in his cockpit, so that wasn’t me. And third, that fruit-guy said it was a grape and it looked just like one, how was I supposed to know it wasn’t one? Besides, I was with Velocity and she managed to save me so no harm, no foul.”

“Wow…You’re so cute when you’re irritated. Like a tiny chipmunk whose sole-purpose is to defy Dave in his quest to become the best singing Chipmunk of all.”

“Bite me,” You growled, walking into your wardrobe, looking for winter gear.

“Gladly, just take off that towel and I’m sure I can find a spot,” Swerve replied smoothly, glad he had the chance to be the cool one for once.

Stepping out of the wardrobe momentarily to tease him, you lowered the towel giving him a bit of a show. He wolf-whistled and you had to laugh, before changing into your clothes and attempting to speed dry your hair. Once you were ready, you were happy to find that Swerve had transformed into his alt-mode and was waiting to drive you to the hanger doors where the two of you would hopefully be the first to get off the ship.

In a crowd of disguised Cybertronians, you and Swerve found it easy enough to bypass Ultra Magnus and Megatron who were clearly looking for you. The second the hangar doors opened, the two of you ran outside hand in hand, laughing as fresh snow crunched underfoot.

“You know they’re going to talk your ears off when we get back,” Swerve said.

You shrugged, admiring the view of the icy covered town below, underneath a dark purple sky. “Who cares? Right now, all that matters is that the town is down there, it’s just you and me and… I’m in front.”

Swerve didn’t have a chance to respond as you started running down the hill towards the town, cheating in a race he wasn’t prepared for. His mouth stretched into a wide smile, ‘Joke’s on her, I don’t run out of breath.’

Despite that thought, you put up a good fight, almost beating him to the bottom before some snow gave way underfoot and you fell the rest of the way down.

“(Y/N)!” Swerve called frantically, catching up to you.

Although you were shocked by the fall, it didn’t stop you from laughing as you got up and wiped the snow off your clothes.

“Are you okay?” Swerve asked, grabbing your arms to check if you were alright and breathing a sigh of relief when he was sure you weren’t injured; for something so soft and squishy, humans certainly were resilient.

“I’m fine, but you’re not.”

“What-”

You shoved a handful of snow in his face and continued running.

“Oh, you can run but you can’t hide,” Swerve called, chasing after you.

There was plenty more time for fun and games as the two of you explored the world in the little time you had. Every so often, you would be reminded just how cruel the universe could be when you saw signs that warned against non-organics, but Swerve would quickly shrug it off and draw your attention to something else.

Finally, after exploring icy caverns, tasting new foods that didn’t spark any allergic reactions, watching a few of the locals, delighting in a spot of star-gazing, and generally experiencing things you never could have back on Earth, it was time to head back to the ship. Although Swerve was ready to finally tell you about the mini-bot shell, he opted to wait until he could take you to it so you could ask Perceptor and Brainstorm any questions that he might not be able to answer. There was a countdown on his visual feed that was a reminder of how long he had left in his promise to tell you; it was a relief knowing it would be gone by that night.

You walked hand in hand with Swerve through the cobble-stoned streets of the town, on your way back to the Lost Light.

“I just don’t get it,” Swerve grumbled. “How did you find that comedian funny? He was terrible.”

You thought of the comic who was in some kind of talent show by a sculpture of a frozen fountain. Then in a low voice so nobody would overhear, you said, “It’s an organic thing. Face it sweetie, you just wouldn’t get that kind of humour.”

“Fine. You just wait till we get back to our room, I’m going to find you some of Cyber- Uh, my home’s comedians,” He corrected as you crossed paths with another family. “Then we’ll see if you get my kind’s humour.”

You chuckled at his stubbornness, stopping when the two of you came to a short bridge that had three men on it. Two were human, the other was some kind of rock-like humanoid. Swerve tried to lead you on but you held onto his hand tightly, tugging him back. You knew what drunks looked like when you saw them, and the trio in front of you were clearly intoxicated.

“We should find another way back,” You whispered, unsettled.

“(Y/N), this is the fastest way back, trust me,” Swerve said, confident that after owning his own bar, he could navigate his way through a few overcharged organics.

Although you were still uneasy, you placed your trust in your husband and let him guide you towards the bridge. Upon seeing the two of you, the humans jeered. A sound like rocks being ground together let you know the other organic was doing the same.

“Oy, oy, lookee what we have here. Ain’t this a charmin’ pair?” A red headed man, with an almost blue tinted face from the cold chuckled.

“Alright gents,” Swerve grinned confidently. “Mind if we pass? Our ship’s leaving soon.”

“Oooh, is it now? You hear that Darren? Their ship’s leaving soon.”

Darren, the other human, an unremarkable man with a pock-marked face stepped forward, “I did hear. I also heard when he called us gents. I’m not a gent, are you a gent Al?”

“I don’t think I am. Nor is our mate here. He ain’t got the stones to be a gent.”

All three of them laughed at the awful pun, apparently finding it hilarious in their inebriated state. You felt your heart start beating faster, and once again you tried to pull Swerve away. This time he complied, realising his mistake in approaching the group.

“Nah!” Al called. “Don’t go, we was only having a laugh. Right lads?”

“Swerve!” You cried as the rock man grabbed Swerve and pulled him back for Al and Darren to mock.

“Listen guys, we’re all people here,” Swerve started to babble in his overly-friendly way. “We don’t have to fight and- oof-”

Darren punched Swerve’s stomach and Swerve doubled over in pain that he wouldn’t have felt outside of his holo-form, falling to the floor when the rock man dropped him.

“GET AWAY FROM HIM,” You screamed, running in front of Swerve.

“(Y/N), no,” Swerve groaned, trying to stand up.

“Aw look, he’s fond of his lass,” Darren laughed.

“Aye,” Al sneered, “I’m fond of her too. Tell you what, we’ll just take her and leave, yeah? Then you won’t miss your ship, will you, Swerve? Stupid fuckin’ name.”

The rock man reached past his human companions to lift you up over his shoulder, and you screamed in outrage, punching, kicking, hissing, doing anything possible to free yourself. Upon seeing you in danger, defending him of all things, Swerve snarled. Disobeying all the rules, he freed himself of his holo-form and mass displacement.

“THAT’S MY WIFE!” He roared in all his robotic glory, slapping Darren and Al to the floor.

The rock man, apparently panicked by the sight of a non-organic, dropped you and fled back into the town.

“(Y/N)!” Swerve rushed to your side and held you close, checking you for injuries. “Are you alright?”

While Swerve fussed over you, Al pushed himself up to stare in mute disgust at the scene of pure love before him. An organic and a non-organic married? It was an abomination that made him glad he hadn’t had his way with you.

‘Spoilt goods,’ He thought cringing as you and Swerve walked away from the fight, if it could be called that.

Abhorred and repulsed by you, Al decided to make the universe a better place. “Fuckin’ robo-whore,” He whispered, reaching into his belt for his pistol.

Just one headshot and it would all be over. Drunk as he was however, Al would not have made a headshot in a million years.

“You were right,” Swerve said, shaking his head and holding you close. “We should have never crossed that bridge.”

You didn’t say anything but you did gasp and lurch forwards as a bang erupted from behind you. Everything after that seemed to happen in slow motion. Swerve screaming. You looked down to your jacket, finding that it had changed from white to red. You tried to speak but couldn’t. Darkness kept clouding your vision. You were on the snow. Light again and you were in Swerve’s alt-mode. Darkness. You opened your eyes to find Ratchet and Velocity hovering over you.

You could hear Swerve shouting something, though you couldn’t see him.

“-NEW BODY- PERCEPTOR & BRAINSTORM- SINCE THE WEDDING-”

The next time darkness overtook you, you didn’t wake up for a long time, and as Ratchet and Velocity hung over you, they wondered if you ever would again.

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#swerve #swerve x reader #swerve x human reader #ll #The Lost Light #lost light #mtmte #more than meets the eye #transformers idw #idw #transformers #maccadam #reader #reader insert #fanfiction #fanfic #changes #chapter 2 #will you still love me tomorrow

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psyga315 · 4 years

Text

Fixing RWBY Volume 7

Much like my Volume 6 Tweak, this Volume 7 Tweak doesn’t change a lot of things, but the things that do change will be to be centered around a theme: Who Can You Trust? With the amount of the word “trust” being thrown around, it helps to add more than just characters parroting “I trust you, do you trust me” and “can we reeeeaaaaally trust you” ad nauseum.

Now, normally, I’d begin with Episode 1, but for the most part, Episodes 1 & 2 do a great job setting up the conflict for the Volume. The only thing that would be changed is an earlier introduction to Robyn. Either through a character short style random fight or have the group bump into her during their trip to Mantle.

Also, probably change up how Weiss handles the drunkard because… Yeah, you don’t just fling a guy into the trash bin for being racist after you spend the past six volumes having a villain faction of murderous terrorists motivated by racists attacking their kind. The problem is that I don’t know how. The best I can say is that Weiss tries to do something about it, the dude’s like “wait, aren’t you a Schnee?” and then Weiss realizes “Oh shit, we should be incognito.”

Episode 3

Now here’s where things start to change up. Have a split in the group over whether Ruby was in the right to omit Salem’s immortality to Ironwood. A clear 50/50 split or as close to one as possible. If I was deciding who was on who��s side, Weiss, Blake and Nora would be on Ruby’s side and Jaune, Ren, and Yang would be on Ironwood’s side. Over the course of the Volume, they give their reasons, but I’ll explain their reasons now.

Weiss and Blake’s reasons are virtually the same, with Weiss’s added caveat being that she overheard Ironwood going “OZPIN SHOULD HAVE TRUSTED ME!” bit. Nora would be too pissed at Ironwood to care what he wants and anything to fuck him over is a win in her book, even egging on the other side to join by saying how he disqualified RWBY from the Vytal Tournament and how this would be good payback.

Ren’s reason was implied, but it’d be more pronounced that he wants Salem dealt with now. Not out of apathy or tiredness, but because he knows the Grimm now have a mistress and that the only person who has an actual plan to deal with her is being lied to. Yang and Jaune share their reason, but in different ways. Yang isn’t too keen on Ruby omitting information to Ironwood after they had just spent an entire two Volumes distrusting Ozpin for the same thing and Jaune especially doesn’t like that Ironwood is going to go into an unwinnable battle without knowing all the details, much like how Pyrrha never found out about Salem.

Oscar, Qrow, and Maria would be the middle of the fence. Maria doesn’t care too much about the situation and is just there to help out Pietro, Qrow has known Ironwood more than anyone but recent events had him uneasy, and Oscar just doesn’t want to be hurt because that tends to happen whenever people find out about Ozpin’s many, many skeletons. However, they all have faith that Ruby is doing something right…

The only other thing I’d change with this is giving the outright confirmation that these are the mines that Ilia’s parents died in. Maybe even have Marrow allude to how it was a major turning point in making the White Fang what they are now.

Episode 4

Not much changes, except for Ironwood showing genuine remorse for what’s going on with Mantle and trying to make amends by making the group Huntsmen and having them broker peace to Mantle by helping them out.

The other major change is Qrow not telling Ruby that she’s done nothing wrong. Instead, he warns that Ironwood, while he’s a very valuable ally, is also one whose trust is hard to earn and easy to break. He reveals to Ruby about how Ozpin was put on thin ice in Volume 2 and how Ironwood became the head of security for Vytal. Because the Tweaking Volume 6 showed Summer in the flashback to Ruby, I don’t think we’ll get that here.

A minor bit would be Penny and Jaune talking about Pyrrha, because what’s Jaune’s character arc without bringing Pyrrha into it?

Episode 5

Nothing really changes that much except for a training montage between the Ace Ops and RWBY so that we get that out of the way. Maybe even have Nora note the hole in the wall and get more furious at Ironwood for just leaving that out in the open when a simple patch would fix it. Ironwood would then give a rebuttal that it wouldn’t fix the Manticore problem.

There’s a small change in Robyn’s demeanour in which she doesn’t like Penny. “Just because you’re the protector of Mantle doesn’t mean you’re not another one of Ironwood’s machines. Once I get in power, you’re the first bot to enter the scrapyard!” Like, the world knows Penny is a robot, right? Speaking of, we have Ruby talk to Penny about how depressed she was when she died. Because remember when she broke down into tears over that and had Penny’s death be a major impact to her psyche?

The biggest change would be that whole scene with Winter and Fria. Weiss is appalled that Fria is locked up in a room before Winter tells her that it’s to secure her, explaining how Maidens end up having their powers taken from them through murder instead of the natural way and using the Fall Maiden’s death as an example. Weiss then asks “isn’t that what you’re going to do to her? Why don’t you just do Ironwood a favor and stab her right now?” Winter is silent.

Oh, and there’s no scene of Jacques inciting a riot. You’ll understand why later, but this will eliminate the stupid “riot happens off screen” bit. Instead, we get a scene where a plane flies towards the blockade. They demand to know who’s on the plane, only for Cinder to come out, smirk, and her Maiden eye flares as a snowstorm kicks off.

Episode 6

Not a lot changes here save for the obvious minor detail of a snowstorm hitting Atlas and Mantle (as well as Ironwood receiving reports about his blockade being taken out, thus he tells the group to take the night off while he looks into getting replacement planes) and one major detail: Tyrian’s attack during the rally would be him busting in during a power outage (engineered by either Watts’s hacking or Cinder’s snowstorm) and slaughtering people as they try to whip out their phones to try and illuminate the area. We’d even have an earlier scene where we could see Tyrian sneak in the background as Nora kisses Ren, giving the notion that, had Nora not macked on Ren, they would have seen Tyrian.

Penny tries to fight Tyrian because of her night vision, but Tyrian gets the better of her, even dancing through her slashes and have other people get hurt and possibly killed by her blades, blood being on her swords once the lights go back on. Robyn instantly attacks Penny, leading to Ruby to try and defend her and prove her innocence. Marrow gets the angry mob to “STAY!”, but it’s pretty clear that Robyn was out of the radius when that happened. As Ruby and Penny run off, Robyn gives chase, the Grimm invade, a plane lands without any problem on Mantle, and we get perhaps the largest change in the entire volume: An entire episode gets shafted in favor of one we were promised.

Episode 7

We see Blake and Yang with FNKI when they hear the Grimm siren go off and they go to investigate. Meanwhile, Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar exit the theater only to get attacked by Grimm. The majority of this episode would be them fighting the Grimm until Ruby, Penny and Robyn come in to Blake and Yang’s perspective.

Not sure what’s going on, Blake and Yang fight Robyn while Penny runs away. It isn’t until Robyn rants about Ironwood does Blake stops fighting her, tells her about Ironwood’s plan, and the whole truth Semblance thing happens. Yang confronts Blake on this, to which she gives her rant about how she distanced herself from the White Fang and that what RWBY is doing is exactly like the White Fang. It doesn’t help that, when Yang reassures Blake that they did what they had to do, she sounds exactly like Adam, right down to her saying “It's good to know I've still got you...”

Weiss, Jaune, and Oscar find Ruby and Penny and have a brief moment to reconvene before a mob comes after Penny, demanding her head. In the middle of this, Cinder and Neo look on. Neo nonverbally asks if they should get Ruby while they have the chance, but Cinder smirks upon seeing her scroll and says she has a plan. During a stand off where Ruby tries to proclaim Penny’s innocence, Cinder sneaks into the mob and, with the help of Neo disguising her as an old lady (because what’s RWBY without making characters into two different fairy tale references at once?), tell the group how Penny had been going out and murdering people for Ironwood, showing the group the doctored footage of Penny murdering Forrest and Cinder lying about how Forrest is her (grand)son.

Now in an even bigger frenzy, the crowd swarm Ruby as Cinder slinks into the background. Despite all their best efforts, the people of Mantle get their hands-on Penny and dismember her from limb to limb. The despair of Penny dying again followed by several more Grimm coming in causes Ruby’s Silver Eyes to go off, turning the Manticores to stone (and, if you want some instant karma, one of them could be in midflight and fall on top of some of the more ruder Mantleans, crushing them in the process) before she gets weak and Weiss carries her away, with Jaune and Oscar carrying Penny’s remains from the blinded crowd.

In the middle of all this, Ren and Nora fight Grimm on their own, getting into an argument about how Mantle is being treated. This is where Nora’s rant comes in, not to Ironwood, but to Ren. Ren tells her his reason why Ironwood is their best bet and because of his words, it upsets Nora enough to go her separate way. We end the episode with Nora coming across Robyn.

Episode 8

It’s been a week since the battle and we reconvene on Penny being rebuilt. Ruby and Jaune converse about how coincidental it is, with Ruby being clearly upset that she had to watch Penny die twice now. Jaune, however, elates that at least she’s alive, awkwardly bringing up his dead girlfriend again. Pietro comes in and tells them that it is not as coincidental as they believe and demonstrates by using his Semblance, the ability to be a make shift deliberator.

Basically, this is where I reinvent how Pietro’s relation to Penny works. I’m keeping the disturbing aspect that he slowly dies a little each time he uses this power while taking out the unintentionally disturbing aspect of Penny really being just Pietro in the robotic shell of a young girl. As for who Penny is… You saw this coming and if RT wanted to really make those fairy tale references, it just makes sense for them to pay homage to the very first anime that just so happens to also reference Pinocchio, or at least is compared to Pinocchio.

We have a flashback to Pietro and Watts working on the Paladin project together before Pietro gets a call. We don’t hear what it is, but we can definitely tell from how he reacts and how it’s framed exactly what happened. We cut to Pietro in the morgue grieving over a dead girl who looks similar to Penny and get that hard confirmation that Penny was Pietro’s daughter… or rather was the basis of Pietro’s daughter.

He uses his Semblance, which he says allows him to jumpstart people’s aura and save them from the brink of death. While normally an Aura technique in of itself to awaken another’s aura, it’s another thing to awaken another’s aura and save their life in the process. However, he tried that on a long dead Human Penny and all it did was put her in a comatose state, needing to be put on constant life support or else she’d die. Not wanting to let go of Penny, Pietro invented a means to transfer her aura over to something else: The Aura Transfer Machine. He places Penny into the shell of V1!Penny and jumpstarts her. She opens her eyes and says “Salutations!”

As the flashback ends, he explains how what he did was unnatural and, as a consequence, whenever he jumpstarts Penny with his Semblance, his Aura completely depletes and it damages him. It’s how he became crippled. Normally, the Aura would return slowly and he’d be recovered, but because he had to do it so many times in a short amount of time, it damages him. Jaune says he’ll use his Semblance to save Penny next time, but Pietro brings up the contrast between their Semblances: Jaune just dumps aura into other people, but Pietro is bringing the dead back to life. Even if Jaune were to use his Semblance, all it would do is put Aura into a robotic shell and not Penny. A sad reminder that, no matter what he did, Penny will never be a real girl again. Especially since, as one last flashback shows, Ironwood was more than pleased with Penny and convinced Pietro to turn Penny into a living weapon, something he was very hesitant about.

I’d add that Pietro would die right there to show that Penny has no ‘extra lives’ left, but I feel like RT would do that already… So I’ll say he’s written out of the volume by going into a coma.

Interspersed with this is the dinner scene. Because there’s fewer people going with Ironwood, RT might splurge a bit and give characters different outfits for the scene, like Weiss having an all-white version of her Mistral dress or having Qrow’s new outfit be the outfit he wears to the dinner. Obviously, not everyone gets new dresses, as the Ace Ops still have their uniforms. Only Weiss, Blake, Yang, Ren, and Oscar attend for obvious reasons.

Weiss investigates Jacques like usual, but she gets quite a few encounters, such as running into Harry Marigold (who gets in a heated argument with May and establishes who she is right there and then instead of doing Twitter) and even the Trophy Wife who she tried to kill. They’re brief, but show the consequences of Weiss’s actions. Maybe have the Trophy Wife flee in terror. She then comes across Willow, who, for the first time in Weiss’s life, is not drunk. In fact, she is elated to see Weiss return, but understands why she doesn’t share the same notion. She reveals to have sobered up since Weiss ran away and had done a lot of contemplation. She doesn’t say too much, but she does leave Weiss with the video and guilt trips her about Whitley.

While Watts turning off the heating grid is still in, it’s not the final scene. Instead, it’s during the dinner with Ironwood and the others, in which Robyn, as part of the “get Ironwood impeached” party, brings in someone who had been “tormented by Atlas’s boot on Mantle’s face for far too long…”: Nora.

Nora’s Backstory

Okay, granted, this is something that is operating on information we don’t know yet, so there’s a lot of speculation to go on here. I’ll probably make an update to this once we get a proper backstory for Nora, but for now, this is what I think would be Nora’s backstory:

Mantle had been scapegoated as the cause of the Great War and while they had a hand in it, the real cause of it, the nobles, decided to take their ball and go home by using the Relic to lift their Kingdom high into the clouds, leaving the rest of Mantle to take the fall. The Oz at the time allowed this to happen knowing exactly why they did it, but instead tried to cite it as creating a beacon of hope instead of what it truly was.

As a result, Mantle hit an unstable depression and unable to even be on the same level as the other Kingdoms, essentially being Menagerie before they made Menagerie. This resulted in people starving and dying. Of the few people who remained hopeful was Fria Valkyrie, who proposed life living out in the lands of thriving kingdoms rather than be ruled over by Atlas. She went to Mistral and got a few people into pooling their resources to make a new Kingdom, one that would exist outside the four and be by the people, for the people.

Unfortunately, not everyone shared her vision and some even took her resources to create Menagerie for the purpose of dumping the Faunus there. After she gained the Maiden powers by chance, she was forced to give up her dream by Oz. Her child grew up and inherited that vision, getting a child of their own, moving to Mistral, wooing someone to birth Nora, tell her about how Mantle became a shithole thanks to Atlas, and then head to make Oniyuri with the others. The Nuck came, killed Nora’s parents and left her an orphan, only for her to bring the Nuck with her to Kuroyuri and the rest is history.

Of course, this wouldn’t all be shown and is a rough idea, but the core idea is: Mantle suffered long ago because the people who caused the Great War refused to take blame and went into their floating castle while Oz just looked at it and said “hey, look at this shiny beacon!”

With that in mind, let’s return to the story:

Episode 9

Nora lays down Mantle’s grievances to Ironwood in front of everyone before she includes the two members of the council and Jacques into the shit pile, saying how they’re not blameless. When called out on going all “sins of the father” on the group, she says how they should have thought of that before doing that to Mantle. Robyn attempts to expose Ironwood before Weiss drops in and tries to expose Jacques…

And here’s where major change #2 comes into play. As the video plays of Jacques and Watts having their conversation, it takes a turn for the weird as Jacques just throws Watts out of his house and refusing to hear any further of his offer. This is one of the major scenes that convey the theme of trust. Throughout the Volume, we’re built up to not trust Jacques and trust Ironwood before the tables turn around this exact moment. Now, with the revelation that Jacques refused to work with Watts and Ironwood turning Penny into a weapon against her and Pietro’s will, Jacques is the trustworthy one and Ironwood is the deceitful.

Though, before any consequences play out, it’s all put on hold as news of the heating grid had been turned off. And yes, before you ask, in this tweak, the heating grid is in Mantle and thus is just as easy to hack. The reason why Watts decided to do this now is to make it look like Ironwood is doing it in retaliation for what happened to Penny. As a result, riots and Grimm naturally come. Robyn asks Ironwood why he’s working so hard to hide Amity Arena and this gives Oscar the (unintended) signal that now’s the time to tell him the truth. He covers for Ironwood, then gets him to a secure room to tell him all he knows about Salem.

Especially how she boned Ozpin.

Okay, joking aside… The rest of the episode (as well as Episode 10) play out like normal, but with Ruby and Jaune arriving to help from the ground instead of from the plane for obvious reasons.

Episode 10

The only big change is the reveal that Tyrian is a serial killer here because we retconned the original Episode 7. The only sight twist I can add to this is that he was part of the White Fang, had a hand in some of Weiss’s family members being killed, and that’s why Salem knew of them.

Episode 11

Okay, this is the best episode of Volume 7 so there’s not a lot to change. The only major changes are as follows.

Ironwood confronts the group over Robyn knowing about Amity. When confronted on why he had to keep that a secret, he explains that it was to prevent the enemy from learning about it, like what happened with Watts. When Yang calls him out for lying, he snaps and calls her out for lying.

“Oscar told me the truth. About Salem.”

“What!? He wasn’t supposed to!”

“Then who would have? And when? When everyone threw their lives away for nothing? You’re just like Ozpin.”

And then Salem shows up, gloats a bit, goes yo mama, and Ironwood decides to use the Relic of Creation to send Atlas somewhere else. He’s not doing the stupid thing of yeeting it into space, though. Instead, he’s going to use it to move them away from the continent and towards another Kingdom. When Blake says that they’re leaving Mantle to die, he just coldly remarks that “they did this to themselves”.

Naturally, RWBY protests about this. The funny thing is, The Ace Ops are almost able to convince the girls to leave Mantle… But then Ironwood says this to Ruby:

“After what they’ve done to poor Penny… Surely, you’d agree that they don’t deserve our protection.”

This causes Ruby to quietly turn that comment around:

“Yeah… But after I heard about what you’ve done to Penny… The only thing I agree about is that you don’t deserve my trust.” Before she calls the others and says how Ironwood had gone mad. This leads to the confrontation with the Ace Ops and the end of our episode.

Episode 12

Well… How do we make the worst episode of V7 better? Well, we begin with showing what happened to Oscar. Robots come to take the Relic from him, Ruby comes in and Oscar saves her. They have some romantic tension, but uh oh! It’s Neo! And she took the Relic!

We then cut to the airplane. I should bring up that the arrest warrant has been changed a bit, excluding Qrow, Oscar, Jaune and Ren from the list. Qrow and Oscar because they gave Ironwood their trust and vice versa, Jaune because Ironwood overlooking Jaune would be hilarious, and Ren because of the kids, he was the most trustful of Ironwood. Nora, however, is still on the list due to her standing against Ironwood. As well as Robyn.

This leads to a more natural reason for Robyn to pick a fight: She’s resisting arrest. They crash and Clover calls for a medical team. Qrow and Clover have a conversation about what’s going on. Qrow insists they talk to Ironwood about this, only for Clover to insist he arrests Ruby. This leads to a natural conclusion as to why Qrow fights Clover: He wants to protect Ruby.

Tyrian joins in and the fight isn’t a 2v1 like the original, but instead Qrow vs. Clover but with Tyrian running interference against both sides. This leads to Qrow and Clover teaming up against Tyrian, but Qrow, at the last minute, knocks Clover aura out so as to disable him. Tyrian is kinda shocked at the betrayal but stays around to let it play out, especially since he knows something Qrow doesn’t.

Clover asks Qrow why he did that and Qrow told Clover that sometimes, you have to do the right thing instead of doing what you’re told to. Clover remarks that the right thing is often the hardest and stands firm with his belief that Ironwood will do the right thing, even if the cost is people’s lives. Qrow then says “then he will take the fall.” Clover chuckles, says good luck, then dies because it’s freezing out on Solitas.

Tyrian laughs at this, Qrow gets pissed, he runs off, and the aircraft comes.

RWBY vs. Ace Ops goes about as well as the best of the best of the best going up against a bunch of college drop outs who only had a week or so of training with said best. Very poorly. In fact, the group takes advantage of the team’s insistence of fighting in the White Rose and Bumblebee pairs, curbstomping them by exploiting their weaknesses. However, just as they’re about to be arrested, Marrow takes a look at Ruby.

“You know, I never wanted to actually arrest you guys…” He breathes in. “And I don’t want to.” Turns around and shouts “STAY!” to the rest of the Ace Ops and tells Ruby and her friends to run. As soon as they do, he gets out his weapon and glares at his ‘friends’. Harriet asks why he did this, only for him to reply:

“Well, maybe we were just tired of being pushed around.” He says before he tosses a volatile Dust crystal on the ground and hurts the group, making a getaway.

And the JNPR bit stays the same.

Episode 13

Because this will be setting up Volume 8, this is mostly speculative at this point. But then again, I did the same with Volume 6’s Tweaking before Volume 7 premiered… That said, Volume 6 was more conclusive than Volume 7 so…

Bottom line, this will most likely get disconfirmed by the time Volume 8 rolls around.

JNPR vs Neo stays the same, but Nora and Ren bicker about whether to stay on Mantle and help the others, causing Neo to give them the slip with the Relic and further sever the ties between Nora and Ren.

Cinder vs Winter, Penny and Fria is also a little changed. Namely, Penny takes a blow for Winter that destroys most of her body. Despite this, she struggles to go through the whirlwind that Fria makes and saves her from Cinder. Penny is dying as a result of putting herself through the extreme and with no Pietro to save her, this will basically be her final death.

Fria knows this. She also knows that Ironwood had sent only one person to see her to make it easier for her Alzheimer’s and that Penny is not that person. Despite this, she is moved by Penny’s dedication, asks for her name, and passes on her powers to Penny, saving her life. Ruby flashes Cinder and secures Penny. On the ship during Ozpin’s speech on fear, Pietro wakes up, checks up on Penny to see if she’s alright. Upon seeing that there’s blood on a cut from Penny, he’s at first afraid, but then cries in joy as she had become a real girl. However, if RT decides to do a plot point like this in a future volume where they make Penny a real girl, then disregard this bit.

The final bit (don’t worry, I’m going to the Ironwood vs Oscar bit later) is that Maria explicitly says that they’re leaving Atlas. As soon as she says that, Nora and Blake object. Nora because they’re leaving Mantle as well and Blake because they just had an entire fight where they wanted to stay and fight. Yang tries to reason with Blake, but she just comments about how she’s not going to run. Likewise, Nora is tired of sacrifices after losing Pyrrha. They both leave and go to Mantle just as the plane leaves.

Ironwood and Oscar’s Conversation

Okay, no amount of summary is going to do this justice, so I’m going to include this as a subsection like with Nora’s backstory. This would take place roughly in the same spot(s) as the original. It starts out roughly the same until Oscar pleads to work this out.

Ironwood: There is no working anything out. People have been demanding me to do things their way, to make things easier for them, and every time I try to bend to their whims, Salem and her forces go two steps ahead. The easiest solution is for me to do everything myself.

Oscar: Including leaving people to die?

Ironwood: That’s what Ozpin had been doing for most of his life. You don’t hear people complain about that. Because he kept it all to himself and never told others the bigger picture. Just like Ruby.

Oscar: Ruby only hid the truth because she was afraid of what you’d become if you found out.

Ironwood: That’d I’d become another Lionheart? I’m not that weak-willed a coward.

Oscar: Then why abandon Mantle?

Ironwood: Because Salem’s forces are on our doorstep. If we don’t do anything, then we will fall!

Oscar: No… If you divide us, then we will fall… It’s what she wants, James.

Ironwood: … James is what my friends call me. To you… it’s General.

And the rest of the scene plays out like normal, including the ending of Salem’s forces arriving.

Stinger

This is less fix and more wish.

Marrow stumbles onto a rooftop, the top portion of his face heavily burned from the explosion, and sees Salem’s forces arriving. A recovering Fiona approaches Marrow and tells him how protecting Mantle had just become more complex. Marrow shakes his head and takes out something from his pocket before he fixes it to his face.

“It was never about protecting Mantle, Fiona… It’s about making Atlas pay for what they’ve done.” He turns around, wearing a White Fang mask.

And that was Tweaking V7, perhaps the most intense tweaking I’ve done with five thousand words.

#RWDE #RWBY #Rewrite #RWBY Rewrite

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fevertowrite · 4 years

Note

hi! BIG fan of your wattpad story no use. While it is sad you ended it so soon with 34 chapters I have a small request. If it is possible, I would like a small follow up? Maybe on what the Shredder did to Donnie all this time? Or Donnie's thoughts when he left, got captured, was harmed and then returned home? Either is alright with me but I would really love to know what happened. Thank you for taking the time to read this comment

Hey ! Thanks so much for reading this story and being a BIG fan !! That means so much to me :)!!! I wrote a little drabble under the cut, but I tried adding both situations into this, and if it’s not what you’re looking for, by all means send me another detailed request and I’ll do my best :D!

His anger clouded his mind as he made his way to the junkyard. Donnie didn’t get angry often, but when he did it’s been towards Leo. His brother been annoying him about the cure for Karai, the sleepless nights made him more agitated when Leo gets to have more than 7 hours of sleep and he’s on his third day of barely two hours of sleep.

Maybe it was due to the storm coming up that lead his mind to go foggy, or the fact anger clouded his judgment of the storm coming earlier than he thought. He just needed to grab a piece and go, but the howling winds and the paranoia were kicking in. Maybe if he turned back now, apologized to Leo and actually go to sleep, he can go another day.

Looking up at the dark, loomed sky, he knew another day meant weeks or even months and they don’t have time to sit around waiting for the snow to end. Their sister could be on the verge of dying, she was alone and couldn’t control herself, and Donnie owed her that much to at least save her.

Donnie picked up a scrap of metal, and in the reflection, he was able to turn around and block the incoming sword coming his way with his bo. He thanked whatever made him the urge to pick up that metal but destroying that one random bot he knew something was wrong. Foot bots came like a pack of wolves, he needed to go before –

At least 30 of these bots sprang out of nowhere, and Donnie was surrounded. He had no choice but to fight, the snow started to flutter, and the storm was going to kick in soon, Donnie had to act fast.

“Can’t we do this another night?” He groaned at them, as he pulled out the naginata from his bo, and as the crowd of bots came closer to him, their weapons out gleamingly into the night, he fought as hard as he can.

But it wasn’t enough.

Quickly, he was outmatched, they knocked his bo out of his hands, and there were at least 20 bots, or it seemed like more were coming out. He swore there were 15, and now –

He was hit on the back of his knees, and it took his breath out as another kicked him straight to the throat. Wheezing, he took out his phone to alert his brothers, maybe they can’t come due to the storm, but they would know at least that he’s going to die.

With the cold taking over his body, and being stabbed, kicked and punched, and maybe even burned? He couldn’t feel anything as his body fell numb, was it due to the storm or were they beating the crap out of him that he lost all feeling?

With the last of his strengths, he slurred: “T-phone…ssself destruct.” He didn’t even feel his phone being snatched from him; he watched his phone crumble under the hands of the foot, he laid his head on the concrete, letting the billows of snow go on top of him.

At least he knew his brothers will be safe.

The constant questioning Donnie was enduring sort of wished that he was dead.

Finding out he survived the ambush, probably because Shredder didn’t want him dead, yet, meant that torturing and questioning would have to do.

As he laid in his own prison cell, counting the days he’s been in here, hours and minutes, he knew that the probability of his brothers coming for him was 0.3%.

He knew that they knew he was gone, kidnapped for sure ‘cause his bo was left at the junkyard and the rest of his stuff, maybe. He told Leo two hours he would be gone, and it’s been over 30.

“You know,” Baxter said behind the cell, smirking at the turtle. “If you talk, Master Shredder won’t kill you.”

“Beat it, Stockboy.” He tried sounding tough like Raph, maybe it will raise his chances of survival, or worse, he would die quicker.

“Oh, giving attitude? Strange coming from you, but not eating for almost two days now gets to a man, err turtle. You do realize your brothers aren’t coming for you, so maybe you should start talking.” Baxter wrapped his hands around the bar, leaning on them to hear the turtle talk. His voice was strained from the screaming, he was being tortured like there was no tomorrow and he knew the little comfort Donnie gave himself wasn’t going to last.

But Donatello was a smart turtle, and it seemed like it’s been lacking since the only thing he has was water, and not enough to survive.

“Talking? You think because my brothers aren’t here, I’ll start talking?” Donnie gave a scoff of a chuckle, “I’d do anything to protect them.” He knew Shredder sent Baxter to talk to him because they had the most common. They were both geniuses who were looked down upon, but he had thick skin, Stockman wasn’t going to break him easily.

“Alright,” Baxter tightened his lips in a hum, “your chances of survival are slim, I say you won’t make it by the end of the week.”

“I’ll take it.” Donnie said, maybe a little too quick, “Anything for them.”

He knew his time was coming up when his breaths became too shallow and he could barely talk. But the Shredder kept on insisting, over and over and over and over, it was driving him nuts.

“I’m not saying…” He licked the blood off his top lip, feeling the bruise, the swelling as Shredder punched him repeatedly, everywhere. He was his punch dummy, and each time he would torture him, Donnie thought that the Shredder was doing it for some sick entertainment and not to find his home.

“I’m getting tired of this, turtle.” Shredder told him in the most monotone, angry voice he could give. “I want answers now!” His gauntlets shot out, and he pressed it along Donnie’s neck.

“Do it, I dare you.” He spat blood on the floor next to his shoulder, waiting for death to claim him. He was tired, he was tired of talking, of waiting for his brothers. It’s been too long, why was Shredder keeping him alive?

“Alright, turtle,” Shredder pulled his gauntlet away from the turtle’s neck and kicked his shell so Donnie would be laying on his stomach. He looked at the bruised head and pointed the gauntlet towards it. “Say goodbye.”

“I’ll see you in hell.” Don laughed, almost mockingly, and then a white sharp pain hit him, before there was nothing.

He woke up to something light yet heavy falling onto him.

It was white, and he slowly staggered up, staring into the obliviousness into the world. His body ached, and he didn’t know why.

He didn’t know where he was, who he is, or how he got here, but, his head. He placed his hand on the back of his head, and slowly crept out of the narrowed area.

He stared blankly, seeing the pillows of white surround him, as he shivered. There were colors all over, bright colors, that clashed against the people’s dark clothing.

He walked straight ahead, hearing the honks and screeching as he tried to make his way.

Donnie was confused, with everything. Everything was, confusing. Nothing felt right, the faces in front of him showed emotion he didn’t – couldn’t – understand. So, he stood still, hearing screams, and people yell at his face, until something – someone – pulled him away.

“Dude… what…thinking…know.” He stared towards the wall, swaying, he was yelling like the people. He didn’t understand, nor who he was.

Orange pulled him arm, the one holding his head, and stared at his hand. There was nothing wrong with his hand, but he let Orange examine him.

Orange took off his mask, that made him look not orange, and he balled it up and put it on his head. He hissed, he heard a murmur and his arm was hooked over the smaller one and was dragged away.

His eyes felt heavy, his legs hurt, and his body burnt. His knees collapsed under him, and small was able to pick him up.

He felt safe, his head dipped a couple time, and feeling like it was led, he crashed onto smalls shoulder.

Waking up was a scary thing, because each time he did he was somewhere new. Yet, he felt like he was in a similar place.

The place was metal, and the smell was strong with chemicals and this turtle wore red.

Red picked him up and he dug his nails into his arm and tightened up. He didn’t like that; he didn’t want strangers touching him. Red placed him on something soft, but his head didn’t like the pressure, and turned to see Orange staring at him.

“Hey…!” Orange voice drowned, and he wasn’t listening to him. He moved his head away, staring at the floor.

There were papers and metal scattered on said floor, and his arms were wrapped in white, stained with red.

He felt an arm wrap over him, and he looked at Orange.

Everything looked wrong, everything felt confusing, but his sense of smell never forgot what home was.

He grabbed Oranges hand, and half listened to some random babble he was saying, Orange was close to him, but he couldn’t figure out who he was.

Orange showed his teeth, and he stared at it, not knowing what it meant.

But Orange looked just like him, and Red did also.

Something soft was pulled over him, and he snuggled the best he can.

Orange kissed his sore head, and as he closed his eyes, he knew everything was going to be okay.

Even if he didn’t know what okay was.

#nu #beanverse #feverwrites #request #jasmine-the-fox #tmnt #donnie #tmnt 2012 #no use #hope you enjoy!#angst #maybe??

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pipermca · 5 years

Text

Brothers

This little fic was inspired by @softlight289‘s adorable Praxian Brothers cartoons and headcanons. Just a quiet little fic of Smokescreen telling Jack about his brothers. ♥

(Very rough, fresh off the word processor. Mind the typos!)

Jack found Smokescreen on top of the base.

Technically, he wasn’t supposed to be up here without a bot with him – his mom had taken one look and said something like “there’s no guardrails” or something like that – but he wasn’t actually alone, since Smokescreen was up here too.

He had seen Smokescreen slip away during the raucous discussion taking place down inside the base. Wheeljack and Bulkhead were regaling Miko and Raf with stories of their time in the Wreckers, and other bots they had known. It had seemed strange that Smokescreen had left during that... Jack thought that those kinds of stories were exactly the sort of thing Smokescreen would have been interested in. But instead, Smokescreen had left without saying a word.

Very strange. So Jack followed Smokescreen up top.

“Hey, Smokescreen,” Jack said, walking up next to the white bot. “Mind if I sit here with you?”

Smokescreen’s wings were low on his back, broadcasting his mood in a way that Jack hadn’t ever seen on him before. He gestured at the rock beside him. “It’s a free planet,” Smokescreen said, and continued looking out over the Nevada desert.

Jack settled down onto the rock. It was still warm from the sun, but he could feel the chill in the air now that the sun had set and the stars had started to come out. “Are you all right?” he asked. “You left sort of suddenly.”

“I’m fine,” Smokescreen said. “It’s just that... All that talk about other bots they used to know...” He shrugged. “It just got me thinking.” Then he fell silent again.

Ah.

Jack waited to see if Smokescreen would say anything else. When he didn’t, Jack asked, “Do you miss anyone?”

Smokescreen looked down at him, his wings rising in what Jack assumed was surprise. Then he looked back out at the desert. “Yeah,” he said finally. “My brothers.”

Jack glanced up at Smokescreen. “You have brothers?” He knew that ‘family’ was a concept that the Autobots had learned on Earth, so the fact that Smokescreen had brothers didn’t seem to jive with that.

“Yeah,” Smokescreen said again. Then he paused and shrugged. “I mean, really, they’re my –“ Smokescreen made one of the strange, melodic, electronic sounds that Jack recognized as Cybertronian (and not the ‘binary’ that Bumblebee spoke in). “But the language pack doesn’t have an exact translation for that word. It’s telling me that ‘brothers’ is as close as it gets. So... yeah. My brothers.”

“Oh,” Jack said.

They lapsed back into silence.

“Tell me about your brothers,” Jack said.

Smokescreen looked down at him again, and his wings rose fractionally. “Really?” Smokescreen asked.

“Yeah!” Jack said. “I mean, besides you guys and the Decepticons, we don’t know anything about any other bots, really.” He floundered for a minute, since that wasn’t exactly true... They’d heard about Cliffjumper and Tailgate and Seaspray and a few others, but all of those bots were dead, and Jack didn’t think it would be nice to make that comparison, especially since he didn’t know what happened to Smokescreen’s brothers. “I don’t have any siblings... It’s just been me and my mom for as long as I can remember. So, tell me about yours. What are their names?”

Smokescreen’s wings rose some more, and he smiled. “Prowl and Bluestreak,” he said.

Encouraged by Smokescreen’s shift in demeanor, Jack nodded. “Are they like you?”

Smokescreen scoffed. “Hardly. I’m the best looking of all of us.” He paused, and his wings sank again. “We’re all pretty different.”

Jack’s phone buzzed in his pocket. He pulled it out to see a text from Miko. Dude, where did you go?? Arcee is looking for you!

He tapped back a quick reply. Just talking to Smokescreen. I’m fine. Tell Arcee I’ll be a little while. He shoved his phone back in his pocket, hoping that his guardian wouldn’t come find him right away; he had a feeling Smokescreen needed to talk out whatever was bothering him. “Tell me about Prowl,” Jack said.

Smokescreen hummed for a moment. “Prowl is... Prowl.” Then he laughed. “I know that doesn’t tell you anything. He’s... really dedicated to his work. Like, all the time. When the war started he became one of the Autobots’ chief military strategists. And before the war, he was a cop.”

“Really?” Jack had never been able to convince Arcee to talk about Cybertron before the war; it was just too painful a subject for her. But it seemed simultaneously weird and totally normal that they would have regular things like file clerks and cops. “What else?”

“He always looks out for us. Me and Bluestreak, I mean. And he’s tough. You don’t dare make a mistake around him... Although I think he’s a bit softer on me and Blue.” Smokescreen thought for another moment. “It was his idea for me to join the Elite Guard. I didn’t want to at first, but he convinced me to do it. And... He was right, that it was the right decision. I mean, if I didn’t join the Elite Guard, I never would have ended up here, on Earth, fighting alongside Optimus Prime!” he said, shooting Jack a proud smile.

Jack nodded, trying to encourage Smokescreen. This was the Smokescreen he’d gotten to know, not the strangely quiet bot he’d seen when he first came to the top of the base. “And what about... Blue?”

“Bluestreak,” Smokescreen said. His smile became softer. “He talks. A lot. Even more than Miko. I know his talking annoyed some bots, but not us – me and Prowl were used to it.” Smokescreen thought for another minute. “Bluestreak never liked fighting, so he studied to become an engineer. And he ended up becoming a really great one. He can fix anything! I mean, if he was here on Earth, him and Ratchet could probably cobble together a working space bridge in a week!”

“A week? Really?” Jack asked dubiously. When Smokescreen glanced at him, Jack added, “I mean, Megatron’s had the entire Decepticon army working on a space bridge, and it took them months to get one working.”

Smokescreen thought for a moment before shrugging. “Ok, maybe it would take them two weeks. But I’m sure they could do it. Bluestreak’s a genius when it comes to stuff like that.” His wide smile returned. “Me and him would prank Prowl so bad... The best was when we got three – uh, I guess you’d call them chickens? Robo-chickens? Anyway, Bluestreak got the idea to get three chickens, and number them one, two, and four... And then let them go in Prowl’s office.” He leaned over towards Jack and gleefully added, “Prowl spent days looking for chicken number three!”

Jack laughed. “That’s amazing! What a great idea for a prank! And Bluestreak came up with that?” When Smokescreen nodded, Jack shook his head. “Did Prowl ever figure out what happened?”

“Bluestreak couldn’t keep the secret after a week or so,” Smokescreen said. “He finally told Prowl what we’d done. And Prowl...” He laughed again, quietly this time. “I think he was just glad that he didn’t have to worry about chicken number three anymore.”

Jack hesitated before asking his next question. He’d wanted to ask it from the beginning of their conversation, but knowing how many bots had died during the war had made him hesitant. Encouraged by how Smokescreen seemed to think of them in present tense, rather than past tense, Jack took a deep breath and asked, “So... Where are they now?”

Smokescreen’s wings fell again, and for a moment Jack had a horrible feeling that he’d guessed wrong. But Smokescreen lifted his head to look up at the stars and said, “Out there, somewhere, I guess.” He turned his head slightly, seeming to scan the stars as if he could pick out his brothers from the points of light. “They were still on Cybertron when the Hall of Records in Iacon got attacked, but Optimus told me he knows that Prowl got off-planet during the final evacuation of Cybertron. And Prowl wouldn’t have left Bluestreak behind.” He looked down at Jack, his expression somber. “And once this war is over, I’m going to find them. Wherever they are... I’ll find them.”

#maccadam #not sure if this is finished #but seemed a good place to end it #tfp smokescreen #tfp jack #AU of aligned continuity #my writing

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jawnjendes · 5 years

Text

the fog will clear up | shawn mendes

chapter 13/?, university au, shawn x goth oc

AN: sry its short and definitely a filler im sry its boring but it helps build up stuff thatll happen next ok ok im sry

*let me know if u wanna be added/removed from the taglist

masterlist | playlist

Annalise woke with a start. She was wide awake immediately. There was no room for sleepily rolling around the sheets, her eyes weren't heavy like always. She didn't know what dying and coming back to life felt like, but she was pretty sure it felt something like that. She had a weird urge to go for a jog.

Staring at the ceiling, Annalise reached towards the nightstand next to her, intending to grab her phone. Her hand touched the bottle, and she picked it up anyway, reading the prescription label.

Annalise Flores SERTRALINE 50MG TABLET Brand name: Zoloft

"You don't waste anytime, huh?" she murmured before setting it back down. Then, she grabbed her phone and checked the time.

8:47am. A new fucking record. Annalise rolled out of bed, unable to stay still.

In the 2 hours she had to kill before work, she tidied up the dorm, ate a decent breakfast, took a shower, and got started on the course work she had to make up. The energy levels were through the roof, she had never been so on edge and productive at the same time. Why wasn't she put on sertraline sooner? Sure, she felt hyperaware and borderline anxious, but that was apart of the process of getting on a new antidepressant. She was getting things done this way. Sure, she jumped when the lock on the door jiggled, but she was up and running anyway!

If she wasn't, she wouldn't have seen Stella entering the dorm. She was surprised to see Annalise on the couch, looking like a deer in headlights.

"Oh… I thought you were asleep. I'll, uh, I'll come back."

"No, wait!" Annalise sounded a little too frantic, but it did stop Stella from leaving. "Uh, come sit down! Please!"

Stella narrowed her eyes slightly as she went to the couch. At least she was willing to listen.

"I, uh, I'm sorry," Annalise began, rubbing the back of her neck. "I'm sorry for what I said. A stupid guy isn't the only good in my life. I have you. You matter to me, and I'm sorry for making you feel like you don't." She really couldn't stop herself from rambling. "I miss you. I miss seeing you here between classes, and I miss your optimism because a bitch could use some of that. And, and I'm sorry for the negativity I've brought in here. I'm working on it now, I swear. Just… come back. Come home… because bro, you're my wife, dude."

It could have been funny, but there was nothing funny about the way she said it. Her eyes were wide and pleading, and she was rubbing her hands together. Stella merely blinked her hazel eyes, nearly overwhelmed by that string of words.

"Look at you, expressing your emotions," she said after a while. "I can see why you hold it back."

Annalise nodded rapidly. "It's my first day on a new medication. Got me all sorts of hyped up, but I'll mellow out in a couple of weeks. And I'm taking therapy seriously again!"

Stella was surprised. "Oh, I see. Well… I've missed you too. Bro…"

"Bro?"

"I'll come home too. Camila's bed is too small for the two of us."

"Bro…"

"I know. I have to update you on all that."

"Br-"

"Okay!" Stella broke out a smile and stood up. "Dame un abrazo, puta."

That was much easier than Annalise had anticipated. She stood up and hugged her best friend, relieved. Stella wasn't one to hold a grudge, nor was she as stubborn as her roommate. It was another person to cross off the list.

Shawn had social media mainly to get his music out there. Yes, he interacted with his friends on Snapchat, and some fans on Twitter. Most of the time, Shawn just tweeted when he had new music coming out. He didn't check any of his social media very often, not even to stalk Ann's accounts because she was rarely on her's. He didn't even have his notifications on, purely to keep himself from the possibility of getting too attached to the opinions of random strangers online.

That was why he woke up that morning to a number of texts from Camila.

"SHAAWWNWNN"

"SHAWN IM LKTERSLLY BALD RN"

"CHEKC UR TWITTER RIGHT NOW!!!!!!"

"YOIR FOLLOWERS!!! AAHSKSKSK"

"SKSKSK SHAWNMM IM SCRAMING"

So to Twitter he went. Shawn rubbed sleep out of his eye as he went to his profile. He had around 10k to begin with, that he built up on his own over the last couple of years. He nearly dropped his phone on his face as he read the new number.

50.2k

"What… the fuck?" he breathed out as he sat up in his bed. He scrolled through the list, making sure this wasn't a series of spam bots.

His mentions were just as wild, and it explained the sudden blow up.

@hollaestor: @shawnmendes hiii bella told me to follow you

@samxriv: @shawnmendes i am free to hang out on tuesday to hang out when i am free

@gisellenjh: @shawnmendes bella sent me here and im glad she did! loving your music!

And there were plenty more like that. There were so many tweets, Shawn couldn't even get through all of them. It was making his head spin. There was only one Bella he knew about too… He just couldn't spell her last name. Thankfully, her handle was just @bellasanti, and it was the first one to pop up when he typed it in the search bar.

Right under Bella Santiago's name and the blue checkmark were the two little words: Follows you. Shawn refreshed the page ten times before it sank in. This YouTuber, who has over 2 million followers, somehow found Shawn's music… and she liked it. She liked it enough to tweet about it… 3 days ago.

@bellasanti: underrated spotify artists: @shawnmendes. give him a listen. send him some love. truly talented guy💖

Shawn had only overheard Bella's videos when Ann was watching them in the other room. He never really watched any of her content. But he wanted to pass out at the fact that she took the time to listen to his music and tweet about him. He wanted to jump on the bed. He wanted to call-

He texted Camila back. "Wtf why did no one tell me sooner?? This is so crazy!!!!!"

"We thought you knew and you were keeping it from us!! LMAO congrats rockstar!"

He couldn't believe it. His follower count was rising. He was getting emails from Spotify saying his songs were being added to many different playlists.

@shawnmendes: @bellasanti wow thank you so much! Love you bella❤

He deleted the last bit before tweeting it. Holy shit. Shawn lied back down on the mattress, completely breathless.

How does someone like Bella Santiago find Shawn out in cyberspace? What Spotify rabbit hole did she go down that led her to him? How many of his songs did she listen to? How many songs did she save to her library? How many of those playlist emails were from her? Shawn had so many questions.

There were two things Annalise noticed when she was out on the courtyard after Biology. The first thing was a table on the side of the walkway, with a handmade banner hanging off the front. It read in big letters: Shawn Mendes: Live at The Cameron House. Brian, Alessia. and Camila were all sat on the same side at this table, talking to a student who was interested in the little display.

"The lounge called back," Annalise muttered to herself.

The other thing Annalise noticed was Patrick sitting under a tree nearby, reading a book. She went to him first.

The last time she had spoken to Patrick was when they cut up flowers together. He was never one to explicitly state when something has upset him, and he has seen Annalise in a depressive episode before. Annalise knew him well. Patrick kept his distance because he didn't like the negativity around her, and he couldn't afford any more of it himself.

"Hey," she greeted.

His blue eyes tore away from his book to meet her gaze. "'Sup?"

"Trying to be less fucked in the head," she told him.

Patrick nodded in approval. "Cool."

That was all that was needed for the two of them. Content, Annalise turned and went for the table. A small line had formed when she wasn't looking, so she waited behind the last person. However, with three people running the thing, Annalise got to the front fairly quick.

"Oh, she actually showed up," Brian chimed, amused.

"Meaning?" Annalise asked.

"Thought you were too pissed at Shawn to care about his show, that's all."

She swallowed the pit of annoyance, discovering that even more people knew about that. Brian is his friend, though, of course he'd know.

"Selling tickets or something?" Annalise turned her attention to the two girls.

"Yeah! Ten dollars a piece!" Alessia explained.

"Cool, I'll take one."

Just as she opened the flap on her book bag, Camila spoke up.

"Wait. I'm pretty sure Shawn said he wanted to buy you your ticket himself."

Annalise rolled her eyes. "Well, he's not here and I can do things for myself." She pulled out her wallet and paid her own goddamn ticket.

Camila breathed out a laugh. "Are you ever gonna let him do anything nice for you?"

None of your fucking business.

A new thought occurred to Annalise. "Why are tickets being sold for this show? Aren't his gigs usually free?"

"There's more production going into this one," Brian told her. "The lounge gave him the option to make it a ticketed event, and we need to make back what we already put into it. So now, it won't be a performance, it'll be Shawn's performance."

Shawn already knew how to make an audience his bitch, but…

"Alright then." Annalise shrugged and then accepted her ticket and receipt from Alessia.

The ticket alone was already quite extravagant. There were little red roses designed around the edges. This boy really loved his fucking flowers.

"I'm guessing rose petals will fall from the ceiling or something?" she guessed with a chuckle.

"I was given strict orders to not spoil anything," Brian told her, folding his arms.

The two had a mini staredown until Annalise shrugged again. "Whatever."

Then, Camila piped up again, suddenly excited. "Ooh, Ann did you hear? Bella Santiago followed Shawn on Twitter!"

"She what?" Annalise stupidly replied.

Camila practically squealed. "She gave him a shoutout too! He's blowing up on Spotify! Isn't that awesome?"

Annalise wanted to say something, but her brain wasn't quite caught up yet. So she just walked away.

The other three students watched her leave. Needless to say, they were confused.

"Is she ever gonna be happy for him?" Alessia wondered.

"I think she was excited?" Camila said tilting her head.

"I can't believe Shawn is going through all this trouble for that," Brian said with a scoff.

"I can still hear you!" Annalise called over her shoulder as she kept walking.

All three of them went red in the face, embarrassed. Brian would have made a comment about her being a vampire with supersonic hearing, but he didn't want to be called out again.

_______

taglist: @normalcyisoverrated-beyou @ilsolee @mendesromano @1-800-khalid-mendussy @kitykatnumber @strangerliaa @iloveshawnieboi @goldenmndes @shawnvvmendes @shawnsunflower @shawmndes @ruinhoney @someoneunimportantxx @calyumthomas @yourdeflightfullyleft @havethetimeeofyourlifee @wronglanemendes @chillingbythesea @softmendesss @mutuallynotmutual

#shawn mendes #shawn mendes fanfic #shawn mendes imagine #shawn mendes blurb #shawn mendes smut #shawn x goth gf #aahhhh its so short n boring im so srryyy

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essoreese · 5 years

Text

Silence Ritual Chapter 1 - A Deal With the Devil

(AN/ Heyo guys, Esso here and this is my first story; Silence Ritual. Now firt thing's first, although I already mentioned this in the description, this is a spinoff of Take A Stand: The Broken Mirror by Garouge Faux / @crewefox. It's also a direct sequel to that story so if you haven't read it, please do before reading this. This fic will be around 20 chapters and while it doesn't have a strict update schedule, I will try to update it at least twice a month. So without any further ado, let's begin the Silence Ritual.)

special thanks to @helthehatter for letting me use her OC, Kodi Jones.

here’s a link to the fic: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/13396893/1/Silence-Ritual

and here’s a link to The Broken Mirror, in case you haven’t read it: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/12973009/1/Take-A-Stand-The-Broken-Mirror

Chapter 1: A Deal With The Devil

It was almost 9:30am in Zootopia. Despite being late summer the weather was surprisingly cool. And while most mammals were out, enjoying the weather, a brown-furred bunny running like her life depended on it certainly did not fit in with the surrounding atmosphere. "Shit! I'm so damn late." she cursed under her breath as she made her way to the bank. She had just arrived at the front door of Zootopia first national bank but before she could enter, she was knocked back by three figures. By the time she got herself off the ground, the trio was already speeding away in a white van.

In said van a female hyena took off her mask, looked at duffle bags full of cash her and her partners were holding and cheered "Hell yeah! Hahahaha, that was awesome!"

"Shut up!" a male ram shouted at her. "How 'bout we lose the cops, then we can celebrate all we want." He then turned his attention to the driver. "They still followin' us?"

"Nope." The zebra behind the wheel returned. "Should be smooth sailing from he-"

***CRASH***

The van had somehow swerved off the road and hit a lamp post. The group of robbers got out with ease, none of them were injured.

"What the shit, dude?!" shouted the hyena before pushing the zebra driver "You could've killed us!"

"I didn't do shit! The van just swerved!" the zebra retaliated, clearly rattled by the crash.

"Screw that noise! The hell do you mean it just swerved?" the ram said while trying his best not to kick his accomplice's teeth in.

The trio kept arguing for a few more seconds until another mammal, a buff female leopard, stepped out of the vehicle.

"ENOUGH!" she screamed before adding "We got the money. Let's get out of here before the pigs arrive, and then you can beat up this idiot."

"I keep telling you, I didn't do this! I didn't crash the fu-" the zebra tried to explain, but was stopped mid-sentence when a small piece of metal hit him in the temple, knocking him out cold.

Before any of the other crooks could react, a dozen more metal plates began flying around them. First, two of them enveloped the ram's hands and effortlessly magnetized him onto the crashed van. Then one wrapped itself around the hyena's foot and dragged her across the street until it latched onto a lamppost, leaving her hanging upside down. The rest of the plates began spinning around the leopard. One by one, they began binding her hands, eventually sending her flying towards a sewer grate. Now that all of them were immobilized, an ocelot in his late teens came out from a nearby alley. He was dressed rather plainly, with a black hoodie and torn jeans and would seem completely normal if he didn't have several small pieces of metal levitating around his arms.

"C'mon, cut him some slack, I didn't even give him a chance to control the van" he taunted the leopard.

"Who the hell are you?" she spat while trying to remove her arms from the sewer grate they were stuck to.

"Look, I'ma make it real simple for you dum-dums," he snickered "you did crime, so I glued your asses for the cops to handle."

"What the hell?!" the hyena barked in rage "what did you do to me you freak!"

"You aren't very bright, are you?" the ocelot said condescendingly "let me give you the TLDR, name's Steelswarm, I control metal, I got a tip that you were robbing a bank so I decided to have some fun with you all."

"Like hell you got a tip, you're too young to be a cop! Cut the crap!" yelled the ram.

"I didn't say i was a cop, moron" Steelswarm sighed as he pulled a small star shaped badge from one of his pockets "I'm with Ceartais and you are sooooo fu-" he tried to taunt but was cut off by a thud to the back of his head. The zebra had woken up and had taken the opportunity to knock the gloating vigilante out.

When Steelswarm came to the four robbers we're standing over him, when he was knocked out he lost control of all the metal plates that were holding the crooks.

"Ya dun goofed, kid and now you're gonna pay for screwing around!" the hyena snickered before putting a paw to her face, which began to transform into that of a wolf with golden fur. She fished a pair of glasses out of her pocked and put them on before saying;

"OK, first of all you didn't call for backup once you got the tip."

"Sorry, Clara." the ocelot murmured, still in pain.

"You didn't even try to restrain me after knocking me out!" complained the zebra, as it's face morphed to that of a red fox.

"Sorry, Luna." Steelswarm groaned .

"And what's with all the gloating?" said the "ram" as his body transformed to that of a wolf with black and white fur. "Those restraints were weak, I could've knocked you out myself if you had come any closer."

"Sorry, Kodi" Steelswarm added, sinking further into the ground.

"Overall, that was pretty sloppy" said the fox/bunny hybrid that now stood in the leopard's place "but I'll give you points for the van crash. Also Steelswarm? Dope name."

"Sorr- I mean thanks Robyn." the ocelot stuttered out.

"OK, Bella, simulation over." said Kodi as the city around them began to dematerialize and they were left in a blank room.

Kodi helped the ocelot to his feet before saying, "OK, you have good control over your powers but your communication still needs work. Also you need to pay more attention during combat..."

"Yeah, figures..." groaned Steelswarm "so... same time next week?"

"Yup!" said Clara while looking at her tablet "Oh, but you'll be training with Regina and Hannah then."

"Sweet! See ya then, guys!" yipped the ocelot as he walked towards the elevator.

000

In the six months since Doom's defeat, the entire base had been revamped. The training area was now bigger and had simulations about dealing with situations regarding mammals with powers. A lot of them still had trouble controlling their new abilities and that was causing some issues around the city. Some of the mammals who had a better grasp on their powers chose to use them for crime, since neither the ZPD nor the MCB were properly prepared for dealing with them. A few others either wanted to join Ceartais or start their own vigilante teams. And while Ceartais usually wouldn't entertain the idea of letting anyone join in, but Olivia and Kion had left and Alice was on maternity leave, so the team was missing it's powerhouses. And despite Regina, Harper and Clara all joining the team, they were still rookies and needed supervision. So Kodi felt like had no choice but to start a training program for any empowered mammal willing to join them.

The four mammals sat in the main area of the bunker, almost ready to discuss their patrol positions for the night. They were soon joined by another hybrid, this one more closely resembling an arctic fox, bar the black stripes on her ears and tail.

"Hi, Hannah!" Robyn waved enthusiastically.

"Hi!" the hybrid responded as she made her way to the empty seat next to Clara.

"So we're waiting for Regina and Harper?" Kodi asked just as the elevator to the bunker opened.

Out of it walked a horse and a deer, holding hands. The mare was wearing a black summer dress while the buck wore a green polo shirt and torn jeans.

"Hey, sorry were late. Got held up at home." the deer, Harper, spoke.

"It's OK." Kodi said nonchalantly, before scanning the room.

"Everyone's here so," Kodi started, ready to give out the night's assignments "Me, Hannah and Regina will take Savannah Central and Downtown, there has been a string of robberies and witnesses claim that they were done by empowered mammals. "

"Robyn, you and Clara take Tundra Town. Harper and Luna you have the Rainforest District covered and Bella has Spitfire bots patrolling Sahara Square. Everyone OK with the positions?" the wolf asked.

Everyone nodded in agreement. Despite that, Clara seemed to be bothered by something and as soon as everyone went to gear up, she pulled Kodi aside.

"Hey, you got a sec?" the she-wolf asked quietly.

"Oh, I got more than a "sec"." Kodi said teasingly, as he pulled Clara closer.

"What?! No, not THAT kind of sec! Not at work!" Clara exclaimed "Also, Luna will find us... again."

"Awww... OK." Kodi pouted, feigning disappointment. "What is this about then?"

"Kodi, it's been six months. Why aren't you putting Robyn and Hannah on patrol together?" Clara asked.

"Well... because with you, Regina and Harper being new recruits I want an ori-" the wolf started talking but was interrupted by his girlfriend.

"Don't lie to me, Kodi. You suck at it." Clara huffed "What's really going on?"

"OK look..." Kodi sighed "the city's gone to shit again, there's empowered mammals everywhere, running the training program is stressful and honestly, Robbie and Hannah have been doing OK on their own."

"Who are you trying to fool?" the she-wolf said, somewhat agitated "They're growing apart. I haven't heard Hannah call Robyn "princess" in two weeks. They need to get through this Ronin thing."

"Yes I know... but I just don't want to bring it up. Robyn is still pissed at me for helping with the plan, and I don't think she could ever trust me or Hannah completely again. I can't risk another serious fight between the team. Not while the city needs us." Kodi tried defending himself.

"...You know that's gonna come back and bite you in the ass, right? Like, you're aware that if they find out you're keeping them apart intentionally they're gonna kill you?" Clara asked, knowing that she didn't have the time to argue with her mate.

"Probably..." Kodi returned, looking sullen.

"Look, I know this isn't easy. But you promised that you would mend the team's wounds and you aren't doing yourself any favours right now. It's way too late to change positions now but please at least consider giving them a few assignments together." Clara said before hugging her boyfriend.

"I will. I just don't wanna screw this up..." Kodi answered.

000

The Wave was without a doubt one of the biggest tragedies to hit Zootopia. Even six years later, a lot of the damage was still present. There were still parts of Sahara Square and Tundra Town that were uninhabitable, and there was barely anyone left to even live in Little Rodentia. There was one part of Zootopia that was largely unaffected by The Wave, however; Outback Island. Despite being relatively small, it still housed over 50,000 mammals and was home of the first functioning prison for empowered mammals. The facility could hold up to 500 inmates, and for the last six months, it was Esso Reese's home.

The lynx thought that The Cauldron was a hellhole, but this was worse. She could not use her powers, thanks to the modified shock collar that had been on her neck ever since she arrived there. Any of the activities that helped her deal with The Cauldron were useless here. She couldn't listen to music, her snarky attitude had put her in solitary more than once, and while she could still technically take bets on the other inmates... it was highly discouraged unless she wanted to find herself on the receiving end of a shank. The worst part, however, was the loneliness. None of the mammals she met on the Cauldron could visit her as they were witnesses in her case. And none of the imprisoned mammals wanted anything to do with her. She was laying in bed, just hoping for the sentencing piece to come as soon as possible so she could finally know how much longer did she have to endure this for, when one of the guards approached her cell.

"Reese, your lawyer is here." the rhino said in a stern tone.

The two headed to a small area, similar to an interrogation room. Her lawyer was a pig in a beige suit and he was already waiting for them. As soon as they entered, the rhino locked the door, in case the lynx wanted to try something stupid.

"Hello, Sabrina" the pig started, in his usual dull tone "how are you holding up?"

"Well other than the food and coffee being shit, the guards being abusive, everyone hating me and the crushing loneliness... ten outta ten. Also call me Esso." the lynx replied with what she wanted to be sarcasm but in the end it just came out flat and broken.

"Please, please, please tell me you got good news." she continued.

"Well, given the circumstances, I don't think the jury is in your favour." the pig returned.

"Sweet. Awesome. Love to hear it... how much am I looking at?" Esso barely managed to get out as she put her hear in her arms.

"Twenty five years minimum."

"Lovely..."

At this point Esso could not sink any lower. She just huddled in her chair and tried her best to hide her tears. "Just... absolutely lovely."

"There is another option. You could plead insanity." the lawyer tried to calm her down.

"What for? So they'll throw me in an mental asylum for the rest of my life instead of a prison?" the lynx snapped.

"Please, Sabrina, calm down." the pig tried to reason.

"Screw that!" Esso shouted, gaining the guard's attention. "I was kidnapped, almost killed several times and thrown in here for some bullshit that I didn't even know I did!"

"They have body cam footage, I can't jus-" her lawyer cut in.

"Now I'm either gonna be stuck here or in the looney bin until I croak, because I was forced into a cult six years ago! Also for the umpteenth time, call me Ess-" the lynx ranted until her shcok collar delivered a painful sting to her neck, which brought her to her knees.

"You know what?" Esso said through sobs "Just... do whatever... I don't give a shit. Guard, I'm done here."

The rhino guard guided Esso back to her cell. As soon as the door locked behind her, she collapsed into her bed started crying. She had no options left. It felt like hours before the same guard unlocked her cell.

"Reese, someone wants to see you." he said in his usual monotone.

"...what?" the lynx murmured as she got out of bed.

Esso walked the same path she just took. She was wondering who could possibly be visiting her. Her parents were dead, the other mammals from the Cauldron couldn't see her and she barely had any friends in Zootopia.

When she entered the small room, she was greeted by two mammals. One she already knew and hated. It was Skye Savage, the director of the MCB. The arctic fox sat uncomfortably in a one of the chairs and looked at Esso with disdain. The other was a maned wolf she had never seen before. He was wearing a burgundy suit with a matching tie.

"Skye..." Esso sneered at the fox "came to see your favourite little psycho?"

"Shut up and sit down!" Skye barked failing to contain her anger.

"Who's your boyfriend there?" Esso continued to prod. "You want an audience while you scream at me?"

"Now listen here you-" Skye said in a low growl before she was interrupted by the maned wolf clearing his throat.

"Please control yourself Mrs. Savage." the other mammal spoke calmly. "Now, Ms. Reese, or do you prefer Esso?"

"Esso is fine." the lynx replied, puzzled by the current situation.

"Noted." the maned wolf said as he pulled out a tablet from within his suit and started typing. "I have a proposition that you might be interested in."

"Ooooh, let me guess" Esso mocked "you wanna transfer me to an underground super prison, or some off the grid looney bin to lobotomize me?"

"Heh heh, I love your sense of humour." the maned wolf feigned a laugh. "No, I'm a representative of Ashe Incorporated, or Ashecorp. for short. We are an elite company that specializes in research into mammals with extraordinary abilities."

"Oh, so you don't wanna lobotomize me, just experiment on me. Dandy." Esso said sarcastically.

"Not the case at all Ms. Esso. We were made aware of your "outburst" six months ago." the wolf returned as calm as ever, "We want to harness your powers not only to better understand these new abilities mammals have gotten, but to also better the city of Zootopia and, potentially, the world."

"OK cut the crap, what kind of cult is this?" Esso snickered.

"We're not a cult Ms. Esso." the maned wolf answered "I understand why you would be wary of us, but given your current situation I don't think you have a better option. Especially since you haven't heard the benefits of joining us."

Esso looked at the maned wolf, now much more attentive.

"What benefits?"

The maned wolf had a small smile on his face now.

"Well for starters, you'll get full immunity."

"Bullshit." Esso said under her breath. "As if Resting Bitchface McGee over there would allow it."

"Oh, but she already did." the maned wolf produced a piece of paper and a ballpoint pen from his suit and gave it to the lynx. It appeared to be some sort of contract and while Esso couldn't recognize any of the signatures, the fact that Skye wasn't objecting to this made her believe that whoever that maned wolf was, he was being serious.

"You'll also get combat and self-defense training, paid accommodation in any hotel throughout Zootopia and access to any empowered mammal's data. All you have to do is sign the contract." the maned wolf continued, still calm but clearly more excited than usual.

"I... what's the catch?" Esso stammered.

"Well, in return, you'll have to help Ashecorp collect more data on empowered mammals." the maned wolf replied with his usual calmness. "Or you can choose not to sign and none of this would have happened and you would be back awaiting trial. So... what's it gonna be?"

Esso didn't know what to think. It was obvious to her that this offer was too good to be true, but what other choice did she have? The lynx knew that she had no chance of walking out innocent from the trial, and all of her other options involved some type of imprisonment. Maybe this one did to but right now it seemed like her only way out of this Hell.

Esso cursed under her breath as she grabbed the pen and signed her name on the contract, on what she thought was her deal with the Devil. "I want in."

(AN/ DUN DUN DUUUUUUN! (always wanted to do this) Ceartais has started a training program. Kodi is trying his best as team leader. And Esso accepts an... interesting deal. Did you like it, did you not? Either way, please review. If you have any suggestions on how I can improve the fic, please put them in the reviews as well. Next time on Silence Ritual; Esso learns what her deal is all about, Olivia tries to balance professional and personal life and Robyn and Hannah go on their first joint mission in months. See u soon folks.)

#zootopia #zootopia fanfiction #disney #fanfic #take a stand #take a stand tbm #disney fanfiction #zootropolis

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scribeofthenewworld · 4 years

Text

Uncensored

FULL VERSION AVAILABLE AT:

https://docs.google.com/document/d/e/2PACX-1vRYpEjcCGkTjS4j0rbcqDJahivzjRcGEO2DHxWMJ1-W1Y_xg4zjPzWf3FQCXkCg8sfSyRES9BfrENBj/pub

The Controlled Peace Bill, Section C, Paragraph 3

“(3) It can be deduced with reasonable certainty that certain words, phrases, mantras, practices, ideas, and ideologies are not conducive to peace, and are therefore harmful to society as a whole. These words, phrases, mantras, practices, ideas, and ideologies must therefore be redacted or restricted for the good of both the individual and society as a whole. All records of these words, phrases, mantras, practices, ideas, and ideologies shall be restricted or destroyed, including records in both print and digital form. Unlawful attempts to access these records will result in disciplinary action, including but not limited to a fine of up to thirty thousand NUCA Dollars ($30,000) or no more than five (5) years imprisonment. The nature of those words, phrases, mantras, practices, ideas, and ideologies harmful in nature to society shall be left to the discretion of the government of the National United Coalition of America and the National Board of Peacekeepers, and enforcement of the redaction of such content shall be left to the discretion of local Peace Keeping Police forces and to the State Censorship Committee. Those found to be speaking about, plotting, or engaging in activities involving the redacted materials and acts spoken of in this bill shall be dealt with in accordance with the severity of the offense.”

“Can’t believe they’re adding another old punk band to the censored list,” Nick complained, tossing a stress ball into the air to catch it again. “These censorship laws are getting outta hand, let me tell you. Or, I’m sorry, these redaction laws.”

His bass player, Sanskrit, nodded. “Wack, man.”

“I mean, what’s next? They can censor anything they want; soon it won’t even be legal to express your opinion. Hell, you already can’t — you can get thrown in jail for saying the wrong thing. How much longer are people gonna put up with this shit?”

“Dunno,” Sanskrit answered. “Until they decide enough’s enough, I guess. Can’t be much longer, though. A lot of people are already angry, and not to mention the cyborgs. They’ve about had it with being treated like shit.”

“No kidding,” Nick said. “It’s been getting worse, too: the number of riots has skyrocketed in the last year.”

“Are you surprised? It’s ‘cause of the Man fucking up and not taking responsibility.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, how the government created cyborgs to replace autonomous robots as legal slaves, then realised they’re human enough that they would never stand for it and wrote them off to the public as a failed genetic experiment?”

“Oh, yeah. That.” Nick missed the stress ball, and it hit the floor with a quiet whup. “I dunno if you’ve talked to Pascal about this at all, but it says the unrest in the cyborg community is growing. Like, to the point where if nothing changes, the government is gonna have another full-blown uprising on their hands.”

“I’m not surprised,” Sanskrit muttered, taking a hit of his MedPen. “Pascal hangs with ringers, though.”

“Not exclusively. It’s not just the radicalists — it’s all of them.” Nick picked up the stress ball and tossed it to Sanskrit, who was unprepared and batted it away rather than catching it. “You think the PKP would turn whole cyborg communities before granting them rights?” He tossed the stress ball to Sanskrit again, with the same result.

“Quit. Of course they would — is that even a question?” Sanskrit brushed his shoulder-length hair behind his ear. “We got practice tomorrow, right?”

“Yeah,” Nick said, having resumed his stress ball tossing. “I told you like, twenty times, dude. You smoke too much — your memory is shit.”

Sanskrit scowled. “Look who’s talking. And it’s for medical reasons, for your information. Anyways, are we practicing again before that house show? We probably should — we sounded like shit last week.”

Now it was Nick’s turn to scowl. “I know for a fact you think you can play our whole set perfectly, so I’m taking that as an attack on the rest of us.”

The bass player idly picked at one cuticle. “I dunno what you’re talking about. We could always use more practice.”

“You know what I think? I think you’re bored since you quit orchestra again.”

“Oh, yeah? Well, nobody asked you,” Sanskrit replied sourly.

The Peace Keeping Police of Upper New Hispana had to choose their battles. Teeming with punks, artists, hackers, and cyborgs, the place was a breeding ground for unrest, drugs, and crime. Someone broke a censorship law about every other day, so it was hardly a surprise when Magi, the force captain, walked in and set a file on Dianna’s desk without preamble. “Cyborg riots are getting worse,” was all she said as she continued on to her own desk. Max cursed — he hated cyborgs.

“You want us to take care of another riot?” Dianna asked, flipping through the file. It held police reports, records of calls that had come in from frightened civilians, and photos of a street reduced to carnage.

“Happened yesterday. Need someone to be keeping a better eye out around here.” Magi shook her head.

“To be fair, ma’am, a lot goes on around here — we sort of have our hands full,” Oso pointed out.

Magi only gestured to the file. “Just go interview the witnesses. Make arrests if you have to — we need to start showing these bots we mean business.”

Dianna nodded. “Sure thing, boss.”

Max stood and grabbed his jacket, smiling. “You don’t have to tell me twice.”

“Hey, don’t be trying to start anything. We’re here to put away criminals, not beat up bots,” Oso cautioned.

Max snorted. “Is there a difference? You got one angry 'borg, you got a hundred of them. You all know how the hive mind sets in with bots. You all remember.”

They did remember. The robot wars had been brief as far as wars went, but they had been brutal. The body count had been high. No one wanted a repeat of that, hence the harsh regulations governing robots and cyborgs, though cyborgs had not existed during the war. That notwithstanding, the regulations really were quite strict, though nearly all the robots responsible for the war had been deactivated; those with the autonomy that had made an uprising possible in the first place had been recalled and had their harddrives wiped. It didn’t matter, though — most of the population, especially those over thirty, who really remembered the wars, hated robots and cyborgs alike, or at the very least considered them inferior beings. After all, cyborgs were more robot than human, especially where it mattered.

“Stay focused, please, Max,” Magi said. “And don’t arrest anyone unless you’re sure they took part in the riot, alright?”

“Sure thing, boss,” Max said, slightly disgruntled.

“C’mon, let’s go,” Dianna said, grabbing the file and heading for the lockerroom. “We’ve got some interviews to do and some arrests to make.”

#writing #story #science fiction #punk rock cyborgs #censorship laws #it has all this and more #novella #dystopian #original content #original work

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sailolive93-blog · 5 years

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The best Guide to Reddit Marketing around 2019

"Yep, i do all my modelling in C4D as I just know the tools so well there. I do minimal retopology in Zbrush on organic shapes but any hard surfaces I make in C4D. I'd recommend the "Introduction to Subdivision modelling in C4D" by Shane Benson on Vimeo (he goes by Sheppard O'Neill on YouTube if you prefer that) and it was his tuts that got me into box and subdiv modelling.

I'm also releasing a modelling workshop in C4D and models from the kitchen scene that these belong to will be in there to learn. Just not these two as they belong to marketing for the workshop. very well "Brand new Reddit account with two extensive comments defending Boa Vista Orchards huh...? We joked earlier about spotting the Boa Vista account in here but it looks like we actually have lol! > I just talked to the dude who does the marketing for Apple Hill and he sent me this So you just randomly talked to the guy and he emailed over his entire statement...? " "I too wonder why they didn’t just create a new line and call it the mach-e instead of mustang, I believe it has something to do with the marketing department since they knew it’ll stir a lot of discussion" "Precedent suggests it depends on the marketing around the product being sold and the implied purpose. " "Wow, ha. The fact that you think that it’s ok for the government to strip away my personal health insurance so that I HAVE to be on the same shitty plan on everybody else is crazy. If healthcare is “free” and universal, the quality of healthcare is bound to decrease. I can choose to pay for whatever the fuck I want and whatever healthcare I want. I give to charity and I have plans on giving a lot more to charity as I get further in my career and start making more money. Believe it or not, you aren’t the only one that cares about people just because you want “free” healthcare for everybody. And there is also no such thing as free healthcare. It has to be paid somehow and middle class taxes will go up no matter how complicated you try to make the source of payment sound. And regarding free college, that will also raise middle class taxes. You keep bringing up this. 02% of financial transactions bullshit as if that’s going to cover all costs. Have you done studies on this yourself? Do you even know that? You act like all these things can be magically paid for without anybody in the middle class being negatively affected. I have a bachelor’s degree and I didn’t feel like college was very challenging. It was more like a series of annoying classes I didn’t need when all of college could have been boiled down into one year of the core classes of my major of marketing. College is a fuckin scam and it’s only truly necessary for a very limited amount of majors. You’re just another minion that kisses the feet of big-government Democrats that try to make us feel like horrible people for not allowing them to sucks insane amounts of money out of the economy and spend it how they would like to. inch "That's including the localization teams for every language though, as well as PR and marketing. >! Some of them might even be legacy accreditation for the Gen 6 models they're *still* using.! < " "Time is a cost and you should track where that cost is going. That said, if you are working on general administrative/nonbillable stuff within your own department, it's pretty easy to have that time automatically go to the right cost bucket, so generic entries for that sort of thing are fine imo. The stuff that really has to be tracked is anything for clients or for departments that are outside your default (e. g. engineer writes a blog post, that's marketing time etc). micron "I believe there are some lessons on Google Academy for Adss (now called Skillshop) but hands-on experience is tricky. Two ways are possible, 1) is for you to have your own website and use Google Ad Sense, but this is more from the advertiser side rather than publisher or technical side 2) ask a digital or marketing agency that is near you if you can shadow/assist/internship/work experience for a week or so. This may be difficult depending on where you live and agency people are always very busy, so if you do ask tell them how you could help THEM not the other way around. To be honest, start with Analytics and Paid Search as they are arguable more accessible and have more out there for you to learn" "We are in the same boat, but different industry. Here's my approach, starting this week: I'm joining business groups that my target clients are a part of, for example, manufacturer groups. Then I'm going to target that organization with our services. I'm then going to offer to speak about the service I offer and how it helps businesses. Not a marketing spiel, an educational talk. Good luck" "One might consider a lawsuit if a car or alcohol company advocated or implied the action of drinking and driving in their marketing" "This post has been removed for breaking Rule 1. No Spammy Titles. Do not mention anything about selling anything in the title. Absolutely ZERO marketing in the title. Do not even ask for people to contact you for more. Be enticing. Post quality pics with quality titles. Read the rules for info on how to market yourself here. If your posts keep getting removed then you will be banned. READ THE RULES! *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Remember to[contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/? to=/r/feetpics) if you have any questions or concerns. *" "I came of grew up and came of age in Chicago during Jordan's time with the Bulls and the shortest answer is that it's almost incomparable because the level of fame basketball players before Michael Jordan was laughably lower than now. Even today MJ has a logo that might be more identifiable than the company that created it. I would argue no athlete in any sport has surpassed MJ's level of fame. MJ pioneered so many avenues of endorsements, its like comparing planes in the era of propeller planes with jet planes. Jordan like most greats, stood on the shoulders of giants, specifically Larry Bird and Magic Johnson. Those two spent the better part of the late 70's and early to late 80's dominating the sport of basketball. Also add in Isiah Thomas of the Pistons and arguably "Dr. J" Julius Erving of the 76ers and those four were the superstars of the four teams that won EVERY NBA championship of the decade. Before Michael Jordan won his FIRST NBA Championship in 1991, he was arguably bigger than all of them. Before MJ, being a big name athlete meant getting your name on a breakfast cereal box called Wheaties, and doing the commercial saying the plug line "Gotta eat your Wheaties! " That's not a joke. Check 'em out on youtube, they're cringe worthy. MJ's meteoric rise in my opinion was helped by a few special advertising campaigns. I think first would have been his Nike commercials with Spike Lee, another pioneer. He just made "Do the right thing" at a time when black people making movies with black people in the movies wasn't really a thing. Spike Lee also happens to like playing characters in his own movies and Mars Blackmon was a character in that movie that Spike Lee chose to portray in a series of commericals with Michael Jordan. Again, pardon me for repeating, but I have to say it again for context. You have a supremely talented and charismatic young athlete being marketed by a young shoe company (Converse Chuck Taylors were still THE basketball shoe) hiring a visionary and ground breaking director to do something that had not been done before. And they crushed it. Again, at this time Michael Jordan wasn't winning NBA championships. He was having savant level performances, but get bounced out of the first round by the Celtics, or getting manhandled in the playoffs by the Pistons. By the time he did win it all in 91, MJ was doing things that no one had done in fields well outside basketball. Michael Jordan in Flight is one of the first videogames to have 3D. He had already supplanted Dr J in the one on one basketball video game with Larry Bird. Gatorade put out a marketing campaign with the song "Be Like Mike" and that song was the top song for the summer of 92 in Chicago on most radio stations regardless of genre. You're already familiar with Space Jam, but before Space Jam, the Looney Toons were relegated to afternoon after school syndicated (rerun) television stations. Michael Jordan made Bugs Bunny cool again to a whole new generation that knows of them only through MJ. I hope that helps. inches "Yeah I don't want to turn it around and criticize Musk over this or anything, but Tesla is great at PR and marketing while convincing people they don't actually try to be. inches "No, you dont need more parties, you need to ban all parties and establish government funded elections where everyone with a certain amount of support by the people can run using government money and marketing channels. Equal funding, equal marketing, equal candidacy, by the people, for the people. Sounds too good to be true? Well fuck you, because parties are corrupt barbaric cavemen shit. " " Funny Cartoon Images for website content - Family Funny Images and illustrations, Ultimate single panel funny cartoons used for websites, social media and emails https://www.freecartoonsdaily.com https://www.cartoons.cafe www.cartoons.cafe www.acmeblanks.com sign up now! Funny Cartoons, Funny family cartoon images, Custom Cartoons, Niche Cartoons, Humorous Illustration Services, Business Cartoons, Medical Cartoons, Custom Comic Strips, Book Illustration Services, Political Cartoons, funny hospital cartoons, cartoons for marketing, corporate cartoons, work cartoons, business cartoons, Computer Cartoons, farmer cartoons, farm cartoons, tractor cartoons, Pig cartoons, pig farmer cartoons, cor farmer cartoons, wheat farmer cartoons, soybean farmer cartoons.... inch "That's including people associated with the marketing and promotion of Sword and Shield, which means people at Nintendo and the Pokemon Company rather than actual programmers at Game Freak working on the game itself. The same article you're looking at gives 200 at Game Freak - which is likely wrong since Game Freak had 143 employees, and Game Freak openly stated most were working on Town. You could include the modelers from Creatures Inc, but given that the models are the same as those developed for X and Y by Creatures Inc years ago, they are likely still being credited for "work" on this game that was actually done quite some time ago. " "Imagine what a lucky break JonTron was for FlexSeal. Their products are actually pretty decent, but their marketing was almost typical infomercial stuff that no-one over fifty would've seen. Next, out of nowhere, some YouTuber makes them famous amongst younger customers. People make "that's a lotta damage, " and "I sawed this boat in half, " memes. Everyone knows who they are. Chances are, when you need some stuff like this you'll at the very least know about their existence and you might buy their stuff because at least you know they're legit. Some people will buy it when they need something like that, literally for the meme. All they have to do is keep the ball rolling with tweets like these (because, of course, people actually follow them on Twitter now). " "That's my point. The pub you linked to is disney land. I'm looking for somewhere that recreates the a more authentic historical experience. I think these places have got their marketing wrong which is why they are closing. They should be trying to recreate an experience closer to that in the Pathe news reel. If you just sold fresh baked bread, potted Hare, a variety of local ales you could heat with a poker while smoking a hilarious pipe you could capture a huge slice of the real ale / hipster / foodie market. " "No game in the genre had been competition for the Diablo franchise since it's inception. D3 no matter how you look at it was a huge commercial success being in the top 10 video games sold of all time at one point. Diablo now has become what WoW was before, tons of games saying they are a WoW killer and none of them doing it. So now we looming at Diablo killers but they all end up falling off somewhere because they don't get the same $$$ support / marketing. inch "8M opening weekend bad = bad marketing. Bad quality movie would be revealed in the multiplier (word of mouth and no rewatches). In this case I don’t think there was anything compelling from the movie they could focus the marketing around which led to the 8M OW. " "I’m in the same boat. I have to get 14 credits by may2020. In the last 2 weeks I did principle of marketing 3 credits score 66 and principal of management 3 credits score 62. This week I’ll take precalculas which is 5 credits and calculus which is 4 credits. I did not pay the $89 for the test because I did modernstates which pays the testing fee. It also reimburses me for the $20 testing fee" "Marketing. McAf€€ gets money from users, Micro$oft gets money from McAfee. They beget the green, motherfuckers that they are. Sometimes http://tipofmytongue.topreddit.info who install 3^^rd party stuff tho, it's not only Microsoft. Anyway, it's a motherfuckery of bloatware if not malware. "McAfee antivirus is one of the worst products on the planet" -John McAfee" "You're arguing entirely from marketing hype instead of actual quality, which is entirely stupid and comes down entirely to Sont having far greater of a userbase and them having less games to pump more money behind. Besides, let's not pretend Sony has an actual library of games here. Both Xbox and Sony have completely shit the bed this console generation in terms of exclusive libraries. Sony has had like, 8 good games this entire generation as exclusives. You have Death Stranding, Uncharted 4, Horizon, Until Dawn, Bloodborne, God of War, MLB The Show... That's about it? I guess you also have Detroit and Last Guardian depending on who you ask, but I defo don't wanna throw Days Gone on that list. But in any case, you could lump all of those games into loke 3-4 genres. Am I missing anything? But yeah, stop saying dumb shit like "Well its not a household name so its irrelevant" because you're entirely missing the point and reducing the entire industry to what can or can't be marketed. As well, its telling that Sony has stated their goal next-gen is to have less games release but have them be bigger, where Microsoft is going the opposite direction. Keep the the big titles, bur also have a little something for everyone. Diversity is important. Your Battletoads reboot might not sell as well, but its important to folks who like it. Games shouldn't be live or die based on how well they fit in established and marketable trends. Its absurdly reductive" "I actually never had injected one, whats the main difference? And is it really a big improvement or rather a marketing bait" "It’s all part of his NYC persona. Marketing. inches

#tag #statics

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snappedsky · 5 years

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Borderlands: Skies the Bodyguard 1

Skies regales the story of how she first met Handsome Jack.

Previous!

Next!

Chapter 1

My entire life I had been a mercenary, travelling through space in my crappy, little cruiser, taking whatever job I could get my hands on.

I had made a name for myself by killing whoever people wanted me to kill. I offed anyone from cheating boyfriends to high-level politicians. I had no code. It didn’t matter if it was some vigilante justice or a personal grudge. I would do the job with only one question asked: how much?

It had been a couple weeks since my last job. I was drifting in space, scrolling through the ECHOnet, trying to find my next meal ticket when my comm started chiming with a call.

“Skies the Merc,” I answered.

“Heya, kiddo. It’s Handsome Jack.”

Any moron this side of the galaxy knows about Handsome Jack: the low-level Hyperion employee who became CEO and sole owner seemingly overnight. He was one of the most powerful people in the universe. So I think my reaction of choking on my own spit was justified.

The amusement in his voice as I hacked was annoyingly blatant. “You…okay there, cupcake?”

“Y-yeah, fine,” I coughed and cleared my throat. “Uh how can I help you?”

“I wanna hire you for a very important, very special job.”

“You…want me to kill someone…?” I asked with disbelief.

“Not…exactly,” Jack replied, “I’m not gonna discuss it over the ECHO communicator. If you’re interested, then come to the Hyperion space station, Helios outside of Pandora.”

I wish I could say I hesitated. I mean if I went there and refused, then he would just kill me. That’s why he wanted to discuss it in person. But all that was going through my brain was ‘Handsome Jack. Handsome freekin Jack.’

“Uh, yeah, no problem. I’ll head there right now,” I replied without a second thought.

“Excellent,” he purred, “I’ll have someone wait for you. See you soon, kitten.”

After we hung up, I just leaned back in my seat, staring dumbly out the window, trying to process what just happened. I had never gotten a job from anyone nearly as huge as Handsome Jack. I had done plenty of jobs for big-name-company stooges, sure, but nobody higher than like middle management.

This…this could be my big break! I do this job for Handsome Jack, and my name and rates will skyrocket! No more struggling between jobs, no more settling for whatever I can get; I’ll be set!

Oh, how naïve I was.

So I headed for Pandora as fast as my little ship could putter. It took a few hours.

As I neared Helios I remembered feeling stunned. I had seen pictures of the Hyperion station before but in person it was incredible.

I directed my ship into the landing bay and docked it amidst the much bigger, much nicer ships. As I hopped out, a pair of armored guards approached, guns at the ready.

I kept my cool but left my hands at my side. I didn’t wanna to ruin my meeting with Handsome Jack by getting shot but I also didn’t want these corporate morons thinking I was scared of them.

“Identify yourself,” one of them barked.

I hooked a thumb at myself. “Skies the Merc.”

“Who?” the other scoffed. I just rolled my eyes.

“Why didn’t you answer when you were being called?” the first asks.

“Oh uh yeah, it doesn’t have an onboard communicator,” I replied, pointing at my ship.

They both laughed at that and so did all the surrounding bystanders. I could see them, eyeing my ship and me, dressed in my raggedy cloak. Little did they know, I had about a dozen knives and a couple guns stashed under that cloak.

“What’s your business?” the first guard asked.

“I have a meeting with Handsome Jack,” I replied.

Everyone started laughing even harder. It was really starting to get on my nerves. Wasn’t someone supposed to be waiting for me?

“You? As if,” the second guard scoffed.

“Yeah, why don’t you take your trash heap,” the first guard said, “and get back to whatever junkyard you crawled out of.”

I narrowed my eyes as everybody laughed and quietly weighed the pros and cons of killing them all. But then the bystanders suddenly scurried away like rats as a man approached the two guards.

“That’s enough,” he snapped and they instantly shut up. “Get back to work.”

They skulked away quietly as the man faced me. He was the whitest guy I had ever seen, and I had done jobs for citizens of the snow planet, Kryo. Light hair, pale skin. And just looking at him made my douchebag alarm go off.

“I am Mr. Blake,” he said like it was a big deal. “I’ll be escorting you to Handsome Jack’s office.”

“Cool,” I said. He gestured for me to follow and led me out of the hangar bay.

As I followed him through the halls, I got eyed by every stuck up, arrogant asshole we passed. Many of them scoffed, snorted, or commented loudly to their friends on my ‘unsightly appearance’. But I kept my eyes forward, not giving them the satisfaction of a reaction.

Blake eventually led me to the Hub of Heroism: a monument to egotism, assholery, and Handsome Jack. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t impressed.

We passed through the atrium to a large elevator and Blake stopped to face me.

“This elevator will take you straight to Handsome Jack’s office,” he said.

“Thanks,” I replied as I stepped past him.

“Good luck,” he added slyly as he walked away.

I glanced after him before entering the elevator and going up.

I was brought to the lobby first. It was big and comfortable, except for all propaganda posters all over the place. There pictures of Jack fighting some sort of great beast and taking down a whole army with just two guns.

Somebody- or something- was standing by the door on the other side of the room. It looked like a man fused with a Loader Bot. He was standing so still I almost thought he was statue, but I could feel his eyes on me.

I crossed the room quickly but before I could reach the door, the cyborg cut me off.

“Uh what’s up, big guy?” I asked.

“Leave all your weapons,” he demanded in his robotic voice.

“Oh, sure, that-that’s understandable,” I shrugged and removed my whole cloak. “Here, just take this whole thing.”

The cyborg took my cloak and stepped aside.

“Don’t mess with any of my stuff,” I snapped as I went through the door. It led into a hallway that went straight to another closed door.

As I walked I glanced at my t-shirt and grimaced. It was Dahl shirt I had stolen off some dude I killed once. “Wish I had worn a different shirt.”

It was too late to worry though, as the door opened and I walked into Handsome Jack’s office.

If I could only use one word to describe his office I would use…ostentatious. It was needlessly big with fountains, two giant busts of Jack, a couple of large couches, a trophy case. The far wall was just glass, looking out on Pandora’s moon, Elpis.

If I was impressed by the Hub of Heroism, you can imagine how blown away I was by his office.

Leading straight from the door, up a couple of stairs, was a large desk with a big, yellow chair behind it. And sitting in that yellow chair was Handsome Jack himself.

“Hey, there she is,” he boomed as he stood up. “Just the lady I’ve been waiting for. Come on, have a seat.”

I approached his desk and sat in the round chair across from him. I was…tense. I wasn’t scared of those Hyperion guards or that big cyborg, but Handsome Jack…Handsome Jack was different. He radiated power and confidence. I had never been around someone like that. It wasn’t that I was scared, really, I just…I felt like I really wanted to impress him.

And I had to wear the brand Hyperion hated most.

“You want anything? A drink, something to eat?” he asked, flashing a charming smile.

“Uh no, no I’m good,” I replied. I was actually starving but I could not show any kind of weakness. I was just begging my stomach not to growl. “S-so uh what’s this job?”

“We’ll get to that,” he said, waving away my question as he sat down. “But first, I’d like to ask you something.”

He tapped on his keyboard, bringing up a holographic computer screened. He typed something then turned the screen to me, showing the picture of a man. “Recognize this guy?”

I did. A few weeks back I did a job on Demophon for some Jakobs employee that involved killing a Hyperion employee. I had done countless jobs like that before. Corporate scum liked murdering the opposition but rarely liked getting their hands dirty. But why did Jack care?

I considered lying to him but if he was asking me then he already knew.

“Yes,” I replied bluntly, “he was a mark.”

“Tell me how you did it,” he ordered, leaning forward.

I watched him carefully. Both of his hands were folded on the top of the desk and he didn’t look angry, more intrigued.

I took a deep breath. “I disguised myself as a janitor and stole one of their IDs. I figured office workers didn’t pay much attention to people below them. I was right. I was able to get into the facility and find the mark’s office easily. Then I just hid out until he was alone, slit his throat, and got out before anyone noticed. It was just a standard job.”

“And it wasn’t the first involving Hyperion,” Jack added.

I continued watching him, my eyes darting between his mismatched ones. “No. I had killed quite a few Hyperion employees. And I had killed for Hyperion plenty of times too.” “Oh, I know. You have quite a rap sheet, don’t you?” he grinned as he leaned back.

I narrowed my eyes cautiously and brushed my hand against the knife I kept hidden in my beanie. I didn’t plan on using it but it did ease my nerves a bit.

Jack laughed. “Ease up, kiddo. This isn’t an interrogation. It’s an interview.”

I blinked with surprise.

“I’m not gonna kill you, I like you. I like the way you work, the way you think. See, I’ve done some research on you and I’ve been keeping an eye on you since this job.” He pointed at the computer screen.

“How’d you know it was me?” I asked.

“I didn’t, not at first,” he replied, “I had to find the Jakobs employee who hired you first. That wasn’t hard. Neither was torturing him.” He laughed. “Th-the moron was crying the whole time my boys were bringing him to me. He crumbled like paper. And don’t get me wrong, that makes my job a lot easier. But it’s just-it’s kind of boring, you know?”

“Anyway,” he says as he turns his computer screen back around. “You passed the interview. Congrats. Now let’s discuss the job.”

“Now, this job is top secret and super important,” he explains as he types. “So, because I’m such a nice guy, I’ll give you this one out because if you choose not to do it after I tell you about, I will kill you.” I should’ve backed out right then and there. Obviously whatever this job was, it was dangerous and different and so was Jack, to put it lightly. But I was intrigued and excited. And I had never turned down a job before.

“Whatever it is, I’m in,” I said.

Jack grinned. “I knew you’d say that.” “You said over the comm that you didn’t want me to kill anyone,” I stated.

“Right. I need you to track someone.”

I leaned forward as he turned the screen back to me. It showed multiple different pictures of a woman, beautiful with fire-y red hair. One of the images showed her glowing purple with some kind of blast firing from her hand into a group of armed people.

I shot up. “A Siren!”

“You said you wouldn’t back out,” Jack warned.

I glared at him. “I’m not, I just…Sirens are legendary. I’ve never even seen one in person.”

“Then consider this your lucky day,” he grinned, “this is Lilith. A while ago my guys and I destroyed a bandit town on Pandora called New Haven. Killed tons of people. It was great. And I thought Lilith died with them but lately I’ve been thinking she actually survived.” “So you want me to find her,” I stated.

“Find her, find evidence of her, or find evidence she actually died,” Jack added.

“So you’re just going off a hunch?”

“Hey, I have great instincts with this type of thing.” “Alright, do you at least have some idea of where I can start?”

“On Pandora there’s a bandit town called Sanctuary,” Jack replied, “start there. I can give you a shuttle with the coordinates.” “Just message them to me. I can take my cruiser.”

“Ha, you mean that rusted little tin can you flew in on?” he snorted, “no, no, no. I’m not going to let anyone working for me be seen in that thing or in a Dahl t-shirt.”

He typed on his keyboard. “What’s your size? Medium?”

“Small,” I grunted.

He finished typing and a yellow shirt digistructed on his desk. “There, for you. Consider it a gift of my admiration.”

I unfolded it, trying to hide my grimace. “Yellow’s not really my colour.”

“I think it’ll look great.” I tucked it under my arm. I’ll be wearing my cloak anyway so it didn’t matter.

“There’ll be a shuttle waiting for you in the docking bay,” Jack said.

“One more thing,” I said, “how much?”

Jack grinned with amusement. He typed on his keyboard and showed me the screen. “How’s that?” I had never seen so many zeroes. It almost made me dizzy trying to count them. I quickly shook some sense back into my head and looked back at Jack.

“Half now, half when I finish the job,” I demanded.

“Sure,” he shrugged, “just remember, if you try to run, I will find you.” “I don’t run away,” I said.

He grinned as he typed on his keyboard. “There, I’ve wired it to you. We done here?”

“Yup,” I nodded and stood up. “I’ll call you if I find anything…or don’t find anything.”

“I’ll be waiting.” He waved as I walked away.

As soon as I was outside in the hall, I checked my ECHO comm. The amount of numbers nearly took up the whole screen. I had to keep from jumping and cheering, but I couldn’t stop the big, goofy smile on my face.

I sauntered back into the waiting room, my head held high. The cyborg was still standing by the door with my cloak. He held it out to me.

“Thanks, bro,” I chimed and saluted him. “Catch you later.”

As I rode the elevator down, I put my cloak back on. After I exited into the Hub of Heroism, I held out my new Hyperion shirt in front of me. Suddenly yellow was looking pretty damn good.

#Borderlands #Borderlands 2 #Borderlands fanfiction #Borderlands 2 fanfiction #Borderlands au #my oc #my art

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spirit-shroud · 6 years

Note

if you're still taking requests, how about a plight x m!reader where they need to pretend to be married? x)

okay anon so first of all that is legitimately my favourite fanfiction trope and i love you, so here’s a fun 3.3k word fic i kinda went overboard on, but i hope its still within the lines of what you wanted ^^ Read it on ao3 in my collection of other requests here

“‘Sup! I have a favour to ask.” The voice of the lamplighter came through the phone at far too loud of a volume, and much too fast for you to keep up with. He sounded out of breath. You looked around for a clock and sighed into the receiver. “Huh? I haven’t even asked the favour yet.”

“Plight, dear, friend, pal, buddy. Bro. Dude. Can it wait? It’s six in the morning, where are you even calling me from?” You tried not to sound upset, but you definitely did. You hovered a finger over the hang up button. “…Oh, it… is really late isn’t it. Good morning! I’m at the library right now and, what are you going to be doing in, like, two hours?”

“I planned on sleeping, though that’s not happening I guess.” “Yeah, sorry. Something came up and its important. Anyways, meet me at – hold on–” You heard the sound of papers, presumably him flipping through his schedule book. “Ling’s at 8:15?” “How important is it? And you’re paying.” “Of course. And, life or death situation. I promise.” “If you’re sure. I’m going to keep being bitter about it, though.”“That’s fair. See you then, okay?” You meant to say something else, but it came out as a mildly foreboding “Soon.” before you hung up. You yawned, stretched, and decided you had the time to do whatever until 8:15. Plight wasn’t one to ask for favours ever. What could come up that he needed you for? And something that required a meeting, which was all the more odd. You made yourself presentable to the outside world and spent the rest of the morning laying about, contemplating every possible way things could go wrong. That was the most necessary step to leaving your apartment as always. The hour came and you started over. The cafe still wasn’t quite open – The lights were still being tended to by a lamp bot, and Ling filling the coffee machine. He turned around and gave you a wave. “Good morning! Did you sleep well?” “Good morning. It.. could’ve been better. But, what can you–” You yawned, interrupting your own sentence. “Do, I guess.” The boy looked at the grounds he measured, and added half a cup extra before setting the machine to brew. “It’s just a slow day already, I think. So, what can I get for you?” He gave you a happy smile. “Nothing quite yet, I’m waiting for Lampy.” You sat at the counter and put your head on it. “He’s late to his own appointment again.” “Ah… ‘Seems like you’re getting roped into this as well.” Ling laughed uncomfortably, giving you a pat on the shoulder. “I don’t like the sound of that.” “I’m just going to let him explain it. The whole deal’s pretty, ahh, interesting. But if he’s on his way I should get more coffee, give me a minute.” He dismissed himself with a wave, and you, half-asleep still, waved back. 8:15 turned into 8:45 before Plight finally showed up, covered in a mix of oil and phosphor that didn’t look comfortable at all. The scent reminded you of silly string, for some reason, and sitting next to it was as unpleasant as it sounded. His hair was equally messy, half-covered by his hat, and his hook still not rinsed off of the glow. He made finger guns at you before speaking. “I bet you’re wondering why I needed you here today,” he began, not sounding too sure of himself. “To be honest, I’m more concerned why you look like you lost a fight with a street lamp. And, isn’t phosphor highly acidic?” You tilted your head at him, trying to hold your breath. Ling passed you a mug, and Plight the remainder of the carafe of coffee, expression neutral. Same nonsense as usual. “It is, I’m, like, dying at the moment. Anyways, the worst thing happened. I got back to my house after I talked to you and stuff, except my phone’s ringing and it’s awful. Like, this guy called me in a panic because one of the morning bot crew wasn’t working. And he casually forgot to mention that it was an optical problem because some shitty kid threw rocks at the thing. I had to like, run out and buy some replacement glass which sucked let me tell you, nothing is open until like, ten these days. And, now, I’m not the guy you ask for repairing bots, but I have two things going for me. One, I’m an idiot. Two, I’m determined. So I tried my best and! Got it to work. But I also feel like I’m melting and it was a mess and I regret not just bothering someone else about it. But the east side of the city also isn’t my problem for another day SO I’d say I did a good job. That’s also why I’m so late and I apologize.” He hung his head. You blinked, processed his story a few times over, before shaking your head and taking a loooong sip of your drink. “I’m not sure what I was expecting, honestly.” Ling shrugged and left you to your confused silence. “So, breakfast?” “The usual would be great, thanks.” You sighed. “I’ll have whatever he’s having.” “Good luck, you two.” He disappeared into the back, laughing again as if he knew something.The lamplighter clapped his hands together before continuing where he left off. “Okay so back to the point. I need you to, ahh, pretend to be my husband for an uncomfortable social event?”You narrowly avoided spitting out your coffee. “One more time with that?” You heard him. You had a full understanding of what he just said. However, you were having a hard time believing it. He dug around in his pockets until he found a small package, and slid it over to you. Upon closer inspection, it was a maple-flavoured candy ring, and you stared at him for a long time. “It’s a long story.” “Get talking, then.” You were so… done. But when it came to the lamplighter, you were a pushover at heart, so you at least wanted to hear him out.“I’m not sure where to start on this one, uhh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “So I was being bugged by this girl at my other… other… job, and I kiiiinda panicked and told her I was married because I wanted her to screw off, except there’s a staff party like tonight and now I’m expected to show up there with my supposed spouse. And, I can’t even like, get out of it. My schedule is totally clear. I don’t have anyone else I can ask except for you and I’m kinda all screwed up over it.” “…That implies you already went and asked a bunch of other people.” “Yeah. See, what happened, is, Kelvin said no outright, Ling is busy and y’know him, he needs two weeks notice on everything anyways. Cedric just hung up on me, Rue is a literal fox, Kip is old, too well known, and also a lesbian, and you’re, um, starting to get the picture, I hope.” He sighed heavily. You nervously reached for his shoulder, trying to avoid the bits that were alight with phosphor. “I will help you this once, but we’re going to have to put effort into it. What’s the dress code of the party? Who’s going to be there? Will there be free food? And if we’re doing this we’re going to need legit looking wedding rings and also some fake pictures. We need to agree on an anniversary date, and some other stuff that I’m forgetting right now.” “Speaking of food–” Ling emerged from the back holding two plates, piled high with scrambled eggs, french toast, fried potatoes and bacon. To an average person, it’d be too much, but you dove into it before he even set it down. “Sorry it took so long, still setting up for the morning rush and all. Which should be.. soon…” The boy hung his head for a moment, before adjusting his apron and putting a happy smile on. He was truly the hero of customer service.Plight was staring at his plate, then at you, then back to his plate. It seemed he needed a minute. You spoke first. “It’s not a problem, we’re not in a rush or anything!! But, okay, so we need a date.” “Hm, hiking in the Glen sounds nice. Or maybe visiting the world history museum. Or, you meant like, day, didn’t you.” The boy covered his face with his palm. “Why not 45-23?” “Alrighty, so that’s our anniversary now.” You poked the lamplighter. “Still with us?” “Just. I don’t think I’ve had this much food in a year how do you do this regularly? And that say sounds good, yeah. Let me–” He scribbled it down in his notebook and nibbled at the potatoes. “You have a problem, dear.” “I’m busy, s’all.” He pouted. “This is really good by the way. And, the… Event,” he said it with such disgust, as if saying the word party would ruin the atmosphere. “Pretty straightforward. Lots of boring office people who think it’s a fashion show rather than an after-work get together where they just smacktalk their clients and drink sparkling apple juice in crystal glasses. It’s literally, like, just juice. It’s so… Tame. And boring. Anyways, the cool guys and who we’ll probably just stand around the most is the other maintenance guys who are cool as hell. We aren’t even sure why we’re invited to be honest but that makes it kind of better. So I think if we go with something that’s like, kinda flashy, but not in the ‘high class citizen who understands social cues’ area, we’ll be okay and be talked to as minimally as possible. Also if we really need to leave you can fake pass out or something.” You brought a hand to your chin in thought. “I am a pro at being dramatic. But, for outfits, I have… Nothing matching that description.” “And I have reckless spending habits! Guess we’re going to the mall for two pressing things today.”

“Okay but you have clothes at my house and you’re taking a shower first. I’ll even, like, do your laundry. Please dude.” He wiped his face and his expression soured. His hand was covered in black streaks of machine oil and whatever else. “…Ah.” The pair of you finished up, paid Ling and thanked him before crossing the skywalk into your apartment. Some hours passed before you were both ready again, but you got lots done. Enough edited photographs to fill a small album, all ready-printed and as nice looking as possible. You got a few other people in on what was happening just in case they were asked. It was above and beyond what you’d do for any other situation, but after getting over the initial shock, you realized the situation was more hilarious than anything. You worked on getting your stories straight while you walked towards the mall. You met in middle school, were close friends through high school, but fell apart sometime around college due to conflicting dreams or something (You mostly hoped nobody’d ask you to go in that much detail) when afterwards you eventually ran into each other and started dating. It wasn’t a lie, per se. The truth was definitely stretched, but not beyond recognition. You held hands while wandering around store to store to practice the idea of closeness. Something was off about it, though. You’d never known him to be the nervous sort and yet his palms seemed to get sweatier, his words a little more hesitant by the hour. Even when you’d normally be bickering about this or that was met with no resistance. It was starting to make you worried as well, but you didn’t want to mention it. It seemed while your acceptance was in the fun of things, he had a very different realization.The culmination of those anxieties passed without incident, as there were more pressing matters. Standing in front of a directory for the third time that day, a thought crossed your minds at the same time. “How do jewelry stores even work?” He looked down at you, as if you’d magically have the answer. “I’d imagine like any other store??” “But, like, do you just… walk in, and say, ‘do you by chance have two plain gold bands? Here’s my card. My ring size is 10.5’? Don’t you usually need to order things ahead of time? What if they, like, ask?” “That’s, um, a valid point. I have no idea.” You scratched the back of your neck awkwardly, trying to laugh it off. He followed the motion. “We need an adult.” “Plight, we’re adults. Let’s just find a place and see what happens, okay?” He sighed and tried to find the one he was looking at earlier on the map. “That’ll go well. Two bros, looking at gold rings for some… Reasons.” You walked across the mall, still hand in hand, and stared into some of the outer cases of one store you stumbled across. Everything was far too glittery for your cave eyes, and the numbers high enough to make you feel the crippling debt. “What the f–.” He paused. “Heck. Is a karat? Isn’t that a troll? Why are there fourteen of them? And this one is eighteen?” “I think it’s a measure of like, how much actual gold is in it. Since like, normal pure gold is a sucky material, they put other stuff in it so it’s not as terrible. It’s still pretty terrible, though. Also the troll you’re thinking of is something else entirely.”“That’s… informative. Also, you’re a nerd.” “I can’t argue with that.” After wandering around for awhile and looking at everything, you both realized you had no idea what you were actually doing there. You decided to settle and look elsewhere. After all, it only had to look like a gold band. You only planned on keeping it on your finger for roughly four hours. You stumbled across the exact thing you needed as you’d used up all your allocated shopping time, and started back to your apartment. He happily carried everything while you walked along. The conversation was over in a comfortable silence. It was something you’d let yourself get used to in a heartbeat. Just the two of you– Wait. He actually was talking and you missed it…? You shook your head as you leaned against the wall of the elevator, and the lamplighter stared at you blankly. “Did you hear any of what I just said?” “Um,” you stared at the ceiling, then the floor. “Nope.” “That’s fair, first of all. To recap, it starts in about two hours, and it’s a fifteen minute walk, so we have some time to sit down before getting ready and everything. You look exhausted.” He managed to keep every bag on one arm, and offered his other one out to you. You took it, despite not looking happy about it. “I’m not used to going anywhere, since my office is right in my building. I think this’ll be the most anything I’ve done for awhile.” “You really need to get out more.” “And do what? Bask in the sunlight?” Your expression deadpanned.“Okay that was cold. But yeah, I remember you mentioning a few weeks ago you were pretty stir-crazy. Like, hey, maybe you could set up shop in the library sometime? And then I could, like, visit, since I end up there so much anyway.” “I’m sure I could bother George about it sometime, depending on the day… And, next time you’re free we should lay around, watch some movies, the usual. It sure has been awhile.” “Yeah, it… has. This is the first time we’ve actually spent together in months. Kind of strange, given the circumstances.” You both chuckled. You unlocked your door, took off your boots, and immediately laid on the floor. It was nice to be home. Plight got to cutting tags off of your clothes and it went back to a content quiet. The whole situation was starting to feel too domestic and you were wishing for a distraction. You weren’t opposed to it, but you also didn’t want to let yourself get used to it. It was just one night and if it didn’t mean anything six hours ago, it wasn’t going to now. You looked at the clock and sighed at it, which was echoed back. This became a contest over who could sigh the loudest, but it devolved into laughing quickly. You picked your clothes up from the pile. “We should, um, get ready, it’s almost time.” “Oh, you’re right–” You disappeared into your room and left him to his own devices, emerging a few minutes later. You wore brown pants, a beige shirt, dark green suspenders and a bowtie to match. You admired yourself in the mirror but the same feeling of something being off came back. You ran a brush through your hair and tried to look back, but to no avail. The more you tried to nitpick and adjust things the more awkward it felt to be in. A lot of things were like that, you thought. The more you tried to push away small imperfections the more the original picture was lost. Your mind trailed back to the man in the other room. You figuratively wiped the blush off your face and walked out to greet him. He eyed you up and down. “It looks dumb, doesn’t it?” You deflated, staring at him. You realized you’d never actually seen him outside of his usual long coat. You wished you could’ve a long time ago. You decided to leave the mental comments there.“No! I mean, you look… nice.” He turned away. “So I was kind of thinking, what if instead of sitting by a punch bowl for like, three hours to prove something, we actually do something… fun?” Thinking about it, you shrugged. “Did you have any specific ideas?” He raised a finger, then lowered it. A few seconds later he raised it again, only to lower it again. “Not yet. I haven’t gotten that far. But it’d be like, a date? If that’s cool? I mean, if it’s not then it’s fine and just forget it but I’ve been thinking about it most of the day and???” He ran out of breath and it took some effort to recollect it. “Y’know. At least I hope.” “I’d be down for a date,” you hesitantly said, not too sure of your own words. “But, just to clarify, you did ask some other people to this thing first before settling for me, right?” He tensed up for a minute. “Don’t call it settling. But, I did, and I had a lot of fun today, and accidentally revived some old feelings? Which was… a journey in itself, and then I also decided I don’t really need to prove anything to anyone. Life is too short to stress about dumb things and if anyone decides to bother me about it, I can tell them in loud, rainbow details about the better night I had with my ‘husband’ until they regret asking.” He offered his arm out, which you linked with yours. “That sure is a lot to come out of today.” You were happy to lean on him. You also wished, quite a lot, in fact, you were better at stringing words together. “I put in a lot of unnecessary effort to not make it weird? But then it was weird anyways, and, ahh. Let’s just go for a walk and see if we find anything interesting.” “Sounds good to me.”

#souls fanfiction requests #my writing #its more plight/reader because im traaaaaaaaaaaash #@god please dont mess up my formatting because i went back to add tags

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