#i am once again asking to be deconstructed
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H&L: Sweet Things They Say To You
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re: how they show you they love you with their words…
hmmm idk how happy i am with this one but it’s been sitting in my notes for a minute soooo OH WELL
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Cobra: “I will forever fight for you and with you.” His lip is busted and his face is bruised. You can feel the way your heart clenches at seeing him battered from the fight he just partook in, some goons having thought it a good idea to harass you outside of ITOKAN Diner. Luckily your boyfriend had arrived just in time. Despite his marred state, he holds your gaze so that you know that he’s true to his word, and all you can do is nod.
The Mugen way of devotion and loyalty easily translates to Cobra in a relationship. He would literally die for you. Your fights are his fights. However, he tries his hardest to keep you out of his, and Sannoh’s, fights. He can’t imagine how he could live with himself if something happened to you.
Rocky: “I’ve waited my whole life to meet you.” Rocky softly places a hand on the small of your back, pulling you in close so he can bury his face in your neck. You can feel the tension in his shoulders dissipate at finally having you in his arms after an arduous day at Club Heaven. You respond by wrapping your arms around him to pull him in even closer. No other words are needed; just having you at his side is all he could ever ask for.
Rocky wholeheartedly means the words he says. He isn’t one to so easily dedicate himself to one person; he has many women to protect, after all. But the moment he meets you, he can’t even begin to imagine the way it was before. He was so lonely without ever having realized it.
Murayama: “I can’t wait to see you again.” Murayama is reluctant to release the grasp his hand has on your own, wasting as much time as possible standing with you outside your house after your date together. You can’t help but giggle at the obvious ploy, leaning in to land a chaste kiss on his cheek that sends the tips of his ears pink. He’s quick to pull you back in once you try to pull away, this time to land a playful kiss of his own on your lips.
Murayama lives to spend time with you. Right after he drops you off at your house after hanging out all day, he’s already texting you how much he misses you and trying to make plans as soon as possible. If you’d allow it, he would see you every day if possible. He’d never grow tired of you.
Smoky: “Thank you for choosing me.” The two of you sit side-by-side at the ledge of a deconstructed factory building, looking out at Nameless City laid out beneath you. You look to him, and he’s giving you a gentle, almost sad, smile. You can’t even imagine a world where you wouldn’t choose him, but somewhere swimming in those brown eyes of his is a self-doubt that you hope someday can be remedied. You give him a smile back, one that says you feel the exact same way.
Smoky can’t even comprehend why someone like you, someone so amazing, would choose someone like him. He really doesn’t know what he did to deserve you. Surely there’s someone out there who could give you more than he ever could, at least so he thinks. But, you did choose him, and he is forever thankful to have you by his side.
Hyuga: “Thank you for putting up with me.” Hyuga is sprawled out on the futon that the two of you share, watching as you change into your pajamas to settle down for the night. His eyes show a softness that he reserves only for you. He holds out a hand to beckon you to him, and you oblige, crawling into the futon to situate yourself between his lazy arms. He can’t help but land a light kiss on your temple before pulling you close to drift off into a peaceful slumber.
Hyuga knows he’s not a perfect man. Far from it, even. He can’t imagine why you’re so willing to continue dealing with his ways, but he hopes you’ll continue to do so for a long, long while. If he could ask for one selfish wish, it would be to have you as his for the rest of his time on this earth.
Hiroto: “I’m always here for you.” Hiroto stands awkwardly in the doorway of your apartment as he eyes you closely. He can tell that something has been bothering you, but that you were reluctant to confide in him about your problems. You raise your eyes to meet his gaze and find nothing but complete honesty and truth within them. Feeling your own eyes begin to mist over, you opt to dropping your head to his chest to hide your show of emotions. A hand comes up to gently rest against the back of your neck, and to attempt to soothe your worries away.
Hiroto isn’t a man of many overtly affectionate words or gestures. He tends to show his love through action. But, he does want you to know that he would do anything for you. If you ever have a problem, he hopes that he’ll be the first person you come to, even if it’s just you needing a listening ear.
Ice: “I love every little thing about you.” Ice’s fingertips ghost delicately across your cheek and down your jaw, touch so soft it’s as if he’s afraid you might disappear right before his very eyes. He wears his signature shades, but you can still see the way his eyes admire you, flitting between your eyes to your nose to your lips, an affectionate reverence for each and every part of you. His hand rests on your neck as his thumb softly caresses your chin, and he can’t help the smile of complete adoration that overtakes him.
When Ice says he loves every little thing, he isn’t exaggerating. All your flaws and quirks, he wouldn’t give a single one of them up. He’s a man who accepts you completely and wholly. And he would spend the rest of his life ensuring that you see yourself in the light that he sees you in.
Jesse: “I love when you smile.” Jesse flops down on top of you lying down on the bed, resting his chin against your abdomen as he looks up at you with a cheeky, yet genuine, smile. In turn, you move your hand to brush through his blonde locks, and he leans fervently into your touch. You can feel the deep exhale he lets out. Jesse pushes himself up, hoisting himself to be positioned above you so that he’s now looking down at you. His own hand finds itself entangling with your hair, his eyes glued to that sweet, sweet smile on your lips.
Jesse isn’t someone who shows his affections through words, but nothing in the world makes his heart swell more than seeing your genuine smile. Especially if he was the cause of it. Your smile can instantly turn even his sourest of moods around. He spends his days chasing after the high of basking in your joy and happiness.
Ryu: “You’re my forever.” Ryu stands behind you, watching you from the mirror as you get ready to go out to dinner together. His hands find themselves snaking down to your hips, and his chin resting dutifully on your shoulder. He watches your shy reactions through the reflection, and the tiny smile that you can’t seem to hold back. His arms tighten as he pulls your back against his chest. You can feel his steady heartbeat. You lean your head against his and bask in the moment of utter tranquility with your lover.
Ryu doesn’t open himself up and give himself to others so willingly. You have to be a very special person to open up that side of him. So when he says ‘forever,’ he actually means ‘forever.’ He just hopes that you feel the same level of devotion, because he can’t imagine finding anyone like you again.
#high&low#high & low#high and low#high&low headcanons#high&low scenarios#fanfiction#headcanons#high&low fanfic#high&low imagines#high&low ice#high&low rocky#rude boys#oya high#daruma ikka#sannoh hoodlum squad#norihisa hyuga#hyuga norihisa#smoky#Smokey#amamiya hiroto#amamiya brothers#jdrama#j drama#yoshiki murayama#murayama yoshiki#high&low jesse#tatsuhito ryu#kuryu group#sword group#hilo
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Greetings! I come bearing many req's for your poor, bored soul. Hopefully something's snap you out of your slump 🤗
Leo x gn!ADHD!reader because ✨ADHD superiority✨ Leo would probably never admit it, but his new hyperfixation is figuring out all of Y/N's quirks and tells, and loves watching Y/N stim (clicking their tongue, whistling, mostly vocal stims, bonus if Leo is caught mesmerized by Y/N twirling a pencil or deconstructing a pen with one hand). Y/N's current hyperfixation is pop music and if they're blasting it at any point, any of the turtles could call out asking what song, who sings it, etc., and they would just rattle it off like nobody's business
~🌺👸
THANK YOU SO MUCH ANON, MY POOR WRITING JUICES WERE DRY AS A BONE 😭
also, I didn't know what version of Leo you wanted, so I just did Rise!Leo, since I felt he was the best fit. I hope that's ok!
LEO WITH AN ADHD READER
Disclaimer: I myself am not ADHD nor do I know anyone with ADHD so anything I write in here will probably be from online research. I apologize if any of it is inaccurate, and take anything I say with a grain of salt. enjoy!
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You and Leo had been dating for around two months, and Leo could safely say one of his current goals was to figure out and memorize all of your stims and what they meant.
For example, one of your most common stims is whistling.
You're usually whistling or clicking your tounge to the tune of your current favorite song,
(As of right now he knows it's Californa Gurls by Katy Perry.)
He's watched with sparkling eyes as you take apart and reconstruct a pen over and over again.
His gaze never goes unnoticed, by you yes, by his brothers, no.
And they make sure he knows they see him staring.
Leo doesn't mind though, he just wants to know everything about you.
Like how you snap your fingers at random times to keep your hands moving.
Or how you hum when you thinks it's gotten a little to quiet.
He loves everything you do,
Well, most everything.
He did notice that you have a few unhealthy stims.
Such as picking at your skin, pacing, and grinding your teeth.
He does his best to redirect these behaviours.
He'll grab your hands to stop the picking and tugging,
Saying something like, "I just wanted to hold your hand, no biggie."
Sometimes he'll give you figit toys to use instead.
If you start to grind your teeth,
He'll give you a quick kiss on the lips.
He understands that sometimes you can't help it,
So he does his best to help you when he can.
Aside from that,
Leo loves watching your other stims.
The ones that you use to relieve all the built up energy that has no where to go.
He thinks it's cute the way you tap your foot or twirl your hair.
And has even asked you to teach him how to twirl a pencil like you do.
All in all,
I think Leo does his best to understand your ADHD,
Both learning from observation,
And asking for help from Donnie.
Leo loves you, with all his heart.
What can he say?
You've got him completely mesmerized.
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I would once again like to state that everything in this prompt was learned from online articles, and based on the details from Anon. I do not have ADHD nor do I know anyone with ADHD so if this is inaccurate I apologize, I do not mean to misrepresent anyone who has ADHD. With that said, I hope you have a wonderful day!
#tmnt#x reader#tmnt x reader#rottmnt#leonardo x reader#leonardo x reader tmnt#rise!leo#save rise of the teenage mutant ninja turtles#rise!leo x reader#gn reader#tmnt headcanons#tmnt drabble
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Hii I hope you day/night is going lovely and that your doing great. Also can I request something please like what if misa made L go out with them and the drink a little bit and we have to watch him for the rest of the night? I’ve been looking for someone who writes L not like a uwu fem boy but actually keeps his cannon characteristics and you do that <<<<333
Thank you for the request. I am just getting over a nonspecific illness. Not sure about the ending but hopefully this was something similar to what you were looking for.
“But, see,” he droned on, head laid upon the table, “the whole thing— the whole communist regime, I mean— it all deconstructed in regards to the actual soul of the movement with the death of Lenin.”
There were things that friends did not do to one another. Friends did not leave friends’ drinks unattended. Friends did not sleep with other friends’ partners or ex partners. Friends did not let friends be left with dangerous men. You were surprised to learn that there was, in fact, another thing to add to the list: friends do not leave friends with history professors.
Your “friend”, Misa Amane, had called you at one in the morning to babysit a guy. You did not know how she knew said guy. You had never met him, never heard of him. The name Ryuzaki was only vaguely familiar, a name you may have heard once in passing. But you came, because she was your friend, and friends do help friends get laid (though by your best estimation her boyfriend was about as interested in making love to her as you were in the inner workings of the Bolshevik party), only to be given a hotel room number and address, a charming smile, and a big fuck you to your sleep schedule. While you were thankful you had not been left with a dangerous drunk man, you were starting to question whether that would have been preferable to— you checked your phone— two hours worth of a lecture on a topic of which you had no knowledge.
“—but the only reason that happened—“
“I’m terribly sorry to interrupt,” you smiled, voice betraying your obvious exhaustion, “but what does any of this have to do with where you’re from?”
He blinked. “Pardon?”
“I asked you about your accent.” You opened your phone again, absently rereading a past message. “All I asked was where you were from.”
“Oh.” He sat up, taking another sip out of an extraordinarily bright cocktail through an equally colorful straw. “Europe.”
“Which part?”
He shrugged. “If you threw a dart at a map of Europe you’d know. Did the whole circuit.”
You considered ordering a drink. You reminded yourself that you were the designated driver. “What circuit?”
“It’s not an official circuit.” He took another sip. “But I have lived all across the continent. Well,” he amended, “not lived, but I’ve been.”
You nodded. “You’re not Japanese, then.”
“Not legally, no.” He furrowed his brow. “Have I been talking strangely for long?”
“Since I got here.”
He nodded slowly. “And where has Amane gone?”
“Oh, somewhere.” You gestured vaguely towards the door. “Trying to seduce her boyfriend again.”
He snorted.
“Exactly.” You crossed your arms. “You’ve met him, I take it.”
He smiled. “I have.”
“Thoughts?”
He considered it. “He is a very intelligent, ambitious man who understands how to utilize his assets.” He stirred his drink, precariously perched on his bar stool. “However, to say that he is disinterested in anything beyond his narrow scope of interest would be an understatement.”
“Tell me about it.” You let your head fall onto the counter. “He’s so pretentious; I’m not really sure what Misa sees in him.”
“Have you known her for long?”
“Since high school.”
He looked down at you, clouded eyes slowly clearing and sharpening to a fine point. His words were still slow and sloppily spoken with that same odd tone, but it was becoming clear, even now, that this was all to do with the alcohol. “Do you remember when she met Yagami?”
You shifted away from him, slightly intimidated. “I don’t.” You sat back up, going back to fiddling with your phone to avoid looking at him. “I know that she started talking about him in late May or early June but I don’t know when exactly.” You started typing an SOS to another friend. “I bet she met him earlier than that, though.”
“What makes you say that?”
You paused. “I mean,” you sighed, “I’d never heard her talk about moving to Tokyo before mid March.” You shrugged. “And I guess I get it– with what happened to her folks it makes sense to want to move away– but she didn’t even start talking about it until two weeks before she left, and then she just met a highschooler? She just met Light ‘Golden Boy’ Yagami? It’s so weird!”
He nodded slowly, still stirring the drink. “That certainly is an unlikely coincidence.”
‘It is!” You closed the phone. “And, like, I get that she’s not that much older than him, but who just meets a high schooler?” You rested your hands between your legs. “So I bet she met him online or whatever, convinced herself that she was in love with him, and jumped on it.”
“That would make sense.”
“It would.” You looked around the bar, leaning back to read the time on the wall. “Do I need to get you home?”
“It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea.” He climbed off his stool with an unusual amount of grace only to eat shit as soon as he tried to stand.
You had to practically carry him out of the bar, his arms wrapped tightly around you to keep himself steady as the two of you made your way to the train. Fortunately, where he was staying was not unreasonably far from the station. Unfortunately, he was surprisingly heavy; you almost toppled over with him on numerous occasions. As the two of you stood on the train, closer than you would like, he leaned his head against your shoulder, keeping quiet despite the fact you two were the only ones in the car. “May I use your phone?”
You obliged. “What for?”
“Calling myself a ride.” After a bit of fiddling, he handed it back to you. “He should be at the station by the time we arrive.”
You rolled your eyes. “If you could get someone to pick you up, why’d we take the train?”
“Because.” He sighed, closing his eyes and relaxing into you. “Forgot.”
You looked up at the ceiling, wishing death upon Misa and/or the drunk man hanging off of you.
Sure enough, a car– an expensive looking one at that– was waiting for him. With a wave and a stumble, he fell into it, calling a “merci beaucoup” to you as he drove away.
You got back on the train. You made it home. Your location was logged, and as you fell asleep that night, thoroughly exhausted, your messages and calls were scanned, analyzed, and filed away for future reference. These messages would help L Lawliet establish a timeline within which Misa Amane would have been able to find and use a Death Note. They would never make it into a courtroom.
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"And the less said about Dimitri, the King of Faerghus, the better."
What exactly do you mean by that? Not asking in an angry way, I'm just genuinely curious. Your Edelgard analysis was really well done. This line just stuck out to me is all.
...sighs...
I'll be perfectly honest, I am the last person qualified to be talking about Dimitri. See...I'm not exactly his biggest fan. At all. In fact in a lot of ways, I sort of see him the same way I see Zuko from the comics which I have talked about at length before.
But, I will attempt to be as civil as I can. Just letting everyone know ahead of time so we all know what to expect.
Alright.
Dimitri is in many ways the opposite of Edelgard. Whereas Edelgard is extremely controversial within the fandom, Dimitri is lionized (heh) by large parts of the fandom. Mainly, since he's Edelgard's rival (for lack of better terms), he's seen as the "hero".
And he is certainly presented that way. His story and route are the most classical narrative possible. A crown prince disgraced from his kingdom returns to take back his thrown from usurpers and bring peace to his land. He even gets to kill a monster (Hegemon Edelgard) at the end of his route. It's a familiar story which a lot of people can latch onto.
...the problem is that Dimitri acts as a sort of deconstruction of this kind of character. If Edelgard is the villain who is virtuous, then Dimitri is the hero who is morally bankrupt.
Now he doesn't begin this way, of course. He starts out as the head of the Blue Lions class in Garreg Mach, one of the classes you could end up teaching. He starts out as the classical prince. You know, caring about taking the throne. Wanting to restore honor to Faerghus. That sort of thing.
Well like Edelgard, he has a very dark past.
Dimitri is the sole survivor of an incident known as the Tragedy of Duscur, which resulted in the deaths of the entire Royal Family aside from him. Needless to say, he has a lot of baggage. Particularly against the Flame Emperor who masterminded the whole thing.
So when he finds out that Edelgard is the Flame Emperor well...
It's not too pretty.
When the war breaks out, he gives sanctuary to the Archbishop and the Knights and is basically all hellbent on putting Edelgard's head on a pike to avenge his family's deaths. Alright fair enough.
...there's just one problem. Edelgard wasn't responsible for the massacre since she was just a child at the time. It was her uncle who was the Flame Emperor at the time and masterminded the whole thing. Further complicating things is that Edelgard doesn't even have much beef with Dimitri to begin with. She's after the Church. So when Dimitri allies with the Church, he just dragged Faerghus and his whole people into the war for a chance at vengeance.
And he's pretty much driven by this need for vengeance during his phase as "the Boar King". It's here when...uh...he becomes pretty reprehensible. He tortures his prisoners, he goes on and on about butchering his enemies, and he treats his troops like absolute garbage. One of his most notable quotes is when he basically says he's going to use his people until the flesh falls right off their bones.
While it could be argued that this was before his redemption during AM or AG in Hopes and he does become a bit better before his route ends...he's still not the king that his people needs at the end of his story. For one, he upholds the Crest System in his ending, which I've delved into and basically said was downright abusive and encourages instability. The Church who enforced this system is still in power. We don't even see him dealing with TWSITD, since he lets them go during the last battle so he can deal with Edelgard. Mind you, Edelgard DID have a plan to deal with TWSITD once the war was over. Effectively, this whole mess can easily start again. Something that's reflected in a lot of the AM endings since there's a lot of widespread rebellion and fighting once he takes the throne.
What's worse, he enforces the traditions of Faerghus because "they're all they have left"...even though Faerghus's traditions emphasize warriors and militarism to the point it resembles Sparta in terms of brutality. Hell, it's part of the reason why Dimitri's so violent since he's a product of his environment. Doesn't justify a damn thing he did, but you at least understand where he came from. Which makes it galling that he lays the seeds for another Boar King to happen.
The only thing I can say about Dimitri is...I'm pretty sure his character was deliberate. In any other route he gets killed off swearing vengeance against his enemies and trying to continue to cut a bloody swathe through Fodlan. In many ways, he works as a deconstruction of that classical hero. Avenging his family becomes a rampage of revenge where more families suffer. He retakes the throne, but does not ensure peace. And his "villain" turns out to be the wrong person in the grand scheme of things. I feel Dimitri works best as a hero gone horribly wrong. Something that I feel that a lot of people overlook and are willing to whitewash him into being the true "hero" who brought democracy to Fodlan.
Which...he didn't.
#fire emblem 3 houses#three houses#dimitri alexandre blaiddyd#dimitri fire emblem#anti dimitri#...i guess?#i swear this isn't an anti post#or at least i'm not trying to make this an anti post#faerghus
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Project Amygdala Excerpt 1-- Maren Hara
Now that I am in the groove of writing in her voice Maren is with me everywhere I go. It feels terrifying to get into the habit of sharing pieces of my fiction since it has always been more concealed in me, but I am very proud of how it's coming along and litfic is just so special to me. For the full effect listen to "Coffee Stain," by Sarah Harmer or something equally devastating. Enjoy a peek into baby Maren!
"...letting my hands play a tune across the iron bars as I walked.
I imagined them as the ridges on a whale’s chin. I’d never seen a whale in the flesh, only a reconstructed skeleton hanging from the museum Dad took me to a handful of times before deciding it played too much into my, “sentimentality.” I had to look that word up in my dictionary after the trip. The whale was suspended from the ceiling, bones wired into place to give the illusion of turning in the water. I was enchanted. She was a blue whale, Balaenoptera musculus, and I stood under her length for what felt like hours, imagining the nervous system and muscles and blubber and skin that would have filled the room even further. Her chin was what hypnotized me furthest. Deep cracks running the entire length of her jaw, holding the baleen plates that I pictured brushing against my arms. Would they have sung against my fingertips too? I wanted to try it, to float to the ceiling of the room to be with her. Dad moved on, looking for something to do with his own interests in Pathology, and I stayed there until he found me to go home. He asked me from the drivers seat, cocking his head to the side without turning as he did until I was old enough to ride shotgun.
“What was your favorite part?” he asked.
“The blue whale,” I whispered, the reverence still within me.
“Tell me why.” Once I had found my words again he gave many prompting requests like this. I never worked out if he actually wanted to know.
“I think she’s sacred,” I said softer still, embarrassed even then for him to hear my child’s piety. He was silent, looking ahead and flexing his hands on the wheel the way he did when he wasn’t sure how to handle me. He didn’t start deconstructing these moments of mine until a couple years later, when he realized it was not simply childlike wonder and absurdity, but that I actually felt spiritual ties to anything at all."
taglist (y'all are so cool): @annlillyjose @coffeeandcalligraphy @subtlefires @belovedviolence
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i love my husband but we genuinely play video games in vastly different ways and it is fascinating. even when we play the same games. he grew up playing mmos like wow doing the same dungeons again and again and again and builds stuff in minecraft survival brick by brick and has been in grounded for hours tonight with the single-minded goal of finding me a very rare drop from a very common bug by just killing fucking hundreds of them. it's been hours. i gave up after killing five. in total. months ago.
i did everything in monster hunter world once and didn't touch it again. i have the worldedit mod. i am not using your fancy cooking mechanic. this bitch is going over a flame until it won't poison me and that's IT.
i remember asking him, while he was in the middle of explaining how he was deconstructing an elaborate base in order to build it just slightly different and to the right in a game, "are you enjoying this? like are you actually having fun?" cause i could not fucking conceive it. but i'm fine with it! i'm so glad. and told him so. he's playing with legos just like he did as a kid. (i've never liked legos.)
it's just. grinding in video games makes me feel like that meme of the dude at the slots who says "can't believe people loose thousands of dollars on these i've lost five and am ready to blow this place up"
#i will never get 100% in a game ever. fuck you#but also? he's been playing skyrim since it was new. me? few years and many logged hours less.#i've done more of the story than him.#like i regularly confuse and surprise him trying to discuss plot points#my posts#this post brought to you by the coral island beta save loved and lost where i had all but 2 gems and 4 artefacts and 3 fish donated#and every time i DIDN'T get them cause they're such rare drops i felt closer and closer to blowing my computer up.
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random thoughts about castaway diva, episode ten
(read more because i always get carried away lol and this post might contain spoilers)
Lee Uk is an incredible man!!! I keep repeating myself but he is. The lengths he'll go to to protect his family... <3 I have a lot of respect for him both as a man and as a father. He even went as far as confessing to the police about stealing the family's identity. He's a good man. His face should be the definition of the word "good". I am very tired but know I'll be always rooting for that man.
I'm disgusted by their neighbors' actions: spreading false rumors, turning their backs on so called friends, pitying mr jung when they know nothing about him. I can't wrap my head around the fact they'd stoop that low when they've known them for that long. Victims of ab*se already have a hard time confessing and going to the police to file a complaint, add on top of that nosy and hypocritical neighbors and friends = you'll obtain victims that'll never break out of their silence because of the shame and guilt.
One thing you can count on mok ha for is standing up for the people she loves. She's the first one to confront the neighbors by deconstructing their arguments/theories. It's a beautiful thing to see the relation between mok ha and the kang family. They're one big family 💓
Going back to lee uk, that man is a treasure. He's ready to face the consequences of his actions because he was inspired by his son's words "a lie is a lie. The more you lie, the more weaknesses appear."
Mr Jung is one scary man ewww He talks about his wife and kids as his property and not as people he loves dearly. No wonder they all escaped from him. And in his twisted mind, all his actions are normal and natural. It's natural for a father to search for his wife and kids. It's also normal to hit and ab*se his kids because they didn't obey him. I hope he ends up in jail and away from the family for a long long long time.
Poor Mok ha has a lot to deal with in this episode. First the testimony of mr jung's ab*se towards the family, now ran joo asking her to cut ties with the only people she can call family. I know she's trying to make sure mok ha wouldn't give up just like she did before but that's still a little bit harsh. I'm sensitive I know that.
I can sense the heartbreak coming 💔 ran joo is right about the general public's opinion of mok ha if the latter doesn't cut ties with the family. It breaks my heart but I do understand where she comes from. She has the right to think about herself too. Yoon ran joo is putting a lot into mok ha's career so she has to be sure of whether she'll produce mok ha's album or not.
I know I just said ran joo was harsh with mok ha but she needed to hear that. Mok ha still has this very utopic idea of the world, thinking the rumors won't come back on her once she debuts. She's always been naive so I'm thankful for ran joo shaking her up and opening her eyes.
I admire mok ha because she has so much love to give. She's far from weak, she's proven time and time again how strong she is not only on the deserted island but also in her pursuit of her goals. She prefers to see the glass half full instead of half empty. But sometimes, I can't help but think to myself she needs someone bringing her down to earth from her dreams. Don't get the wrong idea, it's a great thing to have a positive outlook on the world, but sometimes when you do it a lot, it becomes too much.
Oh no... The parallels between young ki ho preparing for their escape from chunsam island and now bo geol putting up the final touches of mok ha's new appartment... my heart is too weak for that!!!
The fact that he bought her an appartment as soon as he found she was alive! Ki ho, the man that you are today 💗💗💗
Mok ha being torn between the two most important things in her life: her dream of becoming a singer & protecting her family. I feel so sorry for her.
It's cute how mok ha thinks she can fool anyone by pretending she's only interested by her reputation as an almost-debuting artist. You can see it. You can hear it. She's not sure of herself. It sounds like she's beating herself up she hears those words come out of her mouth.
There are several things I don't understand: why did ran joo give up her shares when she was so close to the goal? Reaching the goal would've helped both her and mok ha in the long run (ie more money, more creative control, more decision making, etc.). That still doesn't make any sense to me. I'm grateful we got to see ran joo in her element (producing music) but still, i think her getting majority (or half i don't remember) of the shares would have been a better tactic. 2) How did woo hak fall in love with mok ha? It might be because I support bo geol and mok ha more but the love triangle feels a little forced :/ i do wish woo hak to find love, but not with mok ha.
Mok ha learning from her mistakes (distancing herself from the family) and being ready to risk it all to defend ran joo. Just like she said: "If I keep cutting people out, who's going to be left?" She's always been loyal to those close to her so it doesn't surprise me why she said that. And she's right. She's been living alone for a long time, she doesn't need to live that kind of life a second time.
It's nice to see the family all come together to face mr jung. I hope they win this case and mr jung leaves them alone once and for all.
A promising preview for the next episode, I can't wait!
Overall, I'd give this a 8.85/10
#main obstacle of this posts: trying to write mok ha instead of eun bin#i had to correct myself way too many times it's not even funny#i'm contradicting myself a lot in this post#but when have i ever not done so? never#the answer is never lol#random(al) thoughts#kdrama#castaway diva
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[PART 1: Foreign]
Rating: T
Words: 1500 (Complete)
Genre: Introspection, Speculation, AU
Lore: Rayman 2, Captain Laserhawk speculation
Characters: Rayman, unnamed manager, citizens
Summary: Rayman makes a Name for himself
Warnings: F-Bomb, violence, drugs mentioned
AN: This escalated so much, so fast, but apparently I can't help the temptation and possibilities of a character deconstruction if it promises development - even if it's active deterioration.
Read also on: [dA] | now also on [ao3] ❗❗❗
See also: [Part 1] | [You are here] | [Part 3] | [Part 4] | [Part 5]
More like this: [Rayman Oneshots Masterpost]
That is not the same creature she left behind this morning.
The Limbless’s posture is straight, his glare confident. He's not at all what she would consider cute anymore.
There's a feral glint in his eyes that makes her scared of locking the door behind her. She just knows it will choose violence if given the chance.
Putting on a neutral face the assistant walks over with the regular dinner.
"So…" she starts and lifts the device with her notes again.
"Let's try this again. The file says your name is Rayman?"
It twists his head as if to loosen a neck that doesn't exist.
"Yes."
Ah. Good. So it's down for talking.
"What am I doing here?"
And asking questions already, it seems.
"We'll get to that," she replies, pointing her pen at his nose. "Let's deal with the basics first. So Razorbeard's report says you have experience with being - and I quote - 'a beacon of hope' - endquote."
That makes the limbless creature livid for some reason, but considering how they came to acquire him it's probably just salt in an open wound.
When it looks like he’s about to snarl a comment, she beats him to it.
"Case in point,” she says, “You can make people trust you?"
The question is met with a sneer.
"Why would that matter?"
The secretary stops, puts the tablet in her lap.
"The boss hasn't decided yet. It's not for me to tell," she says. "But-" she pokers, trying to read him.
"The people of this town could use a little hope for once."
The sneer doesn't vanish from his face, but she knows that she struck a chord with him by the look in his eyes. It betrays him. He's a softy at his core, and it bolsters her own resolve towards his earlier aggression.
So he can act on a surface level. Good. She ticks that box off in her mind, to report on later.
---
Why. Why. Why.
The question won't leave him.
The night is quiet and his thoughts are loud.
Why him?
Why do these people need hope?
Why are they suffering?
Why are the folk running this town in dealings with Razorbeard?
Why was he here?
It reeks to the skies and truth be told Rayman wants no part in it.
He misses his friends.
Mourns everyone who is still in Razorbeard's clutches.
But he hates to admit that his lot might be a good one.
No one has been rude or violent yet, or asked him to do something outrageous.
But it's just the calm before the storm, he tells himself. The second he lets his guard down the true colors will be revealed to him.
With a sigh, he stares up at the ceiling.
Maybe he should just go for it. Play along.
They do have connections to Razorbeard, and maybe, that’s the ticket to getting his friends out of there as well. A blessing in disguise.
It would be bold to assume - in his position - that he had the right to ask for favors if only he does as he's told.
But there's a pinprick of hope that drilled itself into his fluttering heart.
Maybe there's a chance in this entire mess. The lady hadn't been wrong when she'd called him a beacon. He wants it, truthfully.
It's just that he doesn't know what to do.
---
"Of course we'll pay you," she asserts. "We're not monsters, despite what the public unrest would have you believe."
Rayman considers her with… suspicion again.
"Is this a test?"
It’s certainly not the kind of favor he had in mind, upon asking.
"Honey," she says patronizingly, "I don't know where you come from, or how things worked in your old home, but you'll need pay if you wanna survive in this world."
He mulls that over in his mind with a hum.
"When do I meet your boss? You said he’d be coming around here?”
"My boss is your boss," the manager answers flatly. "You can have a meeting with him once you earn it. Until then all communication goes through me. Perform well, and he might be up for a chat."
Rayman’s demeanor shifts. That’s not what he’d been told yesterday!
The manager in turn can't help but notice the way his knuckles tighten unconsciously, but he'll just have to get used to receiving answers he might not like.
"Was that all?" she asks and prepares to leave.
"No," he says and walks around her to block her path. His body parts stretch further apart as though to make himself look taller, but it hardly works. She towers above him easily.
"Why do the people need hope so badly?"
She narrows her eyes at him. He's asking too many questions.
With a hum she starts tapping at her tablet.
"I'll organize a TV for your room," she says, "then you can watch the news."
At least that way they can control the kind of information he is fed.
---
That night, Rayman still can’t find sleep.
He honestly wonders whether he will again in the near future.
But this time, it’s not just his thoughts running wild.
There’s a commotion outside.
Some sort of alarm is blaring loud enough to wake him, street lights still glaring enough to pinpoint the scene of the scuffle from his window. It’s a loosing battle of a lone, hurt individual facing off against an entire mob.
Instinct takes hold, but when Rayman tries to wrench the window open, it won’t give.
So he’s winding his fist without thinking about it. Powers or no, he’ll just have to make habit do. After a couple of attempts the window cracks, and shatters. The blaring noise from outside gets worse. Even from up here he sees the group of people tearing into their victim already cowering on the ground. Without a second thought… Rayman jumps.
He’s using the momentum of the leap to get there faster, only activating his helicopter to soften the landing and decks the assailants to shield the victim.
“The fuck?!”
The one Rayman caught in the nose screams bloody murder and backs off. His fellows surround the Limbless, crude weaponry at the ready and flashlights blinding.
But Rayman’s not backing down. There’s a familiar fight tingling in his core. He lowers his center of gravity and starts winding his fist again.
The perpetrators run.
“Dude!” Someone cries out and it’s only now that Rayman takes note of a crowd that’s been watching the scuffle. Some of them are staring, others are holding up little gadgets pointed at him. It remind him of the manager’s gadget, but smaller.
A sudden flashing light blinds his gaze - but that’s at least something Rayman knows. Blinking the spots from his eyes he finds the dude with the camera staring open mouthed at him in the crowd.
He shields his gaze from the murmuring crowd. The victim still cowers on the ground in a frantic panic. Rayman turns to him with a concerned “Are you alright?” and reaches out a disembodied hand to him.
The guy gapes at him, his mouth going slack. He looks absolutely dazed.
With a shaking hand he reaches out for the one that’s been offered.
“I’ll never take drugs again,” he says, voice wavering.
---
"What did you DO?!" the manager is furious when she returns to his room. Wild pacing, slammed doors, everything. The breeze from the broken window is cool. A screeching tantrum.
"You weren't supposed to wander off!"
Multiple phones on her self are blaring for attention.
The Limbless doesn't even look embarassed or the least bit regretful.
“The man needed help!” he has the audacity to insist, “If you want me to help, then let me do it my way!”
She’s tearing at her hair now, “You got involved in a gang-fight! Do you have ANY IDEA-”
A new ringtone blares up to interrupt her and the manager lady screams in frustration. It's a first to see her go up the wall like that.
"I have to take this," she bellows, "You! sit! here! I'm not DONE with you yet!"
She takes a deep breath and brushes through her hair before taking the call.
"Hello, boss," she starts, "I can explain- Yes, we're already working on getting the videos taken down. ….What?"
She falls silent suddenly.
Then turns to look at Rayman with a haunted expression on her face.
He just raises an eyebrow at her and tilts his head with those idiot puppy eyes!
Her phone is noisy in her silence. Rayman can't make the words but from the sound of it…
"Understood," she says and hangs up. Her arm falls limp by her side, Rayman is almost surprised she's not dropping it.
"You've gone viral," she says.
"And what does that mean?" Rayman asks.
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The Last Prime
Hold on to your hubcaps; this is a long one, as it covers the whole of "Predacons Rising". (I'm willing to repost it as shorter chunks, if that's more to everyone's liking. It's also on AO3 here.)
As usual, inspiration credits to @justawannabearchaeologist's "TFP Wheeljack in TFA" series. For the ending, I am also indebted to @novafire-is-thinking's ongoing analysis series "Who is TFP Optimus?" Both are highly recommended.
Here goes...
---
“We have endured many hardships and countless battles,” Optimus Prime declaimed, “but at last our home planet has been restored. We would not be standing on Cybertronian soil were it not for the valiant efforts of both those assembled here – including one from far away,” his optics rested on Glitch, who blushed and dropped her gaze to the ground; she hadn’t really done all that much, and certainly no more than her duty demanded, “and our absent comrades. Ratchet, who remains on Earth to safeguard our human friends,” Arcee laid a sisterly servo on Glitch’s shoulder, aware that the young medibot missed her friend and colleague, and was more than a little daunted by the prospect of filling his role, “and Cliffjumper, who made the ultimate sacrifice.” It was Glitch’s turn to put a discreet arm around ‘Cee, Cliffjumper’s partner. She knew his death had inflicted a wound on her comrade that would never fully heal.
“But on this day,” Prime continued, “at the dawn of a new era, we gather to bestow a special honour, one earned by Bumblebee through his bravery and devotion to the cause of peace, long before he rid the universe of the scourge of the Decepticon warmonger.” We hope, Glitch caught herself thinking. Megatrons, in her experience, were pretty hard to kill. “In the company of your fellow Autobots, in the presence of our creator Primus, the living core of our planet, and by the authority vested in me by the Matrix of Leadership,” Prime raised the Star Sabre, a relic of the ancient Primes Glitch had nicknamed Andúril, “Bumblebee,” Andúril touched Bumblebee’s left shoulder, then his right, as he knelt before his leader, “arise, a Warrior.”
As Bumblebee stood up, the rest of the team clustered around to congratulate him, even Glitch, though she was still a bit hazy on why the ceremony was such a big deal – or necessary at all. But then, her Cybertron had been officially at peace since before she came online – helium, before her CO came online – and its class system wasn’t as rigidly defined as that one had been before the Autobot-Decepticon war. While Elite Guard positions were very much sought-after by a lot of young ‘bots, they were, theoretically, open to anybot. And she’d never wanted one. She was more than happy to be a field-tech, a healer and protector, not a destroyer.
Unlike, say, Wheeljack. “Let’s get this party started!” The Wrecker lived up to his unit’s name, triggering explosives he must have planted beforehand in a statue of Megatron. Glitch had to admit to a certain satisfaction as the stone warlord was deconstructed joint by joint, but did Wheeljack have to make such a mess of everything?
Prime allowed them a few cycles of jubilation before speaking again. “I am sorry to interrupt your celebration.”
“Here it comes,” ‘Cee remarked.
“Primes never party,” Bulkhead added.
“You might be surprised,” Glitch murmured, thinking of another red and blue mech, who had a hidden talent for the guitar.
“But I must take my leave of you,” Prime carried on. So soon? Prime had fought at least as long and hard as anybot there, and more so than most. He deserved to enjoy some peace, at least for a while.
“Sir, may I ask why?” Ultra Magnus enquired.
“Though Cybertron is once again able to support life,” Prime began, “our planet is currently incapable of generating new lives.”
“Let me guess,” Glitch interrupted him. “We need the Allspark. I wondered when that box of tricks would enter the picture. And it’s probably safely out in deep space, where almost nobody can find it.”
“That is correct.” Prime wasn’t as surprised that she’d second-guessed him as might be expected. He knew how similar their realities were, in some ways. “I assume yours was hidden for the same reason.”
She hummed in assent. “Cooled the war down a treat, especially when Megatron buzzed off to look for it. And before anyone asks, we post-war ‘bots received our sparks from Vector Sigma.” She was aware that the ancient computer had a counterpart in that reality, but clearly it didn’t have that particular functionality. More’s the pity.
Bumblebee was all for retrieving the Allspark as a whole team, but Prime pointed out that they couldn’t leave Cybertron vulnerable to Decepticon remnants. He assigned Ultra Magnus to organise patrols and hunt down Starscream and Shockwave, and Bulkhead to start the rebuilding of the wrecked planet, prioritising a landing field for other Cybertronians who might come home. Only Wheeljack would go with Prime; he was one of their best pilots, and had wandered the galaxy for aeons before finding his way to Earth and the team. Glitch pulled him aside for a quick word as the party broke up, knowing better than to argue with Prime over non-medical matters. (Wheeljack was also much closer to her in height; sometimes she practically had to shout to get Prime’s attention.)
“Promise me you’ll look out for each other,” she said. “The Allspark may be the source of your life, but if my version’s anything to go by, for individual ‘bots it’s trouble with a capital T, R, O, U, B, L and E.”
“It can’t be that bad – can it?” At least Wheeljack was taking her semi-seriously.
“Let me put it this way. My Allspark nearly flattened the ‘bots it chose as its protectors, then almost got them killed again when Megatron found them. They were missing, presumed dead, for half a century.” A very long half-century for Glitch, who had had two close friends on that crew. Including her now-partner and boyfriend. “Megatron was in stasis and pieces all that time. Starscream tried to use it to level Detroit; it offlined Optimus trying to get rid of Screamer, then revived him. Its power also revived Megatron’s head and allowed him to create the Dinobots and Soundwave before putting him back together again. When he got his servos on it, Optimus had to disperse it to avoid disastrophe, and the fragments are still causing all kinds of chaos. Everything from haywire assembly lines to an immortal Starscream. And its reassembly killed Prowl. Shall I go on?” She could, for quite some time.
“No, that’s enough. I’ll have Optimus’ back out there, I promise, and we both know he’ll have mine.” Prime would always put his soldiers’ and friends’ lives first. Then something Glitch had said struck Wheeljack afresh. “Your Starscream’s immortal? I thought ours was a nuisance, but…”
“He certainly used to be. Most inconvenient in some ways, though I for one don’t actually want him dead. Jazz thinks he saw the fragment keeping him alive being pulled out when he and Prowl were reassembling the Allspark, but his shell was never found. And when it comes to that ‘bot – don’t count him as offline until you see the body, and even then you can still be wrong. Come to think of it, that applies to Megatron, too.”
“Not ours, I hope. Anyway, I’d better get going. Look after Magnus and Bulkhead for me.”
“Wilco.” The Wrecker and the field-tech went their separate ways, the latter hurrying to the ex-Decepticon warship the team was using as a base, suddenly dying to get to work.
***
“Whoa, whoa, whoa! How’re you gonna attach the cladding when the framing structure’s incomplete, huh?” Bulkhead’s voice, followed by a series of metallic clangs and clatters that sounded like something out of a slapstick comedy, must have carried for hics as Arcee and Glitch drove to the building site that was meant to be an air traffic control tower.
“Labour issues?” ‘Cee asked as she transformed beside her old friend. With the Autobots rotating between patrols and their individual duties, Bulkhead was having to work with a crew of Vehicon volunteers whose enthusiasm clearly outstripped their skills.
The answer was self-evident, so Bulkhead changed the subject. “Any news of our fugitives?”
“Just signs of recent scavenging in former Decepticon installations.”
“And the warship can’t detect their life signals?” Bulkhead looked to Glitch, now the team’s only tech “expert” on-planet, who had been making friends with the Nemesis ever since Megatron’s defeat.
“Shielded,” she answered briefly. “Working on it. Needed to spin my wheels, though, and get a vent of fresh – whoa!” Amply demonstrating why some of her teammates affectionately called her “the little monkey” when they thought she wasn’t listening, she scrambled up the side of the half-built tower to where part of the frame was likely to give way. A few nanokliks’ work with her built-in blowtorch, and the problem was solved. She all but jumped back down, eager to be on solid ground again, and rejoined her friends.
“Nice one,” Bulkhead said, appraising her patch job with a professional optic. “How’d you spot that?”
“I’ve done my share of construction work, back in Detroit.” She no longer said “back home”; she had three homes in two universes. (The others’ Cybertron wasn’t one of them, though – yet.) “Urban combat tends to get messy, and it’s only right that we should help fix the damage afterwards. Good PR, too. One learns to see problems before they become serious.” Especially if, like her, one had a talent for pattern-recognition – even at the expense of other abilities, such as face-recognition. “By the way – maybe cut the Vehicons a bit more slack. Not everybot has your expertise.” Bulkhead had been a labourer before the war, so-called “low caste”, protoformed for construction. She hoped she’d found a positive spin to put on that.
Either she had, or he’d hidden his reaction well. “I’m trying, but it’s not easy. If a mistake can be made, they’ve probably made it, even with the basic stuff. I know they can learn, but – honestly, I’d rather have a crew of Constructicons than these guys.”
“Scrapper would definitely help,” Glitch agreed, thinking of the Constructicons back in her universe. “’Specially if Snarl lent a servo as well. Maybe Mixmaster, if we could get hold of enough decent motor oil. Not Dirtboss, though. We’d have an Energon racket on our servos before we knew where we were.” She was partway through describing the diminutive Decepticon’s attempt to control Detroit’s oil supply when Bumblebee called her comm. “Glitch, we need you back here now. Magnus is hurt, badly. I’m sending a groundbridge.” Stars, that sounded serious. Oh well. That was what she’d signed up for.
It was serious, as even a preliminary scan made abundantly clear once she’d reached the Nemesis med-bay, where Magnus was already on her repair table. “Blimey, there’s a lot of internal damage here. Most of it pretty bad. Predacon? New one, I’d say.”
“Yeah, two of ‘em. How’d you know?” Smokescreen had been on patrol with Ultra Magnus, and was still hovering by his commander’s side, not quite blocking her light. Had Magnus been hurt trying to protect him?
“I do have optics. Scorching, impact trauma and denta and claw marks add up to Predacon, but the claw spacing and synth shape and size don’t match Predaking. I don’t suppose you got a good look at their alt-modes?” she asked out of vague curiosity, most of her processor focused on her patient.
“Another dragon and one kinda like a big winged cyber-cat. A griffin, I think it’s called on Earth.”
“We’ll have to find them, and quickly,” Bumblebee put in, having just returned from updating Arcee and Bulkhead on the situation. “How’s Magnus?”
“Not good. I can stabilise him, for now, but we need another medic if he’s ever going to recover fully. Call Ratchet in, or let Knock Out out. In or out, I don’t care, just find someone better than me.” She had already begun to fix Magnus’ most severe injuries, but only her centuries of training kept her servos steady. She’d been qualified for less than two stellar-cycles, and had spent rather less time than that in that universe. And Magnus’ wounds were worse than she felt she could handle alone. “In the meantime, clear out and let me deal with this mess.”
Bumblebee and Smokescreen obeyed without a word, and must have chosen Option A. A short while later, Ratchet barged in, medical kit in servo. The two medibots worked side by side, speaking only when necessary, until Magnus was out of danger and heading towards recovery.
“He’ll be all right,” Glitch confirmed, more for her own benefit than for Ratchet’s. “Thanks for coming at such short notice, and – sorry, for calling you in. I suppose I panicked.” Her first case as the team’s primary medic, and she’d dragged Ratchet out of his semi-retirement to help her. Not a good start.
Ratchet’s servo entirely covered hers. “You did the right thing.” She’d seldom heard such gentleness from either Ratchet, that one or her mentor back in Detroit. “You have talent, but a case like this calls for experience you simply haven’t had time to acquire yet. Trying to handle it yourself would have been the height of foolishness.” He smiled down at his junior colleague. “By the way, you did a good job on Smokescreen during the battle. And Optimus, while I was – elsewhere.” Specifically, aboard that very ship and in Decepticon servos. “Thank you for that.”
Glitch blushed in acknowledgement and gratitude. “Just doing my duty. Practically had to blackmail Prime onto the repair table, though. Is he always like that, or was he just worried about you?”
“Oh, he’s been that way as long as I’ve known him, and still has the temerity to lecture me about my Energon intake.” Rightly so. On at least one occasion, Glitch had had to resort to sleight of servo to make sure Ratchet was properly fuelled. He changed the subject with almost unbecoming haste. “Out of interest, how are you getting on with the ship’s systems?”
“Making progress, but Soundwave locked all the data storage up tight. And I’m still tripping a lot of alarm codes. Managed to detach them from the actual alarms, though.”
“Not a moment too soon.” Bumblebee had put his head around the door again. “If either of you can spare some time, we’re having a strategy meeting on the bridge.”
“Go,” Ratchet said. “I’ll stay with Magnus.”
“How’s the commander?” Smokescreen demanded the moment he saw her. He was clearly still beating himself up for letting Magnus be injured.
“With time, and rest, he’ll make a full recovery.” Everybot else visibly relaxed at that. They’d probably have preferred to hold the meeting in med-bay, keeping an optic on the patient and making sure both medics were included, but had respected her preference for peace, quiet and privacy.
As it turned out, the meeting was almost over. Their obvious priority was tracking down the new Predacons, no doubt cloned by the still-elusive Shockwave. Glitch would love to know how he’d managed that in the absence of the Allspark; in her universe, Starscream’s various clones and the Lugnuts Supreme had had to be brought online with tiny Allspark fragments. But the other Starscream had cloned himself as well, without any of that. Interesting…
A question for later, though. Bumblebee had a couple of ideas for places to start looking, and Glitch had something important to say.
“I’m coming with you. Ratchet can hold the fort here; stars know he’s had practice. And given what happened earlier, you may well need a medic soon.”
“Actually, I was hoping you’d come along,” Bumblebee said. “I’ve a feeling the first person I want to ask could already do with your expertise.” Such as it was.
His “feeling” was borne out by the fresh Energon trail the scout soon found and followed to its source – Predaking. The wounded dragon-Predacon did not look happy to see them, and the sentiment was mutual; Arcee, Bulkhead and Smokescreen primed their weapons and Glitch readied her shields as Predaking prepared to flame them all, but Bumblebee chose a very different way to deal with the situation. Negotiation. He handled Predaking magnificently, first bluffing him into standing down with a fake Immobiliser, then politely enquiring about the new Predacons. Unfortunately, Predaking claimed to have no knowledge of them, and Glitch for one believed him. As the others started to leave the mighty warrior to brood over the remains of his forebears in peace, though, she looked up from her medical scanner, indicated the site of his still-leaking wound and asked, “May I?”
Predaking just looked bemused, so she explained herself a little further. “I’m a medic, and you’re hurt. With your permission, I’d like to change that latter state of affairs.”
Predaking studied her for a long moment. “You wear the mark of the accursed Autobots, but you do not smell like them, or like any other Cybertronian. You are different.”
“Too right I am. I’m from another universe, but I have some experience treating Cybertronians of this one. You all bleed the same – Predacon, Autobot, Decepticon or neutral.” She forced herself to meet Predaking’s burning yellow optics. “And believe me, if there’d been a way to save the other clones both from the Wreckers and from slavery to Megatron, I’d have done so. What happened was a tragedy, and I give you my word of honour, it will not be repeated on my watch.”
“You speak truth,” Predaking conceded. “As did the other medic, Ratchet, who may have been the first person to show me and my kind true respect. Very well.” He transformed back into his dragon-form, twisting around to display a long cut along one side, awkward to reach, but relatively simple to repair. She fixed it in a matter of nanokliks – it was sparkling’s play after treating Ultra Magnus – and, once she’d found a fuel line, injected a vial of Energon to replace that which he’d lost, before stepping back into his field of vision and bowing. “Until we meet again, Your Highness.”
“Should that prove necessary, little medic.” She chose not to be offended by that as she turned, transformed and raced away after the others.
She soon caught up with them on the way to Darkmount, Megatron’s former citadel, where Knock Out had apparently claimed they could find a list of Shockwave’s old labs. A modicum of hacking – Glitch was getting used to breaking ‘Con cyphers – proved the Decepticon CMO right.
“Well, whaddaya know,” Bumblebee said as Smokescreen messed around on Megatron’s throne and Bulkhead rebuked him. “Knock Out actually shot straight for once.”
“What’d you have to do, scuff his finish?” Arcee asked. Knock Out was notoriously, ridiculously vain, in contrast to Glitch, who was proud of her scratched servos.
“Close. Now, let’s download the data and get outta here.” Glitch was way ahead of him; she’d set the console up to copy the decrypted files straight to a transfer drive the moment she broke the cypher. Which was just as well; a flier, too small and fast to be Predaking, the wrong shape to be Prime, was headed straight for Darkmount. Nanokliks later, one of the last ‘bots any of the party had expected to see landed right in front of them. He was taller and bulkier than he had been just days before, and his optics and biolights shone purple rather than red, but he was recognisably Megatron.
Until he spoke. Whoever was using King ‘Con’s voicebox, it probably wasn’t its original owner. Megatron liked overdone rhetoric, but “minions of the Prime” was a bit much even for him. And “his” voice had extra harmonics that sent a shiver down Glitch’s backstrut as she readied her combat-capable tools. Why was she so tired all of a sudden?
Soon enough, the situation was made clearer. Megatron wasn’t in control of his body – Unicron was. The Chaos Bringer. Widely regarded as a myth in Glitch’s universe; very real in that one. Wait ‘til I tell Bee about this, she thought drowsily and almost nonsensically.
Somehow, she managed to keep pace with the rest of the team as they ducked and dodged Unicron’s fire, but they were clearly outmatched, and evac via groundbridge would require them to get away from their opponent. You’ve been around me too long, she thought hazily as Bumblebee led them, in vehicle mode, between Megatron’s peds, off a ledge and through a tunnel excavated by his blaster. That was the kind of stunt she usually pulled.
They raced through the abandoned corridors of Darkmount until ‘Cee called a halt, not a moment too soon. Ahead of them, the floor gave way to what looked like a deep pool of molten slag.
“What in blazes is that?” Glitch asked.
“A smelting pit,” Bulkhead told her, clearly not wanting to go into detail.
“For once, I don’t want to know.” Mostly because she could guess. All too easily.
Bumblebee barely had time to call for a groundbridge before a lilac explosion behind them announced Unicron-Megatron’s proximity – and threw them all into the air. Bumblebee and Glitch landed on solid ground, but the others ended up hanging over the smelting pit, a chain of terrified ‘bots.
As Bulkhead fought to keep Arcee and Smokescreen from fiery oblivion, Unicron landed Megatron behind him, shaping a pair of hook-like weapons for himself out of lavender light. While Bumblebee held his attention, Glitch climbed up his back, grateful for once for her small stature, and transformed her right servo into a laser scalpel, intending to sever the electrical connection between his right arm and his CPU. But either her fatigue-addled processor had miscalculated, or Unicron’s upgrades had changed Megatron’s internal structure. Where she expected a shower of sparks, deep purple liquid welled from the incision. Dark Energon, she just had time to realise before everything went black.
***
“What’re we supposed to call him, huh? Megacron? Unitron?”
“Really? That’s your biggest issue right now?” The familiar sound of Smokescreen and Arcee bickering greeted Glitch as she came back online. Somehow, they’d survived and returned to their mobile base.
“Megacron sounds better,” she put in, “but Unitron emphasises the fact that it’s Unicron driving the bus, so to speak. Either would work.”
“You’re awake.” Ratchet sounded more than a little relieved – to someone who knew him well. “How do you feel?”
“A little more stasis wouldn’t hurt, but all systems are nominal.” She’d run a self-diagnostic the nanoklik she returned to consciousness. “What happened?”
“It appears you are hypersensitive to Dark Energon. Simply being in Unicron’s presence may have been enough to weaken you, and exposure to that which flows through Megatron’s system caused almost immediate stasis. You’re lucky to be in such good shape after a fall like that, by the way.”
“I’m tougher than I look. And I did feel tired pretty much as soon as Unitron showed up – as though I’d just pulled three shifts in a row.” Her record was four. Not an experience she planned to repeat. “How did we get back here?”
“Ratchet opened a groundbridge above the smelting pit,” Smokescreen answered. “Just as the floor gave way under Bulkhead. Bee scooped you up and jumped right into it.”
“Bet that annoyed Megacron.” As the others moved on to debate their next move, and tried to contact Prime and Wheeljack, Glitch called up the results of a scan she’d made during the battle with Unitron – and a couple of other files. Fascinating… “Ratchet, would you mind providing a second opinion on something?”
“Not at all.” As Glitch sat up on a makeshift repair table that had been set up on the warship’s bridge, the Autobots’ current HQ, Ratchet seated himself beside her, leaning down to examine her datapad. “What am I looking at?”
“Megatron’s sparkbeat, recorded during his last physical exam. Before you ask, I needed access to the medical files in case any of the Vehicons were injured, and if Knock Out wanted to anonymise these data properly, he probably shouldn’t have called the folder “Big M”.” Ratchet conceded the point with a shred of a laugh. She switched to another file. “This is Unicron’s sparkbeat, pulled from your records of his last awakening. And this is a scan of the being currently walking around in Megatron’s upgraded shell. What do you make of it?”
“It looks as though – Unicron’s sparkbeat has been superimposed onto Megatron’s, somehow.”
“That’s what I thought. I think Megatron’s still alive in there. Maybe he couldn’t join with the Allspark because of Dark Energon shenanigans. Unicron’s in control for now, but Megatron’s pulled a Master at least once before. If we can reach him – maybe he’ll do it again.”
“Pulled a Master?” Glitch really had to stop making references the others wouldn’t get.
“Doctor Who. The Master’s another renegade Time Lord, Megatron to the Doctor’s Optimus, if you like. He wants to conquer the universe, not see or protect it, but occasionally he refuels more than his system can handle and has to team up with the Doctor to save his own circuits.”
“I see what you’re driving at. It might be worth a shot, but don’t pin all your hopes on that. Megatron has a strong will, but Unicron is a god.”
“And human mythology’s full of gods defeating each other, or being beaten or tricked by mortals. But I’ll keep all my options open.” Seeing that the others had stopped trying to contact the away team, she and Ratchet headed over to join them. “Any luck?”
“No response. Maybe they heard us and can’t transmit for some reason; maybe we’re on our own. Either way, we need to figure out why Unicron’s here.”
“And what he wants.” Bumblebee finished Arcee’s sentence.
“To destroy the spark of his arch-enemy, Primus.” Ratchet stated what should have been obvious.
“But that’s the core of our planet!” Yes, Smokescreen, we know.
As ‘Cee complained that the situation was unfair, and Ratchet responded in typically dramatic fashion, Glitch headed over to another console and resumed one of her projects. She had an inkling it, and the ship itself, would be needed very soon.
“In other words, life’s not fair,” she said from beneath the console when Ratchet had finished. “All the more reason to make our own fairness.” Hm. That gave her another, trivial idea.
***
“Crikey O’Reilly!” (Maybe Glitch had spent a little too long researching Earth culture.) “That looks like some seriously bad mojo.” (And a shade too long around Jazz, if that were possible.) Armed with the knowledge that Megatron was in some way still alive, the Autobots had just started tracking down his exact location – only to see an energy spike at the same position. Under the circumstances, probably a type of energy Glitch had encountered for the first time earlier that day, but knew about from the others’ stories. Dark Energon. At the Predacon burial ground. That and Unicron’s presence couldn’t add up to anything good.
Specifically, the most likely summation was an army of reanimated Predacon shells (why not more modern Cybertronians? Because they were more accessible, or more powerful?), heading for the Well of All Sparks to undo all the Autobots’ hard work.
“So what do we do?” Bulkhead asked.
“We put ourselves between Unicron’s army and the Well.” Bumblebee’s strategy was simple and sound. They couldn’t afford to wait for Prime, Wheeljack and the Allspark; they had to act, and the warship was their greatest asset.
“Glitch, you’ve been working on this ship since we took it over,” the newly minted warrior said to the field-tech. She had, especially in the previous few hours. It was better than worrying about the away team, or getting in Ratchet’s way as he monitored Ultra Magnus. “Think you can pilot it?”
“He’s a bit bigger than Moth, and I might have to stand on something to reach the controls, but a ship’s a ship. I’m not touching the weapons, though.” In her reality, no self-respecting Autobot used such things if they could help it.
“I wouldn’t ask you to. Bulkhead, can you be her co-pilot and main gunner?” And ready to take over in the event of further Dark Energon exposure, he carefully didn’t say.
“’Con engineering. User-friendly, right?” Particularly when an Autobot had spent days refining the controls – and adding in a few of her own.
Once Ratchet and Ultra Magnus had been transported to safety on the surface, the remaining ‘bots were soon on their way to intercept Unicron’s horde. Glitch had forgotten how much she enjoyed piloting. She was usually scared of heights, but flying a ship she trusted was fine. It didn’t make much sense, but that was often the way with her anxiety. She might have been a microgram rusty, though.
“Whoa, easy!” Bulkhead reached for the controls as she banked to port a little too sharply, sending crewmembers and loose objects sliding across the deck. “You’re flying a warship, not a cruiser.”
“Sorry.” She levelled out, never taking her optics from the instruments in front of her.
“Primary fusion cannons, null-rays, ion blasters – everything we need to stand a fighting chance against Unicron’s army.” Bumblebee listed off the ship’s complement of death-bringers. Glitch wondered idly what had become of the stasis ray she had seen mentioned in the team’s files. That was much more to her liking. Non-lethal, non-destructive and reversible.
“Should be able to buy a fair amount of time for the others to get here,” she remarked to Bulkhead as Arcee complimented Bumblebee on his leadership skills. “Before our circuits get fried.”
“Ah, c’mon! Where’s that famous optimism?”
“It opted out when I saw the scale of our problem. If Prime and Wheeljack don’t show up in time, the odds of our survival are slim indeed. I can’t calculate the probability that they will, and even if they do we’ll still be outnumbered – but I do like those odds.”
“I guess we can only try,” Bulkhead just had time to say before the most annoying person on the planet arrived on the bridge.
“Autobots!” Starscream, and a squad of Vehicons, levelled missiles and blasters at the crew. “Surrender this warship!” Everyone but Glitch turned to face down the intruders – then stopped short, for reasons she only understood when Screamer boasted that he had the Immobiliser, a device that caused instant, lasting stasis-lock.
“And in case you’re wondering, Smokescreen is in no position to come to your rescue.” Glitch could see Knock Out reflected in the viewport in front of her, wearing Smokescreen’s phase shifter. The young ‘bot had been fetching the Immobiliser and another relic, the Polarity Gauntlet, from the ship’s vaults; he must have been intercepted on the way back.
“Climb down and step away from the console,” Starscream commanded her, “or I’ll freeze you and simply drag you away.” Or, more likely, get one of the Vehicons to move her.
“Either use that thing or put it down,” she countered, digits still flying over the controls. “Waving that glowstick of destiny around just makes you look even more like an idiot.” Starscream wasn’t an idiot, she knew, but that was far from obvious. “But if you do use it and miss, you’re likely to hit this console and drop us all out of the sky. And if your aim is good enough,” she activated one of her custom settings, “good luck flying this ship with the isomorphic lock active.”
“Isomorphic lock?” the bewildered Decepticon asked.
“User recognition system I just finished installing. The controls will only respond to designated pilots. And I couldn’t add you or anyone else to the list and fly at the same time, even if you forced me.”
“Ah, Screamy won’t use the glowstick on any of us,” Bulkhead said from where the Vehicons had herded the other Autobots into the centre of a circle of ‘Cons. “He needs us if he’s gonna stand any chance of surviving Unicron.”
“You misunderstand,” Starscream told him, Glitch forgotten for the moment. “I do not intend to use this warship for battle, but for quickly getting as far away as possible from this doomed planet.” Someone was jumping to conclusions.
“Earth would be nice,” Knock Out commented, “now that Unicron no longer seems to be calling it home.” That particular Decepticon did seem to have a soft spot for that world, or at least its cars.
“Shut up!” Starscream lived up to the second half of his name. “Now, deactivate that lock and move away from those controls, Twitch,” the name’s Glitch, “or get stiff.”
“There’s just one thing you’ve overlooked.” What was Bumblebee playing at? Oh well; at least he might have spared Glitch another round of trying to outsmart Megatron’s most cunning lieutenant. “That device you’re holding? Not the Immobiliser.”
In the viewport, Glitch saw Starscream take a moment too long to figure out whether or not the warrior was bluffing. In that moment, the Autobots counterattacked, taking down the Vehicons within nanokliks. Starscream lunged for Bumblebee, and somehow got the upper servo almost as quickly. “I will silence you forever!”
No! She turned, magnets and EMP generator sliding into place – just in time to see a flawless claw-tipped servo phase through the Seeker’s chest, take the Immobiliser and belt him into stasis with it.
“Now will you believe I’m joining the winning team?” Knock Out asked, still holding the remains of the broken relic.
“Knock Out! We needed that!” Ratchet’s common complaint was as good as a “yes” from Bumblebee.
“Wait – it – really was the Immobiliser?”
“Good riddance, if you ask me.” Glitch turned back to her console, but not before giving Knock Out a friendly smile. She rather liked the other medic, despite herself (and hated the idea of putting anybot in permanent stasis-lock). “And welcome to the team.”
***
“Are we there yet?” Smokescreen asked as he, Arcee and Knock Out returned from locking Starscream up. (And, owing to the deployment of Glitch’s best scraplet eyes, checking him over.)
“We’re right on schedule,” Bulkhead replied.
“And so is Unicron,” Bumblebee added.
“Let’s get his attention, then,” Glitch said, before sending the ship into a steep dive, and Knock Out skidding across the deck, the moment the gunners were in position.
Just one strafing run was enough to draw Unicron’s Terror-Predacons away from the Well – and towards the ship. Glitch should have been terrified, but as a power surge pulsed through her circuits, analogous to a human’s adrenaline rush, all fear was burned away. She didn’t even feel the buzz at the back of her head that distinguished reasonable fear from the product of her cross-wired processor. Twisting, turning, diving, soaring, almost dancing between the undead Predacons like a young, less skilled Hera Syndulla or Powerglide, anchored to her console by the safety straps on her legs usually used by human riders, she even found herself struggling not to laugh.
Not everybot was amused, though. “Are you sure you know what you’re doing?” Knock Out asked, clinging for dear spark to an unused console.
“Oh, relax. I learned from Omega Supreme’s mentor.” Her Ratchet, to be exact, who was also her mentor. Might that make her Omega’s sister in some way? Now that would be weird.
“I’d never have guessed. You fly like a Wrecker,” Bulkhead remarked.
“Thank you.” Coming from one of the last of the black-ops unit, she knew that was a compliment.
At that moment, the conversation was interrupted by a ship-shaking impact, which must have done some serious damage. “One engine is down,” Bulkhead reported. “It can be jump-started, but not without compromising our shields. We don’t have any other spare power.”
“I do.” Glitch had prepared for that possibility. She tore a couple of wires from beneath their console, flipped open a panel on her own forearm and crosslinked the two systems before even she could think twice. “Good grief.”
“You OK?”
“Fine. It’s just – more intense than I expected.” The connection she had forged wasn’t a full gestalt powerlink, like a combiner’s, but it still flooded her processor and frame with sensation. With an ordinary ship, she’d probably have gone into shutdown or meltdown almost immediately. As it was, though, it was a simple matter to direct power from her own systems into the inactive ones, giving them the spark they needed to start up again.
While she was distracted by that, a reanimated Predacon she and Bulkhead hadn’t managed to avoid slammed into a viewport right by Knock Out, who jumped back, yelling, “Zombie-‘Con! Zombie-‘Con!”
Bumblebee and Smokescreen moved in front of him, weapons at the ready, but they needn’t have bothered. A burst of yellow flame incinerated the mobile corpse, and a few others.
“Predacon,” Glitch said to herself with more than a little satisfaction.
But even their new allies couldn’t be everywhere at once. Despite Glitch’s modifications to their shields, despite her tweaking the engine burn to turn even their drive plume into a weapon, the ship started to take critical damage faster than she could compensate for it. They couldn’t stay in the air much longer, but Glitch had one last SD card under her plating. Almost by sheer willpower as much as by using the failing thrusters, she placed the ship directly above a flock of fliers. “Brace for impact!”
The warship dropped like the proverbial stone, its fall cushioned by several squashed Terror-‘Cons, skidded on their spilled fuel, and finally came to rest bare mechanometres from the Well of All Sparks. “Everybot all right?”
“Nothing a little carnauba wax won’t fix up.” Really? That was Knock Out’s priority?
Glitch bit back the sassy remark she wanted to make, focusing on the bigger picture. “I wish I could say the same for the Justice. It’s going to take weeks to get him back in the air.”
“You renamed the Nemesis?”
“Of course. The old name was too negative. Revenge is never good, but justice can be – especially if it’s restorative, not retributive.”
Mercifully, Knock Out chose not to get into that argument, though he did his best to start another one. “I say we leave it here to rust, if we even survive what’s coming.”
“Over my cold, offline shell! This is a Cybertronian we’re talking about here!” Knock Out looked surprised and confused. “You didn’t know?”
“Know what?” Bulkhead asked, still recovering from the crash.
“This isn’t just a ship. He’s a Metrotitan. Trypticon, to be exact. Stasis-locked, but alive. I recognised the general layout and file architecture from my Omega Supreme,” all the Omega Sentinels, really; they had been her sparklinghood obsession, “and did some digging.” That was how she had coped with the powerlink. Even in deep stasis, Trypticon’s mind had shielded hers. She vowed to repay him by bringing him back online.
If she lived, that was. The fight wasn’t anywhere near over, and the greatest danger was yet to come. She disconnected herself from Trypticon, then had to brace herself against her console as her systems registered that she was running on fumes. She’d prepared for that, too, and withdrew a canister of green liquid from a hidden drawer below the controls, consuming the contents in one go and making a face. It tasted worse than boot-camp rations.
“Is that Synth-En?” Knock Out was right to be wary. He’d once been soundly beaten by Ratchet under the influence of an early version of synthetic Energon.
“The stable one, yes. Shockwave didn’t have time to destroy his manufacturing facility, though he locked the controls up tight. I had to ask very nicely just for one dose. But if this doesn’t counter the effects of Dark Energon exposure, nothing will.”
Luckily for her, it did. Even outside the protection of the Justice, with a trail of Dark Energon staining the ground, she was still ready for battle as the Autobots (including one recent defector) lined up in front of the Well, the Predacons – Predaking, another dragon and an ursagryph, easily mistaken for a griffin; Smokescreen had been nearly right – landing behind them, all braced for the fight of their lives.
“Stick close to me,” she said to Knock Out, indicating her shield with one magnet. “Finish protector.”
“I’m never going to live that down, am I?” Knock Out seemed resigned to the fact. “Speaking of finishes, yours could do with quite a bit of work.”
True, but… “Don’t have time. And I’m still surprised you do.”
“Where there’s a will, there’s a way. And if we both get out of this alive, at least let me do something about your hands. They’re painful to look at.”
Glitch spared a brief glance for the offending components. Yes, they were scuffed, but she liked them that way. They showed that she worked for a living; that she wasn’t some spoiled upper-class sparkling or privileged academic. If fixing them up would make Knock Out happy, though… “All right. When we survive this.”
Her optimism wasn’t universal; after all, as Bumblebee pointed out, they were the last line of defence for the Well and the planet. Not the safest role in the universe.
“I would recommend leaving that,” Predaking “suggested”, “to those more suited for the task. Skylynx! Darksteel! Allow nothing to enter the Well!”
Without another word from anybot, the three living Predacons transformed back into their alt-modes, leaped over the Autobots’ heads and charged their undead ancestors. Their flames held back the horde of Terror-‘Cons for a little while, but there were just too many of them; Predaking and his new subjects were swept into the Well, still fighting denta and claw to slow the advance of Unicron’s army.
“Really? This is how it ends?” Bulkhead asked in disbelief.
“We’re not losing our planet,” Bumblebee declared. “Not without taking Unicron with it.” One recently reawakened deity sharing a body with a very angry and independent ex-gladiator against seven extremely determined warriors, six of them fighting for a home they had only just regained, the seventh fighting for her friends. One almost had to feel sorry for the Chaos Bringer. Almost.
The power surge that had carried Glitch through the dogfight was fading at last, followed by the Synth-En’s most obvious effects, allowing fear to take up residence in her processor once more. She ignored it with the ease of long practice. She didn’t stop climbing because she was scared of heights, or making friends because she was scared of losing them. And she certainly wouldn’t back down from a battle because she was scared of dying and leaving her loved ones. All the same – that would be a really good time for the away team to show up.
As if on cue, Magnus’ ship (borrowed by Wheeljack), the Iron Will, swept overhead. The relief in Bulkhead’s voice was shared by the whole of the party as he said simply, “Optimus.”
“I never thought I’d be so happy to see that big rig,” Knock Out added.
“Expeditionary fighting vehicle,” Glitch corrected with her volume turned down low. Knock Out clearly didn’t know Prime had scanned a new alt. (Two new alts, technically, but his dinoform was supposed to be a secret.)
Prime himself disembarked from the Iron Will in midair, flying straight for Unicron, but the dark god fired on the bigger target first. A spear of purple light hit the retreating spacecraft right next to one of the engines, knocking it out of the sky.
“’Jackie!” Before anyone could stop him, Bulkhead transformed and drove off to check on his downed joint-best friend. Arcee tried to follow, but Glitch held her back as she and Knock Out exchanged glances. One medic had to go with Bulkhead and one had to stay behind, but which should be which?
“You go,” Knock Out said. “Wheeljack’s not exactly up to speed with recent developments.” He was right; even injured, the reckless Wrecker would probably attack the ex-‘Con on sight.
“Copy that.” Glitch transformed and raced away towards the crash site, sparing as many prayers as she could for all her friends.
By the time she reached the wrecked ship, Bulkhead had already found Wheeljack and was about to try to move him. She hadn’t arrived a moment too soon. As she knelt beside her patient, she kept thinking of Ultra Magnus lying dented and leaking on her repair table, and her inability to save him by herself. This isn’t like that. Ratchet said you have talent, and Wheeljack’s tough. You can do this.
“You’re lucky,” she told the white sports car once her preliminary scan had finished. “Not many ‘bots survive a crash like that with mostly superficial injuries. There’s still some internal damage, though, and you seem to have hit your head pretty hard, so stay off your peds for a while.” To Bulkhead, she added, “We’d better take him and the Allspark outside before this mess gets any worse. But next time, wait for a medic before trying to move a casualty if possible.”
“I’ve been worse,” Wheeljack informed them a little vaguely as they ‘bothandled him out of the ship, the Allspark in its glowing, floating container trailing behind.
“I’d hate to see that,” Glitch shot back before realising that she had – after Wheeljack’s and Magnus’ fight with Predaking that had cost the commander a servo and his signature weapon. Wheeljack hadn’t quite had time to repair the Forge of Solus Prime before setting off to retrieve the Allspark. He’ll have time soon.
Especially with Prime back in the game. The Autobot leader chose that moment to arrive, unharmed and not visibly grieving; the others were probably fine, then, and holding Unicron’s attention.
Wheeljack cut straight to the chase, as befitted a sports car. “So, how’re we gonna get that thing to safety?” He jerked a thumb over his shoulder at the Allspark.
“By the only means available to us,” Prime replied, “under these most dire of circumstances. The very survival of our species on this or any other world depends upon it.” He outlined his plan; Glitch calculated that it would almost certainly work, and the bait-and-switch element appealed to her, but her spark dimmed to a flicker as she realised what the consequences would probably be, and when he met her optics and gave her a barely perceptible nod, it was practically a single photon.
Nobot else had any better ideas, though, and Prime’s plan didn’t need her, so as he and the Allspark flew back to the Well, she concentrated on things she could do. Fixing Wheeljack and returning to the others.
They got there just in time to see Unicron pry the Allspark’s container from Prime’s servos, having shot him out of the air. “I shall devour your Allspark whole!”
Quite the reverse, as he realised when he opened the container. “What? A trick!” They were the last words he spoke in Megatron’s body; the vessel forged for the source of Cybertronian life, emptied of its former contents, pulled his “anti-spark” out of his stolen shell and sealed it away, hopefully for good. Nanokliks later, a fusillade of explosions echoed up from deep in the Well, indicating that Unicron’s Terror-‘Cons couldn’t “survive” without him. The planet was safe at last.
Megatron’s frame had crashed to the ground as Unicron left it, but as Prime began to explain what had happened to the other Autobots, and Starscream (must have escaped in our crash) turned up like the proverbial bad shanix, he started to get up again, his optics a familiar red once more (though his biolights remained purple). Starscream heaped praise on his master, sounding rather like his alternate’s sycophantic clone, but Megatron’s reaction was somewhat unexpected. When his SIC referred to ruling Cybertron, Megatron refused. Quite forcefully.
“Because I now know the true meaning of oppression,” he said when asked why, after exchanging a long glance with his former friend Prime, “and have thus lost my taste for inflicting it.”
Starscream tried to bluster his way back to familiar ground (or air), but Megatron was having none of that. “The Decepticons are no more, and that – is – final.”
“A sensible Megatron,” Glitch remarked. “Wonders really will never cease.”
Megatron’s optics eventually sought her out, standing in the shade of the Wreckers. “Ah, the visitor from another universe. Tell me, what became of my counterpart in your reality?”
“Last I heard, he was still in prison, having been defeated and captured – by a maintenance crew.” And a few friends of theirs, but she chose to keep things simple.
“A maintenance-?” Megatron stared at her in disbelief for an uncomfortable moment. Then he threw back his head, and a sound rang out that had not been heard from the warlord in many, many stellar-cycles. Great peals of pure, genuine, joyful, sparkfelt laughter.
***
Once again, the Autobots (including Knock Out) gathered under Cybertron’s sun, this time at the edge of the Well of All Sparks. Once again, Prime was making a speech. And once again, it was a bittersweet occasion, though only two people knew why. Unicron was imprisoned, his army had disintegrated, Megatron, Starscream and the Predacons were literally in the wind and Shockwave wouldn’t try anything until the odds were in his favour. Only Prime and Glitch were aware of or suspected the full cost of that victory, though the former was about to change that.
“In order to both protect the Allspark,” he began, “and secure Unicron’s defeat, it was necessary for me to empty the vessel’s contents.”
“Into where?” Bumblebee asked.
“The Matrix of Leadership.” The repository of the wisdom of all past Primes, housed in the current Prime’s spark chamber. Not wholly unlike another Matrix in Glitch’s favourite television programme, she thought, trying desperately to distract herself from what she knew was coming. “As such, my own spark can no longer be separated from the multitude of others within me.” There it was.
“Are you telling us,” Ratchet now also knew what Prime had to do, “that you are now – one with the Allspark?”
“Heh, that’s what you say when someone kicks… the…” Smokescreen’s voice trailed away as he came to the same conclusion.
“Exactly,” Glitch said, her voice already heavy with sorrow.
Smokescreen rounded on her, suddenly furious. “You knew? And you didn’t say anything?”
“It’s not something one drops into casual conversation. And – I hoped, for once, I was wrong. But after what happened to Prowl – I’m just surprised it’s taken this long.” Her predecessor back in Detroit had donated his own spark to complete a partially reassembled Allspark, which had killed him instantly.
“To not return the Allspark to the Well,” Prime managed to get them back on track, “would be to prevent future generations of new life from existing on Cybertron.” Which, after everything they’d gone through, was unthinkable. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. “My quest must be completed.”
“Optimus,” Ratchet objected, “I didn’t return to Cybertron to save a life only to lose the one I care most about.” Glitch hadn’t even considered the effect on her colleague of losing his Amica. She resolved to be there for him, as much as he and her processor allowed, for as long as he needed her.
“Ratchet’s restored planets!” Bulkhead pointed out. “He’ll find a way to save you!”
“We can turn to Vector Sigma, just like we did before,” Arcee chimed in.
Prime was immovable. “Because the Matrix must now be relinquished with the Allspark, it cannot be restored, or passed down to another. But while this may very well mark the end of the Age of Primes, leadership can be earned with or without the Matrix.” Too right. There was no such thing in Glitch’s universe, to her knowledge, but Cybertron still functioned – mostly. Her own Optimus Prime had no ancient relic on which to call, but was growing into a great leader nonetheless. “And in my view, you have each acted as a Prime.” Steady on!
As his gaze fell on Knock Out, the medibot managed a self-deprecating, “Well, I never really had the best role models.”
“You have them now,” Glitch told him, her optics sweeping across the assembly. Three fierce warriors, three loyal and brave Wreckers, one dedicated doctor – and, of course, the leader who had stood by his people through thick and thin, fighting side by side with them, caring for each and every one.
“As even Megatron has demonstrated on this day,” Prime continued, “every sentient being possesses the capacity for change.” He turned away, towards the Well, activating the stabilisers on his jetpack – then turned back to say one last thing. “I ask only this of you, fellow Autobots.” Yes, that includes you, a brief glance at Knock Out seemed to say. “Keep fighting the noblest of fights.”
“You can count on us to keep the peace.” Bumblebee spoke for all of them, as he so often had since regaining his voice.
Reassured, Prime turned away again and flew high into the air, before letting himself fall directly into the Well. Every optic remained fixed on the shortcut to Primus even after he had vanished and every ‘bot there heard his voice once more – over comms, or in their heads? It was impossible to tell. “Above all, do not lament my absence, for in my spark I know that this is not the end, but merely a new beginning. Simply put, another transformation.”
Just go forward in all your beliefs, and prove to me that I am not mistaken in mine, Glitch thought as she and her friends watched a multicoloured multitude of sparks rise from the Well. But the words of an even older, even wiser character than the Doctor felt more appropriate. I will not say: do not weep, for not all tears are an evil. She couldn’t cry, but at such times she often wished she could.
For the others’ sake, though, she kept it together until she was in the privacy of her tiny room on the Justice, had put some music on (a human piece, Elgar’s magnificent setting of Newman’s poem The Dream of Gerontius, describing a soul’s journey to the Christian afterlife) and had fired up her terminal (a faithful-as-possible copy of the ones she had left behind in Nevada and Detroit and on her Cybertron) to pour her feelings out into her own music. Before she could make a start, however, a file caught her optic. It hadn’t been there before, and was entitled, “For Glitch.”
She ran a virus scan (one can never be too careful), then opened it. It was a text file, written in an old Cybertronian dialect, laid out like poetry or song lyrics. From the little she understood, she knew they would fit her nearly-finished “Song for Cybertron” perfectly. They captured not just the joy of finally seeing the planet restored and Cybertron’s intrinsic beauty, but also the long aeons of conflict and darkness that preceded that restoration, and the countless Cybertronians who would never see it, those whose shells still lay beneath their world’s new surface and those who had fallen far away. All of them, regardless of faction. Skyquake, Dreadwing and Breakdown would be remembered, just like Tailgate, Cliffjumper and Seaspray. All Cybertronians bled the same – within one universe, at least.
The lyrics were simply signed “OP”. Optimus Prime or Orion Pax? she wondered. The firebrand archivist or the gentle general? And did it matter? They were aspects of the same person, the same spark under different armour. She had fought alongside Optimus Prime, and talked late into the night with Orion Pax. She knew she would miss all of him, whatever he – or she – might want.
When had he written them? According to the file’s embedded metadata, it had been created after Bumblebee’s warrior ceremony, most likely after Prime and Wheeljack left Cybertron, and added to her terminal while she was helping transport Ultra Magnus to the Well. With so much else to worry about, he had taken the time to set words to her music – having first got hold of her draft, somehow. Ratchet had access to all her files, and would do a great deal for his Amica; he’d probably copied it at some point after she casually mentioned that she was writing a song that was crying out for words she couldn’t give it. Prime had obliged – as a farewell gift, it had turned out. “Stars, Orion…”
As the great baritone Bryn Terfel thundered out, “Proficiscere, anima Christiana” – an ancient prayer over the dying – she finally opened her composition software and began a new piece. One that would tell the story of a young ‘bot who dared to look beyond the limits set for him, to dream of a better world, and to work with – not merely for – the oppressed in his unjust society, using his higher status to help them where he could. Who humbly accepted rank and responsibility for the sake of his people. Who, when war came despite his best efforts, knew the names and stories of all his Autobots, and regretted every death, even those of enemy soldiers. Who stayed kind and hopeful even in exile, ceaselessly protecting the organics on his new homeworld – and exacting retribution when one of those in his special care was hurt. Who would tear off a Decepticon’s door to save a human he didn’t know, and give up most of his memory for a planet not his own. Who had remained an Autobot at spark, even when tricked into believing he was a Decepticon. Who had, at last, sacrificed that spark for his renewed world, and whose legacy lived on in the people whose sparks and hearts he had touched.
Though he had told them not to mourn, her spark didn’t even listen to her processor at times, let alone to anyone else. She did grieve for him and the hole he’d left in so many lives, and the piece reflected that. A lament for the last Prime.
#transformers prime#transformers animated#fanfic#tfp optimus prime#autobot oc#tfp wheeljack#tfp arcee#tfp bumblebee#tfp bulkhead#tfp smokescreen#tfp ratchet#tfp knockout#tfp starscream#predaking#tfp unicron#tfp megatron#misplaced medic au
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I really want to be working on my Sims game or even just interacting here, but….Here's a frustrating bit of an email discussion that I'm currently having with a sort-of friend of mine who's still a member of the fundie Christian church that I used to be a member of. And a rant. Because I just can't with these people, and I need to vent. Feel free to scroll on by.
My sort-of friend, years ago: *gets upset at her first baby shower because people gifted her gender-neutral clothing even though "Everyone knows I'm having a girl! And the invitation was pink!"*
Same woman, in an email discussion I'm currently having with her, and I quote (albeit with corrected spelling and grammar): "I don't hate transgender people. If men want to wear dresses, I think they look ridiculous, but that's fine. I just think that children shouldn't be exposed to gender identity until they're older and can understand better."
(Note: Despite what she says, she is definitely a transphobe. She just doesn't think that her opinions are hateful.)
Me, in my answering email, also quoting: Aren't you the person who once got all upset at your friends because they gave you gender-neutral baby outfits at your frothy-pink baby shower? Didn't you also get upset when your son kept playing Barbies with your daughter?
Her, in response, just now: "That has nothing to do with gender identity!"
Me: *headdesk*
So now I have another long-ass email to compose. But I'll do it. Why? Because this person was a closer friend before I left the church and then went apostate, and I still care about her. Even so, I wouldn't bother having these long discussions with her, except that I get the sense that she's losing her faith. Why? Because she keeps talking to me, a very vocal apostate and critic of Christianity in general but especially of that branch of it. This time, she emailed me out of the blue asking me questions about transgender people, probably because I'm the only person she associates with who's queer, so I'm as close as she can allow herself to get to talking to an actual transgender person. I'm guessing that her pastor is ranting about "the transgenders" again.
Just in general, she seems to be looking for…something. Reasons not to lose her faith? Reasons to lose her faith? I don't know. She keeps emailing me, which is the only way she has to contact me, deliberately on my part. Sometimes it's frantic, hellfire-and-brimstone "warnings" because she's "very concerned about my soul." Sometimes it's cherry-picked fuzzy bible quotes and "praying for you" messages. (She's one of the ones who sent me one of the things I talked about here and who received my "response" image.) But more and more often it's asking me, out of the blue, some of the pointed questions I asked of myself during the long, slow decade or so of deconstructing my faith…and then answering my answer with more "warnings." Ricocheting back and forth like that makes me think that she's in the initial "terrified" stage of losing her faith. She opens her mind by just a tiny little crack, asks herself "forbidden" questions, and is then flooded with deeply conditioned terror about hell that she then has to deflect onto someone else so that she doesn't have to feel it for herself. I remember how that was, and I did the same things. So, I'll keep responding to her so long as she's the one contacting me, but I don't truly know what's up with her.
All I know is that the indoctrination is so strong -- unlike me, she was born into that church -- that she doesn't even know what gender identity is or else she'd know that she strongly enforced it on her own kids (Seven of them!) whether they liked it or not, just as it was enforced on her. She'd also know that gender identity isn't something that can be kept from children at all, whether they're "old enough" or not, because it's just integral to being a human living in a society.
And this is why I am anti-religion, at least when it comes to the Abrahamic ones. Any good they supposedly do is vastly outweighed by the harm. One of those harms is that religion encourages turning off critical thinking. It extols faith as a virtue, even though faith is claiming to know what you do not and, moreover, cannot know, and then thinking that this presumption is a good thing. The entire structure of Christianity, at least, is designed to convince you that you're sick and broken and then to sell you only a sip at a time of the cure, keeping you forever ensnared. And it functions on confirmation bias. Some branches of it will unironically tell you that if you believe, then (and only then) will God "reveal himself" to you, with not a second thought as to how that is the very definition of confirmation bias. You're primed to believe that anything good that happens to you after you "give your life to Jesus" is because of God and that anything bad that happens is your fault for not having enough faith. Once that's the lens through which you view the world, and once you no longer think critically because you have to maintain faith, you're done. You have hamstrung your own brain. You will be told that this a good thing, and you'll be encouraged to shut down even more of your own brain.
And that is how every single born-again Christian that I've met functions. Their natural capacity to think and reason has been utterly shut down, and in many cases they've done it to themselves. Willingly. Because they bought a lie, you see. Usually, it's because they're born into it and never had a chance. That makes it very difficult to escape. But sometimes, they did so because churches deliberately target people who are at the lowest point in their lives. They might have addiction issues. They might be in an abusive situation. They might be homeless. They might be in prison. They might be grieving a recently-lost loved one. They might have been diagnosed with a serious or terminal illness. Or, like me, they might have been shattered by two very traumatic events before the age of 18. So you "give it over" and you attend church (a built-in community), and then things might get better and if they do, then you credit God for that (even though it's really that community of people that helped you), so you start to see "God's hand" in everything. But really, God has nothing to do with a new believer's life getting better. It's people, all the way down, but you're intensely trained to credit God instead. In the end, the notion of God is at once a self-enforcing thought-stopping device and a particularly infectious and insidious virus.
I'm not saying that church members are bad people. Most of them genuinely think they're doing good. They're told that they're doing good, and since their critical faculties are shut down, they genuinely believe that spreading YAHWEH-1500BCE is a good thing. Because once a person is no longer thinking critically, skeptically, and rationally, they're done. They can be convinced to believe anything without a shred of evidence for it and/or despite a shit-ton of evidence against it. They will believe in faith healing. Or that prayer is effective. That God will take care of Earth so we don't have to worry about climate change. That vaccines suddenly don't work. That they aren't an ape. That LGBT people have "an agenda." That transwomen regularly assault ciswomen in public restrooms. That abortion is used as birth control. Fucking Q-Anon. Whatever. They will believe it. And if you then put them into an authoritarian cult-like (or genuine cult, in some cases; my ex-church certainly is) structure like a church, then what they will believe is whatever the authority tells them to believe, and in most cases those authorities are, at best, innocently and earnestly wrong and, at worst, manipulative, lying narcissists who use their power to abuse people. So it's just…It's so frustrating, AAARRRRRGH!
Anyway, it's precisely because these people's critical faculties have been shut down that they listen to their pastors and/or to right-wing, fear-mongering politicians and their various mouthpieces. And then they don't understand (or willfully misunderstand) everything that they're told is "bad." In this case, it's my friend not understanding anything related to transgender people, only believing when she's told that they're evil people who have an agenda and that they want to make all her kids transgender, etc.. They make ridiculous "arguments" about this issue (and many others) that are easy to counter, but that doesn't matter because, whatever you say and however much sense it makes and however much you back it up with actual data, they're going to listen to their authority. And that authority isn't a scientist or anything like that because they've been told to distrust those "leftist elitists." Hell, for most of them, that authority isn't even God or scripture. No, that authority is their fucking pastor, and 90% of evangelical pastors are dishonest sacks of shit.
OK, I'm done now. If anyone actually read this, I'm sorry. But I do feel better, and now I can maybe compose that email without losing my shit on the woman, so maybe I'm not sorry at all. Now, I'm going to compose that email, send it, not look at my email for the next two days, and maybe get some Sims-related stuff done. :)
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“Thank you so so much for reading and enjoying it so much!! Though I'm curious, do you have a favourite scene?? Let me know!!”
Ohhh I have a BUNCH of scenes that I really loved!! I loved pretty much everything going on in the last chapter- it was touching to see Tim share so many intimate moments with his family. Something I love about his character, and something that I think you captured really well, is that he’s. Y’know. He’s definitely an unreliable narrator! Throughout your entire story, he saw himself as very “other.” Separate from his family, separate from his friends, separate from death and, so he thinks, from the trauma that comes with it- and in that last chapter we get to see his family say “no actually, you are loved whether you like it or not!” The entire chapter just captured this really nice, quietly hopeful tone- I loved it!
Another thing that I really loved (but was more of a like… background thing?) was Tim’s relationship with the violin. I think it’s just. Ugh I’ve thought about this a lot and am looking for words. I love how it can symbolize his relationship with his parents- it’s this thing that they are abstractly proud of (in a bit of a “look how gifted our heir is” way) but for Tim it shifts from a way to make his parents look at him into something that he actually, genuinely loves. The way that his mother, in particular, absently asked him to learn pieces for her only to never listen is heartbreaking and such a clever way of representing their relationship as a whole- of Tim putting in hours of effort, and of his parents thinking of him only passingly.
The violin also feels like one of the first things that Tim really LOSES as a result of all of those deaths. Or at least- one of the first things he registers the loss of. After Titan’s tower, when he comes back but his fingers are broken- UGH! Throughout the entire story, he minimizes his own pain- brushing it off as not real or as something that doesn’t count because he never DIES. But this is a real, physical wound that doesn’t heal- this is something that his death’s have taken from him- because his pain IS real and DOES matter. Chef’s kiss.
(There is also, of course, that throwaway line from Jason’s pov about how Jason had only ever heard Tim playing the violin badly. Jason doesn’t know that Tim once was very good! And that Jason is the reason he now struggles! My poor fucked up boys <3 )
First of all, sorry it took me so long to reply to this, I've been savouring it in my inbox as extra inspiration and encouragement, because your analysis is just. Chefs kiss. I'm so so glad you enjoyed so many scenes and picked them apart!!! It's always so so nice to see how someone reads a scene and interprets it. Delicious.
YESSS I loved writing the intimate moments between Tim and the Batfam. I love deconstructing a relationship between two characters to put it under a lens and see how exactly it functions and why. More than that, I'm so so happy to see you enjoy the unreliable narrator. It's one of my favourite devices to use, because it just adds that hint of uncertainty. Tim loves his family, but he's seen himself as 'other' for so long (you were SPOT on) that he can't help but distance himself. To him, he's not quite a human (and I actually have a story in the works that looks at this even deeper) and therefore isn't allowed to suffer in the same ways as a human. He is, you see, deeply stupid. So having his family, and Cass especially, confront him and tell him how harmful this view is not only to himself, but the people he loves, kicks his ass into gear!
THANK YOU! The violin was actually going to play a much bigger role, but my hands began wandering, and it fell to the wayside. It's very much a symbol of Tim as a child and caught between the wishes of the people he loves and his own desires. You are once again spot on in your observation of it symbolising his relationship with his parents. In the epilogue that I'll someday get to writing, he picks it up again as a way to reconnect his turbulent childhood and impossible expectations, with the love he feels for the instrument and the audience surrounding him that is willing to listen. Something, something, a family that doesn't expect him to play but still wants to listen, something, something, parallels with Jack and Janet.
And YES YES YES, the violin IS the first thing he really loses as a result of his powers. Or more accurately, it's the first thing he really views as 'worth something' that he loses. There's a paragraph I didn't include in the main story where Tim recognises how he's not angry about dying, and isn't even that mad about dying as Robin. The thing he can't forgive Jason for is breaking his fingers. I used to play violin and cello, and let me tell you, stiff fingers make it incredibly difficult to play. So Jason has taken away the one thing that Tim made his own, without even knowing it. And yet he doesn't have the time to mourn it. Not really.
Your addition KILLED ME, because I completely forgot about that part. YOU'RE RIGHT. He never knows how talented Tim was with the violin, and unfortunately due to the lingering damage to his fingers, Jason may never know. It depends on how much I want to torture these two idiot boys <3
As always, thank you so so much for this ask, it's absolutely GLORIOUS
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I am being promised a deconstruction of BJ (a literal one, his construction is being dissolved and he’s So not okay) and it is being handed to me!!!
So Operation Friendship, right? That was an episode that happened. It feels like it exists in tandem with Period of Adjustment in the long-simmering-boiling-over BJ saga (and right after that he went aaaalmost off the rails in No Sweat, and I am not convinced that after Hawkeye snapping at him that Peggy’s gonna leave him that nothing would have happened, that man is as taut as one of those ropes they use to tie up boats that can smash buildings if frayed too much -- BUT I digress, it was a fun-episode, and therefore it ended in fun + that all happened in the shower which was also... a choice... as we know about showers and MASH)
(also Hawkeye is SO invested in the Hunnicutt marriage, it’s not even funny anymore)
Operation Friendship
1. BJ’s insistence that Everything Is Fine
2. Hawkeye’s insistence on playing nurse-maid, constantly staying by his bed, making suggestions for an ice pack, an insurance exam, etc. (and I have that post queued up that talks about how genders are constructed differently in the 4077th, ex. Doctor and Nurse, rather than Man and Woman, but also Caregiver and Care-needer, Protector and Protected, Senior Officer and Lower Ranking, everything that Klinger does, including “Just A Guy From Toledo” and “Maxine,” Daddy/Dad/Father and Mommy/Mom/Mother (not related to Man and Woman), Sir and Ma’am (also not related to Man and Woman), etcetcetc and they’re not necessarily as binary or rigid as they may be perceived here either!)
3. Hawkeye’s caretaking of BJ is not the same as BJ’s caretaking of Hawkeye, and BJ doesn’t like it! He acquiesced to it back in Period of Adjustment because he was at his lowest and therefore couldn’t help it + he’d hit Hawkeye earlier and I’d HC that plays into it, but it’s far more often BJ-in-support-of-Hawkeye (whether it be a scheme and/or a mental state and/or physical support -- I mean protecting him from getting beaten up of course...)
that’s their Roles! Hawkeye is messing with the Order Of Things!
4. Hawkeye’s territorialism???? His possessiveness??????????
5. going back to BJ’s insistence that Everything Is Fine: I just wrote in a tag that BJ s4-7 seemed to (basically, simplifying here) frame him as “sure he has issues too but it’s a war, and maybe there’s some performativity to his Self, first really highlighted by the surprise that he’d be the mastermind of pranks when he’s just a good American boy, and then seen several times ex. in the mystery of his name, but ultimately he’s trucking”
and then s8 was like “what if BJ is just straight-up losing his mind and ability to place himself in the future and desperately clawing for that future (which looks too much like the past) and possibly knowing it can never be that way, and sometimes he just snaps I Guess!
Hawkeye Is supposed to be the frayed one. He’s got Issues, that’s what everyone knows. BJ is an amiable, getting-along-with-things, Father and Husband. He takes care of Hawkeye, not the other way around! Not like this!
6. the ending of the episode once again forcing BJ to acknowledge a need for help in the face of literally being about to lose his hand. My guy. You can... ask for help sooner.... it’s...... it’s cool.......... (it isn’t)
(his hand looks so bad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)
7. Also the ending of the episode having Hawkeye relinquish his need to take care of him, again because he could actually lose his hand!!!
What! Am! I Supposed! To! Make! Of! The! Metaphor?! Of it all???? The Symbolism???? The Dissolving Of Stability!????
8. BJ still taking the time to threaten the doctor when he’s talking Hawkeye down!
9. the fact that they both laugh about how they could’ve just let BJ die in order to get the last laugh on the hand specialist guy. It’s morbid sure, but it’s not just that, it’s... idk. The only way they could talk about how fucking close that one was? Skirting around the Ways they both went about the whole thing? Deliberately restoring equilibrium with the most tasteless joke BJ could think of, testing the waters to make sure everything is fine again
also the way they both gang up on the specialist... rewatching it, because I felt like he wasn’t that obnoxious, he was just stating that he has a speciality and would like to be respected for it, as well as literally having practised medicine for longer than either of them, while Hawkeye hovers over him and tries to find reasons to critique... and yeah, they were definitely coping by finding a scapegoat there, good thing he wasn’t sticking around for longer, they would have been such mean girls! But they needed that too in order to cope
TL;DR BJ and Hawkeye were so okay this whole episode, except for the fact that they were utterly unhinged about each other, about social (gender) roles, and about needing and giving help
#im watching MASH#hawkeye pierce#bj hunnicutt#MASH#long post#operation friendship#the title as well?????#there are SO many screenshots of this episode on my computer i really had to choose#MASH meta#have i checked for spelling and grammar? noooo let's fuckn do this!
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Trust Fall | Ch5
ARC reactor image by Eury Escodero || screencap by 'neverfeltbetter' on wordpress || My MASTERLIST
Story Masterlist | Previous Chapter | Next Chapter
Summary: Tony/OC, 'terrorists made us fall in love;' IM1 timeline. In this chapter, Emory Autumn's ruse is discovered, and Tony relies on his reputation as a womanizer to request that he be allowed to 'keep' her as a 'distraction.'
Length: 4,774
I’m shy as hell about saying this but if anyone wants to be tagged or ask me to write something please do! Tags: @starryeyes2000 @raith-way @arrthurpendragon
Excerpt:
“How does he know you’re not simply doing this to save her life?”
Tony drops his hand to Autumn’s ass and pulls her tight to his hip. With one final gentle swipe of his thumb on her neck, he takes a handful of her hair and pulls, dragging her head back to look up at him. Her eyes are wild, frightened, hopeful. One of her hands is clutching a handful of his shirt material at his back.
“I’m a weapons manufacturer,” Tony says, his eyes on Autumn. “I’m not known for my altruism. I am known for my women.” He dips his head down and, holding her still with the hand gripping her hair, Tony kisses her roughly. It’s for show, and he shows, forcing her mouth open and sweeping his tongue in. Autumn is clearly shocked, her hand coming up to rest on his chest, right on the magnet apparatus, before snatching it back.
Chapter Five: 01010011 01110101 01101110 01101100 01101001 01100111 01101000 01110100
Over the course of the next few days, Emory, Yinsen, and Stark collect palladium from the missiles they take apart. She’s good at unscrewing the tail pieces without having to move the missile, if it’s hanging over the edge of the table a bit. It doesn’t hurt her back, as she doesn’t have to lean over quite as far as they would. Stark says he likes that the deconstruction leaves quite a few pieces lying around, innards of the missiles, housings, various parts, all of which look like he’s actually working on what he’s supposed to.
He… won’t tell either of them what he’s actually doing, though. Stark has implied more than once that whatever it is will result in him being freed from having to carry around the battery, but Emory can’t imagine what that could possibly be.
Though, if he’s collecting palladium, he’s probably right. Emory doesn’t know anything about engineering or physics, but it sounds like a scary enough material that could be used to power something.
Today Yinsen is using their cooking and heating fire to warm up a smelting cup with the palladium flakes inside it. He’s clearly done something to make it stronger than usual, because it’s warm in the cave. Stark’s down to the white shirt she’d given him, with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows. She’s sitting at their dining table with Childhood’s End, but she’s really watching Stark.
He’s got a bowl with some sort of thick, loamy material in it, and he’s packing a smaller bowl with the stuff. The way the muscles of his arms move and the precise gestures of his hands have her captivated. Hands are her secret weakness, and Emory had managed to avoid thinking about Stark’s hands mostly because he’d been wearing fingerless gloves so often. Today, though, he’s bunching them in the sand, pressing some into a smaller bowl with his palms, holding a measuring device steady and tapping it to sink down and make an impression. He is making an impression. On her. Emory tries in vain to remember where she was in her book, but it’s hopeless.
The best she can do is firmly instruct herself to avoid picturing him touching her.
Yinsen signals that he’s ready to pour the palladium, and Stark hovers nearby, not close enough to bump him.
“Careful. We only get one shot at this,” he says, the battery held over his shoulder and out of the way.
“Relax, I have steady hands. Why do you think you’re still alive, huh?”
Yinsen pours the molten palladium with the steady hands he promised, and Stark looks visibly relieved when he lifts the smelting cup again. As soon as Yinsen sets the cup down near the fire to cool, though, there’s a noise at the door.
Stark grabs his beanie and arranges it over the bowl, covering their day’s work.
The bearded terrorist comes into the room with a lot more energy than normal, and with far less enthusiasm. He seems very upset, and he’s carrying a magazine. Accompanying him are ten men with machine guns. Emory sucks in a breath, full of fear and comprehension: this is it. He knows she’s not Rory.
Sure enough, he holds up the magazine and snaps something angrily at Yinsen.
“He says you are not the woman in the picture,” Yinsen says, his voice shaking slightly.
“Can I see it?” she asks. She has to repeat herself, because the first words come out so quiet and choked that Yinsen shakes his head, uncomprehending. Out of the corner of her eye, Emory sees Stark grab his battery and come to stand a few feet behind her.
The terrorist shakes the magazine and stomps over, thrusting it towards her. He points with a pudgy finger at a picture of Rory at a gala event five months before. She’s obviously a different person from Emory, not just because of height, but body shape and facial features. There’s no fudging her identity. Emory examines the picture, hoping for some kind of reprieve. In the back of the image, behind Rory, she recognizes the dress she had been wearing to the event.
“I’m in this picture,” she says. Behind her, Stark lets out a small grunt.
There’s nothing he can do. Tony holds the battery with one hand at his side and watches as Autumn points to something he can’t see in the image their captor is holding out. Her attitude is bound to make the man more angry, and he lets out a small sound in warning.
He’s running through options in his mind and coming up with completely nothing. The very best he could do is threaten to set off the missiles, but that would likely save no one and result in all three of their deaths, with the possible ‘upside’ that some of the terrorists may also die. With the stacked up missiles, Tony wouldn’t be able to dodge around to take the main guy hostage, but Yinsen has already said that there’s a separate leader from the spokesman they’ve interacted with so often.
They’d probably just write the guy off and shoot everyone.
“I grew up with Rory. We’re close. She would pay a ransom to get me back. Just because I’m not Rory Fall doesn’t mean I’m not valuable!” Autumn is saying, now.
Yinsen’s tone as he translates is placating but desperate. The look on the terrorist’s face is not encouraging.
“He says you are not worth the cost of food,” Yinsen says, his tone impersonal but his expression frightened.
“So give me a hunk of bread and a water bottle and set me loose,” she argues, holding her clasped hands in front of her, begging. “No one will bring an army to revenge itself for me even if I did survive, and chances are high I’ll just die in the desert. There’s no downside.”
With a savage backhand, the terrorist hits her on the side of the head, and Autumn lands on her side on the floor in front of Tony. The suddenness of the violence is shocking. If he can’t think of something, they’re going to kill her. He drops the battery on the floor beside her and drags Autumn up against him, cradling her against his arm to keep her from pulling on the wires. She’s shaking.
“Do not give orders to men,” Yinsen translates, horror in his tone. The terrorist screams at Tony, and Tony meets his gaze unflinchingly. “This doesn’t concern you, Stark,” Yinsen adds. “Imagine your own insults, I don’t wish to repeat them.”
“It does concern me,” Tony says, resting a gentle hand against Autumn’s neck. Her whole body is trembling as he addresses the terrorist, trying to adopt an arrogant tone. She won’t appreciate this very much if it works, but she’ll be alive. “You want me to build your Jericho? Give her to me. I work better when I’m… relaxed,” he says, shrugging with as much casual innuendo as he can.
Against him, Autumn’s frozen still. He brushes his thumb against her neck just once, hoping she’ll remember his hand squeeze outside in the sunlight and take courage.
Yinsen is frozen as well.
“Tell him,” Tony orders. “It’s what we’ve got. My reputation’s good for something, who knew?”
Yinsen starts speaking. Tony holds his body completely rigid, projecting as much confidence and arrogance as he can. He looks down at Autumn, obviously and demonstrably ogling where his hand bunches up her shirt. The pants she’s wearing hang low on her hips, revealing the bare skin of her lower back and just below. He raises his gaze back to the terrorist’s, who is giving him a knowing look that Tony forces himself to smile in response to. There’s a camaraderie there that makes him sick.
The man’s face falls, and he speaks.
“How does he know you’re not simply doing this to save her life?”
Tony drops his hand to Autumn’s ass and pulls her tight to his hip. With one final gentle swipe of his thumb on her neck, he takes a handful of her hair and pulls, dragging her head back to look up at him. Her eyes are wild, frightened, hopeful. One of her hands is clutching a handful of his shirt material at his back.
“I’m a weapons manufacturer,” Tony says, his eyes on Autumn. “I’m not known for my altruism. I am known for my women.” He dips his head down and, holding her still with the hand gripping her hair, Tony kisses her roughly. It’s for show, and he shows, forcing her mouth open and sweeping his tongue in. Autumn is clearly shocked, her hand coming up to rest on his chest, right on the magnet apparatus, before snatching it back.
He knows he needs to make it look real, his desire and her reluctance, to sell the farce that he’s going to use her like he’d implied he would. The desire part is not a problem, as it turns out. She’s warm, her lips lush, and her height accentuates her vulnerability to him, which is a turn-on for him, always has been. Tony likes being in charge, feeling powerful, and she’s ticking all of those boxes. He angles the leg she’s pinned against, pressing it between her legs in a way that the demon who’s holding them captive can see. The kiss is filthy and wet, and when Tony sucks on her bottom lip to redden it, she lets out a whimper that everyone in the cave can hear.
When Tony lifts his head, Autumn sags against him, burying her face in his side, clearly mortified.
The terrorist mutters something and stomps toward the door, making a harsh gesture to the men with guns. He throws the magazine on the ground at Yinsen’s feet.
“Very well. She’s yours,” Yinsen translates in a hoarse whisper.
The sound of the doors closing has a ring of terrible finality to it, as though Tony’s made some kind of irrevocable choice. He probably has.
He loosens his grip on Autumn slowly, because she’s clinging to him as if nothing else will support her weight.
“I panicked. All I could think of,” he says.
Autumn lets out a shuddered breath. She pulls back just a bit, as if testing her strength, and then does the most amazing thing. With a gentle hand, she reaches up, looking at him, and wordlessly touches his face with her cupped hand.
Seconds later she turns and walks over to her cot, climbing up into it and drawing the blanket over her shoulders.
“Life is life,” Yinsen observes quietly. “I could not think of what to do. Thank you.”
“Don’t,” Tony says grimly. “I’ve just flipped a switch in their minds. A dangerous one.”
“True,” Yinsen says. “You’ll need to be careful to maintain interest. Something tells me you won’t have to worry about that, will you?”
Tony takes that moment to pick up his battery, rather than make any attempt at meeting Yinsen’s eyes. The man is perceptive, and it wouldn’t take much talent in reading people to see what is going on in Tony’s mind. He probably can already tell.
Even under those circumstances, Tony had enjoyed that kiss. He would get to enjoy more of them, almost certainly. What kind of a person did that make him? It wasn’t heroic, that was certain. Even if he had saved her life, the ratio of altruism to lust was disproportionate to the latter.
He walks over and carefully removes the beanie, knowing that it’ll take longer to cool than he’d originally intended. Tony starts gathering up the wiring and vise he’ll need to hold the whole apparatus while he solders the fucking hell out of it. There are a few things missing, and that’s when he remembers.
They’re under Autumn’s cot.
Instead of disturbing her, he sits down and tries to clear his mind. Unfortunately, ever since she’d been asked to sing, Autumn’s voice has been playing in his head on repeat, especially the part about the wind like her hands in his hair. The sound of her voice was a complete shock to his system, raspy and low, sultry and sweet. Tony’s spent enough time in the LA party scene to understand why a recording company might have wanted to go with the tall, athletic, weak singer with charisma and stage presence over her shorter, more talented friend. It’s a matter of marketing, but if it had been a matter of quality, Autumn would have been by far the superior choice.
Beyond what she sounded like was the impact of the lyrics. He doesn’t think she chose the song to specifically target him, but they’re damning enough, after their conversation about intimacy. Tony’s never been in a relationship longer than a few months at a time (they certainly weren’t monogamous), and none of his brief flings with the odd cute barista or waitress have resulted in that feeling of cross-social strata longing described in the song. His arrangement with Pepper and JARVIS usually prevents any of those situations from escalating into something more anyway.
Since her comment about kissing, though, he had gone back over his mental black book, trying to pinpoint any of the women he might have considered candidates for that kind of long-term connection. Tony was forced to conclude that his attitude at the beginning of his time with most of the women informs his attitude about the longevity of their association.
He doesn’t pick women that he wants to spend days kissing. Tony picks women to fuck.
Now, though, all he can think about is kissing Autumn. If he’d met her at some event and decided to try to coax her into bed, he would have been plotting what sort of sexual activities he’d engage with her-- but now? Now there’s a charade to perpetuate, a simulation to plan, and that means he can look forward to kissing her in a way he wouldn’t have in his regular life.
The thing he secretly enjoys so much is now the only thing he can have, in good conscience, even though Tony shouldn’t get to have anything, not in this cave, not with a woman who is almost certainly reluctant.
It’s a mess, one he feels more than a little bit guilty for causing, despite the alternative. For one of the first times in Tony Stark’s life, he feels shame in his selfishness. He can usually rationalize it away, but this time, even the fact that she could have died otherwise still doesn’t feel like enough to balance this out. It’s uncomfortable as fuck.
The book is across the room, and Emory is afraid to move, even though it’s very warm under the blanket. She doesn’t want any more scrutiny, particularly not from Stark, right now.
He’d saved her. She was massively grateful. She was also conflicted. Tony Stark was exactly the sort of man she’d always been warned against. Selfish, narcissistic, pleasure-seeking. But he was also handsome, strong (an attribute she hadn’t known she liked so much until he’d held her up when she was practically falling down, and hadn’t even seemed like it was an effort), and his kiss had taken her apart. Her lips still burn from his facial hair and the force with which he’d demanded her response.
Emory can’t help but admit to herself that she’d liked it. She groans with embarrassment, covering her face with her hands.
That tiny movement of his thumb to reassure her had touched her somewhere sweet and hidden, too. It had been kind, something she would never have pictured coming from the wealthy CEO.
What a mess!
She covers her head with the blanket and gets up, hoping to rush over to the table, get Yinsen’s book, and rush back. When Emory grabs the book, though, she turns around and almost runs straight into Stark.
His expression is somber, but he flicks his eyes up toward the camera as he sets down the battery on the table. With a chastising look, Stark takes the blanket off of her completely, pulling her hair from where it was twisted up and tucked into her shirt in a bid to cool off earlier. With no idea how much she is affected by what he’s doing, he runs his fingers through her hair multiple times, laying it out along her shoulders. Of course, she realizes. She’s not supposed to let it be covered up.
Emory’s already keyed up from her near-death experience and the half-traumatic discovery that she really likes this man’s mouth on hers. So when he leans over as if to kiss her, she backs away, out of his reach. He’s experienced. He’ll be able to tell. She’s not sure she could bear that.
“I can almost guarantee they’re watching. If you resist, they’ll expect me to demand more,” he says in a near-whisper. “Unless you’re doing it for the cameras?” Stark shoots his eyebrows up for a second, before pointing at the floor at his feet.
“Of course,” Emory lies. She looks down as if contrite and walks back to him.
Stark lifts a handful of her hair and smells it. There’s something so arresting about that action, something so intimate, that she steadies herself with a hand at the nearby table. It’s for the cameras, she’s sure, but it feels authentic enough to her.
“So are you really afraid, or just very good at faking?” he asks.
“Terrified,” she whispers. She is. Emory is afraid he’ll look at her and know she wants him, and he’ll use it to judge her against every single woman he’s ever slept with, every woman that begged him to use his hands on her.
Stark moves to stand just a breath away, his hand sliding into the hair at the nape of her neck. It’s still a little sore from him yanking it not a half hour before. “There are ways of faking this, positions they use on film, but I don’t know the angle of their cameras, and--”
“And you like kissing,” she says with a tiny, wry smile, staring at the bulge on his chest from the magnet apparatus. Emory risks a quick glance up at his face to see his reaction. His brown eyes are dark with obvious desire, which jolts straight to her core. She hadn’t expected that, despite her words.
“Not the unwilling,” he says. He sounds upset.
“Is any woman truly unwilling when it comes to you?” she asks, hiding her shock at what she’d seen in his expression.
There’s a scraping sound at the door that startles her, but when she startles and pulls back, Stark’s hand stops her, wound as it is into her hair.
“Peephole,” Yinsen says from where he’s examining the smelting cup.
A voice shouts something in an unrecognizable language from outside the door, and the scraping sound recurs.
“I’m not repeating that,” Yinsen says. He sounds scandalized.
Stark’s looking at Yinsen, but Emory’s slowly catching fire where she’s standing there waiting for him to decide what to do with her. She feels like she’s watching a musical where her favorite piece of music is a precursor to her favorite character’s death, and the sweetness of the thing she’s anticipating will be followed by something dreadful.
“Do it or let me go, Stark,” Emory hisses at him.
“That’s enough consent for me,” he says, using his free hand to tip her head back with a rough hand at her chin. Stark slips his thumb up to pull her mouth open, letting go and tracing his tongue against where he’d pressed, scraping his teeth against it gently. Emory drifts toward him, unable to help herself. He’s skilled and devastating as he chases her tongue with his to stroke it. Overcome, she grabs at his shirt to steady herself, and he lets go of her hair to catch her hand before she pulls on the wires. Without Stark’s hand at the back of her head to stop her, Emory can tear herself away. She grabs the book she’d come for in the first place and holds it to her chest like it’s a stack of schoolbooks instead of a tiny paperback.
He points at her bed with a large gesture that is obviously meant for the cameras. “Go, get out of here, I have work to do,” Stark says, but his eyes are narrowed. “Careful,” he whispers. “They won’t like to see you resisting.”
“Instinct,” she lies to him for the second time that day. Her instinct had been to throw herself wholeheartedly into that kiss. She almost had.
After ten minutes Emory realizes her blanket is still over where Stark had taken it from her, but she doesn’t venture back into that part of the room. Let the men monitoring their room think he was punishing her.
That’s not quite the case, though. She’s punishing herself.
Emory wakes up covered in the blanket.
She’d had strange dreams, not at all what she’d expected, the night before. None of them stick with her, but she assumes they’re based on the chapters of the book she’d read. Emory often feels a kinship with the authors she’s reading, understanding and approving of their visions for their stories. Her mother had always said it was a function of her oversized amount of empathy, her loyalty for the intentions of the author-- but she doesn’t like the world that is described as a utopia in Childhood’s End. Though, possibly that is author-intended.
The idea that there would be no religion to divide people, and that bad leaders would be driven mad… both of those things seem like something Yinsen perhaps appreciated about the book. Emory doesn’t feel a kinship with any of the characters as she usually does, but that might be because everything in the story feels like she’s watching from afar, waiting for something horrible to happen.
As opposed to watching what’s happening in our cave, close-up, waiting for something horrible to happen! she thinks to herself.
Though, the horrible thing hadn’t happened, thanks to Stark. She still needs to thank him, but Emory’s having trouble even looking at him right now. Despite it being the truth, she regrets having essentially dared the man to find someone to kiss so he could appreciate how much more enjoyable it is to do with a person you genuinely care for. She can sense that kissing him is deeply enjoyable, and the implications of that are just too much for her right now.
To evict Stark from her mind, Emory thinks about what Rory might be doing at that moment. Over the past few days she’s tried to push those thoughts away, knowing that dwelling on what her friend was going through wouldn’t do her anything but cause distress. Days after the kidnapping, though, now that the terrorists know she’s not Rory, Emory can’t help but wonder how things are going without her.
Rory would undoubtedly be a mess, but was she able to fly home? Or was she lying on a bed in a hotel in Kabul with Hank at her side? Did anyone know to get the rest of her favorite candy out of Emory’s luggage? It’s kind of freaking her out just picturing how frantic everyone must have been when they realized Emory wouldn’t be there to help smooth out Rory’s rough edges.
Emory’s struck by a horrible realization: she’s coddled Rory so much that it’s quite possible her friend is doing far worse without her than she would be if Emory been more harsh and truthful with her from the beginning.
Sure, Rory’s been selfish and cruel to her for a while now, but how much of that is just a result of letting her stagnate in her own poor behavior, secure in the knowledge that Emory would get her out of any problem? It was just flat-out easier that way. And now look where it’s gotten them!
“Fuck,” Emory says, pulling her pillow out from under her head and pressing it to her face. It smells terrible; she’d never remembered to put the pillowcase back on it, and Stark had taken it to carry something around with.
“Are you in pain?”
Yinsen’s voice is very close, and Emory cringes. “I didn’t mean to swear,” she apologizes, pulling the pillow back off of her face.
“I’m not offended, do not concern yourself,” he reassures her. “You have slept longer than normal, and hearing your epithet, I wanted to be sure you weren’t injured.”
“I stayed up reading,” she admits, sitting up in bed. “I’m to the place where the man who is bored by the utopia described by the book hides inside a model of a whale to travel to the alien overlords’ home planet. I can’t believe how miserable this utopia has been described, how the overlords imply that humanity would be terrified and dumbstruck by advanced technology! As someone who loves music and artistic expression, I find it very hard to believe that art would narrow if we were given a chance to live in leisure, without the need for hard labor. As a scientist, do you agree? Do you think our more advanced society in 2009 is as prone to being frightened by the knowledge of an advanced alien race?”
The look on Yinsen’s face could most accurately be described as bemused. “I am glad you’re so engaged by it. I agree that a utopia without violence being one where art and advancement suffers is a confusing one. Though I think the author wanted most to convey the idea that humanity was unhappy and unfulfilled, in preparation for some large leap in understanding, and that was the way he imagined to go about it.”
“That makes sense,” Emory says. “I usually don’t read radically changed society stories, so I don’t have a basis for comparison, I guess.”
“You don’t read them, but you’ve experienced one, haven’t you? Is this not radically different than your regular life?” Yinsen asks.
“Well… I mean, it’s temporary, isn’t it?” she says, a little shocked at how subtly confrontational the man’s question was. She pictures a meme screen, a bright colored background with an attractive font saying something like, ‘I didn’t ask to be called out like this!’
“Perhaps for you, but the people holding us have a life vastly different from yours, from Stark’s. Different enough to be a culture shock, one to the other. When I wasn’t in this place, I straddled that line in some ways, as a scientist.” He looks down at his clothing and offers her a sad smile. “I had just returned from a conference, my garment bag still hanging by the door. Perhaps this is punishment for being like that young man in the story. My metaphorical flights to the overlord’s planet have drawn the anger of the citizens I left behind.”
Emory’s speechless. “I’m sorry,” she offers.
“Me too,” he says.
“Thank you for giving me the blanket, by the way.”
Yinsen pauses in the process of walking away. “It was mostly Stark. He tripped on the blanket, brought it over to set it beside your bed. You were asleep.” He looks over to where Stark is leaning over his worktable, shuffling what looks like a dozen thin sheets of paper. “I told him there is more than one way to protect you than the one he volunteered for.”
Before Emory can respond to that, he walks back to the cook fire and stirs the day’s meal. There’s probably a metaphor for the vast ocean between her overly permissive behavior towards Rory and Stark’s barely there approach, but she would probably rather climb into his smelting cup and roast herself before she tried to figure out how to articulate it.
Twenty minutes later, Yinsen calls her over to eat. Stark stays at his table, his ruler and pencil moving like the wind across yet another sheet of paper. He waves off both of their suggestions to eat.
Emory picks up Childhood’s End again, but sets it back down in an hour. The main characters have become dissatisfied with their imposed utopia, and have moved to an island designed by someone who wants to resist the Overlords’ influence. They’re planning to live their lives in defiance of the Overlords who are essentially holding humanity hostage, rejecting their orders to live a different life.
It’s just a bit too much for her, given the fact that Stark has made clear he isn’t building what he’s been ordered to.
Next chapter, Tony realizes that a situation where he's practically required to kiss this woman to keep her alive is a blessing and a curse-- because he really, really likes it.
#tony stark#tony stark fanfiction#tony stark x oc#tony stark x original character#iron man fanfiction#iron man#iron man x oc#iron man x original character#mcu#mcu fanfiction#mcu fanfic#marvel#marvel fanfic#tony stark imagine#series: autonomy#ocfairygodmother#fyeahsuperverseocs
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Please be careful how you respond to other people's distressing sexual thoughts: A personal story
This is going to be a heavy one, so strap in. Content warnings for mentions of corrective rape, internalized aphobia, unwanted sexual thoughts, and *gasp* me suggesting, once again, that the ways the kink community suggested I deal with said unwanted thoughts might not have been helpful. Sorry.
I am an asexual person who regularly has... ruminations, I guess you could say, on the subject of corrective rape. This has been going on for about as long as I've known I was asexual. These ruminations are not enjoyable. They are not pleasurable. The physical responses that sometimes come along with these thoughts are not pleasurable. They are a manifestation of my own internalized sense that I need to be allosexual in order to be lovable, and that someone fixing the "mistake" of my asexuality by violating me would be the best thing for me. I have done the whole "try to explore it in a kinky way" thing and it only made me feel worse. These are not fantasies. I cannot stress enough how much these aren't fantasies.
But I am also a person who has always, even before I separated from the kink community and began laying out the groundwork for what would become Trusted Companionship, had a genuine interest in submission. And as I've discussed a few times, there was a time when I did genuinely identify as a sub in the BDSM sense.
So, back when I was still identifying as such, I sent a concerned anon to a fellow submissive on Tumblr who I admired (I don't remember the blog or if they're even still around post titty ban) with some basic info about my situation and that I was looking for advice on dealing with sexual intrusive thoughts. (I don't actually know if intrusive thoughts are the right word for this, I generally use the term "unwanted thoughts" these days, but 20 year old me was less scrupulous with my language.) The answer I got was along the lines of "Intrusive thoughts? Honey, those are your fantasies. I suggest you learn to accept them, and explore them a little in a safe space."
My esteemed colleague, I cannot express to you how much I DON'T want to ~explore this in a safe space.~ The solution to my deep-seated fear that not being allo makes me unlovable is not to eroticize that fear. It's to work on deconstructing it, and to find some way to be proud of who I am and the kind of relationships I have the capacity to form with others.
I have no say over what other people get pleasure from. I don't claim to have a say over that. But in my specific case, suggesting that I treat my unwanted thoughts like sexual fantasies is about as helpful as suggesting ageplay to someone with POCD. Not every sexual thought a person has is a super hot kinky fantasy that needs to be accepted and explored and played with. Sometimes people have sexual thoughts that distress them, and that repulse them, and trying to twist those thoughts around into a kink would be actively harmful. And if you are in a position where people look up to you enough to ask for advice about sex and kink, you need to be prepared for the possibility that someone might come to you with something that's less of a fantasy and more of a genuinely unwanted thought pattern.
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So the other day I was discussing the title of my novel with my grandparents. I mentioned the idea of having it centering around the idea of “the house” without managing to find any phrasing to my liking.
My grandfather half-jokingly proposed “why don’t you called it The widow’s [local Occitan word for a small house]?”. I asked him what it meant, he answered “house”. I asked him if it was a big house and he told me no. Then he told me I could use the word “castèl” for a very big house with towers (as you might have guessed, it means castle).
After that the conversation naturally went toward Occitan and I said that I would like to learn to speak it at least a little. He then once again half-jokingly told me that it was a shame that I never met his father because he would have been able to teach me (since it was his mother tongue).
On this my grandmother thought it was imperative to comment that my great-grandfather actually did not speak Occitan but [local Occitan dialect] which was just a patois. Patois (sort of synonym to dialect) is a pretty derogatory word to talk about regional languages in France. I answered to her that since Occitan did not go through the same standardization as French did during the 19th century, [local Occitan dialect] is in fact Occitan and a totally accepted version of Occitan by the institutions trying to safeguard the language. [local Occitan dialect] is not just a subpar language but a legitimate way of speaking Occitan. We did not debate further but it was pretty obvious that she wasn’t completely convinced and that for her my great-grandfather did not speak proper Occitan (which she considers to be a “proper” language) but just a patois.
My grandmother is pretty well-educated and keeps herself up to date on a lot of subjects. So I am amazed that apparently she still considers our own regional language as nothing more than a mere patois despite obviously having heard and internalized a lot of the deconstruction of French hegemonic cultural significance in all of France (otherwise she would not even consider Occitan to be a proper language). Like damn, this thing runs deep.
#occitan#french#language#regional language#like don’t get me wrong French is my mother tongue and I like it#and I think it is important than in the same country all citizens master a good level of a common language#but that doesn’t mean that I think that French is a superior language#and that regional languages are inferior#it is a bit surprising to see people with this opinion still in the 21st century
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for the wip ask game:
equilibrium, delirium
burnt mothballs
:3
ill do lil summaries for u :3
equilibrium, delirium: Likely rated G or T, an exploration (more a deconstruction) of Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics featuring many existential crises, Chuuya's plans to once again kill Fyodor (dazai also has plans dw), and a general understanding that none of SigSKK are getting left behind again. (partially an excuse for my psych brain to try to understand the ideas of the omegaverse from a non-sexual, uncommon view (bc im gonna be so real i understand none of it and i am gonna try to capture it in a way that makes sense to me), but also character exploration to the early dynamic of Fyodor and Sigma and how the former influenced the latter! Title is from Of Mice and Men's Vertigo <3)
Burnt Mothballs - Likely rated G. Sigma's very good at giving advice; too bad he can't take it. Everyone around him is happy though, so that's okay - right? (in which sigma accepts help for once eventually) (title is because burnt mothballs typically don't happen, they explode before they can get that burnt! its a metaphor, also it sounds cool)
Ask me about more of my WIPs!!!
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