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cozage · 8 months

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The Mystery Baker

A/N: just a morsel of Zosan Characters: Sanji x Zoro, but a few of the strawhats are included too :) Total word count: 1.4k

Sanji hadn’t been off the boat for long. He only had to run and grab a few items from the island they had landed on, and he then had come right back, eager to wait on Nami’s and Robin’s every need.

But when he entered the kitchen, the delightful smell of chocolate chip cookies filled his nostrils. On the cooling rack laid a dozen cookies, still warm from the oven.

Cookies that he hadn’t made.

Someone had been using his kitchen while he was gone.

He couldn’t think of anyone on the ship who would bake, especially while he wasn’t around. If anyone had needs, they simply asked him and he fulfilled them. He couldn’t decide if he should be annoyed someone used his space, or thrilled that someone was interested in the art of creating food.

The cookies were still warm, but he picked one up and smelled it. They were made from scratch, he could smell the specialized ingredients in them. An over-indulgent amount of sugar, chocolate chips, vanilla, and a few ingredients he hadn’t expected to sense. Cream cheese, almond extract, and nutmeg..or was it cinnamon? It was so faint, he could barely make it out.

Sanji bit off a small piece, curious how the flavors interacted with each other, and let out a soft moan from the taste. The cookies were a perfect mix of savory and sweet, the chocolate chips instantly melting in his mouth.

Not that he’d ever admit it, but Sanji wasn’t sure if he could make a chocolate chip cookie that tasted this heavenly. The after flavors swirled and lingered in his mouth, making him fall in love with their creator without even knowing who they belonged to.

He shoved the rest in his mouth and plated a few to take along with him, eager to find out who had created them. It was clear that whoever had made this dessert had put extreme precision and care into the process. Such a feat was only handled by a woman’s gentle touch, so he set off to find Robin.

“Robin, my love!” He sang as he danced over to her. “If you wanted to make sweets, all you had to do was ask!”

Robin’s eyes flicked up from her book and rested on the tray of desserts.

“Cookies!” Nami called, walking up behind Sanji and plucking one from the plate. “Sanji, you really shouldn’t have!”

Nami took a bite, eyes rolling back in her head in delight. “You’ve really outdone yourself,” she praised, mouth still full. “These are amazing!”

Sanji gave a smile, pleased to see that Nami enjoyed them. But he couldn’t take the credit for them. “Actually, Robin-chan-”

“I didn’t make them,” Robin interjected, smiling as she watched Nami swoon over a dessert. “But I would like to try one, given Nami’s reaction.”

Robin tried to hide her satisfaction, but it was evident to Sanji that she had the same emotions towards the sweet as both he and Nami had.

But now, Sanji was extremely confused. If it wasn’t Robin or Nami, then he wasn’t sure who had the capability to cook. In fact, there were probably only three other men on the ship who even knew how to use an oven, and he was certain none of them would have the touch to create such a delightful treat.

“Franky!” Sanji called, entering the workshop. “Did you use my kitchen while I was gone?”

Sparks flew from Franky’s project, but the cyborg stopped his experiment and turned his attention to the cook.

“Oh hey, dude! Dinner time already?!” Franky set down his tools and brushed himself off, but Sanji shook his head.

“Did you use the kitchen today?” Sanji asked again, holding up the tray of cookies.

“Weird bribe, but no.” Franky took a cookie and threw it in his mouth. His eyes instantly sparkled, tears overflowing in an instant.

“Hey man, these are like, the most super cookies I’ve ever had! Let me have another one!”

Sanji had a bad feeling in his gut now and quickly moved the tray away from the cyborg.

“You’ll get better ones later!” he shouted, storming out the door and down the hallway.

Nothing was making any sense. The only other person Sanji could see baking was Brook, but he didn’t even have tastebuds to make them. Everyone else was useless in the kitchen; worse than useless.

Perhaps someone had snuck aboard and put poison in the cookies in an attempt to kill or weaken the crew. Perhaps a drug had been added to the mixture, and now half of the crew would be unable to fight if someone were to attack.

That had to be the explanation. Even if he didn’t feel strange now, surely the effects would kick in soon. Of course nobody on the ship had cooked in his kitchen without his permission. Of course they had waited for him to get back. Of course he-

“What the hell are you doing with my cookies?” A gruff voice called from behind him, startling him from his thoughts.

Sanji’s head swiveled around to find that annoying swordman glaring at him from down the hallway.

The blonde scoffed. “These are not your cookies.”

“Like hell they’re not!” Zoro stormed toward the cook and snatched the plate from his hands. “I made them!”

Sanji reached for the plate, his anger rising. “You couldn’t make something this delicious, mosshead! Nice try!”

“What the hell do you mean?!” Zoro held the cookies just out of reach. “I made them while you were gone! I always make them while you go shopping!”

“I’ve never seen them here before!”

Sanji lunged for the plate, but Zoro blocked him with his own body, and Sanji could smell the faint smell of vanilla and almonds on the swordsman’s skin.

“I usually make them and eat them before you get back!” Zoro shouted, pressing his forehead against Sanji’s to keep him locked in place. “Don’t even give me shit about it, because I clean up everything and put it back before you finish your little island visits.”

His words gave Sanji pause. Being this close, Sanji could smell the chocolate and spices across Zoro’s breath, and for some reason he found himself flustered at his proximity to Zoro’s lips.

He quickly ripped himself away from the swordsman, still glaring at him. There was no way that a shitty swordsman like him could create something sent straight from the heavens. Sanji refused to accept that.

“And where exactly did you learn to bake like that?” Sanji shot back, trying to ignore the drumming in his ears.

“The dojo!” Zoro yelled. “We had a baking fundraiser every month to raise money! Now, do you mind? I’d like to go enjoy my cookies in peace!”

“Get out of my sight,” Sanji hissed, turning away from the swordsman. “And don’t use my kitchen without asking!”

“As if you’d ever realize I was in there!” Zoro yelled back, storming away.

God, Sanji’s heartbeat was so loud in his chest, he was certain the whole island could hear it. And his face felt so abnormally hot that he had to go to the bathroom just to calm down.

That damn swordsman was always pissing him off, making him worked up over things for no reason. He splashed some water on his face and checked himself in the mirror. His cheeks were still pink from how angry he was about the whole ordeal.

He had been looking forward to convincing Nami or Robin to make a fresh batch with him by their side. He would have followed their every order and listened to their every demand. And once he had learned how to make them, those ladies would never have to work again. He would make them whenever they requested.

But that hadn’t been the case. He couldn’t even admit that he was craving another one, because even just saying that would give the mosshead an overwhelming amount of satisfaction that Sanji refused to give him.

He finally worked up the nerve to walk into the kitchen, where he found one chocolate chip cookie on a plate. A note lay next to it, and Sanji picked it up to read it.

Since you thought they were so delicious, here’s another one. Will show you how to make them if you ask.

Sanji had to admit, the idea of cooking with the swordsman by his side made his heart flutter.

#one piece #one piece imagine #one piece scenario #zosan #one piece zosan #op zosan #zosan fanfic #zoro x sanji #sanji x zoro #sanji #zoro #✧˚zoro✧˚#✧˚sanji✧˚

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impossiblesuitcase · 4 months

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I know this type of fic will seem strange, but do you remember where Cinder in the first book says that everyone will be aware of what Kai does, and that he will forget her, if this happened as an alternate universe, do you really believe that Kai forgot? of it, or remember it as nostalgia for what could have been as couple

Thanks your for your answer

I intended for this to be a five sentence response. Ha.

(Remember?)

He doesn’t remember her.

Granted, he doesn’t even remember what it feels like to take a full, unstrained breath. Kai is a busy teenager, a grieving son, an ill-prepared emperor and then the happiest widower alive. He can’t pretend to not be overjoyed by his wife’s untimely passing after her brief but bloody one-year stint as empress. The Earthen population didn’t seem to mind much either when the evil Lunar queen was assassinated in her bed by a group of revolting malcontents.

Kai only remembers her when the storm takes mercy on them and calms. The girl at the marketplace. Who’d never worn the gloves he’d given her to the ball she hadn’t attended. The brown eyes he’d never seen again. As the New Beijing Market celebrates a new era of peace with streamers and lanterns and sticky buns, Kai is pulling on his grey hoodie and weaving through the crowds to an unmarked booth. Instead he finds the musty, dark store replaced by a coffeé vendor. The nearby sellers tell him the young mechanic skipped town.

(Kai does remember her joking prod in the elevator, offering up that she was planning to run away to Europe. Now, Kai doesn’t think it was all that much of a joke.)

He searches for her, briefly. Her name turns up no more net results than what had been there the first time he’d sought her services. In checking government records he learns that her guardian reported the disappearance, inciting a police investigation. He has his own staff put on the case, who probably interpret this as a conscientious initiative to apprehend a fugitive as any responsible emperor would.

Reading the conclusions from the fruitless search by his agents, this is where Kai learns that Linh Cinder is a cyborg.

Something blankets him. Not...disgust or revulsion. Thick, encompassing understanding. He’s near laughter when it strikes him precisely between his third and fourth ribs because he knows that it doesn’t matter if he finds her.

The gloves. The obfuscation. A cyborg, an emperor. This is why she rejected him.

After this, the expressed need to find find find her feels vain. Find her and what? Tell her that—although he likes her—a cyborg would never be accepted by the public as his partner? Then he’d be tearing her away from whatever sanctuary she’s found herself in and subjecting her to capture by the authorities. Because she has cut out her ID chip—illegal. Fled the country without a permit—illegal. Disobeyed orders from her guardian—illegal for cyborgs. Whatever Imperial pardon he could try to extend would be nullified by the Cyborg Protection Act.

It doesn’t matter. She hasn’t been found. He’s no luck at searching for things anyway. That’s why he gave up on Selene. What’s one more thing to give up on?

So Kai doesn’t remember her. But he does revise the Cyborg Protection Act. He is appalled to discover that—despite having Levana’s antidote in his tenuous possession—the cyborg draft is still in operation. Luna is not a trustworthy government under regent Sybil Mira, they fearmonger. They might still need to develop an antidote of their own, they reason.

Both Earth and Luna are barely refraining from seeking blood as it is. After Levana was assassinated, Luna declared full-scale war on Earth, killing hundreds of thousands. Earth retaliated by detonating bombs on the craters of the moon, threatening that next time they wouldn’t spare the inhabited domes. The ceasefire went as follows: Luna and Earth would not intermingle. Luna would provide Earth with the Letumosis antidote in exchange for Earth sending Luna their desperately-needed supplies. No one deemed this agreement as trustworthy. No one had better ideas.

His decision to end the draft is met with mixed response. Kai just secretly hopes that Cinder is watching, holed up in her new musty, dark booth in her new European city with a flicker of pride.

Years past. Funnily enough, Kai learns that—at some point—pretending to forget and forgetting are not so dissimilar.

But sometimes he sees a malfunctioning android down a palace hall and remembers her steady gloved hands on Nainsi. Sees a woman with almost the right shade of brown in her hair and eyes and skin but never close enough. Yet each time, he collects himself, shakes his head and doesn’t give in, and when he marries a second time to a woman he actually wants to be with, his wife’s radiant smile expels any romantic thought of any other girl that has ever crossed his mind.

— — —

Fourteen years. That’s how long it takes for his loose threads to finally fray. Kai is in his office being briefed by Torin for an upcoming public statement by his cabinet. It has taken fourteen years after Levana’s death to fully uncover all the scrupulously concealed records of the atrocities she committed. As former empress, her crimes have to be reported by the Eastern Commonwealth, though no reasonably-minded Earthen would attribute her crimes to anyone but her own wicked self.

This report intrigues him. It’s not the usual analytics of Levana’s sins against the Earthen public, rather a detailed list of all the Lunars she victimised.

“Why are we reporting this?” Kai asks Torin, keeping his daughter from bouncing off his lap with steady hands. “What Levana did to the Lunar citizenry is beyond our scope of responsibility.”

“Not those on Luna, Your Majesty,” Torin informs. “This report refers to the illegal Lunar refugees who were hiding on Earth.”

Kai vaguely recalls Levana screeching once about how she would kill all the Lunars he had insubordinately smuggled into the country. He hadn’t believed that there were any Lunars on Earth at that naïve eighteen, but a thirty-three-year-old Kai is not surprised. He scrolls past the initial pages of exposition and gets right to the list of victims. He wants a number. How many Lunars were there really on Earth? That day on the balcony, when Levana had claimed that there had been a Lunar among those protestors—had it been true?

It’s page eight that he sees her name.

Linh Cinder. Cyborg. Lunar. Licensed mechanic in New Beijing. Records found to be falsified. True age unknown. True name unknown. Date of immigration unknown.

Cyborg. Lunar.

Kai’s hands are shaking. He places his daughter on the ground. “Torin,” he wheezes, “take her to her mother.”

His daughter’s soft, “Daddy? Was wrong?” goes unanswered.

Once they’ve left the room, Kai is alone with the horror lying in his hands. He clicks on her profile and a full page with her name and portrait appears. It’s a mugshot, but without the official stamp of the Earthen Union law enforcement, he knows it was Levana’s own team of minions doing the arresting. Her hair is loose, glossy and slick. Her eyes defiant but sunken into dark sockets. Her cheeks are full. She was not starving, wasting away in poverty. Evidently she did manage to make a life for herself on the run.

The biography is short. Linh was reported missing by her guardian on 28 August 126 T.E. at 08:31. CCTV footage shows her driving a second-era automobile from New Beijing to France over the course of 8 days. Linh hid in Nice for 7 months using a false ID chip and started a small mechanic business. Records of an apartment lease were found under the false identity. She was discovered by Lunar authorities when a mandatory Letumosis blood test identified Lunar genealogy in her genome. She was swiftly sentenced and executed without a trial on an unknown date for crimes of illegal departure from Luna.

That’s it. The only information. It limns a tale of another victim of the tyrant with not a stroke of sympathy. Kai thrusts down the port, clawing his hands through his hair.

Cyborg. Lunar. Executed.

He calls his wife.

The line clicks immediately. “Honey, is everything okay?” asks his wife, concern cooling her timbre. “Torin said you were all out of sorts.”

His words are faint. “Hey, love, do you remember that girl I liked before you?”

He can hear her smile. “The mechanic?”

“Yeah.”

"What about her?" her voice heaves and Kai hears a small giggle; Torin has brought their daughter back to their quarters. His wife is picking up the heavy three-year-old.

He has no strength to censor himself, even with young ears present. “She’s dead. Levana killed her.”

A long silence. The thread being pulled, pulled, pulled as the fraying creeps up to the heart of it. The girl whispers to her mother, “who Mummy? Who’s Daddy talking ‘bout?”

Her mother doesn’t explain. “Oh, love, I’m so sorry,” she consoles plaintively in that genuine lilt he knows is sincere. His superlatively gracious wife has never judged him for his grief over the lost cyborg, for regretting he couldn’t help the troubled young girl from a bad home. Never has she assigned ulterior motives of him mourning ‘the one that got away’ in some jealous plea for validation.

He says nothing. He had forgotten her brown eyes, her smile and her gloves. The sarcasm and the pessimism. Each detail had slipped away and now a single photo, an unuttered apology, is trying to resuscitate the dead.

“Are you okay? Do you want to talk about it?”

Kai reclaims his port and returns to the cover page. It’s entitled: A Comprehensive Account of the Genocide of Lunar Refugees by Queen Levana Blackburn: Names and Implications.

A name. An implication. That’s all she’d be, immortalised in a forgettable list. After the cover page, a number is bolded.

3,582.

The number of Lunar victims. Miniscule compared to Earth’s population. Cinder was almost certainly the only Lunar Cyborg on the list. An oddity. A friendly statistical anomaly.

Never meant to exist. Always meant to be out of reach.

“Kai?”

“It’ll be fine,” he promises, convincing himself of it. “I’ll be fine.”

“You’ll be fine?” she repeats.

That picture is burnt in his retinas; Cinder, forever sixteen. He, now so much older. He doesn’t mourn a lost love. He didn’t love her; he didn’t know her. He mourns an abandoned child who never even knew that someone was looking for her.

Kai exhales slowly and rests his port on the desk next to his wedding photo and his father's signet ring.

“I’ll be fine,” he affirms, “You know, I don’t really remember her.”

— — —

@cindersassasin @hayleblackburn @spherical-empirical @salt-warrior @just2bubbly @gingerale2017 @icarusignite @kaider-is-my-otp @slmkaider @luna-maximoff-22 @cosmicnovaflare @kaixiety @snozkat @mirrorballsss @skinwitch18 @vincentvangothic @bakergirl13 @wassupnye @linh-cindy @therealkaidertrash21

#the lunar chronicles #tlc #lunar chronicles #linh cinder #kaider #emperor kai #angst #kaider fanfiction #this is not a lovey dovey happy ending folks

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dimonds456 · 2 years

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some hlvrai headcanons because i need to get these out

Dr Coomer is a cyborg, right? That's because of how many clones he has. Even just a tiny bit will make a whole person, but he has 300 clones. Anyone would be more man than machine after that.

Benry's Sweet Voice means different things. I'm making a full interpreted list here.

Benry is from Xen. That doesn't mean he likes it there.

Benry had to learn how to speak English. Being an alien, that's his second language. This is why he sometimes can't understand people and needs a moment to process.

He's also autistic.

Benry cannot lie with Sweet Voice, but he can lie verbally.

Bubby has acquired neurodivergence

Gordon has ADHD

Gordon is still married, but probably not for long. Just the fact that he never once mentions a partner ever gives me the impression that he doesn't care for them, even if they'd had a child together.

I don't think he's divorced since he didn't bond with Coomer over that shared experience

Dr Coomer knew Bubby from before he was released from his tube, but quite by accident. After Black Meda found out, they were like "screw it" and let Coomer help with Bubby's growth.

That happened decades ago.

Gordon derealizes a lot. This is partly due to his trauma, and partly to his ADHD.

Bubby is roughly the same age as Dr Coomer. They've been bonding since they were in their 30s

Tommy is half alien, half human. His mother's whereabouts are unknown, and his father very rarely interacts with him due to the nature of his species. When explaining this, he's found it easier to say "I'm an orphan."

Sunkist was built from the ground up. Took one strand of DNA from a golden retriever, then used some Alien Shit™ and science to create her. She was also technically born in a tube.

Sunkist's puppy years lasted for 7 years.

Sunkist's pronouns are she/her (Lauren plays her), but Tommy's concept of gender isn't 100%. So Tommy calls her he/him. If she could understand, she wouldn't mind.

Tommy has always had Sunkist, and she has always had him. So when Tommy didn't come home one day, she went looking for him. This lead to Forzen kidnapping her.

Tommy and Benry don't have clear concepts of gender. They just use whatever pronouns work and don't care about the true meaning of them.

Benry is one of the last of his species. Black Mesa hunted them down, but managed to grab a small child before it could grow into its predatory instincts. That child was Benry.

Benry got stockholm syndrom from being in Black Mesa for so long. This was on purpose, and is also why he's allowed to be a guard.

Being with the Science Team helped undo that, but not all the way.

Xen also just genuinely sucks, so.

Benry is not dead (as shown in the cast commentary). The passports really had nothing to do with that, he just likes them :)

To tap into the weird logic of HLVRAI, he needed a passport to be a guard since he's an "alien." If that sounds fucked up, that's because it is.

Benry has no true concept of love and what it is, in any sense of the word, because of how he was raised in Black Mesa. This is why he has no filter.

Benry and Gordon do become friends after a while. This takes place after robbing the bank.

#hlvrai #half life vr but the ai is self aware #half life vr ai #tommy coolatta #benry #benrey #gordon freeman #gordon freeman hlvrai #dr coomer #dr bubby #bubby #sunkist coolatta #forzen #cw derealization

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theharddeck · 2 years

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except for maybe you, and your simple smile

Pairing: Jake Seresin x Julie Floyd (OC)

Synopsis: Hangman's girlfriend makes sure Jake is taken care of during Payback’s bachelor party, and the morning after, he decides to return the favor

Warnings: 18+, minors please DNI – starts out pretty fluffy, then it does devolve into smut and swearing, the usual (i.e. explicit freceiving!oral and PiV sex)

Length: 6.7k

A/N: I'm considering writing a holiday fic with Julie, so wanted to start bringing her over from ao3. if this goes well, i might cross-post their meetcute, so lmk if y'all want more! tldr Julie Floyd is Bob's older sister; they meet during TGM when they both go to the infirmary to check in on Bob and Phoenix after the training crash.

tagging: @peakyrogers @wildbornsiren @fuckyeahhangman @laracrofted (ik you’ve already seen it but still), @princessofglitterland @callsignvalley @daggerspare-standingby @almostgenerallyalways @jadore-andor @bioodforbiood @blue-aconite @winterrebel04 @gigisimsonmars and if you're not on the list but want to be, or the inverse, let me know!

read on ao3 instead

Which meant she alone bore tribute to the judges’ poor rationale on the GBBO.

Julie’s favorite baker had produced 46 macarons, just short of the requisite four dozen, which would be a valid criticism except she had made four dozen, but had startled into crushing two of them when another contestant dropped his kitchen aid on his foot. And now Xiomara was being voted off, because Paul Hollywood couldn’t appreciate the absolute genius that was a flight of macarons inspired by Camille Saint-Saens’ Carnival of the Animals , even if she was two short of perfection.

Julie was pulled out of her brooding by the vibrating of her phone on the bedside table.

She checked the caller ID and sat up quickly, muting the TV as she answered the call.

“Natasha? Everything okay?” she asked.

“Yeah, babe, all good,” Natasha shouted into the phone, over the clamor of a noisy bar. “Your boyfriend’s getting sloppy drunk; we found him feeding quarters into a decorative payphone, trying to call you, so here he is.”

There was a shuffling sound, and Julie relaxed back into the pillows against the headboard. Natasha sounded perfectly sober, but Julie had heard stories about how she could drink any of the guys under the table, so her friend’s voice wasn’t a tell of how far gone the others could be.

“Julia,” she heard a moment later, Jake’s voice making her smile. He was the only one who used her full name, but she’d decided years ago that she didn’t mind.

Or maybe that was just the power of a Texan accent.

“Hey, Hangman,” Julie said into the phone. “You having fun?”

“Phoenix is bullying me,” he said, and she heard him grunt as Natasha presumably swatted at him, before he turned away from her. “I think she’s a cyborg or something, Jules; she’s downing shots like they’re water.”

Julie shook her head. “Just make sure you’re drinking water, yeah? Let’s do our level best to keep the hangover at bay.”

There was a loud sigh, so close that it shorted out the microphone. “You’re so good at that,” Jake said, and he sounded cross.

“At what?” Julie asked, trying her hardest to keep her amusement out of her voice.

“Taking care of me,” Jake said, his voice somehow still put out.

“Why are you saying that like it’s a bad thing?”

“S’not,” Jake said, then he sniffed. “You’re just…very good.”

He was sweet when he was sentimental, like it snuck up on him. Jake was pretty good about compliments when he was sober, but it was always affirming to hear the guileless version when he was a little tipsy.

“I hear you’re pretty good too,” Julie reassured him, thinking that Jake was probably the only person she knew who could get away with having a catch phrase in real life.

“Course I am,” Jake responded immediately, then he paused as he thought it over. “But I’m good at things, you’re just decent. Like kind and shit.”

Julie smoothed the comforter, the white down feeling soft under her fingers, rippled around where her weight crumpled it. “We’re getting you there.”

Jake hummed a little, like he disagreed but didn’t want to say it. “I like when you say we’re a we.”

Julie pushed the wrinkles back the other way on the comforter. “We are, aren’t we?”

“I know, but I like it. It’s nice,” Jake paused. “I miss you.”

Julie stopped fidgeting with the comforter, surprised by the sweet longing in his voice. “Babe, you saw me like four hours ago,” she said gently.

“What happened to my feelings being valid?” Jake asked, candor replaced by petulance.

“They are, of course,” Julie amended quickly.

Jake huffed. “Well I miss you.”

“I’ll see you in a couple hours more, yeah?” Julie offered. “How’s that sound?”

“Good,” he said wistfully. “That sounds good. You’re so good, Julia, I mean it.”

Julie went back to the comforter. “You’re not so bad yourself,” she told him.

“See this is what I mean!” Jake said, annoyed again. “Just take the compliment, okay? It doesn’t have to be about me too.”

Julie tipped her head. “What happened to liking ‘we’?”

“Of course I like ‘we’,” Jake said, thinking. “I love you.”

Julie smiled. “I love you, too.”

“I love you too,” Jake said, and Julie could practically see everyone around him rolling their eyes.

“Alright, Seresin, you get back to having fun, okay?” she told him.

Jake sighed, like he was steeling himself for a daunting task.

“Okay,” he agreed. “Well, not okay, but I’ll try. The guys won’t let me play pool.”

“Bastards,” Julie said, loyally.

“It’s okay; the sticks are awful sharp, did you know? They are,” he said solemnly, and the background noise got louder as someone pulled his attention away from the phone. “Oh, hey, Fanboy. Yeah, it’s Julia. Now, wait–-”

There was a rustling sound on the other end, which Julie assumed was Mickey fighting the phone away from Jake. She waited for it to stop, and then a moment later heard the wizzo’s voice on the line.

“Julie, your boyfriend’s bringing this down,” Mickey complained. “At this rate, he’ll be tapping out in an hour.”

Julie didn’t think Mickey sounded 100% either, but she wasn’t about to say it.

“Do me a favor and keep him vertical,” she said instead, and she heard Mickey snort.

“Anything for my second favorite Floyd,” he rejoined.

Julie shook her head, reaching over to grab the binder inside the nightstand, flipping pages till she found room service.

“Alright, I’ll take the hint and sign off,” she told Mickey. “Have a reasonable amount of fun, okay?”

“Yeah, yeah,” Mickey said. “Here’s Phoenix.”

There was a shuffling as the phone was passed back, and Julie heard Natasha’s longsuffering sigh before she put the phone up to her ear.

“All the men I love are lightweights,” Natasha said. “What are we gonna do about that?”

Julie laughed quietly. “Are they lightweights, or are you superhuman, Nat?”

“Now you sound like Jake,” she said, and Julie could hear the grin on her friend's voice. “At this rate, we’ll be home before 2am. Call you if anything changes, but don’t wait up, okay?”

“Okay,” Julie agreed. “Make good choices.”

“Don’t I always,” Natasha said, and she hung up.

Julie put the phone back on the side table, a small smile on her face as she looked around the room.

That group was special. Some of them went back to their first pass through Top Gun, some of them had first met when they were trained by Captain Mitchell, but their friendship was sweet to get to witness. Julie knew Robbie was disappointed to miss out on this weekend, but he was needed at Lemoore and had negotiated for the week of Reuben’s wedding off.

Julie checked the amount of time left in the episode, then the finale, then took a quick break to order room service. If she was going to watch more minor atrocities be committed for the sake of British baking, it was going to be accompanied by hotel-made creme brulee.

----

Julie hadn’t meant to fall asleep, but between the sugar of the dessert and the soothing accents on her screen, she blinked awake in the bright lights of the room. There was something else too…

A moment later, she heard it again, the beeping of the room key reader, as it declined entry. Julie rolled off the bed pulling her sweatshirt over her thumbs and padding over to the door, to check the peephole.

It was nearly covered by brown hair and through the door, Julie could hear Jake muttering, coaching himself through opening the door.

The reader beeped again and Julie waited until she heard weight shift away from the door before opening it slowly.

Jake startled, hands coming out for balance as the hallway moved around him. He was weaving slightly, not enough for monumental concern, and Julie waited for him to gain his bearings and find her.

“Julia,” he grinned broadly, relieved. “I think our door is broken.”

Julie looked down to where he was pressing his credit card against the hotel room door, the reader determinedly showing red as it waited for the room key. “We’ll call the desk in the morning, get them to come check it out.”

“I guess,” Jake frowned, doubtful, then looked back up at her.

Julie held out a hand, opening the door further to pull him back into the room. Jake took her hand as he walked by her, but then he raised her arm over her head.

Julie let him lead her into a twirl, knowing they looked absolutely ridiculous in the hallway. She, barefoot in pajama shorts and a sweatshirt, Jake in a button down, jeans, and the cowboy boots he wore on principle when he was out of uniform. Smiling stupidly, moving gracelessly, but Jake looked pleased when she centered back on him, and so she was okay with it.

“Hey, darlin’,” he said, voice lower closer, proud of himself for the move.

“Sugar,” Julie teased, always amused when Jake’s Texan came out stronger when he was a little out of it.

She closed the door behind them, but Jake didn’t let go of her hand, pulling her back to him, their arms settling around each others’ waists. Jake was still weaving, but in context, it felt almost like dancing. Side to side between feet, stomachs and hips close together, quiet in the bright lights of the room. Julie tilted her head to rest her chin on Jake’s shoulder. He was just taller than her barefooted, and the boots helped a little, as they turned in a slow circle in the entryway.

“We should go line dancing,” Jake said, his voice rumbling through his chest. He was warm, his shoulders heavy and chest broad against her, and he felt soft, relaxed.

“In Chicago?” Julie asked, swaying along with him.

“In Chicago,” Jake scoffed. “Absolutely not.”

“Alright,” Julie agreed, trying not to laugh, “location to be determined at a later date. Want to take your boots off?”

Jake looked down, seemingly surprised to find them still on his feet.

“Yeah, okay,” he said, and dropped his arms immediately.

He moved over to an ottoman in the entryway, sitting widely and leaning down to pull off his boots. Julie stayed near the door, watching him.

For all his arrogance when she’d first met him, this version of him always seemed the closest to real. Honest and bumbling, dutifully following instructions, twirling her because he could, dancing because he wanted to. With his thighs spread and hands tugging at the leather, Julie thought she could see him a century ago, coming home to a ranch in Wyoming, after a cattle drive.

Of course, in that image, she’d have an apron instead of pajama shorts, and a kitchen instead of a nursing degree.

Jake lined his boots up carefully and looked back up at her.

“I smell like a bar,” he announced.

Julie pressed her lips together. “That does track, yes.”

“I’m gonna shower,” he said, nodding determinedly.

“Sounds good,” Julie said. She needed to get ready for bed anyway, so she could keep an eye on him.

“Don’t fall asleep without me, okay?”

Julie looked back at him at his simple request, worry clear on his face.

He was drunk enough that she hadn’t planned on leaving him unattended near a running tap, or pushing for anything other than sleep. But the sweetness in his ask settled over her, and she smiled softly.

She crossed over to him, cupping the side of his face with her hand. When he was on duty, Jake kept himself clean-shaven, but on weekends like this, or ends of weekends like this, he was a bit of a scratchy scruff going, and it was rough against her palm. One of Jake’s hands circled her wrist and he turned his head to press against the inside of it, waiting for her answer.

“Take a shower, Dallas,” she told him. “I’ll wait for you.”

He smiled, a simple thing that turned the corners of his mouth up slightly and he nodded. He pushed himself to his feet, weaving slightly before he regained his balance and started towards the bathroom.

Julie stopped by his suitcase to grab pajama pants and a Longhorns tshirt before following him. Her toiletries were already on the counter and she left Jake’s clothes on the commode. She brushed her teeth, keeping an eye on her boyfriend through the frosted glass of the shower doors, then washed her face. By the time she’d made it to the serum portion of her skincare routine, Jake was simply standing under the shower spray, water running over his body, his rote actions completed.

“How we doing in there?” she asked, and Jake jumped.

“Uh, good,” he said, rolling his shoulders. “Good. Almost done.”

“Take your time,” Julie said reassuringly, leaning back against the countertop as she worked the serum in with a jade roller.

A couple minutes later, the tap turned off, and as Jake pulled the towel off the top of the shower door into the stall with him, Julie let herself out of the bathroom to give him some privacy. She kept the door cracked, of course, so she could hear if anything happened, but moved the creme brulee dishes and tray from the bedside table, clearing the area.

Jake was humming Jingle Bells as he brushed his teeth, a habit he normally kept inaudible, to get him to two minutes. Julie flipped off the overhead lights, leaving on the headboard light on Jake’s side as she turned down the covers. As she slipped under the comforter, she heard Jake opt up for the final “one horse open sleighhhh”.

A minute later, Jake stood silhouette in the bathroom light, pausing as he looked into the room. His hair was obviously towel dried, sticking straight up at the crown of his head, none of his normal styling methods implemented. It was an endearing effect, especially combined with the rumpled pajamas.

“Come over,” Julie said, flipping the edge of the comforter open. Thankfully, her nap earlier hadn’t been deep enough that she now didn’t want to sleep, but she was sure Jake was more tired than he was aware.

Jake flipped off the light and ambled over to the bed, dropping heavily into it.

“No, you come over,” he mumbled, holding open an arm.

Julie smiled to herself, rolling over towards him. “You’re not gonna get that light are you?” she asked.

“What light?”

When she looked up at him, Jake’s brow was wrinkled in confusion, and his eyes were very much closed. Julie lifted herself over him, flipping off the light before tucking herself back into his side.

“There ya go,” Jake said, sounding very pleased with himself for someone who didn’t do anything.

“There you go,” Julie repeated into his chest. Jake’s tshirt was a little damp from the humidity in the bathroom, but she could feel the warmth of him through it, and, relaxed like this, he felt so comfortable.

“Thanks for fixing the broken door,” Jake mumbled, craning his neck to press a kiss to the top of her forehead.

“Of course,” Julie whispered back. “Did you have a good time?”

“Yeah,” Jake said, breaking off in a yawn. “Drank water too, like you said.”

Julie patted his chest consolingly. “Well done, babe.”

“Thank you,” Jake yawned again. “Night, darlin’.”

Julie smiled in the darkness, knowing he couldn’t see. “Goodnight, sugar.”

Her eyes drifted shut as she heard Jake’s breathing even out, the steadiness of his heartbeat like a simple lullaby as sleep washed over them both.

-----

Sunlight filtered softly through the sheer curtains, casting the room in a gentle warm light, and Julie blinked awake. She lay still for a moment, following the narrow beam of light from between where the two curtains almost met, a ray of sunlight across the bottom of the bed. She could feel Jake’s breath against her neck, uneven enough for her to know he was awake before she turned around to face him.

He let go of her as she rolled over, but his hand returned to her waist when she settled. His thumb stroked lightly underneath the hem of her sweatshirt, brushing a little half moon over her skin. Julie settled onto the pillow, their noses just a breath apart, and she couldn’t help but smile at him.

His green eyes were bright in the morning light, his mussed hair stuck up in an unkempt pattern, and Julie reached up to smooth it down. Jake’s eyes fluttered slightly when her nails met his scalp, and she ran her fingers through his hair to settle it,

“Hey,” Julie whispered.

“Hey,” Jake said back, his voice scratchy, and Julie smiled at the rough texture of it. “How’d you sleep?”

“Good,” Julie ran her hand down the back of his head, curling around the back of his neck. “I think we need to get better sheets for the apartment.”

Jake smiled, the corners of his eyes crinkling. “I knew splurging on the hotel was gonna cost me more than the weekend.”

“You and me both,” Julie sighed, stretching a little. “What about you–-did you sleep okay? How’re you feeling?”

Jake hummed. “Someone reminded me halfway through the night that I should be drinking water. Saved me a hell of a hangover, I think.”

Julie scratched lightly at the hair at the nape of his neck. “She sounds like a genius.”

“Definitely that,” Jake agreed. “She also waited up to make sure I got in okay, and that I didn’t drown myself in the shower.”

“She should probably be nominated for sainthood,” Julie prompted, but then she couldn't keep up the charade. “I have a confession.”

“That’s thematic,” Jake said.

“I didn’t wait up for you, not at first. I fell asleep watching Great British Bakeoff, and woke up when the door kept beeping because you were trying to open it with your credit card instead of the room key”

Jake laughed, and Julie lifted herself off his chest to look at him.

God, he was handsome.

Such a classic, silly, word, but it fit him. Fit his charm and his ease, his straight teeth and stubborn chin, and how he’d just woken up and his hair was barely finger-combed, but he still looked like something gorgeous.

He calmed down, face pressed into the pillow across from her, and under her sweatshirt, his fingers stilled.

“Ah, Julia,” he said, his voice somehow still scratchy. “You can’t look at me like that.”

Julie rolled her eyes, pulling her hand away from his hair to press it over her eyes. “Take it up with your pretty face; it’s not my fault.”

She heard him laugh again, quieter this time, and then he pulled her hand away from her face. He didn’t let go of her wrist, circled by his fingers, and the hand on her waist pushed further under her sweatshirt, spreading over the skin there.

“Either way,” Jake said quietly, his eyes intent. “Thank you.”

Julie licked her lips. “For what?”

Jake’s eyes crinkled, but his mouth barely moved into a smile. “You answered when Phoenix called, and we yelled at you like lunatics in the middle of Clark Street. You got out of bed to let me in, and waited up after that, to make sure I was okay.”

Julie sighed, wishing Jake understood those weren’t monumental acts of kindness, as much as they were things people did when they cared. And he knew she cared, but he seemed to forget how much.

“That’s my job, honey,” Julie said softly.

Jake was still for a moment, and the lines around his eyes deepened before he leaned across the pillow to kiss her. Julie smiled at the first brush of his lips over hers, soft and careful, just quick appreciation. After a moment, he went to pull back, but Julie followed him. Jake’s hand tightened on her waist as her body pressed against his, and he kissed her slow and deep, until the world felt like maple syrup around them.

“Always taking care of me,” Jake murmured against her skin. His stubble scraped against her face as he nudged her chin up with his nose, tipping Julie’s head back. She swallowed heavily as he kissed her neck, a slow press of lips and a tease from his tongue before he moved on to a new spot. “I think it’s my turn now.”

“Tor what?” Julie asked, her voice sounding breathless, which Jake seemed to appreciate. He blew out a slow breath, cool air over a spot he’d just licked, and Julie shivered.

“To take care of you,” Jake said against her skin. His lips closed over her and Julie bit back a whine as she felt the pressure of his mouth and the carefulness of his words at her core.

“I told you it’s not like that,” Julie managed to say, carding her hands through his hair. When she pulled lightly, he sucked a little harder and Julie gasped.

Her hand fell from his hair to his shoulders, pulling him closer to her. She wanted his weight, more pressure, more of him, and when he let her lead him, she felt his chuckle through his chest. Jake shifted, obliging, his strong thighs on either side of hers, and the hand at her waistband moved over her stomach and down.

“I know,” Jake said soothingly, his fingers skimming across her hip bone, over her underwear. “But I want to anyway. Will you let me?”

Julie looked up at him, his broad shoulders and his tan skin, bright eyes and morning hair, and shook her head.

“Why’d you have to bring reciprocity into it?” she asked.

Jake raised an eyebrow. “So you’re saying you don’t want me to…” he trailed off as his fingers dipped below the hem of her Calvin Kleins. His hand brushed over smooth skin and dense hair before his broad palm settled warmly over her core. His thumb rubbed lightly over the inside of her thigh, but his palm settled, cupping her.

Julie’s hips canted up of their own volition, wanting more pressure, more friction. Jake didn’t move though, just stayed, waited, eyes laughing, as Julie willed her body to still.

“Need something, darlin’?” Jake teased.

Julie scowled at him. “Why do you have to be so smug about it?”

Jake shrugged lightly, his thumb continuing its maddening pattern inside her thigh. “Why do you have to be so principled about it?”

He rolled his hips slightly, pushing his hand more firmly against her, but still not moving beyond giving her more of his weight.

“Come on, Julia,” Jake whispered. He braced himself on his elbow before leaning down to kiss her, pulling away almost as soon as she rose to meet him. He kissed her jaw, her neck, and she felt his lips curl into a smile over his teeth as he pulled back again. Julie realized she was grinding up against the hand he was insisting on keeping still, and she pulled at his hair to bring him back to her mouth.

Jake inhaled sharply as he kissed her, his lips soft and hungry and Julie loved that she could feel his chest expanding with his breath as he moved over her. He pushed his torso off of her, their noses touching, their lips a breath away, and Jake’s eyes were dark as they traced over her face. His hand lifted, his thumb moving up to brush over her clit, and Julie jolted at the contact.

“You’re so beautiful like this,” Jake murmured. He moved his thumb again, and Julie shuddered as he circled over her.

“Jake-–” she started, breaking off as he pulled back.

“Please,” he said, determinedly, and his middle finger traced along her slit. Julie gasped as he dragged his finger through the wetness there, and Jake groaned quietly. “Let me taste you here, Jules.”

How the hell was she supposed to say no to that?

Julie nodded mutely, rewarded by the nearly canine smile that Jake’s mouth curled into.

“Thank you, baby,” Jake breathed, leaning down to kiss her again before pushing himself off of her. He settled back on his thighs, kneeling around hers, and his hands smoothed down her sides before grabbing the waistband of her shorts and underwear.

“Lift,” he commanded quietly, and Julie lifted her hips off the bed so he could pull them off of her. “Good girl.”

Julie pressed her lips together, not even pretending that his praise didn’t affect her. They both knew it did, he loved that it did, and so it worked out pretty great all around.

Jake pressed her back to the bed with a hand over her stomach, fingers splayed and pressure steady. With his other hand, he reached for one of her knees, guiding it down towards the mattress, and Julie’s legs opened. Jake made a sound low in his throat, looking down at the apex of her thighs, and his hand on her stomach drifted down over her thigh to the same spot just above her knee.

“So pretty,” he said quietly, almost to himself, and Julie blushed. It wasn’t like she was bashful at this point in their relationship, but his frank appreciation still felt like it set her skin aflame. Jake slid off the end of the bed, his grip on her legs turning so he could grasp the back of her knees, and he pulled her sharply to the edge of the bed. He knelt then, his face so close to the core of her, and when he blew out a shaky breath, Julie felt it against her.

“Jake, please-–”

“No, baby,” Jake said, his voice quiet and steady. He pressed a slow kiss to one of her thighs, then the other, ignoring the place where she was aching for him. His mouth was soft and warm, his jaw scratchy from his beard, and he rubbed his chin against her thighs like he was getting comfortable. “You almost didn’t let me down here, and now you want to tell me how it goes? I don’t think that’s how it works.”

He was so close, she could practically feel his words against her skin, but he still didn’t touch her, the sweetest torture. Julie’s hips rose and Jake’s grip on her thighs tightened slightly, pressing her deeper into the mattress.

“Say please, angel,” he said quietly, and Julie felt his words past her skin, in her blood, her breath catching.

“Please, Jake,” she breathed, and he made a sound in the back of his throat, like a purr.

“That’s my girl,” he murmured, and then he leaned into her.

God, his tongue.

Julie’s head fell back as he licked up her center, tongue flat and broad as he spread her with it. He made that low sound again, like approval and hunger, and he licked her. Slow like he wasn’t in a hurry, like he wanted to savor her, like he knew it would drive her crazy. He pulled back, teasing her with light kisses and Julie’s back bowed away from the bed when his tongue found her clit. He sunk into her, and she parted for him, succumbed, accepted and wanted and needed him.

“Fuck, sweetheart,” Jake whispered against her skin, and Julie looked down at him when he pulled back. He brushed his thumb across his lower lip, “You taste damn good.”

He lowered that hand to her, teasing her opening, and Julie’s eyes fluttered touch at the lightness of that touch. As his mouth returned to her clit, his finger traced through her folds, soothing and searching.

“Jake,” Julie moaned as his mouth laved over her, “you feel so good, please, I need–-”

She broke off as he pressed his finger into her, sitting back on his heels to look at her. His eyes were dark and he lifted his chin, panting, watching her. Julie could see his chest rising as he steadied his breathing, his tongue darting out to wet his lips and, fuck, taste her while he looked down at her.

“I know,” Jake said, voice low. “I always know, don’t I?”

“Yes,” Julie whispered, and it was true. He eased another finger into her, slow and steady, stretching her gently.

“That’s it, sweetheart,” Jake said, his accent thickening as he looked over her. “Open up for me.”

Julie shuddered when he moved his wrist, curling his fingers inside her. The stretch of him felt heavenly, grounding, and when his mouth returned to her clit, Julie whimpered.

Jake worshipped her with his mouth, worked her with his fingers, and she heard his breathing grow ragged again as he pleasured her. Pressure built in her core, low and pulsing, driven by the stroke of his fingers and the pull of his tongue and Julie felt her thighs start to tremble.

Jake pulled back, chest heaving, his breath warm against her.

“Fuck, sweetheart, it’s so pretty,” he murmured, his fingers pressing deeper into her and wringing a cry out of Julie. “That’s it, angel, look how well you’re taking me.”

Julie’s hips stuttered at his words, arching up into his hand as he worked her. No matter how far gone she was, Jake could always push her farther with his words, running over her like a caress, like velvet. His fingers brushed against a deep part of her and Julie’s back bowed off the bed as she cried out.

“Shit, Jake,” she moaned, reaching blindly for him. Her hand found his shoulder, and she traced up the curve of his neck, burying her fingers in the hair at the nape of his neck.

Jake groaned when she pulled, and she felt the mattress shift as his hips jerked forward, unintentional. The motion sent a jolt of clarity through Julie’s pleasure-addled brain and she opened her eyes, looking down at the man on his knees between her legs.

“Babe,” she whispered, and Jake hummed, looking up at her. The vibration rocked through Julie, almost as devastating as his eyes, glittering and hungry, while his mouth was buried in her.

“What do you need, sweetheart?” he rumbled against her, and Julie’s thighs clenched at the gravel in his tone. She bit her lip, fighting off the rising waves, holding on to him.

It was good, so fucking good, but she wanted more, needed him closer, needed him with her.

“I want you to come with me, babe,” she said.

Jake grunted, but he didn’t move from between her legs, his tongue tracing over her, sucking hard enough to make Julie’s eyes snap shut as she shuddered.

“Jake,” she moaned, “I want it with you, I want to feel you–-”

Jake increased the pressure of his fingers, thrusting into her and cutting off her words. And Julie knew what he was doing, wanted to see her finish first, the stubborn man, and she’d be more upset about it if it didn’t feel like the best fucking thing.

Unfortunately for him, she was pretty stubborn, too.

She untangled her hand from his hair, reaching down to wrap around his wrist. His hand stilled and he looked up at her through the hair falling in his face; though her body was screaming in frustration, Julie’s heart warmed when his sweet eyes met hers.

“I need you, Jake,” she whispered, a different tactic. “So fucking bad, please.”

Jake shuddered, his shoulders tensing at her words and his hips jutted forward towards the bed.

“Jules, I want you to–-”

The distance he needed to speak was enough for Julie to wiggle out of his grip. She slid back, quickly, up the bed, reaching into the nightstand for a condom and tossing it back down the bed.

“And what I want,” she rolled over onto her stomach, heard Jake groan as she pushed back from the headboard, “is to come on your cock.”

“Jesus, Jules,” Jake muttered, a million things on his voice. She heard the foil tearing and Julie rocked back on her hips, aching, empty.

“Ah, sweetheart, I can see you from here,” Jake groaned. “Dripping for me, aren’t you?”

Julie looked over her shoulder, intending to say something provocative, but her words failed at the sight of him. In the time she’d been at the front of the bed, Jake had peeled off his tshirt and stepped out of his pajama pants. His legs were spread, strong thighs flexing as he rolled the condom over his length. He grunted when he reached the base, his hand pumping over himself once more, thick and hard.

Julie’s mouth actually watered.

“Come on, Lieutenant,” she breathed, swaying her hips. “Let’s have it.”

Jake licked his lips, fisting his cock once more, but he didn’t crawl up the bed. Instead, he walked around the side of it, step slow and cock hanging heavy. When he got up to the headboard, he reached across the bed, hand tracing down the side of Julie’s face before fisting the hair at the nape of her neck. He pulled and she turned to him as his mouth sought hers like he was starving. She tasted herself on his lips, on his tongue, whimpered as he thrust into her mouth. Her body hummed, still desperate from the denied high, and she moaned in relief when she felt Jake shifting to climb onto the bed.

His body was warm, taut with tension, and he let go of his grip on her hair to reach under her sweatshirt to palm her breasts. Julie gasped when his fingers found her nipples, smoothing over her as he groped her, graceless, perfect. They were past finesse, hungry for as much skin as possible, and she pressed backwards into him. Jake released her to pull off her sweatshirt, and guided her back down to the bed with a hand pressed to the small of her back. His body came down on top of her, delicious weight that made Julie want to combust, purr, dissolve into the bedding or into him. She moaned when she felt the outline of his dick against her thighs, and Jake smoothed her hair away from the side of her neck so he could suck on the skin there.

“You ready for me, angel?” he whispered into her neck and Julie whimpered, nodding quickly.

She needed him, could feel how desperately empty she was without him, and when he pressed his head against her center, Julie thought she might sob in relief.

He eased his cock into her.

It was impossibly slow, deep and inescapable, and Julie’s mouth hung open as Jake kept pushing. Refusing a rhythm, or friction beyond entrance, stretching and filling her and Julie didn’t realize he thighs were shaking until Jake pushed himself onto his elbows, reaching down with a wide hand to smooth over her legs, whispering as he pushed in.

“You’re doing so good for me, baby,” he kissed her hair, the back of her neck, her shoulder. “Look at you, taking all of me, like this.”

“Jake,” Julie whispered, almost sobbed, heat coiling through her body. He was everywhere, over and around and in her, steady and strong and so fucking big and rocking home.

“I'm right here, sweetheart,” he whispered, jaw clenched tight as he waited for her body to adjust to him. “You’re doing so fucking good, baby, you feel perfect.”

Julie reveled in his touch, in his words, warm and dirty and perfect. She wanted more. She shifted her hips and Jake cursed as she moved, before his hands snaked down to grip her waist. He rolled his hips and he pressed deeper into her, pulling back before stroking into her, and pleasure threaded through both of them. Jake’s breath strained as he fucked into her, pulling her hips into him and driving impossibly deep.

He groaned her name, and Julie’s core clenched; this was what she’d wanted what she’d chased. Needed him this close, wanting her this bad, driving into her. She felt unmoored, starved, her fingers digging into the comforter as she pushed back to meet him, hips moving to the rhythm he set.

“Baby,” Jake choked, “you can’t...you feel...wait--”

He reached down for her hair again, pulling, and Julie pushed herself off the bed. He lifted her against his chest, sitting back on his thighs, thrusting up into her as he reached between her legs.

Julie cried when he brushed over her clit, his forearm banding across her chest, forging their bodies together like he was just as desperate for this closeness. He rutted up into her, rubbing and pressing and as Julie felt herself going boneless, Jake growled.

“So that’s what you needed, angel, huh?” he ground into her, holding her at the highest point, breath hot against her shoulder, “to get this cock so deep your body forgets how to do anything but take it?”

Julie writhed in his lap, his words and his body driving her higher and the room swam. She was melting, tightening, desire pulsing through her and he kept on.

“Fuck,” Julie cried, her head falling back over his shoulder. “Jake, babe, please, I’m so close…”

“I know, sweetheart,” Jake ground, kissing her neck. His tongue laved over her skin as he rocked the bed with his thrusts. “Give it to me, come on now.”

Julie moaned and Jake bit down lightly at her pulse point and she shattered. Her vision blurred as she shivered, trembling at the force of pleasure he wrung out of her. She felt tears leaking from the corners of her eyes from the force of it, beautiful and relentless and the hot pulses of it wracked her as she lay back on Jake’s chest.

“That’s it,” Jake breathed. “It’s so good, you’re so good, fuck, baby-–”

Jake’s thrusts sped up, his thighs slapping against hers as he chased his own release. He pumped into her frantically, still working a finger over her to coax her through her orgasm and Julie felt him jerk when she whimpered his name. He came with a shout as he thrust into her, choking on his breath and Julie felt him pulsing as he came hard. Her core was throbbing, aching and satisfied but she curled her hips, milking him, and Jake moaned as she pulled out his orgasm. His chest heaved under her, and they stayed locked together, trembling, working out their pleasure in each others’ bodies.

Julie came out of it first, slowly becoming aware of Jake’s hands smoothing over her thighs and around to the curve of her ass, soothing himself and her. She rolled her head off his shoulder, craning around to kiss his cheek.

“Well done, Dallas,” she whispered, and he chuckled warmly, nestling into the curve of her neck.

“Have I told you lately how perfect you are?” he mumbled into her neck.

Julie smiled softly; it did feel pretty perfect. “Not today,” she told him. “But I forgive you.”

Jake snorted, leaning back so they could stretch across the bed. Julie rolled over to face him fully, and Jake fixed her hair so she wasn’t lying on it, and then sighed as he relaxed into a pillow.

“Julia Floyd,” he said somberly, eyes closed and lips curled up into the most endearing smile. “You’re fucking perfect.”

Julie leaned across the pillow to kiss him. He caught his breath and she felt his thumb graze over her cheekbone before she pulled back.

Jake grinned, a smile like sunlight as his eyes crinkled. His hand curled up to tuck some of her hair behind her ear, and he sighed, something deep and happy, a sound Julie wished she could always hear with him.

“Love you,” she whispered.

Jake smiled. “Love you more,” he said back.

It was a perpetual disagreement, but when he pushed out of bed to fetch her a warm washcloth and order room service of espresso and chocolate croissants, Julie found herself hoping that that was a disagreement they’d have for decades to come.

#jake seresin #jake hangman seresin #jake seresin x OC #jake seresin x julie floyd #hangman x oc #misskielwrites

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shadykazama · 17 days

Text

Genji Shimada

So I asked my friend which Overwatch character I should do my next alphabet headcanons about and they said Genji! So I'll be doing Genji next, probably later today.

However while I was thinking about him the thought of his cybernetics came to mind and I went off on a full blown tangent about it so I figured I'd post my thoughts on how much of Genji is a cyborg before I do his relationship stuff.

This is blackwatch, Genji, I don't know if this is canon or not but for the sake of this I'm saying it is. So as far as body parts go he's definitely missing his legs knee and under. I think he's wearing armor over his thighs though, he has intact femurs. He's missing his right arm and there's some kind of internal damage in his upper chest.

His eye piece comes off seperate to his mouth piece but that doesn't mean his mouth is robotic, I just think he takes the mask part off less often. His head and heart are all intact according to voice lines and evidence from skins.

Now might I direct your attention to his canon skins. We know from the short "Dragons" that those green circles on his upper body have a release mechanism meaning they manage pressure of some kind within his body.

(We can also see there's less of them in his OW2 design so it's a possibility they got upgraded to be more efficient.)

Now I'm about to lay down my biggest actual headcanon without much evidence besides speculation and "it'd be cool" to back it up.

I think Genji has robotic lungs.

WILD TAKE I KNOW BUT HEAR ME OUT.

He can eat, heard in the voice line about him being able to handle mercy's coffee, so we know his mouth is intact, along with the rest of his digestive system. I think the mouth part of his mask is to help him breathe. I think there was major damage to his respiratory system to the point where they had to make the choice to give him mechanical replacements, hence the need to release pressure when he exerts a LOT of energy (like after his fight with hanzo in the cinematic).

He breathes in game, so we know he needs lungs. Which makes sense if most of his main organs are intact. If the main damage was to his lungs, they could give him robotic ones. And my claim of them not giving him a lung transplant is supported by the fact that Mauga was given a second CYBERNETIC heart instead of a replacement when he was critically injured.

Also in the Doomfist origin cinematic when he threw Genji into a car he started sparking and held his chest, which I know may just be "oh he's a robot of course" written off, but it'd make sense if it was his lungs!! It would put him out of a fight if he can't supply oxygen to the rest of his body. Plus it would hurt him in his chest!

Going off of this, he can definitely breathe without the mask and obviously would need to take it off to eat (he has a lot of scarring on his throat I think, and maybe his jaw) but the mask hides the scar tissue and helps regulate his breathing more naturally. Now I'm not a doctor so this next part may make no sense, and let me know if it does but maybe the mask is connected to his lungs in like a nervous system kind of way? Since they wouldn't be connected to his nervous system entirely? So when he takes the mask off he has to manually breathe. Like the mask regulates it for him so he can do it subconsciously but without the mask it's a conscious manual breathing situation.

And my only real arguments for him not having a robotic heart instead of lungs is his voice line that says "The heart of a man still beats inside of me." Which of course could be metaphorical, "I'm still the same man, just with a different body." Kind of thing, but also he just never takes off that freaking mouth piece so I was thinking it had to serve a purpose!

Lol I'll get to work on my headcanons now but let me know what y'all think of this 🙏

#genji shimada #overwatch 2 #overwatch x reader #headcanons

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duhragonball · 9 months

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Dragon Ball Super Movie 2: Super Hero (1/5)

Finally, finally, it's time to talk about Dragon Ball Super: Super Hero. I've been waiting a long time to do this. First I had to wait for the movie to come out, then I had to wait a while for the rest of the fandom to go see it so I wouldn't spoil anything, then I had to wait for the DVD release so I could take screenshots, and by the time I was ready to do that, I was waist-deep in the 2023 Dragon Ball Apocrypha Liveblog. So the DVD has been sitting on my table for months waiting for me to get to this point, and now I'm finally here.

It's probably just as well, since blogging about the other stuff has helped me figure out how to tackle this movie. Like a rhinocerous sandwich, this thing is pretty big and dense, and I'm not really sure where to begin, and now Tumblr only lets me put 30 images in each post, so I have to think ahead a little. So I'm going to split this up into five installments and hopefully that will give me the room I need.

Super Hero opens with a flashback/recap focusing on the Red Ribbon Army. Real quick: the Red Ribbon Army was a mercenary group that dominated much of the world, until their hunt for the Dragon Balls put them into conflict with Son Goku, who destroyed their headquarters in Age 750. Seventeen years later, the Red Ribbon scientist Dr. Gero launched a campaign of revenge, using several cyborgs and androids of his own design. Gero failed, but his final experiment, Cell, managed to travel back in time from the future, where he nearly destroyed the whole world before Goku's son Gohan defeated him.

If you're a Dragon Ball fan, you probably already knew all of that, but what this movie reveals is that the Red Ribbon Army still lives on through its parent organization, the Red Pharmaceutical Company. When Commander Red died, his son Magenta inherited control over RPC, and he's been building up funds ever since, hoping to restore the Red Ribbon Army to its former glory. From behind the scenes, it was RPC that financed Dr. Gero's cybernetics research, but with Gero's death, there was really nothing more Magenta could do.

And that's what I really love about this shot of Magenta looking at a scale model of the old RR HQ. His father ran the Army from the real thing, but Magenta can't build a new one because Goku would just wreck it like he did before, and he can't beat Goku because Dr. Gero was the only one smart enough to build android warriors to kill that guy, and Gero's dead now. Magenta ought to be satisfied running the RPC, but what he really wants to do is rule the world, and he can't. Without Gero, the closest he can come to that dream is hanging around in this private little war museum he seems to have, and he probably can't even show it to anyone since it would expose the RPC's secret.

But then Magenta learned of Dr. Gero's grandson, Hedo. The movie opens with Magenta's right-hand-man, Carmine, giving a briefing on Hedo, so I assume Carmine was the one who discovered him. Better throw up the Carmine screenshot...

Man, these look great. Unfortunately only the bad guys seem to get them. Would have been neat if they made one for Goku or whatever. Yeah, everyone knows who Goku is, but who cares? I want to see an obnoxious still with his name in big letters.

This movie is chocked full with little gags and Easter eggs and such, so there's a lot to cover. Part of the reason for this is that the first twenty minutes of the movie is really heavy on exposition. The plot isn't all that complicated. The bad guys want to make some evil robots to kill the good guys, but to get there we have to explain who the bad guys are and how they joined forces, which takes a while. So there's a lot of visual things happening while they talk. For example, in this scene where Carmine has an overproduced powerpoint presentation playing while he explains who Dr. Hedo is. While he talks, Magenta has some sort of difficulty with hot beverages.

And while Carmine's video plays, we see Dr. Gero's family tree, including his wife, Vomi, and his son, Gevo. This is the first direct appearance of either character, although we've known about Gevo for some time. Several years ago, Akira Toriyama did an interview where he explained that Dr. Gero had a son in the Red Ribbon Army, and that son was killed during the battle with Goku, and so Gero modeled Android 16 after him. In the video game Dragon Ball Fighterz, we meet Android 21, who looks a lot like the image of Vomi in Carmine's video. I forget how and when these details were established, but the idea seems to be that Gero modeled #21 after his wife.

So does this mean Hedo is the son of Gevo? No, Gero had a second son, and that was Hedo's father. Hedo's parents died during his childhood, and he then went on to become a great scholar, earning his doctorate by age 14.

Today, Dr. Hedo is 24, and he's in prison, because he's a little too smart for his own good. Recently, he dug up some corpses and turned them into primitive androids, then he got them jobs at a convenience store to earn money for Hedo's research. I'm not exactly sure which laws were broken here, but it was enough to put him in jail. In the dub, Magenta observes that Hedo would have made more money with less fuss if he had simply robbed the store.

But Magenta doesn't care if Hedo is a little goofy. His talent for cybernetics is even greater than Dr. Gero's, which is pretty scary considering how close Gero came to destroying the Earth. Magenta needs those talents if he's ever going to bring back the Red Ribbon Army, so he waits three months for Hedo to get released from prison, then swings by to offer him a lift. To Magent's surprise, Hedo already knows who he is and has a pretty good guess as to what he wants.

This is because Hedo's been tracking Carmine with a surveillance device. It looks similar to the ones Dr. Gero used to study the Z-Fighters and collect genetic samples for Cell's creation. The difference is that Hedo claims it's a cyborg he built from a live bee. Maybe I shouldn't take this too literally, but it sure sounds like Hedo vivisected a bee in his prison cell and installed cameras and robot parts into its body. And for all I know, Gero did the same thing to make all of his spy robots, but I always assumed they were purely mechanical. Anyway, Carmine's been monitoring Hedo for a while now, driving by the prison yard whenever Hedo's out there, and Carmine's limo has a dome in the roof for his pompadour, so it was conspicuous enough for Hedo to notice. He built the bee, then had it trail Carmine until he found out who he was working for.

And the bee also gives us a great shot from behind Magenta's desk, where he has two framed photos. One is his dad, Commander Red, while the other is Colonel Violet. So we pretty much have to assume Violet is his mom, right? Kind of wild that Red and Violet were a thing, considering that one of the last times we saw Violet was when she looted the Red Ribbon vault during Goku's attack on their HQ. And she even did it in full view of the security cameras, probably knowing that Red would be watching.

So I wonder what Magenta and Violet's relationship must have been like? Is she still alive? Does Magenta know about her betrayal? How could he not? And considering how devoted he is to his father's dreams, how could he let her treason slide? Or maybe he recognizes that Red was a bad leader, and he means to succeed where Red failed. It's interesting stuff, that's all I'm trying to say.

Anyway, Hedo isn't too impressed with Magenta, but he has snacks, so Hedo gets in the car. Magenta asks if he got picked on during his prison sentence, and Hedo says everyone who gave him a trouble would always meet with "mysterious deaths". That column of black smoke behind them is the prison, by the way. The other inmates (and probably some guards) were chewing out Hedo as he left, so Hedo tossed a bomb inside as a final parting shot.

Magenta tries to sweet-talk Hedo by explaining their family connections. Gero once worked for Red, then Magenta inherited the RPC and continued to fund Gero's research. But Hedo isn't moved, since he never met his grandfather, and Hedo's parents hated Gero for his association with the Red Ribbon.

More importantly (to Hedo), he finds the Red Ribbon Army unappealing, because they resemble villains, while Hedo is a connoisseur of superheroes. That's why he's wearing the purple bodysuit, by the way. From what I can tell, Hedo's a fan of a TV show or something that features a character in a similar outfit.

So if Hedo's all into heroes, why did he... you know... desecrate those graves? I'm pretty sure that contradiction is the point of the character. He likes certain genres of entertainment, and he likes and identifies with heroic characters and their exploits, but he seems pretty much devoid of morals himself. He's like a Star Wars fan who loves the Jedi but has no qualms about harassing people who liked Episode VIII. He's one of those... oh, what's the word?

Asshole. Yeah, Hedo's an asshole.

So now Magenta has to convince Hedo that he's not an asshole, which is pretty stupid since they're clearly both assholes. Hedo just wants Magenta to pretend his asshole-ery is the same flavor as his own. So Magneta weaves this whole tale of how he wants to use his power and wealth to improve the world and stamp out evil. While he says all of this, Carmine cuts off the car ahead of him for driving too slow. But it's not just any civilian he did this to...

It's Janet! We'll meet Janet later on, but she gets a cameo here at the start of the movie, which is awesome to spot when you rewatch it. Fuck you, Carmine, for passing on the right and scaring Janet. Carmine doesn't had a big impact on the movie's plot, but he does generate nuclear heel heat simply because the things he does are very obnoxious. One thing I have to respect is that he's the one bad guy who doesn't try to rationalize or disguise his villainy. Carmine's a prick and he doesn't care who knows it.

For example, even after Magenta explains how he's a "champion of justice", and raises his offer to one billion zeni per android, Hedo still isn't convinced, so Carmine brandishes a gun just to make it clear that they won't take 'no' for an answer. Magenta may haggle, but Carmine is too direct for that.

So Hedo accepts Magenta's offer, but not because of the gun, since he enhanced his body to make it bulletproof some time ago. Also, his cyber-bee is armed with a toxic venom so deadly that it can kill any biological life with a single sting. So Carmine's threats are useless. Hedo is only taking the job because he's fascinated by the challenge of creating the ultimate android with an unlimited budget.

So he asks for background on Magneta's enemy, and Magenta explains that it wasn't Mr. Satan who defeated Cell at the Cell Games. He's part of the "organization", but the real ringleader is Bulma of the Capsule Corporation. Magenta says that her confederates appear to be aliens, which explains how Capsule Corp. got the technology for miniaturization and spaceflight. I'm not sure how much of this Magenta actually believes, and how much is a spin he's putting on things to make Dragon Team look like a gang of villains.

Magenta says that Capsule Corp is collaborating with aliens to pacify the Earth, then subjugate it for colonization. Hedo finds this hard to believe, until Magenta shows him footage of Future Trunks killing Mecha-Frieza. I'm not sure how he could have gotten that footage, unless it was recorded by Gero's spy robots.

In this twisted scenario, Gero created Cell to take the fight to Bulma's "organization", but he just couldn't get the job done. 17 and 18 turned against Gero, and Dragon Team was just too powerful that day. Hedo asks if Bulma is an alien, and Magenta's like "sure, why not?"

Then Hedo eats his Oreo all weird. Like, who does this? He takes apart the cookie, which is pretty standard, then he uses the one side to scrape the cream off the other, and he eats this part. Why? You already had a cookie with cream filling on it! This is just a duplication of effort!

The absolute best way to eat an Oreo is to dunk it in milk until it gets so soggy that it almost falls apart. When I was a kid I designed a device that would allow you to immerse the entire cookie in milk for maximum sogification without having to get your fingers wet. In hindsight, this was a stupid idea, because you can just do that with a spoon.

All this talk of alien conspiracies and Cell's heroic last stand get Hedo fired up, and he pulls up the hood of his costume and declares that the world needs a hero to design the ultimate android. I mean, he just got done saying he didn't buy into Magenta's good guy bit, but he does buy into his own good guy bit, and Magenta's story seems to suit this. For Hedo, it's less about being a hero and more about playing a hero. Magenta has created the role, and Hedo is eager to fill it.

And they finally arrive at a Red Ribbon base out in the middle of nowhere. Then the movie flashes forward to six months later, so I guess this a good place to sign off. Next time, we'll get into Piccolo and Gohan, and see what they're up to.

#dragon ball #2023dbapocryphaliveblog #dragon ball super #dragon ball super super hero #magenta #carmine #dr hedo #janet #bulma #commander red #colonel violet #gevo #vomi #dr gero

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gofancyninjaworld · 1 year

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Can you make Saitama and Reigen comparison as mentor figures? I find it interesting how One has teacher-student pair and their dynamics in center of both of his main stories. Maybe trow in Mob and Genos comparison as students.

Merry Christmas my dude!

I am sorry this has taken so many months to write. It's a great ask and I sat down many a time to draft it and kept getting interrupted. Now that I've caught up with the last of Mob Psycho 100 anime (sob), I may as well put down my thoughts before I get distracted yet again.

I think the single greatest similarity between Reigen and Saitama as mentors is that each feels hopelessly inadequate to the task of actually mentoring his trusting charge. The reasons differ, of course: Reigen has absolutely no clue what a psychic's experiences are like, and Saitama's internal consternation at what he could possibly tell a cyborg, given that muscle training was all he knew is one for the ages.

It's interesting that each decided to go for general principles rather than specific advice. However, their approaches differ so much in that: for much of the story, Reigen pretended to be more worldly-wise and full of powers beyond what even Mob could sense. Saitama, although he has lied to Genos on occasion, has been much more straightforward about what he knows. The adoration they receive despite (or maybe because) of their non-specific advice has been quite something. With the benefit of a complete story, we've watched how Mob's view of Reigen has matured and become more clear-eyed without his ever losing respect for his mentor. It's still very much a work in progress when it comes to Genos, where some searing clarity is admixed with some of the most extreme hero-worship depicted in fiction. No idea how that's going to resolve, nor the unacknowledged sexual tension between them (something rightly not present in Mob Psycho 100).

I like that in their own ways, both would do anything for their mentees when things go wrong in a major way... but aren't quite so scrupulous on the small stuff.

Given who their mentees are, it's remarkable that each has emphasised normality. Reigen always told Mob to regard psychic powers as just an aspect of who he was, no different from some people being characterized by being tall or having strong body odour. It's been helpful to Mob in putting into perspective what his powers could and could not do for him. And it has been great that Reigen was instrumental in helping Mob understand and accept all of himself. Saitama's precondition for Genos was that the latter get a job already.

The very different goals Reigen and Saitama have colour what advice they give. Reigen's goal for Mob has been in keeping with his philosophy. He doesn't actually have to do any particular job as his parents aren't badly off, so Spirits and Such has been his way of finding something interesting to do. He may con people, but he always aims to leave them better off. Mob is no different in this regard. Even as trouble comes their way, Reigen has always been mindful of Mob's psychological well-being. Saitama is a hero: it's literally what he lives for and his disciple had better be one too. The percepts he outlines for Genos are murderous in their uncompromising stance: a hero must always make progress, regardless. Must never retreat. Must never refuse to take on an enemy, no matter how dire.

As for student-teacher relationships more widely, ONE writes quite a few of them. I've explored them somewhat in these two meta, if you've not already seen them. Sensei! and Sensei, pt 2. I will probably do a third at some point.

#asks #Saitama #Reigen #Mob Psycho 100 #OPM #teacher-student relationships #these ones have no formal lessons and the syllabus is non-existent #and yet in their own way it's been very productive #I love the arc MP100 gave Reigen and Mob through all its ups and downs #no idea what ONE will do with Saitama and Genos: I just hope it ends well

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new-revenant · 2 years

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DP AU idea

In this au instead of Danny as Phantom protecting his town from ghosts, we have Phantom as Danny protecting his town from hunters(and maybe some monsters). Probably not a completely original so far, but wait! There’s more.

He doesn’t live in a town full of ghosts-that’s too predictable. Make everyone different flavors of supernatural, that’s right, we’re Monster-Highing this shit up. Make Sam the psychic she was always meant to be. Make Vlad the vampire he was supposed to be. Make Val a cyborg or something-I’m leaning on the something but we’ll get to that later. The school’s still called Casper High, it’s a great name.

Now, how would Danny get to this point? Let’s say that the Fenton family lived somewhere else other than Amity Park, but they were still ghost hunters-hell, maybe just give them some relatives that are also some sort of monster-hunter. Maybe they live with Aunt Alicia or something. Give Danny curse of homeschool.

Then Danny fucking dies-ish. Same portal incident possibly. Perhaps the same half-ghost half-human boy. Maybe the Fentons think he’d just straight up died or something, but whatever happens, Danny runs away and ends up in Amity Park. Since the town is full of creatures that he would’ve definitely had tried to maim/kill/capture and then maim/kill, he adopts the ghostly persona of Phantom. Expect Phantom is just a sad wandering child spirt of a totally normal child. Definitely not a hunter.

It would also be nice for Phantom to get have normal ghost powers and not be op as fuck. Don’t get me wrong, Phantom is one of my favorite(if not the favorite)op characters. But it would be so much more interesting if most of the ghosts were just normal ghosts, but they could still be different types of ghosts(ei. Phantom being a literal phantom like he can’t be seen by cameras and stuff). Or make some ghosts some other creatures idk. Maybe a few ghosts like Desiree or however you spell her name, she’s so effective as a ghost-genie and it could potentially ruin her whole appeal and story to make her a regular genie.

Speaking of the original ghosties, I’m going to talk about Spectra’s role for a bit because she’s the one I’ve been thinking about the most. Like, she’s a ghost who can take on a human form. Cue Danny having a crisis about what the hell he actually is, and as Spectra says in the actual show, “What are you, a ghost trying to fit in with humans, or a boy with freaky little powers?” then Danny says, “I’m-I don’t know okay?!” I will forever be disappointed that the show basically never built upon that.

Anyhow, how does Danny get to the point of trying to save the supernatural as a human? Simple, like I said earlier, he can’t do nothing cool in his ghost form(besides normal ghost stuff but whatever). So he’s like, “Well then, I want to help my new friends”-because guilt and/or just wanting to be a good person-“but how can I help them when I can barely push over a book? Wait a minute-I can turn into a human!”

I’ve got more things to say about this au-idea-thing, but this is getting pretty long already so :)

#danny phantom #danny phantom au #dp au #I’m just trying to get my ideas across and hopping it come off coherently #revenant rambles

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bionibots · 2 years

Photo

Amara: You know you’re cute?

Thane: [confident] Cute, sexy, handsome, and more, so yeah. I’ve been told so.

Amara: Oh, shut up! Say: Aww, thank you.

Thane: [exaggerated] Oh? Awww, thanks, babe. Better? [smirks]

Amara: [giggles] You are a dead loss.

Thane: [pouting] How can you be so mean to me?

Amara: Love you, Thane! I’m happy that you exist. With you? Life is pure joy.

Thane: Smooth charmer! Smart move, love you back! I’m honored to be your bestie, girl. I mean? Who else can say they are best friends with a biotech-modified human? A cyborg - sounds cool, right? You will remember me long after I am gone.

Amara: Psh, cyborg! Want a piece of my mind? You don’t need to worry about that. You will have a shell for yourself - one day. Just do me this one favor and stay handsome as long as possible. Promise?

Thane: I will promise you everything, darling. Now, let's get back to the more noteworthy points. If you still love Cloude, why don’t you try to get to know him again? As Amara?

Amara: Well, there are many reasons. First of all - Evidently - I'm dead. Secondly, as you put together - I'm a cyborg. As for Cloude? All that remains of the Teylia Avison he once knew? Only a few relics remain from our past that would be our shared memories and my soul. A ghost in a new body - yet I am the ghost of his past. He would not recognize me.

Thane: I highly doubt your reasons are valid - if one truly loves you - they know you. Yeah, he would probably see his Tey in you as Amara.

Amara: [unfazed] Next point? My fiancé - I have one! Need more reasons? As a corpo? Thanks to Bella? I run one of the most powerful corporations in the world. It is also worth noting that this shell owns Bionibots Corp. Without them? I would no longer exist. And lastly? Cloude won't recognize me - as he would hate all that I represent now. I’m no longer the one he once fell in love with. Teylia is dead - Amara Reyes is not.

Thane: Tey, the fact is you are not dead. Wish I had known you before your accident. Despite this? I can tell that your old self is still inside of you! The sweet rebellious beautiful being you once were still exists. I bet he would recognize that.

Amara: You really think so?

Thane: I know so! Back at home? Your true self is more evident. Your clothes are much more comfortable, and you're quirky, fun, alive, and full of life. Yet - the more you work at Bionibots Corp? The more distant, colder, and hesitant you become. Don't lose yourself on this journey, Tey. Never forget your roots.

Amara: You’re sweet! Avery doesn’t like those pants and this shirt. He says it doesn’t suit me. He loves and cares about me, but I will admit it feels different tho.

Thane: Sweety. [takes her hand] Never let anyone tell you - who you are! Not even Avery. You are the only one who decides to be who you want be. Will you promise me that?

Amara: Promise! I’m happy to have you, Thane.

Thane: Always and forever. Admit it! You love me.

Amara: [soft] I truly adore you, bestie! How can one not love you, Thane?

Thane: Oh, I would know a name, a gonk*? Talon would be a great example, right?

Amara: You loved him. Didn’t you?

Thane: Sure, I did - still do! Feelings do not disappear over night. Yet, he destroyed our love. I need to remember - to never return to something that is broken. What’s broken cannot be undone.

Amara: [agrees] Consider Cloude and me as broken as well. This cannot be undone.

Thane: [frowning] That's unfair - you cannot use my situation and apply it to yours?

Amara: [laughs] But I did - didn't I?

20. Min. later.

Thane Shit it's pouring outside. No call from Talon, guess we were not meant to be. I was hoping he would at least apologize. AngelicSpice could take my mind off it, so that's a plus. We can enjoy a steamy night together and tomorrow begins a new chapter. There is something zesty about Fuckin' AngelicSpice. He's cute regardless, so screw it. I will go all in. _________ * wording

#ts4 cyberpunk #ts4 story #ts4 legacy #uniqav #ts4 simstory #simstory #storytelling #thane ryant #teylia avison

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rjalker · 1 year

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All instances of augmented humans casually being treated as a separate category from human in The Murderbot Diaries, as of November 25th 2022.

Martha Wells decided to confuse anyone, so for those unaware, “augmented human” means cyborg. And 99% of the time, cyborgs are disabled people. Prosthetic limbs, synthetic organs, and mobility aids connected to your body make you a cyborg. Luke Skywalker is a cyborg because he got his hand chopped off and replaced with a mechanical one. So is Anakin Skywalker. So is that Bucky guy from the MCU, and Tony Stark.

Augmented human = cyborg = disabled people almost every single time.

That's why it's a problem when Martha Wells oh so casually treats augmented humans as a separate category from human. It'd be fine if someone's status as an augmented human were only brought up when it was relevant to the situation, but nope! Every single time a group of humans is mentioned, humans and augmented humans are treated as two separate groups.

And it'd be fine, if this series were like, doing anything with this concept at all, but it's not. Martha Wells isn't using this separation to talk about ableism or anything. It's just a random fact you aren't supposed to think about or notice. It doesn't even get treated like a problem.

Categorizing literally any group of humans as not actually being human is so far up the “how to oppress people” ladder it's not even funny. But Martha Wells doesn't do anything with this aspect of her world she's presenting to us. It's not there to show us the evils of capitalism. It's not there to talk about how disabled people are treated by our society. It's not there to talk about how people with power will do anything to take that power away from other people, including by literally saying they're not even actually human.

But no. It's just a casual thing we're not supposed to think twice about. It's treated as totally normal and fine. It's not there to show that something is wrong with this world. It's not supposed to be something you notice or care about.

You are never allowed to forget that augmented humans are considered to be in a separate category from humans.

And when you follow through with the logic that 99% of augmented humans are literally just going to be disabled people....yeah I think you can figure out why this is extremely fucking bad.

and you know what these examples are a little absurd. I thought there would only be like 30 or so. I kept going, okay, there won't be any more, right? we won't go past 35 will we? There can be more than 40, can there??? can we please stop?? 60????? can we fucking stop yet??

and then there were 74 examples >.>

They're not in chronological order because I had to change the keywords I was searching for to find each variation. ie "human or augmented human" "human and augmented human" "humans and augmented human" ect.

Treating humans and augmented humans as separate categories is a perfect dystopian plot hook. But instead of being treated like a problem to solve or at least contend with, it's just...treated like the natural order of things, requiring no questioning at all.

===

Bots who are “full citizens” still have to have a human or augmented human guardian appointed, usually their employer; I’d seen it on the news feeds.

Mensah didn’t need a bodyguard there; nobody did. It sounded like a great place to live, if you were a human or augmented human.

But the presence in the feed was too big and diffuse for a human or augmented human, I could tell that much even through the feed walls protecting it.

I had written myself some code to make sure I behaved more like a human or augmented human.

None were in SecUnit armor, and I wasn’t picking up any pings, so they were probably all human or augmented human.

Or if that would even work, since presumably a high-security prisoner transfer would need to be signed off by a human or augmented human supervisor who might ask unanswerable questions.

(Yeah, on reflection I think I misdirected in the wrong direction. It was the kind of thing a human or augmented human could get away with saying, not a rogue SecUnit.

Whoever the actor was in the Port Authority, it was a human or augmented human who thought they were pretty clever and able to manipulate systems to their advantage.

(Okay, so a human or augmented human might have made those same mistakes.

10)

Was something else—bot or human or augmented human

11)

Somebody had to be here, bot or human or augmented human.

The static swirled artistically into an image of a human or augmented human wearing the same red and brown uniform as Eletra and Ras.

12)

I pointed out that many humans or augmented humans had the hair on their bodies removed, for hygienic or cosmetic reasons and because who the hell wants it there anyway.

13)

The other thing about killware and malware is that they can’t do anything to humans or augmented humans.

14)

These scans are usually searching for known humans or augmented humans that the station security is keeping tabs on, not random escaped SecUnits.

15)

The feed was choked and privatized, any humans or augmented humans not registered with the hotel required to pay a fee to use it, and the security was all focused on theft-prevention.

16)

I was in a MedSystem, with the kind of equipment meant for humans or augmented humans recovering from serious medical procedures.

17)

But the reason she was making it was that she didn’t trust me and she wanted any humans or augmented humans who came into contact with me to be warned, in case I decided to go on a murder rampage.

18)

(Or really, for any humans or augmented humans who wandered by. The Preservation Alliance has a weird thing about food and medical care and other things humans need to survive being free and available anywhere.)

19)

(Confession time: that moment, when the humans or augmented humans realize you’re really here to help them.

20)

Humans and augmented humans in close quarters with murderbots is too awkward.

21)

It was based on a standard research group’s uniforms, and meant to be comfortable inside the habitat: knit gray pants, long-sleeved T-shirt, and a jacket, like the exercise clothes humans and augmented humans wore, plus soft shoes.

22)

Fortunately, the humans and augmented humans were too busy trying to get wherever they were going or searching the feed for directions and transport schedules.

23)

Once down on the access floor, I had to be extremely careful, as there was no reason for someone not working to be here, and while most of the work was being done by hauler bots, there were uniformed humans and augmented humans here, too.

24)

I had gotten by so far because the humans and augmented humans in the commercial transport rings didn’t see SecUnits except on the entertainment feed or in the news, where we were mostly killing people or already blasted into pieces.

25)

Humans and augmented humans shift their weight when they stand, they react to sudden sounds and bright lights, they scratch themselves, they adjust their hair, they look in their pockets or bags to check for things that they already know are in there.

26)

::The procedure is simple.::

“For humans and augmented humans, yes.” I was stalling. I would have to interact with humans as an augmented human.

27)

here were multiple open levels inside, with tables and chairs, and it was 40 percent full of humans and augmented humans.

28)

My altered configuration might fool humans and augmented humans, but not other SecUnits.

29)

The other humans and augmented humans in the immediate area had watched it with open or surreptitious curiosity.)

30)

I’d grabbed the first friendly cargo transport and after a seven-cycle trip I disembarked on a crowded transit hub, which was good, because crowds were easy to get lost in, and bad, because there were humans and augmented humans everywhere, all around me, looking at me, which was hell.

31)

It helps that in stations like this, humans and augmented humans are distracted.

32)

Usually the transit ring circles the station, with the main part where humans and augmented humans live or do whatever in the center.

33)

(You could tell which humans and augmented humans were trying to use its mapping function because they kept walking up to blocked exits and walls.)

34)

I walked up the last ramp surrounded by a crowd of humans and augmented humans, and on into the station mall.

35)

My camera angles weren’t as good, for one thing. And the humans and augmented humans wandering around randomly were distracting from the view.

36)

It was a big shop, with lots of humans and augmented humans going in and out.

37)

I crossed one of the multi-level plazas, where humans and augmented humans were sitting singly and in groups at scattered tables and chairs, talking, viewing entertainment media on the displays, or working in their feeds.

38)

At the hotel entrance, I blended with a crowd of humans and augmented humans who were watching a floating advertising display that was showing funny short videos.

39)

So there were no camera feeds from the rooms, but the cameras in the corridors were picking up humans and augmented humans as they moved through the connecting passages and used the transport pods to go to and from the lobbies and the three sections of food and club areas.

40)

There was nothing physical to set him apart from the other humans and augmented humans wandering in and out.

41)

And by literally, I mean pods full of humans and augmented humans crashing into each other.

42)

The other humans and augmented humans on the platform looked confused or relieved, with a few expressing disappointment.

43)

In the same second, the port emergency klaxon sounded. The humans and augmented humans stopped, flinched, looked around.

44)

A dome overhead duplicated sky views from various Preservation planets, and actual humans and augmented humans stood around to answer questions for humans who wanted to live here.

45)

(For example, humans and augmented humans can’t sign away their rights to their labor or bodily autonomy in perpetuity; that’s like, straight-up illegal.)

46)

Humans and augmented humans can have null feed Ids.

47)

If I used it, the humans and augmented humans I encountered would think of me as a bot.

48)

On the first visit, after the photo of me was in the newsstream, we had talked about why humans and augmented humans are afraid of constructs, which I hadn’t meant to talk about and somehow ended up talking about anyway.

49)

There were still humans and augmented humans wandering around, plus some hauler bots and maintenance bots, catching up on cargo transfers that had been ordered before the port closure.

50)

The low-level specialized lifters were parked and only a scatter of humans and augmented humans wandered the stacks of pressurized containers.

51)

The security system noted feed IDs of known humans and augmented humans (Security officers, Port Authority staff, the merchant crews who did regular runs to Preservation) and I’d used them to annotate my sped-up video.

52)

I had been in places like this that were really creepy. But this wasn’t. Maybe because I knew where the humans and augmented humans who had last used this ship had gone, that their descendants were running around all over this system, and that one of them was in my secure feed right now, demanding an update.

53)

Our suspect pool had been a bunch of humans and augmented humans wandering around in the Merchant Docks mostly unobserved and not interacting with station systems, as we tried to identify an actor who could remove themselves from the few surveillance cameras at will.

54)

If you had to be in a crowd of humans, the crowds at this festival weren’t bad, since they were the distracted kind where all the humans and augmented humans are talking to each other or on comm or feed or hurrying to get places.

55)

Plus, it was Preservation and there were no scanning drones, no armed human security, just some on-call human medics with bot assistants and “rangers” who mainly enforced environmental regulations and yelled at humans and augmented humans to get out of the way of the ground vehicles.

56)

All the humans and augmented humans staying here for the festival made it a heavily populated area, but we were traveling through the section reserved for humans who actually wanted to sleep.

57)

(Drones had picked up previously identified humans and augmented humans returning to the other houses or passing through the area, and I’d conducted safety checks on unidentified humans encountered for the first time.

58)

My suit read the air system level as full, which meant normal for humans and augmented humans.

59)

(Note to humans and augmented humans: no one likes being patronized.)

60)

I’d seen shows about humans and augmented humans trapped in wormholes indefinitely.

61)

(SecUnits weren’t allowed to sit down, ever, but humans and augmented humans did it every chance they had.)

62)

That’s why humans and augmented humans are so cautious around alien remnants that even corporations mostly try to be careful.

63)

I had converted my timeline into a format humans and augmented humans could read, annotated it, and put it up in the feed.

64)

I alerted on Marne because I ran threat assessments on all humans and augmented humans attempting to approach or form new relationships with Dr. Mensah or her family or associates after the GrayCris incident.

65)

I knew from threat assessments on Ratthi’s associates that he had a lot of relationships with all genders of humans and augmented humans and he and they all seemed very happy about it.

66)

(SecUnits make humans and augmented humans uncomfortable and on my contracts, my clients had acted in a variety of nervous and inconsistent ways when I was around.

67)

(What I use when I fight/do security is a minimum level of response, which is meant to minimize damage to humans and augmented humans and the company’s property, which means taking into account a lot of factors.

68)

“It’s to keep the humans and augmented humans from leaving the planet.”

69)

Terraforming projects designed to get everything livable and ready way before the humans and augmented humans moved in were expensive longterm investments, but they didn’t fail like this.

70)

(I know, it’s a logo, but I hate it when humans and augmented humans ruin things for no reason.

71)

It was clearly meant to be operated mostly via the feed, by humans and augmented humans who were coming in to deliver a cargo to the planet and then leave, probably as rapidly as possible.

72)

This was a line from Valorous Defenders, which is a great source for things humans and augmented humans think SecUnits say that SecUnits do not actually say.)

73)

Activity hadn’t returned to normal, there were lots of humans and augmented humans and bots clustering together in public areas waiting for announcements.

74)

I popped the joint on my left arm so I could move it in a way not usually compatible with a human, augmented human, or murderbot body.

#Rjalker reads The Murderbot Diaries #The Murderbot Diaries #The Murderbot Diaries ableism #TMBD #Martha Wells #ableism #discussion of ableism #TMBD ableism #ableism in fiction #ableism in scifi

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