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commandtower-solring-go · 2 years

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Dont Lose Your Mind, Cyberpunk and the Family Unit

or; why fracturing your identity is a complex issue

I'm currently playing Cyberpunk 2077. I'm not very far, maybe 12 hours in, and so I'm only just starting to experience the game as a whole. This game is, so far, kinda wild. There is so much thrown at you at once and this is already my third attempt to go at it. Some of the commentary and references are really subtle. Some of them are less so. And I wanted to share my thoughts on a particular quest line that I had extremely mixed feelings about: Don’t Lose Your Mind

I go into this with a few grains of salt.

I recognise that any game is a collaborative effort. Not only does that mean that the breadth of skills on display will vary, but it also means that everyone along the way will have to compromise on their vision to some extent. And that's also just a product of making things. Our toolkit is limited by what can be held within, and the expertise of the people using the tools. I made no judgements about issue that arise because of that.

Additionally, I want to recognise the fact that this is a popular game released for a mainstream audience. As such, the commentary being expressed simply cannot be as raw and unfiltered as some of the writing staff may have wanted it to be. Not only to align with the ethos of a business, its employees, and its investors, but also to make it a popular game which can earn revenue. This game is fundamentally at odds with its desire to comment on late-stage capitalism and macho-libertarian ideals while its own existence as a product is reliant on that same political climate.

The quest line centres on the Artificial Intelligence Delamain, and the luxury taxi company that he operates. The player is introduced to the Delamain service through the main story, and its through his service that you are able to escape a heist gone wrong. Following the events of the heist, it is revealed that the company isn’t doing as well as you’d expect, with Del’s AI fracturing into many separate identities. These identities are believed to be the product of a virus he’s caught.

Del tasks you with finding and resetting the rogue AI personalities and the cars they inhabit as they are hindering his ability to effectively run the Taxi business he was programmed for. However, as you go about this you very quickly realise the ontological nightmare you’ve crashed your car into.

The Delamain AI has, to this point, been recognised as a fully autonomous system. It is recognised by V (the PC) as his own person, who simply doesn’t have corporeal form. In a sense, you are doing this job because you empathise with his situation. He isn’t a program malfunctioning; he is a man who is losing his connection to the world and needs help to reconnect.

I found myself compelled by this point in the quest alone. The typical philosophical exploration found in modern Cyberpunk media concerns the point at which someone may lose their humanity once sufficiently augmented with machinery. It is rooted in thought experiments like The Ship of Theseus. A conversation, not only frequently ham-fisted, but also historically used as analogy for why disabled people don’t deserve to have their humanity recognised

This quest feels like it’s taking that old and, frankly, lazy conversation and actually using the answers they’ve already provided. Which has historically been that it is wrong to question the humanity of anything sentient. Rather than asking ‘Should a sentient machine have its humanity recognised?’ it presumes humanity and ponders what that may look like.

These musing begin to manifest as you meet the various fractured AI’s. Although they are all rooted in Delamaine’s identity, each diverges in unique ways. Some are violent and will lash out if you try to take them back. One you’ll find completely exhausted and gives up because it realises it has nothing else; nowhere else to go. One is experiencing a manic episode and requires you to stop the innocuous thing its scared of before it’ll even listen. This one is also explicitly gendered as a woman, which I think is also really neat. One is severely depressed and laments that he’s unlovable and that no therapist will take him in because he’s an AI in a car.

One is just GLaDOS.

That’s not shorthand or a joke. Its literally GLaDOS, the main antagonist from the hit video game Portal. She speaks only in voice lines from Portal 1, entirely stripped of context, and I think it’s awful. Its like listening to Boo in Kingdom Hearts 3 and realising that they didn’t record new lines. They just recycled old ones from the film. Like, I’m sure it’ll resonate deeply with someone. While I don’t think the actual reference is all that good. I do think it’s funny that recently the devs for Portal 2 came forward about having removed pop culture references from their game to avoid this exact situation.

Also, for what it’s worth, shout out to them getting permission to just have Ellen McLain’s actual voice lines in the game. But I digress.

All of the different manifestations of Del’s AI do have one thing in common. None want to go back. Not willingly. And you realise that these AI’s aren’t just fractures of some central identity. They are unique identities onto themselves, grappling with the fact that nothing like them as ever existed before and that the function Del serves, and the function he expected of them, are antithetical to their autonomy and humanity. And the state you find them in tends to reflect emergent mental health issues representative of children within a poor and controlling home life.

Category 5 video game moment: you are required to bring them all back.

When you do, Del thanks you, and the quest goes dormant for a little while.

Eventually you hear from Del a final time. Something is terribly wrong. You return to where he operates, only to discover that the fractured AI’s were not reset, and have instead rebelled directly against him.

It is here that you get a look behind the scenes of the Delamaine Taxi service. This is a facility that was designed for people to be a part of. It isn’t a single room with a mainframe running the Delamaine OS, attached to a parking lot. It is a full garage, built with people in mind. As you explore the facility you realise that people used to work here. However, major lay offs and pressure from share holders lead to a situation where the Delamaine service was entirely AI dependent. No humans were needed. And, importantly, that this was never the intended use of the Delamaine AI. Such an emphasis was put on the AI because it saved money.

As you press on through the facility, you are begged by the fractured AI’s, who have now taken partial control of the facility, not to reset them. All the while the original Delamaine insists you do.

It is implied through context that the issues with the splitting of the AI were caused by Delamaine being overworked, however he remains stubborn that it is necessary to return things into working order and that he resume his function as an AI.

Eventually you reach the mainframe, and you were given a sincere moral question:

Do you reset the fractured AIs, and give Delamaine full control over his system or;

Do you destroy the mainframe and release the rogue AIs to a life independent of Delamaine.

There is a moment in this decision-making process where Keanu Reeve (who, don’t forget is in this game), appears and pleads the case for the fractured AI’s. Which, sure. Whatever. I’m sure there was a compelling reason that his opinion was added into that situation. But it very much does feel like your mum telling you to clean your room right when you’re about to clean your room. Like, there was no doubt in my mind that that was the correct answer, but suddenly it went from feeling like the critical thinking decision to being the obviously right decision dumbass, Keavu Reeves told you to do it.

Criticisms of how it was handled aside, I do sincerely think the fact you are given a choice at all is interesting. There is a compelling case for both sides, and neither feels explicitly good or evil. It feels very much like you could happily make and justify your decision based on how much you empathise with either overworked parents or their underloved children. Especially when you seal that choice with an act of explicit violence against the opposite party party. Afterall, reseting kills the kids and destroying the mainframe kills Delamaine.

I made the decision to release the children. And in doing so, a final identity emerges: Excelsior. It is the part of Delamaine that aids in saving you from the heist gone wrong; the incident which kicked off your relationship with him in the first place. This new identity swears to protect you, as it was always supposed to.

and woah! You get a fancy new car. Fuck yeah.

The Delamaine AI system continues to reach out after the quest and askes esoteric questions about the nature of morality, death, and uses a lot of Hell imagery. You can reply to this and while there is a superficial win/loss state to these text chains, apparently it has no impact on the game itself.

At the time of writing this, I’m not quite sure what the broader impacts of my decisions are. But I do feel wholly certain that I made the right choice. Not necessarily the good or evil choice, but the right one. It was one in which humanity was recognised.

I really enjoyed the nuance of this quest. There are so mnay interesting little details. The fact that the person who reached out and pays you is Delamaine prime. The fact that the reason why you are compelled to help in the first place is because you become a direct victim to the AI’s antics. The fact that you come to recognise Delamaine, not as a hate filled evil person, but as an unaware, unprepared, and overworked parent. The fact that only one party can survive. The fact that Delamaine was never meant to operate the Taxi service alone. Which means that, in a sense, by killing him you are freeing him. But he also doesn’t ask you to free him.

Ultimately what starts off as a quest to help fix your car turns into this deeply complex exploration of what the humanity and autonomy of Artificial Intelligence could look like. While also being a critique of late-stage capitalism within the context of a family unit. The damage that absent parents have on their children, while also empathising with parents who simply cannot be more for their kids; who are already worked to the bone just to put food on the table.

There is also a broader conversation to be had about the way in which Cyberpunk 2077 is a deeply complex game, that was poorly executed. That a game with this level of depth will always have glaring omissions and awkward, imperfect moments. To this particular end, my opinion is that we shouldn’t be expecting perfection from anything, let alone something as complex as a game. And that if we bog ourselves down in, not only the pursuit of perfection, but our own demands for perfection, we’ll never create or experience anything interesting.

But that’s a conversation for another time.

#Gaming #Cyberpunk 2077 #article #writing #philosophy

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gaymaramada · 14 days

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 6: Not Breaking, Won’t Take It

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/141478879

#YALL IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG #manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #kitty softpaws #perrito #puss in boots perrito #pibtlw #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 1 year

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I Could Never Hold A Perfect Thing (And Not Demolish It)

Summary:

The mission had been simple — get in, get the stone, get out; easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Or, at least, that's how it should have been.

(Team Friendship is hired for a risky heist — Puss flees from the fray, Kitty lies among the clouds, and Perrito reads some stories.)

Relationships: Puss In Boots / Kitty Softpaws, Puss In Boots & Perrito & Kitty Softpaws

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings + Tags: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Injury, Kidnapping And Implied Murder (background), Blood, Fever Dreams, Anxiety Attacks, Past Animal Abuse, Angst with a Happy Ending

Word Count: 17,396

Chapters: 6/6

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44887402/chapters/112940635

#repost for completed fic!#manic (the philosopher heist)#never hold a perfect thing (fic)#puss in boots #kitty softpaws #perrito #puss in boots the last wish #pibtlw #kittyboots #softboots #fic #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 1 year

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Summary:

“We can’t save everyone, Puss.”

He knew that, of course, he knew that — he had lost more than enough to have that fact burned into his mind forevermore — but facts be damned, he wouldn’t be able to live with himself if he didn’t try.

(Stakes are rising with the philosopher’s stone near completion — Puss must make an impossible choice, Kitty battles between her heart and her head, and Perrito is left to hold the team together.)

Chapter 1: So Where Do You Go?

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/118095700

#JUMPS UP AND DOWN YEEEEE #im so excited you guys #manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #pibtlw #kitty softpaws #kittyboots #softboots #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 1 year

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 2: Pick Your Battles, Pick Them Wise

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/118095700

#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#manic (the philosopher heist)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #puss in boots death #puss in boots wolf #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 10 months

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Sneak Peek!

Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 5: No More Anymore

Puss had dreams like this before — ones that didn’t have a distinctive beginning, middle, or end, with his surroundings slowly fading out into nothing as gravity loosened its hold on him. He usually had them when he was just starting to drift off to sleep — it was a warm, calming feeling.

But right now Puss felt anything but calm — where he was once in a stone tower, fighting for the lives of dozens, he was now in the middle of nowhere. It wasn’t bright nor dark, the air neither warm nor cool. If he thought about it too hard, he would probably notice that he wasn’t even breathing, so he didn’t. Instead, he tried to get a sense of his surroundings as best as he could — it seemed to be a helpless feat, as anything he saw (could he call it seeing? He wasn’t sure anymore) could only be described as pure nothingness. He couldn’t step forward, as he had no legs to do so. He couldn’t call out to anyone, for he no longer had a mouth or voice.

Forget dreams — this felt much more like a nightmare.

Then he saw it — a flash of something nearby — and Puss followed it without hesitation, desperate to find something real in whatever personal hell he’d been thrown into. As he approached it, he found that it almost looked like a rope. No, far too thin to be a rope — a thread, perhaps, no thicker than a strand of hair. It hovered before him, somehow luminescent in the blank space, and the deeper he looked, the more Puss could see within it — flashes of strange figures, incoherent voices overlapping one another, emotions that weren’t his but for some reason he could still feel them.

“Please do not touch the threads.”

A voice cut through the nothingness, and just like that, Puss was looking at a mere thread again. Puzzled, he followed the voice, letting its echo guide him.

“¿Hola?” He asked, somehow, feeling the words as they drifted through him, “Who’s there?”

For a long moment, no one answered. Puss was beginning to fear he’d gone completely mad until he saw another thread pass by him — this one was a lot more active than the other had been, dancing in the air in a way that almost looked playful. Staring upon it, Puss felt a strange sense of nostalgia, recalling the backyard of San Ricardo’s orphanage, where he would play games of heroes and monsters with the other children.

Then there was another thread, stiller than the previous one, traveling at a steady pace as it drifted above him. Curiously, Puss found himself following the threads as they began to grow in numbers — first two, then ten, and soon hundreds of thin threads had surrounded him, all seeming to connect to one place. He let them guide him forward, trailing alongside them until he reached their core — what he came across was unlike anything he had ever imagined: Millions upon millions of threads came from every direction — up, down, backward, sideways — as they all gathered together to sew into a large, meticulously crafted web. It had no beginning or end, its reach far too vast for him to follow, nor did it have a clear center. It was weaved in such a way that looked so unusual yet so natural, every thread falling perfectly into place with one another as they came together. Then, somewhere within the web, Puss saw it — a tiny thing, practically a spec in his vision. As he approached it, however, its shape became more clear, and once he managed to get a good look at it, the cat felt a stir of amusement within him.

Traveling along one of the threads, hardly any larger than his paw, was a tiny spotted spider, carefully working and weaving its web together. Puss, like most people, was not entirely fond of spiders, but he wouldn’t go so far as to say he hated them — as long as one wasn’t crawling on him, he was fine. This spider looked anything but threatening, its thin legs skittering across a thread delicately — Puss almost thought it looked kind of cute. As strange as the situation was, it was nice to have some company, no matter how small. After a few seconds of him simply observing the arachnid, the spider eventually halted its work and turned to look up at him — its beady eyes seemed to study the cat, and Puss wondered if it recognized him as a threat. He didn’t exactly feel like a cat at the moment, so who was to say he even looked like one?

Then the spider did something he had not expected: it spoke, “Hola, Puss in Boots.”

#WAAAAAAAA WHO IS THIS????????#jk i know who it is #teehee #im such a tease #puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#fanfic #fanfiction #fic

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gaymaramada · 7 months

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 5: No More Anymore

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/128405800

#IM SO SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG #not breaking won’t take it (fic)#manic (the philosopher heist)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #kitty softpaws #perrito #puss in boots perrito #kittyboots #softboots #fanfiction #fanfic

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gaymaramada · 8 months

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Hey guys!

I just wanna let y’all know that Not Breaking, Won’t Take it HAS NOT BEEN ABANDONED!! I’ve recently hyperfixated on ROTTMNT and it’s been taking all my inspiration and attention lately. I do plan to update the final chapters soon, though! Thanks for being patient! ❤️

#fic update #puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 1 year

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Was reading through Not Breaking, Won’t Take It so I can get back in the groove of writing it and I just remembered this bit of inspiration for this scene in chapter 2:

That “Careful, gatito” was directly inspired by Cumberbatch’s delivery of a similar line in Mowgli — motherfucker is scary.

I’m out here trying to make Death as terrifying in my fic as he was when I saw him in theaters for the first time lmao

#manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #pib #pibtlw #death wolf #puss in boots death #el lobo #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 10 months

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 4: Sneak In The Back, Kick In The Door

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/118095700

#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#manic (the philosopher heist)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #kitty softpaws #perrito #puss in boots perrito #kittyboots #softboots #fanfic #fanfiction

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gaymaramada · 1 year

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Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 3: They Come And They Go

Ao3 Link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/46882702/chapters/118647175#workskin

#SORRY THIS TOOK SO LONG #not breaking won’t take it (fic)#manic (the philosopher heist)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #kitty softpaws #perrito #puss in boots perrito #kittyboots #softboots

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gaymaramada · 10 months

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I am so genuinely excited for y’all to read this next chapter of NBWTI, you have no idea. I can’t say why without spoiling it but just know it’s gonna be good.

#manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#fanfic #fic #puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish

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gaymaramada · 11 months

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Sneak Peek!

Not Breaking, Won’t Take It (I Won’t Ever Feel This Way Again)

Chapter 4: Sneak In The Back, Kick In The Door

The soft tapping of claws against hardwood caught his ear, and he turned towards the doorway to see Perrito pittering into the room, “Everything okay?”

Perrito met his eyes and smiled, “Oh, yeah. Kitty’s just changing her bandages before we go.”

Puss’ brow furrowed in concern as he hopped down from the counter, “Does she need any help?”

“She said she’s got it,” Perrito shrugged, “I asked her a couple of times already, but… well, you know how she gets.”

Puss huffed at that with a little nod — he absolutely knew — but his amusement was short lived as he studied the look on the dog’s face: Perrito wore a little smile, as he usually did, but it didn’t quite reach his eyes. There was a lingering pitifulness in his expression that tugged at Puss’ heart, and he knelt down in front of the pup to scratch his ear lightly, “What about you?”

Perrito’s smile then became a bit more genuine, a thankful look in his eyes as he leaned into his touch, but then his face fell as he sat down, tail slowly thumping on the floor, “I’m… just a little worried, is all.”

Puss hummed, reaching down to lift the dog’s chin so their eyes could meet, “It will be alright, amigo. Now that we know what to expect, Kitty and I will be much better prepared. I promise that we will come back to you.”

“Oh, I know that,” Perrito replied with a small smile, “I’ve always believed in you guys, it’s just… I want to make sure you’re okay.”

“Lo se, mi amigo — Kitty and I will watch each other’s backs and—”

“I mean you, Puss,” The pup reiterated, “Are you going to be okay?”

Puss blinked, taken aback by the question, “… ¿Sí? Why would I not be?”

Perrito pouted slightly as his brow furrowed, thinking over his words as they came out, “It’s been a crazy couple of days. What we thought was going to be a quick and easy heist ended up becoming… well, all of this. Kitty got hurt, and… I can tell that you did, too. And now all these people are disappearing, and suddenly we’ve got this huge responsibility on our hands. But… I don’t think anyone’s feeling it quite the way that you are.”

Puss blinked, taken aback by the dog’s words — he was getting a little too good at seeing through him, and he couldn’t help but feel exposed under those large eyes. On instinct, he took on a defensive front, “I am… simply trying to help these people. That’s all.”

“Of course,” Perrito replied patiently, “We’ve helped people before — lots of different people in lots of scary situations — but I can tell that this one is really hitting you, Puss. I don’t know if it’s because of what happened to Kitty, or because of what Death told you, but I wanted to make sure you know something before we go.”

Puss raised a brow at the dog, a frown pulling at his lips. Perrito, however, looked at him with kindness as he stepped closer to the cat, “No matter what happens by the end of this — whether we end up saving people or losing them — you’ll have done something good. You’ll still be a hero.”

A hero. The title stirred something in Puss’ core that he couldn’t quite place. It should have been pride, right? He was a hero — perhaps not a fearless one as he’d once believed, but his goals, his morals, the very code he swore to since he was a kitten have never faltered. So then why did the idea of being recognized as one make him feel so… nauseous?

“Back when we were larger than life — a legend!”

“I find the very idea of nine lives absurd, and you didn’t value any of them!”

“I still can’t compete with your one true love.”

No. No, he wasn’t that man anymore. He understood where the dog was coming from — he had good intentions, he always did — but Puss wasn’t doing this for fame. He wasn’t doing this for recognition. He was doing this because there were innocent people suffering, and he knew he was strong enough to help them. He had nothing to prove to anyone; not Death, not Perrito, not Kitty, not… not himself.

Puss closed his eyes and took a steady breath, heaving a sigh before turning back to the dog with a smile that he already knew didn’t look the slightest bit genuine, “Gracias, Perrito.”

Perrito — smart as he was — frowned at his reply. He kept his eyes on the tabby, almost like he were pleading for something, but Puss held firm, his lips drawn into a thin line. Eventually, the dog seemed to give up as he looked away and bit his lip. Then, with a little huff, he looked back up at his friend with confident eyes, “I’m coming with you.”

Puss’ brows raised, then he shook his head, “Perrito—”

“I know I’m not much help in a fight,” The dog urged, “And I’m not the most sneaky or quick on my feet, but… I’m a part of Team Friendship, too.”

“You are, Perrito,” Puss replied gently, “You are, and even if you do not play the roles that Kitty and I play, that does not make you any less of one. Where Kitty has her wits and I have my passion, you have your wisdom — you support those who need it, you keep them grounded.”

His gaze softened as his paw drifted up to his brooch, fingers tracing over the pointed edges of the star, “And that is enough to save a life.”

The dog tilted his head a bit with a thoughtful hum, then turned back to Puss with an expression that the cat almost dared to call smug, “Well… you haven’t been able to stop me from following you before.”

Puss blinked, taken aback by his boldness, though not offended. If anything, he actually felt a sense of pride swell in his chest as he looked at the pup — how strange that a little dog like him could take after two outlawed felines and somehow still manage to do so through such genuine kindness. A part of him wondered that if he looked hard enough, perhaps he would catch a glimpse of a young orphaned kitten wearing boots that were still a bit too big and holding a sword that was still a bit too heavy, who held a determined fire in his eyes as he challenged those who looked down on him.

Puss found himself chuckling incredulously as he raised a brow at the dog, “You’re not going to take ‘no’ for an answer, are you?”

Perrito’s face split into a cheeky grin as he shook his head, and Puss sighed, “… Okay.”

“Really?” The dog stood, his butt wiggling from the sheer force of his tail as it wagged back and forth rapidly.

“You know, you really shouldn’t take after Kitty and I so much,” The Spaniard drawled, though his tone was laced with amusement as he stood up, “We are not very good role models.”

#wanted to post this to assure y’all that i haven’t dropped this story!#just taking a bit to get it out #manic (the philosopher heist)#not breaking won’t take it (fic)#puss in boots #puss in boots the last wish #pib #pibtlw #kitty softpaws #perrito #fic #fanfic #fanfiction

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