#the robots were carrying on humanity as a whole

[palfriendpatine66]

Woke up to Owen Lars thoughts. Specifically re: C-3PO.

Our guy Owen has avoided owning a droid for 20+ years because they remind him of Shmi. He’s had to deal with the Jawas the whole time and knows it would go a hell of a lot better with a translator, but every time he thinks about getting a protocol droid he thinks about Shmi. About how she doted on that insufferably annoying droid because it was her last connection to her son. And he decides he can go another year relying on gestures and paying more than the parts he’s getting are worth.

But now he only has Luke’s help for one more harvest and he’s not getting any younger - his joints ache more and more with each sandstorm - and he decides it’s time to face his ghosts. He can’t avoid reminders of the past forever. He sends Luke for some droids.

And the boy comes back with C3P0

The droid doesn’t look the same - he’s been treated to some upgrades over the years and some fancy gold plating they couldn’t have afforded to give him - but he gives his designation and it’s not just a similar robotic voice dragging up memories that both haunt Owen and remind him of better times. But it’s him, without a doubt. C-3PO human cyborg relations. Shmi’s most prized possession. Returned back to her home and final resting place, back to the last piece of her son.

To Luke.

And when the stormtroopers break down the door and pour in, he has a moment of pure relief that Luke isn’t home. That this time it won’t be a Skywalker’s body found broken in the desert.

He should have known. An R2 unit had rolled up and interrupted Shmi’s humble funeral and Anakin had swept away to whatever dangers waited for him in the stars. He’d brought the two droids with him and the Lars were left to mourn and heal and carry on under the harsh suns. They looked after themselves and weathered the heat and the sand like everything else that was born, and fated to die, in the desert.

But not Luke. Luke wasn’t born on Tatooine, even though the boy has the desert in his blood. Owen sees the same relief written in Beru’s eyes as he takes her hand. Luke isn’t going to die here.

He has the stars in his blood too.

Owen just hopes the boy will meet a better end than his father. That his story won’t end so soon.

#I’m so normal about this #it’s fine. i’m fine. #i’m not fine #where the Lars love at? #Owen he is my own Lars #aunt peru fan club #owen lars #uncle owen #beru whitesun lars #beru lars #aunt beru #c3po #r2d2 and c3po #star wars

[nyarthru]

Just finished stray tonight lads

and boy am I going through it

#hollow you may not look at this post. nor anyone who does not want to be spoiled #my posts #actually illegal I couldn't carry B12 outside w/ me he DESERVED to see the outside. #that being said #the submersion of dystopian society tropes in the game....my heart... #the game making it clear that it wasn't humanity as a whole that destroyed everything #but a select few (the upper class) causing it to happen and how it affected those down below #the fact that the slums was the place that felt the most human and remembered humanity fondly #GOD. B12 realizing that he doesnt need to live on to perserve humanity's memories....that #the robots were carrying on humanity as a whole #love that the game didn't go ''humanity is evil'' on us that it was like #humanity is fundamentally good. humans create. humans love. humans take care of things even if they have no reason to #cries cries #THINKING ABOUT CLEMENTINE TOO #THE OUTSIDERS MANIFESTO #HER GIVING YOU THE KEYS AND BEING LIKE ''one of us has to make it outside. I wrote that'' #MY POOR STRAY KITTY'S PATHETIC MEOW TO THAT #i have so many feelings about this game i am mentally ill leave me alone

[heartfullofleeches]

Remy I miss you I love you also. Titus. I love him and miss him. And also Nightlight reader. Babies. Beloved.

[I had am old blurbo with Nightlight and Titus I scrapped. Here's one for him and Remmy too]

Remmy finding Nightlight Reader at a thrift store while looking for more dolls to add to his collection of antiques. They're the most beautiful "doll" he's never seen- (anything that has a humanoid form and is made of plastic, wood, cotton is a doll to Remmy- even androids). He takes the android home - planning to clean them up and give them a comfortable spot in his room. When Remmy touches the heart on their chest-

"Powering on.......backup battery at 12% percent....Accessing memory...No memories found... error...error...err-"

"Ah!.. That was scary. Hm, where did I end up now? Oh! Hello, tiny person - are you my new owner?"

Remmy instantly falls in love seeing this robot pick up on the dolls on his bed and speaking to it as a normal person. "Um, actually..I think that's me."

"Whoa! Where did you come from? My apologies, owner - what should I call you?

Remmy falls more in love with Nightlight by the second. They're so caring, and warm, and they love to play with his dolls as much as he does. They would follow his every command as part of their programming, but Remmy hardly feels the need to order them around because he knows they'll never leave him and for that he'd do anything from them. Stays awake all night until nightlight carries him to bed making new clothes for them. Buys all the books he needs to repair any minor damages they might have - and completely erase any trace of their memories of the past.

All Remmy needs is Nightlight. All Nightlight needs is Remmy.

-

Titus is given Nightlight Reader as a present from his guards after finding the android in a landfill on earth and repairing them to working order- The emperor has been more irritable than usual- if he dislikes this bot, his guards pray that smashing them to bits will be enough to quell his anger at least for a time. The guards present the android to their king and wait-

"What have you brought to bore me with now?'

"We believe it is an earth made machine designed to relieve stress for humans-"

The emperor chuckles. "Is that so?~ I have been rather pent up recently, and it isn't a complete eyesore, but you are aware of our difference in size, yes? Are you certain it won't break on first use?"

"Er, not in that exact way, your highness. You see, they-"

Titus huffs. "Then what good is it?"

"Just....allow me to turn them on. Please place your finger on their heart, your highness."

"This is ridiculous...."

The emperor does as instructed

"Powering on....Battery at 100%...System rebooting."

"Mm....Huh? What a strange place... Are you my new own..er? Oh, owner- your stress levels are dangerously high - they're increasing by the second! Why won't I sing you a lullaby while you relax with your favorite drink? I know lots, but I can always make up new ones - maybe one about your pretty eyes."

"That..... actually sounds wonderful. I haven't had a decent night of rest in ages. It's humorous to me how you were able to figure that out in seconds when these fools have been with me for centuries. I think I'm going to enjoy your company more than I thought."

Titus cannot go or sleep anywhere which his little nightlight. Feeling their heated, smaller form is all thats needed to knock him out like a light. Nightlight Reader is restricted from joining Titus in meetings for that sole reason. This whole ass tyrant sits in his chair pouting like a child until he can reunite with his little love. Decorates them like the doll they are with jewelry and adorable outfits. Whenever Titus is in one of his rages, guards quickly run off to retrieve nightlight from wherever they're exploring in the palace

#yandere #yandere imagines #yandere headcanons #yandere x reader #yandere blurb #yandere insert #yandere x you #yandere scenarios #yandere oc #male yandere #Remmy my oc #Titus my oc #Yan

[linnamonrolls0]

The Winner Takes It All

LMM!Hermes x Reader

Summary:

“devils roll the dice, angels roll their eyes what doesn’t kill me makes me want you more…”

You accidentally find your way into the Lotus Casino, where a certain Greek god takes a keen interest in a game of poker, a sweet deal, and… you.

Rating: Mature

Words: 4,480

A/N:

I wasn’t gonna write this… until I saw some hater saying they’d [redacted] if they saw a LMM!Hermes x Reader fic show up - so naturally, being the disastrous Lin simp that I am, I HAD TO DO IT. After all, learning from the best in proving the naysayers wrong…

A lot of this was written pre-episode, allow it with a few inconsistencies and a lot of research-induced additions!

Mixtape... bloop - https://open.spotify.com/playlist/6v2ZfRamJRh8eP6qOqz4ND

Chapter 1: When The Chips Are Down

Contrary to popular belief, apparently it is possible to get lost in Las Vegas.

You were only strolling the Strip with a group of friends on the last day of your whirlwind vacation, but soon enough you found yourself at a dead end, unsure of what turn you’d even taken to get there. 

Hoping to locate a restroom and some means of connectivity to contact your friends, you beelined for the nearest building, flashily labelled the Lotus Hotel and Casino: upon glancing upward, you were met with the sight of a forty-storey tower, with a wide open entrance marked by a blooming neon-bright lotus flower in front of you. It was the sort of place you would expect to be buzzing with life, but oddly enough nary a soul lingered by the shining silver doors; just stillness and silence, save for the muffled music pounding from somewhere inside.

Though you felt overwhelmingly uneasy, that entrance carried a strange magnetism that compelled you to step inside. Something that suggested all your fear would be put to rest the moment you walked through those doors… or into that flower, at least.

You tucked your hands under your sleeves and drew in a deep breath, before you crossed the petalled threshold into an opulent lobby decorated with lotus plants in intricately designed pots and inviting plush couches around the circular hall. The air conditioning was a welcome relief from the Nevada summer heat, and the whole place seemed to glow in a dark shade of pink. 

You immediately felt an invisible weight ease off of your shoulders as you entered… What had you come here to look for, again?

Right, a phone charger and somewhere to pee. Of course, basic human necessities, how could you forget those so quickly?

Interrupting your line of thought, you paused in your tracks when a tall Barbie doll materialised in front of you, dressed in bright pink from head to toe; upon first glance she looked like some sort of projection, as though she wasn’t real at all.

“Welcome to the Lotus Hotel and Casino,” she greeted you in an almost robotic voice, with a plastic smile stretched across her face, holding out a shimmering green card. “Here’s your Cash Card, have a great time!”

“Cash… what? Do I have to pay for this?” you stuttered, confused beyond belief as you took the card. What was this place?

“No, not a penny!” She shook her head; not a single strand of her perfectly coiffed blonde hair shifted out of place. “Would you like a tour? Here, have a drink. Only the best in the world here!” 

She offered you a glass goblet, filled to the brim with a dark maroon liquid and topped with blueberries, bearing the same eerie magnetism as the doors had done minutes before. You eyed the drink dubiously, brows furrowed as you sniffed it in a futile attempt to ascertain what exactly it was.

“I’m alright, thank you,” you politely declined, “What is—”

But before you could finish your question, the Barbie doll had disappeared as suddenly as she’d arrived, and the moment you sipped the strong floral drink, your questions completely evaporated.

Following your curiosity, you craned your neck and looked up to see endless floors lined with rooms and doors and glass balconies, with a pair of glass elevators in the middle. At this point, you wouldn’t be surprised if the great glass elevator could shoot through the ceiling like something out of a children’s book.

At least there were more people in here, though you were certain they too had just appeared as if by magic; not acknowledging you at all, they milled about in the lobby and outside the doors to the casino, beside to what appeared to be an arcade full of excited children playing classic and modern video games alike. Regardless of age, all the guests were clad in fancy-dress costumes; you figured perhaps there was an event taking place that had its attendees reflecting different eras of fashion. Wouldn’t be unusual for this town, everyone was dressed crazy and after three days traversing Sin City’s myriad clubs and casinos, nothing fazed you - or perhaps the effects of whatever you’d taken at that club last night still hadn’t fully worn off, who knew…

Still in a bit of a daze, you floated toward the immense double doors leading to the Casino, already hearing the jingling of slot machines singing proud over the pounding pop beats as their backing track.

The casino was lit by ornate chandeliers hanging from the ceiling, deliberately dimmed to give way to the bright, flashing lights of the various gaming machines assembled around the hall, surrounding a set of card tables in its centre. Chatter and laughter filled the room and people crowded around the tables, playing without a care in the world and having the time of their lives; everyone seemed to have a goblet in hand and a cash card in the other, not dissimilar to your current state. It was warmer in here, though still comfortable enough that you could breathe… Just about.

You wandered through and your attention was glued to a game of roulette at a table beside you, where a couple had just won who knows what, when you were interrupted by a greeting that you just somehow knew was directed at you.

“Well, hello, there,” you heard in a smooth, low tenor behind you.

You whirled around on your heel to be met by… a guy. Literally just a guy, casually leaning on his gorgeously tanned forearms on a nearby craps table, aimlessly toying with a pair of dice in his left hand as he gazed over at you. He was certainly easy on the eyes with his vaguely familiar but handsome face, a mischievous little smirk on his lips, and pretty brown eyes that sparkled in the flashing lights… There was something about those eyes that drew you in. And for some reason, you couldn’t bring yourself to look away…

He looked like the most normal person in the room, but he seemed entirely out of place, given that everyone else was dressed to the nines - meanwhile he wore a comfy tan hoodie and sweatpants set, as if he perhaps owned it all and subsequently had no rules to follow in this already-lawless land. When he stepped around his table to approach you, he certainly did swagger around like he ruled the place, and his companions nearby looked at him like they worshipped the ground he walked on. Perhaps he was important, but how were you to know?

“You come here often?” he flirted, just about the most awful pickup line imaginable, but you were past the point of questioning why it still sounded attractive.

How had you ended up here, anyway? Hell knew… But this was Sin City, after all; a little harmless flirting could do you no harm, surely… 

“Nope, never been here before. But weirdly, I don’t want to leave…” you shrugged, taking another sip of that strangely addictive drink.

“Sounds about right, Miss…”

“[Y/N],” you offered casually, uncharacteristically not hesitant.

“Pleasure to meet you…” he said with a playful lilt to his tone, holding out a hand, “They call me Hermes.”

When you shook his hand, for a split second you could’ve sworn you weren’t there anymore - when his smooth hand held yours, something akin to a firework went off inside your mind, and you’d put it down to just sparks if not for the phantom breeze you felt just then, a gust that nearly knocked you off your feet.

You couldn’t place what it was, exactly, but there was something strange about this man. He bore an almost otherworldly quality, as though he wasn’t human at all… But how could he be anything else? Come to think of it, there was a similarly supernatural energy about the casino itself; no wonder he fit right in to this weird wonderland.

“What, you got a Birkin in your back pocket or something, Mr Hermes?” you laughed, trying to shake off that odd suspicion, only to be met by his indignant scowl. Even that was cute.

“And what business do you have with my back pockets?” he teased, tucking one hand into the front pocket of his hoodie, to which you raised an intrigued brow.

You shrugged, nonchalant, still reeling from that strange feeling. “Nothing yet, but perhaps I’d like to find out…”

“Obviously I do not, but I could hook you up.” The innuendo wasn’t lost on you, least of all when Hermes smirked, that patented brand of mischief you were quickly growing quite fond of as he swaggered across to the card table; the players welcomed him back gladly. “Care for a game?” he asked, seemingly winning one without even paying attention to it as he rolled the dice carelessly onto the table that stood between you.

As he retrieved the dice, you eyed his hands curiously; they could only be described as pretty, as though he might be a pianist or… an artist of some description. He had his sleeves rolled back and a gold-plated Rolex glimmered on one wrist, a chunky gold chain-link bracelet on the other, and something about that on him was distractingly attractive. It all screamed money, despite his casual tracksuit getup, which would’ve been nothing special if it didn’t look so needlessly expensive in itself. You absently wondered what that obscure tattoo on his ring finger meant, for surely it couldn’t imply he might be taken…

“It’s not like you have anything to lose,” Hermes commented, interrupting your line of thought as he set a few chips down on the table and retrieved his own green Cash Card from his pocket, holding it up to show you. So everyone had them; then, what was the point?

Oh, right. You likely couldn’t do anything with the money outside, so, go figure it was an unlimited free pass.

“I guess I’m in. After all, what you gonna do when the chips are down?” you quoted a challenge, holding your own smug look at the recognition in his eyes.

“I see you speak my language…” he teased, “Even if those aren’t exactly my words.”

“Funny you should mention that. Has anyone ever told you you look a bit like Lin-Manuel Miranda?”

“So I’ve been told! Though, I think the correct expression would be that he looks like me. Same difference, he’s me, I’m him, whatever.” He waved a flippant hand, as if instructing you to ask no further questions on the topic.

“Gotcha…” You laughed, putting this all down to a wacky dream by now as you joined him by the card table. “What is this, anyway?” you asked him, raising your goblet in his general direction. He was the only person here without one, which didn’t entirely make sense to you, even in the logic of twisted fever dreams.

“Raise a glass to freedom… and throw it the fuck away,” he sang with a laugh, “Seriously, though, that’s a little addictive psychedelic beverage called blue lotus wine. If you know what’s good for you, you won’t drink a drop.”

“And what if I already did?”

“Well, then you’re well and truly screwed…” Hermes grinned, mischief dancing in his dark brown eyes. He swiped the half-full glass out of your hand and knocked back the remainder of the wine in one quick gulp, his gaze never leaving yours as he deposited the empty glass on a tray carried away by one of those apparating Barbie waitresses. “And now, so am I.”

He waved over another waitress and grabbed two new glasses of wine off her tray, politely handing one to you. He brought his glass to his lips, slowly sipping at the wine as you eyed his hand wrapped around the glass, absently wondering what that seemingly delicate touch would feel like on you… There was no reason why the simple act of this man drinking hallucinatory wine should’ve been remotely sexy, but you could say the same for him in general; this shouldn’t work, but god damn, it does.

“Was that really the best idea if it’s—” you began, and he quickly cut in.

“Absolutely not, no, but if you come here to forget, you may as well do it right…” Hermes sighed, a momentary flash of resignation in his stance as he briefly let his shoulders droop. “Anyway, whatever, fuck real life. Let’s play?” he offered, running a hand through his dark hair, seemingly shaking himself out of the memory of whatever haunting reality had led him here. As a matter of fact, what had led you here?

“Sure,” you smiled, “What are we playing? I’m pretty sure I saw an arcade on my way in…”

“Come on, there’s no stakes in that! This is where the real fun’s at,” he said with a light laugh, gesturing to the craps table in front of you.

“Speak for yourself. I’ll have you know, I’m amazing at air hockey!”

“Yeah? I’m a killer at the claw machine, so go figure.”

You rolled your eyes at him, “Cute. Shame they don’t have an escape room.”

“Just as well, I’ve always been a little too good with locks… Besides, this place itself is an escape room. Only, there’s no escape…”

“Wait, what?”

“Because… You want to stay, right? What’s waiting for you outside?”

Suddenly, you found yourself struggling to answer his question. Where barely a few moments ago, everything had been so clear, now you could see a hazy cloud inside your mind as you desperately searched for the answer to no avail, almost as though that hallucinogen was beginning to hit hard… 

“Outside? What’s outside? I — I could stay here — You’re… Huh?” you stuttered, “I don’t know where else I’d go.”

Hermes sighed, glancing over at you. “Literally anywhere but here.”

“Sorry?” you questioned, brows furrowed. Had you misread his signals?

“Walk with me,” he offered, and so you obliged as he stepped towards you again. You followed his lead as he strolled on within the confines of the casino, glancing surreptitiously around as though making sure you weren’t being eavesdropped on - though you could only wonder why.

“Alright, I don’t normally do this…” he drawled, “But for some reason I’m taking a liking towards you; and all trickery aside, I don’t take unfair advantage, so here’s the secret. You ever heard of Odysseus and the Lotus Eaters?” he asked seriously; you nodded your assurance. “Well, this place is kinda like their island… Only, now it’s here in the modern world, and what better place for it than Sin City? Hence the lightness in the air and the endless supply of blue lotus wine…”

You eyed him curiously, willing him to go on and trying not to focus on his initial confession. “I guess that explains a lot. So this is… eternal psychedelic bliss?”

“Yep, that good old adrenaline and dopamine rush, forever and ever and everrrrr… Half of Olympus has tried to claim it, but nobody really knows whose work of chaotic genius this was.” He shrugged nonchalantly, not at all like he was explaining such an outlandish concept. “When you’re in a casino, time just seems to work differently - and just like that, time moves at its own distorted pace in here. Lost travellers often find their way into this place, it has that draw when you stray off your path - and that’s why I hang out here, not just to wander astray from my own shit, but to guide you back to yours. I’m not immune to this,” he raised his glass, gesturing to the wine, “But I can handle the air just fine, unlike most mortals…”

“And what if I want to get lost?” you challenged, plucking his glass out of his hand, holding his gaze as you brought the drink to your lips. His gaze remained fixed on you as he bit his own lip, his eyes flickering to your lips for a millisecond as you sipped the wine; thirsty, not dissimilar to the way you’d been eyeing him mere seconds ago.

“Mmkay, lucky for you, I have some semblance of sense about me,” Hermes said, stopping by a poker table nearby, where the players immediately cleared a spot for the pair of you. Entirely nonchalant, he swiped a deck of cards off the table, expertly shuffling it as he spoke, “So win the next deal, and I’ll get you out of here.”

“So if I lose, I’m stuck in here?” you attempted to clarify the stakes, trying not to get distracted as you watched him shuffle those cards. Hell, he had such pretty hands, what else could you do but wonder what else he could do with them?

“Pretty much.”

“And what if I ask for a better deal?”

“Better than having your real life back?”

“Yep.”

“Try me…”

“Okay. If I win, my prize is you.”

“Me? What’s the catch?”

“Nothing. Just, you and me, until not even the gods above can separate the two of us,” you teased, peak dramatic, somewhere between flirting and floating. You could get used to this, the weightless feeling of flight…

Hermes quirked a brow at you, undeniably amused. “Interesting thought, given that I’m… well, not above, per se, but one of them.”

“You’re… what now?” You tilted your head to one side, looking curiously across at him. What in the world was he on about?

He shot you a pointed stare, isn’t it obvious? But it wasn’t, until now… when it all began to make sense, slowly: what this place was, how he knew so much about it, why he had a more heightened sense of awareness despite the inherent hypnotism of the literal and metaphorical lotus flower you’d stepped into… And he could guide lost travellers out. Your jaw dropped as your hand flew to your mouth when it finally dawned upon you who and what he was, and what that entailed —

And out loud, all you could manage was a whisper; “Oh, my god…”

The Greek god in front of you heaved a dramatic sigh, aiming a playful eye-roll in your direction. “Please, like I haven’t heard that one before,” he chuckled lightly, the sarcasm heavy in his tone.

And so you let him deal your hand and you played, stopping every so often to laugh, for Hermes was surprisingly fun to be around and perhaps staying here with him wouldn’t be so bad… Only, this couldn’t be his permanent residence. He was the god of travel, it made sense that he never hung around one place long enough to settle. It was obvious he had a natural charisma about him that clearly worked in his favour more than once; and not that it really mattered, but you absently wondered how many like you had crossed paths with him before, and the past baggage he’d been trying to forget was certainly not lost on you…

He had his right arm slung casually around your shoulder, his left occupied by his cards, not caring if you could see them. You tried your level best to stay focused; for you were feeling a little lightheaded by now, a combination of the wine and the strong scent of his cologne… He was close, enough that you could pick up the gentle sweet notes beneath the woody cedar scent he wore.

“All in?” you suggested, nudging your chips toward the centre of the table, glancing up at the literal god beside you.

“I am if you are,” Hermes smirked, pushing his own ridiculous amount of chips into the pot beside yours.

The game went on; and as if out of nowhere, thanks to a sudden turn in your luck and a surprise royal flush - which if you didn’t know any better, you would’ve attributed to him - you had finally won. Caught up in the daze, you stepped up onto your toes and threw your arms around his neck in an excited hug. He was momentarily taken aback by it, but quickly regained enough composure to gently wrap his arms around you. His soft touch bore a pleasantly startling contrast to his mischievous demeanour, and you found yourself not wanting to let go.

“Well played…” he congratulated you in that same teasing tone as he gently drew you back, briefly glancing at his watch and tapping two fingers against the side of the dial.

Perhaps you would’ve wondered why, but spurred on by your victory and high off the adrenaline, you hooked one finger in the gold chain around his neck and gently tugged at it to urge him closer, until the distance between you was barely a hair’s breadth. You could feel the warmth radiating off him in waves, his intense cologne flooding your senses. And suddenly it didn’t faze you that you were in public, and you paid no mind to the way all his casino companions were frozen around you instead of continuing their games… Suddenly, all you wanted was him. 

Was it blasphemous to lust after a god?

Hell, you could deal with the consequences of that later, for right now, his magnetism was pulling you in and you couldn’t bear to look away from those deep, dark brown eyes… Until Hermes leant closer to you and his soft lips brushed yours as he spoke, barely above a whisper yet you could hear him clearly despite the noise, “Not at all…”

Your breathing hitched, at his comment, at his proximity, at… everything about this. How the fuck did he know what you’d been thinking? 

Perhaps you’d dwell on that longer, but just then he reached up to cup your cheek. Though unexpectedly tender, his touch was white hot where his skin met yours, but pleasurably so as you let yourself get lost in it, in him… He pressed his lips to yours in two delicate little pecks, clearly just teasing, and you just about caught sight of his smirk before you stepped up onto your toes to kiss him again, for real this time. His other hand smoothly dropped to your waist, holding you against him and you pulled at his chain with your finger still caught in it, curling your other fist in the soft cotton of his hoodie.

Apparently, even the gods weren’t immune to carnal need, and Hermes was evidently faring no better than you; he gave in to the kiss quickly, all but melting into you, his tongue swiping insistently at your bottom lip, and you weren’t about to stop him. You parted your lips for him, granting him access instead of prolonging this teasing that had left you both desperate. He tasted of something indescribably sweet, mixed with the rich taste of the blue lotus wine that you’d both downed not so long ago, and you already knew he was a far better intoxicant than any drink you’d find here… As he deepened the kiss, his tongue brazenly tasting yours, borderline hungry; you saw a flash of light behind your eyelids, gripped by the feeling that you were flying, all for a mere moment before you became hyperaware of his heated touch and the fact that your feet were still firmly planted on the soft floral-patterned carpet of the casino.

It felt like time had frozen, the world had stopped around you, and nothing mattered except for him and you and the most perfect kiss you’d ever had…

But somehow, instead of clouding your thoughts like you’d expected, you drew back from his kiss with some clarity. Hermes had told you he could never lose. So why, then, had you just managed to win this? You were no expert when it came to these games, and he was clearly a well-seasoned gambling master… Had the notorious trickster god manipulated the deal in your favour? Had he purposely thrown this away for you?

The glimmer in his eyes only looked brighter as you separated, yet somehow those deep browns looked darker, lust clearly getting the better of him; and he made no effort to hide it, despite his small smile and the lightest hint of a blush on his cheeks. You were fairly sure you mirrored it all, and you were in no hurry to let him go…

Only, as the world began to come back into focus, you realised time really had stopped around you: everything and everyone in the casino was frozen, and you glanced up at the god in front of you with a mix of curiosity and fear in your eyes. “When you said you could stop time…” you began, still in disbelief.

Hermes nodded slowly, meeting your gaze with that characteristic smirk. “Yeah, I meant that literally. I may have had a running out of time crisis once, hence… this stolen life-saver,” he explained, raising his wrist to show you his watch - now upon closer inspection, you realised the hour, minute and second hands all pointed to 12, and he hovered a finger over a button at the side of the dial. “It’s up to you. Want me to bring it back?”

You shook your head. Not only did that beautiful gold timepiece look unfairly gorgeous on his wrist; it also held a piece of magic that could be incredibly useful… “No,” you whispered, “I’m in no hurry. Let’s make this last…”

You tilted your chin up towards him again, and he obliged you with another sweet little kiss. “Well, then… Perhaps I could show you some of the wonders of existing beyond space and time…” he murmured, “What d’you say to that?”

“I say, make time stop for us a little longer. Take me to another world, Hermes…”

The look he shot you just then, could’ve brought you to your knees on the spot - somehow you just knew he was fixated on the sound of his name as you whispered it, and you wondered how he could make you feel that just from a simple touch.

“C’mon, sweetheart; let’s get out of here,” Hermes suggested, offering you an arm; you linked your arm through his as he tapped the side of his watch, resuming the world around you as if it had never paused at all. 

You gazed up at him in awe as he led you out of the casino, back to the lobby and towards the opening of the blooming flower you’d walked in through. The humid summer air hit you both as you stepped outside together, thereby breaking the spell - but you were still captivated by him, regardless. He briefly let go of you to do away with his warm hoodie, leaving him in just a fitted white t-shirt that had no business looking so goddamn gorgeous on him.

You couldn’t help but smile as he hummed softly in your ear, “There’s a place I know in a nearby park…”

Part 2 via AO3 (blasphemous smut ahead)

#lin manuel miranda #lin manuel miranda x reader #lin manuel x reader #hermes x reader #pjo hermes #percy jackson #percy jackson and the olympians #pjo #my gif #my fic #pjo hermes fanfic #can't help it i love him

[emil1863]

More for the au!

The basics, Gods, Demigods, Devil Fruits, all exist.

World Gov + Marines try and keep the whole concept of gods and demigods under wraps. Because I'm working with "D's" carry divinity. And having a good chunk of them outright despise the government isn't a great look.

Luffy is a god while Garp and Dragon are demigods. Luffy can shift between physical and 'divine' form whereas demigods don't have that ability.

Luffy is the successor/inheritor of his predecessor's will and own divinity. But not through reincarnation necessarily. One in the same but they are very much so different. His devil fruit and promise to Shanks cemented his place as the successor to the sun and freedom. When gods and demigods start out, there isn't a wholly set future for what will they will have, or the ideals they will embody. Luffy has always had his cloudy/intangible form.

Imagine Garp's surprise when his grandson, who was supposed to join him in the marines, is set to embody freedom and the sun. He was pissed for a solid week about that. Garp also had to deal with questioning where Dragon had even gotten Luffy from, he still doesn't know.

Ace and Sabo were very adamant that Luffy not show off his divine form to everyone, especially if he wanted to become a pirate. He can't be a pirate if the government tracks him down and hides him away at the ripe age of like, 8. Also because having a full god is pretty uncommon, Sabo has heard horror story after horror story of what nobles and those in higher society would do to a god. Sabo is the most vocal about Luffy being careful about that.

Luffy meets Koby, and does an absolutely terrible job at keeping his form hidden. It's harder to control which form he's in when he's excited. Koby was a human with no divinity and big dreams that Luffy adored. So, already excited with a new friend, and the two on their way to Shells town, Luffy sneezed and immediately sold himself out. Koby is a terrible liar and so just elects to never speak on this topic ever. If anyone asks why he has so much knowledge on gods, specifically sun gods, he just doesn't answer. Helmeppo thinks it's funny and immediately pieced together why, because Koby cannot keep anything from him. And Garp has to respect how hard that kid is trying to not completely sell out his grandson, even if the brat kind of deserves it for being a pirate.

Luffy is going to be the Pirate King, divine or not. His crew quickly find out about his side quirk/form in varying ways. Zoro woke up one day with a cloudy demon from hell cutting off his airways. Nami was trying to explain clouds to Luffy and that 'no, they cannot just spawn on your person, that's stupid,' and so Luffy shows her that he is in fact, correct.

Usopp got jumpscared early in the morning, before the sun had risen, when Luffy just appeared behind him and asked if he wanted to watch the sunrise. Sanji was cooking dinner and Luffy got so excited he phased out of his physical body.

Chopper found out while asking Luffy if he had any medical conditions he should know about, he thought it was kinda cool that Luffy can change forms. And is only a little jealous that Luffy has a fully human form. Luffy always makes sure to tell Chopper he's exactly who he needs to be.

Robin found out after talking about 'Nika,' who is thought to be long dead, but is not. And is the captain of the crew she is now apart of. Luffy knows the name is important and it has a certain weight when it's said. He physically feels when someone says his name around him. Robin thinks this is very fascinating. (Also can add some context into poneglyphs, that there is a lot to it, even if Robin doesn't yet know and Luffy wasn't alive/doesn't have that knowledge)

Franky was showing off cool shit he could do with his robotic body, and Luffy was like 'me too!!!'

Brook found out when Luffy fell asleep listening to him play a song, and Luffy slipped back into his resting form of cloudiness.

While both forms have their uses and limitations, Luffy is most comfortable in his intangible form, even if his physical one is the default. He cannot access his divine form after a certain point of exhaustion hits.

Im going to end that there before I have an entire novel in this. But that's the general thought throw up I'm smacking down right now.

Sorry if this is incoherent and not easy to understand lol. I will flesh it out more later and when I have actually thought more about it. Might change things later too. Then I'll probably make a good post about it with actual wellish made context and lore.

#one piece #monkey d. luffy #one piece luffy #op koby #cobylu #kobylu #my art #god au #I HAD THIS WHOLE THING WRITTEN OUT AND DONE AND I DELETED IT LMAO??? I WANNA CRY #ENJOY MY INCOHERENT SCREAMING YALL #LOVE YALL LOTS HOPE YOUR HAVING A GOOD DAY

[pix3lplays]

Heloo, I have an idea

Or thoughts

How's your robot beloved (beloveds?) would hold you?

[Skitters away Godspeed]

- 🐜 (antnon-)

🐜 antnon! I love that. And your idea too…I have many robot beloveds so…have a few, from a variety of fandoms…

Robots my beloved…

-Various fandom robots and how they hold you-

Screwllum: A Proper gentleman robot~he’s not going to get super cuddly with you, but especially in public. He’s never been much for showing love through literal touch, but…with a human partner…he does appreciate that you might need some physical affection.

It’s subtle with Screwllum. The two of you sitting close together, your leg touching his, either your hand on his thigh, or his hand on yours. It’s elegant…refined, and tasteful. Enough for anyone to be able to tell the two of you are together.

Sometimes you want more though. He wishes he could understand your desire for physical affection, especially when he’s involved. You really want to sit on his lap? He’s a robot. He’s not soft or comfortable and yet…if you manage to get some time alone with him you can sit on his lap for a bit.

And yeah. He’s not very comfortable. But you make it work. Just drape yourself over his lap and hope for the best.

Svarog: He’s comfortable touching humans he trusts, and if you’re his? He’s got enough experience to know that physical affection is a good way to show he cares about his favorite humans.

For a while, the physical affection is pretty situational. He tends to touch you when he’s feeling protective of you. A hand on your hip, or on your lower back. Kinda shocking the first time you experienced Svarog’s (overly) protective side. You were just dealing with someone who was sorta upset at you, and apparently them raising their voice at you triggered Svarog’s protective instincts.

You’re so used to him, you hardly even noticed the robot’s presence, until the person you were talking to suddenly shut up, and you felt a large, robotic hand on your shoulder. He doesn’t even have to say anything and they’re leaving. The overprotectiveness IS a bit annoying but…given what you know about Clara you can’t blame him for being overprotective with his humans.

Also!! Something cool about Svarog…he’ll let you sit on his shoulder if you promise to exercise caution. It’s…a lot higher up than you were initially expecting…kinda scary…but very fun.

Sam: I made a whole post about this but…it takes a while for him to figure out how to be gentle with you. He’s REALLY strong, and can’t really feel pressure, so he doesn’t notice if he’s hurting you unless you say something, or yelp in pain. He gets used to it eventually, and you get carried around bridal style by the warrior, EVERYWHERE. Or if you don’t feel like being carried, but your bodyguard still wants his hands on you…he’ll have one hand on your hip, and his other hand holding yours.

He would never say it, but he does love it when you’re the one who initiates physical affection with him.

This typically happens when you’re feeling cold and want to warm up against your physically warm robot.

He kinda just, sits and manspreads so you can sit comfortably between his legs and lean up against his chest.

Cozy~

Epsilon (Pluto): A robot with a much better understanding of interacting with humans than most of my robot beloveds…

Given that he’s raising small human children, you’re not surprised he’s good at simple acts of physical affection.

Hugs and handholding are something he’s pretty good at, though…on much smaller people. He has to get used to hugging you, and holding your hand, though he adjusts pretty quickly. But hugs are brief, and handholding is distant enough…when you do want to cuddle for real he’s a little stiff and awkward. He’s sitting, and you sit next to him, and take his hand and lean your head on his shoulder…

He’s not necessarily uncomfortable, because it’s you, but you can tell he’s a bit nervous. Go easy on him and take it slow. He’ll get used to cuddling you, it’s just…different when it’s his human lover.

Eventually it gets to the point where you can cuddle comfortably on his chest, but a personal favorite of yours is sitting on the back of a couch, him sitting between your legs so you can comfortably rub his shoulders, or play with his hair. It’s a shame he can’t actually enjoy the sensations that come from you touching him, but just being close to you, and knowing what the gestures are supposed to mean are enough to him.

But yeah the most he’ll do for you in public is handholding and hugs. Occasionally he’ll stand close enough for your arms to brush, it’s nice. His hands are nice, too. So incredibly powerful, and yet he was always so gentle with you, and with his children.

Billy Kid (Zenless Zone Zero): OK OK he’s a CYBORG I KNOW but lemme have this~

Despite how physically affectionate he would LIKE to be, he’s not very good at it…he doesn’t know his own strength, and he tends to not pay attention…so you’ll move to hold his hand or lean against him, and he’ll spin around really fast because oh it’s his favorite person! And he ends up bonking you because he spun around too fast, not paying attention to how close you are to him…he always feels so bad when he accidentally hurts you…just tell him what he needs to do to hold you properly and he’ll do his best…in certain combat situations though, sometimes he just has to pick you up and RUN.

But yeah, just…be aware when you’re cuddling Billy and you’ll be totally fine! Maybe.

#honkai star rail #honkai star rail x reader #hsr Sam x reader #honkai star rail Sam x reader #Screwllum #Screwllum x reader #hsr Screwllum x reader #honkai star rail Screwllum x reader #Svarog #Svarog x reader #hsr Svarog x reader #honkai star rail Svarog x reader #pluto epsilon x reader #Epsilon x reader #Billy Kid x reader #zzz Billy Kid x reader #zenless zone zero billy kid x reader

[tourettesdog]

I’m replaying Stray and it got me thinking of a DPxStray crossover

Like taking the core themes and setting of Stray, but mashing DP vibes, characters, and ghostliness into it.

Warning: Stray spoilers

So with Stray the whole thing is that it's been hundreds of years in an underground city, all of the humans have died off, and in their place the robots they had as workers have gained sentience and filled the niches people left behind. You, as the little kitty cat, find the last human whose consciousness has been uploaded into a drone that you carry around in your little backpack-- together you're trying to open up the underground city and get to the outside.

So in terms of a crossover, I'd imagine that the construction of the ghost portal and resulting war with the GIW has a disastrous effect on the world. The surface slowly grows less and less habitable, long years of war that are never-ending. During this time, the Fentons get roped into a project to help build an underground city with a ghost shield-- a last bastion for humanity. It's the least they can do, considering the harm their research caused.

Danny's accident still happened in this scenario, he still fought as Phantom, but he was grievously injured and reverted into his badly-cracked core. His parents think he's long gone, while Jazz holds onto it and keeps him safe, not knowing if he'll ever reform.

Decades pass and the Fentons eventually move into the underground city they helped make. They live in disgrace, knowing they caused the turmoil that tore apart the surface and caused the death of their son. They try to make amends by lending their minds and hands to the city. When illness ravages the city, they die with regrets.

When Jazz knows her own time is drawing near, she does what she can to keep Danny's core safe as her last act.

She's watched one of the smaller cracks on his core disappear over her lifetime, but Jazz knows she won't live to see her brother made whole again. Sometimes she can sort of get a sense of him flickering around his core. Feel his emotions. Know he's still there.

Jazz finds some old tech that her parents squirreled away-- even with their many regrets, they were always proud of their research. With it, she builds a container to keep Danny in with filtered ectoplasm, hoping that it will be enough. That someday he'll come back, and that he won't be too upset she's left him behind.

Danny grows stronger over the years, his energy feeding into the technology around him. His (electric) core feeds on it as much as the filtered ectoplasm, and he finds comfort in exploring the network-- the only sense of freedom he's had in a long time.

Hundreds of years later, a little ginger cat finds its way into an underground city. The screens and tech act oddly, guiding the little cat to the backroom of an old apartment where a bright stone floats in a green canister. The cat can feel emotions and thoughts coming off of the thing. It's urged by more than instinct to knock over the container and free the stone inside.

The spectral being that floats out from the stone startles the cat at first, but then the being greets the cat gently and strokes it with a hand that hardly ghosts through the tips of its fur. A friend.

Danny doesn't really know how many years he's spent in this container. His memories are a jumbled mess, his senses addled. He feels like he remembers someone telling him that he needed to survive-- to find his way back out to the surface.

However long Danny's been healing, however, it's still not enough to maintain a fully corporeal body. He's tethered to his core, only able to project his shape for short periods of time before he has to retreat back into it.

He knows he needs to get to the surface to find a steadier source of pure, fresh ectoplasm to help him.

Danny's not really sure if he should trust a cat with what is essentially his head, heart, and soul, but... he doesn't have much of a choice.

In terms of the robots with the crossover, I feel like they could either exist as-is, or they could also be ghostly in nature. Like maybe the people that passed away in the underground city still linger, their ectoplasm imbibing into the circuitry of the robots. I imagine the mass death of the residents in the city could have created a lot of blob ghosts, and that over time maybe those blob ghosts latched onto the robots and became something more substantial. 

In terms of the zurks, I imagine that either the Fentons made one last massive mistake, or someone used some of their research (perhaps altering bacteria with ectoplasm) and it had disastrous consequences. 

#stray game #stray #danny phantom #danny phantom crossover #dp crossover #DPxStray #dogart #dogposts #stray spoilers

[superectojazzmage]

Saw someone on Reddit theorize that the reason the Halo show is Like That is because it was supposed to be a Mass Effect show but they couldn’t get the rights so they just licensed some other famous science fiction game series, did some rewrites, and went from there. And I’m intensely disturbed because of how much sense this theory makes, because so much of the show feels like “Halo pretending to be Mass Effect”:

The general focus on internal, smaller-scale human conflicts, intergalactic politics, and relationships with the bigger alien threat building largely in the background.

The Covenant’s motives and reasons for attacking humanity being built up as a mystery like how Mass Effect makes a big deal out of nobody knowing why the Reapers do what they do (in contrast to the Halo games, where the Covenant’s motives are more or less known from the start). Also, how the Covenant aren’t really humanized in comparison to the games, being portrayed more like inscrutable beings using brainwashed human servants like the Reapers.

The frank depictions and discussions of sex and nudity. Halo’s generally always avoided outright sexual content beyond the occasional silly joke (e.g., “he was my lover!”), whereas Mass Effect never shied away from that subject.

The sheer fact that Master Chief fucks at all, and especially that he fucks a woman aligned with the aliens (and is speculated by some to be originally intended AS an alien). Fucking aliens is one of the bread-and-butters of Mass Effect, but can you ever imagine that in a Halo game beyond obvious non-canon gags like Johnson hugging the Elite in CE?

The portrayal of AIs. Cortana is a mix of EDI (AI made by morally dodgy group that slowly aligns with the good guys) and SAM from Andromeda (implanted into Chief’s nervous system rather then just carried in a chip like in the games). More vaguely, the Spartans’s portrayal as basically human robots “rediscovering their humanity” feels eerily similar to the Geth and their whole arc of developing individuality, with Chief filling the role of Legion.

Halsey acts a lot like a female Illusive Man, manipulating people for “the greater good” and lacking a lot of her more sympathetic traits from the games. Similarly, the guy playing Captain Keyes looks and acts A LOT more like Captain Anderson from Mass Effect (seriously, Danny Sapani is the perfect pick Anderson aside from getting Keith David to reprise the role; he’d be an amazing casting choice if this were a Mass Effect show). And just to cap it off, this Makee character is suspiciously similar to Benezia, serving the villains, the sex appeal, and it would explain why so many people get the vibe that she was intended as an alien.

The fact that the whole plot is kicked off when Master Chief goes to colony to find it was attacked by aliens and touches an ancient alien device that gives him a vision… just like Commander Shepard going to Eden Prime and touching the Beacon at the start of Mass Effect.

The way Parangosky is portrayed, arguing with and seeking respect from a Council while also covering for undercover black ops stuff would make a lot more sense as the Citadel Council and the whole subplot in Mass Effect of humanity having to prove themselves as newcomers who have only just got onto the Council (which would also explain Parangosky being made a lot nicer then in canon Halo; she’s a stand-in for the first human councilor in Mass Effect, taking elements from both Anderson and Udina).

This one is kind of a stretch but Kwan and the Madrigal subplot feel ever so similar to Tali and the Quarians (younger girl from a culture on the outskirts of galactic society leaves home and ends up working with her peoples’s perceived enemy and learning they’re not so different — again, lining up with the ”Spartans as Geth” idea). Kwan also seems to take a bit after Ashley, being survivor of the heretic Geth Covenant attack on Eden Prime her hometown and having similar ”angry tough girl” characterization.

Like, no, completely unironically I am one hundred percent sure that this was a Mass Effect script at some point in its production. If so, man, BioWare really dodged a bullet for once, huh?

#halo #halo show #halo the series #halo paramount #halo 2 #halo reach #halo infinite #halo 3 #halo 3 odst #halo combat evolved #mass effect #mass effect trilogy #mass effect andromeda #mass effect 2 #mass effect 3 #bungie #343 industries #bioware #microsoft #paramount #paramount plus #shit is bad yo #added some more similarities that someone else pointed out #the plot deepens

[five-rivers]

Gambler's Fallacy

AO3

Izuku’s expected path down, face-first into the concrete, halted.  He floated, staring at the retreating sidewalk, uncomprehending.  

“Sorry!” said an unfamiliar voice.  “I hope you don’t mind, I used my quirk on you!  Falling would be bad luck, wouldn’t it?”

“Um,” said Izuku, not sure how to explain that was the point to this very pretty girl with this super cool quirk, oh, no, why was she even talking to him?

She tapped her fingers together, and her quirk let him go.  “Good luck on the exam!” she said, walking away.

“Uh-um, y-yeah,” said Izuku.  

Crap.  Did that interaction count as good luck or bad?  Obviously, Kacchan literally running into him on the way in was bad luck, and tripping was bad luck, but a cute girl rescuing him?  And then Izuku completely humiliating himself by not being able to say thank you?  If only his quirk took other people’s actions into account more, maybe he’d be able to tell.  Especially when he was trying to save up his bad luck by pulling on the negative side of his quirk.  

Speaking of which, he had an entrance exam to get to, and this would be the biggest test of his quirk since the day with the sludge villain.  That day had been awful.  He’d burned through his ‘stored’ luck and then some when All Might rescued him, bit his tongue so hard he wasn’t able to ask the man any questions, and then on the way home, he’d run into the sludge villain again, but this time, it was attacking Kacchan, and he’d had to tip his quirk balance even further into ‘debt’ for the luck to stab the villain in the eye with his pencil.  When he finally got the chance to go home after that, when the heroes (except for All Might) were debating whether to berate him for quirk use, or interrogate him over his ‘clearly fake’ quirk, only constant vigilance kept him from being run over by a car or kidnapped.  

(Luck only took you so far.  Skill and hard work closed the gap.)

But he was far more prepared today!  The last time he’d spent a significant amount of luck all at once was when he met Mr. Yagi, who’d been organizing a community volunteer event to clean up Dagobah beach.  Izuku had… needed a pick-me-up after his quirk registration had been audited again.  He was glad he did.  Mr. Yagi was the sort of guy who was so uncool he sort of rolled over into being cool again, and he worked at Might Tower.  Izuku really liked Mr. Yagi.  Even if he did sometimes look at Izuku as if he were debating saying something life-altering.  

Point being, he had a bunch of luck saved up, and he’d keep saving it all the way until he was taking the exam, leaning on his quirk just enough to make himself moderately unlucky until then.  

It worked pretty well, in his opinion.  The random seating for the written exam and for the practical orientation both put him next to Kacchan, he somehow grabbed the attention of someone confident uptight enough to scold him for muttering in front of a whole auditorium of people, he kept getting hit by doors, the robot bus driver somehow decided to register him as a bush, instead of a human, he tripped getting off the bus, the uptight guy scolded him again, and then–

“Start!” screamed Present Mic, from the announcer’s box.  

Izuku didn’t have to be told twice.

.

Izuku didn’t actually mind having bad luck.  

Not usually.  Not as long as it was only a little bad luck.  After all, what you did with your luck was what dictated your fate.  Plus, most small unlucky events, like spills, tears, and lost items, could be countered with only a little forethought.  Izuku had two of everything that was really important, and carried a mini sewing and stain removal kit with him almost all the time!

But… good luck was freedom.  Good luck made him feel as if he was invincible, as if he was flying, a thousand miles up and only getting higher.  Good luck was amazing.  

Good luck was an almost ideal weapon in his hand the minute he stepped into the fake city, a piece of pipe that was just the right length, the right height, the right width for him to hold onto easily. 

Good luck was catching sight of other students hitting the weak points of robots so clearly he knew he would be able to target them as well.  

Good luck was partially-destroyed but still functional robots practically offering themselves up to him for points.  

Good luck was being able to dodge every attack and stray friendly fire without even trying.  

Good luck was spotting when people were in trouble before they even knew it, and pulling them out of the way.  

Good luck was seeing that nice girl trapped under rubble, and throwing his pipe, spear-like, at the zero-pointer and having it hit something so vital that its progress ground to a stop.  

Good luck was… rapidly running out.  Actually, he’d burned through his saved buffer of bad luck a while ago.  

Oops.  

He didn’t even see the bit of rubble that fell on his head.  

He didn’t see anything until hours later when Recovery Girl woke him up in the infirmary.  

He didn’t even get to talk to the nice girl again.  

But… he thought he’d done well.  He could only hope he’d done well enough.  

.

He had!

.

Izuku checked to make sure he wasn’t leaning on the negative side of his quirk too hard.  A quirk assessment?  A physical quirk assessment?  On the first day?  One with expulsion as a possible consequence?

He was going to die.  

It wasn’t like he’d neglected physical training.  Mr. Yagi had even given him some suggestions for it!  (It turned out that before he’d been a secretary, he’d been a personal trainer… who knew?)  But, naturally, he’d focused on his quirk, and his quirk was anything but physical.  In a class with Kacchan and people with enhancement-type quirks…

Kacchan promptly underlined the point by blasting a baseball hundreds of meters away in the ball toss while shouting “DIE!” at the top of his lungs.

He was really going to die.  

Unless… unless everyone else lost.

He raised his hand.  “Mr. Aizawa, do you mean we can do anything to make our scores better in comparison with our classmates?”

“As long as you don’t injure anyone, yes.”

Well.  He’d learned long ago that good luck for him sometimes meant bad luck for other people.  He… really didn’t want to be expelled.  But could he do that to his new classmates?  Could he sabotage them like that?

.

The answer was, no, he couldn’t.  But he could, apparently, get one of UA’s observation drones to go haywire, catching his baseball at the top of its arc and then zooming off to who-knew-where over a kilometer away at high speed.  

He could also promptly get plowed into by another drone, which had suffered from the same AI malfunction as the first, and have to go to Recovery Girl for the resultant broken arm.  

.

Sometimes, Izuku wondered if his quirk had a mind of its own, and, if so, what was up with its sense of humor.  

No one was expelled.  

.

Izuku stared at the numbered ball in his hand.  He’d decided to take it easy in the luck department today, not leaning on it either way, but, really, this was far too much, just to make things even.  

Next to him, stood Uraraka, who he might finally have a real conversation with.  Across from him, stood Kacchan, who was definitely going to take this opportunity to beat the crap out of him.  

Thank goodness nothing big was riding on this Battle Trial.  Even if All Might kept looking at him like he was going to say something life-altering.  

Actually…  Was All Might related to Mr. Yagi?  No, that was silly.  Just because two people worked in the same place and had similar mannerisms, and the same color of hair, and the same color of eyes, and the same smile, and similar heights, didn’t mean… um…  Hm.  

That was a thought for later.  

For now…

“My quirk is called Gambler’s Fallacy,” said Izuku.  “It lets me manipulate my luck.  I can store up bad things that happen to me, and then use them to make me lucky later, or, if I don’t have any luck stored, I can make myself lucky now, but I have to pay for it later.  I can also make myself unlucky on purpose, and store up the bad things that happen because of that.  But I don’t have anything stored up right now, since I spent it all yesterday, during the quirk assessment.”

“Wow,” said Uraraka, “that sounds really complicated.  So, you could just… make us win?”

“Not exactly.  If winning or losing was based entirely on chance, then, yes, but it isn’t.  This is mostly skill and ability.”  

“Mm,” said Uraraka.  “So we’ll just have to be more skilled!  Anyway, even if you can’t make us win, we’ll know that we didn’t lose just because of dumb luck, right?”

Izuku nodded.  “You’re right!  I, um, I do have a plan.”

“Let’s hear it!”

.

Izuku’s quirk apparently thought winning  was worth breaking an arm (again).  Maybe if he factored in Recovery Girl’s quirk, he could understand that.  

But it still hurt.  

(And Kacchan was still angry.  Izuku wished he’d stop blaming all of his bad luck on him.  Even if it was Izuku, this time.)

.

Getting trampled twice in one day, first by reporters, then by people running away from reporters, was definitely bad luck.  

.

“I tend to say whatever is on my mind,” said Asui– No.  Tsu.  She said to call her Tsu.

“Okay?” said Izuku.  

“Your quirk is very hard to understand.”

“Ah, yeah,” said Izuku, rubbing the back of his neck.  “It is.  I’m really glad quirks grow with you.  If I was able to push my luck then as much as I can now, I probably would have died.”  As it was, he'd gotten into a few bad situations over the years.  Once, while operating with neutral luck, he'd won a contest that was apparently more chance-based than advertised, and the results had been… interesting.

('Interesting' being code for terrifying.)

“Hah!” scoffed Kacchan.  “There’s nothing hard to understand about it!  He just sabotages everyone around him!”

“Like you’re any better,” said Kaminari, as Izuku slouched down in his seat, trying to disappear.  “If you don’t tone things down, all of us will be deaf by the time we graduate!”

“I could make you some earplugs, if you think that would help,” offered Yaoyorozu.  

.

As it turned out, being attacked by a whole league of villains during the first field trip of the school year was so absolutely, unmitigatedly bad that it topped off Izuku’s ‘gauge.’  The last time that had happened, he’d been in elementary school.  

It meant that he danced around the first attacks with ease, and when he did fall through a portal, it deposited him right outside a very clearly labeled maintenance door.  It was locked, but Izuku’s costume didn’t include a utility belt just for aesthetics.  He pulled a set of ‘universal’ keys out of one of the pouches, jammed the first one he grabbed into the lock, and grinned as he heard all the tumblers click home.  

Random chance was his friend today.

He ran up, into a sort of control room.  Several of the screens were blinking, warning that the system had lost connection to the main campus.  He cleared the warnings and swept his eyes over the controls.  There was a set of headphones on one of the monitors, and he put them on.  They’d been sized for someone bigger than him, but that was fine.  There were sounds coming through them, so… There.  He could switch freely between hidden microphones in a number of places, apparently.

More importantly, at the moment, he could control vital aspects of a number of the simulations.  He got to work, draining the shipwreck zone, strategically flaring the fires in the conflagration zone, activating a landslide in the landslide zone, ‘rebuilding’ collapsed houses in the typhoon zone…  Anything he could think of, to damage the chances of villains and let his classmates escape.  

Then, his elbow hit the microphone button, switching what the headphone channel to the central plaza just in time to hear ‘Shigaraki Tomura’ order ‘Nomu’ to kill Mr. Aizawa.  

.

All Might burst through the doors before Izuku could even begin to come up with a plan to escape the frankly horrifying Nomu, and never before had Izuku been so relieved to feel his luck drain away and equalize.  

All Might was here - and that was apparently equal to the villains in the eyes of his quirk.  They’d be safe, now.  They were saved.  

Izuku almost cried.  

Then he really did cry as Nomu and the portal villain actually proved to be a challenge.  If Nomu could hold All Might still, and the portal villain could portal one of All Might’s limbs to Shigaraki Tomura…  Or even if the portal villain could close a portal with something in transit…  

But that didn’t happen.  

Instead, All Might punched Nomu through the roof of the USJ.

Izuku tracked Nomu’s meteoric rise with a sense of wonder.  His quirk was great and all, but he’d never, ever be able to do anything like that.  

The rest of the teachers piled through the hole All Might had made in the side of the USJ, and the portal villain swept himself and Shigaraki Tomura away.  Izuku, finally, let himself relax, loosening his grip on his quirk.  

He… didn't think that anyone had died.  That was as lucky as they could possibly expect to be.

.

The problem with the sports festival was that the positive Izuku’s quirk was only effective for short periods of time.

Could he constantly maintain a low level of good luck, like he could with the bad?  Technically, yes.  He’d been tempted to do just that more than once.  But if he ever lost grip on his quirk while he was carrying around a big luck debt…  Well.  It was better to be owed luck than to owe it.  When not being actively managed, his quirk tended to just equalize.  

Could he save up and then slowly spend his good luck?  Again, technically, yes, but… and this was something Izuku was embarrassed to admit…

He was bad at spending good luck slowly.  In fact, not only did he usually push his good luck to happen faster than it usually would, when he was using that side of his quirk, he tended to overshoot.  By a lot.  Hence incidents like at the end of the entrance practical.  

(He was glad he hadn’t overdrawn his luck at the USJ.  He’d probably have had Nomu fall on him or something.)

If he wanted to do well in the sports festival, he couldn’t do that.  It wouldn’t do him any good to win, say, a relay race, like they’d done for the second event  a couple years ago, and then step on his shoelace and concuss himself before he could do anything for the next event.  

So.  He had to figure out how to either regulate his quirk use better, or how to pass at least one event without using it.  Preferably both.  

.

Izuku kept his quirk in neutral until the minefield.  Who decided that a minefield was a good idea for a school sports festival?  Well…  Plus Ultra, he supposed.  

He had an idea.  

He had an idea he needed to be lucky for.  But he'd only have to be lucky for a minute.  Maybe even less.  

He put his scrap metal shield aside, and started stacking mines.  When he figured he had enough, and had them in more or less the right shape, he picked up his scrap metal and, using it to shield himself, jumped on the mines.  

He went soaring.  It was exhilarating.  It was terrifying.  It was working.  

Kacchan and Todoroki were in sight.  He was gaining on them.  He was–

Getting hit by a bird. 

He tumbled sideways, away from Todoroki and Kacchan.  Barely, he managed to get the shield under him again, before he hit the ground and another mine went off, sending him shooting in the other direction.  He landed back in the path Todoroki and Kacchan had cleared, which was weird if his luck had run out…

It hadn’t run out.  

Then where had the bird…?  Why…?

It didn’t matter.  What mattered was that he wasn’t going to try that again, but he need to get a move on if he wanted to finish this race.  He wrenched his quirk back to neutral, and started running.  

He came in third, and collapsed in the waiting area.  Yeah.  Running.  Being exploded.  Still hard.  

It took a while for everyone else to cross the finish line.  A while during which Izuku wondered why he’d been hit by that bird.  Maybe Kouda…?  No, he was nowhere nearby, and he usually didn’t make his helpers commit suicide runs which… that probably was, unfortunately.  Was his quirk just broken?  He didn’t like the thought of that.  His quirk screwed him over in a lot of ways, but it had never backstabbed him or failed to work.  

But as soon as Midnight announced the results…

Yeah.  

His quirk wasn’t broken.  

(He’d have to burn some incense for that poor bird, though.  Yikes.)

He, in third place, had a headband worth two hundred points for the next event.  Kacchan had one worth two hundred and five.  

Todoroki’s was worth ten million.  

.

Izuku’s calvary team was made up of Uraraka, Tokoyami, and Hatsume, an unfamiliar girl from the support course.  Hatsume was the rider.  Izuku didn’t have any offensive quirk that being rider would let him leverage, Uraraka didn’t want to be in a position where she would have to use her quirk on herself, and Tokoyami and Dark Shadow were strong together.  Hatsume, meanwhile, had all sorts of unbelievable gadgets that she could operate from the rider position.  

Between her and Tokoyami, their ability to collect headbands shouldn’t be bad.  While everyone else went after Todoroki and Kacchan, they should be able to snag smaller point values.  Once they got a comfortable number, they could use Hatsume’s jetpacks and hide out in the air until the clocks ran down.

“I’m impressed,” she said, after Izuku finished explaining the plan.  

“It’s nothing fancy.”

“Not that, third place.  I’m impressed you’re letting someone else take the spotlight.”

“Well,” said Izuku, “I’m… probably not going to be a spotlight hero, honestly.  My quirk isn’t all that fancy.”

“Hm.  Maybe.  I feel like we’ll be surprised.”

And maybe she was right.

The more chaos inherent in a system, the more Izuku’s quirk could do.  The cavalry battle had a lot of chaos.

So, when Izuku flared his quirk to give them just that little edge, trying to keep their points out of Iida’s hands–

Rin’s team and Kamakiri’s team slipped and fell as Honenuki overshot his quirk use, becoming immediately disqualified.  Monoma brushed against Todoroki… while he already was holding Kacchan’s quirk.  The explosion wasn’t the biggest Izuku had ever seen, but it wasn’t small.  Kaminari, startled, shocked Iida, who stumbled, and almost capsized their whole team, letting Kacchan almost grab the ten million point headband, except that Todoroki suddenly caught on fire.  

Izuku shut his quirk off.  He’d used more luck than he intended, but he still has some for later, and for now…

“Take us up, Hatsume!”

“Thought you’d never ask, third place!”

.

When they landed, they hadn’t finished in first place, but they were far from dropping out, which was a true relief.  

The third event was single combat, which, hm.  Yeah.  His odds weren’t good on this.  He was planning on losing a lot of the recreational games between the second and third rounds, but the stakes of those were low, so he wouldn’t get a lot of luck from them.  In a bare concrete ring, one on one, skill against skill, with almost no outside variables…  It was possible for his quirk to make someone trip over their own feet, or get weird muscle spasms, but under these circumstances, it would be expensive.

Well, there was a little interlude even before that, so he was going to go freshen up…

.

Neither Izuku nor his quirk could decide what kind of luck overhearing all that counted as.  First Todoroki trying to have some kind of rivalry heart-to-heart with Kacchan, where he heavily implied he was the result of a eugenics project, and then whatever that was with his father.  Should he report this?  Who would he even report this to?  Who would believe him?  

He was kind of freaking out.  

And Todoroki’s quirk.

“I thought I was the only one who had self sabotage as part of my quirk,” he whispered.  

Actually, he was pretty angry about that.  Edging into fury, really.  It wasn’t like Todoroki was the only one who’d been dealt a bad hand when it came to fathers, but Izuku wasn’t refusing to use his quirk over it, even though his father’s permanent departure had been the inciting incident for his quirk’s first activation.

(His father abandoning them had, actually, given Izuku a small reserve of good luck that took several days to naturally deplete.  It was something Izuku was perversely grateful for, knowing what his quirk might have done to him otherwise.)

But what could he do?

Except, maybe…  He’d used his fire instinctively, in the cavalry battle.  Maybe if someone could pressure him…

Could Izuku do that?  

No.  Probably not.  Not without a lot of luck. 

… this was going to be painful later.  

.

Of course, he couldn’t beat sense into Todoroki unless he actually made it to the second round of battles.  Making it to the second round of battles seemed… unlikely, at the moment.  His quirk couldn’t protect him from his own stupid decisions, after all.

He was walking towards the edge of the ring, not in control of his body, barely in control of his quirk, which he had turned on as much as he could.  

He tripped.  Over his own feet, as it so happened.

Before Shinsou could react, he was back on his feet and attacking.  Shinsou’s story sounded… sad.  Lonely.  But Izuku had lived the same life!  He’d been called bad luck and a vampire ever since he’d first fully explained his quirk!  He wanted to commiserate!  To comfort!  To empathize!

But, right now, it was time to fight, and he threw Shinsou out of the ring.  

.

Unfortunately, getting out of Shinsou’s grip had come at the cost of his remaining luck.  That meant that if he used any for the fight with Todoroki - a fight he was almost certain to lose anyway - he’d be paying for it later.  

But could he really leave this alone?  Being a hero was risky.  Being a hero while using only half your quirk was worse.  

The match started, and Izuku jumped.  He was lucky, of course.  Todoroki had pretty good control of his ice, but there were, naturally, random peaks and valleys in the less-controlled parts, and Izuku happened to fall into a valley.  He also managed to break off an ice spike on the way down.  

Lacking other weapons, he threw it at Todoroki.  

“You know,” said Izuku, managing to hide from ice behind yet more ice, and acquiring a few more projectiles while he was at it, “if you used your fire to melt these, you wouldn’t have to dodge!”

This actually stopped Todoroki dead in his tracks.  “You–”

“I overheard your conversation with Kacchan!”  Izuku dodged again.  “Do you really think you can be a hero using only half a quirk?  When all the rest of us are trying our–”

He was forced to dodge again.  This went on for some time.  Izuku, barely manage to dodge, Todoroki whipping another, more fragile, glacier at him, Izuku throwing ice and words he barely heard himself back at him.

Izuku, though… He was wearing down.  The temperature was getting to him, and Todoroki had winged him a few times.  

“I won’t do it!” declared Todoroki through gritted teeth.  “I won’t use his quirk!  I’ll show him–”

“It’s not his!  It’s yours!  Use your quirk, Todoroki!  Show me your power!”

Through the ice, Izuku saw orange flare from the tips of Todoroki’s fingers.

The thought crossed Izuku’s mind that suddenly heating up this much cold air might not go very well.  For the very first time in his life, Izuku’s survival instinct decided to do its job and he threw himself out of the ring just in time for Cementoss to raise the blast walls to contain Todoroki’s explosion.

“Uh,” said Midnight a minute later.  “Todoroki, wins?”

Izuku was just as surprised as she was that he hadn’t been turned into a fine paste.  Of course, that could still happen.  He had a massive bout of bad luck coming up.  

Still.  Lying here next to two Pro Heroes, he was probably safe.

.

Izuku tripped going down the stairs leaving the ring.  

“How do you break so many bones going down stairs?” asked Recovery Girl, incredulously.  

Izuku grunted.  Broken bones could be healed.  So could frostbite.  

But, for him at least, the sports festival was over.  He just had to hope he’d made a good impression.

.

(Todoroki joined him in the infirmary an hour later.

“Bakugou is extremely violent,” he said, by way of explanation.

“Yeah, he’s kind of…  Yeah.”

“You’re still friends.”

“Uh,” said Izuku.  “Maybe?”

“What’s your phone number?”

Somehow, Izuku wound up adding Todoroki to the class group chat.)

.

“Who sent your recommendation?” asked Uraraka, over lunch.  

“Native!” said Izuku, vibrating with excitement.  His quirk was kind of boring, visually, and hard to understand, so he hadn’t expected to get any offers at all!

“Native?” asked Uraraka, her face dropping.  “Isn’t he kind of, um.  His whole image is a bit…”

“Appropriative?” filled in Iida.  

“That’s a misconception,” said Izuku.  “He actually is native.  His father is Japanese, obviously, but he’s Ainu, and his mother is from an indigenous North American tribe.  They met at some kind of conference for displaced indigenous peoples, I think?  The documentary was really interesting, but it’s been a while…  I think there was later some kind of controversy with his mother, but I don’t really understand American politics…”

“Oh!” said Uraraka.  “I didn’t know that!  I guess I should try to research, before just assuming things.”

“It’s…  It’s a common misconception,” said Izuku, waving his hands.  “A company he’d investigated for illegal quirk experimentation ran a really nasty smear campaign against him, and, uh, his public persona isn’t really great.”  Which was the polite way to say that he got irritated at reporters (and everyone else) really easily.  “The important thing is, you know now.”

“Mhm!  I guess so!  That’s a really good way to put it.”  She leaned forward.  “I really like your hero name!  It’s super cute!”

“Thanks!” said Izuku, brightly.  “I’ve wanted to use it since I was a little kid!”

.

The ride to Hosu was painfully awkward.  Mainly because every attempt Izuku made to try and start a conversation with Iida fell flatter than a pancake.  

Not that he blamed Iida!  He probably had a lot on his mind, after all.

.

“He-hello, sir!” said Izuku, bowing deeply to Native, who had been leaning up against the front desk of his agency, talking to the secretary.  “I’m Clover!  Y-your intern!  Please take care of me!”

“Hey, hey,” said Native, “there’s really no reason to be like that, it’s irritating.  You need to loosen up a little, kid.”

“Y-yes, sir!”

Native sighed.  “Okay, anyway, you good here, Satsumi?”

“Yes, I think I have all the information,” said the secretary.  

“Great.  So, I guess I can give you the tour and the intern talk.”

Native’s agency wasn’t anything fancy.  A lot of things in it were worn out.  Old.  But, then, after the smear campaign, it was probably hard for him to get sponsorships.

“So, Clover,” said Native, after he had given him a rundown of the temporary dorms and the main common areas, “why did you decide to intern with me?”

“W-well,” said Izuku, “for a couple reasons.  The first is that you’re the only one who requested me, specifically, as opposed to agencies that just have general agreements with UA, so I figured there was probably a reason for that.”

“Uh huh,” said Native, sounding unimpressed, “what else?”

“Well, you also have a strictly mental quirk.  Not a lot of heroes have that, not the ones on UA’s open internship list.  Ragdoll and Mandalay from the Wild Wild Pussycats are the only other ones, and… I’d be worried about being a liability in a rescue situation.”

“Anything else?”

“I don’t think so?  Of course, your record was–”

“Nothing else that might have been in the news?”

“Um.  No?”

Native nodded. “I’m surprised anyone took me up on my offer this year, honestly.”

“Be-because of the smear campaign? I, um, I never believed it.  I remembered your interview when you talked about your parents, so…”

“Ah.  Okay.  That makes sense.  Sorry.  Just had to make sure you weren’t one of those weirdos who try to congratulate me for ‘sticking it’ to an already oppressed group.”  He sighed.  “You’d think we’d have solved at least some of these problems, since we got superpowers, but no, we just came up with even more ways to be awful.”

“O-oh,” said Izuku.  “Sorry.”

“It’s not your fault,” said Native, waving off the apology.  “So.  Tell me about your quirk.”

.

Native’s quirk, compared to Izuku’s, was simple.  It affected his perception.  Not his senses themselves, but the way his brain processed the data from those senses.  His eyes and ears weren’t any sharper than a normal person’s, but what he could process about what he could see and hear was.  And he could do it fast.  He could glance at a full page of writing for a second, and know everything that was written on it.  

It wasn’t terribly like Izuku’s quirk, and didn’t affect the outside world, like Izuku’s did, but like Izuku’s, the activation and management of the quirk were all in his head.  Which meant that he could advise Izuku on how to better use it.  

Unfortunately, Native seemed more interested in the stockpile aspect of his quirk.

“So,” said Native, “hypothetically, if something bad happened to you that had nothing to do with luck, would that count?  Like, if someone decided to hit you.”

“Um, not really.  Like, whenever someone throws a punch, there’s a small amount of chance involved in it hitting at all, but that’s, um, negligible, as far as I’ve been able to tell.”

“So you couldn’t bank luck by, say, purposefully getting assigned crappy paperwork?”

“Uh,” said Izuku, “no.  Not unless the paperwork was randomly assigned and I was leaning on the negative side of my quirk to get it.”

“Okay.  And, then, what if you traded the paperwork to someone else, afterwards?”

“I think I…  I’m not sure?  If I’d set the trade up before hand, probably, um, it’d just do whatever would get me the bad paperwork?”

“What if you needed the bad paperwork for some reason?”

“Then I’d have to use good luck, otherwise I wouldn’t get it.”

“What if you needed something bad to happen to you for some reason?  Like, you wanted to break your arm or get sick to get out of a school assignment?”

“Oh, I actually tried… something like that a few times.”  Not to avoid school work, but to avoid bullies.  “It only worked once, and I really regretted it.”

“Got really sick, huh?”

“Yeah,” said Izuku.  

“Okay,” said Native.  “I’ve got to go out on patrol soon, but I’ve asked Satsumi to give you the basic operational rundown.  Pro-tip?  It’s always the secretaries who are really running the show.”

“I-I’ll remember that, sir!”

“Yeah, yeah.  Anyway, enjoy the break, because I already have some training ideas for tomorrow.”

.

“So,” said Native as Izuku ran through his costume checklist.  “The thing is, even though our quirks are pretty different, there are still some similarities in– Hey, are you paying attention?”

“Yes, s-sir!”

“Uh huh.  There are some similarities in how we have to fight because of them.  Both of us have to rely heavily on the environment and respond to changes in it quickly.  Me, because that’s the only advantage I have, you, because even if your quirk gives you the best opening possible, you still have to move to take advantage of it.  So.”  He gestured at the crowded room, packed full of various random items.  “That’s what we’re doing.  Simulating a changeable environment for you to keep track of.  You ready?”

“Yes!”

.

“I’m going to take you out on patrol today,” said Native.

“R-really?”

“I wouldn’t say it if I wasn’t going to.  There’s a limited amount you can learn from sparring and helping Satsumi with the paperwork - The paperwork is really important, though.  If you screw it up enough, it can break you.  Mainly because of insurance problems.  You don’t want insurance problems.  Or Hero Commission problems.  If they decide they don’t like you, they’ll jump on anything they can to get rid of you.”

Izuku made note of this important fact.  

“Anyway, unless I give you permission, or you’re directly attacked, you are not to engage any villains or criminals, got it?  And if I tell you to run, you run.”

“I-I’ve got it!”

“Cool.  So.  Ready to make your debut, Clover?”

“Yes!”

“Great.  Oh, and bring those marbles.  They worked well for you in yesterday’s session.”

.

The first few hours of patrol went more or less the way Izuku expected it to.  There wasn’t a whole lot of crime in Hosu at this time of day.  Native caught an older teenager trying to break into a car, and gave him a warning for a first offense, they were called to a four-year-old’s somewhat awkward and chaotic quirk awakening - which Izuku helped with! - and a welfare check for an older couple who had missed a book club meeting (they were fine, they had just gotten the date wrong).  Otherwise, it was just walking around Hosu, including some really sketchy alleyways, Native pointing out things to keep an eye on and how to spot trouble in specific places.

But, then… things exploded.  

It wasn’t like Izuku was unused to explosions.  He’d gone to school with Kacchan.  But this explosion was bigger, and had a different character than Danny was used to.  It was also, thankfully, further away.  

Still, the middle of a city like this was not a good place for an explosion.  He started forward, towards the source of the sound, but Native caught his arm.  

“Never,” he said, pulling out his phone (a HeroGrade 32!  They weren’t available to the public, yet!), “never run blind into a situation when you can gather info first.”

“But–” 

“There are other heroes with closer routes,” said Native.  “We can be more useful if we know what’s going on first.  Crap.  Looks like a mass villain attack.”  He flipped his phone to face Izuku. A HeroNet video was playing on it.

He caught sight of exposed brain matter and gasped.  “Nomu?”

“You know one of these guys?”

“No,” said Izuku, “but they look just like one of the villains that attacked the USJ!  Maybe they’re relatives?”

“Any weaknesses?”

“No, they were really strong.  All Might had trouble, even.”

“Crap.  Hopefully, these guys don’t have the same kind of quirk.  Come on, now that we know what we’re up against, the faster we get there, the better.”  He started running.  “I want you to work with on-site sidekicks clearing civilians from the area.  You can use your quirk, but if your stockpile runs out, evacuate with the civilians.  If you get cornered, I give you permission to fight, but only if you get cornered.  Otherwise, run, got it?”

“Ye-yes!” said Izuku.  It was easier for him to keep up with Native than he’d thought it would be, but he didn’t quite have the lung capacity to respond with full sentences.

They turned into an alley and– 

Native stopped dead, scanning the area.  

“Uh, Native?” said Izuku.  “Is–?”

Native pulled him to one side as something fell on them from above.  No.  Not something.  Someone.  Someone– Vest, bandaged arms, scarf, swords–

Native, naturally, processed the information much faster than Izuku.  

“Stain!”

Oh. 

Izuku pulled on his quirk instinctively and reached for his belt, grabbing the first thing that came to hand and throwing it at Stain.  The handful of marbles hit the side of Stain’s beaten katana and knocked it aside enough for Native to dodge.  

But Stain had another knife, and it flicked against Native’s stomach, cutting through his suit and drawing blood.  The wound looked shallow, though, so–

Stain licked his knife, and Native stiffened mid-step and started to fall.  Izuku caught him, then pulled him back, out of Stain’s immediate reach.

“I-I can’t move!” said Native, sounding shocked.

“A… sidekick?” said Stain.  

“He’s just-”  Native’s breath caught.  “He’s a student.  An intern.  I’ve only known him for a day.  Don’t–”

“A day is more than long enough for the rot to creep in.  Well, boy, do you stand by this fake, or will you give up his lies?”

“Clover, run!” 

“I-” said Izuku, “I won’t leave you!”  He also wasn’t sure if he’d make it, even if he did run.  Stain was good, as shown by how he’d still managed to stab Native, even though Izuku was using his quirk, and with the way the alley was constructed, they were standing in a corner, the direct path to the street blocked and blinded by buildings.  

“Then you, too, will be culled.”

Izuku jumped back from the lunge, unfortunately sacrificing his phone to deflect the blade.  Hopefully, the text he’d been making behind his back had gone through… he might not be connected to HeroNet, but he did have a network, and he knew at least two of them were in this city.

He hoped this worked.  

Then, faster than could be believed, it did.  Iida came racing around the corner and–

–apparently didn’t notice Izuku and Native fighting for their lives at all, but Izuku was willing to give him a pass, because he was a) there, b) clearly really upset by what happened to his brother, and c) took Stain’s attention off of him and Native.  Whatever.  But he also narrowly missed getting decapitated, and only avoided getting paralyzed by Stain because Izuku had picked up Iida’s helmet and beaned Stain over the back of the head with it.  

“What are you doing here?” demanded Iida.  

This was such a ridiculous question that Izuku didn’t answer it.  He was getting attacked by a serial killer.  That should’ve been obvious.

“Take Native and leave, this is my business.”

“You take Native and leave!” 

Iida could maintain a viable escape speed while carrying Native, unlike Izuku, and then Izuku could also run, no longer having to worry about whether or not he was leaving someone to their death.  Unfortunately, Stain did not wait for Izuku to explain this to Iida.  

What followed could have been a slapstick comedy.  Stain lunged, but put his foot down on a marble, which let Izuku and Iida dodge.  He recovered quickly, however, and swiped at Iida, who he called a fake hero - this was technically correct, as neither Iida nor Izuku had their licenses yet - but the blade was deflected by Iida’s armor, and all the blow accomplished was to knock a piece of Iida’s armor loose.  

(Izuku had to wonder if Iida’s costume manufacturer had skimped on the connective parts of his armor.  Parts of a costume shouldn’t just come off like that, except for capes, for safety reasons.)

But loose metal junk was one of Izuku’s favorite weapons, and when the bracer landed in his hand, he didn’t waste time throwing it at Stain’s face.  Then he pulled out his other favorite weapon.  A telescoping baton.  

He didn’t have it during the USJ, but after the sports festival…  Yeah.  He’d realized he needed something, and Mei had been all too happy to fulfill that need.  Literally too happy.  Powerloader had nixed most of her ideas and given Izuku a standard baton until he could work out potential bugs.  

Anyway.  

He alternated between throwing trash at Stain (the alley had a lot of trash) and trying to smack him with the baton.  Iida, meanwhile, tried to kick his face off.  The only reason they weren’t dead - or paralyzed like Native - was that Stain kept slipping on marbles and getting weapons stuck in the alley walls.  They were not, in any way, winning.  

Then Todoroki arrived like a divine spirit descending from heaven, and froze Stain solid.  

Well.  He didn’t freeze Stain immediately.  There was quite a bit of back and forth, because it turned out that the dodging technique Izuku had lucked into during the sports festival was something Stain could do at will.  And he tried to kill Todoroki too, a few times.  And there was some stabbing involved, but with Todoroki there, they could freeze the blood, and Iida was only paralyzed for a little bit, and all the while everyone was yelling about their personal philosophies, and heroism, and All Might, and–

His point was, after Todoroki showed up, it felt like the fight went really fast.  

But with Stain frozen, Izuku felt like he could relax just a little…

… and lose his grip on his quirk, which was very far in the red.  

Claws closed around his torso, and he was swiftly lifted from the alley.  Swiftly enough that his head cracked on the side of one of the buildings and he lost consciousness.  

.

Later, he learned that the nomu (which was apparently a class of being and not a family or personal name) had carried him around, apparently confused, for fifteen minutes before a flight-capable hero named Gran Torino rescued him.

He was, naturally, brought to the hospital, and, equally naturally, was the most injured out of the four people in that alleyway (not counting Stain, who they had really beaten the crap out of, apparently).  

He was relieved to hear that everyone had lived, and the nomu attack had only resulted in a few serious injuries, due to the strong hero presence in Hosu.  

He was significantly less relieved to hear that the police were thinking about charging him with vigilantism.  

.

“What the hell are you talking about?” asked Native, who had evidently overheard the police chief while taking a walk down the hallway.  “Clover had my permission to fight, if he was cornered.  Which he was.  I don’t know about the other two, but legally speaking, my intern is in the clear.” 

Izuku sighed in relief.  He didn’t think he and his mother could afford to go to court. 

“And kid?”

“Y-yes?”

“Stop using your quirk while you’re this beat up.  I know it’s instinctive, but I don’t want you to wind up getting an air embolism or something stupid from the kickback.”

“Oh,” said Izuku.  “Yes, sir.”

.

In preparation for the first term’s final exam, Izuku eased himself back into days where everything was just a little bit awful.  

He tore a hole in his favorite sweater.  He fell off a building during the Rescue Training Race.  Mr. Yagi kept staring at him with that weird expression when he went to volunteer.  He got every question he guessed on wrong on the mock exam.  He let himself get fleeced by Uraraka in small-scale gambling games.  He lost every round of rock-paper-scissors he played.  His mother sneezed and accidentally cut off way too much of his hair while giving him a trim, and Monoma started calling him a sheared sheep.  All Might kept staring at him with that weird expression during heroics lessons.  He lost a lot of in-class fights for silly reasons, like the elastic in his pants giving way, or, in one case, random neutrino interaction with the program controlling a simulation.  

It was good practice for when - not if, when - his quirk decided to screw him over in the middle of a real fight.  

But, maybe, Izuku should have realized that decisions about the final would be made significantly in advance of the final actually happening, and he wouldn’t have kept his quirk going until the last minute.  

Maybe then he wouldn’t have been paired with Kacchan.  Maybe then, they wouldn’t be facing All Might himself.  

Maybe then he wouldn’t be lying on the ground, bleeding, with Kacchan screaming at him to take his ‘stupid bad luck deku self’ and go away.  

In the end, however, Kacchan was the one who stomped away.  Izuku was left to slowly sit up, still feeling stunned.  Part of him couldn’t believe Kacchan still held a grudge over childhood quirk slip ups, especially considering what he had done to Izuku with his quirk.  Part of him… very much could.  

Kacchan was a jerk.  

Although… Izuku probably should have tried to come up with a plan more palatable than ‘run away.’  He’d known that Kacchan would never accept anything less than a perfect victory after the sports festival.

He shook his head, even though that made his ears ring, and pulled a coin out of one of his suit’s pouches.  In theory, this should work.  He had pretty good evidence of this usually working, for less vital things.

He flared his quirk and flipped the coin.  Heads, he’d go with his original plan, and try to escape.  Tails, he’d try to back up Kacchan.    

Heads.  

Well, then.  

.

It turned out that Izuku’s quirk was pretty good for stealth, given a large enough playing field.  

.

Izuku let go of his quirk as soon as he stepped through the gate, pleased to note that he still had some luck left.  Intending to keep it that way, and not spend it trying not to get murdered by Kacchan, he decided to jog back to where the other groups were waiting. 

Judging by the explosions behind him, this was a wise choice.  

He didn’t go back to his usual low grade bad luck until he was home safe, with the knowledge that he would be going to the training camp, and Kacchan wouldn’t be.

.

Except it turned out the students who had failed were going on the trip after all.  Yay.

.

Low grade bad luck was not supposed to include Shigaraki Tomura crashing a shopping trip, and yet.  

At least the ridiculous threat to his life - how had Shigaraki even recognized him?  He’d spent most of the time in the USJ in the maintenance room! - meant that he had a bit of extra luck to lean into, and he was hoping that Mr. Aizawa, or, heck, even All Might had decided this was a good day to shop, too.

But as the conversation wore on, it became obvious that his current quasi-kidnapped state was a direct result of his last kidnapping.  Shigaraki wanted to know “What did you do to my nomu?” and “What did you do to Stain?” and, most importantly, “Why do people pay attention to Stain and not me?” 

Which, in Izuku’s opinion, was a pretty petty thing for a supervillain to worry about, but this supervillain did have a dangerous quirk pointed at Izuku’s throat, so he wasn’t about to say that.  

“W-well,” he said, instead, “Stain is… understandable.  He has goals.  And even if you don’t agree with his goals, they’re pretty clear.  What he wants is… normal.  And the source of his conviction– It’s All Might!  It’s like that for a lot of people.  Even if the way he’s going about fulfilling his goals isn’t something people can accept.  You…  I don’t think anyone understands what you want.  What your, um, ideals are…”

“Ha,” said Shigaraki.  “Ha.”  

Izuku didn’t dare move.  He didn’t dare swallow.  Shigaraki’s middle finger was so close to his throat…

“I get it now,” he said, a horrible smile-like thing on his face.  “It’s all so clear now.  It all makes sense.  It’s so obvious why the hero killer is so irritating.  It’s all because of All Might.”  He laughed again.  “Right?  Right.  That’s the conclusion.  Man.  Of course it was All Might.  It’s always him.  The reason all these idiots can smile– It’s him!  Him, smiling, as if there’s no one he can’t save!”

At this point, Izuku started to tune him out, because it was hard to pay attention to something as trivial as words when you’re actively being strangled.  

And then, right when he was sure he was going to die one way or the other, Uraraka showed up.  

.

“I think I hate that guy,” said Izuku to Uraraka, later.  

“Yeah,” she said.  “Me too.”

.

Well, the training camp was going well.  And by well, Izuku meant he sure was training.  A lot.  

He was also, for some reason, catching a small ball-punching child who had been knocked off a wall by a pervert.  

They really should come up with some method to stop Mineta before he took things too far…  Some of his stunts were getting scary. 

But that was a task for tomorrow!  The task for today was listening to the story of a horrible family tragedy and then passing out.  

But then it turned out that the task for tomorrow was more training, and then–

And then the Test of Courage was crashed by a bunch of villains.  

.

The forest was filled with toxic gasses and fire, and there was a grade schooler somewhere on the mountain, but this was fine!  Totally fine!  Izuku had this handled!  And there were actual adults, trained heroes, who were not paralyzed, here, so, really, this was more like the USJ than the fight with Stain!

… Shockingly, this observation didn’t make him feel better.  

Finding Kouta did make him feel better.  

Encountering Muscular seconds later didn’t.  

Nor did discovering that the villains planned to kidnap Kacchan and Tokoyami.  At least Kacchan was safe back with the other people who’d failed the test.  Tokoyami, not so much.  

He had mixed feelings about the results of throwing the nearest stick at Muscular.  He’d prefer that he not be known as the hero who habitually put out people’s eyes, but if he complained about it, that would mean he survived to complain about it.

He took the opportunity to run.  

.

Izuku would very much like to know why Kacchan was out here and not safely back in the buildings with Vlad King and Mr. Aizawa.  

.

Why was Moonfish here?  Didn't Shigaraki know the reason Moonfish got caught was because he tried to eat his accomplice?

.

There was a shape-shifter involved.  This explained nothing.  

.

Why didn't this guy become a stage magician or something?

.

Izuku managed to catch the right orb and break Kacchan free, but even the best luck in the world couldn't save you from stupidity.  Stupidity in this case being Kacchan immediately shoving Izuku away and getting caught by the villains again. 

So.

Kacchan got kidnapped. 

The villains left.

A tree fell on Izuku.

He was, of course, sent to the hospital.

.

In the hospital, he wondered if Kacchan’s last words to him before he was hauled into that portal were right.  If he was just bad luck.  If he should just stay away.  

If Kacchan's shove had kept *Izuku* from being taken.  

.

They were on a rescue mission, and none of that mattered.  They were going to Kamino Ward.

.

They were hiding behind a wall about a meter high.  It had been much taller a second ago.  

Izuku's quirk was screaming at him.  It had never done that before.  

They could hear All Might and the villain talking, and it was terrible, terrible what he'd done to Ragdoll, but… it filled in so many gaps.  It explained the nomu.  It explained Shigaraki’s hatred of All Might.  It explained why this villain was so powerful.

But.

None of that mattered right now.  What mattered was saving Kacchan. 

.

They were soaring high above the battlefield, and Kirishima held out his hand - the chances were one in a million or less, but– 

Kacchan was with them, and they were running.  

They made it out, made it away, and Izuku kept a tight grip on his quirk, because he wouldn't, couldn't, let any bad luck happen now.  Not when it could spill over onto that battle.  

Then he saw the screen.

Izuku looked at All for One, standing in the ruins of Kamino Ward, standing above All Might, Mr. Yagi, who struggled to stand, to make one more attack, protect one more person, and he knew–

All for One was a person with a lifetime’s worth of good luck.  

He was practically made of luck.  From his quirk, which had to be the best quirk Izuku had ever heard of - the ability to take and give quirks?  Really?  That was a thing? - to having found the right quirks to live for centuries, to surviving that ‘last’ fight with All Might that he’d mentioned, to flying under the hero world’s radar for so long.  He’d won the lottery of life.  

If Izuku ever got luck like that, it’d kill him.

He slowed, stopping behind his classmates and–

And he turned.

And he ran. 

He ran, and cranked his quirk up as high as it would go.  Made himself as lucky as he possibly could.  The luck, not having anywhere else to go, spilled out, touching everyone around him with its glow.  

The small cluster of cancer cells in a man he passed spontaneously died.  

A woman fumbled her phone and sent a text message that would one day radically change her life for the better.

Hospitals nearby recorded a practically unheard of rash of Lazarus Syndrome cases.  

Rubble from the battlefield shifted just enough that a family of four were able to crawl out of the ruins of their living room.

Uraraka's father won the lottery- a fact he wouldn't notice for another week, too worried about his daughter to check his prize.  

Damage in Iida Tensei's spine inexplicably reversed itself.  It was only by a small amount, but even if he'd still never walk, he'd be able to move and feel his legs.

None of the attacks All for One launched hit his target.  Not a single one.

Izuku was a shooting star.  A brilliant light, burning into nothing.  Izuku had never before accumulated so much debt on his quirk.  One way or another, he knew he never would again.  

He ran across fields of rubble that should have sent him sprawling.  He dodged stray attacks from a combatant who might not even register his presence.  He got closer and closer, impossibility unscathed, until he slid between Mr. Yagi and All for One just as Mr. Yagi was caught under the crushed walls of a building.

He bowed, the crown of his head touching broken concrete.  "Please!  Please don't kill him!  I- I- Take my quirk, do anything you want to me, but please don't kill him."

"No!  Young Midoriya!  Get out of here!"

"And why should I take your quirk?" asked All for One, sounding amused.  

"Because- Because my quirk is luck.  I just got across this battlefield, unscathed.  If you take my quirk, you'll never have to worry about- about the kinds of injuries you have again." That was a bit of a guess, but if he had to risk things on a guess, it would be now, with his quirk blazing inside him.  "No one would get lucky enough to even touch you.  Please.  Take it."

Because All for One's quirk had to work one of two ways.  Either it took a quirk as it had been when it first manifested, or it took it as it currently was.  

Izuku's quirk had taken into account his prior luck when it first manifested, and he was building up a massive debt, now.  His quirk was the perfect poison pill.  He just needed All for One to take it.  

"Well," said All for One.  "I don't know about sparing All Might, but I could never refuse a quirk offered up so nicely."

Izuku felt All for One's hand on his head.

What followed was agony, and after that, an aching, hollowness, and the sound of someone crying.  

Was… was Mr. Yagi crying over him?  That was silly.  He wasn't dead, and his plan was going great.  

"Now," said All for One, "All Might-"

A horrid orange light and a deafening crack filled the air, and when Izuku could see again, the top half of All for One's body was gone, and there was a smoking crater a few meters behind the legs.  Everything smelled faintly burnt.

"What," croaked All Might.

"Oh," said Izuku, faintly.  "I always worried something like that would happen to me."

He promptly passed out.  

.

Izuku stared up at the ceiling of his hospital room.  This would be the last time he could blame getting hurt on his quirk.  His quirk, which was well and truly gone, now, along with Ragdoll’s and countless others.  Not that he could’ve gotten it back from All for One if his plan hadn’t worked but…

He was quirkless now.  

Kacchan had always been a jerk, and there were more than a few people in his class that were jerks along with him, really believing that Izuku was giving them bad luck every time they failed a test.  But he’d had a few casual friends in middle school despite that, and except for the teachers who thought he’d been falsifying his quirk, they usually stopped Kacchan before he went too far.  

But he knew how they all talked about quirkless people.  He knew the statistics.  He… hadn’t really been thinking of the consequences when he came up with the plan.  Not that he regretted it!  He didn’t.  But he knew it would be hard to be a hero without a quirk.  

Or would it?  Would living like this be like his quirk was always in neutral?  Or would it be something entirely different?  It already felt like something different.  It felt… weird.  Not being aware of how his luck was going.  Like being blind.  And he knew his luck was just random, now.  Knew that bad luck wouldn’t mean good luck to follow, and good luck didn’t mean bad luck to follow but…  Even thinking that felt alien to him.  

He could have good luck forever.  He could have bad luck forever.  That was statistically unlikely, of course.  Either way, he had no control over it.

“Oh, Izuku!”

“H-hi, Mom,” he said, and let his mother fuss over him.  He wasn’t up for much conversation at the moment, unfortunately.  

Behind her, Mr. Yagi, walked in and quietly shut the door.  

“Um,” said Izuku, “a-am I in trouble?  I mean, I know, I know that I technically killed someone with my quirk, but, uh.  I did do that.  Oh my gosh.  Oh my gosh, you’re here to arrest me, I–”

“Nonsense, Young Izuku!  If anyone tries to charge you for that man accidentally killing himself with his own quirk, I will simply eat them.”

“And that’s if they get through me, first,” said his mother, pleasantly.  

“Oh,” said Izuku.  “So, why…?”

“Two reasons,” said Mr. Yagi.  “First, I wanted to thank you.  I’ve spent my entire career trying to get rid of that man.”

Izuku nodded.  ‘Get rid of’ was pretty ambiguous, here, but Izuku was the last person who could blame him for trying to kill the guy.  

“The other thing I wanted to talk to you about…”  Here, Mr. Yagi got that look on his face.  “I want to talk to you about a quirk called One for All.”

#bnha #fic #my fic

[kiwinatorwaffles]

hermit species headcanons: volume… 2!

i made this post two years ago when i was fresh to the series and was just getting to know the hermits. a lot has changed since then, but a lot has also stayed the same! my headcanons are getting refined every single time i talk about them, so chances are, this list won't even be accurate to my thoughts a year later.

with that being said, let's get started! click the cut to read them all

bdubs: glare! small, hates the dark, is a feral creature, will never let go of the moss. he and pungance were born from the same tree in the same patch of moss so they are brothers LMAO

beef: vampire! but not a full one. he was bitten by a bat and gained two vampiric traits exactly: fangs and sensitive skin. beef thinks his tendency to get sunburnt easily is just something in his code or a genetic condition. he never got it checked.

cub: alien shapeshifter! his original form is this shapeless void blob, and he can only copy how other beings look like. his forms were taken from two astronauts he saw in space, an old man and a young man. his void form can be seen slightly on his inner arm, where there is just a sliver of night sky hanging out

cleo: zombie (duh) cleo was permakilled by a witch's curse but when faced with the pearly gates they were like. nah. i'd rather be down there. and just straight up left and came back as a zombie. that's how she met joe. because he was sitting on top of her tombstone eating a sandwich

doc: originally a fae, but now he's super fucked up? what can i even say. he was a fae who got super interested in the sciences and started experimenting on himself just for the hell of it. there was that whole dinnerbone cyborg arm thing but he also managed to make himself a centaur form that he uses for extra storage and height. nobody knows where the creeper came from. was it from his dad's side? did he give it to himself? not even stress, his cousin, can tell you how he came to be. what the hermits DO know however is that he can steal pronouns by asking for them

etho: redstone deity! etho was an ancient builder who was executed for witchcraft upon his discovery of redstone. he was resurrected by the universe as a second chance and to spread his knowledge to the world. you can read more from my fic here ehehehehe

false: human! yes she is 100% human. i just thought it would be funny if such an awesome and skilled fighter was just some normal ass human with a bit of social anxiety

gem: forest spirit! she has nature powers and can change parts of her body to reflect parts of nature. she's a deer? an elf? nope! only sometimes. she can mix and match whatever traits she wants on any given day. but be careful of those deer legs and horns. they Hurt

grian: red macaw avian! he has bird feathers covering his ears, parrot wings, and bird talons! he is also able to mimic voices perfectly (which he uses to play pranks and swear in other hermits’ voices) and is a Hollow Boned Menace. he carries a lot of bird tendencies, like being a piece of shit or preening his friends’ hair when it’s too messy (which is always). in start of seasons, he has x lock away usage of his wings to keep himself from an unfair advantage. he also has stolen powers from the watchers, which he can use to change his wing colors or view the entire map from afar.

npg: ????????????? he’s supposed to be a robot, but he has wings and flies sideways?????? he’s somehow even more fucked up than robot grian. not even grian is sure of what he created tbh. he just knows he did NOT give npg those conure wings to begin with.

ariana griande: galah avian! she is grian's cousin who is a pop star. she has never actually been on hermitcraft before -- that was grian cosplaying as her.

hypno: human warlock! he accidentally made a pact when he replaced his tooth with a piece of cursed gold. jokes on his patron though, his faulty human memory can't even remember how he got his powers! he has lots of inscriptions as tattoos written in galactic just all over his body that he completely forgot how to read at this point and is immortal. maybe that's a bit bad for his sense of self-preservation

impulse: demon/imp! he used to be a gargoyle that dispensed candy, but a wizard passing by granted him life and well. now he's here! demons are actually underworld spirits that punish permadead players who have been genuinely horrible to the players around them, but impulse wanted to build houses and play with redstone instead of stirring the torture soup. so when he met skizz he decided hanging out with the players was the best thing to do. he also used to have larger horns and wings but his time on the surface has made his wings very tiny and unusable without the help of an elytra. skizz always teases him for this.

iskall: cyborg! the hermits don't know if he was fully human before the cyborgification. me, personally? i think it would be funny if she was actually built to protect a village but had too much of a personality so the villages just let him go have fun with the players. not sure if i want to adhere to that though

jevin: slime! certain slimes have evolved to be more like players. jevin is from the blue variety (that's his gender)

joe hills: ???????? void-born universe being??? joe is actually the oldest living being in the universe. he was just popped out of void (even predating the void gods) and spent all this time just doing whatever fuckall was around to do. he looks like a normal human being but just Slightly to the left, like his a bit-too-many teeth or slight lean when he stands. other than that, he acts like any other human!

joel: human mage! he actually only has powers of illusion that changes only how he looks. he Really wanted to be an orc but the spell couldnt last forever (as his fae wife lizzie found out after marriage). every day he wishes he had as much swag as shrek did. more on the headcanon here

keralis: weird fucking eldritch cryptid being? except he looks exactly like a human. nothing weird about him, nope. just don't look too closely at his eyes. he promises that he blinks like a normal person and not with his pupils.

mumbo: robot! with a core heart and stretchy limbs, he runs mainly on the consumption of redstone and occasionally typical foodstuffs. he had a creator before the days of hermitcraft (who originally built him as a war machine but something went deeply sideways during construction) that taught him all there is to know about redstone and the outside world. he also inherited the british accent and mustache from his creator. his creator did want him to be free and wiped mumbo's memory of his creation before setting him off into the overworld and letting him roam free. now he's just a silly guy!

grumbot: robot! he was first built to give suggestions on what to do with the mayoral elections but then he developed actual attachments to his horribly neglectant dads </3 but it's alright! he now chills with renbob and goatman up in the hermitheus

pearl: moon spirit! she was the moon from a player's hardcore world. the player used to talk to the moon for fun, but suddenly disappeared from the world one day. now feeling lonely, pearl took a humanoid form and descended to find where her player went, but she ended up discovering the joys of being a player herself. contrary to popular belief, she had no influence on the season 8 moon.

ren: weredog! can shapeshift into a dog form, which he usually uses to either run fast or play fetch. he’s also more prone to change when the moon is larger…. except he just becomes a hyperactive dog who chases his tail all night and is deeply embarrassed by it. he also probably has rabies, but everyone whom he has bitten probably already had something deeply wrong with them to begin with anyway

renbob: human...? he's related to ren from the human side, or at least that what he tells people. but he might as well be 50% weed by now

scar: human(?) wizard! he can fly, subtly change his physical appearance, cast spells, and do all sorts of magical shenanigans! he also can read galactic fluently, which is how he learned that hypno enchanted himself with loyalty at some point. jellie is his beloved familiar. also he's a capitalist. nobody knows where that came from

skizz: angel! why are there angels in minecraft, you might ask? some people are satisfied with their lives and let themselves permadie. skizz, after being born randomly from an angel statue (i wonder if it’s related to the other statue guy) was supposed to be one of the angels who helped escort players to the pearly gates, but he met impulse while his demon clan was taking a field trip to heaven. the two immediately became besties and skizz begged the universe to let him join the players. the universe begrudgingly agreed and now he's here! he hides his many other halos as ring tattoos on his arms as well

stress: fae! she's got fairy powers, magical swag, an affinity for flowers, and will beat you up if you assume she's the resident server cleric.

tango: ex-blazeborn! he saw some yummy packed ice and ate it, which extinguished his internal flame. his blazeborn tribe felt bad for him but knew it would be dangerous if he stayed, so tango just left for the overworld instead. he tries to convince people that he is 100% a human and not suspicious at all because he's embarrassed of having to explain that he lost most of his powers due to eating some yummy ice cream. a more detailed post about my headcanon can be found here

tfc: human! the only non-human aspect of him is a prosthetic leg. contrary to popular belief, he did not lose that leg while mining. it was after fighting a horde of skeletons. (he won)

wels: human. he's just a human. nobody believes him when he tells them because they've seen him accidentally level a building while sparring before. but nope. he's just a human. and a very fucked up one at that

hels: ???? techncially has the traits of wels, beef, and etho????? is there a species for evil clones created by copying machines or

xb: guardian! he was a guardian made to guard the magical treasures of ancient builders, but he got bored of staying in the same spot for centuries and his creators never returning. hypno casted a spell of bipedelity on xb, so now he can walk on land! i wrote a fic about it here too

xisuma: voidwalker! created by the young void gods, he was made from a fucking mspaint file where the void gods dicked around with the program and made a deeply fucked up being (him) on accident. he has no mouth, his hands are as black as the void, and his voice is terrifying without a modulator, which is why he wears a helmet. more about it in my fic here

evil x: also a voidwalker, but this time the void gods pressed random on a picrew and sent him out into an alternate dimension. he grew up in super england until x fished him out of the void. this little rascal has red scleras, ram horns, and a devil tail. he doesn't need to sleep, so he gets all his energy from eating, which is convenient because his sharp teeth can crunch anything and he can digest everything. his hair acts like an enderchest with a portal to the void, where he keeps snacks and various trinkets.

zedaph: human, but he’s not sane. i mean look at this guy. look at what he’s doing. nobody knows how he became so deeply fucked up but he's truly just Like That. he gave himself sheep features once on accident though

worm man: surprisingly, human. he's lucky to have stayed human for this long with his brother's insane experiments. accurate to popular belief, he has no superpowers.

#orchard’s library #hermitcraft #hermitblr #i cant tag everyone so im just not going to LMAO #ill only be tagging the new additions from my last list so here we go #vintagebeef #smallishbeans #skizzleman #tinfoilchef #keralis #xbcrafted #grumbot #renbob #falsesymmetry #ariana griande

[labrxnth]

Prison Break- Part 2 (Leon Kennedy x Reader series)

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

CW: Death Island spoilers (obviously), suicidal thoughts/tendencies

WC: 1858

Summary: You and your field partner Leon continue your search for Doctor Antonio Taylor on Alcatraz

A/N: Sorry This was late, I had a busy schedule and major writer’s block

The first thing you noticed about the harbor is that it smelled like salt. Saltiness and almost a tackiness filled the air as you looked out of the rolled down window. Your hand traced circles on the car seat absentmindedly as you watched the boats and people the car was speeding past.

“What’re you thinking?” Leon asked, his hand drifting dangerously close to yours. When he got to an inch away, he stopped, his hand giving a deadly space between the two. If you were paying full attention, it would’ve made you upset, but for some reason this mission really wasn’t sitting right with you.

Call it survivor’s gut or intuition, but this mission was sitting funky in your stomach.

You took a deep breath and turned your head to face your partner. “I don’t like this… Maria being involved with Taylor means that someone like Arias wants a robotics engineer,” You answered and shifted a bit in your seat.

“I don’t like it either,” Leon replied. The two of you were always good at having each other’s back and making the other one feel validated. That was your whole friendship, being the person that each other needed.

You were the person Leon needed after, well, everything he had gone through. Raccoon City, Project Javier, Los Illuminados and Simmons were hard for him to shoulder alone. His life felt like a dark and foggy hallway, a trail of blood and cynicism following him. But in the midst of everything, you were a light. You were with him through everything for the past few years, carrying a candle filled with your aura that scared off the darkness and the fog in his hallway.

You were the one person who hadn’t run away or died, and he’d like to keep it that way.

He was the one person he hadn’t run away or died, and you would like to keep it that way.

Leon S. Kennedy was an enigma to you when you first started working for the D.S.O. under recommendation from Hunnigan. Through the past few years of working together, the two of you started out as drinking buddies then quickly became actual friends. It was over for you when you looked into his eyes and saw who he truly was for the first time. The mission in New York, the summit, the look on Leon’s face were all seared into your mind. His blue eyes tossing your heart just like a human thrown overboard into a vast ocean.

But you were convinced the look he gave you that night was just for your façade; the role the two of you played. If you never spoke life into your feelings, he never had to reject you.

“You’re doing it again,” Leon’s voice cut through your memories; bringing you back to the streets of San Francisco and dragging you away from the dinner party in New York.

“Huh?” You asked, blinking a few times, trying to adjust to the setting Sun in your eyes.

“Getting lost in that big head of yours,” He replied and chuckled lightly. “You do that more lately…. Ever since that mission in NYC.” His eyes looked at you, almost as if searching for an answer for an unasked question.

“I’ve just been thinking about things,” You said, trying to pass it off as nothing.

“Thinking about…..?” Leon asked, his eyebrows raised.

“Life stuff… like if fighting half dead people and gross science experiments is gonna be the rest of my life,” you said, making an excuse. You didn’t like to lie to Leon, but this one thing you made an exception for. And it was true, sometimes you did think about how your life has taken a turn after college.

Leon hummed in response, looking out his own window. The autumnal setting sun reflected in his eyes and hair, making his irises shine like diamonds and his hair shining a dirty blonde in the rays. When the sun hit him, it was a reminder of who he was, the dirty blonde hair and full blue eyes that he had that night in Raccoon City. He thought that Rookie Cop died that day, but maybe all he needed was a constant sun in his life; someone who brought his hope back.

“Don’t start thinking about that stuff, it’ll drag you down,” he warned. “Trust me.” His voice had an edge to it that you had only heard a few times before. The edge that reflected a tinge of sadness, but resilience.

The car stopped at the dock, you and Leon getting out of the Uber and taking in your surroundings. To the public, the only way to get to Alcatraz was a ferry tour, but luckily the two of you could call in a few favors and pull a few strings.

“Follow me, the boat should be at the Marina.” Leon said. He walked in front of you, making his way towards the docks. With no other option, you walked with him, trying not to look at how his blue shirt hugged his biceps a little too well.

The two of you quickly made your way towards a boat with a big branded D.S.O. logo on it.

“Couldn’t have been more covert?” You asked flatly.

“Gotta warn them before we blow their shit up,” Leon said, half joking. He got in the boat, slinging his duffle bag off his shoulder and putting it on a seat. You climbed on after him and looked around the small speed boat.

“You sure this thing has ballistics?” You asked, raising an eyebrow.

“It’s American, it can blow something up as long as you try hard enough,” He replied with his shit-eating grin. You chuckled in reply and got into the seat next to him, giving him the chance to drive for once. Leon noticed you not fighting for the wheel and he took the opportunity to start the boat and pull out of the Marina.

“So, (Y/n),” He said, putting the boat in drive and starting to steer to Alcatraz. “I’ve been thinking…” He added.

“That’s never a good thing,” You said snarkily and chuckled a bit.

“Very funny,” Leon said and rolled his eyes.

“But for real, what’s up?” You asked and looked at him. He was really focusing on what to say with how much his eyebrows were knitted and the lines next to his eyes were visible.

“It’s bad timing… we can talk about it later,” he said and looked at you, smiling.

You shrugged, thinking nothing of it. The sun setting over the bay was beautiful, it being the only thing that could peel your attention away from Leon. Your eyes tracked the sun, squinting slightly at how bright it was, but smiling at how the waves reflected the red and orange haze it was.

You went to say something to Leon and saw the same look in his face that you’d only seen once before. Amidst fancy clothes, cocktails, and fake friendships, was Leon’s face having the same look as he did now.

It was gone when he realized your eyes had met his. In a blink of an eye, he was back to his normal, scanning the area with a neutral facial expression.

Leon parked the boat at the back of the island and the two of you put on your combat gear: vests, harnesses, etc. once you two were ready to go, you were getting out of the boat and heading towards a tunnel opening.

“Munitions tunnel, should get us in,” You said and nodded towards it. Leon nodded in response and followed you into the tunnel. Eventually, the tunnel opened up to sewers, you two finally being able to fully stand up.

You turned to Leon to say something when you heard a loud BANG! The two of you locked eyes and your handguns were both drawn, aimed towards the other end of the sewers where the explosion came from.

After walking forwards a bit, the sewer split two ways, one to your left and one ahead. The sewers were set up on a block system, like a city.

“I’ll go forward, you go left,” Leon said and turned his ear com on. You nodded, copying his movements and doing the same.

The two of you gave each other a nod and separated hesitantly. Whenever the two of you separated, things never went well. Understandably, it was a necessity, but it still never went well.

You turned your flashlight on and walked to the left, then down the hallway. The light illuminated the tunnel and the sinking feeling you had gotten earlier hadn’t gone away. With Leon gone, it got more prominent.

Your boots hit the cobblestone, echoing with each footstep. Looking around, you were finding absolutely nothing. Out of the corner of your eye, the flash light reflected off of something metallic. You turned towards where the shimmer had come from and found an indented doorknob.

Silently, your hand opened the door and you slipped through it, closing it just as quietly as you opened it. Overhead lights turned on and revealed you to be in a hallway. Holding your gun up, supported by your flash light, you kept on forward.

The door at the other end of the hallway was open, revealing a more open hallway. As you walked, a small electronic buzz hit your ears as you saw one of the security cameras move.

“(Y/n), (L/n) how interesting,” A voice over the PA system said. You swiveled around, your gun up, staying silent.

A sharp pain hit the back of your neck and your hand shot to where the pain was coming from, feeling nothing unusual. Your eyelids fluttered shut as the world went dark and your knees buckled, sending your body falling towards the floor.

“At least you’ll bring me Leon Kennedy.” The voice added.

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

Leon marched on forward, trying to keep his head in the mission. Usually, he was good at compartmentalizing and having a one track mind for the mission. That was, until you became his partner; even now, he was worried about how you were faring.

He knew you could handle yourself, but still he worried about you. He didn’t want you getting hurt, or worse, like everyone else in his life.

Leon heard the sound of boots hitting the cobblestone path in front of him and held his gun up, ready to shoot. He rounded the corner and the barrel of his gun got grabbed, sending him into a sprawl. Him and the other person he was fighting with were both trying not to wind up in the sewer water, dangerously close to their feet.

After a few seconds of exchanges, Leon recognized the familiar brown color of hair he was fighting. His eyes finally adjusted to the darkness and he took in the bigger picture, seeing an all too familiar face. The two of them backed off of each other and took the other in.

“Well, if it isn’t Jill Valentine.”

─── ･ ｡ﾟ☆: *.☽ .* : ｡ﾟ☆. ───

Catch it early on my A03!

#resident evil fanfic #leon kennedy x reader #leon s kennedy x reader #resident evil fanfiction

[littlerebelliouscreature]

Ok, guys, I’m gonna rant about Good Omens from religious point of view.

We know from religious books that, Angels are like robotic machines, made to carry out holy orders. They are made of light.

Angels actually do not possess any feelings, unable to love/hate, or even show mercy. That’s why there are many angels in HELL, guarding it, preventing anyone’s escape. Religious book says, “no matter how ppl beg them and cry for help, they would not even flinch”

Demons and jins, on the other hand, can fall in love, and have emotions, do mischiefs. There were cases of demons falling in love with humans (both with men and women)

So it’s quite accurate that Good Omens angels are quite straightforward like that. None of them were concerned about humanity and its safety, when Armageddon was to unfold. That’s why, they were so focused on fighting Hell, because it’s their function, that’s what they supposed to do.

When Aziraphale was approached by a group of angels, they said to him: “You’ve been acting like a little bit of fallen angel, haven’t you?”

They’re not wrong! Aziraphale, without realising it, have been doing wrong thing the whole time. “Feeling” is a wrong thing for an angel.

On the other hand, it’s quite strange that Hell has been in kahoots with Archangel Michael. Demons are afraid of angels and try to never confront them directly. One Angel’s light can discorporate 10 demons. Maybe that’s why demons were keeping social distancing when Michael came with holy water. 🤣

And there is our disaster puppy Crowley, being head over hills in love with Aziraphale. As I said before, it’s wrong for him even to be near an angel. He should be terrified of him. But he loves him.

To sum up, WHAT DO WE HAVE HERE?

Two ethereal entities, contradicting their very nature, doings things they shouldn’t be doing, being NOT an Angel, NOT a demon, but perfectly “HUMAN” ✨

#good omens #ineffable husbands #THEY are Humans #at least act like us #aziracrow #ineffable boyfriends #Neil Gaiman

[rowretro]

𝕄𝔼𝕋𝔸𝕃 𝕄𝔼𝔼𝕋𝕊 𝕃𝕆𝕍𝔼

✧taglist✧: @baevsxii @nikisdubblchococake @manooffline

✧warnings: Yandere themes, toxic themes, unhealthy love, mentions of blood, manipulation(?), shirtless-ish Riki

♡synopsis: Nishimura Riki. The Robot created by Yang Jungwon himself, a robot that is insanely human like, inside and out. No one could tell he was a robot. However, the Robot had possessed demonly powers, from Satan himself. So I guess you could see it's a half robot. Yang y/n, the younger sister of Jungwon finds herself stuck to this robot 24/7 no matter what she tried, he will always be by her because she's his muse, his world, his love, his obsession.

(PART 4)

✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧

"Trust me Y/n I've tried everything... I even tried throwing acid, not even the skin got affected!" Jungwon exclaimed in a whisper as Y/n sighed. "I have an Idea... lets just attack him w everything we have!" She said as Jungwon thought for a second before nodding. It was at least worth a try, no matter how badly things may end up going.

Y/n watched as the robot worked around in the kitchen. Multiple pots and pans being used at once. The stove was on which made things perfect. Y/n pulled out the aerosol air spray, aiming it at the robo man. However Riki was quicker "Hazard detected. No flammables allowed near flames. Aerosol spray is a safety hazard!" He explained, yanking the can away from her, putting it far, out of her reach, where it'd be safe.

Riki turned the stove off, carrying y/n to the living room "Don't come in the kitchen... I've a feeling you might hurt yourself" The man simply said, his tone monotonous as Jungwon rolled his eyes. There and then, Y/n sprayed his eyes with a different aerosol spray, the robot not even flinching, Jungwon on the other hand, set fire to him with a lighter, yanking Y/n away, as he ran through the hallway, his grip on y/n firm, making sure she was with him.

The 2 came to a sudden halt. There before them was the metal man himself. Not a scratch, not a burn. just his poor clothes tattered clothes, with some flames on them. The robot man's gaze was dark, he slapped off the flames, slipping off the worthless shirt that revealed the majority of his abs. "You want to kill me?..." The robot asked as he stared at the 2, he suddenly approached Jungwon, seeing this, Y/n jumped in front of him "DON'T HURT MY BROTHER." She warned as Jungwon pulled her behind him. "Why would I hurt you 2?..." he asks, sounding a little hurt...

Y/n and Jungwon didn't know what to say or do. His eyes were holding sincere emotions, he looked like he was betrayed by someone he trusted with his whole living. "And you Jungwon? the one who created me? the one who's practically like a father to me?... Jungwon hyung? d-do you really hate me so much you wish I was gone hyung?" The robot asked, his eyes now swelling with tears. Y/n felt a little bad... not as bad as how Jungwon felt though.

"A-And you y/n?... i-if that's what you want then go ahead my darling, my world, my everything. I kill for you of course I'd even die for you sweetheart, I'll do anything for you to be happy!" The teary-eyed robot said, opening his chest, revealing the metallic ribs, and other human-like organs that were all metal and not so gory, inside was his heart, red, beating, real heart. "Stab it. if you want me gone stab my heart." He simply said, giving Y/n the knife.

His hands held tightly onto hers, making her grip the handle tightly. The blade inches away from his beating heart, yet he forced for her to stab it. Finally, y/n pulled away, not stabbing his heart. The robot closed his chest, the robotic system out of sight. "I-I'm sorry..." Y/n trailed off, as Jungwon hugged him. Riki hugged him with one arm, his eyes on Y/n who was staring at the ground.

A troubling smirk made it's way onto his lips as he examined how guilty she looked. Like she could kill him? his heart was indestructible. God humans are such idiots, little fools, so easy to break. Oh how Y/n believed him so blindly. It just adds to why he should be there to look after her, and keep her to himself 24/7.

✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧♡✧

#yandere #enhypen #enha #yandere enha #yandere enhypen #enhypen yandere #enha yandere #kpop #kpop enha #nishimura riki #niki nishimura #enhypen niki #enhypen nishimura riki #riki enhypen #niki enhypen #niki enha #kpop yandere #enhypen scenarios #enha imagines #enhypen imagines #enha x reader #enhypen x reader #enhypen fanfic #ni ki #enhypen ff #engene #enhypen fluff #niki reaction #ni ki enhypen #enhypen niki ff

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I just read through the Wish Upon A Star event for the first time and it's a nice heartfelt story! But hoo BOY do some things about this event feel unexpectedly heavier now with the context of Book 6 and what's currently out for Book 7, particularly with the Diasomnia boys ...

Wish Upon a Star was really nice for the Shroud brothers' story in hindsight! I wouldn't say the event has anything "essential" (you can still understand book 6 without seeing any of Wish Upon a Star), but it definitely adds extra context (like sprinkles on top of an ice-cream sundae!) and some vague foreshadowing to the upcoming main story happenings. (It helped a lot that both brothers were featured cards for this event; they could share the spotlight!) We learn some new information that is fundamentally rooted in what we already know of the Shroud brothers (ie Idia is into video games, Ortho is supportive of his brother) and how it all plays together in a grander narrative. Star Rogue was actually first introduced in this event as something important to Idia and Ortho's childhoods, which later becomes a recurring motif in book 6. The book even closes on Idia playing it with all of his new NRC friends (?). The legend of the Starsending itself, of course, refers to the story of Pinocchio, where a puppet turned into a real boy--a theme which eventually carries over to Ortho, the robot that gains humanity. Additionally, we get a more in-depth exploration of Ortho and Idia's relationship in Wish Upon a Star. We see that Ortho, despite being a robot who would easily be able to look up anything he doesn't understand, still has a child-like wonder about wishes coming true and even dedicates his own wish to hoping that his older brother's wish comes true. It's Idia who expresses a deep cynicism for the Starsending and acts like a buzzkill (pointing out that the stars most likely react to people's body temperature rather than light up in response to being whispered a wish). This reflects their behavior in book 6 too: Idia is the one who has given up hope, and Ortho is the one who seeks to help his brother's dreams come true.

I guess something similar applies for the Diasomnia boys? 🤔 Although to be fair, this event came out in summer of 2020 (when the game itself first launched in March 2020), so we didn't know a ton about the Diasomnia boys back then. A lot of what they said for their wishes would have easily been dismissed as just normal characterization, but it definitely comes off as more ominous knowing what we now know of book 7:

Sebek’s wish: “I wish for the whole world to kneel before our king.” WELL. You definitely got that wish granted, Sebek 😭 cuz all of Twisted Wonderland is about to kneel over in a deep sleep once Malleus’s UM spreads far enough… Sebek is pretty much always going on about how powerful Malleus is, but in book 7 it’s not so fun having to deal with that magic now turned against us and set on consuming the world.

Silver’s wish: “I wish… for my father to have a long life.” When we first heard of this, the assumption was that Lilia would outlive Silver?? Especially with how spry Lilia is portrayed to be… BUT THEN IT TURNS OUT 700 YEAR OLD LILIA’S MAGIC IS ON THE DECLINE AND HE WANTS TO GO DIE ALONE IN A FOREIGN LAND 😩 Silver also mentions during his wish segment that he owes a lot to his father and isn’t close to repaying him for everything he has done. This is a sentiment Silver shares again in book 7… in which he then proceeds to break down and cry in front of Malleus about those insecurities 😭

Lilia’s wish: “My wish is… for humans, fae, and all other species to live in harmony.” This one hits super different because right now we’re witnessing Lilia’s past self as a general actively fighting against humans and being suspicious of them. His present self is much more peace and harmony loving, even instilling in Silver a respect for all creatures and lecturing Malleus and Sebek for their sometimes ignorant behavior towards other races. He acknowledges the challenges that come with bringing together those from all walks of life, but he’s also the first to preach about how the importance of it. People may be weak alone, but they can come together like the threads on a spindle to become something stronger together. This is a testament to how much Lilia’s feelings and him as an individual have evolved over time. What’s even sadder is that when you read Lilia’s words, it definitely sounds like he’s reflecting on his unsavory past, and wishing for a better world for the future: “You've learned about […] all the countless tales of our failure to compromise, and the resulting conflicts? I have no desire to see such history repeated.” So he makes the same wish every year…

Malleus’s wish: “I wish for Roaring Drago (Gao-Gao Dragon-kun) to make a friend.” Gao-Gao makes his first appearance in Malleus’s Labwear vignettes, but becomes a more integral part of Malleus’s story in other materials, then culminates as a motif in book 7. The importance of this virtual pet cannot be understated in regards to its connection with Malleus’s understanding of human lives and change. Prior to book 7, we see Gao-Gao as something “like Malleus”—it’s alone, a dragon hatched from an egg. (One can say that wishing for Gao-Gao to have friends is a metaphor for how Malleus himself wants friends.) During book 7, the perception of Gao-Gao changes; now it is likened to Malleus’s loved ones. He fears them leaving, just like Gao-Gao does when he’s all grown up—and so Malleus justifies his extreme actions with the excuse of, “I want them to live a happy fantasy forever and ever, just as though Gao-Gao were with me for all of time”. It’s how Malleus rationalizes his actions and comes to understand others. What makes Gao-Gao and even more prominent symbol in book 7 is its ties with Lilia; as Malleus notes in his Starsending segment, Gao-Gao was a gift from Lilia’s travels… and Gao-Gao set to leave once it has fully matured, so, too, comes the painful reminder that Lilia set to leave soon. It puts more pressure on Malleus to act, to come up with some kind of solution for a “happily ever after”. It’s his way of keeping his friends with him… whether they want it or not.

#twst #twisted wonderland #Diasomnia #Malleus Draconia #Lilia Vanrouge #Sebek Zigvolt #Silver #disney twisted wonderland #spoilers #notes from the writing raven #Idia Shroud #Ortho Shroud #Ignihyde #Pinocchio

[lets-try-some-writing]

This is a theory and you can take this as a grain of salt, since I know in grim dark archive au the story and headcannons will be completely different. I still can’t wait for the update 😉!

In grim dark archive, I can’t help but think there might a sprinkle of Papa Unicron au in this, except with much more darker implications. In this au, I feel that Unicron does care about humanity, but his feelings are more eldritich-like that would scare the cybertronians and even humans themselves. Think of it like this, since the beginning of the universe there were multiple forces that were chaos, order, creation, and destruction. Unicron and Primus weren’t the only powerful beings in the universe (I bet there were multiple more powerful cosmic entities), but since they were “brothers” and the antithesis to each other. They constantly battled each other for control and order (Primus) or for chaos and change (Unicron). Until Primus had the idea to create the cybertronians to defeat his brother. Meanwhile Unicron would devour planets to not only to gain more power, but to ensure his brother’s creations, don’t spread across the universe. The battle ended with both of them stuck in stasis as planets, while Primus was conscious and controlling the cybertronians, creating a caste system and keeping his favorites in power. Unicron was unconscious and his signals were kept low keeping him hidden from his brother. During his time being unconscious, cells come into contact with dark energon, did life on Earth began to take form. As humans began to evolve, Unicron was able to connect his mind to the billions of minds of the humans living on top of him, and experienced the chaos that happened daily to a human lifespan and how that chaos changes a person’s personality as they grow.

Without a rival to fight against or to subjugate Cybertron began to stagnate and looked within to sate those desires only to create a war that wiped out a huge number of their population and made the planet half dead. While across the galaxy Unicron is living through the lives of a billion humans on Earth.

The difference between the cybertronians and the humans, was that Primus created the cybertronians as tools with the intention of using them to carry out his will in the universe while Unicron unintentionally created humans with no other purpose than to live. To live vicariously through humans and experience their emotions of joy and anger, to feel what motivates them to keep fighting, how one’s own choices sets them on their own path in life, to feel the bonds of love hate, to feel the ravages of time as once strong bodies grow feeble yet wise from their own life experience. I could only image how pissed he would be if a creation of Primus tries to destroy what he sees an extension of himself.

You are on the right track with your idea here! The whole point of my Grim Dark Archives thing is to really drive home how ALIEN these robots are. Its not quite shattered glass, so Unicron is still not going to be the kindest of beings. But with that said, neither is Primus. Those two deities have an interesting attachment to their creations that walks the fence of actual parental affection and the care one would have for a favorite tool or toy.

One more little detail I will throw out is simply that Primus is not a particularly kind creator in this au. He is more than willing to fuel the fires of his will at the expense of another, especially those most loyal to him.

I hope to get back to The Grim Dark Archives soon, and when I do, I hope you like what I come up with!

#lets try some writing mumbles #the grim dark archives au #transformers #maccadam #transformers prime #primus #unicron

[scryarchives]

𝐧𝐞𝐰 𝐠𝐢𝐫𝐥 𝐨𝐧 𝐭𝐡𝐞 𝐛𝐥𝐨𝐜𝐤 - 𝐣𝐚𝐢𝐦𝐞 𝐫𝐞𝐲𝐞𝐬 | 𝐩𝐚𝐫𝐭 𝟐

khaji-da mentioned something about the new girl 'drea' being dangerous, but what did she mean by 'dangerous'? and how dangerous could she be if she's best friends with his very own sister?

masterlist | previous , next !

– pairings: jaime reyes x oc

– warning: fluff, canon divergent, blue beetle movie spoilers

– author's note: more of a filler chapter haha. disclaimer: i don't speak Spanish, so please do correct me if i am wrong! read more under the cut! :)

A couple of weeks had passed since the Tlatilpas had come over to the Reyes household. Unfortunately, Anika (or as she asked Jaime to call her “Aunt Anika”) was the only one over as her wife Zara had been too exhausted from the drive to Palmera City.

As nice as their family was from what he gathered, Jaime couldn’t help but let what Khaji-Da told him that day weigh his mind down. He sat on his bed, laptop open on the plush bed sheet as he gnawed the end of his pencil, brows furrowed in thought and confusion.

What did she mean by ‘she’s dangerous’? Did Khaji mean Drea specifically? Or her entire family?

“This ‘Drea’ you worry about, she’s the dangerous one.”

Jaime rolled his eyes. Of course, the blue bug alien bonded to him and responded to him when everything was peaceful and quiet in his home.

“Okay, you’ve said that already, but a little specifics would be nice,” He shrugged sarcastically at the little robotic voice in his head. “I mean, dangerous how? Does she have connections to harmful people? She’s got machinery that can endanger us? What–”

“I scanned her DNA while you were shaking hands,” Khaji-Da cut Jaime off, the male glaring incredulously at the voice.

“First off, we need to set some boundaries, Khaji. You can’t keep scanning all these people without my acknowledgement. It’s creepy and overall weird. Second, how would that make her dangerous? She’s human too.”

“Incorrect.”

“What? You’re saying I’m wrong about scanning people being inappropriate–”

“She’s not one hundred per cent human,” Khaji-Da answered once more, this time, her answer left Jaime on edge. 

“She’s approximately fifty per cent alien.”

“Milagro! What’s up? How’s my favourite Reyes doin’?” Drea chuckled, her dark waves bouncing behind her in her high ponytail. The bracelets on her wrists ‘clinked’ together as she and the youngest Reyes high-fived, grins wide on their faces.

“¡Soy bien! You?”

The two shared a handshake, and despite their fast friendship, they got along well, like two peas in a pod.

“Meh, could be better,” She chuckled, rubbing her upper arm. “My Amma had a whole list of chores for me to do, so my arms are completely wiped out.”

“Ah man, I get you,” Milagro scoffed, nudging shoulders with her best friend. “Hey, you wanna come in? I’m sure we got something we could watch together.”

“Yeah, of course! Oh, by the way,” Milagro perked up, seeing Drea halt. “I almost forgot, Amma made some snacks a few days ago, so she asked me to bring some to you.”

It was then that Milagro realised that Drea was carrying a backpack and the Latina walked over to help hold the item up as Drea pulled out a little transparent container with a red twist-on lid.

“It’s more of a traditional snack from her home town? Country? One of those,” The older woman shrugged. “It’s called murukku, not sure if you’ve heard of it, but it’s one of my favourites. Vadai’s a close second.”

Milagro hummed at the spiral-looking snack, smiling kindly at her friend.

“Aw, look at you all soft for me! I’m gonna hide this in my room forever so that no one else in my family will ever take a bite,” She grinned before it fell. “Actually, better not. My mom is gonna kill me if she finds food in my room.”

“Oh, I know how that feels,” Drea chuckles, the two walking into the Reyes’ humble abode.

“Mom! Drea’s here!” Milagro called out, the woman smiling sweetly the moment Bianca entered her view.

“Hi, Mrs Reyes! Thanks for having me over,” She pulls her bag over one shoulder in slight nervousness, Bianca smiling widely at the girl.

“Oh, it’s no problem, Drea! It’s always wonderful to have a friend of Mili’s over!”

“Her mom made us snacks. No one touches it before I do, please,” Milagro huffed, placing the transparent container on the table as her mom eyed the snack curiously.

“Alright, mija, but there’s no controlling the rest of the family,” Bianca laughed, Milagro rolling her eyes with both love and annoyance as she led her friend towards her little room.

“Did you know I found a stray the other day? Surprisingly, both my moms let me keep him,” Drea whispered to Milagro, hoping to distract her.

“Oh seriously? What’d you name him?” Milagro looked over at Drea in slight surprise. 

“Sparky von Cocoa the First, but Sparky’s just for short.”

“I need pictures of him. ASAP.”

“Hey Mils, you hungry?” Drea glanced over at Milagro, seeing her friend lying beside her, stomach flat on the bed as her eyes were still glued to the computer, invested in the series the Latina was introduced to named “Never Have I Ever”.

“Uh… I could get a drink, do you want one?” Milagro raised her eyebrows, glancing up at Drea, who shook her head.

“Nah it’s fine, I can get it. You’re too invested to miss anything,” Drea teased, pushing herself up from her cross-legged position. “And I’ve already watched all the episodes up to date, so I’m good.”

“Wow, you do not have a life.”

“I know I don’t,” Drea chuckled, opening her best friend’s room door, and walking out into the corridor.

As soon as she turned around, she noticed that she was face to face with the other Reyes descendent, Jaime’s eyes widened in surprise to see the neighbour’s daughter standing in his home.

“Jaime, hi,” She flashed him a quick smile, and Jaime cleared his throat.

“Hey, uhm, Drea!” He held an awkward smile of his own, eyes guarded. “What’re you doing here? Is Milagro alright?”

“Yeah, she’s fine. Was gonna get us drinks.”

“Cool.”

Then silence hung over their heads, neither adult looking at the other before Drea crossed her arms, lifting her left arm to point her thumb in the direction of the kitchen.

“So uh, does Milagro have a specific drink she likes here? Or should I drop by the convenience store to get it?” She asked with genuine curiosity that Jaime almost believed that she was completely human.

Unlike what Khaji warned him about.

“We got uh… something in the fridge that she’ll like.” 

Jaime once again smiled, albeit he smiled flatly, heading out of the corridor, and into the dining area. Trailing him to get the drinks, Drea filled herself a cup of water, eyeing Jaime curiously as the male rushed around the area, as though he was looking for someone.

“How’s life?”

Jaime snapped up, humming before zoning back to her presence. He looked a little lost before he finally registered her question all while fidgeting slightly.

“It’s… life. Nothing much really. Job hunting, trying to keep things afloat,” He answered before heading towards the front door.

“Oh seriously? You’re looking for work too? That’s great,” Drea chimed, brushing off Jaime’s behaviour as nervousness. “Do you think it’d be fine if Milagro and I join you for the search?”

“I mean,” Jaime’s eyes darted to the door as he turned around to answer. “Mili and I were already working that out together but uh, yeah, you’re welcome to join.”

“Great, that’s… yeah, thanks,” Drea smiled gratefully back while Jaime nodded hurriedly.

A silence fell between them once more, Jaime tapping his wrist in urgency, yet he stayed in case there was more conversation she tried to start. Just to confirm, he spoke up, Drea keeping her glass away in the sink as she picked up another full glass of water for her friend in the room.

“Is there anything else you need to ask or…?”

“Ah, nope, I’m done,” Drea shook her head, her eyes widening in realisation of his situation. “Oh, shit, sorry for the hold up.”

Before she could say anything else, Jaime told her his response while walking out, the door slamming shut as she heard his voice ring out for the last time.

“You’re good, no worries!”

As soon as the front door was shut and he had walked out of view of anyone, Jaime sighed as his suit, unfortunately, burning his current clothes off, annoyance filling him. 

He had to speak to Khaji about that, there was no way he could keep buying new clothes for each week.

“I thought you would never leave.”

Speak of the Devil.

“Look, she was nice,” Jaime muttered, the helmet forming over his head. “And she’s Milagro’s friend, I can’t be not nice for no reason.”

“She is an alien. There is a reason to not be nice to her,” Khaji-Da responded with a know-it-all tone, Jaime rolling his eyes.

“That’s rich coming from you. Just tell Mama that I’ll be late for dinner.”

gif by @rob-pattinson

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