#what kind of quest is that anyway. oh yeah go kill all the machines in the desert. all of them

[moa-broke-me]

I was tired.

I gripped my arms tighter around myself, shivering against the freezing pelts of rain, protected only by my baggy shirt. As I passed a store window, I caught a reflection of myself. My lips were blue.

I ducked into the 24 hour drugstore and gas station next to me, and tried to warm myself up a little by the coffee machine. The smell made me nauseated with hunger, so once i wasn't freezing to death, I left to grab the cough syrup off of the shelf, and a cup of instant ramen. Closest thing I could find to chicken noodle soup, and all it needed was a little hot water. We had that at the house, at least. I knew I'd get hungry again feeding her, so I snatched some cigarettes too, just to dull down the urgent pangs that had been growing in my stomach the last two weeks.

I tucked both of the items tight against my arms, and was about to leave, when the automatic doors opened.

Oh no. Was that... Batman?

I fell onto the floor and curled into a ball, begging him not to beat me up. But I knew it was no use; he hated criminals, and I was a criminal.

-

When I forced one of my eyes open, he was kneeling beside me, with the cough syrup and he noodle cup tucked into his arms. "How old are you?" He demanded gruffly.

I tried desperately not to cry, not to appear any weaker and more vulnerable than I already did. "Um..." I couldn't think of a lie, so I figured I should answer honestly. "... E-eight. I'll be nine in January."

"Yeah, I'm not beating up an eight year old. Not even if they kill someone."

I curled into myself. "A-aren't you mad at me? For... T-trying to steal?"

"I'm mad that you feel the need to." He answered. "The fact that you're out here at all, when it's this late. The fact that it's November and you don't even have a jacket on." He unsnapped his cape with one hand and draped it over me.

I hesitantly snapped it over me. It felt like that waterproof fabric umbrellas were made of, at least on the outside. The inside was fluffy and fleece-lined. "Th-thank you." I forced myself to stand up, legs shaking underneath me. "So, if you weren't looking for criminals to beat up, why were you here?"

"I was just getting some snacks for my driver and I. Running low on gas." Despite his intimidating cowel, I felt I had no choice but to believe him. "What were you doing here?"

I sighed shakily. "M-my little sister has a cold, a really bad one. I just need that medicine and soup for her, and then I'll be home again."

"I see... And why were you the one to go on this fetch quest? Where are your parents, or whoever's responsible for you?"

"My d-daddy's at home, but he... He doesn't do that kind of thing."

The man sighed. "I see. What does he do, then?"

"Um... Works, sometimes. Sleeps on the couch. Punishes us when we're bad."

His expression was hard to read with the mask on. "... What counts as 'bad'?"

I shrugged, holding myself. "I-I'm not sure. Being too loud, too quiet. Crying. Eating too much, not eating what he tells us to. Or..." I felt a chill run down my spine. "O-or telling anybody." I would be in a world of trouble when I got home.

His posture was stiff as he reached out to me. I didn't want to flinch when his hand reached my back, but I did. I didn't want to cry, but I was crying anyway.

He gently prodded me closer, and I stepped until my cheek was laying on his waist.

Eventually, he spoke again. "Would you like to come live with me?" He asked.

I did. No matter how scary he was, I'd take him over my dad any day. He seemed like he cared about me.

But...

"... I don't wanna leave her behind." I sniffled.

"You can bring her too. We'll stop at your address and let you get her, and anything else you'd like to take."

I nodded.

"There. Now, is there anything else you need from here? And please don't say cigarettes, I'm not buying an eight year old cigarettes."

I thought for a moment, before nodding. "Um, can I get a cup of hot chocolate?"

He nodded and went over to the coffee stand, which had a station for hot chocolate. I went out and picked up a lemon poppyseed muffin. It was bigger than my fist, and I silently went up to the hero I'd just met, and slipped it in with everything else.

He paid with cash, I guess to keep his secret identity a... Well... Secret, and as soon as everything was paid for, I started eating my muffin, only pausing to lift the cape over my head as we went to the parking lot. I slid into the backseat of the batmobile, my hot chocolate already in the drink holder.

"Alfred, I went ahead and got you werther's again." He held out a bag of caramel candy. "I know you like those."

"Thank you, Master Wayne." He replied. "Who's that in the backseat? Did you find yet another troubled little boy to call your own?"

"Guilty. What's your name, by the way? I never caught it."

"N-Nico." I answered. "Nico diAngelo."

"Right. Where's your old address, Nico? You said you had a sister to pick up."

I told him before shoving the last of the muffin in my mouth and sipping on the hot chocolate. "Do you have a baby seat?" I asked. "Sh-she's only two."

I watched Alfred's face scrunch in thought for a moment in the rear view mirror. "I believe so. Hold on."

He pressed a button, and suddenly, the center seat flipped out into a baby seat, built into the car. "Wow... I knew you had gadgets, but... Wow."

"Alfred?" He asked. "When did we get that installed?"

"I figured it was only a matter of time before you'd need it."

-

It wasn't long before we were at my dad's house. I quickly ducked out and snuck inside, making sure to avoid any of the floorboards that creak. Soon, I was back at my bed, where Hazel was sleeping, wrapped in my jacket. It was the closest thing she had to a baby blanket.

"baba?" She asked weakly, coughing.

I smiled. "I'm here, Hazel." I picked her up, still bundled in the jacket, and tried not to trip over the cape as I went back out again, covering both of us with Batman's waterproof cape.

I slipped in and sat her in the baby seat, pouring the little cup full of cough syrup and holding it to her mouth, but she wasn't having any of it. She fussed and cried and shook her head, but I pleaded with her anyway. "Hazy, please. It'll make you feel better."

She smacked the little cup out of my hand, crying her little lungs out.

And cough syrup splattered everywhere.

I froze. I didn't know what to say, I was horrified.

I began to hyperventilate. "Oh my god I'm so sorry! I'm so, so sorry, I ruined everything! The floor and the seats and... And your cape! Oh, I messed up your cape, it must've been so expensive, everything must've been so expensive and I got cough syrup all over it- I'm so sorry, please don't take us back to dad, please don't leave us in the woods, I'm sorry, I'll make up for it I promise! I-I..." I stopped talking when I heard the words 'pull over, and just curled up into myself, shaking and crying. It was no use, this was it, I've crossed the line-

"Breathe, Nico." His mask was off now, and I thought I recognized him from a magazine somewhere. "Breathe in for four seconds, alright?"

I tried to follow along, but it was hard working around the tightness in my chest.

"Alright, you're doing good. Hold it for seven seconds, can you do that?"

That was easier. I held my breath and counted to seven, looking to him for the next step.

"Now, out for eight seconds, ok kid?"

I nodded, and slowly let my breath out.

"There we go, just keep doing that until you feel better."

I looked up at him. "... How did you...?"

"Picked it up from Dr. Quinzell before she went with the circus. She was my grief counsellor way back when. I don't have panic attacks like that nearly as often anymore, but it still helps."

"Panic attack?"

"Yeah. Y'know, when you're so scared you can't breathe, or talk, or move? It feels like you're just... Frozen."

I considered his words for a moment. "... I thought that's just what being scared felt like." He looked incredibly sad just then, and I didn't understand why, but I felt like I'd done something wrong. "I'm sorry-"

"You don't have anything to apologize for. And I mean anything."

"N... N-not even spilling all the cough syrup?" I asked.

"Hey, accidents happen. That's why I have Alfred."

"And that's why I deserve a raise." He added.

"Yeah, you're getting one. Just like you got one with Grayson, and Cassie, and all the others."

He closed the door again, and went back to his seat. I began tending to Hazel, who was crying a little. I held her hand. "There we go, Hazy." I kissed her cheek. "My little hazelnut."

She cooed a little.

I kissed her chubby little baby hand, before turning back to the man who rescued me. "Who are they?" I asked.

"Hm? Oh, Cassie and Grayson? Just two of the kids I took in. My name's Bruce, by the way."

I hummed. "... How many have you taken in?" I asked.

Bruce shrugged. "Total of... Six. Or, I suppose eight now, counting you two. I'm sure you and them'll get along just fine, but we can hold off the meet and greet until you're ready. It's been a long night for you, hasn't it?"

I sighed. "Kinda, yeah."

We started moving again. I picked up my cup of hot chocolate, which was more like warm chocolate by now, and drank the last swig or so. I was lucky the syrup didn't end up inside.

-

When we reached the manor, Alfred picked Hazel up from her baby seat, and I felt my anxiety spike.

He must've noticed. "I'll make sure Madam Hazel is well taken care of." He assured me. "Trust me, I'm a professional."

I smiled a little bit. "Thank you, sir."

I got out and let him lead me to the front. He walked me down the hall, and showed me to my new room.

I laid down and sunk into the plush pillows and comforter, and I was out like a light.

-

@via-rant I've started this thing for real! You can add onto it if you want <3 We could even move it to AO3, I'll put you down as a co-creator

#pjo x dc x marvel #dc x marvel #pjo x marvel #pjo x dc #closest I'll ever come to the comic book fandom #pjo #nico di angelo #hazel levesque #batman #alfred pennyworth

[thessalian]

Thess vs Plainsong, Again

One thing I do like about this game is that it does encourage you to go back to previously visited places, so you don't necessarily miss out on side quests. Not that I wouldn't have wound up back in that area anyway, but not necessarily Plainsong.

Right; Scalding Spear. Hi, Sokorra You want me to deliver a message to your brother? Sure; I could do with checking how things are in Plainsong anyway.

...A forest of green exclamation marks. So the answer to that is, "Not well". But let's check on Korreh first.

Hi, Korreh; your sister's gone to war again aaaaaaaaand... That's not what you're depressed about. Ah. You need a Longleg part. I feel you, fam.

Hey, Jaxx, any chance we-- Yeah, good, we're on this. And it helps a village too, because-- It looks purple and weird, right; HAEPHESTUS is being a dick again. Lemme just check on the rest of the mess in this area and I'll meet you there.

Okay ... new Chorus member-to-be went missing, presumed dead, and... Y'know, you Chorus guys are assholes. I will go look for her because I wouldn't put it past one of you to have seen to her disappearance. Because apparently even the largely peaceful vegan farmer types aren't above political fuckwittery.

So ... you guys are so desperate for food that you're willing to give up the whole vegan thing? ...Wow, you guys are way better about that kind of thing than the ones in the far past. But ... your hunters got into a mess. Lemme see what I can get from one of the survivors.

...Hi, Ven. Oof, that is some PTSD right there. Just ... take it easy and-- Oh for fuck's sake, HAEPHESTUS, chill the fuck out. Okay, I will deal with the Clawstrider.

Gonna go with the Clawstrider first, in point of fact, because you never know; Lao might not be as left-for-dead as you thought, Ven.

Oh, hey, another Utaru in my path. Not Lao, apparently, but ... in trouble. Lemme see if I can help.

...They're ... really focused on him. I wonder if--

Silent Strike one...

Silent Strike two. I rock.

Huh. I'm going to end up with my first adhesive weapon out of this, aren't I.

One ... two ... and three Skydrifters, one-shot kills from stealth. Woo!

Hi, Lao. Yes, I am hunting the-- Clawstrider, there we go.

"Don't fire until I do--" OMG YOU LET ME START FROM STEALTH THANK YOU.

Aaaaand that's a one-shot kill. So much for "don't fire until I do".

I love how the game just assumes I needed the adhesive. But it might come in handy, so thanks, Lao. Now go home. I'll bring the seed pouches back once I'm done with all the other errands.

Interesting processional path going on here. Aaaaaand ... yeah, we're leading up to murder mystery, aren't we.

I ... had been kind of half-hoping that we'd find Kalae penned in by machines, hurt, hiding ... but nope. Strangled to death by unidentified Utaru girl--

Whoooooooooo apparently got mauled by these assholes. Hi, Stalkers. Bye, Stalkers!

Right. All of the seed pouch delivery can wait. I'd rather not keep Jaxx waiting long than necessary, because he might get into trouble without me.

Yep. And it's fucking Leaplashers.

Okay. Let's go hunting a Longleg. Up the cliff we go.

Awwwwww. Isn't it nice that there are all these things that could crush these creatures for me? Shame I'm going to ignore them. POONK.

Right to the chest compression sac. Right to the damage dampener sac. Right to the damage dampener sac. And done.

Why, thank you, Jaxx. I am rather good with a bow if I do say so myself. You do right by the people of this village; I'll go back to Plainsong to deliver ... mixed news.

Here you go, Korreh.

.........Oooooooooh. Pretty.

Here you go, Shael. Seed pouches. Oldgrowth is ... as safe as it ever gets. I'll check in on Lao later; I've got a murder mystery to deal with.

Yes, Fane, I know your search party didn't find anything. Have you forgotten that "She Who Sees The Unseen" is one of my titles at this point? Look. Seed pouch of the killer. ...Kel's apprentice. I'm not surprised, honestly. Fane was at once too obvious and too ineffectual to be responsible for this. Over to Summerwind.

Ah. Had Kalae killed because you can't accept change, and poisoned yourself to spare your self change and consequences, huh? I guess this saves Bree from having to answer hate with hate.

Fane ... see what comes of being too rigid? The reed that bends in the wind survives the storm, asshole.

Okay, done with this. I will hit up a couple of metal flowers I missed and then go help out Talanah.

...Well, that's the idea anyway. Except that my neighbours are doing this big music thing which is about 90% evangelical stuff and 10% Bob Marley. It's loud enough that I can feel it in my chest, and I can't just close the windows because a) it's 26 degrees and b) ... again, I can feel it in my chest so I doubt that'll help. And now on top of everything else, I have a migraine. Do they have to have it this fucking loud?

...OMG THEY JUST TURNED THE VOLUME UP! This entire weekend is going to suck ass.

#Thess plays video games #Thess liveblogs Horizon Forbidden West

[the-laridian]

9, 20 & 27 for the Fallout asks 💙

9- What was your favourite quest? Genuinely drew a blank on this one at first XD Fallout 76 - I enjoyed the daily Biv quests (mostly for collection / getting the recipe for Rad Ant Lager) because Biv the Lovable Drunk is such a throwback stock character and he's always happy to have visitors. Rad ant lager was a lot more critical before the carry weight boosters arrived. Willow still has a couple dozen in storage. The formic acid adds a real bite to it. I liked the Order of Mysteries quests, but the ending was a real letdown. There was a period of a few months where I farmed Monster Mash because it had 1-5 legendary enemies, lots of sellable loot, loads of xp.

Fallout New Vegas - the White Gloves arc is the closest thing to an actual mystery as opposed to "kill everything that moves" Poking around Vault 22 (the plant vault) is cool too.

20- Which is your favourite faction? Why? In 76, it's the Enclave, because I want to know more about what these knuckleknobs were up to, and they do have a very cool uniform. I wish 76 would do more with them (and maybe they will, with Orlando and the Whitespring). In FNV, it's the Legion. (Mandatory disclaimer: yes, they are awful, horrible factions that, if they were real, I would stay far the hell away from them and avoid them. But they are fictional, I do not subscribe to their fictional beliefs, etc) The Legion is because I look at the attempt (in-universe) to recreate a really warped version of the Roman Empire and say : how the heck does that actually work? They had to get buy-in on this from a whole lot of people. There is an entire culture that has to back the war machine (I wrote a whole essay about logistics for the Legion for Fannish50, ask if you want the link), and somehow that entire culture at least partly follows through on this. How? Not to mention that there have to be local influences, it can't be monolithic, so you likely have all kinds of local, non-Roman stuff going on, because Edward Sallow isn't going to bother trying to recreate everything. He's cherry-picking the parts of Roman history he likes and forcing it on everyone. OTOH he's had, what, thirty years to institute this, so, a whole generation of time in which it has become the way of life. Anyway, yeah, they're interesting to take apart and see "how does this work, really?" I also think the Followers of the Apocalypse have an interesting history and some good goals, with the added problems of "relying on donations and patronage from whoever's in charge to get the work done", because good intentions don't pay the bills and fill your stomach.

27- Weapon of choice? 76!Rowan would use the crossbow at all times if the game didn't basically outlevel it. It's kind of a shame that by game terms, you need to constantly escalate the weapons because the enemies are escalating, when a more realistic take is that you don't have "takes more bullets to kill" enemies as you get more experienced. Anyway, that's what he would use. Raider Max, in story, uses a shotgun. Willow in story specialized in, and uses, rifles. But for game purposes, all of them use whatever big gun is handy, and each of them has a set they rotate through: gatling laser, gatling plasma, minigun. Which one is used depends entirely on how much of each ammo I have. Since I save up the ammo in storage, sooner or later I end up with enough 5mm to make using the minigun viable, then by the time that's out, I've accumulated some plasma cores, etc. I've tried using the gauss shotgun and idk, everyone swears by it but I can't figure out what's so great about it. Oh! And they all have the Cold Shoulder because the cryo effect and it's fast (no warmup/spinup like the big guns) and can do 8 shots at a time. That's honestly a fave for me.

#fallout 76 #fallout new vegas #answered #thank you! #caesar's legion #enclave #followers of the apocalypse

[emp-blast]

"Send me a Character" for *(drum roll)* Revenant! (And Cypher if you feel up to it.)

Also, I'll take this moment to tell you that your art is fantastic. It's nice to see another enjoyer of Revenant (and Cypher!). I was absolutely floored by how your style just works with anything you draw and is both unique and so utterly memorizing. Thank you for all your contributions to the community. :)

Okay, first off: THANK YOU SO MUCH OMG!!!!

You're words are very encouraging and I am super glad that the art I create has an impact on people! I legitimately will never get over people complimenting my art and I honestly can't believe that you think that I contribute to the Apex community (especially with how little I draw- trust me, I try! it's just that making lines on paper is hard 2 do sjdsjdsjd)

anyways, on to the ask game :]

Revenant

First impression: okay SO- i didn't really know he existed when i first started getting interested in apex??? i guess i just overlooked him or something? idk what happened but when i did learn about him i was like "hmmm, not sure i like him" . i literally had no interest in him whatsoever.

Impression now: oh. My. GOD.... i am obsessed with him in a mentally ill way and i am not ashamed to admit that. i think about him on a daily basis. i thank the people over at hammond robotics everyday for building the perfect sexy killing machine. he is extremely elegant and i LUV the way he's built: broad shoulders, tiny waist for me 2 grab, thick thighs, slim dainty hands, deep voice, TALL, and a piercing gaze. he is my baby girl and he is SO pathetic... i want him. so. bad....

Favorite moment: literally whenever he dies or fails. absolutely loved when he didn't convince bang to go to gridiron with him and now loba is making fun of him. i luv when people make fun of him <3

also, this is NOT canon art or anything, but i REALLY luv this fanart of rev getting absolutely destroyed by loba. :

YESSSSS,,, GET HIM!!!!

art belongs to @/ryuuna btw!!!

Idea for a story: uhmmm, how about rev literally just leaving the games and minding his own business for once??? he's a big fan of starting drama and i think he needs to Not do that. he probably has a bunch of money saved up (he probably doesn't need to use it for anything) so he could buy a nice big ship and float around the universe literally doing anything else but causing drama. he's a big fan of killing people so he can spend his time assassinating trillionaires or corrupt government officials. yeah i don't think he's nice enough to do that tbh djsjdsjd

Unpopular opinion: ngl kaleb cross kinda ugly,,,

OKAY fr tho- he ain't ugly but his design is a little bland, ya know???

Favorite relationship: jsdjshdjahdsa i go insane over revfinder. their dynamic is just SO- look idk how 2 put it into words but it's good. trust me.

uhmmm, i also think he'd be good friends with Ash. i almost see them as siblings tbh. they get each other through the tough times. also ash is the only one he'll willing listen to and he actually respects her.

Favorite headcanon: uhm! don't have any hc about him tbh sjdsjdj

ig a sort of hc is that he switches from saying that he's a Murder Machine to asserting the fact that he's human often. Like, he legit cannot decide what he considers himself as and that messes with him. we've heard him describe himself as being a killer robot, but there are instances where he still considers himself to still be human in a weird way?? like, in pathfinder's quest, he genuinely got upset that path told him that he was just a mere copy of kaleb cross's mind, and not kaleb himself. rev got so mad omg

and then he has this voiceline where, if you get caught in ash's tactical, he'll say something like "That simulacrum snared me!"

which is kind of weird tbh. Like, he says it in a way that he doesn't consider himself to be a sim also. You don't go around saying "That human shot me!" because that implies that you yourself are not a human; usually you're more specific, often saying the name of the person. LOOK, idk maybe i'm just looking too much into it/have a general misunderstanding of grammar. but yeah,,, those r my thoughts

ALSO- he likes piranhas, piranha plants, snakes, and literally anything else with sharp teeth.

OH- this is a popular hc (i think??), but every time he comes back to life in a new body, he gets paint and covers up the hammond logos on his hands.

#asks #long post #imma make a separate post for cypher btw! #ty for sending in your ask! your compliments made my whole week! #(also. again. didn't mean 2 write so much...)

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #30 - The Cybertronian Judicial System is a Friggin’ Joke

Have I mentioned that I’m not a huge fan of court case stories? I think they’re pretty boring, on average, so the last couple of issues have been slightly dragging for me.

Anyway, back to Megatron’s trial. 

Our issue opens up with a full back shot of Ultra Magnus.

Artists take note, he really is built like a capital T.

As Magnus reads out Megatron’s statement retracting his “guilty” plea, we get some decent points as to why. See, telling a guy that you’ll stab him in the brain, so his trial can be over as quickly as possible, maybe isn’t such a hot idea. Megatron wasn’t a huge fan of that, or of how those memories they would’ve yanked outta him would have been used to fuel the Autobot propaganda machine. Why, you may ask?

Well, I don’t know if you knew this or not, but Megatron… doesn’t particularly care for the Autobots, nor the rhetoric they uphold.

I know, I was surprised too!

There’s also the fact that Optimus Prime is the judge on this whole thing. You know. Optimus Prime. Off and on leader of the Autobots, whenever it suits him. The guy who fucked off into space for a year after the war. The guy who threw a hissy fit when someone pointed out that he was compromised the last time they did something like this with Megatron. This guy:

Yeah, there might be a slight conflict of interests here. Remind me again why this had to be a military trial?

Anyway, enough of that, it’s time for a fight scene.

A swarm of Decepticons storm the arena, going after Megatron so they can help him escape. Magnus, though acting as Megatron’s defense, cannot abide by this disorder in the court.

Wild to think there’s a tiny little Pringles man with anxiety in there, isn’t it?

Optimus joins the fray, because there really are, just, so many guys to deal with here. A dude goes to collect Megatron, stating that they brought teleport packs for this little shindig. Megatron isn’t super jazzed about that though, not bothering to grab on before the dude gets shot to death. There’s a brief recess, I guess so the janitorial staff can deal with the mess of corpses littering the courtroom.

Meanwhile, in the present day, Rung’s building a model spaceship in Swerve’s, which is a very brave thing to be doing, seeing how sticky and gross bars can be. Brainstorm’s brought a flask to the bar, and proceeds to pour the contents into a funnel sticking out of his arm.

Our bartender for the evening- I’m assuming it’s evening, but I doubt the concept of time has any real weight in space- is Bluestreak. Bluestreak was stationed on Earth for a while, which is some Phase One stuff, and took a liking to human media while he was there. He’s the guy who handles movie night these days, seeing as Rewind’s too busy being dead to do it, and I doubt Chromedome has the emotional bandwidth to take over for his late spouse.

Bluestreak’s favorite movie is Zulu, a film glorifying the colonialism of the English over the native populace of an African kingdom. Make of that what you will.

Whirl wants to watch À Bout de Soufflé, or Breathless, as it was translated for the English-speaking world, which is a French New Wave film about a criminal who shoots a cop, hides from the police in a journalist’s home, who he seduces and likely impregnates. She eventually finds out what he did, reports him to the police, but then has a change of heart and lets him know what she’s done. He runs, but is shot, and dies in the street. The film is notable for its final scene, in which the following dialogue happens, between the dying criminal Michael, his lover Patricia, and an officer.

Of course, any poignancy would almost certainly be lost on the average comic book reader, and is also somewhat nullified by Whirl praising the film with internet lingo.

Then again, I suppose Whirl would be the type to dismantle any deeper reading of his interest in such a film, lest he be subjected to the horrifying ordeal of being known.

Over with Skids and Riptide, it’s revealed that Megatron’s been teaching classes on the Lost Light, specifically on the Knights of Cybertron. Riptide’s getting an education, because he’s been feeling pretty lost since the war ended- we’ll get to the potential whys of that later on. Swerve isn’t a fan of this community college thing that’s going on, stating that Megatron’s using it as a distraction, so he can devise plots most foul.

Back in the past, Autobot high command is having a talk about what Megatron’s demanding, and man is it a doozy— turns out, since the trial’s happening on Luna 2, the trial proceedings are subject to the laws of the moon. One of these moon laws is the right to request being judged by the Knights of Cybertron. Now, this is a problem, seeing as the Knights of Cybertron have been AWOL for the last several million years, but the law is the law, and you can’t just go ignoring it when someone’s pointed it out.

Bro, your SIC just suggested y’all pull the trial so you could slap it on Cybertron, thus negating any need to pay attention to the Knight law. That’s such a gross miscarrying of justice, it’s genuinely baffling. You’ve got bigger issues going on than flouting. My god, Optimus, you were a cop—

Oh wait, that’s right. Carry on, then.

Back on the Lost Light, First Aid’s checking to make sure that the coffin Rodimus they revealed last issue is true and proper dead. Now, this may seem like a given, but you’ve got to remember that Brainstorm was mostly dead for over a year and a half, and nobody fucking noticed, so it’s probably for the best that they’re checking.

First Aid’s been pretty withdrawn since Ambulon died, so this autopsy is really good for him, since it got him out of his room. Pretty fucked up that it would take a dead body to get him out and about. Has Rung checked in on his poor son of a gun, or has he been spending the last six months getting his professional rocks off psychoanalyzing a genocidal warlord?

Our coffin Rodimus died from having parts of his brain removed, and potentially died screaming.

Yes, that is a Furmanism, thank you peanut gallery, moving on—

Ratchet hands the phone over to Ultra Magnus, saying that a call has to be made, and it can’t be by him, because the callee is mighty upset with Ratchet at the moment.

Oh, I guess he’s fine after all. This must be where the sci-fi bullshit really starts kicking in for the series.

Because seeing your own dead body is likely very traumatic and awful, Rodimus is taking a while to string together his thoughts on the matter. Megatron doesn’t particularly care, because he’s not terribly sympathetic to this sort of thing, and the two get into a spat, where it’s revealed that they’re co-captaining the Lost Light.

Because things weren’t chaotic enough on this fucking ship. Need to mix in some peacocking between the McDonalds twunk and the man who killed half of Beijing.

Back in the past, Optimus Prime visited Megatron in prison to have a little chat. It’s not about that little rescue attempt, though the fact that those Decepticons may have been released from the Lost Light’s brig is certainly interesting. No, Optimus is here to sit way too close to his mortal nemesis on the floor of his room and talk about how Megatron is a sneaky bastard.

You remember the Hellraiser puzzle box from a couple issues back? Yeah, that was a communicube, one that was passed to Optimus to suggest that the trial be held on the moon, so the arena there would be able to hold all the people wronged by Megatron. This seems pretty damn convenient in hindsight, but Megatron swears that the legal loophole wasn’t his only intent when he sent the cube.

Because it’s all about you, isn’t it, Megatron? It’s all about how you’re perceived by future generations. Fuck the guys who had to actually deal with what your personal choices caused to happen.

Megatron wants to make amends with all those who were wronged by him. This doesn’t include being acquitted of his crimes, which, y’know, good- at least he’s being slightly realistic about how this is going to turn out for him.

What he wants to do is find Cyberutopia, so the Cybertronians have a replacement planet, since Cybertron kind of sucks now.

Oh, sorry, did I say realistic? I take it back.

In the present, Rodimus is still bummed out about being dead. Still, the day doesn’t stop just because it’s a bad one, and he calls in the experts.

CHROMEDOME YOU PROMISED TO STOP THIS SHIT

Yeah, no, Chromedome’s fallen off the wagon again, and does his thing on the coffin Rodimus. As he does, Megatron suddenly gets squeamish, Brainstorm pulls out his early early-warning device to lean on the fourth wall, and it’s revealed that the coffin that coffin Rodimus was in was built in the fashion of the Spectralist faith.

All Chromedome can suss out of coffin Rodimus’ memories is the really big important stuff, which includes the speech at Rivet’s Field inviting folks to come join the Knight Quest. Aww, that’s sweet.

With the analysis of the innermost energon complete, the results are in— the coffin Rodimus is a Rodimus. A real one, from the near future. Bummer.

I suppose denial is one of the seven stages of grief, isn’t it?

As everyone argues over whether or not Rodimus is going to die, Nightbeat brings up a good point— there aren’t any numbers carved into the coffin Rodimus’ hand. Rodimus is about to reveal some Ratchet-original wisdom, when things start getting really weird; whole sections of the Lost Light are disappearing.

Over at Swerve’s, Tailgate is regaling his peers with the story of his derring-do against Chief Justice Tyrest. Everyone is very impressed, and this includes our good buddy Getaway.

Jeez, think you’ve got enough antagonist shadows on this guy? It’s almost as if the art’s trying to tell us something about him.

Getaway lays it on real thick, saying that Tailgate could totally be the next Prime, with how courageous and awesome he is, all while completely ignoring Tailgate’s personal space and having a weirdly tiny hand. This seems to seriously bother Cyclonus, who is watching this shit go down from the doorway. Our purple space jet leaves once the drinks start being poured and conversation starts happening. God knows he hates talking about his insecurities.

Then the Pipes is Friggin’ Dead alarm goes off. But Pipes has been dead for a while now, so that must mean something else awful is happening.

Back during the trial, I guess because Optimus has a soft spot for Megatron, he allows him to join the Lost Light’s Knight Quest… even as he says that he could keep the guy locked up until Rodimus and pals find the Knights. However, there are rules to this, and one of the rules is that Megatron must publicly denounce the Decepticon cause.

It is a slow and painful experience for everyone involved, as he reads the statement he was given. It’s an immediate call to action- or rather, inaction.

Geez, think they could’ve made it any more obvious that this was being ghostwritten? I can’t wait to see how long it takes for “Megatron was blackmailed into saying this by the Autobots” to be a plotpoint.

Outside the prison, Ratchet and Rodimus are taking in the brand new Rod Pod, which is genuinely ridiculous in how large it is. Rodimus admits to having taken Atomizer’s list, though he knows that trying to use it to keep those who voted him off would be a pretty shitty thing to do.

Also, no one’s told him about Megatron coming along on the trip. As captain.

Or you could, I dunno, lock him up from the start. Or, if you want to give him a chance to prove himself, slap him into a bottom-rung role, like bilge cleaner, or sewage mucker, or whatever the equivalent would be on a spaceship full of giant gay robots. We don’t have to give the guy any power to hold him to scrutiny— any minimum wage worker will tell you that scrutiny comes far harsher for those who actually carry out orders than those who give them.

But what do I know? I’ve never fought in a several million year war, and I don’t plan to.

Getting back to the list, it seems as if Ratchet and Rodimus are on the same wavelength, in that both agree it’s only going to cause trouble and hurt feelings to keep the thing around. Rodimus destroys it with his usual flare, only to be blindsided by the fact that it was fake this entire time. How does Ratchet know this?

Because his name wasn’t on it.

...Man, that’s gotta sting. No wonder Rodimus was upset enough to not take his calls.

In the present, everyone’s in a panic, as they all bolt for the shuttle bay and start pouring into shuttles. The Lost Light is disintegrating around them, which is sort of a problem. Despite this nightmare scenario happening, Rodimus and Megatron still find the time to be assholes to each other. That’s dedication right there.

As the two bicker, multiple shuttles zip away from the rapidly disappearing ship, including the Rod Pod.

Man, now it really is the Lost Light.

#transformers #jro #MTMTE #world shut your mouth #issue 30 #Hannzreads #text post #long post #overthinking about robots #incoming analysis #comic script writing

[loominggaia]

Upcoming Looming Gaia Stories

Here are some upcoming stories to look forward to (titles are not final):

As Nature Intended: Evan, Jeimos, and Isaac must escort a sick ogre across the treacherous Burmek ruins. They run into all kinds of trouble along the way and Shadow suffers a serious wound that may put her adventuring days--and her very life--to an end.

Celestial Signals: Isaac's been having crazy dreams all his life. He's starting to think that maybe these aren't just plain old dreams after all...are mysterious forces trying to tell him something?

Pig Bait: Lilian isn't doing so well since she became mortal again. Alaine, Lukas, and Glenvar decide to take her "hog-hunting" to boost her confidence. Will she find her niche, or is this brutal practice doing more harm than good?

Ocean Machines: A routine contract turns into a rollercoaster of unexpected events, and things keep getting wilder with each new discovery. Oh yeah, and Jeimos finds their father in the most unlikely of places. But can they save him from the bizarre predicament he's in?

The Monster Awakens: Disgrace is back after a long, contemplative year in the cosmic realm. His first order of business? Get his scythe back using any means necessary. But before he can do that, he needs to raise a new army...

For Goodness Sake: FUCK YOU CONNOR, YOU LITTLE BASTARD. Oh my god I hate this kid, and you will too after this story. There isn't much I can say that won't spoil everything, so I'll just say...warning: death of a major character. Multiple characters, actually. This one's gonna make y'all mad as fuck. :')

Cruising Altitude: Still reeling from recent harrowing events, the Freelance Good Guys jump on a cruise ship to get their mind off things. They're supposed to be on vacation, but trouble finds them anyway.

Rise of Elatia: A new character gets introduced in "The Monster Awakens" and he's pretty much the main character of this story. This mf is a nasty, NASTY piece of work. He makes Dario look like a pussycat. Also, Patience is also a major character in this one. That's all I'm gonna say.

Technophobia: The Freelance Good Guys get tangled up with a Damijani religious cult. Now they're fighting killer robots and blowing up semi-trucks on the Zareenite freeway. What?! Yeah this one's insane, don't worry bout it.

Miss Mary: Evan unexpectedly runs into his old friend, Mathias. Wait, that guy's still alive? Things get really awkward really fast. I'll just leave it at that.

Curse of the Incubus: An incubus invades Drifter's Hollow, searching for lonely hearts to exploit. When he finds one, he refuses to let go until one of them drops dead. Who do you think gets incubus'd? And who will save them??

Road of Memories: Isaac asks Dr. Jan for help recovering some lost memories. What she finds is dangerous and disturbing, and it damn near kills her. Maybe some things are best left in the dark.

The Noble's Wife: While on a routine contract to arrest bandits, Skel inadvertently rescues his old flame, Jasenia. Think he's just going to give her back to her husband? Think again.

Vicious Vanity: This one is convoluted as hell, but basically Linde and Morbus end up confronting Haggomah about something, and the divine sends them on a seemingly impossible quest.

That's all for now, but more to come. B)

#looming gaia #funstuff #literature

[bamfdaddio]

X-Men Abridged: 1968

The X-Men, those ever-so-slightly exhausting mutants that have sworn to protect a world that hates and fears them, are a cultural juggernaut with a long, tangled history. Want to unravel this tapestry? Then read the Abridged X-Men!

(X-Men 40 - 51) - written by Roy Thomas, Gary Friedrich and Arnold Drake. Drawn by Werner Roth, Don Heck, George Tuska and Jim Steranko

Did you know Frankenstein’s monster was an android, sent to earth by aliens as an ambassador?

My English Lit professor LIED TO ME! (X-Men 40)

Whereas last year served up a cohesive narrative by making it all about Factor Three, 1968 gives us a hodgepodge of clumsy and confusing storylines. This might be due to the different writers at the helm: last year was all about Roy Thomas, this year we’ve got three dudes pulling it in different directions.

What doesn’t change is the prose. So much purple prose.

Anyway, this year is all about THE DEATH OF PROFESSOR XAVIER and THE RETURN OF MAGNETO! (If you think this is terrific foreshadowing and not something that kills all narrative tension, boy howdy, you’ll love reading comics from this era.)

The best kind of foreshadowing drags you into an alley, punches you in the nose and steals your shoes. Fuck subtlety and proper twists. (X-Men 41)

Anyway, Xavier is acting all out of character: cranky, angry, impatient, barely using his powers for immoral purposes… He pushes the X-Men to the brink and continually sequesters himself with a troubled Jean.

Meanwhile, Bobby and Hank’s date with Zelda and Vera is interrupted… again. At this point, I just have to believe that Zelda and Vera are embroiled in some torrid lesbian relationship, while Hank and Bobby serve as their beards.ANYWAY, their date is interrupted by the Grotesk, the last remaining heir to an advanced subterranean species who have recently been slaughtered by an earthquake machine of human making. Look, how many underground societies does the Marvel Earth even have? Did these Grotesks live next to the Molemen? I…

In defense of Grotesk, spinning him around like a fucking bola is one of the top three things I´d like to do with Angel too. (X-Men 42)

The X-Men try to stop the Grotesk from sinking the Eastern seaboard into the Atlantic, and in the end, the Professor sacrifices himself to stop him, paying pays the ultimate price!

OR DOES HE

To make it even more tragic, apparently Xavier was dealing with some mysterious illness that neither human medicine nor mutant powers could cure. But before he died, he somehow transferred his powers to Jean. (Either pretend this happened or retcon it him awakening Jean’s latent telepathy.) Anyway, Chuck wanted to prepare them for the return of… Magneto. (Also Pietro and Wanda.)

Quicksilver crashes Xavier’s funeral, unsure whether he should ask the X-Men for help. He doesn’t. Meanwhile, Magneto somehow has duped some hapless time-displaced TikTokker into filming the grisly affair. (X-Men 43)

What follows is a sort of confusing crossover with the Avengers where the X-Men mostly get sidelined in favour of some drama involving the House of M. Wanda has some temporary mental damage that only Magneto can cure? Also, Pietro hates humans now, which, given the state of the world in general, I can only concur with.

Magneto captures the X-Men in customized cages, designed to be unescapable, but Angel escapes by simply pushing the right button. He flies off to get help, stumbles upon a weird and ultimately meaningless side quest and finally returns with the Avengers!

But! Magneto turns the X-Men against Earth’s Mightiest Heroes! Just kidding: the X-Men pretend to go along with Magneto’s mind games, but this was all a plot concocted by the heroes to make Magneto feel like he’s winning. Instead, the heroes attack and drive Magneto back. Toad, who finally is fed up with Magneto’s abuse, emancipates himself and defies Magneto, kicking him out of the helicopter he, Wanda and Pietro flee in. Magneto seemingly falls to his death in the water.

OR DOES HE.

First of all: why would Magneto just make a non-ferrous aircraft? Second of all: why would he then BRING IT ALONG? Big mad. (Avengers 53)

Following Xavier’s death, Foggy Nelson reads his will. The Professor bequeaths the school to the X-Men! Fred Duncan, Professor X’s FBI liaison is also there! And then! Juggernaut briefly returns from the dimension of Cyttorak, stirs up trouble and is then sucked back into the ruby of Cyttorak thanks to a Professor Ex Machina from the grave. This somehow convinces Fred Duncan that the X-Men should split up, fearing they may be too big a target for evil mutants and thinking they might be better at responding to threats spread out over the continent.

Yeah, Angel will be so much more effective when he isn’t part of a team of much more powerful individuals. (X-Men 46)

So, the X-Men split up! In NYC, Bobby and Hank battle Warlock, the most forgettable villain ever, when he interrupts their date. They also get into a fight with hippies because of… poetry?

Yeah! Put the slam in poetry slam, odd beatniks! *aggressive finger snaps* (X-Men 47)

Jean and Scott ‘go undercover’ in California, with Jean becoming a model and Scott ‘pretending’ to be her superjealous boyfriend. So, instead of actually forming a relationship, they just pretend to have one? Fuck, these two are exhausting. Jean also forgot she attends a university, apparently. Which is just as well, because it means boring Ted and his boring brother disappear from the narrative.

They are attacked by an increasingly silly string of villains and it’s obvious that nobody really knows what to do with this book. They even skip an issue: the preview for issue 49 is something completely different than what we’re getting.

The year ends of a sort of high note, however, introducing two familiar faces. Mesmero,a hitherto unknown follower of Magneto, is amassing an army of would-be mutants by… hypnotizing them? Through their… X-Gene? Among them is a curious gal named Lorna Dane, who is rocking the brown hair. Bobby saves her from her drone-like state and keeps an eye on her while the rest of the X-Men investigate Mesmero.

Lorna meanwhile takes a shower, washed out the cheap dye and is revealed to have green hair. (Fuck yeah! But also maybe buy better dye?) Bobby and Lorna are captured by Mesmero and his cronies, and Bobby warns the other X-Men telepathically. They let themselves be captured by Mesmero too, figuring it’s the easiest way to find his lair. There, Mesmero awakens Lorna’s latent magnetism powers, and bestows on her two sweet titles:

Somewhere in Kenya, Storm is upset and doesn’t know why. (X-Men 50)

And, in another shocking twist (gasp²), Magneto’s alive!

You say ‘aura of unspeakable evil’, I say ‘prime dom top daddy’. (X-Men 50)

He fights the X-Men while Polaris tries to determine who she holds allegiance to: the father she just met or these other randos she just met. You’d think she would maybe not want to hang out with the raving demagogue, but hey. Maybe it’s magnetic attraction. The X-Men flee, forced to regroup, and we end the year there, with the ‘innocent’ Lorna Dane under Magneto’s thrall.

Didn’t you take Art History? Oh! Issue 50 has the familiar logo for the first time, created by Jim Steranko!

So one cape tassel goes over the shoulder and one goes under it? Why is there a little skull with horns in the middle? Why the strappy sandals? Mesmero, sashay away. (X-Men 50)

Ugliest Costume: It’s a toss-up between Mesmero and Polaris, but since I assume Mesmero designed Polaris’ outfit, we’ll just give it to him.

Best new character: I didn’t think she’d earn it, because I’m not the biggest fan of Lorna Dane (most writers use her as a plot device, rather than a character), but otherwise this would go to Grotesk and that’s never going to happen.

Most audacious retcon: Jean is able to psychically penetrate Juggernaut’s helmet, which used to protect him from Charles’ influence.

It’s also kinda funny how after years of retcons where Polaris, Scarlet Witch and Quicksilver sometimes are and sometimes aren’t Magneto’s kids, how it is right now is the same as when it started: Lorna is Magneto’s daughter, the twins aren’t.

What to read: Nothing. This is not a great year.

Death proof: ‘Chuck’ kicks the bucket for the first time.

#x-men #xmen #x-men abridged #abridged x-men #professor x #charles xavier #changeling #kevin sydney #jean grey #marvel girl #cyclops #scott summers #beast #henry mccoy #iceman #bobby drake #angel #warren worthington #magneto #quicksilver #pietro maximoff #scarlet witch #wanda maximoff #polaris #lorna dane #mesmero #toad #mortimer toynbee #grotesk #avengers

[tcstu]

April’s Honorable Mentions

This was definitely a hard month to judge. Each of the entries below took a totally different perspective and it is very difficult to hold them to any kind of comparison. I hope you will take the time to read each of these stories and make sure to let the writers know if you liked one. I’m sure they would love to hear from you!

As a reminder, the piece for this month’s contest is an untitled work created by @beewithagun. If you like this picture as much as I do, make sure to check out Beewithagun’s page to see more original artwork!

(The Honorable Mentions below are listed in the order they were received and do not reflect a system of ranking.)

Title: The Fay

Written by: @daalseth​

Deep in the forest lived a fay. Older than time, but as young as spring she had known every tree since it was a seed. She was the soul of the forest. When she was sad, the forest mourned, when she was happy the forest was bright, and when she was angry, well you didn’t want to be in the forest when the fay was angry.

The fay came across a fallen tree. It was lying on the ground, but it hadn’t blown down. It was cut off square at the base. Then she saw another. There was a clearing, a whole section of her forest that was dead and many of the fallen were missing. As the fay passed over she was horrified. What could have caused this?

Soon she came upon the camp of men where they were feeding the dying trees into grinders. The fay could hear the trees, still alive scream as they were shredded into wood chips. The fay’s horror grew deeper and she went to the men to plead for them to stop. Beg them to not kill the trees, her brothers and sisters. But as soon as she appeared the men grew angry at her interference. They yelled at her, threw things at her, they even tried to shoot at her.

The fay fled into the depths of the forest. She was heartbroken and began to cry. When she cried the rain began to fall. So deep was her sorrow that the rain came down in torrents and began to flood the blasted land. The fay went back to the camp. She saw that the men had stopped shredding trees. Now they were battling the waters. They had used machines to push earth up to block the water. The fay noticed that some metal barrels had been broken by the machine and were spilling their poison into the water. The water flowed across the clearing into the forest. Wherever the poison flowed, everything died. Fish, mouse, moss, and tree all died in agony.

The fay grew angry. The men could see fire in her eyes, and sparks illuminated her hair. The rain turned to thunder and bolts of lightning rained down upon the camp. They struck the shredder, and the building, and the piles of shredded trees, and the lightning struck the men, it ESPECIALLY struck the men. Electric hands reached into even the deepest hiding place to grab the terrified men.

Soon it was done. The fay came out and passed among the charred remains. She smiled a grim smile. The rain stopped and the sun came out. She was pleased. Though the fay mourned her lost friends, she knew the forest would heal with time.

At last she came to one man still alive. With his last breath he pleaded for help. She looked at him with cold eyes and turned away.

She was the fay of the forest and men were not her concern.

Title: “About Danny’s First Time”

Written by: @evanthenerd83

It was wonderful.

It was also kinda, sorta, a little gross.

There were a few glaring issues. Primarily the question of how Danny would get into the appropriate position, and how she would get into hers.

The swamp wasn’t all that big. It wasn’t even a swamp. The girl sat in a rather small pool.

Said pool was, of course, filled with water. And said water contained muck, yuck, and other things generally considered unpleasantly…  sticky. Twigs and fallen leaves floated along the surface—

No. Not floated, exactly. They were stuck on the surface, a skin not unlike jellied jam.

Which meant the girl could only sit on her knees, or lay on her stomach with her head propped up in her arms.

Danny particularly liked that position. Her skin was green, lighter splotches running down her neck and her arms and her spine. Her hair spilled over bare shoulders.

And it also made certain things much more… pronounced. Danny felt his blood rushing down.

The girl tried to explain why she couldn’t leave the pool. Something about an ancient curse and her mother. A woman who, as she so elegantly put it, hated her guts.

“All of my sisters are much more, you know. Beautiful. Human… er? More human? Humanoid?”

Danny didn’t care if her sisters were literal goddesses. They’d never compare to her. He pulled off his shirt, then threw it over his shoulder. The skull-and-crossbones printed on the front disappeared.

The girl blushed. An even darker shade of green filled her cheeks.

“Anyway, you’d be better off going to them. I don’t have, like, much experience with… you know… uh… physical stuff.”

Danny plunged into the pool. The water wasn’t cold. It wasn’t warm, either. It was nothingness.

The girl shifted in place, while Danny took her hand. It was only slightly warmer than the water, which surprised him.

He kissed it. “Neither do I.”

The girl stared, eyes wide. Then, she glanced down, at his bare chest. Then, up to his face. Then, down to his chest, again, and then—

“Oh, what the hell?”

Soggy lips met lips.

She laid back.

He leaned forward.

Calm hands clasped behind his neck.

Awkward hands panicked.

He grabbed the straps of her swamp-weed dress, the not-actually-fabric tearing apart, as easily as paper. Certain things were suddenly freed.

“Oh. Crap. Sorry—”

“Don’t be.”

Legs thin as twigs wrapped around his waist.

She undid the zipper to his jeans, yanking them down, discarding his underwear at the exact same time. Something else was suddenly freed.

“Now, let’s just… a little to the—”

“L-like that?”

“Oh! U-uh. Y-yeah.”

What happened next was kinda, sorta, a little gross.

But also… wonderful.

Title: “Sing Me Out a Storm”

Written by: @winterrose42

She couldn’t remember the last time it had rained this much.

Though she could only imagine the chaos that must be raging above the pond underwater it was as calm and serene as it had ever been. Idly, she swung her feet through the loose sand and reeds, blurring her vision with the silt she kicked up. That was just fine with her, there had never been much to see in her small abode to begin with. Sand and rocks worn smooth and sparkly lined to bottom, with the sides sloping up gently until they met the shore. She could swim from one end to another in about three minutes if she went slowly, and it was just deep enough that casual swimmers wandering in wouldn’t see her unless they knew to look. It was perfect.

Closing her eyes she sighed contently and stood her ears up just a little bit more to catch more of the soft pattering of rain that was still filling up her home at a slow and steady rate. The frogs had long stopped their evening croaking and she knew the few fish that lived here wouldn’t have a care that it was storming above their home. The pond hardly ever changed and when it did it simply meant there was a meal to be had, which was always fine with her.

Perking up she strained her ears as something new invaded her serenity. A low, mournful note drifted down to her slowly, draping itself around her shoulders and weighing them down with the burden it carried. Tears pricked her eyes as she pushed off from where she’d been sitting, intent on seeing what could make such heart jerking noises. Their voice picked up again, another long, drawn out note that was almost more moan than song. Curious and slightly concerned she drifted closer to the hunched figure. The song wrapped around her so slowly she hardly noticed it, pulling her along as gently as a suggestion with little intention beyond calling for aid. Closer and closer she came, reeds fanning out with her hair as she kept as low as she could with her eyes still above water, squinting through the storm to see clearer.

Quickly, so quickly even her natural instincts were too slow, the comforting net turned to one full of malice, her limbs cinched so close she could hardly breathe as she finally caught sight of the face of her entrancement. Cold eyes devoid of the emotion their owner had been singing peered at her viciously from under soaked bangs. The notes heightened in pitch, rocking up to a scream as her own voice stuck fast in her throat. Deep in her bones she knew a siren was not meant to be trapped this way; enchanting one wasn’t something she had ever heard of, but feeling the last tendrils of the song fade away into a cold nothing she knew it didn’t matter.

She couldn’t remember the last time it had rained this much.

Untitled

Written by: Felix @that-dumb-space-kid

We’d been traveling for little over two days when we found her. Cass had insisted on taking breaks over our journey, and, with some persistence, I was able to convince Sage to go along with her idea. The lake she’d found was far enough from the path that no one would notice us but close enough that we wouldn’t get lost. Those were Sage’s requirements, our quest would remain as secret as possible. They said word would travel fast about three teenagers going off to battle an evil force. Of course, they were probably right. It was raining when we finally reached the lake. Sage set about surveying the area, making sure nobody was around, and Cass began digging through a basket for some food, leaving me with nothing to do. I decided to go down to the lake to get some water. I couldn’t hear quite right over the rain, but I could’ve sworn I heard crying as I walked up to the water.

When I reached the shore, I was certain I that’s what I was hearing. I looked out over the lake, and that’s when I saw her. She didn’t look like the monsters Sage warned us about, but she didn’t look human either. I was so entranced by who she was or what she could be that I didn’t hear Cass and Sage approach me. Cass opened her mouth to speak, when the creature in the lake snapped her head to us.

“Who are you?” She sounded almost human. If I hadn’t been looking at her, I would have assumed she was. Sage and Cass immediately started arguing over whether or not we could trust her. Not that that was surprising. They argued over everything. The creature and I held eye contact, unnoticed by the others. Eventually I spoke, silencing my friends’ argument. “I’m Oliver. Who are you?”

“Nimue.” For a second her tears stopped, and it seemed as though a venom overtook her. “They destroyed my village.” The moment passed and she was crying again.

“Who?” Sage glared at Cass as she asked.

“I don’t know. Darkness started pouring down into the water, and I heard voices and then nothing. When I woke up, I was the only survivor.”

“Sound exactly like what we’re after,” Sage muttered. “It’s too much of a coincidence.”

Cass slapped them. “No, it’s not.”

I stepped into the lake and offered my hand to Nimue. “If I’m right, we’re already looking for the thing that destroyed your village. How would you like to join us in stopping it?”

Before Sage could yell at me, Nimue nodded and grabbed my hand. She climbed out of the water and became the fourth member of our quest.

#writing contest #writeblr #writing community #honorable mentions #april contest #april writing contest #ekphrastic fiction contest #ekphrastic fiction

[famouskittychild]

Cheeky mandos - Getting seated

Prolouge

One - ...and we're off

Two - Tea for two

Word count: 2384

Summary: Some fighting and heart-to-heart in this one :)

Rating: M

CW: injury, injury treatment, (non-sexual) physical contact, some angst and feals if we squint

Author's note: I edited this on my mobile and can't put a "keep reading" break in there sorry :/ Edit: fixed it :)

.

Cheeky Mandos - Three: Getting seated

The next covert is the last that you got information about, and it turns into something of a mess. You leave the spacedock just after sunset and a band of thugs picks a fight at a nearby alleyway. They want the beskar, even though its value has been steadily dropping lately after the huge spike before. You still wander what the kriff had caused that.

The two of you make short work of them. The stranger’s - Djarin, you remind yourself - fighting style seems to be taking blaster bolts with his beskar, smashing in heads and peppering it with precise blaster shots. You use the traditional weapon of armourers, a lean hammer with a long shaft - the only thing that might give your occupation away if someone knows what to look for. You’ve garnished the hammer with an electro-pulse emitter for greater efficiency but don’t use that now. Your opponents are not enough of a threat to warrant it.

They get away easy, considering your team of two could’ve simply killed them all; they end up laying on the ground with a few broken bones and several concussions, and you walk away before they can even look up. Only communicating with battle-words, moving around in the shadows, you put distance between them while also separating randomly and criss-crossing the streets to throw off anyone who tries to follow.

When the two of you finally stop and Djarin steps up beside you near a bridge, he remarks quietly.

“That was good fighting together.”

That’s when it occurs to you that whilst there were a few scrapes and the odd punch or drunken challenger before, this was your first real fight together. And the two of you worked seamlessly. Mandalorians have a set of training methodology that was passed down through countless generations and ensured that even people from the most different groups could work together like cogs in a machine. It happens all the time, but it still surprises you how well it went with the stranger. Djarin.

“It was.” You smile, and for once he can’t see it under your visor.

**

You find the covert and whilst they are welcoming when they see your armours, once you and Din start to talk to them, they are quite reluctant. They don’t want to go back to your ship, to your forge, and they barely listen to Djarin. It’s not the coldest reaction ever, but it’s still quite a work to get through to them. You arrange the time when they’ll visit the ship if they want to, then leave, being led through a different exit to where you came from.

By the time you get back to the docks, it’s swarming with gangs. They are badly trained, if at all, and rely on numbers and intimidating the weak. Most of them you dodge without a problem, but a better organized group does slow the two of you down. Not much longer than the afternoon gang did, though; until something knocks the air out of your lungs and you lurch forward, gasping. You are only down and disoriented for a few seconds but that’s enough to get kicked once, and shot twice in the beskar. When you straighten up, blaster in hand, you look for targets. The stranger is blocking the way, shielding you effectively so you twirl to the other side and quickly find the sharpshooter on a roof.

You use the battle code to tell Djarin the sniper’s location, and hope he understands why. He’s a better shot and has a better rifle. The next moment you see him move, and you automatically make the counter-move, to switch places. There’s still about half a dozen people on this side of the yard, trying to get your beskar, scattered around. Than you hear Djarin’s rifle going off; the sharpshooter is taken care of.

From then on, it’s a routine job of mopping up those that aren’t clever enough to run away. No need to chase them down as you’ll be gone, and the local covert is well hidden.

**

The docks are quiet and the Brick sits untouched in the row of ships were it was left. Your usual security routine comes up clean - those local thugs obliviously weren't sophisticated enough to figure out which ship is yours. Now that you’re on board, even a sustained siege wouldn’t be a problem. You just hope the noise won’t make the covert change their mind about their appointment.

You are doing your usual rounds around the ship, checking for anything out of place, when Djarin catches up with you.

“You are injured.” Not a question, and you stop in your tracks. That kick came from some kind of clawed feet or boot, you can feel the sting of a slash on your thigh. You reckon to still have a good fifteen minutes before it will really start to bother you.

“Maybe? Whatever, it’s not serious. I’ll finish the checks first” you tell him, and the black in silver visor keeps staring at you for a long moment. You turn away and expect him to leave.

He hovers around.

It’s kind of annoying, having him look over your shoulder. What does he expect, that you’ll just faint at one point from blood loss? You know yourself better. And if he was travelling alone too, he should know just as well that you’re familiar with your own limits.

Eventually you run out of tasks and sit down in the common room, at the booth with the game table. There’s no medbay on the ship; an alcove with a bunk and cabinets for supplies serves as a first aid station, just off the galley and near the booth.

“Let me help” Djarin says, and doesn’t wait for answer. He is sliding open cabinet doors and taking out boxes of supplies. You try not to sigh in exasperation.

“It’s only a scratch. I can handle it myself. As you should know from your own experience” you add, unable to resist reminding him. You don’t need pampering, just as he wouldn’t either.

“Yeah, you’re telling yourself so? That’s way too much blood for a scratch” he rasps, and you are surprised by his voice. It sounds… nervous? And he speaks a bit faster than usual.

You look down on your leg and see what made him worried. One leg of your trouser is a mess; there’s a gash on the outside of your thigh just beside the edge of the beskar plate, and the fabric of your undersuit is soaked with blood down to your boots. Now that you think about it, you do feel a little more light headed than it is advisable.

“Oh kriff” you mumble. Djarin turns his head towards you, and you explain. “It will be a pain in the neck to wash that all out. I hope I have enough soap. Bloody brilliant.”

He sighs, and you wonder why. He should know about that aspect, too. Wounds are one thing, especially if you have a safe place to lay low and enough bacta, and you have both now. Washing blood out of fabric? A right royal pain.

He motions towards the bunk with his hand.

“You should lay down. You lost a lot of blood.”

“Is that an instruction? It sounds like instruction. I can handle myself, Djarin, just as you can.” You feel your temper rising. Does he think you’re weak? Because you asked him to take that shot? “Just leave, we need to keep an eye on our surroundings anyways, I can take care of a stupid cut. ”

“I know you can. But you don’t have to.” He seems to hesitate for a moment, and looks to the side. “Accepting help is not a weakness. It’s just part of teamwork.”

You set your jaw, and now you are getting suspicious. Is he trying to get you incapacitated? To take the ship? You’ve run out of leads to known coverts, he has no use for you anymore really. Is this the moment he shows his true colours? A weight drops in your stomach and you feel a pang of sadness for some reason. Your head is a bit dizzy, and you know you do have to lay down, and soon. Than you catch your own thoughts. What are you thinking? He could’ve done anything with you or your ship, any time you were asleep. He could’ve turned on you when you were neck deep in some repair work or at your forge. He never did. It’s just you and a lifetime - and heritage - of having to be always on your guard.

He holds out a jar of bacta for you. You take it, and it’s an effort not to drop your arm too quickly under the weight that normally wouldn’t be a bother. You fiddle with the lid, arms feeling like lead. You know you’ll have to clean the wound first, and you have to gather your strength to do that. You don’t want him around, helpful or not, trustworthy or not.

The knot is still in your stomach, and you refuse to examine why.

“If you let me help and then take a nap, you’ll get better much faster. You know that.” He pauses, and nods at himself before continuing, as if he has to persuade himself to keep talking. “I had to learn that again, too, when I made some friends recently. To let them help.”

You are still unwilling, and just want him gone so you can get on with getting better, but that makes you think.

“Is that why you are sad sometimes? You miss your friends.” You wanted that to be a question, but you’re getting weak. And that gash is starting to turn from annoying burn to stabbing pain.

He takes a breath. He goes into that pensive, sadness kind of state of his. You can see it as his chest expands, you can hear the quiet crackling noise barely picked up by his helmet’s microphone: that something in him that you could never explain fully. You half expect him to push the medkit in your hand and leave as you’ve requested. It’s a surprise when he speaks again.

“I took care of a foundling for a while. Until I could give him back to his people, as I was quested to do.” He says that the same way he told you about his droid problem. A few words that speak volumes. Voice strained, as if just wanting to get the words out. The pain from it all knocks the air from you, just like it did then. Why do people have to go through so much grief?

He takes another deep breath, and opens the box with the wound cleaning stuff.

“I still miss him. But I have friends now. I won’t be alone anymore, like I was before him.”

His voice is raspy and clipped and strained, and you are thankful he has the helmet to hide behind. You try to think about what to say.

“Thank you for trusting me. To tell this” you add, as he turns towards you, black visor somehow friendlier than ever. You think about asking him to help, but he just goes to do that anyways. As he cuts the fabric and cleans your wound, the burn of the antiseptic is a welcome pain - the first step to healing. He takes back the jar of bacta from you and you almost doze off after. Then you feel his palm on your thigh.

“Move your leg a bit please” his voice wakes you up from half sleep, and you look at what he might mean. He gently nudges your thigh and dips his head to the side, trying to see the whole length of the cut. All you can focus on is the faint burn of the antiseptic working, and the warmth of his gloved hand on your skin. You wish he had his glove off like when you fixed that problem with Toots.

The uneasiness, the lead from your stomach, vanishes completely. Instead, with each passing second he spends tending you, one hand on your skin, the other smoothing bacta on around your wound, you feel warmth creeping up your neck.

“All right, almost finished. Just the bandages left.” The helmet tilts up, looking at your face. You realize too late your face must be all drowsy. “You all right there? Just a few more minutes, than you can lay down and rest.”

He nudges your leg around a bit while juggling the gauze, and keeps glancing up from his work. You try to smile and look alert, but his glances are a bit distracting in your light headed state. By the time he finishes bandaging your wound, your ears feel like being aflame and you’re all flustered. Is it the blood loss? Not having been touched for a good while now? Being touched by him? Whichever it is, you know you need to get your act together.

He looks up at you every time when he asks something or when he tells you what he’s going to do next. It’s because he wants to check that you’re still conscious, you tell yourself. You’d do the same. Than some little devil whispers in your ear. He did the same when you worked on your astromech together, and you weren’t injured back than. He looked at you straight on, giving you all his attention, when you two had that banter about tea. In general, he steps closer and faces you head on more and more as time passes, unlike in the beginning when he was standing off to the side and barely looked at your general direction. Is that just how he is? Just needed time getting comfortable with a travelling companion?

Or is it just for you?

Your hunch says it’s for you. It’s not like you haven’t had relationships before or had people been interested in you. You might try to talk it away to guard yourself, but you know what this is. You noticed things like this happening. The question is, will this be all?

Time will tell, and soon. You just have to keep yourself from thinking about things too much until then.

.

.

#din djarin x gn!reader #din djarin x tall reader #mandalorian oc #armourer oc #cheeky mandos #my writing

[silvermuffins]

NieR:Automata: get me out get me OUT OF HELL

Sidequest hell, specifically. WIll there be more plot tonight? Iunno!

- where'd I leave off, gonna go talk to anemone? and then hit up the forest

- yep anemone sure did work with A2

- anemone doesn't know shit about the current A2 situation....

- god i need to farm up a lot of shit for my weapons

- do....i need to go kill animals for this quest

- gets a little lost but gets there eventually

- oh fuck moose machine

- OH FUCK IT'S LEVEL 40-SOMETHING

- OW IT HITS HARD

- OW MY THUMB

- WHY'S IT ALWAYS MEESES

- we have navigated to a part of the area where i can't see SHIT through the bushes

- also my pause screen is currently full of animal butt

- and the beast machine's record is pain, of course

- and now we break for meal

- well over an hour and closer to two later i have had the foodstuffs as humans do, let's get back to no humans. i got a couple more hours in me.

- "how can you love animals and not bat an eye at the death of another machine?" .....the androids, made by humans, don't get that.....and yet, it's kind of a very human thing

- kind of. i like to think the vast majority of people couldn't hear about something like that and be unfazed.

- ah this quest is the new resistance camp

- i. look like someone who cares very deeply about gastronomy.

- who cares very deeply

- about gastronomy

- GASTRONOMY

- CAN I EVEN ACTUALLY EAT????

- okay no mackerel end proved that i can, and that i can taste, but

- why.....would one robot assume this of another.....

- yeah i can do a spot of hunting

- oooh androids generate energy from water....that's cool

- huh.....interesting stuff about cooking and needing to or not.... Why? Why can androids eat and taste if it serves no purpose? this is now up there with the "why can they feel things if it's forbidden" question

- also, yeah, wtf happens to the soldierbots when the war ends?

- it's like worrying about Ritsu all over again

- hello parade man.....oh

- he's given up.....and his comrades vanished in the desert

- oh wait quest log indicates this machine's not the same one

- imma go hit the fairgrounds for emil's frickin' flower

- his backstory gets more and more ominous and also he gets here faster and faster

- okay the only things left are either beyond where i've been, down in an area i'm not sure how to safely reach yet, and daddy serves who is level 50 surely and not to be trifled with. oh and also the racer dude.

- one more crack at him with +20% move speed....

- almost made it. my route's not optimized.

- i have no idea how to make that better.....

- we're just gonna move on

- i think i am out of sidequest hell for the moment so let's get this show on the road

- i do not remember this bigass pipeline but ok

- wheeee!!!

- "The Flooded City" this area name is a goddamn aesthetic and I am for it

- where the fuck is all this water coming from

- can androids swim???

- what makes the line between one machine war and the next? are there periods of truce?

- androids cannot swim i just get mario karted back to land

- let's do some ocean fishing!

- i caught a pod....neat i have three now

- lots of shit to catch here

- i appreciate that the ocean water actually moves in and out, nice detail

- also why the fuck did machine versions of all these fish get built

- holy fuck coelacanth

- anyway that's a big boost to my fish encyclopedia, that was like ten new fish

- i know there are chests over there, how do i get over there?

- holy fuck a rocket ship

- annnnd immediately sent to fly around and do some more shit

- she can wait im fishing a little more--

- SHARK

- okay let's fly

- flying tank, not too hard. weirdly easy, actually

- o

- o fuck

- MACHINE DUNKLEOSTEOSAURUS OR SOMETHING???

- fuck dude why couldn't i fish THAT up

- thing's ancient. okay. also, devastating.

- aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

- ALSO APPARENTLY INDESTRUCTIBLE

- is that A2--

- nop

- ooooh, mortars! why is shielding against the satellite laser striker possible but not close-range mortar fire?

- ftr most of my knowledge of what a mortar actually IS comes from there being one in Bastion

- EAT CANNONFIRE, BITCH! LITERALLY!

- sweet

- fuck

- OH FUCK IT'S GOT LEGS

- shiiiiiiiit down they go--

- we OUT OH FUCK

- FUCKFUCKFUCK

- !!!!!!!!!!!!!! PASCAL AND PALS

- shiiiiiiiiiiit so this thing went berserk??? even the machines don't like it??????

- POD DON'T YOU FUCKING DARE CALL 9S A DESERTER

- looks like two emp thingies on this thing's back

- actually like three

- it keeps trying to punch me

- i only needed to destroy two and 9S wrecked it...

- where the fuck is he

- commander got a little emotion there....

- god. that was epic. hooboy.

- ....is Pascal okay?

- OKAY MENU, WHAT WAS DUNKLEBOT'S NAME....lemme translate.... GRUN? Is it GRUN? I like dunklebot better.

- aaaaaa the Operator was so happy to hear from 2B.....and we already have permission to search for 9S!

- oh i think i found the body of that other android who came to my aid

- im finding a lot of bodies

- this is not what i meant when i wanted a way to turn 9S off to get him out of the way of my platforming!

- right we're just gonna. transport back to the resistance base. instead of going the long way lmao

- oh....we. can't. go right there.

- get close, then

- didn't i get mail at some point? should check that too

- oh it was emil giving me fishing tips

- redheaded twins?

- the resistance camp is....pretty empty.....

- anemone says the twins are my next bet! and also DOESN"T say something probably important

- Popola and Devola!

- i like them

- seems like this is basically the itemfinder from pokemon?

- i have no idea how the fuck it actually works

- dammit it's getting late i think i need to stop for the night

- let me find a save point

#letty plays shit #letty plays nier automata #liveblogging #forgot that tag the last few #nier automata #palletred #thassa big fish #thassa BIGGER FISH #where the fuck is my boyyyy

[greekgeek21]

Percy Jackson & The Avengers: Convergence - some badass demigod training!!

Hello, and welcome back to...my horrible explanation for being absent! Coming up on this episode, you'll see me explain that I had my first 2 lacrosse games of the season and was left with bruised ribs. If anyone ever says that women's lax isn't a real sport cuz there isn't contact, you can tell them that someone from a fanfic website said they had bruised ribs from playing.

Anyway, I hope you like this chapter. We're starting to get some actual plot movement I think so have fun with that. Honestly, I kinda forgot what happened in here so...yeah. Please comment, like, follow, and reblog! Stay safe & happy reading!

- your author

Ω ♆ Ω

Percy and Annabeth woke up to the sound of a startled shout. Frank's startled shout, to be specific. They both shot up right away, their battle instincts kicking in, but Frank had seen enough.

"Seriously guys!? Again?" he exclaimed.

"Nothing happened!" Annabeth reassured, "We just fell asleep!"

"We did kiss a little," Percy muttered, and Annabeth shot him a death glare.

"Not. Helping," she whispered scathingly.

A sense of complete déjà vu washed over Percy. Except this time, the rest of the Seven were standing in the doorway, watching on with various amused expressions on their faces.

"Oh, this is perfect. Coach Hedge is gonna love this," Leo smiled in maniacal glee.

"No, Leo," Piper ordered, "You're not going to do that. Instead, we are going to get this meeting over with so I can get some sleep."

"Aw...you ruin all my fun!" he exclaimed.

"Someone's gotta do it when Calypso isn't here," Piper said.

It was true. Calypso and Piper are probably the only ones who could actually control Leo. Calypso because of Leo's fear of losing her or just general fear of her, and Piper because of her charmspeak.

"Ok! That's enough. We're getting sidetracked. We need to start this meeting." Jason clapped his hands to get everyone's attention.

He gave Percy a meaningful look; one which said to 'take it from here.' So Percy did.

"Um, well, Annabeth and I wanted to talk to you guys about what's been going on. We need to come to an agreement on what we are allowed to say and do with the Avengers. I don't think we should show them the full extent of our powers because it seemed like those spies were looking for a reason to lock us up," he started, "And I'm not particularly fond of being put in a cell. How about you?"

"Yeah. And we need to figure out a way to deal with the bombings without them figuring us out. The mortals seemed pretty Hades-bent on releasing the big secret, and that never bodes well for people like us. I know that we need their help, but I don't trust them." Annabeth said.

"We can just say we were born with the powers, and have no idea why. I mean, it's technically true," Jason offered.

The others all nodded in agreement.

"Ok, now what about the pattern? What is it?" Piper asked.

"All of the places are big parts of the Greek and Roman world. Brooklyn Bridge is near Manhattan, the home of the Gods, Portland: Mt. St. Helens, where Typon used to be held, LA: entrance to Hades, Long Island: Camp Half-blood, and San Francisco: Camp Jupiter," Annabeth answered.

"Woah," Jason whispered, shocked.

"Yeah, but that's not our biggest concern. We also need to figure out how to hide our identities from the world while we're fighting with the Avengers," Annabeth said.

Everyone else there hadn't even thought of that. It comes in real handy to have a daughter of Athena around sometimes. Ok, not sometimes, all the time. All of them would be really dead without her quick thinking and planning.

"Um, I could try to see if the Aphrodite cabin could cook something up?" Piper suggested, "But most of them are still getting used to fighting, so they won't really know what to make. They need help with the designs."

Leo shot up from where he had slumped down into the desk chair, "I can help! Well, the Hephaestus cabin can. We can help design it so it's battle-ready."

"Good. We'll need those soon, I think. I have a feeling that we're going to have a lead soon, so we need to be ready when it comes. This is just one quest, so there is no need for people to think we're some kind of superheroes," Annabeth said.

"Aw! But I already had a name picked out!" Leo exclaimed.

He looked like he was about to let them in on his superhero name, but Annabeth held up a hand with a glare that clearly said to not speak unless he wanted to lose some very important parts of him. That kept him quiet, for sure.

"Is that all?" Frank asked, towering over them all.

"For now, yes. Remember, say the absolute minimum and stick to twisting the truth. If you reveal any new information without the others knowing, call a meeting to let us know," Annabeth confirmed, nodding her head.

"Great, now I can go back to sleep," Percy said, pulling Annabeth back down with him.

The others filed out soon after that, already hearing Percy's soft snores as they left and returned to their respective rooms. Ok, so Jason and Piper stayed in the same room like Percy and Annabeth did, but nothing happened. It was just nice to be in the arms of someone who cares about you, you know?

Ω ♆ Ω

"Up and at 'em, kiddos! It's training day!" Tony gleefully exclaimed over the speakers that Percy was absolutely sure he did not see in his room.

Percy groaned when he saw what time it was: 6:00 AM. He knew he wasn't allowed to (and that it was wrong, of course), but he wanted to kill Tony so badly in that moment. It would be quick! Nobody would suffer!

But, alas, he had to actually work with the man-child. It might not come off like it, but Percy takes war very seriously, and this was starting to feel like a war. Or at least, it would become one if they didn't stop it soon. And to do that, they needed the Avengers, apparently.

That was the only reason that he followed Annabeth in getting up and ready for the day. He took a little longer than Annabeth, but at 6:30 AM, they were stepping out of his room. They saw that the others were slowly doing the same. They were all tired. There weren't any big dream incidents, but that doesn't mean that staying up until midnight and then waking up at six in the morning won't do something to you. Even Leo looked exhausted, with big puffy eyes from rubbing them in an attempt to wake himself up quicker. If Leo Valdez was tired, then you knew that it was too early for this.

Also, you have to remember that they'reteenagers. Teenagers aren't meant to be up super early- it's a scientific fact, Percy thinks. Annabeth once told him something about their melatonin not releasing until later at night, so they could stay up and sleep in later.

What? Percy pays attention to what she's saying sometimes.

"I hate Tony," Piper grumbled, practically falling asleep on Jason.

"You and us all, chica," Leo mumbled before letting out a huge yawn.

"What did he say was going on? Training?" Jason asked, looking over at Annabeth for answers because she seemed the most awake of the group.

"Yep. Training, whatever that entails. I don't know, so be prepared for anything. I really hope it has nothing to do with electronics, but knowing our luck, and how Tony has been so far, it will, so just try not to get too close," she answered.

Leo tiredly saluted her, "Yes, ma'm."

Hazel rolled her eyes, "Come on, Repair Boy."

She grabbed his arm and started leading the way towards the living room, which was their best guess at where the Avengers were.

As they were walking, they were interrupted by the disembodied voice of JARVIS, "Excuse me, but I was told to direct you to the training room, where the Avengers are currently assembled and waiting for you. Shall I proceed?"

All of the demigods were still really weirded-out by the AI, and there was no way it was ending soon. It's just a reminder that they were currently in a building basically composed entirely of technology, one of their greatest liabilities. Liabilities were a dangerous thing in their lives.

"Yes..." Percy answered hesitantly, unsure where to look.

"Then please follow the arrows projected on the ground, sir," JARVIS said.

Sure enough, there were large white arrows pointing them away from the living room, so they followed them. It was about a two minute walk to the elevators, where they were told to go to the 60th floor, which was apparently one whole training room by itself.

Ω ♆ Ω

"So let me get this straight, you guys want us to...play a video game?" Frank asked, gesturing to the giant room around them.

The Seven were quickly ushered by the Avengers into a big room with a bunch of white, padded tiles all around them as soon as they had reached the training floor. There was only a viewing window and an exit that disappeared when the door was closed. Then, Tony explained what they were going to be doing. None of them really understood it yet.

"No! I want you to fight the LMDs! The robots! They will simulate different levels of skill to evaluate your skills. Understand?" Tony punctuated each word, quickly losing any sense of patience he had started with.

"Yeah. We got it," Annabeth sighed.

Ok, she was sure she was the only one of them who realized that they were about to break one of the rules they established last night on the first day. They were about to fight robots. TECHNOLOGY.

This should go well, Annabeth thought.

Steve interrupted before Tony could make a snarky comment, "Good. We'll start with fighting separately and then together as a group. Afterwards, we'll see how you work with different weapons."

"Aye aye, Cap," Leo joked.

"Leo, focus. We're about to fight ROBOTS." Annabeth tried to get the son of Hephaestus to understand the severity of the situation. "You have a back-up plan, right?"

He could talk to machines. Robots were machines. Therefore, he should be able to get them out of this mess if anything went wrong.

He gave her a nod of understanding, and Annabeth settled back into her natural stance rather than her tense one. Well, she's always tensed for battle. At least in her natural one it's less obvious.

"Alright, who wants to go first?" Tony asked over the intercom.

"Uncle Leo will go first, right?" Percy joked, referencing to one of Leo's favorite nicknames for himself.

"Sure! I just need to know how much damage I'm allowed to do," Leo said, looking up at the Avengers.

Annabeth was shocked that he had even thought to ask that, and apparently the Avengers were, too.

"Um, just let go. There's nothing you can do to break this room. I designed it myself," Tony answered, still arrogant even through his confusion.

"Come on out, the rest of you," Natasha instructed.

Once the rest of the demigods had exited the room and stood next to the Avengers at the viewing window, Tony pressed a button on a screen that made a compartment in the walls of the room open up, revealing a row of floating LMDs.

"Now, I'm going to start you at Level 2, okay? It gets harder as you move up. The LMDs should stay the same form throughout every level, though. Ready?" Tony said.

Leo pulled his war hammer from his magical toolbelt and lit it and his arms on fire, "Ready."

Tony had to shake himself out of his shock before he pressed the start button, but when he did, every one of the mortal heroes had sat on the edge of their metaphorical seats, eager to see just how powerful these kids could be.

Plus, the kid had just pulled a giant war hammer from his normally-sized toolbelt, and then proceeded to light himself and the hammer on fire. They were bound to be curious after that display.

They knew the very basics of the young heroes' abilities, but most of that stuff was based on just what they had been told. Actual, visible proof is what they wanted.

All at once, the LMDs transformed into the Avengers minus the Hulk. Repeat, they changed into the Avengers. Leo had to fight a copy of the Avengers, alone.

Percy was freaking out inside. Sure, he trusted his friend, but Leo was a joker, and he tended to not understand how serious things were. In this case, he hoped that didn't happen.

"This should be interesting," Natasha remarked.

"No, this should be terrible. Tony, you never told me you were using this setting," Bruce said, rushing up to the other scientist, "He's just a kid."

"I think they've made it clear they aren't just kids, Jolly Green. It's fine. If they wanted to be treated like the rest of us, then they need to pass this test," Tony said.

Bruce looked like he wanted to say a lot more, but Jason stepped up to stop him, "He'll be fine, Dr. Banner. Leo may not look it, but he's powerful and he's smart. He can handle this."

Jason looked so sure of himself that it was enough to convince the doctor that it would be okay.

In truth, Jason had no idea how this program worked. There was a good chance that Leo did not, in fact, have this handled.

While this was being discussed, Leo had already started to fight the Iron Man LMD. He was currently alternating between swinging his hammer at it and firing balls of fire. The LMD had only been hit a couple of times because it kept maneuvering around the attacks by flying away.

It was getting tiresome, and Leo wanted it to be over with. So, he dropped his hammer and set a determined look on his face, glaring up at the robot.

The Seven were grinning, already figuring out what was happening, while the Avengers were just plain confused. What was the kid gonna do? Glare them to death?

Then, Leo started grinning and they knew it was all over.

He crouched down onto the ground and placed a hand on the floor, closing his eyes in concentration. The LMDs seemed to be as confused as their originals.

Three seconds passed before Leo's grin grew even more, and then he spoke a single word, "Stop."

And they did. Every single LMD lost their form and fell to the ground, limp and unmoving. Leo stood up, dusted his pants off, and turned to the viewing window to see his teammate's reactions.

They were priceless.

"That's how you do it," he said, "Am I done?"

Tony literally shook himself out of his stupor, "Yeah, sure. I need to reboot the LMDs."

When Leo came through the door, the rest of the demigods crowded him, patting him on the back and laughing at his dramatics.

"What was that?" Natasha demanded, breaking through the teens to tower over Leo's elf-like form.

Okay, maybe tower isn't the right word. She was taller than him, but not by much. Natasha was just very intimidating.

"Uh...fighting?" Leo tried.

Natasha's glare hardened, "You know that's not what I mean. What did you do to make the LMDs stop attacking?"

Leo glanced at Annabeth, who nodded in consent, "I talked to them."

"You did what?!" Tony exclaimed.

"I talked to them. They were pretty boring, to be honest, but I was able to shut them down," he answered.

Tony let out an incredulous laugh, "That's not possible! You can't just TALK to machines!"

"He can, and he did," Piper said, smiling proudly at her best friend.

"But–" Tony's voice died out.

"How come you never told us of this ability?" Natasha asked.

"You never asked," Percy answered simply, not liking her interrogatory tone at all.

The spy looked like she wanted to continue the conversation, but Clint whispered something in her ear and she stepped back with one last glare.

"Welp! That was fun! Who's next?" Tony clapped his hands.

Everyone turned to see that he had gotten the LMDs back online and back in the Avengers' form.

Piper sighed and started to walk to the door, "I guess I'll go next."

Before she could enter, Steve asked, "What weapon are you going to use? Your powers won't work on the robots."

Piper smirked at him over her shoulder before pulling Katoptris from its sheath on her thigh. Apparently, the Avengers had yet to fully break through the Mist, and they could not see her having that strapped there this entire time. But when she pulled it out, they seemed to finally be able to see it for what it truly was. It makes you wonder what they thought was there before. A ruler, maybe?

"I've got this," she stated before slipping into the training room.

Ω ♆ Ω

It was obvious Piper had been taking more lessons on dagger-fighting with Annabeth. As soon as the first person attacked, she was slashing and stabbing like crazy. Her lithe form was swisting out of the way of punches from Steve's copy, while Clint's arrows were shooting at her from behind.

Tony had clearly upped the level of difficulty after seeing what Leo could do.

Piper ducked under one of the arrows, and then shot back up to land a finishing blow to the center of LMD-Steve's chest. Then, she ripped Katoptris out of the robot and turned to throw it at Clint's copy, which just barely managed to avoid getting stabbed.

She was running on pure adrenaline now. It was best to imagine these opponents as monsters. Sure, when they actually fought humans, they would need to not kill, but these were just robots.

Cilnt's robot shot it's last arrow, and it exploded right before her face, stunning her into stillness. In that couple of seconds it took for her to recenter herself, Natasha's copy jumped onto her back for a chokehold. Piper struggled, but the LMD had been designed to know all of Natasha's known skills, and it was working. The Iron Man LMD landed and shot a stunning shot at her chest: the final straw for Piper to finally surrender.

She knew they wouldn't kill her, but she was not in the mood to be knocked-out. It left you with a massive headache.

So she tapped out.

"Ok ok, I'm done. I'm done," She panted as she was released, rubbing her neck.

Piper was not happy about having to surrender, but it seemed like the Avengers had been thoroughly impressed with her skill with such a small weapon.

"I'll do next," Annabeth declared, high-fiving Piper on her way out.

"Good luck," Piper said.

"Don't need it," Annabeth responded, pulling out her drakon-bone sword.

Out in the control room, Tony said, "Is that a bone?!"

"It's whatever you want it to be," Hazel grinned, manipulating the Mist just a bit.

"You scare me sometimes, Miss Metal Detector," Leo muttered, glancing at Annabeth's sword, which had shifted into a machete.

He wasn't sure whether to be impressed by Hazel's skill, or weirded-out by Tony's brain.

"Make sure to move to difficulty up a bit," Percy told Tony, "She'll be insulted otherwise."

The billionaire seemed to be getting used to the teens' weird ways because he didn't even flinch when he heard that, and instead moved to comply.

"And...here we go," Tony said over the intercom, "Good luck, Annie."

"My name is Annabeth!" she shouted before going into the fight.

In this level, every single one of them attacked at once. Annabeth back-bended under Steve's copy's punch, and then kicked up into LMD-Natasha's face. After, she turned and sliced the Iron Man armor on the side, just under the armpit. She had picked that as a point of weakness before she had even stepped into the building.

"She's good," Natasha relented, watching as the daughter of Athena thrusted her sword into Steve's robot foot.

Seeing that Clint's LMD copy was not going to get any closer to her, Annabeth pulled out a hidden dagger and threw it in a perfect line to hit it in the center of its forehead. Then, she turned and blocked a punch from Natasha's robot, who had recovered from the face-hit. The spy copy used the Iron Man LMD to jump up and wrap her legs around Annabeth's neck, trying to do a scissor hold, which failed because Annabeth rolled forward, slamming Natasha's head into the ground. The left a big enough dent that the LMD wasn't getting back up.

That only left Iron Man to deal with.

She settled into a fighting stance, but didn't attack, choosing to wait for her opponent to make the first blow.

Percy was grinning. This was what they needed: a good way to blow off steam without it possibly ending with one of them dead.

"What is she waiting for?" Steve asked.

"She's playing with it. It's fun for her," Jason answered, "It's Annabeth."

Finally, the robot got impatient and attacked. It sent a stun blast at her, which Annabeth quickly avoided. After, she ran up to the wall, kicked off of it, and jumped up to drag the Iron Man LMD down to the ground, where she sat down on it and landed a few punches. But she quickly realized punching wasn't doing much good.

"Judo flip! Do the judo flip!" Leo exclaimed, jumping up and down in excitement.

When it wasn't him being the one attacked by Annabeth, it was super entertaining.

Annabeth sighed, but a smile was pulling at the edges of her lips. She hauled Iron Man up, who was still recovering from being slammed down to the ground, and got a good hold on it's arm. Then, she flipped it over her shoulder with an ease that only came from years of experience.

With a huge smile on her lips, and a last glance at her carnage, Annabeth walked back out to the control room.

"How was that for a kid?" She asked Natasha.

"Not bad," she got for an answer.

Ω ♆ Ω

Jason, Hazel, and Frank's individual tests went-by pretty quickly. Jason electrocuted all of the robots, rendering them immobile.

After that, and with another new batch of LMDs, Hazel used her Spatha to slice and cut through the robots. In the end, it proved too hard for her to do it with just a sword, so she pulled a chunk of the wall out and smashed it against the LMDs until they were in many different pieces.

Frank ended up having to forfeit, but not before getting every single Avengers copy but Steve down. Steve ended up having him in a chokehold that was just too difficult to get out of. And Frank had already transformed into many animals, so he wasn't sure if he could've changed back if he had transformed again.

If it wasn't obvious, Percy was avoiding doing his turn. He was trying to stay in the corner, and out of the notice of any of the adults. However, that wasn't possible with two spies in the room. They notice everything.

"Percy? Your turn," Natasha said.

So much for that plan.

Percy hesitated, "Um...about that, I don't think I should go."

Natasha raised her eyebrows in mock-surprise, but it was actually Steve who spoke, "You have to go, son. In order to work well together, we need to know each other's strengths and weaknesses. This will never work without you doing this."

"Plus, we promise it's completely safe," Bruce added in.

Percy sighed, admitting that he wasn't going to be able to worm his way out of this one. Instead of fighting, he turned to whisper to Annabeth, "Don't let me get out of control."

Annabeth gave him a sad look, "Percy, I know you have control. I trust you. You just need to trust yourself. You would never hurt us. I know that for certain."

The Avengers were watching this interaction like hawks, but the other demigods were averting their attention. This happened sometimes, Percy and Annabeth going into their own world that only they could understand, and it was best to just let them be. Plus, privacy is a real thing people. The moment seemed almost too intimate for them to interrupt.

Percy still seemed to be having trouble believing Annabeth's statements, but he went into the training room without another protest. His shoulders were sagging in defeat, and he seemed to be folding in on himself. He was never one for attention, but that was a bit much in Leo's mind.

However, Leo and the rest of the Seven didn't have a full grasp on just how uncomfortable Percy as with using his powers now. They didn't know what happened in "that place."

"Are you ready, Percy?" Tony asked, readying the LMDs again.

"Yeah, I guess," Percy answered.

Annabeth was rocking back and forth on the balls of her feet, "Just breathe, Perce," she whispered under her breath, "You can do this."

She had to put on a brave face for her boyfriend, but she truly was terrified of Percy's potential. She had seen it first-hand in their trip underground, and it was nothing to be underestimated. The Avengers didn't know what powers they were playing with here. She only hoped that her insistent trust she was putting in Percy was going to amount to truth.

"We'll start you on Level 5? Based on what your friends can do, I think this will be a good start," Steve asked.

"Sure," Percy responded, bringing Riptide from his pocket.

"What's he going to do with a pen?" Bruce whispered to Clint.

The Seven all smiled at each other. Little did the mortals know, that pen was definitely not just a pen. It was always amusing when people saw what Riptide truly was for the first time.

"Alright. Here we go," Tony said, starting the simulation.

Percy closed his eyes, inhaled, exhaled, and popped the cap off of his pen. Opening his eyes, you could tell something had shifted in him. He was in his natural element now, and nobody could stop him from achieving his goal.

That goal just so happened to be mutilating some billionaire's robots.

"Let's have some fun," Percy said, charging the first LMD.

He was a flurry of motion. His fighting style was a mix from Greek, Roman, and modern martial arts that he had learned from Annabeth. He'd kick one adversary just to turn and thrust his sword into another one trying to attack him from behind.

"He's amazing," Bruce said in wonder, mesmerized by Percy's skill.

The son of Poseidon was relying only on his hand-to-hand and swordsmanship skills, rather than his powers, but that barely slowed him down. If the mortals wanted a display of his competence, then he would give them one.

Annabeth had a proud smile on her face as she watched Percy judo flip Natasha's robot over his shoulder and slammed it hard enough to the ground that it "died," ending his fight.

That had gone well, considering Percy's worries.

However, he knew better than to let his guard down just yet. As all demigods know, life never gives any breaks. That, and the Fates are cruel.

Ω ♆ Ω

"Ok, guys. Let's take a lunch break, and then we'll do some more training, but this time, with only abilities," Steve said.

Percy had put his sword away, and was not standing in the viewing room with the rest of the heroes, mortal and demigod alike. All of the teens looked and felt exhausted, so it was a given to take a break.

"Got it, boss," Leo saluted, turning and exiting the room, heading no doubt in the direction of the kitchen.

"I guess that means we're leaving," Percy laughed. A real, genuine laugh.

It made Annabeth smile larger than she had in a long time. Improvement is always good.

Soon, everyone was gathered around the kitchen and living room area. Percy and Leo were scavenging for food while the Avengers and the rest of the Seven talked. So far, the hunt was not going as planned.

"Tony! Are you seriously telling me you're a billionaire, and you can't afford some decent Cheerios?!" Percy yelled.

"Yeah! Who goes grocery shopping around here?" Leo exclaimed, holding up the near-empty jug of milk.

The Avengers all looked at each other in confusion, "Who DOES go grocery shopping?" Bruce asked.

"Pepper, sometimes, I think. She must've been busy this week," Tony answered, "We can just order some Chinese or something for now."

"That should work, but if you're going to house these boys," Annabeth pointed to Percy, Leo, Jason, and Frank, "You're going to need a lot more food around at all times. Their appetites could rival that of an elephant."

Hazel let out a tiny laugh, realizing Annabeth's little pun about Frank. She received a small smirk in response.

"Teenagers," Tony muttered, rolling his eyes, "Always hungry."

"Now wait a second, Tony, I remember seeing you eat an entire large pizza by yourself just a couple weeks ago," Natasha remarked, smirking at her teammate.

Tony only glared in response, and then he told JARVIS to order lunch.

"Well, while we're waiting, I'll explain what our next exercise is," Steve said, "Basically, we're going to see and document your powers, but in a more controlled environment. You won't be fighting anything, but this will be more focused on precision than quantity. We need to know your full capabilities so that we know where to put you in a fight. Is that okay?"

He was asking their permission as more of a courtesy than an actual question, obviously, but the demigods still nodded their heads in confirmation. It wasn't like they couldn't leave at any time if things ever got too out-of-control.

Or at least, that's what they told themselves. In all honesty, nobody trusted each other yet. They could be shot down by the Avengers if they tried to run away, for all they knew, and that's what the scariest thing was. Neither group really KNEW the other group's intentions, only what they had told each other.

Everyone was walking on thin ice, whether it was known to them or not.

Ω ♆ Ω

I hope you liked it! Remember, this is also on FF, Ao3, Inkitt, Webnovel, and Wattpad.

other chapters :)

#pjo #percy jackson and the olympians #Percy Jackson and the avengers #mcu #marvel #the avengers #the seven #demigod #fanfic #wattpad #writing #ao3 #inkitt #superhero #webnovel

[erekiosuncreativeideas]

Being Human - Chapter 13

<= Chapter 12

Summary : Snatcher makes up with the kids Also available on AO3 : https://archiveofourown.org/works/24826561/chapters/65582983

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Another chapter, yohoo ! I hope you'll like it ! Thank you for all your lovely comments, you're all so nice !!

The “Oh The Humanity” AU belongs to @doodledrawsthings​ !

Happy reading !

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Chapter 13 - “What’s ‘Corgi Quest’?”

With Cooking Cat to help him to stay stable in the hallway, going back to the spaceship hub was easier. Snatcher didn’t like being reminded of how weak he looked at the moment, but he had managed to push his pride aside, if only for a brief moment. The cat was nice and considerate enough to make no comments about it, which was more than welcome for the former spirit.

It didn’t take them long to leave the first hallway and to cross the machine room. When they reached the second and last hallway before reaching the hub, voices could be heard from the other side of the door, informing them that the little girls were there. Suddenly, Snatcher felt his heart sunk in his chest. God, why was he reacting this way! There was literally nothing to be afraid of! It wasn’t the first time he had angered the brats and it certainly wouldn’t be the la-

Wait. Why was he even worried about that anyway? He was the powerful ghost of Subcon Forest! He had killed so many people and now he was worried about little children being mad at him? Oh please, what a joke. He rolled his eyes at himself, Gods, he was so stupid.

A little pat on his hand cut his thoughts short, catching his attention. Just like before, Cooking Cat was patting him, trying to reassure him, to comfort him. Ugh.

-“It’ll be okay,” she assured with a smile: “I’m sure they forgave you already.”

The former spirit glanced away, both irritated and embarrassed, because heck, he hated being this easy to read. How was she even able to do that? Well, it didn’t matter. What mattered was that it was annoying and that it made Snatcher think about things he’d rather ignore. He let out a long and exhausted sigh, turning to the cat with a scowl on his face:

-“Oh please, I don’t care what they think. They might as well be sulking, it changes absolutely nothing for me,” he groaned, more than exasperated: “All I care about is to be dead again. That’s all.”

The other only nodded her head as an answer. She probably knew it was best not to argue with him on that topic, considering how sensitive it was for the moment. Whatever wanted to say at his words, she kept it for herself, staying silent and motionless instead. She was waiting for him to approach the door for it to open, not rushing him.

Gods. He was so ridiculous.

The former ghost took a deep breath and, ignoring how much his legs felt like cotton, took a few steps towards the door. As soon as it opened, the mechanical sound echoing all around, it was like a weight settled on his stomach, twisting his guts as soon as his eyes spotted the two little girls. They had changed and were now wearing coloured pyjamas, still wearing their signature headgear, weirdly enough. They were sitting in front of the television, watching, no, doing something with it? He wasn’t sure what, he was not very informed regarding new technologies, considering he lived in the same forest for centuries. They were holding weird things in their hands, black devices with coloured buttons on it. Whatever they were doing, they were also bumping each other with their shoulders, loud high-pitched giggles resonating in the room. However, when they heard the door, they both turned around in his direction.

-“Oh, you’re back,” started the hatted brat, her voice almost passive aggressive. Yep, she was mad, just like he had thought. She seemed to make an effort as her younger friend “discretly” nudged her in the back, instructing her to be nice: “You feeling better?” she asked with a more neutral tone.

Did he feel better? He supposed he did, though it was hard to say. His mind was like a cacophony of thoughts, all very, very different from one another. Some part of him did feel better, it was true, while his pride was screaming at how sappy and mushy the whole situation was. It was most likely this part of himself that snapped earlier, or had at least contributed to his meltdown. It really was strange and uncomfortable to say the least.

-“Yeah,” he replied, still with a grumpy expression on his face: “guess so.”

He had been tempted to go with his usual approach, putting a show with the loud persona he had fabricated through the centuries. After all, it had almost completely fused with his, well, original personality, having been kept in a cold cellar for days changing him greatly, just like the after-life did. He was not the nice and compassionate Prince anymore. He was The Snatcher, a powerful soul-stealing ghost that had no remorse over killing people for his own survival and, by now, even for fun. And yet… And yet, sometimes, putting on the mask that had become such a second nature to him became… Difficult. Unnatural.

Right now was one of those times.

For a brief instant, he thought he saw a remorseful look on the hat-wearing child’s expression, though it quickly died down as he glanced away. She looked like she wanted to forgive him, but it was a bit too early for her to completely do so. At least, that’s what Snatcher thought it meant, it wasn’t like he was some kind of social behaviour specialist. If anything, law was his forte, but this? He was just guessing at this point.

His thoughts were cut short as the bow-wearing kid joined the conversation, lifting a plate of grilled cheese sandwich that had been on the ground until now. She was smiling at him, yet it was easy to see she was somewhat trying to hide her unease behind a warm expression:

-“We saved some for you,” she informed him with a gentle voice before cringing a bit as she glanced down at the food: “… Well, it’s cold now, but we can always reheat it later when you want!”

Snatcher frowned, feeling something akin to guilt rise in his chest. It felt wrong, so, so wrong, and he couldn’t help but grit his teeth. He normally didn’t care about being the bad guy, about being unfair or mean, or, well, murderous. Yet, there was something in this very specific situation that gave him an awful feeling of shame, one he really wished he could ignore.

What was happening to him?

-“Yeah, fine,” he simply replied, embarrassment unfortunately clearly audible in his voice as he walked closer, not comfortable enough to say the magic word just yet. It just got stuck in his throat. Thankfully, the kids didn’t mention it. Just as he was about to ask what they were doing with the television and what they were holding in their hands, Cooking Cat’s voiced echoed just behind them:

-“Well,” she started, straightening her chef’s hat with her usual smile: “it’s getting late, I think it’s time for me to go home. I had a lot of fun today, thank you for inviting me!” she said to the kids before turning to him: “I hope you’ll teach me how to tell scary stories soon! But, on a more serious note, I really hope your wish to be a ghost again will come true. I can’t imagine how hard it must be to experience being alive after so much time as a spirit.”

Snatcher glanced away:

-“It’s… Not so great, yeah,” he confirmed with a frown.

Her smile disappeared for a bit, quickly replaced by a serious and compassionate expression:

-“Don’t push yourself too hard,” she advised with a caring tone: “Do what you can and if that doesn’t work out, it’s okay. You’ve been human for a day or two, barely, and I can only guess how much it is to take in. Try being nicer to yourself, it’s fine to fail sometimes.”

The former ghost scoffed at how corny this all was. Oh sure, what a great idea to rest and relax while his crazy ex could wreck havoc in his forest, freezing everything and everyone again! Of course, he’d have the right to, since he could “be nicer to himself” and that it was “fine to fail sometimes”! And if he came back to see the whole forest being covered in ice again, well, “whoopsie daisy!”, right?!

What a joke.

Cooking Cat could obviously tell that Snatcher wasn’t taking her words well, but knew better than to insist. She looked away, a bit embarrassed, though she tried to smile again. She turned to the children, who had watched the scene, silently:

-“Can you teleport me down there?” she gestured to the floor, or what was under it. The planet.

-“Yeah, of course,” replied the hatted girl, moving to the control panel, before waving at her: “See you soon, Cookie!”

The younger kid soon imitated her:

-“See you, take care!”

The cat looked happier from the kids’ kind words and waved back at them. Her eyes then glanced to the former spirit, smiling back at him:

-“Goodbye, Snatcher. I hope I’ll see you soon as well, in your true form this time,”

Snatcher only nodded in response, feeling all the stares being fixed on him once more. He liked attention, sure… But not like this. This one was oppressive, stressful and… In this meat sack of a body, he didn’t feel completely safe. However, Cooking Cat seemed satisfied with his answer, and nodded to the hat-wearing little girl, telling her she was ready for teleportation. Honestly, the man couldn’t help but be impressed at her calm face: his own experience through scientific teleportation was… Not a good one. He had always been fine teleporting magically, but this? This could be labelled as a vomit-inducing machine and he wouldn’t even be surprised.

The cat disappeared in a blink, a blue light quickly engulfing her for a second before it was gone, leaving no trace from her, as if she had never come onto the ship.

Silence fell in the room as the trio was left alone once more. The atmosphere was tense, almost palpable, no one knowing what to say after everything that had happened in only one single day. After all, it was a lot, it made sense that tensions started to appear after a while. Well, perhaps they mostly appeared because of him, but it didn’t matter.

Eventually, after a while, the bow-wearing kid gestured to the television with an awkward smile:

-“Wanna keep on playing Corgi Quest?” she offered, winking at the hatted brat, once more very “discreetly”. But it seemed to work as the other sighed yet shrugged nonetheless, visibly exhausted from the events of the day:

-“Yeah, fine, sounds good to me.”

Snatcher watched them walk to the television and sit on the nearby coloured pillows. Confusion was plastered on his face as he wondered what they could be talking about. ‘Corgi Quest’? What was that? Was it what they were doing before he and Cooking Cat entered the room? Was this a “TV thing” he wasn’t aware about? That could very well be the case, seeing as he only knew what a television was from what he learnt with his ex-contractors.

So, not a lot, considering they didn’t live long enough to explain what it was in further details. Not like he had thought he would need it someday, though…

-“What’s ‘Corgi Quest’?” he questioned, voicing his confusion, glancing at the kids then the television repeatedly, trying to understand.

-“Our favourite video game,” answered the hatted child, picking up one of the device from earlier -what was it?-, pushing some of the buttons and… Controlling what was happening on the screen? What? His brow furrowed even more: how did that work?

-“It sounds pretty simple, but Corgi Quest actually has a deep storyline!” added the younger child, her eyes full of stars: “It’s also very cute, and there’s even a multiplayer mode! Much better than in the last game, Corgi Quest 6. Oh yeah, we’re playing the 7th one, but you don’t need to have played the oth-”

-“Woah, woah, kiddo, stop,” interrupted Snatcher by lifting his hands in the air, already feeling a headache coming up just from hearing about all this stuff he couldn’t understand. What were they even talking about? He took a deep breath and pinched his nose, stopping soon afterwards. Wait, he never did that before, was it because he had a nose now?

-“First, I don’t care about all of that,” he established, though it was a lie: he was curious, at least on the way this was working: “Second, what the heck is a video game?”

This was a simple question, really, one he thought was basic and pretty common… And yet, as soon as the words left his mouth, the two children gasped as if he had insulted their parents in the worst possible ways. Wait, did he ever do that? He didn’t remember. Still, they were staring at him with wide eyes, clearly not believing a single word he had just said. Was it that obvious? If it was, why didn’t he hear about that from his victi- oh wait, right, he usually killed them before they got the chance to talk. Not that he wanted to, life outside of his forest didn’t interest him usually. And it wasn’t like talking with his “brain-dead servants” were entertaining, hearing them scream in pain was though.

His thoughts were cut short as the little girls exclaimed at the same time:

-“You don’t know what a video game is?!”

Snatcher shook his head, warier and warier as seconds passed. This was getting extremely suspicious and he wasn’t sure he wanted to know anymore, given the reactions he got just from not knowing whatever that thing was. In any case, apparently, said thing was pretty famous or at least common now.

The two kids shared a knowing and decided look, as if they telepathically agreed on something.

All of a sudden, Snatcher felt like he should have kept his mouth shut. But he didn’t have the time to think more, as the bow-wearing little girl moved behind him and pushed him more towards the television, while the older kid placed more pillows on the floor for him to sit on.

-“Wait, wait, what-” The former ghost tried to protest, but was interrupted as the brats forced him to sit down, his opinion clearly ignored from now on. Soon, one of the strange-looking device was placed in his hands, and he turned his head to the kids, even more perplexed than before.

-“Okay, so you definitely failed in life just not knowing what a video game was,” informed the hat-wearing child, an exaggerated look of disappointment in her eyes: “Allow us to educate you on that topic.”

-“Trust us,” added the younger one, placing her hand on her chest as if what she was saying was extremely important -when it wasn’t-: “We’re specialists.”

Snatcher’s confusion was now reaching new heights. He had no idea what they were talking about, and he was so bewildered by what was happening that, despite his wish to protest, his voice got stuck in his throat. His brain was trying so very hard to understand what was happening, but soon, the brats sat next to him… And started to explain things and concepts he had no idea existed before.

How did this even happen…? Whatever the answer was… Snatcher knew he was stuck with them until he learnt what those ‘video game’ things were.

This was it. Snatcher was cursed, and he had the feeling this was not going to end soon.

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Well, everything goes well ! Isn't that wonderful ? Truly, it would be such a SHAME if SOMEONE were to ruin that................. Not that it's going to happen or anything !! ... Unless...?

:)c

Anyway, thank you all for your comments, they mean so much to me !

=> Chapter 14

#A Hat In Time #ahit #ahit fanfiction #snatcher #cooking cat #hat kid #HK #bow kid #BK #fanfiction #Being Human #ahit being human #BH #erekio bh #my art #oth #Oh The Humanity AU

[wr173r-8l0ck]

What if My Hero Academia Characters were in the Riordanverse pt. 1: Students

Yeah, yeah, this is just MHA students for now, I’ll have other characters soon, okay! Anyway, here’s MHA students of 1A and 1B (including Shinso) as demigods in the Riordanverse!

Yuga Aoyama: Son of Aphrodite. Not even a good one, unless you need someone blinded by his glitter-gun. Oh yeah, he has a glitter gun with lasers for maximum flare. Is he completely over-the-top? Absolutely. But is he good in a fight? Surprisingly, yes, kind of very, turns out glitter confuses monsters very well.

Mina Ashido: Daughter of Hermes and legacy of Hecate, capable of inhuman movements and can produce a slime that magically dissolves anything. She also tattooed her eyes black and yellow for some weird masochistic reason that no one, including herself, doesn’t understand. She’s still neat though.

Tsuyu Asui: She’s a frog-turned-human by Ochako. She still has her tongue, leaps, hops, camouflage, a reversible stomach and poison that can kill a group of whales. And he can still inflate her throat like a balloon, which makes for good scares. Very good scares…

Tenya Iida: Son of Mercury, he never skips leg day. Never. Seriously, have you seen those legs? He could crush a car with those puppies! Or crush monster heads with those thunder thighs! Which he actually does quite often. He doesn’t skimp out on upper body exercises either, but LOOK AT THOSE LEGS OF THUNDER!

Ochako Uraraka: Daughter of Hecate, she specializes in a set of spells that manipulate an individual object’s or being’s gravitational pull. It’s gotten to the point where she makes anything she touches with five fingers on one hand, it will float, no matter what, which is why she wears gloves all the time. She likes floating whoever she finds particularly annoying way up into the sky.

Mashirao Ojiro: Son of Mars, he’s an expert martial artist and very, very good at multiple of them. He’s lost multiple sparring partners because of his profinity with a number of weapons, and his lethality without any weapons. Seriously, he once defeated a Drakon with his bare hands! And another dead drakon’s teeth!

Denki Kaminari: Legacy of Zeus and Apollo, each by about 50 generations. About as bright as his godly ancestors (not very), but he still makes one Hel of a lightning bolt, and he’s also pretty good with a guitar and lyre. And classical literature and culture, like Apollo’s Kettle, who taught him all that?!

Eijiro Kirishima: Son/creation of Vulcan, his blood and skin are pure liquid gold, bronze and diamond he can infinitely harden for a period of time. It also obtains unnaturally sharp edges, and given his tendency to go hard when excited, he has made his friends frequent the infirmary for cuts and broken ribs.

Koji Koda: Son of Actaedon, he can talk with wildlife. He’s also a Legacy of Heracles, hence his size. His hugs are nice, war and gentle. Unless you’re an enemy, his bear hugs can break spines and it’s fucking terrifying.

Rikido Sato: Son of Mars, this guy has a serious sweet tooth. He’s also surprisingly gentle for a guy that can decimate an opponent with a single hit. Oh yeah, he can one-shot a hellhound with one punch (que the epic op) to the head.

Mezo Shoji: Son of Ares, he’s surprisingly level-headed. And malicious. Seriously, this guy always has at least ten different weapons on him, on top of him knowing a variety of potentially lethal moves. His arms are known as the Anacondas for a reason. Well, he lost his two precious anacondas in battle, but now he has six bronze automaton anacondas, fuly articulated and loaded up with all kinds of weapons for maximum effectiveness in battle! Actually fuck that, he’s way more terrifying now, who let him get all that stuff?!

Kyoka Jiro: Daughter of Apollo, she’s a top-tier musician, singer and is moderate with a bow and arrow. She can whistle in the ultrasonic range, clap like thunder, sing and play like either a sweet little bird or a whole-ass heavy metal choir without ruining her vocal cords, and she gives the opposite amount of fucks that Zeus does (ie. zero).

Hanta Sero: Son of Hermes, he inherited a pair of magical tape dispensers that can dispense any tape in any amount of any properties he chooses. He uses them to swing around like Spider-Man, which made him a regular visitor of the infirmary until Momo made him a special harness to keep his joints from dislocating. Somehow, he still gets his shoulders dislocated.

Fumikage Tokoyami: Son of Erebos, he suffers from split-personality disorder, but it’s fixed nicely by his inner demon incarnate made of pure darkness he calls Dark Shadow. They have a strangely healthy and wholesome relationship for a boy and his literal inner demon, and they even help each other (or embarass, take your pick) in social interactions.

Shoto Todoroki: A Legacy, descendant of Hel and Surtr, capable of making ice that freezes fire, and fire that burns ice. He gives so little shit he’s actually oblivious to social cues, which makes for more than a few funny moments on quests with him.

Toru Hagakure: Legacy of Iris, she can manipulate light around her to turn invisible or project bright flashes. Campers often say hi to her even if she’s not there just in case.

Katsuki Bakugou: Son of Ares, with rage and instincts of combat so strong and powerful he can convert his sheer rage and passion into explosions in the palms of his hands. He generated more than one explosion with the explosive yield of a nuclear weapon in his life. How he hasn’t gone deaf yet is beyond most people, though he does still know a variety of sign languages in case he does go deaf.

Izuku Midoriya: Son of Athena that was gifted the Spartan Spirit, a powerful enchantment formed by Kratos, Nike, Bia and Zelus, to protect humanity in its greatest times of need, and bestowed upon the most well-meaning and kind-hearted individuals of an era. He ends up breaking his bones an absolute shitton, and is a regular at the infirmary. The healers and smiths absolutely loathe him by now.

Minoru Mineta: Died on a quest. His quest-mates say ‘by accident’. Everyone knows it was very deliberate, but then again, everyone hated him and is fine with him dead. Some people wanted to be the ones to kill him though.

Momo Yaoyorozu: A Legacy, granddaughter of Hephaestus and Athena, capable of making virtually any machine. She’s also very fidgety, and once made an entire army of fully autonomous grass soldiers that went on to terrorize the other campers for a bit. In thirty minutes.

Yosetsu Awase: Son of Hephaestus, he also likes to make stuff. Though mostly he combines already existing tools, gadgets and machines, and makes weird amalgamations. He once fused an automaton bull, an automaton dragon and a school bus, and it actually, somehow, despite all logic and reason, fucking works.

Sen Kaibara: Son of Ares, he’s pretty chill compared to his kin (especially Katsuki and Setsuna), mainly due to him bottling up his anger. Which he can unleash as tornadoes around his limbs, which he can use to drill through walls. Thank gods he doesn’t lose it too often.

Togaru Kamakiri: Son of Ceres, he likes farming tools. Especially ones with blades. That’s lead to him using all kinds of sickles, scythes (both farming tools and war scythes) in combat, and even axes, shovels, various lawn mowers...

Shihai Kuroiro: Son of Nyx, him and Tokoyami get along exceptionally well. Given his ability to shadow-travel and use shadows and darkness as materials to make some pretty nifty weapons only he can use, he’s strangely bright and like a Sun. At least among the two stepbrothers of darkness, and the bar for eing the sunny one is set very low.

Itsuka Kendo: Daughter of Athena, she excels in critical thinking and a variety of martial arts. And knocking out her piers with precise attacks when they start to get exceptionally annoying. Mostly Monoma. Scratch that, especially Monoma. Okay, nevermind, only Monoma.

Yui Kodai: Daughter of Trivia. She excels in potions and spells that manipulate the size of objects, so much so that she has to resort to gloves because she now naturally makes things smaller with her left hand, or bigger with her right hand. She’s the calm one of the 20 people here.

Kinoko Komori: Daughter of Demeter, she has a soft spot for fungi and mushrooms. Which she can make grow rapidly. Very rapidly. She’s fun at parties.

Ibara Shiozaki: Daughter of Demeter, she dyes her hair green with actual chlorophyll for some reason (“To feel one with the beautiful plants,” she says), but she can also grow and manipulate vines and other vine-like plants, along with trees, quite effectively, and she has some rose and poison oak (she’s immune to it) seeds in her hair. Don’t ask, her answers are just as ridiculous as the chlorophyll-dyed hair.

Jurota Shishida: Son of Mars, he’s been cursed by most likely Hera to be a humanoid boar/dog thing. He’s especially good at wrestling, and is very diplomatic in his approach. Until he gets pissed, then he charges like a boar and yes, he keeps those tusks of his sharp.

Niregeki Shoda: Legacy of Hermes, son of Hephaestus, he likes to make explosives and plant them everywhere. More than a few campers were scared. Except Katsuki, who tried to outdo the ground (Niregeki’s mine) in explosive yield and put skylight access in the roof of Bunker 9. Niregeki had to repair it.

Pony Tsunotori: Legacy of Poseidon, she can shapeshift. She likes to shapeshift into horses, bulls, deer and goats (including mooses and buffalo), and she has a nifty gadget from the Hephaestus and Vulcan campers in the shape of horns that transform with her, giving her detachable remote-control horns. 

Kosei Tsuburaba: Legacy of Jupiter, son of Ares, he’s competitive and can make walls and blades out of air. Especially annoying for monsters because they can’t get to him, period, and every time they try, they don’t get past his walls of air for a whole minute before someone either cuts/hacks/slices them to bits, freezes/burns them alive, blows them up with their fists/explosives/expanding stones they previously ingested or some other way of disposing of a monster.

Tetsutetsu Tetsutetsu: Son of Vulcan, capable of turning to pure steel over his entire body, also increasing his strength. Because of this, and his tendency to go hard whenever he’s excited, he’s made his friends frequent the infirmary for bruises and broken ribs. Except Kirishima.

Setsuna Tokage: Daughter of Ares, she’s actually been hurt pretty badly in one of her fights (she went on a Quest with Katsuki, and no, it wasn’t him who hurt her, and yes, no one really believes that story either) and had to have automaton grafts to replace her limbs, a part of her lower jaw, her eyes and the muscles around her spine, along with parts of the vertebrae. Which she asked to be detachable and splittable in as many pieces as possible, which she can control telepathically and uses to troll other campers. A lot. Especially two certain sons of Vulcan and her half-siblings.

Manga Fukidashi: No one knows what he is, they just know his head is a speech bubble and he can make anything he writes real.

Juzo Honenuki: Legacy of Gaia, he can virtually liquify the ground (does not work on metal or wooden floors). He trolls a lot with this ability. And I do mean a lot.

Kojiro Bondo: A golem? A person? His head makes it hard to tell whether he’s a demigod or a monster to be honest. And his glue-like spit doesn’t help much either.

Neito Monoma: Legacy of, you guessed it, Zeus! He has a superiority complex because of this, and he frequents the infirmary on the basis of Itsuka or whoever he was annoying KOing him constantly. All that brain damage probably isn’t helping his mental issues…

Reiko Yanagi: Daughter of Hecate she can make things she touches float and fly around using some sort of incantation. The biggest she can do is double her own body weight, but that doesn’t stop her from delivering high-speed flying punches and scaring other campers.

Hiryu Rin: Son of Mars and Legacy of Poseidon, he can shapeshift into various animals. Most notably a mix of human, hedgehog and a lizard. Sharp, painful and deadly precise. And also meditating. And a lot of it.

#mha #my hero academia #boku no academia #boku no hero academia #bnha #pjo #percy jackson #pjo/hoo #hoo #heroes of olympus #toa #trials of apollo #tkc #the kane chronicles #mcatgoa #magnus chase #magnus chase and the gods of asgard #izuku midoriya #katsuki bakugou #shoto todoroki #tokoyami fumigake #momo yaoyorozu #bnha setsuno

[some-creep]

CREEP RANKS EVERY SONG IN NIER... AUTOMATA (mostly) BY TITLE

Because, like, no one played Gestalt. Also this game has more songs.

Significance Like. I guess. It’s a title you can use. What is significant? We don’t know. The characters don’t know. They are struggling to find out. We all are. What is meaning? What really matters? I don’t know but we’re all crying. 8/10

City Ruins – Rays of Light / Shade Plays in the ruins of the city. Exactly as advertised. Sounds sad like you might imagine. 9/10

Peaceful Sleep This is the Resistance camp right? Peaceful things don’t tend to happen there honestly. At least not as we keep going. Sounds like a sleepy JRPG town though. Ok title for the mood it gives. I like this song a lot so I’m cheating and giving it more points than I know it deserves as just, like, a title. 8/10

Memories of Dust Sand is dusty. What memories? We’re making them. Cool title. Sounds like a YA novel though. 9/10

Birth of a Wish Genuinely often get confused with the Silent Hill 2 bonus story Born from a Wish whenever I try to remember what this song is called. This Cannot Continue / 10

The Color of Depression This is like… a really cool title. Thanks. That Scanner boy is not gonna live the happy family life you all for some reason keep suggesting he is. Bad things are gonna happen to him. He dies anyway. 11/10

Amusement Park Yeah. I guess. We certainly are in the amusement park level. Creep why does this one rank so much lower than City Ruins which was also just “name of location”. Amusement park is not a cool title. City Ruins is a cool title. 7/10

A Beautiful Song Would you say Simone has girlpower? Would you say Simone successfully used her girlpower to kill and consume countless androids and also turn them into near lifeless weapons and body jewelry? 9/10

Voice of No Return Sad title. Sad song. Exactly as advertised once again. I feel sad listening to the Automata OST most of the time. Is this quest complete in the camp? I think so. Anyway it’s really sad. I love to cry. 11/10

Grandma – Destruction Um so this is like. Genuinely a horrible title. It reminds me of the title of a darkweb video which I will say no more on. This song is REALLY good its a shame this title is so… uh. Bad. It’s just bad. 1/10

Faltering Prayer – Dawn Breeze / Starry Sky This is another really cool title. This game is about like… life after god. I’m not here to get thematic. I say in a list entirely about if the song fits the theme. Anyway this is a cool title. The song again… sounds sad.  One of them is a music box which I love. Cheating again. 10/10

Emil’s Shop EVERY DAY’S A SALE. EVERY SALE’S A WIN. 12/10!!

Treasured Times The fact this plays after Emil’s shop on the OST is the biggest tonal whiplash in the world. This song makes me feel an emotion I cannot describe. It’s something like sadness but not quite. This isn’t a review of the songs, just the title. But reading the title makes me feel that emotion too but stronger when I think about it. I don’t know. 9/10

Vague Hope – Cold Rain / Spring Rain Good title… Thematically very appropriate. Not COOL like some of the others but it feels right feels canon. I like it. It’s just the city ruins quest complete song but it also plays in one of the fucking… DLC fights. That makes me extra sad. 10/10

End of the Unknown Which unknown was ended. Genuinely think when this plays I had more unknowns than knowns. This song sounds like every song from the Gestalt DLC. 6/10.

Pascal At least Automata has far fewer “named after a character” songs. They just have named after a place songs. I love Pascal so if I give this a low score he might be upset. 8/10

Forest Kingdom It really… the forest huh. Random but one of the songs in Code Vein does a vocal thing that always reminds me of this song for some reason. That has nothing to do with this game or this songs title at all I just wanted to tell you. Long Live The Forest King / 10

Dark Colossus – Kaiju This song is also in Gestalt. It’s cooler here. More stakes. Song title suggests less stakes though? That’s kinda weird. Because of this it loses points. I’m sorry. 7/10

Copied City Dude I left this one off the list when I first typed it out lol. Someone not to @ anyone told me this was based on Nier’s village. Lie to me again. I don’t know what City is being Copied. One of them. It reminds me more of the Cathedral City from DoD3. Which is a bad horrible game that I completed 100%. 8/10

Wretched Weaponry Not to be confused with Wretched Automatons. Is this like, a remix? My ears don’t work so I don’t know. Don’t inform me because I love being stupid. Anyway, in the narrative it makes sense. It’s a good, cool title. Song is softer than the title would suggest. 9/10

Possessed by Disease COOL SONG TITLE. Thank you. This plays… somewhere. Uh. Hm. I’ve 100% completed this game like three times. 9/10

Broken Heart You think you’re gonna hear a sad song? SURPRISE. Sinister as hellllll. Subverted expectations baby. MCU take notes. I’ve never seen a movie in the MCU. Loving the dark tones in this. Broken heart but the emotion isn’t just sad. GOOD STUFF. 10/10

Mourning Again. You think it’s gonna be sad? But BOOM. It isn’t. I mean it still is, but in a dark way. These aren’t song reviews. These are title reviews. But if a title suggests one thing and delivers another that’s still a valid point right? I don’t know. Hey wait isn’t this just Shadowlord’s Castle? Yonah / 10

Dependent Weakling Well, it’s no Song of the Ancients – Fate, but it’ll do. In all seriousness, this is like, a great song title for Eve’s boss battle. Y’know, because he relied so heavily on Adam and all’a that. Maybe a little on the nose. Maybe a little rude. Eve sucks / 10

Rebirth & Hope Sounds hopeful. Plays during ending A where we see a Rebirth cos 9S super doesn’t die. This song is literally 30 seconds long why am I even bothering. Oh, right, because it’s on the OST at all. 30 second songs / 10

War & War Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here, this is the war room. It… sounds like a war room song. A preparing for a big battle song. Once again, exactly as advertised. Plays before a big battle. It really thematic naming! Peace was never an option. 8/10

Crumbling Lies Words cannot express how much I adore this song. First of all, title is on point. It’s the song that plays when you get to  Route C. Literally the moment I fell in love with the game. The Bunker is destroyed, which, again… maybe it’s a bit on the nose. I don’t care. This is the perfect song title to the perfect song. I will die on this hill. 12/10

Widespread Illness Red Eye except it’s robots now. Very thematically appropriate. Everyone is dying. There’s nothing you can do to cure it except kill them. They’re incredibly infectious. Zombie Virus but with Robots. Can you tell I don’t remember what it’s called? I’m writing this at 1am and I’ve decided it’s funnier if I don’t look anything up. Sounds very somber… I like it. 9/10

Fortress of Lies Not to be dramatic but when I read this English title I was like MMMMMMMNNN because like. I get it. It plays in the Bunker. Which… is built on lies. Again. Incredibly on the nose but when I learned what the song was called I just fucking DIED the first time. I’m stupid. I don’t care. 11/10

Song of the Ancients – Atonement Another song I died when I learned the title of. Devola and Popola in that game have nothing to atone for. They are atoning for sing they did not commit. Punished for the crimes of another set of Androids, possibly thousands of miles away. It’s not fair. They have nothing to atone for. They’ve done nothing wrong. 12/10 crying creeps.

Blissful Death FUCK. This one plays in the Devola and Popola like. Text Adventure part. Which is just. I love it so much. No one dies in that though. Well… maybe someone does. It’s not impossible that Popola hurt someone. It’s suggested that, maaaaybe she did. No one stops. No one Stops.

Emil – Despair Emil’s life has quite literally only been despair. Please don’t bully him with your song titles like this… 9/10

Alien Manifestation Vintage meme of that guy from the history channel with the impact font that just says Aliens.  This game has aliens, I will give you that. They’re all dead though. I guess the machines are aliens but. Eh. Wait doesn’t this play in the castle? There aren’t even aliens there what the fuck. 5/10

The Tower There’s a tower. This plays there. Thank you. Also the name of a tarot card I think? That could be cool if I knew a single goddamn thing about tarot cards. I don’t. 6/10

Bipolar Nightmare Cool flying section. Has anyone found Grun skip yet? Because the bounty for that was like. A lot of money. Vaguely a cool song title. I kinda like it. Although for some reason it reminds me of The Evil Within’s Japanese title, Psychobreak. So I think I like it less because of that. Not the worst title, but maybe the lowest of the COOL EDGY song titles. Fucking love the piano part in this one though. 7/10

The Sound of the End Really super cool and sexy song title. 2B is going to die but she can’t let anyone else get hurt because of it. She’s already done so much damage. This song is really dramatic sounding. The title is dramatic. Love this one a lot. The actual playable segment is kind of a struggle. But I think that’s the point… 10/10

Weight of the World / End of YoRHa I once got into an internet fight because I said this song is about every character except 9S because of the line “I’m only one girl”. I was corrected that the Japanese version is basically EXCLUSIVELY about 9S. None of this is relevant at all I just wanted to remember it. I still do not like 9S. Thematically a brilliant title. Everyone feels like they must do so much… but you cannot bear the weight of the world alone. Ending E legitimately makes me cry. Whenever I think about the messages from other players supporting me? It’s a lot. What the fuck. 12/10

#nier #nier automata #long post #creep ranks

[ellewritesathing]

So Close - S.S. IX

Summary: The universe has a funny way of putting the things you want right in front of you, but just out of reach. Stiles and Y/N have been best friends ever since Scott brought him home, but when Stiles realizes that he might want to be something other than best friends, she leaves to go to some fancy private school up North. Now that she’s back though … maybe he’s got a shot? A Teen Wolf AU in which the reader has always been so close to Stiles and yet so far.

Prologue - S2E1 Part 1 - S2E2 + S2E3 Part 2 - S2E4 + S2E5 + S2E6 Part 3 -  S2E7 +S2E8 Part 4 - S2E9 + S2E10 Part 5 - S2E11 + S2E12 Part 6 Part 7 - S3AE1 Part 8 - S3AE2 + S3AE3 Part 9 - S3AE4

Word-count: 3.4k+

With everything that was going on, the last thing you felt like doing was going to cross country practice, but if you were going to be on the team then you couldn't miss the training. Plus, you figured that since all your friends were on the team that it would be the closest to normal you’d get this school year. 

You were standing with Isaac,  rambling on about your bio class while he tied his shoelaces. He started tensing up somewhere between extra credit and the report due in a few weeks, and you nudged him gently with your foot. “Isaac? Are you even listening, bud?”

He didn’t even look at you as he answered - rather vaguely - “They’re here.” 

“Who’s here?” you asked gently, bending down to touch his back gently. He still wasn’t snapping out of it. 

“It’s them.” He nodded in the direction of the twins and stood up. “The alphas.” 

You were still trying to figure out what he was on about when he took off after them. Scott ran past you and you mumbled some choice words under your breath before following them. They were long gone in just a few minutes. You gave up chasing them and made your way back to the group. 

By the time you found everyone, they were standing around some tree in a clearing. You looked for Stiles and wandered over to him, but you stopped just short of him when you saw the dead body they were surrounding. “Oh, god.” 

“Y/N?” Stiles turned to look at you, seemingly surprised to find you. “Oh, jeez, you’re still not good with dead bodies, huh?” You shook your head and he put his hands on your shoulders. “Okay, look at me. I’m going to take you to sit down, alright?”

You shook your head and took a deep breath. “I’ll be okay. I just … do we know who it is? The- the guy that Scott said was missing? Kyle?”

“I don’t know. Scott was the one that saw him that night.” Stiles sighed and looked over your shoulder. “Scott’s heading back this way with a very pissed looking Isaac. Just hang in a few more minutes, okay? Then I’ll get you out of here.” 

You nodded and shifted once they made their way over. You leaned into Stiles as he caught Scott and Isaac up, and Scott confirmed that the dead body was Kyle. When Noah and the rest of the cops came, Stiles let go of you to go talk to his dad and you held onto Scott. “So what happened back there?” You asked quietly. 

“The twins are part of the alpha pack.” He kept his voice low so no one else heard. “They were gonna hurt Isaac.”

“Yeah, or worse.” You looked over at Isaac and he seemed okay, but you could tell he was still jittery. You snapped out of your daze when you heard Coach’s booming voice.

“You heard the man: Nothing to see here!” Coach yelled when asked to help clear the area. “Probably just some homeless kid.” 

“Coach,” Scott said. “He was a senior.” 

Regret immediately flooded Coach’s face and you actually felt kind of bad for him. “Oh … Well, he wasn’t on the team, was he?” 

Your sympathy dried up and you were going to snap at him when a blonde girl came running up to the tree, screaming Kyle’s name. One of the deputies had to restrain her. You looked away and Scott tugged on your sleeve to get your attention. The four of you were heading back to the school.

“Did you see the way the twins looked at him?” Isaac asked, still glaring over his shoulder at them. 

“Yeah, you mean like they had no idea what happened?” Stiles asked. 

“No, no. They knew.” You bumped Isaac’s arm lightly to bring his attention forward again. 

“The kid was strangled with a garrote, okay? Am I the only one recognizing the lack of werewolfitude in these murders?” Stiles asked, motioning with his hands to make his point. 

“No, but you’re the only one recognizing it so loudly,” you mumbled. 

“So you guys think it’s a coincidence they turn up-” Isaac looked back again “- and then people start dying?”

“No, but I still don’t think it’s them.” 

“Scott,” you interrupted their argument. “What do you think?” 

The four of you came to stop and both Isaac and Stiles were waiting for him to take their side. The conflict made you a little uncomfortable but you ignored it. 

“I don’t know yet,” Scott said eventually, not doing much to dissipate the tension. 

“You don’t know yet?” Stiles echoed, arms crossed over his chest. 

“Well, Isaac’s got a point,” Scott started, and upon seeing Stiles’ betrayed reaction he continued, “Seriously, dude, human sacrifices?”

“Scott, your eyes turn into yellow glow sticks, okay? Hair literally grows from your cheeks and then will immediately disappear, and if I were to stab you right now, it would just magically heal,” Stiles said. “But you’re telling me that you’re having trouble grasping human sacrifices?” 

Scott sighed and turned to Isaac. “That’s a good point, too.”

“I don’t care,” Isaac said. “They killed that kid. They killed the girl that saved me. And I’m gonna kill them too.” 

You shared a look with Stiles before Isaac started walking away, and with a huff you followed after him. “Jesus, Isaac. A few months with the Hales and suddenly you’ve got a flair for the dramatics?” 

---

“So what do you think of all this?” you asked Stiles. You were leaning on one of the lockers while he scoured Kyle’s for clues. “Come on, you really think I don't see those gears turning in there?”

Stiles laughed under his breath and looked at you. “I don’t know. I spoke to his girlfriend and he's not a virgin like the others. He's still one of them, though. One of the sacrifices.”

“Well, it’s the threefold death, right? What if this is a new set of three?”

“Yeah, but what’s the set? High school seniors? Guys who wear leather jackets?” He was going to keep going - no doubt with something more inappropriate - but he stopped when he saw Boyd coming up to put something on Kyle’s locker. 

“Boyd, you’re back!” You pulled him into a hug. “Isaac didn’t mention you were starting school again.”

“Yeah, I would’ve told you but, uh…” Boyd looked behind you and to Stiles, not finishing his sentence. He looked like he was going to say something but then thought better of it. “Anyway, I’ll see you around.”

“Hey, wait, so did you, uh- did you know Kyle?” Stiles asked.

“Yeah, we were in Junior ROTC together,” Boyd answered.

“So you were friends?” you asked with a small smile. Losing Erica was hard enough, but losing another friend within the span of two months sounded awful. 

“I only had one friend.” Boyd looked down to where your hand was on his arm. “She’s dead, too.” You let your hand fall away then watched him leave.

Turning back to Stiles, you sucked in a breath. “That was …” 

“Intense.”

“And not very informative.” You ran a hand through your hair and bumped Stiles’ arm with your elbow, giving him a smile. “I’ve got to go check on Isaac. He’s got detention with Allison and someone needs to make sure they don't kill each other.”

“Yeah, good luck with that,” Stiles laughed. “I need to talk to Lydia anyway … We still on for free period later?”

“Since you so rudely stole my lunch period to snoop, I think it’s only fair you take me out for something to eat.” You gave him another smile before turning to find wherever they holed up Isaac. 

You saw Scott running to one of the supply closets and followed after him. He dragged a vending machine out of the way, pulled open the door, and the next thing you saw Isaac had been thrown into the wall opposite the closet. He was turning. 

“Hey, hey, hey,” you whispered, pulling him closer. “Calm down. It’s okay. You’re okay.” 

You rubbed his arms gently to get him to calm down, and you could see that he was trying desperately to change back. Scott yelled his name to try and force him to change, but all it really did was annoy you. When you looked up to snap at him, you saw that Allison had been cut. 

“I’m okay. I’m fine,” Allison insisted. Scott was holding her arm, and though the cuts didn’t look that deep, you knew they hurt. 

“I’m sorry, I didn’t- I didn’t mean to do that,” Isaac stammered. You were still holding him close and could feel his heart beating about a mile a minute in his chest.

“I’m okay,” Allison promised. 

“I’m so sorry.” Isaac was cycling through stages of guilt and trying to push you away but also hold you closer at the same time. It was definitely a little weird but he used to do something similar when he was younger.

“It’s not his fault,” Allsion said when Scott didn’t look like he was calming down. 

“I know,” he said. “I guess now we know they want to do more than get you angry. They want to get someone hurt.” 

“So are we going to do something?” Isaac asked. His heart rate had come down and he stopped pushing you away. 

“Yeah.” Scott nodded. “We’re gonna get them angry. Really angry.”

You and Isaac got up, huddling closer to Scott and Allison. While they came up with a plan, you cleaned up Allison’s wound with the first aid kit you had in your bag. 

“Well, uh, as much as I’d like to be a part of this,” you said, waving your finger between the four of you, “I’ve got geometry in like five minutes and I really don’t need any more disciplinary hearings on my record.” 

Allison smiled at you. “Don’t worry about it, trouble maker. We can handle it from here.”

---

“You’re out of school early,” Deaton said when you and Stiles entered the animal clinic. You weren’t sure when lunch had turned into a side-quest, but you went along with it anyway. 

“We’ve got a free period,” you smiled. 

“Yeah, we were, uh, gonna grab lunch and go see my dad,” Stiles said. “He’s uh- you know, I guess you probably heard people are getting kind of murdered again. It’s his job to figure it out.” 

“I gathered as much from the sheriff title.” 

“Yeah, but, uh, Stiles has been kind of worried about him lately. He got fired for a little bit not too long ago because it’s, uh- it’s kind of hard for him to figure stuff out when he doesn’t know everything,” you said, brushing some hair behind your ear. 

“So I started thinking, and I remembered someone who does have a lot of information,” Stiles continued. “Someone who always seems to know more than anyone else around here. You.” 

Deaton nodded like he was expecting this to happen at some point. He motioned for you guys to follow him to the back. Stiles kept talking as you did. 

“All these symbols and things - the triskeles, the bank logo, the mountain ash - all of it is from the Celtic druids,” he went on. “And anyone who’s ever looked up human sacrifices before knows that the druids had a pretty big hard-on when it came to giving one up to the gods.” You stopped in front of the examination table. “You ever hear of the Lindow Man?” He described how the body was found with the threefold death injuries, and you placed a hand gently on his shoulders. 

“Stiles, uh, maybe we should let Deaton talk for a bit,” you suggested. 

“They also found grains of pollen in his stomach,” Deaton said to Stiles. “Grains of mistletoe.” 

“So I’m just telling you stuff you already know?” Stiles asked and Deaton nodded. “Then why aren’t you telling us?”

“Maybe because when you’ve spent every moment of the last ten years trying to push something away.” Deaton looked like he was choosing his words very carefully before saying them. “Denying it. Lying about it. It becomes a pretty powerful habit.” 

The three of you were quiet for a minute, and you were watching Stiles bite back any insults or sarcastic comments. You stepped in before he had the chance to find his favorite. “So the person doing this, they’re a druid, right?” 

“No,” Deaton said, much to your confusion. “It’s someone copying a centuries-old practice of a people who should have known better. Do you know what the word ‘druid’ means in gaelic?” 

“No,” Stiles said. 

“In proto-celtic, it roughly translates to ‘tree-knower,’” you said. “I’ve, uh, been doing some reading since this all started.” 

Deaton nodded. “Very good, but a direct translation is ‘wise oak.’ The celtic druids were close to nature. They believed they kept it in balance. They were philosophers and scholars, but they weren’t serial killers.”

“Yeah, well, this one is,” Stiles said. His phone started ringing and he sighed. The caller ID told you it was Lydia and you told him to get it. You walked over to Deaton’s side of the table in the meantime to talk to him some more, but neither of you got the chance because when Stiles said the word ‘missing’ both of you turned to look at him. 

After a little convincing, you got Deaton to come back to school with you and you met Lydia in the music room. She still looked pretty freaked out about it, but she showed you the recording she’d found anyway.

“Can we get a copy of this?” Deaton asked when the recording finished playing. Lydia nodded and sent it to him. 

“Hey, Doc, any help would be, you know, helpful,” Stiles said while he rummaged through the teacher’s desk drawers. You rolled your eyes.

“Each grouping of three would have its own purpose, its own type of power. Virgins, healers, philosophers, warriors-” 

“Wait, wait, wait, wait.” Stiles stood up to look at him. “Warrior, could that also be like a soldier?” He looked over at you.

“Kyle was in Junior ROTC,” you explained and Stiles showed everyone a photo of the teacher on his wedding day in his uniform. 

“That’s got to be it. That’s the pattern.” Deaton looked at the photograph. “Where’s Boyd?” 

“He’s probably home by now but I’m gonna try and get him on the phone.” Stiles rushed out and you looked over at Lydia. 

“Lyd, you okay? You’ve been awfully quiet,” you said gently. 

“Yeah, it was- I mean … I just thought of someone else with a military connection,” she told you. Deaton asked who she thought of. “Harris.”

The four of you shared anxious looks before deciding to rush over to Harris’ classroom. No one was there. You couldn’t tell if that made you feel relieved or not. 

“Maybe he just went home for the day,” you said, but even you could tell that your words were hollow. 

“Yeah, well…” Stiles went over to the desk and pulled out his briefcase. You’d never seen Harris without it. “Not without this.” You watched him open the case and remove its content. You leaned over the desk to see what he was frowning at. 

“What?” Deaton asked. 

“This test is graded ‘R,’” you told him. 

“This one’s an ‘H.’” Lydia held up another test. 

You and Stiles started splaying out all the tests to look for grades that didn’t make sense, but Deaton came over and rearranged the order. 

“Do you remember I told you ‘druid’ was the Gaelic word for ‘wise oak?’” he asked. You and Stiles nodded. “If a druid went down the wrong path, the wise oak was sometimes said to have become a dark oak. There’s a Gaelic word for that as well: Darach.” 

--- 

Stiles ended up taking you home after ransacking Harris’ classroom. He stopped at a fast food place on the way because your stomach was making the loudest noises in the car. The two of you were quiet as you poked at your food and watched Stiles dunk a fry into his milkshake. 

“You’re quiet,” he said between chews. 

“I just can’t believe he’s dead. I mean, I didn’t like Harris. And I barely knew him but it still … still hurts. Still feels like I lost something.” You took a sip of your drink. 

“Yeah, well, I guess it’s also because Erica’s gone now. All this death is just-” 

“Smothering.” He looked at you with this shocked expression on his face so you gave him a small smile. “I’ll get through it, but I- we shouldn’t have to, Stiles.” You didn’t realize your hand was reaching across the table until it met Stiles’ half way. “We’re just kids.” 

“If we don’t, who will? You think Peter gives half a rat’s ass about anyone who isn’t him?” he asked. You knew he meant it to be encouraging but it just stung. 

“I don’t know,” you said eventually. 

The restaurant was quiet - just after the lunch rush had died down - and for a moment it felt like it was only you and Stiles in the whole building, holding hands and grieving. 

“I can still hear her, you know?” Your voice was barely even a whisper. “People laughing in the hallways, when my feet hit the pavement as I run, when Isaac says something dumb I can practically feel her reaching over and slapping the back of his head.” Your voice cracked. “And every time I see Boyd it just-” 

“It reminds you of her,” Stiles finished for you. “And it hurts like a bitch. I wanna tell you that it’s gonna go away, but it doesn’t. It gets less but it- it’s still there. It’s a reminder that you’re alive. And you’re here. And I’m here too. And Erica … she’d want you to be happy.” 

You honestly didn’t know how to respond, so all you did was nod. 

You watched Stiles sink back into his seat, taking his hand with him. “You wanna take these to go and get out of here? This booth is kind of depressing now.” 

---

You and Melissa were cuddled up together on the couch. It had been a long day for both of you. She was playing absent-mindedly with your hair when you heard Scott’s voice, and then you both twisted around to get a better look at him. “Hey, Mom?” Isaac was with him. “Is it okay if Isaac stays with us for a little while?” 

“What happened?” You and Melissa asked at the same time. You got up to get closer to them. You knew Isaac was physically fine - superhuman healing and all that - but you still felt yourself checking him like when you were younger. 

Isaac caught your hands when they started drifting down his arms and stopped you. “Derek kicked me out.”

“He did what?” Melissa asked at the same time that you threatened Derek with bodily arm. 

Isaac smiled gently at you and looked back at your mom. “It’s just a little crowded now that Cora’s there.” 

“Right.” Melissa took a breath, thinking it over, and then smiled at you. “Get him settled while I talk to Scott?”

You nodded and took Isaac to the kitchen. You made some tea while Isaac started opening up about what happened. You guys had a routine for this by now. 

“He threw a glass at you?” You pushed the mug into his hand. He focused on the drink instead of looking at you. 

“I wasn’t listening to him. I- I was arguing with him.” 

“Isaac, you know that’s not a reason for someone to throw a glass at you.” You tried your best to be gentle but your blood was boiling. You couldn’t do anything about his dad but you were perfectly willing to beat up Derek if you could. 

“Y/N, it’s not that simple. He-”

“You guys look cozy,” Melissa said with a smile as she came into the kitchen with Scott. “So, Scott told me what happened and it’s perfectly okay if you wanna stay here.” Isaac started thanking her but she kept going. “We don’t have a spare room so you’d have to stay with Scott but other than that … it's okay with me.” 

“Thanks, Mom.”

“Thank you, Mrs. McCall.”

“Melissa, please. Mrs. McCall was … well, my mother-in-law. And I don’t wanna be my mother-in-law.” You laughed and Melissa shook her head. “So, did you guys make some for all of us?”

#stiles stilinski #stiles stilinksi x reader #stiles slow burn #stiles stilinksi imagine #so close #mccall!reader #teen wolf #teen wolf au #teen wolf rewrite

[thanksjro]

More Than Meets the Eye #22- If You Don’t Love Thunderclash, Get Better Soon I Guess

One last issue before we reach Comic Event Hell.

Time to use a dead man to set up the rest of the nonsense that’s got to happen, because apparently 14 issues of setup, including six issues of literal prelude, wasn’t enough.

The first bit of information we’re presented with is the fact that Chromedome and Swerve are on the opposite sides of the camera-shy scale. I guess that’s bound to happen when your spouse has had his video-cam literally connected to his brain for at least several thousand years.

The art may look really gritty and hardcore here, but this is actually due to a filter Rewind has over all his footage that he’s neglected to take off, because it made all the wartime propaganda he would stuff into people’s heads all the more brutal-looking.

No, this is the style of our artist for this issue, James Raiz, who we’ll be seeing a fair bit of over the next several issues. Raiz has worked on the Transformers franchise over the course of multiple license-holders, as well as contributed to both Marvel and DC comics. He also works in special effects, including matte painting and VFX. That’s just neat.

Anyway, the reason Swerve’s completely frozen in place isn’t because Rewind  switched out his head-mounted camera for a gun that goes off if it hears you make a self-deprecating joke, but rather because he’s conducting interviews with everyone in the main cast. We get all their introductions, Cyclonus makes a statement about his political stances, Drift sounds like he’s high as a kite, First Aid strikes a sassy pose while not being bitter in the slightest, and Ultra Magnus makes a move that would get him murdered on any given film set in the universe.

You do NOT use your bare fucking hand to clean a camera lens, mister. Go get a microfiber cloth and try the fuck again, you complete and utter duffel bag of a creature.

We get a quick cut of the speech Rodimus made back in issue #1, with an angle that implies that Rewind was in the front row of the front row, then cut over to Rodimus asking Rewind to document their Capital-Q Quest. This is where we establish that this film doesn’t only contain footage from Rewind’s personal camera, but also that of the Lost Light’s security system.

Which feels like the sort of access you maybe wouldn’t want to give some nosy little film buff, especially when you have a secret giant serial killing sadist living in your basement like a disappointing adult child.

See? He was given the job to record the adventures of the Lost Light not five minutes ago, and he’s already using his powers for evil. Eavesdropping evil. Absolute power corrupts absolutely, Rodimus, and you just handed it to the guy with a massive Dominus Ambus-shaped chip on his shoulder.

So Rewind’s got permission to film just about whatever he wants, and Rodimus figures it’ll be nonstop action from here to the finish line! Fights! Intrigue! Mild hijinks and peril! Explosions aplomb! Oh man, I can’t wait to see what kinds of crazy shit will happen on this absolute roller coaster of a Quest!

Smashcut to Swerve literally falling asleep in the middle of a conversation. Yeah, as it turns out, no quest, capital Q or not, is nonstop action. Which is good, honestly, because that kind of seems like it would be exhausting after the first week or so.

Swerve, Tailgate, and Rewind are discussing cool alt-modes, which seems like an odd topic, seeing as Tailgate and Swerve have basically the same situation going on there, leaving Rewind alone in the camp of “does not have wheels”.

I worry about you sometimes, Rewind. Internalized Functionism is a very real problem. Uh, well, in your universe anyway. Us humans have to deal with regular ol’ classism and racism.

Rung gets brought up, and it’s revealed that the wheel on his back is almost purely cosmetic; it doesn’t even actually attach to his body. The lads decide that they’ve got nothing better to do, and set up a gentlemen’s wager- first one to figure out Rung’s whole deal gets 100 space-dollars.

Throwing shit at people’s heads will be a major plot point in the climax of this comic series.

Swerve’s go at trying to win the bet involved tossing a grenade at Rung to hit him in the neural cluster, which is rumored to be able to force an involuntary mode change if done correctly. Obviously, it didn’t work this go around. Then our narrative focus switches over to the crew’s hobbies.

You were listening to Prince, weren’t you, Magnus? Not even deep space is safe from the Cease and Desist.

Skids’ hobby is meeting new people, because he suffers from the terrible curse of being so fucking good at everything he tries, he always ends up dropping whatever he picked up, because what’s the point? This acts as a segue into another flashback, to even MORE bullshit that the fellas got roped into on Hedonia.

These are the Stentarians. They’re like the Cybertronians, if they were better in every way.

And by “better”, I, of course, mean “more bloodthirsty, warmongering, and driven enough to make their civil war last about as long as the Jurassic Period”. Also, they’re all combiners by default, and Whirl seems a little TOO into their whole situation. So much so, in fact, that when the Imperial Guard of their race show up to kill them, he decides to do them a solid by single-handedly ending their entire war.

You know, in most cases you’re supposed to show and not tell for visual media. This is way funnier, though, so it can be excused.

We jump back into the interviews, and Rewind’s just asked everyone if they’re happy. This might seem like an odd question, until you remember that everyone on-board this ship has crippling depression and PTSD, and Rewind’s married to one of the saddest motherfuckers to ever exist, so he probably has this question loaded into the proverbial chamber at any given moment. We won’t cover all of the answers here, because they’ll be more poignant to reflect back on later in the comic run, but let’s take a gander at the characters who’ve completed the first leg of their character arcs this season.

Drift, is that perhaps… an honest expression of your inner thought processes happening right there? Has Rewind broken through your carefully crafted persona, if even for just a moment, with his question? Perish the thought!

Because Tailgate outed himself as being baby in issue #21, I have zero doubt he’s not exaggerating here. He was a janitor, then he fell in a hole and became Dirt-Nap Supreme for six million years; even the most boring day on the Lost Light’s got to be better than that.

And it’s nice to see Chromedome on a good day for once. Hopefully he reveled in it while he had the chance, because this interview takes place maybe a couple weeks before he fucks everything up big time and has to blow up his husband with a missile strike.

Getting back to the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode plotline, we see Rung using his backpack as a wheelbarrow- no idea what he’s actually pushing in the damned thing- and wearing the most disgruntled face I’ve seen him pull in a hot minute. Someone yells for him to come down the eerily unlit and sinister-looking hallway, which he does. Rung would not do well in a horror film.

He winds up at Swerve’s, where Tailgate, Swerve, Brainstorm, and someone who is most likely Trailcutter, given the colors, are hanging out in their alt-modes. Tailgate’s ploy to find out Rung’s deal is to do what he does best- lie! They’re having an alt-mode party, and wouldn’t Rung like to join in? There are, of course, logistical issues with being a car in a bar, especially when your drink is on the table and your head is tucked up somewhere in your torso, but never mind all that! Let’s get crazy!

This doesn’t work either. Maybe we should cut out the middle man here and just get Rung drunk enough to agree to a wet alt-mode contest.

No, I don’t have any idea how that would work.

In our next vignette, Rodimus comes into the comms room, Rewind trailing behind him like a grim shadow of death, to see what the hell Blaster wants, other than just the hugest glass of water.

Raiz’s work is very detailed, and you really feel the weight of these giant metal space robots, but everyone looks like they’ve been put through a food dehydrator.

We get a lot of build up to the character who’s about to be introduced, with a common opinion being shared amongst everyone- even Tailgate, who hates successful people like his life depends on it.

Lovely readers, put your hands together for the ideal male partner for Autobots, Decepticons, and Neutrals alike:

A man with so much charisma and charm that only Rodimus could hate him, Thuderclash brings to IDW what everyone wishes Optimus Prime would, making our disappointing space dad even more mediocre by comparison. He fights for justice, and freedom, and the good of the universe- and he does it all while having a chronic medical condition that forces him to stay within a certain distance of his ship that is also a life-support machine, otherwise he will die. Despite his handicaps, Thunderclash seemingly brings to others what they need most, even if they don’t even realize that they needed it in the first place.

He also, in this one scene, appeals to Drift’s religious sensibilities, does a secret best-friend dance with Ratchet (who he helped to pass his medical exams- yes, Ratchet), and congratulates Rodimus on his questing so far.

Thunderclash is one of those characters that everyone in-universe is supposed to love, and I completely buy it- because he’s completely genuine and humble about all of this the entire time.

Compare this to the last time Roberts wrote Thunderclash, in Eugenesis.

Where he was an ex-Decepticon.

And kind of an abrasive asshole.

And then he died.

Y’know, now that I think of it, Eugenesis Thunderclash and MTMTE Ambulon being basically the same character makes a whole lot of sense, even without the horrors of Roberts’ Twitter getting involved.

Thunderclash reveals that he, too, is on a quest to find the Knights of Cybertron, much to Rodimus’ chagrin. But first he needs the Lost Light to break out the jumper cables, and then for his second in command to stop threatening his life.

Turns out, not everyone is as obvious as the Cybertronians with their naming conventions. Whirl assassinated the wrong folks; I’m sure the Galactic Council is utterly thrilled. Paddox wants to steal the quantum engine technology for the good of his people, so they can kick the ass of the up-and-coming Terradore leader.

Completely unaware of the situation unfolding here in the lab, Swerve is directing Rung towards the warm, loving aura of Thunderclash for another go at winning the gentlemen’s wager- through the power of lying about having friends, Swerve’s “agreed” to get Rung Thunderclash’s autograph, in exchange for getting to check that Rung’s transformation cog is still working. Then they bump into the nightmare currently unfolding. My, whoever will save us from this dreaded menace, who holds a gun to the head of the Autobots’ greatest warrior, confidant, friend, and perhaps even lover?

How about a bartender and a giant vape pen?

Okay, so Rung doesn’t actually turn into a vape. It turns out that the Mystery of the Rungian Alt-Mode is also a mystery to the man himself. Because Rung is old as shit, the Functionists got to see this bullshit for themselves, and ended up testing him over and over and over trying to figure it out, lest he prove to be a flaw in their fascist ideologies. Fun fact: fascists HATE it when people they’re trying to oppress don’t play to their expectations.

The Functionists were the ones who gave Rung his little wheelie backpack, to make him at least appear useful. This sort of treatment tends to warp one’s head a bit, which would explain why he’s bothered to keep it for so long- internalized functionism’s a real bitch.

At least he’s not giving teenagers nicotine addictions under the guise of being somewhat better than cigarettes.

Back with Rodimus and Cybertron’s Autobot of the Year for 40,000 consecutive years, we get the unfortunate news that jump-starting Thunderclash’s ship is going to make the Quest go a bit slower for the Lost Light, much to Rodimus’ horror, though he does his best to put on a brave face; after all, that’s what heroes do, isn’t it?

It’s at this point that it’s revealed that “Little Victories” was being screened to all the Circle of Light members who didn’t get murdered or turned into Legislators on Luna 1, and man are these guys pissy. What was meant to be a recruitment video turned out to do just the opposite, because none of these guys want anything to do with what the Lost Light’s got going on.

Too bad Rewind didn’t have time for a cleaner cut for showing. Maybe they could have at least snagged a couple of these guys to tag along.

As all of the Circle of Light leave the theatre to go call everyone’s favorite Autobot to see if he needs a more crew members, the film plays on behind Skids, back to the interviews, as everyone promises more adventures just waiting on the horizon.

You’re not even on this trip anymore, you dork.

Chromedome gives us the title drop for the movie and issue, and we cut to Rewind organizing a group photo of all the interviewees.

And then Rewind died horribly like a week later. Thus ends season one of More Than Meets the Eye!

While I’m here, I’d like to take the time to cover a little bit of cut content from this issue, a scene between Drift and Ratchet.

Drift, during his interview, recalls the time that Ratchet called him into his office for a very serious discussion about his/Pharma’s hands.

Yeah, turns out they’re haunted.

Well, no, not really, because this is a prank. But Drift doesn’t know that yet.

Ratchet demonstrates this hand-haunting by punching Drift in the face, as he screams damnation at Pharma’s ghost. Drift, because he is a spiritual man, knows exactly what to do to deal with this possession; he draws his sword and chops Ratchet’s hands off, then throws them out the airlock.

This, too, is a prank, not that Ratchet knows it right away, yelling at Drift that he’s crippled him.

Clearly, these two belong together.

This bit of cut script was lucky enough to have gotten drawn by the colorist for MTMTE Season 1, Josh Burcham. Burcham’s line art is iconic- you won’t mistake him for anyone else. It’s rough and angular, and honestly just very charming. I’m a sucker for this sort of style. If you want to see his adaptation of this chunk of script- and trust me, you do- the link’s right here:

https://dcjosh.tumblr.com/post/107665292031/its-done-the-mtmte-22-deleted-scene-in-all-its

#transformers #jro #mtmte #issue 22 #maccadam #Hannzreads #text post #long post #comic script writing