#(i think it was time machine anyway. and there was a different recording of voices but it's. gone?????? i never got to hear it?? but anyway

[13atoms]

Interrogation (Dhawan!Master x Reader)

Warnings: dubcon/noncon from memory, I think? One of those 'it was all fine all along' types. That might have been why it vanished in the first place? Good old fashioned smut, anyway. Read the request first if in doubt! [1.8k][REPOST, MAYBE?]

Request: "Could you please do a fic where the reader has been captured by some weird planet where interrogation is done by overstimulation? [...] She's scared at first but the master comes to rescue her and then he realizes what's happening and decides he likes his pet like that [...]

You laughed breathlessly as your faceless captors questioned, once again:

“Where is your accomplice?”

The cracking speakers undersold the technology around you – it was state of the art. A camera watched you from each corner of the room, your hips encased in machinery whilst your chest and arms were strapped down with soft-but-unbreakable fabric. 

With a smug grin and a shake of your head, you refused to answer.

By now the sensation was familiar. Still, you fought a wince at the restarting of the slick machinery which sucked on your clit, intensifying as you bucked or tried to recoil even a millimetre from its accurate positioning on your skin. The machinery clamping your hips also left you completely full, a probe in your cunt, stretching you. Your captors had forced you further and further beyond what you thought you could take as the machine thrusted ruthlessly into you, a perfectly timed, inorganic pattern your body which wasn’t built to take.

It hurt to clench, to give in to the pleasure, you were so full. But it was worse to endure it, your entire body, trembling, forcing sweat from your pores, as your it begged for freedom and for satisfaction.

You refused to beg, you knew you could withstand more. Most importantly, you knew The Master was on his way. As the pain in your clit overwhelmed the pleasure, and you lost the ability to think straight, you bit back a curse for him to hurry up.

He’d love this, you thought. The industrial table, which they had strapped you to in nothing but a paper-thin gown. You imagined his horror at the specially-designed machine, which held your hips still, encasing you with pleasure and lubrication. Worst of all, hiding you from him. He was a jealous man, even of the sex toys you liked. He’d be furious something else was giving you pleasure, probably driven to madness to prove himself both superior and necessary. 

The cameras might have concerned you, were it not for your certainty The Master would burn this facility to the ground in a short measure of time. Perhaps he would steal a copy of the recording first – to rewatch in the lonely hours while you slept, finding himself aroused in equal measure by how you were mercilessly fucked and by how stubbornly you protected him, even in sexual agony.

Those captors who watched behind screens, who had strapped you into the machine and pushed its appendage inside of you whilst they were concealed by masks… they had no idea of the danger closing in on them.

Usually the pleasure would build up in quick rounds, quickly becoming pain. Their questioning was as frequent as the pulsing of the sucker on your clit, perhaps thinking they could trick you by flooding your system with hormones and you mind with desperation. It didn’t work. You refused to betray him, risk his safety as he broke in here to safe you. You dreaded the sensitivity accompanying you at the higher levels of their cycle, trying to let your mind drift. But it didn’t work.

This time was different. The pleasure-pain was overwhelming, but monotonous. It started to grow too much, and you frowned at the silence. There was no taunting, no threats, ringing distorted through the surgical-white room.

In fact, there were no voices of any kind. No crackle of the microphone your captors used. You could hear nothing but your own breaths, the rustle of the gown where sweat stuck it to your back, the humming of the machine, and you own slickness. 

Even the change of pitch as your clit was tortured was audible now, the gentle sound of the suction against you, and you realised you were whining softly in the back of your throat. You scrunched your eyes closed, refusing to grow louder and let the captors win. The machine seemed completely in-tune with your body, and you felt sure they knew exactly how oversensitive you were, but it was still possible they had no idea how close you were to breaking.

Was he not coming?

You refused to entertain the thought.

In, out, you ached as you felt even more pressure inside of you, biting your lip as you wondered how much more they could stretch you at this point. You would be limping as The Master rescued you, and suddenly you felt a pang of embarrassment for not being stronger. For not hiding your pleasure from the captors, even as they put you through the fucked up punishments of this civilisation. 

Your clit throbbed from being overworked, none of the hours The Master’s tongue or fingers spent on it could prepare you for how long you had been here, with unrelenting and unfailing rhythm. You couldn’t escape the pleasure, couldn’t adapt to it. Each time you felt prepared for the sensation, like you could predict it, the pattern changed and you were whining, being dragged close to tears yet again.

With a gasp, you heard a crackle, the speakers being switched back on.

Perhaps they would make it stop. They usually did, with the promise you would be free from the torture for as long as you spoke, only for every refusal to speak causing your clit ache more when the punishment resumed. 

How much more? You wondered. How oversensitive could a person yet?

You felt as though that upper limit had been reached. That they couldn’t push you any further. You wanted to cry out for The Master, wishing you could figure out where the door was, wanting to see where he could break in and free you.

You had come to expect the robotic, clinical speech which echoed through the room. A new voice surprised you.

“Hi, darling.”

“Master?”

The name came out moaned, as you wondered if you were hallucinating, finally driven mad.

“Yes, love.”

His tone was sultry, and you tried to imagine him, hands planted on the desk as he leant over the microphone. Watching the screens. Certainly, he was watching the screens.

“Make it st–”

“You know, love, their laws here ban physical injury to prisoners. But not interrogation. Or torture. They can do what they like to use your pleasure against you.”

“Please!”

You had no qualms pleading to him, crying out and moaning. It made the sensations feel even more present, like you could fall into them. He made you feel safe.

“You’ve got a safe word.”

You wanted to kiss him, letting yourself try and seek out the pleasure in the agony as the machine continued to work you, this time with more purpose.

“Did you tell them anything?”

“Nothing.”

“So good…”

You moaned as the soft pressure on your clit grew more insistent. Somehow he manipulated the machine into making you come, and you felt the bruises your legs would develop from kicking out, hitting the table, the only part of your body which could convulse properly while a painful orgasm was forced onto you by the mechanism. By The Master’s instruction.

The machine didn’t stop, and you suddenly gasped, a sob wrenching from your mouth at the pure agony of the machine touching your clit, made more sensitive by your orgasm.

“Blue?” he called the safe word sharply through the microphone, and you nodded, tears falling.

Instantly, the machine stopped. You heard crashing noises, distant but relayed by the speakers. 

“I’ll be two seconds.”

You barely registered as the door behind your head opened, close to passing out and desperately grateful for the absence of stimulation against you pussy. The machine still clamped your hips to the table, filled you and brushed against you, but at least it was stationary.

His footsteps made you try and open your eyes, feeling lightheaded as he set the TCE beside your waist on the table, turning his attention to the machine.

He took it apart quickly, taking it piece at a time until he could ease out the dildo filling you, making you gasp as it stretched you one last time. He cooed praise as it finally left you, the emptiness a relief. 

The Master undid your wrist restraints distractedly, too focussed on your dishevelled appearance. The strap across your chest was crushing into your gown-covered breasts, and you knew it would bruise. He traced a finger over the flesh which bulged over the side of the tight strap, but left it in place as he wandered further down your body.

“Hi,” you croaked, beyond grateful to see his face.

He smiled at you in response, before turning his attention to where you were aching.

“Oh, pet…”

He leant over your spread legs, dragging a finger across the soaked skin where the machine had sat. Even air made you sensitive, arousal and lubrication chilling against your swollen pussy as you were exposed to the air of the clinical room.

“Does it hurt?”

You nodded, whimpering, and he pouted.

“I killed them all.”

“Deleted the recordings?”

“They’ll be destroyed as we leave, the TARDIS will back them up. First, I want this on film too.”

With a frown, you tried to discern his meaning.

“You’re so swollen… how long did they leave this on you baby? Did they stretch your pussy out?”

“It hurts…” he loved when you whined, and you noticed the twitch of his lips.

“Can I clean you up?”

You nodded, gasping when he finally reached up to undo the strap across your chest with a single hand. You caught him watching you, gazing with glassy eyes as you rubbed your fingers across the bruised flesh, moaning with relief.

“Be gentle, please.”

His tongue made firm movements, too strong to be teasing but still painfully intimate, cleaning and soothing you with a care that made your heart ache. You jolted as he accidentally brushed your clit, and he apologised, kissing at your inner thigh.

He licked his lips when he was done, and you could see the overhead lights reflected in a glimmer of your arousal on his nose. He wiped it off roughly with his sleeve when he noticed you staring, before grinning at you.

“Ready to go? I parked the TARDIS outside.”

“My hero,” you smiled, letting him help you on to shaky legs, giving you a moment to even remember how to walk.

You could tell he was hard from how he walked, trying to nonchalantly button his coat. Your hand crept down to undo the button as he guided you arm in arm to the ship, but he batted you away.

“Are you sure? I can…”

“You’ve already done more than enough doll. Did you enjoy that?”

“Um, sort of?”

He stopped, adjusting his grip to force you still too. His eyes were intense, panicking as he searched yours for meaning, for resentment. 

“Wait, what?”

“It was great, I just hope I never have to do it again.”

“Bad?”

“Not at all! Just… once in a lifetime.”

He pulled you close to him, hugging you against his side and mumbling apologies as he kissed your forehead. 

“Certainly preferable to other methods of torture, I think.” 

You tried to joke and he laughed for your sake, but his face was hidden from you. You could sense his concern.

“You’re okay, though?”

“Now that you’re here.”

You tasted yourself as you kissed him.

[inthiseverymoment]

silhouettes emerging: chapter vii

"the Moth, Frozen in Amber"

a hunt, an exchange, a continuation, and an outburst

iwtv oc x armand, this chapter ~1.8k

as the kids say, WE'RE SO BACK

can you tell that i'm already having A Time this semester

and yes she was besties with edith piaf bc It's My Historical Reader Insert and I Can Do What I Want

anyway WHOO this one was very cathartic to write. hope yall enjoy, lmk what you think

chapter vi fic masterlist chapter viii

“Getting lunch”, as suggested, was not as fantastical a concept to this unlikely pair as it would be to many others of their kind. Being fledglings of an ancient vampire, they stalked the gloomy New York afternoon-with Daniel staying more in the shade, his inherited powers having had less time to mature than Isabelle’s-and searched.

This search came to a delightfully obvious end when they passed a thoroughly isolated alleyway, graced with the vape-flavored sight of a posse of college-age boys in polo shirts and unfortunately lettered red baseball caps.

Isabelle bit the inside of her cheek to keep from grinning and turned to Daniel, finding a wicked glint under his dark sunglasses. With a nod and a saunter, the actress and the journalist shared a feast and cleaned up the evidence, keeping leftovers to last long past the interview.

Twenty Twenty-Three (The Next Hour), New York City, United States of America

Satisfied with their meal, sickened by the memories of privilege and unearned arrogance they’d taken in through the blood of the young men, and both now a little bit high on flavored nicotine, they wound through the streets back to Daniel’s apartment. As they walked, he told her the parts of his story not granted to human eyes, as well as what had happened after; Armand’s machinations, the now-grown “fascinating boy”’s own turning, and most of what he’d learned to have happened decades earlier (though not all, she could tell, and fully understood why). Isabelle had had no idea upon first reading the book that her existence would have so many similarities to that of this entirely jaded man, who had of course felt exactly the same about this conscientiously skewed “young” woman; they realized now that their experiences held so much in common that the differences in those placed demeanors faded, leaving an odd sort of knowing despite their very short acquaintance.

“I guess I just thought,” Daniel was half-laughing in a last shot at nonchalant bitterness, “I thought I was the first. That’s all.”

“No, I get it,” she responded. Turning to study his face, her voice took on a bit of teasing incredulity: “Is that…could it possibly be…a bit of vulnerability from the great Daniel Molloy?”

“Don’t start,” he said, adjusting his sunglasses. “I’m the one interviewing you, not the other way around. This just changes a lot.”

She nodded solemnly, and he dug into his jacket pocket for his phone, pressing record despite every bell and whistle being back at the apartment.

“We’re back post-midday-draining with the vampire-”

“Isabelle de la Rue.”

“-and I want to know whether things felt the same for you as they did for me. You’re a vampire now, you’re part of the coven, he doesn’t have dominion over your mind anymore but you’ve essentially given into that life. How did things go after that turning point?”

“...Turning point?”

“Let it be stated on the record that I did not attempt a pun.”

“Let it be stated on the record that it was definitely received as such,” she replied. “But, yeah, it was…as you said, it was a sense of letting oneself be swept up in a new life. I had been so focused on the fact that Armand couldn’t physically get into my mind anymore that I forgot about every other-more human-emotional tie.”

“That fucked-up blur between supernatural manipulation and genuine…”

He stopped, fiddling with his key and pretending that was the reason he’d trailed off.

“Love,” she finished, looking at Daniel as they reentered his apartment. “That’s the word you’re looking for.”

“Sure,” he coughed, a thousand recently-revealed memories passing across his eyes.

“And, yeah, precisely. I found that I just…well, after being turned, I felt that I needed him more than ever. After a lifetime of being tossed to the side and swearing that I’d wait for the right person, a lifetime of scrambling for control over my own life, this sudden onslaught of being entirely and straightforwardly wanted for the first time knocked me out; I fully let go after that first taste of his blood, and everything rational was just…gone. Honestly, nearly everything before I had stepped into the Théâtre was gone; not by the work of the Mind Gift, just by the overwhelming newness of vampiric existence-of vampiric existence as his companion. Now, whenever there was somewhere to go, there was somebody beautiful waiting for me just outside the door. Now, when I absentmindedly hummed a bit of an old duet, someone would complete the phrase. Now there was finally someone who wanted to understand all of my depths and flaws, who didn’t shun them away or pretend not to see them but instead viewed them as natural and even admirable. We had both come from this sort of rigidity and exploitative background-his far, far worse than mine, of course-and we each found this wonderful sort of release in the other. We’d stay up hours into the night and day, and talk and talk and talk-”

“And only talk?” came the interruption of her near-rapturous repetition.

“Oh, of course not,” Isabelle said once she’d recovered from the memory, “but you didn’t want to hear about that.”

She was quiet for a moment, one finger circling a small threadbare spot in the armchair she’d now grown quite familiar with.

“‘For the first time in my life, I was seen.’ That’s what Louis told you, and that is how it was for me. When I read that phrase in your book…I lost my breath all over again.”

The journalist nodded as he finished connecting his phone back to the laptop and microphone.

Nothing more needed explanation.

Daniel already knew.

“So,” he said after a while, “when did things change? When did you come to the thought that you needed to go?”

“Part of it was because of Édith. Armand always seemed to come up with more rehearsals and group hunts during the times when we’d try to get together; eventually, I confronted him about it. He said that, since I had chosen this life, asked to become his despite his doubts, that I needed to give up every outward tie to humanity. I pointed out that that humanity was what drew him to me in the first place-the same way it was with you-and by the way he reacted, it seemed that he simply wanted it all to himself. I missed her. The last time I managed to see her, it was even more difficult to do so, because she was becoming truly famous.”

“Wait,” Daniel said, “...that Édith?”

Slowly, Isabelle nodded, looking to him with a slight smile.

“That Édith. My Édith. You know how the nightclub owner who discovered her died, the mobsters she had some associations with, the accusations that almost destroyed her career?”

“I have to say I’m not as brushed up on the history of French popular song as I guess I should have been, but I’ve heard of that, yes.”

“The murder was Armand’s doing. A warning, I think, that he could make my friends suffer if they kept me from him for too long.”

“Red flag number…we’ve lost count now.”

“You’re one to talk, Mr. Molloy.”

“But Mademoiselle Piaf clearly got back on her feet.”

“At least we got a proper goodbye.”

“When you left?”

“When I…tried. That was the first time. Captain of the ship got ‘rest’-ed into never leaving the dock. I think, on some level, Armand knew that playing any power card wouldn’t get me to want to stay, so he ran up that ramp in a billowing trench coat like some hero of an old film, wrapped me up into his arms, and said that he’d heard the waters that week were far too treacherous for a ‘visit home’. I knew I didn’t believe him, but he held me so tightly, so-so tenderly, whispering over and over that he couldn’t lose me…”

“So his tears worked better than the Mind Gift ever could.”

“...Yes.”

“Christ, Isabelle, he was never afraid of losing his power over you because he knew he already had it. Armand didn’t even need access to your memories-”

“I know-”

“-you were just so in love that he could easily,” Daniel bulldozed, “like any mortal, play your heartstrings like that fucking violin you always talked about-”

“I know!”

After the days of quips and tearful recollections, this was indeed a shout. She slammed her hands onto the arms of the chair, and every light in the room flickered.

Daniel was silent.

“I’m not proud of it,” Isabelle eventually said, cold and hard and finally loud. “I am fully aware that I spent my whole life terrified of being controlled only to wind up under the spell of the first dark-curled, smooth-voiced soul to actually look my way for once. I am fully aware that I saw everything and allowed love to blind me anyway. I thought we could figure it all out and grow together-it had truly seemed, for a while, like we were. I was young, I was tired of waiting, and I felt that those twenty-two years spent waiting were longer than any possible eternity. I wanted to be desired, chased, caught, cherished, held-I wanted him. Surrounded by this mockery of the life I have always longed for, this place where self-titled artists postured in their little cliques and prided themselves on their shallow works while ignoring the hundreds of bodies being dragged across the floor, I thought that that was all I was ever going to get.”

Her ragged breath had climaxed into sobs now, without a single speck of the demure camera-worthiness of her previous tears. These last words hanging in the air, Isabelle stared daggers at Daniel, the golden circles at the center of her glowing hazel eyes now alight with the same fire that Louis had burned the Théâtre with only a few years after she’d gone.

This was the desperation of the vampire Isabelle de la Rue,

and the desperation of the young mortal Bella Ditell,

all wrapped up into one bleeding watercolor quilt of a woman.

“I was swept away again,” she choked out, catching her breath. “I let him take me back to the Théâtre, swooned into him when he put La Bohème on his phonograph, and relished in every physical reminder that this glorious, terrible, deeply complex and surely divine being could not bear the thought that I would leave him. I committed it all to memory-the dizzying warmth of Armand’s bare chest against mine, my hand moving up his thigh and his tangling in my hair as he ripped out every bobby pin I’d placed for easy travel, the way the taste of his blood was now tinged with something like bitter wine. His grip was rougher now, but I didn’t care…”

Her breath having nearly returned to steadiness, Isabelle winced at one more admission.

“I didn’t notice the pain, because it fit so well with the music.”

[desultory-novice]

Noir! Do you by any chance know of a being that was called IDF-87?

"And here we are..."

[I assume you mean F-86 but either would trigger the same reaction]

"...ID...F8...?"

"...Ghhh...?!"

"M-My...head...!!"

-

"And here we are..."

-

"We'd like to thank you for volunteering to lead humanity's future." "It says here your hobby is...singing?"

"Yes. Since I was a child." "I even had an agent, for a short while."

"So, you were a professional?"

"Not really. My career never took off." "But...that's how it is with DREAMS."

"Not a household name, then?

"Surely not!"

"Good, good. Very good."  "...That is to say, you seem like a good candidate for our work."

-

"And here we are..."

-

"Oh!?"

"Hmm? Is something wrong?" "Feeling pain from the treatments?"

"No. I was just wondering..." "Is the alien...is it asleep in there...?"

"Yes. Deep asleep." "...Why? You didn't hear anything, did you?"

"I didn't. Just the buzzing of a machine. It's so noisy in here..."

"...Good. It's a very tense work environment here at the lab." "Some people can't take the pressure. They start to hear 'voices.'"

"Those poor souls..."

"It's no surprise. The whole planet's counting on us, you know." "We can't fail them. Not like previous generations did." "But you came from Old Earth, so you would understand."

"...Yes. Yes, I do."

-

"And here we are..."

-

"You're...putting it on display? Like a...circus animal?"

"The government gets stingy with their contracts." "And the entertainment industry has proved profitable for us so far." "I expect it'll be even more so after your new single."

"About that..."

"You're not having second thoughts, are you?"

"...No! I still believe in the work we're doing. It's just..."

"Just...?"

"Oops!" 

"...Sorry about that! Clumsy me!"  "Big old glasses and I still can't see where I'm going!"

"...Rim..."

"Was I...interrupting something by chance?"

"Not at all! Here, let me help you with those!"

"Ah, there's no need for that, Ms...?"

"...Neichel. And please." "One favor deserves another." "Where do these go anyway?"

"Just to my office! Let me show you where it is."

"General? Sorry about the thrilling conversation but..."

"....It's fine, actually." "I was thinking that you two really ought to meet." "Take all the time you need to...get acquainted."

-

"And here we are..."

-

"Everything I am now, was made into...is 'sleeping' in that tube." "...And I don't know how I feel about that. About it..." "You're a scientist here. What even...are they?"

"ID-F86... An aggressively hostile alien species and threat to all life on this planet. Only by subduing and studying them can humanity ready themselves for the dangers the greater galaxy holds."

"But, speaking personally and...off the record..." "...I think of them as...just a wandering traveler, lost." "Trapped, far away from home. Waiting rescue?"

"Haha... No wonder I sympathize with them so much!" "You too, I imagine...?"

"Yes! Though...I may also feign myself as...a rescuer...?"

"Why am I not surprised to hear that from you?" "You and your big HEART has saved me a number of times." "In a lab full of people who've seemingly sold their souls for progress...It's like you come from a different planet!"

"Ms. Neichel..."

"Please, Rim! Surely we're friends by now!" "Just call me Neichel."

"...Do you believe in fairies, Neichel...?"

-

"And here we are..."

-

"Did you think we wouldn't find out? That you were another?!"

"RIM!!" "Please, don't hurt h...hgh!"

"Neichel?!"

"T-The..."

"...Let him go to her."

"But sir, he's... He's an ALIEN!" "And a bloody saboteur too!"

"It's all right. This is what we've been waiting for."

"What is it? What's wrong, Neichel?!"

"...The...baby...!"

-

"And here we are..."

-

"And...of course the door's locked." "...I always feared being the next one put on display." "Sigh... What are we two caged birds to do...?"

"About a name? I've already thought of a few."

"...Oh, Rim. You never lose that optimism, do you?"

"Made you smile though?"

"You did." "...And? Let's hear those names." "'Scarf?' 'Beret?' Your twin sister's name was 'Bridge,' right?" "Should we stick with the glasses theming?"

"Not if fairy names sound as 'odd' to humans as you've told me!"

"I was thinking...we could name our daughter 'Adeleine.'" "That's 'canvas' in your language, right?" "A bright canvas on which any kind of future can be painted!"

"Oh...! That's a lovely name! But, Rim..." "...We're having a little boy remember?"

"Ah, right!" "I was already picturing little Noir in my head so strongly that...!!"

"......'Noir'......?"

"Yeah, 'Noir.'"  "It means..."

-

...It means 'unstoppable.'

-

AND HERE YOU ARE

-

-

AN: I hope this gives a clear-ish answer to most of the questions about the birth of Noir and Adeleine, as well as the story of their parents! Or... did it just create more questions? ^^;

@kirbyoctournament

[omegalomania]

someone put the full q&a that fall out boy did the other night on youtube and while i'm going thru it for highlights there's this exchange that was WAY too long to bulletpoint so i'm just transcribing the whole thing here. this was mostly just patrick and pete talking to each other but i need to note that andy was grinning SO big the entire time at the side and it killed me dead.

so, the answer they gave when the band was asked about the song that took the longest to complete on "so much (for) stardust":

patrick: probably this song "heaven, iowa." this is the truth...i hated that song. i wrote it, i sent it to pete [...] i send him everything, 'cause i don't like any of it. but i was like "i don't believe in this one, i don't like it," really far into the production.

pete: really pumped me up to hear this song.

patrick: i'm GETTING there, man!

pete: "got an elevator pitch for you, it's a fuckin terrible song, i hate it. lemme know what you think."

patrick: by the way, this exact type of anecdote is why i didn't talk on stage for like 20 years. remember that? so this is true - sorry, this is a side tangent but very true, we were playing a show with this band "killing tree" and i was the only one that had a microphone, naturally, and so i go "here's, uh, here's a new song..." and i don't know i said something silly like, "it took me like five minutes to write it" and i was being self-deprecating or something, and pete was like "well that's the last time you're talking."

pete: that is NOT actually what happened! you did the harry caray -

patrick: it was something - that was the next show!

pete: oh. the harry caray one...

patrick: that was a different one. so then there was another show, 'cause...i am...wont to do impersonations once in a while and there's a guy from chicago, an old broadcaster in chicago called harry caray, and i just did this harry caray impression and a few people laughed and i was like, "oh, yeah!" and i kept doing it. but the thing. the thing IS. this probably lasted -

pete: "i'm gonna do this impression until everybody stops laughing."

patrick: you're gonna like it! no, but um...so i kept doing it and it was probably only about a minute? it felt like 30. so whatever. anyway, um...the song that took the longest was this song, "heaven, iowa." we'd been working on it, and i wasn't really sure of it. every day we'd go in the studio, i'd ask joe to lay any ideas he had on the verse, any atmospheric guitar or synthesizer or something, and i'd lay down all these ideas, and then there was this moment - we recorded in a studio in seattle, and there was this weird synthesizer that i had and somehow that was it. i landed that and the whole thing came together, and now it's one of my favorite songs on the record. but there's some moments in there where it's just my voice and some other things, there's some sparse moments, and i don't like that a lot. i don't like...it's like hearing your voice on an answering machine.

pete, gesturing at the crowd: ask them if they like it.

[crowd promptly goes apeshit and patrick shakes his head and looks down while pete just fucking smirks at him]

[rockbandsrockfans]

My thoughts on From Zero:

From Zero (Intro): Yeah like from nothing!

The Emptiness Machine: I really like this song, I think it's good. The first time I heard it it sounded really familiar but like I've heard a demo of it not like it's a rip off of another song. I'm always down for Mike singing

Cut the Bridge: Rap verse and the drums under it is mad modern Linkin Park, everything else reminds me of a different band but idk which one. I like the bridge a lot

Heavy is the Crown: "THIS IS WHAT YOU ASKED FOOOOOOOOOOR!!" I see what you did there guys. This sounds plausibly Linkin Park and that muted sample or whatever that is in the back is cool af

Over Each Other: Emily's mostly solo song, the verse won't stick in my head but I'm into the chorus. The way the song resolves is exactly what I expected based on the chorus and exactly what it should be!

Casualty: This one is like if Lies Greed Misery (with some War influences) was written by teenage Slipknot fans in a garage. It sounds like it's gonna have an outro that goes into the beginning of Overflow and then doesn't

Overflow: Generic starting flow saved by really nice harmonies and arrangement. Atmospheric af I bet there will be remixes of this one too. Doesn't sound like it should be on the same album as Casualty.

Two Faced: Song that makes you go "oh THIS is a Linkin Park song" I've missed that crunchy guitar 😫 this shouldn't be my favorite but it might be anyway. The bridge is like the "Fuck you I won't do what you tell me" line from Killing in the Name combined with One Step Closer. Sometimes I think "is Joe still here?" He's here in this one

Stained: I like the verse WAY better than the chorus I'm grooving to the verse and then it's like oh it's done. The second chorus is more interesting than the first caus there's more backing instruments. The bridge comes together nicely though. Weirdly reminds me of Hall of Fame by The Script

IGYEIH: Similar melodic progression to Heavy is the Crown so like those two actually sound like they go on the same album. Matches the energy of Casualty, absolutely nothing like Cut the Bridge, but the LP guitar is GOING.

(Obligatory comparison of Emily to Chester: I can't help but notice how present the vocal harmonies are. They sound AWESOME but I think it's going to lead to people expecting something they aren't gonna get

Good Things Go: God DAMN Mike's voice has come a long way from No Roads Left. Holding those notes like a pro. This is a Post-Traumatic song though. Like if a Post-Traumatic song was an album closer. It definitely has the Album Closing Epic Drum Crescendo but it doesn't feel like an "ending." Spotify looped back into the intro and that felt like exactly what you're supposed to do at the end of the album. Which makes perfect sense for the first record of a new era

[candycryptids]

For Chuu!! She's a MCH. What bits of the story and job toolkit are canon for her? What arent? Whatve you changed? (like, does she have an alternate Queen or multiweapon attachment?)

So I don’t think she does Any of the Machinist Job-Quest-line, lmfao. She doesn’t have a Job Crystal, either, this is all self-taught organic rootin tootin aim-n-shoot’n. (Please laugh) … her ‘Drone’ is just a Magitek Bit she’s gotten her paws on while relocating (read: Quitting her Job and moving countries with no fore-warning) and repurposed to do a number of things Before-Building-Tuesday. Like cover fire. And recording voice-journals.

The Queen is. ‘Technically’ the same- I like to think it’s Probably just Old Tuesday Prototypes being put through their paces instead of getting scrapped, running on very bare-bones programming. If I was more mod-savvy I’d give it the Loporrit Robot Bunny ears in game XD (I almost made it a different Magitek machine altogether! But I think she’d rather have something marching into battle she built completely with her own hands than something repurposed. Not that she wouldn’t require a Reaper to start firing blasts randomly and March in a straight line into the enemy lololol)

She initially learned how to wield a gun from Garleans, with rigid target practice and gun handling procedures. For self-protection, mostly. An Engineer is no good to them dead. Especially not one so promising, even if she is…. Difficult to work with. She develops her own style over time and while she never gains PinPoint Accuracy without some, uh, self-modification, she’s a pretty decent shot. Favors guns with bayonets or blades for when something tries to get too close, though usually if she’s given any time to prepare she’ll have a handful of machines to call into battle anyways… or Talia. Lol.

[POV; Your girlfriend is pointing out a cool bird but you spotted an imperial and on fucking Byregot nobody is about to interrupt her day off.] On her person is nearly always the Makai Hand Mortar, even for situations where combat isn’t expected. It’s small, easily concealed, and pink. Which. It’s just great. So even if she doesn’t have The Big guns ™ she’s still packing heat. (Is this a strap joke? Maybe.)

I cannot think of a possible way to improve on or change the multi-tool, it’s in the brand of all-in-hilarious-nonsense Chuu Loves to make for some reason. At best, she probably tries to work out a way to make it Much More Compact- after all, Tuesday was her attempts to make a Robot that was so…. Humanoid. Pushing the limits on what was possible in terms of size and shape and functionality. [She managed to make a robot so human-like he's no longer attractive to her in the way Machines are.... Sad! Oh well, there's other robots.]

She did specifically paint her lunchbox (aether converter/ammunition kit/whatever you want to call it) cherry pink for Talia though. Her favorite color is pink 🌸

(You might be wondering; how did these two ever meet? You’d be right to wonder! I wonder too. 😳 someday me and my partner will hammer it out …. LOL.)

Shaders used are Kore's [Edge Triangle Mix] [Electro World] [Glitter] and Neneko's [Basic C [Gameplay]]

[the11tailedwrites]

1 - Osiris

CW: Angle Trap from Saw so heavy gore

@hidden-scarlet-whispers @braindamagedrizz

They saw trapped my man.

Osiris awoke to a pounding behind his eyes. His head pulsed and it took a moment for his eyes to adjust. When they did adjust, Osiris had absolutely no idea where he was. It was a dark and musty room with only a single light. He shifted slightly and pain flared up from his chest and he hissed in pain and glanced down. There was a strange ribbed metal cage around his chest. He could feel metal twisting inside him, and he bit his lip to hide a hiss of pain. He grabbed at the cage with his fingers, desperately trying to pry it open.

“Rise and shine, little phoenix,” crooned a feminine voice.

A screen in the corner of the room lit up, bathing Osiris in artificial light. Osiris glanced over at the screen to see a masked woman. The mask was pure white, with nothing on it, not even holes for the eyes. The woman’s bright red hair made her white mask almost seem to glow.

“Who the fuck are you,” snarled Osiris, jerking forward before grimacing in pain, feeling blood leak out from under the ribbed cage.

“I am Chaos, pleasure, my dear boy,” said the woman, “Now let’s play a game, yes?”

“What?” hissed Osiris

“You don’t have much of a choice, give I’ve already strung you up,” said the woman, “Now, here’s how it works; as you can probably tell, you are strung up with ribbed metal around your chest, embed to the bone. In front of you is a vat of acid. When the timer starts, the key to unlock the ribbed cage drops in. Failure to get the key out of the acid before it melts results in no way to get the cage off. 60 seconds later and the machine activated and rips out of your chest. The fun thing about guardians is that this won’t keep you dead, so you get to try out so many different methods!”

“I am going to kill you,”

“You can try,”

Osiris’ eyes flicked over to the vat of acid, neck pricking slightly. He stomach twisted painful. Why was he so nervous? He was the phoenix of the dark ages, the student of Lord Felwinter and a damn powerful warlock. A simple trap shouldn’t set him on edge, but it did. Maybe it was because he could barely feel Sagira.

“Wait,” he shouted, “What have you done to my ghost!”

“She’s fine,” said the woman, holding up Osiris’ beloved ghost in one hand, “I need subjects for my experiments anyway and you are fascinating. Make sure to smile, you’re being recorded!”

Then the timer ticked on, and a key dropped into the acid. Osiris wasted no time reaching his hand in. He bit down a scream as the acid bit apart his hand as he groped for the key. After a few painful seconds, his hand clasped around the key and he pulled into out quick, splashing some acid onto his legs. The smell of chemically brunt flesh filled Osiris’ nose as he forced the key into the lock, though it took almost four seconds.

It clicked.

It opened.

It fell off.

But the ribbed cage did not.

Confusing spread through Osiris as he stared at the fallen lock. Osiris gritted his teeth and gripped the cage, ripping and pulling, desperately trying to free himself.

5.

Osiris thrashed.

4.

His nails broke off.

3.

His heart was in his ears.

2.

Why couldn’t he stop shaking?

1.

The sound of tearing flesh and the searing pain almost blinded him. He only got a few seconds to look down before gravity took hold of his organs. He could only watch as his intestines fell out before nothing.

Osiris awoke lying on his own organs. They felt warm and squishy, and Osiris pushed himself up.

“Sorry, no way to win,” came Chaos’ annoying voice, “Good quality video, though, I sent it to the Iron Lords. Wonder what they’ll think?”

“Bitch” snarled Osiris, forcing himself up, entire front drenched in his own blood.

A piece of his intestines clung to him for a moment before slipping off and hitting the floor.

Chaos’ laughter filled the small room.

“If you’ll excuse me, I have other guests to tend to,”

The tv turned off and Osiris was plunged into darkness.

It took incredible effort for Osiris to move away from the pile of organs and crawl into a corner. He tried to create a solar flare, for light or warmth he didn’t know. It didn’t matter because he couldn’t create light at all. He wasn’t bound in any way with void suppression, so Osiris wasn’t sure how he wasn’t able to use light.

Osiris leaned his head against the wall and closed his eyes.

Tearing flesh. The wet sound of organs falling to the ground.

Osiris snapped open his eyes.

“Fuck,”

Osiris wished he could feel Sagira. He could really use her comfort right now.

Distantly, he wondered who that other guest Chaos was talking about was.

He tried to remember how he ended up here. He memories of recent events was hazy at best.

He had been on patrol. Lord Felwinter has requested he look into something nearby. He had gotten there, checked, nothing odd. He had been on the way to sweep the nearby area. His neck had pulsed for only a second and everything had gone dark.

Did Lord Felwinter set a trap for him? No, that wouldn’t make sense. If Lord Felwinter wanted him out of the way or dead, he would have done it himself. Lord Felwinter was not the kind of person who tortured his targets before he killed them.

If not an Iron Lord, then was Chaos working for herself?

Osiris sighed.

He was getting nowhere.

All he could do now was hope for a rescue. He didn’t even know if anyone would care enough to rescue him. Maybe they would come for whoever else was trapped here and leave him. He wouldn’t be surprised.

He was used to being abandoned.

[thessalian]

Thess vs NaNoWriMo

So that time of year is fast approaching, and I think a lot of people I associate with on this platform are going, "But Veilguard's coming out on HALLOWEEN!", which is entirely fine - NaNoWriMo is optional. And honestly, all things considered, I am probably never doing it as an organised situation again.

It took some digging to find the original text, and I'll probably post the screenshot I saw on Bluesky too, but summary: not only is NaNoWriMo pretty much supporting AI (they say "absolutely not condemning", but the rest of the text isn't nearly so mealy-mouthed about it) but also calling people who are against AI "ableist and classist".

No, seriously. I mean, seriously.

Look, how people get their ideas is probably up to them. And stolen valour aside, plugging an idea into ChatGPT and getting some word salad in return is ... I guess someone's prerogative. The same as someone just typing, like, "rutabaga" 50k times technically counts as writing 50k words. But ... first of all, NaNoWriMo was supposed to support people who write. Second of all, the idea that not having someone immediately at your side to serve as beta reader is "classist" is ... no. Like, if you're online enough to understand NaNoWriMo, you can find a damn beta reader. Third, "Some people's brains don't work well enough to see the problems in their writing--" SEE ABOVE RE PROOF-READING, FOR ONE THING, and for another, that's just shit like spelling and grammar check, which has been standard on word processing programmes basically ever since the concept existed! Fourth, I'm not sure how AI assists in shit like "Can't find a publisher because publishers are only really interested in what will sell ALL THE BOOKS", but that's one of their arguments too.

But the last thing - the worst thing - is what that means. NaNoWriMo is not cool with plagiarism as far as I know, but that's what trains AI. More to the point, you have to verify your word count with their website by actually copy-pasting everything you wrote into the site for it to show you as a winner. The fact that they support AI, and that one of their sponsors offers a whole bunch of AI features? I don't trust them not to be selling every single thing people submit for word count total to feed someone else's writer-bot.

I mean, the NaNoWriMo bods have made some spectacularly shitty decisions the last few years. There was that partnership with those scammers at Inkkit, which also revealed the whole thing where one of their moderators - who operated the youth programme, by the way - turned out to be a paedophile and groomer. But this one is just ... disrespectful of the very thing they were supposed to be supporting.

Please don't use the official NaNoWriMo resources. I am concerned for what it will do with not only what you submit for word count, but what you put in their forums too. If you want to do 50k words in 30 days, I am with you all the way, and others will be too. Find a support group that isn't these jackasses and do that.

Plus the "not using AI is ableist" thing is bullshit, by the way. I am not participating this year (I don't think, anyway; not unless I get a great idea) because I'm damn sure I don't have the spoons for that ... because disabled. Because fibromyalgia. The thing is, I don't want to just say "I produced 50k words and won NaNo", I want to write. I want to use my voice, not something cooked up by a machine learning algorithm based on a single sentence. I think way too many people have forgotten what "in your own voice" means to art.

Like, on the r/criticalrole subreddit, we were talking about how Lance Reddick actually did record all his lines as Thordak in TLOVM before he passed, and I mentioned how different that was going to hit, with the example of having heard Robin Sachs as Zaeed in the ME3 Citadel DLC after he passed. And someone went, "Oh, shit, I didn't know he passed! Hey, do you think they'll one day be able to use the voices of dead voice actors so we can keep hearing them? Because I know it's possible because Snoop Doggy Dogg is reading me my homework now and it's awesome!"

I ... may have kind of exploded. I may also have mentioned that some bunch of assholes tried to make a George Carlin special after Carlin's death and his daughter (understandably) hit the roof. It's bad enough to disrespect thousands of people by training an AI to spit out whatever of their works will fit a prompt sentence, but imagine hearing the voice of someone you love, mangled by AI's inability to get real emotional nuance, possibly saying shit they would never say? Using their voices doesn't change that the emotion and power behind those voices is gone forever; it just parades a decaying copy of them around like some vocal equivalent of Weekend at Bernie's.

[bearpillowmonster]

Transformers One Trailer

That new trailer and I have some thoughts? Surprisingly.

I don't normally watch trailers anymore and I've said why before but it basically boils down to they spoil too much too much of the time and what's the point if I'm sold anyway. Now Transformers One seems like a no-brainer, gives those fans a prequel origin sort of thing as well as an introduction for the newbies who only know the Bay and Rise and Bumblebee movies in animation no less so completely different. Then I saw the images of the designs and oh man0

It looks generic. Like I never watched Transformers Prime, it has its fans but I just do not like that art style and this started making me think of that, like it wasn't finished. I much would've preferred a 2D movie but 3D can be done, look at the War for Cybertron trilogy (which I've already talked about)

Nice and stylized, distinguished, scuffed metal, I wanna lick them. Anyways, that's a show though, it'd look good as a movie and heck, T-One looks good as a show but I don't know, is it just me? I also didn't finish the trilogy because the first one was good and I thought it'd only get better but reviews for the second one came out and they were bogus so I dropped it.

But then I watched the trailer-

And it looks better! Notice anything? They're all close up shots! And you mean to tell me this is the same movie>

Ugh. Visuals out of the way, cast. Why? We don't need all these celebrity voices and I'm someone who supports Peter Cullen just being Optimus all the time but I also understand that he's getting older just like Charles Martinet did with Mario leaving the character in a specific position but you didn't get Chris Pratt?? No I'm just kidding, we got Chris Hemsworth, and really, I can't even tell that it's him, I saw his name attached and I was like "Here we go again" and there are a few times where he had traces of that Cullen voice pattern and it's like an adolescent Optimus settling into his voice- wait am I complementing? Stop that.

Josh Cooley is directing and he's got a pretty decent track record with Pixar, we even see Keegan Michael Key again for whatever reason- oh, it's goofy, it's made for children

"But he says bad ass!" mehmehmehmehmeh, so do the other movies twit, somehow, someway, they get away with anything. He's gotta go and announce everything that's happening "I have knives?!" "I have machine guns in my butt?!" Stupid even for a kid, especially menaging Megatron, what'd you do to my angry baby? He's just reading the script, I know, which also isn't great. So, instead of just being a race of transformers, they're a race of robots that gain the ability to transform to save Cybertron. There's the generic nature again! I also don't see it in the trailer but with the toys, they have this weird thing where they use energy to summon their weapons? Bumblebee is fine with the "KNIVES" but

"I put my hand on a ba-all to see if I still bleeeeddd and nothing hurts anymore, I feel kinda freeeeee" What is that? Just give him an axe, he doesn't have to summon it and then attach it to a ball. But wait- the design is different here, what's going on? These toys don't match up with the movie. Like, look at Bumblebee before and after he transforms, he doesn't look like the toy does (I've used enough pictures, do some leg work) and Megatron...just looks like Megatron and I know these are movie toys, just look at Alpha Trion, so I don't know how much of it is an accurate conversion between the two and I normally wouldn't care but it's that ball that drives me bonkers.

BUT I will say that I support Scarjo playing- who is she playing? Because that's not Arcee. Elita One? Cool name, at least. Oh, she's an OG, we're good then. Lawrence is also a good one. Anyways, disappointed, we'll see.

[justconstantly]

MY TOP 9 ALBUMS OF ALL TIME

tagged by @belladonnafey

couldn't sleep, saw ur tag zoph (<3), and here we are. I'm a big album listener so this was a struggle for me, but I tried to avoid all my short term obsessions and only pick my absolute favs, ones I could listen to no skips at any time (order here isn't a ranking or anything, solely was aesthetic for the collage)

lungs (deluxe) - Florence+the machine

fav songs: I'm not calling you a liar, bird song, kiss with a fist

every spare moment for the entire summer of 2014 my brother and I played Minecraft on a LAN server together and I listened exclusively to a YouTube playlist of this album on repeat and that's definitely part of why I am the way I am

heretic pride - the mountain goats

fav songs: autoclave, lovecraft in brooklyn

funnily enough, not one of the three goats albums I have on vinyl, the others are better for living room activities that my record player is good for (lounging, plant watering, etc) but this one is still my all time fav

wasteland baby - hozier

fav songs: almost (sweet music), wasteland baby

RIP my college roommates in spring 2019 because I listened to only this album for approximately 2.5 months and I think they hated me for it (blasting it out loud, singing badly, etc)

Grace - Jeff buckley

fav songs: lover you should've come over, dream brother

this album is so so cool, I mean even discounting Jeff buckleys angelic voice, the haunting guitar? the early modern English hymn?? lilac wine AND hallelujah??? makes me feel incredible

sound and color - alabama shakes

fav songs: this feeling, shoegaze

this whole album makes me just dance/sway around my apartment feeling like I'm the most soulful and tender person alive

post-war - M. ward

fav songs: Chinese translation, right in the head, rollercoaster, magic trick

makes me so indescribably nostalgic for a life I've never lived. when I heard Chinese translation for the first time I was like hmm I'm different now

collapsed in sunbeams - Arlo parks

fav songs: too good, eugene

got the vinyl from my library on a whim to listen to while me and my roomie did a puzzle and spent the next 2 weeks of the hold just glued to the record player, haven't bought my own copy yet but it's on my wishlist FOR SURE just perfect lazy living room vibes for me

crawler - IDLES

fav songs: the beachland ballroom, meds, car crash

massive thank you @azertykeys for recommending me idles bc this album is a go to for me when I'm coding and/or also just in my feelings

bridge over troubled water - Simon & Garfunkel

fav songs: keep the customer satisfied, the boxer, the only living boy in New York, why don't you write me

my parents listened to quite a bit of Simon and Garfunkel when I was a kid and I didn't realize I knew them until I was like 20 and my friend was playing their greatest hits and I knew every word to every song. she was like why do you know so much Simon and Garfunkel and I was like oh is that who this is? anyway love this album, my vinyl is a treasured posession

only reason mitski isn't on this list is because I can't choose between any of her albums

other honorable mentions:

<COPINGMECHANISM> by willow

hospice by antlers

woman on the internet by Orla gartland

case/lang/veirs by case/lang/veirs

transgender dysphoria blues by against me

fetch the bolt cutters by Fiona apple

she won't make sense by the harmleighs

this was long so absolutely no pressure, but tagging @azertykeys @heart-to-hearts @bromaine-lettuce @junewild @unnonexistence @navigatorwrongway and anyone who sees this and wants to give it a go

[apphiarothowrites]

Modern MAS Musician Au ]

this has been poking my brain, will I ever write it who knows?

Ace Punk Rock; Machine gun Kelly- very mainstream and adored for his music

Sabo alternative punk; YUNGBLUD - less mainstream but very popular in the UK and with lgbt/marginalized groups

Now Ace and Sabo have collaborated and have some.. feelings but that ain't gonna be looked at too closely cause both of them are focused on their careers. Anyway they end up getting contacted by Whitebeard records (a huge deal, Edward newgate was known as the father of rock for a reason)

SO they come in and are met by Newgate himself, Basically the deal is they are to collaborate in a album to re-launch Di-Angels Return.

Now for those who don't Know Di-angel or for those who were fans Marci Diangelo was a HUGE deal back in the day. Like Joan Jett mixed with Lady gaga. The woman was the beginning of the punk rock scene, aggressively making out with both genders for paparazzi and generally being an absolute menace. Ace and Sabo of course say yes, (Sabo was inspired to start his own music career by her and Ace just thinks she's neat.)

Anyway the day comes where they are supposed to meet Her, Di- Angel, Marci and of course Sabo is kinda fanboying and Ace may or may not be very jealous cause come on, she was hot back in the day but she's in her 40s now. Instead of the busty blonde who once screamed into the microphone about flying away. They are met with a blonde man in a leather jacket.

"Uhm, excuse me?" Ace wants to be irritated but damn the guy is smokin hot. "We were supposed to be meeting Di-angel here."

The man blinks sleepy blue eyes, "yeah, I know."

Sabo bites his lip eye twitching, "You- Marci, we are meeting with Marci Diangelo, the singer."

The blonde man sticks a cig in his mouth, the corner quirking up. "Just said, I know. But you obviously are a bit behind the times." The man stands towering over both of them, "I go by Marco now, call me Marci again and I'll send you both through the door got it?"

Oh shit, fuck yeah, this is GOOD SHIT right here raccooon.

Ever since Pops suggested relaunching Di-Angel, Marco's been nothing but a roll of anxiety in human skin. While their family was fairly accepting, and the punk-rock community as a whole generaly was too, the larger scene is...well. Not quite the same. With most of the people of Marco's generation reacting across the entire spectrum from acceptance to hard rejection, Marco honestly didn't think it would be a good idea.

Yes, his voice and range dropped by a few octaves. Yes his old favorite dresses didn't fit the same any more (not that he wanted to put on most of them any more, just the shiny leather number but he had to get it tailored for the new dimension of his chest and hips). Yes, he's different now and that difference is something that he's gotten shit for from people he thought were friends and something that people he thought hated him were supportive of. It's been a roller coaster of strangeness and that was before Pops suggested relaunching his music career.

He left music because he knew the reactions would be. Mixed. once things got off the ground for his transition. Music never left him-Pops has multiple videos of him humming melodies and tapping beats from doctors' offices and one in a hospital bed-but the scene? He assumed the scene left him well behind.

Then Pops came to him with this insane idea and told him that these two young pups, rising stars and rough diamonds the both of them, were jumping and chomping at the bit. Marco didn't know what to think. He told Pops he'd reserve judgement until they met, but even then the hotcold churning in his stomach of anxiety was steadily eating his confidence of this whole thing working.

Then he meets them and despite the fact that neither of them knew who he was now, they were adorably eager just as Pops said. And, just as Pops said, they're talented if a bit raw. Unrefined, somehow. Both have a similar feel-rough voices in a slightly high medium range, but what really grabs Marco's attention is that they both actually play. Something that's fallen out of fashion in newer bands, that their lead vocalists know what to do with a guitar in hand, they both pick up an axe during the experimental jam session and they aren't too bad either. They know classic riffs and stings, whole lead lines from classic and punk rock staples.

Then something of a miracle happens. Ace picks up a bass and smacks out a fairly simple beat on 5, jumping octaves, and Sabo picks up Marco's old stage piece and. Oh.

That's the lead and bass of "I Feel Fine" and Marco's nothing if not a perfectionist for the classics. He grabs the mic they rigged up for his studio, coughs to clear his throat, and-

Ace does something to the bass beat, a lick or two to change things juuuuust a little and Sabo slips a few 16th and 32nd notes here and there, little twangs to change the key down a half step and suddenly its not The Beatles any more, it's something a little rougher, a little less refined, it's something from the back alleys of a queer bar that Marco used to dress butch for where he got called a good man for the first time. It's like being in love, if love were a dirty suckerpunch and a cigarette after-if love was two men who might not always be men-if love was a little less straight.

That ends up being the second song on the album a year later, a fucking Beatles cover that rockets them right to the top of the charts in multiple countries and forces Marco back into the spotlight no matter how much he tries pushing the younger stars forward and blames them for the majority of their sound. Three vocalists who trade off is definitely strange, especially since Marco is....well, not 'Marci' any more.

But it works, somehow Pops' insane idea doesn't explode in their faces, and if there's maybe a little charged something that happens in the limo ride home from their first awards show, something that's been building for months and months over heated eye contact and falling asleep on each other in the studio and appreciative whistling during the set and costume set-up of music videos, well.

That's their business and nobody else's. And if that charged something results in Ace stumbling down into Marco's kitchen in the middle of the night only to scream at Thatch who's in the tradition of making Marco breakfast after award shoes (started before Di-Angel and 'Marci' ever got big), who then screams right back at him which draws both Sabo and Marco down to see what the goddamn noise is about. Well.

That's also their business and nobody else's. (yes Thatch even you, get the fuck out of my kitchen, goddamn-yoi)

[mabsolgirl]

Headphone warning

Transcript below! :3

I made this a while ago, around when I first started making art of the Supernova AU AU. There have been some slight changes since then but I wanted to post this anyway since its been just sitting in my drafts and starting to get dusty. The changes aren't enough to alter anything in the audio in a major way anyway so neeeeh.

It's been a while since I did voice stuff so hopefully I don't sound terrible lol

Obligatory @linxprime ping cause au of their au

Watch me pull world lore outta my ass cause I still don't know what im doing

-------------------------------------------------------

In the ruins of a crashed and destroyed ship, you find a strange audio file labeled "Project Supernova". You made a copy of it and now you have the time to give it a listen...

--------------------

Transcript

Warning. The following video is the private property of [REDACTED]. Any outside or uncertified personnel caught viewing this video will be terminated by any means necessary. Viewer discretion is advised.

Log 1.

I am Dr. Jane Doe and I’ve recently been put in charge of “Project Supernova” after the old one quit. I decided to keep audio documentations of my findings and observations. I find it easier for me to document things by recording them by audio then writing it all out later.

Project Supernova is a study on the abilities of intelligent lifeforms, how they manifest, if different abilities can be manifested in specific situations, and researching the phenomena of Berserkers. Before I came in, an embryo was successfully fertilized and grown into a stable state. There were many failed attempts with this being the only one that has made it this far, living for roughly 12 years as of this recording. To be honest I question the decision to make a lifeform rather than study the cases of people who already have abilities, but the higher-ups wanted to do this rather than the simpler way.

Regardless it is planned to come out of the tube once it reaches 13 years, which is a couple months away. It should be stable enough by then. Until then we monitor it for any changes.

End log.

Log 2.

Right, so I forgot to mention info about the lifeform last log. My bad, heheh.

So, the lifeform is female and it was made with the DNA of multiple organisms with the two primary ones being Human Earthling and Cuixcus. I think I pronounced that right. Cuixcus was used for their adaptability and Human Earthlings to counteract the weaknesses of the former. It has bones, can withstand hotter temperatures, and while it doesn’t need to, it does breathe oxygen. The DNA from other organisms were used to help stabilize it so it doesn’t just die spontaneously. The genetics chosen specifically to see if heritage has an influence on what abilities would appear.

Now the real reason I am logging this. Earlier today it was monitored that specs of light were floating around the lifeform’s tube. They looked so… ethereal. It was like looking at a cluster of tiny stars. I should probably mention that the lifeform is in an unconscious state. It has been like this since its creation and this was the first time these lights were documented. They disappeared before we could study them. Maybe it dreamt them up? We’ll have to keep an eye on it.

End log.

Log 5.

Today it came out of the tube, emphasis on “it”. We weren't supposed to take it out for another week but I guess it had other plans. One second it was in the tube, the next the lights appeared again and it was out and fell face-first into the equipment. It teleported itself out.

Since it wasn’t connected to the machines anymore it woke up quickly after that. Of course we were all freaking out but it didn’t seem too bothered by us. We ran some tests and it was stable. It bruised its head but other than that it wasn’t significantly injured.

It’s a very curious one. It would grab and inspect what we had. We let it for the most part and it would hand us back what it had when it was done. Right now it’s in its own room that we had to quickly scramble to finish putting together. It’s a quiet little one. The team and I decided on the name “Nova” after the project. As per usual we’ll keep an eye on it.

End log.

Log 27.

A lot happened today. Today is the first day Nova went into her Berserker state. The first thing I noticed was that she was much calmer than I expected. I expected a rampaging beast like the other cases of Berzerkers but Nova would just… stare at us. We kept an eye on our monitors to watch to see what she does and then we watched her create light orbs; like the ones from one of my first logs but much bigger. This time we were able to scan them to see what exactly they were…

They’re stars. I am not joking, she was making literal stars, balls of collapsed burning gas, in her hands! From our observations they disappear when she loses focus but still incredible nonetheless! We later figured out the key piece to what her abilities are: a limited form of matter manipulation. She can teleport herself, and those she touches, by willing her own matter into another space and the stars are made by manipulating the matter of gas and dust to collapse in her hands. It is theorized she can manipulate any form of matter so long as physical contact is made.

After a while she went out of Berserker state and fell unconscious. We hooked her up to make sure she’s alright. Right now she’s comatose; we’re hoping she comes back alright.

End log.

Log 39.

Earlier today one of the higher-ups came in and told us that we were not needed on Project Supernova anymore and that in the coming days a new team would be coming in to take over the project. Of course we were outraged. We were consistently giving them good results! We did what we were told! We did nothing wrong, didn’t question a thing. Nothing we said could convince him otherwise. None of us wanted to leave the project. I’ll admit, Nova has grown on us. She’s like family and now for some reason she’s being taken from us. When he left we all decided to look into it ourselves.

The more we dug, the more things began to not add up. Then… we found something. We’re not here to do what we think we’re doing. We’re gonna get Nova out of here. This place is no longer safe. We’ll get her out and we’ll be the whistleblowers to this place.

End log.

Log 40

…I’m… I’m sorry…

Dr. Jane Doe, Dr. Bailey Shindo, Dr. Margoba Entano, Dr. Manbagea Nals, and Dr. Ripley Hedon have been terminated. Project Supernova assets will be transported to [REDACTED] for further completion by a new team effective immediately. End communication.

[dandylovesturtles]

12, 18, and 29 for the fic ask!

12. Do you have a playlist for your current WIPs?

not really...... I talked before about how the song dead girl in the pool by girl in red is kind of my song for IMBI but I don't have a whole playlist set up for it. It's not something I do very often (I'm boring sorry lol).

For Corrupted Upgrade I was initially toying with using lyrics from Viva Las Vengeance by Panic! At the Disco for the title. I ended up not doing that obviously but still

Hacking at my feed, act like you are me No one really cares (really cares) Nothing's really real, no one really feels Nothing to declare (to declare)

I don't wanna be anonymous But, I don't wanna be you In a city full of promises Nothing rings true

I think it fits lol

18. What’s one of your favorite lines you’ve written in a fic?

MMMM... this is cheating a little because it's not one line but this bit from Tapping Out:

“Yep, that thing,” says Leo, his voice far too cheery. “Don’t worry, Angelo, I’ll take care of it. Give us ten minutes.”

Donnie doesn’t want ten minutes. He wants ten years and then some. A moment of peace for every one stolen from him by the krang.

He picks up another wrench and flings it. There’s a crash as it knocks something over.

“Twenty minutes,” Leo amends, and then he’s opening the door.

29. Share a bit from a fic you’ll never post OR from a scene that was cut from an already posted fic.

I initially had a completely different fight scene written for the final confrontation in Corrupted Upgrade but I ended up cutting it and rewriting it from scratch because I didn't like it very much - I kept some of the dialogue but that's it. Here's a bit of it (under the cut):

Donnie had the audacity to pout, lowering just slightly on his robot arms. “Well you’re no fun.”

“I’m serious, Dee.” Leo straightened up, lowering his sword. This wasn’t working - it was time for a different approach. “No more tricks. You stick with your tech-bo and I won’t open any more portals. Mano a mano. How’s that sound?” 

“It sounds like you’re the one playing a trick-”

“Ninja honor here. I open a portal, you send the big robot after me.” He grinned, giving Donnie a one-armed shrug. “You have all the power here, Lord Othello von Ryan. What do you say?”

Donnie’s eyebrow quirked behind his visor, but after a moment’s contemplation he lowered himself to the ground, planting his feet and retracting the arms of his battleshell.

“Fine.” He smirked. “It’s been awhile since I’ve kicked your tail with just my tech-bo.”

“Uh, you have never beaten me, just for the record.” Leo grinned back, raising the odachi again. “And you won’t this time either.”

They quickly fell into a rhythm Leo was familiar with - Donnie with his quick, dancing hits and Leo with bigger, heavier strikes with his sword. With the bo, the goal was to use the opponent’s weight against them, and Leo, with his two-handed sword, had a lot of weight to throw around. He knew how to watch for that, though. 

His goal now, up close, wasn’t to win, anyway. It was to finally break through to his stupid brother so they could go home already.

“Okay, so like I was saying, we’re both hooked up to a machine that has us trapped in a virtual reality-”

“You’re still going on about that?” Donnie rolled his staff around his neck, and Leo just barely ducked the swipe. “You know I don’t believe you.”

“You have to believe me, because if you don’t then we’re going to be stuck here until we die of dehydration, or electrocution, or… bed sores or something!”

“Hah! As if the Purple Dragons could have programmed an actual functioning virtual reality without my help!”

“They probably stole some experimental code or something. If you’d just stop being so stubborn then you could look at it all you wanted!”

“I already know that it’s fake so what’s the point! Now!” He swung his bo at Leo’s chest, and he just barely managed to block. “Are you going to fight back or are you just going to dodge all day?”

“I don’t want to hurt you-”

“Hah! If this is a virtual reality then why would we even feel pain?”

“Because it’s a really mean virtual reality that’s hooked to our nervous system!”

“That would be highly experimental and incredibly dangerous!”

“I know that which is why I would really like to get out now- Gah!”

Donnie got in a hit on his arm, and it hurt; even with a normal bo staff it would have, but the titanium in his weapon was serious business.

Donnie took the opening to his advantage: he started to pummel Leo on both sides, and despite his best efforts to block he started getting smacked around. In the arms, in the legs, in the plastron. Donnie wasn’t letting up, and Leo realized that he was out for blood in a way he never had been during training.

He wasn’t listening. He was still trying to hurt him.

Thanks for the ask!

[runekeepershymnal]

Witcher season 3 thoughts (spoilers for all episodes of S3 below the cut

Maybe I'm projecting, but it just did not seem like Henry Cavill was having a good time this season. Like in previous seasons, even when Geralt was miserable, I got the vibe that Cavill was having the time of his life.

The bit when Yen says to Geralt "Promise me this won't be the last time I see you" broke my heart a bit. I think my favorite bit of the whole season, though, was Jaskier bringing the dryads to tears singing the song in Elder.

I haven't read that far in the books yet, and I haven't played the games, so I can't really comment on deviation from the books compared to the show.

I also don't think it's necessarily fair to call out a fantasy universe for anachronism, but I did find the Valdo Marx and the Marxists bits to be... tonally jarring? It just seemed extremely modern compared to the vibe of the show thus far. The biggest record-scratch moment there for me, however, was the Melange, where Yen and Geralt have a sudden tango in the middle of this other dance and it all flows just fine around them. I get that it was (probably?) intended to be representative of how they had their own mission while there were complex machinations all around them, but... enh?

I'm not sure, but I feel like they switched Yen's contacts, especially in the longer shots, and I wish they'd kept it more subtle. There were some Spirit of Halloween moments there, and Anya deserves better. I could be completely wrong, maybe it was a change in the lighting, but I remember them being this deep, rich, wine purple, and season three they were kinda lavender? I dunno.

I loved Jaskier as the big brother or uncle figure (or mommy and daddy's special friend, we don't know what goes on between scenes) who acts as intermediary between Ciri and Geralt. Compared to Geralt and Yen, Jaskier was Ciri's age much more recently, so it makes sense.

Tissaia dying ripped my heart out. I kind of expected her to turn herself into an eel to jumpstart Aretuza's power again, and I don't love the notion that, to pass on leadership to Yen, she had to die. But then, it may have just been her broken heart and the grief at the fallout from her being betrayed. Still, she was my favorite, and I have such an enormous crush on her, and when her hair went white, she was just incredibly hot in a different way. I will miss looking at her, listening to her beautiful voice, and watching her annihilate idiots with a sharp look.

I didn't mind Radovid and Jaskier, it was an interesting dynamic and I'm glad the show went there, especially since it seemed to show how much Jaskier has dispensed, by necessity, with some of the more shallow things that used to be incredibly important to him.

I really enjoyed Philippa and Dijkstra, how committed they are to one another, their shared and individual internal conflicts and desperation.

We may be cancelling Neflix in my household because of the most recent price hike, but I hope that the show continues to be good.

Anyway, unsolicited opinions and general musings conclude.

[tounderstandthesoul]

Chapter 17: Fear of unknown

It continues in the depths of the factory, the end of Chapter 3, and the end of your lifelessness, or rather the beginning.

After the events of the last chapter, DogDay and you go back to the group, but strangely disgusted looks are directed at you, because a part of your past, when you were alone, is brought back: how you hurt Kissy out of fear.

Despite all these obstacles in your way, you make progress, and there's even a little bit of acceptance from some of the critters.

But of course, nothing remains even remotely calm.

---

And here we go with another chapter of what I personally consider my most dream-driven story at the moment!

As mentioned before, we’re continuing right where we left after the last chapter, where things got a bit more intimate between DogDay and the reader. Honestly, it was about time.

But of course, the past shouldn’t be forgotten. In particular, I’m referring to the "I Don’t Want to Exist" chapter, as this one builds upon it in some ways.

Anyway, enjoy the read, and don’t forget to leave some support!

---

If you have ever thought about your life, it was never out of hope or longing for a better future.

It was always out of desperation.

Always with the question, why you? Out of hundreds, maybe thousands of children who were locked up in Playcare, why were you the one who had to endure all that?

The cold labs, the endless tests, the pain that didn't stop. The beeping of the machines, the voices of the scientists behind mirrored glass, the rustling of their notes as they recorded every detail of your suffering.

The screams - not just yours, but those of others, somewhere in the dark corners of the facility. Some fell silent at some point. Others did not.

Your only thought that somehow kept you alive was also the most absurd.

Life is a goddamn joke.

Eventually, everything will come to nothing.

You've known it for as long as you can remember. You were different. You were the mirror between life and death. The one who could see, touch and transform souls. That made you special. And yet that was exactly what made your life hell.

You, who could help. Who could save people, bring them hope - suffered under them more than anyone else.

They called you an angel. They called you a gift. But all you ever were to them was an experiment.

Living. Dying. Creating. Consuming.

Valueless. Meaningless. It's all pointless.

You, your family, your fantasies, your friends and your enemies.

They'll all die anyway.

It'll all be gone, one day.

This world is just a toy chest.

You can play with it while you can, but when the time comes, it's all over.

The chest is shut, and there's no reopening it.

You will live. You will die. And no one will remember you. Never.

But now?

Everything is different now.

Because now there's a reason why you keep going.

DogDay.

What exactly is it about her that stops you from just giving up?

Maybe her smile. The first time you saw her - there, locked up in the Playcare prison - you recognized it. It was the most beautiful, honest, warmest smile you'd ever seen. How could someone who was in such an environment still shine like that?

Or is it their appearance?

The greatness that elevates her above all others. The power she radiates with every movement, with every decision. She doesn't just walk - she strides. She leads. The way her ears twitch slightly when she speaks. The warmth she radiates, even in an environment that is cold and dead. Her soft fur, the smell that makes you feel safe.

Maybe it's their behavior.

Even down here, in the factory. Even with death around every corner. Even with all the blood on all the hands.

DogDay stays.

Her mere presence gives courage. She doesn't say much, but she doesn't have to. It's enough that she's there. That she looks at you when you get too lost in your thoughts again. That she puts her paw on your shoulder when you think you're losing everything again.

She doesn't see you like the others.

She doesn't see you as broken, not as a monster.

Not as an experiment.

She sees you as you.

But all this misses the point.

Because nothing really describes what it is for you.

Because nothing really describes what happened earlier.

Every kiss, every touch, every look from her has been burned into your mind, and no matter how hard you try to focus on the road, you can't.

Your body still feels hot, your knees are weak, and your heart is beating far too fast, as if it were still there - in that tiny space, trapped between her and the wall, between her warmth, her grip, her voice.

DogDay walks beside you, her big paw clasped tightly around your hand as if she doesn't want to let you go. The walk through Playcare is silent, only the echo of your footsteps echoes across the cold grass, but you can't enjoy it, can't even really notice it, because your head is catapulting back again and again.

The way she looked at you after kissing you almost unconscious.

The way her teeth had touched your skin, not gently, not carefully, but demanding, as if she was afraid of losing you again.

The way her voice echoes in your head, deep, rough, possessive.

"Let's find somewhere more secluded."

You swallow hard and lower your eyes. DogDay's hand still holds yours tightly, almost as if she knows what's going on in your head. She doesn't say anything, just continues to drag you through Playcare, past all the places that were once your hell - and now barely feel real.

You wonder if she feels it too.

Whether her heart is pounding like yours.

Whether her thoughts were as lost in the moment as yours.

"You're very quiet," she says suddenly, her voice soft but with a hint of concern.

You blink and exhale slowly. "I..." You don't know what to say. Do you want to tell her? That you can still feel her lips pressed against yours? That your skin is still tingling in the places she touched? That you don't know how to deal with these new feelings?

"I'm just thinking," you mumble instead.

"About earlier?"

You hold your breath.

She knows. Of course she knows.

You nod slightly, but don't dare look at her.

"Me too," she then admits.

You lift your head. DogDay looks straight ahead, her expression calm, but there's something in her eyes - something deeper, something you can't quite read.

"It's weird, isn't it?" She squeezes your hand lightly. "That we found each other like this. That you're... here."

Your heart beats faster.

"I don't know if it's fate or just a stupid coincidence," she continues, "but I know I won't want to go back if you don't come with me."

You freeze.

"DogDay..."

She stops, turns to you and looks directly at you. Her hand is still in yours, her warmth envelops you like a second skin.

"I'm serious," she says. "If we can find a way to get back to my world - I don't want to go there without you. I can't."

Your breath catches.

You never thought about the possibility.

Playcare was everything you ever knew. The factory was your prison, your home, your world. And now there is someone standing in front of you, someone who looks at you as if you were not just a broken experiment, not just an empty shell, but a human being.

Someone who wants to take you with them.

"I..." You can't find the words.

DogDay leans forward a little so that her forehead lightly touches yours.

"Think about it," she whispers.

Her gaze is warm, full of patience, full of hope.

And for the first time in your life, you believe that maybe there is a place where you belong after all.

Not Playcare.

Not the laboratories.

Not as an experiment.

But simply with her.

Slowly, she pulls you with her again. Your hand remains firmly in hers as you approach the Hatch Room. But there is only one question in your mind now:

Can someone like me really belong anywhere?

The question burns in your head, echoing in every corner of your mind as you walk with DogDay through the metal corridors of the abandoned factory.

Her hand holds yours tightly, as if her grip could save you from the thoughts that are lodged in your head. Your walk back to the Hatch Room feels endless, any silence between you is louder than a thousand words, and yet DogDay says nothing more.

It gives you space to think. To breathe. To process.

But all this becomes meaningless when you enter the room.

It immediately feels... wrong.

The atmosphere is different. Colder. More tense.

The group is fully assembled - Bubba, Hoppy, Kickin, Bobby, Crafty, the two versions of CatNap, Picky - but now they are no longer alone.

Poppy stands with her arms crossed, her red curls slightly disheveled, her face tense. Sophie is leaning against the wall with a serious expression on her face, her eyes fixed on DogDay.

And then there's Kissy.

They all stand close together as if they were forming a front against you. An unmistakable distance separates them from you and DogDay, as if an invisible line had been drawn through the room, a boundary that you must not cross.

DogDay senses it immediately.

She notices it long before you do, long before your heartbeat speeds up, before your chest feels tighter, before your fingers start to tremble. Her shoulders tense, her ears twitch slightly.

"What's going on here?" she asks calmly, but her voice has a sharp undertone.

"Ya' Know what?" Kickin laughs mockingly, leaning relaxed against a crate and crossing his arms. "We were just talking about how you and your little shadow here seem to think you can just pretend nothing happened."

"Nothing happened?" DogDay's voice is even harsher now. Her tail twitches slightly, a clear warning. "What are you talking about?"

Hoppy snorts. "Oh, come on. Don't pretend you don't know. Look at him."

DogDay turns slightly towards you, as if looking for an answer, but you can't even raise your eyes.

Something inside you creeps up.

A feeling that you can't quite grasp, that tears you apart inside as your body switches to autopilot. Your gaze flickers across the room, past the critters, past Sophie, past Poppy, and then it lingers on her.

Kissy.

A stab in the stomach.

Your breath catches.

Your head goes blank, then loud again, a deafening roar in your ears as your pupils dilate.

Memories hit you with the force of a storm.

Kickin's blows. The pain. The blood. Your shivering body on the cold Playcare floor.

And then Kissy. Your hand that moves and reshapes itself.

Your gaze twitches to her stomach. Where you hit her. Where you left the wound. The wound you caused.

Suddenly you feel ill.

Your body contracts, your legs feel like they can barely hold you up, and everything inside you is screaming that you have to get out of here. That you have to run away. That you can't be here.

"What went wrong with you?"

Poppy's voice cuts through the air like a knife. She looks at you - angry, disappointed, maybe even disgusted.

You want to answer, you want to say that you don't know, that you can't explain it to yourself, that you're wondering what the hell is wrong with you - but the words get stuck in your throat.

You can't speak.

Your chest rises and falls far too quickly, your hands shake, and then you feel a movement next to you.

DogDay.

Her figure shifts slightly in front of you, not much, but enough to partially obscure you from the view of the others.

"What is this about?" Her voice is now icy cold, her eyes sharp as blades.

No one speaks right away until Bubba lets out a soft sigh. "DogDay, you know as well as we all do that Y/N hurt Kissy."

"Injured?" DogDay blinks, then her gaze wanders to Kissy. She pauses for a split second.

She sees the wound.

The dried blood around the bandage. The way Kissy holds her arms lightly wrapped around herself, as if protecting herself.

DogDay squints his eyes. "He would never have done that without a reason."

This brings movement into the group.

"Oh, of course not!" Kickin almost spits out the words, his eyes full of disgust. "I'm sure your little lab freak had a wonderful reason to rip someone's fucking guts out!"

DogDay takes a step forward, her tail flicks violently through the air, her muscles tense.

"Say that again, Kickin."

The air crackles with tension, but then Hoppy intervenes.

"Can't you see how much you've changed since we've been here?"

DogDay doesn't even flinch. "What do you mean?"

"This is no longer the DogDay we knew." Hoppy's voice is quieter now, more serious. "Before, you would have been the first to defend us. Now you only defend him."

"Maybe..." Bobby casts a quick glance back and forth between you before turning to DogDay. "Maybe it's just because you like him?"

Silence.

She said it.

Your body tenses, your head turns towards DogDay, but she doesn't react immediately.

If she had denied it in front of everyone, it would have been over. She would have defused the situation. She would have regained control.

But she says nothing.

And now everyone knows.

You can feel your body moving of its own accord, ducking slightly behind DogDay, hiding because you can't stand the stares.

"See?" Kickin laughs coldly. "So I was right when I beat him up that time."

And then Bubba explodes.

"STOP IT!"

His voice thunders through the room, silencing everyone for a moment.

Sophie steps forward, her arms crossed, her gaze hard. "Enough drama. If you want a solution, then let Y/N explain what happened. If you want to condemn him, at least give him a damn chance to defend himself."

Bubba nods. "I want to stand up for him - but I need to know the whole picture."

All eyes are on you. On your trembling hands. On your irregular breathing. On your face. You want to say something.

You want to say something.

But your body feels like it's going to collapse under the weight at any moment. Your heart is hammering against your chest, so loud that you think everyone in the room should be able to hear it. Your throat is dry, as if constricted, and when you open your mouth, no sound comes out.

DogDay's hand lies warmly on your back, stroking slowly up and down, soothing, grounding. But it's not enough. Not when you're being watched by all these eyes. Not when you know that they expect answers while you barely understand what to say yourself.

"I..." Your voice breaks immediately. A tremor runs through your body, your fingers clawing into the fabric of your own sleeves as if you could hold on to them. "I don't know..." You struggle for breath, blinking hard, trying to find the words that won't make you choke. "I don't know what's wrong with me."

Silence.

It's not the kind of silence you're used to. Not the kind that consists of ignorance, not the kind that blanks you out as if you were nothing. It's the kind that waits. The kind that almost forces you to keep talking.

You inhale deeply and exhale slowly.

"The experiments..." you begin, your own voice sounding foreign to your ears. "You... you don't know what they did down there. You don't know what they did to us."

A tingling sensation runs over your skin, like hundreds of needles, while the memories push themselves into your head, inexorably, cruelly.

"They... they didn't just test us. They didn't just... examine us." Your fingers claw harder into the fabric of your clothes, your shoulders tighten. "They were... using us."

DogDay's hand presses a little harder against your back.

You are not alone.

You are no longer alone.

"Sometimes... sometimes it wasn't just that." Your breath catches, your throat constricts, and you force yourself to continue, even though your voice is now just a hoarse whisper. "Sometimes... they enjoyed it."

The words burn on your tongue.

Nobody says anything.

You hear Bubba slowly closing his notepad. You see Sophie biting her lip. How Poppy lowers her eyes. Bobby tugging restlessly at her fur with his fingers.

DogDay's hand stays on your back.

Warm.

There.

"I didn't know..." You swallow. "I didn't know what was right or wrong. They told me I was an angel, something special. But then when they looked at me... I didn't feel that way."

Hoppy's ears drop slightly. Kickin is silent, his gaze difficult to interpret.

Your voice trembles, but you keep talking.

"And when I freed you...I don't know why I did it. I just knew that I could. That maybe... it was the right thing to do."

"I'm not the only experiment that was there." It's the deep, mechanical voice of CatNap - the other CatNap. The one you freed from the old, god-worshipping shell.

The group flinches slightly as his voice echoes through the room.

"He was the favorite subject," he says simply.

A shiver runs down your spine.

"What?" Poppy looks at him with wide eyes.

CatNap - or what used to be CatNap - nods. "The most valuable project in the entire plant. I've seen it for myself."

"What... what exactly do you mean?" Bubba speaks carefully, his gaze wandering back and forth between the two of you.

"I mean he's been through more than any experiment down there." CatNap's gaze shifts directly to you, his new, feline eyes sparkling expressionlessly. "More than me. More than the others."

You close your eyes for a moment.

You don't want to hear someone put your past into words.

But it happens anyway.

"I saw how they cut him open, without anesthesia. I saw how they pushed him into cold water for hours to see if he would adjust his body. I saw how they made him doubt himself, broke him until he no longer knew what was real and what wasn't."

A gag reflex rises up inside you.

Images flicker through your head.

The laboratories. The cold metal. The hands on your skin. The voices that said the same thing over and over again.

"You are an angel. A gift. You are ours."

DogDay's hand slowly strokes your back.

Gentle.

You are here. Not there. Here.

Your breathing is irregular, your chest rises and falls too quickly, but you keep talking because you have to.

"I... I don't understand a lot of things." Your voice is brittle. "I don't know what's real and what's not. I don't know if this is all... a dream. Sometimes it feels like it is."

A tremor runs through your shoulders.

"And after what Kickin did... after what he said... I..."

Your gaze flickers briefly to Kickin, but you can't look at him for long.

"I wasn't... I wasn't in a good state."

Your gaze wanders to Kissy.

"I was scared."

She looks at you, her hands wrapped around her injured stomach.

"CatNap was gone. The only thing I had, the only person who was... with me, had simply disappeared. And then there was someone in the darkness. Someone... someone was moving towards me, and I thought it was that CatNap. Or worse."

A lump forms in your throat.

"I put up a fight."

You can't see what Kissy is thinking.

"It was a reflex." Your voice is barely audible. "I... I didn't know... I didn't mean to..."

A quiet trembling in your chest that you can't suppress.

"I'm sorry."

Silence again.

But this time it's different.

Bubba is the first to break it. "I believe you." His voice is calm, thoughtful. "You're not a monster. And I think we've all seen enough here to understand that."

Kissy just looks at you.

Sophie nods slowly. Poppy looks as if she wants to say something, but keeps her mouth shut.

Hoppy and Kickin say nothing.

DogDay draws you a little closer to herself.

And for the first time in a long time, you have the feeling that maybe you do belong somewhere.

It's not that everyone understands you immediately or that the looks from Kickin and Hoppy no longer sting, but there's something now that wasn't there before.

Acceptance.

A spark of understanding, however small it may be. The world around you feels a little less cold, and DogDay's hand on your back stays there as if it were a barrier between you and everything else.

But the calm doesn't last long.

"So, what do we do now?" Bubba breaks the silence with his calm but firm voice. He leans against one of the metal walls of the Hatch Room, his notepad open on his lap. The question hovers in the air for a moment before Poppy raises her eyes.

"We're going deeper," she finally says, her gaze serious. "To the Safe Haven."

A slight feeling of unease spreads through the group. Safe Haven - the deepest part of the factory. A place where no one knew what exactly was lurking there. A place where perhaps the last hope or the final downfall awaited them.

"And what exactly awaits us down there?" Sophie crosses her arms, her gaze remains fixed on Poppy.

"I have someone there," says Poppy. "Another experiment. Doey. He knows the prototype better than anyone. He can help us finish it once and for all."

"Doey?" Bubba writes the name down. "Never heard it before."

"I'm not surprised." Poppy shakes her head. "Your world was all rainbows and sugarcoats too. Doey the Doughman is an experiment that can help us, that's all that matters."

The words hang heavy in the air. It's not just the thought of the prototype that makes each and every one of them uneasy - it's the fact that they have to go further and further down. Deeper into the heart of this cursed factory, deeper into the darkness from which no one knew if there was a way back.

As you stand, still half hidden behind DogDay, you notice Sophie glance quickly in your direction. She seems to think for a moment before quietly addressing DogDay.

"Can I talk to you for a minute?"

DogDay looks at you, hesitates, then nods and takes a step to the side.

It feels strange to stand there without her close by, but you don't say anything.

Sophie keeps her voice muffled, but you are too far away to hear the words clearly. But DogDay's expression slowly changes. Her gaze becomes more serious, her ears slightly tilted back as Sophie speaks.

"The Hour of Joy."

The words make DogDay freeze slightly.

"You know about this, don't you?" Sophie looks at her insistently.

DogDay nods slowly. Of course she did. Back then, in their world, when they had watched that tape and then ended up locked in this world. She can remember the screams of the others when the tape was playing.

"I know it's a lot to ask," Sophie pauses for a moment before looking at DogDay more firmly, "but I need to know what he did back then."

DogDay's eyes narrow slightly.

"You want me to ask him."

Sophie nods. "Not right now. At some point. Immediately. Obviously. I know he's suffered. I know he's not a monster. But the Hour of Joy was..." She pauses for a moment. "It was a massacre, DogDay. And we need to be sure we understand him."

DogDay is silent for a moment. Her gaze wanders to you again, like a silent scrutiny, as if she sees you with different eyes for a split second.

But then she narrows her eyes slightly.

"He's not dangerous," she says quietly but firmly.

"Then it shouldn't be a problem if you ask him at some point."

DogDay says nothing, but her tail flicks lightly through the air before Sophie slowly backs away.

Meanwhile, you feel another presence next to you, and as you look around, you notice Bubba looking at you with his usual calm expression.

"Everything all right?" he finally asks.

You wince slightly. "I-I... Yes."

He raises an eyebrow.

"You can tell me a lot, but I'm not buying it."

A faint smile flits across his face, but you can see that his curiosity is genuine.

"You know..." He closes his notepad with a light clack. "I like to observe people. Not the way CatNap does - but because I want to understand things. And you're..." He searches for the right words. "You're a riddle."

A riddle.

Once again you feel as if you are nothing more than an object, a study, a case that someone wants to take apart in order to understand it.

"I don't mean any offense," Bubba adds quickly when he sees the look on your face. "I mean... you have abilities that seem to have no limits. We saw what you did to CatNap. I wonder... Is there anything at all you can't do?"

You open your mouth, then close it again.

Because you don't know.

Every time you use your soul, every time you shape yourself, something about you changes. You could perhaps do anything. But at what cost?

Bubba watches you for a moment, then nods slowly.

"I thought so."

"What?"

"You are our strongest member." He says it so calmly, as if it were a simple fact. "Maybe even our only hope. Your ability is limitless, and I know you don't even realize it yourself."

Your body tenses up.

"But do you know what I really think?" Bubba looks at you with an expression that is difficult to interpret.

"You're the one who least believes he's still alive."

His words hit you deeper than you want to admit.

"I've seen the way you move. The way you look at us. The way you speak, if you speak at all." He leans forward slightly. "I don't think you're even sure if you're really experiencing this. Or if you're just... Waiting for it to end."

Something in your chest tightens.

He is right.

And you don't know what to say in response.

Bubba's words echo in your head, heavy as lead, as you search for something to say-but there is nothing. No simple "no", no naïve lie that could fool him. He has you figured out, the way he seems to analyze everything.

But he doesn't seem to judge you, just observe you, as if he were looking at you as a book that he reads slowly, page by page, without pressure, but with unstoppable curiosity.

Then he leans back a little, a slight, almost playful smile on his lips. "By the way, I haven't really introduced myself yet, have I?" He raises one hand slightly and points at himself with his thumb. "Bubba Bubbaphant. Probably the only one here who doesn't jump out at you or see you as a potential threat."

You blink, surprised at the sudden looseness in his voice. Your body still feels heavy, but you try to let go of some of the tension.

"Y-Y/N..." you mumble, as if you were introducing yourself for the first time.

"Yeah, I already know that." Bubba grins slightly and scrutinizes you again before his eyes wander briefly over your shoulders. "Oh, and by the way-your wings are gone."

Your eyes twitch open. "What?"

You slowly move your arms, then your shoulders, and for a moment your body is completely still. No more weight. No slight tugging at your back. You turn your head and see that Bubba is right-the wings that had grown from your own flesh earlier are gone, as if they had never been there.

He clicks his tongue, seemingly unimpressed. "Huh. I guess that was just a temporary transformation, too. Interesting." Then he leans back with his arms crossed.

"This will be an interesting collaboration."

As you slowly regain your composure, the conversation in the group turns to something completely different.

"I really can't wait to get back home." Kickin's voice breaks through the tension like a wave breaking over a still ocean too long. He grins and leans back on his own knees. "Chilling on the beach, surfing, maybe with an ice-cold smoothie in my hand."

"Smoothie?" Hoppy laughs briefly and playfully bumps his arm. "You're so boring. When I get back home, the first thing I want to do is run all over the Valley until I can't do it anymore!"

"Oh, that sounds great!" Picky claps her hands happily. "I want to get something really good to eat right away! Probably a huge stack of pancakes or-oh, or a whole cake just for me!"

"I just want to sleep." Crafty raises an eyebrow briefly and sighs. "My bed... my real bed."

"You really are all the same." Poppy joins in, her arms crossed loosely as she taps her foot lightly on the floor. Her eyes wander thoughtfully around the group while a strange smile plays around her lips. "You guys remind me of the Smiling Critters that used to be here."

The group pauses for a moment, the conversation dies down slightly.

"Wait a minute...?" Kickin looks at her sharply. "Are you telling us that our doppelgangers are just like us?"

"Were." Poppy quickly corrects him and shrugs her shoulders. "And that's all I'm going to say about that."

"Poppy!" Bobby immediately sulks and scoots a little closer to her on his knees. "Come on, you can't just throw us a lump like that and then-"

"No." Poppy shakes her head. "You don't want to know."

The silence that follows is almost frustrating. The group looks at each other, some looking as if they want to press Poppy further, but then she suddenly raises a hand slightly and looks ahead.

"Forget it for now. Take a look at this."

The group's eyes follow her gaze and linger on you and Bubba.

"There we have it," she murmurs, almost amused. "Our strongest weapon."

"Weapon?" DogDay raises an eyebrow slightly, but it's Hoppy who responds to Poppy first. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"It means exactly what I said." Poppy doesn't even look at them, her gaze stays on you. "If the prototype wants something, it's probably him."

"And why exactly?" Sophie steps closer to her.

Poppy takes a deep breath, as if she's struggling with whether she should really say that. Then she slowly raises a hand and points vaguely in your direction.

"Because he doesn't just have the most important ability." Her voice is quiet, almost resigned. "But also the simplest will to break."

The words hit her like a cold punch in the stomach.

"That's-" DogDay opens her mouth, but Poppy quickly raises her hand.

"Don't say anything now." She looks at her, more serious than before. "You know I'm right."

DogDay presses her lips together, her tail beats lightly against the ground.

"What's that supposed to mean?" Kickin crosses his arms. "He doesn't exactly look like he'd be easy to break. He's fought his way through so far."

Poppy shrugs her shoulders. "This is something else. The prototype isn't interested in ordinary people. He's interested in control."

The group falls silent as a darker mood spreads through the room.

"And what if we don't let him have it?" Bobby breaks the silence. "What if we all just stay together, protect him?"

Poppy hesitates. Then she says something that sends a chill down everyone's spine.

"It's not that easy." She looks directly at you. "The experiments down here... they're not just monsters. They're more than that. Their hunger... is not like ours."

A slight feeling of unease spreads.

"They eat human flesh to satisfy their hunger."

Silence.

The words slowly seep into the heads of everyone present.

"What?!" Kickin's eyes widen, his entire demeanor changing. He doesn't seem to have understood before. "Say that again?!"

"You heard right." Poppy sighs and looks to you again. "And if the prototype wants to take someone... he'd take him."

"Why him?!" Hoppy shakes her head as if she doesn't even want to accept the possibility.

Poppy looks directly at you, even though you're too engrossed in the conversation with Bubba.

"Because his body is regenerating."

The thought slowly seeps into the group, heavy, frightening.

Poppy takes a deep breath, her eyes full of shadows.

"He would be the perfect catch."

Silence, again.

No one says anything, no one dares to move. Poppy's words hang heavy in the room, like a gaping wound that none of them ever wanted to see. Your stomach tightens, your head feels heavy.

You knew you were a target long ago, but hearing it out loud - so directly, so definitively - plunges you into a cold reality from which there is no awakening.

But then Bubba interrupts the silence by being the first to get moving.

"Then let's make sure we don't make this catch so easy for him." His voice is calm, analytical, but you recognize the underlying seriousness in it.

Slowly, the others follow his example. A few deep breaths, a few nervous glances, then everyone moves towards the Hatch - the last way out into deeper, even more unknown areas of the factory. You can feel the metal beneath your steps, cold and inert. It feels like a path of no return.

Poppy stays at the side, watching as everyone sorts themselves out. "It's getting more serious now. Worse than anything we've seen so far." Her words are not loud, but their gravity is unmistakable. Her gaze shifts to CatNap - the reshaped, almost humanoid. He avoids looking at her.

DogDay pulls you a little closer to him as the group gathers. "No matter what happens, we'll stay together. We have a good team now - we have you." She looks at you briefly, and you can't tell if those words reassure you or put you under even more pressure.

Sophie nods in agreement and crosses her arms. "We don't just have one advantage, we have several. Bubba can analyze, Poppy knows most of the traps, and CatNap..." She pauses briefly and looks at the remodeled experiment. "Well... he knows the factory in a way we don't. Either way, we have people here who know what we're getting into."

The conversation continues, a kind of uneasy talk designed to mask the anxiety. Bobby throws in a few casual remarks, Picky mechanically chews on something, and even Kickin acts a little more relaxed - until he looks at you and his face hardens. But before any further conflict can arise, everything is interrupted by a single noise.

A scream.

From above.

Kissy.

Your body freezes. It's a sharp, desperate scream, one that goes through your very bones. Everyone turns reflexively, their eyes fixed on the Hatch above them.

Poppy jerks her head up as if someone has just plunged a knife into her back. "What's she doing?"

Kissy should stop at the lever - she should let you down. But then you hear it. Something else. A second sound, not a scream, but... a noise. A deep, rasping growl, an echo from the darkness.

Not them.

Something else is up there.

Poppy starts to run. "No, no, no, NO!"

But then the Hatch begins to close over you.

"KISSY!" Poppy bangs her fists against the metal walls, pressing all sorts of buttons on the panel next to her. "We're coming! HALT THROUGH! Come on, come on, go faster!"

The platform begins to sink, but far too slowly. Much. Too. Slowly.

The screams do not stop.

And then - suddenly - a final sound, a mixture of a stifled gasp and a sickening, brutal crack.

The Hatch closes completely.

Black.

Everything is quiet.

No one says anything for a few seconds. It's as if time itself has stopped. Only the quiet, monotonous hum of the elevator can still be heard as you sink deeper into the factory.

Poppy stands there, her hands still on the buttons, her fingers trembling slightly. No one speaks. No one even dares to breathe. The air has suddenly become thicker, heavier.

And then it comes to you.

This feeling.

This inescapable, cold reality that cuts deep into your flesh.

He was up there.

The prototype.

He got her.

DogDay's grip on your hand gets stronger.

Hoppy shakes her head slowly, her ears twitching slightly as if she refuses to believe it.

Kickin stares at the floor.

Bobby puts a hand over her mouth as if to hold back the vomit.

Nobody says it out loud, but everyone knows it.

She's gone.

Poppy closes her eyes slowly, takes a deep breath - a single, long breath. Then she turns around, her hands clenched into fists.

Sophie is the first to speak. Her voice is flat, emotionless, a dull echo of the situation.

"We have to keep going."

It is clear at this moment:

This is the beginning of the end.

---

I don’t have much to say, except that things are about to get really bad from here on out.

(Spoiler alert!) The Prototype will definitely make an appearance in the next two chapters, and let’s just say the reader is in for some serious pain.

But there’s a twist—a previously minor character will step in to help. Let’s just hope the damage is only physical… (Spoiler: It’s not. Sorry, but I have to keep making the reader suffer.)