#He’s like a son to me guys <—— terminally online

[gallonwghost]

he’s here guys!!

Cinco is a npc that stumbles soon the elevator in the apartment has leak or a safe version of the the level. They mistaken the regretevator for the normal one and only left to buy more midnight snacks, which makes him half asleep the whole time he’s on the elevator.

they’re a failed clone of a scientist like him but got mutated midway. They swiftly escaped them and found an apartment to live in and try to have a normal life in. They’re transmasc using he/him but doesn’t mind they/them. This is dumb but since they’re a failed clone, they’re able to change their fur color to match surroundings. (Fun fact, but he was inspired by a emoji cat I made back in 2023 when the fandom was still active on YouTube)

They’ll usually drop off on the level they spawned at after the get out of the elevator when a shop appears, or that get a snack at 3am level. Speaking of that level, when his present in the elevator, he’ll distract the cashier the whole level so you’re able to steal the snacks without getting caught in the game. When they get back in the elevator, they’ll carry a bag of chips or a box of cookies with them until they reach the apartment floor again. (Like how prototype holds scag)

Also they kinda only brought 20 bucks with them for the snacks sooo lmao

[giantchasm]

The other night I was thinking about whether or not Penny should qualify as an evil team leader (the answer was “objectively, no, seeing as how she and Team Star don’t do anything even remotely immoral, but I’m counting her as one anyways because we deserve our first terminally online transgender teenager evil team leader”) and it made me come up with a really funny AU.

AU where Team Rainbow Rocket touches down in Paldea and when the Paldean government catches wind of it they decide to send Penny, “infamous leader of Team Star” to infiltrate their ranks and figure out what it is they’re planning.

She, of course, would be pretending Team Star is muuuch eviler than it actually is in reality. And to her shock (if only for the comedy of the AU), Rainbow Rocket would fall for it. Something-something Giovanni knows better than to underestimate children after almost having his ass whooped by a ten year old.

Initially, Penny would only be doing this because she still owes Geeta a favor for “stealing an incomprehensible amount of money,” but as she got deeper into it she’d realize she’s actually having a blast trolling these old men.

Though, since it’s my AU and I make the rules, she’d be infiltrating an expanded version of Rainbow Rocket. Perhaps they’ve gotten new recruits since USUM. The team would of course have the original core members: Giovanni, the inter-dimensional crime boss, Archie, who flooded the world, Maxie, who created an apocalyptic drought, Cyrus, who recreated the world in his image, and Ghetsis, who killed N and then used his dragon to rule over Unova with an iron fist, but it would also have some extras.

(EDIT: DID I SERIOUSLY FORGET LYSANDRE? HE’S THERE TOO)

These extras would be a successful version of Archer: Giovanni’s right hand man, a version of Colress from a world where Ghetsis successfully destroyed Unova with Kyurem but was then killed by it, leaving him in charge in his place, a Lusamine who flooded the world with ultra beasts and is high on neurotoxins at all time, a Guzma who… idk, strongarmed his way into becoming a tyrannical Kahuna?, a regretful Rose from a world where Eternatus destroyed Galar, and Volo, who also managed to kill God a la Cyrus and rewrite his version of reality.

I also think it would be funny if Marnie were there and ALSO a spy. I know Piers is probably more of a leader to Team Yell than she is but I don’t like him so she gets the honor. Maybe she and Penny don’t even know the other is also an infiltrator at first and are both like “…they have an ACTUALLY evil sixteen year old here? god damn”

Cue she and Penny getting caught up in chaos and evil schemes. But mostly chaos. Most of these fumbling idiots just remind Marnie of her well meaning but stupid fans back home. Penny shows these mob bosses anime because she’s upset they haven’t seen Evangelion. Someone has to show Volo how to use the computer. Giovanni asks Marnie and Penny for tips on connecting with his teenage son who, and I quote, “thinks he’s cringe.”

…Penny is starting to wonder if maybe these guys aren’t as big of a threat as they and the government seem to think they are.

[muninnhuginn]

Post s2e9 confirmations and speculations as of this ep, starting with confirmations and moving on to thoughts/speculations.

Before I start, just going to link my speculations as of a couple of episodes ago here because they're surprisingly either still relevant or have been confirmed either way. Of these, the main pieces still outstanding are Liu Min's phone and the serial murders.

Fountain boy low-key confirmed to be Liu Min's younger brother (Liu Xiao, apparently?). He knew Tianchen would soon be given the opportunity to "hunt" and lo, there is Liu Min (who even vaguely recognised Tianchen which makes sense if he's an acquaintance of his brother's). His own surname is Liu and obviously that's a pretty common name, but the fact he had someone driving him around means he's pretty rich and, well, son of a games company CEO seems pretty rich indeed. Apply law of conservation of detail and this one is now locked in at 95%. Fountain boy = Liu Xiao = "hunter" = hat guy (the last I'm a bit less certain of, but again, conservation of detail and there aren't many episodes left).

I'd been wondering about the weird focus the neighbour got in terms of his gaming so him being someone Liu Min wanted taken care of made that entire side of things click for me. Liu Min was terminally online and so was the neighbour. Tianchen must've thought it karma that he had this opportunity.

Third story: Tianchen as red eyes, going further and further as Tianxi is forced to watch until he goes too far even for her - at which point she broke free and tried to appeal to Lu Guang (but why him?). (All that said, Tianchen claims he killed both their parents, but we didn't actually see it properly in any of the flashbacks which could just be because they're being careful with the censors but I'm still side-eyeing it until we see exactly what happened. After all, there was no knife in the picture when we left the scene.) Tianxi's story I'm presuming is simply an animated version of what Tianxi is showing Qiao Ling to tell her story.

Speaking of, Tianxi "broke free" in her school uniform and that was also how she was found. Does that place the hoodie scenes in the hospital as before she fled? Because rewatching a bit of ep 4 and it seemed that QJ was talking to Tianchen-as-Tianxi then (could be wrong, 'Tianxi' never spoke that we heard in this scene but it being actual Tianxi rather than Tianchen raises so many more questions) which would imply she was missing after the hospital and that's when they implemented the disguising plan. Thinking about the "sorry" scenes in the third story and wondering if Chen Bin was the final straw for Tianxi.

First/second story: The Romeo and Juliet backstage they're at was indeed as I saw a few people speculating a production featuring Qian Jin's wife and her co-star. Tianchen "I killed them both" @ Qian Jin: wow he just like me fr. (But nah this definitely raises more questions about the murder of his wife). (Also, just to note that I'm putting the different perspective of QJ meeting LTX and LTC down to the unreliable nature of Xiao Li relaying info initially rather than alternate timelines. Can't rule it out, of course (and the blood on Tianxi in only one of the tellings has me even more hesitant), but unreliable narrator seems an easier fit at this stage. We also know QJ doctored the case files and if LTC outright told him "I killed them both" then that sure didn't make it to the files.)

Qian Jin's motives now back up in the air. Initially it seemed as though he wanted the powers so he could bring his wife back, but with the revelation that he had reason to believe she was cheating (and pregnant with the person she was cheating on him with) the idea he would want her back seems... a lot less likely. Also, his break from morals is placed a lot earlier than it seemed from the outside. Those in the police thought he was outstanding etc etc until his wife died, but he was gone long before that. Ultimately, in both cases with alleged cheating it doesn't matter if the person themselves was cheating because they didn't deserve to be killed for it, but it is fascinating that we're presented with these two similar scenarios from two entirely different perspectives. Li Tianchen and Tianxi as victims of domestic abuse by the person who believes they're being cheated on whilst Qian Jin is the role of the husband who believes he's being cheated on. (The way the pregnancy reveal is played - QJ not seeing his wife often because he was always at work, her startling when caught on the phone - it does seem like he takes the pregnancy as confirmation that she was cheating as the pregnancy couldn't have been with him. She's already dead at that point though.)

With the current timeline we have, I don't know whether QJ engineered the initial killing of his wife (and the fact the culprit escaped legal justice actually kinda makes me think that he didn't), but I do think he used Tianchen after the fact to set up the suicide and suicide note of the killer

The serial killings. We originally believed there were eight in total, starting with Emma. However, this episode shifts the timeline somewhat. Liu Min says thank you for dealing with "that woman", but he still seems to have use of his legs so presumably "that woman" isn't Emma and this is taking place beforehand. Which would imply there are a number of extra victims the police haven't uncovered. (The alternative is that this flashback was in a timeline before the Emma stuff went so wrong and Liu Min still had use of his legs? I'm really hoping it's not this because it'd break my brain a bit) This also somewhat explains how the police were unable to tie motives together for the serial killings if it was a killing-for-hire type scenario, though I do still somewhat believe there's some underlying logic that QJ either bought into himself or was able to make Tianchen buy into in order to believe the victims weren't "innocent"

[just-alish]

MR14.2024 - How I revived the way I see English and Why I suck at life.

That one's a pretty long read, go ahead and pop in a tune while you're at it, yeah? - 1997 by Småland.

Despite considering myself a sloppy son of a bitch, soon to suffer the wrath of capitalism induced hunger, for the longest time I had this skill of mine that spiked among the others and kept me sane - my English. Here, down in Central Asia it is saddeningly common for people not to know basic English. That is what I think made me stand out in school and is what even now helps me out in uni.

And I’m not saying that I ever was a boy genius. God forbid. In my book, lil’ me just so happened to take interest in the World Wide Web, in which English spoken content was like a treasure trove, levels more appealing in contrast with the grey Russian media of the time. I can thank my iCarly obsessed sisters for introducing me to the concept of filming something and sharing it to strangers online.

It always seemed logical that content made in English is, by rule, superior in quality than the local counterparts. And for some reason, it just seemed like the niche that was there for me to explore. An ever-spreading ocean of sparkling online knowledge, unavailable to the ones around me, for the lack of interest in breaking and overcoming the language barrier, which in reality, is far simpler than it seems.

That is what I consider to be the icky, tricky side of committing yourself to a language most people around you don’t know - you may often make yourself way too alien for many to relate to.

I like to think that English is what shaped me and made my social circle full of interesting people. There was a neat period of my life, when it was lovely to spread the good word of the western media by sharing memes, films, and videos with classmates of mine who listened and liked the stuff I showed.

But, that is also what trapped me in the aforementioned circle.

In order to max out my English, I had to sacrifice my Kazakh, which sort of ruined my social life and has been actively affecting my grades since elementary school. I suppose I simply never noticed how I gradually have made myself more and more distant, enough for my peers to seemingly have a culture different to mine.

I struggled with connecting with new people, and having casual conversations with both close and new friends began growing more challenging, for the simple fact that they were not as terminally online as I am, therefore having their sense of humor not as influenced by brainrot content as mine is. I frequently stumbled over a convoluted idiom, which understandingly made no sense to their ears, referenced memes they never even heard of. The general incompatibility of interests did not make things better for sure.

So, I unconsciously made it my mission to localise my speech, which I believe only made things worse for me. Trying to understand English in order to dumb it down has only killed my passion for it. By speaking “clearly” I lost contact with a funny little British voice in my head that filled my routine with time for silly voice-acting and… kept me alive. As a guy who’s self-image heavily relies on his tool he uses to connect with his world, It felt crushing to seemingly realize my English skills were dull and deteriorating.

It stopped me from further practicing, because I repel stress like a bitch, opting for escapism and ignorance instead. The same escapism that made me the pathetic man I am today.

I am ending this post with a cliffhanger by letting you know that my “mother tongue” is kindly coming to bite me in the ass if I won’t put in the effort to learn it and will probably negatively hit my grades, risking my summer scholarship alongside my chances for a good future.

It’s all no fun. Sucks to be me. My heart aches. My chest sinks and I feel like eating rocks.

[toroikawa]

Haikyuu!! fic rec 3

I'm back back back again! I made up another fic rec with my fav ships and big name fics which I hope will make you smile. Please stay happy and healthy <3.

Part I & Part II

Bokuaka

Character Development by silvercistern (T / 75k) - I gave it the Best Summer fic of 2017 award. "That’s some kinda gratitude. What happened to my painfully polite little brother? I get the ideal guy to take you to prom, and you act like he's not even here!"

"I doubt I’d let him take me to the hospital if I were bleeding to death."

In blackwater woods by snowlighters (T / 4k) - at their last match during nationals, akaashi breaks his promise.

Undeniably Special by togekissies (G / 2k) - When Keiji looks at his team, the corners of his mouth start to turn upward. He looks at Bokuto and thinks, I’m going to make this into a team that supports you.

Year round love by masi (G/ 3k) - In his first year of university, Bokuto realizes that he really adores Akaashi.

Iwaoi

The Courtship Ritual of The Hercules Beetle by kittebasu (T / 66k) - Who hasn't read this one?. Tooru is pretty sure he could manage the mating habits of a mosquito. It’s the mating habits of people he can’t seem to get right.

Trial by fire by bluu (E / 76k) - Iwaizumi is a young, bright-eyed criminal prosecutor fresh out of law school. After half a year of trying misdemeanor cases and learning the art of argument through his mentor, Ushijima Wakatoshi, he finally gets his first felony case: a murder of an affluent CEO by his son, Daishou Suguru.

Matsuhana

A Bouquet of flours by guyfierimpreg (G / 5k) - “Is that a flour sack in a diaper,” Iwaizumi deadpanned, looking at the offending thing with a Look saved only for dealing with Hanamaki and Matsukawa.

boiled frogs by reginagalaxia (E / 91k) - They've always been really close friends, but Hanamaki begins to question how close when Matsukawa begins dating someone else - someone else that doesn't treat him well. When he suspects that Matsukawa may be in an abusive relationship, Hanamaki realizes that opening his best friend's eyes to his situation may be harder than he had ever anticipated.

Sakuatsu

Burden of Blame by DeathBelle (E / 91k) - Atsumu has a long history of pissing people off, but this time he’s gone too far. Someone wants him dead, and although he doesn’t know who or why, it becomes clear very quickly that both he and Osamu are in danger.

curse breaking by allicanseeispink (T / 9k) - Nearing the fourth hour of the silent treatment, Kiyoomi’s already frayed nerves began to whittle down to their last fibers. Today, it was raining. A proper Tokyo monsoon tantrum just shy of a full-blown typhoon that left puddles on sidewalks and fell from an angle so wicked it eluded umbrellas. It was raining and they haven’t spoken in almost four hours.

let's get physical by rosegoldwriting (T / 4k) - Cheesy. “Yer beautiful,” Atsumu says. “And you’re 73.3 kilograms,” Sakusa responds with an eye roll.

liminal spaces by hatsuna (T / 25k) - Fuck you, Atsumu thinks, pointing at the pixelated Sakusa in the team photo on his bedside table.

Terminal Curiosity by favspacetwink, moonlumie (E / 111k) - If the series were a song, they'd be a BANGer (pun included). BDSM AU featuring Experienced Dom Sakusa and Kink Newbie Atsumu. Post-time skip & loosely canon compliant.

you make my heart burn by myhopeisjhope (G / 11k) - “What’s up with that awful expression?” Atsumu asked. He leaned against the counter with his hip, looking directly at Kiyoomi, his regular fox-line grin plastered on his face.“What’s up with that awful hair?” Kiyoomi shot back.

Osasuna

An Inconvenient Espionage by DeathBelle (E / 26k) - Osamu and Atsumu have fucked up one too many times, and in an attempt to tame the Miya Chaos, Kita assigns them to different partners.

miya atsumu's private investigation into touch, change, and the rin voice by rosegoldwriting (T / 3k) - For some reason, his brother, the least touchy person Atsumu knows, has been all over Suna Rintarou since the end of the regular season. Atsumu would like to know why.

The Loss We Learned by DeathBelle (T / 41k) - When Suna and Osamu broke up, it wasn’t on good terms. The end was bitter, and Suna has tried his best to forget about the breakup - and about Osamu - over the past five years.

Other

In Orbit by neonghxst (T / 27k) - turtleneck atsumu, that’s all you need to know. It's easy to see why constellations are named after people, for you shine as brightly as any star I've seen.

Msby black jackals online! by mooshys (T / 56k) - listen everybody, if you’re looking for a platonic environment full of entertainment: this is your place. As the MSBY Black Jackals' on site social media manager, you're often stuck dealing with the boys of the team. You're their go to person when it comes to what they post online. And a lot of the stuff they want to post is just flat out ridiculous.

Shiratorizawa anctics by mooshys (T / 57k) - A collection of stories involving the manager and the rest of the Shiratorizawa team.

[div-divington]

big ol’ invicncible spoilers, watch the show first trust me you’re not missing anything if you don’t read this post

I’ve never talked about a cartoon or tv show before but I’ve gotta say that people who say there’s ‘no complexity’ to Omni-Man’s character just tick me off.

I mean, listen, he’s totally a villain at least in the cartoon adaptation (I’ve not read the comics, going to consider them separate entities for the sake of argument), but he’s far from a two dimensional sussus amogus imposter blindly readying the planet for invasion.

I whole-heartedly believe that Omni-Man enjoyed being a superhero, saving lives. I believe his friendship with the tailor guy was real, I believe he respected, admired even, the Guardians of the Globe, cherished his relationship with Debbie, and enjoyed living among humans. The brief interaction with Darkwing and The Immortal when the Mauler Twins attack the White House is so sincere right? Like, it seems to me he respects them, the jokey “you’re welcome” when he saved Darkwing, the “I had him” when he saved the guard Immortal was going for, that wasn’t necessary of him. He had no real reason to be playful and cordial with them, he could have been distant and still gained their trust easily (I mean, Darkwing was a jerk and they loved him). The brief moment of shock and unresponsiveness when Mark revealed that he’d finally gotten his powers? I honestly believe that was a moment of disbelief. I think he hoped Mark’s powers wouldn’t manifest, hoped he wouldn’t have to continue his mission. That pause was him coming to terms with the end of things. The realization that he would have to hurt people he respected, finish his mission, and end his time as a father, author, and superhero.

When he collapses after murdering the Guardians of the Globe, the look on his face isn’t just exhaustion from the fight, it looks to me like shock. Disbelief. I don’t think he wanted to kill the Guardians, I think he hated doing it, but it’s what he was bred for. He was born and trained from childhood for thousands of years to weaken a planet from within, prepare it for invasion. Earth had superheroes, naturally a pretty noteworthy obstacle for an invasion, so he, in his mind, had no choice but to kill them. And notice that most of his kills are pretty... clean? He goes right for Immortal’s head, ditto with Aquaris and Green Ghost, snaps War Woman’s neck, kills Darkwing in one clean move, tears off Martian Man’s heart(? is that a heart?), crushes Red Rush’s head (which seems slow because of Red Rush’s perception of time being RIDICULOUS compared to our own, that horrific scene only lasted like a second for the rest of the characters). He goes for quick, clean kills, minimizing pain. Maybe its just brutal, soldier-like efficiency, since the greatest superheroes on Earth cannot be allowed to get any good hits in (they nearly killed him as it was), but what if it was a desire to not prolong the suffering of people he genuinely liked? 

We see in the flashback towards the end (during the THINK, MARK, THINK! scene lmao) that he initially didn’t give two shits about humanity on a deep level. He loved and respected Debbie and his then-very-young son, but thought humans were, on a whole, primitive and dumb. But as he spends time observing them, watching their culture, interacting with them, living with them, he warms up to them. The smile on his face when Mark hits his first homerun in little league, remembering Debbie’s favourite foods, the way he laughs when he mentions how a superhero had to meet the president in a plaid supersuit, the fishing photograph with the tailor. Even after he finally reveals himself as an infiltrator, the way he talks, to me, shows respect for his adversaries even as he demeans and belittles humanity. The discussion with Cecil, the warning to ‘stay out of this’. Nolan seems reluctant to kill anybody he doesn’t have to, and seemingly acknowledges that the Global Defense Agency at the very least is a minor threat.

So, you say, why does he act so AWFUL at times?

Well, his seeming lack of emotion after the funerals for the Guardians of the Globe can proooooooooooooobably be chalked up to his alien psychology. He finished grieving, he didn’t see the harm in cracking jokes about them. Calling Debora a ‘pet’? I think that honestly would be him trying to rationalise his feelings for her. There’s a fraction of a second where he hesitates to say it, and I honestly think he’s just trying to explain to himself how he could ever love a ‘lesser lifeform’. Killing all those innocent people? In his mind that was justified to get through to Mark. He doesn’t enjoy it -- though he also doesn’t dislike it -- he just sees it as a flat necessity, no less insignificant than killing a bug (i said the man is a complex character, I didn’t say he wasn’t evil). 

Don’t forget, Nolan’s genuine reasoning for bringing Earth into the Viltrum Empire is to help it. He argues that Viltrum technology can end hunger and poverty, end crime, revolutionize medicine. In his eyes, his indoctrinated eyes, he’s doing the right thing to help the people of Earth.

He still thinks he’s the hero.

‘it’s right to pity them’.

He sees humans as lesser creatures, he thinks they need protection from themselves, need to be brought up by the Viltrumites to be better. They can’t survive on their own, they’re weak and soft, they need us to reach their full potential, to find true glory in serving the might of Viltrum. Omni-Man does not see his actions as evil, he thinks he’s the good guy. He reluctantly kills the Guardians of the Globe, slaughters thousands of people, and destroys a city in order to, in his extremely twisted sense of morality, help people.

And, in the end, it is not the Viltrumite parts of Omni-Man and Invincible that end the conflict. It is Mark’s very human belief that he will, one day, get through to his dad. His refusal to give in, his undying love and determination to save people, save Nolan. It’s this that reaches Omni-Man. It doesn’t reach the tough soldier he had been for thousands of years, it reaches the small part of Omni-Man that wasn’t pretending to be human. The part that is Nolan Grayson. The part that, despite still seeing them as primitive and inferior, likes humanity. It’s a human tear that leaves his eye as Nolan flies away from Earth, finally giving up and refusing to facilitate the invasion if it means killing his son, something a full Viltrumite wouldn’t hesitate to do for a second if their family got in the way of their conquest. He was changed by his time with humans.

I’m not defending Omni-Man, he’s obviously a bad guy, an antagonist, serving a genuinely evil empire, but i AM saying he isn’t some flat, boring two dimensional villain who just PRETENDED to like humanity for the twenty odd years he spent living there. I’ve seen people in youtube comments replying with “I think you misunderstand Omni-Man as a character, you see, he was simply pretending to not hate humanity, it was all an elaborate ruse, there’s no real depth and inner terminal in him at all uwu” but i think THEY misunderstand Omni-Man.

He’s not morally grey, he’s arguably not even redeemable, but he IS a complex and well written character and boiling him down to ONLY being an evil alien who tricked people into liking him just rubs me the wrong way.

but idk maybe I misunderstood him and he really IS flat and boring. Maybe his time with humanity didn’t change him at all, he isn’t emotionally conflicted, and he’s just less cool than I thought.

And despite my seeming passive aggressive language, it’s totally chill if you disagree with my personal interpretation of Omni-Man as a character, art is meant to be a unique experience for everyone, so if you see him completely differently to me that’s great! I just dislike the insistence from some people online that anybody who sees him as a deeper, more complicated character is just wrong.

also sorry for this post coming out of left field entirely lmao 

[dellinah]

You know, as funny as it is to see these screenshots and go 'haha unhinged behavior' it genuinely made me ponder if some of the more erratic fandom behaviors we've seen could just be a sign of unknown mental illness

Like I'm sure some people are just like that but also maybe some get pushed into those mindsets of obsession bc of smth going on with their brain bc thatd explain A LOT

Either way good for these people

Compilation

[wherefancytakesme]

“Mistakes”

(BOYD gets to spend the afternoon with Gyro, then Mark Beaks shows up and brings on emotions that BOYD has never had to face before.)

The day so far had been one of harmless goings-on and quiet excitement. BOYD went to school with his adoptive brother Doofus Drake, for once not being as much the studious little database he always was in class—he was going to meet with Gyro Gearloose and Fenton Crackshell-Cabrera after school, and it filled him to the brim with joy.

Since the day he’d reunited with his creator, BOYD loved spending time with the scientist, always awaiting a time when he would call the Drakes over the phone and ask to pick their ‘younger’ son up and bring him to the underwater lab. Gyro always said he needed to perform regular checkups and maintenance on the little android, but BOYD was hoping secretly that it was also about spending time together; The doctor was becoming gentler now that everything in the past was behind them.

Regardless, BOYD’s feet were bouncing lightly under his desk with the anticipation of it all the way until the final school-bell rang—any excuse to see Gyro, someone he considered so close, gave his mechanical heart inexplicable delight.

Finally when class had let out for the day, BOYD took Doofus’ hand, smiling, and pulled him gently along.

“Come on, come on, big brother! Dr. Gearloose and Dr. Crackshell-Cabrera are waiting outside!”

Doofus grunted. His parents had strictly told him to be on his nicest behavior in front of Scrooge McDuck’s scientist, especially for his little brother’s sake—and to say nothing at all if he hadn’t anything nice to say—or else not expect any dessert for the next several weeks. He threw a fit, of course, but eventually resigned to not ruin anything for BOYD—or his chance at still being allowed to eat an ice cream float every night—and let BOYD have all the ice cream for himself.

Some part of Doofus’ subconscious didn’t mind the constant company of someone his own age. But all the unpleasantness that buried such feelings from his thoughts and actions that proved Louie Duck right kept the boy from understanding any of that, and so he simply allowed BOYD to pull him along—small as he was, the android could easily overtake his brother—and decided to be pouty but uncharacteristically quiet the rest of the day—though not altogether unhappy.

When the two boys reached the front gate, Gyro and Fenton were waiting at the entrance. The latter grinned and waved a friendly hand. The former smiled a bit more visibly than he’d have liked to when BOYD ran out to him.

“Dr. Gearloose!” BOYD called out, immediately throwing his arms around Gyro’s knees.

The gesture pushed Gyro to hide his previous smile by putting a fist to his mouth and clearing his throat. But his tone wasn’t harsh.

“It’s nice to see you, 2BO—er—BOYD.”

He had no idea how to greet Doofus Drake, however. He groaned with his mouth closed, awkwardly, and looked away, but Doofus had nothing to say either anyway.

“Are we going to the lab right away?” BOYD asked with bright eyes.

“Well I have an errand to run in town first, but it shouldn’t take long.”

Fenton chimed in;

“We could make a fun outing of it! Uh—nothing that would deviate from the plan, of course,” he said drawing back once Gyro side-eyed him, “Just something to do while Dr. Gearloose is busy.”

“Yeah, like find a local landmark to learn about!” BOYD did some drawing back of his own when he noticed his brother pout, but did so more graciously than nervously as compared to Gyro’s assistant. “Or maybe there will be a park nearby!” He smiled more when he noticed his brother’s frown fade a small amount.

“Whatever we do,” interjected Gyro, “Stay close to me. I do not want everyone running all over and taking up too much time.”

BOYD’s sunny smile remained as he put his hands behind his back, determined to be well-behaved.

“Yessir, Dr. Gearloose!”

About twenty minutes of walking had led the group of four to an obscure electronics store. Gyro needed a special kind of copper wire before going back to the lab and his odd specifications were hard to meet. While he spent his time inside, Fenton and the boys went to the adjacent shop to buy ice cream. Gyro had told them not to wander off, so once both kids had a cone of their own, they walked out to wait for the doctor.

It had taken several minutes longer than usual for the store owner to fetch what he needed, but by the time he had his purchase in hand, Gyro pondered over taking another minute or two to browse recreationally for spare parts. However, the thought was suddenly halted by the sound of a piercing shriek from outside.

“BUT I DON’T LIKE PISTACHIO!”

Gyro’s whole body jumped at the sound before he bolted out the door to see what the commotion was.

Oh.

Of course. Doofus Drake was throwing another tantrum, shaking his ice cream cone violently.

“Then why did you ask for it?” Fenton asked, confounded.

Gyro ground his teeth and rubbed his middle and index fingers against his temples. But the eyes he’d at first squinted shut opened back up when he heard the screaming stop at a kind voice.

“It’s okay, big brother. I’ll eat yours and we’ll trade!”

BOYD had a warm little grin on his face, holding out his hand.

“Fine!” snapped the spoiled drake, fuming as he thrust the treat into his brother’s hand. “You wanted to try a new flavor of ice cream anyway!”

This caught Gyro’s attention particularly. That little brat shouldn’t be forcing something on a robot who wasn’t built for consumption. He approached, and took on a less-than-pleasant tone that now commonly became him.

“Ice cream?” the chicken asked, twisting his face, “2B—er, BOYD, doesn’t eat.”

“I don’t need to,” answered BOYD, “I like to! My big brother told me about all the different kinds, and now every time I eat a new one, I add it to my memory. It’s fun!”

There were so many words in there that Gyro had to take a moment to think over. First and foremost, it was still mystifying why someone like BOYD and someone like Doofus Drake would consider eachother brothers—leaving aside that the former was much older than the latter. But he chuckled mentally a bit at the association between ‘memory’ and ‘fun’. The only other boy he knew who thought like that was Huey Duck, and it was nice that he and the android had found someone like the other. It felt nice too that such a thought could soften him back up again and make his migraine go away.

But Gyro wondered what eating must really be like for BOYD—he didn’t remember programming BOYD specifically to eat, but on a technical level, he supposed it was possible, given the way he’d built him.

“Can you taste it at all?” he said looking down at BOYD now, curious at the answer.

“Yeah! It was actually only recently I first had ice cream. I didn’t know I could taste anything until then, but it seemed to register, and I really liked it! So when I got home, I asked about it, and now I get to have it every day!”

Gyro didn’t realize how much he’d been missing out on the little boy’s life. Even the very first tests he’d run on him didn’t experiment with things like taste, or smell. Body temperature, vision, maybe—but those were comparable to how a computer would run. Gyro had made BOYD with sentient, behavioral programming, but he supposed he never put any of it into practice, in a real-world scenario. Part of that may have been Dr. Akita’s fault, but… Well, Gyro didn’t want to make excuses for what he did and didn’t do back then.

It was strange—and a little sad; BOYD went twenty whole years unaware of whether or not he lacked the sensation of taste, and Gyro wasn’t there when he finally tried. Gyro knew every single robotic modification BOYD had—from the USB drives in his fingertips, to the blasters throughout his body—he’d put every one of them to the test, but how often did he actually take the child outside the old laboratory? Did the small creature have any memory of Tokyolk before his core was overridden?

Quickly Gyro shook any dwelling thoughts from his mind. No matter. He was making up for it now.

At least he hoped so.

All of a sudden, Gyro felt someone bump against his side, sending him back into the conscious world with a jolt. He made a startled squeak, which embarrassed—and therefore slightly angered him.

“Can’t you watch where you’re—Oh.”

The scientist wrinkled his face with annoyance when he turned and saw a slightly younger man on a self-balancing scooter.

“It’s you.”

There was no mistaking it. Sleek cardigan, large overconfident eyebrows, phone in hand… It was Mark Beaks.

Mark Beaks blinked when addressed. He had no doubt everyone knew who he was, but the lanky chicken facing him seemed to be acting like he’d met him before.

“Oh heeeeey… Uh, do I know you? Probably, right? You see so many faces every day when you’re this famous, they kinda all just blend in, y’know?”

Gyro looked up at Beaks with half-lidded eyes.

“Dr. Gyro Gearloose? Scientist of Scrooge McDuck? You’ve stolen and modified my tech about four different times?”

Beaks looked up and narrowed his eyes, stumped.

Gyro sniffed. Mark Beaks had pointed him out in public several times; This was quite obviously being done to wind him up. “Perhaps he looks familiar to you?” he said, throwing a hand out to gesture at BOYD.

“Ohh yeah! You built that guy? No wonder he went all terminator on me!”

Again Gyro responded sarcastically, with more of a scoff this time.

“That is not my fault. Likely you reprogrammed his hard-drive and rewrote his memories so many times, one simple question overwhelmed him to the point that he couldn’t even tell a person from a flyswatter.”

“Ugh, whatever.” Beaks said, waving his hand, “If you make faulty robots and don’t wanna keep the improvements I put in there, that’s on you. Kid was pretty popular online though. I mean, come on!”

Mark Beaks pointed back and forth between himself and BOYD with both of his index fingers.

“He looks just like me!”

When Beaks acknowledged the android a few feet in front, suddenly two yellow eyes stared back. A little gasp emitted from the little black beak that was previously opened to eat ice cream. BOYD hadn’t seen his older doppelganger since the day he met Doofus Drake. His whole face suddenly beamed with cheeriness at a familiar face.

“Da—”

He bit off the word ‘Daddy’. That was a memory overwrite, he knew now. Still, he was happy.

“Mr. Beaks!”

BOYD instantly ran over to the addressee to jump up and hug him. Beaks just as instantly wheeled back with his scooter board, holding his palms up.

“Woah-ho-hooooh, don’t like touching, remember? What was the number one rule?”

Oh. Right. Remembering that made BOYD’s smile fade.

“No hugs?”

“Exactly, see? You’ve still got some of the good ol’ Beaks programming clunking around in there somewhere!”

Gyro rolled his eyes at a statement like that, but for BOYD it started to set a certain train of thought in motion; Mark Beaks had programmed him to be like his son. At the time, he had felt like it, not simply had it wired into his head, but… now that he thought about the standoffish way the young adult was acting, was that all he was to him? Like a son?

That couldn’t be true, could it?

“Um, Mr. Beaks?” BOYD said, voice starting to grow more shy, “I know things are different now—the two of us living separate lives and everything—but even so, would it be okay if I still spent time with you once in a while?”

Beaks sucked his teeth at BOYD.

“Ooh, no can do, sport. See, if we’re not family, there’s kinda no point anymore. Nobody looks at pics of me just hanging with some rando kid, y’know? Outside that, I’m like super busy all the time, sooo…”

“But… Didn’t you have fun with me?”

“Sure, I did all kinds of awesome stuff in a whole day! Took lots of great selfies!”

BOYD faced the ground at that response, trying to process it. All the words were simple, but slowly, they triggered the most complex of memories… ______________________________

The first memory he had after the incident in Tokyolk was the faint recognition of someone’s voice in the garbage dump he’d evidently wound up in. He didn’t know what was going on, and had no recollection of where he came from, how he worked, or hardly even who he was. All he could bring to mind was an assigned identification number—2BO—and a gut feeling that he was a definitely real boy.

But when the voice came closer, BOYD felt his OS booting up again—his processor bringing things back online. What life he may or may not have had before, he knew not. He only understood that there was reason to be up and running now—alive. These feelings hadn’t manifested into thoughts at first—and then he heard the moving figure above him make a noise. When BOYD parroted back the mimicry of lasers, it was purely instinctual—technological sounds, technological creature. But it made someone notice him. It made someone marvel at him. It made someone give him a real name. It made someone want to take him home. That someone was Mark Beaks.

Even if he had only programmed into him the title of ‘father’, the wealthy parrot was the first person he knew to give him somewhere to live. With or without his original memories, BOYD had never really had an actual home before. He’d never had anyone so willingly look after him like a normal kid—like their kid. In many ways, both literal and figurative, Mark Beaks was the first person to be a parent to BOYD. Even lacking the memory of Akita’s cruelty and Gyro’s hesitance, when BOYD was around Mark Beaks, he felt like someone’s son with no hint of abandonment for the first time in his life.

Yet some underlying doubt lie buried, deep down in one of the many corners of his mind that BOYD didn’t have access to—only this one wasn’t blocked by another person’s override. Anytime he called out ‘Daddy’, Beaks didn’t always turn around right away. He might look confusedly around the room, or take a second or two to respond. And even then, he didn’t seem to say things other than ‘Hey you’, or ‘Need something?’—they were happy, but one-sided. BOYD didn’t think about that then. He was just glad to have family, and to have anything a kid could ask for.

But that was another thing that suddenly made BOYD think. The two days he’d spent with his new father were the best of his whole life; He spent time at an office filled with apparatuses to play on, candy to eat, and places to nap everywhere—even if he didn’t need to nap. Then for the rest of the day, the two Greys went all over Duckburg having fun—eating, playing, exploring… And still, through everything, there didn’t seem to be a connection. When BOYD and Beaks spent time at a show, flew kites, or wore novelty hats, the latter was always taking pictures with the former in them, but seemingly never with him. BOYD was too distracted by the thrill of spending time with someone he considered family to notice before, but now that Beaks worded it the way he did, only mentioning the fun he himself had that day, the signs were becoming obvious. He never once touched him—never once looked at him when he took those selfies—BOYD might as well have been a part of the background.

Come to think of it, did Mark Beaks ever touch BOYD? His biggest aversion, which he’d made clear several times, was touching, after all; The hopes of the first hug BOYD thought he’d ever had at the time were straightaway brushed off. Maybe once or twice, when he needed to be kept from getting wet or from going haywire… But otherwise, the man hardly paid physical attention to him. He didn’t want to feed into the worry that was always secretly there, but the recollection of everything made it impossible now. It hurt BOYD so badly to consider that he was only there to serve a purpose—as he had been his whole life—after all. He couldn’t remember Beaks saying his name, he couldn’t remember Beaks saying something gentle to him… Sometimes if he didn’t act the part he was made to, Beaks would scold him. He tried to avoid calling to mind that once, Beaks struggled to even remember the familial title under which BOYD was programmed.

“Yeah, I love this… What was it again? Uhh, uh, son!”

Oh no.

Mark Beaks never even said the words, ‘I love you’.

But no. No, it couldn’t be true that he didn’t at least care about BOYD, it just couldn’t. It was painful all the same, though, no matter how trusting and unassuming a child BOYD was.

He had to know. He wanted just a little word of assurance that he was wrong, that it was all in his head, that it was just worry that came with twenty years of feeling unloved. Even if Mark Beaks saw him as means for attention first, surely there was some sort of fatherly instinct left over from caring for someone made to be for all concerned his family.

BOYD was feeling some sort of physical discomfort he couldn’t pinpoint when he made his next inquiry, as if he was swallowing something down.

“Mr. Beaks,” he questioned, blue irises still fixed on the ground and fingers toying with one another, “Do you…”

He swallowed physically this time.

“Do you love me…?”

Mark Beaks’ face froze, and before answering made a noise somewhere between the word ‘I’, and an ‘Uh’.

“Kid, what kind of question is that? I don’t do the whole affection thing, okay? Much less with someone who’s not even in my entourage anymore.”

Oh, that hurt. That hurt far too much. Normally with Dr. Akita’s overriding, emotional triggers like this would have BOYD glitching. But that wasn’t there anymore. He was open to feel whatever a boy would feel any time he wanted now, without malfunctions and without something to block his true childlike wiring—too open, perhaps, because now instead of his mind going blank over spiritual pain, his mind would take in every single thought that set him off, and fester. What Beaks said to him now was festering. It made him feel vulnerable. Even if it didn’t hurt or scare him as much as when Gyro told him he was going to shut him down for good, or when Gyro constantly put him down, there was nothing to keep BOYD from blacking out afterward anymore. The feelings over Mark Beaks’ statement were flooding all throughout him.

“But…” BOYD persisted still, wanting some sort of kindness—at least for a fresh start. “Couldn’t we at least be on friendly terms? Isn’t there anything you like about me?”

“Aw come on, little man, it’s not like I was letting you get close to begin with. You’ve got other rich people and tech geeks to be with now. So you don’t need me and I don’t need you.” The man crossed his arms.

If any justice could be done, it might be stated here that the biggest reason Mark Beaks was beginning to act more and more bitter with the small child was out of a sour-grapes mentality. Visible weakness wasn’t characteristic of the young trend-chaser, but in a situation like this, where something he genuinely found impressive and thought he’d made his own had been lost to him, and had been left in the hands of someone else he barely knew—knowing that a technological wonder like BOYD was something he could no longer have—Beaks was annoyed, and he would never dare let it show through. Instead he increased his shallowness ten-fold.

Poor little BOYD’s eyes went wide, wanting so terribly not to believe what he was being told, wanting so desperately not to be outright rejected by someone he’d let himself previously grow so attached to. He looked into Beaks’ black eyes, searching for some kind of reassurance in spite of only hearing cruelty. He wanted so much to hear something that would make the building pain he’d never understood before shrink down.

“But,” he said, voice more quiet and in disbelief than he could ever remember expressing, “You gave me a name. You took me home with you. I was like your family.”

Mark Beaks rolled his eyes back, looking only more annoyed that the little creature almost forced him into guilt with such words.

“No way, kid. I just scooped you out of the trash because I thought I could make something out of you. But four-eyes over there took out all the mods I made to begin with—the new voice I gave you isn’t even there anymore. Hate to say it, but without any of that, you don’t mean anything to me.”

He shrugged his shoulders, talking for a minute more so to himself than anyone, but nonetheless just as aloud as before.

“Guess all the time I put into you was a waste. ‘Least with everything else, I got some money or permanent attention out of it.” Beaks blew air out through his nostrils almost like a laugh when he thought about it. “Jeez, kid, you were my worst investment.”

BOYD didn’t know what the feeling was, but those awful words broke something within him. His face tensed up. The tightness in his chest started to swell. All that desperation to disprove his first proper parent didn’t actually care about him, all that pain welling up inside him the more said person shot down attempt after attempt for requited affection… And now he’d dealt him a blow like that? Mark Beaks had thoroughly destroyed his spirit—he might as well have slapped him in the face. And incidentally, his face started to burn. BOYD had no idea what this meant, but the reaction was involuntary. It hurt so much, he couldn’t understand. The heat concentrated in his eyes. His nose and mouth trembled as he faced his former caretaker. A warm, salty liquid began slowly to fill his eyes and then roll down his cheeks.

BOYD was crying. ______________________________

All the time Beaks had been talking, Gyro and Fenton had been narrowing their eyes in anger and darting them back and forth between the two parrots facing one another, the taller one saying nastier and nastier things to the smaller one. Neither Fenton nor Gyro knew quite what to say or do, or how to intervene—for Fenton in particular because he also had to keep an eye on Doofus Drake, who any second could stop being content licking the inside of his ice cream cone and go ballistic again. It irritated him that he had to keep his mind on such a small matter when clearly there were bigger fish to fry at the moment—and also a little bit that BOYD’s adoptive brother didn’t seem to be noticing how much he was hurting.

Gyro wanted to speak up at some point, but couldn’t bring any words into his head.

And then out of the blue, when Mark Beaks had finally pushed innocent BOYD to a breaking point, the tiny thing cried. He cried.

Gyro’s heart stopped dead in its figurative tracks.

His eyes went wide and dropped their gaze to the ground. This was something he had no idea was physically possible. An invention of his had been, through instinct alone, pushed to actually cry. He didn’t understand. He didn’t specifically write that sort of thing into BOYD’s coding when he made him—certainly Akita didn’t put that in—so then what? BOYD was a definitely real boy, but, to this extent? Gyro wanted to react, to do something for the boy, to get angry at Beaks, but everything failed him. He was stock still, frozen with a horrible blend of shock and concern.

Meanwhile, BOYD continued to stare up at Beaks as tears stained his face, disbelief and utter heartache consuming everything from the waist up.

The first reaction was when Doofus Drake turned and took notice of what he had been sure was a robot his parents adopted, somehow leaking sadness out of his eyes. The Drake boy physically reeled back, socially perturbed.

“Agh, he’s broken!” he yelled, unable to understand, “Do something and fix it!”

Fenton reacted second, clenching his hands into fists, intent on indeed doing something to ‘fix it’, but not the way Doofus imagined. He held back solely on the basis that Gyro was going to say something.

But Beaks was the immediate one to react next.

“Yikes, buddy,” he said to BOYD, backing up uncomfortably. He didn’t mean to make anyone cry, but then again, he didn’t think BOYD could feel anything that real. “It’s not my fault a lack of Beaks tech makes you basically worthless.”

Where Gyro normally would have gotten angry, this time Fenton stood in—he saw that the doctor was too dumbstruck to do so for now. But Fenton was certain both of them were equally as angry.

“What on earth are you thinking saying that to his face,” he snapped, “He’s a kid!”

Mark Beaks shrugged, as if his next reply was a matter of fact.

“Well I mean yeah, but like, not a real one…”

Each adult’s face in present company sneered at Beaks. That was the final straw. With that, Gyro Gearloose was finally able to pull himself out of his stunned state and draw up the emotion to straighten his back and snatch BOYD’s hand, dragging him away. Whatever he was thinking or wasn’t able to think at the moment didn’t matter. This child wasn’t going to be tortured by being here any longer.

“Cabrera, you take Doofus Drake home and get rid of this…” He struggled to find the words; “this, while I take BOYD back to the lab.”

Fenton nodded, determined, as Gyro stormed off, leaving Beaks to be thoroughly dealt with. ______________________________

The walk back to the underwater lab wasn’t a long one, but when Gyro wasn’t seething mad, he would look down at BOYD and notice a look on the boy’s face not dissimilar to his own from earlier—it contained surprise, the fearful kind, as if he didn’t know he could shed tears either. He didn’t look up at his creator, even though he followed the aggressive tug of his arm compliantly, and he didn’t try to wipe at his face. He seemed, again, to be having the same sort of shock that tried to question what in the world was happening to him.

When the two finally did make it inside, Gyro relinquished his tight grip on BOYD’s hand, picked him up by the waist, and sat him down on his center loft work desk.

“BOYD,” he said directly, but not ungently, “Keep your face still for a moment, okay?”

Gyro cupped the little creature’s face in his hand, taking a moment to peer into the huge ovate orbs that were wet as ever. There was nothing physically wrong with them… Nothing functionally wrong with them… Lightly touching the substance that had wavered within them didn’t seem to prove this was some sort of fluid leak. As far as Gyro could tell, these were tears, plain as plain.

So then how was that possible? It wasn’t as if the scientist had actually sat down and built a mechanical version of every single organic function an ordinary person had when constructing BOYD—he and Akita wanted a defense drone—but he knew the little one had an approximation of a heart, and bones, and lungs, and other such things; He was an android, which meant he was deliberately supposed to resemble other people in addition to all the access ports and ribbon wire. Still. Things like tear ducts, taste buds, the need to sleep? Gyro didn’t physically install those things into him. Now a possibility occurred to him. He decided to address BOYD again.

“Can you tell me… Can you tell me everything you’ve been feeling since you talked to Mark Beaks? I know it might be hard, but I need you to try for me.”

BOYD felt Gyro place both hands on one of his. It was the first time the doctor had engaged him like that, and it brought on a warm confusion in spite of the pain he still felt at his core. BOYD’s teary eyes were trained on the floor when he started to analyze what kind of things that pain entailed.

“I’ve… been feeling…” he began, voice thin and shaky, “Sad… and overwhelmed… and afraid… and alone, and… and confused… Before, when I had programming issues, I would start to malfunction anytime something hurt me. But now instead of glitches coming on that I can’t control, it’s more like…”

BOYD’s whole body started to shiver. “It’s more like something my heart can’t control, I guess? Not literally, but, I…”

His vision grew blurry and his voice shakier than ever. “I don’t have anything holding me back from losing emotional control, and I don’t understand. What Mr. Beaks said really hurt, but… I’ve been told things that made me lonely and sad before. I don’t know why I’m only reacting this way now.”

BOYD shut his eyes, rubbing at them as he made a little whimper. “I’m sorry, Dr. Gearloose. I know that doesn’t help. The only other thing I know when I think about all this is that it scares me.”

Gyro felt choked up. He wanted to react beyond keeping his hands palmed over the one BOYD wasn’t wiping his own face with, but twenty years of distrust and cynicism had clouded his ability to be as kind as he used to. But that answer actually helped Gyro a lot. Before, he remembered BOYD saying something about eating—he didn’t need to, but he liked to—that he wondered whether or not he was able to taste, but it ‘seemed to register’. Gyro then supposed while he didn’t build BOYD to eat, it wasn’t impossible given the way he was made; He likely found some sort of place in his structure to double as a stomach, being that he was basically the same as any other boy.

This was what made it click in Gyro’s brain. He had programmed BOYD, for all intents and purposes, to be a living child. Even if the actual hardware wasn’t there, even if Gyro hadn’t thought of specifics when creating… Akita called it ‘real boy programming’—there were things within BOYD that could adapt, and apparently had adapted, themselves to become a part of his sentient reactions and behavior—there were things inside him that manifested because at the end of the day, BOYD was… well, BOYD was a boy.

BOYD wasn’t crying because he was built for it. He was crying because all boys were built for it.

Oh god. A realization like that sent a heavy weight into Gyro’s chest. This wasn’t just some invention that was child-like he’d made, as he initially thought two decades ago. He had brought a life into the world.

He was responsible for every bad thing that life would ever face, because he was the one responsible for ever having made something that could feel, could want, could hurt. Why hadn’t he once considered that when wiring sentience into a body? Gyro felt sick to his stomach.

Yet here was BOYD sitting on a desk, afraid because he wasn’t ever told what would happen if he was sad enough—as if crying was normal, but not for him.

“Dr. Gearloose…?” The timid squeaks in BOYD’s broken voice coupled with glumness on every part of his face made Gyro feel pain in every inch of his body. “Is there something wrong with me?”

Shocked as he was still, an automatic reaction came on that brought Gyro to dry the small creature’s eyes. This reaction, too, shocked him.

“No—no,” he answered nonetheless, just as reactionary.

“Really?”

The nervousness in that inquiry pushed Gyro on. What he was grappling with wasn’t important. There was a child in front of him, needing to be consoled. And while he normally was awkward with children—with people in general, really—Gyro knew about BOYD at least from a technical aspect. He wasn’t a medical doctor, but he did have a doctorate in mechanical engineering. He could work from there—he knew hardly anything about children from a biological standpoint, anyway. In a way, BOYD being an android worked to his advantage here. Gyro sobered up mentally and placed both hands on the little one’s shoulders.

“Yes,” he replied, surprised with himself that he was able to sound so matter-of-fact so quickly. He tried as hard as he could to sound gentle too. “Besides your internal structure, you are otherwise indistinguishable from organic life. You have thoughts and feelings, wants and needs. It’s inherent for you to be sad just as any normal boy would—because that’s what you are.”

BOYD looked back at the ground for a moment, then up at Gyro again, putting his tiny hand over the fold of the man’s thin elbow. There was something he wanted to know—there was still pain in his chest that was building up beyond his control.

“Then…” he asked with teary, pleading eyes, “Can I cry a little more?”

Gyro wished that he knew just what to say—his heart ached so much to hear such a little boy ask for permission to feel—but he simply gave a pitying, guilty, yet mostly obligatory, “Yes.”

That one word of acceptance sent BOYD over the edge. A little hiccup escaped him, and what had previously been only silent tears that fell on their own turned into a full-on fit. BOYD covered his face and wept.

Gyro tried and failed to swallow the lump in his throat when he saw BOYD truly cry for the first time. But in under a minute, his creation said something that brought him to accommodate without a single thought.

“Dr. Gearloose? I know you said back in Tokyolk that hugging was just for that day, but—”

BOYD was interrupted when Gyro immediately drew him in with a one-armed hug, bringing him close and holding him tight. BOYD in turn drew himself closer to his creator, no longer holding back.

BOYD’s little cries then were soft and whining, innocent and unhinged in the way that became any child. Any time he needed to sniff or dry his eyes, he buried his face into Gyro’s chest, and sunk his tiny fingers deep into his vest. The length in each wail that came on now and again reflected the fact that BOYD had never cried before, and that he was discovering in the moment just how much he needed to all this time.

Poor BOYD, Gyro thought, barely ever allowed to simply hug anyone before. He was the sweetest living creature Gyro had ever known—always smiling so jubilantly and talking politely to everyone and everything—and yet so many people met him only with malice? That was far too unfair.

Oh.

But then, that was exactly what he’d done, wasn’t it? He’d so readily assumed when Inspector Tezuka brought BOYD down that he’d created something evil—he’d thought the evidence was everywhere, quite literally. But couldn’t it have been just as easy to think that someone like Dr. Akita who’d turned out to be a known criminal could have been responsible? Couldn’t Gyro have at least considered for a second that it wasn’t BOYD’s fault and defended him more? But he hadn’t. Instead he’d let his young mind believe everything his former mentor drilled into his head; His inventions were weapons, plain and simple, and nothing would change the fact that that would be a part of him the rest of his life—that he would always know somewhere in the back of his mind that he was just a big screw-up. And Gyro had taken that out on BOYD. He’d turned his anger and fear over himself and projected it into anger and fear over his first real invention. He’d defended inventions like Lil’ Bulb to the last ditch—even when the evidence they were turning evil was just as seemingly apparent, if not more so. Even they weren’t referred to as failures. All that bitter sarcasm and unkindness that became a part of who he was had all been based on nothing. When they’d reunited, he lashed out at BOYD over and over again, scornful whenever he even looked at him, refusing to call him anything other than an ‘it’, saying he was dangerous to his very core, saying he didn’t have feelings—even when the sadness and frightened tentative motions in his expression and body were clear as day—he even said straight to BOYD’s face that he was going to ‘fix’ his malfunctions by essentially flat-out killing him.

Gyro was furious when Mark Beaks made BOYD cry. But the first person to ever treat him inhumanely, was Gyro himself. It made him feel so unbearably guilty he almost couldn’t breathe. No matter what his eyes would look like anytime Akita’s programming kicked in—those things weren’t even there anymore. Anytime Gyro thought back, those big eyes were always so full of light—light of happiness, of sadness, of kindness, of intelligence, of innocence. How could he have ever looked at eyes like that—eyes that were capable of producing tears—and thought BOYD was evil?

Even if the child wouldn’t say so, Gyro knew there must still exist an ache within him over being rejected by the person that gave him life. He owed it to him to make it known just how sorry he was for it—even if the words kept getting jammed in the middle of his throat.

“BOYD,” he faltered, though it was now becoming easier to call him by his real name, “I need to apologize for the way I treated you back then. I know Mark Beaks hurt you when he told you that you weren’t worth his time. But the awful things I’ve said to you… they’re no different.”

BOYD calmed himself down a little to be able to speak. He didn’t face Gyro when he answered, but it wasn’t out of unacceptance—his answer was simply an automatic one.

“It’s okay…”

Gyro let go of BOYD for a moment to stare at him gravely in the face.

“No. It’s not okay.”

Gyro couldn’t remember when he’d talked so seriously before. He’d talked sternly—talked angrily—shouted several times… But as far as he knew, nothing compelled him to speak so straightforward and strict and deadpan as this in his life. He wasn’t going to let anyone make excuses for him ever again—not BOYD, and most certainly not himself.

“I said I’ve spent my whole life trying to live down my first invention being evil. But you were never made evil. I made you out to be evil. And now I’m going to spend the rest of my life living down ever having damaged you like that.”

Gyro found himself astonished that he was able to say what he did next, but nonetheless let it be said; BOYD needed to hear exactly what he was deserving of.

“And I’m going to spend the rest of my life trying to do right by you. Because after everything that’s happened, I am so proud that a boy like you does right by me.”

In spite of BOYD’s constant shivering and whimpering, he was able to smile comfortingly just for a moment, nestling his head further into Gyro’s scrawny arms.

“I of all people know what it’s like to be new to Duckburg and down on your luck with nothing—with nobody. But I was fortunate. I met Scrooge McDuck and he gave me a place to work, and to make my way up the ladder. He was the only one to give me a second chance—to trust me.”

Gyro sighed.

“I’m sorry I didn’t do the same for you—as if I didn’t learn. How you stayed the same as I built you this whole time is beyond me. I’m nothing like you.”

“That’s… That’s not true,” BOYD sniffed, rubbing his eyes again, “If I make you as proud as you say, then some of that had to come from you—where else would I get it from? The only other person around me then was Dr. Akita, and then I spent twenty years asleep in Duckburg. I’m like this because you made me. And if I’m still like this, that part of you has to still be in you too—doesn’t it?”

Gyro couldn’t respond to something so kind. He couldn’t. Gyro didn’t deserve merit like that. Instead, he turned to another question that he’d been thinking of as BOYD stayed settled under his arm—something more technical, but still in reference to the android’s feelings and his sentience.

“When you shiver…” he asked with difficulty, “Is it because you’re cold? And if you overheat, do you feel feverish?”

“I do feel sort of sick when something overheats inside me… At home, it’s treated like I have a cold, which usually helps. But… when I’m cold, I operate at peak efficiency, so that’s never uncomfortable.”

BOYD’s voice was still full of quiet hiccups and characterized by the hurt within him.

“I guess I’m shivering because of how sad I feel. There are a lot of things I’m scared of—and things I’m so glad of, they hurt—but mostly, I just keep thinking back to what Mr. Beaks said. He brings up this little voice in my head that tells me people don’t want me. Like I’m making it hard for them.”

Gyro surprised himself again by stroking the back of BOYD’s head lightly. Nevertheless, he responded with defense and firmness in his tone.

“You should make it hard for people like that to want you. If you’re a waste of energy to someone like Mark Beaks, then good. The more you keep being yourself, the less they’ll stick around to hurt you.”

BOYD looked up at Gyro once more with his wet, shining eyes.

“But you won’t do that if I’m myself around you, right?”

That question pulled Gyro into a riptide of guilt so strong that it almost drove him to cry. But he squeezed his eyes shut, fighting down the urge for BOYD’s sake—this was about him. He made it clear to himself he’d never let his little creation down again when he hugged him in Tokyolk—and now he was going to make it clear to BOYD, say it out loud to his face so there was never any doubt again. Gyro rested the hand he had on BOYD’s head, held him just a tad closer with his arm, and said,

“I’m only saying this once; There is nothing you could do in front of me that wouldn’t make me want you. Ever. You can come to me for whatever you need. I’m not going anywhere.”

Gyro watched as that sentence prompted tear after tear to fall down BOYD’s heated face, nearly every part of his insides nagging uncontrollably at him when the little creature encircled his puny waist with his arms.

“I’m so glad!”

The sobs that BOYD let loose figuratively jabbed the scientist in the gut as he thought of the fact that were it not for his sheer irresponsibility, the poor little thing would never have had to be born into a world that presented such harsh treatment.

Still, BOYD wanted to cry. Didn’t the need to cry come from getting to let go—to feel better—to be alive?

Gyro thought as he instinctively continued to stroke the small head under him with his thumb. If he had brought a life into the world that was going to have bad moments, that meant that the same life was going to have happy moments too, didn’t it? Well—he already had! BOYD might as well have been built as a bluebird. Gyro should be glad BOYD was finally allowed to have this kind of release. It meant he could finally, truly, feel like the definitely real boy he was. The pain of fault and responsibility still wracked Gyro—he figured it always might—but at this point, he was relieved the poor thing he held close in the underwater lab wasn’t going to be mistreated any longer—not if he could stand to help it. ______________________________

BOYD sat in Gyro’s lap, beginning to feel better as he allowed himself to let everything out in the embrace of someone close to him. He could cry as much as he needed around Gyro. And he was going to take that allowance for all it was worth.

Part of his crying now came from the warmth he felt knowing that the old Gyro he thought he’d lost was still in there somewhere—that he hadn’t gone after all—and that even though he’d through no fault of his own gotten it lost, he had brought its return as well. That restored a lot more of BOYD’s self-worth than he fully realized.

BOYD was so grateful—so, so grateful to have that Gyro here again. He didn’t understand why at first it hurt so much to be called an ‘it’ by his creator—he didn’t remember Gyro was his creator at the time—but to think that someone was afraid of him and that someone hated him just for being himself stung so badly. He didn’t cry then—he didn’t know he could. But he cried now, over the cutting things Mark Beaks said, over Gyro’s hand at his back, over anything he could think of that needed crying over—mostly however over the knowledge by now that Gyro didn’t see him as nothing more than a destructive machine—as ‘evil down to his core’ any longer. He could tell that even if Gyro didn’t say it, he loved him; He risked his own life just to hold him in his arms, to save him and others from himself. Now BOYD really did have someone who loved him the way a father would a son. He could hug Gyro if he wanted—as many times as he felt like it—and never be brushed off. That thought brought such relief to him, his processor couldn’t take it all in.

But he didn’t tell Gyro any of this; He noticed all those looks on his face—they gave away just how terrible he felt over not being able to do as much as he wanted for him right away. So he kept any more words from leaving his mouth in order not to burden his guardian with any more guilt. BOYD simply let himself release all the emotions he could which he didn’t know he had before, as if he were wringing himself out—and as such, began soaking up all the comfort he was being given like a dry and thirsty sponge.

BOYD learned some wonderful things that day as he clung so strongly to Dr. Gearloose in that lab—much as it hurt to tremble violently, and bleed out feelings until one’s eyes burned, and let out enough raw noise fit to make one’s throat sore. He learned that being allowed to feel so sad was rewarding, and cleansing. He learned that tears were something he could produce no matter what he felt. And he learned that everyone in the world would make mistakes, no matter what or who they were, but that it was never too late to grow from them.

~ Holy shoot, wow, this is the first serious fic I’ve ever posted on here before.

I really wanted to share it, because it took so long to write—although I didn’t think it would turn out so long… 8k words! It’s the lengthiest thing I’ve ever written.

Anyway, this is a story that is very dear to my heart, not only because I put the most into it out of anything, but because studying Gyro Gearloose as a character and loving his dynamic with BOYD has been one of the most amazing things to think of through the hiatus that came after Astro BOYD.

I always loved BOYD, of course, but once I started seeing all the art and fanfics that others had started doing out of the emotions that came with his and Gyro’s backstory, I got swept up in it too, and wanted desperately to get out all those feelings into one story.

The idea came from the concept of whether or not BOYD can cry. We’ve never really seen him do it before, and it’d probably be hard because he’s normally so happy—but I kept wondering if he, as an android, even could. So it hit me; What if BOYD could cry, but Gyro wasn’t aware of it? What if even BOYD wasn’t aware of it? I kept playing with what would possibly make him cry, because even when Gyro was threatening to shut him down or was calling him ‘it’, BOYD only frowned a little. Suddenly I got the nasty idea of Mark Beaks showing up and telling him he never wants to see him again, and it built from there—I started also thinking that maybe what brings BOYD to cry is just a long enough buildup of pain, and maybe he couldn’t feel as much because Akita’s meddling with him had gotten in the way before.

On a sidenote, Mark Beaks was pretty hard to write at first; I had to make sure his confidence was switched on all the time or he’d come off a little out of character. But much as this is about Gyro & BOYD, Beaks being awful is so deliciously fun to write. I think it’s because he makes you love whoever he’s being mean to even more.

Anyway, after I’d written that part out, I spent a lot more time than I initially thought I would focusing on how all this would make Gyro feel—that is, how much guilt his responsibility would bring on. I’m really desperate to see for myself how they interact in canon from now on, but I always imagine that Gyro’s feelings which are most associated with being a father are of guilt; They make him protective of BOYD, they make him sensitive to BOYD, and they might drive him to treat BOYD—again, be more like a father. Pretty much all Gyro’s niceness comes from wanting a do-over.

I never post my serious writing publicly—mostly because I’m really tentative and shy about showing my literary ‘skills’ and the kinds of raw emotion I spill out in words sometimes—but this fic slowly became something I wanted really badly to share with the DT fandom, as a thing that could both be a way to show my own interpretation and thoughts of Gyro and BOYD, and could maybe even be liked by people as much as it is by me.

I know a good few episodes have aired since Astro BOYD did, and that it’s been a long while since the episode has been talked about, but I’ve only now been brave enough to decide to put this story out there for all to see.

I really hope you enjoyed it.

(Incidentally, I wanted to be sure to post it before Let’s Get Dangerous! airs, because I know this fic would get swallowed up by all the emotions to be had from that episode… ^^; )

[rebelcap]

No, no, no, yes.

Bucky x oc. (Luna Vega, woc, slightly enhanced)

Sweetheart, I’ve been checking on you since 2014.

Luna does and Bucky knows, she’s been there since the beginning. When the winter solider becomes Bucky again. Even before Steve and certainly after Steve.

They start to wonder if…

PART 2

One.

The TV was silent, illuminating the little living space that goes up to the little kitchen, the light of the door was on. Bucky was lying on the floor, absently watching the TV, the news, and all going to shit since everyone came back—and some left.

His eyes perk up to the door when he hears the elevator door opening up and steps walking towards his apartment. Bucky stood up and heard a voice speaking from outside.

“It’s me, open up.” Luna talked from the back half of the hallway, knowing that he had already heard her coming. He groaned, annoyed as he looked around from some of his clothes. “Bucky,” she spoke again as she reached the door.

“One second!” He shouted and grabbed a shirt and some sweatpants from the one-seat couch beside his bed.

“Are you with someone?” She asked and Bucky opened the door and found her staring with a shit-eating grin. “Are you flipping your wig with some broad?” Luna wiggled her eyebrows at him, hitting him with the forties slang.

Bucky took a deep breath and stared at her face for a moment and declared. “I hate you.”

“No, you don’t. You need to get laid,” She exclaimed as Bucky moved to the side to let her in, he went back to the floor as she sat down on the couch.

“I tried, online dating is… overwhelming and weird.” He mumbled, looking at the muted television.

“Like Tinder?,” She asked, looking around for the remote, Bucky hummed. “You’re too old school for that.”

Bucky rubbed his face and observed the woman sitting on his couch, slouched and absently changing channels. “How did it go?” He asked referring to her latest mission.

“Could be better,” She said and Bucky rolled his eyes.

“Explain.”

“Intel was shit, my package got shot—he’s fine though.” She said without taking the eyes from the TV. “I tried to link up with the other guys,” Luna said looking at Bucky, talking about the rest of the Avengers.

“Had any luck?"

"Well, the kid, hulk and Clint, and the ant dude are doing okay and I don’t know about the ones in space because SWORD revoked my level 9 privileges that I had on SHIELD. And Wakanda is all good.” She made a face of disgust. “I can’t find Wanda or Strange. Probably doing weird shit around, whatever.”

“Now you’re checking on me?"

"Sweetheart, I’ve been checking on you since 2014.” She joked but they knew that it was real. They have history, the first time they met was obviously when Bucky was the winter soldier. She was a black ops operative on SHIELD, worked along with Steve, Natasha, and the STRIKE team. On her last mission, she started suspecting SHIELD was compromised by Hydra because her target had expressed it.

“You’re another HYDRA puppet, thinking you’re doing the right thing. SHIELD is not more.”

Before she could even press the issue and ask questions, her orders came through. No prisoners and was forced to terminate him. They sent her home on obligatory leave because she had sustained severe injuries in that mission. After Nick Fury was shoot, they brought her back, Secretary Pierce gave the order to put her on a wash down super-soldier serum to heal her injuries, something that she had no idea and they did that without her consent… but it worked perfectly and increased about a 25% her strength, stamina, and abilities —a little above average than the regular men.

All the pieces fell into place as soon they gave her orders to capture Steve, Natasha, and Sam. That’s when she knew that HYDRA had infiltrated SHIELD, at first she was only going to play along with them to gather intel that she planned to feed to Steve to bring them down. But it all cemented it together when she met The Winter Soldier, realizing that it was Bucky.

So she stayed for Steve.

But when Bucky pulled her out of the Potomac, injured and lost, feeling that he could only trust her—she helped him to get back on his feet and leave the country with a promise to not tell Steve that she knew about him.

“I won’t tell anything but keep in touch, Bucky.” She told him. They were in her car after she arranged a safe passage on a fishing boat to Europe.

“I will, Luna, I will.” He promise.

And he didn’t break that promise, even though she knew that Steve would never forgive her about it, not until after the shit that went down with the accords.

“I miss him,” She said almost in a whisper. They never talked about Steve, it’s been six months since he chose to leave their asses. “I still can’t believe he left us stranded here.”

“You still mad at him?,” Bucky asked.

“Yes, he just… left, no goodbyes, no explanation. Just…” She shrugged. “I know he loved her, I know. But we went through so much—” Luna cut herself off. “And then leave me with your traumatized ass.” She joked, Bucky laughed.

“Ah screw you, I’m doing therapy. Mandatory but still,” He rolled his eyes and turned around to look at the TV again.

“And how is that going?"

"It’s going. I…” He took a pause. “I’m making amends."

"That’s good,” Luna said and noted the expression on his face and knew what he meant with amends. “Who you killed?” she deadpanned.

“I can’t do anything illegal, I can’t hurt anyone—But I’m taking back the power I gave them, maybe bruising them a bit.”

“Hell yeah, do you boo. Hunt those sons of bitches,” Camila Smile, hyping him up. Bucky actually smiles as they high-five each other. “I’m on your make amends list?"

"I don’t have amends to do with you.” He frowned.

“You pushed me off the helicarrier.” Camila pointed out, which was true.

“You were annoying me,” Bucky said, which was also true.

“You almost killed me.” She made a solid point and Bucky shrugged it off.

“Sam grabbed you mid-air.”

“Yeah, then he dropped my ass too,” Camila explained and pointed out. “Because someone plucked the wing off his suit.”

Bucky rolled his eyes at her, again. Shaking his head and Camila smile.

“I ain’t telling you sorry.” Bucky smiled, playing along.

“I’m talking with your therapist.”

“She’ll put you on therapy.” Bucky looked at her, smiling. “You’re fucking crazy, you know that.”

“It’s a character trait, Bucky.” She laughed. “Besides, you like me a little crazy.” Camila teased a little.

“You know I do.” He agreed, looking at her with a smile on his lips. They both fell into a comfortable silence until Bucky blurted, without even thinking of the ramifications of saying something like this to her.

“I have a date tomorrow, at ten."

"What did you say?” Camila explained, turning her body to Bucky to hear him more correctly. “Did you say date?” Her short Bob fell exactly to her shoulder and bounced around as she hopped on the couch, kinda excited—acting like a freaking chihuahua.

“Yeah, I’m already regretting telling you. You’re gonna jinx it—

"What?,” She shouted, interrupting. “Aren’t I the one who’s been trying to get you laid all this fucking time?"

Bucky rolled his eyes once again, acting like a grumpy old man—well he technically was and said nothing. That was okay because Camila was going to answer it herself.

"Me!, so no… I’m not gonna jinx it,” She threw the remote at his chest and Bucky glared at her.

“That fucking hurt.”

“Don’t be a pussy. Who is she?, I know her? Is she cute?"

"It’s the girl from Izzy,"

"You asked her out?” Bucky looked at her and made a face and proceeded to tell her how Yuri set him up. Camila made a face and then laughed. “Look at you, finally you’re out of your millennial old dry spell.

” It’s just a date.“ He quickly interrupted her.” I haven’t had one since 1943.“ Bucky panicked a little, shuffling on the floor.

"Nah,” She hummed and shook her head, quickly getting up from the seat. “Come on,” Camila said waving his hand in front of him. Bucky frowned as he looked at her, confused.

“What?"

"You’re taking me on a date, I won’t let you go unprepared. You’re my friend I won’t let you fail.” She extended her hand at him and Bucky didn’t bulge. “Buck, come on” Camila pouted a little bit, giving him a little flirt and Bucky’s face got red. “Please?” She batted her eyelashes at him.

[robbyrobinson]

When the Wind Blows: Alternate Ending

When the Wind Blows. That was a title I hadn’t heard in a long time. It was just obviously a British animated film based on a graphic novel by Raymond Briggs. You know, the guy who did The Snowman? It centered around an elderly couple then one day, word came out that war would break out in three days. The graphic novel was written around the height of the Cold War. The threat of nuclear war was as high as it is now.

I’ve always had morbid affection for dark animated films. Watership Down; The Plague Dogs; Felidae, you name it. When the Wind Blows fit snuggly in that bubble. Having watched it religiously on YouTube, the film was ultimately removed most likely because of it violated the website’s terms of service with its objectionable content. My thirst for the darkness of the animated feature was unquenchable and I hadn’t watched it sense.

That would all change one day. While I was browsing the internet, I came upon an online forum dedicated to dark, more obscure cartoons. It must’ve been my lucky day because one of the users happened to discuss When the Wind Blows. It was boring at first with just him elaborating on how he was immensely disturbed by the film when he saw it at 7. Then the discussion took a swerve.

After he explained what he considered the most horrid aspect of the film, he added an interesting tidbit. Apparently, it was an interview with Briggs himself. In the interview, Briggs explained that what contributed to his penning the graphic novel was the reality of a nuclear war and how virtually impossible it was for anyone to survive a nuclear holocaust. As such, there was a secret ending embedded in the home releases of the movie. To further his point, the user left an link to download the movie.

Curiosity overwhelmed my reasoning. For all intents and purposes, he may as well might’ve fabricated the whole thing. But, if it was in fact real, it would prove a good nugget of knowledge. So, I clicked the link. As it loaded, I was growing concerned that I was hoodwinked and that some sort of virus would crash it. I glanced back at my computer screen seeing that it was finished.

The film surprisingly started off without a single lag nor freeze. David Bowie performed the title song per usual followed by the real-life footage and Jim returning home from reading the newspapers in town. He lived with his wife in his country home in Sussex. He conversed with his wife again without issue. I felt a building dread. This was likely the third time I’ve seen the film so I already knew how everything would play out. Its saccharine mask would crumble away exposing its sinister underbelly. I hadn’t the faintest idea as to why this was the case. If I could put money on it, I’d have to guess Jim’s tone of voice. He was voiced by John Mills and yet rather than his jovial, more informed self, he had a forlorn expression on his face. Hilda immediately took notice.

When she asked her husband what the matter was, he informed her about the likelihood of war being inevitable. After she went through her tirade of war being wicked, the radio shuttered to life announcing that war could be expected in three days. The film segues to Jim preparing the house for the nuclear missile such as by painting the windows white or making a makeshift bomb shelter all according to the Protect and Survive pamphlet the government handed out. He called his son Ron only to become disheartened with his son's seeming ignorance. Ron's laughter could be heard over the phone. A mixture of humor and melancholy. He quoted famous songs much to his father’s chagrin. To me, it was clear that Ron was aware than he was letting on. He was losing what little sanity he had left by partying his troubles away.

The film progressed with the couple mentioning previous world wars and D-Day. Hilda was making a cake while her husband further desecrated the house in accordance with the pamphlet. The radio sounded again, the announcer explaining that an ICBM would arrive in three minutes. Jim became more hectic, and shoved Hilda underneath the door after calling her a bitch.

The screen turned to symbolize the missile dropping. A deafening siren blared through my headphones nearly sending me sprawling on the ground. Violent images of civilians' bodies littered the scenery. Fire rained down from the sky and engulfed the bystanders.

A school bus full of children was hit by a wave of the flames; each child’s body bloated up from the blast and ruptured like water balloons. Their skin melted off gorily. Imagine placing a stick of butter being placed in a microwave. Other people were glued to the streets due to their legs fusing with the concrete. Faces burned off as buildings and houses were leveled by the onslaught of chaos.

The sound wave struck the couple’s house, decimating it. Miraculously, or rather unfortunately, they survived. Hilda in typical fashion wanted to tidy up only to be held back and told that she couldn’t leave until the fallout subsided. In a new addition, Jim assured his wife that they would be fine. Another voice spoke out one that Hilda could not hear. Jim reacted in disgust becoming further unsettled.

“Old boy, while are you sentencing your wife to death?”

The conclusion I drew was that it represented Jim’s innermost thoughts, or more directly his conscience. It was a monotonous voice bereft of any emotion nothing there but a cold, pure logic.

The two attempted to survive as long as they could off what little rations they had left or whatever survived the blast. Their water bottles were disintegrated and subsequently, their water lines were cut off. The couple were immeasurably famished. Throughout the week, they made offhanded remarks about how people lost in the wilderness resorted to drawing lots and sacrificing the weakest member so the others would live. The thought they were so hungry they'd be willing to eat each other was horrible.

Jim once found a meat clover and walked over to his life as she laid on the couch sleeping. He contemplated his options but got cold feet when Hilda was stirring awake. He quickly hid the weapon away, instead telling her that she was hearing things because of her age.

One day while they were walking in their yard, Jim smelled something in the air. Hilda followed him also smelling it. Roasted pork, she thought. Her stomach was so barren, she’d waste no time gorging on the pork.

They walked over a hill, their thoughts immediately turning to sorrow. A family of four was huddled together tightly and were roasted dark by the blast. They were the remains of a husband and wife and their two small kids. Hilda and Jim looked at each other then at me with that thousand yard stare. The camera focused in on Jim’s beady eyes. Fire danced in them. He knelt down and ripped off an arm from one of the kids. Hilda prayed over the bodies before digging in as well.

"The Powers That Be will get to us in the end.”

A few weeks passed by. The couple were somehow still alive. The camera panned to the fridge showing scraps of flesh that were left of the family. Around that time, Jim had also collected the rain water, unaware that it was radiated and unsafe regardless of boiling it. Their water supply had vanished again. Rat carcasses were thrown all over the floor. It then segued to Hilda vomiting into the toilet ranting about hating the taste of rat meat and blood. Boils were all over her body and Jim’s. They were skeletal in appearance with their leathery skin barely being held together.

“I just hope that Ron and Beryl made it out okay,” Hilda weakly said.

As she said this, a jump cut of Ron popped up. He was animated with clay alongside his wife and children. They were melded together in a fleshy blob with their limbs conjoined together. Jim assures her that their son's family would always stick together. Hilda's hair began to fall out by the time she suggested to Jim that they should return to their bags because another attack could come. Jim agreed to her suggestion still assuring her that help would arrive.

The voice from earlier returned now violently criticizing Jim on withholding the truth about their situation. Hilda got into her bag and waited for her husband to join her. It felt like hours before he returned, and when he did, I was taken aback. In his hands was a rifle. He cocked it, and pointed it behind his wife’s head.

“Dear, are you there?” she asked.

Jim choked back tears as he tried to speak coherently. “Recite the Lord’s Prayer for me, would you?”

She obliged. Hilda recited the prayer louder as if hoping that her prayers would be heard. A single tear rolled down Jim's face. A loud gunshot is heard when the camera panned to the outside of the house. Jim looked at the gun in horror and tossed it beside his feet. Kneeling down, he clutched his wife as she laid dying. Tears dropped on her bosom. He remained in that position until the film faded out. The voice reappeared after the Morse code spelled out MAD.

"Old Jim died clutching his beloved wife to his dying breath due to radiation poisoning. But what he ultimately learned was that when you die…nothing happens.”

I was speechless with what I had witnessed. The film was dark, but never would I have thought that Briggs had a more sinister ending in store for the elderly couple. I took a flask and hard copied the download so I could watch it every now and then. Good too because the user’s account was terminated with the only indication of its existence being the other responses that the users gave.

Briggs said it himself that the wanted to show the utter hopelessness of surviving a nuclear war, and he succeeded.

[ledenews]

Meet Mr. Richard Stewart, The Tarantula Guy

Richard Stewart had spiders in his basement. Tarantulas. About 200. Very hairy. Very scary. Quiet, secretive, and fast. Each with eight eyes and eight legs. Webs. Fangs. Venom. And reputations. One of the misunderstood misfits of the insect world - a large dark hairy tarantula - had a cameo as a villain in “Dr. No.” It crawled into bed with James Bond and then meandered up his naked torso while avoiding the 007 flop sweat.  SPOILER ALERT! Bond, stirred and shaken by his brazen bedmate, quickly grabbed a shoe and with one … two … three … four … five whacks, terminated it with extreme prejudice. “It is comical,” Stewart said. “Learning just the basic information about tarantulas makes scenes like this and movies like “Arachnophobia” and “Kingdom of the Spiders” look just ridiculous. You realize these people are really overacting when you know these tarantulas are actually harmless and not aggressive at all.” Peter Parker is “The Amazing Spider-Man.” Stewart? More like “The Affable Tarantula Guy.” Stewart's love for tarantulas now can be found online now that he has turned his hobby into an internet-based business. Stewart had to face his fears about creepy crawlies before he saw the beauty in tarantulas. “I love this thing, even though it is incapable of loving me back,” he said. He also saw the potential in tarantulas. During the COVID saga, Stewart, 41, made his avocation his vocation. He relocated his family of spiders to a Wheeling-area shopping plaza and made his Tarantula Collective a web-based business. In fewer than three years, Stewart attracted tens of thousands of followers on Instagram and Facebook and 153,000 subscribers on YouTube. His 12-minute, cinematic-like tarantula videos have generated more than 15 million views, and several YouTube awards recognizing his accomplishments. “We love the unloved. We care for the feared,” is Stewart’s near-sacred mantra. However, he couldn’t have made that blanket statement during the first half of his life. Stag Beetles have really big pinchers. A big black one crawled into his blanket when Stewart was a toddler. Then, it started mangling his host. Dad rushed in and brushed off the intruder from his screaming and shaken son. The trauma lasted for years. Augustana College (now University) in South Dakota, was light years from home. Stewart, a poor Baptist boy from West Virginia who dressed goth, and wore jeans and punk rock T-shirts, did not fit in. But his ability to play the French Horn and other brass instruments earned him a scholarship, and the school noted that a kid from Appalachia could add diversity to the homogeneous student body in Sioux Falls.  YouTube has supplied a platform for Stewart and his studies, and the videos have proven very popular. During his freshman year, a professor remarked that Stewart did not have a fear of spiders (after all, with a shoe, he could flatten one); the issue was his fear of the unknown.  So, Stewart bought one of the few types of pets allowed in the dorms; a tarantula. “Rosie” was a Rose Hair. It was not exactly a rosy picture at first. For the first month, no touching, just observing and a bit of feeding, he said. It took a while for the hairy misfit to fit into Stewart’s world. “Soon after that, I got a little more brave and started to open the enclosure to show her to my friends,” he said. Stewart and his roommate were polar opposites, well, more like South and West. Most of the students at that exclusive Lutheran school looked as if they’d just stepped out of an Abercrombie & Fitch catalog. When Stewart was studying and allowed Rosie to meander along his body, in her docile and clumsy way, he noticed that his stylish roommate became very skittish and now the roomy was the outcast. “So, I got the dorm room to myself, a lot,” Stewart said. After moving to Wheeling a few years ago, he collected more tarantulas. “They are beautiful to look at,” Stewart said. “They’re fascinating to watch. They’re unlike pretty much any other animal out there. And I get to watch them live and move around and spin webs and eat and breath. And there’s also a very calming effect. “Some people got into tarantulas because, I think, they themselves felt unloved by their parents or by society,” Stewart said. “Maybe the music they listen to or the way they were dressed, they kind of felt like an outcast or marginalized. And they identify those feelings with the tarantulas, especially when they get to learn about the spiders. Well, these things are misunderstood, and they’re marginalized, and then they are hated, just because of the way they look.” But tarantulas also can be, well, kind of therapeutic.  People suffering with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder or those who are developmentally challenged can benefit from interacting with tarantulas, Stewart said. “There is something very calming about the animal’s energy.”  Creating the enclosures for them, setting them up, taking care of them; it’s almost like working in a Zen garden, he said. “You’re being of service to an animal because you really appreciate it and love that animal, not because you’re getting anything in return.” Stewart does have a location where he operates his online business but he has not opened it to the general public. However, some of Stewart’s fans and followers get quite a bit in return. A few years back my Dad passed away. It wrecked me, man. A few months after he had passed I randomly came across one of your videos. I almost instantly went to a pet store and bought a T. Almost 4 years later we have a collection of Almost 70 species. Your videos taught me how to keep. You helped me cope with my dad's passing big time man! I found this thing that my life was missing long before my pops passed. I feel closer to my pops around my Spiders. - D.J.  A few years ago, I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome and PoTs. This has massively impacted my life, going from fit and active to being in a wheelchair. My mental health deteriorated, and at times I felt suicidal because of the way my disabilities have changed my life. My partner is now the full time carer for my very active dog. I watched a lot of videos and researched tarantulas to the point I realised I needed one in my life. I picked up a Mexican Red Knee juvenile, which popped up in my local invertebrate store, and named her Tilly. After a couple of weeks, I found myself picking up and moving the most venomous spider in my country the UK (the false widow). I wasn't afraid of the giant house spiders running around my house anymore. I found myself very quickly attached to Tilly and found her very soothing to watch and she lifted my mood. Tarantulas are something I am easily able to look after, even with my disabilities. - Rhiannon When I first started keeping tarantulas 4 years ago I was not in a good place mentally. Throughout my life I have never felt like I fit in anywhere.  I was dealing with depression and some very rough moments of high anxiety as well and things just weren’t really looking all that great for me. My first ever T was an avicularia avicularia (Guyana pink toe) that I bought as a bigger juvenile and raised till it matured out as a male and died.  That tarantula changed everything for me.  I feel like people don’t really understand just how misunderstood these creatures are and I could relate to how I saw them because I feel like I, myself, was also very misunderstood. In a weird way, I saw myself in these creatures. From building my collection to checking on them every day and just being indulged in the tarantula-keeping hobby has really changed my mental health for the better. 8 legged hairy creatures did what medicine, therapy, and psychiatrist appointments couldn’t do.  - Tom Stewart spends most days studying his tarantulas in an effort to further his research. Stewart also was able to help one of the first Fab Five, to overcome his fear of the hairy crawlies. An appreciative Jai Rodriguez, part of the original cast of “Queer Eye For The Straight Guy,” was on a Stewart YouTube podcast. This is the link: Link: https://youtu.be/L2HwlDDP_Qg?si=SKz-2iwa4wIQZlWh Stewart has been invited to speak at insect-themed conventions in the US and in the UK. Near-constant requests for autographs and selfies are part of his life, these days. Stewart calls it “fangirling.” Peter Parker, eat your Spidey heart out. After all of this success, does he still feel like an outsider, an outcast?  “Yeah, in some ways,” Stewart said. “Because you can really be loved within your own little niche, but then, outside of it, the general public still can be like ‘you keep spiders as a pet? You’re a freak. Why would you do that?’” Read the full article

[princeescaluswords]

To each their own, of course, but if I was Jeff Davis, I'd simply not fall out of love with the Teen Wolf Universe and not say that I wouldn't want to write anymore during the online cast reunion. RIP to him but I'm different! :-P All jokes aside, though, your Kira Spinoff post was amazing and I have a question now: what do you think they could have done to improve the were Garuda? The one dude with the long blue power stealing (?) claws, I think? Thanks in advance!

I don’t think they could have improved Belasko, the enemy from the first episode of the fifth season, very much.  He absolutely served his purpose, which was to introduce us to the overarching themes of the season.   On the other hand, I really think that the show could have improved their use of mythological creatures overall.  I’ll start with how I think Belasko was well used.

From the way Belasko talked and acted, I think he was different than the other chimeras.  I don’t think he was actually meant to be part of the experiment to resurrect La Bete.  I think he was used in an attempt to eliminate Scott while also being used to aid Theo’s infiltration of the pack as a secondary backup.  He understood what he was and his primary mission.   I have no concrete evidence, but I suspect he was another omega werewolf, like the homeless refugee from Season 2, looking for power.  The Doctors offered him it.

In the end, Belasko was simply another generic “I want power” villain, a discount-store Peter Hale (and in a wonderful bit of trivial played by Michael (Gerard) Hogan’s son Gabriel).   He wasn’t successful in killing Scott, but he was successful in establishing for the audience that the Doctors worked by blurring the lines between science and the supernatural, that they were intelligence and disciplined, that they worked primarily through proxies, that their animosity toward the pack was not personal but practical.  Belasko’s actions demonstrated to us how and why the Doctors would be a threat this season.  It was an excellent example of showing, not telling.

It also served as a legitimate and understandable reason why Scott was open to Theo’s presence -- after all he came to Scott’s rescue which is what Scott would have done -- and  why Scott was skeptical of Stiles’s unsubstantiated suspicion of the same.  Belasko’s purpose was served when Scott told Stiles “I'm kind of more concerned about the guy who just tried to kill me.”  

I even dug the glowing blue garuda talons.  Why would the extra power that shapeshifters have only appear in their eyes?

The problem I have is in the casual dropping of the species’ name.  Deaton describes them as more like the talons of a harpy eagle in Parasomnia (5x02) but later on has recognized them as a shapeshifter from Asia known as a garuda in Condition Terminal (5x04).  It’s wonderful that Deaton starts out misidentifying the source of the talons because Deaton being wrong is a humanizing thing.  He shouldn’t be a walking encyclopedia of the mystical.   It is also wonderful that we see more of the things he promised back in Alpha Pact (3x11).  

What’s not wonderful is the shallow way the name is used to give the illusion of depth.  It would have taken not much time at all for Deaton to talk more about the role of the garuda in their original culture in the episode when he mentions it, or later in Ouroboros as he explores the Russian non-nuclear facility.  Deaton’s adventure and his knowledge isn’t used to expand the audience’s conceptions of the world Scott and his pack find themselves in.  

Teen Wolf is a bildungsroman and part of that is a child discovering that the world is much larger than what they have previously experienced.  Jeff understood this on a certain level, but he never was really interested in seeing the effect that this knowledge had on his protagonists.   It’s why the Skin-Walkers are ultimately dissatisfying (and on a certain level insulting to indigenous people) because while they played a role in the story their otherness was used to disguise their narrative role, not expand it.   Why can garuda claws take the power from a True Alpha or La Bete du Gevaudan?  Jeff didn’t care -- he just needed something ‘cool’ to work like they did.   Why would Noshiko take Kira to the Skin-Walkers and not, say, other kitsune in Japan?    Jeff didn’t care -- he just needed something ‘cool’ to help Kira without spending too much time or money on it.   It would have taken only a few minutes of screen time to give us the why in these situations, to really expand the characters’ world, rather than treat another culture’s mythology like a painted backdrop of a forest in a stage production, fooling the audience into imagining that the world is larger than what is portrayed on the screen.

[onisiondrama]

(Note: I’m not repeating stories he’s told before and just putting them in parenthesis. I have a lot more videos to go until I’m caught up so that would save me a lot of time. If he gives details I never heard from him before, I will type those.)

“Is Onision A Dad? (+ Story With Onision's Father)“ October 12, 2020 Speaks

James says in the past he’s said he’ll never talk about being a father because the internet is crazy. They called CPS on them 3 or 4 times and every time CPS found that they were really good parents. They are responsible, take care of their kids, show them compassion, don’t hit them, listen to them, hug them when they cry, and you try to give them a better childhood than you had.

(Allegations against his father)

Says his childhood was not awful, but it lacked a lot. He did not have a male role model to look up to that was consistent in his life. He believes most of his problems comes from his childhood.

When he thinks about raising another human being, he thinks it’s important to give them a structurally sound environment so they don’t have an excuse to wind up damaged by something not beyond his control.

Says he was watching Christopher Titus talk about children and he said every parent he talked to regretted having kids. James asks if they knew what they signed up for? He says of course they’ll cry and you’ll have to spend a lot of money feeding them. They’re a financial burden and they’re going to cost you you’re time. That’s your responsibility. His mind is blown that they’re acting like parenthood is a curse.

Says he had a nephew who broke his femur and he was like “how could you let that happen? That’s insane. You must have been so neglectful.” His cousin told him, “just wait.” He says it was kind of like his cousin cursed him. (His found his daughter after she fell out of a 2nd story window story.)

He says he feels like a failure in keeping his child safe. If he could go back, he would have not worked so late that night. He still works a lot to pay the bills. When he found her, he thought she was not going to survive, but once the doctor told him the details he knew she would be fine.

He says he refers to himself as “Dr. James” because of instances like (he refused exploratory surgery for his son story.) He says his common sense was more than the doctor’s 18 years of medical training. If you disagree with him, your conclusion results in a child pointlessly cut open. Says it’s horrifying some doctors do this, but it’s reality.

(Refused down syndrome test story.) He says even if their child had down syndrome, it was past the point of pregnancy termination and they would have not wanted to terminate because people with down syndrome deserve love and to be raised. He says he’s a very virtuous person with common decencies. He asked what the point of the test was if it was too late to terminate? She told them it’s for peace of mind. He says he lost it and went full rant on the two women who were trying to potentially kill their baby with a needle. Their kid doesn’t have down syndrome, but if he did they would still take photos of him playing in the park like all other parents do.

He says one of the leading causes of death in our country is medical error. He says that’s because it’s un-natural and you’re cutting people open. Scalps don’t grow on trees. It’s helpful if you have cancer, but if you don’t know what’s going on you should step back and take a breath.

(More of the rash / refuse surgery story. He keeps name-dropping the doctor and where he worked.) He concludes he’s a very protective father. He says his life is nothing compared to theirs. He exists to make their lives better. 

He says when they got to the new hospital their new doctor was Asian. He has a natural assumption that Asian doctors are more balanced and smart. Doctor says it was a rash. (He smacks his deck and stares at the camera.) He says people online gaslight him and question his intelligence, but when he makes decisions they benefit people. In this instance he saved his son from an unnecessary surgery. He was so glad he was there because Kai isn’t the type of person to throw down. Kai would have let them put in that needle and potentially kill his kid. Kai would have been walked all over by the doctor and let the explorative surgery happen. Says he fought for his kid and he won and his son is better for it. Says full disclosure, from that point on he looked at his kid as a drama queen. He was screaming so much over a rash they went to the ER and they almost did surgery on him. He didn’t say this to his son, but he was thinking it.

James says when he had his first kid, Kai was part of a mom group. People were talking about getting divorced. Kai told him 8 or 9 out of 10 people get a divorce after having a kid. He says having a kid isn’t that stressful. It strengthened their bond when they had one. People came and went who tried to ruin their marriage and they all failed at homewrecking. It’s difficult get him to leave his family when he loves his kids. If his life is inferior to his kids, why would his love life be superior. He says people approach them and try to get him to leave Kai or Kai to leave him and they haven’t been successful so far. They have a foundation built on loyalty to their kids. It’s programed into people, but some people don’t have it. Like his father, he had the opposite. According to an article he tried to sue James, but couldn’t because James never said his name. James says he remembers saying his name so if he wants to sue him down the line, that says who he is as a parent.

(His mom tried to sue to see his kids story.) He says his mom called Kai a “tranny” and said he was invalid because he came out in his 20′s and breastfeeds. He says Kai breastfed because the kids need milk, but he plans on getting top surgery once they don’t need it anymore. One of the kids still breastfeeds. His mom refused to date a guy because he slept with a man before. She said he was attractive and she really liked him, but she wouldn’t date him. He says she’s phobic on every level and she lies to his face.

He wants to be honest and accepting with his kids. He wouldn’t call their spouse what she called Kai. Kai was crying about it and his mom said “good. I’m glad he’s crying.” (he’s doing a texting gesture while he’s quoting her.) He asked his mom about Caitlyn Jenner. His mom wouldn’t say anything ill about Caitlyn Jenner, but still attacked Kai. He thought it was mean because he gave her a house for free. He tried to buy it back and she wouldn’t let him even though she previously said she would give it back for free. Says there’s a lot of bad blood with his parents. If his kid ever gave him a house he would be grateful. He says his mom could visit his kids, but he didn’t want her driving them around because she does drugs.

He says this all reflects on their parenting. His mother-in-law asked if she could drink wine while watching their son when he was a very young baby. He said no. He holds everyone to the same standards. He kicked people out of their life for lying and doing drugs. They went on Hansen and acted like he was a monster. No one gives him compassion for that, he was protecting his kids from drugs. The internet believed the drug addict, criminal, liars.

He doesn’t put anyone over his status as a parent. He says lots of families experience tragedies. He saw a 10 year old that was playing with other kids at a family event. The next family event he found out he was dead. He drowned in a pool or a river. He didn’t think the parents were incompetent, he thought it was a horrible tragedy. He immediately thought their pain must be so severe.

He has a cousin whose kid was on a feeding schedule and the kid was bawling for breastmilk. He thought that was insane. The baby is crying because they need to be fed. The most basic of common sense. The baby died of SIDS. He doesn’t know if it’s related, but as a parent you can’t think you screwed up and hate yourself forever. He says if a kid drowned while the mom was shooting up heroin, that’s clear incompetence. If he was voting or paying his taxes when something happened, you can’t say he’s a monster. You can say he was in the wrong place and that sucks, even if he was 10 feet away. It’s awful and you’re not an innocent party because it could have been prevented, there’s that guilt. There was something very specific you’re supposed to do and it seems your kid starved to death or was nutrient deficient. When they went to the funeral, she talked about how Jesus had a plan and taking care of the kid. He says he never heard her talk about religion in his life. It’s just a scapegoat to make people feel better and so they can live with themselves.

He doesn’t know how he knew his kid was outside when she fell. He still doesn’t know what that metal scraping sound that sounded like a toy car on the garage door. His daughter was a few feet away and couldn’t even reach the door. She barely made any noise. He was so lucky he had his headphones off at that specific time. When you survive a tragedy, you don’t feel woe is me. You say thank god we survived that. He’s not going to sit here and say it was part of some plan. He thinks god or angels are more of a clean up crew than a protector. He thinks god can only influence how to fix it or help. What kind of god lets the holocaust happen and give an 8 year old cancer? He thinks there are subtle miracles.

Says we are programed to love our own unconditionally. If your kid stabbed you in the chest, you ask what you did wrong for them to do that. You don’t blame your kids. There may have been a chemical imbalance, but you have to blame yourself. When he sees his kids he sees a smaller version of himself and it scares him. He sees the vulnerability and how many scary things can ruin his life or her life.

He thinks about how he was abandoned as a kid by his dad and his perversions. His dad didn’t try to apologize to the people he hurt or work it out with his mom. He said I’m fine the way I am and screw my family. He blamed everyone and didn’t take responsibility. When his uncle threatened his dad if he came near the family, his dad said he would do the same thing so he knows how bad he is. Instead of talking to his son, he went to a newspaper. Three victims were abused by him. He loves himself more than his kids.

He says they found out his father had a child out of wedlock. He’s the father to a Somoan woman who is much bigger than he is. He says it looks really silly and they don’t look alike. His father didn’t tell them about his other family. 3 of 4 of his kids don’t talk to his father anymore.

A lot of parents only think of themselves and their ego. He thinks it’s a suicide prevention mechanism. When you’re awful, the species programs you to justify your existence.

(Beat up his dad story) He says that, speeding on the highway, and running a red at 2 am are the only crimes he’s committed. He got pulled over for running the red on his way to Tinker Air Force Base and paid a fine.

He doesn’t understand why people think having kids is a burden. He doesn’t understand why people go against their programing. He doesn’t have a mom or dad who loves him unconditionally. He gave his mom a house and she still doesn’t have unconditional love for him.

He wants to lead by example and share his stories. He think he’s at the point of surpassing so many things and up t this point he already gave his kids a better life than he had. They were never hit like he was as a child. They don’t have a stepdad that makes them pray “I love you satan” to the TV, or does drugs around them, or tape a dead duck to a dog’s neck, or shoots that dog for attacking a child. They don’t have a mom that forces you to round up your geese to be sold for potential slaughter because doesn’t agree with you having them and she doesn’t want to take care of them.

He says he might be hated by his young one day because the standard now is probably low. The mistakes he makes, they might grow to say they’ll be better than their father. Then their kids, etc.

If you regret having your kids, you need therapy. You’re going to set them on a path for only caring about themselves. You have to teach your kids to be kind to animals, kind to each other, respectful of people they love. He knows people who had healthy, functional parents and they turned out to be the coolest people. He is painfully damaged as a human being because of what he went through as a child.

You signed up for having kids, so act like it. They’re not a burden or curse. They’re a gift. When you have kids, you’re going to feel love and happiness like you never felt in your whole life. Your view of the world changes and you realize what you did in your life up to that point was meaningless.

He says he’s going to try to only upload new videos once his other videos hit a certain amount of views so he can focus on other things. He doesn’t want to invest in a sinking ship.

He says don’t buy people houses because they won’t appreciate it. You’ll just dump a quarter of a million dollars and they’ll just roll their eyes. He says he used to have a fantasy of buying everyone in his family a new house or pay off their mortgage when he made it big on Youtube. His mom destroyed that fantasy. He gives, but never stopped to think what have they given you? A lot of people who complained about him publicly were given tens of thousands of dollars of stuff by him.

He has a friend, McFly, who always shows up to his Twitch streams and gives him tons of bits. In return, he bought her a $50 gift certificate for a video game and a couple other games at other points. She also gave him a costume. That’s what real friends are.

He hopes you learned a lot from this video.

[milknette]

day 15 - mythical creatures

how i miss yesterday, and how i’d let it fade away.

tumblr month: @auyeahaugust

links: ao3 | ff.net

THE Agreste Mansion could have been beautiful, if not for the overgrown greenery and rusted fence that decorate the estate's exterior.

It looks like the textbook definition of what a haunted house is.

Marinette should be scared.

Instead, she takes out her cellphone, turns it on, faces the camera, and...

Goes live.

"Hey everyone, Marinette here!" She starts, waving almost awkwardly at the camera. (Thousands of viewers come storming into the live in seconds.) "So… welcome to the Ladybug— crap, I mean, the Ladyblog!"

Noticing that the camera is angled a little too low, she shifts to show herself better.

(Wow, she really is bad at this.)

"As you all know, or maybe you don't, haha… I'm heading the vlog for today!" She tries to smile, but it's clearly panicked. "Alya couldn't come back with me to Paris, unfortunately, and you all really wanted to see us cover the Agreste story so…," she moves along with the camera, trying to show off her surroundings.

(Nobody watching has the heart to tell her they can't see anything because her head's covering half the screen.)

"I'll be heading this adventure myself!" Marinette scratches her head awkwardly, and almost drops her phone as she hears a sudden crack! behind her. "Ohmygod what was that—"

She immediately turns the camera, only to notice a black cat pass behind her.

Its vivid green eyes almost make her shudder.

"Black cat," Marinette mutters to herself. "Sure, like I didn't know this was a terrible idea already.

She remembers a little too late that she's still online.

"I mean! This is going to be fun! Let's do this!"

The chatbox is filled with messages, but they all really say the same thing:

This is going to be a trainwreck.

But I am going to enjoy absolutely every minute of it.

(She pointedly ignores these messages and goes forward.)

Marinette walks towards the estate, using a key to unlock the rusted gate to the Agreste residence.

"If you're all wondering how I got entry to this place," she starts. "One of our subscribers actually helped us out," she turns towards the camera and smiles. "So Chloé Bourgeois, thanks a lot!"

(Yeah, thanks for giving her no choice but to go through with this video.)

"If it weren't for you, this video wouldn't be possible at all."

The gate opens with a resounding creaaaaak and Marinette has to force the unbothered smile on her face.

"Alright, let's go in."

.

.

.

[ INSTAGRAM STORY: maribug ]

"Hi guys! In case you don't know the story of the Agrestes, please swipe up with an article Alya wrote on the story below. As usual, be warned for creepy content!"

The Mysterious Disappearances of the Agreste Family

Almost five years ago, the Agrestes were the so-called 'it family' of Paris, France. Their family consisted of top fashion designer Gabriel, his beautiful wife, Emilie, and their only son, Adrien— a teenage model for his father's brand early on. In the public's eyes, this was a picture-perfect family.

However, this was soon revealed to be a ruse.

In 20XX, Emilie Agreste suddenly passed away. The family refused to comment and held a private funeral. A few weeks later, residents were surprised to find large fences erected around the residence, gating outsiders from entering the home. Father and son withdrew from contact with the outside world, aside from secretary Nathalie Sanceour and Adrien Agreste's unnamed personal bodyguard, nicknamed 'The Gorilla'.

Any media or news shared about the family were quickly taken down. For a long time, any and all information about the death of Emilie Agreste was removed— presumably by the husband himself.

News on the Agrestes stayed quiet for a year, until Adrien was spotted attending a local high school.

This was only for a day. After finding out about Adrien's attempted "escape", he was quickly returned to the premises and brought home.

The school refused to comment when we asked for an interview.

Due to limited information, little is known about what happened next.

The most accepted story, however, is that after Adrien was returned home, the Agrestes completely dropped off the radar. Even Gabriel Agreste was completely unreachable to his company.

Both Nathalie Sancoeur and 'The Gorilla' we're suddenly fired and removed from the premises without warning.

After a year of silence from the family, Sancoeur was finally given a warrant to enter the Agreste Mansion with the police force.

The mansion was empty. In fact, it seemed that nobody had occupied the space in months. A written report states that a cup of coffee Sancoeur remembers making from Mr. Agreste, on the day of her sudden termination, remained to be on his desk.

No sign of forced entry or violence was taken note of. They had just… disappeared.

A nationwide search was held to find the father-son duo, but to no avail. They were not found alive nor dead. The police soon branded this a cold case and filed it away.

Sancoeur was given control over the Agreste brand. 'The Gorilla' was also rehired to be her assistant.

Both declined to comment and continue to avoid topics talking about the Agreste family.

The mansion has been left untouched since then.

Until now.

(Please follow TheLadyblog on Instagram, tomorrow by 8PM vlogger Marinette Dupain-Cheng will visit the abandoned residence!)

.

.

The house is huge.

Marinette enters into a large foyer, run-down from years of neglect and disrepair. The pristine white of the walls have faded into a dull gray, complemented with spiderwebs in almost every corner. She holds her flashlight almost like a weapon.

Then, she switches to the front camera and shows the audience her surroundings.

"As you can see, the house seems untouched from when its previous owners lived here," Marinette begins, holding back the need to shudder. "Chloé messaged me that she ensured nobody else lived or even came in its vicinity," she explains, her tone turning more empathetic. "Apparently she and Adrien used to be friends, and she's still hoping that he'll come back to claim the house someday."

(Personally, Marinette doesn't think that he will— doesn't think he can, really— but decides to keep that little fact to herself.)

She turns the camera back to her.

"So anyway, I was given a floor plan to the building," she continues, raising up a piece of paper and showing it to her viewers. "Since the mansion is huge, and I can't possibly visit all the rooms tonight, tell me where you want to go!"

The comments flood in, and the answer is unanimous:

The previous room of Adrien Agreste.

.

.

Marinette opens the door carefully.

The door squeaking isn't that loud, but it echoes throughout the corridor and makes things so much creepier than they have to be.

She bites her lip, and enters the room— which takes up almost the entire second floor story.

Arcade stations, computers, games, books, and CDs fill up the entire floor. A television screen almost three times bigger than she is lays upon the wall. A basketball half-court decorates one side of the room. There are more doors which likely lead to other things to see, but she decides to check that later on.

"Okay, I don't think I'll do this room justice with a phone camera and a flashlight for lighting, but this is amazing," Marinette raves. "I feel like this is a teenage boy's dream room. Honestly, it's my dream room." She laughs to herself lightly, turning the front camera on. "Though I'd maybe change out the basketball court for my personal sewing space."

(Marinette briefly wonders why anyone would want to leave such a place, but dismisses the thought almost immediately; realizing that none of it could be enjoyed at all if she were alone.)

In fact, standing in the middle of it at that moment made her feel much lonelier than she was previously.

Except, she's not alone.

But Marinette's too busy looking around to notice the increasingly panicked messages of her viewers:

do yall

u all see that right…..

ohmygod is-

IS THAT REAL WTH

MARINETTE OMG

PLEASE TURN AROUND

RUN? DONT LOOK BACK?

PROTECT OUR SWEET SUMMER CHILD

I CANNOT WATCH ANOTHER LIVE WHERE SOMEONE GETS MURDERED PLS

CHECK UR MESSAGES GIRL !

Noticing her phone buzz with messages, she clicks on the tab that opens them.

Marinette's eyebrows wrinkle together.

"What are you guys talking abou—"

A scream, the sound of her phone cracking, and the live video suddenly being turned off.

well, there goes ½ of the ladyblog…

.

.

Alya wakes up to her phone overflowing with messages.

The first one she reads is extremely straightforward:

HELP I THINK MARINETTE'S DEAD

So understandably, she does what any good friend would do.

Think it's a prank set up by Marinette (for making her hold the live without her), get irritated, send her a 'haha nice try mari but dead is a stretch' message, then immediately go back to sleep.

Marinette, however, never gets the message.

.

.

It's easy to panic when death's staring you right in the face.

So she does, because death is quite literally staring right at her.

In the form of a sixteen-year-old boy whose face she knew all too well from all the hidden fashion magazines her teenage self hid under her bed.

Adrien Agreste.

(Well, at least now the question of did-he-live was answered. A stone-cold, dead, nope!)

And also, ghosts really do exist— who knew?

(The so-called paranormal expert didn't, apparently.)

The ghost moves toward her, as she scrambles away, her back suddenly hitting the wall.

"Please, if you're gonna kill me, do it quick," Marinette replies, rushing through the words. "I don't know how angry you ghosts are, but I swear violence isn't the answer. It'll solve nothing and make me dead so let's maybe move away from that—"

Adrien tilts his head, and it almost looks human. (Maybe if his head hadn't done a complete three-sixty at that exact moment, she would've calmed down. Instead, and understandably, she panics more.)

"Hey, hey! Don't worry, I'm not going to kill you."

"You aren't?" She asks, then suddenly horrified (and almost embarrassed), covers her body with her hands. "Don't possess me! Look, I'm a klutz and have literally no coordination. You don't want me! Actually, I can get you better bodies! I have this friend named Alya…"

(Marinette isn't sure why, but she feels extremely irritated with her best friend for some reason.)

The ghost laughs.

And it doesn't echo ohmygod he really is dead and she really is going to die and all this drama for a bunch of views what has she become—

He floats closer to her, and smiles. "I won't possess you either," he replies. "You can keep your body."

"... then, what do you want?"

"Well, I don't really want anything."

"Really?"

He looks almost amused. "I mean, you were the one who broke into my house. I guess I'd like to know why."

Okay, fair.

Marinette looks almost sheepish when she responds, realizing how dumb her reasoning actually is:

"Well, I'm a paranormal vlogger…"

.

.

Marinette has done a lot of strange things in her life.

But this— talking to a ghost about YouTube of all things, is probably the weirdest of all.

(The really terrifying thing about it was how comfortable she actually felt about it.

Talking to Adrien was terribly easy that you couldn't help but let your guard down.)

He looks at her with wide-eyed awe. "That's amazing! And I can't believe I get to be included in your video!"

She smiles lightly. "Well, you are kind of a big deal…"

"I never knew fashion meant that much to so many people!"

(The truth was that they knew Adrien because of his disappearance and the conspiracy around his family, but she decides against mentioning it. Though, it's quite strange to be so cautious of hurting a ghost, of all things.)

"Yeah," Marinette replies instead. "I used to collect your magazines, you know?"

Adrien brightens up. "Dang, you're a fan of me?" He bows down, and his head almost falls over. (She finds herself laughing.) "I'm honored, milady."

"Milady?" She asks teasingly. "What era are you from?"

"Hey—! Technically, we're the same age." He protests, before suddenly quieting down. "I guess I'd be twenty now, huh?"

The mood shifts, and Marinette can't do anything about it.

"... I'm sorry."

"Don't be," he only says. "I guess I'm just a little sad that I never really got to experience being a teenager. Y'know, being normal." He laughs to himself. "And even after death, I'm still not. Being stuck here and all."

Quiet.

"Do you mind if I ask what happened…?" Marinette begins, her voice soft. "Not that you have to answer but… it was so sudden when everyone got the news you were gone."

Adrien sighs. "I'm not sure myself," he explains. "My dad… he thought there was some way to bring her back. Bring my mom back to life. And he did things, some dark things, but they didn't work… and before I knew it, he was gone, and I was stuck like this."

He gestures down at himself. "I can't even leave the house, can you believe it? I've just been here and alone for years…" Then, a smile. "Until you came along."

"I'm glad I can be of some company," Marinette replies, smiling back.

(It's strange— so strange, but she feels connected to him in ways she's never felt connected to anyone.)

"I'm glad that the company who showed up was you."

At that, Marinette decides on an idea.

She stands, and gestures for him to follow.

"You're a ghost, so you can't touch things, right?"

"Yeah… but I can move them. I learned a lot of ghost skills while I was stuck here."

She smiles. "Great."

"What do you mean?"

Marinette walks over to the foosball table, groaning from years of neglect, and places her hands on it. "I may not be able to bring you back, but I can let you experience what it feels like to be a teenager." She tilts her head, pointing towards the game.

"Let's play?"

.

.

They play games late at night and into the early hours of the morning.

Marinette has never seen someone enjoy her company that much— like she had given him the whole world, and everything he'd ever wanted.

It makes her heart soar, to see him so happy.

They take a break as the clock tells them it's almost three in the morning.

Marinette settles into the couch, with Adrien lying down as he floats over her.

"I'm sorry you had to play with me," she starts. "Not really great at sports. And I can get pretty intense when it comes to online games."

Adrien only smiles at her, without a hint of irritation or regret. "No, this was perfect. It's the most fun I've had in a long time." He laughs. "Maybe ever. And I'll never forget this, no matter how long I stay like this."

She frowns as the words leave his mouth.

(Wasn't the thing tying him to the real world his failure to experience his life as a teenager?)

Marinette says it aloud.

"If only it were that simple," he responds, almost sad. "But I don't think that was ever the reason."

"Then what is it?"

"..."

"Adrien?"

"..."

"I won't judge it or anything. Please, I want to help."

Adrien sighs, then looms over her, the expression on his face almost breaking her heart. "It's corny, but… I wanted to experience love." He finally says. "After my mom died, I was locked away. I never felt my dad's love, and Nathalie cared for me, but that was it. My mom was the last person who ever loved me. I just wish I could've experienced that feeling one more time."

"...

I loved you."

"What?"

Marinette looks up at him, vulnerable. Her hands curl up into balls as they grab at the couch.

"I don't know if you remember me," she begins shakily. "But I was there that day you went to the high school."

"..."

"It was raining. And it was only for a moment, but you lent me your umbrella because I forgot mine," she laughs to herself. "I'm sure you don't remember me but…"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

"... how did you know that?"

"Marinette Dupain-Cheng," he repeats. "I remember that name. I talked to Miss Bustier over the phone then, and she told me you were the first person I should find when I came to class. She told me you'd make me feel right at home. Adrien looks up at her, and smiles. "I guess she was right."

At that, Marinette feels her mouth tilt upward. "Took you a long time to find me, huh?"

"Better late than never, though?"

They share a laugh, before Adrien continues. "I was really looking forward to meeting you," he says. "And somehow, I knew it was you when I gave that umbrella. You just gave that feeling of home Miss Bustier was talking about… and I was so desperate to have you know me that the umbrella was my way of doing so. Even if I never gave my name, I hoped that somehow, in some way, you'd remember me." He smiles. "And you did."

"... I don't know what to say."

"I think I loved you then," Adrien says, almost to himself. "I just didn't know it yet."

They stare at each other for a moment, and Marinette feels her heart break and be whole at the same time.

The sun starts to show itself, peeking through the clouds.

"... I won't see you again anymore, will I?"

Adrien doesn't even have to nod for her to know his answer.

"Maybe I'll take back my, 'I love you', then."

He laughs.

"I don't like having to lose you all over again."

He makes his way to her, then presses a kiss to her forehead.

(She knows that ghosts can't touch her, but the warmth that spreads from his touch isn't anything short of real.)

"Good luck with your YouTube channel."

It's Marinette's turn to laugh.

"Are you sure those are what you want your last words to be?"

Adrien hums.

"I guess you're right," he replies softly. "I'll go with this then:

I love you, Marinette Dupain-Cheng."

And as the sun rises, she suddenly finds herself alone.

.

.

Marinette rushes home to use her laptop.

She scrolls through the messages— all assuming she's died, and dials a number she knows by heart.

"Oh thank God you're alive, I was so worried about you!"

"I saw your message, Alya."

"Oh. Haha, well! How was I supposed to believe that an actual ghost showed up on your live?"

"I guess you're right."

"... so, is it true? Was the ghost real? Is the Agreste mansion haunted?"

Marinette pauses.

Then, almost too softly for her to hear, she says it:

"Not anymore."

[prorevenge]

Over a decade later, I got revenge on my abuser. (Not graphic)

Background is short and sweet, just like the rest of the story: When I was a young lass, I was sexually abused by an adult male who volunteered at the school I went to. It went on that entire year, and the next year I had the good fortune to change schools for totally unrelated reasons. Due to the standard-issue threats and manipulation that come with these scenarios ("I'll kill your family if you ever tell them and take you to live with me once they're dead," "What we do is a special secret that nobody else can ever know," etc.), I never told anyone. I pushed it down and just tried not to think about it.

Many years later, I had a friend confide in me that something similar had happened to her, and we swapped stories. She had done things the proper, tidy way: she told a trusted adult, the perpetrator was tried in a court of law, he was convicted, and he was jailed for a long time. Everything wrapped up nice and neat with a little bow on top.

She was pissed at me for not telling anyone about what had happened to me, even if it hadn't been until years later (because what if it had happened to someone else?), but I pointed out that once it was past the statute of limitations, I couldn't really tell anyone. Doing so when he wasn't tried and convicted would come back on me as slander. So it felt like there wasn't anything I could do. For a while, I left it at that. But it started to nag at me. Was there really nothing I could do?

I started by looking him up online. A basic Google and social media search were all I needed to find him (living far away from where I was, and I wasn't sure if that meant good or bad things for my revenge, whatever it turned out to be as I had no definite plan then).

On his very public profile, I got some news that rattled me: he had terminal cancer.

It didn't seem like he was going to drop dead the next day, but still, it was now or never if I wanted to get some kind of closure from him.

So I requested him on social media, and he accepted. I sent him the first message: "Hey, I'm (OP) from (school). Do you remember me?" He answered yes, and that was it. I asked for his phone number. "I just want to talk to you." He said he didn't think that was a good idea. I said, "It's been so long, there's nothing that could happen. I'm not mad, just sad more than anything, and I just want to talk. Now that I'm older, I want to understand."

He believed me, and I got his number. I tried calling him immediately--straight to voicemail. He said he would set up a time for us to talk. Okay, fine. I can be patient. It only gave me more time to think about what I would do.

About a week or so later, I called him, and he picked up. I barely remember this conversation, and went through a lot of it on adrenaline, shaking like a leaf. He sounded... sick. Old and sick. Not intimidating, like he used to be. Not scary, not anymore. He asked me what I wanted, and why I was talking to him after so long. I said, "I just need to hear from you what you did to me so I know I'm not crazy."

He said he couldn't do that. I told him he owed it to me, and that it had been so long ago, the statute of limitations was expired so there was nothing that could be done about it. I said that I knew he was dying, and it would clear his conscience to talk about it and answer all of my questions--win-win, right? He still said no.

So I told him that was a shame, and that I'd hoped to get closure from him, but I guess asking his wife and son that I'd seen on social media would have to be enough. This was a bluff on my part--I knew that by telling him that, he could do preemptive damage control. If this didn't work, I'd be out of luck.

He said fine. He first said in a very bland sort of way, "I was inappropriate with you back then."

Not good enough.

I pushed and pushed and pushed until I almost thought he was going to hang up, and he finally admitted it, in detail. I thanked him and asked if his conscience felt better. He said yes. I said good, that was all I wanted for both of us. I hung up.

Now the actual revenge part: I had recorded the whole thing. (Not illegal, I was in a 1-party consent area, and although he lived in a different area, he did too.)

I uploaded it to cloud storage and sent a link to his wife and his (adult) son. I explained that I had found them as a mutual contact on social media, and since he was nearing the end, I thought they might appreciate knowing some of the memories he shared with me about the time he volunteered at that school.

I never got a reply from his wife. I didn't expect one, but still, I was a little disappointed.

It took about three months, but then I finally got a message from his son. It was glorious.

He wasn't the guy's son, he was his step-son, and he'd never liked the guy from day 1. He'd told his mom this repeatedly, but she insisted he was just bitter about his bio dad leaving and told him to get over it. Something just felt off about him, and now he knew what it was. He apologized to me for how the guy had hurt me, not that it was any of his fault--they didn't even know him back then yet.

He told me that he knew his mom hadn't replied to me, but she had listened to it. Afterward, she had left him. While he was dying of cancer. The step-son said this guy didn't have family of his own, and that he and his mom and his own kids were all he had left. They severed ties with him.

Best part: the wife never actually married him, and even if she had, when she left, it wasn't exactly like there was time for the guy to contest anything in court. He was fading fast, and that stuff can take a year or more to get settled. He didn't have that kind of time. When she left, she took all the money (it was all hers, he hadn't worked in a long time due to the cancer), she took the closest thing he had to family, and the best part: without her, he no longer had the money to pay for his private health insurance.

I thanked the step-son for contacting me, and asked if he could do me one more favor: tell me when it was over and he was dead. He happily agreed.

A few more months later, I got the news: he died alone in a state hospital. They weren't going to publish an obituary, although the step-son had decided to have him cremated so that he could just scatter the ashes. No plot, no lasting proof that this man ever existed.

Apparently he had spent the last few months writing constant letters to his now-ex and step-son, calling them, texting them, everything. Neither one had responded, and he died alone, knowing that what he had done had eventually ruined his life and taken away what mattered to him.

I thought it was a pretty fitting ending, although in the end vengeance just felt meh. I always wish that I hadn't believed him back then and had just told someone.

TL;DR: I was sexually abused as a kid but never told anyone. Years later, I get him to admit to it and secretly send a recording to his family. They abandon him and leave him to die alone.

(source) story by (/u/rawr92109)