#I was also going to do it in pixel but I quickly realized that was going to take at least 80 years so opted for my OG style Explore tagged Tumblr posts

[factual-fantasy]

As soon as I got done drawing the refences for my Slime Rancher submas AU, I turned right around and got to work on Ingo's disappearance arc XDD

I'm thinking how the story goes is Ingo, Emmet and Elesa came to the far far range out of their love and interest in the slimes that live there. They truly had a passion for this planet and wanted to explore and learn everything about it.

Now Elesa was super invested in the gadgets and life on the ranch, while Ingo and Emmet were big on the exploration side of things..

One day while the brothers were out exploring they discovered a new area covered in curvy pink trees..

For a while they explored together, but at some point they split up. Looking back Emmet doesn't even remember why they separated.. he wishes he never left Ingo's side..

About an hour passed when Emmet started look for Ingo. When he couldn't find him right away he tracked him on his Rotom. Following the signal he found a hole in the ground leading to an enormous cave..

At the bottom of the cave laid Ingo's abandoned Rotom, and a trail of blood leading to an old broken teleporter.. Ingo was nowhere to be found..

...

I would love to draw more for this AU right away! Though it might be wise to take it easy somewhat. This was a lot more drawing and backgrounds than I'm use to.. 😅😅 Either way don't worry! An Ingo and Emmet reunion hug is on its way! XDD

[speed-world]

Hi, I'm not sure if you'll see my request, but I want to ask. Whooh.. [worried and worried] So calm... can I ask you to write Cookie Run Kingdom Self-awareness Au with a human child y/n? And what does the ancients and the cookies of darkness have to do with the fact that their world is just a game? Well, when the ancients and the cookies of darkness found out about this, all the cookies would want to get to know child y/n and the Dark Enchantress changed her mind from leading the world and then a new dispute began about who would protect and take care of child y/n. [If possible, then let y/n get into the midst of the final battle of the Ancients against the Dark Enchantress cookie and if you don't mind, then let the character of little y/n be the most attractive and sweet in the world and his appearance charming so much that even the trading monsters and cake hounds did not want to cause any harm and even pomegranate cookies and Licorice cookies were kind to baby y/n] I would very much like you to tell me this sweet story about it. ^^

(Sorry this took so long, I really hope this is to your liking, as I wrote it with the idea of a school age child [6-12] and I didn’t do everything in the request)

Terrifying New Dawn

Everything was dark around you, so much so that you couldn’t see your own hand in front of your face. The last thing you remember clearly was playing on your phone before going to sleep, and now you were waking up here….in a deforested area with dark and red shadows clouding the sky. You had so many questions: Where are your parents? Where are you?? Why are…the large walls surrounding you so tasty looking?! As you stirred, you heard the muttering of smaller beings that surrounded you. Shock and confusion were written on all of their faces as they just stared at you lying down…

“It seems like they’re waking up…how on Earthbread did this even happen?”

“I…I have no idea. Why would a child of the Witches suddenly come down here, during a war of all things…?”

Your vision began to clear up more, and you quickly realized where you were. You were surrounded by Cookies…and you recognized all of them!! These were all recognizable faces from the game you were playing earlier: CookieRun: Kingdom! How exciting is this!! Granted, you also realized something more grim than exciting…you’re still you: a human child in a game world of Cookies. You were dang near a giant to them, and they looked scared of you…how can you convince them you aren’t a threat? Maybe…just say hello?

“Pure Vanilla, Dark Cacao, Hollyberry, Golden Cheese, White Lily, and even Dark Enchantress Cookie?! H-hello…it’s really cool to see you all-“

“T-this child knows us?! They wouldn’t be…a baker or a witch, would they?!”

Okay…not the reaction you wanted…but how do you explain yourself to them? You most certainly aren’t a “child of the Witches,” nor are you a Witch at all!! Would telling the truth hurt? No…it couldn’t hurt!! It’s just the truth, and your parents always told you that lying wasn’t good for anyone, so telling the truth must be perfect!!

“No, no, I’m nothing like that! I’m just a kid that was playing your cool game! I don’t know what happened to my phone though…but I was playing as you guys in this exact moment, where you were fighting each other! Neat, right?”

Your childish innocence only made things worse. The Cookies around you froze in complete shock from the slow realization, a truth far more painful than the one Dark Enchantress Cookie was dead set on making others see. They were pixels on a screen,…predetermined script for you to mess around with, …fake…. If it wasn’t obvious, they weren’t happy with this realization at all, especially the one who’s apparently been forced to play the villain’s role…

“What…what kind of perverse joke is this? You mean to tell me that my ambitions, everything I’ve worked tirelessly for, my life…has been worthless this entire time?! The truth I meant to share with all Cookiekind…is nothing more than wasted breath compared to this…”

Dark Enchantress Cookie stood utterly defeated, still trying to process what reality now means to her. The Ancients, ironically, were united with Dark Enchantress here. None of them knew what to properly make of their lives now. But, there was now a more pressing issue: you. You were a child, a lost one at that. You had no home to go to, no family to look after you, and you were rather…unfitted for the Cookie world as you were now. Oddly enough, the first one to address this was none other than Dark Enchantress herself!

“Ah, yes….despite everything, you, child, are our greatest concern of the moment. Seeing as how all I’ve strived for is now utterly meaningless, I’ve changed my mind. I no longer have any desire to continue this war with you Ancient heroes, or any other Cookies of the matter. From now on, this child is my concern, and I’ll watch over them as I see fit.”

“W-what?! You can’t be the one to watch over them! You’d misguide and harm them, and no matter who they are, they don’t deserve that harsh life!”

“All you do is assume rather than listen…I’ve made it abundantly clear that I have no more interest in any of my former ideals, as they clearly have no substance anymore. If it makes you happy to satisfy your role as a ‘hero’, then we can all help this child adjust to this world properly. Surely if we come together with our magic and wits, we can at least ideally make them a body better suited to live amongst us, wouldn’t you agree~?”

The Ancients stared at each other for what seemed like an eternity to decide your fate, before one radiant Ancient approached you. She looked up at your towering stature with welcoming eyes.

“Child, do know that this is ultimately your decision. The last thing either of us would want is to do anything to you that could harm you. Your safety and wellbeing is our shared priority, but you could pose a danger to us in the state you’re currently in. If you so wish, we can find a way to assist you to live in this world without issue until we find a way to bring you back to your home…what do you say?”

It felt like no matter what you chose, you’d be completely safe and cared for no matter what. You noticed that as you were pondering, a horde of cake hounds and other monsters of Dark Enchantress’s forces circled you and virtually showered you with affection, which you found so adorable!! The cake hounds would play around your large body and playfully puppy kiss you!

It’s clear as day that these Cookies care for you, first and foremost, and everything else around you did as well. They wouldn’t cause you harm, they wouldn’t even want you to cry or be afraid, they loved you like nothing else, and hoped that your new life here wouldn’t be anything to be afraid of!

[keystonepublishing]

The Saga of Hermitcraft on r/Place (1 April 2022 - 4 April 2022)

On the 1st of April 2022, Reddit unveiled a white blank canvas where every user had the ability to place one colored pixel in every 5 minutes. At its height, about 4 million people participated in one of the biggest internet collaborations ever made. The ripple effects reverberated into news reports as far away as Turkey, and the final canvas represents a snapshot of the multiple communities, events, memes, and what was popular around the world at that time.

This is a documentation of the Hermitcraft mural on r/place 2022.

aka.

Remember what I said about my latest ficbind being a distraction? This is what I wanted to be distracted from.

After Reddit's API fiasco of this year and the subsequent controversial event that was r/place 2023, I decided to save as much documentation about the 2022 event as I could. Luckily, I remember how there are already a series of posts by @riacte who documented the progress of the Hermitcraft mural throughout the whole event, from beginning to end. Her blogposts form the bulk of this book (like, 95%!) and I cannot thank her enough for preserving the happenings of the block men mural.

With that said, I quickly realized that someone who's not a Hermitcraft fan - or me if I'm older - might not get the gist of who's who on the mural. The solution? Make several pages dedicated to just listing who's who on the murals! Because of the sheer number of heads, the mural was divided into several pieces for easier labeling. As a bonus, I also threw in another mural nearby which was connected enough to the Hermitcraft community.

For consistency's sake and preserving focus, I decided to not label the peeps from Dream SMP or the MCC secondary mural. Wrangling Microsoft Word to create an infographic was hard enough, let alone 3! If I inadvertently left out a few bits of extra context from this decision, mea culpa.

When it came to typesetting the entire text block, I decided to make some consistent rules. Titles denoting each day or stage of the mural are on their own pages. New sections are titled using the Bahnschrift font and colored blue, while the first paragraph has their beginning lines look Minecraft-coded and topped with a drop cap (aka. those super-large alphabets).

The names of Hermitcraft and Minecraft players in general are bolded when they first appear in the text. Afterwards, they are bolded if they are contextually important to what's being said.

Extra context would be placed in the footnotes section at the bottom of the page. This is also where I dump some background information that would be invaluable for any readers who aren't Minecraft fans, which is why the SpaceX page looked like... uh, that.

My image policy is to go with the flow; I used as many images from riacte's posts as possible, but I also added-in some of my own if more context is needed. Placing them to look smooth with the text was harder - some are small enough to not cause any problems, others are large enough to fill entire pages without any problems, but a few like the Dream SMP mural (hey there! I managed to put you in!) are too wonky to fit perfectly without leaving no empty spaces.

So in that mural's case, I placed them to the side and let the contextual text flow around it. This principle was also used for the Dota2 / Love Live images and in a few other places throughout the book. The biggest case of this are the few images that are just too wide.

Like this one.

Making double-page spreads is not the easiest thing to do in Microsoft Word, and there are a few r/place images that are too wide to fit perfectly in a single page. Confining them to one page would also mean losing all their details, so making them a double-page spread was necessary.

Didn't make it easy though, especially when there are paragraphs of text and other images that needed to be shuffled around. Mess up the double-page images, and they won't meet in the middle. Mess up the text and other pics? There goes the layout and overall flow!

In the end, making this book took a lot longer than I expected, but I am still grateful to have made this as I have now read through many posts from Tumblr, Reddit, and even Youtube - people expressing joy that they have collectively made something together. I can only hope I have made some justice to them by compiling their work and (even if a small sliver) preserving their testaments.

May this r/place be remembered.

[eliyips]

HOW DO YOU MAKE X SO FRIENDSHAPED?!

But also genuinely curious about the design translation from the actual skins to your interpretations due to the small but mighty details added in

Infodump as hard as you want!

If i ever pass up an opportunity to talk about my X design, it will be because I am either dead, or dying!!! neither are true at time of posting, so here you go! I will be going over my ENTIRE design process for Xisuma, starting with my initial design:

My initial design for Xisuma wasn't anything special, in my opinion. Most of what I included was directly ripped from the classic Doomslayer. Though, the face scars were inherited from fanon, of course. :) The changes that I did make were in service of having things make more sense for Xisuma. Namely, the belt buckle, and the fabric covering the arms...

The belt buckle is simple - bullets didn't really make sense as a design motif, all considered - but the fabric is more complicated. I have a couple different ideas about why Xisuma wears the suit, but I haven't settled one way or the other on some of the specifics, so forgive me if I'm a bit vague. Ultimately, It is just my impression that X is not comfortable having his body visible more than it needs to be, whether that be for health-related reasons or for personal/emotional reasons. I don't intend to ever draw Xisuma with his helmet off, because of that. To me, it feels like a violation of boundaries. To be perfectly clear though, that's just for me - more power to other artists who draw him without the helmet/armor! :)

By the time I was full-on fixated on Xisuma, I realized I was unsatisfied with this first pass at his design. Mainly, in regards to the helmet. So I did more work on it!

I feel like my re-design process for the helmet is a good example of the importance of using reference. :) I did a lot of unsatisfactory sketches before pulling up pictures of real helmets, at which point I feel like I settled on something I was happy with very quickly.

Specifically, I referenced motocross helmets! My choice of reference was mostly driven by my passing interest in sports equipment design, though motocross helmets are similarly bulky and have the same distinct mouthpiece as X's helmet, so I think it was a good choice. I also feel like the pixels at the top of Xisuma's skin can be pretty easily read as the brim of a helmet, so it works out!

Other than the motocross helmet influence, I also made the choice to add tubing to the sides and back of the helmet. This rolls with my headcanons about the purpose of the helmet, connecting to air tanks on his back! I also think it helps to distinguish him from the doomslayer, in addition to the new helmet shape.

The only other changes I made were to the helmet's palette, added a few additional grey tones for contrast, and the positioning of his scars. I decided I wanted them to be a little off-center, leaning towards his left eye. I'm pretty inconsistent with how I draw the scars though, lol, so it changed again by the next time I drew him.

At this point my design is mostly settled for him, and I don't expect it to change very significantly any time soon. I don't have much else to say about it, but I listed the other iterative changes I made to the design above! I figure I will continue making small tweaks to his design every time I draw him :)

That said... I have yet to answer your initial question! So I will answer it now:

"HOW DO YOU MAKE X SO FRIENDSHAPED?!"

My answer is that it's (almost) all in the eyes!!! I have already talked pretty extensively about Xisuma's eyes. So I won't dwell for too long! In short, human facial recognition is very closely tied to the eyes. The ability to see the eyes of a character clearly affords you a lot of flexibility when it comes to making a design seem approachable, or "friend-shaped." I painted over a screenshot of doomguy to illustrate my point!

My drawings tend towards being a little cutesy, of course, so that helps :) but you can see that the bright, saturated color, big distinct eyes, and less harsh expression all contribute to making him seem like he is less of a threat, despite this literally just being the doomslayer.

Another thing that helps is, again, related to the style I draw in. My art is very "clean" looking, not gritty. I use a lot of soft shape language and don't texture things too heavily. With Xisuma specifically, I also make no effort to make him seem intimidating. I use very neutral angles when drawing him, I don't frame him in a way that makes him seem intimidating or imposing, I don't pose him too confidently or angrily. Because he's not that kind of guy! Though it would be an interesting challenge to try and make him look as intimidating as possible :) I certainly think he could be quite scary, if he wanted to be. Just a matter of what I'm trying to convey.

... I think that's all I have to say for now! Once again, blown away by all the nice things people have to say about my Xisuma design and my art. Everyone here has been so kind and encouraging, and I really appreciate that. Thanks for giving me the opportunity to yell about Xisuma! If you have follow up questions, by all means, I am ready to answer :)

[boots-with-the-fur-club]

Special auvember entry, me and my rise bestie wrote our own parts! This is part 1! Part 2 will be posted soon by @daboyau !

@tmntaucompetition

Artificial

“-and the award goes to….Donnie!”

Donatello smirks as he stands up, beginning to walk over to the stage. He carefully fixed the collar of the white shirt under his black suit and purple tie.

He was completely prepared for this. It was just obvious he’d win. The cheering all around him was still music to his ears though.

Reaching the podium, the award was draped around his neck in the form of a medal.

The national medal of technology and innovation.

He pivots back towards the crowd and speaks into the microphone.

“Esteemed guests and colleagues, I stand before you to receive yet another very well deserved award. This probably comes as no surprise to you all at this point, but I appreciate it nonetheless. My achievements are so impressive, I took the liberty of bringing them here with me! Behold!”

With a wave of his hand, the nearby curtain drops and reveals three color coded robots.

The blue robot poses dramatically.

The red robot has his arms folded over each other but smiles proudly.

The orange robot waves enthusiastically.

The crowd cheers louder. Donnie’s smirk only gets bigger.

“As incredibly amazing as my work is, I do have to credit the people I based them off of, my-“

The smirk is wiped completely off his face. The only person he knew in the crowd was April. His other family members were nowhere to be seen.

“….brothers? Where are they?”

“We’re right here, Dontron!” The blue robot leans over.

“You are not my brothers. While I did have this idea as a backup plan, that was only for emergencies! You’re not the originals.”

“Of course we are! You built the perfect family!” The orange robot chirps happily.

“Come on Dee, you’re supposed to show us off. This is your time to shine!” The red robot insists.

“What is this? What’s going on here!?” Donnie begins patting around his pockets to try to find his folded up tech bō.

The blue robot walks over to him.

“Big bro, you need to chill. You’re kind of bumming the mood of your own award ceremony. How about we just go home and watch Lou Jitsu? We can watch Punch Chowder, eat some pepperoni pizza, what do you say?”

Donnie stills for a moment.

“I have just one thing to say.”

“Yeah? What-“

The robot gets a bō to the side of the head that sends it flying into the curtain, pulling it down with him.

Everything starts becoming pixelated and glitchy around the area the robots were. It spreads terrifyingly quickly. He only has time to scream before it reaches him.

He finds himself screaming into darkness. He can feel something on his face.

His hand reaches up and throws it off. It hits the wall and breaks. It seemed to be some kind of headset.

That’s when he realizes several things.

One: He wasn’t alone.

Two: He wasn’t as young as he thought he was.

The headset had messed with his head. In that dream, or more accurately that probably artificially created scenario, he was 16.

He was about twice that age now.

That was very apparent from seeing his brothers also in this small room.

They were slumped over with headsets similar to the now broken one on the ground.

Obviously, they had all aged as well.

The other things he noticed became more apparent as he got his bearings.

Three: He was desperately thirsty, hungry, and his body felt like it hadn’t moved in ages.

From this, it could be concluded that the warped reality had him under for much longer than he thought.

He rushes over to try to take the headsets off his brothers, seeing their lips chapped made them situation all the more urgent.

Who knows if they had been there longer than him?

A strong jolt of electricity has him yoink his hand back in pain.

“Dammit! I can’t get them off….how did I free myself?” He picks up a piece of his broken helmet.

There’s a quiet hiss from himself as he notices the Purple Dragon symbol.

It was Purple Dragon and not Dragons ever since Kendra’s friends left her. An inevitably considering how she treated them.

She was going to pay for this all the same.

There were traces of purple, a different kind of purple, on the headset as well. That extra purple was his own ninpo.

It must have short circuited it.

He drops the piece back on the floor. If he woke himself up, then his brothers would have to too.

But that wasn’t something he could or would want to wait on. It might not even happen. He could have just gotten lucky.

Looking at his brothers, he wonders who he should try to help first.

His eyes land on Leo.

There’s a soft ache in his heart. The last time they saw each other, it didn’t end very well.

If he saved him he might be able to hold it over his head enough for them to have a proper conversation.

And if he was being honest, which he wasn’t, not even to himself, Leo usually had good strategies in situations like these.

He sits down next to him and closes his eyes.

Entering a mind meld again after so many years was an odd experience. That was especially true because of what the headset was doing to Leo’s mind in the first place.

There was some disorientation as he not so gracefully landed on some carpeting. Glancing around, it’s clear that he’s wound up in a random house.

He stands up, rubbing his now sore lower shell.

“What could you possibly want that has to do with a house like this, ‘Nardo?” He mumbles to himself.

Donnie begins to walk around to try to find him.

Sounds coming from nearby lead him into a living room. The couch in there obstructed the view of the two people sitting on it.

They were unfamiliar.

Their voices weren’t.

“Leo, stop it! I know you’re cheating!“

“Me!? You’ve been cheating from the start! This is just my revenge!”

He frowns.

This was a conversation they had while gaming plenty of times. One he hasn’t heard in years.

When was the last time he even talked to him?

“You think that’s enough to win against me? That doesn’t even scrap the surface of my genius ideas!”

God, is this what Leo thinks he sounds like?

“Oh yeah? What else could you possibly have left?”

“This. Oh look at that! Shove.”

Leo gets shoved off the couch.

Okay, maybe that was fair.

Leo was younger here as expected, but also….human. So was the artificial version of himself.

He stares straight at him and gets no sign that Leo can see him.

This would be complicated.

This also isn’t exactly what he was prepared for.

Why was Leo’s perfect world one where they aren’t turtles anymore?

“Cheap shot! Come here!” Leo lunges towards the fake Donnie.

They roll around fighting until the front door opens.

“Guys! We’re home! I got first place at the art exhibition!” Mikey calls out.

Leo shoots straight up, blonde hair messed up by the fight.

“Ha! Told you! I knew you’d win!”

He drops out of view as artificial Donnie pops up instead.

“Mazel. Put your trophy in the case so I can put it in my achievement data.”

“You’ll have to add mine too! Got a plaque from the animal shelter for employee of the month.”

Leo goes back into view.

“Woah, 3rd month in a row Raph. You should be running the place by now.”

Original Donnie walks over to the largest trophy case he’s ever seen in his life. It was not practical by any means.

There were tons of trophies lining the shelves. He expected a lot of them to be Leo’s, but they surprisingly were divided just about evenly among them.

Mikey and Raph place their awards inside. Artificial Donnie inputs the information into a tablet while Leo pats Mikey and Raph’s shoulders in congratulations.

“Boys! Are you home? I brought dinner!” A voice shouts from the kitchen.

Ordinal Donnie’s blood runs cold.

He should have seen this coming.

“Coming, dad!” Leo responds before running to the kitchen.

The artificial brothers follow, as does original Donnie once he’s able to get a hold of himself.

Everyone sat around the table while a human version of their father places takeout on it.

Splinter.

He looks exactly like Lou Jitsu in his prime here.

Oh gods, it’s been so long.

He misses him so much.

Of course Leo would have him here.

“Papa, did you film that scene with the seven deadly vipers move today?” Artificial Donnie asks.

“I did! You should have seen Chad’s face when they sent him in as the stunt double, hehe. Enough about my day, I heard the trophy cabinet opening. Tell me who got what.”

Raph and Mikey happily talk about their accomplishments as the four of them all eat.

Original Donnie felt worse the longer he was there.

He was the only one aware that it wasn’t like this.

That it could never be like this.

He watched as Splinter turned his attention towards Leo and artificial Donnie, praising them for things he had heard about happening earlier in the week.

A good basketball match, an exemplarily grade on a math test.

Jealousy bubbled up inside him as this fake father pat the him that wasn’t him’s head.

The mention of pride broke him.

He slams his hands on the table, purple ninpo dancing across his arms.

“This isn’t your life, dumb dumb!”

The artificial family and Leo finally see him and have looks of fear.

“Who’s that!?” Mikey screams.

“Kids, get behind me!”

“Dad, no! I’ve got this!” Leo insists.

Crap.

Well, if there was one thing that might be able to break Leo out of this, it would be a major shock.

Possibly.

He didn’t have many data points to work with.

Original Donnie leaps over the dinner table and grabs his artificial self.

He didn’t have it in him to hurt the fake Splinter.

“No! Stop! Leave him alone!” Leo shouts, grabbing his plate and throwing it at original Donnie.

Donnie easily deflects it, shattering the plate.

“If you want to save your real brothers, you have to wake up, Leo!”

“What are you even talking about!? Just let him go! Please! You….you can have me instead if you want, okay!? He’s a nerd! You don’t want him!”

“This is the only way.” Donnie slams artificial Donnie’s head into the table.

Leo screams and jumps at him.

After some glitching and pixelating, it’s suddenly the real Leo that’s tackled him.

His hands are around his neck as the pieces of the headset crumble all around him. There’s tears dripping down his face.

“You hurt my brother!”

“I-Idiot! I am your brother!” Donnie struggles.

Leo���s expression takes a second to change, but when it does he finally releases his grip on Donnie’s throat.

Donnie takes in a big breathe and then tries to get said breathing under control.

Leo lifts him up, hugging him tightly.

“Donnie! You glorious nerd, I thought something happened to you!”

Donnie quickly takes the opportunity to hug him back just as tight.

He knew it wouldn’t last very long.

“Leo. I’m sorry, okay? Please just listen to me.”

“Huh? Of course, why wouldn’t I-“

The disorientation finally fades away and Leo let’s him go.

“Oh.”

“Leo, I didn’t mean any of it.”

Leo looks anywhere but him, which let’s him see Raph and Mikey still unconscious.

“Did you do this? Did you bring us all here?”

“No! It was Kendra, I don’t know why, but I know how to fix it.”

“Then why would we waste time having a conversation!? Help them, Donnie!”

“Because if we don’t talk now you’re going to leave the moment this is all handled!”

“Oh, I’m going to leave!? That’s hilarious! Dad did always say you were the funniest, didn’t he!?”

“Leo-“

“The funniest thing you ever did was say you were getting some air at the funeral and not coming back!”

“I didn’t-“

“Or maybe it was even funnier when I found your room empty! Just hilarious! I was venting to a door with no one on the other side! Perfect time to make me look like an idiot!”

“That wasn’t my-“

“No no, it was actually comedy goal when I managed to find you and I was so so happy I did. It was when you told me that if I needed something I could just ask the robot you left behind. It was when you refused to come back with me and said to consider you gone too! That’s it!”

Donnie looks down in shame.

“I didn’t know how to handle how I felt. You had everyone else. It’s not like I left you alone.”

“I only had Raph and Mikey for a few more years! We all split off because we weren’t whole anymore! Did you think I was okay!? With you gone I had to pretend so hard I was because I wanted to help Mikey keep us together! Mikey of all people gave up, Raph gave up! I failed as a leader! And you weren’t there!”

“I already told you I’m sorry! What do you want me to do to have you forgive me!? Whatever it is I’ll do it!”

“I want you to act like it was a tough decision to leave me behind! To leave all of us behind! I want you to lie and say you missed me! Missed our family!”

“You think it wasn’t hard for me….?”

“You didn’t hesitate! You had no emotion on your face! You snubbed me that whole last conversation we had!”

Leo’s face softens as he sees Donnie shaking.

“I’ve never regretted something more in my life! I do miss you! I miss you and Raph and Mikey and I miss dad! I threw myself into years and years of inventing and hiding and any distraction I could get my hands on! By the time I snapped out of it….I felt like it was too late. You all moved on. I didn’t deserve to talk to you again after what I did. Even now I hoped being the one to save you was enough for….something! Anything! I…I….am pathetic.”

“…..Yeah, you’re pathetic….”

Donnie breathes shakily.

“Let it all out, I guess-“

Leo once again clings to him.

“But so am I. I love you, Donnie, even if you’re the dumbest genius I know. I’m so pissed….and even if you had come back earlier I still would have been. But I will always let you come back.”

Donnie returns the clinging and presses his face into Leo’s shoulder, quietly sobbing.

They continue holding onto each other until they finally feel they can let go.

Donnie wipes his eyes.

“I used a mind meld and ninpo to bring you out of it. You couldn’t tell I was there until my ninpo activated. I had to make you activate yours too to break the headset.”

“So that’s how we can save Raph and Mikey.”

“Yes, but we have another problem.”

“What is it?”

“Judging by the light from the one window in this room, the small amount of time I spent in your artificial prison was actually a few hours.”

“We don’t have that much time to save them then. I’ll help Raph while you help Mikey. Afterwards, we find a way to escape.”

“I have to admit, hearing you lead again is somewhat strange.”

Leo chuckles softly.

“Maybe if you had left an address for me to send Christmas cards to, I could have let you know that I’ve got new guys I’m helping out. Nothing like we were doing, but….helping with a yokai theatre camp in my spare time is still something.”

“I’d….like to hear more when we have time. Truly.” Donnie smiles softly.

Leo smiles back.

“I’m going to hold you to that. Now let’s get to saving them so we can hold it over their heads forever.”

Donnie nods.

They sit down next to their brothers and begin their mind melds.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too late.

[hear-that-music-in-the-air]

Helping Hand

My first RD fic! I haven't written proper fanfic in a hot minute but the little pixel people grabbed me by the throat and opened my google docs

Also shoutout to @nightmun for helping me visualize Ian's silly little mug

Summary: After seeing Ada struggle with the rhythm treatments, Ian comes up with a way to help her out.

Fic under the read-more :)

—

Dr. Edega loomed over her, his eyes boring into her back over the top of his clipboard.

"I expect better from you, Dr. Paige. Times are changing. If you can't keep up, then maybe you're not cut out for this job after all,” he said lowly.

Ada couldn't meet his gaze. Instead she stared down at her hands, balled into trembling fists, as her heart pounded in her ears. Burning tears pricked at the corners of her eyes, and she immediately felt ashamed, like a child being scolded.

She had messed up. She had been treating a patient with the rhythm defibrillator and started to panic as soon as she lost track of the tempo. Ian had frantically swooped in to take over and finished the treatment smoothly, while Ada had watched, feeling numb.

She was distantly aware of Ian pushing past her, positioning himself between her and Edega.

"D-Dr. Edega, sir—this is a very new, experimental treatment method. We're still working out the kinks and—and no one's going to be perfect at it right away."

"That's no excuse. There's no room for mistakes when lives are on the line. You both know that."

"N–Not every case we get is life-threatening," Ian said, and she was faintly surprised at the edge of anger creeping into his tone. "And she'll practice. She can—"

Edega pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

"I don't care what she does as long as her performance improves. See to it that she receives more training as soon as possible. And keep looking for any bugs in the program in the meantime."

Ian opened his mouth to say something else, but was silenced by a single look from Edega. He shrunk into himself.

"Y–Yes, sir. Of course."

Edega turned on his heel and strode out of the room, leaving a heavy silence behind him. Ada didn't realize that she was still shaking until Ian placed a tentative hand on her shoulder.

"Ada?" His voice sounded so far away, as though he were speaking to her from underwater. She attempted to pull herself back, focusing on the warmth of his hand as a grounding point. She placed her own fingers unsteadily over his and gave him a tremulous smile.

“I’m…okay.”

Ian watched her face, brow furrowed in concern.

"He—he shouldn't speak to you like that. I—I hate it."

She sniffled and quickly swiped at the tears that were threatening to spill under her glasses. She took a deep breath and straightened, attempting to look professional instead of pathetic.

"No. He's right. We can't afford to make stupid mistakes in this line of work. And it’s not…it’s not just him.” She remembered the way the patient’s heart rate had spiked on the monitor when she missed a beat, and let out a shaky sigh. “I just...can't stop thinking about what might have happened if you weren't here."

Ian frowned.

"Ada. You can't go beating yourself up over what might have happened."

"Sure I can," she joked weakly. Ian didn't laugh.

"We're—we're all trying our best here," he continued. "And Edega doesn't see how much you do for the patients every day. He barely comes out of his office, and when he does it's only to—to reprimand us for something or other. Everyone else in this hospital loves you. You—you're a good doctor, Ada."

As she stared at him, all of the tears that she had swallowed came rising back up in her throat. She let her head fall against his shoulder with a soft thump, and a quiet sob escaped her. She felt Ian freeze for a moment, uncertain, before he awkwardly wrapped an arm around her. She leaned into the warmth.

"Sorry," he whispered. "Not really a hugger."

Ada let out a watery laugh.

"I know, doofus. Thank you."

She pulled back and tried in vain to wipe the tear stains from his coat.

“Ugh, I’m sorry. I’m crying all over you. This is gross.”

“Yeah, a little bit,” Ian said. “But that’s okay.”

Ada collapsed into a nearby chair, suddenly feeling indescribably exhausted. She pressed the heels of her palms into her eyes before letting out another long sigh. Ian sat down next to her, awkwardly rubbing the back of his hand.

"Personalized care, comforting patients, that's what I'm good at,” Ada said. “You're the one who’s amazing at all the technical stuff.” 

She stared up into the harsh light of the overhead fluorescents, letting her vision go blurry. 

“All Edega seems to care about is getting people in and out of treatment as quickly as possible. Seems like if he has his way, pretty soon everything will be done remotely. I guess I just feel kind of useless,” she muttered.

“You’re not useless,” Ian said quietly.

Ada made a noncommittal sound.

“Like you said, there’s so many other things you’re good at. Trust me, Ada, we—we’ll always need you. You’re everyone’s favorite doctor. Otherwise, they’d all be stuck with me,” he joked.

She attempted to muster a smile, but she knew it didn’t quite reach her eyes. Ian frowned again and fell silent for a long moment, seemingly lost in thought. Then he stood abruptly, nearly startling her out of her seat.

“Oh! I—I might actually know a way to help you!” he cried, pacing excitedly. “M–Meet me in the basement when you come in tomorrow.”

Ada blinked up at him, baffled. “Oh…um…okay? What—?”

Ian was already gone, scurrying down the hallway towards the door that led to the basement. Ada shook her head bemusedly, before scooping up her clipboard from the nearby table to see which patient she needed to check on next. She took a moment and closed her eyes, mentally preparing for the rest of her shift. 

Deep breaths.

She heaved herself onto her feet, and set off in the other direction towards Cole’s room.

—

When she came down to the basement the next morning, Ian looked haggard, yawning and rubbing at his eyes under his glasses. When he saw her, however, he lit up in a smile and eagerly waved her over.

“Ada! Hey! C-Come here, I have something to show you.”

On his desk was the rhythm defibrillator device, and attached to it was a new button that she didn’t recognize.

“...What’s this?” she asked as she slowly descended the stairs.

Ian spun around in his chair to face her, gesturing enthusiastically.

“I was up all night testing this, but it—it works! Basically, it modulates the detected heartbeats to—to simplify them on our end, and then it translates the button input back to the original complexity to match the patient’s heart pattern. S-So you’ll still be administering the same treatment, but it should be easier to—”

Tears welled in her eyes all over again, and Ada practically fell forward to pull him into a hug, grinning from ear to ear. Ian stiffened uncomfortably, and she suddenly remembered herself.

She stepped back and laughed sheepishly as she wiped away the tears.

“Right. Not a hugger. Sorry, I really need to be better about that.”

Ian looked at her for a moment, sighed, and then smiled. He stood from his chair and wrapped her in another hug, tighter than before.

“I’m willing to make exceptions,” he mumbled into her shoulder. Ada’s heart swelled, and she squeezed him back just as tightly. Then Ian let out a yelp as she lifted him off his feet in her excitement, and she quickly set him back down. 

“Too much?”

Ian laughed weakly, smoothing down his rumpled coat.

“Too much.”

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.”

She returned her attention to the new button, running her fingers over the smooth surface. It looked fairly similar to the standard one, though slightly bigger. She gently pressed it down and it made a satisfying click.

“Thank you, Ian, seriously. This is…incredible.”

Ian scratched the back of his neck bashfully.

“It’s the least I could do. You already work so hard. H–Hopefully, this’ll make your job a little easier.”

Ada suddenly remembered his words from yesterday. You’re everyone’s favorite doctor. Otherwise, they’d all be stuck with me.

“You’re doing a good job, too, by the way,” she said softly. “Edega’s an idiot if he doesn’t see that. I know that a lot of your work is behind the scenes, but it’s just as important.”

“Oh. Thanks.” Ian looked away, embarrassed. “Y-You don’t have to say that.”

Ada smiled fondly.

“Just want you to know that you’ll always be my favorite radiologist.”

“I’m quite literally th–the only radiologist that we have.”

“Still.”

Ian finally broke into a smile, too. “Okay, okay. H-How about we test this thing?”

—

A week later, Ada told him that she had a gift for him, and produced a small white coffee mug from her coat pocket. Ian burst out laughing when he saw it.

“Wait, d-does that say ‘number one radiologist?’”

It was a “Number One Dad” mug from the dollar store that Ada had drawn over with a permanent marker. She had added two lines under the first D to turn it into an R, and had scribbled “-iologist” underneath, along with a little smiley face at the end. The mug soon became a permanent fixture on Ian’s desk, and she grinned to herself every time she passed by it.

[azulera]

We Go Together

Pairing: Jadon Sancho x Black Reader

Summary: Jadon wants everyone to know he’s yours.

Notes: don’t know where this one came from really bt i literally gave myself b*tterflies while writing it … it was so fun and i think its so so cute. also helloo to the JS25 girlies how are you :) hope u enjoy :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“This is so random, but, I can’t lie. I hate braids. Like, on girls.”

Jadon looked at Reiss from the side of his eye, barely lifting his head from the back of the couch. Maybe they’d been vegetating on the chocolate-colored sectional too long, the blue light exposure from watching TikTok after TikTok finally getting to his friend’s head. It had to be that.

“What, bro?”

“They’re childish, brother, look.” Reiss leaned over, showing Jadon a clip of a girl being spun in a salon chair, with bright blue box braids trailing down the cape around her back. Reiss sucked his teeth twice before the video even ended. “It’s a little kid’s hairstyle, like primary school plaits. I do not rate them.”

Jadon laughed in a loud burst of sound, and shook his head at his friend’s wild take. Reiss’ complaining had triggered an image in his mind that easily refuted each of the critiques he brought up. He pushed the phone away from his face.

“Nah, you’re tripping. Braids are fire. Especially with the little baby hairs out, slicked down and that.”

“Noo, bro, the baby hairs get so extra!” Reiss rocked in his seat. “It’s gotta go, the whole style’s dead.”

“Maybe on gyal you see, but my girl, her things different. I’m telling you.”

“Oh my days– you almost did it, you know? You almost made it ten whole minutes without mentioning Y/N. It’s been 2 years, bro, we get it, you’re locked down, it’s cute, whatever.”

Jadon shrugged, a smile on his lips that he didn’t care to hide.

“I’m jus sayin.”

Reiss laughed, and switched subjects to show him another TikTok he thought was hilarious, but the picture in Jadon’s mind that his friend had summoned was too strong to ignore now, the warm feeling in his chest too sweet to pass by quickly. He half-listened while Reiss explained the meaning behind the joke, and scrolled to your Instagram profile. He went back a few weeks to spring break photos where you were sea-side in a flowy linen outfit with waist length braids falling over your shoulders, caught in the ocean wind. A minute later, he’d reposted the photo to his story, with a caption below.

“I love box braids. 😍 And my girl 😍”

He smiled again when it published, his thousands of followers viewing the image and leaving a flurry of cherry red hearts rising in the corner of the screen. Reiss, realizing he was no longer being listened to, peeked over Jadon’s shoulder, and rolled his eyes.

“You are such a simp, bro. I would banter you more if I wasn’t a little bit jealous.”

“Don’t worry, brother, it’ll happen for you one day. When you stop hating on girls’ hairstyles, I bet. Saying braids are dead, nah, you’re mad.”

Reiss shoved against his shoulder, but quickly slipped back down his internet rabbit hole, and a text came into Jadon’s phone.

Y/N: not u reposting my old pics lol you were lurking?

Jadon: No Jadon: Actually yeah Jadon: Reiss was trashing braids and i had to set him str8 Jadon: Can you come by?

Y/N: you 2 are mad i swear Y/N: and i thought u and him had plans after the match?

Jadon: Nah the braid comment was too much Jadon: I wanna see you

Y/N: yeah thats poor from him. i can be there in an hour :) Y/N: and i just got fresh braids done yesterday, i forgot to tell you lol

Jadon: 😍

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“What’s your middle name then? William? Zachary?”

The question registered only faintly in Jadon’s headset, all his focus instead zeroed in on the pixelated movements of his starting XI as they ran alongside Marcus’ XI. The teams were so well-matched that every possession was a battle, and the 85th minute found them in a deadlock with one goal each. It wasn’t quite the time for casual conversation.

“My middle name? What do you mean? No-no-no-no!”

One of his center backs made a sloppy pass, and a pressing forward had intercepted it. Thankfully, the keeper recovered and the score remained 1-1.

“Stop trying to distract me, bro! It won’t work.”

“M’not, I swear! It’s just the letter there on your bracelet. It’s catching the light and I can see it through the screen. And it’s not J or S, so.”

Jadon looked down at his wrist for a moment, at the thin gold chain draped along the left one with a capital letter and small, earth figure hanging in the center. Marcus was right – the jewelry did shine in the light coming in through the window and glowing from the computer monitor, and the sight twitched the sides of his mouth.

“It’s not my middle name, it’s for–wait, wait–”

Jadon paused the game and Marcus cursed over the headset. Still, he went on unbothered, more than happy to provide context around the question his teammate had innocently or not so innocently posed.

“So the letter, that’s for my girlfriend's name. She bought it for me for my birthday, couple years back. It’s nice, innit.” The grin that had started as a twitch now stretched across his mouth. “And the little earth thing is like, it’s like a reminder. That when I’m away, different country, different city, whatever. She’s always with me.”

Marcus smiled at him over the monitor, shaking his head even as his fingers itched to get back to the match.

“Aw look at you, Sanch, big softie. It’s too bad your missus ain’t here now though, to save you gettin whooped in FIFA.”

“No, you’re lucky she’s not here, really, cause I’d have been on a hattrick. It’s a miracle you’re even gettin a sniff, bro.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, stop chatting then and press play. Five more minutes and then we’ll see.”

Jadon resumed the game and leaned forward in his chair, his thumbs flying over the buttons. When his team paused for a corner minutes later, thoughts of you, which had been simmering under the surface ever since Marcus’ inadvertently brought you up, flashed through his mind. It was hard when he was in Manchester, and you were in London, but the little spiel he’d given his teammate reminded him, just as the bracelet did, that if the two of you could ever be considered “apart” it was only ever in a physical sense, never an emotional one. There was nothing that could separate him from you as far as he was concerned, unless he were to tear his own heart out of his chest or something equally dramatic. He decided instead to raise his hand to his mouth, pressing the letter charm softly to his lips. It was your name he whispered against the gold, uncaring if Marcus could hear, as he sent the cross flying towards the box.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“Can I help you find something, sir?”

The salesgirl rested a hand on his forearm as she asked, and Jadon flinched at the touch. He’d been in the shoe store for a few minutes already and no one had noticed him yet, but the intensity of her look told him he’d been recognized. She was suddenly stood so close some of the hair from her ponytail brushed against his shoulder, and he could see the dark clumps in her heavy lashes. Her fingers were cold.

“Yeah, actually,” He stepped away from her while he talked, letting her hand drop. “I’m looking for a pair of those, uh, ugg slippers, slides, the ones with the fur. Do you have those?”

“I believe we do!” She flashed him a smile that lasted too long to be comfortable, and then turned slowly on her heel. “Follow me.”

They walked to the winter footwear section and she lead the way, walking slower and swinging her hips more than was necessary for the 30-second trip. Her performance, however, was lost on Jadon, who had opened up his phone to read his most recent text thread.

Jadon: Baby pick a color, it’s important

Y/N: for what?

Jadon: Don’t worry about it just pick Jadon: Red, blue, black or brown

Y/N: don’t even know what i’m choosing 😳 Y/N: but i’ll say red, it’s our fave

Jadon: 👍🏽

They’d come upon the display of slip-ons, and the girl swept an arm over them, slipping back into a sales monologue about their current popularity with customers, and how the fur-lined interior was more comfortable than any other ugg shoe she’d tried. He thought her boss must be somewhere around, but noticed there was no one near them.

“Do you have the red ones in an 8? And also a 5.5.?”

“Let’s just see!” She bent at the waist, searching the rack of boxes for the numbers he’d requested and making little noises of exertion all the while. Jadon’s eyes were still on his phone, searching for the notes app entry where he’d saved your clothing and footwear sizes and preferences years ago.

“Ooh, I’m sorry, sir, it looks like we only have the red ones in a size 8 and up. Are you sure you need the 5.5?”

She’d moved down into a squat, and now looked up at him through her lashes, biting on her lip. Her eyelids fluttered like there was something stuck on them.

“Yeah, I gotta have them. One second, please.”

Jadon: Pick another color, sorry Jadon: show you why in a bit

He looked up from his phone, waiting on your reply, and found the girl staring back at him. She took his returned gaze as some sort of invitation.

“You know, we sometimes have more stock in the back, extras that don’t make it on the shelves. We could go take a look together, if you want? The door has a lock on it.”

Jadon’s eyebrows flew into his hairline. He looked around the store bewildered, at a temporary loss for words, because all he could think to say was “Don’t you see my girl standing here?” and regrettably you weren’t. He couldn’t believe that anyone could look at him and not see that he was yours.

“Woah, no – absolutely not–” He stepped away from the girl for the second time, putting his hands up between them to maintain the distance. “I’ve got a girl, still.”

“And? I’ve got a man, too. But you’re Jadon Sancho.” She blinked her lashes harder, looking at him again with a challenge in her eyes that he wanted no parts of. Now, he wished he’d said “no” when she’d asked to help him.

“Nah, you have lost it.” Jadon laughed shakily, still in disbelief that she was propositioning him so boldly when he had your name written right there on his forehead. Or at least that’s how it felt. He shook his head and walked to the furthest part of the shelf where the brown colorways were kept, keeping a wide distance from her crouching frame.

“I’ll find them myself, yeah, thank you.”

The girl made a frustrated noise that he would’ve had to strain to hear, before she stood, her eyes still focused on him. She paused a moment, and with a shrug, took off to another part of the store.

Jadon breathed a sigh of relief. Just after, his phone buzzed with your response and it was just as he imagined.

Y/N: brown, then. it looks good on both our skin (whatever it is)

His smile returned.

At the register, he snapped a photo of the two stacked boxes just before they were bagged up and pressed send.

Jadon: Early bday present for u ❤️ Got a pair too cus I wanted us to match

Y/N: 😁 omg! thank u babey Y/N: that’s so sweet Y/N: i didn’t think you fancied them tho

Jadon: ❤️❤️❤️ Jadon: Yeah they look bare comfortable Jadon: And i need people to know we go together when we go out 😭 u don’t kno what i go thru

Y/N: ugh ur so brave, going out in public for me Y/N: thank u for ur sacrifice

Jadon: my **pleasure, innit ❤️

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“That’s what you’re wearing? You're sure?”

Jadon continued primping himself in the mirror beside you, flattening the crease in his jeans, and fitting clear glasses onto his face. Lastly, slowly, he dragged his palms down the lines of his shirt, and turned to admire the details on its back.

“Of course I am, what you mean? Got it customized and everything, just for your special day, didn’t I?”

The shirt was jersey material and a bright lilac purple with two grey stripes down the front, but the other side was what had made your breath catch when he’d pulled it out of his bag. Y/N’S BOYFRIEND it read, in sparkly block letters across the back.

“I love it! I love it so much. I love you! Come here.” was all you managed at first, through rapid kisses to his lips, cheeks, and neck, but now that the shock had passed the meaningfulness of the gesture began to set in. You hugged him from behind then, feeling the prickle of the glittery letters against your chest through your robe. The love and appreciation you felt was overwhelming.

“How’d you know I’d wear purple, too?” You murmured into his back.

“Cause I just know.” He answered, looking extremely proud of himself. His hands curled around yours as they travelled up his chest, bringing the left one up to his mouth for a kiss.

“You'll make me cry, you know. Ruin my make-up.”

“Nah, none of that. Go on, finish gettin ready.” He squeezed your butt gently. “They’ll have shut the lights off already, and I need everyone to see.”

Now, inside the small party being held in your honor you were convinced the shirt looked even better, shimmering under the flashing dance-floor lights and complimenting his tanned skin. Together with your lavender shirt-skirt set you looked like brown-skinned Barbie and Ken, like two halves of the same whole, and knowing so made your “birthday girl” glow increase tenfold.

Through the night you floated between groups of friends and acquaintainces, trading memories, laughing hard, and saying thank you for the thoughtful gifts and warm messages given from those who’d come to celebrate. Jadon stayed by your side without fail, clocking the eyes on his garment as he passed, and it seemed the the edges of his smile extended each time there was a whisper of “Aww” or a gasp of surprise. Every now and then he would drop your hand, letting you stray a little ahead of him before wrapping an arm around your waist or joining hands again, so that anyone who hadn’t seen the first time knew exactly who “Y/N” was. When you realized what he was doing, it first made you laugh, then feel warm, and then drag him onto the dance floor so you could pull your bodies close.

“I’m not gassin it, am I?” He asked into your ear, hands carefully pressing your back to his chest. “I’ll go chill, let you dance with your friends.”

“Nah, you’re exactly where I want you.” You leaned your head back onto his shoulder for a moment, closing your eyes, feeling the gentleness of his hands on your waist, of his voice in your ear. Remembering how it was your name on his back for all these friends and strangers in the party to see. The music bumped and your bodies’ continued swaying to it.

“I’m happy you’re here, baby. And I can’t stop thinking about your shirt.” You let out more of the happy giggling that had characterized the night. “It’s my favorite gift so far.”

He shrugged, and you felt the movement against your back.

“I’ve been out the city for a while, innit. Just want to make sure people know what it is, that they ain’t forgot.”

“Do you think I don’t do that?” Your body stilled between his arms. “Is that why you’re on about it so much?”

“No, I don’t think that.” He guided your waist to keep moving again, making a lazy circle in time to the beat. “But I gotta make sure. You know that with me people always got something to say, innit. Always speculation, rumors and that. So I do what I can to make sure there ain’t no questions, about us, I mean. Cause there ain’t.”

“Well, I don’t think nobody’s gonna get confused after tonight. You couldn’t have made it any more clear.”

Jadon only laughed, his actions tonight already saying far more than a million words could. He ducked his head down into your neck for two, three warm kisses, squeezing at your hip, and his soft lips on your skin made you shiver.

You turned in his arms towards him, wrapping yours around his neck.

“It makes me feel so good, though, that. That you’re so proud to be with me. Makes me feel very lucky, and special, very in love with you.”

“You are special.” His lips twitched, fighting a smile, and you scratched one hand into the hair at the back of his neck. ”You’re everything. And you’ve held me down for so long, baby, there ain’t even nobody else to think about. It’s just you, innit.”

“I love you” you spoke, a smile breaking across your features, leaning against him, cradling his face, parting his lips in a gesture that said mine. He returned the kiss and the three words in one breath, his heart thumping, and the only thought in his head a repeat chorus of yours yours yours.

[territorial-tarot-tahr]

I was bored. It was meant to just be Cyberpunk-2077 smut but I got carried away.

Word count: 9.3k+

CW: kinda suicidal and depressive thoughts. There's also sexual content inside though it is not the focus.

Summary: V tries to relieve stress after bottling up emotions.

If you found my A03 from this, no you didn't. Shut up.

There are spoilers for the game Cyberpunk-2077.

🚨Go to my main account "rorschach-retrograding-rotary" for commissions or requests🚨

🚨This was not proof read and I hate reading my work so I have no intention of proof reading it🚨

Feel free to commission me or donate

𝕙𝕥𝕥𝕡𝕤://𝕜𝕠-𝕗𝕚.𝕔𝕠𝕞/𝕤𝕒𝕪_𝕔𝕙𝕖𝕖𝕤𝕖

The hiss of water as the shower turned on sent a sigh from her lips, the warm steam hit her in the face and promised a quickly achievable sense of cleanliness and relief after days of running through the filth covered streets of Night City. Blood, sweat, dirt and grime had made themselves at home in forming a layer, akin to a second skin underneath and on top of her clothes. Her hair practically crunched when she brought her hands to run through her tresses and push them out of her face. She gripped the sides of the sink, staring down the face that greeted her in the mirror as condensation covered the surface.

Dark bags under her eyes, an almost gaunt quality had taken over her face. A few weeks prior when she'd held her job at Arasaka tower through exploitive or deplorable manners of it needed, but typically through tossing enough money at whatever problem arose. The "old" V would've probably thought her current situation as unthinkable. Her? Running through alleys and picking up random jobs for cash to try and keep alive while also tracking down a way to keep a haywire biochip from eating away her brain. Nah. Lowly behavior. A cruel joke. Well hardy har-har. Funniest shit known to man.

She pulled back her gums for a moment, checking the small dribbles of blood that she spotted trickling from different cuts she'd scored from an almost constant set of scraps. The most recent fight with Razor had left her with enough respect on the streets than she knew what to do with, but an ache in her bones and muscles that left simply climbing the stairs to her apartment as a Herculean task.

Coughing up blood, bile and vomit had become a common occurrence as well. A migraine always tracing along the edges of her brain as she navigated different requests and jobs people tossed her way. She rubbed her fist over the mirror, clearing her face properly and allowing her eyes to trace her trembling form before the condensation devoured her visage again. Her right hand shook as she placed her pointer finger on the mirror and drew a shaky smiley face, almost in spite of herself.

"You're the reincarnation of Van Gogh. Mind turning on the radio?"

A disgruntled sigh left V's lips as her mental hitchhiker made his appearance. She spun on her heels with a spark of energy she hadn't realized she'd had, leaning against the rim of the sink as she watched the final pixels of Johnny's appearance settled in for the most part. Every few seconds she'd see him phase in and out of detail as he paced a few feet, lounged about on whatever debris or simply stared disapproving at whatever V was doing. A flash of bright cyan pixels that covered the entirety of his being occured as if on cue with V's train of thought.

"Just listen to the channel I've got." V brought her hand to her eyes, rubbing them a few times as if she might chase the fatigue away with a few scrubs.

"You've got shit taste in music. As a double, I've got no interest in feelin' like a wet cat."

There was always something that made things difficult with his almost parasitic relationship. If he was visible, great. He got to enjoy the same sensations that she did. Tapping into the receptors that the biochip had managed to already consume and replicate or that they were currently fighting for control over. The rollercoaster had been a fun treat for both of them and V would find herself often thinking about bringing up whatever giddy yelps he'd vocalized when the coaster had taken a nose dive down the tracks, the wind whipping through her hair and the smell of sea salt practically palpable. Whenever he decided to show his mug, he'd get to feel the the sun on his skin through V, get to feel the tang of liquor on her tongue, and the rough leather on her skin as she navigated the streets. During these times, he'd manage to tap into whatever technology she had wired into her skull, in turn her music and radio.

However, he could cut himself off from the sensations if he so chose. Slinking out of her body to leave her alone with the splitting hangover, leaving her to feel the violent punches of her opponents alone while he occasionally tossed out a comment or some kind of sarcastic encouragement. This usually resulted in a far lesser connection on his end as well. Staying out of her dopamine receptors, and nerve endings that would've given him the sensations, also resulted in a loss of connection to just about her entire head until he reestablished the connection.

He didn't want to feel the sensation of water on his skin but he still wanted music...great. and this was her problem how?

"It'll only be a couple minutes. You'll live." V rubbed the corner of her mouth as she waved a hand dismissively at him. She was met with a grimace from him as he opened his mouth, snapping out of and then into existence but in front of the curtain of the shower this time as he wiped his dry lips.

"Radio. Or I ain't screwing off and you get an audience for your shower."

𝘽𝙞𝙩𝙘𝙝. 𝙒𝙖𝙨 𝙝𝙚 𝙖𝙘𝙩𝙪𝙖𝙡𝙡𝙮 𝙜𝙤𝙞𝙣𝙜 𝙩𝙤 𝙗𝙚 𝙩𝙝𝙞𝙨 𝙥𝙚𝙩𝙩𝙮?

His arms were crossed and the glare he was shooting her from behind his mirrored shades clearly stated that he was. He was still as a statue, determined in his decision, his jaw was set, a few strands of hair that lay in front of his eyes as he stared down at her. He wasn't particularly tall. V was sure she could point out a few people on the street who could easily trump him in size. And yet he was still held usually to the whim of V and where she decided to go and what she decided to do. She was sure his ego always took a beating whenever she shut down his ideas or suggestions, though he made sure to get his jabs in no matter what. Small battles he could win such as this.

V felt her eyebrows twitch as she leered at the engram, her hands ball-ed into fists at her side. She could always pop a few of Misty's pills, sure, but she was sure he'd come back with a passion whenever they wore off. Maybe even allowing himself to dip back into the violent and suicidal side he'd shown off in their first meeting.

"𝙋𝙪𝙩 𝙨𝙤𝙢𝙚 𝙞𝙧𝙤𝙣 𝙞𝙣 𝙮𝙤𝙪𝙧 𝙢𝙤𝙪𝙩𝙝 𝙖𝙣𝙙 𝙥𝙪𝙡𝙡 𝙩𝙝𝙚 𝙩𝙧𝙞𝙜𝙜𝙚𝙧."

She was cautiously optimistic now that he wouldn't parrot the sentiment again if put into the situation again. That they'd grown too close of "friends" for him to actively say he'd rather they both die together instead of exist with the notion that he a passenger in her brain and not at the wheel. Though a small part of her usually chimed up that she was giving too much credit. He may have found his vocabulary to involve more begrudgingly complimentary verbage and vocab towards her, but she was sure if pushed, he could find it in his heart to turn cruel and sour again. Maybe he didn't even care in the slightest about her well being and he was just buying time with a nice persona, hoping that she'd grow too attached and chicken out of getting rid of the biochip. Instead, letting him take over. Maybe he was-

"Earth to V." Dry humor in a haphazard tone. He snapped his fingers in front of her face before turning his pointer finger to the box on the counter by her couch.

"Radio. Water bill 'ill be sky high pretty soon."

She blinked for a few moments and flipped him the bird before storming off to the radio, tracing her fingers along the few buttons before flipping it on and listening to the music begin to fill what silence the static-crash of water droplets against the wall provided.

"Retro station. Might hear something of yours or some other fossil tune." Her snark was palpable but her fairly blank visage seemed to more than prove that it was more annoyance instead of anger that sparked her comment.

The distinct auditory cue of Johnny's disappearance resounded as V cast a glance over her shoulder. She managed to catch the final flashes of bright blue as his engram vanished from in front of the shower curtain and rematerialized on the couch, legs kicked high up on the back of the couch.

His face was upturned to the ceiling, his attention apparently too important to even toss her way now that he'd gotten what he'd wanted. Though he did give her a thumbs up, the metallic coating catching the light but not reflecting on anything properly on account of him not even being there. For something that didn't have any proper affect on the world as he was right now, he was an attention whore and still managed to cause her more strife than he had any right to on occasions.

She waved a hand absent-mindedly at him as she made her way to the shower sloughing off her jacket and boots which soon found a new home in a small pile by the sink. Her thumbs found the hook of her jeans, quickly finding herself casting another glance at Johnny, seemingly just to ensure his gaze had stayed intently focused on the ceiling, instead of a straying glance her way. Luckily, she was correct and his gaze was on the ceiling, the only proper change in behavior being he was making random gestures with his hands as he mouthed along the words to a song he seemingly recognized.

V wasn't sure if she could define the song by a genre even if held at gun point. In all honesty it just sounded like every other grunge rock band but evidently, Johnny enjoyed the sound enough to have not only listened to the song years before, but recognize it on a "retro" station after half a decade of hanging around in the mind-fuck that was "Cyberspace" as a whole.

She quickly yanked her top and pants off before slipping past the curtain and into the warm embrace of the water. Her gaze was low, focused on the stream of water as it stole the dirt, sweat and grime from her skin, leaving it to swirl on the floor of her shower before disappearing down the drain. She huffed softly, and dragged her nails along her scalp before slipping them through the strands of her hair, working knots out of her tresses.

The simple acts such as that were now things that seemed to be practically luxury now that she had barely had time to breath between jobs. There was always some Cyberpsycho causing a rampage, a race that needed to be run, or the emperor recent one, "Kerry's manager had signed a label without his knowledge and now all of a sudden it was her problem that needed solving too." After a few heated words had been shared, she'd found herself taking a picture for them, all together and smiling as if he hadn't been holding a gun at them and yelling like a loon mere moments before.

On the way home, she'd managed to find herself hit by a car after a few carless steps in the wrong direction and a few seconds spent focused trying to read a text from Claire and she'd found herself thrown across the street. The driver had quickly left and no one had said anything, 'course when she so much as made her ride jump the curb, every available unit had been on her ass before she could yell.

"Everyone, no matter what! Keep your eyes peeled for the gonk with the pink hair and Samurai jacket! No matter what she does, if you see her driving for even a split second, start shooting or T-bone her car!"

"Understood!"

Fuck off.

To be fair though, the last time she'd managed to mess up her driving, the police hadn't been there for a good long while, Instead johnny had also been keen on her about not scratching his ride after materializing in the passenger seat, insisting that she was being too reckless and should let him drive his Porsche instead.

"Show her how to really make it purr."

Screw off.

While Johnny taking over wasn't the worst thing known to man, it did leave her wife a killer headache and a queasy stomach. Especially the performance she'd allowed herself to be talked into as a last "hurrah" to Samurai. Her finger tips had been worked red if not bleeding, sure, but she could've sworn her ears had still been ringing, even hours after the gig had ended. Adrenaline still coursing through her body and making her feel more weary than she had any right to be when the high eventually ended.

She wiped water from her lashes, running her palm across the wet-canvas of her face as she exhaled. The warmth of her breath being lost in the swirl of steam that wafted form the steady flow of water. She blinked, a few droplets hanging on hard to her lashes as she stared down at her forearms as she held them firmly against the smooth tile of the shower wall. The vibrant colours of the Tyger Claw tattoo she'd gotten as well as the insufferable heart and arrow tattoo Johnny had gotten without her knowledge. She couldn't decide which tattoo made her more uncomfortable. The Tyger Claw's tattoo brought up memories of Wakako Okada and to some extent, Takemura, before he'd met his demise in the collapsing debris. If he'd managed to survive that, the Arasaka agents had probably ensured his brain had become well acquainted with a metric shit-ton of lead.

Takemura. Now that was someone she hadn't thought about in a hot minute. Why hadn't she? His blood was practically slathered on her hands, each handprint a deep crimson with all the other unfortunate souls she'd ended up killing on her own accord or simply as collateral damage. She'd planted bullet after bullet between the eyes of more people than she could count. Her own companions falling behind her in due time. Letting her deranged quest drag others into her bullshit and ruin their lives. Meddle in affairs that weren't her own. Goro, Panam, River, Judy, Evelyn, Sampson, Jackie-

Jackie. That one still hurt. When they'd been sliding down the glass, the case containing the chip gripped tightly in his hand, she'd been sure she was going to die. The fall to the pavement below had driven a scream from her lips and she would've sworn up and down that she was was in more pain than she could put into words. Though the feeling that caught in her throat like bile when she'd seen Jackie clutching at the wound under his suit? Incomparable. His steps getting heavier as he trailed further and further behind, his breathing falling uneven as he attempted to continue shooting at enemies. The way his eyes had searched hers when they sat in the car, a solemn expression on his face as he went limp. The way her breath had caught in her throat as she stared at his body- his mother. She had to tell his mother- she had to tell Misty- she had to- she had to-

Her throat tightened and her stomach churned as her knees buckled. A moment longer and she was forced to to watch whatever she'd recently ingested move down the drain, leaving her with a pale complexion and feeling grateful that Johnny had hopefully been too engrossed with the radio to hear her losing her lunch. It shouldn't have hurt so badly even this far past the actual event. Everytime she had saddled Scorpion's Apollo, she found herself feeling guilt gnaw at her mind. She owed it to Jackie to use his motorcycle, did she not? Though at the same time, she was terrified at the prospect of scratching it. Ruining the pristine condition he'd been convinced it had to be in. A bright coat of a paint and an engine that roared.

No. She didn't deserve to ruin that.

She would just fuck it up like she always seemed to.

As her stomach settled, she shoved her hair from her eyes again as she focused on the sensation of the tile against the tips of her fingers. The condensation clinging desperately to their section as V slid her hands back and forth across the tile. She was here. What was done was done. She could only hope she could do better in the future. A heavy exhale passed her lips as she blinked rapidly, the sound of the water slapping against the tiles filled the room, drowning out the sound of the radio in the other room.

Though the quiet chirp from her implants broke the monotony of the water before it could gain any proper standing. Panam. A nonchalant text about hearing about how the Aldecaldos had just moved again, a swift description of the environment before saying that she wished V was there. It set her stomach in knots again. Something she'd never managed to put into words was how desperately she had wanted to stay when Panam had offered. A moment of proper vulnerability as she attempted to explain why her staying would simply cause more strife than mirth. Though the Relic had malfunctioned and she'd fallen to her knees, waking up hours later. The explanation hadn't seemed in good place to put into words there. "I know you're worried that I'm dying but I'm not looking to burden you, bye!"

Panam wouldn't have allowed that excuse for a second. So instead, she'd gotten the concise phrasing that V had tried her best to keep to a script about. She was going to fix this. Fix the screwed up mess in her head and then she'd make her way back to Panam and she'd love among the nomads. Watch the setting sun fall beneath the dunes of desert rock and cacti, hear the wind whistle and the animals announce their presence during the dead of night. Spend hours around a campfire with people she could call family. But not right now. And not in the way V would like. Panam had rejected her advances before, seemingly downright uncomfortable much to the distress of a quickly apologetic V. V wanted something from Panam that she couldn't give, and she couldn't blame Panam for that. But she'd blame herself for being foolish enough to think it would work out.

V turned to the side, her back against the wall as she allowed herself to sit down on the shower floor, her gaze trained on the grout of the tiles as she laid her hands on her biceps, knees tucked to her chest as the water continued. She'd thought of them getting together since really the moment they'd met. A few anxious comments about beds or one room had been enough to tip Panam off, and V had spent that night laying in the twin bed staring at the wall, her back to Panam. Long hours spent envisioning and hoping that at some point she'd look over her shoulder and see Panam by the side of her bed, or that she'd find her lips meetings hers as she took a perch on the bed. But her sleepless night had ended with nothing except a few chortles from Johnny and a damp spot in her underwear.

The call came from the other room, though she didn't seem to care at the moment. "V! Mind toweling off and changing the station?" She was half-heartedly aware of the sound of the radio, the tune sounding more akin to something from a stereotypical boy band.

V moved a hand from her bicep, resting more on her hip as she tilted her head back to stare at the ceiling. An hour spent envisioning and day dreaming wouldn't hurt anybody. She brought her pointer and middle finger to rest slightly below her navel. It wasn't as though she was a virgin. She'd spread her legs more than a few times and allowed herself to be charmed by a few folks at bars. But she has never been big into masturbation.

"it's for lonely losers who can't get a proper lay." Would've probably been her response a while back. Well guess what, now she couldn't get a lay without having an almost perpetual spectator and commentator throwing in his two cents. A few moments chatting up a guy on Jig-Jig street had earned her a few comments from Johnny about how "This choom probably lets himself be cucked. Teeth like a beaver and hands that shake like a leaf. You really about to sleep with 'im? Everyone's got a low point I suppose." For the girls he'd jested about their tits, their hair, have much of their face was even 'ganic. Until eventually V had given up. Even if she'd managed to work through those comments, she'd have still be left with him casting judgement the minute the Omega Blockers wore off.

"Hundred eddies says you came faster than a choir boy getting dicked by a priest."

"Standards really got that low, huh?"

An endless barrage of condescending comments would probably be what she was met with whenever she came back to reality. Though in all fairness, it been a while since one of those comments had passed Johnny's lips. Or at least he made it more obvious that he meant it as good natured teasing as opposed to rabid mockery. Guess she was one of those sexually lonely losers now though.

"V! Station change. They're playing genuine shit now. I didn't listen to some of these songs when they came out so why the hell would I want to listen to them now?"

She ran her fingertips along the length of her vulva for a few moments, giving her clit a few flicks before sinking her fingers into the warmth of her cunt up to the second knuckle. It drove a startled grunt from her mouth, though she stifled it as best she could. A fake cough also being utilized Incase somehow Johnny heard her over the sound of the radio and the sound of the water. She felt like a skittish teen again, looking at pictures of things she's shouldn't have been, hands below the covers of her bed as she attempted to listen for the sound of her guardians footsteps.

Why the hell would Johnny care anyways? She'd already had the misfortune of viewing a memory of him screwing his old girlfriend, albeit that was from Brigitte's will and Johnny had held just as much influence over the viewing as V had. That is to say, they'd tossed a memory in his face and he'd been forced to relive it. Whether he considered it as a source of shame for his prior actions or a source of pride for his "glory days" she couldn't tell. It was always hard to pin things down with him. Though the point had still been that he had no control over what she saw or was tossed to watch in that instance. She on the other hand, was very much aware and in control of her actions.

Whatever. It was her body. After a few more moments, she went back to slow and tedious work with her fingers. Her thumbs rested on her clit, as she used her point and middle finger to work in and out of her cunt. She'd been expecting more of a reaction from herself in all honesty, some further flurry of arousal as she attempted to work herself up to an orgasm. Though she suspected her aforementioned views and the coinciding habits had very well left her as rusty in this area of expertise.

"Alright, just have to try something different."

V didn't own any sex toys. If she'd been horny, she'd find someone to sleep with. Instead, she let her eyes travel the walls of her shower in search of something to improvise with. Her shower walls were typically bare, though she'd bought a handled loofah a while back when she'd begun going to sleep in her undergarments and finding the stains of grime and blood that had been left in spots she couldn't reach. She reached up and over, unhooking the handle from the small hook she'd latched to the wall.

The whole item was probably a bit longer than her forearm, though she had little intention of pushing herself near that far. Instead, she attempted to mentally measure the length of the texture handle and the groves that sat in it, allowing someone's hand to grab hold of the tool easier. She'd never been the best at math or guess work but if she had to wager, she'd say that portion was maybe 5 or 6 inches long. She blinked and turned the item over in her hands a few times. She was desperate sure, but was she really this bored? ....yes

She turned the loofah part to face away from her, positioning the handle towards her cunt, where she began to languidly drag the handle up and down the length of her vulva. She watched the subtle twitch of her legs as the pressed and flicked her clit with the handle as she huffed softly. Another soft grunt left her lips as she sheathed the handle in the warmth of her cunt as she brought her left hand to wipe the droplets from her lashes. She tightened her grip on the handle before coaxing the ridge coated handle back and forth, a firm shove back in her pussy that made her brows furrow at the surprisingly unpleasant and dull pain that the contact made.

Maybe she was sore? Maybe this was how it was supposed to feel when she wasn't drunk as a skunk with the scent of liquor on her breath, enough alcohol in her blood to knock an elephant out and dull the feeling. A mental shrug fell over her as she pulled the handle out again, dragged further out and angled up so that the ridges bumped against her clit as it sunk back in. Another full pang. Fuck, what was she doing wrong? Seemingly out of frustration now, she worked harder, a thumb on her clit as she tried to fix her mistakes. A harder slam, a sharper angle. How was she this bad at something as simply as getting herself off? She-

"Knock it off or do it right." The voice was an uninvited intrusion, the sound of the pixels reforming hadn't even been heard by V as she cast her gaze to the voices direction to the form of Johnny standing in the doorway of the shower. V quickly yanked the handle out of her cunt, her eyes narrowed to allow a better leer as she gritted her teeth.

"Fuck off, Johnny!" It was barely a coherent sentence, blurted out in a way that sounded more akin to a tell of frustration rather than an attempt at communication. She'd let him use the radio. He was a lot of things, but she had at least expected to be able to count on him keeping his word for something as simple as staying out of the shower while she used it. What should've been basic courtesy had even been an exchange. Radio for alone time. And he couldn't even do that! He-

"Not happening. You're screwing yourself like a virgin." The reply was more matter-of-fact than what V enjoyed, though when she got her thoughts together to toss a mental message his way, she was cut off by his continued message. His arms were crossed, his head tilted so the crown rested against the wall that he was leaning against.

"Fuck, all the gonks in Night City and I still managed to get saddled with the only one who can't make 'erself see stars. You realize how bullshit that is? I-"

"Why is this any of your god damn business? Turned on the radio for you. Go listen to it."

She was met with an arched brow from him as he looked at her from over his glasses. The polarized aviators didn't have much light to catch from the surrounding environment, but the dull glow of her bathroom light still caught and brought an orange hue to the shades.

"Radio channel started playing shit. Asked you to come change it. You didn't. I figured you had to be listening to something pretty good if you couldn't hear me, so I tuned in only to find lo-and-behold, you were sitting there hammering that into your pussy. Wouldn't normally care, but considerin' I, as your glorious passenger have the luxury of getting tangled in your sensations, I figured I have a right and obligation to tell you: you're doing it wrong."

"Great. You told me. Now screw off."

"Options are, cheesy boy band radio, sensory deprivation, or feeling you try and jack-off. I pick the latest. And, since I'm such a generous brain tumor, I'll even offer you something."

"Unless it's you fucking off, I don't care."

"Whatever gonk it was that jammed that stick up your ass even further than it already was is a talented creature. I'll give 'em that." He fished in his pockets for a moment, absent-mindedly speaking as he yoinked a cigarette from the crumbled box on his pants. It wasn't as though his pack had nicotine or even gave any sensation when he smoked them, so V always ended up looking at him through scrunched eyes and a raised brow as he puffed. Small plumes of smoke curling in the air around him as he waved a hand to emphasize a point, ashes falling off the tip of the cigarette as his movements became more dramatic.

"Ain't like I'm asking you to pop one of the pills and let me grip the wheel. Just a little trust instead." His statement was followed by stare that made V's skin crawl as she haphazardly attempted to cover her breasts, her legs held close together in order to retain some form of dignity.

"Uh-huh. And what's this trust exercise get you? Another date with Rogue? Another 'boy's night out'?" The warm droplets of the torrent traced over the gooseflesh that had developed on her skin during the initial startle.

"Nothing more than what I'd be getting already. I'll just stay synced to you so we can actually screw off properly, unlike whatever the hell you'd call your activity. Plain impalement. Gonna bruise your cervix all wrong and make your hips ache. Though if you wanna bang yourself up enough so you end up wobbling around tomorrow like your boyfriend went overboard on you the night prior, feel free." Monotone. Deadpan....jerk. V's brows knitted together as she glared up at the musician. A few moments later and she found her nails digging hard crescents into her palm as the water pelted her.

His discomfort at the water seemed palpable, practically twitching at every droplet that hit her skin, though he held his ground as the offer filled the dead air with a pregnant pause. He'd made jabs about something as small as Kerry's offhanded tease about sleeping together. Her chastised her for her conversation with the Joy-Toy in Clouds. He'd insisted they should leave Judy to sulk in the cabin. A moment spent attempting to discuss her thoughts with Panam was met with him yammering away at how corny V was being or that Panam wouldn't be as understanding as V hoped.

Whoever spoke first, lost. It didn't matter what passed their lips at this point, whoever finished their "silent vigil" first, would be on the loosing end. And that wouldn't be V.

That. Wouldn't. Be. V.

Absolutely not.

Wouldn't be V.

No matter what.

Wouldn't be.....

"Pervert."

"Whore."

"Cuck."

"Skank."

Goddamnit.

V cursed herself as she watched take a knee in front of her in. The flecks of warm water droplets sending the pixels of his form into a frenzy as he squatted and situated in front of her. What the hell was he even going to do? The world's shittiest game of Simon Says? It seemed leagues stupider than it had been before.

"Well I mean- hold on-." Bashful didn't describe it properly, sheer embarrassed was probably the better word for her feelings at the moment.

"Gettin' antsy?"

"No, just-" Sorry, you just make me nervous and sometimes me heart feels like it's in my throat when I look at you. Hell no. Fat chance she would ever say that in front of him. Instead, she furrowed her brows and worked up an attempt at venom in her voice, trying to make the comment snide.

"Know sure as hell we aren't working with actual sex, so how do you have any 'perience with this style? Rogue and Alt prefer a dildo or a JoyToy and they let you sit in a chair to watch?" .....did that sound like anything? Shit, she hoped it did. Though Johnny's seemingly disinterested expression proved otherwise.

"I'm not the one fucking 'emself on a handle. Wanna keep running your mouth and I'll have no problem leaving you to whimper as you bruise yourself up." The gaze that he shot her was a narrowed eyed stare over the rim of his glasses. "You want my input or not?"

impudent. Unbelievable. Rather than attempt whatever staring contest he seemed intent on putting on, she turned her gaze to the side. Her line of sight lay solely on the shower wall now, watching the traces of condensation slide down the tiles in an race with endless opponents, ending with their demise as they hit the floor and joined the swirling mess of droplets that traveled to the drain, swept away in the pipes.

She was wasting water.

She was reminded of her time at her prior job, her shoes clicking quietly against the elevator floor as it took it's sweet time to bring her to higher floors of the tower. Files or miscellaneous papers had a permanent home in her hands, clutched to her chest or held by her side. But she always had somewhere to be and something to do. Another bonus assignment, another bullet to be subtly placed between someone's eyes. Another employee let go. Another ex-employee who seemed too lose lipped about company secrets needing a proper silencing. Someone to serve because her own wallet seemingly couldn't get fat enough.

She was wasting water.

She might've screwed up, sure. Gotten herself kicked out of the company. Gotten her privileges, her money, her status, everything revoked. She could live with that. It should've only affected her. She'd been sloppy. Should've covered her tracks. But it'd tossed her into Jackie's arms. Made her get more involved with the family. Made her bring him into further danger. Get him brought into a job he didn't need to take. Get him six feet under and her still alive. Why did she deserve to even live? She was a walking time bomb. Half her brain wasn't even her own, a Frankensteined mishmash of her's and Johnny's. She should've died in that car. Jackie would've known what to do. He would've had a better plan besides running around Night City desperately hoping someone could help. He would've figured something out. Or at least spent his last few months in a meaningful way. He had a mother and family that cared for him, that mourned him. What did V have? What would she have when she finally dropped dropped dead? What would Silverhand be met by? A stray cat that drank from the sink and a few motorcycles. She was a fuck-up.

She was wasting water.

"V?" A vibrant buzz of sensations along her face caught her attention. She might've jumped had it felt like her legs were willing, but instead she found herself simply snapping her gaze back to Johnny. She was met with a seemingly somber expression despite his recent snark.

"Everythin' good?"

Did she want to tell him? She didn't think he'd be winning any awards for sympathy anytime soon but it wasn't as though he was wholly apathetic to her. Divulge a bit. Share the psychological burden. It couldn't be that hard, right? Just say it. Say you felt guilty about Jackie. Say you weren't sure if you even wanted to be alive right now. Say sometimes you wished Johnny would take overall ready so you wouldn't have to live with a brain that seemed intent to make you feel like every second you were alive was a second wasted. Say it. Say-

"Just thinking about how you took your sweet fucking time before even deciding to offer help. Hoping that I'd be desperate enough for your input if you let me bang myself up a bit?"

"Don't lose your tits. Know damn well I don't have the luxury of getting your sensations the minute you do. Got your attention when I felt it." The sanely grin had returned to his face and she watched him pull his hand away from where he'd evidently touched at her face for her attention. As time had gone on and his own tumorous brain had begun to make the beginnings of nerves, they'd found that it was possible to get flashes of sensations of the other as if they were genuinely touching. His brain registered that he was touching something and as such attempted to make a copy of it for him to interact with in Cyberspace as he often did with stools, bottles or even when he leaned against or sat on something. Her brain, now half overridden with his, registered that and began to attempt to register his interaction with the copied item at the same time as it misfired and worked through the idea of seeing something touching her but not feeling it. His brain registered that he should feel her while also trying to copy her. Her brain registered trying to copy itself for him to interact with while also registering that she should feel something. All this culminated in a misfire on both their ends which usually manifested as a subtle buzz that traveled through her as though a dulled version of what happened last time she'd accidentally grabbed the metal prongs of a plug when she'd been pulling it from its socket.

It only lasted a second if that, but it was still something.

"Uh-huh, sure." Snide. Keep your tone level. V watched the way he had begun to flinch every few seconds. His face scrunching as if in disgust but quickly returning to what she considered his normally sneer not long after, flicking his face to the wall opposite side of the shower head when he did. V didn't envy his position, she couldn't be sure if his brain was registering all the droplets and slapping the sensation across his body every few seconds or if maybe he felt it as individual flecks hitting him. Whatever sensation it was, she found her mind likening it to Chinese Water Torture as she kept her gaze on his attempt at subtly or playing off his flinching as he kept his eyes locked onto hers.

V brought her hands to just barely grace the end of the handle, unsure where to rest her palms now that the attention was on her. Blush laid claim to her face as she attempted to keep her expression null, though he reached out all the same and brought his hand to rest on the hilt of the handle. Her hand snapped to attention as the same jolt was sent through her skin, retracting her digits to lay across her chest as though clutching at pearls.

Bzzzt

You're here? I'm here. You're here. I'm here?

Bzzzt

That was how V had chosen to envision the split second interaction between their brains as they confused themselves. Though it didn't matter much how she pictured the conversation. The "why" was not the main thought in her mind as she watched Johnny reach forward to try and put the sensation to use.

A momentary glance up at her seemed all the warning for his quick experiment before he rolled his point finger to lay curled on his thumb before snapping it forward to flick her clit with his chrome arm while his other hand resting gently on the handle.

A yelp had forced it's way from V's throat before she'd even registered the vocalization, leaving her seemingly just as startled by the noise as him. It hadn't burned and the sensation hadn't been entirely unpleasant, but the feeling had still shot through her in a white-hot burst. She could only suspect that the more unpleasant or seemingly more intense part of the sensation had now gone simply from the fact that the connection was moving through a simply more sensitive portion of her body. Similar, she supposed, to how a tattoo hurt more in certain areas than it did in others considering where you got it. Ribs, hands, neck, versus arm or legs. Her brows were scrunched together, almost in a scorn of disapproval as she attempted to keep a straight face and turn her attention to the side.

She believed he'd called it a "whore face". An argument had broken out between them over whether he could have the body to get a good lay. He claimed that 50 years of celibacy was more than any human should go through and she'd insisted he should drop dead. At that point he'd begun tossing out off-handed and almost off-handed comments in a way of coping with the disappointment. The fox calling the grapes sour as it were.

"Not interested in lookin' up and catching glance of the mirror above an' your whore face starin' back at me anyways." Had been his final comment, refusing elaboration before disappearing in an explosion of pixels and a flash of bright colours that lingered in the air for a moment or two afterwards. Regardless of if he'd meant it or not, the comment had stuck with her and she seemed intent to not give any of the illusive "whore face" if she could help it. If that meant staring like she'd had a lemon crammed in her mouth, so be it.

"Not even a smile? How'm I s'pose to know if I'm doin' a good job or not?" The snide smirk returned to his lips as he leaned to the left to try and keep in her gaze. A second later and she'd managed to wrangle her expression under control and she'd opened her mouth to speak, though he seemed acutely aware of this as his finger snapped forward from another nonchalant flick. Under normal circumstances she was sure she wouldn't find herself fighting the urge to yank her legs to her chest while she twitched from something as simple as her clit being flicked. Or at least not on the second or third flick. Though the seemingly spastic flurries of activity that his touch sparked in both their brains have V some kind of comfort and reassurance that this wasn't indeed normal circumstances.

"Just help already." An embarrassed whisper as she lay her left hand over her eyes.

"Couldn't quite her you. Gotta speak up for me, V." Jackass.

"Fuck me, Johnny!" Louder than she'd intended. Please don't let another noise complaint from her neighbors come her way. "...please." Less whiney. Curt. Good.

A roll of his eyes was the reaction she'd expected to be met with, and she was not surprised when he executed the action. His fingers rested on the handle again, the copy of the loofah forming almost instantly as the dull throb took hold of her cunt.

You're here? I'm here. You're here. I'm here?

Though now it worked from what she could only assume was Johnn's brain registering the use of cyberspace for objects as the same as himself.

I'm here. You're here. You must be me too.

You're here? I'm here. You're here. I'm here?

Whatever the fucking reason, V was glad it was in the coding or a glitch in the Biochip. Didn't feel like anyone had crammed a proper dick in her by any means but the dull shocks that came from the contact between his copy of the handle and her pussy were more than enough to make her yelp.

A soft whimper was dragged from her throat as she felt the languid motion of the handle dragging out slowly before sinking back in after making a circular motion at the end as if Johnny was cutting something with a knife. Pull back, lift up, push forward with motion in the hilt.

With her fingers lain across her eyes now, she turned her head to the side again. Her cheek brushing the wet tile of the wall as she let him repeat the motion a few more times over. The sensation of sparks zipping across and through her flesh as the contact continued, the hilt going as far deep as it could without bumping into one of her walls or her cervix sent a snap of sparks through her. The sensation made her clench her jaw and she might've sworn her heart had jumped into her throat if she hadn't felt it slamming like a truck in her chest.

Alongside the whimper that surprised her by slipping past her lips, she managed to hear it met with a soft grunt from her compatriot over the sound of the splashing water. The distinct chorus of the pixels of Johnny and the loofah copy loading in and out of existence as he worked filled in just about every second of empty audio space.

The rhythm of his motions had been set into a mental rut in her mind, only to be abruptly interrupted by the sensation of the sparks on her clit again as he laid his thumb on top of it. Letting the sensation repeat as he just barely graced the top in subtle bumps that sent jolts through her body. What ended up shocking her was the mewl that clawed its way out of her throat after a few moments as the bolt of energy flooded through her body again.

Her hand quickly slipped from her eyes, laying across her mouth in an attempt to keep further noises off her lips. Though a glance from her newly uncovered eyes showed her that Johnny seemed less than excited about the new situation.

"Gettin' shy? Seriously?" He might've meant it to sound sterner than it did, or maybe he'd simply choked on something, but she could've sworn his own voice warbling did show that to some extent, that the overwhelm of her senses and the borderline overstimulation was getting to him too.

She couldn't trust her voice and tongue to not screw up whatever snide comment or retort to try and take him down a peg. A warble in her throat from his pace picking up or maybe shoving the handle forward with the intent of tripping up her speech. Instead, she held her tied tongue and kept her hand laid across her mouth, though the small flecks of tears forming at the corners of her eyes seemed to say enough. It wasn't as though it felt perfect or even entirely pleasant to that extent, the jolt through her body served amazing stimulation sure, but the force of it, and even the sensation in it of itself also hurt.

It felt as though she'd banged her elbow on a table and the dull yet simultaneously all encompassing shock of her nerves trying desperately to try and figure out how to register the sensation had been spread through her whole body. She wouldn't pretend that some amount of the sensation wasn't pleasurable, but the amount of pleasure compared to the overwhelming static of emotions didn't serve as a fair trade off.

The handle bumped against her cervix again and she practically yelled from behind her hand. An impromptu orgasm rocking over her and finally driving the tears from her eyes and chasing them down her face as her breathing hitched. What surprised her, was when the burning sensation left her suddenly, torn from her as though someone had ripped a burning torch from between her legs.

She already suspected the reason, but she wasn't soon going to let herself admit that it'd been too much. The minute she looked over at Johnny, she'd be admitting that she cried from a single orgasm. Regardless of the fact that it'd felt like someone had been tearing up her inside with a dagger. Regardless of the fact that she wagered she'd rather take a bow of celibacy than have to deal with that same sensation anytime she found intimacy in others. Regardless, she was certain she'd still find herself being teased by Johnny about this. "Her breakdown" she was sure was what he'd call it. Something condescending or-

The sound of him leaving the environment in a burst of pixels took her by surprise, leaving her sitting alone in the shower.

~

Crawling into bed to sleep drew images of a wounded dog crawling into it's well-worn bed to lick its wounds. She could only imagine Johnny had spent the time in-between the moment in the shower and now, laughing to his hearts content in Cyberspace. She was sure the insults he'd toss her way when he rematerialized during whatever time suited him would be demeaning. Condescending. Whatever it was, she didn't want to hear it. Though the distinct sound of him snapping back into the visual plane drew her attention.

The sound came from behind her and she imagined he was probably sitting with his back against the wall, snide grin on his face and a cigarette gripped between his fingers. Maybe he wouldn't even let her sleep. Just chat her ear off or mock her. Though she wouldn't roll over completely and was already attempting to compile a list of retorts, specialized to his narcissistic, bombastic, rocker boy-

"Y'okay?"

A second or two passed....Concern? Was he goading her into seeming more pitiful than she already did? He hadn't sounded curt. He hadn't sounded particularly snarky either. A few more cautious seconds passed before she cast her gaze in his direction, looking at him over her shoulder. He didn't look as though he was waiting on the edge of his seat for an answer, eyes wide and chewing his lips in concern. But his brows were still twitching and seemed further scrunched than they typically were in his scornful glares. Actual concern.

Say you're fine. Say you're fine, tell him to fuck off and then continue with your shower. Tell him to go back to his stupid radio and leave you alone. Tell him-

"No."

"Didn't mean to hurt you that much in the shower. Don't know entirely about your pain tolerance but I just thought-"

"Fuck, Johnny, no it's not just that." She'd already returned her head to her pillow, staring across her upturned and well lived in apartment at Nibbles as he sat on the back of the couch and slept peacefully.

She could hear him open his mouth to speak, though he stayed quiet. Seemingly not finding the right words. Instead, she heard the shuffle of movement and saw his boots come into view at the foot of her bed an the corner of her eye to realize he was simply laying down on his back next to her, staring at the ceiling of her bed.

If she wanted to speak, now was her chance. Don't screw it up.

"I know-..."

Don't trail off. Speak now or forever hold your peace.

"I don't think I even deserve to be alive."

Silence. Crickets. A passing car. Johnny held his tongue.

Keep going.

"Started with Jackie. Well I mean, it didn't start with Jackie. Felt this way for a while but Jackie was the first real solid stake hold. Been thinking about how I should've been the one to die in that car. Bleed out and have my body sent nowhere. He had a family. He had people who needed him. People who missed him when he died. He was wheezing, panting like a dog and pale as a ghost but still refused to really let on that he knew he wasn't making it. He was strong. Just about everyone at that funeral knew it. In one was or another they'd all seen him act like their own personal savior. Caring boyfriend, trusted friend. They all had the right to mourn him. But Mama Welles asking me over there? What did I know him for? I spent six months taking their food, stealing a mother's boy away from her in order in earn scraps of eddies with him. I took someone's lover. He was a fighter sure, but he had a right to his own happiness and I just couldn't leave well enough alone. I tumbled in there like a damn tornado and screwed up everything that could've been. A moment of Jackie at Mama Welles bedside as she said goodbye. A moment of Jackie slippin' a ring on Misty's finger. Me? I don't even know who Delamain would've sent my corpse to. Probably couldn't kicked me into a dump without much fuss from anyone else. Goro too. He had a goal. He only got into proper trouble and that building with Hanako because of me and Jackie. He might've managed to actually get away or-"

"V. Goro would've died a Corpo dog. Shot in an alley in then dumped in a trash heap like worthless scum. He would've died without justified sense on his end. Yorinobu would've killed him and Goro would've taken it because of his whole bullshit obsession with honor. At least with you, he died for a cause he at least gave a fuck about. Do you really think he wouldn't have said 'no' if he had wanted out?"

"No, I just-"

"And I don't believe for a single second you'd trade Jackie's death for what you're doing now. Blood on your hands, vomit on the streets, bullets flying past your skull and not thinking you'll be around to see next summer. You wanna be emotional? Be emotional, you'd be trading his death, his death that meant something to you, for a death where he didn't even get to stay dead because I'd be livin' in his corpse. Forcing his family to see that, know that they couldn't bury their boy because they'd be killing someone else and 'Jackie wouldn't want that'. You wanna say you'd prefer a place where Misty really got to see Jackie rot from the inside-out as he stumbled through each day in a collapse and seizure ridden haze like you do? You want to make his mom see him like that.You wanna be pragmatic? Be pragmatic, you'd be leaving Jackie to suffer for six months as he scampered for help like you're doing. You'd be making those he loved watch him grow desperate, make deals with people he wouldn't bring around his family in desperate hopes of kicking his death date further away. I know you're sad. And I know-....Look I know it hurts, V. But thinking like that doesn't help anybody. And if sure as hell doesn't help you. I ain't saying you're a saint. I ain't saying you ain't made mistakes. But I want you to understand this, "

She couldn't be sure if he'd paused for effect or if it'd been unintentional, but she still found herself listening intently, even if she wouldn't admit it.

"Even though you may be a proper gonk sometimes, you've got a right to live, V. Don't forget it."

...oh.

Her breathing was soft. Shallow kitten licks of air as she stayed silent in fears of disturbing the bitter-sweet quiet that had settled over them. The small buzz of energy settled through her as she felt him rest his hand on her shoulder.

You're here? I'm here.

[vallxlkzal]

So keep my crooked translation from Ukrainian to English just because someone was interested. I hope that this translated text will be at least somewhat similar to the original. I'll leave a link to the original below:

💔🥀Part one🥀💔

I can't take it anymore, my breath is ragged, the blood in my ears is pulsing with a frantic heartbeat, and my legs... My legs are carrying me as fast as they can in the most frightened state. This sudden burst of adrenaline now seemed to me the most difficult test, although I had never felt anything like it, I think, in my entire life. I was scared, and lonely, and very, very... Scared! Horror is all that consumes me right now because…

It chases me. They. I counted four of them, as far as the current situation allowed. Four... People? Entities? I don't know what it is, but I definitely saw that they were dressed the same as me, but it was a mistake to go closer to them. Oh, sure, I even forgot how hard their sticks hit me on the head and that now warm blood is flowing from under my hair and my favorite hat is very, very red, but I still tried to save myself — so much I wanted to... Live ?

I was hit for the first time. I am — Wally Waldini... What did I do wrong, why did they do this...

I can't anymore. It seems that I have already flown around the entire night city — and everywhere was closed, and the streets were abnormally empty. I didn't know where to ask for help. And... Oh, what the... What is this?!

My reflection in the window of a store struck me so that I stumbled and fell. My magic walking stick, though not working for some reason, fell from my trembling hands and for the first time in my life I felt complete... Helplessness? I am completely, completely defenseless lying on the cold pavement.

I saw them in the shop window. More precisely — myself. I was just like them! Completely, completely similar, but I was not laughing and having fun, but was bleeding and was very scared. And for some reason I suddenly felt cold and I realized that I was alone in an unknown city, in an unknown pixel universe, I hadn't slept, I hadn't eaten, and my clothes were wet... I must have been beaten in other places and... I have there was no time to take a closer look. I just fell into striped hands in some dark park and barely escaped their icy embrace. The deformed faces, the static crack of the lightning, the supernatural strength and the intimidating smile of these "Wallies" had to warn me immediately. They laughed, pulled me by my sweater, by my hair, by my hat, by my stick, chirped something about "the perfect morality experiment" and held one of their stick to my throat, listening to me gasp and try to call for help. Several times I passed out and they eased the pressure to choke me again.

And then they let me run away and started chasing me.

— Hello! — I heard a familiar voice from afar and, leaning on the night lamp, which for some reason began to flicker, I tried to stand up.

These... Wally? Um... These strange people who looked like me were coming from all four directions, trying to surround me, however, picking up my stick and swinging, I quickly tried to get around them. They seem to have been toying with me in a very cruel manner, and they also seem to possess the magic of the sticks, and...

They seem to be leading me somewhere. They are not allowed to run in all directions, but only in some. Thus, even more bloody and frightened, I found myself in front of the fence of some building. These Wallies took me out of town, to some country private house, and I had no choice but to climb over the fence and knock on the front door, mercilessly ring the doorbell and shake the surveillance camera.

— Please, open it! Is anyone home?! Please, they are near!

The light in the house turned on and the four strange people remained behind the fence, looking at me with a smile, and then abruptly disappeared in a bright flash, as soon as I heard someone coming to the door.

Surprisingly, they let me in and I fell on the floor exhausted, finally covering my eyes. The last thing I heard was the sound of a loaded gun, and the only thing that went through my mind was: "Am I going to be killed?"

I woke up not in a hospital bed, but tied to a... Chair? In a dark room? And... Some man in another part of this enclosed space was standing and just watching. It was difficult for me to see his face because everything was floating in front of my eyes. I was tired, beaten and had no energy for anything.

— Finally I found you, — this man had a very cold tone of voice that would have made me laugh before, but now just made me panic even more. Breathing started to become erratic and breathing became difficult, so difficult...

— Waldo.

I didn't know who the man was talking to. To me? Surely I should have tried to talk too?

— N-no, you're confusing me with someone... I'm Wally... I... I don't know how I ended up here, it's an accident, I got lost... I need... Help.

The man started to laugh for some reason. And laughed so long and hysterically that I was already mentally digging my own grave.

— A very strange game, Waldo. A very strange prank, — he came closer and bent down, but I still couldn't see anything in front of me because I was sick. — Very crappy disguise. What is it? Blood? Whose? WHOSE?!

Why is this man yelling at me anyway? What did I do wrong?

— M... My, sir... I-I was beaten... Four people and... They look a lot like me. I don't know why... I need... Police...

— Well, you bastard, then you came to the police. Right into the hands of the detective. Finally.

I gave the man a frightened look and tried to understand what he meant. Is he a detective? Who was he looking for? Me or those... Four...

— At first I wanted to see you behind bars, but now... I will destroy you with my bare hands.

— Wait, please, what have I done? Why? What universe have I entered?

The detective, if I understood correctly, bent even lower to my face level, and my bloodied lip quivered in panic as he gave me a grim and irritated look.

— What do you mean by "what universe did I get into"? — at last I was able to see him a little better, as the half-dark, and in all probability the basement, room allowed: a young man, to my surprise, with a piercing gaze and, probably unironically, a loaded pistol aimed at me. This is such a mess. I haven't run into such problems yet.

— I... I understand that you have confused me with... Those four people, but I assure you, I swear, I am not them. My name is not Waldo, but Wally Waldini and my best friend Wenda and my dog ​​Woof and I were just going on another interesting adventure, then something strange happened and... I woke up in this pixel world!

The man, or rather a young man, just like me, listened attentively, keeping his eye on me. Is it like some night terror where someone thinks I'm a criminal and ties me to a chair in the basement?

The Detective lifted my lowered head by my chin... Don't joke about two chins, please, I'm not in the right state... I still didn't understand what this person felt for me and why he was looking so passionately into my eyes. This situation was very stressful and frightening, so I didn't even notice how I started to cry. His eyes narrowed and he continued to look at me with an appraising look, touching and pulling my blood-sticky hair. Now he pulled this new black hair especially painfully and looked at my neck. If only I could guess what he want from me this time??

I really wanted to sleep and my eyes were half closed from it. I had absolutely no strength for anything. I had the impression that something was wrong with my body — it was too heavy and it was also difficult to think and resist. People call it "fatigue", but I'm not exactly human. I'm just Wally and such things used to be very far from me. I have never felt so tired before.

Only now did I realize that Wenda was right about me. I really liked danger and risk, and this time it punished me painfully. Wenda, Woof... Please save me.

***

Meanwhile, from the perspective of the Detective, everything looked so interesting and crazy that he himself did not believe it. Well, how can you believe this: you are looking for Waldo, you don't sleep many nights, decipher his riddles and collect, as if a collection, new and new brutal murders... and he comes to you one night and falls at your feet? One day the Detective already had dinner with one of Waldo's doubles and, although he was cheerful then and did not fall on his feet, he was just as close. But not as close as now.

The Detective tightened his grip on Wally's hair, listening to him whimper. Oh, the Detective knew how Waldo could deceive. And that the "fear" in his eyes now is just part of the show. What did he come up with this time?

The Detective mused, looking at the strange marks on Wally's neck. Dark, almost crimson. As if someone tried to squeeze this fragile throat with a strong stick. And squeezed with a very fierce force. Couldn't Waldo strangle himself?

— What is on your neck? — asked the Detective for some reason and did not even notice it, but Wally answered: "Those four people who look like me tried to strangle me."

For some reason, the hand let go of the black hair, and doubts and questions crept into the head. Many questions. This time the Detective noticed Wally's tears, really noticed, because Wally in Waldo's body still felt like the good guy and didn't have the maniac vibe at all if you talked to him closely. However, his body, his face, his voice — everything was like what the Detective was looking for all along. He was looking for Waldo — a murderer and just a rabid scumbag, and he came across Wally from the books and cartoons, who got into their universe? It sounds stupid, but if Waldo knows how to travel through time, then it shouldn't cause any doubts, right?

It was strange to see someone crying who always laughs and slips out of your arms at the last moment, who does not allow you to sleep normally and keeps you in a nervous tone forever.

— So you mean to say you're Wally... Waldini?

— Y-yes... Yes! That's right... This is my first and last name...

— Then why don't you look like Wally?

— I don't know! Maybe because it's a more realistic pixel world? I have not been here before! Wizard Whitebeard didn't give me any directions about this place, and I probably shouldn't have gotten here, but I did. My magic walking stick... it doesn't work anymore.

Wally bowed his heavy head and fell silent. He didn't say anything more, didn't answer any questions and only trembled, cried, moaned in pain, because probably he still had a headache, a throat that was squeezed and a body that was mercilessly beaten.

The Detective dared to take the only step in this strange situation: he untied Wally, took him in his arms and really led him to the bedroom, putting him on the bed. Yes, it was dirty with blood and dirt from the dirty clothes of the strange striped guest, but that is not so important. Wally really wasn't trying to hurt or hit or laugh maniacally like Waldo. Wally curled up and lay quietly.

— Okay, Waldo... I mean Wally, how can I help you if you say you left the pages of the book and the TV screen? I'm looking for a murderer and a notorious criminal who looks a lot like you. And you are either lying to me, for which you can pay bitterly, or you are telling the truth.

Wally let out a tired breath.

— But despite all that, I still have a hard time believing you.

— Okay, Detective, then I have just one question for you.

This particular phrase made the Detective tense up, immediately sitting down next to him and holding Wally's hand so he wouldn't run away. Waldo also said so in the restaurant. And he said he would leave a big tip later and leave quietly. Now, however, the Detective has nothing to lose.

— Why did those four people who look like me drive me into your house? They could kill me, but they let me run when I could, and calmly walked when I, leaning on my stick, could no longer do it, but only swayed from side to side from fatigue and fell?

The Detective thought in silence. This is a really strange plan. What does Waldo want this time and most importantly — WHERE is he now? Damn it, HERE he is — in the Detective's arms, literally in his bed, lying and not moving.

— Well, Wally, he and I have... A very strange relationship.

— Listen, Detective, this is all, of course, somehow strange and wild, but I don't want to be in this world anymore. I must have been sent here to help you, but how? I saw that... Entity, if you can call it that. That's your Waldo. I saw him as closely as you see me now. And for the first time I don't know what to do. I don't know how to help you. I don't know anything else...

While Wally was talking, the Detective was having flashbacks. All this time he tried to catch Waldo, even shoot him, put him to sleep. Faced with Odlaw. But seeing Waldo so close, calmly looking at him and listening to him was incredible. However, he is too kind, his questions are too naive and his fear is suspiciously realistic.

— If only Wenda was around, she would tell me what to do... — Wally said sadly.

— The same.

— What?

— The same, I say.

— Mr. Detective, please explain...

— Wenda was my wife. Waldo killed her. I want to kill Waldo. You look suspiciously like Waldo, but you say you're Wally. Did you solve the puzzle?

Wally turned to the Detective and for some reason was genuinely, uncharacteristically indignant. Now this striped wonder looked like the striped wonder that sat on the bench on a fine clear day and could be seen in the scope. The Detective grimaced.

— You would see yourself in the mirror, ew...

— I don't want to see myself in the mirror, Mr. Detective. I already know that this pixel body doesn't match who I really am, but let me get one thing straight... Wenda is my best friend and she doesn't have a boyfriend... She's alive.

— Well, maybe YOUR Wenda doesn't have one from your measurement.

— I don't mean to offend you, but wouldn't Waldo be upset if you were Wenda's husband?

The Detective smiled bitterly for the first time, patting Wally on the head and thinking that it would be a good idea to offer this guest a wash and give him a first aid kit.

— No, Wally, because Waldo... He... Never mind.

— I understand everything, Detective, but please don't transfer your feelings for Waldo onto me.

The Detective realized that he wasn't just holding Wally all this time, he was stroking him, touching him, playing with his hair, and just being too close. To be honest, he didn't believe a word Wally said, but he didn't want to miss the chance to have this criminal, as he thought, in his hands. It had been so long and so longed to finally find him that the Detective really forgot about the question "why did they bring me to your house?"

Because the Detective's mind was enveloped in an intoxicating haze around the dreamy morning park, where Waldo playfully beckons with a thin finger and disappears at the last moment; because the Detective's mind is surrounded only by the striped tapes of danger alerts, forensics and hot pursuits. Because...

— Detective, can you even hear me? Detective?

— Huh?... Yes, I hear.

— Help me, and I will try to help you, even though I am afraid. However, maybe this way I can find my lost way home.

"Absurdity, nonsense, crazy nonsense and poor senselessness," — thought the Detective, and said something else:

— I agree.

🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔🥀💔

[alternate-beta-clones]

what program do you use and/or which brushes for Alternia Beta Clones? /genq

Thanks for asking, I really wanted to talk about it! :D

(It's going to be a bit long so I'll put it in 'Keep Reading' xD)

To draw my panels, I use Clip Studio Paint. And for the brush, I use the basic nib (Plume G) with no anti-aliasing effect!

I also use 714 x 441 px format so that you can see the pixel effect better.

Why 714 x 441 px precisely? Er… actually, it's mostly due to a mistake when I made my first panels. Basically, I wanted to use a 600 x 400px format, and I must have made a mistake when creating the file! But I like the way it looks in the end.

Otherwise, I originally made the character sprites on Clip Studio Paint, using the same brush as before. But I quickly realized that it wasn't the most adaptable, and now I'm reworking all my sprites on Aseprite! It's a software specialized in pixels. I've also started doing some backgrounds there! (Like Eclass hive)

CSP :

Aseprite:

By the way, for the environments, I'm using a script I found on itch.io to make isometric boxes. (HERE)

For the video part, I edit on Movavi! And by the way, I don't compose my own music, I go through OpengameArt ( I update my credits document if you'd like to see the music I use).

And finally the video game part! For the moment I've only used renpy, mainly because I'm familiar with coding with it. It's not necessarily the most optimized if you ask me! I did the clicker on it, but renpy is better suited to visual novels! (maybe I'll put some visual novels in Alternate Beta Clone too?)

Otherwise, I'm learning how to use GameMaker and I'd love to make games on it, so let's see in the future! :D

(Note that Renpy and Game Maker are free, and there are lots of tutorials on the net! You can also find resources on itch.io)

[talesfromthebacklog]

Are you looking to click with a new game and want something genuinely different?

I am always hunting for new titles to reinvigorate that click I feel with video games. Not all video games will click but when they do they can be something truly special. I wanted to go over some of my favorite games I’ve played in recent years that are available on current gen consoles. I’m not covering anyone upcoming, these are titles you can pick up today. Cheaply at that. Several of which are on sale on Steam right now as of writing this.

So. Enough chit chat. Lets’s start with an easy one:

Paradise Killer:

PC Switch PS4/PS5 Xbox

I just finished this one and am in the middle of writing my review on it. Painfully stylish with a killer vaporwave soundtrack this game oozes aesthetic. Kaizen Game Works understood the hauntology assignment and took it to the MAX. You are an investigator trying to solve an immortal god-like council’s murder in a dystopian society. You’ve returned to this gorgeous open world parasite paradise from your exile of 3 million days (about 8219 years)! If you’ve played Outer Wilds this is among that same vein. (And I will caution you, while not hard, the game relies on you wanting to just explore. It will provide hints but it won’t hold your hand.)

This is an Ace Attorney-esqe collectathon mixed with open world and exploration. There is no combat. Both the writing and the world are spectacular. Don’t deny yourself something this wonderful, because it is.

This has quickly risen among my gaming ranks as a favorite and it hits to being as close of a favorite as my number 2 suggestion…

Outer Wilds:

PC Switch PS4/PS5 Xbox

This is perhaps one of my favorite games of all time. I wanted to talk about this second because Outer Wilds has received more of the notoriety it deserves in recent times and I wanted PK to get the main spotlight. Don’t get it twisted though If it wasn’t for UpIsNotJump’s video (<— Spoilers) I would have never realized what I was missing. And I still think a lot of people don’t understand what they’re missing too. It is an absolute masterpiece. And seeing it getting released physically again is a god send. I want people to play this game. (And it’s DLC Echoes of The Eye)

No combat. You are a scientist exploring your local solar system in your spaceship in an open “universe” instead of an open world. The sun explodes every 22 minutes which sends your memories back in time. Again, I will caution you that the game relies on you wanting to explore. It will not direct you.

Eastward:

PC Switch Xbox

Too much exploring. Let’s reel it back with Eastward. A Zelda-like where you control an older man and a little girl with psychic powers in a post apocalyptic world. If you’re looking for those fun pixel games that pack that quirky feel this is it. A bit existential, a great sense of humor, and fantastic writing are all part of the Eastward package. (You startin’ to see a theme here? Ha ha)

All while boasting a seriously killer pixel soundtrack. The original Iron Carbine trailer for the Nintendo Direct had an immediate impact on me as a gamer. I knew this was a game I would fall in love with. Sometimes you just know when something is special. This game is beautifully pixelated and packed with lovingly crafted content. Puzzles are the right amount of challenging and there is so much fun side stuff to do. Including a Dragon Quest-esqe game inside the game! It also received DLC via Eastward Octopia! Which I also love.

Moon: A Remix RPG

PC Switch PS4/PS5

I do play games with combat. I swear. Several of these games just don’t have it! (Ha!) This will perhaps be the hardest game to sell to you on this list. I have a soft spot for quirky games like this, but know that this was a PS1 Japanese exclusive game in the 90s. And it sure acts like it. Slow to start, weak tutorial, and doesn’t provide a ton of direction. This game was ported into English for the first time in 2020 and I love it. It is a trial and error experience though.

This cult classic is one of the games that inspired Undertale and when you play it becomes wildly apparent. I dare say it reminds me more of Undertale than its other main inspiration Earthbound. You are a little boy that’s been fallen into his video game and you have to save the souls of monsters the hero has killed using love. (Sound familiar?)

Light hearted and weird this game also has a great sense of humor as it pokes at classic RPG tropes. And that slow intro comes into play providing a unique perspective as you journey through the game befriending people. It won’t be for everyone, I would research this one before sinking the… $18.99 on the purchase. But I think it is worth experiencing if you love Undertale.

I think I’ve yakked enough. If folks like the post I’ll follow up with a part two with a little more genre variety! I wanted to the first post to include my top favorites. So. I hope there’s something in there that invigorates you the way these games did for me.

[yakkolicious-writing]

Brotherly Love

"Oldest child bedroom 001" by Tim Evanson, Modifications: Resized to 3000x1055 pixels is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

Genre: Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Family Fandom: Animaniacs Central Relationship: Wakko Warner & Yakko Warner Wordcount: 1,473 words Summary: When Wakko tries to get a glass of milk in the middle of the night, he hears crying coming from Yakko's bedroom. What's going on? Warnings: None Rating: G. Suitable for all audiences.

AO3 link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/56653579

I'm back with a new one-shot! This is an alternate universe one-shot that isn't canon-compliant at all. The Warners are children in 1930s America in this story. Yakko is five, Wakko is two, and Dot is a newborn. The Warners also have parents (loosely based on Sir William the Good and Princess Angelina Contessa II) in this story! I hope you enjoy it!

It was a quiet, peaceful night at the Warner Bros. water tower. Everyone was asleep except for Wakko Warner. It was midnight, and he had been put to bed at eight, but he couldn’t sleep; he was thirsty. He needed a glass of milk, but he didn’t know how to get it. Normally, he would call for his mother, and she would bring him a glass, but ever since his little sister Dot was born, she became preoccupied with her. She didn’t leave Dot much either, as Dot would cry every time she was separated from her. Mom was out of the question, but what about Dad? He might’ve been asleep at the moment, but maybe Wakko could ask him for help. All he had to do was get out of bed to make sure.

Wakko rolled off the side of his bed, landing on his belly with a thud. He was silent for a moment, but he giggled afterwards and crawled to his bedroom door. He looked up at the doorknob. He couldn’t reach it like this. He reached his hand up, but he still couldn’t reach it. Wakko stuck his tongue out slightly as he realized what he would need to do: he had to stand up. He wasn’t particularly good at standing or walking yet, but if he was going to ask Dad for milk, he had to try. Wakko stood up with a grunt and reached his hand up. He opened and closed his hand rapidly as he tried to grab onto the doorknob. Wakko jumped, and once he did so, he managed to grab the doorknob. He gasped and grinned, and his tail began to wag like that of a dog who had just been handed a bone. Wakko turned the knob, and the door cracked open just enough that Wakko could walk out. Wakko giggled and hobbled out the door.

It was strange to be in the tower hallway all alone. Neither Dad nor Mom was there to guide him. It was just Wakko and his little feet against the world. His first instinct was to check his parents’ and Dot’s bedroom, since his parents slept in the same bed. He never understood why anyone would want to sleep in the same bed as someone else, even if they loved each other. Wakko loved Dot and his older brother Yakko, but he wouldn’t want to sleep in the same bed as them. He liked having his own bed, where he could stretch out as much as he wanted to. Regardless, apparently Mom and Dad liked to do that, so their bedroom would be the first place he’d check. Wakko walked as quickly as his little legs would let him. He stumbled every once in a while, but he walked very well for a thirsty two-year-old.

Before Wakko could make it to his parents’ bedroom, he heard muffled crying. His ears perked up, and he turned his head to the nearest door: the door to Yakko’s bedroom. He hobbled closer to it, and the crying continued. He also heard a sweet voice trying to comfort the crier.

“Hey, hey,” the voice said, “it’ll be alright, Yak. Monsters aren’t real. They won’t getcha.”

Wakko’s heart sunk as he realized it was his father trying to comfort Yakko. Yakko! For as long as Wakko could remember, Yakko was never upset. He always had a smile on his face and something to say, whether it was something sweet or something funny. Nightmares were for little kids, like Wakko and Dot, not big kids like Yakko. Why was he of all people having a nightmare? This wasn’t right. Yakko wasn’t supposed to have nightmares.

As much as he wanted milk, Wakko wanted to see if Yakko was doing alright first. Wakko did as he did before and jumped, grabbing onto the doorknob, turning, and opening the door just enough so he could walk inside. The door creaked as he opened it, and Yakko and his father’s eyes focused on Wakko. Both of them went silent, Yakko only sniffling once. They sat on Yakko’s bed, side by side, the brothers’ father’s hand on Yakko’s shoulder. Wakko waddled into the room, his tongue hanging from his mouth, and he looked up at his dad and older brother.

“Wakko, honey,” Dad began, “Daddy needs to talk to Yakko right now. Could you go someplace else and wait? Wait, how did you even get out of your room?”

Wakko giggled.

“He’s smart, Dad,” Yakko said with a sniffle.

“Smart!” Wakko repeated.

“That you are,” Dad replied, “anyways, go someplace else, Wakko.”

“No!” Wakko shook his head.

Dad sighed and looked at Wakko curiously, putting his free hand on his hip.

“Why don’t you wanna leave?” Dad asked, “ya thirsty?”

Wakko gave his father the stink eye. He was right about him being thirsty, but that didn’t matter right now. Right now, Yakko was crying, and he wasn’t supposed to do that. Yakko was more important than anything else.

“No,” Wakko answered, “sad.”

“You’re sad?” Dad asked, “how come?”

“Yakko’s sad,” Wakko said.

Yakko sniffled and started to cry again. Dad patted his shoulder gently, when Wakko got an idea. He hobbled towards Yakko’s bed and grabbed onto it, wagging his tail. He grunted and jumped up and down, but he couldn’t seem to get up. As Yakko sobbed and sobbed, Dad noticed Wakko trying to get on the bed. He took his hand off Yakko’s shoulder and held his arms out for Wakko. When Wakko saw his dad’s arms, he walked over to him. Once he was in-between his dad’s hands, Dad picked Wakko up and set him on the bed. Wakko quickly looked at Yakko as he cried. So many tears were streaming down his cheeks that his entire face looked drenched, and his blue striped pajamas were a bit wet as well. His normally white face had turned red in the middle. Whenever Yakko would take a small break from crying, he would shake and shiver. Wakko hated seeing Yakko like this. He was so… scared. Yakko wasn’t the type to get scared too often. He had to make him feel better, but how? Whenever Wakko had a nightmare and Yakko saw, Yakko would try to make him smile, usually by telling him a joke or singing him a song, sometimes by picking him up, giving him a hug, and telling him that everything was going to be alright in the end. Wakko didn’t know how to tell a joke or sing a song, and he wasn’t strong enough to pick Yakko up, but he could try to hug Yakko and share some comforting words, even if he didn’t know too many.

Wakko wrapped his arms around Yakko’s arm and closed his eyes. Yakko looked down at him, teardrops shimmering in his eyes.

“Huh?” Yakko asked.

Wakko did not reply. He squeezed Yakko’s arm as tightly as he could. It didn’t hurt Yakko. It felt like a nice hug, just around his arm instead of around his entire body like a conventional hug.

“It’s OK, Yakko,” Wakko said, “it’s OK.”

Yakko sniffled and shook. He wanted to tell Wakko a lot of the stuff he told Dad before he came in, but he didn’t want to scare Wakko either. All he did was watch Wakko in silence.

“I love you,” Wakko whispered.

The boys’ father’s eyes glistened with joy, and a massive smile appeared on his face.

“That’s the first time Wakko’s ever said ‘I love ya,’” he whispered.

Yakko’s frown grew softer and softer before eventually it turned into a smile. Tears were still in his eyes, but instead of tears of fear, they became tears of love. Yakko wrapped his arms around Wakko with a grin, and Wakko smiled back at his older brother.

“Look at my boys, they’re so sweet,” Dad softly said, “I’m so glad they love each other.”

Wakko and Yakko’s dad stood up, put his hands on his hips, and looked at his sons, still hugging each other, Yakko looking much happier than he did before.

“Hey, since the two of you are here,” he began, “would you like me to get you boys anything?”

“I’m fine, Dad,” Yakko said, “Wakko’s making me feel better.”

“That’s good,” Dad replied, “how about you, Wakko?”

“Milk!” Wakko exclaimed.

The boys giggled, and Wakko’s tail wagged rapidly.

“Alright,” Dad said, “if milk is what you want, then milk you shall get. I’ll be right back!”

The Warners’ father waved to Wakko and Yakko before slipping out of the bedroom. Once he left, Yakko and Wakko focused their eyes on each other. Nightmares weren’t fun, but Wakko knew he could count on Yakko whenever he had one. Now, Yakko knew that he could count on Wakko when he had a nightmare too.

[lex1nat0r]

The Danse Mechabre: White Elephant

AAR #01

Ran the first session in what is hopefully going to be a full Lancer campaign over the weekend. Gonna be posting these after-action reports from the GM perspective in case it's useful to anyone (and it turns out there are a couple of things I need to make sure I remember). No spoilers because at least half of the players are on the tumbles (eye see you).

Characters (LL 0):

Raiju (Hacker/Ace/Centimane) - GMS Everest - Delta

Sunshine (Grease Monkey/Technophile/Leader) - GMS Everest - Exchange of Affection

Rook (Walking Armory/Stormbringer/Brutal) - GMS Everest - Not Fun By Myself

Daylight (Technophile/Crack Shot/Infiltrator) - GMS Everest - Hits Different

Magpie (Hacker/Technophile/Centimane) - GMS Everest - General Protection Fault

You will notice right away that there are three - count 'em, three -characters with the Technophile talent. That means there are three bonus NHPs in the party. And the first thing I neglected to do is prompt for more interactions with the bonus NHPs. The only one that got characterization in this session was Molotov, Sunshine's little buddy.The reason I didn't prompt for more interaction is mostly because this group is used to 2.5-3 hour sessions and I am trying to hit one combat per session, which does not leave a lot of time for roleplay outside of combat. The schedule will need to be adjusted somewhat.

So in the year 4570u the PCs depart as crewmembers (and one stowaway) from the secret KRAKEN facility on the highly experimental blinkship Eye of the Tiger. The crew of the Eye of the Tiger had secretly been replaced with revolutionaries, planning to use its blink carver to quickly head towards the core worlds and help overthrow Union's Second Committee. They go into stasis, trigger the ship's blink carver and wake up to a variety of alarms blaring. It eventually turns out the year is now 5016u and the blink carver may have moved them in space as well as time. Or something. They fix up the ship a little and realize that they're near a planet that is putting out a distress call. When they also get the opposing force's broadcast about returning the planet to 'traditional Cradle values' they decide the situation requires mechanized intervention. Important note: I'm very happy with my players for not immediately deciding they need to intervene on the side of the people putting out the distress call and that maybe they need more information before getting stuck in. Keep hold of that instinct, just because you didn't need it this time doesn't mean you won't in the future.

So while the Eye of the Tiger engages the enemy fleet in orbit, the lancers drop right in to protect an urban area.

Combat 1.1: We get to be the Cavalry for Once

Sitrep: Control

OPFOR:

Pyro x2

Priest Vehicle x2

Hive x2

Grunt Breacher Vehicle x6

Outcome: PC victory, 11 - 8

No PC structure or stress damage, though Hits Different and Not Fun By Myself both used a Repair. The only mech to not get hit was Delta, which secured the lower left control zone and blasted away with its howitzer (whoever put the howitzer on the default Hacker loadout in COMP/CON is a real joker).

Here's the aftermath of the battle after I invoked the mercy rule when it became clear the NPCs couldn't take enough control zones some time around the middle of the last round (not pictured: the Hives' Razor Swarms that were still in 3/4 control zones).

(Tokens by Retrograde Minis (on the basic blank 1-hex tokens that come with Lancer so they show up well), map by Interpoint Station's pixel art assets, they released their new mapmaking tool like the day before we played. VTT is Roll20)

Most of the civilians had already been evacuated from the area with two exceptions: the blue building just above the lower left control zone (some kind of cultural building maybe, there were a lot of civilians around it), and the orange building to the left of the lower right control zone (an IPS-N showroom/liaison office). Those were both intact at the end of the combat, which will be relevant next session.

The enemy comp is very short-ranged which ended up working because the PCs had to get at them to get into their control zones. It also features a lot of burn which I ended up not using correctly (see below). I maybe went a bit hard on Strikers with that many Breachers, but I knew it would be fine because Breachers can only hit something once in a blue moon (Hits Different was the only one to get tagged by a Breacher shotgun). A lot of vehicles because I like combined arms in my mecha (I think I get this from my exposure to Battletech). No optionals on any of the enemies to reduce cognitive load on me, and even then there was plenty I forgot (see below).

I was worried about cover and LoS going into this because it doesn't feel like the Lancer rules have enough detail on that but it was easy enough to adjudicate in practice. Also shout out to one of the best rules in Lancer: the PC that went last nominates the PC to go next. That helped speed things up a lot.

Overall for a first combat with 5 PCs, getting through it in ~2.5 hours is pretty impressive! HOWEVER:

Things I Definitely Forgot About:

Tech attacks ignore cover!

Engagement gives +1 diff on ranged attacks!

Pyros deal double burn to anyone who already has burn!

Pyros can put out their FIREBREAK shield at the end of each of their turns!

Breacher's shotguns have a threat of 3!

All the PC talents!

Thankfully this can kind of be written off in fiction as the OPFOR being kind of bozos and the PCs not being fully familiar with their mechs (maybe some residual grogginess from stasis and the fact that mech warfare was still pretty new to them).

So definitely some things to keep in mind for next time - I'll have to come up with a format of NPC stat blocks that works for me because just using their stats in the core book clearly means some things get overlooked.

Next Time: Straight into the Wall?

INDULGE ME:

Campaign notebook is a Maruman Mnemosyne N195A, 7mm lined. A month ago I swore I would only use binders for campaigns going forward but Lancer seems constrained enough (note I did not say 'on rails') that I can get away with not doing that (as opposed to, say, a hexcrawling sandbox) that I can get away with it. Plus this notebook was only holding a half-done campaign idea that is unlikely to see the light of day so I figured I'd use the rest of the pages up. I've found the paper is very good at taking fountain pen ink, though I'm not using a fountain pen for these notes. I've settled on a Zebra Sarasa Clip 0.5mm gel pen as working best, and I do like that pen (it's what I used to finish out my #Dungeon23 notes).

[lumine-no-hikari]

Dear Sephiroth: (a letter to a fictional character, because why not) #297

I wasn't able to get any pictures of any yummies at work today. And worse, there was a box of chocolate chip cookies, and the cookies were all gone, but there were TONS of leftover chocolate chips on the bottom of the box, and I was allowed to take them home, so I put them someplace I thought I wouldn't forget, and… I FORGOT ANYWAY. And I didn't realize until it was much too late to go back. That's because I was in an airplane when I realized it.

…Impaired Object Permanence: 1. Lumine: 0. I swear to goodness, I'd leave my head on the goddamn bus if it wasn't attached. Sigh…

Well, it's fine. Maybe I can get them later. I had a great time at work today! I found out that Ka - the replacement for Mi - was in a very difficult situation. You see, she wasn't a manager. But then she went away for a while for reasons, and then when she returned, her manager left, and she was left as the manager of a particularly difficult store, without having had the training to manage. So Mi was suddenly summoned to take her place, while she trains here at my store, under the other manager, Tr. Tr is smart and delightful; I'm confident that Ka is in good hands! And Ka is also smart and delightful; I have no doubt that she will learn quickly!

That said… Mi will probably not be returning to my store for the foreseeable future. I guess things over at the other store are pretty bad, so they need a strong leader to help get things to the way they should be. I feel sad about this; Mi was upset that he wasn't even given time to say goodbye to the folks at my store. I'm grateful for the opportunity to get to know Ka, but… I wish Mi didn't have to go away.

…Well, like I said, I was in an airplane today. J wanted to eat at a diner that is very close to a little airport in a nearby town. The place isn't far by car. But J wanted to make sure his little airplane gets at least an hour of flight each week, and the weather was good for it, so the diner was a good excuse to do the thing.

Today was my first time flying with J in his plane. I said yesterday that I'd do stuff and try to get pictures. But I decided to do ya one better and get VIDEO!! Here:

…It'll probably be a bit more time before it's ready. In any case, Like the car ride, you should maybe cozy up with a playlist and watch it on 2x or 4x speed. Just… it is autumn and my region is rainbow-colored right now because of it. I wanted you to see it. I wanted you to see the curves and contours of my region's mountains, valleys, and hills. I wanted you to see all the beautiful things.

We didn't get to go to the diner, though. The random pixelated break towards the end of the video is when J and I discovered that the runway that we were supposed to land on to get to the diner was covered in geese, and there was no one to chase them away, because it was a little airport, there was no one there to chase the geese away. Birds of any size are very dangerous to planes, and they move unpredictably. So we couldn't land there. We ended up needing to turn around and go home.

But that's okay!! Sometimes things don't work out in the way we expect. We still got lots of nice video for you on my camera!! And I took a few more pictures when we got back, too…

Tomorrow, we go to the funeral for Mark's grandmother. I'm not really sure what to expect, other than we will have to get up early. I'm going to stop writing so that I can go to sleep.

I hope you enjoyed today's letter. I hope you enjoy all the beautiful things I try to show you.

Sephiroth... don't give up just yet, okay? Please keep striving towards that normal life you wanted. You can have it if you work towards it!!! I promise!!!

I love you. Please do everything in your power to stay safe out there so that you can read tomorrow's letter when I write it.

Your friend, Lumine

[hgejfmw-hgejhsf]

Find the Words!

Thank you @anincompletelist and @theprinceandagcd for two tags in this game!

*cracks knuckles* Let's see what my WIPs have, shall we?

My words are: make, hide, square, edge, atmosphere

AND

hope, smooth, skin, water, paper

After the cut for length and suggestibility (on a couple)

Word: make WIP: Henry hurt/comfort

“I think,” Alex starts, wondering if this is one of those moments that his mom meant about flying too close to the sun before he realizes that no, being in this car and leaving this way is. So he quickly adjusts course, “I’d like to go back. To make sure Henry’s okay.”

Word: hide WIP: A deleted scene from Take Your Time

You’re the sun. Shining your warmth down on the icy waters. Bringing an end to the darkness. But also shedding light on the destruction that has been wrought. I strayed from the light for so long because I feared what I would see when I could no longer hide behind the excuse of blindness to the truth of my own existence. Cold-hearted. Turning back all who venture near out of fear. And now I realize precisely what that all means. I’m not the unsinkable ship. I’m the iceberg.

Word: square WIP: None of the above, I'm afraid haha

Word: edge WIP: The Notebook AU

“What the fuck is all this security doing here?” Alex asks as June blows a kiss to Nora that she catches and apparently uses as some sort of secret fuel for her bumper car, jettisoning it head-on into the wall and screaming as she does it. He glances at the surrounding perimeter along the edge of the carnival, security guards in suits with earpieces like something straight out of a spy movie standing unmoving nearby.

Word: atmosphere WIP: Also none of the above!

Word: hope WIP: DNC fill-in-the-blanks

It remains even after collapsing, physically and mentally spent, into sheets that are not his own, and sliding his own calloused fingers over his bare skin in the desperate hope that the memory of Henry’s soft fingers playing a muted melody over his ribs might come back to him. It lingers despite the sight of Henry’s face, pixelated and blurry in the dark of the night on his phone screen, enough to make him come with just a few strokes of his hand at the tenor of Henry’s voice. It hums through his body, until he has no choice but to seek refuge against the closest nearby structure to regain his composure, for every single second that all six of the senses he was blessed with aren’t filled with Henry.

Word: smooth WIP: Lake house 5+1

The sun is just beginning to start its descent to the horizon for its well earned slumber after another perfectly dazzling summer day spent bringing new freckles to life as previously undiscovered landmarks on a map of soft, smooth skin, dancing in narrowed blue eyes rarely unhidden from behind dark glasses, and bleaching already golden hair to a resplendent color unnamed by nature. Alex lounges on the hammock, drifting somewhere in that blissful heaven between sleep and waking, when you can feel the breeze on your skin as your subconscious slowly concocts the perfect dream of long legs and nimble fingers and effervescent laughter. Henry lies beside him, his sun kissed skin warm against Alex’s leg, an anchor to the consciousness he can slowly feel slipping away with each passing moment.

Word: skin WIP: Drunk Me

But privately, he wondered if he’d ever have the chance to meet the boy who he so deeply admired for his ability to exist entirely beneath the world’s spotlight without so much as a flinch to indicate that it ever made him uncomfortable. Alex, on the other hand, had taken to pressing his lips to the key around his neck before each public appearance, a grounding technique that reminded him he always had a quiet home to return to when all was said and done. Henry, on the other hand, had nothing but palaces behind wrought iron gates. He hoped maybe someday they could be friends, and maybe he could even show Henry where he grew up. The Texas sun on his skin would definitely be warmer than the glow of ancient chandeliers.

Word: water WIP: Alex's bedroom canon divergence (movieverse)

He smirks at that thought. At Henry, standing in a steaming shower, with water dripping from his golden hair and collecting in dewdrops on his eyelashes, the suds from whatever expensive body wash he uses that keeps him smelling like clean linens and fresh grass even in the dead of winter sliding over his bare skin to reveal 10 small purple bruises in the shape of Alex’s fingertips. A part of Alex he won’t be able to wash away as easily as buttercream melts and slips down a drain.

Word: paper WIP: NYE Get Low Alex POV (movieverse)

“I’d be a writer…live in Paris,” Henry explains, and it suddenly makes so much sense. Like a piece of a puzzle sliding perfectly into place and revealing an entirely new image. Alex can see Henry, the same Henry who waxes poetic about Byron’s poetry for as long as Alex will tolerate and then some, sitting inside a coffee shop in Paris with a stack of paper and a pen, scribbling furiously, his eyes bright and alive with the same passion Alex can sense when he speaks of the work of other famous writers. Alex can’t help but smile at the thought.

I'm going to make this an OPEN tag, because I know a lot of people have already been tagged, and I don't want y'all to feel overwhelmed by all the words! @kiwiana-writes as the person I know with the most WIP options, you know you're always open to do this...but only if you want!

The words the random generator came up with are: proud, ceaseless, worried, dark, and pointless.

[boots-with-the-fur-club]

Repost because I can’t find when I posted the original! This was for the prompt artificial from AUvember. Part 1! Part 2 is by @daboyau

@phoebepheebsphibs

“-and the award goes to….Donnie!”

Donatello smirks as he stands up, beginning to walk over to the stage. He carefully fixed the collar of the white shirt under his black suit and purple tie.

He was completely prepared for this. It was just obvious he’d win. The cheering all around him was still music to his ears though.

Reaching the podium, the award was draped around his neck in the form of a medal.

The national medal of technology and innovation.

He pivots back towards the crowd and speaks into the microphone.

“Esteemed guests and colleagues, I stand before you to receive yet another very well deserved award. This probably comes as no surprise to you all at this point, but I appreciate it nonetheless. My achievements are so impressive, I took the liberty of bringing them here with me! Behold!”

With a wave of his hand, the nearby curtain drops and reveals three color coded robots.

The blue robot poses dramatically.

The red robot has his arms folded over each other but smiles proudly.

The orange robot waves enthusiastically.

The crowd cheers louder. Donnie’s smirk only gets bigger.

“As incredibly amazing as my work is, I do have to credit the people I based them off of, my-“

The smirk is wiped completely off his face. The only person he knew in the crowd was April. His other family members were nowhere to be seen.

“….brothers? Where are they?”

“We’re right here, Dontron!” The blue robot leans over.

“You are not my brothers. While I did have this idea as a backup plan, that was only for emergencies! You’re not the originals.”

“Of course we are! You built the perfect family!” The orange robot chirps happily.

“Come on Dee, you’re supposed to show us off. This is your time to shine!” The red robot insists.

“What is this? What’s going on here!?” Donnie begins patting around his pockets to try to find his folded up tech bō.

The blue robot walks over to him.

“Big bro, you need to chill. You’re kind of bumming the mood of your own award ceremony. How about we just go home and watch Lou Jitsu? We can watch Punch Chowder, eat some pepperoni pizza, what do you say?”

Donnie stills for a moment.

“I have just one thing to say.”

“Yeah? What-“

The robot gets a bō to the side of the head that sends it flying into the curtain, pulling it down with him.

Everything starts becoming pixelated and glitchy around the area the robots were. It spreads terrifyingly quickly. He only has time to scream before it reaches him.

He finds himself screaming into darkness. He can feel something on his face.

His hand reaches up and throws it off. It hits the wall and breaks. It seemed to be some kind of headset.

That’s when he realizes several things.

One: He wasn’t alone.

Two: He wasn’t as young as he thought he was.

The headset had messed with his head. In that dream, or more accurately that probably artificially created scenario, he was 16.

He was about twice that age now.

That was very apparent from seeing his brothers also in this small room.

They were slumped over with headsets similar to the now broken one on the ground.

Obviously, they had all aged as well.

The other things he noticed became more apparent as he got his bearings.

Three: He was desperately thirsty, hungry, and his body felt like it hadn’t moved in ages.

From this, it could be concluded that the warped reality had him under for much longer than he thought.

He rushes over to try to take the headsets off his brothers, seeing their lips chapped made them situation all the more urgent.

Who knows if they had been there longer than him?

A strong jolt of electricity has him yoink his hand back in pain.

“Dammit! I can’t get them off….how did I free myself?” He picks up a piece of his broken helmet.

There’s a quiet hiss from himself as he notices the Purple Dragon symbol.

It was Purple Dragon and not Dragons ever since Kendra’s friends left her. An inevitably considering how she treated them.

She was going to pay for this all the same.

There were traces of purple, a different kind of purple, on the headset as well. That extra purple was his own ninpo.

It must have short circuited it.

He drops the piece back on the floor. If he woke himself up, then his brothers would have to too.

But that wasn’t something he could or would want to wait on. It might not even happen. He could have just gotten lucky.

Looking at his brothers, he wonders who he should try to help first.

His eyes land on Leo.

There’s a soft ache in his heart. The last time they saw each other, it didn’t end very well.

If he saved him he might be able to hold it over his head enough for them to have a proper conversation.

And if he was being honest, which he wasn’t, not even to himself, Leo usually had good strategies in situations like these.

He sits down next to him and closes his eyes.

Entering a mind meld again after so many years was an odd experience. That was especially true because of what the headset was doing to Leo’s mind in the first place.

There was some disorientation as he not so gracefully landed on some carpeting. Glancing around, it’s clear that he’s wound up in a random house.

He stands up, rubbing his now sore lower shell.

“What could you possibly want that has to do with a house like this, ‘Nardo?” He mumbles to himself.

Donnie begins to walk around to try to find him.

Sounds coming from nearby lead him into a living room. The couch in there obstructed the view of the two people sitting on it.

They were unfamiliar.

Their voices weren’t.

“Leo, stop it! I know you’re cheating!“

“Me!? You’ve been cheating from the start! This is just my revenge!”

He frowns.

This was a conversation they had while gaming plenty of times. One he hasn’t heard in years.

When was the last time he even talked to him?

“You think that’s enough to win against me? That doesn’t even scrap the surface of my genius ideas!”

God, is this what Leo thinks he sounds like?

“Oh yeah? What else could you possibly have left?”

“This. Oh look at that! Shove.”

Leo gets shoved off the couch.

Okay, maybe that was fair.

Leo was younger here as expected, but also….human. So was the artificial version of himself.

He stares straight at him and gets no sign that Leo can see him.

This would be complicated.

This also isn’t exactly what he was prepared for.

Why was Leo’s perfect world one where they aren’t turtles anymore?

“Cheap shot! Come here!” Leo lunges towards the fake Donnie.

They roll around fighting until the front door opens.

“Guys! We’re home! I got first place at the art exhibition!” Mikey calls out.

Leo shoots straight up, blonde hair messed up by the fight.

“Ha! Told you! I knew you’d win!”

He drops out of view as artificial Donnie pops up instead.

“Mazel. Put your trophy in the case so I can put it in my achievement data.”

“You’ll have to add mine too! Got a plaque from the animal shelter for employee of the month.”

Leo goes back into view.

“Woah, 3rd month in a row Raph. You should be running the place by now.”

Original Donnie walks over to the largest trophy case he’s ever seen in his life. It was not practical by any means.

There were tons of trophies lining the shelves. He expected a lot of them to be Leo’s, but they surprisingly were divided just about evenly among them.

Mikey and Raph place their awards inside. Artificial Donnie inputs the information into a tablet while Leo pats Mikey and Raph’s shoulders in congratulations.

“Boys! Are you home? I brought dinner!” A voice shouts from the kitchen.

Ordinal Donnie’s blood runs cold.

He should have seen this coming.

“Coming, dad!” Leo responds before running to the kitchen.

The artificial brothers follow, as does original Donnie once he’s able to get a hold of himself.

Everyone sat around the table while a human version of their father places takeout on it.

Splinter.

He looks exactly like Lou Jitsu in his prime here.

Oh gods, it’s been so long.

He misses him so much.

Of course Leo would have him here.

“Papa, did you film that scene with the seven deadly vipers move today?” Artificial Donnie asks.

“I did! You should have seen Chad’s face when they sent him in as the stunt double, hehe. Enough about my day, I heard the trophy cabinet opening. Tell me who got what.”

Raph and Mikey happily talk about their accomplishments as the four of them all eat.

Original Donnie felt worse the longer he was there.

He was the only one aware that it wasn’t like this.

That it could never be like this.

He watched as Splinter turned his attention towards Leo and artificial Donnie, praising them for things he had heard about happening earlier in the week.

A good basketball match, an exemplarily grade on a math test.

Jealousy bubbled up inside him as this fake father pat the him that wasn’t him’s head.

The mention of pride broke him.

He slams his hands on the table, purple ninpo dancing across his arms.

“This isn’t your life, dumb dumb!”

The artificial family and Leo finally see him and have looks of fear.

“Who’s that!?” Mikey screams.

“Kids, get behind me!”

“Dad, no! I’ve got this!” Leo insists.

Crap.

Well, if there was one thing that might be able to break Leo out of this, it would be a major shock.

Possibly.

He didn’t have many data points to work with.

Original Donnie leaps over the dinner table and grabs his artificial self.

He didn’t have it in him to hurt the fake Splinter.

“No! Stop! Leave him alone!” Leo shouts, grabbing his plate and throwing it at original Donnie.

Donnie easily deflects it, shattering the plate.

“If you want to save your real brothers, you have to wake up, Leo!”

“What are you even talking about!? Just let him go! Please! You….you can have me instead if you want, okay!? He’s a nerd! You don’t want him!”

“This is the only way.” Donnie slams artificial Donnie’s head into the table.

Leo screams and jumps at him.

After some glitching and pixelating, it’s suddenly the real Leo that’s tackled him.

His hands are around his neck as the pieces of the headset crumble all around him. There’s tears dripping down his face.

“You hurt my brother!”

“I-Idiot! I am your brother!” Donnie struggles.

Leo’s expression takes a second to change, but when it does he finally releases his grip on Donnie’s throat.

Donnie takes in a big breathe and then tries to get said breathing under control.

Leo lifts him up, hugging him tightly.

“Donnie! You glorious nerd, I thought something happened to you!”

Donnie quickly takes the opportunity to hug him back just as tight.

He knew it wouldn’t last very long.

“Leo. I’m sorry, okay? Please just listen to me.”

“Huh? Of course, why wouldn’t I-“

The disorientation finally fades away and Leo let’s him go.

“Oh.”

“Leo, I didn’t mean any of it.”

Leo looks anywhere but him, which let’s him see Raph and Mikey still unconscious.

“Did you do this? Did you bring us all here?”

“No! It was Kendra, I don’t know why, but I know how to fix it.”

“Then why would we waste time having a conversation!? Help them, Donnie!”

“Because if we don’t talk now you’re going to leave the moment this is all handled!”

“Oh, I’m going to leave!? That’s hilarious! Dad did always say you were the funniest, didn’t he!?”

“Leo-“

“The funniest thing you ever did was say you were getting some air at the funeral and not coming back!”

“I didn’t-“

“Or maybe it was even funnier when I found your room empty! Just hilarious! I was venting to a door with no one on the other side! Perfect time to make me look like an idiot!”

“That wasn’t my-“

“No no, it was actually comedy goal when I managed to find you and I was so so happy I did. It was when you told me that if I needed something I could just ask the robot you left behind. It was when you refused to come back with me and said to consider you gone too! That’s it!”

Donnie looks down in shame.

“I didn’t know how to handle how I felt. You had everyone else. It’s not like I left you alone.”

“I only had Raph and Mikey for a few more years! We all split off because we weren’t whole anymore! Did you think I was okay!? With you gone I had to pretend so hard I was because I wanted to help Mikey keep us together! Mikey of all people gave up, Raph gave up! I failed as a leader! And you weren’t there!”

“I already told you I’m sorry! What do you want me to do to have you forgive me!? Whatever it is I’ll do it!”

“I want you to act like it was a tough decision to leave me behind! To leave all of us behind! I want you to lie and say you missed me! Missed our family!”

“You think it wasn’t hard for me….?”

“You didn’t hesitate! You had no emotion on your face! You snubbed me that whole last conversation we had!”

Leo’s face softens as he sees Donnie shaking.

“I’ve never regretted something more in my life! I do miss you! I miss you and Raph and Mikey and I miss dad! I threw myself into years and years of inventing and hiding and any distraction I could get my hands on! By the time I snapped out of it….I felt like it was too late. You all moved on. I didn’t deserve to talk to you again after what I did. Even now I hoped being the one to save you was enough for….something! Anything! I…I….am pathetic.”

“…..Yeah, you’re pathetic….”

Donnie breathes shakily.

“Let it all out, I guess-“

Leo once again clings to him.

“But so am I. I love you, Donnie, even if you’re the dumbest genius I know. I’m so pissed….and even if you had come back earlier I still would have been. But I will always let you come back.”

Donnie returns the clinging and presses his face into Leo’s shoulder, quietly sobbing.

They continue holding onto each other until they finally feel they can let go.

Donnie wipes his eyes.

“I used a mind meld and ninpo to bring you out of it. You couldn’t tell I was there until my ninpo activated. I had to make you activate yours too to break the headset.”

“So that’s how we can save Raph and Mikey.”

“Yes, but we have another problem.”

“What is it?”

“Judging by the light from the one window in this room, the small amount of time I spent in your artificial prison was actually a few hours.”

“We don’t have that much time to save them then. I’ll help Raph while you help Mikey. Afterwards, we find a way to escape.”

“I have to admit, hearing you lead again is somewhat strange.”

Leo chuckles softly.

“Maybe if you had left an address for me to send Christmas cards to, I could have let you know that I’ve got new guys I’m helping out. Nothing like we were doing, but….helping with a yokai theatre camp in my spare time is still something.”

“I’d….like to hear more when we have time. Truly.” Donnie smiles softly.

Leo smiles back.

“I’m going to hold you to that. Now let’s get to saving them so we can hold it over their heads forever.”

Donnie nods.

They sit down next to their brothers and begin their mind melds.

Hopefully, it wouldn’t be too late.