#I was just on the forum where it happened

[midnight-mourning]

Stave off the Cold

❄️❄️Midnight's DCA December Day 24❄️❄️

guhhh i went a LIL angsty for part of this, but you'll like it dw, it'll be worth it in the end ;) hope you enjoy!

Prompt: Perhaps post ruin, since its snowing so hard the power goes out. Yn and ruin snuggling to stave off the cold and are sappy together or something along those lines. ^-^

Word Count: 1313

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You're in the middle of the most delicate of work when it happens. The lights cut, and you curse, almost dropping the new CPU chip in the dark. Carefully, with another slew of curse—that probably wouldn't have been approved if they'd hear—you step back and search for your workbench, setting down the chip and pulling out your phone. 

Flashing it to the window, you can see the snowstorm blowing outside. That must've done it. Great. Just great. 

You glance over to the bot lying motionless on the table, heart twisting at the sight. You've been working for months to fix them, you knew there had to be way, knew that somewhere they still had to be in there. The fact that you'd been able to charge their body and get their limbs to move independently proved that. 

You rub your face and check the time, you could still work in this, as long as there was still some heat in here. The power had to come back on eventually, right?

You search for your lantern, finding it and lighting, hanging it from the ceiling above. Once everything's settled, towels stuff under the old door to help keep heat from leaking out, you get back to work. 

When you'd found them, having decided to take a look through the long abandoned Plex, you'd been horrified at their condition. Tattered clothes and broken parts, that's what remained of your beloved attendant. You remember cradle their cracked faceplate in your hand, tears welling up at the thought that'd they shut down alone, afraid, not knowing where they'd wake up again. 

That had been back in the fall, it was the dead of winter now and progress had been progressing best you could. You weren't well versed in this type of thing, you were relying on videos and online forums to guide your progress. And you were just hoping and praying you were doing all this correctly. 

You'd started with the surface level damaged and worked your way in, scrounging the Plex for spare parts and replacements. Anything you couldn't find you'd snatch up in eBay auctions or the likes. 

With tender love and care, you rebuilt your attendant back into the bot you loved. You just finished repairing Sun's rays the other day, but you kept Moon's hat on him, something about the look going along with their mismatched pants. 

Now all that was left was the hard stuff, the internal components. 

So much of their inner workings had been fried, smashed, or damaged in some other capacity. You'd feared for the worst, truthfully. Having to accept that they may actually be gone for good. It was something that haunted you for weeks before you finally bit the bullet and opened up their head. 

You had teared up a bit when you found their hard drive was in perfect condition, letting out a cheer loud enough to probably disturb your neighbors. 

Your hands are shaking now, you realize. Shivering, your shivering. You check the time again, it's already been two hours. But, you argue, it's not that cold yet. You can keep going, keeping working, keep fixing. Keep saving. 

You have to. You have to do it for them. 

You take short breaks every now and then, warming your hands on their casing. They may not be awake, but at least they're alive. 

Your breath is showing up in front of you now, your fingers feel stiff, but still, you keep going. You just have one final thing to do, give them a reset. 

Your legs hurt as you stand, walking up to where their head rests. You pull out the Faz wrench you'd found on your last trip to the Plex. A find that had you dancing around the abandoned building like an idiot. 

With a shaky grip, you insert it and turn, waiting with bated breath. 

Nothing happens. 

You step back, waiting a solid two minutes for the attendant to sit up, either AI greeting you like how you've been waiting six months for them to do. 

But they don't. 

You feel too tired and too cold to cry. Just a feeling of utter defeat overtaking you. Your head feels heavy, so do your eyelids. Maybe you just need to take a nap, and you can figure this out afterwards. 

You climb back up onto the table, laying down on the warm but empty shell of your attendant. Curling up, you pull your coat tighter around yourself and close your eyes. 

As you start to drift off, you swear you feel a shift underneath you, something laying on top of your body. 

You have a strange dream. 

In it, you're being carried through the snow by something. It has two bright eyes, one red, one white, with spikes coming off its head, and a blue hat. It speaks to you, murmuring sweet nothings that you can't recall. 

When you wake up on your couch, you realize it wasn't a dream. You go to get up, but a firm grip around your waist prevents you from doing so. Looking down, you realize your laying on top of Sun, or, Moon? You don't know, you don't care, because it clicks to you that his eyes are open and he's looking at you and he's awake—

"Hello, Starlight. We missed you."

Your voice is just a whisper. "You're awake... You're okay."

Before he can say anything, you wrap your arms around him, kissing his faceplate over and over. 

"I, I thought you guys were gone. That, that it wouldn't work, that I had to live without you." You're crying now. "I, I can't believe you're actually here."

"Silly Star. We never left." A shift in tone. "We were right there with you, Sunbeam!"

You realize what they mean. "Oh god. That means you heard all of that."

"You mean all your lovely conversations with us? Your laughter, your beautiful singing?" They take your hand, pressing it to their faceplate. "Because if so, the answer is yes."

You feel your face heat up and not knowing what else to do bury it against their neck as they laugh. 

"How awful." You mumble. 

They pet your hair for a few moments, fingers staying laced in it as you sit back up to look at them. 

You trace your hand down the side of their face, taking it all in. "I can't believe it, after all this time. Picked a terrible time to wake up. Can't even give you a proper tour of the place with the power out."

You start to get up, wanting to go grab a lamp, but they immediately pull you back down, arms firmly around you. 

"No leaving. Too cold. Stay here, we'll keep you warm."

You give in rather easily, especially when their hands start to explore just under your shirt, snickering at how you tense up. 

You scowl at them, taking their faceplate in both hands and leaning down so your foreheads are touching. "How did you two manage to get worse?"

Just another chuckle in response, their eyes nothing but thin, devious crescents. 

You kiss them then, soft, sweet. And then you do it again, and again. 

As you kiss, you feel the blanket you'd shoved off in your excitement be placed back over you both, adding to the warmth and coziness between you. 

You have to break away for a moment, panting ever so slightly. 

They tilt their head, watching you keenly. A thumb comes up to swipe against your lip. 

You smirk. "Thanks."

They nod. 

"I really missed you, you know?" You lay your head against their chest, listening to how with every tick and click and whirl, it's a sign that they're really there with you. They're actually home. 

Their hand comes up to stroke your hair, other arm snug against your hip. 

"We missed you too."

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Thank you @rosescarletful for the request! I had a bit of fun with it as you can see, very much enjoyed the concept your prompt allowed me to think up :)

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Tag list (if you would like added, see this post for more info):

@scarletcowboy @beemyhuneybee @fishm0ther @deviouscrackers @elsajoyagent8

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@robinette-green @everlightreader @sinister-sincerely @starredeclipse @dangerva

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[misscammiedawn]

Watching a lore history video on a Sonic related creepypasta and the video deadnames me personally and quotes forum threads I was involved in back in 2005.

With that said, I am happy to report that it is possible to experience brand new emotions you have never felt before. Even at my age.

[puppyeared]

just realized i forgot to make a page for sleight on my artfight, so i decided to update his ref while im at it

[phaedo]

watching nanowrimo defending ai blow up after years of abuse and mismanagement from nano hq is like watching every writer on the internet go "i can excuse rampant forum moderation abuse on two different websites but i draw the line at machine that helps you write"

[protectorcraft]

fortuna..... fortunaaaaa.... 4tuna i miss you..... for tuna.....

[bmpmp3]

i do wish i was better at communicating with people online and through technology. i wander into conversations and make new ones all the time irl with random people and its fun but im like hyping myself to type out a single response to a Post. and to say nothing of how difficult it is to get me to say something in a discord server

[milfbrainrot]

.

I feel like in the past the mix of this site being used for both activism and fandom helped contribute to a lot of unhinged politicized fandom discourse where yeah ofc there's a political tie to media but ppl used it as... a form of activism where it was given disproportionate importance compared to other activism discussions? Whereas now we're swinging to the opposite site of How Dare You Care About Meaningless TV Shows When Politics.

Like... we can have a mix of realizing there's more important stuff to focus on than shipping discourse in the world at large without also minimizing the insane doxxing and death threats behavior going on in fandom that people in fandom have to take into consideration to be able to do their hobby, esp given how those attitudes stem from irl political climates at times in ways that are telling to study. Hobbies are kinda how we prevent activism burnout also. Crazey how that works.

[little-eye-guy]

forums need to come back. not only do i not want to join a discord server for any information i might need, discord is also a terrible way to archive said information. all those questions and answers and conversations drifting further away, when they could have been in a forum thread....

[blortch]

yes, jays either so disciplined that he never mention a significant other or he just doesnt have one. even in all those rich video game videos he never mentions one. while jack and even rich slip up and mention a gf or partner or wife. its intriguing in the sense that im curious, but would never go beyond this ask to find out lol

There is indeed no mention of it in videos. Supposedly he spoke of an ex in the RLM-forum back in the day but the posts of the forum on the official RLM-website were wholly lost except for like one screenshot of the forum.

(which is this one

)

While searching rn I found this random talk about the forum but unforch I didn't find the Reddit comment that claimed having read something of the sort on the forum....

Huh well supposedly as to 5 years ago it was still active with everybody from RLM leaving as a closed society ???

[princekirijo]

Alright in light of all this Tumblr's gonna die AGAIN as I said in the tags of that post I'm willing to give my discord to mutuals who wanna keep in touch and after that I might do something with my Instagram but who knows.

Not gonna delete this blog or stop posting any time soon but it's just a backup/worst case scenario prep

[maybankiara]

wattpad excluding fanfiction from the wattys is actually a joke. just don't give the winner money and give them a nice little sticker to put on their book. this is ridiculous

[taravangians-storming-balls]

Person who follows the book spoiler tag instead of blocking it when a book comes out like "I'm going to learn so many forbidden facts"

[blackmoldmp3]

you CAN access old twop recaps on the wayback machine and they load soooo slowly its like being in 2008 again

[yu3s]

* yay i love starting new games :D ← is about to get overwhelmed in about 3 seconds

[gremlinhourz]

genuinely expecting to fail my first class in college!! and its like as much as i can get upset at myself for continuing the cycle of procrastination that ive been trying to break free from for years, i also feel like the reason im primarily upset is because i feel like im disappointing others and/or giving them a bad impression of me. like im not upset because i think i could have done more, im upset because i think other people will think i could have done more. when like honestly with school ive just developed an "it is what it is" attitude, like all i can do is try and try again, and if that means taking eng111, crashing and burning, but most importantly learning, then taking eng111 again, so fucking be it

[wp100]

turns out there's a bug in fable where everyone loses their affection towards you...

i was wondering why no one was having hearts appear above their head, and that my spouse was ignoring me and losing interest lmao

it also causes every person to constantly cheer at you (if your alignment is good and maxed out that way).

reloading the save fixed it.