#I'm so pleased to have created him

[chevvy-yates]

CLUB OWNER

The owner of ‘HELL BUNKER’ wears the name ‘Garnet’. A simple man, born as Falco Ritter in Cologne, Germany.

Coming from a middle class worker family, he migrated over to the NUSA to fulfill himself a dream of becoming an artist and of owning a place of his own to show his passion to the world: Techno(ise). Garnet’s lifeblood is not only his bunker and mixing music as a DJ himself, but also his event Chrome Chamber Rave and the radio station ‘HELL BUNKER.FM’ that provides the newest tech hits as well as an online and print techno(ise) magazine named “160+ BPM” that he releases every month. Garnet is an artist and self-starter through and through! Falco has earned quite a high cred and respect in the Night City raver business as his location with mainly CCR is unique compared to other techno(ise) clubs in the city. His vision was not only to bring European, especially German, techno(ise)¹ back to the NUSA, but also to combine it with other artforms and the desire of primal energy that lies deeply rooted within us. He used to be dj-ing at Totentanz years ago which gave him a lot of inspiration for creating HELL BUNKER afterwards. Today, being a quite known underground Techno(ise) DJ within the scene and his bunker, Garnet is still down to earth as a musician and business owner who loves to collaborate with other artists to create art that moves you cerebral and visceral altogether. He also does not shy away from acting as a bouncer for his own club. So if you may have asked yourself why he’s decorating himself with Gorilla arms: It’s for throwing out those who don’t behave appropriately. Falco doesn’t make any excuses.

SET LIST

Garnet's common set list for Chrome Chamber Rave, a fictional hard technoise event in the world of Cyberpunk 2077. He still deejays at CCR. His setlist is of course all hard techno(ise) yet he concentrates to mix it with more emotions and a touch of industrial, even some lyrics and tends to venture further than that. Each song is unique to itself and can be a true experience if you are willing to let yourself soaked in and let it touch your soul.

“Technoise may not be able to save the world, but it will save your soul.”

— Falco ‘Garnet’ Ritter

—

Cover artwork by me. Steal and you will be doomed. I‘ve chosen tracks only by one artist named ‘Roman Gehrecke’. This artist is the closest to what I imagine Garnet would produce as well. So I decided to borrow the music for Falco. Of course all the music belongs to Roman Gehrecke! There's one song at the end of it I see as the one that is always played at last so the audience knows ok after that it's done. This song is also not by the artist mentioned above but has a well known melody majority knows.

Recommendation: ‚Gefallene Engel‘, ‚Anderswelt‘, ‚Stimmen der Tiefe‘ and ‚Schutt und Asche‘ – best listened to via headphones and making time for it should you want to try to get soaked into.

———

¹ "Technoise and its various derivations dominate much of the German scene. If you're hip, you already know about Technoise. If not, listen up. Technoise is quite popular with the discerning young punk; it was popularized by Germany's own NetWerk actually, you've got your Overlay style from London, Jazznetic from Rotterdam and Echo from Frankfurt. In addition, there are people producing Frock (Fractal Rock) all over the place. The good thing is, Technoise is quite easy to produce. You only need a small computer, some software and you're ready to buzz. Those of you with a message might miss the political attitude, but you're missing the point. Technoise is strictly for partying, tripping and dancing. People meet and dance up to the runner's point. Maybe that's a political statement in itself, oder?" — Eurosource Plus – The New Eurotheater Sourcebook for Cyberpunk

[bumblingbabooshka]

Society if in TOS we had Doctor Mccoy who was an expert in Human Medicine and the Human Heart contrasted with Doctor M'Benga who was an expert in Alien (Specifically Vulcan) Medicine and the Vulcan Heart and they often clashed/collaborated on how to treat Spock whenever he was injured or acting strange....medicine in space...the down home doctor vs the extraterrestrial physician. How to be humane to the non-Human. Spock's struggle between Human and Vulcan made real, made flesh, made immediate, on the surgeon's table.

[ispridestillasin]

So I decided to watch a bit of Bridgerton with my mother, which I'm not really interested in (I don't really like period pieces unless it's a fanfic for a ship I like) but it's a show she enjoys so I sometimes catch her watching it and join her, and literally the only takeaway from the stuff I've seen with her is that Colin, Lord Debling, and Penelope should have all been poly

[potionwine]

Thinking about Margrace as Joshua's name post-Phoenix Gate.

Mar-grace.

In FFXVI the Undying choose their own names (Cyril explains this in-game), and many of them have names drawn from Final Fantasy XII, including their leader 'Margrace' himself, from Al-Cid Margrace. The page for Al-Cid notes that Margrace is likely an alternate form of the title 'margrave', an old title for military commanders on the border.

That aside. This is the name chosen (by the boy himself?) for the boy who should have rightfully been known henceforth as 'Your Grace', 'His Grace'.

Grace (style of address), from the Oxford English Dictionary:

With a possessive adjective: a title of respect, esp. for a person of royal or noble rank. Frequently (in 'your Grace') as a form of address. Now archaic or historical. Formerly (in England until the reign of Henry VIII and in Scotland until 1707) used for a monarch or prince; now replaced by Majesty or Highness. Even so, "Majesty" for the sovereign of England was not used exclusively; it arbitrarily alternated with both "Highness" and "Grace", even in official documents, until "Majesty" finally became the official style to the exclusion of others (source).

Grace (other meanings):

1. Divine favour, benevolence, or providence bringing about worldly benefit or advantage. 2. A person's lot, destiny, or fate; luck, fortune. 3. The quality of being pleasing; attractiveness, charm; esp. (in later use) refined elegance of manner, expression, form, or movement, esp. regarded as natural or effortless; gracefulness.

Whatever the etymology of margrave, the name Margrace in-game is probably meant to call to mind the meaning of 'mar' as in damaged, spoiled, ruined. All the grace that ever belonged to his family, his home, his birthright—marred, of course.

Mar+Grace, the last heir of the oldest unbroken ruling dynasty in the Twins at the time of the opening events of the game**.

The living ghost, carrying the desecrated corpse of his legacy in his new name. Introducing himself by his humiliation: "Hello, I am Margrace", "Hello, I am the ruined dignity of my house." "Call me Margrace", "Call me the wreckage of one fallen from divine favour." "My name is Margrace", "My name is blemished fortunes and diminished nobility".

It's appropriately brutal and dramatic for such a character, especially since the game is frustratingly silent on how Joshua personally feels about the loss of his duchy which is a rant for next time.

**Footnotes:

In the Year 860 (Prologue year/Phoenix Gate), Rosaria is about 260 years old (est. Y600). Older, if you count from the time of the Rose Alliance (est. Y550). The Rosfields have been on the Rosarian throne since the inception of the duchy in Y600, and prior to that House Rosfield was already known to be the chief of/the preeminent house of the Seven High Houses that united to found the duchy. House Rosfield has held ruling power for 260-310 years at a minimum.

For reference, England's longest-reigning dynasty was the Plantagenets, who held on for 300+ years. Rosfields aren't doing half bad!

Veldemarke would have been older had it not been overthrown by Barnabas; therefore Waloed is the youngest nation state at the time of the prologue (only 17 years old). Also we do not know much about the governance of Veldemarke, although as a 'kingdom' it was likely some type of monarchy.

Sanbreque was formed 100 years after Rosaria, and at any rate is not actually a hereditary monarchy. The Holy Emperor is voted into office by his fellow Cardinals, likely the five who form the Council of Elders. We are also explicitly told that Sylvestre 'won his throne' in 865; there is no indication either way that his predecessor emperor was a Lesage. The wording suggests the throne is not Sylvestre's by lineage or birthright. How this is supposed to relate to the concept of Sanbreque having a 'crown prince' (Dion) is unclear and contradictory, since an emperor by election should probably not have the authority to unilaterally decide on the succession of the throne, and his issue—legitimate or no—should not automatically be in the line of succession.

Dhalmekia is a republic with elected officials.

The Iron Kingdom apparently has a royal family, but nothing else is known apart from it being impotent and sidelined by their state religion.

The Northern Tribes likely do have hereditary rule, and Jill is referred to as a princess, but once again little is known.

Ergo—and I am ceaseless in this propaganda—Clive and Joshua are really, properly posh! Absolutely baffling that Anabella would allow anyone to put down the pedigree of her sons when they are so blue-blooded precisely because she is! For someone with such entrenched ideas of blood purity she should not stand for it, no matter how she feels about her eldest.

[becomingkatie]

I went down to Brevard a few weeks ago to visit my mom. She's taken up pottery and arranged for me to have a lesson at her studio. It was a really nice visit overall - I love love that area and I hadn't seen her place since she moved there a year or so ago.

Ken and I have become recluses since covid. We got used to not going out, and now going out feels overwhelming and hard, especially for him. I'm going a bit crazy feeling like we don't go places and do things. There's a bowling alley near our place - like so close I pass by it any time I go out for a walk basically. I've been saying for ages that we should go, and Ken grumbles and grumbles because he doesn't want to. After a week where I basically had a breakdown in tears of "I can't keep living like this," we went bowling. Surprise, surprise - he had a great time. I hurt my wrist. But it was still fun!

My birthday was last Friday and Ken made this espresso chocolate chip cake (recipe is Sally's Baking Addiction) and it is sooo tasty.

Aaand writing this post out I feel my throat squeezing and eyes burning. I feel like there's some crying to be done. I just don't feel happy lately. I'm not happy with the life we've fallen into, and I'm just having a rough time. I discontinued my anti-depressants maybe a month ago, and I feel good about that decision. I don't feel depressed - I am sad and frustrated with some specific things, but not generally like "I can't get up and do the laundry, that feels too hard" kind of depression. But the withdrawal has meant some irritability and the WORST restless legs. And sleeping poorly night after night after night doesn't help me feel better.

Anyway, things aren't really that bad. But I'm feeling pretty disappointed in my life lately. Trying to make some different choices to stop it from stagnating in this place where I'm unhappy. And even through all that disappointment, there have been some really good things, like kayaking around a lake with my mom, and eating green beans I grew in the garden, and taking a cold shower after a long walk in the hot, humid summer air.

[nilesmoon]

infinite wealth if sawashiro said "who gives a shit about ebina im going to hawaii with ichi" and then the rest of the game is a family vacation

[cosmogyros]

Auditory processing issues suck SO HARD. I just spent about 1.5 hours watching the first half hour of a movie on YouTube, because I had so much trouble understanding the dialogue that I kept constantly having to go back and listen again and again and again, look up a transcript of the full film (the transcript contained mistakes, so it wasn't much help), compare and contrast various subtitle files available online, even cup my hands around my ears, etc. Just to figure out what the characters were saying to each other.

And it's not just literally understanding what words they say to each other, oh no. That's only the first step. The next step is figuring out what those characters MEAN when they say certain words. Like when a dude says "You know, I see, like, if we can get successful, it's, like, L-L, man… limos and Learjets," I feel like I'm having a stroke. I have to hit pause and sit there for a sec and ask myself a bunch of questions and do some research online.

Why did he say L-L? Why did he randomly say the initials of the two things he wants? Also, why does he specifically say 'Learjet'? When people dream of having a private jet, don't they normally say 'private jet'? I'd never heard the word Learjet before, so I had to go look it up to try to get more context, but that didn't really help. Is this a music biz reference I don't know? Is this a Canadian reference I don't know? If this happened once or twice during a movie, it would be no problem, but when I'm stopping and going back literally every two minutes, it takes for-fucking-ever to get through the film and my brain is So! Fucking! Exhausted!

I had to stop at about the half-hour mark. I felt like I was about to cry from frustration, so I quit for the night. I'll return to it in a day or two, when I've got a bit more mental energy, and try to work my way through the rest. If I can get through half an hour of film time per day (in an hour or so, however long it takes to get through that much), I can finish the movie in three days of watching. (And this is a movie I really, really WANT to see. I wouldn't waste a moment of my time struggling through it if I didn't care this much about it.)

Anyway. Sometimes when people say they "don't watch movies much", it doesn't necessarily mean they're being elitist snobs or whatever. Sometimes it's just so fucking challenging and exhausting to watch a movie that it leaves me feeling angry at my own body for being a dysfunctional piece of crap. I don't know if this counts as a "disability" and I'm not claiming that label because I don't want to step on any toes, but I have to admit that the mere prospect of watching a film often fills me with dread because it can be so intensely difficult for me (unless I just mentally check out and give up on understanding it completely, which is what I typically do when I'm watching with other people).

[izzyspussy]

why are they laughing at him as he gets straight up killed??? he doesn't deserve this! he's a sweet kid at heart! he literally just needs one (1) real friend!!

[youwillfindilluminating]

Now that I know that Con was supposed to play Bill in The Last of Us, all I want is for Murray Bartlett to be introduced as Izzy’s love interest in OFMD 🙏

[pyrriax]

ANYWHO goodnight tumblr i'll be back on the art grind tomorrow i think 🙏

[a-lil-strawberry]

I drew in the first time in like literally a year and it was bc of demon slayer

[thats-a-lot-of-cortisol]

they're in love your honor

[disengaged]

reaping the consequences of my actions etc

[wereh0gz]

Random thought. Y'know what I'd love to see more of. Combat in the main games

Sonic Frontiers seems to be Sonic Team's first step into incorporating combat alongside it's open-zone gameplay into future games, but I wanna see some specific things done with Sonic's moveset

His moveset should have a greater focus on him using his legs to attack, like in Sonic Battle. So lots and lost of kicking. Literally kicking ass. I think it should also incorporate more breakdance moves into his attacks for a fast and wild yet graceful fighting style. So when he fights he looks like he's dancing

While we're at it, give him his wind abilities back. Let him be able to run around so fast he can create a fucking tornado like in his boss fight in Sonic Rush. I miss that

A bit off topic but I miss when he was more associated with the wind in general actually. He still definitely is I think but they're associating him a lot with lightning too recently which is like the typical speedster thing and makes him stand out a little less among those types of characters imo

Anyways I wanna see Sonic control the winds themselves and kick ass while also busting a move. I think that'd be cool

[absolute-flaming-trash]

Oh I'm fucking SICK

Horrorfest: The Formula for Life [Yandere Mahito x Reader]

Title: The Formula for Life [Yandere Mahito x Reader]

Synopsis: Mahito is your creator, and you ought to listen to his rules. But something inside you wants more.

For Horrorfest request: I got two different requests for Mahito + creating a Frankenstein-monster style of reader, so this is for those!

Word count: 5400ish

notes: yandere, very dubious consent, power dynamic abuse, non-graphic descriptions of sex; violence and death (not against reader); Mahito in general is a warning

You are perfectly imperfect. 

Mahito is not entirely sure where he heard the phrase before –a women’s magazine, maybe, or some 1960s British film with upbeat, witty dialogue and blonde starlet at the helm–but as he stares down at your prone, sleeping body, he decides that it’s a phrase which suits you well.

You are a perfectly imperfect human, naked as the day he made you. Something in him puffs up at the thought, a hot sensation that makes his chest tingle. Yes, he made you, didn’t he? He is your… creator. Or as close to a creator as you will ever get in this world or the next, because whatever came before no longer matters. 

There is no before-you. There is only the you-of-now, resting with your eyes closed and your mouth slack and ah, here, now, finally–

You wake up.

Limbs jerk and your neck twitches and he wonders how much it hurts–the stitches criss-crossing your body like his own, keeping the various parts of you held together. The skin and muscle and sinew, bold black stitches sewn across your hands and arms and legs and chest and every single part of you. There is even, and he finds it a delightful detail, a stitch across one of your ears. It’s cute. 

Like you, he thinks. Cute.

Cute as you sit up on his makeshift operating table, testing out your newfound limbs. Cute as your eyes squint, as your pupils adjust to the dim lighting, as your gaze steadies on the only other living thing in the near vicinity–him.

Cute as you try to say your first words. 

“Ah…” You say, or try to say, and he wonders just how much of speech your soul remembers, and whether or not that connection will extend to the way your body works. No matter. He’ll just teach you, if necessary. 

He grins, and puts his fingers on either side of your lips, squishing them together.

“Hel-lo,” he says, slow, moving your mouth with the words. “Can you say that? Hel-lo?”

You blink at him, awareness and confusion seeping into your expression. The stitches that cross your face, going from the corner of your scalp across the top of your nose and landing around the curve of your neck, scrunch in with the effort.

Your mouth opens, and closes; he can hear the spittle in your mouth working, can see the way your cheeks move, the pink of your tongue testing out its boundaries.

And then–

Then, you lean forward, and he grins, eager to hear you try; but ah, you surprise him. Cute, ugly thing that you are. Your hand extends, wobbling, and your fingers loosely grip his own lips like they’ve never held anything before. 

“Hel-lo,” you mimic, slow, warbled, the word coming out almost foreign. “Hel-lo?”

He grins, and can’t help the croon of pure, unadulterated delight that follows. 

–

He has a lot to teach you. You, dear pet, are a lot of work. Not that he minds. Not that he views it as a chore. No, teaching you is some grand, extended hobby. More fun than reading, more fun than experimenting, even, because isn’t that what you are? A complex experiment.

A beautifully awfully blank creature that belongs to him: that’s what you are, and that’s the first thing he teaches you. That you are his, wholly, and everything you should know and do will come from him.

You accept it so easily that he laughs until he cries, and then laughs some more, when you reach up to touch his tears and ask him what they are, and why they come from his eyes, and why your own eyes don’t leak like that.

“Don’t worry,” he told you, catching his breath, adoring the way your recycled callused fingers felt on his cheeks. “You’ll get some of your own eventually.”

And you did, of course. At the most stupid time, which was frustrating, but something he could work with.

The first time you cried was the first time he brought a human home to experiment on. Some salaryman he’d fetched on his late night walk home, exhausted, barely able to hold up his briefcase.  Mahito had set you on the ground (you never complained about it being hard, and maybe soon he would give you something soft to sit on, sweet thing that you are) and told you to watch, excited to see how you’d react. Would you be confused? Scared? Or simply feel nothing, and watch blankly as the man died?

But ah, how disappointing. You’d cried, of all things. Your hands had flown to your cheeks, feeling the wetness; your skin had gone all splotchy–”My head hurts, I feel warm,” you’d told him–and your lips curled into a nasty frown.

“Why are my eyes leaking?” You asked, and Mahito had to think about it. Because he wasn’t quite sure. He decided to root around in your soul for the answer, and it was so strikingly simple that he imagined slapping himself for it. You felt empathy for the man. You thought he was like you. And if you were being hurt, well, you’d feel downright awful, too. 

Silly thing. So that was the next thing he taught you: that the people he brought down into the sewer were simply experiments. Not living beings, not like you, and certainly not like himself. Nothing for you to worry about at all.

And you simple, sweet thing, what do you do after he tells you this? You listen. You’re so good for him that when he pats you on the head and says, ah, silly goose, this is not a person, it doesn’t matter if it gets hurt, if it dies, if it screams until its mouth bleeds…. You believe him.

And now, you simply watch–or don’t, if he says it’s okay to go about your simple day–as he goes about torturing countless living souls. Stretching, twisting, bending, hurting. None of it makes a difference, because Mahito told you it didn’t. The most you react is sometimes covering your ears–”Why does sound hurt, sometimes?”--and curling up on the nest of blankets he’s seen fit to give you.

You’re a bit like clay, he muses. To be molded and shaped in just the right way. And if something doesn’t work out, well, he can simply squish you in and start over. 

There’s something freeing, something altogether delightful, in the fact that you learn what he teaches you, you know what he gives you. 

He does not teach the concept of freedom–why should he?--or the outside world. 

There shouldn’t be an outside world for a creature like you, only the world he creates for you; this damp, dim world where he is the only thing you need to care about.

-

You do come with some surprises. Some things, it seems, came along with your soul.

“I know what this means!” You blurt out, beaming, looking to him for approval as you grip the well-worn cover of one of his stolen books. You read the title slowly, carefully, but there’s that flicker of recognition in the way your mouth sounds the words, understands the connection between the printed text and its meaning. 

You know something he hasn’t taught you. 

He frowns–and you frown just as easily, setting the book down like it burned your precious fingers. Your eyes get wide and your mouth gets slack and you stammer out an apology, even if you don’t know why.

It is one of your most endearing qualities, this readiness to understand that what he thinks is bad is bad, and the uneasiness in him flickers away, just a bit. You’re still his clay, his creature, his pet. 

He reaches out and runs his fingers into your hair, gripping your scalp hard until you grunt. 

“Well,” he says, when you look up at him with those confused doe eyes. “I suppose you could read my notes back to me, when I do my work.”

If you had a tail, it would be wagging.

And oh, he almost drools on you, from the way your expression shifts from that confused worry to unadulterated delight despite the pain that must be radiating through your scalp–

It feels good, sometimes, to make you look this way. It’s a strange notion, one he doesn’t want to think too hard about. It’s only natural that you should feel pleasure when he is pleased with you, but why should he feel the same? 

It’s a conundrum. Something to write about in his notes–the private ones you’ll never see, of course. The notes about you, and himself, plans and plots, theories and guesses. 

It wouldn’t do, really it wouldn’t, if you saw his scribbles about making sure you didn’t learn something that annoyed him. A something that would make you want to leave, or know other people, or comprehend that you were your own individual being.

Ignorance is bliss, or so he’s read, and he intends to keep you that way. 

–

Oh, oh, oh–your breath comes out in wispy pitter-patters that almost match the rapid beating of your heart. 

This… This is not allowed. It is not allowed because Mahito, your master, your creator, said so. And what your master tells you, you obey, because that is how the world works. He’s told you so many times, and it makes perfect sense.

He knows what’s best, because he’s smarter, and stronger, and you’re just a simple person. You’re supposed to make him happy, and would it make him happy, to break this rule? No, is what he would say.

And yet–you wonder. He likes it when you learn, when he teaches and you actually get it and can repeat it for him on demand. 

Like when you learned to walk without falling down, or when he taught you to stay still while he squeezed and touched and tickled your various body parts to see if they still worked. That was difficult, and it took many tries, but when you finally did it right, he praised you. Even if it made your stomach flutter in strange ways, and you were sometimes sore afterwards.

Would doing this make him praise you? Or would it make him angry?

Your fingers ghost over the covers, some of them all cracked and worn, others looking fresh and shiny. Books. His books. They’re all over the world, in stacks and stacks. On his hammock, on the floor, on the stacked table he said was a “book shelf.”

He said you weren’t allowed to touch any of his books or papers. Only what he gave you, when he gave you, and sometimes he even pointed to a line and said don’t you read past that, little pet, and you didn’t.

But he wants you to learn, doesn’t he? And you can learn from these books. Maybe you’ll learn something that makes you better, helps you avoid those stumbles that sometimes make him frown. Like when you first remembered how to read, or the time you tried to talk to one of his experiments.

Oh, you didn’t mean anything by it! You were just–bored. And while Mahito hadn’t been as sore once you told him why you tried to talk to it, he’d still punished you (rightfully so, you had been bad) and told you never to do it again. Unless he said so. 

So–so yes. He said not to read these books. But. If reading these books helps you be better, and being better means you’ll make your master mad less often, then reading these books is the right thing to do.

You just won’t tell him, and he won’t have any reason to be mad about it.

It’s so simple, you can’t believe you hadn’t thought of it before. Well–you can believe that. You aren’t very smart, or so your master says, and he knows everything. 

This will help then, won’t it? He knows what’s in these books, but now you will, too. 

With a lurching feeling in your stomach, you pick up the first book, a hard one with a shiny glossy cover that says HUMAN BIOLOGY, and flip to the first page.

–

You read about lots of things, and every one of them makes you wonder. 

The biology books make you wonder why your body looks like this, but all of the pictures of people (inside and out) look like that. You had never wondered before; you looked like your creator, and that seemed normal enough. But… none of these other people were all mismatched and jumbled. None of these other people had scars everywhere, patched together by black stitches that sometimes itched. 

The romance books are nice, even if they make you feel a bit funny. Your master touches you like the people in these books touch each other, but it’s not quite the same. He never says the same words, “I love you,” or asking, “Do you want me?” before he touches. You’re not sure exactly what love is just yet, but you’re sure one of these books will explain it properly.

One thing you learn is that the world is not actually the world. The world, you thought–you were taught–was just… here. With Mahito. In these walls, within the damp stone. But there is a whole entire world out there with things you’ve never seen before. 

Things you’ve never seen or done. Things that make you wonder why you live one way, and the people in the books another. People seem to live in houses, but this place does not match the descriptions in the book at all. People get married–you’re not sure what it means, really, except they are together, so maybe you and Mahito are married, after all? He does kiss you, and more besides. 

People have children, and these seem to be tiny people that grow up. But you don’t have any children that walk down a staircase–you have seen these in photos, and patch them into your images of houses–in the morning and complain about being tired. You don’t have a yard with a garden to tend to; you wouldn’t mind it, actually, from the pictures of flowers you’ve seen. They could be pretty.

You wonder how they smell. The books tell you most of them smell quite nice. 

It is this sort of wondering that gives you the strongest itch to tell your master that you’ve been reading, so that you can ask him to take you outside. Sometimes you even mouth the word to yourself, when you’re alone. “Outside.” It feels wonderful on your tongue, all tingly. But then your stomach hurts and you think he would be mad about the reading, so you don’t ask at all.

Not everything you read makes your stomach curl. You read about lots of things, things that make you smile, make you laugh. Things that make you forget the reason you started reading was to make Mahito proud of you, to learn how to be better. Things that have nothing to do with being better at all.

Even you realize that learning about the world outside isn’t going to help you in here. But the world outside sounds so… so… big. Big and full of things to see and do and experience. Full of people, trees, buildings and even animals. 

Oh, you really do love the idea of animals. One of your favorite books is a well-worn guide book to birds. Birds. What a wonderful thing they must be, all pretty colors, flying around in the sky; in the outside. 

What would it be like to fly? To have feathers with so many different colors? To make what the book calls “chirps” and “calls”? You’ve tried to imagine what they must sound like, but it’s hard, with no frame of reference.

And you can’t exactly ask your master to mimic them, either.

Sometimes, in your dreams, you turn into a bird. Feathers sprouting from your stitches and taking you up in the air. Birds, the books say, use their chest and supracoracoideus muscles to fly, flapping their wings in just the right way. You don’t think you have supracoracoideus muscles, except in your dreams, and you’re too afraid to ask. 

You’re glad Mahito hasn’t asked you about your dreams in a while. 

–

You are being so good today. So good, in fact, that Mahito has told you to sit quietly on your nest while he works on his latest experiment. You didn’t even have to read him his notes–you didn’t mind, and told him so, but he’d simply patted your head and said it wasn’t necessary today. 

So instead, you watched quietly, legs pulled up to your chest. It was harder to watch, ever since you started reading, because sometimes–

Sometimes you wondered if it was true, that the experiments were not people after all. They certainly look like the people in your master’s books. They talk like the people, sometimes, when they’re not screaming. 

But if your master says they aren’t people, well, he must be right. It does get a little frustrating when they beg you for help, because most of them can’t even see your master at all. That makes you feel a little sorry for them, sometimes, if they haven’t been screaming too loudly. If they could see your master, they might know he’s not doing anything wrong when he hurts them. 

He’s just learning.

Today, the experiment seems to be going well. Your master is smiling, humming, writing down his notes. You hope you’ll get to read these ones, eventually, but he doesn’t always let you. 

(He’s even got a private book, you’ve seen him scribbling in it sometimes. It is, however, the one thing you dare never to read. Not even to learn.)

And then the experiment does the silliest thing! When your master touches him, elongating his arms into a strange shape, he tries to run. Silly experiments, they never get far; but this one tries. He screams–ouch–and begins to run, flapping his arms like they’re on fire. No, flapping them like he’s a–

“Oh,” you say, leaning forward, a delighted smile on your face. “Like a bird!”

The man does not last long. Whatever your master did takes full effect, and he’s misshappen, no legs, a wiggling blob. Not like a bird at all, anymore, but it was nice while it lasted.

Nothing happens, for a moment. And in that moment you realize that something is wrong. It’s suddenly quiet, suddenly heavy.

Mahito, your master, your creator, slowly turns his head towards you with an expression you’ve never seen before. His pupils are too small, his mouth open in something like surprise. “A bird?”

“Yes,” you say, slowly, not knowing yet, not catching on. “It’s–his arms, you see? The way they moved.” You sit up on your knees and mimic the way you’ve seen birds flying in still photographs, the way you sometimes try to fly in your dreams. “When birds fly, they use…” But you stop, because Mahito is frowning. And when Mahito is frowning, you are doing something wrong.

But what, and when, and…

“How would you know what a bird is, pet?”

Oh, no.

The realization makes your guts clench so hard that you almost think you wet yourself, and you throw your hands over your stomach at the strange new sensation. An awful stomach-churning feeling. 

You don’t quite know what it is, but a memory from a book you read comes wafting back; a book about a woman who lives alone and a man tries to break into her house and kill her. She’s scared. Is that what this is? Are you scared? 

There’s no time to really wonder about this, because Mahito stalks over and grabs you by the hair, yanking you up until you’re on your feet, reflexive tears in your eyes. 

You don’t struggle, because he has explained to you that when you’re bad, he’s meant to treat you like this. And sometimes when you’re good, too. You’ve never figured out if there is a difference. 

“You’ve been reading my books.” Not a question, and you don’t answer. “What else have you been reading about?”

“Nothing,” you say, your voice hoarse. You scrunch your eyebrows together: that wasn’t what you should have said. You have read about lots of things. He asked, and you should have told him. That’s the rule he gave you. Simple and easy.

“I’ve read about lots of things,” you correct, confusion spilling from your mouth. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say nothing. I don’t know why I did.”

His eyes widen, and you don’t know what he’s thinking, but there’s that small-pupiled look of surprise again. “You lied,” he says.

Something in you wants to struggle against the tight grip on your hair. It hurts. You don’t like it, when it hurts, that something says. Even though your master says it’s okay for things to hurt. Which is right, your master, or that something-inside-you that has only gotten louder in the last few weeks. 

“I didn’t,” you say, some instinct pulled from deep inside you to deny, deny, deny. Then you pause. “What is a lie?” 

His expression never loses its own sense of almost horrified wonder, even as his other hand comes to caress your face, catching against your stitches. 

“When something isn’t true. And it’s not true, is it, that you haven’t read about anything else?”

“Yes–no.” Your little head is confused, and the sting in your scalp doesn’t help. “I did read other things. Lots of things.” You swallow hard. “I just wanted to know… to know…” 

But how do you explain it, this desire to know? The desire to know that went beyond pleasing him, making yourself better for him?

“Know what?” He murmurs, almost not a question, releasing your hair. You take the opportunity to put your hands in your lap, holding them tightly together, as all of the knowing you’ve been doing in the past few weeks catches up with you.

The questions come like bubbles in the water, one after another, having been crammed inside your head for far too long without a proper outlet.

“Why don’t I ever talk to other people? Why do I look like this, when they don’t? Why don’t we go outside? I want to see, I want to know–” Your fingers hurt from how hard you wring your hands together. “About the sky and the animals and the birds and what music is and how a train sounds and how many wheels do they have, and there’s more, there’s more, I just can’t say it all–”

You can see his expression shifting, but you’re so steeped in your own release of the knowing that you don’t heed it as a warning. Instead, you ask something that has been bothering you a bit. A lot, if you were honest, and you were supposed to be honest, weren’t you?

“What are we?”

His gaze narrows as he looks down at you, and you don’t want him to look at you like that. Not with the question you want to ask. 

“What are we?” He repeats, a hint of something in it that makes you feel ashamed. A joke–no, that’s not the proper word. Mockery, you think. Mimicry. Birds can do that, but, you’re not wanting to stay on the topic of birds just now.

“Are we…” Your brain fumbles for the word, flipping through the figurative pages you’ve read and read and read. “Married?” Yes, that was it. Many of the people in the story books you read had marriages. And other things, too, that you don’t have, and he hasn’t talked about giving you. 

“Do you love me?” You say, voice rising in pitch. “What is love, exactly? And why don’t we live in a house, in a neighborhood, with a street and a fence? Why don’t we have children? Why don’t I have a job or a dog or parents or ride an airplane–” 

He shoves a palm over your mouth and you do finally heed the warning: Stop. Talking.

Your breath comes out your nose against the top of his palm, and your stomach hurts, and all of this feels so awful that it’s a relief when he speaks, even if he’s not happy with you.

Mahito’s eyebrows furrow and he frowns and his mouth twitches before he smiles, but it’s not a smile that makes you feel better. It almost looks–like a lie, you think, the connections falling into place. He’s smiling, but he’s not happy, and that makes it a lie.

“Why do humans always want more,” he asks lowly, and you almost try to answer before he presses harder against your mouth, making your teeth ache. 

“Even broken ones, remade ones,” he continues, “always seek out more.”

If his hand wasn’t on your mouth, you would ask what he meant. You try to think about an answer, and maybe when he pulls his hand away, he’ll be happy that you came up with one. But it’s hard to get your mind around the question.

It’s too slippery, too vague. Are you the broken one? If so, he should fix you. And what was wrong with seeking out more? Isn’t that why he taught you things? Maybe you learned the wrong things from the books; but he should have read them to you, and corrected you, if he was worried about that.

It’s all too much, too confusing, and before you can stop them, tears are leaking from your eyes. Hot ones that make your eyes scrunch and you cry openly against his hand, wanting the confusion to stop, wanting the ache in your chest to go away.

Instinctively, your hands reach for his arm, holding him like you sometimes hold your blankets.

His eyebrows raise again, and there’s a flash of surprise before he smiles. This time, it doesn’t look like a lie.

“You poor thing,” he says, crouching down and bringing you to your knees with him. His hand leaves your palm and your little sobs come out openly, almost barking into the air. “You’re so confused, aren’t you?”

You nod, and it’s true, and you resolve to never lie again. Lying hurts. 

“I-I don’t know what I did wrong or why I did it wrong and you’re mad,” you tell him, open, honest, like you should be. The words come out fast and stumbled.  “I thought I could read books to be better but now I know about birds and I don’t know what they sound like or why I don’t have things and why I’m so… so…”

The word doesn’t come and that only makes you cry harder. 

He coos, and pulls you against his chest. It’s familiar, this soothing, and it makes you feel warm even as those confusing thoughts stay stuck to your brain.

“Want to know a secret about the two of us, pet?” He asks, speaking against your hair. “A secret about you?” Every syllable is soaked in the promise of knowledge.

“No,” you breathe out, and it’s that buried-deep-down instinct again, pushing the word through your lips for you. You’re glad, though, because you realize this wasn’t a lie at all. You don’t want to know a secret. If the books you’ve read are to be believed (and are they?) then secrets always lead to trouble.

You don’t want any more trouble. Not now. 

He presses a kiss to the top of your head.

“Really? I thought you wanted to know everything.” A touch of amusement in his face, and you cling to it like a lifeline. You remember this side of your master; the side that smiles and pats your head. It’s much better than the side that smiles when he’s not happy at all. 

Your arms latch around him, snuggling as close as you can get, your face pressed against his chest. “Can we go to bed?” Your words are muffled against him, but you’re sure he understands. “I’m so confused.” And tired, and worried, and scared. All these awful feelings swirling around in your guts, making you want to be sick. 

Mahito pulls away from you, and there’s a brief snatch of fear before he begins to wipe at your tears with his fingers. He wipes too harshly, and his nails catch on the lid of your eye, making it sting. You don’t pull away. You remind yourself, if he thinks this is how he ought to stop your crying, it’s the best option.

Is it really? says that deep-deep-deep-down voice, and you tell it to be quiet, you’re tired, you aren’t thinking right, and it should stay buried with whatever secret your master knows. 

“Poor pet,” he whispers, cooing. “It’s all too much, isn’t it?” You nod, chin wobbling. His hands go from your cheeks to your head again, petting you on both sides, snarling in your hair. “I could make it go away, if you want.” Sticky words that you want to reach for.

His hands smooth all around your head now, and it’s almost like he’s trying to feel something inside. Like your brain, like your thoughts, like everything that makes you tick. 

Your eyes get wide and all you know is that when your master says something, it’s true. 

Is it really? repeats that voice.

“You could?” is what you say, because it’s simpler that way. Simpler to remember the way things were before the world had birds, when what he said was exactly so. 

“If you’ll be agreeable to it,” he tells you. 

His hands trail from your head down your shoulders, your neck, your chest, down and down and down, tracing each stitch on your body. And something in you–that deep-deep-deep-down part of you–says this is wrong. He shouldn’t touch you, you should be screaming, clawing at him, getting out of here. 

But you push that something down, with the birds and the children and the stories of courtship, with the way your hands trembled as they flipped each page, with the way you felt proud of yourself for finishing each book. 

Those things were nice, until they were not so nice; until they upset the very creator of your being, and made you too confused and hurt to think about them. What good was knowing about the more when the more made him upset? 

It feels better, not to think too much. Not to know so much. And if he can fix you–if he’s willing to fix you ,then it’s what you want, too. You think. Maybe. Yes? 

“Of course I will,” you stay, trying on a smile.

You can’t tell, even as his hands go from touches to gropes, if it’s a lie or not. 

–

You’re finally sleeping now, and he doesn’t mind sighing, sprawling out on the floor and watching with his chin propped into his elbow.

What an awful human trait, this desire for more-out-there-in-the-world. What good is creating your own little creature if it always wants to find out its place in some grander scheme of things? The only world you should know is here, and him, and yet you had to get your grubby little hands on his books and read about ridiculous notions.

You probably didn’t even understand some of them, maybe most of them. That is fascinating, in its own right. He wonders what you would do, if you saw a pretty little robin hopping on the ground, about to get pounced on by some neighborhood cat.

Would your expression of delight turn to horror as the bird was mangled in the cat's jaws? Or would you not process it as horror at all, but simply an experience to learn about? Could he touch you to overlook it, as he has his experiments?

It’s tempting, sometimes, to see what you would do with more outside stimuli. But that temptation doesn’t go too far, because the whole point of your being was to shape you for himself. And that does not include this damned human desire to explore the inside and outside, forever expanding your knowledge of whos and whats and whens. 

Well. At least you didn’t put up a fight at the notion of being fixed. At least you seemed properly subdued, once he made it clear he wasn’t pleased. He’d brought you up well enough, after all. 

He’s not sure he can really pull it out of you. There are many ways to reshape the soul, and the soul he pulled into that cobbled-together body has certainly been–well, changed, by the experience. 

Could he change it further? Wipe out your memory of those books? Maybe he could reach further down, deep down into your soul, and yank out the offending desires like weeds from a garden.

Maybe so.

For his own pleasure, he’s willing to try again and again, until you are just right. 

He owes it to himself, after all, to never give up on his most thrilling experiment. 

[triglycercule]

swapinverse posting again tell me why crash is like. a rebound for error after he totally fucked things up for swap in askerror. why am i writing these guys in vice.ser's lore to have error compare crash to swap ALL THE TIME and say he's lowkeyBETTER than the dumb berry,,,,, bro,,,,,, swap come get your mans the error version of cross is STEALING HIM. oh shit wait you're in the omega timeline living your best life while your ex friend is sulking over his guilt my bad king keep grinding ‼️

even in another multiverse cross remains the most perfect shippable man im afraid. i already got lowkey crink in this what's next crerror??? i havent made the muse twins meet crash yet but if they did it would be cream and crossmare (but better because melpomene's not a total cunt compared to nightmare)