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varteeny1234 · 3 months ago

Text

hello vivid nation I RETURN also @cursedthing thank you for Everything You Do for us

Summary:

After the lawsuit, Viking wants to talk to Avid about something- Avid is, unfortunately, very bad at being interrogated. Especially when it involves Viking trapping him against the side of the banana stand.

Warnings: None

Words: 2090

Ship: Vivid

(full fic under cut)

"...So, in the end, I've realized that signing up for the Birch Box was definitely not the smartest choice I've ever made. The whole 'one-eighteenth of my soul gets taken' part wasn't fun. But hey, I got a lot of good stuff out of it, at least!" Avid laughed, while Vintage let out a very loud sigh of exasperation. She'd been able to get him out of the soul-binding contract he'd made with the Birch Kingdom, and now they were celebrating their victory. The space outside the partially-demolished courthouse was a bit chaotic, since nearly everyone was here, but the two had found a quieter spot behind the new banana stand.

A new thought struck Avid. "Actually, now that I think about it, I still need birch wood for builds. Maybe I should re-sign up for the deal. You'll just get me out of it again, right?" He furrowed his brow, tail swishing back and forth as he considered this. Unfortunately, before he could come to a proper decision, his friend made the choice for him.

Vintage grabbed the sides of his face, forcing him to look them in the eyes. "NO! Absolutely not, Avid!" They only raised their voice a little bit.

Eh, fair.

"That is not how the lawyer stuff works!" Vintage's eyes were as wide as saucers. "If you sign up for it again, I can't help you! For the love of everything, I read you parts of the terms and conditions list! They're going to open another shop, since they kind of have to, but it's probably- no it's definitely going to be another scam. And you aren't going to sign any contracts without first doing what?"

"Calling my lawyer to make sure she can get me out of it?" He tried. He snickered at the deadpan look she gave him.

"No, you're going to read through all the fine print that they set up and make sure that you're not accidentally doing anything you'll end up needing me to bail you out of. I'm just your lawyer, I'm not, like, all-powerful!"

"Yeah, if you want all-powerful, you'll have to go talk to Trog!"

When a third voice cut into their conversation, Vintage jumped, and Avid's fur stood on end. Both of them looked up.

Viking smiled, from where he was sitting on the top of the banana stand. His heterochromatic eyes were shining in amusement. "They're plenty willing to use their powers all willy-nilly, too. I'm still salty about that damn dragon egg!" He jumped down.

"Oh my gosh! Viking!" Scolding from Vintage forgotten, Avid ran forwards and swept Viking up in a hug. He took a moment to breathe in his scent, squeezing him extra-tight for a second, then letting go- but still holding one of his hands. He gently flicked one of Viking's ears, giggling at the soft twitch he got in response.

Vintage rolled her eyes at their antics, but she smiled. "Hi, Viking. Thanks for that scare, by the way, I really needed more excitement after... everything that's happened in the last hour."

"Mhm. Hey, guys." Viking rubbed his thumb on the back of Avid's hand. "Congrats on winning your trial, by the way! And Vintage, I guess I know who to come to if I ever need someone to legally bail me out of something." Vintage curtsied.

Avid smirked. "Yeah, Vintage is the best! They're going to help me escape the next Birch Kingdom scam, too!"

"Wait, the next one? But I thought they had to disband their shop?" Viking asked.

Facepalming, Vintage shook her head. "They do have to make a new shop, but knowing Milkman, it's going to be the same scam with a new name. Or with a 'the sequel' tacked onto it."

"That... unfortunately does sound like a Milkman thing to do," said Viking. "And what I said earlier still holds true, Avid's the dumbest guy alive. Dumb as a singular brick, in fact! Anyways, I did in fact come over here for a reason. Vintage, do you mind if I steal Avid away from you for a moment?" The tip of his tail flicked.

"Ah, of course! I don't mind at all. I'll let you two be, bye!" Vintage waved, before flying off into the distance. Did she wink, or was Avid seeing things?

He and Viking both watched her go, then looked at each other.

"Hi," said Avid. He gave him a goofy smile. "What, exactly, did you want to steal me away for?"

Viking's eyes changed. Avid couldn't tell how they did, but they did. The stare that he was giving him had changed from what it was just enough to be curious. But he didn't say anything yet, he just looked at Avid, who would be lying if he said he didn't feel like squirming under his steady gaze.

"Avid, I'm curious about a few things!" His smile looked sharper, now, too. His voice was lower, more threatening. Okay, this was getting weird. Viking took a step, moving to stand in front of him. Avid was now functionally trapped, with his back to the banana stand and Viking in front of him and peering down at him. "This is about the recent... strange behavior, shall I say, of Ruby and Trog. And you, too."

Shit. Viking was on to him, he was suspicious of the clones! This was bad, this was bad-

But then, Viking took another step towards him, forcing him further backwards. Avid's heel hit the bottom of the banana stand, and he looked up at Viking, who was seriously leaning down to stare him in the eye. Avid's current problems suddenly shifted from oh shit he knows I'm up to something to I'm going to have a fucking heart attack if he gets any closer.

Time to play it cool! Or at least, as cool as he could play it.

When he spoke, his voice was about an octave higher than normal. Fuck.

"Strange behavior, Viking? Whatever do you mean by that? I can assure you, we at OSSHA are just doing our jobs! Trog's just gotten tired of wasting slabs on their curvy bridges, there's way weirder things that they could be doing-"

"OSSHA? I didn't say anything about OSSHA. Or what, specifically, Ruby and Trog have been doing to act weird... why'd you immediately jump to conclusions?" Viking laughed wildly. A second later, he slammed a hand on the wall right next to Avid's head. He reached out and tilted his chin upwards with his other hand- but with his nails poking into his skin, instead of gently with his fingertips. "Why, Avid?" He narrowed his eyes as he whispered harshly, not quite in his ear.

Avid was sweating bullets, and his heart was beating so fast it felt like it was about to leap out of his chest. Their faces were close enough together that he could feel Viking's warm breath on his cheeks, and he knew he was blushing like mad. Somehow, his hands found their way to the backs of Viking's shoulders.

Was Viking doing this to him on purpose? Maybe.

It was another minute or so before Avid remembered to answer.

"Um..." He was tongue-tied. "Well, I just took a random guess?"

"Try again. I've got time, I can wait for you to tell me. But you will tell me- that is, if you know what's good for you." Viking's nail traced Avid's throat, just hard enough to let him know that it wasn't hurting, but it could. Very easily.

"..."

Avid could tell he was getting frustrated, but man, he would never admit aloud that he didn't hate this interrogation.

Then, Viking's hand moved from scratching at his throat to gently covering it. He didn't apply much pressure. However, much did not exclude some.

A shiver went down Avid's spine and his eyelids fluttered shut. His tail, flicking back and forth, wrapped around something, and Viking tensed up just a hair- shit, it was probably his leg.

He had been wrong, apparently, when he thought his breath couldn't get any shakier.

"Fine, fine... don't answer. Oh, you can listen to me instead! You're hiding a lot of things. I spoke to... some other people, recently. They told me they remember you mentioning things similar to what you've told me, actually- it seems like you're working for someone. But there's no one else here that that could be!"

Avid had closed his eyes, but he could still feel it as Viking's hair touched his cheek and his lips brushed his ear when he whispered directly into it. The pressure at his throat increased just a touch. Whatever Viking had changed about his tone of voice was doing things to him. All his fur was standing on end, and he was biting his lip. A sound that he would not be calling a whimper escaped him.

Viking giggled. "You've just wormed your way out of one soul-binding contract. But I have a teeny-tiny suspicion that you've got another contract you're stuck in. You're working for someone, makes sense that you'd have gotten stuck working for them along the way. Probably just walked right into it without thinking, like you normally do. I told the truth when I said it was an endearing quality of yours, in fact it's part of what makes you irresistible!"

He was dead. Avid was fucking dead.

He half-heartedly tried to scoot away, regain at least some of his dignity. Of course, this did not happen, and rather than escaping to go have a crisis or something on his own he was stuck with Viking's entire body pressing against him.

Which totally wasn't fair at all, he hadn't even really tried anything.

"You really can't handle just a few simple questions? Avid..." Viking crooned. His grip pressed ever tighter. Avid was beginning to notice the effects; it was becoming harder to take a full breath of air.

"I'm irresistible, huh?" Avid weakly managed. He opened his eyes a crack and tried for a half a smile. Viking was too close. If the hand on his neck were to vanish, he was almost one hundred percent sure he'd lean forwards and tuck his head into Viking's shoulder.

Viking's voice dripped down into that lower, dangerous octave. "Hmm... irresistible, indeed." There was a sharp pain in his ear, suddenly.

The realization of what had happened hit him like a hammer- Viking had bit him! Avid's grip on Viking's shoulders tightened.

"I certainly find you irresistible."

If ever there was a person who could smirk out loud...

Avid's eyes flew open, and he gasped- well, he tried to gasp. It was more like a cough, in reality.

He was lightheaded, from what he assumed was a combination of the whole suffocation thing as well as the words that Viking was saying to him. His brain was buzzing, he had no idea what to say. How could he respond to something like that?!

"I can always go interrogate Ruby or Trog, you know. I can ask them why they're acting so serious about safety, in fact, it might even be easier. But I don't want to- this is so much more fun!" More laughing. Tiny black spots danced at the edges of Avid's vision. Fun, indeed...

That was definitely, totally, one hundred percent a sarcastic thought of his. He was pretty sure there was blood dripping from his ear where Viking had bit him- remembering this, of course, made his stomach feel like it was flipping over again.

He didn't really want Viking to try and interrogate the clones. Not when he was right here! Avid was supposed to be the one pinned to the wall, choking-

No! Not the right reason for having him be the one to be interrogated.

"Feel free to interrogate me any time," he wheezed. "I could get behind a regular date night like this."

"It's not a date."

"Sure about that? I'm pinned to the banana stand and you've already bitten me once-" Avid broke off, his breath having run out.

Viking took a step back, so he could look him in the eye. "And I'll bite you again, don't test me."

"Bet," Avid breathed. He closed his eyes. Only a second later he felt a nip at the corner of his jaw, Viking never having been one to back down from a challenge. It drew blood, again, too.

He grinned, dizzily. "Not a date night, my ass."

"Shut up. You've answered exactly zero questions still."

"Make me."

"Bet."

#my stuff #skyblock kingdoms #sbkshipping #teehee COME GET YALLS JUICE

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three-bunnies-in-a-trenchcoat · 1 month ago

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The Dark Lord can never win against The Chosen One.

(Full fic below the cut, please check the ao3 link above for full tags before reading)

The first time, after their escape, isn't so serious.

They've stopped at some sort of diner in a small town near the latest website they've destroyed; Dark can still see the smoke in the distance, but it doesn't seem like anyone else in the diner has noticed, although both of them are getting eyed at suspiciously by the owner (and neither of them have any money, but she's sure that problem will solve itself with a well placed ball of fire or two.)

Chosen goes at the food like she's had nothing to eat in the last decade (which isn't true, because she does this every time).

He reaches for Chosen's last onion ring– smacked away. Reaches again, glared at with red tinted eyes. A third time, and she jumps across the table to grapple with Dark.

It's a lighthearted tussle, no powers involved, and Chosen pulls her into a headlock within a minute, pulling her down next to her on the booth.

"Choooo." He whines, kicking at her knee. "Come on, let me go."

Chosen ignores her, and starts taking stuff from his plate, which is an indignity he will not let go unpunished–

Chosen catches her fist and gives her an unimpressed stare. The rest of his food quickly falls prey to her appetite. Dark weeps internally and vows vengeance.

---

The second time, it's a bit more serious.

"Teach me how to do that." Chosen says bluntly.

"Uhh." Dark says, letting the end of the pen she was chewing (oh fuck, she's not going to be able to use it again, Cho's rubbing off on her) fall out of her mouth. "Teach you what?"

"Those energy ball things you like to throw at buildings."

"I… don't know if I can?" His powers came to him instinctively, the same way he knew Chosen's did to her. "Cho, why do you even want to know?"

She shrugs. Stick of few words, that one. Not like Dark minds; she's plenty good at filling the silence.

She sets down her newspaper (she liked to keep up on the reporting of their crimes; the crosswords were fun, too) and gets up, stretching.

"So, uh." Dark bounces on her feet. They've relocated outside, to make sure their meager belongings don't get destroyed. "You've just got to, uh…" She trails off as Chosen gives her a disbelieving look. "What? Come on, Cho, I've never taught anyone anything before!"

"Describe how it feels, maybe."

"Uh. Feels like I've got big ball of fuck off in my hand?"

Chosen crosses her arms and taps her foot.

"It's kind of… itchy." He finally says. "Especially when it's bigger or slower. Like I'm drawing the energy out of myself and it doesn't like it."

She nods.

"And it's… cold."

"No, it's not." Chosen says immediately.

She huffs. "To me it is, and that's the important thing, isn't it? So what if it's hot when it explodes?"

She rolls her eyes. “Just stop. I’ll figure it out.”

“Well, fine, but–”

Chosen closes her eyes and pointedly turns away.

The first attempt splutters out miserably. The second explodes directly into her face as soon as it's formed. The third succeeds, and Chosen looks at it with a brief moment of hesitation before awkwardly throwing it down into the street.

(It explodes, and a dozen car alarms go off in perfect unison.)

She watches Chosen do it a few more times, then lazily tosses a ball of fire at her before taking off into the air.

"Come on!" She says as Chosen splutters and gives her an affronted look. "Experience is the best teacher, or whatever! Fight me!"

Chosen rolls her eyes. “Is that really necessary?”

“Probably not! Let’s go!”

It's a fight that's in Dark's favor– Chosen is trying to fight only with the energy balls, which slows her down and leaves openings that Dark has learned to cover, but she does gradually get better.

Eventually– a ball of fire is tossed her way, which she easily dodges– right into the path of an energy ball, staggering her enough for Chosen to appear at her side and punch her. The surprise and the force of it is enough to send her flying back through the wall of a nearby building.

Dust and a few small pieces of rubble fall onto her. She squints up at the ceiling, seconds before it collapses halfway onto her.

…Goddamnit. She’s not going to be finishing her crossword today.

---

The third time they fight, it's against her will.

There's been an itch steadily building in the back of his mind all day– usually their usual brand of wanton destruction, as he had heard a reporter call it once, would satisfy it–

("Aren't wontons a kind of food?" Dark asks.

Chosen frowns. "I would never destroy food.")

–but it's not working today. No matter what she does, the itch doesn't go away, until it's all she can think about.

Chosen finally notices, a stupid little frown of concern on her face, and it's all she can do to not punch it off. "Are you alright?"

"What's it matter to you?" He snaps– physically snaps, sharp teeth clacking loudly.

"I'm just worried–"

And something breaks– Dark lunges for her, fire already cupped in her hand.

"What the– Dark?!" Chosen weaves out of the way, and ducks under her next swing. "What are you doing?!"

"What I should have done when we met!"

The next blast of fire catches the edges of Chosen's long, long hair, setting it alight, which is honestly a great look– if only the rest of her was on fire.

He startles for a second at the thought, how full of malice it is, and it gives Chosen the opportunity to tackle him to the ground, hands clamped around his wrists and ice spreading onto his arms.

Unlike Chosen, he can only channel his powers through his hands, a task that's nearly impossible with how she keeps freezing him back over when he breaks the ice.

Dark snarls, writhing under her hold and biting at her. "Let me go, you f–"

"Not until you calm down." She said. "What the hell is wrong with you?"

"There's nothing fucking wrong with me!"

Chosen looks at her skeptically, like she wouldn't know her own mind, wouldn't know if something was wrong.

He keeps flinging insults at her, but Chosen has always had thick skin, and eventually she just looks away, like Dark is so far beneath her that she doesn't even need to watch him to keep him restrained.

"You're a real bastard, aren't you, Chosen One, thinking you're better than me?" She growls. "Well, at least I wasn't the one enslaved for years!"

Chosen flinches. Dark knees her in the gut, slides away a few inches, but it's all the leeway she gets before she's held down even harder.

"Awfully pathetic, aren't you? Your creator hated you, and the only person you could ever get to like you was your enemy, how messed up is that?!"

"Shut up." She says quietly. The ice spreads further up her arms.

"Scared of a few words, Chosen One?" She croons. "You should be. It's the truth, after all."

"Shut up!"

She's slammed down against the ground; her head rings, and the taste of blood fills her mouth from where she bit her tongue.

The pain doesn't bother her, though, and as Chosen glares down at her, flames flickering around her mouth, all she does is laugh.

Eventually, her struggles to escape weaken, until finally she blinks, and it feels like a cloud has lifted from her mind.

"What the fuck was that?" She says, voice hoarse.

"Finally back to normal?" Chosen looks and sounds tired– more tired than he's ever seen her, except for the day they escaped the PC.

"...I think so."

Chosen pulls away, standing up, and Dark pushes herself up on her elbows.

"I'm sorry for… what I said earlier." Everything seems tinted in a red haze, so filled with hate that Dark can't even believe it came from her.

"It's fine." Chosen says, offering her a hand up.

Even Dark can tell it's not. She doesn't say anything, though, and just accepts the offer.

Two days later, Dark hooks himself up to a computer and finds the code still lurking in him.

---

The fifth, sixth, tenth, fifteenth, twentieth, fiftieth, hundredth time they fight, she still loses, every time.

She's gotten close to winning plenty of times, sure– but at the last second before she can claim victory, some absolute bullshit happens, and Chosen wins.

Chosen doesn't say anything about it– Dark doesn't even think she noticed, because Chosen is dense as hell all the time. It's both one of her best and worst qualities– best because Dark can just do whatever he wants, worst because she doesn't notice when what he wants is to claw her face off.

(Which he can do, now; he'd found this armored glove– vambrace? Bracer? Whatever– with claws on the fingers that he hadn't been willing to take off.

Chosen had said that, with the long coat he had, it made him look like a proper Dark Lord. Then she said that of course, that didn't make him look any less lame, so he had tackled her.

He lost that fight.)

She's glad she always loses those fights, when she loses control. She doesn't want to hurt Chosen– she's not just her friend, she's her partner.

(And neither of them can think family, because of the creator that forsook them.)

Over the years, without another outlet for destruction (retiring to the countryside– it's so ridiculous that Dark still laughs at it sometimes, but he figures after everything Chosen deserves whatever she wants), the fights where Dark isn't himself increase, but her proficiency at handling him does too.

She had managed once to hack into her code to try to get rid of the compulsion to kill Chosen, but it hadn't exactly worked out– Chosen had found her unconscious and twitching, the computer she was using on fire, and had told her in no uncertain terms not to do it again.

It hadn't all been in vain, though– now, at least, she can sometimes keep her head even as her body fights. It unnerves them both, but it's a better alternative to have kept saying horrible things to the only person she cares about.

(It makes her easier to subdue, too– no strategy behind her attacks. It's the best either of them can hope for.)

---

The last time they fight, it's a death match.

None of the cloudy haze of hate that Dark has long since learned to identify is present. This isn't a forced fight, or one for fun. Something is different, and she can tell that neither of them will make it out unscathed– or at all.

And the confusing thing about it is– for the last few years, they've lived a happy life, a quiet life, together, but it still wasn't all that long ago that they were burning down sites. She doesn't understand why Chosen is being so vehement about this– especially not since her first victim is their fucking creator.

(And she's learned a lot, over the years, of just what exactly had happened to Chosen on that damned PC, how it wasn't even a fraction of what happened to her, who was made for a singular purpose to eventually be discarded.)

"Why did you go help that bastard?!" He shouts, throwing Chosen against the rocks. "Why would you side with him over me?!"

Chosen stays infuriatingly silent.

"Did he do something to you?" Her heart stutters. "Did– Are you–"

She shakes her head; it fills Dark with relief, and then another flood of anger. "Then why did you fucking do it?!"

"He didn't deserve my help." Chosen finally says, and it's the first thing she's said all day that Dark agrees with. "But what if there were more sticks there, who couldn't escape?"

"So? Killing people has never bothered you before!"

"I'm tired of death, Dark. Why do you think I wanted us to stop?" She gestures back to the hole in the sky. Dark nails her with an energy ball and she shrugs it off. "There were children there! Even you tried not to kill children!"

"'Even you'?" She growls, sending a wave of fire at her with a sweep of her arm. "Do you think you're so much better than me, Cho? You've destroyed and killed just as much as I have, and I know you enjoyed it too!"

"That's not what I–!"

"It sounds like that's what you meant!"

They go tumbling through one of her portals, and Chosen, used to desktop fighting more than she is, takes the upper hand.

Once they're out, he obscures her vision with the smoke of an explosion, and with a final explosive move, Chosen is thrown deep into the water. He wipes his eyes (probably just damp from the spray having splashed in his face), and heads back to his control panel. She won't stay down long.

(Chosen is acting like she's the one betrayed, the one wronged, but she was the one who extended her hand, who convinced Dark to join her side against their creator.

…She'll regret this.)

The vira-bracelets snap in place over her wrists, and she flexes her fingers as a surge of new energy rushes through her, and up into the sky.

She flicks her wrists, and two crackling blades of virus filled energy form.

His side aches with pain. Between Chosen and his creator, they had gotten some good hits in, and unlike Chosen, he didn’t have the luxury of being able to heal himself– but neither has Chosen, with his relentless attacks.

“It didn’t have to come to this.” Chosen says, pushing against the spiders’ hold.

“Of course it did.” She says, getting ready to reignite her blades.

An orange stick jumps down in front of them, and they both recoil in surprise.

“You were the one that summoned him, weren’t you?” He orders his spiders away, giving the stick a scrutinizing glance.

“Well, it wasn’t me in part–”

Four more sticks jump down and settle into fighting stances. None of them say anything, but the yellow one gives them an admonishing glance. The red one is the first to leap into action– and the first to fall.

“These are the kids, I’m guessing?” She says to Chosen as she kneels over his body. “Well, I guess you were wrong about me.”

She doesn’t say anything, looking away. Dark kicks the body away, and dismisses his blade. None of them are enough of a threat for it.

The blue one rushes her first, followed swiftly by his friends, but even with four of them, they’re hardly doing anything to her and are swiftly knocked down.

The claws of her gauntlet dig into the yellow one's throat. She seems to realize that her life, at least, is forfeit, and kicks weakly at Dark, pleading for her friends to run.

It's annoying. She makes sure she dies last.

The orange one– and what an idiot, still standing here even after their friends have disintegrated– looks back at Chosen, swarmed by spiders, like she can do anything.

"Get out of here." She rasps over the spiders' skittering. "You don't owe me anything–"

Dark punches her blade through their stomach. "They're one of his, aren't they? The others weren’t."

(They must have been doing something, to have survived unchained for this long– or maybe he's just gotten better at programming loyalty.)

Their head lolls back, and eyes filled with pain and hatred glare at him.

"What's your name, huh?" She asks while waiting for them to die. "What role did he give you?"

Their breath is ragged as they sink to their knees. "Orange."

She laughs, and lifts them back up to see their face. "That's it? Orange? He really did learn his lesson, huh?"

An elbow slams into his face. He gives them an unimpressed stare, and flips them down to the ground, stabbing them again. They're tougher than any stick she's fought besides Chosen– held out longer than any of their friends, that's for sure.

They push at him, one final protest, and Dark takes a moment to study their face. They're only a little younger than he and Chosen had been– but the fury in their face is an equal to what theirs had been.

It occurs to her that from their perspective, she's the one taking the role of their creator, and she can't stand to see them any longer.

She throws them up into the air, and within seconds injures them enough that even with their strange hardiness they won't survive long, and sends them crashing into the cliff with enough force to make a crater.

She looks down at Chosen. She's done enough damage and the spiders have forced enough of the virus into her that she's struggling to heal herself. She'll be easy prey now.

He opens the portals, flicks his wrist again, and his spiders fly toward them. Green sparks flit along the edges of his vision, and it's all the warning he gets before an orange blur slams into them, and then him.

Orange– and that can’t be their real name– tosses and punches him with a speed and strength that not even Chosen possessed. It hurts, in not even a way that his fight with Chosen and their creator had, something in his torso cracking with a sickening sound.

She skids on the water, calling her remaining spiders; they’re decimated in a fiery green explosion in seconds, but it gives her enough time to get behind them. She throws them away and turns to flee, something she’s never once done.

A rock slams into her back. Something else breaks, and she freezes, gasping for breath. The stick flies up to her side, hitting her with a series of blows that leaves her stunned and reeling.

He falls in slow motion, holding just enough control to keep him from plummeting into the ocean but not enough to stay upright. Just barely, from the corner of his vision, he can see Chosen staring at them in horror.

What did you think would happen? He thinks. One of us was always going to die here, and it was always going to be me. I can never win.

Then the laser hits, and she thinks of nothing more but pain.

#animator vs animation #ava #ava the chosen one #ava the dark lord #ava the second coming #ava orange #chodark #(platonic or romantic idc)#ava tdl #ava tco #ava tsc #the chosen one #the dark lord #the second coming #why. why do they have so many different character tags.#mb's writing

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burnitalldowndarling · 10 months ago

Note

Man... I am a firm believer that you should be able to choose to know what you're about to engage with. Like "chose not to use archive warnings" is fine, but for some stuff, some topics, it's better to make a clear and informed choice about what you're about to read... like think the does the dog die website... idg the point of hiding what happens in a story from everyone

Er... okay? Is this about that AITA I reblogged? I can't think of anything I've posted that's related to this otherwise.

Well, it feels a little out of the blue, but I got time. On one level I agree with you. I'm an "over-tagger" because I want people to know what they're going to encounter in my fics, and self-select out of reading them if there's material they can't or don't want to deal with. I tagged "shellfish" on one fic because I used to know a girl whose gag reflex kicked in whenever she read about consuming shellfish. I regularly get complaints from my readers that I've tagged way too much. So yeah, I get that there are a lot of topics that people need to make informed choices about.

But I very much disagree with your implication that authors who don't do this are "hiding" something. "Choose not to warn" IS a tag. It is a whole-ass tag in its own right, whose meaning is, "If you need to make a clear and informed choice about the fics you read, with clear labeling of certain topics, this is not the fic for you." That author isn't hiding anything. And the reader who ignores "choose not to warn" when they do need certain topics labeled, is choosing to potentially harm themselves.

And sometimes that's what people need! Some folks are working on their triggers, and reading "unwarned" fic might be how they confirm they're making progress. Beyond that, some folks are just used to "unwarned" fic as a reading experience. I'm old.* For the first 2/3rds of my life, all reading was like this -- unlabeled, I mean. You took your chances every time you opened the cover, and if you got slapped in the eye-nerves by something horrifying, you just dealt with it. I prefer trigger warnings as I said, but I also get that many people prefer "unwarned" reading. "Choose not to warn" fics are or those readers. If you're not one of them, it's fine. Not all fiction is for all readers. There are plenty of clearly-labeled things out there for you.

It would be great if there was a "does the dog die" for fanfic. Unfortunately, given the pace at which fanfic appears in the world, I can't imagine any site managing to keep up with that. But hey, if somebody decided to start that up and put it on Patreon or something, I bet they'd make a mint.

*Middle aged, which I don't think is old, but I know a lot of young folks on this site do.

#anon ask

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swagmagussupreme · 5 months ago

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@whiterose-fans-blog White Rose in Bloom, Day 5: Fantasy AU

Jk it's the lazing in bed one. I've written 200k words of Whiterose fantasy AU lol, if you wanna read that, go here:

No content warnings for this one, just pure short fluff since work is On Some Bull Shit ™️ today. So without further ado:

Words: 879

Ruby hated Huntress’ Sprint. She hated infinity-scrollers in general because she should be studying instead of playing them. Alas, here she was.

The door slammed open. Ruby jolted, peering over the edge of her hanging bunk.

It was Weiss, her face bright red and eyes puffy. Ruby watched her shamble to the bunk below, then flop face-first onto the mattress, groaning. The team leader stayed where she was, despite the way her heart ached with sympathy— Weiss preferred distance. The amount of physical affection Ruby had gotten her used to was already a miracle. Weiss groaned.

Ruby leaned over the edge of her bed, ignoring the way it creaked. “Weiss? What happened?”

The heiress simply groaned.

“Was it Cardin?”

Surprisingly, Weiss shook her head.

“Oh. What was it, then? Did you get a surprise test or something?”

Weiss mumbled something into her mattress.

“Huh?”

Weiss patted her bed.

Ruby blinked. “What?”

Weiss aggressively patted her bed.

Tentatively, Ruby fell out of her bunk and smashed her entire idiot face directly on the floor, her features saved only by the grace of her Aura. That didn't make it painless. “Owwwwwww,” she moaned, peeling herself off the scratchy carpet. She found Weiss’ eyes staring more bemused than concerned, and tried her best disarming smile, which disarmed Weiss enough for her to flop her face back down into the mattress. “You… want me to sit with you?”

Weiss mumbled. Ruby took it as an affirmative— a denial would've been fervent and straight to her face— and crawled into the bed, sitting criss-cross beside her partner's head. Her hair was a mess.

Weiss dared to put a hand on her head, which didn't elicit any opposition. “What happened? You can tell me— n-not like you have to!” she hastily added. “Just, like, you can. If you want. I'm here to listen if you're here to speak. I'm also just… here. In case you don't want to speak. I can…” Ruby slowly moved her hand on Weiss’ head, stroking it in the same way mom used to do for her. “I can do this and be quiet. If you want. Y'know.”

Weiss’ head moved up, and Ruby immediately jerked her hand away, fearing vindication for overstepping their boundaries. A million apologies lined up behind Ruby's lips.

They all vanished when Weiss blearily grabbed her wrist and plopped her hand right back where it was, moving it back and forth demandingly. Everything in Ruby's throat died, leaving a hollow void that crept all the way to her chest. Nervous giddiness started to dance between her lungs.

“I had combat exams with Jaune today,” she groaned. “He beat me.”

Ruby rocked forwards to keep herself from recoiling back, which probably would've hurt Weiss feelings. “Oh,” was all she could manage.

The sky was green. Water was dry. Jaune Arc had beaten Weiss Schnee.

“How?” traitorously seeped past Ruby’s lips, which got a glare from Weiss. She didn't move the hand away, though, which was progress.

“Ruby, he threw me,” Weiss stated, her voice distant with horrified recollection. “He rushed me, slid over my ice— somehow— and he grabbed me around the waist and fucking threw me!” She weakly pantomimed such a toss. “I was so surprised I just… I couldn't get up in time and he got me. He got me. Me.”

Weiss sniffled, her hand dropping from Ruby’s wrist. Instinctively, the scythe-wielder’s hand moved to cup the back of her head, thumb gently rubbing her crown. “It happens to all of us,” she advised. “It's only our first year, there's plenty left to surprise us.”

“It's not supposed to happen to—” the heiress bit her lip, her shoulders hitching as she visibly held back a sob. Noticing this, Ruby let her hand drift down to Weiss’ back, where she patted between the shoulder blades. That opened the floodgates. “It doesn't happen to me-he-heeeeeee,” Weiss bawled, punching the mattress. “He— he’s just… a guy! Literal vomit-boy!” She wailed. “And I’m a scion of the Schnees! I— I got— f-fucking tackled, Ruby! There's gonna be videos everywhere!”

Ruby stared at her partner, mesmerized. She'd never seen Weiss open up like this, not to her, and she'd certainly never been allowed this close when she got so touchy. It felt a little wrong, almost, like she wasn't supposed to see this. “It… it's not okay now,” she tried to say smoothly. “But it will be. I promise.”

Weiss looked up at her, glaring wetly, snot dribbling down her nose. Her voice came out hoarse and thick. “What're you gonna do about it, huh?”

Ruby smiled at her. “We'll do more sparring, some hand-to-hand, even. I know I've been focusing on Crescent Rose too much, I need to focus on improving our skills. Together.”

Weiss grimaced.

“Next time he tries to tackle you, you're gonna be the one throwing him, okay?” Ruby moved her hand back to Weiss’ head. “I'll make sure of it, as your partner.”

“Not as our leader?” the heiress said, pouting bitterly.

Ruby schooled a serious expression over her face, her other hand moving to take Weiss’ with fervor. “No. As your partner.”

Weiss’ eyes went wide. She stared at Ruby. Ruby stared back. Through the crust of pain and tears and snot, Weiss blushed.

#white rose in bloom #fanfic #my writing #ruby rose #weiss schnee #whiterose

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demigirlravenqueen · 1 year ago

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Historically ever after part 5

Darling Charming 2 New And Improved!

I wanted to do an updated version of this post because, it was really just my second attempt at doing something like this so it's not really the best and I've learned quite a bit more about 18th century fashion since then and I'm not really satisfied with that post anymore. Darling was the fist character that I decided to make these posts on because everybody kind of knows that her design was 18th century inspired. I think that it's just one of the recognisable historical styles .

Starting with the dress, it has an open front showing another layer underneath like most styles of dresses from the Georgian period which usually had a petticoat underneath as well as a matching stomacher if one was worn. The robe robe a la francaise is, I think the most iconic for this look. The robe a la francaise also featured large box pleats at the back and were commonly worn over side hoops which gave the iconic wide hip look.

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I think that darlings dress more closely resembles an English gown or robe a l’anglaise which is more fitted and less often worn with side hops therefore usually having a more round skirt shape.

Either way it doesn't really matter as I doubt that the people designing these outfits really had this in mind. But I'll leave this article by the American Duchess which dose a good job explaining the different styles of 18th century gowns if you're interested.

We also have those lovely elbow length frilled sleeves which were common on fashionable gowns.

The print on her dress really resembles some of the floral patterns common during this period, such as these ones I found in the Met's online collections.

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the underlayer's pattern is more subtle and and resembles these silk woven fabrics.

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Her hair is swept back and curled in a way that's meant to reference the large fancy hair styles iconic to the period, mostly around the mid 18th century. Feathers, ribbons and jewellery were all pretty common hair pieces.

Her hair is also verry light which is again a reference to white powdered hair.

While were talking about hair I'd also like to mention that we plenty of primary sources indicating the use of blue and pink hair powder during this time. I don't know a lot about that (or just historical hair in general I'm trying my best), but Abbey Cox did a great video the history of coloured hair, and after watching that I was able to find portraits showing it. It's such a niche fun fact that I don't think that it was intentional and they probably just chose blue to go with the colour scheme they already had but it's still cool.

Her jewellery was interesting to look into, full disclosure I don't know much about jewellery outside of the Victorian era and even then my knowledge is pretty limited so I was mainly digging through the V&A archives and comparing them.

Her necklaces are I think the most similar. You got the jewels arranged in a circle around another jewel and the elaborate patterns.

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I think her bracelet is more armour inspired I'm not really able to get a good enough look at it to notice much detail.

dangly earrings sort of like hers I've seen a lot of but rather different.

With her flower shaped ring I was either expecting to either find nothing or something similar but smaller which they made more bulky for doll production. I didn't find a similar ring, most were verry simple in shape, but I did find this broch and gasped verry loudly when I did because it was so similar.

I might do another one on her dragon games outfit, but I don't really think there's anything there, and this post is getting long, nothing compared with what I have in the works for Lizzie but... I have homework to do and this has already taken up enough of my time.

As always, feel free to add on or correct me.

Part 0.5 Part 1 (original darling post) Part 2 Part 3 Part 4

#eah #ever after high #darling charming #eah darling #fashion history

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tsyplakov · 11 months ago

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PLS drop the Spit Kink Approved list... pls

Well, if you insist... just keep a few things in mind:

This is solely based on the use of spitting, which I've defined as "with a focus on saliva, which must be expelled from the mouth with intent." Spit as lube does not count, that's something else, and niether does the mere presence of saliva, even if it's mentioned a lot.

I am only referencing the m/m fics in the Spit, Spitting, and Spit Kink tags. (there are actually eight which make the grade) Surely there is spitting in other fics that haven't listed it in the tags, but I am not reading all that.

Total 22 tagged fics; Spit (2), Spitting (4), and Spit Kink (16). A few x reader fics excluded on the basis of not being gay, sue me.

IMPORTANT NOTE: I am not including ratings, archive warnings, or the like for my own convenience - if you look these up to read for yourself, it's at your own discretion.

That said, here is the Certified Spit Fics List

Chronological by Date Updated

An Attempt to Tip the Scales by Borderlinemediocre

“I’m not stopping, babe. And you’re not gonna stop me. Give up.” Charlie says, punctuating his words by spitting on Carlo’s face. Brandon’s lightheaded, and not just from the choking.

Charlie finally, finally lets up and Brandon takes a huge breath in, chest expanding as much as possible. Charlie laughs at him, reaches down to spread his spit around a bit, thumb sliding into Carlo’s mouth.

Woah mama, this one is hot. They only spit once, but oh how economical and effective it is! This, to me, gets it just right irt spitting; it's degrading and intimate and uninhibited.

🔒Calamari by Fresh_penguin

He used his thumb to pull my bottom lip, opening my mouth. He spits into my mouth. Well, not really, drooled might be a better word. I could watch the glob of saliva leave his mouth and slowly make its way to mine. I stuck my tongue out just to make sure it hit.

The only one that was in first person. First instance of spitting into the mouth, which is by far the most common. Not quite as dirty as spitting on someone, but still very hot.

🔒[pkane advisory] With you, I'm badder than I've ever been (let's make the devil smile) by Anonymous

"Open up, babe, got a gift for ya," Patrick grins, thumb on Brendan's chin pulling his slack jaw down, Brendan's brain still too offline to comprehend what's happening, and then Patrick works his jaw and, eyes gleaming, spits the remnants of Brendan's own come, [sic] now thoroughly mixed with Patrick's spit, back into Brendan's mouth. He pats Brendan's cheek. "Swallow, baby girl."

Ah, this one is pretty dirty, but barely any spitting, and it's just cum. Not really for me, but maybe it's for you?

🔒couldn't help it by jesuisgrace

He pulls back out of his space and looks down, a wicked smirk on his face when he peeks back up at TK. He purses his lips - fuck have his lips always been that fucking pretty? - and spits right onto the head of his dick. TK’s moan echoes through the locker room as Patty smears his spit down the length of him. His hand is so fuckin’ big it’s like he can feel him everywhere, long fingers dragging up as he slides his palm around the head.

Oh yeah! Plenty of spit from good ol' tknp, and this one has a link to visual reference of np spitting ... fuck yes.

🔒[mattdrai advisory] The Day Leon Draisaitl Swore Never To Buy Another Apple Product Again by irrelevanttous

At the same time, ignoring the ringing in his ears and static in his vision, he pries Tkachuk’s lips further apart with his thumb. He squishes Tkachuk’s cheeks to hold him open and leans forward again, draping his chest all over Tkachuk’s to pin him in place. Then he spits right into Tkachuk’s open mouth.

Not a lot of spitting here, and only into the mouth, but hey that counts!

🔒I wore his jacket for the longest time by rain_over_coruscant (<3)

Dahlin snorts. “You can give it better than you take it.”

“Fuck,” Auston chokes, spitting out blood-snot onto Dahlin’s socks. Through the tears, he can see Dahlin cringe, and a horrible worm of an idea drops bright and stupid into his brain. Before he can back down, he gathers up more blood and spit in his mouth and spits it at Dahlin’s face. Dahlin lets out the squeal of someone just as squeamish as Auston and shoves him backwards, leaving him stumbling all the way back against the bed, blood still pouring from him.

Woah man, this one is hot. A winner's room fic, and it's the only Rasmus Dahlin/Auston Matthews fic. It's also the only one on this list that mixes spit with blood, makes it extra juicy. Not exactly what I was looking for, but I like what I got anyway.

🔒[penguins petplay advisory] skills competition by cuprun

Kris tightens his grip just a little, using it to tug Sid’s mouth open fully, and then he leans forward, gathering all the saliva he collected to the front of his mouth and spitting it where Sid’s mouth is open and waiting for it.

Petplay is not for me, but who wouldn't appreciate Kris spitting in your mouth?

🔒it would be a sin not to sin by tapedsleeves(pp tiny) for Lurlur

Adam spits on his tongue. Vince writhes harder under him, but he can’t go anywhere. He doesn’t want to, he just has to do something with how that makes him feel. Adam’s fingers dig into Vince’s mouth, his hands held firmly by Adam’s weight. “Swallow.” Adam says, firm.

Again, spitting into the mouth, and that's about it, but still hot and orally fixated.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly these are all hot in their own right, but only two of these really hit the nail on the head for what I was looking for in a "Spit Kink" fic.

That aside, 8 out of 34,101 is a meagre 0.023% ... that is truly slim for Men's Hockey RPF where it is the job of these men to spit! (So it's our job to write about it, amen.)

#x #ask #anonymous #spitting!!!!

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victimsofyaoipoll · 10 months ago

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Round 1

Propaganda under the cut

Ginny Weasley

Okay hold on I know Harry Potter is bad its awful I KNOW BUT LISTEN- the way drarries have BUTCHERED and KILLED her character is something that truly needs to be studied because its one thing to make her and harry not date but oh my god they treat her like she is the DEVIL for EXISTING.

Tbh only remember the epilogue where they do a time skip and Harry and Ginny are married then they have a Bunch of kids boarding the train. In fics I see a lot of her either becoming psychotic trying to marry Harry and become lady potter or molly Weasley getting a contract to force a marriage. There’s a lot of m/m ships in the fandom but I think Harry and Draco are the most popular? Just wanted to throw someone different in here

The thing is, the deeper I got into the fics, the worse Ginny got? Like I read plenty of good fics where she was cool, but there was the same amount where for some reason she was controlling, or abusive, or dead. Like for Drarry? Come on! If you think Ginny sucks, I have some *shocking* news about Draco

Erina Pendleton

Erina is SO MUCH MORE than just a "Generic Love Interest" that was brought in the story to continue the bloodline after everything that happens (and it's made abundantly clear time and time and TIME AGAIN that she means everything to Jonathan, to a point that she was his exact reason to standing up against Dio for the first time) but without fail she's only ever allowed to be the supportive best friend. Or a wingman for Jonathan and whoever he's being shipped with. Or simply supposed to sit there and allow her husband to have a male lover (the amount of posts I've seen of ppl using the excuse that 'it was very common back in the Victorian Era for men to keep male lovers that their wives were aware of and quietly accepted so it isn't a stretch to say that Erina and Jonathan wouldn't be the same--especially given how progressive she's written". Or of course my favorite when they completely erase her from the narrative and pretends she doesn't exist Jonathan's got their son for some reason, but nope she ain't there!

a lot of times ppl who ship her CANON HUSBAND jonathan joestar with speedwagon will put her on the back burner of HER OWN CANON RELATIONSHIP in favor of propping up jonawagon, to the point where 90% of the archive for jonawagon/jonawagon(eri) is either erina giving jonathan and speedwagon consent to be happy together while she acts like a #LoveIsLove wingman OR they'll have the audacity to write fics where erina comforts speedwagon at HER HUSBAND'S FUNERAL

Our hero’s hot wife who was the first (and arguably) only person to give him the emotional support he needed. She’s the only person who never expects him to fulfill some mythical role, she just loves him for who he is. She’s been his best friend and the love of his life since he was 12 years old. When it comes to hero/sidekick ship, she’s forced to be a wing woman for her own husband, either nobly letting him go or peacefully agreeing to an open relationship but only for him!!! She gets nothing out of it, she’s just a good Victorian wife who is “ahead of her time”. Usually, just so she can provide a womb so that the hero/sidekick can be dads and she can conveniently be offscreen. OR she’s written as a lesbian in order to completely and “justifiably” take her out of the equation but there’s a.) no other woman in her vicinity to even ship her with b.) there’s vaguely some faceless, nameless woman we’re meant to assume she’s pursuing, not even a real OC for her.

#round 1 #poll #ginny weasley #harry potter #erina pendleton #jojo's bizarre adventure #jjba #phantom blood

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thecozykirin · 6 months ago

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DWC Day 3 - Shame

@daily-writing-challenge

( TW: Implied / referenced SA and heavy subjects )

( Following up something sweet with something bitter! I’ve had a few comments before wondering why Soo-ha ended up running away from the monastery and I hope this provides a bit more insight to that part of her background. Do keep in mind the trigger warnings while reading it! This is definitely one of the heavier stories I've written. )

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

It’s just a cold.

At least, that’s what she believed in the beginning. Admittedly, there were bigger things on Soo-ha’s mind than the encroaching nausea that she had written off as the bubbling disgust and shame beginning to manifest itself.

But then food started to taste different, things she once liked to eat suddenly tasted…off.

It’s just the stress, it’s killing my appetite.

She got by believing that for a little while longer…but then came the cravings, food she had never shown interest in before she was suddenly craving with a fiery desire that made her drool.

“Peppers?” Soo-ha watched as her papa’s brow furrowed, and she felt her own fall with it. “Are you sure, Little Bell? You hate spice.”

All she could do was smile and offer a confused little shrug.

And her papa, her sweet and unassuming papa let out a chuckle. “You’re maturing! They say taste changes with age.”

Though her papa hadn’t meant anything by it, his words brought a pang to her heart, one that cut deep into her soul. It was a familiar pang, a hollow one.

Soo-ha came up with excuses for the fatigue, blaming it on overworking herself in the archives. She even came up with excuses for the tenderness in her chest…

But then came certain things that she couldn’t excuse, and that’s what ended up scaring her the most, the things she couldn’t write off to give herself a moment more of peace.

There was no excuse.

Not this time.

But still, whenever her papa noted her gradually worsening condition and rose concern she’d smile and double down. It’s just a cold, papa. She’d shrug her shoulders. You know how these things can be…you know how they are.

U-Jinn allowed this to placate him for a time…but by the end of the second month, just a cold no longer cut it for him.

And now here Soo-ha sat within the infirmary of the monastery. Out of the corner of her eye, she could see Chieko, a rather skilled healer who had retired to the monastery after receiving a particularly nasty blow to the head during the war, lounging at her desk, a cinnamon stick poking out of the corner of her muzzle. Chieko had been sitting there a long time; the silence hung thick between them until the healer spoke up, finally breaking it.

“Y—you knew this for a while, d—didn’t you?” Her stutter was a bit more subdued this time, Soo-ha could tell she was putting in effort to do so.

Soo-ha tensed her jaw and kept her head low.

With a soft sigh, Chieko rose from her desk and moved to sit next to the smaller, younger Pandaren. “L—look, I’m not going to j—judge you.”

Soo-ha refused to look at her.

Chieko continued. “You’re not the f-first to hide a s-secret boyfriend. Y-you see plenty of cases like this in the villages. It’s not a big cause for s–shame.” Chieko then tried to offer a reassuring smile. “B-but U-Jinn is r–reasonable, you know t-this! He’ll b–be happy.”

Soo-ha sincerely hoped that her words were false, she couldn’t imagine this being so widespread. The mention of her papa caused her heart to tighten in her chest and Soo-ha’s bottom lip quivered. The thought of lying to him scared her…but the thought of him knowing the truth scared her more. Oh, the shame he would feel… His voice seeped into her head once more, a poisonous whisper. If he knew of the things you got up to in your spare time

Noting her silence, Chieko’s brow furrowed for a moment and her sage green eyes lingered on her…until there was an abrupt knock at the door which caused Soo-ha to jump. Chieko noted this reaction as she rose to open the door, pausing at the sight of whoever was at the door. “Huili Silvershadow.” She addressed the Wukao coolly. “Y-you wounded?” Soo-ha felt her stomach flip, a wave of anxiety induced nausea sweeping through her violently, sending the fur along her spine standing up on edge. It was him.

The large male gave Chieko a smile, teeth idly showing through his lips. “I hope it won’t disappoint you to say that I’m not. I just came here to stop by, I heard U-Jinn’s girl is feeling a bit under the weather?”

Chieko blinked, taken aback. “Yes…he d-dropped her off.” Out of the corner of Chieko’s eye, she could see Soo-ha stiffen, both ears perked upwards in an alert position, like a rabbit listening for the breathing of a fox. So fitting that Huili was often referred to as one.

“Oh, excellent. Are you finished with her? I thought I may do my friend a favor and escort her back to their quarters.” Huili’s light tone contrasted with his wandering eyes, as though attempting to see past Chieko. On the surface, his intentions were as innocent as they came, but her keen ears picked up on the slight ripping of fabric as anxious claws curled into the cushion of the examination bench.

Suddenly, it clicked.

Soo-ha didn’t want to go with him.

Chieko’s claws tightened a bit on the screen. “S—she is present, yes. But f-far too unwell to move.”

Huili’s eyes snapped to Chieko with speed that would cause a lesser to flinch.

But it did not move her.

“Really now?” His head cocked. “What’s the matter with her?”

“S—severe case of a cold. T-the foreigners b—brought back new strains with them. Y—you know how it is.”

Huili stared at Chieko.

And Chieko stared back.

With a chuff, the Wukao agent eased back, nodding. “Of course, yes.” Folding his arms behind his back, he bowed his head. “I’ll let U-Jinn know…do prescribe her the best, yes?”

Chieko made a faint affirming noise in the back of her throat and she watched Huili turn and disappear around the corner. Slowly, she shut the screen door and stood there…ears perked as she listened to his departing footfalls until they were as faint as a ghost. She then turned around and headed back to her work station, sifting through the bottles.

Behind her, Soo-ha had retreated in on herself, claws removed from the cushion and instead, pressed into her biceps as she hugged herself.

The sight broke Chieko’s heart. “L-look…you d—don’t need to tell me anything. I don’t think…there’s a—anything that needs to be said.” Plucking a bottle free from the shelf, she eyed it over, adjusting her glasses.

Soo-ha blinked, looking up as the taller Pandaren approached, holding out a small bottle of…something?

“…Y—you should know though, t–this isn’t a secret t–that can be kept forever.” Chieko nodded down at the bottle. “N—no one else needs to know that….this was more than just a cold.” Soo-ha stared at the small bottle, shrinking away from it a bit at the implications. Noting her reaction, Chieko chuffed gently. “T–there’s no shame in it, S-Soo-ha…you don’t n–need to make the decision now, but t–think about it, yeah?” There’s no shame in it. Soo-ha stared at the bottle, the glass cold against the pad of her paw.

Was that all it could really be?

Just a cold.

#pandaren #warcraft oc #world of warcraft #short story #daily writing challenge #thecozykirin #trigger warning

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popculturebuffet · 1 year ago

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More Than Meets the Eye Retrospective: Shadowplay (Issues 9 through 11) (Patreon review for Brotoman.exe)

Hello all you happy autobots and welcome back to my look at more than meets the eye, long delayed due to a lot of scheduling delays, a draining move, and general shenanigans. But it's finally time for us to take a look at Shadowplay.

Shadowplay is easily one of the most important arcs of MTMTE, not only seting up a lot of character backstory, but also fully establishing Roberts vision of Cybertron past that he dabbled with back in Chaos Theory, a place where the senate is corrupt, the Decepticons are slowly planning a coup that will sadly turn from righteous rebellion into nightmarish dictatorship not unlike what they replaced, and functionism lingers in the background. And at the first time I read this arc..

While I liked it well enough, being a tense story that characterized Optimus well and gave him spotlight at a time when he wasn't in any of the comics on a regular basis, it still felt a bit like a neat side tangent.

I've come around since then for a number of reasons: The first is, especially on re-read this arc is REALLY good and in a continuity where Optimus didn't get to shine that often, it's another character piece that makes me sad he never joined the lost light. He got to lead but this really gets to who he is as a character and shows him at his best. It also has plenty of nice depths for the autobots featured, and seeing who they were pre-war really adds some layers and shows just what the war did to each and every one. The other is simple: I was reading the story for the first time. And sometimes something extraneous at the time ends up being important. In this case both how cybertron used to be is vital to the future of those who left it behind. So with that's lets do a little shadowplay and see how the past will ultimately nearly destroy the future...

Content Warning: Self Harm and Suicide Is Discussed

We open in pre war cybertron, some time after the last time we saw it in chaos theory. The Decpticon movement in in full swing, and two bots are discussing the recent clampdown, basically a bunch of curfews and othe rnonsense to try and fight back against them. But one of these bots, Nightbeat isn't remotely convinced this will work while his buddy Quark

Sadly not that one, is paranoid about it and assumes they'll force Alt Mode Changes when they get in power. While they'll do much worse, remember this idea. It'll be important next season. As will Nightbeat.

For now though Quark's casually day drinking is interupted by some blood.. from a corpse hung above

Cut to present day at Swerves where Ratchet joins a group consisting of Rewind, Chromedome, Tailgate, Whirl, Skids, Drift and of course the man himself. Swerve. As for why.... well as put in the page image THEIR GONNA FIX RUNGS BRAIN. After everyone gets a chance to react in shock and disgust and this stupid stupid joke , (Minus swerve who isn't shown reacting and likely helped Rewind set him up), we find out it's not AS obnoxious as it sounds: Swerve is still comotose and Rewind brought them all here to try and fix that on Chromedome's advice. See Domey's figured out why our Psychatrist pal's still in his coma: His body is starting to function but he can't fully heal till his mind does. Hence this exercise: The group gathered here isn't random as it seems: most were involved in a story in cybertron's past, the same one from the cold open, each crossing paths with a certain future robot space jesus. Rewind himself wasn't, but has both archival footage and has talked to some involved, so he can fill in the gaps. As for Tailgate and Swerve.. well Tailgate is just a nice guy and was likely let along so he can learn more autobot history, and Swerve owns the only place they could do this session nice and quiet, only needing a closed sign. (The bar has been reopened it turns out. ). And frankly it's swerve: you think he'd miss anything where he'd have a chance to talk and crack jokes?

So here's where we are: Nominus Prime, one of the senators, was nearly assainated and has vanished since while the corrupt senate we saw last time is only getting more and more strained as the citizens, paticuarlly the aformentioned decipticons, are pushing back more and more.

It's here the first of our familiar faces enters: Chromedome. Dome was working in Mechaforensics, even had a diffrent name but for clarity's sake Rewind is having him use his current one. He's working with Prowl

Who while not as awful as present, still has a rod wedged up someplace uncomfortable, possibly a cybertronian voltzwagon. The plan has all the hallmarks of a decipticon: i'ts pointed straight at the functionist council building, their graffiti is on the back. It's bad. we then get a nice diversion as Skids wants to know Prowl more, as he's going to be a recurring character and all and we get Swerve naturally hurling a ton of insults at the asshole and as for Rewind..

I love how Roberts not only embraced Prowl's tantrum becoming a meme, but decided to just make it a character trait. I also like how both of them can recognize the exact sound he makes It's then time for Drift's story.. which is good because Rodimus is getting antsy. At the time Drift was a drug addict, plugging boosters into his head. Ratchet makes sure to emphasis WINNERS DON'T USE DRUGS.. mostly because Tailgate's present. At any rate he gets hassled by two random dipshits... and stopped by Optimus, aka orion pax at the time, who then procedes to badassily take them both out in seconds. With Drift, known as roller then, comotose Optimus takes him to Ratchet... .. and then procedes to play with him by having the known atheist say adaptus be praised. The two wrestle a bit and Chromedome sidesteps this foreplay by pointing out this dosen't make sense: Apparently Ratchet was already cheif physician> Turns out though Ratchet was also unfufilled, so when Optimus, being optimus, suggested a secret center for addicts since the council , like most goverments, cares not one iota off a shit if people with a serious addiction die horribly, he gladly took it up. It also fits well with his character: Ratchet is older so of course he's already even further into his career, he likes helping and he likes a challenge.

Once he saves the future Drift, he encourages him to make something of his life.. while Drift plans to simply go to a refurbishment clinic and donate his body instead. The present day drift then has to go before Hot Rod tries to rebuke his amnesty.. and that's only half a joke as Drift geninely isn't sure if he can do that and isn't keane to find out. As for what the clinics were, Rewind helpfully explains for Tailgate, who nicely serves as an audience surrogate here. He even has a helpful ad

I also love the repacaging of something most older transformers fans like Roberts would be familiar with and fond of, the g1 manuals, into something fucked up, i.e. an add for cheap and nasty body tourisim. We don't know where it lead but we'll find out later. For now though once Drift leaves... Ratchet finds out there's bigger worries to deal with. Pax gestures to the news, something Ratchet dosen't like already for being state propoganda.. but likes even less finding out Nominus has offically been declared dead. More disturbingly Ratchet realizes their cause of death.. has to be wrong. It's said to be a rusted fuel pump, and the rust spreading to his spark casing.. but his fuel pump was pristine when Ratchet examined him post attack.. and with Optimus already theorizing to ratchet in a past conversation that the attack was a false flag attack from the senate itself Ratchet concludes not only is the senate behind this.. but they now have the matrix of leadership, all thanks to sentinel prime who no matter the reality is apparently just the biggest dick in existance.

Optimus reassures Ratchet he's not crazy or paranoid: they did clearly do this.. and he has a friend he wants him to meet

On that note we're back to Chromedome and Prowl. And we get another lovely toy based sight gag

Before the results tell prowl their going to Transluctna Heights next, the cybertronian beverley hills. Silciate Palm Trees and energon pools.

We then cut to Ratchet and Optimus who are meeting with the Senator, the same one from the end of Chaos Theory. This still works even if you had'nt read that story, as to me reading this comic the first time I assumed he and optimus had met previously and simply had a history.. and they do as seen with Chaos Theory he's the one who was convinced our hero could one day be a prime. Ratchet is mostly here to throw off suspiscion, since the senator already used most of his captial saving optimus from certain death at the end of chaos theory. That added context will be important in a bit but for now the Senator confirms that yup they killed Nominus for having a fake matrix. The only reason the senator isn't doing anything is because he's smarter than that and knows having a seat is way more useful than wringing Sentinels scrawny tickish neck. Speaking of which, The Senator is genuinely scared of what's going on. Also if you were curious where Megatron was during all of this he is alive, they simply have him on an asteroid mining as killing him would make him a martyr. His mining assignment is, once again, naturally important for later.. just not this storyline.

For this one we close the main story with Chromedome and Prowl investigating the swanky, richest of the rich only district of cybertron.. only to get a body thrown at them.

While we close the issue starting our b-plot for this three pater as we find out WHY Rodimus was so antsy for drift to get there NOW.

Yup... and honestly... this is the rare case where I genuinely DON'T know what happened here. We'll get an explination shortly and I THINK that's what indeed happened.. but I can't be sure for a number of reasons I don't want to spoil. The point is Red Alert's dead and Hot Rod thinks Cyclonus did it.

We see a lot of blurbs and what not on the news. The most important two are Senator Sherma, whose trying to pass a decipticon regestration act.. and if you've ever read x-men you'll know that's a pretty terrible idea and prejudice to boot, while we also get a hint against ratioisim, which I THINK is supposed to be some form of functionisim. For those wondering , Functionisim is basically determining your worth based on your alt mode and what purpose it serves. And if that idea sounds shady, racist and classist, you can see why the decipticons exist.

I also really like Roberts adding these shades to the decpticons existnace: Their still bad people mostly, but I love the idea they sprouted from a genuinely good place. From an opressed working class lorded over by a corrupt senate. It's an exploration of the idea a movement can easily be corrputed. YOu only have to look at say communisim: It's not a horrible idea on it's surface and modled right it can be done well.. and when molded wrong under someone like stalin it becomes an opressive facist state, just as democracy can be molded into one just the same when , as seen with the cybertronian senate, a few powerful folks wield said power regardless of the people's actions. As we've seen with Optimus , Nightbeat and Ratchet there are PLENTY of autobots who fully agree with their message.. they just won't agree with what that message becomes. It's one thing when the message is "take down the corrupt police state we all hate", it's another when the message becomes "Peace through tyranny"... a message really not that diffrent from the senate. The only diffrence.. is Megatron just comes out and admits he's going to rule over you as a dictator while the senate lies and says things are fair while constantly stacking the deck however they like. It makes me really wish Roberts had gotten to full on write the reboot when it happened, but alas, it wasn't meant to be.

Back with the cop plot, Chromedome is chasing around one of the perps on a flying bike. I wonder if you can play card games on it? For now the chase dosen't take much effort as the idiot he's chasing goes into a narrow garage.. that turns out ot be a no fly zone, complete with the cybertronian equilveant of saftey glass.. and being cybertronian that means anything speeding blows up real good. Prowl is already doing what he does best: casing the room and being mildly dimissive. Being an authortarian cockballon comes a little later but joining the police is a good start. That said we see how diffrent he was.. as he ACTUALLY APOLOGIZES

Yes when he finds out about the glass he genuinely apologizes and hopes Chromedome is okay. In the apartment they find both red alert and a decepticon manfesto and shrine. The senator was a secret deciptcion.. and given what else we know it's obvious the senate is trying to clean house of anyone that would oppose them.

Back in the present, Rodimus has turned Perciptor's lab into a makeshift inergation room. And it turns out.. he's taken in Cyclonus for no other reason than he's Decipticon adjacent. That's it. This is pure profling.. and it also provides a really intresting role reversal. Usually when these two talk Magnus is a stick in the mud doomsayer who follows regulations as his one true religion, while Rodimus, hot mess he may be, tends to give people chances and think outside the box. It's essentially a wackier version of Kirk and Spock.

Here though that same adherence to order and regulation that often makes Magnus the butt of the joke.. makes him the reasonable one for a change.

He does.. but only because Drift is unlawfly interogating him. Rodimus is just rashly assuming because decipticon, while Magnus rightly sees he's bungled this whole investigation by unlawfully arresting someone who did nothing wrong, they have no reason to bring in. Drift isn't much better as we see a nastier side to him. While he's a former decpitcon himself he treats Cyclonus hostile and subtly threatens him.. and gets driven into the table in response. While Magnus DOES hold Cyclonus back... if you look at the panel bellow he's not hurting him or anything. He's only holding him to prevent a fight that would only make this more of a farce. And Cyclonus speech makes it VERY clear how much of a farce this is and is honestly CHILLING with the recknoning in police we've been going through as what Rodders did.. is really what MOST police did and many still do

It's a damming speech and shows what Roberts has masterfully done so far and will continue to do: Show that the Autobots, while the good guys.. aren't flawless. We've seen it in how human they are and how goofy they can be... but we wee here the less endearing sides of their humanity, the judgmental side and tencndy to fly off the handle. Cyclonus also makes a valid point: they think winning the war makes them absolute victors.. but Cyclonus, while not impartial, is a mostly outside observer: he AGREES with the decipticon cause, but really isn't one. He can see the self righteousness and tendency to see themselves as absolute right the autobots are devleoping, something festering even worse back home, and he sees the same system that required the decipticons in the first place slowly reforming. And we've seen this cycle: the senate replaces a corrupt mad man, they become corrupt authorarians. MEgatron replaces them, he becomes a power mad dictator. While the autobots have a leg up on booth..there's no guarantee they can't fall just as hard or fast , and this book will more than prove that.

At anyr ate Cyclonus is absolved as First Aid thinks he has it.

Back at the crime scene, Chromedome and Prowl are backed against the wall. Prowl hasn't fought yet so he's scared shitless, Chromedome is enjoying that but it's not really helping the situation.. but someone arrives who does

If you ever find yourself wondering why optimus is in charge.. well it's mostly on the heart and sense of conviction, but if your wondering how he stayed in charge and stayed alive.. this is why.

Prowl then.. yells at Optimus, not only assuming he's a citzen but just being a dick. Optimus then flashes his badge and is disapointed what he heard about Prowl was exagerated. Yes even OPTIMUS FRIKKIN PRIME, PRE PRIME CANNOT STAND PROWL SOMETIMES. Optimus casualy says that Prowls report on all this will just get lost, and Prowl hopes "i'll never be as cynical as you orion pax"... bud.. your already.. so much worse.

Prime plans to follow up but he's wanted ON THE MOON... and I love a job where I get to say that. He's wanted at prison, as it's time for whirl to enter the story. Whirl also gets defnsive when ratchet rightly points out why he's arrested when he tries to blame optimus: He tried to murder a prisoner in his cell. The fact Megatron is evil later.. dosen't really justify it at all, as we saw. The senate were using him as a pawn to get away with worse stuff.

But the fact is by this point Whirl has realized the senate used him, and took away his hands, with a really crushing panel of him admitting why he's brought optimus here beyond REVENGE

They took everything he was from him and he can't do anything to them, as i'm sure many like him can't either. But he can tell optimus there's a plan for a large bombing, a false flag attack.. and to catch the Senator in the crossfire. We also see IMpactor getting introduced as Whirl's cellmate. Naturally for the wreckers there first meeting.. is impactor beating his head in.

One of my faviorite lines in the comic.

Anyways we get back to Prowl and Chromedome , and we get a really intresting bit: Chromedome can tell SOMETHING'S going to give and wonders if they'll survivie it, and while prowl denies it at first.. it turns out as much as he likes to bury his head in the sand at this point in his life, he hasn't buried it straight up his ass like his present day self.

Yeah I kick myself in hindsight for not only not noticing Chromedome and Rewind were a thing, but that PROWL and chromedome were in the past. I"m still shocked how oblivious I was, especially since I picked this one specifically because LIndsay Ellis had mentioned the idw transformers comics had gotten queer. I've gotten better at picking up on gay subtext, intentional or otherwise, but it's still hilariously tone deaf. It's also weird to see Prowl.. actually be romantic. Roberts does the legwork the other book simply dosen't seem to care to do in making Prowl a tragic figure: Sure he's absolutely the worst and Roberts makes no real attempts to prove that. If anything he shows the potetial was there.. but this arc really hammers in that Prowl before the war.. was a far better person. He still was entirley by the book, but he opened up to Chromedome, his partner in both senses, didn't want a war, and generally had good in him. I made a cop joke before.. but Dome IS trying to be good police. He belivies way too much in a corrupt system.. but contrast that to the Prowl we saw in issue 1 and will see again when the crossover comes: an authoratian nightmare who sees his boyfriend trying to get a measure of peace.. and sees it as a waste. Who sees the end of a years long war as just a lull in combat. Who in his own book is carrying out black ops bullshit and stoking tensions between autobots and decipticons. Prowl had the potetial to be what he is now always sure, but he wasn't etched in that. Becoming an autobot made somes lives better.. but for Prowl it just caused him to double down on his worse traits and become an outright monster.

The fight is also just.. sad. Instead of talking through their issue.s. rewind just snaps. He just can't face Rewind's history with Prowl or see that there WAS good in the man whose caused his partner such pain.. but also can't healthily cope with it. Then again as we'll learn heathily coping is not something Rewind's really EVER done.

Back with the plot , Prowl finds out to his fury that Flatfoot, his superior officer despite the name, has leaked his report, proving what Optimus said. Things only get more suspcious when they meet Trepan, the head of the clinic.. and after Chromedome sense ssomething shady, the sinister needle hands are a giveaway, Domey incapcitates the guy and our unambgiously gay duo find the insittute: tons of robtos removing brain moduls, rewiring... even before he became a mnemosurgeon, Domey was already intrested in the science and thus can recognize it. Trepan escapes but our heroes take their valuable intel to Optimus, who had Ratchet and some others round up the good senator from his school for gifted autobots.

Optimus puts all the pieces together while Prowl bitches in the background: Domey and PRowl found a list at the clinic, that turns out to be a list of decipticons regestered as a polictical party. Turns out while Senator Sherma wanted it to LOOK like decipticon attack.. but not blame them right away, getting more cons to register.. then inittating ANOTHER false flag to make it look like the deciptcons betrayed them. As for how.. the how is utterly horrifying: they plan to BLOW UP nominus' corpse with a fake rigged matrix. Optimus' only recourse? They ahve to steal it We're onto the final issue and naturally Prowl thinks this is madness, wants nothing to do with it and is a right asshole as he flees, telling him not to let DOme go on the mission

Dome went to gather some of the senators pupils. I.. .wasn't remotely joking about the x-men comparison: Since the functionists obviously are baffled and apalled by beings who have extra talents beyond their alt modes, the Senator has been shielding them in his building for gifted autobots and brought a few to help: Skids himself is a super learner, able to learn anything in record time, which seems useless until you realize this means he can pick up any skill as fast as the flash and retain it unlike said flash. The others are windcharger, who has telekensis Kyle and Gltich, whose design I like a lot and who can mess up machinery. So in otherwords, Progidy, Hellion and Shadowcat. Got it.

We then break for a second as Ratchet examines rung and Swerve brings some old fashioned nightmare fuel to the party, which this being the comic that it is, is entirely real and requires gloves. When Chromedome worries about this eating up their insides, Swerve reveals this isn't rewind's FIRST session. It's not even his second. It makes sense though: this is a complex prospect and it's not unlikely every autobot here met Optimus at some point.. nor that unlikely that it'd fall apart, hence attempt 3 here. We also get an intresting fact about Rung that will be VITALLY important way down the line

We return to the story to find out this is what likely broke the two up for good, as Prowl, being prowl, just left with no explanation. They still need a full plan but skids having a mini matrix on his face, a religious thing back then the comic dosen't go into gives Optimus an idea: He spends Domey to talk to our good buddy ironfist, pre horrible tragic death. Being a massive fanboy even back then, he's more than willing ot help in exchange for getting his life sized model of Delta Magnus

So now our hero have a fake to swap for the fake. Before they leave on the heist though Ratchet and Optimus' Friend Roller Roller Da

An old friend of Optimus' on the force we just meet here but , say it with me "WILL BE IMPORTANT LATER". This arc could've easily been called "TRUST ME ALL OF THIS HAS A PAYOFF. ALL. OF. THISSSSSSSS. " And it does. One benefit of having to go over these issues with a finer tooth comb than my usual lagomorph lenth attention span allows is I catch just HOW well crafted this story is.

Anyways Roller hacked the system and finds out there's some weird stuff about the guy, a few charges, as you'd expect.. but also the fact Optimus isn't the ONLY person he's been grooming for this roll. Optimus.. dosen't care. He's not naive, he gets the senator likely has backups, and is with the guy not because he's truly buying what the man's selling on "being the next prime" and all that.. but becauase he's a good man in a broken system whose trying his damndest to fix it. A bit creepy sure, but someone he trusts enough to do this. if he didn't they woudln't of gone this far.

We get back to the present.. and it's one of the most heartbreaking scenes in the comic so far. And you KNOW that's already saying something. We find out what happened to Red Alert.. and it was suicide. Granted i'm still not sure it was entirely suicide or if the very least he wasn't pushed further by the knowledge of what was going on and the pressure of his already bad paranoia being kicked into overdrive. I won't know till he comes back. It's handled incredibly well.. including the fact that even now Rodimus makes it about him.. but in a way that just.. punches you in the heart. Rodimus takes it personally, feeling that if one of his crew is suicidal.. he shoudl've noticed. But the sad truth with mental illness is sometimes.. someone is just suffering so bad till they break. As someone who has had suicidal throughts... sometimes you just keep those to yourself till your already on the edge of it. What's worse is while they DID save him... Magnus suggests not putting him back on line just yet. He's understandibly worried given all the trauma it'll just happen again and plans to revivie him whent he misions over or at the very least when they have the time to help him. The results.. are just.. pure pain

Normally when rodimus asks this, it's clear he just wants a second opinon that will likely agree with him.. but here it's very clear from what happens next.. he just DESPERATLEY wants any othe roption, anything but this... and ultimately it's best for red to take a nap till they can help him... rodimus left utterly destroyed. Just the pannleing here is perfect.. it's clear Rodimus feels he failed... and the failures will only add up as the journey goes on. For now though we're back to the finale of our main story: So naturally for a heist the place their breaking into, the Primal Basicla, is super well guarded: any plane that tries to fly by deactivates, pressure plates along the floor to alert the guards, and said guards are trigger happy monsters with the orders to "take alive """IF POSSIBLE""""" which is code for

Thankfully thanks to said no flyzone the top is unguarded so they simply get to work: Windcharger lowers them down, Glitch shuts off the force beams, at great personal pain, and Swerve uh... uses his grappling hook to lower optimus mission impossible style. Hey at least it's a vital job. Problem is the things rigged. WOrse problems are back at base. For reasons unknown, Optimus decided to honor Prowl's wishes and Chromedome was left on sercurity with Roller Roller Da. The Senator assumes Optimus was being paranoid.. when who would it be at the door but hired goons

Who just burned down The Senator's institute for gifted autobots. Back at the heist, Optimus calls on Ratchet, whose roll now becomes clear beyond "Map guy": He was Optimus' backup plan: since he can't disarm the locks he uses reverse psychology on ratchet telling him he coudln't POSSIBLY unlock it in time. Ratchet knows he' splaying him.. but he's wrong and Ratchet does. He almost drops the matrix.. but thankfully Windcharger got bored and uses his telekensisis kyle to lift ratchet back up.

With the heist a success Windcharger starts slowly taking them back.. but Optimus, being twitchy that Roller hasn't contacted him JUMPS OFF THE FREAKING SKY THING AND INTO THE STREETS FAR BELLOW to go after him. Good thing too as he gets there before they can murder the senator. Sadly.. there's no happy ending here. Prequel and all that. The hired goons hold Roller Hostage.. and the Senator being who he is, agrees to go peacefully. The goons TRY to leave a guy for optimus to fight.. but optimus still has the bomb of leadership, hurls it and the senate covers it up the same way they covered up the academy. Gas leak. the silent killer. What's worse is while Optimus and Domey head for the instutitute.. it's already cleaned out.. and Domey also has a horrifying realization about the name: it's called that.. so people THINK there's only one. As he explains in narration, there turned out ot be one under EVERY refurbishment clinic.

So with that... it's all over. For now. There's no real happy ending... in the past. in the present though as the defcon klaxons ring... RUNG SPEAKS. This whole plan worked. Back in the past though we get one final coda as some creepy assholes plan to do the oepration on the senator, a complete personality swap.. a turn to logic.. and iwth that we find out just who this guy is.. and it's one of the most chilling, brilliant and tearjerking moments in the entire comic

Yup one of the nicest bots in transformers.. becomes a cold murder machine who will soon, or likely sometime next year for our purposes, nearly destroy all of cybertron. Someone who might of created a better future as Cybertron's greatest hero.. has become it's greatest monster. My jaw dropped when I read this and now having read dark cybertorn and knowing how the other side of this story plays out for him overal.. it's just an utter gutpunch. Even when I wasn't a fan of this story, I LOVED this ending.

As for shadowplay itself.. it's excellent. It's still not relaly one of my faviorite arcs, as it's one of the heavier ones, but the heist in the third act is great, there's some nice backstory shading and like I said that final twist is fucking phenominal. I'ts a story that only gets better as you see every piece it sets up for the rest of the comic fall into place, and on reread the red alert subplot fucking broke me. It's a great story Next Time: .. is in september, as I was SUPPOSED to take the summer off to do Beetlemania, which is now too far ahead to not do, but mtmte returns in september for an annual as Magnus takes the spotlight and a lot of stuff sure does happen. Thanks for reading.

#transformers #transformers more than meets the eye #optimus prime #ratchet #orion pax #prowl #chromedome #rewind #swerve #whirl #red alert #drift

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darkbluesky96 · 9 months ago

Note

Hello ❤️❤️

I really hope you are doing well with your studies and taking plenty of breaks to rest and *sleep*!

Did I see you mention listening to the magnus archives 👀 Which episode are you on, who is your favourite character and which episode did you find the most fucked up!!! (I promise I'm usually a lot more chill, but I have been looking for people to talk about TMA for YEAAAARS 🥲)

Thank you!! (Do you have a nickname I can use for you?) Breaks aren't really in my destiny right now - 12-15 hrs each day even the weekends - but I can tell it's going to get better soon. I've been having a lot of good days recently, so that's nice

And yeah I've been listening to the magnus archives, I'm on the first season I think: the bone turners tale, ep 17.

So far I really liked Joshua Gillespie- the guy who froze the key in an ice bowl to prevent him from opening the 'do not open' coffin. Like, the one character who would survive all horror movies, just nopes out of all plots 😂 but I don't think he's in the main cast so

I also like Jonathan Sims, he's so cynical despite being the archivist of a literal paranormal institution?? I always look forward to his comments on each story. Other characters have only been mentioned by him so far, with one small appearance of Elias, warning him not to mess with their patrons the Lucas family? Maybe more characters will appear the more I listen? As of now, I'm really enjoying the stories. Don't know if I have a favourite one yet, but what's up with this Jared Key guy? Like, for other episodes, I have some rudimentary explanation that okay that's what was happening here, but I don't get what's happening with this guy. I've got so many questions, but maybe other episodes will clear them up for me

This ended up becoming an essay 😂 hope you don't mind. I'm beginning to feel like like this might become a new obsession for me

#the magnus archives #personal #Ask

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duckingwriting · 2 months ago

Text

Unexplored

Day 2 of @flufftober - "Left! Other Left!"

Rating: General Audiences Archive Warning: No Archive Warnings Apply Category: Other Fandom: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon Relationships: Magmarashi | Quilava/Alligates |Croconaw, Partner Pokemon/Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) Characters: Magmarashi | Quilava, Alligates | Croconaw, Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon), Partner Pokemon (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon) Additional Tags: Flufftober2024, POV First Person, Ambiguous/Open Ending, ambiguous/no gender for narrator

Surprising no one it is up on AO3 and bellow the cut!

Spending time as a Pokemon was not exactly how I planned to exist. It was definitely not high on my list of 'things that will happen in my lifetime'. Training them? Yeah. Befriending them? Of course. But being a Pokemon was not on my list. At least I didn't think it was. After all, I had once been human. At least that's what I remember. Not that I remember a lot. Actually I remember very little so maybe being a Pokemon was on my list. Who knows. Maybe I never was human and it's all some delusion or trauma response. But whatever the case may be, I am a Pokemon. I am-

"Quillava," Croconaw's voice jerks me out of my wandering thoughts and I turn my attention towards him. He's grinning at me, he's always grinning, but this one is the fondly exasperated smile he gets when he realizes I haven't been paying as much attention as I probably should be.

I brush my hands down my chest and sooth my fur down offering a half smile as an apology. "Lost in thought, sorry. What were you saying?"

"You're all good." Croconaw's claws tickle through my fur as he pats my shoulder and I force myself to resist leaning into the touch. I know that no matter what I may feel Pokemon don't form more than friendships outside of species. It's something I've observed over the time I've had my memories since Croconaw found me. So even though I'm still not sure how being formerly human, or imagining I was formerly human, may be affecting me. I can't risk how they may affect him negatively. I can't risk him deciding that rescuing me that day and forming a rescue team with me was a poor decision.

"I was asking if you thought we should ask someone else to join us today or just us?" Croconaw straightened the bandanna around my neck before smoothing his own out.

"It's just tiny woods. I think we can handle it just us?" I wanted to give him the option of asking for someone else. In case I had let something slip. In case he didn't want to be alone with me. His grin widened and he gestured for me to lead the way. I moved quickly, pausing only long enough to be sure we had the missions information for anyone that needed something from where we were going in our pack. I left it mostly empty, after so many years the tiny woods were as familiar to us as my flames. Even with the growing disturbances, any fight we got in there we could hold our own. And if we did get in a tight spot there were always things to find to help. Plenty of berries and even items on occasion.

The steady slapping of Craconaw's feet against the soft dirt sent comforting trails through my soul and made everything feel lighter.

There was honestly nothing noticeably different about this trip than any of the hundreds of others we had gone on. We marked our paths as we went, found useful items to collect, and moved on. We talked and joked and fought when we had to. It was a comfortable trip.

Then I stepped on a trap.

It was a trap unlike any we had encountered before. It somehow transported us out of the tiny woods and left us in an unfamiliar place. With far too much water to be comforting. I had lost consciousness and was woken up to Croconaw shaking me awake. His eyes creased with concern.

"Oh thank Arceus." Croconaw breathed out when I pushed myself up with a groan.

"Where are we?" I asked, looking around. "Are you okay?"

"Better than you." He answered by looking around. "You broke my fall."

I looked up but didn't see anything above us that would be any kind of escape.

"A transporting trap?"

"It seems like it. Maybe we activated an orb or something?"

I nodded my head, though I could tell my Croconaw's voice he was not any more confident in that than I was. I let my flames burn a little higher to give us more light to look around the cave we were in.

"There's some tunnels." I said with a nod. "Do we wait here for rescue or..."

"No one is even going to know where we are. We reported going to Tiny wood." Croconaw sighed and started forward. I pushed myself up and moved to walk next to him, careful not to get close enough to burn him with my flames. We took the right tunnel. We wondered for hours, eating some of the foods we had gathered from the woods. There was often water crossing our path that forced us to go around. Well me. More often than not Croconaw would start swimming in it. We were both on guard as we had yet to find anything to tell us where we were.

Nothing looked familiar and that was unnerving given how much exploring the two of us had done together.

We eventually found a large room with a crumbling statue. We approached carefully and started to examine it. We couldn't figure out what kind of Pokemon were in the carving or if part of it was human. It was far too decayed for that. But there was a plaque made of some kind of metal with words carved in. We could make out the words 'human', 'Pokemon', 'escape', 'together', and 'return'.

"An escape rope maybe?" Croconaw looked towards me and I shrugged my shoulders.

"Co-ca-ion?" I said trying to make out more of the words but it was hard to tell where the breaks were. "Co-fe-ion?"

"Maybe ions are important?" Croconaw suggested tapping his claw against one of his fangs in thought.

"I hope that doesn't mean we'll be trapped for eons." I laughed at my own joke even if it was more nervous than not. Croconaw's laugh was even more strained. We turned away from the rubble and started to look around the cavern a bit more to see if we could find anything more that we could use. There was sudden shaking in the ground and worrying cracking sounds from above. I screamed when a rock suddenly landed nearly on me.

"Quilava!" Crconaw was running in my direction as I bolted towards him.

"It's collapsing! Get to the tunnels!" We both adjusted our directions though he hesitated a moment looking at me worriedly.

When he made it to the entrance Croconaw did not enter instead turning to look at me as I dodged the falling rocks. Trying to watch where I was going as well as what was coming down on top of me. The groundbreaking beneath my paws at a worrying rate.

"Left! Your other left!" Croconaw shouted when I started to dodge to his left instead of mine. He rolled barely avoiding being crushed. I scrambled to get my feet under me and bolted again as swiftly as I could, my flames hissing when Croconaw shot water at boulders to send them further off course from crushing me. Then a large gaping crack opened between us.

"Right. NO left. no....no....no." Croconaw was looking both ways trying to see which way I should go to get to him.

I clenched my jaw and focused all my power on going faster, I could see how long the crack was. It took up the whole room. It was getting larger and larger. If I tried to find a way around there was no guarantee I would be able to get across. If I was going to jump I had to do it now before it became too big. I closed my eyes as I pushed off the ledge not wanting to see myself fall to my death, which seemed to be a likely outcome.

"Quil!" Croconaw's voice roared in my ears as I felt the edge of the other side. I scrambled for purchase as it crumbled beneath my weight and I started falling. Croconaw's clawed fingers wrapped around one paw while the other hand dug his claws into my shoulder. I cried out in mild pain but scratched at the wall until we managed to pull me up and into the entrance of the tunnel. Croconaw had his arms around me and I made no effort to move as he held me close panting in my ear. My flames nearly died as the adrenaline left me and the shadows wrapped around us.

"Thanks." I panted and rested my head on his shoulder.

"Don't ever do that again." Croconaw growled and I could feel his claws prickling at my shoulders. "I don't know what I'd do without you."

I lifted my head. He had never quite sounded like that before. Before I could question it, light suddenly flooded in and we blinked turning our heads to see Team A.C.T. I felt Alakzam's powers wrap around us and felt as Croconaw's claws were reluctantly pulled from my fur before we were lifted up. We were sitting on the ground and I immediately recognized Tiny Woods.

"Perhaps next time you two want some alone time together," Charizard was smirking at us and I saw Croconaw look away in embarrassment. "You should not go to an unexplored area."

"Yeah. Right. Thanks for the assist." I mumbled as the older team laughed at the two of us. They escorted us back to town. Their teasing about young love made me send looks at Croconaw. I expected him to dispute the statements but he kept his red eyes down and did not look at me. When we made it back to base he was shifting nervously from foot to foot and still not looking at me.

"You know...it's kinda late." I said slowly and his shifting stopped. "If you wanted to spend the night at base...with me...?"

Croconaw looked at me suddenly and blinked. "It'll feed what they all gossip about."

"I'm okay with that." I whisper, I couldn't get my voice any louder. I knew I was possibly crossing a line. But then Croconaw was grinning again and it no longer mattered what anyone else thought as he rushed to my side.

As we walked into the base, warmed by my flames, I decided I didn't much care one way or the other if I was human at one time or if I was always a Pokemon with delusions. I had Croconaw at my side. And as long as we were together, that was enough for me.

#flufftober2024 #day 2 #Pokemon Mystery Dungeon #Magmarashi | Quilava/Alligates |Croconaw #Partner Pokemon/Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)#Magmarashi | Quilava #Alligates | Croconaw #Player Character (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)#Partner Pokemon (Pokemon Mystery Dungeon)#POV First Person #Ambiguous/Open Ending #ambiguous/no gender for narrator #my writing #dux writing #duxwriting #writblr #fanfiction

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genericpuff · 2 years ago

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pals, holy sweet mother of-

i was NOT expecting my asks to explode this last week after turning on anon asks

but i guess no one 'expects' explosions otherwise they wouldn't be as effective LMAO

so this is gonna be a general PSA/update to how I'm gonna be doing asks from here on out

my asks are currently a combination of LO crit, questions about Rekindled, and questions about art in general

I said a while back that I would try to start stepping away from LO crit because it just doesn't feel right to me anymore to continue discussing or giving attention to a comic that's flat out morally bankrupt. I stand by that original statement but I've been bad at actually, y'know, putting it into action LMAO Part of it is because 1.) picking apart LO is still very fun, and 2.) it's hard to talk about Rekindled without talking about LO because Rekindled was obviously built on the criticism and disappointment I've had for LO over this past year. If LO wasn't on fire right now, I wouldn't have any kindling to fuel the production of Rekindled.

That being said, as a general PSA, I also don't want people to take my opinion as some kind of Bible. Obviously a lot of people come to my blog because they share similar opinions and enjoy seeing my own takes on them and that's fine, but if you're someone who hasn't read the comic, while I'm spiteful enough to not want to see LO continue to gain attention, I still implore everyone to do their own due diligence and read the comic to come to their own conclusion and opinions, whether or not they happen to match up with my own. Because yes, sometimes even my own takes can be unfounded or easily refuted, and I don't want to be encouraging hivemind behavior from the crit side of the community either. I'll always encourage y'all to come to your own conclusions about the comic and argue my own takes if you wish, just be ready to bring proper defenses and an open mind because I don't tolerate sealioning.

SO!

Going forward, for the sake of my own sanity and fingertips, I'll be mostly prioritizing the following kinds of asks for public responses on my blog:

Questions/discussion about Rekindled

LO-related criticisms IF it's something new or interesting that hasn't been discussed before (because at this point I'm starting to repeat points that I've already made tons of times before or have been made by others that are easy to find through the hashtags or through archives)

Art-related stuff that's got a specific goal in mind. I have a few asks in my inbox right now that are along the lines of "how do you get better at art" and I can't feasibly answer that question in one blog post because that's like asking how one learns quantum mechanics. There are just too many facets of art to go over that I can't reasonably cover, and I'm one person, there are plenty of tutorials, lessons, and communities online that can give you way more varied resources besides just my own singular experience. So if you want to ask art questions, be specific, like if you want to know about shape language or how to do specific digital art tricks or something, that's fine. Just no general "how do I draw" type questions because straight up, learning how to draw is a long-term commitment and can't be covered in a single blog post LMAO

However, I don't like leaving questions unanswered for people either (many of you take much of your own time to send me these massive essays comparable to my own and I'd hate for it to feel wasted) so when it comes to questions that I do want to respond to but not pile up in my blog, I'll simply answer them privately from here on out. It just might take me a bit longer to get back to them so please be patient <3

#lore rekindled #lore olympus critical #anti lore olympus #genericpuff #genericpuff announcement #announcement #lore rekindled ama #ama #ask me anything #anon ama #anon ask me anything #lore olympus au #lo critical #antiloreolympus

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spockandawe · 2 years ago

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Okay, you know what, I think I'm going to do an impassioned rant on behalf of romance. This isn't a super fresh idea, I've seen much more knowledgeable people than me advocate hard on romance's behalf for years and years, I know people are still actively fighting to get this megagenre the recognition it deserves instead of being brushed off as Literature Lite. But I do want to come at this from the perspective of someone who just doesn't... super jive with the genre. I respect it a lot, romance writers intimidate the hell out of me, and now I have found some books and subgenres that I do enjoy, but that's only been the last year or so.

(I gravitate to sf/f and like a good romantic element, but I'm most happy when it's in support of a bigger plot. The gay lovecraftian historical has background stakes of horrors beyond mortal comprehension, the a/b/o shifter polycule has stakes of slow species extinction, I have more intriguing books marked to read as well. And of course, there's more monsterfucking than I used to imagine, and I am ALWAYS down for imaginative anatomy in my smut)

With a readmore, in case tumblr doesn't auto-shorten right

And what got me thinking about this was the goodreads awards, and the deeply unsurprising win by SJM. I don't like her writing, just 'females' alone is close to a hard no for me, and while I understand the broad appeal of her books, I'm confused and frustrated by the... intensity of their popularity, and I was talking with someone in my book club about it, who feels similarly. My very, very uncharitable knee-jerk take was that there's a lot of young adults who want to read about sex, and don't realize that the romance and fanfic communities have already done it better.

That's not fair of me, to be clear! I am also a person who chooses sf/f-with-romance-subplot over a sf/f romance book. I might find her worldbuilding choices trite, but I'll still mumble at length over how the belgariad and mallorean are actually a lot of fun if you give them a chance. 'Alphahole' might make me emit pterodactyl shrieks of irritation, but so do most of the names in goblin emperor, and I have lots of friends who very much enjoy that book. I stand by my opinions, but my personal tastes are not an objective measure of quality or enjoyability.

And, because I think it has to be said, I think there is absolutely NOTHING wrong with people wanting to read about sex. Nothing. The growing puritanism of the wider internet is extremely alarming to me, and I have no patience with it. I think my archives make it plenty clear that I'm down with smut, I only started writing period because I wanted more atla:lok kink than I was finding, and my archives used to make it very clear that I was equally down for sexy art. I'm terminally online, immersed in fandom, one of the fics I've worked with most for bookbinding (and have plans for in the future) is a space clown bdsm xeno epic. Plenty of sex to be found on ao3 and I just said I don't read much romance. So what gives?

Smash cut to podcasts. I listen to podcasts. And I've tried many times over to find a fandom podcast I jive with. I haven't yet, and I don't think that's the fault of the podcasters. I've got high hopes for the hs reading podcast, for example. But I also remember the first time I realized transformers podcasts were a thing (circa mtmte 47), and opened up an older episode to find the hosts (circa mtmte 13) having an earnest discussion about how rewind might have been attached to dominus ambus, but it seems like maybe dominus ambus owned him, and rewind cared for him as a good master. When the episode was recorded, the comics weren't overtly gay yet, there was no reason to believe they'd be given the thumbs up to GET gay, but it still made my skin crawl to hear about this couple that I knew were husbands, and the podcasters chatting about how one probably owned the other, and I noped out and never went back.

That was a running theme, to my frustration! When podcasts talk about characterization for stories I know, I've got strong opinions. I either have conversations about those with a carefully curated group of friends, or i place opinions forth into the void on here without expecting or particularly wanting conversation about it. And the written word moves faster than spoken, I can read a 15 hour audiobook in less than a day, the time sink of bad tumblr takes versus bad podcast takes is very different. And. Even worse. Sometimes fandom podcasts wade into DISCOURSE. I don't want this. I have a nicely pruned dash, I scroll quickly, and still I could use less discourse. I still get flashbacks to the transformers barbarian au debacle. I really don't want this.

I did realize, eventually, that fandom podcasts were just not working for me. I was tense waiting for discourse and ready to fight the empty air about bad characterization or analysis. But even worse than that, a lot of the time I was bored, I didn't want to hear a detailed critical breakdown of hp when my ancient interest has faded to dying embers. I've never cared about spn or dr who. I want to get into the podcast about shipping dynamics, but it's hard to get excited when I know that I'm just not INTO a lot of the big megaliths that people will rave about. Or, I'm interested in something and haven't consumed yet (ofmd) and I'm staring down the barrel of spoilers for a story I want to experience. But I want to HEAR people discuss what makes the farmers look at the story fields and say 'yep, should be a good crop of praise kink this year'

Frustrating!!! Anyways, back to romance. Romance podcasts.

Because you know what? I can get a LOT of that same content, about character dynamics and interactions and smoking hot sex scenes, and I can get it all delivered with the same fannish delight and enthusiasm it just comes with slightly different packaging than I experience myself online. I forget what pointed me at fated mates (and many of their trailblazer episodes are eye-opening, especially when they interview some gay and lesbian romance pioneers), which was nice, but I started subscribing to podcasts they recommended, and found a HOME with bonkers romance.

I'd been kind of feeling this in the back of my head, that the way these people scream over stories together was very identifiable, but something didn't quite CLICK until bonkers romance that this is really parallel (or divergent?) evolution. Just on behalf of sexism, I was already outraged over the broad dismissal of romance. But then I hear the hosts losing their minds over an absolute batshit story, like, idk, the spidertaur alien and the human who crash-landed on his planst, and how he's trying take care of her and she's not quite REALIZING that yet-- These are, very much, my people! There's a historical romance where a widow is trying to get Ruined to avoid a new marriage and shyly confesses to her new sex-club-owning beau that she's always wanted to kiss a woman, and he arranges a scene where she does that! The hosts go nuts as much as I do! This novel is a bdsm awakening sans impact play but with HEAVY praise kink tied into low self-worth! This one is about a nice young man and his boyfriend, the terrifying smoke monster!

I did decide to wander over and rant about this at length when they were discussing one of the 365 days movies (glorious? sexy? delightful? yes, apparently. good? ehhhhhh) and had a side tangent about how romance novels were so formative and how Stories With Sex were important to them as they grew up, and trying to GET them in a pre-internet age. They're at least 10ish years older than me, I think, I was split between internet awakening and novels (mccaffrey, auel). And the discussion was so familiar, about how fiction is a space for young folks to be introduced to some of these ideas and work through them on their own terms, I won't rehash it, we've all seen it before. And THEN there was further discussion about how the 365 days story has set things up so that a happy, satisfying ending would have to be a triad, right? They doubt it's going there, m/m/f is a long shot for Manly Mafia Men, but the conversational beats are exactly what I live for.

And, looping back in the fandom podcast thing again, I'm getting all this without character analysis I disagree with, I'm getting it without the fandom disk horse beats that I dread, and I'm getting it without spoilers for stories I want to consume. On the occasions a story intro has intrigued me enough to read ('as if', 'unhallowed', 'manix'), I've jumped to the next episode until I can consume it, and that has gotten me reading romance for the first time ever, and shocker, I enjoyed it! I don't think it'll ever be my primary genre, but my tastes are pretty established, and it hit those notes. I am having a FANTASTIC TIME, and I can relate to these people going nuts over X romance book perhaps better than I can relate to people going nuts over, idk, supernatural

This is too long but I'm too deep to stop now! If anyone reads this far, I'm sure to some of you, I'm preaching to the choir. I know there are fandom people who read romance already. But I want to wave this vaguely at people who are uninterested in romance, or who think there's a hard and fast line between fanfic romance and ofic romance. I've already read queer ofic a/b/o and monsterfucking and polycules, and I've barely scratched the surface. I think it is good for people to read both fanfic and ofic, but it's not my job to be the reading police (my solution: be too distracted to read either one), but even without reading, I think it's a worthwhile community to absorb, and to observe. I'll listen to a youtuber dissect a video game I'll never play for hours, and bask in new knowledge acquired. This is very similar, but even more aligned with my own creative/consumptive preferences, and I think more people should try it. I would come up with a strong concluding sentence but my awareness that this is too long has tripped over into profound self-consciousness so okay we're done, bye now, hahaha

#long post/#romance #?#i guess #not a very taggable post op!

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