#This was all I could think when Ash was talking to that ghost

[thelordofgifs]

For the prompt thing, number 24 on the Silmarils list; choked with weeds and slime? IDK seems like a line you could do something interesting with.

Another one I’m answering a year late, but have some War of Wrath-era Elros and Elrond growing slowly apart! Thank you for the prompt 💕

“Just a little further,” Elrond says confidently, raising his torch. It does very little to illuminate the dank forest path ahead of them, but he does not seem deterred. “We’ll know it when we feel it.”

“Elrond,” Elros says quietly, trailing after him. He is not used to this position – not used to being the one to doubt. For so much of their lives it has been the other way around, has Elrond followed Elros charging head-first into wherever his will led them.

“You remember,” Elrond insists. “Naneth told us that the air inside Melian’s Girdle was cleaner and purer than any she had ever breathed since.”

Elros inhales, takes in the stench of rot and decay that clogs the forest, and thinks with longing of the clean salt air of the Sea. “The Girdle was fallen almost before Naneth was born,” he says. “It is not here, Elrond.”

“The forest will remember it, even so,” Elrond says. “Doriath was once the most blessed realm in Beleriand – and we its last heirs! It will remember us.”

Too often these days, in Elros’ view, does Elrond’s talk turn towards the power of memory. It makes him uneasy: he does not like to feel the edges of a rift between them, to understand so little the drift of his brother’s thought. Perhaps it is the knowledge of burned Sirion, and all that was lost with it, that haunts Elrond now – or perhaps the long shadow of Amon Ereb, that mausoleum in which they came of age, where the sons of Fëanor mourned the lost days of their glory, and Maglor’s every lullaby was half a dirge.

Beleriand was splendid once, it is true – but the land is breaking now, and the interminable war drawing into its final act, and Elros is more concerned with building something from the ashes than weeping for what was burned. But he does not know how to say this to Elrond, who is still leading him towards the forest’s heart, where Menegroth once flourished.

“Do you even know how to enter the city?” he asks instead. The path, choked with weeds and slime, clings unpleasantly to his feet and makes a squelching sound with every step. “The hidden entrance may now be lost.”

“Not lost,” Elrond murmurs, his voice losing a little of its bravado. “Perhaps it has forgotten itself – but we can call it back.”

“And how long will that take?” Elros argues. “Elrond, my men are waiting for me. I have not the time for a fool’s errand.”

Elrond turns back to look at him for the first time. For a moment Elros is oddly glad of that, that he might still capture his brother’s attention with a sharp word: but the thought is almost immediately followed by a hot flash of shame, for hurt flickers briefly in Elrond’s eyes. It is the sort of thing Maedhros used to do, in his worst moods – goad and goad until at last Maglor gave him some reaction, often too imperceptible for the twins to see. Elros does not want to be like Maedhros. Does not want to think of Maedhros, wants to shake off all the clinging ghosts of his childhood and look now to the world ahead.

But: “It ought not take long,” is all Elrond says, mildly.

They walk in silence, Elros breathing through his nose. He thinks again of the Edain under his command, whom he left waiting at their new outpost a little south of the forest. It has been long enough since he and Elrond last went away on an adventure of their own, for Gil-galad cannot often spare his brother from his duties, and Elros too is a commander in his own right. Besides, he did not think his men would understand their object: most of them have grandparents too young to remember Doriath before its fall. Still he does not like to abandon them, does not want them to think him just another elvish princeling, a stranger to mortal troubles and mortal woes.

But nor could he have let Elrond set out on this quest alone.

In the silence Elrond begins to sing a canto of the Lay of Leithian, of Lúthien dancing in the forest glades to Daeron’s music. Elros joins him, for their voices yet ring stronger together than apart – but he can put little conviction behind the song. The forest that his foremother loved is dead now, and so is she – they cannot resurrect her with their poems and their songs, necromancy dressed up as memorials, she is fled where they cannot reach her. Elros wonders if she was glad to do it.

Elrond’s eyes keep flitting between the dark, foreboding tree-trunks, as though he cannot quite understand why they do not become green and fair again under the influence of his song. At last he stops singing, a little frustrated now. “I cannot find a way,” he says, “it is all dark and rotten.”

“Well, there have been all manner of foul creatures crawling through these forests since Doriath fell,” Elros says sensibly. “I would be surprised were it not polluted.” 

“Why will it not cleanse itself?” Elrond says, his voice barely above a whisper. “Why will it not remember how it used to be?”

Every two years or so Elrond will come to Elros with a plan to reach out to Maglor and his brother, and bring them before Gil-galad to face justice and redemption. Each time Elros tries to make him understand how impossible the idea is – and it works, for a year or two. 

He is not accustomed to thinking of his brother as childish – not accustomed to feeling so very old as he does right now, seeing the stunned bewildered hurt on Elrond’s face.

“It is tired, Elrond,” he says. “Let it sleep.”

For a moment Elrond’s face crumples, and Elros thinks he must weep; then he says, quite calmly and cheerfully, “Well then, we had best be getting you back to your men,” and sets his course for the forest’s southern border.

The victory feels hollow, to Elros: but then, they all do. 

[acebabecd]

FCG: Do you ever wanna talk about your emotions, Orym?

Orym: No

Ashton: I do!

FCG: I know Ashton

Ashton: I'm angry

FCG: I know Ashton

[clanwarrior-tumbly]

can i get a scarlet/violet gang x ghost trainer reader who lets their ghost types possess them for pranks ?

This took a minute to think about until mochi mayhem dropped--then I got ideas haha

...........

During the events of Mochi Mayhem...you seemed remarkably unfazed by Pecharunt's "curse" spreading throughout the village, finding it more amusing than frightening.

And it's because you were no stranger to being possessed yourself.

Your first experience occurred after a Spiritomb's soul got separated and found you as a temporary host while you were exploring some ruins in Paldea (with your poor Fuecoco at the time being terrified for you).

Fortunately it wasn't an aggressive one, just a scared lonely spirit that was piloting your body around until it was reunited with the other 107 souls of that Spiritomb....which turned out to be a shiny!

In a show of gratitude, it decided to join your team--and soon you found your true calling as a ghost type trainer.

So you've picked up other ghosts throughout your journeys in Paldea, Kitakami, and BB Academy.

At some point you trusted your main team enough to allow them to possess your body.

Initially, they only did if they believed it was necessary (ie saving you from a fall or sudden Pokémon attack).

But then you decide to let them do so for pranks and such--mainly reserving those for whoever bothered your friends, while other times your friends are the hapless victims.

Exhibit A: When a BB Academy student is harassing Kieran over how he used to act, you see him getting upset and have one of your Shiny Spiritomb's souls possess you, enabling you to creep up and stare at the bully--all behind his back without him ever noticing you.

He's confused when they suddenly look terrified and run away....and then he slowly turns around, screaming a bit upon seeing your face in the likeness of a Spiritomb (like in that one episode of Journeys where Ash gets possessed by one).

You feel bad, especially after the soul leaves your body, and you promise that you'll never do that again.

Although he is grateful you saved him from that intense moment.

Exhibit B: You're hanging out with Penny at your house, watching her play some horror game on your console.

Your Gengar gets the mischievous idea to turn the lights off and possess you, creating a creepy atmosphere all around the house, making your friend paranoid of whether the sounds were coming from the game or elsewhere.

In hindsight, it sounds hilarious..but you forgot Penny doesn't fw horror movie tropes like that.

As she commands Umbreon to attack you out of pure instinct-

Only to see you and Gengar get forcibly separated and hit the ground hard.

Knock Off was no joke.

She apologizes but is a bit annoyed bc she couldn't save her progress thanks to your "prank".

Exhibit C: While Arven is giving Nemona, Penny, Kieran, and Carmine lessons on the art of sandwich crafting, you stroll over with some purple mochi, offering it as a dessert.

Obviously they decline, seeing Pecharunt literally hovering beside you and wondering if you already forgot what happened.....and are horrified when you shrug and eat one, your eyes turning purple.

Yet before anyone can fully freak out, you just laugh and start talking normally.

To make a long story short, you and the mythical 'mon came to an agreement that you'll eat the mochi it provides as long as it doesn't make you do anything harmful (like battling) or anything ridiculous (like dancing and saying "mochi" nonstop) while possessing you.

It's still mischievous at heart, of course. You'll allow it to have a little bit of fun considering its troubling past.

Exhibit D: Your Skeledirge was the first 'mon you used the Synchro Machine on after arriving to BB Academy, walking around and battling wild Pokémon in the terarium for a few good hours.

This "reverse possession", however, left some adverse effects on you even after desynchronizing...as for several days you developed a habit for singing, could taste smoke in your breath, and even your partner's little fire bird companion decided that it wanted to nestle atop your head.

You realize what a funny prank this could be.

So you pull up to the cafeteria to the "date" Drayton invited you to and freak out the rest of the Elite Four (except for Crispin who immediately realizes you own a Skeledirge and thinks you're awesome).

That also makes for a rather...awkward reunion with Kieran who thinks you've seriously gone off the deep end, and you drop the act right away.

But he's too caught up in the idea of battling you and winning to care about why tf you're possessed rn.

[xxresi-rotxx]

i just need leon x f!reader angst where he goes off on reader🙏🏽🙏🏽

I’m always down for an angsty prompt! I feel like there are so few of them (or I’m garbage at finding them lmao) either way, enjoy😘😘

I was going to have Leon absolutely scream at the reader but wasn’t sure how harsh to go so I made this pretty mild😅I left it open incase you crave a harsher part 2🫢😏

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

Leon didn’t want you on this mission. He advocated against it. But did the President listen? Of course not.

“I’ll feel better knowing you aren’t alone out there Leon.”

Would the President really feel better if he had known he’d basically just given Leon another person to worry about?

Leon had worked with you in the past, chatted occasionally when he saw you. You were a great field agent and one hell of a shot; but Leon couldn’t deny the way his stomach would flip every time he saw you.

This mission was supposed to be in & out. Find Ashley, bring her home. So why the fuck does it seem like every ghost of his past is coming to haunt him? The ties Luis has to Umbrella, Ada’s interference, the death that haunted him everywhere he went; it was exhausting. Maybe it was the exhaustion or the way he kept jeopardizing Ashley to make sure you were okay that had him yelling at you right now, but regardless of what it was he couldn’t stop.

“Ashley, give us a moment.” Leon grit out before opening the door of the cabin and walking out, waiting for you to follow him.

You followed, utterly confused at what had crawled up his ass and had him so upset.

“Leon what-”

“Are you truly that stupid?” The harshness of his tone and the way he spat the words at you had you frozen. Out of all of the agents you worked with, Leon was always the nicest. The only one you didn’t look down on you for being a female agent.

“Well?” He continued, waiting for some comment on your behalf.

“I-I,” you couldn’t even figure out what to say “what are you talking about?”

“The President insisted you come along, no matter how many times I argued against it, and all you’ve fucking done is made this 100 times harder.”

His eye contact was unwavering and you hated how small it made you feel. It didn’t help that he towered over your figure physically either.

“What have I made harder? I’ve done nothing but help you and Ash-”

Leon’s laugh cut you off; it was laced with venom.

“Bullshit y/n. Ashley is our priority or did you forget?”

Was he referring to earlier? When you saved Luis?

“Are you seriously yelling at me for saving a life?”

You were starting to get angry, this wasn’t the Leon you had heard all about from everyone in the agency.

“He would have made it just fine, there was no reason for you to risk all of our lives for some dick.” He spat.

Your face flushed between a mix of anger and a mix of hurt. You were used to comments like this from the other douchebags who didn’t like you simply because you were a better agent, but not from Leon.

“You don’t honestly think-” he cut you off again.

“Why did you want to come on this fucking mission, huh?”

‘To work with you’ the thought died on your tongue before you actually answered.

“I’ve had to save you more than I’ve had to save Ashley, what did you want to just make my life this much harder? Prove yourself, is that it?”

He was just like everyone else, your heart ached at the thought. You had been so excited to work with Leon, to see his tactics up close, to help him.

“Fuck y/n are you even listening?!” He got closer to you now, suffocating the space around you. His eyes trained on yours.

“I’m not trying to prove anything.” You barely got the words out, realizing your voice was so low he probably didn’t even hear it.

Leon scoffed, turning away from you and running his hands through his hair.

“You could have been killed.” He spoke.

You almost didn’t hear him, his voice eerily quiet.

“What?” You questioned, so confused by his mood swings.

“YOU COULD HAVE BEEN KILLED” he screamed back at you, before pulling a gun from his hip and shoving it into your stomach.

“Do me a fucking favor okay? Protect yourself before you try to protect others.”

Leon couldn’t figure out how to voice his concern for you. His emotions coming at him in waves he couldn’t control. He was furious you kept risking yourself for others, furious you were even in this hell hole. He was amazed every time you shot someone he didn’t even notice, truly awed that you kept such a positive mentality, but his strongest emotion right now was fear. Fear you wouldn’t make it out, fear he would be forced to save Ashley over you.

None of this made it’s way across to you. Instead you felt like a burden, like another agent just in the way. The man you looked up to was no better than everyone else, and you suddenly found yourself tongue tied. Your eyes beginning to water.

You took the gun he shoved at you, and slid it into the waistband of your pants. You refused to meet his eye contact now.

Your lack of eye contact didn’t go unnoticed, but Leon was too frustrated to care. He pushed past you back into the cabin, not bothering to hold the door for you.

There was no doubt in your mind Ashley heard everything. She probably thought you were a burden now as well. Could this mission get any worse?

[ghosts-bandwagon]

Hi, could you write headcanons about 141 + könig with a femreader who has a lichtenberg scar? 🫶🏻

That’s metal af I love it! For those who are unfamiliar this is what they look like (from what I could read online, they go away after 24-48 hours but tend to leave some tenderness behind so for the sake of the prompt, we’ll ignore that!❤️)

Simon ‘Ghost’ Riley:

Goddess? Goddess. He’s got some crazy scars but they pale in comparison to the pattern on your back

Sweet lord the first time he saw it, he was in shock, mind racing a million miles a minute, his first thought being that someone did this to you and he was ready to turn the world into ashes just to find them

As soon as you explain to him that it was in fact lightning that created the scars, for the first time in his life his jaw goes slack and he is at a loss for words

His fingers run over the patterns with a feather light gentleness that no one (but you) could ever attribute to him, his cold fingers soothe the warm skin and you can’t help but close your eyes and enjoy the sensation

John ‘Soap’ MacTavish:

He already thinks you’re otherworldly, but after seeing your scars, you’re downright ethereal

At first he thought the fern-like patterns on your arm were a tattoo, it wasn’t until he ran his fingers over it that he realized it was a scar

Like Ghost, his knee jerk reaction is to jump to the conclusion that someone hurt you and he feels awful for thinking it was a tattoo, but when you explain that it was from a lightning strike, he doesn’t believe you

“Bonnie, do you know how astronomically unlucky you have to be to get struck by lightning?” (Just show him the pictures you first took after it happened and the discharges from the ER and he’ll shut up)

His favorite thing to do is run his fingers over the patterns, especially when you’re lounging together, whether it’s on the couch or in bed, he is mesmerized

John Price:

He’s heard of them but he’s never seen them in person, at least until he met you and he saw the pattern peeking out from under your shirt

Since he’s heard of them, he’s not as surprised that it’s from lightning, he’s more shocked that it happened to you of all people

He understands that it can get sore so he’ll offer to help rub a soothing cream into the raised skin on your chest

He warms his hands before applying the lotion and he gently glides his fingers up and down the weaving patterns, his palm soothing the aching skin, his eyes unable to leave the intricate patterns on your chest, he’s in awe of you

Kyle ‘Gaz’ Garrick:

Holy shit, love, he thinks you’re positively glowing, a literal goddess among men, you are an anomaly, a one in a million chance personified

Body worship? Body worship.

He is watching you as you explain it with stars in his eyes, his fingers are tracing the patterns on your leg, he is hypnotized

He’s kissing every inch, and massaging the areas his lips can’t reach, and when your scars to ache he’s right there, ready to soothe the skin with some lotion and light touches

König:

He’s heard of them but he’s never seen them in person, honestly he wrote them off as being something that happens in movies, if that

Even when he sees the pattern on your arm, he thinks it’s a tattoo and very confidently compliments it

However, when you gently tell him it’s actually a scar you got from a lightning strike, he’s back peddling like his life depends on it

Please stop him before he talks himself to death, he will not take a single breath in between his apologies what was supposed to be an innocent compliment has definitely become a core memory poor guy

His heart is pounding when you take his massive hand in your smaller one and have him run his finger over the raised skin, he’s holding his breath, he’s in complete awe of you, liebling

[lovebugism]

blurbcember request! : missing their loved ones when everyone else spends time with theirs w either Steve or Eddie x reader <3

thank u for requesting angel!! — you spend the holidays with the munsons after losing everything at the battle of starcourt (established relationship, hurt/comfort, tw for mentions of grief and panic attacks, 1.5k)

blurbcember ˚ ༘ ೀ⋆｡˚

It hits you out of nowhere. The weight of unimaginable grief.

You’re on Eddie’s couch one moment, laughing into the hot cocoa he made you — and the next, it’s 1985 and you’re at Starcourt all over again. 

You can smell the ash as the mall burns to the ground and feel the evening mist soak your skin until your clothes stick to you. Your throat burns with the ghost of the scream you let out when the soldiers told you your dad died. 

You didn’t react. Not at first. You figured it must’ve been a mistake. That’s what you told them — you’re wrong, you’re wrong, you’re wrong. You repeated those words until they turned to sobs. 

Steve took you in his arms before you fell to the ground. Then you screamed. You don’t think you stopped screaming until your body shut down from the exhaustion.

You feel like that all over again. Five months later and you haven’t stopped reliving it.

Eddie knows. He can see all of it. You’re as bright as sunshine one second, then as grey as rain the next. He doesn’t know the extent of what happened to you — what really happened to your father or why you were at Starcourt in the first place — but he can tell it did a number on you.

He tries hopelessly to make it better. “You alright?” he mutters to you. His arm around your shoulder tightens to keep you from straying any further. His ringed fingers squeeze gently at your arm, and you remember where you are. 

You blink until the haze fades and nod on instinct. It’s muscle memory now. What could he do if you were honest? you wonder to yourself. What would it change?

“Is it the hot cocoa?” he asks, even though he knows that’s not really the problem. He wants to bring the light back to your eyes, maybe, or just get you to talk at all. “I made it with water this time instead of milk. Do you want me to—”

“No. It’s okay,” you interject quickly, voice meek and taut.

“Okay…” Eddie wavers and tries to settle back onto the couch. It’s hard to because he’s so tense now. He’s rigid with the knowledge that something’s wrong — with the heartache of not knowing how to help you.

You curse yourself when the tears come on.

They burn the very backs of your eyes, stinging like falling ash from burning flames. You can smell the smoking brick and the blood and the cologne of the Russian soldier that nearly killed you. You’re on Eddie’s couch, but you’re back there at the same time. 

You know you shouldn’t be crying, but you don’t know how to make yourself stop.

You blink hopelessly at the ceiling and pray that your blurry vision will clear before the tears spill over. Then you start to sniffle, and your emotion becomes rather obvious. You don’t want to cry. Not in front of everyone. Not in front of Eddie.

“Can I— uh— can I use your bathroom?” you stammer, trying to sound halfway normal even though the words come out coated with wet emotion. You’re looking ahead of you instead of over at Eddie — ‘cause you know he’d see right through you otherwise.

“Uh, yeah. Of course,” he answers, a little confused because you stopped having to ask a long time ago. 

He wants to ask you what’s wrong, but you’re gone before he can. His cold hands curl around his warming cocoa, fidgeting because they don’t know how to do anything but hold you.

You sit on the lid of the toilet seat and run the faucet while you cry. You bury your face in your palms, rocking back and forth in a feeble attempt to comfort yourself because you’re still learning how to do that on your own.

You’re so used to calling your dad the second something goes wrong. You don’t know who you’re supposed to lean on now. Eddie, maybe — but who are you to put that weight on him? He’d carry it no problem, but the burden shouldn’t be his. 

You just wish you knew where to put it, all this grief you have. 

For now, you bury it with the tears you pour into your palms. When you manage to coax yourself to stop crying and get your panicked breathing back to normal — in for 4 counts, hold for 7, out for 8 — you flush and wash your hands like you were doing anything but breaking down in Eddie’s bathroom.

You can’t get anything by him, though. Literally. ‘Cause you nearly run into him when you leave.

He’s idling awkwardly outside the door, looking almost as surprised to see you as you are to see him. Chocolate eyes wide, pink mouth softly agape, bushy brows raised beneath his curly bangs. “Shit— Sorry—” he stammers.

You sniffle and hope you don’t look like you’ve been crying too hard. “What are you— What are you doing?” you ask, voice weighed down with leftover emotion.

“Nothing. You just— you looked a little upset, and I wanted to check on you,” he shrugs, trying to play it cool. Then he gets awkward and cowers. “And I was gonna knock, but… then I got… nervous.”

You’d fake a laugh if you thought it wouldn’t take all the strength you have left. Instead, you shrug and pretend like everything’s still normal. Pretending is all you have now, anyway.

“I’m fine.”

He knows you’re lying. You always look down at your feet before you lie. Your eyes are swollen and glassy, too. You’re obviously everything but fine, but he doesn’t want to press the issue too much. He doesn’t want to make the unknown any worse.

So, in lieu of a thousand things he could say, he asks you — “Wanna smoke?”

You don’t smoke. He just doesn’t know how else to get you alone like he wants. 

You nod because you know he’s trying. 

His racing heart settles a little.

You end up on the edge of his childhood bed while he finishes off a joint. The scent is a comforting one — slightly skunky, but mostly of Eddie’s sweet cologne. He lies on his back while you sit above him, knees curled behind you with an arm beside you to prop up your weight. 

His chestnut curls are sprawled out along the plain grey sheets. His eyelids are heavy, gaze as dark as melted chocolate. His lips are rosy, and so are his cheeks after a couple hits. He looks a little like a Renaissance painting.

Eddie, meanwhile, is still stewing in his worry of you. He’s happy to sit in silence, though. Mostly because he knows you don’t mind it, either.

“How do you always know?” you blurt before you mean to.

He grows suddenly alert at your question. “Know what?”

You shrink inside yourself because you hadn’t meant to say that out loud. You were so deep in your thoughts you were practically drowning in them — swimming in oceans of grief and love and everything in between. 

You’re lucky you found Eddie when you did. Luckier ‘cause he always knows how to handle the mystically delicate being you are. You don’t know how he does it.

You stammer for an answer. “When I’m… I didn’t know… When I’m—”

“Sad?” Eddie finishes for you.

Both of you know it’s deeper than that, but you nod anyway. “Yeah…”

He shrugs lazily. “I don’t know… I just have a sense for it, I guess.”

“Like Spiderman?” you tease softly, a quiet smile hinting at the corners of your lips. Your nails scratch gently at his scalp. He leans into your touch like a cat.

Eddie grins wider, happy to see you happy. “Exactly like Spiderman.”

“Wow… I can’t believe my boyfriend has superpowers.”

“Well, you better believe it, baby. ‘Cause I know every-thing that’s going on in that pretty little head of yours.”

Your hand stills and your eyes go wide. You don’t want Eddie in your head. It’s too messy in there. How will he still love you if he knows all the darkest parts of you?

“That’s a scary thought,” you say, trying your best to laugh it off. 

“Doesn’t have to be,” he assures in a voice so soft you could cry. His palm is warm as it rises to smooth across your jaw, ringed fingers calloused and gentle on your cheek. “It’s not easy for you to tell me what’s going on a lot of the time, right? So I gotta use my super cool mind-reading powers to take care of my girl, you know?”

You love him so much you could cry. You don’t want to cry, though. You’re far too happy for that. 

You don’t realize how big you’re smiling until Eddie smiles back at you. 

“See?” he singsongs to you with a pink grin on his lips. “Not so scary, huh?”

“You make everything not so scary,” you insist quietly, your smile even quieter. “Like a teddy bear.”

Eddie beams at your words. If he can make all the bad things he can’t see not so bad for you, he’ll wear the title of Teddy Bear with pride.

His arms curl around you in a flash, dragging you down to the mattress so he can wrap you in a smothering hug. You squeal a laugh into his shoulder. You forget to be sad.

[ki-yomii]

careful | jjk

➥ pairing | jeon jungkook x f!reader ➥ word count | 2.2k ➥ warning(s) | 🔞 smut; dom!jk, sub!reader, dirty talk, mild dom/sub dynamics, orgasm control/edging, slight brat kink, slight brat tamer!jk, pet names, degradation kink, praise kink, mild dacryphilia, finger fucking, sub drop, pussy smacking, wet & messy ➥ summary | you should always be careful what you ask for ➥ notes | what's that - posting a fic that isn't any of my wips/requests? more likely than you think 🥲

i started writing today with the intent to work on my vampire jk fic cuz spooky season. instead, i found myself here... i'm sorry 💀

also i’ve seen enough run episodes to know you don’t want jk’s hands smacking you anywhere 😬

🩷 masterlist | inbox | AO3 🩷

“Look at me, baby.”

The low warning cuts through your muffled whines, Jungkook’s weight pinning you to the wall. Thick fingers grind deep inside your cunt, digging into your g-spot mercilessly.

Pressure builds behind your hips, borderline painful as you shift around in a vain attempt to dislodge him.

“Don’t make me repeat myself,” he says, “You know better.”

Whenever Jungkook speaks, his voice scrapes down your spine, low and whiskey rough. His chest is a long line of heat, plastered to your front from stem to stern.

The rapid gallop of his heartbeat echoes your own rabbit-fast rhythm, the scent of his cologne clogging your nose and clouding your thoughts.

He bites out your name, the palm shackling your hands above your head squeezing your wrist. Blunt nails dig into the delicate skin of your pulse point.

A silent prompt you know better than to ignore. And yet, the temptation to do so is almost too much.

Keen awareness roots low in your belly, dripping down between your thighs like candle wax. Your thighs tense with the strain of controlling the involuntary drop of your hips; the urge to rock down into his touch choking the breath from your lungs.

“I…”

The instinct to comply is almost Pavlovian. After all, you’re Jungkook’s good girl, aren’t you? Loved and fucked and trained to his liking.

(But how can you be good when he looks at you like that? It’s just not fair.)

Being good all the time is boring.

No. Your mouth snaps shut, and any response you have turns to ash on your tongue. The words catch on the backs of your teeth like candy. Not this time.

“Why are you being like this, huh?” Jungkook’s brows shoot towards his hairline, his dark head ducking to try and catch your eye. “I know I taught you better.”

How could you ever forget the rules when he’s fucked them into you so thoroughly? Took you apart piece by piece only to stitch you back together in his image - his precious little darling made to take his cock and swallow his cum.

“You really don’t wanna play this game with me right now. Trust me.”

Breath lodging somewhere in the middle of your throat, and tasting suspiciously of regret, you shake your head and dig your heels in. Resist the urge to crumble at his feet, beg for forgiveness with your mouth, your hands.

It’s already too late to back out - it’ll just be worse for you if you do.

Jungkook might hide his less… savory traits better than most, but you’ve experienced his greedy kisses firsthand, felt the tug of his teeth and tasted the salt of his skin. Heard his ragged moans honey sweet in your ear, felt the harsh grind of his body along yours.

When he smiles, it’s wicked, "Last chance. Show me those pretty eyes of yours, baby.”

Anticipation hooks behind your navel, stomach swooping as heat curls up in the valley of your hips. Blood rushes in your ears, starting as a slow thrum that crescendos into a rapid drum. Your heart tattoos itself into your ribs.

Licking your lips, your refusal shudders from you in a throaty rush, “No.”

A low hum fills the following silence, noncommittal. The mounting tension threatens to strangle you, sets your teeth on edge. Sparse hairs at the nape of your neck prickle.

And then, before you have time to consider taking it all back, plush lips ghost over the hollow below your ear. Whisps of dark hair whisper over your skin, soft and ticklish. Shivers race down your spine, spread through your fingers and toes.

“Alright, have it your way,” Jungkook smothers his words in the tender slope of your neck, “but remember: you asked for it. Don’t come crying to me afterward.”

Readjusting, Jungkook’s broad shoulders curve forward and the slackened hand on your wrists renews its grip. The cold tip of his nose traces along your jaw, inhaling the perfume of your silken skin.

An exhale shudders from him in a vulgar husk of breath. When you clench around his fingers still buried inside you, he laughs low and mocking.

“Damn, baby, your pussy’s just sucking me in. You really wanna cum that bad?” Kisses pepper up the side of your face, skirting the side of your mouth. “Heh, yeah, I know you do - such a dirty little slut.”

“Oh!” You sigh, sparks sizzling through your limbs, as Jungkook flexes his fingertips playfully against your swollen g-spot. Your hips tilt into the touch. “Hah…”

“That feel good, huh?”

A low keen escapes when he draws your earlobe into the moist heat of his mouth, his lips clamping down while the sharp points of his canines roll the tender fat. Little kisses of pain burn, brighten the arousal blooming deep within you.

“Yeah, of course it does,” Jungkook breathes, his voice low and husky in your ear as he strokes at your fluttering walls. “Just look at you.”

Unable to swallow the broken gasp of his name when he hits your favourite spot at the right angle, you tremble against his chest from where you’re pinned and squeeze your eyes shut, “J-Jung--!”

Holding up your own weight on weak knees is an endurance sport - one you’re losing as they bow and shake, threaten to give out. At the same time, your arms feel like lead, going numb from having them suspended over your head for so long.

Head light and floaty, your nails bite into the backs of his hands as a sharp spike of pleasure slices through you. “I’m--”

“Gonna cum soon?” Jungkook asks, the devilish grin tugging at the corners of his sculpted mouth more a baring of teeth. “Don’t lie to me.”

At your frantic nod, he tugs his fingers free from the tight clutch of your body with a sloppy squelch. Slick oozes from your cunt in a sticky rush that wets your inner thighs, your gut clenching hard with hollow satisfaction as he rips the ebbing flow of your orgasm away without warning.

“Shit!” 

The noise you make at their loss is low and wounded, tears brimming in the corners of your eyes. Your body locks up so hard your stomach aches, walls fluttering as a cramp knots up behind your hips.

Your swollen clit throbs with angry sparks of pain that make you whine and wince, orgasm thoroughly ruined.

“W-Why did you…” Voice cracking around a hiccupping sob, you pitch forward into his powerful chest. “Jungkook--”

“You know why.” His reply cuts you off, chilly and brusque, while he stares at you without remorse, “I gave you a chance to change your mind.”

“But I -”

“Stop.”

Sniffling, you peer at him from beneath damp lashes.

Breathless and feral, Jungkook stands before you a vengeful god, robed in shade and shadow. It’s criminally unfair how good he looks; jaw clenched, eyes twin black holes that threaten to pull you in.

Harsh, hooded, hungry as they trace over the tear tracks cutting lines down your cheeks, the quiver of your lips. In moments like this, he’s as beautiful as Belladonna and twice as deadly.

“I don’t know why you’re even trying to sweet talk your way out of this.” 

If his glare alone wasn’t enough to curb your tongue, then the shuttered expression carved into the planes of his regal face would.

Displeasure sits heavy on his brow, tucked into the corners of his mouth like an ill-fitting mask. Then his hand is slipping between your shaking thighs once more, the backs of his knuckles dragging over your abused, messy folds.

Jungkook hums when you sigh, jolt at the touch, and says, “Now, shut up and be a good girl for me.”

It’s deliciously painful, like blowing on numb fingertips in winter. Your legs spread wider to accommodate him on instinct alone.

Head rolling back to rest against the wall, the cool stone heaven on your sweaty neck.

And then a strike, viper quick, lands on your exposed pussy. Your reprieve ripped away and smashed at your feet as the wet, sloppy sound of an open palm making contact with tender flesh almost drowns out your wounded cry.

“A-Ah!”

You flinch away from the touch, flickers of pain pulsing through your sensitive clit. Nerve endings burn with sensation. Tiny cavities pepper your field of vision, the world a blurry kaleidoscope of color through pooling tears.

It’s hard to think, harder to breathe through the lingering throb and mounting shock.

Jungkook didn’t hit you too hard (he knows your limits), though he may as well have with how hypersensitive your pussy is. And still, amid prickles of pain, fresh arousal gushes from you to soak the length of his palm.

Cooing, he says your name, his lips cradling the syllables like a precious secret as his hand rubs circles over your mound. “Are you finally going to listen to me?”

Air hisses through your teeth as his fingers dip into your entrance, and it’s all suddenly too much. You drop too far, too fast. Lost and left adrift. Small. Fragile.

Heart lurching in your chest, the bitter ache throbbing in time with your pulse. Reminding you of how empty you are.

Sobs drip from your lips like dew drops, unintelligible words frantic as they break through the great, heaving gasps, “J-Jungkook, I can’t… Please, ‘m sorr- I can’t.”

“Oh, baby. You look so pretty when you’re such a fucking mess.”

Your breath hitches.

It feels like your skin’s too small, stretched tight over your bones until you’re bursting at the seams. The slightest touch will make you shatter to pieces, scattered across the floor like shards of fine china. 

Before you spiral too far beyond his reach, Jungkook guides you back, keeping his voice low and gentle in your ear while he shushes your warbling sniffles. Affection softens his smile, his eyes dark with perverse pride.

“Stop crying,” he chides tenderly, circling your clit with a ginger thumb. “You’re fine, promise. I’m here, I’ve got you.”

Kisses wick away the last of your tears, sweep over the delicate skin of your undereye.

“You did this to yourself.” Jungkook searches your eyes for confirmation, his brows furrowed and lips pursed. “You know that, don’t you?”

You nod, albeit stiltedly.

There are always consequences when you try to give him a taste of his own medicine - some worse than others. This time, you took things a little too far.

Now your cunt’s going to suffer the consequences of your stubbornness, but maybe if you butter him up beforehand…

The bob of his Adam’s apple captures your attention, your eyes tracing over the slope of his jaw, the tick of muscle as he grits his teeth.

Gnawing on your lip, you weigh your options.

You both know you hoped this would happen when you started acting bratty. Jungkook knows your dirty thoughts and filthy fantasies, how soaked you get from the thought of being pinned down, helpless.

Forced to take everything he gives.

… It isn’t even a question worth asking.

“Didn’t catch that.” Jungkook’s lips twitch with amusement, his fingers biting into the soft fat of your hip. “Come on, you’ve gotta use your words.”

The despair gripping your throat in a vice loosens with his lighthearted tone. Wetting your lips, you take the first step towards sparring yourself a brutal punishment by apologizing.

“I know it’s my fault - and I,” you swallow the flood of saliva pooling under your tongue, “I’m sorry.” 

"Mm, apology accepted." Jungkook hums, tracing the seam of your puffy pussy. “I’m so lucky I’ve got such a good fucking girl all to myself.”

Heat sinks into the apples of your cheeks, your thighs clamping closed around his wrist. There’s no denying the needy twitch of your hips at his words. A pleased rumble vibrates through his chest and into yours.

“Yeah, you like when I call you a good girl, baby?”

You whine, your eyes rolling back and your lashes fluttering.

Heat pulses through your belly in rhythmic waves, the residual pleasure from your interrupted orgasm kindling to light with little effort. You’d been so close, your body still desperate for relief. Thoughts slow and syrupy, cunt soaked and sloppy.

“Jungkook, please - lemme cum.” You try to rock down on his fingers only for his hand to restrain your hips. ”Fuck! Promise I’ll be good this time - jus’ need to…”

He tsks, saying, “Shh, you can cum all you want.”

“Thank you, thank you, thank-”

“If,” his smile is knife sharp, his eyes full of mischief, his words honey sweet, “you keep your eyes open and on me the whole time.”

Oh.

Oh no.

You’ll be dumb and drooling, starry-eyed and stupid once he stuffs you full. The burning stretch of his fat cock buried balls deep in your gummy walls while the spongy head slams into your g-spot without mercy, your cunt milking his shaft with every gushing orgasm fucked out of you. His name a holy prayer on your tongue.

There’s no fucking way.

Jungkook knows you barely remember to breathe once he’s on top of you, let alone maintain eye contact. Your inevitable failure will taste all the sweeter when it fizzles, pops, bursts under the bite of his teeth.

“Wait, wait, wait!”

“Good luck, baby.”

Panic grips you by the throat, your eyes wide and pleading. “Jungkook-”

“You’re gonna need it.”

Well, shit.

[moody-alcoholic]

Epilogue

It's over so here is my opportunity for a quick TED talk.

I do have idea's for some one shots in the future, so the fic won't be 'finished' but the main story is. I am also very much open to suggestions.

For now though this is the end for this fic. I want to say thank you to everyone who loved the story and followed it. To all the people who binge read it in one night. You have no idea how much it means to me.

I want to give a special thank you to @void-my-warranty for inspiring me through her work to bite the bullet and write a smut fic. If I was to dedicate this work to anyone it would be her. Thank you <3

I will write more Ghoap x reader in the future but for now I’m shifting my focus to my other work and the upcoming Johnny x Simon fic I have been working on. I always strive to improve with every work I put out there, so if you like this check out my other works they’re all a little different.

If you want more Ghoap stuff I will leave some recommendations here, there are so many talented authors out there who deserve way more love then me so go forth and enjoy!

Recommendations. A Dichotomy of Thought - REMEMBERWREN Ghoap x reader Harmless Fun - REMEMBERWREN Ghoap x reader Sundowning - losersimonriley Simon x Johnny Service Dog Johnny - void-my-warranty Ghost/Fem Reader/Soap ——————————

Summary: . Ghoap x Reader, throuple. Reader is female (she/her), army nurse, non descript physical features, names used: Ashe. CW: Mentions of suicide, grieving, mentions of death.

Previous parts - masterlist - Back to the start

Enjoy <3

6 months later

You’re surprised to see Johnny is waiting for you as you exit the hospital after your shift. You throw yourself in his arms.

“I thought you weren't back till Friday?” You say kissing him.

“Price got us on an earlier flight, thought I would come and surprise you.” He says wrapping his arm round your waist.

“Where’s Simon?” You ask looking around.

“Debrief, boring admin work, he’ll be back later.” Johnny says as you walk with him.

“That mean we’ve got the flat to ourselves?” You nudge him as he leads you to the car. He chuckles.

“How’s civilian life treating you?” He asks as you both get in. You quit the military a few weeks after what happened with Jack. Price managed to pull some strings and get you honourably discharged. You joined the reserves, it felt right, keeping just a little connection. You got your old job back at the hospital, the same one you and Chloe worked in. It was nice to see old faces, and new ones too.  

“You know, same old same old. We planted that tree for Chloe. You should have been there it was lovely.” You say suddenly feeling sad. You rallied with the people from A&E who worked with Chloe and you all sponsored a tree for the patients garden.

Her family gave you her ashes. They just turned up on your door one day. You had them made into a rock, then placed it under the tree. You don’t know if that’s what she would have wanted but it felt right. Johnny’s hand rests on your thigh. 

“What about you, you must have more interesting stories then the ones I have from working 12 hours in A&E.” You say smiling and pushing the tears away. 

“Ah yes, we’ve had some adventures I’ll give you that love.” Johnny says as you drive out the car park. You let him talk the whole way, it had been a week since you’d seen them and you were desperate to spend time with them again. When you make it into the flat Simon is there. 

“Thought you wouldn’t be back till late?” Johnny asked as you run into his arms.

“Price said he could handle it.” Simon says before you plant your lips on his.

“How’s civilian life?” Simon asks, you roll your eyes.

“They planted the tree for Chloe.” Johnny says from the kitchen.

“Yeah, how’d it go?” He asks, looking at you. 

“Good, I think she would have liked it.” You reply. Simon nods leading you over to the sofa as Johnny comes over with a bottle of wine and wine glasses. You cuddle up next to Simon as Johnny pours the glasses.

“What’s the latest with the Masons?” You ask. You hadn’t been keeping up with it but Simon and Johnny’s had, they’d been watching them like hawks.

“They’re in court on Monday, we’ll know more then.” Simon says. It took a month or so but finally people were formally arrested. Almost every family member who was in the military had been dishonourably discharged, and there were even talks of the Americans getting involved and also prosecuting the family.

You were warned you would need to go to court to testify, but you didn’t care. Jack killed himself, left a suicide note, seems the family was planning on pushing all the blame on him so they could try and get away with it. His note was pretty damming, it’s been big part of why they were able to get so many of his family.

They’ll lose their house, businesses everything. Most of them are looking at life in prison. You didn’t want to smile but it was good, justice and you would never have to worry about them again. You feel Johnny pull your legs up on him scooting over to sit closer to Simon. It reminded you of the first night you stayed in their flat. A bottle of wine and shitty police chaser shows.

“I reckon e’ll make it.” Johnny says sipping the wine. You turn to look at him smiling. 

“Don’t be silly Johnny.” Simon scoffs. You look up at Simon. 

"I bet he makes it." You smile looking back at the TV. Simon kisses the top of your head. You were glad they were back and back safe.

"I love you." You mumble as you hug Simon.

"Love you too." He says as Johnny's hand strokes your back. You look over at the TV. They caught the guy.

[rpmemes-galore]

raw lines from a variety of sources ... sentence starters

"Then perish."

"Pick a god and pray."

"Even fate picks its favorites."

"Everything happens so much."

"I pity the fool that lives like you."

"Then become the dirt I walk on."

“Confidence is quiet. You’re not.”

"I am a monument to all your sins."

“You said I killed you. Haunt me, then!”

“Do I look like the kind of man who dies?“

"You cannot kill me in a way that matters."

"If you want me to die you can just say so."

"Violence for violence is the rule of beasts."

"Your secrets are safe with my indifference."

"Will you fight? Or will you perish like a dog?"

"We might be in the history God abandoned."

"I will face God and walk backwards into hell."

"I can’t go to Hell. I’m all out of vacation days."

"The light inside me is broken, but I still work."

"Don't leave me, dear. Haunt me like a memory."

"I commend my soul to any god that can find it."

“I have been through hell and come out singing.”

"I will die on this hill before I bend on this matter."

"You are strong, child. But I am beyond strength."

"If there can be no victory, then I will fight forever."

"I cannot hold back the tide of your bad decisions."

“What an exhausting thing it is to be called a hero.“

"To become God is the loneliest achievement of all."

"You cannot condemn those who build your throne."

"No cause is lost as long as one fool is left to fight for it."

"You kneel before my throne unaware it was built on lies."

"My ancestors are smiling on me. Can you say the same?"

"If God wanted you to live, he would not have created me."

“Love is like ghosts; Few have seen it, but everybody talks.”

“I had all and then most of you, some and now none of you.”

“I hope you heal from the things no one ever apologized for.“

"If you should ever get to heaven, I’ll be there to make it hell."

"No one will know the violence it took to become this gentle."

"You either die a hero or live long enough to become a villain."

"God has cursed me for my hubris and my work is never finished."

"Kill me and live with the memory. Then tell the stars that you’ve won."

"There’s no point in being grown up if you can’t act childish at times."

"You could sooner divert a river from its course than deny my nature."

"We both stared into the abyss, but when it looked back… you blinked."

"I will seize destiny by the throat and force it into the shape of my choosing."

"The anger in your heart warms you now, but will leave you cold in your grave."

"I survived because the fire inside me burned brighter than the fire around me."

"If the world chooses to become my enemy, I will fight just like I always have."

"Do you think God lives in heaven because he, too, fears what he has created?"

"I forgive but I will never, ever forget. Don’t mistake my kindness for gullibility."

“Someday you will have to answer for your actions, and god may not be so merciful.”

"What is better? To be born good, or to overcome your evil nature through great effort?"

“You are alone, child. There is only darkness for you, and only death for your people.”

"You took a pure and beautiful thing, and you beat out everything good, to suit your ends."

"We all make mistakes. That’s what happens when you’re brave enough to make decisions."

“I am not responsible for actions of the imaginary version of me you have inside your head.“

"I think we deserve a soft epilogue, my love. We are good people and we’ve suffered enough."

“They dropped the world on your shoulders and called you Atlas. How long can you hold the weight?”

"I’ve heard it said that we only gain wisdom through suffering. And tonight I intend to make you very wise."

"Stand in the ashes of a thousand dead souls and ask the ghosts if honor matters. Their silence is your answer."

"The world should have protected you, but you have been asked to protect it. What an honor. What an injustice."

"Across all worlds, all times, no matter what you do or what you become: You are nothing less than beautiful."

"The bar was so low it was practically an tripping hazard in hell… yet here you are, limbo dancing with the devil."

"What can one do in the face of such monumental loss but breathe a weary sigh, for the world is a little quieter now."

"I hear your questions constantly. They come to me in my dreams like a prophet receiving visions from an angry god."

"I see now that the circumstances of one’s birth are irrelevant; it is what you do with the gift of life that determines who you are."

"Too many people have opinions on things they know nothing about. And the more ignorant they are, the more opinions they have."

"Always remember that the crowd that applauds your coronation is the same crowd that will applaud your beheading. People like a show."

"One day, you will be face to face with whatever saw fit to let you exist in the universe, and you will have to justify the space you’ve filled."

[sky-is-the-limit]

𝑾𝒉𝒆𝒏 𝒂 𝑺𝒉𝒂𝒅𝒐𝒘 𝒇𝒂𝒍𝒍𝒔 𝒊𝒏 𝒍𝒐𝒗𝒆:

Phillip Graves who would be in denial of his feelings about you. He'd convince himself that you were just another warm body for him to use, another pawn on his chessboard that he'd decide when or where to move. Someone easily replaced, someone only worth an hour of his day.

Every night, confusion invaded his mind. He could not stop thinking about you, where you were, who you were with.. The tremendous question bothered him whether this feeling was love or not. Whether it was some sick obssesion or if what he felt was pure possessiveness for a body he got to taste and hold. Perhaps it was both.

Falling in love with you was the easy part, it just happened. It was admitting it to himself, that was the hardest task he ever had to handle. He could try to run away from it, hell, he tried countless times with accepting missions that lasted months, wishing that time would cure his aching heart.

Until he realised that he could run forever, search forever, but in the end, every path would lead right back to you. Every time the feeling would get deeper, more complete, more bewitching. It was pointless to try. His heart had been alone for so long it was almost unsettling to suddenly have company. To have you.

You never heard him say any words of affirmation nor sweet talk. Never “I miss you” or “I love you”. Phillip Graves never trusted those words. But when he said,

“Let me do that, you're gonna hurt yourself.” It was the little things, really. Going out of his way to appear useful, to delude himself into believing that you needed him even for tasks you could handle yourself.

The Commander inside of him felt ashamed for his eagerness to run to you, to carry your groceries, to change a lightbulb, to wait almost two hours outside of the hair salon so you wouldn't have to take the train back home.. Not Phillip, though. He needed you to need him.

⚜

“Come on, I'll walk you to your car.” Let me spend the last minutes of our time together in comforting silence, his heart admitted quietly. It was the way you instinctively walked closer to him, his warmth radiating safety and protection.

Your love was a quiet emotion that in time became part of the oxygen he needed to breathe, and so though he might've fought against it's existence, any form of removal or the lack of your presence in his life and the emotions would begin to choke him.

⚜

“Don't say something you're gonna regret, sweetheart.” He closed his eyes, took a deliberate deep inhale through his nose, held it for a few seconds before forcing the trapped air out through pursed lips, attempting to calm down his accelerating heartrate and the blood that had starting racing through his veins.

You argued, yes. There were days when you couldn’t stand each other. But every disagreement was followed by a reconciliation that brought you closer than before. It was like watching two magnets, pushing and pulling until they finally clicked into place.

⚜

“It's past midnight, where were you?” His cheeks coloured, and his lips formed a wobbly scowl, bordering on a pout, as he crossed his arms over his chest. It was embarrassing how he spent hours glancing at his watch, then at the door, his fingers drumming an impatient rhythm on the tabletop. He couldn’t sit still. Couldn’t breathe normally. Everything a jumble. Thoughts. Emotions. A cacophony. He was unraveling.

What if you got into an accident? What if you were trapped unable to scream for help? What if you left with another? He had no right to ask such question and yet he did, every time because if something was to happened to you, he'd burn the world into ashes and await the company of your ghost.

⚜

“Who was that asshole talking to you?” The room was filled with people, but all he could see was you. Stormy eyes met your gaze across the room, a silent conversation passing between you. His eyes were fire in water, if such thing could be imaginable. But as he began to make his way towards you, a man stepped in, engaging you in meaningless conversation.

It was fear that brought rage, that hot burning anger that seeked to harm. Fear of losing you, fear of not being enough, fear that you would finally wake up to realise that almost any man out there was more deserving of your affections than a broken soldier who would burn in the pits of hell for his crimes.

His heart sank, but he couldn’t look away. Rage consumed him, it burned in his stomach and he swore he could feel the temperature rising. It felt like a living, breathing organism trying to claw it's way out of him.

His gaze was icy, freezing everyone it touched, making even a crowded room feel lonely until you decided to spare him a look, flashing him a smile that would put even the sun to shame and in an instant his eyes burned with a fire that could ignite even the most dampened surface.

⚜

“Do you, uh, wanna come over?” It felt like he was on fire, that he might spontaneously combust at any moment, like someone had set a slow and steady match beneath his center, deep in the pit of his stomach as you picked up the phone.

Not even an hour had passed since they landed and he was running back to you, like a fiend desperate to get his dose. It was frightening, he felt fragile as though a negative response from you would've crushed him into pieces.

⚜

“ Stay the night.” He still couldn't understand what the fuck you were doing there, being with him, choosing him, tolerating his bullshit on the daily.

He certainly didn’t deserve you, redemption for everything he had done as a Shadow and later in desperation to free himself, forever out of his grasp, never his to claim and yet your eyes seemed to pull him in, a gravitational force he couldn’t resist.

“God, I missed your lips.” And with that, he surged forward to kiss you desperately. It was odd. You were no stranger to him kissing you with desperation, but that felt different. It was soft and longing, like he was chasing something he couldn't have nor deserved to.

Deep within your chest, your heart shattered for him a little. You’ve had your fair share of romantic lovers and flings, you lived a normal life, that was until he appeared with the force of a storm, but you realised that with his line of work, he never had the chance to.

He broke the kiss abruptly and started sloppily kissing down your neck in quick succession, letting his tongue dart out intermittently to lick your skin and occasionally letting his teeth nip at you.

As he continued down over your exposed upper chest over the sweetheart neckline of your shirt, he started falling to his knees in front of you, his hands sliding down over the outside of your thighs to show his devotion, to worship you like you deserved.

⚜

“I'll fucking kill him.” The anger was first seen in his eyes, then a tension in his muscles, an inability to think clearly soon followed. How dare someone upset you? How dare someone speak to you that way? He wanted to lash out in the streets to find them, to hurt them if not vanish them from the surface of the earth.

Seeing your beautiful eyes glisten with tears was the worst type of torture. He wanted to shield you from this cruel world, protect what was his even if he had to destroy everything else as a means to do so. He would do anything for you.

If it meant unleashing his violent temper on those who dared bring you to that state, so be it. He was willing to keep you safe from it, be good to you and unforgiving to everyone else.

⚜

That was when you heard the unspoken words of love in every sentence. Phillip Graves's love was like a blazing fire, burning brightly and fiercely. It was like a lightning strike, a sudden realization that shook you to your core, it really was love. Pure and unconditional in his own messed up way.

At times, it felt like you were drowning in treacherous sea and he just stood there, watching, unwilling to help just to see how far you'd go for him. If you were just as mad for him as he was.

How could you hang on to something so incomprehensible? How could you keep pouring love into an abyss? But then there you were. Always there. There was something in those blue eyes that was so inviting, so safe and intoxicating that you couldn't help yourself nor you'd choose another. 

⚜

The cold night wrapped the world in a frosty embrace, the air crisp and biting. Stars twinkled like diamonds in the clear, dark sky, while the moon cast a silvery glow over the silent, snow-covered landscape.

You sat in silence, but it wasn’t awkward. It was comfortable, intimate. Words weren't necessary to understand each other. A look, a touch, a shared smile was enough. His presence was enough.

“What are you doing out here? You're gonna catch a cold.” Finally, he spoke with concern, battling with the inner Commander desperately asking him to conceal his worry. His eyes were alarmingly smooth, devoid of the wrinkles that often accompany age, as if time itself hesitated to mark him.

“I like the night sky, it brings me peace.” The words came out barely as an audible whisper, like if sharing a precious secret or an embarrassing habit.

He was now standing in your shadow, closing what already felt like the non-existent distance between you. Suddenly, you ceased moving entirely when his hands reached out to place his jacket around your shoulders.

“You have to see the night sky back at home. The stars shine brighter in Texas.” His voice softened as he recalled his hometown that he missed dearly, the gentle lilt carrying a tender affection that warmed your heart.

“Really? Maybe one day I'll visit.” There was a flash of lightning outside, a prelude to the storm ahead to match the electrocuting jolt shooting down your spine as you felt his hand gently find place on your lower waist.

“Or maybe I'll take you back with me.” His face was close enough that you could feel his warm breath tickling your skin as he spoke what felt like a promise.

He didn’t say anything after that nor did you. But he held your hand, his thumb tracing your knuckles in a silent confession. He was yours the first moment he laid eyes on you. Your love was a tumultuous symphony, full of passionate crescendos, heartbreaking solos, and soft, tender interludes. It wasn’t perfect, but it was real, and it was yours. Phillip Graves was yours. Unconditionally.

[itsuki-minamy]

"LSW - EPILOGUE"

TRANSLATION: NARU-KUN

"Hey, Yata, did you know? Scepter 4 members live in dormitories."

That happened when he was eating with Totsuka at the bar counter. Totsuka suddenly said something as if he had always had an idea.

"What is this all of a sudden? I know... that guy told me."

Yata replied with a loud pout.

One day, half of the luggage suddenly disappeared from the room the two had been living in since the end of high school, and then moved into the Scepter 4 dorm, a statement that made him question his sanity. Was this the trick of the cat ears and earthworms?! He thought afterward as he stomped his feet.

Soon after, Yata also left that room. Every time he went to bed, he would notice the emptiness above his head and couldn’t help but feel nauseous.

"So, since it’s a dorm, does it have a dining room or something?"

"Eh? I don't know..."

"I wonder if he's eating enough food. You know, Fushimi is a picky eater, so I don't think there's much proper set menu in the cafeteria. What do you think, Yata?"

"I don't know! Why do I have to worry about the traitor's food?!"

When Totsuka continued to talk insensitively, Yata got angry and slammed his fist on the counter. The plate bounced off and the cup fell over, flooding the counter with water. Fortunately, Kusanagi wasn't there, so he was saved from punishment.

Totsuka looked surprised and took a step back. Feeling awkward, Yata looked down and pulled both fists, including the spoon in his right hand, out from under the counter.

He kicked the empty loft from below dozens of times above his head and fell headfirst onto his bed, clutching his legs and saying, "It hurts!" He yelled at himself... He just couldn't control his anger. He went crazy for a while, venting his anger outside of himself, but when he felt empty and stopped, something suddenly rose up in his throat and he felt an incomprehensible feeling of regret. Although he said he was sorry, he didn't know exactly what he was sorry for. However, for Yata, it was nothing more than a feeling of regret.

He regretted it. He grabbed a pillow and pressed it hard against his face, gritting his teeth so hard that his mouth cut and regretting it no matter what.

"Ah, if that guy changes his mind and apologizes, and says he wants to go back, we'll bow to Mikoto-san together. He's not the type to bow to anyone, so I'll bow to him, and if Mikoto-san doesn't feel satisfied unless he hit Saruhiko, then he'll hit me along with him."

"Well, if King really hits you, will Yata die?! Are you okay?!"

Totsuka was surprised at how over the top he was, so he flinched and said, "Ugh!" For Yata, coming into contact with Suoh's suspicions is scarier than any ghost story or horror movie.

"I... Still, I'm ready. I won't let Saruhiko get beaten up alone."

His voice was hoarse. However, he clenched his fist tighter, stared at the counter, and finished his sentence.

"Yeah, well, I think it's manly to be prepared for that, but isn't it a little one-sided? I wonder if that's what Fushimi wants."

"...? What do you mean? Don't say things like you already know them..."

He felt strangely angry and glared at him. Totsuka had a calm smile on his face as always.

"This is what King and the Blue King look like."

Then, he suddenly started talking again.

"It's not like they're just fighting each other like you think, Yata. Well, it seems like there's a lot going on in Fushimi's position, and it would be nice if we could talk someday... Even... If I say this now, Yata, you still don't get it, right?"

When he laughed at Yata, who asked indignantly, "Are you making fun of me?" Totsuka raised his hands in surrender and said, "Sorry, sorry."

"Well, remember what I said someday, somewhere. Even if I'm not there at that time."

"Hey, please don't say things like you're going to die someday. That brings bad luck."

When he said that in a particularly grumpy manner, Totsuka simply smiled.

++++++++++

No Blood, No Bone, No Ash!

No Blood, No Bone, No Ash!

No Blood, No Bone, No Ash!

As he excitedly waved his fists in the air, stamped his foot, and raised his voice, his surroundings became warm. Yata looked left and right with teary eyes.

He didn't know where they came from, but before he knew it, sparks were dancing all over the area.

It wasn't that... there was light. All around him, his friends were shaking their fists and chanting the same words in unison, and from each of their bodies light was born, like little lives separating. As if calling out to one another, the light gathered, dyeing the white landscape red as it rose into the sky covered in snow clouds.

"Ah..."

When he looked at his chest, he saw that the mark on his body was also exuding a soft red light.

Another light was born from within him and he let himself be carried away by the light of his companions.

He felt that Suoh's flame still resided deep within the mark that remained on his body. The flame filled his body with a gentle warmth. It was as if the fierce anger that Suoh had held within him as a wild king was dissipating and beginning to crumble.

"Mikoto-san..."

Following the light, Yata raised his tear-soaked face.

"No Blood, No Bone, No Ash! No Blood, No Bone, No Ash...!!"

He held the spot tightly and let out a loud voice as if to let go of the emotions welling up within him.

Looking up from there, he saw a line of armored vehicles with blue markings stopping on the railing of the bridge that connects Gakuenjima and the mainland. He saw a light gently floating above the bridge, moving away from the group of lights of his companions.

Fushimi was holding the same place as Yata with his hand, looking up at the sky with a strange expression on his face, as if he had lost some of his poison.

(Oh, shit...)

Yata cursed in his heart.

Why is he remembering that now? Totsuka-san, did he know he would leave one day? Was he talking about this moment?

Now that he can't do that again, he realized that he should have taken the plunge and asked Suoh what the Blue King meant to him.

He wanted to ask Totsuka what he really meant when he suddenly said something like that and said that Yata still didn't understand, but now that he can't do that again, he realized.

It's annoying for Yata to admit that, but if there's something that can help him, it's...

He's alive. They can still meet as many times as they want, express their doubts and anger, and try to talk.

"No Blood, No Bone, No Ash! No Blood, No... Idiot Monkey! No Ash!"

He doesn't know if he heard the insults mixed with his anger, but Fushimi glared at him.

The two exchanged glances on and off the bridge.

As everyone continued to chant in unison, Yata glared at Fushimi without taking his eyes off. He raised his voice even louder, intending to smash him into the bridge. He kept screaming even when his voice was hoarse, he pounded the ground even when he couldn't feel his legs anymore, and he kept swinging his fists even when he couldn't lift his arms.

[tayloralisonswift]

grief is just kinda like i can’t breathe without you but i have to. i’m hoping you’ll come in with the rain. i’ve still got you all over me. holding my breath, won’t see you again. come on, don’t leave me like this. can’t breathe whenever you’re gone. i used to watch you sleep. i used to feel you breathe. i hope it’s nice where you are. dark grey, all alone. i don’t want to dance if i’m not dancing with you. in dreams i meet you. time is taking its sweet time erasing you. i can’t help but wish you took me with you. i might be okay but i’m not fine at all. i forget about you long enough to forget why i needed to. time won’t fly, it’s like i’m paralyzed by it. i’m a soldier who’s returning half her weight. i wish you knew that i’d never forget you as long as i live. say you’ll remember me. your smile, my ghost, i fell to my knees. i hung my head as i lost the war and the sky turned black like a perfect storm. i reached for you but you were gone. your silence has me screaming. i say i love you, you say nothing back. i dash to the door, you don’t knock anymore, my whole life’s ruined. i slept all alone, you still wouldn’t go. i think about jumping off of very tall somethings just to see you come running - but no. i’d hold you as the water rushes in if i could dance with you again. the room is on fire, invisible smoke, and all of my heroes die all alone. saying goodbye is death by a thousand cuts, flashbacks waking me up. paper cut stings from my paper thin plans. who am i supposed to talk to? what am i supposed to do if there’s no you? we were something, don’t you think so? you drew stars around my scars but now i’m bleeding. i knew you’d haunt all of my what-ifs. i loved you til my dying day. i still talk to you when i’m screaming at the sky. you’re a flashback in a film reel on the one screen in my town. you showed me colors you know i can’t see with anyone else. some things you just can’t speak about. this has frozen my ground. no other sadness in the world would do. you can run, but only so far. if i didn’t know better, i’d think you were talking to me now. if i didn’t know better, i’d think you were still around. what died didn’t stay dead. you left me no choice but to stay here forever. i lost you, the one i was dancing with. sadness became my whole sky. i’ll be getting over you my whole life. sweet dream was over. every single thing i touch becomes sick with sadness. you were bigger than the whole sky. every single thing to come has turned into ashes. i’ve got a lot to live without. memories feel like weapons. i miss who i used to be. i never don’t cry at the bar, my sadness is contagious. you were the one that i loved. in our history, across our great divide, there is a glorious sunrise.

[on-a-lucky-tide]

Nikolai proposes to Price.

cw: mention of past and present homophobia in Russia and the UK.

The rotor blades hadn't even stopped spinning when Nik clambered out of his cab, his hand fumbling through his pocket in search of that velvet box. The gravel of the broken tarmac scratched under the soles of his boots, his knee grazing through his jeans as it hit the ground.

He'd almost lost John.

Two meters between his head and a steel beam falling from a nearby building as an IED had detonated.

As the smoke had cleared, Nikolai had heard and felt nothing. Like someone had reached through his ribs and pulled his heart and lungs out. John Price had always seemed invincible, unstoppable, like a force of nature. But in those few moments when Nik had believed he had been killed, the reminder of John's mortality had stunned him cold. John was not immortal, not a god or a hurricane, but a human man; vulnerable, killable, and Nik's entire world.

Nik had only started breathing again when his helo had swung round and the downdraft had whisked the cover of smoke and ash away to reveal the captain hunkered down, Ghost's arm thrown across his shoulders, Gaz and Soap guarding the rear.

The lieutenant had regained consciousness on the flight home, his concussion slurring his speech, his arm broken, but he was alive. They were exhausted, slumped against each other as the danger receded and Nik carried them to safety. Soap helped his lieutenant out now, supporting his weight as they staggered over the tarmac with Gaz following, his head low.

It was in the gap between Task Force 141 and their captain that Nik knelt, his shaking hand clutching the box against his knee as the adrenalin caught up on him, his words stuck. He had planned this. A dinner at the nice steakhouse John had seen in town, and then a walk through one of the big parks to the lake where they had spent many a night fishing. There, Nik would have asked. No audience, no public display, just them in the peace.

Their love was private. Not because it was shameful, but because it was theirs. It was a place John could tentatively explore the parts he had buried to survive, and Nik could be himself without apology. They could discard their defences and show each other the soft underbelly they guarded so fiercely from others. The vulnerability, the intimacy that came with it, belonged to them and only them; one of the very few things that did.

But what if he never got the chance? What if John had died today? What if John died tomorrow? Or the next day? What if, what if. There was no waiting for them because there might be no tomorrow. They had to live here, now.

Price dropped onto the tarmac, pushing his M4 behind his back as he looked down with a quizzical expression. "Nik?"

Nik drew in a shaking breath, his gaze lingering in the smear of black ash and crust edging a cut on Price's face. He'd lost his boonie hat in the scramble to rescue his officer, so his scruffy brown hair and beard formed a wild mane around his head, framing those blue eyes that were all the brighter as they shone from the sweat and grime on his skin. Nik started talking without thinking. "Lyobit tebya - eto kak dishat… s toboi bremya ostanablibaetsya e ya shivu lish mnovyeiyami pyadom toboi..."

"I can't speak it that well yet, ya muppet, and my brain was just shook inside my skull like a maraca," John said, his voice gravelly and dry. The corners of his eyes crinkled in wry amusement, and Nik's heart ached. He lifted the box, his thumb sliding beneath the lid, and watched John's expression fade from amusement to shock.

"Ty vyydesh’ za menya?" Nik clenched his teeth, irritated at himself, but before he could open his mouth and find the English, John's hand slid over his and he dropped to his knees.

"What is this, Nik?" John croaked, those beautiful blue eyes that so reminded Nik of a summer sky over Kiev glistened.

"A promise," Nik replied. "A... plea."

John leaned forward and their foreheads met, his fingers tightened over the box and Nik felt the coarse material of John's gloves against his knuckles. His hand shook. He was keeping the ring covered, like it would vanish should he look at it, or believe for a single moment it was real.

They had talked so many times about their experiences as young men. In the early hours of the morning, when scotch and exhaustion had worn down their defences, the rawness and the hurt had surfaced. Nik, who had hidden what he was lest he face a bullet or prison, acknowledging his very existence criminalised even now; John, who had grown under Section 28, made to feel degenerate and filthy, his lack of worth reinforced by a slighted father's retribution.

Never for a moment had those boys dreamed of a happy ever after, and both had fled into the arms of violence and bloodshed to lose themselves. Both had tucked their hearts away and buried their dreams until they existed only as dogs of war; weapons of the states that had failed them.

And now there it was. Represented as a single tungsten ring with a thread of vibrant blue in the metal. Like his eyes, Nik had thought as he had purchased it.

They shared the same quivering breaths, the promise clasped between their palms, and Nik watched as the low light of dawn caught the first tear as it escaped. Those soulful eyes closing as John caught himself. Nik stroked his cheek with his free hand, thumb brushing through the tear track. "You own me, body, heart and soul. I only ask for your hand in return," Nik whispered, so very meek compared to what he had imagined.

John threw himself forward and Nik caught him, wrapping his arms around his back as John's face pressed into his neck. He smelled of char and blood, sweat and pain, and Nik held him as he sought strength and stability. There were injuries beneath the Kevlar and padding of John's body armour, and Nik would care for him tonight no matter his answer. They had lost men today and John would need convincing to rest before he embarked on the sombre task of informing their families.

When John sat back on his heels, he sniffed, wiped his nose and face on the back of his wrist and then uncovered the ring in Nik's palm. "S'nice," he said, soft and boyish despite the gruff rasp of his voice. Nik could see that young boy in John's eyes, still uncertain, still struggling to believe that someone would love him enough to want to spend the rest of their life at his side.

"Da," Nik said, "it suits you, no?"

"I like it."

"I am glad."

John smiled, the lines at his eyes returning and making Nik's heart ache. "So this is for real, then."

"Da."

"For keeps?"

"For keeps," Nik said, running his thumb over the cool metal. He remembered fondly the first time John had asked him that. Many years ago, when they had only really just met, still circling, still probing tentatively lest they reveal their secret to someone who would react badly. He had offered John a cigar and John had stared at it suspiciously before asking the very same, and Nik had been endeared by it even then. Sergeant Price had been even rougher around the edges than Captain Price. They had already done so much healing together.

John huffed a soft laugh, wiping at his eyes before glancing at the sky, and then back at Nik. "Yeah..." He cleared his throat, another sniff, "Nikolai, I want to... bloody hell," he took a breath, "I want to marry you. Yes, I... I'm saying yes."

Nik barked a laugh of relief and Price echoed it, watching as Nik ran a hand through his hair as his heart settled. John pulled at the velcro of his left glove with his teeth, tugging it off between his thighs so that Nik could slide the ring over his weathered knuckle. He pressed a kiss to John's open palm, nuzzling his face to it with a contented sigh.

John leaned to the side to see Soap and Gaz gasping at them from the edge of the tarmac. Ghost was, of course, unreadable, but Nik had already talked to him about his intention. Who did you ask for a man's hand in marriage when his father was unavailable? The loyal lieutenant that had fought at his side through the worst the world had to offer, of course. "The whole base will know by lunch," John muttered.

"Da. I... I am sorry. I could not wait any longer. For a while there, I thought I had watched you die."

John lifted Nik's chin and then gathered his hand to his chest. "Ay, I'm here, aren't I? We got home, we made it. Because of you, Nik."

Nik could only nod. There was no point thinking of next time, not when John knelt before him, battered but alive. "You need a medic."

"I need a shower..."

"Medic," Nik insisted. "And if you are a good boy and don't swear at the nurse, I will shower with you."

"Hmm," John smiled, bashful and soft, "seems a fair exchange."

Nik helped John to his feet. Now that the adrenalin had faded and his men were safe, John was limping, an arm folded across his torso. He submitted to inspection with only a minor grump, and then checked on Ghost Soap and Gaz. They were sound, as John liked to say. Ghost had to stay the night and Soap remained in the chair at his side, but the nurse was happy John's sprains and cuts were manageable with a little support from Nik.

As they stood in the shower, Nik's lips on John's skin, his arms around his waist to hold his body close, Nik let the hot water disguise the tears running down his face. Happiness, relief; they were as heady and overwhelming as anger and sadness sometimes. Nik let himself feel it, knowing it would leave his mind clear for enjoying John later.

"You good?" John asked, warm hands stroking down Nik's forearms.

"Never better, solnyshko."

[in1-nutshell]

More thoughts so how about Predacon buddy going back to the earth spark universe and just more interaction's with the others specifically Megatron I sort of feel like old predacon buddy would most likely try burning ghost to the ground and mandroid because no one messes with the sparklings on old Predacon buddy's watch I can just see product on buddies just saying don't you dare mess with my grandkids while just beating mandroid up and possibly suplexing him

Had a lot of request for Old Predacon Buddy coming back to Earthspark so here it is!

Hope you enjoy!

Bot Buddy the Old Predacon finding out about Mandriod's bots

SFW, Platonic, Cybertronain reader

TFP/TFE

Another day, another random dimension drop off.

Buddy landed on top of a haystack next to some apple trees.

They groaned as they felt something lick the side of their face.

They opened their optics to find a familiar looking calf.

Floppy ears.

Oh!

This was the dimension with the Terrans!

And their home was right there!

Buddy quickly got up and started walking over to the home with the calf mooing happily behind them.

Buddy peaks into the kitchen spotting Alex cooking something on the stove.

“Hello there Mr. Malto.”--Buddy

Alex shrieks a bit holding the spatula in his hand as a weapon.

He looks closer at the optics of the Predacon before recognizing them.

“Buddy? Buddy, it’s been so long! Hold on one moment.”--Alex

Alex turns off the stove and runs outside to meet Buddy.

Alex hugs their pede as Buddy gently rubs his back.

He lets go.

“What are you doing back? Not that it’s a problem, but—”--Alex

“No, I get it Alex. And to answer your question, it was another portal.”--Buddy

“Yeesh! How many times does that happen to you?”--Alex

“…Way more than you might realize. Anyways where’s Dot and the kids? How are they?”--Buddy

“They should just be getting back from work right now.”—Alex

Buddy tilts their helm.

“Work?”--Buddy

“From G.H.O.S.T.”--Alex

“The creepy organization Megatron mentioned last time?”--Buddy

“That’s the one.”--Alex

“Something doesn’t settle with me about that organization…”--Buddy

“I feel you Buddy. How about I get Dot or one of the kids on the phone so you can talk to them?”--Alex

“That would be great Alex.”--Buddy

Buddy loafs on the ground as Alex begins to call Hashtag.

“Hello—”--Alex

“DAD THE SPIDERS ARE BACK!”--Hashtag

Buddy immediately gets up.

“Spiders?”--Buddy

“They are Mandriod’s bots. Sweety where are you all right now? Where’s Mom?”--Alex

“WE’RE—WOAH!—WE’RE IN THE WOODS NEAR THE HOUSE—WATCH IT! I DON’T THINK—”--Hashtag

“Hashtag!?”--Alex

Buddy leans down to Alex’s height.

Their optics holding steely determination.

“Climb on.”—Buddy

Buddy gains altitude as fast, while being mindful of Alex sitting without any protection on their back.

Buddy right now didn’t care that they would get seen.

They were worried about the kids.

Whoever this Mandriod was going to be a pile of burning ash when they were done with him if any of the kids were hurt.

Soon enough they found some bots.

Optimus, Megatron and Elita were struggling against the pink spider webs.

Buddy descending from above.

“Buddy?”—Elita, Megatron, and Optimus

Buddy leans down to let Alex come down.

They look at the restrains on Elita’s frame and dig their dentas into the webs and with one swift pull yanked most of them free from her frame.

“Thanks!”--Elita

“Where are the kids?”--Buddy

They heard screams.

Buddy mad dashes through the vegetation to the sound.

They spot a dozen robotic spiders start to corral Nightshade, Thrash and Mo.

Buddy lunged from the trees taking out most of the spiders.

Some managed to attach themselves onto their back, but Buddy quickly got rid of them before any permanent damage could be done.

They spewed fire at the remaining, reducing them to melted metal.

“Buddy!”--Maltos

The three ran to them and hugged their friend tightly.

Buddy wrapped their wings around them in relief before remembering the other.

“Where are the others?”--Buddy

They heard more yelling.

“Nightshade, Thrash, Mo follow my path and head back to Megatron and your father.”--Buddy

“What about you!”--Nightshade

Buddy had already started running before they heard the rest.

Thankfully, the others weren’t too far either.

Twitch, Hashtag, Jawbreaker, Dot, and Robbie were all being suspended by one of the webs as the spiders closed in.

Buddy leaped on top of them shaking the earth bellow as they swiped the other spiders with their tail.

Buddy stood in front of them wings spread in full display and roared before spewing the robots with fire.

Once they were done, they turned back worried at the children.

“Are you all okay?”--Buddy

“Buddy!”--Maltos

Buddy nipped the webs and caught them as they fell.

They ran to give Buddy a hug as Buddy finally sighed in relief.

The danger was over.

The others soon appeared from the rather large opening in the forest their frame caused.

Everyone looked relief to see everyone safe and sound.

The group decided to return home.

As soon as they convinced Buddy to stop looking for Mandriod himself.

Optimus and Megatron trying to stop Buddy from going any further in the forest.

“You two need to let me go right now. That monster needs to be found and—”--Buddy

“So what? So, you can light him on fire?”--Elita

“The offer is on the table.”--Buddy

Dot gets in front of Buddy.

“Buddy… lets just go home. It’s been a rough day for all of us. Anyways there is no way of tracking down Mandriod. Not even G.H.O.S.T. can find him.”--Dot

Buddy huffs in frustration.

Mo comes over to Buddy’s pede and gently grabs it.

“Please?”--Mo

“…”--Buddy

Buddy sighs in defeat and soften their optics at the child.

“All right. Let’s not make my visit all about revenge. I want to hear everything that I missed.”--Buddy

Buddy gently opens their wings and herds the group out of the forest.

Elita looks at Optimus and Megatron.

“…They aren’t going to let this go.”--Elita

“Nope.”—Optimus and Megatron

A few more days passed with Buddy staying at the Maltos home filled with activities and more reunions before the portal came back.

There were more tearful goodbyes and promises to return whenever the portal came back for them.

Buddy exiting the portal, slightly stumbling on the ground.

Ratchet spots Buddy shaking their helm.

“Buddy?”--Ratchet

“Ratchet. How’s the work coming along?”--Buddy

“Good, but are you okay?”--Ratchet

Buddy huffs a bit.

“I’m fine Ratchet.”--Buddy

“…”--Ratchet

“… I have a little bit of a dent on my side. Would you…”--Buddy

Ratchet pats the med slab next to him.

“You know the drill.”--Ratchet

Buddy smiles a bit.

“Whatever you say Doctor.”--Buddy

[canmom]

when robots got muscles

You can blame @centrally-unplanned for this post. She(?) wrote...

The ‘chrome’ designs pioneered by illustrators like Hajime Sorayama (Sexy Robot from 1984, for example) tended to be more in vogue at this time (or just…a  hot girl, who is apparently a robot, trust me bro), you don’t see designs like this too commonly until later (ask resident robo-fetishist/animator expert @canmom for details on that timeline).

After a challenge like that how can I refuse? Although the question is ‘when did robots get muscles’, this turned into something of a historical survey of robot designs from the 80s on with a throughline of biomimesis.

(Originally this was just going to be an excuse to talk about Ghost in the Shell... but I gotta be thorough.)

This was all brought on from this picture from a 1989 fanart magazine...

by an artist going by ‘Facepunch Tatebi-kun’ (顔面強打たてびー君, Ganmenkyouda Tatebii-kun). I remarked that it was interesting to see these kinds of ‘robot muscles’ in a picture from 1989, since I thought that kind of design became popular in the 2000s.

On some reflection, I think I gotta revise that opinion! I think ‘robot muscles’ became a thing around the mid 90s in anime; in the West I think it took a bit longer. But you can also see precursors already before that.

So. One thing artists are super into is biomimetic robots. That is, robots whose form (and perhaps function) is similar to animals, especially humans. The word ‘android’ referring to a human-like automaton dates all the way back to the late 19th century, but the modern ‘android, robot, cyborg’ taxonomy apparently became established around the 40s.

There’s two types of humanoid robot that get a lot of play, especially in anime. One is the convincingly humanlike cyborg, which is the same size and shape as a normal human; the other is a what we call in English a ‘mech’, i.e. a big robot you can sit inside.

Of course, if your androids just act like humans all the time, then there’s not much point having them be robots. To really create the frisson of contrast between human and mechanical forms you have to show the mechanism somehow. This could be because the machine isn’t perfectly human-like, and has visibly mechanical joints - take a look at the works of @sukabu89​ for very inventive depiction of this theme - or, the android could be damaged or undergo maintenance.

When you attempt to translate biological forms into a more mechanical design language, the traditional way has been to use hard, rigid shapes, since these make the contrast especially clear. In more recent designs, particularly as we started to see real robots with ‘artificial muscles’ such as the ones created by Boston Dynamics, we get another sort of design language to express ‘mechanical parts’, and robots start having more biological forms with exposed plasticy muscles.

So let’s tell the story. We begin at the end of the 70s.

the dawn of mechaguro

For an early example of ‘mechaguro’ (a term I’m applying very anachronistically!), when a robot gets smashed up, we have Alien (1979). This film did a ridiculous amount to define sci-fi design language, and of course the alien itself blends mechanical and biological forms, with its glossy black surface allowing it to seem to melt into the exposed pipes of the spaceship. But let’s focus on the character Ash, a secret android who is broken apart in the second half of the film.

When Ash is torn apart by the alien, his insides consist of weird white plastic beads and a milky fluid that seems analogous to blood. It’s not clear what the function of any of this tech is - it’s intended to be vague and mysterious. The outside is biomimetic but the inside is anything but. He has a kind of artificial skin which resembles a latex mask.

The Terminator films are another major touchpoint for 80s science fiction. Late in the film, Arnie starts taking damage which reveals the Terminator skeleton underneath his fake skin.

The stop-motion Terminator model is basically designed according to the principle of ‘replace human bones and muscles with hard metal bits’. So you have a metal skull, metal clavicles (which are pistons for some reason), metal shoulder blades, hydraulic pistons generally in the places where muscles are. e.g. in the above picture you can see pistons that stand in place of the sternocleidomastoid muscle, and in this picture...

...you can see metal scapulae and piston biceps and triceps and a piston. The shoulder joint by contrast built in a very non-human-like way. Also there’s random tubes everywhere lol.

That’s generally how androids are portrayed in the 80s. The ‘droids’ in Star Wars are similar; C-3PO is an arrangement of metal plates with gaps suggestive of underlying mechanical details and rudimentary joints and pistons.

In Blade Runner, we have the Replicants, humanoid robots - but by the premise of the film, they are essentially indistinguishable from humans. So when the Replicants die, we never really get to see their robo-innards.

and now, anime

OK, that’s the big four Western 80s sci-fi movie series; what of anime? Of course, androids in anime go all the way back to Astro Boy. But most of these early designs don’t really focus on mechanical details all that much. Super robot designs are more like tokusatsu suits than anything. There were certainly instances of impressive mechanical animation in the 70s, with early experts including Kazuhide Tomonaga on Space Battleship Yamato. Then there’s Hayao Miyazaki’s episodes of Lupin III Part 2 which featured proto-Nausicaa flying a prototype of the robots from Castle in the Sky. It would be some years before anyone could come close to matching these!

The original Gundam in ‘79 famously started the ‘real robot’ movement [Animation Night, so let’s take a brief look at how a Gundam fits together.

Generally speaking, the way Gundams are drawn in Gundam ‘79 is kind of rough. The methods to animate these rigid mechanical systems in super accurate perspective were just not yet established at the end of the 70s, certainly not on a TV budget. The actual joints on the Gundam are left very vague, but it broadly speaking seems to move like a human in armour.

But the OVA boom was about to begin, and while it would be a while before we saw the heights of Headgear/Production I.G./Gainax, things were going to change a lot. Mechanical design and animation was about to get much more sophisticated very very quickly.

In 1982, we have Super Dimension Fortress Macross, with robots that transformed into fighter jets. Its robots are designed by Kazutaka Miyatake, who cut his teeth doing mechanical design for Space Battleship Yamato and Daicon. The Macross TV series introduced the world to the animation of Ichirō ‘Missile Circus’ Itano. [AN64] A plane with legs... honestly looks kind of goofy, but Itano’s ambition to have a highly mobile 3D camera that could move in ways that would simply be impossible in live action marked a huge step up in how robots are animated. And this would get refined even further in the film Do You Remember Love.

In terms of design, we’re really moving our inspiration from ‘tokusatsu suit’ to ‘military hardware’ here. A Macross suit has to look like something that could transform into a plane, so its silly little arms and legs have to look kind of plane-like. In any case, we are definitely still in a world of hard and rigid robotics.

Dallos (1983-4) dir. Mamoru Oshii is known as the first OVA, if not the first successful OVA [AN115]. It features a variety of mining robots on the surface of the Moon, which are generally less humanoid, taking their design cues from JCBs...

...as well as humanoid robots with fairly clear joint patterns...

...and more humanoid robots too.

The eponymous Dallos, however, is a huge humanoid robot that looks like this...

Here we have a pile of mechanical shapes that vaguely calls to mind a human face. It’s suggestive of motifs we’d see later in works like Akira.

A year later in 1985, Megazone 23 really kicks off the OVA boom in earnest [AN 103]. It also has a robot, in the form of a transforming bike that can become a humanoid piloted mech...

You can see mechanical designs and shading have become considerably more detailed; its motion is a lot more complex as well with a ton of indulgent background animation shots. The actual details of the bike -> robot transformation are rather brushed over. But to sort of sum up the design language: we have organic but hard-edged shapes contrasted by inorganic but round shapes. (These terms ‘organic’ and ‘inorganic’ refer mostly to symmetry and a sense of ‘flow’ in the shape.) There are few right angles as such, but a lot of broadly boxy topology. The shapes are broken up by elaborate specular highlights in complex shapes, a motif of the later Kanada school.

OK, but that’s all variants on ‘rigid robot’ so far - what about the androids? What about the more directly biological designs?

Following the enormous success of Megazone 23 Part I, Toshiki Hirano got the chance to adapt his favourite lesbian cosmic horror hentai manga Fight! Iczer One into a rather more tame OVA which released from 1985-87. In terms of mechanical design, this starts to do some interesting moves towards blending biological and mechanical forms...

Of course it has a robot in addition to the requisite bishōjo and lightsabers. In contrast to the boxy shapes we’ve seen so far, the robots in Iczer-One have a much more curvy organic sort of design language. Still, there is not a lot of emphasis on the precise details of mechanical articulation outside of select shots. (It is however notable for the first ever Obari punch!)

Despite the change in shape language, these are still very clearly animated as metal plates and not yet muscles.

In 1984 we have a very important film (for this narrative, and in general), Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind, the film that created Studio Ghibli. Here we have the ‘God Warriors’, giant humanoid weapons with the ability to shoot a massive laser out of their mouth. Rather than robots, these are very much biological in nature, having to be grown in a kind of cocoon. In the film version of Nausicaa, an incomplete God Warrior is released, leading to an iconic scene animated by Hideaki Anno in which the God Warrior attempts to blow up the oncoming wave of Ohmu.

The God Warrior’s melting flesh is gorgeously animated, bubbling and sloughing off in great big lumps as the skeleton pokes out from underneath. Throughout, Nausicaa is full of beautiful and impressive animation of both machines (mainly planes) and biological (the giant insects), but the God Warriors, as human-made lifeforms, bring the two together. However, this strand wouldn’t be especially followed up on for a long long time.

Right, but what about Bubblebum Crisis (1987-91)? That is, after all, the iconic 80s robot girl OVA. It’s inspired heavily by Western robot-related films like Terminator and Blade Runner; here we have ‘Boomers’ (never stops being funny) as androids that can appear convincingly human. Like the Terminator, the underlying metal parts can burst out. Here we have a metal frame designed to resemble muscles, and also metal tentacles.

The shapes of these robots are a lot more organic. The robot neck has tubes that sort of resemble the neck muscles, metal plates that resemble pectorals and abs and deltoids and biceps and so on. You’ve even got a direct riff on the Terminator ‘fleshy face falling away to reveal metal skull with glowing red eye’! Under the plates there are clusters of tubes which also heavily resemble muscles. Also you’ve got the classic ‘three small circles’ motif there.

Contrasted against them are the Knight Sabers, who aren’t cyborgs as such but fight in powered exoskeletons which fit the design motifs of robot girls.

These suits are quite form-fitting, with a rubber under-layer and metal shells on top. There is definitely some attention paid to how they’ll articulate around the joints. One very recognisable 80s motif is the sort of extending spike thingies you can see on her hat there; there’s also the jets that extend out behind the suit. And, you have that multi-layer shiny highlighting of course!

Still, the way the characters move in Bubblegum Crisis is still very squarely Kanada School poses; big movements, lots of held poses accentuated by flashing and line boil, not a lot of concern for conservation of momentum or anything like that.

For a contrasting strand we can look at the rise of the ‘Otomo school’ (if you will) of realism. Around the end of the 80s, a pool of talented animators were gathering around Katsuhiro Otomo. Their most famous work is Akira, but I’m actually going to begin with Robot Carnival (1987), a wonderful anthology of short films from 1987. This features a huge variety of interpretations of the concept of robots.

For example, for Kōji Morimoto, later co-founder of Studio 4°C, the robot is a kind of cobbled-together steampunk Frankenstein’s monster. It’s a very cool design with all sorts of asymmetries and exposed parts suggesting its cobbled-together nature. And although all the robot does in this short is stand up and then fall over, a great deal of attention is paid to the little details of its articulation and its movement through space.

Presence, directed by Yasuomi Umetsu, is notable for its steps in the direction of realism - Umetsu’s characters are hyperdetailed and in some ways over-drawn. The opening shots establish this is a world where lifelike androids are common, when an android gets his head kicked off and stolen by children. Here the robot-as-doll metaphor comes in, something that will be increasingly central in the next decade. The robot girl is essentially a human-sized doll in a room full of other toys. Her creator smashes her to pieces with a wrench; later her ghost visits him as an old man. We see the girl attached to a bunch of wires, but she bleeds like a human.

Cloud by Manabu Ōhashi features another humanoid robot, an Astro Boy-like child recognisable as a robot based on his segmented torso and legs and robotic ear... cones. Here the robot is a standin for human emotions, the boy’s struggles projected onto the constantly changing sky as he walks against the wind.

Strange Tales of Meiji Machine Culture: Westerner’s Invasion by Hiroyuki Kitakubo (later to direct Golden Boy, Roujin Z and Blood: The Last Vampire) is a sendup of mecha shows in which two very goofy looking steampunk robots operated respectively by Japanese and Western crews duke it out, laying waste to the city around them. The Japanese robot is basically a big wooden samurai...

and the Western (more specifically American) robot is, uh

sorta big barrel with little eyes on top? I’m not entirely sure what the deal is with this design!

That’s really not relevant to our story tbh I just think it’s a neat short.

Chicken Man and Red Neck, by Takashi Nakamura, features especially distinctive robot designs. The film is kind of a dream sequence in which a terrified drunk man witnesses the revels of the machines of Tokyo, transformed into robots; the robots are extremely shaped, moving through a world that is pretty much just pistons...

These robots call to mind the dancing demons in Fantasia’s Night On Bald Mountain sequence, or even Bosch.

Otomo’s own segments feature the Robot Carnival itself, a vast mechanical structure built as... well some kind of entertaining spectacle, but which now drives around the post-apocalyptic wasteland dropping robots which explode as bombs. It’s cute.

OK, to wrap up the 80s, we gotta cover Akira (1988) [AN34]! Akira has plenty of impressive mechanical animation of helicopters, hovercraft thingies, satellite lasers and of course the famous bike, but it doesn’t really feature robots as such - but what it does have is a blending of mechanical and biological forms in its climactic sequence where Tetsuo’s psychic powers go out of control. First, wires start to spread like the roots of a plant from his robot arm - less an actual machine and more something he assembled with his psychic powers...

He takes a bullet, and the mechanical wires and muscles start to blend together and spread out like a slime mold...

...which he can extend as essentially a giant tentacle.

When his powers fully go off the rails, he bulges out into big blobs of flesh which have both veins and wires running over them. These burst out of the metallic parts as well.

He turns into essentially a giant biomechanical baby.

Did Akira invent these images of blending biology and machinery? Probably not, but I’m not really familiar enough with manga of the time to say. What can at least be said is that Otomo’s absurdly meticulous style could really sell it. Otomo was truly a god of perspective and detail; Akira the film was an enormous, prestigious production that threw ludicrous effort and resources towards realising his vision (which doesn’t mean it paid its inbetweeners much more...). A lot of the animators who worked on Akira would go on to be prominent in...

the 1990s

So, the 1990s. If the 80s was dominated by the later Kanada School, the new movement of the 90s, at least as far as film animation goes, was ‘realism’.

But before we get onto that, let’s take a brief look at Gunnm (1990). Known as Battle Angel Alita in the West, this manga by Yukito Kishiro depicts a world in which most people are cyborgs; it was adapted to an OVA by Madhouse in 1993 and became wildly popular overseas. Its protagonist Gally, aka Alita, starts out the story as a wrecked cyborg body like this...

Looking at this design, you can see similar patterns as we have so far. We have metal clavicles, metal sternocleidomastoid muscle, metal pectorals, metal spine. There aren’t robot muscles, per se, but there’s a lot of attention to detail on mimicking biological shapes.

Before long she is rebuilt (twice in the manga, once in the anime). Her new body is like this...

...which is to say a skintight bodysuit in the middle, and metal arms. These arms, although designed in a way that indicates hard surface and with a hinge joint at the elbow, are designed in a way that mimics the flow of muscles in a human arm. By contrast, her sorta-love interest Yugo has a body like this:

which gets mashed to pieces in the finale of the OVA. There’s a striking mechaguro scene in which Gally catches Yugo, but leaves him hanging by a fraying arm, which snaps, leaving him to fall to his death. Compared to later iterations of the ‘robot arm torn apart’ device, this one’s relatively light on detail...

Cyborg bodies in Gunnm are used as a visual indication of character type. Gally has curves but also sleek robo muscles: she’s a Beautiful Fighting Girl, sweet but also extremely powerful. A huge ‘muscular’ cyborg with wide shoulders is likely to be a brute. Yugo here has much more plain, simple shapes with visible bolts, not precision pieces like Gally.

I don’t know how much of this originates with Gunnm. I’m sure the idea of cyborg girls was in the air long before, but this became an influential example on the tail end of the time of the 80s bishōjo. One device that is notable here is the idea of a ‘full body cyborg’, which is only human down to the brain (or perhaps not even that). Body swapping is a major theme in Gunnm, something that would be expanded on before long...

And if that was going out, what was coming in? Let’s look at Patlabor, which traces the evolution of the Headgear artistic collective and IG Tatsunoko into Production I.G.. This is about as down to earth as giant robot stories can get, with robots as just everyday machines used for work and by the cops. But where things really go nuts in animation terms is the opening to Patlabor 2 (1993).

Here you can see some of the most impressive sequences of mechanical animation ever drawn. We see pilot Noa testing out the robot, and especially notable are the scenes of the hand flexing and of walking. Enormous attention is paid to the articulation of joints. The robot’s hand can swivel 360 degrees, unlike a human; however, like a human, the articulation of the fingers seems to be controlled by hydraulics in the forearm (whereas in humans, the muscles and tendons in the forearm control our fingers). When the robot’s foot steps, it flexes like a real human foot, with believable joints, and a sensible arrangement of pistons to absorb force.

It’s not imitating a human’s muscles, but the attention to the details of the robot’s mechanical design serves precisely to draw our attention to the ways it’s like/unlike a human - the robot’s hand impossible motion immediately contrasted with its pilot shot from the same angle. And the perspective drawing is absolutely impeccable. The robot is made of purely rigid structures, and the way rigid structures articulate is not at all how a human’s joints articulate.

The sequence above was animated by Atsushi Takeuchi. But across the board, the bar was getting pushed for mechanical animation. For example, observe this cut from Mobile Suit Gundam: The 08th MS Team (1996-1999), in which the robot tears off its own arm and beats up another robot. The precision of the way the joints are animated and the way the robots move in space is just completely on another level compared to what Gundam had been doing a couple of decades prior.

Anyway, we’re here to talk about robot muscles, and we’re just a few years out from that now!

The year that robots got muscles, at least as far as anime is concerned, is 1995.

You can probably guess the next part. In 1995, we get Eva and GitS. Let’s start with GitS, to continue the Production I.G./Mamoru Oshii thread. The opening sequence of GitS, animated by - who else could it be? - Hiroyuki Okiura - has to be one of the most iconic segments of video ever drawn. Here’s a merely 720p youtube upload but go and find the place you have GitS stored on your hard drive and watch it in proper quality eh.

OK, yes, a lot of it is a naked lady floating around, sue me or whatever. But the sense of form. We see early on an appearance of ‘robot muscles’, here closely resembling real muscles...

We can see from the way this is drawn that it’s made of a combination of artificial muscles, solid segments, and flexible, fabric-like panels. One of my favourite shots at the beginning shows the solid segments of the skull clicking into place. Here we have a very clear contrast between the angular, hard edges of the mechanical pieces against the organic forms of a human body.

Elsewhere in the film, we see various incredibly cool bits of ‘wouldn’t be fucked up if a body did this‘, like the fingers...

Here, what we expect to be soft biological fingers is contrasted with unexpected rigidity, mechanical joints under a shell.

Also in this scene we encounter a robot body that has been stripped of her arms, legs and hips but is nevertheless still alive...

most extraordinary hacker in the history of cybercrime and you have your titties out and yet you still can’t get them to stop misgendering you, smh

For the Terminator, having its body smashed up and continuing to walk was a demonstration of its strength. Here, as would become perhaps an increasing motif, having a robot body is a source of vulnerability: people can do things to you that would kill an ordinary human but you keep going through it. Not surprisingly, ‘robot body maintenance’ is a recurring porn device. (One that GitS deploys in SAC s2).

But of course this all builds up to the all time classics of mechaguro scene at the ending where the Major attempts to tear off the hatch of a spider tank. Muscles ripple individually under the surface of her skin, her arms bulge in exaggerated contraction, and then her arms fully tear apart under the force.

Here, we’re showing her as mechanical not by contrasting rigid forms with biological ones, but by exaggerating the biological ones to the point of doing something extremely unnatural. Human muscles do not generally flex in such an individual way, nor are they strong enough to tear the arm apart, but robot muscles? Yeah, they could do that. This sets up the next scene where the Major lies unnaturally still, but can still exert control through hacking through her union with the Puppet Master.

Robots holding onto something so hard their arms explode has become... if not a recurring image, then at least one that was called back decades later in Violet Evergarden.

The final scene of GitS brings back the image of robot-as-doll, with the Major’s consciousness now uploaded into a black-market robot body that resembles a child in a dress.

This is further expounded on in Oshii’s second GitS movie Innocence (2004), with its Ballade of the Puppets in the soundtrack as Batou and Togusa (and eventually, the Major) are attacked by essentially an army of ball-jointed doll gynoids. The puppets’ movements are extremely unnatural and erratic acrobatics, constantly flipping all over the place; when hit by bullets, panels pop open to reveal the underlying brass skeleton. It’s a very cool image. (The thing that lets the sequence down is the extremely dated CGI and aggressive digital compositing.)

It also has Donna Harraway as a literal cyborg!

Now, the GitS movies didn’t drop fully formed out of nowhere, but draw on the work of Masamune Shirow. The manga has a somewhat different design sensibility than the movie, distinctive and shiny as all Shirow’s art. It is more rounded and organic, less cold.

So, the basic design of a cyberbody originates with Shirow. You can see it on this page (unfortunately from a flipped version, translation Dark Horse):

You might be able to determine from how the nurses are dressed that, yeah, the GitS manga is in significant part fetish porn. But really nerdy fetish porn, which is the best kind. This chapter is almost entirely dedicated to explaining how cyborg bodies are constructed in great detail, from the ‘sensory film’ (that’s what’s being applied in the opening to the 1995 film) to the hair implantation.

It’s interesting seeing how some of the more out-there designs of the manga, like Chief Aramaki, are transformed into the realist style of Hiroyuki Okiura. It’s Okiura, so it works great of course.

I don’t know if there are manga examples of such detail about cyborg bodies that predate Shirow.

Anyway, that’s just one of the two punches dropped in 1995. The other is Neon Genesis Evangelion. To the pedants: sure, the Evas are not actually robots, but they’re giant cyborgs that play the role of ‘robot’ in the story and they look like robots so I’m counting them.

Anyway, the thing about the Evas is they are incredibly lithe. They run, rip and tear and swing heavy objects around in a way that’s both weighty and distinctly biological. Their bodies are extremely flexible compared to prior mechs (look at how much the spines bend in that Iso cut from EoE!), but not without hard, rigid components such as the shoulder towers. Their jaws are bestial but feature mechanical-like components like interlocking hexagonal teeth and jet-like vents. They are in short a fantastic design that blends biological and mechanical features.

The impact of Eva on just about everything can’t be overstated, but as far as robot design, well. There certainly were works that leaned on the precedent set by Eva, as for example RahXephon, which also treats robots as something spiritual, prone to popping into a blob of weird little bubbles just like in Eva.

There’s a great deal missing from this account. I am very focused on anime because I’ve watched a lot more anime than I’ve read manga or played games from this period. So I’m sure there’s major foundational works I’m missing here!

the 2000s

When did the West start to catch up? eh that’s subjective - David Cronenberg was way ahead of the game! - but specifically in the sense of robots with mechanical muscles, I think the major points in the timeline go a bit like this.

In 1999, there’s the Matrix, which leans heavily on anime. This features a similar ‘robot takeover’ premise to Terminator, but here it’s biomimetic robots modelled after squids, with clouds of constantly moving tentacles that sweep behind them. After making a cool half a billion dollars, the Wachowskis decided to pay all their favourite anime directors to make short films. I’m not going to comment on every part of the Animatrix, since most of it isn’t really relevant, but I will point to this horrifying cut by Takeshi Honda in The Second Renaissance in which a robot woman has her clothes torn and then skin bashed off by a mob. The framing, motion, her expression of abject terror, and the ‘reveal’ of her ‘true’ nature, all viscerally call to mind a trans bashing.

On the manga side, a big one to mention is Gantz, a gory nihilistic seinen manga which ran from 2000-2013. The characters in Gantz fight in special latex-like suits which take on the appearance of muscles while engaging superstrength, but can also sustain damage that causes them to drip fluids from ports located at the neck and become fatal to their wearer. Gantz was adapted to anime by Ichirō Itano in 2004, but I haven’t seen it so I can’t comment on any notable animation.

Cyborgs are a favourite subject of games, but in the 2000s, games are really pushing art direction and biopunk stuff is in. Half Life 2 (2004) has its spider-crab like Striders and dropships and so on. Oddworld: Abe’s Oddysee (1997) bases its whole concept around the sheer variety of weird creatures that would inhabit its dystopian factory. And I gotta give a shoutout to Septerra Core (1999) - in case one other person has played that lmao

At some point after 2005, Boston Dynamics became a viral sensation thanks to their robot BigDog. BigDog is just welded steel and hydraulics, but its lifelike hopping movement style definitely brought to mind the idea that the future of robots is going to be in biomimesis.

So, 2007, here comes Crysis to melt your PC! This is an FPS with the not-uncommon premise of being a supersoldier fighting (country America hates) and also aliens, but its gimmick was that you have a special exosuit that wraps around your body with artificial muscles, making you much stronger and manlier or whatever.

This is indicated by a visualisation that could be right out of a toothpaste ad, where tiny little balls drop into the character’s pores and somehow go straight into the bloodstream which is of course a void full of flying red blood cells. And so on. It sold the game, though! The ad there focuses almost entirely on the suit and not the character wearing it, who is basically an irrelevant soldier man. What it entailed in gameplay terms is that you have a mode switcher so you can have strength or armour or invisibility or whatever. But it’s cool military superscience, you see!

Anyway. Not like my preferred flavour of cyborg is any less stupid I guess x3

In the same year, Bayformers started. These films’ robots are honestly just visual noise, there’s so many moving metal shards going every which way that it’s next to impossible to discern any sort of underlying mechanical principle. A similar ‘overwhelming business’ visual effect would be applied the next year in Iron Man, kicking off the MCU. So mechanical muscles definitely weren’t the only expression of ‘hyper-advanced robot’ in Western visual media in the late 2000s.

I’m going to end my story with two more games: Horizon Zero Dawn and NieR Automata.

Horizon features a world inhabited by a large variety of robot animals, using the peak of AAA rendering techniques. The robots are designed to be biomimetic after both modern animals and prehistoric ones, and feature a combination of hard surfaces and softer biological muscles. For example, a robot horse:

The discipline of making designs like these now has a name: it’s called ‘hard surface modelling’ and it involves boolean operations and bevels and other techniques designed to create a balance of hard edges on a surface against the smoother parts. The design language of Horizon says that the hard plates are white, the soft parts are very dark and may be patterned like a cloth texture, and there can be small colour accents here and there.

I think you can definitely see the influence of Boston Dynamics’s robots (and recent military tech in general) in these designs, iterated on through a decade and a half of increasingly intra-referential concept art. They are visually very busy designs, but there are a couple of recognisable features that draw attention by being inorganic, such as the cylindrical fuel tank at the back. Vitally, the silhouette is very readable.

This robot T. rex for comparison serves as a world boss monster, and you can see it’s got a bunch of military looking attachments that look like radars and missile launchers and so on. As real tech evolved, so too did our idea of what a scary robot ought to look like.

So, that’s where this kind of design pattern has gone in mainstream games.

Now to finish, a brief comment on NieR Automata. Its designs draw hard on those of Ghost in the Shell. Visually it draws a strong contrast between the Machine Lifeforms, who have inorganic shapes (spheres and cylinders) and very visible and plausible mechanical joints, and the doll-like androids, who might as well be human (although A2 provides some contrast in an android who is damaged enough for the underlying materials to show through). The mechanical nature of the androids is communicated by the acrobatic way they move and the interface elements, and dead androids you find in the field - and later when they start losing arms and stuff, it’s a whole thing. But just like humans in Yoko Taro Games, they’re capable of dying in a puddle of blood.

(I guess if you take one thing from this post it’s that if you’re a robot, don’t expect to keep your arms.)

Robot muscles gives you a chance to give both the ‘anatomy porn’ of drawing something very precisely right, with the added bonus of giving you a reason to draw the muscles écorché, and the chance to make it weird and defamiliarised by splitting it with mechanical elements. In short... they look cool!

In this whole post I’ve basically not touched at all on illustration. I can point to a variety of illustrations of robot girls, but in terms of periodising them, I just don’t think I know enough. Though it’s safe to say that cyborg bodies in various states of construction or disrepair are now a mainstream of concept art - and that Ghost in the Shell is usually cited as an influence. I don’t know if robot muscles ever truly became the mainstream way to depict a robot, but it does feel like they’re increasingly common.

One artist I will briefly mention (besides sukabu), mostly bc I think they’re neat, is Haruyo Megurimu, who draws these very intricate designs of ‘necrotech’ which is sort of very biological robots extending out of human bodies - limbs extended on long spindly insectoid strands, jaws splitting open, that kinda thing. Can’t say who influenced them or anything but it’s a compelling extension of the idea into a particular corner of aesthetic space.

And that’s all I’ve got I think. There’s definitely big gaps like. More recent sci-movies. Western comics. Nevertheless, that’s an arc.

If you’ve read this far: thank you for indulging my autism.

[moody-alcoholic]

Hurt

Summary: 2.7k words. Ghoap x Reader, throuple. Reader is female (she/her), army nurse, non descript physical features, names used: Ashe.

CW: descriptions of injuries, medical procedures, mentions of surgery, medical inaccuracies, hurt/comfort.

AN: Next part is the last part... It's a beefy one though.

Previous parts - masterlist - next part

Enjoy <3

Simon is scared, more then he has ever been. He’s watching his husband bleeding out while someone else he loves is trying her best to save him. She’s no combat medic but as soon as Johnny’s body hit the floor she was by his side shoving her gauze covered fingers into his wounds. She barked orders at Price while he called an ambulance. 

“Ambulance should be here in 15 minutes.” Price says his phone still pressed up to his ear keeping the dispatchers updated. Gaz has been running round the house looking for first-aid kits, clean sheets anything she can use to make bandages. Her hands are shaking blood running down her face. Johnny nicked her ear when he shot at Jack, could have been worse at least he’s down. 

Ghost is angry, pacing the room his eyes burning into Jack wondering which would be more satisfying to break his legs or his arms? Ghost is listening to every word Price is saying waiting for new orders. It’s easier to be Ghost then Simon right now. 

“Here, I’ve got this!” Gaz says as he rushes back in the room. Price helps him open the green first aid kit pulling out bandages and handing them to you. 

“How long until the ambulance?” you ask your voice shaking, as you instruct Gaz to keep watching Johnny’s breathing. 

“They’re coming.” Price replies not giving a time. A lump forms in Ghost’s throat he swallows to get it away. Price moves over to stand next to him. 

“Pass me your phone I need to call someone to deal with all this.” Price says leaning in. Ghost reaches into his vest pulling out his phone passing it to Price. He pats Ghost on the shoulder then moves back to the other side of the room. A moan comes from the floor, Ghost’s head snaps to see Soap moving. That’s good right. 

“Hey, Johnny keep still.” You say as his arms make their way to the source of the pain. “Keep his head still.” You say to Gaz. He was shot in the back he could have spinal damage. Gaz moves so he can hold Johnny’s head. He’s come too that has to be a good thing you think as you he moans. There is no telling how aware he is but he know’s he’s in pain. You have to fight to keep his hands away so he won’t pull the dressing out. He’s mumbling incoherently as you hear the ambulance sirens that makes you relax a little.

“Ghost go get them.” Price says, you hear Simon leave the room. You look over at Jack. He’s stopped screaming and shouting. Price patched his shoulder up he should be fine. He should be dead. You push the thought away you need to focus on Johnny. His hand has found your thigh, you reach down with your free hand to squeeze it. His eyes find yours and he smiles as you hear footsteps running. The door bursts open and paramedics flood in. You hear Price hang up on the dispatcher as two of them come over to you. 

“What’s happened?” The male one says as he bends down opposite you unzipping his bag. 

“He was shot from behind, through and through. I’ve tried my best to stop the bleeding.” You explain squeezing Johnny’s hand, you hear more sirens as Simon leaves the room again. The paramedic is trying to get Johnny’s attention as the second paramedic comes to take over holding the gauze from you.

You let go of Johnny’s hand moving out the way as the paramedics talk with each other. You stand up as another set of paramedics and police pile into the room. Price goes over to talk to the police as he points the other paramedics over to Jack. You turn and watch as they look at his shoulder. Gaz gets up on his feet as you watch the paramedics work on Johnny, getting an IV in, giving him oxygen, pressing more bandages into his wound.

Your cheek starts stinging and it takes everything in your power to not touch it. Gaz comes over to you leading you out of the way and over to a chair, Simon and Price are talking with the police. Everything was starting to feel like a blur. You look down you’re sat next to Marks body, you keep watching the paramedics work on Johnny and Jack.

You hear the paramedics say there is a doctor here for Johnny. You can see biased on the equipment he’s hanging on. He’s put under and they intubate him. The doctor arrives a few seconds later he wants to do an en-route blood transfusion. Jack leaves first with the other ambulance crew and some officers following behind. He’s formally arrested, his eyes burn into you as you hear the charges read out. The rest of the officers start collecting evidence. 

“Do you need medical attention?” Someone says to you. You look up from Johnny to see an officer stood beside you. You shake your head looking back as the paramedics move Johnny onto a spinal board. Simon is by your side now. You’re crying, each tear that falls in your wound stings. At least the bleeding as stopped you think. 

“Go with Johnny to the hospital and get patched up. We’ll meet you there as soon as we’re done here.” Simon says. You can’t look at him, not with his mask on not while Johnny is still fighting for his life. You get up off the chair though and he squeezes your shoulder. You look round the room as you follow the paramedics out. Jack is gone, Mark is dead. The body in the hallway the person who shot Johnny has been moved and covered up. You look at Price who nods at you then goes back to talking to the officers. Ghost follows you out to the ambulance. You get in the front, you don’t even remember the drive. 

  ——————————  

Your body moves on autopilot. When you make it to the hospital Johnny is taken through to triage. You’re in the waiting room, you refuse help from the nurse who comes to see you. You just sit and wait, using tissues to dab your wound, if you move in the wrong way it starts bleeding again. You’ll need stitches but you want to make sure Johnny is okay first. You don’t want to miss the updates. You need to be somewhere Simon can find you when he gets here. You’re waiting nervously when a doctor comes over to you, he introduces himself and you stand up.

“We’re going to be taking him through to surgery, to remove the bullet fragments. We won’t know the extent of the damage until after we can open him up. I’ll send a nurse through to take a look at your face, you were also involved in the attack from what I understand?” You nod not having the energy to fight with him. 

“I’m okay, I would like to wait for-” you stop yourself, what do you even say? You want to wait for his husband? For Price and Gaz who you barely even know. How much does the doctor know? You realise you’ve not been paying attention to whats been going on since you were hands deep in Johnny’s abdomen. 

“The other people involved in the incident, they’re his squad mates, from the army. They would like to know he’s okay.” 

“I can update them as well if you give me their names but I do think that wound needs looking at, cleaned and bandaged up at the very least.” The doctor says. You don’t want to you don’t want anyone to touch you. 

“I would rather wait.” You say sitting back down. The doctor relents and tells you someone will be out to update you. You feel sick your stomach in knots. You wish you had your phone so you could text Simon. You don’t know how long Simon is going to be or how long Johnny’s surgery is going to take. He’s going to be okay. You tell yourself.    

He’s going to be okay.

  ——————————  

You’re woken to someone shaking you. You don’t even remember falling asleep it makes you jump and you almost fall out the chair. You look up it’s Simon, he doesn’t have his mask on. You look at him confused the pain coming back to your face. 

“You need to get that checked out.” Simon says kneeling down in front of you. 

“Johnny’s in surgery.” You say. 

“I know, the doctor filled us in, Price is talking with him now.” You touch Simon’s cheek. 

“I’m sorry I got Johnny hurt.” You say, you’re too exhausted to cry. 

“It’s not your fault.” Simon says reaching up holding your hand on his chin squeezing it. He stands up. 

“C’mon, Price bullied the doctors into finding a private room for Johnny, we’ll wait in there. And I’ll find a nurse to take a look at that cheek.” Simon says. You let him lead you too your feet as he wraps his arm round your waist. When you make it to the room it’s nice even has a sofa in the corner which Simon leads you too. He leaves and comes back a few minutes later with a nurse who cleans your wound. She says it’s going to need stitches, you reluctantly allow her to do them. By the time she is done and bandaging your ear and cheek up Price walks into the room. 

“The police need a statement from you.” He says looking at you. You look at the nurse and thank her as she tides up to leave. 

“Christ, can’t she have a rest they can talk to her tomorrow.” Simon says from the other sofa on the other side of the room. 

“It’s just a statement 5 minutes tops. They’ll bring you in for a proper interview later in the week.” Price says. You nod getting off the bed heading back over to the sofa where Simon is. You lay up against him he wraps his arm round your shoulder. 

“Thank you for rescuing me.” You say. He kisses the top of your head. 

“I’m sorry it had to come to this, we should have stayed at the house with you.” He says. You can hear the guilt in his voice. You don’t know what he’s more guilty about. You being kidnapped or Johnny being shot. You don’t want to leave his side wrapping your arms round his stomach. When the police officers come in they ask you a few questions take a quick statement then leave.

You see Price and Gaz at the door. You’re exhausted leaning on Simon’s chest. You pull your feet on the sofa a shiver runs through your body. You close your eyes breathing Simon in but all you can smell is blood.

  —————————— 

Simon looks over at you still asleep on the sofa tucked under the blanket he threw over you. They wheeled Johnny in from surgery a bit ago, said he might need a few minutes to come round. Simon moved from the sofa to a chair by the bed so he could hold Johnny’s hand.

He hates seeing Johnny like this, he hates seeing him hurt. His eyes periodically flick back to you, what if Johnny’s vest didn’t stop the bullet. What if it kept going all the way through to you. Simon pushes the thought away, he can’t think about that, losing the both of you is just too much. You’re safe, Johnny is safe, he’s safe. Johnny murmurs and Simon’s head snaps up, he sits up pulling his chair closer to the bed and squeezing Johnny’s hand.    

“Hey,” Simon says as Johnny turns to look at him blinking. 

“Christ, I feel like shit.” Johnny says pulling himself up in the bed. Simon gets up helping him arrange the pillows. 

“Stop getting shot then.” Simon says, Johnny smiles leaning back down in the bed. Simon kisses him on the forehead before sitting back down. Johnny looks past Simon to see you curled up on the sofa.

“How is she?” He asks, Simon looks back for a second squeezing Johnny’s hand. 

“She’s fine.” Simon says, Johnny sighs. 

“What about..” Johnny trails off, Simon knows who he’s talking about. 

“In custody, he’ll live.” Simon says.

“Should have aimed for the head.” Johnny says. Simon smiles, if he had aimed for the head he could have killed her.  

“How ‘bout you? You good?.” Johnny asks, Simon rolls his eyes, bringing up Johnny’s hand and kissing it.

“I’m good.” Simon says, Johnny looks doubtful. Simon Squeezes his hand, looking away, he’ll deal with his emotions later. 

“Si,” Johnny says forcing his eyes to meet Simon’s. “I love you.” 

“I love you too Johnny.” Simon says smiling.

“Johnny?” Your voice cuts through the silence and Simon turns to see you sitting up on the sofa. He gets up bringing over another chair for you. 

“Good to see you lass.” Johnny says enthusiastically, he’s awake and smiling. It’s all you need walking over to him and throwing your arms round him.

“Easy love, still got holes in me.” Johnny says wrapping his arms round your back.

“I know I’m so sorry.” You blurt out you can feel yourself welling up again. It’s happy tears this time. You feel Simon’s hand on your back as you pull away. 

“You ain’t got anything to be sorry ‘bout.” Johnny says his face serious.

“We’re sorry we left ya, didn’t think anyone knew where you were.” Johnny says. Simon’s hand leaves your back pulling on your wrist for you to sit down. You look at Simon, he looks tired. You take his hand and squeeze it. 

“I should have fought, you gave me the gun.” You say looking at Simon. “I tried to run instead.” 

“It doesn’t matter now, you’re safe he’s gone.” Simon says. You know there is more to it, with so many people involved it’ll be a while before their all punished. You’re almost happy Chloe isn’t around to see it. She would have had a lot to say watching her family be arrested and court marshalled for their involvement. You take Johnny’s hand in yours rubbing it with your thumb. 

“Thank you for saving my life love.” He says pulling you back to relativity, you feel yourself blushing. 

“Well I wasn’t going to let you die.” You say feeling embarrassed for some reason. Johnny brings your hand up to his face and kisses it. 

“I know, I love you.” He says. It warms your heart and you find yourself leaning up against Simon. You smile at him as Simon wraps his arm around you kissing the top of your head. 

“I love you too.” You say. 

“So how much medical leave do you think I’ll get this time?” Johnny asks looking at Simon.

“Pff, with the way you’re acting I bet you’ll be ready to go by next week.” Simon scoffs. 

“Aw, not even a week, you’re such a tight ass. You hearing this captain. Si said I’m only allowed a week off.” Johnny says as you see Price walk into the room. You sit up straight so you’re not leaning on Simon. 

“If you’re lucky.” Price smiles. Johnny shakes his head and you squeeze his hand. 

“Well then, making sure I’m fit and ready for duty?” Johnny asks.

“Thought I would give you an update.” Price says crossing his arms. 

“Jack, he’s out.” It’s like someone sucked all the air out the room, your head starts to throb where you were hit earlier. You squeeze Johnny’s hand. 

“How? It’s only been a few hours.” Simon asks.

“His lawyers work quick and they’re good.” Price says, he sounds sympathetic.

“But he kidnapped me, what about all the evidence you got?” You say looking up at Price, eyes wide. This can’t be happening.

“They did a good job at destroying it all, it’s going to take the police time to go through everything.” Price says. You feel sick, no way he’s going to get away with it. No way. Your ears start ringing as you hear Johnny and Simon talk asking questions Price does not have the answers to.

This can’t be happening.  

—————————— 

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I am very much aware that the police would have reasonable evidence to hold Jack and not let him out but hey it's just a story.

# fuckjack