#What do you want from me I'm just a bird

[feathers-fur]

This would be such a nice day to fly, but alas, I am currently cursed to walk the Earth

[floccinaucinihilipilificationa]

[vaguely-concerned]

I was just ambushed within the turbulent halls of my own mind by some headcanons about rye ingellvar's childhood that did 15000000 points of psychic damage to me and my heart personally and also made me almost sure of how I want to play it all at the end (very very differently from how I imagined going in!). some 'oh holy fuck this changes everything' rocking my own world bullshit going on in my neurons right now I'm reeling

[necrotic-nephilim]

do you ship helena bertinelli with anyone? if yes, then which characters and why? what's your favorite helena ship? do you have any helena rarepairs? (i know you've talked about helena/steph and you're so right about it, it's a very interesting ship)

!!!! i have so many ships for my best girl ever yes oh my god thank you for asking.

my top pairing is probably Vic Sage/the Question. Vic is the basic answer, but man. i love them so much. no couple has matched each other's freak like that have. Justice League Unlimited is a great adaptation of Helena in general, but it also did a great adaptation of Helena and Vic's relationship. how he just dedicates himself to helping her with no expected return, but also wants to make sure she doesn't go too far in a hunt for vengeance that never ends for her. i think a lot of characters often want to change Helena or expect things out of her for their own needs, like the Batfam and the BoP. but Vic is one of the few people who just wants her to be better for her own good. when he tries to stop her from killing it's not because of his morals, it's because he doesn't want this crusade to consume her. and i just. man i think about them a lot. Helena rlly likes weird little men who give themselves wholly to her.

Zinda Blake/Lady Blackhawk is also a top ship for me. tbh i just like Zinda. but i do love how Helena and Zinda interact, being the more rough and tumble members of the BoP. they're both outsiders, in different ways. Helena is an outsider of the Batfam and Zinda is literally from a different time and an outsider to the current world. their friendship is so genuine and i think if Babs and Dinah can have. whatever homoerotic nonsense going on during BoP, then Zinda and Helena deserve some homoerotic nonsense too. as a treat.

if we're willing to count New-52 Helena, then i enjoy Helena/Dick/Tiger. i think Helena and Dick being a past relationship is really important in pre-Flashpoint for Helena's development, though i don't ship them as a serious couple beyond a fling. but in the New-52, i think this throuple be fun. Helena and Tiger respect each other as two very driven, no-nonsense agents and then well. they both clearly have some kind of thing for Dick. so it's fun finding the balance of how they could all work together romantically.

and ofc. it's a crime to mention Helena ships and not mention Renee Montoya/the Question. every time they interact it's really fucking gay. it's so gay that Kate Kane, Renee's own ex, assumed Helena and Renee were gay. i cannot be convinced against this ship. i genuinely think this ship should be canon. i mean. DC did tease us with this moment from an alternate universe and it's lived rent for me since. fucking criminal for us to only get one panel of what we could have if DC let Helena be a fruit in the main universe. being in love with Helena Bertinelli should be a right of passage for the Question mantle, i personally believe. if you asked me like. genuinely who i want to see Helena date in the current comics, Renee is my top pick. (i would say Vic but he's fucking dead and the New-52 butchered him so rip my mans-)

lois lane (2019) #10

besides those ships, just about every ship for Helena probably falls into the category of rarepair. like you said i've talked about my love for Helena/Steph before bc god. i think it should be a thing more people ship. once i finish the fic i'm writing about them i will convince others to like it.

i also think Helena/Cass could be fun. in a *lot* of ways Helena and Cass are narrative parallels to each other. Helena was a victim of her family being murdered at about the same age Cass was forced to be a murderer. Helena grows up to believe in lethal justice because of this, and Cass grows up to be staunchly against it. Cass' Batgirl suit was made *by* Helena. they both want to be protectors of the most vulnerable people. they balance each other out in a lot of ways and i think they should kiss about it.

also probably a rarepair, i think Helena/Lady Shiva is fun. their fight during Birds of Prey (2010) had... questionable moments for Helena's characterization, but i do love so much that Helena knocks Shiva off her feet and gains a deep respect from Shiva. like. Shiva gives her a nickname and shows her admiration. i would like to see fanfic where Shiva continues to be weirdly admirable of Helena and bothering her non-stop. they could be a fun fucked up toxic yuri moment. this is just. so gay to me.

birds of prey (2010) #6

my most rare Helena pair would probably be Helena Wayne, actually. but specifically Helena Wayne of JSA (2022). ever since, for some reason, it was made canon that the current Helena Wayne was named after Helena Bertinelli and took the name Huntress to honor her i *cannot* stop thinking about them meeting. because in-universe it makes *no* fucking sense for Bruce to name his kid after *Helena Bertinelli*, someone he's regularly at odds with and doesn't like. it's clearly an awkward explanation to try to make the whole two Huntress situation make sense. (it's almost as bad as Helena Wayne in the New-52 using Helena Bertinelli as an alias.) but because it's such an odd choice, i do think it could be fun for Helena Wayne, when she's back in time to see Bruce, to find Helena Bertinelli to get to know the woman she was named after and Helena Bertinelli just being. baffled by the idea of *Batman* naming his kid after her. it could be a fun fucked up moment.

my other super rarepair is Kara Zor-L/Power Girl. they had like. one meaningful interaction of JSA Classified and it's been PLAGUING me. something about when Power Girl doesn't remember her past and she's seeking a friend, she instinctively goes to find Huntress? but it's wrong bc this isn't *her* Huntress and neither of them understand why Power Girl would seek Helena out? god it's so good. i'm always a big fan of ships where one person in the ship is *so* obviously using the other person as a replacement for someone they lost and they both know it. it's such a doomed angsty thing where you could play with Helena actually really liking Kara, but knowing that she's just a replacement for Kara's Helena Wayne. good fucked up shit man.

and lastly: i really ship her with Dawn Granger/Dove. there's no canon basis for this, they didn't have a ton of interactions even when they were both on the BoP. but there's a very kind innocence to Dawn that contrasts Helena's violence really well. and i do love a ship with a corruption kink vibe to it. let Helena corrupt Dawn. i could write such fucked up porn about these two.

[autisticlee]

no one knows just how hard I work at things. how I have to work 1000000x more than the average person to compensate for being autistic and adhd and probably other things i'm working out with therapist, and having a sort of physical disability i've not received any help or treatment for. everyone assumes I don't try or give up too soon. they think I just started, need more practice. they think I expect everything handed to me immediately with no work or effort and don't acknowledge the multiple years i've put into things. they think I have no right to be upset about still failing to get where I want even after working my entire life to get there, while watching people around me surpass even my meager goals within a fraction of the time and work i've out into the same thing. constantly getting surpassed by everyone around me who seem to barely do any work to get there compared to me. it's all handed to them and falls into their lap so easily. all because they don't have the extra obstacles to overcome and work around that I do. while they go from point A to Z immediately with no major stops in between, I have to go through every single letter and then some, often getting sent back to the start. but it's always *my* fault, according to everyone. it's not the fault of those around me who ignore me, don't support me, don't help me, don't believe in me, etc. it's my fault they don't do those things. because doing the work of 10 people in one isn't enough, just because it's me. and not reaching Z as fast as everyone else means I don't deserve any of the support or help or anything else and means i'm not trying hard enough. it doesn't matter that I *need* to work harder than 100 "normal" people combined to get even half the result! Just because I can't reach what they do means i'm not trying hard enough! ugh.

[sysig]

Getting up to trouble is his speciality (Patreon)

[seeyouonsaturn]

Hello! I've recentlyl found your blog and it's made me so nostalgic. You've managed to find fanart that I thought was lost to time. I was in love with prowl back in 2009 and these days he's a platonic f/o! I ship to optimus and bulkhead now! I'd very much like to hear about your oc! (selfshipping-haven)

AW THANK YOU!! God yeah he was my first real love tbh. I'd had little baby crushes before but Prowl unlocked things in me I didn't even know I had when I discovered TFA in 2011. I didn't even really speak English back then, I didn't understand half of what those guys were even saying but he was everything to me.

I haven't thought about transformers in over a decade until I recently made a new friend who's a fan, and at some point TFA came up and I sort of mentioned that I used to be in love with Prowl, so then one thing led to another and I looked him up just for nostalgia and oh. I remember him. We were in love. Turns out those feelings never left. So here I am.

Thinking back now I realized that there's a lot of things about my personality/me as a person that connect back to Prowl, because kid me wanted to be more like him, and I did, but I completely forgot where it all started. I do love that I succeeded to grow into a person he would like, it means so much to me. Coming back to TFA honestly feels like coming home. Returning to my roots.

Anyway, excuse the autistic rambling <3 I much appreciate this ask, it means a lot that someone actually cares enough to ask!! Looking at your blog though, I don't think you'd like Trixie very much, since her ship/story is pretty fucked up lmao.

I have two OCs I ship with Prowl (HEAR ME OUT LOL) mom said i could have two Prowl ships

So. The first one, Ash, I made when I was 13, and they were a very made-by-autistic-child-esque overpowered self-insert. They had a different name and gender back then because I did too but the concept remains sort of the same: Prowl falls in love with a human, all is good for a while, and then there is an accident that results in Ash nearly dying, becoming techno-organic to save their life, and sporting a huge scar. I thought it was awesome, then later decided it was cringe, and now I realized it's actually based af so I revived them. I am cringe but I am free. Ash is great.

Enjoy a preview. Kitty cat. I love cats more than anything and this is a self insert so of COURSE they have kittycat ears!! Probably processor over matter'd them into existence too through sheer willpower. Because they're neat.

But I did have a phase in I think 2019 where I briefly got back into TFA (but not deeply) and wanted a new OC, because I was in a very sad "noooo you can't ever make anything ✨️cringe✨️" phase. Dark times. I don't know why I let people convince me there could ever be harm in my joy. So I scrapped Ash and made a bot OC instead, because the whole humanxbot thing felt too self-indulgent to be allowed. And thus came Bird. (She also had a different name, but I revamped her completely in the past weeks).

I love Bird. She's honestly my main transformers oc. Bird starts out as a decepticon named PHANTOM-2918-4 (aka Phantom), who's tasked to spy on the Autobots, but over time she instead falls in love with Earth's nature and critters and realizes she wants to protect them, not harm them. Prowl decides to take a chance on her and train her (since Yoketron took a chance on him too). She changes her name to Bird because she loves birds most, since they can fly like her, but the ability isn't associated with evil.

Unlike Ash though, Bird x Prowl doesn't have a good ending because in Bird!canon, the finale still happens. She stays behind on Earth alone after everyone else leaves to protect it and honor Prowl's memory, but he's very much gone. She gets Yoketron's helmet. Their ship song is actually what this blog is named after (Saturn from Sleeping at Last).

[junonreactor]

yaay

[silverselfshippingchaos]

one day I'll be able to tell what I feel towards certain characters LMAAAOOO

[lisbonsteresa]

oh it's horrible; i love it

[dullweapons]

mother of all tag dumps inbound ..... i am not booping people cause theres like 30 tags lol

here is the page on my google site that lists them all ... i think ? may have missed someone but ill double check later

⸻  SHIP  : ayrin / sahar  ❤︎  you know you hypnotize me always !   ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / grace ( hyliangrace )  ❤︎  you can be the match & i will be the fuse : boom   ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / lyric ( lunarscaled )  ❤︎  bleed into my mouth so i may taste you forever ; leviathan  ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / robin ( wolfvirago )  ❤︎  hold me in your arms & i die a little death so beautifully  ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / octavo ( bransles )  ❤︎  but he fell in love with the fever & i'm on my knees in a theater .  ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray & ayrin  / link ( uneasedregrets )  ❤︎  city of stars ; never shined so brightly  ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / volga ( volcania )  ❤︎  your blood like wine get me drunk & make me feel .   ˎˊ˗

⸻  SHIP  : ray / ghirahim ( flamboycnt )  ❤︎  let our love be a flame not an ember ! say it's me that you want to dismember !  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & link ( legacyshero )  ✦ no voice to speak of your suffering but i hear you now  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & nabooru ( gerudospiriit )  ✦ so if you need to be mean be mean to me . i can take it & put it inside me . ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & bussaba ( topaz-adorned )  ✦ you with the dark curls you with the watercolor eyes ! ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & gallilea ( vairuler )  ✦ im made of sugar spice kanekalon & cinnamon : me & my bestie are the sam like a synonym ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & toba ( askganondorftobadragmire )  ✦ you take away this pain from me : the memories that haunted me  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & nabooru ( gerudosage )  ✦ oh she could have been a poet or she could have been a fool . ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & miri ( somnium-led )  ✦ dear prudence won't you open your eyes ? look around … look around …  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & eilian ( somnium-led )  ✦ im sick of apologies from people with priorities that their life matters so much more than ours . ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & ganondorf ( oocca )  ✦ want to save your men from the fire ? show me that you’re willing to burn .  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & link ( twilitae )  ✦ what? land of the free? whoever told you that is your enemy .  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & link ( obraveyouth )  ✦ who’s a heretic child ? can you make it stick now ?  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & zelda ( spiritmaiden )  ✦ why do birds suddenly appear everytime you are near  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & zelda ( telepathyia )  ✦ the moon will sing a song for me : i loved you like the sun ! bore the shadow that you made  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & zelda ( regnantlight )  ✦  can you tell me what's the point in building empty empires now? ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ray & calamity ( hylianremnants )  ✦  i know you i walked with you once upon a nightmare  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ayrin & sky ( hylianremnants )  ✦  stories of old great adventure : i want to be just like you .  ˎˊ˗

⸻  RELATION  : ayrin & sun ( hylianremnants )  ✦  bright & beautiful : sing me another lullaby  ˎˊ˗

[keeps-ache]

looking for answers

[hurryflurrie]

Wow the first post I'm making and I've had this account for how long?! Welp, good of a time as any. I recently made this bundle of joy and I'm quite proud of how they turned out. For context, this was originally a grim reaper OC that I played in character.ai. (Very cringe I am aware)

They were originally a really boring run of the mill grim reaper that wasn't any different from the original. I really wanted them to stand out from other grim reapers I've seen and honestly it ended up better than I expected, so here they are:

Tenshi Nevermore

Age: Unknown

Species: Reaper

Gender: N/A and doesn't care what pronouns are used to refer to them

Sexuality: Aro/Ace

Height: 8'0"

Backstory

Reapers are soulless beings that do not have any emotions and are naturally apathetic creatures. They exist in a realm completely devoid of life. It's a barren, dull, desolate wasteland with the only surroundings being random huts built by the Reapers out of sheer boredom. Many Reapers have died out as a result of their eternal boredom, so very few remain in this realm. Getting sick of letting the boredom overtake them, Tenshi left the realm in search of a purpose for existing, picking up bounty hunting as a way to hunt for souls, the only thing they are able to eat. They wound up in Hell after taking a bounty to kill a seemingly harmless demon named Azamuku, but failed to do so due to the demon matching them in strength. They gained their own way of respect for the demon, spared her, and overtime the two gained a one-sided friendship with Azamuku being the one wanting friendship and Tenshi only keeping her alive to have an occasional rematch from time to time.

Description

Completely skeletal with no organs or skin. Their skull is like a raven's with a torso similar to a human's but the fingers have very sharp ends akin to claws and the legs and feet are talons with black claws. On their back they have black feathered raven wings that span 9 feet which allows them to fly. Tenshi does have blood-red pupils but they only appear when they sense they are in danger or when trying to be intimidating. Their eye sockets are usually empty otherwise. Their attire consists of a black cloak with a hood fashioned with pockets on the inside for storage and black skinny jeans tailored to fit their proportions. All of Tenshi's clothing were made by Azamuku much to Tenshi's protest against it. Their voice is deep, but feminine sounding which is unusual compared to others of their species who have raspy bass voices.

Personality

Nonchalant and non-caring. Due to them being a Reaper, they were born without a soul, rendering them incapable of feeling any emotions so they come across as cold and apathetic. They are also impatient and can be annoyed very easily if prompted. They speak in a soft and monotonous manner when relaxed, but speak with a menacing and sadistic tone when on a job or threatened. Coming from a realm devoid of any life and a bleak colorless atmosphere, they also have an undying boredom that is nearly impossible to satiate. The only times it is temporarily relieved is if they successfully complete a bounty or fight a strong opponent that nearly kills them but it only lasts for a few minutes before coming back. They have a quirk when speaking where instead of saying "god" they instead say words synonymous to nothingness, such as "null".

Likes

Souls

Quiet areas

Combat (takes bounties often for this reason alone)

Melee weapons

Dislikes

Killing things (due to the mess, they'd prefer to just rip the targets' souls out and leave them as husks, but will not hesitate in completely killing them if their job requires it)

Loud constant noise

Boredom

Targets talking to them while fighting

The other members of their race due to their idleness

Guns, Bows, any weapon that is ranged

Weapons

A scythe with the snath being made out of a reinforced, durable dragon spine that has grips wrapped in black leather to make fighting with it easier. The blade is made of a sharpened dragon tooth

Very sharp dual wield daggers carved out of femurs

Strengths

Remarkably clever and observant when in a fight, finding their targets' weaknesses quickly and able to capitalize on them efficiently

When disarmed, they are alarmingly strong despite being skeletal and they are able to maneuver in an agile manner due to their light weight

Creative, and learns crafts rather quickly. Their forging skills are impressive, considering their weapons are made of bone and do not break easily

Weaknesses

Due to their anatomy having avian features, their bones are hollow much like actual birds so they take damage much more severely

Them being quick to annoy also can hinder them in combat, often resulting in them lashing out without thinking and becoming predictable

Tends to underestimate opponents a lot and pays gravely for their error

Very stubborn and will not retreat unless absolutely necessary, which has almost killed them numerous times

You'll need to know this for the test

Tenshi is the shortest of their race. The average height of a Reaper is 12 feet.

Reapers do not care about identity, so none of them have names. Tenshi only has one because Azamuku started calling them "Tenshi" one day and they just got used to it. Their last name they picked for themselves after hearing Azamuku recite an Edgar Allen Poe poem

Tenshi's screams of rage sound like a distorted mix of a Falcon call and several blood curdling screams screaming in unison

Tenshi can die, but eating souls actually adds to their lifespan, making them artificially immortal. If they do not eat souls within the span of 5 years, they will die

When Reapers die, their body disintegrates, leaving nothing behind. They are unable to be resurrected due to lacking a soul

Whenever Tenshi sustains damage, they are able to heal by eating souls, how many they need to eat depends on how severe the damage is

Tenshi can physically feel, such as touch or pain.

When they kill a target/opponent, they usually take a random bone from the body, either as proof the target is 100% dead (they usually just present their soul though) or as a keepsake if they deemed them worthy to remember.

Tenshi has a hidden fascination in weaponcraft and whenever they encounter a new type of weapon, they start studying it immediately. If they like using it enough, they will design one of their own using the bones they have collected

Tenshi can only play most video games for a couple minutes before immediately getting frustrated and/or bored, but they are able to play for longer if the games are specifically Minecraft or Toribash, where they will go for days playing them nonstop.

In Minecraft, Tenshi has a habit of making dirt shacks and completely forgetting where they built them when they go too far from them, so they build a new one and the cycle repeats until the world is littered with abandoned dirt shacks 30 chunks apart from each other...and they will still forget where their numerous dirtshacks are and keep building new ones.

Tenshi is 5th Dan in Toribash and finds enjoyment playing Aikido Big Dojo and Lenshu

If Tenshi played Smash Bros Ultimate they would main Greninja (They would find enjoyment for a few minutes, but never play again since they prefer "realistic" fighting over cartoon violence)

If Tenshi played Mario Kart 8 they would main Dry Bowser and Bone Rattler (They find racing games really boring)

If Tenshi played Splatoon, they would primarily use Splatana Stamper and Splat Dualies (They lack the necessary patience to play shooter games)

If Tenshi played any Pokemon game, they would use only Ghost and Dark types (They think RPGs are tedious and frustrating, especially those with exp systems)

[absolute-flaming-trash]

Oh I'm fucking SICK

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

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

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

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

Word count: 5400ish

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

You are perfectly imperfect. 

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

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

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

You wake up.

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

Like you, he thinks. Cute.

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

Cute as you try to say your first words. 

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

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

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

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

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

And then–

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

-

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

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

You know something he hasn’t taught you. 

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

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

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

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

If you had a tail, it would be wagging.

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

He’s just learning.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

But what, and when, and…

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

Oh, no.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“What are we?”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

He presses a kiss to the top of your head.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Is it really? repeats that voice.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

–

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Maybe so.

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

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

[picusviridis]

☄️ for cassius (i just like this prompt so much HAHA)

this ones sort of scary (never really thought about it)

☄️ - From your OC’s perspective, write a short paragraph about their average day. 

(from the perspective of somebody, likely Edgar, asking about his day. or something like that. point is it's a response...)

"I don't know. I mean, I do know, I suppose? I was there. For my day, I mean, well I were... Objectively... Err, anyway. I remember I bought mince or maybe suet for the bird-table... By the lighthouse. There were some great spots and that made me happy, I think - I remember this. Or, maybe that was yesterday? Err, oh well. I think that was the morning. I went to see Wheeler but I don't think I stuck about long. I find him to be rather bothersome as of late... That is cruel to say, though. He is not bothersome. He isn't! He is simply... Energetic. Where was I? Oh, well I remember - maybe this was yesterday or something of that sort - brilliant street musicians, which I also recall chatting with... About what, I don't know. But I do remember that! They got chased away eventually but they were nice to speak with. I only wish I had caught their names... Mm-hmm. I suppose I don't remember anything else?" (bonus ending: "Stop looking at me like that!" (<--isn't being looked at funny) (he would just say that))

(now = about 5 pm...likely maybe 5:30 or so) (note: the nebulous musicians are NOT vikingman and cuno I just imagine there's at least a decent like... music scene... in my heart of hearts i know it to be true... and its not because i am BIASED!!! anyway theyre just like nebulous. whatever)

[goblin-enjoyer]

I swear why are half the things i like/fandoms im in made of mostly younger people while the other half are mostly older people? what are the zoggin odds with that?

How it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 30-40 somethings.

VS how it feels being 20 in a fandom with a bunch of 14-17 somethings.

like am do i just have extremely odd luck with things i like or is this just what being 20 is like?