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the-power-of-a-pen · 2 years ago

Text

A Way Home

Fandom: Spiderverse

Summary: Following the loss of his alternate universe daughter, Miguel is reluctant to risk letting anyone close to him and breaking canon again. However, as most anomalies are returned to their universes, there's the issue of you. You don't have a universe to return to. So, after having you on his team for half a year, he adopts you as his child.

Word Count: 4654

Pairing?: Father-child relationship btwn Miguel and gn! reader.

Trigger Warnings: Some cursing, reader is hinted to having a traumatic past (very briefly and vaguely described), 1 reference to reader as "Spiderman" (meant as a gender-neutral phrase)

A/n: This turned out to be longer than I had planned b/c I realized how much I had to add to make the change of heart even slightly natural, so let me know if y'all want a part two of the reader and Miguel interacting further along the adoption. Not sure how I feel about the structure + characterization in this one. Feedback much appreciated! Please!! I'm on my hands and knees, begging for feedback!!!

------

"Lyla, status on current anomalies," Miguel ordered. He leaned over the yellow panels in front of him, watching the same scene of him and his child playing over and over again. His grip on the console tightened.

She blipped into view. "Currently, there are 918,503,201 anomalies to be returned to their home universes. That's 40% less than yesterday! Spider-Byte does have an update for you regarding-"

"I'll convene with her later. I'm busy."

"Busy brooding over your twelfth cup of coffee. Not enough sugar this time around?" Lyla teased, only to be met with a glare. "Alright, someone woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning. But seriously, it can't wait. A canon event was disrupted and now there's a spider-person without a universe to return to."

Miguel turned around dangerously fast. "What did you just say?"

"Talk to Margo -- she'll fill you in." Lyla blipped away.

------

"There you are," Margo mumbled to herself as Miguel approached. "This one's in rough shape, got dropped in Earth 616 and put up a fierce fight before Jessica took them to HQ. I tried to send them through the Go Home Machine, but it just dropped them back here."

"And you're sure it's not a hardware issue?"

"It's 2099," Margo drolled and rolled her eyes. "There's no hardware issues anymore, grandpa."

"Then try sending them home again. I don't see why this requires my supervision."

"This machine tears people's atoms apart and throws them back together in other dimensions," she explained. "If I run the same person through the machine too many times, they could die."

Miguel sighed heavily and began pacing around. "Well, what am I supposed to do? Keep them here forever?"

Margo looked at him like he was crazy and slowly nodded. "You can't leave them here to die."

"They're an anomaly anywhere they go, Spider-Byte. Maybe death would be a mercy."

"To you," Peter B. called from behind him.

"Maldito sea, carajo" Miguel cursed under his breath, turning around. "I thought you were taking the week off."

"Well, I was going to, but Mayday was begging me for another one of these cafeteria burgers," he said with his mouth full of food. "They're really good, you should seriously try them sometime."

Miguel's eyes darted to Mayday and quickly darted away. "I have work to return to in my office, so if you'll excuse me-"

Peter stepped in his way. "I'm sorry, Miguel, but I can't let you walk away from this problem. It's gone too far."

"I'm sorry, what?" Miguel questioned, laughing bitterly.

"Ok, I'm not great with words, especially not in front of big, strong, angry men, so MJ had me prewrite this, let me just get it- oh, Mayday has it. Mayday, hold the paper up for daddy, thanks, sweetheart."

Peter cleared his throat and began to over-annunciate his speech. "Everyone in this building joined your society because they believed in your ability to lead, shape, and change the world. We trusted you to use humane practices behind your actions and to keep the safety and rights of humanity at mind before all else. However, given the fact- Ok, this is bullshit - sorry, Mayday, don't tell mommy. Point is, Miguel, that you claim that you're all about saving the multiverse and saving humanity, but then you throw half of your sanity away to hunt down a 15 year old kid who just wants to save his dad. You're so obsessed with the concept of saving humanity that you forgot what it's like to care about individual humans. You forgot how to be a human."

"I never forgot what it felt like to care. To love."

"It's okay to admit that the new kid reminds you of your daughter, you know."

For a moment, Miguel and Peter B. just stood across from each other in silence, unable to break eye contact. Miguel's expression was intense, but otherwise unreadable. Then: "Go home, Parker. More and more of you prove that you're untrustworthy when it comes to prioritizing the greater good. I'm not afraid to get rid of you, too."

Peter's arms gripped on tighter to Mayday. He seemed to want to say something, but found it in him to walk away. Once he went through his portal back home, Miguel called for Lyla.

"Hold the chatter, Lyla," he said before she could open her mouth, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Silence any notifications except for the urgent ones. And I mean urgent."

"Well, since you asked so nicely," she remarked sarcastically, but complied.

------

Everything in Miguel's office repeated like a broken record. The video of his daughter. Peter's comment that he "forgot what it's like to care about humans, forgot how to be human." Gwen's "we're supposed to be the good guys." The feeling of his own child glitching out of existence in his palms, the very reason he got into this work. The ticking of the clock. The ticking of that motherfucking clock.

He zipped a web to the clock and smashed it into the ground, falling to a knee amidst the broken glass.

"I understand that you're having a very emo moment right now, Mr. O'Hara," Pavitr began, "But Jessica told me to drop this off." He placed the file on the floor and nudged it over with his foot as far as he could without getting too close. "I'm heading home now, have a great day!"

"Wait."

"Oh, I was afraid you would say that."

"Tell Jessica to report to my office."

"She said to tell you that she's not available until noon tomorrow."

"Of course," he chuckled angrily. "One person's off for the week, another needs 3 weeks of recovery. Now one of my only trustworthy members can't report for duty until tomorrow. But who's checking in on me, huh? That's right - no one. I took on this leadership role because I know firsthand what it feels like to have the only joy in your life, your only reason for living, taken away from you because of your own reckless mistakes. And despite all of that, I made it my life's mission to make sure it doesn't happen to anyone else. But now I'm the villain?! "'We're supposed to be the good guys!'" "'You can't leave them to die!'" "'They remind you of your daughter.'" But does anyone else here know the pain of losing a child you weren't even destined to have?"

Pavitr blinked heavily. "With all due respect, sir, I'm 17."

Miguel barely seemed to hear him. He sank to the floor, running his hands through his hair and not bothering to clear the glass shards around him. "Maybe they're all right. Maybe I'm the one hurting everyone else. Maybe I'll make the same mistake I did before, and take another innocent life because I want to feel fulfilled, just for a moment."

"Should I get someone?"

Miguel sighed. "Just go."

------

“Morning, sunshine,” Jessica called, taking a seat in Miguel’s office. “You had a chance to go through the file?”

Miguel hummed in agreement. “Need a second opinion.”

Jessica flipped through her copy of your file. “Teenager, been Spiderman for 2 years, originally from Earth 45, but got dropped in Ben’s world. A slippery one for sure; took nearly two hours to get them on the ground. Tried talking to them, but they wouldn't speak. I know my stance on this, but what’s yours?”

Miguel paced around the room. “We can’t keep them here. They’re an anomaly regardless of where they go. Margo said that it would be too inhumane to send them through the Go Home Machine again, so… I think we should let them go quietly.”

“Are you serious?”

“When am I not serious?” He took a seat across from Jessica. “I’ve been hearing it from everyone else. I need to hear it from someone who was there from the beginning. Someone who I trust. Am I falling off the edge? Have I gone too far?”

She raised her eyebrows. “You’re just now questioning that? Look, as your friend, I’ll say this: you’re taking too much weight onto your shoulders. You need to stop being Spiderman for a moment and start being Miguel.” She shifted in her seat. “But, as your teammate, I want you to know that I’ll be by your side no matter what you choose.”

Miguel nodded, but he was totally spaced out. All he could think about was his daughter. How he wanted to take this one in so bad, just to feel like a father again, feel like a man again. How he feared the consequences of love.

Jessica snapped in front of his face. “Earth to Miguel.”

He shook his head. “What?”

“Look, I can’t say that I don’t agree with your initial idea. But I look at them, and at Gwen, and at my future kid, and-” She put her hand on her stomach “-I just can’t imagine leaving them in the dust like that. I was wrong about Gwen, yes, but these kids are suffering. And I don’t know if we can keep making these hard decisions that put these people right back where they were trying to escape from and still call ourselves heroes.”

Miguel held his face in his hands. “I don’t know what’s up and down anymore, right or wrong. I was all of these kids once: Miles, Gwen, Hobie. I know what it’s like to love your family so much that you throw everything else to the wayside. But that cost me my child, and thousands of other lives. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t do anything to stop it. I just want to stop the suffering. I just want it to stop.”

Jessica gave him a moment. “Let’s meet the kid. Give them a trial before we make any decisions we can’t take back.”

“Alright,” he agreed, “But if you’re wrong about this-”

“Then lunch is on me. Come on, mafioso.”

------

“Here they are,” Margo announced. “Just so you know, they’re fully aware of their situation, but not very talkative.”

“Let me talk to them,” Miguel insisted. “I want to hear what they have to say.”

As Miguel and Jessica approached, you refused to meet their eyes. Instead, you drew your hood closer to your face.

Miguel took a knee by you, talking through the red barrier. “Hey, kid. My name is Miguel. Miguel O’Hara. I’m Spiderman.”

You gasped dramatically. “No way! Really? I never would have guessed!”

He took in a breath. “So you do speak. Look, we’re trying to relocate you, but we need to have your account of what happened. Why doesn’t your home exist anymore?”

You shrugged and counted off the events on your fingers. “Dalmatian-looking dude crashed through a window at my internship. He went straight for the collider room, and most of my mentors were at lunch, so I went after him. I tried to shut off the collider at the same time he stepped through it, he pushed me into a hole, that lady behind you caught me after an uncomfortably long chase, and here we are.”

“You worked at Alchemax,” Miguel mumbled, though mostly to himself.

“Yeah,” you replied, leaning back. “What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Did you get bitten by the radioactive spider before or after working there?”

“Did I fucking what?”

“That’s how you got your powers, right?” He asked.

“My powers? Oh, I see what’s happening here,” you laughed. “You’re all off your rockers! Let me guess, this is some alternate dimension Alchemax where everyone’s trying to biologically get the abilities that I developed through technology. Ooh ooh, or, this is an elite spider society trying to save the multiverse from itself!”

“That was really just a guess?” questioned Jessica.

“I read a lot of sci-fi,” you explained.

“Nevermind all of that,” Miguel groaned. “What’s your story, kid? What’s your motive? Because if we don’t have that information, we can’t help get you out of there.”

Your expression became grave for a moment as you considered your options and chuckled bitterly. “My story? My story is that I’m a poor kid from the slums who worked their ass off to get into a good school so that I could do better for my family. My story is that my family never loved me, my friends never cared, and I was forced to choose between what I love to do and what the world needed from me. I didn’t have the power to stop my parents from hurting me or stop people from hurting each other. So, I manufactured that power and took it into my own hands. My story is that the moment I was released from that hellhole of a world, I was locked up in a three foot wide cage and forced to talk about my feelings. I heard what you guys were talking about in that back room. All I ask is that you do it quickly. I don’t like waiting.”

“Miguel, we can take a quick debrief if you need one,” Jessica offered, putting a hand on his shoulder.

Miguel didn’t budge. He looked into your eyes and felt your pain like it was his own. He opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally: “Let them go, Margo.”

“What?”

“You heard me,” he asserted. “Let them go.”

Margo released you and offered her hand to help you step down from the pedestal, which you reluctantly accepted. “Didn’t know you were one for sob stories, Mr. O’Hara,” you mocked, though your comment fell through as soon as your legs trembled from lack of use.

“I’m not,” he responded, walking up to you. “But I know an innovator when I see one. You’re hurt, yes, but you have the capacity to do so much good. I’m offering you a place on my team.”

You approached cautiously, your arms crossed. “And if I say no?”

“I’d ask you to reconsider.” He held out his hand for a shake. You accepted, and he smiled. “Welcome to HQ.”

Margo whooped in the background and gave your shoulder a squeeze.

------

“Ok, first mission briefing,” Miguel started, walking backwards.

“On the move?” you asked.

“That’s the only way to do it.” He shot a web to a nearby building and dropped from an HQ terrace.

You followed suit. “Where exactly are we going?” you shouted over the wind.

“Earth 616. There’s a rogue Vulture stealing tech from Osborn. We’d let it happen, but the man's the only thing between a country of people and an all-out war.”

“Got it.”

“We go in, capture Vulture, and bring him back to HQ. Shouldn’t be too difficult.”

You stepped through your portal and immediately got whiplash from the pure speed of a nearby aircraft.

Vulture swooped down from above and tore the tail off of the police helicopter. It crashed into a skyscraper and gained speed as it headed for the street below.

Miguel spoke to you through the comms. “Trial number one, newbie. I’ll pursue Vulture; you stop that helicopter from hurting civilians.”

“On it.” You dived off of your skyscraper to gain speed and pulled yourself forward with your webs. In one smooth movement, you grabbed the two co-pilots and placed them on the closest rooftop.

The helicopter was quickly approaching the ground, where children were playing in an enclosed playground.

“Shit,” you murmured, propelling yourself under the machine to create a landing pad for it at a safe distance from the kids. At the rate you could fire, you wouldn’t be able to stop it on time.

In the distance, you saw Miguel struggling to keep Vulture away from a construction site, and reached out to him over the comms. “Have him ram into that crane.”

“What?”

“Just trust me.”

Miguel redirected the Vulture, dodging last second when he attacked so that the crane would fall down.

The crane caught the chopper where it was, and you used it as a crutch to help you redirect the chaos to the empty street. You swung around the crane five times, wrapping an immense amount of webbage around it and attaching along the side of a business building. When the helicopter threatened to fall due to the weight of it, you shot three web bombs at it to keep it in place.

When you reached the ground, you were out of breath and half-heartedly waving to the clapping children and their parents. Miguel placed his hand on your shoulder as you observed the incapacitated Vulture.

“Not bad, kid,” Miguel chuckled. “Not bad.”

------

A good six months had passed, and you had risen in the ranks of the Spider Society. You were still without a place to stay, and had been bouncing from place to place in between missions. The first month, it was Pavitr and his aunt’s place. Then, Hobie’s, then HQ, and finally, Gwen’s. Most of your free time was spent discussing tech with Margo or trailing behind Miguel.

A building-wide alert had gone off, sending every spider-being into high alert as they searched for the threat.

“What’s the sitch?” you asked Miguel as the two of you bounded down the hall. “A futuristic Rhino that’s suspected to work for The Spot just invaded HQ. He’s trying to destroy our tech and pick us off.”

Just as Miguel had finished his explanation, Rhino crashed through a door four floors below. You both zipped towards him, barely avoiding running into Peter B. as he took a picture of himself, Mayday, and Rhino. Miguel attacked Rhino head-on, performing a spin-kick to the face before webbing his arms together and latching onto his back. Rhino broke his constraints effortlessly, and threw Miguel out of a nearby window. You helped Noir get to his feet and went after Rhino.

By the time you got there, Rhino had Miguel pinned to the cracked concrete. His web shooters were broken, and he was using all of his remaining strength to stop Rhino from snapping his neck. When he saw you approaching, he tried to silently signal for you to go, but you didn’t listen.

“Hey, Alexei!” you shouted. “I never really took you for the dominant type! It doesn’t suit you.”

You swung a piece of concrete at his back and zipped to deliver a punch to the face. Rhino was quick to return the favor, and charged you through a nearby wall.

Miguel attempted to stand up as backup arrived. He climbed onto Rhino’s back and sunk his teeth into his neck, effectively, though temporarily, paralyzing him. A team of 15 spiderbeings worked to get Rhino back to HQ while you and Jessica helped Miguel to his feet.

“What the hell were you thinking, kid? You could have died,” Miguel snapped.

“You were the one near death,” you argued. “If I didn’t come when I did, you could’ve died. Was I just supposed to let that happen?!”

“Yes!”

“No!” You dropped his arm from around your shoulder and Peter B. went to pick up the slack. “Why is it so hard for you to understand that people care about you? You gave me a chance when no one else would. I lost my world, my home, and my friends. I couldn’t lose you, too.”

“That’s not for you to decide. I can’t trust you like an adult if you refuse to act like one,” he grunted, before wavering in his stance. Jessica helped right him.

You took a step back and pressed your lips together. “You know, I joined this team because I wanted to save people. I have the ability to save them. And… if you can’t acknowledge that ability, then… maybe you need to reevaluate your interests.” With that, you took off.

Jessica and Peter sat Miguel down to rest.

“How bad did I fuck up?” Miguel inquired.

“Give them a few minutes to sit on it,” Peter suggested. “Kids are like that. They need time to cool off. Just make sure you talk to them later.”

------

You sat on the slanted glass roof of HQ to listen to music and blow off some steam. Heavy footprints sounded from behind you. You sighed. “If you’re here to argue, can you at least wait until the end of this song?”

“I’m not going to argue with you. I wanted to talk. And… apologize.”

That piqued your interest, but you tried to sound nonchalant as you gestured to the space next to you. “Go ahead, then. Sit.” You turned the music off.

He obliged. “I’m sorry for saying that I couldn’t trust you and that you needed to act like an adult. It wasn’t fair. I do trust you, and there’s no reason for you to act like an adult when you’re still a kid. I’ll be more conscious of my words in the future.”

You nodded. “Thanks.”

You sat in silence for a while, and you began to get up.

“Wait,” he asked. “Please.”

“What did you really come here to say?”

“Just sit, and I’ll tell you.” He waited for you to return to your spot and took a deep breath. “When I was first messing with the multiverse after working at Alchemax, I wasn’t as careful as I am now. I found a world where I was dead, but had a daughter, so I replaced myself and began raising her. I loved her more than anything. But, I was an anomaly, and had disrupted canon events. I felt her glitch right out of my hands. Thousands of innocent people died that day because of me. So, I made a vow to myself: never again. I wouldn’t let this happen to anyone else, and I wouldn’t let anyone get close to me.”

He paused, gulped, and forced himself to make eye contact with you. “Then I met you. And I tried to hate you, I really did. But you’re funny, and you’re smart and passionate, and you have a damn good heart. And everything in me just wants to protect you. I’m so mad at myself for hurting you and-”

You cut him off with a bear hug, to which he slowly responded once he understood what was happening. You shed a few tears into the crook of his neck and mumbled, “I’m sorry, too.”

He laughed, partially in disbelief. “For what?”

“I called you a dick behind your back for the first three months because I thought you had a stick up your ass.” You backed away snickering and wiped your eyes. “But you’re more my family than my parents ever were.”

Now or never, Miguel.

“About that,” he began. “I know you’ve been staying at Gwen’s place - and you’re completely free to stay there if you want - I just thought it might be nice for you to have a permanent place to stay, a school to go to, a familiar face, you know?”

“Not really,” you expressed. “What do you mean?”

“I- it’s better if I just show you.” Miguel took a folder out of his bag and handed it to you. He looked the other way as you processed what he gave you.

“Are these adoption papers?”

“Um… yeah,” he relented, still refusing to look your way.

“And this isn’t a joke?”

“Of course not. But, it’s also up to you. I don’t want to pressure you into anything you don’t want to do-”

“Yes,” you cut him off and wrapped him in an even tighter hug. “Absolutely yes.”

------

Miguel helped you carry your few boxes of belongings that you had left at Gwen’s into his modern duplex.

“Jesus, dude,” you commented. “You didn’t tell me you were rich.”

He laughed. “This is what being a scientist earns you.”

“Damn.” You took the space in. The windows in the living room were from floor to ceiling, the couch a cool grey with ornate yellow and green pillows. Everything was open concept, and both the Mexican and Irish flag hung on either side of the TV. Aside from the occasional painting, the apartment was largely monochromatic.

“The kitchen is under that loft area, which I usually use as office space, but you’re free to use it, too. Bathrooms on first and second floors,” he explained while walking up the stairs. He stopped in front of the third door to the right. “This is your room.”

You gently pushed open the door. Miguel had prepared for your arrival intensely. A twin bed sat in the back left corner of the room, a desk in the back right. There was a wide panel of windows with shades and a nightstand with knick knacks. A mirror, bookshelf, decorative rug, and bean bag filled the empty space. A poster with a Spiderman symbol hung over your desk, and a smile fought its way onto your face.

“There’s a closet, too,” Miguel said proudly.

You opened the closet to find it fully stocked with casual, formal, and tactical clothing. “You did all of this for me?”

He smiled warmly. “Welcome home.”

------

It was the following year on Father’s Day, and you were waiting for Miguel to come home when you heard keys turning at the door.

“Hey,” you called from the kitchen island. “I made dinner for us. And we can watch that crappy comedy show that you like.”

He hung up his jacket and gave you a hug. “Thanks, sweetheart. How was it with your friends?”

“Pretty good. But it took an hour to get Miles out of that Famous Footwear. I swear that boy has enough sneakers to cover the Mediterranean. How was work?”

Miguel grabbed a plate and took a seat next to you. “Well, we finally figured out the malfunction in the control room. Hobie had been messing around with it for his own projects. Shocker, right? But other than that it was just a bunch of boring meetings.”

“Oh, I just remembered something.” You rushed upstairs to get a gift bag from your room and returned, out of breath. “I made this for you. It’s not much, but my job doesn’t start until July and I wanted to give you something, so…”

He removed the tissue paper to find a carefully knitted shawl with his suit designs on it. He remained speechless for a moment.

“What do you think?”

“I love it.”

“Really? Cuz I could get you something else if you’d prefer-”

“I love it,” he repeated, giving you a bear hug. “I’ll wear it all the time when the weather takes a turn.”

“I thought it might be useful for winter patrols,” you admitted.

“It will be. I know you don’t like getting too sappy, so let’s watch some TV, yeah?”

Halfway through an episode of the comedy show, you got up to use the bathroom. Miguel paused the show and admired your work on his shawl. When you came back, he was still staring at it as if he were examining each individual stitch.

“I’m back,” you said when he didn’t acknowledge you.

He hummed in response. “There’s something I’ve been meaning to tell you.”

You furrowed your brows, worried now. “Is something wrong?”

“No, not all, it’s just…” He ran his fingers through his hair. “I wanted to let you know that I would understand if you want to look into seeing if there’s any way to find your real parents. I love you and I want you here, don’t get me wrong, but if this is something you feel strongly about, I wanted to make sure you knew that my feelings wouldn’t be hurt.”

You stared at him for a while before bursting into laughter.

“What’s so funny?”

You grabbed his hands and looked him in his eyes. “I found my real dad the moment you brought me here. I’m home.”

He squeezed your hands and repeated your words as if convincing himself of the truth. “You’re home.”

------

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atinymekanie · 2 months ago

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The Night We Met - Chapter 7: Doors Work Both Ways

|| Premise: What if Dawnbreaker's wish for one day and one night with the woman who lives only in his dreams... came true? ||

The smell hit him first. Acrid, pungent, and vaguely electrical in nature, the odor crawled up his nostrils and invaded the doctor’s senses. Wrinkling his nose in distaste, he glanced around the dull, lifeless alleyway, trying to rein in the fear that just setting foot outside in this place caused to swirl in his veins and trickle down his spine. It prickled along his vertebrae, setting every hair on end.

Concrete walls and broken asphalt stared back at him, silent and uninviting. Bits of trash and dead leaves littered the faded pavement near the walls, cracks in the dark asphalt spider-webbing across the alley. Sunlight fell listlessly down between the tall buildings on either side, but it did little to warm the clammy atmosphere. The air itself felt like it was slithering over Zayne’s skin; the cold breeze that wafted against his face sent a chill through him that had nothing to do with the temperature. Raising his hands, he pulled the long black coat closer about himself and buttoned it – something he almost never did, normally. But this wasn’t normal.

Glancing back at the door, a momentary panic overtook him as he saw the door’s keyless entry panel. Had he just locked himself out? Zayne reached for the keypad, his fingers hesitating above it as he thought about what he used for his door’s code. Normally, it would be her birthday. But did the hunter know her birthday? Letting out a shaky breath, he keyed in the numerals, hoping against hope that somehow this other version of himself might know that date too, might have some connection to it also. But how could he? Zayne had never seen the woman in this place, had never encountered her presence during those nightmares. He pressed the last digit and held his breath.

The lock released, clicking as it did so. Zayne’s eyes widened in surprise, relief at not being locked out of the apartment washing over him. Another emotion quickly followed on its heels, a sudden suspicion that oozed its way into his brain and made his heartbeat thud in his ears. The hunter knew her birthday. A crease appeared between his brows; tangible evidence of the way his mind was suddenly churning. If the hunter knew her birthday, then that meant… he could see her. And if he could see her…

Zayne’s hand fell from the key panel as he stared blankly into the small crack the unlocked door had made between the door itself and the door jamb. The dark sliver of entrance that mirrored the way he could see into the hunter’s life via what he had thought were simply nightmares. They seemed much more than that, now. Doors worked both ways. Did that mean the hunter dreamed of him ? Of his life as a surgeon? Of… her? Zayne’s hand shot out, grabbing the door handle and slamming the door shut. That was the only explanation for it. For how he knew her birthday. For how that date was the entry code to this door, against all odds.

Closing his eyes for a moment, Zayne took a deep breath and then let it out slowly, trying not to let his worries run away with him and failing miserably. That must mean… the hunter was with her . If he was in the hunter’s body, that must mean the hunter was in his. Right? It only made sense. Dread flowed through him, turning his veins to icy rivers. The hunter was in his body. Had woken up in his bed. Next to her. His eyes snapped open as he sucked in another breath, the putrid scent in the air cloying as it entered his lungs.

Zayne tried to think back on his nightmares, tried to remember the events and emotions in them, despite how terrifying they often were. He didn’t want to remember them, but he had to reassure himself that she was safe. Had the hunter ever hurt anyone that wasn’t a monster? Was he dangerous to people? To her ? He shook his head, squeezing his eyes shut as he did so, his fists clenching at his sides as he tried to remember, his knuckles turning white.

While he had… No, the hunter had killed people in those nightmares, it was always when they were turning into Wanderers, or right before, when the strange bumps began to break through their skin. The sight and sound of flesh splitting open to reveal the misshapen thing beneath was ingrained in his memory, a sight he could never forget.

Zayne wracked his brain for the emotions during those scenes, for what the hunter felt during those frantic, panicked moments. They weren’t nice emotions. Fear. Pain. Anxiety. Self-loathing. Terror. Sadness. Ironically, some of his worry eased as he recalled the emotions from his more terrifying nightmares – they were dark, certainly, but none of them held any enjoyment, or rage, or bloodlust during the killings.

All the emotions the hunter had felt were the same as what Zayne had felt when fighting against Wanderers. Against William. He shivered, but the tension in his body began to ease, his fists uncurling as his breath rushed out of him. It seemed unlikely the hunter would hurt her. Small blessings. Or anyone that wasn’t a Wanderer, thankfully. At least there, no one was turning into them willy-nilly. Small blessings, indeed. Besides, she was more than capable of protecting herself. She was a Hunter, too, after all.

Zayne nodded and turned on his heel to face away from the door, staring back out towards the entrance of the alleyway. He strode down the small set of steps, trying to put his concerns away. Food was required before he did anything else, before he could try to find a way out of this predicament. But another thought struck him as some of the dead leaves skittered down the asphalt past the dark boots he was wearing. Would she realize it wasn’t him? That there was someone else beside her? That it wasn’t her Zayne sleeping next to her?

The thought stopped him in his tracks near the entrance to the alley, his boots scuffing against the rough surface of the asphalt beneath them. Surely, she would realize, no? An uncomfortable sort of itch drilled itself into the back of Zayne’s mind, taking root amongst the icy soil created by his fear and anxiety. It wormed into his brain, ripping and tearing at his already strained sanity. How would she respond, once she realized? Part of him wanted her to realize and reject the hunter, to be horrified, to demand answers – to demand her Zayne back. And yet…

A weight settled in his chest as he stared out of the alleyway, a mournful pang that made Zayne’s heart ache. The view he could see was of an empty road with tall buildings looming above it, casting shadows onto the pavement and the smaller buildings just across from him. Dilapidated businesses lined the opposite side of the street, most with dark windows that were boarded up. An air of futility hung over everything, a pall cast by the lack of color and something intangible, just out of reach. Everything looked faded, from the asphalt to the buildings to the old signs in the windows of the stores.

It struck him then – there was not a single sign of life to be seen. Not a single blade of grass, nor a tree, nor a bird, nor anything else alive and growing. Such desolation. For a city, it could have passed remarkably well as a cemetery, the worn down shops acting as gravestones for the life that didn’t seem to exist here. Even a graveyard had more life. To spend every day in a place like this…was unthinkable. Zayne had thought the small apartment seemed dull and lifeless, yet this was on another level entirely.

The mournful ache in Zayne’s chest grew into a quiet sense of empathetic anguish that ate away at his previous feelings of anger and jealousy. It filled some of the cracks that had been created by his worry and his envy, overriding them with a wash of compassion towards the other version of him. The one condemned to life in a place where life itself seemed a contradiction to the norm.

Zayne dropped his head, staring at the broken pavement below the worn boots he had pulled on before leaving the dingy apartment. Part of being a doctor often meant seeing the pain and terror of others and still providing an empathetic response tailored to each patient. It was something unavoidable about the profession, and it came naturally to Zayne. Sometimes, he wished it didn’t. Even if that patient was, somehow, himself. In a way.

While part of him did want to be angry with that other version of himself, another part couldn’t help but feel pity for the hunter, especially after seeing the way the man lived. Utterly alone in a desolate, uncaring city devoid of any real life, where anyone walking down the street could become a monster. That was no way to live. Zayne shook his head, a sigh escaping him. It would do no good to heap curses upon the hunter’s head. He already lived a cursed life as it was.

Raising his gaze to the shops on the other side of the street, he glanced to the left and then to the right, trying to discern if any of them were open. Unable to see anything promising, Zayne stepped forward out of the alley, deciding on a whim to head right. A vague inkling of familiarity lay in that direction, and going somewhere was better than standing on the side of the road. Perhaps he would eventually stumble across a shop he recognized from one of his nightmares. How exciting.

_______________________________________

Zayne walked for about fifteen minutes before coming across anything even remotely recognizable, his anxiety growing with every block he passed and with the increasing realization that he seemed to be alone in the world. There were no people on the sidewalks or going in and out of the shops, and almost no cars went past.

When one finally did, Zayne about jumped out of his skin, the engine noise so quiet he hadn’t heard it until it was right beside him. There was no birdsong, no music sounding from any of the shops, no laughing customers outside the boarded-up café he passed. Even if he found an open shop, would anyone be running it?

At one point, Zayne had to duck under some metal scaffolding that covered the sidewalk, the struts rusting and oxidizing in the harsh air. The sharp lines of the metallic rods loomed above him, seeming like the ribs of a skeleton clinging to the building beside the sidewalk. He hurried past the scaffolding, pausing only for a moment to glance down into the alley he was passing on his right. Shadows shifted in the darkness between the buildings, Zayne’s mind conjuring the image of a Wanderer lumbering towards him out of the gloom. Apprehension and anxiety coiled inside him like a snake, but he shoved the mental image away and hurried on.

The anxiety in his chest had reached a fever pitch by the time he finally saw real movement up ahead – a skinny, balding man in a brown coat was coming out of what looked like a convenience store. The man looked around furtively before letting the door close behind him, then scurried off down the street in the opposite direction. Zayne picked up his pace, moving towards the convenience store and crossing the empty road in the process, checking for cars in both directions first.

Once at the door to the convenience store, Zayne paused, the sign above the door ringing a bell in the back of his mind. A hazy view of commercial refrigerators containing nutrient drinks floated behind his eyes, and his stomach made an odd sound in protest. Was it too much to hope the store had actual food, too? Sighing, he pulled the door open and stepped inside the shop, leaving behind the strange odor that permeated the outdoors.

On the surface, the inside of the shop looked pretty much like any convenience store might, but upon closer inspection, everything was just a little… off. None of the brands on the items that sat upon the shelves were familiar, and there was an odd humming sound in the air, filling the silence with an uneasy tension. Zayne glanced to his left, at the little desk where a clerk might sit, seeing instead an odd-looking robot similar to an OTTO.

Shifting his gaze to the rest of the store, Zayne began to walk up and down the rows of shelves, looking for anything that might be edible. The shelves weren’t well stocked, missing things leaving gaps here and there amongst the items that leered like missing teeth in a skull. Most of the brands were very nondescript, with little to no coloring and precious little description. Even the companies here seemed to have the soul sucked out of them.

Thankfully, the convenience store did contain a shelf that held a variety of instant meals, such as cups of noodles and other similar items. It wasn’t his go-to sort of food, but it would do in a pinch. Zayne selected a couple of the instant meals that didn’t look too suspicious and then turned his attention to the row of refrigerators in the back of the shop. They were the source of the strange hum that lingered in the air, the motors providing them power creating a dissonance that couldn’t be shaken off. Sure enough, most of them were filled with the bland nutrient drinks. Scrunching his nose in distaste, he wandered down the back wall of the shop, peering into the cold interior behind the glass, looking for anything other than one of those drinks.

Aha. In the last couple of refrigerators were bottles that looked to be energy drinks of some kind, along with different flavors of water. Zayne opened one of the doors, releasing a hiss of frigid air in the process, and retrieved two bottles of water, one claiming to be flavored with strawberries and one plain. His gaze roamed up to the energy drinks at the top, searching for tea or coffee or something similar. No luck. Of course. Frowning, he hesitantly reached for an energy drink that had blueberries depicted on the bottle. Normally, he didn’t touch energy drinks, preferring tea or coffee to manufactured caffeine, but today was not a normal day. Decidedly not.

Sighing, Zayne curled his fingers around the bottle, taking it down and feeling the cold weight of it in his hand. He turned away, letting the refrigerator door close behind him, cutting off the wash of icy air. With his arms full of instant ramen and beverage bottles, Zayne made his way toward the desk at the front of the shop.

The little bot beeped at him as he walked up, turning towards him and emitting a red light from a sensor on its screen. He balked at first, wondering if he had done something wrong, but then the screen lit up with a list of the items he had selected, and a slightly too smooth voice requested a payment option. It was somewhat of a juggling act to reach the hunter’s wallet in his pocket, but Zayne managed it. He pulled out one of the cards at random and held it up to the little bot’s screen, praying that the transaction would go through. Did the hunter even have a job? How did the man make money?

Before Zayne could finish that thought process, the bot beeped again, and the list of items disappeared from the screen. That same overly fluid voice emanated from the bot, thanking him for his purchase and announcing that the doors would now be unlocked. They had been locked? Zayne glanced at the doors, hearing the click of gears turning and noticing a small green light that appeared above them. His eyes flicked sideways at the bot as he hurried to put the card back in the wallet and failed, finally stuffing both the card and the wallet back into his coat pocket and making a hasty beeline for the door.

Once outside, Zayne walked quickly down the street, trying to shake off the unease he had felt inside the shop. Would he have been trapped inside if the card hadn’t worked? Since there were no people working there as far as he could tell, it certainly seemed that was the case, as the shop would have no other way of forcing people to pay for the items they took. Even the convenience stores here were hostile. Shaking his head, Zayne retraced his steps back to the small alleyway leading to the dingy apartment the hunter owned.

________________________________________

When the door to the little apartment finally closed behind him, Zayne breathed a sigh of relief. He moved through the small living area and set the items he had purchased down on the table, then unbuttoned his coat. His relief at returning to relative safety was short-lived, however, as the maddening buzzing sound from earlier interrupted the stale quiet inside the apartment.

Eyes the color of an aurora flicked toward the bedroom, a lead weight settling in the pit of Zayne’s stomach at the sound. But before he could take a step toward the bedroom and the monitor within, his stomach growled insistently. There were more immediate problems than monsters. He turned back to the table, picking up one of the instant noodle meals and looking over the label for instructions.

Busying himself with rummaging through the miniscule kitchen area, Zayne tried his best to ignore the incessant buzzing, the sound of it grating against his brain and setting him on edge. He managed to find some utensils that would aid in following the instructions on the label, but the selection was grim, at best. A bowl, an oddly shaped spoon, and a dented kettle for boiling water eventually found their way to the tiny counter space, and he set about the task of making breakfast. Could this be called breakfast? Or was it lunch, at this hour? Zayne realized suddenly that he hadn’t seen a clock anywhere in the apartment, nor during his short venture outside.

At this point, he no longer cared which meal it was, as long as it meant finally having actual food to eat. His stomach was no longer content with the nutrient drink he had downed earlier and had begun to gnaw on his insides. The hiss of the kettle as it heated the water to a boil interrupted his thoughts, and Zayne quickly finished preparing the noodles.

Before he could sit down to finally eat, the infernal buzzing reasserted itself, causing him to whirl towards the bedroom door. The sound was a constant reminder of all the things he didn’t wish to think about at the moment – his predicament, the monsters inhabiting this place, and the very real possibility that someone was invading his body. Just as he was invading theirs. Zayne shook his head and marched into the bedroom, intending to turn off the monitor and forget about it for the rest of the day.

The blinking green dots came into view as he entered the bedroom, the one orange-ish dot standing out starkly in contrast. Zayne stopped in his tracks, staring at the screen, noting the diminished distance between the orange dot and the blue dot. It was getting closer. A nagging sensation began to embed itself in his brain, reminding him that the one who normally dealt with these things was not here to do so this time. Exhaling sharply through his nose, Zayne moved over to the monitor, searching for a way to turn off the alarm. It took him a moment, but he found it, finally putting a stop to the pestilential buzzing.

Zayne stepped back, staring at the screen, the only sound left being the tiny blips that he had first heard upon waking up in this godforsaken place. His mouth felt dry from the ever-present fear that formed an icy prison around his heart; the lack of saliva making him wish he had purchased more than two bottles of water at the store.

The buzzing was gone, but the orange dot was still very much there. Of course, it was. Turning off the alarm wouldn’t get rid of the monster. The danger it presented was still very real and moving closer with every moment that passed. A gurgling sound interrupted the monitor’s soft beeping, the scent of food causing his stomach to reassert itself as the most pressing concern.

Turning away from the monitor, Zayne drew a hand down his face, pinching the bridge of his nose as he walked back out to the living area. If it could be called that. He picked up the bowl of noodles and the bottle of flavored water and made his way over to the couch, as the small table had no chair to sit in. Noticing the TV set on his way to the couch, he turned it on, hoping for any sort of distraction from that troubling sensation at the back of his mind – the one that demanded he pay attention to the troublesome dot.

A medical drama he had never seen before started playing on the TV, and Zayne began eating, trying to lose himself in the story while he ate. Unfortunately, the medical logistics in the show didn’t hold up, and he found himself critiquing the responses of the medical professionals every other minute. Frustrated, he got up and turned the TV off before returning to his extremely belated brunch. Did the future not have remotes, either? How bothersome. If nothing else, the TV had provided the time and other local information when he turned it on, so that was something, at least. Not that much of the other information had made sense.

Noon. How was it only just noon? It felt like time had slowed to a crawl ever since Zayne had woken up. His brows drew together in consternation, trying to puzzle out why it had only been a few hours when it felt like it had been ages. Perhaps, since there was no alarm clock, he had slept later than he normally would have. That would explain some of it. Not to mention, the hunter was likely nocturnal. At least to some degree, given the content of the dreams Zayne was used to having.

Staring down at the now empty bowl in his lap, the persistent feeling in the back of Zayne’s mind seemed even louder than before. The loss of the TV show’s vocals and audio made the still air of the apartment seem even more stuffy than it had previously. Part of him wished that he had never turned the show on to begin with, as it only made Zayne realize that he had not heard an actual human voice other than his own since he had awoken. He set the bowl down and shrugged out of the long black coat, setting it on the couch next to him. Why was it still so stifling inside? The air still seemed too close, too oppressive.

Drawing in a deep breath, Zayne leaned back against the couch cushions, resigning himself to addressing the nagging sensation that wouldn’t go away. It was like a living thing, scratching at the walls in his mind that he had erected around it, trying to contain it. As much as he wanted to ignore it, to let it be, to worry only about his own predicament, Zayne knew that wouldn’t be possible for him.

The monster wouldn’t take care of itself. That would be too easy, wouldn’t it? And the hunter wasn’t here. But he was. Surely there was someone else who took care of such things? There wasn’t, or else why would the hunter even get involved? Monsters should be handled by people who knew how, who had done that sort of thing before, right? Technically, he fit that description. Zayne suppressed a shudder, forcing away the mental images filled with snow and blood that followed and shouldered on, working through the logic. Would one more day matter – could it wait until the hunter returned? Of course, it mattered – people could die. Was it worth the risk?

Zayne stared up at the water-stained ceiling, clasping his hands behind his head as he did so. This wasn’t his world. Time? Place? Whatever. Did these people matter to him? They mattered to the hunter. And to the ones they loved. Could he really call himself a doctor if he valued life less than this other version of himself? ...No. No, he could not. Could he forgive himself if he ignored this? ....No. Could he forgive himself if something unforeseen happened? Something that prevented him from returning to where he belonged? …No.

Closing his eyes, Zayne pictured the woman he had gone to sleep next to the night before. Her smile as she turned towards him, her eyes as she gazed at him with that mischievous look he adored, the way her hair fell across her face when she was sleeping, the way her laugh echoed in his ears and warmed him from the inside out…

The idea of not being able to return to her, of never seeing her again, washed over him, drowning him in a weight so heavy that breathing seemed impossible for a moment. His throat closed, emotions attempting to overwhelm him, to drag him under in a wave that Zayne wasn’t sure he would be able to recover from. He fought against the wash of dread, forcing it back with an effort of will, his resolve solidifying as he did so.

Zayne’s eyes snapped open, his pupils constricting amidst green amber irises as they took in the wan light from the window. No miscalculations, then.

#love and deepspace fic #love and deepspace #dawnbreaker fic #zayne love and deepspace #dawnbreaker #li shen #zayne #fanfiction #angst #lads #The Night We Met

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ageless-aislynn · 1 year ago

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Title: “15 Minutes” (9/?) Author: @ageless-aislynn Characters/fandom: Master Chief John-117/Reader, Halo the series Summary: You're in peril but don't be afraid, help is near. Series: How to date a Spartan (without even trying) Rating: T (PG13) Length: 2,568 (this chapter, 22,261 total so far) Spoilers: Set in the Silver Timeline of Halo the series, not the games or novels. Though we began with the events of Halo 1x06, there will be no more show spoilers. We are still firmly seated in the AU Warthog, merrily driving out to places where there’s only a passing nod to canon. 😉 Trigger warning: claustrophobia Disclaimer: Definitely not mine but I do enjoy borrowing them just for a bit! 😉 A/N: Text is both here in this post or available at AO3, however you like to read. Halo season 2 has finally arrived! However, this fic continues to zip along in the AU Party Warthog, so, while we began with season 1 way back when (and you’ll see a few more things from s1 along the way 😉), we’ll not be venturing into s2 territory at all. Unless s2 is going to take some verrrrry interesting twists, lol! Chapter 10 is in progress by hand but I hope to have it ready soon. 🤞😣🤞 The tags have been updated for hurt/comfort starting with this chapter. If you read, I hope you enjoy! ⭐💖⭐

Taglist: @pinheadbanger @mysardencut @laurenstacy610 @sporadicbelievernightmare @ultrablackwidower @bxmxtx @jellotherelol

If you would like to be tagged in my John/Reader fics, just let me know! I also write John/Kai, John/Cortana and Kai/male Reader, so I’m glad to tag you for whatever you’d like. If you would like to be removed from the taglist, also feel free to let me know, no harm, no foul. 😉 💖

Halo fic masterlist ⭐

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8

Trigger warning again: claustrophobia If you need to avoid the actual scene, skip the entire first section but there will be a lot of mentions of it again through the rest of the chapter, just so you're aware. I don't want to cause any distress to anyone so if you'd like a recap of what happens in this chapter, feel free to contact me here and I'm happy to oblige so you can stay in-the-know without reading something that could trigger a bad reaction. Stay safe, my friends! 🤗

You tried to gasp in a breath but there was a weight pinning you down. Smoke burned your lungs and your eyes. Your left arm couldn't move but you were able to bring your right hand up to wipe your face, trying to clear your vision. The only light in the rubble came from a shower of sparks a few feet away, emitting from a panel half-ripped from the wall. There was very little to orientate yourself by.

"Hello?" you tried to call but you couldn't take a deep enough breath to yell. The muffled ring in your ears told you that at least one of your eardrums had ruptured.

Evaluate, you thought in the tone you used when triaging patients, shoving down a wave of panic. You tried to squeeze out from under whatever was pressed across your back. No good, too much weight.

There wasn't a tremendous amount of pain but you worried at the numbness from your waist down, behind whatever was restraining you.

Evaluate.

You tested moving your legs, your feet, your toes. It felt strange but yes, you had movement.

Spinal cord potentially compromised but not severed, you diagnosed as clinically as possible.

Something overhead gave an alarming groan.

Alert help. Report your position.

"Hello? I'm by the crane operator booth. Can anyone hear me?"

You couldn't get the volume you wanted and you automatically tried to inhale deeper. You couldn't and had to fight another wave of panic. The animal part of your brain wanted to claw the twisted metal of the deck, trying to squirm free, but when you twitched, something above you groaned again.

You had no way to know how perilous the collapsed structure was. A wrong move could bring it all down.

A fresh wave of smoke irritated your nose and you coughed weakly. From far away, you heard the muffled sound of a woman saying your rank and last name.

"Here," you choked out. "I'm here."

A blue light shimmered a few feet away, the lower half of a blue-tinted woman, her upper body phased through the rubble. Then she shrank until she fit the space, adjusting like a camera lens. A hologram.

She repeated your rank and last name. "We have your location," she said, your damaged hearing distorting her voice. "Sit tight, a rescue crew is on their way."

You tried to respond but the smoke triggered more coughing, so you nodded.

"I'll stay with you for as long as the holo-emiter holds," she said, gesturing towards the ruined wall panel that continued to spark.

"Thank you," you managed to say. "Casualties?"

She glanced up and away as if receiving new information. "Reports coming in of injuries but no fatalities. Your alert gave enough time for almost everyone to get clear."

"Good." You made yourself slow your breathing down, taking shallow breaths since you couldn't take deeper ones. For a moment, your head swam and it felt like the floor tipped. Your fingers scratched for a hold on the crumpled metal.

The sound of your rank and name cut through the terror. "You're all right," the woman assured you. "You're not falling. Try to stay still. Silver Team will be back on site in a few more minutes. John will be here soon."

It gave you something to focus on other than bring trapped. The way she knew that the mention of John would comfort you, that she didn't call him Master Chief like most people did, even the mannerism of how she'd looked away, like someone was speaking in her ear...

"Your name wouldn't be Ms. Classified, would it?" you asked haltingly and tried to smile.

"That's... not inaccurate," she said and maybe it was your blurry vision but you could've sworn she gave you a fond smile, like she knew you. "I'm not supposed to tell my name."

You tried to say it was all right but couldn't draw enough breath.

"Ah, screw it," she said. "What are they going to do, fire me? My name is Cortana."

You must've blacked out because the next thing you knew, she was kneeling next to you, her small holographic hand resting atop your outstretched arm as she repeated your rank and name.

If you could get a breath, you needed a good, solid breath. Your chest instinctively fought to expand but couldn't beneath the pressure bearing down on your back. Something above you slid and the pressure abruptly worsened. You clawed, you fought, you struggled to breathe. To live.

"John, get here now! The support beam is failing!"

"Not his fault," you tried to say. "Tell him. Not his--"

Metal screamed and everything went dark.

You woke, grasping at nothing. You still couldn't get a deep breath but this time you were on your back and it felt like someone had laced a corset brutally tight around you.

"Easy there. You're all right," said a deep voice.

Your vision swam and then Spartan Vannak-134 appeared out from the dim lighting. You were still clawing at the air, trying to sit up, and he caught your hand a little awkwardly in his much larger ones.

"Where?" you gasped.

"You're back on Reach, in medical."

Once he said it, details emerged like a black and white picture filling in with color: the beeps of the monitors, the distinctive antiseptic smell. Your hearing was still deadened but not as much as before, meaning they had already begun healing therapies on your eardrums.

Anything you might've wanted to say dissolved like sugar on your tongue before the words could be spoken. Your head seemed too full. I'm drugged, you thought and that was the last thing you knew for a while.

Voices drew you from the murky depths and you tried to open your eyes but couldn't.

"Hold her hand," Vannak said in a quiet rumble. "She likes that."

A new hand gently folded around yours and your fingers instinctively gripped hold.

You woke, feeling the phantom press of metal bearing down on you, forcing the air from your lungs. You tried to sit up, your limbs flailed, uncoordinated and leaden. A second hand closed around yours and a feminine voice began to softly sing, a lullaby in a language you didn't recognize.

The room was blurry but you caught a glimpse of red hair -- Spartan Riz-028. You went under once more, dreaming of music that soothed your fears.

Later, there was a new voice to lure you up from the sticky darkness.

"Poor little thing. She looks so small."

"She'll heal. Hold her hand, it helps."

At some point, you jolted awake to find your hand cradled carefully within Kai's.

"Hey," she said, sitting up straighter in the chair next to the bed. "You need anything?"

Your head felt less stuffed with cotton than before but now that cotton seemed to have been transferred to your mouth. "Water?" you croaked.

She jumped up and returned shortly, carrying a cup with a straw in it. You intended to sit up but a searing pain in your ribs immediately convinced you that was a bad idea and you let her help you by holding the straw to your lips.

"Slowly," she advised.

Once you'd taken a couple of sips, you mumbled your thanks then promptly passed out.

You thought you'd closed your eyes for a brief moment but when they fluttered open, it wasn't Kai sitting in the chair, holding your hand.

As soon as John knew you were awake, he was on his feet, carefully brushing the fingertips of his free hand along the curve of your cheek.

You mouthed his name.

"Rest," he said. "I'm here. You're safe."

For the first time in what seemed like forever, you truly felt as if you were. Your mind let go.

"And how's our favorite mech, the Hero of the Pit?"

"That's not a very heroic name," you confessed, smiling as Maria and then Jamie entered medical.

You were sitting on the side of the bed in generic gray scrubs, waiting for Dr. Savannah to give you final instructions before your release. It had been two days since the explosion. Your hearing had, thankfully, returned to normal. The rest of you... not so much but you were on the mend.

They both gave you careful hugs.

"You look a lot less like you were squashed by a building," Jamie said sincerely and Maria punched his arm. "Hey, that was a compliment!"

"Don't make me laugh," you begged, holding your left side. They'd fused your broken ribs back together but the tissue damage would take longer to resolve. Still, aches, pains, limited motion and all, you knew you were very lucky.

"I hope they're giving you a nice vacation, at least," Maria went on.

"I should be ready for light duty in a week."

"Technically, I said we'd evaluate you for light duty in a week," Dr. Savannah corrected as she entered. "Afraid your friends will have to catch up with you later."

They said their goodbyes and, as they left, you started to stand. The doctor quickly said, "No, you don't. I don't want you walking on that leg."

"It's not broken," you argued.

"Not anymore," she countered. "Stay put. I got you a ride."

"I don't need to be wheeled back to the barracks." You tried to keep your tone confident but the truth was even that little bit of exertion had left you feeling twinges all along your left leg. Your left shoulder throbbed with each heartbeat.

"Well, good thing you're wrong on both counts," she said, winking. "And here he is now."

John came through the door, dressed in his undersuit as if either about to head to the Brokkr stations to have his Mjolnir mounted up or returning from having it removed. You didn't even realize you'd moved to rise again until Dr. Savannah put a practiced hand on your good shoulder to keep you down.

"I'll be sending PT to you twice a day, starting tomorrow," she said. "They'll help you to get your strength and mobility back. Around that, rest. Catch up on your reading, watch some thoroughly trashy movies, and keep your feet up. Not too far up, though. Nothing too strenuous. Make him do all of the work."

That got you to look at her and she waggled her eyebrows.

John cleared his throat slightly, a faint but definite flush creeping up from his collar. "Yes, ma'am."

"All right, see you back in a few days, sooner if anything else develops. You know what to watch for."

It wasn't until she stepped back and John approached that it clicked.

"You're going to carry me?"

"Yes, ma'am," he repeated in a murmur that shivered straight down your spine.

Since your left side had taken the brunt of the damage, he put your right to his chest and cautiously picked you up in a bridal carry. Despite the care, being moved set a thousand things to hurting and your breath hitched as he straightened.

"You okay?"

"Yeah," you said, your tone tighter than you would've liked. You thought, I hope nobody sees me being toted around like this, but, as soon as you left medical, you realized that no one was actually looking at you.

I think if Master Chief offered to drop me and pick up any marine, ODST or officer in this hall, they'd be hopping into his arms before I even hit the floor!

At the first turn he made, you realized the rest of it. "This isn't the way to the barracks."

"Nope," he said and you knew him well enough now to see the hint of a smile in his eyes.

You didn't have to wait for further clues, there was only one place, then, that he could be taking you. "How many strings did you have to pull for this?"

"Not as many as you might think," he demurred. "Your actions saved lives."

And they could've blamed you for failing to make sure a bomb hadn't been sent to the Pit in the first place. The curly tailed Warthog had been your responsibility, after all. You'd been curtly informed of all that when they'd debriefed you the first day you'd had your eyes open for more than 15 minutes.

You doubted they'd told that to John, though.

When you reached his room, he maneuvered so to get his thumb on the panel without jostling you too much. The lights came on as he took you through the doorway and then he paused.

"Kai," he rumbled, shaking his head. "She said studies show people heal better with color. I should've known she'd overdo it. Say the word and I'll have her in here clearing this out."

"It's your room," you said, "but personally, I love it."

The duvet on the bed and the pillows on the couch were now a rainbow of jewel tones. A tapestry with a field of sunflowers dominated the wall at the foot of the bed and you could've sworn there was a dusting of diamond glitter shimmering on every wall, sending tiny holographic rainbows through the air in all directions. But the main thing that caught your attention was overhead.

"She put up stars," you said, brightening.

"Ah, that one was actually me," he confessed. "You seemed to really like those in her room so I thought..."

You stretched up in his arms, inhaling a little sharply at the stab of pain in your left side, and pressed a kiss to his cheek. "I love them, John. Thank you."

A short time later, you found yourself lying on the bed in the darkened room, looking up at those stars. John had profusely apologized for not being able to stay after getting you settled in. He'd turned down the bed so you wouldn't have to, had put your padd close at hand on the nightstand to the right along with a bottle of water and a couple of emergency ration packs in case you got hungry before someone bought you a meal. He'd even procured you a set of unthinkably soft civvies to change into, exactly your size and in your favorite color.

You couldn't imagine that a Spartan had ever taken care of a sick or wounded person before, other than in a battlefield triage situation, so he'd probably found a checklist from somewhere to guide him. His earnestness to make sure he'd done everything right sent warmth flooding through you.

Before he left, he'd paused to kiss the top of your head.

"You know," you said, lifting your chin, "my lips aren't broken."

He hesitated. "The last time I did that, an entire base fell on you."

"Only the warehouse part," you said dismissively, "and there was absolutely no correlation, I promise."

He tried to smile at that but his eyes still showed concern.

"I promise," you repeated more seriously and he exhaled as if about to make a tremendous leap. His kiss was so soft and gentle, it was barely more than a whisper against your mouth.

Once he had left, you'd considered taking Dr. Savannah's advice and watching a holo, reading something on your padd, or doing any number of things to pass the time but ultimately, you'd wanted to appreciate his handiwork.

After all, it wasn't just anybody who could say a Spartan had literally hung the stars for them.

#halo #halo the series #halo paramount+#master chief x reader #x reader #john-117 x reader #fic: 15 minutes #series: how to date a spartan without even trying #ageless aislynn #aislynn's fics #aislynn's fic

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randomyuu · 1 year ago

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so hold my hand (consign me not to darkness) [1/4]

Ah, yes. The fic that made me realise I’m in desperate need of Cursed Spirit Gojou in my ever-growing favourite GoYuu tropes.

Content Warning!

Major Character Death. Other characters are disrespectful to the corpse.

I highly suggest you read the fic first, or just the fic, since I don’t think I was properly able to adapt it into drawings. While I managed to use roughly two weeks of on-and-off planning, researching, and storyboarding, I only had a full week to finish it. You can read more of my thoughts below the comic if you’re curious.

Title: so hold my hand (consign me not to darkness)

Author: qalb_al_louz

It’s ongoing, and as of this drawing, the fic is in its third chapter. While this is (sexually) SFW, always be mindful of the tags! Please keep yourself safe and sound.

Please read from right to left, and enjoy!

You can only upload 30 images in one post, huh Damn, I gotta divide it into parts

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4

Alrighty, I'll put my watered down unhinged thoughts below. No extra drawings down there if you're curious haha (unless you want to see the storyboard and the characters' full body character sheet, lemme know). You can skip the stuff underneath the Keep Reading for all parts.

This fic had me grinning from ear to ear every time I read this. The atmosphere, how it goes from POV to POV—of pure fear and panic—and the peak excitement I got when Yuuji properly meets Gojou, like brooooo 😭

Gosh I cannot emphasise how much I love this fic. I’ve always been wanting to make a whole comic out of it, especially since it was 2 chapters and it doesn’t look like the author will update it, but it just… kind of forgotten ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿

But then the author posted a new chapter and I told myself this is a sign I should really start.

also goddamn I was so naive to think I can tackle 2 chapters as comic—no I was in fact cannot

The moment I laid my eyes on the first paragraph, things were portrayed very vividly in my mind. The panel, the angle, Gojou's head rolling down... I was like, hell yeah. Then I continued reading and I finally succumbed to my desire to draw this out.

At first I want to adapt this into a vertical format like those manhwas. However the longer I try to learn and storyboard it... I am simply not yet comfortable with it, especially for such a big project. Even the 1st storyboard starts vaguely vertical before the panels quickly crammed into that B4-B5 format lol. The first sketch estimated 69 (heh) pages for 90% of chapter 1. I said "no" for my own sanity and fully focused on the usual manga format and it was narrowed down to 60. Still a lot though, quantity and time-wise. So with a heavy heart, I can only do the majority of chapter 1 :”) I really really want to draw Sukuna talks back to Gojou—do you have any idea how good that scene was??? Gojou tried so hard to restrain himself, he’s so other I love him 😭

Due to the sheer length of this comic (I'm still in disbelief), I have limit lots of things, and that includes the drawing. If you've seen my other JJK fanarts, they are more rendered than this one. Well, this one is purely sketched with the help of the eraser to tidy up some lines. This is also the first fanart that I did purely on Photoshop, so I can control the typesets and drawings in one place. Usually, I use Photoshop for panels and typesetting and Krita for drawing.

I don't really like Photoshop's brush, but it did really well in curbing my perfectionist tendencies, so that's good.

It's also been quite a while since I draw in general (sobs) so... yeah, you might find differences, or not ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ But I hope you enjoy it nonetheless!

I know setting is important, but maaan I genuinely won't miss rereading chapter 83-93 with a heavy focus on background and character locations. I just want to read the action and dialogue😭 However continuity is really important. But my spatial intelligence is almost non-existent even GPS sometimes can't help me. All I'm saying is that if you find some silly drawing mistakes, do forgive me ∠( ᐛ 」∠)＿I only drew all this in a week because otherwise I won't have another chance to complete this.

Well, lots of things I won't miss from this project, but haha let's talk about the characters instead because holy shit what was I thinking, starting this year drawing this many characters in the same project??? I have never drawn anyone here except for Yuuji, Gojou, Nanami and Megumi. I don't think I've ever drawn older Getou before. I already forgot how to draw my boy Yuuji and I gotta draw all these people???

This is what you call making a bad decision, kids. Don't do your "drawing warmup" after months of not drawing and tackling a project of a scale way bigger than you've ever tackled before.

Thank you for reading this far! I hope you find my complaint entertaining! But make no mistake, I genuinely still love the fic. Drawing this, even with all the headaches it gave me, only makes me adore this fic even more.

Thank you very much to each one of you who follows and leaves comments and tags on my silly art—it never failed to make my day :D And I sincerely wish this one also made your day or even made your minute! I'll see you in the next part!

#yuu's art #jjk-fic-fanart #jjk-ship #五悠 #goyuu #goyu #5u #gojou x yuuji #shibuya arc #shibuya arc canon divergence #lots of characters on this one #kenjaku #chousou #mahito #jogo jjk #gojo satoru

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localgremlinboy · 1 year ago

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I have been sitting on these for a long time because I wanted to have some more varied stuff but I haven't had time to write anything! So here's what I've got! Honestly these are some of my favorites

[part 1] [part 2] [part 3] [part 4] [part 5] [part 6]

- Whenever he's kicked out of an area or event, Oswald proceeds to start shoving anything not taped down into his pockets. He doesn't need the stuff, he just likes to be petty and ruin it for everyone else

- Bane has done a series of infomercials for various products & services that only air on late night product channels. Alfred is the only batfamily member who knows, he was doing laundry late one night and nearly lost it

- Mr Freeze writes restaurants/companies when they wrong him. Like nice formal letters, signing them and everything

- The Joker has an imdb page. Actually a lot of the villains do but like the Joker has one he updates with fun facts. Who says they're accurate but they sure are fun

- Riddler freaking hates puppets. Their soulless eyes say it all. He refuses to or "work" with puppets. That being said, Scarecrow has chased him around with Scarface once or twice "for science"

- Scarecrow has and still does write letters of recommendation for his ex students. He freaking still has Gotham University letterhead paper and everything. Honestly some of his students have gotten the job from his letter alone (maybe it's out of fear but like it's still a win), and they 100% send Jonathan thank you gifts in Arkham. He's got one of those dorky teacher scrapbooks where he keeps the thank you letters. One of his students even crocheted him a little plush scarecrow. It's like, they don't love his crimes but you know that was ol kooky professor Crane for ya

- Harvey kind of has a soft spot for sitcoms, he used to watch them with his mom growing up. One of their favorites, ironically, was night court

- Bane has a famous chili recipe and he makes one batch a year. It's fucking delicious! He makes an edition with meat and a vegetarian version too. Of course consults Ivy for home grown excellent quality vegetables and she gets first dibs in return

- the Joker has not one but TWO released albums. One is essentially a mash up of all the serenades he's made Batman listen to over the years and the other one is called "The Holidays with the Joker: Christmas selects edition"

- Scarecrow's car is a mess. He's got a work truck of course but his main car is like a wood panel sedan that he's been driving since he was a professor and refuses to get a new one. It's a fucking mess, he has like clothes, papers, garbage all over the place. He still has term papers he forgot to grade under the seats. Riddler HATES his car, with a passion

- Riddler has gone through the pain and suffering to teach all the rogues how to use discord, he had once hoped it would make their crimes more efficient. They have a group chat but it's mostly suffering on his end as all chaos ensues

- Scarecrow owns a Halloween train village he has set up in one of his lairs. It plays instrumental versions of Halloween songs as it goes around the track

- Joker will push open cups off of tables because he can. He's got the chaotic energy of a cat awake at 3 am

- Riddler and Scarecrow's friendship starts like super formal and co worker like but after like a year and a half, evolves into a weird symbiosis. Jonathan points at random ass objects or books and goes "you" when he's with Edward. Eddie has a habit of fixing or picking debris of Jonathan, usually when they're crimeing. Also one time, they were both startled so bad by Batman that Scarecrow jumped into riddler's arms like Scooby & shaggy, except they both held onto each other for a second before toppling over. Robin then unmasked them like scooby doo

- Harley & Ivy are frequent Panera customers and often get pick up orders there under "codenames" given by Harley. All the workers know who "Plantmamma" and "the quinnanator" are but like they tip great and everyone should get to enjoy soup

- Bane has one CD in his car, it's a 2010 greatest hits CD that someone accidentally left in there. Who you ask? He has no idea

- Harley has a getaway playlist preloaded in her phone for car chases

- Riddler and Scarecrow watch reality tv/game shows together. They binged all of survivor and the amazing race in a year. It was a joke at first but they both got really into the shows. They have both applied to be on amazing race together and unfortunately haven't been called back

- Joker still uses cassettes (and vinyls probably) except he mixes them himself and labels them all stupid titles like "Birthday bash #9", "Baty's mix", "what's the deal with airplane food?", "etc". But he also has a tape recorder and makes notes to himself and labels those ones too, so he gets his personal notes mixed up with his music jams all the time. He goes to put on some epic clown music and instead it's a twenty minute recording he made of himself eating fruit loops

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marvelavengerspovs1 · 1 year ago

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Winter Wolf - Chapter 1

Winter Wolf Master List

Warnings: Mentions of violence, use of Y/N

Length: 956

A/N: Hi! Here's Ch. 1 of Winter Wolf, I don't think I'll always put a/n on the chapters because I have most of them already written out. I am going to keep the same schedule that I use on AO3 and only update every 2 weeks!

I do not give consent for my work to be translated, copied, or sold!

You regret waking up this morning. Don't get it wrong, you love working with the Avengers. But you hate the constant bickering and fighting.

"You were supposed to go left!" Sam yells at Bucky.

"How was I supposed to know that!?"

"Because it is in every single action movie!"

"Boys!" You yell at them.

They look at you. "What!?"

"I'm going to let the yelling at me slide, but we are on a mission! Can the bickering wait until after the mission?" You give them a sharp look.

The boys roll their eyes but they continue to take out the oncoming Hydra operatives.

"It's clear on my end." You voice through the comms.

"I think Bucky could use some help." Sam chimes in.

You look over at Bucky when he suddenly gets knocked into an electrical panel. He tries to move his arm but it looks like it was fried.

"I can handle it, Sam!" Bucky yells.

You ignore Bucky and take out the Hydra worker. First a punch to the head, then you swept your leg under his. He falls to the ground and doesn't get back up.

You offer your hand to Bucky but he doesn't take it. "I told you I could take care of myself, Doll."

"I know, but it was fun." You smile at him while he gets up.

Something hits the back of your head and you fall forward. You roll over and see the same Hydra soldier standing above you with a metal pipe in his hand. He grabs your ankles and starts to drag you out of the building.

Before he could do anything else, Bucky tackles him. He punches him a few times before getting up to help you.

"Are you ok, Doll?"

"I told you I had him." You throw his words back at him.

"I know, but it was fun." He smirks at you. "Seriously, are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine!" You touch the back of your head and flinch. "Ok, I may have a concussion or something, but I'm fine."

Bucky smiles at you before he leaves to make sure that the area is secure.

You and the rest of the Avengers finish the mission and head back to the compound in the Quinjet. Once you all get back to your rooms, shower, and get some fresh clothes, Tony calls you all in for a meeting.

"Good job tonight team."

"It would have gone better if Y/N didn't almost get kidnapped." Bucky looks at you.

You snort. "You're one to talk. Your arm short-circuited and I had to go save your ass."

Sam laughs. "She has a point, Buck."

Bucky looks at Sam. "Don't call me that."

"But Steve calls you that." Sam points at Steve who is sitting in the corner of the room.

"I've known him since we were kids." Bucky rolls his eyes at Sam before looking at you. "But all jokes aside, you did really well Y/N. You're even getting better at combat."

"Of course she is." Natasha gets up from her seat to stand next to you. She wraps her arm around your neck with a smile. "I'm training her."

"Alright. We still have some more missions to go on, but for now, we're done for the week." Tony says. You look at your phone and realize that it's Thursday. "We'll have a party tomorrow night and then you guys can take the weekend off. I'm having Friday get some last-minute details for the oncoming missions."

Tony dismisses the team and you all head to your rooms. You get in the elevator with Steve, Bucky, and Sam. They were all going to play a game of pool on the floor above yours.

"Do you have any plans for the weekend?" Steve asks you.

"Oh, I think I'm going to go see a movie."

"With your secret boyfriend?" Sam asks.

"Yes, with the secret boyfriend." You laugh.

You have been working with the Avengers for years but you have refused to disclose your romantic relationships with them. They mean well, but they become overprotective to the point that a relationship is impossible without them tagging along. The only time they knew about a boyfriend was when you first joined 5 years ago.

You had already been dating Jackson for a couple of months before you were recruited into the Avengers. Almost instantly they drove him away. Whenever Jackson would come around, the group wouldn't leave you guys alone. Thor would put Mjölnir on Jackson's things, knowing the mortal would not be able to do anything about it. Steve would try to be nice but he would just end up being awkward. Tony would just be... well, Tony. Natasha and Clint would be nice but gossip loud enough for Jackson to hear. Similar to Tony, Sam would just be himself. Bucky would always be in his room but when he wasn’t, he would be brooding in the corner of the room and make Jackson feel uncomfortable. The only people who didn't do anything were Wanda, Vision, and Bruce.

"So what will you guys be seeing?" Steve asks you.

"Probably an action movie," Sam laughs at his own innuendo.

“Ha ha, very funny.” You roll your eyes. “We’ll probably watch a comfort movie because it’s been a long week.”

“Oh, I loved Snow White!” Steve smiles at Bucky. “Do you remember when we first saw it?”

“You mean when we snuck into the movie theater and got kicked out almost immediately?”

“Captain America got kicked out of a movie theater?!” Sam asks excitedly.

You roll your eyes at them and the elevator opens to your floor.

"I'll see you, boys, later." And with that, you walk out of the elevator.

#avengers #bucky barnes #bucky barnes x female reader #bucky fanfic #bucky x reader #bucky x y/n #bucky x you #bucky x reader fluff #bucky barnes fluff #bucky barnes smut

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pikahlua · 2 years ago

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Look, I don’t wanna get everyone’s hopes up, but I might have to get everyone’s hopes up

My initial thoughts on chapter 395 were to be enveloped in the tragedy of this ending. I could already tell some of the criticisms that would come at it, but I was also interested in thoroughly considering the chapter as fairly as possible. Whether or not it involves stale tropes, such tropes still have the potential to bring meaning and emotion--and to be honest, MHA has been pretty good at that since the get-go. The manga is pretty much defined by refreshing and playing with stale shounen tropes. I am willing to give this chapter as-is a chance. I comforted friends who were hit hard by the chapter. I allowed myself to feel the sorrow ushered in by Himiko Toga’s chosen end.

But then I started translating the chapter, and my melancholy didn’t last fucking long.

Because...I’m gonna be real with you, there are a LOT of questions this chapter raises, but only if you’re paying attention.

So like.

Look.

I don’t wanna get your hopes up.

Himiko Toga may really be dead.

I don’t actually know how this will all play out.

But...

LET ME TELL YOU WHY THIS IS SUS AS HELL

1. Hello???

Why is the All Might doll coming into play here, now?

And uh, where did it go????

I don’t see it anywhere! Is it...still in the same hand Himiko was holding it with?

Is THAT why we’re zooming in here on the final panel?

“Why does it matter?” you may ask. “Isn’t it just a symbol of the connection between these two girls once Himiko found where Ochako was hiding it and teased her about it? Isn’t this perhaps just Himiko’s way of comforting Ochako?”

“Hm, yes, interesting,” I would reply. “But DON’T YOU WHO THE FUCK I AM?”

This is the second time All Might merchandise is appearing in a supposed death scene! Is it mere coincidence? I THINK NOT.

I mean, we haven’t had a SINGLE update on Katsuki for a year now. (UNLESS WE JUST GOT ONE?) Could it be Horikoshi was holding off on any Katsuki updates to avoid spoiling something else that needed to happen first? Specifically Ochako vs Toga?

Because if there’s ANYTHING fishy going on with that card and that doll (and boy do I smell fish), Katsuki’s storyline would not be able to progress until AFTER the doll also came into play. AND NOW IT HAS.

2. Of course my first thought was Katsuki Bakugou, don’t tell me you’re actually surprised...

There are a LOT of weird parallels between Ochako and Himiko’s fight and...whatever the hell is going on with Izuku and Katsuki just in general. But I mean, just look at Katsuki. Compare that wound to Ochako’s. Compare Ochako’s imminent death to Katsuki.

And...compare Himiko Toga to Katsuki Bakugou however many ways you like.

But most importantly...compare Himiko Toga to Izuku Midoriya.

Because Ochako was on the verge of death, and Himiko Toga sacrifices herself to save Ochako. Yeah, you can compare that to Katsuki in chapter 362. But like, Katsuki is the one on the verge of death now, right? That would make him parallel to Ochako (especially since they’re the ones with the All Might merch). That would mean Izuku could do something similar to save Katsuki.

And please, please note how Himiko performed this rescue. She became Ochako. She became compatible with Ochako, started pumping Ochako’s same blood through her own veins, hooked them up so not only was Himiko supporting Ochako’s life, THEY WERE CONNECTED AS ONE PERSON.

Are YOU getting Heroes Rising vibes? Because I’m definitely getting Heroes Rising vibes.

3. Remember, Horikoshi said this ending would be better than Heroes Rising.

Izuku and Katsuki shared OFA in the ending of Heroes Rising.

Let us not forget the ever-present nomenclature of One For All and All For One.

What could be better than a team-up of two people?

Maybe...a merging of everyone?

4. Everyone is down

Himiko and Ochako and Katsuki aren’t the only ones down. Basically EVERYONE is.

Shouto, Endeavor, Touya, Hawks, Tokoyami, Spinner, most everyone at the UA battlefield, most everyone at the Gunga battlefield, basically most everyone who isn’t AFO, All Might, Izuku, and Tomura (and maybe a few UA kids).

Actually, speaking of UA kids, why haven’t we seen Aoyama and Sero and the others yet? Could it be that Horikoshi just wanted to showcase the most important part of their fights, aka the ending?

The ending where they all fall over and pass out or die too?

Why is everyone fucking dead?

Because something big is going to happen to them all after they pass out???

I mean, maybe???

Even if that’s the case, I have no idea how many people will actually be part of this union or revival or whatever the fuck happens. I just...I do notice that heroes and villains both are dropping like flies.

WHAT IS THIS LEADING TO?

5. The story of how we all became the greatest heroes

So once upon a time I wrote a tiny meta about the infamous line from the first chapter, “This is the story of how I became the greatest hero.”

Basically, it occurred to me that it’s very strange for the narrator to “spoil the ending” of the story in the first chapter. Where’s the dramatic tension? Why even do that?

Well, the obvious answer is: it wasn’t a spoiler. Perhaps it meant something else than what it seemed at first glance.

I realized “hero” in Japanese could be both singular and plural. Thus, I conceived that the true message was: “This is the story of how I became ONE OF the greatest heroes.“

Chapter 324 basically confirmed that theory.

But...what if it’s still wrong?

What if there’s ANOTHER hidden message in the line?

What if it’s something like: “This is the story of how I became a part of the greatest hero.” Singular. Purposefully.

What if EVERYONE becomes the greatest HERO literally. What if...everyone merges to create...All Might?

And then I saw all the vestiges rebelling inside AFO and thought:

Oh god this actually seems plausible now.

So here’s the good news for Himiko...

There was, in fact, a chapter titled “The Story of How We All Became Heroes, Part Minus 1.”

Maybe everyone becomes heroes together. Maybe they all literally become one hero together. Either way, Himiko was highlighted in a chapter with a title that specifically implied she would be part of whatever the fuck happens.

Sure, this chapter COULD BE Himiko’s heroic moment. But...I don’t know man. We got SO MANY CHAPTERS with this title. It’s SCREAMING some sort of plot twist is on the way...!

6. Ochako is ALSO supposed to be part of this “greatest hero” business too!

Finally, can we just...remember how Ochako was inspired to save people? She held Sir Nighteye in her arms as he died, and that’s when she knew she wanted to save people.

Himiko dying here on Ochako’s watch...idk mannnnn, has Ochako really proven that she’s achieved her goal yet? Can she really be part of the greatest heroes like this?

#my hero academia manga spoilers #final showdown spoilers #himiko toga #katsuki bakugou #ochako uraraka #literally everyone tag everyone here #theory #meta #look DON'T GET YOUR HOPES UP #because then if this does happen you can be pleasantly surprised #and if this doesn't happen you won't all stick my head on a pike #see? everyone wins that way #but also maybe we don't come to any conclusions about himiko's end just yet

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genericpuff · 2 years ago

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I followed artsangel since her previous comic immaterial. I have to say she IS talented and has the skills. But her style is verrrrry time consuming and she would only update every 2 weeks. I used to study her art a lot because I was always impressed by it, and Im fairly certain it did not look like like that when it was on canvas. I used to see her progresses on her stories and she uses a lot of assets and predrawn faces to keep her consistent pixar look. The faces were less uncanny and more expressive. Now the eyes are all wonky and displaced.

I think she may have used ai to polish her panels. Perhaps the workload proved too much, or maybe she was feeling insecure. I was concerned when she got picked up by webtoon because I could tell it would be difficult for her to keep up the schedule. Ai is super powerful but its not powerful enough to make a COMIC, not even consistently. She probably using it as an enhancer to her already great skills. A shame though, she doesn’t need it.

Also I think the reason her preproduction period was so quick is because she was highly prepared before launch. She already has multiple comics under her belt and webtoon probably didn’t need to change much. Im sure she just reused her canvas comic for her reboot and built a buffer in the meantime.

Having to meet deadlines can definitely be a reason but not an excuse IMO.

One creator I can think of who has a similar style (albeit in black and grey) is figmentforms, creator of A Tale of Two Rulers.

Updates are slow, she posts maybe a new page once a month, the art is gorgeous but it's clear it takes her time. It's a free to read comic. It's worth the wait.

That said, if she wanted to make her updates more frequent, I wouldn't blame her at all for utilizing new tools and methods to do so - but it wouldn't justify her in using AI tools that are stealing other people's art.

There are loads of shortcuts that artists already use that are fine because they're still genuinely handcrafted. 3D models, overlay textures, blur effects, etc. are all tools that artists use to help speed up the drawing process and were made by hand.

And beyond that, the need to make the process more efficient isn't a crime, but it's in how you do it. You can use these tools irresponsibly or at the cost of your own comic's quality. Case in point, Lore Olympus and Let's Play, which are both godawful in how they implement 3D backgrounds and stock images:

Creating comics is finding a balance between efficiency and quality, not sacrificing one for the other and using it as justification to avoid criticism for that sacrifice.

If Sarah Ellerton was using AI based on her own art and being honest about it, I don't think anyone would be nearly as upset. It might prompt a debate over what's ethical in the world of comics - whether or not it's right for consumers to pay for a product that's being churned out of an AI prompt - but at least it wouldn't be theft and it would probably just be there as an aid to an artist who's been doing this for 20 years and had to find a way to make the process more efficient. I think AI can be used as a productive tool if it's implemented responsibly and without being at the cost of another artist's work.

The issue is that 1.) Sarah is being VERY suspicious over the whole thing which leads us to believe that she's NOT using ethical AI assistance, and 2.) there's a VERY clear distinction near the end of her previous comic, Immaterial, where you can basically tell when she adopted AI. The main character Alex, for example, literally became a whole other person.

This is a common problem for AI coloring prompts, a LOT of them are bad at rendering darker skin tones (I think I mentioned this in my last post, but I literally got to playtest AI coloring tools from WT's a couple years ago, and they could NOT figure out darker skin tones, any dark colors that were put down were assumed to be shadows so characters just looked like white characters with the curtains pulled over their face).

She just looks like a SamDoesArts poster girl now. Everything unique about her has been stripped away and you can see this transition in the final page of Immaterial and the first episode of Quantum Entanglement:

None of it feels like organically her, it feels like a cheap machine reproduction.

I don't doubt that this person has evolved a lot as an artist or that her older work was genuinely her, she's clearly got a lot of skill that only someone who's been drawing comics for years would gain.

But it's clear somewhere along the way she succumbed to insecurity or stopped caring enough to start using AI to do the heavy lifting. I mean honestly, her work from before was fine! So I don't see why she would be using it for 'polishing', there are so many ugly ass webtoons on the platform so even the art from Immaterial - even if she had to simplify it a bit more to make it easier to meet deadlines - would likely be a refreshing change of pace.

But the way she's utilized AI here, I was quicker to assume Sam Yang drew Quantum Entanglement when I first saw it.

And it is a shame, because, as you said, she doesn't need it. Her art is perfectly capable on its own and while I can understand her need to make the process more efficient, there are better ways to do that than using AI that's clearly ripping off other artists and then lying about it. It's a shame she'd put her reputation on the line as a seasoned artist just to meet Webtoons' stupid deadlines. Like, how can it be worth it?

#quantum entanglement #webtoon critical #anti AI

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glitteringcrab · 8 months ago

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Frying his backups (part 3)

(part 1) (part 2)

Okay. After plenty of thought I think I can take a guess on how:

(a) the thin cables and (b) the chair and (c) the thick cables

in Rick Prime's control room work (provided the theories that Rick Prime had been puppeteering other Ricks are true).

1. I debated with myself for a long while whether Rick Prime sat himself on the chair or made his puppets sit there, one by one, each time they needed maintenance, while he stood over them (the back looks like it could recline; the feet? not so much).

However, considering the chair looks like a throne, I'm leaning towards Rick Prime being the one sitting on the chair under "normal" circumstances ("normal" being when you're an evil jerk puppeteering hundreds of other versions of yourself for the lulz).

2. The thin cables protruding out of the chair are indeed part of the puppeteering throne. The question is:

(a) whether they were indeed designed to go to Prime's forehead, or (b) whether they were intended to directly connect to the brain implants of the Rick Puppets

like so:

(pardon the lousy art lol)

If the thin cables were intended to directly connect to the brain implants of the Rick Puppets (option b) then this means the throne was only used for maintenance, updates and inspection. Prime's brain implant was wirelessly connected to the throne, the throne basically being an intermediate equipment connecting Prime with his puppets during software maintenance. (He could also, like, stand and walk around his puppets to inspect them while holding the tablet. The very long cables of the tablet point to this). Prime did not need the throne for the actual puppeteering though, only for maintenance, which does sound more versatile. However, I don't really dig the mental image of five Ricks looming over Rick Prime, and I think he wouldn't dig it either :P He'd want them to be beneath him literally as well as figuratively. In addition, it's weird that there'd be equipment for casual puppet inspection inside the control room of his superweapon. You'd think he'd have a dedicated room for the whole puppeteering thing, with medical equipment, stuff for brain surgery etc.

So I'm leaning towards option (a): the thin cables were intended to go to Prime's forehead, similarly to how Eyepatch Morty placed them (only without an intermediary fingergun, of course). In this scenario, Prime was able to puppeteer "only" five Puppet Ricks at once max, one for each thin cable (or maybe even more, if each cable can carry the data for several Ricks). The throne contains the transmitter, or a transmitter amplifier of sorts, effectively functioning similarly to Evil Morty's eyepatch being the intermediate equipment. (On a different matter: five puppets at once is extremely impressive. Eyepatch Morty had to pause what he was doing in order to shoot Security Guard Rick through Evil Rick.) I'd bet that Rick Prime's brain implant is normally able to puppeteer other Ricks wirelessly, without the need of the throne nor cables to his own forehead, but the Rick Puppets being in different dimensions (in contrast to Eyepatch Morty being in the same place as Evil Rick) means he has to take some extra steps to make sure the signal reaches the other dimensions. And these extra steps involve the Omega Device. And suddenly there is a very good reason that the throne is placed in the Omega Device control room: it uses the weapon's connections to the infinite dimensions to reach the Rick Puppets scattered across the multiverse. The thick, apparently compact base of the throne probably connects the puppeteering equipment to the Omega Device's control panel. And there is an extremely good (practical) reason that Prime chose the intermediary equipment to be shaped like a chair: it was so he could be seated, comfortable and relaxed, without in danger of keeling over if his concentration wavered at any moment, and puppeteer his victims. It's also possible he used time crystals to freeze or slow time, permitting him to drastically increase the number of Ricks puppeteered live at any given time. In this scenario I would bet that the Omega Device is an evolution of the puppeteering tech: Rick Prime would want to send his puppets in various dimensions, and he'd need a way to stay connected to them wherever they were at all times, therefore he'd need some sort of tech that keeps track of the infinite dimensions... Hey, while he's there, why not improve the design to allow for the simultaneous murder of someone across the as-of-now-constantly-tracked infinite dimensions? (and with the possibility of this development, I'm suddenly very skeptical about what kind of improvements Eyepatch Morty has in mind. Maybe he could use the connection to the infinite universes to uuuuh simultaneously teleport all victims to a specific location, or to simultaneously add an implant to all victims or something)

3. Rick Prime would use his tablet, which is directly connected to the chair, to swiftly choose which Rick Puppets he is currently connected to. The pretty significant length of the tablet cables and the thin puppeteering cables meant he could probably stand up and walk around if needed, e.g. to the control panel.

(Or, if scenario (b) is true, the tablet was supposed to be used as demonstrated by Eyepatch Morty: to oversee his puppets, update the software, check for malfunctions, etc. Both tablet and Rick Puppets would be directly connected to the throne, so it checks out)

It's possible both scenarios (a) and (b) are true or partly true; if, for example, there was relevant medical equipment embedded in the floor, revealed at the press of a button (there is plenty of empty space in front of the throne...) then it's possible all operations could be carried out fully and autonomously inside the Omega Device facilities.

4. The thick cables were not originally part of Prime's chair; they were part of the machinery embedded in the wall instead. They were part of the Omega Device, linking the control panel to the infinite dimensions. Eyepatch Morty puppeteered Rick Prime (lol) to get them out.

So the order was something like this:

Scenario (a) the throne was used for interdimensional puppeteering: Rick Prime (brain implant) > five thin puppeteering cables > Puppeteering throne > five Rick Puppets (wireless receiver in brain implant) alternating swiftly by manual use of the tablet

Scenario (b) the throne was used for direct maintenance: Rick Prime (via tablet) > Puppeteering throne > five thin puppeteering cables > five Rick Puppets' brain implants

I'm heavily leaning towards scenario (a).

Eyepatch Morty takes this whole thing and turns it around, right against Rick Prime:

Rick Prime sits on his stupid puppeteering throne, but he is the puppet now, because of the fingerguns. The throne that originally granted him infinite freedom at the expense of others' is now his prison. (nice)

His brain implant is connected to the five thin puppeteering cables of the throne, but once again, filtered through the fingergun. He can no longer control his puppets. Instead he as of now functions as part of the intermediate equipment of the throne.

Eyepatch Morty takes the thick cables embedded in the control room walls, which were normally used to connect the infinite universes to the Omega Device control panel, and hooks them up to the puppeteering throne. While the throne could previously connect with (probably) up to five Rick Puppets at a time through the Omega Device, Eyepatch Morty takes advantage of the entirety of the Omega Device to make a direct connection not with five Rick Puppets, but with ALL OF THEM. ALL OF RICK PRIME'S PUPPETS IN THE INFINITE UNIVERSES (that's probably why he had to connect all five thin cables to Prime's head; that's a lot of data)

Eyepatch Morty then stands over Rick Prime, taking advantage of Prime's own tablet, which was previously used to chose which Rick was puppeteered, to directly access the Rick Puppets' records and vaporize them all instead.

Or... I dunno. Does all this make any sense?

If I'm close to the mark, then no wonder Rick Prime was seething by the end. Eyepatch Morty did not just stun Rick Prime, kill his clones and steal his super-weapon; the addition of the puppeteering tech makes everything a lot more personal.

Eyepatch Morty beat him at his own inconceivably expert puppeteering game (five Ricks at a time!!), turned him into a puppet of sorts, desecrated his super-weapon, used Prime's own equipment, tech and symbols of power (the throne) against him, fried within seconds all of Prime's hard-to-maintain puppets, mocked him and finally stole the plans of his super-weapon.

#Rick Prime #PRick #Has anyone done this? Is it a thing?#I mean he IS a prick but he's also pretty epic and the name “Rick Prime” has a certain je-ne-sais-quoi... It just suits him so much.#eyepatch morty #evil morty #Prime Rick #Rick and Morty #frying his backups #omega device

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jezmmart · 2 years ago

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Unwarped version of the photo from the very end of the Summer Special for funsies.

No more jokes or avoiding questions about exactly how long it's going to be, the Summer Special is truly over now! Thank you all again for reading. I hope it was enjoyable for those invested in the characters and those who just tune in each week for a quick chuckle alike.

It's been a fun challenge to write my first longform story for the comic, as it's far from something I'm confident in. All together it clocked in at 85 pages (though shave a few off in spots where I just used negative space for dramatic effect rather than filling the longer pages with panels all the way down). With the average page taking me 3-5 hours to make, that's about 14 days of work. If I just didn't sleep I could've cranked this out in less than a month, dang! Well, next time.

I've had the jist for this story in my head for a fair few years so it's been nice to finally realise it. I'll get into the nitty-gritty when the trivia posts get this far I'm sure, but while it's still fresh in my mind, here's some off-the-cuff bits regarding the broad story for fun:

(Spoilers for anyone who hasn't read it yet!)

* I originally envisioned this as a thing I'd secretly work on behind the scenes and drop in its entirety for download, framed like a traditional "summer special" magazine. But unfortunately I just don't have that kind of time, and knowing that it would be years of work to do it alongside my other output, paired with the fear that not every reader would necessarily ever get around to reading a longform thing when they're used to just tuning in for a 30 second fix once a week and moving on, it became a no-brainer to just make it a "special" in spirit only and make it part of the main comic. And I know myself, the only way this was ever getting done is if I just posted that first one and then locked myself in to having to finish it, one week at a time.

* The fact that I did it in 2022-2023, and the pacing of the story for the first half, was entirely dictated by the fact that Chamomile's update day was due to land on Christmas Day in 2022. If I wanted to make that inappropriate Christmas Day comic joke, it was now or never, and because it needed to be a standalone ridiculous one comic scene in juxtoposition to the rest of the story-driven special, staging it as a dream sequence between the two days had to be the time for it.

* To that end... when I began working on it, I didn't have the whole thing planned out. Day 1 of the trip was more or less sorted but I still had a ton of comics that were just scenes with no jokes yet, and Day 2 was a big question mark that somehow had to lead to Vi's dramatic reveal to Bri and realisation/meet-up with Sam at the end of it. Day 2 was only fleshed out and finalised by around December last year, when everyone was going to bed on Day 1! The idea to more thoroughly conclude Brianna's story in an extra epilogue, segregated off from the rest of the special so Sam and Vi's scene would still feel like a "climax", and also allowing the summer special to continue through this year's summer rather than ending right beforehand, only came to me early this year, and finalising the particulars of it came right down to the wire, with all the comics involved fleshed out and ready to go basically when I began drawing the first (or maybe even second, lol).

* On the note of Brianna, her story here is a lighter version of a story idea I had for her back before Cammie even existed and I was considering making a comic about her - a story in which someone returns to their hometown or a special place to find solace but instead finds out that everything has changed and has to learn a hard lesson about how nostalgia can't save you from adult life overwhelming you etc. In my head it was to be a relatively sombre mood, but tbh I don't know where to begin writing something like that and have it be engaging throughout. All I know is how to do jokes!! So I mourn the loss of that imagined version but I'm happy I made something of it at last. It's impossible to make stuff to your initial vague vision, it was always bound to change!

* While weekly updates meant I never had the time to flesh out their pre-relationship friendship as much as I'd always imagined I would... Sam and Vi have been destined to happen since Sam was introduced to the comic. Been playing the long game in trying to make them inconspicious but shippers gonna ship and plenty of people saw it coming, but that's fine, haha!

* The elongated search for a 20p coin to get into the public toilets and then it turning out that contactless card payment could have been used the entire time was a real thing that happened to me and my partner during our 2016 holiday in New Forest. It was really really funny and I've been sitting on the story in order to use it in Chamomile at some point for years and years.

That'll do for now! Please look forward to the return to regular ol' classic Chamomile antics from Sunday!

#jezmm #art #chamomile comic #chamomile comic trivia #original character #character art #vienna #samantha #chamomile #brianna #layla

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stillness-in-green · 1 year ago

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Months later and still kinda salty about the Advisers treatment in S6 since its very clear they were not on the team's mind: not including Bindi with Amplivolt against Edgeshot, not including Hole guy's panel about to ambush Orca (so he just got beat out of nowhere), not including the panel of Cabbie Hat and Fox guy running off, Hose Face not speaking before he killed Midnight, heck even messing up who gets captured in the end. I know they aren't super relevant, but S6 didn't help them either.

Man, I completely fell off of watching the anime even for the purposes of criticism, so thank you for this update to clarify for me that only disappointment waits if and when I ever bother. I did get curious and look up who gets captured in the end, and wow, they really did comprehensively fuck that up, didn’t they? I know you know because you wrote me this nice ask about it, but for everyone else, take a look at this nonsense:

(Note that, as ever when I'm replying to asks from my dear fellow advisor fan @shockersalvage, the PLF codenames below are pure headcanon.)

I am agog at how huge and accessible and openable those windows look. Why on earth would you use vehicles like that for prisoner transport?) Are they just packing dangerous terrorists back onto the same buses the Heroes used to get up here, or what?

Comparing that to the equivalent shot in the manga, they didn’t get any of these people right. (Excluding the Heroes, who get relatively faithful if slightly less detailed renditions. Because of course they do.)

Look at the windows on these transports and laugh with me about how ridiculous the ones in the anime are in comparison. Also, I notice that while the anime got Tartarus Hat: The Capture Tape Hero's look right, they did fail to notice that the restraints dangling loose from his wrists are the same as those the PLF captives are bound with.

Not every person on the ground here is tentatively identifiable as a ranked advisor—only, you know, five out of seven of them, the entire middle group. The two on the back right are really obviously Galvanize and Piercings Dude (Compress’s #1 and Dabi’s #3), and given the visual similarities and the grouping, I’m pretty confident the others are Fray (Toga’s #3), Red (Skeptic’s #1) and Band Jacket Guy (Compress’s #2).

Yet even given the anime’s sloppy, ugly coloring decisions for the advisors they did show, they didn’t even accidentally get any of these right. Band Jacket Guy and Fray are both dark-haired in the anime, while Red’s honey blonde and Piercings Dude is silver-haired with a striped coat jacket. I would almost venture to guess that the anime intended the dude they gave the handlebar mustache to above (Galvanize in the manga, as apparent by his forelock and forehead scar) to be Sanctum, save that they didn’t those colors right, either! They have Sanctum in white in the opening attack scene and in blue in Twice’s imagine spot.

Just an impressively thorough failure to realize the manga’s intention.

One thing you didn’t mention that I wondered about was Scarecrow’s first scene of note, so I also looked that up—I wanted to see if he had a voice actor yet, given how important his voice would turn out to be!

Lo and behind, I find that the anime—while at least including Scarecrow, absolutely not guaranteed, as the above dissection shows!—gave what I had always assumed to be his dialogue to Re-Destro instead. Which, I guess, looking at the manga again, could be the intention? But I don’t really read it that way.

It’s certainly flowery enough to be Re-Destro! He definitely talks like that! But, as we later find out, Scarecrow absolutely talks like that too. And here, looking at the paneling and the way the talk bubbles fall within it, we can see that Re-Destro’s obvious dialogue (“What did you pesky Heroes do to our savior and liberator?!”) breaks out of the panel binding, overlapping into the scene change to Gigantomachia’s rampage.

That’s what I would expect to be the case if the next line (“After Gigantomachia, Liberation warriors! Our revolution is at hand!”) was also meant to be his, ringing out so loudly over the battlefield that even out in the forest, it’s still audible above the sounds of pitched, widespread conflict.

Instead of being overlaid across the panel borders like the others, though, it’s fully contained within the panels, visually implying that the line is being delivered by someone within that same scene/panel, for which the most obvious candidate is the guy prominently foregrounded in it. I suppose the counter-argument is that there aren’t any obvious tails to the talk bubble that would link it to him, as with the bubbles in final panel with Kamui Woods and Midnight, but then, Re-Destro’s shouting doesn’t have any tails, either!

Overall, I guess it’s a valid read, but I frankly just don’t like it as much as I do the dialogue serving as an early indicator of Scarecrow’s personality. Also, while it surely pleases me to contemplate that Re-Destro loves Shigaraki so much that he’d order a sizeable chunk of his own army to abandon him in favor of going to his savior and liberator, I have to think that if he did give that order, considerably more than a piddling 132 out of 17,000 people at the Villa would have successfully prioritized escape!

Sorry for taking so long with this one, shockersalvage! My plan was to respond to it when I got back to PLF Spotting posts, but I just don’t think I can be arsed with those at this point. I kind of unreasonably hate the stupid puce-colored arm the anime saddled Shigaraki with for some godforsaken reason, and I’ve not yet forgiven the show for giving Re-Destro an anime-original scene but fucking it up by having him identify Destro Classic as his literal father. Also, while the anime transparently doesn’t care about the PLF, it’s only emulating its source material in that regard, so it's hard to muster up too much righteous indignation on the manga's behalf.

Regardless, thank you as always for the ask and your patience! Please do feel free to report back in with any further PLF Erasure Crimes the anime commits; I'm not expecting to pay it much attention at this point save probably ducking in to watch Scarecrow's wonderful rooftop speech at the hospital riot.

(You know, assuming they let him keep it.)

#bnha #plf advisors #yotsubashi rikiya #re-destro #the anime continues to be Bad #news at eleven #shockersalvage #stillness answers

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