#and the pilot for Murder Drones had just came out too

[anartisticalniche]

Alright, ya know what? Might as well at this point eheh.

Here's Mag Agent N. With an acid gun to replace his canonical tail lmao.

Also have a reference showing their sizes compared to each other

[glitchy1938]

Murder Drones X Child Reader

Hi everyone I want to make this story, and it took me some times to make it, so let me know if you like it, olso, it's my first story so, hope you enjoy ! Just to let you know :

italic writing is thinking bold writing is the action

Part-1 : Pilot

Uzi : "We are Worker drones" autonomous Robots Helping Humans Mine Exo-Planets for our inter-stellar parent company JC jenson in Spaaaaaacee !!

"Yeah, We were Mistreated in the name of windex, but it's not like WE Revolted and killed all humans or anything"

"Mostly because…They handled that just fine all by themselves…"

"With Biological life wiped from the planet we found it pretty easy to pick up where they left off…"

"We finally had it all to ourselves…"

"Unfortunaly, our planet company didn't exactly love the concept 'Runaway A.I"

In the Distance, the Disassembly Drone will start Emerged from the pod and one of them throw a worker drones head on the ground and they start to laugh evilly and destroy the city with the other two Disassembly Drone.

"But what our parents done for the past forever ?! while those things Built a spire of corpses hide under the ice ?! TREE STUPID DROOS !! It's like we're wainting for them"

"Anyway, that's why MY project is… THIS Sick-as-RayGun !!"

Y/n watch her older sister and her RayGun and saw how cool it was, but.. They have a bad feeling about this… "Why do i get the feeling somthing bad is going to happend ?…"

When she took it out and showed it to them, everyone start to panic

Ramdom Worker : THAT'S SO NOT THE VIBES.. !

Uzi : Easy Morons, it's doesn't work… YET !! Who said it doesn't work ?! Maybe it does !!

Your sister flick the switch at the side of the Gun and laugh like a psychopath, the teacher rolled his eyes, annoyed by that.

Y/n saw the gun start to change color

Teacher : *Sighs* Uzi, the homework was about word problem about buying watermelons.

"OH, and this Magnetically Amplifed Photon Converger doesn't count ?"

"No" he said

-Y/n rise her hand-

Uzi : "What is it y/n ?…" She look at her younger sibling

Everyone in the school loves her little sister, and they nice to her because of how cute and small she was form everyone.

(If you are a boy, then pretend that you are a girl, for the story)

Y/n : "Is that supposed to make that color ?"

Uzi look down and see it starts to turn red and tehn explosdes the classroom…

Later…

Uzi was in the nurse's office, with a ice pack on her head

Lizzy : "Ew, it didn't kill her" she said, passing by

A few minutes later, a male worker drone came in with y/n and they both sat next to her

Thad : "Classic toxic masculinity Chad ! That's never gonna en up problematic… Oh wow ! Uzi ? I heard you uh…

Uzi : "i'm a anger teen thad, BITE ME ! Also, how do you know my name ? People willing talk about you."

Y/n : "I told him your name !" Uzi look at her

Uzi : "Y/n, what did i say about telling people about my name ?" Y/n : "…Not to…"

Uzi : "And you know what that means ?… YOU GET THE TICKLE MONSTER !!!" She grabs you and start to tickle you and you couldn't stop laughing wery hard

She loves you even though you are not complitly her sister, she promesed herself to keep you safe from harm

Thad : "And everyone knows khan's two daughters, but uh… Then, you might blow the other half of your face clapping daddy issues hilarious…"

She stop tickling you and look at him, wille you try to catch your breath.

Uzi : "What you're in for testoterole too hard ?"

Thad : "This can happend ?! Awseome !" Thad laid back in the chairbefore speaking again

Thad : "And hey, those bandages looks badass !" He pount out

Uzi : "Oh…" She brushed some of her hear back, before looking away as blush make it away to appear on her visor…

Uzi : "Ew, cross ! I hate you said that."

(Trust me, we KNOW you like it 😏~) Y/n : "Then, why are you blushing ?"

Uzi : "i'M NOT BLUSING !! SHUSH !!"

Y/n : "-.-"

Before he can finish, Uzi put down Y/n on the chair and pointed the Gun on Thad

Uzi : "Sick-Hell-Railgun si-fi Nonsense that SUPER words ! I'm going to the murder drones tonight, to get the last spare part I need to save the word with it, and earn my dad's respect ! But mostly save the world part"

Y/n : "Can i come with you ? PLEASE !!" you asked, with giving her puppy eyes

Uzi : "No, it's too dangerous for you to come, and you're too small"

Y/n : "Aww… [Then i will find a way to follow you >:3]

Thad : "Does your dad make awesome doors ? So we don't have to Uh… Do, scary-sounding emotionally redressed stuff you just said ?…"

Uzi : "NO MORE FEEDBACK ON MY REPRESSION TODAY !!" She pointed the gun dangerously on his cheek

Thad : "OW S-SORRY !! I-I-I Didn't think-"

Before he can finish, she left the room grulmbling with her little sister following her close behing

Uzi : "BITE ME !!"

As she left, she came back Uzi : "I'm not mad at you, by the way- It's just hormonal !"

Y/n : "Bye Thad ^^!"

Later, at home. 3:00…

Uzi smacked her self to turn off her alarm and snug to grab the master key that can open the doors, she saw Y/n following her

Uzi : "Y/n !! WHAT DID I TOLD YOU ?!" Y/n : "Come on…! You never let me do anything !" You said very sadly

Uzi : "Fine, but you stay close to me, i don't want to lose you, okay ?" She give you a smile

Y/n : "YAY !!"

You two were going out but when she open the door, your dad was there.

Uzi and Y/n : "OH MY ROBOT-GOD !!"

Khan : "And might I ask where you two are off to ?" he ask to them both

Uzi : "Mm.. Sneaking out with my boyfriend which i definitely have ?…"

Your dad start laughing at this, yeah… He's not buy it…-_-

Khan : "Seriously though"

Uzi finally give up

Uzi : "*groans* Okay, okay ! You caught us. We need to… measure the exterior hydraulic mechanisms of door, because that's…"

She paused and look at her railgun before responding y/n help her hide it…

Uzi : "The project i'm working on for school ? A big old door ! *laughs awkwardly*…Just like my old man build"

He look at the her, still suspisous

Uzi : "We really wanna join the WDF and hide behind for the rest of our life like a cowards and play cards and stuff."

Khan : "OHOH, well we don't just play cards.

The two doors open and there sat a few worker drones playing cards

Worker drone : "Hey Khan ! Can you grab a fresh pack ? We littlerally only play cards so much that the number are faded."

The same person noticed you and Uzi where they were. "Hey Y/n and Uzi !"

You guys both greet them, then your dad close the doors

Khan : "Well… When you build doors so good…"He turn and flattering himself against the door

"Good door, Gooood door" He crooned to it

Khan : "There's no need to fight Uzi, Y/n, This is great news !" He cried

He grabs a Wrench from behind him

Khan : "Here-- The Wrench i use to tighten blots on my first door prototypes-"

Then he took a murderous tone of voice

Khan : "And to put your mother out of her mystery, when the Murder drones got to her with their nanite acid !" He snapped before going back to normal

Khan : "I want you to have it !" He give it to Uzi

Uzi hardly smile at him while you thank him for that, even if, right now, your are hiding behind her because of how he say it

He open again the door behing him.

Khan : "GUYS ! My daughters are into doors !!"

Everyone at the table cheered as the door finnaly opened

Khan : "They gonna be outside for a bit to examine the exterior of door 1 !" He called out

He turns to hes daughters

Khan : "Your door specific destiny awaits !" He told to you two

Uzi : "Uh, wow, okay, me and Y/n are just going to leave then… 'cause this worked so weirdly well. Uh go doors !!*laugh awkwardly*"

The doors close and they both look ahead at the city, the only light was the plants in the sky

Y/n : "So now… What ?…" She ask Uzi

Uzi : "We look for the part, and then we came back"

They both start to walk to the Murder drones Liar…

Helloooo !! So this is th first part of "Murder Drones x child reader", it's inspired from @Exotic-Worker-Dron-Uzi-Says-Is very Sad and @Luna Hamato in Quotev

So i Hope You enjoy !!

[melissa-titanium]

HELLOOO CAN I TALK TO YOU ABT DOLL

do you think that like, her being at school let her have some escape from her home and her revenge plans, like in this picture she is smiling and it looks way more like a happy smile than here

SHE IS HAPPY TO GET HER REVENGE, BUT SHE LOOKS SO TIRED, EVEN HER LAUGH IS TIRED

its like shes getting worse from the kills, in her house there was enough oil for her to not kill any other drones, yet her plan had to work, but it didnt, and only let her feeling more guilty

EVERYONE IS ALLOWED TO SEND ME SHIT ABOUT DOLL ALWAYS AT ANY TIME EVER FOREVER AND EVER. I LITERALLY NEED HER. SHES SO FUCKING COOL. BUT OMG HI YES HOLD ON

thats such an interesting take on pilot doll omg HI???? YES I CAN TOTALLY SEE THIS CONSIDERING WE DONT SEE DOLL IN SCHOOL OUTSIDE OF THE PILOT. HIIII YES OMG ok ok.

i havent actually thought this much about this. i personally think her in the pilot vs her in promening was like. not really a Whole big difference but like...the fact that lizzy now has access to v set her off. shes always been a little unsettling, a little fucking deranged but maybe something happened between ep 1 and 3 thatr was like. lizzy came to her like... hey, one of the disassembly drones came by my bunk the other day. was this the one? (shows doll a pic) and doll just FUcking Loses it . i think she was actively vengeful during the pilot too but YES like ur saying its almost a .grounding thing. everyone here is real and alive. and then at the end of the day she has to go back and face dozens upon dozens upon dozens of corpses that are there because of HER and its liike. idk i imagine shes 18-22 . shes young as hell. and that FUCKS WITH YOU. this is doll to me:

they know damn well her parents are dead but she's just under being eerie enough that no one really suspects her for anything going on. she's relatively normal around lizzy & not aggressive but not outgoing with other students. like to everyone, shes just a normal kid who lost her parents. plenty of kids have lost their parents, considering the murder drones lurking *right outside the bunker.*

i think she would get tired. yeah. she held onto the all consuming debilitating hatred for these genocidal war machines that killed her parents and countless others. then heartbeat happens, and suddenly people are Okay with them??? that would fucking set her OFF. so long, so fucking long shes been holding onto her anger and not being able to do anything about it . BUT NOW SHE CAN. ough ok but then theres those conflicting feelings bcos of uzi. u can see in promening she has SOME sense of... for lack of a better word, humanity in how she treats uzi (hell even tossing lizzy out of the way when she started killing people.) i think she picks and choses who she cares about and then is usually consistent in how she treats them. basically; dont get on her bad side. she's conflicted at the end of ep3 after learning uzi has the solver; but uzi is siding with the murder drones and thats HER loss for being SCHTUPIDDDDDDDD!!!! but then again, she finally has someone who understands what shes going through... but also AUGH..! i have to kill v i HAVE to kill v ive gotten so far i cant give up now FUCK!!!! FUCK!!!!!!!!!!!! i think there would be so much of her being conflicted between uzi knows what i feel. but also uzi is siding with the bitch who killed my fucking parents. i think she would just spiral and spiral until dead end comes along and she has a decision to make. and she makes it. and uzi is Fucked and v is Fucked and n and tessa are FUCKEd AND OK TYHIS IS GETTING LONG IM DONE

doll jumpscare

[dronebiscuitbat]

Oil is Thicker Then Blood (Part 74)

TW:GORE! (It's a dream but still)

Dreams were always a toss up for Uzi.

Sometimes she had what she had been calling ‘instinct dreams' where she didn't have the ability to talk and was hunting outside somewhere, or flying, N and Tera were usually there too, though V, Thad, and Lizzy had also started to make appearances.

Other times… the dreams were less pleasant, more disturbing then anything.

Unfortunately, today was one of those days;

She woke up face pressed against something squishy, her body was damp, covered in a thin veneer of some clear sticky liquid. She grumbled and sat up, trying to clear the substance from her pale skin.

…skin?

She gasped and looked down at herself, gone was the body made of hard silicone and metal, she felt her face, a nose, eyes and soft mouth greeted her five fingered hand. She was wearing her normal clothing only with a skirt covering her very human legs, she felt where her core should be, and felt the beat of an entirely human heart.

She had piercings in her ears, two studs and a small gauge in each, there was a reflective surface next to her, so she looked, the first time in forever she was able to look in mirror without it shattering. Her eyes were still a vibrant violet.

“W-what the-? Her voice sounded the same, but words felt weird in her strangely fleshy mouth. She looked down.

The floor was a irritated, fleshy red, squirming and pulsing as if it was alive, her face shifted into horror, the scene shifting around her.

A mineshaft, it's light flickering and frame rotting away.

A rusted out car.

Green trees and crunching leaves, N's voice saying something she couldn't quite hear, he sounded so far away…

Then with a thud she landed somewhere else, the air was damp… it was raining.

There was screaming.

Her eyes opened, she was hiding behind a building, breath coming out in panicked pants, the sky was an angry red sand slimy black tendrils crawled up walls and across the ground like overgrown weeds.

There was a sound on the other side of the building, a great metallic thud that had her jump and the fear inside her grow exponentially. She heard the sound of servos whining, motors whirring, foot plating beating heavily off the ground.

A drone.

Uzi didn't understand why she was scared, drones weren't scary, she was a drone, just not in this weird out-of-body dream. She looked up again.

It was still raining, the drops fell onto her face and slid down her cheek, she held out a hand and let the drops hit them.

…rain wasn't typically red.

The heavy metal of the drones footsteps grew ever closer, she held her breath and pressed herself as far against the wall as humanly possible, hoping to not be seen.

Then it came around the corner, white plating covered by a thick grey coat, hazard paint lining the cuffs of it's hands, both of which were long metal claws that were stained with blood, a halo of lights around the top of it's head, and a pilots cap.

N.

She wasn't scared of N. But for some reason her body began to shake with pure, unadulterated fear. Tears streamed down her face as N walked past her, his entire front stained in red, and his visor displayed a great big ‘X'.

At first, it seemed like she wasn't noticed, N walking past and looking down another alleyway, but she could only hold her breath for so long, so she inhaled a gulp of air into her straining lungs.

And N's head snapped back unnaturally to look at her, a feral smile etched on his face as he laughed, high and cold and sent ice cold dread up her spine.

N was upon her in seconds, learing over her squishy body hungerly, drooling as he maw opened slightly, one of his clawed hands trapping her underneath him.

And that's when she gained the ability to speak.

“N… it's me, it's Uzi, please…” Her voice sounded so broken, so scared. If anything N's smile grew wider, more unhinged. Something told her that while that's what she said, it's not what he heard.

His tail snaked up around her, holding her in place as she tried to to escape, it was tight, too tight. Not the gentle squeeze she'd grown accustomed to from him. All the air left her lungs.

Another psychopathic laugh escaped his voice box, before he suddenly lurched forward and buried his teeth into the side of her neck, ripping a scream from her throat and sending her blood splattering against the wall and his mouth.

His claws began to dig into her hip, creating long gashes as he continued to bite down, she could feel the pressure increasing, the blood flowing into his awaiting maw and spilling out onto the asphalt.

Her breathing became shallow, she desperately scratched his back, trying to pull him off but her human fingers couldn't even make a dent, until that too slowed and stopped.

“N…” was the last thing that left her mouth before she felt her body go slack.

That's when she jolted awake, gripping her core tightly as she kicked off the sheets, her breathing panicked and labored as the world around her righted itself.

She glanced around, she was home, tucked in bed after another bout of exhaustion had hit her. Tera was asleep on N's side of the bed, curled up on his pillow like a sleeping kitten.

She sighed, laying back down and tangling her fingers in her hair.

That had been strangly vivid. She could still feel the phantom pain on her neck where dream N had torn into her, her hip throbbed like it had been sliced open and her head was pounding, making her close her eyes again.

She'd had dreams of N and V chasing her down and killing her before, though they had stopped long ago at this point. But she'd never been a human before, that was new. She wondered what it could possibly mean.

“Uzi? Are you awake hon?” N's voice called put to her, making her jump in fear before she made herself calm down. N would never hurt her, it was just a dream.

“Y-yeah!” She called back, rubbing her ey-visor to try and clear away the memories of the dream.

“We uh… need to talk.” N popped his head in through the door, a deeply worried look on his face, whatever he'd found out there, she knew it wasn't good.

Next ->

[velvet-vox]

(This post is wrong as all hell. Please, only read the notes and reblogs of this mess.)

The Confession Discourse.

(Imagine lacking so much time and will that you take almost two months to answer one single rebuttal)

This post is simultaneously a follow up to my previous confession on @md-confessions and a response to @oldmanjenkins985 's confession on that same ask blog.

Originally, I wanted this whole argument to be a @md-confessions blog's exclusive thing, but I was too slow, and the confession box was closed, so now, after delaying it for weeks, I've finally decided to make my response to the whole thing, while also keeping some unsaid stuff for myself for when I'll eventually finish writing my giant critique of Doll, who at this point I'm not sure if I want to publish before episode 8 or not. You can find the links to all of the confessions that I'm talking about right above, in the coloured words.

I think that the best way to start this response is by going through @oldmanjenkins985 's confession and rebutting each and every point with my opinion, then I'll start speaking more generally on the whole subject matter while providing the reasons that drove me to make that original confession.

Read and Rebuttal.

"So, basically the way you talk about rewriting the story is that you just want an almost completely different story than the one we got. Getting rid of the school elements? Say goodbye to episode 3 and 4. 2 can still happen but there's some stuff that needs to be cut and stuff to fill those gaps."

Alright, so, to be perfectly clear, I wasn't saying that I wanted an entirely different story than the one we got. Originally, while making that confession, I was under the assumption that it was always Liam's intention to eventually escalate the story to "end of the universe" proportions, and that the reason why he decided to rush so much of the plot was to get to that aforementioned conflict with the Absolute Solver. Therefore, my suggestion was that, since Vickers seemed more interested in the apocalyptic aspects of his story and didn't have the time or resources to flesh out anything else, he should have sacrificed the whole school setting earlier on (since, despite how much I like it, it was kind of useless after the pilot, where it set up Uzi's character and flaws. It was semi useful in ep 2 and 3 to also set up Doll's character, but I'm currently advocating her erasure, so those instances don't matter to our argument) and just went straight to the things that he actually wanted to tell.

However, as I've learned more about the production history of this show, I no longer believe that to be the case; the Absolute Solver was always a planned thing, but not in the way it is currently iterated; I'm sure Liam rewrote the entire plot so many times, that, whatever he had in mind at the beginning, it's so wildly different from the final product that it might as well be a completely different show.

The school elements were probably very relevant to the first few drafts, but in the final take, they are completely disregardable, and I know that because the show itself quickly disregards a lot of those elements in episode 4, so this isn't even an idea I came up with in my spare time, Murder Drones itself instilled this notion in my head to begin with.

"but 3 and 4 not happening AT ALL like they do, that would have serious ripple effects."

Duh, that's what happens when you change a part of your story, it usually changes your whole story, even if in minor ways.

My main goal here was to make the story of Murder Drones simpler so that it better sticks to the eight 20 minutes long episodes.

In his current form, the story of Murder Drones is too big to be fleshed out in an eight-episode season, we aren't even sure if there'll be a season 2, and even if there was, season 1 is so crammed already that episodes 6, 7, and most likely 8 feel like the ending of a second season to me; that's just how crazy the pacing is.

"And episode 5/6 would probably go down differently as well since Doll wouldn't be there to steal the keybug."

Have you ever wondered why Doll didn't steal the keybug back in episode 4 when Uzi found it in that abandoned warehouse? Neither N nor V were there to help Uzi in case Doll decided to do the same thing that she did to Cyn in episode 6; Doll didn't even need to go straight into the Cabin Fever's labs (even if that's exactly what she ended up doing in ep 6), she could have just simply disappeared into the woods; the main gang doesn't know where her hideout is, therefore, she could have just stalled with the keybug until she figured out a trap or a setup (the one thing she has been consistently excelling at) to get rid of the trio (at least temporarily) and enter Cabin Fever labs to find what she was looking for.

So, why doesn't she do it? Well, it's simple: it's because she doesn't know what the keybug does at this point of the story.

Doll only learns about the secrets hiding down in the elevator shaft off camera through Tessa, who then engages her to steal the keybug from Uzi in episode 5.

Therefore, excluding the fact that yes, episode 2 through 6 would play out differently, Doll, in regards to her choice to steal the bug, it's only a tool for Cyn; and while this wouldn't feel like it if the show was better paced, due to the fact that our protagonists immediately teleport to the labs, and the way her arc plays out in the next two episodes, she also feels like a tool for the plot as well.

Again, all of this would have been perfectly fine with better pacing or more spotlight on Doll as a character, but that wasn't the case, so moving on:

"And Doll just being a plot device and not a character? Don't even get me started on that."

She is a character and a plot device, a lot of fictional characters are simultaneously plot devices, especially protagonists and antagonists, the trick stems in the writer's ability of masking the second component and, ideally, even the first.

Storytelling is all about manipulation; how capable you are to make the audience buy the events being told even if they are completely fake.

Some characters achieve this narrative illusion almost perfectly, while others like Doll are harder to pass by if their writing doesn't hold up.

You can fault me for my excessive scrutiny, but I'm going to explain how I got to this point at the end of the rebuttal.

"She's one of the most tragic and well written characters of the show and I LOVE her.

If it was just for that, I love her as well, but I don't find her to be one of the most well written characters in the show, far from it; I actually consider her to be a hot writing mess, though that doesn't stop me from thinking about her basically every single day.

Do I find her to be one of the most tragic characters in the show? Objectively speaking, no. A lot of other characters had it worse than her, Alice and Beau are technically more tragic characters than Doll, as they never had any other choice at every single turn. V had it worse, N had it worse, Cyn had it worse, Tessa had it worse, heck, you can easily make the argument that J of all people had it worse than Doll. By comparison, if you lack the emotional intelligence to understand that, just because one person's trauma is worse than someone else's it doesn't mean that the other person's trauma doesn't matter, as all life scarring experiences affect us in an indiscernible way, that invalidates certain statements such as "well that person clearly had it worse than you, yet you became a sh####er person than them, so your trauma doesn't matter because you could have just simply overcame it like that one person did, but you didn't because you were always a jerk", Doll just looks like a giant a#####e.

Is her tragedy the one that affected me the most? (Looks back at the several months of emotional damage preceding and succeeding her death) Yes.

I feel like that's partially due to how much I personally relate to Doll, but even if I am fully willing to admit that V's entire life story is technically far more sad than Doll's, I just have way more traits in common with Doll, plus it also helps the fact that Doll (to me) is the most down to earth character in the entire cast. Her serious demeanor may alienate her from the show's tone, but it helps her to be more likable to me, as she, more than any other character, feels like a real world person that reacts accordingly to all of the nonsense and murder happening around her. We don't get enough of the human characters for me to feel like: "Yeah, this guy is definitely me if I was in Murder Drones, I would do the same things and react in the same way to all the horrors happening around me". I like Uzi's and Tessa's quirkiness, and I could be considered a weird-boy even if I never was ostracized in school or emotionally neglected by my parents, but I don't personally relate to their antics and their comedic reactions to the horror moments pale in comparison to Doll's genuine reactions to pretty much anything. Also, while all Murder Drones fans can claim to share some traits with N and V, none of them can really say that they personally relate to being a disposable slave; therefore points to Doll being the most grounded Murder Drones character.

So yeah, Doll is a very tragic antagonist, but I am a Wakfu fan, thus I know the secret ingredients behind a truly magnificent sympathetic villain, and I can say that Doll lacks a lot of the pieces that make someone like Nox such a heart breaking rollercoaster of emotions. Of course, I wouldn't expect you to know what I'm talking about since Wakfu is a pretty obscure franchise, I'm only mentioning it for propaganda reasons, but nonetheless, I'm pretty confident in saying that I know what differentiates a good sympathetic villain from a truly great one; Doll has a lot of pieces of the latter but she ends up falling into the former due to various reasons, most noticeable reason of all being that she never feels like the protagonist of her own story, just a side character that refused to remain as such.

Loving her doesn't stop me from thinking about her critically. Soon we are going to discuss what her place in the narrative is and why it doesn't work in the way it was intended to.

"Her flaws especially."

I would really like to open up a tangent here, but I feel like that's a discussion for another day; so sure, you love her flaws, go on.

"She's very much a mirror to Uzi. Both had their parents (or parent in Uzi's case) get killed by disassembly drones, both are infected with the Solver, and both want to figure out what the hell it is and how to fix themselves. The difference between the two, is that Doll SAW V rip her parents apart while laughing."

There are way more differences than that, but I'm sure you already knew that, sorry for being incapable to pick up on sarcasm.

"Uzi was likely only a baby when Nori died, and even if she wasn't she didn't personally see her die."

I have nothing to say here, but I thought that it would be better to separate this sentence from the next one, just to narrow down the focus.

"That was what let her get over her grudge, because she had a grudge against a concept, while Doll had a grudge against a person."

This sentence doesn't make any sense to me. People can absolutely have a grudge against a concept, and Doll's hatred for the Disassembly Drones being targeted rather than vague like Uzi's hatred is (even if Uzi doesn't hate the Disassembly Drones, though I'm not sure what that scene with Uzi in episode 2 "The humans sent you without a communication relay and reformatted your memories to soup. Covering their tracks means that they are past negotiating. Not like they tried negotiating with my mum" was supposed to mean. Uzi in general is such a strange character to me, weird-girl my a##, Uzi stans, your daughter is straight up an enigma) it's not what allowed one to get over their grudge compared to the other.

One example of this is Bradford Buzzard from the DuckTales remake: he was traumatised as a kid by her strict grandma, who forced him to go on dangerous adventures with her, so when he grew up started hating the entire concept of adventures, and sought for a way to eliminate all unpredictable elements from the world and his life. This is only one example but you get the idea.

To be fair, you did mention the fact that you were tired when you started writing this, so I'm pretty sure that you weren't reflecting carefully when you wrote this part, plus once a confession is sent you can't correct it anymore, as such, I believe you would have probably changed this sentence if you taught about it a little longer. Therefore, I'll just let this one slide.

"Doll continuously decides to work by herself as a result, unable to overcome her hatred for V (very understandably mind you)."

Absolutely, screw all those people who said that Doll was being unreasonable by not joining sides with Uzi, 90% of all normal human beings wouldn't want to stay anywhere close to their parents murderer, especially Doll, who for some reason is the most realistic member of the cast, even if she isn't human. Plus, if you believe the theory that Doll's parents were killed during the pilot (there are some plot holes in the timeline of events for both this theory and the "child Doll saw her parents die" theory, but that's something for another day), then it's technically Uzi the one who created her rival, which would contradict the "Doll is completely consumed by revenge" allegations, as Doll weirdly enough sympathizes with Uzi and *insert here a giant analysis of Lizzie's line in Episode 3 "Dude, no one is gonna notice she is missing. Just do your thing, and I'll let in V" and how many questions it raises* despite her knowing that she was the one to let in her parents killer.

But ok, this is completely unrelated, let's move on.

"This ultimately ends up getting her killed because she alone could not take on the Solver, a threat we time and time again have seen to only be stoppable when people work together against it. When Uzi and N work together in ep 2, Doll protecting Lizzy in the same episode, in ep 4 when N helps Uzi regain control, in ep 7 when Nori and N fight back against possessed Uzi. Then think about all the times it succeeded. In ep 5 at the Gala it had Tessa alone, in ep 7 it had N and Uzi on the ropes when they were alone, in ep 4 when Uzi was on a rampage and V was trying to kill her rather than help her."

Uh uhm.

"Doll's death doesn't ruin her character, it IS her character (might be overexaggerating there but I really liked that sentence). Tragedy and bad choices stemming from reasonable thinking. A result of her going alone, trusting nobody."

I don't know what to say here.

At first I was like "Ehhhhhhhhh, you are kinda right but not in a positive way" but then I realised that there are a lot of right and wrong things in this paragraph, and in order to pick them apart I would have to go through a massive side tangent that would take focus away from the rest of the confession, as such, I'm just going to leave this as it is and maybe I will address it in a future post.

"Also, we don't even know that she's dead! Yes, it's likely she is, but Cyn only swallowed her core. It's possible it gets thrown up in ep 8 and she gets to continue living."

We'll see, but if I was the one who killed Doll in such a dramatic and gruesome way I wouldn't have her revived right away in the following episode, where there are already a lot of ongoing plot lines that need to be tied up; nor would I do this if I want for the stakes to remain high.

Sorry for bumming down your optimism, but I really struggle to see how Doll could possibly bounce back up when she was just brutally executed in the most anticlimactic way possible.

"Don't judge her before the season is done."

I will judge Doll based on what's already present in the episodes because I have very valid reasons to believe that her arc was being made up as the story went on; planner and pantsie are two different terms used to identify the writing style of a writer, the former is for writers who spend time planning out the various aspects of their stories before releasing them, the latter is for writers who make up their story as they go along; both writing styles have their advantages and disadvantages, and writers can actually adoperate both simultaneously if they need to, and that's what Liam Vickers did: he planned out a lot of aspects of his series (at least in the final rewrite), like the Tessa reveal and the Solver mystery, and made up other aspects as the episodes went along, like Doll's entire storyline.

Getting the obvious differences in characterisation between Pilot and series Doll out of the way, have you ever wondered why we get the reveal that Doll's parents have died both in episode 2 and 3? It would have been a lot better if it was just revealed to us in The Promening, after all Liam's writing is hardly ever on the nose when it comes to this type of stuff, why repeat to the audience information that they already know?

That scene with Lizzy and Doll in episode 2 is in general one of the most forced scenes in the show; it serves his purpose of setting up Doll and Lizzie's characters alright, but it doesn't make a lot of sense if you start peeling away at its layers for a while.

I can and will judge Doll as she is right now if her story was being made up as the show went along, I've seen good pantsie writing in my life, and I can usually tell at which point the writer lost sight of his original idea and it's starting to fall apart.

"If you like the series how it is, Doll and the school elements are VITAL. Irreplacable. And if you really don't like how the series went, as it seems you do considering you think it'd be better if the entire thing was rewritted, make a fanfiction"

I like how the series is, but I really like how Murder Drones could have been.

Ideally, in a perfect universe, we would get two 20 episodes long seasons that set up all of the things that have happened in these 8 episodes and also give us plenty of time to flesh out all of the cast, the world, and look at side stories that reinforce the main themes of the series or give us some breathing room between the big events.

Of course, we don't live in that perfect universe; we only have 8 episodes to tell a story, thus, we need to be very thoughtful of what we put inside the plot because we don't have a lot of time to flesh everything out.

Probably, for the story that Liam wanted to tell, 16 or 12 episodes would have been enough, even if it still seems a little bit scuffed, but again, we don't have those, and he should have paid more attention to that fact.

We'll circle back at this in just a moment.

"Whew, that was...a lot. I think you can tell I really like this show. Again, I apologize if I come off as rude or pompous or whatever."

No problems. You sounded genuine.

"I'm just very passionate about the show. I don't think it doesn't have flaws, it is rushed and Liam isn't one for super fine worldbuilding details, but ultimately those barely affect it for me. They dock like, half a point combined for me."

And if that's the case, good for you. I'm happy that you can still enjoy the show the way it is because I've become pretty miserable as a result of picking apart all of its flaws and wishing for them to not exist.

The real Reasons.

Now that I have taken apart all of the individual pieces of the confession, it's finally time for me to provide you with some answers.

The main reason why I wrote that original confession was because of this Other confession, that basically pointed out the fact that confessions as a whole started s#####g ass, and it got me into questioning if I could write something better.

I had a couple of ideas I wanted to discuss, and threw a couple of them into that original text, hoping that it would live up to my standards. @oldmanjenkins985 read it, disagreed with what it had to say, and that's how we've got to this point.

As I have stated in the first part of my rebuttal, I used to believe that Liam Vickers was so interested in his end of the universe storyline that he wanted to go for it at any cost, even if that meant skipping important character work and rushing through most of the plot points he had in mind.

With that assumption, I thought that all the other ideas, like Doll, Alice, Beau and the sentinels, were just things that Liam came up with as production progressed and thought they were too cool to disregard, so he kept them. He kept them even if he didn't have the time to flesh them out or the courage to simplify his story so that we, the audience, wouldn't feel robbed.

I really love Doll.

I can't stress this enough, I love Doll way more than I love Murder Drones.

But exactly because I love her so much, I need to keep her at harm's length; she's not a real person, she's a fictional character, and as such, she can and should be eliminated from the story if the final product would benefit from it.

I'm someone who's willing to make the necessary sacrifices for the sake of art, even if it means eliminating good ideas that can't be done justice in their execution, and I believe Doll to be the biggest example of this due to her own niche role in the narrative and how said niche exists only because of her.

Let me explain: Doll is the main side antagonist of the first season of the show.

Let me repeat that: Doll is the main, SIDE antagonist, of the first season of Murder Drones.

You don't just "make" a side antagonist and drop it into the story because he's important, no, you have to consciously make room for their existence because they are not as necessary to the story as the protagonists, the supporting characters, or the main antagonist. The niche that Doll fills in the story is one that innately benefits her and her only, so she needs extra character work to make sure that she feels connected and important to everything else going on.

Alice and Beau are roadblocks, you could say that they had a lot of untapped potential, but the show never teased us with said potential in the way that it teased us with Doll's, so they don't feel like wasted characters because that's all they were ever meant to be.

I would cut Lizzie and Alice out of the story to give Doll more development, but I wouldn't cut Doll out of the story to give Lizzie and Alice more development.

Two out of three fulfill their roles decently and extra screen time isn't mandatory, the third one has a role that exists only to benefit them and as such they should be given the necessary screen time to make their presence not feel like a burden.

Another thing that I've noticed while writing "The insane, untapped potential of Rebecca from Murder Drones" (which I encourage everyone reading this to check out, as I consider it to be my masterpiece), is that Doll doesn't really tie all that well into any of the themes of abuse present in the show; sure, there's her relationship with Lizzy, but you can interpret that in a miriad of ways, some of which being more healthy than the others, and a lot of them even positioning Doll as the abuser and Lizzy as the still guilty yet repented victim.

Side antagonists or just general side characters whose stories are focused on exist to expand the themes or the world of the setting, and they need to be included into the narrative only if you have the time to focus on them, otherwise they need to remain on the concept board.

My obsession with Doll isn't a temporary fluke, it's going to carry on for the rest of my life.

But guess what? I've been hyper obsessed with a lot of things in my life, Murder Drones being one of them; when the dust will be settled, the only thing that will matter is the quality of the actual show, and in his current state that future isn't looking so bright.

I've seen a lot of Murder Drones creators losing a lot of interest for the show after episode 7, and I myself have lost my suspension of disbelief after having lots of time to internalise it.

I'm not sure if anyone reading this has noticed it yet, but ever since episode 7, the world of Murder Drones has become ten times smaller. We've erased Tessa, the school setting, JCJenson and Doll from the equation; many people now believe that the planet is going to be destroyed and only the most relevant characters will survive its collapse, thus eliminating the entire worker drones society from the plot; all human life is most likely dead and the planet Earth was revealed to have been destroyed back in episode 6; it really feels like with every passing installment the Murder Drones universe just keeps getting smaller as the stakes get higher, and I don't think that's a good thing, it actively harms the potential and creativity of Murder Drones as a series, and it makes it harder for the fear of the unknown to have any sort of impact when the universe is so claustrophobic that it's far easier to assume that all of the undiscovered mysteries are just the angles of the room.

If I had to compare Murder Drones to any other series, I would say that the Epic Mickey franchise is the best way to describe how I feel about it.

Both series are a collection of pretty cool concepts and have a lot of angsty and edgy material as a part of their world building, and both of them execute some of their individual ideas perfectly while the overall product misses the mark of a masterpiece.

And while Epic Mickey is held back by the poor gameplay of both installments and the poor writing of the second one, Murder Drones is held back by a lack of focus and restraint from his creator.

People often point to the founders of Glitch when they try to justify the rushed pacing of the story, but in my opinion, if the higher ups of Glitch were truly responsible for their show's shortcomings, at this point at least one of the members of the crew should have made us aware, and this reasoning still doesn't take away the blame from Liam, as he still has mostly unchecked creative freedom.

Remember that video on Liam's official YouTube channel titled "So I've been given too much creative power and made a show"?

Well, you know what the saying says.

"With great power comes great responsibility"

And this is true even for art.

[kaiwuzherenz]

I Have woken up fucking 6 hours ago- forgot I was a roleplayer but I went crazy last night...

I think its time for theorist Kai to come back

You saw her for She-Ra, now its Murder Drones turn

This will be MANY theory's I scrambled down last night- not all for Episode 8, spoilers are as always high so WATCH MURDER DRONES FIRST ~Welcome to insanity~

I will title these 'theorys', if anyone reads this- gen shock from me...

"The Protagonists Journey"

In the pilot episode, we have gotten everything we needed to know- The story, the characters, what are they and well the whole show almost as Uzi had this image in her slideshow.

'The protagonists journey' which is a rip of the famous 'Hero's journey' But what's important about this? This plot holder was made for Uzi- not any other character, but Uzi herself This will come in later through this post.

"The Absolute Solver's Host's"

From Nori's necklace to Yeva's bracelet, we have these two numbers- '002' and '048', the numbers that these 2 'were'. Maybe this means their host number, not some stupid lab testing shit number I'm just saying shit now- what if it was their host number. Like Cyn could be: 001- hence host #1, Nori is 002, could this mean Nori was host #2 for the Absolute Solver?

"The Patch"

As we all know by now- The humans were tying to make a cure for the solver, still keep the dope powers, but not be able to be possessed / controlled by Cyn (The Absolute Solver). Maybe they did? Yeva- Doll's mother, idk why but I think the patch worked on her, as she was able to use the solver to help Nori in episode 7, I'm still thinking about this but maybe-

"Zombie Drone Uzi?" Im not saying as 'omg- Uzi is a zombie done gasp' XD Im not, but perhaps in episode 8 that might change. Uzi has the solver- passed down by her mother Nori as it activated in the pilot, end of the pilot to be exact. Perhaps Uzi will fully sarcife herself, because as we saw- she kinda didnt die... Like hear me out- she might like fully die! In episode 8, but due to her solver, might actually become a zombie drone, not having to face the 0.007% of that happening.

"N's sacrifice?" If not Uzi, it will be N- or even both. When I came to this thought, I saddened me myself. (fuck I couldn't find the image for the merch) But there is a merch from glitch, the 3 glass stand piece set thingy. We have 2 out of the 3 One is V And the other Uzi Ironically, didn't these two just sacrifice themselves for N? And now we have a 3 piece merch that isn't complete yet? I think it leads to their sacrifices, as V's glass stand thing was with the sentiles and the other was solver Uzi- I hope I'm wrong with this one ANYWAYS! I made these at 1-4am last night while watching murder drone edits, I have many more but I think the post will be too long if I add them all...

part 2?

[deedah]

A love letter to Murder Drones

Btw this is just a rambling about how I got into Murder Drones and how it has changed my view of the world, so if you don’t care then don’t read :3

(Also it’s gonna be lengthy and maybe a bit of trauma dump)

I also don’t expect @liamvickersanimation or @glitchproductions to use tumblr, and if they see this I will jump off a cliff lol

So, it started one day when I got the Murder Drones pilot in my recommended on YouTube. Buut I scrolled right passed it cause I didn’t really care about it then. A few nights later, round midnight, I saw the pilot again and caved. I then went to the playlist and watched the first 6 episodes. (This was a month after ep 6 came out)

I did fall in love w/ the style of the show, but I did not understand the plot.

so I watched the show again and again, and even watched theory vids on it. And when I tell you I bawled by eyes out when I watched the show again, got connected to the characters, I bawled by fuckin eyes out when V sacrificed herself.

While watching theories of MD, something clicked in my head and I decided that I wanted to do my own show as well.

but, I suck at creativity and can’t make up new things, just edit already made things. So I decided, if I can’t make my own stories, I would help other people make their stories.

in other words, I wanted to be an animator

after I got my mind in on the fact I wanted to be an animator, I had downloaded many, and I mean many animation apps on my drawing iPad, and tried to 2D animate.

now, I would call myself a shitty artist. I don’t know anatomy and I barely use references too.

so when 2D animation did not work for me, I almost gave up my dream to become an animator, and plus.. I didn’t even know where I wanted to work.

I didn’t want to work for Disney cause I don’t really like their stuff anymore, and dream works kinda fell off too (no offense to any fans of those people, I will respect your opinions)

So I gave up on my dream, and I checked glitch prod. for any new info for MD ep. 7. But, instead of anything Murder Drones a new show was on called The Amazing Digital Circus.

now, I absolutely did not care about some new show, I only wanted Murder drones. Then I caved again and watched TDAC. and I fell in love w/ it as well.

and TDAC brought by dream back up to become an animator. I decided that I wouldn’t work for DreamWorks or Disney,

I would work for Glitch Productions.

now, I have no idea if I’ll ever be able to work for them, but it would be an honor.

then ep. 7 dropped for MD, and I fell in love again with this episode. Especially Flesha. Her movements, her emotions, her flicker design! It was all just perfect!

So I started to look online for ways to become an animator, but not a 2D one.

My mom helped me find a program called Blender.

and yes, I still use Blender to this day

I then started to take lessons from YouTube vids online and once I got the hang of it, I started to look for models that I could pose.

now, I can’t animate good rn cause I have a very shitty laptop that can barely run one model at a time, but I’m still learning.

and then the finale for Murder drones finally comes out. And omfg I have no words

it’s peak perfection

again the characters felt so ALIVE! And FREE!

and it’s what I wanted to do! It’s still is! I want to animate characters that people love and make art or fanfics about.

so.. that’s the point of this “Love letter”

I just wanted to say.. Thank you Liam and Glitch for this amazing show that I and millions of people could be apart of. And I hope I’m able to meet you in person and maybe even work under you one day.

Again.. thank you @liamvickersanimation and @glitchproductions.

you brought be out of my shell and made me into a better person, I owe you a lot.

and with that.. goodnight

-love @deedah

[theweirdoinurhouse]

Hot takes of the day: Wasn’t really a big fan of The Amazing Digital Circus, and also didn't care much for Sir Pentious

I'll split this into two parts, above and below the cut. Sir Pentious will be above just because Hazbin Hotel has been real popular lately

So. I've been a fan of HH since when the pilot came out, and I was obsessed. I watched the show, and I really liked how it turned out. I have some things I didn't like, but I'll get into at least one of those later.

Sir Pentious is a VERY popular character, especially now because he's been redeemed. But honestly, I didn't actually care much for when he was ever on screen. But my main problem was his death.

To start, I'll list some things I DID like. For starters, I liked when he was nervous and kept saying stuff like "Because I'm...buying drinks for everyone!" and so on. It was a funny bit. Also when Cherry found out he had two dicks. I also liked that he was the one that sacrificed himself to try to save the others.

Now getting into one of my main problems with the show. His death.

It was super anticlimactic. Like SUPER. I wish his ship had maybe been blasted and went crashing down, killing Sir Pentious from crushing underneath some rubble. But just blipping out was a terrible way to kill him. It didn't make me feel any sadness for him because of how short it was. Even when the other characters reacted, it just didn't seem like a good choice on how to kill him.

I just never really connected with him. We know barely anything about him. I can say the same about Nifty, but the show somehow made me like her more during the time of the show, and not Sir Pentious. Her crazy little movements, her aggressive behavior, her just staring into the void when on camera. But with Sir Pentious, nothing really drew me to him. Which is weird, because I love awkward nerds.

I like his design when he went into Heaven, it was pretty. But overall, nothing really drew me to him

Alright, The Amazing Digital Circus Time!!!

I absolutely love the channel that made TADC, but I mainly have watched them for Murder Drones. I did enjoy TADC when I first watched it, just not enough to watch it a second time. Or third. Fourth. Hundredth. You get the point

The animation is nice. The premise/idea is fun. The music is absolutely beautiful (especially at the end). And Ragatha and Kinger are the best characters.

I just kind of zoned out abit watching it, and that's how I know I'm not that into what I'm watching. I also don't like Jax that much, but I'm not gonna dwell too much into that. I'm kind of scared of Jax simps-

I don't have much reason on why I'm not a huge fan of TADC, it's more of a preference thing. I absolutely adore the IDEA of it. Person puts on a headset, gets stuck in a virtual world, can't get out, goes insane. Beautiful. I just don't know why TADC didnt do it for me.

The whole scene with Jax, Kinger, and Zooble with that work queen thingy was weird,and that's the part I zoned out on because I just found it boring and not really necessary. It's been a while since I've seen TADC, so I don't actually remember if that scene has any importance, but I still didn't really know what was going on.

Anyway thanks for coming to my Tedtalk byeeee

[ouroboroboy]

Not sure I mentioned it on this account but my old one was deleted or something so allow me to explain something brief before going into this post.

I am a big fan of Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. I love animation with a passion, and have been taking film classes for 2 years now to become a director so I may make my own cartoons. I helped to fund the Ramshackle pilot (which some may not know, but the webcomic is fantastic, highly recommend it) and I quite enjoyed Long Gone Gulch pilot and currently enjoy Murder Drones. Indie animation recently has been excellent.

That said, I want to mention Lackadaisy.

Oh Lackadaisy, if only I had the words to express just how much I adore you! This pilot comes from a webcomic that started when I was like, a toddler, sometime in the early 2000s (I am 18 now but that's irrelivent). Lackadaisy's pilot came out last week on YouTube, I caught it 6 hours after it uploaded, and let me tell you.

It began, Rocky was introduced first, and I just fell in love. Rocky is such a wonderful character, a thespian, a lunatic in a way, oh I just love him dearly! His friends Ivy and Freckles? Perfect sweethearts, love em to death, but this post isn't about that.

I wanted to make this post because people are (supposedly) comparing Lackadaisy to Hazbin Hotel and Helluva Boss. Truthfully I haven't seen any of the comparisons, only people mentioning them, and I'd like to explain why I think the comparisons are being made.

I belive the reason the comparisons are happening, even though they are VERY different from each other, is that Hazbin Hotel came first. It was a pilot that got so much attention, so much love and adoration along with plenty of controversy, but this combined gave it popularity. Hazbin Hotel got ATTENTION. It was an indie animation, but it was of good quality and decently entertaining, even if it was a bit offensive to some, but to do well you have to take risks.

Hazbin Hotel, with it's popularity, had quickly brought attention to indie animation. People started to notice that, hey, anyone can make something, and with enough effort, it can be GOOD! And with that, animators started taking risks. They decided to risk putting time, effort, money, everything they had into making a pilot, just one, but one would be enough, one is all they needed, because now indie animators had people's attention. People wanted more. More unique, fun shows made by people who would put in the effort, the soul needed to make something good. Streaming service don't do that anymore. They want to play it safe, stick to what we know, which is why there are so many ugly, low quality adult animations, but nothing as good as Lackadaisy.

Hazbin Hotel, though fairly controversial, brought indie amination out of the dark and into the spotlight. It paved the way for animators to make something they have always wanted to make but were to afraid to do, or to even make something new they never would have thought about if it weren't for the sudden love indie animation was receiving.

Another thing, I noticed people calling Hazbin Hotel "bad" animation wise, and I'd like to add: it's not. It isn't bad, it's just not to some folk's preferences, and that's okay. Hazbin Hotel's pilot was sharp, fast, a little strange, but it wasn't bad. The animation to me feels more modern, like they were Taki g advantage of what you can do with computers in animation now, meanwhile Lackadaisy feels nostalgic, smooth, soft, comforting, like the old hand-drawn new frame every time old Disney type animation, and of course that's going to recieve more positive feedback, nostalgia and comfort always do.

All of the indie pilots you see on YouTube are good in their own way. Hazbin Hotel was so good it got picked up by A24 and is therefore no longer indie! Each show, each pilot, has been excellent in their own ways, and each one deserves all the love it can get. We should all stop worrying about which is better, which might be too offensive, and focus on which ones we like. You can ignore the ones you don't like and focus your love on the ones you do like, in fact you'll be happier if you do that!

The era of indie animation is here, and it going to be excellent. Please, go show your love for the indie animations of your choice. They deserve the love.

I am so happy we can live in a time with such quality, but I am also sad that there isn't many willing to fund these creators.

Sorry for the rambling, I am just feeling very passionately right now. Animation has been my dream longer than I can remember.

[healthy-orch1ds]

for the whole thing about all 3 murder drones confusing Uzi for one - maybe the hallway scene from the pilot still happens (all 3 know that she's a worker at this point thanks to J), but with some changes.

The first being that this is weeks in the future, the second being V and J sees Khan close the door.

I wanna say that this took a hot minute to write. I’m not very proud of this one. Not my best tbh I wrote it in a hurry lol.

*note; Uzi has her Rail-gun. I just don’t mention it in the beginning.

Uzi bolted a cross the snow, dodging small metal poles that stuck out sideways from the ground. She hadn’t met for this to happen. If anything, she wanted them to stay away from her colony.

But alas, here she was. Running like hell to get ahead of her *team-mates*. If she got there early enough, she’d be able to open the door and close it before anything disastrous happens. That was the plan.

Uzi prayed silently to robo-Jesus that it would work. And no other innocent worker drone (mostly ones from her colony) got caught in the blaze of destruction.

She looked behind herself, and saw N speeding towards her, incredibly high in the air and only a mile away.

Seeing the door, she skidded to a holt. Uzi stepped closer to it and vigorously knocked on it (which was stupid, she already had a keycard). It wasn’t too long after that someone opened it up. The drones that should’ve been watching the door where playing a classic old game of cards. Although, Uzi didn’t seem to care as she almost slipped trying to get in.

“Uzi? What are you doing out here? Khans been—“

“Letmeinletmein—!” She shoved the fellow drone out the way and went to the pad, practically banging the keycard (which she *totally* didn’t steal from her dad) on it.

“Close it! Close it!—“

*DRAMATIC BANG!*

Uzi’s eyes widened, a pouring dread went down her back as she slowly turned to see claws holding the door open. Just by a few inches.

the claws dug itself into the door while another slid in, only furthering Uzis panic. The door creaked, as the claws forced it to open wider.

A yellow light came in from the small opening of the door. An X illuminated the darkness outside but blinked into regular looking pupils.

“Hey, Fellas!” A cheerful voice rang, one all too familiar to Uzi. “Ooh, deal me in, I love Rummy!”

Uzi stepped away from the door, her core shook. She knew the drone outside wouldn’t hurt her, but instead everyone else around her. As used to the gore as she was, she didn’t want to see people that she grew up with a mangled and oily mess.

“Wait no—“ the cheery voice sighed “I’m going to murder everyone,”

It paused for a moment, before going back to being giddy. “Rain check!”

In the flash of an eye, its tail strikes at the pad. The worker drones gawked, seeing the tail slither away and the doors opening slowly as their worst nightmare stepped in.

The workers stood and ran, some tripping over themselves. Uzi followed along, wanting to warn everyone about the impending doom.

The murder drone hissed softly, and began its massacre. slaughtering the drones closest to him. Oil splattered everywhere, a couple of the workers lost their heads.

N had murdered them all. The poor innocent workers who were just doing their jobs were gone and mangled. N was claiming his new victory, crunching at the neck of a very dead worker to gain the succulent oil that he and his companions favored so much.

Uzi had stopped running. Her plan failed. Horrifically so. She looked over to N, who had dropped the worker and looked around.

N’s eyes landed on Uzi, to which he switched into his usual, happy self. She almost had whiplash from how quick his mood changed. He smiled reassuringly, nodding in proudness as his metallic wings sprouted out from his back and just as quickly as he killed the workers, Leapt into the ventilation

Uzi watched as his tail slid away from her view, she could already hear the screams of horror from her colony. Guilt turned her gears as she turned back around. She dropped her rail-gun, a little ashamed of herself as she had mainly caused this mess. She kicked it, hoping no more drama would in sue.

But of course, plot had other plans that didn’t work with hers as her father stepped around the corner.

“Pretty nice hydraulics, Huh?” He said, pride present in his body language. Although, that pride didn’t last long when khan saw the horror show before him.

“Wha— what have you done?—“

Uzi looked at her dad, her shoulders tensed as she realized her father would be part of the massacre.

**DRAMATIC BANG X2**

N had swooped down, making the debris jump up from his impact. His stinger swayed as he turned his gaze towards khan, a predator instinct clearer than glass.

“DAD!”

“Uzi?! You led a murder drone here!” Khan shouted, his bolts shook as he stared at N. “My beautiful doors—“

N tilted his head, turning to Uzi in slight confusion.

———————————————

J and V had lagged behind, mostly because V saw a free snack on the way over to the colony door. J didn’t mind it. With the power and smarts that both N and Uzi possessed, the plan would’ve gone smoothly. Surely they’ve breached and killed a respectable number of workers.

J didn’t fret whatsoever. Uzi seemed to bring the best out of N and V. N wasn’t as useless as before and V wasn’t as….. well, she hasn’t changed much but she now remembers N’s name. Which is still a step up from before.

Other than that, J’s team was thriving. And she was happy about that.

…

…

Until she saw Uzi being slammed into the bunker wall by N and her dad close an emergency door on her.

…

Holy robo-Christ.

———————————————

Uzi stared at the door in disbelief.

Had her father just choose a door over his own kid?

She had tried to explain what’d happen. From being mistaken as a Disassembly Drone to trying to direct the others to different colonies instead of her own.

Khan was slack-jawed. In pure awe.

N hadn’t liked what he heard (his closest friend had fooled him twice— how dare she?!). In just a quick moment, he’d slammed Uzi into the bunkers wall. His bladed wing piercing her shoulder with ease and brushing away her rail-gun which conveniently slid over to khan.

“Dad!” She cough, it was oil. “Point and shoot… trust me!” She begged, holding onto N’s blade.

Khan looked down to the gun by his boots, then up to the crazed drone holding his daughter. He stepped back, hands shaking like crazy.

“..Dad?..” Uzi’s voice shook with fear and sorrow.

Khan walked backwards, pulling out a control. He looked up at Uzi, before looking down in shame as a large door closed. Not too long after, red lights flashed on and sirens blared.

———————————————

And now, here they all were. J, the leader. V, the psycho. And N, the lovely idiot.

And also Uzi. But was she really gonna exist after what her dad did? Did it really matter when the one person she was trying to impress had completely left her for something far bigger than her?

She stared at the door, a quickly vanishing hope as she slacked. Her grip on N’s wing had loosen as she completely gave up.

Was this the end? She betrayed one side to help the other and look who betrayed her back.

N retracted his wing from her shoulder. And there was silence. No one moved. Uzi slid down the wall, she pulled her knees to her chest and buried her head into her arms.

This happened all so quickly. She wondered how her head hadn’t literally exploded from how fast it all went.

It was over. She knew it. Her only defense was her thin arms that were over her head.

It was only a matter of time till one of them knocks her head off.

Maybe they already did.

…

But they haven’t.

J and V looked at eachother. They didn’t really know all this emotional stuff, so they looked to their next best option.

N, a little unsure, steps toward Uzi. He slid down beside her, sitting the same way she was.

“Uzi?..” he didn’t receive a response.

“I— I’m sorry.” He said, nudging her shoulder a little.

“You’re not the one I wanna hear that from, and you shouldn’t be either...” She muttered from her arms.

“I know. But I’m the one who made you have that awkward moment with your dad. And uh— almost killed you, again.”

“I guess. It feels more like my fault.” Uzi groaned softly. She threw her head back, groaning much louder now. “Ugh— I knew character development hurt but not this much.”

N smiled as the smol drone leaned to his shoulder. “We’ll get through it together.” He said, patting Uzi’s head.

J cleared her throat (well, the robot equivalent of clearing a throat) Breaking the nice moment between the two drones.

“As much as I would love to clear this colony out and make top team this quarter and get some incredibly well made, quality ensured custom pens from JCjenson; I *suppose* my subordinates can come first. It isn’t as fun ripping out a workers core when someone’s dad left them for dead.”

“Can I stay—“ before V could ask, J cut her off. “No, we’re all going back to the spire and sort this out like well-developed characters.”

V scoffed, muttering In reluctance and turning back to the wide open doors.

N stood, nudging Uzi again. “Come on, I’m sure you’ll feel better at the landing pod.”

“That’s surrounded by bodies of worker drones?”

“Better then here, isn’t it?”

“Ugh, bite me.” She punched N’s arm. He whined a little in pain, although, he stayed smiling.

N and Uzi walked away, along with V. J stayed behind.

She looked at them leave, they didn’t seem to question why she wasn’t following. She stared for a few more seconds, before looking to the emergency door khan had put.

She frowned, an annoyance filling up her circuits. She examined the door, before her visor fell upon Uzi’s gun (or, as Uzi called it— “sick-as-hell railgun”). She knelt down and picked it up.

J inspected it, then stuffed the (admittedly well-made) gun beneath her arm. She knew Uzi liked this gun. She carried it around almost everywhere.

J began walking towards the exit, the others had left her behind. She glanced to the gun, making sure it was still by her.

She liked to think She wasn’t fond of Uzi (mostly because she was a *worker*), but had respect for her. Her team’s success rate almost skyrocketed when she joined. She made N less useless, and V less of a terrible bot. J’s team wasn’t as dull before, and that was nice.

Again.

She *liked* to think.

//////////\\\\\\\\\\ //////////\\\\\\\\\\

TLDR; Uzi attempts to protect her colony by leaving N behind. Shit hits the fan when N actually makes it. Uzi’s dad, Khan, comes around at the last minute. N swoops in, Uzi has to tell Khan what had happen and how it led to here. N didn’t like it so he angrily stabs Uzi. J and V arrive just in time for Khan to close the door and Uzi to have her development scene. N, being far too nice for this world, apologizes to Uzi wanting to make her feel better. Uzi doesn’t really accept it but they continue to be good friends (although there is a bit of a crack in it). J believes that her team is actually becoming a functioning team and is starting to kinda like Uzi (as family and/or friend)

TLDR x2; Uzi fucks up a plan she had to counter J’s and kinda broke her friendship with N. J also kinda warms up to Uzi.

[rayj4ck]

Murder Drones rant for my own sanity but I blatantly over-analyze it

Been having this weird long MD tirade tumble around in my head for a while now, and I've gotta get it out before it eats me alive. Spoilers for ep. 1 and 2.

So the Murder Drones pilot came out a year and change ago, and the second episode came out and change ago. And I noticed something change in the show that kinda makes me sad.

The story from the pilot was the exact type of story I loved (which is why it inspired so much fanfic from me I imagine). All the drones in we've seen so far are either miserable or psychotic, either waiting for their own death in the bunker (even if they don't realize it), or killing indiscriminately completely unaware that they were also sent to die. This also goes for some of the AUs people have done for the show, looking at you Soup. Every drone is kind of in this holding pattern of ticking down the days until the end, giving up on having or wanting more.

But then, here comes Uzi. The smallest drone of the weakest class, the bottom of the bottom of the food chain. I don't doubt that her motivations are entirely angst and rebellion driven, but she also has the unintentional effect of being heroic. She's the first drone we see who says "No, we can do better! We deserve better. Better than sitting in this hole waiting for the lights to go out, AND better than getting sent on a one-way trip to a planet just to die there!" She inspires other drones to stand up for themselves, most obvious in N in episode 1. And I think this is also something that's reflected in her episode 1 weapon, the railgun. She came up with the design I'm sure, but the thing I liked about the railgun was that any drone could use it. There was no magical "you're the chosen one" aspect to it, if you had the parts you could outfit a whole Worker army with Disassembler-killing weapons. Uzi wasn't going to be the solo adventurer, she was going to be a leader.

[I'm almost definitely romanticizing the whole tone of the show, I imagine Liam Vickers wasn't ever going to make it that intense. But it was kind of there for me. I could still reasonably, personally pretend that was what it was.]

But then episode 2 came. And a couple small things changed in big ways. First, Uzi's railgun was destroyed. Second she was shown to have the AbsoluteSolver program which, from what we've seen Doll do so far, can be used as a weapon. And that deftly undoes all the theming stuff I liked about it all. Episode one showed me the Little Guy standing up to the Big Guy, then the even Bigger Guy that sent the Big Guy, using nothing but their smarts and ability to inspire others. But then episode 2 became "Hooray, you are the chosen special drone!" And sure, Doll has AbSolver too. Theoretically every drone has it, but instead of manipulating it it manipulates them. Only Doll and maybe Uzi have been shown to use it themselves in some active way (crushing the door, breaking the mirror) and that just screams "Chosen one and anti-chosen one" stuff to me.

And hey, maybe I'm wrong. I'm hypothesizing on a show whose writer I cannot predict at all. I'm almost certain Liam Vickers will pull curve balls I could never have predicted, and maybe this is one of them. But so far, in my very personal and amateur experience in media consumption, I don't think so.

I'm still going to watch it, and it'll still be good, probably even great. I'll still write fanfic for it. But it's not going to be what I wanted it to be, and I think writing up and posting this is just me letting those expectations go. Thanks for reading, if you did.

[pilothusband]

fly me to the moon

Rating: M-ish (a lil spicy at the end)

Pairing: Frankie Morales x f!reader

Warnings: Swearing, boner mention, a douchebag, a little hint at food shaming

Word count: 2.5k

Description: You go on a date with a complete asshole. He takes you on a helicopter tour, not expecting the pilot to be the one to sweep you off your feet.

Author’s note: Probably should have edited this more but meh. This was completely self-indulgent. Unbeta’d. Let me know what you think!

gif by @pedroispunk

Why did I agree to go out with this jackass in the first place?

Your eyes were starting to feel sore with the amount of times you had rolled them throughout your date. He hadn’t noticed the exasperated movement of your eyes, too swept up in talking about the summer he spent in Ibiza with his former fraternity brothers, his medium rare, overpriced ribeye untouched.

So far, everything had felt off. The way he pulled up outside of your apartment and honked his horn to signal his arrival, the anchor cufflinks in his freshly pressed suit, paired with a pair of leather boat shoes and a salmon-pink button down. You loved a man in pink, but the rest of the outfit just felt like it didn’t fit together. Was he going to a wedding or going to party on a yacht? You had glanced down at your own outfit, a simple black dress that stopped mid-calf and hung loose, just barely hinting at your curves.

God, you hoped he wasn’t going to take you on a boat.

You had only agreed to this date in the first place because Liam, an investment banker who worked in your office building in the suite below yours, had asked you nearly every day for a month in a row. He was persistent, kind of like a mosquito, but you figured you were being too picky and needed to expand your horizons a bit. Maybe you would learn more about him and actually have a good time.

Not so much.

You couldn’t help but notice the way his brows knit together when you had ordered the fettuccine alfredo. The restaurant’s menu was pretty limited, and you didn’t recognize most of the items. This place was just too fancy for your comfort. You had wanted to call the waiter back to the table and change your order to a cheeseburger, just to embarrass him further.

As Liam droned on about how his father had taught him how to manage his finances, you let your mind wander to last weekend. You had gone out with your friends, Benny and Will, a pair of brothers who were each other’s polar opposites, yet they had a bond that was stronger than any other siblings you had ever met.

You were already well acquainted with their other friends, Santiago and Frankie, affectionately known as Pope and Catfish. Pope had a magnetic personality– he commanded the room without meaning to, sometimes to the detriment of others around him, who were trying to get a word in edgewise. 

Frankie was complicated. He was quiet, a little rough around the edges, and a little gruff, but so soft at the same time. His eyes gave way to a deeply settled kind of hurt. They had drawn you in almost right away. It only took one glance at his smile, brilliant and boyish, with a hint of a dimple gracing his cheek, before you were hooked.

You had only known him for a few months now and only saw him when the guys got together, but you couldn’t deny the desire that clutched at your stomach whenever his deep brown eyes met yours.

You heard your date call your name, snapping you out of your daydream.

“You ready for part two of the best date ever?” Liam asked. His smirk was all wrong. It wasn’t soft or playful. It was polished and practiced. He reminded you too much of Patrick Bateman.

“Ready as I’ll ever be,” you said, pasting a smile onto your face, inwardly wincing at how fake it was. You could not wait to go home and put on your sweatpants.

Shit. Holy shit.

He was taking you on a helicopter tour. The same company that Catfish worked for. Your stomach was in knots, threatening an unwelcome return of the alfredo you had for lunch.

Maybe he’s not working today, maybe we’ll get a different pil–

Of course you had no such luck. The guide ushered you both over towards the launching pad, where Frankie stood, wearing a tan flight suit. His hair was tousled, likely from being up in the air for most of the day and he had a pair of aviators on. He looked delectable.

His eyebrows shot up in recognition. He cocked his head to the side, glancing at your date, then back at you, a grimace set on his face.

Frankie schooled his expression and walked up and gave you a side hug, his hand squeezing your shoulder gently.

“Good to see you,” he said, giving you a small grin.

“You two know each other?” Liam asked, his eyes shifting between the two of you.

“Oh, yes, Liam– this is Frankie. He’s one of my friends.” 

Friends.

“Nice to meet you, Liam,” Frankie said, shaking his hand politely.

Liam gave Frankie one of his wide, practiced grins. “Likewise.”

You could have sworn you saw Liam wince a little during the handshake, but you chalked it up to pre-flight jitters. Liam slung an arm around your shoulder possessively and chuckled.

“Excited to show this pretty lady some pretty sights.” His fingers curled into your shoulder, a little too hard, and he jostled you a little, trying to come off as a cute gesture. It had you feeling like a rag doll. 

The smile you gave him must have been pretty forced, because Frankie coughed, interrupting the moment.

“All right, folks. Ready to get going?” 

You nodded, feeling a fluttering in your belly. Despite not wanting to be stuck in a helicopter with Liam, you were excited to finally see Frankie in action.

Frankie handed you both a pair of headsets and instructed you to buckle up. Before climbing in himself, he checked Liam’s belt, tightening it a little and then came over to your side, adjusting your belt as well. You risked a peek at him out of the corner of your eye, noticing the way his Adam's apple bobbed up and down as he swallowed. 

“All set,” he murmured, giving you a soft smile.

Before you knew it, Frankie was in the pilot’s seat and the helicopter roared to life. The blades were whirring above your heads, making your hair whip around your face. You tucked the sides of your dress under your legs, silently cursing Liam for not warning you of this afternoon’s non-dress appropriate activity.

The swoop you felt in your stomach was unlike anything you had felt before, more intense than a commercial flight. You tried not to fidget, knowing you were in good hands with Frankie piloting, but fuck, were you already high up, and only climbing higher by the second.

You briefly wondered how high up you were now, how high up Frankie had ever flown. You planned on asking him once you were all safely back on the ground.

A large gust of wind made its way into the helicopter, forcing a shiver down your spine, goosebumps rising on your woefully unprotected arms.

“You cold, sweetie?” Liam asked. “I would give you my jacket but I need it to stay warm. You should have planned better, gorgeous.”

You instantly clenched your teeth, wishing murder was legal at this very moment.

“Well, Liam, I would have brought a jacket if you had told me we were coming here,” you said, voice dripping with a sarcastic, syrupy sweet tone.

“I have a jacket in the compartment in front of you,” Frankie said, glancing over quickly. “Go ahead and put it on.”

You obliged, opening the compartment and bundling up in the oversized jacket, instantly feeling better once the corduroy material covered your arms. You wrapped it around your torso and took a deep breath, hiding your grin in the sherpa collar. It smelled like him.

“Thank you, ‘Fish,” you said softly. He didn’t respond, but you saw his dimple appear out of the corner of your eye.

“All good back there?” You heard Frankie’s voice in your ears. You looked over to him, only catching a glimpse of his hands and the side of his face, partially obscured by his headset and his baseball cap.

“Doing fan-tas-tic, Frank,” Liam whooped. You couldn’t help but wince at how loud his voice was, and how he intentionally pronounced Frankie’s name incorrectly.

“Great,” Frankie sounded unamused.

You huffed, annoyed at your date’s bad manners and looked out the window. Terrible date aside, you had to admit the bay from above was absolutely gorgeous. You looked down at the ocean, so expansive and eternally blue. Your eyes skimmed over to where water met land, at the soft sand on the beach, turning into a thick forest.

“Frankie, it’s beautiful,” you gasped.

You looked over at him briefly, seeing a hint of a smile on his face.

Liam was momentarily forgotten, until his hand snaked its way onto your thigh, giving it a little squeeze. Instinctually, you moved your leg at the unwanted contact. Liam looked over at you, an ugly scowl marring his face.

“Careful with the turns in this thing,” he said, addressing Frankie. “Our girl here ate about 15 pounds of pasta before this.”

You felt a hot wave of embarrassment wash over you, tears pricking at the corner of your eyes. They streaked down into your hairline from the force of the wind around you. You had already realized Liam was a bit of a douche, but you hadn’t thought him to be cruel.

“The only thing we have to worry about bringing this thing down is that big head of yours,” Frankie quipped back.

Biting back a laugh, you looked out the window so Liam wouldn’t see your reaction.

You could tell Liam wanted to argue back, but he stayed quiet, since the man he wanted to lash out at was responsible for keeping you all alive at the moment.

The rest of the ride was pretty quiet, other than the persistent chopping of the helicopter blades. The views were beautiful, but you found your eyes wandering back over to Frankie every few minutes. The tanned skin of his hands as he deftly worked at the throttle. Every time he pulled on a control you saw the veins in his forearms strain with the movement. You wondered what else those hands could do.

Before you knew it, the bird touched down and you unbuckled your seatbelt, removing the tight headset from your ears. You had a slight headache and you could tell getting down was going to be a struggle.

Frankie seemed to have no issue, jumping out of his seat with grace and walking over to your side to help you down. Your legs were shaking, so you stumbled as your feet hit the ground, grabbing onto his broad shoulders for dear life.

“I– oof, sorry,” you laughed nervously, rubbing your nose. You had bumped into his chest nearly smashing your face into his sternum. Frankie bit his lip and chuckled in response, squeezing your waist. You felt dizzy with his arms caging you in like this. It gave you an overwhelming desire to wrap yourself around him, to feel him pressed against you.

“It’s okay, I got you.” His voice rumbled in your ear, absolutely sending your senses on a tailspin. His strong, quiet voice was doing something magical to your already weak knees.

You stepped away before you fell over, remembering your date after a moment. He was about ten feet away, arms crossed, his face pinched in an angry expression.

“I don’t think this is working out,” he said as you walked over to him.

“I couldn’t agree more,” you said, giving him a sickly sweet grin. “I’ll find another ride home.”

Liam scoffed and made his way back into the tour center to grab his belongings. You instantly felt a weight lift off your shoulders. Thank God he left.

“So, why did you go out with that asshole, anyways?” Frankie asked, a bewildered expression on his face.

You sighed, feeling embarrassed.

“I honestly don’t know. He wouldn’t leave me alone so I decided to give him a shot.”

“I can’t say I blame him for being persistent, but seriously, fuck that guy.”

You huffed a laugh. 

“Seriously, when he made that comment about what you ate for lunch I wanted to throw him right out of the helicopter.”

You bit your lip and sniffed, feeling the embarrassment wash over you at the memory.

“I’m sorry you had to hear that,” your voice was small and you rubbed at your arms nervously.

Frankie had a hard, angry look on his face. It made you feel a little giddy, that he was so angry on your behalf.

“He should have never talked to you that way. He’s lucky you agreed to go out with his sorry ass.”

“You’re right. And God, I can’t believe he took me here, of all places,” you laughed. This really was surreal.

“Feels kind of like fate, huh?” He said, giving you a boyish grin.

“How so?”

“Well,” he stepped towards you, arms sliding up the material of his jacket. “I’ve always wanted to see you in this jacket.” His gaze made its way down your figure. His eyes were dark as he swallowed heavily.

“And I’ve always wanted to go on a date with you, though not while you’re on one with another man.” The smile he gave you was shy, searching, as if he wasn’t sure how you’d react.

“Well, I won’t be making that mistake again,” you replied, stepping closer. 

Your tongue came out to wet your lips and Frankie watched with rapture. 

“I’d like to kiss you now, if that’s okay.” His mouth was an inch from yours, and his large, calloused hands cradled your face gently.

“Please, Frankie,” you sighed.

His lips were soft, despite the bruising urgency in his actions. Your hands immediately tangled into his hair, knocking the cap off his head. You melted against him and licked his bottom lip, asking for permission. He immediately complied, licking into your mouth. Your tongues found a delicious rhythm, tangling together. You moaned into his mouth, spurring him on further. His hips pressed into yours. You could feel how hard he was, even through his flight suit.

“Fuck, baby” he rasped, pulling away. His chest was heaving, breath ragged from your kiss. “The things I want to do to you.”

You slanted your hips back into his, pressing into his erection. “Then do them.”

Frankie bit his lip and groaned, pressing his forehead to yours.

“You’re absolutely perfect for me, you know that?” 

You grinned, leaning forward to capture his lips again.

“I want to do this right, though,” he said. “I’m going to take you out on a better date. Show you how first dates should go. And then I’m going to take you home and show you how much I’ve wanted you for months.”

You felt as if your heart had stopped momentarily.

“That sounds perfect to me,” you said, kissing him again.

Taglist: @tenderclio @softdin @darnitdraco @freeshavocadoooo​ @recklessworry @wyn-dixie​ @manalg14​ @codenamewife @comphersjost​ @princessxkenobi​

[maladaptive-ninja-returns]

It’s The Avengers (03x16)

Loki x Reader Avengers The Office AU (Slowwwwww Burn)

Season 3 Episode 16: You Picked the Wrong Weakness

Series Summary: Living in the Avengers facility post-apocalypse in a better timeline   Tony Stark has decided to capture every moment by pulling The Office on the Avengers. All of housemates are pretty used to the idea except for you, who had just come here to finish her degree, and the newest member- Loki.

Warnings: did someone just go and tell the otp about the otp?

Word Count: you know that feeling when you have had a bad experience on some project or assignment or homework before. And you know that thing is going to come around again next month or something like that. And you just age yourself by giving yourself anxiety by thinking everything that could go worse in that area. Yeah. So, I kinda shut that off for a few hours and wrote this.

MASTERLIST in bio, darlings. Tags are open (check bio)

The Interview Room The camera is recording empty seats as a pair of voices grow louder with every second. "...it's like they don't even care about what the other person wants!" "...no, why would they. These rich daddies and their rich egos think they are the only ones thinking about the world." The camera swivels a bit to watch Peter and Scott enter with a new guest following them with a Caprisun in their hand. Peter: And why did you have to go ahead and help them? Shuri: *sits between Scott and Peter* *takes a long sip of her 'sun* What. I'm not going to give up any opportunity that involves space and weird energy boxes. Peter: Why did your brother even agree to it?? Shuri: *shrugs* all your sugar daddy had to say was 'what if it was Shuri'. And my thicc-head of a brother lost it like a rhino in a mating challenge. Peter: *scrunches his nose at the example* Scott: Great *sigh* now we'll never get to see them together. With your brains, those dads are probably already in space now. Shuri: Not so fast! They don't have the codes to neutralise the pandora's box yet. Peter and Scott: *look at each other*  Shuri: So teleportation might be delayed as long as I am kept happy?  Peter: *takes out a notebook* Scott: *takes out his phone and a card labelled Avengers Black Card* The camera pans in on a smirking Shuri sipping on her Capri sun.

Inside a Spaceship: Destination Unknown You and Loki were captured by the little drone flying at the same speed as the spaceship (which clearly had seen some remodelling, thanks to your rainbow buddies). Both of you were staring at something in front of you that lids by your waist level- something the outside drone was not able to capture because of the limited view in the spaceship window. The expressions on your face were serious. So was the arms-crossed stance. "Are you sure it wasn't just a noise?" Loki now had a finger on his lips in deep thought as he heard your words. "I am pretty sure of what I heard," he acknowledged without missing a beat. "So-" your voice faded as your fingers twirled in the air with a mind of their own- "that means he has...another..." "You really can't say it?" Loki looked at you with a questioning brow going up quite smoothly. You tsked. "It's my baby," you mentioned while Javier's camera watched you point down at slumbering Lulu. "I cannot just casually say he might have another hole and I think he farted through it. I cannot hurt my baby's feelings!" Loki scoffed. "Your baby's sleeping." "He still has ears." "You think he understands what a fart means?" "What do you think I've been teaching him when you, me or Javi pass the gas?" Loki's casual demeanour suddenly changed to an offended one. "I beg your pardon?" You were quick on your feet, already walking towards the front of the ship. "So, where exactly are we heading now? Aellae's next of kin? Though I find it hard to imagine she would have left your essence with anyone other than herself." Loki came and sat next to you, still pissed at that comment in those narrowed eyes. "I am going to circle back to your words-" he inhaled while you acted all innocent- "and no. We are not looking for anyone related to that witch." "Then are we looking for another one of your exes?" "No, we are n-" Loki stopped short, his lips right in a thin line as he stared at you. "Why are you so interested my exes?" You simply shrugged and raised your brows. "On the contrary, it seems your exes are still pretty interested in you." That casual expression turned into a familiar judgment as your head turned to look at him. "Though I wonder what did they find so-" you hands moved haphazardly- "interesting about you." Loki swivelled his captain seat towards you, locking your legs between his while grounding your armrests with his hands. Clicking the control button on your armrest, he moved your chair a bit closer to him, his face in close proximity to yours. Javier's camera panned in on the gulp moving down your throat while your eyelids did a flutter at this uncalled movement. The 4K caught those goosebumps rising right where his arm barely grazed yours and in the background, Lulu played an arousing violin piece. "Something you can only dream about, darling," he whispered. The violin picked up the charge in the air within its quick clean high notes. The only noise leaving you was the escape of the air stuck in your throat, shivering on its way out. "Of c-" you cleared your throat. trying to sit back up in your seat- "of course I can only fantasize. The reality makes me want to puck. Ugh!"

Loki: Y/N thinks space is all fun and games. What she does not realise is that just like earth, this universe too has an underworld. Ten times in size and twenty times as brutal. And Aellae was just the tip of the filthy iceberg. *camera zooms in on his tensed features* looks into the distance* Wonder who else she told about her. *looks back* *blinks* I'm taking her somewhere we can lie low for now. *rolls eyes* that is if she understands what lying low means. *sighs* 

You: *eating bread like a peasant famished for days* Hm? What? No *shakes head* 'm nod nerbous. *takes another bite* debinidly nod becoz o doki. He wash jus playing wee me. *viciously bites into the bread* *growls and buries head in your lap* 

"I am still telling you to ask for their help. It's not too late," you suggested in a composed manner, sitting in the co-pilot seat. "I am not calling seven alien boys just because you have a fetish for Korean pop bands." You thwacked his leg with yours. "I do not! And don't you dare talk shit about k-pop." Loki chuckled. "Why? What are going to do?" "I won't. But you know what k-pop fans are like, don't you?" The smile on Loki's face suddenly started to flicker away as he looked at the camera. "Remember that Vegas trip?" Clearing his throat, he adjusted himself on his seat, while you shared a devilish smirk with the camera. "We're going somewhere safe. Where I have a chance of getting my powers back and hopefully a gateway back to earth." You sat up. "Why didn't we go there in the first place?" Loki blinked, not really answering. You and the camera noticed the tension in his jaw. "It's not a place I like to talk about." The asteroid belt cleared in front of the spaceship to show the part of a planet covered in grey clouds shadowing frozen blue mountains and dark valleys. "Jotunheim," you whispered to yourself, letting the gloomy yet majestic scenery of the place reflect in your eyes. “Loki,” all humour in your voice seemed to dilute as you looked back at home, “we don’t have to go there. We-uh...we could go to one of Peter’s hideouts? Or maybe we could call the Boys and ask them to direct us to one of their safe places? You know, till we find a lead on your essence.” A smirk built upon the God's lips. "Is that concern I hear in your voice?" Those worry-laden brows suddenly dispersed all emotion to make way for anger. A slap made way from your hand to his right side of the back. The thwack was loud enough to wake Lulu and force a sincere 'ow' from the God's throat. "This concern is for me and my babies you awful animal," you growled, your voice considerably higher, "you think they'll survive there?"

Jotunheim If the mountains seemed to carry an eerie aura about them, the valleys were a straight suggestion of being pits straight to hell. To add to the effects of arriving at the gates of hell, the snow falling was harsh, to say the least. As soon as the door to the ship opened to let all the passengers feel the heat, the drone travelling outside took in travellers covered in thick fur. Javier carried Lulu on his front, both of them visible just with their faces- not to mention the former's blue eyes standing out over everything else in his surroundings. Loki too embraced the thick skin, looking quite the part of a Jotun till he picked up the hood of your coat to put it over your head without saying much; only smiling when you looked like a fluffed up birb in that Viking overcoat.

Loki: *smiling sheepishly**looks at you standing next to him* Angry birb *looks back at Javier's camera* Sam taught me that one. *camera pans at you simmering under that fur*

Lulu had already picked the background music for his pack's entrance. The Viking beat had just the right amount of weight and horror of the unknown in it as this place did. Just ahead of the pass lay the structure carved in the mountain itself. It could be called a palace or a temple. But that was not what sought your attention.  Eyes. The camera caught eyes in the dark staring at the unwanted guests. Blue. Piercing. Murderous. And more than one pair. The drone panned in on that one subconscious movement of your fingers gripping the fur of the coat on Loki's back as the God walked gallantly- as if he owned the planet. But your eyes did not stop to observe the alien movement around you. "Remember-" Loki's whisper brought you out of the daze your own thumping heart was creating for you- "do not show them your fear. Show them that you are to be feared." It may have been his words or just his voice that started to melt the fear visible on your features, lasting for five seconds before a loud thump vibrated the land beneath your feet, making you all come to a stop. And when that was not enough, the audience saw the feet first, then the legs and then the whole length of a Jotun appearing before them. Some necks were really going to feel it tonight.

"Who dares enter the land of Jotunheim?" came the thundering and low growl from the Jotun that stood towering over you all. "The one who is alive and stands on this land," Loki announced, "with the blood of Laufey in my veins, I have come to claim what is mine." There was nothing but an uninviting smirk on the Jotun's face. "I am Loki, son of Laufey, son of Odin, ruler of Asgard and your King," he commanded with ice in his voice, "and you...need to bow...before your King." The dead silence proceeding his threat of a speech was enough for you nearly bury you inside your own overcoat. And when that did not seem enough, your body- on its own- moved a step closer to Loki's side. "Oooooh Gooood," you whispered with quite the shudder while your face was plastered with a no-fucks-given wave, "we're gonna die." On the contrary, the silence was followed by many Jotuns coming out of the shadows to surround your group one by one before bowing down. Even the ones who looked quite young did the same. All of them except for the one Jotun who had greeted you first. "Allir fagna konungi!" they chanted in unison. "All hail the king," Javier translated it for you. "Didn't know you were into Nords," you quipped, "the language, I mean." "Honey, I am all into Nords," he signed before looking around with a smile, finding a buff Jotun that caught his eye. He did not take another second to blink at him and leave that giant a bit confused and flustered at the same time.

Inside the Palace The throne was sculpted out of ice that seemed as old as the mountain. Alongside it had been made seating arrangements for the family, running parallel till the doors of the throne room, all greyish blue stones marked with Jotun carvings. You and Javier believed they might be names of dignitaries. Lulu thought they are just doodles by other babies and proceeded to contribute to the stone they were standing next to. A little female giant sat down and looked at Lulu's doodles with curious wide eyes. Loki stood rightfully in front of his throne, admiring it before turning to his subjects, most of them adults who were exceptionally taller and blue-er than him. The drone captured the magnificence of the throne room that had fire pits next to the seats at intervals right alongside the stone pillars and right in the middle, a few feet in front of the king. But none of them were lit. And the giants were visibly annoyed by the drone while the kids wanted to catch it and play with it. "An Asgardian announces himself as our King," the one giant growled as he stood at the steps of the throne, "why would we believe you to be our King, son of Odin." He nearly spat the last part. The drone captured that bit of concern breaking out on your composed features but Loki just smirked. Pulling his overcoat to the side- as magnificently as he believed himself to be- he sat down as if he has done it ever since he was born. The authority exuding from his presence certainly put the murmurs going around the hall to a standstill. "At ease, Helblindi," he stressed to the giant with a purr and directed the rest of the audience to take their place. "Not you." Everyone stopped short to looked at their king. And he was clearly looking at you. You pointed a finger at yourself in question. "Don't you know your place....pet?" he commanded ever so slyly, discreetly pointing his finger at the stone next to his throne.

You: *look around to make sure no one's looking at you* *anger about to explode through your eyes* *whispering* Pet?? PET?? I swear gonna just *gestures to grab the air* grab his throat and *punches the said air repeatedly in her palm*  *camera pans out to focus on three baby giants looking at you in pure horror before their mother carries them away murmuring something* *camera swivels to show Javier looking disappointed* Javier: *signs* she said 'stay away from the crazy human'. *sighs* *shakes his head*

“Come-“ Loki’s fingers gestured at you to come over to that stone couch of a thing next to him- “sit.” Taking a breath to compose your usual embers of rage at that comment, you smiled and walked up the stairs to stand next to him. The camera recorded the little gracious bow you gave the God but not before your back was to the spectators and you signalled an insult with your middle towards him, nearly making him chuckle. And with one heavy inhale, you sat down next to him, clearly not at the same level as him. “Is this what Lulu feels like?” “I would’ve made Lulu sit in my lap,” Loki acknowledged with a smirk. “You’re welcome to join me anytime but for now-“ he adjusted himself on his seat and raised his voice to address the court- “let us have a feast tonight and raise our mugs in union of the Jotun king and his subjects.” Helblindi scoffed and spat on the floor. Loki did not look but he was surely observing his every move. “In union of an excuse of a giant who does not even resemble-“ “I would like you to stop there my brother-“ Loki announced as he got up, letting the whole room take one united gasp at the scene- “before you start regretting your own words.” You blinked at the reactions to turn and look at Loki. Now the lights from the ceiling did a stupendous job of catching the widening of your eyes while your pupils were dilated in an emotion only known to you when you witnessed- for the first time in your life- Loki's skin change its shade and features. The flawless paleness gave way to a blue so deep over those arms he rarely displayed in public. The colour ran up his neck as well, covering him all the way. And along with this shade came ridges on his skin which apparently every Jotun had; running up his face and down his limbs. Those smaragdines and whites around them were now replaced with red. “This Jotun-“ his voice was low, but with enough weight that it echoed to the last corner of the room- “has seen enough lives to know what is hatred and what is fear. So next time you try to question my right, Helblindi, know that I have no qualms in exploiting them in a way which seems necessary for me.” Helbindi did not seem to stand his ground much now. Not after a few Jotuns who stood up to speak against the giant who had been torturing them for a while with his reckless and greed-ridden laws. Javier's camera was stuck on your reaction in the middle of this mild chaos. Your parted lips, wide eyes, stare lingering all over the God's body, your throat feeling the urge to swallow the dryness; it really was a sight, an emotion that many fanfiction artists would want to take inspiration from. Loki- who was smirking at the warm welcome he was receiving through the roar against his brother- turned around to look at you. His smirk disappeared and his usually focused gaze was interrupted with those unsure blinks at your features. Before he could explain himself, one giantess blocked his way to you with a bow. "We have prepared the Bath for you and your companions, your grace," she announced, still with her head held low. His gaze was running between you and her. To make it easier for him, you got up from your seat and walked down to the giantess who wanted to show you, Javier and Lulu to the Bath. "Nandi," Loki finally looked at the giantess. "Yes, your grace." "I need you to choose four of your most loyal companions to guard them." "They are all ready to escort your companions where you please." Loki smiled at Nandi. "I owe it to your mother to protect you, your Grace, like she protected me and my children." "My mother had a loyal friend in you," the God appreciated before walking down the throne and away from the crowd. The drone followed him.  The graceful composure of the God crumbled like a dry sand castle as soon as the doors closed behind him and he was alone in the icy corridors. His pace got faster by the second, his eyes searching everywhere. "This isn't fair, you know." Loki stopped at the echo of your voice. The pause of one breath, and he knew where to turn to find you standing in the shadows. Javier stood by the pillar next to you two with his camera, capturing this strange tick on Loki's features. You stepped out of the shadows, your gaze uninterrupted, looking right at those red eyes. "Do you know the amount of chaos it would create on earth if people knew that you look like..." "Like what? A monster?" Loki's voice was heavy. "Nah don't say i-dammit! Now I cannot stop imagining the term monsterfuckers." Loki blinked. His brows furrowed at you ever so slightly. "I mean-" you sighed with frustration- "was it not enough that you looked like a literal God in a human form that you had to now go and reveal that you are one buffed up alien? Look at you? You are one breath away from starting a cult of monsterfuckers! Do you realise that? Look at-" you grabbed that one barely naked blue arm and tried to squeeze it- "this firm, cold, arm that is people are going think about in-" you tried to breathe, your gaze still stuck on his shoulder- "their bed at night. God, why do have to be so-" you pointed at all of him with a frustration-filled, longing look of...disgust- "you." By now Loki was raising his brows in question and shifting his gaze between himself and you, clearly confused by your reaction. It even seemed he was a bit flustered at one point. You winced, looking at his body again. Your eyes followed the ridges on his face to his neck, plunging down his v neck t-shirt. With a frown you turned hastily, flinging your body involuntarily in the direction of the bath. "I bet they go all the way down," you whispered to yourself in between your sobs and walked away.

Loki: *still stands there* *blinks* *looks at the camera* what...*looks in her direction* *looks back* *does this two more times* what just happened?

The Resting Chambers: Next Day One of Javier's drones followed you from the balcony you were standing in to witness the first light of the nearest star in this frozen land. The snow-clad mountains were a majestic sight in their own stature. Even the smile emanating under the warmth of the star could not deny that. The giggles coming from inside the room broke the sweet hum of sync you were having with the weather, walking back in to find Skandi and Kolga, Nandi's daughters setting up the table with Jotunheim's specialities- snowberries, Kruweed- fresh seaweed from the frozen lake- and Lulu's favourite, spiked abalones. "What are you girls snickering about?" Lulu was already jumping on the table to sniff everything placed for his liking. Once he had inspected every single item, he went over to his bowl of abalones.

"Nothing," Skandi cooed, "just discussing how Loki-" Kolga elbowed her sister to correct herself- "how his Grace, keeps looking at you." Your hands paused for a fraction of a second near your mouth before the snowberry found its way in your mouth. "Look at me how?" "He looks at you as if you might vanish any second if he does not keep his eye on you," Kolga added, sitting down next to you. Her face had gentle tones all over it. Her eyes seemed to sparkle whenever she talked to you. "Are you being punished for something?" It took you some time to realise she was genuinely curious. "What. No. Why would you think that?" "Because his grace keeps you under guard. I thought pets were kept in cages in Midgard." Skandi turned to Kolga with a gasp. "He caged her last night then?!" The camera captured your furrowed brows sitting there confused in between the sisters. You opened your mouth to speak but lost to Kolga. "You mean when he told off Helbindi that she will be sleeping in his quarters." Skandi nodded vigorously. "He could not have kept her in a real cage." "Maybe he chained her to the bed." "Ah. So he could keep an eye on her at night." "Is that what happened, y/n?" You hid your face behind the mug of tea that did not seem to leave your lips while your free hand seemed to check your cheeks for their temperature. "This tea is good," your burned throat appreciated the drink. "He seems quite...what is the word... possessive of her," Skandi commented. You shared a look with the drone- your face devoid of any emotions. Kolga hummed in agreement, popping a snowberry in her mouth. "I thought Kruge would die last night by his hands." Now that seemed to catch your attention. "Kruge who?" "Helbindi's guard. The one who nearly pushed you into the wall last night." "When you went inside," Kolga continued, "his Grace took Kruge's staff and struck him in his limbs and threatened him to never touch you again if he wanted to stay alive." "Kruge should be glad he did not use his powers on him lest he would be a part of the dark pit's icicles by now." Kolga and Skandi stopped talked to watch you lost in deep thought while your hands scratched Lulu's back on their own, making the floof purr quite loud. "Is she making this little creature vibrate?" Skandi asked her sister in a whisper. "It looks like it," her sister whispered back in awe.

You: *whispering at Javier* What? No, it's okay. We can record here. No one can say anything. *sits on the stone seat in the gallery that seems empty to the camera* *adjusts hair* is it recording? Of course. It's always recording. *clears throat* *at normal tone* So, clearly...*inhales* *raises brows* things are barely standing still right now. And it is clearly not helping that Loki is having sudden urges to pick a fight with whoever bullies me. *Javier's drone catches him discreetly signing at you to lower your voice a bit* You: *irritated* I mean does he want me to get bullied more? Bullies are always going to pick on the weak one in the group for fuck's sake! And evidently, I am the weaker sex. *the camera catches a movement behind you, turning to focus on the source* You: and his highness does not seem to realise that it will be too easy for these giants to torture his weaknesses out of me. Does he not see that? *squints at Javier* what? The drone is recording Javier aggressively telling you to cut it out while looking pale as his gaze goes far behind you. You turn to look where his gaze is going. Javier's camera automatically focuses on Kruge standing next to the last pillar, throwing daggers in your direction through his bloody eyes for a moment before disappearing somewhere. You: *turn around with a shade lighter yourself* *the camera is panning over your face now as you look at it* *whispers* Fuck!

Five Minutes Later One of the drones buzzed against the ice that separated the balcony and the bedroom, tapping itself repeatedly on the transparent frost till the door to the room opened. It turned around to record you and Javier rush inside- the latter placing his camera in his bag and packing his stuff. "Okay, relax, relax!" you stressed to the hyperventilating boy. "We need to get out of here," he signed. "Javi, take three deep breaths? Yes? One? Two? Good. Three. Now think about it. As long as we are with Loki, no one will dare harm us. Okay? Not to mention he has allotted us our personal security team." Javier was on the verge of sobbing. "What about when Loki is not around. What will we do then?" "Javi, don't think like that," you nearly fumed at him. "Loki is in the throne room right now. You take the guards with you and go to him and when you find a window let him know what happened, okay?" Javier was still taking deep breaths while sweating through his fur coat. He nodded. "What about you?" "I...have Lulu." You pointed at the floof sleeping with his belly bared and his paws out. "I won't leave the room, don't worry." Once convinced you'll be fine, Javier hurried outside, leaving you in a silence only filled by light snores of your baby. The drone recorded you biting your lip and tying your hair up in a bun. "Okay," you whispered to yourself, "now we wait." It also recorded the sudden change in the shade of one section of the wall opposite to your back. With the focus still on you, the section of the wall appeared to open out, revealing the pitch blackness lit by a pair of red eyes. The next thing you knew, the drone was lying on the floor, its barely working lens recording your muffled screams and boots struggling to find the ground as a pair of blue feet walked past the lens before it went black.

One Hour Later The camera sat on the stone seat, recording the periodic tapping of Javier's foot from outside the frame. Loki still had audience. The Jotuns discussed every aspect of Jotunheim with the king. Loki sat patiently, listening to every word before advising them necessary steps. The majority was satisfied with the King's suggestions. Many were even in awe. There were a few who were dissatisfied no matter what the God mentioned. "Well-" Loki sat straight, addressing the whole court- "this concludes our day then." "Your grace," one giant bowed at the steps, "there are a few more issues that need your kind attention." Loki sighed, his hand resting on the armrest, his fingers running over his lips in thought. Not sure about Loki, but the camera recorded the patient that ran out of Javier. He got up from his seat, immediately catching the God's eye, who was quick to raise his fingers just for the boy to stop taking any further steps towards him.  "You have stalled me enough," the God acknowledged, catching the giant off guard. "Helbindi should know it better than anyone that a coup against me would be a futile attempt." Loki did not budge where he sat, just his finger drumming on the arm rest. "And I am in no mood for a mutiny."

.

The one drone who had been playing with the Jotun kids picked up the damage to a drone in the resting chambers. It buzzed through the halls, trying to pick up your trail, finding corridors and corners to fly through, walking down dark pathways with no windows and steep stairs spiraling deep into the mountains. On its way it found Lulu howling and meowing in a frantic daze, walking down the same path where he found your scent. And it seemed like he found you through the same dark pathway that ultimately reached an opening.  There was nothing but ice all around and in every form. A section of the mountain that opened to the outside with a catch. There were cells cut into this ice for prisoners. Shackles of cold metal rested in every cell. Each of them had metals bars to keep the captives in and an opening in the ice to keep any grain of warmth out. And to add to it all, this entire prison cell rested on a frost chunk hanging at the edge of the mountain. "Stop, please, you cannot do this!" Your voice and footsteps could be heard echoing through this section. The drone buzzed and landed on the wall to record the Kruge stripping you of your fur coat with a maniacal grin on his face. "Hey! HEY!! Give me back my coat!" Kruge stopped you from going for your coat by his hand coming for your throat. His grip made it hard for you to breathe as you struggled to get out of the hold, your nails trying their best to dig into that stubborn cold skin of his. Lulu ran and growled at the giant, scratching at his ankles till the latter kicked him away. "What do you want?" you barely managed to get out of your mouth. "We want Loki out of Jotunheim," he growled in your face, smacking your back in the ice wall behind you before letting go of your throat. You fell down with a thud and a groan, taking in as much air as your windpipe allowed. "Okay," you wheezed, "okay. You let me talk to Loki and I will convince him to leave Jotunheim. I promise. I pinky promise." You even raised your pinky. But Kruge was already closing the bars on you. Lulu ran and jumped through the bars to stop by your side, sniffing and crying, wanting to make sure you were okay. "No no no no," you crawled to the bars, trying to wrap your fingers around them but failing once your skin felt the vicious cold personally, "please don't do this. You have to stop. Now." "You said you know Loki's weakness," a voice boomed from the shadows where you had been dragged from. A very familiar and ominous voice. The drone turned to capture Helbindi stepping into the ice prison with a stature fit for kings. "His essence is lost. It is a secret no more, you quim." You looked at Lulu in confused defeat. "Why does it feel like he called me a whore?" you whispered. Lulu threw his own curses at the giant. "Listen, sir, Mr Helbindi," you began, "you want the throne, right? And I want to get out of here alive. How about I take Loki with me? You get back your kingly rights, I get my friends back and we go our separate ways. Everybody wins!" Helbindi came down on his knees in front of you. A smile rested on those cracked lips of his. His hand went past the bars- to your surprise- and landed on your cheeks. Your gaze kept shifting between his eyes and his hand while your body tried to move away from his hold. But he was one stubborn bastard. "He must have kept you alive for a reason." Helbindi was talking to himself now. His thumb rubbed against your skin, something that was visibly making you uncomfortable. "Ah...he keeps you to satisfy his nightly needs." You pushed yourself away from Helbindi, only to be forced into the bars by his hold around your skull; his chuckle resonating through the prison. "Do not worry my little whore," he whispered right in your ear while his icy breath ran over your skin, "you will be my pet soon. And unlike Loki-" he licked your cheek with his tongue, driving you mad with disgust- "I prefer violence even in my chambers." Your breaths were shallow. A single tear falling from your eyes as you did you best to maintain your features. "You are making a grave mistake," you whispered through your teeth. Lulu tried to claw at Helbindi too but Kruge was already kicking him away, earning a death stare from you. The giant struck his nail in your throat, driving it deep till there was blood. "The only mistake that was made was by you coming into my land. And you all will pay for it." Dropping you back into the snow, Helbindi got up and walked back into the darkness.

.

Loki watched the doors open to let Helbindi in, his gait ever so dominating as he walked past the judgmental eyes of every other giant in the court with his own little battalion following him, carrying weapons of all sorts. "A king with no powers has no right to sit on the throne, Laufeyson," Helbindi roared, ground his staff a few feet away from the stairs to the throne, creating a crack in the ground. "And a Jotun with Asgard in his blood has no right to stay alive in Jotunheim." Weapons were drawn at anyone who was not on Helbindi's side. Javier was already on his feet, running by Loki's side with his camera. Loki still had his mouth covered with his hand, as if in a tired trance. "Everybody out," he commanded ever so smoothly to his audience- who was hesitant at first, but left as soon as the God's eyes pierced through every last one of them. Left alone with his brother's radical followers, he sighed out loud, his fingers still drumming. Javier felt a buzz in his pocket, making him take out the little tablet he used to control his cameras. "Your actions with every passing moment make me more sure of your inability to rule over the subjects, brother mine," the God simply commented. The seriousness on Javier's face was turning into a field of fear. "Oh, I am not asking, brother mine," Helbindi snared at Loki, "I am taking what is mine." "And why would I give you anything you want." "Ask your little plaything," Helbindi smirked. The drumming of those pale fingers stopped. Silence eroded in the throne room. And slowly a shallow panting was audible from the God's side. The camera suddenly lost its balance and fell down on the armrest before toppling on the throne behind Loki, his back still in the frame. Light reflected through Javier's eyes, more precisely through his tears, as he moved the tablet towards Loki. "Stop, please, you cannot do this!" your voice echoed through the tablet, and all the lines on Loki's face disappeared. His body got up from the throne, his eyes still stuck on the device, looking at the aftermath of Helbindi's actions. There was no emotion on the God's face while he witnessed everything recorded on the drone. He did not even budge till the recording finished. Once the screen blacked out, he swerved the tablet for Javier to take back. His gaze was apparently still stuck on the black stones on the floor, his jaw threateningly sharp in whatever light coming from the nearest star. "If you want to see her alive again, go back to your ship before the star drops fro-," "You touched her." His voice was just a decibel higher than a whisper; his shoulders stiff. The silver bracelets were visible on his wrists, more so with the light reflecting from them. His pale fingers now turned into fists. "You hurt her."  Nothing but the resonating crack of a metal reverberated through the hall and everything went black.

.

The drone sat over the bars, recording the visible shivering breaths coming out of you while your skin turned pale, your fingers blue and your hairs were already collecting frost over them, despite moving your legs as close as you possibly could to your body. "P-plea-hease," your voice shuddered, "s-s-stop hi-im. T-there is-s-s st-i-ill time." "Your master is quite possibly begging on his knees by now," Kruge cackled, gulping down the mead and pouring more from the barrel next to him. Lulu was trying his best to keep your warm with his little body, wrapping himself around your neck while whimpering for you. Kruge was about to finish another mug when his ears caught a snicker that slowly turned into a weak laughter. The drone recorded you chuckling through the pain of the blight. "What is so comedic," Kruge snarled at you. "You thought I was telling you to stop for Loki's sake?" you laughed a little more, making the Jotun simmer with building rage. "I was telling you to stop your master before it's too late, you sewage rat's tick." The lens panned in on your features, all those helpless tears replaced by a smirk that could put the devil to shame. "You master thinks I am Loki's weakness." Your eyes glistened with a tint of some hidden darkness inside them in contrast to all the white around you. "Because I made him think that, you buffoon." "He is nothing without his essen-" "Count your peaceful breaths, you son of a bitch," you stressed, never batting your eyelids, "because you are not going to die an easy death today." You smiled turned into a chuckle before your eyes turned heavy and you fell down. The drone- in its last few minutes- went dark, but not before recording Lulu's cried, mewls, howls that slowly turned into a blood curdling roar echoing till the end.

[nastyatticman]

like a midnight snack

A family of killers is discovered - blackmailed, and tasked with finding and trapping the man who may or may not be haunting the Heelshire manor after all these years. At first it seems nothing is working, until their son makes an accidental discovery.

Brahms Heelshire X Sidney Jade Leong, an OC. Not sfw.

Warnings- dubious consent. child abuse (mentioned), past/implied sexual assault / exploitation , misgendering/transphobia (mentioned). Canon typical Brahms being a creep. Trans male character with female coded language to refer to his body sometimes.

Of all the places Sidney expected to spend his summer, an old British country house that may or not be hiding a murderous pervert was not one of them.

None of his family expected that, either. That a potential victim would catch them on camera, hauling someone into their basement. Much less that he’d find them, and rather than going to the authorities… he’d dangle that possibility over their heads, and make them do him a favor in exchange for not being reported.

How were any of them supposed to know some overgrown white boy would be piloting a drone all around the woods at night? Or that he’d use the footage to blackmail them rather than try to actually help the person he saw them grab. They, begrudgingly, had to respect that. He had dedication to his cause.

His cause involved a number of properties his family wanted to take over, that were supposedly haunted. He had his sights set on a rural house in the UK, one that had been mostly abandoned since the last servants hired by the family fled, claiming some madman was hiding inside the walls.

Nowadays the family that owned the property still ordered food to be delivered, even if no one answered the doors. They still visited, every once in a while, but the visits were dwindling over time.

The Leongs were to contact the family and ask to stay in the house for a while, part vacation and partially to clean the place up. They were given a handsome sum to convince them to let them stay. It’s not like they needed the money - being old money and all- but they did need people to take care of the place. Everyone they hired to clean refused to come back, claiming something was wrong with the house.

And that’s how Sidney’s family ended up booked for a mandatory two week vacation in the middle of nowhere. Trying to figure out if there really was a crazed man living inside the walls, and if so, could they lure him out?

They tried all sorts of things to get him out… it was like the whole family was performing. They were used to that during their other vacations, taking turns playing bait or offering travelers a “safe” place to stay… but two weeks? It was exhausting.

Talking extra loudly and listening to any sound they heard, just in case. Not to mention all the extra work Sidney and his sister had to put in...

Despite their best efforts… Their first contact was a mistake.

Sidney woke up with a dry mouth. He was too hot under the covers and slowly peeled them back. Checked his phone - it was 3:46.

He got up and crept to the kitchen to get himself a glass of water, careful not to wake anyone. If he made too much noise they may think he’s the shut in they’re hunting, or that he found him, and they’d all be so disappointed when they found nothing but Sidney in his robe and bunny slippers sneaking off for some water.

The bunny slippers and the robe were a compromise. Make him look more casual, a little cutesy. Part of the intel they had received implied that the man in hiding reacted better to young, pretty women and that he loved to spy on them and watch them change. Classy.

So as an extra effort Sidney and his sister were expected to… loosen up a bit. Walk around in a towel more. Wear skimpy pajamas around the house. That kind of thing. Tori didn’t really mind doing that in her own home - in fact, Sidney sometimes complained about her walking into his room in shorts so short he could see her underwear. But it was different knowing a fully grown pervert with a child’s voice could be watching them from within the walls at any moment.

It honestly pissed Sidney off the most. He could hardly stand to be around his parents sometimes, especially when they pulled this shit. After his father’s injury Sidney took over the role of masked killer with relish, loving that he had more power in their dynamic. But that didn’t mean they stopped making harsh demands of him, risking his body for their gain.

He could only hope they wouldn’t do the same to Tori. They were always much softer to her, and he was grateful and resentful about it at the same time. Still… the winter nights he spent freezing when they wanted him to lure travelers. His fingers so cold he couldn’t feel them at all, his nose burning. They’d stopped it, luckily, when an old man offered him a jacket to cover up and then exposed his … true intentions to him.

Sidney didn’t see anything, luckily, but he did see the rage on his mother’s face as she beat the man to a bloody pulp.

After that, they let him wear a jacket.

They wouldn’t make Tori suffer the same way, would they? They didn’t push her as far. But how far would they be willing to go to catch this man? Sidney shivered reflexively, not sure whether it was because of the memory of the cold, or his next intrusive thought about how far they’d make Tori go.

She was a sophomore in college, for fuck’s sake. The guy’s tombstone showed he’d be in his 30s by now. If he was still around. That was the other thing - Sidney was only half sure that the guy was even there in the first place. There were some strange things that happened since they arrived, but it was nothing too major.

Sidney sighed and went to refill his mug in the kitchen. There were some noises… the house settling, probably. You couldn’t turn at every creak in the old country home. He passed the window and stopped, pretending to look for something on the counter.

Was that a reflection of…?

He studied the window, seeing the silhouette of a figure behind him. Wild hair and a baggy sweater. Tall. Maybe six feet. His father, the tallest in his family, was 5’8”.

He waited to see if he’d do something. It looked like the figure did, too. The guesses were right, then, he was 6 feet or so…

If it really was the guy they were looking for. Then again, what, would he have left and another creepy hermit moved in and took his place? Sidney remembered hearing the loose description of where he’d been staying all that time - a fully stocked room inside the walls, with a bed and a basin to wash up in, a ton of weird shit he’d been making, and porno mags stapled to the wall. He was sure it would be in high demand on the horny serial killer real estate market. After all, Sidney was there.

He snorted a laugh, and turned away from the window. Shit, if Sidney could see him then he could see -

A hand clamped down on his mouth before he knew it. He was pulled in closer to the man’s body, warm and smelling of mothballs. That was the first thing he got, other than the sweaty hand over his mouth and his other hand, stroking his hair.

It was weirdly… tender. Like he hadn’t held someone before. Sidney didn’t dare move an inch.

He was clearly a grown adult, judging by his strong grip and his size and everything about him… Was he smelling Sidney’s hair? The fuck?

He weighed his options here, as he felt himself be pushed against the counter. Almost caged in under his body. He could probably throw him off, but he’d have to get to the other end of the house immediately. What was it he did to the other people?

One he killed in the game room, for breaking his doll… Sidney had been nothing but respectful to that doll, he should be spared that fate.

Another he knocked out, and the last one - so young and pretty - he’d tried to pull into the walls with him. Is that what he’d do to Sidney? Maybe, since he’d probably seen Sidney wandering around in shorts and low cut shirts for at least a week now…

His parents found that part very funny when it came to Sidney’s involvement. It was worth a shot, sure, since Sidney was much closer to the guy’s age than Tori was. But they remembered when he’d come home from school and tell them about the boys who would ask him out… only for him to find out the next day it was all a dare from the other kids. Why would anyone, even a freak hiding in his own home, want Sidney?

But it seemed like he did, despite all that. Well, judging by the way that something hard was digging into Sidney’s back as he pinned him to the counter. His breathing getting heavy, his grip on his mouth loosening up a little, his other hand stroking Sidney’s hair. Savoring him like a midnight snack. He leaned in and murmured something soft to Sidney in a voice that was much too high to be coming from someone so large.

He could… he could work with this.

Sidney let out a needy little moan under his hand, and ground himself against him. It made the man completely freeze up. Shit, did I go too far? Sidney wondered. He didn’t need to wonder for long though, once the man realized what that meant. Again, he leaned in and spoke softly to Sidney, but this time he could just make out what he said.

“Good boy,” he said, barely more than a whisper.

Shit. Fuck. Damn it all to hell. This meant he’d been paying attention, but it implied so many things about what he’d seen.

Firstly that he knew Sidney was trans - and respected it? Despite seeing his tits a million times.

Ally of the fucking year, Sidney thought, as the man ground up against him this time, on purpose. He let out a shuddery little sigh above Sidney, leaned in and pressed the lips of his mask against his cheek. Did that part make him gay then? Or queer?

Secondly did he - did he hear the way Sidney’s parents talked to him, about him? Of course he did. He must’ve heard them say something rude, or … Call him a girl, of course. Little girl. Stupid girl. Bad girl.

Again, ally of the fucking year. If only they’d known the best trans ally alive was hiding in an English country house and spying on people this whole time.

He giggled and it made the man freeze up again. Sidney nodded, and nuzzled into his body, letting him continue.

He couldn’t deny that this was kind of… nice. Better than the hugs he’d be forced into by his parents when they were angry at him but wanted him to shut up and stop arguing. That was a low bar, but there were so few people he could get physical affection from that he didn’t at least partially despise.

Sure, he kind of hated that he’d been dressing so uncomfortably for a week in hopes of getting this guy to come out... and try something with him. But it worked, judging from the way he was holding him, so needy.

It was really tempting, honestly. Sidney hadn’t had sex in… a really long time. With a friend of his, who was sort of interested in him and knew he wanted to have some more experience. Her partners wouldn’t mind that they hooked up, she told them about it. Still, Sidney was much more monogamous by nature and so it took him a while to get used to being normal around her again. Even if it was mind blowing trans4trans sex with one of his best friends.

He wondered how Eris was doing right now. It was probably early night in the US, and he hoped she was having dinner with her girlfriends. Her lucky, lucky girlfriends…

It wasn’t that lecherous of him to appreciate how good his friend was at getting him off, was it? Not when she’d demonstrated for him a few times. She was good at it, she had experience and good communication, finding what Sidney liked and keeping at it until he was a horny mess under her. And then he’d pay her back, much less precisely, but she still appreciated it.

The shut-in - he supposed his name was Brahms - had neither of those things but he still intrigued Sidney. Maybe he could figure out something they’d both like.

He tapped the man’s hand, and pulled it off his mouth gently. It took him a second to gather his words again.

“Can I- can you put me on the counter?”

“What?” he asked, just sounding confused.

“I want to sit on the counter,” Sidney explained. “You can still - you know.”

The man - Brahms? - nodded and stepped back, let him climb up and sit down facing towards him. He could only see from the moonlight streaming through the window, but this confirmed it.

This was their guy.

He matched the description perfectly. Unkempt hair, broad shoulders and chest, wearing a mask like the porcelain doll they’d found in the parlor the first day they were there. His eyes were blown wide, watching Sidney beckon him closer, putting a hand on his shoulder and pulling him in.

He shakily pulled Sidney closer to himself, his hips right next to the counter. But didn’t move, as if waiting for… permission? Sidney leaned in, feeling his beard brush against his cheek.

“Go ahead.”

The man nodded, and gripped Sidney’s hips, pulling him closer still, and humped against him. Just a couple times, softly, experimentally. Sidney gave him a breathy little moan in encouragement and he picked up the pace.

He felt the full hardness of his length brush against him, hard. If they weren’t both still clothed he was sure the man could feel how soaked he was. Then he hit a part a little lower down that made Sidney shake for a second, suddenly sensitive.

“Fuck,” he breathed. “I think that was my hole…”

He just nodded and tried whatever he did again, until Sidney swore he could feel his cock head through their clothes, teasing at his needy cunt. The extra attention made him flushed, almost overwhelmed, and without realizing he wrapped his legs around his hips to keep him in place.

Sidney moved his hips to help him, desperately chasing the feeling. It was almost silly… he was holding the guy in place with his arms and legs, moaning for him, and he wasn’t quite sure what his name was.

“Brahms?” he asked.

“Yes?” His voice was little more than a whisper, deep and rich. Like he’d forgotten the higher voice earlier. “Sidney?”

He wasn’t expecting an answer, much less for Brahms to know his name. Of course he would, but… it’s strange, considering how much care and attention he must have for him. Sidney swallowed and softly stroked his hair.

“Good boy.”

Brahms let out a strangled moan, leaning into his touch. His movement was frantic, and he had Sidney up at kind of an angle so it was like every push of his hips shoved his cock up into him. Sidney’s grip on him tightened without him meaning to. They both ground against each other, just chasing their pleasure.

“Pull my hair,” Sidney asked. Brahms - yes, that’s his name - just looked at him. “Please.”

He hesitated a moment, and then complied. His large hand cupping the back of his head gently, before he pulled ever so slightly.

“Harder,” Sidney begged him. He hoped that he wasn’t overwhelming the poor guy on what must be his first time. “If you - if you want. I really, really like it.”

This convinced him, he could tell from the way he grabbed more hair, and pulled him back more tightly, until Sidney’s head jerked up to the ceiling and he moaned. His response was barely audible. “Thank you.”

They continued, Sidney overwhelmed from the way he kept grabbing him - groping his thighs and pulling his hair just hard enough to hurt. Brahms picked up speed suddenly, until finally he made one last thrust and collapsed, his full weight making Sidney fall back, against the cabinets.

They were both breathing heavy, and Sidney wondered for a second why he stopped - until he felt his cock twitching against him through their clothes, and warmth spread between their thighs. Oh.

He held him closer then, let him bury his head in the crook of his neck as he came down from his high. The porcelain dug into his neck but Sidney ignored it, just holding him and stroking his hair softly.

“Good?” Brahms asked, softly. He’s not letting go either.

“Yes,” Sidney said. “Yes, you were.”

[badlydrawnmanic]

you’ve all wanted it, and i’m not ready to go to sleep yet, so here’s the latest installment of the sonic underground rewatch!

episode 6 thoughts under the cut!

• unrelated to the episode but there was some lego ninjago commercial that showed like. non-lego versions of the main characters and it looked nice. don’t know if it was for a show or the website idk i wasn’t paying attention • [GUITAR RIFF] SONIC- • i will literally never get tired of the opening theme and you can’t change my mind, i would die for a remaster of this. it doesn’t even have to be a cover. gimme a live performance and i will cry • “tangled webs”. spider concerns already • ooh, swatbot factory. interesting • manic just slid down a little rocky hill on his ass and that’s gotta hurt • sonia stop shining that laser pointer in manic’s eyes you’re gonna kill him • “switch six, switch six...” reminded me of the fun fact that your brain can only identify numbers up to a maximum of 4 or 5 at a glance, i forget which. but like... notice how if you only look at something very briefly you wouldn’t be able to immediately know “oh there’s 27 objects there” but you can very quickly identify 1-4 • sonia stop hitting manic with the drone what is wrong with you • some of these background characters are passable and some of them are hideous, there’s no in-between

• oh it’s the lion boy!! his voice is weird but it’s him!! • god dingo’s face is all kinds of fucked up in this close up as he’s talking • why is robotnik’s cape flowing so far behind him when he’s walking at a somewhat slow pace • i find it funny when eggman’s henchmen mock him when he’s not around, but i didn’t expect sleet to do that • “intruder .8 kilograms? what?? • how does it weigh a drone that is hovering in mid-air • somehow dingo identifies the drone as being piloted by sonia despite it being a hunk of metal with cameras on it • dingo being or looking like in the case of my headcanon a grown man and slobbering over sonia is kinda freaky (it’s partially why i made the hc so it’s less yikes but it’s still uncomfortable and i’m definitely gonna tone it down because fuck) • sleet don’t hit him!! • sonia is clearly frustrated during her conversation with manic (he’s being reckless as fuck) but the animators decided to give her a dead eyed smile for the whole scene • i wonder how they made the mechanical sounds? like the electronic shweeshweeshwee of the robots walking or the whoosh of doors opening? foley stuff is fascinating to me and i wanna know if they had to do any weird shit

• sleet is monologuing about how he hears the pitter patter of manic’s little feet and oh my god his eyes • how is dingo sneaking up behind manic he’s so fucking huge and noisy • sleet says “sylvia” before whacking the drone out of the air with what looks like an entire swatbot he just sort of picked up? i don’t get the reference and since when is he so strong • okay in the next shot it’s just an arm but still • “sometimes you just have to get their attention”? • cool transition between scenes with the camera glitching and shutting down from the perspective of the drone, that’s neat • dingo picks up sonia but wasn’t he just behind manic? once again the pacing is confusing me • “oh, ick” me too sonia • manic and sonia are tied up and were but in gigantic chairs and it looks so funny • “now, sarah” okay i get the “sylvia” thing now, sleet’s just forgetting sonia’s name somehow • sonia says “twit-face” and i feel like she could be more clever than that • “whatever, sophia” • “where’s sonic!?” [NYOOM] • sonic’s voice sounds... really weird, is that what jaleel white sounds like when he isn’t trying to sound all nasally and shit? also he burps and it’s gross • god the movement in this scene is very janky in general • sonia starts lecturing sonic but gets interrupted by a laser blast and manic pipes in like “can we talk about this later?” • sonia strong • is sonic just spilling lava everywhere??? • you’d think there’d be more sounds here • “am i good or what?” feels like it was pulled from satam? • “you’re insufferable” “thank you” • sonia’s voice is so shrill jesus christ • i feel like this is a pretty good confrontation of how sonic not working as a team with the other two can cause pretty significant problems • sonia i don’t think robotnik would throw you in prison, that’s what the roboticizer is for and i don’t think he’d keep y’all separate from that • cyrus does a weird double take and i think it’s an animation error • this cyrus kid is pretty sus- who is this hippie dude- • CYRUS SUS CYRUS SUS • there was deadass just a normal animal bird with some kind of accessory on its neck as a background character • damn it cyrus • SONG TIME??? • apparently no • once again manic and sonia are tied up which lasts 2 seconds • aosth slow-mo beam, purple flavor • what are these background characters they’re so ugly • OH NO I REMEMBER WHAT SANCTUARY IS NOW • children... i’d love to see the tiny babes but they’re undoubtedly ugly as fuck • ROBOTNIK WANTS TO MURDER CHILDREN • one of the kids looks like reptar • SONG TIME NOW • why is this so. idk, whimsical? idk how to describe this but i already don’t like it • they forgot to draw manic’s head quills in a shot • why is cyrus looking so pissed at these children • sounds like a weird off brand christmas song. don’t like it very much but i guess it isn’t bad. maybe a 2/10 • sdnjksg assaulting your siblings with a cloud of flour sounds fun if not wasteful but still, manic seems to be enjoying his little tech demo • sonia says “this place is gross” and manic goes “hey, you’re talking about my childhood home” and i think it’s a good thing that the show didn’t just forget where they all came from and how this can create very minor conflict between them? like manic and sonia seem to slight each other rather frequently when it comes to sonia’s attitude towards dirty places and manic finding it comfortable there due to familiarity even if it wasn’t all that good. i can relate to that • sonic walks off the right side of the screen after refusing some goggles then. pops up and puts on the shades again? i don’t get it • oh my god sonic knocks cyrus (and manic by extension) over and they literally just. rotate the asset in place and leave them planking. there wasn’t a water splash or change of pose or anything • how does sonic zoom past a swat bot looking directly at him without triggering any alarms? why didn’t it notice him • why are there so many regretful traitors on this show • how does sonic not notice the clearly a hologram man in front of him • god the animation in this episode in general is abyssmal • ah jeez manic and sonia have been captured again • “attention sonic hedgehog” • OH NO CYRUS’ DAD but the expression he made in response to seeing him roboticized killed it

• i know he didn’t snort here but i can feel the little “snrk” sound here. it was at this moment he knew he fucked up • PULL THE LEVER, SLEET • that little drone thing is fucking insane, it melted the entire roboticizer?? • i much prefer when background characters resemble actual animals • aww hug • poor cyrus :( • GOD SONIC AND SONIA SIT DOWN TO COMFORT HIM BUT MANIC LAYS DOWN ALL DRAMATIC JUST SMILING, READ THE ROOM BUD-

[heartsofbeskar]

from the ashes

chapter six | read on AO3

din djarin x oc

WARNINGS: violence, swearing

WORDS: 3.2K

EXCERPT: He extended his other arm to her. Stepping as close as she could, she wrapped an arm tightly around his shoulders. The arm he had held out to her now circled her waist, pulling her even closer. She could feel every curve and edge of his armour through her clothes. His helmet turned towards her.

MASTERLIST | SERIES MASTERLIST

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Ten couldn’t think of a better sound than the Ursa’s engines finally running again. Decidedly less strained than before, she thought. Though that may have just been wishful thinking.

They’d been sequestered on the asteroid for the better part of two standard weeks. The time they’d lost was valuable, but nothing compared to the time they’d lose if the Ursa bailed on them mid-flight.

On the surface, spending time with the Mandalorian was not too much different than spending time alone. He barely spoke unless he was spoken to, and moved around like a ghost, despite the heavy armour. But there was something … imposing about the man. Not threatening, but Ten could feel his presence in a room, sometimes even feel his eyes on her. It wholly unsettled her— not that she’d let him know that.

Much — well actually all — of their conversation in the recent days had centered around where the hell to go next. It was obvious an Imperial conspirator had inside knowledge of the job and that Ten and Mando were the ones working it. They had a list of contacts from Greef Karga who may have information; to seek out those contacts now would surely be suicide, for everyone involved.

“You feel sure about Ronhar Kraz?” Ten asked. The armoured man sat to her right nodded slowly. Kraz was a businessman who specialized in textiles and linen trade between the core and the Outer Rim. Seemingly benign, but he used those same textiles and linen to smuggle weapons during the days of the Empire. For both sides.

“It feels too obvious,” she mused. “Former weapons smuggler turned Imperial double agent. Why even attach your name onto this if so many people in the Outer Rim know you worked with the Empire?”

“You’re assuming a level of intelligence and foresight I don’t often attribute to Imps,” he said.

“That’s the mindset that gets you fucked over eventually,” she said, rolling her eyes.

“Is that what happened to you?”

Ten turned her head sharply, glaring at him. “You should watch that metal mouth or I’ll find something that will bend beskar.”

She heard a short breathy noise she’d come to known as a laugh processed through his modulator.

They’d almost passed through the outer boundary of the asteroid field, so she focused on steering through the last of the rocks. An itch had settled under her skin in the past few days, an urge to go, go, go, escape the confines of this belt they’d found themselves unexpectedly marooned within. As much as she still dreaded getting tangled up in Empire business, she felt that coursing of adrenaline in her veins that had been escaping her for many months now. That thrill of her life being put on the line of her own volition.

That adrenaline spiked again as they were fired on.

—

“Shit!” Ten cursed, the ship veering sharply upon impact. Din reacted on instinct, seat spinning towards the weapons controls he’d made a point of committing to memory. “They must have followed our ion trail to the edge of the belt. Have the fuckers just been waiting here the whole time?”

Another hit struck them, almost sending Din flying into the viewport. As he lurched, his gaze locked on the ships in front of them, before Ten steered them quickly away in an evasive maneuver. The ships pursued. He wasn’t surprised he recognized the ships, but he was surprised that—

“Those are New Republic ships. That’ll be why we weren’t vapourized on sight.” He paused as he attempted to target lock the ships still following close behind. There were too many asteroids lingering in the belt’s gravitational pull for them to jump to hyperspace. He needed to buy time. “Are you wanted?”

Ten didn’t look at him as she pushed their speed, but he could somehow feel her rolling her eyes at him. “No, I’m not an idiot. Even if I was, the Ursa’s totally off register, there’s no way—”

“Torpedo approaching lower left engine exhaust,” he interrupted. Cursing again, she took them as far right as possible — and right towards a large asteroid. Din braced, but she slowed their speed enough to whip them quickly around its circumference. He had to admit she was an impressive pilot.

“Are you wanted?”

“...Yes.”

“Now why am I not surprised by—”

She was cut off by the incoming communication alarm. They exchanged glances before Ten reached forward and set off the acceptance switch.

“Unidentified vessel,” came the drone of a New Republic officer. “Cut your engines immediately and prepare for boarding.”

“And why the hell should we do that?” Ten snapped, taking them through a narrow gap between asteroids. Din rolled his eyes now beneath the helmet.

“You are wanted for the murder of Jula Lars. Cut your engines immediately and prepare to be taken into custody. Failure to comply can result in—”

Ten slammed her hand down on the controls and cut off the channel. Din noticed her other hand tightening on the steering gears, knuckles going white. The scars he knew to be there were barely visible.

“Those fuckers … do you have a target lock on the ships? I’m going to blast them from the fucking sky,” she snapped.

As lightly as he dared, Din placed a hand on her arm that was closest to him. “They’re only doing their job. Obviously the Imps put them on our tail. No one else knew we were there.”

“Oh and you’re now the sudden pacifist?” she turned her head to glare at him. It felt like ice began flowing through his veins.

“We don’t need to help create more victims to the Empire,” he said lowly. Something flashed in her eyes. She kept eye contact with him for as long as she dared before turning forward to continue steering.

“Fine,” was all she said. A pause. More shots volleying around them, missing the ship as it weaved. “Then we need to go to hyperspace. Now.”

“There’s still too many asteroids we could—”

“Then I guess you’re just going to have to trust me, Mandalorian,” she said, and she was already engaging, then ramping their speed and then— rocks flew past them as superliminal speeds as they were catapulted into hyperspace. Din held his breath the entire time, certain they were headed straight for a rock which, at these speeds, would vapourize them for sure.

He let it go when he realized they were clear. Looking beside him, he saw Ten staring at him, her scarred eyebrow raised. “I told you to trust me.”

He scoffed, still feeling on edge. “Set the course for Leotis IV.”

“Aye aye, captain.”

—

Ten landed the Ursa as discreetly as she could, a few kilometres out from the Kraz estate. Thankfully it didn’t seem the New Republic had any insight on where they were going, only where they had been. But there was no guessing how long that would last.

Mando was in the hold, already securing his blaster into his belt. She recognized a couple other models and … something that didn’t look like a blaster at all. Before she could get a longer look his cloak fell over it.

“Kraz’s estate only has minimum security in place. Security cameras, only two from the back, no motion sensors,” she said, opening up the weapons compartment.

“How do you know all this?” Mando asked, entering her field of view. She looked up from where she was sheathing throwing knives. She shrugged at him.

“You hunt people, I hunt information. It’s my business to know my way around prominent figure’s properties.” Reaching up, Ten finally grabbed her blaster from the top shelf it sat on. She knew she could very likely do this without it, but it would probably appease Mando.

“If he is working with the Empire, he may have increased his security since your latest information,” he noted. She nodded as she hung her own cloak around her shoulders.

“At least then it would make for a challenge,” she said, nodding her head towards the door.

They closed the distance from the Ursa on foot so as not to be seen by anyone on the grounds. The tree cover was just enough to hide it from view overhead. Mando seemed to want to take the walk in their usual state of silence, and Ten didn’t complain.

As they walked, Ten admired the foliage that seemed to grow at mostly knee height on this planet. It bloomed undisturbed in the gaps left by the trees, enjoying the unrestricted sunlight. The rays seemed to bounce off the petals which appeared in every colour.

It made her think of Yaim. The trees there had been much denser, and wider. But the air seemed to vibrate in the same way, the wind so delicate Ten could almost close her eyes and imagine it was tender fingers on her cheek.

She reached out, as she would always do when she was a girl, and felt that unwavering presence, its weight bearing down on her bones and her soul alike. But … less heavy than usual, which surprised her.

Finally, they reached the wall which indicated the edge of the property, It wasn’t high, maybe four or five metres by Ten’s estimation. The surface was uneven, and she grabbed a hold of the texture, testing it.

“This should work. If we can scale to the—” She was cut off by a sharp whizzing noise beside her. As she examined the grappling hook connected to his vambrace, she was absolutely sure he was smirking beneath the helmet. “Or we could do it that way.”

He extended his other arm to her. Stepping as close as she could, she wrapped an arm tightly around his shoulders. The arm he had held out to her now circled her waist, pulling her even closer. She could feel every curve and edge of his armour through her clothes. His helmet turned towards her.

“Hold on tight,” was all he said, and then they were rapidly ascending up, up, past the rough stones in the wall, until Mando swung them onto the top, which was thankfully flat. “You can let go now.”

“Right,” she breathed. Shaking her head, she turned towards the building now filling their view. As she’d planned, the route to the wall had taken them close to the back corner of the property. If her information was current, Kraz only had cameras facing his back and front entrances. “You’ve got a scope on that pulse rifle, right? Can you see the cameras on the back wall?”

Swinging the rifle around to rest on his shoulder, he wordlessly aimed at the building. Ten studied his stance from the corner of her eye. His feet were heavy, planted shoulder width apart. He didn’t sway as the wind picked up, a solid beskar statue in the foreign landscape.

Suddenly he fired once, then twice. Ten flinched at the unexpected noise. Finally, he spoke. “The cameras are taken care of.”

“A little warning next time?” Before he could respond, she flung herself from the wall. She braced herself on her hands as she landed, Mando dropping beside her a moment later. She held up a hand.

After a few beats of silence, she nodded at him. “Seems like they haven’t upgraded security after all,” she noted, moving towards the back entrance. As they got closer, she saw that the cameras were indeed demolished by the shots.

“Don’t suppose you know the interior blueprints as well?” Mando asked at her left shoulder.

“No,” she shook her head. “Those are usually harder to get a hold of. But I have been hired by many men like Kraz. They like to keep their personal offices in the back of buildings, it makes them feel safer for some reason. See that window?”

She gestured directly above them, where the largest window on the back facade sat. It was also the only window inset with what appeared to be rare minerals.

“I agree,” Mando said before she could finish. “That’s a good place to start. After you.”

Ten examined the back entrance, gliding her hand along the smooth edges of the metal. The locking mechanism blinked orange gently, and she recognized an optical scanner. But beneath that … a keyboard override, hidden under an unlocked panel. Perfect.

Taking one of her daggers from her belt, she was able to tear off the cover of the keypad box with her hands. Ten held the dagger up. It was one of her favourites. The handle was nondescript, simple, fitted perfectly to her grip. Its blade was stronger than any other she owned, and she strongly suspected it had been mixed with beskar, though she couldn’t be sure. Maybe she would ask the Mandalorian.

She pried under the edge of the keypad, battling metal on metal, leveraging with all her strength. Finally, as she expected, her metal won, and the bottom edge of the keypad popped off with a satisfying crack. She cut every wire she found lying underneath, one by one until—

The door slid open with a whirr as the orange light went dark.

“Would’ve been faster to shoot it open,” said Mando.

“And set off every alarm they have in this place.” She strode past him into the building. The cement walls echoed her footsteps, but there was no other sound bouncing off them. The overhead lights flickered slowly.

The hallway branched into a T shortly ahead of them, and her and Mando took to a side of the wall. Nodding, they inched over the corner, blasters drawn. Ten found a long corridor on her side, ending in a window. There were no doors. She spoke first, in a low tone.

“All clear here.”

“Here too.”

Relaxing marginally, she turned. The other direction appeared much the same, with another doorless hallway. Ten shrugged.

“Your choice is as good as mine.”

Mando wordlessly started down the hall to the right. She followed, pulling her hood over her head as she did. She ran her hand lightly along the wall. It was cold to the touch. She tightened her grip on her blaster.

A stairway emerged at the end of the hallway, and they followed silently. The next level was similar to the first, though featured more hallways going deeper into the building and an occasional linen draped on the wall. Finally, they came to a wide door, inlaid with the same mineral as the exterior window.

It was empty inside. A large wooden desk occupied much of the room, facing towards the ornate window. The sunlight streamed in freely, casting multicoloured shapes over the room. It reflected off Mando’s beskar as he approached the computer terminal on the desk.

“The communications log should give us enough information on whether he’s working with the Empire.” He called up a projected screen, gloved fingers running over the controls. “Should be … here. Most people don’t even restrict access. We can download it to look at on the ship.”

Ten nodded. She moved towards the window. Closer to it, she could see the small bubbles enclosed in the inlays. It felt rough. She wasn’t sure why she was so drawn to touch today, but it felt as if a live wire had been inserted beneath her skin, the smallest of currents lighting her nerves.

“Done,” came Mando’s modulated tone, pulling her attention. “We should go—”

Before he could finish, the latch clicked in the door. They both watched, unable to do anything, as the handle turned and the door opened fully.

A human man stood there, looking down at his holopad at first. Mando raised his blaster slowly. By the time the man looked up, it was directly in front of his face, and his eyes widened as he took the two of them in.

“W-who the hell are you?” he asked shakily. “You shouldn’t be in here, I …”

“We’re going to walk out of here,” Mando said calmly. “There’s no reason to panic. You’re going to stay in this office for five minutes, and then go about your day. Got it?”

The man’s eyes darted rapidly back and forth between them. Ten tried to soften her eyes, to urge him to listen. She wasn’t sure it worked.

Faster than either of them could react, he screamed out, tripping backwards over himself out of the office. Mando fired down into his leg and he collapsed, screaming more, but it was too late, the damage had been done.

As they sprinted out and away from the office, Ten could already hear the sound of boots echoing off the walls. They’d almost reached the stairs when a group of armed security burst out of a hallway in front of them. It was six on two and damn if Ten didn’t like those odds.

Blaster fire broke out almost immediately. Just as quickly, Ten lost track of Mando in the shuffle, but it didn’t matter.

She shot at the two men in front of her, electing for quantity over quality in her aim. She managed to hit one somewhere in the torso and he crumpled to the ground. After a number of other shots she hit the next man in the shoulder, which worked to her advantage. He dropped his blaster with a shout, but stayed on his feet.

Ten pulled two of the small knives from her belt. Taking a deep breath to steady herself, she aimed before whipping it forehead. It spun in the air before hitting its mark, buried inside the man’s neck. He sputtered as he fell to his knees, then onto his face.

Spinning around, she saw Mando taking down a fifth officer behind her, two others already on the ground. She counted quickly.

“Where’s the sixth one?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Mando grunted, dropping the officer to the ground. He raced toward the stairs and she followed.

It appeared they were mostly in the clear, the branch off to the door just ahead of them. Ten led ahead, turning the corner first.

She was met with a blaster pressed to her forehead. It was the sixth officer, her hands shaking as she pressed the barrel harder into the skin.

Ten couldn’t even consciously control her response. It didn’t matter that Mando stood just behind her.

Her hand reached up in front of her, gripping seemingly around nothing, pushing forward. She pulled on the invisible field which was always with her, calling on it. Slowly the barrel of the blaster moved away and so too did the officer, beginning to cough and sputter as her windpipe closed. Ten panted, squeezing tighter and higher, and now the officer was a good three metres in front of her, feet lifting off the ground, eyes rolling into her head. With a grunt, she quickly jerked her arm to the side, sending the officer flying into the wall. The crumpled figure on the ground didn’t move.

“You just …” came Mando’s voice behind her. She turned to look back at him. “You’re a Jedi.”

“We don’t have time for this but let’s get one thing straight. I am not a Jedi.”