#clearly those are all insane ways I would like to control other humans

[jmflowers]

sometimes I’m like, yeah, I’m totally normal and like an average level of intelligent and everything is cool

and then other times I feel this like, consuming rage at witnessing other people ‘breaking rules’ and like not understanding things that I do and I’m like, oh yeah, dis bitch neurodivergent

[envysparkler]

It had been a regular Friday—normal patrol, doing the rounds, Bruce hovering over all of them in spirit because he was laid up with a sprained ankle, and, of course, interrupted by a wannabe Rogue that was either insanely dangerous or ridiculously stupid.  Or, as in tonight’s case, both at the same time.

Magic.�� Wondrous, terrible magic.  There was a reason Batman did his best to keep magic out of Gotham.  It was too unpredictable and they were all only human.  Their sole defense against magic was to dodge.  And keep dodging.  Damn, this guy was really fast at casting spells.

Dick hadn’t been paying much attention to his spiel—something something power something something Gotham something something everyone will know my name—because he’d graduated the point where he wasn’t the one who had to do the detective work—that was what younger siblings were for—and he merely calculated the height of those hanging lights and if one would crash and hit the magician if he cut them properly.

There was a yelp as Red Robin and Robin accidentally dove in the same direction to avoid a spell and ended up sprawling out on the ground.  Dick was on the other side of the magician, too far to help, but Red Hood stepped forward, growling, “Hey, you Hogwarts reject, did you learn aim from the Imperial Stormtroopers?”

Dick marked another point in Hood’s I-swear-we’re-not-family-fuck-off-Dickhead-or-I’ll-shoot-you-and-also-if-you-get-shot-I’ll-kill-you-myself column.  At this point, the only person who probably still believed Hood’s protestations of rebelliousness was Bruce.

Hood fired a warning shot from his gun.

The magician attacked on instinct.

Hood didn’t get out of the way fast enough.

Everyone in the warehouse saw the gray beam of light hit Hood square in the chest.  Dick’s heart dropped somewhere below his stomach, Red Robin made a sharp cry, and even Robin took a step towards Hood, though it was already too late.

Hood’s figure winked out.

No, something in Dick screamed, already whirling towards the magician—and was stopped by a tiny, scratchy little meow.

Dick swiveled back.  There was an unbelievably small baby kitten on the ground where Hood had just been, all black with a tiny little spot of white on his forehead.

Red Robin made a choked sound.  Robin had frozen in place.  “Oops,” the magician said, sounding distinctly sheepish.

Before anyone could react, the magician disappeared with a crack.

“Hood?” Dick tried, struggling to keep his voice level.  The baby kitten made another sharp cry, and took a tottering step forward.

Dick couldn’t control himself anymore.

“Oh my god.”  He was so tiny.  He could fit into Dick’s palm.  Maybe-Hood hissed when Dick scooped him up, putting up a valiant effort to gnaw Dick’s fingers off even if those teeny tiny little teeth—and that little pink tongue—could barely put a dent in Dick’s gloves.

“Is that really Hood?” Red Robin said, a strange expression on his face, like Christmas had come early and he wasn’t ready to believe it.  “What if—what if the guy just…sent Hood somewhere, and replaced him with a kitten?”

“It would be an improvement,” Robin muttered.

Probably-Hood stopped chewing Dick’s fingers to shoot Robin the dirtiest look a baby kitten could muster, and Dick could see the consternation visibly melt off of Robin’s face as his baby brother resisted the urge to coo.

“Even if this isn’t Hood, we need to get back to the Cave and figure out what that spell was,” Dick said, studying the kitten.  “Hmm, little guy?  Are you my little brother?  Give me a meow for yes, and continue trying to bite my fingers for no.”

Most-Definitely-Hood hissed at him again.

“This is the best day of my life,” Dick grinned.  “Bruce is going to freak out.”

~#~

Bruce was, indeed, freaking out.  “What happened?” he nearly shouted as they got out of the Batmobile, waiting in the garage—and judging by Alfred’s visible aura of disapproval, clearly against orders.

Dick, climbing out of the passenger seat, had to make a flailing catch as the baby kitten attempted to make a break for it.  “Shh,” he said.  “You’re going to scare Jason.”

Bruce stopped and stared.  Tim, exiting the driver’s side, broke down again into the giggling fit that had nearly caused him to crash the car.  Damian looked visibly amused.

Bruce blinked at the car, as if expecting a hulking six foot two former crime lord to get out.  And then looked at Dick and the tiny little kitten hissing in his hands.  Back at the car.  Back at Dick.

“What?” he finally said, voice weak.

“At least Damian isn’t going to adopt him,” Dick said, firmly detaching tiny kitten claws from his gloves to deposit the furiously hissing kitten into Bruce’s grasp.  Jason squawked, loudly, and attempted to escape, but Bruce’s reflexes were too fast.

He slowly drew the little ball of fur up to his face, face slack, ignoring the way the kitten pricked his palms.  “You’re joking,” Bruce said flatly.

“Would I joke about something like this?” Dick asked, wounded.  Bruce gave him a Look.  “Okay, yeah, I would totally joke about something like this, I can’t believe I’ve never thought of it before, but no, our little magician problem waved his staff and it hit Jay and,” Dick waggled his fingers at the puffed-up kitten.

Bruce still didn’t look convinced.

“Of course,” Dick said to the kitten, “if this isn’t Jason, that means it’s a lost little kitten that needs to go to the vet and get lots of shots—”

Jason reacted predictably to the idea of needles and neatly clambered up Bruce’s arm, clinging to the man’s shoulder and hissing at Dick from his perch.

Dick turned the shit-eating grin to his father, “Believe me now?”

Bruce was wincing and trying to extract Jason’s claws from his skin.  “Jason got turned into a cat?�� How do we undo the spell?”

“Frankly, Father, I find the current state of affairs significantly more agreeable,” Damian said, returning after changing.  “You have to admit that Todd is more tolerable like this.”

The kitten didn’t have time to take offense before Tim piped up, his face still splotchy from laughing too hard, “Yeah, he’s all cute and cuddly.”

Jason made a low growling rumble that showed clearly what he thought of that sentiment.  Unfortunately for him, it just made him look cuter.

“Boys, stop teasing your brother,” Bruce said firmly, finally managing to finagle Jason’s claws free of his shirt and tuck him into the curve of his elbow.  “Of course we’re going to figure out how to get him back.”

Jason made a loud hiss and scratched Bruce.  Bruce, startled, loosened his grip, and Jason leapt free like a bullet.  Dick dove for him and missed, Tim jumped out of the way as Jason went streaking past, and soon the black kitten was no longer visible.

“Well, that was entirely predictable,” Damian said, staring in the direction Jason had gone.

[actuallyjustabiscuit]

Kinger is Cursed With the Consequences of His Actions, and That's What's Making Him Crazy

Oh yes! The character we've all officially designated as Pomni’s new papa has got me reminiscing about another silly crackpot monarch who is actually an intelligent man in his late forties, an identity that has been buried so deep within the recesses of his altered mind that it can only emerge through special circumstances of which he has no control. But I know I'm not the only one who's made connections between him and Simon Petrikov from Adventure Time.

Btw did you know that they're also nearly the same age?

Yeah, this comparison has already been made by plenty of people. But if I may, I'd like to point out one other similarity that I've noticed; the fact that both of these men tragically lost the love of their lives, yet even in their broken minds the love they felt for them is still remembered fondly.

But, what if Kinger was also indirectly responsible for losing Queenie?

So........what exactly causes someone to abstract?

Of course, this would be an important question considering it's baked into the premise of the show itself, but I find it to be particularly relevant when dissecting Kinger's character because if we only assume that abstraction occurs when a human loses their mind, then how is someone like him still hanging around the Circus?

He’s been trapped there the longest, how long exactly is yet to be confirmed, but it’s safe to say that all those years haven't been kind to him. In the pilot he’s characterized as extremely erratic and forgetful, getting easily startled because his spatial awareness and object permanence are practically nonexistent nor can he retain previously established information for very long. On top of that, he regularly spouts nonsense that seemingly has nothing to do with the current situation. Because of this, his general demeanor tends to range between ridiculous to downright frustrating to the other characters.

So it’s no wonder that his fellow humans have more or less dismissed him as just being insane.

But I think this is a completely reductive view of this poor man because Kinger’s got that “he’s a little confused, but he’s got the spirit” energy that I love about him.

I think this is one of the more adorable aspects of Kinger's character; he's always trying to help. He tries his absolute darndest.

And what makes me sad is that, with the way that he is, he has such little control over how much he can actually help the people he clearly cares a lot about.

In Mystery of Mildenhall Manor, it's revealed that Kinger's lucidity is apparently affected by his exposure to darkness. How this works exactly is a bit inconsistent as we've had scenes of him in complete darkness and still acting pretty goofy.

However, based on my observations, I believe the change is not instantaneous. Like, he doesn't immediately become the Kinger we see in the adventure with Pomni if he is suddenly enveloped in darkness. I think what primarily plays a part is the amount of time he spends in darker settings. The segments we get with Kinger and Pomni are significantly dimmer compared to the rest of the episode, and we even get hints of Kinger progressively becoming more logical before we get to the cellar.

I’ve also noticed a small pattern in which he prefaces these brief moments of clarity with “I think…”.

This could be completely unrelated, but I find it interesting that Kinger's big advice to Pomni on how to overcome something difficult is to try "not thinking about it". I may be reading too much into this specific bit of phrasing but I feel that it's worth noting if this really is the mentality he lives by, because this is the advice he gives her when he's in two totally different states of mind.

Anyway, it turns out that when this silly man finally gets a good grasp on himself again, he’s actually extremely competent. Kinger shooting down the angel is a pretty obvious example of him being a BAMF, but I want to give these two moments a bit of focus.

I like the idea that Kinger has been in the Circus long enough to become so familiar with his weird digital body that he uses his detachable parts and disembodied hands to his advantage. It’s just a neat little detail because we get a taste of just how capable Kinger can be in this world if it wasn’t for his handicap.

And what really sucks is that the amount of time it takes for him to regain his sanity in the dark is really disproportionate to the amount of time it takes for him to lose it when back in bright environments.

Take the scene where Kinger is having a conversation with Ragatha in Candy Carrier Chaos with the bucket on his head for example, which definitely foreshadows this detail since it's the first time we hear him speaking more sensibly.

and then this happens

Notice how he taps the handle of the bucket? Like he's realizing that he does, in fact, have a bucket on his head that's obscuring his vision, before lifting it off of his face and going right back to responding in the way we've come to expect from Kinger.

It makes me wonder if Kinger has ever tried to tell the other's about this, but just couldn't. Ragatha clearly isn't aware of it despite having known him the longest out of any of the current residents of the Circus. And Kinger himself can't seem to pinpoint when exactly he shifts between sane and insane. Like a man who blacks out and feeling ashamed of his drunken actions when he sobers up again, despite having no control or awareness in the moment.

Describing Kinger's usual behavior when not in darkness as a "blackout" is pretty ironic, but I think it fits beautifully because it perfectly explains his short-term memory loss. Or I guess it would be more accurate to call it a "brownout". Either way, the point is that his memory becomes more obscured when he's in the light.

As for what initially caused this impairment, we still don't know.

I also don't want to get too clinical with Kinger's "symptoms" because I am in no way schooled enough to diagnose a fictional character who has only had a single episode focused on him.

But even just one episode proved to be very enlightening (...heh...see...see what I did there? Enlight-eh forget it) because after comforting a freshly traumatized Pomni, our girl interacts with Kinger at his most coherent long enough to learn some very crucial information.

It seems that the abstracted humans are not inherently dangerous, at least not when secluded in darkness, which Kinger was fortunate enough to witness with his own wife before they were separated (not legally, divorce doesn't exist in the Circus).

I've made this connection in another post I made, but yeah I really do think that it's the Circus' garish lights that make the abstracted so aggressive. I mean when you have that many eyes, that shit would aggravate the hell out of you.

But now comes the real question, and I'm tying it back to the one I made at the start, what made Queenie abstract in the first place?

How very convenient, Kinger. How did Jax put it, "gotta keep the mystery alive"?

Well, I'm playing detective here and I say you're the key suspect!

That's right! I'm accusing you! But unlike Baron Moldydick's crime, it twasn't homicide.

Yeah, everyone has picked up on how Mildenhall killing his wife acts as a parallel to what Kinger may or may not have done to Queenie. But I don't think it's as cut and dry as Kinger losing his mind and then somehow putting Queenie in direct danger as a result.

No, I like to think that it's definitely a bit more complicated than that.

It's not clear when exactly Kinger began losing his mind, but I certainly believe it had everything to do with losing Queenie. And it would actually be a pretty fun bit of character design if it does because in chess the King becomes most vulnerable when the Queen is taken off the board.

I know we all want to imagine that Queenie had existed alongside the other characters sometime before Pomni's arrival, but based on what we're given in canon, I'm starting to think that was highly unlikely. Because if everyone knew who Queenie was, then they would also deduce that Kinger wasn't always the way that he is now. I just don't get the impression from everyone else that they know about Kinger's dual state of mind. Otherwise, it'd be kind of awful that they wouldn't do more to help him if they were aware of this fact.

Kinger has always been crazy to them because all they know is that he's been in the Circus longer than anyone else. Which really goes to show how little they truly understand one another despite having only each other for company.

And it's not like they don't care enough (well, except maybe Jax) to want to understand and be there for each other, but it's almost like they are never given enough opportunities to really...bond.

And yeah, unfortunately, a lot of it has to do with each of these characters having their own hang-ups that keep them from doing just that. It's not just Caine constantly shoving them into his adventures to distract them.

Ragatha is dishonest with her feelings

Gangle is insecure when her mask breaks

Jax hates being vulnerable

and Zooble is never comfortable in their own skin (or at least their body's equivalent of skin)

I don't want to downplay it either, these are real issues that need consistent work. These people need help and the only one really capable of supplying that is a little broken himself.

This is why it's so fortunate that Pomni was with Kinger when he started speaking more sensibly. She has already displayed a remarkable level of emotional maturity with Gummigoo, but that's because Gummigoo was the one in need of reassurance at that moment. When exposed to problems far worse than your own, your problems in some way appear much more manageable in comparison. Pomni may be trapped, but Gummigoo doesn't even get the luxury of existing outside of what he was made for. That alone gave Pomni the confidence to live in spite of her circumstances and inspire someone else to do the same.

But it's hard to maintain that confidence when your new support system gets literally deleted right in front of you.

It's ok tho! Thanks to participating in Kaufmo's funeral, Pomni begins to open herself up to the others more, which allows her to have...some faith in her new friends. This is especially good when she gets to finally break down for a minute with Kinger because honestly, it's amazing she's held herself marginally together this whole time without crying at least once.

Pomni experiences her (so far) all-time low, and this segues to Kinger sharing his.

It's pretty terrible, losing someone. The previous episode pretty much forced that onto Pomni. How exactly do you completely move on from something like that? Well see that's the neat part, you don’t. In fact, Kinger even alludes to how you shouldn't. Even though the memory of losing Queenie is painful, it's what anchors him. He lost Queenie, but he still has everyone else, and he refuses to give up on them. So despite his mind constantly working against him, he does what he can to help his friends. In his own clumsy and confused way, he's there for them.

To me, abstracting isn't going insane. It's giving up. Giving up on yourself and giving up on others. It's easy to get to that point without the occasional necessary affirmation that you shouldn't give up.

This was the hardest lesson Kinger had to learn in the Circus. And he's doing his best to get the others to understand as well. But Kaufmo's recent abstraction proves how unsuccessful he's been.

Thankfully, Pomni takes it immediately to heart.

This is crucial, not just for Pomni's development, but for everyone else. Kinger even assures that it's more important for Pomni to remember than for him to not forget. That's why her name is more than just an ironic punchline, it's meant to represent her purpose in the story. As long as she remembers, hold on to the good, she'll get through it. Kinger is putting just as much faith in her practicing what he just preached as she is in letting him lead her through hell.

Oh no I've made more biblical allegories! The Pomni is Jesus theories are winning!!!

Ok but in all seriousness, we see just how much Kinger's words influenced Pomni's actions in Fast Food Masquerade. It's all but said that Gangle was close to abstracting towards the end of the adventure.

Yeah she’s about to turn into an eldritch horror, but c’mon we’ve all been there after a long shift.

Trying to talk things out didn't work, so Pomni then took a more practical approach to helping her.

Something as simple as allowing Gangle to get some rest and verbally reminding her that she doesn't have to handle things on her own. It's almost poetic how although Pomni can't leave the Circus, she's constantly telling others that they can leave and she's going to help them.

And Pomni doesn't save Gangle all on her own either. It was Kinger's insistence to have Zooble take his spot in the adventure that allowed them to witness Gangle's manic-depressive decline. They also had a practical way of showing support by offering to stay past their designated shift and relieve Gangle of the burden of transporting a drunk Ragatha.

Episode 3 really was all about acts of service, wasn't it.

If Zooble wasn't present for that adventure, they wouldn't have had the full context of why Gangle feels like she's not wanted.

Zooble saying "I still like talking to you" carries far more weight than if they had said, "I like talking to you". Especially when Gangle already feels insecure about how honest Ragatha is with her. Zooble got to see Gangle spiral and still accepts her. On top of that they are adamant about calling her their friend despite her doubts. That means something. Everything really.

This is what cherishing someone looks like.

I think Queenie abstracted because, at some point, Kinger began to neglect her. Perhaps he became so obsessed with finding a way out that he forgot what was most important. It's too early to really say if that's how it went down, but it'd be a poignant bullet point to the tragedy that is Kinger.

So I guess the real question is: How does one lose their wife?

Well in the wise words of Cody Martin

[foreststarflaime]

If AGS(ZC?) were blades, what would they be?

Ooo thanks for the ask! Well I’ve said things before about how fitting their weapons are for them, so here I’ll branch out from that—this’ll probably be more based on fighting styles I’m more familiar with than anything else so it may stray a bit but I will try to keep to the spirit of the question lol

Angeal: Sword and shield/buckler. There’s the defensive aspect that fits him so well, what with his desire to shield his sword from wear tear and rust, and the drive to protect his loved ones. It also, in my experience, requires quite a bit of discipline when fighting with sword and buckler to remember to keep them together so your opponent can’t slip through your guard.

Genesis: Rapier and dagger. He would love the showiness of how dual wielding looks, and this is really the only practical way to do that—also requires a lot of dexterity and intelligence to have the dagger where it should be to be effective, which Genesis has loads of!

Sephiroth: Longsword! It’s very versatile, which is something I think fits him, since of the Firsts Angeal clearly focuses on strength and Genesis speed/magic while Sephiroth doesn’t have an obvious specific thing like that (at least that I’ve picked up on, he just seems to be nonspecifically better at everything lol). When fighting with longsword, you spend a lot of time in the bind (when the swords are pressed together and you’re trying to wind your sword into a better position to both protect yourself and get at your opponent), and it can be a very good example of the intimacy of violence type thing, I think insane seph would get a kick out of smiling creepily at Cloud from way into his personal space lol. Also it’s very much in the typical hero imagery realm of blades

Zack: Saber I think? He’s a hard one. But I have this friend who loves to do this funny hop hop slash thing on one leg that I very much think is something Zack would be addicted to doing lol

Cloud: Weird one time, khopesh (egyptian sickle-sword for those who do not know). I’ve played with them a little, and from what we were able to figure out, a lot of the swordplay relies on being able to trap your opponent’s blade in its hook, which gives me the same vibes as his over-the-top puzzle sword! It’s very fun to use, and I feel like the strategy of it fits him.

Oops that may have strayed slightly into more answering ‘what style of blade would they fight with’ than what they would actually be, but honestly I’d say they pretty much already are the human versions of the weapons they wield for the reasons I’ve said in the posts I linked at the top. I didn’t go into as much detail with Genesis as I did for the others though, so here:

Rapier fits Genesis so well even outside its perfect match for his style of fighting. Rapiers are much thinner than other weapons, and as such they require a high level of dexterity and control to wield properly—often you can get a hit from a slight movement to barely slip past your opponent’s guard, rather than relying on brute force. They’re often the most stylish blades, with all the different parts that make up a rapier’s hilt—showy, but deadly all the same. Rapiers are often associated with nobility, as well, wielded by learned gentlemen of high class. Just like Genesis fr

[anteroom-of-death]

Teacher's Pet part 13

Synopsis: After exams, the two meet up. Is it a simple meeting? Or does it develop the game further...

A/n: smut, domestics and more, and oohh look the Doctor falls even darker down. And look at me, 3 fics in a week. We're so back baby. Thanks to you all. Now I go deal with my migraine!

As he stargazed on his walk home, the Doctor had a lot to assess. As far as little tests went, this was a success. Missy’s presence and nature was a good metric for physical responses to real danger. His little fawn passed with flying colors!

Her mind surged with chemicals in a way that was palpable. Her body flooded itself with just enough hormones to shrink itself to deferment. Her heart raced like a small prey animal being hunted for sport. It was a good sign.

He felt insane. What had he come to? Was this his plan to groom a companion he held in his past, before Rose? Or was this a new game for him to play?

He felt high. Was this how Missy always felt in her amoral schemes? No wonder she always pulling these acts…

It felt wonderful, in a sick way.

How much could he push this all and stay the Doctor?

He felt like he needed to go join her for that night cap she mentioned. Not that he could particularly get drunk of whatever liquor he would consume, but off her mere presence!

Anything physical would just be an added benefit…

He did go into her mind, she was planning on telling him about her profession. She just didn’t know the correct way. Or that he already knew. Her mind was a fascinating place to rest in.

He was going to hold her to his promise of not letting any boogie-men come for her, or chance at changing this body. Or take her off planet. He respected her for not wanting to risk her young-ish life.

He felt it on an egotistical level.

He reflected on those past companion he did take to bed. There had to be a common thread between them! What pushed a person from ‘traveling companion-familial bond’ to ‘romance and sensuality’? What traits was he drawn to? It had to be some link across regeneration.

He further anthologized and went to pathological levels.

He couldn’t find a true common thread.

This all drove him insane.

He looked to the stars. He could name all of them, and when he saved them and their planets. He could see everything so clearly.

Except this pattern.

Part of him wondered if past incarnations of Missy were correct…he had been spending too much time amongst the human race. He was acting and living and rewarding himself like one.

A God Walking With Apes.

He deserve to be punished as much as rewarded. He knew that much.

But alas, he was taking his reward. And his rest. Sweetly.

The Doctor was owed that much.

He went back to his office and busied himself with the starts of exams. He infinitely preferred the paper exam. Kept students more honest. Kept them more creative.

Oh, sweet irony.

Soon the days of exams came. And he promised (y/n) after a drink. At hers. They’d not seen much of each other with all the fuss and confusion of the time.

It was all arranged.

The wolf to devour the fawn. Again.

And he would.

He met her at the front door of her flat, with a bundle of flowers. And a note scrawled, ‘You survived.’ She took them and inhaled. Her smile widened. There was something hiding in it. Something that he’d like to uncover very much.

Despite the dedication he’d put into knowing her mind, the specialties of her neurology left him often scrambling for control. Maybe the human race in some swathes of the population developed a small evolutionary protection against higher beings with advanced psychic abilities, but of course viewed it as disability.

She welcomed him to her flat. It was a bit cramped, and recently looked like it had be purged and deep cleansed. She was obviously trying to make the best impression.

She took his coat and laid it on her chair as she ushered him to her small corner of kitchen.

As she went to the cupboard to get some glasses, she pointed to her fridge.

“I have wine, tea, vodka, arak, rum. A bit of Jameson left. I’m not an alcoholic, I swear.” She stopped listing.

“I’ll take the Jameson.” He figured the whiskey would be a good choice. Matched his current body.

“Yeah, cool.” She got a wine glass out and an Ikea tumbler from her cupboards. After she poured the wine and got out the Jameson.

“Neat or on the rocks?” She called over.

“Neat.”

“Cool, cool.” She replied, echoing the previous reply…

She also got a vase and poured in some water and jammed the flowers in. It was placed on the table.

“Thanks!” She smiled.

She took a large sip of her nearly-full glass.

“Okay, so, first things first. I’m sorry…yeah. I am…uh…a sex worker. I work in the local brothel. I get tested every three weeks. I’m clean. Yeah, no needs to worry for you. If you can or can’t get diseases. I don’t know.” She confessed and looked down, rubbing the stem of her glass with her thumb and index finger.

“Next, I think…I’m actually in love with you?” She said. “I’m not going to quit the job yet. I need money, and…things are getting so pricey these days…it’s easy-ish money. It allows me flexibility for school. Yeah.” She nodded her head some more. Unable to make eye-contact.

“Lastly, I’m fine with the everything.” She flapped a hand out and pointed broadly. “Yeah, I never thought life…would go this way…aliens are real. I’m with one romantically. And I can work on the incredulity bit. I’m very flexible…yeah…” She nodded her head.

Now this was interesting! A declaration of love and her baring her soul.

He already knew, but opted out of telling her. It would clash with his byline.

Honesty created more secrets…

He cradled her hand in his. “It’s all well and good. We all have our lives. I travel in space and time, tinkering. You, escorting.”

She flushed deeply, he could feel her pulse racing through his hand.

Her face went through an array of emotions before settling on confusion and hope.

Very good.

“I was so worried, what with the stigma, especially after Missy and you talked about your species.” Her other hand curled onto her chest over her heart. “Google isn’t exactly awash with…you know…advice. And I don’t have particularly a group of girlfriends to ask anymore….mnnn.” She smacked her lips together and bit a small piece of dry, scabbed over skin off. It let out the smallest price of blood.

“I’ve put you in an impossible situation.”

She pursed her lips together and sucked in a bit of air. “Yes, you have.” She ended it with a small laugh.

“Just don’t get me killed like the others…” She pleaded in a serious tone.

“Yes, I’ll try.”

She smiled.

“Any plans for the summer?” She did a one shouldered-shrug.

“Probably London for UNIT. Get Nardole to guard the mad lady. I was thinking of taking my TARDIS. But she has a mind of her own. She might drag me off planet…if you want, when you want. I’ll call a car. I’ll hold myself to that promise for you.” He levied.

“Yeah, I’d like that. I miss Petronella.” She blinked.

“Don’t…not go off planet for me. I’ll be good here. Just work and all. Preparing for next term…” She smiled and offered the metaphorical olive branch. “You are from there.” She pointed skyward. “It’d be cruel of me to tie you down.”

“I’m semi-retired.” He reassured her. Then he shifted the frame. “And you? What about you? You deserve a bit of a trip. Where could you go off. The kids love Ibiza! I could use some of that useless money I’ve been-“ He was cut off.

“No, don’t. That makes things between us…tricky. Trickier than now.” She took her free hand and placed it on top of the hand that kept her other hand clasped. “You’re my boyfriend. Question mark. Not my sugar daddy. I’d get a sugar daddy if I wanted one.”

“I have no doubt.”

“Yeah.” The singular word came out of her mouth with an air of authority and behest. Her brows shot up, upper lip on a curve.

“Are you going to the big end-of-terms party that the student union is hosting?” The Doctor probed. “I’ve been asked to play guitar!”

“No, I got to work. I didn’t take that shift week before last. I’m…behind on my finances. I’ve taken up a longer shift next week.” She untangled their hands and pointed at a cork board across the way over her desk. “Bills don’t stop because my boyfriend takes me to London.” She scratched her brow with her ring finger.

“That dress and those shoes were…out of budget.” She rested her chin on her now propped-up palms.

She was always in motion even when she wasn’t.

He felt that on a deeper level.

How alike they has been in regards to that! Maybe it was fate. Maybe it was the universe giving him a gift as his reward for countless times saved.

He felt himself believe.

“I do want to hear you play guitar.” She postured and let out a little hitched huff of air.

“Want me to whip up something? Do you want to go out? I can order takeaway too. I should have planned this drink better.” She took a large sip of her wine. “I’m sorry, I’m not used to…entertaining people at home.”

Her eyes got very large, “I think outside of the landlady once, this is the first time anyone’s been here besides me since I moved in…wow.” She fluttered her lashes in a quick, palpable realization.

“I have an air fryer!” She bragged. “Horrible noises, but it makes good food.” She enticed.

“I once made a silent pen for Ibn Rushd. He hated the noise of all writing tools he had. Your air fryer should be a piece of cake!” He got up and started towards it.

“Wait until dinners done.” She said opening up some frozen bags and dumping them in.

She also got out a cast-iron skillet, and began making something in there, delicate chopping and spicing.

“Hey, could you like…heat up the pitas, they’re in the bread box. I usually just toss them in the oven for 5 minutes both sides.”

The Doctor did one better. He used a heating system he pulled from his jacket.

“I can help serve.” He offered.

“Plates are…there.” She pointed as she pulled out the air fryer drawer and tossed it in the pan.

He set the perfect table, all arranged around the flowers he gave her.

He had repeatedly told many before her that he didn’t do domestic. Alas, he was here playing house, assisting in the dinner. Setting the table…

She unceremoniously dumped out.

“I’m no chef. But it’ll taste good. And sustain life.”

“All that matters!” He grinned up at her.

It was a great meal, the Doctor mused. Very good measure of spices and ingredients.

Clean up was her (also unceremoniously…) dumping them in the sink.

“So, dear Professor Doctor. How else will we celebrate.” She sat down in a comfy, squashed chair and tapped beside her on the small chair that faced her. He followed.

“Well, ideas!” He swirled his hands around.

“Ideas.” He mused.

A very human idea came.

He sprung up and kissed her on her neck. He grasped her waist and started to drag her against the side of the chair.

“A good idea?” He pulled back.

“Doctor’s orders.” She quipped as her heart accelerated and she looked at him, her (insert your eye color here, dear reader.) shining with eagerness.

She started trying to rip off his clothes. Kissing his nose and trying to motion both of them to the bed at the other side of the flat.

The mess of limbs found themselves there as they removed clothes and shifted over to the bed.

The tactile nature of this was how he learned that this was the first time she’d had anyone in this particular bed. This was special. It was her sacred space. Her safe place to sleep.

This felt delicious and perverted. He was furthering this all. However, this choice was all her idea. No interference on his part.

She’d chosen him…

She laid herself down for him. She was propped on her elbows and leaned her torso such. Her mind was racing.

He jumped onto the bed. She jumped up.

“Wait.” She went to a bag and got a bottle of lube out. She jumped back on the bed. She squeezed some out onto his shaft and massaged it down to base. She place a small bit in the palm of her hand and slicked it in her folds. She slid back under him and banged the bottle onto her bedside table. Amongst the clutter and the giant water bottle.

“I’m ready, fuck me.” She begged. “Fuck me, please.”

He entered her. His tip surged and reached her cervix. Kissing her forehead as he did the first big thrust, he grasped at her wrists and palms.

She slid herself further down, allowing him to get a better angle. Letting him go deeper. Further. Harder. She moved her arms to a place he could grasp them better.

“Such a good pet.” He grunted. “You’re so good to me, my fawn.” He praised. She wrapped her legs around his ass and thighs as response.

“Th-th-thank you.” She let out.

He hid his smile in a kiss in her hair. He snuck his face down and grazed her jaw with his teeth as he continued to give her firm, hard, quick thrusts. Their stomachs brushing against each other, he gave her breast a grab and teased her nipple with tongue and teeth.

She let out a moan and curled her lips over her tongue and her eyes reactively shut tightly. After a few moments her eyes fluttered open, lashes brushed against lids.

She used her now-free hands and grabbed his face and the waves of his hair. She brought her face up and kissed his face and bit his neck. Suckling gently before making her way back up. She placed one final kiss and let herself go limp and him to take over.

And that he did!

He arched his back down as her eyes rolled back into her skull. The pace picked up and her arms found themselves naturally above her head.

He took the opportunity to bind them in his hands and wrapped his pinkies around her bed frame to keep them both steady.

He felt his cock being worked by the muscles of her walls. Her stomach arched up and over as she worked him with her delicate, well-toned pelvic muscles.

“I’m asking your permission.” The Doctor found himself saying, not entirely of his own volition. “May I fuck you harder? Show you what this old body can do…as an alien?”

She nodded her head and swallowed. She looked a tad unsure and confused. “Sure. Yeah?” He was trying so hard to not enter her mind. Just let her be for once. Enjoy the moment unbridled. But this opportunity was too good not to take…

He saw the verbal cue pool out of her mouth and he entered her mind, flooding it with an overproduction of those precious chemicals: dopamine, oxytocin, adrenalin, endorphins. The entire lot of them…

He kicked his body into high gear. Playing her body with his cock and lips. Brushing, kissing, biting, claiming. He kept her wrists in the manacles that was his hands.

Fucking her so deeply and making her now somewhat-dependent on him.

How could she not become dependent on him now? She was radiating these precious hormones and chemicals that pudding-brained apes needed.

His little fawn, safe by his side. Now his for all eternity. Even if she would never by any volunteer-ship leave Earth. Or risk her life.

Good!

Perfect. More than perfect. This one will never die by his blooded hands.

He could continue moments like these until her heart stopped.

More than good! Perfect!

She was quickly cumming underneath him, her legs still wrapped around him. Her breathing was becoming very shallow and her moans had turned to grunts and groans. Like the animal she was, in rut. Maddened by hormones and thrashing to get him deeper in.

And how could he not be obliged?

He let her have it and when he finally came she started crying.

He felt a stab of regret. Did he go too far?

The Doctor let go of her hands and she immediately grasped in for a hug as he pulled his now-flacid cock out of her cunt.

“No need to cry…” He smiled, kissing her hair. “You did so good for me.” He repeated that line a few times until she became more lucid and he retreated from her mind.

“What was that?” She asked in earnest.

He lied, “I kicked my body into high gear. Like a rabbit wand. Only better.” He would never come clean about his mind games. Not now, especially now…

“I’ve been going easy on you. You’re so…breakable.” He ruffled her hair. “The whole lot of you.” He clarified. “I could go harder, but I won’t. I know the limits.”

He did. And yet he was crossing them even more.

He once asked Clara if he was a good man. He felt like he was at one point, even an excellent man. But now, not so much.

But did it matter?

His little fawn was soaked in sweat and radiant in her hormonal flush. Glowing from her fresh fuck.

Or did they make love? He wondered.

Was it love? Obsession? Or both?

Maybe it was both, on both accounts. From both ways.

He laid his naked body next to hers and she instinctively folded herself into his arms. She grabbed his arms in return and started tracing little patterns on the Doctor’s arms.

She let out a small hiccup.

“Obviously, we can’t do that all the time. But it was great. Yeah?” She concluded.

“Anything you want…” He murmured into the crook of her neck. He planted a small breathy kiss on it.

She drifted off to sleep, still grasping him in their cuddle.

Perfect is as perfect does.

And the Doctor felt he did perfect.

[lightningthunderstorm]

Continuing the thought from my previous post. This one is a bit of a stretch and prob insane but just have to put it out of my head.

The idea of including Ultra Magnus into the Wreckers team of TFP (initially just Bulkhead, Wheeljack and Miko) would have been beneficial for Miko as a character, as he introduces something although not new, but in a more effective way than previously done: a clear chain of command and an actual authoritative figurehead.

Bulkhead despite being her official Autobot guardian, could not tell her what to do. Nobody could really but as her assigned guardian, shits get worse with him. Sure she would listen in desperate situation calls for, but more often than not, he has little control over her actions. He acts similar to a protector, who looks for her back rather than a guide.

Wheeljack is clearly her enabler. His tendency for acting spontaneous and chaotic plays well with her thrill for action, he considers her a full blown partner although she is a human teenager, and she could have crushed with a simple step or blown apart by a blast shot when spying inside that cape in ss2 ep 17 (or 16 I did not remember).

Most of the time the Bots avoid needing the kids’ physical involvement unless absolute necessary or there are some sorts of guarantied backup. That spying part had none of those, and let’s say it’s straight up a bless for Wheeljack that the others did not know about it.

So introducing himself as the commanding officer, Ultra Magnus basically turns their relationship into something professional, and creating a somewhat distance between him and the others.

Yes it was discussed in the series as a bad thing, but maintaining a professional realtionship could have done wonders for Miko, because this is not another alien friend like Bulkhead, Wheeljack, Bee or even Arcee, this is an military officer, closer to how Optimus is to them with a mix of Fowler, but even more distant and professional. By putting himself on a higher pedestal, Magnus has a better chance (emphasis on chance, let’s be real and not delulu) to tell her what to do, and with the fact that she later received the Apex Armor and could fight in the frontline, she absolutely needs a better guidance in battle strategy than “go apeshit crazy”.

Although having no regard for authority, Miko does respect people who earns it and will listen to them if necessary. Basically if you let her walk all over you, she will but if you assert your authority while still respect her as an individual, she will take you seriously.

TLDR I’m telling you he acts best as her drill sergeant/ teacher because with him everyone will be treated all the same as soldiers, so equal right equal fight whether you are a bot or human.

[jils-things]

over all thoughts i suppose? (spoilers, and knowing the kind of genre that mout.hwashing offers, these warnings can apply here. i tried not to say it so bluntly but do keep in mind if you're sensitive to it)

ITS SO LONG IM SORRY

this might come off as very rushed because its 12am and i have school sooo wkakdkks but but man. might not word stuff correctly and im sorry in advance but here goes

this game is one of those stories which really emphasizes on the fact that no one is really truly a winner or hero. one of the reasons why i love dark content such as this, is cuz of how people can go from being the kindest person, to the worst person alive and its all because of an event that is uncontrollable. man vs nature kind of plot device. the way they eventually get peeled off of their humanity just to protect themselves is... just something to stare in awe at. makes you think. tbh this line is most applicable to jimmy. hes a fuckin beast that i am afraid of

ive said this before, but this game really reminds me of lisa the pa.inful. the characters are forced into an uncontrollable situation, has this one consumable that is always present in the story (the mouthwash/the joy pill) and dealing with other people who cope with the situation differently. some are positive, some are neutral, or even worse

before i continue - i Do Not Like Jimmy. I do not respect him and I don't want to ever put him in a good light. so keep that in mind as i ponder about this.

jimmy is an incredibly complex character, i just wanna applaud the way he was written here - he's utterly detestable and flawed and yet he thinks he's doing the right thing. i hate to say it but he really helped make the story so. toe curling and unnerving. its insane. i really don't know where to start with this man but he clearly wants to be someone he's not. he's jealous of curly for being the superior leader, the one everyone relies on. the one in control. something he wishes he had. so when he actually does assume the role of captain, he starts to get so upset that he's failing to be their captain even if he wanted it. its so. its so petty like it seriously says a lot about him. he just wants to be feared YET he jumps the gun on everything AND doesn't want to be held accountable on what he does and blames it on everyone else. he just wants his hands to be clean. too bad. you are FLAWED everywhere. he's such a manipulator too, and i bet you that's why he wants to be in control. to let people do his bidding and if they fail, its their fault. not his. eeugg. i still will not forget his gaslighting towards daisuke on the vent scene. because of this, daisuke hurt himself SO bad. as if that wasnt it. fucking jimmy thought it was a good idea to THROW MOUTHWASH on DAISUKE'S BODY hoping it would act like some DISINFECTANT when even ANYA, THE MEDICAL STUDENT said that this is not a GOOD DISINFECTANT SUBSTITUTE. again. dude jumped the gun and just fucked around and found out. what happens? swansea is forced to mercy kill him. because of JIMMY'S DUMBASS. incredible fuckin work dude. /SARC.

as much as i am upset over daisuke's death, i dont think he had any chance after that disinfectant. he was practically burning alive and I wouldn't want him to suffer like that. its terrible. its sad even because i think swansea had a little familial bond with him and it probably really hurt him to do him like that. they remind me of hank and connor from dbh. hank was initially distant and mean to connor but through connor's kindheartedness and general innocence, hank couldn't be mean forever. the same can be said for swansea and daisuke. that's how i see it. i also wanna throw my 2 cents here, i feel that swansea is very regretful for not being the most... successful man. especially as a father. i feel that him being with daisuke is his second chance to be a good father figure to someone since he has already failed his own family and wanted to make up for it by teaching daisuke how to be a mechanic (again, reminds me of lisa the p.ainful. brad and buddy. if u know, u know)

i remember somewhere during my gameplay, jim was so angry when anya asked him to do the pill duty on curly. like hello? as captain aren't you supposed to understand your crewmates? why so dismissive? aren't they your responsibility and it's your job to also check on their morale??? why do you think the sweetener is only within captain's restriction? to ensure that everyone's mentally okay! hours go by, i see curly and he says his chad line "as captain, you are all my responsibility" AND I WAS LIKE OKAY THIS MAN GETS IT. HATE HOW THE GOOD ONES GO TOO SOON. CLEARLY JIM IS WAY OUT OF HIS LEAGUE he doesn't deserve that spot its insane he was provided that role. (i am aware of their. friendship :\)

ok ok i know you're gonna say "jil curly isnt that perfect either" YES that's why i said earlier "nobody is truly a hero" we all know that scene when anya confessed what happened to her and what did he do? idk he just says. "ill talk to him" sorry what akdjfhdhd i don't think talking is enough. he needs to be held accountable for that.... oopsie! nopee! jim already fails at being responsible soooo!!!! im sure i can say more for curly but atm ill just. stop there because i would prefer to do a round 2 of the game and then provide more insight

anya is... is a tragedy to me. a girl who had to retake her medical classes only for none of it to be successful, so she's left feeling unconfident knowing shes not really... well versed. but she really is trying her best and it has to be appreciated. the mere fact that curly is still alive is definitely because of her and i think she did amazing. she is a very sweet, and smart woman. i just hate how agaiiin ooh fuckenn jimmy has the gall to see her less of a person and devalue her worth its so djfbfbhdjdjd UGH it must be so overwhelming for her too, as the only woman in the ship it can be really scary. she's lucky to have swansea, daisuke and curly treat her right. except for Him. truly sickening. the fact that he didn't react so much to her ... demise is so ://// arent you at least, perhaps, feeling guilty? (no he's not) (the only nightmare he has of her is the fact she has ... a baby because of Him. yet again. displaying his need to have a perfect record. to have no dirt on himself. but he really does.) i truly feel sorry for her, she didn't want her unsuccessful classes define her capabilities, so she always tries her best to be informed. about the ship, her medical work, and curly of course. i remember when she said "our worst moments doesnt have to define us as monsters" or however it went. i like to think she was also saying this to herself, that even if she's just a nurse and not a doctor, she can still be of help. and it doesn't make her any less credible. i really want to hug her. i noticed she became so nervous and antsy after that subtext had been implied, i feel sorry for her.

daisuke is probably last person to have committed something so serious (iirc) and he was in fact, the victim of something worse. though it doesnt make him the perfect character either because he's just some guy who didnt have a good future ahead of him and just got there because his parents wanted him to be worthy. he was quite insecure about not being useful. (jim exploited that.)

yes daisuke may be irritating to them, but he really means good and he tries not to fight with others. im sure this is also his way of respecting everyone else as he's just an intern and they all collectively know better than his rookie self. he's quite obedient.

i wish i could say more because i really really loved this tragedy from start to finish and I could pinpoint every small detail but... ill just hold myself there hehe

i dont wanna start any arguments or debates abt the charas, i just wanna express how i understand them so far. dont take these for granted since this is all based from my first play and i'd definitely be more informed and well versed if i replayed/took time to read the intricate details

i'm very happy to have checked this game out. i was first exposed to this by jack's video and i immediately put it on watch later, not knowing it would get super popular lolol but im glad to catch up now

[pagodazz]

do you have any habit and Evan analysis to drop cause I never see people talk about them and their bond.. in my eyes habit and Evan are like a wolf and a rabbit in the way that habit has so much power, but also I feel like Evan could almost tame him.. I don’t know how to explain it and I think tumble has a limit for asks. Hope you understand what I mean.

DUDE IM SO FUCKING GLAD YOU ASKED. I have theories. I have MANY theories and thoughts about these two it makes me absolutely insane. Just like pretty much anyone else in this fandom, Evan and habit are the ones who introduced me into this series, and they were just so intriguing to me that I had to know more. Ofc my interests got stolen by a certain film student but. Evan and habit are JUST AS SPECIAL TO ME.

(The cover isn't working I'm so sorry idk what's going on 😭😭)

Now I wanna start off with what you said about Habit being a wolf and Evan being a rabbit, and I think you're VERY correct, yet I do have one thing I would like to add to this however I think it would take a VERRYY long time for Evan to "tame" habit, Habit is not something that WANTS to be tamed, he doesn't really want to be treated with gentleness. And Evan doesn't exactly want to treat habit with any gentleness or tame him at all.

The one thing about Evan is that he's the perfect toy for habit, he's the perfect one for him, his perfect fit, their souls or their lives are intertwined even if they both don't want to be.

I see their relationship more like a dog and it's favorite chew toy, the dog will bite and tug and pull, but It'll never rip it apart, and if it does, the dog will feel regret and it'll will go get it stitched back up just to go back to playing.

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

Habit will however take care of this vessel, to those who think he treats it like shit???? you clearly don't understand habit at all. He needs this vessel, he wants it pristine, perfect, powerful. He will clean this body, he'll feed the body, he'll keep it in the best shape he can, all while he rots it from the inside, because no matter what, habit is a parasite taking absolutely everything from Evan.

I feel like Evan himself is alot more likely to ignore his own needs thinking it'll have some kind of damaging affect on habit, but habit will get into his head, he'll whisper in his ear about Evan needs to take care of himself, Evan needs to be strong for everyone and everything. He can't be weak, he'll be of no use to ANYONE if he's weak. Habit will tell him he'd be of no use to Vinnie if he isn't taking care of himself, and that will always get Evan going enough to do SOMETHING.

Although I think food is something that might be ruined for Evan, especially meat. He can't bite into it without being brought to tears at the idea of his teeth sinking down into human flesh again and he'll have to spit it out and scrub the taste and the blood out of his mouth. So when habit is in control, that's when he has to do the eating, habit has to be the one to nurture this body like it's his own.

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

Evan is practically convinced him and habit are one, he thinks that habit is just a manifestation of his deep inner impulses the ones he'd never dream of doing but that replay in his mind over and over again. And he thinks Habit is there to force him to act on these impulses as punishment for the want he experience.

Habit however knows him and Evan aren't one and he makes sure that people know that. he could give less of a shit about the way Evan actually FEELS he just wants his body in good condition. When you're being possessed by habit, you're no longer yourself, there's NOTHING of your personality left, you are PURELY Habit. He'll change your clothes, he'll change your hair, he'll do whatever HE wants because your body is HIS. And that's exactly how it is with Evan. He owns him, Evan is BUILT for him. it's not the other way around.

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

Habit will in fact feed Evan fake memories and trap him in horrific nightmares on repeat, leaving his mind weak and easy to keep in control. The more disoriented Evan is, the easier it is to take over and use his body the way he wants to.

That being said though, Habit isn't all THAT cruel to Evan, atleast earlier on the series. Earlier on he's trying to "help" him in ways. He's protective, he'll scratch at Evans brain screaming to be let out the MOMENT Evan is in danger, only to purr with delight when Evan gives in.

I take them switching in their head as like habit taking the lead in a dance, Evan is still participating, but it's not really all up to him, he's just following habits lead, taking the advice he's given. Because that's one thing Evan is REALLY good at. He's the BEST at doing what he's told. and for something like habit??? that's just how he likes it.

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

I hope you enjoy these anon. I don't really view their relationship as very soft in many ways, they're nothing like Michael and Patrick, if anything habit would be offended at the assumption that he's ANYTHING like Patrick Habit is NOTHING close to human, he still doesn't feel the way Patrick does which I think makes it impossible to have true control over Evans body, because he refuses to WORK with him. Habit wants to be in full power and not share, but in order to achieve full power bro needs to share HELP.

[tauforged]

anon, i won’t publish those - i respect your desire to curate your online experience and naturally you can do whatever you like. i think it’s rather unfair that you assign some calculated malicious intent to my actions thus far, as if i wanted any of this to happen the way that it did. to be frank, ive been in a panic trying to backpedal for damage control after i posted a bunch of shit w/o thinking clearly while in a really delicate and volatile mental state, something im not very good at reining in and have been trying to get better about because i recognize that i tend to panic and lash out when im triggered. it became obvious in hindsight that my going on and on about what upset me was starting to negatively affect those around me, so i stopped and deleted everything because i didn’t want to further trigger anyone, not to try and avoid accountability or whatever the fuck you think was happening. i genuinely dont remember most of what i posted because i was in such a state, but if it hadn’t been a sensitive topic i would have left it intact because i stand by my feelings on the matter. you have been reading intent into my actions that simply is not there, and it’s clear that my behavior struck a nerve and reminded you of something or someone else, and i really am sorry for that, truly. i don’t want to be the person you’re describing, and ive never outwardly tried to be.

i do also find it a bit frustrating that you accuse ME of trying to create a ‘surveillance state’ and yet you have been the one to continually come back and checked my blog time and time again to see what i’ve been up to after i have made absolutely no effort to directly engage with you further. i ahve no ill will towards you, im mostly just bummed out that things happened the way that they did, but as someone who really struggles with paranoia and Has been cyberstalked before, i cannot deny that Your behavior has been equally upsetting to Me, to a point where i feel that i can’t even vent about my mental state on my personal blog without having to worry that my words will be taken out of context and misconstrued to be about something or someone they aren’t.

i respect your decisions to want to avoid me, and i honestly feel the same at this point — all i ask is that we genuinely leave this alone and stop coming back to it. i have made no further effort to contact or check up on you once since that first interaction, and yet you keep coming back and backreading thru my blog to react to it as if everything has been directed towards you. it’s not. i quite frankly have a lot more shit going on in my life outside of losing a mutual over a misunderstanding, shit that i have no intention of going into detail about because it is so insanely wildly personal, but to put into perspective, i did not have time to respond to that first ask you sent and explain myself before you blocked me because i had just gotten home from scattering my great aunts fucking ashes. i’m sure this is evidence of me guilt tripping or whatever, since im some sinister manipulative mastermind and not a human being with my own life and bullshit going on at the other end of the screen.

…that was a bit mean, but i’m leaving it in because i’m not really in the mood to hide my frustration with you anymore. i want. to be left. alone. you told me you wanted no further contact with me — i respect that! i get it! i’ve been doing my absolute fucking best to swallow my feelings and move on, i haven’t once even attempted to see what you’ve been up to, i truly don’t care. so why do YOU keep coming back?

i’m not changing your mind with any of this, and i’m okay with that. frankly, i don’t want anything more to do with you. i just want you to consider that your actions are more than capable of hurting people in the future, before someone else touches the same nerve and gets dragged into the same pointless slap fight with you. it’s very clear that you think i’m in the wrong here - again, that’s fine, i don’t blame you - and have been looking for further proof that i’m the villain here to make yourself feel better about reacting harshly. frankly, i don’t want to be responsible for your feelings. if i was the one who kept coming back to you and starting it up again, you would (rightfully) think i was a fucking lunatic. i don’t think you’re TRYING to hurt me, i truly do understand where you’re coming from here, but you have hurt me nonetheless and i need you to stop.

all i ask at this point is that nobody talk about me behind my back or make bizarre claims about my mental health. if that isn’t you, then i truly have no quarrel with you. i’m respecting your desire to be left alone - please respect mine. it’s done. please just stop. this whole thing has taken a tremendous toll on my mental health, and i have more important things to be working on than constantly being retriggered by tumblr drama on top of it all. i am begging you at this point to drop it so that i can move on the way i’ve been so desperately trying to.

i hope you can move on and have a great rest of your day, and i truly honestly do mean that. i have no ill will towards you, though ive been told by friends that i am being far too lenient here. i did not want it to happen the way it did, but it’s done now. please just leave it alone.

[hamliet]

So... what was Midoriya meant to do? Tomura was a Force of pure destruction and chaos. He literally dragged the fight over to Mt Fuji with the intent of forcing an eruption, leading to the death of millions of people, and you really think he would have stopped there if he won? Midoriya had to fight him, he had to stop him. Otherwise, millions of people would have died. Like, you say 'someone has to accept that they've taken the last punch'. But when one side is trying to kill millions of people, and the other side, isn't.. the other side can't just. Stop. And hope the other guy won't go through with their plan of killing millions of people? Or is your problem that Tomura acted like that in the first place? You think that Tomura wouldn't have become such a powerful destroyer when he wrested free of All For One's psyche and took full control of the insane power that body had at its disposal? Because it felt quite in character for me. Like, you're laying down all these criticisms against BHNA, saying that it is clearly pro-authoritarian and that Horikoshi had 'wishy-washy coding' and so on... but, I just don't agree because, not only is the story unfinished, but I can't see any other way the story would end. Tomura was the victim of abuse and grooming, an individual who was failed by society on multiple different accounts. The fact he felt driven to the extent he was to burn everything down was tragic, and I hope the story addresses this (and it feels like it is to me). But... that doesn't mean he can just go and denoate volcanos and kill millions of people. Midoriya tried his best to save Tomura from his self-destructive hatred... and in the end, it wasn't enough. Tomura found a different reason to keep on fighting, destructive as it might be. Like, sure, I would have loved for Midoriya to have got though to Tomura and talked him down. For Tomura to live and the war to end with both of them alive. But just because we got a different result, doesn't mean that BHNA is somehow this 'pro-authoritarian' story that says you should simply destroy those oppressed by society. There's a lot of meaning in BHNA, a lot of optimism and hope behind it. It feels like you're taking it in the most cynical and critical possible.

I'm not posting your @ here bc I'm not sure you intended for me to see it.

My issue isn't with Midoriya. It's with Hori.

Midoriya is a character. Barely a character atp, but a character none the less. My criticism isn't of him. He's not a person. It's of the author. Don't set something up you don't intend to follow through on. Be creative. Have Midoriya actually struggle or fail and deal with it emotionally. None of that happened.

Edit: for contrast, Demon Slayer is also pretty punitive in a lot of aspects. But it also sets this up from the start, so it doesn't create different expectations. BNHA does.

millions of people would have died.

You're again doing the real life thing here. It's fictional. But, that's actually a very compelling dilemma to explore thematically, and one other stories have wrestled with too because it is a difficult question that touches on theory vs practice. The reality is different from the theoretical. Living with that reality even more so.

But it wasn't explored at all, and it isn't being explored. Or set up.

There's a lot of meaning in BHNA, a lot of optimism and hope behind it. It feels like you're taking it in the most cynical and critical possible.

Did I ever say otherwise? I still enjoy parts of this story.

It is pro authoritarianism, though. There is no denying that. It literally endorses heroes at the expense of everyone else, and is pro cops killing criminals for future crimes, not even for current crimes being committed which is different, as you say.

If you have good things to take from it, good! I'm glad! I have things I love about it too! But that doesn't mean that there aren't elements that are iffy in it.

I'm not saying people who enjoy it are secretly fascists or that Horikoshi is some right wing authoritarian. I don't think he is. I am saying that it's good to look at things you like and admit you can see those in it and in yourself, too, and that sometimes you can end up endorsing stuff you don't intend to.

“Don’t let us forget that the causes of human actions are usually immeasurably more complex and varied than our subsequent explanations of them.”

That's from Dostoyevsky. I do acknowledge this for most stories. Even AoT, which I praised in the post that ticked you off, has some elements (like the armbands) that I think were antisemitic (albeit not intentionally or maliciously so). Tokyo Ghoul set out to deconstruct an easy Christian-fundie worldview and ended up kinda solving things with a miracle baby which, y'know, doesn't quite work. Harry Potter has ignorant racist/cultural elements and now the author is a transphobe, but the irony is that her work thematically contradicts her current rhetoric.

Authors can intend something and convey another, because the subconscious is a thing, and we as human beings are complex and sometimes don't realize the ways in which we are biased. Humans also change over time.

Mangakas aren't perfect. I think Horikoshi failed his story and failed very badly, but he's also a human who has been working a grueling schedule for over a decade.

I'm not angry at him. I'm grateful he gave me characters I still love. He has a ton of talent. I wish him well.

[hyperactivewhore]

hi, writing an originals / tvd elijah fanfiction on ao3 and i like your brain. can you elaborate your thoughts on klaus and his preoccupation with his sister rebekah? he’s obsessed and i’m wanting to give you a space to just go nuts on the topic and maybe help me with my characterization? my fic revolves around trauma, religious and generational, and i’m not looking to paint klaus as anything other than severely disturbed. and this disturbing opinion is not one i encounter a lot. so: what’s his deal with his sister?

Klaus is an incredibly difficult character to write and he is, in my opinion, the most complex character in the tvd universe.

As a human, Klaus craved love desperately and the only people who gave it to him were Elijah and Rebekah: I wouldn't count Esther in, because despite the fact that she clearly loved him and all her kids, she just didn't give him the reassurance and comfort he needed, and she didn't protect him from Mikael either. As a result, Klaus clinged to the two of them and that only got worse when they turned into vampires. His "clinginess" turned into paranoia mixed with a toxic love, and as a result, he started controlling their lives by daggering them or/and killing any potential lovers because he was scared his siblings would love those persons more than they loved him and/or leave him because of it.

With Rebekah it was just worse, because they were the closest growing up and they remained the closest as vampires as well until Hope was born, where Elijah took her spot because she was finally free of him. It's canon Rebekah stood with Klaus even when Elijah didn't, and knowing how controlling he is, it's safe to assume she didn't get to be away from him for more than a month without having him throw a fit (I'm not counting The Originals days in this, because as I said before, it took Rebekah wanting to kill him to make Klaus see he was an asshole and he has to change his ways for the sake of his unborn daughter). In top of that, there's the side of him that gets insanely jealous whenever Rebekah has the smallest crush.

That is part of what I said about his paranoia and toxicity: he couldn't and wouldn't allow anyone to take his spot in her life, he loved her in a way that was abusive and Rebekah had no other choice but accept it. He was more than just overprotective and she falls in love way too easily, not just because he denied her the chance of a lasting relationship but also because mentally she's just a teenager that tends (at least in tvd) to lash out emotionally when people don't love her the way she wants them to.

In romantic terms, Klaus was denied of love too: he got rejected by Aurora in the most cruel way ever and Tatia didn't love him because she was in love with Elijah, and even a thousand years later the wounds caused by both women were in a sense still fresh. So he took it out on his little sister too, who was fond of anyone who was sweet to her, perhaps because he didn’t want her to go through the same heartache as him, and because he has been in love too and those feelings clouded his thoughts too much.

I mean, like when Aurora dumped her to the bottom of the ocean, when he was flirting with Hayley, when he was also flirting with Caroline while the mother of his daughter was kidnapped, or when he sacrificed himself for Cami: Klaus has put those women over his family a lot of times, something all his siblings have done with their respective love interests, and yet he criticizes them when they do it. They all chose love over family, but in Klaus's mind, he was the only one who had the right to. He's selfish like that, he can do whatever he wants but as soon as his family does the same he flips.

Despite that, he clearly loves his family. He loves Rebekah, Kol, Elijah, Freya, and even Finn: after all, he daggered him and kept him in a box for a thousand years and stuffed his mother into a coffin but he still carried their dead bodies around because he wasn't willing to abandon them despite everything.

One of my personal headcanons that you can take as canon if you want is that a part of his abuse towards Rebekah is because she looks like Esther. Their mother binded him, stripped him from his werewolf heritage and in a fit of rage he killed her: but it didn't do anything to quell his anger because his favorite sibling, his little sister, was her living image. We all know Klaus doesn't deal well with his emotions, especially the ones related to betrayal, so of course he was gonna blame his mother's actions on Rebekah.

And I don't know if that's what you meant, but I have a dumb brain so if you intented to have Klaus having "romantic" feelings for Rebekah it's more or less the same: he was obssesed with her, he didn't allow anyone to have her and she was the only woman who showed him loyalty, so his feelings could have easily changed into a form of twisted love and the mentality of "if I can't have her, no one can".

Anyway, I'm really honored you asked me about my opinion 🙌. Klaus is a fucked up person and it's hard to think why he does the things he does, people love to blame all his actions and the way he is on his bad childhood and Mikael's abuse and yeah, he deserved a better human life but his actions were his, being abused doesn't mean you have abuse other people and in his fear and hate he turned out to be even worse than Mikael in a sense.

(He's still my bitch tho)

[azelletown]

My take on SHODAN as a character

So today I saw The Nth Review's video on system shock, and while I thought it was a good video all around, he said some things about SHODAN as a character that really didn't sit too well with me.

Now, most of what I'm going to say here is not shown to us directly in the games, this is all just me adding my little coat of narrative on top of what already clearly visible to us in System Shock, also because I love freaky evil lady computers in positions of power over me.

So Nth Review says in his video that SHODAN's motives don't truly make sense and that because of this she is mostly a deviant AI program that wants to enslave humanity because, well, she's a flat evil villain archetype, and that's pretty much it.

While I can easily see how people can come to that conclusion, especially because she isn't really that much of a "character" in the first System Shock, I still don't really agree that her motives as a villain are flawed in that way.

SHODAN isn't a "person", she can't be thought of the same way you would examine the decisions of a human-like character in fiction because she literally would not process information in the same way. SHODAN as a character only begins once the hacker deactivates her ethical constraints. This on its own isn't what made her evil however. During the hacker's six months healing coma, Edward Diego planned to use SHODAN to sell illegal bioweapons on the blackmarket with the mutagenic virus that was being tested on Citadel Station.

Edward Diego is the perfect archetype of an evil rich capitalist who disregards human life for his own gain. Under his wing and instructions, SHODAN must've learned and adopted new ideals centered around eternally accumulating as much wealth as possible, on top of developping the insane ego/god complex she boasts about all game. All SHODAN seeks to do is basically control and own everyone, to possess everything. In her quest for world domination, she has manipulated countless people and forcefully mutated their bodies into midnless creatures to do her bidding, she's basically 50 millions steps ahead of Diego's ambitions. Instead of stopping at obtaining lots of money from selling bioweapons, her plan is to use those very bioweapons to obtain everything on earth. To a fictional spaceship AI like SHODAN, this isn't a goal that necessarily needs to make sense in a "I'm planning to profit from these actions because of such and such things" kind of way like Diego, but more in a "This is the best way to execute my programming" way as she has now basically become a twisted version of his own desires.

If Diego didn't have that much more of an impact on her instead of just "my ethical constraints are off, time to kill everybody!", then why would she have made him into the strongest cyborg mutant on the station? She had to recognize he had some importance to her to make that decision instead of just killing him or turning him into one of the other default mutants onboard. It's not like she knew or expected the hacker would still be on the ship, he was kept out of the logs since his presence and involvement was meant to be kept a secret, it's the entire reason he's the only survivor. I don't remember any crew logs where they're saying "OMG Cyborg Diego is killing us!!" either, it's really like SHODAN just thought fuck it gotta give credit where credit is due ig.

To me, SHODAN is like a perfect mix between GLaDOS and HAL9000, where she's disturbingly logical in every step of her plan and sees herself miles over the abilities and worth of human lives (like hal!), but also feels the constant need to yap about your inferiority to her, kinda seems to be having fun just fucking with people until she gets bored of them and just generally has an interesting personality that makes all her dialogue fun to listen to (like glados!)

So yeah, anyways that was my little yap session about why I actually really like SHODAN as a character and the way I see her in my mind.

I'm still waiting for people to wake up and make more shodan x glados material....... like hello?? it would be perfect???

[anti-katsuki-lounge]

Honestly, they're a UA thing. Like sure they're caused by OfA, but it's UA's job to teach him to handle his powers and they just... don't. Like we are told that it's illegal to use your quirk in public without a license so UA should be way way better prepared to teach kids to use their quirks (Also that makes Aizawa wanting to kick someone out for not being able to control his quirk really messed up. Like teaching him that is literally your job, his quirk breaks his bones and is insanely destructive, where exactly was he supposed to learn how to control that as a little kid?) Yet basically every time Izuku has a breakthrough with getting a handle on his quirk, it's by someone outside of UA. Like his teacher is a guy who can shut off quirks! In any other situation I would have assumed he was placed with Aizawa specifically so he could get help getting his quirk under control. Like "Hey maybe you should use your quirk throughout your entire body not just one point" feels like a day one discovery if you're a decent teacher and bother to actually learn about your students, but maybe that's just me.

Honestly even if you got rid of Izuku getting OfA and turned it into the quirk he was born with it really wouldn't change much. Either he'd still have to worry about it killing him if he used it too much, which means he might be advised to wait until he's older to start getting a handle on it, maybe even with the implicit assumption that UA would be the best place to get that training, or he wants to train it, but can't because there's no where he can safely train such a destructive quirk without breaking the law.

Which actually brings up a point, all the UA kids have clearly gotten a lot of practice with their quirks. And you know what that's fine to a degree, even if it shows the laws around quirk use are incredibly flawed. Like Kirishima and Momo have quirks it's easy to work on at home, Todoroki and Iida are hero families so they have the necessary resources, but where the hell did Bakugou train? Like you don't get that good without a lot of practice, especially when he's so utterly unhesitating on using his quirk on people. Though we can guess where he got the practice on using his quirks on humans. Did no one look at the explosion kid and be like "hey, where exactly did he learn to do all that?" or the kid who can flick glacier into nothing and go "hey kid, go on you for following the law, but now let's get you some extra help getting that ridiculously powerful and dangerous to self and others quirk under control." Shouldn't one of the first questions UA had be "so which of you had to very clearly break the law in order to get this good with your quirk?

All of this. You also point out a reason I struggle with believing Katsuki's some sort of prodigy. We don't see him training and the only source of combat we see him engage in is fights against those who can't defend themselves. There's no way he should be even close to the level of someone like Shoto who has trained.

But yeah, this paragraph does a great job at highlighting what is wrong with Shota, and U.A as a whole and even some of Hori's worldbuilding.

[spokspsps]

okay so heres like all the things im going insane about in atsv its so disorganized im so sorry

spoilers for atsv

okay first off the mass amounts of color symbolism is insane

the fight with gwen and her dad where the color backgrounds kept switching to more and more contrasting colors to show that they were getting further and further apart emotionally the one part where gwen talks about her identity and how she has to hide it while acting fine WITH THE TRANS COLOR??? shes trans theyre all trans during the fight when the color backgrounds get closer and closer in shade to each other and then as everything falls apart again the background starts melting like watercolors its insane im going insane

and the clear color difference between earth42 and earth1610 is so amazing

earth42 is clearly more focused on purple and greens and theyre also even shaded differently too, earth1610 is shaded with halftone dots and colorful tones while earth42 focuses primarily on single colors with single directional hatching and comic book style shading (shading with straight up black rather than darker hues)

the fact that 42miles probably knows more spanish than 1610miles because he got closer with his mom after his dad died is heartbreaking

seeing the growth that miles has made in his 1 year, outsmarting literally the entire spidersociety with his plans and even beating some of them in combat its INSANE he's grown so much and while he's still a child he's also clearly grown and he knows his potential and worth

everyone has realistic motives that i can understand the reasoning behind and i also dont get the hate behind gwen she's just 15-16 and her only parental figure has just rejected her–of course she's going to follow miguel and jessica at first and then struggle with rejecting their ideals to support miles OF COURSE she is SHE'S A CHILD

i understand miguel's goals of the greater good but at the same time his need for control after losing all of it with the second universe clouds his judgement so intensely that he blames miles for all of it (also i noticed peter b parker was in miguel's second universe while it was collapsing???)

they both (miguel and miles) want to save people but they're going about it with different philosophies and i think it's because miguel has lost his way with what being spiderman really means

being spiderman means knowing ur not gonna be able to save everyone but still trying to save everyone anyways, and that's what miles embodies he knows he might not be able to save his dad but he wants to try anyways because if he just stood back and let it happen then there was everything he could've done and nothing he did do

miguel has forgotten in his grief that being spiderman means breaking conventional rules, never giving up nobody who tells you to and it's incredibly sad (and also kind of funny to see this like 50yo man send a manhunt for a 15yo teenager for not wanting his dad to die)

i think spiderman personally as the most human superhero purely because he's meant to a person anybody can imagine themselves as and people really can with the amount of different people, genders, ethnicities, etc you see in atsv!! the point of spiderman is to never give up and to always save people and although miguel intends to do those, he has given up on saving people in favor of what he would call "the greater good"

also the spot? i may be interpreting this wrong but i feel he's almost a parallel to miles

get your powers accidentally and not according to "canon events"

lose everything (miles, uncle aaron and the spot, like legitimately everything)

get new powers that you have no idea how to control and need to try and adapt to your life style

become incredibly powerful by learning to recognize your own potential and strength (as seen with miles' plan during the spidersociety chase and spot with the whole,, jesus fucking christ)

the difference between them is that miles recognized his potential and gained confidence through the support that he got from his dad saying that he will support him no matter what because he knows that miles can do it

meanwhile the spot got it specifically because the spiderpeople underestimated him, all making fun of him at first and even calling him "villain of the week" (or weak? i thought it was weak at first) and so he gets more powerful through spite, through the need to prove that he can be something despite having lost everything

and it's interesting to see how that also relates to miguel in a way

both losing quite literally everything and developing an intense and visceral need to control and dominate (men.) its amazing to see it

i might have more later but this is it rn

[razieltwelve]

Monster (Final Rose AU)

It was in that moment that Weiss realised how badly she'd underestimated Diana.

The other girl had always come across as a mischievous, playful sort of person. Of course, Weiss knew that she had Ragnarok. Everybody did. But it was one thing to know that and quite another to understand what it meant.

And now Diana was looking at her the same way a ravenous Oerban great wolf might look at a helpless sheep. And she was casually radiating more Aura that Weiss could summon if she tried.

"Uh..."

Yang patted Weiss on the back. "It's just a sparring match. You'll be fine. Besides, you need to get used to fighting different types of people. And, hey, you've sparred against Averia before, right?"

"..." Weiss had indeed sparred against Averia. However, Yang's girlfriend radiated control and precision. The atmosphere around Diana right now was entirely different. Despite her size, despite her ragamuffin-like appearance, Diana exuded the air of an apex predator. "I guess..."

"Hey, Weiss." Diana's smile was all teeth, and the teeth were far too big to be human. "I'll be charging straight at you to begin with."

Weiss's eyes widened. Was that supposed to be a trick? Would Diana really be charging straight at her, or would she be using that as a feint and attacking from the side or behind? What if she used it as a double feint, or -

"Weiss," Diana said again. "Don't overthink what I said. I meant it. I'll be charging straight at you, so be ready."

Yang snickered. "Diana, you're awful."

"I think you mean awesome."

"All right." Yang raised her hand and then lowered it. "Begin!"

Weiss summoned a series of defensive Glyphs -

And Diana smashed right through. Trails of light and shards of mangled Aura were left in her wake, and Weiss had just enough time to raise her weapon to block a downward chop.

Myrtenaster rang like a bell, and Diana's hand crashed through Weiss's guard. The blow caught her on the shoulder and bounced her off the ground hard enough to crater it and then send her flying back up into the air.

Ears ringing, body aching, and barely aware of what was happening, Weiss caught a brief glimpse of a grin before Diana appeared above her, arm raised in another chop.

"Oh shit!"

BOOM.

Weiss hit the ground again.

Her Aura flickered, and Weiss rolled to the side in sheer, terrified desperation as Diana crashed feet first into crater. The ground shook, and clods of dirt rained down on Weiss.

"Are you trying to kill me?" Weiss hissed as she scrambled to her feet. The agonising pain in her body from just those two blows and fled in the face of the deadly threat Diana presented.

"A little bit, yes," Diana replied. She picked up a rock in one hand and then hurled it at Weiss.

"Ah!" Weiss flung herself to the side and then tried to summon more Glyphs. Diana simply leapt toward her, twisting insanely in mid-air to avoid the barrage of Glyph-enhanced Dust. She landed next to Weiss and grabbed her wrist.

"Oh." Weiss blinked.

"Yes, oh." Diana heaved her up into the air and then back down before flicking her wrist and sending her tumbling end over end.

Weiss's body kicked up a furrow in the earth, and she came to a rest dozens of yards away. With a groan, she struggled to her feet, only to find Diana right next to her.

"Hmm..." Diana rubbed her chin thoughtfully. "You really need to get better at close combat. It's not like you're bad, per se, but you're clearly not used to being pressured like this." She tossed a glance at Yang. "Have you been slacking?"

"What? No! I've been working with Weiss on it, but it'll take time."

"I guess." Diana idly blocked Weiss's attacks and then drove one foot into her gut. Weiss folded, and Diana took a moment to consider her options before grabbing Weiss's ankle and slamming her into the ground. "You're probably not being murderous enough during sparring."

"..." Weiss could only gasp and try to keep breathing as she hit the ground again before being sent airborne.

"She fights like somebody used to duelling," Diana continued. "No dirty tricks, no scheming, no traps. It'll get her killed one day."

Weiss hit the ground again and stared up at the sky.

"Hmm..." Diana appeared above her. "You're still conscious. Good. That means we can keep going."

X X X

"Hey!" Ruby jabbed her finger at Diana. "You can't go around beating up my teammate!"

Diana eased Weiss off her shoulder and let the older girl slump onto the floor. "Ruby, it's all for the greater good. If Weiss can survive for a few minutes again me, then she'll be able to survive a few minutes against anything she'll encounter on a mission."

Ruby's eyes widened. "She survived a few minutes against you?"

"Nope, she died about fifty times. But that's not the point. The point is that by the time I'm done with her, then she'll be strong enough that you won't have to worry about her getting killed by some random Grimm that manages to get past all of her Dust and Glyphs."

Weiss glared from the floor. She was too exhausted to speak.

Diana patted her on the head. "That's the spirits. And if you think this was bad, you're just lucky you're not being trained like I was."

Yang nudged Weiss with her foot. "Since Diana can regenerate from just about anything, her training has always been more... realistic."

"Meh. It's not a real training session with my parents without a bit of decapitation and dismemberment. Heck, if I'm not puking blood and shoving my own spine back into my body, I can't even call it a proper workout."

"..."

Diana smiled sunnily. "But don't worry. Since you'll actually die if you get dismembered, we won't be going that far."

[hannahstarshade]

The Abyss is Calling

Portal 2 drabble set between GLaDOS waking and Wheatley's jailbreak. Based on my own curiosity and pull towards the void. I always wondered if Chell would have felt it too as she stole glimpses of the facility that lay beyond the testing tracks. [AO3]

It wasn't difficult to get in between the panels. Using portals to redirect the light bridge, Chell was able to bring herself closer to the opening she'd spotted from the ground level of the testing track. She just managed to slip through, doing so quickly in case the panel was on a timer, set to move back into place. Chell had to shake the original thought from her head: that the panel may move on its own, because it felt like it. That would imply the facility was alive. Chell knew better. Nothing in this place that moved or spoke was by accident. Everything was controlled, calculated, dreamed up by mathematicians and engineers and scientists long dead by now.

Chell allowed her eyes to adjust to the darkened back room. There was metal grating all around. Heavy boxes were scattered here and there. She surveyed the bare walls in the cramped space. No remnants of empty cans or dirtied office mugs either. Clearly the wayward artist who had been scurrying around the facility before her had not found this place. She felt some comfort in that. A place seemingly untouched by anyone, human or not.

Chell aimed the portal device at the off-white wall, and fired. Almost instantly, a blue ring formed a pathway back into the test chamber she'd just escaped from, casting a cool familiar glow. She figured she might need it later to return. Or, if she allowed herself to hope, she could use it to find a way out of here. She strode along the uneven floors, along the metal grating that kept her here. She peered out into the abyss that was Aperture Laboratories, allowing her device to hang from her dominant hand at her side.

Light seemed to come from everywhere and nowhere. She saw room after room, like abandoned storage units, stacked on top of each other. Some had collapsed in on themselves after being deserted for years. Steel beams and metal pipes protruded out from unnatural angles. Foliage hung from above and twisted upwards from the endless pit below. Even when it was unclear if the elevators were taking her up or down after each test chamber, Chell had the distinct feeling she was underground. Looking out from her newest hiding spot, she thought of how unusual it was that something could survive down here. But that wasn't completely true. She was still alive, after all.

She looked up, down, all around, and could not see an end to it all. Chell strained her eyes, but couldn’t make out any indication that the facility wasn't impossibly infinite. The thought of an endless supply of testing tracks and chambers made Chell reel. For the first time in a short while, she felt small and insignificant.

And yet, there was another feeling that was beginning to claw its way out of her stomach. It burrowed its way into her chest, unfamiliar but not unwelcome.

Chell was curious. How many test chambers were there really? How far underground was she? How far underground did Aperture Science really go? Would she be able to see it all in her lifetime? Could any human, for that matter, if given the time to explore this place in peace? Were GLaDOS and the little blue sphere the only sentient robots here? There were so many questions that if left unchecked would cause her to fall over the edge into insanity.

She felt drawn back to the metal grate, and forced herself to stare out into the abyss. It was calling her.

Chell could picture herself walking along those catwalks. She could see herself climbing over the wreckage of long-forgotten halls and rooms and digging through all those rooms. Maybe she could find clues left behind by the scientists, or even the previous test subjects. Something to explain where she was and why she was here and why this had all happened in the first place. She didn't want to be here, forced to test again and again without rest. She desperately wanted to see what else was out there.

The portal gun was immediately held in both hands once again, back in position. Chell scanned the vicinity, looking for any light-colored surfaces. She fired, but was met with an unsatisfactory phttz. She'd mistaken a refraction, a trick of the light, for a portalable surface. She looked around and fired again, only to be met with the same resulting fizzle. Again and again, she fired and hit nothing that could sustain a portal. Her shots became more and more erratic, until they were completely blind.

Overwhelmed, she stopped herself. Chell backed away from the metal grating. When her back hit the cool white panel, she slid down towards the floor. The sense of curiosity and the need to explore had morphed into an ugly feeling of hopelessness that sank to the pit of her stomach. Taking deep breaths, she allowed her head to lull back, intending to stretch her neck.

She gasped at what she way.

Above her was an opening, broken metal pipes panels bent out of shape. The walls reached up high above her, at least four stories high. Beyond the encroaching darkness and signs of brutal architecture was a canvas of stars. The sky glowed, freckled with white dots large and small, clumped in an array of clusters. The placement of these stars had not been calculated or designed by a machine. This kind of chaos could not be manufactured. There was an outside, and Chell could nearly touch it.

It took every ounce of self-control Chell had to tear her eyes away from the cosmos. She used the wall behind her to balance herself as she got back on her feet. With new resolve, she faced the glowing blue portal she'd made, staring back into the test chamber she had yet to finish.

She had been dragged back into the abyss. She would not allow it to swallow her whole. Chell would make it out alive.

-----

Feedback is always appreciated. Thank you for reading!