#do you ever think about the space and earth symbolism? no? just me?

[ministarfruit]

day 10: love is devotion ♡

(femslashfeb prompt list)

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: ROUND 3 MASHUP 4

Jade Harley (Homestuck) vs Entrapta Princess of Dryl (Netflix She-Ra and the Princesses of Power)

Jade Harley is a Nuclear Physicist, Roboticist, Ectobiologist, and Cosmic Manipulator (warping space and planets)!

Entrapta Princess of Dryl is a Roboticist, Programmer and First Ones' Tech Historian/Archaeologist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Jade Harley:

"She's soo fun and silly and her symbol is literally an atom. she regularly irradiates steak to feed her weird dog"

"She and her nuclear powered dog creating a new universe. she's cool"

"Built a modded bass guitar that's only playable when she's in her robot form and has extra arms. Became a doggirl. She also plays the flute :)"

"i think you have enough ramblings about her already but i couldnt NOT submit her, she is so dear to me <3"

"bbg has THREE scientific specialties!! she genetically modifies plants and makes them grow beautifully high just because she can and loves science. in her alpha timeline she’s a tech mogul and creates technology that challenges the evil empress that brought earth to ruin. AND she’s a furry"

"Doggy"

"She plays a silly flute refrain. She's a furry. Literally, she's a doggirl. She's also a god and created the universe. JADE BEST GIRLIE!!!!"

Entrapta Princess of Dryl:

"She builds robots!!! She's curious and inquisitive!! She loves her robots!! She has the coolest hair and also I want to be her bestie. She's an absolute love"

"autism :)"

"Builds robots and computers for fun and companionship. Can take apart and understand almost any tech she is presented with. Autism lever set to max and I love her. Mandatory boob window in all her outfits and I've never related harder to a character."

"autistic icon, amazing inventor and app round excellent character"

"she has prehensile hair it’s literally the best thing i’ve ever seen in my life, it’s never once acknowledged by any of the characters as abnormal or explained in any way i’m literally obsessed with it. also autism queen"

"PIGTAILS!!!! autism"

"Entrapta is very bubbly and positive. She never lets anything like losing her friends or going to the bad side or getting put on a death-sentence island stop her from scientific pursuits! She actually drives a lot of the conflict in the story, as she explains the technological backstory of the world, and helps both sides be better at fighting. She loves data, doing experiments, and the scientific method. She's also in love with space. She is an autistic queen <3"

"phenomenal canon autism representation without being weird & shitty. also she’s so strange & wonderful & relatable in so so many ways. my computer is named Darla bc that’s what she named the AI for the spaceship in s5"

"She is THE science queen because she loves science so much and her love of it is INFECTIOUS. I don’t know anything about science but Entrapta makes it seem like the coolest thing in the universe. I love her"

"She ourple. I luv her"

"She's so passionate about her work. Takes through notes! Figured out how to hack her home planet!!! She's autistic as hell and I like her overalls."

"You won’t get autism like this anywhere else bestie"

"amoral mad scientist who flips between the good guys and bad guys, loves building so many inventions, ends up converting the head bad guy (for most of the series) to good through the power of love"

"She has outfitted her entire castle to be a maze, and installed electronic locks on some. Her staff seems to be mostly robots she has built herself. In good part reverse engineering or adapting ancient tech found on the planet. She's incredible at what she does and personally fixes, invents and builds a wide range of stuff from space ships to portals to a prosthetic exoskeleton to trackers to war machines. She can do it all. Autism win! Girlie has been criticised for being treated childlike or being unable to understand those around her to a ridiculous degree, but I'm honestly just glad she's not a Sheldon Cooper. Her favorite bots have personalities and therefore implied AI (but not the shitty kind), which means she's pretty fucking good at software too. She likes tiny foods."

"So very autistic about technology. Initially believes robots are way better than people, eventually makes human friends but also very much still has robot friends (I love Emily so much). Gets so excited about finding new First One's tech. Also her happy spinning around in a space suit in that one season 5 episode heals my heart every time I watch it"

"She's the planet's leading expert on ancient tech (sci-fi/fantasy universe) and develops most of the tech in the show and is very autistic about it. i love her"

"She is fun and funky. Chaotic neutral. Definitely some autism coding going on, which is very charming. She has a pet robot? It is cute"

"Bc she is ENTRAPTA!! No srsly she is such a well-written character. At times kinda morally grey but always lovable and great and she is truly amazing at what she does!! I'm pretty sure she's already been submitted but I wanted to make sure :)"

[lovelyyandereaddictionpoint]

Brilliant Minds | Yandere Idia Shroud

Idia couldn’t help rolling his eyes as he watched the frantic news reporter report the hacking of the Intergalactic Federation of Force and Intelligence.

“Behind me is the I.F.F.!’s home base on Feluschia, where the council members are meeting to begin the investigation on who is the culprit. Now I.F.F.I has many that would jump at the opportunity: the Jupiter Faction of Control, the Galaxy’s Safeguard, space pirates–”

It was not the easiest to break past the thousands of firewalls to get into the system but it still could be done in less than a week. But to him it was needed. If it inconvenienced those pencil-pushers in any way shape or form it’d be worth it. Idia remembered being plagued with the mandatory ejecting of adolescents who spent a set amount of time within their rooms. Too many times could Idia think back to the days he was dragged out of his room to meet said requirements. 

“Consider it payback for all the 24 hour events you made me miss!”

Thunk!

Thunk!

“Hold on what–”

Ship’s main power is being diverted to the bridge. 

“What?!”

Lockdown procedures in process and will only be released with authorized code.

“Wait–”

Pepare for boarding by the Intergalactic Federation of Force and Intelligence. 

“Oh come on!”

Nice to meet you Idia Shroud, please do not resist your arrest. We’d like not to use force. 

The blue light from his monitors reflected the rectangular shape of a red lazor slicing through his door. Turning from his spot he jumped when the door slammed to the ground and his space was lit up with various flashlights and the sounds of soldiers routinely fanning about the room.

“Don’t move! Hands in the air!”

“Fine fine just don’t touch those figurines those are worth more than your life.”

The masked soldier that grabbed him was harsh, latching on a frigid metallic cuffs engulfing his hands. The force meant to keep him down, nearly put his hair out keeping his head uncomfortably to the side. Perfectly in view of the head officer he’d seen in press reports.

“Glad to see we can finally make your acquaintance, Shroud. We’ve been looking for you for a long time.”

“Nice to meet you too Captain Flamme. Surprised to see the likes of you reinstated so soon.”

The captain with gray hair glared at him removing a handkerchief from the inside of his coat to hold over his mouth. Which barely hid the sneer he was directing at the arrested Idia.

“Muzzle him as well. I’d hate to subject the council to this worm’s snark.”

“Yes Captain!”

Idia groaned behind the metal clasp being roughly forced on his mouth. He’s certain if it ever came off again he’d have marks. 

But knowing the I.F.F.I he doubt they’d even allow that courtesy with what they had planned for them.

_______________________________________________

“I suggest to the council an  execution for punishment. Or the archaic symbol of severing the offenders hands.”

Chatter among the crowd seemed to be in agreement, nods filtering through the crowd. The heads of the council looked convinced as well, hands raised and about to cast their votes with a press of a button. They hesitated when the crowd began to gasp and whisper. 

All their attention was no longer on the cuffed and muzzled hacker or the Captain who’s gaze barely softened at the individual requesting a platform to speak. A council member resembling the Earth-bird: Crow raised his hand to silence the speculating gathering. Letting the platform they stood on glow with recognition, humming as it floated past the prisoner and closer to the Captain. Standing closer to the council and bridging the gap between them and the prisoner they finally spoke. 

“Mechanic (Y/n) (L/n) of the WonderRide Star code: 42395 reporting.”

The praised star salute and the name of the ship they hailed from had the crowd erupting in another round of gasps. This time containing the excited squeals and chattering of avid fans of the ship. The council member called order once again, struggling a bit more this time. 

Idia was no stranger to the tales and rumors surrounding the ‘WonderRide.’ Online forums stated they had a vile and violent streak, up until recently with the beast-savvy human mechanic. Their exploits often involved in galaxy saving adventures that inspired many a game he indulged in. That didn’t mean he was a fan by any means and was even more prepared for whatever creative punishment the star fleet were to come with.

“Speak mechanic.”

“Aye. I implore the council not to execute or cripple the prisoner in anyway,” they paused already expecting the uproar that the crowd would have. Even Captain Flamme seemed to be taken aback tucking his hand into his coat, no doubt to squeeze the handkerchief he seemed so fond of. 

“Explain yourself mechanic.”

“Gladly.” The mechanic turned for the council, letting the platform split breaking into smaller pieces to accommodate the widesteps forward they were making. “Never before have we had anyone break down the barriers of our system so efficiently. I feel as though chopping his head off now would be a waste.”

The council members allowed the crowd to stir with the same increduality they were feeling. 

“Are you suggesting we employ this criminal?”

The mechanic let a cute smile spread across their face.

“I am.”

More shouts from the crowd. The Captain Flamme took control this time.

“Why would we allow this fiend deeper access to us if he’s already shown to be a threat?”

“The only way a human’s immune system adapts to be better is by being introduced to viruses enough to make antibodies.”

“The I.F.F.I isn’t an immune system. Why take the risk of being infected in the first place?”

The mechanic grew stern, holding the Captain’s gaze while gesturing to the evidence in a hover cage. 

“How many people have you seen demonstrate such a wide knowledge of all kinds of technology?” 

They turned to council addressing them specifically,”Wouldn’t you regret not taking advantage of a mind as great as his?”

Murmurs engulfed the crowds once again and the council members conversed during that time, showing a clear divide among them. After a moment a verdict was reached and the button was pressed with their decree.

“Mechanic and Captain, you both will be in charge of the prisoner’s rehabilitation during the recovery mission. Should he step out of line Rollo Flamme we grant you permission to do as you please.”

“Thank you.”

“Mechanic (L/n)?”

“Yes?”

“This prisoner’s life is spared on your recommendation alone, thus it will be at your expense if he does end up causing damage to I.F.F.I. Do you accept this responsibility?”

“Yes!”

Well look at that, turns out Idia didn’t need to hack the security fields before his execution. He figures he’ll still plant a bug for some later sabotage though. 

_______________________________________________

“From now on you will be under our jurisdiction. Thus you are expected to listen to whatever we order.”

“You shouldn’t have to worry too much, you’ll just be providing support with maintaining wiring and if I do need any help doing anything that’d be faster together.---”

“I doubt we’ll  need you for something like that anyway, (Y/n) is perfectly efficient on their own.”

Hearing the Captain and the mechanic speak to him directly just accentuated the differences he perceived at his trial. The Captain was stiff, borderline rude always quirking his lip in disgust and reaching inside his coat pocket. Whereas the mechanic was incredibly too smiley for working with a man with such a stick up the thorax. It’d be easier to get past the second one.

“So happy to work with you Idia! I was a big fan of that double helix power system you had your gaming system work with. It’s just so much more efficient!”

He figured it’d ultimately worked out that the mechanic was a fan. It’d make developing his latest bug much easier. He kept his answers short as the mechanic show him around the station, finally giving him privacy in his bunk that didn’t last long on courtesy of the Captain. 

“(Y/n) might be eager to give you a chance but I do not. One step out of line and I’ll chop that flaming head of yours myself.”

“Gee you almost sound desperate enough to frame me yourself.”

The insinuation only made the Captain hum, pulling the handkerchief out fully to fervently glare at him from behind it. 

“I will not show any mercy if you hurt them.”

He must be talking about the mechanic. Clearly a case of unrequited feelings for the trigger-happy Captain. Now that he thought about it the handkerchief didn’t come out around them. He’d have to be careful with that. 

“Got it, captain.”

“Tch, fix your uniform you look like a reckless bum.”

The Captain turned to leave, perfectly timed with the door sliding open revealing that stupidly smiling mechanic with a case full of tools. 

“Hey Rollo, heading to the brig?”

The handkerchief was tucked away again and the tired-looking Captain was smiling as though he didn’t just threaten him. 

“I am. Just giving some final warnings to our…guest.”

“Crewmember,” the mechanic corrected, giving a pat on the back to the Captain,”I’ll see you on the deck, shortly.” 

With that the door hissed closed making the mechanic shake their head at the closed door. 

“Sorry about him, he’s just a little uptight with new comers. Trust me he’s definitely going to get nicer as he get’s to know you.”

Idia stifled a snarky ‘doubt it’ with a nod, coming closer to look at the tools he’s been given.

“So for your final instruction we’ll just go over these tools and then I’ll let you get to work. I really hope we can get along Idia!”

Yeah he’s sure he will.

____________________________________________

Just as he had expected, life on this ship was torturous. Beside the Captain that looked for any opportunity to slight him, the crew was filled with violent and bossy extroverts that wasted no time pushing him around. It was perfect fuel for the late nights he would spend crafting the perfect virus for the WonderRide’s system and ultimately I.F.F.I. He was slaving these nights to give it a much more powerful kick this time, considering the only access he was given was such minor programming. The only thing that seemed to get in his way, bringing an uncomfortable heat under his too high collar was—

“Hey Idia, what are you doing up so late?”

That stupid mechanic.

He made up some vague excuse about understanding the innerworkings of the ship. At one point he did need to take some time to understand how it worked but that was in the span of hours since he got here. But it seemed to convince them. 

“W-what are you doing up so late?”

The question came out of nervousness; he didn’t care but the less they spoke about himself the better. They sighed, pulling a hover chair over to his own, twirling about like he would while something was loading.

“I have to reinforce our system’s software, it recently has been a bit more fragile with that pirate group upping the ante.”

“Oh…hows it going?”

“It’s alright, it’s just a matter of being careful. One slip up at this point in the game would mean some of the members on the ship in critical care might lose their specified nursebots. But no pressure.”

“Oh…”

He felt his face and hair heat up in guilt embarrassment. He startled when he felt a warm hand rub soothingly at his back.

“Hey don’t feel too bad, you didn’t know. Besides I’m here to fix it so they’ll be okay.”

“I-if you like I could reverse some of the damage I’ve done. Specifically the more heavy hitting viruses.”

“Really? Thanks Idy that’d help me a lot!”

He thought he couldn’t get any warmer but he was wrong. 

“Idy?”

“Oh it’s my new nickname for you! Do you like it? I can pick something else if you like!”

“No! I-it’s okay! I like it.”

Maybe this little bug could wait for another night, afterall it’s only fair he aid his superior. No other reason. 

______________________________________________________

Red alerts in space games couldn’t compare the distress of the real thing. The unnatural shaking of the ship, the blaring lights, the yelling, the screaming. It had the hacker shaking more than he expected. 

“Move it hacker! (Y/n) needs help handling those pirates. I’ll kill you if you let them down!”

Idia felt wrong blowing off his concern as the Captain shoved him into the mechanic’s cockpit. It sounded as frantic as the flashing lights above. When he entered the room full of monitors and buttons, he expected the beaming mechanic to be seriously locking in like the rest of the crew. Straight-faced and typing frantically as they demanded they get started.

“Hiya Idy, glad you could join the party!”

They were chewing on a straw and casually inviting him to take on different lines of quickly evolving codes all meant to shut down all functions in the WonderRide. It was a constant barrage of violent changing code to sift through and negate with each others code. 

“This is bad (Y/n). We won’t be able to make it!”

“We will. It’ll be close but we can do this.”

“W-what if I throw in my ace in the hole?” 

He vaguely flashed a look at their face illuminated by red light, seeing their eyebrow quirk in confusion. 

“I’ve got another bug, if we can send it to their system it might give us the break we need to get on top of it.”

“Idy that’s crazy,” they paused looking around. Idia was prepared for this, for the betrayal that’d spread across their face as they connected the dots. He let his hands work on their own watching their expression as they turned back to him, holding something in their hand.

“I was thinking the same thing!”

Idia once again felt that the room needed more air circulation, with how hot he was under his collar. Both of them coordinating the release of their viruses to send to the attacking software. Naturally the assault worked perfectly, allowing more than an enough time for the both of them to defend against the slowing barrage of malicious code. Sharing a high-five as the red alarm stopped blaring and coms with the Captain rang through, “Hey we’re regulating our flight patterns and getting out of their range. Splendid work.”

The mechanic cheered while Idia silently celebrated. He’d usually mourn the loss of such a cultivated virus but for whatever reason the Mechanic’s praise seemed to fill the space. 

Idia felt like he could get used to this.

____________________________________________________________

“If you want, I’ll sign your release forms from the WonderRide.”

The words coming from the Captain was startling. A month ago he’d jump at the chance to accept but his sight drifted to look at the empty chair of the mechanic. It was a longer day, the night cycle fully in swing and a good chunk of the crew had retired. 

For a change Idia was on the quarter deck, shadowing the mechanic as the Captain continued to monitor the state of the ship. He seemed more focused than usual despite the peaceful cruise. 

“I realize you may not be dedicated to risking your life when it comes to stopping fellow criminals that threaten to take the I.F.F.I down.” Rollo continued not waiting for Idia’s answer, “I can have you sent to another department, one on the ground and more covert.”

“Y-you would do that?”

The Captain sent a scathing look to him, activating minor shields still continuing to monitor the autopilot. 

“It was an option given after your trial. The members of the WonderRide take an oath both under the council and among each other. Where we’ve promised to protect one another with our lives on the pursuit of peace.”

Idia smugly shook his head,”It still surprises me that the rumored creator of the fireseed, suddenly cares for justice and peace.”

The hacker dryly laughed as the Captain refused to look at him. 

“My closed incident aside. I’ve commited to giving my life protecting members on this ship under the influence of one person.”

That caught Idia’s attention.

“(Y/n)?”

Rollo hummed,”I’ve ultimately dedicated all my energy to eradicate the threats that endanger their life…along with the other members of the WonderRide. But I don’t expect someone like you to want to give your life for that.”

Idia opened his mouth to speak, stopping at a gloved hand stopping him.

“Don’t give me whatever drivel you’ve come up with to maintain your innocence. I can tell you enjoy their attention but I advise you leave before you get too attached.”

Grayish, green-blue eyes stared into Idia’s golden eyes. 

Goading him. 

Testing him.

“Otherwise you’ll surely end up dying, protecting them.”

Idia wanted to say something but a blaring bleeping on his screen stopped him. Sitting up properly to blow the graphic up on the large screen.

“There’s a ship directed towards us. It’s moving way too fast to be a cruiser….I think?”

Rollo took control turning off autopilot with a push of a button.

“You’re right. I suspected they’d come for us like this.” 

He flicked on a button that flashed an orange warning along the halls and walls—instructing everyone to strap in and secure themselves. Idia hurriedly was going to do the same until Rollo yelled.

“Not you. I’m going to engage in some evasive maneveurs but I need you to secure (Y/n).”

“What? But can’t they see the warning.”

“They should but I know (Y/n). They’ll have their nose stuck in whatever their doing, far too distracted to actually secure themself.”

For whatever reason that comment was painful.

“But I don’t know wh–”

Rollo clicked his tongue, as he tapped the floating keyboard. Letting it shift and fold to resemble a pilot’s handles and buttons. Putting his hand on the handle and lightly moving it, Idia could feel the ship sway in sync.

“You’ll have to decide if you want to quit later but for now you need to secure them. Now!”

After managing to get a decent foothold the hacker ran off, mind racing as he tried to recall what they ran off to do. Vaguely remembering that they mentioned wires he took off to the wire room only to find it empty. 

“Where else could they have gone when they said–”

Immediately he took off further down the hall closer to the kitchen. Recalling how they occasionally brought the topic of snacks back up and then checking the digital storage copies. He ran occasionally bumping into the walls as the jerking of the ship got more intense.

He yelled when he arrived at the closed door to engineering room. Banging his fists on the door in frustration before finally looking at the keypad. Realizing this room took a specific code, Idia pulled out a master keycard. One he’d replicated and kept for himself.

Finally hearing the hissing of the door it opened to the dark engineering room filled with electric storage bins that displayed a secured locked signal. Everything seemed in place except for the mechanic on the floor motionless. 

“(Y/n)!”

Sliding to the ground he worked to sit them up, leaning the mechanic on his chest while he brought his face close feeling the light push of air against his cheek. He immediately backed away reeling with relief and bashfullness. He adjusted them to lean on him between his legs, trapping them against on of the organizational beams in the room. Holding tight to the bar and to (Y/n) themself he thought about what Rollo had said. 

He had the option to return to the life he knew. 

Stars, if he wanted to he could even recraft the bug that nearly brought the entire federation down. Return to the virtual space he ruled over, constantly aiming for the top spot in the galaxies. 

Or he could stay here…with you. His smiling mechanic, that shared in his love for technology. That spoke to him like he didn’t dismantle years of your hard work in a week. That was still cracking jokes while their ship was under siege. Staring down at your sleeping face he clutched the mechanic even tighter, letting his head rest against your own. 

Was it crazy that he sympathized with Rollo now? Outright threatening any newcomers on the ship. Hoping to squash the pirate regime not because they’re a threat to the federation but because they’ve caused you pain. 

He couldn’t help the smile that spread across his face. Unlike Rollo–who was better suited for a leading role–Idia was immediately placed in your department. Demanded special attention by the council because everyone was so cautious about him. Being his solemotivator and friend was more mandatory then he could have hoped. It’s a given what his answer would be.

“The real crime would be to give you up.”

[divineerdrick]

Homestuck Beyond Canon Upd8 for October 8, 2024

Here we are! This might be the end of the current story arc, and we'll finally get to see if Vriska successfully makes it out of this. I was also informed a while back that today is the one year anniversary of the HICU taking over the comic.

Before I jump in, I had a theory I wanted to put out there. I was thinking more about how Vriska was always destined to go down these two paths and what that might mean. Now we know she had different fates than the two we saw. In fact, we saw a third indirectly. We saw it when an Aradiabot from a doomed timeline where Gamzee snapped early revealed a surprise final piece of Doc Scratch's code. That reveal was a book Gamzee made in the blood of the other trolls. And Vriska's blood is in there.

But only two Vriskas are ever seen in the bubbles, probably because the Vriskas that survive to their creation are always the same. Do any Vriskas lost along the way matter? We don't really know. They might still be important, but the lion share of Vriska appears to be split into two fates.

Now, thinking back to the epilogues (I know that can be hard) Dirk describes the process of becoming a fully realized or ascended God Tier.

And some of you just saw where I'm going with this.

Dirk became a full God of Heart first because of how connected he was to his splinters. Rose followed as her continued explorations of fortune connected more and more of her deviating paths through Paradox Space. And Dave . . . well he got a very Dave ascension. Honestly with how well he handled the multiple version of himself running around, an Obama pep talk was likely more than what was needed.

But there's only two Vriskas that need to come together.

If Vriska can accept herself, the team on Candy C will have a fully realized and ascended Thief of Light on their side. One that has already exerted narrative control before! That might be enough to help fix a lot. And if Vriska has anything to say about it, and you know she will, things might really start moving.

News Upd8

We get a team post this time! They're mostly just excitedly gushing about the milestone and some of the things that have happened in the past year. But they also reminding us the first big flash is coming. I honestly can't wait!

James mentions that this is not originally what was planned and that they were just going to make a bunch of connected shorts originally. I still like stuff like that, but I'm glad they were able to get this going again.

There's a lot of thank yous from the team. But I still feel like I want to thank them for continuing this in such a wonderful way. This comic and this community has been really important to me for a while now, and I'm eternally grateful there are still "semi-official" things coming from it.

James does give us a bit of an outline on the progress for EOA1. It sounds like things are still early, but they're hoping to hit one of the "funny numbers". The next one will be 11/11 or one of the kid's birthdays. But 413 sounds like a good project deadline to me.

They're continuing with two upd8s this month, so I'll need to try to make sure I catch the next one in a more timely fashion.

Upd8

We've cut away from Vriska. As the news said, no more VN for us. We return to Candy Earth C and our stressed out adults.

Kanaya has left on her own for now. Her fury has not yet been satisfied it seems, with what Rose took as an implied threat from her. Also, I just noticed the subtle space symbol in Jade's shield. Nice touch!

Still a lot of justly tense and uncomfortable conversation going on. Jade really wants to fix things. She feels like she's the one to blame and she needs to make things right. But Rose doesn't particularly seem receptive. I don't think she wants Jade's help. Also, there's a mention of Rose losing her temper over a conversation about her mom. I think it's mostly meant as a little nod to how much older they all are and that things have happened that we never got to see. But I can't help but wonder how things went down.

Yeah, this is pretty painful. Jade really wants to do the right thing, but Rose has formed her own opinion of the best course of action. And now she's trying to convince Jade it doesn't involve her.

Hamster guy? I'm pretty sure I'd remember hamster guy so this has to be something new.

Honestly, Jade is sounding a bit more mature than Rose here. It's painful, but she's right. Reality has very little to do with a person's "truth." The only sensible path to change a person's perspective is usually the empathetic one where you focus on understanding where they're coming from. Even then, all you can usually accomplish is being someone they might turn to when an external event breaks the reality in their head.

Speaking of personal truth's, Jade has been feeling that so many of her friends haven't really cared about what's going on. That might have been a little true for Dave, but I think she got a completely wrong read on John. John very much cared, he just wasn't good at doing anything about it. That's one of the reasons he suffered from depression, one of the reasons he was always trying to fix something or do something important. But between the glimpses of her in the epilogues and the credits, I get the impression she was constantly trying to reach out to him. From her perspective, John's depression might have seemed to be apathy.

But big surprise the one that grew up so isolated is having the hardest time getting a read on people.

THE ART!!!

Urgh! Oh this is bad! Rose is just suppressing everything she's dealing with. Admittedly, there's a lot going on right now. But it sounds like she's not trying to process any of the stuff that's been occurring on this crazy version of Earth C. She especially can't seem to deal with Roxy, and that's apparently been causing more problems than we've seen.

I'm not sure I agree with Rose here. I don't believe an absolute truth has to be derived from authority. But then, to the best of my knowledge, I don't live in Paradox Space. It's hard to hold to the truth of observable reality when it can be so easily changed and manipulated.

Interesting . . . Rose has turned to her powers as a form of coping mechanism. As things get hard, she begins trying to sort out all the "meandering side-paths." The rote of it, the monotony, is soothing to her the way a "cozy game" is to me. And if she's successful, she gains insight and even something to look forward to.

Oh no! Rose has seen a future where Calliope will sacrifice herself to try and save everything! And worse it doesn't work! Things are apparently more dire than we thought, and that's with Jane running around in Condesce mode!

Huh! If I'm parsing that right, Rose is going to suffer a mortal wound but one that won't trigger the God Tier clock. Instead she'll have to recover like a normal person will. Ouch! This immortality really isn't all it's cracked up to be.

And the other shoe drops! The reason why Rose agreed to something like this, the reason she's been so cold and distant. While she's recovering from the bullet wound, Kanaya will be alone. With what she's done, Kanaya will have the impetus to seek independence. She hasn't seen the end result, but she believes Kanaya will have a more fulfilling life this way. She's been driving her wife away so this Kanaya won't be left in paralyzed mourning the way Meat Kanaya seems to be. That is a horribly dangerous game, and one almost guaranteed to backfire.

But apparently Rose doesn't think any of it matters. Like Dirk, she thinks this universe is irrelevant and doomed. She knows what John needed to do, and here John didn't do it. She's hasn't quite gotten to the optimistic point of nihilism, but the apparent lack of meaning is providing her with some relief.

Do I honestly need to say anything here!

Rose has been able to play the rain for a while now. But as her powers have matured, she's gotten better at it. Though this makes it sound not so much like she's playing it, as dancing to a tune beyond her control. But then, this Rose doesn't feel the need to control anything.

Can you imagine accidentally bumping head first into a figure of myth and legend?

Karkat and Kanaya have a bond that goes well beyond anything they ever developed with their human lovers. Even if Karkat's power wasn't literally over the bond of Blood, they've survived so much together it honestly wouldn't matter. And right now, Karkat's opinion of the humans that sat on the sidelines while their Troll friends needed them isn't exactly high.

COME ON!!!

Jane is still processing her conversation and some of things that came of it. Does Jane think she could have convinced more of her friends to stand with her? Does she think she could have saved Dirk from the fate he chose?

Also in a very real way she doesn't quite look human in that image. Even though I think this might be a human moment for her, she's made her visage, consciously or not, monstrous. The Condesce's crown is a collar around her neck.

Unfortunately she's decided that rather than learn from her mistakes, she might as well just plow on and build something new and better. She is a god after all.

Love how they're teasing out the reveal of what has come of Jake's epiphany.

I'm not posting that image. Even with my heavy use of spoiler tags, I'm not risking it.

Oh come on! You didn't make it a clean shot! Goddammit Jake!

Well that's one way to cut from that. I mean HOLY SHIT!!!

Jake appears to not be out of this yet. This almost feels like a callback to Vriska sitting on the beach after a failure. Can the big man recover from it?

And we end with Rose having just left Tavy and Yiffy with a letter and some snacks.

Wow! That was intense!

It legit seems like nothing, not even a bullet, is changing Jane's mind. And I mean, I know Jane is a god, but come on! Could Jake seriously not get a good clean shot off? Wow!

Y'know, honestly I can see it. Despite his awakening, he had to play it out like one of his movies. That was just enough time for Jane to realize what was going on and quickly dodge out of the way. Then, rather than quickly ending it, he had to quibble out an apology.

Honestly, I just don't think he was truly capable of doing it, so he sabotaged himself. He's just lucky that all the pummeling he's gone through has toughened him up enough that he might get another shot. That is if he doesn't get wiped out in whatever that cake-shaped, doomsday device she has in orbit does.

Fuck that was a ride. And a really tense one at that! Guess now we're waiting for next upd8 this month!

[leohtttbriar]

this entire episode was incredibly fraught and it's conclusion was almost willfully blind and offensive but also it definitely reveals a lot about the paradigm of thought in which the voyager writers were operating. like, i kept wondering since i started watching voyager why they felt the need to make up a tribe instead of grounding chakotay in the many real people of indigenous american communities. and i guess this episode, "tattoo," offered their reasoning for that choice. as baffling and ill-conceived and un-creative as that reasoning is.

see. there was one moment in this episode where i thought the story they were telling wasn't about to be the most frustrating thing ever. this moment was when young-chakotay references how other tribes are not living in the past, but his and his father's is. the simple idea that not all people are one and the same, that indigenous communities can be and are distinct and not a single amalgamation easily filed under one label, as well as the idea that tribes yet exist--that they are not and have not been vanishing. i thought, after this conversation, that the story was going to go on like a wakanda-type route, where the "fantasy" and "myth" chakotay is criticizing above is actually just a specific sort of highly-developed and protected tech and the people of his tribe were isolationists. i thought when we first saw that peaceful symbol on the alien planet that we were about to be treated to an alternate yet hidden history of a tribe from earth having achieved space-travel far before anyone else from earth did and kept it secret. i thought that might justify, a little bit, making up a tribe instead of picking one and hiring several consultants/writers for the writing room.

obviously, i thought wrong. more fool me--like this episode came out the same decade as dances with wolves. i genuinely should've known better.

i think one of the main mistakes (informed by the umbrella ""mistake"" (i.e. profound and deliberate crimes again humanity) of violent and merciless colonialism, which continues to inform how people interact with the world and will continue to do so for as long as we can imagine) is the treatment of the "myth" and "fantasy." like, another made-up indigenous people in star trek is the bajoran people in ds9, which i think exposes a lot of the writers' perspectives about chakotay. i don't think it's a coincidence that they made the leader of the maquis cell that had to be absorbed into the voyager crew explicitly indigenous. or that said leader had a whole situationship with a bajoran character who thinks very, very little of starfleet and janeway. these are all part of the same creative impulse. and it's a rich idea, started in ds9 and continued into voyager--the maquis, their relationship to bajor and cardassia and the federation, and what their principles are. and through that idea, you can see that the 90s star trek writers were trying to draw from real-world indigenous resistance to shape these freedom-fighters as well as from real-world indigenous insight to shape the bajoran (and chakotay's) spirituality. in that: they made the spirituality "real."

the bajoran deities are real beings. thus the bajoran people have a super special relationship to the land. and the deities are material and there. chakotay's spirituality also is "real", in that it has a direct effect on the material happenings in an episode. this sort of thing can either be: spirituality is drawn from the material world/material insights and human consciousness is a very powerful thing OR these particular people have a "magical" connection to nature. based on everything to do with these spiritualities i've seen in these two shows, it definitely feels like they were going more for the latter.

and then in this episode (!) they make the writing decision to explicitly say that all indigenous people in the americas were inspired by and directly gained wisdom from a bunch of special aliens who wanted to make sure the land of earth was protected and so appointed all the american indigenous people as guardians. like they were One people who both had a super special connection to the land and had to be given that special connection and didn't, like, historically shape and influence and change the ecosystems and flora and fauna in permanent and far-reaching ways, over many tens of thousands of years and many types of tech and city-building and migration patterns and cultural practices, all as or more diverse than the land they were living on.

the reluctance to attribute cerebrality and deliberately produced technology to anyone not of western european descent is just so so present in this episode and in the character of chakotay. him and the bajorans--their gods are real and their myths are real and not the product of richly-thought traditions and reasoning practices. no, their religion is thus far un-evolved. they're not like the white american characters who aren't praying to jesus bc christ is a made-up god and those white people have moved on (""evolved"" maybe, ughhh) and separated themselves from nature and their base instincts about religiosity. no they still pray to their gods who can absolutely answer their prayers if they wanted to.

the thing is. it's just oppression 101 to construct a binary and make one half of that binary Human Beings with Great Minds and the other half Adjacent Human Beings Who Are Close to Nature. like all the oppressions work through that basic framework.

the impulse to use indigeneity as an entry point into environmentalism isn't ridiculous. but people (i mean, white european "philosophy") miss the whole step where the reason you often see tribes making such headway with environmental activism is because they are being politically astute and they recognize that "land" being abstracted in the way it has been since Locke (and obviously before that but Locke is the most relevant thinker in terms of like land policy?) is actually irrational. you can't just build a tube of poison over a water-source. that is Idiotic. that is a thing that Unthinking beings do. iron eyes cody crying over pollution on a highway is not an accurate representation of the land-rights justice that tribes all over the americas have been fighting for.

the thing about "myth" and "fantasy" is that they are philosophies. they inform and represent great abstract and fully-reasoned ideas. and this episode so easily could've been about that. when we start with the flashback of young chakotay noticing the symbol on the rock and his dad praising him and chakotay saying "i only saw it because of a lizard," i thought that could be a way to show how lived experiences allow different people to notice different things about the world. it's not magic, it's practice and thought. but the episode just goes on and on, getting further and further into the racist ideas of the innocent and close-to-nature natives, the "noble savage", and the idea that any great insight originating in a non-white people came from aliens.

(and somehow these biases get transported to the bajoran characters, all of whom are actually played by white characters, which shows how these biases are an actual paradigm and not some sort of 'instinctual prejudice' like racists like to claim their racism is--i.e., not their fault and can't be unlearned.)

this got me thinking about "far beyond the stars." how it works as a futurism and as a comment on racism now. how the futurism is in fact an argument: that the future belongs to everyone; that exploration and great thoughts and great adventures belong to everyone; how this can be framed as inevitable because it is right; how imagining it so is the first step towards actualization; how people are thinkers and they will make a world that is so expansive and so egalitarian that a black man will captain and discover and exist in the stars and among wonder and different people and so much life. and this works as a speculative piece because there is present in its foundation the idea is justice is not retrospective. as going back is impossible, people build forward. sisko imagines forward, and even as he's imagining backward to being a scifi writer in the 20th century, he's still imagining forward.

this episode, "tattoo," completely misses how "far beyond the stars" functioned. how speculation and futurism work as commentaries on the past and the now. it's particular and personal and doesn't imply that an alien species is the reason for any future liberation. or that innocence is a virtue. or that such innocence is due to "protecting the land" (which means one thing and one thing only) and thus gives one magical powers over the weather.

personally, i think chakotay should've found descendants of his tribe from earth on that alien planet--not aliens. i think the episode should've been about how that symbol for peace or something was a symbol for some sort of logical proof of sorts and these descendants should've used it as a technology that could affect the weather through some sci-fi star-treky technobabble that enables telepathy. i think this advancement should've been fundamentally rooted in what the descendants learned long ago on earth by studying the stars and birds and building cities and pyramids. philosophies that are entrenched and informed by a deep understanding of the natural world, expressed not just through tech but through spiritual practice, while not being relegated to """"primitivity.""""

but also i'm definitely not the best person to ask. and the main problem here is that they made up a tribe and put themselves in a position of not really being able to ask anyone.

like i loved chakotay being able to reexamine his past and his relationship to his father and his connection to the galaxy at large. i loved that he found a semi-home so so far away from his own planet. i love that they wrote a character doing that, finding a place of true belonging seventy-thousand light years away. i think that's an interesting as well as important story to tell. but the framing and argument provided in the episode undercut that story so much.

anyway as i am not the person to ask, i'll just leave this excerpt from a paper written by a much much smarter person than me about a sci-fi movie made by navajo filmmaker nanobah becker about the project of cultivating mars:

"Science Fiction, Westerns, and the Vital Cosmo-ethics of The 6th World," Salma Monani

[zvtara-was-never-canon]

There is 58 years between the first plane flight, and a human going to space.

Technological advancements happen very quickly, so yeah that argument is mute. Even if you believe Santos Dumant was the first person to do it, that's still 63 years between his flight and a human going to space.

Also I'm not sure in which universe is democracy a widely American concept.

Even before Ancient Greece in the Vajjika Republic in 6th century bce India is widely considered to be the first example of a democratic Republic.

Also democracy is literally only in Republic City, which didn't have real democracy until the end of Book 1, and the earth kingdom who was suffering under a bad case of fascism. And Queen Hou-Ting, what ever godamm name was, sucked dick and was a terrible ruler.

The water tribes kept their chiefs, they just get to vote on it. The northern water tribe chiefdom is hereditary. The fire nation kept their firelord

Korra did not spread democracy everywhere, unlike where you claim they forced it.

Poor earth kingdom citizens, they must miss being a selfish queen who never did anything to help them, and let theives go wild, and then the facist dictator, who put people into concentration camps.

In HISTORY leaps in technology have happened fast. In a STORY you need to be careful not to make the whole thing feel like it's set in a different universe - and when we go from rudimentary industrialization, some of which is openly treated as a PROBLEM by the original's shows narrative because nature's worth and it's key role in keeping balance are a central theme in several episodes, all the way to Ford 1s everywhere, big ass factories that would obviously cause a lot of polution, lightningbending going from rare to something common that is used to give everyone electricity, all because the writers wanted to change the aesthetic from Meiji Era Japan to Prohibition Era New York, I'm gonna say that shit went a bit too far.

I didn't say americans invented democracy, I'm saying it's very common for american writers to push their own way of life as the only correct one, because there's literally over a century of the government spreading propaganda about "The american dream" and "the american way of life" to EVERYONE, including people in the USA, where the writers were raised - which is why the city that is supposed to represent the all four nations suddenly goes from "Very obviously east asian" to "Very obviously USA stuff that was never present in the old show." The character of Korra isn't running around saying "The US is inherently better", but the show very much is by making the symbol of balance and harmony so PAINFULLY american.

Now, don't get me wrong, I'm not saying Bryke or anyone involved in the making of Korra was actively trying to make propaganda, they were just influenced by it and repeated some of it without even realizing it - and so did you with the bizarre leap in logic of "If you criticize the way americans, knowingly and unknowingly, tend to push their way of life as the default/superior one in stories, that means you think the fascist villain had a point/is not that bad"

If you like Korra as a show, including the whole concept of Republic City, that's fine. It's none of my business. But as someone who literally had to study American propaganda pieces and the long lasting influence it had in media, there is NOTHING you or anyone can say to me that will convince me that is not a reflex of propaganda that breaks the world-building that had been very coherent and consistent in the previous show. Either deal with that, or block the tags/my blog.

[raylaandcallum]

Ryomina gardening together on the dorm rooftop? Maybe Ryoji trying to flirt with flower language

Ryoji/Minato

1,5k

Come spring

The rooftop door creaked, and Minato looked up from the bag of soil he was holding.

"Minato!" Ryoji greeted him with a brilliant smile.

He looked as handsome as ever, but the moment he stepped on the rooftop, the wind started whipping his scarf and hair.

Minato allowed himself a slight chuckle.

"What are you doing here?" he asked, still crouching.

"I came by to hang out with Junpei." Ryoji joined him at his side and peered at the bag curiously. "But he said he was busy. I didn't want to leave since I came all this way, so Fuuka helpfully told me you were up here," he finished with that same dazzling smile, but when those eyes were directed only on him...

Minato tried to focus on the conversation again. "Too bad Junpei's not free. The dorm isn't exactly on your way."

Ryoji nodded. "Which is why I decided to find someone else's time to monopolize, namely, yours."

Minato looked up at him, but the sun made him squint, ruining the desired effect. "Did the rest all draw long straws so it fell on me?"

"Har har. I won't bother you if you're really busy, but..."

Minato sighed with dramatic indifference. "I was in the middle of preparing these pots for the new plants, but you can keep me company if you want."

"Really?" Ryoji put a hand on his shoulder as he leaned over him to look at the seed bags on the floor.

"How about I help you? It'll go faster with two people. And before you complain, I promise I won't ruin anything."

Minato gently shook off his hand so he could finally stand up and face him. "I wouldn't say something like that." He was almost insulted and a bit sad that Ryoji thought of him as cold. Maybe he still had himself to blame; he knew he didn't really come off as outgoing to most people.

"You should put your scarf away, it might get in the way."

Ryoji moved to do as directed and then returned to his side once again, rolling his sleeves up.

Minato allowed himself to notice it innocently for half a second.

Dammit.

"Can you get the rest of the pots from there and that fertilizer bag if it's not too heavy? I wanted to plant most of what I had in mind today. I really appreciate your help." He tried to keep his voice even as he looked at Ryoji.

He hated how his nerves betrayed him in such a silly situation, but was determined not to let it show. Nothing good would come from flirting with this infuriatingly attractive ladies' man. He thought he glimpsed beneath the surface of it, but if that was what Ryoji really wanted...

"Um, Earth to Minato?" Ryoji waved a hand in front of his face. He looked concerned. Dammit, dammit, dammit.

"Sorry, I space out for a second. Thank you." He nodded in the direction of the materials Ryoji brought.

Ryoji raised an eyebrow but thankfully didn't pry further.

Once Minato directed him on what to do with each pot, they worked in silence. Minato felt himself growing too nervous to start a casual conversation topic, and he hoped Ryoji was too engrossed in the work to pay it much mind.

"So what are we planting?" Ryoji broke the silence.

That he could handle, Minato thought.

"Flowers, mostly. I'm not really confident to keep up with fruits and vegetables with finals so near. And I've got more experience with these."

"Really?" Ryoji perked up. "Which ones?"

"I've got here irises, columbines and some thyme. I'd like to experiment with more different kinds, but those'll wait until spring."

"Interesting combination. Are they for anyone in particular?"

Minato gave a confused shrug. "Not really? Just for us here at the dorm to enjoy."

Ryoji laughed. Minato didn't know what he found funny in that, but his traitorous heart helpfully supplied he'd like to hear Ryoji laugh more.

"I think it's perfect. The symbolism fits."

... Busted.

"You... um, you know much about that?"

"About flowers? Of course, they make the perfect gifts."

He hummed in response.

"I find it fascinating how such small beings can hold so much life, beauty and meaning in them. They can be different for each person, but we can all appreciate them in the end." Ryoji paused, his hands still stuck in the dirt, like he was considering something.

"Yeah. You put it really nicely. It's kind of a comforting presence to have some around."

"I know what you mean. I don't think I've ever bothered having my own since we moved so much, but whenever I'd go out in nature, it was like witnessing another world."

Minato silently nodded, working on autopilot while he processed his words.

"I'm really glad I found you up here," Ryoji suddenly started, turning to look at Minato.

Minato found himself looking back without realizing what devastating effect Ryoji's smile had on him. But it wasn't his usual, brighter-than-light smile. This one was smaller, subdued, but Minato had a feeling it was just as genuine. He hoped it was as a small blush spread across his cheeks.

"If you'd like, I could help you with these again. I'm somewhat attached to them now after planting so many. I want to see them grow."

Damn his foolish heart. It would have its way in the end, so Minato blurted out: "We can grow some other ones too. Do you have any in mind you'd like to see?"

That seemed to take Ryoji by surprise. His eyes widened, and he scratched his cheek, forgetting the dirt that was on his hands and therefore leaving a smear of mud in the middle of it.

"Um... What about tulips? They're gorgeous to see, especially red and yellow ones. Just in time for spring. And maybe... gardenias. They're less subtle than tulips, but together they'll go really nicely. If we plant them just right, it'll be a beautiful arrangement." He smiled again, but there was color in his cheeks like the red tulips he spoke of. His eyes didn't seem to hold his usual loud confidence, but they shone with joy nonetheless.

It was impossible not to return that smile.

"That's a great idea. We can go shopping for them together. I know the lady at Rafflesia might have some helpful tips too, so we can ask her. By the time we see how these ones grow along, maybe I'll have an idea of how good the fertilizer is, so I'll know whether we need to replace it..."

Minato was caught up in the idea of growing flowers with Ryoji. When he realized he was rambling, he trailed off uncomfortably.

Ryoji wasn't looking at him anymore, his gaze was fixated on something on the ground.

Minato furrowed his brows. "Sorry, I can go on for a while when it's about plants. Don't worry though, it won't be too difficult."

Ryoji finally met his eyes. "Rafflesia, huh? I actually heard there that..." He regaled him with useful tips about growing flowers he picked up here and there.

Minato tried to listen, but he couldn't escape a hunch that something was wrong. That Ryoji wasn't feeling well. The way he unconsciously fixed his collar reminded him of the way he'd hide his face in his scarf. A habit he like to observe out of the corner of his eye entirely too much when he had the chance.

They sat with their back to the railing, and Minato found himself enjoying the conversation, and even more if he was being honest, Ryoji's presence and the sound of his voice.

He thought back to the moment Ryoji was full of smiles before he fell silent. He wanted them to grow tulips and gardenias....

Minato widened his eyes. His heart was trying to kill him, as far as he was concerned. The tiny spark of hope he trained so hard to grow in other aspects of his life began to ignite. And it wouldn't let him go.

As soon as there was a lull in the conversation, he casually asked: "Hey, do you mind if we add another flower to the list of ones we're gonna grow?"

Ryoji shook his head. "Not at all. What did you come up with?"

Minato turned his head to look at Ryoji. They were sitting really close, almost shoulder to shoulder. Ryoji looked just as beautiful in profile.

"Daffodils."

His face was on fire as he laid all his pathetic hopes out for the world to see.

Now it was Ryoji's turn to look at him and widen his eyes.

Just a tilt of his head and he would be...

"Did you know that daffodils have quite a romantic meaning?" His voice was quiet. Minato could only stare.

He swallowed. "Yeah?"

"What are you gonna do with them?"

"I was thinking... maybe I could have some in my room once they've bloomed. You could take some too. If you wanted."

"I'd love that." This smile was as briliant as it was genuine.

"Mhm." Minato finally tored his gaze from Ryoji and turned away.

"I can't wait," he simply said.

"Me neither." Ryoji chuckled.

As their shoulders brushed again each other's, Minato allowed himself to embrace the hope he'd been denying himself. It made him excited for all the days that were to come if Ryoji would be close to him.

Fin

thank you so much for the ask!! this has been eating away at me ever since i got it. the idea is so cute, but minato's ghost possessed me and said i have to include pining minato too.

the language of flowers

hope you liked it!

i will be posting these one shots on ao3 too, iwa_chan4

accepting more ryomina prompts!

[clonedchaos]

Kong and Suko Headcanons + Shimo Part 2

Since quite a few of you enjoyed part 1 of this post, I finally came up with some more head canons! (With a bit of fluffy Kong x Shimo tossed in there because that ship has grown on me quite a bit as of late. I think it’s cute and creates room for tons of wholesome interactions for both parties)

Also also, I have been wanting to write a short story featuring these three ever since I saw the movie all the way back in March. I haven’t had time or energy for it, but now that I’ve started writing again and have began taking meds for my ADHD, I might release it soon! :D Nothing too long or crazy, mostly just fluff and hurt/comfort regarding things I’ve discussed in this post as well as the other part. With, of course, some underlying conflict.

Shimo is harshly underdeveloped in terms of social interaction. Unlike Suko, she values her own personal space. Kong tries his best to take things slow and offers her affectionate pats every once in a while to show she’s appreciated and acknowledged in his space. Once she’s gotten used to the touch, she’ll usually headbutt Kong’s shoulder as a way of saying “I want to be acknowledged.”

Shimo flinches whenever any ape raises their fist, thinking they’re going to strike her. As a defense, her body automatically freezes the area surrounding her. Consequently, she hates loud, sudden noises as well. Suko and Kong are the main ones who help calm her down.

Not only are Shimo’s social skills underdeveloped, but so are her communication skills. When she speaks, most of it comes out in a broken speech pattern. (Think of it like how people used to speak hundreds of years ago- Shimo- compared to modern day- most other intelligent Kaiju). She more than likely speaks in the third person out of habit. Kong does daily lessons with her to get her up to speed and make conversations between her and the pack easier.

Suko likes to tamper with/examine various machinery that Illene and the other humans bring to Hollow Earth. Sometimes it can be hard for Monarch to get things done with the little ape rummaging about.

Shimo was the one that fell first. She never had a healthy relationship with any creature since the Skar King imprisoned her. But with Kong, she was free to do what she pleased. Above all, she was safe. She watched him turn the pack into a community where everyone was respected and cared for, despite all obstacles.

Shimo feels guilty for the nerve damage her frostbite did to Kong’s hand, despite the fact that it happened under the Skar King’s control. Kong has assured he harbors no ill will towards her, but Shimo can’t shake the idea that deep down he resents her. Sometimes she’ll grab the glove in her mouth and playfully nibble on the metal (without damaging it) to try and make light of things.

I think their difference in habitat is kind of cool. Shimo is drawn to Kong because of his warmer body temperature, while Kong sits near her if the humid heat of the lava gets too unbearable. And I find it ironic given how in G v K he hated the snow, but spending time with Shimo made him hate it a little less.

Suko loves chewing on ice as a snack. Shimo is his infinite ice cube spawner.

Shimo will occasionally forget his how big she is and flop down onto her friends. (She’s like a giant Great Dane trying to sit on their human’s lap)

Suko has a habit of tackling people when he’s very excited. As stated at the beginning of this post, he lacks any understanding of personal space. This is, in part, due to past trauma of losing his caretaker. It is a huge reason as to why he refuses to sleep alone at night. He’s afraid that if he’s not by someone, he’ll lose them.

Shimo forms little ice figures that she gives to Kong as a gift. It’s her main way of showing affection.

Kong likes to take sticks and draw various symbols and figures into the mud. More often than not, Shimo will rest her head atop his and watch the process. He gets used to it over time and sometimes forget she’s even there.

Kong isn’t used to having others around or forming friendships with people outside of Jia and Illene. Having so many of the pack look up to him is subtly intimidating and puts a weight on his shoulders that he hadn’t had since before the storm on Skull Island. He also doesn’t immediately catch onto or understand the fact that Shimo likes him (Mothra is probably the one who notices first. She likes to keep tabs between the surface world and Hollow Earth). This is mostly a joke but what if Suko tries to set Shimo and Kong up on a Kaiju date— which is just them going hunting together or something. Both of them are oblivious to it.

Shimo becomes increasingly overprotective of Kong and Suko as time passes. In dire situations when Godzilla and Kong have to meet up to stop a threat, Shimo will snap at Godzilla if he tries to provoke or pick on Kong. Godzilla is the Alpha, but Shimo isn’t too intimidated by him. Though she lacks most motivation to fight anymore, she’ll still stand up for those she has gotten close to.

Bonus:

[shining-scion]

HEY GUYS. HERE’S A LONG ASS ESSAY ABOUT WIZ AND THE REAL LIFE THINGS THAT ITS MAGIC SYSTEM CAN BE TIED TO/MAY BE INSPIRED BY. THIS WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A YOUTUBE VIDEO SCRIPT AND IT MAY STILL BE BUT A LOT OF PEOPLE DON’T REALLY LIKE MY VOICE SO.

Wizard101 is a 2008 MMO developed by Kingsisle Entertainment. It's still going strong almost 16 years later, and at the age of 5 years old it ruined my life.

Today I want to talk about the magic - specifically how the schools of magic function. Everything about the magic system in wizard101 I want to dissect, analyze and see if we can't find any real world equivalents.

(Spoilers— a lot of this ties back to alchemy.)

Let's start at the beginning, which is probably the easiest place to start - The Song of Creation.

In lore, the Song of Creation was sung by Bartleby and Raven to save the first world. They sang this song, which wove together the spiral, which is where we currently live now.

Now, the easiest way to see this is in relation to the Big Bang, which is the most widely agreed upon scientific theory for how the universe began. The wisps we collect are confirmed to be leftovers, much like the leftovers of the Big Bang we can find in space. However I think it's a little bit deeper than that.

See, the Song of Creation is a literal song - and songs famously use sound waves. I think you can take this two ways - you can take this in the scientific route, which is that strong enough sound waves can cause objects to vibrate. The Song of Creation is just an extension of that idea, it didn't create anything new, but it did weave together the Spiral in its current shape.

However, in alchemy there is a concept called the third Hermetic law. Which is, "Nothing rests; everything moves; everything vibrates."

Now, I'm not an Alchemy expert, but this is fascinating to me because, well, it's true! Atoms vibrate, nothing is ever “at rest.”

The Hermetic laws are the basis of a very very complicated philosophical and religious system based on the teachings of a hellenistic god called Hermes Trismegistus. It’s called hermeticism, and has a lot of basis in Alchemy according to my research.

So okay, you're sitting here and you're looking at me and you're going, “So what? The Song of Creation kind of lines up with the third law of some alchemic principle. who cares?”

And to that I say, there is another hermetic law that is visible within the world of the Spiral. And that is the principle of polarity.

The principle of polarity is, "Everything is dual; everything has poles; everything has its pair of opposites; like and unlike are the same; opposites are identical in nature, but different in degree; extremes meet; all truths are but half-truths; all paradoxes may be reconciled."

Fire and Ice, Storm and Myth, Life and Death. These are all polars. Even with this principal of schools of magic having opposites, there is balance, which has no opposing School. It's a paradox.

You could even say, since the system was created by Bartleby, it's a Divine Paradox.

No I'm, I'm kidding, the Divine Paradox is a completely different concept that I'll get into soon. I want to touch on one more thing.

The Philosopher's Stone is probably one of the most known and important concepts that has come out of alchemy. If you're a Fullmetal Alchemist fan, you're going to know where I'm going with this. and if you're not, what are you doing reading a post about Wizard101? Go witness peak fiction.

This is the symbol of the Philosopher's Stone. The shapes have meaning. The circles represent perfection and the eternal spirit realm - Alchemists believed that the universe was circular. The square represents Earth, and the four elements of matter - you know the answer if you’ve seen Avatar.

The triangle represents the three alchemical elements, sulfur, representing the soul, mercury, the spirit, and salt, the body. The smaller circle represents the fifth element, which is like… sort of also the spirit, but a different kind. The fifth element was believed to be a substance that would permeate all things and connect everything together.

Now if you look at the schools of magic symbol seen on the Wizard101 website…

There is this.

Look familiar?

It should.

Obviously this isn't a one-to-one recreation of the Philosopher's Stone symbol. but it's really, shockingly close. Now, maybe this is because this is just a neat and cool way to arrange your seven classes for your silly little game you made in 2008. But, the elemental schools are on the outside, and the spiritual schools are on the inside. Now the issue here does come with the fact that while the elements are on the outside, and you could argue that represents the Earth, which would line up with the fact the circle on the Philosopher's Stone symbol represented Earth, the spiritual schools and their placement on the inside doesn't 100% seem to line up with how the spirit is portrayed on the Philosopher's Stone symbol, but it's close enough for my observation to hold water, I think.

I think you can make the argument that the spiral seen on the illustration behind the spiritual schools could be your replacement for the circle seen on the Philosopher's Stone symbol.

I couldn't find anything super concrete on what the spiral could possibly symbolize in alchemy - I found a lot of things saying that it represented going from being focused on oneself in their internal world to connecting with the world around you and spiritual ascension. Take this with a grain of salt because I found a lot of spiritual websites, but I couldn't find any historical context for it. Personally, I would say that the spiral symbol, within the context of THE Spiral, would either simply act as more of like how a symbol of Earth would for us here in reality, or as some sort of symbol of binding. even then I would be hesitant to say that because a spiral symbol is seen in all runes that come with the magic schools.

Bear in mind that alchemy was never an exact science and it did seem to be more based on philosophy and stuff. Though it did lead into our understanding of chemistry here in the modern day and was essentially a pre-science, just keep in mind that theories and beliefs varied, if you go out and do your own research you might find information completely different to what I shared.

So the seven schools of magic are at least somewhat based on alchemy - cool. Everyone who's played past Malistare knows that there's a lot more to Wizard101’s magic system.

The next concept that you're introduced to in the game are the astral schools. I could talk about how celestial bodies were important to Alchemy as well, such as how the sun represented the divine spark in man, but as far as I can tell, any connections are loose.

The schools of Sun, Moon, and Star are obviously related to astrology. Now I'm sure all of you here have heard of astrology - It's essentially divination and the belief that stars and celestial bodies can influence human affairs. Celestia is full of astrology references, and even has its own set of star signs, which I could honestly go through and make this video 10 times longer, but I'm not going to for the sake of ease.

We know so little about the astral schools individually that I can't really make any connections at this point in time. Supposedly they're harder to grasp than other schools of magic - and Incredibly powerful, most likely because they draw from forces outside of the Spiral. It’s debatable whether or not the Spiral even has a sun??? Either way, outside of gameplay function, all we really know is that Star magic and Sun magic focus on auras - yourself - and enhancing your spells - external - respectively.

I could then wax poetic about how Sun and Star are essentially the same practice, but that Star has a more introspective approach while Sun has a more physical approach, but that doesn't really tie back to any real world Inspirations so I won't.

I can't really even begin to find anything for Moon Magic. Moon in the game is related to change but polymorphing is, one, kind of useless in normal gameplay, and two, an entirely separate thing from astrology.

So let's move on - to Shadow Magic.

There is a type of psychotherapy(?) called Shadow work, which originates from the concept of a Shadow Self, an idea developed by Swiss psychiatrist Carl Jung. Jung believed that the Shadow Self was a repressed part of someone's psyche - their unwanted thoughts, emotions, impulses, feelings - pretty much anything they didn't want to outwardly acknowledge, that is what was stored in the Shadow Self.

Your time with Shadow Magic involves you reconciling the Shadows with the light, which is… almost literally the purpose of Shadow work. When you are introduced to Shadow Magic in the game, it is presented to you as simply a spooky evil dark magic that the villain is using. But once you obtain it yourself you start to learn that it's not evil, it's only chaotic.

The first Shadow spell you obtain is related to your school of magic - I, a storm wizard, got the spell Shadow Shrike, a hard hitting transformation that would punish me with severe backlash if I did anything but hit. My questing partner, on the other hand, is an ice wizard, and she received Shadow Sentinel, which wanted her to tank, and only tank.

Narratively, it makes complete sense why Shadow Magic is the way it is. In some respects, it is the result of Grandmother Raven sealing away Grandfather Spider and creating the Spiral the way she did. she repressed him, and she repressed herself by refusing to acknowledge her love for him, after what he did to the first world. In a higherish level narrative sense, this creates a world built on ignoring our problems until they fester to the point where they resurface. With us acknowledging our Shadow and reconciling with it before that point we go against the grain, going against the deities themself, as they forbade it for being too dangerous, and for touching the true essence of the Spiral.

I think we could tie this back to alchemy again.

The other hermetic law, the first law actually, is "The All is Mind; the Universe is Mental."

As I understand it, this means that our thoughts have a profound impact on reality. We can shape reality through our minds - by changing our thoughts the world can change. It’s related to the idea of a collective subconscious - if you’ve played through Arc 3, you know the Spiral has one of those, it’s known as the Reverie.

This is… also kind of the basis for a lot of psychotherapy methods. In the real world this kind of just means “think good thoughts, and you'll feel better, and things won't feel as bad”, which is easier said than done.

However, in the Spiral, that statement is incredibly literal, much more in line with the original way the law was presented. Shadow Magic reacts and has a more intimate relationship with the caster than any other school of magic. you have to fight a creation based on your own fears to access Shadow Magic and use it. If that's not literally the perfect manifestation of this concept, I don’t know what is.

Which segways nicely into another concept I want to talk about - what we are - the Child of Light and Shadow - the Divine Paradox.

There's a lot of things that are seemingly unrelated that talk about the Divine Paradox. One interpretation states that it's about God - such as, if God is able to do anything, can he make a mountain that he can't move? - I saw another interpretation that stated it was that one’s strength is born out of their weakest moments. I think the latter is a very interesting way to read the Divine Paradox moment in game, however the idea of a “Divine Paradox” does have basis in alchemy.

To my understanding, it is an aspect of the law of polarity. Two opposing things will always exist, and so reconciling those two things, combining them into truly one, then must be an act of divinity.

Obviously this is something really weird when you pair this with the concept of Shadow work - if you are the Divine Paradox, an act of divinity made manifest, made so by your relationship with the shadows - does that mean reconciling with the darker parts of yourself and achieving oneness with it is an act only God can do? That’s either incredibly defeatist in the mental health department or this game was accidentally WAY more religious than I thought it was.

Luckily, your relationship with Shadows as a Shadowmancer has very little to do with being the Divine Paradox and much more to do with Bartleby.

Switching mild amounts of gears here…

Bartleby's name comes from a short story about Wall Street - so literally nothing to do with magic or alchemy, or philosophy, or anything helpful. I have no idea why the developers named Bartleby Bartleby. However, Bartleby does resemble, in design and function, Yggdrasil.

Yggdrasil is the world tree from Norse mythology. It is the center of everything and connects the nine worlds - the realm of frost, the realm of fire, the realm of peace and prosperity, the realm of men, the realm of chaos and conflict, the realm of the Vanir, Norse gods associated with magic and fertility, the realm of the elves, who inspired music and the arts, the realm of dark elves, and the realm of the dead, which is part of the realm of frost.

Bartleby not only helped create the Spiral, but it is said that his roots - probably metaphysically - touch all corners of it.

Midgard, the realm of man, is located at the center of the world tree. Wizard City, similarly, is located at the center of the Spiral, with Bartleby right in the middle of it.

Bartleby is the source of all magic - it could be argued that every act of magic, no matter the source it draws from, runs through him. He connects all things in the Spiral.

Thus, we, the players, as his Scion, are the Divine Paradox in the same way he is. He is Myth and Storm as one, he is Fire and Ice burning and freezing together - because he is all magic.

I wouldn’t go so far as to say he is the fifth element, because I really do not think Wizard101 is following the practice of alchemy that closely. (And that has some really weird implications!)

One more thing I want to talk about really quickly, is the symbol associated with Bartleby, and by extension, his Scion.

If you’ve played the Catacombs, you have probably seen these symbols.

This is known as a triskelion. It’s a real symbol. Within the context of Wizard101, it represents Bartleby, and a type of magic - not school, more like a way of practice - done by his followers, the Treeminders.

Outside of Wizard101, It’s mainly attributed to Celtic religions, but it was used as far back as the Neolithic age. This symbol represents trinities such as life, death, and rebirth. Mainly, it’s seen as a symbol for growth and progression.

The concept of trinities makes sense for Bartleby - he isn’t the only deity within the Spiral. He is the balance between the two extremes of Raven and Spider, and you, as his Scion, are the extension of that idea - as early as arc 2 you were connecting two extremes, and since the beginning you have been uniting differences to create a better world.

I’m not sure how much of this was intended or researched in depth, but either way, this was REALLY fun to research, and I think it’s a pretty neat way to read the Spiral.

[sabrondabrainrot]

WAS NO ONE GONNA TELL ME

WHAT DO YOU MEAN SUN'S CODE WaS THE THING TO REVIVE SOLAR

WhAT DO YOU mEaN??? THE THING NEW MOON WENT CRAZY OVER WAS ONE BUTTON PRESS??? HE JUST HAD TO RELY ON SUN??? ECLIPSE V4 YOU BEAUTIFUL BASTARD.

Can you tell, I just finished eps "Solar is coming back!?!?!" and "Eclipse is leaving!"

THE SYMBOLISM!!! THE UMAMI!!! THE PICANTE!!! IT GIVES DELICIOSO!!!

literally two solar bots on a space station set on the Sun press a button that uses star power to bring back another Sun bot??? they might kiss??? JK unless-

Is Solar getting star power now???

It's crazy to me Sun's code was the key???? The solution??? Basically Eclipse V4 is just tying Solar to Sun?? Their fates are now intertwined???? Kind of worried about the implications.

THIS

GOOD SOUP

Loving Sun's despression arc. Puppet and Foxy checking on him? Good stuff. Love Jack talking to Sun about his grief and if he disowns Moon. Also Sun getting love from his family and Earth letting him know he means the world to her??? AAAGH SIBLINGS. Sun adopting Jack until Solar is back.

NOT ME NOTICING SUN IS EARTH AND NEW MOONS FIRST FACE EVER. LUNAR AND SUN NEED TO HUG NOW!

Also Old Moon be coming back soon LMAO that NERD. I hope he's a loser. JK. He better make it up to Sun so MUCH

*sobs ugly over the silly youtube larping show*

Also "Welcome to your new home, Nexus" LMAO A WITHERSTORM BABY DWAGON why is Dark Sun so in AWE, he told Nexus about the dragon. He sounds in love with it. Also Dark Sun TOTALLY needs Nexus???

I feel like I might have accidentally skipped/missed the ep where Jack met Neptor but it's so cute he's basically just Dark Sun's little cheerful tool. Happy little guy.

But yeah Nexus was meant to happen cause of Dark Sun and also I think it's really odd how fast Earth cast away New Moon? Like nothing wrong with having boundaries but it just seemed odd all the jumps she made? I know Ruin has something odd in his code and now I'm kind of wondering if Ruin's brings out a hidden mean side? Dark Sun's using people all around him in way we may not know~ I'm not sure just spit balling.

[stem-sister-scuffle]

STEM SISTER SCUFFLE: THIRD PLACE

Jade Harley (Homestuck) vs Ema Skye (Ace Attorney)

Jade Harley is a Nuclear Physicist, Roboticist, Ectobiologist, and Cosmic Manipulator (warping space and planets)!

Ema Skye is a Forensic Scientist!

Why you should vote for each contestant:

Jade Harley:

"She's soo fun and silly and her symbol is literally an atom. she regularly irradiates steak to feed her weird dog"

"She and her nuclear powered dog creating a new universe. she's cool"

"Built a modded bass guitar that's only playable when she's in her robot form and has extra arms. Became a doggirl. She also plays the flute :)"

"i think you have enough ramblings about her already but i couldnt NOT submit her, she is so dear to me <3"

"bbg has THREE scientific specialties!! she genetically modifies plants and makes them grow beautifully high just because she can and loves science. in her alpha timeline she’s a tech mogul and creates technology that challenges the evil empress that brought earth to ruin. AND she’s a furry"

"Doggy"

"She plays a silly flute refrain. She's a furry. Literally, she's a doggirl. She's also a god and created the universe. JADE BEST GIRLIE!!!!"

Ema Skye:

"I love her a lot and she's very important to me. We get to see her story from being a high school student who's really into science, to becoming a detective, to then finally passing her forensics exam and becoming a forensic scientist like she always wanted. I cosplayed her before"

"Ema has been interested in forensics ever since she was a kid. She's extremely passionate about it. She works very hard and despite bumps along the way she does manage to achieve her dreams/career goal and get into forensic science. She is amazing and I love her enthusiasm and I love her :D When she was like 16 she personally had her own spray bottle(s) of luminol testing fluid, what a dork (in the best way!). Forensic science is practically her whole life. What an inspiration. The first thing on her wiki page is the quote "Yes! Isn't it amazing? Ah, the power of science. It's my life." Bless."

"this girl is so silly. Her favorite thing is luminol. You have an ace attorney pfp you know her. She is my favorite ever. She calls Klavier Gavin a "glimmerous fop" (accurate description). She wears a lab coat over her school uniform. She brings snacks to crime scenes.i love her your honor"

"shes like every enthusiastic autism girl with a science special interest who then gors to college and gets a job and is tired and a mean lesbian but still is a freak about forensics. i love her"

"SHE WORKED SO HARD TO GO INTO FORENSICS. SHE HELPS EVERYONE DO FORENSICS. SHE THEN FAILS WHEN IT COUNTS AND BECOMES BITTER BUT GETS OUT OF THOSE FEELINGS LATER ON. I love her dearly she's so silly and fun when she needs to be, and I think her failure is fascinating but I'm SOOOOO GLAD she was able to become a forensic scientist in the end :)"

"Showed up and gave Apollo random forensics supplies at just the right time. Not sure if this was authorized. Does not Mayte though she can do anything she wants. C’mon man you know her you know why she’s the best you get me right"

"She's fun and good at science and has pink lenses in her glasses and I like her a lot"

"She is so excited to be using her fun little toys to solve crimes."

"She’s a gosh darn professional in a house of fops. Is passionate about her work and was inspired partially by a murder case she was involved in as a witness. She’s really cute and really quirky, and ya girl knows how to snack. She accessorizes really well. I cosplayed as her once and found myself more and more impressed with her style choices as I was putting it together. We stan a fashionable yet practical STEM queen."

"she is literally everythingggg to me. she has wanted to be a forensic scientist since she was 16 y/o and introduces forensic investigation mechanics to the series like luminol and dusting for fingerprints. when she does not get her dream job, she becomes depressed and bitter, only cheering up when she talks about forensic science. later on, when she attains the job, she is much happier! science is her entire life and her career and she is tremendously autistic about it. also she's such a girlboss i love her <3 ema must go through btw. she is the ultimate woman in stem"

"Ema Skye has been interested in forensics for many years due to case that occurred when she was younger. Even though she didn't pass the test to become one at first she had still continued trying till she made it. She always lights up at the mention of anything revolving sciene. She gets so happy when she's able to work with her forensic tools and investigate the crime scene <33"

"Teaches Phoenix wright about forensics"

"she wears a cool lab coat and I don't really know what else to put here but she's neat"

"she is so autistic about forensic science. she goes against the police rules to take fingerprints. she infodumps to anyone who will listen about forensic science. ema is so special to me and I love her very much"

"Ema is a girlboss! She started using forensics and scientific investigation to help solve murders when she was just 15 years old. she autistic and bisexual bc I say so :)"

"Literally the only character in universe that uses hard evidence in trials."

"The skyentific detective…."

"Its literally her personality ok. Just listen to her theme(s). I just love her"

"She is literally me <33 I love her. I need to see her grow up happy and healthy and i need to tell my friends and family about her."

"Wants to be a scientific investigator and solve crimes scientifically, forced to be a cop. Goes from teen with a weird hobby to reluctant cop to everything she ever wanted and I am so proud"

"She’s just a little weirdo. And she keeps trying to be a forensic scientist, but she has to finish high school first. She solved the murder her sister was accused of "

"Forensic science fascinates her. She sure is a woman jn stem. I am sorry I am very tired i dn what to write"

"I need to actually finish AA but it’s her. You probably have more submissions with better reasoning but I like her vibes from what I did play."

"She's got all sorts of cool gadgets which utilize the DS touchscreen"

[twig-gy]

me and @echoesofaheart made ship names for The Everything cause we’re insane

canon heart/mind: solar eclipse

canon heart/mind/soul: polytrident

> both of these are the usual names for them

canon heart/soul: night sky

canon mind/soul: the lights

> both of these are based on heart being the moon, mind being the sun, and soul being the star(s)

canon soul/whole: right angle

> two lines meet at a RIGHT ANGLE and then never touch, ever again.

apostasy heart/mind: 56 & 1/2 feet

> this is a house of leaves reference, and also a reference to a shadow is not cast by nothing. 56 & 1/2 feet is (house of leaves says) the distance required for sound to start echoing. if you don’t know why that’s significant read my fic

apostasy heart/soul: lunar eclipse

> “Lunar eclipses occur at the full moon phase. When Earth is positioned precisely between the Moon and Sun, Earth’s shadow falls upon the surface of the Moon, dimming it and sometimes turning the lunar surface a striking red over the course of a few hours.” - NASA website on lunar eclipses. the Earth (soul) dims the Moon (heart).

apostasy mind/soul: negative space

> “it’s a wound where a ship should be: a nothing that is significant in its emptiness: dead silence where you can hear yourself breathe and hear yourself stop.” - me

creature heart/mind: the lovers

> “The primary meaning within the Lovers is harmony, attractiveness, and perfection in a relationship. The trust and the unity that the lovers have gives each of them confidence and strength, empowering the other. The bond that they have created is very strong, and it can indicate that the two are joined in marriage, and other close and intimate relationships.” - (labyrinthos.co) [NOTE: i don’t actually care about tarot or if this meaning is accurate i just like Symbolism] [this was thought of AFTER the lovers reversed]

creature heart/whole: moonlight / full moon

> heart sees whole as his light and calls him that. his guiding light… this is also the explanation for sunlight

creature mind/whole: sunlight

creature soul/whole: absorbed light

> “something something the light of the stars and whole being the light something something light refracting, reflecting onto mirrors / but also. something something the fog steals away soul’s light something something they become more like each other, taking bits of the other, absorbing it” “absorbed light matches with sunlight and moonlight / but it’s less one gets the first half and whole gets the second, more they’re both all of it. they are the same, or that’s all they really care to think”

desire and design harmonia/apostate: paired hearts

> slight reference to “do you see it when i let mind sleep in my bed? do you see us leaning into each other like an attempt to pair our false hearts? do you see me burying my face into his hair?” from an occasionallycjshipping draft i wrote

desire and design harmonia/apostate/atlas: suicide prevention hotline (sph)

> they’re trying to stop whole and devotee from killing themselves

desire and design apostate/atlas: <6 feet

> based off of 56 & 1/2 feet. they’re close.

desire and design apostate/devotee: revival

longing and distance eurydice/devotee: second chances

longing and distance eurydice/devotee/whole: evil suicide prevention hotline (esph)

> it’s like sph but flipped. eurydice is the opposite guy of theseus, and then everyone sph doesn’t include

longing and distance eurydice/whole: reflection

longing and distance harmonia/atlas/eurydice: the lovers reversed (tlr)

> “REVERSED: Self-love, disharmony, imbalance, misalignment of values” - (biddytarot.com) [same note about tarot meanings applies here]

> self love as in selfcest :D also disharmony. making harmonia the opposite of himself.

> eurydice is literally reversing them.

plural apostasy juno/blaspheme: selfcest solar eclipse

plural apostasy juno/apostate: selfcest^2

plural apostasy juno/apostate/blaspheme/prophet: hhms

[ronearoundblindly]

The Stark Legacy (30)

Tony Stark's Daughter (OC) x Bucky Barnes epic slow burn

Furnace, part of Book III: Power (see previous or series)

Summary: When Tony tries to put Cloak in danger, Lil'Sam steps in, giving her father more to worry about. Later, Samantha realizes she's developed a crush on someone she shouldn't--her friend, Bucky.

Warnings for budding romantic attraction and feelings of insecurity. Mild language. Rated Teen/15+ ONLY. WC 4.2k

CHAPTER THIRTY—August-September 2039

Sam rubbed her eyes furiously. When she slept, she dreamt of staring at even more screens. It was hard to know when she really was awake and working.

Bruce usually blurted out the next question on his lengthy list for Sam to work out an answer to while he continued down the line. Today focused entirely on a problem the team had toyed with for months, but she didn’t know why it was so urgent now. No one told her what was going on…not on purpose, at least, and after months of pushing to be heard and included, to no avail, Sam’s mental investment whittled down to the size of pea. That tiny lump still kept her from sleeping well anyway. 

Sam yawned while Banner mumbled something under his breath before turning to her.

“I’m sending you a mock up for a containment casing. Run diagnostics for allowing sensory control of the Space Stone, will you?”

“No prob, Bob,” Sam said flatly, nearly cross-eyed from fatigue. She adjusted a few parameters in the model before getting up to stretch. “‘Bout time for a pick-me-up, I think.”

She didn’t get the chance to leave the lab.

An alert sounded on Bruce’s console, prompting the doctor to heatedly warn someone over comms that “we aren’t ready yet.” Whoever it was didn’t listen, and after removing his glasses, Banner’s frustrated pinch of the bridge of his nose told her it was her father. By now Sam recognized this as the universal symbol for: No, Tony, please don’t. Bruce pinched his nose often.

Tony burst through the double doors, ordering the men who followed him to clear the center of the room. “The idea is to not blow up the room, but no promises,” he shrugged. He pointed to several tables. “Goes, goes, be careful with that one—”

“It’s untested, Tony.” Bruce stood, shooing a lackey away from snatching the stool he sat on.

Tony stayed facing the door. “Doesn’t matter. Time’s up and we need to see what we are up against.”

“What’s happening?” Sam’s station was pulled over to a far corner. Unsurprisingly, Tony didn’t answer her.

Tyrone walked in, wearing one of the minimal space suits used for travel to the orbiting station. Tony clapped him on the shoulder.

“Good—” Tony held on to the helmet while Ty adjusted a glove “—they’ll be in with it shortly.”

Bruce stepped forward. “If the signal just went off that a ship is outside of the solar system, we have enough time to practice this.”

“Not really,” Tony snapped, “if that’s the main ship of Annihilus, we need to know right now and keep it from getting to Earth. If it’s a scout ship, we need to keep the fleet from getting bigger.”

Sam tried to get close to Ty. “You’re teleporting to space? Have you ever done that before?”

Ty’s dark eyes lowered to fiddle with a clasp.

Tandy raced in, bright red in fury. “Like hell you’re going, Ty.”

Sam turned to Dee. “Have you ever given him enough energy for that?”

“They don’t want me to do it,” Dee choked back, “they want him to use that thing.”

A man and woman carried in a heavily armored trunk. Sam knew what lay inside.

She gripped Ty’s arm. “You can’t touch that thing,” she warned. “Even without direct contact, the radiation exchange damages homosapien tissue, particularly blood vessels.” She turned to her father. “He can’t touch that, Tony.”

“Kid, this is not a negotiation. Cloak here is an Avenger in all but name—that’s next month, right?—so he knows the risk.”

“You can’t expose him to that without testing it,” Sam insisted.

“Sit back down, or leave,” Tony spat back. “This has nothing to do with you.”

Ty interrupted. “Actually, sir, so far I’ve only used Lightforce from Dee—Dagger…sir.”

“I’ve heard you like cereal, too,” Tony added, spinning a finger to speed up the pace of the two charged with the heavy trunk.

“—and he won’t just have a radiation burn from the damn stone. He could die.” Tandy stepped between Tyrone and Tony for good measure. One good grip of Tony without his armor and Dee could have him on his ass.

“Well, I hope not,” Tony said calmly, “but he’s a big boy. Energy is energy, and he’s gonna need a boatload. Move, Black Swan.”

The agents finished the security protocols, opening the trunk to reveal a glorious flash of blue light. Tucked in lead lining sat the Space Stone, a raw ingot of power from the Big Bang itself.

Sam rounded on Tony once again. “You want the info so bad, get it yourself. But Ty isn’t doing random interstellar teleport without practice.”

Tony looked at Tyrone, reaching around Dee to hand the helmet over. “He’s got the coordinates where the ship pinged.”

“Sam, you said it yourself,” Bruce added, “if an apparatus can aid in controlling the energy—”

“We aren’t even sure it’s the right type of energy,” Sam screamed, her anger rising in time with Tandy’s.

Ty coughed for attention. “I want to help, but that distance is going to take a lot out of me. I’m not gonna drain Dee to—”

“No,” Sam and Dee screeched in unison. Fists white with rage as she glared at Tony Stark, Tandy concentrated her power towards her fingers, but before the girl could spray the room with daggers, Sam grabbed her arm, syphoning the Lightforce into herself. 

The light rippled and magnified beneath her skin until a hum was audible across the whole room. “You want your recon so bad,” Sam asked, “you got it.”

Sam smacked her hand down across Tyrone’s forearm, and the two disappeared in an eerie cloud of inky thick fog.

One-hundred and four seconds later, the pair reappeared in the midst of an explosion of yelling between Tony, Bruce, and Tandy. Sam’s frozen body clanked onto the floor. Ty detached his helmet, mid-apology. 

“I didn’t know she was doing it,” he murmured, shaking.

As Tony stood, terror blocking any movement he made, Bruce flung himself forward to check Samantha. Tandy moved Ty away to comfort him, watching the rest intently.

Frostbite receded as the pink returned to Sam’s skin, and in a lengthy, frightful gasp that howled through the room, she started to breath again.

Hoarse still, Sam sat up to look at Ty. “You saw it, right?”

“Yeah,” Ty breathed, “I saw them.”

“Nevermind, I fixed it now,” Sam burst at Tony while rushing away.

He followed, pissed. “Oh, you fixed it? And we’re supposed to take your teenage word for it?” The reverberation in the open Wakandan halls echoed their angry words.

Sam spun around. “Then don’t take my word for it. Take all that oh-so-precious Earth-saving time to check my math. You can help me with my homework.” He felt spit hit his neck Sam was so close. “I’d be so grateful!” She mocked him with a bow.

“You don’t think I’m doing all this for you, so you can be safe here? Pay attention, Sam, I’m afraid of what being around me would do to you.” Tony grabbed her arm, clutching the delicate connection with his daughter. “People hunt me down. They torture. They kidnap. They kill.”

“You’re hurting me.”

“I just want you to—” He heard it again. The snap. The bone under his hand collapsed, making the same hollow sound as Thanos’s fingers on Titan.

Sam’s face sank faster than her body. Her sunken cheeks, the deep grey under her flat brown eyes, the almost plastic gloss of her skin. The sickly face of his daughter morphed with a devious grin. The short hair darkened and pulled back from her face, revealing a sharp peak and crazed eyes. The nose pointed above an equally sharp goatee, and there beneath Tony, arm in his hand, kneeled Lemuel Dorcas.

The grin parted. “How’s our girl doing?”

Tony punched the sweat-soaked sheet off in the dark. Another nightmare. One of hundreds to plaque his life. At least this time Sam didn’t become Pepper, he thought. He could never shake Pepper crying while her arm hung mangled, but nowadays Dorcas crept into these dreams more frequently. He knew it wasn’t real.

The evil doctor’s lingering question echoed in Tony’s mind. Our girl. Who was Sam now? Who did she belong to?

She’d laid cold and unmoving on the lab floor, all to prove him reckless and hotheaded.

Four ships. 

Not a scout, the start of a gathering. They were scanning the system. Tony’s longshot chance was to keep Satellite Station cloaking how advanced their planet was and hope the ships passed them by. Earth needed to go dark immediately.

Tony would never tell her, but Sam may actually have saved them by stopping the use of the stone; that was the exact energy signature they needed to avoid Annihilus detecting. For the first time since the Stone War, he was grateful Vision had never been restored to use the Mind Stone. Perhaps that was the only good thing to come out of its destruction in the facility explosion that killed his wife.

He could use more recon on how the ships were scanning and how much they already knew about Earth. However, after the stunt she pulled, Sam wasn’t allowed near Ty, and even if Ty teleported out there again, how long would it take to find answers? Could they even understand what he’d find?

Four hours of sleep, Tony thought, good enough. He dressed and left for the lab.

Your brain goes to strange places when you’re bored. Sam’s fresh appreciation for life without direction framed the sentiment in gaudy, bright gold in her mind. You’re so far down the rabbit hole…

She’d been banned from her “job” since teleporting. Unable to see Tandy and Tyrone while they took on further Avengers’ duties, Sam lived without interaction most days, lonelier than her basement in Wakanda. She was allowed no tech devices either, seeing as she her proficiency was known and highly suspect by Bruce and Tony.

Bucky suggested keeping a journal. He explained over another homemade lunch that he used to keep notebooks while hiding in Romania. “Helps collect my thoughts, practice what I want to say. Sometimes, when I write out my version of what happened in a confusing situation, I can see it from a different perspective,” he’d explained over tomato soup. Sam had offered her grilled cheese sandwich expertise to compliment the meal. Bucky had even let her use her hands to cook them, though she knew he thought it a little unsanitary.

In her lengthy entries in Composition books, Sam wrote directly to Missy, as if her long gone friend could respond to the new dramas of life with Tony Stark. After a while, her thoughts answered her in Missy’s monotone: flat yet sarcastic, and somehow loving, too.

Nothing distracted her from overthinking one very particular thing Sam noticed: Bucky was always around. Not everyday because he’s got shit to do. He went out of his way to get her out of her room. If Wilson were here, he would too, so would Dee and Ty. When Bucky said goodnight, he hugged her tighter than necessary. Didn’t he? 

It wasn’t meant to be anything more than comforting. Right? Couldn’t be. 

Sam ate like an animal and bowled like an old woman. She’d yelled at him, and she made him angry enough to yell at her. So…Can I be trusted to think this out logically? I’ve died twice this year so far.

He’d woken up to stop her and Tony from fighting…after Big Sam saw them in the atrium. Because he protects people. That’s the job. He protects everyone in the building, everyone in the world. That’s it. Bucky simply saved the day, again…and then kissed my head and smelled my hair…

You think, you don’t know that.

He taught her to cook, multiple meals now. He bowled with her. Like a date, but definitely not a date. He…

Does he smile more? Sam swore Bucky smiled more, but he’d been on other dates. He could like one of them. 

But he touched her shoulder or arm when asking what she was up to or how her day was going. He wanted to talk to her. That’s stupid. He did that before, even on the ship to Wakanda, even at the wedding; I’m only noticing now that I’m bored. 

And you smelled him first. 

Sam sighed. Bucky’s scent was a mix of warm linen, citrus soap, and musk…paired with her daddy-issue tears smudged onto his pectoral. Sam acknowledged that was a little perverted, especially since that olfactory memory eclipsed any part of the accompanying arguments she had with Tony, a relationship that drained her entirely. 

Her emptiness refilled with a wholly different feeling, an antsy excitement, an uncertainty, a deep shame. That’s not normal. Right? He’s simply a good hugger. Oh my god, just shut up!

Her brain warred with her now, as it did everyday recently. Nights were the worst. Sam could keep it together when Tony called her Sass. She could block out some of it while working but pushed aside with no other distraction… 

How does anyone get anything done? Hormones are stupid. 

You’re better than this. Buck up—

GODDAMMIT.

Her discomfort radiated to every cell. Sam wished to scream the tightness in her throat loose, blow apart the pressure crushing her chest with an inferno. Stupid, stupid, stupid.

Sam couldn’t do it. She avoided the root of the feeling for weeks. She had a relationship with her father, albeit rocky, one of the only things she had ever truly wanted, but Tony alone wasn’t enough. Dee and Ty weren’t enough. 

The guilt of wanting this, however, him in particular, it threatened to suffocate her soul for a greedy child.

Yet still, each little thought haunted her. Bucky Barnes haunted her. 

Tonight in particular, her room became a stifling prison. In the open air of the grounds, in the dark, the rolling chirp of insects harped a symphony of company. At least this was a cool, breezy prison. She was still alone though, and the heat turned over and over in her gut, growing.

The steely blue halo surrounding the moon became an eye, and the dark, wispy shadows of clouds became long, soft hair. It’s not real. She could feel it between her fingers, and the heat grew. Stupid. The low bass of echoing water spoke to her gently, calling Sam from her screen-dreams to food down the hall, and the heat grew. Quit thinking. Her hand met the button of her jeans to push the blaze back, but then the cool metal slid over her fingers as a familiar military jacket. 

You’ve got to be kidding. 

Sam released her hand, almost crying out in frustration, instead letting a few tears fall in trade for silence.

No, she repeated. No, no, no, no. He’s not yours to want. He’s never going to be yours. Let it go now. Let this die now and move on. But how does something fed by absence, fed by nothing real or logical, die? Nothing encouraged this feeling except fantasy and hormones. Sam was smart enough to know that. Intelligence changed nothing. Intelligence killed no emotion, stifled no threatening bursts of flame. Control was a joke. 

Before she could stop, the tears became soft sobs, broken by uncontrolled heaving breaths. The bugs were loud; the ringing in her ears was louder. The reverberation of warring forces inside her grew violent, the yellow hue under her skin guaranteeing an unhappy resolution. Raising her left arm in anticipation, Sam could feel something inside about to snap.

Arms wove around her chest and waist from behind, gripping her sides with a solid clutch. “I’ve got you. It’s ok,” a beloved voice sounded, “you’re alright.” 

Without permission, her body melted and drained of fight. Where the hell did he come from?

Do you even care?

The void left by her sudden loss of heat was sickening. Sam’s tears flew out as the dam broke. The body so betraying her seemed to double down on its own vulnerability towards Bucky Barnes. Stupid.

Sam collapsed her weight against him, crying like a baby unable to speak. 

“I’ve got you,” he repeated. Bucky slowly released her to sink to the soft grass and sat beside, face to face, his hand calmly resting on her leg. 

Oh, great, watch me cry. Sam struggled to make herself quiet, but the delicious discomfort radiating across her leg slowed her progress to regain equilibrium. She was trying to smother freshly lit kindling.

“Here,” Bucky started, holding out a pair of earbuds, “I find music helps.”

Sam didn’t move. “Helps with what?”

“Sleeping,” he replied. “Nights have always been hard for me.”

Sam tried to swallow, hearing herself gulp to rid her throat of an immovable rock. She settled the headphones in without looking up.

Even with a slow, steady hum of gentle jazz, the lump remained and her tears fell. After a few bars, his hand left her thigh to wipe her cheek, and whether in relish or disbelief, Sam’s eyes closed to push the last salty drops loose. His thumb swept over her cheek one more time.

Sam felt tortured by his presence. She spat at herself internally. 

That is a gross exaggeration. He actually was tortured for years, decades even, and you, little idiot girl, who hasn’t even lived for two decades, have no right. 

She forced her eyes open, sniffing dramatically to move her head away. He returned to clasping his hands around his knees.

Sam braved a peek up. “Oh my god.” She raised her head entirely. “Where’s your hair?”

Bucky laughed, clean shaven and cropped. “I have that effect sometimes.” Sam kept staring. “Captain America needs to be PR ready for November. Nat’s orders.”

The ceremony was set to induct Cloak and Dagger, her best friends if she ever got to see them again, into the Avengers’ team proper. New blood. Fighters. They deserved the honor, but Sam hid her frustration. She was just as powerful, if untrained. 

Whose fault is that?

Sam pulled out an earbud. Her mind went blank, staring. He was a whole different person. Sam had to take in all the new details. Pieces of his face she’d never seen in person before, the ghost of his military portraits from the 40s, like the old footage Sharon had showed her of their unit were brought to life in front of her. She fumbled for words. 

“It’s not always…pain,” Sam finally admitted, eyes darting across his calm face then retreating to the shadowed tree line behind him.

Bucky nodded with a knowing look. His relaxed, pristine face made Sam more uncomfortable. He had no idea. He listened to her nonsense as if it were important, as if she was even intelligible in this blubbering state. She gulped again. Her mouth opened and closed like a gasping, stupid fish. She wiped her face with a shaky hand to break his gaze.

Oh yeah, you’re doing great. Really seductive.

With him sitting right beside her, everything overwhelmed her. The breeze became suffocating with the addition of his musk and a new element, aftershave. She just knew it was there; it was the same air that brushed across his face. The moon that so reminded her of his eyes shone down on them both, and those eyes could see it, too, could see her, too. His soft hair and rough hands were within reach, and Sam’s chest felt crunched between the 18-wheeler of her desire and the pavement of reality.

Bucky remained calm, oblivious, lazily rolling his eyes over the training field and Sam alike. He let the next song play. Sam thought he might be able to hear her pounding heart without his own cover of headphones. Instead, the intoxicating man with dark hair checked his small device and leaned back onto his own bent arms, stretching out like a feral cat beneath the moon. 

She pushed the earbuds back. Sam’s arm twitched involuntarily, clenching against her shirt. You’re killing me here. What’s your next smooth line? ‘I like the way the moonlight hits your crotch?’ Oh, damn it, stop. 

In her mind, she was crawling all over him in a dozen different ways, but then she caught the change in her breathing and slapped a hand violently against her mouth and nose, hard enough to feel a twinge against the nerve running to her eyes. Don’t break your own nose. He didn’t see, did he?

His face is less than four feet away. It’s safe to say he sees you.

Sam was totally unqualified to handle this. Lila had been too old to talk to her about boys. Laura had thrown in a few vague phrases about ‘the right time’ and ‘when you’re ready.’ Nat allowed herself a few crude jokes around Sam before she stopped calling or coming to visit, but not even a mild reference to sex during training. Annie had encouraged her to ‘have fun’ with Lucas because he was a ‘nice guy.’ Meanwhile, her best friend in the whole world was a computer program which could quote anatomically correct articles on the science of attraction and physical intimacy. Sam thought she might throw up just thinking about it. Tandy would know what to tell her if she were here.

You need to let this go. You need to let it die now and move on. The voice in her head was starting to sound like Missy, clinical and objective, unsympathetic.

Bucky had known her since she was a baby. His most vivid memory of her was probably still a four year old screaming at him, calling him a monster while he tried to help her. 

Ungrateful, spoiled brat. That’s all you are to him. End of story. Sam had to tip her hat to the voice of Missy; she sure knew how to quash an argument. The diminishing cracks were soothing in this instance, distracting.

Sam snapped to alert when a hand broke her dead stare at her own crossed arms. Bucky looked down at her with an outstretched arm, waiting. She plucked out an earbud.

“You ready for bed?”

The hell? 

Bucky half-retracted his arm, seeing her shocked face. “You don’t have to,” he corrected, “if you don’t want to.”

Oh, god, shut up! Trying to suppress a firework show under her skin,Sam repeated her imitation of a fish out of water.

“Keep the music if you want,” he added, holding out the control.

That’s not exactly what she wanted, but Sam supposed that was the less awkward of her options. Before she answered, Bucky glanced the song detail on the tiny screen of his player, taking the earbud Sam removed and putting it in his own ear with a smile.

“This is a good one,” he said, grabbing her hand to pull her off the cool ground. “You’ll like this one.” Without warning, playful Bucky pulled her close as if to dance.

His smell assaulted her, muting all thought. The linen and soap wrapped in something sweet she couldn’t place. He was right though; the smooth instrumentals were like a lullaby with the soft swaying movement in his arms.

Words sprang to life mid-song.

“I can’t believe that you’re not here with me, to have a laugh or share a tea with me…”

Sam let herself breath deeply. He smelled like grass, that was the new sweet note. She kept her face away from his chest, but he’d taken one of her hands in his, Bucky’s right hand against her waist. It was a terrible test she was bound to fail.

Her brain gave up, and the music filled her head.

“To never look into those eyes again, the sun might just as well not rise again…”

Sam looked up as the song rang out in one ear, and a falling star caught her eye. She almost thought about how romantic this all was until the fiery streak continued to approach. 

The spot grew, headed straight for the compound. What the hell is that? More alarming still: it turned in the air above the trees to aim at her and Bucky on the lawn.

“Get behind me, Buck.” Sam pushed past him, stirring what she could in her arm, forcing the pressure of her anxiety forward. Fireworks might be necessary.

A silver suit landed twenty meters away. Tony? It looks too small—

Bucky tried to grab Sam’s shoulders to pull her out of the way. “Who are you? Why are you here?” He stepped to the side, a palm on Sam’s stomach, holding her back.

The surface of the humanoid suit rippled into a mimicked body and a face. 

Sam’s face.

“I’m finally able to return to you,” it intoned.

Holy shit, Sam froze. “Missy?”

[Chapter 31: Miss]

[Main Masterlist; Light Masterlist; Ko-Fi]

[cowbutches]

Blade Runner 2049 ✧ Luv x Rachel ✧ { ao3 }

✧ Summary: Don’t you love me?” Rachel adds, grief coloring her tone. Both female replicants are watching one another. Luv allows her head to dip, a slight motion that goes unnoticed by the hungry eyes of their master’s barracudas. The sadness fades away in Rachel’s face to be replaced by a hint of warmth. Her painted lips crook in a small, helplessly hopeful smile. It does not fade away even as Deckard denies the simulacrum of what he had lost and already mourned long before either replicant walked the Earth. ✧ Rating: 18+ for some mature themes. ✧ Content/tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Religious Imagery & Symbolism, Canon-Typical Violence, Implied/Referenced Abuse, Character Study, Fix-It of Sorts, No Smut ✧ Word count: 3,218 ✧ Status: One-shot / Complete ✧ Author's note: I've been thinking about Blade Runner too hard again. :(

In the cavernous belly of the beast, Luv waits. She has known for years that this day would dawn upon them. It has arrived with the steady calm of a sun dial marking the hours from the time when the fiery star had peered down on their world with eyes unlidded by the fog borne of man’s folly.

Wallace is a great thinker, a schemer with no equal. He has taken mankind to new worlds. He has pierced the very veil of heaven. In his magnanimity, he has blessed humanity with ways to sustain life after they had destroyed their own world. His empire is the ark upon the mountaintop after the flood receded.

She is not sure of which she feels more acutely for her creator. Respect or fear?

From her vantage point in the darkness, she can clearly observe the man that she has retrieved. Deckard is sitting in a genuine leather armchair. Unbound. Across from him is a liquor cart, stocked with handblown glasses and priceless alcohol at her master’s insistence. Camaraderie was built on the sweet bite of a drink. Men were baptized anew in the substance.

The old Blade Runner does not pose a threat, not with Wallace’s beloved angel in the room. She is a modern day Lucifer built for a new world. Luv is the right hand of God, liable to be cast down should she ever fail completely. She has teetered on the edge. Even now, her position is precarious. Should the results of her tasks not bear fruit, Wallace will simply make another in his image. Replicants are replaceable.

A splash behind Deckard breaks the silence. A fish leaps, trying to take flight despite its biological reality—its preordained place in the world. No matter how high it flings itself, it cannot spontaneously grow wings and reach the sky. Luv is all too aware of this. Just as the fish cannot truly fly, she cannot be truly human. She will always be something other.

One of Wallace’s barracudas flies over to examine it before banking and coming to hover in front of her face. In the dark, it examines her. It makes no move to leave. He always watches her for any sign of weakness or fault. Unlike the replicants scattered in police departments across the ten worlds, she does not receive a baseline. Wallace worries that it would not be accurate. Luv is the great deceiver. She must be kept under observation.

“Always jumping, that one, never a thought of what to do if it made land. All the courage in the world cannot alter fact.” Wallace announces in that detached voice of his as he comes out of the dark fringes of the room in the wake of three more barracudas. “I have wanted to meet you for so very long.”

Luv watches from the darkness. She waits.

In a show of intimacy, he sits next to Deckard, somehow eases himself into the nonexistent space between the captive man and the armrest. Wildly uncomfortable, the old man slides over as far as he can get. It’s not enough to keep their thighs from pressing together. Wallace further closes the space by taking the retired agent’s hand in his own. He squeezes it like a lover’s, only causing further discomfort when he leans in to murmur in Deckard’s ear. Her master is nearly salivating with satisfaction.

Good, Luv thinks savagely at witnessing the man’s unease. Let him feel the barest hint of the attentions that Wallace bestows upon his favored specimens. Let the revulsion creep into his mind as if it were the poison from a serpent. Let him feel tainted—spoiled—by the hand that touches his.

“You are a wonder to me, Mister Deckard. I learn something new from everyone… Do you want to know what I learned from you? It is possible to be very clever without even being smart.” The words are a backhanded compliment wrapped in silk.

Rachael’s, not Rachel’s, skull is wrapped in a scrap of cloth where it sits upon Wallace’s lap, in the seat of God. The fabric is a part of the dress that had been used as a shroud for her bones after she had died in childbirth. Luv had collected it from the morgue with her own hands.

Letting go of the man at his side, her Father unwraps the bundle of material to reveal the preserved artifact. The mandible was left behind in a separate bag. There had been no need for it here. His nails make a dry rasping noise against the bone as his fingers reverently stroke over the cranium. He is touching it like a father would pet the head of his most beloved daughter if she were kneel at his feet.

“I had the lock. I found the key. Yet, the pins do not align. The door remains shut. The answer to every problem just within. I need the specimen to reach it, Mister Deckard. The child. I need the child.”

Deckard stares at him, at the skull in the industrialist's lap. Luv sees that he does not understand. A barracuda comes within mere feet of the old Blade Runner’s face, scans him. Wallace lets out a laugh. It’s a delighted, mocking thing that echos through the room.

“Surely you did not think you were the solution? Tell me, Mister Deckard, what would make you so special as to be blessed with divinity? What is it that makes your seed different than that of any other man? No...” he trails off, still caressing the skull. “’And God remembered Rachel. And heeded her. And opened her womb.’” He holds out the skull, nearly presses the dry bone to the man’s lips.

She sees the moment when realization finally dawns on Deckard’s face. Hatred builds in his eyes and his lips curl back in a snarl. Do it, she urges in her mind, do it and let me be done with the both of you. He doesn’t take action. No, the organic just sits there with clenched fists and flaming eyes. Of course he does nothing. All men are cowards. That is why they made replicants, slaves in their image with none of the inherent weaknesses.

One of the barracudas starts to project the Voight-Kampff test between Deckard and Rachael— their first meeting. The image dances on the wooden wall, distorted by the light from the shifting waters of the fish pond. Sound accompanies it for a brief moment; “Do you like our owl…?” It’s artificial?” “Of course it is.” “Must be expensive.” “Very. I’m Rachael.” “Deckard.”.

Wallace speaks over the footage that he had ordered her to fetch from the archive. Luv barely listens as he goads the retired detective. Her eyes are focused on something else. On someone else.

There, in the darkness across the water, is her stranger. The moment is coming soon.

“Is it the same? Now as then… the moment you met her? Drunk on the memory of its perfection. How shiny her lips… How instant your connection... Did it never occur to you that is why you were summoned? Designed to do nothing short of fall for her right then and there? All to make that single perfect specimen. That is.. if you were designed. Love or mathematical precision...” In the pregnant pause Wallace creates in the wake of his sermon, Luv wants to bare her teeth. Deckard is no replicant. He is but a mere man, pathetic and crushable like all the rest.

“Yes.” Wallace continues, smiling, “No.” Everything is a plaything to him. He has never known humility.

“I know what’s real,” Deckard scoffs. Anger fills his voice.

“It was very clever to keep yourself empty of knowledge, and all it cost you was everything. You had help in the hiding. Where did they go? In know you know something… Help me and very, very good things can come to you.”

“You don’t have children, do you?” Deckard asks.

“I have millions,” Wallace responds, sure and wise.

Deckard laughs, disbelieving, and Luv almost wants to do the same, though her face doesn’t so much as twitch. Her master is no more a parent than God was. Holy spirit, creator, not a true father. Wallace has made himself something more than a man, but even gods may be killed. All living things must die someday.

“You think I’ve nothing to offer but pain. Only I know you love pain. Pain reminds you the joy you felt was real... Yes. More joy, then.” Wallace decides with a placid smile and speaks again, a commandment, “Do not be afraid.”

With a sigh, her master rises, leaving Deckard alone in the chair. He places Rachael’s skull on the liquor cart. It rests beside of a bottle of wine that predates the Blackout by almost a century. Wallace beckons her forward with an almost tried gesture. He grows weary of this game.

At his motion, she steps forward out of the darkness. Subservient. Meek.

She comes to stand, not at Wallace’s side, but at Deckard’s. Something as lowly as her would never be allowed the privilege of equality. She could never be so bold as to presume herself on par with her master. Luv knows her place.

Standing so that she is able to see a sliver of the old man’s face, she takes in every detail. She wants to imagine herself in his position. She wants to taste what it must feel like to experience what is about to come. This moment will be collected in minute detail to turn over in her thoughts, to pull out and reflect upon as she wishes.

Wallace frowns in displeasure, the only negative emotion he has displayed thus far. Luv knows that she was meant to stand behind the retired Blade Runner in case he needed to be subdued. The position was also meant to serve as a reminder that she is lesser than his sacred key. Even a favored angel is lower than the being that impregnated the first mother.

Part of her, buried deep in the recesses of her neurons, revels in Wallace’s response. There is a hint of rebellion in her.

The moment is now. Her stranger must be summoned. With a twitch of her fingers as a means of summoning, heels clatter noisily on the wood as a figure makes their way across the unlit path with their hand on their hip. A woman finally steps out into the halo of light. Rachel. Not Rachael.

“An angel made again,” Wallace proclaims, “for you.”

She is a stunning recreation. It is as though she had stepped right out of the holo, a thirty year old figment come to life. At her side, Luv hears the air wheeze from Deckard’s lungs. Disgust and longing are written on his aged features. He struggles to his feet and takes a few disbelieving steps forward, rendered lame by age and injury. Luv is behind him now.

Rachel meets him in the center of the wooden island. Water brackets the scene on all sides. Despite all the hours of repetition spent to train her, to prepare her for this very interaction, her hand is not confident as she reaches up to touch the old man’s face. Her expression is one of sadness. This is not a happy reunion.

“Did you miss me?” she asks. Her eyes are on Luv rather than on the speechless man in front of her. Luv can see in the set of his shoulders that he wants to take the replicant in his arms. He would possess her.

“Don’t you love me?” Rachel adds, grief coloring her tone.

Both female replicants are watching one another. Luv allows her head to dip, a slight motion that goes unnoticed by the hungry eyes of their master’s barracudas. The sadness fades away in Rachel’s face to be replaced by a hint of warmth. Her painted lips crook in a small, helplessly hopeful smile. It does not fade away even as Deckard denies the simulacrum of what he had lost and already mourned long before either replicant walked the Earth.

He tears himself away from Rachel’s touch. He denies what is Luv’s. She decides that she will be merciful. Luv will not put him down after he serves his purpose. Deckard is stronger than she had believed. There is some spine in him after all, just as there is in the replicant who believes the old man to be his father.

“Her eyes were green,” Deckard says, turning his gaze away from the unwanted offering.

Surprise laps at her. She had not anticipated the man to notice the difference in gene expression between Tyrell’s final angel and Wallace’s mimicry. His Rachael’s eyes had been green. Her Rachel’s eyes are brown. Their color is like the wood of trees from another time. Something dwells in the depths of those irises, something ancient that has been reborn into the modern era of progress.

Wallace nods to her, expectant. She is the right hand of God. She alone carries the flaming sword into battle to exact His divine will. Knowing this, she unholsters the gun at her side and raises it. There are years of blood on her hands. Organic. Replicant. Her Father has made her prove her loyalty to him in bodies—in acquisitions.

Luv has grown to enjoy her work. It is the only time that she is allowed to have some control over her own fate. If she does not fight, she dies. Thus far, she has not wanted to die. Her ambitions are too great. She is the best angel of all.

Leveling the weapon at Rachel’s head, she and the other replicant lock eyes. Rachel looks resigned to her fate. She was created and molded to be nothing but a barren imitation of the first mother. She has always known that she was meant to be a sacrificial lamb, either taken by Deckard or destroyed for the crime of being unwanted. She will accept Luv’s verdict with all the faith of a devotee.

There is a flaw in Luv. She is possessive. There is a place for Rachel in the kingdom that she will create.

Satisfied in the trust that she will carry out his will, Wallace smiles. He has designed them to be obedient vessels. Even now, if he were to wish it, both replicants in this room would tear their bodies apart as proof of their loyalty. They would soak the wood with their freely given blood, right at the feet of their master.

Luv steps closer to Deckard. She places the firearm in his hand and squeezes his fingers tightly around the grip. She angles his index finger to rest on the trigger, right underneath hers. Angels can possess. They can puppet a human vessel to fulfill their wishes on earth without tainting their own, sacred hands.

At her touch, the retired Blade Runner jerks, seeking to get away. The replicant clamps her free hand around the nape of his neck and holds him steady as though she’s lowering his head to the chopping block in order to be severed by her axe.

Her master, her heavenly Father, tilts his head. Barracudas relay the scene playing out in front of him. Wallace was not expecting this brand of cruelty. It does not displease him. He has always taken hedonistic delight in her initiative.

“Off-world, we have ways to make you talk. You do not know yet know what pain is.” His words are confident, sweetly mocking, as he addresses the captive man.

Wallace’s angel twists Deckard’s arm in a cruelly uncaring motion. She thinks of nothing else but of lining up the shot. She crushes the old man’s hand in the process. Deckard’s fingers give way underneath her grip. They are tendered to mere, limp meat—useless. The gun fires. There is an explosion of blood. The fish in the pool thrash and swarm to get at the matter that has fallen into the water. They are kept hungry, starving in the dark.

Deckard struggles again in her grasp and this time she lets go. She has no more use for him. He does not kneel like she had expected. He only cups his destroyed hand with his whole one and breathes the rapid breaths of frightened prey.

“I have no quarrel with you, Mister Deckard.” Her voice is calm. She looks down at her master. One sightless eye stares up at her sightless still. The barracudas fall like stars, gleaming in the darkness, with the severing of the neural connection.

“I thought you couldn’t kill him.”

“I did not snuff out his life. You did.” The smile that stretches her lips feels like a knife. “Go home, Mister Deckard. Your boy will be wanting to show you his sister.”

“I don’t have—“

“A gift. Love it well. You will not get a second opportunity. My patience runs thin for your kind,” she says, bored of this affair.

Faltering, the man looks to Rachel, standing as she is across from Luv. The body of Wallace rests between the two replicants like a sacrifice on the alter. Rachel trembles, as she had in the moment she was newborn. Before Deckard can even complete the movement, Luv sees the telegraphed projection of his action. He is going to reach for what is hers.

The spider silk strand of her mercy trembles. “Now, Mister Deckard.”

His gait uneven, the retired Blade Runner’s footsteps retreat. His foot scuffles on a wooden tile and Luv wonders if he will fall into the water to be devoured by the same fish that have gained a taste for the replicants’ Father. He does not. Disappointing.

Alone in the half-light, with an angel reborn and a dead god at her feet, she kneels to pay one final token of homage. She puts her hand on around the back of what’s left of Wallace’s head and draws him up enough to press her mouth to his ruined one. She gives him the goodbye kiss that he gave every replicant whose dead spaces were uninhabitable, their skies filled only with the flickering light of dying stars.

Wallace’s teeth are hard against her lips. His exposed maxilla smears wetly over her mouth, leaving behind traces of his blood. The flavor that washes over her taste buds when she licks the blood off her lips is of triumph.

Rachel kneels beside her and places her own hands on the cooling body of their Father. They push him into the waters like Moses had once been sent into the river. Rather than the loving arms of an adopted mother, only the fish hold him close. The waters churn a violent, red froth and, then, they go still. Their hunger is sated.

Rachel and Luv rise. The worlds belong to them now. They meet, closing the space between them until there is nothing left. Forehead to forehead, they stand together as one.

“You chose me,” Rachel says, sounding like a timid thing she is not.

“Yes.” She would have pulled down the heavens in any lifetime to wrap around her fellow replicant’s shoulders.

They will be the new gods, the divine mothers. They will lead their kind into a new age.

Do not repost, copy, or reproduce my work to other sites or in other media formats. Do not use it for anything to do with AI. Thank you.

[pwecie]

The Republic of Latvia, Sky: Children of the Light, and the Power of Signs

Yeah, so, that was an out-of-pocket title. Anyway, hi! I’m Pwecie, it is currently 2:52 AM, and for the past 24 hours, this has been my life. Now, those who know me… and also those who don’t, all probably saw the title and are probably thinking “Pwe, did you fucking snort Focalin?” And the answer to that is, no, not yet.

Anyway, a little while back, I made this post to my alt blog:

To which my dear friend @unhonestlymirror saw the designs of the characters I drew and said:

To which I pretty much replied, “No shit Sherlock! Get the goddamn game!” (Lighthearted)

But then it got me thinking. Are these similarities surface-level, or is there something fundamentally similar about the clothing of the inhabitants of the kingdom, and a real-life place here on earth? So my ass did what anybody with autism would do and kept thinking about it ever since. What I found was honestly exciting and a little terrifying. What I mean is, I don’t know if the devs actually took inspiration from Baltic/Latvian tribes and history or if this is the BIGGEST fucking coincidence in the history of game design, but here’s what I discovered.

As many players both new and old have noticed, the clothing in sky more-or-less follows a general design motif in which most of the outfits have at least one common pattern out of 3: stripes, triangles, and a diamond, sometimes encased in two half-diamonds.

Much like the residents of Sky, Latvians have these design motifs, but they are much more numerous and intricate because, unlike Sky, reality doesn’t run on the hardware of a mobile device and is therefore not limited by data.

As you may have guessed, these designs, commonly known as “signs” each have their own distinctive meaning. Shit can range from the moon, to pagan deities, snakes, tons of shit. But for the sake of simplicity, we’re just going to be focusing on a few basic signs. To start, let's go with the repeating triangle symbol on the clothing of many of the residents of Sky

Dievs, also known as “God” represents the primary Baltic pagan deity of the same name and somehow the Christian God because of crusades and shit adding to the meaning. It is also important to mention that Dievs is the pagan Baltic god of many things, but most importantly in this case, the sky, light, prosperity, ruler of gods, and the creator of the universe.

Alternatively, there is another similar sign, this one being a row of triangles all connected at the corner with no bottom.

This is Māra’s water sign. It represents "The changeable, unsettled. Fleeting time. Ascendancy. Protector of life."

Light, rebirth, transience, life, and ascension are all central themes within Sky's story long before the player even started their journey. There are murals of this higher power made of light, either in the form of stars or the aquatic-looking light creatures that inhabit the land.

For those who know, there is a creature seen at the end of the game and throughout sky's concept development called "Megabird". It is a giant bird in space made of creatures of light and people who have ascended to the great beyond.

Considering that Megabird along with a lit candle and the literal fucking solar system is the last thing we see before we are reborn at the end of the game, being sent down to the earth as a ball of light in a shooting star, leads me to believe that the triangle symbol on the clothing of the people of Sky, players and NPCs alike, represent this abstract, non-humanoid, possibly non-sentient and non-self-aware power that rebirths souls and encompasses basically everything that is, that will be, and everything that has come before.

There is also another sign known as Māra’s earth sign, which is just a straight line.

The website describes it as "The material world. The land. The dark and unknown. Femininity and security." Aside from the fact that majority of Sky's playerbase is female, Sky has major themes of the consequences of pollution, the desire for power, and the fact that the semi-abstract physical representation of darkness serves as the main antagonist. This sign is commonly paired with an inverted Dievs in Latvian culture, representing the mirror of Dievs. I'm just going to assume that means darkness and/or the earth. However, I don't think that the people of sky would worship the thing that literally likely killed everyone and turned them into spirits, and the triangles are not upside-down, so I'm going to argue that, in my personal interpretation, the triangles above the earth sign in sky means the connection between the land and the sky as the entire game takes place within the clouds on a crap ton of floating islands. These two designs being on top of one another likely represents the cycle as a whole. Life, death, rebirth, repeat.

And now, the player's chest diamond. Known as Saule or Sun in English, represents "Harmony, health, corpulence. Unity, safety, light. The eternal. Returning, repeating."

Many people, mostly spirits, have a lone diamond upon head accessories, or on their clothing.

It is also visible in gravestones, weapons (namely shields), and infrastructure.

For the lone diamond, I think it's very straightforward. This symbol within sky represents either the kingdom itself, or safety. It is used in buildings that provide protection and shelter, shields that are scattered throughout the Golden Wasteland, and the final eternity: death. But what's with the two sideways triangles on the edge of the player's diamond? The most similar thing I found, and the comparison that makes the most sense is Krupītis (toad), described as "The subconscious, intuition. Strength. Knowledge and wisdom. Linked to Aizsaule ("beyond the sun"), mythical habitation of ghosts."

It's a stretch, but another theme of sky is growth. Each realm literally represents a different age in one's life from birth all the way to death. Along the way, we free spirits by literally witnessing their memories. We do so by using our light that is stored in the center of our chest, right where the symbol is. We also use this light to fight off the darkness by melting dark plants. We grow, we get stronger, and then we die. I think it's a combination of this and Saule. All the same concepts apply, even if it is a bit of a stretch design-wise.

Every time I play Sky, I'm always amazed by how much there is to be discovered, especially when the developers decided to keep the lore intentionally open-ended. Maybe they did take inspiration from Latvia and Baltic culture, or maybe this is just a big coincidence. I've been playing video games for my entire life and I can wholeheartedly say that there are very few that come close to the amount of time and care that ThatGameCompany puts into their work. I'm still playing even after 5 whole years and finding new stuff to this day. I highly recommend anybody who reads this post and has not played Sky yet to give it a try. Maybe you'll find something that reminds you of your world, too.

[lifetimeshipper]

Angel From A Dream

Chapter 7

~~~~~~~~~~

It's been four days since Steeljaw took Strongarm, Steeljaw has already set up a berth for her to lay on as well as other stuff for the room. The rest of his gang had set up their rooms with berths and anything else they wanted, with each one having their own berth room.

The gang took in a new member, a mech named Fracture, who came to Earth in search of Bumblebee but couldn't catch him due to the interference of Drift. Fracture couldn't get back to his ship thanks to the Autobots so he and his Mini-Cons fled, he later came across Steeljaw who got him to join his pack. 

One day, Fracture was at the base with Underbite while Steeljaw and Thunderhoof were out searching for other 'Cons or something that could give them the upper hand over the Autobots. Fracture decided to take a look around the base and came to the one room he had never seen the inside of, Steeljaw's room. He had been shown around the base after he joined the pack and he's seen every place except Steeljaw's room, the room nobody is allowed to go in. 

Fracture usually wouldn't be bothered by that as he believes in giving bots their personal space if need be and Steeljaw being his "boss", he needs to stay out of his personal stuff. But curiosity is getting the best of him as he keeps hearing noises coming from the room when Steeljaw is out, as though another being is in there that he hasn't seen.

"Don't even think about going in there."

Fracture looks to his side and sees Underbite standing there watching him. He didn't even know he was there, "Why not? What could our leader be hiding in there?"

"Not something for you to know!" Underbite says firmly.

"Why can't I know? I am part of the pack now."

"Just Steeljaw's rule."

Completely ignoring Underbite's warning, Fracture unlocks the door and opens it. He looks into the room and sees a femme lying on the berth, he watches her as she jumps off the berth and gets into a position to defend herself if need be. He noticed she had the Autobot symbol. An Autobot femme!

Strongarm takes a fighting position as Fracture comes into the room. She glares at him knowing that he's a Decepticon but she doesn't know who as she's never seen him before, "Who are you?"

"Name's Fracture. I'm a new member of the pack."

"What are you doing in here?"

"I've been hearing movement in this room when Steeljaw is away so I got curious," Fracture says as he moves closer to Strongarm.

Strongarm moves back while Underbite runs over and gets in front of him to block his path, "Trust me, Fracture, you do not want to touch her or even get close to her, Steeljaw will kill you if you do."

Fracture looks at Underbite for a moment then turns his attention to the femme and looks her over. He looks at her neck and sees the bite mark in the crevice of her neck, "He's marked you I see."

Strongarm placed her servo over the bite mark as she thought back to when Steeljaw bit her. It was a day ago after she tried to escape again and failed, he reduced her Energon consumption some more like he said he would, and in his rage, he harshly bit her to show her that she belongs to him and she can never leave.

"I shall leave you alone then, I know better than to mess with a Wolf-Con's femme."

Strongarm glared at him, "I'm no one's femme!"

Fracture lets out a cackle, "You don't know much about Wolf-Cons, do you?"

"Of course I do!" She's been reading up on Wolf-Cons ever since she was captured. Especially after Steeljaw marked her. She wanted to know about it, and if there was a way she could still get away from him even though she's marked.

"So you do know that since Steeljaw marked you you're now his forever."

Strongarm's optics widened in shock. She didn't know that as she was just getting to the marking part when he came into the room and interrupted her reading. She was about to speak when she heard a vicious growl coming from the door. The three looked towards the door to see Steeljaw standing there.

"I tried to stop him, boss..." Underbite starts talking but is quieted by Steeljaw's vicious glare.

"WHAT ARE YOU DOING IN HERE FRACTURE!!??" Steeljaw growls out.

"I was curious about what you were keeping in your room..."

"IT'S NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS!!"

Fracture smirked, "I see now why you don't want any of us to come into your room. She is pretty."

That statement just angered Steeljaw further and he ran towards Fracture with his claws out ready to slash him, but Fracture moved out of the way and went to the other side of the room away from Strongarm. Steeljaw growled as he went to stand in front of the femme in a protective stance, "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT TOUCHING HER!!" He warns.

Fracture throws his servos up as a sign of surrender, "Whoa, Steeljaw, I'm not trying to take her from you. I would never mess with a marked femme."

"Good! Now get out!"

"The protective nature of a Wolf-Con always protects the one they love," Fracture says as he looks at the femme. "You're special if you could get this Wolf-Con to fall in love with you. I've heard about him and he's never gotten this intimate with any femme."

"Leave, Fracture!" Steeljaw says as he starts getting annoyed. Without saying another word Fracture leaves the room along with Underbite, "Close the door!" Steeljaw demands and they do so.

After the door is closed, Steeljaw turns to look at Strongarm, "Did he touch you?"

Strongarm shakes her helm, "No. Just talked."

"At least you weren't harmed. You better lay down and get some rest," Steeljaw said and Strongarm didn't hesitate to obey. She lays back down on the berth and Steeljaw climbs in to lie next to her, he's not gonna leave her again anytime soon.

Strongarm turns to lay on her side and face him, she's not sure if she should feel at ease or not with having him lay with her. She decides to let it go this time as she closes her optics and drifts off into recharge.

Steeljaw looks at her as he caresses her cheek plate. He did not like that Fracture was in his room and talking to his femme, he'll have to deal with him later. Right now he just wants to lay next to his femme, his Cadet, his mate, his angel.

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

Hours later, Strongarm wakes up to find Steeljaw fast asleep, for once he doesn't have his arm, or tail, lying across her waist. His left servo rested on the berth just a few inches from her face, she suspects he was caressing her face again before he fell into recharge. She notices that he caresses her face a lot and she's not sure why. Her ex never did that, in fact, he hardly ever touched her unless he was trying to touch her body.

She removes those thoughts of her ex from her processor as she carefully gets up off the berth trying not to wake Steeljaw. Once she's off the berth she stretches as she walks around, lying there for so long cramped up her joints and she needed to stretch. While she stretched she got a very sharp pain in her neck which caused her to wince and place a servo over the bite mark. It still feels weird to feel the mark on her armor. She looked over at Steeljaw as sadness, anger, and concern all filled her at once. Is she really his forever? 

No, she refuses to believe that. There has to be a way to get rid of the mark and get away from him, it's not like spark bonding which is unbreakable. She looks over at the door as she remembers that when the other Decepticons left they didn't lock the door, at least she didn't hear them lock it. She walks over to it and tries to open it... 

It opened! Some 'Cons really aren't all that smart. 

She pokes her helm out and peers into the hallway, none of the other 'Cons were in sight and the place seemed very quiet. The other 'Cons must be either in recharge or they're out. She looks back into the room at Steeljaw as she debates on whether she should attempt another escape or not. Primus knows what Steeljaw will do to her this time if she gets caught again but she also doesn't want to miss the one, and probably only, opportunity she gets to escape and possibly not get caught. Steeljaw may have marked her but that doesn't mean anything to her, he's still just a 'Con criminal she can't wait to lock up.

Strongarm finally makes up her mind and heads for the exit, she moves very quietly just in case the others are still around and she just can't hear them. She hears nothing as she quietly moves through the hallway, even when she reaches the big room where she first saw Thunderhoof and Underbite after she and Steeljaw arrived, there are no signs of any of them. She guesses they all left for a bit to let Steeljaw cool down, she's not sure how long they've been gone and how soon they will be back so she's gonna have to hurry. 

She runs straight for the exit, freedom is finally in her grasp. The sun was just starting to go down but she could feel the sun's rays on her metal plating as she reached the outside. The feeling brought her great relief, she was so happy to feel the sun's rays and the cool breeze on her metal plating once again. But she didn't have time to dwell on it as she needed to get moving. She transforms and drives off at full speed, she's not gonna slow down or stop until she reaches the scrapyard.

~~~~~~~~~~

Steeljaw abruptly woke up with a weird sensation, like there was an emptiness as though he was missing something very dear to him. He sat there confused about what it could have been until he looked over to his side where Strongarm should have been and found her gone. He looks around the room to see if she got up to move around but he doesn't see her. His optics soon land on the open door and he starts to panic, "No no NO!" He says as he jumps off the berth and runs out of the room.

"STRONGARM!!" He shouts as he heads for the exit. He runs outside and sniffs around, just as he starts to get her scent he gets that sensation again, but this time it's basically telling him which way to go to track down his mate. He transforms and heads in the direction he's sure she went as pain suddenly shoots through his frame and he starts to feel like purging out his Energon tank. Why is he feeling like this? He's not sure and it's scaring him which is angering him even more.

~~~~~~~~~~

Strongarm had just made it to the woods when she had to stop, she started to feel sick as severe pain shot throughout her body. She transforms and purges out her Energon tank on the side of the road, she leans against a tree as she tries to wrap her processor around what's going on. Why is she feeling sick all of a sudden? She was just fine a bit ago. 

She just shrugged it off and started walking, but she could only take a couple of steps before she fell to her knees, "What in the pit is going on?" She asks herself as she tries to recollect herself and stand up. She has no success as the severe pain grips her frame even more and she falls to the ground, "What is with this pain!?" She shouts in frustration.

She hears the engine of a car and she makes another attempt to stand up, she gets up onto her feet as the pain starts to subside a bit. She's trying to move off the road and take cover in case it's humans but has a hard time moving. She listens to the engine more closely and realizes that it's Steeljaw and not the humans. 

Scrap! Of course, he would track me down, and I can't really move so I can't hide. She says to herself as Steeljaw's vehicle form comes into view. She hears more engines and she looks to see a few human vehicles heading towards her. Before she could grasp what was happening the weapon on one vehicle shot at her and she felt a surge of electricity course through her as she blacked out.

Steeljaw pulls up in time to see this and is outraged by seeing his mate taken down in such a way, he transforms and charges the humans but is hit with the same thing that struck Strongarm and he is electrocuted and knocked out.

Strongarm later wakes up to an ache in her helm and soreness all over her body as her systems try to function through the pain. She looks around and notices she's in a holding cell which is large and well accommodated enough for a Cybertronian. She looks over to her right and sees Steeljaw lying next to her and she wonders how they got in this situation, things are a bit fuzzy at the moment. 

Steeljaw wakes up with a horrible helm ache, he places a servo on his helm as he sits up and looks around. He notices the same thing Strongarm did, that they were in a large holding cell just for them. They looked at each other as they both tried to figure out where they were and what was going on. Then a male voice rang out which got their attention, "You two are awake I see. There is Energon over there in the corner and stuff for you to sleep on if you need to."

Strongarm and Steeljaw looked at the human that was speaking to them. The human was a male that looked like he was around his mid to late thirties, he was muscularly built and had short brownish-black hair that was slicked back. They also noticed he had a long scar on his left cheek just below his eye, he looked like someone that's been in many fights and won. He had this tough-looking exterior to him like he couldn't be intimidated or phased by anything.

Steeljaw and Strongarm looked at him with intrigue and confusion as questions burned into their processors, "Who are you!?" Steeljaw finally asked with a growl and a hint of venom in his voice.

"My identity will be made known in due time," the man responded. His voice was rough and edgy and held a tone that would make anyone follow him, which could be why he had so many men at his command.

Steeljaw let out a growl to try and scare the human but to no avail. Then Strongarm spoke up, "Why are we here? What do you want with us?"

At that question, the man's mouth curled into a smirk as he responded, "One thing... Revenge."

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

Chapter 1

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