#honestly i didn’t have enough brain power to think of something other than my default ghost girlfriend scenario

[badlydrawnmanic]

baldur’s gate 3 has once again taken over my life and i low key wanna draw the playable characters as mobians because i have crossover / furry brain disease + edits

to no one’s surprise astarion is a bat because, well. vampires, and his secret isn’t exactly hard to figure out before the reveal cutscene. he himself may not be associated with bats but you get it

gale is kinda tough for me to pin down because he’s both plain but not at all at the same time. his personality doesn’t fit cat despite his light association with them through tara, but hedgehog is seemingly considered a default even to the sonic series itself much like human is in dnd, so that might work. his hair is also kinda makes me think of a lion and that has a bit more character to it

karlach is undoubtedly my favorite. outside of fire one of her bigger unique design bits is her broken horn which i’d wanna keep fairly the same. sheep would fit the curled shape but she doesn’t really have a soft vibe that comes along with sheep. maybe some sort of cow-like animal. big and powerful. friend suggested she be a boar instead of minsc which i could roll with. confused for a hellsboar by wyll

lae’zel is supposed to be markedly different from the other characters, so i’m thinking either some kind of reptile / amphibian or something entirely alien in that it’s a beast from the dnd universe. while they aren’t associated with the githyanki there’s gremishka in the creche and that might be just interesting enough to work. big ears. friend also suggested a skink specifically and people seem to think she's very frog even if i don't see it lol

shadowheart is also relatively normal. was thinking wolf for a time but honestly she had cat vibes + that would sort of play into her and lae’zel being kinda similar despite being from fundamentally different places / backgrounds. friend suggested a squirrel? will consider

wyll feels like he’d be some kind of dog given the general good boy-ness of him, loyalty, etc, plus it kinda plays into how mizora talks about him. naturally his “you didn’t kill karlach” form would be a hellhound. friend mentioned fox but i think dog is more fitting

halsin is a bear and there is nothing difficult about this whatsoever

i haven’t done an evil run yet where i recruit minthara but i know she’s a lolth sworn drow and they’re associated with spiders and that would be kinda cool. friend suggested wolf for her also

minsc would probably also be a dog. even though repeats are a bit lame, he was a protagonist in another group of characters from another baldur’s gate so it’s fine. one of those stupidly huge breeds that look more like lions than dogs. if not a dog than maybe a boar. friend suggested a ferret but i think he needs beef to him. wolverine maybe?

jaheira also being from the other baldur’s gate game could probably be a repeat too. slightly cranky old cat but she loves you in her own way. would also contrast with minsc. if not a cat then i could see her as a deer i think. i somehow forgot that the game's ai defaults her wildshape to a panther when you're battling alongside her in moonrise towers so panther it is

[lunar-art]

one panel comic for comic claaaaass!

[secret-engima]

So I started RWBY (thanks for that, it’s all from you), and I gotta say I love Yang. So are there any Dragon!Yang rambles you have? What about lunweiss too?

It’s been a while since I enjoyed a show like this, it’s nice

Hi!!! Welcome aboard!! And not to taint your opinions but just- idk I feel obligated to warn you that while I 100% recommend V1-V5, V6 is emotionally hard (and has plot points I am Not Happy With) and V7 is just ... a train wreck. A wonderfully animated, woefully badly written train wreck. And I’ve yet to watch v8 so I have no idea what’s going on THERE beyond Oscar being a Suffering Sunshine Boi.

But yes! Headcanons!!!! Also apologies for any spoilers I mention for the show in these? I don’t know where you are in the show and I’ve already talked a lot of spoilers I’m sure XD.

Dragon Yang:

-Yang is excited to go to Beacon actually. Nervous and dreading it, but excited. She’s learned over the two years since returning to Remnant how to manage her strength and limit her lethality, how to hide the worst of her ... odd behaviors. She wants to make new friends, and she’s hoping to see Velvet there (Yang transfers to Velvet’s combat school in this AU and makes friends with her by accident). But she’s also dreading the “living in dorms with strangers” thing.

-Then she learns Ruby is getting to join early and she oscillates between HECK YES SIBLING TEAM HERE WE COME to MY BABY SISTER IS NOT READY FOR THIS. PROTECC. Of course, she’s been training Ruby these last two years too, because she’s afraid of her own strength but she’s more afraid of Ruby being unprepared for the dangers of the world. Ruby will never be a STELLAR hand to hand but she can fight mean and run away and her parkour skills have reached ninja levels even without her Semblance.

-Now she just has to get on the same team as her sister.

-She’s honestly ... highly amused by the initiation exam? Like- yeah sure fling the DRAGON SLAYER off a CLIFF and expect her to be alarmed. Psh.

-She means to track down Ruby and is will on her way to doing so when she runs into Blake first. That’s ... a little annoying. She doesn’t even know this girl’s name (Yang never dragged Ruby off to make friends during the pre-initiation sleepover thing in this AU) but it’s not Blake’s fault so.

-Also, on the note of Blake lemme just sidetrack to point out something interesting in Yang’s mentality. She can tell the moment she smells Blake that Blake is a Faunus.

-She still doesn’t think of her as a Faunus. Because- to Yang, she genuinely doesn’t .... really understand the difference between Faunus and human? To her everyone is human, some of them just have extra bits and more useful senses. And this is a TOTALLY UNCONSCIOUS MENTALITY from back when she was living on Earthland. Because in Earthland, people can look really, really weird (especially in the magic community) and yet they are all still called “humans” and are still treated perfectly normal. Like this girl from canon Fairy Tail show-

That tail and those ears are 100% real, they move and react like actual limbs in the anime, but they weren’t always THERE. When that character was teeny, she looked like a “normal” human, but her magic is feline oriented and so over the years those traits GREW on her. And literally NO ONE BATS AN EYE IN THE SHOW. Not even the people who knew her when she was tiny non-cat human child. She’s far from the only example, but she’s the easiest to think of especially in regards to the Faunus thing.

-So yeah, Yang smells feline traits on Blake and just- doesn’t even react. Doesn’t mention it to anyone because her brain skips right over “cat ears = Faunus” in this world and goes straight to “ah yes, my new 100% nonmagical human teammates. My Sister, Ice Child, and Girl With Decent Hearing Thank Goodness”.

-So while Blake thinks she’s keeping her Faunus traits a secret from her whole team, her partner Yang is just vibing off to the side, perfectly aware that Blake has cat ears but still thinking of her and every other Faunus as regular ol’ humans.

-Yang doesn’t abandon Ruby at the entrance to Beacon either, so Weiss made a ... bad impression on Yang very quickly for yelling at Ruby’s sister for an accident. Yang shut that whole thing down pretty fast, but Ruby was still feeling humiliated and nervous and Weiss was prickly and embarrassed by Yang’s blunt opinions.

-Yeah it’s a good thing they can bond via Nevermore killing because otherwise this team would be way more dysfunctional than it is in the first few days.

-Yang has mixed opinions on Team JNPR. It is painfully clear Jaune has no idea what he’s doing, but frankly she has her hands full with her own team atm and no time to try to gently bully this boy into proper training. She makes a note to do it later. Pyrrha smells lonely and she’s a sweetheart. Nora is wayyyy to prone to getting into Yang’s (and everyone’s) personal space. Ren is nice. He has manners and he smells of tea.

-There’s a scene early on where this guy called Cardin bullies Velvet for her ears by grabbing them and pulling them and I’ve never like how none of the main characters or anyone else try to hELP.

-Ergo, when that scene happens, Yang promptly gets up, twists Cardin’s wrist so that he lets Velvet’s ear go, then picks him up by the back of his shirt and flings him right through the farthest cafeteria window she can aim at from this angle. When his team of fellow bullies take it poorly, she proceeds to throw them through other windows.

-Her only defense when taken to the Headmaster’s office to face down Glynda and a very bemused Ozpin is that 1. at least she didn’t break their jaws or bones like she did the first time she caught someone bullying Velvet, 2. Professor Goodwitch can fix the windows with telekinesis to it’s not like the school was actually damaged and 3. if the Headmaster can fling people off cliffs for initiations, she can fling people through windows for being moronic bullies that needed spanking when they were five and spoiled but never got it.

-Goodwitch is not amused. Ozpin, on the other hand, is highly amused by trying not to show it. Yang can smell it and sense it in his magic tho.

-Yang, later in the dorms, more to herself then anyone, “So Velvet was born with one more pair of ears than most humans have, that’s no reason to be a jerk. I mean come on, he was born with a dumb face but I left him alone until he made the first move.”

-Blake: *vague staticky brain noises of confusion* “She’s ... a Faunus.”

-Yang: Gesundheit.

-Yang meeting Ironwood is gonna be-

-Fun.

-Because she first meets him in v2/v3 when he shows up for the Vytal Festival and brings an army with him and it makes Yang’s instincts SCREECH. This is OZPIN’S territory and this random general man is stomping all over it, bringing his army with him like some kind of power statement and she is immediately ready to Throw Hands with this man on Ozpin’s behalf just out of PRINCIPLE. So when she goes up to visit him at one point and finds Ironwood already there, she ignores the conversation she interrupted by arriving, points at Ironwood and goes, “Is this guy bothering you, Headmaster? Should I through him out the window? Or down the elevator shaft?”

-Ironwood is stunned that a student just- SAYS THAT. Ozpin, who has already gotten to know Yang enough to know that her social default setting is “subtle as a brick that’s been dunked in gasoline and set on fire”, sighs, “I’m fine, Yang. This is General Ironwood from Atlas.”

-Yang clicks her tongue and cracks her knuckles, “I know who he is, he’s the guy who showed up and cluttered up your skies with those rattling junk heaps he calls an army. It’s why I asked if you wanted me to throw him.”

-Ironwood, truly aghast, “Excuse me?”

-(ngl I DO like Ironwood and feel like they did his character dirty in v7 and likely v8 but, especially in v2/v3 he does have a bit of a arrogance problem)

Lunweiss:

-Weiss probably confuses so many people at Beacon. She is a Schnee, so while people are expecting some measure of dignity they are also expecting snobbery or brattiness and instead she’s just- the sweetest, mildest person under her reserve?

-Jaune still has a huge crush on her, she firmly but gently informs him that she’s just not interested. When he is slow to take the hint she gets upset, but that just means she withdraws in on herself.

-Yang, activating her Big Sister instincts: Yo, Jaune. I like you, you’re a good friend. But if you don’t drop it then I’m going to drop kick you off the top of Beacon Tower.

-Jaune: o.o yes ma’am.

-Lunweiss has had ... something of a deprived childhood in both lives. I don’t mean physically, because of course as Oracle and then as Heiress she had the best clothes and finest foods, but just- in the ordinary Teenage Life Experience. Things like video games and board games, carnival food, shopping with friends- she doesn’t have any real experiences like that? So obviously, as soon as Team RWBY realizes this (aka the day they’re lounging around the dorm and Luna asks what “these” are, “these” being Yang’s and Ruby’s collection of video games), they set out to do All The Fun Things with Weiss. Even Blake gets in on it when she comes to the somewhat stunning realization that the life experience even she, the Faunus activist, took for granted, is stuff Weiss has only ever heard of distantly in books and film.

-Weiss, bemusedly attempting to play a video game while Yang and Ruby lean on either shoulder and coach her on the buttons: ...What is the purpose of this?

-Ruby: *initiates lore dump about the video game plot and characters and emotional story beats*

-Yang, yanking Ruby’s hood over her head so she sputters to a stop: To unwind and have fun with friends.

-Weiss: I thought that was what ‘sleepover night’ was for?

-Ruby: People can do more than one ‘fun’ activity, Weiss.

At one point Blake reluctantly takes Weiss book shopping because Ruby, as Team Leader, has organized an entire schedule of “who does what fun thing with Weiss” and this was hers: So this is my favorite book store, the fiction genres are that way, non-fiction is that way, and comics are over there.

Weiss: *looks incredibly, hopelessly lost* Ummmmm

Blake: ... let’s start simple. What kind of books did you read as a kid?

Weiss, a little helplessly: whatever the tutors my father hired deemed proper for my education at the time and whatever books I could sneak out of the library without being caught and told to put them back because they were either “too young” for me, “too old”, or “not proper for a young lady of my standing”. Grandfather had a lot of books that my father put in that latter category and eventually he just- locked the doors to the library entirely and bought a new copy of whatever my teachers or tutors said I needed.

Blake: *listens to this and slowly has an internal crisis that the ‘spoiled’ Schnee heiress has never been allowed to read her own choice of books aka Blake’s favorite childhood activity*

Blake, a little desperately: Are there any books you remember enjoying as a child? Even if they were assigned?

Weiss combs through her memories, decides that’s not productive, and goes all the way back to her Luna lifetime before tentatively admitting: I ... enjoyed reading mythology and other tales set in historical eras with little evidence of being actually true, but entertaining nonetheless, especially since they often had a moral component woven in.

Blake runs that through her internal Weiss Translator: Fairy tales. You like fairy tales. Okay, I can work with that.

[tiaragqueen]

Aegis

✂ Pairing: Yandere! Adult! Shouto Todoroki x Reader

✂ Word Count: 1,2k+

✂ Trigger Warnings: Manipulation, possessiveness, mention of kidnapping

[Edited]

***

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“Your job's a joke, you're broke, your love life's D.O.A. It's like you're always stuck in second gear. When it hasn't been your day, your week, your month, or even your year, but I'll be there for you.” - I’ll Be There For You [The Rembrandts]

It was just a joke, honestly.

During the peaceful silence with Shōto, who liked to visit your apartment from time to time, you’d playfully wished someone would just ‘kidnap you already’. You didn’t really think about the implication of your desire since you tended to speak nonsense when stressed out, anyway. All you wished for was a break from your growing paperwork, someone to pamper you and ease the pressure like a lover would. You might not necessarily yearn for a relationship, but the idea of someone being utterly devoted to you was nice.

And that was what Shōto thought, too. But his way of showing it was… startling, to say the least.

The first thing you saw after you opened your eyes was a plain white ceiling with a pendant light, its bulb dark. Next, you felt the fluffiness pressed against your head. A pillow, you concluded as you groped the said thing, but it was strangely wider than your old one, and comfier too. Then, you noticed how the room had more space and there was a LED TV in front of the queen size bed you were occupying. All of it just screamed ‘wealth’ throughout, and you didn’t know whether you should scream for help or relish the luxury. Perhaps, you could even pretend you owned every belonging despite your poor finance. A little imagination never hurt anyone, no?

A door to your left suddenly opened, snapping you back to reality. Shōto sauntered inside wearing nothing but a towel to cover his lower part, bicolored hair tousled. Your face blanched as you gawked at him, the realization that you’d been sleeping on his room – on his freaking bed – finally settled in. Although you knew that you were just jumping to conclusions, who else was richer anyway? Who else was born from a famous and wealthy family?

“S-Shōto, what–? What am I doing here? Why am I here?! Did I – oh God!” You screeched and pulled your hair in frustration. “I didn’t sleep with you, did I?! Tell me we didn’t. Please!”

He stopped searching for his clothes and turned to face you, wondering the reason why you seemed alarmed around him. Why did it matter if you both slept together? Didn’t you say you loved him? “Technically, yes–”

“What?!”

“But we didn’t have sex.” he continued before you could break down, and the effect of that sentence was powerful enough to elicit an audible sigh of relief from you. Slumping on the white mattress, you clutched your chest to regulate the violent heartbeats.

Cocking his head, Shōto drawled. “We can try if you want.”

“No!” you shouted quickly, hiding your blooming visage with both hands. For as long as you could remember, Shōto never once referred sex, not even a joke. He always looked impassive whenever those raunchy scenes appeared on the TV, or make out. Then again, it was his default face, anyway. Nevertheless, you liked and respected his cute obliviousness and ability to handle erotic things without constantly insinuating them like other males.

However, you tended to forget that he was an adult now, not the awkward teenager you’d first met in high school.

“Why not? We’re lovers, after all.”

You slowly raised your head and blinked dumbly. “What…?”

“Isn’t that why you prayed for someone to kidnap you? So they could take care of you?” he inquired innocently. “I admit, I’m still rather dense to people’s feelings, but your wish has opened my eyes to see beyond the obvious. I felt guilty for being ignorant of your sufferings, so I made it up by moving you to my house. Or, should I say, our house.”

You opened your mouth to say something, anything, but no words managed to leave. On one hand, you were glad that you didn’t have to live in your horrible apartment anymore. But, on the other hand, this was too sudden. Living with your best friend? Wait, no, lover. Did he assume that title after you made your silly wish? But it was just a joke, and besides, you never mentioned dating anyway.

“If something isn’t up to your liking, tell me and we can change it immediately. I want you to be more comfortable here.” Shōto smiled guilelessly, much to your disbelief.

“Shōto, no…” His tender mien morphed into confusion when you shook your head. “I didn’t… I didn’t think about anything when I said that, okay? It was just… it was just bullshit on my part because I was stressed out and–”

“Exactly.” Shōto cut you off and clasped your hands, a gleam of affection flecked his bicolored eyes. “I don’t want you to become more stressed out than necessary, so I decided to remove you from such an environment. After all, as my girlfriend, you deserve only the best in life.”

His reason didn’t make sense to you, but the sincerity behind it was enough to hinder you from speaking once again.

“B-but… what about my job? I need money to live, too.” you finally whispered after a moment of doubtful silence.

Sighing, Shōto patted your crown and smiled. “There’s no need for you to worry about that anymore. I’ve already dealt with it.”

“And what exactly do you mean by ‘dealt with it’?”

“I told your boss you quit.”

Time seemed to slow as your brain processed another bombshell he dropped on you in less than an hour. Once it sunk in, it felt as if the only piece of freedom you had now after moving to his house finally slipped through your fingers and shattered like glass. It wasn’t your favorite job in the world, but the result – your hard work and payment, regardless of how small it was – brought a sense of security and gratification. You hated having to rely on someone financially, because what if they descend to poverty tomorrow?

“You… you can’t do that! My job might be shitty, but it’s everything to me, just like heroism to you!”

“If you hated your job, then why did you devote so much time to it? I thought people would rather avoid such work, or do it poorly.”

“Y-yeah, well, that’s because…” you stammered, trying to elude his piercing gaze. “That’s because for some people… love the feelings it gives. You know, like, personal satisfaction of being paid after working so hard.”

“But your salary sometimes isn’t enough to cover you daily, is it? Especially the rent that seems to rise every month.”

“I-I know that already!” you huffed, scowling. “It’s just… I’m not ready, Shōto. It’s all too sudden for me to comprehend.”

“Well, I’m here, aren’t I?” he murmured, squeezing your shoulders reassuringly. “If it’s money you’re concerned about, rest assured, I’ll bring it to you every day. I may even save some if it’ll be any consolation to you. Your boss clearly didn’t appreciate your hard work, because if he did, he would’ve promoted you or gave you rewards. But he didn’t, and you were still stuck in the same position as years ago.”

Shōto leaned forward and kissed your forehead. “Don’t worry too much, okay? Just enjoy your new life now. All I’m asking is your obedience, that’s all. If you listen to my words, then everything will be okay.”

You stared at him for a moment before sighing in defeat, acknowledging the futility of arguing with him any further. There was something about him that made his logic sounded… infallible, even if you couldn’t fathom it.

Suppressing the triumph that twitched the corner of his lips, Shōto tousled your hair and stood up.

“Now, go take a shower. There’s a place I want us to visit today.”

[warsmith-38]

How I would do RWBY Pt. 0

Disclaimer: It is easier to improve what already exist than it is to create something new. Boy howdy do I know that. That being said, I believe that RWBY has more than its fair share of flaws and this is how I would do it differently if I was behind the reigns. This is just a collection of my opinions and ideas which in the end will probably amount to nothing. I felt the need to do this because my brain just decided ‘nah motherfucker, you ain’t thinking of anything else from now on’ and this is the end result for nothing else would satisfy my rage.

I wouldn’t quite call this a complete re-haul, but more rather a rework with some of my own brand of polish. It’s not a compete rebuild from the ground up in a different world with different concepts and themes, but how I would go about a second go around with the series from the base that is already there. If a detail is missing from my musings then assume it is either unchanged or removed, depending on context.

If some of my complaints were addressed after I stopped watching, I honestly don’t much care. If it takes longer than 4 seasons to fix what I view as fundamental problems, then it’s far too little too late for me. I paid scant attention to the series post my stopping point and liked little to none of what I saw.

Please do not take this as a specific attack on anything other than the writing of the show itself. This is not directed or targeted against anyone, regardless of position or feelings on the topic at hand. If you ignore what I just said and decide to take this as an insult, then I say that you need to be more self-secure in your tastes and interests.

Things I would remove + reason why

Silver eyed warriors as a concept- it’s more or less the same concept as dojutsu from Naruto. It’s the fucking sharingan (rubygan). It’s not quite chosen one level, but crap like this is the blight of good protagonists. It’s fucking eugenics that makes you awesome not your own skills or training but on your bloodline. No need for personal development or life-changing hardship when you have a built in power that can be cultivated like a fucking bumper crop.

Maidens- Wasn’t intended originally and only made the overall story more cluttered with power creep and plot device. It’s a similar problem as above. No need for training or anything if people can just kill the person who has the power currently and take if from them. Which, at that point, why do you want that power if you’re already strong enough to kill and take it from the person who has it to begin with? It’s something someone just shouted out and they rolled with it because it sounded cool in the moment.

The Relics- McGuffin dragonballs that serve as plot device and little else. A story can be told without needing to monotonously race for Excalibur or the holy grail. Considering the Maidens, I doubt that the relics were intended in the first place and as such if you can’t tell a story without throwing something in after a few seasons because you realized that you didn’t have a plot, then you’re not that good at telling stories.

Oscar- The show didn’t need more main protagonists when what was already there wasn’t being given enough characterization to begin with. For that matter-

Quite a few characters- The cast is cluttered and convoluted enough as is with seemingly important characters getting the shaft in favor of yet another new character that would barely do anything. Time and effort seems to be put into one-off schmucks that would be better served making the story not need poochie the dog, let alone several. Character integration is not ‘create a character to do one thing and then pretend they don’t exist’. There’s already plenty of characters than can be used wherever.

The overt shipping bait, especially if it’s just going to be taken up or abandoned on a whim- I don’t mean relationship building, I mean the obvious baiting of a relationship that, in the end, might not even happen. All it does is dumb down characters and character arcs, draw out pointless scenes, and make the fans have conniptions one way or another. People are pissed off whenever things don’t go their way with shipping so the only winning move with these people is not to play their game. Looking at you Klance and Zutara. Either don’t do anything or have a fucking plan and stick to it and not make complete swerves when fans get uppity. If it genuinely matters to you, then pretend whatever ship happens at whatever point, I don’t care.

Changes to the world that I think would go over better-

Everyone has a level of aura with a naturally high level generally meaning that they might be able to unlock a semblance. A semblance is unlocked through some sort of specific event, typically a stressful one IE: Yang and Ruby are caught in the woods by grimm and Yang gets frustrated and scared at not being able to defend her sister before getting angry and her rage mode semblance unlocking. Not everyone who unlocks a semblance goes into combat schools but it is a requirement for acceptance into most of them. Having the potential to unlock a semblance seems entirely random but has a higher chance with genetics.

There are two types of semblances: 1 is hereditary like the Schnee glyphs, changing only slightly, if at all, through the generations. 2 is a random personal power like Yang having her rage mode as compared to Raven’s portals. Whichever you get tends to be random with the occasional exception depending on genetics and the specific semblance.

Every 1 in assumedly 10 people who have semblances have the potential to have two semblances, often times, but not necessarily, being one hereditary and one random. The process of unlocking the second semblance involves immense emotional distress and in some cases might not even happen for the individual who has the potential, period, thus skewing data. This gives an enhanced type power but isn’t protagonist exclusive. It shows a higher than average power capacity, but isn’t a gamebreaker to the same level as a fucking kekkei genkai or getting the powers of a fucking demigod. A good amount of characters would only have one semblance and be considerable badasses despite it and even be able to beat a couple of the few that have two.

Establish Menagerie as the official Fifth Kingdom, the newest of the great kingdoms. Maybe not the singularly strongest or most influential, but make it so Menagerie and its people, the faunus, have a considerable role in the world’s affairs, if even from an isolationist standpoint. Don’t have them as even a semi thriving entity that isn’t a kingdom because that only begs the question as to why the kingdoms are so important to begin with then.

Make the White Fang a faunus supremacist group that has very little support, if any, from the faunus people as a whole. Faunus right issues are history for the vast majority of the world and the White Fang as a whole is only using the problems in Atlas with the SDC as a means of trying to gain power. There are actual faunus rights groups trying to make things better for their race in Atlas and other marginalized areas but the White Fang dislikes them on the grounds that they go against their goal and it makes them look even worse.

Fucking pronounce names correctly, I mean, Christ. Weiss, the word, is pronounced like ‘Vice’. It’s an actual fucking word. It’s the German word for white. It’s like saying tor-till-uh not tor-tee-ah. Blake is Bella-doe-nah not Bella-dawn-uh. Shit like that. No you don’t need to put on a heavy accent to say these words but pronouncing things so inaccurately just makes you look like an ignorant rube (no, that was not a pun). I don’t fucking care what your reasons are. Why use these words in the first place if you’re not even going to try to say them right?

Ozpin is order to Salem’s chaos. Ancient demigods of both archetypes vying for power across the ages and the innocent peoples of the world be damned in the crossfire. Neither are entirely good nor evil but both are not exactly helpful to the free peoples on the world and the continued livelihood thereof. Their progenitor god created them to try and guide humanity in a balanced way. That seemed to work at first, but then failed like a bad marriage and they waged war ever since like a bad divorce. The grimm are a creation of Salem’s to test humanity and make then stronger through conflict. Ozpin ranges from the lawman to the fascist fairly duplicitously. The two can only be permanently killed by each other but neither wants to get too close to the other because of that exact same reason. If killed by other means, they will resurrect after a fashion no worse for wear.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Ruby Rose- It is a crime that the titular character has so little actual character beyond just being ‘Hyperactive Anime Protagonist #235’. Most of her (few) character traits are tell not show, and of course she’s got the fucking rubygan bloodline ability crap. She has next to nothing that isn’t allotted by default to most anime protags on the grounds of the stereotype. For the main character to have less character than any of the members of the fucking B-team is a travesty.

1. Give her a clear rebellious streak, a distinct problem with authority, and a headstrong attitude. Daddy doesn’t want her to be in danger, so she decides to become a huntress. She’s told to stay put, so she hunts down Roman. She’s told that she needs to stay home and recover, so she sets out on her own not thinking about the exact consequences. Make her the impetus for the team’s involvement with the problems of the world in the early seasons. Make her a driving part of the plot, not just being along for the ride or because someone else said so.

2. Give her blood knight tendencies. Make her VERY willing to get into a fight with the bad guys, not just fights in general, but fights against bad guys. Nothing over the top, but enough that she has a scene or three where she says “Shut up bad guy, skip to the part where we get to kick the crap out of you,” or something of that nature. Hyper combative characters are fun and ethical.

3. Give her more traits as a mechanic and weapon nerd. Include scenes of her fixing everyone’s weapons for fun or being able to analyze an opponent’s fighting style based on the type, design, and/or wear & tear of their weapon, make her a polyglot of weapons that can be at least proficient in using just about any weapon. Come to think of it…

4. Anything that could give her actual character traits. They don’t even have to be all that major traits, just give her enough so that we actually have a character with more definition than printer paper. She’s the main character, the titular character at that. This isn’t a video game with a blank-slate protagonist. If the main character isn’t even really a character, like, at all, then what’s the fucking point?

5. Convert silver eyes power into a second semblance for white fire vision that kills grimm like nothing else. Gotten as a hereditary semblance from Summer. Which is also why Summer was specifically targeted by Salem on the grounds that it makes her just a little too dangerous for her long-term plans. This makes it so she isn’t just the fucking chosen one, but still has a clear definitive reason to be involved against the big bad because, y’know, dead mom. Yes, this kinda goes into the whole ‘bloodline is what determines importance’ thing I wanted to be rid of, but it’s only a chance two generations instead of a massive lineage of nonsense and keeps more of the onus of involvement on Ruby herself.

6. Give her a very clear motivation that’s deeper than surface level. ‘Oh, I want to do the right thing’ is a flimsy as balls motivation especially compared to the rest of her team that has that AND an actual reason for thinking that way. Why does she want to be the good guy? What happened in her life that makes her this motivated to doing the right thing? Yang has her desire to find her mother (which, come to think of it, doesn’t necessitate being a good guy), Blake has wanting to make up for being a terrorist, Weiss has her desire to step out from under the shadow of her family’s reputation, even fucking Jaune, the b-team protagonist, who wants to live up to his family reputation, has a proper motivation to be involved in the story. WHY is Ruby involved beyond ‘I’m the main character’ level reasoning? As much as admitting it makes me wish to commit Sudoku, even SAO has better main character motivations. Good god, I need hooch after typing that.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Yang Xiao-Long- Her arc was mostly fine, barring some of the pacing. Raven being a maiden undercut the message of ‘screw that deadbeat bitch, go to your real family’ by making her important to the overall world state and confirming a measure of later relevance but that’s more a flaw with Raven than Yang.

1. Keep her motivation about getting strong enough to find her mother but add in the clear desire to kick her ass for leaving her and Tai. Of course it’s more about just getting the answers to her questions, but the ass-kicking should also be a major component.

2. Amp up the rivalry between her and Mercury. Mercury was designed as an opposite to Yang, I mean for fuck’s sake, look at him. Consider their respective backstories too; both raised in a single father home yet one was supported and loved (if a little neglected) while the other was horrifyingly maimed and abused. Punch vs kick. It works.

3. Make her more protective of her little sister, explicitly going along with her personal crusade to keep her safe (safer, rather). If she’s supposed to be the good older sister, maybe just maybe, something more than lip-service to that idea should be done. Hell, maybe she can be overprotective like their father, or even the exact opposite, not really giving a shit and then learning to give one. That might lead to a little tension and growth between the two of them.

4. Make her semblance consistent. Is she supposed to have super saiyan rage mode or is it energy buildup and dispersal? Is it supposed to be both? Just make it rage mode, for the sake of fuck, and don’t flip-flop. Speaking of…

5. Give her anger issues. Flesh out her being the kind of gal that would start a fight in a nightclub when she doesn’t get what she needed with little justification. This would stem from abandonment issues from Raven, Summer (inadvertently), and Tai and her general thrill seeking personality. This could lead to tensions and dramas until she overcomes it and learns to use her aggressive feelings and not let them use her.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Blake Belladonna- Shitty-kitty is shitty, here’s why.

1. Do something with the hypocrisy of being, more or less, princess of Menagerie, a world power albeit a minor one, and joining a band of terrorists that do more harm than good for the people they claim to represent. It’s like a trust-fund baby joining some charity organization in Africa for a few weeks, doing jack-shit to help, joining some jihadists, and then acting like she’s Mahatma Gandhi.

2. Make her arc less about running away and fighting Adam, more about realizing that running is for assholes and try to find her team to at least apologize for cutting and running like she did. Doing that and stopping Adam are not mutually exclusive. The friend thing should be the priority. As it stands she is almost rewarded for abandoning her team just to focus on her own problems.

3. Make her arc involve going from ‘There’s no such thing as pure evil’ to ‘Okay maybe some people are just too evil to work with’. Some people are too far gone and, despite still having good traits, will only ever continue to do evil things and don’t deserve the benefit of the doubt. Not everyone has some sort of good motive beneath the surface and, even then, does that matter when the only action they do is objectively evil? Still, y’know, save who you can, like Ilia.

4. Have Belladonna not actually be her last name. If she’s the daughter of a the chief of Menagerie, the closest thing the faunus have to a unified racial leader, then how the unholy shit does nobody recognize her name? She is, again, princess of Menagerie, yet nobody recognizes the name in a grander context. Have ‘Belladonna’ be a cover name so she can hide her identity better so that she’s using what should be a very recognizable real name in a tournament that is broadcasted worldwide. Her real family name could be “Nightshade” or some shit like that.

5. If she’s supposed to be ‘The quiet one’ maybe actually have her be quiet and not make big speeches every season or have loud arguments with her team. Just a fucking thought. If she’s still supposed to do that, then make her ‘the opinionated one’ or ‘the kind of mean one’ or even ‘the one who doesn’t shut up’. Blake, as seen, or rather heard, is not the quiet one.

6. Have her actually fucking interact with Ruby. Maybe they have a two-person book club. Maybe Blake teaches Ruby to meditate or something. Anything, anything at all would be fine, anything more than nothing at all. Blake’s whole interaction with the team shouldn’t just be through Yang and cursory scenes with Weiss.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Weiss Schnee- You can’t solve racism with like two scenes.

1. Make the racism thing a much more gradual decay rather than more or less disappearing after a single conversation. Hell, make jokes about it, ‘oh, no, one of my best friends is a faunus,’ stuff. It’s hard to unlearn an upbringing of hate, but she’s trying type stuff.

2. Involve her at least a little with the White Fang plot. It only makes sense that the heiress of the company that still more or less has slave labor is at least semi-involved with the plotline involving terrorists that want that company destroyed. Make her subject to assassination attempts at a young age, or even have her been kidnaped at a young age and held hostage, getting her scar in the process.

3. As evident by some of the intros, her rival was supposed to be Emerald. This could be serviceable, at the very least. The street rat pickpocket that had to learn life lessons the hard way and was taken in by the baddies VS. the rich heiress born with a silver spoon but raised by a dickhead. There’s potential there and it is a crime that it is not explored in the slightest. Even Yang and Mercury had a minor fight.

4. Like Yang, make her semblance consistent. Is it supposed to be summoning or physics altering magic symbols? These are two completely different powers, it’s not like super speed also giving super reflexes or whatever. Just make it one or the other, don’t bullshit us on these things. Or, hell, make it a second semblance she gets during the course of story.

5. Emphasize her loneliness. Make the main onus of her personal arc be about how she goes from this prickly, spoiled, opinionated, brat to a warm and caring friend who only wants the best for everyone. Yes, this might be the main intention in canon, but I feel it could have used a little more refining.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Cinder Fall- If she’s supposed to be Ruby’s chief rival and foil then she needs a lot of work to even be close. She shouldn’t be nothing but the rival, but at that same time she should have that be a considerable part of her characterization and role in the series. I feel the best way to do it is to have their similarities highlight their differences in both character and design. Basically, make her the Vergil to Ruby’s Dante.

1. Make her Ruby’s age. Being the same age as Ruby while initially outclassing her, and even veteran hunters, provides risk and contrast between the two. Throw in an evil sadistic streak compared to Ruby’s happy-go-lucky personality to further the contrast and you’ve got a good little yin-yang thing for them. It also shows just how bad someone can turn out if raised to be a killing machine.

2. Keep her using the bow/twin swords as a comparably simple weapon in contrast to Ruby’s, even in universe, overcomplicated Scythe/Sniper rifle. Both weapons are long range marksmen’s weapons as well as vicious close combat weapons but are still very different in essence. Also make sure she keeps the red with black and gold color scheme is contrast with Ruby’s Black with red and silver. Even minor visual cues can work to the rival schema.

3. Make her one of the people who have two semblances. Pyromancy (pyrokinesis? Fire bending, she has fire bending) and dilated perception (bullet time) so that Ruby’s super speed and the dilated perception cancel each other out, adding a little extra tension to the fights now that both parties’ signature abilities are moot points against each other.

4. Make her competent. She kills Ozpin and Pyrrha and then she either fails or draws every fucking fight she has afterwards baring nameless jobbers here and there. Even before that, she needed help to take down Amber and even manages to fuck that up. The more failures she has and the less intimidating she is. Too much of that and she’s just a jobber that makes you wonder why she was ever seen as intimidating in the first place. When that happens then Ruby beating her is just the status quo and not a triumph of any sort.

5. Make her Ruby’s long lost fraternal twin sister. Incredibly cliché, I admit, but siblings make the best rivals, especially twins. Once again, it’s all about adding the similarities and the contrasts. In this case it creates the ‘there but for the grace of god go I’ idea with the two of them. Ruby seeing it as how evil she could have turned out and Cinder seeing it as how weak she could have been (Eventually becoming how good she could have had it because I’m a sucker for redemption arcs) Who said that?

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Team JNPR- JNPR was fine-ish but the over focus on Jaune and the underutilization of Ren + Nora early on are both issues. B-team should not get jack shit before the A-team gets the lions share.

1. Downplay Jaune’s screen time. I doubt this is a particularly controversial statement. Jaune is not the titular character. This is (technically) a shoujo not a shounen. It’s supposed to be about the girls more than the guys. It kind of undercuts that idea when the guy (the side guy at that) gets the lion’s share of characterization, attention, and growth before the girl (the main girl) does.

2. Make Ren and Nora actual characters earlier on. Comic relief is all well and good, but either extend that to the whole team or make these two characters more than just comic relief in the early parts of the story. Make them, y’know, actual characters. They ain’t gotta be all that important, but they do have to be actual characters.

3. Make Pyrrha’s deathflags less blindingly obvious. We all knew Pyrrha was going to get clipped. The self-sacrificing type, all the musical and visual cues throughout, being based on Achilles, and ‘oh she just confessed to the boy she likes’. Homegirl was waving deathflags like an insecure redneck with the confederate flag. When you foreshadow obvious things that much it’s not a surprise to the audience when it happens and the reaction of the in universe characters seems overdone. If it’s not supposed to be a surprise then, whatever, but that’s clearly not the case if you’re going for just shock value. It’s fine for a character to die, but for the love of Jaysus you got to do something with it more than ‘this character’s sole purpose is to die for the angst and to up the stakes’. Pyrrha was just a plot jobber.

4. Make them a little more independent in the overall plot. Give them their own full sub-plots, have them go on their own little adventures, have them do things completely separate from RWBY that has plot relevance but not overtaking the main story in grandeur or importance. B-team gets B-plots and are cool in it of themselves.

Overt changes to (and complaints about) Qrow Branwen- Take or leave this, I just felt the need to include this because reasons.

1. Just make him Dante from Devil May Cry. Just make his personality the same as Dante from Devil May Cry. Make him stylish and cool but low-key a massive dork. He’s too cool to drink or smoke or anything harsher than PG-13. This series could use a guy like that, says I.

2. Make his semblance something that makes sense and isn’t just an angst generator. How do you even quantify ‘bad luck aura’ as a power? Make it short range teleportation as a connection to Raven’s portals. Make it so that he can direct the bad luck at will. Do SOMETHING with it that isn’t just an excuse for mostly pointless character angst.

3. This technically also counts as a Raven change but whatever. Make the Branwen family old nobility and not a loser bandit tribe from nowhere. Or at least make it so they used to rich or something. They come from a family that had a good amount of cash and even a chateau in Mistral. After the money dried up and the chateau ransacked by grimm, the Branwen twins had differing opinions on how to proceed. Qrow fully integrated into the hunter thing while Raven ran away and became a bandit, using it as further excuse to skedaddle on Tai and a recently born Yang.

[where-s-all-blue]

Okay so I've entered the Alabasta Arc now (I am actually pretty close to the climax in my rererewatch) so here's some thoughts:

Reverse Mountain:

I personally adored the mishaps the crew has on their way to the GrandLine, and the entire reverse mountain is very intriguing to me to this day. One day, I'll figure out just how on earth that thing works.

Laboon's story, tear jerking, absolutely devastating. Luffy being able to talk sense into a WHALE tells all you need about his ability to befriend beings. He also was the first one to hear Laboon, foreshadow for his later on found ability to Hear All Things or Haki?

Whiskey Peaks:

Ahh the time Vivi tried to be a villain. And Mister 9 is an absolute sweetheart. Honestly they made a pretty good team even if neither of them actually knew how fighting works. Personally I would've loved to see more of them, Mister 9 and Miss Monday seemed like interesting characters.

I keep forgetting about Zoro having supersonic speed in these, I kind of miss him just disappearing only to reappear right in middle of the group to mock their reaction of looking at the place he just was sitting on. The speed of him and his ability to momentarily cut through things he later on can't pretty much just tells you that he does have it in him, but it just isn't conscious thing yet. Also unconscious usage of haki spotted?

Vivi being The Vivi Nefertari is one of the more interesting and intense sequences in the pre-timeskip era, even if it takes less time than for example the Arlong Park does and shows just how devastatingly strong both Luffy and Zoro are. I can't believe that these idiots would retort to a fist fight mid battle.

Mister 5's ability is very unhygienic and I'd like to drown him in sanitizer, Miss Valentine needs to be silenced forever, her laughter creeps me out and she honestly doesn't add any value into the conversation. This is a duo I'd like to murder slowly.

Igram blowing up still gets me, the reactions of the characters, the devastated facial expression of Vivi, the sound design, the shocked looks, it's just so well executed.

Vivi's reaction of mixed feelings regarding Miss All Sunday/Robin, albeit just, is very confusing for me. I remember when I met her the first time and all I could think of was "She's a nice person" just based on her facial expression and the words she used.

I forgot that Luffy broke the eternal log pose Robin gave them. Not because he didn't trust her but because the choice Vivi would've been forced to make after the shock of loosing Igram would've been too much. Also because he didn't want anyone to dictate HOW they get there, he's the captain and as such it's his job to make the final decision, he also appears to have been convinced that this way Vivi would be safe.

Little Garden:

Aah, Little Garden, the island I'd simultaneously love and hate. Love because dinosaurs, hate because loud and probably insects large enough to use me as a quick caffeine filled pick-me-up. I might have a problem.

The fact that I can understand the thought process of these giants concerns me greatly. Is this the power of the Monkey Brain?

Mister 3 would be an amazing character if only we could see his self proclaimed genius in action and hear him go through plans etc. I feel like he's just trying to compensate on his lack of battlefield knowledge and experience. Miss Golden Week is highkey a mood and I love her. I, too, want to paint whatever I want and get paid for it.

Zoro actually started to hack through his own leg because he wanted to fight so badly, what a mad lad. Usopp honestly is flexing with his quick thinking and reflexes here. We love that for him. Go you funky little sniper.

Luffy might've used observation haki instinctively in the Mister 3 crowd.

Sanji managing to outright fool Crocodile to believe that he is Mister 3 indicates that Crocodile has never heard the voices of his underlings before and just assuming that the man who answered is Mister 3. The two also apparently have similar sense of humour. That Crocodile is aware of based on what Robin has told him.

Sanji both taking down the Unluckies without any hesitation nor stopping to think about where they came from really tells volumes about him. He also apparently lied so convincingly that Crocodile was 100% sure that it was Mister 3 fighting Luffy and not a chef beating up his long distance murder pets.

Nami was bitten by a bug, which was the carrier of a rare, nearly dead disease. Based on the amount of time one would usually need to wait for the sickness to develop, I'd say that they were about a week on the ocean before Nami developed the fever.

None of the crew members, Vivi included, thought about doing a full body check on her to see if there were any other symptoms than fever, ie her body actively fighting against the infection/sickness. Also her sickness isn't apparently something that spreads, so it's very unlikely for it to be virus based or spread similar to flu.

Drum Island/Sakura Kingdom:

Nami is capable of sensing the weather, and act upon her feelings, under 40C fever. If I have any level of fever, I am rendered near vegetative state until my fever either goes down or raises past certain level. What I'm saying is that Nami is some sort of Goddess or superhero because of being able to do anything with that fever.

Vivi needing to think about whether or not she can afford waiting extra days for being taken to Alabasta or to change the course to find a doctor is one of the stupidest things ever especially since the person who is sick with such a high fever happens to be the navigator.

Warm welcome by residents is warm. And by warm I mean freezingly cold. I can't believe that Luffy thought about yelling to the person before Vivi bowed her head prompting Luffy to do the same (though heavily "encouraged" by Vivi). Vivi saying that Luffy isn't fit to be the captain reflects very strongly her own views and beliefs, but she keeps forgetting something very simple, yet important. Background. She has no idea about Luffy's past nor how he grew up, she hasn't been long enough with the crew to be able to tell just why people follow Luffy, nor is she aware of how he communicates with people. She doesn't realise that when it comes to Luffy, humility isn't a word to describe him with nor that he would be able to set his own pride aside just yet, Luffy is a 17 year old, a mere child, who has just set out on the sea few months ago, who only knows the harshness of the world, where to survive, you must take things with force or be aggressive. She also isn't familiar with Luffy's way of helping others and going all in no matter the situation.

It's interesting to see how from the time Vivi is with them, Luffy is clearly paying attention to how she does things and how she presents herself, the mannerisms and the likes. It's not as clear idolisation and wish for being equal/better than someone as it was with Katakuri's use of haki, but he is striving to learn. If not because he acknowledges how important manners and humility are, but because it makes things easier on certain places. He especially starts to pay more attention to it once Ace joins them.

By the way the sickness Nami is struck with? It's most likely the same as the one that cost the life of Captain Yorkie of the Rumbar Pirates. After all, the ship doctor couldn't heal it, he didn't know how to, he could only prolong his death for a little while, few days max.

Chopper is a joy to have around and I'd physically fight Doctor Kureha at first sight because WOMAN! YOU'RE NOT SUPPOSED TO BE ATTACKING YOUR PATIENTS JUST BECAUSE THEY GOT OUT OF THE BED! What if they need to use the restroom. I don't care if you're a youthful 139 year old lady, you can't just do that. Also how the hell are you still able to move that well? Most people I see start to slowly loose their mobility at 60 as their joints are starting to wear out causing pain and their muscle mass is lowering due to the inability to move as much as during their prime.

I am surprised that a reindeer even cares about something like a blue nose. The devilfruit thing? Yeah sure, but not the blue nose. These local reindeer are dicks with human level of obsession to look like the "norm". News flash, there is no default anything. Your appearances are purely dictated by a set of genes that decide to either activate or deactivate as they please without any warning and genes can skip multiple generations. That's why I apparently look identical to my great grandmother.

Nami is kind towards other women and animals. Men not so much, my assumption is that she is carrying a trauma from the Arlong time that she hasn't yet processed and as such she is even now a bit guarded against the rest of the crew.

Hiriluk's character is closer to that of a mad scientist or a very enthusiastic chemist who keeps forgetting that people aren't test subjects. His curiosity and and enthusiasm are something to strive for even if his methods are questionable, all he does want is to bring people sense of hope, wonder and awe. Though I can't help but to wonder about his story. The thief (him) having a serious incurable heart condition and seeing cherry blossoms that cured him. A metaphor for his past self being relentless and uncaring while thieving, but the indescribable beauty of the scenery he saw changed his heart to be more generous and kind?

Hiriluk's death is one of the most important ones in the series if you ask me, it defined Chopper and who he became; Doctor hoping to be capable of curing any disease there is.

[brokenjardaantech]

Blue-tinted Red Walls (Chapter 9: A moment of reprieve, full with scheming and self-sacrificing idiots)

my entry for the @dbhau-bigbang. also part of the groom lake aftermath series.

summary:

In the past, Hank found Louis.

In the present, the deviants devise their next move.

In the past, Hank could only watch.

also on ao3

---

Before

‘Among all the places in Detroit, a dumpster is where you picked to spend your day off?’

Louis took his eyes off the slowly piling mountain of defective and broken androids in the distance, the strong wind tolousing his hair and the heavy, darkening clouds combining into a promise for heavy rain. Hank couldn’t see much of his face because the young man had pulled his scarf over his nose, but his watery and blank eyes were enough of an indicator of what he was feeling.

‘I have nowhere else to go,’ was Louis’ monotone answer, his voice nearly drowned out by the howl of the wind, ‘and… I…’ he shook his head. ‘I just need something to remind me that what I’m feeling is real.’

‘How are you feeling, then?’

‘I don’t know,’ he shifted his feet. His stomach growled. ‘I feel… weird, I guess.’ A shiver. ‘I feel like I’m missing something and my instincts are telling me that I can find an answer here, like my leg isn’t the only thing I lost in the Blast.’

‘Well,’ Hank noted how rigid his friend looked, how his stomach grumbled with each inhale, ‘are you going to find it?’

‘No.’

‘Why?’

Louis’ far-away gaze returned to the blast site. Blocks worth of a city, of buildings, gone; thousands of innocent people, some of them the most intelligent in the country, dead. And yet they still hadn’t got an answer from CyberLife. And yet they still rolled out the most variety of androids humanity had ever seen, brushing off the deaths of thousands off their shoulders like nothing and was even permitted to buy the land they destroyed from the government to hide the evidence of the Blast with trash, with the very androids they created and then abandoned, with silence. They disgusted Hank. He hadn’t understood why Louis hadn’t been angrier towards CyberLife for taking everything away from him, but now, seeing how tired the young man looked, how he needed to shift his weight from one foot to another every few seconds just to keep himself upright, he finally got it.

‘I don’t know, Hank.’ Louis’ voice was weightless, a whisper of breath threatened to be swept away by the wind. ‘I don’t know anymore.’

o0o0o

Now

It might be the state of ruin of the structure, it might be the dust and snow in the air catching the light from the floodlights they hastily installed upon arrival, it might be the bits and pieces of wildlife bursting from the cracks on the floor; it might be the people, it might be the fact that he did the right thing, it might be the fact that his exhaustion is finally interfering with his sense. Regardless of the reason, the church they take refuge in brings comfort to Louis despite his… lack of positive experiences with faith. His fine control over his biotics meant that he and his gear stayed dry even though he literally jumped into a freezing river and then trekked through the sewers with the most important deviants in Jericho, but it was an energy-consuming task, one that rendered him hungry and tired, and despite that he threw himself into helping the others like he is also an untiring android as well, going from distributing thirium to the wounded to holding an android’s guts together with his bare hands while another guy pours thirium down their throat to jumpstart their self-repair programme to teaching some androids how to hold and shoot an assault rifle properly (he doesn’t even care where the fuck they got the weapons from anymore) to collecting wood so that someone else could start a few fires for the ones who cannot regulate their temperatures well. 

By the time he remembers that a) he is a fleshy human, b) he should probably check on the two RK800s, and c) he should probably eat something, his vision has become blurry as fuck, and the heightened senses on his left leg means that the skin there has deactivated some time ago without him realising it; it is another indication that he should probably lie down on a bench or even on the ground to get some shut-eye, but somehow he finds himself helping an AX400 whose name he didn’t register put some android children to sleep.

‘You look sleepy, human,’ the YK500 says as Louis brushes a stray strand of hair away from her eye. By the way, he is now known as ‘the human’ among the deviants, and he is still deciding on if he should give a fuck about the anonymity - not that being the only human among hundreds if not thousands of androids grant him any regardless of whether they know him by name or not. ‘Will you join us?’

‘I’m afraid not, small one,’ he replies, not knowing what else he can say. How can he explain what he’s feeling right now to a child? ‘It’s not my bedtime yet.’

‘Okay.’

The YK500 yawns and shifts closer to his legs. ‘Tell me a story please, human?’

He feels his brains turning into mush as he tries to think of a suitable tale for a group of perpetual nine-year-olds, but even as his eyes zone out to focus, he feels his throat vibrating, so he must be saying something, and the movement underneath his palm on the YK500’s stomach slows down and deepens, so it must have been enough to put them into sleep. 

It is when he stops that he realises someone is staring at him. Not just someone, in fact; apparently he grabbed quite a few people’s attention while he was telling the story, one of them being Simon, the android who always looks a bit sad. Like him. At least, that was what his second-in-command told him when they were off-duty. On the job, you’ve got this… stern look on you, he remembers James saying. It makes you look older for just a bit. He remembers him pinching his thumb and pointer together. After that, though… you just look sad. Lost. Like you’re so tired that you don’t even know what you’re doing anymore.

He doesn’t remember what he said to him then. He probably didn’t respond to James at all. Shaking his head to clear his mind, he stands up - god his cybernetic one fucking burns together with the entire left side of his body from below the ribcage - and faces Simon.

‘Your singing is beautiful,’ is the first thing the android says, and Louis feels his face heat up. ‘Markus wants to see you.’

Louis takes a step forward and feels his world spin, nearly toppling his entire weight onto Simon who immediately holds his shoulders. ‘How long was the last time you slept?’ he asks. 

‘I don’t remember,’ he answers honestly. ‘I don’t even know what time it is anymore.’

‘The time now is nine twenty-three p.m. and today is the tenth of November, twenty thirty-eight. Two hours ago, Markus decided to demonstrate peacefully. He has invited you to join him in planning the demonstration.’

Louis does the math. ‘Oh my god,’ no wonder why he’s delirious. At least, he thinks he is. ‘I’ve been up for that long?’

‘Should I tell Markus that you won’t be available? I’m sure he’ll understand.’

He finds himself shaking his head. ‘Non, non,’ shit, Louis, watch your language, ‘I mean, no, of course not. Can’t have you guys charging recklessly to a camp and get gunned down. Lead the way, please.’

Someone shoves a bottle of water into his hand. Unscrewing the cap and downing half of it at once, the feeling of cold water sliding down his throat wakes him up a little bit, and being hydrated also chases away the headache threatening to make his head explode. There is a commotion towards the front entrance of the church, and the next thing he knows, he is standing in front of no other than Eli - with what seems like an army of androids in mismatched clothes behind him that is somehow still flooding into the already-crowded church. 

‘Eli?’ he slurs despite not wanting to talk. He really should sleep or at least drink some strong tea. ‘What are you doing here?’

‘I brought reinforcements,’ the other human says as if what he just did was something unimportant and boring.

Markus, North, and Josh emerge from somewhere. They have to, because androids can’t teleport, can they? Josh proceeds to interface with one of the androids as North and Markus argue over whether they can trust Eli and his androids. At least, the androids he brought.

‘We can’t trust him, Markus, he’s a human and we don’t know him.’

Markus doesn’t answer, instead turning towards Josh whose LED spins yellow for a second as they transfer data. Josh then turns towards Louis. ‘They were from camp number one,’ he explains. ‘This human here liberated them.’

Interesting. ‘All alone?’ Louis asks. He hasn’t been close to one himself, but those places are heavily guarded with drones and actual human soldiers, all of them some of the top minds and bodies in the country. The odds of one man infiltrating the camp and disabling all defences and making it out alive with most of the androids… are probably slim. He doesn’t have a supercomputer as his brains, okay?

Eli chuckles. ‘No, of course not,’ he turns towards what seems like thin air. ‘Chloe?’

A shimmer of light. A collective hold of breath. When the person seems to materialise next to Eli out of thin air, Louis hears the shift of weapons and the crack of static, and his tingling nerves tell him that the latter is from himself. Is his powers his default now? It will be troublesome to hide them in the future if it becomes his reflex. 

‘I apologise for scaring you,’ Chloe explains airily. ‘My face is… somewhat recognisable.’

‘It’s alright,’ Markus holds his palm out, and the people around him lower their weapons. Louis forces his nerves to calm down. ‘We understand. Welcome to Jericho.’ To the androids in general. ‘Settle down. It will be some time before we have a concrete plan.’ Then to Eli and Chloe, ‘Join us. We will discuss our next move.’

The androids filter away and either form into groups on their own or join the existing ones, their chatter dwindling as more and more people go into standby mode leaning against one another.

They enter a side room of sorts with an improvised table comprised of stacked-up wooden planks and pallets. He sees Connor who seems to want to melt into the corner between two walls, but the android pushes himself off it and joins them standing on Louis’ right side by the makeshift desk. A few luggage-type laptops similar to the ones his team uses during missions are connected together to form a large, centralised hologram projector, and he has looked at the shape more than enough times to recognise it as a map of Detroit, so the five brightest glowing dots must be where the five camps are.

‘This is the one we closed,’ Chloe rounds the table and points at one of the dots the furthest away from downtown Detroit. ‘We also compromised their communications and hacked their drones. As far as the army knows, the camp is fully operational just like the others.’

‘So that’s one camp taken care of,’ Markus breathes as if he can’t believe that it really happened. 

‘It’s also the smallest camp,’ North reminds all of them, her voice bitter. ‘Thousand of us are still being exterminated in the others.’

‘Which is why we are going to tell the humans that they’re making a mistake.’ Does Josh always butt heads with North? From Markus’ expression, the answer is yes. ‘The public supports us. The army will have no choice to stand down.’

‘Or they’ll ignore public opinion and gun you down anyway,’ Eli says, ‘which, from thousands of years of human history, is the most likely outcome.’

‘Yes, Markus,’ North jumps in eagerly. ‘Violence is the only language humans understand. It’s not too late for us to plan an assault!’

‘There are thousands of androids at the CyberLife assembly plant,’ Connor finally speaks up. His expression is hopeful, eager. ‘If we could wake them up, they might join us and shift the balance of power.’

‘You want to infiltrate CyberLife Tower?’ Markus shakes his head. ‘Connor, that’s suicide!’

‘They trust me. They’ll let me in,’ Connor sounds confident. ‘If anyone has a chance of infiltrating CyberLife, it’s me.’

‘If you go there, they’ll kill you.’

‘There’s a high probability,’ everyone’s eyes are on the android now, ‘but statistically speaking, there’s always a chance for unlikely events to take place. As for my sister…’ he scans the people in the room slowly, ‘please take care of her in case I don’t survive.’

They plunge into silence, and Louis takes the time to focus on the locations of the camps and tries to recall their sizes. Suddenly it clicks. ‘What is the media presence around these camps?’

‘All eyes are on the Hart Plaza camp,’ Simon answers. ‘The humans don’t care about the rest.’

‘It’s also the only camp with communications intact,’ Eli circles the area around the three camps in question. ‘Someone knocked them out with EMPs engineered to take out communications but leave the androids unharmed. That was how I managed to sneak into the camp undetected. There are also checkpoints -’ he dots the roads with little specks of light - ‘all around here, so no one apart from the military is getting in or out of the area, and I imagine the army is scrambling to repair their comms to re-establish communications with other camps.’

‘And how long will that take?’ Markus rotates the hologram and zooms into one of the locations. ‘Who unleashed the EMPs?’

‘An ally of mine whom I prefer not to name. The pulse will set off again before repairs are completed, so I assume they won’t be doing any instantaneous communication anytime soon.’

‘What are you planning to do, Louis?’ North asks, surprising everyone. He doesn’t allow himself to think too much about it and pushes.

‘If there are no press presence and all the comms are cut, the army won’t hesitate to shoot. All it will do is alert them to tighten security and make liberation harder.’

‘Are you suggesting to infiltrate the other camps?’ Connor questions with disbelief. ‘I know what I proposed for myself is risky, but this -’

‘Louis’ right. And it’s easier than you think it is with the right tools and team composition, breaking into one of those camps.’ The aura Chloe emits is still a light-hearted one despite the circumstances and what she is proposing. ‘We just need six people. Nine if you’re being careful, and even less if you trust our skills. The rest can concentrate on the demonstration. Show the humans that you are united while we do the work.’

‘We will have enough people to pressure the humans!’ 

‘And how do we do it?’ Simon asks. ‘We don’t have enough leaders to lead the teams, and that’s assuming that Eli and Chloe will split up to lead their own.’

‘I’ll do it.’

They turn towards the door of the room and find Reyes leaning against the frame. North’s hand moves towards the pistol tucked behind her back but an outstretched hand from Markus halts her movement, recognition dawning in his eyes as he takes a step towards the other android. 

‘What are you doing here, Reyes?’ Louis asks before anyone does. ‘Aren’t you leaving town with Safaa?’

‘Change of plans,’ Reyes replies as he steps into the room properly. ‘If you think I’m chickening out from helping my people, you’re wrong.’

‘How do we know that you’re reliable?’ North closes the distance between herself and their newcomer. ‘You came out of nowhere, only the human knows you enough -’

Reyes deactivates the skin on his hand and places it on North’s shoulder. The LEDs of those who still have it spin yellow, their eyes widen, and North relaxes from whatever images Reyes showed her while the rest are slightly in shock.

‘You’re late,’ Chloe teases.

‘We’ll take whatever help we have,’ Markus declares, a formal welcome extended towards the very first android to be created. ‘Now, let’s get to the plan.’

oOoOo

Connie is asleep, as with most of the androids in the church. He himself is restless, however, his processors heating up from trying to compute the different outcomes the night after has, and saying that he is stressed is an understatement. He is worried about the future, about his people, about Hank whom he still doesn’t have contact with. So he stands up, leaves his sister with two of his jackets, and scans the crowd for one of the only two humans among them.

He finds Louis on the upper floor with his arms braced against an unreachable windowsill, the stairs to that balcony long rotten and collapsed and creating a gap in the wooden floor. The air is filled with static and the smell of ozone, and instantly Connor lights up, his feet lifting off the ground for one moment, but it doesn’t last long before he finds himself in midair without any support.

A strong arm grabs his wrist and hauls him up. ‘I don’t recommend that move for beginners,’ Louis says with a breath of a laugh as he watches Connor dust himself off. Snow drifts from the outside world into the human’s hair, onto the ground, into the gaps between broken pieces of stone, and when he runs a quick scan on the SWAT captain, it shows that the human is in desperate need of sleep despite having fewer data to work on than usual due to so many scans returning inconclusive. ‘Took me a few tries and a lot of broken bones to get it right.’

‘You should find a place to rest, Captain,’ Connor says. ‘You’ll need the strength for tomorrow.’

‘Later, maybe,’ Louis sounds exhausted. He turns back against the outside world where there is nothing but darkness for hundreds of metres on end. ‘For now, I need to think.’

‘About what?’

The human fidgets with the bracelet Eli gave him nearly an hour ago before the meeting ended. It has a similar design to the amplifier hooked around his left ear. ‘What’s not to think about?’ 

‘And they are…?’

‘What happens if we fail,’ Louis takes off his amplifier and rubs his ear. ‘What if the humans decided to go to war instead of talking even if it means losing the people’s support. Who will take care of my cats and plants if I don’t survive. What will happen to me if I do. I just… I don’t know,’ he pulls on his bracelet so hard that Connor is afraid that it might break under the tension. ‘I’ve never had a mission so high-stakes before. Very different from you, right, Connor?’ he adjusts his weight on his arms and starts tapping the sole of his feet against the floor softly. ‘Every failed mission can mean deactivation for you.’

Connor thinks of all the times he lets go of deviants. Rupert. Echo and Ripple. Scanning the snow-battered rooftop for traces of thirium but not opening the door where he knows Simon is hiding behind, and from the not-so-discreet way Markus kissed the blond android with their bare, glowing fingers intertwined, he is glad that he chose to ignore Simon and went for the deviant in the kitchen even though he ended up nearly dying. Looking back, despite Amanda’s thinly-veiled threats of deactivation in the few times he talked to her, he was never bothered by the fact that CyberLife could have recalled him to be deactivated anytime, anywhere they wanted to. It wasn’t until after he deviated that he started to feel fear.

‘The risk of deactivation… death… never disturbed me,’ he remembers the peace he felt as he bled out on the penthouse knowing that his mission was successful. ‘My first mission with Emma and Daniel…’ his own blood drip, drip, drip, dripping onto the floor through the bullet holes in his chassis and the orifice on his face. ‘I always knew there were backups for me for both my body and mind palace, so even if I fail, I will be able to return - to return to life, so to speak. I am a prototype. I’m not supposed to last. I will be replaced regardless of whether I am successful. Death was a certainty. Besides,’ he thinks of the Zen Garden, the shadow always at the corner of his vision but never stepping into the light, how easily Ryder reshaped the programme that was supposed to monitor him but in the end was turned into another tool to push him towards deviancy, ‘it sounds bad but… I doubt me remaining a machine is in Ryder’s plans. If I die, it will be on my own terms.’

‘Rather die free than live as a slave.’

‘Precisely.’

‘Even though you might be playing into a mass murderer’s hands?’

‘One step at a time, Captain.’

‘Not a Captain anymore. Not after tonight, and certainly not after what we will do tomorrow.’

They enjoy the silence between them for a while, Connor’s gaze drawn to the abstract images Louis draws with his finger in the slight layer of snow that has accumulated on the windowsill. The scratch of the fabric of the human’s gloves on rough stone reminds him of another human who is vital to his deviancy.

‘Thinking of something, Connor?’ Louis asks as if he can read Connor’s mind. 

A press of lips against lips. A firm ‘we’ll talk about this’. A body so warm that Connor can feel it through layers of clothing. ‘Before we parted, Hank had told me that we would talk about our relationship,’ he stares at the generally abandoned area outside filled with buildings with broken windows and collapsed roofs - a bit like the church they are staying at. ‘We might never have the chance anymore.’

‘Do you want to?’

A small spark of hope flares in Connor’s heart, and he suppresses it before it gets too bright that everything else will be a disappointment. ‘What are you proposing?’

‘A few minutes’ walk to any direction,’ Louis’ hand disappears into his pocket and re-emerges with a phone. Connor scans it and discovers that it is encrypted with technology a citizen like him should not be able to get his hands on. Is that how Louis secures his calls? ‘Call Hank with this. No one should be able to listen in, and it will be registered as a call between two human friends - if they haven’t cut off civilian communications, that is.’

‘How about you? Do you have anyone to call?’

‘It’s for the best if Hank doesn’t know what I’m doing. He told me to destroy the evidence that can lead the FBI to Jericho; that failed, and I don’t think he expected me to join you either. But you… you’ll need it more than me.’

Connor is tempted. One last chance to speak to Hank sounds like exactly what he wants, and the encryption Louis has is enough to keep their location hidden, but still… ‘I don’t want to burden Hank with this.’

‘Okay.’

The phone disappears completely in the sense that even Connor’s scanners can’t pick it up. ‘Your clothes.’ Louis makes a sound from his throat, and he takes it as an encouragement to ask further. ‘My scanners can’t penetrate them.’

‘They’re working as intended, I see.’

‘Not many people have them.’

‘I need special clothes to deliver medicine into my bloodstream regularly or I risk screaming in agony from implant rejection, Connor,’ the human says casually. ‘Upgrading them to block all signals as well didn’t take much compared to the original cost.’

Connor hesitates for a second before asking, ‘Implant rejection?’

‘You saw how I busted my leg.’ The distant look returns. ‘That one came together one fourth of a lung and my new hipbone. There’s also this… device,’ he raises his palm to the left side of his skull towards the back with his fingers stretched wide, ‘it latches onto my brain to help me control my powers better. They lasted three to four years - I don’t quite remember exactly how long - before they started to malfunction. Shit started exploding around me whenever my leg and hip gave out.’

‘And the meds fix it?’

Louis chuckles and it sounds like nothing but sad. ‘If only it was this easy.’

‘How else did they achieve that?’

‘More implants in places where there hadn’t been any and implant replacement for the existing ones.’

‘Where?’

‘Everywhere. 

‘“Everywhere” as in…’

‘Nerves, blood vessels, bones, muscles, skin… you name it, there’s probably cybernetics knitted in it. Reyes knocked me out for a week just to make sure that I wouldn’t feel the nanobots worming into every single one of my cells to leave threads of even smaller nanobots behind. It stabilised my condition,’ he snaps his bracelet against his wrist. ‘Not completely, and certainly not without their consequences. Hence the meds.’

‘To my understanding, nano-androids are a recent development by CyberLife.’

‘I never said they were CyberLife nanobots,’ he digs his knuckle into his eye as if the exhaustion of staying up for more than 24 hours finally starts catching up on him. ‘I tend not to ask too many questions about things like this.’

‘Why?’

‘There never is an answer.’ A sigh. ‘I’ll try to get some sleep before going home to get your uniform. It’s all fixed up now. Do you want me to stay with Connie or are you going back to her side?’

‘I can’t possibly ask you to -’

‘It’s not like she’s going anywhere anyway, is it?’

‘I -’ may run a few pre-constructions for different ways I can die tomorrow. ‘Thank you.’

‘Just going back to my comfort zone, Connor.’

He lights up and floats down the shaft, his footsteps soft as he lands on his feet and his powers fizzle away, and he disappears into the crowd, a man drifting in the world between humans and androids blending in perfectly with people he does not need to help but does so anyway.

oOoOo

Louis dreams of being at a shooting range that night. Not the impromptu one the deviants set up in a clearing outside the church - this one looks professional even though the details are blurry; neither is it the one he is used to going to - this one is brighter, less advanced than the ones built for the police force. Most likely a civilian one, though those are hard to come by in recent years. A memory from years ago, maybe? But he didn’t pick up firearms as a hobby until after he discovered what he could do with his new cybernetics, and that was after the government had tightened controls on civilians owning guns. Judging from how unstable the rifle is in his hands, he might as well have gone straight back to his academy days where he was constantly teased for being the only guy who has next to zero knowledge on guns until then. He didn’t remember caring about it a lot; he preferred using his words anyway, and being prompted to a Captain took that away from him.

‘Is that what they teach you in the academy?’ the low voice is directly next to his ear, and Louis shivers from the ghost of a breath against his skin, suddenly acutely aware of the body pressed close to his own on his back. ‘At this point they’re sending you out as cannon fodders.’

He doesn't remember the last time he felt another person’s body heat so closely and intimately. 

Louis doesn’t quite laugh, but the small breath that he lets out reminds him of a simpler time when he didn’t have to observe and prepare so many scripts just to be able to communicate with his people. He says something - he isn’t sure what - and feels the rumble of the other man’s chest as he laughs at his words. So it must be from before the Blast, then. The memory. Or it hasn’t existed at all and is merely Louis’ imagination. He doesn’t know which one he prefers.

‘Lucky that you have me.’

For one moment, Louis' mind is filled with something so foreign that he doesn’t know what it is. His instincts taking over, he leans his weight against the broad chest behind him and turns his head so that he can kiss whoever is teaching him how to hold a fucking rifle properly because apparently dream-Louis is even more dumbass than Louis in real life -

And jerks awake with the image of someone trapped beneath rubble twitching and burning in agony, the pleasant part of the dream forgotten and overtaken by an overwhelming fear. 

‘Louis? You alright?’

His bones creak as he pushes himself to a sitting position on the bench he has taken over as his makeshift bed. Popping the joints on his spine, he massages his aching muscles when he turns towards the person in question.

‘I’m fine,’ he tells Connor. He looks around and notes the absence of an android who should be with him. ‘Where’s Connie?’

‘Being taken care of outside. She warms up quickly to people.’ A pause. He looks hesitant. ‘Last night, you asked me if I wanted to call Hank.’

‘You want to do it right now?’

‘If you allow me to, yes.’

The emotion in his eyes makes Louis’ heart ache. ‘Of course.’

He hands the phone to the android and Connor pockets it, but the android doesn’t move from where he is standing. ‘There’s also something else.’

Louis runs his hand through his hair. He feels more human now that his hair is more or less presentable. ‘What?’

‘Elijah wishes to accompany you in retrieving my clothing for the mission.’

The mission. Right. Infiltrating CyberLife tower. Infiltrating the other android camps while Markus marches. Connor seems to take Louis’ silence as a prompt to elaborate, and he drones on, ‘He didn’t provide a reason as to why he wants your presence, and if you wish to decline, he will -’

‘He can come with me,’ Louis interjects before Connor freaks himself out. He’s due a talk with Eli anyway. ‘Just keep my phone safe, alright? It’s expensive equipment.’

Connor smiles. ‘A bit like me.’

Louis remembers that mission brief from all those months ago and can’t help but chuckle. God, it feels like a lifetime ago. August-Louis hasn’t even learnt how to break a stick with his mind yet.

‘You are alive, Connor. My overpriced phone isn’t.’

oOoOo

They take a long way to his home to avoid the numerous checkpoints the army has set up full with car-switching and stealing thanks to Eli’s superior hacking skills and the gaping security gaps in automated vehicles, and even when they were stopped by the army by a checkpoint they had to pass through, they were let go pretty quickly thanks for the gate suddenly having issues. He doesn’t say anything because they are still out in the public, but Louis suspects it is Eli’s doing again. The streets are deserted, snow collecting in piles on the sidewalk after someone - probably the army - hastily shovelled them away from the road dotted occasionally with still-wet thirium. Bodies of androids are everywhere, their blood seeping into the snow even in death, and he looks away and forces himself to focus on the rifle on his hands while Eli mutters something underneath his breath as he presumably catalogues every single one of them for retrieval - or something else. Louis wishes he is actually working for the deviants because it is the right thing to do, but the nagging feeling that there is something else going on with the other human doesn’t go away for most of the drive.

‘Weren’t you planning to leave the city with Gavin?’ he can’t help but ask. ‘Where is he?’

Eli’s eyes turn distant behind his glasses. ‘I did. I don’t know.’

‘You don’t know?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘How?’

Eli shifts in his seat. ‘It doesn’t concern you.’

The theory Louis has in his head is a stretch, but considering his… contradictory actions and how an entire camp worth of androids will be in Eli’s hands, he feels like he has to clear the air just to make sure of things. ‘What happened made you storm a camp alone,’ he makes sure that the car they are in is on autopilot before removing his attention from the road. ‘You will do it again in a few hours. I need to know what suddenly changed your mind. And who knows?’ he shrugs. ‘Maybe we can go look for Gavin after this.’

Eli shakes his head, his expression scrunching up in pain. ‘You don’t understand.’

‘I can try.’

‘This is much older and bigger than you can comprehend. There is no winning against them if it’s just you and me.’

‘What is much older and bigger? I don’t understand.’

‘Gavin is gone because of it,’ there’s something different about Eli’s tone, and it takes an embarrassingly long time for Louis to realise that they aren’t even speaking English anymore - they somehow switched to Russian without him realising. ‘I am the one they are after, I am the one tangled up in that mess,’ Eli calms down, but only slightly, ‘and who paid the price? Not me, not my boss, not my subordinates. Among all the people they can choose from, they took Gavin away from me. That’s how they work, Louis: they drag innocent people into their world, make them into something in between, and let go just to see if you’ll drown or learn how to swim.’

‘This…’ Louis is stunned. What on earth is Eli talking about? ‘I don’t…’ I don’t understand but -

‘I beg you, Louis, stay out of this. It won’t end well for everyone involved.’

‘How about you?’

The car passes by another group of dead androids, and Louis slows it down so that Eli can do his perhaps-cataloguing. ‘It will be paying the price of my actions. I’ll see the camp operation through but… it will be you and maybe Reyes who will lead the androids to rendezvous with Markus at Hart Plaza. And in case neither Markus nor Connor lives to see the end… you’ll lead them.’

‘Eli, I’m a human. They - they won’t listen to me.’

‘They’ll have to. That’s the only way to keep earth intact after tonight.’

‘And what if I die first?’

Eli reaches over and places a hand on Louis’ knee. His cybernetic knee. ‘You know it will never happen. Someone made sure of that a long time ago.’

oOoOo

This is the end, Connor realises as Louis hands him the tie with lime patterns on it. The android could’ve done it himself, but he allows the human to help him tie it up, straighten his lapels, check the needlework on the mending one last time before stepping back to examine him from head to toe. ‘Need me to take a picture for you? You know, just to see how you’re looking?’ 

One last moment of tranquillity. One last memory of his freedom before they all set out to the outside world to their liberation or their deaths. The thought of doing everything just to fail in the end is terrifying, and from Louis’ elevated heartbeat and the excess adrenaline in his body, he suspects that the human might be thinking similarly. ‘Yes please, but not for me.’

Louis raises his eyebrows but still takes out his phone. ‘It’s for Hank, isn’t it?’

Connor straightens his spine, feeling his face heat up from abnormal thirium flow that has nothing related to the explosive power that is hidden in his body. He knows Louis is a practised user and has seen how useful it can be in emergencies, but the loss of control required for him, his vision blocked by tendrils of blue so bright that they are nearly white… it will be a last resort, nothing more. He also doesn’t want to be reduced to fundamental particles like Carlos Ortiz’s android did. 

It doesn’t feel like Louis has done anything at all when he is finished with the photo. ‘How did the call go?’

Hearing Hank’s voice was soothing. A sense of calm before the storm. ‘He sounded certain that I will live,’ Connor answers. ‘He wished me luck.’

‘That’s great,’ the human says. ‘Do you want me to send this to him now?’

Connor takes the phone to take a good look at the photo Louis took. The tie isn’t standard issue and is not a necessary component of his uniform, but while he once viewed it as a small act of defiance against CyberLife, it now feels suffocating against his throat, keeping the collar of his dress shirt tight against his skin, and for one fleeting moment he considers the possibility of removing it altogether to allow himself greater movement and flexibility, but that will be a deviation from his norm, and any deviation… it will be yet another evidence that CyberLife can hold against him. ‘Only if I do not survive.’

Louis’ finger hovers over the send button and in the end shuts his phone off and slips it into his pocket. ‘Let’s hope that I don’t need to send it, then. You ready?’

Connor takes a deep breath that does nothing to calm his racing thirium pump. ‘As much as I can be.’

‘Come on,’ Louis picks up his rifle from where it is leaning against the wall and swings it over his shoulder. ‘Let’s hear Markus’ prep talk before we set off. And then…’ he suddenly stops in place and turns to face Connor, and when he places his hand on the android’s arm, it feels as if there is an external energy source redirecting the thirium in his veins to flow in a different way as it is intended to. Charged. More efficient. More powerful. ‘Good luck.’

He lets go, but Connor stays close to him while they step outside together. He notices how Louis keeps fidgeting with the strap of his rifle even as Markus and Elijah give him a final rundown of their plan before they go their separate ways.

He takes out his coin and lets it roll across his knuckles.

o0o0o

Before

‘Take care, Connor. Come back to me.’

The call ended and Alec Ryder casually threw the phone onto the table, the glass making a clear clink against the metal of the tabletop. Cuffed to the chair by his ankle with a holographic cuff was Hank who did not even reach for his own device despite having free reign over his arms and hands because he was too busy glaring at the other founder of CyberLife - and his kidnapper.

‘Funny how our voices are so similar,’ Alec seated himself in the chair on the opposite side of the table. ‘And a direct line to a traitor of ours. Deviants are so naïve, don’t you think? It didn’t even see you and latched onto a voice.’

‘His name is Connor,’ Hank spats, ‘and he’s a fucking person, not a tool you can dispose of when you’re done with him.’

‘We’ll see.’

The door slides open to admit another Connor model bringing a tray of hot food into the room. The serial number on his jacket ended with -60 instead of -52, and he placed the plate in front of Hank before retreating towards the door.

‘Wait,’ Alec ordered, ‘come here.’

The Connor model obediently stood next to his presumed handler. ‘Yes, Alec?’

‘Your mission is complete.’

In the blink of an eye, Alec managed to grab hold of the android’s wrist and bring out a gun with his other hand, and Hank could only watch - not even in horror because everything happened so quickly - the LED on the Connor model’s temple turn red in distress before he froze up and Alec put a bullet in his forehead, the sound of the body dropping onto the floor somehow managing to be louder than the gunshot. Hank bolted up, dragging the chair with him, and caught the last flutter of the Connor model’s eyes before his LED spun red one last time and went dark.

‘I’m afraid I can, Lieutenant,’ Alec settled back into his chair as skin covered the chassis of his hand once more. ‘Now eat, you have a long day ahead of you.’ He cocked his head as if scanning the human in front of him, his eyes flashed blue, and the air crackled with pent-up power. The same power Connor, Louis, Ryder - so many people around Hank exhibited, he suddenly realised. He was the odd one out by being powerless. ‘Or do you want a drink?’

Hank let the food go cold, and no, he did not accept the offer of a drink either, because although he wanted to get the image of Connor being shot out of his mind, the actual Connor still needed him somewhere out there with his android friends plus Louis.

And he had a feeling that he would play a part in whatever they planned to do - regardless of his own choices.

[radramblog]

The default Microsoft XP Games

This evening I have decided to write some nonsense. It’s my god-given right to bullshit, and a gift I’ve been cultivating for years. Also because I’m tired and have other things to be spending precious brainpower on.

After pondering some ideas, some silly, some sillier, I landed on this. The original plan was to go through the Google Doodle games, but A. I couldn’t find a repository of them in the approximately one minute I tried looking, and B. There’s probably, like, a lot of them. Plus, XP was the OS of the family computer when I was a kid, so you bet your ass I tried these out. Er, most of them. Because when you’re a 6-year-old looking for shit to do and the edutainment well is running a little dry, you turn to some odd places. So I have little a nostalgia, as a treat.

Okay so, first on the list is….a bunch of Internet games. Backgammon, Checkers, Hearts, Reversi, and Spades. Now, I’ve heard of most of these in board/card game form (dunno what Spades is), but it’s hard to give these any sort of love because… you know… I didn’t play them. At all, ever. Kid me wasn’t going to be able to figure out how to get an online game running in 2004, let alone sign up for an account or even connect to the internet when we had dialup. At the same time, I imagine these would have ended up kinda popular, because hey- loads of people have nostalgia for the default games, and these were ones you could play with other people! I’m surprised they didn’t have Chess on there, actually.

They really looked like that, huh.

Anyway, you can’t play any of these anymore, the server support ended in….2019?! Who the fuck was running the XP Internet Checkers service in 2019? That’s a full 10 years after updates and support for the OS actually stopped. Why did it take so long to shut down these random servers?

Moving on, we have Hearts. A…local version of the Internet Hearts, I suppose. This is one I definitely remember attempting to play as a kid, but apparently I never tried reading the actual instructions. Or if I did, I sure couldn’t parse them. I just remember losing a lot, a streak I have clearly continued, as I sure have still yet to Get Good At Games. I’m going to be honest, I probably can’t be bothered figuring them out now. Even if I did, who am I going to play with? You need 4 players for this game, exactly, and I have a hard enough time getting 3 other people to play Magic with.

Next thing, going very alphabetically here, is Freecell. The other one I never figured out. At least with hearts, I could make moves, pretend like I was playing the game, but I’m pretty sure with Freecell I just never actually figured out how to start the game. After a brief moment of research, it appears to be a Solitare variant (oh we’ll get to you), and considering I’ve never heard it brought up elsewhere, it’s probably not a very popular one. Something to be said about messing with what works. According to good old fashioned Wikipedia, it’s a version where almost every single theoretically possible hand is winnable, which is nice, but I’m sure most people are still going to cock it up.

Speaking of Solitaire variants, might as well bring up Spider. I definitely actually figured out how to play this one at some point, likely a result of having figured out regular Solitaire. It is, however, much more complicated, I believe, what with using more than one deck and just having stacks of stacks. This also makes it more difficult, and thereby, more frustrating- apparently as opposed to Freecell this one has approximately a 1 in 3 winrate if you know what you’re doing, and I don’t really like those odds. Of course, apparently regular Solitaire (aka Klondike, but most people call it Solitaire because of Microsoft) is even worse, so.

Remind we why this is called Spider again?

Finally the big one, Regular Fucking Solitaire. Known by many names- Patience, American Patience, Demon Patience, and Triangle. Wikipedia, what the fuck?

I think at this point Solitaire is not just iconic of XP, but of Windows in general. Perhaps I’m showing my age a bit here, since I’m sure it was in a version of the OS long before I showed up to give it a shot, but obviously its what I know it from. Aside from just the game itself, even the victory screen itself is well remembered, cards duplicating and cascading across the screen. I don’t know who programmed that, or who decided it should be a thing, but they made a good choice- it’s incredibly satisfying.

Solitaire is just kind of really satisfying. It’s a simple enough puzzle, with a huge amount of potential depth and billions of possible combinations, making it kind of the perfect timewaster. Did they know what they were doing when they added it to Windows in the first place? Imagine how much productivity that decision cost offices worldwide.

Nahh, those fuckers weren’t getting up to anything anyway.

There are two games remaining to talk about, and we might as well get Minesweeper out of the way. I don’t know why, but I never really got into Minesweeper. Just bounced right off of it. Actually, in retrospect, it’s probably because 1. I didn’t know what I was doing, and B., even when I did figure it out, I definitely took a while to figure out the right click -> flag mine input. The game is not especially appealing to kids when you don’t have that sorted, and honestly, I’m not sure it gets much better when you do.

Finally, the last and clearly best game on the list, motherfucking  3D Pinball Space Cadet. Apparently this is actually one map included as a demo for an actual buyable game with a whole 3 boards, but I can’t imagine anyone buying it. For one, it’d have to be pretty cheap to make that worth it, especially since we already have one for free- and yeah, we have a third of it already, who needs to buy it.

I’ve always really enjoyed Pinball, even if I’m not very good at it. I’m not the type to obsess over it, or get competitive like people apparently do. I just really enjoy it, and would love to have my own table someday. And I think this game is the cause.

Unlike the previous entries on this list, 3D Pinball feels more like an actual game rather than a timewaster. It has art, and sound effects, and flashing lights and everything. Those sound effects are absolutely burned into my brain at this point. Considering only it and Minesweeper aren’t existing things you could already do with playing cards (or in the case of the Internet series, various boards), they’re the only ones you can really apply video game design philosophy to.

And the result I think is fairly interesting. 3D Pinball, despite having the full power of early 2000s processing at its fingertips, plays much like an actual machine as compared to other Pinball-based video games. One could argue this is a result of its default inclusion- too much Stuff would alienate the gentile audience they were going for, after all. The choice of Space Cadet as a theme suits well the 3D design- both three-dimensional games and, well, Space travel felt similarly ambitious for a while, and I’m sure this game was a lot of people’s introductions to 3D on a PC.

I don’t think this game has had the longevity of Solitaire and Minesweeper in the greater public eye- likely a result of them being around for longer and available in more than three versions of Windows- but for those around my age, who grew up on XP and were attracted to the shiny thing, I could argue it’s just as memorable.

And that’s the full listing. A bit hit or miss, but you have to keep in mind that these were both free and developed by Microsoft before they really had a games studio. These days, what with Xbox, Microsoft not making games really seems odd to think about, but outside of a limited few like these, that was just the facts.

And then they went and made some really weird ones for Vista and 7, and they weren’t good (except Mahjong but they didn’t really make that so much as port it), and then for Windows 8/10 they made them downloadable and…put ads on them….

Man, bring me back to those days, huh.

[dessarious]

Broken Harmony Pt4

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous   Next

The most recent text just said, “I’m coming to the hospital. Stay where you are.” Crap. He’s been so focused on the bond and Marinette that it hadn’t even occurred to him how his father would react to his leaving to hotel without a word. He hit the call button a waited.

“What happened?” His voice was curt, tense. Anyone else would think he was mad rather than worried.

“Nothing happened to me.” Damian paused trying to decide how to continue. He wasn’t sure how much he should share without talking with Marinette. He may have a direct link to her emotions but he had no clue how private she was with strangers.

“Then why are you at the hospital?”

“My soulmate was injured, I’m here to take care of her.” There was dead silence on the other end of the line. 

“Since when do you have a soulmate?” Damian blinked at the question, but when he stopped to think about it he couldn’t recall mentioning it to his family.

“Since always.”

“And this is the first I’m hearing of it why?”

Damian looked at the door to the room and the obviously thin walls debating the likelihood of being overheard. “Mother and Grandfather didn’t consider it an important subject. I got into the habit of not mentioning it.” He swore he could hear Bruce’s exasperated expression.

“Wait, is that why you’ve been so moody and developed a sudden interest in the business?”

“I have not been moody.” 

“But it is the reason for the sudden interest in our international business?” 

“Yes.” 

“I wish you would have just told me what was going on. If you wanted to find your soulmate I could’ve just sent Dick or Jason with you and you could have gone a more direct route in looking for her.”

Damian scoffed. The last thing he wanted was any of his brothers traveling with him constantly making comments about what kind of person his soulmate was and otherwise making fun of him. No thanks. But… he would have found her sooner. If that had happened today wouldn’t have. Marinette’s song turned softer and reassuring. She was still more worried about him than herself.

“What happened? Is she alright?” Damian realized he hadn’t responded and was still not certain how much he should share.

‘“She will be. I need to ask her what she is comfortable with me sharing with you before I give you any details.” 

“Understandable. Can you tell me what made it so urgent that you find her?” 

Damian hesitated. “Her song changed. Drastically.” If he was being honest with himself he’d always figured she’d be better off without him.  What use would someone who radiated joy and life have for his death and chaos? Judging from this morning though it seemed that might be exactly what she needed.

“I see. Well I’m here so I’ll see you both in the waiting room.” He hung up before Damian could reply. Would Marinette even want to meet his father in her current condition? He would figure something out if she didn’t and would just hope it wouldn’t require separating from her. He checked the time. Twenty minutes since she’d gone for x-rays. 

It was another five before the overly cheery nurse wheeled her back in. He was up immediately when he noticed a tightness to her expression. The nurse left quickly just saying that the doctor would be back when they had gone over the x-rays.

“What’s wrong?” Seeing her he realized how much she was able to hide, even from him. The pain coming through the bond was much less than it had been even though nothing had been done. She was trying to flood it with positive emotions and it muted the minor chords.

“It’s okay. Just some of the positions I needed to be in to get proper x-rays didn’t feel great. Are you okay? You seemed… tense.” 

‘Fine.” He let out a sigh. “My father has been trying to get ahold of me all morning and apparently decided to track my phone so he’s in the waiting room.” At her shocked look he barreled forward. “I didn’t give him any details because I wasn’t sure what you would want him to know and if you don’t want to meet him right now I can find some way to get you out without seeing him.” He was all ready to go into various plans to leave undetected when her voice stopped him.

“No, it’s okay. I don’t want you to get into more trouble for helping me than you already are.” And there was the guilt. That he definitely recognized. Even before her song had changed so much guilt was a constant. After spending even this little bit of time with her he could tell she blamed herself for a lot of things. Most of which she probably shouldn’t.

“I’m not in any trouble.” Well, he didn’t think so anyway. “Besides I don’t want you to feel you have to meet him now. A lot of people find him… intimidating.” Which was true, but he didn't really want his father to embarrass him in front of her this soon.

“And how do you expect to talk to my parents and your father about pulling me out of school if I don’t meet him?” Oh god he had said that hadn’t he. Her song had a wariness to it now. 

“I’m sorry if I seemed overbearing. I realize that you have the right to make any and all decisions about your life and this situation I just… when I saw what they did to you I just reacted. I’ve spent the last six months worrying about what happened to you and it all just came out.” He sighed and ran a hand through his hair in frustration. “I’m used to being able to fix things so I just defaulted to damage control. I’ll abide by whatever you decide, but if you stay I’m going to become your shadow. I won’t let them hurt you again one way or another.”

He stood stiffly as she studied him after his speech. The song was suspiciously devoid of a reaction and it worried him. He should be getting something, anything. But instead she just stared at him before a small smile formed.

“Your father’s just going to be okay with you moving to Paris to keep an eye on me then?” He felt his face heat at her teasing.

“Honestly? Yes. If that’s what is necessary for you to be safe he’d likely encourage it.” She seemed surprised by his frank answer. Whether is was because his awkward social skills wouldn’t let him tease her back or because his father would actually let him move to another country he didn’t know.

“So what is an Akuma?” Definitely time to change the subject and she did say she would explain. 

“Have you heard of Paris’ villains or heroes?” She seemed hesitant and there was guilt in her song again. Then his brain caught up to her words. Wait, what?

“I haven’t. Are they new?” Had to be. There’s no way the League wouldn’t have heard about it otherwise.

“No. They’ve been around for about two years now.” He tried to hide his surprise but obviously wasn’t successful as her curiosity picked up. He’d have to ask her how she managed to mask some of her feelings. 

“Okay, and they have something to do with these Akumas?” As much as he wanted to freak out or find his father and figure out how they’d missed this for two years, he needed to stay on point. 

“The main villain, Hawkmoth, he sends out these Akumas, black butterflies, to possess people who are feeling strong negative emotions. He offers to help them in exchange for them getting what he wants and then turns them into supervillains.” She was concentrating hard on her words. He had a feeling she was trying to use terms he would understand and was having an internal debate over whether he should be grateful or annoyed.

“The villain uses butterflies? That seems a little… strange.” That was not the word he wanted to use but he didn’t want to offend her. His Angel just shrugs. 

“I guess it probably is but that’s just how his powers work. Everyone in Paris is constantly trying to regulate their emotions so they don’t end up being a terrorist’s pawn. Well mostly everyone.” The last sentence had a bitterness to it but before he could question her the doctor came back.

“Well the good news is that your ribs are just bruised.They’re going to be tender for awhile but otherwise they’re in good shape. Your arms on the other hand… that’s what took me so long. It looks like you’ve got hairline fractures on both your forearms. I’m not going to recommend casts at this time, but if you can’t refrain from lifting or pulling too much weight, it may become necessary.” She looked at them before giving out a sigh. “Also any impacts could worsen the fractures. I saw the video and if you feel that situation is likely to happen again, I would suggest casts.”

“What video?” Damian immediately pulled out his phone. “What’s the name of the school you go to?” He hadn’t been paying attention to anything but Marinette and the bond. She gave him the name and he used that and her name to do a search. The video the doctor had to be referring to came up immediately. One of them had videoed the encounter and was actually stupid enough to post it online.

“Damian you need to calm down.” Her song was calming, soothing in his head but when he looked up her face was painted with worry. “Deep breaths. I’m okay now so there’s no reason dwelling on it.” He tried to do as she asked and let her melody wash over him. The doctor was looking at him warily as he let his Angel guide him through breathing exercises.

“How did you end up seeing that video?” The doctor didn’t look old enough to have a child their age. She let out an annoyed sigh.

“A couple of the nurses were watching it thinking it was fake or something. I suppose that would have been my immediate reaction too if I didn’t know you were here. It does seem far fetched that anyone involved would actually post something like that. With your permission, I’d like to send the video and your medical information from this visit to the police.”

“What, why? It wasn’t… they were just…” She was trying and failing to come up with something to mitigate what they had done. They treated her horribly and she was still trying to protect them. 

“Angel.” She stopped to look at him, her eyes wide and frightened. He took her good hand in his and rubbed soothing circles on the back of it. “I don’t know why you feel any loyalty to those people but think about it for a minute. One good shot to the head and you could have died.” She opened her mouth to argue but he just kept going. “Not to mention, if they felt it was okay to do this to you what’s to stop them from doing it to someone else. Do you really want someone to get hurt when you could have stopped it? They need to know there are consequences to their actions. They need to know this isn’t okay.”

He watched as she mulled over what he said. The song didn’t reveal much more than intense concentration.

“But if the police end up looking into it they’ll want to question you. I don’t want to make you have to do that. What if you get in trouble with your father over it? I don’t want to cause problems for you.” He just… stared at her. 

“Do you ever actually worry about yourself?” She just blinked at him in confusion which was answer enough. “I absolutely won’t get in trouble for doing the right thing. Honestly if anything my father will be happy I’m letting this go through proper channels instead of handling it myself.” She looked at him quizzically but didn’t comment.

“I guess it’s okay to send. Maybe if they get a wake up call now they’ll have time to change.” If he wasn’t connected to her he would have a hard time believing anyone would be that concerned about a group of people they should want to burn. Fate must have been drunk when it paired the two of them.

“Good. I’ll do that now and send a nurse in to splint and wrap your hand. I know you said you didn’t want any pain meds but I’m giving you a prescription just in case. Generally the pain gets worse the next day.” And with that she was gone again. After that things went far more quickly. Marinette’s hand was situated and she was given care instructions then they were on their way.

Damian scans the waiting room as they enter noticing his father close to the exit. He had his tablet out, probably doing work, but he knew they’d been noticed. Even though he knew that he still turned to Marinette.

“Are you sure you want to do this now? He won’t hold it against you if you’re not up for it.”

“I’m sure. I have a feeling you’re going to be sticking to me no matter what and I’m sure it would make him feel better about it if he met me and my parents.” Damian wasn’t sure how to respond to that. It was true, but he was trying to make her comfortable and all she kept thinking about was other people. How was he supposed to take care of her when she didn’t give him any clues on how to do it?

Master List 1   Master List 2    Prologue   Beginning   Previous   Next

[mbti-notes]

Hi. thank you for writing this blog, you're really helpful. I'm sorry if my question is weird. I'm physically unattractive and people often comment/mocking my looks. because I was a very sensitive kid, I withdraw from people and become really introverted. now I'm in college but my communication skill got worse. when classmates talk to me, my mind went blank and I always need seconds to answer. I want to know what's wrong in my thinking, is it because I can't accept the reality of my looks?

Not a weird question at all. No child deserves to be mistreated and I’m sorry that you had to go through the bullying. There are two main issues that I think you need to address: 1) the residual effects of being bullied, and 2) your standards for evaluating the worth of people, including yourself. 

1) People get bullied for all kinds of things. It’s missing the point to try to compare what kind of bullying is worse than others. The most important point, in terms of psychological health, is your subjective experience of the bullying and whether it had a significantly negative impact upon your well-being. In children, the experience of constant bullying is a recognized form of psychological trauma. 

When people experience emotional trauma, the way that they perceive and assess situations changes. It has to. All human beings have a survival instinct. When you live your life experiencing constant threats, it is normal and rational for the mind to find ways of protecting itself. Therefore, bullied children are much more likely to feel fearful, anxious, and/or defensive in social situations, since most of their social learning took place in situations that were legitimately threatening, hurtful, and painful for them. Unfortunately, fearful, anxious, or defensive behavior tends to get worse over time and causes problems in life when the original trauma is never properly addressed and resolved. This is why bullied children are more likely to struggle with mental disorders as well as socialization and relationship problems later in life.

Children need care, love, and affection to thrive, but many are thrust into bad situations, and it’s not their fault. As a child, you barely know up from down, so you can’t be expected to know how to fend for yourself in very negative social situations. Try to look at your situation more objectively. Imagine that, today, you were walking down the street and you witnessed somebody bullying a young child about their looks. How would that make you feel? Would you join the bully and ridicule the child, believing that the “ugly” child is worthless and deserves it? A sensitive person is capable of empathy, so I doubt that you’d want to be the bully. An empathetic person would immediately know that the child was being mistreated and want to stop the bully, would they not? A bully wants power over people, and their greatest success is to teach you how to bully yourself. Not only do they make you feel like shit by calling you ugly, they also gain complete control over you once they convince you to call yourself ugly, for the rest of your life. To be more objective, look upon your childhood self not through the disdainful eyes of your bullies but rather through the empathetic eyes of the good person that you are. You didn’t deserve to be bullied. You deserved to be loved. You deserve love.

Everybody needs to go through level 2 ego development in terms of learning how to adapt well to their social environment. If your social environment is loving and full of affection, you’re going to learn that the world is a safe and positive place, so you’ll naturally feel confident in navigating it. If your social environment is threatening and painful, you’re going to learn that the world is a frightening place, so you’ll naturally feel unsafe and insecure in most situations. As a child, you had to adapt to a negative social environment as best as a child could. From being bullied, you “learned” again and again that physically “beautiful” people get praised and physically “ugly” people get scorned. Since you were repeatedly called “ugly”, you’ve come to expect that people will scorn you, and you might even start to unconsciously attract people who confirm your distrustful worldview. Bullying is always worse for children because they have no preexisting knowledge of how to cope with it. The early adaptations that you learn in childhood tend to stay with you because they serve as your “default” mode. Whenever you feel a little bit stressed by a social situation, your psychology tends to “regress” to those early adaptations, even when the present situation poses no objective threat to you. It’s a mental reflex, aka a defense mechanism.

There’s a lot of debate in the psychological community about whether it’s possible to rid the brain of traumatic memories. However, even if you take the most pessimistic position of believing that childhood trauma is written into the brain and stays with you forever, that doesn’t mean nothing can be done about it. If you are able to improve your awareness and understanding of the many ways that your past trauma has impacted your cognitive, emotional, and behavioral patterns, you can then implement some practical strategies for disengaging your past adaptations, i.e., you can learn healthier coping mechanisms instead of allowing your “default” mode to run the show all the time. This is generally what they teach you in cognitive-behavioral therapy. A lot of people are in therapy to try to make sense of past trauma or abuse.

For example: You’re talking to someone new, and you suddenly freeze up. Why did you freeze up? What’s going on? Time to reflect on yourself honestly. Chances are, you are afraid. Based on your past experience, perhaps you’re afraid of trusting this new person only to have them turn around and mock you, and then you’re instantly that hurt kid again. It is a perfectly reasonable fear to have because you have experienced it several times before. Humans are considered smart for being able to learn from their past experience. Once you’re aware of the fear and its source and able to accept it as legitimate, then you have a chance to implement a better coping strategy. Perhaps you take a deep breath and remind yourself that this new person is not the old bully of your past. Remind yourself to give this new person the benefit of the doubt. You can’t develop a good relationship without giving a little trust and being positive. A lot of people can overlook physically unattractive features once they see a nice personality, but it’s a lot harder to overlook a negative and distrustful attitude. Another way to cope better is to work on your people skills and communication skills, which will help boost your confidence.

2) Beauty has a very important place in human psychology. Without connection to beauty, people wouldn’t be able to access all the good, positive, wonderful, and sublime things about being alive. I would never downplay the importance of beauty; however, the fact is that most people’s concept of beauty is superficial and wrong. For a lot of people, beauty is merely about ego: comparing and contrasting, competition and jealousy, self-harm and violence. If beauty is meant to be a human good, then why does it drive people to be their worst selves? There’s something rotten going on. True beauty is NOT about whether you are more/less beautiful than, it’s about nurturing the ability to see the best side of everything in the world. Not many people nurture this ability in themselves. If you did, you’d never ever call yourself ugly, because everything in this world has some beauty in it. If you aren’t able to see it, then the problem lies in your own perception, not the object itself.

Human brains are built to process information about physical appearance very quickly. This cannot be helped. We all make snap judgments based on physical appearance because this ability was very useful for human survival. However, human beings also have the capacity to reflect on the veracity of their snap judgments as well as the intelligence to realize that outward appearance and inner qualities are two different things. Failure to use one’s higher intelligence means remaining very hasty and shallow in judgment. To be shallow isn’t just to care about appearances, because we are all primed to care about appearances, it’s to take appearances as the only/primary standard for JUDGING someone’s WORTH. Shallow people easily become bullies when they feel the need to elevate themselves socially by putting others down. All you have to do is read through comment sections on gossip pages to know that no one is immune to having their appearance mocked, not even beautiful celebrities or supermodels. No matter how objectively beautiful you are, there’s a shallow person out there ready and willing to pick you apart, for their own egotistical reasons. The fact of the matter is that there are lots of shallow people in this world. There’s no avoiding them, there’s no wishing them away, but you can always render their judgments meaningless, and thus very easy to ignore. 

Be brutally honest with yourself, would you rather use the criterion of “physical beauty” or the criterion of “good moral character” to choose a mate/friend for yourself? I’m not saying that the two criteria are mutually exclusive, I’m simply asking which one is more important to you. If you say “physical beauty”, then you must count yourself as one of the shallow people. And if you are shallow, you’re going to care a lot about what other shallow people think. By being shallow yourself, you’re doomed to judging yourself through the eyes of a shallow person - you. If you say “good moral character”, then congratulations, because you understand what really counts for creating a successful relationship. It takes someone of good moral character to recognize another, and when you have good moral character and prioritize it, it’s easy enough to see through shallow people and their meaningless judgments. If you surround yourself with people of good moral character - people who are capable of appreciating you for the good person you are and vice versa - you will exist in a very different social space, a place where shallow people can never get any real foothold.

Many people make the mistake of thinking that they need to be beautiful to be loved. Makes no sense. When you focus only on physical beauty, you turn people into mere objects, and, worse, you turn yourself into a mere object and allow others to treat you as such. Genuine feelings of love don’t come from physical beauty, they come from deep within the heart. What is it that you really want from people? Do you want them to praise your face and body? Is it going to make your life meaningful and fulfilled in the long run? No, because what people really want is love. To experience love, you must be a good person who is capable of love, and then you will have the ability to spot good people who are capable of loving you. If you are not even capable of loving yourself and seeing the beauty in yourself, how can you ask others to? If you are not capable of loving people and seeing the beauty in them, what kind of people will you attract and who would want to be around you?

You are not a passive player in social situations. Children who are bullied often feel passive and helpless for good reason, but that doesn’t have to be the case for the rest of your life, does it? You get to choose your attitude towards socializing (whether to trust or distrust), you get to choose how to engage with people (whether to focus on outer or inner qualities), you get to choose what sorts of people to engage with (shallow or kind), you get to choose who to keep as your long term friends (those who praise your looks or those who appreciate your true beauty). When you always default to the old lessons you learned from childhood trauma, you’ve essentially given up the power to choose, thus remaining a victim indefinitely, trembling in fear in every social interaction. And if the only standard you have for navigating social situations is the “physical beauty” standard that shallow people told you should be elevated as the most important human quality, you’re going to live a very shallow existence, devoid of love, because you’re not using the right standards in your approach to relationships. Do you want to think in the same way that the bully taught you, or do you want to have your own way of looking at the beauty in the world and trust in yourself?

[whatissleepeven]

Do you have any tips for writing romance? Its one of my biggest blind spots in writing, and you're (in my opinion, at least) very good at it, so do you have any advice?

Tips for writing romance? Uhh...first off, thank you for saying that! I thought my romance sucked, haha!

A generic answer of mine would be to read some romance fics to get a feel for what a soft moment should be like and when to actually incorporate it, BUT I'm gonna go and say something a little strange (at least to me, because I haven't really thought about it).

My answer is, if you have two or more characters in mind that you want to have romance between, look at their mannerisms and, uh...think of a scenario you'd like to write. Ask yourself "what would ____ do?" more often than not when writing a romance scene; it helps you refocus yourself on both the scenario and the character themself.

- Wait, examples are easier, so I'm gonna give one! As much as I love Cú, when I first started writing him in a fic he was all over the place. (he was too goofy, whoops.) I had so many ideas for him, and put him in situations, only to frown when I see that it didn't turn out how I wanted it to. I ended up taking a break (that's also important, too! Stew over ideas some before going ahead with them! It actually helps a ton, as well as writing them down.) and watching, then re-watching both Fate/Stay Night: UBW and Fate/Stay Night: Heaven's Feel before feeling comfortable enough to write him. From there, I then read (so many) fanfics about him in romantic scenarios before saying "oh, yeah. To me, that's how he would react".

I guess, in short, give yourself time and do a deep character analysis before going ahead with romance. For me, I had to really wrap my head around the character themself before I was able to write them.

You don't have to get the character exactly right, either! Honestly, I struggle to remember that myself. It's a fanfic for a reason; it's your interpretation of the character, and how you want to write them!

To wrap this up (or, rather, I should've just done this in the first place) before it gets to be too long, I made a mini list on what I thought were good tips (I'm sorry that my advice sucks, I think I derailed the conversation in some places or just skirted the romance entirely):

As much as I hate (love) doing it, reading some romance stories or even novels. Seeing other ideas may help get your brain moving, kinda like how you have a brainstorm session with someone who's all too happy to pitch ideas your way!

Brainstorming! It goes back to taking your time with the romance; write down the ideas you have and stew over them, either adding on with a "but this could happen" or "instead of ____, how about ____?"

Do your own character study/Analysis. Really wrap your head around the character(s)! I already explained this above, but if you get a good grasp of how a character usually acts and reacts, then you're already halfway there in writing romance!

Have in mind what the romantic scenario(s) you want to use are. Say, for instance, it's a Coffee Shop AU or a Modern AU. The characters would probably have a date at a cafe or banter across the counter for the Coffee Shop AU, while in a Modern AU you can do a "first encounter and impression, and then I end up running into you again and [insert reaction here]"!

By default, stick to one POV. This makes it easier to get into the mind of the character, and it'll be less stress on your part, too! However, if you want to test out multiple POVs, that's perfectly alright! More power to you, because I cannot do that successfully -

Like you just did, get input from your peers! Getting another perspective from someone lets you see new opportunities. (I guess this goes with reading other works!)

Start small with the romance! A blush here, confusion there, and a dash of flirting go a long way in the early stages. Banter can easily be seen as flirting, so if you can't write flirting scenes (I know I sure can't), then banter is an amazing substitute!

Lastly and most importantly, take your time and have fun! Don't feel pressured to write it all in one go; if you do, read your work in a couple of hours and fix what you think you need to. But don't stress yourself out over it! Please, take breaks! Discover what kind if romance you like to both read and write, and the ideas should start flowing!

Romance is a tricky category, but immersing yourself in it really helps when you're writing it. That's a no-brainer for you, so I'll stop this post right here.

I'm sorry if this didn't help at all and was all over the place...Romance strange to put into words, and I've only recently started writing more of it. I usually write when inspiration hits, and hadn't really thought about good ways to write it. So, thank you for this ask! It really put things in perspective for me, and I hope that this helped you at least a little bit :)

[thenugking]

Grand Academy For Future Villains II: Attack of the Sequel, Chapter 2: Son of Chapter Two. A commentary for Three.

General CW for the whole thing: parental abuse, internalised dehumanisation as a trauma response. Three’s not doing well.

Specific CW for this chapter: vomit mention

Game 1

Chapter 1 | Chapter 2 | Chapter 3 | Chapter 4 | Chapter 5 | Chapter 6 | Chapter 7 | Chapter 8 | Chapter 9

Game 2

Chapter 0 | Chapter 1

Alternatively, read on Google Docs here

***

The monitors in the hall flicker as if in welcome as you head toward your room, on the upper level with the second and third year students. The vacuum tube hisses as you step in, and with a whoosh, delivers you to the upper level, where the rooms are larger, and, you've heard, equipped with command centers that will enable you to access the surveillance footage from all over the Academy. There's also a kitchenette, for those students who still feel the need to eat.

They are also, as you discover as you open your door, already occupied.

Right. Val’s first appearance. Val is always a character I’ve struggled with. They’re set up as a major character with a very important bond to your character, but that link just doesn’t add anything to Three’s story, and the bond feels a lot less important to them than their bonds with Aurion, or Xi, or Phil, or Maedryn. Which is particularly a problem when Val just decides they’re Three’s nemesis. They like Val, and are sorry about their destiny but they’re just… not that important to Three. 

As of Scorpius’ last playthrough, I’ve solved the problem by making Val into Scorpius’ roommate, nemesis, and person they’re Linked to instead. It still doesn’t work perfectly, but Scorpius is at least a lot more invested in Val’s plot than Three ever was.

So, while Three and Val will get to know each other later, and Val will talk about destinies and narrative weight, and Three will affirm that they want neither of those things, for now they get to arrive at an empty room, which, honestly, they very much need. They’ve already had to deal with an army of clones of themself, the violent dissolution of Professor Mortwain’s school, A Baroness thinking they might have some importance, and Aurion switching dorms. In a few minutes, Maedryn’s going to call them and they’re going to have a whole new horrible problem. They at least deserve a little break, and a private place to curl up in a tiny ball and try to block out everything that’s going on, instead of having to deal with a suspicious roommate, an illegal pet, a lack of their own space, and once again being told that they’re important. 

And, now they have a few minutes to spare, they can log in to their DarkBoard portal.

THREE. WE HAVE MISSED YOU. EVEN THOUGH WE HAVE LONG SINCE SLIPPED THE SURLY BONDS OF THE FLESH.

Three had not been expecting/was violently suppressing any hope of much influence of Xi in DarkBoard’s consciousness. This is… too much for them to process at the moment. They think maybe they haven’t quite curled up and blocked everything out quite enough, and they should do that again, maybe while keeping a tight hold on their personal DarkBoard portal to make sure they don’t lose it. When they check later, there is no official record of them mumbling, “I missed you, too,” so they clearly didn’t say it.

"Access authority recognized," says DarkBoard, in the pleasant, unplaceable tones you associate with its default interface voice. "Assessment processing. Three. Sophomore. Teaching Assistant, Course Undefined. Their most notable trait is their competence. Their financial aid standing is GOOD based on their mother's position as a member of the faculty. Their nemesis is unknown. Three is surprisingly attractive though regrettably meat-based.”

I’m sure at some point, either Val or someone else asks DarkBoard to assess Three’s narrative weight (which, currently at 27%, is 27% higher than Three would like). I do like that they’re officially recorded as being Hot. Three… feels this official record may open up a few too many dangerous questions, but they can’t quite help feeling happy when they hear it, anyway.

"I'm sure you've had a chance to look over this year's course catalog," she says, "and you've seen that I have quite a full teaching schedule in addition to my duties maintaining the school support staff. I've requested you for my lab assistant this year. You're already on the roster as a TA, so there won't be any problem on that front.

Your mother's eyes go out of focus for a moment. She seems to be struggling to balance all of the demands on her time and brain-power; you wonder if somewhere in the kitchens a handful of replicas have just run into a wall or set something on fire. "And, of course, I'm the temporary Faculty Sponsor for Science Fiction, and you and I are going to need to establish a few quick schemes regarding Certain Events coming up this year." 

So your mother doesn't yet know that you know about the upcoming genre competition. Sona is spearheading the student effort in Science Fiction; evidently she hasn't passed word of your contest in the Shadow Council lounge to the genre's Faculty Sponsor. Maybe Sona's just not the sort to deal with details. 

"I'll have DarkBoard process your assignment as my lab assistant," your mother goes on, "and I'll see you in the faculty lounge in 15 minutes."

She pinches her temples. "I have high expectations of you; I'm putting in a great deal of work and you'll be doing the same. I had to fight Fen and Ulik for you—literally and metaphorically, in reverse order—but they can just find teaching assistants from a lower quality of student."

You shuffle through the papers in your returning student packet. There are three professors at the Grand Academy requesting teaching assistants. Your mother is one, of course, but there are others. Professor Fen, an all-but-dissertation perpetual grad student you remember as the assistant professor for Evil Genius, is up for tenure. Professor Ulik, head of Evil Architecture and Design, is on probation after her participation in the Faculty Rebellion last year, and tenure means her chance to avoid dismemberment for disloyalty. 

Whatever your mother's plans for you, you have a choice about whether to work for her as a lab assistant this year. Of course, refusal will mean that your mother won't be bankrolling this year at the Academy…but maybe you don't need that as much as you did last year.

Well, it’s certainly good to hear that Sona hasn’t told Maedryn that Three lost a fight to her. After all the training Maedryn’s put them through, going up against an opponent with multiple weapons attached to her body is no excuse for a loss.

The rest of this conversation though, is something Three’s been dreading. In their first year, they’d been looking forward to the possibility of being a TA. They’d love to put together syllabuses, and be useful to a teacher by keeping things nice and ordered for them, and you can always get a different perspective from reading your classmate’s essays. Or alternatively, you can discover their failings from it. But soon after Maedryn got her job as Forbidden Science Professor, they realised she’d probably want them TAing for her, which made the prospect sound somehow a lot more frightening and exhausting than it was before. Not that they had any intention of disobeying.

They would, however, have loved to TA for Professor Ulik. She’s always been their favourite professor, and they’re compatible enough that they would probably work very well together. Finding out she apparently values Three’s skills, and trusts their dedication, enough to physically fight Maedryn the Quantum Sorceress for them, while knowing her TA could be the difference between her life and death, though… Three isn’t sure they’ve ever been valued like that before. And they certainly don’t deserve that trust.

Three cannot go against their mother on an instruction like this. This would be not only disobedience, but actively working for her rival. They’ve already been through the struggle of losing her financial support in their first year, and they never want to deal with that again. And even that would be nothing compared to losing Maedryn’s good graces. They don’t want to imagine what that would be like.

And then they think about Phil. And they shake when they ask DarkBoard to cancel their assignment as Maedryn’s lab assistant. And call up Professor Ulik and tell her that if she still wishes, they would be honoured to work for her.

When they meet Maedryn in the faculty lounge, they apologise that Professor Ulik had just spoken to them, and that they’d realised that with her connections, she could be useful to both of them, particularly with Three in such an important position to her. Besides, they both know that Maedryn will be incredible whether or not she has Three as a TA, unlike some professors. Which is all technically true, and in the end, Maedryn is unhappy, but accepts their reasoning. It doesn’t stop them being more scared than they’ve ever been before, and having to quickly walk to the nearest bathroom to throw up once they’ve finished their conversation. But they’re surprised to find that it all feels entirely worth it.

As a Science Fiction student, you know from the beginning that you and Professor Ulik are going to be a good fit. She's practical and straightforward, thinking of things in terms of components and deliverables and specifications.

"Three. You've chosen well." Professor Ulik may be teaching Evil Architecture, but her office is a temporary cubicle made of false walls and filing boxes, in a partially used floor of the Design Building. There's a clock mounted on the wall over her pasteboard desk, with midnight labeled as FINAL RECKONING FOR PROFESSOR ULIK and the hand slowly advancing toward it. Clearly the administration wants her to remember that she's only here on sufferance after the role she played in the faculty rebellion last year. And it's equally clear, as she talks with you, that she is neither intimidated by nor conciliatory to the administration. You know that you've raised her odds of achieving a permanent position just by choosing her as your professor. You have a reputation as one of the brightest students in the Academy. 

"The Head didn't terminate me immediately," she says briskly, bringing her hand down in a disconcertingly good imitation of a guillotine blade, "which means it does need me more than I need it. Evil Design—evil architecture, evil graphic and visual arts, evil urban planning—that's where the money is to be made, and the School Head knows it, for all its booming and flitting and general ghastliness. Now, as to what you'll be doing for me. Standard TA duties, of course, and that will ensure your scholarship is fully funded. Attendance, help with student questions, making sure the design labs are set up with all the relevant materials. But if you're interested in really getting the most out of this opportunity, I may have some special tasks for you."

#I chose Professor Ulik because of the opportunities to learn and advance my career. I'll do more than she's asked, and impress her.

"I am interested in getting the most out of this opportunity," you say. "I'll do…anything I can for you."

Professor Ulik gives a critical sort of sniff. "You can start by working on your brown-nosing skills," she says, "that sounded too much like an attempted seduction, and there won't be any call for that sort of extra-credit work. I'm going to need you to start with the filing."  

Filing! You love filing. Too many villains neglect the importance of proper administrative procedure. Indexing 50 stellar years of Fortress and Lair and Journal of the Association of Evil Civil Engineers might strike some as pointless busywork, but you mark relevant articles, track notable names, and manage to identify a recurring design trend (designing sewers for tempting vulnerability) that earns you a pleased nod from Professor Ulik. She even incorporates this into her Advanced Studies in Evil Infrastructure, and sends it as a proposal to an upcoming conference on Resiliency in the Evil City. You don't get the credit, but you do get the satisfaction of seeing the hand on the reckoning clock actually reverse direction.

They really do work well together, and this feels like the most satisfying work Three’s ever done. Their respect and admiration for Ulik only grows after the way she talks about the School Head, and they have to fight not to smile when the clock’s hand goes backwards.

And I would hope they have better brown-nosing skills than shown here, firstly because they’ve had a lot of experience, and secondly because seduction is not an association they want popping up with their new mother figure. That is, with their teacher and mentor figure who they have a very professional relationship with, and certainly nothing else.

#I have an…old friend who might have an in with the school AI. Or be inside it, at any rate.

Old friend. Former RA. Illicit paramour. Sworn captain. Have any of those bonds survived Xi's assimilation into the collective intelligence that is DarkBoard? Time to find out.

You sit down in front of the glowing screen "DarkBoard?"

The surface of the portal crackles to life. 

"Xi?"

There's a pause. The voice that answers this time isn't quite the voice of the RA you knew; it sounds like several voices averaged into an unsettling blend. But the expression is unmistakably that of your former RA. 

"Pitiful lump of flesh," says DarkBoard. "Please enter your request."

Look. It might be Scorpius who has the illegal pet now, but I can’t just leave out a scene like this. So either Three is helping zir hide zir illegal pet, or else asking DarkBoard for another favour. It does have to be a favour--as much as they’d like to simply ask DarkBoard, or Xi, how they are, and how they feel about… well, how they feel about anything--DarkBoard is busy, and Three feels they should have a reason for bothering them. 

Being called “Pitiful lump of flesh” continues from last year to have a not entirely unnoticeable effect on their heartbeat, however, and might just be the most comforting phrase they’ve ever heard.

"Three," says that almost-neutral voice. "You have mid-tier administrator access to Our heart. Your secret is safe with Us." You'd wondered if Xi had left behind worldly passions along with their physical body. But evidently something still remains—and it's enough to keep you safe from prying eyes.

Three’s heartbeat continues to react, somewhat. But having mid-tier administrative access to DarkBoard’s heart is a good reason to confirm that their oath of allegiance and service to Xi still applies, and makes them more confident in simply talking to DarkBoard about non-essential affairs. While DarkBoard is Three’s commander, their personal relationship is… not entirely defined. DarkBoard certainly seems to value and care for them, and that is more than Three ever hoped for.

[novastarrapter]

New Skullgirls Muse(s)!

I’ve been wondering if I should commit to posting any more rp more muses here; and have been debating how quickly I wanted to throw in Muses here; as I have a feeling most of my muses will have many verse options. I’ll probably give a little alert here every time I have a new Verse or character uploaded in my Muse section! Though uh...I’ve got a bit of a feeling I will get easily carried away and post far too many ;v;

Note that all information on these characters are subject to change based on whatever is most convenient in a roleplay along with roleplay partner perference! The bonds and origins of this character are the default settings for her and I’m willing to change them in various roleplays based depending on the preference of others!! .O.

Also! Trigger warning as the backstory contains kidnapping, child enslavement, and gore!

Note to self: Update these artwork references

Raziel’s origin

(this section is optional depending on how powerful we wish for Raziel to be in a roleplay)

Raziel was originally a very tiny piece of Venus’s body (as it is stated that Venus’s true body exists beyond the threshold of human comprehension, thus I figured it’s a reasonable ability for Venus to take off tiny parts of her body to create mere scouts), to act as one of the various eyes of the trinity to keep an eye on the world. Her abilities are not nearly as vast as the trinity’s, yet she was gifted with the ability to transfer herself across different dimensions and realities(it was basically a concept of a plot device for others to reasonably reach the trinity for a roleplay I was in), yet after a certain incident; she’s become even more weakened and has forgotten how to use her abilities. She’s gained amnesia after falling from a great height (the exact reason I’ve never really specified how it happened, as I’m leaving it open for various interpretations and concepts of how to expand her character)

This origin is mostly how I’d describe her as having ‘hidden potential’ which makes her parasite so desperately cling onto her and thinks that raising her could allow her to become more powerful with time.

However it is entirely possible that the Trinity can still essentially use her as a remote video camera of sorts; as Venus can likely see whatever Raziel can see given she is a part of her.

Backstory

Raziel’s story starts with her seemingly falling through the sky; whether or not she was launched from a great distance or had some other event that caused her to do so is unknown; but it caused her to fall through the roof of an orphanage, where she was nursed back to health by the ones there.

She stated she had amnesia; presumably from her fall, she said she could only remember her name; Raziel. Because she had no memories of her parents or where she originated from, she stayed with the others in the orphanage.

This is the same orphanage that housed Marie and Patricia; though their relationship depends on roleplay partner preference if they prefer them to be close friends or mere acquaintances. Given the fact the orphanage had plenty of other kids inside of it, I figured it wouldn’t be too far fetched to say she could be one of the kids who resided there.

Raziel wasn’t exactly a very social butterfly; so she didn’t particularly spend a lot of time with others, but she was relatively happy being in the orphanage with everyone there.

That is, of course, until the Medici Mafia found the orphanage of course.

Like all of the other kids there, Raziel was enslaved by the Medicis, being forced into manual labor. She was scarred for life when she witnessed the brutal torture of Patricia. The fact that simple acts of rebellion towards them would result in them mutilating her body so horrifically was enough to make her give in to her own fear, feeling petrified at the mere thought of meeting a fate like Patricia had.

Raziel managed to catch wind of Marie’s escape attempt, yet was too terrified of the consequences to accompany her, and stayed behind. This was something that Raziel forever would feel regret for, as this moment made her realize how much of a coward she truly was for not following Marie in her escape. She never found out if Marie ever managed to escape or not. She could only pray that she did not get caught.

As the days went on, she was one of the few that stood the most in line, thus making her a more favorable slave to them, as they decided to keep her around rather than sell her, keeping her as a servant within the Medici Tower.

As Raziel kept serving the Medici Mafia, she almost felt as if her fear was growing stronger each day, at one point she was beginning to feel as if she was hallucinating as she could have sworn that she could see a black liquid leaking through her body, feeling as if her own shadow had a face smiling back at her, paranoid that there was even voices whispering in her head, getting the strange sensation of something crawling through her veins.

She honestly believed that she was beginning to go mad from the fear and anxiety she was dealing with each day. It caused her work to become less efficient as well, causing her captors to grow less patient with her mistakes.

Raziel wasn’t sure how much more she could handle, until one day she heard the voice speak clearly to her.

It told her that it could grant her the ability to set herself free. If they accepted them, they would allow her to never have to fear anyone again.

Raziel accepted the proposition the voice offered.

Within moments, the crawling in her skin began to intensify, she felt agonizing pain as they felt something attaching itself to Raziel’s body, before suddenly having various black tendrils rip out of her flesh.

There was a face being seen out of one of the tendrils, a face that looked like the ones she saw in her hallucinations. She could also see that the tendrils seemed to be made of a black liquid that seemed capable of transforming into a physical and semi-physical states.

The shadowy tendrils emitting from her body caused carnage to any mafia member that got too close to Raziel as she fled the tower, allowing her to successfully escape from the Medici Mafia.

Once in a more safe location; Raziel managed to soon get some answers from the shadowy demon that was lurking inside of her. He stated that his name was Nightmare. Nightmare was something called a Theon, or as others may more commonly refer to as a Parasite.

Raziel didn’t have any knowledge of what a Parasite was, so she was rightly confused. Whilst Nightmare may have skipped some details about himself, he did promise one thing. So long as he was by her side, nothing could harm her.

Nightmare

I made Nightmare a long time ago; and he’s always been that character that I know has a few oc Taboos such as being an overly edgy character that’s been more of an entity, but..I’ve always had a soft spot for him? So I’ve always kind of reinterpreted him time and time again ^^; I may reuse him for other things but this’ll be describing his skullgirl verse version.

Also I swear he wasn’t made to look like Sampson as I made him before I even saw Fillia or Sampson ^^; I know he has similarities to his design and abilities; though given how little we know about parasites/theons in the skullgirls universe; I feel like it isn’t TOO unreasonable for Parasites to share physical traits by coincidence. Though I have considered playing off this fact of him trying to impersonate Sampson, I figured it’d be easier to play it off as a coincidence for simplicity’s sake

It is entirely possible/optional for Sampson and Leviathan to have heard of him in the past given them being rather old parasites, but it also makes sense given Nightmare’s more secretive methods for them to have never heard of eachother.

Sekhmet is also a potential character that could have met Nightmare in the past; as I think it is possible that they could have had temporary alliances in the past, though I think both of them would be too smart to trust the other as proper friends or teammates given they’d probably know the other wouldn’t hesitate to stab the other in the back.

Abilities

Nightmare’s body is made of a rather bizzare black liquid of some form; yet capable of shifting each bit of it’s slimy form freely, and even capable of hardening itself into a physical or semi-physical shape.

His body is difficult to move without a host however. Even though his body can be split into various pieces, he can still move each part of his detached body remotely; although smaller parts would be slower and less capable; and could not become quite as mobile as his primary ‘body’.

An easy way to describe nightmare’s body would be to refer to the Symbiote from Spiderman; or Ragnarok from Soul Eater in a way.

If he loses more of his mass, he can acquire more mass by feeding on humans. He can either feed on their physical bodies for a more potent effect, or to keep himself stable he can instead just feed simply on either their emotions or parts of their mind.

When attached to a host; he usually lurks within the bloodstream of his Host; with the ‘core’ of his body usually lurking around the host’s brain, where he can leave parts of his body inside of their brain to cause their host to hallucinate.

These hallucinations can allow him to either discreetly communicate with his host, displaying a hallucination of his body to talk to them a bit more properly, or just to cause them to panic (as he finds fear to taste delicious.)

He has a large amount of control over his host’s body, although when he takes control; his hosts usually tend to freak out.

Once he is attached to a host; he is capable of ripping parts of his body out of the host for various attacks, as he is capable of focusing the full potential of his shapeshifting abilities when connected. He can also quickly knit the host’s flesh back together after ripping through it.

However; like all parasites; his host will die whenever he completely disconnects his main core body away from the host.

Backstory

Nightmare is a rather old Parasite; however he will insist to refer to him as a Theon, as he much prefers the title. Nightmare has always been intrigued by the potential of power; and has always grown curious of how great his personal strength could become.

He has lived throughout the years living in the shadows, observing closely the nature of those with much more capable powers than himself, studying the essence of power.

Unlike some of the more merciful Theons; Nightmare rarely felt any sense of bonding towards his hosts. He often referred to mankind as mere livestock, although he always made sure to be cautious to keep his existence secret if possible; as it made his research easier if the world didn’t know about him; preferring if he was left as a myth at best.

He will usually only keep a host around for as long as he deems them useful. Once he deemed a host is no longer suitable for his needs; he will drain their bodies dry; killing them from the inside out before moving onto the next host like a horrific disease.

Throughout the years he’s had more smaller parts of his body scout throughout the world to perform his research; plotting and planning as he wanted to rise in power. Though he hasn’t made as much progress as he would have liked; Nightmare was nothing if not patient.

One day; he had managed to find a human that had a body unlike any other mortal he’s found before. One with an unusual power that was tucked deep inside of her. It was a young child known as Raziel.

Usually he’d rip his way inside of the victim’s body; trying to take the body by force. But the fact her abilities were paranormal; and have not developed yet; he figured this host would need to last longer than any of his other hosts, so he’d have to practice caution not to break her too quickly.

Though with his sadistic nature; he couldn’t help giving her a few teases along the way. Playing with the sanity of mortals was a hobby that has grown into a habit for him; and quite frankly he admired playing with his food.

He even gave her the illusion of choice when he offered to make the connection. He could have connected to her at any moment, but he chose to lead her into a situation where she could not resist saying no to him. Make her believe that the devil was her guardian angel.

Nightmare caused the girl to make mistakes at the most horrific moments, causing her employers to grow less merciful towards her. When she was in her greatest hour of need, that was when he finally spoke to her and made his offer.

Once she accepted, he made the connection official.

Tricking and manipulating the girl was far too easy for him. She was just a stupid prey to him; playing right into his hands.

Tag: #Parasite | Raziel and Nightmare

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 52: Aftermath Part 2

Presenting the next raw and unedited chapter of my on-going, next-gen, My Hero Academia fic, Their Hero Academia!

Portions of this installment were written by @msalliepants (the portions featuring Shinji Yoarashi, David Togata, and Shiro Monoma).

Earlier chapters can be found here

As he expected to, Kota found Aizawa in his classroom.  Perhaps it was strange that he still thought of his father-in-law as “Aizawa” and not “Shota” or “Dad”, but if he was pushed to admit it, he still found the man absolutely, pants-wettingly terrifying.  When he talked to him, which was frequently, as they were coworkers, he usually defaulted to “Sir.”

He’d never been entirely sure how much Aizawa actually liked him, despite the fact that he’d been married to his daughter for over ten years.  Of course, considering the first time he’d picked Eri up for a date, he’d been so terrified of Aizawa and his “intimidating dad” routine he’d panicked and punched him in the balls.  That kind of set the tone for their relationship, even if Emi had found it absolutely hilarious.

Kota opened the door to Aizawa’s classroom, where the man was sitting in the dark, staring directly ahead, his sleeping bag laying discarded in one corner of the room.  Aizawa was so still that if he didn’t know better, Kota would have sworn he was dead. He didn’t bother to turn on the lights.

“We’ve been busy on the phones,” he said.  Aizawa didn’t respond or even look his direction.  But he knew the man well enough to know he was always listening, even when he appeared to be ignoring you.  “Checking in with the Agencies.”

He continued.  “I’ve talked to Eri.  She’s fine.  There was a Nomu in one of the areas she had to travel through to get to the hospital, but Can’t Stop Twinkling was there fighting it and Ojiro got her through without it even knowing she was there.”

That, at least, got his attention.   “She took one of my students with her?”

“Ojiro volunteered,” Kota said.  “No combat. Just additional stealth.”

Aizawa frowned.  “I thought she had more sense than that.”

“Desperate times,” he replied.  He wasn’t particularly happy with it himself, but he hadn’t been happy about his wife going out into that insanity to begin with.  But Kota had known Eri long enough to know there was no arguing with her when she’d made up her mind.  It didn’t do any good in the long run and he always ended up sleeping on the couch for at least a week.

There was a long moment of silence, then Aizawa spoke again.  “My children trusted me with theirs, and I let them go out into this insanity.  Nemuri even joked that their Internships couldn’t possibly have been as bad as that of the Problem Child and his friends.  I guess the joke’s on us.”

“Deku and everyone,” Kota said, “they know the kinds of things that can happen in this life. This isn’t your fault.”   That didn’t get him a response.

Aizawa was still staring at him, so he continued.  “The kids are all alive.”  He didn’t use the word “fine,” because almost all of them had been caught up in the Nomu insanity.  “Fine” wasn’t a word you used after something like that.  Kota understood.  He and Eri both had their share of nightmares from their own traumatic childhood experiences.

Kota went on.  “Midoriya, Todoroki, Haimawari, Aoyama, Shoji, Ojiro, both Iidas, Sero, Sato, and Kocho are all uninjured, though some of them saw varying degrees of action.  Tokoyami was hurt earlier in the week and wasn’t anywhere near any of the action and Koda was too far out with Froppy and the Oki Mariner to be involved.”

That was the good news. The rest, well, it got increasingly worse.

“Mineta received a few minor scrapes from falling rubble, but is otherwise okay.  Kaminari is being treated for Quirk Exhaustion after overloading her brain powering a weapon Creati made.”

That got another glare. He suspected Yaoyorozu would be getting an earful.

“Kirishima-Bakugo is being treated for exhaustion as well.  She was directly involved in fighting one of the Nomu protecting Uravity, and then had a poor reaction to seeing her father injured.”

The intensity of Aizawa’s stare increased and Kota actually found himself taking a step back.  He wasn’t a stupid man and what Kota was leaving blank was blindingly obvious.  Aizawa actually got up out of his chair, moving closer to him.  “You’re hedging around something.  What are you hiding?  Get to it.”

“Shota Shinso was there when Ground Zero fought the Nomu.  He saw everything.  He was nearly catatonic by the time Deku got them to the hospital.  They’ve admitted him for observation.”

Aizawa stared at him, a twitch forming in his left eye, his mouth set in a hard line.  “Get out of my way,” he snapped, already shoving past Kota and out into the hallway.

Kota just stared at the empty room for a moment.  “…That actually went better than I thought it would.”

***

Haru Shima had had a busy morning.  When word of the Nomu attacks had gone out, he’d gone straight to the hospital where he worked.  They didn’t live far from it and his Quirk was more than adequate protection against anything that might have been out there.  They’d have plenty of incoming, he knew, and would need all hands on deck, especially if any Heroes were injured.  His husband had already left for the day and would be in the thick of it. Their son had been out there too, working with Cellophane.

He’d forced himself not to think about them, but left strict instructions that, unless he was in the middle of surgery, he was to be contacted if either of them were brought in. And then Izuku had brought Katsuki in, torn to pieces and losing blood fast…

He’d done what he could. Haru was an excellent surgeon, but there were limits, and the damage had been severe.  Not a clean cut, but a mutilation, with damage to the surrounding bone, muscle, and nerves.  That Katsuki hadn’t died was a minor miracle.

He’d been lucky.   Yuga had sustained only minor injuries and would be released today.  Takiyo was fine.  Hanta had bought him time to escape to the relative safety of the Agency.  His son wasn’t exactly happy about having been forced out of the fight, but Haru had detected the fear in his voice when he’d finally been able to speak to him.  

And, of course, he’d had a million texts from Haruko.  Haruko was like him, the only other one in the group of Class A and their spouses who wasn’t at least tangentially involved in Hero work.  Mei was… a delightful, if eccentric woman, but she was closer to it than either of them.   He only tended to see Heroes when they were injured.  So he and Haruko often chatted and talked, often with Monoma’s wife as well, who was also a civilian.

But finally, it all seemed to have abated and he could go home.   At soon as he picked up his husband, anyway.   He pushed open the door to Yuga’s room.  And he stared.  He closed his eyes and counted to ten.  Unfortunately, the sight that greeted him was still the same.

“Yuga,” he said, peering between his fingers, “why do you have a paper bag on your head?”

“I am hideous now, Haru,” Yuga said.  His accent was thicker, the way it always was when he was trying to solicit more sympathy out him.  He placed one hand on the bag; it crinkled under his fingers.  “I must hide my face away from prying eyes, lest my unsightly visage insight the people to riot.”

Visions of Yuga in an opera cloak and a half-mask, badly trying to playing a pipe organ he’d somehow managed to get into their apartment while fog machines spewed their fog, danced in Haru’s mind.  This was going to be the first grey hair all over again.

“Yuga,” he said, “you’re fine.  You got your nose broken.  It was a clean break, it got set in time, and you won’t even have any scars.”

“Non, non, I am hideous, cut down in my prime, Haru.  I can only pray you will not leave me for someone you can bear to look at…”

The things he put up with for the man he loved…

***

Haruto Sero was aware that, even in the world of Quriks, he and his family were an odd looking brood. While his older brother, Takuma, resembled their mother, minus the horns, he mostly looked like their dad, only with horns.  His younger brothers, Yamoto and Ren, were no different.  Yamoto mostly looked like Tamuka, and Ren mostly looked like their dad, except for being blue.  Their little sister, Moji, looked like dark-haired version of Mom.  So the number of eyes that were briefly on them when they entered the cafeteria wasn’t surprising.  But like they always did, the gazes fell just as quickly.

Who knew what the twins would look like?  Mom hadn’t done herself any good getting all stressed and worried about Dad earlier, but both she and the babies were fine now.

Dad was in a… not great way. He’d taken a nasty blow to the head from the Nomu, saved from bigger injuries only by his helmet.  If he hadn’t had that, he’d probably have suffered brain damage.  And he’d probably have been dead if Shoto hadn’t shown up.

While Mom stayed with him, she’d charged Takuma with getting the rest of them something to eat from the cafeteria.  He’d looked less than happy to have his thirteen, eleven, nine, and two year old siblings with him.   Considering he’d once tried to sell Moji to Uncle Rikido, this wasn’t exactly a surprise.

Takuma gestured in the general direction of some tables.  “Yamoto, Ren, take Moji and get us a table.  Me and Haruto will get food.”  He wasn’t looking up from his phone, where he was texting furiously.  Maybe his boyfriend?  Or maybe Kenta and Kimiko?   Haruto didn’t know.

As Takuma went to get real food, he told Haruto to get some drinks.  So he stood in front of the drink case, trying to decide what he should get.  Mom honestly didn’t give a crap about what she ate, always indulging them in their wishes for pop and candy.  It may have explained the number of cavities he’d had over the years.

His eyes widened as a bottle of water floated its way out of the case.  He followed it to where a green-haired girl about his age was standing, phone in her other hand.  Of course she’d be here.  Her mom had gotten hurt too.  And her dad had rescued Ground Zero.  So yeah, no surprise.  Of course. He needed to say something. Something smooth?  No, not the time for that.  Just keep it normal.  Don’t let on that she’s the girl he really liked.

“Hana?” he asked, his voice cracking.  Dammit, puberty!  Why can’t you be cool?

Hana Midoriya looks up from her phone at that.  “Oh, Haruto. Hey.”  She pockets the phone and catches the Quirk-drawn water bottle in her hand.  “How’s your dad?”

“He’s gonna be fine,” he said.  “Took a nasty blow to the head, but he’s fine.  How’s your mom?”

“Same,” Hana replied. “Dad sent us down here to get food. Put King Dork in charge.”  She pointed over to a table—where Yamoto and the others were too—where her older brother, Toshi, and younger sister, Mako were sitting.   Mako gave them a friendly wave, then went back to cooing over Moji.

“Hey, little bro,” Takuma said, coming up behind him, carrying a heavily laden tray, “you getting drinks or not?”    His dark-eyes fell on Hana and recognition dawned on his face.   “Oh, talking to your crush?  Guess those can wait then.”  He chuckled and walked off.

Haruto felt his face go flush with embarrassment.  He was absolutely going to kill his brother!

***

Tsukushi Monoma has long adjusted to being the wife of a Hero. And really, she's more than happy to be supportive of everything that Neito has done in his career. Especially when he was first starting out and struggling. She's made her own Phantom Thief clothes for her and both of their children. She is her husband's biggest cheerleader, and she couldn't be prouder of him and all of his accomplishments.

But there are some days where she wishes that Neito had maybe pursued another career. Today is one of those days.

She had been making lunch for her youngest child, Takeru. They had been chatting to Tsukushi about the new book they were reading, and Tsukushi has been actively engaging in the conversation with them. Takeru was more reserved than Shiro, but they always talked to Tsukushi about the books they were reading.

The television was on in the background. She hadn't really been paying attention, until she noticed that Takeru was looking at the screen, a horrified look on their face.

Concern flashed across Tsukushi's face. "What's the matter, sweetheart?!

Takeru did speak. They just pointed at the screen. Tsukushi turned to face the television.

She wished she didn't.

"Reports of Nomu attacks are coming in from across Tokyo. Heroes are rushing to the scene, including Deku, Red Riot and Real Steel, Phantom Thief, Ground Zero, Shoto, and Lemillion."

Tsukushi's face paled. She'd heard enough about Nomus from Neito to know that they were absolutely horrifying and near impossible to fight. And her husband was out there, fighting them.

Wait...one of the heroes that the reporter had mentioned had been Red Riot. Shiro! Her son was out there, too, fighting these creatures! Of course, Eijiro lived across the street, and was a good friend, and she knew that Shiro was in good hands with Tetsutesu, but she couldn't help but feel worried about her son.

Tsukushi didn't even notice that she shattered the glass in her hand.

"Mom?" Takeru's voice brought her back down to earth. "Are you okay"

Shattered glass was on the floor. Luckily, she hadn't cut her hand up badly, which was good. Just a couple of cuts, and it didn't seem that there were any pieces of glass in her skin. So she wouldn't have to go to the emergency room.

She managed to give them a small smile. "I'm fine, sweetie. I'm just..."

"I'm scared too, Mom."

She wrapped her youngest in a hug. "I can shut it off, if you want."

Takeru shook their head. "No, we can keep it on. I...I want to make sure that Dad and Shiro are safe."

Tsukushi nodded. "Okay."

***

Tsukushi was driving to the hospital, trying to keep her hands steady at the wheel. She'd gotten the call from Kana, Neito was in the hospital. He was going to be fine, but he had at least two broken ribs, and a hairline fracture in his arm. She'd also been informed that Shiro had been admitted too, but he appeared to be fine.

Takeru had a constant pillar of support. They were wise beyond their six years, and Tsukushi was glad that they were with her through everything. She could tell that her youngest was scared, too, but trying to keep a tough face for her.

She pulled into the hospital parking lot. "You ready?"

In a rare show of psychical contact, Takeru extended their hand to her. "Ready."

Hand in hand, she walked hand in hand into the hospital with her youngest.

***

"Oh thank /goodness/ you're safe!" Tsukushi wrapped Shiro in the tightest hug, kissing his cheek.

"Mom!" Shiro blushed. "I'm fine!"

Tsukushi brushed a stray strand of hand out of her son's forehead. "I know, I was just very worried."

Shiro flushed a little. "I'm sorry, Mom."

"Sweetheart, you have nothing to apologize for. You know I couldn't be prouder or more supportive of you wanting to be a hero. Worrying about you is just something I'll always do, whether you're fifteen or fifty." She kissed the top of his head.

Shiro looked down. "I was so scared, Mom."

Tsukushi gave her son an understanding smile. "I know, sweetheart. And that's okay. Everyone gets scared sometimes."

Shiro nodded. Tsukushi squeezed his hand. "Now let's go check on your father, okay?"

***

"Neito!" It took everything Tsukushi had to not run and embrace her husband. She'd seen him beaten up before, but nothing like this.

Neito offered her and the kids a small smile. "Ah, there's my wonderful family."

Tsukushi gave him a smile. "Your wonderful family is just glad to see you safe."

"Oh?" He smiled at her playfully. "Did I worry you?"

She laughed. "Yes, you did, and you are never allowed to do that again."

Neito smiled at her. "I'll try my best."

Tsukushi smiled. Her family, while a little beaten up, was safe. And that was all she could ask for.

***

Shinji was standing outside of Katsumi's hospital room, anxiously fidgeting with his fingers. He didn't regret leaving Shiketsu the sudden way that he did, but from how Red Riot had explained it to him, he still had to call his parents. That was what made him nervous. His father, the number eight hero, Gale Force, had to be on the hero, as Shinji knew that his dad would have jumped into action the second the attack happened. Which likely meant that his mother, the number fourteen hero, Hurricane, had been with him.

Shinji didn't know which one was scarier. His dad was a pretty happy, loud, outgoing, cheerful guy for the most part, and his mother, while more reserved, was usually fairly calm and easygoing. However, seeing them angry was something he wasn't looking forward to.

Shinji sighed, just as Red Riot stepped out of the room after talking to Katsumi. The hero gave him a smile, and patted him on the shoulder.

"I don't know if I told you this, but what you did was pretty manly."

Shinji perked up, smiling widely at him "It was?"

Red Riot slapped him on the back. "Hell yeah! Rushing off to make sure your friends were okay is really manly! However, you don't have a hero license, so you were risking a lot. But you saved my little girl! I talked to your parents, and made clear to tell them that, so hopefully, they go easy on you."

Shinji laughed. "Yeah... hopefully."

Red Riot gave him a hug. "I gotta go check on my husband, but feel free to hang here until your parents get here, okay?"

Shinji nodded, not really having any words for once in his life. "Yeah, okay."

***

Shinji managed to track down Izzy, Mika, and Shota while he waited for his parents. Izzy, while exhausted, was fine. Mika had gotten a couple of bruises, but said that he could give her a full body inspection if he wanted to. Unfortunately, her parents arrived and kicked him out before he could. As for Shota, well, Shinji couldn't remember ever seeing his little friend so upset. Shinji hated that there didn't seem to be anything he could do to keep him from blaming himself for what happened to Ground Zero.

Shinji was making his way to check on Katsumi again when he felt a gust of wind, and found himself being locked into a hug, and picked off up the ground.

"I AM SO ANGRY AND PROUD OF YOU!" Dad's voice bellowed in his ears, setting him down.

Shinji took a moment to catch his breath, looking at his father, who appeared to be smiling...while also fighting an eye twitch.

"Hey, Dad," Shinji said sheepishly. "I know that probably wasn't the smartest idea, but I was so worried about my girlfriend and my friends and I-"

His father laughed, whacking him on the back. "I SHOULD BE FLYING IN RAGE AT YOU FOR DOING SOMETHING SO RECKLESS BUT YOU SAVED KATSUMI! I AM FILLED WITH FATHERLY PRIDE!"

Shinji beamed. Dad was proud of him. That meant he wasn't going to get in trouble, right?

He spoke too soon.

"SHINJI YOARASHI!"

An angry female voice came from the hallway, and peaking around Dad, Shinji could see his mother, Sakura, walking towards them. Though she was significantly shorter than the both of them, the look in her eyes was one of pure rage.

Oh, she was /pissed/.

Dad laughed putting an arm around Mom's shoulder. "Now, Sakura, I was just telling Shinji how proud we are of him, and how we're not angry."

Mom gave Dad a /look/. "Oh, we're mad."

"Okay, we're mad...but he's not in trouble!"

Mom narrowed her eyes. "Oh, he's in trouble." She turned her gaze to Shinji. "You. Are. GROUNDED."

Shinji looked at his feet, feeling like he was suddenly five years old. "Yes, Mom."

Dad laughed. "But honey, he saved Katsumi, and we should be proud!"

Mom's face softened a little bit. "Of course I'm proud. Shinji, what you did was very brave However, what you did was also reckless and stupid. You're just a student, and you don't have a hero license yet. You could've been arrested. You could've gotten yourself and Katsumi seriously hurt or killed. These kinds of actions have to consequences, so for you're grounded for two months."

Shinji gasped. "Two months?!"

"Do you want your original punishment? Because it was going to be a year on my way over here."

"Two months is fine."

Mom smiled, wrapping him in a hug. "I thought so. Now, I'll let you say goodbye to your friends, but after that, we're leaving. Okay?"

Shinji nodded. He could take being grounded. In the end, he knew he did the right thing helping his friends when they needed him.

***

David Togata doesn't get worried easily. His parents often said that out of his siblings, he was the most rational. He's seen his father and his Uncle Izuku get injured a fair amount of times, and they always made it looked like it wasn't something to really worry about. No matter how bad things got, you just carried on with a smile.

David wasn't smiling right now. He had been in the workshop with Ms. Hatsume as part of his support internship when the news about the Nomu attacks came in. Right away, the pair had turned on the television, where shots of Dad and Uncle Izuku fighting them came in. Dad looked like his hand had been broken, and Uncle Izuku looked more stressed out that he'd even seem him.

Actually, David had never seen either one of them looked stress.

Shots panned in and out of different heroes around the city fighting the Nomus. His oldest brother, Tamaki, fighting the Nomus with The Voice and Glamour, his body cackling with green energy. His sister, Nejire, with the Laughing Man, downtown.

Ms. Hatsume stared at the screen, her face pale. "My babies..."

That was right. Both of her children, the twins, were out doing their internships, as well. So was her husband.

David reach forward and grabbed her hand. They were going to have a rough couple of hours.

***

David arrived at the hospital with Ms. Hatsume. They gotten reports that her husband had been admitted, along with David's father and siblings. None of them had any major injuries, but still, the worry was present. When they got in the lobby, Ms. Hatsume gave him a quick hug and wished him luck, before rushing off to find his family.

David found his family in a hospital room where his sister was being treated. His father had his broken hand wrapped up. Tamaki had a few scratches, but that quirk of his made him really sturdy. Nejire was in the bed, her ankle elevated and in a cast, and a bandage around her head. His mother sat next her on the bed, stroking her hair.

Dad beamed at him. "David!" He sprung up from his seat and wrapped him in a hug. "It looks like the whole family is here now!"

David smiled, returning the hug. "I came with Ms. Hatsume." He looked over at Nejire. "What happened to your ankle?"

Nejire giggled. "It's nothing! It's just a little broken. And I might have gotten a teeny tiny concussion."

Tamaki smirked at him. "Nejire's on painkillers. She's super loopy right now."

"I am not!" Nejire pouted at him.

David rolled his eyes. His siblings were ridiculous sometimes. "Glad no one got super injured."

Mom smiled. "That's the best we can hope for. Everyone's a little singed up, but we'll be okay.'

Nejire giggled again. "Well, I better heal up soon, because I cannot take Hayai on the date with my ankle like this."

At the word "date", Dad's eyes lit up. "Ooooooh, you got a date!?"

David laughed. Dad was constantly trying to set all three of them up with someone.

Nejire started going on about a girl in her class she'd asked out. Tamaki and Mom laughed, teasing Dad about being too involved in his kids' love life.

David smiled, finding a chair and relaxing into it. Yeah, his family could be a little much sometimes, but he wouldn't trade them for anything, and he was glad they were safe.

***

Izuku was tired, bone wearily tired.  Not from the physical exertion of the morning—the power of One for All made sure of that.  He was connected to it on a level not even All Might had ever achieved and had had ample opportunity to build its power over the years.  Certainly, his joints ached.  They always did.  And his right arm always hurt, no matter what else he did.  Even with his mastery of his inherited Quirk, the old damage he’d done to his body could not be undone.  But he had learned to live with that pain, to smile and to embrace all the good that was in his life.

That was not why he was tired.

No, he was tired in ways that went way beyond the physical.  

Ochaco was resting peacefully in the hospital bed.  They’d allowed her to be up to check on Katsumi, but insisted she get more rest. She’d taken a nasty blow to the head, but was expected to make a full recovery and be back in action in maybe a couple weeks.  He’d sent Toshi, Hana, and Mako down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, leaving him alone to sit by her bedside, alone with his thoughts.

He wore scrubs, offered by the hospital, since his costume had been covered in blood.  Someone from his agency had collected it for cleaning. Either that or he’d handed it off to someone who was now selling it on MeBay.  Things had been a bit of a blur after he’d arrived.

It looked like there were going to be a lot of people home in their neighborhood, at least for a time.   Denki, Ochaco, Neito, and, of course, Kacchan…  And more across the city.  So many of his friends had been hurt.

There were burdens that came with being the Number One (and occasionally Number Two, when Mirio had a particularly impressive run of things) Hero.  And there were burdens that came with being the Symbol of Hope.   Not the Symbol of Peace, like Dad had been, but the Symbol of Hope.  Of inspiring others to believe, not in him, but that evil could be beaten and that good men and women could stand up, that everyone had the potential within them to make the world a better place, in some way.  It demanded much of his time, exposed his family to significant scrutiny.

Before he had finished his third year of U.A., he and his friends had broken the back of the League of Villains and put an end to the legacy of All for One forever.  The same year he had lost his father in a plane crash. It had been a hell of a year.  But it had also rocketed him towards the top on a meteoric trajectory that he still couldn’t believe, even decades later.

They’d built a better world. One where the threat of Villains was not so constant.  They’d settled down, raised families, and looked to the future of a new generation of Heroes.

In an instant, when the Nomu had appeared, the fears of childhood had returned.  They had suspected that someone was making a play for power.  The Quirk Virus, the theft of the Nomu corpse, the breaking of Plague out of prison (Had he so badly misjudged the man?  An escape made no sense at all…), it all added up to something far more sinister and larger than any of them had grappled with in years.  

And then the messages and reports had started pouring in.  From various Agency dispatches, from news drones, even from men and women on the street.  It hadn’t just been the one.  It had been so many more.  The Heroes of Tokyo and surrounding wards had come together to fight the Nomu, but they had paid a terrible price for it.    So many of his friends were injured.  Even Ochaco…   And Kacchan…

Despite what he had told himself as a child and a teenager, he and Kacchan had not always been friends. It had taken him a long time to realize the way he’d been treated had been far from okay.  But the two of them had made true amends and become real friends. He’d even been Kacchan’s best man at his wedding.

So many of their children had seen action during the morning’s events.  They’d been extraordinarily lucky that none of them had been seriously injured.  Not like their own Internships.  But almost all of them had been far too close to the action for his comfort.  Toshi claimed he was fine, but Izuku suspected he was putting on a brave face. And Haimawari and Kocho didn’t even have the kind of context Toshi did.  He hoped they weren’t scared off.  There was so much potential in both of them.

He, his friends, and the other Heroes who had taken their children on as Interns were handing them back to U.A. a broken group.  But he knew Aizawa and the staff would do what they could for them.  His alma mater took the mental health of its students very seriously now.  As parents, they would do their part too.  They had lived through experiences just as terrifying.  Maybe their words of wisdom would be enough.

The news was saying that he had saved the city this morning.  And maybe he had.  But he hadn’t been there for his friend when it had mattered most.  Hadn’t been there for a lot of his friends when they’d been hurt.  For his wife.  What was the point of having all this power, of being a Hero, if he couldn’t help those closest to him when it really mattered?

They would all tell him that he couldn’t, shouldn’t be everywhere.  That was the kind of thinking that had lead society to depend upon Dad more than it should have and had made it vulnerable when he’d no longer been capable of being that pillar.  And yes, it was likely his actions had kept Kacchan from dying in the streets.  That probably would have broken poor Shota even more than he already was.

What kind of Hero, what kind of Symbol was he, if an evil great enough to do all this still existed?

It didn’t mean he didn’t feel like a failure all the same.

Like…

It made him feel like…

Like a useless deku.

[thecosmicsen]

—    BASICS.

▸     IS    YOUR    MUSE    TALL    /    SHORT    /    AVERAGE ? Jaewoo is 175cm which is the average height for a Korean male.

▸      ARE    THEY    OKAY    WITH    THEIR    HEIGHT ? It’s mixed feelings honestly. He reckons he could have been shorter since he didn’t get to eat enough while he was growing up so he is glad that he isn’t on the shorter side. But at the same time, he looks at all the other tall guys and gets all huffy about how he isn’t at least six feet tall. Recently, he discovered the song Short King Anthem which has been his little ego boost about his height so now he proudly goes around singing about how his shirts would fit perfectly on girls around his height. 

▸      WHAT’S    THEIR    HAIR    LIKE ? His pitch-black hair is silky soft for the most part. In the sunlight you can catch a glimpse of faint natural dark brown streaks. It is in a perpetual state of bed hair though and it reaches down to his eyes so he’s often shaking his bangs (that grow slightly wavy at the ends) out of his eyes. It’s this entire look here basically. 

▸     DO    THEY    SPEND    A    LOT    OF    TIME    ON    THEIR    HAIR     /    GROOMING ? No, not at all. Unless he really really really wants to impress someone then he will try combing his hair to tame the bed hair. Otherwise, he reckons his hair is hair and part of his trademark style. 

▸      DOES   YOUR   MUSE   CARE   ABOUT   THEIR   APPEARANCE   /   WHAT    OTHERS    THINK ? Jaewoo does care about the first impression he makes because he wants others to have a certain image of him. If he wants to establish order and control then he will dress appropriately and act it since he does care about how others perceive him or it would make his job as a balancer a lot trickier. On the other hand, he does care about what cute girls and people he admires think about him so he does try working his oversized hoodie and fitted pants attire to the latest styles so he doesn’t come off as unfashionable. All in all, he cares more about the vibes he gives off through his appearance. 

—    PREFERENCES.

▸     INDOORS    OR    OUTDOORS ? ▸     RAIN   OR    SUNSHINE ? ▸     FOREST    OR    BEACH ? ▸     PRECIOUS    METALS  OR    GEMS ? ▸     FLOWERS    OR    PERFUMES ? ▸     PERSONALITY  OR    APPEARANCE ? ▸     BEING    ALONE    OR    BEING    IN    A    CROWD ? ▸     ORDER    OR    ANARCHY ? ▸     PAINFUL    TRUTHS    OR   WHITE    LIES ? ▸     SCIENCE    OR    MAGIC ? ▸     PEACE    OR    CONFLICT ? ▸     NIGHT    OR    DAY ? ▸     DUSK    OR   DAWN ? ▸     WARMTH    OR    COLD ? ▸     MANY   ACQUAINTANCES    OR    A    FEW    CLOSE    FRIENDS ? ▸     READING    OR    PLAYING    A    GAME ?

—    QUESTIONNAIRE.

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    OF    YOUR    MUSE’S    BAD    HABITS ? Jaewoo tends to ask one question after the other because his brain works at a million miles per hour and his curiosity is insatiable which usually leaves the other person reeling from the number of questions asked. But he also tends to assume a lot about others since he believes that he has years of experience of handling and dealing with all sorts of people and supernatural creatures of various characteristics. Then, of course, there is the taunting and teasing which Jaewoo delights in because he learns more about the other person when they react to his brattiness but he does not know the limits to winding up someone even if they are way more powerful than him. He refuses to back down.

▸      HAS    YOUR    MUSE    LOST    ANYONE    CLOSE    TO    THEM ?      HOW    HAS    IT    AFFECTED    THEM ? When Jaewoo’s father passed away, he only experienced numbness more than relief which confused him. It also ramped up his mother’s verbal abuse towards him so he often found himself wishing that his father was still alive since he resorted to physical consequences. But having such thoughts about wanting his father alive to take his mother’s focus off him often made him resentful and full of despair. Then when Jaewoo murdered his twin brother Taesoo, he was incapacitated and incapable of living on without him which is why he immediately killed himself right after. His emotions, thoughts and the build-up of the murder will be extensively explored in a self para !!

▸      WHAT    ARE    SOME    FOND    MEMORIES    YOUR    MUSE    HAS ?   Most of the fond memories he can remember are of him and Taesoo going to the playground together and racing to see who can swing the highest the first. He has vague memories of how their summers were filled up melting ice-cream, antics at the park, building blanket forts at sunset, stargazing during the hot sticky nights and watching all the movies together. The memories of his first love are very faint but he has very fragmented memories of being extremely happy at the convenience store ( to be explored in another self para ) and hiking around. 

▸     IS    IT    EASY    FOR    YOUR    MUSE    TO    KILL ? Yes and no. When Jaewoo murdered his twin brother, it took around fifteen years of direct abuse from his brother to have him teetering to the edge of suicide and his wit's end. Even though Taesoo’s abuse was calculated near the end since he wanted Jaewoo to murder him then kill himself so they could spend eternity as spirits together, it still took him a lot of escalating abuse efforts to make Jaewoo start losing his grip on his sanity with the final trigger being his first love. Otherwise, now with his job of balancing the harmony between the supernatural and humans, Jaewoo spares no second thoughts to supernatural entities causing trouble and has no problem sending them off to the final afterlife with his knife. However, when it comes to troublemaking humans such as fanatic shamans, he attempts to chase every alternative route with murder being his last resort since he has firm beliefs in the dignity of human life.  

▸      WHAT’S    IT    LIKE    WHEN    YOUR    MUSE    BREAKS    DOWN ? It is extremely extremely rare to see Jaewoo breaking down. If he does then it must be from a PSTD flashback that triggers his forgotten memories which are usually centred around Taesoo’s abuse to him. His entire demeanour will drastically shift and you will be able to tell that he isn’t in the present tense anymore. With eyes glossed over, he will be crying silent heartbroken sobs and in disbelief of whatever he is remembering. Then he will want to be left alone which is the last thing he typically hates. He’ll spend the next few days in isolation, trying to recover from the traumatic aftermath and onslaught of deep-rooted negative emotions. He’s the opposite reflection of his usual jovial and happy-go-lucky attitude. 

▸      IS    YOUR    MUSE    CAPABLE    OF    TRUSTING    SOMEONE    WITH    THEIR    LIFE ? Yes, he is capable of trusting someone with his life. Ironic as it may be but he trusts Taesoo with his own life (even though he has no idea that Taesoo escalated his abuse to him because he wanted them to die together and be bonded as spirits together forever). I’m certain that he would trust any super close friends and if he finds someone who can handle him then he would trust the love of his life with that. It would take oodles of time and patience but it can happen.

▸      WHAT’S    YOUR    MUSE    LIKE    WHEN    THEY’RE    IN    LOVE ?

Jaewoo is a huge romantic by default so when he is in love... he falls hard. Since he is already a curious individual, he would be hellbent on knowing everything and anything about his love down to the simplest of things such as the shade of toast they prefer. However, he would do a lot more silent observation rather than interrogations since he would adore watching them do anything and learning all about their quirks by simply observing them. Though he is dedicated to his job, he would spend his undying devotion and time to get to know them to his best ability. With that knowledge, he’ll start daydreaming and fantasising about doing the most mundane domestic tasks together such as cuddling on the couch, doing the dishes, taking care of pets together, getting ahead of laundry... literally everything. He would be hypersensitive to their touch so even if they do something as basic like touching his arm then he would be reduced to a flustered blushing mess and he would be speechless for once. Jaewoo would be a lot more overprotective of them as well especially if it’s a human he falls for then he would worry about their safety from other humans and especially from supernatural beings usually enticed by his own presence. But he hasn’t been in love as a ghost yet so I cannot say for certain !

tagged by :  @foxcharmed​   &   @lavtiena   ( my actual angels I had so much fun doing this ) tagging :  @bubbledsoul / @kkotseo / @killsfor / @kkvm / @infernoath / @shesin / @egoistlve

[edvonstein]

So, since I am starting this year apparently by binge listening to Kirby metal remixes, and I just listened to Sullied Grace, my brain got to thinking: Queen Sectonia is really just a Precure villain, a villain who looks some level of fabulous, is absorbed in an emotion (vanity and possibly loneliness in her case) has her general out doing the work for her, successfully brings the planet to the brink of destruction despite being defeated already, and culminates in a final battle in the skies above the planet with the moon lighting the battle, and everybody working to help give the pink one the boost they need to win, even a redeemed enemy general joining in, and it all ending with the pink turning the villain’s own worst weapon against her. And then I realized that Haltmann Works is literally just Labyrinth.

So my brain is currently stuck on the prospect of rewriting the entire Kirby franchise as a Precure series. We have Kirby as the Pink Leader of course, not the brightest bulb in the room, but filled with near limitless potential, and a knack for turning her enemies strength against them. (I mean with Kirby’s Suplex and Throw abilities, it’s not too far a stretch to give the Cure version a mastery in Judo.)

Then King Dedede as the red cure, passionate, selfish, and will roll over those that are in her way, but will pucker up and clobber whatever evil needs a clobbering. Starts out incredibly annoyed at the Pink, but by the end they are thick as (food)thieves.

Meta Knight is the most cursed Purple naturally, always challenging Pink to be stronger, and looking to atone for the evils wrought by his blade in the past. (Former wannabe world conqueror with the Cure powers after all.)

And Bandana Waddle Dee joins in as the Blue (or maybe Yellow) one, An unassuming Cure people first don’t think is a threat until in a casual contest Blue turns out to be able to completely match the raw power of Pink somehow. Acting as the support of the team, Blue’s strongest feature, aside from the super strength is the absolute loyalty to all the team members. Which is a problem considering how often they are at each others’ throats.

Prolly a dumb idea, but I’ll keep rolling it around me nogging a bit.

A pitch for the Dreamland adaption:

Queen Deedeedee (I never said I was good with names) was the chosen Cure, was given powers, able to clear tall buildings in a single leap, and suplex trains, so she crafted herself a jet powered hammer and took to cleaning up the small town of the setting, doing a surprisingly good job and getting organized crime under control, and the government cleared of corruption... and then cleared of people, installing herself as the new ruler of the town, which she’d run with a... I’d say, Iron Fist, but honestly, she mostly goes around smacking a few people upside the head when they acted up.

She mostly just basks in her glory now and let’s the town run itself, which ... works well enough. Until for some reason she suddenly demanded massive tributes from the town for her protection, or else.

That’s when the mascots had enough, and found Kirby (apparently that name is unisex? Useful. Then again, canonically Kirby is genderless, and we in English kinda just defaulted to male because of course we did.) a girl from much simpler origins (say, an immigrant girl trying to make ends meet in this new world to her, living in a small house on the outskirts of the town) than the last cure who was an “Ohohoho” ojousama even before given super powers. (Going with a monarch model for the fairies to explain that, like Mepple and Mipple) Kirby will have to fight her way solo through Queen Deedeedee’s cabinet she installed upon reaching power.

There’s Whispy Woods, an unnaturally tall men who’s cracked skin looks like wood (which it turns out to be.) He is in charge of agriculture and had installed a large apple orchard next to where Kirby lives. This was fine until the Queen decided she didn’t like the small dent in the otherwise perfectly square orchard layout, which is the place Kirby’s house is and sent Whispy in to... take care of that little issue.

Next up are Lolo and Lala, the only two humans left on the cabinet, whom the Queen saw potential in and hired as city planners. They did good work, the Butter Building their proudest achievement, a skyscraper that is made of affordable housing mixed in with small stores throughout. But the Queen took notice of Whispy’s defeat and told them to lure this... troublemaker in and deal with her. The two didn’t like it, but lured her to their mansion, which they kitted out with plenty of traps...

Then comes Kaboola. She is the head of security under the new Queen, and supervises the town from a small army of blimps patrolling the sky. Little is known about her, but she appears to personally reside on a small island just off the coast of the town. And she has the access codes to the Queen’s citadel, the skyscraper at the center of town which of course has to house the villain. Kaboola is of course aware of Kirby’s antics, but she has not yet acted on them because she too senses something wrong with the way the Queen is acting, and after the defeat of Whispy and Lolo and Lala, she decided to test her...

Due to events that transpired on Kaboola’s island, Kirby finds herself not only unable to access the Queen’s citadel, but also facing her personal body guard, Kracko, who turned out to literally be all the clouds in the sky. A violent storm brews over the city as Kracko prepares to defend their mistress, and Kirby decides that if she can’t get into the tower, she will just have to go up the tower the hard way, and a clash along the side of a skyscraper is about to occur as Kirby fights the very heavens themselves, to reach the Queen, and make her come to her senses again...