#i got way too detailed with some of those

[foone]

Some technical details under the cut if anyone is interested:

As someone who makes Stupid Keyboards (near to Stupid Mice, and don't think I don't have Stupid Mice ideas): I think this is fake, as in they didn't actually make a Toy Horse That Is A Mouse.

So, first of all, out of context reasons: It was made by Pablo Rochat for Yahoo. He's a director of a group of artists who do marketing stuff for companies. He doesn't have this one on his page yet but based on their other stuff, it seems to be mostly photoshop/video editing based.

And here's the thing: Faking a mouse is frighteningly easy.

Record your screen as you move a real mouse

Play back that video while you move something that's not a real mouse

Done. It looks like it works.

The final reason is that I don't think their lens would work. See, modern optical mice are based on a light + lens + tiny camera. The light shines on the surface so the camera can see the surface move.

The problem is that it's focused right at a set distance, which is supposed to be set to how far the sensor is from the mousepad. Try picking up your optical mouse now (assuming you're not on a phone or laptop): You'll find that it works while not touching the mousepad, but only for a couple millimeters. Once you get farther, it stops.

The reason is the lens: It's trying to get the most contrast possible at a very specific distance, and once you pick it up by more than a few millimeters, it gets too blurry to work.

So lets think about how you'd put a sensor in the horse toy.

The obvious place is in the horse's belly: but then your lens wouldn't work. You'd need a custom lens to make it work. That sounds like a lot of work, and it might not even work with the standard optical chip they use.

The second option would be the hooves. This would work! you're at the right distance, you just need to run the cable down the leg, and you're golden.

Except those hooves are too small. Optical mice are built on standard chips these days:

The chip is a specific size because it is floating over a hole in the PCB. The bottom of the chip is a camera. The lens is a piece of plastic that fits in there. It's hard to tell the scale from this picture I stole, but the problem is the chip is too big to fit down the hoof of that toy horse. Maybe you could do it if you had a horse with some Big Hooves? but there's no way to fit one of these in there. Sorry.

So yeah. They faked it.

Unless they got clever and faked it in another way: That "grass" mousepad could be a tablet. It could be multi-touching the hooves, and then transmitting their location to the PC.

You'd need to wire up the horse so the capacitive touch works, or use a resistive touch screen, but you're still cheating a little.

But all that is hard: faking it completely is easy. So I'm very sure that's what they did. I'd do the same if I was doing art as a client of a company and I had a deadline. It doesn't affect the video if this is "real" or "fake".

btw: I don't say this to lessen anyone's enjoyment of it or as a "callout", I'm just interested in "how real is this" as someone who makes Weird Tech Art too.

Bruh

[yamumsyadadd]

the forgotten girl (2)

posted originally on my old account. will be posting twice weekly :)

Amelia Scott-Higgins was a person a lot of people looked up too. The winner of the 2019 Ballon d’Or who was just 21 at the time. She was an inspiration on and off the field, so you can imagine everyone’s shock when she disappeared. Only a few know the gruesome details of her injuries, and those happen to be Barcelona players Lucy Bronze and Keira Walsh. Alexia Putellas had always admired her, as a person and a player. 

“Do you think we could convince her to join us? We need a striker and she is the best!” Jana excitedly said to Alexia, Mapi and Ingrid as they walked into the locker room. 

“No, she was the best. Past tense.” Ingrid said. 

“Ale you could totally convince her! You guys were friends no?” Jana’s words were loud through the quiet locker room. 

“Who are you convincing?” The English accent through the Spanish was still very clear to this day and unmistakably came from Lucy. 

“Amelia Scott-Higgins! She’s living in Barcelona and Ale used to be her friend! We need her Luce!” 

“No. Understand what I am about to say. No one here is to contact Milly and ask her to play. No one is to ask her to come to a game or to hang out. She has been through enough and you will all leave her the hell alone.” Keira spoke extremely firmly. No one has heard her talk like that before. 

“Kei, come on they don’t know.” 

“That’s exactly right Lucy. They don’t know. You all think she’s this amazing footballer and want her to play, but she went through some fucked up shit. She doesn’t want to play, she doesn’t want to watch. She wants to be left alone so that’s exactly what everyone is going to do: leave her alone.” The locker door slammed as Keira left. She would protect Amelia now, since she couldn’t before. 

Before it all happened, Keira, Leah and Amelia were inseparable. The group was formed at a football event the first year Amelia moved over to the UK, in 2014, at just 16 years old. Emily played with Man City, alongside Keira, Lucy and Georgia. Despite playing at different clubs, they always made time for each other. The unlikely friendship with Alexia Putellas started in 2017, after both signing with Nike and having to do a campaign. Both girls were socially awkward, they sat in silence for most the day until Alexia invited Amelia to dinner. From there on out, they were very close friends. 

Alexia struggled with the fame, Amelia did not. She was able to offer advice to Alexia, sharing ways to keep relationships private, or how to compartmentalise. Alexia didn’t even get a text off of Amelia when it all happened. She had flown to England to attend the funeral. A numb, bruised and bandaged shell of a friend stood before them all. 

“You knew Amelia?” Olga asked quietly over dinner the night after their run in. 

“Yeah. I knew both Amelia and Emily.” The sadness evident in Alexia’s voice. 

“Why’d she quit? I googled her. She won the Ballon d’Or and UEFAs best player. What happened?” 

“Her wife was murdered and she was hurt. I don’t even think I can begin to explain the type of player she was. She was easily the best player the world has ever seen. No matter what, she worked hard. She cared, if a person got hurt you’d know because Amelia was there first. After her opponents lost, she wouldn’t celebrate her win, she’d go around and tell them everything they did well, hug them and let them cry. I went to the funeral, she was just a shell. Covered in bruises and bandages, in a wheelchair. Then she just vanished. On the first anniversary of Emily’s death, she deleted every single social media she had, changed her number and quit football. I hadnt seen her since, apparently Keira and Lucy hadn’t either.” 

“that’s a lot for one person to go through. Where are her parents?” 

“Doesn’t have any. They died when she was little, from what she shared she was in foster care in Australia until they let her come to the UK”

“Maybe you should invite her for dinner? She could use a friend.”

“No. YOU should invite her. You’re someone who she doesn’t know and you two seemed to hit it off.” 

Olga didn’t tell Alexia, or anyone for that matter, but Amelia had followed her on instagram that night after they met. Seemingly on a private, almost anonymous account. Olga had no plans to force Amelia back into football or back into Alexia’s life, but the more she learnt the more she wanted to ensure she wasn’t alone in this world. 

Every morning, Alexia would run along the beach. It was usually quiet and calm since Spain generally didn’t wake up until later in the morning. Every morning, she would watch the same surfer. Scars scattered on her legs, one long scar from the back of her hip, across her torso. Alexia knew it was Amelia, but she never stopped to say hello, not until that morning. 

The morning that would change things. 

[gay-dorito-dust]

I wanna write fluff for this traumatised fandom but all that comes to my head is pain.

In another life you wouldn’t have to be forced to say goodbye to Viktor, only good nights before you both drifted off to sleep side by side, or good mornings as you greet each other with a kiss to the cheek while making breakfast.

In another life you were happy, Viktor was happy, everyone you knew and love was happy that both Piltover and Zaun were thriving. There was nothing but peace and prosperity for as far as you could see. No war, no fighting, nothing for you were all living how many could only wish would be a reality one day.

In another life you got to hold Viktor however long you wanted, his skin was still that of warm flesh and bone beneath your touch and the kisses you planted along his shoulders.

In another life Viktor was well rested, well fed and even smiled and joked more then he ever had before. His amber eyes were alive and observing everything as he talked you through how some of the inventions worked in vivid detail, all with a excited smile upon his face as his hands before more animated with his every word. You loved whenever he got like that.

In another life you got what you wanted and what you wanted was him, was Viktor as you cuddled into him while he read, his hand moving to rub your back as though it was muscle memory at this point and kissing your temple now and then before continuing his reading. He’d playfully claim that you were a distraction but of the best kind and your heart never felt fuller.

In another life you didn’t have to worry about Viktor leaving you, you didn’t have to fear a possibility of him becoming lost in his ideals for a glorious evolution and forgoing his humanity, shed his human skin for a form of cold, biting pliable metal. Lost to the hexcore of which did not exist within this other life.

However you didn’t live in this other life, did you?

You lived in a life where tensions between Zaun and Piltover was at an all time high.

You lived in a life where hextech was high in demand to be used against those who threaten people’s ways of life.

You lived in a life where you saw more death and destruction then you ever did anything else, almost as if a tranquil life was prohibited and everyone was born to suffer, Zaunites more so then those residing in Piltover, unable to mourn nor bury the dead as survival of the fittest was a way of life rather than just a motto.

You lived in a life where you had to say goodbye to Viktor, multiple times, each one being more painful and heartbreaking than the last.

You lived in a life where proclamations of love did nothing to stop him from leaving the academy as he looked at you with the eyes of a stranger.

You lived in a life where the possibility of a happy ending was few and far between. Not many were blessed to have it no matter how much good they’ve done in their lives, fate was often cruel to those least deserving of such treatment.

You lived in a life where you wished you could’ve done more for viktor as the arcane consumed him, leaving you alone with nothing but his cane.

You lived in a life where you wished the pain would end, you couldn’t take it and didn’t want to say goodbye to anyone anymore. It hurt far too much as you left with the memories Viktor left behind with you, as though that was going to heal your broken heart but did anything but made the pain worse.

You lived in a life where your dream life with Viktor was nothing more than a fantasy, a dream you’ll never reach.

You lived in a life where nothing was fair, everything was taken from you and nothing was given back in exchange for your suffering. You lost Viktor, you’d never get to live the life you wanted with him.

You lived in a life where you were never meant to.

Viktor knew this too, for he had those same dreams of a perfect reality himself, but then he remembered he was a man of science and ignored it no matter how much he wanted it to come true. He knew it wasn’t plausible.

Viktor knew he could dream, but he wished he didn’t.

[inbabylontheywept]

Hi there! I just read through a few of your long form posts -- the one about the boss and the glue traps and the lizards, the one about the friend and the radishes and the cop, and the one about the breakup and the car and the neighbor's car and your dad -- and I'm just really blown away by your writing. And I'm just curious, are they actual experiences or are they fiction? They read like actual experiences, and the writing is so naturalistic and...idk, low key sweet, stream of consciousness without the major sidetracking that often happens in stream of consciousness writing and also more...more poetical in a way, I guess. I don't know. Are you published or wanting to? I mean I couldn't help with that or anything but if you've got a book out I'd love to read it.

Patrick McManus was kind of THE legendary writer to my family. When my dad was a kid, he'd sit on the porch the door that the monthly copy of Outdoor Life was going to arrive, and as soon as he got it, he'd run in with it and take it to his dad, who would gather all his kids around and read the stories out loud.

My dad loved it because his dad would make a whole performance out of the readings: He'd do voices, pantomimes, dramatic sound effects, the works. The stories are amazing, but the out-of-character behavior from his dad was half the selling point. Grandpa Hank was, to his core, a good man. But he was gruff, and socially, pretty stiff, and he didn't often show emotion. I think my dad said he saw him tear up one time growing up, and it was when he got dropped off at the MTC. My mom was married to my dad for three years before Grandpa Hank was comfortable enough to sit down in their house, and he liked her. That's just how he was.

(You just praised me for not getting sidetracked, but I'm letting myself wander down those memories a bit. He died last year. I miss him terribly.)

Anyway: Those stories were how I first started learning how to spin a yarn. I got older and I got more influence than just cowboys and Westerns, but the soul of my style is still just The American Tall Tale.

Which is to say that they're not outright fabrications. When I say that I cut all the worms up in my backyard and had a panic attack and hid in a tree until my mom got me, that happened. But I only remember the vaguest outlines of the words that were said. When there's a line in that story about my mom telling me that she's sure the worms will forgive me because they got six hearts to love and no bones to pick, that's not how she talks. That's how I talk.

Other stories, they're far less fuzzy than that, but I can still point out things I don't know. Wrestling story was from middle school, and a lot of those "crisp details" are just me painting by vibe. I've had some people that did wrestling through highschool point out things like refs not actually counting to three, or how double-legs are not actually super effective for tall wrestlers. I don't actually know how much the woman I wrestled weighed, nor do I remember how much I weighed, except that I was more than two weight classes smaller than her. Car incident, I got broke up with, went to her parents door, waited on the lawn, and was given some olives to go with a wireless phone. But exact wording of a lot of the people involved fails me. As a rule, the weirder an event is, the more likely I am to be distinctly remembering it and not just filling in the background. Except for dialogue, which often turns out weird because when I have to make up things for other characters to say, it carries too much of my own speaking style in it, and that's always been weird.

There are even points where things do come right off the rails. In the stories about J post, J himself became a sort of mythic figure after he moved, and lot of the stories about him, I don't even know I'm remembering them first hand or second hand from a story someone else shared with me.

I know it would be easier to just go, yeah, they're true, or no, they're not, but I did a weird thing and mixed them up and now even I'm a little confused.

Regarding publishing: I'm not published, and the thought of trying to get published scares the shit out of me. I

I don't know. If anyone has advice, I'd be interested.

[tinydefector]

Hooray!!! Omg i’m so happy lol. I’m definitely going to be smiling for the rest of my day. I finally had time to think about it and how about a platonic familial scenario with mtmte magnus and the ambassador on break and casually chatting, fluff please. let me know if you need more details, and take your time <3

(i’ve been having data problems so hopefully this ask sends through 😅)

Out of the bag - human effects

I had so much fun writing this Buddee and I hope you like it!.

Word count 1.6k

Ultra Magnus x human reader

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________________

The ambassador sat quietly working through files while on the desk, fingers pinching their temple as they re-read the text. A hot drink beside them as they worked. Ultra Magnus sat at the desk as he too worked. It would have been rather funny to look at, A large alien robot sitting at his desk working while his co-worker who was much smaller sat on the same desk on their own seat with a desk. They looked almost like they were a toy figure. 

They take a sip of their drink and roll their shoulders slightly. "Please tell me I don't have to fix another 15 files of Rodimus getting side tracked again and typing out random words like Chinchilla?" They mumble almost like a pray.

Ultra Magnus cycled a weary ex-vent, field rippling with long-suffering patience. "I'm afraid so, Ambassador. The captain seems...incapable of submitting forms in any semblance of proper order." He pinched the bridge of his olfactory sensor, nearly the same pose as them. an unmistakably human mannerism picked up from long acquaintance. "At this rate, reconciling his haphazard paperwork will occupy the majority of your work cycle."

Magnus observed the ambassador's flagging energy levels with mild concern. "Perhaps you should take a brief respite. Overexerting yourself serves no purpose - I can handle the captain's responsibilities for the time being."

His tone, while stern, held an undercurrent of genuine care. Despite their differences, he cared deeply for the ambassador; their well-being remained in everyone's best interests. 

"The schedules can wait. I suspect you've had enough excitement for one orn already." A hint of dryly amused. "I'll be alright Magnus, Just got a headache and sore. Really wasn't planning on dealing with reports, but it beats having to do holovids with Prowl, I want to strangle that mech some times." They reply leaning back in their seat, bringing their drink up and holding it in their hands as they close their eyes for a moment.

Prowl's combative nature makes diplomatic discourse a...trial, to say the least." He cycled another heavy ex-vent. "Though I must say, your own entanglements have proven equally...taxing, of late." Magnus leveled them with a pointed look, with a hint of mild disapproval.

"I trust you understand the risks involved, consorting so closely with the crew. Propriety and protocol exist for good reason - to maintain order and prevent compromising our mission." 

Yet beneath the stern admonishment, a thread of genuine concern shone through. "I only caution you to tread carefully, little one. The games played aboard this ship can be...treacherous, for those caught unawares."

His gaze softened marginally. "I would not see you come to harm, simply for wishing to find companionship in these trying times. Despite what you and others may think i do care about you" 

Embarrassment slowly works its way into their system as they look down as if they were a child who just got caught stealing something. "How.. how did you" they start not knowing how to continue talking. "Come now, Ambassador - did you truly think your...activities would escape my notice?" Magnus replied, a hint of wryness in tone.

He shook his helm slightly. "I may be strict, but I'm not blind. The signs were...quite evident.” Leaning back in his chair, Magnus fixed the ambassador with a measured look. "I'll not lecture you on proper conduct - Primus knows life aboard this ship is complicated enough as it is." Attempting to soothe their clear discomfort. "However, I must urge caution. Entanglements with subordinates."

They continue to look down for a moment processing his words. "I know, I wasn't planning on getting involved with anyone, it just sort of happened. Told Ratchet that it was to stay on the down low, and Ratchet had the same concern about risk, he wanted to make sure if something did happen with other bots outside of him and Drift that i had someone to trust if something happened. I was just worried that if you, Rodimus or Megatron found out. My job was gone" they mumble, they were filled with so much anxiety and panic over the situation only for the mech they feared the most about it to just say he knew. 

Magnus cycled a heavy vent. "I see. That...explains certain observations, I must admit." He rubbed a servo over his faceplate. "Ratchet and Drift, of all mechs. I confess, I had not anticipated that particular entanglement."

Fixing the ambassador with a level stare, Magnus continued, "However, you needn't fear repercussions from myself or the others." A hint of wryness entered his tone. " We've all been there, at one point or another." 

They let out a sigh of relief. "Thank you Magnus, and I'm making sure to look after myself. Woah just wasn't expecting to be having this conversation with you is all. You have no idea how much fear I had about you finding out about my um.. 'activities'. You bots aren't exactly subtle about your 'human fucker' content  " they state before slowly having another mouthful of their drink.

He nodded in acknowledgement. "I understand your concern. confess, even I am not entirely immune to the temptations that arise. However, I endeavor to maintain strict protocols."  Magnus continued solemnly, "I cannot - and will not - control the personal affairs of my crew. That is a burden I do not wish to bear."

A hint of wryness entered his tone. "Though I must admit, the antics of Megatron and Rodimus have certainly tested my patience on more than one occasion. They are both very fond of you"

“I had a feeling they were. Magnus you being tempted, now that's new to me, I'm sorry they are causing you trouble�� they chuckle, smiling up at him, enjoying the banter.  

"Ratchet and Drift both know I'm not interested in a relationship, it's mainly just stress relief, and i think Sunstreaker just has a bjt of a kink for someone who isn't going to scratch his paint" they confirm, making him aware of yet another bot involved. Magnus's optics widened fractionally at the mention of Sunstreaker - another unexpected development in this tangled web. "I see. So Sunstreaker as well, hmm?"

”It would appear you...ambassador has been quite diligent in cultivating a support network aboard this ship." Fixing the human with a measured look, Magnus continued, "And you are certain this...arrangement suits you? Entanglements with the crew, regardless of intent, can prove...complicated."

The nod. “Yes, I'm content and want to keep this on the down low, I don't need it getting back to my superiors on earth, nor do I need Prowl making issues of it.” They explain. In truth they were very happy with the arrangement, and felt less guilty now that they were talking with Ultra Magnus over the situation. 

"I merely wish to ensure you are not inadvertently placing yourself in jeopardy, little one." Magnus paused, considering his next words carefully. "However, if this provides you the stress relief you require, then I shall refrain from further commentary." A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "Though I must admit, I'm somewhat impressed by your...resilience, in the face of such formidable suitors."

It makes their face fluster as they look away from him quickly. “That's not funny and you know it” they huff under their breath only for him to let out a soft rumbled noise. Shaking his helm ruefully, the Autobot commander returned his attention to the ever-present datapads. "Very well. You have my discretion and, should you need, my counsel as well."

"They have all been good to me, very respectful and accommodating. They mainly have been dead quiet about involvement because of you actually." They hum. "Well technically you, Megatron and Rodimus. You three I do look up to alot, and your opinion means alot to me. I was just worried you would have me court martialled and shipped back to earth for fraternization "

Magnus's field rippled with a mix of surprise and begrudging respect. "I see." 

"While I cannot condone such...personal entanglements, I confess I am impressed by your discretion thus far. It speaks to a level of maturity and pragmatism I had not anticipated." Magnus met their gaze steadily. "You have proven yourself a valuable asset to this ship. I would not see that jeopardized, simply due to youthful indiscretions." 

With that now out of the way they sit there quietly before looking up at ultra Magnus from their spot sitting on the desk. "Could I have a hug, at the moment I can feel myself shaking from the fear and anxiety " they try to joke and make light of how afraid they were of him finding out. 

Magnus regarded the ambassador with a soft expression, field pulsing understanding. "Of course." He gently scooped them up, cradling their small frame against his chest in a rare display of tenderness. "There is no need to fear, Ambassador." His deep voice rumbled with reassurance as he lightly stroked their back.

They lean their head against his plating, relaxing against him.  "Thank you, you're a real one Magnus. No one will ever change that" Magnus rumbled softly, the vibration soothing against the ambassador's frame. "You are most welcome. I am merely doing what I believe is right."

He gently adjusted his hold, ensuring their comfort as they leaned into him. A rare, small smile tugged at the corner of his lips. "You have earned my trust, Ambassador. That is no small feat."

With that, Magnus simply held the ambassador, allowing them the chance to find solace in the steadiness of his frame. And in truth he rather enjoyed holding them close. 

_______________

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[jazjelspen]

ex-girlfriend

jeff the killer x fem! reader

(you've dated Jeff the Killer since high school and have known him for longer. You stayed even after he became who he is now.. but what if you became stronger than him? what if you became a completely new person entirely? and left your heavy-hearted killer boyfriend to rot?)

(notes: took inspo from fanon Jeff but also tried to write him into his own person of course :) will try to be realistic when it calls for it + took some creative liberties in certain aspects too. I also apologize if the characterization of Jeff and others isn't super fitting.. I'm still getting used to how I want to express them and construct them as characters and the world around them.)

(CAUTION!!!: includes dark/serious themes, mention of murder/death, use of cannab1s, slight implications of s3x, toxic relationships, physical abu$3, possible ooc(?) )

(NOT PROOFREAD)

[part 1/2]

you and jeff are a killer duo.

seriously and figuratively.

you two have always been attracted to each other, a connection you two couldn't see but you both knew it was there.

the older and closer you two got, the more you two realized you had more in common than you two initially assumed..

way, wayyy more in common.

but to skip a long origin story short, let me give you some details on how you and Jeff suddenly got separated in the way that you did.

you see, you and Jeff resided at the Slender Mansion.. mostly just to get Slender off your backs due to you guys finding solidarity and a sense of safety in the deep dark forests, far away from home. it kept you two safe from police, as well as anyone or anything else that could be a threat.

of course, the specific area you went into was territory of the thin and tall boss of the forests.. and you would've been dead meat if you two didn't create a sort of alliance with the deity, not exactly proxies yet you two still had to trade something in return for your lives.. the lives and bodies of others seemed to quell Slenderman's hunger quite well.

nonetheless, tonight was one of those nights in which you and Jeff had to find more lives to take, blood to shed.

this night was different though, as Jeff was currently stuck in your shared room after going through a minor operation at the hands of Eyeless Jack, another being that came and left as he pleased.

"You think he'll recover quick?" You perked up as you watched EJ sew in the last stitch in a cut that reopened earlier as he was helping Jeff into your room, cutting up the thread before standing back as you two stared at your injured boyfriend from beside the bed he laid on.

"Not as quick as you may think," spoke EJ, his calm, raspy, and slightly demonic voice sounding monotone as he isn't intending to comfort you in the slightest but just to inform you. "Slenderman's healing properties can only work so fast, the rest depends on his own body's will to repair itself."

"Makes sense, with how much the victim fought back and the cops almost got him by a hair.. " you let out a huff through your nose before crossing your arms over your chest and shook your head slightly. "It has never gotten this bad before..." You murmured before moving away to open the door for EJ to find his way out. "I know you don't usually accept 'thank you's but, thanks. I owe you one for saving his ass."

"Hm." hummed the blue masked being. He may have the form of a human, and sound like one to a certain extent.. but he doesn't have the feelings of one for all you knew. "I'm sure you know how to stitch him up again if another injury reopens, I won't be here the rest of the week as I'll be doing my own business elsewhere."

"Got it.." You opened the creaky wooden oak door to let him through, and he left just as fast as he came in.

Closing the door behind you and letting go of the rusty brass door knob, you sighed in exhaustion.

"Yknow, you've been awfully quiet--"

"Shut the fuck up or I'm going to slice your throat."

Your shoulders dropped as soon as you heard Jeff's empty threat escape his throat. You walked closer to him, your shoes making small thuds and the wooden floors creaking beneath your feet.

"There you are." you cooed, finally hearing him talk after being silent the entire time.. incredibly out of character for him yet you were sure the shame of getting as injured as he is now and having to be 'taken care of' definitely got to him. "I almost started missing you."

"Get my knife, get the rest of your shit, and let's move.. we have people to kill for fucks sake.." Jeff's hoarse voice cracked even further as he attempted to sit up yet the pain coming from his abdomen only caused his nerves his fire up, making him fall back onto the moldy mattress yelping in pain. "You're absolutely stupid for even thinking you're able to go out tonight Jeff." You proceeded to sit on the empty side of the bed beside him, your hand slowly reaching over to gently caress his brutally cut up cheek yet your lover only harshly smacked it away with the back of his own hand. "So.. you're telling me you're going to ignore what I'm fucking telling you to do?" Jeff groveled and huffed in irritation, if he wasn't so incapacitated he'd probably be pulling you by your arm or hair to get you to do what he told you. "Since when have you gotten so brave, doll?"

"Since I followed you and helped you kill your own family that night." You pulled your hand away, reminiscing the night when your Jeff turned into who he is now.

You remembered how much your heart swelled when you saw him covered in his family's blood, his fresh cut up smile and red inflamed burns across his body and face. You continued to love him just as much as you did before he became so disfigured.

He was your religion, and you followed him in devotion.

"Now, we still have to keep our deal with the big boss right? I'll do your kills for the night, then when your better tomorrow we'll finish up whatever else we have to do.. or hell we can just kill for fun to make it up to you, " you hopped off the bed as you spoke and walked over to a wooden rotting vanity in the corner of your room, with drawers that were unable to close and doors that were hanging by their hinges. Your hand reached over to get an empty crunched up ziplock bag and continued on to walk back to your boyfriend with the object in your hand. "What do you say? I'll even get you some of the good stuff to make you feel better." you spoke lovingly, your hand with the bag grazing over his misshapen nose as he inhaled it deeply with a faint sense of delight. It still lingered the smell of his favorite thing to smoke and get high off of.. aside from your kisses and affection of course.

"Fuck that smells good.." he mumbled before his beady black eyes then suddenly shot up at you with this look of angry hesitation. "This is the only damn time I'm ever letting you out of my sight, make it quick, come back, and if you take a fucking second too long I'll get up and drag you back by your hair myself, got it gorgeous?.."

"You won't even have to bother Jeff." you bent over slightly to give him a quick peck on the lips, but just as much as he was addicted to the green he was also addicted to your warmth, your lips, your presence and self.

You couldn't help but have to suddenly sustain your own body weight by resting an arm beside Jeff's head as his own uninjured arm went to grab you by the back of your head to pull you closer in a deeper, much more passionate kiss.

Hearts beating aggressively in a dark passion that was just as fiery and scarlet as the blood you two would spill on the daily, the faint smell of dried blood, mud, and rubbing alcohol reeked as you two struggled to inhale air with your noises clashing against each other, his aggressive and hungry kisses tasting of iron but also of old cigarettes and booze.

Normally this would disgust any one else that wasn't you, but you liked the way he smelled, how he tasted.. it reassured you that this was in fact Jeff, your Jeff.

Eventually, he would finally let you go by harshly pushing you away in order to break the kiss. He knew that if you stayed any longer he was gonna want you all to himself for the rest of the night, as close to him as you physically could.

"Get out of here and get back, ______. Don't make me wait longer than I have to."

You smiled at him, a sweet and sinister little smile that would somehow always get him hard every time you did it.

"You've got nothing to worry about."

two weeks.

two weeks passed since you disappeared that night.

Jeff recovered the night after you left, but you could imagine the absolute horror and rage he felt when he realized you never came back later that night.

With other residents also living in the mansion, residents with personalities and have bits of humanity left similar to Jeff, you can also imagine the slight wave of rumors to those that knew or noticed the two of you in your years in the mansion. Some say you made a deal with Slender and got to leave, others say that you got kidnapped, that you got brainwashed, caught by police, sacrificed to another higher being, stuck in an asylum or- simply that you died. There were endless possibilities but they all ended the same:

you hung Jeff dry, left his grasp and simply didn't come back.

Jeff would obviously try to get in contact with Slenderman as to know your condition, since he knew that the deity had the consciousness and psyches of every being or person he's made some kind of contact with in his hands.

Although he had to go through one, two, three of Slender's proxies, just to have a word with him somehow.. He would eventually get a word from the big boss through one of his more well known lackeys.

"She's fine, Jeffery. She isn't dead, she hasn't made any deals with him, and she isn't injured to death or whatever." the annoyed and exasperated voice of Masky would echo in the empty halls that the pair stood in, the arms of the mustard-yellow colored jacket would fold over his chest while also being in a sort of stance that expressed the fact that he simply just didn't want to be there.

"Then why the hell is she not back?? Does he know where she could be? If she was kidnapped? If she got arrested or put in a fucking ward?" Jeff yelled in an almost desperate sort of tone yet he would never admit it openly.

"Look, I don't fucking care whether she's alive, dead, stuck in a fucking hole or hell! if she's sucking some other guy's dick that isn't yours! But all I know that is that if she left on purpose he would've already had me or one of the others to get her back, but he hasn't so maybe she's nearby or some shit like that."

Anyone around could see that Jeff was on the verge of reaching over for his knife and cut Masky in half, yet he knew better than to do that to him of all people. "Does he at least know where she is?? I'll get her myself if I have to just give me a fucking address, some place to know where she could be!.."

If Masky wasn't wearing a mask, he'd probably be rolling his eyes to oblivion, irritated beyond belief at something like this even being a problem. "No. But as I already fucking said, if he isn't asking one of us to chase her down and get her back then you shouldn't have to overreact the way you are right now." the proxy proceeded to brush past him without a care, but said one last small thing before he left Jeff's vicinity completely.

"By the way, stop bothering the other proxies about this as we could care less about your girlfriend, just get a new one and fuck off!"

Jeff stood there, trembling in an anger he hasn't felt since the day he attacked his bullies and his brother took the blame for it.

He wasn't exactly reassured, but he also knew that he was very limited and there wasn't much he could do.

But he was restless, so you bet your ass he was going to go look for you even if it was just stalking the streets and killing anyone in his wake.

luckily for him, his waiting would end soon enough.

the week after that, he'd get the news of his life.

he'd been killing all week, killing innocents as he usually did but at a quicker and animalistic pace, he would almost get caught this time by the cops yet again but before his spree could continue he received some news thanks to that cheeky voice that would speak to him through the screens.

he would come back to the mansion, battered and bruised beyond belief. the calluses on his hands split and bled, cuts everywhere all old and fresh, he was ruthless in his murders as well as he was careless.

he needed you to ground him, you were the reason as to why he has even been alive for as long as he has.

his hand seemed to be superglued to the handle of his sharpened knife even as he was dragging his legs towards EJ's basement, where he was led to believe he would find what he was looking for.

He aggressively banged on the metal door with his fist in anticipation, not being able to wait any longer than how much he's already had to. The one to answer the door would be Eyeless Jack as it is his "resting" place in the mansion so to speak.

Once the door opened Jeff would quickly push past EJ not needing to be accepted in the space for him to go in.

"Where is she??" he shouted, his voice boasting in the cold concrete room. "I was told you found her, where the fuck is she?"

EJ would calmly close the door before slowly leading Jeff towards a corner of the large space, where a long, clean-white room divider seemed to hide something.

well, more like someone.

That was when Jeff finally saw you, your limp body laying there and your face had this gentle expression you'd usually make when you were sleeping. Beside you stood Nurse Ann, who was gently cleaning the countless cuts and lacerations you had around your body with several cotton pads and changing gauzes as well.

Jeff's heart fell down to his stomach, he would've started reeling and throwing up if he didn't rush to take a closer look at you only to see that your chest was still rising and falling.

He sighed in relief.

"As you can see, she's alive." spoke EJ as he took a few steps closer, "Nurse Ann found her as she was coming back to the mansion, she found her body laying on the edge of where Slender's territory ends and the rest of forest. She also claims that ______ wasn't there when she left, so she probably appeared a little later that same day."

Jeff's hand trembled slightly as he reached out to touch your face with the back of his hand, yet hesitated slightly when his hand could almost feel the warmth of your skin.

But that's when he took a minute to really take in the rest of your appearance.

Your entire body even your face was dirtied in dried mud and soil, your fingernails were dirty and chipped, your arms and cheeks were decorated in scratches and cuts of various sizes, and your clothes.. seemed to have been replaced with a clean hospital gown and your missing shoes were replaced by socks.

EJ continued on, "And so you don't go attacking me, Nurse Ann changed her clothes. According to her they were tattered and beyond repair, and that they were completely soiled in blood."

"Blood?" Jeff spoke up in slight concern,

"The blood wasn't hers."

[deathworlders-of-e24]

Thomas, Engineer

Part 4

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

Sparks burst upwards into the goggles Thomas was wearing, the plasma cutter in his hand burning at several hundred degrees, focused to an incredibly fine point. Holding it in his work gloves was awkward at best, but years of practice had made him exceptional at his job. Sixer and Mace might’ve been better at the finer detail work, Padrino had incredible dexterity after all, but making custom tools was well within his wheel house too.

The two bot brothers had asked him to make a special kind of nano wrench while they ran a ‘memory sweeper’ program through his old translator, the one that had caught that rogue signal all those cycles ago. The group had been working on it in their off time between maintenance requests, and they were finally just steps away from the answers they were looking for. All they needed now was to strip the memory code out of the device, and for that they needed itty bitty tiny nanoscopic tools; ergo, while the twins worked their programs, Thomas got to work making the things they’d need.

He was almost done too, when the comm-link trilled. A patch job in the security chief’s office, apparently one of the terminals was unresponsive and the door was getting jammed up on something. Personal projects would have to wait.

“Roomba, we got a job. You coming with or hanging out here?”

[Statement: you operate at greater efficiency when this unit is present]

“That’s right buddy, but I’m asking what you wanna do,” Thomas said.

“Beep.”

[Statement: I would like to assist please]

“Thanks Roomba, I appreciate that.” Thomas held his arm out and the little droid climbed up to his usual perch on the man’s shoulder. “Look at you, making decisions for yourself. Good for you bud!”

Thomas adored the little robot, and as Roomba got smarter, that feeling only grew. Every day the small cleaning drone was getting more clever, his AI evolving ever further, thanks to the upgrades from Sixer and Mace. Pretty soon Roomba would be as smart as Thomas was.

Maybe I’ll teach him how to play virtual chess, he thought. Or I’ll build him a little controller and we can split screen a blaster battle game or something!

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

The two made their way through the ship, waving and saying hello to the many people who stopped Thomas to look at the small robot on his shoulder. At this point in their mission, it was common knowledge that one of the humans had made a cleaning drone their ‘pet’, although Thomas was trying to make it clear that wasn’t the case. Roomba was his own person, he just so happened to have very little legs and it was faster to just catch a ride on his human companion. It probably didn’t help that outside himself and the Padrino, nobody else had the hardware to understand what Roomba was saying, so all they ever heard was Beep.

They made it up to the command deck and knocked on the door to the Chief’s office. It opened halfway before getting stuck, hidden gears grinding, and there was the Chief, leaning on his desk with a data pad in his hand. Thomas figured Chief Ducane was kinda cute, what with his scruffy yet trimmed beard and his various tattoos, but macho wasn’t really his thing on guys. That being said, he could see why some on the crew were whispering about him, the man was built. Thomas tried getting his attention through the crack.

“Reporting Chief, you sent a maintenance request?” Thomas said through the gap in the door.

“Yeah, I did,” Chief Ducane looked up. “Oh right, you’re Thomas right? I don’t remember if I’ve introduced myself yet, I’m Danny Ducane. You’re the guy with the domesticated maintenance droid, right?” The Chief got up to the door and pulled it open himself, the hydraulics groaning as it slid open the rest of the way.

“He’s not…” Thomas started, annoyed, but took a beat. Don’t antagonize the guy who can pull apart the doors. “This is Roomba, he has an adaptive learning AI now, like the Padrino on the crew. He’s not a pet.”

Roomba looked up when Thomas said his name and trilled angrily at the idea of being equated to a house cat.

“Beep.”

[Statement: Please inform the other human that I am not domesticated in any way, and would prefer that not get said again]

“He said you’re being rude,” Thomas explained.

“Beep.”

[Sufficiently put]

Chief Ducane looked at the two of them for a moment before raising his hands in defeat.

“Okay, fair enough, that was a dick move on my part. Sorry little guy, didn’t know you were one of the clever bots.”

Thomas nudged his tool bag with his foot, and the Chief took the message.

“Right, my control console is fritzing out,” Ducane said, shuffling awkwardly towards his desk. “The screen blurs every couple minutes, and the door got stuck this morning, don’t know what that’s about either.” The chief stood there, gesturing to his desk with one hand, the other fumbling to put the data pad down where Thomas suspected he thought he wouldn’t be able to see it. It occurred to him that Chief Ducane might not be the most technologically savvy, considering you could read a data pad from either side, and the exact same script was frozen on his console screen. It looked like a checklist of sorts, but Thomas wasn’t here to snoop classified documents. Unless it’d be funny, then maybe.

“Right,” Thomas said, eyeing the chief, “it’s probably just an electrical short, a little leftover from that solar flare the other day. I’ll have to strip some wiring but it’s a quick fix. Though the door might have to be taken out so I can get into the motors.”

“And how long will that take?” Ducane asked.

“Maybe an hour? Maybe more?” Thomas shrugged. “Takes as long as it takes for me to get in there.”

Thomas looked at him a moment, standing there with his hands on his sides. He could hear Roomba’s mechanical innards ticking and whirring as the little bot held onto his perch on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Guess I should let you get to it then,” Chief Ducane said, clapping his hands and heading for the door, but he stopped before he left, like he’d just remembered he’d left the stove on or some such.

“Hey, just a quick question,” he said, turning back to face Thomas. The chief’s hands were fidgeting, hooking and unhooking his thumbs into his pockets. “Are you acquainted with the Sed engineers? Kor and Taren?”

Thomas thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“Sure, I’ve seen them around. Why?”

“They ever seem real busy for unknown reasons?”

“Honestly? Like you want my work appropriate answer or my actual opinion?”

“Both.”

“Well my work appropriate answer is sure, they seem good at their jobs, usually off together on requests.”

“And your personal opinions?” Chief Ducane pressed, crossing his arms and shifting to stand in the doorway, as if he was keeping Thomas sequestered until he got answers to his odd line of questions. Thomas didn’t need to ponder the question that long.

“Honestly? Honestly they kinda suck,” He blurted out, a little more venomously than he’d intended. “Like, okay, don’t get me wrong, you ask them questions and they give the right answers, they know how things work and they know the right tool for the jobs, but work wise? Half the time nobody can find them. I’ve had three repair jobs handed over to me in the last two weeks ‘cause they’re off somewhere fooling around.”

“Fooling around?” Ducane intoned, “as in…?”

“Well we just kinda assumed they were an item. And look, we’re sympathetic, but the work load is insane on a ship this size with this many conflicting requirements. Temperature differences for different races, atmospheric controls bottoming out, I got a guy with four arms for a boss and even he thinks it’s ridiculous how often stuff around here breaks.”

“So you all just assumed they were off somewhere… doing that, while you all just put up with it? Has anyone seen them like this?” Chief Ducane pushed.

“Roomba did,” Thomas said, tilting his head the little droid’s direction, “while we were doing repairs in the air ducts a couple cycles ago.”

“Beep.”

[Please do not disclose this information]

“Huh?” Thomas put the little droid in his palm and let him stand for himself. “What’s up buddy?”

“What’s he saying?” The chief asked, shifting focus from Thomas to Roomba and back again.

“Beep.”

[Disclosure of this information will bring my work efficiency into question]

Ohhhhhhh, Thomas thought.

“He’s just saying how weird what he saw was,” Thomas shiftily explained, patting the little droid on the head. “We were working some repairs in the ducts when Roomba saw Taren in another part of the ship through the grating. He was on a comm-link and Kor showed up with a thing Roomba didn’t recognize, but from what he told me it was some hand tool I think.”

“So maybe they were just on another job and not screwing around?” Ducane questioned.

“Nah, couldn’t be, I was supposed to be the only repair guy in that part of the ship at the time. Everyone else is still supposed to be in the core room making repairs after that solar flare.”

Thomas took a deep breath and looked Ducane in the eye.

“Chief, be straight with me, is something going on on my ship?”

“What do you mean your ship?” Ducane scoffed.

“Trust me, this ship has already gotten enough of my blood, sweat, and tears man. I probably love her more than anyone else on this boat, so yeah, she’s my ship.” Thomas was getting a tad red in the face as he said this, which was fair, as it was slightly embarrassing to voice this odd idea of his. “Look man, this ship might be just a job to you, but it’s not just that to me, okay? So if there’s something happening here that could hurt her, I’m not gonna let that happen.”

How odd that a simple maintenance request could have such an impact on his day?

Roomba reach up and tugged on Thomas’s earlobe.

“Beep.”

[New Task Uploaded: protect Noah. Confirm?]

“That’s right Roomba, that’s what we’re gonna do,” Thomas said, weirdly amped up now. Chief Ducane stood there looking at him incredulously.

“Is every kid in the galaxy just ready to ride shotgun off to war these days? I swear, you younger guys need to do something more productive and fun with all that extra energy you have.”

“Shove it… respectfully, Chief.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, I don’t have anything concrete that something is happening, not that I could tell you if I did.” Ducane shrugged and crossed his arms again, leaning against the wall. The data pad behind them on the desk trilled, a new file had been sent to it, and before the tones had silenced themselves, Thomas felt as if his neurons had just taken a bolt of electricity across his frontal lobe. He turned back to face the Security Chief with a dread look tacked onto his face.

“Hypothetically, Chief, if somebody had possibly intercepted a weird transmission while outside the broadcast shields, how important would that be?”

Chief Ducane stared at him a moment, then clasped his hands together in front of his mouth before sighing uncomfortably hard.

“I’d say that’d be pretty important, kid.”

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

“I thought you were supposed to be smart!” Danny half accused, walking quickly down the hall away from the lift.

“Man, I’m like actually a genius, I have four degrees, but nobody ever accused me of being smart,” Thomas said, shrugging. “I didn’t want to get kicked off the ship if it was nothing, which it probably is!”

“You wouldn’t have gotten kicked off the ship. If I can’t even get rid of Grite, you’re as safe as can be.”

“Oh, okay,” Thomas said sarcastically, “then I totally should’ve spilled it when, while on a space walk, my somewhat illegally jailbroke translator picked up a rogue signal on the long range communications array for the ship I just got a job on. I’ve seen people canned for less, I could’ve been tried for espionage or something.”

“You did what?”

Thomas and Danny turned on theirs heels to see Odis the Galley standing in the doorway they’d just passed, a ‘coffee’ mug in hand. It had a cartoonish drawing of a purple cow on it.

“Oh good, we’re just telling the whole ship now, I guess,” Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m definitely getting fired.”

“Wait wait wait, Odis is cool,” Thomas vouched. “He’s a real stand up guy.”

“What did you do now humie?” Odis groaned, downing whatever was in his mug before sprinting to join them. His shorter legs had to move twice as fast to keep up with the taller humans.

“So you know that project the twins and I have been working on?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah, you’ve been using your off hours for something that’s not video games, of course I noticed.”

“Fired…,” Danny moaned. “Court marshalled even.”

“Quiet big human, the smart human is talking.”

“Oh no, we’ve established that word doesn’t apply to me.”

“Beep.”

[Thank you for not telling the human I fell down the air ducts]

It was a wonder how the entire ship didn’t know what they were doing by then, seeing as they were not exactly discreet as they headed down to the maintenance decks. When the group of them finally made the locker room, more than one set of eyes was watching them, though it was mostly Chief Ducane they were looking at. It wasn’t exactly normal operating procedures for the Chief of Security to walk into their locker room.

“How is it that you humans are always up to something ridiculous?” Odis asked, shaking his bulbous gray head. “I mean, as a Galley, I’m actually impressed with the level of… what’s a good human word for this nonsense?”

“Shenanigans?” Thomas offered.

“Ridiculous words, ridiculous people…,” Odis laughed. “The cows are cool, but the rest of your world is just a mess of weird, huh?”

The humans didn’t respond, though given any thought, they couldn’t have refuted the Galley anyway.

Sixer and Mace stood at their work table, the terminal screen running thousands of lines of code a second. Thomas would’ve loved to comb through it given the chance, but now wasn’t the time.

“Twins!” he called over, “Got it up and going?”

“Almost, Human Thomas,” Sixer replied.

“Hello, Security Chief Ducane,” Mace greeted.

“Yeah, hi guys,” Danny said. “I hear you all have been working a little side project?”

The two Padrino turned to each other and each gave a quick burst of machine speak before turning back to face them.

“Human Thomas, do you believe it is time to inform the ship’s command structure of our findings?”

“You could say that, yeah,” Thomas nodded.

“Good, because we have finished preparations. We simply need the tool you made up and to see if the sweeper program retrieves any data.”

Thomas patted down his coveralls before fishing the nano-wrench from his inner pocket. He handed the tool to Sixer, who turned back to the table and made the final adjustments.

“Moment of truth, I guess,” he said.

“You realize I’m going to be extremely pissed if you got me down here and all worked up for nothing,” Danny said pointedly.

“Understood… sir,” Thomas swallowed hard.

The computer ran its program, thousands, hundreds of thousands of lines of code fluttering across the screen, the Padrino’s speed was impressive to say the least. They definitely had to teach him that sometime.

After a minute of them staring at the terminal in silence, the screen showed a resounding-

“Nothing?” Thomas and Danny said in unison.

“Correct,” Sixer said.

“Unfortunately,” continued Mace, “the translators are not equipped with enough memory storage to log something the size of a communications transmission.”

“So we’ve got nothing?” Thomas said, hands clenched at his sides. He didn’t know what he wanted the signal to be, but nothing was… incredibly unsatisfying, to say the least.

“Did you try to see recipient data?” Odis asked, eyeing the console code.

“What?” Thomas turned to him, confusion distorting the disappointment on his face.

“With the long range array, it’s got recipient data built into the message, so the thing knows who it’s going to,” Odis explained slowly. “Back in the day, we Galley used to strip data out of long range messages to find new planets to… interact with. It’s how we found the humies first, caught all those messages you kept throwing out into space.” Odis rifled through one of his side pockets and brought out something that looked like a key fob with a port on one end. He popped open a panel in the terminal and plugged it in, hitting a couple keys to sync the programs together. Thomas watched, confusion and disappointment morphing into a cautious optimism. Maybe they’d find something after all.

“And here… we… go!” Odis said smugly, triumphantly hitting the execute key. The screen rolled the code again, but this time information began loading, the computer compiling the data for them.

“And you just happen to have this… why?” Danny looked sternly in the Galley’s direction.

“If it makes you feel any better Chief, most of my free time has been spent with the kid playing Terran video games,” Odis snickered. “Don’t worry about what I’ve been up to, worry about whoever is sending messages to the GAIL High Council.”

“What the hell?” Danny exclaimed, leaning over the console to examine the data.

Sure enough, they couldn’t recover any of the message, the data was just too big for the little device to have caught any. However, Odis’s tracer did show that whatever the signal was, it had gone straight to someone by the name of Mons on the High Council of the Grand Assembly of Intelligent Lifeforms.

“Chief, what the hell are we looking at?” Thomas asked, for the first time actually realizing that something could be deeply, darkly wrong on the ship.

“This doesn’t make any sense, communications can’t go directly to the Council, not without going through Captain Skitch and me,” Danny kept looking at the screen, rereading the data from start to finish, over and over again, before pulling out his data pad and copying all of it down, taking photos too.

“What are you doing?” Sixer asked.

“Making sure whatever we have here, there’s multiple copies so we can’t lose any proof later.”

“Do you suspect there’s another agenda aboard this ship Chief Ducane?” Mace followed.

“… I sincerely hope not, but either way, none of this ever happened. Not a single one of you saw any of this, okay? Nothing and no one,” Danny looked at each of them in turn, making sure they understood his meaning, “is going to hear about any of this. And when I call any of you to my office, it’s double time, understood?”

“You got it Chief,” Thomas said immediately, the others following suit, but with much less gusto.

“Beep.”

[Task: protect Noah in progress]

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

The work shift ended with no more excitement, however Thomas’s heart rate hadn’t declined even a bit in the following hours. The idea that something could threaten the ship, his ship, the ship he’d almost died for already, filled him with some very mixed emotions, not the least of which was apprehension. It did reassure him that Chief Ducane seemed like a good guy, and that he wasn’t going to take any disciplinary measures against the worker crew for anything, but the idea that they could be called on to actually do something was daunting.

Walking to the mess hall, Thomas realized he’d never actually made any of the requested repairs to Danny office. He pulled a comm-link out of his back pocket and sent a quick “sorry, I’ll be right there to fix the door” text, but was alarmed at what the Chief of Security replied almost instantly.

>Someone searched my office while cameras were out of commission. Nothing is missing. They took advantage of the door being jammed and unlocked<

Another message:

>Don’t come up here, it’ll look suspicious for the both of us. I’ll make another request tomorrow. Tell your friends to be careful, and come to me immediately if you see anything at all<

Thomas shakily put the comm-link back in his pocket and headed back towards the Vending Machines. He saw Odis sitting in the corner and joined him after getting his food.

“You ever think someone in the GAIL could do something pretty bad?”

“What, you think you humans have a monopoly on being kind of shitty?” Odis snorted. “You’re not that weird, you know.”

[arrowheadedbitch]

Overview of the things I've decided are canon for my son of zeus au so far (hopefully I don't forget any):

The gods are dicks. They arent *always* dicks, but I don't want to sugarcoat them from their original myths, they do bad shit and often

Denki is favored by Apollo, Dionysus, and Hermes the most, Persephone also likes him pretty well

Zeus is Zeus, meaning who knows when he'll decide he loves his son or hates his son or just genuinely doesn't care, he's such a little hypocrite bitch ain't he

Quirks are the exact same as they are in canon, the presence of the Greek gods didn't affect that at all, the gods have nothing to do with quirks and while they still are probably banging like rabbits they aren't really that active in Japan so no, no one else at UA is a demigod

Zeus slept with Kaminari's mom because he was intrigued by a mortal with a power in his domain (electricity) that didn't come from him

Since Kaminari's powers come from both his quirk and his dad, there's some complexities to them

Kamimari was born with lightning powers but they worked differently before his quirk actually manifested (I'm toying with the idea that his quirk manifested while being smiled by Zeus with lightning? I haven't decided if I like that or not yet)

Kaminari doesn't want other people knowing he's a demigod for classic hero story reasons but also because 1. Greek gods being real is a secret and he ain't about to be the one that spilled it 2. It'd be really complicated and annoying to explain and let's be real, at least one person would come out of that thinking he went crazy

Athena doesn't like him because, well, dunceface, duh. She does appreciate his strategic abilities though

Ares also doesn't like him because he doesn't like killing people, Ares and Athena hate that they dislike the same kid so much that they'd consider changing their tune about him on just that alone

In junior high he went on a big quest, I haven't decided on any details of it, but it involved a lot of fighting way to strong people while way too young as most quests do, this is also how he got into Apollo, Hermes, Dio, and Persephone's (and by extention Hades since he loves Persephone enough to deal with anyone she likes) good graces, the quest was likely given by Zeus and likely involved Hera trying to kill him

He's not really surrounded by people in the ancient greek community, it's not like he has a camp half blood and even if he did he'd skip it to go to UA training anyway, but he is pretty well known in those circles post big quest

I'm toying with the idea that he failed his first quest and thus had to go on a redemption quest

Kaminari doesn't like being serious, but despite what his classmates and teachers think, he CAN do serious, how else would he be such a big shot in the Greek community?

Imma be real, there was probably some kind of war that Kaminari had to lead an army in or something. I'm sorry, child soldier stories just have so many layers to dissect it's not my fault that they're compelling in a way

My point is, serious Kaminari is like war general levels serious, but not even LOA attacks are bad enough to bring out serious kaminari, are you kidding, did you gloss over the part about god war? He's having a little trouble taking literally any threat at UA seriously and he'll have trouble taking almost every threat as a pro hero seriously, it's not his fault junior high set the bar way too high on what situations are serious!

One of Kaminari's demigod powers, as the son of Zeus, is that he can't take fall damage. No matter how high up he falls from, he will never ever get worse than a few scrapes

Pissing him off really badly makes the sky get stormy, I'm talking immediate clear skies to nothing but gray clouds moving in and you can't even SEE the sky anymore, also possibly rain, he doesn't do it often but he can and he'd probably be able to control it if he were to practice his demigod powers along with his quirk but we all know he ain't gonna do that any time soon

He can sword fight, he hopes this never comes up

He has to keep reminding Dionysus about the legal drinking age, Dionysus thinks it's stupid and therefore never listens, they have argued about it multiple times

Apollo and Kaminari play chess together on occasion

Hermes at one point gave Kami a special knife when he decided he liked him enough to give him a gift, it's a magic thief's blade which is just a dagger that cannot be found on his person no matter what you do. Pat him down? You won't feel it. Scan him? It didn't show. Metal detector? It didn't beep at all. But he can pull it out whenever. He won't but he does *have* it just in case. I'm also deciding if making it not be able to leave him would be too much. I don't want it to feel like a riptide ripoff, I'm thinking maybe it sprouts wings and flies to him?

Yes, I've just decided, the Thief's Knife will fly to him if left behind and can squeeze into any crack no matter how small to get to him

I'm shinkami trash so you KNOW shinkami is about to be canon in this au

In either 2A or 3A, Kaminari tells Shinsou his secret about the gods being real and him being Zeus' son, he spends a great amount of time explaining all the details to Shin and answering his questions, it's a lot

What can I say? Shinsou is gus confidant, he was gonna have to tell him at some point 🤷🏻‍♀️💅

He doesnt tell anyone else, but obv they've got to eventually find out somehow, what you think I'd just let it be lame?? Even after they find out, he won't tell them anything he doesn't have to, waits until it comes up to explain things, it's just too complicated he doesn't want to go through all that AGAIN and with twenty people this time

Oh and before you ask, I'm gonna say no on the flying thing. I know it could be a power of a Zeus kid, I know it could be cool, but no. No he cannot fly.

I can't think of anything else right now but I can't wait to wake up in a cold sweat tonight and realise what i forgot

Also, I'm gonna go ahead and tag @iys-cloud since I know iys really likes this au :]

[dood-itsradical]

Twenty.

Pairing: Jaegyeon Na x GN!Reader

Summary: Just you and King of Incheon being idiots.

Genre/Trope: Frenemies. Friends with benefits.

Warnings/Details: Crackfic, cussing, nudes, sex mentioned, smoker reader, reader farted, no use of Y/n. Event set post Cheonliang arc.

A/N: I'm so normal for this ding dong. I do NOT take requests btw!

Masterlist

“Then they fucking trashed my fucking car. Are you fucking kidding me? Fucking assholes.” Jaegyeon grumbled, brushing his hair back as you listened to him rambling about the passing of his Initial N. Brutal, you thought as you lit up a cigar between your lips.

He clicked his tongue, brushing away the smoke off his way. “Can you not?” You hardly give him a glance, inhaling and puffing out more smokes.

“So, about that James Lee dude.” You reminded him, technically to distract him by bringing the main topic back since it always worked like a charm. He blinked then continued, “Yeah, that. So I completely beat his ass and you know the rest.”

You raised a brow, “Right.” bringing your hand behind your head as you leaned on the headboard beside him. The white cover draped loosely on your abdomen, keeping both of you warm. You know damn well he's mostly bluffing, but you're too lazy to dig down deeper in the story. You could care less about what happened regarding the King of Cheonliang. But the story intrigued you nonetheless.

Randomly your stomach feeling funny, you had an idea. Well, not exactly. It's just a casual thing you'd do, so you just let the toot out under the blanket between your cheeks.

“That is fucked up.” Jagyeon commented, giving you a disgusted face.

“It wasn't even that bad.”

“Yah.” He retorted.

You shrugged without feeling any sense of remorse. “What? Like you never let out a huge one? It doesn't even smell.” He scoffed at this. “How'd you know?”

You pulled the blanket over to his head while being mindful of the cigar between your fingers. “Smell it, smell it then.”

He swept his hands, pushing them back with frustration. “Yah! Stop it!” He grimaced. You stopped your actions and continued teasing him. “See? It doesn't smell. Big farts don't smell, silent ones do.”

He baffled, gawking at your words. “That wasn't loud enough! So theoretically it does smell.” He shook his head with disapprovals, shifted away from you while covering his nose. Instead he got off the bed to the counter showing his glory. Your eyes trailed at his back before glancing elsewhere.

“Put something on, damnit.”

Jaegyeon poured the hot water into the ramen cups, “You've seen and touched ‘em all. Don't be a sourpuss, you just farted.” He comes back to the bed and hands one to you. You accepted it, putting away the cigar on the ashtray as he joined you once again.

The air is currently calm despite the usual banter. It's something both of you would rather get run over by a truck than admitting. Call it childish but you guys have said and exposed enough during your activities. No need to bring them up again as those were merely for ego boost.

Blowing your food, you shoved them in your mouth. As you chewed you spoke, “Oppa, you got twenty on ya?”

“Oh. Hang on.” As a response he pretended to go through his ‘pocket’ before pulling out his middle finger. You threw him a dirty look back then rolled on your side, exposing your bare back with your ass sticking out. His eyes followed shamelessly before realising you snatching on his Gucci bag from the floor for his wallet. He takes action immediately, eyes widened and all. “Oi, oi.” He put his ramen on the nightstand to stop you. But you were faster. He let out a groan when your bare foot met his face, pushing him back.

“Yah!!” He exclaimed, using his iron grip instead to pull on your ankle towards him. However you hardly reacted to his strength as you continued to snoop around his wallet. You checked out his cards and ID first before going through his cash, taking some dough out with satisfaction.

Feeling pissed off, he gave you a harsh smack on the ass which caused you to let out a loud yelp. You couldn't see it but you aren't an idiot to know he obviously leaves an obvious red handprint on you.

“What the fuck?!” You cried angrily at him, turning and kicked him square on the face, sending him backward as he fell off the bed with a loud thud. “Ah ssibal!” He cussed loudly but you knew that's barely anything to keep him down. He got back up again, seething with anger at you. You glared back but it quickly changed when he literally leaped onto you. “C’mere you piece of shit!

He pinned you down, pushing his weight on you for all your worth. Not caring if you started to suffocate. Yet again he never really took any consideration about hurting you since you hurt him just the same. Equal right, equal fight a wise person used to say.

“You ugly fuck, get off of me.” You grunted. “It's just fucking twenty.” The King of Incheon ignored your protest, barely budgeted against you. He pushed his hair back then brought his hand behind your neck to pull you closer as he breathed heavily onto your face.

You exhaled sharply, shifting your hips before picking up the sensation of his hardened bazongas. You rolled your eyes with annoyance. “Fuck, are you seriously right now?” Your face scrunched up. His lips hovered inches from yours, “Don't blame me.” and crashed onto your lips with a hungry yet sloppy kiss.

You returned the kiss as he brought you both back in the middle of the bed without parting himself from your lips. Snaking his hand from your hips to your legs and wrapped them around his waist. He rolled his hips possessively with slight desperation to silently declared a second round.

He pulled away, breathing onto your jaw as he left butterfly kisses on your skin. His hips pushed further into yours with a patient pace. “Forget the twenty. Dinner's on me then we'll go buy you some pretty stuff.” But of course, who are you to decline?

[unfriendlies]

it was pretty obvious at this point that there must have been some sort of feelings beyond friendship that darius had for angel, especially if he believed angel would only be safe with him and nobody else. "it's okay if you talk about what happened to you, i don't want people knowing what he's done to me. you're my best friend, the way you looked at me last night," he looked away, shaking his head. "you were disgusted with how i looked. i can't begin to imagine what other people would think of me." his voice grew softer as he spoke, speaking just above a whisper by the end of his statement. there wasn't a whole lot that he remembered from last night, just little moments and angel lifting up garam's shirt to see the bruises on his torso was one of those moments. really, garam had no idea what angel might have said to darius, or even other people. and that scared him. garam didn't want to feel pitied, he didn't want to be looked down on for the choices he made. he thought he was in love, he was looking at the world through rose colored glass. the last thing he needed was for the details of his relationship to become public knowledge. with the fans he had as a popular streamer, he also had his fair share of haters and he knew that they would use this against him if they'd found out. darius barely knew him and he already holding garam's relationship against him. he found himself rolling his eyes dramatically, "i didn't mean like an actual dog. he's just big and scary like a good watch dog would be." he truly didn't mean any harm by it. garam nodded his head in agreement to the shower, knowing that the water would probably help the dull throbbing ache in his head from their night of drinking. he waited until angel had left before going into the bathroom and turning the water on. garam didn't particularly like using other people's shower products simply because the ones he had at his place were formulated specifically for his hair texture, and he was a bit sensitive to smells but he liked angel's scent so he figured using his shower products wouldn't hurt too much. but of course, being left alone, garam got too into his head and he began to worry. was this guy right? was angel really not safe with garam or was it his own feelings for angel that forced his bias? until his ex decided to give on garam, there was no way angel was really safe. he began to panic, the only thing he could think of doing to calm himself was to sit on the floor of the shower. his arms wrapped around his legs as he hugged his knees against his chest, letting the water run over his body. he didn't realize just how long he'd been sitting there until the water had run cold. garam had gotten up, turned the water off, and quickly dried off before walking back into angel's room and into the closet. he wasn't too picky with what he chose to wear, knowing that he'd be practically swimming in anything he chose, so he went with clothes that would hide both his arms and legs. once dressed, he made his way back out to the living room. he didn't look at either men as he sat down on the couch, picking up his phone in the process to look through the dozens of unread notifications. he remained quiet as he read through some of the texts, none of them worried garam until he scrolled down to another picture. he glanced over to darius but quickly looked back to his phone just as another text was coming in. i'm going to work but i'm going to swing by your place once i'm out, i hope to see you there. he sighed heavily, at least his ex wasn't hanging around and they were safe to go back to his apartment to pick up the things he needed. "you should know i would never let anything happen to angel while he's with me." his words were almost mumbled. if he was brave enough, he would have told darius he was used to his ex's aggression, just as he'd told angel, and would easily take the man's fists if it meant angel was safe. but how could he say that without leaving way for the other's curiosity to swell? "he's my best friend, i'd leave if i thought angel was in any danger."

For some reason Garam questioning him upset Angel. He knew Garam was just upset about hearing someone talking about him. Anyone would be. Maybe it was lack of sleep but the taller man snickered and shook his head. “He doesn’t think I’m safe with anyone but him” Angel let out a deep sigh rubbing his hand over his face. Ever since the other man’s confession he had been rather over protective of Angel. Questioning his every decision which he wasn’t a fan of. But he knew Darius heart was in the right place. Longing after Garam for so long it felt nice to have someone who openly shared his feelings with him. Who cared for him as deeply as he cared for Garam. He hated being in the middle of the two. He wished they could get along. However, from the way they were both talking that wouldn’t be happening any time soon. “Listen I know what you heard didn’t sound the best. But I wasn’t talking behind your back. He asked if I was okay and what happened last night. Garam it affects me too. I need to talk to someone.” Angel frowned now crossing his own arms. His glance went to his feet as he tired to calm himself down. Snapping at each other would make a tense situation worse. At the end of the day it wasn’t either of their faults. “I’ll be sure to steer clear of talking about you specifically. It’s not my intention to make excuses but I wish you would see my side. Garam you showed up here battered and bruised. He was sitting right in the living room with me. Would you not ask if you were him? Especially after I kicked him out as soon as you got here? And I also defended you immediately.” Angel could feel himself getting worked up again. The feeling of Garam questioning him felt personal. Angel did his best to always put his best friend first. He went silent for a moment taking a step back. “He won’t come into your apartment. I’ll be sure he respects you. But respect is a two way street. Don’t call him a dog. He is only here to help.” Angel muttered glancing back at the door. Leaving Darius to his own devices for too long would only make the situation worse. “Take a shower. You can borrow whatever you want from my closet. I’m going to finish breakfast. We can all eat together and have a proper conversation. Clear the air. How does that sound?”

[jariten]

Roundup-catch up: September 2024 (〜Take me back to the Reiwa era arc〜)

After a rather all consuming and intense reading experience that took me 60 years back in time (I will get to that one another time) I wanted to get back to the present time, specifically 2020 to today, and explore what's new and buzzing in the manga landscape. Luckily had a couple titles sitting unread ready to give me the most productive reading week I've had so far this year.

Akari by Marco Kohinata is a work I don't want to go too in detail about because I think it's one that I think is better by just diving straight in so I want to describe a bit what it does artistically. Even before it became the norm to produce manga manuscripts fully digitally with programs like Clip Studio there's always been manga artists who challenge the "correct" way of how manga manuscripts should look with clean inked lines and nothing but screentone or crosshatching to add dimension. Like Taiyo Matsumoto, Hiroaki Samura, and Q Hayashida just to mention a few. But with the digital way of doing it becoming the norm and thus there being less time consuming and high risk ways to experiment with the expected form of a manga manuscript the diversity of artistic expression in manga is expanding. All the manga in this post have an expression to them only really possible to do in a digital medium or if analogue, made possible by the innovations of digital artists. Akari has a sort of charcoal texture to it that I haven't seen any other manga artist use giving it a really illustrative look that really elevates the emotional themes of familial estrangement and being at risk of falling to the margins of society that the work depicts. Its made me really look forward to seeing what the "average" manga manuscript might look like by 2030.

Last year I gushed a bit about the cutesy gag manga Yoko to Tora by Fuyuko Kurosaki which really charmed me with its truly adorable art, little world building touches and anything goes absurdist comedy. This mini project finally got me to pick up Heike Monogatari Yoru-kun no Hanashi. This anachronistic time slipped retelling of the tale of the arrogant Taira samurai clan and its conflict with the Minamoto clan backed by imperial interests. Recently orphaned Yoru-kun has spent most of his life with the spoiled but lonely rich girl Sara. But one day, he is suddenly kidnapped from our time to the Heian era by Taira no Kiyomori! (portrayed as a flashy rock star super villain obsessed with his wife) to play the role of his daughter in a grand scheme to marry the Taira clan into the imperial family. Yoru now finds himself living at the whims of his war mongering and arrogant new father, but at the same time finds himself sympathetic and invested in his new family. Because they aren't all that bad. Right? But what about Sara? She's not going to let Yoru be all alone in this strange story, right? The Heike story is retold with a maximalist, deeply anachronistic and absurd fashion by, I will already declare, one of my favorite contemporary manga artists.

There's clearly a "gender bending" aspect to have these characters take the roles of historical figures of the "opposite" gender but the role assignment is as far as that went. The only new item of clothing that gendered Yoru was a kimono overcoat worn over his school uniform while Sara was only gendered by a piece of armour worn on top of hers. And of course Yoru can have a baby, you can just go pick those up anywhere. Like, at the cabbage patch. Intentionally or not it becomes a farcical commentary on how gender is assigned upon you by others.

A lot of current manga are in some way colored by the pandemic and 2020 COVID lockdown era. After Shinzo Keigo was hospitalized from COVID complications he produced Hirayasumi. But his wife Natsuko Taniguchi was obviously affected by this time in world history and her personal life as well and produced her own manga in response to it. Fukiyose Residence introduces us to the flashy gal cashier at a non-franchise conbini. She talks loud, sits on a camping chair behind the register but her high spirits brings as much joy as annoyance to her customers. But her public self and private self couldn't be more different, which her neighbours in her apartment building learn one by one. A short but very sweet story about actually finding connection with those closest to you and the ways we transform ourselves through and for others.

Sometimes I don't do my due dilligence and check if I can get a title I'm eyeing in Japanese in english, but to be fair that overlap is just so rare that I lost the habit. But here I made a mistake, because last week Astro Biologist Pratess by Sarami got a translated omnibus release by Alien Press. That particular edition is not what I will review T^T but it's def one to check out. A classic coming of age during summer vacation with past lives from outer space a la Please Save My Earth and astral connections to an alien astro biologist brings 3 friends closer as they try to figure out exactly what they want from life. This is one I wish was just 1 or 2 volumes longer so all 3 characters got to be fully fleshed out but I enjoyed what we got and it made me feel even more excited about what manga is waiting for us in the near future. The work was also licensed in Spanish so if that's your preferred way to read do check it out!

[aroaessidhe]

2024 reads / storygraph

The West Passage

medieval fantasy set in a giant crumbling palace of traditions with forgotten origin, ruled by giant eldritch Ladies

when winter weather comes in the middle of summer, and a beast below the palace begins to rise, two teens from Grey who have suddenly gained a lot of responsibilities set out on separate journeys to the other towers to find a way to stop it, and meet all sorts of strange people and creatures along the way

world where pronouns/names are based on people’s roles

tons of cool medieval-style chapter illustrations by the author

[rosenfey]

things that are hard to find: writing advice that isn't condescending.

[gornackeaterofworlds]

Every so often, long after you've fallen asleep beside him, he'll let himself grasp the weight, the ache, of just how much he loves you. You'll wake hours later to find he hasn't slept a wink.

[atthebell]

if you're wondering how ridiculous and detailed my qcellbit lore doc is this is just a tiny section ^^ i keep detailed notes on every day cellbit logged on and everything remotely important that happened yes it is way too much but i have problems in my brain

[weregonnabecoolbeans]

Luke and valentine’s relationship reminds me of obi wan and anakin