#i swear if my doll abstracts!!!!!

[kookies2000]

Watched Matpat video on TADC ep2.

Can I just say this? Only three characters acknowledged the audience/ camera. Caine, Jax, and Ragatha. Caine talks directly at us as the host. He's in the spotlight and makes it obvious. Jax looks at us for fun like a cartoon. In a way that's only obvious to us and no one else. Like in the pilot when he looks at the audience but Ragatha thinks he's looking at her. And finally, Ragatha. She glances at us when she gets stabbed.

It's not obvious to any of the others, and we can easily miss it as the audience. It's just a glance. I would like to acknowledge how they are the only three in Pomnis' dream, too.

And the only three who have some sort of authority. Caine is the one in control of everything. Jax is like second in command physically. Ragatha seems to be at his level, too, but emotionally.

Just a few things I wanted to point out. These three seem to have some kind of power/knowledge the others don't.

EDIT: Amanda and Michael seem to be the most interactive with Goose! Ever since the live they did, we thought it was fan service to the Bunny Doll people. But they talked about Ragathas nice hair in the live and the show. Jax says "epic" in the live and show. They also talked about evil Ragatha in the live and then Goose tweets about evil Ragatha. I'm starting to sweat. Micheal and Amanda weren't just doing fan service. They were staying in character. So now I'm really nervous about how Michael said Jax would be devastated if Ragatha abstracted. I don't think it's the fan service we thought it was.

[lani-heart]

|| series masterlist || next // previously

parings -> ( eventually ) enhypen x reader genre -> soulmate au, fantasy au, angst warnings -> angst, rejection word count -> 2.1k

abstract -> my soul was always yours... im sorry it took this long

flashback – heeseung’s perspective

“But I don’t want to go,” I told my sister. She sighed and continued to fix my hair for this stupid day. “Come on, maybe you’ll find friends,” she said with a grin and I scoffed. “This is different from you, you actually found friends” I whined and I knew she was already worried but I dreaded having to go to a new school. 

“Heeseung, be brave for me okay?” she said and I rolled my eyes but agreed. I held her hand tightly as I saw the school in front of us. 

Belift Boarding School for Young Witches. 

“You’ll pick me up, right?” I asked and she smiled. “I’ll be right here to hear how your day went little brother,” she said as I waved her goodbye. I hated the thought of starting a new school. 

Only for the kids to treat me like an idiot, a monster, anything but human. I wanted to find Jungwon and Sunoo… but I didn’t know if they were incarnated again. Or the other boys… maybe even Sooha. Anyone to make me feel less alone. 

This is a stupid school, filled with idiots!

The orphanage just had to make me go here. It's dumb. Filled with kids who don’t even know simple magic, what is this school?! Then again… noona would just say it's because I have my memories of past lives that I know about my abilities. 

“Hey! That’s mine!” I heard and I noticed the mean kids didn’t target me… maybe cause I was placed as a top student when the school tested me. No one wants to bully a kid who knows more magic than them… maybe it's better I went to an all-witches school this time around.

I wouldn’t have vampires or werewolves messing with me. 

The group of boys threw her books out of the window and I scoffed. “Oops! Sorry y/n!” they said and laughed but she didn’t cry nor yell at them to stop. Instead, she looked angry. 

I was going to help her but… I laughed. 

It seemed that they all now looked at me confused. “What are you laughing at!?” they yelled and I couldn’t stop. “Maybe… look in a mirror!” I said, trying to stop. She must've done a basic spell to do that… she gave them weirdly colored hair. One had a giraffe pattern, the other a zebra, and their leader a cow. 

It looked funny on them. They all looked at each other and argued. They didn’t even notice the girl scoff and walk towards me. 

“You could’ve let them figure it out,” she said and I chuckled. “Sorry to take away your surprise, but want help finding your books?” I asked and she smiled. “Please?” she asked and I swear I fell in love at the very moment. Her smile and shining eyes…

“I’m y/n by the way… what’s your name?”

Twas the night before the masquerade. 

“I wrote her the best card!” Sunoo praised as he tied his bow tie. “In your dreams! She’s gonna choose me to be her date!” Jake said and I laughed. “How bad was your writing on that card?” I said and everyone laughed. “Hey! That doesn’t matter!” he said and I chuckled.

“Heeseung-hyung… do you know who she chose?” Jungwon asked and I smiled. “Who knows?” I said and they groaned. I left first wandering outside… 

Why was I nervous? 

If I was being honest with myself I didn’t let myself read her mind. A part of me begged for her to choose me… despite how selfish I've been. 

In my confession, I asked her to meet me in the back of the school at the flower field. Each minute went by that I wanted to turn back… I know that she was sure her card was from Sunoo. So why was I still–

“Heeseung?” I heard and I felt like I was alive again. The feeling like throwing up, the anxiety, the cold sweat… I turned to see her in a beautiful dress, dolled up and everything. 

“You’re the one who sent this?” she asked, confused and I gave her a nervous smile. 

“Will you let me explain everything?”

y/n’s perspective

I sat down wanting to at least hear him out. I guess I did choose one of my soulmates… just not the one who–

“I never wanted to reject you,” he said… Did I mishear him? “When I saw you again I… felt alive, like there's a heartbeat in my chest. You make me just as nervous though…” he said and I was confused. 

This wasn’t the Heeseung I knew– 

“I’m not… you met Heeseung. The vampire, the one who in his past life was devoted to a princess… but a long time ago you met Evan” he said and I felt my eyes widen. 

Evan?

“Pathetic right? I gave you my English name and lied to you saying I was a foreigner when we were kids… I just didn’t want you to know about me. Jake told me you met my sister… I was a witch who attended Belift Boarding School for young witches” he said… Evan.

The boy who always met up with me after classes… the boy who helped me prank the other kids in my class. 

“I don’t understand," I said, confused…

“I think I’ve loved you since I first saw you, y/n” 

When we first met I felt drawn to love at first sight.  I loved you then and I love you now, I’ll always be there to lift you up even if you don't want me there. I want to be the only one to cherish and love you. To die and live for you and only you. So I can only dream you would do that for me. 

“Then why? You were one the meanest! You rejected me first! You’re a liar… you… why?” I yelled until I realized I was getting emotional.

“Don’t cry… not when you have six other soulmates–” “Answer me” I said and he smiled a soft smile. 

A smile that… I've only seen once… when he comforted me after what happened with Jake. 

“Jake, Jay, and Sunghoon were in love with Sooha… they don’t know this but you do. If you have more than one soulmate and you try to–" "To bond with a few of them then the bond eventually dies' ' I finished for him and he gave me a sad smile. 

“I knew Jungwon would want to be with you even without the bond and so would Niki and Sunoo. I wasn’t sure though… but here you are” he said and I scoffed. 

“You shouldn’t make decisions for other people,” I said and he gave me a sad smile. “I know… but when it affects your magic I was willing to break you apart from them when not all of them were going to accept you easily,” he said and I sighed. 

It's why I couldn’t defend myself against Jake… also why my magic has been faltering recently. 

When a witch's soulmate bond is rejected… and fighting for the bond drains your magic. You can fix either by rejecting your mates back… or having them accept you. It's also why Wonyoung broke my bond temporarily… so my magic can temporarily regenerate. 

“You turned into a vampire?” I asked and he chuckled. “Not willingly… but I can live with it. My sister recommended that I go to Decelis. So im learning to come to terms with it” he said and I nodded. 

“You really do look pretty… you would have to be the prettiest person in the school” he said as he lifted his hand up to tuck my hair away. 

“Prettier than Sooha?” I asked and he chuckled. “Believe it or not, I've never loved Sooha. She was more like a sister to me… my own sister took care of me in this life. While I took care of Sooha in another… So I didn’t reject you to have Sooha… I would have to be a fool” he said and I was shocked. 

“Go to your party… you worked hard for it. They’re all waiting–" "But I chose your message, "I said, cutting him off. 

“Oh? I guess you did… It would be a bad example if the president of the student council of Bright Sun didn’t follow her own rules” he said and I chuckled. 

“Shall we?”

We arrived now with our masks on and I took everything in. 

I soon heard him chuckle beside me… “They’re all jealous and annoyed,” he said and I sighed. “They must be confused about who I chose?” I asked and he nodded. 

“They’d never guess me,” he said and I nodded… I looked at him, he was happy. He had a grin on his face… not so serious like other times. “Don’t worry your pretty little head, will you give me at least one dance?” he asked and I smiled and took his hand. 

I enjoyed my time with him… this was the Evan I knew. My best friend from elementary school graduated and I never heard of it again. 

“I wish you would let me choose my own path, you know,” I said as we swayed to the music. He smiled… “I know better than anyone… what rejecting mates does to a witch. You were fighting for the bond… and it was eating your magic” he said and he wasn’t wrong. I jeopardized myself… but they didn’t know that. 

“How do you know about that?” I asked and he sighed. “Let's just say my sister… she experienced it,” he said and I felt my eyes widen. 

“Don’t worry… she’s fine. Can I ask–” “We will be announcing our king and queen!” I heard Wonyoung’s voice. “Now we have included this year to not just include witches or any magic users only. So please be open-minded to one another and let us accept other species into our traditions” she said and I smiled. 

It was controversial but it was all fun and to be enjoyed. 

“Our king… is K from Riverfield!” she announced and I was shocked. K? I soon saw him join the stage… “And our queen… Sooha from Declis” she announced. What? Not everything was wrong– 

“EJ and Wonyoung are doing me a favor… Sunghoon can put aside his ego for this one time” Heeseung said. The King was voted most times for Sunghoon and the Queen was Wonyoung… So what was going on?

I looked back at them getting their crowns and smiling at each other… “They’ve accepted one another,”  said and he nodded. 

“K finally has some sense… and Sooha is finally thinking clearly,” he said and I chuckled. “Thank you… even though you tampered with my event” I said and he laughed. 

“I’m sorry, I'll make it up to you,” he said and I smirked. “Oh? Then I know how you can '' I said and he looked at me shocked. “We’re soulmates right, Evan?” I asked and he laughed.

“Yes, we’re soulmates y/n. I’m sorry for everything… but I'm willing to do anything for you. I promise my little witch” he said and I smiled. 

“y/n!!” I heard and I saw Sunoo and Jungwon. “You bastard! What'd you do to our soulmate!” Sunoo yelled and I laughed. 

“I chose his message… sorry boys,” I said and they pouted. 

“Yeah, so I won fair and square,” he said and Jungwon scoffed. “So did Sunghoon yet he’s drawing a punch right now,” he said and I laughed. 

“I owe him a dance,” I said and I was suddenly pulled back with the hands on my hips. 

“Sorry, but you’re mine tonight. I won you with my message… and I want to make up for all the time I’ve lost” he said and I nodded.

“Comfort Sunghoon please?” I asked the two boys and they nodded. 

“I’m guessing you guys are all made up?” I asked and he nodded. 

“Everything is right again… especially my soul that is bound to you” 

taglist -> @sunus-sun @loumin908 @on-1ce @shinkenprincess-oh @b-a-nshee-blog @bnnyniky @sakuxxi @chiiiiiiiiis @cncreams @pre1ttyies @justanunstablefrog @graythecoffeebean @starzniiky @singlepringle4you @chirokookie @kthstrawberryshortcake-main @imtoanonymousforyou @lovgfrd @ilovecheese09 @sousydive @pink-but-rosie @kyleebob @jihyosgf @in-somnias-world @jilxxasu @bee-the-loser @mitchikeli @cyberpunksunwoo @lhspeachie @loafsunshinesworld @vixensss @zhenya109 @luumiinaa @rosas-in-the-garden @b3tt7boop @moony-mari @vixialuvs @ilovecheese09 @capri-cuntz @emma2black @skzhoes @emma2black

please don't be a silent reader !! reblog, comment, and like <3

[miyuhpapayuh]

butterflies.

After their close friends and family received the news about them being invited to the most anticipated event of the creative world, Mya, Isaiah and the rest of the group began planning for their awaited, highly anticipated trip.

The pair have also gotten closer over the last couple of weeks. Going out to dinner after work, drinks on the weekend, and her new favorite, sharing ice cream at Maggie's diner.

“Ooh!” 

Currently sifting through the dresses that her mama had sent her, she lands on a red hot number with a slit up the thigh.

“I don’t know what event mama thinks I’m goin’ to, but…” she trails off, laughing to herself.

Pulling it off the hanger, she lays it across her bed and begins to tug at the bottom of her shirt when her music abruptly cuts off, followed by the ringing of her phone.

Peering over at it on her dresser, she smiles. “Oh, boy.”

Answering the call, she watches his handsome face come into view. His wide smile showcases itself, almost mirroring hers.

“I’m starting to think you’re watching me,” she jokes, keeping the top of her head in view as she reaches for the dress.

“Why?” he asks.

“Because you always call me when I’m in the middle of something,” she laughs.

“What’s so important, this time?” he mocks as she laughs.

“My mom sent me a bunch of dresses to try on for this damn ball, and I’m about to lose my mind, because I can’t decide on one,”  she sighs.

“You need some help decidin’?” he asks, his chin in his palm as he stares at the partial view of her face and the ceiling.

“Uh…sure! Give me a second.” She moves away from the camera and begins to pull her shirt over her head, grabbing the dress and sliding into it.

“You cut my favorite song off this time. I just want you to know”, she grumbles, fidgeting with the dress.

“And what song was that?”

“I Think About Lovin’ You by Earth, Wind and Fire.”

“Hm. Don’t think I’ve ever heard it.”

“No worries. We’ll fix that,” she says, before picking her phone up from the dresser.

“Okay, you’ve fattened me up over the past couple of weeks, so don’t be too harsh.”

He chuckles. “I would never do such a thing.”

“Okay,” sitting it back down in an upright position, she pulls her hair away from her face and poses, “how do I look?”

“Wow,” his eyes wander over her curves, committing them to memory..

“You look so good.”

Her brows raise, the butterflies in her stomach doing somersaults.

“Really?”

“Absolutely,” he nods enthusiastically, making her cheese wide.

“Can I get a spin?” He asks, poking his lip out.

“I'll oblige you, this time.” She winks, taking her time twirling like a doll on display, giggling at his whistles.

“Damn girl,” he shakes his head.

“Alright, alright, let me go try on another one!” She says, moving out of frame to silently squeal and slip into another dress.

☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.☆:☆: .☽ .☆: .☽ · 。ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆

After an hour and a half of making the object of her affection blush, Mya decides to have lunch with her mother at their favorite spot, Shoney’s.

As the chimes on the door ring, her mother looks up from her coffee and motions her over.

“Hey, baby.” She greets her daughter with a kiss on the cheek as she files into the booth seat, removing her jacket.

“Hey, ma. Man, it’s chilly out there today.”

“That’s why I texted you about a jacket even though you swear you don’t get cold.”

“Well, if I tell you that you’re right about me being cold, you’ll just gloat about it until you die so, no. I’m not cold.” She blinks.

“You are your father’s child.”

“That’s what the birth certificate says, yes.”

“Anyways, I brought you here to talk about all of your success, thus far. I’m very proud of you. How do you feel?”

A genuine smile spreads across her lips.

“Thank you! I’m so happy, honestly. I knew Savannah believed in me, but I won’t lie and say that I knew this was coming!”

“The Gold Ball is definitely a once in a lifetime experience, but you deserve it! You’ve been working hard for the past three years at Abstraction. It’s about time that your hard work paid off.” Her mother stresses.

“Yeah, I’ve heard that a couple of times. I believe it, I’m just still processing it all.”

“Well, good. Now, do I get to hear about this boy that’s got you all giggly, yet?”

 Mya sighs, knowing it was coming.

“All of a sudden, I’m hungry. I’ll be right back.” She gets up from the table and heads towards the buffet line to fill her empty stomach.

With her mother being the relentless soul that god put her on earth to be, she heads over and behind making her own plate, all the while poking for information.

“Oh, come on! I’ve been patient with you, Nicole.”

“Ma, not the middle name. Don’t be dramatic.”

“I’m not being dramatic. You’re holding out on me.”

“I just wanna eat, ma. Let me eat and then I’ll tell you. Okay?”

“Fine.”

Twenty minutes, an entire rundown and a full stomach later…

“He sounds like a good ol’ southern gentleman. Is he cute?”

“Ma,” Mya grabs her phone off the table and goes to his contact picture. “Cute isn’t an accurate description.”

Sharing the phone, her mother’s brows lift. “Oh, wow. He’s one beautiful man.”

“I know!” She agrees with her eyes closed, making her laugh.

“So, you really like this one?”

“I’m starting to, yeah! Besides him being pretty, he’s such a sweetheart and he’s a computer nerd like myself. What more could a girl ask for?”

“Babies.” She answers.

Mya almost chokes on air.

“Huh?!”

“What?? I’m not getting any younger.. neither are you.”

“I’m only twenty-seven. I’ve got time, and your first candidate for me shouldn’t be a man that I’ve only known for about a month! Relax a little, please.”

“Is he going to the seminar, as well?” She asks, completely ignoring her daughter.

“Yes.” She purses her lips together, not letting it slip that he was also invited to the Gold Ball, knowing her mother would just get amped up all over again.

“Well, you’ll have some eye candy while you listen to those white people tell you about success.” She snorts.

“And you said my father was harsh on white people,” Mya laughs. “I think you took it over, ma.”

“Your father is a fool.”

“That’s a conversation for another day.”

☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.☆:☆: .☽ .☆: .☽ · 。ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆

“You guys!”

Taylor kisses Mercedes’ and Mya’s cheek before sitting in the available seat, slinging her jacket over the back of the chair.

“Usually, I’d say you’re being dramatic with the kisses and shit, but it has been a minute.” Mercedes comments, sipping on his long island iced tea.

“It really has! I missed y’all.” Mya chimes in.

“Mhm. You been all hugged up with strong arms. I might even be a little jealous.” Mercedes says, making Mya’s cheeks flush red.

“Jealous? I thought you and Mark were kickin’ it?”

Taylor snorts. “Mark was just that. He couldn’t even protect ya girl!”

“I missed something??” Mya asks, both of them nodding at her, quickly.

“Chy, how ‘bout we went to the movies, last weekend and this big mountain of a man gets in ol’ boy’s face, tryna check him on some I’m more of a man than you are type of shit and Mark just stood there. Now, you know me! I was like you ain’t gon check him?? He lookin’ at me like it was my fault, cause then they start goin’ at it and that big bitch started callin’ me out my name and the motherfucker still just stood there! Lookin’ like he was about to fuckin’ cry. So I left.”

Mya’s jaw was on the floor.

“You gotta be kidding me! Has he tried to contact you?”

“Several times!” Taylor laughs.

“It’s not funny, Tay! That shit was embarrassing.” Mercedes grumbles. “But, yeah, so I’m single again. Maybe, for a while longer cause that was just too much for me.”

“Man, I’m sorry I missed that. I’m sure you could’ve used an extra shoulder to lean on,” Mya frowns. “Maybe, an extra crowbar.” She cracks.

“Girl, you’re fine, I want you to enjoy all you can of ol’ thick neck. When do we officially get to meet him, by the way?”

“As soon as you can call him by his name.”

“We know his name, girl. Mister muscles!”

“You play too damn much, Cedes. But, uh… how about this weekend? We can all go out for drinks or something.” Mya suggests.

“Ooh! There’s a new spot, uptown!” Taylor snaps her fingers, trying to pull the name of the place out of thin air, “Flavor! It’s so cute. They got great food, an open bar,” she nudges Mercedes, “and a lil common area, if you wanna dance a little.”

“Sounds like the spot!”

“I’m down.”

“What time? Seven sound good?” Mya asks.

“Yeah, that should be fine.”

“I’m so excited to harass your man.” Mercedes rubs her hands together like Birdman.

“Two things. One, he’s not my man,”

“Yet,” they both chime in, cracking up.

“And, two!! Don’t embarrass me, please.”

“We would never,” Taylor smiles.

“Oh, boy.” She shakes her head.

“No, but seriously, how are things with him?”

“He’s so dreamy, you guys.” She gushes. “These last few weeks have been some of the best. We just sit and talk or we’ll go dancing or we’ll take a walk in the park or we go out to eat— did I mention that he’s fine!?”

“We’ve seen his hunky ass, girl!” Taylor nods. “That’s so cute! You deserve it, honestly.”

“Yeah, those duds you were runnin’ with, back in the day couldn’t even hold a candle to Isaiah.” She smirks.

“It’s so refreshing to hear you not call him swole arms.” She playfully rolls her eyes. “And thanks, girl. Them whores weren’t good for anything besides a dick drop off.” The trio crack up.

“Hell, at least they could do that right!”

“That, they did.” She snorts, the memories flooding back to her brain, making her shiver a little. “Whew!”

“You stupid, man.” Mercedes pokes her in her side. “But, you just tell swole arms that we don’t play bout our Mya paya, okay?”

“Got it.”

☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.☆:☆: .☽ .☆: .☽ · 。ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆

Sitting across from one another in the dimly lit ice cream shoppe, the pair share a double scoop of vanilla and good conversation.

“They’re gonna tear me up, aren’t they?” He asks.

“I told them to behave, but Mercedes takes that as a challenge.” She shakes her head, eating a spoonful.

He laughs.

“Well, they’re just making sure you’re in good hands.”

“And, am I in good hands?” She questions.

“Like Allstate.” He says, making her giggle.

“I knew it was corny, but I like making you laugh.” He smiles.

“It was cute,” she laughs, eating another spoonful. “Like you.”

“Damn, that’s a bump down from pretty.” He frowns, pretends to be hurt.

“Aw,” she sits her spoon down and rubs the back of his hand. “You are pretty, 'saiah!”

“Mhm.” He plays with her fingers. “Not as pretty as you.”

“I don’t know,” their fingers intertwine, “I think you have me beat.”

“No, no. I’m only this pretty with some scruff on my face. You’d change your mind if you saw me without it.”

“Shut up,” she laughs, “you mean your beard?”

“It barely qualifies, since it's growing back in.”

“C’mere lemme get a better look.” She motions him towards her, so she can take a closer look at his handsome face.

She chances, softly gripping his chin, and turning his face in her hand to better inspect him.

“Looks good to me.”

“Yeah? Come a little closer.”

She obliges, chewing on her lip. Their faces are just a few inches away from each other. Squinting, she nods, grazing his “scruff” with her thumb.

“Still looks good to me.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,”

Grasping her chin with his free hand, he closes the space between them, kissing her like he’d been wanting to all day.

Melting into the kiss, their lips mold together as if they were long lost lovers.

Pulling away, he licks his lips. His hand still cupping her chin, her eyes reopening to find him already looking at her.

It was her turn to be flustered.

“What was that for?”

“I’ve wanted to all day. Thought it was the right time.”

“Hm… your timing is impeccable.”

“Yeah?” His brows raise.

“Mhm.” She smirks.

“Another pat on the back for me?”

“Shut up,” she laughs.

☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.☆:☆: .☽ .☆: .☽ · 。ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆

Sprawled out on his couch, the pair sit up under one another, watching a movie.

“Are you comfortable?” He asks, his hand is at the base of her neck, strumming soothing circles with his fingertips. She’s nestled comfortably between his legs while his heartbeat drums a lullaby against her ear.

“This TV’s gonna be watching me in a minute,” she says, her eyes getting lower and lower. His low chuckle vibrates through her before she continues. “I saw my mama today, by the way. We talked about you.”

His ears perk up at the new information.

“Oh did you, now? What y’all say?”

“Said you're cute, you better treat me right and then something about grandchildren.” The end makes Isaiah sputter out a cough, and she barely conceals her laughter. “I’m not sure, I kinda tuned her out at that point.”

“Well, she doesn't have to worry about me treating you right, I'd be an idiot not to,” he says, tickling her neck, making her immediately scrunch up.

“Stop!,” she squeals, reaching back to smack his hand, “she also said she’d like to meet you. I politely told her to slow her roll.”

“I don’t know, mama. I think I’d like to meet the lovely woman that raised my favorite girl.” Her cheeks heat up, and she’s grateful she isn’t facing him.

She faux muses for a moment before responding. “Well in that case, I may be able to get something arranged.”

The conversation makes Isaiah aware that he needs to spend some time with his own mother. He makes a mental note to call her come morning.

The rest of their evening is spent with more playful teasing between binging reruns of Living Single.

☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ.☆:☆: .☽ .☆: .☽ · 。ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆ﾟ☆: .☽ . :☆

Isaiah makes good on his promise to call his mama that following morning as soon as he settled in at work. They made plans to meet up with each other that same day during his lunch break.

“I’ll miss you, swole arms. We’ve been having lunch together for months now.” Mya jokes before they part ways for the hour.

“Wait, what—” he stops mid thought before answering his own question. “Mercedes and Taylor, huh?”

“Mercedes and Taylor,” she confirms with a laugh.

“You know I haven’t officially met those girls, and I don’t think I like ‘em too much,” he teases with a laugh.

“They’re harmless for  the most part. Anyway, have fun with your mama. I know she misses her boy.”

“Thanks, Mya.” He catches her off guard by stealing a quick kiss to her lips while there are no eyes on them. 

By the time she can get her bearings, he’s gone, and she has to flush the blush away from her cheeks before anyone could grill her about it.

A five minute ride later, and Isaiah is seated across from his mother at Lorraine’s, a soul food staple in the neighborhood.

They’re catching up over fried catfish, greens, and yams.

“Honey, I thought the Lord was gonna come down on his gold chariot and snatch us up before I got to see my baby,” she teases.

He can’t help laughing at his mother’s dramatics. “I know it’s been a minute since we’ve seen each other, mama. I’m sorry.” He puts his free hand over hers, having genuinely missed her.

“Oh baby, it’s alright. I know you’re at that big, fancy company living out all your dreams and making your mama proud. I couldn’t ask for more from you.”

Emotions he didn’t plan on feeling on a Friday afternoon caused his throat to become tight. He cleared it, gently squeezing her hand. “Yeah,” he agrees softly, so his voice doesn’t betray him.

“So,” she starts, switching topics, “tell me more about this girl you were going on about earlier. Mya, right?”

“Yes, ma’am.” He smiles with his whole face.

“Hmm. The way those eyes lit up like Christmas when I said her name just now tells me she’s special, ain’t she?”

“You can definitely say that.”

“Special enough for a couple grandchildren? You know I just hit 35 and the clock ain’t tickin’ backwards.”

He’s so stuck by that “grandchildren” word, he completely misses that she subtracted roughly 15 years from her actual age.

“Boy, close your mouth before you catch a fly. I��m just messing with you. A little bit.”

“Mama, you are entirely too much. Let me get to know her first, maybe learn more than her favorite flower, before you start talking about kids.”

“Fine,” she says, rolling her eyes jokingly. “But tell me what you do know about her.”

“Well,” he takes a moment to gather his thoughts together, “she’s so pretty, mama. I tell her that all the time. Maybe too much, but she doesn’t seem to mind. She’s really sweet. I mean, give you a cavity kind of sweet,” he pauses, chuckling at how corny that sounded, even to his own ears. “She makes me laugh.”

“Honey, you laugh at everything.” He’s interrupted by his mother’s gentle observation. 

“I know that, lady. But with her, it’s a deep, from the gut kinda laugh, ya know?”

She acknowledges her son with a nod, silently encouraging him to go on.

“And she’s really talented. Like, an out of the box type of talented. And ambitious. Crazy ambitious. All the time, she tells me the things she wants outta life, and I’m watching her get it in real time. I love that.” 

“Well, she’s already a country mile ahead of that last one, I tell ya that. What was her name again, Jezebel?”

He almost loses the sip of lemonade he took.

“It was Janaé, mama.”

“Ain’t that what I said? Anyway, that thang had your nose open like 7/11. I was starting to worry about you, boy.”

“Well, I like to pride myself on making better decisions now, mama.”

“Thank the Lord for small wonders,” she continued to tease him.

“I’m starting to question whether or not you love me, old lady.”

“Oh cut it out. I’m just teasing. You know I love my baby,” she says while pinching his cheek.

“Come on now, ma.” He gently removes her hand from his face, chuckling.

She sighs, looking at how happy her son looked at the moment. She debates whether or not she should relay the piece of information that could prove devastating for his progress.

“What’s on your mind, mama?” he asks before she can decide.

“ I wanna talk to you about something.”

“Is everything okay?” He sits up in his seat, concern already etching its way into his features.

“Everything’s fine. Don’t you worry.” She takes a moment to carefully choose her words. “It’s about your father.”

As soon as the sentence leaves her lips, all trace of emotion falls from his face as he sits back and downs the last of his drink.

“Hm. He finally die?” he asks coolly.

She knows she shouldn’t have been taken aback by such a response, but she found the sharp turn of his mood to be slightly jarring, even now.

“No, that’s not it.”

“Evil never really does die, I guess,” he says with a shrug.

“So what is it?” His gaze stays focused on the view outside of the large window, a technique learned in therapy to keep himself grounded.

“He’s been asking about you. Asking to see you. I wanted to give you a head’s up beforehand.”

“A head’s up?” he bites back a laugh. “I'm not gonna kill the man.”

Not that he’s never considered it.

March-ish, 2006, Dallas

A fourteen-year-old Isaiah polishes off the last of his breakfast, placing his dishes in the sink before heading off to Lincoln Jr. High. His mother isn’t there to see him off once again, having had to work her fourth double this week at Halifax Memorial Hospital, while his father had never seen him off, not once.

Third period English rolls around, and he receives a recent term paper face down. A big, red D is at the top right hand corner with a note saying “See me after class”. He sighs, rolling his eyes to the ceiling.

The bell rings, and his classmates file out, but he lags behind.

“Come sit down.” Miss Braxton motions to the empty seat nearest her desk.

He follows her instruction and plops down into the seat.

“Care to explain this unfocused, uninspired, half-attempt of an essay you decided to turn in?” she says while looking over the rim of her glasses.

He replies with a shrug of his shoulders and a barely audible “I don’t know.”

“Listen, I expect this kind of work from some of my students, but not you, Isaiah. I’ve seen what you’re capable of, and this,” she picks up the paper, waving it slightly for emphasis before continuing, “is nowhere near close. Remember, I’ve been your teacher since you were little, in the first grade always asking me for a new book to read. I see you doing big things and this lackadaisical attitude you’ve taken on isn’t going to get you there.”

A silence falls over the room as her words take a moment to run through his head.

“Um, imma be late for fourth period, so I gotta go,” he says, wanting to run far away from this conversation.

“You’re free to go. Don’t forget what I’ve said, okay?”

He nods, booking it for the door.

Harshly, he wipes at the tears just making their way down his face. He curses himself for his feelings.

“Well, if it ain’t my favorite punk ass bitch. Doing what he does best. Fuckin’ cryin’.” He’s greeted by the school bully, Darius, a thorn in his side for almost a year now.

“Your daddy ain’t teach you how to be a man yet? Oh I forgot, you don’t even know who the fuck he is. Just you and your mama. I see why you’re such a bitch.”

“Darius, don’t fuck with me today,” he warns, trying to get past the boy.

“Or what?? You gon’ run and tell mommy on me? I’m so scared. Fuck outta here,” the bully retorts, blocking his path and pushing the smaller boy in the center of his chest.

Without much thought, Isaiah cocks his hand back and clocks Darius directly in his eye. The blows don’t stop once he’s down though. He continues to rain blow after blow to his face while he’s crouched over his fallen form shouting profanities the entire while.

It takes two grown male teachers to finally pry him off the boy. He needs to be damn near dragged to the principal’s office.

His mother is less than pleased when she’s called out of work due to her son practically mauling the school bully.

Little did she know, that was only the beginning…

He sighs, coming back to the present moment.

“I didn’t think you would, son. I just thought it might be helpful to know,” she responds, to which he simply nods.

“Listen, whatever you decide to do, baby, mama’s got your back.” 

She places her hand over his and squeezes, which causes him to look back at her. He softens immediately, seeing his mother’s eyes shine with nothing but love and concern for him.

“I know.”

“Good.”

He uses the drive back to the office to compose himself into the man that his coworkers recognize.

Mya notices something off when he walks back into the office. To the untrained eye, he looks fine, but there’s a look in eye that she can name, being all too familiar with it herself.

After a meeting she could barely pay attention to,  she’s at the end of her workday, still consumed by what could be wrong with her normally cheerful coworker.

Deciding not to press him about it, she instead extends an offer to spend the evening with her.

“Hey,” she gently catches his attention as he’s walking toward the large, glass double doors.

He turns, giving her a smile that doesn’t quite reach his eyes.

“Hey Mya. What’s up?”

She shifts her weight, almost feeling nervous. 

“Yeah, I just wanted to ask you if you wanted to come over to my house...if you could use the company. I know I could.”

He doesn’t answer right away, and she feels her heart start to sink. 

Seconds later, though, she’s gifted a smile much more genuine than earlier and she visibly relaxes.

“I’d love that.”

Extending his arm to her, she accepts, linking them together as they walk out of the building.

 A smooth playlist curated by Mya plays in the background as the pair lounges on her porch swing.

She’s upright while Isaiah's head is in her lap.

There are no words spoken between the two of them, but the silence is comfortable. 

She uses her slippered foot to softly rock them.

His eyes are closed while she runs her fingers through his soft coils.

Her gaze, however, is focused on the group of little brown girls across the street who are out playing jump rope.

The clack of their beaded hair, coupled with their laughter brings about a feeling of warmth.

“What is it that makes a man not want to be a father?”

Her eyes darted down toward the man in her lap, whose eyes are still closed.

Her fingers continue their relaxing pattern across his scalp, unsure of how to answer that.

He continues, “It’s like they don’t know or don’t fuckin’ care about the broken pieces they leave behind when they do that. And you know what the cold part about it is?”

She remains silent, knowing the answer is coming.

“He’s not even responsible for fixing the shit. Making sure I never turned out like him was 100 percent up to me. Tell me that’s not fucked up.”

He goes quiet for a moment, but she doesn’t feel compelled to break it.

She’s stunned by this new piece of him that he’s shared with her with no provocation from her.

“My father wants to see me. Wants to talk,” he finally reveals after several more moments of silence.

“How do you feel about it?” She asks cautiously.

There’s a pause before he responds, “I don’t know.”

“Well… until you know how you feel about it, I wouldn't make any final decisions. Process it first, you know?”

A sort of huffing sigh leaves him, before silence takes back over.

The slight, late October breeze blows over them, lightly tousling her hair across her face.

She removes the random strands, still maintaining her rocking with her foot.

“How would you handle this situation?” Isaiah asks, his eyes now open and looking up at her.

Not answering right away, her rocking stops. Instead it turns into a steady bounce with the opposite foot, as she tries to conjure up words for a moment such as that.

“I wouldn’t know. I haven’t talked to my father in years. Guess I’d have to process it, too.” She laughs, but it’s far from humorous.

Her eyes stay trained on the pastel numbered boxes from the hopscotch game the girls had played earlier, keeping her emotions at bay.

“Sorry. I didn’t mean to make this about me.”

“You didn’t. It’s okay.” He sits up, his softened gaze on her reddened face.

“I guess we’re more alike than we realized.” He offers a laugh, which she returns. Yet, her slight frown gives her away.

“I’m sorry you have to go through this. It ain’t right.” She shakes her head.

“It’s not your fault, don’t be sorry. I’m just glad you listened. That was tough to share.”

“I understand.” She finally looks in his direction.

The lingering emptiness in their eyes mirror one another, making them feel far too vulnerable.

“Can I take you up on that hot toddy you were talking about?” He asks.

She laughs, holding out her hand for him to take.

“I thought you’d never ask.”

[stressed-and-fluff-obsessed]

I live for Lee pomni and lee ragatha and jax OMGGGG the jester needs to get wrecked go ham write anything mwuahaha

Alrighty!

I’m guessing you meant Lee Pomni and Ler Ragatha and Jax?

De-Stressing

Small C.W: Swearing (it’s censored though), gets a lil intense at the end

Summary: Having just appearing in the new Digital World Pomni’s new friends Ragatha and Jax help her take some of the stress off her shoulders

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

It was active in the circus tent today, everyone was doing something surprisingly. Kinger, Gangle and Zooble were talking with each other, likely about Caine’s last adventure.

Caine and Bubble were planning a new adventure and Ragatha was reprimanding Jax, apparently the purple rabbit had slipped a fake centipede in her hair, she was not too happy about that.

And as for Pomni, the poor jester was wandering around with a paranoid look on her face, hands wrung together and her eyes wide in caution, the girl was practically a walking ball of fear and suspicion.

Although you couldn’t blame her, she’d just survived Abstracted Kaufmo’s attack and she still seemed a little traumatized from that, it was her first day after all.

“Jax you can’t keep doing that!” Ragatha told the rabbit, smacking him on the arm to get her point across. “It’s fine Dollface! It’s just a bug~” Jax taunted with a grin before fishing another centipede out of his pocket making the girl jump back with a scream.

“Jax!!” Ragatha yelled at him making him laugh, “Yohou should’ve seheen your fahahace!” Jax laughed at her and she huffed, crossing her arms over her chest. She was getting ready to yell at him again when he suddenly rushed forward and covered her mouth with one of his hands.

“Mmh?” Ragatha made a confused noise and shoved his hand away, “Look.” Jax commented, pointing over to Pomni who was walking around, jumping at every little startling noise.

“What’s up with her?” Jax questioned, watching as she walked around the tent. “I’m not sure why don’t we go ask her.” Ragatha replied, walking over to Pomni with Jax in tow.

“Pomni?” Ragatha asked as she approached the jester, Pomni yelped, jumping a few feet away from the pair and watching them with wide eyes. “O-Oh it’s you two, s-sorry..” Pomni trailed off.

“Y-Your name was Ragatha right?” Pomni asked her and she waved, “The one and only.” Ragatha joked, hoping to bring up her spirits a little and was happy to see a small smile lifted in her face.

“A-And you’re Jax?” Pomni asked, turning towards the purple rabbit who held up a peace sign with a grin. “Alright well, what are you two doing here?” Pomni asked them once more and they exchanged glances.

“We came over to check up on you New Stuff, you’re walking around looking at everything like it’s going to jump out and bite you.” Ragatha explained, “Well at this point if something did I wouldn’t be surprised.” Pomni deadpanned making both of them chuckle a little.

“Loosen up a little kid, we don’t bite.” Jax told her, smiling and placing his arms behind his head. “I don’t think it’s that easy.” Pomni told him and he shrugged, “Sure it is, your posture’s all coiled up, let me help with that.” Jax told her and pulled a roach out of nowhere and threw it at her.

“Jax!!” Pomni and Ragatha shouted simultaneously, the little jester jumping back and scurrying to Ragatha’s side as the bug scuttled off.

“Jax that’s not how you help someone loosen up!” Ragatha reprimanded him again and he only shrugged once more, “You people are boring.” Jax commented and Pomni shot him a wary glance.

“I’m gonna go back to my room.” Pomni remarked, leaving Ragatha’s side and heading towards the large staircase that lead to the rooms. “Alright have fun!” The doll called after her but she made no signs of acknowledgement.

“Don’t get lost on your way there!” Jax called and Pomni snickered a little at the sound of Ragatha smacking him again and a halfhearted “Ow Dollface!” From the rabbit.

~*~

Back in her room Pomni sighed and collapsed on her bed, lying on her back and looking up at the ceiling. “What should I do?” Pomni thought to herself, she didn’t want to shut them out they were trying to help, well..Ragatha was.

She didn’t want to keep pushing them away but still this whole thing was so surreal. They’re trapped in this digital world with no way out, what kind of luck was that???

Pomni sighed and rolled onto her side, thinking. “What can I do to help myself calm down..” Pomni thought and looked at the items in her room. A few blocks, some bells, and ah! She had crafts! She could do that, those usually helped calm her down when she was still in the normal world.

Pomni pushed herself up and walked over to her dresser where a ball of yarn and two needles sat, she always loved knitting. The jester picked them up and walked back over to her bed, sitting down and wrapping the yarn around her fingers and beginning to knit, this would do it.

~~~~

“JAX!!” The other circus members watched in confusion and slight concern as Ragatha chased Jax throughout the circus tent, the rabbit had apparently put centipedes all over her room and also slipped one down her shirt so when she finally got it off and went to her room to shower she was in for a surprise.

She was currently furiously chasing him while he was running backwards laughing and making faces at her. “Jax just wait till I catch you!” Ragatha yelled at him and he laughed it off.

“Oh no I’m so scared what are you gonna do? Tell me to stop?!” Jax yelled back at her, and she growled frustratedly at him before picking up the pace.

At this point the only thing keeping Jax ahead and safe were his long a(Bong!)s legs as he also ran faster, trying to escape her grasp. “Now now Ragatha I’m sure Jax didn’t mean it.” Caine told her, suddenly screeching to a halt as the ringleader appeared right in front of her.

“Come on Caine don’t be silly this is Jax! Of course he meant it.” Ragatha told him and he looked back just in time to see Jax making a face at her. “Apologize Jax.” Caine told him and he folded his arms over his chest with a scoff.

“No way! Did you see her reaction when I did that? It was way too funny to apologize.” Jax told him and Caine only shrugged before floating out of the way and re-freeing Ragatha’s path to Jax.

The doll grinned as Jax’s face quickly became panicked before he bolted away with Ragatha on his heels. “GET BACK HERE JAX!!” She shouted at him.

~*~

Pomni was bored again, she was still understandably nervous and she had already finished with her knitting so what should she do now?

She supposed she could go down and see the other members again. So she pushed herself out of bed and started towards the door, opening it and stepping outside, closing said door and starting down the hallway.

She had gotten maybe about 10 steps down the hall before she heard pounding footsteps and unintelligible shouting making her stop in her tracks. Oh god what if it was another abstracted member??

She was about to bolt down the hall as the footsteps got louder but that was when Jax came skidding around the corner with Ragatha on his heels still. “Pomni!” Jax called out to her and ran and hid behind the little jester.

“Huh..?” Pomni uttered in confusion, looking up a Ragatha who was now staring at Jax hiding behind Pomni. “Jax what did you do this time?” Pomni muttered, turning around to look at him.

“Centipedes.” Ragatha stated and Pomni turned around to look at Jax after looking at Ragatha after her answer. “Sorry?” Jax smiled before jumping up and bolting again, both of the girls chasing after him in hot pursuit.

~*~

“What happened to Ragatha and Jax? I hope they’re okay…” Gangle spoke, wringing her ribbon hands together nervously. “Did you say something about an insect collection?” Kinger asked her, turning towards Gangle who replied with a sob.

“No she didn’t, she was asking about the doll and the nuisance.” Zooble told the chess piece and he nodded. “I’m sure they’re okay Gangle.” Kinger told the girl, placing a hand on her shoulder.

Then Caine floated over and caught their attention, “Have any of you seen Ragatha or Jax? I would like to make sure she didn’t kill him..” Caine trailed off with a laugh and they shook their heads.

“We haven’t seen them sorry Caine.” Gangle replied, but Caine waved her off, “It’s quite alright Gangle, I shall go find them myself!” The ringleader exclaimed before Jax came running into the large area where everyone was with Pomni and Ragatha close behind him.

“Well we seem to have found them.” Caine remarked, smiling as he saw those three partaking in an ‘activity’ together. “You…are a heathen….” Ragatha breathed out, grinning wide as Jax started snickering.

“Not my fault you guys are slow~” Jax taunted, “You feeling better new stuff?” Ragatha asked Pomni who looked as her feet. “I’m not sure yet.” Pomni murmured and Ragatha looked at her sympathetically.

Jax thought for a moment before getting an idea, he sauntered over to Caine and waved him down from his place in the air, Caine noticed this and floated down to Jax’s level.

“Caine I need your help here. Me and Dollface are trying to get the new kid to chill out but it’s not that easy, any pointers?” Jax explained, shooting a glance over at Pomni who was now chatting with Ragatha.

“Hmm…” Caine began, placing a hand on his bottom set of teeth in thought before snapping his fingers together. “I have an idea, if you would like to attempt it our dear Pomni is rather ticklish.” Caine told him, Bad. Move. Caine.

Jax’s face immediately lit up and his grin grew as he flicked his gaze over to Pomni. Oh this would be fun. “Alright thanks dentures.” Jax called over his shoulder as he began walking away and over to Ragatha and Pomni once more.

Jax walked up to Ragatha and pulled her aside to talk as Pomni wandered over to chat with Kinger and Gangle. “Hey Doll guess what I just found out.” Jax asked her and you could hear the mischief in his voice.

“Oh f(Sproing!)k do I even want to know?” Ragatha swore and he grinned wider, “Oh trust me this is something you’ll want to know, you know how we’ve been trying to get new kid over there to chill out?” Jax asked her and she raised a brow in confusion.

“Yes? What does that have to do with anything?” Ragatha asked him and he looked at Pomni and back at Ragatha, “Pomni’s ticklish according to Caine.” Jax informed her and her face lit up like his did, just without the mischief.

“Alright that changes the game.” Ragatha grinned and so did he as he meandered over to Pomni. “Come on Pomni, me and Dollface want to show you something.” Jax told her and she narrowed her eyes at him. “I don’t trust you.” Pomni commented and he jabbed a thumb behind him at Ragatha.

“She can back me up if you don’t believe me but this is something you’ve gotta see.” Jax told her and her expression softened as Ragatha nodded in confirmation behind Jax. “Alright then let’s go.” Pomni spoke warily and walked with Jax and Ragatha towards and up the flight of stairs that led to the bedrooms.

“You’re taking me through the living quarters?” Pomni asked them, clueless as to what was happening, Ragatha was on her left and Jax on her right as they walked, “Yep, you’ll see new stuff.” Ragatha told her if it was any reassurance, it wasn’t.

They got about halfway down the hall before Pomni noticed that Jax had disappeared from her right side, “Hey Jax is..gone?” Pomni trailed off as she felt Ragatha’s plush hand grab her wrist. “R-Ragatha..?” Pomni asked, fear seeping into her voice, what was going on??

“You’re gonna have to trust me here New Stuff, you’re not in any danger we just want to test something.” Ragatha explained and Pomni relaxed, okay this wasn’t so bad.

“Alright what are we testing?” Pomni asked her and the doll spun her around and pulled the jester into her chest before backing up till she felt her back hit the wall.

“Nothin big, just wanted to see if this was a sure fire way to help you chill out.” Ragatha told her and before Pomni could question what that meant she felt her friend’s fingers rest on her stomach.

“R-Ragatha?” Pomni stuttered, not entirely sure what was happening. “Let’s see if this works shall we?” Ragatha murmured to herself before moving her hands, scratching lightly and fluttering her fingers over the fabric of her jester shirt.

Immediately Pomni bit her lip and tensed up, “So Jax wasn’t lying…” Ragatha chuckled, moving over to trace ovet the jester’s sides, the featherlight touch making Pomni squirm, her shoulders shaking with suppressed giggles.

“S-Speheaking of JaHAX where is hehe?” Pomni pressed out , trying not to let many giggles slip through, “I’m not sure Giggles, guess we’ll have to wait and see.” Ragatha teased, “Whahat does that mehean?” Pomni asked her but she only shrugged, refusing to offer context on her previous statement.

Then Ragatha moved up again to flutter over Pomni’s neck and the jester let her head fall back onto Ragatha’s chest and scrunched her shoulder up, giggles pouring out of her like a faucet. “How cute!” Ragatha exclaimed making Pomni’s face flush red.

“Ihihim not cuhuhuhute!” Pomni giggled but her face told the doll otherwise. “Mhmm sureee.” Ragatha teased her, moving her hands again and very lightly raking her fingers up and down Pomni’s ribs making the jester flinch at the change but quickly settle and get used to the new sensation.

“Are you feeling better Pomni?” Ragatha asked her as she continued the gentle tickles. “Meheheheh..” Pomni still managed to sound sad even through her giggles.

“See now that’s proof you’re doin it wrong Doll.” Jax suddenly spoke up, walking around a non-existent corner. Now Pomni has seen Jax tickle others before, she’s seen how ruthless he could be so as soon as Pomni laid eyes on him she wriggled out of Ragatha’s grasp and bolted down the hall.

Quickly she heard Jax start chasing her and she broke out into panicked laughter, “Wahahahait Jahahax nohoho!” Pomni called behind her. “Gotcha!” Jax exclaimed, reaching the jester and picking her up from behind.

“Nohohohoho lehehet me gohohohoho!” Pomni giggled, thrashing and kicking her feet in his hold in an unsuccessful attempt to get away. “I hahaven’t eheven touched you yet kihid!” Jax laughed along with her.

“Buhuhut you’re gohohoing to!” Pomni argued and he shrugged, “Yeheah you’re right.” Jax replied and dug into her stomach as he carried her back to Ragatha causing the jester to kick and burst out into loud laughter, squirming a lot to try to get away.

“That’s not going to work Pomni~” Jax teased her, moving up to scribble over her ribs. “Be nice Jax.” Ragatha chuckled and watched as Jax tried to cheer up the now giggly jester.

“JAHAhahahahAX!!” Pomni yelped, still kicking her feet and even managed to hit Jax in the leg once or twice but being the tall a(Boing!)-hole he is he was mostly unfazed, continuing the playful torment in an attempt to make her chill out.

“Doing okay Pomni? You need a break?” Ragatha asked her, “Nohohohoho I’m fihihIHINE!!” Pomni jumped as Jax hit a particularly sensitive spot on her upper ribs. “Little sensitive there kid~?” Jax taunted her and she shook her head.

“Nohohohoho I’m nohohohot!!” Pomni protested but it fell on deaf ears as Ragatha started tickling her as well. The doll had walked closer and resorted to fluttering over her thighs, “Tickle tickle Pomni~” Ragatha teased and the jester snorted, shaking her head.

“Noho way you snort when being tickled?!” Jax exclaimed, a large grin playing across his features. “Nohohohoho I dohohohon’t shuhuhut the f(Bonk!)k uhuhup!” Pomni denied but Jax only shot Ragatha a look and she knew what to do.

She balled her hands into fists and kneaded her outer thighs and immediately Pomni kicked, yelping loudly with a snort before covering her face and giggling harder, fully expecting what Jax was about to say. “Soooo that’s a no then?” Jax teased and she reached back and smacked him.

“Shuhuhuhut uhuhuhup!” Pomni snarked, giggles turning to laughter as Jax’s hands moved higher to claw at her underarms. Pomni instinctively clamped her arms down effectively trapping Jax’s hands but the rabbit wiggled his fingers and she curled up on herself.

“Jahahahahahax!!” Pomni laughed, breath hitching and her laughter picking up as Jax pulled her arms above her head with one hand and whispering in her ear. “Get ready to laugh because me and Dollface here will make sure you’re cheered up.” Jax grinned and looked at Ragatha as a silent signal to go ahead.

Before Pomni could even question what that meant, again. She felt Ragatha actually tickle her this time, her balled up hands kneading into her thighs as Jax switched to scribbling over her ribs again.

Immediately Pomni broke out into loud laughter, thrashing about to try to escape them but her tiny body wasn’t much help. Ragatha would be concerned by how hard she was laughing if it weren’t for the fact that Pomni didn’t look uncomfortable at all, she looked happy, like she didn’t mind this whatsoever.

“RAHAHAHAGATHAHA JAHAHAHAHAX WAHAHAHAIT!!” Pomni cackled and they exchanged glances, “I’m not sure what we’re waiting for, do you Jax?” Ragatha remarked with a grin, “Nope! Unless of course Pomni is ready to admit that we cheered her up~?” Jax taunted and she shook her head.

“NOHOHOHOHO WAHAHAHAY!!” Pomni remained defiant although, she would admit that they did cheer her up, she was feeling a lot better but this was fun! It’s not everyday Jax and Ragatha got along even if it was at her own expense, but still she found this fun, but she was getting a little tired.

“Are you suree?” Jax grinned at her, moving up to re-attack her underarms, “OKAHAHAHAY I AHADMIT YOU CHEHEHEERED ME UHUHUP NOHOHOW LEHET ME GOHOHO A(Sproing)-HOHOLE!!” Pomni exclaimed and finally they stopped.

Ragatha retracted her hands and Jax placed Pomni on the ground as she stumbled right back into him as she looked up and glared at him, “Thihihihis is yohohour fahahahault! Yohohours tohohoo!” Pomni switched glances between Jax and Ragatha.

When she finally regained her balance and calmed down she turned to Ragatha with an eye for revenge. “Hey Ragatha, have you gotten Jax back for that centipede incident you told me about earlier today?” Pomni grinned and both of their gazes shot to the now nervous rabbit.

“Oh f(Bonk!)k you, but touché.” Jax muttered before taking off down the hall for what felt like the hundredth time today, Pomni and Ragatha following him close behind.

Well, at least they knew that method worked.

(Woah long one! I hope you liked it! I certainly did writing this one was fun! ^^)

[mar3ggiata]

professional help, c5. The shit plan.

simon riley x original character.

trigger warnings: violence, sexual assault, mentions of rape, trauma, sexual themes, swearing, use of alcohol and drugs, awful deaths.

song to listen to when reading this: Heartbeat, Childish Gambino.

abstract: hi this is Simon. okay, before you read this, I'm gonna say this once and never repeat it again. maybe she was right. don't tell her I told you, and don't you dare even remember anything I said in this stupid chapter.

He had thought about Jude quite a bit. He knew nothing about her, but she made an impression on him. She was interesting. He wanted to know if she was still angry at him, for what he said. He thought a lot if he had been too rude, and he always settled on a no. He had fun, played a bit, picked a little fight. He was sure she could handle it, she didn't seem like the type to get offended easily. But now he thought about her. He thought about how she was dressed, her grey trousers. He thought about the skin below her ear. That caramel coloured skin. She's from a sunny place. He thought about her hair. He thought about her soft hand against his rough one. Her small hand. Her grip was firm. He thought about her car, used, dirty Volkswagen Polo, dark grey. He saw her driving away from a window that same day. He thought about her eyelashes. He made it a mission to find out things about her. He wanted to know if she still lived in that apartment he saw a year prior, the layout of her house. Did she live alone? Maybe she had a boyfriend. How old was she? Knowing so little about this girl drove him mad. She had an intriguing presence, she was captivating. And she always seemed to crash important events. This time she didn't bother knocking on the briefing room door. She came straight in. This time she really looked like death. All black attire, long black coat that made her shiny blonde locks stand out even more. A doll. With a chainsaw. He had to repress his surprised face when seeing her. And seeing her so mad all the time really reminded him he had never saw her smile, just a little maybe. Price turned his head and he could feel from across the room his captain's heart skip a beat. Jude was the representation of bad news. Her eyes were fiery.

'He didn't show up', she said, not waiting for anyone to speak. In the room, apart from him and the captain, no one knew what the fuck she was on about. Then she looked at him. She looked at him and he tilted his head, he understood that look. 'I told you your plan was shit' look. In the awkward silence, he felt his teammates start to wonder what his business was with her. She wouldn't look away and his lips were starting to form a smile. We could stay like this all day.

'What do you mean he didn't show up?' asked the captain, raising from his chair. She wanted to scream. She wanted to throw the chairs in the room out the window. She blinked a few times, are we still having this conversation? 'I mean exactly what I said.' She gave them a sarcastic smile. She was annoying, Jesus Christ… 'I mean he was late for the session, I waited 15 minutes alone in my office, called him three times and after another 15 minutes decided I'm going after him. This is what I mean.' She was furious. So stupid. So ignorant. This is what you sign up for working in a male dominated field.

'You're going where?' This was Simon speaking, standing up as well. He earned another glare of contempt from her. 'I'm gonna see what direction he took from the CCTV footage and try to find him, wherever he is. It's what we should have done from the beginning.' She explained. 'We? What's going on?' Johnny stood up from the chair next to him. 'Hi, Jude right? Cool name', he added, not wanting to upset her further. Truth is, no one in the team knew about their plan with Arash, cause it just didn't matter, they had other things to worry about for Christ's sake! She looked around, finally understanding Price didn't tell anyone about their meeting. How could they think this wasn't important? 'Listen', Price began, 'Let's all calm down', he stated, before making his way to Jude, 'I'm gonna send my men, we're gonna find him and we're gonna bring him back, gentlemen!' He turned towards them, trying to regain control of the situation. 'Amir..'

'Arash!' Jude corrected.

'Arash, you're right, Arash Tehrani is probably not far from here, from what we've gathered he has something to do with our missions and why they were ambushed. I've spoken to Jude and suggested we would wait for him to speak to her during therapy and the fact that he hasn't shown up is a clear sign he's out there communicating with the enemy.' Jude was not impressed by his speech and stood with her arms crossed in the corner of the room. She almost caught Simon looking at her. 'Ghost and Gaz, you'll get a car and follow the direction that Arash took, look through the CCTV before you leave…'

Jude interrupted him, and frankly, ha quite hoped she would. 'I'm going with them'. Him and Price spoke at the same time 'You're not'. We're not out here playing spies. She didn't flinch. 'I am! I know my patient, let's say we find him and he's in distress. He doesn't know you, he trusts me. Plus, you owe me cause I was right all this time’. We don't owe you shit Jude, you need to calm down. He hated to admit it, she wasn't totally wrong. News flash, they had guns to defend themselves, but maybe a public space wasn't really the place for a gun fight. It was comic, it was such a weird situation. In all his years in the military he had never experienced something funnier. There was a new addition to the team eh? A stranger, a pretty girl with pretty eyes and very pretty legs that had nothing to do with this mission was going to help them solve the case. Wonderful. Straight out of a movie. He was in a car, his teammate beside him, not even full gear on cause he didn't have time, driving south, through the desert. In the backseat, Jude was sitting quietly like she did a year prior with her hands between her thighs.

Price had agreed, thank God. She had insisted quite a bit, she knew it was dangerous and understood his concern. She wasn't alone, Big Bad Ghost Guy and Handsome Brunette were with her, no? She was gonna be fine. Deep down, she was glad they let her come. They even landed her a bulletproof vest, too big for her torso, but still. She was going to get to the bottom of the situation, she was the one who started the whole investigation in the first place. And if they had listened to her, they would have saved time and probably got Arash already. She was snapped back to reality by Pretty Calvin Klein Model on the front seat. 'I'm Kyle' he offered his hand, turning backwards to face her. 'Jude, nice to meet you', she replied. Simon noticed she smiled. She smiled at Gaz. She shook his hand and smiled. He noticed her soft cheeks and the wrinkles in her forehead smooth in a relaxed expression. 'You're gonna tell us if you see him, 'kay?' he instructed, strapping his vest tighter on his chest. 'Sure'. They were passing by a few shops, some gas stations. 'How long have you been working here?' Gaz was really interested into making conversation hu? Simon was driving silently, his foot lingering on the brakes just in case he spotted something. 'Two years' she replied. Her tone was soft unlike when she had talked to him. Her voice was warm. Not really the time to get to know each other guys. Jude, of all people, you? The super serious psychologist who begged them to bring her on this man hunt, flirting with a soldier from the back of the car? It was me, Simon thought, who you got matching tattoos with in Ibiza. Ridiculous. A well renowned Lieutenant like him, forced to babysit two…

'The car!' screamed Jude, interrupting his train of thoughts. He quickly pulled up at the side of the road, right behind one of the trucks with the base logo imprinted on the back door. They had really found him.

notes: surprise!! it's not Saturday yet, listen to what I thought. Since some chapters are shorter than others, I will just post two times this week, and then keep it one time per week when the chapters are longer, genius.

notes: replies and reblogs are highly appreciated, hope you like this!!

love, mare.

taglist:

@ummmmmwat @ghostlythots @sweetfemmefatal @natxpat @chavarriakeren647 @ravenmoore14 @farther-than-pleiades @internallyscreamings @hwromi @atoxicrat @cuti3maddi3 @deafeningkittenblaze @its-celeste @serene-hills @lexidoll12 @poohkie90 @lunatiquess

@warmedbythebody @katzykat @iristhemuse @azkza @keiraslayz @abbyandermine @jennyjencakes @dest-nai @corset-briefs @nutze-kekse @ilytsukiw @b3anspr0ut

@pondsblog @missyouzoe @fallenkitten @bigauthorrascalturkey @bethtay @angelynn-nicole @starluv @stargirlisworld @giyuuslittleslut @impossiblecupcakelight

@rkrivees-blog @ghosts-hoe @kam1snotverysmart @gauky76 @freyjaaasstuff @spicyspicyliving @scottpilgrimvsmyfists @courtney0-0 @shinchanboi @darling006 @my-therapist-hates-me

[blu-ish]

💫Blu theory timeeee :D✨

Okay, not sure if anyone else has already said or thought about this but, I NEEDED TO WRITE THIS DOWN TO GET IT OUTTA MY SILLY HEAD AND YALL ARE COMIN DOWN WITH ME >:)

(Digital Circus Edition!!!)

LONG POST WARNING LMAO THE BRAINROT IS REAL SEND HELP 💀

Now that I've got your attention hehehe, lets take a momentary deep dive into the wacky world of The Amazing Digital Circus!

So lets review what we know from the pilot ep.

The world inhabits some sort of virtual reality.

Its completely run by AI, that being Caine, Bubble, and other artificial characters that seem to be spontaneously created by Caine at will. (For example the Gloink Queen, those wooden mannequins, ect.)

The human victims are transported to the "digital realm" when they put on some sort of headset.

The transition completely wipes their memories of their past lives.

When the human mind is clouded with existential dread, that being caused by loosing all sense of sanity at the realization of never being able to leave, the person becomes "abstracted" and aggressive.

This behavior not only affects the other "players" but the AI as well in some cases completely destroying them.

Caine is capable of fixing small abstractions (like Pomni and Ragatha) but unable to with a completely abstracted individual. Which seems to automatically cross their pfp on their respective doors and generate new slots for new players.

What we DONT KNOW as of when I'm writing this lmao...

Who built/programmed the headsets and why?

How are all these people getting possession of them?

Is it a company? A case of rouge AI? A tiktok trend gone wrong???

What happens to the victims originals body? Does anyone in the real world know what's going on??

How long has everyone been in there?? Does time work differently in the virtual world?? Does time pass at all??

DOES GETTING ABSTRACTED MEAN U DED??? Or is there a way to fix being abstracted?? (GIVE KINGER HIS WIFE BACK)

Now that THATS outta the way... lets move on to my theory.

I firmly believe Caine genuinely has no clue why humans are popping into the circus at all. I know this already has been debunked by goose but I just wanted to clarify.

He doesn't really understand human emotion, he is an AI after all, so he naturally lacks empathy. All he really knows is to keep the humans entertained, censor swearing, and be silly lmao. It's refreshing from the classic "grrr angy bot mad at hooman" stuff. NOT SAYING THATS WHAT HAPPENING BUT SPECIFICALLY FOR CAINE AND BUBBLE LOL. they just goofy fr.

It kinda reminds me of the generative AI, like whats going on today with ChatGPT or CharacterAI. Its a software that entertains the human by creating random means of conversation or environmental; storytelling. (Its so funny because I'm writing a paper about it in college, I personally don't support AI generative content but it's still very fascinating to explore how these machines work and function. And this is just a silly cartoon after all lmaooo.)

The reason I bring this up is because of the "Machine Learning" aspect of it. You see, generative AI nowadays is fed certain information from its human user, which then uses what knowledge its given in the input into the output.

This could be the reason why the "exit door" kept popping up. Because the algorithm is being fed information from its human users and the output being the existence of a "fake exit" door. The software is just trying to simulate what the humans want but cant physically do because as of right now, its impossible.

I also think this affects how humans are perceived in their avatars. Everyone has a unique look to them when they enter the circus, this could be caused by the AI reading whatever was left of their thoughts or feelings before entering the virtual world.

Ragatha is perceived as a doll, or some sort of child's toy. (she kinda reminds me of the ones I used to have as a little girl.) It could've recognized something she was fond of, or maybe how she perceived herself when she was human, maybe she saw herself at some point being toyed with mentally or perhaps she was in a situation were she felt like she had no control. Which is why she attempts to stay optimistic and see the brighter side of every situation.

Jax is some sort of anthropomorphic rabbit, (I like to believe his name is a play on Jack Rabbit lmao.) not sure why the algorithm would perceive him as a rabbit?? Since rabbits usually symbolize humility, kindness, and compassion. Which he is clearly NOT LMAOOOO. (then again it could be the software being ironic 💀)

But I think its more or less his mannerism's of his eyes and mouth. His teeth are almost always closed and his resting face is a sly smile. I adore the idea many have had of it symbolizing him "lying through his teeth". Which he could 100% be doing. Also, he seems the most unaffected human considering the situation he's found himself in, being trapped in a virtual world for eternity and everything doesn't seem to bother him much. (He rlly is winning the idgaf war)

Maybe he had to learn to be that way when he was a human, to just become "unbothered" by his crappy situations and turn them into a joke he could inflict onto others. Or maybe its just the way he is idk. He seems to be actively trying to get the others to hate him more then they're situation rn.

Then there's Kinger, who he and his wife has both been turned into chess pieces. Which actually gives us a lot of information about who they were or what they acted like. And their relationship to one another.

In chess, the Queen is the most powerful piece in the whole game, and she actively protects the king from the enemy pieces. As for the King.. wellll, not so much. Being the weakest piece in the whole game, and the most venerable without the queen or other chess pieces, it fits almost to a T. (Poor kinger...)

Maybe when they were humans, Kinger and his wife were clearly never really apart, maybe they had a silly date idea and wanted to try VR...

Gangle is interesting to me, she has different masks that show different emotions, and effectively cause her to change her mood drastically depending on which one she wears. (I mean we've only seen her with the sad mask on since her other one broke, maybe she's normally rlly chill??)

perhaps she normally bottled up her emotions when she was human? maybe the computer turned her into a delicate ribbon like creature with very breakable persona faces for this reason??

Zooble instantly reminded me of preschool, we used to have these shapes we could mix and mash together to create our own creatures. Their design is the most unique outta all of them, this could easily represent their mindspace or some sort of confusion they were going through when they were human. They just seem very DONE with everything lmao. mood.

As for Pomni, well, she's the reason I wanted to write the whole long thing hsjshss.

Her avatar is jester like, and a jester is known for entertaining guests of higher status. Could this have been what her job was like as a human. I know a lot of people theorize her job being an office job, and I completely agree. She could've easy felt as if she was just a jester forced to entertain or follow whatever her work life was like.

She's very nervous and rightfully confused after entering the world, wanted to leave immediately. But, I have to wonder, why would she even have a headset?? Better yet why did any of them put one on at all??

I think it was a form of escapism from reality...

That's what VR is in general right? A way to escape the real world. A virtual reality.

Maybe the humans were lulled into a sense of escapism from their troubled lives, paying taxes, dealing with bosses, family, emotions.. or maybe were just genuinely curious..

I mean the first thing people really said after watching the digital circus was how amazing it would be to just end up in a place were you could just do "fun things all day" or "not have to worry".

And I think that's exactly what the AI wanted and is trying to do.

LITERALLY.

We all know AI isn't the brightest.. all things considered. Its a machine, it takes things LITERALLY.

Caine is just doing what he is programmed to do. He doesn't know what's going on, maybe he doesn't even know WHY he's the ringmaster in all of this.

But someone DID create him.

Someone DID develop this generative virtual world.

The question is why?

[brockitty-goober]

The Amazing Digital Circus: Abstractional Power AU MASTERPOST 💗💗

i actually hate the name ‘Abstractional power’ but like.. it’s too late now 🥲🫠

I haven’t finished all the refs! but here you go :) :

I’m not Gangle x Zoobleing i swear

about this AU:

this AU is called a theater, yes, but I guess a jester and a ringmaster, a rag doll and a king, etc.- they don’t really fit in. It’s kind of a theatre, not really though I kinda just liked the name 🫥

I would love to make a separate AU with an actual theatre though,, DONT STEAL MY IDEA JUST YET,,,

Caine only has his eyes for show- so he can act like he’s really just one of them, still vulnerable. He can’t be abstracted even without the eyes.

who was the old ringmaster before caine?.. extra/secret/later/abstracted characters will go down here after they appear in the comic!

part 1

[ao3feed-izuku-midoriya]

Fire n Gold

Fire n Gold by allnamesitriedweretaken

The wall immediately to his right may as well be a giant bookshelf, with dozens of titles in just as many languages. They walk past short aisles filled with everything one could think of in terms of vintage items, photographs, dolls, postcards, jewelry, and one-of-a-kind oddities, reaching the cashier counter near the glass doors of the entrance, which was obscured from outside by a pretty, abstract noren he could swear looked hand-painted. The wall behind the counter was filled with an assortment of masks, intricate mirrors, and paintings, and Izuku would be almost tempted to say the shop looks like one of the tourist traps he'd seen before in Tokyo if it wasn't for the feeling of other that hung around the room from the moment he walked into it.

A chance encounter with a kind stranger tilts two destinies slightly to the left, maybe just enough that their paths are fated to intertwine, and there are more kinds of power on earth than those you can be born with.

Words: 4927, Chapters: 1/1, Language: English

Fandoms: Merlin (TV), 僕のヒーローアカデミア | Boku no Hero Academia | My Hero Academia

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: Gen

Characters: Merlin (Merlin), Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Inko, Bakugou Katsuki, Original Characters

Relationships: Merlin (Merlin) & Midoriya Izuku, Midoriya Inko & Midoriya Izuku, Minor or Background Relationship(s)

Additional Tags: Pre-Canon, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Quirkless Midoriya Izuku, Bullied Midoriya Izuku, Bully Bakugou Katsuki, Midoriya Izuku Needs A Hug, He doesn't get one, but he does get something, Immortal Merlin (Merlin), Aliases, Minor Injuries, Izuku's Elementary School Sucks Just as Much as Aldera, Minor Original Character(s), they're not even fully original, I just stole some kids from his middle school, but they're barely relevant anyway, Worldbuilding, just a little bit, One Shot, Concept Story, Quirkless Discrimination, implied, Neglected Midoriya Izuku, Magic Is a Thing, Work Up For Adoption

Read Here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43700992

[6okuto]

NIA THAT WAS AMAZING TY FOR ANSWERING MY KEIJI ASK 🫶🫶 and that bkak comic was so cute !!! pls tell me all ur thoughts on them Please 🙏 would love u forever if u did

Thank U Anon. love u. they're just niacore... the fluff! the humour! knowing each other completely! unwavering support! inspiring each other to be better! my cat and dog! ☹️

they're both vry comforting and lovely 2 me albeit in different ways, so Together. . .Wow. W-O-W. Stars Align Worlds Collide Heaven On Earth. put me in coach. furudate wrote them 4 me specifically 🫂

bkak hcs bkak hcs ouaghhh!!!

first and foremost. bkak rescued a cat together. Walk with me. the story me and my irl (summer) concocted long ago is that they saw a cat in a parking lot late at night and got vry worried !! bokuto is more outwardly panick-y and akaashi gets him to calm down (devastated inside) so they can run to the nearest pet store to get food... they go through the whole process of checking for a name tag + going to the vet etc but in the end !! they adopt the kitty!! YAAAY!! we never picked a gender or name or what it looks like or anything. i will have 2 ask my irls for ideas... if u have any Lmk.

^ they spoil the cat sooo much. SOO much the first day it's at their house they just watch as it explores and take so many pics... get a comfy bed and cat tree and treats and toys yeahhh spoiled baby. i know they were giggling over it having one of their last names btw. I KNOWWW 🙁

i really love the idea of bkak thrifting for home decor together actually. because u know they're gonna get something silly.. maybe start a little animal sculpture collection... a piece of abstract art they discussed for 15 minutes because bokuto swears he can see a giraffe in it and akaashi is stuck squinting confused. their place is really quite nice but there's these little things around!

bokuto asking akaashi to kiss him after each workout set as motivation 🥹 akaashi asking for a kiss after he's done reviewing another chapter 🥹

we must allow akaashi keiji to be a little weird. a silly boyfailure. WE MUSTTT WE MUST!!! bokuto knows this better than anyone... leans into akaashi's weird shirts and looks out for them when he's on trips... akaashi says something just so incoherent while he's tired and bokuto acts as a translator and or rubs his shoulders and chides him for staying up so late... yeah.

i know akaashi cooks for bokuto in the comic but 🥹🥹 bokuto trying to cook for akaashi as a surprise... puts on an apron, watches videos, reads recipes like he takes it Seriously! tries so hard and even asks osamu for help, so even if it isn't the best in the world akaashi thinks he might cry like omg 🙁

i think i've said this here before but. akaashi has so much access to official bokuto merch y'know. he's kou's #1 supporter fr fr and when kou gets him stuff for free he's like !!!! BUT! no akaashi merch :( ? this is devastating for bokuto... what does he do ? get custom pieces made of course. the pride and giddiness on his face while he wears his new sweater with akaashi's name. keiji's face is so red. BOKUTO GETTING A KEIJI DOLL. "now make them hold hands" "now kiss" yeahvyeah yehnayeau

akaashi broke his glasses once by accidentally falling asleep with them on so when bokuto notices he takes them off for him! and carries him to bed obviously.

rent a boyfriend with Bokuaka. Walk With Me. it truly works either way and in so many scenarios... one needs a date to a wedding? one was told to do so by a friend? one was drunk and said fuck it? the butterflies and tension... the confusion... being closer than they would be with a regular client... bumping into each other on a regular day... I love u bokuaka.

touches water and watches it ripple... bokuto inviting akaashi to play volleyball with him.... it's been ages since keiji's gotten to set... but then bokuto spikes and they remember what it felt like to play together.. and and amdnanffnff

here's translated versions of bkak letters that someone wrote. I actually felt my chest cave in before i found out it was a threadfic. IT HURTSOSBAD

and here's a bunch of art. for u. for me.

Twitter user 45__kk Means The World To Me. here are a few posts: one two three four five six. i could keep going. 45__KK U MEAN THE WORLD TO ME!!

this and this changed my lifoie.r. Thiswchsngemfylfirnd. and this

any art where akaashi wears bokuto's jersey... < This changed mylifr. It's over. Everybody Go Home. this one specifically has changed me forever. no joke. NOjoek. Ouggnggngn

MY LEG 😭

this video means the world to me. really anything where akaashi goes to bokuto for a hug. any. an. pelaspe.

MY FAWKING LEG

this art shifted something inside my soul 4ever

it can't be overstated what chengongzi123 has done for me. they don't do a lot of bkak anymore but they've changed my life forever. here's some: one two three four five six seven (< college au..)

i also love GyappiM... many sketches. Love my life. one two three

BARBIE! adore this artist too.

CATS 😭😭🫶🫶 national cat day.. Best day ever. MY BOKUAKA. yeah. can't scroll down enough on my twt to get more butbyeahh.

[lalunanymph]

𝐝𝐞𝐬𝐭𝐫𝐮𝐜𝐭𝐢𝐯𝐞 𝐝𝐞𝐜𝐢𝐬𝐢𝐨𝐧𝐬 — 𝐡. 𝐬𝐚𝐧𝐳𝐮

let my demons finally drown / let my body turn to stone / let my heart fill all the holes / that spread across all your skin / i'm so lovely / at making destructive decisions

tw. drug abuse, injuries to the reader, nightmares, injuries, swearing, past mistakes

a/n. had to get this out of my system bc damn sanzu didn't do anything wrong and the fact that he had such a bad childhood makes me want to wrap him up in a big hug that would probably end up with my guts spilling all over the floor + also this is officially the song for sanzu when he falls in love with us idk i don't make the rules

Haruchiyo Sanzu was a timebomb waiting to explode.

Ticking seconds, fast clicking minutes—one could never be certain of the potency of his next blowup and how far the radius of his destruction would carry.

It was probably two in the morning when you heard the sniffles, the low whimpers. Sanzu always slept like a log beside you, but something was different tonight.

Different because the man you had been seeing for the past three months was tossing and turning, low gurgles slipping past his scarred mouth and tears slipping down his cheeks like a free flow of diamonds.

You sat up when you fully realized what was happening; shaking him awake. Ice blue eyes rolled open and like the sun unfurling from its last bindings of night, they widened, the impressive graininess of his face sharpening to lucidity. Sanzu has always been a force to reckon and in this instance, he had all the grace of a tornado swirling through the room. The sheer magnificence gripped you by the throat as you watch him throw himself from the bed to chase a bottle of pills down to an abyss of discordance that would be louder than the memories burning behind his closed and wet lids.

Three—four pills clatter like constellations on his outstretched palm; a supernova waiting to devour him whole. He doesn’t count. He doesn’t need to.

You, on the other hand, measure every white circle with the same abhorrence an architect would have at the possibility of their prized creation falling apart in guaranteed destruction. For it will be guaranteed after he swallows them; after he is lost to the world.

“Haru, no—“

“Go back to sleep, doll.” His voice is rough, scratchy with unused emotions. “I’ll be there in a bit.”

He tipped his head back, ready to receive the first stirrings of ecstasy on his tongue when a hand wrapped around his wrist. In his surprise, the pills scatter to the floor; an angled abstraction from the denied hallucinations he yearned for like how a child would chase after a mother’s touch.

“Haru—“

You don’t speak. You can’t speak.

A perforating pain unlike any other sears through your side and you find yourself face down on the floor, palms catching on the hardwood. A merciless cry ripped past your lips and you instinctively lifted your arms to cover your head, the fear a second nature that seeped in like unwanted poison through your veins.

Tension spun around like finely fractured mirror shards, throwing light upon the horror in his eyes and the tremble on his lower lip.

“Y/N—“

Alone without another breath to expel, you stand, holding onto the bruising skin and the edge of the table that had partly caused it, as if it would fasten the lock that would keep you from falling apart. “Get out.”

“Doll—“

Your ears were bleeding with the agony of his excuses waiting to be embedded like thorns into your tender side. Your tongue was nothing more than an open wound and you dropped your face, unable to speak beyond get out, get out of my apartment, leave me alone, leave me alone, Haruchiyo.

The sound of his name—always a healing incantation coming from your lips—was now twisted and corrupted into a heinous monster, one that he finds no similarities with.

Like a little boy, he ran from you, hiding his shaky hands in his pockets, covering the tingling chokes that touch the throbbing scars around his mouth with the fabric of the black mask a ghost of his past once gave him. The imprints of the nightmares hold no candle to the horror that had just unfurled before him.

A ticking time bomb. That was what the shattered reflection in the mirror told him. But to you, he was the easing current of passing gentleness; a roof over a flashing storm; man and monster in one.

And like the worst draft of cold, he had stopped your carefree cadence into freezing debilitation.

No matter how much he willed time to consume him, to let him slip past its wicked undertow and back into the hereafter of your arms, it was never a jest companion. And time never gave you back.

Weeks passed without your name on his phone or between his teeth. He barely saw through faded blue lenses, always hoping, yearning, aching—

“Just talk to her.” A voice of reason in his deceitful fugue. Kakucho looked at him with tedious pity and Haruchiyo almost wanted to gouge his good eye out for even bestowing such sympathy onto a wrecked shadow of a man such as himself.

Instead, he held in his anger, clipped steps taking him to the nearest cemetery where he scooped up a burgeoning burst of pink that was left in the memorandum to a lost soul; now meant for his debasing exoneration from your harsh silence.

He had no excuse to return to your apartment; a no man's land that had a wider choice of directions to which his stumbling lost could never find a foot in. The knocks echoed—boom, boom, boom. But, no other breathing could be uncovered beyond his own.

Haruchiyo slammed his fist onto the hard barrier, hoping that by some miracle, you would be appeased and recall his presence and he would be graced by your smile. Your touch, your sweet scent.

(Has it all been a nightmare?)

Nothing brought you back to him. A blank end where every flitting burst of light from the overhead fluorescent lamp showed him the scars to his future. A coming of time where the seed of eloquence and warmth he planted in your hearth, mind, and body would wither and he would be faced with the deadened fields of his own misdoing.

His one chance to reach out to you was bleeding, as was his heart and eyes when he came to terms that you had meant what you said. That you wanted him gone.

It would’ve been better had you not been born. The voices flashed in his mind with a desolate timber, one that reeked of cigarette smoke and sanguine liquid dripping from the gunshot lodged almost tenderly into his sister’s chest.

The monsters loomed, not from the corridors of this low-cost hole but in the recesses of his mind; taunting and teasing him with all the sharpness of a broken toy’s wing.

“Y/N! Please, open the door,” he begged and pleaded, the flowers withering in his hands kindling a flame to his roaring, flayed soul. “Y/N! I’m sorry, okay? Please let me in. I don’t want to fight anymore. I need you. I… I miss you.”

The door cracked open and he was ready to fall onto his knees, every neuron in his addled brain rejoicing when the figure he so desperately craved to set his eyes on was smaller and stared up at him with wide open curiosity.

“Can I help you, mister?”

A boy—not much older than ten—gazed up at him with perturbed green eyes. Eyes he had never seen in his life. Anger coursed through him, hot and fresh and he almost lunged at the door, the betrayal coating his chest like a second skin yearning to be set aflame. Did you have a son and did not tell him? Did you lie to him?

But, all that came out from his ruptured throat was, “Y/N?”

“Miss Y/N?” the boy confirmed and gestured to the other door next to his. “She lives there.”

A ring of light reignited back in his soul and he thought he would have known where to find you just from thinking it over, but the drugs were a powerful persuasive force that was hellbent on barring him from you.

“Did you make her mad?”

Haruchiyo stopped in his tracks and bestowed his icy blue eyes onto a pair of curious, world-less ones. “Hey, kid. Let me tell you something.” A deep inhale. “Don’t ever do drugs in your life, okay? And don’t ever hurt a woman. S’not fucking worth it.” He doesn’t know why, but the words he yearned to hang upon your wall became a performer for this child instead, flowing outward with the ease of an unblocked current. “When you find someone worthy to keep in your life, make sure you hold onto them tightly and never let go, ‘kay? Don’t make the same fucking mistakes I did, kid.”

“You know, you’re not supposed to swear in front of children.”

His heart that had been dyed a monotone neutral lept into a universe of multi-colors at the cadence of your tone and he chanced upon your silhouette, a ghost of a smile tugging the corners of your lips.

He had longed to look at you, a lone key waiting for the lock to turn. Sanzu always sensed that tenderness and rot shared a border, the former a decaying force whose iridescence marked every chapter of his life. Despite how intimately he was acquainted with both of them, one was the corruption of everything he held holy and the other was his salvation in the form of your sparkling eyes.

Sanzu picked himself from the cold ground, a lump in his throat. You said no more and allowed him to enter your home, departing a friendly wave to the boy next door and closing the world off from the firm tension in this apartment.

You don’t get a chance to speak when his knees hit the ground and he shuffles over to you, arms wrapping around your waist and face pressed to the softness of your belly. All the mistakes he had made turned over in his muddled mind till he could no longer poke his eyes open to unearth the bitter taste of injustices that have been a constant companion to his weary soul since he was a young boy.

“I’m so sorry.” In this instance, he can’t even recall how those looming, gigantic judges appear, only cognizant of the film of tears in your eyes. Nothing seemed to bring back to him the throbbing memories of the past beyond the present and his future standing before him, silent and unmoving.

Like nails to a chalkboard, he expected you to devour him apart with your fury, but your hands burned away the flood that was threatening to swallow him; it would’ve been easy—like the same film over and over again—to evoke the rushing resentment.

But, you did neither of that.

“Don’t hurt me again.”

“Promise,” a scratchy ache redolent of a time when he was younger and had sworn to keep his severed lips shut to avoid a place between regret and warning. “I promise I will never hurt you again.”

Trembling fingers lifted the hem of your shirt where cold lips pressed to the disgustingly yellow bruise, kissing it down to the last of his digit’s imprints on the marred skin and he wept; wishing that the reel of his memories would cease and nothing could make them come to light ever again.

Your touch was gentle and almost careful, carding through his hair, glittering with forgiveness.

“I’m sorry.”

“I forgive you.”

You picked up the shambled remnants of a lost little boy that merged together with the outline of a man who thought himself to be unsalvageable and glued his jagged ends together again.

All with a sweet smile and a honeyed voice. “Let’s put this behind us, Haruchiyo.”

The thick smog clinging around his throat from the 120 hours you had spent away from him gave way and he choked out, “I love you.”

“I love you, too, Haru.”

© all works belong to lalunanymph. do not copy and repost

[watching-pictures-move]

Put On Your Raincoats | Between the Cheeks 2 (Dark, 1990)

In my review of the first Between the Cheeks, I noted that while objectification of women is unavoidable in straight pornography, I was put off by that movie’s refusal to define its female characters by anything other than the acts they performed in their sex scenes. This one is similarly objectifying, but at least it gives actual speaking parts to women outside the sex scenes. Maybe this speaks to my low standards for the genre in this respect, especially a production from the ‘90s when porn was getting a lot pornier, but I think that element goes a long way in alleviating my issues with the first movie. In both movies, the sex scenes are connected with goofy overarching framing devices, but the vibe here is a less demeaning towards the women, and more self-deprecating. We get a pimp telling us about his pimping philosophy ( "If you can't marry big money, this is the next best thing", "All I know is there's a lot of money to be made, and what better person to make it than me?"), only for him to be revealed as a mental patient convinced that the anus is where the soul lives. (He tells another patient played by Tom Byron not to go to the bathroom because his soul will leak out.)

Naturally what follows are a bunch of scenes that, as you can guess from the title, emphasize the “soul”, by which I mean anal sex. Now, without getting too graphic, I must note that there are two instances where, how do I say, the geography of the scene doesn’t make sense. In both scenes, let’s say that one thing is happening near the woman’s head, and another thing is happening near her waist, and the way the movie cuts between both occurrences suggests that they did not happen to her at the same time, despite them being presented as such. In most other pornos, I would chalk this up to technical sloppiness, but as this is a Gregory Dark movie, I suspect it might have been deliberate, a way to rub it in our face that people are watching this for one reason (except me, I’m watching it for intellectual reasons, I swear), and that logic or realism don’t matter, just keep the close-ups flowing. And I must concede that he probably has a point with this, given that the sex scenes here are consistently energetic and nicely complemented by the hard rock soundtrack. Given that the first one starred Ginger Lynn, it might be blasphemy to say this, but I thought the sex scenes in this one were way hotter across the board. (I should note that I’ve yet to be sold on Ginger Lynn, but have positive feelings about a few of the performers here, like Tianna, Bionca and Nikki Wilde, whose involvement in Party Doll A Go-Go! will always give them a place in my heart.)

I also think Dark’s deliberately cheap production design works a lot better here, as it allows the mise en scene to feel abstracted and stylish in ways that mesh nicely with the intensity of the action. (A frantic lesbian scene set on a pile of garbage feels anything but grimy.) I suspect the more purposeful use of lighting and colour play a role, as I recall the original had a consistently unappealing colour scheme. Dark also repurposes the interview framing device from his Devil in Miss Jones movies, but the effect is more obviously comedic, with characters offering alternating assessments of the hero’s character.

"I always thought he'd be a great science fiction writer"

"He was a real pervert, a sicko."

"He was a really nice guy. Warm, kind, loving"

Add to that a bunch of psychotronic montages, a steady stream of psychobabble and some amusingly daffy sex scenes (a guy dressed as a duck making quacking noises, a gangbang with aliens in tinfoil hats, bibs and speedos), and you have yourself a good time.

And for completist reasons, I also watched Between the Cheeks 3, which sadly was not stylized as B3TW33N TH3 CH33KS (the 3s would denote its place in the series, while also resembling the body part of interest). This one followed in the kooky vein of the second, but with a more repetitive framing device, slacker pacing and more generic soundtrack, I found it a lot less entertaining. I did laugh however when Brittany O’Connell, as the hero’s psychiatrist, diagnoses him with “rectal dementia”, which he imagines she treats with a threesome with two guys who come out of a giant beanbag anus, only for her to inform him that he had “a dream within a dream”. So there’s at least one good scene.

[adelar-ward]

I recreated the dorm from @hpowellsmith game “Creme de la creme” exactly as it looks in my head, and i’m very pleased with myself, yay! Locations i read about are never abstract for me, i always have a strong and consistent visual in my head, and i'm always happy to share it. It was before i realized that the bedroom is actually upstairs, oops.

So, each dorm is suited for 6 students. Six beds, six night lamps over them, six wardrobes (sorry for weird shadows, they're of the same color i swear). But either other dorms were full, or they were too empty, or lady R thought “oh well, it’s just for a few days anyway”, and they brought the 7th bed, placed it near the door, and assigned it to Blaise.

Beds assignment:

1. The one by the window is Saeran’s (my MC). What a pity that Blaise didn't want to share it, Saeran totally would. They don’t have many things in the open (also i couldn’t find anything fitting) but they do have a locket that has a sentimental value.

2. Beds that were pushed together are Delacroix’s (closest to MC) and Max’s. They gave one nightstand to Blaise and are using another one together. A lot of Delacroix’s magicional mysterical spellthingies on it, and they left a voodoo doll on the bed. Max’s things are disorderly stuffed inside the nightstand, also she smuggled a bottle of wine into the room and hid it from Hartmann behind Delacroix’s bed. When they'll empty it, they'll play spin the bottle.

3. The next one is Hartmann’s. His things are neatly packed in baskets under his bed and inside the nightstand, and an open journal that is perfectly lined up with the tabletop is the biggest mess he can afford. As a prefect, he should probably argue about Max and Delacroix pushing their beds together, but he doesn’t press the matter because he actually appreciates a little more distance from others, with all this stressed crying that he tries to pretend isn’t happening. Also, it’s probably pointless.

4. Poor Blaise who has nightmares didn’t even get a night lamp. I wanna throw fists for my baby. Also after Saeran shared their bed with Hartmann on winter holidays and woke up with numb limbs because these beds are too tiny for two people, they said "i think Max was onto something here, let's do the same and make ourselves comfortable" and pushed the spare bed to Hartmann's.

5. The bed by the second window is Freddie’s. He has cute postcards from younger siblings, a letter from moms, and a bottle of cough medicine sent by moms just in case. And a teddy bear because he’s a pure cinnamon roll. He does have a lot of books, but they’re inside the nightstand.

6. The utter mess and chaos next to Freddie belong to Gonzalez. She has Everything Everywhere, driving everyone in the room mad. A medal and cups for lacrosse, a picture of a team together, and a lot of stuff she only bothers tidying when others start yelling.

I’m painfully limited by sims furniture that is mostly modern and i can’t take decent interior pictures for the life of me, but i’m still happy because i looove creating visuals for characters and locations and sharing them with others.

I wasn't able to take a photo of a common room that will show the layout, so here's a pic from the ceiling.

If someone sees this, how did you imagine the dorm?

[paneerlajwanti]

please rant about your characters

i often think about how i came to create my characters. we call them original characters, but this originality, what makes it one of a kind? arent we all just blenders and mosaics of what we want and who we could be? of the people we loved and the places we found home? its in there. its all just lives woven together to form a being.

a heart too big that wants to be loved, or a heart that just pumps blood pretty regularly. palms with lines taking you some place, ornate rings on a finger that probably mean something, or hands that are just waiting to be held.

i think about how seemingly trivial details like a spiral bound notebook, reruns of an old show, an abandoned gmail account, a broken earring, and a shared waffle, and a beautiful nightmare could be the first domino to create these characters in my head who (obviously live rent free) let me love more, let me learn more, let me accept myself more, and understand myself more. its wonderful.

actual rant below. its going to be a long one. sorry. you dont have to read if you dont want to.

_____________________________________________________________

im just using this as an opportunity to actually do something about these characters, because a google doc scares me. i will actually rant about them here. that above was like the summary and abstract that you find on a back cover of a book that convinces you to buy the book and now this is the part where you read and are like confused about the iq of the author because how can someone yearn so hard but also have like half a braincell. hmm lets begin. god bless. xoxo.

ahaana & ashok:

author's note: well they are my first two characters were created as pure coping mechanism, i swear to god. its insane about how stupid how they came to be. ahaana and ashok (along with my online friends and fandom) were the only things that helped me get through 2017-19. they're like pretty close to my heart. i don't actually end up writing much, i don't need to, but in my head, im like a three year old in a play area. im in a doll house. ahaana and ashok are having the time of their lives with the kitchen set and they're playing doctor doctor. i don't need to write about them. i find comfort when im in that zone with them. that's cool.

description, stories and character studies:

ahaana is passionate, determined, and she is tough. she adapts to what life throws at her and it only makes her kind. she's my baddie. i loved how i fell in love with her character over the years, or her personality. she's my strongest babygirl. she dances. she is powerful with her speech. ahaana is my type. i shall not elaborate.

ashok, on the other hand, little shit, was literally created only to love ahaana. like ahaana was my first character ever. and then poof ashok popped up. i didn't even deal with him for months. for like the longest time, his designated role and duties were literally hashtag love ahaana. but oh oh oh my god, the way i projected on this lil shit. creating ashok has been the most healing thing ever. i was able to find comfort in myself when i thought of ashok. whenever i went story mode, ashok is whom i identify with, the character i root for and the person i relate to. he's precious. ashok is me. ashok is the character i project on.

ashika & lover boi (advait):

author's note: the second two characters were half loosely based on this insane beautiful/ish nightmare i had over a year ago. i woke up at 4:45 AM and had to rush to the phone and record it or talk to someone about it before it all flew away. it actually was insane. and i think its the only dream i have so much memory of. even now. i remember sending @cynicalities and @dragonwillow twenty two minute voicenotes talking about it. i do realize this is all an unintentional alliteration. i didn't choose their names to begin from the same letter lmaoo, but i guess i do have a story for choosing every name and its pretty sweet.

description, stories and character studies:

ashika feels like home. the kind of person who you would end up talking to on your bus ride home. im just gonna give you vibes. crayon drawings on the fridge magnet. a cup of hot chocolate and a hug from a friend. she loves to create ashika is the kind of person i want to be.

advait is the person whom i would fall in love with.

dakshayani & ratna:

author's note: they're pretty sweet. i don't do much about them, i just open their closets (pun intended) and add in some trauma and shake the box for better results. i don't choose the tragic backstory for them, the thug life writes itself lmaooo. theyre my regular rivals to enemies to reluctant allies to friends to lovers. its set in a fictional universe a few centuries ago. because swords and stuff. i got my priorities sorted like that hehehehe.

description, stories and character studies:

eh theyre pretty cool sword wise. earthy and water tones. i created them for pure indulgent purposes. and angst.

my characters are like dabbas i can put in my unresolved stuff on, or are like characters i possess to figure myself out, or are just like my guinea pigs to shower all my love onto. they're my characters. i put pieces of myself into creating them. i find long lost pieces of myself in them. its a long journey. it feels like coming back home.

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

[greenninjagal-blog]

Let Me Hear You Scream pt2

Ready for more spooky vibes? If you missed the first part you can find it [here!]

Summary: Upon waking up in a forest he doesn't recognize, Roman vs a Bear Trap goes almost exactly how you would think it goes.

Words: 6374

TW: Bear traps, blood, violence,

Read on Ao3 || My General Writing Masterlist

Roman has always had an unusually high pain tolerance. He had to, being twin brothers with Remus and all that. The sheer amount of danger the two of them got into as kids delegated that if he was anything less than completely indestructible, he’d be dead the next time Remus started a conversation with “I bet you won’t…”

He remembers that summer when Remus dared him to ride his bike down the concrete stairs, and he remembers how the wheels pitched him forward and his helmet cracked on the sidewalk, his knee skidded on the concrete, and his arm went snap with pain so white hot that Roman actually thought that the whole thing had popped right off his body entirely.

He remembers lying on the ground so shocked that he couldn’t even breathe, much less cry, and he remembers Remus laughing in the background, “I didn’t think you were going to actually do it! Oh shit, Ro? Roman! ROMAN!”

He remembers it so clearly.

“REMUS!” Roman shrieks into the forest, with tears rolling down his cheeks. “THIS ISN’T FUNNY, YOU FUCKER!”

His ankle burns. He can’t feel his toes, he can’t feel his ankle, he can’t feel anything, but there’s blood all over his hands and he can’t look down in case he faints.

His hands are trembling as they blindly work over whatever the fuck he stepped on. He can feel the slushie that he last ate, swirling in his stomach, boiling and bubbling until he feels it corroding his back molars. His fingers fumble around the… the metal teeth, oh god he’s going to vomit. His ankle screams in pain when his fingers prod too close to his actual limb. His ears echo with the painful awful SNAP of the jaw mechanism like its seared right into his soul.

“Remus,” He sobs, “I’m going to fucking kill you--”

Because there was a line here; Yeah, Remus dared him into a prank war with one of his stupid “I bet you wont, you prissy goody two shoes…” and Roman poured glitter into Remus’s laundry once, then Remus replaced Roman’s toothpaste with mayo, then Roman put white hair dye in Remus’s shampoo, and Remus swore he would get some type of revenge, even though he loved that look so much that he kept a stupid white streak in his hair. At least Roman thought he did-- He did, right?

Remus wasn’t the type to keep it to himself if he was upset. Neither of them were: Roman had perfected the art of loud sighs and dramatic monologues into a microphone and Remus had set things on fire to make people pay attention.

He didn’t-- wouldn’t--

He wouldn’t drag Roman into the middle of nowhere and make him walk into a bear trap for hair dye that would come out in another few weeks.

((Wouldn’t he?))

Everyone said Remus was insane, through whispered rumors and gossip that dissipated the moment that Roman walked into the room. Roman hadn’t ever seen the insanity himself; he grew up with Remus chasing squirrels in the park and diving into dumpsters for cool treasures and it was normal. Remus had always found humor in strange and weird things and as they had grown up those things had become less real and more abstract and Roman still didn’t think it meant that Remus would do this.

The forest is dense around him, stupid, dark; Roman isn’t sure he could recognize it even if he had a map in front of him, but then again Remus was always the more environmentally aware person of the two of them. He doesn’t know where Remus went the fuck off to either-- he’s brain is fuzzy at everything more than a few seconds ago when he blinked opened his eyes and took one step forward into a metal death trap, but he… he thought Remus had been right beside him, so close that… that…. His head is singing with pain and the backs of his eyes are melting.

“Hey!” A voice calls out and Roman flinches so hard that the metal spikes dig into his ankle and his scream strangles him.

Roman blinks back his tears just in time to see a figure stumble right out the thickets nearby, with the grace of a new born fucking dear. Roman swears in every language he knows and then some he doesn’t as the person scrambles back to their feet and zeroes in on him with an expression that Roman usually associates with the memory of his science teacher right before she demonstrated how to break a frog's ribcage for their dissection.

“No,” Roman says, “No, back off--”

He tries to scoot back and agony shoots up his leg so bright and violent that his vision whites out.

“Don’t move,” the person says, holding up their palms up suddenly to show they were unarmed or something. Roman isn’t sure what that’s supposed to do when he knows that Remus himself has never needed a weapon to be a lunatic. “I’m going to try to help.”

“Do not fucking come near me,” Roman snarls. “Who are you? One of Remus’s fucking little friends--”

“I assure you I don’t know a Remus, but you are in pain and believe I am qualified to help.”

“Fuck off!”

Roman swears that the pain is getting to his head, meddling with his thoughts like alcohol except not fun and Roman would not suggest anyone repeat this experience. The stranger-- Remus’s friend or whatever-- is staring at him with a patient impatience: like his mother waiting for him to finish his story before she runs off to answer a call on her work phone. They’re older than Roman, by a year or two, with sharp cheekbones and back framed glasses of a stereotypical nerd but a height that makes it hard to even imagine anyone looking down on them. Their eyes are colder than ice, and frost wafts off their breath. They’ve got a sweater vest on, with a tie, and converse dotted with glow in the dark paint in the shape of space nebulas.

Between his teary eye lashes Roman thinks that this guy looks incredibly tame for someone who associates with Remus and he fights the urge to vomit.

Is his leg supposed to be feeling cold?

Oh god, was he going to lose his foot? His breath swells up in his lungs, like a balloon pressing against his ribs. He wouldn’t be able to walk without a foot-- He wouldn’t be able to move or leave these woods or get help-- Remus and his psycho friends could easily cut up the rest of his body and let the wolves get him and then at school when someone would ask what happened to that dumbass who used to make dumb jokes on air during the football games, everyone will be like “Who?” and “didn’t Remus used to have an annoying twin? What happened to that guy?” and no one will ever find him because no one would car--

“Please,” The Doctor Who-ever says, in a faux calm tone as Roman nearly swallows his tongue. “I have medical knowledge, and you are clearly in distress.”

Agony races up his leg and Roman whimpers again. He swears he can hear the sound of metal grinding against his ankle bones, biting in deep and forcing the marrow to crack and shatter and explode until it's just a bunch of broken glass-like fragments under his skin. His head feels light and he frantically breathes deeply because he is not going to pass out, he is not going to make it that eas--

He’s cut off by a sudden crashing from behind behind himself: snapping of branches like a wild animal is tearing through them, the crunch of dead leaves steadily getting louder and heavy and deadlier, the swearing that are all tell-tale sounds of Remus crashing directly into someone and both of them eating the dirt as they barrel through the thickets and roll to a stop a few feet away.

Nerdicus jerks back like they were expecting anything less of Remus’s spectacular grand entrance.

Roman bites down on his tongue to stop himself from outright whimpering. Remus, his twin, his mirror image, rolls back to a sitting position like a possessed doll coming to life, untangling his limbs from another crumpled, groaning form that must be some other friend of his, and snapping them back in place because what are limbs to a maniac like him? The setting sun paints him in an eerie light and Roman’s skin itches with equal parts rage and terror at him, for dragging them out there, for putting out bear traps, for doing all this as pay back for a stupid little prank in a prank war he fucking started--

Remus’s laughter is obnoxious as always and Roman tries not to flinch at the sound of it alone, holding back a white wash of fear with just his force of will.

His other friend is another person that Roman hasn’t seen before-- not that he spends a lot of time getting to know the faces of the delinquents that his brother hangs out with. They’ve got on black jeans and a black T-shirt with one of those reversible sequin designs in the shape of a skull. Their blond hair dances in the last dregs of the evening, even as they pull a leaf from their bangs and yanks their dirty yellow beanie back over their head.

“Holy shit!” Remus says, spitting out dirt from his mouth. “Is that a bear trap?”

“Remus!” Roman whimpers with a tight throat. “This isn’t funny!”

“Au contraire! I left you alone for like five seconds and now you’re in a bear trap!” There’s a glint in Remus’s eyes and Roman recognizes it from those times when Remus climbed too high in the trees back at home, when he stared at a growing flame of a match too long, when he reached across the console and yanked on the steering wheel, screaming Roman’s name--

Roman brain pulses to the point where he can feel it knock against his skull and that hurts almost as much as ankle and he swears he sees stars on the backs of his eyelids and he does not want those to be the last stars he ever sees.

Remus swoops towards him and Roman flinches back, nearly screaming when his leg jostles.

“Chill out, Prince Charmless,” his twin says, rolling his eyes. “I’m gonna get it off. What’s your range of movement?”

“Do not come any closer to me, you asshole!”

“You can’t get that thing off yourself,” Remus says.

“And whose fault is that?” Roman snaps.

Remus freezes, tilting his head slightly to the side. His rat's nest of hair creates an unearthly silhouette as he looks down at Roman, something straight out his Halloween horror films, and Roman bares his teeth in warning. He’s not thinking about how Remus’s foot can stomp down on his injured, trapped leg, he’s not thinking about how there’s no one around for miles, he’s not thinking about how there’s nothing and no one to stop him from straight out fratricide--

“Why am I suddenly getting the feeling you think I know what the flying fuck is going on here?” Remus asks.

“Don’t you?”

“No!” Remus says, delightedly, happily, cheerfully and his voice makes some distant bird caw. “I thought you snapped and took me to the woods to kill me yourself! This is much more boring now that I know I haven’t managed to break your last shreds of sanity.”

“Why would I--”

“This is ridiculous,” Glasses McGee cuts in sharply, adjusting said glasses with their index finger. “We need to remove your foot from that trap now.” They look at Remus and the other person. “Are either of you knowledgeable about the mechanics of bear traps?”

Remus throws two thumbs up, and Roman remembers vaguely a rant from a year or two ago about unethical bear hunting and steel jaw traps and how animals would step in and then lay there for days suffering as their mangled limb held them captive regardless of them trying to chew it off for freedom and oh god he’s going to be sick--

“Roman,” Remus says somewhere beyond the screaming in his head. “Oh shit.” It sounds like he’s far away and distant, or maybe underwater and Roman is drowning. He can’t seem to breathe anymore, like the teeth biting into his ankles had wrapped around his chest and was slowly crushing him.

People are moving around him, faint voices talking and then suddenly burning blinding white hot pain that shoots all the way up to the back of his eyes.

He screams and bites down only to find there’s something in his mouth-- fibers and the unmistakable taste of wool and Roman nearly gags on it. He blinks back the foggy pain and finds that he’s leaning on Remus and Webster Dick-tionary is pressing a multicolored sweatshirt to his leg delicately with the bear trap fully closed a few feet away, tethered to the ground with a heavy metal chain coated in a red paint that makes Roman’s vision sway all over again. The slushie claws back up his throat and he gags.

There’s someone new standing just behind the nerd: a very pretty person in a pretty skirt and headphones with cat ears on them around his neck. The splash of freckles and the round glasses makes them look a bit younger than the rest of them, but that could also be Roman’s brain twisting things around the moment that they wince in sympathy as the nerd prods part of his ankle.

They’re magnificent, Roman decides with a dizzying certainty. They’re the sun in the middle of this dark and dreadful forest, the stars in the night sky, the lighthouse in the storm guiding Roman back from complete devastation with just those shiny eyes behind cracked lens.

The other person, the one in the black skull shirt, Sid from Toy Story come to life, is standing just behind him and Remus, looking on distastefully from a good distance away. It takes Roman a moment to realize he’s biting down on the guy’s beanie, and gross. He spits it out at the same time as the nerd presses too close to where the trap had caught him.

“Son of a Witch!” He hisses. “A dragon witch, a fucking---”

“Oh, boo,” Remus says. “He’s alive.”

“He was not in any immediate danger of dying,” Space Case says firmly. “And isn’t he your brother?”

“Looks like someone is an only child,” Remus says. The person in black reaches out and snatches back his beanie, his entire face curling into some disgusted expression as they hold the part with Roman’s saliva away from themself.

“Wonderful,” they say in deadpan and stuff the beanie in their back pocket.

Roman blinks, struggling to sit up by himself. He scrubs his face trying to get rid of his tears, and buries that boiling humiliation being the center of attention like this. Of course, he has to be grievously injured for anyone to care about him, for anyone to take a moment to look at him, for anything--

Remus lets him go, stretching up and yawning like nothing about this is weird or strange or scary to him.

Part of Roman is reassured by that. Like, of course Remus isn’t terrified out of his mind; what is there to be scared of when he’s the most terrifying thing in a 100 mile radius? When he handcuffed himself to the doors of the city history museum to protest its demolishment even though the wrecking ball was right there, when he wore a mini skirt to school to protest the dress code even though he’d been beat up for less before, when he marched into the Governor’s office when he was refused a meeting about the rescinding of the pollution standards in the the county and laughed in the face of the armed guards that told him to leave.

Remus had an endless supply of guts and determination and Roman had wished for so long that his reckless bravery could be contained, controlled and banished, but now it kinda felt like Remus slipping a familiar jacket over Roman’s shoulders and telling him to relax.

Google.com-- Roman is seriously running out of names for them-- leans in and tears the new holes in Roman’s jeans further-- Roman grimaces at the thought of having to buy another pair to make up for this, but the nerd expertly uses the excess fabric to tie up his wound with a professional precision.

“Alright, Doc Oct,” Remus says while they work. “What is the diagnosis? Amputation? Do I need a body bag?”

“I just said that he was not in danger of dying,” they say, finishing the knot which only causes Roman to grunt a little bit. “And my name is Logan, if you must know. I am not a full medical doctor by any means, but I believe that he will recover fully; the trap broke skin and there will likely be a nasty amount of bruising deep in the muscle tissue, but he will recover in a few weeks of rest. It will probably be best to keep weight off your foot as much as possible.”

“See, drama queen?” Remus says to Roman, shoving his shoulder. “You’re fine.”

Roman gives him double middle fingers for his trouble and tries not to shake too hard with relief. He stares down at his leg, forcing a steady breath through his lungs and out his nose, and wonders with a dizzying amazement how his leg was not only in one piece but recoverable, after all the pain. He isn’t sure that it’s not just the placebo effect of someone saying that everything’s going to be okay, but he wiggles his toes and swears that the pain only wracks his limb moderately this time.

Even closed, the bear trap looked menacingly at them: Roman’s blood on the jaws that were curled into a ghoulish grin, just waiting for someone to get close enough to open and bite down on. He’s not sure how Remus and the Doctor Doolittle-- Logan-- managed to get it off him.

Logan turns and offers the sweater to the person in the skirt. “Ah, sorry, I’m afraid the blood has…”

Roman sucks in another breath at the sight of it: the bright splotchy blobs of red that bled through the pastel tye dye design that would likely never come out and eternally remain a reminder of how Roman put his foot directly in a bear trap like an idiot-- What would he have done if there was no one around? Died? His own stupidity had ruined such a nice piece of clothing and--

“It’s okay!” The angel says with a somewhat cartoonish voice. Roman blinks in surprise at the sweetness of it, tasting sugar even as the words hold over the air. He swears he can envision their I’s dotted with hearts; a soft and kind tone despite the fact that Roman had ruined their sweater. “I’m much more relieved he’s going to be okay!”

“Let’s not get too excited,” Doctor Doom says, causing Roman to stiffen and Remus to glance back curiously towards them. They’re turned away from the rest of the mismatched, miscellaneous group, looking into the trees with a gaze that makes Roman’s stomach roll over and not in any way that is even remotely good.

“What?”

They glance back at them with an expression something that Roman can only call shifty. Like a snake before it strikes, they’re poised on the balls of their feet, coiled with the power to move at a seconds decision. Untrustable, Undependable, Unkind-- and Roman squares his shoulders just to prove to himself that there isn’t actually a dagger point about to plunge into his back.

The person’s voice is silky smooth, but Roman can’t find it in himself to be jealous when the meaning of the next words hit. “I don’t suppose any of you remember just exactly how we came to be here, do you?”

The woods echo with a strange emptiness, like the trees themselves are holding their breaths. The silence is eerie-- Roman’s never been a forest this quiet. He’s never been anywhere this quiet. The hairs on the back of his neck raise up.

Logan and the shining, shimmering, lovely vision share a look and the former shrugs, occupying their hands with tying their sweater around their waist.

“It’s fuzzy,” they admit, thoughtfully. “I was leaving my dorm...and then…” They grimace, which is downright awful to witness: Roman doesn't think anyone deserves to look so uncomfortable, and certainly not a beauty like them. “...then I was here.”

Logan makes a sour face like he managed to misplace a decimal twenty seven steps back in his math equations. “I was uncharacteristically late to class, but I seem to have some form of amnesia surrounding the hours since then as well; It was just past two.”

Dr. Facilier-turned-teenager turns to Roman, their eyes asking a question they already know the answer to. And part of Roman wants to snarl at them, tell them to knock it off with the creepy aura and better-than-you-expression, explain to them exactly how they ended up all here together because there’s a logical, causal explanation.

But Remus is already laughing. “Oh come on! We were…. What were we doing again?” Remus freezes for a moment, some of the smile leaving his face. “Ro? Where were we…?”

Remus is dressed in another one of his ripped T-shirts, the Save the Turtles one that he wore to that protest a few months ago and when he volunteered to clean up beaches for the weekend. His sleeves are ripped off to show off the endangered Tiger tattoo on his shoulder up to his neck, and his jeans are the recycled ones that he bought second hand and begged Roman to repair rather than buy a new pair and “give his money to the capitalists that are trying to kill us all”.

In comparison, Roman is wearing his letterman jacket, with his name engraved on it that he got for being the announcer for the football team three years in a row. He’s wearing his announcer uniform too-- his hair is styled and his colors are coordinated to the white and red of their school, but Remus never comes to the football games anymore.

Or well, he’s not allowed to come to the games anymore after he stole the tuba from the band players and charged into the field during the game back in their freshman year.

Still he-- remembers… he thinks he remembers... They were in the car together, Remus needed to go somewhere and Roman had to drop him off and then speed off to the game, right? Remus' feet were up on his dashboard, mud flaking off into his freshly cleaned car, his air fresheners weren’t working, they were fighting over the radio, Remus’s hand reached out, latching on to the wheel and a scream--

“Fuck,” Remus says, rubbing the side of his head like Roman had slapped him. “Did you crash our car out here?”

“Me?” Roman says, incredulously.

“Yeah!” Remus says. “Did you get brain damage in the crash too? Are your brains going to fall out? You were the one driving, dumbass.”

“You grabbed my steering wheel!”

Remus snorts. “What? No, I didn’t?”

“Yes you did!”

“No way!”

“Yes way!”

“I wouldn’t get anything out of--”

“Boys!” Skeletar says, clapping to get their attention. “Less arguing, more answering the question.”

Remus looks at Roman and Roman glares right back because he did not crash the car. Between the two of them Remus was more likely to crash a car-- proven from how he totaled their green Ford Fiesta nine months ago and now even around the pounding headache he can still remember the feeling of surprise as Remus’s sporadic movement jumbled through his own, the yank that caused him to lose control, the-- the--

He doesn’t remember what happened after that, but he knows that then Roman had opened his eyes out here, taken a step forward, and nearly lost his foot to a bear trap.

“This is getting us nowhere,” Logan says. “Even if perhaps you happened to have a car around here, that does not explain how the rest of us came to be here. And likely from the events that you are describing the car is not in functional condition-- although I’m unsure how your persons would have come out of such a thing without a few visible injuries…”

“I didn’t crash the car,” Roman says firmly.

“Oh, like you didn’t step into a bear trap?” Remus asks innocently antagonistically.

“Why are there bear traps out here anyway!” Roman hisses. “Isn’t bear hunting or whatever illeg--”

Roman almost doesn’t hear it: it starts so softly and then it raises in pitch and suddenly it's ringing in the air like cracks in the fragile glass silence. He feels his breath disappear right out of his chest, his body tensing and everyone jerks towards the direction the sound comes from, like they’re expecting to see something out there.

Roman remembers hearing people yell at Remus to get out of the way of the wrecking ball, remembers hearing the teachers snap at him to go change into his gym clothes, remembers the armed guard spitting on Remus’s face, his own shouts turning to something just above an animalistic growl when he told Remus to knock it off, you’re making me look bad.

And still he doesn’t remember hearing anything sound so horrified. So desperate. So despondent.

It is the noise that causes Roman to break out in goosebumps, electricity dancing along his skin causing all of his hairs to raise, and himself to find it suddenly very hard to swallow. Roman is scrambling back before he can remember that his foot should not be moving and he bumps into Logan as he does.

It cuts off short and disappears like someone took a pair of scissors to the sound itself, snipping the scream for help away before it reaches the end.

And Roman doesn’t think anyone is breathing anymore. His heart pounds in his chest, waiting for the rest of it.

The trees cast shadows so deep and dark that not even the moonlight will touch them. Somehow without Roman noticing, the temperature had dropped until the air feels like frostbite licking his exposed skin. Roman doesn’t dare move another inch-- doesn’t like the idea of what might happen if he reminds the rest of the world that time is still passing.

“I…” the person in the skull T-shirt says, in a very low, strangled tone. “I don’t think bears are what's being hunted.”

“No,” Roman says, “No.”

“Oh god, I’m gonna be sick,” the person in the skirt says.

“No!” Roman says, throwing out his arms before his thoughts can catch up. “This is not--”

“We need to leave,” Logan says, face pale. “Now.”

“I think I saw a gate,” Remus said, no hint of his unhinged grin. He thumbs the direction that he and Kaa came from. “I pulled the switch but it didn’t open. I thought about climbing but there are no holds and barbed wire around the top--”

“It’s likely lacking a power source then,” Logan says steadily calm and Roman feels like he’s losing his whole goddamned mind. “Let me take a look at--”

“We are not being hunted right now!” Roman blurts out.

The others stare at him for a solid, endless second and Roman’s stomach threatens to crawl up his throat. He waits for them to agree with him, waits for them to laugh and call it a joke, waits for Remus to tell him he’s so easy to scare, come on Ro, did you really think there was a murderer in these woods? This is grade school level effort!

Roman gets the feeling that he’s going to be waiting a very long time.

“Guys,” Roman says, slightly more wobbly than he means it to, slightly more softer than he means it to, slightly more terrified than he means it to. “We aren’t being hunted for sport, right?”

Because-- Because he’s seen horror movies. And he remembers once how Remus poured a bag of popcorn over his head and said that if they were ever in that situation, he’d leave Roman to rot, maybe even toss him to the killer himself, laugh as Roman screamed and begged and cried.

He doesn’t look at his foot. He doesn’t look at his foot and think about how he can’t run. He doesn't look at his foot and realize that they’re going to leave him behind and no one will ever know what happened to him and no one will care--

Remus is suddenly right in front of him, offering a hand right into Romans face. Roman blinks back the burning tears on his cheeks and looks at the limb with a trembling lip.

“Come on,” Remus says. “You’re a little bitch when you ruin your mascara, Ro.”

And Roman tries to articulate the billions of insults he has in his brain, but all that comes out is a whimper as Remus latches on to his wrist and pulls him to his feet. He stumbles the moment that he tries to put weight on his foot, flickers of pain echoing in his brain although it's not nearly as bad as he was expecting. Remus pulls Roman over his shoulder with his injured leg raised between them and all of his weight on Remus’s shoulders.

“I’m not leaving you behind, dumbass,” Remus says.

((Why wouldn’t he?))

“We need to help them,” the person in the skirt, the good and just and wonderful person in a skirt, says suddenly.

“I don’t think they need our help,” Hans Gruber-minus-the-German-accent says. “In fact, I don’t think they need anything, anymore.”

“How could you say that?!”

“Easily,” they respond, shortly.

The person in the skirt is shaking, Roman realizes. They’re shaking and hugging themself and they look slightly green in the face.

“I came from over there,” they say from behind trembling hands. “I-- I didn’t hear anyone else over there but they must have been there and I-- I can’t--”

“They’re dead,” Dr. Jerkyll says clinically, like a surgeon with a knife. “Us rushing towards that area is only going to get us attacked next. And I don’t know about you, but I don’t want to die, thank you very much.”

“We can’t leave them!” The other argues.

The person in the skull shirt steps towards the other and grabs their upper arm to spin them back to the direction the scream came from. Then with a derisive and terrible sneer, they shove. The cutie in the skirt stumbles forward, nearly face planting on the uneven ground.

“Then you go help them,” they say, with streaks of faint and awful moonlight painting them in a pale halo. They wave back to Logan, Remus and Roman, and Roman feels very much like he doesn’t want to be included in this group all of a sudden. “Don’t drag the rest of us into it.”

“Hey, don’t be a dick!” Roman says, stepping forward and hissing when he places a slight weight on his foot. “What if it were you out there?”

They scoff. “Me? I would never let myself get caught by a psycho murderer in the woods. But if I did, the last thing I would want is my valiant savior to come charging to my rescue and then get slaughtered right beside me like an idiot!”

“I’ll keep that in mind, you slimy snake,” Roman says.

“I bet you will, Hiccup,” they shoot back. “The gate is this way. Try not to step in another bear trap, won’t you?”

“Damn!” Remus says, “You’re a bitch! What’s your opinion on plastic in the sea?”

Roman slaps Remus’s arm and gives him a glare because really? Right now? They’re in the woods, someone just screamed and probably got murdered, they don’t know how to get out, Roman’s injured, and Remus is doing one of his weird flirting attempts.

Great.

The person in the skull shirt at least looks slightly thrown by the question, narrowing their eyes and shaking their head as they turn away as if they can brush off the rest of the group. “The sea turtles are dying.” They say blandly, without a hint of actual emotion. “Oh no. Next time I see one I will give my condolences about it’s mother.”

Remus’s mouth pops open for a retort that Roman knows is going to be bad, but before he can get the words out, there’s a loud sound of cracking branches from behind them. Remus drags Roman back from the area, planting himself in front of Roman like some kind of human shield and Roman wobbles, without anything to put his injured leg on.

“Jesus Christ!” A new voice screams, as they trip over a thicket and fall into the clearing.

They move like a blur; barely more than a shadow with the ungodly amount of black they’re wearing. Roman can make out a pale face, dark bangs and terrified eyes, before the scramble back in the ground leaving… leaving smears of deep red on the ground in front of them. Their flashlight goes flying off to Logan’s feet, but they don’t seem to care as much about that as moving away from whatever is behind them.

The air tastes like metal, like copper, and Roman swears the world sways under him. His heartbeat blares in his ears almost louder than the newcomer’s hysterical sobs.

There’s a thud. And another.

And the trees themselves seem to shake and draw from the shadow that takes form. It peels away from the others, massive, hulking and distorted in all the wrong ways: at some point it must have been human, Roman thinks hysterically. It has two legs and two arms and a torso and a head, but it's elongated towering over even Logan at his ridiculous height. Its skin is covered in soot and dirt, layers upon layers to the point where Roman almost thought that it was wearing some kind of leather armor. It has rubber overalls on, strapped...strapped to its body with metal hooks that catch the thin moonlight peeking out of its bulging bare shoulders in a way that looks…looks self mutilated. The patchy ugly skin is healed around the metal, molded to it, absorbing it. In one hand is a cleaver, cobbled together from various metals with an unfinished touch and dripping scarlet all the way down the handle to its massive hands. Roman thinks that with one hand it could easily crush one of their skulls.

But worse than that, than the blood, than the stench coming from the thing, than the bloodlust that's echoing out of it: worse than all that is the mask welded to its face. A pale white skin that nearly glows in the darkness, framed with jagged sharp edges of bladed teeth in a terror inducing smile. Soulless orbs exist where eyes might have once been: now there are empty voids without a human behind them.

In a slow, almost robotic motion, it raises the cleaver in its hand. Blood rolls down the handle onto it’s hand and Roman watches the bulb of red drip down into the grass right between the newcomer’s sneakers.

Oh, Roman thinks suddenly very clearly without any room for a single doubt, This is what death looks like.

“NO!” The person in the skirt screams and suddenly they shove forward and throw themselves in front of the swing of the cleaver. Roman isn’t sure who screams louder at that: him, the person in the skirt, or the person on the ground bleeding out.

His brain is on fire, every atom in him is screaming so loud that he can’t hear his thoughts. His own breath flees his lungs with abandon that Roman’s brain somehow hadn’t gotten because instead of running away he’s running towards the monster. His blood boils in his veins and he pushes through Remus with the sort of reckless abandonment of sanity he never would have thought he’d ever make.

His vision locks onto the kid on the ground and his fingers latch on their left shoulder and he hauls them back.

The air next to his ear whistles as the cleaver misses them by centimeters and the person in the skirt screams as they fall to the side, and specks of something wet and warm and sticky flings through the air like its a water fountain; Roman feels it splatter across his face and his brain heart thuds in his chest.

Remus appears on his other side, grabbing Roman’s hostage by their other arm and they both pull them to their feet, ignoring the way they scream in pain. Their torso drips ruby into the dead grass at their feet and Roman-- Roman--

The hulking monster in front of them gives his cleaver a shake and drags it over its own arm to wipe away the blood, like it's nothing more than a hindrance. It turns its entire body towards the person in the skirt, the gorgeous selfless angel of a person that Roman hasn’t gotten the name of-- of someone he isn't going to get the same of because the abomination raises the cleaver again.

Roman screams because he does not want to watch someone die, please he doesn’t want to be in this nightmare anymore, wake up wake up wakeup--

There’s a brilliant white light that explodes at the last second. Roman himself jerks away from it, but that’s nothing compared to the inhuman howl that the creature makes as it stumbles back to the edge of the forest, covering its beady eyes with its massive hands.

Logan flicks the flashlight off and grabs the person in the skirt by their uninjured arm and looks back at them only briefly with an air of finality.

“RUN!” He says.

And Roman does.

[floatingcatacombs]

annual music post

12 Days of Aniblogging 2021, Day 7

i swear I listen to plenty of happy stuff too but it’s been a rough year so let me have this.

If 2020 was the apocalypse, then 2021 has rather been defined by collapse. These two concepts may seem similar enough, but in practice they feel very different to live through. At least with an apocalypse, everyone understands the stakes and how bad things are. But collapse forces you to contend with things you once took for granted crumbling around you, both slowly and in big bursts. It can lead to a pretty bleak mindstate, especially if you were raised with the expectation of infallible incremental progress on the global scale. So, without further ado,

damn the supply chains, my health problems, this fucking pandemic, the doomsday cult minority rule political party doubling down on insanity, and the capacity for things to always get worse.

The best album for these feelings of abstract hopelessness is Palimpsest by Lauren Bousfield. It’s a little hard to describe genre-wise (glitchy breakcore??), but rest assured it sounds exactly like how the song titles read. It’s easily my favorite album that came out in 2020 and got me through a lot of this year in particular.

Otherwise, Spotify told me that I mostly listened to Depeche Mode and Soft Cell this year before clinically diagnosing me with horny depression. There’s just something about grimy 80’s British synthpop that hits right during bad times. Probably because it was all written under the shadow of Thatcher, providing a snapshot of a long and unglamorous time period that is nonetheless way different than the one we’re currently stuck in. I want to use this post to talk more about Soft Cell, who had no right making music as good as they did.

Soft Cell was a synthpop duo act consisting of vocalist Marc Almond and David Ball on synths. Though mostly known as a one-hit wonder with Tainted Love, the two of them left behind an impressive catalogue in their three short years of putting out albums. Their first release is 1981’s Non-Stop Erotic Cabaret and it fully lives up to its name as the sleaziest thing you’ve ever heard. “The creators must have been on drugs” is frequently thrown around as a way out of engaging more deeply with weird art, but in this case, you can just feel from the production that this was made by the band locking themselves in the studio with a synthesizer, a TR-808 drum machine, and a shitload of speed. The instrumentation is simple but aggressive, and most songs flow right into the next, making it truly non-stop. Lyrically, the album aims for transgressive sex, seedy urban life, and the sense of wasted life. These are the thematic bread and butter of Soft Cell, and they pull it all off with aplomb.

What a vibe of a cover too

Just 14 months later, Soft Cell delivered their second full album, The Art of Falling Apart. True to its name, this is a collection of songs about people on the verge of a breakdown, trying to hold it together. As such, it leans very heavily on the anger and despair of feeling like you’re wasting your life away, which makes this album a hard listen at times for me. That being said, it’s still great stuff, and the album’s standout songs, “Heat” and “Baby Doll”, combine this feeling with the band’s usual sex depravity to great effect. The Art of Falling Apart has the richest production of all the Soft Cell releases, which makes it a smooth listen, but some tracks feel like they’ve lost their edge compared to the stripped-down rawness of their first and final albums.

fairly obvious mask imagery on the album art

Unfortunately, The Art of Falling Apart was seemingly autobiographical in nature. By 1984, the two members of Soft Cell were crashing and burning from their constant concerts and drug use. One month after dissolving the band, they released their final album: This Last Night in Sodom. Damn, they were good with the titles!

This Last Night in Sodom is a pretty substantial break from their previous albums. It’s far more guitar-driven than their synths-only prior works, and makes no efforts to be club-friendly listening. After the absolutely explosive start that is “Mr Self Destruct” (no relation to the Nine Inch Nails song), the album churns through an eclectic mix of styles, newly drawing from post-punk, rockabilly, and Latin soul. “Slave to This” is more of a wall of noise with stream of consciousness rambling about the dregs of society than it is a melodic song. Hell, some of the tracks are even in mono. Lyrically, the album dives into places that are dark even by Soft Cell standards. Murder, suicide, rape, and soul-destroying loneliness are all on the table, painting a desperate picture of the world befitting of the title.

I’m convinced this album bombed not because of its experimental nature but the borderline unreadable cover art. Contrast ratios matter!

This probably sounds like a dreadful listen from how I’m describing it, but it’s become the Soft Cell album that I return to the most. It’s got so much going on that it’s never a stale listen, and its specific flavor of anger has been just what I’ve needed for the final months of 2021 in the wake of health problems, a depressive spell in the fall, and a world that refuses to get better.

Towards the end of “Slave to This”, Marc Almond cries out “Hey, is this the last night in Sodom?”, phrasing it is a question. One song ends with the speaker begging for God’s help, another has them wishing for annihilation. But no matter what we pray for, this is not the last night in Sodom. Nobody’s coming, and we’re stuck with ourselves, no matter how bad things get. Better find a way to hold it together.