#idk if this is written communicatively
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spectroscopic-gayety · 1 year ago
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There this undertale MV fic that literally makes me happy stim and I have thoughts. More importantly a very crazy idea on where this is headed.
If you haven’t read the fic, you really should, it is some of the best Undertale Multiverse writing I’ve ever read! Here’s the link: https://archiveofourown.org/works/43143874/chapters/108428305
——SPOILERS UNDER THE CUT——
Ok so one of the things I really like about Buddy’s fics is that Buddy very clearly has read the original error!sans ask blog. They describe Error knitting in ftfo and recognize Error as an alternate timeline of after!tale.
Why is this important? Well, these references don’t just exist in ftfo, they are also in Spilled Ink, but in a very interesting way.
For those who didn’t follow the original error blog, it didn’t really end with a finale. CQ, the author, graciously left us readers a summary of what she planned for the story. Specifically, I’m talking about Blueberror.
Blueberror, is an underswap sans specifically named Blueberry (this will be important later) who gets kidnapped by Error, left alone in the anti void until he goes insane and starts hearing voices. Notably, the voices of the askers (since it’s an ask blog).
Now, who do we know in Spilled Ink who hears voices and has anti void trauma? Yeah Ink!
Spilled Ink shows Ink heading the voices of the Creators, who like the askers in ask error!sans, live in our world and control his life. Unlike Error who is insane, Ink struggles through the existential horror of being played with for entertainment.
So, what I think Buddy is doing is linking the creation of destroyers to protectors.
They are both made in the anti void.
They both hear the voices of the creators.
This makes some very interesting parallels between Error and Ink.
It also makes some very very interesting parallels between Ink and Blueberror. Ink in Spilled Ink is implied to be a version of an Underswap sans, Rus compares Ink to his own brother in his pov chapters. Several other characters remark the ink is “short for a sans”.
In Crayon Queen’s, summary of how ask error would have ended, she describes Blueberror not becoming a destroyer but moving into the omega timeline. He eventually works to protect the multiverse by convincing Error to help fight a larger threat. Hmm, a protector, where have I heard that before?
So, conspiracy theory time.
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What if the determining factor that makes a sans stuck in the anti void a protector or a destroyer is whether or not they’re a swap variant?
So, wouldn’t it be Wild if there was a theoretical swap sans that we don’t know the location of? And wouldn’t it be just insane if a future plot point of the askerror blog was that Blueberror let another swap sans take his place in his au?
THIS IS WHERE THE REAL THEORY BEGINS
What if, the Blueberry in Spilled Ink was turned into Blueberror? How? Great question, idk. Maybe Ink’s friends get too close to figuring out who took him and the creators want a red herring? But like remember in chapter 5 when they were at the omega council meeting and the whole council was convinced the new out code was evil? I wonder what would happen if blueberror showed up right after Ink gets kidnapped. He’s covered in errors, that must mean he’s a new destroyer to counter Sketch right?
Extra angst: the only person who can recognize him is currently be tortured by Nightmare, and no one believes him when he says he used to be a member of the star sanses. His whole world is gone, and everyone he loves hates him and he doesn’t know why.
Does this make sense thematically? Kinda, it’s one really angsty way Ink can get his dearly lost friend back, but at a sharp cost. It would also allow Buddy to use dramatic irony again like how Sketch is hiding his moderator status. Except in a sad twist, Blueberror is trying to show his protector status but no one believes him.
I love this fic so much, and I can’t wait to see where the author takes the story next!
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wingedfoolnearthesun · 17 days ago
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sometimes, for our own peace of mind, we have to allow our deities to gently hold our hand and guide us through the twists and turns of life. getting lost along the way can be inevitable, natural. we walk along the many roads that loop around over and over again until they meet familiar ones at a crossroads once more. there, our deities will wait for us with the utmost patience—understanding that getting lost is just a part of the journey. They shall guide us once more, for They never tire of it.
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lazylittledragon · 3 months ago
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Random thought/question: what would your Tavs/Durge and their significant others like... legit fight about? Not bicker, not argue, but actually get mad and say things they don't mean and have to cool off and talk about it later when calmer heads prevail and they're able to apologize without it sounding forced?
this is such a great question that i needed a whole 24 hours to think about it akdhdjhd
i think gale and cyra probably have small things blow out of proportion (because honestly. kids and work and Tired) and then a Lot of stuff they haven't talked about comes up and it ends with 'how the fuck did forgetting to change the bedsheets turn into This'
i actually feel like dorian and astarion are pretty good 90% of the time but sometimes one of them is in a bad place and is like 'i actually really need to be left alone with this thing right now and i don't want to talk about it' and maybe they're not always great at taking the hint
ashe and halsin have never had a fight ever
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asphalt-eater · 1 year ago
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i like to think goth is a gender in of itself
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sk-yay-sk · 5 months ago
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I've gotta say I'm not a huge fan of putting Dragonese into the HTTYD movie franchise. The concept of a full-on dragon language they all share, that can just easily be translated into English, just really doesn't fit imo
I imagine they're a lot more like Orcas
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There are universal ways to communicate with strangers of different species, like it's pretty easy to signal things like "i want to fight you" "i want you to leave" "it's dangerous here" "i'm in pain" etc. by just body language and vocalizations- but ways to communicate more complex ideas have to be developed and learned as unique dialects by different groups, especially flocks of dragons consisting of different species.
I imagine a terrible terror flock or a group of Speed Stingers have a lot of an easier time communicating with each other than a Thunderdrum and a whispering death do.
Dragons with their own dialects, cultures, and habits depending on location and group is really cool- I just don't think it should be a direct translation of how humans do these things, such as straight up language or mythologies or such.
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g3othermal3scapism · 11 months ago
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hot take i dont think trobed has to be canon in the movie, i dont think it rlly matters and i think acting like them not being canon romantically takes away from their writing and relationship is odd
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severedfromthesource · 23 days ago
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Bite Back
Part 2/3
Previous
Original concept from @delicious-beats.
Features F resus, multiple rescuers, mild gore, LUCAS thumper, ambu bag, AED, trying to resuscitate a zombie.
Nearly twenty minutes in arrest. Elijah scrubbed a hand over his head, weighing his options. He had just given her epi, and the LUCAS was circulating it through her body as he watched the love of his life writhing under the mechanical compressions. He eyed the device for a moment before pausing for another pulse check. Finally, something. The line her heart made on the monitor fluttered in v-fib.
“There we go, baby,” he muttered more to himself, and held her head still in one arm. He considered a moment; then he forced her jaw still and wrenched the intubation tube out as quickly as he could. Luffy gagged, coughing up fluid and blood as it came loose. It wasn’t doing her any good. He’d need both hands for this, and there was no way to really secure her airway in this state. “Sorry, Lu,” he said. He rubbed her throat in apology and quickly stepped back, narrowly avoiding her teeth.
He tore off the backing on the AED and slapped one of the pads against her ribcage, just under her breast. The other he awkwardly threaded through the LUCAS’s underside, between the pumper and body of the machine, and adhered to her collarbone above the other breast. She rolled her head forward and clicked her jaw just as he pulled away. His fingers had been only a few inches from her slavering maw. Then he attached the wires to the body of the machine and charged it.
“Couple more minutes to the hospital,” Jonas called from upfront. “I’ve got minor electrical activity,” Elijah called back. “I’m gonna shock her.” “Christ, Christ above…”
The machine charged to 200 joules. He pressed the discharge button. Luffy cried out in something between a yelp of pain and a growl of anger, her back forcibly jerking up against the plunger. Her fingers flexed against the restraints, the snap of Velcro giving way filling the ambulance. Her heart still fibrillated. Elijah shoved the machine onto the bed and surged for the straps, pinning her wrist so he could tighten them again. Her hand swiped at him, fingers bending painfully to grasp at his hands. She managed to capture his hand before he could pull away.
Elijah’s breathing picked up. She wouldn’t let go. Her grip was crushing, and she was snarling and thrashing again, trying to free her other hand. Her nails dug hard into the back of his hand, clawing bloody crescents into his knuckles and tearing at the skin. He felt like he’d been trapped between the jaws of some wild animal and nearly began to panic, until the defib unit chimed that it was charged. He clicked the shock button again and her muscles involuntarily contracted and released. Like hitting a reset button, her grip seized open and he wrenched himself back. His fingers were numb from the zap, and she had clawed swaths out of the back of his hand, but she hadn’t broken it. That was all he could ask for.
He had to stay out of her range. She still wasn’t quite smart enough to work the straps, but she could contort in ways that seemed impossible and painful. He wrapped a quick length of gauze around the freshly bleeding wounds, then went for a pulse check in her inner thigh. Glancing up at the monitor, he confirmed she had gone back into asystole after the shocks. “Goddamnit,” he growled, and once more clicked the LUCAS on. Her chest was bruised terribly, a purple and black ring in the center of her chest where the thing thumped into her.
Now came the matter of oxygen. Her chances were better with oxygenated blood going through her veins, and intubation hadn’t worked. He rummaged for the ambu bag. “How’re we doing back there?” Jonas asked. “Not good,” Elijah confessed, “I don’t know if it’s the virus keeping her heart from beating, but I’m not getting anything. She’s in complete cardiac arrest, she’s hardly been out of asystole. I can’t even-“ Anger bubbled up and he kicked the wall of the ambulance. “-fucking shock her.” He felt like he was progressing rapidly through the stages of grief. He had already bargained, denied, angered, and depressed. He refuse to accept this, though. He wasn’t giving up on her. Not until his own heart gave out.
“Almost there, we’re almost there. We’ll get a cure and we’ll get her back,” said Jonas. Elijah couldn’t respond. He clicked the bag onto the mask and looked over at Luffy’s face. Her head was turned towards him, her mouth a wide O as she growled and gurgled at him. He took a few breaths to steel himself; then he slammed the mask hard over her nose and mouth. It was hard enough to bruise, and she made startled snarling noises, muffled behind the thick plastic. He held her jaw in place so the mask had a decent seal. It felt less like he was giving her air she so badly needed, and more like he was smothering her. Still, he pumped the bag, pushing air into her mouth, even as she tried to shake her head and shove him off. “Breathe,” he muttered under his breath, “Breathe for me, baby.” She thrashed and tried to free her face, groaning unevenly as her cheeks were forced to puff out and her lungs were forced to breathe.
This was torture. Forcing air on her like this, and shocking her, and beating her chest in. Terrorist detention centers probably used less brutality. He’d always known resuscitation efforts were harsh, but having her moving, making noises, conscious for all intents and purposes, it was tearing him up inside. Tears were consistently blinding him by this point, but he couldn’t wipe them away.
They had finally reached a stretch of road mostly free of cars and picked up speed. Buildings began to zip by through the back window, and every turn, Elijah had to brace himself to keep from slamming in the wall. Equipment and sterilized supplies clattered to the floor. He kept pumping air into Luffy’s lungs, eying her monitor.
“Fuck, fuckfuckfuckfuck,” he heard from the driver cabin. “Eli hold-!” Then the ambulance slammed into something. Or something slammed into it. Everything tilted as it went up on the right wheels and there was a sick, weightless feeling for a moment as his head banged off the wall closest. He instinctively grabbed for Luffy and tried to protect her head with his body. The vehicle slammed back down on all four wheels and rocked up and down on its suspension; he felt the sharp, stabbing pain in his upper arm.
Breaths heaving and vision narrowing with dread, he looked down. The mask had slipped from Luffy’s face. Her teeth were buried in his forearm. He was too stunned to feel the pain at first. Then she tore away a chunk of his bicep and he screamed, “Fuck!!” as he fell back, clutching the crater taken out of his flesh.
“Some asshole rammed us,” Jonas grunted, having been thrown into the driver side door by the impact. He pushed himself back up and glanced back into the bay, “You alright?”
No. No I’m not alright. My girlfriend just sentenced me to a terrible, thrashing death. Elijah swallowed, doubled over at the side of the gurney. Blood oozed between his fingers where they clamped over the wound. “I’m… I’m alright,” he managed to get out. The throbbing pain shot down from his shoulder and into the tips of his fingers, running up against and outpacing the distant pain he’d felt where she’d clawed him open. He scrambled for a roll of gauze and stuffed the hole with a folded square of bandage, then bound up the whole thing with a few loops. He snatched his jacket from the cubby where he’d stashed it when the weather turned and held his breath, teeth gritting as he slid his arms into it. The muscles moving pulled at the fresh wound, and his arm felt stiff and wooden.
He’d always thought the asshole who hid a zombie bite in the movies was a special kind of awful. That they were dooming their friends and endangering the ones they loved out of cowardice or idiocy. Now he was the one putting everyone else in danger, but he hardly cared. They could blow him away, just so long as they saved Luffy first. He noted the time. 1:03.
He had twenty minutes before he died.
Jonas threw open the doors, grabbing Luffy’s gurney as they began easing her out. The side of the ambulance had been dented pretty hard by the collision, and another ambulance sat beside them, smoldering from the engine in thick gray plumes. The driver sat with his partner, bleeding and dazed from a shallow head wound. They weren’t the only folks scrambling for their patients in the chaos the city had descended into.
People were waiting to receive them. A team of nurses and staff ushered them into the trauma bay, orders shouted over the loud mechanics of the LUCAS. Someone with thick leather mittens, like the kind used for training attack dogs- That’s all she is now. Just some dangerous, drooling animal- grabbed Luffy on either side of her head while two others quickly affixed a neck brace to keep her somewhat still. A leather belt of sorts with a metal ring, welded with small bars like a muzzle, was affixed to her mouth, forcing her jaw apart so she couldn’t bite down. All of it served to make her look no better than a wild animal. The muscles in her jaw strained against the bit and again an ambu bag was sealed over her nose and mouth.
“You’re gonna be okay, babe,” he told her quietly, squeezing her shoulder as it jerked under the rhythm of mechanical compressions. The trauma team was a well oiled machine. They swiftly ferried her into a room in the ICU and locked the door behind them just in case.
“We ran out of isolation rooms,” one of the nurses told Elijah as she began snipping through the cuffs of Luffy’s jeans. “After the first few infected arrived. Before we knew what we were really dealing with.” She shook her head, the shears having reached Luffy’s pelvis. “They’re bloodbaths in there.” He had no reply. He could only watch as they peeled away his girlfriend’s sweat stained clothing, revealing her ashen body. He touched one of her bare legs, felt the ripples of force from the LUCAS down to her toes. She was so cold, he almost broke down into tears again.
Any other patient he would have called by now. But it was an impossibility with her. Never mind the infection, or the chance at a cure, she was his everything. The person who held him when the job got tough, the only one who could make him laugh after days or weeks of unavoidable deaths and tragedies. “Lu,” he rasped under his breath, “Come back to me… please, Lu…”
Jonas came up by his side, squeezing his shoulder in a display of sympathy that only served to light the bite wound on fire. Elijah held back a hiss of pain, fingers tightening around Luffy’s leg to keep from crying out. His physical agony was easily disguised as emotional turmoil, and his partner seemed to take it that way.
“Pause compressions, we’re gonna deliver the antiphagi and do a pulse check,” the head doctor announced, “And let’s get another shot of adrenaline prepped.” As the trauma team moved into position, Luffy thrashed at anyone near. Her shoulder bucked up against the machine, her head rolling towards the nurse giving her air through the ambu, though the neck brace mostly held her in place. He could see the muscles in her jaw flex as she tried to bite down against the metal bit.
The antidote was administered directly into the crook of her elbow. The LUCAS was stopped a moment later as hands all descended at once on her pulse points. Two fingers at her carotid artery, two in the dip of her pelvis to check her femoral, and the one brave soul who wore the protective mittens unhooked her wrist so someone could check her radial pulse while he held her in place. The team lead pressed his stethoscope to her bruised sternum, dotting under her breasts and ribs with the diaphragm in search of a heartbeat. In search of hope. In the quiet of the concentration that befell the team, Luffy’s growls and gurgles were too prominent. It felt like they filled the whole room. She writhed slowly now, like the fight had gradually gone out of her as she was subjected to the torture of resuscitation. Her hand, freed from the LUCAS, made a weak claw and tried to tear free, but her body was flagging. It was like she was dying all over again.
The team lead looked up at the monitor as he drew the steth away from her ribcage. “Looks like weak v-fib. Let’s try and shock her.” Luffy gave a pathetic whine, as if she understood what came next. The sound tore at something in Elijah’s chest. Her jaw worked and her eyes rolled, lashes fluttering. Was it the antidote working? Or was it her body finally shutting down for good?
The AED charged and everyone stepped back. The armored nurse stepped away last, throwing an arm out to protect the woman beside her as Luffy struck out, narrowly missing clawing a chunk out of them. “Charged to 200, everyone clear!” Then her body seized, her chest twitching and the arm loose from its straps flailing with the stab of electricity. It fell limp off the gurney. Then she was still. Utterly still.
Elijah’s stomach dropped. Once the shock faded, she simply laid there, lifeless in a way he hadn’t seen since she first arrested. Her eyes were open, staring off towards the people she had nearly struck a moment ago. Her arm dangled, and the monitor screamed a flatline. She was dead again.
“The antiphagi is kicking in. Let’s circulate the adrenaline for another couple minutes,” the lead called out, “And epinephrine, we need to get her heart beating before we start celebrating.”
They unhooked the muzzle from her teeth, a string of bloodied saliva connecting it to her mouth for a moment before it splat back against her lips. Once more, breaths were shoved into her lungs, rounding her stomach. The LUCAS kicked back into gear, only now she was like a rag doll under it. Her head bobbed, her arm swinging a bit off the gurney as it struck blow after blow against the perfectly circular bruise it had made between her breasts. Elijah slid into a spot between the trauma team and held her by the wrist, feeling the blood swell in her pulse point. He brought her limp hand up and ran the back of her cold knuckles against his cheek.
“Lu,” he rasped. “Please… God, just come back.” Tears once more slid down his cheeks, spilling against her and warming her with his grief. It had been over a half hour since she arrested, they were nearing forty five minutes now.
“V-fib,” called the team lead, “Let’s shock her. Charge to 360, I need everyone off.” Elijah pressed a kiss to her hand and gently lowered it to the gurney at her side. “Alright, clear!” The electricity discharged, forcing her muscles to convulse. Her back arched up against the LUCAS and fell back again, the kinetic force rocking her down to her toes.
It was only then that he really took in how fragile she looked like this. Laid out in a room full of strangers, completely naked, kept alive by machines. He reached out and rubbed her chilly thigh as if he had any hopes of warming her alone.
“Let’s go again at 360,” he heard distantly. “Everyone clear!” Again she bucked under the jolt, her hand twitching so it rested on her stomach. Elijah took it and once more strapped her into the LUCAS, lingering a moment with his fingers curled into her palm.
There were voices, and he thought maybe they were talking about her heart, but they felt suddenly distant. She was trying to come back, he knew that much. But it was hard. He knew it had to have been. She was fighting for him, like she always did. His fingers absently slid from her wrist in the strap down her arm. They’d resumed the automatic compressions, which he knew in some dim corner meant her heart had stopped again.
The room tilted in a kaleidoscope of colors, a brief flash before it righted itself. He checked his watch, the screen oddly bright in a room that suddenly felt unfocused. There was something there, he knew. Something important. But he couldn’t remember. His back hit something hard with a loud, metallic clatter, and he looked down at the surgical implements he’d scattered on the floor at his feet. He felt suddenly hot, sweating under his jacket. Something warm trickled down his arm and slid against his fingertips. His heart thundered in his ears, the blood swelling in a drumbeat against his eardrums.
“-li? El- hey-“ Sounds came in, but it was like his head was underwater. “Eli-at’s wron-“ He looked up to see Jonas, holding him by the shoulders to keep him upright.
“Luffy,” he croaked, his gaze sliding to her. “Help… help her-“ Then the world spun. The drumbeat in his ears seized to a sudden halt as he went into cardiac arrest. The infection had reached his heart.
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stonefemblues · 8 months ago
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i feel like sometimes i’ve seen posts complaining abt other posts that are fetishizing butches or fetishizing femmes and how that’s a Big Problem and yes sometimes it is and that’s not great. but also sometimes i see the post they’re complaining about and it’s like. a post written by a butch or femme for a particular fetish on a kink blog. it’s playing out a particular dynamic for sexual reasons that both parties get off on. it has a target audience which is other ppl into that kink, not Everyone. yeah it is fetishizing, that was the point. it doesn’t necessarily mean that they don’t see butches or femmes as full complex human beings lol. maybe a singular text post (or even an entire kink blog) doesn’t encapsulate all their thoughts and feelings, or reflect how they treat butches or femmes when they are not doing a kink scene with them.
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Unreasonably long post about plural shit
So I'm gonna be honest and uncharacteristically vulnerable for a second because I think people might relate or have internalized similar things. My name is Pyre; at least that's what I'll be going by on Tumblr. I'm a fictive, some of you might've already seen me sign off on comments or something using my source name but I don't really care. Also I'm not Techno, he's open about his source. Thought I'd get that out of the way for those of you who know us. Pyre is a very Techno name though and I just stole it faster.
Anyway, to the point: We've seen posts shouting out systems/collectives who are "too similar," particularly median systems and such who experience a lot of internal fakeclaiming and imposter syndrome because of that. This is for the non-median systems who are "too similar," though. This is part a post to point out their validity, and part a post talking about my own experience so far with that.
In my source, I'm kind of a badass. I was admittedly an asshole, and very misguided, but at least within my canon (within the shows canon is questionable, we never did finish it rip) I was fighting for what I believed was right. Fighting for those who fall through the cracks for no good reason, for those that get hurt for things they can't control. If I were brought here, in this world, in my own body, I wouldn't afraid of shit. I'd gladly punt a transphobe. I wouldn't shy away from conflict; sometimes conflict is how progress happens.
In reality, I don't have my own body. And one of the things about our body is, well, its nervous system is wired to treat any small amount of conflict as a threat. We're incredibly risk averse, and this isn't a personality trait, it's built in. No one in our collective is likely to ever take an opportunity, no matter how well laid out, to call out someone being an asshole or have some witty comeback to a transphobe or whatever. We won't even think of one. That's wired into our nervous system, it's just how our body reacts to danger. We stumble over ourselves if we try to do anything other than freeze.
This isn't a fault. This wouldn't be overwritten by sheer personality and willpower in a "real system." Some systems, maybe, but not all. So for those of you who feel like you "should" be a certain way and just can't because it's built into the body you're in to act differently; you're not any lesser for it. Whether you're a fictive, sourced in some way, have a certain role that "should" be different, your personality is just like that, or some other reason I can't think of- don't be too hard on yourself for things you can't control. The body you're in just wants to protect you.
Even if sometimes, you (and I) strongly disagree with it on what exactly that means.
-Pyre
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thefluxsystem · 1 month ago
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can i talk about fusion for a second? can i talk about how beautiful it is?
i’m the product of two people (parts, alters, whatever you want to call them). these two people loved each other so much, knew each other so well, that they chose to join their energy into one.
they could almost feel the dissociative walls coming down. instead of just knowing each other’s stories, they were starting to actually remember them. they became so important to one another that they decided they never want to be apart, that they always want to work in tandem.
and now here i am. i’m both of them and yet i’m someone else. it’s hard to explain but this is the best metaphor i can think of: if you mix together red sand and blue sand, it’ll look purple, but each grain is still red or blue. does that make the sand purple, or red and blue? the answer is, both are right.
i feel more whole now. i’m more sure of myself. i solidly know myself & who i am, because the two who created me knew each other that well. i love myself. i love that i am built by the active choice of love & unity.
i know it’s not for everyone. it’s not even for everyone in my own system. but it’s been the best thing ever for me/who i used to be.
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fantastic-nonsense · 1 year ago
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also while I'm on the topic of Frozen II "Show Yourself" should have been the massive hit song with a thousand critical accolades from that soundtrack instead of "Into the Unknown" and I will die on that hill
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encrucijada · 10 months ago
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amazing news regarding my modern sort of retelling of theseus and the minotaur 🐮
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i'm in an anthology book now
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mechazushi · 15 days ago
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Insane Dad Lore (Essential Errand)
[Slight Trigger Warning] Verbal Abuse.
[Notes] Sooooo.... change of plans.... Instead of posting the chapters in order even if I get them done out of order, I'm just going to post them as I finish them and then organize them once I port all the chapters to Ao3. Really, the ultimate goal here was to just get all the ideas on (electronic) paper anyway. So I guess ya'll are going to have fun wondering what order these are going to go in, {cuz' I'll be doing the same damn thing ᕙ (° ~ ° ~)}
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✼  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉ ✼
There had been a break in the lore gathering where there wasn't as many an opportunity to try and pry some new childhood history out of Kafka. That didn't mean there wasn't inciting incidents that led to new loose threads. It was after an early morning period of training did such an event arose. Reno and Kafka has just gotten back to barracks after hitting the gym just to come back and find Minase in a state of inconsolable crying. Hakua was sitting next to a tower of shaking blankets placed on the bed, desperately trying to appease the distraught soldier within by patting and rubbing its back as well as whispering words of comfort. She tried to say comforting things at least, but must have accidentally said something to make the crying worse.
"Hey, is everything okay?" Reno tried to ask as they passed through the door.
"I'm not entirely sure? I just caught the tail end of a phone conversation and now she's like this." Hakua told them as she continued to hug the pile of blankets close, "Whatever it was, it sounded pretty distressing."
"Hey, Reno?" Kafka spoke softly down to his friend, not wanting to take his eyes of of their compatriot, "Can you do me a favor and go down to the vending machine and grab a water? I feel like she's going to need it."
Reno nodded quickly and turned back out the doorway, leaving Kafka. He approached Hakua and nodded his head away, silently asking permission to sit on the bed next to Minase. After she moved, Kafka sat down slowly so as to not make the pile of blankets jump. He mimiced Hakua's original position and wrapped his large arm around the tower, Squeezing it close to him as he tried to wrap his other arm around it.
"Heeeyyy, Minase." He said cheerfully, but not loudly, "Looks like you're not having a good go of things, huh?" The covered pile only continued to cry.
"Bad days are no fun, aren't they?" He chuckled in an attempt to brighten the mood, "It's safe to say that there's never going to be a shortage of those. You wanna know what makes me feel better about them though?" He tried to ask the sad menagerie of stolen blankets. It had stopped full on crying and had downgraded to some small sniffles.
"Much like our tears, it can't be raining all the time. Otherwise we wouldn't be able to see the sun!" He smiled brightly as the pile continued to sniff harshly. Eventually, a very red face with pink, tear stained eyes managed to poke her face out from under the blankets.
"Wow, are you corny." Minase said through a mixture of tearful snorts and half-efforted chuckles.
"Got our resident Sun to poke her pretty little head out, didn't it?" Kafka joked back as he gently tugged the edge of the blanket off from around her hair.
She giggled a little in return as she leaned in harder into Kafka's embrace. Seeing Minase in a more relaxed state that what she was in earlier, Hakua took the opportunity to seat herself behind Minase and lean her weight against her back as a show of support. They all took a few minutes of the calm for themselves, just letting their friend take deep soothing breaths and let the last of her tears drain from her eyes. Reno came in after Minase had gotten her heart under control and gladly took the offered water bottle. He had decided to sit on the floor in between Kafka's legs and Minase's.
"Want us to grab anything for you? I think they're selling strawberry ice cream fish cakes in the canteen." Hakua offered as a helpful gesture. Minase's tears almost triggered again as she thought about the offer.
"Sound's great." She said bitterly, "But I think I would rather have my dogs right now."
"Oh, you have dogs?" Reno asked innocently. He started to cringe and think he said something wrong once Minase started to cry again.
"Not for much longer apparently!" She wailed, "I think my horrible step-father is threatening to kill my dogs!" She tried to wipe her tears with the edge of the soiled blanket, but it wasn't very effective.
"Now why would someone do something like that?" Kafka asked, astonished at the thought.
"I don't know! I think he's just always had it out for me since he came into the family!" Minase's tears had slowed, but her sorrowful screams hadn't, "I had them stay with Aunti Mei before I left for the defense force, but apparently her new landlord is evicting the pets at her place, so she had to drop them off back at mom's, but Chase hates me; he's always hated me! And now he's taking it out on my bubbies!"
"Oh, baby…" Hakua said softly as she tried to give Minase a hug from behind.
"I just got off the phone with him, I don't even know how he got my number, but it's just… something he said, or how he said it… I don't know, I just feel like my babies aren't safe anymore!" She began to cry again as Kafka held her even harder, "I can't bring them here! I don't have any other relatives nearby to send them too! I refuse to send them to a shelter! I don't know what to do!"
As she continued to cry again, Reno could see Kafka's expression growing darker and darker. He had tucked Minase's head into his chest as he listened to her woes. Reno started to wonder if maybe it was so she couldn't see the quiet anger building up behind his eyes. Suddenly, like someone had flipped a switch in his head, Kafka donned as soft smile, one that barely managed to hide the softly rolling fury behind his expression. He brought a hand up to gently pat the top of her head. With a clearly sincere tone, Kafka spoke some more sweet words until she stopped crying again. When he could hear the hiccuping had slowed, he pulled her head back and made sure to look her in the eyes.
"Minase, I'm going to tell you this right now. You aren't going to worry your strong heart any longer, ya got me? Nothing is going to hurt your fluffy little friends, okay?" Minase just looked at him with a lot of burning questions in her eyes, but found that she didn't have the strength to say them.
"I wan't to hear you say 'Okay' too." Kafka gently placed both of his hands on either side of her face as he asked, "Please?"
"Oh-okay." she said meekly.
"Atta-girl." He responded as he gave her one last strong hug.
Kafka then looked at Hakua and gave her an expression that seemed to communicate a lot of things, most of which Reno just translated as 'Keep an eye on her'. He then got up loudly from the bed and stretched, groaning all the way. He walked over to his personal locker at the other side of the room and could be heard rummaging through it. Reno couldn't see what he was grabbing from his spot on the floor, but could definitely hear when he stopped going through his and suddenly started going through what he thought to be Aoi's.
"Sir, can I ask what you are doing?" Reno called out as he got up from the floor to investigate the weird behavior.
"Hm? Oh, just- uhh, changing into civilian clothes. I just remembered I had some business outside of base that I should probably take care of." Kafka said as he donned a large black jacket, thin gloves, a neck gaiter, and grabbed his over-sized black towel. The item he had seemed to grab from Aoi's locker was his spare set of combat boots.
"Okay… If it's just errands, then why do you need Aoi's boots? Aren't they bigger than your feet?" Reno continued to question as he followed Kafka out of the barracks and over to what appeared to be a supply closet.
"Oh, the boots? I-uh, noticed mine were pinching my feet, so I thought I'd take Aoi's for a spin." Kafka offered as an excuse, but Reno could tell what a poor excuse it was. It didn't distract him enough from questioning why Kafka was holding the door's handle a weird way and suddenly slamming his shoulder into it.
"Isn't that door locked?" Reno kept interrogating an uninterested Kafka. He didn't stop him once he somehow managed to bash the door open and walked inside like he owned everything.
"Only if you don't know how shittly made some of the doors are here on base." Kafka said nonchalantly as he scanned the shelves within. He found and grabbed a flat head screwdriver, a hammer, and a can of WD-40 and put them inside the towel before twisting the whole thing together and tying it in such a way as to not have the contents spill out.
"Hey, could you do me another favor? I know, I'm asking a lot today, but just this once? I'll even pay you back for the water bottle later, but first, could you help Hakua keep an eye on Minase while I'm gone?" Kafka asked as he left the supply closet and slung the impromptu bag over his shoulder.
"Wait, you're leaving now?" Reno asked as he followed him to the end of the hallway.
"Yeah, bud! I just said I had errands to do, didn't I? Don't worry, I'll be sure to tell Vice Cap where I'm going." Kafka said with an encouraging wink as he rounded the corner and quickly jogged out of sight.
Reno wasn't sure what was going on with his friend, but he was fairly certain it wasn't good. It certainly didn't make him feel better about knowing that Kafka was about to do it without him.
✼  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉  ҉ ✼
It was about three am that night when Minase got woken up by another phone call. She shook the sleepy fog from her head as her pink flip-phone rang out it's cheery little chip tune. She grabbed her phone quickly and walked as fast as she could bring herself to in her groggy state out the barrack door. She walked a good distance away before sliding the device open and taking the call.
"Sweetie?" A familiar voice called out, not bothering to hide the distress it carried.
"Mom? Are you okay? What's going on?" Minase answered in a gravely tone, trying to get accustomed to understanding others on a lack of sleep.
"Listen Sweetie, I get you were upset at your father about what he said about the dogs-"
"He's not my dad." Minase interrupted in a quiet voice, knowing that her mother was just going to ignore the comment anyway,
"- But I don't think it warranted hiring a hit-man to get them!" Her mother whispered harshly. In the background, she could hear the sound of sirens and her step-father shouting at someone.
"Wait, what?" Minase asked as she rubbed her face.
"I understand you're attached to your little goobers, but Chase wasn't actually going to hurt them! He loves them too, he just has a hard time showing it and-"
"Mom, stop, back up. What was that about a hit-man?" Minase thought she had heard her mother wrong when she said something about a hit-man.
"A strange man broke into our house tonight and stole your dogs!" Her mom said as her quiet tone got increasingly shrill.
"Maybe start with that?!" Minase almost felt like she was shouting once she heard about the break-in.
"What, that someone stole the dogs? I thought I did?" her mom questioned.
"No-god, the break in! Someone broke in?" Minase's mind started to fray again. First with her step-father threatening her dogs and now this!
"Yes, I thought that was implied with the dog-napping?" her mother could be scatter-brained some days, but tonight was taking the cake. Minase was growling as she tried to think of her next question, but stopped once she heard her mother scuffling with someone on the other end of the line.
"god damn it woman just hand it here- YOU." A clearly irritated voice broke into the private conversation with an enraged bellow, "Listen here you dumb bitch, I get that being a Defense force officer might make you feel like such a big girl now, but getting one of your suped-up, mutant Kaiju super-freaks to come down here and take away your stupid mutts is a clear overstepping of where you stand in life! How many dicks did you have to suck off for that, Huh? Did you have to get on your hands and knees, bat your dull little eyes at the first dumb schmuck that would listen to you? It really speaks to the quality of your fellow members that if you were that desperate for your yippy rats, you somehow managed to find some deprived knuckle-dragger willing to dedicate some serious grey matter to this idiotic plan of yours and-"
"Shut up, just shut UP!" Minase yelled into her phone, "I didn't ask anyone to get my dogs back! No one even knows where you live because I actively try to forget you exist! We don't even have any mutant Kaiju hit-men for me to even bother sending out to your dilapidated rust bucket shed you call a house!"
"Oh yeah? Tell that to my right fist I just sent through someone's eye socket! Not to mention the fact the fridge has a dent in it now from where that stupid asshat sent me flying into it! Ya wanna come down and take a look at it and continue to be the stupid little bitch that you are, huh? Denying that you got someone from your freak division to come down here and fuck up my shit? You know your paying for the damages, right? I'll be expecting money for a new fridge, a nice one, from your paycheck and it better be before the sun rises on your precious bitch lackey's funereal!-" At that point, Minase just clicked the flip phone shut.
The creaking of its case echoed slightly into the empty hallway as her fist tightened around it in restrained rage. Her arm shook with the force of her quiet wrath before launching her phone into the nearest wall with the full force of everything she wanted to hold back. She watched as it bounced off the wall and bench under it before coming to a stop a few feet from her. The phone looked like it remained intact, with was more than what one could say about her emotions right now. Minase tried not to fall directly onto her knees and instead stumbled quickly over to a nearby vending machine, its light acting as a pleasant beacon in her mind. She tried to stop herself from falling onto it, but her knees gave out at the worse time and caused the machine to rattle a little from the force of her landing. Tears had been welling up for a while, but now fell freely from her tired eyes. She felt her legs lose their strength as she slipped quietly onto the floor, covering up her sobs as best she could.
"Minase? Is… that you?" A tired voice cracked the night's stillness, causing her to turn and face the newcomer.
"Sorry. Did I wake you?" Minase whispered as she gathered herself up just enough to ask Iharu, who was standing in the hallway with just a pair of sleep shorts.
"No… Well, kinda. But that's not important." Iharu rubbed the sleep from his face as he came over to the vending machine and helped Minase onto her feet just enough to help shuffle her over to the bench next to it.
He turned around and went back to the barracks and returned shortly with cash, and paid for a can of hot corn soup from the machine. He chugged some of it and hissed from the heat before sitting down next to her on the bench.
"Here, it's cold out here. You should get something warm in ya." He said as he offered the half eaten can.
She took the offered can with reserved appreciation and took a small sip for herself. A part of her didn't want the company, but considering it could have been anyone else that found her, she was at least glad that it was Iharu. When growing up with a family life that was less than ideal, it tends to make one yearn for anything stable in their life. Minase initially left because she wanted just that, and joining the Defense Force gave her the perfect opportunity. While continuing her training, she came to hear all about how the Defense Force was a great place to not only meet great people, but a place to form deep bonds with them. Something she wanted to experience with all her heart.
It wasn't hard to make friends here with everyone being fairly like minded people. It had only been about a month and she already felt like she was a sister to everyone here. She couldn't even begin to explain just how quickly she became attached to everyone, including the witty old guy in their battalion. Minase knew it was way too early to admit this, but she really did like to think of Kafka as the dad she wished she had. And if Kafka was her dad, then Iharu felt like the brother she always wanted. Most girls here probably would have had their hearts racing at the thought of having an indirect kiss with the resident hot-shot, but to her it just felt like something a caring brother would have done.
"So can I ask what happened, or do you want to sit in silence together until you feel like letting me walk you back to bed?" Iharu asked with a yawn, slouching over until his elbows hit his knees.
Minase bitterly chuckled, "I don't think I'm going to be able to sleep for a while, let alone tonight."
"What, did the fucked-up old man say something stupid and insane like usual?" Iharu tried to be helpful as he tried to cut her step-father down.
"No." Minase tried to playfully counter before contradicting herself, "Well, yes, and it's actually kinda serious, but it wasn't what he said about me."
She took a deep breath before she spoke, "Someone broke into my parent's place tonight."
"Anyone hurt?" Iharu reflexively fired back.
"No one that didn't deserve it. Chase got thrown into the fridge after he slugged the guy, but the biggest problem is that the guy that broke in stole my dogs." Minase answered before she took another sip of the hot canned soup.
"Fuuuuck." Iharu sleepily droned out, "Ain't that a swift kick in the nuts."
"You know what hurts the most?" Minase hinted at, "Is that I feel a little relieved that it happened." She tried to hold back another wave of sobs which caused her lungs to hiccup and her frame to shake again.
"Nooo, Minase! You don't mean that, come on." Iharu drawled as he scooted closer and wrapped an arm around her. She tucked her head into his chest as a hand came up to hold back her tears.
"They have a chance to go to a nicer family this way, right? They practically look like pure-breeds so some fancy, upper-crust family would have to pay out the nose to give them a happy life." Minase continued to quietly sob as she did her best to hug Iharu back for personal support.
"Look, it's been reported to the police, right? Maybe in the morning we can head to your parents' place and we can ask your mother for details. Or maybe we just spend a day or two posting flyers, I don't know. Either way, we can all pitch in to get your dogs back." Iharu tried to comfort her as he rubbed soothing circles into her shaking back.
"There's no point if I have no where to keep them!" Minase did her best to muffle her pitiful wails behind her already occupied hands.
Off in the distance down the hallway, they heard a strange noise, loud enough to be heard over their emotional conversation. Iharu spared a glance down the darkened hallway in what he hoped was the direction the noise was from. Since Minase didn't seem to hear it the first time, he ignored his instincts and went back to comforting her. However, he couldn't bring himself to ignore his gut feelings any longer once he heard what sounded like chairs crashing and a muffled curse.
"What was that?" Iharu muttered suspiciously as he shifted on the bench.
"Yeah, I heard it too." Minase confirmed as she wiped away the last of her tears.
The two of them looked at each other before deciding to get up and follow the noise. They traveled down the almost pitch black hallway with Minase peering into the dark panes of glass that lined the corridor with the light from her phone. Iharu quickly found a janitor's closet in the dark and began to brutally shoulder the door open. He reached inside and grabbed a wide broom and met back up with Minase.
"What's that for?" she asked.
"Intruders?" Iharu answered with an unsure shrug.
"Why would anyone want to break into a Defense Force Base?" Minase countered.
"I'm sorry, do you think we get paid enough to ask that kind of question right now?" Iharu retaliated as he brandished the makeshift weapon.
They didn't have to continue very far before they noticed something strange in one of the offices on that floor. Looking through the inner window, they both noticed that one office was a lot brighter than the others, mainly due to the fact that one of the outer windows was open and the blinds covering it were drawn up. The full moon outside gave out enough light to let the duo see what was a clear outline of a large, hunched figure currently ducked behind a desk. They quietly rushed to the office door, and once finding it unlocked, let themselves inside. With her phone off, they stealthily rounded the desks behind the lumbering figure.
Iharu couldn't tell what the person was saying, but could tell that they were struggling with something wriggling in their jacket. As he lifted the full weight of the broom to come down on the intruder's head, he accidentally knocked the head of it against the lip of a desk next to him. As he let out a clipped curse, the stranger in front of them quickly turned around and scrambled backwards across the floor screaming. Startled by his screaming, both Iharu and Minase began to scream as well. Once everyone started screaming, did two little yapping fluff balls make their presence known.
"Wait, dogs?" Iharu called out first once he heard the unusual disturbance.
"Shit, Iharu?" The barely masked stranger guessed after he calmed down.
"Kafka?" Minase and Iharu both answered once they heard the intruder's voice.
"Well, so much for anonymity." Kafka groaned sarcastically as he pulled down his face mask.
Minase turned and bolted for the light switches back next to the door to the office and turned the lights on. Coming back she saw two familiar looking lumps of hyperactive fur rapidly shaking in the confines of the large black jacket Kafka was still wearing.
"Ronny! Tototo!" She cried as she scrambled for her twin Pomeranian pups.
Kafka unzipped his jacket and very carefully pulled them out so he could hand them over to a very teary eyes Minase. Iharu let the broom drop to the floor as he watched with astonishment while Minase fell to her knees and lavished her once forsaken pets. She held them close as she lovingly pelted them with loud kisses before fully falling to the floor and laid on her side, letting them lick her back with equal voracity. More tears came to spill out, not of sadness for once, but out of happiness and was now mixing into a layer of joyous dog slobber being lathered on her face. Her enthusiastic giggles could not be contained and instead echoed slightly in the mostly empty office. As the scene unfolded before them, Iharu slowly moved closer to Kafka and helped the quietly elated man off the floor.
"Jeezus, man! What the hell happened to your eye?" Iharu asked once Kafka had dusted himself off.
"Hmm! Oh, this?" Kafka answered as he pointed to the fresh shiner blooming over his right eye, "Got distracted and walked right into a light pole! Can ya believe it!" He tacked on a great big smile to hopefully sell the lie.
"Uh huh." Iharu grunted, already suspicious, "Was the distraction caused by the dogs or from recovering getting knocked in the head first?"
"Don't know what you're talking about." Kafka muttered as he innocently shrugged.
"Really?" Iharu incredulously countered, "You seriously expect us to believe that you didn't just break into Minase's Dad's house, knock his front door in, and make away with the dogs in question."
"Yes, because what the story actually is-" Kafka began with a mischievous glint in his good eye, "That I graciously intervened in what was clearly a home invasion gone wrong, rescued the dogs off the street after failing to apprehend the suspect that just so happened to be a similar build and height to me, and have so humbly decided that I could bring these poor, distraught, and fluffy victims to a safe location before notifying their proper owner. Who, come to find out, I just so happen to work with." Kafka finished smugly, "There's already a police report and everything."
Iharu rubbed his hands over his tired face for a moment and groaned loudly, "Oh, this is bad. Oh, you are going to get so caught." Those same hands came up to pull back on his hair, "How did you even know which house to hit? Minase never says anything about her family. E-e-even then, what's your excuse for being out so late? You have to know that Vice-Cap is going to kill you for being out this long."
"I don't know if you know this, but there aren't a whole lot of guys living in Western Japan with the legal name Chase, let alone living with a woman whose last name is Akari." Kafka informed as he patted Iharu's back, "And look, just leave the rest of the scary shit up to me. This may come as a shock, but this isn't the first time I've had to duck an assault charge as well as B+E." Upon hearing this, Iharu slowly turned and looked up at the fellow brother-in-arms, now a complete stranger to him once again.
"Please tell me this is just another Germany thing?" He asked, wanting it to coax out some reassurance that Kafka wasn't as crazy as he was being led to believe.
Kafka just let out a breathy chuckle, "I'll tell you about it some other time." He left cryptically open-ended.
Iharu watched as Kafka walked off and joined Minase on the floor, pulling out strips of cold, precooked bacon from the pocket of his jeans and teased the Pomeranian brothers with it. Iharu, still being too tired to continue to question any of this, just shook his head gave up, preceding to join the other two people on the floor and introduced himself to the new ferociously furry company.
"i really appreciate you doing this for me Kafka!" Minase cheered as she held her pups close to her chest, "But it doesn't change the fact that they can't stay here. I'm sure the higher-ups wouldn't let us."
"You let me worry about that too." Kafka countered as he tore up the last strip of bacon he owned, "Who knows, maybe Bakko could do with a pair of friends."
"Or a set of snacks." Iharu mumbled as he reached out a hand for one of the Pomeranians to sniff at.
"Don't even joke like that." Minase growled as she harshly pulled her dogs out for Iharu's reach.
#ah yes#another example of me pushing the agenda that every one on base has daddy issues and Kafka is here to fix them.#which unintentionally makes this a bit of a filler chapter.#But this will be important later.#really I just took the excuse to dedicate Minase something.#I know her description says she's got a lot of admirers on Base#and that's probably context for saying that she's the love interest for a lot of people#but I think I like it better that she has something similar to Kafka#where that he naturally fills a Father-like role She fills a Little Sister like role.#only one person is going to know where the names for the dogs came from.#one of them is black and brown and the other is just fully brown#they're not brothers so much as “its illegal to separate these two for the sake of their own emotional state” kinda problem.#idk I feel like I should add more stuff to this.#I know it's kinda stupid of me to post the chapters out of order but like I said I just want to get it done.#I've never written anything that's multi-parted so really this is just an exercise in keeping a train of thought going.#I think once I've got most of what I've wanted to communicate across and I'm at the point I want to port everything over#I might go back and edit a few things.#I think someone on base would say they have a sister or something that is looking for dogs#and they just work out some sort of visitation system for Minase#was waiting until after Kafhoshi week ended to post this#wanted to let my bois shine on their own time/that and this is pretty unrelated.#kaiju no.8#kaiju no. 8#kaiju no 8#kaiju number 8#kaiju n8#kaiju no. eight#Kn8#kaijuu no. 8#kaijuu 8 gou
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conanssummerchild · 8 months ago
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writing more rick and morty fanfic abt rick wanting to off himself, also Summer's here !! :D
tw discussions of suicide and suicidal thoughts and such
Morty fidgeted with his hands where he was leaned against Rick's work bench, but Rick paid him no mind, all his intense focus on whatever invention he was currently tweaking.
It had been nearly three months already since Rick had finally found and killed Rick Prime, and Morty had started to breathe a little easier. For the first few weeks after the event his worry for Rick had been so great that it felt like a huge weight was crushing his lungs, not letting him relax for even a second, but Rick seemed to be doing a little better now. His drinking was back down to normal levels for him—it still wasnt healthy, but when had rick ever cared about his own health? He started joining the family for meals again, and actually ate. Mostly.
But there was still moments when Morty would catch him zoning out, with an expression of such pure sadness that it was a little terrifying.
Morty worried so much, it was exhausting. Sometimes he wished he could be more like Rick, letting loose, going with the flow, but then again, things didn't seem to be going too great for him either.
"H-hey–" Morty tried, but his voice came out too squeaky so he cleared his throat. "Hey, Rick?"
"Mhm." Rick mumbled, only half paying attention and Morty frowned.
"Rick." He repeated more firmly, shoving his shoulder lightly to get his attention. "I w-wanna talk about something."
Rick pulled his goggles off harshly, turning to face Morty with a scowl. "Morty I'm in the– in the middle of something. C-can't this wait until after I get the battery on this stupid thing to work?"
Morty pouted. "It's important."
Rick gave a long suffering sigh, rubbing his hand over his eyes. "For fucks sake, Morty. You– you always wanna talk when I'm doing important science shit. What do you want?" He tossed his googles down onto the work bench, not bothering to look where they landed and reached inside his labcoat, grabbing his flask and taking a swig of a foul-smelling, likely alien liquor that Morty could smell even from where he stood on the other end of the work bench. He wrinkled his nose but continued.
"I-I-I've been real worried about you, Rick–"
"Oh, god." Rick interrupted with a large, rather dramatic groan. "Can I just kill myself in advance, or– or is attendance to this talk mandatory?" He rolled his eyes, taking another slightly larger sip from his flask.
Morty startled a little. "Rick! don't– don't say that." He said. His voice trembled a little, the resolve he'd been trying to build up crumbling.
Rick looked like he had another sarcastic comeback ready to go, but paused at Morty's watery eyes, his unibrow rising up into his hairline in surprise.
"Woah, woah, Morty, I was just– just kidding. I was just joking." His tone softened a little, clearly trying to be comforting but missing the mark, his discomfort palpable.
And Morty couldn't help it, he burst into tears.
"Shit, uh, don't cry, Morty. I, uh, it's okay... dawg."
Morty would've laughed a little at Rick's emotional constipation if it didn't feel like there wasn't any air getting into his lungs.
"Please don't kill yourself." was all he could get out between sobs. "P-please, grandpa Rick. I don't want you to die."
"I'm not killing m-my-myself." Rick cringed at the stutter. God, he was really out of his depth. He gulped down the rest of the contents of his flask like it was water and he had just spent all day in the boiling sun.
What was he suposed to do? What were his options right now? Call for Beth? No, not with Morty's cries for Rick not to kill himself, she would freak, and Jerry was useless, so he was left with only one option.
"Summer!"
He shook his hands out anxiously, trying to shake the stress out of them.
Summer pushed open the door. "What?" She drawled, and then caught a glimpse of Morty's sobbing form. "Oh, shit, what happened?"
"I don't know." Rick was practically vibrating with nervous energy, trying to keep his hands tightly at his sides now that Summer was watching. "I-I-I-I don't know w-w-what to do."
"Jeez, grandpa, breathe. Since when do you care about Morty being upset?"
Rick shrugged, fuck she was right, this wasn't how he acted normally, he needed to calm down, why was he so frazzled? A little voice in his head reminded him that he knew exactly why. He ignored it.
"Fuck you! Just– Just help me, Summer!"
"Calm down." She said, and then turned to Morty, who was crying quieter now, hands covering his face. "Morty, what's wrong?"
Rick held his breath.
"S-S-Summer..." Morty hiccuped.
"Yeah I'm here."
"I think grandpa Rick wants to kill himself."
Summer's eyebrows raised a little and her eyes widened, she tried to school her expression back into something neutral but she had clearly not been expecting that answer.
"I don't!" Rick immediately cut in but Morty began to cry harder again at that.
Summer shot him a look and Rick winced, retreating into a corner of the garage. He reached for a bright green bottle labled 'Water' in a different language. He'd gotten it from a small humid planet in the Ribble-Bob system, where what they considered water had a higher alcohol content than anything he could get his hands on on earth, and to Rick's delight, it was a hell of a lot cheaper. He had a stash of Ribble-Bobbian alcohol too, but it was so strong that it could knock out humans with even the highest tolerance with only a few shots. So he kept that for special occasions.
He watched silently as Summer calmed Morty down, throughts racing and neon green bottle emptying. It was pretty clear that Morty was very upset, even Rick in all his emotional ineptitude could see that, but he was struggling to descifer Summer's feelings. She seemed... annoyed at him? No, not quite. Rick frowned. The buzz that he'd began to feel wasn't helping any, he shook his head frustratedly. She was tense for sure, the whole room was thick with tension though.
Eventually Morty's quiet sobs stopped altogether and he wiped his eyes, quick to fix them on Rick as soon as tears weren't blurring his vison anymore.
Rick shifted awkwardly from his position on the floor, laying his legs flat in front of him in lieu of folded to his chest and slowly waving at Morty without making eye contact, unsure of what the fuck else to do.
"Can w-we backtrack a little?" Morty said sheepishly, rubbing the back of his neck.
Rick nodded, unusually quiet. His words felt stuck in his throat and he couldn't get them out.
Morty sighed a little, accepting he wasn't going to get anything out of Rick right now, and going on with what he had wanted to say. "Okay. I've been worried about you because w-when Evil Morty came here, when you had already left to get, um, that guy."
"Prime." Rick croaked, voice forced.
"Right, Prime. A-A-After you left to fight Rick Prime, Evil Morty asked me what I thought was gonna happen if you actually killed him, and he kind of suggested that you might... kill yourself."
"Evil Morty's full of shit." Rick rasped. "He doesn't even know me, we've met like w-what, three times?"
"I'm not done! Let me finish." Morty pouted. "Him saying that worried me be-because it made me think about all your reckless behaviour and how little you seem to care about your own life sometimes, you know."
Rick scoffed but Summer raised an eyebrow at him, so he just scowled and looked back down at his feet, letting Morty continue.
"I-I guess I'd never considered it before, I mean not seriously. Sure, I... wondered sometimes, b-but when Evil Morty said it like that, well, the more I thought about it the less... unrealistic it seemed, and you've just seemed so empty these past months, i was re-really worried." Morty's voice broke a little, but he pushed on. "Also he's seen your downloaded brain, so, y-y'know he would know, right? He wouldn't just be saying it for no reason."
"He was saying it to-to-to psych you out, Morty!" Rick stammered, gesturing wildly. "And it's working! Look how psyched out you are, M-Morty! This is what he wanted!"
"Why would Evil Morty want this?"
"Uh, because he's evil, Morty. Duh-doy."
"Okay!" Summer interrupted loudly. "This isn't getting anywhere."
"It would get somewhere if Morty would just-"
"Grandpa Rick! Stop. Can you both just listen to me? Or I'm putting you in a cage again until you actually prove you're not a danger to yourself."
Rick crossed his arms, glaring at her, but she glared right back, unwavering.
"Fuck, whatever." He grumbled, slumping back against the wall.
"Good." Summer said, turning serious again. "Now, how can you reassure Morty that you aren't going to hurt yourself?"
"He should just take my word for it!"
"You lie to me all the time!" Morty exclaimed.
"He has a point." Summer cut in again. "Why should he trust you? Especially if you're planning on killing yourself."
"Im not killing myself!"
"I don't believe you." Morty said, sounding miserable and hurt. Rick's shoulders slumped. He didn't have a good response to that.
The silence streched on uncomfortably, the atmosphere tense and serious. This was a real issue, which Morty knew Rick didn't like to deal with. His style was more like shoving his serious problems under the metaphorical carpet until he couldn't walk on it without feeling sharp pain wherever he stepped, until no one could walk on it at all.
"Well I don't believe you either." Summer said quietly. But I do have one idea." She pointed to her left and Rick and Morty's eyes followed her gaze to the lie detector Rick had stolen on his and Morty's adventure to Venzenulon-10.
Morty shuddered remembering it, he'd nearly fallen into lava that day and Rick had barely flinched. Would Rick even be doing this for him? He couldn't imagine him crying for Morty the way Morty had been crying for him just a few minutes ago.
"I'm not– A polygraph, Summer? Seriously? That's dumb, I'm not doing that shit, this isn't fucking Community."
"What? What the fuck is that?" Summer frowned.
"Community? What– you've never watched Community? Fuck, we-we've gotta watch it. Not Earth's one though, Glorbion-56C's version is way gayer, we gotta watch that one."
"Okay, sure, whatever. But first we have to finish this." Summer put her hands on her hips, not willing to budge.
"I agree with Summer." Morty pitched in, more meek, but still firm.
"Fine, fuck, whatever. You know polygraph tests are dumb, right? They might w-work on simple minded neurotypicals like Jerry, but I'm the fucking smartest man in the–"
"Grandpa, sit the fuck down."
Rick scowled, but sat down in the chair Summer pointed at, not without an eye roll. He knew that there was no stalling his way out of this one, Summer and Morty were both stubborn and he could see the poorly-concealed anxiety in their faces and demeanour, he knew they weren't going to let this go. He just hoped he really was smart enough to outsmart the lie detector.
"Okay, bring it on." He sighed, feigning boredom and disinterest.
Summer stumbled a little bringing the polygraph over to Rick's work bench, the machinery was heavier than it looked. The Venzenulons had a lot of really advanced technology but the planet Rick had gotten this specific machine on used bismuth in a lot of creations, making then heavier than they should be, but it was worth it, really, Venzenulon-10's technology and craftsmanship was miles ahead of Venzenulon-4's, or god forbid Venzenulon-22's. Rick almost chuckled to himself just thinking about it.
Summer finally set the polygraph machine down on the work bench with a thump and a groan from her and Rick let her fasten the little black strip aroud his finger.
"Take your labcoat off." Summer murmured absentmindedly, fiddling around with the slightly tangled wires.
"My labcoat stays on."
Summer gave him a look.
"Jeez, Rick, just take it off." Morty whined.
"No, fuck both of you. I-I-I'm already doing your dumb ass test and my labcoat being on literally has no effect on that stupid thing working, so both of you can lick my balls." He fumed.
"Jesus, grandpa. Cranky much?" Summer said sassily, putting a hand on her hip. "You can keep your dumb labcoat you're so in love with then."
She slid the cuff up Rick's arm, fastening it around his bicep.
"That's where it goes, right?" She asked. "How do i make the screen turn on?"
"Theres a-a switch on the back." Morty told her. "Just press that and it should work."
Summer felt along the back of the large screen before pressing down on the switch, making it light up with three wiggly graph-like things.
"Uhhh, grandpa how the hell do I read these?" Summer frowned.
"Don't– don't worry. This is like a lie detector for dummies, if you know how to read the lines, great, but it also just displays whether the answer is true or a lie when a question is asked. Ask me something you know the answer to."
"Uh, are your... eyes brown?"
"Yes."
The word "TRUE" flashed across the screen in bold green.
"Oh, tight, okay. We can get started, then. Morty, you ask whatever questions you have, I'll man the machine."
"Okay." Morty said, nerves making his voice wobbly. Rick took a deep breath.
"Do you want to kill yourself?" Morty asked and the garage went completely silent for a moment, air feeling so thick you could choke on it.
"No." Rick answered evenly.
Summer swallowed. "He's– he's telling the truth." She said shakily.
Morty breathed a sigh of relief. "Jeez, well that's– Phew, that's good. That's a relief."
Another beat passed and then Morty spoke again. "Have you ever wanted to kill yourself?"
"No."
"That's a lie."
Rick glared at Summer but she just shrugged, face unreadable to him.
"Aw jeez..."
"Oh come on, my-my whole family died right in front of my eyes, I've been tortured by- by countless aliens, been held prisoner, a guy can't even wonder?"
"Well, I mean, that is, that's– that's a good point you make there, Rick. But- but you wouldn't...? You've never actually tried to, like, actually kill yourself, right, Rick?"
"Obviously not. If– if I wanted to kill myself I would've, and I wouldn't fail, I'm a genius."
"R-right. So you haven't tried to kill yourself?"
"No, Morty."
Summer stared down at the monitor, lips pressed together in a tight line. "That's the truth." She said. her voice sounded a little weird but Morty was too relieved to really think about it.
"Thank god, Rick, wow. That's a really big relief to me, you know. Sorry I-I didn't believe you before, I was real just worried."
"Hey, it's all good, dawg. Don't even- don't even trip about it. You wanna go watch some Ball Fondlers, buddy?"
"Yeah!" Morty grinned, demeanor a lot more relaxed than it had been before. "Yeah, let's watch Ball Fondlers."
"What do ya say, Sum-Sum? Ball Fondlers?"
Summer flipped the switch on the machine, powering it back down. "I'm busy." She said, whipping out her phone "Have fun though."
Rick shrugged, detatching himself from the polygraph and tossing the cuff and finger strip onto the table. "Okay. Well I'm getting me some Nuptian weed, babyyy!"
"Aw jeez, Rick. You're getting high?"
"It's– it's better that way, Morty, trust me. Nuptian weed lets you see in 4D. In 4D, Morty! Really enhances the experience. Plus don't– don't you think I deserve to have a little buzz, it's been quite a day."
"I don't know, Rick. Didn't you drink like that whole bottle of liquor just now?" Morty asked, pointing to the discarded green bottle laying in the corner of the room.
"What? Morty, that's water, that's– it's practically water. It says water on the front of the bottle." Rick murmured, digging through one of his drawers before triumphantly pulling out a small transparent box filled with a bunch of purple-ish pink blunts and a lighter with a naked woman on it. "Ah, fuck yeah, Morty. I knew I still had some. Okay, come on, lets go."
Summer followed them out of the garage and then walked up the stairs, hearing their conversation get quieter as they got further away. She didn't let the first tear fall until she was in her room with the door shut.
"Shit." She breathed. "What the fuck."
She sat down with a small thud and hugged her knees to her chest.
She hoped the memory on the lie detector didn't back up, or that Morty didn't get curious and look through it one day, just to be sure.
Because if he did, he would just see the same word displayed four times in bold red.
"LIE"
the end hfjejsjw
this sucks arseee and its way too long and i dirnt really go over the second half but idc its 2am so sorry for any spelling errors and general shitty writing 😗 peace out, hope u enjoy
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ofbreathandflame-archive · 2 years ago
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im sorry im breaking my anti fast for this bc its literally the most idiotic thing i have ever seen.
"some people hate sjm for the racism in her books"
yeah NO SHIT.
that has always been the point.
thats literally the entire point of being anti sjm posts. thats literally all we talk about in the anti tags. but shortsightedness and an unhealthy relationship with these characters has always blinded y'all to that fact.
you see this is why i could not stomach conversations because you guys constantly make a mockery of the problems in sjm's work and only acknowledge the problems for a 'gotcha' moment. EVERY SINGLE TIME we have talked about how the racism in sjm's work affects the writing of her characters you guys have made it into an anti feysand problem, and by doing that you have willingly separated yourself from the problems in the story. the reality is that the racism affects the way these characters are written -- including your favs. do not dare twist the main message of antis to fit some twisted little point you want to make toward specific blogs. i have been on my last account for over two years and EVERY TIME i -- or any anti -- has talked about the way sjm's racism bleeds onto the text we have been undermine, ran off our blogs, sent hate mail. so yeah it pisses me off to no end to be sent the dumbest post in the anti tags to ever exist. yall do not care about her racism, her misogynoir. if you did, you wouldn't be calling people brain dead for daring to dislike your favorite ship for valid reason -- i.e. the racism. we talked about the complexities of how racist the portrayal of the illyrians were -- and we were dismissed as anti feysand and therefore 'braindead.' we talked about the way women of color and the allusions of FGM (female genital mutilation)-- and we were called anti feysands and then dismissed. stay out of the anti tags -- especially if you are the ones perpetuating these dynamics. i was ran off my blog for discussing these issues for two years. y'all sent hate mail, called me tamlin stan -- called others tamlin stans -- for even daring to discuss the racism in sjm works. that's not even touching the nehemia situation, or crescent city. fuck off the tags. you literally have a blog dedicated to this woman and her racist ass characters, you shoot down any criticism of them because of it, and then yall have the nerve to come into the tags for the some hehe hahah tamlin stan bs??? double fuck off. the anti sjm tag has always been a place for that criticism. always.
addition: and these problems are not just valid when discussing characters you don't like. the illyrians are written to brutes, with the bat boys operating as the 'model minority'. the story justifies the lack of infrastructure, and the misogyny (misogynoir depending on how you classify illyrian women), the lack of progress.
'its a culture problem'
'rhysand has tried, but they wont listen'
like do you know how crazy it is to write a group of people as permanently mentally stunted? to classify their women as nameless entities that our main character can shift in and out of to satisfy her supposed 'man of color' sexually? feyre cosplays as a woman of color for SEX, meanwhile in FIVE BOOKS we've met one named illyrian woman and shes described 'interesting,' but not as pretty as opposed to nesta and gwyn, mor, and feyre who are the prettiest people to walk the earth. that don't sound CRAZY to yall??? these people of color are left without leadership, without infrastructure, no access to a golden city, no access to their high lord, are forced to breed out warriors who live and die without ever getting to enjoy the city of velaris, the house of wind for survivors. all of that so that the maincharacters can live out that power fantasy. its racist. thats what it is. please think consider reading comprehension b4 yall make these gotcha posts because it really stinks of weirdness.
the illyrians are treated like rabid animals by their leaders, by everyone and then the responsibility is on them to somehow progress when everyone is unwilling to give them nothing more than scraps. like there's a real life counterpart to this, and yall arguments are very real and very damaging.
they are written by the author to be a permanent second class deserving of their position because they're minds somehow cannot comprehend any 'progression.' all of these characters including rhysand, feyre, mor, az, cassian, tamlin, nesta say racist things toward them because THE NARRATIVE thinks they're justified in saying them. like the moralizing is wild in this case bc all of them are allowed to get away with it. its not just tamlin or nesta, not just the valkyries (which is an ENTIRELY different scenario btw). like the idea that all of the bad can be ascribed to the 'bad' characters and the 'good' characters somehow don't feed into those racist tropes is WILD. rhysand literally told us -- the reader -- the in the war against slaves and their oppressors somehow it was an equal battle. like?????? somehow 'both sides were at fault' ignoring that one side WAS LITERALLY SLAVES. like can u imagine if someone looked at the Haitian revolution and was like....yeah the side of the oppressors was somehow on equal footing when the other side WAS ENSLAVED? how can u acknowledge this author is racist and then pretend that the racism only bleeds over to the characters you *shockingly* don't like?? yes -- there is a problem with feyre wearing illyrian wings BECAUSE SHES THE HIGH LADY. she made herself that title. of course that carries a different weight. the racism is ingrained in the text, not just some little trinket to flash when you want to moralize bullying a small group of people with strawman arguments.
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geekthefreakout · 9 months ago
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The GaaNaru Letters (part 1 of ?)
AN: this might not be anything, but its been floating in my head. It's a tumblr post instead of going on Ao3 because it's lower commitment rn.
Dear Gaara,
Heh, it's weird calling you dear when we only kinda know each other. But Iruka-sensei said that's how letters are supposed to start. This is my first time writing to someone else- all my friends are in my village! Anyway, I just wanted to see how you are after that asswhooping I gave you! That's not me bragging, by the way. It's just. You seemed lonely. Like I told you back then, I know what that pain is like. I guess I want to help you with it. And I think you and me have something else in common, too. Do you know what I mean? Anyway, everyone knows that the Sand village only attacked the Leaf because Orochimaru-bastard was manipulating you, so I don't think we have to be enemies anymore. That snakey bastard killed the Third Hokage, but I heard he killed your Hokage too? I hope you get this and write back, maybe?
Love From, Uzumaki Naruto
Uzumaki Naruto,
I have been informed that honorifics are not required at the beginning of letters if one does not wish to include them. Unless this is one of the cultural differences between the Leaf and the Sand, you should not feel obliged to use "dear" for me. This is also my first time writing a letter to someone. I am not sure what to say, but I will answer your questions.
I think I do know what you mean, if you are referring to that red chakra that you summoned. Do you have a monster within you as well? It is difficult to imagine.
Orochimaru did indeed kill our kage, though the Sand Village has a Kazekage, rather than Hokage. Rather than in a great battle such as befell your leader, the Kazekage seems to have been murdered on the sly. That man was my father. I am told that most children mourn their fathers. I have not mourned anyone since Yas I was small, and I see no need to change that. Perhaps if my father did not try to assassinate me so often, I would feel differently. At any rate, my siblings are too afraid of me to press the issue.
You, however, are not afraid of me. Despite the damage I wrought on your friends and your village, you are still reaching out. I find myself wondering why? Perhaps we are not actively enemies, but we are not allies either. What use am I to you? Why should it matter to you that I am lonely?
Why did you weep for me, Uzumaki Naruto?
From,
Gaara of the Desert
Dear Gaara,
I already said- I know what your kind of loneliness is like, and I want to help! It's not some big complicated thing. You don't have to have a use to me, you know? Except maybe to talk about stuff.
Like the monster thing. This is kind of a secret so I probably shouldn't confirm or deny that I have a giant demon fox sealed inside me, but I want to tell you. I've never met anyone like me before, you know? Even if yours is different, with the sand and the crazy laughing and all. Mine doesn't laugh, he's just mean and grumpy and scary. When did you first know about yours? Have you always been able to use its power?
I'm sorry about your dad. Not that he's dead, but that he was an asshole! And I guess that he's dead too. I can see how that would be complicated. Did he try to kill you because of your demon? It's not how I would do things. I don't know who my parents are, or were, but I hope they wouldn't do that to me. I think parents are supposed to support their kids no matter what!
I guess it makes sense for your siblings to be scared of you when you do scary things, but I heard you apologize to them back then. So if you're trying to do better by them, they should give you a chance!
I'm going on a journey with Pervy Sage soon to look for our next Hokage-- whoever it is better meet my approval, because I'll be the next Hokage after that, believe it! And I want to get the job from someone awesome. Anyway, if I'm not in the village I'm not sure how to get mail so if I don't reply for a while it's cuz I'm out there being awesome!
Also- didn't forget what you did. You tried to hurt my friends, and that's not okay. But I kicked your ass about it already, so as far as I'm concerned it's all settled. So don't keep thinking there's something bad between us!
Sincerely (This is a new sign off I learned. It's nicer than From!), Uzumaki Naruto
PS: Iruka-sensei said you're right about the "dear" thing, but your name looked kinda naked if I didn't write it, so I'm gonna keep using it, OK?
Uzumaki Naruto,
Your answers leave me with more questions, but I will continue asking them as long as you are amenable.
My demon is the One-tail, Shukaku. He does laugh a lot, though it is not a pleasant sound. I have always known about him, for his voice has always been in the back of my mind. Furthermore, I was told outright when I had a strong enough grasp of language. Your question implies that you have not always known about yours. You called it a demon fox- could it be the Nine-tails? Is he truly so quiet that you could be unaware of him? As for tapping into Shukaku's abitilities, that has not always been conscious on my part. He is often eager to emerge and inflict is insanity upon others, so if I fall asleep he will take over on his own.
Needless to say, I am seldom allowed to sleep.
Shukaku is one reason my father tried to kill me. The other is that I killed my mother the day I was born. My existence has always been fueled by blood. I am not sure if I can change that. Can my siblings be blamed for resenting me?
Are genin often involved in the selection of political figures in the Leaf? Perhaps that is more efficient. In the Sand, it seems that the council just sits and talks in circles. My team's sensei, Baki, has taken a leadership position there, but has not assumed the title of Kazekage. I assume it is because the council wants him free to keep an eye on me. They are not sure what I will do. I am not sure either. For now, I have tried to appease them with silence. I do not wander at night, and I have not hurt anybody since our return from the Leaf. I have kept to myself. I can't say if it is doing any good. Temari and Kankuro speak gently to me, but I see the fear in their eyes if I move unexpectedly.
You keep saying that you "kicked my ass." No one has ever done that before. Yet I seem to recall you being unable to move at the end as well. Did I "kick your ass" too?
It is interesting that you view our fight as an instrument of peace between us two. Perhaps if I let Kankuro hit me, he will stop jumping whenever I speak.
I like your new sign off, so I will use it.
Sincerely,
Gaara of the Desert
TBC, possibly
PART 2
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