#it just pieces its words together more naturally. sounds less robotic but BUT the way its used and that its botched peoples idea of ai

[oars]

starts growling chatgpt is a curse

[my-writings-and-musings]

Latest part of my commission series from an awesome person, now on part three of the Brave Police hanging with the Lost Light!

Kazuto Azuma had known nothing but one long, continuing headache from the moment he'd allowed the Brave Police to be commissioned. Between their eventual acclimation of sentience to the constant additions to their numbers, they'd turned what was supposed to be a public relations move into a nightmare of paperwork and legal ramifications, mostly to be dealt with by him.

And all for what, so they could have feelings? Emotions that did nothing to help while they were on the job, and only resulted in insubordination and disaster for his end? He doubted anyone could live a day in his shoes and see them as anything but a gigantic inconvenience, and an expensive one at that!

Thus, it seemed fitting that he hadn't time to celebrate their apparent loss in space before receiving a message that they were somehow fine, and worse, had been rescued by Cybertronians.

Reading the transcript again, word for word, the vice commissioner had to resist the urge to crumple it into garbage. Of all the fates they could have met, of all the ways he could have finally been rid of them, they had been picked up by the biggest robotic nuisance in the galaxy? Even if they had spent little time in Japan, Cybertronians had made their mark well known on earth, and the litany of restrictions against them spoke to the nature of their destructive presence. Despite being machines, they had no inclination nor any kind of desire to heed the will of humans, and thus every government they dealt with was left with a huge and expensive mess. Knowing that the already rowdy Brave Police were in such company was… disturbing. Who was to say what horrible habits they could pick up while cruising back to Earth at such an apparent lackadaisical speed? Just the rudeness it took to return with "relaxed urgency" as the message had put it was enough to make his blood boil, and he had no reason to believe the few days it would take for them to arrive might leave them even more unmanageable by the end.

At the very least, before it came to that, he had a rare opportunity in a tiny window of time. Neither the Tomonaga brat nor Saejima knew any of this yet, and he was in no rush to let them know of the development. Surely it wouldn't be too bad if they received the news a little late, continuing to believe the bots were MIA in the depths of space, while he made a little call.

Adjusting his suit to appear less ruffled, he left his office behind and ventured into the depths of the building, where the communication center was nestled amongst a swarm of high tech enhancements and long range experimental equipment. It was here the first message had been received, and it was here he would send back a reply. Staff, already informed of the plan, set to work as soon as he arrived. The report had mentioned that there was some unknown and invisible "tether" of sorts connecting to their end, likely a way for long distance communication to happen instantaneously even when only one side had the technology to make it happen, and had likely been left in place for the express purpose of getting a reply back. Azuma intended to use it for just such a thing.

A great monitor for communicating visually faced him in the pulpit where he'd chosen to stand, and he made it a point to ensure he was presentable. Robots or not, it was important he established he was a prominent figure that required respect, assuming the Brave Police hadn't had the last of that knocked out of them by their troublesome rescuers…

"It it ready?" he asked after checking his watch, knowing that he only had as long as it took for Saejima or Yuuta to arrive and receive their initial briefing. It had taken all of his influence to ensure they weren't informed immediately, so he had to make the delay count.

"Yes, Mr. Azuma." an engineer replied hastily, nodding to his co-workers with a neutral expression of assent. Several great switches were flipped and the building hummed with tremendous energy, the invisible tether for communication igniting to allow an instantaneous connection across the vastness of space.

-----

Sitting idly at the bridge, Rodimus allowed himself to more or less sink into the captain's chair in boredom, wishing desperately that he could be at the bar having fun with their guests like everyone else. But, of course, plotting a reroute to Earth didn't happen on it's own. For reasons he couldn't begin to understand, the Brave Police had indeed been insistent about returning home with relative speed. It was only because of the message they'd been able to send that he'd been able to get them to take it slow at all… Ah well, at least they did seem to be happy about going home. Earth did have its charms-

An unexpected beep from an incoming message made him flail nearly to the point of crashing, but thankfully he managed to catch himself and flip right side up, plopping down into a somewhat respectable position in his chair just as the computer brought through the signal.

A face so grumpy it would have made Magnus appear sociable appeared on screen, and Rodimus recognized the speaker as human just before he began speaking the same language used by the Brave Police. "This is Kazuto Azuma, Vice-Commissioner of the Brave Police Force in Tokyo, Japan. Who am I speaking with?"

"Uh, Rodimus, Captain of the Lost Light." he replied automatically, having heard friendlier opening statements from enemies about to open fire. There was also no memory of this person being mentioned by the Braves, but he had figured their organization was a big one, so he tried to take the helpful route. "What can I do for you?"

"Are the Brave Police in your custody?" Azuma asked pointedly, and Rodimus knew with just a few words he wasn't going to like this particular human. Just managing to hold off a frown, he replied with a carefully chosen sentence, folding his hands together to keep them from forming fists. 

"They're our guests, yeah." he said, hearing approaching footsteps from the side door. Judging by the pace and weight, they belonged to Magnus, who could always be expected to check in when a message came in. Thankfully the mech also had the sense to be subtle about it, so Rodimus made no move to acknowledge the big bot when he stepped quietly into the room off camera. Having a calm bastion of reason was going to be critical in keeping this from becoming an incident. 

"Per your communication, you are not making utmost haste to return to Earth, is that correct?" Azuma asked, the question sounding more like an accusation to Rodimus given the aggressive way it was delivered. It proved to be one when he wasn't even allowed a chance to reply before he was being chewed out. "I demand an immediate increase in your speed, they must be returned to us as fast as your technology allows!"

Dentae clenching, he tried to hide how thoroughly enraged the tone made him, especially with the particular choice of words. Did this guy really think he had any kind of authority here? Was he so callous to the Brave Police that he regarded them as nothing but cargo to be shipped overnight? With Magnus tensing by his side, Rodimus just managed to reply without visibly clenching his jaw. "Is there some kind of emergency you need them for? Because otherwise, I don't think you have the authority to make that kind of order."

"That is none of your business, Cybertronian." Azuma retorted, practically sneering at the immature bot who was refusing to do what he was told. Assuming that the Braves would pick up anything from such hosts, he was certain it would be uncooperative behavior like this, and at this rate that seemed more and more unavoidable… He'd probably have to try and convince the Commission to reprogram the entire group.

"It's Rodimus, human." Rodimus sneered right back, gradually letting his scant efforts to look professional fade out into open contempt. Every word seemed to confirm his worst fears about earth and the Brave Police, and he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of just dropping them off back home. With people like Azuma about, it seemed equivalent to leaving a group of cybersheep surrounded by hungry turbofoxes, and he was not about to let those bots come to harm. Sitting back more formally in his chair, Rodimus tried to cut an intimidating figure. "This is my ship, so that means if you expect it to jump, I need to know why."

"This is pointless." Azuma clipped, sputtering as he fought to keep his anger in check to avoid looking too flustered. Looking about what little of the ship he could see, he tried to find any trace of the bots he was looking for. At the moment he'd settle for anything more cooperative than this fire patterned Cybertronian. "Where are you keeping the Brave Police? I must speak with them."

"Okay, because you're having a hard time grasping this, we aren't keeping them anywhere. They're not cargo, they're our guests." Rodimus replied, standing up from his chair as the energon in his veins started to run hot. If a human could be so condescending now, what did those bots have to endure on a day to day basis? Protective instincts told him to never give a human the opportunity to hurt them again, leaving him tempted to kill the communication as Azuma sputtered through an increasingly red face. 

"That-"

"Secondly, you aren't going to just hop on my channel and start barking orders." Rodimus interrupted, not intending to give the man a second to recuperate. He wanted the tiny organic to realize he had no power here, and that the Brave Police would not have to endure any further bullying on his watch. 

Azuma, never one to put the pieces together expediently if he didn't like the picture, continued to press every metaphorical button possible to anger the captain. "This is absurd! I don't know how your laws, if you have them, presume to function but by the standards of earth you're in possession of stolen property!"

Rodimus felt his vents hitch, and thankfully Magnus was already mobilizing just before he could finish the thought someone might eventually regret.

"Now that's where I'm gonna need you to stop-"

"I can assist with this matter." Ultra Magnus said plainly, stepping into the video and laying a hand on Rodimus's shoulder. The gesture appeared amicable, but was more than a little forceful, pushing the captain back into a seating position. Reading the intent loud and clear, the smaller mech still pouted as he conceded and sat back down. Choosing the smart path never felt as good, especially because Azuma looked pleased by the turn of events as Magnus took over. "Greetings, Mr. Azuma, I am Ultra Magnus. Perhaps the best way to proceed is to allow the Brave Police to speak for themselves? I have already asked that they come to the Bridge."

"Acceptable." Azuma replied simply, appearing less ruffled but no more amicable. At the very least he was silent until a group of bots audibly approached at full speed, and after just a minute of tense silence their wait ended and the bots of the hour entered the room.

Rodimus couldn't help tensing at how the human regarded the group with barely concealed contempt.

"Vice-Commissioner, we came as soon as we heard you were in contact!" Deckerd said the moment he stepped into the Bridge, snapping to a salute that his companions mirrored with varying amounts of success. It was a greeting so proper and well mannered one would have thought they were interacting with a popular superior, and the effort they'd put in made Rodimus frown with dissatisfaction. Azuma didn't even bother with a wave as they continued. "As stated in our message, we are all intact and accounted for, and will be arriving at earth in due course!"

There was an awkward silence and a dissatisfied glare from the human before he went right into criticism. "Why are you not returning at full speed?"

Deckerd wavered in his salute, and those around him did the same. There was a moment where the bot looked about almost helpless for a reply, before carefully stringing his words together, helm lowered the whole time like a child caught in the wrong. "We… we do not want to pressure our hosts, Mr. Azuma. They have been most accommodating-"

"Ah, so you've been content to stall up there, lazing around while we need you back on Earth?!" Azuma snapped, interrupting the police bot so aggressively he flinched. Rodimus clenched his servos into fists, knowing that getting involved would lead to a huge mess but caring less with every passing moment. Seeing the bright and happy bots pressed into a corner was making him absolutely enraged, to the point the air about him wavered from the heat. Only a firm hand on his shoulder from an equally simmering Magnus kept him in check. 

"Their technology is quite advanced, but it would still be strained by an immediate trip to Earth." McCrane offered helpfully, stepping in as he always did when things were tense. A grateful smile in his direction from Deckerd was so subtle and quick it may have been a trick of the light. 

"We would not wish to cause our rescuers any kind of harm or stress." Duke confirmed, stepping to the front with a level of calm control not yet seen by anyone on the ship. The transformation from shy and quiet to bold and in control impressed the Cybertronians present immensely, but had no impact on the fuming Azuma, who didn't take well to being told no in very certain terms. 

"Unacceptable!" he barked, making Drill Boy flinch and step closer to the others for security. Though they appeared quite accustomed to the man's badgering, the stress was no less considerable, and they all shared the same tense mannerisms of a cornered animal. Rodimus could feel himself reaching his boiling point, and knew it was now a matter of when rather than if. There'd be no holding him back once that was reached, and thankfully Magnus appeared to be in similar straights. One could almost see the anger breaking through his usually stoic frown. 

"Are you really trying to convince me there is no way for you to arrive sooner? That you're just going to laze about in space because there are no other options?!" Azuma said, grilling the Brave Police so readily it was obvious he had considerable experience with the task. It hit Rodimus in that moment; this was merely how they were treated with an audience, what was this man like in private? What terrible things had he said or done to these bots when no one was there to protect them? The thought flipped a powerful switch inside him, and before he knew it he was rising from his chair, having been given free reign to do so by an equally protective Magnus.

"Vice-Commissioner-"

"Alright, I don't think we're communicating effectively here." Rodimus said loudly, stepping in front of the Brave Police to form a physical barrier with his larger frame. Deckerd appeared worried by the action, but the captain didn't flinch, putting his hands on his hips as he faced the monitor with a plastered on smile. "Look buddy, maybe your human technology is buggy so you're not hearing us clearly…"

Azuma fumed, visibly growing hot under his collar as the bot he had no power over flounced about before him. "You-"

"So allow me to make it loud and clear! They'll be there in a few days at the earliest, got it?" Rodimus replied, cupping a hand beside his mouth so he could bark the words back as loudly and obnoxiously as physically possible. 

"I do not believe you understand the situation!" Azuma sputtered, and Rodimus was tempted to reply with something far more crass than what he eventually settled on.

"Try me!"

"Perhaps it is unclear, due to personal reasons fogging your judgement, but the Brave Police are the property of the Japanese government! You risk a great incident by delaying their return!" the Vice-Commissioner said, unintentionally striking the deepest possible nerve within every bot present. Rodimus felt something snap inside of him at the way the word property was uttered, and he was so revolted the human was able to take advantage of his horrified silence to continue.  "They may look like you, but they are Earth made, not Cybertronian! Their physical appearance should tell you that much."

Magnus stiffened at his side, the big mech's equivalent to what would have been a shocked gasp by most other bots. Through sheer incompetence, Azuma had managed to put together an insult so grave no Cybertronian could let it stand, though the Brave Police themselves appeared resigned to the treatment. Only a murmur from Drill Boy came in response. 

"Is he calling us ugly?" the dejected little bot said just loud enough to be heard from his fellows, and a simultaneously comforting and silencing hand was laid on his shoulder by Shadow Maru.

"Okay, see… I thought we were getting along okay here, but I think things are getting out of hand…" Rodimus said in a halfway bitter laugh, pinching the bridge of his nasal ridge as the full torrent of anger he wanted to unleash stewed inside of him. Though there were quite a few foul words in the mix, he cared very little for propriety, especially when none had been directed their way since the conversation had begun. "Because I can't help telling you what a massive and egotistical-

"Rodimus!" Deckerd whispered in warning, his frightened expression only managing to fuel the fire. After all, why would these bots be afraid, except if terrible things could happen if they disobeyed? He was going to go nuclear on their behalf, just to make it clear there was nothing to fear while they were with him.

"Vice-Commissioner!"

Every single being involved in the conversation froze when a voice cut through from the other end of the call, echoing through the long distance tether as someone approached Azuma from an out of frame location. Rodimus lost all of his fire and only stared in total confusion as the once haughty human blanched at the sight of whomever had called for him, and the expression of worry only intensified as the voice cut it again.

"Vice-Commissioner, what is the meaning of this?!" the unknown speaker said, their tone gruff but somehow personable and animated as their laid into the other man from offscreen. A look in the direction of the Brave Police revealed only a shared smile of relief amongst them.

"C-Commissioner!" Azuma sputtered, stepping away from the podium to meet with whomever had arrived. The Lost Light was treated to a somewhat distorted view of the out of focus man they'd just been arguing with as he tried and failed to make his case. A sharp rebuttal was issued before a single word could pass his lips.

"You received word that the Brave Police are alive and well, and we were not informed immediately?!" a man said as he appeared suddenly in the view, advancing upon Azuma with his greater height and build as the smaller Vice-Commissioner backed up at every word. To the surprise of a greatly entertained Rodimus, a small human appeared as well, undoubtedly a child. The little boy glared up at Azuma with all the rage Rodimus had been feeling moments prior and then some.

"You jerk, how could you lie to us!?"

Azuma ignored the child altogether to retort to his apparent boss, pointing at the screen where Rodimus was still front and center with his current expression of total bafflement. As if it would clear his transgressions, he announced his argument for everything with as much desperation as could be packed into so few words. "Saejima, they're with Cybertronians!"

Worlds apart, the two groups fell into total and oppressive silence. Rodimus met the eyes of the man called Saejima, and immediately got the sense he was dealing with someone who actually had a backbone and a conscience just by the way he apologized with his expression alone. Clearing his throat, the man gave his subordinate a flat look and spoke with undeniable authority.

"We shall discuss this later." 

Like any bully, the defeated Azuma slunk off, leaving his superior to clear his throat and take center stage on the pulpit. The confused child remained at his side when he finally addressed the Autobots.

"My apologies." he said calmly, giving Rodimus the comfort he needed to step in line with the Brave Police so they could be seen far more clearly. The man smiled as he caught sight of the bots. "Is everyone safe and accounted for-"

Without any warning, the child lit up as he saw the Brave Police, his wide eyes locking on Deckerd as he ran up to the monitor as if it were a barrier. Tears began to flow unabated as he cried out in a voice choked with emotion. "Deckerd?! Deckerd, are you there?!"

In another surprise for Rodimus, the always restrained police car pushed right past him and mirrored the boy's actions, his optics lighting up as he replied with equal jubilation.

"Yuuta!" he cried happily, his tone alone making it clear he adored the little human bawling his eyes out a billion miles away. Rodimus and Magnus exchanged shared looks of total surprise and confusion. Neither had ever seen a human and a bot so incredibly close, and the two weren't even done.

Sniffling so hard he could barely talk, Yuuta tried in vain to wipe away tears, looking to each of the Brave Police as tears continued streaming down his face. "Deckerd! Build Team! Everyone!" Each and every bot came behind Deckerd to joyfully greet the human Rodimus recalled was their fabled "boss", and judging by their smiles none felt anything but relief to see him again. The crying adolescent made it clear why they all loved Earth with a single heartfelt phrase. "You're all okay!"

"We're more than okay, these guys rule!" Drill Boy interjected, clamoring over the bigger bots to be seen.

"They've welcomed us into their home, and they're bringing us home while showing us the sights on the way back!" Power Joe said, gushing as if describing a vacation.

"Boss, please tell Ayako I am safe! I know she'll only believe it from you!" Dumpson said, spurring McCrane to make a similar request.

"Please tell Seia the same!"

"Make sure nobody touches my bike until I get back, that includes you!" Gunmax said playfully, obviously just messing with the little human. Yuuta nodded and smiled through his tears, overwhelmed with happy relief that Rodimus had to admit was beyond touching to witness.

"Stay safe, miniboss." Shadow Maru said simply, and at his side, Duke cleared his vents before speaking softly.

"Make sure Regina is okay, she won't admit that she's worried." he said, and Yuuta nodded in acknowledgment and a kind of deep understanding.

"As you can see, Commissioner, we are all doing quite well." Deckerd said once everyone had spoken their peace, smiling as he was shushed in amongst the group. Saejima smiled in kind, and Rodimus found something inherently trustworthy in the expression.

"That is a relief." he said calmly, sighing ad a great weight of worry disappeared from his relaxing shoulders. "I must apologize on behalf of my subordinate once again, Captain. Please excuse his behavior, as he does not speak for us. We are beyond grateful for your actions."

"Thank you for rescuing my friends." Yuuta added, finally getting his tears under control long enough to speak clearly. Rodimus found his spark flickering at all the gratitude he felt hit him from a galaxy away.

"Uh, no problem. We'll get them home safely." he said, a little unsure of himself at the total whiplash the conversation had taken. How was it that a planet capable of producing an Azuma could also have people like this? Then again, the same could be said of Cybertron several times over, couldn't it?

"Mr. Commissioner!" the offscreen voice of an engineer said with urgency. "I apologize for the inconvenience, but this communication is taxing our equipment heavily! I'm afraid we have to end the call."

"Understood!" Saejima said, speaking fast in the wake of the news. "Until we speak next, just let me say that you have our highest gratitude!"

As the older man jumped into a full salute, Yuuta spoke with the speed only a child could manage, bouncing between his various concerns as the video began to fade. "Call again soon! I miss you guys! Stay safe but have fun!"

The Brave Police gushed out their farewells, waving and promising to do so with such excitement that Rodimus found himself unintentionally joining in with a tiny wave of his own before the screen went dark. He was left speechless when it did, but the bots at his side turned to each other and began to talk amongst themselves with unimaginable excitement. A million different things were said at once, most of which were praise for their tiny boss. The Captain of the Lost Light could only look on in awe at their happy circle of friends, one that just minutes before had been reduced to anxious silence at a being from the same planet.

It occurred to him in that moment why they truly wanted to go home, and he found himself smiling at the thought. Just as there were those on this ship who wanted to keep them safe, so we're there individuals on Earth to do the same. They were really loved wherever they went… 

A flash of amusement tickled his spark as he thought about all those friends reacting once they heard about this call. Their protective instincts would undoubtedly be the same as his, especially for dear Tailgate, who'd more or less claimed the group as his adoptive younger brothers… along with the entire crew. It seemed they had a young human to add to that rank now.

[forasecondtherewedwon]

If You’re a Robot and You Know It, Clap Your Hands

Fandom: Loki Characters: Sylvie, Ravonna, B-15, Mobius Rating: G Word Count: 1774

Summary: Sylvie faces off against Ravonna while Mobius hangs out in post-prune purgatory with... himself?

“You’re more stoic than he was,” Ravonna noted, nodding at the empty air between them where Loki had lately stood.

Why the taunting, Sylvie wondered. Who was there left for Ravonna to impress? Her subordinates were all dead or unconscious, Loki was gone, the animatronic lizards who were not in fact ruling rigidly over time sat slumped in their seats. There was only Sylvie. Even when she had been a child, thin arm in the grip of a stone-faced woman in black armour like the shell of a beetle, Sylvie had not felt so alone with Ravonna as she did in this moment. It made her very angry. She would much rather have been alone with herself.

“How do you know how stoic Loki looked?” Sylvie spat. “You pruned him in the back!”

Ravonna tilted her head, glowing baton still raised.

“I don’t mean in the face of his own erasure from existence, I mean watching someone he cared about disappear.”

Sylvie’s expression had been hard—more than once, to get by, she’d imagined herself protected by that beetle armour from her childhood, closing her vulnerable parts away behind a scowl—but it slackened slightly in confusion.

“Agent Mobius,” Ravonna explained impatiently. There was a twitch of her eyelid that Sylvie caught and homed in on.

“They were friends,” she said slowly. Then, she stared hard into the Judge’s eyes. “You were friends. You and Mobius. You killed him?”

“I didn’t! I—”

“You had someone else do it?” Sylvie narrowed her eyes scornfully.

With an irritated groan, Ravonna lunged for her, but Sylvie hopped backwards over the head of the fake Time Keeper. She looked down and Ravonna followed her gaze, distracted from her attack by the sight of rubbery faux-flesh and protruding, crackling wires.

“And this?” Sylvie asked quietly, trying not to spook the woman with the weapon. “Did you have a hand in this deception? I never sensed it in you.”

Ravonna scoffed and looked away from the head on the floor.

“You were a child.”

“I was a Loki,” Sylvie snapped back.

Saying that name—the name she’d rejected but never forgotten, the name that had also been his—jolted her into action once more. She wedged the toe of her boot beneath the Time Keeper’s decapitated head and flipped it up, striking Ravonna in the stomach. The Judge folded forward and defensively swept the baton in a wide arc. Sylvie stepped out of the weapon’s path, not anticipating the way Ravonna swung her arm quickly back to hit her with the non-pruning end of the rod; she hadn’t been a Hunter in who knew how long, but she clearly hadn’t lost her skill with the tools of the trade.

The blunt end thudded into Sylvie’s ribs.

She was knocked back, but when Ravonna advanced, Sylvie’s hand shot up to grab the baton, hauling the Judge forward. Unbalanced, Ravonna was no challenge to send sprawling at the foot of the stairs leading up to the Time Keepers’ dais. She landed awkwardly. Sylvie breathed hard as she wrenched the baton completely free of Ravonna’s hold and went to retrieve her sword as well.

As she then moved to assess B-15, who was rising shakily to her knees, Sylvie never put her back to Ravonna. Pruned in the back. What a Loki death.

“You alright?” she asked B-15 softly.

The Hunter grunted and allowed Sylvie to support her into standing.

“Better if I knew where to go from here.”

“Let me worry about that,” Sylvie said.

Ravonna struggled to her own feet and Sylvie held the baton at arm’s length between them, keeping the Judge at a distance while B-15 opened the door behind them.

“Ah ah ah,” Sylvie warned archly, chin and eyebrows raised in impish caution. “You stay here and play with your robots.”

“This is temporary,” Ravonna said as Sylvie edged back through the open door.

Sylvie performed her signature cocked head and smirk.

“Isn’t everything?”

The second they were out of the Time Keepers’ chamber, B-15 slammed the doors and leaned into them, as if Ravonna would imminently begin trying to break them down from the inside. Which Sylvie supposed she might. She really almost admired Ravonna—or would have if the Judge hadn’t ruined her entire life.

She stared at the door handles, then at each of the weapons she held in her hands. Sword or baton, sword or baton? With a deep breath, Sylvie jammed the blade of her sword through the handles to bar the door, electing to keep the baton close. Though it was a less familiar weapon, she was nothing if not highly adaptable. Besides, touching the glowing end of the rod to a person was certainly more efficient than dispatching them with a blade. She wasn’t sure how many TVA workers they would encounter before they were out of here. This place and this time. Keeping the baton was the right choice.

She stole a last glance at the sword. Another little piece of herself left behind.

At the sound of reinforcements headed towards them, she and B-15 hurried away from the chamber.

“She used to be a Hunter,” B-15 said, shaking her head as they strode down the corridor, “like me.”

“I suppose she might have been like you at some point,” Sylvie said. She was interpreting the words a little differently. “I wonder when she stopped.”

“Do you?”

“Not really. I can trust you but not her.” Sylvie shrugged as she walked. “That’s about all I need to know.”

“Do you trust me?”

“I have to.”

“Same for me. Though I can’t say my faith in allies hasn’t been shaken recently,” B-15 said sarcastically. “The Time Keepers aren’t real, Ravonna’s been helping to cover up the truth, and I wasn’t even created here! I probably had to go through that degrading process of having my clothes zapped off!”

“Probably. I didn’t think you’d want to see that as a prioritized memory,” Sylvie said, half-apologetic. While they’d stood in the torrential rain outside Roxxcart, she’d allowed a highlight reel of memories to flash through the Hunter’s mind.

“You know, I always found it kind of strange that one of the few tests we run in this department is to judge whether or not someone is secretly a robot. I guess whoever designed the Time Keepers got paranoid.”

“Whoever that person is, paranoia is the least of their worries.”

“True,” B-15 agreed as she produced a TemPad. “Now, they’re going to have to deal with us.”

“If they’re still out there somewhere and not dead like Loki and Mobius,” Sylvie said bitterly. She flipped the TemPad open and programmed their destination.

“Maybe they aren’t dead. We’ve been misled about everything else. Maybe everyone who’s ever been pruned just ends up someplace… else.”

“It’s no place I’ve ever been.”

“Yet,” B-15 said.

The Time Door appeared before them. Pounding footsteps raced against Sylvie’s accelerating heartbeat as she prepared to step through and leave this place behind. They had to go now, her and her one ally. She couldn’t get above one ally these days. It was better than none.

“Yet,” Sylvie agreed.

—

Meanwhile in Jet Ski Land…

“That’s why I always felt such an affinity for that Earth actor,” Mobius said. “I am Owen Wilson. Or was.”

He dug his bare toes deeper into the slightly rocky beach and watched the slow wash of trash along the shore. It was almost nice here, but not quite. Not a place to stay. Everything inside him had already been screaming that. A lifelong (in this life, anyway) bureaucrat, he’d never felt such restlessness.

“Am… was… what does it matter?” the man next to him asked rhetorically.

He was also Mobius. No, Mobius was him. No, that wasn’t right, they were both Owen Wilson. Variants of him. But this man had shaggy blond hair where Mobius had been grey for as long as he could remember. Also, he appeared to be the only Owen Wilson in sight who had a mustache and he was a little proud of that. Probably stupidly, but it was helping him hold on to his sense of identity in the presence of so many hims.

They were on the beach around him, sitting in the dunes behind him, swimming in the water in front of him. One of the Owens was freaking parasailing through the air up above while another Owen drove the boat that towed him.

“How long have you guys been here?” Mobius asked in awe.

“You know, it’s hard to say,” Owen said, folding his arms thoughtfully. “It’s tough to figure out exactly how time flows here. A little like what you were describing, with your experience at the TVA.”

“Have you gotten to know everybody?”

“Oh yeah, they’re good guys. And all of us Owens are naturally social.”

“What about that one?” Mobius asked, pointing. He could hear the raw admiration in his own voice as the geriatric Owen he’d indicated revved his jet ski, bouncing over the low swells of the turquoise water.

“One of our actors. He was in the middle of filming a movie in Indonesia before he ended up here. Played an international, jet ski-riding spy in sort of a buddy comedy. Eighty-three years old and still a star.”

“What? That sounds incredible! What the heck happened?”

“Well,” Owen told him with a grimace, “the tsunami of 2051.”

“Right,” Mobius said, recalling the list of 21st-century apocalyptic events he and Loki had so recently sifted through together.

“He wasn’t supposed to survive the wave. The film crew had tethered him to the jet ski for safety while they were shooting and, as far as Owen can guess, that should’ve been enough to kill him. That’s what the TVA was counting on. They had to bring him in when he didn’t drown.”

“What a story though! That old Owen is one tough nut!”

“I know!” Owen gushed proudly.

Mobius shook his head in amazement, scanning the water. His gaze landed on something he couldn’t immediately understand.

“And what’s that?” he asked.

“That’s jet-ski Owen.”

“I thought the old guy was jet-ski Owen.”

“Nah, that one’s Owen on a jet ski. This one’s Owen as a jet ski.”

The riderless craft surged across the water until the speed had its front end lifting high off the surface. With a glorious final burst, it escaped the water entirely, executing a barrel roll in midair before touching down once more.

Mobius felt the praise leave his own lips and heard it echoed up and down the beach by all other versions of Owen Wilson in attendance: “Wow.”

[remmushound]

Beyond the Bay Chapter 19, Traximus

Summary: The Turtles meet a dinosaur

Tags: @brightlotusmoon @selfindulgenz @ilo-artistry @unhealthyobsessions101

Content warnings: swears

Bubble, bubble, bubble went the water as it swelled and displaced. Weapons were drawn, and the katana in Leonardo’s hand felt as foreign as if someone had just given him a book in Chinese and instructed him to read it. The handle was smaller than his odachi, and the blade was shorter, and it was thinner, and its weight was lighter, almost nothing. Still, a weapon was a weapon, even if he naturally navigated toward the back of the crowded group to put a wall of muscle between him and whatever was emerging from the cesspool.

There came two curved horns as long as Leonardo’s arm and as thick as Leo’s at the base, curved forward and angled close together. The gap between then formed an almost triangle shape. First came the horns, and then came an apricot head that rivaled the size of a small car, revealing a third smaller horn on the tip of a muzzle just before heavy, meaty flesh parted to a hard, bony beak. The head shook from size to side, a loud whoosh resulting as the broad frill caught the air. Further still the triceraton revealed himself.

His shoulders were as wide as the frill on his head, and he had a torso that could be mistaken for a brick wall. He was clothed in a red and orange regalia that could have once been a beautiful suit but was now stained with waste and ruin, heavy from the submergence. His nostrils flared to blow away the water that still cascaded along his muscular form, his breaths coming in heavy and labored grunts. Donnie couldn’t help but take notice of many wires hanging loosely around the triceratons shoulders, several of them severed or otherwise damaged; what use could they have once served? The options were limitless!

The triceraton didn't charge, but the clan held their ground. Eyes of an impossibly bright emerald sought something among the group; what that something was was anyone’s guess, but it must have been important. Apparently it was Donnie that held what the alien sought, because when his eyes found the box turtle they stopped searching. His head bowed and the turtles once more braced themselves for a charge. The triceraton lifted his arms up to his horns, arching his fingers downward so they formed an inverted triangle; joined with the angling of his horns, a diamond shape was revealed.

“Awaiting… orders… general Mozar.” He sounded as if he had swallowed a cheese grater.

Raph’s confusion disturbed the unyielding stance. “Who?”

All eyes gleaned over at Donnie. The box turtle paled at all the attention suddenly on him, his throat drying and a visible drop of sweat dripping down his forehead.

“Dudes this is so weird…” Mikey breathed.

“Woah!” Despite the many shouts of discouragement and several attempts to stop Michelangelo, the box turtle made his way to the front of the group to oggle the still giant. “How can we understand you?! Is there some super cool alien translation device?!”

“Actually Michael, I think he’s just speaking english.” Donatello commented absently.

“Oh.” Michelangelo deflated, “That’s less fun.”

The giant seemed to tolerate Michelangelo’s presence surprisingly well; that is to say, he didn't immediately try to beat the young turtle into a puddle.

“Should we be concerned that he’s not, you know… pummeling us right now?” Raphael asked, his hands still fixed firmly on his tonfa.

“Don’t let your guard down.” Leo whispered to the group, “He still might.”

“I don’t think he will.” Leonardo said, and his eyes were locked on the dinosaur as if seeing something no one else could.

“Excuse me?” With a hand perched on his hip, Leo addressed Leonardo’s words with scrutiny.

“Donnie.” Leonardo said to the box turtle, “Raise your hand…”

Donnie, though confused, raised his hand. The triceraton lowered his strange salute and raised his hand; Donnie leaned curiously to the side, and the dinosaur leaned to the side. Donnie leaned to the other side, and the dinosaur followed, like a baby mimicking its mother.

“Ooookay, things just got a whole lot weirder.” Mikey whistled.

“Guys, you remember that one really red triceraton?” Donnie asked quickly without removing his eyes from the ten foot giant before him. “The one with the lopsided horns?”

“Yeah, the leader.” Leo said just as quick as Donnie, just as urgent.

Donnie didn't answer verbally, but made a point of motioning to the goggles perched on his head, the lopsided lenses glistening.

“Aaaaand sidebar!” Despite being the smallest of all eight gathered, Leonardo was able to wrap his arms around the other mutants and whisk them to the side while Traximus returned to his unsteady salute. “Okay bros; how we feeling ‘bout this?”

“That dino dude’s acting weird…” Mikey said, and made a point of enunciating the last word,

“Yeah, like Mikey weird.” Raph whistled.

“Hey.” Mikey narrowed his eyes.

“And his gears all busted up.” Donnie reported, “He doesn’t have his mask on anymore for one.”

“And why is he playing some twisted version of Simon Says with Donnie?” Raph’s words came with a sharp scoff.

“Maybe he’s friendly?” Michelangelo offered up.

“Unlikely.” Donatello disagreed.

“Well the robot was nice.” Michelangelo pointed out.

“That is a fair point.” Leonardo nodded and agreed.

“And what’s that meant to be, some kinda salute?” Raph lifted his head from the group to look back at the giant. “An’ why does he think Don’s this ‘Mozar’ or whatever?”

Donatello cleared his throat to call everyone’s attention. “I would like to offer a theory if I may?”

“Yeah, shoot.” Raphael said.

“You mentioned something about a mask.” Donatello said, holding one hand over his mouth and nose to resemble a mask, “Like, a cloth mask or an oxygen mask?”

“Uh, oxygen.” Donnie nodded his confirmation.

“Right.” Donatello nodded, and pointed over at the dinosaur. “I see no oxygen tank. If he had one to begin with, it’s gone now, and yet he’s still up and walking.”

“I… don’t remember any oxygen tank.” Leo shook his head.

“That’s because it probably wasn’t an oxygen mask. Not if all five of your dinosaurs were wearing ‘em in a place where there was quite clearly oxygen. That, my dear friends, is a pattern, not a coincidence. If they all had it, chances are it’s some sort of filter, like they’re meant to be breathing something that’s not our air. And if someone from our planet breathes in something that isn’t oxygen…”

“It kills them?” Leo wasn’t following.

“Yes, and no. How about you?” Donatello pointed at Donnie.

“It can cause… delirium, confusion… hallucinations…” Donnie was following perfectly.

“Who’s to say the effects aren’t the same for someone like him?”

“You’re saying he’s deprived of some type of breathing apparatus?” Donnie’s eyes lit up like the skies on the Fourth of July, “It makes sense!”

“And it would explain the confusion.” Leonardo said.

Leo, wanting desperately to get on to a more important subject, urged, “Do you think he’s dangerous?”

“Yes.” Donatello answered confidently, “But he also thinks dear Donald here is his beloved General Mozar, and we should keep it that way.”

“General…” The dinosaur called,. “Awaiting orders…”

“Uh. At ease?” Donnie offered.

The dinosaur stared at him for the longest time, trying to decipher why his bold and brash commander had spoken so strangely before lowering his arms to his side. Donnie cleared his throat and stepped forward away from the group, trying to make himself as big as possible which wasn’t much of a task for the tree-like turtle.

“Remind me of your name and rank again, soldier.” Donnie’s voice slowly gained more confidence and tone, and the dinosaur seemed to be excited by it.

“Major Traximus of the Ygthian fleet, serving our great and powerful Prime Leader.”

“That’s right.” It felt almost fun being in a position of power, and it quickly went to Donnie’s head. “My command for you, Major Traximus, is to help me escort these… diplomats back to their home.”

“Yes Commander Mozar…” Traximus bowed the immensity of his head. “As you command…”

Though one could expect a beast of such immense proportion to lumber at an awkward gait, it was quite the opposite as Traximus walked with such speed and determination. The turtles parted to allow him plenty of space to pass by them. He was a man— or alien— on a mission that would stop for nothing. Glances were exchanged, followed by ‘what else are we gonna do?’ shrugs and curious excitement as the turtles were quick to keep up with the charging titan.

“How’d he get through anyway?” Raph asked; he was the one now holding Splinter, cradling the rat to his chest and still working absently to dry his fur.

“He was the one chasing us back in our world.” Leo said, “Maybe he got through the rift, ended up in the sewers. Lord knows the time rift had ask of us scattered to the winds.”

“Awesome…” Mikey breathed, followed up with, “I told you he was out here!”

“Yeah…” Both Leo and Raph faltered their steps, “You did…”

They made good time getting back to the lair where Yoshi and April were sat together at the living room coffee table assembling a puzzle; it was one activity that Yoshi didn't need help with, since the pieces were so big and obvious, and the old rat took great pride in each success. April, like her turtle brothers, had grown and matured greatly. She had forgone her usual buns in favor of tight braids clinging to her scalp and cascading to just above her shoulders, and she wore a modest yellow jumpsuit and rubber rain boots, perfect for traversing the wet ick of the sewer. One thing was familiar about her, however, and it was that same green coat she had been wearing since her younger adolescent. April looked up when she heard their approach, the smile turning to her mouth hanging open and her eyes bulging.

“Holy Jurassic Park…”

Leonardo took Splinter from Raph’s arm and immediately whisked him away, leaving Raph with his empty arms still out in a cradle, pouting and desperately pawing at the air that had once been his dad. Donnie parted from the group and tried follow Leonardo to the infirmary, but the red eared slider stopped him.

“I got him; you and the guys take care of our little… guest over there.” And Leonardo motioned to Traximus, who was still and awaiting orders.

“Oh. Right.” Donnie watched Leonardo leave like a distressed puppy watching his owner go to work without him. Seeking some guidance, Donnie turned to his brother. “Leo?”

“Maybe we… get him something to eat?” Leo offered.

“What do dinosaurs eat anyway?” Raph huffed; now without anything to hold, he shoved his hands in his pockets.

“Nothing that still exists.” Donnie muttered bitterly, and his eyes passed over the orange dinosaur trying to make better sense of the alien presence.

“Well, he is an alien dinosaur.” Michelangelo pointed, “Maybe he eats something different.”

“If it’s alien, it still won’t be on our planet, Michael.” Donatello added.

“Oh.” Michelangelo’s expression deflated.

“But we can still try.” Leo said, arms motioning widely as he called attention to himself, “We need to make his comfortable before we can get anything out of him.”

“Are we sure he even knows anything?” Donatello asked, and he was looking absently at his nails, “Doesn’t look like there’s much happening upstairs.”

It was true that Traximus’ eyes did look remarkably empty, but Donnie wasn’t convinced he was completely gone. The dinosaur could talk, and could obey orders, even if he couldn’t recognize them as not being from his own species. And they had been there for two days now! He didn't know a damn thing about alien triceratops digestion, or how long they could go without food, but he did know a thing or two about empathy. Did this triceraton need food? Maybe. Water? Maybe. Donnie would make sure the creature didn't go without either.

“Major Traximus?”

The triceraton snorted and shook his head as he brought his focus to attention at the call of his commander.

“Would you care to… indulge in… sustenance?” Donnie tried to choose his words carefully, but it was difficult, if not impossible, with knowing next to nothing about who he was meant to be portraying.

Traximus tilted his head to one side, and then the other. “Commander Mozar…?”

“Yes, that’s me.” Donnie gulped, raising his head a little higher and keeping his expression still and serious. With eyes as beady and small as Traximus’, he wasn’t sure the alien could even see him. “You must be hungry soldiers. Follow me to the… dining room and select something to eat.”

Without another word, Donnie turned on his heels and guided the way to the kitchen. Traximus, confusion evident on all of his features, trailed behind with the gaggle of curious turtles following him. They got to the kitchen and he surpassed Donnie, intent on obeying the command and maybe just plain starving as he pulled the fridge door open— more like ripped it off its hinges— and began to dig around inside. The turtles watched in curious awe.

Now that they weren’t in immediate danger of being trampled and crushed by this titan of a creature, it was like they couldn’t stop watching him. Something not human, not yokai, not mutant— something new! You didn't have to be Donnie to see the beauty in this new creature, nor to feel a desperate urge to know more and more about them! Raphael was practically exploding with excitement. He had always wanted to be so close to a dinosaur but now it was happening? He could hardly breathe! The kitchen was barely big enough for them all, but they managed to crowd around in such a way that they all could get a good view of what was happening.

Traximus picked up the gallon of milk first, shaking it a bit and then promptly discarding it. In fact, he discarded all the liquid, tossing drinks behind him and letting them shatter and spill over the floor. Not even Michelangelo cared about the mess made of his precious ingredients— not when it was this beautifully intricate creature doing it! Once all the liquid contents were out of his way, Traximus began a long pattern of selecting food, taking a bite, deciding he didn't like it, and tossing it carelessly. This process continued on until the fridge was almost barren and Michelangelo was finally regretting not intervening sooner. One of the final things left in the fridge, chili peppers, were the next thing Traximus grabbed.

“Wait— maybe you shouldn’t—” Raphael tried a little too late, as Traximus was already shoving a handful into his mouth, stems and seeds and all.

Everyone cringed, even Raph— who had taken on a hot pepper challenge many times again Leo and always somehow lost (he lost because Leo had switched out all of his own peppers for sweet peppers, but Leo would never admit that). They waited for the burn, for the scream, for the desperate scramble to find coolness. Instead, Traximus chomped happily and his mouth began to drool in response to the burning stimuli, his lips curling up as his tongue poked out to lap up all the drool that tried to escape. He dumped the rest of the basket into his mouth and dove back into the fridge in pursuit of more burning delights.

“We have a winner.” Raph said with a satisfied smirk.

Michelangelo’s eyes were firmly fixed on the mess at their feet. “And we have no dinner…”

[chaostheparrot]

Electroma Essays Part 1

Here is the first of the Electroma essays, focusing on the film itself.

Trigger Warnings for discussions of suicide and death, heavy themes of existentialism.

Around 11 or so, maybe 12—middle school days—my friend showed me a music video set to a song called "Prime Time of Your Life". I remembered it years later only by the scene of a man resigned to his own destruction, watching his body disintegrate to shrapnel and dust. I remembered him hiding in the bathroom stall, staring his reflection down.

I think of all the years I spent growing up in front of the mirror and thinking there was another person on the other side, knowing full well there wasn't, but being so wholly disconnected from the sense of my self that there was no other explanation. I could not process it any other way.

I am 20 and watching Electroma for the first time in its entirety.

Electroma is an "-oma" that is electrical in nature; a tumor, that is, an uncontrolled growth. Electronic growths covered by a latex imitation of flesh and clean white clothing. An attempt to be happy. An attempt at change, becoming. The electronics don't belong on them just as much as the skin on my face doesn't belong to me, is a shell that I am seeing through.

What defines a human?

In an interview, Daft Punk state the film Electroma originated as a music video for "Human After All", eventually (evolving? as humans? or growing as a cancer?) into a full film. Bangalter in that same interview offers his take: that there is a "hope" in the ending, where the robots take their lives into their own hands and self-terminate. In this "paradox of suicide" this act of free will, this destruction of the self is what sets them apart as human (this, of course, without promoting suicide as a good thing). 

But how far can we say these robots aren't self-aware, sapient and sentient in nature? We see robots performing human rituals: walking to and from work, playing at a park, a wedding ceremony, with no indication they're programmed to do as such. Assuming even the white-coated workers in the laboratory who give Hero Robots 1 and 2 their ill-fated masks are also robots, surely they had a choice in such a task.

 Even after the masks are donned, the townsfolk stop, but make no apparent threat assessment as if they're simply running algorithms. Like bystanders watching a building on fire, they stop and stare until the masks begin to melt away, and when such happens they don't immediately expunge the perceived threat. The mob scene is one of the most horrifying portrayals of a very specific kind of mob. Their goal is not anarchy or destruction; the violence is in their movement, their marching instead of running after their blinded prey, the same kind of violence as in a cabinet door slammed shut, and in silverware slammed into a drawer. It's the kind of violence that precedes blood and holes in the wall the way lightning precedes thunder, for humans are persistence hunters, and they may very well be human after all in that moment. It is anger and hate, and the rejection of your own kind is colder than any steel.

What defines humanity then, if they already have free will, and they cannot replace their bodies with flesh or latex?

The end.

Throughout the movie we have a focus on scenery, gorgeous scenery, the desert landscapes as the sun rises and sets, but at one point we have The Scene.

The Infamous Pussy Scene That Doesn't Show Anything But Everyone Loses Their Mind Over. What I think is going on here is a visual metaphor: her body for the Earth. Like human bodies came from the Earth, and so shall return, ashes to ashes, dust to dust, so too have robot bodies and parts. But robot bodies have been refined, built to last, if not indefinitely then for extended periods of time. We lack human characters throughout the film for comparison, but our robotic duo can withstand a multiple day trek through the desert on foot without rest, beyond outlasting any human form even in top condition.

Thus humanity is not freedom to do our daily rituals, but our fleeting impermanence. Humanity is so intrinsic to a being of flesh and blood because our lives we know will end eventually. But an automaton, who was built and could in theory walk and keep walking until the sun swallowed the Earth and time itself ended? Where does one find his humanity there? When the flames lick at his metal body he feels no pain, but surely his end must mean something, must place him somewhere in the grand scheme of things.

Humanity is death.

Such a statement must sound horrifying at first, but really it's quite the opposite. If Death is humanity, then Life's meaning is what we make of it, creation in the purest sense. Like wildfires burning away the rot and crumbling, new growth springs forth from the dust. As some plants can only grow after such destruction, so too do humans follow our intended cycles: we die and are born, generation after generation. Here we see our robots mistakenly conflate the two and try to "create" or recreate the meaning of humanity, in their quest to become human; they fail and are left broken for it. We create the meaning of humanity and hold it to an impossible standard, then turn and hold those who we would call "human" to those impossible standards, and if they are anything less, they are less than human. In rejecting our fellow man, or bot, we become the mob. We reject their humanity, but also our own. We are no more than angry robots, content to perform our daily rituals without regard to any higher meaning.

Such an outlook is horribly bleak for automatons, whose ability to create is questionable at best. Those who cannot die or create life, existing outside the circle of life, being driven to self-terminate seems the only option at that point. But such is to gloss over one tremendous facet, much as they did.

To be sentient is to process with senses: sight, sounds, touch. To be sapient is to be cognizant, self-aware.

These robots, much like humans, are both, or heavily implied to be. And just as humans, they are social beings. We see this in their town, their wedding ceremony, even as they come together to chase our heroes out of town. What our robots have forgotten and taken for granted is the bonds they've made with one another, a form of creation all on its own. One doesn't need flesh and blood to reach out to another, hold a door open, to hide with them in a public bathroom and offer them towels to wipe their face, to stop walking and turn around again and again and wait for them. There is no necessity in taking the pieces of shrapnel that once made the silhouette of a man and stacking them piece by piece into a cairn that says "He was here" the way our human ancestors laid their elderly to rest with flowers and beads. The Greeks had six different words for it, English has only one. The meaning of life is not what you do; it's the Love you fill it with.

Make Love.

[caramarafics]

Reckless (Seth Rollins)

Seth Rollins x OC Maya Grey One Shot 

Warnings: just sad.

A/N: Soooo.... this has been in my drafts for awhile now and after some positive motivation from @royallyprincesslilly​ @thedeboniardevistation​ and @bigstrongblackheart​ I’ve just decided to post it. 

Hope you like it. 

AUGUST 23, 2015 11:27 PM

MANHATTAN, NY

DING!

The elevator comes to a halt upon the arrival of yet another floor. A robotic, yet feminine voice came over the speaker to announce:

“You have arrived at the twenty-third floor.”

The metal doors slowly open to reveal a black and gray hallway with artwork of abstract watercolor paintings hanging on the walls. Standing towards the back of the car, leaning against the safety bar, I watch as my aunt Isobel steps off the elevator. Placing one hand in front of the elevator door so it wouldn’t close she scans the hallway, looking left and then to the right, all to make sure that there was no one around.

After a few minutes, she finally turned her gaze back into the elevator towards me. A small, loving smile softly forms and she extends a hand.

“Come on cariña,” she whispers.

I nod my head and, with a heavy sigh and a push off the safety bar, I throw the thick strap of my Diva’s Championship over one shoulder and my gym over the other. I step off the elevator and into the waiting arms of my aunt and we begin our walk down the hall. 

Isobel puts one hand on the swell of my back while the other pulls her suitcase. My gaze fell to the floor as we walked, focusing on the hotel’s unusual carpet pattern while she scanned the placards on the wall looking for our room. Every so often I could feel her eyes practically burning a hole into me before quickly turning away to look back up at the placards. 

She was worried. She had every right to be. Since leaving the Barclay Center over an hour ago I had barely said a single word. Not to her, to Roman, no one. I was catatonic and numb. 

But who could blame me? After what just happened, anyone would react the exact same way if they were in my shoes.

As we made our way down the hall, I could feel my phone consistent buzzing through the thin fabric of Roman’s hoodie he had lent me back in Brooklyn. Slow at first, but quickly becoming more often with every unanswered second passing by.

Call me crazy, but it almost felt like with every step I took, my phone would go off.

Step.

Buzz.

Step.

Buzz.

Step, step.

Buzz, buzz.

Step, step, step.

Buzz, buzz, buzz.

Normally I would have answered it by now. But instead, I choose to ignore whoever it was and kept on. 

We reached the very end of the hall and finally stopped in front of a door marked 1127. From the corner of my eye, Isobel pulls out a key card from the pocket of her jeans and slide it into the automated lock. A few short whirring, buzzing sounds later, a green light flashes and a loud *click* signals the door had unlocked. She turns the handle, pushes the door open, and then moves to the side to usher me into the room. She follows right behind me, but not before grabbing the “Do Not Disturb” sign from behind the door and hooks it on the handle outside the room.

The door shuts and Isobel sees a small touchscreen wall panel placed by the door. She presses the button marked Lights and the overhead lights come on, revealing the room to us.

Placing my title belt on the dresser, I look around at what would be my new home for the next two nights. For the most part, the room looked like every other hotel room I’d stayed in while on the road. Granted, this was probably the most luxurious of most of them, but still pretty standard. 

There were two Queen beds each donning a fancy purple duvet with no less than eight of the fluffiest pillows I have ever seen in my life, a giant flat screen TV mounted above a black dresser, cashmere floor rugs draped across cherry hardwood floors, a cozy little reading area near the windows with a small leather loveseat, and a wet bar fully stocked with overpriced snacks and tiny bottles of alcohol. 

The only thing that did make the room stand out from all the others, however, was the incredible view. A floor-to-ceiling window panel was centered on the main wall of the room and, because of our floor being leveled with the New York skyline, displayed a near perfect image of downtown Manhattan. There was even a clear view of the Empire State building in the background, lit up in red and blue lights as night blanketed the city.

Moving over towards the beds I toss my gym bag onto the one closest to the window and sit at the foot of the bed, looking out the window. Looking out at the city I couldn’t help but think about how different my life was less than 24 hours ago. I was staying in Brooklyn with the rest of the WWE, getting ready for SummerSlam. I was in this beautiful hotel suite that overlooked the Brooklyn Bridge with the love of my life, my fiancé. My bridesmaids and I had had our final fittings for our dresses, I was getting all the final details ready for my October wedding…

But that was all before a few hours ago.

Before everything had gone to complete and utter shit.

How could this have happened? How could he do that to me? I thought to myself. 

But before I could think of some sort of explanation, the sound of boots clanking across the hardwood floor followed by the thud of Isobel’s purse landing on top of the dresser next to my title.

“Well,” she says with a satisfied sigh, “this is nice. Really nice as a matter of fact, especially with it being super last minute.”

I bring my knees to my chest, wrapping my arms around them and placing my chin on top, never once looking away from the window. “It’s fine, I guess.” I manage to mumble out.

“Fine?” she snorts, “Maya, come on! Look at what we got. Gorgeous view, fancy sheets, free Wi-Fi, a fully stocked bar...”

I hear movement from behind me and see a light flick on through the window’s reflection. “Oh my-, Maya you’ve gotta see this bathroom! It’s got a huge shower and…” she pauses, “Oh. My. God. The floors are heated. Cariña the floors are heated!!”

But I don’t move. I don’t spring up from the bed to revel in her excitement over heated floors or whatever other fancy details the room had to offer. Instead, I just sit there in silence, holding myself as I gaze out into the city and its nightlife. 

I observe the streetlights perched on the sidewalk creating an ominous glow on the pavement. The mixture of city cars and yellow taxis, halted by ongoing traffic as they struggle to reach their destination on time. The small groups of tourists stopping every few minutes for selfies with various buildings in the background, including this very hotel.

All the while my mind replays the events from earlier. A single tear manages to escape from my eyes as my subconscious began to torture me with a play-by-play of what happened. It all still felt like a dream to me, a sick twisted nightmare that no matter how hard I tried I just couldn’t wake up from. My brain searched and scanned through every single memory collected from the last three years of our life together.

It was desperate to find any little detail that I may have missed that could explain just where everything went wrong. Something that could’ve prepared me for what would eventually happen.

But I find nothing.

No hints, no little clues. 

No hidden messages or blaring warning signs.

Nothing that screamed out: “Maya don’t be alarmed, but just two months before you’re supposed to get married… you’re gonna find your fiancé half naked with another woman.”

Boy that would’ve been a great fucking warning now, wouldn’t it?

I was so lost in thought that I didn’t feel the bed dip or that Isobel was now sitting right behind me. I nearly jumped out of my skin when her hand found its way into my hair, softly playing with it and twirling the ends around her fingers. Another arm wrapped itself around my stomach to embrace me. My body quickly relaxes and I lean into her embrace, my head resting just above her chin. The hand that was in my hair moves to join the one around my stomach and I feel Isobel’s lips plant a soft, motherly kiss at the base of my temple as she gently rocked me.

I knew just how much it pained Isobel to see me like this; a deflated, catatonic alien that had replaced her bubbly and vivacious niece. I’d barely said less than two sentences to her or to anyone else since we left the Barclays, just a few grunts here and there whenever somebody asked me anything. She probably had dozens of questions she wanted to ask right now; ‘are we canceling the wedding, where are you gonna stay, who does she need to call, what I actually wanted to do now,’ things of that nature. 

But rather than bombard me with things that even I had no earthly clue how to answer, she said nothing and just held me.

Though she was my aunt and nearly seven years older than me, I often viewed her as the big sister I never had and the mother figure I had so desperately yearned for. She was my protector from bullies like Angela Ferrell in sixth grade after I had come home crying one too many times for her liking. Isobel pushed Angela face-first into the mud and threatened to shave her bald if she ever messed with me again.

When I reached the preteen stage and my body began to develop, she was the one who explained to me the so-called ‘joys’ of becoming a woman and who took me to the pharmacy to buy my first box of pads. She also, in a very detailed description, broke down the basics of sex and practically scarred me for life. 

After Bryan Anderson gave me my first kiss in fifth grade, she was the best friend that I ran to her to spill all the juicy details. And when I was a junior and my first ever boyfriend Joaquin broke my heart for some varsity cheerleader, she picked me up and helped put the pieces back together with junk food and my favorite horror movies… only after we went and egged Joaquin’s truck. 

Whether it was something as simple as helping me with my calculus homework, or something big as catching a red-eye flight from London to Houston just to watch me compete in my very last high school gymnastics invitational, there was never a moment in my life that I couldn’t rely on her to be there for me whenever I needed her the most.

And tonight, tonight was one of those moments when I definitely needed her.

We stayed like this in comfortable silence for what seemed like hours, just staring out into the night as she held me close to her. I feel her chin fall gently against my shoulder and her breath tickles at the side of my neck for a few minutes before she finally speaks.

“You feel like talking about it?” her voice just above a whisper.

I say nothing but shake my head.

Her lips press themselves gently against my cheek, hugging me a bit tighter as she does. “Ok, that’s fine. We don’t gotta talk about it tonight.” 

“But,” she pauses, “What we should do right now is get some food. Cause I don’t know about you, but I am starving.” 

Once again, I am silent. Intentionally I knew what she was trying to do. First, she would pump me with some of my favorite foods, maybe even some top shelf liquor, then after a few of the cheesiest and goriest slasher films she would happen to find on demand and I appeared to be in a neutral state, she would lay on the questions. It’s been her routine since I was 13 and about 80 percent of the time it usually worked. Sadly though, It’s unlikely that this particular problem could be easily fixed with takeout and Freddy Krueger.

She was right though. I hadn’t eaten anything since this morning and just the mention of food made my stomach growl. 

“Tell you what... why don’t I order us some food, and while I do that you can take a shower and get cleaned up. ¿Suena bien?”

I thought it over for a little before eventually nodding my head in agreement.

“What do you wanna do; Chinese takeout, get a couple pizzas…?”

I look up, her brown eyes meeting mine. “Can we get both?”

A small laugh escapes her mouth, and she squeezes me again. “We can absolutely do both. I’ll even throw in a couple of those brownie sundaes I saw in that menu. While you shower, I’ll call the boys and see where they are with your stuff.”

I nod once more and with one final squeeze and forehead kiss from her, I remove myself from her embrace and slide off the bed. She follows and moves towards a conveniently placed touch screen panel near the window. I watch her press a button on the panel and, in an instant, large panels start to descend over the window panel, slightly darkening the room and hiding Manhattan away for the rest of the night. 

I grab my gym bag from off the bed and make my way inside the en-suite bathroom. Once inside, I shut the door and lock it. Just as she said earlier, this truly was an incredible bathroom. A lot nicer than some I had had before. Apart from the aforementioned heated floors there were marble countertops, super soft Egyptian cotton towels, two complimentary bathrobes with matching slippers, full-size bottles of luxury brand skincare and body products, & to top it all off, a huge glass walk-in steam shower with two large overhead rainfall showerheads and about six square wall panels placed on both the front and back walls. 

Setting the bag next to the sink I make my way over to the shower. On the outside wall was yet another touch screen panel solely for controlling the shower. I look it over for a few moments before finding an app that says ‘RAIN’ and press it. Instantly, the overhead panels come alive and water begins to rain down on the inside. I mess around with a few more buttons, adjusting the water temperature and whatnot, before finally moving away so that the water could warm up.

Back at the sink, I started to open my gym bag when I felt my phone once again start the incessant vibrating like before. But this time instead of ignoring it, I pull my phone from my jacket pocket and look at the screen.

The first thing I see is his profile picture followed by his name. It was one of my favorites of us together, taken almost a year ago at a mutual friend's Halloween party. We were dressed up as Jon Snow and Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, complete with three ‘dragons’ perched on my shoulders. I was looking at the camera but his eyes were fixed solely on me, a smile stretched across his face as he looked.   

I watch the call stop and my home screen reappear with the notification bar.

Over a dozen missed calls and voicemails. 

With a sigh I unlock my phone and scroll through the list of missed calls, seeing one name in particular more often than others.

Seth.

Seth.

Seth.

Renee.

Roman.

Seth.

Brie.

Nikki.

Seth.

Seth.

Seth.

Renee.

Nikki.

Seth.

Roman.

Seth.

Seth.

Seth.

Seth.

Annoyed, I tossed my phone onto the counter, not caring where it landed or if it had smashed. I open my gym bag and go to pull out the set of post-match clothes I always kept handy, so I could change quickly out of my sweaty gear after any of my matches. But when I went to pull them out… nothing. Only my workout clothes from earlier, an extra set of bra and panties, deodorant, and sneakers.

Shit.

I look down at my body, currently covered in the giant hoodie.

Shit, shit, shit.

My suitcase, my clothes, my laptop… all of that is currently on its way from Brooklyn. 

I forgot to pack my spare change of clothes. 

And as if things couldn’t get any better... I’m still in my ring gear from my match earlier. 

My eyes rolled to the back of my hand and my hand runs over my face, an annoyed chuckle escaping as I relish in my own stupidity. 

Great. I thought. Just great. Good job there Maya.

Not wasting any more time, I throw off the hoodie and angrily start to undress. Starting from the bottom, I unlace my wrestling boots and set them next to the toilet. I remove my sweatpants and shimmy my way out of the custom wrestling shorts Isobel had made specifically for tonight. The matching top was next to come off and once over my head I let it fall to the floor next to my shorts, leaving me in just my sports bra and underwear. 

The gear for tonight was all-white with intricate gold lines patterned along the sides, knees, and chest with four symbols faintly embroidered in white on each side; one was mine, the other Roman’s, then Dean’s, and finally… his.  

For months, he’d been throwing the idea around of switching up his ring gear and trying out new colors aside from his usual black attire. And once Isobel had sketched up a white and gold version of his gear, he was beyond ecstatic to showcase it for his Title for Title Match at SummerSlam. 

And when she had enough fabric left over from doing his gear she made a second set just for me. 

“It’s kind of like your wedding dress,” she said to me. “Just in gear form. Hey, if you want I’ll even attach a veil to your butt and it can be your train.”

I quickly shake the memory from my head and free myself of what was left of my clothing. Grabbing two of the white bath towels placed underneath the sink, I set one on the back of the toilet and hanging the other on the hook placed next to the shower. I grab a bottle of complimentary body wash I open the shower door, and finally step inside.

I stand directly underneath, letting the warm water hit my skin and cascade around me and down my body. The splashing against the tile echoed off the walls but it wasn’t enough to drown out my thoughts as they continued to torture me. Every kiss, every touch, every ‘I love you’ we had ever said played on an endless loop in my head as I tried to pinpoint the moment that everything changed.

Meeting for the first time at that college bar back in NXT. That first kiss backstage in NXT that caught us both off-guard. The night he had told me for the first time that he loved me, which was followed up by the night we first made love.    

I try to shake these thoughts from my mind, but it won’t work. No matter what I try to think about, no matter what other happy memory that doesn’t involve him, those memories are still all that play. A few stray tears push their way out but I quickly wipe them away.

No, I thought. You are not going to do this Maya. This isn’t happening right now. Stop it!

I reach over to grab the bottle of body wash from the shelf inside the shower...    

And that’s when I saw it. The tan line on my finger, now completely visible on my left hand that just a few hours ago bore my beautiful oval cut diamond engagement ring. 

The ring that he claimed to have been carrying around in his suitcase for months, hoping to find that right moment that never seemed to come. 

Until the night of WrestleMania, just mere seconds after winning his WWE World Heavyweight Championship, he would look over to Joey Mercury and trade him his newly won title for a small black box. He would get down on one knee and take my hand in his. And then, in front of Vince McMahon and everyone else currently occupying the Guerilla, would ask me to spend the rest of my life with him. 

Now that hand was bare. The ring was gone, given or rather thrown back to him after what had happened.

And just like that, my world came crumbling down. That false sense of reality I had created since leaving the arena had finally collided with actual reality and smacked me dead in the face.

Seth, my first love, the man I was set to marry in less than two months… had cheated on me. And I had caught him tonight. 

Three years of my life, our life together, all gone in a flash. Our plans for the future, children, traveling the world… were all just illusions and fantasies that would never come true.  

My legs carried me backward until my back hit the wall of the shower and I slid down. A wave of nausea swirls all around my empty stomach and my chest tightened like someone was stomping on it repeatedly. The first sob that left my mouth was quiet, nothing short of a small childlike whimper as the tears fell. But more and more as reality continued to sink in, they grew louder. The tears flowed more, so much so that I couldn’t tell what were tears and what was just water from the showerhead. 

My body sank more and more into the ground that before I knew it I had curled myself into a ball, crying into my chest as the water turned from warm to cold. 

But I didn’t care. My head swam with half-formed regrets. My heart felt as if my blood had turned into tar as it struggled to keep a steady beat. 

I was emotionally bankrupt. There was nothing left to feel, nothing left to say, nothing left but the void that now enveloped me in swirling blackness.

And it was all because of him.  

END.   

[thdorkmagnet]

Light of the Sun and Stars Chapter 46: A Mewman and a Monster (Preview)

Summary: His whole life Marco Diaz has been raised by monsters, living under the cruel rule of their leader, Toffee. But one day Marco escapes into Mewni where he meets a magical princess and Mewman like himself, who begins teaching him all about her world. Together they will learn about life, love, and the lights within each of them, as they change their world forever.

Chapter Synopsis: Slime has asked his crush Princess Penelope Spiderbite out on a date and needing support, both emotionally and literally, calls upon Star and Marco for help. The two graciously lend a hand in helping create the most romantic date possible but, as usual, things rarely go the way they want it too. 

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Index

The dimension was completely lifeless. Once a sprawling community had dwelled there, setting up residence in its green pastures and lush landscapes, living a simple and basic life amongst the natural resources all around them. But that peaceful lifestyle had changed when technology was first introduced to the humble society. At first it had been small changes, as it always started, machines and many mechanisms made to help make life easier. Need to plow the fields? Build a machine that could do it half the time you could. 

Soon people were using machines for every part of their everyday life and with the invention of robotic helpers… everything changed. Their once grassy hills were torn up to make factories, their land broken and scarred for the sake of 'progress'. Soon their dimension more closely resembled a machine than a once thriving, living place. And the numbers of robots steadily grew, until they outnumbered all living beings 10 to 1.

Sunlight was blocked by heavy smog while frequent and heavy storms began to tear apart what was left of the landscape. The dimension became virtually unlivable and the people were filled with dismay.

That was until a mysterious benefactor appeared one day, offering to buy up the remaining usable land for unknown reasons. The people happily accepted the offer, using the money to relocate to a new dimension (hopefully with better luck than the last), leaving the new owner of the dimension to do with it however they wished. Soon they began construction on a single building, employing the many robots that still inhabited the place to the effort. It took a long time, even with beings that didn’t have the need to eat nor sleep at the head of construction, but eventually it was finished, a single living place in the dimension of dead architecture. 

The place was a sight to behold: a clean, cut courtyard leading up to a grand, multi-story building. The architecture was ancient, borrowed from famous castles and cathedrals throughout the multiverse, a sharp contrast to the sleek, modern buildings the dimension had been so known for. 

But for as magnificent as it seemed, there was something sinister as well, something dark lurking just behind the smoothly cut stones or grand balconies. A large metal fence had been built around the building, electrified at all times to deter anyone from entering or exiting through anything but the gate. A large tower stood above the building itself, pulsing with some dark magic that had been lost to time long ago. The building's architecture was full of sharp edges and spikes that could seriously harm anyone who was not weary of their surroundings. And though the grand double doors were made of the finest wood in any dimension, they opened onto halls of endless turns and deadends, a labyrinth built to keep everyone trapped inside forever. 

But the creator of this school did not care how others viewed it, because this place was serving a grand purpose, educating and enforcing positive change on the future monarchs of the multiverse. St. Olga’s Reform School for Wayward Princesses was a school like no other, standing superior to any other education system that dared to compete with it, for it was focused solely on punishment and strict results. Every young princess that was sent there, no matter how rebellious or resistant they were, would eventually be broken. It didn’t matter if it took days, weeks, or years, St. O’s and its founder and principal, Heinous , had a perfect record that had never once been broken. 

That was until a certain four-armed princess blew the whistle on the academy's “less than reputable” penalties and the school was shut down by the dimensional knights. The great Miss Heinous was forced on the run, leaving every part of her life, her career, her home, her minions, her legacy, to rot. She spent years on the run, just barely managing to stay one step ahead of the dimensional knights and any other form of military power a noble might hire to capture or kill her. But through it all, Heinous only had one thought that kept her going day in and day out. Revenge. Or rather, her legacy finally fulfilled. She often confused the two but it didn’t matter. The path was the same. The path to ultimate victory and control. The path of perfection. 

And that path had led back to where it all began. 

Nostalgia and old memories came flooding back to the once-proud principal as she stood in front of her old, decaying school. She could still picture it back in the prime of its life, see it as clear as if it were standing in the memory itself rather than the broken dream that stared back at her. Reality was far from the picture perfect days of old. Oh how the mighty had fallen. 

Her once proud school was now in desperate need of repairs, walls caved in over the course of time, entire sections of the school now gone. The courtyard was now filled with untamed weeds and overgrown plant life. The tower that had once stood as a beacon of power for her school had been the first thing taken down by those pesky knights and it lay in shambles around the area, an ever present reminder of the injustice Heinous had suffered. The fence was bent and disfigured,  was now full of giant, gaping holes in its structure making it completely useless, now it couldn’t even keep out the gust of wind that blew through the empty courtyard. The school had become nothing but an empty shell that had once housed life within it. Heinous couldn’t help but scoff at the irony, her greatest masterpiece was now no different to the rest of this forgotten waste of a dimension. 

She took in a deep breath, letting it out slowly. No, she couldn’t start dwelling on all that now. She had come here for more than just reliving her past failures. Today was about seizing her future. A small cough behind her caused Heinous to roll her eyes. She had almost forgotten her hired hand had come with her, just in case some dimensional knights were lurking there and needed to be disposed of. It was clear that Rasticore, unlike her, was less than content with her dimension. She could practically feel Rasticore’s discomfort as he shifted from one foot to the other, over and over again. It was obvious he wanted to get this over with, something at least they could agree on, Heinous was ready to achieve the next step of her decade-long scheme. 

“So are we going inside or not?” Rasticore finally asked and Heinous turned back to him with a narrowed glare.

“Why? Don’t tell me you are frightened of my school?” she accused him, point blank. 

Rasticore tensed, before gritting his fangs, clearly holding back the retort. Instead he replied, “No, just all this smog is aggravating my condition.” He then made a point to cough into his claw. 

Heinous highly doubted that was the reason for his rush. Not when it was more likely her minion was playing up his sickness to hide his discomfort from her. After all, he was recovering remarkably well from the poison, ready to resume his work in just a few short weeks, so a little foul air shouldn’t be upsetting him as much as he was pretending it was. 

Still, she didn’t see any reason to delay things any further so Heinous just turned to her minion and said, “Very well, follow me.” 

Entering into her old home was like walking into a portrait in time, everything left exactly as she remembered it. The knights must have left things the same for evidence reasons but Heinous ws surprised her school was still mostly intact. A few rooms had been caved in or hallways blocked and everything certainly needed a good dusting but from the view outside she had been expecting much worse. Paper and pencils lay on the dusty desks, ready to use, as if some child had just set them down and then vanished from this dimension. The banners holding old phrases and mottos Heinous would often repeat in classes were decaying but still hung up even after all these years. The only thing missing was her beloved robotic staff. 

Shortly after her escape she had gotten word that all robots operating under her name had been discontinued and dismantled to “prevent further harm” as they had put it. Ha, as if her precious staff could be so cruel, every punishment was fully justified and all for the greater good. If only the royals of the multiverse had seen it that way. “Cruel and unnecessary” they had called it. Hypocrites! They were always happy with the results, even quick to praise her or offer her large sums of money as thanks, but the moment they knew how their beloved child came to be cured of their faults suddenly she was the villain, torturing their bratty children by making them perfect.

Well if they were too stupid and cowardly to see her perfect vision all the way through, then it was up to her to fix this miserable, chaotic world. 

Heinous entered into her old office, staring at it with wistful eyes as memories came flooding back to her all over again. Every detail of the small space was exactly as she had remembered it, not a single stone out of place, even after all these years. She ran her hands across her desk, her fingers brushing the loose pieces of paper she had been reading through when the alarm had sounded. Old student files and report cards now yellowed with age and beyond salvaging Heinous could have read them with ease, every single letter saved to her subconscious. 

Rasticore stood awkwardly in the doorway, watching as his temporary boss reminisced her old life. It was shocking in all honesty, the lizard assassin hadn’t even known Heinous had a smile that wasn’t sinister but she seemed… almost genuine now. That was until she came across a certain file and the peaceful look switched to a frown, the spell she was under was broken. She picked up the piece of paper, ripping it to shreds in a matter of seconds. Rasticore jumped but didn’t say a word as his boss fell deeper and deeper into a blind rage, picking up several other files and ripping them apart as well. Soon the room was coated in paper shreds and the desk was empty. Rasticore risked a look at what remained of the original file, surprised to see it was a young curly haired princess with four arms. He couldn't imagine what she had done to invoke such fire from the level-headed woman. 

Once the temper tantrum was over, Heinous straightened her clothes and smoothed down her hair, making herself look presentable again before turning to her minion. “Well, let’s get started, shall we?” she said as if nothing had even happened. She reached her hand into one of the many pockets that lined her oversized dress and pulled out a small key covered in intricate carvings. Without a word she shoved the desk to the side, Rasticore taken aback by the sudden show of strength. He certainly hadn’t expected it from such a petite woman. 

Heinous bent down and inserted the key into a small slot in the ground and turned it with a click. Suddenly, the ground beneath her feet collapsed and a long spiral staircase stretching into the darkness beneath was revealed. Heinous returned the key to her pocket before looking at Rasticore expectantly, much to his confusion. He had been caught off guard thanks to the multiple, unexpected turns this trip had taken and couldn’t for the life of him figure out what she was wanting. Her sharp eyes dug into his skin before she impatiently snapped, “Well? You are the one with the light.” 

Rasticore could slap himself for being so stupid and he quickly pulled the lantern out from behind his cloak, already brightly lit by phoenix embers. Without a word he started down the stairs, practically feeling Heinous roll her eyes behind his back and he had to clench his claw so tightly a few trickles of blood formed on his leathery skin. For not the first time, Rasticore seriously debated on just how bad a reputation he would get for killing his employer in cold blood. The lizard assassin cursed himself for his integrity as a killer for hire, every other job had been so easy but this one was really testing just how far he was willing to go for his reputation. He probably would have quit entirely if he weren’t for those stupid brats that eluded him mulitple times. Every attempt he made to take that worthless Princess Star resulted in complete and utter failure and the humiliation ate away at him almost as much as his anger. So if having to endure Heinous a little longer meant seeing the looks on those brats' faces when they finally got what was coming to them… well Rasticore wouldn’t miss that for the world. 

Rasticore smiled, imagining the faces of Butterfly and her friends when they realized they had lost and that brought a new fire back to his soul, descending the staircase with a new vigor. The lizard got a good look at his surroundings, his night vision easily spotting what it was they were down there for: robots. Dozens of them, old and rusted over to the point Rasticore questioned if they would even activate. He looked back at his boss, who was eying the robots with a glimmer of dark ambition, not at all concerned about their obvious defectiveness. 

“Thought all your robots were dismantled,” Rasticore questioned suspiciously. 

Heinous shook her head. “That’s just what you would think,” the woman replied in a condescending tone. “And I knew those idiot knights would believe the same thing, hence why I had these hidden away in case I was ever found out. Imagine it, they all believed they had beaten me and yet my true power was right under their nose all along.” 

“Well that explains their poor condition,” Rasticore mumbled to himself, low enough he knew Heinous couldn’t hear him.

The two reached the bottom of the staircase and Heinous began inspecting her machines closely, running her gloved fingers along their metal casings and grimacing at the layer of dirt left behind. “The truth is those robots from my time as principal were simple worker drones, but these, my dear Rasticore, are my army.” 

“So you had these things hidden away this whole time and you never thought to use them before now?” Rasticore asked in a deadpan, trying to hold back his rising anger. If she had an army this whole time, why bother hiring him for her dirty work? How much time had he wasted fulfilling her goals when she could have just as easily sent a robot to do it. 

“Of course I did,” Heinous replied with quite a bit of malice. “They were my plan from the beginning. I just had to wait for the right time to use them.” 

“And only after I’ve been poisoned for your little mission do you suddenly decide it’s the ‘right time’,” the lizard Monster grunted, doing air-quotes for emphasis. 

“Hold your tongue!” Heinous snapped, her voice echoing around the dark chamber. The two stared each other down, neither breaking eye contact for even a second. “You cannot possibly comprehend the amount of time and planning I put into this,” she continued, spitting every word violently at her minion. “I spent years concocting the perfect scheme to take back everything I lost, to regain control and create a perfect world order. And yet you dare to believe I would overlook something so carelessly. No. Everything has been planned out.” The woman turned her back to the assassin, stating smugly, “In a scheme like this, timing is everything, my dear Rasticore.” 

She approached the nearest robot, wiping the dust off its metal surface, pulling out the same key from before and examining it closely. “And the time has finally come for the next phase of my master plan,” she whispered decisively. With that she rammed the key into the center of the robot’s chest, causing its eyes to blink open and light up red. Heinous took a step back as the machine slowly rose to its feet, creaking and groaning loudly, its rusted body protesting greatly. Branches that had formed around its hollow shell snapped and broke as it pushed itself upward with great strength. Finally, the machine was up, standing tall and at attention, its red eyes blinking as it waited for new orders, somehow menacing despite its deteriorating body. 

Rasticore took a step towards the robot body, still eyeing it skeptically but didn’t see a point in arguing, if his boss wanted to gamble all their plans on some old, dumb robot then she could deal with the consequences. It wasn’t his problem if her plan failed, so long as he got paid. “So what, we send this hunk of junk after the Butterfly brat and finally be done with her.” He had to admit the idea of a robot taking her down instead of him left a sour taste in his mouth. 

Heinous admired her machine with a satisfactory smile, her hands delicately running along its frame. “Patience, Rasticore, patience. Star Butterfly will receive her punishment in due time. But for now she is too highly guarded to risk an attack on her. We must tread carefully from here on out, no more half-witted schemes, we must deal with her delicately or all of this will be in vain.” 

Rasticore grit his teeth at the small insult but kept his calm, extended time with Heinous had really helped him with his temper, the one good thing he could say about being stuck with the snooty, high-and-mighty ex-principal herself. “So who are we targeting?” Rasticore asked impatiently. “I thought the whole point of this field trip was so you could get your hands on Butterfly. You yourself said you needed a Mewman for-”

“And I what I said still holds true,” Heinous interrupted, turning to her minion with a very evil expression. “Which is why we will be targeting another old student of mine, one who is much less guarded and much more obtainable.” A dark look passed over Heinous’ face as she thought of one of her oldest and most successful students, just speaking her name again filled her with a satisfaction and pride Heinous had almost forgotten about. “Princess Penelope Spiderbite.” 

[lonestarbabe]

Eye of the Storm: Chapter 3: The Road You Take Alone

*Can be read as a stand alone (AO3)

Carlos tries not to let his mental health spiral out of control.

Carlos isn’t used to waking up to an empty bed, and he misses hitting a limb when he stretches his body too far onto the other side. Even though T.K. still technically lives with his dad, he’s been spending a good deal of time at Carlos’. Carlos has gotten used to having him around, so when he’s gone, it’s too quiet, and Carlos can hear his thoughts rage in the stiff air of his mind, forming hard peaks like beaten egg whites. His thoughts are becoming unruly. They’re angry and anxious. You’ll never be happy, they tell him. Something will always make you feel dissatisfied. Things always go wrong, and you never know when the awfulness will strike, so you have to be prepared for all the badness that will come. If you aren’t prepared, bad things will happen.

His head pounds as the thoughts crescendo. His bed is lumpy under his body and his sheets are oddly scratchy. Usually, his bed is a safe little oasis, and the worrying doesn’t start until his feet reach the floor, but his thoughts are bolder today; they have no regard for those blessed moments of aimless contemplation that he loves so much. There’s no time for you to be tranquil. The world is unhinged, and you’ve got to find a way to fix it, or at least your little part of it. I just want to relax. No time for that. You’ve got to start your day. Five more minutes. Start your day. Two more minutes. Start your day. One more minute. I won’t say it again: start your day.

There’s so much he has to do, he knows that, but his mental to-do list is disjointed like building blocks after a child has torn them and scattered them across the room during a tantrum. He needs to piece them back together, but it takes so much energy just to do that let alone tackle the items on the list. The world is an overwhelming place when you can’t even process your own thoughts. I need to get going or I’m going to waste the entire day. Listen to yourself. You’ve got to hurry up and get something done before you give up on trying. I can do this. Getting my shit together can’t be that hard, can it?

Order is not something that Carlos likes to do; it is something he has to do. It keeps me from losing my head. Nothing feels right when left to chance, so each morning, he shakes the question marks as well as he can. He plans and he prepares for the day ahead. He lists the things that are likely to go wrong, and he thinks of ways he’ll address them when they happen. He reminds himself that he can handle the obstacles because, at one time or another, he has prepared for them all. But there are too many variables, and you cannot alphabetize a list if you don’t know the first letters of the items on that list. You can make deductions and guesses, but you can’t know. It is fruitless to try to control the inevitable mystery that comes with being alive, but Carlos tries. If he thinks about a thought long enough, he can work it to death. Once it’s dead, he can feel okay. For a while.

He’s got his thoughts under control most of the time. He’s learned to work through them efficiently, shoving them out of the way each morning and each night before they can drag him too far down into the abyss of rumination. While he’s taught himself to work through them quickly, some days, thoughts are sticky. They are gum glued to the ground with superglue, waiting for an unsuspecting shoe. The thoughts cling to his mind, oozing over the information he actually needs, and he has to work just a little bit harder to scrape them off of the walls of his brain.

Thank god people couldn’t see thoughts because if they could, they’d see that Carlos’ thoughts are twisted remnants of what thoughts should be. They’re the warped pieces of metal left after a plane crash— they don’t have much function, but their sharp edges can cut you. He doesn’t want today to be one of those days that brings those destructive thoughts to the forefront of his brain, but Carlos feels darkness sneaking into his brain with about as much stealth as a cat with a giant bell weighing down her steps. Somedays, it slips in without a trace, but it doesn’t matter because no matter how it comes, it always gets in.

He wishes he didn’t have the day off work. The space in his schedule leaves too much room for intrusion. Distraction has always been the thing that keeps Carlos sane. Work, working out, going out with friends are some of the things that keep him on his toes and feeling level. Distraction can’t take away all the darkness, but it can hold it away until it finally crawls back into bed with Carlos one quiet morning.

He should have known that the darkness would come on like this. The darkness – that’s what he’s always called it, but he isn’t sure whether the name makes it sound worse or better than the clinical name. You wouldn’t expect it from him, the depression, but it’s a familiar foe. He’s usually the one that people use as a strong pillar, and he hates how weak the darkness makes him feel. His depression comes in waves, and it comes unexpectedly. Some things may trigger the depression, sure, but it can come when he’s feeling good, just as it can come when he’s already feeling bad. It usually doesn’t last long, but it waxes and wanes and hangs over him even when he can’t see it.

It’s time to get up, his brain persists, urging him to suck up the lowness in his core and get on with what he has to do. Stop lazing around and do something. You could get so much done today if you just did it. Why are you like this? What’s stopping you other than yourself? Do something. Anything.

He drags his feet over the side of the bed, and the ground comes against his heels too fast, and he has to balance himself to not tumble back into bed. Oh, but I’m tempted. I could give in to the urge, wrap myself in blankets, and close myself off to the world. As the urge to do nothing calls to Carlos, his need for order also beckons. He has a routine for a reason because that routine keeps him from spiraling. One missed part of his routine can turn into pacing his apartment for two hours replaying his whole morning in his head to catch any discrepancies.

Somehow, I’ve got to get through this day. Carlos has learned that when a day seems impossible, you have to take it one step at a time, but he’s never been a one step at a time kind of guy. He’s good at taking tiny, careful steps because they feel safe and require the precision he’s programmed himself to give, but those baby steps grate on him. They bring out the obsession and make him exert way too much energy for what should be easy. He becomes consumed by little details that shouldn’t matter until he can’t think anymore.

The perk of a small apartment is that it doesn’t take long to pull his body to the kitchen and drag his feet down the stairs. Carlos feels like a robot as he prepares breakfast. Prepares is a strong word for what he does, but on days like today, pulling a toaster pastry from a shiny aluminum packet counts as preparation. The treat should taste like cinnamon sugar, but it’s cardboard against his tongue. He finishes it, and then he eats its waiting twin because he knows that’s what he should do. He washes his breakfast down with instant coffee that looks and tastes like mud.

He doesn’t have to clean the dishes because he’ll use the mug for more coffee when he’s showered, but even though he ate neatly and didn’t make much of a mess, he wipes down the counters as he usually does to simulate a normal day. Because I need to act normal. You’ll never be normal. But I can try.

After he cleans up breakfast, fatigue pulls at his eyes. I could just go back to bed. I have nothing to else to do, so I might as well just give up. What else am I going to do with my time? Going back to bed won’t make him feel any less tired, though, so he decides to force himself into the shower. He stands under the hot stream, letting it purify his thoughts more than his body. He stands there until the hot turns cold, and he’s so deep in his thoughts that he doesn’t notice the change until his teeth begin chattering.

Carlos forces himself into new clothes, and he doesn’t know what to do next. He’s restless. You have so much to do. Your life is a mess. Start by trying to clean that up, and then, we’ll go from there. If you can’t get your act together, you’re hopeless. Cleaning— I can handle that.

Cleaning isn’t Carlos’ idea of fun, but it seems like the natural solution to messiness, and maybe if he can get his living space spruced up, he can sort out the clutter in his head. He’s diligent when he cleans. He doesn’t just scrub surfaces; he uses three different products to make sure every square inch is wiped off as well as humanly possible. It probably doesn’t make much of a difference, but putting so much effort into something keeps his brain from scrambling. He dusts every crevice, and he vacuums using all the attachments to make sure no corner goes untouched. He even wipes down the bottom of his table just because he can imagine how much dirtiness must be under there. Cleaning is just the right amount of mind-numbing to pass the time without making Carlos have to think too hard. Since he’s cleaning, Carlos decides, what the hell, he might as well do some laundry, knocking all the dirty details of life off his list. Getting stuff done normally feels good, but Carlos doesn’t feel much of anything.

The morning blurs into the afternoon, and Carlos only notices the difference when his mom calls just a little after one. Carlos dreads the conversation as much as he’s glad that it will give him something to do. Carlos loves his mom, but she doesn’t stop talking whenever she calls, and she usually comes to him to vent. He doesn’t think she realizes that she’s doing it, and mostly he doesn’t mind, but he’s already feeling drained. Even with tiredness pulling at his brain, he answers the phone because it’s his mother, and how can he not answer the phone? She won’t stop calling until he responds, anyway, so he might as well get it over with. “Get it over with,” what a way to talk about your mother. You can’t try to be just a little nicer? She gave birth to you. The least you can do is listen to her. How much energy could it possibly take? Suck it up and do your job as a son.

His mom’s worked up about Carlos’ brothers’ grades. She gets worked up about his brothers a lot, and it’s not so much that the twins do anything that wrong. Mostly, they’re her last babies, and Ana is having a hard time accepting that all her children have become adults. Carlos’ brothers have never been academic, and he knows no matter what Ana says to them, they’re not going to change. “There’s something wrong. They’re not as diligent as you were,” Ana complains. “I don’t know why they’re so easily distracted.” Carlos wants to tell her, Of course, they aren’t as diligent as I am. They’re not anxious nutcases who try to be angels to keep from causing any negative emotions in other people. They don’t have to be diligent because they’re allowed to be regular kids. They aren’t responsible for their mother’s emotional balance. “They’re smart kids, but they’d much rather make jokes than do their work.”

“That’s hard,” Carlos tries to sympathize, “but they’re hardly kids anymore. They’re in college. You can’t micromanage their grades. I know it’s a challenge for you, but sometimes, you need to let go a little bit. You’ll always be their mother. College isn’t going to change anything.”

Ana tuts, “They still live in my home. They’ll follow my rules. They shouldn’t disrespect their mother. I may not be educated, but that doesn’t mean I’m a fool. I know plenty. It would serve them to remember that. I’ve been on this earth over a half-century!” Carlos’ mom has always been insecure about her lack of higher education. She’d always been good in school, but going to college had not been in the cards for her, and now, she feels lesser with all her children having more education than her. She’s proud of them, Carlos knows— she’s always been so proud of her children— but he can tell that she thinks about all the things she might’ve done if she’d found a way to go to college. In most areas, Ana is confident, but in others, she’s full of insecurity. Maybe that’s how all people are. A bit of confidence and a world of insecurities.

Carlos is quick to reassure Ana, “No one thinks you’re a fool. We know how smart you are, but when you’re young, the wisdom of your mother isn’t that appealing. They’re probably just trying to find themselves. They’re testing their limits, and it won’t always turn out well for them, but they’ll learn. They’ll come back to you when they need your help.” Carlos doesn’t know that. He’s not a psychiatrist, but it sounds like the right thing to say. Ana probably won’t see it that way, though.  She never sees things your way, and I don’t blame her. You’re crazy and unstable and act like you’ve got it all under control when you can’t even reassure your own mother properly. What good are you if you can’t accomplish the one thing you’ve been practicing for pretty much all of your life? Get it together Carlos.

Ana goes on, and Carlos knows the conversation has only just started, but he already wants to make an excuse about why he can’t talk any longer. But I can’t do that to her. “I’ve indulged all their interests. It wasn’t easy, but I made sure they could do all the sports they wanted. All I ask is that they keep their grades up, and I don’t like that they aren’t keeping their end of the bargain. I’ve made sacrifices, so many sacrifices.” Carlos always felt a pang of guilt for all the things his mother had sacrificed. They’d never had a lot of money, and Ana had given everything for her children so that they could have whatever opportunities they wanted.

All his life, Carlos has tried not to take too much. I need to be careful what I ask for. If I can’t get it myself, I shouldn’t have it at all. He’d gotten a job as soon as he could. He’s saved his money and paid for as many of his own expenses as possible. She’d never asked him to do it, but he knew how much she gave to her children, and he never wanted the burden of depriving his mother. He hated to see her not having the things she wanted because of her children, so he made a vow to pave his own way. Yet, she’s still given him so much that she will never make him give back. And you don’t deserve any of it. What have you done to deserve it other than being a bitter son who resents his saint of a mother?

He knows that way she makes him feel isn’t normal, and it probably isn’t healthy, but it’s too late to set boundaries, and he knows that she isn’t doing it on purpose. He feels selfish whenever the bitterness pops up. She loves you unconditionally. How can you be mad at that? What kind of a monster resents his mother who has only tried to give him the best? She’s not perfect, but no person is, so why hold her to some unachievable standard. There must be something wrong with you if you cannot accept her how she is. She’s not the problem— you are.

“I know, Mamá, but it’s normal for them to want to stray from the nest.” Ana would never be the kind of mother who took a back seat, even as her kids grew up and started families of their own. So much of her identity is centered around caring for her family, and the changing way she cares for them has made her feel like she’s lost her purpose. She’s one of the most self-sacrificing people that Carlos knows, and even when she’s given all that she could possibly give to her children, she wants to give more.

“You never did. You were always such a good boy.” At what cost? I tried so hard to be what you wanted that I forgot how to be myself. Until he had joined the police academy, Carlos had been unsure of what he wanted. What his mother wanted for him had become such a big part of his mindset that it drowned out what he wanted for himself. He became a chameleon to please her, to boost her confidence, and make her feel like a successful mother, and it was hard to learn to be himself again, which is why sometimes he feels better when he keeps a distance from Ana. He loves her, and he’ll always be close to her, but he also needs a life of his own, or he will go crazy.

“I’m a different person, so I needed different experiences. There’s nothing wrong with that. It just shows that we all have different abilities.” We all don’t feel like we have to change ourselves to be what other people want. “The twins are fine.” They’ve never been that into academics, and they are mostly still in school to continue with sports, so Carlos never expected them to get good grades. “They’re not failing, are they?”

“No, but they can do better.” Not while being happy, Carlos wants to argue. He doesn’t want his little brothers to go through the same turmoil that he has.

“You can’t force it.” Carlos knows better that the more you try to force something, the more out of control you become. Not that knowing that stops you from trying to force control. You can’t help it, can you Carlos? You keep trying to capture something that was never meant to be held. You’ll always come out a loser like that.

“I know that, Carlos, but maybe you should talk to them.” I should have known that this is where the conversation was headed. She always wants me to be the voice of reason, the cool older brother who gives them wisdom that they wouldn’t listen to if it comes from their mother.

Carlos tries to keep the agitation out of his voice. “And say what?” He shakes his head, but she obviously can’t see it. “They’re not going to listen to me either. They think I’m uptight.” Carlos’ family always jokes that he should relax a little, and he does relax. He can be spontaneous and flexible, but it’s harder to be that way in front of his family because they’ve come to rely on his rigidity, his ability to never bend under pressure. It’s all just a façade, but they don’t need to know that. They don’t need to know about the insanity in my head. They would look at me differently if they knew, and I can’t afford their perception of me to change. He’s afraid of what they would think if they knew the truth. What would his mom do if she knew that Carlos wasn’t okay all the time? She would probably blame herself, and Carlos couldn’t have that.

He imagines coming clean, sometimes. It is so lonely to handle the weight of his dysfunction on his own. He likes to fantasize about blurting everything wrong out in one go and not giving a damn what everyone thinks. It would be cathartic, and he wouldn’t feel like he has to hide so many parts of himself because that’s what he is doing. He’s hiding because it’s easy to hide than to own his imperfections. He doesn’t want anyone to see him as broken, especially when they sp desperately need him to be solid.

“They do not see you that way. They look up to you. You’re their big brother. They’ll listen to you. Just tell them to shape up. I’m worried about them.”

“That’s a bad idea. I don’t want to get in the middle of this.” As the oldest boy, Carlos usually takes his role as an older brother in stride, but he’s so exhausted, and he doesn’t think there’s anything he can say that will please everyone involved, least of all himself. He’s not up for handling this family drama, especially when he doesn’t really understand what the drama is. “I don’t think it will help for me to say anything,” Carlos adds so he sounds less defiant, but he’s got to hold his ground on this one thing or he’ll be sucked into a mindset that makes his obsessions and his worries worse.

He hears Ana sighing loudly on the other end of the phone, “Do you think one of your sisters can talk sense into them?”

“Mamá, I don’t think anyone is going to change their minds. They need to take the initiative for themselves.” But she won’t listen to me on that. She can be so stubborn sometimes, and I don’t know how to make her hear what I’m saying. You might as well give up talking because she’s never going to change.

To Carlos’ surprise, his mother laughs. “You sound so much like your father sometimes, Carlos. He always believed that you kids would sort yourselves out if we gave you the room to experiment.” He can hear her smiling over the phone. She always smiles when she talks about Carlos’ dad. “I was never able to be like that. I worry too much. You’re all my babies, you know. Even now that you’re old. I remember holding you in my arms. You were a big baby, but even a big baby is so tiny. I was afraid the world would break you.”

“I got stronger,” Carlos says,

“You were always a sensitive kid. I’m glad you grew out of it. The world is hard on sensitive kids. And foolish ones. Your brothers are foolish ones. They’ve got a lot of ambition. They’ve got good ideas, but they have no sense about how cruel the world can be. You’ve seen the bad. You saw your father’s flaws more than they did. He gave you kids your freedom, but he liked things a certain way.”

“We don’t have to talk about this.” It isn’t that Carlos minds talking about his dad, but he knows a conversation like this can cause his mother to spiral. She tries to hide her mental distress when it happens, but Carlos sees it. Like mother like son. He notices the way she becomes quiet and the way her eyes are red more than they aren’t.

“I want to,” she admits. “Your father could become… withdrawn.” Your freakshow comes from both sides then, huh? “He’d focus on one thing, and everything else would become background noise. You and Glo were old enough to see that.”

“I remember, but that’s not how I remember him. I remember him cooking us meals and running around with us at the park. I remember him reading us books and helping us imagine our futures. I remember hugs when we were scared and soup when we were sick. Everyone has bad days, but Papá’s were mostly good.” Some people are better at hiding bad days than others, but we all have them, especially in my family.

“I never told you kids how he died.” Carlos can barely stand to hear how choked his mother’s voice is. It sends a ripple of fear through him.

Carlos feels his heart skip a beat. He’s not sure why she’s bringing this up now, but nothing that she’s saying is a surprise. She’s never said the words. She’s refused to admit that their father didn’t die in his sleep, but the kids all know. There’s a quiet understanding between them that he’d drunk himself to death. Carlos had never really seen his dad his drunk. His dad had always kept his addiction secret, but there had been signs. Looking back, he always knew. Everyone around them knew, but they didn’t mutter the words. They kept what was behind closed doors behind closed doors, and that never helps anyone.

“We know,” Carlos says so his mother doesn’t have to say it. She’s been denying the true cause of death for over a decade, and Carlos is afraid of what will happen if she says the words out loud. It’s why no one in his family has ever brought it up. “Glo and I figured it out.”

“He wasn’t a bad man.” Carlos only ever saw the part of him that was good. Come on, you knew. You always knew. You pretended you didn’t, but it was clear as day that your dad had a problem, and you should have done something about it. You should put the pieces together sooner and tried to do something about it. Now, he’s not a good man or a bad man; he’s a dead man.

“I know. He was sick,” Carlos says. Just like me. Just like you. Just like all of us. “He did the best he could.”

“I wanted to protect you from it,” Ana says, and Carlos isn’t sure if she’s trying to justify the lies or is slipping back into the delusion. No, you wanted to protect yourself, he wants to shout, but he bites his tongue because he’s not going to fight with a woman who tried to give him everything in her power. Making her unhappy wasn’t going to make him happier.

“It’s okay, Mamá. You did the best you could. You don’t have to be sorry,” and just like that, he absolves her. He always absolves her, even if it means condemning himself. Isn’t that just what a decent son is supposed to do?

When his mother is done talking, Carlos hangs up the phone. He stops fighting the thoughts growing louder in his brain. He gives in to the urge he’s been resisting all day, and he goes back to bed. Because what’s the point of staying up any more. What else do I have to do? Sleeping will make the day go quicker, and right now, that’s what Carlos needs.

When Carlos wakes up, he doesn’t feel refreshed. He’s still thinking about the conversation he had with his mother, and he thinks that maybe he should call his brothers after all, but he doesn’t. Instead, he calls his oldest sister, Gloria, because as the oldest sibling, she knows very well how it feels to be given more responsibility than you are prepared to carry. “Did Mamá call you?” Carlos asks after a brief greeting.

Gloria laughs, “She called me first. It was unusual. You know you’re the favorite.” You’re only the favorite when something goes wrong and needs fixing.

“You know that’s no true.” If I am the favorite, it’s because there’s so much of me that I hide. She’s only seen the parts of Carlos Reyes that she needs to see. I’ve buried all the rest because doing so will make her happier. Carlos knows that if his mother knew that he’s not as level-headed as he pretends to be, she wouldn’t feel the same way about him. She wouldn’t turn to him for help, and she wouldn’t talk to him as openly. Telling the truth could destroy the relationship with his loved ones as he knows it, so he chooses to keep silent.

“You’re all she can talk about with her friends. She’s so proud.”

“She’s proud of us all,” Carlos assures his sister.

“That’s what favorite children always say,” Gloria teases.

“You can take a turn being the favorite, Glo. She wants me to talk to Gabe and Dave again. Their grades aren’t high enough for her liking.”

“You set the bar too high and now the poor kids are expected to be straight-A students.”

“Like you were any better.”

“Maybe not,” Gloria says, “But she knows they have trouble in school. David especially.”

“Meanwhile, Gabriel is the one who jokes through his studies.” Gabriel distracts David, who has a hard enough time focusing on his studies in the best of circumstances, so having the two boys together can do more harm than good.

“You didn’t call to talk about the twins, did you?” Gloria asks astutely.

“No,” Carlos admits. “I’m not interested in trying to get their grades up. As long as they're not failing and doing decently well, I don’t see a need to get involved.” He can be honest with Gloria because he knows that she feels the same way that he does.

“Why did you call then?” Her voice is gentle, and it reminds Carlos of when his mom used to sing him to sleep.

Carlos sighs. “I don’t know. I guess I just wanted to check-in. I’m worried about Mamá.”

“She seems okay,” Gloria reassures him.

“She talked about the way Papá really died today, Glo.” There’s a long pause, and Carlos can hear his sister breathing over the phone, but she doesn’t say anything. “Glo? You still there,” he adds to try to get her to reply.

“She actually said the words?”

Carlos’ brain sinks a little. “Well, no. She didn’t say it explicitly, but she admitted that she never told us the truth about what happened.”

Gloria sounds indignant, “As if we didn’t know. The denial has never been for us.”

“I know that.” He crosses his arms over his chest like a petulant child.

“Did you tell her that?” Gloria’s voice has raised just enough that Carlos knows this conversation has gone off course. He doesn’t know why he chose to do this to himself, on a bad day especially. He doesn’t have the energy, but since it’s too late to get out of the situation, he has to find it. When he needs to, he can always embezzle it from other parts of himself that need less upkeep. When he has bad days, sacrifices must be made.

Gloria sounds annoyed now. “Of course, you didn’t. You never tell her how you feel.”

“What does it matter to you?” It’s his life and his feelings. He can tell them to whoever he wants.

“Because you shouldn’t censor yourself anytime she has a mood. She’s not going to stop having them just because you cater to her and I know it’s a lot for you to manage. You’re not responsible for protecting someone else from themselves.” But that’s what Carlos has always done. He’s a protector by nature, and when he sees someone in trouble, he steps in.

“Be nice. She’s your mother.” Gloria’s frustration with her mother is obvious. It’s not that she’s not sympathetic, but she’s never experienced what Gloria has experienced. She doesn’t understand how hard it is to rise above your bad days.

“And I love her, but she needs professional help. Too much of her life is centered around being our mother. She can’t rely on us to fill in all her gaps. She needs a life of her own. I hate seeing her when she gets bad, and she’ll keep getting bad unless she decides to make a change.” If Ana knew that she was talking about her this way, it would devastate her, and just the thought of her overhearing this conversation makes Carlos want to end it, but he lets Gloria say her piece.

“Well, that’s never going to happen.” That’s the problem. He knows that she’s never going to seek help on her home, so it’s either he tries and fails to help her or he doesn’t try at all. Trying feels better than doing nothing.

“So what then? You have to be whatever makes Mamá happy?” Isn’t that what I’ve been? How can I be anyone else at this point? She needs me, and I can’t let her down. Carlos knows that they don’t have healthy boundaries, but that’s just how his family is.

“I don’t always choose what Mamá wants.” For as many concessions he makes with her, there are some that he is unwilling to let her cross for his own sanity. “She didn’t like the idea of me being gay.”

“She always accepted your sexuality.” That’s the simple way of putting it. His mom has never been anything but supportive. When he told her, she hugged him and said that she loved him no matter who he loved, but he had always had a feeling that her initial acceptance had been because it would make her a bad mother not to accept him, and being a good mother is the thing that she has always most wanted to be, often to the point of too closely resembling the stereotypical image of a mother.

“I know she always loved me just the same, but it took time for her to get used to it.” He doesn’t remember her saying bad things about gay people, but he had seen her smile fall just a fraction when he told her the truth.

“She’ll get used to other things, too. Your relationship with her can evolve if you let it. It might be better for everyone.”

“I can’t stop worrying about her.” The worry is lodged in his mind. It is one of his oldest friends, and no matter how far he goes, it is part of him. He’s spent so long concerned about his mother that not exhausting so much energy worrying would leave a hole in his life. As messed up as it is, he doesn’t know who he is without his fears. If he let them go, even just some of them, he thinks that things might get even worse. No one else seems to understand the way he needs to indulge the worry to feel safe.

“And I’m not asking you to, but you don’t have to deal with everything alone, hermanito.”

“Yeah maybe,” Carlos says because he’s too tired to argue with her about her. “I’ve got to go Glo,” he says as an escape from the conversation. “T.K. is calling.”

“Okay, Carlos, go talk to your man. I love you.” He’s lucky to have Glo. She’s always trying to look after him when he’s trying to look after everyone else.

“I love you too. Talk soon,” he says before hanging up and putting the phone beside him. The phone is silent now, and he misses the noise, but he is relieved that he doesn’t have to listen anymore just the same.

He lays back on his couch and flips the TV on. He turns to his favorite crime drama, the one that got him interested in law enforcement, but he doesn’t pay attention. He lets the scenes pass through his brain mindlessly without leaving a dent in his memory. He stays there for hours, only getting up when he’s hungry or needs to use the bathroom. He lets the hours blur until his mind is so numbed that he needs to do something just to remember there’s a world outside his apartment.

To find a connection to the outside world, Carlos has T.K. over in the evening because starting the next morning, T.K. has to work for two days, and Carlos doesn’t want to wait that long to see him even though he’s not in the mood to be around people.

When Carlos opens the door to his apartment, T.K. throws his arms around Carlos. He tilts his head up for a kiss. He smells sweet, and maybe time with his boyfriend is exactly what T.K. needs. “You don’t know how glad I am to see you.” T.K.’s hold is firm and the weight of T.K. against his chest knocks out the breath that Carlos has been holding.

“Long day?” Carlos asks. T.K. opens his mouth, but he looks at Carlos’ face and closes it again; T.K. swallows hard, pushing the words on the tip of his tongue down to his stomach. He can tell that something is wrong with you. Get your act together. He doesn’t want to hear about all your issues. Keep that shit to yourself and don’t bother your boyfriend about it.

T.K. says, “You look tired.” Tired was too light of a word for the utter depletion Carlos felt in his bones. You’re so whiny. Could you shut up for just five seconds? You’re giving me a migraine.

He’s not going to like that answer because for some reason he wants to learn everything about you, even the worst parts of Carlos Reyes. “That doesn’t answer my question.” They could circle like this forever, redirecting each other’s words because neither wants to burden the other with what they both try and fail to hide.

Carlos doesn’t miss the way T.K.’s eyes are overcast, but he watches T.K. tug a smile onto his face as he pulls back whatever he might’ve said if he hadn’t noticed that something was off with Carlos. Carlos feels guilty. You’re the worst boyfriend. You can’t even support him when he needs you. I’m trying. Not hard enough. T.K. pecks Carlos’ lips. “I missed you, that’s all,” T.K. adds, and Carlos can’t help but worry that there’s more to it than that. He wonders if his perception is off. Maybe he’s making a lot out of nothing. He tends to do that. You sure do.

They order pizza and put on a movie when Carlos can’t find many words. T.K. picks at the pizza and Carlos doesn’t pay attention to the movie. Aren’t we a fun pair? By the time the credits roll on the screen, Carlos has no idea what just happened as T.K. gives his impromptu review of the movie. T.K.’s excitedly talking, and Carlos doesn’t process the words he is saying, but it feels good to hear T.K. being so full of life when Carlos feels so depleted.

“Yeah,” Carlos says distractedly to something that T.K. says. “That’s true.”

T.K. gives Carlos a confused look. He chuckles. “You’re not paying any attention to me, are you?” His voice is light, but it still makes Carlos feel like shit. Guilt spikes in Carlos’ bloodstream. I should be more attentive when we get to spend time together.

“I’m sorry, Ty.” How many times can you say “I’m sorry,” before it starts to lose its meaning? It’s always the same old story with you Carlos. Try something new for once. I’m so bored.

T.K. shakes his head, “Don’t be. You know I don’t mind talking to myself.” But you shouldn’t have to, Carlos wants to say. Your boyfriend should be more attentive.

“I should still listen.” That’s right you should, but you’re so selfish. You try to do things for other people, but it’s only because you’re greedy for their love.

“Really, it’s fine. I get it.” He doesn’t get anything. “Are you okay?” T.K. asks, and Carlos knows that he should be able to talk about it— the depression, especially. He remembers T.K. telling him once about everything being gray, so he knows T.K. gets how it feels. Carlos’ depression is different than T.K.’s, though. It’s fueled by pathological obsession and worry more than anything else. Still, he thinks T.K. might understand or try to understand more than most people would. He wouldn’t be one of those people who tries to understand and then doesn’t listen. Carlos has met many of those. They hear the word depression, and they start to assume. They think depression is laziness or intense sadness after the loss of a loved one. They think it is just a feeling. “I’m depressed,” they say when they are feeling sad, but they don’t consider what it must like to have depression. It’s not a passing mood Sometimes, they have a deeper understanding, but very few can understand the nuances, and even though T.K. may get how Carlos feels, Carlos doesn’t think he can talk about it. His throat feels like it may close whenever he starts to say the words, so he shuts up.

It’s a strange role-reversal when Carlos tells T.K., “I’m fine.”

T.K. raises his eyebrows, probably because he knows that people who say they are fine are usually lying. “We’re both hypocrites, aren’t we?”

“Yeah? How’s that?”

“We both want honestly about how we are, but we both don’t want to give it.” That might be the closest thing T.K. has been to admitting he’s not fine. It might be the closest he ever will be. Carlos gets it. It’s hard to accept that you might not be okay, especially when other people need you to be okay. It seems simpler to pretend that you’re fine. The thought takes the air from Carlos’ lungs and not in the way that feels like a release.

“I’m not trying to push you to talk about anything, but you know that you can talk to me, right?”

“Of course,” Carlos lies, trying to force a smile.

“Do you need to talk now?” T.K. pushes him just a little further. Carlos shifts his body further from T.K. on the couch, and T.K. sags against the cushions. Maybe now he knows how he makes you feel all the time, the malicious part of Carlos thinks.

“No, I’m good.” He can hear the waver in his voice. I’m so tired, and I can’t shake the drowsiness no matter how hard I try.

“Carlos—” T.K. tries to say, but Carlos will have none of it. He doesn’t want his thoughts or his feelings to be dissected because they’re not something he can share with other people. They’re his alone, and he’s not going to burden anyone else with them if he doesn’t have to.

“Drop it, T.K.” Carlos’ voice is authoritative, and maybe that’s the wrong move because T.K. has never listened much to authority. But to Carlos’ shock, T.K. almost backs down. Almost.

T.K. bites the side of his cheek. “I’m just worried.”

“Well don’t be,” Carlos can’t help but say harshly, and he regrets the words the minute they leave his mouth.

He feels hopeless because he wants to make everything better, but there’s no easy fix for not being okay. There’s no way to wake up and immediately exterminate the termites that chew at the core parts of your mind. You have to swim through a boiling, sludgy roux as it begins to curdle and drag you down with its soiled weight. You have to pull back your skin to see what’s happening inside. You have to hope that something changes even when change is an upside-down mountain that you somehow have to climb.

Carlos isn’t sure he has the energy to climb, at least not right now.

“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to upset you,” T.K. says, sounding sincere, but it irritates Carlos to hear the worry in his voice.

“You don’t have to worry about me,” Carlos insists, taking on a calmer voice. Try worrying about yourself, he wants to tell T.K., I’m not the one slowly killing myself. No, you’re just worrying yourself to death.

“I’m not an expert, but that’s kind of being in a relationship, isn’t it? Worrying about the other person and wanting to make sure they’re okay.” T.K. puts his arms around Carlos and leans his head up to whisper in Carlos’ ear. “I’m here if you want to talk.” T.K.’s breath is hot in Carlos’ ear, and it warms Carlos to know that he isn’t alone, but it also doesn’t make a difference because there are some things that Carlos needs to keep to himself. He likes to think he’s saving T.K. from the pain of knowing what Carlos struggles with, but deep down, he knows that what keeps his lips pressed shut is the shame that comes with not being the strong, unwavering pillar of support that he wishes he could be. Carlos wants to be that person that doesn’t bend under pressure. He wants to be the effortless kind of okay because most of the time, he is okay, but he has to fight to be that way.

“It’s been a long week,” Carlos admits, but he doesn’t know how to explain the week wasn’t long because it was awful. It’s dragged for no other reason than there’s something off inside Carlos’ brain.

“Jenkins being an asshole again?”

“He’s always an asshole,” Carlos replies about his least-liked coworker. “But no, Jenkins hasn’t been worse than usual. It’s just been hectic,” Carlos explains because that sounds like the most normal reason for not being your normal self.

“How so?” Carlos doesn’t feel like talking, but he doesn’t want to reject the efforts that T.K. is making, so he figures he can just give a little and maybe that will create harmony between them.

“You know how you have a really busy shift and then when your mind stops being pulled in so many different directions, you get really tired, and then you don’t know what to do with your time?” T.K. nods, encouraging Carlos to go on. “It’s like that. I’m crashing after a long several shifts.”

“But you can handle it?”

“Yeah,” Carlos assures, kissing T.K.’s forehead and running a hand through his hair. “All I need is time to recover before my next shift. It helps to have you here.”

“Babe, I’ll be here whenever you need me to be.” But Carlos would never ask that of T.K. T.K. leans his head on Carlos’ shoulder. “I know how hard your job must be. You see some crazy things on patrol.” The funny thing is that it isn’t mostly the things he sees at work that get to Carlos. There will always be incidents that cut deeply, but for the most part, he’s good at compartmentalizing the bad things that happen on the job.

T.K. sits up and leans closer to Carlos, and he kisses the spot just above his collarbone. His lips are soft and warm from the coffee he’d just had, but Carlos can barely sense the warmth. “Is there something I can do to make it better?”

Carlos cannot tell T.K. how he is feeling because this mental tumult is the road he takes alone. It is a road of shame and self-doubt. It is a road of feeling unprepared for each new day. It is a treacherous road that’s just dirt, rocks, and inclines. Carlos wouldn’t want to bring anyone he loved with him down that road. Yet, he knew they would all go down it if he asked— if they knew it existed. They wouldn’t just go down it with him; they’d help him pave it. They’d help him put guardrails on the edges and streetlights in the dark corners. They’d form a community around the darkness. But Carlos isn’t ready to put his secret little road on the map, so all he can do is try to stay on his feet and continue on a lone journey down the road.

[josie-effortposts]

The Woman Who Fell to Earth

I stopped watching Doctor Who in 2013 after the 50th anniversary special. Up to then I was deeply obsessed by its reams of stories, hidden subspaces and detailed production histories. It wasn’t just entertainment, it was a case study in a massive shared universe, and a direct function of the times and places it had been written. 

It’s never been very controversial to anyone I know to dislike Moffat’s run of the show, and as it drew to a close everything that followed seemed pretty well-telegraphed: Chris Chibnall would become the head of the show, it wouldn’t be very good, reactionaries would blame bad writing on a female Doctor while plenty of others would just lost interest, the ratings would drop and the whole show would become less culturally relevant. It was a Cassandra truth.

But that said, I still wanted to try it. I watched a bit of the Twelfth Doctor and had mixed feelings, and when I watched the first episode of the Thirteenth I found myself taking notes on it. So, without a lot of structure, here are my thoughts.

1. New Who treats first episodes as very important, the first moments that we see new Doctors and their statements to the world. Call it a modern tradition - where “Robot” and “Time and the Rani” play the change for comedy before jumping into the week’s adventures, “The Christmas Invasion” and “The Eleventh Hour” are primarily statements of continuity. By Twelve’s first outing the villains themselves become metaphors for change, and now Thirteen delivers a brief speech about deciding to become different while paying respect to the past.

2. Speaking of that speech, I feel like there must have been an earlier draft that connected the plot to these metaphors a lot better. The villain of the story keeps pieces of his past triumphs with him at all times, but these trophies are body parts taken from the dead, and they disgust the Doctor. At least Twelve’s flesh robots were stumbling towards eternity.

The villain as a whole is just what you’d expect from a low-grade Doctor Who monster, I guess. He’s supposed to be on a hunt, which sounds really cool, but this consists entirely of him walking places and murdering random bystanders by touch. He’s not keeping the masquerade up or succeeding in his goals by doing this, and the rest of the story implies that he’s at least shrewd about getting what he wants. The Doctor’s complaints against him center on him being a cheat who can’t do the hunt fair and square and on his desecrating corpses, but she never seems very angry at him over murdering people. 

The idea of the Doctor stopping a proper hunt actually sounds interesting to me, especially as someone who sat through all of DWAD’s The Most Dangerous Game. There’s a lot of suspense in dealing with an intelligent, directed killer with a small number of targets, be it in Predator or Day of the Jackal, and a villain that stalks, hides or sets up ambushes could be easier on the budget. Or you could keep the villain the same but add a second member of his species to the setting and have them in competition, conflict on conflict. (That sounds like it’d make a good module for TIMELORD, actually...)

3. The Doctor feels simplified. I don’t mean the new personality of this incarnation, although I think the slight amnesia-until-climax is a bit forced. There’s just stuff that comes off wrong. For instance, things are outlawed in “every civilized galaxy” and the villains traveled from “five thousand galaxies away”. Despite ostensibly going anywhere and anywhen, the show’s always respected some species of distance, in that going far enough away or leaving the universe itself is a pretty big deal (especially since so much of it sticks to Earth). This line could’ve been any distance and nothing else would’ve changed, but it kills the idea of space - how can galaxies be civilized? It feels like the setting is shrinking - the word just sounds big and spacey, and this is the part where the Doctor says that something’s out of place, so big, spacey words go there.

This probably sounds nitpicky, but it feels lazy. Where Davies and Moffat both repeatedly made the Doctor or companions into the Most Important People in History, Chibnall seems to take it as read that the Doctor can just do stuff as the plot demands it. The climax involves her making a jump over a dangerous drop to the gasps of all assembled, but her first appearance is after an even longer fall where she breaks through the ceiling of a train car and isn’t even scratched. She "reformats” a phone into some kind of tracking gadget with six seconds of thumb typing and builds a new sonic screwdriver out of random scrap, which then solves basically every issue in the story. And, naturally, she can pinpoint things from a billion light-years away.

My favorite Moffat story is probably “The Eleventh Hour” because it presents the Doctor with a genuine challenge at his most vulnerable. If he had his regular tools handy then it would’ve been a much more straightforward Doctor Who story, but there’s no time to stop and build a new sonic screwdriver, because people are going to die by the time he’s finished. I wish more modern stories had that.

4. I can’t tell how I should feel about the side characters here. Not the companions, although it feels like Chibnall looked at RTD’s companions and thought “why not bring the entire family along?” There’s just this odd tension in characterization between comedy and drama for them, and without a very detailed soundtrack it’s hard to tell what emotions the script’s trying to go for.

One of the hunter’s victims has spent years trying to find his missing sister after another hunter abducting her. Instead of any resolution coming to that story he just gets murdered without ever knowing what happened to her and then the Doctor commandeers his workshop. (It’s even made clear that these human trophies are all still alive, just “in stasis”, so there’s no reason to think they couldn’t save her and presumably several others.) Meanwhile one of the main characters suffers a short fall and dies, taking up most of the final act with a funeral despite us hardly knowing her.

Other victims are worse. A man throws pieces of his salad at the monster for no discernible reason - he doesn’t even seem drunk, and then he dies as the hunter crushes that salad underfoot. A security officer gives a heartfelt goodbye to his family and tells them what a lucky granddad he is, then walks offscreen to be murdered. Neither of these scenes had to happen, and both together don’t even fill a minute of the runtime, so what was the motivation? The first is at least charmingly odd, but both of them feel like bizarre, extremely cheap set-pieces.

The soon-to-be-trophy himself listens to positive affirmations in a crane, then shouts them as he’s being chased. “I’m important! I matter!” The implication would seem to be that this is goofy behavior, and yet the things he shouts are in some ways the themes of the show. Is this self-critical deconstruction, unabashed humanism poorly delivered, a running gag?

5. The other half of a new Doctor, classic or modern, is this shedding of old things. Not always in terms of showrunners, but sometimes in attitudes or fans. The change from Six to Seven was motivated by a desire to change the tone of the show, for instance. Nowadays this is reflected a lot by the fandom - every Doctor has newcomers who jump back out because they don’t want their hero to be replaced, but the jump to Eleven confronted a lot of younger fans with this for the first time. Then Twelve culled some fans who couldn’t stand the Doctor being old and unkissable, and now Thirteen’s wiped out her own contingent of grognards who think the Doctor being a woman is a radical idea invented in the last three years.

That said, I’m not a fan yet. Some Doctors I don’t like as much for aspects of their characters, particularly Five, but Thirteen just doesn’t feel Doctorly. (To be clear, neither did Twelve.) I grew to enjoy Matt Smith’s performance where I thought I wouldn’t, and I’ve found a lot to like in every Doctor, but for some reason both of them still feel like actors playing the role to me, where Unbound Doctors and Mark Kalita have captured whatever the core is.

6. I feel like I’m getting old. So much of the beauty of Doctor Who just feels transparent now. After Moffat the maximalist decades of worldbuilding can never convincingly pretend to add up to a coherent universe and they can’t escape into the freedom of canon-indeterminacy any more than they already have. Even Big Finish, which I used to adore, feels strangled by a mandate to realize and box-set every possible combination of whatever actors they can summon from the show, no matter how many tedious hours they have to fill with cardboard characters and back-of-the-napkin monsters.

There’s no excitement in the adventure for me, because I know the route and the destination. And I don’t know if that’s Doctor Who being formulaic or disenchantment from seeing the patterns too much, or some personal lack of spark and imagination. I feel like there must be some drive I don’t have, one that would re-energize my own perspective in the face of concrete understanding, that would see it as a good thing that I understand another layer of what I enjoyed so much without sacrificing that enjoyment. But if it’s there, I just don’t see it.

But hey. While there’s life, there’s...

[hazel-writes]

Summary: A devastating secret is revealed - one that you will never forget.

Word Count: 3,100

Warnings: minor canon-typical violence

﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌﹌

People they come together

People they fall apart

No one can stop us now

'Cause we're all made of stars

• We Are All Made of Stars - Moby •

You walked towards the room that the Commander had told you to meet him in. It was in a section of the ship you weren’t familiar with; red lights lined the sleek black walls and it was quiet in comparison to the bustling area closer to the command center. Needless to say, walking the near-empty corridors made you nervous.

And rightfully so.

Because at that moment, as you rounded a corner, you found yourself barrelling right into none other than General Hux.

Why am I like this? you thought to yourself, amused by your constant poor luck.

You stumbled backwards, mumbling an apology as Hux recovered. His features screwed into an expression of disgust.

“You.” he said through gritted teeth. “What do you think you’re doing here? This area is restricted. We don’t allow artist scum here.”

You didn’t want to reveal the true nature of your visit to this section of the ship, so you tried, and failed, to think of another excuse for your location.

“I- I was…”

He chuckled, a sinister grin spreading on his face. “Lost for words now, are you? That would be a first.”

When you continued to stay quiet, Hux took a predatory step towards you, his long, angled nose merely inches from your face. You shut your eyes tightly, attempting to block out his anger and ease your own.

He raised a finger in front of your nose but you held your ground defiantly. “Speak girl, I asked you a question!”

"Hux!” a voice sounded from down the hall, interrupting the interrogation.

The General's expression soon turned to one of irritation as he spun to face the individual who had spoken. You recognised the voice immediately as that of the Commander.

“I requested that she come to this part of the ship.” He calmly walked towards you and the General. “I take it you won’t keep her from our meeting any longer.”

“What would you want from her?” he scoffed, eyeing you with disgust. “She’s just a piece of Lothalian trash-”

Suddenly, his voice was cut off as he brought his hands up to his throat, grasping at an invisible force. You took a few steps back, taking in the scene before you. After a few moments, Hux was released and he crumpled to the ground, coughing and sputtering. The Commander then turned towards you.

“Come,” he said, before turning and walking back in the direction he came from.

You followed behind him, looking back at Hux, who was still on the ground. You knew you would be in trouble the next time you crossed paths with him, but now, you simply revelled in the sight of him lying helpless on the floor.

It wasn’t long before you arrived in front of a large metallic door. With a wave of his hand, the Commander wordlessly opened it, revealing a small, black room. Your eyes, however, were glued to the huge floor-to-ceiling windows that lined the far wall.

“Wow,” you said, entranced by the speckled expanse of darkness.

“Sit,” he ordered, avoiding eye contact.

You did as he said, bringing your legs up in front of you and draping your hands over your knees. Silence enveloped the room and as much as you hated small talk, you despised awkward silence even more.

You couldn’t take it any longer. “So are we gonna play patty-cake or are we just gonna sit here. On the floor. In silence.”

A sigh emanated from his modulator. “You are well aware that you are force-sensitive.”

Ah, so that’s what this is about. “I guess, though I still am unsure as to what that entails.”

“The Force is a field of energy, created by all life, that connects everything in the universe. Those who are force-sensitive are highly attuned to its flow; they can sense and manipulate it to their will. Less than one percent of the universe’s population has the ability to do this.”

This was the most you had ever heard him speak and you hung onto every word. “And I’m one of those one percent?”

“With proper training, yes, you could be.”

This confused you. “But why do I need to be trained? It’s not like I’m some soldier who could use it in battle; I’m an artist! What would I gain from it? ”

He answered quickly and straightforwardly. “Power.”

You hated that word. It was too often used to justify war. “But I don’t want power; I want peace.”

“Peace only comes from power,” he responded robotically.

You shook your head in disagreement and let your eyes wander to the sheet of space before you. You thought of your dad, and how he always knew how to deescalate a tricky situation. Or your mom, who was always putting others before herself. And of course your little brother, who always saw the best in everyone and everything.

You smiled fondly. “I think peace comes from empathy.”

“You’re being naive,” he sighed.

You shrugged. “Or hopeful.”

He responded as if reciting from a First Order textbook, if that was even a thing, you thought .

“Hope is dangerous. It distracts us from our fears.”

"And gives us the confidence to confront them,” you retorted confidently.

He was starting to grow frustrated, his gloved fists clenching and unclenching. “You should always go into a fight imagining the worst possible outcome, not hoping that you will somehow make it out unscathed.”

“But hope provides us with something to fight for, and without that, we’re powerless,” you thought deeply, choosing your words carefully. “You were wrong before. Peace doesn’t come from power, power comes from peace.”

He silently searched your face, as if tracing each line would help him figure you out. You noticed a shift in his body language; he looked on edge, hesitant, nervous.

“I want to try something. I am going to attempt to see into your mind - and I want you to try to stop me.”

“Haven’t we done this before?” you smirked.

“Yes, however, I want you to replicate your actions, control them.”

“And why would you help me keep you out of my mind?”

He fidgeted with one of his fingers. “There are people on this ship that wouldn’t be happy with me engaging with someone so dispositioned to the Force, as I am.”

This surprised you. “Who, Hux? He hardly seems like a threat you’d be concerned about.”

“Yes, Hux. But there is another. Someone I answer to.”

This surprised you even more. You couldn’t imagine the Commander answering to anyone but himself. “And why would this person be so against you training me?”

“He would believe his power over me would be jeopardized. He would perceive you as a threat.”

You scoffed. “Me, a threat? Does he know who I am? I tripped over a chair in my room last night and apologized to it. I mean, it’s just my personal opinion, but that definitely does not give off the most threatening of vibes.”

“Well, unfortunately, he does not care about your opinion.”

You paused, considering all the new information you just learned. Knowing that the Commander was following another’s orders should’ve made you nervous, but instead you had hope that maybe some of the bad things he had done in the past weren't completely his doing.

“Alright, fine. Let’s just get this over with, okay?”

He nodded silently. As he brought his hand to your temple, you couldn’t help but flinch. Surprisingly, he stopped his movement.

“I’ll make it as painless as I can.”

You stared up at him, astonished by his uncharacteristic comment, before nodding. He slowly continued his maneuver.

You felt nothing at first, only a small tingle at the back of your skull. Like vines on a tree, you felt the tingle form tendrils and reach across the expanse of your head. You focused on each one, imagining walls being built in front of each. But the vines were persistent. They snaked up the cracks of your walls, making their way to the top. You tried making the walls taller, but there were too many; you couldn’t keep up. You managed to keep most of the vines at bay, but one vine slipped its way over the top of the wall, and started its descent to the other side.

As it did, flashes began to hit you in small bursts. With them came visions, memories.

You and your older brother, Doran, sat on a blanket, watching as your little brother, Benji, played in the dirt a few feet away.

“Why does he do that?” you asked Doran.

“Why does he do what?” he replied.

“Play in the dirt like that. It’s gross.” You watched as Benji squished a handful of mud in his hand, smiling.

“Maybe he sees something in it that you don’t.”

“Like what, worms?”

Doran looked at his younger brother fondly. “I dunno. He’s always been like that - perceptive. He lives in his own little world.”

The scene twisted into another.

“Wait up!” Benji shouted as you both raced down a steep, rocky hill, giggling like idiots.

You remembered this day. You won the race.

As you neared the bottom, you turned, only to see your brother trip.

This was new… You didn’t remember that happening.

Expecting him to stumble off of the rock he was standing on, you lunged forward.

Only, he never fell.

You watched as your brother hovered in the air, horizontal to the ground, arm outstretched in front of him.

“Benji-”

The vision changed.

Your mom and dad whispered in the living room of your house. You watched from the crack of your bedroom door. Their whispers were rushed, panicked. You could tell something bad had happened.

“We can’t just give him to them to use as a weapon,” your father said, frustrated.

Your mother responded, frowning. “He is old enough to know what his sacrifice would mean.”

“Sacrifice?!” he whispered, astonished. “So you admit it! Handing him over is a death sentence!”

Your mother sighed. “No, that’s not what I meant.”

Your father interrupted before she could say another word. “It’s exactly what you meant! You want to send our ten year-old son to fight for the Resistance.”

Your heart sank.

"He could save millions of lives.”

“If he isn’t killed first!”

“He will be well-protected. They’ll take care of him.”

“For the wrong reasons! All they want is another weapon to use against the Order.”

“He’s already said yes.”

“He is being manipulated, and so are you!” Your father took your mother’s hands, pleading with her, begging her, for some sort of understanding. “Listen, just the other day he told me that someday, when the ships don’t fly above our house so often, he wants to study plants. That’s what he loves to do: look at the little plants, watch them grow, sprout leaves, bloom flowers… He’s just a boy. Our boy.”

She sighed. “I understand, trust me, I do… but think of all the other little girls and boys who will die if we don’t do this. I won’t be responsible for that kind of pain.”

“I just-”

“I know… but it has to be done.”

Your father looked down at the familiar dust-covered floor. His voice lowered in defeat. “The children can never know. Especially her,” he said, nodding to your bedroom. “It will put them in danger. We will tell them we sent him away until the land is safe.”

The scene changed again.

You stood in the doorway of your house. Your brother waved goodbye to you as he walked towards a small ship, hand in hand with your mother. You smiled, turning around before he did, and heading back into the house.

Why, why did you turn around? Why didn’t you keep looking for just one more second?

The scene presented itself to you over and over. You couldn’t escape it. You heard a voice, calling your name, urging you to escape your own mind.

“Hey… Hey! Wake up!”

You shot straight up from your position on the ground, panting. A face hovered over you - one you didn’t recognize. You shuffled backwards, startled.

“It’s me! It’s just me.”

You faintly recognized the voice - it was similar to one you had grown accustomed to over the past few days, except this one was less distorted and slightly higher in pitch.

“Commander?”

He nodded, looking away. Your bleary vision made it hard to see the man before you. You could discern a pair of deep, hazel eyes. They reminded you of one of father’s paintings; your favorite painting. It depicted a forest, with trees that touched the clouds and pinecones that littered the ground. You could practically smell them right through the canvas. Endless shades of green stood out against the stormy sky. It all seemed peaceful, yet full of life.

You brought yourself up onto your elbows, before scooting back towards the wall for support. You remained silent for a moment, processing the recent turn of events. You finally spoke, eyes wide, face blank.

“They killed him.”

The Commander looked back at you, confused. “Who-”

“My parents…” you interrupted, still in shock. “They killed him.”

He remained patient. “Killed who?”

“My brother,” you responded, the immensity of the secret you had just unearthed beginning to hit. Your vision became clouded, hot droplets hitting your tights. “My little brother.”

The Commander looked down, as if attempting to decipher a riddle. He spoke slowly.

“I thought you said he was killed by the Resistance.”

“He was,” you responded, running your fingers through your hair. You were angry now; angry at your parents, the Resistance, the constant wars and fighting. “But not in the way my parents described. They told me that there had been an accident . That an X-Wing crashed and he had simply been in the way. But he hadn’t just ‘been in the way’. He was on that X-Wing. The whole time they were using him - using his abilities - to help them win the war. I didn’t remember before. They must’ve done something to make me forget...”

The Commander looked at you strangely, his hazel eyes trained on yours, eyebrows furrowed in concentration.

“What a surprise,” you let out a breathy chuckle, raising your arms in exasperation. “You don’t care about any of this, do you?”

He remained still. “I never said that.”

Your emotions began to swell, and unfortunately, you projected your anger onto the Commander. “Well if you cared at all about my brother’s death, then you wouldn’t be blowing up planets on an everyday basis!”

“I have my orders,” he said, flatly.

You stood abruptly. “You can choose not to follow them! You’re no better than my parents - sending innocents off into a war that isn’t even being fought for them.”

The Commander stood and spoke with a slight irritation in his voice. “Don’t speak of things you know nothing about.”

You paused, looking him up and down. You let out a humourless chuckle, knowing you probably sounded crazy. “You think you are so powerful, hiding behind that mask. But now I know… you’re just a man. You follow blind orders and when someone calls you out on your cowardice, you throw a temper tantrum like a spoiled toddler. Do you have any thoughts of your own?”

He whipped his head towards you and spoke through clenched teeth. “If I didn’t have thoughts of my own, you would be dead right now.”

“Tell me them then!” You were yelling now. “Why would you care what happened to my brother - what happens to me? Why would you?”

“Because I was your brother!” he boomed. But his powerful voice didn’t match his eyes; they looked desperate, scared, like he was a little boy again. You took a hesitant step back. He noticed this and took a deep breath before running his hands through his hair. “I was… used for my abilities. And when they became too strong, I was perceived as a threat.”

Your mood softened, surprised by his sudden vulnerability. You searched his eyes gently. “Who thought of you as a threat? The Order?”

He looked down, his hair concealing his pained expression. The room’s red glow cast somber shadows on his face, but just for a second, you swear you saw a flicker of light dance across his face.

“You can tell me.”

He shook his head, the shadows having returned, and avoided your eyes. ‘I’ve already said too much. I’m... I’m not the only one who can read minds.’

"There is someone else? Someone like me?”

He answered immediately, facing you with a stoney stare. “No, nothing like you.” He paused, regaining his impassive composure and putting his mask back on. “You can’t know - It is not safe.”

You started to open your mouth to protest, but a blaring alarm interrupted. You jumped slightly, startled by the unexpected noise. The door to the room you were in slid open with a hiss. The Commander spun around, activating his lightsaber. You had never been this close to it before; it crackled with a furious energy that both scared and enticed you.

Your focus made its way back to the opened door, where two terrified officers now stood.

“C-Commander, General Hux wishes to see you. He- he says it is urgent.”

The Commander stalked towards the officers, lightsaber still activated. The officers shrunk into themselves, anticipating their demise.

“Leave.”

The officers nodded vigorously, before running back the way they came. The Commander turned to look back at you.

“I have to go. I will be in contact with you soon.”

“Wait, I just wanted to say...” you paused as he stopped his movement. “You only become a threat to others when you become a threat to yourself. Always remember who you are. That’s what is important - that’s what makes us powerful.”

Your eyes met his masked expression in a moment of deafening silence. You caught his focus shift to the windows behind you, the stars reflected in the black slit where his eyes had been moments before.

An image flashed before your eyes briefly, except this time, it wasn’t yours: Stars surrounded you. You could make out two gold cubes hanging from someplace above. A small hand emerged from behind you, attempting to grab the shiny objects, but it couldn’t reach them. It kept reaching, and right when you thought it was going to touch them, everything went black.

When you opened your eyes, you were alone again.

——————————————

Previous || Masterlist || Next

[talktalktalk]

Penny Polendina: Robot Rep

Robots as representation has seen a lot of use throughout media, to varying degrees of success. Sometimes it is fairly explicit in the narrative, others it is more subtle. Often it is borderline impossible to determine whether intentional or not, such is the popularity of this trope. 

RWBY has made attempts at representing marginalized groups over its run, similarly to varying degrees of success. One character, the focus of this post, is Penny Polendina, a robot girl who, while not explicitly confirmed by the writers of the show, is seen by some fandom members as a source of representation, most commonly as neurodivergent or transgender (usually nonbinary), but also as aro-spec or a-spec. 

This post will be a collection of my thoughts, as a member of multiple of the above mentioned demographics, against Penny as a source of representation, as well as a few reasons behind these thoughts. 

Contents

Who is Penny Polendina? (a summary of her story from Volumes 1-7)

Robots as Representation (in general)

Case-specific Additions (for Penny in particular)

Closing Thoughts

Who is Penny Polendina?

Penny is introduced fairly late in Volume 1 when Team RWBY quite literally runs into her. The group exchange greetings and names, though not before Yang asks her if she’s “sure she didn’t hit her head.” As they leave, Ruby offhandedly calls her “friend,” leading Penny to ask her curiously if she truly is a friend. Ruby agrees (to her teammates’ dismay) and Penny grows very excited at the confirmation.

Subsequent meetings with Penny, many of them by pure coincidence, reveal more about her character. She states that she doesn’t have a lot of friends, that she has never been to another kingdom before, and that her father, worried for her safety, did not want her to venture out too much during her time in Vale. Perhaps most notably, she tells Ruby in confidence that she is “not a real girl,” but rather a synthetic person built by her father (later revealed to be named Pietro Polendina). Ruby insists that she has both a heart and a soul, to which Penny becomes overjoyed and hugs her tightly.

In Volume 3, Penny is competing against Pyrrha in the Vytal Tournament when tragedy strikes. Emerald uses her semblance to trick Pyrrha into destroying Penny, slicing her into pieces with her own weapon, killing her and revealing her secret to the whole world. The villains use Penny’s death to incite panic and fear, and the Fall of Beacon ensues.

Penny is not seen for a long time following her death, but in Volume 7 she has been brought back, her robotic core recovered and a new body built. Her chassis and weapons are upgraded, and, remarkably, she shows little initial change in personality from her brutal death in Amity Arena. Penny remains largely the same earnest, slightly-naive girl who she was before the events of the Fall, still just as curious and excitable as ever.

Penny continues to play a part of multiple major events in Volume 7, namely the Council Election and Winter Maiden plotlines. 

The former sees her framed for murder by Tyrian and Watts, and subsequent scenes reveal new things about the nature of her construction. When Ruby asks why Pietro is concerned for Penny’s safety, stating that “[e]ven if the worst does happen, [he] can always reactivate her,” Pietro reveals that her aura is actually given from his own reserves, and as such, with every reconstruction she grows more difficult to rebuild. 

The latter plotline features her in relation to Winter, who is slated to take on the Maiden powers after the current holder, Fria. Winter states in previous scenes that she dislikes how she allows her emotions to get the better of her, at first stating that Penny wouldn’t understand but then attempting to apologize and clarify her poor wording. Later, during a battle with Cinder, the Winter Maiden surrounds herself in a whirlwind of freezing air, fast enough to rip Winter’s gloves from her hands and cold enough to leave ice burns on her fingers. Penny, seeing this, decides to dive in, relying on her leg-mounted rockets and synthetic skin to soldier through the dangerous conditions. This, combined with Winter’s efforts to hold back Cinder, allow Penny to secure the Maiden powers, taking them up herself.

Robots as Representation

Robots are a powerful tool for tropes because they are in most cases created as imitations of life, most commonly humanity. Combined with sentience or even simply heightened degrees of knowledge/adaptability compared to real world robots, this allows for many philosophical questions to build off for subplots (what is a person, what is emotion, etc.) However, the same factor that makes a robot such a good exploration into what defines humanity simultaneously makes them such a poor allegory for marginalized groups. 

Real world bigotry is between humans, from one group of humans to another based on superficial differences. All parties involved are the same species with the same key makeup. Bigots often insist that groups are different in some fundamental way that makes them the enemy or the outsider, a strategy to rationalize their bigotry when in reality, no such fundamental differences exist. All people are all human, all people deserve the respect and dignity of a human being.

With a robot, however, the definition of “human” can get blurry. Robots are, at their core, imitations. Depending on the media, this could mean, for instance, operating on different logical principles, or that possessing physical traits, internal or external, that mark them as definedly not human. This blurring of the lines is good thing for “what is humanity” plotline, but an incredibly bad one for representation. This is in especially poor taste when the groups that said robot is often supposed to be representing (a-spec, aro-spec, neurodivergent, and/or nonbinary) are frequently referred to as “robotic” as an insult. It is used to dehumanize us, to insinuate we are lacking in something that would otherwise make us more. 

There is also the issue of context. This trope being as widespread as it is, some traits in a robot are markedly “human” while others are markedly not. Generally, these traits include the ability to articulate emotion, the ability to take things figuratively, feelings of attraction (platonic, romantic, sexual), and others. These, coincidentally, all line up with the very same groups robots are most often coded to represent. Some neurodivergent people have difficulty articulating their emotions or understanding subtext. Some aro-spec or a-spec people do not feel romantic or sexual attraction, respectively. Robots like the Terminator, who shows little emotion and frequently takes things too literally, are generally seen as less “human” than a robot who clearly articulates their emotion (i.e. Transformers, the Iron Giant, Wall-E, etc.)

Allegories, for all their versatility, always go both ways. Comparing a real-world minority to a definedly inhuman character may grant said group some much-needed spotlight in media, but it can just as easily lead to the audience drawing conclusions that said minority can be likened to robots, or at the very least that the author/showrunners believe said minority can be likened to robots.

Case-Specific Additions

Penny Polendina’s plotlines lend themselves to some specific facets of the allegory for marginalized groups. Firstly, her arc is primarily about what makes a “real girl.” This is a point in her direction, as it puts the idea that she is a person front and center. 

Unfortunately, this is likely the only point in her favor. Starting from her very first outing, Yang refers to her as “weird,” Weiss voices skepticism about her ability, and Ruby is urged by all of her teammates to deny that Penny is a friend. The issue here is, first and foremost, that none of these reactions are framed as bad by the story. If anything, they are barely acknowledged at all. This lends itself to the notion that it is okay to treat people who are different than you in such a way, which is not a good message for representation.

In Volume 3, perhaps the most egregious instance, she is quite literally ripped apart on live television, her secret revealed to the world against her will. This not only results in her death, but in the deaths of many others due to the Fall of Beacon. Beyond the brutality of this scene and the message it sends through the lens of representation (being unwillingly “outed,” violently murdered, and used as a tool for further violence and death), it also created the Volume 7 conundrum of her being brought back to life.

Morbid as it sounds, mortality is one of the things that ties all humans together. Death is permanent and tragic, but one could argue it is integral to the human experience. Penny, however, defies this with her resurrection, not by magic nor miracle, but by virtue of her robotic core being retrieved and a body being rebuilt around it. The story tries to rectify this by saying that Pietro can’t restore her forever, but this does not actually put a hard limit on the number of times she can be brought back. It simply puts a limit on the number of times Pietro alone can bring her back; anyone with a reserve could theoretically donate the needed aura to rebuild Penny should she be destroyed again (provided her core is retrievable).

Finally, the end of Volume 7 sees her claim the Maiden powers. While it seems the narrative attempts to frame this as a confirmation that she is a real girl, the context surrounding that same scene shows otherwise. The howling vortex of freezing wind was shown to be too strong and too dangerous for a flesh-and-blood human to reach through, tearing apart Winter’s gloves and freezer-burning her fingers when she attempted. Penny’s ability to penetrate this whirlwind was not thanks to her supposed humanity, but thanks to the upgrades to her chassis that included both strengthened synthetic skin and rocket boosters on her legs. Both were only added during her reconstruction, which was only possible due to her robotic nature. Penny’s storyline in Volume 7 renders the foundations of her humanity-based plotline shaky at best, contradictory at worst. Unfortunately, this leaves her with more negatives than positives.

Closing Thoughts

In summary, robotic characters are generally a good way to explore what it means to be a person, but due to the dual-edged nature of allegory, they often make poor allegories for marginalized groups. Ways to rectify this would be making an explicitly human character also a member of the demographic(s) the robotic character is a part of, though that requires at the very least some form of confirmation from the writers, which as of now, has not been given.

Of course, these are just my opinions on the matter, but if you have not scrolled past or clicked away already I hope that you take my points into consideration when making your own opinions and/or headcanons. Please also note that my thoughts on Penny as poor representation do not reflect my thoughts on her as a character, nor are they intended as an attack on those who like her. Finally, please remember that Penny is not (as of yet) canonically confirmed to be a member of any of these groups.

As much as I would like to see myself and my demographics represented in the show, I simply believe that Penny Polendina is not the best way to go about it. 

[hazzastylesfanfics]

Part 1/?

i’m back bitches

the maddness & boredom of this pandemic have finally hit so naturally i sat down to write for the first time in seven years .....

tell me if it’s shit/if i should continue !!

k thanks love u all <3

239 days. 239 days since him.

1 day. 1 day since him.

Some days I wonder if fate is real. I wonder if there really is a so-called “god” up there. Maybe there really is a divine power running my life, or maybe it’s all just one big shit show I’m struggling to keep together.

It’s 2 a.m. and I’m still pointlessly scrolling through Instagram looking at the same posts I’ve seen already. I open my profile and scroll through. Pictures of me posing with my friends, at wineries, and drunk nights out fill my feed. There’s no mention of him. I finally brought myself to delete them a few months back. I lock my phone and close my eyes. Sleep soon overtakes me.

The morning arrives far too early for my liking. Charlie is biting my hair, demanding her breakfast. I grab my phone to check the time: 5 a.m. I groan and pull the covers over my head hoping she’ll leave me alone. I just about fall back asleep when I hear a crash.

“Charlie, seriously?!” I sit up to see she’s shoved a candle off of my windowsill onto the ground and shattered it. “I swear to god, I’m gonna release you back into the wild,” I grumble.

She meows at me frantically until I give in and feed her. The thing they don’t tell you about getting a kitten is the fact you no longer run your life, the little spawn from hell does. She’s lucky she’s cute. I quickly sweep up the remains of my candle and fall back into bed.

Two hours later my alarm clock rudely awakens me for work. I feel like I’ve barely slept and one glance in the mirror confirms that feeling. A quick shower wakes me up just enough to drag my ass out the door.

I see my bus pulling away from my stop and frantically run toward it, shouting at the driver to stop. Maybe because it’s pouring rain or maybe because I look so distraught, but the driver takes pity on me and lets me hop on. I thank her as I sit in the nearest open seat. I’ve already been late to work three times in the past month and I can’t let Lana cover for me again.

The bus ride is a short one to the little coffee shop I’ve called work for over a year. It’s locally owned and loved by hipsters all around. I still wonder how I managed to get the job since I barely fit the bill of the “alternative” type that work alongside me. Lana was my first friend there. If you searched “Portland native” online, a picture of her would pop up. She’s adorable and dainty, covered in random tattoos she gets when she’s bored. She just dyed her hair blonde and cut her own blunt bangs. Her nose is decorated with a ring that she drunkenly tried to pierce herself, but I convinced her otherwise. She wears whatever the hell she feels like and exudes confidence in it all. She has the type of personality that draws you in but keeps you just enough at a distance to shroud her in mystery. I love the girl as much as I envy her.

We arrive at my stop and I thank the driver as I exit the bus. It’s still pouring so I run the two blocks to get to work. I see Lana happily chatting to a customer as I walk through the front door to the back room.

“Morning, Grey!” She chirps at me.

I drop my bag where there’s space and wash my hands before heading back out front.

“Jesus, girl, you look like hell,” Lana says as she thrusts a double espresso into my hands. “Rough night?”

“I was stuck with my own thoughts again.” I take a sip. It tastes more bitter than usual. “Also, Charlie decided my candle was much better in multiple pieces on the floor at 5 a.m.”

She laughs. “You still feel good about taking a stray in?”

“She was lonely and needed a home, okay?”

“Sucker,” Lana mumbles before turning her attention to the customer walking up to the front counter.

Thursday mornings always pass by fairly quickly. Customers are buzzing about Friday fast approaching, so most are in a pleasant mood. No amount of espresso can wake me up though. Some days I prefer zoning out and making drinks, especially days like this. Interactions with customers take it out of me. I don’t know how Lana does it so well.

“Erm, yeah, I’ll take a small black coffee, please.”

His voice instantly takes me out of my daydreams. That smooth, slow voice. I glance over at the register to see Lana helping the same guy that had captivated me two days earlier. Those chocolate brown curls look even softer than when I saw him in the bookstore. How the hell was that even possible? I stare for so long the milk I am steaming overflows onto my hand, burning me and eliciting a yelp. Lana and this beautiful man both turn their attention toward me. I laugh it off nervously and mumble something about being clumsy. Lana turns her attention back to the man, but he doesn’t break his gaze from me. He holds eye contact for another brief moment before thanking Lana for his coffee and dropping money into the tip jar. I am frozen in place, well aware that I need to stop staring like a fool.

I often visited Powell’s on my days off. It wasn’t hard to spend hours upon hours among the books, exploring each floor of the store. I rarely bought anything; I mostly came for the experience. I loved the smell of a new book. A thrill always came with picking up a random one and delving into what it had to offer between its two covers.

I was doing just that in the World Religions section when I heard his voice.

“Excuse me.”

My eyes snapped up from the current title intriguing me. There he was, clearly trying to get by me. I had absentmindedly parked myself in the middle of the aisle making it impossible for anyone to pass me. My ears grew hot as I mumbled an apology and took a step back.

He laughed lightly and glanced at the book in my hands. “Buddhism, huh? Let me know when you figure out the secret to enlightenment.” He chuckled again.

This is when I really got a good look at him. He was tall with lanky arms and legs to match, and a torso that looked like it never ended. He was wearing a tight black T-shirt that revealed many, many tattoos decorating his arms. My eyes instantly locked in on an anchor inked on the top of his left wrist. My exploration led me down to his hands, adorned with multiple rings. Finally, I brought my eyes up to his face. My god, did it take my breath away. His jaw was sharp and covered in stubble. His brunette curls sat atop his head in an impossibly perfect way. His smile though. I nearly dropped my book. If I believed in angels, they would have been singing at that moment.

I made a weak attempt at laughing and stumbled over my words, but nothing that resembled English came out of my mouth.

He flashed an even brighter smile and said, “Let me know if you need any recommendations.” And just like that, he turned the corner and disappeared. I didn’t realize I had been holding my breath until my chest started to hurt from the lack of air to my lungs. I bought the book in my hands and hurried out of the store.

He consumed my thoughts well into the night.

Now, as if a gift from the heavens above, this god is standing in my workplace. I suddenly become very aware of my lack of makeup and haphazard bun.

He catches my eyes once more before turning away from the register and walking out the front door. He was gone. I just let this act of god walk out the door and I would never see him again.

“Um, earth to Grey?” Lana playfully pokes me in the ribs.

“Huh, what? Shit.”

“You need me to finish up that cappuccino there?”

“Uh, yeah, sure.” I robotically step back from the espresso machine and let her take over. She finishes the drink in less than a minute and apologizes to the visibly impatient customer as she hands it over the bar.

Lana turns to me. “Okay, what the hell was that?”

I stand with my mouth hanging open, still trying to grasp the past five minutes. “Well, long story short I think I royally fucked up letting that guy walk out the door.”

“You’re telling me, babe, he was gorgeous. Do you know him?” I detect a hint of jealously in her voice.

“No, uh, not really. We had a short interaction at Powell’s a couple of days ago but it was nothing. I made a fool out of myself more than anything.”

“And how do you think you did this time around?” Her laugh rings in my ears.

“Okay, in my defense he ambushed me at my workplace so that is not my fault!” I huff. “You weren’t much help either,” I point out.

“What was I supposed to do?” She is still laughing.

“I don’t know,” I mumble. “He was staring too though, right? That wasn’t my own delusion?”

“Oh yeah, babe he was staring alright. He looked like he wanted to take you right then and there on the counter.”

I bite my lip. That didn’t sound like half a bad idea. My ears grow hot at the thought.

I feel a gentle pinch on my arm and flinch away. “Hello! Grey! Hate to interrupt your fantasy but we have customers.” I glance over her shoulder to see a small line has built up.

Three o’clock finally rolls around and I’m free. Lana had gotten off an hour earlier than me, but couldn’t stay to talk more. My thoughts are too preoccupied with that handsome stranger to be much company anyway. The manic side of me wants to walk straight to Powell’s in hopes he would be there. I get ahold of myself however and make my way back to my apartment.

Charlie greets me with vigor the second I walk through the door. She seems to have gotten this idea that whenever I come home means dinnertime for her. When I don’t give in, she destroys shit. Exhibit A: this morning. It’s not like she’s starving. My neighbor had discovered this little kitty outside of the apartment complex one morning while taking her dog for a walk. The landlord only allows one animal per apartment, so she couldn’t keep her. At the time, Charlie practically sprouted angel wings and a halo so I couldn’t say no. A week into having her revealed her true nature: demon. She’s into everything all. of. the. time. She frequently digs the dirt out of my houseplants and eats it. Her favorite game is launching herself onto the screens in my windows to attack bugs. She even tries to shower with me. Despite her faults though, I can’t help but love her. Living by myself can be lonely. I find myself trying to have full conversations with her sometimes shortly before questioning my sanity.

I change into an oversized band tee and settle onto the brown leather sofa in my living room. Charlie jumps up beside me, purring loudly. I pull the yellow blanket neatly folded next to me onto my lap and try to shut my brain off. The rest of my shift exhausted me and thinking about that guy did not help much. I have to accept the fact that fate was really doing me a solid and in return, I gave it the finger. This beautiful stranger entered my life twice in 48 hours and I didn’t do a damn thing about it. Charlie climbs into my lap and curls into a ball, content.

I wake up hours later to a dark apartment. One glance at my phone reveals I dozed off longer than I intended to. Miraculously, Charlie let me sleep through her dinner. The moment she notices I am awake, she starts yowling at me for dinner. I oblige with a small scoop of food in her bowl. I then venture to the fridge and heat up leftover pasta for my meal. I sit at the small table in my narrow kitchen and stare out the window. My view isn’t much - just a look onto my neighbors’ balconies who also live in this complex. I make a mental note that the plants on the windowsill need water. I rinse out my bowl and leave it in the sink, not bothered to do the dishes tonight. I’m exhausted and welcome the softness of my bed.

I open the next morning and it feels like actual hell when my alarm goes off at 4:30. Charlie loves days I’m up this early though, she gets an early breakfast. I don’t bother to change out of the band tee I slept in and pull on a pair of ripped denim shorts. True to Oregon’s style, today is supposed to be a direct contrast of the previous day: blue skies and sunny. Summers in Portland never fail to keep me on my toes. I quickly fix my hair into messy French braid pigtails on either side of my head and throw on a coat of mascara for good measure.

I never have an issue with opening during the summer. The sun has risen enough that there is a soft morning light to guide me on my walk to the bus stop. Winters freak out because it’s pitch black and weird people ride the bus this early in the morning.

The shop is dark when I arrive. I turn my key in the lock, step in, and lock it behind me. The one time I forgot to do this, a homeless person wandered in and refused to leave. He didn’t want anything, just continued to have a conversation with himself. I always make sure to double-check the door now. I turn on the lights and flip on the espresso machine. I set up the freshly baked pastries in the front case in an attractive manner. Just as I open the register to count the till I hear a tap on the front door. I don’t look up. It’s either a customer trying to come in early or another homeless person. I quietly count each bill out loud, enter the opening total, and tap “open” on the screen. Again, I hear a knock on the door. I look up in irritation. Whoever thinks they need their coffee this early in the morning can wait another 15 minutes until I formally open the doors.

Fuck.

Shit.

Fuck.

It’s him.

[radramblog]

A Thousand Suns- Linkin Park Pt. 3

We’ve arrived at Linkin Park’s fourth album, and my personal favourite: an opinion I’m not sure how to defend, but I will do my best. This was the first album released by the band after I became a fan, in 2010, and continued the experimental progression that started with Meteora and continued through Minutes to Midnight. While one could argue that Minutes had some of those original two albums’ sound in it (e.g. No More Sorrow), A Thousand Suns pretty clearly marks the band moving on from their roots entirely.

Let me be clear: there is nothing on A Thousand Suns that sounds anything like Hybrid Theory.

A Thousand Suns is also a concept album, about nuclear war. It’s not especially subtle, but reflects a more conscientious mindset that would lead to the Download to Donate fundraiser songs the band would put out in the early 2010s.

The first track on A Thousand Suns is called the Requiem, being a mostly instrumental, eerie electronic piece that introduces much of the tone of the album. The album has a lot of these interstitial pieces, which vary in quality pretty heavily. The only lyrics in The Requiem aside from some spooky ooooooooohs are the introduction to another thing this album does, which is slowly build up to the album’s climax, the Catalyst- in this case, the lyrics are directly lifted from said song. While I really like this idea, and the lyrics fit the tone of the instrumental, I’m not a huge fan of…whatever that effect is on the vocals. I’m not even sure who’s talking beneath that filter.

The Requiem directly builds and leads into the second track, the Radiance- also an interstitial, featuring the infamous J. Robert Oppenheimer quote over an intense electronic beat. I actually really like this more than the Requieum, partially because I really like the quote, and partially because the backing gives it this sense of urgency that works really well.

Our 3rd track is the first actual song, Burning in the Skies. It’s lead by a fairly calm piano riff and chilled guitars, with the electronics from the Radiance slowly fading out. Burning in the Skies lyrically and sonically is a song of regret and acceptance, one that would have sounded much angrier had the band released it 8 or so years earlier. It’s also about the immediate aftermath of the bombs falling, a little poetic in descriptions with Mike’s verses (sung, not rapped) from a survivor’s perspective and Chester’s chorus seeming to be from the perspective of humanity as a whole. It eventually builds to a pretty sick solo in the riff, but it’s faded out compared to the piano and percussion- like the drama of the moment is faded compared to the more human element of the track.

Burning in the Skies feels like a natural progression from Minutes to Midnight’s calmer tracks, being a more refined, more directed, and thereby superior equivalent to songs like Shadow of the Day and Valentine’s Day. An album later, they managed to get this sort of song right.

Thus follows our 4th track and 3rd interstitial, Empty Spaces. Explosions and crowd noises, serving as a precursor to Wretches and Kings- except that song is track number 10. If I have one big complaint about this album, it’s that there’s too many of these- since Empty Spaces is literally 18 seconds, though, it gets a pass.

Following this, we have When They Come For Me. A loose drum beat, a harsh electronic buzz, into a heavier, swingy percussion introduce the song, and I kinda adore that last bit. This off-kilter beat serves as an undercurrent to the absolute bars Mike gets to throw down on this track. The whole song is basically a snarl at the fans wanting the band to go back to their old style, explicitly referencing their own work in Hybrid Theory and quoting Points of Authority, as well as nods to many other rap tracks from other artists around that era that inspired their work at the time. It’s the most vulgar song by the band so far- despite their edge, they actually didn’t get an advisory sticker until Minutes to Midnight- directly telling their wayward fans to “stop talking, start trying to catch up motherfucker” (Mishearing this lyric into “try the ketchup motherfucker” was a pretty fun meme at the time). This used to be one of my less liked song on the album, but it has grown on me hard over time, especially as I realised the harsh words didn’t actually apply to me.

Robot Boy follows this anger with calm, being a largely piano-driven melody of consolation. The first half of the lyrics essentially describe someone apathetic due to trauma and depression, while the second half is reassurance and support, eventually ending with the vocals effectively fighting against the mood of the song, thrashing with ad-libbed noise to break free from the oppressive drums and synths. It’s not a song I have a huge amount to say about, but I’ve found it really resonates with me personally. I’ve found this song genuinely comforting in lower times and moods.

Our next interstitial, then, Jornada del Muerto. This is not fucking subtle. On a song called Day of the Dead, on an album about nuclear war, we have a song sung in Japanese. I fucking wonder. The lyrics, by the way, are translated as “Lift me up, let me go”- again taken from The Catalyst.

Waiting for the End I think has ended up my favourite track on the album. We’ve once again got Chester and Mike on the same song again, with Mike’s delivery like nothing else seen so far, almost reggae-esque. The lyrics are tackling moving on, beginning again, and whether that’s from a relationship, from death, or from the apocalypse is left pretty vague. The song is essentially a slow build until it’s climax, where we’ve got the verse and chorus interweaved together for a pretty excellent moment. There’s something a little depressing there- “all I want to do is trade this life for something new” is not words I want to hear out of Chester’s mouth right now- but the tone is more on the optimistic side of nihilism- picking up the pieces and starting over rather than wallowing in grief.

Blackout is next, and this track is a lot of fun. It’s essentially a role reversal for the band’s lead vocalists, with Chester aggressively spitting and Mike being the calming voice in the bridge. It’s another more electronic piece, supported by an almost military drum beat, leading to an almost oppressive atmosphere between Chester and the instrumentation. Lyrically, it feels the closest to anything on Hybrid Theory, being a direct rant at an unknown second person, before the bridge breaks it down completely with Hahn flexing his old tricks once again, twisting and chopping both lyrics and instruments into unrecognizable shapes before leaving as suddenly as he entered. The last minute and a half of the song are completely different- slowly building the instrumentation as Mike sings an almost comforting melody, leading into the two harmonizing for the song’s finale.

Number 10, Wretches and Kings, opens with the infamous Bodies upon Gears speech by Mario Savio. It has the harshest electronic noise so far, almost screeching underneath the back-and-forth of Chester and Mike being opposite sides of the titular conflict. Mike’s bars are the King, the higher up, the crushing authority, with Chester being the voice of rebellion, an effect on his voice making him sound like more than just himself, a slight reverb as he represents the oppressed masses. It’s harsh, it’s intense, and it’s a bit odd on this album- though political songs weren’t really the band’s wheelhouse at the time, Wretches and Kings both fits on the album thematically and is vague enough that they get away with it. It ends with the same Savio speech, with more of it this time, followed by Hanh fucking around with the instrumentation in a bit that frankly feels self-indulgent more than anything.

Wisdom, Justice, and Love is our 11th track, and second last interstitial. It’s a bit silly, being a Martin Luther King Jr speech about the Vietnam War steadily edited to make the man sound more and more robotic. This feels kinda pointless.

Iridescent, then. This is the third and last song by the band to be used in a Transformers movie, with them shifting to Imagine Dragons instead after this, the cowards. The song pretty explicitly references the effects of a nuclear weapon (“a burst of light that blinded every angel”), but that’s not the long and short of what it’s about- the song is more about hope, and resilience, in the face of adversity. “Let it go”, referring to the anger and desperation such situations lead people to (not the Sierra Madre :v ). Were it so easy.

The song, like many, builds to a climax, though said climax is almost glorious in this one, with disparate elements and the entire band singing along for a bit, making it the high point of the album emotionally. I do say this knowing what the final song is like, we’ll get to that.

The last interstitial. Fallout. It’s kind of like a reversed version of The Requiem and Wisdom, Justice and Love- rather than lyrics from The Catalyst introducing Burning in the Skies, it’s the other way around, and the vocals get steadily less robotic over time- rather, a second vocal track fades in overlaid on the original.

The Catalyst is the climax the whole album builds towards. I was obsessed with this shit as a kid. Contrasting Iridescent, this is the hopelessness, the fear, the stress brought upon by the end of the world. It’s the old world fading away, as humanity begs for forgiveness for the sins committed by its worst members.

This is supported, by the way, by this really fucking cool electronic line, that I like a lot, with entirely electronic instrumentation building and shifting chaotically before falling away for the bridge. The bridge peels everything back, leaving just the little electronic rift and throwing real instrumentation in for the last gasp of humanity. A piano line comes in for the desperate lyrics- Lift me up, let me go, begging for death or salvation, whichever comes soonest. It’s a desperate, chaotic low to the hopeful high of Iridescent, a contrast that I only really noticed when writing this post. Hey look, I found more things to like about this, go figure.

A Thousand Suns ends with The Messenger, an acoustic ballad contrasting intensely with the rest of the album. It’s explicitly written by Chester to his children, as a light at the end of the tunnel- it’s much like Fortress by Queens of the Stone Age in that sense. I suppose that’s a good thing, but frankly, I actually skip this song on most of my listens of the album. It’s just so unbelievably hammy and oversung that I can’t help it- you can hear his voice breaking as he goes. Recent events have made it more painful than ever to hear it, so forgive me if I pass.

 I’m not sure if I can really put my love for this album into words. It ended up defining a lot of my early teens, for better and for worse, I suppose- and considering this is before I “got into” music, that means a lot. But those are a lot of words, largely about me loving the album, so I hope you can understand now why it’s my favourite one.

Next up: either Living Things/Hunting Party or some side stuff, I haven’t made my mind up yet.

[morsking]

Got around to starting and finishing Old World Blues in the past couple of days. I think it’s the strongest of the game’s DLC I’ve played so far.

At first, it feels like you’re in for some wacky science fiction b-movie shenanigans once you’re introduced to the Think Tank. They’re all whimsical idiots who forget what words are, repeat themselves to elongate their sentences to look smart, and even one of them is bizarrely horny and has a fetish for... innocuous human behavior? Stretching? Yawning? They are neurotic brains in machines who take stuff apart and break it without really creating anything with it, just replicating the same results over and over and none of them seem to notice how stupid they are and it’s amazing. They took your brain, spine, and heart out of your body in an attempt to turn you into a walking vegetable, only for them to become so fascinated with the damage you took from Benny’s bullet that they fuck up the surgery and end up finding a way to keep your intelligence about you with a remote device that connects your brain to the tesla coils in your skull. Their biggest scientific discovery since... who knows how fucking long, was an absolute accident. It could only come about by chance, because you, as an existence alien to the static Big MT, shook things up tremendously. 

But as funny and baffling as all these things could be, the more you explore Big MT, the more apparent it is that for all their quirks the Think Tank are also responsible for some of the most heinous crimes against humanity you can witness in Fallout: New Vegas. They experimented with carnivorous, parasitic plants on human beings, spliced humans, dogs, and robots together, developed nightstalkers and cazadores you see in the base game, used the Sierra Madre casino and its inhabitants as a petri dish for holograms, the claustrophobic hazmat suits, and the poisonous Cloud that killed everyone and turned them into zombies. Their experiments killed all their staff, and not one of them batted an eye to what they did. And their most shocking crime is the repetition of Japanese internment with Chinese hostages, who you can find ghoulified from radiation and are forced to kill them. These prisoners can’t be reasoned with or saved because the Think Tank stripped them from their humanity long ago along with any humanity or rationality that was left in the Big Empty. The only thing they can do as being robbed of their humanity is lash out at anything that still looks human. All throughout the DLC, you are subjected to displays of the Think Tank’s obsessions and cruelties and aimless ambitions, and you wonder why. How did things get this twisted and distortioned? And then you meet Dr. Mobius, and you find out why.

In his introductory segment when you start the DLC, he seems like the parody of the crazed mad scientist terrorizing the slightly less crazy eccentric scientists and the bastard who kidnapped your brain. But when you meet him, he’s like a sweet, confused, senile old man. He’s got an endearing if a little weird addiction to radioactive snacks despite him being a brain in a machine who has no mouth to eat them. He forgets he keeps a giant killer robot scorpion with a OHKO death laser of infinite... death powered on and sucking up energy all the time and that’s why his shit never works. He uses the wrong words on his sentences because they sound like the actual words he means to use. He didn’t just steal your brain, he kept it safe for you. And also, he’s the one who lobotomized the Think Tank into the witless abominations they are now. 

Dr. Mobius witnessed his co-workers, his friends, pushing the boundaries of science further and further into dark places. Terrified for what they might do, he robbed them of their sanity and created an army not to terrorize them, but to keep them busy and from getting out. Dr. Mobius feared for the world, that it might be subjected to one new horror after another. There is great compassion in his actions but also great cruelty. He was so afraid of his friends the new world he trapped them in the old one. That’s where obsession and abhorrence belong, in the big emptiness of the past. It’s so appropriate, that Big MT is misread as “the Big Empty”. Because obsession and madness are an abyss, and also because everything that happened there was meaningless and hollow. There was no purpose to the Think Tank repeating its process of lobotomizing and observing the lobotomites. The great irony is that. That they don’t realize that what they do to human beings is what’s been done to them. Like the nature of all their names, their actions and their philosophies are cyclical and self-consuming. (Ouro)Borous. Zero. (Man)Dala (circle in Sanskrit), 8, Klein and Mobius. They are concepts that loop into themselves, symbolic of the futility of holding on to the grudges and ambitions of the Old World, a world that new only conflict and supremacy and paranoia and hostility. The fact that Mobius had to resort to brainwashing his own colleagues itself is evident even he didn’t know how to let go of the brutal utilitarian methods of the Old World in an effort to save the New One.

And what’s even worse is that didn’t matter anyway, because the mutated abominations that Borous created still found their way into the Mojave anyway. Are we supposed to accept that as a mercy that night stalkers, spores, and cazadores are the only things that slipped through the crater into the desert and be thankful for it? The only thing you can do about it now is say “Enough.” Enough of the Old World and its curses. It has no right to turn this world into a graveyard with it. It has no write to take from it and toy with it. Many times that attachment is played for laughs in Old World Blues, particularly Borous’s anti-communist fixation and enactments of his high school trauma being the basis for a training operation. But when you truly look at it it really feels like gallows humor. How many people do you reckon died in those tests at Lab X-8 because he used the test subjects as a means of catharsis? What was the human cost of that myopic insecurity and resentment? You only have to look around you. The facility is littered with guts. And it’s not the only one that looks like that. Not by a longshot.

So it came my time to also say enough to the Think Tank. I chose to kill them (more like stumbled my way into killing them because you have to thematically cycle through speech and skill checks for Mobius to give you the option of sparing everyone). It was both a roleplay gesture of revenge as much as it was a choice from me as a player to put the Big Empty out of its misery. It was already a graveyard in concept, it had to be made a graveyard in reality.

So that’s it for my review of the story. As for the more physical aspects of the DLC, I’ll say the Big Empty is probably the most interestingly designed setting I’ve ever seen. From the moment I woke up at the top of the Sink’s balcony I fell in love with what I was seeing. The layout includes some interesting platforming and traversal of the terrain from labs to cliffs to caves. Every laboratory houses something useful for you or relevant to the story and it’s easy to circle around the entire map and unlock everything as you go. The exploration comes naturally and you’re always encouraged to go back and look to see if you missed something (which you probably did, because it sure happened to me). One of the best things I found was the stealth suit. I’ve written about it already, but it is simply adorable, quirky, and also very helpful. Getting all its upgrades is worth it and not all that difficult even if it looks like a case of trial and error. There are some neat unlockables in terms of weapons as well like the stuff Elijah and Christine left behind, and lore that elaborates on their time there and Christine’s chase of Elijah to make him pay for his crimes. There is also the excellent set-up of your encounter with Ulysses in Lonesome Road, since he’s left his mark everywhere for you to see, as if luring you and taunting you. The dialogue is some of the wittiest and funniest Fallout’s ever been. The personalities in the Sink’s assistant appliances are so varied and interesting. You have the weirdly horny and seductive seed processor, the germaphobic water sink, the pessimistic and exhausted Muggy mini securitron, the jealous bickering light switches, the radio man juke box, the brave little toaster that could (murder everything), the ultra-patriotic and self-unaware book chute, the compassionate level-headed Auto-Doc, and finally the neutral, loyal, and polite Central Intelligence Monitor. Old World Blues had such an interesting and loveable cast. There is not a single human character in the entirety of the DLC, yet all of those feel vivid and alive. 

Those are my two cents on Old World Blues. A beautifully written, poignant, and entertaining piece of gaming. Now, we move on to Lonesome Road. 

[isabearies]

Instability -- D:BH [07]

Pairing: Connor x Reader

Word Count: 2k

Warnings: violence, mega angst, some cursing, please read at own risk

Author’s Note: this one is way long, I got a little carried away lol. Super action packed, I hope you enjoy!

Summary: Connor has just been assigned to the deviant case with you and Hank. You have a history with androids, but he just wants a partner. You want androids to be heard, but you’re still terrified of them.

Chapter Seven: Machine

The ride to the scene was awkward, no one had the confidence to break the looming silence. Not Connor, certainly not you. You hadn’t even thought about Hank or if he knew what was going on. You didn’t even know what was going on.

Again, there was nothing said even as you exited the car and got into the elevator. However, Connor looked preoccupied. As the elevator lifted you several floors, his eyes flickered closed and he appeared distant. It was an odd sight, but it was also weird to see his features in this way. The lighting was bare and it casted shadows onto his bone structure. His expression was calm, yet determined. You wondered what he was thinking about. The elevator halted and opened, to which both you and Hank naturally strutted out of the contraption.

Connor, however, stayed.

“Hey Connor!” Hank tried to get his attention. This was the first anyone had spoken in a while. It felt unnatural.

His eyes opened to look across at Hank.

“You run outta batteries or what?”

“I’m sorry,” he spoke, robotic and distant, “I was making a report to CyberLife.” 

You were not sure how, but his voice was…satisfying. When he spoke, it was as if it completed a sentence in the constructs of your mind with no words. Something about it implied human texture, but it was elastic and smooth like silicone.

“Do you plan on staying in the elevator?” The thought of that made you chuckle, and Connor’s reaction didn’t help.

“No, I’m coming!” He sounded offended and it made you giggle more. Things were feeling normal again. Whatever normal was, that is.

Hank and you walked into the hallway with Connor just behind you.

“So, what do we know about this guy?”

“Not much, just that a neighbor reported that he heard strange noises coming from this floor.” Connor filled you in a little more.

“That doesn’t immediately say deviant though, right?” you questioned this report just subtly, since you had heard plenty of empty complaints from neighbors before.

“Nobody’s supposed to be living here, but the neighbor said he saw a man hiding a LED under his cap.” The details started to come together.

Connor had started walking a little faster to catch up to you, walking in tandem with you and Hank.

“Oh Christ, if we have to investigate every time someone hears a strange noise, we’re gonna need more cops.” Hank was distraught with annoyance, rightfully so. Connor bent down parallel to the apartment door accessing some junk on the floor. You got curious.

“Connor, were you actually writing a report in the elevator? Just…by closing your eyes?”

Connor turned back to look at you, his eyes reflecting into yours.

“Correct.”

“Wish I could do that…” Hank mumbled ruggedly as he knocked on the door.

Silence, followed by Hank shrugging as Connor turned to him. Connor knocked harder, “Anybody home?” More silence.

You got tired of this. “Open up! Detroit Police!” Finally, there was movement.

Hank drew his weapon, as did you.

“Stay behind me.” 

“Got it.”

Hank kicked down the door as the two of you entered, Connor still behind the door frame.

The hallway was decrepit, with light showing through the ceiling and paint peeling from the ghoulishly grey walls. It might have been bland in color, but definitely not in texture. The walls were also decorated with hexagonal shapes and weird pictures. Connor ducked into a room and as you cased the other.

Hank broke open a door, to which a shit ton of pigeons flew out.

“What the fuck is this!” Hank’s call beckoned you to follow him to the main room. In it, the floor was crammed with pigeons and there were more hexagonal shapes. Your hand moved to cover your nose.

“Holy shit it stinks in here!” you blurted out, noticing Connor looking around, never minding the pigeons nor the smell.

“Looks like we came for nothing, our man’s gone.” Hank’s hoarse voice echoed in the abandoned room. 

“Just look around and see if we can find where he might have went.” Hank was in a mood, probably because he was sick of the deviant business in general.

Connor turned to his right to see a UFO poster, and promptly removed its place from the wall. This action was unjust at first, but behind the wall lay a book. You could not see its contents, but seeing his face riddled with confusion made you curious as to how his brain worked. Or however androids brains worked.

His brow drawn and mouth downturned, his perplexity perplexed you in a way. How could someone sound and look so pristine, so human, and yet still reflect such robotic qualities? That was just it, really; he was a robot. An android.

A machine.

He could not feel, he could not exude the same emotions as a human. It was quite bothersome, really. It was as if talking to a wall with a face. Yes, the wall can talk and make faces and such, but all it was just a wall. Nothing more, nothing less. It was not human, and it could never act like a human. You knew this far too well.

“Found something?” You already knew the answer but the curiosity was itching.

“I don’t know, it looks like a notebook but it’s…indecipherable.”

You turned to your direct right and opened up a closet. A couple pigeons flew towards you. Nothing.

The windows were boarded up, the cabinets in disarray, which made you think. There was nothing in the cabinets to begin with, except for rat food. You opened the refrigerator.

Empty.

Connor was to your left and looked at what seemed to be a military jacket.

“R.T…probably initials.”

“He put his initials in his jacket? That’s something your mom does when you’re in the first grade…” Hank was a smart ass as always.

“That’s assuming he went to first grade.”

You walked into the bathroom, where something was smeared on the side of the sink. Connor touched it and placed his fingers to his lips.

“Connor! Don’t lick the evidence!”

“I can analyze blue blood in real time–”

You thought a moment.

“Okay, that’s really cool, but it’s still evidence. Please don’t put anything else in your mouth.”

“Got it.”

You took a look at the sink itself, to find an LED sitting on the ledge.

“So it was a deviant. Mystery solved.” You were getting sick of smelling bird feces. Finally looking around the bathroom, there were symbols everywhere. The most prevalent was “RA9,” which had no meaning to you. However, as Connor looked at the patterns, something clicked. He reached out to the paint to find it was still wet. 

You decided to speak. “Any idea what it means?”

“RA9...written 2471 times...it’s the same sign Ortiz’s android wrote on the shower wall. Why are they obsessed with this sign?” Connor’s tone was of pure confusion.

“It looks like a bunch of mazes...maybe like a map?” Connor bent down to find a wooden stool turned over on the floor. His eyes paced the scene rapidly, placing everything together it looked like. He got up and quickly walked to the cage on the floor. Again, getting up and looking towards the door. Finally, he moved towards the chair in the corner of the room to the hole in the ceiling. The room almost stood still…

You paced towards the ceiling, with some pigeons scattering about when a large black figure fell out of the hole and into you. You fell hard into the ground, feeling every splintering piece of wood stab your backside.

“Oh shit!” 

Connor helped you up, a hand on your forearm and shoulder. You stood, and Connor was gone, chasing the deviant. A crash, a boom, and a door opening. That was all you heard before silence as Connor probably left the building from the emergency exit. 

“Let’s go around!”

O

There was nothing on his mind. Complete calm in his systems. His body, however, was dashing in utter and absolute control. He jumped over a generator, never failing to make the cut. He focused on one thing and one thing only.

Catch the deviant.

The task was better read than done. A jump down the wall to a field of wheat. Again, completely calm as he did what might’ve been painful to humans. Something that would have injured your ankles in three different places.

Catch the deviant.

He crossed the field and climbed the wall parallel to the last into another field, and onto another higher building. Androids all about, growing plants. A swift right turn and a fall onto a glass ceiling. The deviant broke the glass in front of him and Connor hinged his legs to jump into the damage.

A perfect landing. However, not good enough. The deviant was making headway up the stairs, approximately 10 meters ahead of him. The door closed in front of him, to which Connor made a quick right into a lavender field. Taking a shortcut to his right, he climbed onto another generator onto a building. Two meters ahead.

Catch the deviant. 

The jump led the another glass ceiling to slide down. The deviant was already on the train as Connor jumped and landed into a perfect stance. A ladder, deviant is approximately 1.6 meters ahead. However, Connor skidded on the ladder, the deviant was already running. He was now 8 meters away. Damnit.

Catch the deviant.

Another jump onto a higher building into a greenhouse. A swift couple of jumps later and he was in a cornfield. This chase was taking too long, he needed the deviant secured as soon as possible. Connor dashed out, to find (y/n) having a fistfight with the deviant. The suspect threw you over the ledge. Analyzing the situation, he found that if not helped, you would be heavily injured. Chance of survival: 89%

CatcH the deviAnt.

The decision was not conscious. He ran toward you and pulled you up, a hand on yours and another on your forearm. This was the third time he pulled you up today. If it was a habit, it was one he didn’t mind.

^^ sOftwarE inStaBility ^^

O

Hanging over the ledge, you anticipated Connor to run after the deviant. You left Hank in a mad dash to cut him off. However, when you felt a warm, strong hand pull you up, you were left surprised and somewhat disappointed. You realized Connor did not go after him, but instead saved you. He disobeyed his orders.

“Shit! I--We had it!” The cursing was real, but you were not just cursing at the deviant getting away. Connor disobeyed his orders. That meant something, and you knew from experience. This was only the beginning.

“It’s my fault,” Connor broke your thoughts, “I should have been faster.”

You looked up at him. He was still in an action stance looking towards the deviant. The realization only became more prevalent.

“You didn’t chase after him…” Your voice was soft, but audible. It wasn’t a statement, more so a moment of disbelief. Connor looked down to you, his soft brown eyes not fully comprehending what this meant. Not disobeying orders in this moment, but the big picture. What was to come. Oh god.

His face was sad, and you felt bad that you had to be a burden to carry. You were the reason the deviant was not in custody right now.

A distant sound of footsteps were heard, a bang of a door opening, and Hank was now on the roof.

“Where the fuck did it go?” he yelled.

“I fell, Connor helped me.” It was a frustrated response.

Hank was also disappointed, but his face changed. You thought you saw the same realization hit him for a split second. He was good at hiding his emotions.

“It’s alright, we know what it looks like. We’ll get it next time.”

Hank was already down the steps. You wanted to thank him for saving you, but the words didn’t feel right. It was your fault. You let him get away.

“Connor--” He turned to look at you, his sad brown eyes looking down at yours. This was getting all too real all too quick. And you had nothing to contribute.

“Nothing...let’s just go.” You could feel his gaze on your back once again, it was a cold stab on your warm, heart-pounding, nervous body. 

Connor stood there a moment. Just a moment. He saw the sun. It looked...different.

—

Let me know what you guys think! If you want to be tagged, just ask. And if you have any suggestions, don’t be shy!

Taglist:

@veaaaaa @lisylla @shit-post-things @hookedinto-fictionalworlds @toadbones @princessleiass @dolce-clout @sm0kingcrack

[kiruuuuu]

Well, @aro-around, I’m certainly not gonna be the one to smack you - I’m here to indulge, after all! I hope you’re satisfied with the pure filth that resulted from your request :) (Kaid/Sledge/Mozzie, Rating E, utter PWP, ~2k words)

.

“From the moment I saw you, I knew I was gonna fuck you.”

The rumbled words, tinted with an accent, run down his spine all the way to his crotch, causing a tingling feeling even before his brain has processed them – and process it does, conjures up images wildly erotic in nature, full of urgency and passion and raw desire in return. The Scottish lilt is marvellously attractive anyway, brimming with bluntness, honesty, emotion. And the message? No doubt behind it, only conviction, anticipation, patience. It ranks high on the hottest things ever said to him.

Even so, they can’t compete with the steady pace at which his prostate is getting hammered.

When it comes down to it, Mozzie is a people pleaser. With how boastful he is, it might not seem that way, but ultimately he’s trying to play the crowd, win them over, impress whoever’s watching. He’s the first one to volunteer when he hears one of his friends is moving, he’s been designated driver more often than he can count, he built robots simply to entertain when it was clear he wouldn’t win, and Tori regularly drops comments about his inability to say no. He wants others to like him, and he wants to satisfy the ones who already do.

Which is exactly why he’s on all fours right this moment, choking on Sledge’s cock while letting Kaid pound into him like there’s no tomorrow.

Still, he’d be lying through his teeth if he claimed this wasn’t mostly for himself – as an adrenaline junkie, he’s well familiar with being overwhelmed by what’s happening to his body, but this is a whole other thrill. They’re both fucking huge, not just towering over him but well-endowed too, and they have to prep him until he’s basically sobbing every time, but once Kaid slams into him properly for the first time, Mozzie’s gone. Just gone. Signed out, off, bye, have a great time, his holiday cover is able to keep him alive and have him moan his fucking vocal chord raw but that’s all he manages. Well, and sucking cock. He’s gotten extremely good at suppressing his gag reflex.

For how reserved Kaid is, he fucks like a young god once he gets going, and mercy is not part of his vocabulary anymore. All Mozzie can do is hold on to something and hope he survives this time without his legs giving in because Christ he’s got good aim. Though to be fair, with their size difference, it wouldn’t even matter; Kaid is like a freight train demolishing his insides, so he’d hit all the right spots even if he wasn’t trying. Unfortunately, he is. These days, Mozzie manages not to blow his load the second Kaid’s fat cock enters him, yet he still struggles with the first time it rubs over his sweet spot, painstakingly slowly.

Right now, it’s not being brushed over but rather jackhammered as Kaid is this close to coming, and Mozzie would be able to enjoy it more without the huge dick in his mouth – but then again, he derives immense enjoyment from the very same, so it works out in the end. Sledge likes going deep, no matter which end he’s currently abusing, and oxygen becomes a luxury between the long strokes reaching far into Mozzie’s throat, and he fucking loves it. At this point, he starts drooling whenever he’s got this gorgeous piece of meat anywhere in his line of vision and is not above begging to have it shoved inside him. Sledge seems to like it when he does, yet as much as the Scot delights in him running his mouth with a neverending string of filth, he delights in having his throat constrict around his cockhead more.

This is what heaven must feel like: impaled on two dicks, barely able to comprehend reality and completely and utterly overstimulated. Mozzie’s own erection is aching for release, switching back and forth between desperately needing to shoot but not receiving that tiny amount of pleasure needed and being more than ready to unload but not being allowed, and as a result it jumps almost every time Kaid rearranges his organs with yet another brutal thrust. He struggles to stay fully conscious amid this onslaught which gets increasingly difficult, especially with the way Kaid pushes him forwards with every movement, forcing Sledge’s cock deeper and hardly allowing for any kind of break. And then a large hand buries itself in Mozzie’s hair to pull on it. Not painfully, but just hard enough for him to look up.

“Don’t swallow”, Sledge growls down at him. “Keep it in your mouth.”

Mozzie’s arms go weak. He lets out a shameless moan around the thick shaft obstructing most of his windpipe and clenches down on the second one filling him to the brim, causing Kaid to grunt in appreciation. The old man is easy to please, as long as Mozzie doesn’t pass out and lets him bruise his hips as much as he wants. The pain is just additional spice, rips him back into the present now and then and forces him to realise that he’s taking two sizeable cocks at the same time and holy shit this one is gonna be intense.

It’s Sledge’s turn first, though, big guy groaning contentedly, obviously satisfied with the way Mozzie works his tongue and throat around him, accommodates him with difficulty but accommodates him nonetheless. The Aussie is drooling excessively, has long created a puddle on the mattress and stopped being embarrassed over the squelchy sounds he produces around that time, too – and it’s no wonder with how far he has to stretch his lips around Sledge’s girth. He swallows, works his throat around it and hums, a broken sound interrupted by every impact from behind and this seems to send the Scot over the edge.

He throws his head back and sighs, sounding blissful, and just this view is so incredibly hot Mozzie squeezes his thighs together to try and prevent himself following suit, though it only gets worse the more he feels the hot flesh pulsing in his mouth. Most of it gets shot down the back of his throat anyway, but Sledge comes so much that there’s plenty left when he pulls out halfway to store the rest on Mozzie’s tongue temporarily. Mozzie massages it out of the thick head, sucks it out and hastens to close his lips once the impressive cock is released from his mouth with a wet pop. He must look debauched, semen dribbling down his chin, covered in sweat and lube, and so hard it hurts.

As always, he does as he’s told whenever he’s in a benevolent mood, and with these two it’s his only option anyway: they could hold him down and make him, no problem. Not that they would. He knows they wouldn’t, and it’s partly why he’s so eager to receive their sperm. So he savours the taste of Sledge’s while looking forward to harvesting Kaid’s as well, further down.

The snap of skin against skin is sharp in the small room, and the closer the old man gets, the more he speeds up. A particularly vicious thrust knocks Mozzie off balance and has him faceplant onto the mattress, ass up and face pressed against one of Sledge’s thighs as he continues being rocked by harsh motions. He wants to moan so bad, instead nearly chokes on the come and relaxes a little when the Scotsman pats the top of his head.

“Good boy”, he purrs, contented. “Go ahead then.”

And the moment he feels the rest of Sledge’s sperm slide down his throat is the moment Kaid buries himself impossibly deep and climaxes with a growl.

The thought of having two loads flooding him on two ends, finally, is enough to push him over as well. With Kaid throbbing deep in his guts, Mozzie trembles his way through a blinding orgasm that has him so tightly in its vice-like grip he remains silent the entire time – lust explodes in his midsection and the resulting shockwaves make his toes curl and fingers clench. His cock jumps repeatedly, shooting out white stripes with every twitch, mirroring Kaid’s inside him, and if it wasn’t for the gentle palm still resting on his hair, he would’ve lost all grip on reality. It’s rare enough that he comes untouched, but it’s always worth it: the warmth spreading throughout his body is remarkably soothing.

He gets hardly any time to catch his breath before Kaid pulls out, leaves him gaping and feeling incomplete. The Moroccan isn’t one for small talk or sentimentalism, certainly more on the practical side. “That was good”, he decides curtly and is already halfway dressed before Mozzie can even reply.

“Aye”, concurs the Scot, examining the utterly exhausted man between them curiously. Mozzie can’t feel parts of his body and is leaking come out of both ends, and yet there’s no doubt this is the highlight of his entire week. “One day, you’ll take us both at the same time.”

All he can do is curse weakly at that prospect, making both of them laugh. They’re generous in their own way, agreeing to sating these desires of his. They’re doing a fantastic job. Even so, they never linger, always make sure he’s alright but disappear immediately afterwards. A few more minutes he spends lying down, spread out and revelling in the aftershocks, the feeling of having been moulded around those two large dicks, then he gets up on wobbly legs.

The laptop on his desk is still running, screen turned off but ventilators whirring quietly. A button brings up a communications app, though the interface isn’t what makes Mozzie smile broadly.

It’s the sight of his wife. She’s in an extremely similar state to his own, and so she surely won’t mind him dragging himself back to bed so they can chat there.

“Great show”, she summarises once she’s un-muted herself, wearing her trademark grin she always has whenever she’s gotten away with something. It’s one of the many things Mozzie loves about her. “Can you even feel your jaw?”

“I’ll be lucky to have a voice tomorrow, fucking hell”, he replies and clears his throat a few times to sound less husky. “I feel like some cunt ran me the fuck over. With a bulldozer. Ten times.”

“That’s what it looked like, too.” She laughs, and the sound restores some of Mozzie’s energy. His goal every day is to make her laugh at least once, and though it’s gotten increasingly difficult due to the distance between them, it doesn’t stop him from trying. “You need to introduce me someday, Max.”

“Of course”, he replies without hesitation. “Everything for you, baby.” He means it. They both do. One of the reasons they work so well is that their tastes in nearly anything are remarkably similar. And when it comes down to it, he’s a people pleaser anyway.

“You said Seamus is a good guy though, right? I wonder why he still does this despite knowing you’re married.”

“What, does it make it any less hot for you?”

A wide, stunning smile. “You know it makes it even hotter.”

He does know. Next to him, his phone vibrates, displaying a text message from Sledge: say hi to the missus from me. “Yeah”, he answers, “I do.” And he writes: you know I won’t, before telling his wife that Sledge is merely confirming the date for next meeting.

Yet another opinion he shares with his wife: not everyone needs to know everything. They just need to be happy with the way things are.