#love when shit just writes itself!

[slippery-minghus]

System Breach Sunday...! ⭕

Almost instantaneously, as electricity began to trickle in, the build up of pressure seemed to dissipate from Connor’s synthetic nervous system. The supplemental charge was slow, inefficient, unlikely to offer more than a few percentage points per hour if he chose to work while using it—but none of that mattered. The subjective relief that it gave him quite simply overshadowed all practical data. And how could it not—when, for the first time since he’d come out of stasis on the Lieutenant’s kitchen floor, the tension in his shoulders, in his skull, the sharp points behind his eyes finally felt… bearable?

“Connor! There you are!” 

The android snapped to attention, turning sharply to face the source of the voice; almost on reflex, he force-closed all irrelevant thought processes. Surveillance systems were quick to settle however, and routed instead to social modules. 

Detective Ben Collins strode towards Connor’s desk, steaming mug of coffee in hand. He gave the android a full once-over with a scrutinizing look, but then smiled and nodded, satisfied. “You could set a clock to your arrivals, kid. I was starting to wonder if you’d show!” 

Internally, Connor grimaced. Collins was right—he’d arrived to the precinct approximately twenty two minutes later than average. Even after taking into account the distance to the office from Lieutenant Anderson’s home, Connor had not left with adequate time. Ruefully, he suspected that it might not only be his fine motor control that had decalibrated, but his sense of task duration as well. Everything he’d done that morning had taken far longer than it should have. 

Appeasement protocols at the ready, Connor opened his mouth to apologize, “I am sorry for any delay my tardiness may have caused, Detective.”

But Collins, still smiling, waved him off. He took a sip of his coffee, “Don’t worry about it, I’m just glad you’re in one piece. You looked like hell last night! Hank take good care of you after you left?”

Unwelcome memories blistered across Connor’s mind’s eye. “Y-yes,” he stammered. Mentally recoiled. It had been a gross oversight not to prepare responses in his social buffer for that sort of question. 

>”Who’s at the goddamned door so fuckin’ early?” Hank growled, voice gravelly as he leaned out from his bedroom doorway. “It’s seven in the morning! People are tryin’ to fuckin’ sleep!”

>

>Startled, Connor turned to face the Lieutenant. Appeasement protocols stuttered to life before he could voluntarily cue them, and his system was quick to offer a list of data points garnered from the man’s appearance. Most surprising, was the distinct lack of evidence of alcohol. 

>

>”CyberLife has delivered my change of uniform,” Connor began, purposefully benign. 

>

>”Oh, goody,” the Lieutenant rolled his eyes, “If only you’d stop bleeding into them.”

>

>”...I will do my best, Lieutenant. I will only need a few minutes to get ready. What time would you like to leave for the precinct this morning?”

>

>The man scoffed, loudly. “Leave? Are you out of your plastic mind? You have any idea how much sleep your little bender cost me last night?”

>

>Connor opened his mouth, primed to apologize, but forced his jaw to close. 

>

>The Lieutenant continued, regardless, “You’re on your fuckin’ own. Until you get a lead on that case of yours, I’m not leaving this damn house.” 

>

>Connor flinched as the bedroom door slammed. 

>

>”...Very well, Lieutenant.”

“Lieutenant Anderson will be arriving sometime later. He had… other matters to attend to,” Connor supplied, deflecting as best he could. The cut in his right arm twinged, pinching sharply, and he couldn’t help but draw it closer to his chest. Realizing what he’d done, Connor wanted to pull his left arm in as well, to balance his posture and remain inconspicuous—but the cord at his wrist felt suddenly like a tether, a restraint. 

Seemingly unfazed, Collins gave the android a pitying look, “Other matters… I’m sure he does.” After another sip of coffee and shake of his head however, Ben offered Connor a conspiratorial grin, “Wait here, I’ve got something for you.”

Quickly, but not so fast as to spill his cup, Collins strode towards his desk, some dozen feet away. He plucked a small evidence bag from beside his terminal, then returned to Connor. 

“We found this stashed in the last room on that motel’s second floor,” Ben started, showing Connor the evidence bag. Inside was a small, well worn notebook. “No RA9 graffiti or shrines like the other deviants. Just this, a few android repair kits, and a busted mirror in the bathroom. Real freaky stuff.”

[milktrician]

(what the. who threw a wife plot device in the middle of a peak lord meeting)

i thought about this bit at the end of the airplane extras the other day. bro why are you looking at your coworkers like that rn

[annasofthe11thdimension]

Pictured: Loop being extremely normal as they lay in their shallow (homemade) grave as they meditate on existence and also if they have annoyed the Researcher enough THIS time for her to murder them and bury them alive.

(Spoilers - they did not annoy her even CLOSE to that much.)

And there is the required reverse image of Odile arriving - she's had a LONG day (i.e. previous loop), and due to this it will take ten minutes before she even acknowledges the shallow grave Loop is laying in, as she was distracted complaining about what Siffrin just did to annoy her.

----

I'd say there's context for all of that, because like...there IS context? Here's the link to the series of fics that HAS that context even! But also...even with context...can't say that it's going to make any of this less weird.

Mostly Odile is looping because due to Loop's wish the universe got rewritten to make Siffrin's repression and emotional issues (the ones bad enough to get him stuck in a time loop in the game) 'someone else's' problem...or at least that's Loop's best theory atm!

Regardless, context or not, I'm quite happy with how the pics came out, and figured I might as well post them here too.

[qiu-yan]

in MDZS the novel, the innkeeper in Yunping mentions that people are too scared to go petition Yunmeng Jiang for help because someone once walked in on Sect Leader Jiang whipping a guy in the main hall, supposedly because the guy was a demonic cultivator.

[introspectivememories]

if you're writing a charles fic, it must have some aspect of boyking. he must lean a little on the childgod side. he has to be revered a little bit, adored even. if people aren't talking about him like they wouldn't wash his feet and adorn it with perfume like mary magdalene washed and adorned jesus' feet, you're doing it wrong.

[schrodingers-dove]

.

[mcybree]

Thoughts on 3rd life mirror birds. 3rd life big dogs. 3rd life property police. They fascinate me and I think you have thoughts on them but I might be wrong..either way

i do in fact have thoughts on them but i think if i talk about 3l!flower husbands publicly any more rn I’ll get so self conscious I’ll explode on the spot. this being said i have still yet to watch evo but its been on my list for forever bc of 3l!property police specifically… i really love martyns petty grudge against jimmy for those first two episodes he acts like he’s 12 and really pissed off on the playground. anyways i think that martyn going from being concerned for his friend to Just Fucking Lying to split up Scott and Jimmy, because he took personal offense to Jimmy being unwilling to drop everything to go live with him on the spot is the funniest thing in the world. Girl it’s not about you

[sheathnknife]

the vampire diaries 8.16 // louise gluck, crossroads

“and damon, like the voiceover tell us, he was worried he would never see stefan again. it was just elena assuring him that there would be peace. that we’ve dealt with this other side of darkness for several seasons, but there’s also light out there and there’s peace, and damon will find it. if you search for it, you will find it. and we wanted to get that last moment to see that [...] damon found it too, and it looked just like his brother.” — kevin williamson

[jathun]

ngl I have such a love/hate relationship with the fate franchise

[p4nishers]

can we actually take a moment and remember swan upon leda? can we actually shut the fuck up and sit the fuck down and think about our lord and savior swan upon leda because i'm tired of doing it alone every single day guys

[orcelito]

Just finished rereading ITNL chapter 2 again

Yknow, it's long felt like a weaker chapter to me, especially compared to chapter 1. It's a Necessary chapter, but it's basically an entire chapter of introspection. Add in the fact that I wrote it in a single day and was half falling asleep by the end of editing it, but pressing onwards anyways bc I wanted So Badly to get it out that night...

The Legato part was the weakest for that. I remember staring at it and breaking my brain just trying to make it sound better before just giving up and posting. But when I worked on my full-fic re-edits about.. a year ago now? A year and a bit. I think it was October ish of 2023. But I focused on that part again, trying to get it up to my standards to be satisfied with it.

Coming back to it after some number of months, my brain relatively fresh, I think I actually did a pretty decent job. Despite being an introspective chapter, it really drives home how Wrecked vash is about it all. I like to say that chapter 1 is like a thesis to the fic, where you get vash's goals laid out pretty clearly (him picturing the things he wants to fix + him picturing his dream of having all the people he loves around a table with him, including Knives. It serves as motivation for him jumping back in time in the first place and it remains his driving force throughout the fic). In contrast, chapter 2 is... almost a secondary thesis. We see his doubt, his fears, his panic. We see the things that he's going to be struggling with throughout the whole fic. His wish to handle it all on his own, as well as how overwhelming it all is to him. Chapter 2 is the necessary second side to chapter 1's thesis, showing the weakness in his own strength and drive.

The cracks in his own unstoppable force.

Idk it's just interesting to me. Having been away from it long enough, I think I really do appreciate chapter 2 after all.

[lord-squiggletits]

"Rodimus is a better Prime because it didn't hurt for him to bond with the Matrix while for Optimus it did" headcanon/theory my beloathed.

One day I'm literally gonna snap and make a whole post addressing why what's wrong bc I'm tired of the inaccuracy and tired of ppl not understanding the Point TM of IDW and its version of the Matrix/Primacy and even more tired of people putting down Optimus in favor of Rodimus by essentially arguing that being unworthy means you deserve to be punished/put in pain bc you just weren't good enough to hold the Symbol of Ultimate Authority

[goldentigerfestival]

Yuri's dialogue (JP) is so fascinating to study, like... the repetitive use of certain words/phrases that others use sparingly but he uses constantly. the way it feels like his vocabulary is more expansive than what he uses, but he defaults to a "comfort" level of speech. the way it mixes in with his sort of "street talk" words and the sheer level of informality. the way his "street talk" phrasing is contrasted by the tone of his voice (on that note, people I know who also know JP are also very endeared by these aspects of him so I KNOW IT'S NOT JUST ME!!!).

'cause the thing is, he uses phrases that yeah, other people do use, but he uses a handful over and over and over (contrast to other characters' sparing use of repetition). it's actually... really refreshing? it sounds more relatable and less "video game/anime/JRPG/RPG" writing or something, idk. like closer to how a real person would speak.

I do my best in my translations not to make things sound too stiff across the board, but Yuri makes it so easy. it's why I'm so interested in translating all his lines in Vesperia, like... the actual, original tone for him with his original wording because it's smth Eng only players don't get to experience ('cause even if you listen with JP audio, if you don't know the language, ofc you're gonna miss out on context. it's nobody's fault for not knowing, just... they unfortunately miss out). the thing is, there are a lot of times when the lines in and of themselves are not contextually incorrect in the English ver (usually the situation for smaller scenes, because they altered the text outright for more important stuff which was the stuff that originally set me off, but there were also plenty of cases of just vocal tone shifting with the correct context that still gave off the wrong impression), but Yuri's tone is shifted away from the original in Eng even though it's completely and perfectly translatable.

I am by no means about to translate the entire game because let's face it, I really don't care that much for Vesperia on the whole. I'm kinda stuck with it because Yuri's there lo and behold I actually am WAY more engaged in his stories in Rays, Link and Asteria because it's an amazing character put into circumstances where he actually gets to shine and feels more alive, which Vesperia did not provide nearly as well with its very disjointed story. also, Tales gachas have banger stories that are arguably better than the mainline games, and they regularly make Yuri a very central character to the gachas. Crestoria was also about to do it until they pulled the plug on that game and I'm pretty confident something interesting has been lost to the world. also I just generally don't have the energy or motivation to do that, so... I'll only be focusing on Yuri's lines, especially because his stuff is where the bulk of the messing around was. he's just insanely fun to translate for and I love burying myself head first into his speech.

will I actually finish this project? dunno. will I get around to posting it? whatever I get done (so all of it if I complete it), and if I decide to call it quits then I'll post what I have at the time I decide that. will it take a long time? probably, but I can always mention stuff along the way...

[solar-halos]

okay i give up i cant write this pjo fic percy loves sally too much

[tiktaaliker]

ok I know I'm already in the process of writing an extremely long video game retelling/au where the protag is a nonhuman who gets suddenly and unwillingly put in a situation where they have to pass as A Normal Guy by the threat of harm/death while also being put into a role where they're the Only One capable of saving the world. but what if I started a DIFFERENT one too

[ahalliance]

i need to do exposure therapy with purgatory i think the fandom experience at the time instilled the unpleasant dread and despair i still feel whenever i think about the event