#make rung the fuckin' Man In The Moon

[scribesynnox]

Ooooo, you know what? Another idea, another idea. I'm on a roll.

@keferon and everyone else here. That's right, another apocalyptic ponyo au idea.

If humans are taking merfolk and putting them in aquariums or rehabilitating them and all that, then merfolk are absolutely doing the same thing.

I present to you, the human zoo!

Like, people are still going out in the oceans, and sometimes, ships sink, or a plane can crash into the ocean. There are storms, there bad weathers, there are people getting marooned, there are people falling into the ocean, etc etc.

And sometimes, there are merfolk nearby who rescue the humans and take them back to be rehabilitated.

"Then why haven't these humans told everyone that merfolk are sentinent?" Because no one will BELIEVE them. Because everyone keeps saying they're traumatized and that they're personifying animals/projecting human behaviors onto a creature that is NOT human. It's understandable of course, but you must be realistic.

"No, no, I'm TELLING you, this mer was DIFFERENT, the one that saved me could TALK, they had thoughts and emotions and a CULTURE. We're wrong about merfolk, they're people!"

Those poor survivors. They're so traumatized.

And the humans that get rehabilitated aren't brought into the inner cities. Humans don't fare very well with rapid changes in pressure or frigid waters, so they're always treated closer to human territories. Which means their facilities aren't as fancy, but it is still unmistakenably a FACILITY with medicines and tools and TECHNOLOGY.

But they get the same spiel of "oh, you imagined all that up. We've searched that area but we didn't see any "facilities" there" (This is because the facilities are portable. They have to be if they want to make sure they can bring the facility with them whenever humans are in danger, and humans go EVERYWHERE. Disaster can strike at any time.)

And sometimes, the human is too injured. One of their limbs has to be amputated, or they lose their vision in the accident or something.

Well in that case, the merfolk can't release the human back into the wild. They would never survive! So they take the human back to their cities -carefully!- and keep them alive in a zoo instead.

And hey, sometimes it's NOT altruistic. Humans are exotic! They're strange funny cute little things, with their funny little noises and clumsy little movements. There is ABSOLUTELY a market for illegal human pet stores. Humans mysteriously going missing out at sea because oops, they got yoinked by a siren who's looking to make some easy money. Humans being paraded around as pets, trapped underwater. Human kids being snatched at a young age because "oh humans are just SO cute and so docile if you raise them at a young age!" Humans being put into pit fights because humans are ALSO known for being dangerous and vicious and violence sells, baby. Rich merfolk who want a human so they can brag about "taming" the dangerous creature.

Hmmmmm. Ooooo, what if it's the combaticons who kidnap humans, but like, not the full set of combaticons, cuz they kidnap a human who is that missing member of the combaticons. Except then they get ATTACHED to the merchandise and fine, fuck it. The merchandise becomes the group mascot.

Then they're like oh shit, wait, I think it's a PERSON actually.

Hmmm, but who gets kidnapped, who gets kidnapped~? There's so many good combinations (HAHA, get it?).

Like, for one, we could have Vortex being the kidnapped human, and he's so feral and bitey that none of their usual clients want the bitey human, while the rest of the combaticons start getting endeared by the volatile human. Hehe, and what if they get so attached, they pull a The Mandalorian and instead of selling him, decide to keep him but now they need to go on the run or something.

Hey wait, going back to the "raised from young" bit, what if there's ACTUALLY a human kid who is raised as a baby and they're like, a beloved family pet and they GREW up like this, they literally don't know better. I KNOW there's a transformer with this exact story, they were like, raised on another planet, their memories erased and stuff, so they don't know any better, they just know they're different and they grew up to be a knight or something? I don't remember, I'm going off tangent, just. What if there's this human who gets raised as a beloved family pet and THIS is the world they live in. They don't know any better.

Haha, oooo, what if Rung is like, a leading scientist in merfolk biology, but before he can reveal evidence that they were wrong this whole time about merfolk, and merpeople ARE intelligent, he gets marooned in a horrible storm or lost in sea by a terrible "accident" and he loses his memories?

Or hey, fuck it, even better: what if we made him Mer God? What if we made him The Man In The Moon? What if the Man In The Moon came down to Earth and then lost his memory? What then?

[autobot-ratchet]

Lost Light 7-9

Lost Light 7

oh good, so someone did tell Rung about the functionist universe version of himself. “Yeah man you grew a hundred feet tall and punched the moon, it was wild”

jfdks Rodimus just gleefully swinging Skip's corpse around like a ragdoll

Drift's got an interesting perspective on Megatron's absence. I wonder if that's how he personally felt about his presence, I'm sure he must've felt a million different things about being commanded by him again

oofjhd Cyclonus, you gotta speak up, all the way up, he keeps trying and losing his nerve...

Velocity, please don't call it the F.U. LmAO

poor Minimus is going through it too, he's got a moment to finally realize and reflect upon the fact that he actually does like Megatron, despite everything

“You're an inspiration,” she says... she's already got the idea in her head.........

“Discuss this? Since when have we discussed anything?” oof ouch ougfhjdk he's right though... on the other hand he's doing the exact same shit Cyclonus was, he is absolutely trying to push Cyclonus away to protect him without telling him why, Tailgate is just as fuckin bad at communicating as Cyclonus and it hurts

uuuUUUGH I FORGOT HE TRIES TO GIVE CYCLONUS'S INNERMOST ENERGON BACK... he's really trying to break it off completely, he really wants Cyclonus away from him so he doesn't rip him apart in his sleep........

absolutely love this fucking conversation between Magnus and Rodimus, just going over the full spectrum of ways to feel about Megatron, and they're all correct. And Roddy is a lot more observant than anyone gave him credit for, he knows Magnus, knows what he needs to get back up on his feet, so to speak lmAO god what a good bit of dialogue

oh, Cyclonus, honey........ and Whirl, being a good friend for him aaaaudgfhsjghjdfk

gOD fudgfhfghdjk the fact that Tailgate has the vial of Cyclonus's innermost energon in his hand while he's in the radiation chamber fuck my LIFE

damn Fangry was really gonna put Tailgate in the ground for another six million years, fuck you dude

this was another thing that tested my faith in the comic lmfAO I don't think I ever thought this was the last we'd see of Tailgate necessarily, but I was scared that was the end of Cygate lmAO I was scared that by the time Tailgate became relevant again, Cyclonus would have started moving on and would stay away from Tailgate out of respect for his feelings/fear of reopening that old wound and never find out he was stuck underground

Lost Light 8

“Tell me your name. I want to worship you like a god,” is still such a wild fuckin thing to say to someone you just met

“The Mederi Center?!” the HUH??? I REMEMBER THAT NAME THAT'S THE NAME OF THE PLACE

love this girls day out to the shady-ass marketplace

honestly I love how much crime Anode does she's so valid lmAO

oof man poor Nautica is going through it, and she's making poor Velocity go through it too

I talked about it a little bit before but god Anode explaining why she's a she now is still so good, it's a good way to explain her process without having to get into nitty-gritty gender discourse lmAO and like. Good, she shouldn't have to get into it, if you get it you get it and if you don't that's fine just use the she pronouns for her, that's all it takes

Lost Light 9

man... Nautica just misses her man, she saw a chance to get him back and she took it, she figured it'd all be worth dealing with all this skeeviness

oh oof ouch, low blow Nautica, don't do Velocity like that

fghdsjk Anode really just said “Hey I've got something for you, it's mY FIST BITCH HIYAH” and she fuckin hurt herself doing it god I love her lmAO

LOVE this conversation between Nautica and Velocity, love them being forced to lay all their cards out on the table like this, love that Nautica going through with this is a dealbreaker for Velocity

“This is where you stand aside.” “This is where you make me.” TELL EEEEMMMMMMMM granted she gets immediately disarmed but sTILL I RESPECT THE ENERGY

oof yeah this was another moment that tested my faith. In fact, it tested me the hardest, this almost made me drop the comic lmAO I just couldn't deal with Nautica surgically removing her feelings for Skids, it felt like it cheapened the impact of his death, and at the time, I couldn't imagine it having any relevance to any future arcs or plot points. I was fully under the impression that this was only about further solidifying the bond between Nautica and Velocity and I didn't like that the effect Skids's death had on Nautica was completely eliminated in order to do that. Of course now I know that this moment is a surprise tool that helps us later, but at the time, I actively disliked this issue and that was the first time the comic had ever made me feel that way, so that plus all the naysayers on my dash and in the tags got me dangerously close to deciding they were right. So glad I didn't lmAO I'm very glad I stuck with it and I can now read this issue without feeling awful

speaking of surprise tools that will help us later, what's good Epistemus lmAO

[haitaniplug]

CLASS PROJECT CHAPTER FIFTEEN

summary - you really want to go abroad for the summer, but your grades fucking SUCK, so your parents won’t allow you to until you get them up. you were so ready to focus on the rest of the year until you get partnered up with Rindou Haitani. The boy that comes into school once every blue moon. And to make matters worse, it’s a project where participation counts. So now it’s your job to harass Rindou into getting his shit straight.

tags - enemies to friends to lovers , angst , crack , college au, eventual smut , fluff.

status - ongoing

series masterlist

Taglist: @q-the-rockaholic @crown5 @gumiwaka @hiimviolet @gulfkfl @sirachano0dles @imjustaweirdnerd @aki-ra26 @haitani-nic @denkis-slut @shujiswife @genderfluidkurapika @shibera @minnieminnie00-got7 @transparentfireherringpeanut

"Um hello," you had awkwardly sat down on the opposite end of the couch Takeomi was sat at. He nodded at you, before turning his gaze back to the TV.

"Could you not smoke in here? I don't like the smell." You stared at him as he sighed before putting his cigarette out. “Thank you, also I have a friend coming over.”

“Friend?” Takeomi remembered your parents telling him that you had one friend, her name was Aya or something, “Is it Aya?”

“I-,” how did he—, “No, it’s um not her, it’s my project partner,”

“Boy or girl?” He raised his eyebrow and you scoffed, “Does it matter?”

“Your parents told me not to—,”

“I don’t give a fuck what they told you. They don’t dictate my life anymore, I’m not a child. I can have whoever the fuck I want over.” You stood up, “Now could you leave? They will be coming over soon.”

“I’m not leaving. I will supervise you then.” He reached over and grabbed the remote, changing channels. You stared at him stunned. “Just following your parents orders’, don’t want to end up on their bad side.”

“Who fuckin’ cares if they get angry?” you began, “the least they’ll do is scream at you. You scared of a little yelling at?”

Takeomi looked at you, eyes blown wide. She doesn’t know then...

You found his reaction pretty odd, “What? Is there something I don’t know?”

Takeomi shook his head, “Don’t worry about it. If they haven’t told you then it’s not my place to tell you.”

“Tell me what?” You walked towards him intrigued. How did this random man know more about your parents than you. “What are you talking about?”

“Drop it.” He said sternly, “You’ll find out when the time is right, or when they tell you.”

The room was silent as you glared at him. “You gonna stop staring now or?,” he asked you, “I ain’t gonna tell you so just give up.”

“Is it something bad?” You asked after a few moments, sitting on the couch.

Takeomi merely shrugged, “Don’t know what you consider bad,” You were about to respond when the doorbell rung. “That must be your project partner,” He gestured to the door, “Go answer it.”

Standing up, you walked over towards the door, letting Rindou inside. As he was taking his shoes off, he walked into the living room, making eye contact with Takeomi.

“Haitani?” Takeomi raised his brow slightly amused. He had not expected this.

“Akashi.” Rindou said back, glaring at him. Your eyes darted back and forth between the two men, confused as to why there was tension in the air.

“Is everything, um, okay?” You tapped Rindou’s arm, making him turn to face you. “Yeah everything’s fine.” He looked down for a moment, “Could you grab the stuff for the project real quick?” He faced you, gesturing for you to go upstairs.

“Yeah, I’ll be right back.” You nodded and went up the stairs. Rindou waited for your figure to be out of sight before turning to face Takeomi. “You’re working for them arent you?”

Takeomi laughed softly, “I don’t know what you’re talking about—”

“Bullshit.” Rindou cursed, “We all know you had nowhere to run to after you got defeated, so you ran to them and kissed their asses for protection.”

“Listen here Haitani.” Takeomi shifted on the couch, “Where I am working at right now, doesn’t concern you. Never will. Now drop it— because I know something you don’t. I know your whereabouts right now, they don’t. If I was really in the mood, I could get them on you right now.”

Rindou glared at him. “So? Do it then.”

“Don’t test me Haitani.” Takeomi heard your footsteps coming back down, “I’m holding off doing so for Haru’s sake. Don’t want him getting caught in the crossfire. Otherwise I would’ve declared war already.”

“Okay! Lets get start—,” your sentence was run short when you saw the way both men were glaring at each other. “Rind—,”

“Sanzu doesn’t fuckin’ care about you. Stop acting like you’re redeemable after what you did to him. He hates you and always will hate you. Just admit you’re too scared to start war and stop using Sanzu as a sorry excuse.” Rindou ranted before taking a deep breath. “I don’t have time to talk about this right now.” He grabbed your hand, “Y/N, sorry but I have to go somewhere, can we reschedule for later?”

“Yeah.. sure.” You watched as Rindou put his shoes back on and walking out the door in.

Takeomi sighed and grabbed another cigarette out of his pocket. “No smok—,”

“Shut the fuck up y/n, Im stressed right now.” You watched as his eyebrow tensed up as he spoke. What the fuck happened down here?

“So are you going to tell me what happened or leave me in the dirt again?” You asked sitting down next to him.

“What did Rin mean about using Sanzu as a excuse?” You asked again, not appreciating the way he was ignoring you. “Takeomi?”

“Just shut up. I don’t want to talk about this right now,” He said gruffly, pinching the bridges of his nose.

“Okay.. Sorry then.” You stood up and walked up the stairs to your room.

[ninyard]

more stefan/andrew au? the last one was fucking amazing

(following on from pt 2 kinda following canon a lil bit but imagining their relationship panning out earlier than it did in the series? Fab)

Part 1 / part 2

-

“Andrew?” Neil was woken up by Seth’s pissed-off, tired moan. “Get the fuck out of here, you fuckin’ freak.” Neil heard the rustling of covers and Andrew’s footsteps coming into the room. “Yo, hey, are you deaf?!” It’d been a couple days since the incident in Columbia, and Andrew and Neil hadn’t really spoken since then. Coach had tried to get them to make up when Neil came back to his apartment, but his attempts futile. They’d only had a short conversation before Andrew got bored and left. All Neil got from Andrew’s lot since then was hostility and cold shoulders. Now, in the middle of the night, Andrew was breaking into the room of the three people he actively seemed to hate the most. Neil pretended to sleep, until he felt weight on the rungs of the ladder on his bed, and hands on the back of his T-shirt. Andrew practically pulled him off the bed, immediately waking him up from any bit of sleep he had left in him.

“Car. Ten minutes.” Andrew didn’t lower his voice for Neil’s half-asleep roommates. “I don’t like waiting.”

“I don’t care.” Neil retorted back in a hushed voice. “Leave me alone and let me sleep.” Andrew got real close to Neil’s face. The dim light of the moon outside the window showed Andrew unsmiling face. He was presumably sober, and Andrew sober was a much scarier sight than him being medicated and violent.

“Ten minutes.” He repeated again, matching Neil’s volume, hazel eyes burning a hole through Neil’s natural blue. Andrew put a finger to his lips and switched to German. “This is the only chance you’ll get.”

Neil had almost forgotten he’d spoken to Andrew in German in Coach’s apartment. He was startled at the sudden language change, and obliged when Andrew finally left the room. He got dressed underneath his covers as best he could, and decided against putting in his contacts, before jumping down off the top bunk.

“Bring that monster around here one more time and you’re moving out.” Seth groaned, but fully meant what he said. He turned around to face the wall and through the muffle of a pillow, Neil heard him say, “Now fuck off.” Matt, sleeping like a rock, was snoring on the other side of the room, totally unphased and undisturbed by Andrew’s swift entrance and exit.

Andrew was alone at his car when Neil pulled the sleeves of his hoodie over his hands in a desperate attempt to stay warm, the door of the dorm building shutting behind him. It was freezing outside, and Neil hadn’t realised it was literally the middle of the night until he saw a clock in the hallway reading an early 3:54am. The wind blew leaves across the parking lot with a whistle and a rustle, the dry fall leaves swirling around like tiny twisters on the tarmac. The campus was silent, on the night of a weekday, so Neil didn’t expect anyone to be out. Yet here Andrew was, leaning on the bonnet of his car with a cigarette between his lips, smoke quickly disappearing in the biting wind.

“You never answered my question on our little night out.” He spoke through the smoke, as Neil approached closer. “We’re going for a drive.”

“Do you ever sleep?” Neil’s voice was groggy from his own interrupted sleep. Andrew didn’t answer, instead flicking away his cigarette and sitting into the drivers seat. Neil walked around to the passenger side and sat in. When he tried to warm his hands on the hot air Andrew had blowing through the air-con, Andrew turned the heat off. Neil was sure if Andrew was medicated he would’ve laughed, but he instead opted for watching the road as they drove in silence. Neil sat back and tried his best not to fall asleep. His head bumped about on the headrest as they drove, and every time his eyes started to close, his sleep cycle begging him to come back to rest, Andrew would snap his fingers in his face or lay a punch down on his thigh. After a short drive, they pulled up into the empty lot of some National Park Neil didn’t know the name of. He was too tired to pay attention to the signs, but figured Andrew wouldn’t bring him to a park to kill him or let him go. Andrew was a man of truth when he wanted to be; He wanted to know why he was on the run and Neil didn’t have the energy to argue.

“Why are we here?” Neil asked at the same time Andrew said “What brought a runaway to Oakland?”They both paused for a moment, but Neil knew Andrew wasn’t going to answer his question until Neil answered his.

“It was the first place she wanted to stop.” Neil spoke through a yawn. “The others before there made her too paranoid. It was the first time she felt like she could close her eyes and actually sleep without feeling like she was…” He thought about his words for a moment. The last conversation they’d had, he told him he was on the run, but Andrew already knew that. Neil thought he’d got through to him by giving him half-honesty, telling him his parents were dead. He never brought up Riko, or his family, instead choosing the option of trying to appeal to Andrew’s inner child, who remembered Stefan. It was a stupid choice, and Neil knew that the second he chose it. “She could sleep without feeling like she had a target on her back.”

“Did you kill her?” Andrew said it so casually it felt like murder was something so normal, like eating lunch or going for a walk. Like asking if he killed his mother was just like asking if he liked the taste of garlic, or if he was having a good day.

“No,” Neil answered. He’d been thinking about what he would tell Andrew about his life since he seen him in Arizona. Who was he before Oakland? Where did they go? Who was he running from? “Riko’s family did.”

And suddenly Andrew was interested. His face was a mixture of disbelief and boredom. Neil told him his manufactured version of the story; that his parents were killed by the Moriyama family, and that they’d been on the run since the execution of his Father. He kept out the part about the Butcher of Baltimore, or the fact that he was actually still alive, but Andrew’s mind was at work as Neil told the story. If he didn’t look awake before, he did now. Neil spoke for an hour, maybe less, maybe more, flowing from story to anecdote to answering questions that Andrew slipped in whenever he wanted. Neil answered it all with mostly-truths, redacting the stuff Andrew simply didn’t need to know. Neil was a runaway, his family were in some bad business, but Neil was the only one left.

“I really didn’t think you could get any more stupid, yet I am constantly surprised.” Andrew tutted as he shook a cigarette out of the packet, into his hand. He rolled down the window on his side and smoked out of it, seemingly unbothered by the wind that just blew the smoke back into his face. “You knew who I was, but you knew Kevin too? How forgetful do you think people are?”

“I don’t know,” Neil told him honestly. “I just- We were so young. I met Kevin years before I met you. I just didn’t think I was important to anyone.” Andrew laughed a laugh that wasn’t really a laugh at all. It was the sound of dismissal, as though he didn’t believe a word that spilled from Neil’s tired lips. “I didn’t think I’d ever be particularly memorable or mean anything to anyone. That was the most important thing to my mom.”

“What, being unimportant?” Andrew didn’t look at Neil as he spoke.

“Being forgettable.” Neil sighed, thinking about his mother’s words that had been drilled into his head. If you’re too interesting, you’re asking to be killed. Be boring. Be normal. Be forgettable. “You fucked that up for me.”

“See, you keep blaming me,” Andrew shook his head as he took a drag from the cigarette that had been half-smoked by the wind. “I didn’t fuck up your life, Abagnale, you did.” Neil didn’t get the reference, but he didn’t ask either.

“I don’t mean it’s your fault. You didn’t do anything,” Neil tried correcting himself. “I couldn’t help it when I was around you. And all I could do every second of my days after Oakland was blame you because I couldn’t deal with the fact that I let you in. Everything I learned, everything I’d done, you came along and turned the place upside down because I just had to know you. I had to.”

“Why?” Andrew looked at him with that same uninterested look he usually had, when a medically-induced smile wasn’t spread across his cheeks. “What made me any different to the hundreds of other kids I’m sure you met on your travels, hmm?”

“You were real.” Andrew scoffed. Neil frowned at that and shrugged his shoulders. “We’ve been through this. Don’t waste my time getting to know me if you just want me to run. You want me to get lost in the park, is it? Is that why you brought me here?”

“Nothing better than some honesty with a view.” Andrew tapped his fingers on the steering wheel. “How do you expect me to trust you when you’ve spent your whole life a liar? Be mad if you want, but I’m much less gullible now, you see. Once a liar, always a liar.” Neil sent Andrew a look as he hovered his hand over Andrew’s. When he just stared at it, Neil brought Andrew’s hand up to his collarbone where was a small, raised, pink scar sitting just above it.

“The motels phone.” Neil spoke quietly, as if Mary would hear, as if she was waiting to jump out from behind the car to take him and beat him again for letting his guard down, for being unforgettable. “It was the first thing she could grab when we got into our room. I never told her your name, and she beat me harder for it. I never wanted to let her anger ruin your name.” Andrew dropped his hand from Neil’s grip.

“Pretty unintelligent to take hits for someone you thought you’d never see again.”

Then Neil said, “I knew I’d never forget you.” Andrew tensed up at the almost-promise, and the memories came flooding back for Neil like a tsunami sweeping over every other thought he had. “I wouldn’t. I couldn’t.” Neil almost reached out to touch Andrew before he remembered the boundary Andrew had set that night in Columbia. Neil didn’t have a right to touch him anymore, and he knew Andrew noticed as Neil’s hand lifted and then hesitantly fell. “Tell me something I don’t know about this Andrew. I’ve told you my life, tell me yours.” He gestured to Andrew, sat across from him with an almost-frown on his face and a thinking mind hard at work.

“This Andrew doesn’t give a shit about what answers you think you deserve.” He looked Neil up and down. “I don’t owe you anything.”

“Why doesn’t Nicky know you’re gay?” Neil asked, instead of waiting for him to come up with something himself, it was much easier to get honesty from Andrew by prompting him. Neil watched as his jaw tensed for a second, thinking about the answer.

“Nicky is too involved in being the gay cousin to un-assume.” Andrew barely lifted his shoulders in the form of a shrug. “He hasn’t asked.”

“Why don’t you tell him?”

“I don’t ‘come out’,” He brushed off the thought with the flick of his wrist and a roll of his eyes. “I don’t fuck women in my spare time. Who cares?”

“Yeah, sure, but-” Neil had started to speak when Andrew cut across.

“At least I’m out to myself,” He nodded towards him. “You, on the other hand? Was it just Stefan who was into it or is the unnamed you just in denial?”

“I’m not, like…” Neil hated the sexuality question. It was confusing and messy and Andrew and Andrew and Andrew. “There was no one after you. It’s only been you.”

“By choice or by mothers hands?”

“Neither. Both?” He wasn’t sure how to answer. “The foxes are the first people I’ve let get somewhat close since then. That’s the truth. I haven’t wanted to. I’m just not interested in anyone.” The except for you part was silent, but he knew Andrew had somewhat heard it when he sat back, one hand on the steering wheel, the other arm resting on the door, as he took a deep breath that he tried to hide. Neil wasn’t even sure he was still into Andrew like that, because they were so young, after all. Andrew was still experimenting, and they never spoke about those kinds of feelings. They were friends who kissed each other because they wanted to know what it felt like. They kissed each other because maybe they thought they liked it. Maybe they’d have to do it again just to be sure. But that was so long ago, and so much had changed. Neil had had a crush on that Andrew, but this one? He wasn’t so sure. This one was harsh and mean, angry and unmoving. This one had been hard-boiled by life and wasn’t going to crack any time soon. He didn’t know if he felt things anymore. He didn’t know if Andrew was capable of a crush, or a kiss, or a simple, electric touch of fingers to skin.

Without a word, Andrew had switched on the ignition and idled the engine for a moment before pulling out and starting on the drive back to campus. Neil didn’t say anything else, he only rested his head on the window and watched as the morning sun slowly lit up the night sky, the dark navy blue taking over the black sky so slowly it was hardly noticeable.

He had pulled into his usual parking spot not long later, still not looking at Neil or speaking at all. He stayed still in the drivers seat after switching the engine off. Neil took that as his cue to leave. Matching Andrew’s silent treatment, he got up and shut the door without a word. Andrew had rolled down his window again, another cigarette already stuck between his lips. He watched as Neil walked around the car before he tapped the outside of his door twice to catch his attention. Neil spoke before he could.

“Give me a chance.” The wind blew his hair off his face, reminding him how cold it was, and why he should’ve worn a jacket. “Let me stay. I don’t have anything else.”

“Don’t be fooled into thinking I trust you.” He hung his hand out the window finally looking Neil in the eyes again. “It’s a matter of time before your egg timer runs out. Make use of it while you can.”

“I’ll bury Stefan forever, if you ask.” Neil offered in payment for the sudden change of heart in letting him stay, in cleaning his hands of the idea that Neil was after Kevin, or that he was a threat. “Say the word and we start fresh from today.”

“I don’t care,” Andrew took a long drag, one that felt like it was centuries long, like the sun would be up by the time he finished. He blew it out and raised his hands. “Kill what wasn’t real. Prove to me what was.”

Neil wasn’t sure what that invitation meant, but he didn’t ask Andrew to keep speaking. When they broke eye contact, he knew then Andrew wanted him to leave. Neil didn’t look back, heart racing, practically ready to burst out of his chest by the time he reached his dorm room. He opened the door as quietly as he could, careful not to disturb his peacefully sleeping roommates, and he crawled back into bed to try get some sleep before the practice scheduled for the morning. Instead of counting sheep, battling restlessness like a fight for his life, he thought of Stefan. He thought of the heart of Nathaniel that had gotten wrapped up in his blond hair and tiny frame. Neil fell asleep thinking about who he used to be, and what parts of that were real. What parts could he keep? His mind spent its last morsels of energy on dissecting Neil Josten, to make him feel a little more real.

The next time they saw each other outside of practice was when Kevin started coming to find him late at night to go to the court and practice together. Neil realised quickly he was going to become a night owl as a Fox, but it still took him a while to adjust to the late nights and early starts. But him and Andrew kept their distance; they didn’t speak if they didn’t have to, and their conversations were kept to a line or two each. They played their first match of the season, and Andrew had sent out shots for Neil like they were capable of working together. Then there was Kathy Ferdinand’s show, at which Andrew had hands all over him, holding him back from killing Riko on live TV. He had made a deal to protect Kevin, and then he was being psychically held back from doing so. Neil did what he couldn’t, and stood up to Riko, a conscious effort to gain his trust, to prove he was on the side of the foxes. Then there was that touch, that simple, light, barely-there touch, and Neil knew he’d won. He’d earned Andrew’s trust, at least for a moment, but that was all that mattered.

When Andrew ever-so-kindly reminded Neil later that Riko would find out about him, the original “Neil”, as easily as he’d strolled onto that stage to sit across from Kevin, there was no choice but to run. He couldn’t imagine any other option. His entire body went into fight or flight, and he struggled to sit still as Andrew held his collar and told him to stay.

“Why?” Neil asked, throat dry, hands shaking, after Andrew offered him protection for the year if he promised to stay. It was funny to imagine, as if there was anything he could do against the actual, guns-blazing, internationally dominating mafia. “Why would you help me?” Andrew laughed, and just about caressed Neil’s jaw in the most non-affectionate way possible. Neil felt his touch leave blood on his skin, but he didn’t flinch. Andrew was manic, and didn’t care. He looked as if he didn’t even feel the pain of a glass-shattering punch, and was actively enjoying the chaos that the morning had brought with it.

Andrew didn’t give him any sort of an answer until later that night, when he stepped into Neil’s space and told him to remember the feeling; Neil couldn’t run anymore. He had given his word to Andrew that he would stay, and as much as he had started to hate the Present-Day-Andrew-Minyard, he trusted him as a man of his word. Neil had killed the parts of Stefan that were untrue; all that was left was the real emotion he felt when he looked at Andrew. He was an asshole, but he was Andrew, and Neil trusted this five foot blond boy with his life. Perhaps it was crazy, perhaps he was officially, undeniable, finally signing his name on his death wish, ticking down the hours until his past caught up. Whereas running was his old line of defence, his current one was Andrew. Andrew was an unlit fire suddenly gaining embers, and Neil knew it was dangerous to let that fire grow. Especially when Andrew leaned over in Eden’s, crackers on his tongue, a drink in his hands, and whispered in German;

“Mommy’s not here to hurt you anymore.” Neil snapped his gaze towards Andrew, who was coming up on his high, speaking to Neil but watching the crowd on the dancefloor. His breath at Neil’s ear sent shivers up his spine, goosebumps on his arms. “My hands are open to have your back. Give it to me this time.”

[ecrivant]

execrated | levi ackerman

(levi ackerman x reader)

he was no more than an object of execration in the aftermath of you; 

the one in which levi immerses himself in nocturnal bloodshed to rid himself of you.

c.w. – graphic depictions of violence

word count: 2.5k

In the sink, saliva, sanguine-tinged, a grisly spatter on blanched porcelain.  Pain burgeoned from visage’s center as he—with hands shaking and stained red with blood native and foreign—tried to curtail the gore which madly gushed forth, like crimson water from dam awash, made that way through rain-soaked massacre.  Body before suffused with adrenaline now felt the seeping agony of ruptured dermis and fragmented bone.  The hung mirror before him, begrimed and fragmentary and missing shards from its bottom right, held in it his own demented likeness, from nose down drenched in blood-red coagulate and looking savage as if born into barbarism.  This redness pooled in his palms, leaked between fingers.  He leaned forward so his head hovered over sink’s bowl and spat up more carmine sputum and removed his hands from his face and with one gripped the bowl and with the other turned the faucet handle and left blood there.  The water, weak and cold.  He let the liquid run over his hands and watched it coalesce with what was there and trickle down the drain in pinkish amalgam.  In the washroom, a pervasive and ferric scent.  There were no paper towels, so he impotently stood over the sink with head ducked and perhaps misguidedly let the blood pour from him.  Feeling dizzy from blood loss and strong liquor and impacted temples.  He winced and contorted his expression, but it only bore another bloom of pain.  

In memory he sat on bathtub’s edge and watched you floss and listened to the brush of your shirt sleeves and your open-mouthed breathing and the plucking of floss against teeth.  Seeing your face only in reflection as your back was to him.  You finished and threw away the thread—pedal wastebasket’s lid slamming against tile wall before shutting again—and asked in a tone of joking condescension when he had last flossed.  He replied that he could not remember.  

And after he flossed to placate you, he leaned forward—with your body flush to and embracing his—and spat and saw blood in the sink.

He was reminded of you in the strangest of times.

He had migrated from the taprooms downtown that had come to know him as belligerent to the bars of back alleyways and lowdown localities where the population was less made of people and more of nocturnal wraiths of ire who, having long since ceded their humanity, now only knew a lust for blood.  These vestiges of personhood fought ferociously and with the desperation of a man who in balled fists held his own life, though they hardly cared if they lived or died, for life means nothing to those who have already forsaken it.  

—

The bleeding slowed as if his body grew tired of the exertion.  He reflexively wiped at tender features with the back of his hand and felt more pain.  Slinking out of a back entrance unnoticed, unsure of whether he killed a man that night.  He stumbled off a concrete step into a torrent and had to brace himself on the wall opposite. The nocturne’s deluge—backstreet, flooded.  He shielded his eyes from an invisible sun and regarded the pitch swathed in a pall of rain.  The rainfall on metal and concrete and the detritus of litter and broken glass unseen created the rhythm to which he blindly walked forward, faltering every other step. Senses overwhelmed, as he did not hear the beat and splash of lumbering footfalls behind him and barely registered the bottle smashed against his head until he was face-down in wastewater and then spitting up fluid from nose and lung as he was lifted by the hair and thrown against the wall.  

The rain and the night so thick he could not see his attacker’s face, only the glint of a knife in streetlamp’s diffused illumination.  Vaulting sideways he felt the tip of this shining blade swipe his stomach.  He ducked to avoid a swung fist and on hands and knees blindly searched for some defense in the remnants of piled scrap which had not yet been swept away by the rushing current.  Unfathomable pain erupting in the side of his head as the kick of a steel-toed boot connected with his temple.  He laid prostrate and dazed and heard only the deafening surge of blood in his ears and the rhythmic pulsation of his struck skull, and as he kicked weakly and at nothing, he felt the hulking presence of his anonymous assailant above him and found he could do nothing except wonder whether this insensate being would choose to with that knife gorge his eyes or shred his chest or both.  By inborn instinct, he rolled clumsily to avoid coming under blade, swiping the man’s legs as he did.  The man fell, and with him the sound of bone cracked on concrete cut through the roaring downpour.  Levi found the knife dropped and gripped it and sliced the man’s hamstring behind his knee and at once cut up the back of his thigh and plunged the blade into it. The eldritch bellow of a beast now enervated—the man grabbed at Levi’s legs, but he simply sidestepped and avoided those desperate and grasping limbs.  

Levi tasted blood and spit and said, “Pick fights you can win,” before backing away from the man and exiting the alleyway.  

—

In his wake a bloody trail as he labored up the staircase of his building, heavy and slow and uneven steps echoing against concrete and cinderblock.  During this ascent, he passed a flaccid and crumpled human form splayed, drunk or sleeping or dead.  He did not stop but in passing softly kicked the body with his good leg, and upon its immediate stirring he continued.  

He pulled his shirt over his head in front of his bathroom mirror and could feel the evening’s history in every muscle.  His body, battered and contused, and flesh already discolored blue and yellow and inky black; hair matted by rain and gore and falling before visage’s distended and ashen features.  His chest was sliced cleanly between pectorals—the mark from that infernal blade—with the layers of skin peeling open like a lipless mouth, inside raw and resembling offal.  The grisly lesion coughed and sputtered and spat up blood, and he cried out as he balled up his sodden shirt and used it as a compress, and for a moment his vision reeled. He staggered through his apartment—past the things you had left behind and he could not throw away—and located the means to suture his wound, leaving bloodied handprints behind.  He screamed as he poured the alcohol over his chest.  His hands shook as he pierced flesh with threaded needle, darkness creeping into his periphery.  Upon cutting the final stitch he promptly collapsed to the floor.

—

In a restless sleep he dreamt of the creation of your body by divinity’s hand, of the holy sculptor who limned the corporeal form which housed your eternal soul.  At times, those divine hands were his own.  

—

With each drop of blood shed he purged himself of you, and he would continue until all his blood drained or from him you were exorcised entirely.    

—

He awoke to his body adhered to the floor in a pool of bloodied coagulate.  At first unable to move and then taking several minutes to find within him strength to roll to the side and sit up.  He thought for a moment of the job he had long abandoned, of friends who had likely forgotten him, and could not remember his last non-violent encounter nor the last time words spoken were anything but vitriolic remarks between hurled fists—he was no more than an object of execration in the aftermath of you.

—

With enough liquor—as if the spirits themselves some heady and greening elixir—previous nights were forgotten.  Bibulous and newly invigorated, he prowled the darkened streets, hands pocketed, lusting for the bloodshed he had come to desire in the way he for you once ached.  The pavement underfoot slick with mud and effluent like some backcountry swampland through which he waded and searched for violence to placate his id.  The night was clear and cloudless but smelled of sewerage and remnants of rainfall, and the stars hung suspended in the firmament’s pitch continuum, supplementing the moon’s light now absent per a new moon.  Distantly, a bell tower rung three.  

He continued on and watched as the street seemed to come undone—road dead-ending with unfinished pavement, fiercely jagged and potholed and undulating as if there to witness the very shifting of the earth many times over.  The roadway’s ceasing was before a collapsing chain-link fence, disfigured and clipped here and there, which separated the road from a lot piled with soil and scrap material.  Remnants of some edifice planned but long forgotten.  With a running start he jumped and climbed and vaulted himself over the fence with ease, the mesh bending and creaking beneath his weight and clattering after with the tremors of his movement.  

The site was one of earthen topography with eminent dirt mounds textured by way of erosion and manmade footmarks, the land entirely devoid of verdure and instead landscaped with metal scrap and waste discarded.  Shrubbery of twisted wire and cairns of glass from bottles shattered.  He walked through vales between mountainous dirt outcroppings and could not see but for that dim, supernal illumination.  Hearing breathing and a rustling near him, he turned around and looked and squinted in that pervasive darkness to make out any movement but could do nothing as the ragged beast who produced the sound descended onto him from above with such speed and force as to bring him to the ground and crumple his neck and knock the wind out of him.  He gasped for breath as this hellish face pocked and scarred and seemingly without body levitated above him, eyes wild and themselves luminescent, aglow with a crazed fervor unseen in beings diurnal.  How much longer, he wondered, until his eyes would resemble the ones now before him?

“Y’re gonna fuckin’ die here, boy.”

Spoken not as a threat but a gleesome proclamation.  He felt against his throat the massive blade of a Bowie knife, no doubt used to skin beings living and dead.  Between inhalations he kneed at the air, and his thrust connected with the man’s back, and it was enough to knock the man off balance and cause him to lose his footing in the slick mud underfoot—a falter which Levi exploits, throwing this monstrous aggressor from him.  Now free of that savage embrace, he erected himself—looking like some devil from the bogged and muddy earth both born and emerging—and crouched with arms bent for combat.  Relishing in his opposite’s struggle to regain footing.  Levi could see the man had lost his knife in the fall and smiled. The sounds of squelching and boot-sucking muck and slurred curses were all to be heard.  He dashed at the man and in one movement dropped him with a kick to the jaw, and the man landed face-first and unmoving in the mire and seemed to sink.  He kicked him again in the ribs and felt them give.

He thought of you and was suddenly suffused with rage and raised his leg to boot the man again but was surprised and let out a strangled yell when the man with uncanny swiftness raised up and caught Levi’s leg in an iron vise and with his other hand drove a broken bottle which he gripped by the neck into that leg he held steadfast.  Levi felt an unknowable pain erupt in his calf, and his vision crossed and blurred, and though through haziness, he saw the man’s face—features vague and inhuman beneath a swathe of sludge, save for the feral eyes, now looking even more savage and like those of a fiend from hell, and a bleached smile which shone in the dark—and Levi, with this infernal vision incised in mind’s eye, fell to the ground.  The man crawled backwards and looked on as if an artist admiring his magnum opus.  The bottle had not broken off in Levi’s leg and instead protruded like some glass tor, and from this wound spewed gore which turned earth red.

He was in and out of consciousness and felt the man approaching but awoke to car’s rumble and was numb.

Climbing stairs with weight supported.

Sprawled on cold tile. Blinded by overhead light.  Anonymous hands around his leg, their tender touch. He felt these hands caress his face as a massive umbra occluded the glaring light above.  Eyes adjusting.  He saw you.

He awoke to a softness beneath him.  In your shared bed, head against your chest.  He was swaddled in your warm embrace, luxuriating in the feeling of you wrapped around him. You whispered and murmured incoherent nothings but in them he felt your adoration, reassurance, love, unadulterated.

And in some way, he knew he had already died or was a least on death’s brink.  For he would never know the pleasure of you unless he was.  And with this thought your image dissolved away, and he was again mired in an earthen mess with leg enfeebled and that beastly man atop him.  His good limbs pinned to the ground and form incapacitated.  Adrenaline and cortisol and all other chemicals in his hormonal amalgam coalesced in his bloodstream, and he found the strength to once again push the man off him, though he could not yet stand.  And against his better judgment, he tore the bottle from his leg and plunged it instead into the man’s neck, the blood of one against jagged glass exchanged for another’s.  Though still laced with that otherworldly mania, he saw in the man’s eyes fear, and then in those eyes he saw nothing at all.  And then the man was dead.  

He had not cried since the day you left, but he now found himself wiping at tears which were mostly mud. He dragged himself away from the man as to not touch the soiled blood which from carotid erupted and hyperventilated as he did.  

He wished you would rescue him as he had imagined.  

But instead he dragged himself through mire and finally came upon that chain-link fence which acted as entrance to the hell from which he came, and even through his abject pain he felt his violent id satiated.  He found a rusted and discarded pole and in one hand held it and with the other grabbed the fence and struggled to pull himself to his feet but did.  

He would not make it far from the fence, only having crossed the threshold of where the road which once seemed to unwind reconstructed itself, before he collapsed in carnage’s aftermath from exhaustion and indiscriminate blood loss, and again, dumbly, perhaps on death’s precipice, only thought of you.  Your unwavering presence outliving him.

—

hi there again!  thank you so much for reading!!  i’m sorry this piece took so long, school is starting, and i’m adjusting to actually using my brain again.  will try my best to keep a consistent posting schedule + i SWEAR i will get to writing the numerous requests in my inbox.  much love xoxo <3

masterlist

taglist: @flam3bird​, @sakusas-whore

[tfw-no-tennis]

mtmte liveblog issue 17

and we’re back!

phew I had to take a hiatus to work on other projects but now that those are done I'm baaaack

god I'm SO fucking excited for this arc, I fucking love it 

OH NO TAILGATE...I almost forgot...this poor little dude

REMAIN IN LIGHT BABEYYYYY!!! I fucking love that title, talking heads is probably my favorite band Ever, and that album is one of my favorites, so when I first saw it here I was super excited lol. it’s such a good title, both for the album and for this arc

tailgate goes right to cyclonus ;_; hhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

also...I just love the way milne draws cyclonus, he’s the perfect mix of terrifying and handsome, and also goth

ohhhhh I forgot about the framing device used here, with rodimus in jail later on in this arc, narrating retrospectively 

cybercrosis, add that to this list of amusing robo-puns, as a play on (I'm assuming) necrosis, aka tissue death

oof, ratchet saying that tailgate ‘lived a full life,’ which is fucking brutal because we as the readers know that isn't true :( 

tg is right tho, it seems v uncommon for tfs to die of old age. that's some shit luck right there, espec bc tg is basically a baby who was asleep for 6 million years 

ratchet talking abt pharma and looking at his hands...I See That

ratchets bedside manner leaves a bit to be desired hvbhjdsubfjsd jesus dude

and then there's cyclonus, whos also pretty terrible at being tactful

AUGHHHH and then cyclonus, like the emotionally repressed icon he is, goes and claws his own face up in grief rather than express any emotion to tailgate :( I'm in physical pain thanks

rodimus is like, wait...informing my crew about my actions? lmao? uhh what quest...oh yeah we’re on a quest. yeaaaah whatever man

the portal helllllll yessssssss

poor tg drinking away his impending death

oh man, chromedomes weird fucked up skeleton arm

rodimus hhvbhjaudsfbjaskdf he’s like yeahhhh I'm not even gonna pretend to indulge in democracy, we are GOING thru that giant ass space portal whether you fools like it or not

AND THERES THE MFING MOON BABEYYYY!

luna 1!!!!!! they found the missing moon BY ACCIDENT, fucking iconic 

still cant believe rodimus’s office is HOT PINK with a FLAME DECAL around the door. unreal

awww I love percy 

rodimus, in a shocking show of maturity, admits that rung was correct to be harsh with him about the whole overlord thing 

the squad gettin together ayyyy

rodimus reminding us all that this ISNT just a party ship full of frat boys, people have DIED

when you see tg and realize that that was cyclonus’s request ;_; 

aughhh and cyc saying ‘never hope. hope is a lie.’ that kills me man aughhhh

like, cyclonus clearly doesn't want to deal with the emotions he’s feeling over tg dying so he’s trying to make sure that tg accepts death and doesn't hope for a cure, bc that would hurt cyclonus MORE, and he’s already unused to all these ‘emotions’ n shit

I'm sorry but the MARBs just look so fuckin dorky bvhjakbdfhsf beep beep here comes the dweeb squad!!! lmaoooo

cd being like ‘can’t we just drive’ and perceptor is right there like :| LMAOOOO 

also I love cd saying ‘sometimes I wonder why we even have alt modes’ bc I feel like that's such a witty dig at the fact that in this series about robots that transform into cars, we rarely get to seem them actually DO that

its especially interesting when you consider how important functionism is in this story - alt modes are super important in that context, but we still rarely get to see them. hell, we literally NEVER saw megatrons alt mode, which is still crazy to me

ohhhh man I love that panel where the whole moon lights up, that's just amazing

congratulations, rodimus! it’s....a shitton of babies!

also broooo I ufcking love the fact that you barely even notice that rung ALSO hopped down onto the moon at the same time as rodimus...brilliant

god now I need to go find that ‘am i pragnent?’ video lmaooo

why....why did you have to use the word ‘fertilized,’ jro. why....

cold construction lore time!

do I wanna do my big biology speech here? I'm trying to figure out where it would go best...I think ill save it for later in this arc

god I fucking love brainstorm. his entire little speech about how he ‘went to marches’ for cold construction rights and whatnot is so funny with the added context that he’s an MTO and wasn't even around for that

skids, don't just sit in the spooky oil reservoir, alone, after you just went thru a mysterious portal, you should be more genre savvy than that 

what am I saying, this is the guy who wants his memories back even though he’s been told multiple times that it’ll probably traumatize him to death

brainstorm with the 0.1%er spark [eyes emoji]

I love percy just being horrified at the lack of proper scientific conduct from brainstorm like, all the time

I see the cons have their own edgy, weaponed-up version of the MARBs

MINIMUS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I love him aughhh I'm so excited for the stuff w/him this arc

also I totally forgot that you’re supposed to see him introduce himself as ‘ambus’ and be like whoa wait is that dominus????? or someone adjacent to him????

skids vs legislators: part 2!

P H A R M A

DR THOT HIMSELF.....back and immediately making a hand pun, with his chainsaw arm displayed in full glory....amazing

cant believe jro named this one ‘the fecund moon,’ which forced me to google what ‘fecund’ means, which led me to go ‘oh good lord jro WHY’ lmao 

I do love that we don't see the ‘part 1 of 5′ til the end - that's a great small reveal that hey, we’re in an arc now!

so there's the end of issue one of remain in light! aughh, I'm so fucking excited for this arc. my first two readthrus this was one of my favorite arcs (my other fav being the time travel arc), and I'm excited to see if its still at the top for me 

I feel like the first time I read thru I like this arc a lot cause I actually understood most of it hbvhadjkfbaksjf unlike all the previous stuff, where I was a bit more confused - at this point I at least had a decent grasp on the characters and relationships, so that helped a lot

also apparently one of the songs of this issue is ‘heaven’ by talking heads which AUghhH that song makes me wanna float in the ocean and look at the stars. idk. also I find it a little ironic that that song isn't off the album remain in light lol

either way I love this issue, strong start to the arc with lots of intrigue and worldbuilding, and clearly some incoming status quo changes...cant wait!!

[nighttimelights-prompted]

UF!Sans x reader arguing because Red has feelings towards the reader, but refuses to act out on it because he's afraid that he'll ruin/taint them, therefore trying to distance himself from the reader (who he was once close with), although the reader doesn't know why Red's pushing them away, therefore starting an argument. (I'm really sorry if there's anything about this that doesn't make sense, I worded it oddly)

(not to worry, i think it made perfect sense! though i suppose we’ll see if i interpreted the way you meant it. i’ve also got a couple more prompts in my inbox now, so thank you so much for those sweet people who sent in something! still open and accepting prompts and imagines, so let me know if you’d like something, ya cuties.)

(… and i suppose i would be remiss if i didn’t give a head’s up: prepare for at least a few feelings ahead. though perhaps someone would like to send in a follow up prompt with a way to continue/wrap this~?)

The low revving of your motorcycle was a purr compared to the gutteral roar that Red’s always held, but you still felt the blow of its noise in its loss when you cut off the engine.

Even when you tugged off your helmet, shaking your hair free quickly as you scanned the line of the rooftop above, the silence suffocated you. It was wrong, and every fiber of your being felt it; even in the dead of night, if you were here, your motorcycle parked alongside Red’s as it was now, the hilltop should be ringing with his brash, low laughter, curving around your own until the tears pooled at the corners of your eyes.

Heat prickled wetness at the corners now, but you blinked them away harshly as you caught sight of the bulky silhouette on a distant corner of the rooftop. You slung your leg over and dismounted, leaving your helmet propped on your bike. No one would steal it - there wasn’t another soul around for miles.

It was the quick work of minutes to find your way to the roof access ladder, grappling the side of it for the first 10 feet where the rungs were blocked by a locked safety panel. Your leather gloves gripped the edge of the building as you hauled yourself over, boot meeting concrete edging with the same confidence and anger you hoped you could hold up until he could get an earful from you.

Or a skull-full, you guessed.

It was naturally the opposite side of the building he was standing at. The bastard would’ve heard you coming for a mile, could’ve left if he wanted, but damn if he wasn’t still going to be just that much farther. You vaulted over the varying heights of the roof, easily avoiding the enormous dome of glass that sat over the gazing room. You let your anger fuel you, trying to focus on those roiling feelings and not the way you could feel your phone burning awareness in your mind from deep in your pocket, smoking figuratively with the echoing shots of your cracking heart.

“OY, RED!”

That’s it, let the anger keep your voice steady-

“WHO THE FUCK DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?”

You were almost on him now, the gentle light of the half-moon and stars silhouetting him and the roof in washed-out tones. The absurd fluff of his hood was spiked around his skull, his hands tucked into his pockets. The jacket actually looked… zipped up, for once. A small line of smoke drifted upwards from the line of fur.

“WHO- Wh-who do you think you are, sending me a goddamn text like that?” You reached his side at last, but quickly looked down to try and grasp at the anger draining out of you. “What kind of asshole leaves a text like that - ‘don’t bother textin me again, i’m done with this’? Out of fucking nowhere?” You resisted the urge to stomp your foot, but just barely. Instead you quickly grabbed at your phone, the leather of your gloves catching on your tight pocket for just a moment. You didn’t even bother unlocking it, but waved it towards him for extra effect. “You gonna give me some kinda explanation, or what?”

Sure, try and reason, that may hold back the prickling feeling in your chest. Your fingers gripped a little tighter at your phone as you waited for something from him.

You got a shrug.

“The fuck,” you said.

You got another shrug. The fluff seemed to stay a little higher this time at the end of the motion. Or was his head a little lower?

You bit down your inclination to swear again. “Red, c’mon man, give me something. If I did fuck up, fine, but I can’t figure it out or make it right on my own. Or is something going down? Why’re you pushing me away, after all the shit we’ve stuck through together?” Your voice cracked. Your mouth twisted in a grimace, but you didn’t try to restate it.

The twisting in your chest was only worsening with his silence.

It was a quick gambit you ran through some dark labyrinth in your mind in the next few moments. That stark first memory hit you - coming across him beat to hell and back in that alleyway almost a year ago, cornered by a handful of supremacist asswipes wielding knives and spiked bats, waving what you immediately recognized as a “Anti-Magic Security Affective Field of Energy” - AMSAFE, the shit had been named - and drawing closer, one of them raising their bat above their head. Red had wiped a line of glowing red liquid from his mouth and stood a little taller, and had grunted out a goddamned pun - “guess ‘m up to bat, huh?” - before you had slammed a stray pipe into the side of the bat wielder’s kneecaps. The chaos that had ensued ended with you slinging Red’s arm over your shoulders and hauling him to his favorite bar despite your judgement, the alley behind you echoing with “i’d offer to lend ya a hand, doll, but ya’ve got my whole arm already.” Fast forward to the next week, finding him in another alleyway, surrounded by a bigger group - then another week, again, before the next day you tracked him down through his flaming friend of a bartender and tried to get some answers. None of which you got, of course, but it ended in you getting his number, and vice versa - soon you were getting him human intel on the supremacists no monster could easily come across, which eventually spun into late nights spent trading jokes and stories, then meeting his terrifying and hilariously secret-sweet edgelord of a brother, then getting looped into movie nights with his handful of friends, and races under the rising moon through the hillside, and slow but growing insights into the hell they had all been through Underground as you leaned against his side, both your legs dangling off this very building, smoke drifting lazily between you-

“Give me… give me something, Red,” you said quietly, your voice strained.

He remained quiet and still for a few more moments, before shrugging again and twisting just a little further away from you.

“meant what i said, that’s fuckin’ all.”

You snapped.

In a blink, your hands were fisted in the fur of his coat. Your mind registered the plastic clatter of your phone striking the rooftop as you stepped to get in front of him.

“That’s fucking bullshit!”

Heat spiked at the corners of your eyes, but you ignored it.

He was taller than you by at least a few inches, something that normally made you feel a strange kind of safe and comforted, but right now it was just pissing you off as you tried to drag him down to no avail. “You’ve been acting weird for a few days now, and all I goddamn did earlier was send you a message asking if you wanted me to grab you a burger from Grillbz - and then, then you send me that-! After nothing, no signs! Hell, we just hung out this past goddamn weekend-!” Your face was already red, but you weren’t sure if you would’ve flushed further or drawn up tears faster if you lingered on the memory, on the way you had woken up on his couch, your head resting in his lap with one of his hands tangled gently in your hair, having slumped over at some point while watching Edge’s robot friend on TV. You refused to linger there though - no, your words were furious, but you were worried, the moment striking harsh and cold in contrast to your burning eyes, your reddened skin.

Not that you didn’t want to shake sense into him regardless of your concern, but if he would just explain, maybe you could knock that bit of sense into him and then end up laughing this off-

“finally got some time to think, that’s all. really was a bonehead to not acknowledge it sooner. we’re just different, too different.” His words were gravelly and plain. A clove cigarette, the same kind he had switched to some six months ago, hung from his teeth. The smell was almost nostalgic; coupled with the setting and the way his hood caught the distant light of the night sky, it dropped stones into your gut as you better caught his expression.

The twist to his mouth wasn’t the usual cocky smirk you had come to love more than you’d ever admitted. No, there was a wry sneer pulling his mouth to the side, just barely there.

It stabbed through you harder than his words.

“we had some alright times, i guess. but i’m done with it. done with ya gettin’ into tr- into knowing monsters an’ shit, shit that ain’t ever gonna work out. ain’t worth losin’ my head over.”

You finally registered the dead, dull light to his normally shining eyelights. Rather than a bright crimson, they were dimmed to a cruel crimson. Your grip slackened, but you refused to let go yet.

“Red, you’re - you’re full of shit. More than usual. Seriously, what the fuck is going on?” You tilted your head just slightly, your fists managing to grip a little again. Your brows had drawn down, and you swallowed to push away the rawness building in you.

One of his hands, broad and boney, swept upwards and brushed one of your arms away with frustrating ease. “i don’t wanna keep repeatin’ myself, here.” He closed his eyes and turned from you, wresting your other hand free as he pocketed his once more.

“I can protect myself, if that’s what you’re worried about,” you said, your voice scratching as the anger bubbled desperately in you.

He made a strange sound - you couldn’t quite see his face, and you couldn’t find the way to move your feet to get in front of him again. “yeah, sure. ya sure proved it.”

“... I know you’re better than this.”

The sound this time was a scoff, clear but for the muffle of his hood. “like i said, too different. ya won’t - wouldn’t understand.”

Your hands balled into fists at your side. Your cheeks chilled with a breeze that passed by, the line of tears running down them drying cold and tight.

“Yeah, I won’t lie. I don’t understand this, Red. I thought I got you, and I thought you got me… and y’know?” You laughed, once, short, choked. “I still think I do. So yeah, alright.”

You turned on your heel, the moonlight a gentle glow on one half of your face.

“We’re done, then, I guess.”

You didn’t wait for another response as you strode back across the rooftop.

Your motorcycle was alone in the parking lot by the time you reached it.

(... well, i warned you.)

(... anybody want me to continue this one? i might do a part two, leave me an ask if you’ve got something in mind or just a desire to find out what happens

[ghcstwriting]

five times watched. (( that sounds super creepy but we all know that we end up watching our crushes bc !!! sO ???? i'm trying to be creative here and i'm not good at it ))

i.

it starts innocuously enough, all things considered. it’s a poetry slam— you’re supposed to be paying attention to the speaker. it’d be rude not to. so sif doesn’t feel bad for staring, raises a dam inside of herself so that no guilt is able to drip into her and weigh her down as she watches how his lips shape the words he speaks. he controls the room without even seemingly being aware of his ability to do so; when he pauses, the entire room freezes, everyone holds their breath, going still, waiting. watching. watching him. see? she’s just like everyone else. even if her eyes trace over the shape of his lips, slow, careful, like she’s trying to teach herself patience. maybe she is, if the way her hand curls around her mug so rigidly is to serve as evidence against her plea of innocence. ( and, to be perfectly clear, there is nothing innocent in the shape of his mouth and there is nothing innocent in the way she watches him like a hawk. ) he pauses again and sif looks up, pulling her gaze away from his mouth to catch his eyes. she almost wants to jump back as if she’s been burned when she finds his eyes locking with her own. she’s been caught red handed. and yet, she can’t even muster the decency to look away— and when she doesn’t, he smiles.

ii.

if sif were a smarter girl, maybe she wouldn’t be sitting here. again. watching as he walks to the mic, easy, like there’s all the time in the world. like they’d sit here for hours just to hear him speak— and sif is sure, from looking at him at least, that his thought process probably doesn’t sound quite as pompous as she’s making him seem. it’s not her intention to. there is nothing imperious in the lazy smile he wears, in the old, worn denim jeans he’s got on. paired with a lisa frank tank top, like they’re taking a trip back to the mid nineties, and it’s glorious in the worst of ways because god, who the fuck wants to go back to the mid nineties? but the obscurity pairs well with him because he wears it as though it isn’t obscure at all, and it isn’t. not really. endearing. that’s what it is. regardless— it is maybe not the smartest decision to be here again, tonight, to hear him speak. to her, she thinks, and then, no, to everyone. to no one. to the moon and stars? maybe. after she’d been caught last week, she’d spent the rest of the slam pointedly trying to not stare at him, rushing out of the dimly lit cafe the minute everything was over. and yet here she was, moth to flame. he reached the mic and sif made it a point to take a long, slow drink from her mug as he started. she wasn’t going to be a fuckin’ creep. she wasn’t. the bottom of the mug touched her table, and she lasted what could have possibly been thirty seconds before she sought him out, only to find he’d found her first. she’d changed the table she’d sat at in the hopes of not being found. and yet here she was, and there he was, and neither of them were looking away from one another. to me, she thinks, fondly.

iii.

she’s almost too late, trying to quietly rush inside the cafe before she misses anything— and do you know how hard it is to quietly rush? it’s certainly not a cake walk, but she manages not to be incredibly disruptive, holding her breath so her panting doesn’t cloud the atmosphere and make things weird. sif always makes it a priority to take keir and visenya out for a quick walk before she leaves, and of course, visenya just had to choose today to slip out of her collar. the good news: visenya wasn’t hurt, and sif managed to get both dogs home safely. the bad news: she’s standing around awkwardly, lungs burning as she tries to quiet herself, and people are looking. it’s not the people looking she cares about, so much as it is the fact that she might’ve ruined the experience they’d been having up until that point. she offers a weak smile to anyone who shoots her a glare as she treks over to the counter, and takes comfort in the fact that at least the barista shoots her an understanding look. he’s a nice guy. she doesn’t recognize whoever is currently at the mic and wonders, with an odd spike of panic, if she’s missed ben. she picks something random off the menu, but granted, it’s always something random because she’s made it her goal to try everything on the menu. sif sulks as she waits for her drink, picking at her shirt. it’s the joy division shirt that everyone owns, paired with some old shorts that are maybe just a little bit too short, but fuck it. who cares, right? she’s comfortable. 

the drink is cold in her hands, and topped with extra whip, because sif guesses that’s the barista’s way of trying to cheer her up. her fear that she missed ben only intensifies and she drops into a plush chair and pushes her messy hair behind her burning ears. her phone slips out of her pocket easily, and she turns her brightness all the way down, scrolling through facebook idly. why does she still have a facebook? facebook is what you use to keep in touch with family and to see who from your graduating class is married, or pregnant, or in rehab. she doesn’t keep up with any of those people. lost in her own grumbling thoughts, she doesn’t notice when the person speaking finishes. doesn’t register the footsteps that near the mic. she just squints at her phone as she scrolls through her meager friends list. and when ben speaks, lower than usual, she startles and nearly drops her phone, almost giving herself whiplash with how fast she turns her head. shit. sif watches him scan the audience and is quick to nearly slam her phone down on the arm of her chair, screen facing downwards, and waits for him to find her. she counts, and it takes him about twenty five seconds to pinpoint her. he seems pleased to see her, and she tries not to look so flushed, so caught off guard. does it work? of course not. her lips twitch upwards all the same.

she settles into the chair, which is actually pretty comfortable, now that she’s not hunched over her phone, and listens with rapt attention as he speaks. and it’s.. different, compared to his usual pieces. not that she’s complaining, of course, but— the way he’s speaking now is like he’s making her a promise, the words rolling off of his tongue considerably more.. provocative. oh. oh. he doesn’t look away from her, and her teeth notch into her lower lip, and his eyes only seem to glow with the action.

iv.

it is a very lazy sunday, and even though the sun is out and a nice breeze is keeping the day just cool enough to not be sweltering, sif finds that she doesn’t want to do much. she dresses lazily, aiming for comfort instead of style. the joggers she throws on are obnoxiously bright and obnoxiously patterned, but they’re soft and light. her tanktop scrunches up a bit so her navel is just peeking out from under the fabric, and she jams her wallet, phone, and apartment keys into her pockets, leaving her apartment to seek out the thrift store. it’s nice, run by a sweet old couple, and it’s cheap, and she always finds something. the store is pretty much empty, and she takes her time wandering about in a daze, fingers tracing along shelves. she picks out some old books, the spines worn, and finds her way to the register. just as she’s being rung up, the bell on the door jingles, and sif blinks, glancing over to the door. in walks ben. because, of course, who else would it be? she forgets where she is as he makes his way into the store, the sun catching in his hair, not realizing at first that the kind old man ringing up her books has asked her how she’s been.

“oh, y’know. still settling in, sort of.” sif answers with a smile, trying to remind herself to make eye contact with the person she’s speaking to. she doesn’t want to be rude. she glances over at ben, again, anyways. he’s closer, looking at the small jewelry stand on the counter. she wonders if something caught his eye, or if maybe he’s just trying to be close to her. her head shakes slightly, and her attention is drawn back to the current transaction as she’s told her price, and she gives the man more than he’d asked for and tells him to keep the change. as she takes her bag, she makes a split second decision: she’s going to talk to him.

and just like that, as she takes a step forward, her phone rings. she wants to groan and stomp her feet like a child, whine that of fucking course, someone would choose now to call her. but she certainly can’t let the phone continue to ring, and so sif yanks it from her pocket like she’s got some serious beef with her phone, and answers it with a huffy “yeah?”. she passes ben on her way out of the store, still holding her phone to her ear, but just before the door closes behind her, she looks over her shoulder at him and finds him staring back at her.

v.

sif waits. and waits. and waits. and ben still doesn’t stand to take the mic. she doesn’t remember anything that’s been read so far. she’s too busy trying to sneak glances at him. he’s sitting a few seats away and to her side, just at the angle that keeps him right out of her peripheral, so of course, if she really wants to look at him, she has to turn. why isn’t he reading anything tonight? she’s worried, admittedly, and maybe it’s stupid of her to be worried because obviously artists don’t always have muse. maybe he just wants to sit and listen tonight. it shouldn’t be a big deal. she’s going to worry, anyways. he hasn’t caught her eye yet, even though sif knows he knows she’s looking.

so she turns, fully, effectively saying ‘fuck it’ to trying to be sneaky about it. what was the point? wasn’t like he didn’t know she’d be staring. wasn’t like he didn’t stare back. when he looks back at her, his eyes are glassy and far away. shit. he’s high. he’s high as fuck, and sif doubts pot played any part in it. they stay like that for the better part of a minute, just staring.

as the speaker finishes up,sif wonders what ben sees when he looks at her.

and then she gets up, and makes her way to his table, and makes herself right at home in the seat across from his. no use wondering what he sees, if she can just ask him.

“i’m sif.”

[autobot-ratchet]

Lost Light 4-6

Lost Light 4

they fucking figure out it's a ruse immediately lmAO like I said, Six-of-Twelve really just slapped together a fake alt mode for Rung

absolutely hilarious that out of the CyWhirlGate trifecta, Whirl is the one who's the best at communicating

ah yes, this argument lmAO it's funny, now I know that both Megatron and Rodimus are right about each other, Rodimus wants to get his revenge on Getaway as soon as possible and Megatron wants to put off his judgment at the hands of the Knights of Cybertron, but I remember when this first came out, I had full faith in Rodimus that he wasn't trying to brush off all this functionist universe stuff just to get out of here as quickly as he could. Granted, he snapped out of it quick but I was real loud about how I believed he never considered it in the first place lmAO rip to my past self, it's not your fault Roddy had a moment of weakness

honestly I'm impressed with how quick Anode and Lug became interesting characters, both as individuals and in terms of the overarching lore, like I said, blacksmiths are such a cool concept and also Anode is a likable person and she and Lug play off each other really well

“No one is telling anyone anything. Ever.” YEAH THEY SURE AREN'T, THAT'S THE PROBLEM

“I don't think you're trying to avoid your trial.” oh Minimus... honestly I think this also made me want to take Roddy's side even harder lmAO because I knew for certain that Megatron DID want to avoid it, he literally said so back when we first found the Necrobot planet, which made Megatron getting stuck here at the end of this arc even harder to swallow. It was definitely one of the things that tested my faith in this comic and made a lot of people bail

fhdasjk Roddy is so fuckin done with this shit and he is so right to resort to grade school tactics to stop Six-of-Twelve from monologuing, shut your fuck up, dunkass

honestly good for Whirl for letting Tailgate know what's up, somebody's gotta tell that guy what's going on

Lost Light 5

hfghjdk good on Nightbeat for at least trying to get Rung to open up but also don't take up the whole couch you ass

aww Rung honey...

good for Ratchet for managing to bluff successfully this time lmAO

also really love Ratchet smirking while Rung tells off the Functionist Council

love Cyclonus being a good leader to everyone, Roddy was right to put him in charge while the rest of the command staff are away

photonic crystal, that's what Rung coughed up. Also aww man, the fact that he started making them as a physiological response to an intolerable psychological burden... losing Skids tore him up bad........

“I woke up after being spiked” a HEE HEE HOO

“You're not accountable to them- You're accountable to your conscience.” “They ARE my conscience.” oooOOOUGFHDG *POINTS AT MEGATRON* HA HA YOU CARE ABOUT THEM... god and him specifically naming Rodimus and Minimus, not Magnus, Minimus

“If it's not the Decepticons, it's the Functionists... We can't help turning our hate outwards.” I've said it before but truly it is fucked up that Megatron or no Megatron, the universe was always destined to suffer at the hands of Cybertronians. Funny though that for this universe, Megatron is going to end the suffering before it extends beyond Cybertron

Lost Light 6

there we go, there's my boy Roddy coming back to himself. Shame he had to punch out the world's most rickety old man first but it's fine, he can take it lmAO

I'll be real, the entire time we were having that big fight on the Necrobot planet and using the spark flowers to generate the force field, I was thinking about this moment where Anode realizes she can use the flower with Lug's residual spark energy in it to bring Lug back, like. She's real lucky Lug's flower wasn't one of the ones that got blown up or used as fuel lmAO

Rung mass displacing himself to be big enough to punch the moon is still simultaneously really cool and extremely funny

I do like this little bit of dialogue between Clicker and Megatron, talking about how the opposite of functionism isn't lack of function, it's choice

oof, fucked up that Rodimus puts his trust in Megatron despite himself and Megatron ends up breaking it. Not on purpose, it's Terminus that tricks him into going to the wrong rendezvous point, but Roddy doesn't know that

man poor Roddy is just going through it right now, all these motherfuckers betraying his trust, purposefully or not

awww Ratchet hugging Rung is still so sweet, I like how it's the first thing he does, just makes a beeline for Rung and lets him know he loves him

see, now I can appreciate this moment of Megatron being able to do things over in the functionst universe, changing Cybertron the way he wanted to in the beginning, but boy was it easy to think this was the end of Megatron's arc and we were never gonna see him again lmAO This was definitely one of the things that tested my faith in this comic, I did not like the idea of Megatron escaping judgment for everything he did in his own universe, like yeah sure he's changed but he has simply done too much to justify being gifted a second chance like this without ever answering for anything he did. But now, knowing that he does come back, I can handle him being given this second chance and then coming back and answering for his crimes lmAO in fact I like that a lot, he gets to finally do the kind of good he always wanted to do without it affecting his judgment or erasing all the bad he did before

[autobot-ratchet]

MTMTE 17-19

MTMTE 17

“No cure for cybercrosis, but you can bet they've invented a million new ways to kill someone...” GOD. FUCKING. THE ABSOLUTE FUCKIGN STATE OF IT ALL I AM GOING TO CLAW MY OWN FACE OFF

“Not everyone's ready to give up on this- this very seductive idea that we're immortal,” he says while fiddling with his hands. Man he knew from the very beginning, huh, or at least had a feeling, even way back in issue one. Like sure, his hands were giving out, which meant the end of his career, but I think Ratchet knew his time in general was running out too. And getting Pharma's hands and being able to continue working never tricked him into thinking otherwise, just let him keep himself occupied while waiting it out

aaauufgdsjk Cyclonus is so upset... he likes Tailgate a lot but he can't bear to say it or to even properly express his grief...

Percy's smile is cute lmAO

Cyclonus is trying to give Tailgate a one-of-a-kind experience before his death...... aaaaAAAAAA........

to this day I am still so sad that Luna-1 igniting after Rodimus and Rung touched down on its surface was because of Rung and not Rodimus because I had so much fun with my “Rodimus knocked up the moon” jokes and it just doesn't hit the same with Rung lmfAO

“We could be looking at the next Optimus Prime or Ultra Magnus!” or the current Megatron, even

eyyy it's Dr. Giggles McChainsawhands

MTMTE 18

aww, Swerve considers Skids his best friend, they're both so cute

I love Swerve's big stupid blaster, I want a model of it for myself, where's that toy line, Hasbro

big fan of Cyclonus disobeying Rodimus's order not to engage with the decepticons alongside Whirl. Also a huge fan of Whirl asking Cyclonus if he wants to attack them with him as if he just invited him over for tea

love Rodimus cursing Tyrest out lmAO same buddy

God Pharma is so weird and gay at Ratchet lmfAO I said it before, I know it's actually pretty tragic how hard he fell off but also god. Look at this fuckin guy

I completely fucking forgot about Star Saber lmfAO

like. Pharma really did just remove Ratchet's head and spark from his body just for shits and giggles huh. I remember the first time I saw that panel with the reveal I thought Ratchet was dead for sure but nah, he's back to normal not much later and we just don't talk about the whole out-of-body experience ever again

love Rung subtly agitating Minimus until he snaps at him to test if he's actually Magnus, love that it works too lmAO

MTMTE 19

poor Magnus getting yelled at by Tyrest, it's not his fault the Lost Light is a disaster ship filled with a nonsense crew

Whirl was actually the first one to refer to Rodimus as Rodders lmAO I always remembered that as a Brainstorm thing

love Ratchet goading Pharma into putting him back in his body. He took him out of his body just to show off, why not have him put him back in, just to see if he can? 'course, it comes back to bite him in the ass but y'know

Whirl talking about how he doesn't get his claws replaced with hands because then the anger might fade and then he'd have no motivation is so fuckin real lmfAO I used to be so much more motivated than I am now and it was 100% out of rage and spite and lemme tell you, depression is starting to overpower the rage and spite and leave me not feeling much at all and it makes a big fuckin difference

aaaaaaaand rip Ambulon

eeeyyyyy it's the Circle of Light! Shame Drift got exiled right before we caught up with them lmAO man that still makes me sad, he was so excited to see them again...

YOU.

There's. Something to be said about Tyrest's bit about cold constructed bots being predisposed towards sin and that they'll eventually slip beyond god's reach, considering, y'know. Who he is lmfAO That's an entire post to be made in and of itself and I do not have to words or brainpower to make it right now but damn is this bit making me feel. something

and yknow what there's something even more to be said about Tyrest's new take on the law what with him being Who He Is. The whole concept of integration of religion into law (as in forcing the rules of your religion to be everyone's rules that they have to follow or be punished, regardless of whether they practice said religion or not) skeeves me the fuck out to begin with but this is. This is a lot lmfAOgfdhsjk a god not knowing he's a god but being a fanatical believer of god to the point of literal genocide is. It's something