#sure hes a little sturdier than most

[an1muuarts]

it was around 1:30 am when this was recommended to me

and it was actually scary wtf

(also cw for drug overdose if youre gonna watch it)

[chezzywezzy]

Yandere Michael Myers (1/3)

Word Count; 3.7k

Beep. Beep. Beep.

I rolled onto my side, hand slamming down on the alarm. A groggy yawn escaped my lips. Daylight cascaded past the curtains. Normally, I’d loiter a little longer, but it was my first day at a new job, and I was carpooling with Irene, a sweet neighbor and mother of four with whom I became acquainted.

So, I stepped out of bed and went to the bathroom, going through my morning routine with extra care. I was tired, but despite that, motivated. After all, it was my first job straight out of college after having received my nursing degree. Sure, the job would probably be more intense than most… but my parents wanted me to return home.

I finished up a thin layer of makeup and got dressed. I supposed that I wouldn’t need to be all flashy since I’d be wearing a nursing outfit upon arrival, but I still wanted to leave a good impression on my new boss, Samuel Loomis.

I took my time eating breakfast. I was quite nervous, but I knew things would go smoothly. Sure, working at a sanitarium could be unsafe, but even the most dangerous members of society deserve to be treated with humanity. 

It was approaching half-past-eight, so I zoomed out the door. Irene was parked out front and I walked up to the car. I opened the door, greeting,” Hey, Irene!”

“Good morning, Y/n,” the black-haired Asian woman greeted. 

We headed through Haddonfield. The radio was turned to a minimum. We made some small talk on the drive, eventually exiting the main town and venturing through some forestry. We eventually approached the Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. I fiddled with my bag.

The guards let us through the front gate after confirming our identities. Irene parked near the front of the dismal grey building. All of the barred windows were off-putting. It must’ve gotten cold during the winter. 

“I hope you can last,” Irene sighed. “This job can be… stressful. It depends on who your assigned patients are, though. Mine are fairly nice, but some of our coworkers have experienced violence. And infrequently, death.”

Shivers rolled down my spine. I mustered no reply. We went to the front desk. “Hi, sir. I’m a new employee. Where am I supposed to go?” I asked the attendant, leaning against the counter.

He sent me a small smile. “I’ll call Doctor Loomis. He always insists on showing new employees around himself.”

He reached for the phone and pressed a button, calling for Doctor Loomis. Meanwhile, I sent Irene off since she had more pressing matters. 

A middle-aged man emerged from one of the doors a few minutes later. I recognized him immediately, as his book was incredibly popular, even today.

“Hello, sir!”

The man sent me a warm grin. “You must be Ms. L/n. There’s no time to waste. Let me show you around.”

“Great! Thank you for this opportunity, sir.”

A tour began. I was shaking in my boots, but hardly from the circumstances. I felt more at home in the sanitarium than in any other place, but I was determined to make a good impression on her new boss. The tour seemed almost redundant; it was as though I hadn’t been thoroughly introduced to the map in my pocket already.

“I have a patient that I’d like you to take special care of. Of course, there will be others, but this one… needs someone with such a sunny disposition such as yourself,” Dr. Loomis explained. “I’m sure you’ve heard and perhaps grown up with the stories of this particular patient: Michael Myers. He is a renowned serial killer.”

“Yes,” I replied chipperly. “I’m looking forward to meeting him.”

“Good, because you are going to right now.”

The abruptness took me aback. Anxiety attempted to curl against my insides, but I didn’t allow it. We halted in front of a door that was far sturdier than the others; the door looked fresh and new, which told a story all of its own. Dr. Loomis withdrew keys from his pocket and inserted one. I couldn’t help but gulp.

The door squeals open. I anticipate the deadpan stare as the man and I make immediate eye contact. I had only heard of his strange mask, but never had I seen what he actually looked like: brown, tussled, and overgrown hair. A sharp jawline. Bright blue eyes. Broad and tall. Everything that, under normal circumstances, would make a girl’s heart flutter. But mine was still. He sat in a perfect posture on the bed, and thick metal cuffs gave him little to no freedom with a chain stuck in the wall. 

“Michael. This is Y/n, your new nurse. I hired her to attend to — almost exclusively — your needs. I hope you two can get along. Ms. L/n?” Dr. Loomis introduced, ushering me in.

I grinned, trying to shake off the nerves. “Hello, Michael. I look forward to helping you out. Take it easy on me while I get used to the job, alright?”

“Very good. Now, Ms. L/n will get your lunch medication.”

I was startled but eagerly nodded, having already been shown and trained the how of it all. “Yes. It was wonderful to meet you, Michael.”

As Dr. Loomis and I exited, I felt his gaze glued to me. It was rather unnerving.

Ten minutes later, alone and armed only with my alarm, cell key, and medications, I returned. I took a deep breath. Little did Loomis know, but I had a vague history with Michael Myers. Although we never spoke, he had been in my kindergarten class all the way to when he went on a murder spree. I couldn’t help but wonder if he knew me, too.

Under normal circumstances, I wouldn’t want to work at this specific sanitarium, even though it was my dream job. However, due to parental pressure, I was urged not to leave the area. Coincidentally, this was the only place hiring. Michael Myers was old enough that my parents didn’t bat an eye when I mentioned where I would be working, so it all fit together perfectly.

I entered the room with the small metal tray. Michael hadn’t moved an inch. His eyes bore into me — or perhaps beyond me — and his fists were still clenched in his lap. “Now, although I’m new,” I began,” I’m sure you know the drill. A few pills and a shot.”

I approached warily. Michael did nothing but blink. I sat the tray down on the bedside table, my moves calculated. I grabbed the styrofoam cup of water and handed it to him. He downed his pills with ease and took the shot like a champ. It put me on edge how still the man was. I carefully sat on the bed next to him.

“Although I was advised against breaching the five feet of the chain’s length, I hope you won’t mind. I just… wanted you to get to know me a little since I’ll be working closely with you.” His gaze flitted toward me, cold. “I just recently graduated from nursing school with a specialization in psychiatrics. I was born and raised in Haddonfield, the same as you. And this kind of job is my dream job since I believe that even criminals deserve care and to be treated as humans. So, Michael, I hope you understand that I will do my best to ensure you are well cared for, even in these conditions.”

As I expected, there was hardly any indication he had heard me at all. I stood and nodded. “Anyways, I believe it’s time for lunch. I’ve heard you aren’t allowed to eat with the others, but… I’m hoping I can change that.”

~~~

And change that I did. Dr. Loomis was surprised by Michael’s supposed ‘obedience,’ which had been there from the start. By the time he allowed me to take him to the cafeteria, I had been working there for two months. And although I watched closely, I had hardly noticed any changes in his behavior. My coworker, Irene, convinced me otherwise. With the dangerous stunts I’d been pulling proximity-wise, it was shocking that I had yet to end up like the others.

I wasn’t one to play dumb. I knew that Michael had the highest kill count with the nurses. With giant hands and a large body, he could easily overpower me, but the encouragement I’d gotten from my superiors kept me going. And today was major progress.

Guards clutched at his elbows as we walked down the sanitarium halls. I frowned slightly, knowing that if Michael wanted to do anything, he certainly could, cuffs or otherwise. I walked slightly ahead, having been entrusted with the keys to the cuffs. Although Michael would be somewhat separated, Dr. Loomis believed this to be major news for Michael’s rehabilitation — and now, the doctor was supporting me in risky endeavors.

I grabbed lunch for him as the guards settled him in the corner of the cafeteria. Eyes from the other patients were stuck to me, as I’d only been vaguely introduced. I. Mainly worked with Michael, although I covered a shift for the nurse who works with Marcus — and I understood why she called off so often.

Marcus was an interesting subject. He was a serial rapist, and it showed. Despite his history, Dr. Loomis often had female nurses working with him. And when I did, he did nothing but spit cruel, perverse cat calls at me. I heard a familiar whistle and knew it had come from his general area. I wasn’t surprised that the serial killer made me more comfortable than the rapist.

I returned to Michael with his food. His eyes bore into me, and I smiled. “Now, Michael, I had to pull many strings for this. I hope you appreciate this, but I’m allowed to remove your cuffs for a more comfortable eating experience.”

Michael's eyes flickered to his hands and back to me. I noticed his lips twitched, too. Progress, I chanted in my head. This was progress.

The guards took the handcuffs and held them tightly. They were trained to assess everyone and everything as a threat. Michael was slow and calculated, rolling his wrists. He then took his fork and ate. A sense of intrigue fell over the other patients, and some of the other nurses had their eyes glued to Michael’s form. They were waiting for a freakout that wouldn’t happen, either because Michael was making progress or because he wasn’t dumb enough to plan a breakout in this environment.

Mealtime passed without a hitch. I spent the entire time saddled up beside him. My job felt meaningful as I sat with him. When it was time for him to be escorted back to his room, I told Michael I would see about more comfortable handcuffs for him. Exiting the cafeteria was without hitches, minus a loud holler from Marcus, to which I couldn’t help but notice how Michael’s hands clenched.

When he was safely back in his cell, I decided to try another risky maneuver; I set him free from his restraints and sat beside him on the bed. Michael was still; he always was. I cleared my throat, beginning my typical speech of positivity.

“I know it probably seems silly to you, Michael, but I’m quite proud of you. I’m glad you’re challenging expectations here. You’re really making progress, whether you admit to it or not, and I thank you for that.”

~~~ 

Or so I thought. That night, my landline awoke me from a deep slumber. I thought nothing of it, deciding I wouldn’t be a pushover and pick up another night shift at work. However, the ringing persisted. And when it stopped momentarily, it came again.

I rolled out of bed. My hair was disheveled, and my purple silk pajamas — a gracious housewarming gift from my mother — were crumpled and twisted slightly. I shuffled downstairs, the ringing getting louder the closer I grew. I finally made it to the phone. 

“Hello —“

“L/n, you need to get down here right now! It’s an emergency —“

“Dr. Loomis, what —“

“He’s gone on a rampage. Twelve nurses are dead, and so are five patients —“

“I’ll be right there!”

The line went dead instantly. My mouth no longer felt dry. I was fully alert, although some sleep persisted in the creases of my eyes. I dashed upstairs and pulled on my earlier clothes, which lay scattered on the ground. With that, I made it to my bright blue buggy and drove to my endangered work site.

I’m not entirely sure what motivated me. I thought the police would better handle the situation, and it felt as though all of my efforts had been reduced to nothing. Something had set him off. But I wasn’t a therapist. I shouldn’t have crossed that boundary of trying to give him opportunities.

I pulled into the parking lot.

The moment I exited the car, I heard screaming. Several police cars were parked in front of the sanitarium's entrance. A group of police officers was huddled, but even they seemed worried. I pushed past despite warnings to remain outside. I dashed through the entrance. I followed the sound of the screams. 

And upon entering the prisoner hallways, I found her. My dear friend and coworker, Irene. She lay in the middle of the hallway as a twitching, bloody mess. A weapon had clearly been used: the handcuffs. Her head was bashed in, but there was also bruising around her throat. She’s been bashed and choked to death.

The halls were eerily silent. All of the cells had been unlocked. Some of the patients’ corpses were scattered. All of this destruction… was done by one man.

What had I done? What part of Michael had I unlocked?

I skulked down the hallways. Where were the guards? Where were the police? Where was anybody?

I passed by deceased coworkers as I skulked carefully down the hallways. Occasionally, some of the corpses released dying breaths, but I was certain I was following the blood. And then, as I glanced at the floor, I noticed the smears stopped and bloody footsteps began. The feet were large, and the shoe prints belonged to prisoner shoewear. I gulped, recognizing that the footsteps went straight toward the cafeteria entrance. Worst of all, if Michael discovered the back exit for the cafeteria staff, he would be free.

The doors were wide open, and one was even off the hinges. I stood in the entrance. It was pitch black inside, although the lights sometimes flickered on and off. The footsteps seemed to fade out very quickly into the cafeteria. 

I gulped and took a step back. What was I thinking? That I could confront him? The man was a mammoth and a maniac. I was just the nurse who supported his development. He probably hated my guts, despite what Dr. Loomis thought.

None of the bodies belonged to Dr. Loomis. So where was he? And where was Michael?

I wasn’t left wondering for very long. Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed some postils gleaming from the hallway to my right. The police were here, and I was nothing more than bait. No wonder they let me through so easily. Shivers rolled down my spine, and I took two steps into the blackness of the cafeteria.

As the lights flickered on, I saw him. He was holding the corpse of Marcus, that damned patient. I didn’t feel too bad about him, but I was shaking in my boots as the body fell to the ground, and Michael’s gaze turned directly toward me.

His expression had not changed from that of any other day. Cold. Calm. Empty.

And as though he was gliding, he made a beeline toward me. So many questions about his escape flashed through my cranium, and all I could do was freeze in place. A scream remained silent in my throat as I put my trust in the police to be right behind me. My fists clenched, and I opened my mouth just as Michael was a few feet away from me.

“Michael, stop!”

He did.

That made my heart drop to my stomach. However, I realized I did hold some power. I was waiting desperately for the police to enter and intervene, but they were waiting. I decidedly didn’t want them to and took a step back. Michael tilted his head, unblinking. He stayed frozen in place. A plastic knife with the handle broken off was in his bloodied hands, and I noticed some gelatin goo was sticking to the tips. His jumpsuit was drenched and sprayed, as was his face. His hair had never looked more tussled. And even without smiling, he had never seemed more gleeful.

“Michael, what… what is happening? Why did you… do this?”

Before Michael could even think, shuffling footsteps came from behind me. My jaw dropped as an arm suddenly looped around my waist and pulled me away. But Michael just stood standing still as gunshots drilled into his chest. And then, finally, he dropped.

~~~

“Ms. L/n, I understand —“

“No, Dr. Loomis, you don’t,” I pleaded, my aggravation present. “Michael is alive and detained. Something I did set him off, or he was planning it. Nothing I can do will help. I refuse to return to work. I am quitting, effective immediately.”

Dr. Loomis, from behind his work desk, suddenly banged his fists into the desk. “L/n! I know it’s been hard on everyone, but we need you here. We’ve lost twelve nurses. The nurse-to-patient ratio isn’t adding up. The sanitarium is overrun and, if even for the short term, we need you here. I know what we went through was hard, and what happened here can’t happen again.”

“But it will. Does anyone even know how he escaped?” I quipped snappily. “He never even managed to escape his handcuffs. He didn’t need to. So who’s to say it won’t happen again?”

“Because he is being sent away to a sanitarium called Smith’s Grove Sanitarium. It has a high level of security, far better than ours —“

“Good. But that doesn’t mean I am capable of returning to work. I am leaving now, Dr. Loomis.”

With an exasperated expression, Dr. Loomis grasped at the air where I once sat. I didn’t glance back as I exited the office. And I didn’t spare any moments to analyze my surroundings until I was in my car on the road heading far, far away from the sanitarium.

My parents, having finally connected the dots about my job, had been scared shitless. Luckily, it was summer, and the Haddonfield High School was hiring for a new biology position. I was planning to apply to keep things rolling. Deep down, though, I just wanted to ditch this town and escape the parental pressures I was forced into. It was a little late for that, though. The damage had been done.

~~~

For class that day, I had been gracious. I put on the Charlie Brown Halloween movie and sat at my desk. I couldn’t help but notice that as most kids were either passing notes, doodling, or watching, I had one student whose eyes were glued to the window. Laurie had her pen stuck in her mouth as she adamantly stared out.

Suddenly, Laurie looked rather alarmed and made direct eye contact with me. “Ma’am?”

“Yes, Laurie?”

“Can - can I go to the bathroom?”

I paused, glancing out the window for myself. A car was driving away. “Yes, Laurie, go ahead.”

Some of the kids snickered, to which I sent a stern glare. I went back to grading papers, instead getting lost in thought. Teaching was hardly my calling. I was a natural stutterer in the wrong element and did not enjoy disciplining undisciplined children. I also felt that it was dull to go back to the basics, which I would probably end up doing year after year with no change. I knew I had a lot of liberty and the job paid well, but it wasn’t like my time at the sanitarium, with doubled paychecks and a routine that wasn’t up to me. However, I promised my parents to stick around until a better job opportunity popped up.

The movie credits were suddenly rolling, and a student alerted me from my position. Laurie had rejoined the group at some point. I flicked off the television. 

“Well, since I’m everybody’s favorite teacher, and it’s Halloween, why don’t you all just head out early? Class dismissed. Don’t cause any ruckus. I’m looking at you, Tommy.” 

I sent a friendly grin, and the students whooped and hollered. Laurie only glanced away from the window and began packing her things. Laurie was a good student: studious, communicative, and attentive. Perhaps movie days just weren’t her style. Several students came up to talk to me in a line after class, wishing me a happy holiday or asking about grades. Laurie slunk out of the classroom quietly.

After the classroom had been evacuated, I sighed, and out of morbid curiosity, I wandered over to Laurie’s seat. I was taken aback as I recognized that the car from earlier had returned, but even more disturbing, a tall figure with a white mask and brown hair loomed over the vehicle. He made direct eye contact with me.

My brain began processing so many horrors all at once. I hadn’t thought about Michael specifically in months, but it all came flooding back. His history… but it was also Halloween. And no news had come to me about Michael’s escape. Not from Dr. Loomis or the papers.

Regardless, I stumbled back, blinking at the masked figure. We maintained a long, steady eye contact. Even when a man walking his dog strolled on the opposite side of the street, I knew the masked figure’s gaze remained glued to me. 

It couldn’t be Michael. It was a creepy Halloween prank…

I steeled myself and wandered back to my desk. I hurriedly packed up, abandoning the biology tests on the desk in a flurry. Prank or otherwise, I was thoroughly disturbed and wanted to escape that man’s gaze.

When I glanced out the window one last time, the car and man were long gone.

[gatorbites-imagines]

I actually caught you when your asks are open this is spectacular

I know you write for Plastic Man, but I don't know about Negative Man? Larry Trainor, comics or show. So you can do this with either one you want.

Male reader who's similar to the invisible man – Not criminal, maybe backstory, but at least was a scientist who turned himslef invisible but a tad more realistic, blind but in the more Matt Murdock way, or just blind, I don't mind either. Hcs or anything else of any kind, but hcs would probably be easier.

I alao don't mind if it's ftm reader or the explicitly of it!! So sorry if this is all over the place. I didn't want it to be long😞

Lawrence “Larry” Trainor x Male reader

Headcanons

I don’t actually know a lot about Larry, so this is based off the wiki. The reader is also somewhat based off the 1933 movie The Invisible Man but with my own spin, since I wasn’t sure what else you might have been referring too, hehe. I hope my lack of knowledge still makes this good to read.

I got major Morticia and Gomez vibes from these two as i wrote.

You were no superhero, nor were you a villain. You were just a man who flew too close to the sun and got burnt on the way to discovery. The sun had so much to give, something you knew so many years ago before Superman appeared, and you learned his power source was the sun.

You barely kept track of when you were born nowadays, there was no need too. From what little you could gather, you didn’t age, you didn’t hunger or thirst, you didn’t even need to sleep. But you knew you had been around before radioactivity was discovered.

You had been around before the major superheroes became a thing, it wasn’t something that interested you a lot. There were a couple you knew, like Alan Scott, and Jay Garrick, you had even met wonder woman once or twice. But you were no hero.

So, it was no shocker that you didn’t know about this so-called doom patrol. How would you. Its not like you owned a tv, and you didn’t care much for the news stations on the radio nowadays. It was all ads and dramatic sound effects.

You were never sure what to call yourself. Alan used to call you a scientist, and Jay did too even though he hadn’t visited in a long time, at least it felt like a long time. But you had heard he got married and had kids, so of course that was more important. You still sent them both holiday cards though.

As a scientist you had studied radioactivity before it was discovered by anyone else. You had always had a habit of being consumed by your work, so when you climbed out of your pit of research, someone else had already claimed the discovery.

It didn’t matter though, as what interested you was the sun and the power you just knew it stored. Of course, it didn’t end well. Going invisible, blind, deaf, and losing pretty much every other sense hadn’t been on your list of predictions. But that’s what happened.

You could still see, hear, smell, and so on… in your own way. It was impossible to explain, but you didn’t truly exist the same way everyone else seemed to do. The radioactivity from the sun had given you other powers too.

But those powers weren’t used a lot. Why would you need to fly, or phase through things, or channel the power of the sun to blast somebody. You were anti-military and anti-government, that’s why they never supported your research and buried your existence from the history books, so you weren’t gonna fight.

When you finally learned about this so-called doom patrol you almost felt a little bashful, or could you say miffed? It was like one of them had stolen your entire look. Well, most of it anyways.

You were both wrapped from head to toe in bandages, though his seemed much thicker and sturdier than yours, like they were inlaid with something. And his clothing were more modern, and looked more practical.

What could you say, you were a sucker for the fashion you grew up with. So, what if your clothing, furniture and everything about you screamed Victorian era. Some of the younglings Jay brought along when he visited said you looked very “antique” and that “old stuff is in”.

You also didn’t wear shades like Mr. negative, Larry, you later learned, did. You were blind as a bat and had no physical eyes anyways, so why wear shades in the first place?

It was hard to explain how your body worked, it had the form of a human when you wrapped it, but it also… didn’t exist. You always just blamed it on the undiscovered art of radioactivity and science so advanced the world hadn’t gotten there yet.

It did look slightly entertaining to see you in your Victorian era dressing robe, in a pair of your best slippers with a glass of brandy you couldn’t really taste, beside Larry, who had very clearly seen better days.

Both being wrapped in bandages created a kind of comradery between you two in the beginning. Lary had thought maybe you were like him, especially when you explained how you got where you were, since his accident was based around radioactivity too.

Only for you to shock him, but unwrapping your head and revealing… nothing. Literally nothing. You even grabbed his hand and brought it to where your head would be, only for it to pass through it like nothing.

Your body seemed present when you wrapped it, a phenomenon you were still studying to this day. Right now, your results were pointing in the direction of it being mental, but who truly knew at the end of the day.

Larry hadn’t been willing to remove his own bandages for very obvious reasons, no matter how many times you told him it wouldn’t hurt you, and that it wouldn’t matter. You were raised too well to make any demands.

Instead, you pulled out your very old photo album and walked him through your family, happily pointing out pictures of yourself and how you looked, only scowling a little as he laughed at your hairstyle and outfits of the time.

In the end you touched him by accident. There was some accident in your lab that tore some of the bandages on his hand, and without a second thought you took his hand and wrapped it again. Obviously, nothing happened to you, you didn’t have a body that could be hurt, but it was still a shock for Larry.

It shouldn’t have come as a surprise that Larry was as touch starved as he was. Not having any human contact for so long would drive anybody mad, except you that is, but you also were convinced that that was some mental result of your accident.

So, you didn’t turn him away when Larry would start appearing in your giant Victorian era mansion, far out in the mountains, so far away from anything that whatever radioactivity you worked on wouldn’t reach.

You also didn’t mind that Larry started searching you out for contact. He started small, just sitting closer to you as you had tea together, where it evolved to sitting up against you as you went through your papers, to Larry going as far as laying his bandaged head in your lap as you read aloud from one of your many books.

Larry was so sweet, in his own hesitant way. He even let you study how his own powers worked, but to no surprise you two didn’t reach a certain result, but neither of you had expected that.

Hell, Larry even got more comfortable going around in public, as you would hook your arms together and almost strut along, as if the wide eyed and sometimes hateful stares didn’t touch you.

That was also how you finally met the justice league. The only one that interested you was Superman, and he wouldn’t let you study him as much as you wanted. Your extreme studies of the sun at least caught Batman’s interest, enough for you two to have very long difficult conversations about science. You later learned you reminded him of his butler, which you took as a compliment since he was spoken so highly of.

The doom patrol wasn’t your favorite, you didn’t trust that Chief guy, and rightfully so. But who were you to tell Larry who he could and couldn’t forgive, you just made it very clear you weren’t gonna help that guy.

In the end, the relationship you two shared was strange, but soft in ways that was hard to put into words. Your first kiss took months to happen, as you didn’t have lips when you unwrapped your bandages, and Larry needed so long to grow comfortable to pull his off.

Holding hands, or tapping your foot against each other’s became how you expressed love. That, or giving gifts. You made place in your giant mansion for his many gifts, wanting to show them all off.

And Larry? Larry got a whole new wardrobe as well as many other trinkets he might need. You even dove head first into the tools and armor market, wanting to give Larry something to keep him safe. You couldn’t have cared less about the rest of his team, they weren’t really your friends, just Larry.

Those items might have gotten your usual Victorian flare to them too, even if they were sleek and modern in their abilities and storage. It was a bit like your way of marking Larry as yours.

It was still difficult for Larry to feel safe without his bandages in your mansion, not just because of how dangerous it was, but also because he found himself so hideous. You didn’t find him ugly, not at all. You also knew it would take Larry a long time to believe you, so you didn’t force him to accept it, just left the opportunity open.

You two made a strange but surprisingly strong couple, when you finally visited the outside world. Those few times were either to have tea with Batman’s very smart butler, or to blast somebody with the power of the sun for hurting your dear love. No matter what though, you always left an impression, not that you cared. All you cared about was leaving one with Larry.

[raven-at-the-writing-desk]

I'm not sure if it's just me, but I feel like Ortho has a few cards that have heal spells (Tsum, Ceremonial, and Cereburus). I'm either biased or Idia is making sure his little brother won't bite the dust again.

Ortho actually doesn't have the most cards with healing spells, but his Cerberus Gear does currently have the strongest heal in the entire game! For reference, here are the characters from most to least cards with healing spells:

6 - Azul, Kalim, Lilia

5 - Ortho, Jade, Rook, Sebek

4 - Ace, Floyd, Jack, Jamil, Malleus, Vil

3 - Grim, Leona, Ruggie, Riddle

2 - Cater, Deuce, Epel, Idia, Silver

1 - Crowley, Trey

0 - Rollo, Fellow, Trein, Crewel

While it's true that Idia has dialogue stating that he knows "this" Ortho to be stronger and sturdier than the original (thus a lot of Ortho cards having healing spells makes sense), I'm actually not sure how closely the cards themselves reflect canon?? There are some loose threads that line up, such as characters having elemental magic that matches how they present in the story (like Riddle and Rollo having powerful fire spells). But then there are some other elements don't match (like Malleus being OP in canon, but it's not like all Malleus cards are indestructible).

[thebluemoongirl]

Okay! These took a bit, but here’s the concept art of the main cast of the Poppy Playtime AU I’m working on! I love the characters in Poppy Playtime, but I’ve personal gripes with the game’s writing, so yay for fanfic! I really want to make this into a comic series cause I think it’ll be fun! I’ll make the villains in another post, but right now it’s the main group.

Info and pics below!

So, instead of using children, (not a fan of that trope in general), the toys were brought to life artificially through the poppy flowers, similar to how homunculi are brought to life through the Philosopher’s stone. They were created as free labor and spectacle for the factory and varied in levels of intelligence, (the big body mascots are at adult human intelligence, while the Littles are on par with kids. The less humanoid mascots, like Yarnaby or the dinosaur toys, are more like animals). Unfortunately, the factory keeps an iron grip on the toys and treats them as less than.

The Prototype was the first successful being brought to life, and all experiments were done first through the Prototype. After years of mistreatment, the Prototype and his allies attacked the Playtime Co. staff, leading to many deaths. Any remaining toys, regardless if they were involved in the attack, were sealed away and the factory was abandoned.

Cut to when the story starts. A human, Maddie, manages to break into the factory looking for any scrap to sell. She finds herself caught in the middle of a conflict between the Prototype, the Doctor, (more on him later), and the last remaining toys, led by Poppy.

Maddie: The young woman who breaks into the factory. Has a plethora of tools on her for safe exploration.

Poppy: Leader of the remaining toys. Travels mainly through the vents and uses a pellet gun to snipe enemies. Is gone a lot.

Doey: Protector of Safe Haven. Though Poppy is technically the leader, Doey has been juggling most of the day to day, making sure Safe Haven is supplied and safe. Keeps fists wrapped for sturdier hits.

Kissy: Protector of Safe Haven. Keeps spirits up and provides comfort. Uses a talk box to communicate, though can only do one word at a time. Tougher than she looks.

DogDay and Catnap: The last of the mascot Smiling Critters. DogDay is the main medic of Safe Haven. He also is the main caretaker for CatNap, who was severely injured in a previous altercation. CatNap keeps a ventilator on to protect others from his red smoke. Will only deploy it when needed as it is physically taxing on him.

The mascots are in charge of the care of the remaining Littles

[bumblebeesfromvenus]

Brick by Brick 🎄

Leon S. Kennedy x reader

A/N: The holiday season is upon us!!! This is the first fic for my Christmas event, Fi's Christmas Market ☃️ <3 feel free to check that out if you're curious who and what's to come 🤭

~ Fi 🐝

Warnings: pure, whole hearted X-mas fluff, Mentions of readers mom, healing Leon's inner child <3

Word count: 2.2k

Please don't copy my work! I put a lot of effort and heart into the things I write.

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫

.・。.・゜✭・.・✫・゜・。..・。.・゜✭・.・✫

December was finally here. The most wonderful time of the year, undoubtedly. You'd been waiting all year for this. The lights, the beautiful tunes, and the atmosphere full of love and warmth. To say you were ecstatic was an understatement, the excitement had been burning in your veins since Halloween ended.

You were itching to pull out every box filled with Christmas decorations and absolutely drown your apartment in red, green and gold. Your Christmas PJs were already laid out, same as Leon's, and you'd jump him with holiday cheer the second he came home. You'd already prepared some apple cider and a few cookies. It would be such a nice evening, you knew it in your heart.

The Christmas songs would fill your apartment, the spicy apple cider and cookies would drench the room in nostalgic aromas. You'd decorate all the cabinets and tables while Leon would hang up the garlands around the living room. It was always a dream you had, decorating your little home with Leon. And since it was you we're talking about, you also got him a little something. An early present, if you will.

There was this tradition in your home, your Mother had started it one year and from then on it was something you'd enjoyed greatly. It might not be the most festive of activities but it reminded you of home, and you desperately wanted to share it with Leon. Your Mom made a habit of building Lego sets together as a family. Sitting around the table with a cup of cider, yuletide tunes playing in the background whil you were constructing your little plastic house brick by brick.

You were a little hesitant to share it with your lover since the anxiety of it being seen as childish always gnawed at your heart. But you knew him, he wouldn't judge you for something like that. He would appreciate that you wanted to share a part of your childhood with him, you were sure of it. You had gotten yourself a gingerbread house set, it was better than a real one in many ways; more fun to make, sturdier and there was no mess after.

But what you were really excited about was for Leon to see the set you had gotten him. It was a police station. As soon as your eyes landed on the set while you were scrolling through the internet, you knew it was perfect. You had warned him about a surprise so he wouldn't be caught off guard.

Your mother had an entire village of Lego houses that she'd rebuilt every year, and you couldn't wait to start your own little village with Leon. He was actually quite impressed when your mom proudly showed him last Christmas. He didn't stop talking about it for weeks after, it was quite endearing. If you could heal his inner child at least a little with this, it would be worth it.

You'd already changed into your PJs. You would've exploded if you hadn't gotten something plaid on your body. It was a long sleeve shirt with gingerbread men and women doing holiday activities. Ice skating, shopping, building a snowman. Your name was embroided in gold on the front.

The pants were a red and gold plaid, matching the embroided. It was a gift from your grandmother. She adored Leon and said that when she saw the matching sleep attire, she just had to get it. It was him who made sure they were always ready when Decemeber was around the corner.

Even if he wouldn't admit it, there was something about the holidays that made him lower his guard and just be himself. Not a rookie, not agent Kennedy, just Leon.

The jingling of keys made you jump up from your place at the table where you had been waiting patiently. Leon stepped inside with a huff, closing the door behind him. His cheeks and nose were red from the cold as he dropped his bag on the floor.

"Hi, Baby-" he was cut off by a grunt when you smashed into him, squeezing him in a bone crushing hug. "I missed you." Your words were muffled into his chest. He chuckled before leaning down to press a kiss to your head. "I missed you too, but I was only gone for 3 days." He stroked his hands down your back. "I know, I know, but it's extra special this time! We have lots to do, come on." You beamed, making him stumble as you dragged him behind you.

"Slow down, we've got all evening." He chuckled, still letting himself be pulled along by you.

You and Leon stood in the middle of the living room, admiring your work. The space was much cozier now, decked with and lights and ornaments. "We really outdid ourselves this year, huh?"

"But we need to decorate, and we have to make a shopping list for presents too, and then I have a surprise for you, and-" You stopped yourself. Leon had just come home, and you were already bombarding him with all the things you wanted to do. You cleared your throat, a little embarrassed.

"I'm sorry, I've just been waiting all year for this." You gave him a bashful smile. Leon cupped your cheeks and pulled you in for a kiss. All of your worries faded away. The chains of anxiety and embarrassment shattered the second you felt his touch.

"Don't be sorry. You're cute when you're all excited, you know." He teased, taking off his jacket and shoes. A blush settled on your cheeks. "Your PJs are on the bed, I'll heat up the apple cider, okay?" He nodded with a soft hum and you pressed a kiss to his still cold cheek.

You squealed in excitement when you thought Leon was out of reach to hear you, but you were wrong. He smiled to himself when he saw you being so happy over something so simple. He loved you so much, you made his life brighter.

The Christmas songs were already on, and you were stirring the apple cider while humming to the melody. "What's this surprise I've been hearing about, hm?" Two big arms engulfed you, wrapping themselves around your waist. You swayed from side to side, pulling him with you. You poured the cider into some very cheesy Christmas mugs and set them down on the coffee table.

"Decorating first, then you'll get your surprise, Baby." You smiled, kneeling on the floor to start unpacking the boxes. "I can't believe you're making me wait. You've been excited about this surprise for months!" He argued playfully, of course. "Shut it and come help me with the garlands, big guy!" You huffed. You weren't tall enough to hang them up yourself, but you had your tall and strong boyfriend who would do anything for you.

And the little perk of watching his shirt ride up and his biceps flex definitely didn't go unappreciated. "S'not my fault you came out so small." He grinned, ruffling your hair as he passed you. You pouted and continued getting out all of your decor from the boxes while quietly grumbling. Maybe he's just unnaturally tall?! You're not small, you're perfectly average height! Okay, maybe you were on the low end of the spectrum, but still. To be fair, those garlands have never been up faster.

Not to shabby, having a tree for a boyfriend.

"Time for the present!" You exclaimed, already dragging him back to the table. You were quiet strong for your height, you've almost knocked him off of his feet once or twice.

You glanced over to Leon who had you pressed against his side. "Yeah, but's gonna be a pain to take down.." he sighed.

"Let me enjoy my Christmas craze, will ya?" You huffed. Leon put his hands up defensively and laughed.

"Alright, alright."

You refilled the apple cider and then went to grab the surprise. You brought out the big box and Leon's brows raised both in shock and curiosity. You heaved it onto the table before taking a seat next to him.

"Christ, Honey, what's in that thing? You do know it's not Christmas yet, right?" Leon chuckled, turning the box in all directions. "Obviously. But I really wanted to get you this. Besides, can't I get my boyfriend presents regardless of the time of year?" You smiled, leaning over to kiss his cheek. He looked over at you with a buttery soft expression.

"Have I ever told you how much I love you?"

"Once or twice." You grinned, before returning a soft smile. "Go ahead, open it." You encouraged him. Your heart was pounding against your ribcage. You really hoped he liked it. It was a bit of a risky situation since you were worried it might open an old wound. He tore into the festive wrapping paper, revealing the gift inch by inch.

You were slightly squirming in your seat, both from anxiety and excitement. He examined the now revealed surprise. His brows furrowed but you saw the exact moment it clicked in his brain when he realized what it was. His eyes lit up like the ones of a little boy on Christmas morning, and a smile tugged at his lips.

Leon looked over to you and you caught the smallest glimpse of a shimmer of tears in his beautiful blue eyes. "Baby, I.. Thank you. Thank you for sharing this with me- you have no idea how much that means to me." He said it with so much vulnerability and love that you felt like your heart was about to give out.

"Why wouldn't I share it with you? You're my favorite person. Let me tell you, my mom was thrilled when she heard about this." You chuckled, making him snort in response. His expression softened slightly, taking your hands and guiding you from your chair into his lap.

His hands wrapped around you tightly as his head fell to the crook of your neck. "I love you. You're truly something special and I don't intend of ever letting you go." His heartfelt confession sent shivers up your spine, yet your heart has never felt warmer. Your grip around his neck tightened as you pulled him closer to your chest.

"Oh, Leon.." there was a slight crack in your voice that you had tried so hard to suppress but failed. "I love you so much. You deserve the world and so much more." You whispered into his ear lovingly, you could feel him smile against your skin. You held eachother, wrapped in a warm and loving embrace a hallmark movie could only wish of replicating.

He felt safe with you. You were his great love, his home, the keeper of his heart. He meant every word when he said he won't ever let you go.

"Please don't say that."

You could feel yourself drifting off to sleep in his comforting embrace, so you decided that now was the perfect time to pull yourself from his arms. You were dead set on putting some plastic bricks together today, and if you regrettably had to leave your lovers embrace for it, so be it.

"You wanna get started on building that thing?" You grinned, leaning back so you could see his face. "Hell yeah, I do. Let's get bricking."

You were impressed with him, though. He had never done it before but it came to him so easily. "Well, I'm very good with my hands, as you know." He smirked, giving you wink before continuing to attach the blocks to eachother. "Can't argue with the truth, I suppose." You mumbled, setting a brick on top of another.

Leon had gotten the hang of it pretty quickly. Although it might be a rather simple concept, you've seen great men fall to the tiny plastic pieces (your dad). Leon was quite the natural. It felt like in the blink of an eye, he had constructed half of the building.

"How are you so fast?! That's like half of it done!" You were sitting there with your sad little gingerbread foundation done, and he was putting up walls and furniture already.

Leon didn't know how he ended up in this situation. He had just placed the last block on his very own Lego police station. He looked over his work triumphantly, but when his gaze fell on you, he made an effort to look outside the window.

You were knocked out cold, softly snoring by his side. Your brick gingerbread house wasn't finished, the blocks were thrown across the table, and you were in the middle of it, looking as beautiful as ever to him.

But what scared him, though, was that the sun was starting to come up. He hadn't noticed how late, or early, it had gotten. He had gotten so lost in this simple pleasure it made him smile a bit. Leon couldn't help but think as he carried you to bed, to finally snuggle up and let his body rest.

You had stayed with him. The whole night you had stayed. You didn't leave when your eyelids got heavy or the intervals between your yawns got shorter. You stayed, and watched him with a smile. He realized that he wanted this with you. A life with you, one that he would spend with you until the very end.

You were definitely getting promoted from girlfriend to wife next year. It made him realize what love could and should be like. He never thought it was in the cards for him, truly. But he couldn't be more grateful to and for you. He wanted to build a future with you.

And he would, brick by brick.

[meraki-sunset]

Hi Meraki!

Can you draw Carapaces at different points in their lifespan? I wanna see babies, kids, and the elderly chess pieces.

Sure bro. here are some chess people and some headcanons i have

🧸👶BABIES!👶🧸

It's not confirmed if carapace can reproduce naturally or if they can only multiply using the ectobiology machines.

On sburb, the chess people are born as adults and with a specific purpose, with a barcode on their wrist to identify the, i guess, model. So there are no babies on Prospit or Derse.

The babies the players made in the post credits would be the first carapace children to exist.

I headcanon that they're born with a full set of teeth that fall eventually, like with any other child.

They're a little more squishy than an adult carapace but less than a human baby

i also though it'd be cool if sometimes they got black or white spots

(Also, even if chess people remember living for years before the arrival of the players, they effectively began to exist the moment the first player enters the game, those memories being an illusion, same as how, when you buy a game and turn it on, the NPCs might tell you about their childhood, when in reality, they were never kids in the real world, they were rendered as adults for the purpose of being there in the game. The same happens with the chess people)

🎈🎀KIDS🚀🪁

Like before, there are no carapace children in sburb, but I imagine they would be the quiet type of kids. Not necessarily shy, but not very talkative.

They would have a lot of energy and due to their physical endurance, they would play outside a lot, sometimes a little too rough with the human and troll kids

⚽⛱️TEENS🎮👗

I guess this is the period where they would become more vocal.

Also, I can see many of them using a lot of hats/accessories as a form of self-expression.

Suction-cup accessories would be their own version of hair clips and scrunchies

👠👓ADULTS💍🎓

They're the strongest, a lot of them have more pointy features than their teenage counterparts, some may retain the round face into adulthood, but they would still be sturdier than a teen. Their hands have now fully developed claws. They aren't strong enough to open a can, but they can hurt

EarthC adult carapace specifically would be more talkative than Sburb's carapace. Also, not having a predetermined role to fulfill, they would be more similar to humans. If you dropped one of them on one of the sburb moon, they would stand out a lot.

🌙SBURB CARAPACE🌙

Just some apreciation of the canon characters.

i love them to death

👨🏻‍🦳ELDER👩🏻‍🦳

Last but not least, the elderly carapace. Sburb carapace didn't seem able to age, or at least they did so very slowly, because their purpose was to live long enough to act as sort of guides to the players after being exiled.

I suppose they can grow old eventually, specially the ones born outside the game, as babies, they most likely have a shorter lifespan that their Prospit/Derse counterparts.

Probably you can tell they're old because of the damage to their external carapace, which isn't as hard as it used to and their posture, product of time taking a tool on them.

As for wrinkles, they're only visible in their faces, which are softer for facial expression, but they don't even get that many

(also, just so you know i cried drawing the chicken grampa carapace, he knows his wife loves birds so he bought her a chicken, that's not exactly the kind of bird she expected but loves it regarthless, the chicken's name is gertrude, the grampa loves gertrude, she's a chicken orb, a chorb if you will. they're all happy, i would die for chicken-grampa)

And that's all, that's how I imagine EarthC carapace work. They're not so different from the Sburb carapace, but they get to experience growing up and deciding what to do with their lives.

i really love the species and i want to explore them more in the casu epilogue

[fr33time]

♥︎Happy Birthday my Dearest Business Partner♥︎

Divider credits: @enchanthings-a A/N: For Ritsu’s birthday that was a couple days ago! I really like him and he deserves a happy birthday fic. I got his most recent card twice on different accounts, so it’s safe to say that I’m happy with how his birthday turned out. He looks absolutely adorable in both of his cards, but he looks stunning in his knight of pentacles card. I’ll stop raving about Ritsu but watch out for the next couple days because I may release another fanfic (MAYBE), have a lovely day!

Genre: Fluff, oneshot

Pairing: Ritsu x !reader

Requesting rules here! (Read before requesting)

╔══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╗

Ritsu was a difficult person to shop for, even though you were business partners you weren’t sure what he would like as a birthday present. The general store didn’t have much in terms of gift-worthy items, a few knick knacks here and there but you wanted to give Ritsu a gift that he would actually use and appreciate. If you knew him, you’d know that Ritsu strives for practical rather than frivolous.

You still had a few hours before you met up with him at the mystery diner, and you couldn’t go up to him without getting him a birthday present. You looked in your wallet and remembered that Haru paid you for helping around Jabberwock despite the fact that the safari park is in a tough financial situation at the moment. You weren’t sure what to do with the money until you remembered what happened the last time that you two were investigating someone.

It was a few weeks ago and Ritsu pulled you along to follow some students that were suspected of cheating in Sinostra’s casino. He stayed 20 feet behind them for most of the day, and even got an R&R permit to get proof that they cheated, Ritsu usually focuses on his own investigations, but this was a special request from Romeo and he offered to pay double for Ritsu’s time. The investigation went on with little to no evidence, the students had wallets full of cash but you two had no way to prove that they cheated unless they admitted to it on Ritsu’s recorder.

Both of you stopped at a store nearby because Ritsu needed new stationary items. He makes sure to compare items and check reviews to get the most use out of his pens and notebooks.

“Hm…” Ritsu pondered to himself as he looked at two different brands of soft-ring notebooks. “This one has sturdier pages but less pages, and it looks like pen ink will leak through this one if you use the wrong brand but it has more pages.” He looked so serious when he was comparing the two items, deciding which one is worth his time. He turned to you and gave you both of the notebooks, “Tell me what you think MC.”

You looked through both of them but took more interest in the book with sturdier pages. “This one looks better, even though it costs more and has less pages I feel like you should stick to quality over quantity if you’re writing with pen. You don’t want the ink to bleed through and make it harder to read your work.” You handed the sturdier book to Ritsu and he took it in his own with a smile on his face.

“I’ll get 3 then, you can never be too prepared.” He took off to the cash register and paid for his new notebooks and a few other things that he needed. It felt special that Ritsu asked you for your input, even if it was for something as meaningless as stationary. While you were waiting for the worker to scan his items, you caught Ritsu looking at a box intently. You looked closed and realized that he was looking at a fountain pen, it was an expensive one that costed way more than what Ritsu bought his books for. It was probably more than what he brought on your trip outside of the academy. You see Ritsu use that brand for his pens, and even though he looked like he wanted it, he dismissed it and walked back to the train station.

You closed your wallet and decided the perfect gift for Ritsu, it wouldn’t be too difficult to get an R&R permit so you walked straight to the offices to get approved.

-

You walked into the mystery diner with a box and a small note in your back pocket, you didn’t want Ritsu to see what you got him yet. As you approached him, you saw various papers set up on the table you two sat at, how curious. You slipped into the seat on the opposite side of the booth and picked up a document to look at its contents.

“I got voice recordings and photo evidence of those two students cheating in the casino. I’m finalizing the papers now and I need you to look through them.” You looked at him a bit dumbfounded, and looked through the photos that he took. “You’re working on your birthday?”

“Work hours aren’t over yet, and I won’t rest until there’s justice.” You smiled a bit at his antics, of course he’s working. You pulled your present from your back pocket and kept it hidden under the table, “Before I read these over, I want to give you something.” Ritsu questioned you as you got up from the booth and sat beside him, holding out your gift for him.

“Happy Birthday Ritsu, I want you to open it here.” You looked at him expectedly, waiting for him to take it. He hesitated for a moment but took it and looked at the note that was written on the box.

“Happy Birthday my dearest business partner, you deserve it =)

-From, MC”

A small blush crept on his face while reading the note, carefully opening the box to reveal the fountain pen he longed for in the store.

There was silence as Ritsu’s eyes widened and went to open the package and put the ink cartridge in the pen. He waited for a few minutes for the ink to set in and spoke up, “You went to the store for this?” He looked you in the eyes and the small blush was still evident on his face. You nodded your head and smiled at him. He looked through the binder he carried around with him, and opened it up to grab a scrap piece of paper. He took the pen in his hand and drew a few lines to let the ink flow and wrote his signature.

“It’s comfortable in my hand and the flow of the pen is beyond adequate, thank you for the gift, it’s lovely.” Ritsu’s gaze softened and he flashed you a small smile. You blushed and returned the gesture to him, he really just said that your gift was lovely!

“Well.. I can read those documents now and see if everything is in order.” You picked up a small pile of papers and straightened them on the table to signify that you want to get to business. “Perfect, we’ll submit them after checking how fool proof this evidence is.”

You two found comfort in working beside each other, he didn’t notice how close you two got after a certain point. Whenever you looked over you saw Ritsu using his new fountain pen to sign papers.

╚══ஓ๑♡๑ஓ══╝

[yuenthevoices]

Okay so I haven't seen Transformers One yet (just had midterms) but honestly from the bits i've seen of it - from movie clips on tiktok to some of the hilarious promo stuff they have Bee do - i'm ABSOLUTELY in love with it. some of my favorite stuff i've seen are the little, more niche details i don't see enough of that really show how much care has actually been put into the movie. don't worry, no spoilers for the actual movie - mostly about official promo clips and such.

for example, i saw a bit of an interview where it's said the animation team all grew up with transformers, and were even fighting to animate their favs. there was also another interview i saw where someone - i believe a story boarder/director - seemed genuinely pretty sad that they couldn't do the Megatron gladiator and Orion Pax archivist backstories because it would make the movie too long. like, there is just so much genuine love for the franchise that makes the movie so good and so interesting its crazy like ahduaogeuaisahe

alright alright so enough of my rant i know some of y'all are here for the x reader stuff soooo here's some TF One headcanons! also do keep in mind that this is from my very limited knowledge of the movie characters so prob oc? if they were to somehow meet humans

B-127 (Badassatron)

first off, he's such a silly guy and so adhd coded

but honestly, as a human, be just a bit careful around him, seeing as he accidentally knife-handed quite a few people, and some on purpose

he'd either be as clumsy as he is with his friends that he built, or would literally be too scared to get within touching distance of a human

if you want to get closer to him, honestly just listen to him - with some small input here and there to show you're listening - and he'd want to hang around you a lot more

really, just be nice, don't baby him, and let him yap as much as he wants - bonus points if you sometimes yap to him as well, i'm sure he'd be a great listening, with a lot of input from him, of course

Elita One

honestly, i wish i knew or could tell more about her, but any clips or trailers i've seen her in are pretty limited glimpses into her character

the trait i see the most from these glimpses however, is how she's ambitious and diligent

she'd probably respect you a great deal if you're as ambitious and diligent as she is, and would probably be a bit proud if you compliment her work ethic as well

i think she'd like someone who matches her, aiming for higher goals with the work and strength to prove it - especially since you're a human

bonus points if you can kick ass as well

D-16

similar case to Elita, except i think i have a bit more to go off of, considering how much he shows up in promo trailers and stuff

honestly, kinda hard for me to say?

again, i think he'd appreciate someone similar to him, considering how much time he spends with orion, it'd be a nice change of pace

someone who won't take bs, maybe a teeny bit of malicious compliance, and someone who doesn't try to hide their opinions

considering how mush shit miners seem to take from those who can transform, seeing someone else - especially some smaller, squisher being - being proactive and not taking shit, he'd probably be interested

Orion Pax

ok so only doing orion pax and not optimus prime because in total i've only seen like 3 clips of him as optimus soooo yea

i could see him with a jokester kind of person, but also with a more calm caretaker kind of person as well

being a jokester with him would be fun, and he'd probably have no problem with carrying you around to places for plans

being a calm caretaker would possibly be a little more stressful, but still fun with him nonetheless

either way, he'd still be somewhat careful, keeping in mind that he is much larger and sturdier than humans are

just don't play dead on him please, he'd genuinely freak out and run you over to D-16 and ask him what's wrong (D-16 probably won't find it nearly as funny lol)

[devildomwriter]

Riding Through a Winter Wonder Land | Mephistopheles x Reader

800+ Words | GN! MC | CW: mildly suggestive

It had been snowing since the previous morning and the Devildom was covered in a thin layer of beautiful snow. In the absence of sunlight, it wouldn’t melt until the weather warmed again. It was only cold thanks to Diavolo attempting to provide seasonal familiarity to the RAD exchange students, more specifically you. But the event of snow was something everyone found joy in. Some preferred shutting themselves in their rooms, some slept through it until it disappeared, and others, like yourself and Mephistopheles, thought it would be the most perfect time for horseback riding.

“I can’t say I’ve gone riding in the snow for millennia now. Why I must’ve been the last cold snap where there was any sign of snow and it was mostly ice then. What a wonderful opportunity Diavolo has given us, wouldn’t you agree?”

You nodded and listened to your boyfriend sing his friend’s praises. He was right though. Seeing his horses gallop through the field in the unfamiliar snow was a beautiful sight to behold. It was even more fun watching it all while riding horseback leaning against Mephistopheles’s chest.

Devildom horses were a tad bigger than ones from the human world and much sturdier. This mare had no trouble with two or more guests at once and was comfortable with the special saddle she’d been fitted in today. Mephistopheles had made it just for the two of you in anticipation of today.

You didn’t need to look directly at him to know he was beaming as the mare left the stables down the horse trail.

“Shall we have a ride through the forest first?” He asked you and you looked up a him and nodded, smiling.

He gave you a gentle smile and lightly kicked the mare’s side so she’d quicken her trot towards the woods.

As you rested against Mephistopheles he proceeded to give you a detailed explanation of the land topography, the history of the woods, the stables, and more as he loved to do. You were never more than a minute away from Mephistopheles’ trivial lectures. He loved to show off how much he knew, especially to you whom he most wanted to impress.

“Look, there,” he said in a hushed voice and pulled the mare’s reigns to stop her. You followed his finger to a tree where a small magenta bird hopped.

“I’ve never seen one like that…” The size of a finch and such an unusual color, the bird certainly didn’t exist in the human world.

“Yes, I rarely see them, how amazing it’s come out this late in the year,” he said with satisfaction.

“What is it called?”

“A bell-chime bird, because their wing flutter is barely enough to make wind chimes ring,” he explained with a huge grin.

“You see such beautiful things in the Devildom, huh?” You commented and he nodded.

“Yes, although I don’t recommend looking up pictures of its mouth.”

“Why…”

“Well, let’s just say there are tentacles involved…” he looked like he was remembering being told Santa wasn’t real.

“I think I’ll take your word for it…” you decided and Mephistopheles kicked the mare’s side to continue your path.

You weren’t sure how long you were out there but the snow slowly increased on the ground although the faint snowfall didn’t harshen. The world was becoming more quiet as the snow absorbed the sound and the darker-colored creatures of the Devildom were in plain view thanks to the bright moon.

“Are you getting tired?” Mephistopheles asked you as you neared the end of the trail.

“Not really, why?”

Mephistopheles blushed, “I was only making sure you were okay.” Mephistopheles always seemed to be concerned with whether or not you were enjoying yourself. He was a very doting boyfriend in that sense if not also a little nosy.

The stables of Mephistopheles mansion came into view again and you grinned up at your boyfriend and the snowflakes in his hair.

“Hm, what is it?” He asked seeing your playful grin.

“You know, Mephisto…as much as I loved riding horses there’s something else I’d like to ride.” You whispered.

“Oh? Whatever you wish to ride I can make it happen,” he said confidently.

You grinned triumphantly, “Promise?”

“Yes, of course; camel, llama, elephant, unicorn, anything at all!” he had his hand in his pocket ready to pull out his D.D.D. and make it happen. “So what is it you’d like to ride next?”

“You,” you say cheekily and you watch his calm composure fall apart as he turns a deep shade of red.

“I— well I— I… now I can’t …I can’t say I don’t agree…that…that that’d be more,” he clears his throat, “___…you really have a way of throwing me off, you know?”

You laughed and felt him prod the horse to quicken its pace.

“So is that a no…?” You tease.

“It’s a yes,” he said sharply, face beat red, “at least wait until we’ve finished with our horse-riding. Honestly, what am I going to do with you?”

[tuffgreg]

can I get uhhhh astarion mad horny over gales titties with a side of wet undershirt

ya ilu

bloodweave + astarion NOT having any thoughts at ALL about wet t-shirt gale + rated m + 908 words

Nobody should be attractive when they’re sopping wet. Astarion certainly isn’t, as many people over the course of his long life have taken pains to inform him – drowned rat (Godey), drowned cat (many people, including more than one today alone), waterlogged guinea fowl, some things best left unsaid in polite company. 

He doesn’t really know what he looks like, but he can imagine it distantly from the way his hair is plastered to his face and how it feels as if his sopping wet shirt is sticking to each of his ribs. Utterly pathetic as he wrings himself out of his weighed down armor. 

Most of them look the same. Shadowheart seemed particularly stricken, ten pounds of braids certainly now twice as heavy as she skittered off into one of the abandoned homes to make camp over whatever’s left of the roof. 

Gale, though. Gale, it seems, wears waterlogged exceptionally well, which is beyond obnoxious given how insufferably verbose he is. 

They are not camping together, of course, because any opportunity to put even the illusion of a wall sturdier than canvas between each other is still welcome to everyone at camp these days. But they are across from each other, the window of Astarion’s sad little half-hovel looking out onto a building with most of the door and front facings gone, but quite a sturdy roof left over most of the back – enough to be dry enough for Gale’s tastes, it seems. 

If he were a man of more propriety Astarion would perhaps feel a bit bad about looking, but he is not, and surely enough has had enough liberties taken from him to be entitled to a little harmless gazing. Besides, for it to matter Astarion would have to enjoy the looking, which he certainly doesn’t. 

He does not have anything nice to say for the way Gale’s hair curls and clings to his face as he shakes it loose from its bun. He does not have a pleasant word at all for the way Gale’s back shifts as he peels out of his well-tailored robe. 

Astarion certainly isn’t sparing a single thought for Gale’s neat white undershirt, soaked so thoroughly it seems nearly see-through in spots, clinging to his torso. 

Even from this distance the thrum of whatever the thing in his chest is is evident – a glimmer of dim purple, perhaps responding to whatever magic Gale is certainly using to warm himself up. The faint glow is visible just beneath the collar of his shirt, and if Astarion’s eyes drift any lower – assessing the smattering of dark hair there, or the way his shirt hugs the not-at-all enticing curve of his chest or spread of his stomach – well, the trailing edge of the mark is a guide one’s eyes can’t help but trace. 

He smells terrible, constantly, does Gale Dekarios, and Astarion pretends it’s a reflection of Gale’s absolutely exhausting personality and not an unfortunate side-effect of the weave-poisoned sludge in his veins. From a distance, though: there’s something to be said about him. A stocky build, thick thighs and a broad chest. 

It would be easy enough to write him off as some posh, soft academic or aristocrat, but Astarion has seen plenty of those in myriad shapes and, to Gale Dekarios’ credit, he seems startlingly resilient despite the occasional complaint about his knees. He might be charming, in a world where he was capable of exercising some restraint or of reading a room. 

Easy enough to coax him somewhere private on some miserable, wet Baldurian evening. A glass of wine, a coy smile, what a shame, I just booked the last room. It might be nice, to curl his fingers in the fine linen of his robe and slide Gale out of it, perhaps nicer still to trace his fingers over the thin, wet splotches of his undershirt, cataloguing every spot that makes Gale shiver and squirm. 

To pin him to the bed, Gale’s magic-calloused hands at his hips as Astarion palms Gale’s tits and grinds against his thigh. Please, Astarion, in Gale’s breathless, low voice, making Astarion’s ear twitch beneath Gale’s hot, needy exhale. What a handful he’d be, and how exquisite for Astarion to sink his fangs into soft luscious fat and –

Something hits the remains of the broken window with a loud tink, and Astarion’s fantasy is replaced with the scent memory of Gale’s foul blood and the auditory memory of his terrible rambling. He is not well-fed enough to blush, fortunately, and he quickly shapes his face into something that feels annoyed as his vision comes into focus. 

Gale is watching him, a hint of smug amusement in his expression. He has a hand in front of him, some pebble or trinket floating there for a repeat performance of whatever he tossed to get Astarion’s attention the first time. 

Astarion scowls. Gale tosses it aside and sheds his white undershirt as he turns away, hanging it up on something unseen. He looks back to the window before retreating to his tent, staring at Astarion for not even a fraction as long as Astarion certainly must have been staring at him with an arched eyebrow. 

Astarion watches him, and looks to the door, and the soaking rain and the fact that he’s mostly undressed. 

After a beat, he stalks outside and slams the shutters shut with a thud to the sound of Shadowheart’s surprised yelp and Gale’s faint laughter.

[a-chip-in-inosukes-nichirin]

The Hashira at the Gym

I just started going to the gym with a friend and now I have a brainworm about the Hashira and what they'd be like at the gym.

Tengen:

Tengen is a gym influencer. He's also the kind of guy who wears the tightest shirt possible every time he goes, and he spends just as much time working out as he does flexing in the mirror and taking selfies with other people. People don't mind though, because the amount of weight he can bench press is impressive. He's almost constantly on the ab machines and doing weights. This man lives off pre-workout and spends all his extra time at the gym. His girlfriends also workout, but mainly are into Pilates.

Rengoku:

This man wears muscle shirts but not because he wants to show off, just because they were on sale when he was getting gym clothes. He never skips leg day. Never. This man's thighs are sturdier than tree trunks. He could crush a watermelon between them without a second thought. Everyone loves him, even if he's a little loud. He drinks protein shakes every day, and will bring Senjuro to the gym sometimes.

Giyu:

He pretty much exclusively does treadmills and stair-steppers, but he also will use dumbbells. He only wears hoodies and basketball shorts. Headphones are in 100% of the time. Will stare at people until they are off the machine he's waiting for. Doesn't drink protein shakes, but will drink preworkout. The caffeine does not seem to affect him in the slightest.

Gyoumei:

He likes the treadmills for walking. They're meditative for him. He teaches yoga, but also does weightlifting. He can both bench-press and squat more than anyone in the gym. He has several of the same exact tracksuit for working out. Has never tried pre-workout and says he never will. He's a vegetarian and only drinks vegan protein shakes if he does drink them at all.

Shinobu:

She's into calisthenics and pilates, but mainly does a lot of running, especially on inclines. She can do the least amount of weights out of all the Hashira, but she makes up for it with endurance and speed. If she sees Giyu at the gym, she'll get on a machine next to him and make sure that she's on it longer than he is, on a harder setting. Giyu doesn't notice most of the time because he's wearing headphones, but occasionally he will and thinks that Shinobu is just being friendly and that she's trying to be his gym buddy. She is not. She's being passive aggressive.

Mitsuri:

Not an influencer, but she always wears cute matching sets in pink, green, black, or white and people assume she is. Everyone at the gym loves her. Mitsuri has a pink water bottle decorated with sakura stickers. She always has snacks on her; protein bars, protein mixes, fruit, and other goodies. She does pilates, yoga, and weightlifting (and gymnastics and ballet). Misturi surprises a lot of the new gym goers with her strength. She is regularly asked to crush watermelons between her thighs, and she loves doing it.

Obanai:

He goes to the gym only because his crush goes. He'll pick up dumbbells here and there, but mainly works out on the stair-steppers and bikes. His clothing of choice is a hoodie and joggers. Always wears a mask no matter the season or if he's sick. This man wipes down every machine and weight before and after he touches it. He has seen Misturi break open watermelons with her thighs no less than six times. He is smitten.

Sanemi:

This man works out at their weirdest hours and is never consistent with when he shows up but does appear almost every day. He does weights and calisthenics, and despite never touching pre-workout, he has incredible stamina. Sanemi wears tank tops to workout in, and half the time they're cut into v-necks because he "can't stand feeling like he's being suffocated". He's brought his brother a few times, but mostly works out alone. He has gotten in trouble for fighting a dude who was recording a girl doing squats without her knowledge.

Muichiro:

This boy does yoga and ellipticals, and not much else. He'll bike occasionally, but he only comes to the gym because his family has a gym pass and he likes to watch shows with his headphones in while he's walking or biking. Wears a t-shirt and basketball shorts, and sneakers with mismatched ankle socks. Doesn't take anything seriously, but enjoys how protein shakes taste.

[dollfaced-erin]

𝔻𝕣𝕒𝕘𝕠𝕟'𝕤 ℂ𝕣𝕒𝕕𝕝𝕖 (Blade x F!Reader x Jing Yuan)

PART 17

PART 1 , PART 2 , PART 3 , PART 4 , PART 5 , PART 6 , PART 7 , PART 8 , PART 9 , PART 10 , PART 11 , PART 12 , PART 13 , PART 14 , PART 15 , PART 16

A/n :

i have JUST finished Penacony, and i have to say, THAT WAS A WILD RIDE FR HELP ?!?! i did NOT expect it to end that way. Okok, hear me out, you might cancel me or whatever, but opinions are opinions right, and i LOVE how they made Sparkle some little gremlin that REALLY knows how to flame people good. ye ye i know about the things happening on twitter, but push that aside. that's merely a reference. all in all, the races in the game still dont exist. and getting mad at a fictional VILLAIN is somewhat hilarious to me ngl...i never even SAW the racism until i watched tiktok. my eyes. anything on tiktok is like...corrupting my brain rn and i hope your fyps are favoring you all too ! But still. We're all humans and we all have our opinions. so dont start messing around and bullshitting people online youre never gonna meet, okay ?

Taglist : -

@rebeccawinters , @nayukiyukihira , @pix-stuff , @fluffy-koalala , @swivy123 , @starxao , @kaoyamamegami , @kimura-uzuri , @rsvye , @seikouryuu , @just-here-reading , @matsulovesyou, @sincerely-aaronette , @prettyliliy , @chibiduck , @hermosacolibri , @la-diablas-thingz , @farelady-fate , @everi-eve , @shadowfoxey , @helloyuki , @immahuman , @samptlay , @boomie-123

Back then, he was only a young man, staring up at the starskiffs that flew by in the sky. He looked no older than a mere teen, but as a Xianzhou native, looks are VERY deceiving. Even for someone as young as Jing Yuan.

The young man looked up at the sky, his adolescence was only peaking up back then. But even so, he was a splendid Cloud Knight, already the climbing up the ranks to be a Sword Champion like his master. Though she had shielded him from much the horrors she had faced when she was a mere child, she tried her best to raise her student as her very own.

He remembered seeing his friends earlier, during the crowning of Jingliu as the Legendary Sword Master, entitling her with the nickname transcendent flash due to her movements that had seemingly cut through time and space within a blink of an eye. They all came around, wanting to congratulate her.

There was the legendary craftsmen, though hailing from another land and being a short-lived species, he had come to present to her the sword made of alien material, shining ebony matte black even under the bright sun. And not far behind him, was the Imbibator Lunae, coming over adorned with his robes of silk and jewelry of jade. Then, there was the mischievous Baiheng who roamed across the stars and set to stay on the Luofu.

But clinging to the sleeve of the High Elder of the Xianzhou Luofu, like a little lost girl, though he was sure that she was most likely just a couple decades younger than the Imbibator Lunae himself. And with the glaucous horns perched atop her head, he knew that she was inevitably the relative of this royal dragon before him, the one they called Saltator Lunae.

She was a beautiful young woman, with bright, curious (e/c) eyes that shone with wonder for the world. Her silky (h/c) hair was held up with a beautiful hairpin made of glass that seemed to be sturdier than plain ceramic he saw the nobles wear. But it matched her innocent look, and it seemed to him that she had yet to see more of the outside world.

He saw her for a mere glimpse, and she seemed to be talking to either her brother, or Yingxing the craftsman who seemed to be very much absorbed into his conversation with her. The middle-aged man even seemed to adore the young woman.

'Cute...' he remembered thinking as he saw her.

It was hot that day, and he was just fresh after training. But after remembering his master's swordsmanship, he quickly got back up, grabbing the sword he used to train, and went on with his practice. There was still much to learn, much to face before he could even dream of being half the person his master was.

"Jing Yuan, meet Imbibator Lunae's younger sister. Saltator Lunae." Jingliu said, appearing seemingly out of nowhere, as he was in the middle of training.

And he saw her again, from a much closer distance. The pretty girl from the other day, this time with an intricate hand fan in her hold, closed. This time she seemed much more...reserved ? Was it because her brother wasn't around ?

"Huh ? Sister ?"

"Yes, she'll be training with you. Other than Cloudhymn magic, she wants to learn about forming wind and water together to form ice. It doesn't hurt to learn more, especially from someone with core differences like you, Jing Yuan."

"Ah..." sighed the General as he shook his head, pulling himself out of his thoughts. He chuckled softly, looking at the item in his hand, which was a small decorative hand fan.

It was a beautiful oriental fan, with intricate designs carefully inked and dyed with care and professional handling. And it was no ordinary fan, instead it was a beautiful silk fan that he had seen her hold on the day they first met....

And was entrusted to him by Dan Feng who loved his sister very much before he had to part from this world.

The fan just...was just a reminder of what sunny days he blindly lived through, never anticipating the position he'd assume current day...

"General ?" A young voice piped up, snapping him out of his dampened mood.

The General turned to see his retainer by his side, peering cautiously at the fan in his master's hand, knowing that it must've belonged to someone of position and status. Especially since the wood forming it was no ordinary slice, but rather elaborately detailed to the smallest feature.

"Yes, Yanqing ?" He responded back, the lazy cat-grin on his lips as his golden eyes met one he considered his son.

"Lady Fu Xuan has given signal that she has deployed the anomaly team towards the suspected location of the Plagues Author's devotees." Yanqing said, the young boy nodding his head to signal to his master something.

"Thank you, Yanqing. It is time for me to depart, and reunite with the princess herself face to face. I cannot have the Ace of the deck be pulled out before its time." Jing Yuan said as he placed the fan onto the table, and rose to his feet.

"An...ace of the deck...?" Yanqing asked, cocking up an eyebrow as he suspiciously eyed the General of the Xianzhou Luofu.

"Yes. One of the keys in saving the Xianzhou itself." Jing Yuan said, giving no room for his retainer to further impose on his agenda.

"Now, Yanqing. I will be leaving to coincide with the Master Diviner's troupes, and those stationed in the Alchemy Commission." Jing Yuan said with that same smirk plastered on his lips.

"Do not lay your foot in a trap laid down by yourself, lest you be the hunted instead of the hunter." Was Jing Yuan's final warning before he walked off to leave the Seat of Divine Foresight.

But what he didn't know was that his little apprentice had been exposed to the sights of the legendary without either of them noticing it. And this youngling was very much eager to try his new profound knowledge in bringing justice to the land he served.

Though the General had yet just finished another meeting with the Master Diviner, even issued her with the official warrant to temporarily command the Cloud Knights, it was clear that things were far from over now. Affairs on the Xianzhou Luofu this time wouldn't be so easily averted, not with the interference of outsider hands in this matter.

He shook his head as he remembered the contents of the earlier discussion with Fu Xuan earlier. He remembered the troubled face of (Y/n) who had not dared utter a word as he issued another errand for the Astral express team to run.

He remembered his own words, spoken with his regular slyness and his lax tone in order to conceal what he truly felt inside...

"Miss Tingyun, I would like you to continue to serve as a guide for our Astral friends. And Lady (Y/n)..." he said, trailing off as he turned to look at her.

She looked...troubled. Biting her lower lip was a habit she had built long back during the prime era of the High-Cloud Quintet. Not only did she look troubled, she also seemed quite...saddened. Perhaps...it was the memories that surged her, or even the weight of her duties to reseal the Ambrosial Arbor. And everyone knows that...Lady (Y/n) isn't quite complete in herself...

"I hope you understand the importance of your presence within this mission. I am sure that the team will be able to safely escort you through the paths, and guide you safely to the Alchemy Commission."

He had once again broken the rules and regulations of the Luofu. With the next task he issued...was to get the Astral Express team towards the Ambrosial Arbor through the Alchemy Commission's delve. It was a hard decision, knowing the routes they needed to pass through were heavily infested and affected by the growth of the Ambrosial Arbor and it would be increasingly dangerous for (Y/n) to continue venturing along.

But he had no other choice yet in this matter. She was the King piece in this chessboard. Though her Queen piece...was nowhere in sight.

But he knew that man would appear sooner or later. Along with the young prince, who served the missing half of the current king's severed power.

He just hoped she was faring well.

"Phew ! That deer sure was a tough one !" March said, a relieved smile on her lips after the team had departed from the Alchemy Commission and saying good by to a certain...Furnace Master.

"Quite a deer friend indeed." Replied her companion, Stelle, who earned a tired groan from March due to her pathetic excuse of making jokes.

"But Lady (Y/n)..." March said, looking at the woman who was walking ahead of them, her back turned towards the team. Robes of expensive silk fluttered in the wind behind her, light shining off the material. Her (h/c) swayed in the wind, giving off nothing but an air of royalty.

But despite her ice cold gaze...everyone saw how shocked she looked when Gongshu had introduced himself as the Furnace of Creation's master. The woman was silent, merely staring at the man before her, uttering not a word. But she bit her lip, as a way to prevent herself from saying more than she should.

Then there was the deer, the Ebon Deer that was nothing but an abomination. Colors of blue, gold and green, representing life, vitality and wealth. A beautiful yet horrifying mix of colors forever ingrained in her mind.

"Are you alright, Lady (Y/n) ?" Welt asked, making sure that the young woman behind her was faring well.

Fighting against the Ebon Deer was hard work, at it seemed that even (Y/n) had trouble against it before they dispelled the outer source of power it was extracting from the power of Abundance.

He watched her horrified reaction as it withered and yet regained its former state, almost as if she were haunted by the extremes of power an Aeon can possess...

Or perhaps were those the same eyes of the people who fought in the War of Abundance...? The eyes that witnessed fear and loss time and time again. Maybe...perhaps even those eyes were included in the horrors of the abominations.

Powers of the Vidyadhara were nothing short of the definition of power itself, but she struggled to face it off, as if having second thoughts while fighting, or even extending the period of fighting just to conduct a couple observations and conclude a couple thoughts.

This woman...was trying to learn something. Gain an insight, perhaps...?

Even as Welt was making his own observations and conclusions regarding the change of paths from the Abundance to the Hunt, (Y/n) stood away from them, deep in her own circle of thought.

"I...am alright." Said the regal lady, dusting of the sleeves of her dress. It was tough, but she knew there was more to come, especially with the warning Jing Yuan had discretely yet undoubtedly been trying to relay to her.

Her presence was playing a crucial part in this play of his.

Did that mean...she had to meet...his reincarnation...?

Jing Yuan had never told her what had become past the period of molting rebirth. But did she really want to know...?

"It's just...that deer..." she said softly, shaking her head. "Reminded me of someone."

The man she loved, falling at the hand of the abundance, due to some...forbidden ritual they were trying to pursue. And he too...began one of the Abundance. Healing time after time, without even having a say in his own life.

The woman looked back to meet the gaze of her worried companions. All sorts of gazes landed on her form, pity, worry, concern, understanding...she appreciated them all, but...

"That's enough. We should keep going. The Alchemy Commission...shouldn't be far from here now..." said the dragon lady before she turned on her heel to leave the scene.

Right...there was no need to say anymore. Words...could not convey the feeling of loss she felt etched deep inside her heart. Nor did the memories even fulfil the void that grew day by day, with a certain longing for times of old to resurge...

Through the gates of the Artisanship Commission, it led the team straight towards the Alchemy Commission, a delve where all the medicinal and healing practices were carried out. It was the perfect place for concocting medicines out of herbs and materials of rare items to treat unknown diseases, or a place to jot down prescription after prescription while attending to the endless stream of natives that need the attention of professionals.

Some came here to learn, and some came here to help others. But ultimately, the desire of all here was one, to make the Xianzhou Luofu more prosperous and longevous than it ever was.

But this place...was also the same place for dubious plans to be carried out. With the high-tech equipment, materials only those in the alchemy would be able to obtain, should the Luofu fall into peril, this...would no doubt be their lair.

(Y/n) led the team into the commission, walking past the walls that were once so familiar to her. Though it has been centuries, this place...was almost as same as it used to be back when she was in her prime, looking over the apprentices like a protective mother watching her eggs.

Bodies of the mara-struck, celestial bodies and the Cloud Knights littered the stone ground left and right, for as far as the eye can see. It was no doubt that a fierce war had indeed taken place within these walls, no time to reach out for help since the delve had been sealed off, and the commission was deemed to be deserted.

"Whoa, looks like the battle here was intense..." March said, the poor girl looking around the blood-bathed battlefield with fear and horror in her young eyes. Her hands were to her mouth, almost in disbelief with what had occurred here.

Tingyun sighed, looking behind her to meet the gaze of the young girl. "Looks like the Master Diviner had launched a campaign while we were delayed in the Artisanship Commission."

"She must've divined it at the right time..." responded the usually silent Stelle, only ever opening her mouth to let out the most unheard of jokes (Y/n)'s pointed ears had heard of, or to say something incredibly out of character.

"Seems like she had sent in the Cloud Knights to clear out the way before we arrived. It would've been dreadfully dangerous had she let us in without proper preparation and training like the knights." (Y/n) said, her sharp and luminescent eyes scanning the area, the scene before her like flowers wilted on the ground.

But this...was nothing compared to the flooding blood rivers she had witnessed as a young maiden. Should things continue as they are...well...the Luofu would be drenched in mixed blood once again.

But unlike last time. She would do everything in her power to stop from memories of the past haunt and overshadow her future, refusing it to take shape it once took form as.

She wouldn't dare dream of losing another person dear to her.

Not the warm and kind-hearted General that had embraced her with loving arms the moment her eyes had revealed itself to the world. Not when she had to let go of her lover that remembered so little of her yet yearned for their long lost intimate moments.

Back then...she had so much to lose. And this time was no different.

She just hoped...that his reincarnation was doing well somewhere.

Welt noticed the unease in (Y/n)'s gaze. Being the attentive man he was, riddled with experience and written with history of a distant land, he knew better than to outright voice his concern over the Dragon Lady.

"Time is of the essence. The most important task for the Xianzhou Luofu is suppressing the Stellaron." Said the brunette, his arms crossing over his chest as he too observed the concluded battlefield before him. "General Jing Yuan tasked the Master Diviner with commanding the Cloud Knights-- he would've known she'd act on the results of her divination."

"Maybe that's why they sent us through the Artisanship Commission. To avoid direct contact with the battlefield. It is too dangerous for us here. If fighting the Ebon Deer was already breaking more than our usual threshold, imagine actually engaging in a real battle." (Y/n) said softly, looking sad at the loss before her.

"But...that's out of your scope." She whispered, walking towards one of the knights to check on their conditions.

"Lady (Y/n)..." March said worriedly, and Tingyun looked a little...somber at the Dragon Lady had returned back to her post as the Miracle Healer.

"This...must be hard for Lady (Y/n) to see." Tingyun said softly, shaking her head. "As I remember records...the past Dragon Lady was someone of immense caliber and knowledge, having pulled strings no one dared to interfere with."

"But this is nothing compared to what she had seen back in her days. Centuries ago, an Emanator of Abundance besieged the Luofu with the aim of the Ambrosial Arbor. They destroyed half our delves and killed most of the Cloud Knights." Tingyun said, looking up at the sky, perhaps wondering what the sky looked like when the ground was bathed in red.

"For long-life species, such events are more like yesterday's memories rather than ancient history. This awful spectacle is child's play in comparison to what they've seen and been through."

"It's...hard to tell if the Master Diviner won or lost here." Welt said with a heavy sigh, that was until (Y/n) walked back, her (e/c) clouded with regret and shame.

"There...are many losses here. I might be able to restore and patch some up, but...it would be too dangerous for me to venture further alone without back up." (Y/n) said, her eyes never leaving the fallen soldiers. "If only Yingxing and..."

She cut herself short, her thoughts snapping back to prevent herself from saying anymore of those forsaken memories of old. She shook her head and cleared her throat, as if to regain composure.

"Nevermind." She said sharply. "There aren't many Cloud Knights here, so I reckon there's a retreat nearby, or maybe they really did make it out with a minimal count of casualties. Deeper into the delve, perhaps."

"Will you try heal those here, Lady (Y/n) ?" Tingyun asked the horned woman before her, noticing her determined gaze. And (Y/n) nodded. "I'll...try my best. I'm a healer, a doctor even, or whoever I used to be, but I'm not miracle granter."

"Please be careful, Lady (Y/n), Stelle. These monsters seem pretty tough..." March warned carefully, fearing the safety of her companions and the lady they were meant to escort safely.

(Y/n) leaned down to inspect the wounds on one of the soldiers that seemed to have been ridden with mara, rooted deep inside its body. As she scanned the figure with her sharp eyes, she noticed how this individual...a woman, perhaps in her early 300s...was far too deep in mara.

Mara was plaguing her body like flies eating away at rotting flesh. Slow, constant, but unbearable. The wounds were shrinking away beyond a usual native's ability, and with the lack of injured vital signs, (Y/n) knew it was best for her to try freeze the cores and quickly move away.

So that was as she did. To those still blessed with life, she leaned down to bestow them the gift of her healing, hoping that they would be able to be to at least endure less pain than they should. She even froze cores, wishing that it was enough to prevent the rapid outbreak of the plague, harming others beyond control.

She knew...those mara struck before her...had their regrets and their ambitions to see another day. She knew another person who was just the same, bringing flesh of a fallen Emanator, striking his beloved with a fatal blow, yet he himself was a victim to another's plan who wished to deny the cruel nature of death.

The beloved who once held her hand so tenderly, an arrogant man who was yet so soft towards her, bestowing her with a gentle kiss on her forehead as he held her close by her waist.

(Y/n) looked up, knowing that those days were no more, and the sky above them...was never a witness to the moments she held dear to her frozen and recovering heart. Her heart that was facing conflict and turmoil with her current identity and her past self, knowing both were nonetheless one of the same.

Though she had forgotten most of her past, only bits and shred able to be brought forward to her current time, she knew it was time for her to step up and once again place the crown high on her head, though it weighed so heavily on her shoulders.

"Look ! There's someone over there." March called out, taking (Y/n)'s hand to point towards a woman wearing an Alchemy Commission uniform, and a kneeling Cloud Knight by her feet.

(Y/n) didn't have a good feeling about this.

[wannaeatramyeon]

Helloooo I just wanted to say I absolutely love your writing! I always look forward to your posts, they just make my day! When I‘m feeling down they cheer me up and when I‘m in high spirits they make me even happier. So keep up the good work :3

Btw I‘d also like to request the Lookism boys reacting to them accidentically hurting their S/O (especially Jake and Goo, I just love them) 🥹

If you don‘t want to it’s fine! I also just wanted to tell you I really appreciate your writing🫶🏻 Thx!

~Your fan

Hi Anon! SO SORRY FOR THE DELAY. I know it's been a while. Thank you so much for your kind words omg 🥹 your words are also a wonderful pickmeup for me too. I will work harder to keep making the most of this fixation with these silly boys 🙇🏻‍♀️🙇🏻‍♀️ And don't worry, as long as I keep putting out bullshit for Lookism, there will always be some Jake and Goo cos they are my faaaaaves.

Accidentally hurting S/O: Goo, Jake, Gun, Samuel, Vin

Neither of you ever go full force in your spars together. The intent was to improve, not maim.

However, seeing a gap in your defensive stance, their right fist jabs out. Quick as lightning, hitting you in the ribcage.

Which you usually would be able to tank, except.

Fucking liver shot.

All your focus and drive is knocked out with that one hit. You're breathless, trying desperately to stay standing-

Goo x Reader

"Princess?"

Goo raises his eyebrows, a smirk gracing his features. It's not the first time you've manipulated him and then punched him as soon as he was within reach. No chance is he falling for it again.

At the sound of your whimpers, and pathetic sight of you head down, clutching your side, Goo finally backs down.

Surely he didn't hit you that hard, right? He thought you were much sturdier than that especially with all the trash talk coming out of your mouth.

"Cupcake, you ok?" The mirth isn't entirely gone from his voice, but he tilts your face up towards him and gasps at the tears in your eyes.

"My little baby! Did I hurt you?" his fingers come up to wipe the tears from your cheeks, "I didn't know you were so weak. Such a delicate little flower, my buttercup. I didn't even try, and you couldn't withstand that? My sweet darling."

Your tears dry quickly when you hear his words. More gloating than concern. "You asshole, that was a cheap shot."

"If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen, sweetheart."

"Asshole," you repeat as he cackles like a hyena.

"C'mon," Goo gives you a loud obnoxious smooch on the forehead for your troubles, "Let your Goo bear look after you today."

Jake Kim x Reader

Jake realised the impact before you did. Already too late for his fist to change course and resulting in your face crumpling up in pain.

"Shit!" his hands come up, gingerly assessing the area and eyes frantically searching yours, "Y/N, are you ok?"

"No," you squeak out and Jake has never felt such panic before. Is that his life flashing before his eyes?

And then when your eyes well up with tears, lip starting to quiver, Jake feels his soul departing his body.

Shitshitshit-

The apologies tumble out.

Of course, you can't blame him. Accidents are a natural byproduct of sparring. Jake suffered a sprained ankle not too long ago, and you still can't bend your left middle finger fully.

You regain your breath as his hands rove all over to check for any other injuries. Needing to touch you and feel that you're still fine.

"Jake?" You interrupt his worried movements.

"Hmm?"

Probably an inopportune moment, yet even through the pain, it warms your heart seeing how much Jake cares about you. "Love you."

Oh. Jake wasn't expecting that. That's what you give him after a liver shot? You really are too adorable for words.

With a soft smile, he tells you he loves you too.

Gun Park x Reader

Clearly unimpressed, Gun watches you.

With anyone else, he would have called them pathetic, worthless and a waste of his time.

But with you, it's not time wasted. He would rather be with you, than not at all. Which he finds difficult to admit. That fact at complete odds with his drive and his self. A personal weakness he is willing to overlook.

From the offset, Gun could see there was zero possibility of you becoming his masterpiece. Simply put, you didn't have the body nor talent nor skill. When you first asked him to start sparring with you though, he acquiesced. Frankly, has he ever even said no to you.

You chance a peek at your boyfriend. Already you are expecting a look of disappointment, instead you see his retreating back, leaving you alone.

Tears spring to your eyes and you drop your head in shame. Damn, this hurts. You're no match for Gun, no match for most people really. Still, you've been trying to improve.

As you wallow, a blanket is wrapped around your shoulders. In the blink of an eye, Gun hoists you into an effortless bridal carry, calling you an idiot.

You know his words have no bite, his actions speak far louder.

Arms wrapping around his neck, the pain subsides as you nuzzle him.

Samuel Seo x Reader

Samuel feels it in his superiority complex first, always bubbling away and too deeply ingrained for anything else.

Incapacitating an opponent, dominating them, proving that he is better.

Followed quickly by fuck. This isn't an opponent. Not really. It's you.

"Y/N?" he holds you by the shoulders and you lean into it, your legs too weak to hold you up.

Samuel's eyes cloud with worry when you let out a feeble groan.

"Come on," he picks you up, maneuvering you into a fireman's lift with grace and you with anything but. Ass in the air, hair flopping down, still feeling waves of pain.

Samuel faintly recalls his packed calendar for the rest of his day. Meetings upon meetings. Calls and face-to-faces with vendors and investors and corporate fucks who can barely form a thought between them without a brainstorming meeting and a presentation.

"Ughhh Sammy I feel like shit," you gurgle from behind him, and that is all it takes for him to wipe his schedule clean.

None of it matters.

He'll be spending the rest of the day with you instead.

Vin Jin x Reader

Vin nudges you with his foot, "Get up."

In the end, your legs had crumpled beneath you until you're flat on the floor, hands clutched to your throbbing side.

At your lack of response, Vin tries again. "Get up you pussy."

Vin is Vin. An asshole to the end.

"Go away," your voice is weak, barely reaching his ears.

He squats down and squints through his shades, trying to get a closer look at what the hell is wrong with you. He barely even touched you.

"Yeesh, are you really this weak? You're no fun."

You can't bring yourself to say anything to that, just throwing a glare at him. So venomous that you hope it penetrates those stupid sunglasses and into his soul.

"Whatever, if this is what we're doing now." As if he wasn't the cause of your predicament, Vin lets out a melodramatic sigh and lies down beside you.

"You're such a loser," he says, even as he shuffles close, carefully positioning your head on his shoulder and pulling your body to his.

[dullgecko]

riz is the opposite of claustrophobic. he loves small tight spaces. Fabian, on the other hand, only learned that he has claustrophobia when, on an adventure, he and Riz were blocked from the others by a cave in, totally enclosed by rocks in a tiny cavern.

Riz had heard the earth shifting above them and had, even with his disgustingly low strength, managed to yank Fabian back and out of the way before the ceiling above them started to collapse. The half elf not resisting in the slightest as he was pulled quickly back the way they came and shoved into a small space off to the side of the corridor they'd been walking down. Riz darting in after him and shielding him from the worst of the dust simply by virtue of taking up most of the entrance with his body.

The cavern was tiny, barely enough room for Riz to stand upright and certainly not enough room for Fabian to do much more than sit stunned against the wall. The goblin penning him in as they listened to the rumbling of the cavein outside their tiny bolt-hole. Fabian was lucky that Riz had hung so far back with him, as a subterranian species he'd had his perception keyed all the way in and had noted the smaller and sturdier 'room' when they passed it which had been the only thing stopping the pair of them from getting crushed.

Riz seemed fine, only swearing a little as he shook himself to get the worst off debris off his clothes. Even with Fabians dark vision he could barely see his friend, though the goblins eyes glowed ever so slightly with magic that allowed him to see beyond what his mundane physical abilities would allow even in pitch blackness.

That being said, Fabian had no doubt he could see the panic building on his face with total clarity as the circumstances of their current predicament dawned on him. They were trapped, in a cavern barely big enough to hold the both of them, with tonnes of dirt and rock between them and their friends. He was also sure that his hyperventilating was doing absoloutly nothing to help what was surely a very limited supply of oxygen.

[kinglazrus]

this isn't the beginning (but it's a start)

An AU where Portal Danny went missing his senior year of high school, and he's back home twenty years later.

Ch. 2 | Ch. 4 | Masterpost | Read on Ao3

Chapter Three: Fenton Works

Nothing in his head is real.

Words: 3593

Warnings: Gore and vomiting in the opening sequence

Blood coats his teeth. It’s gathered along his gums, congealing in thick globs that ooze when he prods them with his tongue. He can barely breathe past it, choking on the smell and the way it clogs his throat. His mouth feels too sticky and too dry all at once. Before he can think better of it, he swallows, or tries to—tries to work up the saliva to spit it all out. But there’s a pop when he bites down, and something too solid to be a clump of drying blood bursts open across his tongue, filling his mouth with a sour taste.

He lurches upright, and even though he’s already gagging on the stringy bits of viscera stuck between his teeth, the way his head spins is what pushes him over the edge.

Bile hits his tongue for a brief, bitter moment before he heaves. Every retch after that is dry, tearing at his throat while his stomach squeezes again and again even though he already feels like his insides have been scooped out. And no wonder why. A pale band of light illuminates the pool of blood spread before him. It’s a considerable amount of blood. Even though it’s too dark to see anything beyond that one pale stripe, there’s no mistaking how slick the floor is beneath his palm, how damp his knees are growing. The fleshy chunks that make him recoil every time he moves his hand.

He’s not sure where he is. Why he’s here. Can’t even remember how he got here, at least not clearly. His eyes had been fixed on that dark space, searching for a glimmer of light, any sign that he was mistaken. That the star would still be there, if only he looked closer. Everything after that is lost to a haze of blood and tears.

He can’t say how long it’s been since he was thrust out of the shadows. Long enough that his tears have dried. Short enough that the blood at his knees hasn’t.

Apparently, his body hasn’t caught on to the fact that he’s already wrung dry, because the retching doesn’t stop. The convulsions drive the pounding in his head and leave him shaking. He presses a hand against his abdomen, but it does little to soothe the sharp, pulsing throbs that twist his stomach every time his muscles clench.

It comes in waves, and between bouts, he inches toward the crack in the wall where the light comes through. A room lies beyond it, still dim but not completely dark, thanks to the windows set high on the walls. It must be nighttime, since there’s just enough light to see by, not that there’s much to see. Counters that run along the two longest walls, the cupboards underneath them, and a doorway on the opposite end of the room, through which lies a set of stairs leading up. Otherwise, it’s empty.

The wall shudders as he leans against it, though maybe it’s not a wall at all. His hand nearly slips off a ridge along the bottom of the wall, and as he steadies himself, his fingers curl over a worn edge, finding a narrow gap within which lies some kind of track. For a door, most likely, to slide open and shut.

Wall or door, it doesn’t matter either way. The metal is cool against his sweat-slicked temple as he tips his face into the light. He’s never been scared of the dark, but at the moment, the shadows squeeze around his heart. He doesn’t even want to close his eyes, though it might stop the room from spinning and help settle his stomach, just so he doesn’t lose that sliver of light.

A burst of music drills into his skull. He claps his hands over his ears and jerks back, banging into the door. It makes an awful screech, and he thinks he might have knocked it off its tracks. But after a few seconds where the only thing that falls on him is rust, he realizes the door is sturdier than it sounds and relaxes against it.

The music blares from his pocket, but he ignores his phone in favour of hugging himself tightly and folding over his knees. His stomach aches. His throat burns. His head pulses out of sync with the erratic thrumming of his core.

Blood and bile and buzzing, and jeans stiffening as they dry, and a single rust flake caught in his eyelashes, and a cloying, citrus scent that somehow cuts through every other wretched smell assaulting him now, and, and, and a dozen little things piled atop each other until it’s one great weight pressing on his shoulders, setting his nerves on fire, pushing a thousand needles beneath his skin as it all sinks in, and he needs out.

He drags himself up, body tilting one way while the world twists in the opposite direction, and throws himself against the door. It shrieks with every hit, but it moves, inch-by-inch, and as soon as the gap is wide enough, he squeezes through to tumble into the room beyond. Dirt, or some kind of grime that’s layered thick and damp in a way dust shouldn’t be in a place like this, smears across his palms as he catches himself on his hands and knees.

It’s quieter out here. The roaring in his head fades a little more with every breath that isn’t laced in shadows, and soon enough he can hear the wind howling outside, and the rain beating down on brick and metal and glass, and a steady creaking in the distance. A symphony, not wholly unpleasant, that he would be glad to listen to for a long while if his phone weren’t still ringing.

The melody plays two more times before he drags his phone from his pocket and checks the caller ID. Fruit Loop, it says. The call stops before he can make up his mind about answering, and a flood of missed notifications fills the screen instead.

Thirteen missed calls—nine from Fruit Loop and two more from School—and a handful of texts from the former.

Fruit Loop Friday 3:17 PM We’ll continue this discussion when you get home. Friday 6:23 PM Are you still at school? Friday 10:17 Answer your phone. This is childish. I’ll keep calling until you pick up. Saturday 1:17 PM I’m sure Johnny is excellent company, but this is getting ridiculous. We will be talking. Are you finally eating? Answer your phone. Yesterday 8:46 AM Why are the police here What did you do Answer the phone Yesterday 11:31 AM Whose blood was that This is serious you’re putting us both at risk Pick up the phone Pick up the damn phone Today 10:06 PM I’ve taken care of it. I told you humans are too fragile.

His nausea, which had waned, surges forth once more as he reads those final messages. It settles into a steady, miserable rolling deep in his stomach that’s somehow worse than when he was stuck in that tight, dark space that reeks of blood and citrus. At least he doesn’t throw up again, small relief that it is.

He jabs the call button, almost surprised when the screen doesn’t crack from the force of it, and slowly pushes himself up. He makes it one step and halfway through the first ring before the call is answered and a stern voice demands, “Where are you?”

“I—”

“Do you have any idea how much danger you put us in? You’re lucky this only went as far as the police. If the school had suspected anything, they could have called the Ward.”

The rant fades out of his awareness as he steers himself toward the nearest counter. His shoes peel off the tile with a wet ripping sound that has him gritting his teeth, and leaves a trail of tacky red footprints behind him. He folds himself over the counter once he reaches it, forehead pressed to the metal despite the dust that tickles his nose.

“I managed to redirect their concerns, of course, and you’re still welcome back next year to finish your licensure program. Why you want to be a teacher of all things…”

“Fruit Loop?” he interrupts. He doesn’t mean to make it a question, but the little rise in his voice is present regardless of his will.

“Oh, yes, very funny. You and your clever quips. What do you—oh. Hm.” Fruit Loop goes quiet.

The silence quickly grows unbearable, after only a few seconds, but he can’t bring himself to break it. What would he even say? He shoves himself up—much too quickly, oh that doesn’t feel good—and opens the cupboard underneath the counter, desperate for a distraction. He has to grip the cupboard door to keep himself balanced as he crouches, as the room sways. Maybe there’s more to the nausea and the piercing pain in his temple than he thought. It wouldn’t be the first time he’s gotten a concussion. Once he feels steady enough, he picks through the cabinet.

Bits of frayed wire. Metal scraps. A cluster of jars on the bottom shelf, all lined with a strange residue. In most of the jars, it’s faded to grey, and crumbles like chalk when he taps the glass.

“Do you know how I am?” Fruit Loop asks, a sharpness to it that suggests he’s repeating himself.

“Yes!” It’s not very convincing, with how quick the answer comes.

He scowls, tilting his head to get a better look at the jars. A greenish-black stain spreads between them. Crouching lower, he spies another jar at the back of the shelf, cracked along its side. Inside is a sprout of some kind. It has a deep, hollow stalk, coloured black, with curling lips that split into something almost like flower petals. Its roots creep along the glass, and mycelium dangles from the lid. The stain seems to spill from this jar, where hair-thin fibres have forced their way through the crack in the glass. They’re softer than he expects.

He drags his finger through the stain. To his surprise, only the top layer is dry, a thin crust that breaks easily. Underneath, it’s fuzzy and a rather toxic green. It also makes his skin tingle where the substance clings to his fingertip.

Leaning close, he sniffs it, and isn’t surprised when citrus stings his nose. Ectoplasm has a very distinct smell, although he could be mistaken. He sticks his tongue out to lick his finger.

“Well?”

He starts, mouth snapping shut and catching the tip of his tongue between his teeth, and hisses. “Yes, I know who you are!” He pauses a second too long. “Vlad.”

That feels right, and it must be, because Vlad sighs in relief. “Good. You’re not as far gone as you could be.”

“Wow, thanks.”

It’s easy to spot the mould hidden around the room, now that he’s aware of it. Gathered in the corners, festering between the tiles. It’s noticeably lacking on the far side of the room, by the doorway leading up, and grows more obvious deeper in, spreading beyond damp corners. He traces the patches back to the hole in the wall behind him.

And it is just a hole in the wall, the place he stumbled from. He thought it might have been a closet of some kind, but closets don’t have big octagonal openings blocked by a set of heavy doors striped black and yellow like caution tape.

As he stares at it, an odd feeling creeps through him. It’s not enough to rip the air from his lungs. It doesn’t even touch the ache already settled in his chest, though it still makes his knees weak. He grips the countertop to keep himself from crumpling to the floor.

“Where are you?” Vlad asks.

A laugh bubbles out of him at Vlad’s excellent timing. It’s a choked thing, closer to a sob. But it’s not, because he isn’t sad. He isn’t in pain, at least not from this, or anguished, or even the littlest bit upset.

He’s just…here.

“Do you know where you are?” Vlad prompts again.

“Yes.”

“Good. I can come get you.”

“I’m not a kid.”

“If you’re unstable, and you must be if you can’t remember who I am—”

“I remembered!”

“—and considering what happened on Friday—”

“Nothing happened!”

Vlad pauses. “Are you sure?”

“Yes.” He’d like to stop saying that. He’d like even more if he didn’t sound so weak and unsure every time he does.

“You know how much I care about you. Well, you might not at the moment, but you’re very important to me. I need to know if you’ve been affected by William Lancer’s dea—”

A screech drowns out the final word. The metal countertop folds under his hand, and he has to pry his fingers from the indents left behind. Vlad has gone quiet again, so he takes the moment to inspect his trembling hand. The slope of his fingers where they’ve begun to taper toward the nail, the image of flesh and keratin melting away. It takes a few slow flexes before the mirage returns, but the colour is off still. The shade of pale skews toward I-have-no-circulation rather than I-need-vitamin-D.

He clenches his fist and tucks his hand into his pocket. “Please.”

“So you do know?”

“No! I didn’t…” He gasps. His nails dig into his thigh, hard enough to prick, but that’s nothing compared to the knife carving into his chest. Every breath drives the blade deeper, through blood and bone, piercing him to the core. When he opens his eyes—can’t even remember closing them—he expects to see his chest flayed open, skin peeled back, ribs cracked to expose the empty cavity inside him.

There’s nothing. He’s crumbling from the inside out and somehow, there’s not a mark on him. That’s now how pain is supposed to work.

“Do you know what day it is? What’s the last thing you remember?”

Polka dot napkins. The image floats to the front of his mind. Couldn’t he remember more, minutes ago? It’s all shrouded in a grey fog, now. Except for the parts that are darkness and light and blood and the place where light should be.

Maybe he makes a sound. Maybe Vlad gets bored with the silence. Either way, he’s torn from his spiralling thoughts by a sigh from the phone.

“I suppose next time you’ll know better than to latch on to the first familiar thing you see.”

His phone cracks against the wall. He doesn’t register that he threw it until he’s staring at the blue plastic of his phone case, shattered where it struck the portal’s frame.

The portal.

He’s heard it described many times. Not its shape, but what it did. How it ruined his life. The way it would have torn him open, scooped out his insides, and filled him with something else, something strange. He imagined how vast it must have felt when he took his first steps inside. The pain it would have brought. The connection forged between him and it at that moment. Surely, if he could recognize anything from his former life, it would be this. This would be familiar.

But it’s only a hole in the wall.

He clutches at this chest, breaths coming faster as he tears his gaze away.

There has to be something, something.

Turning on his heels, he runs for the stairs. Colour leeches from his body as he reaches the top and rushes through the door without opening it. He meets resistance on the other side, only for a second, before there’s a tearing sound and a plastic sheet folds around him. He rips the tarp off, paying no heed to the oily green sheet it leaves on his hands and clothes, and leaves it crumpled on the floor.

It’s no brighter here in the kitchen than it was downstairs. One window, covered by a sheet similar to the one that assaults him seconds ago, and boarded up behind that. A broken table in the middle of the room, its legs snapped, the chairs beside it in similar states. Empty cabinets. A fridge—wrapped in another tarp—swathed in caution tape.

No one’s lived here for years.

He knew, if he ever came, that he might find strangers within the walls, but he didn’t think it would be empty. That’s worse, somehow, than finding an unknown face at the door. To know the place he once called home is hollow, too.

He tries to imagine what it would have looked like, once. The fridge unwrapped, covered in magnets holding up report cards and Polaroids and drawings. The cupboards full of food. The table set and ready for a meal. But the people sitting at the table have no faces. And the pictures are patchworks of colour with no real form. The cupboards are full of the oils and spices and jars of dry pasta from Vlad’s manor.

Nothing in his head is real.

The only thing waiting for him here are the Xs spray-painted on the walls.

The front room is much the same, except the graffiti is joined by broken beer bottles and crumpled chip bags. A cold wind comes through one of the windows where the boards nailed over it have been pried away, the protective sheet peeled back. A couch sits under the window, its cushions covered in grime and faded footprints. Has it always been there? Maybe with a TV stand on the other side of the room. Or did it used to sit against the back wall, facing the front of the house, so they could sit there and look out the window to the street?

He tries to picture it.

He can’t.

Upstairs, then. He grips the banister so hard the wood creaks in his hand. His skin is no longer pale, but now a bleached white. He doesn’t look at it. Doesn’t think about it. Focuses on the few blank spaces on the walls where he can see paint beneath the graffiti, on the squares where the paint is less faded, where picture frames must have once hung.

He finds four doors on the landing. Two to the left, two to the right. Only one is covered in a tarp that’s carefully taped along the edges, the letters R-I-P sprayed across it.

Hesitation seizes his limbs for only a moment before he rips the tarp down and tosses it away. A prickle spreads across his tongue before he even opens the door, and he already knows what he’ll find. Mould. Here, it infects every corner of the room. The walls, the ceiling, the floor. What he first thinks might be a soft carpet is, in fact, a dense layer of mould. It’s thickest beneath the empty bed frame, rising into a fuzzy mound with sprouts growing out of it, similar to the one in the jar downstairs.

He steps inside, and light ripples out, spreading in waves across the room from wherever he touches the mould. Clouds of spores puff into the air where he steps. They fall in gentle waves, like snow. If this were any other time, he might stick his tongue out to try and catch one.

But he doesn’t care about this. Doesn’t care that it exists. Doesn’t care that it’s here, eating this room from the inside out while the rest of the house grows stagnant.

This was his room. It isn’t, anymore. It isn’t anything.

He runs. Flees down the stairs and throws himself at the front door, but his body doesn’t pass through it, at least not completely. His head smacks against something hard enough that his ears ring. He stumbles back, clutching his temple, and rips the door open, splintering the frame when the deadbolt tears through the rotting wood. A gleaming white panel covers the other side. 

His core buzzes at the sight of it. He doesn’t need to test it to know he can’t phase through that, so he pivots toward the broken window, clambering though. The frame is already clear of glass. He heads for the street, where the wind shoves him to his knees and the rain beats against his back, and he looks up.

The windows are dark. Cracks climb the brickwork. The flower box beside the stairs is full of weeds, and the grass rises to his knees. The only sound coming from the building is the creak of old joints, from the sign hanging over the sidewalk. His gaze slides across it, skimming over the rusted letters, but the name slips from his mind as soon as his eyes leave it.

This is just a house, and he wants to go home.

Where is that?

“With…” he trails off as the name escapes him. With who? Does he live with anyone? Does he live anywhere? Maybe he’s always been here, kneeling in the rain.

Where are you?

“I don’t…”

Who are you?

“I…”

What’s wrong?

He stares down at his hands, at his blackening fingertips, and realizes he doesn’t know.

“There’s…a hole,” he says. Somewhere. In a place where a star used to sit.

So, fill it.

As he pushes himself up, darkness coalesces at his feet, but he resists their pull. He can’t go there, where it’s gone, it’s gone, it’s gone. Instead, he sets off down the street, with slow, staggering steps, and leaves the ghost once known as Fenton Works behind.

—

Masterpost | Next chapter