#this game has deeply infected my brain

[wildflowercryptid]

visual representation of my mental state for the past few days

[enkvyu]

ask game — prompt from this request

“you kiss your mother with that mouth?”

there’s an extra thump in gojo’s heartbeat.

his hands are sweaty even though he’s swiped his palms along his jeans a million times. he feels light headed, perhaps due to the sun peeking through the train window, and his thoughts are playing bumper cars inside his skull.

his mouth is dry, his body is begging him to relax his stiff posture, and he’s nervous. too much blood is rushing to his brain and not enough air is entering his lungs. he thinks he might need some water, but he's worried that if he tries drinking it'll just dribble down his chin.

you sleep peacefully through his panic.

the gentle rumble of wheels along rails lulls you into a shallow sleep, not the kind that has you wishing for a deeper slumber, but just enough rest for your heart to slow and your breathing to deepen.

your pillow is soft. it’s sturdy against your cheek and smells really, really nice, like fresh laundry hung out under the summer sun. it’s also warm, which is an obvious bonus. you snuggle into the heat, exhaling softly when you’re comfortable.

a sudden incline of the train track makes the carriage jolt, and your eyes widen at the shift in gravity.

“what’s happening?” your words slur together as you lift your head from your pillow to survey your surroundings.

you find gojo sitting beside you, oddly rigid and close by.

“why is your shoulder next to my head?”

gojo clears his throat, his eyes darting to you then away. “no reason.”

accepting his answer, you yawn and stretch your arms above your head. your hands collide with the compartment above and you’re once again reminded of where you were.

“when’s the train arriving?” you ask.

gojo flips his phone around to check the time. “you were asleep for forty minutes, so we still have an hour to go.”

“an hour? that long?”

“that’s why i said you should have let me warp us there instead.”

“i’d rather die.” you immediately decline. “last time i let you teleport us to the mission site, we ended up in california.”

“california is a great place!”

“our mission was in finland.”

gojo huffs, crossing his arms over his chest. the gesture blocks you off and you know he is sulking.

it's clear your words have wedged its way deep into gojo's heart, leaving a wound that'll only grow and become infected if you don't soothe him with flattery. “maybe next time, okay? sometime after you’ve mastered your technique which, i'm sure won't take long since you've always been so competent.”

he remains quiet, but you can almost see his ears perk towards you.

"the most competent out of the lot of us!"

he shifts closer, though his arms are still crossed at his front.

"throughout heaven and earth, you alone are the competent one?"

he finally turns over to you, loosening his posture. there's still doubt in his eyes but it is as expected; dealing with a sulky gojo was never going to be easy. “if you don’t trust me, you can just say that.” he pouts.

“okay, i don’t trust you.”

he tilts his body further away from you.

you're quick to reach over and hook your hand under his arm, pulling it towards you in hopes that he'll face you once again. you made a mistake, a slight slip of the tongue and now your progress had been reset. "my bad! but seriously, aren't you tired of playing the victim all the time?"

"excuse me?"

"i mean." you bite your lip, sealing away any more harsh remarks that might leave your mouth unintentionally. "you... are crazy cool! you're the best, gojo. i deeply apologise for my words earlier."

his mouth hangs open. "i think the one who's crazy is you. how do you always find something to complain about?"

"you're telling that to me? as if you weren't treating this entire train ride like your own personal therapy session. i did not need to know how much you struggled on the toilet this morning."

"it's a sign of being unhealthy! that's a very big concern!"

"one that you can bring up with shoko, not me." you easily deflect. "i could not care less about your health even if i tried."

"you are so mean."

you shrug. "i think you're just being a pissy boy."

"you kiss your mother with that mouth?" he asks. "and she lets you? even though her child is a mean, spiteful, terrible person?"

he doesn't appreciate how his eyes flicker down to your lips at the mention, suddenly growing conscious of how he had begun to lean in during the heated conversation. you look none the different, face carved into your usual expression of disinterest.

it irks him.

wasn't it unfair how unfazed you seemed whilst he was running a marathon in his head? wasn't it simply annoying how much you looked like you were falling asleep again, even though his thoughts were held captive by the sight of you?

"where did you think my attitude comes from in the first place?" there's a lazy grin on your face that only makes gojo heat up even more—because it made him mad, not because it looked good on you, he tells himself.

"if you kissed me i wouldn't like it." he says, then immediately slaps a hand over his mouth.

you give him the strangest look you can muster. "sorry?"

"i mean, because, i'm saying i wouldn't like it because you are such a mean person. that's all i'm saying, there's nothing else i'm trying to tell you. you're a horrible person. that's what i meant." gojo splutters. "not because i want you to kiss me. that would be such a strange thing to say. which is why i wasn't saying that."

there's a silence that fills the carriage, broken only from the hum of the train. gojo thinks he can hear his brain explode in the absence of sound before you finally burst out into laughter.

"oh my god, gojo! i never thought you would be the type of person that gets flustered over something like talking about kissing." you say around your giggles, smothering them with your palm as you watch gojo grow red. "especially since you brought it up."

gojo hisses, turning away to rest his chin on his hand, elbow on the aisle armrest. he pointedly ignores your attempts to get him to face you. "me neither." he mumbles into his hand.

"it's kind of cute."

"shut up."

"you're getting redder!"

"ignore it."

you only quiet down when a few minutes passes, making snide remarks at his oddly still state before sighing in satisfaction. you check the time on your phone and note that there was still a long way to go before you arrived. placing it on silent, you tap gojo on the shoulder. "wake me up before the train gets to our stop, okay?"

he makes a noise that you take as agreement, considering that he won't bear to look at you, before adjusting yourself and closing your eyes.

the train ride is silent save for your silent snores and the internal monologue of gojo's breakdown. his body grows stiff when he feels a pressure on his shoulder.

looking over, he finds you using him as a pillow again.

the embarrassment of his earlier words and his slight realisation that you made him feel weird, made him feel warm and nervous all over, makes this action deadly. with his heart racing, he sighs and shifts around so that you were more comfortable. the gesture is appreciated, and you sigh softly in your sleep.

the sight of you is pure torture and gojo finds himself unable to chase sleep as easily as you do. he stays awake until the train halts at the station, ignoring your question on why he looked so tired.

i'll write the other requests tmrw !! i'm sorry that this doesn't rlly have much to do with the prompt but i think i'm starting to lose my mind

[unseededtoast]

Turtle Doves | Joel Miller

Part Twenty Four

Chapter Directory

Series Summary: In which two broken souls connect so deeply, that if one should perish, the other would surely die of a broken heart. (slow burn, timeline changes. After TLOU1, before TLOU2, assumed knowledge of infected, uses elements from both show and game)

Series Warnings: Graphic depictions of violence, death, and sexual content.

Also cross posted on my Wattpad and AO3, if you prefer those formats. Here is a link to my masterlist for everything else I’ve posted.

I don't know if there's a way out of this one.

Cold wind whips around the corners of buildings right into our faces. Squinting from the harshness, I keep my sights high to try and spot any scouts. For a city that should be bustling with people belonging to this group, it's too empty. Something about this just doesn't sit right with me.

Up ahead is the first outpost building. The windows on upper floors have been busted out and I can see a sniper stand at the edge of the window. But there's nobody there.

"Joel, this doesn't feel right." My eyes are plastered on the empty outpost.

"Stay close." Is all he says before he takes the lead and enters the building. A strange tightness pulls at my chest as I follow along up the stairs.

We check each floor as we pass by and find supplies here and there but there are no people. Even this early in the morning there should be people stationed here.

Eventually we make our way up to the outpost and the sniper stand is still where I saw it. Beside it are two lawn chairs and an empty bottle. I look around, having a pretty good idea of how this group operates, for a ledger of some sort. These people love leaving behind notes and paper trails, so why wouldn't they keep one at their outposts?

While I look around, Joel peers out into the city. Our eagle-eye view is to our advantage right now and I hope he can see something, or someone, that will point us in the right direction.

I quickly find out that there's nothing worth keeping at this outpost, nor is there anything helpful. Not even a sign-in ledger. All that's left are empty sleeping bags and old wrappers. I join Joel in looking over the city, hoping to see anything helpful.

"Over there." Joel's voice is solemn and he point out into the distance. Squinting, I can see the smoke trail up into the air.

"You think they're all there?" I ask, squinting harder to try and see more but to no avail.

"Most of 'em at least. That's a big fire." Joel says and takes a step back.

"Why would they all be over there at the same time?" I ask, still feeling uneasy. Joel adjusts his bag on his shoulders.

"What's the one thing we know these men enjoy?" He asks, meeting my eyes. I wrack my brain, trying to nail down the one thing that unites this group.

I think of the letters and notes we found and the photos of gore they carelessly left behind. Their quotes of justice linger in the back of my mind and I think the answer has always been right in front of me.

"Killing." My answer is simple, but I know it's the right one. Joel nods and looks back out.

"Now we just have to be smart about this. We can't go in there while they're all there. We need to find somewhere to lay low until they all disperse." I can tell from the shift in his tone and his body language that he's in survival mode now. There's something almost predatory and dangerous in his eyes.

Joel leads us out of the outpost building into another one that's nearby. He chose this one in particular because there's only one way in and out, and there's only one window. We agree to lay low until the sun begins going down, where it'll be easier for us to lurk in the shadows.

Unfortunately, the evening comes much sooner than I am ready for. The sky has turned amber orange and with it, it seems the group has returned to their regular schedule. Joel and I saw two men enter the outpost building a while ago and they're our first targets. We agreed that we shouldn't just kill them right off the bat, they might have valuable information for us. And so, as we head out of our hiding spot, I ready my mind for what I know I must do. I do not take pride in torturing and killing people, but considering what these people have done, it becomes easier to digest.

I follow Joel's lead into the building and we quietly climb the stairs. My curved blade fits comfortably in my hands, and the stillness I'm holding it with masks my nerves well. We reach the door that will open up to the outpost and Joel stops just before opening it. He turns around to face me and we look into each other's eyes with a silent intensity. I nod to him, showing him I'm ready, and he nods sternly. He opens the door quickly, earning the attention of the outpost workers.

They're caught off guard and they scramble to reach for their guns as Joel lifts his rifle.

"Don't." Joel's voice is deep and authoritative. I take a step closer and see that both men in front of us have the letter 'T' carved into their necks. We've definitely found the right people.

But I don't study them for long, I'm quick to move and carry out the plan we meticulously thought out earlier in the day. I take one of the chairs and drag it across the room while Joel orders the men into them at gunpoint. My job is to keep an eye on the one who sits in front of me.

The man stalks towards me, a dangerous glint in his eye. He's sizing me up, probably weighing the benefits of trying to overtake me. But before he can act on his thoughts, my fingers find my gun in its holster and I raise it towards him, my knife still secure in my other hand. The man sits in the chair with faux confidence and spreads his legs as if we're about to have a casual conversation. Behind me, I can hear Joel questioning the other man.

The plan is simple, Joel questions one man about where the other outposts are and points them out on a map. Then, he questions the second one to see if their answers align. If they do, they earn a swift death. If not, they get questioned again, but under harsher circumstances, then they die a more painful death. I had never participated in something like this before, but I have a feeling Joel has, as he ran me through the details with a practiced tongue.

In front of me, the man tries to peer around my body to see what's happening to his friend. From what I can hear, the man is being uncooperative and Joel is simply trying to get him to cooperate. But the man keeps his cool composure and sits back in his seat as I step into his line of vision. He licks his lips and his eyes run over me, like a wild animal who hasn't eaten in days.

When I'm confident he won't try to make a move, I grab the cord from my bag and tie the man to the chair. His feet get tied together and his arms get secured to the armrests. The close proximity to the man makes me want to get sick, but I mask my true feelings well and wear an expression of pure confidence.

"You let me get out of here and I'll make sure you're taken care of." His voice is quiet, his words laced with false promises. I shift my stance and look into the man's eyes so that he can see how serious I am.

"You're not getting out of here alive, there's nothing you can do, or say, that will change your fate." I almost don't recognize my own voice as the words come out of my mouth. However, my words only make the man smile a twisted, sickening grin.

"We like 'em with a little bit of fight around here. Makes it all more fun." He chuckles and it makes my blood boil.

I'm forced to think of the boy in the alley and the sisters who were left mangled back in Boston. Did their murderers enjoy how they fought back? Did the murderers take joy in overpowering those children? My vision goes dark around the corners, and before I can think through what I'm doing, my body moves on its own accord. The man screams out in pain as my blade enters his thigh. He grits his teeth together and seethes in anger.

I grab the handle of my blade firmly and yank it out of the man's leg, causing him to yell out in pain again. Dark red soaks his pant leg quickly and I drag the blade covered in his blood across his cheekbone slowly. His chest heaves with each breath he takes and I make sure he can see me clearly.

"And I like it when they scream, makes it all more fun." I feel the corner of my mouth tilt up in a smirk and I step back from the man. He glares at me and spits at my feet. I'll let it slide, just this once.

"Who even are you?" He asks, trying to keep any sense of composure.

"We're here to right some wrongs." Is all I tell him. I can tell that my answer only makes him more angry.

The man behind us yells out in pain again and I can see the man in front of me lick his lips. His eyes begin darting around, trying to see a glimpse of his partner. I hear Joel threaten the man and a few seconds later, Joel joins my side. I glance down at his hands and see that his knuckles are bloody, but I can't tell if it's his blood or not.

"He try anything?" Joel's gruff voice asks me as he sizes up the bleeding man in front of us.

"Nothing that I couldn't handle." I say and raise my blade to show Joel. He only nods simply before telling me to go watch the other man.

The man who Joel just got done with has seen better days. His face is beginning to swell, his skin starting to bruise. Blood drips from his mouth and his head hangs low as he tries to catch his breath. Hearing my footsteps, he looks up at me briefly.

Joel wastes no time in questioning the other man and from the sounds, the man is putting up quite the resistance. However, he must give in quickly because Joel calls my name within a few minutes. We meet in the middle and Joel's voice is low as he explains what he learned.

"Their answers matched, they've got this whole city on lock. Replacements change shifts every hour, we won't have much time." He says and I nod.

"Then we go in and out. Search for what we can." I say with a nod and look at the tied up man behind Joel.

"We have to be very careful. Don't leave my side, do you understand?" Joel asks with a grave tone. My attention is drawn back to his face and I nod.

"I understand." I tell him.

"Good, let's get going." He says before walking to one of the men. I go to the other and raise my blade to his neck. The man begs me to let him go, but his pleas fall on deaf ears. Without much guilt, my blade slices cleanly through the man's jugular.

Joel and I go back down to the street and make our way to the next outpost. My heartbeat echoes in my ears as we sneak behind the two men on watch. They're talking about the meeting they all just attended, where three of their own members were hanged for stealing supplies. Unfortunately for them, their conversation is cut short by Joel and I. With efficiency, we take them down and are out of the building before the blood can drain from their bodies.

I check their bodies before we move on, but find nothing of value to us on them. All I see is the branding of their group embedded in their skin.

We go to the next outpost and I follow Joel as he rounds the corner. There are three men on watch, and one of them sees us before we can take them all out quietly. Before the man in front of me can turn around, I lunge forward and wrap my arm around his neck and dig my blade into his skin. The others cease movement and try to talk me down. Beside me, Joel reaches for his handgun.

"Don't even think about it." Joel tells one of the men who makes a move for his own gun. A few tense moments pass before Joel pulls the trigger, downing two of them while I kill the third.

We quickly go through their belongings, knowing the shots will have likely tipped someone off to our presence. My hands shake with adrenaline as I rummage their pockets, and both Joel and I come up empty handed once again.

"Come on we gotta go." Joel grabs my upper arm and tugs me out of the building. By now, the sun has faded behind the horizon, leaving us in the dark. Which is great for stealth, but a better advantage for people hunting us down.

In the distance I hear people running, and I'm willing to bet they're closing in on us. Before we can find out, Joel pulls me into a smaller building and we duck down. We catch our breaths and my mind races to come up with a quick plan. If we can escape a horde of infected we can escape this, I'm just not sure how.

"Shit. I shouldn't have done that." Joel angrily says.

"Hey, it doesn't matter, we just have to find a way forward." I say, trying to keep myself from panicking. Joel nods and his jaw sets firmly.

"The plan doesn't change. We just have to be cautious." He states and I don't argue with him. It's not like we have the time to debate and plan anything else right now.

The two of us stay hunkered down in this building for what feels like an hour. We stay until we don't hear any commotion outside, and then we get back to our plan. The streets have returned to their normal quietness and I feel confident that we can still pull this off.

With heightened caution, Joel and I take down two more outposts, and are now close to the center of the city. The smell of smoke still lingers in the air from the group's earlier meeting. I know that being in the center of their city is likely going to mean more people in a smaller area, but I know we can still do this if we're smart.

I follow Joel into another building and begin scoping out where the people are. I see what looks like a sleeping area, littered with old sleeping bags, but no people. Joel turns the corner and before I can react, someone is grabbing me from behind. I struggle to get out of the person's grasp, but their hold is too strong.

"Joel!" I yell out and try to throw my elbow into my captor's face, but to no avail. Instead, I'm met with deep laughter. My blood runs cold in my veins as I quickly come to terms that I've been taken by one of these men.

Joel doesn't come back from around the corner to save me.

My body fights back violently against the man's grasp but he's far too strong for me to overtake. His arms feel like they're crushing my ribs as he takes me out of this building. Outside, there's a small group of men staring me down. Some make comments about how they're going to have so much fun, the others celebrate that I've been caught. The men reach out and touch me as my captor leads me through them.

My mind races too quickly for me to focus on one singular thought. I wonder where Joel is and what happened to him. I wonder where I'm being taken and what's going to happen to me. My chest hurts with each strained breath I take. The sound of the men gets drowned out by a ringing in my ears.

My captor opens a door with his foot and I look around, seeing another group of men who look like they've been waiting for me. I get slammed down onto a metal table and get stripped of my bag and weapons. I fight back and reach one last time for one of my knives, but one of the men pushes my shoulders forcefully back. Dark spots cloud my vision as I try to catch my breath.

I'm restrained to the table, each limb tied down with what feels like zip ties. There's nothing I can do to fight back anymore, I am at their will. Fighting down the bile that rises in my throat and the tears that threaten to spill down my cheeks, I try to mask just how scared I am.

How did this go so wrong so quickly?

Am I going to die here on this table?

Did Joel get out? Is he going to come back for me?

Joel.

All thoughts cease except for the ones about Joel. I can only hope he made it out of there unscathed, and I hope he keeps his promise to me. I hope he doesn't come back and instead leaves and goes back to his family. My lower lip trembles as I think about him leaving this city and returning to his family. While I might not make it out of here, I surely hope he did.

A single tear falls from the corner of my eye and down my cheek as I come to terms with the fact I may never see Joel again. I might never be able to look into his warm, chocolate eyes again or wake up to his masculine scent, the one that makes me feel secure. Our time together may have ended, just like that, in the blink of an eye.

My chest aches from the loss of Joel, it feels like my heart itself is being constricted and suffocated. After everything we went through, this is how it ends?

It seems this also may be just another unfortunate fact of life.

My thoughts are cut short as a man leans over me, his greedy eyes taking in every detail of my body. I want to scream at him and spit in his face, but know that if I want to even have the smallest chance for an escape, I can't act on my rage.

"So you're the one who's been killing off my men." He starts and rubs his beard as if he's deep in thought. I stay silent, opting to bite the insides of my cheeks instead of saying anything.

"You will be judged for your crimes soon and sentenced to a fair punishment decided upon by my fellow Tribunals." The man speaks calmly, as if we're talking about the weather.

"In the meantime, you'll be kept here. Get comfortable, sweetheart." He says and orders the other men out of the room.

As they exit, the door gets shut, leaving me in total darkness. When I'm sure they're gone, I try to tug on my restraints to see if one is just loose enough for me to slip out of, but unfortunately they're all secured tightly.

I don't know if there's a way out of this one.

Part Twenty Five

[snowingclouds]

I need to yap about Prototype, specifically Alex's change in Prototype 2:

Obviously, heavy prototype 2 spoilers:

What the fuck happened, man?!?!? In the first game, sure, the dude is willing to kill on sight. There's a civilian death counter. The scene after the Greene boss fight? That was so good. He didn't care, just slammed her ass. Anyways: despite all this, he sounds remorseful and dealing with some tangled up shit, yk? There's a line in the helicopter mission where he shouts "Damn you! Damn you for making me do this!" Like, hello? This virus in the shape of some dude can and does feel remorse and turmoil! He hijacked a helicopter to make sure the city didn't explode, and nearly died in the process.

But then comes Prototype 2:

And suddenly Alex is all about infecting everyone and their mother, spreading his virus, and has Blackwatch in his pocket through his Evolved. No remorse, no care for anyone anymore. Isn't there supposed to be like a 2 year difference between the first outbreak and Prototype 2?? Did he just lose his marbles in that time? Did the nuke scramble his brain a bit? Like, what happened??

I get that Alex is a mass murdering, people eating, viral biomass with Mercer's face, but I keep thinking back to the helicopter mission in the first game. His VA sounds like his whole body was put into that line, and it takes place even after he finds out the truth of everything (except Cross, for the time being).

Heller and him have a very similar "kill on sight" rage that I think makes the games fun, and comparing the two between games, theres so many parallels. It's just odd how Mercer has this 180 behavior.

Tbh, I don't mind prototype 2. Without it, we wouldn't have a boss fight with Heller calling Mercer an "emo fuck" and "bitch" like five times. I totally did not get my shit rocked the first time I tried that fight and kept thinking "James shut your mouth I'm getting bodied here". But all in all, it was fun. I think it would be more fun to explore their relationship considering Heller was military and trusted Blackwatch so deeply. Mercer (before Blacklight) knew shit was going down, and then Blacklight/Alex is immediately hunted by Blackwatch and literally eats his way through the ranks. They could've had so much potential for distrust and betrayal on a deeper level than just "muhahaha! Infect the town!", you know?

And another smaller thing:

In prototype one, there's a thing about how Alex isn't Mercer anymore. He has his face, but he's actually just the virus, and Mercer has been dead a while. They're two separate but not people. See the whole thing about "I'm not human, I never was". But in prototype 2, James doesn't have that same thing happen. The whole time, every one of the Evolved seem to be infected people, not people that the virus is wearing as a face, and that's an important distinction. Maybe not so important when you're slaughtering Evolved, but in the scenes with Heller and Maya? That's pretty fucking important. Maya is scared of him at first, and I don't think we're given enough of Heller's thoughts during that. Yeah, he looks distraught in that scene, but imagine how much more so it would've been if they re-explored the whole "not human virus wearing a face" thing some more, especially in relation to his kid.

And sure; maybe it doesn't matter. Maybe even Heller's internal thoughts would've been "who cares" as long as he has the memories of Heller and took off right where he left off, but I still would've really liked to see that come up again.

[fast-moon]

DS9 Season 2 Thoughts

I've made it through the second season of Star Trek: Deep Space Nine after missing out on it during its original run due to being too young to understand it at the time. Let's see how it holds up now!

1. The Homecoming: Kira goes to rescue a Bajoran prisoner who she hopes can unify the planet, but it turns out all the legends about him are just that, and he's just some guy who's not up to the task. But Sisko knows how religious people work, and insists he play the part anyway, since they won't be bothered about whether any claims about him are real or not.

2. The Circle: The plot continues to be too real as a government official conspires with the leader of a small but vocal conservative religious sect to use terrorism to overthrow the government and install themselves. Even the more liberal religious leader still has naughty fantasies.

3. The Siege: The three-parter misses the landing by naively believing that religious extremists attempting to overthrow the government would actually reconsider if shown proof that they're secretly being funded by an enemy power who wants to use them to destabilize the country.

4. Invasive Procedures: Okay, seriously, is Dax just utterly emotionally dissociated from her current body? She shrugs off constant sexual harassment and objectification, she was indifferent about being executed for a crime she didn't commit, she didn't treat Bashir's sexualized replica of her as any kind of violation, and now she's like, "Welp, this guy wants my liver squid. Oh well, bye, guys." Also, I get that Quark's an entertaining POS, but there are certain things he's done that he really should be facing consequences for.

5. Cardassians: Our fabulous Cardassian tailor returns! I'm not sure how I feel about sending the kid back with his bio dad, but if it had ended with him staying with his adoptive family, I'm not sure how I would have felt about that, either. It was a crap situation for that poor kid either way.

6. Melora: The station crew trip over themselves trying to improve the accessibility of the station for a new special needs crew member. Gosh, if only they were that worried about its accessibility for their permanent crew member who still has to contort himself into unnatural shapes on a daily basis in order to utilize its systems. #JusticeForOdo

7. Rules of Acquisition: Quark's new business partner starts hitting on him. His partner then turns out to be a woman, which actually ends up making it even more scandalous.

8. Necessary Evil: Oh, cool, a film noir episode that shows what the station was like under Cardassian rule. Quark finally gets some comeuppance but is saved by plot armor. Odo explores his inner Columbo. He was also apparently a lab subject and then a sideshow attraction before Gul Dukat hired him as security, so good lord, someone give this poor slime a break.

9. Second Sight: A woman in an unhappy marriage literally dreams up a self-insert OC to pair with Sisko.

10. Sanctuary: An entire nation of refugees comes through the wormhole and demands to settle on Bajor because it's their holy promised land. They get denied, then get pissy because one deeply religious group annexing territory from another deeply religious group and then having to live side-by-side has historically worked out so well in the past.

11. Rivals: Prince Humperdinck brings aboard a gatcha game that breaks the universe's RNG.

12. The Alternate: It's finally Odo's turn to get infected with the crazypox that he usually has to save everyone else from. Although, even without the crazypox as an excuse, I think he's earned the right to throw a violent temper tantrum after all the bullshit he's had to put up with. Also, "Wasn't that pillar over here before?" "It was in my way; I had it moved." is living rent-free in my brain due to how deliberate the inclusion of this exchange was yet how utterly pointless it ended up being. A red herring is one thing, but the entire pillar subplot simply vanished entirely following this scene and it left me so confused.

13. Armageddon Game: Aliens gift Sisko a deepfake video of how they would have killed O'Brien and Bashir if they were actually halfway competent about it.

14. Whispers: O'Brien becomes paranoid that everyone is conspiring against him, and it turns out he's right. Nice subtle touch to having him repeatedly order coffee throughout the episode, since his coffee habits in the previous episode were what initially clued them in that he was a fake.

15. Paradise: Sisko: "Excuse me, are y'all with the cult?" Alixus: "We're not a cult, we're an isolated commune that rejects technology and--" Sisko: "Yeah, this is it."

16. Shadowplay: Odo and Dax figure out everyone in the village is a hologram because the episode title gave it away. Also, I really hope that Odo remains aro-ace and the rest of the crew come to respect that, instead of constantly teasing him about his lack of a sex life and ultimately forcing him into thinking he needs a relationship to be happy. He already has to contort himself into uncomfortable shapes to conform. Don't force him to contort into conformity any further. #JusticeForOdo

17. Playing God: Huh. So there are rats on space stations. Also, Dax discovers a potentially universe-destroying proto-universe and decides to dump it in the Gamma Quadrant for them to deal with.

18. Profit and Loss: Quark teaches us that when a woman says "no", she really means "yes" if you hound and threaten her long enough.

19. Blood Oath: Curzon Dax continues to posthumously make me question Sisko's choice in friends, as Jadzia Dax now feels obligated to attend a Klingon murder party that Curzon RSVP'd to.

20-21. The Maquis: Humans set up colonies next to a known bear cave, whine that the Federation won't protect them from the bears, start an anti-bear movement.

22. The Wire: Bashir goes into a panic after his boyfriend ODs. Honestly, Bashir really needs to stop chasing women and recognize he has way more chemistry with Garak. He's always been annoyingly shallow and self-serving to the point that I wouldn't trust him as a doctor no matter how skilled he was. But this episode actually let him give a damn about someone without objectifying them, which is good progress. Hopefully it sticks. Also, Sisko's proclamation to keep Quark locked up "forever" in the previous episode didn't seem to last very long. But at least now I know where the "Especially the lies" meme comes from!

23. Crossover: Bashir learned nothing from the previous episode and goes right back to womanizing and talking incessantly about himself. Damn. Kira's meets her mirror universe counterpart who instantly falls in love with her, which... same.

24. The Collaborator: The liberals lose the election because they're more concerned with their candidate being 100% unproblematic than preventing the entire planet from falling under the rule of a goddamn religious tyrant. (throws table in a fit of "this is too real")

25. Tribunal: O'Brien goes on vacation to Planet Kangaroo Court, which is actually a bit more relaxing than what he usually has to put up with.

26. The Jem'Hadar: are truly truly truly outrageous. And really want to meet a Klingon, and I know we're getting Worf eventually because he's on the series splash screen. But until then, bring on the Dominion!

I found Season 2 generally a bit better than Season 1. I was really uncomfortable with Bashir in Season 1, and he was a bit more tolerable in Season 2. Downright redeemed in "The Wire", then he regressed immediately in the next episode, so I still have a fairly low opinion of him. Dax is another character I'm having trouble caring about since even after two seasons I still have no clear idea of "What would Dax do?" in any hypothetical situation.

Like, if a bunch of monkeys got loose on the station, I can imagine that Sisko would order a containment field and then go monkey-hunting with Kira, who would spend the whole time exasperated like, "Really?! Monkeys?!" O'Brien would technobabble together a monkey trap while grumbling about how this sort of thing always happens to him, Bashir would tell a long-winded story about how there was a similar incident with Emus back at the academy and how much of an adventure it was and he ended up saving the day and then a bunch of women were swooning all over him, Quark would stash a couple of monkeys away to sell later, and Odo would have grumpily already rounded them all up because he's the only competent crew member (and relieving Quark of his monkey stash). And Dax would just... kind of stand there I guess. Maybe quip about how one of her previous incarnations had a monkey. But she just doesn't have enough of a notable personality for me to go, "Yep, that's a Dax thing to do, all right." So far she still feels uncomfortably like a fetish character with little actual substance.

Also, the depiction of the Universal Translator analyzing a new language in "Sanctuary" made me even more perplexed as to how it even works. So, they started out speaking an unknown language, and over the course of the episode, the UT learned it and started translating it. Okay, cool. Except that implies that the aliens -- and probably everyone on the station -- are all actually still speaking their native languages and the UT is just real-time translating them all. But how does this work in a conversation? If Sisko speaks to Kira and Quark, how do they both hear something they can understand? Where even is the UT? They'll beam down to a planet and lose all their equipment but can still communicate with everyone fine. And how does the UT know to stop translating, like when someone will yell in Klingon for one sentence and then switch back to English?

I wonder if there's ever an episode where the Universal Translator malfunctions and everyone has to figure out how to communicate with each other. Heck, might be an opportunity for Dax to actually do something since she's the one most likely to be a polyglot.

Anyway, on to Season 3!

[canadiancryptid]

So I started thinking about the game on Asriel's computer, and now I can't stop thinking about the possibility of Asriel and/or Kris being the ones to create Undertale. I mean, if Gaster might have created Deltarune, why couldn't they have made Undertale?

I mean, its clearly supposed to be a reference to the Asriel fight, but I started questioning if there might be more to it, and here I am.

They way this has been piecing together in my brain, I see it as more Kris picking up what Asriel started and never finished some time after the events of Deltarune, with every intention of having it played by the same entity that controlled them.

All of the similarities between the games can easily be things that were based of their actual adventures and people from Hometown. What I'm interested in are the major differences.

- Most of the magic used by monsters could be based on what little magic they can use in the Light World, as well as magic used by both Lightners and Darkners in Dark Worlds.

- Frisk and Chara being so similar to Kris makes perfect sense if they were inspired by them. They both share a ton of traits with Kris, but Chara seems to have the most. Frisk is the player character based on their experience while under the player's control, and Chara is the self-insert that fills their role in the Dreemurr family, but is also one of two characters in the game who directly speak to you as the player.

- Gaster and all his mysteries could be based on whatever entity we've been assuming IS Gaster in Deltarune. They never fully found out what was going on there, but they knew putting in references to it would drive the curious players insane.

There's something about the idea of Kris creating Undertale because of the events with the player in Deltarune, only for most of us to find Deltarune in the first place because of Undertale.

The one major part of this theory is how Asriel is depicted in Undertale. I guess it could be explained as Asriel's edgy OC from when he was working on it getting reworked for the story, but that might be stretching it a bit.

Do I think any of this is even close to canon? Not for a second. Pure crack theory. But I can't stop thinking about it and it makes a concerning amount of sense. There are a bunch of other smaller things I can think of that could be looped in, but these are most of the main ones. I don't like how deeply this has infected my brain.

[blackjackkent]

Today in "Rakha makes everyone just a little bit worse"... we have officially convinced everyone in camp that listening to the Dream Guardian is a good thing and we should slurp the worms.

Astarion and Karlach were already on board. Gale decides without any input from Rakha that he sees "no harm" in taking the worms, given the existential threat the Absolute poses. Shadowheart (after a Persuasion check from Rakha) agreed that it was worth taking every advantage available.

But of course, because they're her best friends and greatest influences, the most interesting conversations are with Wyll and Lae'zel.

-----

"I had another dream last night. The visitor came to me and ordered me to penetrate the heart of the very cult that's spreading the infection. It gave me a tadpole gift too. Just like it did the first time it appeared. I suppose it hoped this would help. At first I thought we should avoid these 'gifts,' no matter what advantage we gain. And yet... I can't help but recall the words of my father. 'The best plan is the one that works.' These powers could be enough to edge us towards victory."

Rakha, deeply relieved to hear him coming around to her point of view: "We need these powers to infiltrate the cult. This is 'the plan that works.'"

"Very well. If it's mind games these parasites wish to play, we'll play. And we'll win."

-----

"Another dream, another order from that dubious visitor. It announced that we will find the answers that we seek in the Absolute cultists' lair - and offered another generous 'gift'. A persuasive creature. It tempts us with power, expresses its admiration, its adoration. Avert your eyes, whenever it appears. And do not avail yourself of this new power, no matter how alluring. You've no idea what damage it could do to us, how far into illithid madness it could drag us."

Rakha trusts Lae'zel so instinctively in all other matters that disagreeing with her here is hard - but with all the others behind her now and the memory of the dream-peace in her head, she has to try. "We can use this skill to manipulate the cultists. We'd be fools to refuse it."

"Battles are won with swords, not mind-games born of brain-worms. The ones we fight with these cultists will be no different. And there *will* come a battle, of that I'm most certain. The one truth that fell out of the dream figure's cankered lips."

"These dreams linger in my memory. Do you think that strange figure will come back?" No doubt Lae'zel can hear the flash of hope in the words. Rakha wants the visitor to come back, to bring her a peaceful night again... like the craving for a drug.

"It is a certainty," she says coolly. "I had assumed our parasites served a ghaik Elder, but I believe they serve a greater master still."

"A greater master? Who - or what - could that be?"

"A question that burns in my belly day and night. Elders and collectives abide by their own tenets. It would require a powerful Creed to unite them. And now this voice, this Creed, finds our own ears. If it reaches this plane, it may reach others?"

"Have you thought about making use of the tadpole's power?" Rakha asks, prodding the subject cautiously.

"Mark my words," Lae'zel snaps. "This power would be no blessing but a curse. You might as well ask me to gouge out my eyes for the promise of sight, or slice off my tongue for the promise of taste. Consume all the ghaik tadpoles you wish. I'm not so craven."

[PERSUASION] "If we must bear the tadpoles' burden, we should also avail ourselves of their power," Rakha points out.

(A/N: 21 on a DC20, out of the park. XD Whatever feelings Lae'zel caught during their night together are doing a number on her.)

Lae'zel flinches uncertainly. "Perhaps you..." she begins, then catches herself and scowls. "No, that's absurd. When the tadpole has stretched to every pore and slithered through every vein, what am I to do then? It won't hear my screams. It won't care if I beg. I will be remade in its image." Her shoulders straighten defiantly. "My faith in Vlaakith will guide me and my own might will sustain me. I have no need of this depraved power."

Perhaps she is right. But Rakha is too lost in her own memories - of the Guardian, of using the worm - to let the matter go. She wants Lae'zel on her side.

[PERSUASION] "This Cult of the Absolute is dangerous," she says firmly, holding Lae'zel's gaze. "We should take all the help we can get."

(A/N: I was fully expecting a higher DC for this second check but it's actually LOWER - 18 instead of 20. Oh, Rakha, you're a bad influence. Poor Lae'zel.)

Lae'zel frowns. And then her shoulders slump and she looks away. "You... you might be right," she mutters haltingly. "The githyanki have long studied ghaik and used what we've learned. The zaith'isk itself was devised from such knowledge." Her voice strengthens as she lets herself be persuaded by Rakha's intensity just as Rakha has, in the past, been persuaded by hers. "The tadpole is perhaps not just a curse, but a weapon I can twist and mold to my advantage."

She sets her jaw. "Very well. I will swallow my disgust and avail myself of the parasite's powers."

Rakha feels herself relax distinctly. Good. Good... It pained her surprisingly deeply to feel at odds with Lae'zel and Wyll on this matter... but both have seen the logic and accepted it. It is a deep, comforting relief.

[speargifted]

//home now but i thought about verstael again so now ill just ramble about fitting him into 16 because its weirdly difficult (verstael besithia/bestia being one of the main antagonistic forces in ffXV - he's the mad scientist trope and the driving force behind a lot of the shit that happens in XV even if you dont really interact with him in the main game)

Now for one you have to get rid of his big achievements because they don't work in 16. One being the wallbreaker which just doesn't translate at all but the others being that he killed Shiva and imprisoned Ifrit which... we can't let him do unfortunately. The easiest thing to translate is that he would be deeply obsessed with the Fallen, he is deeply obsessed with Solheim in XV which is your usual FF trope of the technologically advanced society that came before the current one and fell because of hubris or gods or some bullshit. Verstael is against the Astrals (The Gods in XV, which are the Eikon equivalents) and hates magic - he actively prioritises technology over magic and weirdly that would align him more with Cid than anyone else (he wouldn't work in the iron kingdom because he would very much hate the mothercrystals). But while some of his values align with Cid he is also a megalomaniacal bastard who is legitimately quite insane and an antagonist. Verstael is of the Niflheim Empire and while the Emperor of Niflheim does align somewhat with Sylvestre's characterisation I simply refuse to let Verstael have any positive associations with Bahamut so he cant be imperial. Verstael is heavily connected to Ardyn, he's the one who freed Ardyn and also convinced the Emperor to give him his position, and in turn Ardyn has helped Verstael immensely in his goals(my asshole husbands who will never admit that they care for each other in the way they need each other to admit it). Ardyn being the living embodiment of the Starscoruge, the disease that Verstael is endlessly fascinated by and does intentionally infect himself with. The Scourge is not analogous with the Crystal Curse but weirdly does kinda fit with the concept of the Akashic (anyone sick with Scourge eventually becomes a mindless daemon, though I am grossly simplifying it), and I have always written Verstael as keeping himself young with his experiments with the Scourge in a similar way Barnabas does with his Akashic-ness. If you squint the Scourge is referred to loosely as Darkness which is the closest I can get to a positive connection of Verstael to any of the Eikons (it helps that Odin isn't an Astral). He's also very heavily associated with clones and i guess sleipnir is the closest thing 16 has to that. So Waloed would be stuck with the bastard and he would be an absolute asset to their military forces but he wouldn't actually follow Ultima (he'd be quiet about it but he serves himself and himself only) and he is just awful to interact with so just give him a lab and complete authority over it and never speak to him while he works out how to inject himself with aether to the right point where he's semi akashic and pretty forever (until his body dies and he uploads his brain into a robot worm. awful man)

[grumpymoons]

1

Hello, 

This is maybe my third or fourth attempt at writing something that I feel is acceptable. I keep deleting my writing because I am worried it sounds odd or I am not properly articulating the point I am trying to get across. I wonder if it has actually been bad or if it is just me being hyper critical of myself. I want to write posts that make sense and make other people feel seen. I have not been able to find a blog or social media that talks about all of the things I wish I was seeing. I want to see a young woman my age discussing her struggles as she goes through life. Someone who was just recently diagnosed with autism, ADHD, and PCOS. A girl who is struggling to come to terms with it all. Who is honest about her experiences and struggles. A girl who just simply writes about coming of age in this difficult world we live in.

While there may be these out there, I have yet to find them, but I will keep searching to find connection. For now I will simply do it myself. I will write about everything I can and hope to make at least one person out there feel less alone. Gosh have I felt so alone for so much of my life. Just alone in my brain and my thoughts. This blog is also good for when things do finally change. I will be able to look back when I was struggling to get out of bed, very low on friends, and wishing for it to get better, and be proud of the growth and progress I have made. 

I have been 22 for around 9 months and yet I often still feel as though I am 14, just starting high school and trying my hardest to fit in. I have always felt this desperate need to be liked by everyone around me. That has definitely not happened lol, but I guess in the end being liked should not be a priority. I am working on accepting that by being myself I will draw in people that truly like me for me and not this masked version of myself so many in my life know. 

I guess I have often felt like I MUST keep this fake outward appearance of being okay all the time. The thought of burdening others or bringing them down with my depression and anxiety has been such a fear. I have felt so deeply sad for so much of my life and did not know where to even start when it came to starting the process of healing. Actually I know my depression has brought some others down whith just how deep Ive let it sink into me. It has infected many of the people surrounding me and I am so deeply sorry for that. I often think of the people I have hurt or lost connection with due to me hatingmyself and projecting these fears and anxieties onto others. To growth and change though. I have chosen to accept the pass and all I can do is move forward, right my wrongs, and do better in the future.

Here are some things I have been wanting to write about. 

I have recently been watching Dimension 20’s Freshman Year Dungeons and Dragons game. I have always wanted to get into dnd but have not had a solid crowd of friends that were also interested in things like that. It has been so much fun making my way through their episodes and seeing the wild directions a game can grow. I have been watching maybe two or three episodes a day and I am going to try to keep that up until I finish Junior Year. I wonder how long we will have to wait for senior year IF they even decide to do one. Watching this game has really put into perspective how much of the quote on quote “Nerdy Stuff” I have avoided my whole life. But actually that is not true. I outwardly made it appear like i was avoiding it, but then in secret would enjoy all of these things. If I heard it would make people not like me then I was scared of doing it. That’s such fucking bullshit. So glad I am beginning to actually do the things I enjoy. I like table top games! I like video games! I really like watching twitch streams of people plying my favorite games! Hopefully soon I will be able to join my own first campaign of dnd. That would be fabulous. First I will be starting by creating my character. I believe I have now started a dnd hyper fixation and I am quite excited about it. 

I have come to a realization on my interest in the sex, kink, and fetish category. I have always been so fascinated by it all. Fascinated by the thought of pleasure so great a person is shaking and illegible. The idea of being brought to sub space and how fantastic it sounds. True aftercare from a partner who just wants to take care of me and make sure I am okay in every way. The excitement of how many sub genres there are in the world of sex and kink. I have been reading and watching many things on these topics since elementary school. Ive felt this innate shame about it the entire time though. I think It is important for me to get rid of that shame and accept that I like this stuff and it is okay. It is okay to have many of the kinks I do. I will find a partner who will work with me to figure out if they are things we can take part in together. Actually maybe my current partner will and I just need to push past the fear and talk to him about it all. I guess all we can do is experiment and trust each other. I will be keeping a log of my journey here. 

I have been wanting to write my own story for a while now. At first I was trying to come up with an entirely new idea, but more recently Ive decided to start with something that I already know. I know the Harry Potter universe extremely well. I have been a fan for as long as I can remember. Reading the books, too many fanfictions to count, the movies, and fan made films has been a huge part of my life. I think I will start by writing fanfiction. In fact I have so many ideas I will be able to put into a story. The characters and general backstory are already there. I just need to go into depth a little more on that and then create their future. I will start with Dramione, but I would love to write some marauders ff one day. I adore all of these fanon characters so much. I will also be keeping track of my progress on this blog. 

I love to write and I hope that through blogging more I will learn to articulate my words a lot better. Thanks for reading all of this if you get this far lol.

Moons

[silentsockfeet]

tlou hbo s1 ep1 thoughts (spoilers obviously)

really love that we spend half the ep following sarah through her day in the life, it’s the film equivalent of her being the first playable character in the game. we as the audience spend so much time with her and if you’re not familiar with the story i imagine you’d assume the rest of the show is meant to be around her, only for that to crumble later

the curtis and viper dvd 😭😭

i like how much they show off tommy and joel’s dynamic, specifically in the car scene. tommy mostly acts with emotion and impulse and relies a lot on joel to make the decisions, while joel is the one thinking rationally even when stakes are high: planning them a route to the highway, trying to guide them through the crowds, etc.

an obvious thing to point out but the accuracy of the sets is astounding!! sarah’s room, the austin roadsign (this one specifically broke my brain), the boston QZ, it’s all so goddamn good

LOVE the change to having joel gathering supplies to go and find tommy, it says so much about his character but also their relationship. joel at his core is still a deeply loving and protective person even after twenty years in an apocalypse has forced him to build a harder exterior. but he’s also still stuck in the past, still seeing tommy as the sort of immature younger brother he has to keep watch over

gaslight gatekeep girlboss tess everyone say thanks anna torv

i LOVE that they gave us a glimpse into how the fireflies dealt with ellie before confirming she was immune, i always wondered how the fireflies would’ve reacted to her showing up claiming immunity. the level of paranoia from the fireflies and the responding sass from ellie was exactly how i’d imagined it to go haha

also just really like the world building of how a military-occupied QZ works, with the job system and the radio post with people lining up to send messages to loved ones

obviously happy that gustavo is working on the show but there were so many times a score from the game would play in the show and there’d be this weird disconnect in my brain where i’m like ‘wait that’s not where the music is supposed to play’ LOL

joel little spoon confirmed

so so obsessed with the expansion of tess and joel’s relationship, the way tess is able to calm joel down and get him to think clearly, the way she is clearly so supportive of him going to find tommy. they were able to say so much with so little about who she is as a person and to joel

in game ellie had already met marlene once before she was infected so it made sense that she would go to her for help after, but in the show she’d never met marlene before, makes me wonder why ellie went to her/the fireflies or if that had even been what elllie had intended. maybe she just got tangled up with them and had to make do? or it could be possible that [redacted] survived long enough to escort her to an outpost and explain the situation

joel info dumping about construction in the middle of a manhunt i love this man

“kim you don’t have a fuckin ear on your fuckin head” PLEASE that line was so funny. absolutely uncalled for

bella is so goddamn good as ellie. the mannerisms the sass everything is just so spot on. there were moments when she even sounded just like game ellie it was astounding

ellie’s interest with joel’s violence is so intriguing, i feel like that’s actually a fairly sizable difference from the game. in the equivalent game scene ellie was kinda shocked that tess and joel killed the soldiers, whereas in the show she was fascinated by it.

and also depressing lol, it’s something that she’s surrounded by but has never really had to do before so i think she views violence in an aggrandizing way, kind of like the heroes in her comics. it’s really depressing to know that one day she’s going to get to the point where she realizes just how taxing violence truly is

in hindsight i should’ve known they were gonna end this ep on the reveal of ellie’s immunity, it’s such a genius cliffhanger for people new to the story

[sapphireshelle91]

Ok, now that I am have recovered from watching Episode 5 of TLoU -  That’s a straight up lie, I haven’t recovered. Again, like with Sarah, I knew the thing that happens at the end of episode 5 was coming, I knew, I knew, I thought I was emotionally prepared, and then the thing happened and I was bawling - ANYWAY, putting the emotional damage aside... and (small-ish) SPOILERS FOR EPISODE 5: Endure and Survive Was anyone else caught completely off guard by the little girl Clicker? I mean, we know kids can be infected (we saw in the timeskip in ep1 and you know, um, *coughsamcough*), but because we never saw any kids as runners (again *coughsamcough* but he was very new and yeah...), clickers so on in the game (or in the first 4 episode) my brain sort of came up with the theory that kids, once they became infected - because they’re kids and their bodys are so much smaller. And I’m talking about babies to maybe pre/mid-teens who get infected - that they succumb quicker to the fungus, and they just kinda skipped all the different stages and maybe not quiet immediately - because again we do see newly infected kids in both the game and the show - but in a pretty short about of time, if they’re not killed, they instead just turn into spore patches. Or something along those lines. So yeah, I was not expecting to see a little girl clicker. But once I got over the shock of her, I was actually really pleased that the show kinda answered the question/s that I’ve been curious about since the game first came out, which was “What happens to infected kids? Do they become clickers, or do they just fall to the ground and become new spore fungus patches?” So yeah, I’m glad the show showed a kid Clicker, even though it was also absolutely devastating to see a kid-Clicker I also might have *SPOILERS* cheered when the kid Clicker got a certain antagonist. I might have straight up cackled and then felt immediately queasy because boy, deaths in TLoU are brutal even when we don’t see the gore (which thank you, I don’t need that in my life). Anyway, this show has gone and once again, blown past all my previous expectations for any given episode, I am once again left shattered and an emotional wreck from an episode and also deeply satisfied because this is a damn fine show.

[ynwa-chiesa]

SHAM!!!!! if u could write a little paragraph titled 'shamcore' what would be in it 👀💖

to be honest, the shamcore of the past weeks has been unnecessarily stressing about exams and it being a 50/50 chance if I'm excellent or almost fail....but let me get the vibe let me check

i wrote so much i had to put it under a readmore :/

ive been listening to all i care about from Chicago for the past 2 hours, I've bought a potted coffea arabica plant and its in a coffee mug and sitting on my desk rn, i have been maladaptive daydreaming a lot lately, I've developed a new world (i cannot tell you about, cringe) ..... hm i think of stars but the like ✦ this one a lot like an unhealthy amount i sometimes plan on what i will have to think about a bit longer to understand (i recently spend a few minutes thinking about reflective surfaces and also i have been planning to think about fridges but i NEVER have the TIME ugh!!) i think about my house in Croatia that is cold and can be only heated by the aircon and I'm so exited because i have a double bed there i think about plants whose roots are visible because they are in glasses (because flies infect our neighbourhood and if i have plants in dirt they lay their eggs there ..) also i think about walks and walking and the cold and the sun and the wind and being shaped by everything around you...i think about pouring 30 hours into okami again and again I'm thinking about an overheated laptop running 4 illegally downloaded games i am always thinking about the endless ocean franchise and how i would design the perfect 3rd game I'm thinking about 40 nail polishes I'm thinking about stars again no wait I'm thinking about the deep ocean again also nihilism I've been thinking about the meaning of life a lot you know just in general.....those thoughts are also happening in my scheduled thinking time...you know I've recently found just thinking about stuff enjoyable, just figuring stuff out, it calms me a lot....I've begun hating a lot again but its all legitimate also I've been thinking about shapes not ✦ but simple dots and triangles and hearts and medieval fashion such as armour and dresses about indo european potterware about the simplicity of prehistoric life of humanity and our place in the world I've been hoping a lot lately but also not caring i think i sometimes still feel my brain developing and it makes me feel uneasy... i love comparing random items too (designated thinking time) I'm thinking about touching stone and dirt and smelling every flower i see i am very close to complimenting strangers but I'm still uneasy about that I've been deeply imprinted and now I feel paranoia constantly also all i want has been playing this entire time I'm supposed to be studying ethics rn i am so sorry but i truly believe this is what shamcore is in its core

in one picture? ✦ and yellow and blue and purple and ancient patterns and modern light and the ocean and the forests and rivers who are ancient and will never go away

wait theres also 10 fandoms on my mind all the time

[alexclug]

8 Reasons Why the Future of Robotics Lies in Medical Innovation

The field of robotics has made significant strides in recent years, with its greatest potential lying in the medical industry. From enhancing surgical precision to facilitating patient rehabilitation, robotics is becoming a cornerstone of modern healthcare. With these advancements, the future of robotics is tied closely to medical innovation, and we are only scratching the surface of what’s possible. Let me walk you through eight key reasons why the future of robotics is deeply intertwined with medical innovation and how this synergy is reshaping healthcare.

1. Unmatched Precision in Surgical Procedures

The precision that robotic systems bring to the operating room is one of the primary reasons medical robotics is leading the future of this field. Systems such as the da Vinci Surgical System allow surgeons to perform complex, minimally invasive surgeries with unparalleled accuracy. These robots enable surgeons to make small, precise movements through tiny incisions, which reduces the risk of complications, speeds up recovery times, and minimizes pain.

From my perspective, the true game-changer here is the ability of these robotic systems to minimize human error. In complex surgeries, even the slightest hand tremor can be problematic. Robotic surgery tools, however, can filter out human tremors, allowing for greater control and precision. This is especially useful in delicate procedures, such as brain and heart surgery, where precision is critical​.

2. Faster Recovery and Better Patient Outcomes

One of the most remarkable benefits of robotic-assisted surgery is its role in reducing recovery times. Since these systems allow for minimally invasive procedures, patients often experience fewer complications, reduced scarring, and shorter hospital stays. For instance, robotic surgeries for prostate cancer have been shown to result in faster recovery compared to traditional surgery.

From my own experience and feedback from patients, the ability to heal faster and get back to daily life more quickly is a crucial factor that supports the growing adoption of robotic surgery. The improved recovery times also lead to lower hospital costs and fewer post-operative infections, both of which contribute to better patient outcomes overall​.

3. Robotic Exoskeletons for Rehabilitation

The integration of robotics into patient rehabilitation is another area where medical innovation is pushing the boundaries of what’s possible. Robotic exoskeletons, wearable robotic devices, are helping patients regain mobility after serious injuries or conditions like strokes. These devices work by supporting and guiding patients' movements as they relearn how to walk or move their limbs.

These exoskeletons will help patients physically and boost their mental health by giving them a sense of independence. For example, patients who may have been bedridden or wheelchair-bound can now walk with assistance, thanks to these robotic systems. From my perspective, the emotional boost and improved quality of life that comes from such advancements are just as important as the physical recovery​.

4. Telepresence and Remote Healthcare Delivery

One of the most exciting uses of medical robotics is its ability to extend healthcare access through telepresence robots. These robots allow doctors to "visit" patients remotely, conduct consultations, and even guide other healthcare providers through complex procedures in real-time. Telepresence robots are especially useful in rural or underserved areas, where access to specialists may be limited.

I’ve seen how telepresence technology helps reduce the need for travel, bringing high-quality healthcare to patients regardless of their location. In remote areas, telepresence robots have been used to facilitate real-time surgery consultations, monitor patients, and even conduct rounds, all without the physical presence of a healthcare provider​.

5. Automation in Medication Management and Pharmacy

Automation is playing a pivotal role in improving efficiency within hospital pharmacies. Robots are now used to handle the repetitive tasks of dispensing medications and managing pharmacy inventories, ensuring accuracy and minimizing the risk of human error. This is particularly important given the risks associated with incorrect dosages or medication errors, which can lead to serious health complications.

By using robots to manage medication distribution, healthcare providers can ensure patients receive the right medication at the right time, and pharmacists can focus on more patient-centered tasks. In addition, automated systems help reduce the workload on staff, improve operational efficiency, and ensure medication safety​.

6. AI-Powered Diagnostics for Early Detection

Artificial intelligence (AI) combined with robotics is a powerful tool in early diagnosis and disease prevention. AI-powered robotic systems can analyze diagnostic imaging—such as MRIs, X-rays, and CT scans—with incredible speed and precision. These systems are capable of identifying patterns that human eyes might miss, enabling early detection of diseases like cancer and heart conditions.

In my experience, the earlier a disease is detected, the better the chances of successful treatment. AI-driven diagnostic robots are helping healthcare providers make quicker and more accurate decisions, leading to earlier interventions and improved patient outcomes. The speed and accuracy of these systems can enhance diagnostics and reduce the burden on medical staff, freeing up time for more complex cases​.

7. Personalized Medicine Using AI and Robotics

Robotic systems combined with AI are at the forefront of personalized medicine, which tailors treatment plans to the individual patient. By analyzing data from genetics, medical history, and other health metrics, AI-powered robots can suggest personalized treatment options. This approach is transforming how we treat chronic conditions, like diabetes and cancer, by delivering individualized care plans that are more effective and have fewer side effects.

For instance, in oncology, AI can help predict how a patient will respond to different cancer treatments based on their genetic makeup. This level of personalization is revolutionizing how doctors approach treatment, allowing for more accurate and effective healthcare​.

8. Robotic Microbots for Targeted Drug Delivery

One of the most groundbreaking innovations in medical robotics is the development of microbots—tiny, often microscopic robots that can navigate the human body. These microbots are being designed to deliver targeted therapies directly to affected areas, such as cancerous tumors, without harming surrounding healthy tissues.

This technology could one day eliminate the need for invasive surgeries or traditional drug delivery methods, reducing side effects and improving recovery times. Microbots offer the potential for highly precise treatments, especially in cancer therapy, where delivering medication directly to the tumor site could increase efficacy while minimizing damage to the rest of the body​.

Why Robotics is the Future of Medical Innovation

Precision surgery with faster recovery times

Robotic rehabilitation devices for improved mobility

AI-powered diagnostics for early disease detection

Microbots for targeted drug delivery and advanced treatments

In Conclusion

The future of robotics lies in medical innovation, with endless possibilities for improving patient care and treatment outcomes. From enhancing surgical precision to offering remote healthcare access, medical robotics is making healthcare safer, faster, and more effective. As these technologies continue to evolve, their impact on the healthcare industry will only deepen, ensuring that both patients and healthcare providers benefit from the incredible advancements in medical robotics.

The journey of medical robotics is just beginning, and it’s exciting to imagine where it will lead us next. From robotic exoskeletons giving patients a new chance at mobility to AI-powered diagnostic systems catching diseases early, the future of healthcare is bright with robotics leading the way.

[v3joker]

*Originally posted for a YouTube post, directly copy+pasted the same text (reason why it mentions being a YouTube post). I've reposted it to Tumblr for archive sake. And cause I have to talk about Ion.

YouTube: [X]

[~☆~]

No one understands Ion like I do. And it's my mission to make people understand. I legit could make a whole essay on him and I unironically want to, but a YouTube post is not for that (I have a character limit…). But this is part of what I would talk about, cause his trauma is a core part of who Ion is.

Ion Christine is a deeply traumatized person who's only goal in life is revenge which is self-destructive.

His own power (that was most likely forced on him when he was a child [the youngest age he was being 9 years old]) causes him harm and yet he is reliant on it to continue forward in his desperate goal of revenge and to heal himself, if this even heals him. The power is even representative of his pain and trauma cause it hurts him every time he uses it, leaving scars on him that he has to hide with bandages he always wears.

He's a deeply traumatized person who had his childhood stolen from him that one of his main ways of coping is putting on a heroic persona. His quotes come off as something a shounen protag would say, with a hint of taunting in his tone. But then there's specifically his Korean lobby quote where it's "I decide my fate" (내 운명은 내가 결정한다). He puts on a persona to hide himself but that's what he truly wants, to regain his life, take fate into his own hands.

This is a long extra bit but ties in with his persona. His persona can even be gotten from his alt designs which are so fitting to him and why he has my favorite designs out of the entire game. He's one of the few characters who actually fit his alt designs. Surfer used to have these old quotes that came off as surfer dude bro, it was him having fun for once in his life. Phantom is designed to COPY Dr. X's style to the point he looks like him, an Ion who was resigned to his doomed fate and became the very person he hated. I see it as Ion losing control and losing to Dr. X. But then there's the PLUS version of Phantom where in some places, the text for that is "Finally, Ion has cut loose the chains and shows his true colors". Ion, despite a doomed fate, will still find a way to take control and free himself. Prince is Ion's freedom. An heir to a forgotten kingdom and he comes to claim the throne (in some instances, it reads Midas throne instead so that can be him trying to takedown or claim the Midas Group). Ion comes across happier in this, especially in doting on his owl in his sprite animation (he also has an owl for his OG self as hinted by the pin badges with the owl wearing a hat that matches his OG self's jacket pattern). He's free and living happily. Champion is him fulfilling part of his goal: winning the Genius League. He wants to win cause he KNOWS it'll lead him directly to Dr. X because of how the winners always disappear. He looks confidant cause he knows he's one step closer to his revenge.

I just really love him. He has been infecting my brain since early 2016 when I started playing this game. I don't want him to ever leave. I don't think any character has ever had this much of an impact on me in all my life.

[missmentelle]

Why Smart People Believe Stupid Things

If you’ve been paying attention for the last couple of years, you might have noticed that the world has a bit of a misinformation problem. 

The problem isn’t just with the recent election conspiracies, either. The last couple of years has brought us the rise (and occasionally fall) of misinformation-based movements like:

Sandy Hook conspiracies

Gamergate

Pizzagate

The MRA/incel/MGTOW movements

anti-vaxxers

flat-earthers

the birther movement

the Illuminati 

climate change denial

Spygate

Holocaust denial 

COVID-19 denial 

5G panic 

QAnon 

But why do people believe this stuff?

It would be easy - too easy - to say that people fall for this stuff because they’re stupid. We all want to believe that smart people like us are immune from being taken in by deranged conspiracies. But it’s just not that simple. People from all walks of life are going down these rabbit holes - people with degrees and professional careers and rich lives have fallen for these theories, leaving their loved ones baffled. Decades-long relationships have splintered this year, as the number of people flocking to these conspiracies out of nowhere reaches a fever pitch. 

So why do smart people start believing some incredibly stupid things? It’s because:

Our brains are built to identify patterns. 

Our brains fucking love puzzles and patterns. This is a well-known phenomenon called apophenia, and at one point, it was probably helpful for our survival - the prehistoric human who noticed patterns in things like animal migration, plant life cycles and the movement of the stars was probably a lot more likely to survive than the human who couldn’t figure out how to use natural clues to navigate or find food. 

The problem, though, is that we can’t really turn this off. Even when we’re presented with completely random data, we’ll see patterns. We see patterns in everything, even when there’s no pattern there. This is why people see Jesus in a burnt piece of toast or get superstitious about hockey playoffs or insist on always playing at a certain slot machine - our brains look for patterns in the constant barrage of random information in our daily lives, and insist that those patterns are really there, even when they’re completely imagined. 

A lot of conspiracy theories have their roots in people making connections between things that aren’t really connected. The belief that “vaccines cause autism” was bolstered by the fact that the first recognizable symptoms of autism happen to appear at roughly the same time that children receive one of their rounds of childhood immunizations - the two things are completely unconnected, but our brains have a hard time letting go of the pattern they see there. Likewise, many people were quick to latch on to the fact that early maps of COVID infections were extremely similar to maps of 5G coverage -  the fact that there’s a reasonable explanation for this (major cities are more likely to have both high COVID cases AND 5G networks) doesn’t change the fact that our brains just really, really want to see a connection there. 

Our brains love proportionality. 

Specifically, our brains like effects to be directly proportional to their causes - in other words, we like it when big events have big causes, and small causes only lead to small events. It’s uncomfortable for us when the reverse is true. And so anytime we feel like a “big” event (celebrity death, global pandemic, your precious child is diagnosed with autism) has a small or unsatisfying cause (car accident, pandemics just sort of happen every few decades, people just get autism sometimes), we sometimes feel the need to start looking around for the bigger, more sinister, “true” cause of that event. 

Consider, for instance, the attempted assassination of Pope John Paul II. In 1981, Pope John Paul II was shot four times by a Turkish member of a known Italian paramilitary secret society who’d recently escaped from prison - on the surface, it seems like the sort of thing conspiracy theorists salivate over, seeing how it was an actual multinational conspiracy. But they never had much interest in the assassination attempt. Why? Because the Pope didn’t die. He recovered from his injuries and went right back to Pope-ing. The event didn’t have a serious outcome, and so people are content with the idea that one extremist carried it out. The death of Princess Diana, however, has been fertile ground for conspiracy theories; even though a woman dying in a car accident is less weird than a man being shot four times by a paid political assassin, her death has attracted more conspiracy theories because it had a bigger outcome. A princess dying in a car accident doesn’t feel big enough. It’s unsatisfying. We want such a monumentous moment in history to have a bigger, more interesting cause. 

These theories prey on pre-existing fear and anger. 

Are you a terrified new parent who wants the best for their child and feels anxious about having them injected with a substance you don’t totally understand? Congrats, you’re a prime target for the anti-vaccine movement. Are you a young white male who doesn’t like seeing more and more games aimed at women and minorities, and is worried that “your” gaming culture is being stolen from you? You might have been very interested in something called Gamergate. Are you a right-wing white person who worries that “your” country and way of life is being stolen by immigrants, non-Christians and coastal liberals? You’re going to love the “all left-wingers are Satantic pedo baby-eaters” messaging of QAnon. 

Misinformation and conspiracy theories are often aimed strategically at the anxieties and fears that people are already experiencing. No one likes being told that their fears are insane or irrational; it’s not hard to see why people gravitate towards communities that say “yes, you were right all along, and everyone who told you that you were nuts to be worried about this is just a dumb sheep. We believe you, and we have evidence that you were right along, right here.” Fear is a powerful motivator, and you can make people believe and do some pretty extreme things if you just keep telling them “yes, that thing you’re afraid of is true, but also it’s way worse than you could have ever imagined.”

Real information is often complicated, hard to understand, and inherently unsatisfying. 

The information that comes from the scientific community is often very frustrating for a layperson; we want science to have hard-and-fast answers, but it doesn’t. The closest you get to a straight answer is often “it depends” or “we don’t know, but we think X might be likely”. Understanding the results of a scientific study with any confidence requires knowing about sampling practices, error types, effect sizes, confidence intervals and publishing biases. Even asking a simple question like “is X bad for my child” will usually get you a complicated, uncertain answer - in most cases, it really just depends. Not understanding complex topics makes people afraid - it makes it hard to trust that they’re being given the right information, and that they’re making the right choices. 

Conspiracy theories and misinformation, on the other hand, are often simple, and they are certain. Vaccines bad. Natural things good. 5G bad. Organic food good. The reason girls won’t date you isn’t a complex combination of your social skills, hygiene, appearance, projected values, personal circumstances, degree of extroversion, luck and life phase - girls won’t date you because feminism is bad, and if we got rid of feminism you’d have a girlfriend. The reason Donald Trump was an unpopular president wasn’t a complex combination of his public bigotry, lack of decorum, lack of qualifications, open incompetence, nepotism, corruption, loss of soft power, refusal to uphold the basic responsibilities of his position or his constant lying - they hated him because he was fighting a secret sex cult and they’re all in it. 

Instead of making you feel stupid because you’re overwhelmed with complex information, expert opinions and uncertain advice, conspiracy theories make you feel smart - smarter, in fact, than everyone who doesn’t believe in them. And that’s a powerful thing for people living in a credential-heavy world. 

Many conspiracy theories are unfalsifiable. 

It is very difficult to prove a negative. If I tell you, for instance, that there’s no such thing as a purple swan, it would be very difficult for me to actually prove that to you - I could spend the rest of my life photographing swans and looking for swans and talking to people who know a lot about swans, and yet the slim possibility would still exist that there was a purple swan out there somewhere that I just hadn’t found yet. That’s why, in most circumstances, the burden of proof lies with the person making the extraordinary claim - if you tell me that purple swans exist, we should continue to assume that they don’t until you actually produce a purple swan. 

Conspiracy theories, however, are built so that it’s nearly impossible to “prove” them wrong. Is there any proof that the world’s top-ranking politicians and celebrities are all in a giant child sex trafficking cult? No. But can you prove that they aren’t in a child sex-trafficking cult? No, not really. Even if I, again, spent the rest of my life investigating celebrities and following celebrities and talking to people who know celebrities, I still couldn’t definitely prove that this cult doesn’t exist - there’s always a chance that the specific celebrities I’ve investigated just aren’t in the cult (but other ones are!) or that they’re hiding evidence of the cult even better than we think. Lack of evidence for a conspiracy theory is always treated as more evidence for the theory - we can’t find anything because this goes even higher up than we think! They’re even more sophisticated at hiding this than we thought! People deeply entrenched in these theories don’t even realize that they are stuck in a circular loop where everything seems to prove their theory right - they just see a mountain of “evidence” for their side. 

Our brains are very attached to information that we “learned” by ourselves.

Learning accurate information is not a particularly interactive or exciting experience. An expert or reliable source just presents the information to you in its entirety, you read or watch the information, and that’s the end of it. You can look for more information or look for clarification of something, but it’s a one-way street - the information is just laid out for you, you take what you need, end of story. 

Conspiracy theories, on the other hand, almost never show their hand all at once. They drop little breadcrumbs of information that slowly lead you where they want you to go. This is why conspiracy theorists are forever telling you to “do your research” - they know that if they tell you everything at once, you won’t believe them. Instead, they want you to indoctrinate yourself slowly over time, by taking the little hints they give you and running off to find or invent evidence that matches that clue. If I tell you that celebrities often wear symbols that identify them as part of a cult and that you should “do your research” about it, you can absolutely find evidence that substantiates my claim - there are literally millions of photos of celebrities out there, and anyone who looks hard enough is guaranteed to find common shapes, poses and themes that might just mean something (they don’t - eyes and triangles are incredibly common design elements, and if I took enough pictures of you, I could also “prove” that you also clearly display symbols that signal you’re in the cult). 

The fact that you “found” the evidence on your own, however, makes it more meaningful to you. We trust ourselves, and we trust that the patterns we uncover by ourselves are true. It doesn’t feel like you’re being fed misinformation - it feels like you’ve discovered an important truth that “they” didn’t want you to find, and you’ll hang onto that for dear life. 

Older people have not learned to be media-literate in a digital world. 

Fifty years ago, not just anyone could access popular media. All of this stuff had a huge barrier to entry - if you wanted to be on TV or be in the papers or have a radio show, you had to be a professional affiliated with a major media brand. Consumers didn’t have easy access to niche communities or alternative information - your sources of information were basically your local paper, the nightly news, and your morning radio show, and they all more or less agreed on the same set of facts. For decades, if it looked official and it appeared in print, you could probably trust that it was true. 

Of course, we live in a very different world today - today, any asshole can accumulate an audience of millions, even if they have no credentials and nothing they say is actually true (like “The Food Babe”, a blogger with no credentials in medicine, nutrition, health sciences, biology or chemistry who peddles health misinformation to the 3 million people who visit her blog every month). It’s very tough for older people (and some younger people) to get their heads around the fact that it’s very easy to create an “official-looking” news source, and that they can’t necessarily trust everything they find on the internet. When you combine that with a tendency toward “clickbait headlines” that often misrepresent the information in the article, you have a generation struggling to determine who they can trust in a media landscape that doesn’t at all resemble the media landscape they once knew. 

These beliefs become a part of someone’s identity. 

A person doesn’t tell you that they believe in anti-vaxx information - they tell you that they ARE an anti-vaxxer. Likewise, people will tell you that they ARE a flat-earther, a birther, or a Gamergater. By design, these beliefs are not meant to be something you have a casual relationship with, like your opinion of pizza toppings or how much you trust local weather forecasts - they are meant to form a core part of your identity. 

And once something becomes a core part of your identity, trying to make you stop believing it becomes almost impossible. Once we’ve formed an initial impression of something, facts just don’t change our minds. If you identify as an antivaxxer and I present evidence that disproves your beliefs, in your mind, I’m not correcting inaccurate information - I am launching a very personal attack against a core part of who you are. In fact, the more evidence I present, the more you will burrow down into your antivaxx beliefs, more confident than ever that you are right. Admitting that you are wrong about something that is important to you is painful, and your brain would prefer to simply deflect conflicting information rather than subject you to that pain.

We can see this at work with something called the confirmation bias. Simply put, once we believe something, our brains hold on to all evidence that that belief is true, and ignore evidence that it’s false. If I show you 100 articles that disprove your pet theory and 3 articles that confirm it, you’ll cling to those 3 articles and forget about the rest. Even if I show you nothing but articles that disprove your theory, you’ll likely go through them and pick out any ambiguous or conflicting information as evidence for “your side”, even if the conclusion of the article shows that you are wrong - our brains simply care about feeling right more than they care about what is actually true.  

There is a strong community aspect to these theories. 

There is no one quite as supportive or as understanding as a conspiracy theorist - provided, of course, that you believe in the same conspiracy theories that they do. People who start looking into these conspiracy theories are told that they aren’t crazy, and that their fears are totally valid. They’re told that the people in their lives who doubted them were just brainwashed sheep, but that they’ve finally found a community of people who get where they’re coming from. Whenever they report back to the group with the “evidence” they’ve found or the new elaborations on the conspiracy theory that they’ve been thinking of (“what if it’s even worse than we thought??”), they are given praise for their valuable contributions. These conspiracy groups often become important parts of people’s social networks - they can spend hours every day talking with like-minded people from these communities and sharing their ideas. 

Of course, the flipside of this is that anyone who starts to doubt or move away from the conspiracy immediately loses that community and social support. People who have broken away from antivaxx and QAnon often say that the hardest part of leaving was losing the community and friendships they’d built - not necessarily giving up on the theory itself. Many people are rejected by their real-life friends and family once they start to get entrenched in conspiracy theories; the friendships they build online in the course of researching these theories often become the only social supports they have left, and losing those supports means having no one to turn to at all. This is by design - the threat of losing your community has kept people trapped in abusive religious sects and cults for as long as those things have existed. 

[equestrianwritingsstuff]

Uhmmm.... so I had a prompt idea. What if hero arrested villain, and handed him to the authorites, and he basically told her that he'd make her pay for it. Then hero goes to the prison for a different reason weeks later, where she sees villain, terrified, sick, and drugged. So, she reluctantly takes him home and cares for him. She is scared he will attack her when he's lucid, but when he does fully wake up, he's just terrified.

This is such a good idea! I saw your submission right before I went to bed and laid there thinking about it, so as you can see I was quite excited to write it.

Paying For It

Warnings: threats, horrible treatment by authorities, left to be sick, fever, blood, drugged, forced sedation, unconsciousness, nightmares, smoking mention, paralysis (due to sickness), sick animal analogy, delirium

~

"You will pay for this," he growled as the handcuffs clicked into place. "I will make you you pay for this and not by money, no-" a chuckle "- I will hurt you."

Hero shuddered as she walked down the icy path back to the same prison that she recently turned Villain into. Horrible thoughts of that said villain breaking out and torturing her flooded into her mind, making her already chilly veins even colder. She hugged her fleece tighter around her and adjusted her scarf, suddenly wishing she wore her winter coat.

Before she knew it, Hero was trotting up the steps towards the concrete building. It was, by design, barren yet strong.

She had some documents to bring to the office. There was a new supervillain in town, actually more like ten, but Hero only managed to get information about the one. They most likely moved in after the biggest threat around, Villain, was arrested.

She opened the door, closing it quietly, and walked up to the desk. The hero, a young boy, most likely a sidekick holding down the fort while his mentor went to do something else, sitting up there was lazily playing a video game on his phone.

Hero coughed to get his attention. The boy didn't respond.

"Hello?" Hero asked.

The boy startled, tossing his phone backwards. "I wasn't," he defended, "on my phone, I swear."

"Uh huh," Hero grunted, sliding the papers over to the boy. "Where's your boss?"

"Probably smoking or something," the boy chuckled, then stopped and looked at Hero with a nervously apologetic expression. "I shouldn't have- you weren't meant to know."

Hero shook her head and said, "I don't care about my colleagues personal habits, but can you get him for me?"

The boy nodded and rushed off, returning later with a stern looking man.

"Superhero," Hero acknowledged, nodding slightly. He smiled then looked at the papers on the desk.

"Are these about..." He looked up at Hero.

"The new villain, yes," Hero finished his sentence, crossing her arms.

"Good, very good," Superhero momentarily flipped through them. In that silence, a thought bubbled up in Hero's mind.

"How's Villain?" She asked. "It's been awhile."

Superhero's face paled, as his toe nervously tapped the floor. Hero raised an eyebrow.

"We've had some... issues, so Villain is spending sometime in detention," Superhero said. He coughed, then said in an overly joyful tone, "Thanks for this Hero, do you want me to escort you to your car?"

"I would actually like to see Villain. Maybe I can, you know, talk to him about his behavior," Hero declined the offer, stepping in front of the papers. Something isn't right...

"Well you see, that wouldn't be beneficial. If anything it would be detrimental towards Villain's... redemption," Superhero pointed out, unconsciously chewing at his lip.

"We aren't a redemption center, Superhero," Hero said quietly, almost a whisper. "Let me see Villain or-" Hero grabbed the papers and proceeded to rip them "- these aren't your's."

Superhero rushed forward, putting his hands on top of Hero's and slid the papers back towards him. He gave a tiny smile and consented to her request.

They walked down the corridor and then down a couple flight of stairs until they reached a steel door with three locks- all with different keys. Hero watched with a stoned expression, thinking about what would happen if one of those keys were unfortunately lost...

"He's in here," Superhero spoke, dancing on his feet.

Hero stepped into the dark room, recognizing the detention cell that she helped invent, and flipped on the lights.

In the corner of the capacious cell, was a huddled figure. His back was towards her, legs spread out. With a pang in her chest, Hero walked up to him.

"V-villain," Hero breathed and crouched next to the figure. Villain whimpered and pulled himself deeper into himself, but his legs didn't seem to be connected to his brain.

Hero gently rolled Villain's head up to face her and nearly gasped when she took in the sight. He looked like a sick, stray cat. Mucus drained out of his nose as vomit spewed out from the corner of his mouth. His half-lidded eyes were bloodshot and had deep eyebags underneath with dried blood coating his cheeks. He had multiple, nasty cold sores all around his lips- or were they infected cuts? Maybe both.

"Why is he in this state?" Hero asked, astounded. This violated so many regulations and rules- the prison could be shut down, many heroes arrested or fined.

Superhero didn't respond. Instead, he appeared at Hero's side and crouched down next to Villain. The villain who didn't even seem to be aware of their presences.

Hero grabbed one of the wrists that were so protectively cuddled next to Villain's chest. He whimpered, trying to resist Hero's touch.

"No," he mumbled. "No no no no. Don't give... m-more... that mm stop." Villain started to breath heavily, his already fast pulse speeding up. With a heavy heart, Hero knew without even looking that he was drugged badly.

"Superhero... why?" Hero squeaked, turning over a wrist to see them heavily bruised and still bleeding from his most recent dose.

Villain started thrashing, but his legs wouldn't move.

"Why can't he move?" Hero asked, running a hand along Villain's shoulder. "Why can't he move his legs?!"

Superhero inhaled deeply then said, "He's very sick, uh... he probably has some sort of infection that makes it hard for him to move his lower body. Maybe, I don't really know."

"You don't even know what's wrong with your prisoner," Hero scoffed in disbelief, dragging Villain's limp body into her lap. She tried not to notice the wetness seeping into her jeans. It would only infuriate her that such a sick person would be kept in a wet and cold cell on top of being drugged daily without any medicines to help kick his fever.

"He's sick."

Obviously.

"I'm taking him home," Hero said, and scooped his way too light form up. His legs dangled uselessly, head falling off towards the side.

"That's illegal," Superhero pointed out. "He is in our custody now."

"And where does our rules permit excessive use of sedatives," Hero said in the same, authoritive tone. "Minimal use only to relax a distressed prisoner and only when necessary. Also, never to the point of unconsciousness." Hero gestured with her head towards Villain's closed eyes.

"And where do they permit us heroes to contain a villain on private property?" Superhero tutted. "Set him down and let me do my job."

"I'll call the authorities," Hero threatened, "and take you to court."

Superhero groaned and threw his hands in the air. That was not a risk he could take.

"Fine," he growled, storming out of the room, leaving Hero in silence other than the slow dripping from a leaky pipe.

She quickly tore off her fleece and wrapped Villain's shivering body up. His eyes fluttered open and he mumbled something incoherently, but that was all as his eyelids slipped closed once again.

Then, she carried his ragdoll-like body out of the prison, down those steps, and into her car.

She laid Villain's limp form on one of the backseats, propping his lolling head against the window and buckled him in. His arms hung lifeless at his sides, legs completely devoid of strength.

With a nervous whimper, Hero sped home.

At home, Hero took a warm washcloth and wiped off the dried blood and mucus to reveal unevenly toned skin underneath. She delicately picked the dry crust off his eyelashes and eyebrows. It was rock hard and the warm water wouldn't loosen it, so she was forced to pull on the tiny hairs. At least he wasn't conscious for the pinpoints of pain.

Hero suddered, thinking about what would happen when he did wake up. Surely, he would keep to his word and hurt her, beating her up for imprisoning him and then of course this newfound dilemma.

She looked down at his sleeping form and sighed. She had him elevated to make sure his airways stayed clear, but his head kept falling to the side and onto the backrest of her daybed. His lips quivered, forming soundless words and pleas.

Hero gently touched his forehead, retreating at the burning heat. His eyes slowly blinked open at the contact, he moaned, and then they rolled back again and closed.

Hero sat next to him for rest of the day, worriedly anticipating his attitude upon awakening. However, as the hours went on and Villain didn't seem to be regaining consciousness too much, Hero realized that they would be in for a roughly long time.

Villain was probably drugged like that the moment he entered that building and judging by his health and state of his wrists, Hero also guessed that there was no care whatsoever during the admission or the aftercare.

Hero ran her fingers over Villain's pale cheeks. His mouth was parted open and he snored slightly from the congestion. Tears leaked from his eyes, irritating the tender skin below. Hero went and grabbed some lotion, smearing the white cream over the red rashes.

Villain jerked away suddenly, curling into himself and protectively guarding his arms. His heavy breathing went shallower and quicker as tiny noises escaped his mouth. Hero sighed and stopped touching him; he was likely trapped in a nightmare.

Hours turned into days, and only then was Villain awake enough to be aware of Hero's looming presence.

Though, his reaction was not what Hero was expecting.

He screamed, shoving himself and his weak form to a corner of the bed and gathering his leaden limbs into a huddled mass of burning skin. He shrieked and sobbed, and watched Hero with wide, exhausted eyes.

"Leave me alone!" He yelled, pulling up the covers in a bade to protect himself. "Please."

Hero never once in her life felt so utterly useless.

She was, like Villain promised she would, paying for her actions.