#this is another Long one sorry

[merge-conflict]

imago

cyberhanami day 6 - "Focus on Sound"

content warnings: emotional distress, dysmorphia + body horror

Goro/Valentine

Big thank you to @another-corpo-rat for prompting this for me!!

summary: One day they woke her up she she could live forever.

<Is there some part of you stuck in limbo forever while they peel off copies to put in shards?>

<Jesus, V.> Johnny’s sudden hostility made her look up, to find him pacing behind the couch. <Got no fucking idea. Why’d you have to ask?>

<Sorry.> She redressed with some difficulty, trying to avoid aggravating the wound. <Morbid curiosity. A few weeks ago I would have said it was impossible to digitize someone so faithfully, but I was wrong. Wish I understood how it works.>

- excerpt from the damn things overlap

At night, V liked to stretch her legs. She had several, now, on nearly every floor of Arasaka tower– drones which were suitable for maintenance and simple tasks. In the past, when she had seen them skittering through the halls early in the morning, she had never given much thought to who controlled them. She had assumed they were autonomous, like the ones that had occasionally roamed the halls of her apartment building. In reality, they had been driven by the runners who kept the tower secure and systems running smoothly. Now nearly all of them were hers, if she chose to use them.

She had long since mapped the length and breadth of her body– with the exception of a handful of floors where even she was not permitted to be. Luckily the jungle was not one of these. When it was not in use it was where she spent her evening break.

The trees were not the only living things in the expansive space, although they were the most eye-catching. While the cicada chorus played all year round, there were a few months of the year was sung by the actual insects themselves, freshly molted and enjoying both the fresh air and freedom to do everything a cicada was meant to do, safe from the dangers of the outside world or any natural predators. They were culled periodically, of course, to keep the population in check. Their keeper– a woman who spoke only Japanese and then only about her plant and animal charges, had no qualms discussing her carefully controlled ecosystem in every detail– even if it was to the unblinking, expressionless eye of a drone.

It was summer now, and as V drove the drone over the tiled floor, the air above was almost deafeningly loud with cicada cries. She stopped the drone once it had climbed upon the imposing conference table at the heart of the jungle, neatly tucking its legs underneath it. She did not have eyes to close (and by the same measure had too many eyes to close all at once), but she could become still, and feel the vibrations on the surface of the drone’s carapace, which traveled all the way down to what passed for her heart.

They weren’t her cicadas, of course, not like the symbol she had set for her terminal banner, or the icon she used for the software that fed her support and maintenance requests. These cicadas lived and died within the span of a single year– all the moments of their lives spent living rather than over a decade and a half of building anticipation. She had witnessed generations pass in their entirety. Whenever she was haunted by the past, their songs and the songs of their ancestors always brought her back.

Tonight, her moment of contemplation was cut short by the arrival of a very particular AV in one of her hangars– one that belonged to Hanako Arasaka herself. She had been coming more and more frequently in the past year, and her presence always stirred up an interesting sort of commotion. V often followed her in her transition from physical to virtual, and if she was certain that Hanako knew of her curiosity, she never did anything about it. The more things V learned the less she believed they’d ever let her go, but still she couldn’t seem to help it. Data was all she had, and puzzling over which pieces to put together was as close as she got to a hobby.

The AV hangar cameras were some of the few that were continuously monitored by human eyes as well as software, and she was far from the only person lining up to gawk at royalty. If she cared to track them, she would find any number of tunneled streams leading to dozens of interfaces in the building. She’d first seen Saburo on a visit to Night City the very same way.

Oda came first, as always, his brief contemptuous sweep of the bay making all the guards straighten another inch. Hanako came after, elegantly and flawlessly imperious. And then, to V’s cold shock, Goro stepped out behind her.

She no longer possessed an endocrine system, or any sort of true adrenal response, but an engram was only as good as its level of fidelity– and somewhere deep inside her the strength of her response throttled several of her cores. Without hands there was nothing to ground her but the strength of the cicada song against the drone. If she flooded her levels too long her handlers had the unbearable habit of insinuating themselves into her attention. She ran her suppression scripts, relaxing as the world around her become flat and unreal.

While Oda accompanied Hanako to the executive level, Goro split off, descending into the tower. V watched him through the elevator camera, unable to stop herself from continuously tracing the lines of his face. He looked just as she remembered. She could still read the tense set of his shoulders, and the brief restlessness he allowed himself just before the car came to a stop. The ID tag on his interface had some unfamiliar title, based in some city she did not know. She could have looked it up, but she could not bear to divide herself. To tear away her attention.

After what she’d done to Hellman’s office, she was not permitted to move freely around the network which interfaced with Mikoshi as she did others. Indeed, she was not even permitted in drone form on the floor where he and his department operated. She’d honored that restriction faithfully for years, but she broke it as soon as Goro stepped off the elevator, tracking him as he walked. It took her handlers a few minutes to notice her transgression, and then another few to determine which of them would confront her about it. She ignored their messages and sent them one of her own– a livestream of the cicada cries straight into their audio channels.

They’d been with her long enough to know what that meant, and their desire to ensure Hanako’s visit went smoothly was overridden by their desire not to make her angry. V was half-fond of them– they were, after all, her primary source of human contact– but if she fried them all in their chairs she would be given replacements. After all, they weren’t the ones responsible for the year over year upward trend of operational efficiency at NC tower.

Hellman's staff were prepared for Goro’s visit. She followed him all the way up until the point where he jacked into the Mikoshi interface, when she was consumed by the sudden need to be as far away as possible. Thankfully she had a new distraction– the tiny pip of a connection request, coming from one of the executive floors, where she had no eyes. She accepted it and was almost immediately granted access to an unfamiliar drone.

V moved her attention into it immediately, guessing correctly that this was an official summons. Oda stepped back from the drone as she assumed control and repositioned herself so she was facing Hanako. The drone had the most advanced suite of software V had seen, with a wide array of sensory data that felt like settling into a feast after years of starvation. She tapped one of the drone’s feet against the stool it had been placed on, and savored the texture of the touch, and the minute vibrations which quietly shivered up the frame. Around her she could once again feel the buzz of the radio spectrum like the soft ripples of waves against her skin– and if she was sure that she would grow tired of the overstimulation, in the moment it felt like sinking back into a warm bath.

“Hanako-sama,” V said in greeting, loathing the sound of her digitized voice. “It’s a pleasure to have you visit, as always.”

“I detest this city,” Hanako replied, with a side glance to the city outside the window behind her. “But I am pleased to see the progress being made here.”

It was easy, within digital confines, to disguise emotion– especially anger. All V had to do was stand idle. They could open her up, of course, watch the data flowing through her heart and her soul. They could do that and come to all sorts of conclusions. But that was no different than the way they had once tracked the rise and fall of her hormones, and at least now she knew when someone was looking.

“A suitable body for your engram has been recovered,” Hanako continued, oblivious to her non-response. “It will be ready for implantation soon. There will be a chance of rejection, of course, but Dr. Hellman has told me that it is much lower than with previous matches.”

This time she waited, and it was some time before V could bring herself to respond. “That is good to hear.”

This was, she supposed, the moment where she might beg for favor. For understanding. For mercy. This was, she supposed, the moment that haunted her every thought, every preparation, every early dawn hour. The very moment which she worked so tirelessly never to think about at all.

She had read her contract so many times it had ceased to contain meaning. It was a brand, a warning, a reminder. It was a simple text file sitting in her root directory that was as much a part of her as her digital neural network. If she might beg for leniency on the application of some of its sections, there were too many for her to ever get what she wanted. Divergence might be a term with enough ambiguity for her to argue with, but even in her wildest fantasies she could not imagine the contract duration itself to be subject to discussion. It all had to be paid for by someone, after all. And until now that someone had been her.

A hundred and fifty floors below, Goro was holding a conversation with someone who was not herself.

“Hanako-sama,” V said, with utter neutrality. “I hope you will not tell her about me.”

Hanako tilted her head slightly, the light in her eye suggesting she had already anticipated this request. “As you wish. Takemura requested to be present, so that he might assist with reintegration.”

Of course.

“I have no right to ask for your favor, but if I may?” V waited for Hanako’s mute gesture to continue. “When it is done…please do not bring him here again.”

Hanako’s lack of reaction she had expected, but the frown Oda’s face was a surprise. Yet, for once V found she had no interest in whatever fucked up web of politics he was in, or what opinion he held of her, or Goro, or his own mistress.

“I will make no such promise,” Hanako replied, which confirmed that V was being shown both the carrot and the stick. “But when the process is complete, he will return to Japan.”

There were too many questions that V could not bring herself to ask. In her heart, one of her runners played for her the sound of rainfall. In the jungle, her drone slammed one of its feet down repeatedly on the table, just audible over the screaming of the cicadas.

Johnny had been right about the leash. Johnny had been right about a lot of things, but he was dead. He was dead, because she had killed him. And she had never asked what ghosts still lingered in the prison she had left behind.

“He does not know of your presence here,” Hanako told her. “The improvements you have made here have shown promise, but it is of course still an early trial.”

Early for a woman who was nearly a century old. But she had lived a long portion time out of the view of others, and V could admire her subtleties. It was too late to listen to a dead man, but there were other options.

“Of course,” V said. “I understand.”

Hanako lowered her chin slightly, locking eyes with the drone. “You may tell him, if you wish.”

It was a double-edged sword, but V found herself clinging to it all the same. In the jungle she folded the drone’s legs underneath itself again. There was a brief blip of a notification in her peripheral– a minor malfunction in one of the mechanisms that moved inventory between floors. But it was gone almost as soon as it arrived, the job taken by another one of her runners.

“This drone is a gift,” Hanako continued, when V did not reply. “I hope to continue to receive good reports.”

“Thank you, Hanako-sama. I am at your service.”

Her answering nod was also a dismissal, and V carefully piloted the unfamiliar drone off the stool and out of the office. She returned to the cameras around Mikoshi, keeping watch over Goro’s body. It occurred to her that she might pull the recording of the conversation, as she easily as she had insinuated herself into the network, but the very idea made her nerves itch, even under the influence of her script. They hadn’t put up any barriers here. Another test.

Just looking at him made her want to touch him again, to be close enough to smell the sweat on his skin and feel every breath he took. Those memories were as vivid as they always had been, even though the gray in his hair had long since spread beyond his temples. There were new lines around the corners of his eyes, the mark of all their time spent apart. Much, much longer than the frantic span of a few weeks at the end of a single summer.

She hated him so fiercely and so abruptly she thought she might burn through her hardware, seized in the throes of anger she hadn’t felt since they’d first woken her up. But it passed as the minutes ticked on, and left her scoured clean. By the time he opened his eyes again she felt nothing at all, just the steady sound of the jungle, and distant rainfall. Her new drone, now tucked away safely into her heart, paced through the server racks in steady, soothing rhythm.

When he left, she stopped his elevator car in the jungle, instead of his true destination. Goro exited the car when it did not respond to his controls, and after a moment of indecision, stepped out into the room. Watching him, she could almost feel the change of humidity on his skin, the sudden scream of a nearby cicada that drew his attention upwards to the trees. The warmth of the artificial sunlight, dappling through the leaves onto his face. He walked down the steps to the conference table, where her drone sat quiet and unmoving.

V fled within herself, retreating to the sanctity of her internal subnet until one of her runners dropped a ticket into her work queue, marked specifically for her attention. It wasn’t urgent, but the last ticket he’d sent in a similar manner had been diverting, and she was of mind to reward the behavior. Maybe it was time to invest in this newest batch.

So long as she made certain they could never be taken away.

[rupeenotruby]

That was long. Keeping this short. Not sure about this one. Thank you to @/runecatwrites for this [Click] analysis post as it was pretty helpful for the Wild and Wars dialogue (though I think the analysis is better).

[beaulesbian]

One Piece + text posts [3/?]

[lcs-scar]

Same anon as before! Thank you for responding!! I would love to see your doodles for these boys I can’t wait!! But I have a request in mind!

Do you think you could draw The Eltingville Club in certain sketches or just them meeting their past and/or future selves?

Thank you for responding and have an amazing day/night!!! 💗💓💞💕💖💖💘🩷

Aaaaah!! Sweet anon from before!! Hi hello!! :D💕💕

This request took me a bit since I wasn't sure how I'd make them interact with their epilogue self (I only have one joke idea, maybe drawing that soon), but I then remembered the "past" selves bit, and immediately thought of the drawing idea I did here for Jerry, and then everything came naturally.

It was quite fun to think and come up with their design, it's also sweet to think about what could have been...

[monofazz]

I think Deceptibee AU fans should consider the hilarious potential of a Starscream and Bee dynamic in this kind of situation—

[hermit-frog]

[cutie-lumi]

Cosmic 💐🌟

[tatakaeeren]

Umemiya Hajime | Wind Breaker Ep. 10 “Dialogue"

[starry-bi-sky]

i need to get this out of my head before i continue clone^2 but danny being the first batkid. Like, standard procedure stuff: his parents and sister die, danny ends up with Vlad Masters. He drags him along to stereotypical galas and stuff; Danny is not having a good time.

He ends up going to one of the Wayne Galas being hosted ever since elusive Bruce Wayne has returned to Gotham. Vlad is crowing about having this opportunity as he's been wanting to sink his claws into the company for a long while now. Danny is too busy grieving to care what he wants.

And like most Galas, once Vlad is done showing him off to the other socialites and the like, he disappears. Off to a dark corner, or to one of the many balconies; doesn't matter. There he runs into said star of the show, Bruce who is still young, has been Batman for at least a year at this point, but still getting used to all these damn people and socializing. He's stepped off to hide for a few minutes before stepping back into the shark tank.

And he runs into a kid with circles under his eyes and a dull gleam in them. Familiar, like looking into a mirror.

Danny tries to excuse himself, he hasn't stopped crying since his parents died and it's been months. He rubs his eyes and stands up, and stumbles over a half-hearted apology to Mister Wayne. Some of Vlad's etiquette lessons kicking in.

Bruce is awkward, but he softens. "That's alright, lad," he says, pulling up some of that Brucie Wayne confidence, "I was just coming out here to get some fresh air."

There's a little pressing; Bruce asks who he's here with, Danny says, voice quiet and grief-stricken, that he's with his godfather Vlad Masters. Bruce asks him if he knows where he is, and Danny tells him he does. Bruce offers to leave, Danny tells him to do whatever he wants.

It ends with Bruce staying, standing off to the side with Danny in silence. Neither of them say a word, and Danny eventually leaves first in that same silence.

Bruce looks into Vlad Masters after everything is over, his interest piqued. He finds news about him taking in Danny Fenton: he looks into Danny Fenton. He finds news articles about his parents' deaths, their occupations, everything he can get his hands on.

At the next gala, he sees Danny again. And he looks the same as ever: quiet like a ghost, just as pale, and full of grief. Bruce sits in silence with him again for nearly ten minutes before he strikes a conversation.

"Do you like to do anything?"

Nothing. Just silence.

Bruce isn't quite sure what to do: comfort is not his forte, and Danny doesn't know him. He's smart enough to know that. So he starts talking about other things; anything he can think of that Brucie Wayne might say, that also wasn't inappropriate for a kid to hear.

Danny says nothing the entire time, and is again the first to leave.

Bruce watches from a distance as he intercts with Vlad Masters; how Vlad Masters interacts with him. He doesn't like what he sees: Vlad Masters keeps a hand on Danny's shoulder like one would hold onto the collar of a dog. He parades him around like a trophy he won.

And there are moments, when someone gets too close or when someone tries to shake Danny's hand, of deep possessiveness that flints over Vlad Masters' eyes. Like a dragon guarding a horde.

He plays the act of doting godfather well: but Bruce knows a liar when he sees one. Like recognizes like.

Danny is dull-eyed and blank faced the entire time; he looks miserable.

So Bruce tries to host more parties; if only so that he can talk to Danny alone. Vlad seems all too happy to attend, toting Danny along like a ribbon, and on the dot every hour, Danny slips away to somewhere to hide. Bruce appears twenty minutes later.

"I was looking into your godfather's company," he says one night, trying to think of more things to say. Some nights all they do is sit in silence. "Some of my shareholders were thinking of partnering up--"

"Don't."

He stops. Danny hardly says a word to him, he doesn't even look at him -- he's sitting on the ground, his head in his knees. Like he's trying to hide from the world. But he's looking, blue eyes piercing up at Bruce.

Bruce tilts his head, practiced puppy-like. "Pardon?"

"Don't." Danny says, strongly. "Don't make any deals with Vlad."

It's the most words Danny's spoken to him, and there's a look in his eyes like a candle finding its spark. Something hard. Bruce presses further, "And why is that?"

The spark flutters, and flushes out. Danny blinks like he's coming out of a trance, and slumps back into himself. "Just don't."

Bruce stares at him, thoughtful, before looking away. "Alright. I won't."

And they fall back into silence.

Danny, when he leaves, turns to look at Bruce, "I mean it." He says; soft like he's telling a secret, "Don't make any deals with him. Don't be alone with him. Don't work with him."

He's scampered away before Bruce can question him further.

(He never planned on working with Vlad Masters and his company; he's done his research. He's seen the misfortune. But nothing ever leads back to him. There's no evidence of anything. But Danny knows something.)

At their next meeting, Danny starts the conversation. It's new, and it's welcomed. He says, cutting through their five minute quiet, that he likes stars. And he doesn't like that he can't see them in Gotham.

Bruce hums in interest, and Danny continues talking. It's as if floodgates had been opened, and as Bruce takes a sip of his wine, it tastes like victory.

("Tucker told me once--") ("Tucker?") ("Oh-- uh, one of my best friends. He's a tech geek. We haven't talked in a while.")

(Danny shut down in his grief -- his friends are worried, but can't reach him. When he goes back to the manor with Vlad, he fishes out his phone and sends them a message.)

(They are ecstatic to hear from him.)

It all culminates until one day, when Danny is leaving to go back inside, that Bruce speaks up. "You know," He says, leaning against the railing. "The manor has many rooms; plenty of space for a guest."

The implication there, hidden between the lines. And Danny is smart, he looks at Bruce with a sharp glean in his eyes, and he nods. "Good to know."

The next time they see each other, Danny has something in his hands. "Can you hold onto something for me?" He asks.

When Bruce agrees, Danny places a pearl into his palm. or, at least, it's something that looks like a pearl. Because it's cold to the touch; sinking into Bruce's white silk gloves with ease and shimmering like an opal. It moves a little as it settles into his hand, and the moves like its full of liquid.

Bruce has never seen anything like it before, but he does know this; it's not human. "What is it?" He asks, and Danny looks uncomfortable.

"I can't tell you that." He says, shifting on his foot like he's scared of someone seeing it. "But please be careful with it. Treat it like it's extremely fragile."

When Bruce gets home, he puts it in an empty ring box and hides the box in the cave. He tries researching into what it is. he can't find anything concrete.

Everything comes to a head one day when Danny appears at the manor's doorstep one evening, soaking wet in the rain, and bleeding from the side.

[cashmoneychiyo]

Gekkan Shoujo Nozaki-kun Chapter 149 © Cash Money Chiyo (@grolia, jinky, @waxlightjohn, and our newest member bissou!)

[i-like-forcefem]

You wake up due to a an odd discomfort around your groin, you feel around and touch something soft and plastic?

You turn on the lights and find yourself lock in a small, pink chastity cage

You panic a little, you’ve never done this before, you try to pull it off and it won’t budge and you notice just how little you can touch your member now

You get hard

It hurts

You look around the room and see an envelope next to a small pile of clothes and some odd plastic?

You open the envelope

My dearest love,

You wronged me, the fact you wouldn’t know who I am makes it that much worse

So I thought it’d only be right if I punished you

As you might’ve found out already I’ve securely locked you up and only I have the key

If you ever want it back you’ll need to do some things for me first

Mod course you won’t be allowed to touch your memeber until I release you

Next you will need to wear the clothes, and insert the remote anal vibrator I provided to you

You will then need to watch any porngraphic content I send you over the course of the next 2 weeks, dressed up and wearing the plug

I’ve made a separate number where we can chat

I expect you to use the proper respect when talking to me

I expect you to thank me for teaching you how to be a good girl

And I expect you to drop whatever you’re doing whenever I send you a message, and if I so ask you’ll put on the shuttle clothes I gave you, put in the plug, and watch whatever degrading smut I sent you while I control your ass

Do this like a good girl for 2 weeks and I’ll take off the cage

Mess up once, and I’ll flush the key down the drain

Oh and don’t think to get it removed or anything, I got that onto you without you noticing once, and if you get it off I’ll know that means you’re ready for your second round!

And trust me you wouldn’t like the second round, something tells me that you’d hate losing your freedom of movement

So now be a good girl and dress yourself up already love~

I’m waiting

Oh! And one more thing!

I can and will change the rules at any time, for example one I thought of right now: the two weeks only count down if you spent the whole day in cute woman’s clothing, so if you ever put on those nasty clothes you’re wearing right now, the day doesn’t count and you still have 2 weeks to go

Good luck cutie! Try to keep me happy~

[anniflamma]

Right after Ruthlessness.

[artuurle]

I find I'm still stuck in place after so long.

[hiding-under-the-willow]

Some Ghost Ren crumbs if you have please? Also! Is Martyn in the au?

Martyn would've been around when Ren was alive, he's obviously not anymore, all of the other ghosts are getting very tired of him talking about it

[demaparbat-hp]

Almost

[canon-gabriel-quotes]

[Yes this is a reference to that one superman pic]

Transcript:

*sniff sniff* Is-is that a boy I smell?

*sniff sniff* Mmh yes, I smell it! Boy Smell!

I smell a boy!

Ah! what is a boy doing here?!

Oh my gosh. What am I gonna do? There's a boy here!

I'm freaking out so much!

Calm down, calm down! Calm down and take a nice deep breath.

*sniff sniff* Mmph it smells so good. I love boy smell so much!

It makes me feel so amazing~

I'm getting tingles all over from the delicious boy scent!

IT'S DRIVING ME BOY CRAZY.

Audio source