#tinkering with stuff for the heck of it

[jerru-chan]

MilitaryMechanic!Reader is not a tomboy. Just a 5'4" woman who loves tinkering.

When you got assigned to Task Force 141 as their head mechanic, they are skeptical. Because you're too small, too feminine. Your supervisor vouched for you. Heck even Lasswell did. 141 doubted your abilities, but have no choice to accept, cause it was ordered from the higher ups.

Time passes and you got accepted into the force. You actually knew what you're doing. Doing routine maintenance. Lecturing the mechanic who got lazy to do it. Saying stuff like, "It can cause the soldiers their life when their vehicles broke down on them!" You do your job well.

The main team of TF 141 hangs around the shop, asking questions, mechanic related or random stuff that you are able to answer with ease.

During a pre-mission briefing, your name is included in the list. Ghost, Soap, and Gaz were concered and wanted to complain. Cause poor little you will definitely be traumatized being in the battle field. Price sighed and explained that there is no reason to remove you from the operation. They try to protest and even looking at you as if expecting to agree. You looked up at the four of them, hands behind you, head cocked to the side.

"Why not?" You asked innocently.

"I mean... I am a combat mechanic."

Looking at them with big innocent eyes.

[ericshoney]

Prank gone wrong ~ Avengers

Summary: Your the avengers prankster but as a prank goes wrong you feel guilty and disappear for a while to think about it, worrying the rest of the team.

Warnings: Possible swearing, slight angst, small injury, pranks.

Reader's age: 16

I’ve always been the one to lighten things up in Avengers Tower. At 16, with telekinesis as my not-so-secret weapon, I could make a coffee mug dance across the table or send Tony’s favorite gadget flying into the air just for a laugh. The team tolerated it—heck, they encouraged it. "Keeps us on our toes," Natasha would say with a smirk. But today, that all came crashing down, and I’m left wondering if I’ve finally gone too far.

Avengers Tower was my playground, a massive skyscraper of gleaming glass and high-tech labs, buzzing with energy. The common areas were always alive with chatter—Tony tinkering in his workshop, Thor boasting about Asgard, and Peter, aka Spider-Man, geeking out over the latest tech. Peter was my favourite target. He was just a year older than me, always so earnest and wide-eyed, making him the perfect man for my pranks. We’d bonded over being the "kids" of the group.

It started like any other afternoon. I was lounging on the couch in the main living area, flipping through a comic book with my powers. I’d levitate the pages to turn them without lifting a finger—small stuff, but it made me feel in control. Peter was across the room, practicing his web-slinging in the training simulator. He’d been complaining about how his new web-shooters were "glitchy," so I thought I’d help him out with a little "test."

"Come on, Y/n, you’ve got to see this!" Peter called, swinging from one mock building to another. I grinned, my mind already racing with ideas. Using my telekinesis, I could nudge things without anyone noticing. It was subtle, like a ghost in the machine. I focused on his web-shooters, giving them a gentle psychic push to make the webs shoot at weird angles. Just a harmless prank to make him laugh, right?

At first, it was hilarious. Peter launched a web that stuck to the ceiling fan, spinning him around like a human top. The team erupted in laughter—Clint was doubled over, and even Bruce cracked a smile. "Nice one, kid!" Tony shouted from the doorway, probably recording it for blackmail material later.

But then it went wrong. Terribly wrong. As Peter tried to untangle himself, I pushed a bit too hard, messing with the stabilisers in his suit. The web snapped, and he plummeted toward the floor. I panicked and tried to catch him with my powers, but I was too late. He hit the ground with a thud, his arm twisting at an awkward angle. The room went silent. Peter groaned, clutching his wrist, and when he looked up at me, his eyes weren’t filled with the usual good-nature annoyance. They were hurt. Real hurt.

"Oh my God, Peter, I’m so sorry!" I blurted, rushing over. But he just waved me off, his face pale. "It’s fine, Y/n. Just... give me a sec." The medics arrived quickly—standard protocol—and whisked him away for a check-up. Tony shot me a disapproving glare, and the rest of the team exchanged worried glances. I felt like the air had been sucked out of the room. My stomach twisted into knots. What had I done? It was supposed to be a joke, a way to blow off steam after all the intense training sessions. Instead, I’d hurt my friend.

Guilt hit me like a tidal wave. I couldn’t face them. Not Tony’s disappointed eyes, not Natasha’s knowing stare, not anyone. So, I did what I always do when things get messy—I disappeared. I slipped out of the living area and headed to the tower’s rooftop. It was my secret spot, high above the city, where the wind whipped through my hair and the world felt a little less overwhelming. I could think up there, away from the chaos.

Hours passed, or maybe it was just minutes; time blurred in the haze of my thoughts. I sat on the edge, dangling my legs over the side, using my telekinesis to idly spin a pebble in the air. What if Peter’s injury was serious? What if I’d broken his trust for good? I wasn’t just some kid with powers—I was part of the team. Pranks were my thing, but this wasn’t funny anymore. It was reckless. Stupid. I buried my face in my hands, tears stinging my eyes. "I’m such an idiot," I muttered to the empty sky.

Down in the tower, I knew they’d notice I was gone. The team was like a family, overprotective to a fault. By now, alarms were probably blaring, or at least Tony was tracking my suit’s signal. I didn’t care. I needed space to figure out how to fix this mess.

It wasn’t long before I heard the door to the rooftop creak open. Footsteps approached—heavy, deliberate. I didn’t have to turn around to know who it was. Steve and Bucky. The old-school heroes, the ones who always saw through the BS.

"Y/n?" Steve’s voice was calm, steady, like it always was. He sat down beside me, his shield leaning against the ledge. Bucky stood a few feet away, arms crossed, his metal one glinting in the fading light.

I wiped my eyes quickly, trying to play it cool. "Hey. What are you guys doing up here?"

Steve didn’t buy it. "We’ve been looking for you. The team’s worried. Peter’s okay—sprained wrist, but he’ll be fine. He’s more upset that you ran off."

Guilt surged again, hot and unrelenting. "I didn’t mean for it to happen. It was just a prank. I thought it would be funny, but... I messed up. Badly."

Bucky knelt down next to us, his expression softer than I expected. "We all make mistakes, kid. Even us old timers. Remember when I accidentally short-circuited Tony’s suit during sparring? He didn’t talk to me for a week."

I managed a weak laugh, but it faded quickly. "Yeah, but you guys save the world. I just... prank people. What if I’m not cut out for this?"

Steve placed a hand on my shoulder, his grip firm but gentle. "You’re more than that, Y/n. You bring light to this place. But pranks have consequences, especially with powers involved. Peter knows that. He’s not mad at you—he’s just shaken."

I nodded, the weight on my chest easing a little. "I need to apologise. Properly."

Bucky smirked. "Good. And maybe lay off the pranks for a bit. Or at least run them by me first—I’ve got some ideas that are way funnier."

We headed back inside together, the three of us walking in comfortable silence. The tower felt warmer now, less like a fortress and more like home. When I found Peter in the med bay, his arm in a sling, I didn’t hold back. "I’m really sorry, Pete. I swear, no more pranks like that."

He grinned, that easygoing smile returning. "It’s cool. But next time, let’s just play video games instead."

The team welcomed me back with open arms—no lectures, just understanding. Tony even joked about turning my telekinesis into a "prank-proof" app. As I settled into my room that night, I realised something: being the prankster was fun, but being part of the team meant growing up. And for the first time, I felt ready for it.

Tags:

@riowritesitall @mandmilovehim @onelesslonelygirlbieber6 @lgbtq-girl @parkjihoonsnudes

Dividers by: @issysh3ll

[phantomphangphucker]

Phic Phight - You Look Sort Of Like My Father

For: Chrysanthemum and Care

Danny’s never had good parents. They were objectively ‘good’ people, but maybe an objectively ‘bad’ man would make for a genuinely good parent.

You look sort of… like my father.

Little boy, little boy, let me come in.

Let the dark come in.

Dad is that you, are you back?

Danny’s always had a… rocky relationship with his parents, it’s not that they were actively mean to him or that he actively hated them. It’s more that they just… weren’t good, weren’t attentive.

Weren’t really meant to be parents.

They were meant to be scientists, to be researchers, to be explores even; meant to be ghost hunters.

Kids were just for ‘the Fenton legacy’ or because ’married couples were supposed to have kids’ or simply for them to have extra hands to help them or extra minds to listen to them…

Or maybe it was simply to have free experiments that couldn’t escape for eighteen years.

…

That last one felt a little too true these days. At least they didn’t know about him, about what he was. If they did…

It, it would be so so much worse. Surely.

How couldn’t it be? They’d have access to a ghost, a unique hybrid ghost at that, that was stuck under their roof for at least two more years… if he survived whatever they’d do for that long anyways.

He didn’t have his hopes up. Never did. Never had even.

At least when he was human, fully human, he didn’t have to wonder if they’d saw out his ribs just to see what colour they might be. Blood samples were just blood. The stool stuff was creepy but still, not really a part of him.

Plus they stopped doing that stuff a year after they started actively feed him and Jazz ecto as little kids, since it didn’t ’yield interesting results’.

If it had…

He’d have been screwed from the start of his half life. He absolutely would have had to flee on day one. God that would have been awful.

He’d have… survived of course, he was good at surviving, had to be, but surviving wasn’t good. Surviving, only just surviving, was worse than dying.

He’d do it for his friends and to protect the town of course but still, he’d be doing all of it, all of that, empty and numb and waiting for the fight that would finally brutally beat the fight out of every one of his limbs and eventually… his heart and core too.

But that’s not how things are, not how they were, small mercy he guesses.

Didn’t really make what he does have now much better though. And it’s not like he can even dream that things would be better if only he hadn’t died.

They would be, just…

They still wouldn’t be good. They wouldn’t be fine or even okay.

And giving kids at least a ‘fine’ childhood was kinda the point of being a parent, ‘good’ was the goal and ‘great’ was better, but ‘fine’ would do. ‘Okay’ was only really acceptable with parents who didn’t choose to become parents, which was firmly not his parents positions.

They chose this.

They shouldn’t have.

He wished they hadn’t.

…

Well, okay, that wasn’t strictly true. He… enjoyed being around, he did!

He liked helping people, and seeing movies, and getting into ghostly fist fights, and hanging out with his friends… Even taunting Dash mid bully session could be fun.

But his parents shouldn’t have had kids and Danny would be better off someone else’s kid. Jazz was treated better by them and even she knew that; and unlike him, she had told them as much.

Did they care?

No, not really. Just a ‘that’s nice, honey’, which was and is somehow worse than them being upset, or heck, even happy. They just… didn’t really care.

He’d always wanted to fly, but all they taught him was how to drown.

The only things from them he did really like was his own love of science, of exploring and discovering, of tinkering; but they only cared and nurtured those things in him as far as they benefited and leaning into their interests… not his. Sure he was interested in ghosts too, just not like them.

Never like them.

They’d want him to be. Push him to be. So he never made that little interest known.

That’s okay though.

Because he explored his interests on his own, which wasn’t how it should be.

But…

His parents also gave him what he is. He wouldn’t be a halfa if it was for them. And that was such a part of him he could hardly seem himself without it. Even if what gave him it is all the things wrong with his parents. All the reasons they should never have been parents.

Unsafe handling of samples and unlocked projects. No adult supervision and contaminated baby bottles from the day he was born.

His parents must have paid someone off to avoid him and jazz getting taken away by cps. That, or, Sam was right and the cps only ever really did anything when a kid died and actually left a corpse behind.

…

Sucks for him he guesses then. Or not. The adoption system sounded awful.

He just… didn’t know if that would be better or worse than what he’s got, hard to say. Which he knows is really really bad. At this point it didn’t matter anyways, he had two more years and it wouldn’t matter.

He could stay.

He could go.

He could stay sometimes and go other times.

It would be up to him. And well… he did not hate his parents. In some ways he wanted to stay, he just… knows he can’t. It’s not safe. It never will be safe. Human or halfa. It won’t be safe. It won’t be healthy. It won’t be happy.

He won’t be free.

He really wanted to be free.

Not free from them, not really. Just free to be, well, him. Free to go where he wanted. Free to talk as he wanted. Free to decorate as he wanted. Free to simply be without having to be so damn paranoid about them. About them hurting him, about them confining him, about them maybe simply just not caring.

If they ever found out and just said ‘that’s nice, sweetie’, he knows he wouldn’t be able to handle that.

What would he even be supposed to do with that?

Nothing. Because you can’t do anything when someone gives you nothing. And that was a nothing response.

He could power through torture, would suck but he could do it. It was something. Confinement he could find an escape or be rescued. Nothing would just…

…

Yeah. It would just, and that’s it. And being stuck in that kind of uncertainty would be the farthest from being free or safe or happy.

He can only starve for so long before he’ll die. He’s starving for freedom. For better. For more. For what only the darkness seems to whisper he can actually have.

It’s a bit weird.

Because he didn’t used to really think about this stuff, all of it, before. As a kid, an early teen, it just simply was. No need to think about it and no real reason to. Jazz did, because Jazz studied behaviours, because Jazz cared about and for him more than they ever did.

But at least he knows why he actually thinks about this stuff now. He had a reference point, and a bit more maturity of course; but it was mostly that reference point he mentioned. And ironically, the reference point that actually got him to really think about how bad his parents were at being parents was an outright mass murderer…

That was pretty messed up, in all honesty. Even to him.

When a literal war mongering genocidal mad man provides an actual example of what a good parent should be, because the biological parents were just that far gone.

Someone he knows is no good, is good to him.

But…

Pariah just… seemed to care, not just in general but about him specifically.

Somehow.

Danny had been pretty convinced that the whole ‘you nearly truly bested me, child, you shall be my heir’ situation was just that, claiming a strong heir.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

Just some other adult using what they wanted or needed of Danny and moving along.

Like mom and dad.

Like Vlad.

Like ClockWork.

Like Pamela and Jeremy Manson.

Like Alicia.

Like Pandora.

Like Angela and Maurice Foley.

Even like Lancer.

In fact… the only adult that Danny can think of that didn’t do that to him, was Sam’s nana Ida… his nana Ida… who of course died.

Figures right?

The one adult who treated him well dying?

Yeah…

‘That’s rough buddy’.

He was tired of rough. Honestly.

But then, now, there’s Pariah. Who… doesn’t do that to him.

Sure Pariah trains him. Hand to hand combat. Weapons. Political jargon. War strategies. Zone geography. Ghost typography and linguistics.

But…

He also listens to him. He doesn’t just throw things at him. Doesn’t just push his own wants, his own desires, his own ways, on him. On Danny. He didn’t do that to Danny as a whole, not just the ghost Phantom or the Human Fenton. Danny. He listened.

He gave back more than ‘that’s nice, sweetie’. Or ‘be back by super!’. Or ‘okay, have fun’.

Pariah gave responses. He gave actual feed back, and opinions, and his own specific thoughts.

And neither did he just say what he thought Danny wanted to hear or what he thought would get Danny to do or say or be the way he wanted. Even when Pariah knew it wasn’t what Danny wanted to hear.

When Pariah’s thoughts and opinions were cruel and twisted and dangerous.

Which was… good. It was really good.

As much as that had been difficult to admit, even to just himself.

Because someone who ended trillions in death and murdered thousands in life, shouldn’t be someone Danny’s ever thinking positively of… right?

Yet he was.

Because Pariah actually seemed to give a damn about Danny. Even if sometimes it was a bit twisted or dark. Even when he pushed for more than Danny was willing to give, he’d back off, drop it, immediately. Maybe explain himself a little, but that was all.

That alone was refreshing.

A ten foot civilization Ender trying to test out Danny’s level of willingness to commit murder, shouldn’t be ‘refreshing’… but it was.

Pariah was everything he didn’t have. Everything he’d never had.

And wasn’t that an awful thing?

What’s worse is it made Danny feel… off kilter. It just wasn’t what he was used to. His experience with so called ‘parental figures’ was lie, hide, and subdue everything.

Be enough for their wants and their needs but never too much. Never too you. If it was a situation where he didn’t have to then he wouldn’t, but with mom and dad he always had to. With anyone with actual claim to the term ‘parent’ with him, he had to.

Until Pariah.

Mom and dad left the door open, the latch ajar, for someone else to come in and scoop him up.

Pariah wanted of him of course. Wanted for him. But he also just wanted Danny seemingly. Wanted Danny as Danny. No lies. No hiding. No subduing his self.

Pariah didn’t like stars. Well he did, he just liked the stars because Danny liked the stars. Danny’s mom and dad couldn’t even understand the concept of liking something just because someone else, because their kid, did.

Pariah, he… felt more a parent each day and each night than Maddie or Jack did.

Every day he sent the FrightKnight as his guard, not because he wanted to ‘keep an eye’ on Danny, but because he wanted Danny safe. Because he did not view Danny as safe in his home environment… or a school… or at his friend’s homes.

Every night he decided to show up and glare menacingly at whatever ghost was bugging Danny, all so he could have some ‘father/son’ time.

Every day he just plain played with him, no ‘how to be a parent’ book needed.

Every night he’d sit on the observatory and let Danny explain the constellations at him even though he’d seen them all before.

Every day he eagerly teach Danny maths and social and even English, in place of living teachers who had long since given up on him.

Every night he simply let Danny sleep purely because he knows Danny needs to.

Then there was what he didn’t do.

He didn’t tell Danny half of what he was, was lesser than him. No, just that everyone was beneath them, because they were king and prince. No bigotry, no bias. It was simple status.

He didn’t gift him backhandedly or gift him only things that were useful to ‘the parent’ instead.

He didn’t disregard him and all that was his. Didn’t give him nothing answers.

Most of all, he didn’t experiment on him. Tests of skill or knowledge, sure, but not experiments, and the tests were with good reason.

Danny being weak, Danny being unskilled, Danny be unaware; would be dangerous. For him, for Pariah, for both of them. It wasn’t the same, it was always willing, eager even.

Pariah… was making Danny happy. Not like the contentment from when he was a young naive child. Actually happy.

That just… also hurt. Because it should be his mom and dad doing that. Having that effect. Not someone Danny met only because of an ill-thought fight and Vlad machinations.

But at some point Danny has to choose himself. His happiness. Choose a future with him happy in it.

Mom and dad.

Maddie and Jack.

Weren’t that future.

They never were. Never even could be. They didn’t have the capacity to be. Not for him, not for Jazz, not for anyone. That’s not Danny’s fault. That’s not Jazz’s fault. He can’t even blame Vlad. It was just them. Maddie and Jack. But that’s what made it hurt too.

Because they were happy the way they were. Hurting and failing those they chose to bring into the world by force. And happy people… can’t be changed. Shouldn’t be really.

It would be really selfish of Danny.

So he’ll let them have their peace. Without him.

It’s okay. It hurts, but it’s okay.

Danny had someone who did want him. Who did change for him. Pariah wanted Danny. And Danny likes being wanted, wants to be wanted.

Was that so wrong?

Was it okay for him to… actually pick Pariah? As a dad?

It… felt like it was but it also felt like it wasn’t.

…

Danny made his choice already. Made it a while ago. Long before he met Pariah. Long before he died. Long before he even understood that not choosing Maddie and Jack was even an option.

It just…

He just… needed to realize that. Mourn that. Hurt a little.

And he had. He really really had.

The realization will settle in. The mourning will peter down. The hurt will dull.

But at least that was an adjustment he wouldn’t have to bear alone.

Even if Pariah didn’t get Danny’s emotions, because they were too human or perhaps simply to foreign to Pariah himself, he would still make an effort to get them or hear them or soften them to something easier for Danny.

That’s so so much more than he’s ever had.

Still.

He has to stay. Stay here. In this house. For two more years, regardless of his falling off breaking non-attachment to its owners. He will be here, but he’ll be motionless. He won’t be himself.

He has nothing left to give.

They failed him, and Pariah came like holy water being poured on him. The devil always seemed so much kinder than god.

Will they even know? Will they be able to tell?

Like astronomy, they were whole worlds apart. Whole universes.

…

They already rarely see him. His room his only home here. The night. The sky. The stars. Even more so home.

Will they one day realize that he too -so much like Jazz but so much painfully later- had lost his will to believe in them? That he tried so hard but they never had anything. Had nothing for him.

Would he just be a memory?

Would they?

Once you reach the sky, you can’t look down at the sea.

A ghost gave him hope and an idea of what happiness was, what it could be.

He… he can almost laugh at how crazy that might drive them…

…

If they cared at all, or if they just dismissed him with their nothings.

Pariah would care. Pariah would laugh with him. And Danny’s heart and core would beat and pulse all the more with it.

Pariah could have him as son.

Pariah had him as son.

And Danny?

Danny, for once, for once in his life and death, had a dad.

As much as it hurt, he couldn’t bear the sound of loosing what he’s never before found.

And with that, the Infinite Realms had a king and prince too. And Danny could make Pariah love the place again. Want it to flourish again.

Because Danny wanted that.

Danny wanted it to thrive.

That place was the space he’d never get to see. The spaceship he can’t fly.

He can’t force a star that’s already died to align with living ones.

But he’ll reach out into the void with his small child ghost hands, and this time…

This time…

He won’t grab the wrong hand.

You look nothing like my mother

You look nothing like my father.

Dark thrashing, calling my name

Looming, threatening, and shaking the latch

You look nothing like my mother I know no mother.

You look exactly like my father.

End.

Prompts: Pariah Dark adopts Danny. He is a surprising dedicated to being a good parent. "This had all been for his own good, he knew that. Still, it was hard to remember that sometimes."

[ovadzs]

strangers in the night

part one

ᝰ.ᐟsummary: When your mother goes missing, it's up to you to find her. Your brother, Sherlock Holmes? Pfft, nothing in comparison to you. But when you end up getting intertwined with the threatened life of Viscount Piastri, things go wayward.

ᝰ.ᐟwho??: Viscount!oscar x holmes!reader

ᝰ.ᐟtrope: Enola holmes au, strangers to... case partners?

ᝰ.ᐟcw: violence, attempted murder, misogyny, etc. NOT PROOF READ!!

ᝰ.ᐟword count: nearly 7k (in this part)

ᝰ.ᐟauthor notes: hi guys! hope you like this!! sorry for the lack of content in a while, had some stuff going on (like my college induction day, kill me. was awful, now dreading next year! also prom next week, yay??? nay??? yes this is like a poor adaption of the film, but i hope it’s worth the read. also, part 2 will have oscar in it consistently, plus an ending which is a bit different to the original!! if you guys like it, i could also do a part 3/4 based off the second film!! lmk 🥳 also, i have very specific songs i listen when writing each fic, would you guys like me to mention them in these intro bits? for example, this one is ‘strangers in the night,’ by frank sinatra!

It's a painfully usual morning. The sun shines just-so through your window, waking you up from an evidently restless evening. Your duvet, and scruffy stuffed bear, flung carelessly on the floor. Paper, strewn about the room, spilling from drawers and shelves. Ink blotches, everywhere. Dents and scrapes, from where you’d tripped searching for a certain book, or where your pins and red string had been pushed ever slightly too hard against the walls. Everything is familiar, and boring, and you had begun to almost hate the routine of it all. You are grateful, of course, that you weren’t stuffed in some awful, prim, boarding school, waiting to be married off. You’d always rather be here instead. But you couldn't help but curse how you were still trapped between these extensive four walls, knowing you would never prance around like your brother, Sherlock. Heck, you’d even take a life like Mycroft’s, even though you knew you were destined to be a much grander detective.

You groan, checking the clock to your right, trying to make sense of the blurry numbers. It ticks on, impatiently, and the sound is surprisingly loud. Or maybe, the rest of the house is surprisingly quiet.

You bolt. Up immediately, disregarding your unruly bed hair and forgetting to apologise to Colonel Teddy (the aforementioned bear) that curses you from the carpet. Traversing corridor after corridor, your mothers name hanging from your worried lips.

“Eudoria? Mother?” you call, ignoring how sleep still choked in your throat. 

The silence is suffocating now, disgusting and evil. Your mother is brilliant, eccentric, and beautiful, and anything but quiet. And in darker days, when the sun refused to rise until much later, she was what woke you up instead.

She trained you not to panic. To think, always think. To feel, only when it was the last option. And even then, only to trust your gut. Most other emotions got in the way of solving a good crime, at least. You’d never had the need to apply emotions anywhere else.

However, she had also trained you when to run, and when to fight. And now, as the absence of her clashing and tinkering was more unsettling than any horror you’d read in your brother's  case files, you decide that violence is indeed the answer. How dare any assailant come in here, snatch away your mother, and leave?

No, you hoped they were still here, so you could show them who on earth they were messing with. Just because Sherlock carried your name like a medal, did not mean he was the only one who had earned to do that. Holmes belonged to you too, and you were here to prove it. 

Fists raised slightly, you creep into your mothers study, underwhelmed by the emptiness of it. Just a simple note, addressed to you. 

‘Hello, dear.

I do Love flowers, don't you?

I believe your brother dOes too. Maybe you should ask him to joiN you in the garden.

Be careful, though. Men Do not always understand the true ambitions of wOmen. I like flowers because I like them, Not because society has told me to.’

It’s cryptic, and you would usually grin at a puzzle, but this felt serious. Secretive, and concerning. She truly was gone, and here she was, inviting you to figure it out. 

Because she believed in you? Because asking Sherlock would be too obvious? 

‘Maybe you should ask him to join you.’

Your body kicks in before your brain does, which is a rare occurrence. The phone is in your hand, his famous number replaying in your head as you wind up each digit, cursing your trembling hands. She’d be disappointed, seeing you let anxiousness creep into each breath.

“Mother?” comes Sherlock’s gruff voice, and you wince.

“She’s gone. You need to get here, as soon as possible. Please.” you request, your voice remaining surprisingly steady. 

You hang up, before any tears fall. You know he’d never take you seriously in this investigation, if you were crying.

Unsure of what to do next, you do the only thing you never, ever, do. You sit, and wait.

***

Sherlock arrives that same evening, followed by your other brother, Mycroft. Although Sherlock is the more famous detective, Mycroft is by no means any less effective. 

He is more realistic, though. And he is adamant on sending you off to boarding school, in hopes to train you into being a woman fit for a husband.

“Absolutely not. I know Mother the best, that's disreputable. I’m also just as brilliant as you two, I think you’ll find. I demand to be part of this.” you declare, arms folded arrogantly, and the two men look between each other.

“Now, I appreciate the sentiment. And I’m sure you are very bright, but I think this would be best to do alone. Mother did suggest you bring me into it.” Sherlock replies, sternly, avoiding any eye contact with his brother on the left.

“Exactly. But she clearly wanted us to work together, surely. She said, ‘join you.’” you plead, but he looks away from you.

“She’s kept you in here for far too long. As unfortunate as it is, I do not quite think you will ever become a detective, and I do not think that to die trying is a good way to go out. I’ve heard wondrous things about Mrs Harrison’s finishing school, and I find it most fitting that you attend. I will organise it, at once, yes? Please, do not be irritable about it.” decides Mycroft, letting the finality of his words hang in the air.

“This is why we all know she was talking about Sherlock and not you in her infuriating note.” you mumble under your breath, and you’re glad that he looks hurt, for a small moment.

It’s quiet, and awkward, until Sherlock speaks again.

“So, we’ve established she left of her own accord, surely. No sign of struggle, at all. And she obviously doesn’t want us to panic, and tell anyone, or she wouldn’t have left a note. I’ll take care of this, as I know you’re busy with the vote and bills at the moment, Mycroft. If you trust me to solve this. And you, well you can enjoy proper schooling, yes? You’ve never been, if I remember correctly. You used to dance around in improper trousers and cling to pinecones.” he claps, standing up cheerfully like it's any other case. 

“Neither of you have visited in such a long time. You don’t know me, do you, brothers?” you ask sneakily, hoping to make them feel guilt for shunning you once, and instantly shunning you again.

“You are right, and that is regretful. I will make an effort to check in on you, at school, of course. I’m sure we can have arrangements made to pick you up tomorrow, as we depart on the train.” replies Mycroft, shutting you down quickly. 

But you are resourceful, and you already have etchings of a beautiful (if not slightly crazy) plan.

“Oh, at least let me wave you off from the platform. I haven’t seen a train in such a long time!” you sulk, and Sherlock smiles lazily.

“Surely, that’s acceptable to you, brother? I enjoyed hearing the churning sound of a train too, when I was her age.” he comments, and Mycroft nods slowly.

“I suppose that’s alright. I can drop you off personally afterwards, then. I would recommend you begin to pack.” he mutters, waving you away, and you stare angrily at him as you begrudgingly trail to your bedroom.

***

It’s surprisingly busy at the train station platform, which is delightful. Bodies and sounds fill the air, giving you very little room to swing your suspiciously light suitcase. Train horns whistle as they roar past, and you focus very keenly on the timetable plastered in front of you.

Sherlock’s train is on the left hand side, and would arrive just as one to your right  departs. That’s your plan, just as Mycroft is wishing him farewell. You’d jump straight onto the other, and straight towards London, as that was always the best place to start an investigation. Also, coincidentally, you had noticed something your brothers had not, for they did not know Eudoria as you did- she had capitalised a few letters which spelt out London.

To the untrained eye? Messy handwriting. To yours, a beautiful hidden message. A sure sign that she wanted you to find her, to work out what had happened.

It plays out perfectly. The doors of your target are closing, just as Sherlock’s is opening. He pulls Mycroft into a respectable embrace, and you take it- the chance.

You barrel for the back of the train, feeling that familiar stretch in your legs that makes you grin. Your boots, laced with mismatched ribbons, kick up dirt and gravel. They create a trail of unrest and change and feed you with grip and determination. You’re quick, just quick enough to know you could make the jump.

So you leap, without blinking. And for a moment, you fly.

You hear Mycroft yelling, and Sherlock hollering, but you don’t care. Arms outstretched, you land somewhat ungracefully against the thin rim of the back of the locomotive, gripping ridiculously tight to the thin bars. It’s chugging away, slowly, and you hoist yourself up to the roof, marvelling in the freedom of it all.

You make an effort to try not to feel any fear about how suddenly alone you are. You’ve never been alone before, not like this. Even though, when you were younger, your mother had actually nicknamed you ‘Enola’ (‘Alone’, backwards. Eudoria liked to mock your need for solitude.)

You crouch on the edge of the roof, grateful for how long it takes these trains to reach any sort of respectable speed, so you’re safe to clamber in through a window. Gleefully, you spot a completely empty cabin, with the window completely open.

Perfect.

You gently climb in, adjusting your ruffled skirt as you sit down, and you scan the luggage in the rack above you. There’s only one, and it's large. Looks heavy, and important, and you almost want to open it. There’s still a small gap, so you decide to throw your own tiny suitcase up next to it.

As you shimmy on your tiptoes, trying to reach the iron rack, the train jolts. Aggressively. So much so that you tumble backwards into the seat on the opposite side, and you watch as that singular suitcase crashes to the floor directly in front of you, it’s contents spilling out.

Its contents being… limbs?

A stream of disgruntled sounds comes from the open bag, mumbles of ‘ows’ and ‘ughs’.

You recoil, trying to remain unphased, as an awkward mop of chestnut hair pokes out of the top, followed by darker eyes that stare directly into yours.

“Hello.” says the suitcase, which is now evidently a young man, grimacing at you.

“Please, get out of this carriage.” you say quickly, angry at how quickly confusion is settling on your face.

“I can’t. I’m in hiding.” he replies equally as fast, as he leverages himself out of his hiding-spot and into the seat opposite you.

“Was a bit of a to-do, truly. Bribed a porter into hiding me here, and everything.” he continues, conversationally, and you just stare at him.

“Very daring.” he finishes, waiting for a response expectantly.

“Get out of this carriage, immediately.” you demand.

He doesn't move, at all. Just studies you carefully.

“You’re a funny looking lady.” he says pointedly, clearly struggling to figure out how your eccentric skirt pairs with duty boots and a paper-boy cap.

“And you think you look normal?” you sneer, eyeing him with absolute scrutiny.

He could be very handsome, you decide. His eyes are inviting, and his moles complement his face nicely. But his ridiculous hair and obnoxious clothes reek of privilege and insincerity and truly make him look very daft, especially because you assume he’s the same age as you. Much too young to look so decorated.

“Who are you?” he asks carefully.

“What are you?” you retort immediately, and his face morphs into a look of contempt, but he also looks slightly entertained.

“I’m Viscount Piastri, the Marquess of Clarenwether.” he introduces himself gleefully, extending a palm.

You don’t take it. 

“You’re a nincompoop.” you say decidedly, and he looks very… cross. He quickly retracts his hand and stares at you angrily, but you still don’t move.

“I’ll have you know, I have just undertaken a particularly daring escape, from a man in a brown bowler hat.”

You think back to before you leapt on the back, and you recall this man, in the bowler hat, entering the very train.

“You’re not very good at escaping then, clearly. He’s got on, I saw him. And when he inevitably finds you, because of your weak attempt at hiding, I shall be endangered because he thinks I am helping you. Therefore, I ask you again to leave this carriage.” Your voice is laced with determination, and confidence, and you’re stumped by his lack of response.

You stare at each other for a while, and you wonder how much money he must’ve given that porter, as he is clearly an absolute idiot, and definitely was outsmarted by the train crew.

“You remind me of my uncle. Bossy. Left him at the station. All of them, my family, my grandmother, everyone. Which is fine. Good, even. I am free now. You see?” he explains, easily throwing the now empty suitcase back up next to yours, before sitting down next to you, ignoring as you shift as far away from him as possible.

“That’s brilliant to hear. So, you can leave now, yes?” you repeat, and he looks at you, swallowing the severity of your voice.

“The man in a brown bowler hat, is here, you say? Okay. It’ll be fine.” he reassures, and he stands and peeks out of the door, before stepping out.

“It’ll be fine.” he repeats, as he smiles at you, to say goodbye.

And then he’s gone, and you breathe deeply in relief.

37 peaceful seconds pass, until he's back.

“He’s coming!”

“Of course?” you mumble, not opening your eyes.

“No, he’s checking every carriage.” he shrieks, and you shrug.

“Wonderful.”

A moment passes, of unsettling silence.

“You have to help me.” he pleads. “He didn’t see me.”

“Of course he did. Therefore, I will be off, and I bid you a good day, Viscount Piastri, the Marquess of Clarenwether.” you mutter, as you grab your case and step out into the hallway, giving him a not-so-friendly stare.

You walk forwards, trying to shake the image of his terrified eyes out front your mind, and suddenly someone bumps aggressively into your shoulder- his bowler hat practically scowling at you.

You freeze momentarily, but he pays you no attention. Instead, he heads straight into the carriage you just left, calling out cheerfully, “There you are, sir.”

And that aligns with your idea that that Piastri fellow was merely a rebellious teen, and you exhale.

That’s until you hear a shatter, and a shout. A shout of pain, and terror, and panic, and you hesitate.

‘Don’t be thrown off course by other people, especially men!” you hear your mother laugh in your mind, and your heart aches for her.

But your heart also squeezes uncomfortably tight when he screams again, and you swivel around immediately, marching aggressively back to the carriage.

You peer through the window and gasp before you can stop yourself: the man is gripping him by the neck as he hangs out the door, his arms flailing awkwardly as the wind blasts through him, his eyes watering in fear and pain. You scan the room and spy the bowler-hat man’s cane lying unattended on the seat, and you propel yourself into the room, pick it up, and whack him surprisingly forcefully with his own cane. His body crumples onto the floor immediately, as the Viscount still shouts, dangling out the door.

You carefully step over the body on the floor and extend an arm to him, pulling him back inside with a momentous effort. He steadies himself and flashes you a smile.

“We need to go, now.” you say firmly, and he nods, following you out of the carriage and down, back towards the end of the train.

You search every carriage, desperate for an empty one, to no avail, until you reach  the same door you’d been hanging onto earlier.

“What are we going to do?” he asks quietly, desperately, willing you to say something ingenious. You don't reply, instead you poke your head out of the door, scanning the countryside. You catch sight of a bridge you’re about to cross, and you nod. You shimmy out, gripping onto the edge.

“Alright, follow me, okay. Careful.” you say slowly, watching yourself place each small step, until you’re hanging from one bar, one foot dangling over the fast moving ground below.

He follows you, his breath quickening, wincing. He manages to close the door behind him as he lines up beside you.

“What are you-” he begins to ask, but you can barely make it out over the roaring of the train along the tracks.

“Do you trust me?” you bellow, waiting impatient for an answer as the bridge draws closer.

“No??” he shouts back, and you almost smile, but you can’t give him the satisfaction.

“If we time it correctly, we can leave him stranded.” you call, annoyed by the confusion on his face.

“Time what correctly?” he replies hurriedly, and you sigh.

“Listen Piastri, we have two choices.” you shout, exasperated.

“And which one involves me, um, not dying?” he responds urgently.

The door flings open and the man in the bowler hat emerges, reaching straight for the Viscount.

“This one!” you yell, as you yank his hand and fling yourself off the train, down the hill. You watch the bowler man falter, cursing as he remains stuck above the bridge, and you cheer as you tumble violently through thick grass and unfortunately placed thistles.

You eventually stop rolling, grinning to yourself, as you swivel upright and stare at the boy above you, making the same variations of sounds he made earlier after falling off the suitcase rack.

“Well, you sure do make rather a lot of noise, don’t you?” you comment snarkily, and he looks at you, irritated.

“You just threw me-huff-off a train.” he replies, and you scowl.

“No, I just saved your life.” you correct, but he doesn’t thank you, instead he complains about losing a button on his no-longer pristine grey two piece. You almost hope one of his buttons pops directly into his stupid, smug, brown eyes.

You get up immediately, and do not offer him a hand. You march onwards, and you hear him groan loudly as he treks after you, evidently struggling to keep up.

“You’ve ruined my plan, you know, truly. Such an inconvenience.” you mutter.

“Your plan? Who are you? I feel I deserve to know.” he demands, and you turn dramatically to face him.

“Well, I am undercover, so as soon as I tell you, forget it.”

You say your first name quickly, like it is of no importance. Irrelevant. And in some ways, it is. You’re sure Viscount Piastri here understands that, considering he introduced himself without his own first name. But your last name?

You take your time with that one, watching him boggle slightly.

“Holmes, as in, Sherlock? You’re actually a Holmes?” he asks excitedly, and you nod. “And you’re undercover, because you’re working with him?”

You don’t reply immediately. “Something like that.”

You continue walking, waiting for him to speak, but he doesn’t.

“So?” you demand, and he stares at you blankly.

“So, what?”

“Thank you? You’re supposed to thank me.” you reply angrily.

“For what?” he questions, and you almost hit him in the face, but you refrain and walk on.

***

The sun begins to set uncomfortably soon.

“We should begin to think about sleeping.” you say wisely, but he disagrees.

“No, we should begin to think about food, I say.”

“We have nothing to eat.” you hiss back, but he chuckles.

“Sure we do, look.” he begins, gesturing to the various plants in the field you’re walking through. He names them all, in Latin and English, and quickly explains their various functions and flavours. You try to act unimpressed.

He mumbles about a feast, and fire, and you dutifully gather wood. By the time darkness has settled in, you’re both happily eating an array of mushrooms and foliage, and it’s surprisingly satisfying.

“You know, you ought to disguise yourself a tad more. You’re rather recognisable with that alarming mop of hair.” you say clearly, and he shrugs.

“I don’t care for it, really. Go on, cut it off with that knife you’re wielding slightly scarily.” he jokes, but you do exactly as he says.

You hoist yourself up behind him, carefully cutting through layers of his thick hair, as he asks you questions you usually wouldn’t answer.

“So, why did you run away?” he murmurs inquisitively.

“Didn’t want to go to ‘Miss Harrison’s’ finishing school. What about you?” you reply casually, and he exhales shakily.

“Please, don’t find me pathetic. But I was collecting mushrooms, and a branch from the tree above me collapsed. I should’ve died, truly. Crushed to death, but I wasn’t. Would’ve been inconvenient. You see, I have ideas-”

“As so many of us do” you quip, and he smiles.

“Yes, well, I was meant to join the house of Lords. Make my ideas mean something. But my family wanted me to go a ‘mans way.’ Join the army, stay in my place. No need for politics, no need for my ideas. They would benefit others, I think, not my own estate. And I just thought, what if I hate it? What if they send me away, and I wish instead that tree did crush me? So I ran.” he admits gently, and you stare at him carefully.

“I do not find that, nor you, particularly pathetic.” you say calmly, and he grins.

“So, what about finishing school is so terrible? Why suddenly send you there now?”

You choose to stop sharing there.

“We must move early in the morning, as soon as the sun is visible. Bowler man will be on our tail by now, certainly.”

He nods, then pauses. “Where are you heading?”

“London.” you say firmly, and his grin spreads even wider across his flushed face.

“Well, so am I! Isn’t that brilliant? Why don’t we make it there together?” he suggests, and you want to say no, but your body betrays you as you smile slightly.

“Fine. But once we make it there, we split up.” you confirm, and he agrees quickly.

***

You manage to hitch a ride on the back of a cart loaded with sheep, all the way to the outskirts of the city. As soon as it slows, you hop off, and you raise your cap to him.

“So, we’re parting here, then.” he complains lamely, and you nod.

“You’ll be fine. Goodbye, Piastri.”

“It’s Oscar. My first name, I mean.” he mutters, before wishing you farewell. You don’t like the familiarity, him using your first name so casually, and giving you his. 

“Let’s stick with surnames, I think. Most appropriate.”

“Fair enough, Holmes. You’ve proven you can outsmart Sherlock anyway, so I trust you will succeed in whatever you are investigating. Good luck.” he says sincerely, and you wave him goodbye as you walk off, ignoring the pang of something in your stomach.

“He’ll be fine.” you repeat, to reassure yourself. “Now, I’m back on track.”

***

Although you’d lived a sheltered life, you did not let your lack of understanding of the outside world stop you from getting things done. You did not linger too long on thoughts about that blasted Viscount ‘Oscar’ Piastri, the Marquess of Clarenwether. No, instead, you marched straight into the first boutique you could find, and demanded masses of velvety fabrics and corsets you were unsure of how to tighten.

When you emerged back out, you looked respectable. Ladylike. Completely and totally pretentious. Someone who would fit perfectly on Piastri’s arm, not that you were imagining it. Not that he was still lodged firmly in your slightly frazzled mind.

The seamstress had also been kind enough to point you out to some lodgings nearby, and you settled into your room. It was dank, and dark, and offputting. Musty, and rickety. But cheap and very close to your next target: a woman named Edith which your mother had often corresponded with.

You had a knack for remembering addresses, but you never thought memorising hers would come in handy.

You enter the seemingly innocent bakery, surprised by waitresses and the smell of fresh pastries. Why would your mother be so secretive about letters to a baker?

“Good afternoon, I’m looking for an Edith?” you ask slowly, to a woman behind a counter, and she raises an eyebrow at you.

“Upstairs.” is her brief response, and you study the thudding sound coming from above, before walking up the stairs.

It’s rows and rows of women on thin mats, throwing each other and fighting, and you feel somewhat at home. It reminds you of the training you did with your mother, the endless hours of Jujitsu, all the times she’d thrown you against a tree unapologetically.

“You tryna’ enroll?” asks a woman to your right, and you shake your head.

“No, I’m already trained. I’m looking for Eudoria Holmes.” you admit, staring at the lady intently. “Are you Edith?”

She laughs. “What, you don’t remember me? I was your first teacher. You look just like her, y’know?” she murmurs, and you beam. High praise.

“I need you to tell me where I can find Ellie Houseman.” you ask casually, and Edith freezes.

“Where did you hear that?” she hisses, pulling you into her small office.

Your mother had always valued her own privacy. Closed doors, closed for good reason. Weaponised, utilised, to shut you out. Rare, but unrelenting.

You, on the other hand? You valued knowledge, and curiosity. A door closed was simply a door to be opened, and so that’s what you would do. Peer through tiny cracks, or place glasses against walls to listen in. And Ellie Houseman had cropped up so often, she became more constant than your own brothers. And you knew your investigation would be useless without her.

That’s when the first blow comes. A hit you hadn’t anticipated. Her hand slices aggressively into your neck, and you wince, before slamming yours straight back into her side. She grunts, before charging into you, her curly hair flying out of place. It’s quick, whack after whack in quick succession. You’re simultaneously attacking and defending, cursing your stupid corset and too prim skirt. 

“You need to leave this alone.” she shouts into your ear, yanking you towards her, but you push her backwards.

“She is my mother! I can’t just leave her, she’s left me clues. She wants me to find her, I’m sure of it.” you reply back quickly, shrieking as one well placed kick sends you crashing to the floor.

“Have you considered the opposite? Maybe she’s leaving you a fake trail to follow, so you stay out of her way.” Edith hisses, and you recoil, your hand shrinking away from her foot.

“Miss Holmes, I’m not convinced you are ready for this.” she admits, stepping over your aching body towards the door.

“No one is. But I don’t care.” you fire back, getting up with a sharp inhale. She commends your resilience, you can tell.

“Your mother knew you were listening, I bet.” she says simply, slowly, as if she’s given you valuable information, and you just let out an exasperated sigh.

She leaves you to think it over, and that you do, propping yourself up against her desk. That's when you see a map, with a few locations dotted and circled. And one in particular catches your eye.

Limehouse Lane. A place of no significance. But if it was significant to your mother, you know what she would’ve done. She would’ve rearranged it, rearranged it to something understandable but casual, something you’d only know if you knew. Something that could be said easily in conversations, without raising suspicion. A name would be good. A name, like

Ellie Houseman. 

***

Limehouse Lane is dingy and uninviting. Litter lies amongst the cobbled floors, and unknown things squelch below your feet, but you refuse to be deterred. Determination has always been a strong suit of yours.

You make it to the end of the street, coming face to face with a warehouse, doors slightly ajar. You slip in silently and begin to explore.

Boxes and crates are piled in neat rows, and stacks of leaflets and newspapers are strewn across them. Cautiously, you lift open a crate and you gasp slightly. Explosives. A huge selection of explosives.

Every crate, very full. Very illegal. The posters and leaflets? Invitations to rallies. Feminist rallies.

Suddenly all Eudoria’s teachings make so much sense. How she’d instructed you to never conform to a society designed for men. And you quickly realise that Edith was right. She had not wanted you to realise what kind of an activist she was- for she was truly a radical.

And as much as you admired it, you realise that Edith was right once again. You might not be ready for this. Admittedly, you were still so young, with such little understanding of the nature of the world. So, suddenly, being in an abandoned warehouse full of illegal weapons which you knew your mother intended to wield was not nearly as exciting as you thought it ought to be. Instead, you have the sudden urge to run.

An urge you did not get usually.

As you make your way back outside, something catches your eye. A shrine of sorts, across the lane, under a lame shed-like structure.

The innocent eyes of Viscount ‘Oscar’ Piastri, plastered all over numerous sheets of paper, staring at you. Maps and lists, crossed angrily. Places, scribbled and circled. Like he was of some importance, to someone dwelling around Limehouse Lane. And you wonder if maybe, he has some role in this you weren’t aware of. If maybe, somehow, he is connected to your mother.

And that’s when the excitement kicks in. You put it down to the idea of new evidence, and the distance between you and the bombs. It has nothing to do with the idea of seeing the Viscount again, absolutely not.

You scan the newspaper clippings again, smiling slowly as you read one of the headlines. A flower market in Coventry. ‘Dazzling, exotic, never before seen. European’, etc, read the slogan. 

You were no botanist, but if you were, that’s where you’d go, for sure. And you were certain that you’d find him there.

You go to take a step forward, when a hand grabs you around the throat. It’s gruff, and tight. Choking, you kick your assailant aggressively in the leg, hearing an ‘oof’ sound, and you’re somewhat unsurprised when you turn and see a familiar man in a familiar bowler hat. Great.

You throw a punch at his jaw, and you grin as you hear a satisfying crack, but he doesn’t even stumble. Instead, he aims straight for your face and you stagger back clumsily to avoid the impact. Then his cane whacks your thigh, so hard, and you shriek in pain, tripping over. He dives straight at you, and you both clatter into a low window, shattering the glass. You wrinkle your nose as you smell smoke, and scurry upwards, trying your best to limp away, but he’s right behind you.

You turn the corner to see nothing other than a large bucket of water and a scuffed wall, and you curse. You turn to face him, trying to keep an air of confidence as he runs towards you. He grabs your head, smashing you into the wall, and you grit your teeth as you feel your nose beginning to bleed, but you don’t pause. You headbutt him aggressively, and he reels just long enough for you to kick him over.

Then you slam your foot into his chest, hearing him heave. But he grabs you down with him, thrusting a short knife straight into your stomach.

He gets up, staring at you expectantly, but you simply get up too, shuddering. You rip the knife from your stomach incredulously, wondering if adrenaline was why you couldn’t feel any pain.

“How the hell-” begins your assailant, and you scowl at him, pulling open the rip in your dress. Your corset, turns out, had saved you. Genius.

You throw yourself at him, scraping the knife down his arm, but he barely even yelps. Instead, he forces your head into the bucket, laughing as you writhe in the water.

He pulls you up as you scream. “Where is the Marquess?” he asks, low and evil. You feign innocence.

“I don’t know who you’re talking about.” you reply, indignant, and he pushes you back into the water again as you shout, pushing your arms against the side of the barrel.

He pulls you up again. “Do I need to ask again?”

You shake your head, quickly. “Okay, yes, I know him. But I promise, I don’t know where he is. We went our separate ways.” you plead, and he pauses, like he’s considering what you’ve said.

“Well, that’s a terrible shame, but you’ve seen my face now.” he replies gravely, and you wince.

“Your face is very forgettable, truly.” You attempt, but it’s too late. You’re back underwater, and life is slipping from you as you feel your energy depleting.

You stop writhing. You slow entirely, conserving the little strength you have left. He stops pressing your head down, and comes closer to you, examining if you’ve truly given up.

He hesitates for a moment too long, and you slam into him, with all the force you can muster. He curses, and you sprint back to where the fire had started. You don’t hesitate, throwing a flaming plank of wood into the warehouse.

You most certainly do not hesitate to see if he’s made it out as you watch the entire thing end up alight, a blaze spreading across each old wooden wall. You do not turn around as you begin to hear bangs and pops. Instead, you limp onwards to Coventry.

Onwards to Piastri. Because if that bowler-hat man had almost killed you, he would have no trouble murdering that pompous boy without you around. And as you take each step, you decide with a heavy heart that your mother would be more than fine without you, and that maybe she viewed you as a hindrance. So now, you could accept this new mission.

***

You visit the market the next day. He is sporting a new look, you make a note of. Less ridiculous, less rich. You almost hadn’t noticed him, but you recognise your own handiwork as you watch his uneven hair.

“I’d quite like a blue flower, preferably. Are blue roses a thing? I don’t really care for flowers.” you ask him loudly, admiring him sift diligently through a row of different plants.

“Well, no real ones-” he begins formally, turning around to face you.

His face lights up, and you smile at him bashfully.

“Holmes! It’s you. I’ve missed you.” he says immediately, too immediately, and you hesitate.

“Yes, that’s nice of you, Piastri. ‘Suppose I’ve grown fonder of you too, in your absence. But that’s not why I’m here.” you say seriously, but he just smiles at you, dazed.

“You’re in grave danger. Truly, grave. That bowler-hat man is coming, and he’s relentless. So, I’ve decided to devote my brilliance to your case, so you stay alive.” you explain, and he looks at you, like he’s considering something.

Then he embraces you, his large arms wrapping around you easily, and you try not to melt. You hadn’t realised how isolated you were, living alone. Hiding from your brothers, searching for your mother. Well and truly alone.

You wonder if maybe he felt the same. If maybe it was instinctual, to try and get some comfort. Some contact. Maybe he needs this just as much as you do.

So you allow yourself to relax, ever so slightly. For his benefit, you assure yourself. 

“Should I be scared?” he asks quietly, mumbling into your unruly hair.

“Terrified.” you admit, and you hear him sigh. You pull away quickly, readjusting your dress and grabbing him by the arm.

“I’ve been collecting any clippings and things I can find, to get a headstart. Follow me.” you announce, guiding him through small streets until you reach your lodging.

Unfortunately, you don’t see the tenant eyeing you entering the building. You don’t see her grip on an unflattering ‘wanted’ poster of you. Maybe if you had, you would have run away.

The Viscount eyes your room, a small smirk etched on his lips. “Cheapest place you could find?”

You huff. “The lady assured me a fair price.”

“The lady lied to you.”

You roll your eyes at him, gesturing to the documents sprawled out in front of you. He watches you carefully, but suddenly the door slams open.

A strange looking man, with a ridiculously large moustache and a squiffy uniform.

You recognise him, as an inspector that had worked with your brothers before.

“Detective Lestrade!” you say cheerfully, grinning the confusion on his face.

“You know this guy?” mutters Piastri, into your ear.

“Think he’s going to try and detain me now.” you reply, grabbing the teapot to your right and hurling it aggressively at Lestrade’s face, watching him fumble backwards.

Yanking the Marquess’ arm, you drag him up the rickety stairs, laughing.

“Well, if wasn’t going to try and detain you before, he definitely is now!” he comments, and you flash him a lazy smile.

“Mycroft’s put him up to it, I’m sure. Help me pull this chest, please.” you grunt, lamely attempting to push the chest against the door, as a weak barricade.

Lestrade is there immediately, ignoring the bruise rapidly developing on his large nose. He rams himself into the door, seething at you through the small gap.

“Miss Holmes, and whoever it is you’re with, please come out immediately. Or I’ll have to smash this door down.” he shouts, but you just stare at him, undecided on what to do.

With each moment you think, you feel the chest shift below you, and realise you’re fighting a losing battle.

“Piastri, are you listening? We can’t hold him off forever.” you announce, watching the door grow more open with each thump from Lestrade’s arm.

The boy nods. “So, what’s your plan?” he asks quickly, humming as he keeps pushing the door, to no avail.

“I’ll hold it, so you can run. And you will run. Run as far as you can.” you say, your tone deadly serious. Your voice doesn’t even waver, even though your hands are shaking.

He stares at you incredulously.

“I’m not leaving you. Absolutely not.”

You sigh at him, exasperated. “Listen, you have to. What happens now, for me, is simple. Finishing school. But if you, if you get caught? You’re dead.” you explain.

“I’m not leaving you-”

“I demand it!” you shriek, feeling your hands slip.

“I can’t do it, you wouldn’t do it to me, would you?” he asks, but you don’t reply. Instead, two words leave your panicked lips.

“Oscar, please.”

He doesn’t move, not straight away, but he gives himself a second to look at you. To truly look at you. And he looks at you like you’ve just said something holy. Something secret, maybe something beautiful.

Actually, he looks at you like you are beautiful, even though you know that right now, you most certainly are not.

“Please.” you repeat, and then he runs, straight for the door behind you, to the fire escape.

You give him one last weak smile, and then he’s gone, and you stop fighting it.

You let Lestrade pile in, and silently curse the evil woman that follows him, pestering about a reward.

But your thoughts follow the Viscount, hating the fact you already miss him. Already want to know that he’s safe, even though you practically can still hear his heavy footsteps.

You hate the fact that you want to ask him why he was looking at you like that, what it meant.

You hate him, and the fact he’s ruined your investigation, and now you’re going to be locked up forever in that stupid finishing school, where your mother will remain unfound and you’ll have to hear of Piastri’s demise through a weekly paper.

end of part one ⌕

[kazusrightmole]

BACK AGAIN

small note: a small and old drabble to upload before my exams tom lol (also an offering to the dr stone fandom as a celebration for the season 4 of dr stone,, also a bit of a canon divergence here and takes place way before taiju was first revived by senku lmfao) and uhh no dialogues from reader here as this was set in senku's pov

SENKU ISHIGAMI was someone who wasn’t too fond of romance or anything related to it in general, which was why he’d rather spend the rest of his life dedicating to the love of his life—Science.

That, he made it pretty well-known among his fellow peers and the loved ones involved in his life. The blunt male just guessed that the reason behind was simply because he wasn’t all up for the hype of something so complicated. Obviously, Science was supposed to be a concept filled with natural complexities dedicating to everything within and in life itself, but with thorough and careful research, even the most complicated processes of certain materials and life forms could easily be answered if anyone had just taken the time to do simple research or whatever.

Unlike everything else about romance itself. If you liked this person so much, why can’t you just get on and be done with it already? Does it really matter whether you’d get rejected or not? Because frankly, after begrudgingly watching a few romcom films (thanks to Yuzuriha’s and Taiju’s conjoined yet stubborn efforts), most of them could’ve been easily solved if they had just stopped distancing themselves from each other and just communicate everything they’ve been feeling towards the other.

It’s as simple as that, isn’t it? he let out a snicker as he recalled those memories, his movements unnoticeably shaky yet still somehow maintaining relentlessly. Even as his throat silently begged be to quenched of its thirst and his frame on the verge of being roasted under the sun’s harsh light—Senku Ishigami, unsurprisingly, couldn’t find it in himself to stop whatever he was doing even if it was for a quick break.

His calloused hand then popped another one of his, hopefully now working fluid he randomly found in some cave—seeing as the previous fluid he just poured over the stone obviously didn't work.

At this rate, he might just start believing in god and lady luck themselves if the stone ever cracked.

Just a little more—can’t let them down now.

Which was exactly why tinkering, experimenting, and discovering new stuff using certain things along with newfound materials, was something he’d been mostly looking forward to do as soon as he got up from bed. While others may find his interest with science a bit too excessive, Senku Ishigami could really care less.

Honestly, the blunt male would rather have his head filled with thoughts of all possibilities of creating something beneficial for all of humanity. A bit of an ambitious dream, but with senku’s intelligence and insane dedication combined? Yeah, no, at this point, nothing was ever going to phase him one bit.

Or at least he thought so.

For some reason, the universe and above had somehow collectively thought to prove the smart teenager otherwise. And what other way could it be if not turning all of humanity into stone by some sort of weird green light?

Yeah, honestly, Senku would’ve been shocked at most if he hadn’t been already turned to stone as soon as the light hit his skin. Too bad he already turned into a living concrete before he could even get the chance to process whatever the hell’s going on.

Thankfully enough, he still managed to maintain his consciousness long enough by counting down every seconds, minutes, months, and heck, even years.

“How annoying,” he muttered under his breath, closing his eyes before chuckling and wiping away the sweat that trickled down his temple. A seemingly malicious yet tired grin plastered across his face as he opened his eyes and leaned back once more, a pair of crimson hues glinting in delight at the sight of the stone gradually cracking below him. The small sound of rumbling echoed as multiple lines emerged, smoothly working together across the surface to unveil whatever laid beneath, while an alluring white glow shone from behind the slowly cracking stone—thanks to the recently successful fluid Senku had just poured over today's subject.

The teenage boy, however, just didn’t expect his consciousness would last up to 3,700 years later—but he guessed it should be something more considered as a relief more than anything. Especially since humanity, having been turned to stone, must’ve had their bodies’ aging processes halted, at least until they miraculously broke free from the hard confines encasing them.

Whatever the case—Senku Ishigami was just glad to have you back once more.

“Heh, took you long enough to wake up, huh? While you were busy taking the world's longest nap, I was out here doing all the heavy lifting to bust you out of that stone, you cotton brain.”

TAG LIST; EMPTY SLOT

— MASTERLIST

[quackysmackk]

How the heck is our guys not setting off STAFF bots? All this mayhem they have seen, and they haven’t told Corporate? They must have become like the human employees and have ceased to give a f.

Actually!! I have an explanation for this!! :)

Cassie’s dad isn’t just any regular old techie. He’s the current head fazbear technician. So he’s in charge of EVERY animatronic. Mainly because he’s one of the only humans who the animatronics collectively agree to let work on them.

With that position tho, he’s able to tinker with a lot of things in the background, things that other employees usually can’t. This also included the staff bot recognition systems! So he did some background stuff and now they don’t bother them unless triggered. Meaning that Gregory could walk by one and it’ll completely ignore him. But if he touches/hits it? Alarms go off.

I guess you can think of him kinda as.. the Henry of the Pizzaplex.

[askror]

Hey Sonic.

Does Tails drink coffee?

"Ugh. No. Worse." Sonic was lounging in Tails' workshop as the fox dutifully tweaked and tinkered with something or another. When he'd heard his friend had been making people some sort of weird inter-dimensional communication device, he'd figured he was going to be talking to people about adventures or something. Instead, the first question he'd ever got on the thing had been about a pet peeve!

"Energy drinks aren't worse than coffee!" Tails' soldering iron popped as he squinted through his goggles, using his free hand to pick up his can of KABOOM ENERGY ACAI NIGHTMARE HELLSCAPE GALAXY flavor and take another sip. "Less calories, more nutrients, and-"

"And a buncha other crazy weird stuff I can't even pronounce. C'mon, bud. Coffee's gross and tastes bad, but getting up and drinking a weird sugar potion every morning? It's like something the world's worst sorcerer would do." That and he worried that Tails was a little too young for those things. He never liked sounding like the fox's dad, but...

"Soooonic, come on! You wouldn't get it. Not everyone's as super-active as you. Some of us need a little pick me up." He reached over for another sip but found that in the blink of an eye the hedgehog had zipped over by him and scooped the can out of his grasp to take a look. The fox lifted his goggles and grabbed at it, held just out of reach as Sonic read the back of the can, "Hey!" " 'Some of us' stay up until 3AM working on science-y stuff that can wait until morning to get done. Where the heck are these things made anyway? They-" Sonic paused and then squinted at the can, frown deepening. He slowly turned the can back towards Tails, pointing a finger at the grinning Eggman Empire insignia in the copyright section beside the text "Canned in Heartsplosion Valley, Soleanna."

"....Er...." Tails looked away sheepishly, a very unconvincing and nervous grin on his face, "I mean, Eggman comes up with good ideas sometimes."

"That's it." The hedgehog stormed off to the fridge, "Throwin' this crap out!"

"No! My COLLECTORS EDITION DARK MATTER ELDER GOD BLOOD PACT 12 pack is in there! Sonic, wait! Do you know how hard that was to get? Sonic?! SONIC!"

[starwrighter]

I am not a baby!! (Yes you are)

(Ao3) (Masterpost) (Previous) (Next)

(Part seven lmao)

Sometimes Danny hated being right. Mentally he cursed himself as he clamored into his lifepod. The Aurora was spilling radiation into the water just like predicted it would. A damaged drive core... That didn't bode well for him or the local wildlife. He was a Fenton! He knew the terminology for "This might blow up," in every language, no matter how needlessly complicated you said it.

A radiation suit would be helpful when the ship blew up, if not for him, then for the other survivors. Danny grew up surrounded by radioactive material, he was about as fucked up as one could get, but there was still time left for the other survivors. If there even were any left.

Shaking his head, Danny opened the storage plucking out the remaining Creepvine clusters, and started fabricating. It was hypnotic, Creepvine clusters to lubricant, copper and mushrooms to a battery and copper wire all that and a piece of titanium gave Danny a functioning Seaglide. The device was heavy, the PDA altering the blueprint so it was usable for him.

Opening the hatch up, eager to test his new toy out, Danny dove back into the water faster than ever before. Propellers spun at speeds that would chop his finger clean off if he touched them. A glowing map at the top and a flashlight he could turn off by squeezing the handles. Quick enough to keep up with the peepers while still being able to make quick sharp turns.

The Device whirled as he swam in circles, up, down, left, right, zigzag! Through coral tubes, around stone arches till he got dizzy, divebombing fish and kicking up sand.

"Congratulations, survivor. you have exceeded your weekly exercise quotient by 500 percent. Data indicates that swimming was your favorite activity,"

Heck yeah it was! Swimming is great! He's fast as hell man, radiation could eat shit! Stalkers wouldn't stand a chance, he'd just outpace them! Swimming around, breaking outcrops, and taking samples of table coral for a computer chip. Danny was having a blast!

In time he would have the materials to fabricate a habitat builder and in turn a super cool sea base! A home away from home while he's stuck outside federation space. Currently, the seabase blueprints he had were...limited, but he could work with that!

Rushing to his fabricator the blue lights felt agonizingly slow as he bounced on the heels of his feet, flippers squeaking against the floor. A habitat builder fell into Danny's impatient hands.

Back in the water, Danny scoped out the area. Access to an abundance of resources, food, and water was a necessity. Along with awareness of local predators. The shallows are a perfect place for him to build right now. A temp base to rest and store stuff before moving somewhere more convenient as he explored and met up with any of the other survivors.

Deciding to test out his new tool, Danny placed down a basic compartment. A tiny little tube that would've been big enough if he only needed a place to sleep. Yeah, that wasn't going to work. How was he supposed to pace aimlessly while he wrote notes? How was he supposed to work and live in a high-tech pool noodle? Disassembling the pathetic tube, Danny swam through the shallows plucking up the quartz needed for glass. More materials would be needed to build his base. Thankfully, he’d crashed in a ship made from and carrying the materials he needed. Danny saw no moral issue with “borrowing” titanium from supply crates light enough to lift, but the PDA seemed to have a small issue with it. With a few minutes of tinkering, it was easy to change the machine’s artificial mind.

A loop, he was going to make a base shaped like a zero because that’s how many fucks he gave about Alterra’s dumb rule. Placed upon foundations was the start of his perfect space base. The sides of the Zero became glass compartments, a perfect place to observe the local wildlife. Solar panels mounted jumpstarted the oxygen production, lights blinding when they snapped on. Fish drifted by his base, some ducking underneath his foundations settling comfortably in the shade provided. Maybe if he was here long enough, he’d grow some plants for fish to nibble on?

A hatch was placed on the front of the Zero, finally giving him access to his new base. Cold air punched him in the face as he stepped inside, but it was a welcome attack. Air conditioning at last! Throwing himself to the floor, Danny giggled, noise bouncing against barren walls. A sterile smell cycled through the base with the air filtered in. Like his parent's lab or a hospital room freshly sanitized. Familiar, it smelled like home.

Peeling off his flippers, Danny propped them against the wall. Bare feet against metal floors, Danny took to running through the loop. Brushing his hands against empty walls, he ran laps like it was gym class. The only difference was this wasn't gym class, so it didn't feel like hell. Several laps ran throughout his base until his breath ran out, and he collapsed to the floor.

Winded and panting, he glanced around his base mentally, planning where everything would go. Blueprints were limited, but brainpower wasn't. Making new blueprints for shelving units or a bed should be easy enough. The hard part would be finding the space for it. If he tinkered with the PDA, he could fabricate some blankets and pillows that he could sleep on and store away when he was awake.

First things first, he needed to get a fabricator and some storage set up. A few wall lockers on each side of the fabricator made his little crafting station. His base still felt bare. White walls would get boring real fast. No paint or paper he could use to decorate. No stickers or wallpaper to paint his base to match the stars. Untapped Potential, something to add to his to-do list. If he couldn't decorate anything else, changing the locker's text font would have to do.

Walking in a loop, Danny muttered, his brain working better than his mouth. Words failed, coming out jumbled if they were more than one or two easy syllables. Fangs created a lisp that'd get him verbally castrated if he was back at Casper. That was if he didn't maul them with his newfound face knives. Like a piranha, he was dangerous! Fierce!

Tap...Tap...Tap

Feet freezing, Danny turned to the window, heart jumping to his throat. Several glowing eyes stared back at him, burning a hole into his soul. Stripes of colors ranging from blue, purple, and forest green ran along its massive scaly body and dragon-like head. Two razor-sharp fangs poked out of a closed mouth. Arms glowing blue that faded to pitch black when reaching its four-fingered hands, each claw sharper than a sword. Hands, oh ancients, why does this one have hands? The other one didn't have hands! Curled up, it would be the same size as his base. Danny pointed his scanner at the guy, the results striking terror into the deepest depths of his core...

What the fuck do you mean this guy's a juvenile!?!

@ashoutinthedarkness @avelnfear @meira-3919 @thought-u-said-dragon-queen @hugsandchaos @blep-23 @zeldomnyo @bytheoldwillowtree @justwannabecat @shepherdsheart @starlightcat04 @stargazing-bookwyrm @pupstim

[hyperpsychomaniac]

Okay I need to talk about the fact that Cooper's lost memory… broke.

Like it just... broke.

And its not just a memory of something. It's like all his mech/tech/engineering skills??? Is it gone for good? Like, I don't have this kid's hands on skills, but my day job is a mechanical engineer and... this just hit me right in the soul. You can see he's devastated, but then he downplays it because he doesn't want to upset Izzie.

I do like that he ends up thinking outside the box with the creme brulie (? whatever the heck this was I don't know the point is its got good dampening properties). So maybe this will force him to think up some solutions to things outside his normal mech skills, which is actually a good thing. But I do feel like he needs to get his skills/memory back (and integrate whatever thinking outside the box stuff he learns), or at least be able to re-learn them, like, this is important to me.

I mean, probably some of being so good at it is because he's got all the family pressure to preform, but he also does seem to genuinely enjoy tinkering with things. So this would definitely suck.

[stars-obsession-pit]

Danny Phantom - Worm fusion

Or well more of a “parahumans AU” of Danny Phantom; pretty much the only thing from Worm is the parahuman power stuff rather than the specific characters/locations being explicitly included. Basically “what if Danny Phantom involved Capes instead of ghosts”

Btw the links throughout this are generally to the wiki pages for things in case anyone is unfamiliar with anything. Or the general wiki links are here (DP) and here (Worm)

Jack and/or Maddie Fenton previously triggered and gained Tinker powers due to their ongoing obsession with trying to prove their scientific theories (which could be about ghosts or be something more Worm-y (e.g. potentially involving alternate earths or trying to find the origin of parahuman powers)).

Those new powers certainly didn’t improve the chaotic nature of their lab, but it did allow them to make far more complex devices.

The biggest of which is in the form of a portal. It’s taken a lot of work to create, but they’re hopeful that it will finally prove them right now that they’ve completed it. Finally make all the hardship they went through (enough to hardship to trigger) worth it.

…Except it fails. They plug it in, and nothing happens.

Well, nothing yet…

Later, their son Danny takes a few steps into the portal frame on a dare, and his hand knocks against a panel on the wall. A huge burst of electricity surges through the structure as a rift tears through the air.

Right on top of his fragile human body.

Energy courses through him as his vision is filled with the impossible sight of countless dimensions, of the near-endless expanse of space, and of gargantuan creatures spiraling through it all.

And then he collapses, the memories of what he saw slipping away from his brain as his new powers settle into his body.

(His parents, if they are nearby, see the visions too. The sight feels familiar, even if they can’t remember why. But any further consideration is shelved when they realize the portal is on.)

More misc thoughts about this idea beyond the cut:

I figure this’d be a setup that leads to getting a Trump power, since the trigger directly relates to another parahuman’s powers. Plus, a Trump power that allows for a bunch of different facets would align with his array of ghost powers from the show.

Specifically, it’d probably fit the “Infinity/Ten” subtype of Trump; those are caused by triggers that involve “a power breaking reality in the vicinity.” I think an unstable portal being opened on top of you should definitely count for that.

…But then idk how one would design a power of that type well. The description of “Power sets nearly limitless in both option and choice” feels hard to design for in a way that isn’t too OP, even with the “but where other large drawbacks often apply” caveat. Mainly from like, the word “limitless” interfering with my ability to tell what restrictions are reasonable.

…although. The subtypes are’t meant to be strict in-universe guidelines; I could just rebalance it based on ideas from other Trump power types that I find easier to conceptualize and it’d be fine even if it’s not “objectively correct” for the Infinity type.

Heck even if I felt that need to strongly justify it, the situation fits pretty close to triggers for the “Four” subtype (power sets that are limited to a few usually weaker/clunkier power options). His parents were obsessive tinkers; powers would have been a factor influencing his life for a while.

Also, outside of Trump power stuff, a Breaker state would make sense to fit closer in line to his ghostly nature from the show. Not 100% sure if that’d fit his trigger, but whatever. Maybe could just argue that the portal mucked with his senses/thoughts enough to justify an intertwined mental aspect of the event, idk.

…oh I just had an idea for what the actual power could be!

What if he has to be in his breaker state to use powers, and he can only select which powers to use at the moment of transformation? Meaning he has to choose his powers before he enters any fights and likely stick with just them for the duration of that fight.

Limits could be imposed based on what he chooses (e.g. if his powers are weaker the more he has active) and how he switches back and forth (he’d have to deactivate all of his powers to swap any out and maybe he has to recharge them before he can access them again, leaving him vulnerable in the meantime).

Might want to limit his power options too (unless just limiting the strength of the powers would be enough), but idk what a good rule for that would be. Like it could just be an arbitrary list of options I guess, but something more distinctive might be interesting. Maybe he has to experience something similar to a power before he can use it? Idk.

…would ideally want to make it mirror his trauma somehow too, because powers like doing that. Making the transformation reminiscent of the portal could be a good start, but idk if there’d be anything else.

Also, outside of his powers, I’m not fully sure how one could best work in an equivalent to the ghost fights from the show. Like they could absolutely just be other capes in Amity Park, but I feel like it’d be cool to connect them to Danny or the portal somehow.

For some possible ideas for that, I guess:

They could have been in a cluster trigger with Danny (as long as the other triggers could be reasonably justified to have coincided with the portal activation)

The portal could have let some Eden material leak through, causing some people in the area to randomly gain powers (and probably mutations too) after consuming anything contaminated

If the portal is a unique phenomenon (e.g. if the straight-up Ghost Zone is included on top of the Worm stuff), the Shards could be incentivized to create more triggers in the area or prod existing hosts towards Amity Park to create more conflict and help them study it

If the portal leads to another world (or periodically connects to multiple other worlds), they could just be “regular” capes but pulled through from there

It wouldn’t be related to that portal incident, but if Vlad Masters was a power-granting Trump (akin to Worm/Ward’s Teacher), the ghost-analogues could be his empowered minions sent after the Fentons

…or they could just still be ghosts I guess, but I’m trying to lean this more on the Worm side of worldbuilding things than DP.

And some even more one-off random thoughts:

The GIW would just be a government-backed group akin to the PRT. Heck they could just be replaced by the literal PRT and Protectorate if it’s meant to be a full-on fusion with Earth Bet

If the portal is causing Eden material to leak through, Amity Park might end up evacuated/made into a quarantine site.

Instead of being given tech by Vlad like in the show, Valerie Gray’s situation could be reworked into a trigger event, with her probably being a vigilante afterwards (like as opposed to joining an actual hero team). Or if you wanted to keep the “given powers” thing in a slightly more directly parahuman-y way, she could get a Cauldron vial (maybe one supplied by Vlad to keep more similarity with the show). (though that would require including Cauldron in the fic too, at least in the background)

Skulker could be a Deviant/Case 53 who is similar to Trainwreck

I guess the implication of Fenton Works existing would be that Jack and Maddie are rogues who are open about their identities

Which could connect to why Danny is hiding his powers from them - unlike the original show, he has no reason to fear them taking the reveal badly, but he could want to keep his cape and civilian identities fully separate and thus not want to tell them lest they reveal it to the public

[tinkersclankandbobble]

I have a beef with Fairy Gary.

This topic came up at work last week when my coworker was watching Pirate Fairy at their desk, so I’m going to include many of their thoughts in this post.

We think that Zarina’s desire to study and understand Pixie Dust is a perfectly normal thing for a Dust Keeper to want to do. I mean, if your whole Talent revolves around the very lifeblood of Fairy life, wouldn’t you want to understand anything and everything about it? It’s honestly crazy that Zarina is the ONLY fairy that thinks this way. But any time she brings up the topic of “Why does Pixie Dust do the things it does?” She’s always shut down… by whom? Fairy Gary. Well, ok, other Dust Keepers also think she’s weird for her fascination, but they likely learned that from their leader, Gary.

So why does Gary think Pixie Dust shouldn’t be tampered with? We don’t know! The films never tell us. All we know about before Zarina is successful with her alchemy is that we’ve got the gold flying dust and the blue dust that makes more dust… or whatever it does in Lost Treasure… sustains the Tree? I’m admittedly a little confused about Blue Dust’s purpose outside what it does in The Pirate Fairy.

So Zarina does her little alchemy stuff. Makes the Light Talent, Fast Flying Talent and Garden Talent dusts, and really, it’s INCREDIBLE!!! Tink of course is concerned with what Zarina is doing, but that’s understandable. She’s a Tinker, not a Dust Keeper. In all likelihood, she’d be on the side of “dust shouldn’t be messed with” because she doesn’t understand it. But Zarina has been shown to be studying Dust for a while, and she clearly had a handle on her alchemy from the moment it started working. The only reason why there was a problem was because she tripped! Sure she was doing a lot at once, but who wouldn’t be excited about their life work suddenly bearing fruit?

So this is where our beef with Gary starts. When Zarina’s plants destroy the dust depot ON ACCIDENT Gary sees the pink dust, and is fearful, not astonished, and what does he do? He fires Zarina. He doesn’t even ask her how she did this, or question if she may have just found Pink Pixie Dust. Nope, just fires her and says she’s too dangerous, doesn’t hear her side of the story at all.

Cut to the end of the movie to explain why I have such a problem with this sparrowman. He fires Zarina, and yeah he may look a little sad in the moment, maybe a bit fearful, but between that moment and the ending where he welcomes Zarina back with open arms and no questions asked, we see NOTHING suggesting that he regrets his decision to fire her. We see him in the crowd at the all season celebration sitting beside Terence and looking happy as ever. So we’re just supposed to accept that he went from “You’re too dangerous, you’re no longer a Dust Keeper” to “Welcome back! Does your talent have a name?” With no context of what he’s been thinking for a year? Heck, to me it feels more appropriate for him to be upset that she was still Tampering with Pixie Dust rather than having learned to not mess with it!

Ok, so how do we make this better? Honestly, one little tiny scene in the all season celebration would have fixed this for me. So, there’s a couple points where the camera is on the crowd and focuses on Clank and Bobble (Yay!!!!) if they had taken just ten seconds to pan the camera off of them and down to where Gary is sitting with Terence, they could have had a somewhat sullen looking Fairy Gary. Terence could ask him “Something wrong Fairy Gary?” He could sigh and say “Zarina would have loved this.” And Terence could nod, understanding. We could see in that moment that Gary regrets sending her away. He misses her. He wants her back. But we never got that. And I think it made Gary’s character suffer.

Here’s another idea that my coworker suggested. Could the movie have taken a moment to show us WHY Gary thinks tampering with Pixie Dust is dangerous? Lets think, Gary has clearly been around for a while. What if he in fact had tampered with Pixie Dust when he was young? What if he was just like Zarina? No, what if he was WORSE than Zarina? What if his experiments caused a real disaster, not just overgrown vines? That could give us a reason behind why he’s so afraid of Zarina’s experiments… her successful experiments. Perhaps if this was Gary’s past, somewhere in that time skip he could have realized that Zarina’s work wasn’t dangerous, that she had actually created something beautiful and extraordinary that could be beneficial to Fairies for years to come. Perhaps this could be why he is so accepting of her when she returns.

Whatever the case may be, I really feel like Fairy Gary was not well written in the Pirate Fairy. Also if there are any deleted scenes that show his remorse or anything like that, PLEASE let me know. I’d love to see them. I want to like Fairy Gary again.

[il3x]

[clears throat]. okay. chrisposting time. warning: mostly bullshit, I'm just saying stuff. poking characters with sticks to see how they react.

The internal experience of Chris disguising his power was much more like Lab Rat having a second trigger that reconfigured his power into a Changer ability than like, say, Gallant passing himself off as a Tinker. He's a different person than Lab Rat was before he died*, and Changer literalises his trauma in a way that Tinker no longer does.

Consider some hypotheticals:

You die, and your consciousness is recreated in an unfamiliar, immature, barely-human body. Recreating you damages this body. You're a crude facsimile of who you used to be, with the body's own independent selfhood bleeding around the corners. You gain the power to transform into monstrous reinterpretations of other capes, fixed predetermined forms, damaging and altering your body in the process.

Or how about:

You're trapped in a Tinker's lab, forced to impose artificially heightened emotions on yourself in an endless cycle. This process is grafting an alien consciousness onto yours, engraving new memories into you, replacing you. You gain the ability to transform your body, with each transformation coupled to a fixed emotional state. The transformation potential renews in a day/night cycle.

Sound familiar? I don't know about you, but I can picture these in the weaverdice Changer doc.

On a meta level, this is the same ol' powers=trauma extended metaphor, like how vial capes still get ironic powers. In-universe, I think the decision to disguise his powers - and to disguise them as a fixed-emotional-state, cyclically renewing Changer form with permanent impacts on his body! - had a subconscious emotional motive, as well as being pragmatic. Heck, he states that the body alteration aspect, at least, has an emotional motive:

“And the side effects of your transformations, and your insistence on transforming yourself?  Is that optimizing too?” (...) “That stuff’s for fun,” he told her.

But really, narratively, characterisation-wise, this serves the purpose of a second trigger. Heck - I can pinpoint the trigger moment:

All the power elements I described in the hypotheticals culminate in this moment, when he first uses his power like a Changer. And four paragraphs later, we get this:

Maybe when he was looking for artistic inspiration, he would do something similar to this form.  No need to tie things down, but if he was going to pretend to be a changer, it would be best to appear like someone who didn’t have all of the choices in the world.

the decision to disguise his powers.

Or, in this interpretation, the new power. Reconfigured (applies only to the self), re-classified (Changer). It is altered, this alteration is caused by a traumatic event happening to the parahuman; it's just that the alteration is forced by his conscious mind, not his Shard and Corona. Later, I think he does get closer to Lab Rat's power, but he sticks with this for most of what I've read.

Don't ask for a conclusion, I've exhausted my brain rations for tonight.

TLDR: Chris/Lab Rat is an honorary second-trigger cape, at least for a while, and Changer is absolutely an accurate classification.

*As Chris himself says, "We could debate it all session.  Oh wait!  We have!". But for the purposes of this post - a different person, of whom Lab Rat constitutes a part.

[liviavanrouge]

Beth: *Walks up to Livias room, staring at her* Your Uhm...friend, Daze, is worried about you but he's in high spirits and staying hopeful...

Livia: *Stared at the TV playing cartoons, staying silent*

Deuce: Hey!! *Bangs on the glass* Hey, don't talk to her after what you've done!!!

Beth: We're trying to keep you kids SAFE!

Deuce: YOU KIDNAPPED US!!

Epel: *Comes up to his glass window, banging on it* YEAH, WHAT THE HECK!!

Floyd: This ain't how you keep kids safe, Lady.

Neige: A-Agreed! This is so wrong in so many ways!

Najma: YEAH!! Let us go home!

Beth: Kids, please, if you cooperate with us-

Beth: *Freezes as the lights in Livia's room started flickering*

Deuce: LIV, SHE'S LEAVING!! It's okay!

Epel: *Scowls, things around his room starting to float*

Beth: Alright! Alright....I'm gonna leave, I'll have food and electronics sent to you kids, okay...

Najma: .....Can I have a novel?

Beth: Of course, sweetheart, is there anything else anyone needs?

Epel: .....A knife and some apples..

Beth: *Looks at Epel*

Epel: *Glares at her* I like to carve apples into things, can I have it or not.

Deuce: ....I want some gizmos to tinker with

Neige: I'd...like some stuff to sew with!

Floyd: .......well..something to distract me would be nice..

Beth: *Smiles* Alright, I will get everything for you all okay

Beth: Livia, would you like anything?

Livia: .........can I have a picture of my family..

Beth: *Nods, sighing in relief* I'll see what I can do

Beth: And...you kids are not prisoners, I'll get you some proper clothes and see what I can do about getting you out of these...cages..

Floyd: *Watches Beth walk away then walks back to his bed, sitting down* What now?

Epel: HAH, No idea but even she saw these rooms as cages..

Neige: *Stares at the others then turns away and sits in a chair*

Livia: Guys, I wanna go home..

Deuce: We know Liv and we're gonna find a way to get that bracelet off you..

Livia: *Stands up and comes to the glass* This room is tight...

Deuce: *Chuckles* Very tight

Livia: *Grabs a book, sitting in a chair*

Deuce: *Walks away from the glass* We gotta get out of here

Najma: Agreed, before we loose our minds..

Epel: Yeah...

~~~~~

Beth: Alright kids, go ahead!

Deuce: WOAH!! *Runs over to a court, finding gym supplies there*

Najma: *Looks through the movies surprised* Wow...

Neige and Epel: *Heads over to the kitchen area, finding snacks there*

Floyd: *Grins dribbling a basketball, playing a round with Deuce*

Beth: Livia, do you not wanna play?

Livia: *Narrows her eyes* ....I wanna go home..

Beth: I know, sweetheart, and I promise you, you'll go home soon...we are just doing some final tests on your spells to figure out which one is what

Beth: Once they're identified, you all can go home and tutors who'll teach you how to cast those spells will visit twice a week

Livia: *Looks at her* Promise...

Beth: I swear on my life, I know I'd be worried sick if someone took my daughter from me, so I will make sure you all go home, safe and sound

Beth: Later we're gonna do some final scans and you go free

Livia: *Nods and hurries away, joining Najma in watching movies*

Beth: *Walks over to a chair and sits down, smiling as she watched the kids*

Floyd: Too slow! *Dodges Deuce and slams the ball into the hoop*

Deuce: Ah, no fair man!!

Neige: *Laughs, eating snacks with Epel, smiling*

Epel: Nice try Deuce!

Najma: *Sits on the ground beside Livia, watching a scary movie and sharing a bowl of popcorn*

Livia: Woah..

Livia and Najma: *Screams when the monster popped out then laughs, smiles on their faces*

@queen-of-twisted @yukii0nna @zexal-club @fair-night-starry-tears @abyssthing198

[rubykgrant]

I don't know why I'm thinking about it, but here are some rambling thoughts I have for Grif and Simmons' surgery-

While Sarge was indeed reluctant to give cool cyborg parts to the lazy soldier, the real issue was; Grif's body had been so crushed and damaged, it needed new organic tissue, there just wasn't time for his body to accept the various cyborg implants, it all would have been rejected. Simmons was a match for him, so he agreed for a "swap", and because Simmons' body wasn't in shock, it was easier for him to become a cyborg. This was especially important in terms of the organs; Grif's body was in too much turmoil for synthetic ones.

Because of different body-types and mass, Simmons had to give up a little extra skin here and there (so although the locations are the same, he has a little more "metal" than it looks like Grif has skin-grafts. Grif's limbs are thicker, so Simmons gave donated more from the shoulder and chest area, and from the waist down for one leg. Simmons also has metallic bits around his eye, down one side of his face, and on that part of the jaw, while Grif mostly has the skin-grafts around his eye and cheek).

A lot of the cyborg parts are experimental junk Sarge had been tinkering with, and spare robot parts for Lopez (which were actually meant as optional bodies for the Alpha AI, so some of them are highly advanced), but Sarge actually had some legit prosthetic organs "just in case" (he was definitely preparing to use these for himself if he ever had to perform surgery on himself). When he talks about using car parts and stuff to fix Simmons up, he's exaggerating to mess with everybody. Even Simmons isn't sure how much of this is true... what if his new heart really DOES have stuff from their coffee maker in it!?

It took a long time for Grif's body to bounce-back, at least in terms of how it all looked. His surgery areas were pale and withered for a while... but by the time they got to Rat's Nest, he had gained back enough weight for his limbs to even-out, and his own melanin was more "absorbed" (still a shade lighter than his natural skin). His own hair grows back in, even in the skin-graft spots. He technically only has the "inner" part of Simmons' eye (Grif is too afraid to ask Sarge what the heck this means), and so the colors of his eyes still match (dark brown/almost black). Simmons naturally got a glowing red cyborg eye, because how could Sarge NOT do that. Way down the road, Grif realizes he's had these mis-matched skin-grafts for half his life, and not only is he used to it, he kind of just... feels like this is "him". Like, if he imagines himself, this is what he sees, and it is sort of... OK.

Bonus Simmons thoughts; he is indeed trans, but he had his own bottom surgery done before he ever joined the military, and never had any top surgery (he had always been flat-chested. he used to still stress about it, over-binding to an unhealthy degree... but after the whole cyborg surgery thing, it weirdly helped him relax about his own body a bit more. he's still anxious about other people SEEING his body, but that's gonna take more time to work through). Sarge is aware he's trans, and just accepts it without any fuss/never brings it up (which Simmons found to be a HUGE relief. it is actually a big sore spot for him to even let people know, to the point he denies being trans in his own head. family problems, dad force-feeding him internalized misogyny, and all kids of other gender/sexuality/body issues have become so ingrained, Simmons just can't imagine TALKING about any of this)

[heartbeatbookclub]

I absolutely adore all of your analysis so far, they are so indepth and it feels like you’re able to explain stuff that I’m only able to vaguely think in an abstract sense when it comes to ddlc and dhdhdj so so good

I do wanna say that for you mc analysis, there’s one thing missing. I’m someone who got into ddlc cause of plus so I have hyperfixated on all the lore. While the employees imply that Monika made MC, I don’t think that’s actually true based on what we know about Monika. If she could make a whole character then why couldn’t she make herself a route? Heck in one of her act 3 convos, she can barely change the music before saying “well I just break everything anyway”.

So I believe based on other emails, that it was Ive Laster who made MC since they were the one who wanted to make ddlc a game. In the first meeting notes, we are told that Ive tends to ramble a lot. But in the next one when MC is mentioned in a meeting, they are silent. Another thing is that in one of the ddlc plus trailers, ive is the name of the MC.

It could be said that Ive based it on the stuff in the control group, but the control group was made AFTER the main vm (That’s not how a science experiment should work but ya know, I don’t think they are smart). So really the control group is based on main game first. Honestly so much of the issue of the plus lore is how it’s so convoluted to get, but reading it all on the wiki helped me alot.

Plus seemed to add a new sense of horror to the og, the horror of knowledge that one plagued Monika is now plaguing the player as we have all this information but can do nothing to help them. I think the idea of MC being made by someone else adds this new layer to him along with this new layer of horror. But that’s more just my own thoughts on it that I thought you may find interesting along with all the lore from above.

Anyway, I hope you have a good day! Your post are great and I’ll make sure to keep up with coil more!

aw, thanks anon! i often find it difficult to find the exact way to explain what i'm thinking when i do analysis like i have on this blog, so i'm glad i can at least help to put it into words for other people who have even more trouble with it than i do.

as for the rest of your statement...i think you make a compelling point. full disclaimer; a lot of my knowledge on what's presented in + outside of the full text of the side stories is secondhand, and when talking about the original game, i think it's important to keep in mind that my reference for most of this is my playthrough with my friends back in like...2017-18ish a little after the game came out...? aheh, i won't lie, though i am rather obsessive in the course of scouring information i remember via the wiki/elsewhere to verify i'm not just making it up, putting off my replay of the og game has not been helpful for me.

i think it's very much up in the air as to how much influence that Monika actually has over the game, which is something i talked about in my analysis of Natsuki in the Side Stories. in my opinion, what + demonstrates more than anything is that in whatever she DID do in the main game, she mostly worked with material that was already there to make things easier on her. one of the things i based that claim on was the reference of the Protagonist in the Side Stories, but it's not a necessary claim, and in fact, i think you do make a good point in how it's unlikely that she'd be able to do this (at the very least, by herself) based on what's been shown of her ability in the game.

i think, in regards to your comment on the reference to MC in the Side Stories, it's important to consider the wider conceit of DDLC--i have a deeper analysis i'm tinkering around with on terms of it as an exploration of fiction vs the concept within the "universe", but that's another story--namely, all of the girls aren't (or at least, are heavily implied not to be) just static fictional characters following a pre-written script, they're genuine artificial intelligence!

this is part of what i meant when i said that the Side Stories demonstrate the raw character of each of the girls independently of any 4th wall shenanigans--within the world of Doki Doki Literature Club, they're essentially just people living in the confines of a computer, and therefore have essential, largely immutable character traits which exist within some fundamental essence of what makes them who they are. i think there are a shitload of really, really terrifying things this opens the door to if you really think about its nature (independently of DDLC, i've personally had longform discussions with a friend about the morality and potential horrors which would exist within a similar universe concept, and it's somewhat ubiquitous in a lot of sci-fi universes), but like i said, that's a different discussion entirely!

what i'm trying to suggest here is that it's likely that Sayori's relationship to the Protagonist is something inherent to her character, so it doesn't necessarily have to be something gleaned entirely from the Side Stories.

of course, this is all post hoc reasoning with what we're given! occam's razor suggests that it's actually just likely that (given that DDLC was written and released a long while prior to the Side Stories) they didn't necessarily plan every part of this from the outset, so some things just naturally seem to fit together a little weirdly, with little details added here and there just for flavor! i think that given the nature of the entire thing (and how Dan Salvato has talked about DDLC and the statements he's given with about in universe details in the past), it's unlikely that every single element of this was planned out from the word go.

this might be a bit of a controversial opinion, but there's a lot about how + handles the lore of ddlc that i didn't really like, just because it adds a whole new layer of lore and context, which soured a lot of my impressions, because the original game really flourished in its simplicity. that said, with all that's been given in the Side Stories and the deeper layers to the actual horror which are now visible in the original game, i think it pretty well makes up for it!

awa, i didn't plan for this to become an entire essay in itself...but i do appreciate this kind of thing! i really like digging deep into what's explicitly provided in canon to get a deeper understanding of the characters and universe as it's actually been shown, so any encouragement and correspondence related to either my analysis or my opinions in general are welcome! honestly, i'm also welcome to read others' analysis like this, because i like to see when people read deep into it like i do! typically it ends up reshaping how i see the entire thing, and it sorta just makes my heart happy to get people thinking about this stuff!

i think, as a last thought, if MC is actually conscious in any way similar to the other girls (which I think is a definite possibility, given his ability to respond in contexts impacted by Monika's manipulation, even if barebones), it actually makes him a very interesting character in his simplicity. i know that Dan Salvato doesn't see him as one, but i think it'd make for an interesting study in a fanfic or something.

i hope you also have a good day anon (even though it's 2 am here as i'm writing this...) and you BETTER KEEP UP W/IT I PUT MY HEART N SOUUL INTO THAT BABY (/lh /hj i'm just glad other people are liking it, even if it's just silent kudos :))

[fivenightsatfreddysfanfiction]

Random Snippets

Just lil things that popped up in my head that don't go anywhere or are connected to anything, so just have them.

-------------------

“If you finish that sentence,” Gregory said aloud in the flattest tone Oswald had ever heard, “I’m going to beat you so bad, they’re gonna name a bill after you, and anyone who reads why it was made will say you had it coming and vote against it.”

Dylan closed his mouth. Oswald felt his face burn. Cassie just grinned at him and nudged him with her elbow, waggling her eyebrows. Sometimes he wondered about his choice of friends.

.

===

.

When Gregory missed a day of school, there was some concern shared between Cassie and Oswald over what might have happened. When one day became two, became three, the concern became full blown worry. Text messages went unanswered, his mom didn’t show up in person with any explanation, just phoning in and their home room teacher passed on the message of simply ‘Gregory isn’t feeling well’ and then everyone moved on.

Some kids had concerns for him, but Cassie wondered if they cared for Gregory as himself or because of his last name of Afton. She didn’t see anyone else check on him when he was having his headache bouts or bring him medicine or comfort.

On the fourth day, Gregory finally returned to school, a quiet shadow of his usual self, a cast on his right arm and note explaining he’d fallen out of a tree in his backyard. Cassie didn’t buy it for one second, glancing towards Oswald who only pressed a hand to his own left arm, right where the scars of an animatronic bite still lingered.

Something bad had happened, that’s for sure.

.

===

.

“What the heck, Gregory? I thought you were good with arcade games!” Cassie remarked in surprise, her hands on her hips as she watched the boy sit on top of an arcade cabinet, his legs dangling over the side of the machine.

“Yeah, good at playing them and hackin’ ‘em, not the actual guts of the thing!” Gregory protested, kicking his feet idly, “Vanessa bought these cuz they were on discount in those catalogs she borrowed from Miss Corbett, but they’re old and when they break down we’re stuck without a game until we can get a repair guy out to fix it.”

Oswald popped out from behind the machine, his usual jacket tied around his waist and a circuit board in one hand. Cassie blinked at him, finally realizing the sounds of tinkering coming from the arcade cabinet was from the boy working on it himself. “Is that why you got excited when I said I learned how to fix stuff from watching my dad do general maintenance for side cash?” he demanded with a winded huff. He shook the board up at Gregory as Gregory just looked down at him with a raised eyebrow and crooked grin.

“You’re getting paid, ain’t ya?” he countered. Oswald squinted at him, then sighed and rolled his eyes, setting the board on the arcade machine’s console..

“It got burnt out from a dust build up. I replaced it with a spare I pulled from a machine at that old Freddy’s but you really gotta work on cleaning these more often,” he told the other boy and went back to tinkering inside the cabinet. “You’re lucky I like you enough to do this!” Oswald added as an afterthought, oblivious to Gregory smiling gleefully at his words.

“You’re crazy if you even think about asking me for help there,” Cassie declared when she spotted him turning towards her with a hopeful look. “My dad was a Fazbear technician, not a janitor. Cleaning is your duty.”

.

===

.

Oswald paused in sipping his soda, mouth still on the straw as he narrowed his gaze at Gregory in disbelief. Beside him, Cassie was doing the same, her head tilted as she looked at the scene before them in Radical Eats, incredulous expression on her face. Gregory just dipped his fries in ketchup and ate them without a care in the world.

“You’re gonna have to explain all this one more time, ‘cause I don’t think I heard you right the first time,” Cassie finally said, gesturing at the mostly empty dining area that was Radical Eats before the lunchtime opening.

“It’s just my family, what’s the big deal?” Gregory replied with a pout, but pointed again anyway, “That’s Vanessa, she’s kind of my mom but we don’t really know for sure cuz we both have amnesia and the records that say she’s my mom were written up by a crazy old lady in a rabbit suit.”

“Rrrrright,” Oswald muttered in that tone that sounded like he was still sure he was being pranked somehow.

“That’s Sydney Herrera, Vanessa’s Not-Boyfriend. She’ll tell you they’re just best friends but she keeps asking him to marry her so she can get bonus financial aid and loans and he keeps saying no,” Gregory went on, pointing to the tall quiet guy dressed as a security guard leaning against a column, “But then he’ll go and do mercenary jobs for a few days to get a bunch of money for her. Last time he did one, he brought me back this chunk of green rock from Guatemala.”

“The one you wanted to bring to show and tell day and he told you if you did that, he’d be arrested for illegal smuggling of gemstones?” Cassie asked him and Gregory sighed in exasperation.

“It’s just a rock, he’s being too paranoid,” he complained, “I put it in my desk drawer anyway.” He pointed to the other guy on his laptop at a dining table. “That’s Sydney’s little brother, Alex. He works as the dayshift guard at Circus Baby’s Pizza and Parties and teaches me stuff about hacking and how to defend against attacks online.” He grinned gleefully, “He’s also a virtual streamer who livestreams games but if I tell you his identity he’ll probably murder me in my sleep. He says the streams help him not be annoyed he’s not a hacker mercenary anymore but he still gets pissed off when Sydney runs away to do jobs.”

“I didn’t think he’d be a virtual streamer type, but I guess it makes sense with how much he likes technology,” Cassie mused aloud. Gregory nodded and then pointed at the kitchen window, where the figure within waved at him with perked up ears.

“And that’s Glamrock Freddy Fazbear,” he said happily, “I stole him from the Pizzaplex and now he’s my sort-of dad figure. He makes most of the pizza for Radical Eats and sometimes he performs but he can be too loud which is why his backup job is being a cook with Sydney and Vanessa.”

“Your family is very.. not conventional,” Oswald said carefully, looking between Freddy and his own plate of pizza. “I’m eating food made by your animatronic dad,” he muttered with a blush, “I feel like that should freak me out more.”

“I feel like we should go back to the Pizzaplex and get Roxy for me,” Cassie said, rubbing her chin thoughtfully, “Can we borrow a truck and a couple of crowbars?”

“Oh I see! She can say ‘let’s borrow stuff’ and nobody says anything!” Oswald exclaimed, throwing up his hands in mock outrage as Gregory laughed, “But me? It’s all ‘nooo, Oz, you can’t borrow something you can only use once!’ Totally unfair.”