#to get that kinda detail with just hand tools...

[spicyraeman]

hey op how do u draw faces beggin on hands and knees 🐸

I dunno how helpful this'll be cuz I'm at the point where mapping things out in my head is second nature, so 'showing my work' is kinda hard lol,

but here are a few examples of my sketch process:

I start by blocking out the planes of the face and then usually just jump right into adding details (the liquify tool is your friend)

There isn't really an in-between phase, but I do have a lot of reference on hand, both of the character I'm drawing and of general face anatomy

Specifically, I find referencing the asaro head is really helpful for understanding the 3d planes of the face without getting bogged down in the little details. I personally have this one bookmarked bc it's also useful for lighting:

[tarareindeer]

₊✩‧₊Hidden Secrets₊✩‧₊

author's note : guys iam actually tired to add the colors on the story sorry :{

PART 3 : shadows comes to light...

<- previous chapter┊zombie apocalypse & omegaverse ┊

sevika {Alpha} x fem reader {omega} au!: Sevika a survivalist Alpha leading a treehouse community. You were just a wandering Omega with a secret, scraping by in the ruins of a dead world—until she caught you. One stolen backpack and a bottle of heat suppressants later, she made her intentions clear: you weren’t going anywhere. Survival wasn’t enough for her anymore; maybe you were the answer to something bigger.

cw : cursing,blunt behaviour,brainrot,

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

yall very creative asf :}

The next day, you found yourself knee-deep in chores, helping Vander rinse everyone’s crusty apocalypse fits by the pond. The icy water had your fingers feeling like popsicles, but honestly? The repetitive motion kinda hit like a lo-fi beat to study to. Vander, ever the MVP of manual labor, kept the convo rolling with talk about crop rotations and how he’s tryna turn the garden into the next big thing. You hummed along, scrubbing at a shirt like your life depended on it, which… lowkey, it kinda did in this zombie mess.

Once the clothes were hung out to dry (RIP to that one sock the wind stole), you slid into phase two: becoming a part-time farmer. Vander had you out there planting veggies and fruits like it was Stardew Valley IRL. Dirt under your nails? Check. Sunburned nose? Double check. But you couldn’t even be mad about it working alongside Vander was weirdly grounding, like you were actually contributing instead of just surviving.

Later, you caught Claggor and Mylo posted up nearby, cracking jokes and roasting each other like they didn’t have a care in the world. Powder and Ekko, though? Total radio silence. Wiping the sweat off your forehead, you spotted Vi doing her best Cool Action Hero routine by sharpening a blade near the tool shed.

“Yo, Vi,” you called out, brushing some dirt off your hands like it was a flex. “Seen Powder and Ekko?”

Vi glanced up, giving you that trademark ‘don’t involve me in this’ look. “Dunno,” she said with a shrug so casual it deserved its own reality show. “Last I saw, they were heading up to their rooms in the treehouse. Probably cooking up some chaotic masterpiece.”

Taking the hint, you grabbed the laundry basket full of fresh-dried clothes and started your delivery route like an unpaid mail carrier. Shirts, pants, socks the whole apocalypse drip found their rightful owners. When you hit Powder’s door, you gave it a polite knock. Nada. Not even a “go away.” Guess she was vibing elsewhere. So, onto Ekko’s room you went.

But as soon as your knuckles hit the wood, you froze. Faint noises leaked out soft, rhythmic, and unmistakably suspicious. A low groan, a stifled gasp… yeah, they weren’t exactly building IKEA furniture in there. OH. They were getting freaky on a sunny Monday morning. Your brain screeched to a halt, blue-screening harder than your grandma’s Wi-Fi. Before you could reboot, the realization hit like a semi-truck with zero brakes. Heat flooded your cheeks as you straight-up launched the basket onto the ground and moonwalked outta there like you’d just stumbled into a adult website. Nope. Absolutely not. Not today, Satan.

Shaking off the cringe, your brain immediately locked onto a bigger problem: your heat cycle, and the only one who knew you were an omega was Sevika. No way were you facing this without backup. Time to call in the cavalry.

Marching to Sevika’s room, you found her deep in her Einstein era, laying out some high-key complicated blueprints to none other than Silco. He had the whole “I’ve masterminded 50 ways to wreck your day before my morning coffee” ahh aura going on. Silco just stood there, cool as hell, while Sevika leaned over the table, her bionic arm catching the light as she pointed out details like she was teaching Advanced Scheming 101.

“Hey,” Sevika greeted, glancing up as you stepped inside. Her expression softened just a smidge, enough to make you feel like you weren’t intruding. “This is Silco, head honcho around here. Silco, meet our newbie.”

Silco’s eyes swept over you, calculating but not unfriendly. “A pleasure,” he said, his voice as smooth as a jazz saxophone.

“Likewise,” you managed, trying not to look like you’d just walked into a boss battle unarmed.

Sevika straightened up, arms crossed like she’d already won whatever argument they’d been having. “Oh, and by the way? She’s an omega.” She dropped the bomb like it was no big deal, leaving your stomach to do a whole gymnastics routine. Silco didn’t even blink, just nodded like he was filing the info away for later.

Clearing your throat, you focused on Sevika. “Uh, actually, I came to ask about heat suppressants,” you mumbled, your voice doing its best impression of a whisper.

Sevika’s brows furrowed in that ‘protective big sister’ way that lowkey made you feel safe. “You cutting it close?” she asked, already digging through a drawer like she had a whole pharmacy in there.sevika hands you a small bottle of pills and you took it.

You nodded, letting out a breath you didn’t realize you’d been holding. Silco watched the exchange in silence, his gaze lingering on you for a beat longer before he turned back to the blueprints. Apparently, the apocalypse came with its own version of office politics, and you were smack in the middle of it.

The blueprints Silco and Sevika are studying give off serious "post-apocalypse Pinterest goals" energy. The designs show the current treehouse and its surroundings, with detailed plans for fortified walls to keep out zombies and other threats. Silco, in his usual deadpan tone, explains the importance of building these walls to stabilize and secure the area. Another part of the blueprint outlines plans for Treehouse 2.0, which Sevika says is already underway. They’ve planted a genetically modified mega-tree seed designed to grow rapidly and support additional treehouse structures. Silco emphasizes how this expansion is essential for housing more survivors as they’re rescued. The whole setup feels like hope drawn on paper a real shot at creating a stable future in a chaotic world.

Later, you're on chicken coop duty with Vander near the edge of the treehouse field, hammering nails into planks and tying up loose wire to keep the future chickens safe. Vander’s mid-swing with his hammer when he pauses, his brow furrowing like he’s caught a whiff of something off. His survival-honed instincts basically scream, Yo, Omega alert. He doesn’t say a word, but you can feel his gaze linger, like he’s piecing together a puzzle he didn’t know he had. Meanwhile, you’re in full-on denial mode, hammering a nail like it owes you money, acting like absolutely nothing is happening.

After escaping laundry duty, you link up with Vi and Caitlyn for a snack run or, well, hunting, but snack run sounds cooler. The forest is all crunchy leaves and aesthetic vibes until chaos inevitably finds you. A fat turkey busts out of a bush like it’s in a horror movie, followed by a boar that’s built like a linebacker. Its beady little eyes lock onto you like you insulted its mom, and boom Caitlyn, being the absolute hitler she is, literally pushes you off a truck. it���s chasing you. You’re screaming, full-on track star mode, dodging trees like this is Mario Kart Caitlyn snorts and starts to laugh while watching you getting chase by the boar.

"Oh, hell no!" you yell, sprinting like your life depends on it because, uh, it does. She’s out here using you as live bait like it’s the Hunger Games. "Cait, you unhinged menace!" you yell, narrowly dodging a tusk that looks way too sharp for comfort.

Meanwhile, Vi’s in her own world, 100% unbothered. She’s in some abandoned barn, beefing with a squawking turkey that’s clearly seen better days. Smug as hell, she stuffs the bird into a cage Vander rigged up for chicken nuggets and future omelets. “Gotcha, you squawking idiot,” she mutters, slamming the cage shut like it’s her greatest achievement.

Back in the chaos, Caitlyn finally decides to help after milking the entertainment value, of course. She casually lines up her rifle and drops the boar with one clean shot. You stop running, panting like a dog in a heatwave, and glare daggers at her. "Really? You just had to use me as bait?" you huff, hands on your hips. Caitlyn just smirks like the chaotic evil she is, zero regrets in sight.

You’re mid-rant about Caitlyn’s betrayal when a tiny, pitiful whimper cuts. You turn to see a scrappy little pup curled up in the barn hay, staring at you with the saddest baby eyes. Boar drama? Forgotten. You kneel, doing your best "snow white" impression, and the little dude cautiously wags its tail as it shuffles over. It’s all ribs and fluff, but it’s wagging, so that’s a win.

“Looks like we’ve got a new recruit,” Vi says, grinning as she shoulders the cage with the turkey. Caitlyn rolls her eyes but can’t hide the small smile tugging at her lips. You scoop up the pup, holding it close as it nuzzles into your chest, and for a moment, the world doesn’t feel so grim. Meanwhile, Vi’s rummaging through the house near the barn, and out of nowhere, she bursts out laughing like she’s found a treasure chest.

Later that day, after finishing up the never-ending list of chores, something gnaws at you the suppressants Sevika gave you. It’s been eating at your brain like a parasite. Why does she even have them? There are no other Omegas in this treehouse sanctuary, so why keep a stash? Stockpiling just in case an Omega drops out of the sky? Sounds sus.

With that question sitting heavy in your mind, you make your way back to your shared room. Sevika’s just stepping in, her usual brooding, resting-bitch-energy filling the space after whatever the hell she and Silco had been scheming. You waste no time, arms crossed like you’re about to interrogate a suspect. “Sevika, why do you even have suppressants? Ain’t no other Omegas here.”

Sevika pauses mid-step, She thinks for a long-ass moment, like she’s debating whether to tell you the truth or just grunt at you and move on. Finally, with a deep sigh, she leans against the desk, arms crossed, like she’s bracing herself for your reaction. "Because Silco’s an Omega."

You blink. Hard. “Huh?”

Sevika smirks at your dumbfounded expression but continues, “Before all this before the outbreak, before the treehouse became a sanctuary Silco was carrying me. In his belly.”

Your jaw? On the floor. Brain? blank. “Hold up. Silco. The guy with the permanent ‘I hate everything’ face? The guy who acts like he was forged in the fires of pure spite?”

Sevika snorts but nods. “Yeah. He doesn’t talk about it. Never mentions my other parent, either.” Her voice is even, but there’s something in her expression something closed off, something guarded, like she’s used to people prying but never really knowing the full picture.

Your head is spinning, but Sevika keeps going, nodding toward the walls like the history is painted right onto the wooden panels. "This place this tree it was his favorite spot as a kid. Vander, Benzo, and Felicia used to play here before the world went to shit. Now, it’s a haven. A second chance. A place where people can survive without being hunted."

You try to form a coherent thought, but all you can do is imagine Silco grumpy, scowling, warlord Silco waddling around with a baby bump. The mental image is so cursed your brain immediately rejects it. “Okay, but like... how? How did that even work?”

Sevika shrugs. “Dunno. Don’t care. Not asking him. You wanna dig into that trauma, be my guest.”

Your brain is still buffering, trying to load all this new information, but one thing stands out above all the lore dump you just received. “So, uh, why are you even telling me this?”

Sevika tilts her head, her gaze locking onto yours like she’s measuring your reaction. Then she shrugs, completely casual, like she didn’t just drop a nuclear bomb on your perception of reality. “Because I actually like you.”

Oh. Ooooooooooh.

Your heart does a whole-ass gymnastics routine, flipping and twisting like it’s trying to qualify for the Olympics. Your throat goes dry. You suddenly forget how to function. Sevika just watches you, a smug little glint in her eye like she knows exactly what she just did to you.

Game over. You’re done for.

You wandered into Vander’s hideout, a dimly lit room with the lingering scent of aged whiskey and wood polish. Even with the chaos of the zombie apocalypse outside, he still clung to his old hobby bartending. The soft clink of glass echoed as he mixed a drink, though it was more for the ritual than necessity. Alcohol wasn’t exactly a survival priority, but in a world where everything was falling apart, maybe a bit of nostalgia was worth it. Vander was nothing if not a creature of habit, and if slinging drinks kept him sane, who were you to judge?

Leaning against the makeshift bar, you watched as he poured a deep amber liquid into a chipped glass. He moved with ease, like he’d done this a thousand times before because he had. "Didn’t think you’d still be slinging drinks at the end of the world, old man."

Vander chuckled, shaking his head. "Old habits die hard, kid. Besides, people need something normal. Ain’t much left of the world, but a good drink and a bad story still do the trick."

You hummed, swirling a random glass of water in your hand, weighing your next words before finally going for it. "So... what’s Silco’s deal?"

Vander paused mid-pour, a knowing smirk tugging at his lips. "Knew you’d start wonderin’ eventually. Especially since you’re... well, you know."

You frowned. "What?"

He raised a brow, leaning onto the bar. "Omega."

Your face instantly warmed, and you nearly choked on your spit. "Excuse me?!"

Vander just laughed, deep and rough. "Relax, kid. Ain’t a bad thing. Just means iam pickin’ up on something familiar, even if you don’t realize it."

You crossed your arms, determined not to combust on the spot. "So? What about Silco?"

Vander exhaled sharply through his nose, his expression turning more serious. "Silco’s always been... different. Timid, back in the day. Shy around people. Didn’t have much of a backbone until life forced one on him. When he was in his twenties, he got caught in the wrong place, wrong time some bastards harassed him in the dark streets. He got out of it alive, but... well, that’s how Sevika happened. He carried her. Nine months of hell, scared outta his mind, but he did it. And then the world went to shit."

Your stomach twisted. "Oh."

"Yeah," Vander muttered, setting his drink down with a dull thud. "That ancient tree house out there? Only place he ever felt peace. So when the world turned to hell, he built the safe zone here. Me, Benzo, Felicia, Connol... We were the first. Worked ‘til our hands bled, but it was worth it."

You nodded slowly, sensing the shift in his voice. "And the others?"

Vander sighed, rubbing a hand down his face. "Felicia and Connol went out hunting once. First time. Didn’t come back. We found their bodies later. Powder and Vi were just kids. Broke Silco in ways none of us could fix. But he kept going. Had to."

You looked down at the counter, tracing a long crack in the wood with your fingertip. "I’m sorry."

"Don’t be. It’s just how things are now." Vander’s voice was gruff but not unkind. He jerked his chin toward the next room. "As for Benzo... that fatass is around the corner, fixing up some mechanic junk."

You let out a small snort at his casual tone, but the weight of his words settled heavy on your shoulders. Silco had been through hell, and despite it all, he’d built a haven to keep people alive. He’d been a scared, pregnant Omega once, carrying a kid in a world that already wanted him dead. And yet, here he was, running the strongest safe zone you’d ever seen.

It was around late afternoon when you finally spotted Powder and Ekko strolling by, their usual vibe filling the air. You leaned against the doorframe, pretending to be chill even though your mind was buzzing.

“Yo, Powder, Ekko!” you called out, giving them a lazy wave.

Ekko gave you a side-eye, but Powder grinned like she just hit a jackpot. “What’s good?” she chirped, hands on her hips.

You shrugged, trying to seem casual. “So, quick question. Has Sevika, like, ever, I dunno, messed with people’s heads for fun? Not saying she’s some kind of mind reader, but you know… just screws around for the drama?”

Ekko's brows furrowed. Powder cocked her head, a smirk tugging at the corner of her lips.

“Wait, you asking about Sevika?” Ekko raised an eyebrow. “You sure you wanna go down that road?”

You waved it off, but there was a hint of curiosity behind your eyes. “I mean, yeah. I even asked Vander about it before I bounced from his room.”

Powder laughed, clearly entertained. “Asked Vander? Oh, that’s cute. What’d he say? ‘Don’t worry about Sevika, she’s just a bit chaotic, no biggie?’”

“Nah, he just said she doesn’t really mess with people unless they deserve it. But I dunno, I’m wondering if she, like, confessed anything to me lately. It felt off, like she was playing some game or something. You think she could be, I don’t know, messing with my head?”

Ekko snorted. “Sevika? Oh, she’s definitely the type to play mind games, but she won’t hit you with any meaningful stuff. She’ll twist words, mess with you a little, but she never says anything that really sticks, you feel me?”

Powder shrugged. “Yeah, she’s all about the chaos. But don’t get too caught up in whatever she’s throwing your way. She likes to stir the pot, but never tells the truth unless she’s forced to. So, like, keep your guard up.”

“Got it,” you said, pushing off from the doorframe. “Just... thought maybe I was trippin’.”

Ekko gave a little chuckle. “Nah, you’re not trippin’, just don’t get played, alright?”

You nodded, the knot in your stomach tightening. Something felt off, but you weren’t sure if you were just overthinking it or if Sevika was really pulling strings from the shadows. Either way, you were gonna find out soon enough.

As you watched them walk off, the thought stuck in your mind: you definitely needed to keep your guard up around Sevika. She didn’t do things for no reason and she sure as hell didn’t care if you got hurt in the process.So she will just tickle your pussy for a while and move on?

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{silco-omega} {benzo-beta}

[historyartthings]

Description of the primary documents:

Image 9/document 1:

a book of hours. Thomas Becket's name is erased from the calendar of saint's days

Image 10/document 2:

Cromwell's arms in the book of heralds after his fall. 'X's show where they've been crossed out

Image 21/document 3:

'questions to be axid of thomas cromell'

in henry viii's hand, the heading to a list of questions regarding the Cleves marriage

Image 26/document 4:

Cromwell's letter to the king from the tower

Image 28/document 5:

His parliamentary attainder

[sacred-sketchbook]

lavender.png

shoutout to d) Ink Pen Texturized Copy for being the only brush i ever use

sources: reference / background

[voidhope]

The Other Woman

—

Synopsis: Where Miguel leaves Y/N to go back to a different version of his old wife found in another universe.

Pair: Miguel O’Hara x Spider!Reader

Tags: ANGST!!, long term established relationship, heartbreak, marriage, cheating, mental health, cold/distant Miguel

—

A/N: Hi! I don’t really write at all!!

I have been a silent reader on tumblr for years but this idea has been playing in my mind so much I had the urge to write it. I have been down so bad for Miguel been on his tag like 24/7 indulging in all the content creators have been putting out. So I’m excited to join in giving content, however keep in mind I kinda suck! Apologies for any mistakes, anything confusing, or it not being well written enough. Honestly could have made this into multiple parts with better details but nah. Tried my best ^^ since it’s my first time, any feedback is greatly appreciated!

Honestly tbh we all don’t have a solid grasp how the whole canon thing and multi universe works yet so!! A lot of what is written is made up to suit my storyline so please don’t get mad about the inaccuracies.

I love a good angst and today’s story will be EXTRAAA angsty!!! As well kinda long!!

—————————————————

The moment that changed your life was while working on an experiment during your college finals. You were a proud and gifted physics major that was so passionate about discovering and exploring what the world didn’t know.

You had snuck into Alchemax late at night. You wanted to show your professors just how much you could do with the right tools. Next thing you know, playing with their machines, you had spawned a spider right in-front of you. The glowing vibrant red spider had sunk its jaw into your hand.

Your life did a complete turn and you spent the rest of that week freaking out while changes to your body were happening. Causing you to fail your semester after missing exams. Things felt like it could only get worse when a massive blue suited masked man showed up out of nowhere in your dorm interrogating you.

“Where’s the spider?” He had a strong grip on your shoulders. You couldn’t focus while trying to process why this man had what seemed like claws sticking out of the ends of his fingers.

“I don’t know, it like died after it bit me!” You exclaimed nervously at the freakishly strong man. Trying to reach for anything behind you to use as a defense weapon.

“Dios mío no me digas eso…” He groaned loudly letting you go. Having the opportunity to grab something, you threw a sanrio plushie at him. Only causing him to wave his arms in annoyance. “That spider is from my earth and somehow you brought it here. Now you’re a spider-man.”

And the rest is history…

—

You learned that the man was Miguel O’Hara and when he found you he was just starting his missions with the multiverse. You being the few of the firsts to join his team.

Your situation was quite bizarre and he called you an anomaly for a long time, spending hours studying you and also training you. You ended up being the one case that can’t be explained no matter how much effort was put into monitoring you.

Almost like it was meant to be. Your universe remained perfect with its current spider-man doing fine. No big collapse of a black hole or anything. When you got bit by a spider from Earth-928 your DNA merged with that universe making you fit in perfectly. You were one of the only spider-people with an uncertain timeline with new canons being created depending on what universe you were in.

What changed from you being just a piece of research for Miguel is when he then realized that maybe you were a gift from the multiverse. After all the grief and pain he’d went through the universe had given him this person that worked out perfectly no matter how hard he tried to push them away. You fell head over heels for him and vice versa, all while canon events were being created with both of you together.

You were there as his team grew, slowly turning into a family. Then both of you getting married finalizing that this was your home. Everything felt perfect. Although a relationship with Miguel could have its up and down days, nothing could ever tear you both apart. Or so you assumed.

—

“I’m sorry Y/N.” Miguel couldn’t look at you.

“When did this start? Please be honest with me. Did I do something wrong?” You begged at him. You knew he was acting off recently but never did you think it would result to this.

You watched as he exhaled deeply staring at the ground. You felt like you couldn’t breathe as you studied his face trying to grasp onto any emotion he was showing. The atmosphere in his office felt so cold. You so badly wanted to catch his gaze and find the warmth and love his red irises used to give you. He was doing everything to push you away. He was abandoning you.

“You did nothing wrong. I met her during a mission 4 months ago.” Was all he replied.

“Who is she?” Your heart kept breaking. His face hardening as the question slipped through your lips. You knew Miguel wouldn’t leave you for just anyone. Deep in your heart you knew what this was about. He never responded but he didn’t need to when you saw his eyes flicker over to his monitor screens. You followed his trace and saw the photo of Gabriella in the corner.

“Does she have another version of your daughter?” You tried again. This is what made him look directly at you. Miguel kept opening and closing his month unsure how to tell you the truth. You weren’t stupid and he knew that. After everything he couldn’t just walk out on you with a lie.

“No.” He paused thinking of how to finally share the truth without it ruining you. There was no way out of this. “She is a younger version of herself. There is no Miguel in her universe and she’s not important to the timeline. She lives a regular life. I-it’s a chance for me to start at the very beginning.”

You felt your heart being ripped out of your chest. You processed the words carefully. She doesn’t have a child yet… Not only was he leaving you for her but he was going to fall in love with her all over again and start a family with her. A family you wanted so badly to have with him.

“What about with what happened last time you tried to live a life in a different universe?” You didn’t understand how this was happening.

He was always so carful he would never do anything to cause that again. Everything you had witness Miguel work so hard for to keep safe for years. Sleepless nights, returning bruised and beaten, frustrations and constant stress. Was it all for nothing? Is he throwing all his work away?

“This is different.” He turned away from you. “I pushed myself then into an already established life. This time I am creating that life. After all the research we did on you…” He knew that this was going to tear you apart. “I learned that if done right I could have a child from two different universes that won’t disrupt anything.”

It clicked to you then that all the research he was doing on you lately was for this. The research he did on you that time was different, personal, intimate even. As he was testing your DNAs together and seeing the outcomes. He mentioned a child and you were foolish enough to assume he was doing research to see what it would be like if you both had one together. You were giddy even as you watched him work. You had both spoken about having a family together in the past but had been too busy with spider activities. You thought it was a sign of him getting more serious about it, knowing how badly he wanted one. You would have never thought he was doing it to see how he could get back his previous child. The one you could never give him.

You had truly believe that Miguel had recovered from his obsession that his grief gave him. He accidentally destroyed a whole universe needing that life back so badly. You had spent late nights watching him re-watch clips over and over of what he had lost. It slowly stopped once your relationship blossomed with him and you thought he was ready to move on and start new. Why would you have never thought that with such a perfect opportunity presented to him that he wouldn’t drop everything for it.

“I think it’s best that you leave.” He spoke with a soft tone. As if not looking at you any longer will make the problem go away. You couldn’t wrap your mind around how he was just throwing you away like this. As if he wasn’t making you dinner, giving soft kisses, whispering I-love-you’s not so long ago.

You felt too choked up to ask anymore questions. Your throat tight and painful as you held back tears from escaping in-front of Miguel. You just nodded and headed straight out the door not being able to handle another second in that room. Your knees and hands were shaky as you speed walked into the nearest bathroom and let it all out.

—

It didn’t take long for everyone else to know something had happened. Everyone had gotten used to seeing you and him sitting together at lunch. You would make him cute lunch boxes and everyone would gag a bit while watching the two of you smile together. Some cringing seeing their scary boss being so soft around you. It was a big surprise when Miguel started to eat alone with a bag of take out food and you no where to be seen.

His teams he sent out for missions were all confused when you weren’t assigned to anything. Knowing you were one of the best, one of them slipped out a “Call for Y/N!” In the middle of fighting an anomaly too strong for them. Miguel only looked away.

It wasn’t until a new woman showed up in Miguel’s office with a grip around his waist. That’s when the spider-community realized that this was way worse than they thought.

—

You on the other hand had spilled everything to Hobie when he caught you that day leaving the bathroom with puffy eyes. You had been staying with him in his universe until you could gather yourself together to return to HQ. You knew you were going to leave for good, but you needed to go back to retrieve all your things. You couldn’t stay with Hobie forever. Worse that you weren’t from there.

You still had some hope that Miguel would come looking for you and tell you that he was all wrong. However almost two months had passed and not a word from him… That’s when you knew it was time you should return to what you once knew.

Stepping into the portal Hobie followed close behind you. He told the few others who were once close to both you and Miguel that you would be visiting. Stepping through the portal you were immediately greeted by Jessica and Peter B Parker.

“Oh, Y/N.” Jess sighed your name sadly while pulling you into a hug. You felt like you wanted to cry all over again. Missing your friends so much. Peter B came behind giving you a hug on the side.

“He’s on a mission right now.” Peter spoke up. “It might be a long one too but don’t waste anytime just incase.”

You nodded pulling away from them. Looking up around the headquarters building faintly smiling at the past memories you had here. You started heading to different areas gathering all the little things you had left around. Hobie had stitched for you a cute backpack with different scraps of patterned clothes and covered in patches of punk band logos but made with hammer space technology. Making it fun for you to fill endless of your things in the bag.

The last stop was in Miguel’s office. Doubt started to fill your mind; maybe he already threw out all of your stuff. Why would he even keep it after all of this? What no one could warn you of was the other person sitting on his platform.

“Hello!” She chirped at you. It felt like the air in your lungs had just been punched out. You knew her too well. From all the photos and videos you had seen peaking over Miguel’s shoulder. However seeing her in person was something you had never expected. You knew it wasn’t the original her but it was a copy paste image for sure.

“Hi.” Was all you managed to choke out. She was beautiful, stunning. You could see clearly now the similar features she shared in another universe with her daughter. The parts that Miguel didn’t have. She kept smiling kindly at you, almost in a graceful way. You started to feel all your insecurities start eating you up from the inside. How could you have ever compared to her.

“What’s your name? I don’t think I’ve seen you here before.” Getting off Miguel’s platform she walked closer to you. The room started to feel suffocating.

“Y/N.”

“Well, it’s nice to meet you! It’s nice to meet other girls around here.”

Your eyebrows furrowed as you realized she had no reaction to your name. So Miguel never told her about you… Or that the fact was he was still even legally married to you.

“My boyfriend isn’t here right now but, if you want, I can tell him you stopped by.” She continued as you stayed silent.

“Oh, no it’s okay. I just came in here to get some stuff.” You rushed as you really wanted nothing to do with Miguel at all. You almost worried that he might even get angry knowing you got to speak with her. If he already dislikes you this much you couldn’t even imagine how he would feel if you got in the way of this for him.

You started heading over to the familiar drawers around the room. Grabbing your old hoodies and shirts finding your most comfortable of things here. You treated this place as one of your safe spaces as you used to spend so much time here.

“Oh I didn’t know these were all yours! I was wondering why this was all around. When I came here I wanted to do some spring cleaning but Miguel wouldn’t let me touch anything.” She followed besides you. “It’s so mind blowing seeing all this technology. We don’t have any of this where I live-“ She continue rambling but you started to zone her out. You felt like you were about to have a panic attack any minute. There was one question that kept burning in your mind.

“Are you and Miguel already planning to have a child?” You blurted out. Your eyes widened a bit as you surprised yourself. She let out a loud laugh.

“Oh dear no! We have only been together about 6 months. You must be new around here so you must not know much about us.” She chuckled.

In some cruel way you were hoping she would have said yes. You had that twisted hope of maybe Miguel just keeping her to have a kid and ditching her after he gets Gabriella and run back to you. In reality he was playing the long game, he really meant it when we said he was starting over. “He’s never mentioned kids anyways. I’m not even sure if he’d like them or do well with them.”

With that statement she made you looked at her appalled. Anyone could see in Miguel how good of a father he could be. Just in the way he takes care of the society he built here. You started to realize that she really has been left in the dark. She doesn’t know anything. She probably doesn’t even know that she’s a replacement of another self. You wondered why Miguel was doing this. It felt like he didn’t just toy with you but with her as well. A man you came to love for how selfless he was, to realize now everything was for his own personal gain. Suddenly you started to feel bad for her. You couldn’t dislike her, she wasn’t doing anything wrong and she doesn’t even know.

“I got all my stuff. Nice to meet you.” Was all you could say as you zipped up your bag and turned straight around out of there. Not giving any glance back at her, you left to one of the empty training rooms to recollect your overwhelming thoughts. All of the self healing you tried the past month thrown in the garbage.

It wouldn’t be too soon that news of you going around the building was returned to Lyla. You had cut out all coms while you were gone so she immediately popped up on your watch when she found out.

“AH-“ You jumped as the tiny AI was suddenly in front of your face.

“It’s so wonderful to see you Y/N. Oh my god!”She started. Then she went on rambling about how she knew everything and had seen everything. How she didn’t agree with what was happening and was doing everything she could to convince you to stay. After 5 minutes of her rambling you stopped her to let your emotions out.

“Lyla, Lyla It’s okay. Just stop. It’s all complicated I know, but this didn’t work out. I wished Miguel just cheated on me like all the other fucked up normal men out there. That I walked in on him deep in another random girl. Though painful I could have tried fixing and fighting for us. But instead what I got was him emotionally cheating on me and chase after something he knows I can never give him.” You felt yourself choke up. “I can never ask him to give up what he longs and dreams for just for me to be happy. I lost this battle the moment he laid eyes on her.”

Finding comfort in the AI your husband made. You’ve created a bond with Lyla that Miguel found cute but you knew now this might be the last time you’ll be speaking with her.

“You can give him a family y/n… you guys have been married two years now. I know you’ve both set the thought aside until the multiverse issues are better but you can fight for him. You have to snap him out of his fantasy. He still thinks about you.”

“Lyla you know deep down truly he never just wanted a family. He wanted exactly what he had. What he lost. Which should be impossible but being by his side seeing how insane the multiverse is… Good for him for believing in something so hard he’s found himself even a third chance to do it.”

“I hate that you’re being too kind about this situation.” Lyla paced around you.

“I love him so deeply Lyla. You know that very well. It’s so hard to suddenly hate him. I am angry, but I’m also emotionally drained I can’t do this.” You let out a deep sigh. “I’ve watched him long for this family when we just met. For some stupid reason when things worked out for us I thought I would be enough… When we got engaged and he would spend some days at home with me not even coming to HQ. I thought he was finally moving on not just from his grief and past but from the weight of his work. I saw a bright future for us.”

“You can still have a bright future with him! You moving here gave him a new canon event, another chance at life in his timeline. Here in his own universe! He’s just too obsessed and he’s lost himself in that.” She exclaimed with her hands up.

“Our canon event was our wedding.” Your frowned deepened. “But the universe didn’t say anything else after. It doesn’t say our canon event means we are suppose to live happily together forever I guess.”

“I’m just trying my best to be optimistic. I rooted so hard for you and Miguel when you joined the team. I know you can remember the amount of times I would force you both in rooms.” Lyla recalled.

“And I’m grateful for it… Even if this didn’t work out. I was given precious memories, not just working with you and being on this team but falling in love with Miguel. I know I’m being all depressed and hopeless but I feel like even if I move on I’ll never be able to replace him and find a relationship like this again. However he threw me away so easily and maybe he never valued me as much as I did to him.” You felt your emotions bubble. “I became who I am here. I’m going to miss everyone so much.”

“You can still stay here and work with us.” She edged on.

“I can’t just sit around here begging at his feet to return to me or moping around doing missions while watching him with someone else. I want to hate him so badly. I know he’s your boss and you’re basically hardwired to do everything for him and you’re trying your hardest to fix what you think is his right path. But think of me a little more and how miserable it’ll be. I’m the only one hurting here.”

Lyla paused and stared at you with an almost glossy-eyed look. While she worked she could see the inner term-oil Miguel was hiding and the emptiness he was turning to since trying to start new in the other universe. It just wasn’t her place to hold this conversation and he was the one who needed to get a grip of himself and really think and talk with you. She can’t be the one trying to mend the pieces for both of you together. What Miguel did was so wrong. She knew you were right and she didn’t want to see any more damage be caused to you.

“You’re right. I’m sorry.” She looked up at you sincerely. “I hate this outcome for you. Not only are you loosing your husband but your home. When was the last time you’ve even been in your universe?”

“Like a year ago for a mission…”

“Exactly! Even if things are over with Miguel, you have all of us here! I wish you could stay. I understand you leaving, I really do. I know a lot of us will try visiting you but I’m tied to Miguel…” You started to see how it clicked for her too that it’s most likely you might not see each other for a long time. “Even if a spider-person is visiting you I can’t just show up on their watch… It’ll go back to him and I know you wouldn’t want that. I know I’m an AI and I can’t hold real emotions but I mean it when I say I’m going to miss you.”

Tears poured down your cheeks as her words hit you. Going back to your universe is going to be a struggle. You have nothing there now. However nothing can compare to the pain of the outcome you’ve had with Miguel, and you needed out of here ASAP. Your mental health getting worse the longer you stay. Even the other spiders you have come to love can’t bring that spark back right now. You needed genuine time for yourself, even if it’s self destructive, instead of putting on a fake smile everyday here.

“Bye, Lyla.” You whispered. She nodded and waved her hand goodbye at you before disappearing. You took your watch off your wrist placing it on a nearby desk. With it you pulled the divorce paperwork out of your pocket neatly sealed and already signed on your half. Opening a portal you took your last glances at the place you spent so many loving memories in.

Tears blurred your vision as you stepped through the portal. Once your legs landed on a rooftop of a building in your dimension, you racked out full sobs falling to your knees.

You were always just the other woman.

—————————————————

Thank you so much for reading!! I know it was a longer one ~

would anyone like a part 2? If so anyone want a angsty or happy ending? I think it’ll be more in Miguel’s perspective as well!

EDIT: You can now read PART 2 here

[godbirdart]

Hey Tobias, aside from your incredible artworks themselves, I also absolutely love the detailed abstract backgrounds you sometimes put on portraits and I've been wanting to try my hand at something in the same vain. I was considering trying Illustrator for those, since I normally use CSP and while I love it, it kinda feels pretty horrible at anything geometrical and shape-y, so I was also wondering what software you use for them if you'd like to share!

oH you mean like the geometric shapes in these?

that is 1000% Clip Studio Paint. I use it for, quite literally, all of my work. Pixel art, illustrations, animations - it's all Clip.

The upper backgrounds of those pieces are done using the Symmetrical Ruler and Shape tools, as well as maybe a brush or two for flair.

The Symmetrical Ruler is under the Ruler tool:

it lets you draw symmetrically on the canvas like this [the purple line appears so you know where your mirrors meet]

note: sometimes your brush needs to have snapping enabled to work with a ruler tool - especially if you're using a fancy custom brush from the assets shop.

you can fix this by going into your brush's settings [clicking the little wrench on your selected brush] and then toggle on Enable Snapping under the Corrections section:

Regarding the Shapes tool,

It's technically called the Figure tool but I'm calling it the Shapes tool. For those unfamiliar, Clip doesn't come with preset shapes beyond your standard lines, rectangles, and circles; BUT you can easily create your own triangles and hexagons and whatnot with the Polygon subtool.

Change the number of corners to that of the shape you want and tada! SHAPE. The number of corners can go up to 32 - at which point you're essentially just making a vaguely chunky circle so I mean, have fun.

I'm gonna pause here because this post is already getting a bit long, but if there's somethin specific you want me to elaborate on feel free to ask.

[bacchusbasil]

Analytic Deep-Dive of Stanford Pines

Something I don't see talked about like AT ALL is how arrogant and selfish Ford was.

Man literally has delusions of grandeur all throughout Journal 3 and Book of Bill. He decides not just to look at the big picture, but the frame, wall, room, and building it's hung up in.

Fiddleford spent days putting together a whole thesis for Ford that would change his life and give him everything Ford dreamed of; money, renown, credibility, but it still wasn't enough for Ford.

Even when everything fell to ruin and he realised that Bill was trying to end the world, his big dumb nerd brain just couldn't let go of his research, not even for the sake of the world.

(This is kinda long so I'm cutting it; more below)

If he had destroyed the Journals like his first instinct told him to, Bill wouldn't have had blueprints. No one would be able to summon Bill. None of the information in the Journals would have reached any hands, much less the wrong ones.

But Ford was just so *adamant* about preserving his research, he decided that instead of removing the tools of destruction, it'd be better to kill a god instead.

His own hubris lead to everything that happened. Stanley pushing him into the portal, Gideon getting his hands on Journal 2 (an elementary school was a *great* place to hide a book of spells), the whole time thinking he was sticking it to Bill, when really he was playing into his hands.

Ford was a selfish man, and Bill enabled him by filling his head with flattery and praises.

Even after the Portal incident, Bill's influence still lingered in Ford's mind.

He still thought he had to do everything alone, that only he had the power and intelligence to destroy Bill once and for all. And some of his experiences only confirmed that belief.

Journal 3 details a dimension Ford visited where the Portal Incident never happened. In that dimension, Parallel Ford achieved everything Ford dreamed of. PStan listened to PFord, PFord reuinited with his PFiddleford, and PFord found a way to both stop Bill and keep his portal. This is a dimension where Ford got to have his cake and eat it to.

While I vehemently believe Parallel Ford learned many lessons about the importance of trust and community, I wholeheartedly believe that 46'/ Ford only saw this as a world where people listened to HIM, where he was in charge and in control, and everything worked out because of it. I fully believe seeing this dimension further drove our Ford to the conclusion that being the lone scholar was the right thing to be.

He held onto this belief even after coming home, even after reuniting with his brother, and continued to hold on to that mistrust and toxic independent mindset.

His character development didn't start until he played a table-top roleplaying game with a 12 year old boy.

[moonyasnow]

Blank TWST Logos / Character Icons

Individuals + guide tips for how to use them under the cut!

( Please tag (@) me if you use them for a post; I really wanna see what everyone makes ^^ )

Just like with the blank Birthday Boy Card templates I made, I decided I wanted blank ones for these...whatever these icons are called. So I made them!

And again, like before, please tag (@) me if you end up using them!

First of all!

Here's two transparent ones, so you can sandwhich your drawing layer between them without fearing messing up the frame.

I added two because not all drawing programs understand the whole 'transparency' thing with pasted images, and will make any transparent part of an image black, which would kinda ruin it

So with the white you can just remove the color. Or alternatively, since I made the frame with a pixel tool, while it might be time-consuming, you can still remove all the white by hand without messing up the frame at all

I made two for Heartslabyul, so you can either have a Card Soldier one, or just a blank one

With the details on Octavinelle and Pomefiore's, I suggest copying them, placing them to the side and covering up the holes with the background color, so you can place them wherever you'd like once you're done with your own drawing

So you don't have to work around where I placed them 👍

And if you want differently-shaped bubbles, the bubble color is the same grey as in the frame

The Scarabia one is sadly pretty empty :/ but meh, they didn't give me a lot to work with, and I wasn't gonna add something 'just because'

Bright blue one is obviously Ramshackle. I have a feeling people are gonna get a lot of use out of that one haha

And the NRC Staff ones are...a bit of a special case. They're all slightly different, but it seems the general theme is grey background with some sort of beige pattern. I just used the square as a placeholder so you can eye-drop the color

I also added Vargas and Crewel's ones by comparison, kinda like a 'this is what it could look like' thing

And here's a Noble Bell College one, too. Just because I could

If there was any kind of RSA one, or if Fellow Honest had one, I would 100% have added them.

Actually, please let me know if they do somehow have them, and I just missed it!

Anyway bye!! ^^👋

[leidensygdom]

hello!! i love your art so much, your colors are beautiful and your characters are just so 👁️👁️ and i adore seeing them on my dash :)

i had a question about how you do the details on your fabrics: how do you keep the patterns on clothes on a body looking so,,, clean and readable while also making it make sense on the form under it?

like the cape/sleeve(? idk what it is but it looks cool as hell) on the magnolia commission pattern looks so cool and it's still readable on the fabric (like, if i wanted i could probably do a silly sketch of it) BUT ALSO it seems to make sense with the folds so it doesn't just look unnatural and stiff?

i'm so sorry this is kind of a long ask but like. would you be down to talk about your process for patterns on clothing? it's cool if you're not, that's totally fair, just figured i'd ask

have a wonderful day!!

OOOH Thank you so much for the ask!! I wanna do a more in depth tutorial, but I tend to make patterns in two different ways, with one being fully hand-drawn and the other playing with mesh transforms or the... Uh, liquify CSP tool? Let me find examples

This is an example of a fully hand-drawn pattern. No trickery here- Only trying to eyeball everything. It's kinda a lot of work to draw it manually, but it's the more convenient option if the character I'm drawing doesn't have files for the patterns, or if the files are a bit too different from my usual style, as they could potentially not look great with my linearted or painted style

And then- For cases such as Nolia's cloak, I did the entire pattern as a separate file, then placed it using Photoshop's mesh transform!

Here's a WIP file from when I placed all the patterns after finishing the lineart, where you can see them in full contrast. I tend to keep my patterns in different files- The black parts here are not joined with the base color of the cloth, so I can bring nice highlights and texturing when they're meant to be golden inlays, for example. Now, the Photoshop mesh transform is a bit finnicky to use, and I don't have any proper step by step of it- I could potentially record how I do it someday. But let's take the humble cylinder and demonstrate it quickly:

So, the mesh warp tool is the one on the right- You can see these sort of blue lines creating a mesh. I'm sure CSP has it in it's pro level or something? Correct me if I'm wrong. You play around with the different sections, move it to the right place, and put it on the cylinder. This is a very simplified form. You can make many subsections to your meshes (that's 3x3- you can have stuff such as 20x20) for when you have multiple folds.

And then you can just shade your pattern accordingly so it fits the volume of the drawing, and- ta-daa!

This is by no means an easy method. Sometimes you can get away with the Liquify tool (which CSP has and it's very decent), which I've used when the pattern in question was over a simpler surface with few folds. It takes some practise to use that well, and it isn't gonna be the best for complex ones, but it's also an option. Let me do a lil compilation of some patterns I've done and which tools I used for each!

The tool I use highly depends on the time I have, the level of finish for the drawing, and so on. CSP's liquify is probably the fastest but gives simpler results, drawing them manually works better with some styles and more organic/less geometrical patterns, the mesh tool takes a bunch of time but it's great for small repeating patterns that are meant to be very precise or geometrical.

If people would be interested in it, I may someday do a video tutorial of me doing a pattern and then putting it over a folded cloth. I do hope this can help a bit tho!!

[deathworlders-of-e24]

Thomas, Engineer

Part 4

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sparks burst upwards into the goggles Thomas was wearing, the plasma cutter in his hand burning at several hundred degrees, focused to an incredibly fine point. Holding it in his work gloves was awkward at best, but years of practice had made him exceptional at his job. Sixer and Mace might’ve been better at the finer detail work, Padrino had incredible dexterity after all, but making custom tools was well within his wheel house too.

The two bot brothers had asked him to make a special kind of nano wrench while they ran a ‘memory sweeper’ program through his old translator, the one that had caught that rogue signal all those cycles ago. The group had been working on it in their off time between maintenance requests, and they were finally just steps away from the answers they were looking for. All they needed now was to strip the memory code out of the device, and for that they needed itty bitty tiny nanoscopic tools; ergo, while the twins worked their programs, Thomas got to work making the things they’d need.

He was almost done too, when the comm-link trilled. A patch job in the security chief’s office, apparently one of the terminals was unresponsive and the door was getting jammed up on something. Personal projects would have to wait.

“Roomba, we got a job. You coming with or hanging out here?”

[Statement: you operate at greater efficiency when this unit is present]

“That’s right buddy, but I’m asking what you wanna do,” Thomas said.

“Beep.”

[Statement: I would like to assist please]

“Thanks Roomba, I appreciate that.” Thomas held his arm out and the little droid climbed up to his usual perch on the man’s shoulder. “Look at you, making decisions for yourself. Good for you bud!”

Thomas adored the little robot, and as Roomba got smarter, that feeling only grew. Every day the small cleaning drone was getting more clever, his AI evolving ever further, thanks to the upgrades from Sixer and Mace. Pretty soon Roomba would be as smart as Thomas was.

Maybe I’ll teach him how to play virtual chess, he thought. Or I’ll build him a little controller and we can split screen a blaster battle game or something!

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The two made their way through the ship, waving and saying hello to the many people who stopped Thomas to look at the small robot on his shoulder. At this point in their mission, it was common knowledge that one of the humans had made a cleaning drone their ‘pet’, although Thomas was trying to make it clear that wasn’t the case. Roomba was his own person, he just so happened to have very little legs and it was faster to just catch a ride on his human companion. It probably didn’t help that outside himself and the Padrino, nobody else had the hardware to understand what Roomba was saying, so all they ever heard was Beep.

They made it up to the command deck and knocked on the door to the Chief’s office. It opened halfway before getting stuck, hidden gears grinding, and there was the Chief, leaning on his desk with a data pad in his hand. Thomas figured Chief Ducane was kinda cute, what with his scruffy yet trimmed beard and his various tattoos, but macho wasn’t really his thing on guys. That being said, he could see why some on the crew were whispering about him, the man was built. Thomas tried getting his attention through the crack.

“Reporting Chief, you sent a maintenance request?” Thomas said through the gap in the door.

“Yeah, I did,” Chief Ducane looked up. “Oh right, you’re Thomas right? I don’t remember if I’ve introduced myself yet, I’m Danny Ducane. You’re the guy with the domesticated maintenance droid, right?” The Chief got up to the door and pulled it open himself, the hydraulics groaning as it slid open the rest of the way.

“He’s not…” Thomas started, annoyed, but took a beat. Don’t antagonize the guy who can pull apart the doors. “This is Roomba, he has an adaptive learning AI now, like the Padrino on the crew. He’s not a pet.”

Roomba looked up when Thomas said his name and trilled angrily at the idea of being equated to a house cat.

“Beep.”

[Statement: Please inform the other human that I am not domesticated in any way, and would prefer that not get said again]

“He said you’re being rude,” Thomas explained.

“Beep.”

[Sufficiently put]

Chief Ducane looked at the two of them for a moment before raising his hands in defeat.

“Okay, fair enough, that was a dick move on my part. Sorry little guy, didn’t know you were one of the clever bots.”

Thomas nudged his tool bag with his foot, and the Chief took the message.

“Right, my control console is fritzing out,” Ducane said, shuffling awkwardly towards his desk. “The screen blurs every couple minutes, and the door got stuck this morning, don’t know what that’s about either.” The chief stood there, gesturing to his desk with one hand, the other fumbling to put the data pad down where Thomas suspected he thought he wouldn’t be able to see it. It occurred to him that Chief Ducane might not be the most technologically savvy, considering you could read a data pad from either side, and the exact same script was frozen on his console screen. It looked like a checklist of sorts, but Thomas wasn’t here to snoop classified documents. Unless it’d be funny, then maybe.

“Right,” Thomas said, eyeing the chief, “it’s probably just an electrical short, a little leftover from that solar flare the other day. I’ll have to strip some wiring but it’s a quick fix. Though the door might have to be taken out so I can get into the motors.”

“And how long will that take?” Ducane asked.

“Maybe an hour? Maybe more?” Thomas shrugged. “Takes as long as it takes for me to get in there.”

Thomas looked at him a moment, standing there with his hands on his sides. He could hear Roomba’s mechanical innards ticking and whirring as the little bot held onto his perch on Thomas’s shoulder.

“Guess I should let you get to it then,” Chief Ducane said, clapping his hands and heading for the door, but he stopped before he left, like he’d just remembered he’d left the stove on or some such.

“Hey, just a quick question,” he said, turning back to face Thomas. The chief’s hands were fidgeting, hooking and unhooking his thumbs into his pockets. “Are you acquainted with the Sed engineers? Kor and Taren?”

Thomas thought for a moment, then shrugged.

“Sure, I’ve seen them around. Why?”

“They ever seem real busy for unknown reasons?”

“Honestly? Like you want my work appropriate answer or my actual opinion?”

“Both.”

“Well my work appropriate answer is sure, they seem good at their jobs, usually off together on requests.”

“And your personal opinions?” Chief Ducane pressed, crossing his arms and shifting to stand in the doorway, as if he was keeping Thomas sequestered until he got answers to his odd line of questions. Thomas didn’t need to ponder the question that long.

“Honestly? Honestly they kinda suck,” He blurted out, a little more venomously than he’d intended. “Like, okay, don’t get me wrong, you ask them questions and they give the right answers, they know how things work and they know the right tool for the jobs, but work wise? Half the time nobody can find them. I’ve had three repair jobs handed over to me in the last two weeks ‘cause they’re off somewhere fooling around.”

“Fooling around?” Ducane intoned, “as in…?”

“Well we just kinda assumed they were an item. And look, we’re sympathetic, but the work load is insane on a ship this size with this many conflicting requirements. Temperature differences for different races, atmospheric controls bottoming out, I got a guy with four arms for a boss and even he thinks it’s ridiculous how often stuff around here breaks.”

“So you all just assumed they were off somewhere… doing that, while you all just put up with it? Has anyone seen them like this?” Chief Ducane pushed.

“Roomba did,” Thomas said, tilting his head the little droid’s direction, “while we were doing repairs in the air ducts a couple cycles ago.”

“Beep.”

[Please do not disclose this information]

“Huh?” Thomas put the little droid in his palm and let him stand for himself. “What’s up buddy?”

“What’s he saying?” The chief asked, shifting focus from Thomas to Roomba and back again.

“Beep.”

[Disclosure of this information will bring my work efficiency into question]

Ohhhhhhh, Thomas thought.

“He’s just saying how weird what he saw was,” Thomas shiftily explained, patting the little droid on the head. “We were working some repairs in the ducts when Roomba saw Taren in another part of the ship through the grating. He was on a comm-link and Kor showed up with a thing Roomba didn’t recognize, but from what he told me it was some hand tool I think.”

“So maybe they were just on another job and not screwing around?” Ducane questioned.

“Nah, couldn’t be, I was supposed to be the only repair guy in that part of the ship at the time. Everyone else is still supposed to be in the core room making repairs after that solar flare.”

Thomas took a deep breath and looked Ducane in the eye.

“Chief, be straight with me, is something going on on my ship?”

“What do you mean your ship?” Ducane scoffed.

“Trust me, this ship has already gotten enough of my blood, sweat, and tears man. I probably love her more than anyone else on this boat, so yeah, she’s my ship.” Thomas was getting a tad red in the face as he said this, which was fair, as it was slightly embarrassing to voice this odd idea of his. “Look man, this ship might be just a job to you, but it’s not just that to me, okay? So if there’s something happening here that could hurt her, I’m not gonna let that happen.”

How odd that a simple maintenance request could have such an impact on his day?

Roomba reach up and tugged on Thomas’s earlobe.

“Beep.”

[New Task Uploaded: protect Noah. Confirm?]

“That’s right Roomba, that’s what we’re gonna do,” Thomas said, weirdly amped up now. Chief Ducane stood there looking at him incredulously.

“Is every kid in the galaxy just ready to ride shotgun off to war these days? I swear, you younger guys need to do something more productive and fun with all that extra energy you have.”

“Shove it… respectfully, Chief.”

“Well if it makes you feel any better, I don’t have anything concrete that something is happening, not that I could tell you if I did.” Ducane shrugged and crossed his arms again, leaning against the wall. The data pad behind them on the desk trilled, a new file had been sent to it, and before the tones had silenced themselves, Thomas felt as if his neurons had just taken a bolt of electricity across his frontal lobe. He turned back to face the Security Chief with a dread look tacked onto his face.

“Hypothetically, Chief, if somebody had possibly intercepted a weird transmission while outside the broadcast shields, how important would that be?”

Chief Ducane stared at him a moment, then clasped his hands together in front of his mouth before sighing uncomfortably hard.

“I’d say that’d be pretty important, kid.”

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

“I thought you were supposed to be smart!” Danny half accused, walking quickly down the hall away from the lift.

“Man, I’m like actually a genius, I have four degrees, but nobody ever accused me of being smart,” Thomas said, shrugging. “I didn’t want to get kicked off the ship if it was nothing, which it probably is!”

“You wouldn’t have gotten kicked off the ship. If I can’t even get rid of Grite, you’re as safe as can be.”

“Oh, okay,” Thomas said sarcastically, “then I totally should’ve spilled it when, while on a space walk, my somewhat illegally jailbroke translator picked up a rogue signal on the long range communications array for the ship I just got a job on. I’ve seen people canned for less, I could’ve been tried for espionage or something.”

“You did what?”

Thomas and Danny turned on theirs heels to see Odis the Galley standing in the doorway they’d just passed, a ‘coffee’ mug in hand. It had a cartoonish drawing of a purple cow on it.

“Oh good, we’re just telling the whole ship now, I guess,” Danny pinched the bridge of his nose. “I’m definitely getting fired.”

“Wait wait wait, Odis is cool,” Thomas vouched. “He’s a real stand up guy.”

“What did you do now humie?” Odis groaned, downing whatever was in his mug before sprinting to join them. His shorter legs had to move twice as fast to keep up with the taller humans.

“So you know that project the twins and I have been working on?” Thomas asked.

“Yeah, you’ve been using your off hours for something that’s not video games, of course I noticed.”

“Fired…,” Danny moaned. “Court marshalled even.”

“Quiet big human, the smart human is talking.”

“Oh no, we’ve established that word doesn’t apply to me.”

“Beep.”

[Thank you for not telling the human I fell down the air ducts]

It was a wonder how the entire ship didn’t know what they were doing by then, seeing as they were not exactly discreet as they headed down to the maintenance decks. When the group of them finally made the locker room, more than one set of eyes was watching them, though it was mostly Chief Ducane they were looking at. It wasn’t exactly normal operating procedures for the Chief of Security to walk into their locker room.

“How is it that you humans are always up to something ridiculous?” Odis asked, shaking his bulbous gray head. “I mean, as a Galley, I’m actually impressed with the level of… what’s a good human word for this nonsense?”

“Shenanigans?” Thomas offered.

“Ridiculous words, ridiculous people…,” Odis laughed. “The cows are cool, but the rest of your world is just a mess of weird, huh?”

The humans didn’t respond, though given any thought, they couldn’t have refuted the Galley anyway.

Sixer and Mace stood at their work table, the terminal screen running thousands of lines of code a second. Thomas would’ve loved to comb through it given the chance, but now wasn’t the time.

“Twins!” he called over, “Got it up and going?”

“Almost, Human Thomas,” Sixer replied.

“Hello, Security Chief Ducane,” Mace greeted.

“Yeah, hi guys,” Danny said. “I hear you all have been working a little side project?”

The two Padrino turned to each other and each gave a quick burst of machine speak before turning back to face them.

“Human Thomas, do you believe it is time to inform the ship’s command structure of our findings?”

“You could say that, yeah,” Thomas nodded.

“Good, because we have finished preparations. We simply need the tool you made up and to see if the sweeper program retrieves any data.”

Thomas patted down his coveralls before fishing the nano-wrench from his inner pocket. He handed the tool to Sixer, who turned back to the table and made the final adjustments.

“Moment of truth, I guess,” he said.

“You realize I’m going to be extremely pissed if you got me down here and all worked up for nothing,” Danny said pointedly.

“Understood… sir,” Thomas swallowed hard.

The computer ran its program, thousands, hundreds of thousands of lines of code fluttering across the screen, the Padrino’s speed was impressive to say the least. They definitely had to teach him that sometime.

After a minute of them staring at the terminal in silence, the screen showed a resounding-

“Nothing?” Thomas and Danny said in unison.

“Correct,” Sixer said.

“Unfortunately,” continued Mace, “the translators are not equipped with enough memory storage to log something the size of a communications transmission.”

“So we’ve got nothing?” Thomas said, hands clenched at his sides. He didn’t know what he wanted the signal to be, but nothing was… incredibly unsatisfying, to say the least.

“Did you try to see recipient data?” Odis asked, eyeing the console code.

“What?” Thomas turned to him, confusion distorting the disappointment on his face.

“With the long range array, it’s got recipient data built into the message, so the thing knows who it’s going to,” Odis explained slowly. “Back in the day, we Galley used to strip data out of long range messages to find new planets to… interact with. It’s how we found the humies first, caught all those messages you kept throwing out into space.” Odis rifled through one of his side pockets and brought out something that looked like a key fob with a port on one end. He popped open a panel in the terminal and plugged it in, hitting a couple keys to sync the programs together. Thomas watched, confusion and disappointment morphing into a cautious optimism. Maybe they’d find something after all.

“And here… we… go!” Odis said smugly, triumphantly hitting the execute key. The screen rolled the code again, but this time information began loading, the computer compiling the data for them.

“And you just happen to have this… why?” Danny looked sternly in the Galley’s direction.

“If it makes you feel any better Chief, most of my free time has been spent with the kid playing Terran video games,” Odis snickered. “Don’t worry about what I’ve been up to, worry about whoever is sending messages to the GAIL High Council.”

“What the hell?” Danny exclaimed, leaning over the console to examine the data.

Sure enough, they couldn’t recover any of the message, the data was just too big for the little device to have caught any. However, Odis’s tracer did show that whatever the signal was, it had gone straight to someone by the name of Mons on the High Council of the Grand Assembly of Intelligent Lifeforms.

“Chief, what the hell are we looking at?” Thomas asked, for the first time actually realizing that something could be deeply, darkly wrong on the ship.

“This doesn’t make any sense, communications can’t go directly to the Council, not without going through Captain Skitch and me,” Danny kept looking at the screen, rereading the data from start to finish, over and over again, before pulling out his data pad and copying all of it down, taking photos too.

“What are you doing?” Sixer asked.

“Making sure whatever we have here, there’s multiple copies so we can’t lose any proof later.”

“Do you suspect there’s another agenda aboard this ship Chief Ducane?” Mace followed.

“… I sincerely hope not, but either way, none of this ever happened. Not a single one of you saw any of this, okay? Nothing and no one,” Danny looked at each of them in turn, making sure they understood his meaning, “is going to hear about any of this. And when I call any of you to my office, it’s double time, understood?”

“You got it Chief,” Thomas said immediately, the others following suit, but with much less gusto.

“Beep.”

[Task: protect Noah in progress]

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The work shift ended with no more excitement, however Thomas’s heart rate hadn’t declined even a bit in the following hours. The idea that something could threaten the ship, his ship, the ship he’d almost died for already, filled him with some very mixed emotions, not the least of which was apprehension. It did reassure him that Chief Ducane seemed like a good guy, and that he wasn’t going to take any disciplinary measures against the worker crew for anything, but the idea that they could be called on to actually do something was daunting.

Walking to the mess hall, Thomas realized he’d never actually made any of the requested repairs to Danny office. He pulled a comm-link out of his back pocket and sent a quick “sorry, I’ll be right there to fix the door” text, but was alarmed at what the Chief of Security replied almost instantly.

>Someone searched my office while cameras were out of commission. Nothing is missing. They took advantage of the door being jammed and unlocked<

Another message:

>Don’t come up here, it’ll look suspicious for the both of us. I’ll make another request tomorrow. Tell your friends to be careful, and come to me immediately if you see anything at all<

Thomas shakily put the comm-link back in his pocket and headed back towards the Vending Machines. He saw Odis sitting in the corner and joined him after getting his food.

“You ever think someone in the GAIL could do something pretty bad?”

“What, you think you humans have a monopoly on being kind of shitty?” Odis snorted. “You’re not that weird, you know.”

[xoxochb]

hey girl!

binged a few of ur works this morning lol (sleep? never heard of her) and kinda sorta very much may have slightly fallen in love with apollo. i blame u /j

anyhows in case ur taking reqs atm (sorry if u dont) id like if u please some domestic fluffiness of my boi and his mortal wife (she chooses to remain mortal. its a bridge theyll burn when they get there)

feel more than free to add angst muehehehe (like him watching her in the garden and thinking of the misfortune hes had with all those hes loved in the past. tears are shed and promises are made)

tysm and take care :D

*also, reader here is sort of a foil to apollo; level headed practical down to earth but no less loving and caring. shes like a budding flower in that shes reticent and aloof but to those who know her well, little is sweeter than time spent her company.

so sorry if this is too detailed lol theyre all ideas so do what u want and enjoy!

— half return

warnings: slight angst, redeeming fluff, also I’m not good at gardening so bear with my here, short ish?? pairing: apollo x mortal/wife! reader a/n: I’m always taking requests angel don’t worry :)

It was nearly unreal, the sight of you. despite your sunburnt skin and floral sundress were veiled in all kinds of dirt and various weeds or plants, your beloved husband, watching from your porch, thought you had never looked more ethereal in this messy state. you pick another bunch of flowers and begin placing them one by one into the dirt, making sure after it will swallow the stem to keep them in place

It’s almost inevitable, the thoughts, every small glance to a simple plant brings him back to his variety of failed relationships; daphne, hyacinth, cassandra, et cetera (the list goes on forever). the memory… the switch from human form to plants, with daphne a tree and hyacinth a flower (you’d made sure never to plant those in your garden to be cautious of the reassuring trauma). he only prays to every god or goddess he knows that you won’t end the same way, dead or plant. you were too sacred, too special, I mean seriously, when has anyone ever seen a god settle down with just one person, let alone a mortal at that? slim to literally never. until now. and the other olympians teased him for letting a mortal of anyone have such an affect over him— a god. he ignored the teased though, and married you anyways

too caught up in his worrisome thoughts, apollo fails to realize that you had stood from your cross crossed sitting position, far enough so you could admire your work. a soft smile adorns your mouth, eyes twinkling at the sight of your handiwork. you walk back over to the flowers where you had left your tools, taking off your dirt-covered gloves and placing them in your bucket before looping the handle around your arm and heading up the stairs of your porch where you place down the bucket. then, with a wider (and probably more intimate) you sit down on the porch swing beside your husband

your tranquil voice is the first to break the silence, “lost in thought, my love?”

yes. “I just just watching you”

“like a creep?”

apollo let’s put a melodic laugh, pulling you to sit atop his lap. “if admiring my wife was to be a crime then I would imprison myself”

“silly” you laugh and peck his lips, then in your palms he sees a purple flower saved from your garden “for you”

he takes it gently from your hands. “for me?”

you nod happily. “It’s a heliotrope. it symbolizes eternal love”

oh, it’s like you were reading— stop everything. “eternal?”

“yes” you confirm “I have a book, I showed you once do you remember? it’s that big one with the white spine. it has the language of the flowers, names, what they symbolize, it even tells you the best time to plant them. I mean, what season to plant them in, it’s really cool, honestly, do you remember it? I already asked that… but—”

your ramble is cut off my soft lips against your own, ultimately stopping any coherent thought from being processed. for a moment you stay like that, and very slowly (like, a snail could slide a mile in this time) you pull away, and with lips still against each other, apollo assures, “I remember, darling”

꣑ৎ if you enjoyed then reblogs would be greatly appreciated! my requests are currently: open if you have any <3

[quitesins]

Pro Hero!Bakugou x Criminal!Reader 2

Masterlist | Part One

Tags: Sfw, Drabble?, Pro Hero!Bakugou, Criminal!Reader, Female!reader, Reader has short hair, reader’s hair can be carded through, Mentions of dried blood [in hair], this is kinda gross 😭

Another scenario in the same universe as this drabble, not chronologically linked but better to read the first one, since I forwent adding the contextualising details on this one…

“Can I take these?”

You’re in his office, twirling around some scissors he’s told you multiple times to put down already.

“So you can go out and gut someone in the street? Piss off.” Dynamight takes the scissors from you himself, setting them back on his desk like you won’t just grab it again.

“No.” You of course do reach out for the scissors. You’re hesitant to say why, the words coming out in murmur. “…wanna cut my hair.”

“What?” Dynamight prods.

You repeat yourself, sinking further into your clothes.

Dynamight stills where he’d been typing away, his head turns to give you a look over. He’d seen you so often in the past months, the growth of your hair snuck up on him too. But it is distinctly longer. Enough so that it pushes out your hoodie and curls around your cheeks. He could probably tuck it behind your ears if he wanted.

“It grew.” Dynamight says plainly.

“Yeah no shit.” You snatch the scissors quickly. Dynamight notes how visceral your reaction is. “So can I take them?”

“You just gonna hack at it?” His eyes don’t leave how tightly you hold onto the scissors, like it means something more than just a tool to get the hair out your face.

“Yeah, so?”

Dynamight presses his tongue to the inside of his cheek in thought. He sighs, having already made his decision.

“Sit down.” Up from his seat he ushers you to the one across his desk. You don’t listen, confused and wary. “I ain’t gonna get you, sit.”

You take seat, disliking that he now stands behind you. Your fingers are still harsh around the scissors so when he reaches out, he has to practically pry them before you remember to let go.

“Take your hood off.”

You turn and give him a scowl, but pull the hood down anyways. Your hair feels a mess and you’re scared it’s matted in the places you’ve let it grow too long. You wonder if Dynamight thinks you’re disgusting for it.

“Gonna touch your hair, aight?” Dynamight doesn’t sound anymore pissed than he normally does, the familiar gruffness comforting.

When his hands touch your hair, you sense it instantly. It’s uncomfortable and vulnerable and you feel stupid for even sitting down. Still, you let him inspect it, trying your best to show no weakness.

“You’ve got blood in it.”

“What?” You flip round too fast, before he can let go, so it tugs when you turn. You frown.

“Dumbass.” He snorts, showing you the dried blood that scratched off onto his fingers. “The fuck do you have blood in your hair for.”

Dynamight watches as your eyes shift in thought and worry.

“It’s not yours.” If it was, he’d drag you to the infirmary himself. Dynamight might not like you, but he is still a hero.

“I’m not sure.” You really aren’t. It could be anyone’s at this point. You just want it off. “Cut it.”

Dynamight scoffs and pushes the scissors so it slides further down his desk. You’ll have to get up if you want it. “Just wash it out. M’not ruining your hair over a little blood.”

“Stop touching it!” It’s a childish shriek when he pulls more from your hair. “It’s gross!”

“It’s in your hair.” Dynamight continues to comb it out, letting it fall to his office floor. You’ve seen him covered in blood and grime, soaked in it, but for some reason you feel embarrassed to let him touch the dirt form you. “Fucking nasty.”

You try to pull away but his large hand is on your shoulder. There’s something terrifying about how easily he keeps you in place.

It mildly hurts when Dynamight tugs at your hair, untangling the knots that you can hear come apart. You can tell he’s being gentle though, which makes you worry a little more.

It takes a few minutes for his fingers to be able to card through your hair. Not fully as you hiss when the smaller knots get caught, but his hands no longer pull your entire head when they move.

Dynamight lets out a contented hum, a weird sound that feels quietly smug, and pulls away to reach for some wipes on his desk. He throws you one and when it lands on your face he doesn’t hide his amusement.

“It’s a shower.” With his hands occupied, he uses his chin to nod to the second door in his office. “Get that shit out your hair.” He’s already walking over to the cupboard where he keeps his towels, not giving you chance to disagree. “I’ll cut it for you.”

It takes a second for your brain to catch up, you’re curious when you look up at him. “You know how to cut hair?” You look over his own. Through all his chaotic blonde spikes, it does somehow look uniform.

“Let someone else touch my shit? Fuck no.” Dynamight huffs like it’s something obvious and throws you the towel. He points to the bathroom door a final time. “Now, go.”

———

When you leave through the fire escape, dropping down to the shaded street below, your hair is much shorter, almost buzzed. It’s cold. But this time the biting air of winter feels like a blessing on your skin.

Was this mildly inspired by the fact I got a tiny bit of nail polish in my hair and it was a fucking chore to get out? No, of course not.

[lexicorp]

Transformers Earthspark: Another Place, Another Prison

Got another chapter where it switches from Megs to Star, although they don't actually interact again yet this time lol. This one ended up being pretty long, and I split a section that was originally in this chapter off into its own. Cuz i hadn't planned Meg's section in my first outline, but it felt p necessary to add.

Megs is a bit salty, Prowl kinda wants to do a moida, Optimus is an optimistic bean, and Starscream is fucking tired of all this shit-

I swear dude it is getting increasingly hard to decide on screenshots for these chapters-

Previous Chapter: A Broken Boogeyman

First Chapter: The Need For Read

Next Chapter: Settling Into Circumstance

Chapter 8: The Illusion of Freedom

Once they had finally managed to tranquilize Starscream through his absurd amount of flailing, Megatron had carried his mangled frame to the medbay. Arcee was seen to by Wheeljack first, of course. Megatron had found himself on auto pilot as he watched and waited until he could finally release the seeker from his periodically tense hold. 

Soon enough, Elita-1 took Arcee to a separate room to lie down, and Megatron carefully approached to place Starscream on the medberth. Leaked Energon dripped from Megatron’s servos and spotted the ground. He stared down at it. Then back at Starscream.

“Are you alright, Megatron?” Optimus’ servo was suddenly upon his shoulder and he flinched.

“Ah– Yes. Yes of course…” He responded with a gentle brushing away of the attempt at comfort from the sentimental mech. Megatron’s gaze flickered only momentarily to address the question before falling back upon the air commander. The sparking, practically entirely severed, crushed limb. The scorched, leaking chasm in the wing. Every dent, crack, and burn.

“Would you like to be given a quick check at least? You took quite the blow yourself–”

“No.” Megatron snapped a bit too forcefully with a hand raised to silence him, then in-vented in a practiced means at cooling his nerves. “Starscream requires such attention more than I, at the moment.”

Wheeljack shrugged as he turned back towards the medberth with newly acquired materials. “Alrighty then. Might I ask y’all what ol’ Screamer did ta get this banged up?” 

“How about you focus on your work instead of bothering yourself with such details, medic.” Megatron forcefully kept his tone as monotone as he could. He often tired of how needlessly talkative the Autobots could be. There was no reason to talk about such things after it had already been done. How would describing just how Starscream had severed his own ped from his frame, in some insane act of desperation, possibly aid in repairing it? 

Prowl looked as if he was ready to berate him for the comment for some reason or another. He was only stopped by Optimus inserting himself between them with his more softly toned criticism, “I know you are concerned Megatron, but do refrain from lashing out at your team. Perhaps you should take a seat, and we all may discuss the past hour’s events.”

Megatron’s optical ridge furrowed as the frown deepened on his face. He had hardly lashed out. These mechs could be so sensitive. Even so, he knew Optimus was right. Perhaps it would be good to discuss it, to some regard. There were a good deal of things to consider, in a matter of building upon what the future would hold as a result. That must have been what Wheeljack had meant all along. Megatron’s anger had always been quite a volatile thing to balance. 

“Fine.” He inevitably relented to join Optimus and Prowl at a cluster of crates used in place of chairs. 

“Yeesh, I’d bet we could cut this tension y’all got goin’ on with the dullest knife in the bottom of my tool box.” Wheeljack commented ridiculously, but at least he was finally beginning the patch job as he should. Then, as the mech actually gave more precise focus to his work, he hummed and tapped at a few select places on Starscream’s chassis. The most noticeable being the odd red cracks extending down from the optics. “This ain’t any of your doin’ I reckon.” As he tested it with a scalpel, Starscream tensed and a reactive crimson light shone dimly from somewhere within his broken cockpit. 

Megatron’s eyes widened, “Leave that be.” He ordered, but then remembered again that it might be better to give more explanation. “...He seems to still be connected to the effects of the more chaotic side of the Emberstone. It would be wise not to test it, as we do not know what exactly triggers the episodes.”

“Did you know about this?” Prowl questioned in a rather accusatory tone.

“Only recently.”

“That is soon enough to inform your team of the obvious threat! How could you just let such a thing linger, and wait until it explodes on us?” Prowler’s stance was practically revving to jump from his seat, as he leaned forward just enough to gesture a servo in Megatron’s direction around Optimus.

Optimus of course, raised his hands placatingly to diffuse the growing situation. “Megatron informed me about what he had seen as soon as he could, Prowl. We simply underestimated what it could entail.”

Prowler immediately reeled himself in to assume a more professional posture, “I see… Well. I must admit, Optimus sir, that I also find it a bit strange that we brought such a clearly volatile Decepticon here to be repaired. Would it not just be a waste, when as soon as he’d come back online he’d no doubt cause us continued trouble? If we cannot keep him contained in the brig, and we cannot nullify whatever power he has harnessed, then it would be the most effective solution to simply terminate him.”

Megatron clenched his fists and glowered his optics. “Effective…?” He breathed in a near whisper at the absolute gall of the proposition. As an infamous Decepticon trapper, was that how this mech had orchestrated his operations during the war? Execution merely based on fear? Or an overt disregard for the lives of their enemy if they outlived their supposed usefulness, or tipped some untold scale of risk? Optimus would never allow such a thing!

Then again, the Decepticons had carried out such orders towards Autobots during the war as well. The realization made his shoulders slump as a more somber air replaced his anger. There…could be some logic in Prowl’s query, he supposed. He was certainly no mech to judge the thought, after all. 

Regardless, Megatron would not allow what he’d just witnessed to be left to become yet another regret to haunt his processor. Starscream was not beyond redemption. He was sick. There had to be something they could do. Megatron couldn’t simply toss Starscream to the Pit this time. He wouldn’t. 

“We do not terminate our prisoners.” Optimus started with an assured lilt in his tone as he kept Megatron in the edge of his vision. “Instead, we must determine an alternative approach.”

The plainly obvious statement left both Megatron and Prowl staring at the Prime silently. To Prowler’s credit, he seemed to be having a thousand thoughts running through his head in some effort to piece together the answer. Megatron only found his own thoughts rather blank. He wasn’t sure what they could do. What would be the best way to handle Starscream’s erratic nature? Not to mention the strange affliction the seeker had given himself. Who would Starscream possibly be swayed by? 

…The Terrans?

Finally, Prowler spoke up as he realized that it seemed they were all waiting for someone else to make the next move. Although only in an effort to gain some clarification from his leader. “Which would be…what, sir?” Perhaps he had become more hesitant to voice his own choice of action.

Optimus pulled a servo to his chin in a contemplative gesture, “Hm, I admit I am a bit unsure in that regard.”

“Well, if ya ask me, the only other place we really have in the matter of alternative accommodations would be with those Malto’s.” Wheeljack contributed whilst still amidst his tinkering. An admittedly impressive feat. “Now I know it may seem a bit risky to let our con commander here ‘round the kids, but I’m sure we all know how capable they can be.”

“Oh, yes, perhaps some access to the outdoors could aid Starscream after being cooped up for so long. Like what I was telling you earlier, Megatron!” Optimus motioned to him with a flick of his antennae and a grin as if he alone had come to that revelation. Megatron couldn’t help but give a small, fond smile at the mech.

Prowler took in a long breath, oddly similar to Megatron’s own methods at stabilizing himself, and realigned his previously lost optics to be flat, and rather resigned. “I will trust your judgment.” Then he stood with a new pace of determination on his faceplate. “However, if we will indeed be proceeding with such a course of action, I will insist on precautionary measures.”

“I’d expect nothing less.” Optimus watched his tactician rummage through their supplies, with a newfound gleam of hope in his eyes. Then, he turned his attention to Megatron, “What do you think? Do you believe this approach could work?”

He hesitated a moment as he pondered over his words, “Well… the thought did come to my own mind, in passing. Starscream had shown some strange fondness towards the Terrans… at least Hashtag, to my knowledge. Despite what he had done. She had been able to bring out something within him once. I do not doubt it possible again.”

Optimus nodded and followed Megatron’s wandering gaze towards the seeker. Wheeljack had just about finished smoothing out the patch on the wing, and was now arranging to replace the cracked cockpit. Did repairs always take this long? 

“I will contact Bumblebee to get him up to speed on the new arrangement.” Optimus announced as he took to his peds and made his way towards the door.

“Hm, yes.” Megatron ceased his anxious tapping and stood to join him. “I will call Dorothy. She will no doubt have some grievances to be quelled about the idea.” 

The medbay door closed behind them, and they each took to their own spot in the hall to make their calls. Megatron placed a digit to his helm and sent the signal to Dorothy’s cell. His comm played a little rhythmic tune of sorts as he waited for a response. It was just as mundanely aggravating as the concept of elevator music. He should really disconnect that silly feature.

Finally, Dorothy’s voice came through with her signature greeting, “What’s up Megs?”

“Hello, Dorothy. There is something we must discuss as a result of a recent development. Regarding Starscream.” Megatron was relieved to hear his friend's voice, yet also knew just how precarious this conversion was bound to become.

“That right?” She of course quickly caught on to the anxious air. 

“Yes, he had tried to escape, and…it was quite the spectacle. He was just about ready to die before allowing himself to return to his cell. I admit, it was rather startling. So, we have come to the decision that perhaps time elsewhere could serve him better.” Megatron tapped his finger against the railing as he attempted to filter his thoughts, and prepare for her response to them. “Under the supervision of you and your family.”

“Really now? Are you honestly telling me that the best idea you’ve got, is to send that maniac here, around my kids? Megs…”

“I know…But I do believe your children to be the exact influence he needs. As it has been, his mental state has only seemed to worsen which only aids to increase the danger he poses. We can’t simply send him back to the brig where he just may as well do something foolish.”

“You’re worried about him.” They both remained quiet for a moment. He wasn’t sure if he could admit it, but she understood as she so often did. Dorothy sighed, obviously still unsure, but willing to relent nevertheless. “Okay. If you’re sure. I’ll discuss it with the rest of them. But you’ll have to promise me–that bot won’t ever be allowed to hurt any of my babies again. Got that? You have a plan, don’t you?”

“Yes. I promise.”

***

Everything ached. That wasn’t exactly new. Although the lingering pain in a peculiar corner in his spark was certainly…something.

Starscream groaned as his systems struggled to come back online with at the very least, adequately functional sensors. Sound was garbled like a horribly received connection that he needed to internally adjust until it could make any form of sense. When he tried to begin onlining his optics, it was revoltingly bright, and he had to once again filter through his settings to find something tolerable. 

Where was he? 

What had happened?

…Why couldn’t he move? 

A gripping fear suddenly strangled his spark as he realized that he couldn’t bring his servo to his faceplate, and his wings felt far too cramped as they were pressed against some constricting surface. 

Starscream pulled at the clamps holding him firmly in place. Not again. He was not going to be those humans’ robotics projects. He desperately cycled his optics to try and make sense of his surroundings. He could hear the steps and chaotic chatter of those vermin all around him. There was equipment beside him. What were they going to do this time? Whatever it was, he wasn’t going to lay there and take it. 

An oddly large shadow loomed over him with extending servos. Mandroid’s voice echoed in his audials, “Struggle all you like. But it will not change your fate.”

Starscream yanked painfully against the brace on his wrist until a burst of energy allowed him to break it and throw a punch at the offending silhouette. He wanted to shout some deserved obscenities at the pest, but his voice box wouldn’t work. When his fist connected with metal, he assumed he’d simply been blocked, which infuriated him. That fissure in his spark stabbed through his frame, and he began to shake ridiculously. What was that? Wait. His free servo was stuck again. And his digits were being individually bent in some odd pattern, for some reason.

Then, he started to hear a voice he hadn’t heard in quite some time, calling his designation. “--Scream, Starscream! Hey, c’mon, what’s goin’ on in that crazy processor of yours? Calm down will ya?” Wheeljack? Why was he here?

Starscream blinked. Something wasn’t right. He tried his best to steady his vents as he focused on the ridiculous sensation the mech insisted on inflicting on his servo. Eventually, he could finally make out the white, red, and green overseeing him. As well as a second pair of Autobots across the room. Prowl, and the Prime. 

Right. This was the Autobot base. Not G.H.O.S.T.'s.

Well that was embarrassing. 

Starscream’s wings twitched, as much as they could given his position. Wheeljack looked some type of determined. A reflexive response no doubt. Prowl looked a mix of surprised and appalled, it was actually quite hilarious– except that Prime’s stupid face ruined it. He didn’t need nor want that self-righteous mech’s pity. 

“Ya with us there Screamer?” Wheeljack asked more directly as he finally began to release Starscream’s servo. 

He stared at him, confused and a bit annoyed. Had he not already given them a response? What sort of question was that?

Ah, apparently it would seem as though his vocalizer was still on the fritz. Starscream raised a servo as indication that he needed a moment as he recalibrated his voice box. This was pathetic. 

When he only managed to sputter beeps and clicks, red sparks flared off him angrily a moment as he punched his chassis until the words could be forced out. Wheeljack chastised him for it, but frag him. “WHAT–” Starscream adjusted his volume– “What, is going on here?” Had they really brought him to their technician after he’d almost escaped? That seemed absurd. Perhaps they’d implanted a remote explosive somewhere in his frame.

“Well, I fixed ya up, added Prowl’s little boot, and those two got a deal for ya. Sorry ‘bout the restraints.” Wheeljack began to release him from the medberth. None of this was answering his question. “We weren’t sure if ya’d go immediately ballistic or somethin’ when ya woke up.”

Prowl crossed his arms. “I’d say we were certainly right to do so.”

As Starscream stood, he just about stumbled with a wave of disorientation, but skillfully used it to transition into a snarky servo to a tilted hip. “Of course.” He glared at them until he noticed how one of his peds felt heavier than it should, and lifted it to complain. “But what on Cybertron is this, for?” Then he remembered Wheeljack’s previous statement and straightened himself with an air of guarded curiosity. “And what is this about a deal?”

“That,” Prowl gestured to the ugly, boxy device attached to Starscream’s ped, “Is insurance. All you need to know, is that if you try anything with that power of yours, that device will render you imobile.”

“It tracks your sparkbeat, power surges, fun stuff like that.” Wheeljack listed on a pair of digits, which Prowl didn’t seem too happy about. “I promise it won’t blow up or nothin’!” Coming from this mech, such a promise hardly meant anything. 

“Yes, you have my utmost confidence, Wheeljack.” Starscream rolled his optics tiredly, then kicked his ped in a display of his distaste for the accessory. “It is entirely impractical. How do you expect me to transform with this blasted thing?!”

“Exactly.” Prowler crossed his arms with an expression void of any sympathy. Primus did his faceplate look punchable.

Starscream whined with a slight slump to his wings, before the Prime interjected himself to continue the dreadful conversation. “In regards to the deal, we have decided that you will no longer be staying in the brig.” Starscream perked at this, although couldn’t help but be skeptical. “Instead, you will stay with the Malto family.” 

That was not exactly what he was expecting. 

Starscream stared blankly at them a moment before remembering to speak, “...What will such an arrangement entail, exactly?” Surely it was some new scheme of theirs to pacify him. He didn’t trust it.

The Prime seemed oddly surprised by his response, then took a step forward, an action of which Starscream forced himself to not reactively back away from. “Well, given your obvious distress, we thought you’d benefit from the opportunity to have access to the outdoors. You could perhaps learn to appreciate what Earth has to offer. Observe how well a family made of transformers and humans can function. My hope, is that it could be your own path towards redemption alongside Megatron!”

Starscream’s faceplate scrunched in disgust at the mention of his former leader. “Redemption. Right.” Although the prospect of appreciating Earth would be laughable.

Prowler sent him a discrete glare with narrowed optics. The Prime only looked like a kicked cyberdog. Perhaps they were hoping he’d get on his knees to praise their ever expansive mercy. That he should thank them for such an offer. As if it even were one. This wasn’t a deal. It was an order. 

He in-vented steadily before preparing them a smile, and arranging a loose, confident posture as he strode towards them. “That sounds just wonderful.” He crooned in a disguised taunt as he slid by Prowl, then practically danced around the Prime. “I promise to be on my best behavior! I am truly honored that you all have decided to permit my grand exit from your lovely accommodations. Such a gracious act, that I will make certain not to let go to waste, I assure you!” Starscream led the way out of the medbay with the two bots trailing behind him. 

“You’d better not.” Prowl commented in a cute little threat as he split away from them. 

“What he means is,” The Prime began as he caught up by Starscream’s side, “This could be a very important step in us truly being able to trust you, Starscream. Which would in turn lead to the possibility of your true freedom, and permanent alliance with the Autobots, if you so choose.”

Starscream scrutinized the mech from the corner of his optic, and held his servos behind him professionally. If they actually wanted his alliship as the Prime proclaims, they would have accepted his offer back at the Titan. They’d only pulled this out of their afts now out of newly realized necessity, after the rather explosive display he’d given them. They didn’t care. They just wanted to control him. All it was is a new, creative way of containing him. They couldn’t con a con.

“Yes, I’m sure that is what he meant.” It was clear sarcasm, and yet he aligned his vocalizer to imitate pure sincerity. Well, as much as he could. 

The Prime actually looked a touch annoyed with partially lowered optical lids. How amusing. “I do urge you to take this seriously. You realize the risk involved in this.”

Starscream scoffed in half feigned offense with a servo to his chassis. “Of course I do. Do you take me for a fool?”

The Prime hesitated as if an affirmation of the rhetorical question floated just behind his intake. Rude. Regardless, they eventually came upon their first destination that consisted of a trailer, and those two Autobot femmes. That was foreboding.

“Ready when you are Optimus.” The one he recognized to be identified as Elita-1, reported stoically. 

With the uncomfortably upbeat Arcee adding, “So we’re really doing this? Y’know– you and I really should have a rematch sometime Screamer! You can’t pull a cheap shot on me twice!” She apparently saw it appropriate to approach him and throw her arm around his neck to pull his helm down close to hers. She prodded his chassis to emphasize her challenge, but the energy she exuded was beyond confusing. “I. Will. Destroy you.” There was a painful pause as her touch lingered. “But that's fun for another day!” Then she finally broke away from him to flip into her alt mode beside the trailer. 

Starscream hadn’t realized just how tense he had become until his wings flicked back into place and he chuckled anxiously. His blasted vocalizer cracked again. “Oh yes, fun! I– look forward to it…” He examined the situation before him and regarded the open trailer with contempt. Especially when the Prime began leading him towards it. “Is this–” He gestured to the metal box– “Really necessary? Surely we could simply walk-”

“Nope.” Elita-1 slapped a servo to his arm and yanked him down to be shoved inside. What was with these femmes in tossing him around! And who designed this blasted trailer! It was like being stuck in a fragging compactor.

“Apologies, Starscream, but without access to your alt form, this is the most efficient means of transportation.” The Prime said stupidly as the trailer was tilted to be adjusted onto his frame.

Starscream was sealed inside this absurdly small containment for obviously no more reason than their own amusement. His wings were pulled in tightly with mere centihics between him and the walls. There was absolutely no, fragging, way, to get comfortable in the slagging thing. The walls were too close. The most he could do was have one knee lifted halfway with one servo placed upon it while he leaned at an awkward slant so he didn’t ram his helm on the top. He felt stupid. It was too slagging cramped in this mistake of manufacturing.

Primus Starscream wished Skywarp and Novastorm had destroyed it when they’d had the chance. He was certainly going to make it his first act of justified pettiness on these Auto-glitches, to blow it into melting slag the nano-klick he got his missiles back.

[spirit-lanterns]

I feel like. The majority of the Androids won’t have compatible parts of you know where I mean. There’s like. Literally nothing down there. Like a Barbie. And maybe. There’s an Android that ends up with Engineer that can get into her online stuff (computer, relevant accounts, etc) to order relevant parts. Maybe someone who can hack(?) if they know how to because it’s their original job before ending up with Engineer. But I don’t think we need to even go that far because it probably would be relatively easy to get Engineers password to her stuff from even just peaking over her shoulder (because Engineer doesn’t care enough that they’re looking, she doesn’t know this particular Android is self-aware, or both).

Cause I feel like, as an android engineer, she would have places to get parts from in cases where she needs to replace damaged ones.

And maybe she tends to always have lots of new parts coming in/ordered, she might not even notice the stuff the Androids snuck in to her next order.

Maybe a couple of Androids tend to help her sort through new shipments and put stuff away (cause there’s a lot) so they’re able to make off with their sneaky order without Engineer knowing.

It would be funny if they could figure out how to install the parts themselves (I’m sure there are online guides/how-to’s SOMEWHERE they can follow cause there’s no way there isn’t) (and maybe Engineer has an Android who’s job is also within the engineering realm so that makes things easier) but… it would be funnier if it’s harder than it looks cause Engineer makes fixing up the Androids seem easy.

Maybe they struggle with figuring out which tool would work for each one of them. Maybe there’s a specific tool/equipment that they need to use that Engineer would DEFINITELY notice them using and it’s not like. A small wrench they can make off with for a couple of hours.

It would be funny if they ordered the obvious parts but didn’t order the things that would actually make those parts attach properly (screws, etc. I’m not an engineer. I’m just yapping over here) or something. It would be funny if what they did order wouldn’t even work anyways without serious modifications to their current model (which basically means there’s better pieces that’ll go to how they already are. They don’t actually have to make huge adjustments. They ordered a size small shirt when they’re extra large, if that makes sense).

When Engineer inevitably finds them with their pants down (literally, mind you), surrounded by just a mess of parts and tools she’s like “what are you doing”

A: “Um-“

E: “Those won’t work.”

A: “What do you mean they won’t-“

E: “Those parts don’t even install correctly for your specific models.”

A: “Eh?”

Engineer isn’t even questioning about the… specifics of the part functions (right now, anyways. Once she’s out of ‘Engineer mode’, her brain will catch up to what she’s seen) but more of the installation.

Cue Engineer ordering the actually right parts and installing them herself. Face straight while doing it cause she’s in engineer mode and Not Thinking About It.

This is 100% a “and this is why we leave the installation and maintenance work to me” situation. It’s kinda like androids: no thoughts, head empty, engineer: the smart one (until the Androids get their hands on her. then it reverses).

Don’t bother figuring out who’s the girlfailure in this AU, Angey. Cause it’s all of them.

WOWIE. This is a very detailed and long ask, I’m pretty impressed :0

Anywho, it’s hilarious that the Android women want to fuck the Engineer so bad, they order additional “parts” (mechanical penises and vaginas) off the Engineer’s card and try to assemble it themself to surprise her. 😭😭

Unfortunately for many of them however, many of them lack the expertise in Android engineering, as they have no clue how to attach said parts to themselves without complicating things further. The only Android I can think of that would be pretty good at assembling their own parts, would be Serval. So now I’m imagining Android! Serval trying to teach and direct all the Android women on how to attach their new genitals, so they can surprise the Engineer when she gets home.

Well, things don’t go as planned because once the Engineer comes home, she just sees the Android HSR women sitting on the floor and various counter tops with their pants off, different mechanical parts scattered across the room with only Serval having successfully implemented her mechanical genitals on her own. The Engineer then proceeds to attach each and every woman’s parts correctly, and walk them through on how to do it if they wish to swap out in the future for something else.

She’s not even embarrassed because she’s entered “work mode” while attaching everyone’s parts, so the gravity of the situation doesn’t hit her until she gets in bed that night. And that’s when she realizes; “Oh my god. My Androids are planning to fuck me.”

I applaud the Engineer’s dedication to her craft, though 😅

[theresattrpgforthat]

Learning How to Play Forged in the Dark: Part 1, The Action Roll.

If you have never played a Forged in the Dark game before, picking up one can be intimidating, and that includes Protect the Child. I’ve talked about some general pieces of Forged in the Dark play before, but today I’m going to try and bridge the gap a little more by explaining the basics of the Action Roll, as well as Position and Effect.

The Action Roll.

In most Forged in the Dark games, the Action Roll consists of rolling a pool of 1-4 d6’s and looking for the highest number. Let’s look at the different outcomes.

6 = success. Multiple 6’s (Crit) are like a Nat 20 - you get the best possible outcome!

4 / 5 = partial success. You do the thing, but you also get a consequence or a cost.

1-3 = failure. You likely don’t do the thing - and the situation gets worse.

This is the basic roll for the bulk of Forged in the Dark games, and everything else stems from this rule.

Alright, now let’s talk about two axis of detail that are added to the Action Roll: Position & Effect.

Position

Position is how the GM communicates the difficulty of the thing that you, the player, are trying to do. In other words, it describes how bad things could get if you fail. There are three different Positions: Controlled, Risky and Desperate.

Controlled -> Failure is more like an annoyance, or something you could potentially avoid.

Risky -> Failure is going to suck a little.

Desperate -> Failure is going to suck a lot.

Effect

Effect is how the GM communicates the potential of success. To describe it in another way, it’s a measure of how much of your goal is achievable. There are five different levels of Effect:

None -> As is, you can’t do it.

Lesser -> You can do it… kinda.

Standard -> You can do it.

Greater -> You can do it well.

Extreme -> You can do it with the best possible result.

Position and Effect are combined to communicate to the player the stakes, as well as provide a shorthand to detail the span of possible outcomes based on the roll. The default combination is Risky/Standard - failure might suck a little, but if you succeed, you can do the thing. However, depending on the narrative situation or the rolls that have happened previously, you might be in a fire-fight with just a knife (that’s pretty Desperate), or perhaps an ally has handed you a grenade (that’s probably going to have Greater Effect).

This is a chart that indicates some of the outcomes that may happen depending on the result you get depending on your Position. The bottom row lays out the five possible Effects, and the number of ticks on a clock that they might correspond to.

On my next post, I’m going to explain how you combine Position & Effect with the tools on your character sheet. This is just a starting point - players have a lot of control over what the final outcome looks like!

If you want to start learning how to play Protect the Child, I recommend taking a look at the Google Spreadsheets linked on the store page and flipping through the character tabs. The Quickstart characters are 90% fleshed out and can give you an idea of what different character pieces can look like, and there’s a rules reference for how to roll underneath the stats for each character.

I also believe that playing is one of the easiest ways to learn, so if you want some hands on experience, hop into the playtest discord! There is at least one game happening every week designed to be easy for first-timers to hop into and give it a whirl.

If you want to read more about Forged in the Dark play, you can check out my intro to Forged in the Dark, as well as my explanation of Clocks!

[ridreamir]

How about some head cannons for blue berry academy students befriending a new student reader who turns out to be a faller? The reader is from our world and does have at least some memory loss.

And so I might have turned it into a fic and not a list of HCs... lemme know if you want me to rewrite it lol -- it was getting kinda long so this might just be a part one of two if people actually like it. If not I'll just move onto other things :p

With the multi-billion dollar project underway to extend Blueberry Academy's underwater campus, there's been an influx of new students lining up to attend the recently founded institution!

As for you who may or may not have crash-landed in Unova not long ago -you with no credentials- there's no way you could have applied to join the wave of incoming students... had it not been for a string of improbable events that tied you up in some top secret plot.

An unpredicted meteor ripped through the planet's atmosphere in the late hours of night. A burst of unusual green-blue energy had not only been visible to the naked eye, but it set off all the satellite radars in the region. And what stumbled out of the impact zone was the most unlikely part of the story.

... Where... were you? Did you... fall asleep again? Opening your eyes, the cold midnight wilderness flashed alight with an eerie aurora floating close to the ground. The dust was settling, but instead of dispersing into the dirt, it'd been floating up back toward the clear starflecked sky. The surrounding field stood littered with broken shards of... something. They'd been decaying into twinkling flakes light enough to float off the ground — and being that it was pitch black, the only light you had to see was quickly dispersing from the stripped soil and clumps of torn up grass. Once they'd burnt the last of their light, it had left you nothing but one last gentle light source. Registering the mysterious shimmering crystal not far from your face, you sat up, with no proper sense of how you'd got there or what it had been doing on top of you. You must've walked for miles with it in your arms before passing out from exhaustion.

...

You're really asleep again. You tried to cry out, open your eyes. Nothing happened. You tried to feel your fingertips, your breath in and out of your nose. Where is your body? Nothing... happened. The shell forming around you kept out the melded together white silhouettes, but it also kept you in. But a woman burst through the doors, and you couldn't make out here face as she yelled at them to stop. No, all you could make out was the familiar pattern of her earrings. "Can't you see that you can't drill through this?!" She pushed them out of the way, standing between you and their stainless steel tools. "You'll do nothing but hurt the both of them!"

. There's some illegible message displayed on the device you hold in your hands. You look down at it, not remembering what you were doing before.

You can't make out any of the details anymore, but you're unable to look away as you hear the sound effect from pressing the A-button. The symbols warp into familiar letters. You suddenly feel a slightly overshadowing presence behind you. At last, comprehensible text materializes.

"And so you have returned with some pretense of self awareness. Not as you were before, however."

You press the A-button again. "More a shell of what you once were... Something I lament to say likely cannot be reversed." A-button. "Nay, you are not the you that I once knew." You... press it again. "..." It does not speak, so you press it again.

And again.

"I am at a loss as to whether I should mourn a past that has faded into obscurity or feel at peace knowing that you are as ever-changing as the world you left in my charge." You press the button one more time, but the voice seems to hesitate for a moment, thinking of what next to say.

". . . "

"Regardless, I have been awaiting your return for a very long time."

.

.

.

Better to get up and put on your tacky school uniform now than fall back asleep and wait to be dragged out from your boring old dorm room by the scruff.

Being taken as a test subject in the most remote middle-of-the-ocean facility felt more like being held prisoner than enrolling in school. Your homeroom teacher, Ms. Briar, had served as a reminder that the muddy flashes of memories you had of being encased in a living crystal were, in fact, real. She seems to know a lot about the creature you woke up holding, but next to nothing about you. While still mildly annoyed by her poking and prodding, you've warily come to accept that her endless curiosity is not out of cruelty. She is... respectful toward you. Not of your boundaries, but she's fascinated with you in a mild manner that does not immediately endanger your safety. Speaking of, as you sat down and slung your bag over the desk chair, Terapagos came tumbling out, clinking clumsily against the floor. "Aaa-" It cried, stuck on its back. Or, well, not it. He. You quickly scooped him up and set him back on his legs. He's looking up at you, nudging your shoe with his head. His unusually large eyes sparkle as he stares with unmatched innocence, waiting for you to bend over and pick him up. Which you do, knowing the pink haired girl that sits a few rows behind you is vibrating in her seat. "Cute... so cute..." She's mumbling under her breath. Ever since you 'enrolled' she'd done nothing but stare at your companion, which he seemed to find uncomfortable if the pulling at your shoelace wasn't enough to convey that fact. "Alright, little guy, alright. I'm on it." You huff, gently plucking him off the ground with two hands. He cries out in joy and she suddenly clutches her heart, falling backward out of her seat.

...

Nobody here talks to you. Not because they haven't tried, but because every attempt has been met with you either pretending you hadn't heard them or getting up and walking out the classroom. All Briar had to do was take the attendance. They couldn't necessarily threaten you into forced bonding with others. No, your real confinement was having to go into the terrarium and complete menial tasks for the equivalent of money just so you could buy food and school supplies. You didn't even want to be here, you just didn't have anywhere better to go. Apparently they just wanted to protect you for the time being, but there's no way in hell you'd believe that's why they sent you into glorified solitary confinement in the middle of the ocean. Everyone else had permission to come and go whensoever they pleased.

No, your only equals here were your few Pokemon friends. The researchers might've claimed to be keeping your friends in the terrarium for the sake of their health and the preservation of the outside world it mimicked, but you'd never believe in their so called pure intentions. No, this was a pretty little garden for outsiders looking in, and a cage too small for ornate living decorations like you.

Terapagos had been your only one constant since day one, and he was wary of most other people. You trusted his judgement the most. Most other people. The lunch ladies were apparently the saints of the Pokemon world. The food staff are genuinely kind, and Terapagos is a fiend for all types of Pokemon confections you're quickly learning. They've told you that most Pokemon have a taste preference, but not your special little pal, though the poor thing had such a tiny stomach that does not match his monstrous appetite at all.

There's one other person Terapagos had once been intent on pestering in at the cafeteria, but was quickly distracted by another helping of berries and whipped cream.

Compliments to the hardworking Alcremie in the kitchen, they were the only ones who could truly keep his menace at bay... You were endlessly thankful for the distraction, anyway. You wouldn't have known what to do if he'd marched right on up to the four of them chatting amongst themselves over lunch. Red haired dude. Pink haired girl. Scary four eyes. Annoying dragon jerk. Everyone knew who they were. Those were the most problematic trainers in all the Academy.