#we all do our best but we're fighting a MUCH bigger machine

[quilliums]

It's not lazyness it's a fatal case of 'I don't want to be gunned down in the street disease'

Hope that helps✌️

Meanwhile in France:

[arithecreatorsstuff]

We Need To Talk About SCP 076-2, Or the Abel Protocol, Revised

Triggers: plotting, sarcasm, joke gifts, office humor SCP Foundation style

After the hottest shower I can stand, Iris and I get to work on the cookies. After about an hour, the last of the ginormous batch is cooling, I'm washing the dishes, and Iris is drying. It's terribly domestic, a nice change from the job. We take a moment to relax and sample our results like good scientists do.

"Gotta admit, I think I like baking with you. You know the best recipes." Iris is grinning.

"Believe it or not, my dad is the baker in my family. He works in a little bake shop back home. Folks come for miles for his cream puffs. He taught me a lot. I still suck at yeast breads though. Mine come out like paving stones. Pretty sure the next time someone gets smart, they might just get a Parker House roll to the noggin." We both laugh.

"If they're as tough as you say, that might just even take the fight out of Abel."

"Hey, nothing's perfect." I start boxing up Clef's share.

"We regret to inform you, all individuals involved with the SCP 076-2 incident are ordered to report to Doctor Martin's office in 15 minutes for debriefing. This is not optional, Doctor Clef." Figures. More boring office drivel.

"Should probably just bring the whole damn batch."

"There's like 6 dozen cookies, Rabbit."

"Think of it this way, Sis. We're about to be really popular."

"Being popular here is literally like being allowed to sit at the Cool Kids Table in the asylum."

"But with less chance of Keter Duty. I shot an anomaly. Life or death situation or not, I'm facing a month straight of it just for that. Plus, who knows what else for ordering everyone out. I broke the Rules. Now, let's get these boxed so I can face the music."

Cookies boxed, we head to Doctor Martin's. We're greeted by Clef and Bob, who takes a few of the boxes off my hands.

"The hell is in these things?"

"Let's just say Rabbit and I brought snacks. We agreed on two dozen cookies for Doctor Clef, but we kinda went overboard. Hope you like double chocolate chunk cookies." Bob does a double take.

"Wait... you shoot one of our angriest anomalies in the chest, then go bake cookies with Iris?" I nod. "You did shower first, right?"

I glare at him, and we walk in.

"Agent Rabbit. Heard you've been busy. And why all the boxes?"

"I thought since I fucked up I should try to bribe Site Command into leniency. Cookie, Doctor Martin?"

"Since 076-2 was out of control, you're not in as much hot water as you suspect. You're still on Keter Duty for a week, but it's largely a symbolic punishment from O5. However, I will accept the cookie." She opens the box, takes out a single cookie, and passes the box around. "That being said... we need to talk about SCP 076-2." Dr. Martin adjusts her glasses. "I'm sorry you had to shoot Abel, Rabbit. But, it wasn't your fault. It was Bob's for getting that close. From now on, unless training, testing, or he goes rogue, no one is to get near 076-2. Also, I think his quarters need a security upgrade. I want 50 caliber machine guns mounted at one end of his hall, enclosed in lucite. These guns are to be manned at all times. Can we get a laser grid too? Or is that out of budget?" One of the Accounting guys checks the figures and nods. "Laser grid, knockout gas... whatever it takes, we can't let 076-2 go off. Again. Agreed?" Everyone in the room nods. "Rabbit, Iris, you two are the closest to him. You're first responders if Abel breaches again. Talk before shooting. If everything goes south, you two just call. MTFs will be there in a minute. Okay, meeting over. One last thing, Agent Rabbit." Bob produces a white box, a bit bigger than a standard shoebox. He hands it to me. "Uh... Doctor Bright sent this for you. I'd be afraid to open it if I were you."

"Rabbit the Badass? She's invincible, Doc." Clef jokingly punches my shoulder. "Girl faces down dangerous enemies then bakes cookies. Truly a woman not to be messed with. Go on, open it."

I sigh, lean as far back as I can, and open the lid. No pranks... yet. Just white tissue paper. I reach in, and encounter something... fuzzy. Plushie fuzzy. I pull out a pair of white bunny slippers, and laugh like a lunatic. These are no ordinary bunny slippers. No, Jack Bright has given me the Killer Rabbit slippers from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Iris sees them, and starts laughing too. There's a note from Dr. Bright.

"Heard about your exploits. These seem very appropriate, wear them in good health. By the way, nice one with the jelly beans. Hugs, Dr. Bright."

And the next day, 999 and I bring Dr. Bright a care package of cookies. I wore the slippers. They're really comfy, but a bit warm.

Author's note: I always wanted those damned slippers, just never found them.

[robot-diver-and-poison-punk]

Looking for ore Part 4

{ a video attached and plays as wydro, roya, Shoveclaw, and Liam are deep within pyrite cave. it was dark and bigger than it was before tunnel wise, with sightlines being barely visible. a rhyperior and a lokix are infront of the group at guard shove claw speaks up as a rapid beeping sound is heard

"the readings of where the ore is are getting much stronger now. we're very close by!"

"Fuckin finally." roya said as she carried her mechanical staff with a annoyed tone to her voice, "the fact we had to go through a earth quake and 18 other guys who want this stuff is really starting to take a damn toll on us."

"especially for me after i had to blast a man with literal still water, which mind you was not a good thing for my internals [ERROR] to do"

Wydro added as their rusted parts floated raggedly across the floor. the cave tunnels were getting little light aside from the ones that wydro and shoveclaw, and human trainers have on them. Liam responded to wydro 's concerning statement.

"then I reckon we best hurry. I doubt that this peace is going to last with us bein very close to our reasonin' of being ere."

Without any words or anything interesting aside from them all continuing to go to the deep end of the cave... You decided to skip the video for a couple minutes, then resumed with you seeing the small party in a confrontation with a large group of thugs. some of them are already defeated as they're piled up on their own pokemon or just lying on the floor. in the back ground theres seems to be a enormous shadowy object of sorts in the background. though it was hard to see it fully as the fighting took attention as of now

"Keystone, Taifu execute double hi jump kick!"

as soon as wydro gave the command the scarf wearing duo wasted no time kicking a poor Ursaring into the floor dragging them into the wall with it respective trainer moving out of the way as the bear pokemon crashed into the cave walls and the kicking duo jumped away.

"Alia use brick break on the Onix, Petrol hydro pump their asses!"

Meanwhile with Roya's mega beedrill, alia brings down her arm needle ontop of the onix's head causing it to collapse and become unable to fight, at the same time the Dragalge was blasting a hydro pump towards a group of pokemon ranging to a flareon to a zangoose. a female goon wearing a hood tried to rush up towards her with a bowie knife in hand, however was promptly met with metal staff to the face before she gotten any closer to the teal haired hybrid

"DIE BEE BITCH!!!"

"THE FUCK- THESE GUYS DO NOT END!!!" Roya complained as she ducked from a pick axe tossed at her head, and before she went to look at the perp responsible, one of her pokeballs opened to reveal a Weavile who was already lunging towards the poor sap off screen "Just how many of these crazies are there?!"

"Shove how much of the ore did ya and yer Aggron get?!" Liam shouted as his Ryhperior smacked a Fearow into the ceiling with stone edge

"NOT MUCH! AND A BIT BUSY WITH MY OWN ISSUE MERROWW!!"

Meanwhile with the mining Android and her Aggron, both are currently weathering a rock slide and stone edge directed toward them. Liam Clicked his lips in irritation as Wydro shouts

"This is getting out of hand, i worry that we'll get overwhelmed by sheer numbers!"

"Gee thanks for the obvious water bucket!!!!"

"Now's not the time for this you too!!!" shovclaw complained

As the two bickered in the battleground, orange colored lights began to appear on the huge object as the loud whirring of drills and machinery filled the whole cave quarry as everyone stopped from their current action to look at the source of the noise and lights. Before anyone realized it the ground began to shook as the large machine began to change and shift its form, causing a large portion of those

"WHAT IS HAPPENING?!?!" Roya shouted as she desperately tried to keep her footing

"I RECKON WE FOUND OUR TUNNELER- AND SOURCE OF ALL OF THESE EARTHQUAKES!!!" Liam responded to her cry of alarm as he and his pokemon were looking onto the scene. rocks and some of the Tritdentium ore began to fall loose from the ceiling as the machine began to take form of a bipedal figure with smoke stacks on the head, drills on the shoulders, and a pair of caterpillar treads on the legs. lastly a orange triangle glows on the chest area as the eyes beamed to life. The earthquake stopped as everyone remaining in the cave looked at the large machine in awe

"EXC-04 STATUS: ONLINE. "

"....Holy shit." was all that was heard from shoveclaw as everyone else remained silent before the video ends there

[pringlemcbolt]

I love ultrakill. It's a serotonin generator. You get to do badass bullshit at basically every point in the game.

But it's also got a super interesting story hidden behind that badassery.

The story of mankind's sudden demise, at the hands of machines that they themselves created. The story of a dead god who abandoned their creations. The story of the dynamics of heaven and hell, the rebellions that started, the council, gabriel.

And, most importantly, the story and philosophy of the struggle to survive, despite all odds, the desire to persist despite the unyielding hell that one can be put through. V1 is doomed. They've been doomed from the start. No matter how far into the depths of the inferno they decend, their fuel supply will eventually run short. The other machines whom also delved into the depths of hell have already entirely cleared out 2 whole rings of hell by time v1 reaches the end of the 6th. And within the time span of less than 24 hours, no less. They won't stop until every tortured soul and demon has been wiped out, the blood runs dry, their fuel slowly depleting as they race towards their next target, battling eachother for what little scraps remain. V1 will come out on top, they always have thus far, as even god's strongest angel was no match. But top will only last so long when their fuel starts to fade, eventually leaving them nothing more but a lifeless machine once more.

But they'll be damned if they don't go out fighting.

The mirage that's fought in 2-S. The overwhelming sense of nihilism, that mentality of "we're born to die, so why try?" Life is worth living, even if it's a fleeting resource. We're born without purpose - so carve your own. V1 is a war machine created just before World Peace was achieved - as was V2. Their purpose was useless, and so only 1 of each was ever made. Yet they persist-they fight for their lives against the odds, against the pointlessness of it all.

They might just be mindless machines obeying their programming - again, they're war machines. Self preservation is probably hard baked into their very core. But should it not be that way for all of us? Shouldn't we also be fighting for our goddamn lives every second we must? Misery be damned! Get that shit out of my face! Look Misery in her cold dead eyes, and spit in her fucking grave!

Every moment you live is a defiance to the cosmos themselves. We live in an infinitely expanding universe which is utterly empty

Except for us. We are defiant. We exist. For as much as we know, we are the sole observers of this empty void, bigger than anything we can even comprehend!

So fight like an animal! Persist against the odds, scream in the face of god that you will not be brought down, no matter what hell you're put through. We were born to die anyway - so carve your own destiny, live life to the fullest, become the best you possible. Do what makes you happy - whether that be solving little puzzles, or fishing, or perfecting your own niche skills.

[mtfstuff]

Departure and arrival

I'm working at the airport selling flowers and coffee. Not the best job but the shop is owned by my uncle so I have almost complete freedom. I always wanted to travel often, to work from different places all the time. Now I'm somewhat in hell. I'm so close to flights but I can never enter them as I have to work. I can only dream and watch people live it.

As I was daydreaming about flying away once more, a man caught my eye as his colorful pants separated himself from the rest.

He was tall, handsome, had a beautiful beard and well-groomed hair. He was wearing brown leather boots, light brown/orange pants and a grey shirt. It suited him very well. He was gorgeous for me. The complete opposite of me. I was chubby, started to lose hair, even though I'm only in my mid-twenties, and I dont really had a sense of fashion.

I was dreaming about how he was flying somewhere warm, where he gets to take of his shirt and flex his muscles on the beach. I was daydreaming even further as I realized that someone wanted to buy something. I snapped out of my dream and the man stood right in front of me with a big smile.

"One latte, please.", he said with a big grin. I had to retract my eyes from his handsome face and white teeth.

"Of course, one moment please.", I said, taking a paper cup and putting it under the coffee machine.

"Do you have a ticket?", I asked. I couldnt wait to see where he was travelling to. But he looked confused at me.

"If you have a boarding ticket, you can get everything cheaper in our store.", I clarified.

"Oh, yeah. I have one.", he said, taking out his ticket and putting it on the desk. "That's a really nice service you have here."

Was he flirting with me?, I thought.

I took the ticket, scanned it for his discount, looked at his destination and gave it back to him.

"Spain, what a nice destination. Especially as the weather here is pretty bad at the moment.", I said finishing his coffee. "May I ask for work or just for fun."

"Both.", he answered. "A bit of work but mostly just for fun."

I handed him the coffee and he paid.

"You look like you could use some fun too", he said leaving.

He definitely flirted with me, I thought.

I watched him go and dreamed about being him in Spain. To my surprise, he didnt go to the terminals to start the check in, but he went to the toilet. He opened the door, turned around and looked at me, raised an eyebrow and disappeared into the bathroom.

I was shocked and turned on at the same time. Did he want me to follow him?, I thought.

I looked around and decided to follow him. I told my uncle that I have to go for a short moment and he excused me.

I followed the man into the toilet but no one was there as I entered.

The man came out of a cabin and grinned.

"We're all alone. Come on, lock the door.", he said. And I did. I locked the main door from the inside so that we couldnt get disturbed. I may had no idea what he wanted but I was so horny for him that I didnt care.

"I saw your looks.", he said. "And you are completely my type."

"I'm your type? Come on, look at me. I'm fat. I'm totally not in your league.", I said a little intimidated.

He stepped towards me.

"Look.", he said running his hands over my a little too tight shirt. "I have a thing for chubby boys."

"Boy? Do I look So childlike?", I asked shocked.

"Well, you look a lot younger than me.", he said. "I'm Lucas by the way."

He grabbed my head and kissed me gently. I loved the feeling of his lips. They were so soft and his beard a bit scratchy.

Lucas took a step back.

"Strip.", he said. I was shocked as I thought that he would take them off. But I started anyways as I opened my laces, kicked off my shoes and took off my socks. I tried to take off my shirt but I was struggling with it. Lucas helped me getting it off and then continued with my jeans. He took them and my underpants off, leaving me naked in front of him.

He kneeled down and lifted my belly to start sucking my dick. It didn't take long until I moaned by the pleasure. It was the best feeling I ever had. His beard tingled slightly but his lips and mouth were a pleasant surprise. It felt as if this wasnt his first blowjob. He sucked further and further until I came. And he took it all in one gulp.

He stood up and we kissed aggressively until his back hit a highboy. He pushed me away, causing me to fall backwards. After that, Lucas pulled himself up onto the highboy with a big grin.

"And now you strip me.", he said holding his foot out for me.

I quickly took off his boots and socks. After that I opened his pants and pulled them down. To my surprise greeted me his hard dick instead of underpants. He giggled as he saw my surprised face. I continued by unbuttoning his shirt and taking off his watch and rings.

He got down from the highboy and turned me around. He hugged me from behind and layed his chin on my shoulder.

"You'll gonna like this.", he whispered into my ear right as I felt something getting stuck up into my butt.

"Oh, it's so tight. Is this your first time?", Lucas asked. I just nodded in pain.

The sound of my fat cheeks hitting his muscular hips filled the air.

He increased the pace with every thrust until he came. As he pulled out his dick, I felt how the pain became even stronger.

I was completely out of breath and I heard him panting too.

"Thanks, chubby.", he said.

As I turned around to face him, I saw that he already wanted to dress up again as he lifted his pants from the ground. I took them out if his hands and threw them back to the ground. He looked confused.

"Thats it? Really?", I asked furious.

"Well, I never said I wanted more.", he answered.

I stormed at him and we struggled to the ground. Lucas tried to fight me off and I tried to overpower him.

He managed to get out if my grasp and tried to stand up but I grabbed him by his ankle and pulled him back down. His fall must have hurt as he was panting on the ground after it. I quickly sat down on his back and secured his arms.

"You'll gonna like this.", I whispered in his ear.

"No, please. You dont have to do th-", Lucas didnt even manage to end his sentence as I pushed my dick into his hole.

"Uugh, fuck. It feels so much bigger than it looks.", he said. "Please - aagh - stop! It hurts so bad."

But I didnt stop. With every thrust I felt better and his hole became wider.

I grabbed him by his man bun and lifted his head.

"Its so tight. Is this your first time?", I asked him uppish.

He groaned under pain and nodded.

"You'll remember this day as the day when chubby got what he wanted from you.", I said letting go of his man bun.

I thrusted even faster until I shot my load.

Lucas cried silently as I shot my load into his hairy ass. As I wanted to pull out my dick, his cheeks tensed up, making my dick stuck. I tried to pull it out but my dick didnt move a single inch.

Only then I noticed that I didnt hear a thing from Lucas anymore. I lifted his head again to tell him to relax but he suddenly started to move uncontrollably. His muscles were twitching as if he had a seizure. I tried to relax him, but I passed out on top of him.

As I started to regain my consciousness, I felt the cold floor beneath me.

Looks like I fell off of Lucas, I thought. But then I felt something heavy on top of me moving. It stood up. I rolled around and opened my eyes to see my body standing in front of me. It looked as surprised as I was.

"What did you do?", it said looking down at me and then back at his body. "You stole my body, you little filth!", it said.

I didn't understand what he meant. Only as I tried to stand up I noticed my muscular arms and legs. I was now towering over my old body. I was in Lucas body.

He attacked me and we struggled again.

"You cant do this to me. I dont want to be chubby!", he started crying.

"This wasnt my intention. But now you wont get it back. I always wanted to have a body like this. I also thought that you had a thing for chubby bodies.", I said while overpowering him.

He fell to the ground.

"Stay down!", I said. "I'm now Lucas. I'll meet my best friend Jorge in Spain and you wont."

"Wait, how do you know...", Lucas stammered in my old body. "Oh god, I know your life too. Please we have to change back. I want to live my life, not yours."

"This is your life now!", I said. I slapped him so hard that I knocked him out. I was watching my old body for quite some time. I'll probably never see my family again, but thats okay if I'll stay in this body, I thought.

I put on Lucas clothes, inhaled his nice smell, took his luggage, unlocked the door and left.

I had the best time of my life in Spain. His job as a model was pretty easy and the rest of my time I've spent on the beach or at the park, showing of my new body. I'll never go back to where I was with my life before. Lucas is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

[machineryfield]

At the Start of the World Chapter 2

Heading Out

--

Fiora sits on the bench at Outlook Park, staring out at the Colony. Just a day ago it had been so peaceful, the threat of Mechon becoming more and more of a distant dream... But, like most good things, that had to come to an end.

She closes her eyes, remembering the scenes that had played out before her. People being eaten, Shulk being eaten. Stabbed cleanly through by that Mechon with a face before smaller ones descended on his body.

She remembers the cold rage that had seeped into her, the way she had finally found a weak point on the blaster armour of that thing and let the Monado cut deep...

The Monado feels so heavy on her back when Reyn approaches, and she forces herself to give him a smile when he sits next to her. "Hey."

"Hey," he doesn't even attempt to pretend to smile. "You doin' alright? I know you and Dunban went home last night... He say anythin'?"

"He tried to comfort me." She admits. "...It didn't really help, though. He just said what I expected him to say, really."

Words of moving forward, like Shulk would want. Firm looks and with an underlying insistence she returns the Monado to the Weapons Development Lab as soon as possible in his tone. She thinks of all he said and frowns. She decided then and there she wouldn't listen to him...

"I want to go out and find that Mechon," she says. "I want to make it pay for what it did to Shulk, and I want to understand why."

"Understand why?" Reyn frowns. "I don't get it..."

"I want to know why the Mechon attacked us, why they’re always attacking us, what made us their targets. I want to know why... why they eat us. Do they need to, or do they just take pleasure in it? Things like that..." She wrings her hands together. "But a piece of me just wants to make the Mechon pay. Not take the time to learn, as much as the questions eat at me."

"Sounds like that piece of you is me rubbin' off on ya,” Reyn rubs under his nose. "...If ya got that, I guess I should be the one to keep you on your path to learnin', right?"

"That piece of me is loud, just like you!" She giggles, before looking over at him. "Really? You're willing to let me try and find out why? Even though you just want to..."

"You're my friend, Fiora. You've got your reasons for wantin' to know, and 'sides, if we know, might be easier to take 'em down!" He nods with a grin. "So let's do this, yeah?"

She smiles and nods. "Yeah...!"

"So," he kicks his legs. "Guess we're not tellin' Dunban, yeah?"

"Yeah." She frowns. "He'd just try to stop me... We head out, just the two of us, tonight."

Reyn nods. "You got it, I'll meet ya at the entrance."

--

"Ready to go?" She asks, fixing the pack at her side.

She goes over all she has. Food for a few days, her knives in case she needs them, and the Monado. Not much, but enough to get them through Tephra Cave and the Bionis leg, at least. They could stock up at Colony 6.

"Yep." Reyn rolls his arm and smiles at her. "The Mechon won't know what hit 'em."

"Yeah," she nods. "First we go to Colony 6, then we head for Sword Valley. If we're gonna find that Mechon anywhere, it'll be there."

"Galahad Fortress," Reyn adds on. "If there's still Mechon, the fortress is probably still there. Buildin' up grunts for a year, I bet."

"Yeah, something like that." She cracks her neck and looks out towards the path towards Tephra Cave. This time, it'd just be the two of them. "Let's go, Reyn."

--

Fiora sees the door open towards Colony 6, once locked, and figures that's where the strange machines they fought earlier came from. She wonders, they showed up right before the Mechon.... Had they sensed the threat? Activated for that?

She shrugs off that thought, at least for now. Whatever those machines were, they were gone now. They could move forward without a problem, right? They just needed to get to Colony 6.

"You know," Reyn speaks, pulling Fiora out of her thoughts. "We haven't had any convoys from Colony 6 recently, have we? Y'think the Mechon got 'em, too...?"

Fiora frowns as they make it to the lit path. "I hope not. Maybe they just got delayed, or it was bad harvests this year."

She doesn't believe what she says, but she continues to hope, anyway. Maybe they did die, but maybe to natural wildlife. It was never fun to lose any of the few Homs they had left, but better to beings of the Bionis than the Mechon.

Reyn nods, frowning. "Sorry, I didn't mean t'..."

"Don't worry about it," she gives him a small smile. "I get the worry, really. We just... have to try and look on the bright side."

"Yeah... you're right."

They continue on their way for a while, fighting off the wild life and picking up knick knacks from the ground. It's going well, she thinks. Maybe too well... She doesn't like thinking that, but dread sits in her stomach as they walk along. What was this feeling...?

She tries to shake it off, at least, until they see dead bodies ahead of them. She feels panic wrack her body as they move towards them. Reyn is there first, looking them over with a grimace.

"Was it the Mechon...?" She asks as she approaches, voice shaking."

Reyn shakes his head, "looks like Arachno wounds, if y'ask me. Probably got ambushed on their way to Colony 9..."

Fiora frowns, she knows how Reyn feels about spiders and their bigger monstrous cousins. She moves to his side and places a hand on his shoulder. "Come on, there's some water, let's return them to the Bionis, then rest. We should think about our next move first if there are Arachnos ahead."

Reyn nods, clearly thankful for the idea. "Yeah. Let's do it."

Fiora's thankful that she and Reyn are both pretty athletic, all things given. It makes moving the remnants of the Caravan easier. There's not enough for it to have been the full group, and as bad as it sounds, Fiora is glad. That's less death they have to see right after what happened.

The bodies start to dissolve the minute they touch the water, and Fiora offers a quick prayer to the Bionis. Born of the Bionis and returned to it, the way Shulk didn't get to be.

She swallows down the bitter thought and turns to Reyn. "Come on, let's get some rest. You first, I'll take point."

--

A giant Arachno, Reyn surrounded by smaller ones. There's no where for him to run and Fiora isn't with him. She watches as it strikes out, he moves to block it, and dread settles in as it gives out. She watches the Arachno stab right through his chest. Watches him die, just like Shulk did.

Fiora blinks back to reality and sees Reyn walking towards her. "Your turn to rest."

"Reyn," she stands, shaky on her feet as she moves to him. "Are you okay?"

"'Course I am." He frowns, scratching his cheek. "Well, couldn't sleep a wink, but I feel alright. You look like you just saw a ghost, though."

"I..." She bites her lip. "I had another vision. Promise me you'll stay safe if I sleep?"

Reyn pats her back. "'Course I will, Fiora. We just lost Shulk, I ain't lettin' you lose me, too."

"Reyn..." She sighs and rests her head against his chest for a minute, tears pricking at her eyes. "You better stay safe, you big dummy."

He squeezes her into a tight hug then, a smile on his face. "Don't you worry about me! I can take a few hits... and if I need ya, I'll wake ya up, okay?"

"You better," she looks up at him. "No running off to play hero. No doing what Shulk did."

"None of that, promise."

--

It's foggy in Fiora's dream, she can barely make out where she is. It's a platform of some sort, that much she can make out. Looking around, she comes to realize she's high above some sort of water source…

There's not much else she can see, save a man in the distance. She squints, trying to get a better look at him and takes a step forward. He seems to realize she's there, but doesn't turn to greet her. He keeps his back to her, simply tilts his head back a bit.

"Quite the divergence, wouldn't you say? I wouldn't think the Heir to the Monado would fall like that." He says, voice sounding quite sad. "But now you are here, to take on that heavy title."

"Heir to the Monado..." She furrows her brow and doesn't even understand why she asks what she does. "Do you mean Shulk?"

He was the miracle child, after all. Found alive when everyone else from his colony -- pushing forward on an expedition to find any way to stay alive -- perished to the cold of Valak Mountain. The little boy, sleeping next to the mythical sword that saved the day so many times.

The man chuckles, and does not answer her. "I look forward to seeing what you'll do, now thrust into his place. I'm sure you'll make him proud, Fiora."

"How do you know my name?" She asks, stepping forward once again. "Who are you? What do you know about the Monado?!"

"All will be revealed in due time." He assures, but Fiora still feels unsettled. "Do your best, now, I'll be watching."

She opens her mouth and sits up from where she fell asleep, panting as sweat rolls down her brow. She turns to see if Reyn noticed, see if he has commentary for her, and her blood runs cold.

Reyn isn't there.

[maximumsnow]

Chapters: 7/? Fandom: Half Life VR But The AI Is Self Aware, HLVRAI - Fandom Rating: Teen And Up Audiences Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply Characters: Gordon Freeman, Tommy Coolatta, Dr. Coomer (Half-Life), Bubby (Half-Life), Benrey (Half-Life) Additional Tags: Canon-Typical Violence, Canon-typical swearing, Basically an au exploring what if HLVRAI followed Half Life a little more closely, Au where there isn't a betrayal in that one spot, Mainly was wondering what would happen to the others if they hadn't been in on it., Some things change some don't, Oh also this is sort of intended as a not a game au

Summary: Anyone who knows original Half-Life knows that the ambush happens in that spot no matter what. What would have happened if the ambush was as rough for the others?

The backtracking to the lobby didn’t take long. Tommy had already organized things into piles, and after figuring out bags and/or pockets, they distributed some to everyone. Coomer insisted on also carrying some of the load, and after finding a way to extend the straps, he had a duffel bag strapped across his chest.

After much internal (and external) debate, Gordon finally picked up a pistol and some ammo to go with it. Of course with the caveat that he would use it properly and not throw it on impulse. He still mostly carried stuff for the others, though.

The automatic sensors for the other set of doors in the hall were still busted, so they had to trek back through the room where they had found the real Coomer. Now that he knew it was there, the blood splattered and smeared everywhere only enhanced the creepy feeling of the room.

Gordon couldn’t contain a small shudder when passing by the dead clone.

In an attempt to distract himself from darker thoughts, he glanced at the opened cage doors that were built into the wall and asked, “What did Black Mesa keep in here? Did you see how it got out, Coomer?”

Cheerfully, Coomer answered, “More aliens like the ones we saw earlier! Headcrabs, based on the screeches I could hear. The soldiers couldn’t hit them through the bars, so they opened the cages before opening fire again!”

Before Gordon could even think to respond to that information, Bubby interjected, “It was more ethical, anyway.”

“At least the animals got to run out of their cages before they died.”

On one hand, he could see where they were coming from, but on the other, he had to ask, “Can we even call those animals? They’re… I dunno they’re not exactly-”

“Can I call you an animal, Gordon?” Coomer asked.

Utterly derailed from trying to remember Linnaean Taxonomy and how it probably wasn’t intended for Xenobiology, Gordon couldn’t help but stammer out, “N-no? I’m a hum-”

Without bothering to hear his response, Coomer bolted for the exit. “Let’s get moving!”

At least the interruption kept him from finishing that statement and earning a taxonomy lecture straight from Wikipedia. The others quickly followed behind. Or at least as quickly as they could with Bubby limping, and Tommy constantly looking back towards Gordon.

Not wanting to hold the others up and wanting to get out of the room, Gordon tried to jog to the exit. His pounding head reminded him why that was a bad idea, so he settled for a brisk walk.

Thankfully, Coomer hadn’t gone too far in his brief sprint down the hallway, and he was standing still as he waited for the rest of them around the corner. When they got close to him, he smiled and said, “Looks like someone else already handled all the explosives in this hallway!”

That was an understatement. The hallway in front of them was covered in burn marks and blood of human and alien origin. The carnage in the hallway and the room branching off from it contained the bodies of soldiers and some bigger aliens that they hadn’t seen before.

It looked as if most of them had been torn apart with claws, not exploded by a mine.

Before they could get a better look at the strange aliens or dig through the soldier’s pockets for ammo, heavy, clunking footsteps echoed down the hall. Gordon edged himself in front of Coomer, and Tommy and Bubby had their guns ready.

“I said I already took care of it! Over.”

There was a reply, but the static made it impossible to discern what was said.

“The damn thing is trapped in a room it can’t get out of. It took out the entire squadron on its own. I’m not facing it again without back up…. Over.” Another reply. “What do you mean you already sent back up, there’s-” The soldier rounded the corner and was immediately shot twice. The radio clattered onto the ground as he died, and it fell to pieces.

“… Was the crotch shot really necessary?” Gordon raised his eyebrows at Bubby.

“Of course, Gordon. They’re all assholes, and Tommy was going to kill him anyway.”

He shouldn’t have expected anything less.

As they proceeded past the former mine trap, Gordon nearly tripped on… Something. He couldn’t tell exactly what it was, but it kind of reminded him of an antler. This was much pointier and bigger than most deer’s, and there was the fact that it was leaking the same ink black blood that they had seen smeared everywhere. All he could guess that it was something from the alien creature.

They couldn’t do anything with it, even if Coomer wanted to keep it as a trophy, so they left it there.

The rest of the hallway was still littered with the remains from the long, drawn out fight, even when they made it to an area that branched in several directions.

“Oh there’s a scientist!” Coomer declared. Everyone followed his gaze through a glass automatic door.

He was right, there were a few scientists hiding in the far room.

But there was also a surgery machine on the fritz blocking the entire path. And even disregarding that, the door refused to open. Or break, when Coomer tried kicking it in.

“Anyone have any ideas for getting over there?” Gordon asked helplessly.

Bubby crossed his arms as he looked around before saying, “I’ve got an idea, but we have to keep following this horror movie blood trail to get to it.”

“You know this place pretty well, right? We can give it a shot.”

“Of course he does! When you spend most of your life in an area, you get to learn the ins and outs. Especially the places you’re not supposed to notice!” Coomer gave Bubby a pointed look and grin.

The jab brought a brief smile to Bubby’s face, but it disappeared quickly as he readjusted his grip on his gun and waved towards the hall they needed to go down.

It was easy to see that the far end was dark in comparison to where they currently stood.

As they got closer, Gordon could see that the overhead lights had been taken out by something. Given that there was a blackened blood smear on the ceiling, he was willing to guess it was the same alien they had been all but following. If given the opportunity to, he would absolutely deviate from this morbid path, but between all the locked doors and loop backs, there weren’t many other directions to go.

And they had to find a way to the scientists on the other side of the surgical machine room.

With flashlights readied, they ventured into the dim hallway. After a turn, it didn’t take long before the ambient light from the previous hall couldn’t reach them, and darkness surrounded them.

Tommy was again taking point, and it took Gordon a minute to realize that he still only had the large gun out. No flashlight in sight.

Gordon was about to comment on it when something caught his eye further ahead. He squinted as he tried to make out what it could be, but it disappeared each time his or Bubby’s light shone on it. When the lights were pointed in that direction, he could see another intersection, but when they weren’t, it was like he could see really faint colors?

Not wanting to walk headfirst into trouble, he stopped and whispered, “Hey guys, uh, did you see that?” Without the hum of electricity, his voice carried much further than he thought it would, and he cringed at how loud it was.

However, his companions didn’t quite have the same idea, and they all replied in their normal speaking voices. At least they decided to stop and face him while responding.

“I can see the end of a hallway, and not much else, Gordon!”

“Are you trying to scare us? This isn’t the time for that.” Despite the snarky response, Bubby wasn’t doing the best job at hiding a tremor in his voice.

“What are you- What do you think you saw, Mr. Freeman?”

“I dunno, it’s like there’s a weird glow down that way? Can’t really see it when our lights are on it, though.” He pointed towards the dim colors that faintly lit up one path in the intersection while keeping the HEV suit flashlight covered.

Bubby followed his example as they all looked, and there was a beat of silence as they tried to figure out what they were looking at.

He broke the silence by asking, “Who the hell is having a rave in here?”

“Oh I do love a good rave. I hope they have extra glowsticks.” Gordon heard more than saw Coomer walking towards the intersection, and he uncovered his light before trying to catch up with him.

Unease crawled up Gordon’s spine, and he fidgeted with the crowbar as they got closer. Once they made it, Gordon instinctively shirt-collared Coomer before he could take off towards the light source. The hallway where the lights were coming from was empty, but he could make out a few windows on one side, and on the other was a door. In order to get to the door, however, they would have to pass at least one window.

Most of the windows had a myriad of colors shining through them. The colors would pulse and change at any given moment, and there didn’t appear to be a rhyme or reason in the timing or what color would appear next. Except for the furthest window, where there was still a rainbow shining through, but it was dominated by an extremely bright red that would flash a few times before giving way to a greenish color. Afterwards, the pattern would start again.

While the light show was admittedly interesting to look at, he still couldn’t figure out what was causing it, and didn’t want to find out if he could help it. He backed up and tried to guide Coomer with him. “Let’s try the other way first.”

Bubby’s voice rang out behind him. “Already did. The door’s locked.”

“Wait, when did you-”

“While you were staring at the lights like a- like a moth at a zapper.” The way that statement was phrased did not help Gordon’s nerves. For all they knew, the light show was something else dangerous and used light to incapacitate its prey.

“So the only way to go is through the lights that may or may not kill us.”

“Looks like it.” Tommy came up in his peripheral, and even from that position, Gordon could tell that he was concerned too.

Tommy then took the first few steps forward, and Gordon had to let go of Coomer or else trip and get dragged behind. Bubby joined Coomer’s side, but he first elbowed Gordon to snap him out of the daze he was in.

He jumped, but he elected to not respond to the dig and brought up the rear.

His anxiety eased when the lights didn’t appear to have an effect on anyone as they touched them, and while the others went straight for the door, he couldn’t help but look into the window as he passed by.

What the fuck is that?

He stopped dead as he tried to put together just what his eyes were seeing. The function of the room was hard to discern thanks to the presence of a very large creature taking up a good portion of it and the green miasma muddying the air.

The creature was… Every color at once, but it wasn’t white. At least most of the time. It was constantly changing colors, and it registered in Gordon’s mind that this had to be causing the light show. Despite the rainbow death rave, there were also several spots on its body where there were splotches of black leaking out and pooling onto the floor.

Something that looked like a branched tail covered the back half of the room, and he couldn’t tell if it was twitching or if it was doing the real world equivalent of glitching out. What he could tell was that there were spikes lining each branch, and they went up the creature’s back as well.

The long body had several sets of limbs, or it would if it didn’t look like it was missing some. What was there had long claws and talons depending on which leg you were looking at, and he could have sworn that the backmost set had hooves. Black blood leaked out of the holes where it appeared to be missing limbs.

There was something covering the chest area that looked like it could have been inspired by a rib cage, but the pieces were jagged, and at least one piece was piercing the creature’s side.

When his eyes finally made it to the head of the creature, he noticed a few things. It appeared to have an antler not unlike a deer’s, and there was a jagged nub next to it on the creature’s head. The air locked door that it was next to had a few dents in it, but the weakly nudging head and scraping clawed hand were no longer doing any damage to it.

Out of the creature’s mouth came several floating orbs that were matching the red and green pattern he noticed earlier.

Something felt familiar.

“Guys? I think we found the alien?” He shouted over his shoulder.

When he looked back at the creature, the orbs changed to a vivid and violent orange, and suddenly there were eyes on him.

Hundreds of eyes opened on the creature’s body; all of them with black sclera, deep blue irises, and cat-like pupils.

Despite this, the creature’s head laboriously turned, and the ruff of fur on the creature’s neck appeared to fluff out. The face of the creature felt familiar, like he should know what kind of animal it was, but he couldn’t place it since there were eyes all over and in places they shouldn’t be. And he was pretty sure half of the face had been fucked up in the fight with the soldiers.

Even though the window was apparently strong enough to contain it, Gordon could not help feeling incredibly small in the presence of this angry alien. Someone tried to speak, but he swatted a hand towards them as if hoping silence would keep the thing from getting pissed off.

He really didn’t want to test their luck, and he inched backwards in the hopes that they’d be able to run away if it did somehow manage to break through.

After a moment of being stared down in silence, the fur fell flat, and the orbs briefly changed to a clear blue and possessed a wavey effect.

Then the creature started to shrink as the remaining clawed hand pointed towards a window next to the door it had been attacking.

“I do believe it wants us to go to the observatory room window!” Coomer’s voice nearly made Gordon jump ten feet into the air.

“JESUS CHRIST!” Gordon slammed a hand against his chest as he tried to control his breathing again.

Bubby appeared on Gordon’s other side. “Don’t think he has anything to do with it.” The sarcastic comment managed to draw an eye roll and a laugh from him, but it helped calm his racing heart.

“Anyway… I don’t know about this, what if it’s-” He wasn’t even able to finish the thought before Tommy rushed past him. Gordon turned to see where he was going, and his light illuminated a blood smear that Tommy appeared to be following

He waited for them just beyond the last window, where Gordon noticed the smear take a sharp turn, and he stopped and waved for the others to follow. Once they had gotten there, the door opened, and they almost all jumped when Tommy fired a shot.

There was a headcrab zombie’s upper half lying on the floor. Based on the fresh blood trail barely visible over the black painting the floor, it had been trying to crawl towards them before Tommy sniped it.

As they filed into the wrecked observatory room, Gordon couldn’t help but notice the biohazard and poison warnings plastered everywhere. It was probably related to whatever that green stuff floating in the room was, and if it was able to incapacitate whatever the hell that was it had to be potent.

Speaking of.

While the others meandered around the room, Gordon found the window into the environment room and tried to see what the creature’s deal was. There was an intercom set up right next to it, and thought it might be useful if the thing tried talking to him.

Once he was done messing with that, he looked into the window.

A human was standing on the other side.

Specifically, a man wearing a fucked up Security uniform. The helmet was literally in pieces, and Gordon did not want to know how half of it was staying on when the other half was gone, along with that side of the man’s face. The shirt and vest were shredded and littered with holes, and he was pretty certain that the other was missing an arm and a chunk of their chest.

The one eye that was left still had the dark sclera, slit pupil, and unnaturally blue iris of the creature’s.

“Yo.”

The voice was raspy as hell, as if just making that sound hurt.

It sounded like Benrey.

The imitation of another friend’s voice caused Gordon’s figurative hackles to raise as he remembered the incident with the Coomer clone. Accusingly, he snapped through the intercom, “Benrey’s dead, asshole. What are you?”

The eye widened for a second before the person on the other side leaned against the window. It would have been a lot scarier if not for the arm on display clearly trying to keep him upright. “It’s me, your bro.” “That doesn’t answer the question-”

“That room is full of Cyanogen Chloride!” Tommy announced. Gordon stopped glaring at the impostor in the window long enough to see that Tommy was looking at a tank that was strapped into a device that must be feeding it into the room.

“If- If that’s Benrey, that’s really bad.” He sounded panicked.

“Cyanogen Chloride is a toxic chemical compound with the formula-” Coomer helpfully began to explain.

Tommy joined Gordon over by the window. “You know Benrey came back- has gotten better from worse things than a gunshot, right?”

Gordon flinched at the reminder. That… was right. He blamed his likely existing concussion for forgetting that little fact. “But how do we know its him and not some shapeshifting alien that’s trying to kill us later?”

Even that seemed to stump Tommy.

“Just ask him something that only Benrey knows,” Bubby said with confidence.

Aggravated, Gordon argued, “But I don’t know what all he knows! He keeps disappearing and shit!”

“Well ask him!” Coomer’s advice didn’t make a lot of sense to Gordon, but if the glassy look in the possible Benrey’s eye implied anything, it was that they didn’t have a lot of time to figure it out.

“You know what? Convince me in one sentence that you’re Benrey. Or we’re going.”

The ultimatum hung heavy in the air, but for a second, Gordon wondered if he was even paying attention. He thought he was right to wonder that considering that the entity looked away for a while.

He almost repeated the demand when Benrey(?) all but fell against the window and asked, “Where’s your passport?”

No one else would ask that goddamned question.

“Oh shit.”

[omegangrins]

A Treatise On the Doctor

I don't know how to start this. Because I think of Peter Capaldi's words when he said that the only thing required to be a Doctor Who fan, is kindness.

I like 13 and think Chibnall is doing his best job writing the show.

So I struggle to write this because I am engaging against that very unkindness in the Doctor Who fandom, and trying very hard not to be angry back. "Allways try to be nice but never fail to be kind." But I've begun to wonder more and more if those who speak so loudly against the show really know what the show itself is about.

Enough of talking about other people though, cause frankly they're only important as set-up for this conversation. And again, I'm working kind.

So here's what you're gonna learn from this lifelong fan (and the best Tl;dr you're gonna get):

1. The Doctor sucks. From the very beginning. People complain about character traits now that have been around as long as the show.

2. Due to the Doctor's suckage, they tend to do more harm than good. (And because of this, most of the Doctor's "friends" along the way have been, well, let's leave it at the air quotes for now cause it's a damn big list of "BOOOO!!!".)

3. All of the showrunners and writers and actors and editors and everyone else has allways knows this and has played it this way.

4. And last but not least, since this is a time travel show. If you wanna know what and why stuff is happening now, look it up. Everything that happened before is allways in play.

5. None of this is bad, and in fact, it makes the show morally grayer. It's about kindness at all costs. Even your own.

A. First things first, the hard thing. The Doctor is not grrrreat. I mean, sure they try, but they fail a lot more often. In Extremis, a majority of those fatality index counts come from people the Doctor failed to save. That's why it's worded so specifically as "cause of death". All the death's caused by the Doctor's very interaction with time and lack of saving those around them. And part of it's not their fault, but more often than not, the Doctor says I can save you, and can't, won't, or chooses not to.

And that would be alright, but it took them over 1000 years to realize they should start letting their companions lead lives outside of theirs so THEY DON'T DIE. A bit too long as someone who claims to be better.

Not to mention how many times the Doctor is dismissive of their companions and the people around them only to use them for their help and just bug off again. If they truly cared and wanted to help, they would stay and listen in between adventures. Their lifespan is near infinite anyway. What's a few extra Earth hours with some friends you made along the way. You know, maybe fix some of the psychological and emotional damage created by encountering things behind a human's original scope of reasoning. But nope, we gotta go adventure more, byyyyeee!!

So when people talk about these qualities in 13 in a negative aspect I have to laugh because I'm not sure if they understand the joke. Cause we're talking about an alien that grew up around a species calling themselves Time Lords. I try not to blame them too much for it. 1 had to learn how to be hospitable to humans and it's been a bit of a slow learning curve ever since.

B. After the Doctor survived the horrors of the Time War and happened upon a human companion they felt worth connecting to, what did they do? They took Rose to watch her planet burn in front of her eyes. Great, first date, amirite?

And that's a little bit of companion damage. Do you know that the Doctor is responsible for the almost complete genocide of the Silurian race across multiple occasions. I am legitimately surprised there are any left after all of the ones the Doctor has killed. Like before, they cause destruction either purposefully or accidentally or simply by force of being there.

Remember before how I said that the Doctor just flies away. Yeah, they leave a lot of problems behind when they do (something that I can see Chibnall is planting the seeds of). If you had a time and space machine and practically unlimited capabilities and you choose to just leave after a situation and not check up on them from time to or see if there are any other underlying crises to be solved. But oh no, "gotta follow that rule of time and keep going even though I stopped in the first place because of how interested I was.". This is why 9 has a great arc about this. He thought he killed all the Daleks. They came back. He thought he'd gotten rid of the Slitheen. They came back. He thought he saved Satellite 5 from aliens. But opsies, they came back. And look! They're Daleks. Which he "finally" got rid of.

The Doctor just bounces around all carefree and without an ounce of care for themselves, their companions or consequences unless there's consequences for themselves or their companions. Then they get indignant.

Is that really kind of the person you want flying around fixing things in time and space? Who knows. But at least they are trying. Most of the time the T.A.R.D.I.S. lands somewhere and the authority figures are the most pretentious bull-headed pigs you can find. To me, I laugh cause it seems like both sides end up getting a taste of their own medicine. Usually with the bull charging to death in a sad glory while the Doctor wiles on metaphorically about not being as good as them.

But again, as a "superior" alien with "advanced" technology and "culture" you'd think they'd just know better already. But that's all part of the character. The Doctor may be in flux, but true change is difficult. The real hero of every story is the other people BESIDES the Doctor.

Cause the title is Doctor *Who* . The Who being half of the title, despite having less letters. It's the constant question of "What and why and who is that crazy person that's trying to help?" Why do you think they keep flying back to Earth? (Besides set construction reasons.) They've grown as attached to us as we have to them. And at this point, a lot of their saving us is guilt and embarrassment at having a hand in our timeline.

This is also the same reason the Doctor dumps companions in a fluff. Baggage. Every time a companion gets too heavy to carry the memories of... off they fly.

Except for 13. She's stayed. To this end, we can see how the Doctor changes. Not on our smaller, human timelines, but on the timeline of a god with way too much power.

D. With that in mind, we go Classic. It's the Who you need to consult if you wish to make any critique on what's happening now. Because how can you know how a part operates inside of a whole without seeing the whole part?

Cause I don't know if you've watched it but it can be rough, and I don't mean in the sense of production value (which admittedly they do a fairly decent job of using what money they had. A problem the BBC plagues to Doctor Who to this day.). The 3rd Doctor shits on every one they call friends constantly and then turns around expecting help. 4 did the same. Then 5 masked that contempt with a plucky face and a cheeky word. But it was still there, bubbling out of 6 and 7 as the inability to suffer fools gladly and using their own righteousness to enact change in their companions. A trait that kept going til an entire war and regeneration was used solving the question of "Doctor Who?" Only for them to try and forget twice more by putting on their pretty grinning faces and running away from it.

And I'm only talking from a companion perspective. Each of the Doctors has enacted their own form of genocide on countless species. Sure, it's to "save humans" but at the end of the day you'd have to ask yourself if we're really worth that blood. And this is all in the Doctor's history. As much as they claim better, they're hands are still gushing red.

The Doctor left Jo because she fell in love. They drove Adric to put their life on the line in order to feel adequate. The entirety of the Silurian race has been wiped out fivefold under their watch, with one time by their hand itself. Same for several other singular and unique species you won't be able to find elsewhere in the universe. 7 used time travel to enact a personality change in Ace while simultaneously using her as a pawn in an interdimensional war. The Time War itself. Sure it got erased but the Doctor still did those things ("War" Doctor or whatever nonsense titles they feel necessary to delude themselves). The entirety of Amy's childhood was destroyed by their presence, and Rory got erased. Twice! Sarah Kingdom. We know the list. Hell, the Doctor whisked Barbara and Ian away because they wanted to teach the snobby humans some lessons.

They may have a time machine, but we have the bill of their actions. This is where 13 excels. Because they're trying to be better than themselves. They've learnt the lessons of all those years traveling and the failures they wish they could reverse but don't as a way of keeping a scoreboard of pain. It's not perfect by any means, but look at 12 needing cue cards to understand and react to human grief under duress. They've come a helluva long way. After 50 years, I'm inclined to believe better. After all, it's what the Doctor would want.

E. You know how people like the ASOIAF series because it offers up morally complex characters existing in a morally complex world where black and white are harder to define than grey? Have you ever thought of Doctor Who as the same? Strip past the fairytale and adventure and "wibbly wobbly timey wimeyness and it's just people reacting to situations. We're just harder on the Doctor because they're hard on us. You could go round and round on who's the bigger killer, but at the end of the day Time Lords and humans fight and feel about the same things. It's allways been a joke to pretend otherwise.

That's why I love the Timeless Child. Not for making the Doctor anymore special but for saying that even despite having all of their specialness ripped away and repurposed to create a lie of a society then having the memory wiped of said event, the Doctor broke out of their mold, stole a TARDIS and told the Time Lords to fuck off. That's not a Captain America/Superman hero. That's Batman in space with a society of Lex Luthor's. Gotham and Gallifrey. The Doctor saw what they were a part of and broke free, without even knowing the more horrifying truth. Cause it's the thing I see many fans missing because they're so preocuppied with the Doctor being special. The thing that made the Doctor different was their ability to know the difference and walk away to find better. Now, the Doctor has a reason to go back and find out why they never stopped running.

The Time Lords might be the greatest monsters in the universe. It is in the name. "Lords". Those who would lord over us and impose their will with a banthium fist.

And this is a children's show.

C the thing is, the people who made and make this show all collectively rail against one thing: Hate. Kindness is the way of Doctor's. Even if they're sawing off your leg, it's to do the kindness of saving your life. This is because the people who make this (United Kingdomers) have seen centuries of war and conflict and oppression enacted by their own country in the name of progress. And they want to see it no more. Look no further than any of the Doctor's adventures with UNIT. Allways advocating for peace and being ignored for the comfortable war-cry. It's why it's hard to blame the Doctor when we do very similar and often worse (though we don't have time travel.... yet). The creators of this show know better, see better, and wrote better, to know that the powers that be nipped would nip their creations and sanitize them. So they wrote their messages so strong that you can feel them from the future. They're powerfull enough that even across eras they have all collectively moved me to write this.

That's another point I have to laugh at people saying Doctor Who has never been in your face about progressive politics. The Green Death. Survival. Trial of a Timelord (Yes, all of it. Sit down and power through.) The Happiness Patrol is one of my all time favorite episodes for going there in this regard. People may poo poo but history has its' eyes on you. Doctor Who loves taking potshots at the issues of the day. As long as you don't make the aliens black of course. Make them all the colors of the rainbow but never make them black. That'd be too on the nose (That's something they used to say back in the day! Crazy how far we've come).

So bravoa to Chibnall for continuing the legacy of Doctor Who. From where I'm standing, he's not doing anything different than any other showrunner before him. Cause if you want to argue canon, you at least have to know what created it. This show owes what it is to those Classic eras. And if you think Chibnall is shitting on those years and your childhood.... well, then why did you read this whole thing?

[nicolewoo]

All Along

Pairing: Joe Anoa’i X Reader, Roman Reigns X Reader

Warning: Talk of sex and an erection. Lots of cussing

I had been moved up to Smackdown a couple months ago. Becky was super excited to see me. We'd wrestled in Canada together years ago and had become great friends. Becky made it so easy to get to know everyone. She spent most of her time with Seth (I still wasn't used to calling him Colby), which meant that Joe (Roman) and I spent a lot of time together. We bonded almost immediately and were practically inseparable. When we weren't busy, you could always find us together. We were becoming the best of friends. We ate together, we hung out together, we were always hugging, touching and tickling each other. Most of the talent at WWE was physically affectionate, especially Joe who flirted with everyone, so I never thought anything of it.

When Smackdown ended up in Tampa for the Thanksgiving break, the four of us decided to host Thanksgiving at Joe's house for anyone who wasn't going home. That was about 25 people. Joe invited Colby, Becky and I to stay at his house. I offered to cook the meal, but since I was the only one who knew how to make Thanksgiving dinner, I was going to end up doing all the work. Joe decided that I deserve to relax and ordered dinner from a restaurant.

Everyone had a great time, laughing and joking. It warmed my heart to be able to host people who had nowhere to go for the holiday. Joe commented on it too. “We did good.” He said as he wrapped an arm around my waist and I nodded in agreement. Even though we ate at 4, guests stayed long into the night. Once the guests left, we began cleaning up the kitchen. I was putting the last of the dishes in the dishwasher, while the four of us talked.

Joe was on other side of kitchen, leaning over an butcher-block island nursing a scotch he'd poured a while ago. Colby and Becky sat on kitchen stools picking at he turkey leftovers before we put them away. Joe was telling the most embarrassing Colby stories he could think of, so Becky and I could hear.

“So we're sneaking into the arena late, because this dingbat had to order his double fluffy chai, soy, whatever coffee. We were trying not to get caught. All of a sudden, we turn the corner and Colby sees Vince. He freaks out and spills his fancy coffee drink all down my back.”

“Wait Wait Wait!” Colby stopped him. You can't blame that on me.” He turned to Becky and said, “There was a cat that darted out in front of me.”

“Yeah right! Nobody else saw a cat.” Roman said as he sipped his drink. “You were just scared of Vince.”

Colby protested, “I was not!”

“Either way,” Joe continued, “So now, I'm supposed to go in the ring to do this promo, but it flat out looks like I shit myself.”

At that, Becky broke into laughter and backhanded Colby in the stomach. “No!”

Colby joined in, “Dean just about fell over laughing. He's pointing at Joe's pants and saying it 'looks like you pooped yourself' over and over again.”

Joe chuckled, “Hey, that ended up working out in our favor. Vince got so concerned about finding me clean clothes, he never realized we were late.”

“You're kidding.” I chimed in.

“Nope.” Said Colby. “We got off lucky.” He emptied his glass of wine. “I'm going to go get another glass. Does anyone want anything?”

“I'll go with you,” Becky said.

That left just Joe and I in the kitchen. He looked at me for a minute still smiling from the story he'd just told. Then there was a dead moment in the conversation.

“I don't know how to start this dishwasher.” I said.

“I'll get it.” He came over and hit a few buttons and the woosh of the machine began. Joe turned around and leaned against the counter next to me. He put his arm around my waist and I leaned my head onto his shoulder.

“This was a fantastic idea. I think everyone had a great time.” He said softly to me.

“Yeah,” I agreed.

“Thanks for helping me host it. I couldn't have done it without you.” As a thank you, he pressed a kiss onto the top of my head.

I picked my head back up and looked at him. “Oh, you could have done it yourself.” I assured him.

He smiled big, turned to me and placed his hand on my cheek. “It wouldn't have been the same without you.” He paused for a second and his voice quieted down to almost a whisper. “I'm really happy you came to Smackdown. I appreciate your friendship so much.” His smile faded, and was replaced with an expression I'd never seen from him. Tentatively, he grazed his thumb over my cheek and brushed my lips with it, his eyes watching it trail over my lip.

In that instance, I panicked. Was this what I thought it was? Dare I hope? Joe's friendship meant so much to me, but I couldn't deny the ever growing attraction I had for him. I was trying desperately to figure out what to do when his thumb stopped on my bottom lip and pressed downward so my lips parted. He ran his thumb over my lip again the pad of it now covering the whole lip and leaving a trail of heat behind it.

“Joe,” I started to say, but before I could talk, he leaned in and pressed the most gentle, loving kiss on my lips. It took my breath away. He pulled back and looked at me. When he took a deep breath, I knew the kiss had affected him as much as it did me. I leaned in and kissed him, longer this time. His arms circled around my waist as I ran my hands over his back.

We both pulled away for a second, searching each other's eyes, trying to gauge how the other felt. When Joe leaned in again, it wasn't a soft gentle kiss. It was hot, passionate and full of need. My body blazed at the feel of him against me. I parted my mouth, and he slid his tongue in. He tasted so good.  He moaned as he deepened the kiss more, his right hand going into my hair, his body began pressing me up against the counter. I was overcome by desire, and I pressed harder against him trying to get closer.

We heard Becky's laugh and pulled apart from each other. Joe had a second to look into my eyes before Colby and Becky came in. When they did, he was beside me against the counter as if nothing had happened.

Everything in me was on fire, and I was sure they would notice the tension between Joe and me, but Becks was in the middle of a story when they came in. I looked over at Joe who was still a little breathless. I noticed his hand gently brush his pants to adjust to his semi-hard penis. I smirked at him and he smiled back.

“Guys, I'm beat.” Becky began. “Do you need any more help?” she asked.

Both of us tried to answer at the same time. “No.” he said at the same time I said “We've got this.”

“You two are hanging out together too much. You're starting to think alike,” Colby joked.

“I'm tired too.” Joe added. “I think I'll be right behind you.” He said as they bid us goodnight.

We listened as they walked away. I waited until I was sure they couldn't hear us. “Joe. What....” I started, but he turned to me and held me pressing his forehead to mine. His jaw tensed as he tried to fight his desire.

“I'm sorry. I....” He trailed off.

I placed my hand to his cheek as I pulled back a tiny bit to look into his eyes. I smiled at him warmly. “It's ok.”

“I can't hide my feelings any longer.” He kissed me again. “I'm crazy about you. I have been since the minute I saw you.” He whispered, his lips still on mine.

"Why didn't you tell me?”

“I didn't want to ruin our friendship.” He said lovingly. “What if you hadn't felt the same way?”

“But I do,” I looked up at him. “I have all along.”

That brought the biggest smile to his face, and that made me smile big too. He kissed me again, then wrapped me in a giant bear hug. Joe's hugs always made me feel so safe and so warm. “I'm so happy, baby girl.”

The pet name made me smile bigger. “Sooooooo what now?” I asked.

He was grinning ear to ear. “I don't know, but I really am tired. Maybe we should sleep on it.”

“I'm tired too.” I answered.

“Then why don't we go to bed.... separately, and figure out what the next step is tomorrow after Colby and Becky leave?” He smoothed a hand over my back.

I nodded. “That sounds great.”

Joe kissed me one more time as we paused in front of my bedroom door. “Night baby girl.”

“Goodnight.”

I went to bed with the hugest smile on my face. I couldn't believe all this time Joe liked me. I mean yeah, he flirted with me, but he flirted with everyone. My mind thought back to every hug, every time he held my hand, every time we'd snuggled together watching a movie...... all of the time we'd spent together trying not to let the other know how we felt. Wasted time. And now... now that I know... now that he knows.... He's just a few feet away from me. If I go to his room now, what would happen? What did I want to happen? What would he want to happen?  My brain wouldn't stop churning, no matter how tired my body was.

I slipped out of bed and paced my room for a minute; considering my options. If I did sneak into his room, I'd probably find him asleep. I could just curl up into his arms. Colby and Becky wouldn't have to know I was in there. I could slip back into my room before they saw me.

My body yearned for him, and my heart yearned too. I wanted to feel him beside me. Would I be able to just snuggle with him now that I know how he feels? What would he think if he woke up? Question after question rolled through my head, and I didn't have answers. I knew only one thing. I wanted to be close to him. I needed to be close to him. I slipped out of my bedroom and went to his. I expected to find him sound asleep snoring, but instead, the second I opened the door, he shot up in bed. He'd been awake too.

“Come here.” He said and pulled the covers back. I snuggled into his arms.

“I couldn't sleep. I wanted to be near you so bad.”

He smoothed his hand down my back. “Me too. I wasn't sure if I should go to you or not. I'm glad you came here.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Let's go to sleep.” I could feel his body relax in a matter of seconds and soon after, I heard a slight snore. I snuggled closer and fell asleep on his shoulder.

————————————————————————

A knock on the door woke us. I opened my eyes adjusting to being in Joe's bed. He smiled at me. “Lay flat.” He whispered with a giggle on his lips. He threw the covers over me and bunched them up a bit to hide me. Then he stuck a pillow over my head, causing us both to giggle more.

“Yeah,” Joe called out to the person at the door.

“Hey,” It was Colby. “Have you see Y/N? She's not in her room.” he asked peaking his head in the door. “Becks and I wanted to let her use the bathroom before we showered.”

“Nah, man. Maybe she went for a walk or something.” Joe said smoothing his hand over his face. I did my best to lay perfectly still.

Colby obviously didn't think there was any chance I was with Joe, and he didn't look for me me in the darkened room, so he didn't notice the lump in Joe's bed.

“She can use my bathroom if she needs it.” Joe replied. “Go ahead and shower.”

“Thanks man.” Colby quickly exited.

Once he was gone, I flung the pillow off my face and into Joe's. “What do you think you're doing, baby girl?” He quirked an eyebrow as he laid next to me. We both broke out in laughter; trying to stay quiet. He leaned in for a sweet kiss, a chuckle still on his mouth. “Good morning. How did you sleep?”

I stretched my legs out, “Once I came in here, I slept well. How about you?”

“Exactly the same here.” He smiled and kissed me again. “We should try to sneak you back to your room before Colby and Becks get done with their showers.”

I snuggled closer to Joe's chest. “I don't want to leave this bed. EVER.”

I expected another chuckle, but instead he hooked a finger under my chin and raised my face to look at him. “I don't either. Trust me! but we should.” He kissed the tip of my nose.

He was right. I knew that, but I wasn't going to leave his bed without one last kiss. I looked into his big brown eyes and ran my fingers through his hair as I moved toward him for a kiss. He leaned in and placed a sweet, tender kiss on my lips that quickly turned into something much deeper, much warmer, much more passionate. I ignored the feeling of his growing appendage as it brushed my thigh.

“I gotta stop.” He pulled away breathing heavily. He paused to catch his breath. “Can we have lunch here today? Take some time to talk?” He asked. I agreed, and he got up. Throwing a shirt on, he asked, “What are you going to tell them?” He nodded toward Colby and Becky's room.

I had already thought it out. “If I can get back to my room, I'll get dressed quickly and say I just got back from running errands.”

“So we're going to start lying to our friends?” He quirked an eyebrow and I felt a pang of guilt. My friends knew I hated lying. I detested it.

“Joe,” I got up and wrapped my arms around him. “Just for a few hours until we can talk. After we talk, I've got no trouble telling Colby and Becks about this.”

“Good point.” He placed his forehead to mine. “Meet you here at noon?” I agreed.

He brushed some hair behind my shoulder. “Go get ready, baby girl, before they are out of the shower.” He peeked out the door and confirmed the hallway was empty. I quickly slipped out of his room into mine.

———————————————————————

After working out, coming back to his house and showering, Joe and I finally settled down to eat and talk. There were a few awkward moments as we tried to figure out what to say.

“I... uh... like I said last night, I'm crazy about you. I want to be together with you.” He looked unsure of how to continue.

“What do you mean “together with” me?” It was a fair question. “Are we talking about sex, a relationship or what?”

“No. Not sex.. well, yeah, I want to have sex with you....” He looked down at the floor but peeked up at me. “I mean in time...uh....” He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck “when we're ready, but I want to date you.” He finally said.

That brought a smile to my lips and he perked up a bit, looking less scared. “I want that too.” I agreed.

He reached his hand across the table and held mine. “Do..... do we tell other people?” he asked.

I thought for a second before deciding, “We don't lie.” He smiled again. “Let's just go on like we are, and if someone asks, we tell the truth.”

“Baby, I get asked if we're dating ALLLLL the time.” He smirked at me. “It doesn’t help that I can’t keep my hands off you.”

I thought I saw a hint of a blush cross his face. “Do you want to handle this another way?”

“No. I'm just sayin'. If we do it your way, the whole roster will know by the second match.” He chuckled. “I seriously get asked all the time.”

“Babe, would you say we're best friends?” I asked.

“You know it, sweetheart.” He looked questioningly at me. “Why?”

“Well, if someone asks, and you don't want to talk about our relationship, you can truthfully tell them that we are best friends.” I smiled warmly at him as I ran my thumb over his knuckles.

“Good idea.” He said smiling warmly at me. “We're going to have to tell Colby and Becks though. You know that? After the show tonight?” He asked and I agreed. He got up from his seat and came to my side. “Are you done eating?” He reached for my mostly empty plate.

“Yeah. I'm full.” I answered.

He took both of our plates to the kitchen counter and came back to grab my hand. “Feel like watching a movie?”

“That sounds great.” I answered, standing up and letting him lead me to the couch. We snuggled close as we always did, but this time it felt so much more meaningful. It wasn't unusual for us to kiss each other's hands, cheeks, temples, but this time, I got to kiss his lips... the lips I'd thought of kissing so many times before. Each kiss though started a fire in me that was hard to suppress. In time... when we're ready he'd said earlier, and he was right. We had to wait until we were both ready.... no matter how much my body ached for him.

—————————————————————————

Becky stood with her arms crossed in front of her. She had a puzzled look on her face as she stared first at Joe and then at me. “What happened after we went to bed last night?”

“Nothing.” I answered with a straight face. “Why?”

“Well, for starters, you weren't in your room this morning. Now you told me you were running errands,” she began pacing a bit, tapping her finger on her bottom lip like she was a detective at Scotland Yard about to reveal the murderer in an old movie. “but I know that you would rather have a tooth pulled than to go shopping on Black Friday. Then we get here and you two are acting all weird.” She looked to Colby who shook his head in agreement.

“Weird? How are we acting weird?” Joe asked trying to hide a smirk.

“Normally you two can't keep your hands off each other. You're always hugging or snuggling....”

Colby chimed in. “But today... I don't think I've seen you two touch at all.” He looked back at Becky prodding her to agree.

She confirmed that we hadn’t touched. “Did you two have a fight or something?” Becky asked.

“No. We're good.” I couldn't hold my smile back as much as I wanted.

“OH HOHOHOHO!” Becky proclaimed when she saw my smile. She turned to Colby. “I know what's going on here. They finally fucked.”

Colby's eyes got wide in realization as mine got wide in embarrassment. “FINALLY!” He said.

“No!” Roman nearly yelled. “It's not like that.” He said standing to come to me. He wrapped his arms around me and kissed me sweetly. “No. I just couldn't hide my feelings for her any longer.” He looked deep in my eyes. After a second, Colby's proclamation registered in his head, and he turned to his friend. “What do you mean by 'Finally'?”

“The whole company's been waiting for you two to get your heads out of your asses and admit you like each other.” Colby said nonchalantly as he started digging through his bag for something. “Wait!” He turned his gaze to me. “Were you in Ro's room this morning?” I didn't have to answer, because of the shit eating grin on both Joe and my faces. “Where were you?” He asked me.

“Next to me in bed. I covered her up with pillows.” Joe admitted.

“So, you lied to us?” Colby looked upset and Becky looked flat out mad.

“We weren't ready to tell you guys, because we hadn't had time to talk about it.” Roman tried to calm them.

“You didn't have time?” Becks asked. “How about the hours you guys spent in bed together?”

“Becks... listen... nothing happened. We both fell asleep about 5 minutes after I climbed into his bed. We decided at lunch today that we wanted to be together and that we weren't going to hide anything.”

“And we decided to tell you guys tonight after the show.” Joe added. I nodded in agreement.

“Ok. Ok. Let's back this story up. What exactly happened last night?” Colby said, and Joe told him the story.

“Man, when you went to get more wine at the end of the night, I was thanking Y/N for her help, and telling her how much I appreciate her friendship.” He ran his hand over the back of his neck. “And I just couldn't stop myself. I kissed her.” 

“Then you guys came back and said you were going to bed.” I continued the story. “We decided to go back to our own beds, but I couldn't sleep knowing Joe was so close, so I threw caution to the wind and went to snuggle with him, and we fell asleep.”

“So this morning when I came knocking?” Colby asked.

“Dude, we didn't even know what we were doing. We had kissed a few times and snuggled. That's it.”

Becky's stern face stared at me for a minute before she walked up to me. I half wondered if she was going to hit me, but instead, she wrapped her arm around my neck and pulled me into a giant hug. “I'm so happy for you.” She reached her hand out to grab Joe's hand. Colby came over to congratulate Joe, and we all ended up hugging.

Check out part 2 here!

[kaypeace21]

Okay but if Will does get taken by the government with El because Joyce signed a dodgy document before s2 then we're probably gonna get 3 awful things that WILL kill me: 1) Her screaming and being physically restrained from going to him, directly paralleling when Bob died, 2) Hopper also gave information on his child to the government before he adopted her, so both will have much guilt, ow, 3) Brenner's emotional manipulation AF like 'your parents practically gave you away' I am not ready

1) Oh. Interesting- but do you know what would be sadder that might be the actual callback they do. The scene in s1, when everyone thought Will was dead “gone”. Aka mothers hugging their sons.

Jonathan and his mom (after Will’s ‘death’)

Mike and his mom (after Will’s ‘death’)

so… Yeah, Will & his mom hugging may be brought back as a visual cue…of that loss and dispair

2) Hopper’s probably going to die, unfortunately.  Theory here. Brenner is trying to kidnap children with the least amount of backlash- in a ‘legal’ way. In the prequel novel ‘Suspicious Minds’ Hawkins lab made the adult subjects also sign non-disclosure agreements however they didn’t read the fine print either. So when Dr Brenner, finds out that Alice (an adult) has powers, this is when the he essentially legally kidnaps her as her ‘psychiatrist’.

- “We’re here for Alice Johnson. I have paperwork that authorizes us to take her into the custody of Hawkins National Laboratory. Commitment paperwork”

-Commitment paperwork- a legal process through which an individual who is deemed by a qualified agent ( Dr. Brenner, the psychiatrist) to have symptoms of a severe mental disorder and is ordered by a court into treatment in a psychiatric hospital  or in the community.

So essentially Joyce signed paperwork, that the second it’s verified he has powers, under the law there is nothing she could do to get him back – she inadvertently gave custody of her son to a monster. And everyone would buy the story, his own school knows he goes to monthly psychiatry appointments- he’s had meltdowns in public (like on Halloween).And his mother has been rumored to have psychiatric problems herself. He’s an evil genius!

And , if Hopper dies who will get custody of El? The united states government! And who works the united states government -that’s right Dr Brenner! You can read more about Will and El being kidnapped theory here.

3) Yes, he will 100% use this against them.  I briefly talked about the emotional manipulation Brenner would do to them in s4 here.

But to add more to that post.After reading ‘suspicious minds’ - it just reiterates the theme of ‘house of stairs’ (a novel referenced in the Will comic). Brenner’s plan will be condition the children to start subconciously doing small commands, and slowly escalating it to more significant commands, then bringing out their more violent tendencies so he can shape them into violent weapons who will only attack under his command. I’m still withholding a lot of plot points for my masterpost-theory for s4  but here’s a little taste… from the ST prequel novel…

Becoming Weapons

- “When it’s our government involved, I think you’ll find our rights are often to be determined.”

-“So…do you guys think it’s odd that the feds would be spending time on this with the war going on? Shouldn’t they be working on weapons or something instead?” Ken lowered his voice, even though they were alone. “Maybe they are.” Terry scoffed, “Is it me or Alice who’s the weapon? Or Gloria?”

-”then Terry’s boyfriend said that thing about weapons and she had realized maybe she was beginning to feel more like a weapon.” 

-He came to her side. “I’m going to need you to lay back for a few minutes while we add a new…treatment.” “You want to turn me into a machine,” Alice said. “But I already am one. We all are.”

Brenner (The psychiatrist)

- “I’d spoil the experiment if I told you. I’m going to need you to take my word for it that our work here it’s crucial to the safety of our nation. It can’t be disrupted for any reason.”

–“The hospital gowns they were forced to wear during the experiments were an affront to dignity. This was a fact, not just Gloria’s opinion. She could’ve done a double-blind peer-reviewed study to prove it.” (Gloria was studying biology in college, so she knew what she was talking about.)“

-Brenner took her arm and marched her back to her room, where he kept her awake for the next thirteen hours, refusing to let her sleep. ( common technique of mind control, and to get people to admit wrong doing, it’s considered a form of torture).”

- “We’ve given you a powerful hallucinogenic. We have evidence it can open the mind to suggestibility.”

- “make them suggestible and exert control…But we can’t get the results we want without the right people, period… It is nothing to manipulate a weak mind. We need those with potential.”

-”She’d feel much lighter. The first stage to creating a mind susceptible to greater manipulations.”

- “Dr. Martin Brenner wished he could see inside the minds of the subjects. No messy conversation to extract what they might or might not have seen, how effective the hypnotic techniques had been… “

-”Brenner didn’t understand children, because he didn’t feel like he’d ever been a child. He’d considered kicking Terry out. But he’d invested too much effort and already she seemed more malleable.”

- “But they’re experimenting with our memories, our minds —it makes sense they’d want to control us. If they could use regular people to do their dirty work…”

- “What transpires here will be a secret. You will maintain this knowledge and complete a task without discovery, but you will have no memory of me requesting it”

 -”Having powers put you in danger. Even being near people that had powers put you in danger. And being discovered by people who wanted to control those powers put you in even more. Of that she was certain.”

-”Men like Dr. Martin Brenner got you in their clutches and didn’t let you go, especially if you made enemies of them. They could fight him, and they would, but they might lose. She wanted to know how hard he’d work to keep them under his thumb.”

-”She already felt confident that Dr. Brenner was no Professor Xavier to mentor anyone.”

Will will be El’s greatest weakness- and Brenner will use this against her to keep her from rebelling

*Brenner’s conversations with or about Terry (El’s mom)

-“He’d underestimated her.He needed to get her back under control.The best way to do that was to distract her, give her bigger problems. He knew everything she cared about most, because she’d told him. The solution was obvious.”

-“Russians have developed a theory that mothers and their children have a mental link with each other…in different rooms they killed the babies to see if the mother felt it… killing rabbits, like keeping children prisoner for experiments.”

-”Brenner gazed at her steadily. “I bet you don’t know what you’d do without him. Say it. That you don’t know.” She couldn’t seem to stop herself. “I don’t know what I’d do without Andrew.”  He smiled at her. “Now, close your eyes and go deeper like a good girl. I’m done with you for today.” 

Forcing Will to do LSD to manipulate him and strengthen his powers

-”We have a few more young patients transferring here for a related program, but I’d like a range of ages. There is every reason to believe that a combination of chemical psychedelics and the right inducements can unlock the secrets we need.”

- “Then there was Brenner’s use of the word “cocktail.” What exactly was in the Hawkins special acid blend? “Who has the medical cocktail?”

-”She nodded and handed the glass back, smoothing soaked hair away from a cheek shiny with moisture. Tears and sweat both. Extremely susceptible to the drug cocktail.”

*cough* Will’s comic*

His name is Martin Brenner- the comic draws Will with a ‘cocktail’/martini… thanks I hate it -_-

Do you know what’s worse? The book ‘House of Stairs’  also has other darker elements, I didn’t even get into… like s4 is going to kill me. It will be waaaay worse for Will and El then s3 will be . I CAN’T! They’ll survive but-

[riseandshinelittleblossom]

Go Mets!

A/N: This is my submission for the wonderful @mf-despair-queen‘s 2019 Dylan O’Brien Baseball Week.  This is my first ever Dylan fic, as well as my first ever reader insert (ish) fic, so keep that in mind hahahaha I hope you enjoy it!

 Also! DISCLAIMER: I write this purely for fun, I don’t get paid or anything like that, I’m just borrowing our favorite Mets fan for a bit of  good natured fun...

Warnings: light swearing, because it wouldnt be a riseandshinelittleblossom fic without it. :D

Shout out to my wonderful friend @ao719 for indulging me and pre-reading this for me..girl your rock!

 Tags: @leelee10898 @fullbeaumonty @kennaxval @superapplepie @mrs-mitch-rapp93 @stiles-o-dylan24  @ownworldresident @mrscutiefandobhaz

    Dylan held out his arm, staggering backwards a bit as he caught the baseball in his well-worn mitt.

    “Hey, nice one Maggie!” He chuckled.

    The six year old across the yard beamed at him and he couldn't help but feel his heart melt seeing her snaggletooth grin.

     He was so proud of how much she had progressed since he first started bringing her out back to play catch two years ago.

     His friends had all warned him to steer clear of getting into a relationship with you because dating a single mother also meant “you have to play Dad,” but that had never worried him in the least. Maggie was a good kid, really smart, and she shared Dylan's passion for baseball and the Mets. These days he couldn't imagine a better way to spend his time off between filming than to be in the backyard helping her practice for her little league games.

   She flipped her long, chocolate- colored plait over her shoulder and resumed her batting stance.

   “Okay, Dyl. Let's have another one. And don't go easy on me this time.” She sassed.

   “Go easy on you? I would never..” he feigned innocence, grasping the ball firmly and grinding into the mitt a few times.

   Maggie rolled her eyes, the bat falling to her side.

   “I'm serious, O'Brien. You think the girls on the Grizzlies are gonna go easy on me this weekend? Not a chance! They're out for blood after we wiped the floor with them last season.”

   “Out for blood, huh? Okay, well pick up the bat and I promise I won't hold back then, Princess.”

    She resumed her stance and Dylan shook his head.

    “Here,” he began crossing the yard in a few strides to stand behind her. He widened her grip on the bat and helped her crouch a bit lower. “Gotta widen that stance, baby girl. Otherwise the first speed ball's gonna knock you right off of home plate.”

      He returned to the makeshift pitcher's mound that he and Maggie had made with a pile of her kinetic sand. It was a project that you had been none too happy about.

      He stomped his feet a few times before releasing a steady pitch.

      With a loud crack, the young girl sent the ball sailing away from her. Dylan hit a backwards run in an attempt to catch it, but it soared over the fence anyway.

   You watched from the open kitchen window as your boyfriend raced across the yard and hefted the small girl onto his shoulder.

   “And the Mag-ster rounds first! She's off to second! Oh my God, she's flying past third! Aaaand she makes it all the way home!” He shouted as he ran a circle in the yard and Maggie cheered, her small fists pumping into the air as Dylan mimicked the sound of a crowd roaring. He placed the child on the ground and you couldn't help but chuckle.

    You and Dylan had been going steady for two years now, but it always made you smile to watch him with Maggie. He was the best daddy to her that he never had to be and it made you love him even more.

      You thought back to the day that he first entered you and Maggie's lives as you finished washing up the mountain of dishes in the sink.

***********”**

     You adjusted the settings outside of the batting booth before crouching in front of your preschooler.

    “You sure you want to do the batting cages? We could go for another round of skee ball instead.” You suggested as the little girl before you adjusted her baseball helmet and shook her head. The child-sized aluminum bat in her hand still looked humongous and you bit your lip, wondering why you'd agreed to let her go in there and let a machine lob baseballs at her.

    “I wanna baseball! I'm tired of just tee ball! It's time to break into the big girl game, because one day I'm gonna play for the New York Mets.” She told you matter-of-factly as she stepped into the cage.

   You blamed the babysitter. She was a sweet woman that kept Maggie for next to nothing and she had two boys of her own that were only a little older for your daughter to play with.

   The sitter's oldest son, Jacob, was nine and he played little league, which meant he and his brother often tried to get Maggie to play catch with them outside. Jacob was Maggie's hero and a die-hard New York Mets fan. All the time she spent with Jacob had ignited a fire within your near five year old. It had started with endless tee ball games in the local junior league and now...batting cages at the family fun arena.

   You wrung your hands nervously as the first pitch shot out. You'd set the machine on the lowest setting but it still felt like the ball was the Roadrunner, jetting away from Wile E. Coyote as it hurdled towards your small child. Certainly anyone watching must have thought you were insane to let her in there.

   Maggie held her own, swinging confidently even though the ball barely glanced the end of her bat. The metallic ting caused her to giggle wildly.

   “I hit it!” She shouted.

   “Hey, good job!” a male voice came from behind.

   You whipped your head to see a tall slender man wearing khaki pants and, coincidentally, a Mets jersey. Your eyes scanned over him, your bottom lip tucking itself involuntarily between your teeth.

   He twisted his baseball cap, leaving the bill sticking out behind him and tucked his folded sunglasses into his shirt. He gave you a polite smile and nod, the fluorescent lights overhead catching his honey colored eyes just enough to make them sparkle.

   Your heart all but stopped as you smiled back and quickly averted your gaze, embarrassed that he'd no doubt noticed you checking him out.

    “Thank you. She lives for this stuff.” You said shyly.

     TING

   “I hit it again!” Maggie squealed in delight, turning to face you. “Who's he?”

   She scrunched her face up as she stepped out of the cage.

  “Oh I was just waiting my turn is all. I'm going to use the cage when you're finished. Nice form in there,though. If you'd like, maybe I could give you some pointers.” The man said.

     “You would?!” She squawked.

    You were taken aback by the way he peered directly into Maggie's eyes when he talked to her. Not many people were so attentive when they spoke, especially to children. It made your knees feel weak as he trained his eyes on you in the same fashion.

   “I'm Dylan.” He offered, extending a hand.

************

    Your attention was pulled back to the present as you heard Maggie's sassy, near whiny voice through the window.

   “I am NOT a baby anymore, Dylan. I'm getting bigger everyday, you know.” She scoffed.

   He nodded. “Unfortunately.”

   You stepped onto your tiptoes to get a better view of the two loves of your life, straining to hear their conversation. They were seated on the patio now, Dylan helping Maggie oil her own glove as well as his own.

    “Mommy says that if I want to keep playing I have to take good care of my equipment. She said only responsible players get into the big leagues, so I have been trying to oil my mitt like you showed me, but sometimes it's hard.” The girl huffed as her mentor lifted his large hands-the ones that plagued your every day dream- and placed them over hers, patiently guiding her movements.

   “You want to make sure you get into every groove, Princess. Every crevice. See? You've got it. I'm so glad to hear you've been listening to Mom while I've out of town, though.”

     You let out a sigh, a warm feeling spreading from your chest throughout your body, a small chuckle escaping you. How did you ever get lucky enough to find him?

    “Dylan, can I ask you a question?” Maggie piped up.

     “Anything, squirt. What's on your mind?”

    “Why were you and Mommy yelling at each other last night?”

     Dylan's eyes went wide as he turned his gaze to his own mitt.

    “Wha..wuddaya mean? We weren't-”

     “Come on, O'Brien. I'm not deaf. You were saying, ‘Oh, Y/N,’ and Mommy kept screaming 'Dylan, oh my God’. Were you guys fighting?”

    You tried to stifle a laugh, your hand flying over you lips as you remembered the absolutely mind blowing events from the night before. The ones your daughter had apparently overheard. You could barely see your boyfriend's cheeks turning bright red right about now and you would have paid good damned money to get a view of that up close.

    “Uh, no. We weren't...we weren't fighting, Princess.” Dylan tried to be vague and he cleared his throat. You knew he was silently hoping that his answer had been enough to end the conversation, but you also knew Maggie better than that.

   “Oh. Well then what were you doing?”

    Dylan turned to wipe off his hands, holding the towel out for Maggie to do the same.

    “We were...we were talking in our sleep.”

    “I heard banging, Dyl.”

     The dark haired man gulped audibly, one hand rubbing over the days old stubble of his chin.

    “Uh...that? Oh we were… okay listen. You know I love your Mommy, right Princess?”

    Maggie nodded, “Yep! And she loves you.”

    “That's right. So we love each other. Sometimes, uh...when a boy loves a girl...ya know...they...dance...together?”

      You cackled softly listening to Dylan not even buying his own bullshit.

   “Oh. But I can dance without banging, see?”

   Maggie hopped from her seat and swept into a graceful ballerina twirl, her hands above her head.

    “Well that's because you're a beautiful baseball-playing ballerina, and as such you're very graceful. Mommy and I...well, we're sort of clumsy.”

   The child laughed. “So you mean you guys fall down a lot?”

   “Exactly.”

    “So that's why you were yelling right? You just kept knocking each other down?” the six year old cocked a skeptical eyebrow and Dylan nodded.

    “You're gonna have to do better than that, Dyllie. I'm not buying it.”

     Your boyfriend let out an exasperated sigh. “Okay how's this? We were dancing together because we love each other and we're clumsy so we kept falling down, but then he had...um bruises..?” He stopped short, clearly at a loss.

   “The truth, please. I was born at night but not last night, ya know?” Maggie sassed with an eye roll.

   “Okay the truth is... The truth is that I love your Mom and she loves me and sometimes when you love someone so much you just...you want to show them. There are things that you will learn about when you're older that help grown ups show each other how much they love their boyfriend or their girlfriend. And so..that's what we were doing. But those things are for grown ups only. I mean...grown ups that love each other and want to get married someday...not just any old boyfriend and girlfriend…”

     Your heart stopped at the thought. You and Dylan had been together for a long time, but somehow you'd never talked about marriage before.

    Maggie stared at him, one eyebrow cocked, her face scrunched in thought.

    “Do you..? You understand anything I just said?” He asked nervously.

    “Uuuuhhhh…..go Mets?” Maggie replied still obviously confused.

    Dylan laughed loudly as he ruffled her hair. “That's my girl!”

    “I don't even wanna know anymore,” she shook her head. “As long as you promise you and Mommy aren't breaking up.”

    Dylan wrapped his arms around her shoulders pulling her into a tight hug.

   “No way, Princess. You two aren't going to get rid of me that easily.”

     “Hey, Mommy!” Maggie beamed as you appeared in the sliding glass doorway.

      “Hey, kiddo. Why don't you take your gear upstairs for me? Dylan and I need to talk.”

      She complied with your request, gathering her belongings and tossing them into her athletic bag before hefting it inside.

     You grinned widely at Dylan as your daughter disappeared up the stairs. He exhaled audibly, silently mouthing “thank you,” as he nervously rubbed the back of his neck.

       He ambled across the patio, wrapping his long arms around your waist, pulling you impossibly close.

   “I know you were listening, you evil woman. Way to leave me hanging.”  Dylan muttered, his lips brushing yours as he spoke. His whiskey eyes were locked on yours, making your knees suddenly feel weak.

   “I dunno, you seemed to be handling things pretty well on your own.”  You smugly replied.

    “Yeah? You think so? I'd love to show you a few other things I can handle pretty well.” he pressed his lips to yours and you giggled into the caress.

    “You mean like...Go Mets?”

    He scoffed, giving you his near award-winning, lopsided smile.

    “You're damn right, go Mets.”

[oceanna1919]

Darkness {Bellamy Blake} Fanfic

Jasmine Kane, Marcus Kane's daughter was chosen to be a part of the 100. She was chosen to go to earth. Little did she know that the earth is not as perfect as she was taught all her life

" Let go off me" I said sending daggers at the king himself

He smirk and said " Make me princess"

In one second, he was send to the ground with a knife against his neck. He looked surprised and at the same time proud.

"Do not test me Blake" I murmured, our faces inches apart. He wrapped his arms around my waist pulling me even closer. Seconds later our lips were moving in sync.

%.... %...... %...... %....... %...... %..... %... %.... %..

Pilot {1X01}{part 1}

I was laying on the ground of my cell reading a book about the ground. My dad gave it to me on my 16th birthday, the day I got locked up. I stopped reading when I though about that day . It's been 1 year and 3 weeks that I have been locked up for something that was not my fault. My own father locked me up. I hate him for that. At the beginning, he came to visit me, but I ignored him. I couldn't even look at him or speak to him,so after some time, he stopped coming. Glad he did, because I was starting to loose my calm. I wanted to scream at him or punch him, but I was sure that he would float me even if I weren't 18 years old. Suddenly the door of my cell opened and I snapped my head seeing my father with 3 guards looking at me. Something wasn't right. My dad looked like he wanted to cry, the guard on his right was holding a wristband , the guard on his left was holding a syringe and the guard behind him was holding a gun. I stood on my feet quickly and took a step back, they were going to float me, but I don't understand I just turned 17 years old. My dad saw that I started to panic. He took a step forward and I took a step back. He held his hands up and told me "Relax, you're not getting floated" he smiled sadly. I decided to speak to him. "Yeah, well, what the hell is going on?" "My beautiful daughter you're going to the ground" My eyes widdened and I looked at him like he grew 2 heads, hell 5 heads not just 2. "Comme again? Hey, don't come any closer!" I yelled at the guard holding the syringe who started to come closer. My father held his arm up and grappled the guard. He comes to me and hugs me tightly. I didn't resist. I was in shock. I was going to earth. "I'm sorry, it was the only way. If you don't do this, you would be dead in 1 year. Stay alive. I don't want to loose you too like I lost your moth-" I pushed him away, glarring at him. He stopped talking and he did a sign to the guards to come to me. The guard holding the metallic bracelet came first and I tried to get past him, but the guard behind my father came and held me. I started screaming when I realised I couldn't do anything

'' Please dad do something, please! " I screamed looking at him. The guard with the syringe came beside me and injected something to my arm. All of sudden, I started to feel sleepy. I tried to fight sleep, but my eyes started to close, the last thing I heard was my father apologizing to me but it was too late.

~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~. ~.. ~. ~

My eyes started to open and I looked around me. I saw the other prisoners are strapped in, just like me. I didn't recognize anyone, great. I looked beside me and I saw a beautiful girl, probably my age. She looked at me and smiled. I smiled back awkwardly and she held her hand out for me to take. I took her hand and she started speaking "Hi my name's Octavia. What's yours?" I let go of her hand and before I could respond the ship jolted. Oh my..? What was that? Seconds later the video monitors around the cabin flashed to life with a pre-recorded message of chancellor Jaha. I didn't listen to the video, to stressed from the joltes of the ship. Octavia saw me and took my hand, giving it a squeeze. I really like this girl. Someone yelled "Your father's a dick Wells!" Everyone around me starts laughing, except from me. Wells was my best friend, beside Clarke. I really miss them. Wait... That means that Wells is here! I looked around me, but I didn't see him.

Then all of sudden the parachute deploys. I closed my eyes tightly, as the ship started shaking. After a few terrifying seconds the ship stopped shaking. I still hadn't opened my eyes.

"Listen. No machine hum." I opened one eye and I saw an Asian boy, beside him was a cute guy with goggles. Octavia giggled from beside me and said "Hey beautiful girl, you can open your other eye too." I opened both eyes and I playfully glared at her.

"The outer door's below" someone said as we got out off our seatbelts and went in the front.

"No! We can't just open the door!"

A familiar voice said and I gasped. Clarke is here, my best friend is here.

I saw passengers already gathering at the outer door. I saw a handsome guy who looked kind of older than all of us and I got confused. He was wearing a guard's uniform and that made him less attractive.

" The air could be toxic" Clarke continues.

"If the air's toxic. We will die anyway" the handsome guy said.

Clarke was about to say something when Octavia, who was still beside me froze as she saw the guy

"Bellamy?" So, his name is Bellamy. Beautiful name. Bellamy turned around slowly and I saw his face softened. She jumped down and rushes towards him. She hugged him tightly.

"Look how big you are!" Bellamy said looking at her with a proud smile.

"What are you doing here?" She asked him.

"Someone had to keep an eye on you" he replied.

Suddenly Clarke asked looking Bellamy and interrupting the beautiful moment.

"Where's your wristband?"

Octavia turned to glare at Clarke.

"You mind. I haven't seen my brother in three years." What brother, nobody has a brother or sister. I heard various voices talking

"Nobody has a brother" Good point

"that's Octavia Blake, the girl they found hidden in the floor" Ohh, yeah I know that story.

Octavia wasn't happy, she lunged at the person who said that, but her brother held her back.

"No Octavia, don't do that. Let's give them something else to remember you by." he said

"Like what?" she asked sarcastically

"Like being the first person on the ground in a hundred years" Bellamy said with a smile.

"I'm pretty sure is 97 years" I said before thinking. Everyone turned to look at me. I saw the older Blake look back at me and we held our eye contact. I was the first one to look away them I heard Clarke saying my name and I looked at her instead.

"Ah yeah, well in 97 years." With that he finally throws the lever.

Daylight streams in. Trees everywhere, a breeze. I gazed out in awe.

Octavia hesitates, but just for a moment. She steps out, looking around in

wide-eyed amazement. She thrusts her arms out and yells

" We're back bitches!"

Everyone started to run outside. I waited to go outside. I caught Bellamy Blake looking at me, before he follows his sister. After that I set foot on the ground and took a big breath. Real air. This is the ground. Seconds later I felt a body slamming into mine and someone hugged me tigltly. I looked and I saw Clarke. I hugged back as tight as her. "Clarke!" I yelled excited.

"I missed you so much" she said and we pulled back. "I miss you too" I smiled and we hugged again. She pulled away and took my hand.

I know her, something is wrong.

"Clarke what's going on?" I asked her confused. She turned and held out a map.

"I think that we're on the wrong mountain" I shook my head.

Suddenly a guy I didn't know come up to us.

"Why so serious princess?" he asked Clarke with a smirk, then he noticed me.

"Oh hello, name's Finn and yours gorgeous?" he asked me. I smirked at him and said. "Hello Finn, nice to meet you. I'm Jasmine Kane" Finn smiled back and turned to Clarke

"It's not like we died in a fiery explosion" he joked and Clarke looked at him before looking back at the map

" Tell that to the two boys who followed you out of their seats" Finn looked down, I guess he was sad.

"Jasmine, you see that peak over there?" The blonde asked me. She pointed in front of us and I nodded

"Yes, what about it?"

"Mount Weather. There's a radiation soaked forest between us and our next meal."

"Anddd?" Finn asked. I looked at him and said. " They really dropped us on the wrong goddamn mountain. We're screwed."

"Hey beautiful." Someone said from behind me, but I didn't turn around. This someone laughed and put their hand on my shoulder and made me turn around. I saw Octavia.

I smiled at her "Hey Octavia, what's up?" She laughed " I just realized that I don't know your name" oh she's right. I couldn't say my name, because the ship started shaking and I was scared for my life. "I'm Jasmine Kane" Octavia's smile dropped. "I'm nothing like my father " I reassured her quickly.

She smiled again and took my hand, leading me somewhere. We stopped behind a group of guys. The guys turned when they heard steps. I only knew one. Bellamy Blake and he looked at me. A guy beside him smirked at me and moved forward.

"Wow look who's here. Jasmine Hot Kane" I didn't know this guy but sure as hell didn't like him. I crossed my arms and said.

"I didn't know that I had a middle name" his smirk became bigger and he started talking when Bellamy interrupted him, not taking his eyes from me "Murphy, leave her alone. She's a princess after all" Jackass, he smirked. Before I could respond I saw Murphy walking past me and pushing Wells away. Wells! " Hey! Hands off! He's with us." I looked at the guy with goggles and he looked confused. I quickly went beside Wells. Ready to defend him.

"Well he looks confused. I don't really think that he's with you Murphy." I said trying to puss his buttons and it worked. He began to take a step at me, but Wells pushed me behind him and said. "Relax, we're just trying to figure out where we are."

"We're on the ground. That's not good enough for you?" Bellamy asked sarcastically. I start to not like this guy, even if he's cute.

"We need to find Mount Weather. You heard my father's message. That has to be our first priority" Wells said to the gathering crowd.

"Screw your father! You think your in charge? You and your little princess?" Octavia asked looking between him and Clarke

"Octavia, we don't care who's in charge. We need to find Mount Weather. Not because the Chancellor said so, but because the longer we wait, the hungrier we'll get, the harder it'll be." I said with a sigh, Clarke nodded her head and continued

"How long do you think we'll last out here without those supplies?We're looking at a 20 mile trek. If we wanna make it before dark, we need to leave... now."

"I got a better idea... You two go. Find it for us. Let the privileged do the hard work for a change." Bellamy said. That's weird, I'm privileged too. Why didn't he name me? A cheer goes up and I can say that Bellamy is surprised at first by it, but likes the feeling. Clarke regards him warily. Wells plows ahead...

" You're not listening. We all need to go."

Just then, Murphy shoved Wells in in the back.

"Look, everybody. It's the Chancellor of Earth." The crowed laughed at this . Wells stepped forward.

[creekqueen27]

Fate (Raphael x Reader)

Requested: can you do one with Raphael, she gets kidnapped and they get Raph's dna and make her pregnant, he's actually happy about it cause he already loved her, how he acts around her being pregnant. Maybe some protective or possessive Raphael with some smutt?Thx!! <3

Gotcha boo thang 💋

Requests are open.

____________________

The bright lights made it hard for you to open your eyes. You tried to move your arms, only to realize you were restrained. Memories of what happened the night before come rushing back; the break in, the fighting, the capturing of yourself and the turtles. This really looks like the end. You turn your head and see what you assume is a doctor. You swallow thickly, trying to move your legs only to realize.. they're in stirrups?! "What the fuck.." you say, gaining the attention of the doctor. He looks up from the laptop and meets your eyes. "What are you doing to me?!?" You scream. He chuckles.

"Oh, you've been unconscious for the entire procedure, miss. You're an amazing surrogate. The healthiest eggs I've ever seen, really." Is that supposed to be a compliment? "I'm really excited for the outcome of the experiment. I'm sure you're concerned, but you shouldn't be. I'm very confident that it will be just a normal pregnancy, a normal delivery. Then, if we don't get the desired outcome, we can try again." The smile never leaves his face. Your stomach suddenly feels sick.

"Pregnancy?!" You shout. "I'm pregnant?! How?!" Your head is spinning.

"One of your eggs were fertilized with the DNA sample we acquired from your friend, Raphael. We believe the outcome should greatly benefit our company, the physical talents of you both combined-" You tuned him out, you felt like your heart stopped. You couldn't breathe. There goes your chance with him..

"I'm pregnant with Raph's baby.." you lay you're head back as you feel tears filling your eyes. Are we ever getting out of here? The thought ran through your mind for the next few days until finally, at dusk, you heard glass breaking and an alarm going off. As you heard people getting beat up closer to where you were being kept, you felt hopeful.

"She's in there!!" April's voice called out. She must have gotten help. You feel like you're going to cry when she busts through the door and starts undoing your wrists. You immediately hug her, tears escaping your eyes as you sob. "Are you okay?! What'd they do to you.." she trails off, glancing at the screens around you.

"Come on!" Leo screams as you see the turtles knocking people down left and right. You stand up, grabbing the folder next to the chair you were strapped to, and ran as fast as you could while holding April's hand. Casey was holding a door for everyone while he urged everyone to hurry. The fresh air hits your face as you all make it outside and run towards the "lady killer" as Mikey calls it. You hold tight to the folder as you hop in the back with April, Donatello in the passenger seat, Leo driving, Mikey, Raphael and Casey in the back pushing buttons to get defenses up again the enemy. Once you're all in the clear, you can't help but stare at Raph. April nudges you, leaning in.

"Are you okay?" She asks. You immediately feel tears falling down your face. "It's okay, you're okay. We're all here, you're okay." She soothes, Mikey coming closer and offering reassurance as well. You shake your head.

"I'm pregnant." You choke out as you hand the folder to April.

"Pregnant?!" Mikey screams and looks at your belly. He's pulled back by Raphael harshly, who has a pained look on his face.

"Raph.." April says lowly, looking between the two of you.. "he needs to read this.." she says, looking to you. You nod your head and lean against her after she hands the folder to Raph. You stare at him as he reads. He suddenly looks up at you. His eyes go to your belly. Back up to your eyes. He doesn't look disgusted?

"Are you hurting?" He asks. You shake your head. "Are you sure this is real?" He asks, leaning towards you a bit. You nod your head. "Yer pregnant.. with.." he whispers, looking at your belly. "Your baby." You finish for him, meeting eyes.

A few weeks later.. about 8 to be exact..

The lair was finally cleaned up and restored, which is good because the morning sickness hit you hard. You just lay and rested on the couch with a bucket, miserable. Mikey tried to cheer you up, but it didn't work. You just wanted this to be over. "Here, try this." You look up at Donnie offering you a small vile of liquid. You weakly grasp it, drinking it down. It only takes a few seconds to notice a great difference.

"Oh my God, Donnie.. thank you." You say quietly. You sit up, popping your back before standing and pulling down your pj shorts. Donnie gently leads you to the table where Mikey just sat down fresh pizza. As soon as you sit, you're pulled up again. You look up and meet eyes with Raphael, giving him a confused look. He places a pillow in your seat before sitting you back down. You can't help but smile. He's actually been really sweet towards you since..

"Yessss, gimme that sweet cheesey goodness!" Mikey says while digging in the pizza box. He passes the box around while Leo sits down, grabbing a slice. When you finish your second slice, you make a move to stand but Raph quickly puts his hand on your shoulder, holding you in place.

"Ya need'a eat more." He states, grabbing another slice and sitting it in front of you. You look from the slice, back up to him.

"I'm full." You simply say, earning a look from Raph.

"Baby aint." He says. You roll your eyes at him. "Just eat the damn pizza." He sighs. You also sigh, eating the slice. Maybe you weren't as full as you thought. "Don, you finish the thing so we can see the baby yet?" Raph asks, leaning back in his seat. The nerdy turtle swallows quickly, and smiles.

"In fact, I have. And I don't mean to brag, but I believe it's much more accurate than what you would get in a doctor's office." Donnie smiles. You're still getting prenatal care from an actual baby doctor, but extra care never hurts.

"Can I see the baby today?" You ask, getting nervous but excited as well. Donnie nods, mumbling an 'of course' as Mikey bounces in his seat.

"Dude, let me see the baby too!" Mikey shouts. You giggle at him.

"You can see, Mikey."

"After me." Raphael states harshly. You look up to him, raising a brow at his tone. He looks at you out of the corner of his eye. He chews his toothpick as he follows you to Donnie's lab, Mikey still sitting and finishing off the pizza with Leo. You lay on a long desk with a pillow behind your head as Donnie fools with the machine. Raphael towers over you, staring down at your belly before taking a seat, making him a bit above eye level with you. As the machine turns on, Donnie grabs a jelly like substance and raises your shirt. You don't miss Raph clenching his jaw.

"Okay, let's see.. female organs.." Donnie mumbles to himself as he rubs the jelly around your belly and presses a wand like thing to your lower belly. "AHA!" He shouts as an image pops up on the screen. Not entirely black and white. Not fuzzy, but clear.. "As if you're actually inside the womb, I knew it would be much more detailed." He says, proud of his invention. "Very strong heart rate. Seems developmentally on schedule. Aw, what a little shell." He coos, and you stare at the image. It really is Raph's baby.

"It's so small.." Raph says in awe, smiling at screen. Are his eyes watery?

"Actually, it's measurements are a bit bigger than most at this gestational age." Donnie says casually, getting different angles of the baby. "Most likely from the father." Donnie states playfully with a glance at Raph. You've never seen him smile so big before, immediately bringing a calming feeling over you as you smiled, too.

"Does it look healthy?" You asks, biting your lip. Donnie nods, double checking the heart rate.

Raph was always there when you got an ultrasound from Donnie. He always smiled looking at the baby on the screen. He was always helpful.. except for this exact moment. You're almost 5 months pregnant, finally have a noticeable bump.

"Move." You state, looking up at the red clad turtle blocking the door. He moved all your stuff, including yourself, into his bedroom weeks ago during the worst part of the morning sickness. He would always follow you to the bathroom, holding your hair for you. (He insists on sleeping on the mattress in the floor while you take his bed.) You've been procrastinating on getting stretchier pants for a week or so, and you were going to go out and buy some now but..

"Ya aint leaving. It's not safe for you, yer vulnerable." Raph states, not even moving an inch while you're pushing him as hard as you can. "Ain't gonna getcha anywhere, shorty." You sigh.

"Raph, I need more pants. These aren't really fitting anymore!" You pout up at him. "I have to go get some! And more socks.." you say quietly as you remember.

"Call April, I'll pay 'er back for em." His rough voice is low as he looks down at you. You pout again, earning a smirk and eye roll from him.

"I need to get them myself, I can't have you buying everything for me-"

"Sure ya can, shorty." Raph cuts you off, wrapping an arm around your shoulders.

"You could just dress up and go with me.." you quietly suggest as he leads you into his gym, remembering when he went out in daylight in a disguise.

"Ya can just call April and stay ya ass here and stay safe." The irritation is clear in his voice. "Get some light cardio goin'." Raphael starts with his weights as you use the treadmill lightly, trying to stay healthy during this whole thing. You give into Raphael's 'suggestion' and ask April to get you some comfy maternity pants and clothes. She really is your best friend, and has stayed so supportive. When she arrives the next day your new wardrobe (she really went all out), you were so excited. Your favorite was a dark red sweater.

After having girl time with April, and another ultrasound (which included Raph) because she hadn't seen the baby yet, you and her made a plan. "I hope they go for it." You say as you walk into the busy living area where all four turtles were playing video games.

"I swear to God yer fuckin cheatin!" Raph growls at Mikey as he cowers away from his older brother.

"Dude I'm not, you just suck!" Mikey says, running behind April and picking her up as a shield. Your giggle catches Raph's attention, but you don't see it.

"So guys! Why don't we go to the farmhouse for a few days? Give this girl some time outside." April suggests while giving you a side hug. Mikey immediately agrees, followed by Donnie. Leo is indifferent, really. He could take it or leave it. Raph seems unsure.

"Please?" You beg, walking to where he now sits at the kitchen table. You're barely above his eye level with him sitting and you standing by his side.

"Dunno if it's gonna be safe." He states, drinking his orange crush. You sigh, putting your arms around his large shoulders.

"Pleeeeeease? Everyone's gonna be there, it'll be safe." You beg. He grunts in response. You squeeze him a bit, whispering a quiet 'please' while leaning your head against his. You hear a 'come on, Raph' from Donnie. You nuzzle him lightly while Mikey tells him to 'dude, it'll be fine'. Even April throws in a 'itll be fun'. You give a final pout as he caves.

"If ya really wanna go.." he says lowly. You smile so big and kiss his cheek, thanking him before you rush to go pack. You completely miss the blush on his face, but everyone else sees it.

"You really love her, dontcha dude?" Mikey asks casually, softly. Raph grunts and nods. "You can totally tell her." He suggests.

"Look at me, Mikey. I'm a freak. She's beautiful. And she's stuck havin' my kid. She never wanted that.. ain't gonna make it worse for her." Raph sighs through his nose before going to the gym to work through his negative feelings.

______________

The

[blueneonlightshow-blog]

Tom’s Dating Advice

Marco looked around, still surprised by how modern Tom's home looked despite being in the underworld. While the cave had a red tint to it, there were arcade machines against the wall, the ping pong table he played against with Tom when he kidnapped him, a kitchen, living room, and a nice furnished table. If it weren't for the torture devices hanging from the wall, he'd say it looked almost nice to live in. The boy turned around as he heard Tom enter the room once more.

"So can I get you anything? Blood? Tormented souls? Hearts of the damned? Sparkling water?"

"Uh… I think I'll take the last one."

Tom opened his refrigerator, revealing several bags of blood, raw meat, glowing red orbs. Grabbing some sparkling water, the demon sat back down on the couch, tossing the drink to Marco, and continued to play his video games. "So what's up? Want to play another round of Space Ninja Extreme? I promise I won't cheat this time."

Marco rolled his eyes. "First of all, you always cheat. You never not cheat."

"I played fair last time."

"You melted my controller when I was winning."

"It's a legitimate strategy."

"Second…" the boy continued. "I'm actually here to talk about Star."

The demon raised an eyebrow, looking at him with his three eyes. "Why? Is something wrong?"

"Um… no, not with Star…"

Tom returned to his game, trying to dodge his opponent's attacks. "Then I'm sure you can handle it. Besides, you lived with her for a year. I'm pretty sure you're used to whatever she throws at you. Metaphorically, of course… and literally I guess... OOOHH! Look at that combo!"

"Ugh, Tom. C'mon. I need some help here."

"Why? I thought you said nothing's wrong with Star."

Marco shifted uncomfortably, distracting himself by watching the TV. "Well… there isn't…"

"Okay… well you better spit it out, cuz you're kind of distracting me from winning- Oooooh! Almost got me," he cheered.

Marco sighed. "Alright… so… Star and I are about to have our first date and-"

Tom lunged at Marco, dropping his controller and grabbing Marco's shoulders. The game played a sad note followed by a game over title card on the large flat screen TV. "Whoa, whoa, hold on. You're dating Star!? You two finally confessed!? Since when!?" he asked, shaking the boy.

"Get off!" Marco slapped his hands away and straightened out his hoodie. "She had this whole song thing and… look, I'll tell you later. I just need some help here. We're about to go on our first date tonight and I have no idea what to do! We hang out as best friends all the time, but now that we're… you know… together… I don't know what to do for our dates. And I don't want it to be the usual stuff we do, so I was hoping since you used to date Star, maybe you could give me some advice?"

"Why me? I'm sure you two will be fine. Just do what you normally do."

"Yeah, but… I don't know, can you help me out here?"

Tom nodded. "So what you're saying is you're too stupid to know how to date Star. Don't worry, man. I got you covered."

Marco glared at the demon. "Gee. Thanks, Tom. What would I do without you…"

He laid an arm over the boy's shoulder and walked him over to the couch. "Now lemme tell you how I used to do things. I was a real lady killer back then."

"Is that a pun or are you-"

"First tip! Get Star some flowers. She love flowers. I think."

The boy gave Tom a quizzical look. "You gave flowers to Star?"

He shrugged. "Well, I tried. Here's the story of our first date."

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

Tom spiked his hair up, trying to keep the perfect signature shape he always had. He wore his usual ripped shirt and dark pants, trying to keep it casual for the date. He looked at his watch, growing more impatient as time went on. "Ugh, where is she?"

He heard a sigh behind him. "Hello Tom."

He turned around and saw his 'girlfriend' Star Butterfly in her blue sleeveless dress. "Star!"

"Yeah, yeah, it's me. Let's just get this over with."

"Look, I know your parents set you up on this whole thing, but trust me, I'm not that bad of a guy. Here. I brought you flowers."

Star gasped, her eyes sparkling with joy. "Really!?"

"Yeah, check it out." He revealed a bouquet of roses slowly burning away into a stiff shell of charcoal. The demon breathed in the smoke and sighed. "Isn't it just wonderful?"

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

"You burnt your flowers…?"

"Yeah? So?"

"That doesn't sound very romantic."

Tom scoffed, crossing his arms. "What are you talking about? What could be more romantic than burning flowers? It's fleeting, it's ever-changing, it's warm, it's-"

"Tom, I don't know how things work down here in the underworld, but I'm pretty sure flaming roses aren't romantic…"

"Shows what you know about dating."

"Hey, for your information, I had a girlfriend before Star and I got together."

"Oh yeah? And how'd that work out for you?"

Marco scratched his head. "Uh… well…"

"Exactly. Now, as I was saying…"

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

Star was appalled by the burning bouquet. She waved her hands in the air, trying to blow wind onto the fire, but only managed to make it grow brighter.

Tom on the other hand was somewhat confused by her actions. "What are you… ohhhhh I get it. You want it to burn brighter! I got you, Starship." His eyes began to glow red. He channelled his energy into his hand, creating a roaring fire engulfing the roses. "This does look better!"

"TOM!"

He jumped back, startled by the princess's sudden outburst. "What?"

"Why did you burn those flowers?"

"I thought that's what you wanted! You were trying to make it bigger, weren't you?"

Star threw her hands up in the air. "Why would I want to make a bigger fire?"

"What's wrong with bigger fires? I think they're pretty cool."

Star sighed. "Whatever… let's just… get on with this date…" She pulled out her dimensional scissors and reluctantly entering through the portal.

"Uhh…. geez what's wrong with her?"

Tom followed after her, finding himself in Quest Buy. Several Mewmans, demons, monsters, and animal-like creatures ran through the busy intersection of the dimension with the occasional buyers being chased down by their killer gift cards. He let out a light chuckle, always finding it amusing to see someone making that mistake.

"C'mon, Tom, let's see what we can find around here," Star called out.

He smiled, making his way towards the princess. "Sure thing, Starship."

"Don't call me that."

"Aww, but it suits you!"

"Shhh shhh shh shh shush shush shush. No. No nicknames."

Tom huffed, the heat around him becoming slightly warmer from his annoyance. "Fine."

The two went through several isles of intricate products ranging from toys to weapons, food to potions, and much more. To any ordinary bystander, a trip to Quest Buy was always a treat. They could get anything in the universe and more in this one shopping dimension, but for Tom, it was a total bore. None of these things really entertained him. They were mere distractions to him, but Star seemed to enjoy window shopping. As much as he wished she had picked a better date spot, he did enjoy watching Star be amazed by each product on display-

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

Marco rolled his eyes, letting out a sigh. "Alright, alright, get on with it."

"Hey, don't interrupt me, I'm in the middle of the story!"

"Well, can you at least tell it a little faster? I kind of have a date with Star soon." He pointed at his watch, trying to get Tom to hurry up.

The demon ignored his request. "Every detail matters, Marco. What? You don't want to hear my advice on how to date Star?"

"I'm not sure if you swooning over Star is an important detail. Also… Starship? Really?"

He smirked. "Oooohhhhh, getting jealous are we?"

Marco scoffed. "What!? I'm not jealous! What would I be jealous of?"

"Heh, right. But man, she sure is something though, isn't she? Beautiful, funny-"

"Next."

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

"Oooohhhhh! Look, look! It's the newest edition of my all time favourite comic!"

Tom looked at the cover page before realizing what he was looking at. "Oh, this thing. Seen it. Ending's kind of lame."

Star looked over to her date with a confused look. "You've read it before? But it just came out today."

"I know the guy who makes the series."

She gasped, her eyes lighting up with excitement. "You do!?"

"Yeah. I paid him a visit a while ago. He was overdue for the underworld anyway."

The eagerness disappeared and was replaced with disappointment. "You… reaped his soul then?"

"Yup. All part of my job. Pretty cool, right?" he bragged, leaning against the bookshelf.

Star shook her head, rubbing her temples. "Okay… so… the guys dead cuz of you. Great."

"Don't worry, he told me the entire story before I brought him to my place. The main characters fight each other, but end up working together and saving their dimensions."

"TOM!"

The demon jumped. "What!?"

"You just spoiled the ending to my favourite comic!"

"No I didn't! That was just the set up for the bigger ending. Their dimensions fuse as one in the end."

Star glared at her date. "..."

"..."

"Yeah, this isn't going to work out."

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

"Wow, you're a terrible boyfriend."

"Oh yeah? How do you explain the fact that we went on five other dates after that?"

"Did Star ever ask you to go on any of those five dates or did you just bribe her parents?"

Tom opened his mouth to retort but soon closed it. "...Shut up."

Marco rolled his eyes. "Alright, so… lemme go over your notes. Star love flowers, preferably one that isn't on fire, likes to dimension hop, and I should enjoy the things she likes."

"Yeah pretty much."

"Tom, that's all stuff I already knew when we were best friends."

"Yeah, I know. Why do you think literally everyone thought you two were already dating?"

"Wait, they did?"

"Look, I'm sure you'll be fine. Just go on your date or whatever. You're gonna be late."

Marco looked at his watch, realizing that he was late by two whole minutes. He panicked, sloppily patting himself down, trying to find where he left his dimensional scissors. "Gah, c'mon where is it, where is it!?" He reached into his back pockets and pulled the scissors out, quickly thanking the demon before tearing a portal back to Earth. "Thanks a lot, Tom, I'll see you later!"

"Uh-huh."

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

Marco appeared from the portal, his eyes adjusting to the sudden brightness and vibrant colours of Earth. He looked around and saw Star waving at him in the distance, running towards him.

"Hey, Marco! Sorry I'm late. I was talking to Ponyhead about something and got kind of held up," she quickly said, trying to catch her breath. Little did Marco know, Star was doing the exact same thing as him, getting dating advice from Ponyhead before meeting up.

"Haha, n-no problem!"

The two stared at each other, a blush beginning to form on both their faces. This was the first time they would be meeting as an actual couple instead of best friends. Neither of them knew how this worked.

Star cleared her throat. "S-so…"

"So…"

"...Movies?"

Marco nervously smiled. "S-sure."

Star smiled back. The two began to walk over to the theatres side by side. Marco glanced at how close their hands were and moved closer to Star's side, hesitantly tapping her fingers with his. She responded by shyly wrapping her pinkie around his, the pair far too shy to publicly hold hands. They looked at each other with red faces and smiled.

Tom was right. He didn't need to worry. The two would find a way to make it work, just like all the times before.