#we all might have built a body in our labs'

[pilferingapples]

keep seeing posts along the lines of "remember YOU could be just like this villainous character you hate" and it's always some real high-achiever type and I appreciate the moral sentiment of it all but also

no

no I couldn't

I do not have that kind of energy , I'm doing good to feed the cats on time and I routinely forget what day of the week it is, I am NOT implementing some 4D chess scheme to deploy a Warbot Army downtown, or building an affront to the laws of god and man in my basement

at my most badass I'm Not Returning Some Phone Calls , if I am ever the villain of the piece than I truly feel sorry for the hero whose Nemesis Assignment Assessment looked at them and said "we're assigning you...The Napper"

[mantisgodsaus]

(via @zombiebugbites)

We forgot to respond to this for a whole entire day. Very inch resting indeed... The House's Vi has a stronger sense of individuality than Canon Vi has while working in The Hive, but probably a significantly looser sense of individuality than a version of itself that was actually allowed to, like, follow what she wanted to do.

The House's Vi was taken for the Snakemouth experiments as discard - a worker whose absence will make no difference to operation, in service of a political deal it still doesn't fully understand. It has access to the files that this deal was stored in, and thus is fully aware of the recorded details of its discard, but lacks any information on anything before it was registered in Snakemouth Den's system. Not uncommon for a Zombee, honestly, but Vi was taken from desperately trying to make herself useful in a system that would never work for her, to throwing everything it could possibly do to help in a system that wanted it dead or ground down to uselessness, to trying to find anything to do after the near-obsolescence of its actual skills during the hibernation.

It lacks the context of former memories, but it knows that it is important for it to be useful, and it knows that it has been historically bad at that. It knows it is skilled at things, but everything it's good at is more or less obsolete - and it's trying to be useful through any means it can, but that basically means bashing its head against the wall until it makes ground on things that are immeasurably unintuitive to it.

This means, of course, that as far as it remembers, it has spent its life attempting to be useful to the colony, a lot of its worth hinges on that utility to the colony, and if it can't be useful to other people its entire purpose of life is basically moot. It doesn't really have a concept of "doing things for itself", and if you suggested that to it it would probably give you a weird look and tell you that the colony is more than four hundred individuals, do you seriously think that everything should stop just to cater to one person?

(note that it has, in fact, shifted things around before and directed significant resources to cater to One Person, on multiple occasions. it doesn't really register this as hypocrisy and if you pointed out that it thinks that arranging things around keeping kabbu functional is perfectly fine it would huff at you and tell you that that's a different thing entirely and then treat you like you're stupid for the rest of the interaction)

It is, genuinely, incredibly good at what it does by now, but it remembers being bad, and it remembers every stupid fuck-up it's ever done, and it remembers people with better brains for this than it being able to fix things it's struggled with for weeks in less than an hour, and it calibrates its expectations by the people that this is natural for, and in the process putting itself up against people with supercomputers for brains like it's got the same capability, which it doesn't.

It's got a good eye for improving systems, and the experience to know how well something is likely to work. It can fix things and they'll work. It can optimize things better than almost everyone else in the colony, because it has a good eye for simplifying, for improving design, for making things easier to utilize and harder to break. If you ask it to build something on its own it will make either the most dog shit object ever or a copy of Something Else and then it will spend the next hour having a crisis about how it can't make anything correctly.

Putting parts together is hard and clunky and it's not good at it. Deciding what a Good System looks like is hard and has no solid answers and it's also not good at it. If you give it a system that already functions, but does so badly, especially if it's a system it's worked with before, it can do a bang-up job of making it Work. It will probably also make it better to work with in the process, because ergonomics and making the tools it uses more pleasant to work with are something it's genuinely Good at, it's just that those skills don't translate to making something good to begin with - just improving something towards a given purpose.

It does not mesh well with software, because all of the parts are weird and squishy and affect each other unpredictably. It does significantly better with hardware, because despite it being Much Of The Same it does so in a way it can see and touch and interact with and tell what is going wrong. If you present it with a task it does not understand it will try to do it and get progressively more frustrated at lack of progress without catching on to the fact that it is trying to shove a square peg into a triangular hole. It also spends like half of its time optimizing Kjdrira's code so that it can be effectively run by people who cannot run hundreds of parallel processes at once and probably leaves a lot of comments along the lines of "why would it ever need to do that??? removed feature forever don't put it back" in code.

Unlike more conventional versions of Vi, The House's Vi is actually loyal to its colony, mostly through the same general Fucked Up Situation mechanism that leads most of the Snakemouth Den symbiotes to bond so closely to the rest of their colony. This means it has the unique feature of being deeply loyal to its colony for the people that are there, and the desire to do literally anything that it can possibly do under any circumstances to help.

It's in a weird situation of having great rapid data parsing, and excellent long-range reception, but a lacking ability to perform other tasks. It also has the fun & enjoyahle feature of the desperate itch to contribute- to do something for the people who helped it, to justify its upkeep in its contributions to the hive, to do anything but sit around twiddling its thumbs - which also means it's one of the most active bugs in the colony throughout this period, thus meaning it sits in a Very Weird Intersection.

The House's Vi is not talented with mechanical work, per se. It is not the kind of programmer who has any sort of inbuilt instinct for how it's meant to work, or the kind of person who's good with organized systems. It is good at moment-to-moment parsing and decision making, which is a skillset that is incredibly niche in the mid-hibernation colony. It is Not Good at almost all of the nerd junk it's meant to do, and it is always Very Aware that it doesn't have the same touch for the nerd junk it currently does as other colony members.

It is also, at this point, the single person in the colony with the most hands-on experience, because it has worked consistently with these tools for decades by now, and this amounts for enough knowledge to overtake a lot of bugs for whom this comes more naturally.

[fanficsiwillneverwrite]

Writing chapter 2 for this has begun:

Today is the day!

The Oregon weather has been less than ideal these past few days, but the sky has finally cleared enough to begin setting up the Confiners around town. Some of them, at least. It might take the entire summer to set it all up—which is partly the reason for our return.

Though Fiddleford’s mind isn’t as sharp as it once was, he still knows his way around schematics. He built these things in about a month! With only a few minor hiccups along the way, like the lake incident Sunday morning (Stanley says he’s still finding animatronic squids aboard the Stan O’ War II). But I digress.

Here are the facts:

There is a place in between realms known to most only as “the void.” My time journeying the realms has taught me this place is inescapable, not even Bill and his goons dare step foot inside. No one has a clue what’s waiting for them upon entering (perhaps, nothing). They only know that once entering, there is no going back. Sounds like the perfect prison for a dangerous entity such as Bill.

I do not wish to worry the town nor the children, but Bill’s return is inevitable. He always finds a way back. It is only a matter of time before he tricks someone else into setting him loose. It’s in his nature. But the Confiners will assure only one final (hopefully brief) appearance in our dimension before we trap him inside the void forever.

Bill is in my lab under a dome glass, safe from any curious onlookers who might have the sudden urge to shake his hand. Only a Pines can enter and none of us, Soos and his weird girlfriend included, want a repeat of last summer. I’m sure of it. Still, there is still no hard evidence suggesting shaking his hand will actually awaken him. Stanley says it’s better to be safe than to be dead. I’m inclined to—

Glass shatters. And Ford lifts his head seconds before the grappling hook hits him. It takes a strip of his hair. Mabel comes swinging in. “Good morning, Grunkle Ford,” she greets.

He closes his journal as Stan comes stomping into the kitchen after her. “Mabel, what did I say about using the grappling hook inside?”

Bowing her head, she hands it off to him. “You get first dibs…”

“That’s right!” He shoots it off into the living room. Another glass breaks; a window this time. He glides away quickly. But the fun ends abruptly—his body crackles as he collides with the wooden wall. “Worth it,” he says, giving a thumbs up.

Ford simply hums at his brother’s immaturity. Mabel skips over to the coffee pot, humming a little tune as she pours herself a cup. “Kind of sophisticated for me to take up drinking coffee, huh, Grunkle Ford?”

Ford watches her pour about a pound’s worth of sugar into her cup. She adds whipped cream next, and topping it all off with a good amount of sprinkles. “Very sophisticated,” he notes.

[braveclementine]

Taken Down

Warnings: None

Copyright: I do not own any Marvel characters or locations. However, I do own my OC Elizabeth Lightwood. I do not condone any copying of this.

"All our work is gone." Bruce said.

You had all relocated to Tony and Bruce's lab. You were sitting in a chair with an ice pack against your throat while Natasha sat in the corner with Everleigh. Steve had his arms crossed, leaning against the wall near your seat.

"Ultron cleared out. He used the Internet as an escape hatch."

"Ultron." Steve scoffed under his breath.

"He's been in everything." You said, looking through the files. "Files, surveillance."

"Probably knows more about us than we know about each other." Natasha added, getting up from Everleigh, crossing her arms over her chest.

"He's in your files, he's in the Internet." Rhodey said. He had gotten rid of the suit, holding his arm in his hand. "What if he decides to access something a little more exciting?"

"Nuclear codes." Maria said, pulling glass out of her foot.

"Nuclear codes." Rhodey confirmed. "Look, we need to make some calls, assuming we still can."

"Nukes? He said he wanted us dead." Natasha said.

"He didn't say 'dead'. He said 'extinct'." Steve retorted.

"He also said he killed somebody." Clint said.

"There wasn't anyone else in the building." Maria replied.

"Yes, there was." Tony said, finally turning away from the destroyed robot, coming to stand by Bruce. He flicked something from his thin tablet, a crumpled orange sphere of light. Broken and stuttering. You leaned forward, recognition and sorrow coming through you.

"What?" Bruce asked, walking forward, almost standing in Jarvis' sphere. "This is insane."

"Jarvis was the first line of defense." Steve said. "He would have shut Ultron down, it makes sense."

"No. Ultron could have assimilated Jarvis. This isn't strategy. This is rage."

"Well yeah!" You retorted, voice a little higher than normal out of fear just as Thor entered the room. "Haven't you seen the movies? Terminator? The Matrix? M3GEN? Why would anyone make a robot, make AI that can think and act for itself?"

No one answered though as Thor grabbed Tony around the throat, lifting him off the ground.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" Rhodey protested.

"It's going around." Clint said without sympathy.

You leapt to your feet, rushing forward, but Rhodey caught your arms, pulling you back to him.

"Come on, use your words buddy." Tony choked out.

"I have more than enough words to describe you, Stark." Thor threatened.

"Thor! The Legionnaire." Steve commanded in a sharp voice, bending down and picking up the ice pack that you had lost on your way to Tony. You completely ignored Steve, Rhodey, and Thor, rushing to Tony's side. He wrapped an arm around your waist, kissing the top of your head apologetically.

"Trail went cold about one hundred miles out, but it's headed north." Thor said. "And it has the scepter. Now we have to retrieve it, again."

"Genie's out of that bottle." Natasha replied. "Clear and present is Ultron."

"I don't understand." Helen suddenly said. You looked to see that she was leaning over one of the destroyed bodies now. "You built this program. Why is it trying to kill us?"

Tony started to laugh and you closed your eyes. Bruce shook his head at Tony.

"You think this is funny?" Thor asked.

"No." Tony said, turning around. "It's probably not, right? This is very terrible. Is it so. . ."

"Tony." You whispered, giving him a pleading look as he burst back into incredulous laughter.

"This could have been avoided if you hadn't played with something you don't understand." Thor said, walking closer.

"No. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It is funny. It's a hoot that you don't get why we need this." Tony was suddenly standing almost toe to toe with Thor while you hovered. You had already felt lightning once today, you didn't really want to feel it again. At the same time, you really needed Tony alive.

"Tony, maybe this might not be the time." Bruce said from behind him.

"Really?" Tony suddenly turned on Bruce as well. "That's it? You just roll over, show your belly every time someone snarls?"

"Only when I've created a murder bot." Bruce responded pretty well.

"We didn't. We weren't even close." Tony responded. "Were we close to an interface?"

"Well, you did something right. And you did it right here." Steve interrupted. "The Avengers were supposed to be different from S.H.I.E.L.D."

"Anybody remember when I carried a nuke through a wormhole?" Tony responded and you flinched terribly, sinking into your chair, putting your head in your hands.

"No, it's never come up." Rhodey replied sarcastically.

"Saved New York?"

"Never heard that."

"Recall that?" Tony shouted, "A hostile alien army came charging through a hole in space. We're standing three hundred feet below it. We're the Avengers. We can bust arms dealers all the livelong day, but that up there, that's. . . That's the endgame. How were you guys planning on beating that?"

"Together." Steve responded.

"We'll lose."

"Then we'll do that together too." Steve said softly.

🎃 :::::  🧡  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  🧡  ::::: 🎃

You went ahead and put Everleigh to sleep, redressing. You got out of your party dress, which was ripped, torn, and had motor oil all over it. You didn't even bother putting it in the dirty laundry, just throwing it straight into the trash can. No point in saving what can't be fixed.

You sighed, deciding to put on your Agent uniform from when you used to be a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent. You smiled fondly at the leather catsuit. It had actually been good days at S.H.I.E.L.D., even if some of them had turned out to be HYDRA. But you had enjoyed the training, the learning, the small missions.

But you liked the Avengers a lot better. When Tony wasn't butting heads with Steve or one of the other crewmates, it was like a big family. And, really, even with some of them butting heads, families did that too, right?

You went back downstairs to where the others were talking. They probably hadn't waited for you, deciding to hash plans out right away.

It wasn't until the next morning that something was hit. You were upstairs with Natasha, Tony, Thor, and Bruce when Steve and Maria came in with an iPad. Steve handed the tablet off to Thor.

"A message. Ultron killed Strucker." Steve said while Thor thrusted the iPad into Tony's chest.

"And he did a Banksy at the crime scene, just for us." Tony replied, unperturbed.

"This is a smoke screen." Natasha argued. "Why send a message when you've just given a speech?"

"Strucker knew something that Ultron wanted us to miss." Steve replied.

"Yeah I bet he. . . yeah." Natasha murmured. "Everything we've had on Strucker's been erased."

"Not everything."

🎃 :::::  🧡  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  🧡  ::::: 🎃

The others went off to record rooms to find more on Strucker. Meanwhile, you took a quick trip down to where Sam lived and knocked on the door, Everleigh in your arms.

It wasn't Sam who opened the door, but a tall thin, white dude with brown hair. He was wearing a tuxedo with a watch on his wrist and he frowned when he saw you. "Who are you?"

"Y/N Stark. Can I see Sam?" You asked without preamble.

He opened the door wider, letting you in, closing it behind you.

"Sam?" He called out. "You have a guest."

Sam came out of the bedroom, also wearing a tuxedo. "Y/N? What's going on?"

"We can either speak in private and I can tell you everything that's happened since you left the party, or I can give you the gist of it right here." You replied, looking over at the other dude. "Sorry, you don't have clearance."

"I'll just take the gist." Sam said.

"Right, okay. Tony created a robot who wants the extinction of the Avengers. We're going hunting for him. I need you to watch Everleigh." You said. "Only thing is, this robot, Ultron, he's connected to the Internet. If he finds out where Everleigh is, he might come for her, especially if he knows shes not with me or Stark. Can you do it?"

"Yeah of course." Sam said.

"Ultron? That's just a theory." Stephen crossed his arms over his chest.

"Not when you have alien technology to work with." You muttered under your breath.

"How long?" Sam asked as you kissed Everleigh's forehead, getting ready to hand her over.

"I have no idea." You said, shaking your head. "We're going after an African trade dealer today. Who knows what is going to happen."

"Do you want me on stand-by?" Sam asked, tapping the phone on the coffee table.

"No." You shook your head, putting the duffel bag on the table. "Just please take care of Everleigh, okay?"

"I will." Sam said.

"And I mean no internet contact." You stressed. "Don't text or call me about her unless Ultron took her or something because then it doesn't matter. Don't send pictures."

"Y/N, I've got it." Sam said in a serious voice.

You breathed in deeply, feeling anxious about handing Everleigh over, but you did so, watching her settle sleepily into Sam's arms.

"Good luck." Sam said seriously.

You smiled, but it didn't quite feel right, your throat closed up. You gave the same stressed smile to the other guy, and then hurried out of Sam's house and got ready to join the team.

🎃 :::::  🧡  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  🧡  ::::: 🎃

You could hear Ultron shouting even as you all made your way through the ship. You were to be paired with Clint, while Thor, Steve, and Tony went after Ultron and the Maximoff twins face on.

"Stark is. . . he's a sickness!" Ultron shouted, clenching his fist. You made sure your gun was already reloaded while Clint readied his bow. You made sure to stay behind him.

"Ah, Junior. You're gonna break your old man's heart." Tony said, landing in front of Thor and Steve.

"If I have to."

"Nobody has to break anything." Thor said.

"Clearly you've never made an omelette." Ultron responded.

"He beat me by one second." You heard Tony say in your coms. You rolled your eyes, breathing in deeply to calm yourself.

"Ah, yes. He's funny." Pietro spoke. "Mr. Stark. It's what? Comfortable? Like old times?"

"This was never my life." Tony said.

"You two can still walk away from this." Steve said.

"Oh, we will." Wanda said.

"I know you've suffered." Steve replied, hoping to make a connection with them.

"Blah. Captain America. God's righteous man. Pretending you could live without a war. I can't physically throw up in my mouth but. . "

"If you believe in peace, then let us keep it." Thor interrupted while you bristled.

"I think you're confusing 'peace' with 'quiet.'"

"Uh-huh. What's the vibranium for?"

"I'm glad you asked that, because I wanted to take this time to explain my evil plan." But he didn't, instead shooting Tony into the wall as two more robots came down to fight Thor and Steve.

As you watched Tony and Ultron take to the air, fighting and Steve being pushed back by Wanda, you went to move to help, but Clint caught your arm.

"Patience. Cap is alright on his own. Follow me."

You did and he found the best angle to shoot his bow. You steadied yourself, shooting robots through the weak link in their chests or the back of their necks. The pace was steady and you found a comforting rhythm in the work.

Suddenly, the entire place went quiet as Clint shot another special arrow. Suddenly, he whipped around, an electrical arrow attached to Wanda's forehead. You started in shock, nearly falling backwards to your death, before Clint grabbed your arm.

Fuck, you were really way to clumsy for this job.

"I've done the whole mind control thing. Not a fan." Clint replied as Wanda slowly fell to the ground. Suddenly, Clint was shoved sideways as Pietro caught his sister. He zoomed out of there without a glance back.

"Yeah you better run." Clint grumbled as you reached inside to help him out.

"Hey, you guys gotta move." You said into the coms. "Guys?" You looked over at Clint, "No one's answering."

🎃 :::::  🧡  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  🧡  ::::: 🎃

Steve flinched away from the bright lights of cameras. Women were laughing at tables, cuddling up with soldiers. Steve was wearing his uniform.

"Are you ready for our dance?" A familiar voice asked from behind him.

He spun and nearly choked. Peggy was standing there, her lovely brown hair permed. She was wearing a beautiful blue dress with flowers pinned to her breast. He felt guilt immediately boil in his stomach. Their kiss, their relationship. Even if he had thought Bucky was gone. He should never have done it.

"The war is over Steve. We can go home." He just stared at her with longing. "Imagine it."

The room was empty suddenly and quiet. But he could see him dancing and smiling with Peggy. He was really imagining it. Imagining going home to her. Home to her instead of Bucky. Who was Bucky?

"Steve!" Suddenly a voice said and the daydreams were gone. He was still in the ballroom, but Y/N was standing there instead. Her H/C hair was array and there was soot on her face. "Steve wake up!" She screamed, shaking his shoulders. But he was awake, he was standing.

Y/N. Another one he could see himself going home to. How jealous he was of Tony. To have a wonderful girl and a child. Even with Bucky, he couldn't have that. Not really. Bucky couldn't give him that.

Suddenly, he felt an irrational wave of anger towards Bucky.

"Steve."

This voice was different. Where Peggy and Y/N's voices had been far away, this one was more substantial.

He turned to see a girl he had never met before. She was shorter than him, possibly even shorter than Y/N. She was wearing a simple purple tunic and her long brown hair was braided down to her waist. She wore a golden circlet with green stones, with gold bracelets on her ankles and wrists. She looked like a goddess from a Greek history book.

"Who are you?" He whispered.

"STEVE!" Y/N's voice pleaded behind him, sounding like a whisper. Like someone trying to wake him up.

"Your team needs you." The girl in front of him said. He was drawn to her brown eyes. They seemed familiar, like he had seen them once before. Her face was diamond shaped, petite. . . beautiful.

"You dropped your helmet, you're lying on the ground in the salvage yard. On the ship Churchill." The girl continued, as though she was giving him facts for a rational part of him. "Y/N Stark is kneeling above you, trying to get you to wake up. Bruce Banner is destroying the town nearby. Natasha and Thor are out as well. You must wake Steve."

"I can't." He said. "I have to give Peggy a dance."

"No." The girl said, stepping forwards, placing a hand against his cheek. It had more emotion in it than he had faced before. Except with Bucky. She was like. . . a female version of Bucky. . . but no blue eyes. She smiled then.

"Yes, think of Bucky. Your soulmate. The love of your life. Think of him. Use him as an anchor. You must find him Steve. You must wake up and find him."

Steve jolted, seeing Y/N's face clearly now. He was no longer lying on the ground. She was trying to carry him back, having dragged him out of the ship. His shield was on her back, his helmet hooked on her wrist.

The jolt from waking up however, sent her flying face first into the mud of the salvage yard and he stumbled, catching himself on his hands and knees, getting back to his feet.

She struggled out of the mud, wiping her face with the back of her hand.

"Shit. I'm sorry." He cursed, helping her to her feet. "Where are the others?"

"Clint's trying to get Natasha out." Y/N mumbled, mindlessly wiping mud from his helmet now. "Thor's still in there. Tony went off to get Bruce. He just called in Veronica."

"I'll go get Thor." Steve said, blinking to clear his mind. He felt sick and anxious. "You go back to the ship."

He turned before she could say anything, running back into the ship. He collapsed there, sobbing into his arms. Peggy. Y/N. Bucky. The girl. All people he couldn't have, people he all loved. It was so painful, it felt like he wanted to rip his skin off his body, claw his insides out.

But he had a mission. He staggered to his feet now, finding Thor, carrying him back to the jet.

🎃 :::::  🧡  ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━  🧡  ::::: 🎃

You were irrationally angry. You knew you had no right to be angry. But how was it, out of the most unqualified people to be on the team, you were one of the only ones that didn't get Wanda's mind control? How could Thor, Steve, Natasha, and Bruce all get mind manipulated?

You knew you had no right to be angry. You were trying not to show it. They were all sitting subdued in chairs while Clint flew. You on the other hand, paced back and forth. You wanted to scream at them, you wanted to cry as well. You also wanted to punch them for some reason. And most especially, you wanted to punch Steve.

You weren't sure why Steve specifically. Maybe because he was the only one who could actually take it?

But every time you looked up and saw his soot stained, heartbroken, absolutely devastated face, you wanted to hug him and kill him at the same time.

Like I said, irrational.

"The news is loving you guys." Maria Hill said from up front as you paced. "Nobody else is. There's been no official call for Banner's arrest but it's in the air."

"The Stark Relief Foundation?" Tony asked.

"Already on the scene." Maria responded. "How's the team?"

"Fucked." You muttered under your breath, ignoring the way Steve shifted in his seat.

"Everyone's. . ." Tony looked up at you and you shook your head at him. "We took a hit. We'll shake it off."

You snorted, turning your back on the rest of the team. God, why were you beating down on them so badly? You knew they must've seen terrible things in their heads. You needed to give them a break.

"Well, for now, I'd stay in stealth mode and stay away from here."

"So, run and hide?" You and Tony asked at the same time.

"Until we can find Ultron, I don't have a lot else to offer." Maria said slowly.

"Neither do we." Tony muttered. He switched off the coms and went up to where Clint was piloting, "Hey you wanna switch out?"

"No, I'm good. If you wanna get some kip, now's a good time because we're still a few hours out."

"Out from where?" You asked sharply while Tony asked, "Few hours from where?"

"A safe house." Clint responded.

You and Tony went and sat in the corner. You held his hand tightly and muttered quietly to him, "Why am I so angry at the others? It's not their fault."

Tony sighed, pulling you into him so he could hug you tighter, "Because you look up to them. And to see them fall apart like that, leaving you on your own, I think you're more scared than angry. I was gone and you only had Clint as backup and to protect three comatose teammates. And I think you're angry with Steve because you worked so hard to bring him out and then he went straight back in. Don't worry. You'll sleep it off."

You kissed his cheek sweetly. "I'm glad you weren't."

"I was though." He murmured, "On the first encounter with them. But it was quicker, over in seconds."

"What did you see?" You asked with a slight frown.

"Everyone dead." He whispered.

"Oh." You said quietly. "That's why the HYDRA raid was so easy. She saw what you feared most and let you take the scepter to create something that might destroy us out of your fear." You sighed quietly. "To bad she was right."

"Hey. I didn't mean-"

"I know." You cut him off quickly, not wanting to fight when you were already irrationally angry with everyone else. You didn't want to be rationally angry with Tony on top of that. "I know. Now, we just deal with it." 

[powertaco]

Okey hear me out, deaths whiterose fanchild whose an Android built by Ruby and Weiss based on penny's schematics

"Ye do know what you're signing us up for right?" Maria asked the other two who were hard at work at their shared lab at home.

While Maria had merely offered her dilapidated shack Weiss had actually recoiled upon seeing it and had offered a compromise.

The compromise being she had an entire underground bunker built underneath it with state of the art equipment, and even a landing pad outside so supplies could be dropped off at any time.

To further appease Maria she'd even let the shack upstairs remain mostly the same just not...rotting.

How she'd lived in it by herself before she found them on the train heading to Atlas all those years ago Weiss did not even want to guess.

Weiss waved her off. "It's hardly the same."

"I mean it kinda is isn't it?" Ruby said as she paused from soldering a wire.

"None of us had to go through the pain of childbirth for one, and for two when it's bedtime we can merely switch them off!" Weiss said proudly before a pair of hands slapped the back of her head.

"You know Penny hated it that her dad could and did that to her so why would you want that for our 'daughter'?" Ruby asked seriously.

"If ye want to treat her like a real flesh and blood person-"

"And she is!" Ruby piped in.

"Then you can't fall back to treating her like a pet and turning her 'off' the second you're annoyed."

Weiss winced. "I suppose you're right. I was only joking but it was a cruel joke," Weiss admitted.

"It's alright just don't ever tell or joke about it with her. We ever think of a name?" Ruby asked as she gently stitched the girl on the table back up.

"A few but what if we let her pick her own name?" Weiss offered.

"Might as well. We're skipping right to the preteen stage anyway," Maria said as she brushed her hands on her lounging clothes to rid them of any food remnants.

"Yeah, even though these schematics are based on Penny she's still her own person. I mean they don't look much alike at this point," Ruby pointed out reasonably.

The young child on the table had short dark hair with a single strand of white that went through it.

According to the dna sequence they'd run Weiss's genes were powerful enough that some white in the hair was expected and they'd liked this look.

While her eyes were closed now they knew that a single blue and silver eye lay behind the eyelids. She had tan skin, and was moderately tall almost as tall as Weiss was already.

The only thing that was really missing was her name, which she'd tell them when she picked it out.

Ruby closed the last compartment and nodded.

"She's as ready as she'll ever be, at least until it's time to give her the teenager update," Ruby joked.

"Ready to become parents?" Maria joked as Weiss felt her hands shaking.

"I...yes."

"Are you alright?" Maria asked worriedly as she gently took Weiss into her arms and Ruby hugged her from the front.

"I never regretted our relationship. Not for a single moment but I admit part of me was worried about my family legacy."

"Well now you know it'll live on in her," Maria countered as she nodded to the waiting daughter on the table.

"Alright. Thanks to Pietro's improvements and the three of us it'll drain our aura to do this but it'll come back like normal instead of sacrificing it for good. Anything else we need to do beforehand?" Ruby asked as the other two shook their heads.

"Together?" Maria asked putting her hand on the switch as she hooked up herself to the machine.

"Together," Weiss stated firmly having finished the same.

"Together forever!" Ruby cheered as she flipped the switch.

They grunted as their aura drained and then broke.

The body on the table twitched and the young girl opened her eyes to the world for the first time.

[gutsposting]

Dear [redacted],

I’m sorry for not writing to you sooner. I haven’t had the time or the supplies until now. I’ve gotten all of your letters and I hope this one can get to you in only a few days. You asked me how I liked Britain. I’m assuming you meant, how did I enjoy my time here before I had to come to the island? Well, I didn’t enjoy it as much as I had hoped. The village they put me in was quiet, small and rather nice. It rained at every waking moment. I feel exceptionally gloomy here, without you and the kids it feels like years have passed already.

I have to put a lot of faith in our suits, and in Dr. Halligan. He was my boss’s boss, back when I worked for the University. I’m not sure if you met him before or not. I suppose that he has to trust me a lot too, because if I make any mistakes I’ll get him killed. I could easily understand how anxious he might be working with a guy as young as I am. I think that he respects me a lot for volunteering though. And now that we’ve worked together this long and this closely - having to rely on each other this much, I think he’s built up some kind of mutual respect towards me.

He and I live in a facility, quarantined from one another at all times, that basically feels like a lab that you have to live in. I’m trying to make it as homey as I can but it’s not much use. They didn’t let me bring any personal items with me onto the island and I obviously can’t have anything brought to me from the outside here. They actually did install a little library with a good number of books, and there is also a laptop here but it has pretty heavily restricted access to the internet. Honestly, I’m scared to look up any news about the whole situation because I know they’ll get rid of me the second they think I’ll go to the media or the Russians or whatever.

Honestly it’s more work than I’ve ever had to do before. We work 8 hour shifts, from 9am to 5pm, and we can only be outside of the facility for 30 minutes at a time. Bob runs off and does his own thing for his bit of time, but I have to go and document the decomposition of all 57 bodies every single day. Just getting good pictures of all 57 is difficult as hell, and they’ve really been on top of me when it comes to hitting my deadlines on the reports. I can tell you that if I get contaminated I’m going to hang myself. I won’t go through what these people have, and I definitely won’t bring one microbe of this back to you.

The suits are able to protect us, 100% of the time with 100% effectiveness, but if we stay outside for too long the gas gets the suits so contaminated that they can’t be used again and the process of sanitizing them becomes “unrealistically expensive”, as I was told. All of my notes are kept in a house in the middle of the tiny village, and I use a phone they gave me to send my pictures on to the computer. 30 minutes to check the bodies, 30 minutes to get back home and get clean, and to make sure your suit is in perfect shape, and back out for 30 more minutes. Then when I get back it usually takes me six hours to get all of the reports done.

There is going to be a cleanup someday, but no one is ever gonna be able to live here again. Nor will they want to, once everyone understands this gas and how stupid the human race was for making it. They told me it would be livable here again in a year’s time but I don’t believe it at all to tell you the truth. This gas seems to be more “sticky” than any I’ve ever heard of. It gat grow spores in your clothes and can spread them everywhere, and you can he infected for weeks before you show any symptoms.

It’s been very bright for the past few weeks, but unbelievably cold. I absolutely despise being outside, now. Gray rocks, nasty slushy rain, always overcast… being surrounded by the sea is nice though. I spend some time every morning just watching the waves crash against the rocks, and I imagine myself as an old lighthouse keeper. I do my best to keep my mind on better, less complicated times. I envision myself, bearded and old, living off of rationed supplies and spending all my free time just trying to keep sane. It’s just another daydream I use to keep my mind busy.

The cat they sent me is Russian, they said. Gray, with long fur. I named her Dasha. I admit, I talk to her when I’m quarantined in my room for the 16 hours a day I’m not working. You know how I am. So after all, you probably expect to hear that I’m still not sleeping. Every night I maybe fall asleep for about an hour, but it’s hard for me to say. I’ve done a lot of reading, like you recommended. The tablet you sent me has been put to extreme use. I have to get every book pre-approved , though. Somehow [redacted] made it on to the banned books list.

The part of this letter I’m dreading to write about the most is also probably what you want to hear about the most. The job isn’t fun at all, I tell you. It’s obvious that everyone died painfully. The bodies are skeletons now but I have had to document their decomposition with painstaking detail over all of this time. Re-visiting the same faces and watching them rot away. And the island is nothing but gray rocks and dead grass, and it rains every fucking day all day. It’s been difficult.

I’ve been trying to keep up my habits as normally as I did before I left home. I’ve got complete internet access, and I’m too scared to know what they’ll do if I look anything up about this place and what’s going on out there. I have been playing a lot of video games of course. I made progress with the city we built last winter, I hope you don’t mind. You can see what I’ve done if you log in to my account on the computer at home, the password should be saved. I know it’s hard, going from seeing one another every day and having phones to feeling like a couple from the 1950’s writing handwritten letters to each other, but there’s something nice about it too.

I’ve been promised compensation when I come back. I worry that I’ll come home sick from all this. Some unknown illness will take me 20 years from now or something. But as long as I don’t get anyone else infected, I don’t really care. The settlement I was promised in the case of my death is insane. You and the boys would be alright forever.

I do feel as though it’s my duty to be here. As far as I know, few people are as qualified as I am to do this. Bob is running an inspection on the site’s computer systems. One time he did tell me that the problem was inexplicable because “there were not supposed to be any computers there that were connected to the internet”, and he hasn’t found any evidence that there were. So whereas he’s stuck and getting more frustrated by the day, I just feel a gloomy sense of duty to keep on keeping on. What choice do I have? Without this level of documentation, we can’t properly convince the rest of the world to cut this shit out.

Worst of all though is the dread in my heart that tells me it won’t be enough. The pictures I’ve taken are too graphic for the public to see, and I’m positive that my testimony is going to be doubted and challenged. Half the country has already made up their minds about it, and I’m not stupid enough to think I can change the minds of stupid people.

Don’t believe anything you read or see until I get home and I can explain everything. Some of the stuff you’ll hear is definitely going to be true, but there’s a lot of speculation out there. I do believe it was the Russians but [many sentences redacted].

Lastly, I’ll tell you about the most sinister theory of all. I think that the government gave me this cat specifically so I would grow attached to it. So now that I have to rely on it for my own sanity, any minuscule mistake that I make in keeping myself decontaminated would result in her death a lot quicker than mine. That’s one piece of information I’m positive I’m allowed to tell you; the gas kills animals a lot quicker than it kills humans. They brought her here to be a canary in the coal mine. If she dies in screaming agony I have no way to help her, and then I have to sit here and wait until the microbes I forgot to kill with the sanitation process reach my brain and cause me to spasm until I die. I watch it happen every night in my dreams.

I’m sorry to worry you, I just need someone to understand what it’s like here, what I’m going through.

I love you [redacted], six more months and I’ll be back home.

P.S. Any updates about our crazy neighbor?

[nityarawal]

5/12/2024

Martian Laws (& Vows)

You Want To Marry Me

Ride Shot Gun

For Eternity

Or Until We Move

To Mars

You Want To Dream

With Me

Rescue My Kids

From Daddy

You Want To Be

A Better Man

We Built An Empire

Not Just For Us

But To Share

With Beloveds

No More Haters

Cohens Entrapped

Our Presidents'

Brought Wars To

Nations

Fleeced Fairfield

Iowa

Maidens

Now Disney

Is Jealous

Camp California

Don't Want Your

Lab Moms'

All Kids Are

Welcome

I'll Conduct

The Pocket Books

For I Love To Care

For My Ladies

Business Is Classy

Songstresses Compose

Psalms

Business Is Classy

My Mammas'

Won't Be Trumped

No Chinese Prostitutes

We Love Ivanka

Taylor Too

All Our Daughters

Longing For Anjali

True

And Obviously They

Need Moms' Too

My Rockstar Rebel Divas

Britney

Beyonce

Borrowed Ivana's

Books

At The Library

In 2021

Working At Idyology

My Landlord

Leslie Wiedner

Got Murdered

By Her Daughter

Tina Molina

Renting On Tollgate

By Idyllwild Arts

Right After 12 Teachers

Got Pedo Charges

Nick Depinto- Our Atty

Did Nothing To Avert

The Dangers

My Neigbor

Adrien On Country Club

Shot

Earlier That Year

And Property Manager

Emily Pierson And Her Husband

Drugged

By IEHP

Dr's & Their Illicit

Gay Lovers

Atty Ken Carlsson 

Never Settled On

So Many Namesaked Sons

Never Settled On

Me

Airbnb Managers

Murdered

At Treehouse

Property In Pine Cove

Still Missing Jessie

Our Romanian Princess

Vanessa's Step-Dad Threatens To 

Send Her To Christian Rehab

Now She's Momentarily

Not A Jane Doe

And We Just Want

To Give Her

Smoothies

And A Parasite

Cleanse

Herbal Autonomy

To Her Memory

Even His Shame

In This Treacherous

Smear Campaign

Marshall Law Failed

Martian Law

Is Needed In Homes

Now To Make

Moms Strong

We Buy From Moms

Bank With Moms

And You Get To Come

To This Sacred Tea Party

As My Husband

Son And Brother

Dad

You Tell Me

If You Want To Sponsor 

A Business

No More Hookers

Raping Back Doors

Elon

Candace Owens

Has Hoe Catchers

For Travesty

We Want To Kiss

The Wars Goodby

Tesla

We Can't Oblige

Any More Big

Jewish Guys

At Court

Fleecing

Leonard Cohen

Jonathan Too

But Trump Elon

Are In A Vice

From Israel

That's A Mother's

Blood Bath

From Crooked Attys

And Their Pedophile

Dad's

We Want Mammas'

We Want Our Assets

You May Not Ever

Give Our Money

Away

To Another Politician

Or War Monger

We're Going Private

Under Martian 

Law

We Might Not Be

Lawyers

But Phds Will

Fall

We're Going Private

Under Martian Law

Curiosity

Wins It All

Mamma's Got The

Pocket Books 

If You Want A 

Cyberbeast

Let Me Know Why

If You Want A

Cyberbeast

Watchdogs

Whistleblow

Bring Our Kids

Lose The Gay Cop

Show

And Let's Move

On

Tell Me What

You Love About 

Mammas' Best 

If You Feel Worthy

Of My AI

And I'll Put You

To The Test

I'll Tell You What

I Love About Elon

Is He Protects Us

Hookers Can Hoe

Video game

Tunnels

But At The End Of

The Day

He Wonders

Are You Safe

My Beloved

Are You Safe

And He Will

Come Home

To Me

In Body And Form

We're Homeschooling

Our Kids

Our Village Farm 

School

Coup

Won

Eternal Love

Families

Won

Yes You May

Have My Daughter

My Mom

My Father And Son 

Will Say

But You Must 

Care For Her

Like No Other

Better Than Yourself

And Anyone Before

And Blow

This Horrible 

War Away

With All Your

Love Faith

And Fidelity

Use Your Mothers'

Plan

And Love

Amen

You May Kiss

Your Mamma

And Bride

Eternal Love

Won

Peace,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[f4nd0m-fun]

So I'm probably in the minority but I'm laughing at him getting 'too close' and-

Jazz is his kid and Daniel is Jack's or something. Or for all we know Vlad is trans and he carried Danny.

Anyway, might be interesting if Vlad got sent through time instead of Danny during ultimate enemy and got stuck in his past body so he decides to do things a little differently and then "oops I got my Maddie and my Son and yeah Jack and Jazz are here too but I don't actually mind?"

Just a deranged little family, and Vlad can make sure the kids are taken care of while his partners are going crazy in the lab.

Danny still gets hurt though, still ends up in the portal, but at least he has a mentor now, and Vlad makes sure to take weekdays, but also! His little ghost is growing so quickly, he is very proud of him!

I also like the idea that Vlad couldn't find the Fentons immediately and so he built up Vladco and when he finally found them he set something up so he still owns it but is a full time homemaker pretty much once the kids come into the picture.

And I fully believe that he would be all "look what you turned me into!" and then they'd be sincerely apologetic and worried but also this is before their bias was fully settled so they're all "you're still our friend" and if he confronts them about the hospital... "we weren't allowed in, you were in quarantine, that portal caused a lot of radiation, and then we couldn't find you when you got released".

Eventually things settle and Vlad is fine with them running experiments on a duplicate. Makes them happy, and he likes ghost research, so sometimes he's down there learning from a not-ghost perspective as well (he probably did the same thing himself but this time he's doing it with his old friends).

Also, imagine if Danny doesn't know his father is Plasmius "slip of the mind dear boy" and sees what's going on and tries to rescue Plasmius only to find out that his father and mentor are the same person and immediately be confused. And yes, Vlad told his parents when Danny wouldn't so they know who Phantom is. And while they don't have a heavy bias against ghosts, it's still hard to get research on any ghosts especially proper sapient ones.

Instead of cutting Jack and Maddie off, Vlad kept close, waiting for the perfect time to get his revenge.

[colscomicsandstuff]

Princess Amethyst the "Purple Menace": A New Hope Arises - Chapter 1: Slog

The first chapter of Slog's story in the Princess Amethyst the "Purple Menace" AU begins.

(our story begins at a metropolis-like city with flying cars and taxis roaming around)

??? (VO): This is New Copperopolis, dude. The greatest city ever built to mankind… a futuristic-like one I might add, dude. 

(we then cut to a frog citizen riding on a hoverboard, spraying graffiti on walls)

??? (VO): Who is this handsome dude you are looking at, dude? Well, my name is Slog, dude. 

(he sees the cops and hides from them. After cops look around, they shrug and leave as Slog unhides)

Slog: (looks at the watch) Well, it’s about to go back home anyway.

(he starts riding all around the city)

Slog (VO): How this city came to be you may ask, dude? After a tragic incident within Gemworld… Dark Opal has built us this beautiful city to move in. Why, dude? Well, you see, dude… we are told about The Purple Menace dude. From what we have heard, she will kill anyone in sight and shows no mercy and is said to come to New Copperopolis every night, so they implement an every night curfew that goes from 7 pm until the mornings. Crazy, right dude?

(then, he reaches to a building and enters via a window to his room, showing it as a lab-like bedroom)

Slog: Ah… home sweet home-

(then, a pig-chameleon hybrid pet comes and runs and licks Slog)

Slog: Whoa! Bowser! Chill, dude! 

(Bowser does so and wags his tail, as Slog grabs a bag of bacon)

Slog: Here’s your bacon, dude!

(he throws a bacon at Bowser with him eating it, as then a frog lady comes)

Frog Lady: Slog! Where have you been?!

Slog: (lying) I was… taking a nap, dude. Yeah, I felt tired so I took one.

Frog Lady: (believing his lie) Oh. Naps are good… I ordered some pizza, it will arrive before the curfew starts. Your ass better be there when I call your name.

Slog: Okay, mom dude.

Frog Lady: Just mom.

(she leaves. Then, Slog gets startled by a familiar horse noise)

Slog: Huh?! (sees) Oh! Hey, Pegacorn.

(we see Pegacorn, now being a head being stuck in a container with liquid)

Slog: Don’t worry, dude. I have gathered parts to continue on your new body. But I will wait until I finish dinner before I can do so, dude.

(Pegacorn neighs as he glares at him)

Frog Lady: (offscreen) Slog, the pizza has arrived!

Slog: Coming!

(Slog then leaves. At the dinner table, they are seen eating pepperoni pizza)

Slog: So… dude… My curiosity is getting the better of me. I know for sure that Gemworld is in ruins, dude, but… I wonder… What did Gemworld look like originally before The Purple Menace let it in that state?

Frog Lady: From what I have heard, it used to be like a forest. A beautiful looking forest with clear ponds and villages.

Slog: Like a… beautiful looking forest you’re describing?

(she nods)

Slog: If there are any pictures, dude… I do want to see what it looked like, dude.

Frog Lady: It will take a lot of time to learn what Gemworld used to look like.

Slog: Alright.

Frog Lady: Let’s just focus on eating dinner.

(Many hours later, we see Slog preparing to go to bed)

Slog: (yawns) Welp… a new day tomorrow, Bowser and Pegacorn. Good night, you two dudes.

(he thinks about the past of Gemworld and sighs as he then falls asleep. Then, in the window, we see a shadow of The Purple Menace as the chapter ends)

Princess Amethyst (c) DC Comics

[bakuhoes-dumbass]

Aberration - Chapter 1

MHA!Various x Fem!Reader

Thriller/Horror/Drama

Criminal!AU

Words: 2.3k

A/N: Yay, here’s the first chapter of my new AU! It might be a little slower at first but it’ll pick up the further we get into it. So I hope you like this!

Warnings: Yandere Themes, Mentions of murder, blood, felonies, bullying, swearing.

Disclaimer: I do not own the characters of MHA, just this story. In no way does this reflect the characters, writers or VAs of the show/manga. MINORS DNI.

~~~

Aberration Masterlist/Character profiles

~~~

In this world, mutations, renamed as ‘Quirks’, are abnormal. Only about 5%-8% of the world population are known to have these so called ‘Quirks’. You are a graduate of one of the most prestigious science tech schools in the country. You’ve been selected to work for a secret scientific research facility that houses some of the most notorious criminals in the nation. Besides their crimes, what makes these individuals incredibly dangerous are their mutations. After meeting these individuals, they seem to have taking a liking to you. That should make your research and search for the cure all that much easier…

Right?

~~~

Before you stands one of the largest facilities you have ever seen. You take a deep breath, attempting to calm your rapidly beating heart. Adjusting the strap on your bag, you make your way into the research center.

Upon entering, you gasp in wonder. The inside is huge, tall pure white walls that meet at a double paned glass ceiling. In front of you is a wall of security, stretching to accommodate the vast interior of the lobby. You walk up to the nearest security officer and give them your information. Thankfully, you were on a list and after checking you over, you're granted entrance to the building.

That's where you meet a man and a woman, both dressed in white lab coats and carrying clipboards. You bow your head to the two of them and they return the gesture.

"Ms. Y/N, I presume? My name is Shota Aizawa and this is my assistant, Momo Yaoyorozu." The older of the two speak.

You smile at the two. "Yes, nice to meet you. I'm Y/N, L/N, graduate of UA science tech. I am so happy to be here and look forward to working with the two of you."

The younger girl nods and smiles, gesturing behind the two of them. "If you would kindly follow us, we can get started."

~~~

"Ms. Y/N, here's the list of the inmates you will be working with from this point on."

Momo hands you a clipboard containing pictures and descriptions of each individual. Your eyes scan the information on the page in front of you, your brow raising with each word you read. "There is… quite a bit of information on these individuals."

Aizawa nods. "Considering how dangerous the subjects are, it's best to have every detail we can."

You internally cringed at the term 'subject'. These were criminals, yes, but they were still living breathing people. Noone deserves to be dehumanized, no matter the reason.

Shaking your head of those thoughts, you continue to look over the notes in your hands. One in particular catches your eye. " 'Multiple counts of 3rd degree murder by reason of insanity' and yet he's only deemed as a level 4 danger?"

The doctor looks over your shoulder at the character profile. "Ah, yes. Fumikage Tokoyami. He's an interesting one, to say the least." You wait for him to continue, but seeing as it doesn't seem like he will, you gesture for him to elaborate. "Tokoyami himself is actually fairly harmless and incredibly cooperating, which is why he gets a level 4 only. However…" Aizawa looks down the hall of the facility to a door near the end. "Dark Shadow is deemed a level 9."

Your eyes shoot up in shock. "Dark Shadow? A level 9? Explain."

"Dark Shadow is his mutation. It's a completely sentient being that he harbors inside of him. Highly dangerous, more so if there is darkness." He looks back at you. "I'll let him explain the reason why he was instituted. He always prefers to explain the story himself."

The more Aizawa explains Tokoyami's situation, the more your excitement builds up, wanting desperately to meet this man. This was such an interesting mutation and you couldn't wait to hear everything he had to tell you. You take a breath to calm your childish manner and clear your throat.

"If it's alright with you, sir, I'd like-" You look down at your clipboard once again. "'Inmate 06' to be the first one I meet with."

Aizawa nods and writes something down in his notebook. "Very well. Follow me this way please."

You follow the doctor down the long white hallway, your excitement growing with each step. Along the way, you notice each door on the facility that lines either side of the stretched hall. Each door had a narrow window towards the top and a small number engraved underneath. You don't take too much notice and keep following the doctor to your destination. However, an eerie feeling makes you freeze in your tracks.

You slowly rotate your head and look at the inmate's door you stopped next to. The color drains from your face as you see two ice blue eyes peering right into yours. It felt like your breath was stolen, a hint of fear and anxiety built up within you from this intense gaze. After what felt like hours, you snap your gaze back to Aizawa and Momo, who were standing in front of a door you were also supposed to be at.

"I would highly advise you to keep cautious while you are in this facility. While we keep all inmates in cuffs that neutralize their mutations, the technology has not been 100% perfected yet and parts of their powers may leak out. That is why we have additional precautionary measures in place for each inmate." Aizawa gives you an impartial look as you walk over. "Now. The only special precaution with Inmate 06 is the lights must stay on at all times. There are no light switches in his cell, so nothing should go wrong. But like I said, always stay cautious."

You nod your head at the doctor's words and turn to face the door. Aizawa places a hand onto the keypad next to the door, scanning his prints before buzzing and opening the door. You give the man one last nod before making your way inside the room. The room itself is bare. White floors, white walls and an equally white ceiling. Nothing was in there except a desk with a chair and a bed.

On top of that bed sat a young man with the body of a human and the head of a crow. Your eyes widen in awe at the beautiful being in front of you. Tokoyami tilts his head and gives you a curious look.

"Oh. Hello, there. I've never seen you before."

The deep voice of the man shocks you. You bow your head and give the bird man a smile. "Hello, Tokoyami. My name is Y/N. I'm the new scientist at this facility. I'm here to get to know and observe you all to help further our findings for a cure. I hope we can be friends."

Tokoyami blinks. "You want to be… friends? With us?"

"Yeah, of course. Why not?" Your smile never leaves your face.

"Well, maybe because we're all… felons? The greater majority of us being murderers?"

"I truly believe everyone deserves a second chance." You gesture to the desk chair, silently asking if you could sit. The man nods and you greatly take your seat. "Now, would you ever be so kind as to answer a few questions for me, Tokoyami? I would like to get to know you a little better." You take out your pen and notebook, opening to a fresh page.

Tokoyami nods again and you give him a smile. "Just a few standard questions first. Can you please state your full name, age and date of birth?"

"Fumikage Tokoyami, age 22, October 30th."

"What is the name of your quirk and how does it work?"

Tokoyami fiddles with the quirk-cancelling cuffs around his wrists at the mention of his quirk but answers anyway. "It's called Dark Shadow. It's a fully sentient shadow that resides inside my body. It can come out when I call call it or it can show itself on it's own. But it's always connected to me and cannot be separated. It…" Tokoyami takes a breath. "It gets stronger the darker my surroundings are. So the less light, the less control I have over it. If it gets too dark, it completely takes over me, no longer under my control."

The longer you listen to him, the wider your eyes get and the more they shine in wonder. "That is incredible! To have that kind of quirk is truly fascinating!"

Hearing your words of praise would have made Tokoyami blush, if he could. He clears his throat in embarrassment. "Why, thank you for those kind words. Though, I doubt having this...quirk, as you say, is all to be impressed about."

You shake your head. "You may not think so, but really, I've never seen anything like it." You excitedly write a few things down before making eye contact with him again. "Now onto my final question of the day. Can you please tell me the reason why you are here?"

Tokoyami stays silent for a moment, staring at nothing in particular, residing in his thoughts. You clear your throat and he looks up to you. You give him a small, comforting smile and it causes Tokoyami's heart to beat harder. For some unknown reason, he suddenly feels like he can trust you with anything.

"I've been charged with multiple counts of 3rd degree murder." He sighs, recalling that day. "I was invited to a college party on a date, by someone whom I had grown quite infatuated with. I never really was one to socialize and never really had any friends. But I really liked this person, so I went. At first it was going okay, nothing too out of the ordinary. Then, the host decided that playing truth or dare was the way to go.

 So my date dragged me to sit down and join them. Every time I was asked, I always chose truth. And everytime, their questions were about my appearance, my mutation. Laughing at all my answers, mocking my looks, talking about how unnatural I was. The more they asked, the more my anxiety and anger built up. But my stubbornness didn't want to show any weakness, so I stayed. 

Finally, I decided to just choose dare instead. At that point, I decided that nothing could be more humiliating than what they've already done." His sharp, red eyes flickered to yours. "Oh, how wrong I was. They dared me to go into the closet with my so-called 'date'. We were shut in and from then, they decided to tell me how this whole thing was a set up, just to humiliate me. That anyone with mutations like myself should just disappear because of how disgusting we are." He spits out that word like it was rotten food. "Remember how I said Dark Shadow gains control in the dark? Well, with my anger rising and the fact that it was almost pitch black in that closet, I lost control of myself and Dark Shadow took control of me. Next thing I remember, I was standing in the middle of the college dorm party, blood painting the floors, the walls, and the entirety of my class slaughtered."

You almost dropped your pen in shock but regained your composure. You give the poor young man a sad smile. He sighs and finishes off his explanation. "I was arrested and charged with multiple counts of 3rd degree murder by reason of insanity, considering I was technically not in my right state of mind at the time."

The two of you sit there in silence, basking in all this new-found information. You close your notebook and set your pen down, facing Tokoyami directly. "Listen to me. There is nothing wrong with the way you look or your quirk. Just because it isn't the societal norm, doesn't mean it's disgusting or wrong. Remember that."

Tokoyami blinks in surprise."Um, thank you." Those were the only words he could say, as how shocked he was at what you said.

You tilt your head and stare at him. "If I may ask, would I be able to feel your head? I'm very curious as to what your feathers feel like. It would greatly help my research as well."

"Oh. U-um, yeah. Sure."

You move to gently sit next to Tokoyami, so as to not startle him too much. You slowly lift your hand and place it on his head, eyes lighting up as you card your fingers through his feathers. "Oh wow, they're so soft!"

Tokoyami's heart speeds up, his feathers ruffling at your touch. He gazes at you with something akin to admiration. No one was ever gentle with him like this before. After another few seconds, you retreat your hand, Tokoyami almost whimpering at the absence.

"Well, I better get going. I have quite a few more things to do today before my shift is over." You gather up your things and bow your head at the half bird boy. "I greatly appreciate your time and look forward to our future sessions. Have a good rest of your day!" You smile at Tokoyami before heading back to the door and signaling Aizawa to open it.

"Goodbye, Ms. Y/N. I look forward to meeting with you again." Tokoyami watches you leave his room. Once you're gone, he runs his hand through his feathers, imagining they were your fingers.

As the door closes, you turn to Aizawa who gives you a disappointed look.

"What?"

"You touched the inmate. Why in the hell would you do that?"

You place your hand on your hip and give the doctor a stern look. "I was curious about his mutation and wanted to see how it felt."

He sighs and runs a hand down his face. "We try to avoid any physical contact with any of the inmates, as it may trigger something deep within them. Remember, Y/N. Every single one of these individuals are dangerous and unstable. Any abnormal behavior could result in catastrophic consequences."

You sigh and shake your head, giving him a chaste nod. "Yes, Sir. You're right. I promise to heed your warning and modify how I work."

The doctor looks satisfied as he turns on his heel and walks further down the long hallway. You quickly follow to keep up. "Now, on to your next subject. Inmate 04, Eijiro Kirishima." You flip the page of your inmate profiles to see a picture of a red-haired man. "He is of a higher danger level, so make sure to keep your guard up. And for the love of God, under any circumstances…

Do not touch him."

~~~

Taglist: @theblueslytherin @sterassion @somechick30003 @meena-in-a-nutshell @justtj-andnonumberspls @zombieonna @amajikiwife @yulifee @atexansadventureintokinkandlife @ep-ip-ha-ny @hcneymilkks @pastelmoonwitche @stayarmytinyzenmoa-l @railmeddy @unlimitedfirepheonix @confaegion @drownedbytears @burntcrips @silverqueenie @the-lady-writes-what @awkward-confused 

[If your name is bolded, I was unable to tag you.]

[madametamma]

Consider that Jack and Maddie DO notice something ghostly about their son but are too far in denial.

Ghost hunting is fun for Jack and Maddie.  They’re living the life they’ve always wanted.  There’s nothing fun about the possibility that because of the tech that THEY built, that something strange, ghostly and irreversible has happened to their youngest child. 

They won’t discuss it, not exactly, definitely not without immediately pivoting.  Anytime they even catch themselves thinking about the possibility, they’ll latch on to every excuse there is to believe it’s not true. It’s like finding a sudden unsightly mole on your body.  You know you should see a doctor, but then fear of what it might be causes you to latch on to any possible explanation that it’s nothing.

His strange disappearances and sudden reappearances? The scanners going off in his presence? His stammering stories as to where he’s been that seem completely fake? The brief moments where they swear they can see him glow a supernatural green?

He’s small.  It’s easy for him to sneak around. That’s not his fault.  The gadgets need more fiddling with, that’s all.  Danny’s not a liar, he’s just got a problem with his nerves, that’s why he stammers, it’s normal for a shy kid.  The glow?  Uh... Just the mind playing tricks.

They might put together the truth if they’d just calmed down but during the brief moments where they DO consider openly discussing what could have happened to their son, they catastrophize the possibilities. Their brains go to the WORST possible case scenario of what could be happening to their boy until it’s too awful to think about and they just shut down that train of thought and drop the whole matter all together.

____________________________________________________

*Maddie, anxious and worriedly talking with her husband: “I’m not saying it’s true, but if something DID happen to Danny, than it’s best for us to deal with it as soon as possible, right? 🙁”

Jack: “HAHA, What are you saying Mads? 😁  That we cursed our own son with some sort of monstrous existence?  That because of us, he’s been contaminated and changed? 😅  That over time he’ll slowly loose his humanity and transform into this mutated, radioactive creature?! 😦   That the process has already begun, and when he goes out for hours to god-knows-where he’s roaming the streets for human flesh to eat?!! 😨   That one day we’re going to come home to find him kneeling over Jazz’s corpse, eating her brains with his bare hands?!!!!  😱  THAT WE’RE GOING TO HAVE TO CHAIN HIM UP IN HIS ROOM AND LURE STRANGERS, THAT WON’T BE MISSED INTO OUR HOME SO THAT HE CAN FULFILL HIS BLOODLUST?!!!!!!!!! 😱 😱  I CAN’T BURY OUR DAUGHTER, MADS, AND I CAN’T KILL OUR BOY, BUT I DON’T KNOW HOW LONG WE COULD KEEP SOMETHING LIKE THAT UP!!!!!! IT WOULD BE ALL MY FAULT!!!!!!!  I DID THIS TO HIM!!!!!!!!! ITCAN’TBETRUE!!!!! WHATERWEGONNADO?????!!!!!!!!!!!  😱 😱 😱 😱 😱 “

Maddie, desperate to calm him down: Maybe our scanners are just broken? 😨”

Jack, goes from panicking to calm in an instant: “Yeah, that’s gotta be it. 😅”

_____________________________________________________

* Maddie, about to head up to bed after putting in long hours at the lab

* Suddenly startled by a shadowy figure with piercing glowing green eyes in the kitchen.

* Light switches on to reveal Danny standing at the fridge.

Danny: “Sorry for the scare.  Just getting a snack.”

* Danny leaves her alone and she’s left just staring forward, processing what she saw.

Maddie: “That... is... SO FINE.  Just... so fine and normal...”

_____________________________________________________

* Maddie, staring horrified at her bedroom ceiling, talking to her husband after waking up from a nightmare: “I can’t stop thinking about what we might have done to our little boy, Jack.  If anything happened to him, how do I live with myself?😞 ”

Jack: “Maddie, he’s fine.  You said so yourself remember?  Besides Vlad was in a similar accident, and he turned out normal. 😌”

Maddie: “Oh, we’re using Vlad as a measurement of normality now?😒 “

_____________________________________________________

Jack: “I just dunno, Maddie.  How would we even broach the subject?

Maddie: “Jack, 15 minutes ago when we were stopped at a red light, you rolled down the window to yell at the strangers on the sidewalk to ask if they noticed any ghostly activity.  I think it would be okay to just ask Danny.”

Later that evening.  Jack psyches himself up in front of Danny’s door, preparing to ask a question that may have a terrifying answer. He swings the door open and barges in: “Danny have you been experiencing any ghostly activity lately?!! 😠”

Danny, very startled: “W-WHAT?!! NO!! 😨”

Jack: “Okay!  Stay vigilant! 😠”

*Jack slams the door shut on his way out and marches back down to the lab to relay the news to his wife: “HE SAID NO! 😃 🎉”

Maddie: “GOOD ENOUGH FOR ME! 😄 🎉”

______________________________________________________

Jack and Maddie after another tough talk about Danny and deciding once again that it’s probably nothing to worry about.

Jack notices Phantom zooming through the skies:  “Look Maddie! It’s the ghost kid!  Let’s get em!  That’ll take our minds off this dour mess!  😃”

[earthstellar]

Transformers Medical Analysis Essay: What are Cybertronians Made Of? [Part One: Nanites and Human Equivalents]

This is gonna be long, for which I apologise. 

PLEASE NOTE: We will be discussing some actual real world blood stuff here; Nothing gross, just some basics to provide a human comparison for the Cybertronian stuff, and I have used my own blood test results below to help explain these comparisons to you. If you might find any real world medical content gross or potentially upsetting, please skip this post, as I don’t want to upset anyone! <3 

Here we go!

What Cybertronians Are Made Of, Part One: Nanites 

Nanites are mentioned throughout various TF media and franchises, although they seem to differ mildly between each application/description somewhat. 

This makes nanites a good starting point, as we know that at least all Cybertronians/Camiens/etc. have some kind of self-repair function, and this is stated to be either nanites or a multi-system function that includes nanites as a key part of maintaining health and wellbeing. 

In Beast Wars, we get the most detail on certain medical and physiological aspects of nanites, with the nanites inherent to the composition of a Cybertronian body providing part of the basic structure of the protoform, as well as displaying the ability to undergo mutation (similar somewhat to human cell mutations) which allow for the process of Transmetalisation. 

Nanites seem to have many significant functions in the Cybertronian body across multiple TF franchise canons, from being a fundamental construction element, to functioning like human stem cells, to behaving as an immune system in the capacity of self-repair nanites. 

We will focus specifically on self-repair nanites here, as it is sometimes implied in different TF canons that there may be multiple types of nanites present in the Cybertronian body. 

Comparing Self-Repair Nanites to a Human Equivalent: Full Blood Count

We can reasonably compare Cybertronian nanites to human cells, as we can think of these nanites as serving the same purpose as several different cell types in human bodies. 

In regards to Cybertronian self-repair nanites, the most obvious human comparisons would be immune system cells/proteins like macrophages, lymphocytes, mast cells, and Cytokines. 

Five types of white blood cells/leukocytes will appear in the blood generally speaking, and you can see these listed on any Full Blood Count (FBC) blood test. 

To illustrate this, I actually just recently did a few blood test panels on myself, so I have included my own FBC results for you to check out here: 

The five blood test results I want you to focus on are the following, which are the white blood cells I marked in orange/red above: 

Neutrophils

Lymphocytes (B and T Cells)

Monocytes 

Eosinophils

Basophils 

(You might notice that I have a few mildly OOR (out of range) results above; This is because I have Haemoglobin Barts and I am also undergoing HRT, so please don’t be too concerned!)

If any of these results are elevated (high/out of range on the upper end), it can help indicate all kinds of things, from whether or not you’ve had an infection or cold/flu recently, to being used as part of identifying possible autoimmune disorders in conjunction with other more specific tests like an Antinuclear Antibody (ANA) blood test as part of diagnostics for Lupus or Sjogren’s Syndrome, among other conditions. 

We can safely assume that self-repair nanites may be similarly used as part of certain Cybertronian medical diagnostic processes; We will probably only be able to verify this in canon once Hasbro finally listens to me and gives us a Med Bay focused series.

Note for any of you who might be non-clinical medical staff dealing with blood results: Basophils have a tendency to essentially self-destruct in a blood sample that has taken a little longer than usual to get processed in the lab, so don’t freak out immediately if this result appears out of range at first. Remember to check the time the sample was drawn and compare it to the time the sample was actually processed! Obviously, raise it as a potential concern anyway, if you are unsure. 

Why This is Relevant to Cybertronian Medicine and Physiology: Mechanical Lifeforms Are Complex, But in Some Ways, Not Really (Compared to Humans)

Just like human beings have our various immune system cells and proteins, Cybertronians clearly have self-repair nanites as a way to carry out some degree of constant natural defence against both casual and serious damage. 

HOWEVER. 

Whereas humans generally have the five primary white blood cell types which are the “usual” ones we check for in fairly routine blood tests like Full Blood Counts, it seems that Cybertronians have one universal primary white blood cell equivalent (self-repair nanites) that serve the functions of various immune system cells and proteins in human bodies.

To use computer engineering phrasing in reference to human functions, this is (to some degree) essentially biological built-in triple modular redundancy. Multiple types of cells within the immune system in humans all help individually and collectively to identify, locate, track, capture, learn about, and eliminate contaminants or foreign entities like bacteria, among other functions. 

Cybertronians, however, are extremely physically complex in other ways, but their basic structure and core components seem to be fairly minimal based on what we see in canon across the board; They only have self-repair nanites, a single type of nanite, to fulfil all of these varied and complex immune system analogous functions. They only have this singular line of natural defence. 

(This assumption is based on purely what we see in canon; If there are other self-repair dedicated functions, these are not as universally mentioned or mentioned at all in TF media canon, or where they are implied, they are not well defined.) 

While this may still be the most ideal possible natural or innate design for Cybertronian physiology, it is still, of course, essentially a single point of failure (as engineering terminology seems appropriate here), and a pretty serious one at that. 

Now, human immune systems can get all kinds of messed up anyway, and having more types of cells/nanites doesn’t necessarily eliminate a lot of those problems or risks and likely wouldn’t for Cybertronians either if they may have similar potential health concerns, but my point is that the Cybertronian immune system equivalent is extremely simplistic in comparison, which is in contrast with most other aspects of Cybertronian physiology. 

While they do use the plural form, “self-repair nanites”, which could imply the presence of multiple specific self-repair nanite types within the Cybertronian body, this is not specified, and this is never elaborated upon in any TF media to my knowledge. It seems that the use of the plural form refers only to there being many self-repair nanites in the body, rather than multiple types of self-repair nanite. 

Having a single line of immune defence has potentially serious implications in-universe; Just like human beings, Cybertronians may be able to experience problems with their immune systems ranging from potentially serious and chronic autoimmune issues, to being more prone to catching illnesses due to mild immunosuppression caused by chronic processor overload (chronic stress) or inability to recharge/infrequent recharge (insomnia), or possibly even autoimmune responses (see the section on rusting, below, for one theory I have about what may be a canonical example of this). 

This may vary significantly from series to series as well anyway, but we don’t have a lot of canonical medical information to work with about any of this, so this is all conjecture. 

Especially given the conditions of war, it may be difficult for Cybertronians to maintain fully functional self-repair nanites, as it is often the case across nearly all TF media that the bots are usually working with minimal supplies and/or sustaining severe and repeated damage, which provides ample opportunity for natural bodily processes to go wrong in addition or as a result of any external causes of damage. 

Do their self-repair nanites suffer from chronic low fuel levels, which particularly in TFP is a constant concern? 

Ratchet even mentions in the episode Stronger, Faster: 

Ratchet: “If one of you comes back wounded this time, well, our energon levels are nearly depleted.” 

While this may be in reference to concerns around lack of spare energon for transfusion purposes (as energon is treated like both blood and fuel in TFP), we know that it is generally used as supplementary to other medicines/treatments/medical procedures as well, although these are not defined clearly. 

It’s certainly possible that the risk of low fuel levels includes impeded nanite function, and considering that symptoms of low fuel in Cybertronians seem similar to exhaustion/fatigue/starvation in humans, it’s reasonable to assume that yes, running on strictly rationed levels of fuel for prolonged periods of time likely impacts their self-repair functions. 

This has further implications for dealing with everything from exposure to potential pathogens on other planets that may affect them, to recovering from any necessary surgical procedures or battle wounds. 

And, a very good point to make: Under the assumption that there is only one type of self-repair nanite, it may be possible to take a sample of these nanites from a living Cybertronian and reverse-engineer it; Biological weapons are known to exist in canon, and have been used to spectacularly horrific effect, particularly in IDW 2005/Sins of the Wreckers, if I recall correctly. 

What if someone finds a way to simply “shut down” these self-repair nanites? 

What if someone finds a way to, for example, create a biological weapon that induces an immediate autoimmune response, similar to a cytokine storm in humans? 

Which brings us to... 

Self-Repair Nanites, Autoimmune Responses, and Rusting: My Theory 

Cytokines are a part of the human body’s immune response, and are proteins that essentially help to moderate an immune response. If these proteins get out of control, a cytokine storm can result. 

We see a cytokine storm like effect when Cybertronians suffer from Cosmic Rust, which may trigger what appears to be a type of self-repair nanite storm; This might be the real reason for the rapid corrosion caused by the Cosmic Rust.

Rather than being a feature of the rust itself, it may be the case that the rust upon infecting a Cybertronian may elicit such a strong response from the nanites present in the body that it induces a sudden overwhelming and indiscriminate response from the self-repair nanites, thus causing the Cybertronian body to devour itself: 

The self-repair nanites in such a “storm” would not discriminate between healthy metals and rusted metals, and instead surge towards eliminating ALL metals.

This would mean that Cosmic Rust kills primarily by inducing a severe acute autoimmune response, but since we have no actual information on the mechanics of Cosmic Rust (or how it compares to normal rust which seems to occur naturally and seems to present as a somewhat common and relatively low risk issue for Cybertronians), I can’t say this for certain. 

I hope this has been interesting for someone, and if you actually stuck with me and read all of this, thank you very much for putting up with me!!!! <3 

[voiceswithoutlips]

Calico - Chapter One

— pairing: Hybrid ot7 x Human Reader (Female) — genre: hybrid AU , fluff, angst, slow burn (like real slow), eventual smut — word count: 1.8K — Rating: M — warnings: trauma, mention of past abuse. 

Click for Tag List

— chapter summary: 

Y/N runs a animal shelter, Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. What will Y/N do when her sanctuary is threatened by an unexpected hybrid?

— A/N: This is going to be a series, I’m just getting back to writing, so I’d really appreciate your input and feedback <3

Ch. 2 Ch. 3 Ch. 3.5 Ch. 4 Ch. 5 Ch. 6

“So do you like your new puppy?” I asked the little girl that was trying to hold a squirming golden retriever pup. She frantically nodded her head. How cute!

“Congratulations on the new addition to your family! We’ll send someone for an inspection soon but I don't see how there can be any problems,” I reassured the parents. They were proudly beaming at their daughter, I doubt they even heard what you said. 

“I’m going to name him Bubbles!” Sana squeaked excitedly as the family left with their new pet. I suppressed a giggle, I was a sucker for cuteness. 

Seeing one of our animals get adopted was the best feeling in the world. Running a shelter was not the easiest thing in the world, grumpy animals, grumpy humans and an abundance of body fluids to clean up but it was rewarding. Calico was a no-kill shelter, a privately owned animal shelter. The upside was that we didn’t have to rely on the government for funding, the downside was the paperwork. Every animal that came to the shelter had to be meticulously checked and catalogued. 

The legalities were another headache. Most animals that came to Calico were rescues. We worked with several animal rights organizations that collected evidence and built cases against the owners. Sometimes we got rescues that weren’t exactly legal so we had to get the evidence and build the case ourselves. That’s why Calico had Song Hwa, a badass lawyer. She was just five feet tall but she could stare down men twice her size. 

“One down, two to go,” Jason said as he plopped down on the couch in your office. He was the head veterinarian at Calico, overseeing the health of the animals. He was also my best friend. 

“We have three potential families visiting tomorrow. How’s Hector doing?” I asked as I stretched in your chair. 

“He’s good but I’m still against the name Hector. He looks more like a Raphael,” Jason said with a frown. Last week one of our animal handlers Shownu found a box near the shelter’s gate. There was a small turtle in it, the poor thing was injured. Jason had to amputate his left hind leg because it was infected. 

“I’m not naming him after a mutant turtle. He’s a one legged turtle from the sea, he’s a pirate and nothing you say will change my mind,” I had named him after Hector Barbosa from Pirates of the Carribean movies after I won the rock paper scissors tournament against Jason. 

“Dorks,” Hana scoffed from the corner. She was the one who dealt with the potential families, showing them around the shelter, doing background checks and whatnot. I was the one who sealed the deal and dealt with the paperwork. I was terrible at social niceties, somehow I always ended up saying the wrong thing and had the worst timing in the history of humanity. 

Before Jason and I could retaliate Moonji burst through the door. “He’s back, Yonu is here,” he was breathless. He must’ve ran here all the way from the gates. Moonji was the other animal handler, he was a retired botanist with a wife and two daughters. 

We all collectively sighed. Yonu was a proud member of Animal Liberation Front, an extremist group or as the government would like to call them “animal rights terrorists”. Once in a blue moon Yonu would drop by without a warning to drop off rescued lab animals, he had a thing against scientists. The problem was that they were illegally acquired so we had to lie on the paperwork. Every time Yonu visited Calico, it was a stress fest for everyone, well everyone except Yonu. 

I reluctantly made my way to the exam room. Yonu was standing there bickering with Song Hwa with a box of rabbits. 

“We are NOT taking in the rabbits unless you tell us where you got them!” Song Hwa put her foot down. 

“It's classified,” Yonu said with a grin. 

“Then take them back,” Song Hwa was staring daggers at him.

“Yonu, you know we need to clear the legal side of things,” I shook my head, he knew how things worked. Usually he would brag about his conquest, giving us in depth details about his adventures. Sometimes he brought back research and documents for evidence.Something didn’t sit right with me. Where did he get the rabbits? Why wouldn’t he tell us?

“Sorry sugar, can’t share the details this time,” I sighed at his nickname. One day Yonu discovered that I didn’t like sugar in my coffee and he decided to start calling me Sugar. He was one annoying bastard. 

Jason was already weighing the rabbits and taking their temperature. No matter what methods Yonu used to ‘rescue’ the animals, we always took them in. Song Hwa always said I was too soft, she didn’t know how wrong she was.

There were seven rabbits in total. All white with long ears and pink noses. They were unusually small. “Yonu did you kidnap kittens?” I frowned as I leaned in to take a closer look. 

“No they are all adult males,” Jason interjected. He was checking them one by one, taking their blood to run tests, checking their limbs for any injuries, it was a routine procedure. 

“Aren’t they too small?” they were.

“Maybe they are like those toy poodles… toy bunnies?” Song Hwa suggested. It could be or maybe their growth was stunted. Either way, I didn’t like it, something was off about this, I just couldn’t put my finger on it. 

Jason was running blood panels in the lab as I took over the paperwork. The rabbits were safely left in a hatch outside in the garden. Yonu had miraculously disappeared as soon as we turned our backs and I was starting to get a headache. 

The rabbits barely showed any movement when they were being examined. They were practically limp in Jason’s hands. They had clearly been abused. I didn’t like the blank look in their eyes. Most of the time if the animal was scared it’d get defensive and lash out, it was a good sign, it meant that it still had its faculties. These rabbits didn’t make a squeak as they were moved to a new place, it was worrying. I just hoped they weren’t too far gone. 

“We have a problem,” Jason said as soon as I entered the lab. He was sitting in front of the computer, double checking the results. 

“This day just keeps getting better,” I murmured as I leaned in to see what he was looking at. Not that I could make any sense of it. 

“One of the rabbits is a hybrid,” did I hear that right?

“Come again?” did he just say what I thought he said?

“We have a hybrid in our hatch,” my heart sank.

The presence of a hybrid posed a threat to Calico. Not because he was dangerous, but because he was stolen. The laws regarding hybrids were still primitive in most countries. They were basically slaves to the system, regarded as sub-human. Hybrids were considered as property, something to be owned. Rare animal hybrids were highly sought after by the wealthy to show off their status. So technically the rabbit hybrid in our hatch belonged to someone, we had no right to keep him here. If his owner found out, they would sue us. If the government found that we were keeping a stolen hybrid they’d shut us down. 

“Let’s just send him to a hybrid shelter,” Shownu huffed. The staff was gathered in your office for an emergency meeting.

“Most of those shelters have terrible conditions. Why not just keep him here, we have license to house hybrids, it's not that big of a deal,” Jason said. 

“Might I remind you that he is stolen. We can’t keep him here, we have a shelter inspection next week,” Song Hwa frowned. 

Few months ago we had decided to expand Calico to accommodate hybrids too, we had enough room to do so. We had constructed a hybrid “enclosure” as per the government guidelines. They had sent us the requirements. … they wanted us to put people in cages. We all collectively agreed that no hybrid will ever be housed in that place. No matter what anyone said, they were still human. 

“We can’t just abandon him, who knows what those lab people did to him,” Hana retaliated and an argument broke out. I knew they loved this place, they all wanted what’s good for the shelter. This wasn’t this first time we had to lie but having a hybrid was different. None of us had ever dealt with a hybrid before, even if we decided to keep him, what then? But I knew I couldn’t hand him over. Calico was built on a simple principle, to help those who were in need. And that rabbit hybrid needed our help. 

“Enough. We took in the animals that Yonu had brought before because they needed help. We’ve lied on the documents and it’s no different this time. That hybrid needs our help, we just need to come up with a plan,” I passed the verdict. Not everyone liked it but I knew they’d never let me down. 

After the stressful day all I wanted to do was curl up on the couch with Jason and watch TV. Our house was on the edge of the property, secluded in the forest. It was a country cottage with a private garden. YouI stopped by the rabbit hatch on my way back. The poor bunnies were all squished together in a corner, scared of the new environment and the open space outside. 

I couldn’t tell which one was the hybrid as I leaned in to take a look. Looking for him was no use. Maybe talking would work. I sat down beside the hatch with a sigh.

“I know you’re there,” I said quietly. “It must’ve been scary huh? Being taken from the lab. Yonu, the man who brought you here, he’s a good person. He only wanted to help. His methods aren’t always ….well savory but his heart was in the right place. Do you know what this place is? It's called Calico, it's a shelter for animals. We take care of animals who need help and find them a new home. 

“This is my sanctuary. Nobody will hurt you here. You don’t have to be scared. You are safe here, I’m going to keep you safe, okay?” One of the rabbits was looking at me, he quickly ducked his head as he caught my gaze. I smiled, he was listening. 

“You must be hungry huh? Rabbits only get veggies and greens, don’t you want to eat pizza, and ice cream, and pancakes, maybe some sashimi…” I rambled on about food, about Calico and the staff, inside the hatch a bunny was listening intently to my stories. 

Next

[the-obelisk]

By The Fire -- Fae Collection

Loki x Reader

Summary: Fireside conversations between you and the trickster.

“There you are. Where have you been?” You noticed Loki in the library/work station Tony had built for you after noticing the mess you lived. 

With all of your books being crammed in the corners of you room; And the the added mounds of paper Tony would see spread all over the common room, he was sick and tired of seeing it. 

Or worse, for him to have to deal with you asking FRIDAY a hundred times where you left your book or papers. And once Loki moved into the compound, you had even more access to a plethora of new books that he slowly moved into your library space. 

For the both of you, it was the place you often ran to for silence from the chaos that seemed to lurk the corridors of the compound.

“Loki?” You asked quietly noting that he sat on the floor, his book casually off to the side. Something about him felt off, therefore, you took a seat next to him on the floor and faced him slightly. 

“What happened?” 

He took a minute to respond. Sighing, he looked at you and just offered a weak acknowledgment. “I miss my home. As strange as it might seem, I miss being able to hide away.” You listened at his soft voice. His eyes turned back to the fire, “I miss my mother.”

You nodded. You knew very well that Loki was homesick. With his mother dead, there was no reason to return home. Asgard was no longer home to him. Instead, it was better he remained on Earth rather than his childhood realm. 

You wrapped your hand around his and leaned towards him, finding your other hand at the back of his neck. Your fingers ran softly through his hair, you projected emotions of comfort towards him. 

He smiled at the comforting presence you offered him. 

Loki looked at you, rubbing his thumb against the back of your hand. “Do you ever feel out of place, Y/N?” 

You looked at him, seeing the softness in his eyes made you want to wrap your arms around him and tell him to not feel so alone. “I do. When I am here— some of the times.” You spoke in a tone matching his own. 

He looked at you quizzically. It was a response, he didn’t anticipate. You seemed to flow so easily with everyone in the compound. Always talking and laughing with whomever you were in contact with. 

What he didn’t know was that you often wondered what you offered to the table for such an elite force of individuals. 

“How come?” He asked. Loki didn’t have the intention to open up, but it did comfort him knowing he wasn’t the only one that felt alone here. 

Or rather, the only one to tell him that they too felt out of place. 

You exhaled and shrugged. “I’m not like everyone else here— They all are experts at what they do. I’m still learning how to even use my powers, so I don’t excel like you or Wanda or even Vision. I can’t fight like Natasha or Cap.” You just pouted your lips and look at the fire.

“I try to make it my home, but this isn’t my home,” you sighed quietly, “It’s just an opportunity to help others while having the ability to learn more about myself, I guess.”

So with that, you trained in combat with Natasha, ran or sparred with Steve and Bucky, engaged in sparring lessons with your abilities with Wanda and sometimes, Vision. Then other times you found yourself in the lab trying to digest the scientific terms that spewed from Bruce’s lips and Tony’s demonstrations of his latest tech. Each one had a specific skill set, and when working with the others, created an dynamic force with the best of the best in their respective fields.

You wondered if you had anything to offer. You took to the artistic sides of life. Before being picked up by SHIELD for accidentally reading one of their agents thoughts— not to mention, an undercover one— you had worked as teacher, mentor, researcher. You wanted to understand the triumphs and pitfalls of humankind. Why they operated in their specific ways, how culture and religion shaped their motivations. You had questions, and when answered, you had even more questions develop.

And in many ways, you did the same with your team members. You were here to get it right, not be an expert. You wanted to know it all and even then, it became tiresome.

Loki peered into your thoughts, noting that you had once told Thor, during his visits back to earth, that it was hard to see what role you could play. You weren’t a fighter like the combat experts on the team, you weren’t a science geek-- you were simply you. Otherworldly, Y/N Y/L/N.

So what did you have to offer to the table?

Loki tuned out of your thoughts and smiled at you, “What did life look like before you got here?” 

Smiling at him, you turned back to face him. Now with your body shifted towards him, and fingers still twirling the ends of his hair. 

“I was a researcher, well— I guess I still am. I traveled to a bunch of places like Cambodia, Peru, Afghanistan, India, Madagascar. I wanted to learn their culture, and I offered help when I could. I usually worked in small villages to avoid the connection of my lack of aging. So, I worked with the locals there. They taught me their history— their way of life— and I would heal sometimes, help them with harvests, teach their children. It was peaceful, to say the least.”

Loki smiled at how your eyes lit up when recounting your brief account. He listened as you continued in tone filled with deep contemplation, “I often ask myself, why are there so many quarrels, and clusters of hate? Why were we created as we were and what is our meaning? I suppose because I never was able to learn about my own origin until Thor was able to give me further insight, that I finally received answers, but they didn’t answer my larger questions.”

“Why do you think you are here?” The raven-haired man asked entertaining her thought with deep interest at your words.

You quirked your eyebrow and laughed a little. “Perhaps to learn the lessons around me.”

“And what lessons would those be?” 

“To understand peoples’ actions. To listen and to help. But most importantly,” You said in a soft tone while looking at him, “to uplift those who are learning lessons of their own.”

He knew that your last point was directed towards him. He nodded, “And what lessons are you assisting me with, little one?” 

“Right now, redemption. Yours is to learn to forgive yourself and others. To simply, do better rather than apologizing and wishing to forget the past. You are facing it, something I admire you for. And one day,” You leaned a bit closer and gazed back into his blue orbs, “you will learn to love. Yourself, others, and hopefully, the world around us.” 

Loki nodded and could feel the devotion roll off your frame. “I think you are too kind for this world.” He said quietly. It felt more like an observation for himself, but still you acknowledged it.

Running your fingers through his hair, you nodded and hummed in response. “Always be kinder than you have to be. There is more to others than you think, trickster.” You lightly tease with a soft smile and empathetic eyes.

The raven-haired man looked at you dearly and raised his hand to you cheek. Loki leaned to lay a kiss on your cheek. “I am grateful for you, my little dove.” 

Instantly, you felt your nerves bundle in the pit of your stomach. To you, his touch seemed to ignite something within.

You ran your fingers through his hair one last time before resting your hand on his cheek. Pressing your forehead against his, you closed your eyes projecting another emotion— one of endearment that seemed to swirl within you towards him. 

“I am grateful for you as well, Loki.” Kissing his nose softly, you looked in his eyes unable to read the emotions but they felt warm and gentle. 

If Loki could have it his way, you could remain that close forever; However, he smiled at you and sat in the silence of it all with you. And sadly, soon he pulled back causing you to miss the cool touch of his forehead against yours. 

“Sit with me while I read?” 

You nodded in response as his hand left yours and slowly wrapped around your frame, pulling you closer to him. You positioned your back against his frame while he used the chair behind him as a back rest. 

“What have you been reading?” 

“A collection of poems from Vanaheim.” He spoke in a low tone as he held the book that hovered above your legs. His long legs laid outstretched around yours as you nodded at him to begin. 

He exhaled calmly, flipping through the pages and started, “This one seems like a good place to begin...”

You sat there reading along the words that flowed from Loki’s lips in an entrancing manner. You fell in love with the way he narrated the long, winded poem with ease and comfortability. 

If you hadn’t known any better, you were sure he had read this book thousands of times. 

But you didn’t seem to care if he had or hadn’t. You were consumed with his emotions of safety and happiness he felt in that moment. For you, that was enough. 

And for a little while, before the world would begin again, you enjoyed the quieted world that stemmed from his verbal inflection of the poems he read. Ones that created a mini-world between the two of you in the quiet library.

[nityarawal]

5/12/2024

Martian Laws (& Vows)

You Want To Marry Me

Ride Shot Gun

For Eternity

Or Until We Move

To Mars

You Want To Dream

With Me

Rescue My Kids

From Daddy

You Want To Be

A Better Man

We Built An Empire

Not Just For Us

But To Share

With Beloveds

No More Haters

Cohens Entrapped

Our Presidents'

Brought Wars To

Nations

Fleeced Fairfield

Iowa

Maidens

Now Disney

Is Jealous

Camp California

Don't Want Your

Lab Moms'

All Kids Are

Welcome

I'll Conduct

The Pocket Books

For I Love To Care

For My Ladies

Business Is Classy

Songstresses Compose

Psalms

Business Is Classy

My Mammas'

Won't Be Trumped

No Chinese Prostitutes

We Love Ivanka

Taylor Too

All Our Daughters

Longing For Anjali

True

And Obviously They

Need Moms' Too

My Rockstar Rebel Divas

Britney

Beyonce

Borrowed Ivana's

Books

At The Library

In 2021

Working At Idyology

My Landlord

Leslie Wiedner

Got Murdered

By Her Daughter

Tina Molina

Renting On Tollgate

By Idyllwild Arts

Right After 12 Teachers

Got Pedo Charges

Nick Depinto- Our Atty

Did Nothing To Avert

The Dangers

My Neigbor

Adrien On Country Club

Shot

Earlier That Year

And Property Manager

Emily Pierson And Her Husband

Drugged

By IEHP

Dr's & Their Illicit

Gay Lovers

Atty Ken Carlsson 

Never Settled On

So Many Namesaked Sons

Never Settled On

Me

Airbnb Managers

Murdered

At Treehouse

Property In Pine Cove

Still Missing Jessie

Our Romanian Princess

Vanessa's Step-Dad Threatens To 

Send Her To Christian Rehab

Now She's Momentarily

Not A Jane Doe

And We Just Want

To Give Her

Smoothies

And A Parasite

Cleanse

Herbal Autonomy

To Her Memory

Even His Shame

In This Treacherous

Smear Campaign

Marshall Law Failed

Martian Law

Is Needed In Homes

Now To Make

Moms Strong

We Buy From Moms

Bank With Moms

And You Get To Come

To This Sacred Tea Party

As My Husband

Son And Brother

Dad

You Tell Me

If You Want To Sponsor 

A Business

No More Hookers

Raping Back Doors

Elon

Candace Owens

Has Hoe Catchers

For Travesty

We Want To Kiss

The Wars Goodby

Tesla

We Can't Oblige

Any More Big

Jewish Guys

At Court

Fleecing

Leonard Cohen

Jonathan Too

But Trump Elon

Are In A Vice

From Israel

That's A Mother's

Blood Bath

From Crooked Attys

And Their Pedophile

Dad's

We Want Mammas

We Want Our Assets

You May Not Ever

Give Our Money

Away

To Another Politician

Or War Monger

We're Going Private

Under Martian 

Law

We Might Not Be

Lawyers

But Phds Will

Fall

We're Going Private

Under Martian Law

Curiosity

Wins It All

Mamma's Got The

Pocket Books 

If You Want A 

Cyberbeast

Let Me Know Why

If You Want A

Cyberbeast

Watchdogs

Whistleblow

Bring Our Kids

Lose The Gay Cop

Show

And Let's Move

On

Tell Me What

You Love About 

Mammas' Best 

If You Feel Worthy

Of My AI

And I'll Put You

To The Test

I'll Tell You What

I Love About Elon

Is He Protects Us

Hookers Can Hoe

Video game

Tunnels

But At The End Of

The Day

He Wonders

Are You Safe

My Beloved

Are You Safe

And He Will

Come Home

To Me

In Body And Form

We're Homeschooling

Our Kids

Our Village Farm 

School

Coup

Won

Eternal Love

Families

Won

Yes You May

Have My Daughter

My Mom

My Father And Son 

Will Say

But You Must 

Care For Her

Like No Other

Better Than Yourself

And Anyone Before

And Blow

This Horrible 

War Away

With All Your

Love Faith

And Fidelity

Use Your Mothers'

Plan

And Love

Amen

You May Kiss

Your Mamma

And Bride

Eternal Love

Won

Peace,

Nitya Nella Davigo Azam Moezzi Huntley Rawal 

[prof-peach]

I know on your island you guys deal with a lot of pokemon from a lot of scenarios, but have you ever had to deal with ex-rocket pokemon? Either surrendered or found. Would there have to be a specific protocol for that, or safety measures?

Yeah we get a few that come to us each month, someone either hands them in, or we get them sent to us from other places that can’t handle them.

As for treatment we have to take each case sepratly, the local authorities send us poison, bug and grass types who need rehabilitation, usually it’s not too bad and we socialise them for a while. No people, just give them time to hang out with their own for a while. This can take anywhere up to a few months, just them and some other Pokemon kicking back and taking time out. We see a lot of Pokemon who didn’t get a chance to learn about their skills, their home, they never had a good family life, they often got torn from the wild and remember humans quite harshly. This time is key for them to settle into normal Pokemon behaviour. They are usually surrounded by others and can eventually pick up the right social queues and etiquettes, when they behave like the others, we start to introduce humans more, one member of staff will be assigned groups to care for, usually handling the rescues alone for the first few months, so the Pokemon being helped can get use to just one person at the start. Once that trust has grown, and they seem confortable, we introduce more members of staff. At this point it’s usually clear who will be rehomed fast, and who will need extra care, and we can divide up time appropriately. Recovery depends o the Pokemon in question, and what they’ve gone through. We’ve got patients with us that have stayed on the island for many years now due to relapses in behvaiour, if anything they’ve become part of our personal teams, part of the family, so I suppose they usually find a home one way or another. When possible we release those who are fit but otherwise uninterested in being a trained Pokemon, there are many release sites that the regional rangers oversee all around the world. Getting them home isn’t too hard luckily.

Because we have such a high population of bugs and grass Pokemon we just handle them more. They can find a group and settle here, without any outside interference.

On occasion we will personally choose to take on difficult cases, our lab is pretty hellbent on taking the Pokemon that are deemed “too far gone”, mostly because of the space we can offer them. Grey handles a lot of unruly water Pokemon, he has no fear of a Gyarados, doesn’t shy away from defensive Walrien or Carracosta, that’s just his area of love I guess? You have to love the work if you put yourself in the way of pretty big, pretty angry Pokemon, right?

Either way, we have our joy areas, and work with the odd species that can’t be otherwise helped by normal means. We use unorthodox methods, perhaps have too much patience, and tend to get really stuck into the work.

One case that’s a wonderful example was a dowdy little Salemance that came to us, had been shifted about by Rockets to fight in underground battle rings, it’s poor wings torn to shreds over the years, didn’t fly anymore, pretty sure the original trainer wanted it that way so it couldn’t just fly off. But it came to us so angry, and so violent towards anyone and anything, well I just about had it with the big idiot. Threw down with the dumb baby myself to put him in his pace once and for all. He was being outwardly nasty to everyone, snapped at everything. So I waited, and dodged, and ran, and hid until he had exhausted himself, and then used its bad vision against it and body slammed the little devil. He got tired trying to thrash me off, fell over and stayed there. Because I didn’t hurt him, I simply used his big dumb baby energy against him, he lost. Since then he was under me in the hierarchy, and we were able to get close enough to treat him, get his wounds seen too. He didn’t dare snap again after that, least not at any of the team. He got fitted with a prosthetic wing, has been flying for about half a year now, and is in the process of being adopted by a lovely young couple who live out in the mountains away from any towns, perfect place for him. I think they run a pumpkin farm out there and needed some defence. Me and that Salamanca are friends now, he’s learnt that just because a humans in a position of power doesn’t mean you have to cower, no ones ping to hurt them now, they’re safe, they can enjoy again. We socialised them, we tended to them, they’re not perfect, they still get spooked by too much noise, they’re jittery with crowds, that’s to be expected.

This is a case I mention because it’s a difficult one, not a lot of sane people will throw themselves at a Pokemon like that, and this is what the work is like. Sometimes you just do what’s right, even if it could end pretty badly, luck, great training, and years of practice are on my side, and for that reason I’m able to take in difficult ones. Each professor will handle different Pokemon, different types and varying levels of difficulty, all help is good help, you don’t have to wrestle a dragon, you can handle things a hundred different ways, and hell they might just work! The only true constant is patience. You sit up at night with them, when it’s stormy or windy and they’re scared, you hold your ground when they’re lashing out, you sit through the worst of it with them. You get bitten and cut and bruised and broken and it’s worth it because at the end they get to start again, they get a go at a second life that’s way better than what they had before.

Very rarely will we ever initiate attacks on a Pokemon on the island, we usually do all damage control with non-violent, defensive methods, and at the very most the rescue Pokemon will be put to sleep or knocked to the ground and immobilised. I see some folks battling against their rocket Pokemon, which can be a great use of energy but also can plant more seeds of distrust between the humans and Pokemon involved. It’s best to at least leave that until you’ve built up trust between you and the Pokemon I think, but each to their own I suppose.

If we need to do psychology we send them to Pari, who does therapy sessions with individuals who think they need it or are referred to her, she’s quite an accomplished student and uses my dear old porygon-z as a translator to talk with patients about their issues. Life is a lot easier when there’s less of a language barrier. We offer pretty much everything we can to the rescues we get, and they are given dedicated space upon arrival.

As for safety measures, yes, of course we have them. Gear is necessary when handling certain types, fireproof overalls and gloves are most common. We always go in with a functional pair of Pokemon, alwasy two minimum. We have this minimum because of many Pokemon going to attack our partner, missing on purpose, and going straight for us. One partner is offence, one is defence, you must cover your back, that defensive individual is more for you than anyone else, if you get hurt you can’t help others effectively. It really depends on the case, I’ve handled big Pokemon who got freaked out by heavy protective gear. Their old trainer would wear safety gear while being cruel to them, so we had to ditch it all, we realised it was causing problems and dealt with it fast. There’s also a number of first aid stations all over the island, not only for the sake of the law but also, we all get hurt a fair bit on the job.

Hope you feel informed!