#which is a fun difference from. Literally All My Other Characters.

[summertide-treehouse]

I finished Season 4 of my Ninjago Rewatch, heres my review :)

Expect more s4 art soon, specifically the Elemental Masters

I have A LOT to say about this Season, so much I thought I knew was wrong or I remembered incorrectly.  This was also the FASTEST I binged a Season, it took me 2 days to complete lol.  

I think this Season was very strong, had decent writing, and was very fun.  Like always, the soundtrack fits the aesthetic very well, but so far, this Seasons intro was my least favorite; I found it very weak and didn’t hold as much ‘hype’ compared to the earlier intros, though it wasn’t terrible.

As for the plot itself, it was very fun, and very intriguing.  It almost followed the same “we failed this time, next time we won’t”, theme from S3, but it held out till the last few episodes, because the stakes were VERY high.  Not only was the main antagonist MUCH different than the last, the Ninja were out of their territory, and added a whole lot of world building and character growth.  

The Seasons writing was very good, my only ‘complaint’ it seemed to have some plot holes.  In earlier Seasons, the Serpentine War was kind of hinted as this “old war”, but this Season implied it was MUCH more recent in years, and had to have been since Misako was around for it.  As well, Wu and Garmadon appeared much younger and aged a lot in only ( presumably ) 20-30 years.  However, I’m not going to nitpick it too much since Ninjago was originally set to end after S2, I think the writers did a good job continuing on and working with the pre-existing lore anyway.  

The world building and expansion in this Season was very interesting, I would’ve liked to see more about the other Elemental Masters personally.  There were a few points with them where they seemed to quickly go with or against the Ninja that got kind of old, but that’s nitpicky as well.  The history we learn and learning more about the different elements was very cool.  We got to see a glimpse into everyone's past during the Serpentine War, on both sides of it.  I like how it expands more on the Serpentine being ‘neutral’ in a sense, they were never the true enemies, just misguided.  

Chen and Clouse absolutely top the Overlord for me, they were so sinister and conniving, they didn’t hold back at all.  Them being mortals as well makes that in itself even more horrifying; the Overlord was the physical embodiment of evil who could use that to get his way and control armies, whereas Chen was downright manipulative and has NO powers other than his own mind.  He said so himself, he’s insignificant without becoming an Anacondrai and taking over Ninjago, he is human in the sense he’d do anything to get stronger and win, which is also literally his motto.  He’s not a favorite character, but Chen is currently my favorite villain out of everyone we’ve seen, second to Garmadon.  The way he’s been written, cunning and being able to split apart teams just to get his way while acting theatrical and amusing makes him a very fun antagonist.  

Clouse is in the same boat as Chen for me; neither of them surpass the other in any rank I may have, I consider them as one since they worked together.  Though, Clouse was much scarier than Chen was.  NOTHING the Ninja did went unnoticed by Clouse, and his voice actor must’ve had rent due because they did a phenomenal job.  His competition with Garmadon ( as well as overall tension ) expanded more on the cruelty of Chens behavior.  Garmadon, at least, turned away from Chen during the war, Clouse chose not too.  He’s shown empathy; he spoiled his serpent and seemed to be hurt when he died, so that just tells me Clouse could’ve had the capacity to change or see goodness, he just chose not too.

With Garmadon, I like how his past unraveled here.  I’ve complained that I felt as though Garmadon didn’t have a proper redemption arc; Lloyd just cured him of the venom and everyone saw him as an ally again, even though S3 did give him a little growth with his vow to never fight, this Season expanded on his growth so much more.  Garmadon holds so much guilt from his past and he regrets so much.  For the letter he gave to Misako, it’s forgotten that it was Chen who stole the letter, and encouraged Garmadon to give it to her.  Partially I wish Garmadon had a chance to explain himself when Chen told Wu and Misako he stole it, since Garmadon tried to tell her earlier, I’m also kind of glad he didn’t have the chance to explain; he takes the blame, he shouldn’t have done so anyway, that in itself is growth.  I found the tension regarding that kind of sudden, I would’ve liked to see Wu forgive him like Misako did, or some kind of interact between them moving past it as brothers, but I still think it ended smoothly regardless, since Wu still honored him positively afterwards.  Lloyd having a moment about it was really emotional too, I kinda wish it was a longer scene or extended more, since that was the first time Lloyd was channeling his feelings into anger to fight the Anacondrai and, even though Kai and Cole noticed it, he still quickly came back to the Bounty, but it didn’t take away from anything.  

Garmadons sacrifice due to not being able to make up for his past hit heavy, and I thought it was a great ending for him.  Villain who tried to take over and destroy a city curses himself to the Cursed Realm just to save it, I think it was a great and conclusive redemption arc to a very complex character.  I’m glad it ended this way, not the way I was hoping it would.

All of the Ninja had very complex character growth, and I loooove complex character growth.  The grief from loosing Zane is so personal, they all expressed it very differently and realistically. It was refreshing to see them work through it.  Though the Season followed them learning to become united as one to fight back against Chen, I found it as a metaphor to overcome grief as well.  From the first episode, Wu warned that the loss could make them closer or push them further away, and everyone had to experience being pushed away to realize they had to overcome their inner fears and self doubt to become closer again.  Chen setbacks began to fuel them to keep trying and no longer bringing them back to square one.  

While the others experienced grief, Zane experienced a lot of self doubt.  He had to relearn who he is again, and even though he knew he was a nindroid before, I think now he was accepting it.  During one of his visions of the Ice Dragon, he said he was a fraud, he’s no longer the White Ninja.  I wonder if he knew he wasn’t physically, the ‘real Zane’, and lost the humanity he thought he was clinging too, and part of overcoming his fears, he had to learn it’s still him, and to accept his new form as is. 

The recurring theme of miscommunication and lies weaved by Chen also hit each character personally, everything was an act to bring down a character, bring out the worse in them, and everyone had to find their strength to not let it consume them so it wouldn’t divide them again.  Their grief fed into their fears, pulling them to their worse so Chen could try and take advantage of the mental weakness.

On some minor notes, Kai’s jealousy and guilt was very interesting, him being briefly corrupted by the Staff of Elements and him fighting against it proves he’s only gotten stronger as the Seasons progressed, even if he can’t fully move on from things that bother him, he’s proven he won’t let it consume him.  Pythor’s return was great too, out of all of Pythor’s appearances, his role in this Season was my absolute favorite.  I loved his chemistry with the Ninja and I think he got a conclusive end to his story too; he’s not innocent, but he was wronged by Chen too, and despite everything he did, he didn’t turn against the Ninja whatsoever in the 10 minutes of screentime he had here, and his final actions to help end the War made the Anacondrai Generals proud.  

I also wish we got an explanation on Zane’s return, I either missed something or it just wasn’t explained.  PIXAL said he ‘rebuilt himself’, but she herself was scrapped, and in S3’s finale she thought Zane was talking to her within the factory.  I wonder if PIXAL rebuilt / helped rebuild him on her own, and somehow got taken to Chens island.  Currently, my theory is that she rebuilt him, and when Chen was summoning everyone to the tournament, they managed to find Zane and take him and PIXAL to the island so they could trick the Ninja into going.  

Though not perfect, it was a very fun Season and I like how it ended.  I’m very excited to start the next one.  Season 4 gets a 9/10

[me-theuser]

Not to take over your post but this is generally a topic that I have A Lot to say about—so quick responses before the cut and in depth ones bellow it!

(Also I realize I’m not sure how old this post is so it might be entirely useless for you now if it’s been a while)

-what kind of machinery is enjoyed?

As long as it’s not “looks exactly like a human but has [singular trait that indicates they’re a robot],” I’m all for it

-Homoerotic subtext? Never too much of that, keep it coming

-Good tropes Bad tropes? Here’s a Reddit thread of scifi enjoyers describing tropes that irk them and why

-Creator/creation pairings? Dependent on the setting and how they’re depicted. With nuance or even just the right set up you can have them without it being weird that one specific way

In depth takes bellow the cut here!

Is there a moral code for what types of machinery y'all enjoy?

Robot fucking is actually interestingly nuanced—my quick response was just personal taste as just knowing it’s a robot does it for some people, while others want to hook up with the furthest thing from human shaped as possible.

As a robot fucker I point you in the direction of media that’s full of mechanical characters and recommend you observe them as you would in a nature documentary (transformers, ultrakill, detroit become human, are bigger ones off the top of my head).

As a transformers fan however, this is an insanely interesting topic!! I Will Not be talking about it however—do that research on your own.

How much homoerotic subtext is too much when it comes to robots?

Depends on your audience, if you lean in too much it’ll turn some people away or attract a different crowd than expected if you had certain plans and ideas as to the type of people you’re trying to cater towards.

As a transformers fan however! It’s never too much, they’re all gay! Literally! In universe they’re a homonormative society

Are there any widely hated tropes, or very normalized tropes I should avoid or put a spin on?

As previously provided, check out that reddit thread! While it’s a list of tropes people don’t like, they explain why they don’t like it, allowing you to use those same tropes while avoiding what makes them bad. I recommend browsing TVtropes too, because it includes examples of where it’s used in popular media and related tropes as well.

 A personal gripe I have with certain tropes is projecting human ideas onto robots. They’re robots!! They do NOT see things the way we do! Robots probably don’t even have sex—that doesn’t make sense regardless of how enjoyable I or others would find the idea. They don’t learn or think how we do but that doesn’t mean it’s uninteresting! Check out this series on ao3 for some fantastic transformers worldbuilding that can be applied to any robot characters in general

Are creation and creator pairings seen as odd?

Very contextual question, though I would examine how their dynamic is portrayed on a case by case basis, as well as how they’re typically seen in universe.

An example of it being weird is if it’s specifically depicted as the creator raising the creation, such as Zane being raised by Dr. Julien the way a father would his child.

There are certainly examples of creator/creation being seen in normal lights—though I can’t immediately think of any beyond Tony Stark/JARVIS, which I once saw depicted in a way similar to what I believe you’re trying to achieve in this fanfiction on ao3

Have fun writing!!

QUICK EDIT: Here are media to look at for inspiration/references/general use when making machinery centric media

I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream - Short story with a terribly dreary aura you can listen to for free on YouTube, I recommend watching analysis’ of it to hear interesting ideas and takes on evil AIs

The Oracle Project - it’s part of the Tangi Virus analog horror universe made by Vintage Eight on YouTube, though you don’t need to know anything about the Tangi Virus series to get into The Oracle Project from what I recall. The Oracle Project has a lot of focus on creator and creation dynamics

Any Transformers media, but I specifically recommend fan analysis of character dynamics to fast-track yourself into the correct rabbit hole for your type of research

Ultrakill lore wiki pages - You play as a robot going down the layers of hell, while the game may not be to a persons taste,(shooter game), the lore is something to behold!

okay, have fun writing for real this time

Hey robot lovers. gear grinders. circuit clingers. I have a few questions for something I'm writing!!

Is there a moral code for what types of machinery y'all enjoy? How much homoerotic subtext is too much when it comes to robots? Are there any widely hated tropes, or very normalized tropes I should avoid or put a spin on? I wanna do my research because I feel like y'all are gonna end up as the accidental target audience. Ahh!!! Are creation and creator pairings seen as odd? I don't want it to come across as a parental relationship and make it feel Odd in that way. I certainly want it to be odd and uncomfortable and make the viewers think, but not in that way. For context, this is an active ARG that I'm creating. There's two characters so far, Creator and MECHA, who is a virtual companion that learns and grows as it is communicated with by different "users", or viewers.

[serpentface]

Do you conlang? I was wondering if you had naming languages (or possibly even more developed ones) for pulling the words you use. I tried to search your blog but didn't find anything, wouldn't be surprised if the feature is just busted tho. Your worldbuilding is wonderful and I particularly enjoy the anthropological and linguistic elements.

Ok the thing is I had kind of decided I was not going to do any conlanging because I don't feel like I'm equipped to do a good job of it, like was fully like "I'm just going to do JUST enough that it doesn't fail an immediate sniff test and is more thoughtful than just keysmashing and putting in vowels". And then have kinda been conlanging anyway (though not to a very deep and serious extent. I maybe have like....an above average comprehension of how language construction works via willingness to research, but that's not saying much, also I can never remember the meanings of most linguistic terms like 'frictives' or etc off the top of my head. I'm just kinda raw dogging it with a vague conceptualization of what these things mean)

I do at least have a naming language for Wardi (and more basic rules for other established languages) but the rudimentary forms of it were devised with methods much shakier and less linguistically viable than even the most basic naming language schemes, and I only went back over it LONG after I had already made a bunch of words so there's some inconsistencies with consonant presence and usage. (This can at least be justified because it IS a language that would have a lot of loanwords and would be heavily influenced by other language groups- Burri being by far the most significant, Highland-Finnic and Yuroma-Lowlands also being large contributors)

The 'method' I used was:

-Skip basic construction elements and fully move into devising necessary name words, with at least a Vibe of what consonants are going to be common and how pronunciation works -Identify some roots out of the established words and their meanings. Establish an ongoing glossary of known roots/words. -Construct new words based in root words, or as obvious extensions/variants of established words. -Get really involved in how the literal meanings of some words might not translate properly to english, mostly use this to produce a glossary of in-universe slang. -Realize that I probably should have at least some very basic internal consistency at this point. -Google search tutorials on writing a naming language. -Reverse engineer a naming language out of established words, and ascribe all remaining inconsistencies to being loanwords or just the mysteries of life or whatever.

I do at least have some strongly established pronunciation rules and a sense of broad regional dialect/accents.

-'ai' words are almost always pronounced with a long 'aye' sound.

-There is no 'Z' or 'X' sound, a Wardi speaker pronouncing 'zebra' would go for 'tsee-brah', and would attempt 'xylophone' as 'ssye-lohp-hon'

-'V' sounds are nearly absent and occur only in loanwords, and tend to be pronounced with a 'W' sound. 'Virsum' is a Highland word (pronounced 'veer-soom') denoting ancestry, a Wardi speaker would go 'weer-sum'.

-'Ch' spellings almost always imply a soft 'chuh' sound when appearing after an E, I, or O (pelatoche= pel-ah-toh-chey), but a hard 'kh' sound after an A or U (odomache= oh-doh-mah-khe). When at the start of a word, it's usually a soft 'ch' unless followed by an 'i' sound (chin (dog) is pronounced with a hard K 'khiin', cholem (salt) is pronounced with a soft Ch 'cho-lehm')

-Western Wardin has strong Burri cultural and linguistic influence, and a distinct accent- one of the most pronounced differences is use of the ñ sound in 'nn' words. The western city of Ephennos is pronounced 'ey-fey-nyos' by most residents, the southeastern city of Erubinnos is pronounced 'eh-roo-been-nos' by most residents. Palo's surname 'Apolynnon' is pronounced 'A-puh-lee-nyon' in the Burri and western Wardi dialects (which is the 'proper' pronunciation, given that it's a Kos name), but will generally be spoken as 'Ah-poh-leen-non' in the south and east.

-R's are rolled in Highland-Finnic words. Rolling R's is common in far northern rural Wardi dialects but no others. Most urban Wardi speakers consider rolling R's sort of a hick thing, and often think it sounds stupid or at least uneducated. (Brakul's name should be pronounced with a brief rolled 'r', short 'ah' and long 'uul', but is generally being pronounced by his south-southeastern compatriots with a long unrolled 'Brah' sound).

Anyway not really a sturdy construction that will hold up to the scrutiny of someone well equipped for linguistics but not pure bullshit either.

[crossbackpoke-check]

find a blorbo (nhl tag game)

RULES: Go through the roster of each NHL team and find at least one player that you can root for.

tagged by @bondedpairs!! when i say too many teams to count and here for the narrative um. i may not have lied. this is not an extensive list of my blorbos but in order to make it not ten thousand years long i made up the rule that i had to do it straight from memory :)

anaheim ducks: as evidenced by recent events i DO like mason mctavish and trevor zegras but i have to honor laura and mention troy terry and beloved goalie gibbie*

boston bruins: oh for sure brad marchand… can i say patrice? one of the charlies got traded but i think mcavoy is still there because gryz is gone, brandon carlo is there still i think

buffalo sabres: cozens & thompson, owen power, rasmus dahlin, ukko pekka luukkonen

calgary flames: is chris tanev still here? is markstrom still here?? noah hanifin?? as a last resort i’ll say blasty

carolina hurricanes: aho & jarvy & teuvo teravainen & brent burns is still playing maybe? i know sepe got traded

chicago hockey: the bedsy narrative is compelling but ANDREAS ATHANASIOU MY BELOVED reunited with tyler bertuzzi… that’s the real story. also i like foligno

colorado avalanche: gabe landeskog, whatever ross colton & miles wood have going on, natemac + jo, mikko

columbus blue jackets: have long been on the merzlikins train, have been swayed to the darkside of umich boys (brindley, kent johnson, fantilli, blankenburg who is now on nsh)

dallas stars: seggy! mush! roope + miro and otter and robo and wyjo (rip ty dellandrea) and harls! etc.

detroit red wings: MOST players. dilly larks, moritz seider, jv, raymond, rasmussen, kitty, lyon, etc except for k*ne

edmonton oilers: mcdrai, ofc. nugent-hopkins, nursey, rip vinny & skinny

florida panthers: tkachuk, reinhardt, sasha barkov, verhaeghe (is there still?)

los angeles kings: adrian kempe… kevin fiala… danault… quinton byfield & alex turcotte

minnesota wild: kirill, marat, fleury, brodes, fabes, boldy, moose, middsy, spurge… god’s perfect idiots

montreal canadiens: going out on a limb here to say martin st. louis but also xhekaj (both), slafkovský, suzuki, my austrian reinbacher, yes fine cole caufield

nashville predators: MOST BEAUTIFUL D PAIR IN THE WORLD GRADY SKJEI AND ROMAN JOSI!! juuse, evangelista, isn’t stamkos there and also someone else who absolutely should not be

new jersey devils: nico… tuna (tatar), dawson mercer, siegenthaler, dougie hamilton, yes the hugheses whatever

new york islanders: barzy, zeeker & marty, anders lee, noah dobson lol

new york rangers: mika & chris, lafrenière & k’andre, shesterkin

philadelphia flyers: frosty & beezer and tk and sanny and the new baby michkov and coots and scooty loots and foerster etc etc. you know the Guys

pittsburgh penguins: the two headed monster but also compelled by rutger mcgroarty, and kevin hayes was there!!!

ottawa senators: timmy stü & brady! josh norris! the evolution of shane pinto! ullmark now and brännström and claude giroux and chabot

san jose sharks: ekky, thrun, mario, borde, logan couture, shakir, that other vaguely blond rookie

seattle kraken: brandon tanev, andre burakovsky! grubauer & d’accord also

st. louis blues: jordan kyrou, nathan walker (is still there?), rob thomas? is parayako still there?

tampa bay lightning: hedman, point, they dumped so many guys after the cup run… is kucherov still there or is he in nashville?? anthony cirelli (notable for being made out with by pat maroon)

toronto maple leafs: mitch, jt, willy, alex nylander, kniesy, dewar, et

utah hockey: crouse, keller, tuba

vancouver canucks: quinn, brock, petey, jt, garly, höggy, i want to say dakota johnson, elias lindholm?

vegas golden knights: brandon montour is here now… alex pietrangelo, so sorry to one i can’t remember who loves the lions it will come back to me

washington capitals: full of love and stupidity. oshie, nicke/ovi, pierre-luc dubois, dowd, vrána, milano

winnipeg jets: adam lowry!! josh morissey and kc and morgan barron, also vladdy my beloved

tagging @stillfertile + @colap1nto + @songsandswords + @moregraceful if they haven’t done it yet, i know they follow at least a couple teams. if anybody else wants to play i love adopting blorbos!!

[whatudottu]

Something about Altered Loyalties CYLAS just really makes me want to include him in the first place but also makes me really really REALLY think that with the more supernatural elements of AL based off of the original TFP pilot (or just first episode/s?) that CYLAS as a ‘dead man walking’ would actually let him stay around longer AND also be a very significant contributing factor to Megatron’s downfall in Decepticon favour!

Of course it’s not as if I have the pieces of the TFP rewrite au firmly put into place, CYLAS in canon shows up just over halfway into season 2, and many of my most established changes occur in the first like… including all the parts of ‘Darkness Rising’ 8 episodes of season one; I have no idea if the environment CYLAS presents himself in is the same one canon CYLAS does.

But with the dubiousity between s1 e8 all the way to s2 e19, I’ll establish the basic context… I think in story mode maybe��

Looking at the general timeline for the Aligned Continuity, it says that the first contact of cybertronians on Earth is dated to about 500 years before the show, give or take a decade. I’ve been listing Skyquake’s little EHP pitstop to have existed at least 50 years before the war reached our planet, but what if I pushed it all the way back to 500; if a vorn is 83 years, that’d be about 6 years on an entirely different planet not knowing truly if your twin is going to make it, a planet which by the way presently has no established radio systems that it’s horrifically quiet for a terrestrial environment.

That means that Skyquake’s EHP Comms Array has been transmitting a signal long before humans had developed radio, which also means that what might’ve been blatantly an anomaly in the system if discovered 50 odd years previous to 2012 (which would’ve been in the 60s give or take which would not have been good in the literal middle of the cold war era) has been going for centuries because it had always been there, there is no anomaly because it is a signal that has existed ever since humans were able to manipulate radiowaves into sending messages and translate them into detectable noise. It helps that cybertronian language and code (both code lang and like literal programming code) is a system unknown to humans developing their own language.

And you may be asking, why did I divert this post from talking about CYLAS and how he’d outlast his canon alternate to radio shit? Well, if you were a paramilitary organisation who is pretty good at erasing signals and you discovered a signal that has been actively running for the entirety of human radio has suddenly been silenced, what would you begin to suspect at that?

Aliens may potentially be a stretch but MECH didn’t just name themselves after the cybertronians fighting war on their planet, and once the cybertronian conflict touched down on Earth, the Decepticons hadn’t a need for an intergalactic communications array and in fact was specifically instructed to switch it off in an effort to prevent the Autobots from using it. That would’ve been about maybe 6 years ago for the show (wow just enough equivalent time to match what Skyquake felt he spent grounded to one radio tower look at that) and though MECH would not encounter their first cybertronian until ‘Convoy’ (haha wait that’s s1 e9 the next ep to cover - if necessary - for Altered Loyalties lmao), they would’ve had 6 years to find that missing signal and stumble across some very definitely alien technology.

That is one of the reasons why the rewrite of ‘Masters and Students’ which is less masters and students focused - rather the point is Skyquake, a team of Nemesis stationed vehcions and Starscream investigate the comms array and set it up manually - why the radio tower wasn’t switching on from a remote position.

The other reason was because the Guardian unit stationed at the comms array - the very ones that had accompanied Skyquake all those stellar cycles ago - had gone missing. Why?

Because of Megatron’s flagrant use of Dark Energon.

Points 1 and 2 listed above leads to the explosion of the comms array, the death of Skyquake, and MECH either being alerted to the point of alien contact or just in general going to the site for more study only to find a dead specimen. After the discovery of the Autobots with the body of Skyquake, MECH begins their initial study and dissection of cybertronian physiology, though without a live subject they couldn’t exactly see what parts function in what way, especially the t-cog.

The discovery of Skyquake led to the discovery of terrorcons which lead to the discovery of how to take down a cybertron and how to take it apart without it screaming. MECH would learn the programming of a cybertronian through vehicon terrorcons since, even with DE corruption, their processors are still somewhat being maintained. While probably not able to access memories (they are fickle things, memory centres, easy to damage storage or to corrupt files) there are still systems responsible for pain and other more processor based responsibilities that aren’t centred in a physical organ that reads in fine print it’s function.

Breakdown being MECH’s first fully functional living mecha for their study is so exciting for them (even if Breakdown is very much less enthused) because they can put what knowledge they’ve pieced together to be far more efficient with their time and focus on the elements they could not decipher from either corpse or zombie and potentially try and prod at Breakdown’s brain for some cohesive coding. Good think Bulkhead still shows up when he does even with Breakdown walking away with the dreadful thought of ‘how the hell do these fleshies already know so much’ boring into his head… mainly through the optic that was still drilled out-

Whether or not MECH needs to get another living cybertronian to get caught up in their understanding of the biomechanics of them (aka would 'Operation: Bumblebee' take place as it does) or they skip right onto making a remote control Prime having gotten a headstart on their knowledge and scaring the scrap out of any bot unlucky enough to be unconscious around them, eventually Silas gets smooshed and MECH scientists are reliant on their alien dissections to get the human puree back to the land of the living.

I'd assume that this was the case in the original since if Silas' biomatter was able to be collected from a pile of robot drone induced rubble the RC truck would've been able to be recovered as well, but MECH discovers that using Nemesis Prime as a lifesupport system does not work given all it's functionality is focused on visually replicating another cybertronian, rather than using it to create life. There's a lot of parts and systems to a cybertronian's biological ecology that wasn't put into consideration for a mimic toy that prove detrimental to creating a suitable ah... skin suit essentially for Silas' blood pudding, but MECH has an abundance of corpses ready and raring to be used just so long as they piece them back together again.

Amid MECH's collection would no doubt be a mass of vehicon bodies - some untouched by energon others taken down explicitly by MECH because they were terrorcons - some terrorcons made up from the bodies of the previous conflict pre-show (and not just a hypothetical ancient war, but explicitly the conflict that culled a lot of Autobot and Decepticon officers amid the show expected vehicon death), and the very first cybertronian sample they started studying, Skyquake himself! Being at the origin of the blast at the EHP Comms Array he wasn't kept in perfect condition for one, the arm he loses as a terrorcon in the Shadowzone is still lost - it's been buried under rubble after being severed with radio tower pieces - and the monochromatic glass over his optics has long since been shattered so you can see the 'pupil' aka sensor, but seeing as how CYLAS makes Breakdown's corpse somehow look worse than what Airachnid left it as MECH probably has to suture that fucker back up because there's not way his organs have been left untouched!

And once CYLAS has been successfully integrated into his new cybertronian shell (some sort of arm, either being a loaner from another corpse or straight up just one MECH invented, it could even be a copy of the missing arm but where's the fun in that) instead of getting all high and mighty about 'being of a superior species' Silas actually bloody thinks on MECH's plans going forward. With a literal army of paramilitary personnel, from the scientists that melded human flesh with cybertronian wires to the average grunt soldier fighting between the battles of iron giants, CYLAS has something that Megatron (at least the Altered Loyalties Megatron I have written previously) has wanted from the start of the series...

An undying force.

For as large as cybertronians physically are their numbers can never match the scale of humanity, I can't remember if the books mentioned only thousands of the dead or up to a million over the course of like... a long fucking time but, that's not even the number of the human population if you're caught up with the number (nearly 8 billion alive today). And with the dead of previous battles already roaming the Earth, in a world where Megatron still being only like one dude can't command a planet wide population of zombies, the only reason he doesn't turn his blade to the weakest denominators of his forces in his plagued state is because their conscious decision to serve him is worth more than mindless servitude.

CYLAS introducing himself and MECH as a solution to this issue, and providing a show of bountiful body horror, makes not even the Decepticon high command quite as safe as they had been; not that it's been proven to be safe standing by Megatron's side given his track record of wanting his SiCs beaten or killed but...

The fact that CYLAS just so happened to have given and then promptly brutalised Dreadwing's hope that Skyquake may have been actually alive, just severely damaged (and, bond weakened from distance and prior injury, clinging to the last shreds of 'my spark didn't kill me with him' reasoning) and broke him out of the spell of blind loyalty to his once great leader.

CYLAS in this version has a little bit more longevity to his existence within the Decepticon forces, not actually a Decepticon soldier as the canon CYLAS pledged himself as but 'The Human Factor' the episode so calls itself akin to the way the American government and the human children are to the Autobots, but being able to physically go toe-to-toe with cybertronians. Megatron might be a little tired of dealing with independents after Airachnid's escapade (I do intend to make her more into a poacher/torturer type character than another Starscream so she might act out a little differently), but Silas isn't one for licking boots anytime soon and as CYLAS, Megatron is no different; you'd think he wouldn't have even done that in the first place given he's already an ex-military 'take-no-nonsense' bitch, but the Breakdown in him probably made him a lapdog...

Anyway that's a whole big post about Altered Loyalties CYLAS... or at least the in depth reasoning behind why he could still integrate himself into the story and why he'd probably have more opportunity to lasting- i prommy it's not bc i like torturing skyquake likers *wink*

I guess this is now a canon event or at least I'll try to make it canon ;)

[shima-draws]

Apart from Sanlu and Zolu which other pairing do you like within the one-piece universe? And how did you get into one piece?

I'm a HUGE multishipper at heart so honestly I like just about everything. FAVORITE ships tho besides Sanlu and Zolu are Lawlu, any combination of Luffy/Zoro/Sanji/Law, Namivivi, and Frobin!! Other ships I really like are Kobylu, Usokana, Saboala, Yamace, Sabosan, Namicari, Mishanks, Corashanks, Zorokiku, and the East Blue polycule c:

As for how I got into OP--one of my closest friends showed me the animated video of Ado singing Backlight as Uta and that had me like 👀👀👀 Basically it was Film Red that served as the introduction to One Piece for me. Also I have a few mutuals that are really into it too so seeing lots of fun OP art come across my dash eventually got to me LOL

I started watching the actual anime before I watched Film Red, but it was maybe like 5 episodes or so. So really Film Red was the beginning of everything :"D

[darkaac]

Fin.

[wreckedhoney]

^^ "coming to the conclusion that positioning the "can people enjoy things that would be immoral IRL in their fiction" debate as a proship v anti fandom debate is akin to pretending that "should we have the death penalty" is a discussion that only matters in Death Note discourse"

not proshipper not anti but a secret third thing (person who has a career in the media and, through covering legislative politics, has watched "associating with problematic fiction or entertainment is an indicator of moral degeneracy" rapidly become a mainstream GOP position that they are encoding in legislation to target the queer community under the guise of protecting children, thus coming to the conclusion that positioning the "can people enjoy things that would be immoral IRL in their fiction" debate as a proship v anti fandom debate is akin to pretending that "should we have the death penalty" is a discussion that only matters in Death Note discourse — the extent and manner to which fiction affects reality is an issue that is immediately relevant to today's US politics, and to summarize my opinions on the matter in fandom terms would be to diminish the ways this debate is affecting america Right The Fuck Now. and i have stopped taking "this person is bad for shipping the wrong anime thing and being horny about it" in any sort of good faith ever since I saw it literally used as part of a GOP smear campaign against a transgender state legislator in an attempt to defend the right from backlash after they used their supermajority in the Montana house to prevent her from speaking on the floor. Anyway I think everyone on this site, especially Americans, could benefit from ceasing to think in proship v anti vocabulary and instead developing coherent political positions on the nature of fiction that do not directly align with current fascist political tactics)

[racke7]

Huh. I actually managed to finish Divinity 2 for once.

[corvigae]

Character decision I'm making for Elowen: she does not particularly care for Astarion, or at least she has no patience for his bullshit.

[light-wrath-paradise]

One thing about me is you can always count on me to want the character who is incomprehensible. People often say "Oh you're gonna want this one for sure" because they think I have a type. There's the secret: There is no type. The only type is confusion.

If the character you are showing to me is perfectly comprehensible and makes sense well unfortunately I will be normal about them. Horny? Perhaps. But to a normal degree.

Show me a cunt who makes no sense at all and it's over. I'm finished. KO'd. I'm done. It's over for me forever.

[nymphaerie]

GOD LOUISE REGAILIA MAKES ME SO FUCKING INSANE EVERY TIME I THINK ABOUT HER I FEEL LIKE IM GOING TO EXPLODE INTO A MILLION LITTLE PIECES. ITS JJUST LIKE. girls when they havce to kill their former selves in order to survive. girls when the self they take up in turn is constantly destroyed and remade in order to never be attached to one life. girls when the only way they know how to save themself is to lock themself away. girls when they’ve forsaken their home and in turn been forsaken by it. girls when theyre both the abandoner and the abandoned. girls when they think theyre the most sane completely normal one hundred percent hinged person in the world. girls when they already know they didn’t deserve what they went through but can’t imagine a world in which they can heal from it. girls when they won’t let themselves heal because they don’t know who they are without their hurt. because they killed that girl. and theyll keep killing her forever and ever and ever and pretend thats the same as healing her.

[sorryitsmyfirstdayonearth]

I don't know why I bite (Dean Winchester x female reader)

You and Dean can’t stop fighting, so Sam locks you in a room together, literally, to hash it out.

Read it on AO3

Rated E, 18+. 6.9k words. Violence. Rough sex. Everyone's pretty dysfunctional. General hurt. Biting. Dean + dog metaphors because it just makes sense.

I don't really know how I feel about posting long fics like this here - it seems a little awkward to read, but I'm gonna let y'all decide whether you like this format.

My friends think I like to fight, but it's just not true. Sometimes I lose my temper and blow off a little steam, but I've never enjoyed it.

I'm not a violent dog.

I don't know why I bite.

- Isle of Dogs

Dean Winchester is driving you crazy.

From the first moment you mouth off to him when you first meet you know you found a good sparring partner.

He’s quick, you’re quicker. You’re clever, he’s more clever. He grins at your teasing and you laugh at some of the jabs he gets in.

It works, because you’re both intensely aware of your own roles, your own pitfalls – you can’t hurt him by making fun of something that’s part of the character he’s created, because it’s not really him you’re making fun of. It’s the same the other way around.

You make fun of how much sex he has with strangers, because it’s part of his bad boy glamour, just another coping mechanism.

He makes fun of your excessive violence towards the less humanoid monsters you fight, because he knows you don’t actually enjoy it, that you do it to look tough in this boy’s club that is hunting, that your hands shake when you wash them later.

You make fun of his love for his car, but never of the fact that it’s one of the few kindnesses his father’s ever given him, because the first is fair game but the second would be like pushing a knife between his ribs.

He makes fun of how jumpy and irritable you are sometimes, but never of how often you wake up screaming, because one has been weaved as a silly trait into your personality and the other he knows too well himself.

How well you have to know each other, how intimate the understanding of that line you don’t cross is, is something neither of you is willing to look at. It’s like surgery, sometimes, how close you have to cut to the line, to give the other one that thrill of being known, of being seen, but never of being known too well, of being watched. That would go too far.

If Dean or you were able to take that, you wouldn’t need those intrinsic personas to shield you from everything that could be painful.

You’ve known each other for about a year when it takes a turn. It doesn’t happen on purpose and, looking back, it’s no one’s fault.

You’re attracted to Dean because, well, you have two eyes and a sex drive. You know he is attracted to you because he checks you out, which, well, Dean would probably check out a wall if it had a nice pair, but he does it with a look in his eyes that’s different, that’s not the mask he uses to bang waitresses and co-eds and unhappy wives, all non-descript shadow people passing through his life.

Potentially something could have come of it. Maybe, if one of you would have been lonely enough or horny enough, you could have let your personas, your life-long starring roles, play with each other. It probably would have been hot, but performative, both of you too busy to prove how much you don’t need to be there.

It doesn’t happen that way, though, because this happens:

Dean and you are hurt, which isn’t unusual. You can’t open your right eye so well and you hear a whistle every time you exhale. Dean’s got blood running down his face from a cut somewhere in his hair and the thing you were hunting speared him with a pen, a pen, because that’s what was in reach when Dean was standing over it, getting ready to beat its head in. It wanted to live, and you can’t think about that too much because if you do you think you’ll be sick.

Essentially, you both look like you’re on death’s door, so you don’t go back to Sam, because you know it will terrify him. Instead, you stop at a gas station, get everything you need to imitate a visit to the emergency room. The guy working at the gas station looks at you two and you must look like Natural Born Killers but neither of you cares. You get a bottle of shitty whiskey as well.

Then you hunker down, in the cheapest pay-by-the-hour motel you’ve ever seen. There’s red neon everywhere and you don’t even want to know what the room would look like under a black light.

“You first,” you say to Dean, and he complains, but you push him down on the chair you’ve moved to the middle of the room. “Stabbed beats carved-in lung,” you say, and Dean scoffs, which makes him cough.

“Anything to get to put your hands on me, huh?” he jokes when he’s recovered. You sort of chuckle, trying to find the cut on his head first. “Been a long time, has it?” he asks, flinching when you find it.

“Winchester,” you say, laying a cotton bud soaked in alcohol against the cut, making Dean buck under you, a deep groan leaving him. “You could be the last man on earth and I’d still prefer celibacy.” Dean chuckles.

“Don’t know what you’re missing out on,” he says. The cut’s mostly stopped bleeding, so you decide to leave it for now.

“Yeah, a bunch of STDs,” you mumble as you kneel down, suppressing a whine at something hurting, you don’t even know what.

The stab wound is next. Dean, in his infinite wisdom, pulled out the pen. It’s a natural instinct, to want something that is hurting you out of your body, but he still should know better.

You push up his shirt, look at the wound, ignore all that skin around it.

Cotton bud. Alcohol.

Dean hisses. “Whiskey?” he says, and you stop what you’re doing for a second to grab the bottle off the table near you, pass it to him. He opens it, takes a deep gulp, while you watch his throat work, swallowing. He drops his head, the bottle leaving his mouth, some of it running down his chin. It shouldn’t make you feel what it makes you feel. He’s a mess, and so are you, but getting to watch him like this is a privilege you know not many are afforded.

Stripped down, broken, fresh off a kill. It’s him at his best, in a way.

He passes the bottle to you, and you don’t wipe the rim. You set it down when you’re done.

“This is gonna need stitches,” you say, motioning to the wound. He nods. “What are you waiting for then?”

He barely makes any sounds while you do it, while you sew him back together. It’s over soon, since you’re quick and practiced and it’s not a huge wound. He sighs when he’s done.

“Good?” you ask.

“Magnificent,” he says, panting a little. You give him a second to recover, then push his arm for him to move. He gets up, and you take his place.

You’re not sure how much he can do for you but you’re not going to skip the chance to have him touch you, to have him try to fix you. He looks at your eye first, cleans it but it’s just a shiner, there’s not much to do. While he does it, his thumb rests on your cheek. You’re intensely aware of it, but you just look ahead.

“Saw you miss that one shot,” he says, when he’s done, and his hands leave your face. “The first one? At the big guy?” He shakes his head as he takes the whiskey and drinks again. “I’ve seen some bad shooting from you, but that was sad. Such a big target, too.”

You chuckle, but something pulls in you. No, you think, but you don’t know why. This should be save terrain.

You flinch when Dean lays his hand on your chest, above your breasts but the inside of his wrist is brushing against you. You think for a second that you can feel his heartbeat through it but then you’re not sure.

“Breathe in”, he says, and you do, while he concentrates on where the wheezing sound you make is coming from. “Throat?” he asks, then frowns. “You got choked? When?”

No, you think again, and this time you know why. You swallow, and it hurts.

“While you were hiding out downstairs,” you say, but your voice is missing the apathy required to deliver the jab, so it falls extra flat. Dean picks it up, though, but he misunderstands.

“Oh, you mean when the big guy decided to chase you after you didn’t shoot him?” He chuckles, his hand not leaving you, but then he stops, thinking. “No, no, he was already dead.”

You need him to stop. You need him to stop trying to figure this out. He’s doing it so he can make fun of you. If he knows which of the freaks hurt you, he can pick out specifically why that one getting to you is embarrassing. It’s fine, normally, but you don’t want him to know.

“Let’s see,” he says, his hand slipping off you. “There was the big guy, the squirrely asshole that stabbed me, and those two in the basement,” he counts off while he reaches for the whiskey again. He shakes his head, concentrating. “Who was upstairs?” he wonders.

He can never shut up. It’s like he was born without the skill, without the knowledge of how to ever just shut the fuck up.

He lowers the bottle, then holds it out for you but you don’t grab it. “Be honest,” he says. “Did you just run into a door at a funny angle and now you’re pretending there was a fifth?” He shakes the bottle a little, because he thinks you didn’t notice it.

You can’t reach for it. You don’t feel your hands.

“It was a child,” you say.

It wasn’t a child, of course, at least not a human one, for whatever that’s worth. It was something that was wearing a child, the kid itself burned out long ago. But it looked like one. It sounded like one. Not when it launched itself at you across the room or when it gave that godawful screech. But later, when it was lying there. That’s when.

You swallow again, and your throat hurts. Little chubby hands did that, the ones with the dimples. You feel a tear roll down your cheek. No no no. This isn’t supposed to happen.

You wipe at it, immediately, but you know Dean’s seen it. Seen you.

He lowers the bottle, slowly, like the strength is going out of his arm. He says your name, and you say: “Don’t.”

He says it again and before you know it you are standing up so quickly that the chair goes flying.

“I said fucking don’t!” you snap at him, because you just need him to stop. You need him to stop sounding like that and you need him to stop looking at you like that, his eyes all soft and his mouth in a straight line. This is worse than anything.

No, you need to get out. Your chest is constricting and you just need to not be here.

You stride towards the door and Dean is stupid enough to come after you, and he’s grabbing you, his hand like a vice around your upper arm. You turn so suddenly that he has to let go, the turning making pain flash through you, and you think good.

“Don’t ever touch me,” you grunt and Dean takes a step back. Then you’re out the door, no idea where you’re going.

You don’t come back for three days.

You left your phone at the motel with Dean so there’s no way for him to contact you. You barely remember the days. You have your wallet on you, so there’s that.

You drink, you know that. You drink and you don’t stop drinking because it’s the only way you can sleep.

You pick someone up, at some point, hoping you can be fucked senseless but it’s disappointing, doesn’t get you anywhere, so you leave. You don’t dare touch yourself, your body and what it can do horrifying and disgusting to you.

It doesn’t feel like three days, but apparently that’s what it is.

When you return to the motel, the one you were originally staying at, not the one you and Dean went to, you expect the brothers to be gone.

You get a room, get cleaned up, sitting in the bath water while it goes from boiling hot to lukewarm. You walked past a second hand shop earlier, picked out some clothes, just jeans and a shirt, carrying them with you in a plastic bag. You also bought some other essentials, and you clean yourself as much as you can, make yourself as presentable as possible.

Not to look good. Just to look not broken. Just so you can pretend nothing happened.

Then you go to the room you shared with Sam and Dean. You knock. They’re probably long gone, but then you hear foot steps behind the door, familiar murmuring and the door opens and Sam’s there, all puppy dog eyes and awkward posture.

He looks immensely relieved when he sees you, and you think for a second that he’s about to pull you in for a hug but something on your face stops him.

“Jesus”, he says, as the door swings open to reveal Dean, farther back in the room, his phone in his hands. “We called every hospital around, we thought you were—”

“I’m fine,” you say, tearing your eyes from Dean. “Your brother didn’t tell you I was going out?”

“Going out?” Sam says, unbelieving and a little bit angry as you push your way past him into the room. “You were gone for three days!”

You ignore him, look at Dean, your eyes daring him. He’s looking at you like he’s expecting your head to explode, but then he says: “She said she was going out, Sammy, leave it alone.” Sam looks bewildered as you turn to him.

“But you said—” Sam starts, but Dean must throw him a look that shuts him up. You don’t turn back in time to see it.

That is how the balance is thrown off. Once it is gone, you cannot reestablish it, no matter how hard you try.

The jokes you make at Dean’s expanse are all missed shots. They don’t cross that invisible line, but they’re… they’re mean. They’re nasty. They’re no fun. They come out of you that way and it makes you cringe at yourself, but you can’t stop.

Dean, on the other hand, overcompensates the other way. His jokes are soft, way too soft, and every single one of them makes your blood almost boil over. Reminds you that he thinks you’re something that needs to be spared, needs to be put in bubble wrap.

That you’re something he can look at the way he looked at you that night.

You two become unbearable to be around, so you don’t really blame Sam for putting his foot down.

It’s another no-name town in another no-name county and you know, and Dean knows and Sam knows that the evening will drag on the way every other evening has dragged on in the last weeks – with tension in the air so thick you could cut it with a knife. With you being mean to Dean and Dean barely defending himself, barely hitting back.

You get to the room, put your bags down and Sam is already by the door again. You and Dean both look at him, wondering where he’s going.

“I’m getting another room,” he says, face serious. “And you two,” he continues, “you two will stay here and figure out what the hell it is that’s going on, because I’m not dealing with it anymore.”

You open your mouth to speak but Sam turns to you and says: “No, figure it out.” Your mouth closes. Who knew. The little guy could actually be imposing.

“Sammy, this is stupid,” Dean says, because of course Dean’s allowed to say something. “You’re grounding us?” Sam nods. “Yeah.”

“Or what?” you ask, before Sam can stop you. He looks at you both, then shrugs, and then he’s pulling the door closed behind him.

There’s silence, and then Dean says: “Well, that was ominous.” He looks at you, maybe hoping you’ll laugh or agree, maybe you can dogpile on Sam for a little while, but you don’t.

You feel terror sitting in your jaw and in your hands. You don’t want to talk to Dean. You don’t want to figure anything out. You want to shed your skin and start your life over and go to sleep and never wake up, but none of these seem to be realistic options.

So you sigh, instead, sitting on the bed nearest to you. There’s not even any alcohol in the room, since you’re in a dry county, and of course Dean’s thinking the same thing.

“He couldn’t have done this when we were in Vegas?” he mumbles. Still no reaction from you as you hear him sit down on the other bed behind you. You hate this. You feel like an animal in a cage. You feel itchy.

“Okay, should we do this?” you hear Dean behind you, and you think you hear him slap his thighs.

You finally turn around to him, slowly, your face unbelieving. He’s sitting there, looking prettier than ever.

“What?” he says.

“Just... you,” you reply. “I can’t believe you’re being so gung-ho about this.” Dean inclines his head. “If Sam thinks—”

“No offense,” you say, fully intending offense, “but screw your brother, okay? I’m not a child. I’m not getting sent to my room without dinner.”

And of course, at that you see it, that child, that child-thing, sprawled out, little eyes looking at the ceiling but seeing nothing. You almost shake yourself.

Unsure if Dean notices, you stand up, but instead of walking outside, you pace.

“He’s not wrong, you know?” Dean finally says, but you don’t stop moving.

“About what?” you ask, without looking at him.

“You’ve been a real asshole the last couple of weeks,” Dean answers.

And God, why does it feel so good that he calls you that?

You stop pacing, turn to him, a grin that’s probably a little psychotic-looking forming on your face.

“Now was that so hard?” you ask.

“What?” Dean asks.

“Not treating me like a little porcelain figure?” you say. “Calling me an asshole?” Dean shrugs. “Well, don’t act like one if you don’t wanna be called it.”

He doesn’t get it, doesn’t get that this is exactly what you want, but it doesn’t matter because even that little bit of disrespect makes the itch in your flesh feel a little less overwhelming.

“I know I have,” you say. You nod at him. “And you’ve been acting like a wuss.” Distantly you realize that you are actually doing what Sam told you to do. You’re talking about it, or at least you’re acknowledging that there is something to talk about, which is more than you’ve done in this whole time. So, good for Sam, you think. And you keep going.

“What happened, Dean?” you ask, your arms going wide. “You saw me upset once and now you’re too much of a bitch to joke around?” You feel yourself teetering at the edge. This could go so horribly wrong but you can’t stop tap-dancing at the edge of that volcano.

“You’re gonna protect my feelings?” you ask in a mocking tone, and you think your voice sounds shrill. “Dean Winchester always saving everyone but himself, huh?”

Dean’s looking down, his face tense and you can’t help but keep pushing.

“I’m an asshole?” you say, and for some reason there are tears burning in your eyes and you don’t know why. “Well, you’re a pussy,” you spit.

“That’s enough,” Dean says, and his voice is cold as steel. He looks up at you, still sitting on he bed, and he terrifies you for a second. But the terror is a thrill.

You scoff at him. “Fuck you if you think you can tell me what to do.”

He gets up faster than you can react. You gasp in fear when he’s suddenly in front of you and then he’s pushing you against the wall behind you. It’s only a foot or two, but the impact hurts beautifully, making clearness and focus rush through you for a second, but it’s over before you can even really enjoy it.

You want to whine at the loss of it, at the sudden lack, everything turmoil again, like a family of rats has nested in your chest. You need it back, that focus.

“Fuck you, Dean,” you say, too joyous by half about your words. “Gonna show me what a man you are? You’re pathetic.”

You see his hand raise and form a fist out of the corner of your eye, and something goes through you, something horrible and you think he’s going to hit you.

You look at his hand and something like a yes comes out of you. It sounds almost sexual, and maybe it is.

Dean’s threatening demeanor drops immediately. It takes him a second to understand what caused your outburst, and he looks at his own hand and then he looks at you.

He wasn’t going to hit you, you suddenly realize. He’s balling his fist because he’s mad, and you see it from the angle he’s holding it. You’ve seen Dean throw a million punches, and this isn’t how he would do it, even if he was mad with anger.

But Dean understands, understands that that’s what you thought he was doing and that that’s what you wanted him to do.

He takes a step away from you immediately and your stomach drops. His face is as open as it’s ever been. He finds your gaze and you’re not sure what he sees in yours but you know what you see in his.

You’ve gone too far, you can feel it in your blood. You can see it on his pretty features. This is his weak spot. The holy part you’re not allowed to touch just like there’s parts of you he’s not supposed to touch. His own fear of himself, of his clever and precise violence. The one that’s been cultivated in him from the time he was four to however old he is now. The one he keeps at bay, no matter what, for those he loves and wreaks on those he doesn’t.

There’s that clear line that neither you and Dean are supposed to cross, and everything beyond that is below the belt. And you just went for it.

He’s fought so hard to bury that part of himself, so that the people he cares about never need to be scared of him like he was scared of the people that were supposed to care about him. It’s cost him everything.  And you just came for his throat.

This is so far beyond your usual arguing. This just hurts.

“I’m—” you start, but Dean’s never been good at listening, so you falter immediately. You feel tears burning in your eyes. God, he looks so sad. You blink, run the back of your hand over your nose. It’s deadly silent in the room.

Dean looks, and you don’t know how else to describe it, like a dog whose owner is holding a news paper. He knows what’s coming and he can’t stop it. He’s fear and shame and disgust in himself. You don’t want to give a shit. He’s not your mess to clean up.

But you do. Of course you do. Just like he did. He cared enough to let you verbally pummel him for weeks, barely keeping his fists up to deflect.

You say his name, or you think you do, and then suddenly he’s moving. He’s walking towards the door and you don’t know why and you don’t know how but you know you need to stop him. If he walks out that door you don’t think you’ll ever see him again.

So you rush forward, manage to get yourself between him and the door.

“Dean, don’t,” you say and he says: “Get out of my way.” His voice is deep and he's not yelling and in a way that is way scarier. But you can’t move. You can’t let him leave.

“Please don’t go,” you say, hoping you can simply convince him. You lean your back against the door, and you’re pretty sure he won’t grab you and simply pull you out of the way, because you can see his hands are trembling.

“I’m sorry,” you say, because your stupid pride has been stopping you, but now it’s the least important thing in the world. “I shouldn’t have pushed you,” you say, but you’re not sure he can hear you. “I shouldn’t have said those things. I just wanted to make you mad.” His head shoots up.

“Why?” he pushes out through gritted teeth.

“Because I couldn’t stand that you pitied me,” you say. God, Sam would love this. A real heart-to-heart. How precious.

Dean frowns. “I don’t pity you,” he says, disdain in his voice.

“Yes, you do,” you insist. “You’ve been pulling your punches for weeks. And it made me… it just made me so angry.” Dean shakes his head.

“You’re insane,” he says, and then he goes for the door, reaching around you to open it.

“No!” you say, and you push him back. He stumbles, just a little bit, but it makes him look so angry that you press yourself harder against the door. Just like you thought, he’s not going to move you out of the way, but that doesn’t mean he won’t try to get around you.

“Move,” he says, and then: “Get out of the fucking way.”

“Make me,” you bark back. Dean stands there for a second, and you think he will. You think you have completely misjudged the situation and he will make you move. But he just goes for the door knob again, reaching around you. You push your arms against him. Now that he knows you’ll try to shove him, he plants his feet and there is no way you can move him.

He’s so close to you and so angry and you don’t know what to do, you don’t know how to get yourself back and you don’t know how to get him back.

Your mouth lands on his before you even know you’re going to do it. Dean flinches and immediately moves back. He looks shocked, and you try to congratulate yourself because it worked. Even though that wasn’t what you were doing. You weren’t trying to stop him, you were just trying to kiss him.

It’s fucked up to do it like this, in the situation you’re in. But then you’re both pretty fucked up.

Dean swallows, and looks unsure. Both of you are breathing hard and for a second he seems to just listen to that, so you do too. It’s erotic, and you don’t know how but you feel it do something to you. Dean’s gaze meets yours. He’s either about to kill you or fuck you.

He moves forward and presses you against the door. You think for a second that he’ll try for the door again, but he doesn’t. His lips find yours, but what you do can barely be called kissing. It’s a battle, like everything between you is, but you manage to get your hands into his hair, grabbing it, making him grunt. He pushes you harder against the door and you find it difficult to breathe and it’s perfect.

You lean your head back at the feeling of containment, and Dean goes for your throat. He runs his teeth over a sensitive spot, making you buck and then he’s sucking against the skin so much it hurts. Your grip tightens in his hair and he makes a noise.

Before you know it you’re pushing his jacket off his shoulders, his hands barely leaving you to let you, and then his flannel goes next. When he’s free of it, he grabs your wrists and pins them over your head, attacking your neck again. You moan, you can’t help it and he ruts himself against you.

You move your head to catch something of him, anything, and you manage to get at his jaw, nipping at him. Dean flinches, but he lets you do it. Then his hands let go of your wrists and travel down your arms, down and down, until they are at your chest and he roughly squeezes your breasts. Another moan escapes you and then you’re dropping your hands and he’s dropping your tits, moving on to your hips instead.

You find his crotch first, press your hand against it, agitating what you find there. Dean hisses, and his mouth slams against yours again, but this time you force your tongue past his lips, keeping him there as you battle again, open-mouthed and breathing hard.

Dean’s hands wander from your hips to your ass, squeezing and then he’s pushing one of his legs between yours. You grind yourself down on him, but it’s not enough, it’s not nearly enough to dispel any of the energy you need to dispel. He’s pushing you against his leg by grabbing your ass but again, it’s not enough.

You tear one of his hands from your ass and maneuver it to your front, push it between the waistband of your jeans and your skin, shove him down. Dean doesn’t stop mouthing at you when you do it, except to groan into your mouth when he fingers make contact with your underwear.

He takes control, shoving his hand deeper until he finds you there. Both you and him are surprised by how wet you are. You’re not sure when that started but neither of you cares for much longer, when you feel Dean push two fingers into you.

You almost sob and with just enough wherewithal you unbutton your jeans to give him room to move, before you grab his hair again and lean your head back against the door. He feels good, and even though his thrusts are rough, they hit the right spots within you, forcing you to close your eyes at what feels like electricity running through your body.

“Fuck, yes, just like that,” you pant and feel Dean’s plush lips against your jaw. He’s not kissing you, not exactly, just making contact, just getting as close to you as he can. You pull his hair a little and feel the air come out of him when he moans.

You don’t know how it’s possible, but he's getting you to the edge fast, and you have high-pitched, desperate moans leaving you soon. Then you’re pushing him away.

His head snaps up, and he looks worried for a second, but all you want is more of him. His hands leaves you, and you’re pulling at his t-shirt, trying to get it off him. You manage, and then he’s tugging at your shirt.

“Get that off,” he says, and his voice is rough and deep, the timber of it running through you. You do, pull it over your head and he goes for your bra before you have even pulled it off your arms. He nearly tears it off you, and then he reaches around you, bringing you close, as he pushes his hands into the back of your pants to push them down.

You use the closeness to open his jeans but then you have to step out of your pants and underwear and shoes as Dean makes them fall to the ground, to avoid stumbling.

Dean manages to turn the two of you, so that you are with your back to the bed and he pushes you towards it. When you get close you let go of him and crawl onto the bed, but you kneel on it, facing Dean. The two seconds it takes you are enough for him to unbuckle his jeans the rest of the way and drop them, along with his underwear, step out of them and his shoes and socks and kick them to the side.

He’s there in front of you, all glorious nakedness, but neither of you wants to lose a second to thinking, to wondering what it is you’re doing, so instead you collect some spit in your mouth, then run your hand along your tongue to collect the moisture and a moment later you have him in your hand.

Dean inhales sharply but you don’t hurt him, only stroke him until he’s fully standing. He’s beautiful, all of him, and if you took a second to admire him, you would see just how beautiful, but you can’t. You don’t want to break the spell.

He grabs you by the ass again, pulls you close to him, and you can hear him breathing hard, grunting at what you’re doing to him. One hand goes to the back of your head and he kisses you, really kisses you this time, roughly, yes, desperately, yes, but it’s still a kiss.

You stroke him faster until he grabs your shoulders and shoves you down on the bed. You land on your back, hair flying into your face and an insane chuckle leaves you. Maybe you’re losing your mind. Or maybe this is what you’ve been craving all along.

Then Dean’s over you, and he’s kissing you again, his hand running from your breast to your neck where he holds you tight, pulls you roughly against him. His erection is pressing against your stomach and you want him.

You get your mouth off his, and then you’re turning around under him. Dean barely leaves you room to do it, but you manage, and then you’re pushing your ass against him. He grabs your hip, strokes it.

And then he kisses your back and you freeze. He does it again, leaning over you, kisses, and then bites you there, but gently.

You gasp and you need him suddenly, need him so bad. Need him to make you feel anything else.

You push your ass up again and this time he does it, does what you want him to do. He lines himself up and then he’s pushing into you. A whine leaves you as you work yourself down on him and his hands are grabbing you everywhere, touching you everywhere and it makes you almost believe that you can be free of all this anger if only Dean keeps touching you.

He starts driving into you and for a second it’s overwhelming, so much, too much and too fast. Your breathing stutters and you need to concentrate on regulating it. But then Dean finds a rhythm and suddenly you can breathe. One hand of yours wanders back, grabs his underarm where he’s holding you and he grabs your elbow, holding onto you.

“Dean—” is all you can say, and his thumb strokes your arm.

“It’s okay,” he says and he’s driving into you, making you gasp again, which quickly turns into a moan.

“Yes,” you pant, “yes, don’t stop.” He doesn’t. He keeps up the pace, his thighs meeting the backs of yours with loud slaps until you think you're going to pass out.

“Fuck,” he mutters, and then suddenly he’s pulling out of you. You turn around to see what’s wrong but then he’s turning you around and your back meets the mattress again. Dean leans over you, pushing your leg higher.

“I want to see you,” he says, and your next inhale lets you feel the spiral again, brings tears into your eyes. Don’t be kind to me, you think, but at the same time you crave it. You want to see him gentle, want him to see his own gentleness.

He kisses you again, and you return it, wrap your arms around him and pull him close. He sighs against you, and then he’s pushing into you again. Your head falls back, you almost whimper and as Dean enters you, pushing your leg up against your torso, his hand cupping your cheek and his thumb running over your lips, you wonder when this turned from a hate fuck into whatever it is now. You find his thumb with your mouth, kiss it.

Dean leans closer to you and your hands go into his hair again. You still pull it, still make him grunt, but in response he lays his face against yours. What is this? you just have time to wonder when the movement of his hips makes you see starts.

He keeps going and going and going and you whimper and come and he holds you through it while tears run down the side of your face from the intensity, but still he keeps going.

“Fuck, I—” he mutters and you feel him throb inside of you, so you pull him close, bring your mouth to his shoulder and bite. Dean grunts, and then you kiss the place you just bit and he comes inside of you.

For a second you’re terrified he’ll roll off you immediately, so you wrap your arms around him. Dean moves into you once or twice more, but it’s just a reflex. His forehead is against your shoulder.

You find you’re stroking his back and just as you wonder if you should stop, Dean flexes his back, his shoulder blades moving under your fingers and he says: “Keep doing that.” So you do. Because you’re not ready to look at his face yet. You don’t know if you ever will be. But eventually you have to.

Eventually Dean needs to move, pulls out of you and rolls himself to the side. Your breathing has quieted down. For a moment, he’s not looking at you, but staring up at the ceiling.

Little eyes staring up at the ceiling.

A sob goes through you and Dean turns to you. He rolls himself towards you and then, after a moment of hesitation, pets your cheek.

“Did I hurt you?” he asks. You shake your head.

“No,” you say, your voice quiet. “You made it not hurt for a while though.”

He nods, and you’re pretty sure he understands exactly what you mean.

“I’m sorry,” you say then.

“You don’t have to—” Dean starts, but you interrupt him.

“I know what I made you feel. What I made you think. I’m sorry.” He opens his mouth to say something, then closes it. “I will never do it again,” you add. He runs his thumb over your chin.

“I’m sorry I made you feel like you needed to be pitied,” he says. “I’m sorry I…” he sighs. “I didn’t want to scare you.”

You nod. “I know,” and then: “I knew you weren’t going to hurt me. I knew but I wanted you to.” He nods again.

“Why? I mean why did you want me to?” You shake your head. “You know, Dean.”

And you see it in his eyes, because of course he knows. It’s the reason he sometimes drinks until he passes out. The reason he takes more punches than he needs to. Because it’s better than feeling the other thing.

He tugs some hair behind your ear and you lean into the touch. Suddenly the gentleness doesn’t hurt. Suddenly it’s everything you want.

You both lie like that for a while, just touching, just looking at each other.

“So what now?” you say. “We just go back to how it was before?” Dean thinks for a second.

“I don’t think that would work,” he says finally, and you have to agree. “Maybe,” he says, “we can both turn it down a few notches?”

You nod. “Probably a good idea.”

“And this,” he says motioning to nothing, but you know he’s talking about what you just did. “We can see where this leads?”

That one you have to think about for a moment. You feel that old thing roar its head in you, the one that wants to destroy any possibility of anything good possibly coming out of something gentle, something sweet. You fight it, and nod.

“That sounds good,” you say. Then you take a deep breath. “Do you think this is what Sam imagined when he told us to sort things out”

Dean huffs. “I really hope not.”

You smile a little, and then you do something daring.

Moving your shoulders, you scoot closer to Dean. He wraps his arm around you, holds you close.

You still look at each other, like two skittish animals but eventually, the warmth and comfort of another body so close overtakes you.

You can’t fight the need to be close so you stop, stop fighting it.

Dean’s hand rests on your chest and this time you’re sure you can feel his heartbeat. You listen to it, try to focus on it.

Ba-dum-dum, ba-dum-dum.

You’re too tired to fight. You always thought you’d need to be strong to stop, but it turns out tired works too.

Ba-dum-dum, ba-dum-dum.

You’ve never enjoyed it anyway.

[chase-solidago]

Invasive Species and Xenophobia

Invasive species are complicated! People have a lot of feelings about them, positive and negative. Are plants that move "invaders" "colonizing", "immigrants", "citizens"? What does it mean to kill species that are from somewhere else? What if that species legitimately makes a poor neighbor and causes extinctions in other, native species? This complex, culturally-loaded issue is a foundational issue behind a lot of plant conservation and restoration.

This is a juicy and still actively disputed topic! The Guardian recently had a big article on colonialism in Botany, (tbh her views are dated and reductive, imo) and it’s come up again this week, to much hostility (cw: reddit). Yes, my region's native plant restoration came from literal nazis, but also, the impacts of some invasive species are real, not figments of a racist imagination. How do we balance these issues? What does ethical invasive management look like?

Since it’s such a juicy topic, I wanted to offer a few fun readings to share:

The Native Plant Enthusiasm: Ecological Panacea or Xenophobia?, Gert Gröning and Joachim Wolschke-Bulmahn, 2004, Arnoldia.

THE CLASSIC 20th century German nazis and native plants paper. Made a huge splash when it came out, and you will still encounter people who paint all native plant stuff with this brush. Summary: yeah the nazis loved their native plants and used them as part of their conquering process. Also, the first prairie plantings ever, located in Chicago, were done by a racist probable-nazi for racist reasons, full stop. I’ll let him speak for himself: “The gardens that I created myself shall… be in harmony with their landscape environment and the racial characteristics of its inhabitants. They shall express the spirit of America and therefore shall be free of foreign character as far as possible… the Latin and the Oriental crept and creeps more and more over our land, coming from the South, which is settled by Latin people, and also from other centers of mixed masses of immigrants. The Germanic character of our race, of our cities and settlements was overgrown by foreign character. The Latin spirit has spoiled a lot and still spoils things every day.” - Jens Jensen

Botanical decolonization: rethinking native plants, Tomaz Mastnak, 2014, Environment and Planning D: Society and Space

Rather than viewing native plant plantings as an act of racially-pure occupation, Mastnak positions native plants in California as a decolonization of the sub/urban lawn. Uses a lot of quotations from 16th century English philosopher Francis Bacon, and is heavy on the philosophical musings.

From killing lists to healthy country: Aboriginal approaches to weed control in the Kimberley, Western Australia by Bach et al., 2019, Journal of Environmental Management.

This paper talks through some of the native vs invasive debate, and offers a different perspective on how to approach to plant invasive management based on cultural relations, rather than country of origin or behavior.

Beyond ‘Native V. Alien’: Critiques of the Native/alien Paradigm in the Anthropocene, and Their Implications, Charles R. Warren, 2021, Ethics, Policy, & Environment

DENSE but thorough, if you want to follow the entire history of the native/invasive debate, this has you covered. The most interesting stuff, in my opinion, is the discussion of invasive denialism, IE: the impasse of “You’re just being racist!” Vs “You know nothing about ecology!” I recommend the Discussion, which starts on page 13.

[the-odd-shu]

Sky regrets trying to play wingman

A continuation of lab shenanigans.

Masterlist

Next part

Characters: Viktor, Jayce, Reader, Sky

(Pre-Jayce/Viktor/Reader) (POLYCULEEEE!)

Summary: A sketchbook goes missing, Viktor and Jayce feel soft about it and Sky is fighting for her life.

Note; this takes place during season 1, and the reader is gender neutral with they/them pronouns.

Lab Illustrator!Reader has a secret A5 sketchbook they don't use for assignments. It's a small thing, that they keep tucked beneath all of their other paperwork during the day, and take home with them every night.

It is as non-descript as sketchbooks come, with a plain, black cover and pages brimming with hundreds of sketches and stuck in sheets of paper.

But what makes it different from their professional sketchbook, you ask? And why does it need to be a secret?

Well, because it is a notebook solely dedicated to drawings and doodles of their co-workers. And neither of them know that Reader has been drawing them.

There are hundreds of stolen moments stuffed between these pages. Late night coffee breaks, where the pencil lines are thick and dark to accentuate the dimness of the lab against the stark light leaking out of the kitchenette, where backs are turned and coffee mugs steam, whilst eyes fall to half-mast from the sheer weight of the late hour.

There are a dozen or so slower, more carefully done doodles of Jayce sprawled out across the lab couch in various positions. Several cane studies, because Viktor had a habit of leaving it in more and more odd places when he has had a breakthrough, and sheer determination and spite keep him standing unaided before the whiteboard.

There are pages dedicated to Viktor reading. And pages brimming with Jayce's broad shoulders and winning smile.

There is a double page spread of Viktor stood before the chalkboard, cane in one hand, his other tucked under his chin with a piece of chalk tucked between two of his fingers, his lips pursed in thought as he tried to find a solution to the problem before him. The lines of this sketch are soft and gentle, almost dreamlike, as the image was teased out of the page.

The pages directly after it show a heavy handed pen drawing of Jayce bent over his desk, goggles over his eyes, his tongue peeking out from between his lips as he welds pieces of metal together. A single, loose curl of hair having broken free of its slicked back appearance, and is now sprawled cutely down his forehead.

And that's only the beginning.

Neither of them know that Reader draws them. As far as they know, Reader can't even draw people. And Reader wants to keep it that way. Because if EITHER of them found the sketchbook, they just KNOW they would not let them live it down. Jayce would be embarrassed, no doubt asking stupid questions like, 'is my nose really like that from that angle' or 'why didn't you tell me I had soot on my cheek', which, how dare he, you'd spent hours learning how to draw him and picking out imperfections was just an insult to your skills. Whilst Viktor would make fun of your subject choices, and then make it one hundred times harder to sketch him without him getting suspicious and catching on and deliberately moving around MORE to make it seventeen times more difficult.

Out of everyone in the lab, Sky was the only other person remotely artistically inclined. She'd shown an interest in your work one afternoon, and let slip that she liked to draw in her spare time. And although she insisted her work was nothing like your professional illustrations, they were good! And you told her as such.

Unofficially, the pair of you had begun taking your lunches outside in the academy gardens together to chat and draw. She did not look it, but Sky was a mean gossip, and seemed to know everything that was going on in the science department. Such as who in the academy was currently trying to court who, or the latest experiment that blew up (literally) in a freshman's face, or that Councillor Medarda herself dabbled in painting.

The last one certainly caught your attention more than the drama on campus, which of course Sky was more than happy to provide more details for. Apparently, the Councillor's paintings were bold and striking. Depicting scenes from her childhood lands, and figures dressed in traditional Noxian-style garbs.

"Gorgeous, simply gorgeous." Sky said, tone bordering on wistful. "And large too. Councillor Medarda works on such a large scale, that some of her pieces literally command your attention the moment you step into the room. I'm sure you can talk Jayce into getting you a glimpse of some of her works. He and the Councillor have been growing close lately."

You ignored the suggestive hint to her voice, in favour of humming noncommittally and finishing up your lastest sketch of Sky perched on the wall beside you, waving her sandwich around as she talked animatedly. You were so engrossed in your work that you didn't notice she was watching, when you flipped back towards the front of your sketchbook, only for her to choke on her next bite.

“Wait!" She blurted out between sharp coughing. "Is that Viktor!?” And then suddenly your sketchbook was no longer on your lap and the apprentice of the man you were always drawing was flipping through the pages. The pages that HEAVILY featured Viktor's face.

Your cheeks burned, and lunged for the sketchbook out of sheer panic, as Sky began discovering just how MANY sketches of Viktor you've been hoarding and that he's not the ONLY ONE you've been drawing.

"Jayce too I see." She mused, more to herself than you. And then she snorted. "Why are there so many?”

“Because I get bored sometimes, and they're always just there!" You defend yourself guiltily. "It's good anatomy practice.”

Which wasn't technically a lie. The lines never came as easily as they did when you’re sketching your co-workers. So much so, that now, it had almost become instinct to know when your pencil had drawn a line wrong, even before you glanced back to the reference themselves to check. The pair of them were just so effortlessly beautiful in their own ways. It would a a crime for you <i>not</i> to draw them, and focus solely on the things you're SUPPOSED to be illustrating instead.

Sky hummed along, having paused on a page with a rapid, barely recognisable pen sketch of Jayce ducking away with a cackling laugh as a furious Viktor swung his cane at his head. Her fingers idly slid down the sketchy lines, a fondness to her expression.

"Have you shown them these?" Sky asked, "they're really good. All loose and fun. I can practically hear Jayce laughing in this one with how you captured his expression."

“Of course not!" You were quick to deny as your cheeks heated. "Do you know how embarrassing it is to show someone you’ve drawn them? Jayce will pretend to be all impressed but subconsciously begin to pick out all the things I got wrong. Like the shape of his ears. And Viktor will tell me it's 'lovely' without looking up from his textbook."

You shuddered at the very thought, already seeing Viktor's disinterested frown and Jayce's tight grimace in your mind's eye.

Sky frowned, her eyes jumping between your down turned expression and the sketchbook in her hands. “I dunno about that."

“Can I have it back now?” She shook her head and went back to flipping through the pages, the other half of her sandwich forgotten in her lap. “You know, I think Viktor would be flattered if he knew you paid so much attention to him. And Jayce would probably try to steal a couple of these and frame them for his desk.” You scoffed.

Sky's frown deepened. "Why are you having such a hard time believing they might like these?"

“Because in the end it doesn’t matter how they'd react,” you decided sharply, “because they're not going to find out. Are they, Sky?”

“You’ve even drawn Viktor's canes!”

“Sky, focus!” “I am focused- IS THAT A JAYCE HAND STUDY-?!”

"OKAY ENOUGH OF THAT FROM YOU!" You tackled her, and she went down screeching, drawing the attention of several passing students as the pair of you fell cleaningly off of the wall and landed in the flowerbeds below.

Sky did not keep her promise.

After a week or two of waiting to give the impression she'd forgotten about the whole ordeal, she sprung into action.

It was obvious now that she knew just how much Reader paid attention to their co-workers. It seemed like they were constantly sketching the boys throughout the day, a private, fond smile on their stupidly love-struck expression, as their pencil flew across the page, documenting coffee breaks and break throughs, and verbal spats. Now Sky has noticed that they did it, she couldn't stop seeing it, and it is driving her crazy. All three of them are so oblivious, and watching her superiors pine for one another whilst doing nothing to move things forward, was NOT the working environment she'd been hoping for during this internship.

So she took matters into her own hands.

When the hour was late, and the lights were dim, Jayce passed out at his desk for a quick nap, Viktor's attention on his textbooks at the chalkboard, and Reader in the kitchen cracking open a can of energy, Sky sidled over to the latter's desk. Her eyes immediately clocked the little, black sketchbook, easily overlooked amongst the other papers and opened notebooks with half complete drawings scrawled all over the place. It was a testament to how much they trusted each other in the lab, that no one questioned why she was lingering so close to a desk that was not her own.

It almost made it too easy for her to simply pluck the sketchbook out of the pile, add it to her pile of library books already balanced in one hand, all before loudly calling "good night" to the room and leaving.

Sky planned to be the first person in the next morning to plant the sketchbook, but the lab doors were unlocked when she turned up, and all three of her superiors were already in the room, looking in various states of exhaustion. Did they even go home last night?

Not to mention, half of the lab looked like a hoard of dogs had come tearing through. Come to think of it, Reader's desk was especially messy, with papers strewn everywhere and the drawers hanging on just barely- oh fuck! They had already noticed, hadn't they?

"Ah Sky, good morning." Viktor acknowledged her from where he was calmly sorting through a stack of books. Picking one up, and shaking it out before placing it onto a second stack and picking up the next. "Right on time." "Good morning," Sky greeted calmly, "what's going on here?" She motioned to the war zone that was the lab. To Jayce balanced precariously on a chair, checking a high book shelf, and the frantic shuffling sounds of Reader under their desk. They were out of view, but somehow, Sky could just envision the frenzy in their expression from the sound of their searching alone.

"Ah, well, Y/n appears to have misplaced a rather important sketchbook."

There was a yelp as a skull collided with the underside of a desk, before Reader's head popped up over the edge. "Sky! I can't find it!"

"Oh no." Sky replied, trying to ignore the burning weight of the 'it' in question, currently hiding in her backpack. "Where did you see it last?"

"They insisted it was on their desk." Jayce interjected, hopping down from his chair with a shake of his head.

"But I'm assuming it's grown legs," Sky joked, "judging by that picked over, barely standing, mess of a desk."

"This isn't funny Sky."

"No, you're right." She put down her backpack and began to help in the search. After all, not doing so would immediately out her as guilty, and she'd already come this far, why stop now. "Come on, it can't have gone far."

Of course, Viktor discovered it amongst his books and papers a couple of days later.

It was during one of those rare hours in the lab when he was alone. The hour was late, but the curtains were not yet drawn despite the darkening sky.

He frowned when his fingers brushed the unfamiliar notebook, tucked behind a stack of textbooks and scrunched up balls of notes. Pulling it out of its hiding place, his brows furrowed as his eyes tracked the state it was in. How the edges of the hardback covers were creased from numerous journeys in bags, whilst pencils marks and scuffs from countless hours of being opened and used, marred the covers.

At first, he assumed it was one of Jayce’s notebook. The material was expensive enough. Definitely of high quality. The paper itself was thick when he rubbed his finger along a page. But when he opened it, he quickly realised the pages are not lined, and were once blank before they had been filled in with hundreds of drawings.

The first few pages were illustrations of everything under the sun. Still life drawings. Animals. People. Silhouettes. Isolated body parts with detailed annotations encircling them, such as the names of muscles and tiny corrective comments like ‘fingers too long’ or ‘that muscle doesn’t stretch that far’. 

Then he turned a page, and was met with himself. And then Jayce. And then more and more sketches of himself and Jayce. Sometimes together and interacting. Sometimes just existing.

The drawings were skilfully done, as all of Reader's illustrations tended to be. A little rough in the beginning, from rushed pen strokes. But then the artist seemed to understand something. A break through of sorts, and he recognised himself more and more. The sketches held his likeness. From the way he stood, to the slouch of him sitting at his desk, to the way his hand held something as simple as a stick of chalk.

They were always sketches from behind or a side profile. Never head on. And any that did depict him as facing the artist, were drawn when his attention was elsewhere; focused down at a textbook, or fixing something on the table. 

It was flattering really. He looked good in the drawings. Confident, with an authoritative aura. Seemingly engrossed in every task he sat down to complete.

And Jayce, Jayce looks good in his drawings too. His sunny personality shining through in drawings where he was animatedly talking or debating with sketched Viktor. There seems to be a whole double page spread trying to figure out the shape of his slicked back hair, and then even more drawings of the gel softening throughout the day, causing strands to fall down around his ears and frame his eyes.

But what really catches Viktor's attention was the way the artist had caught their interactions. The way they have depicted Jayce's softened eyes when looking at Viktor when his attention was elsewhere. The way they caught Viktor's private little smile when Jayce got lost in a muttering spell and stopped including Viktor in the debate. It left him feeling a little raw in truth, like this person had seen something no one else had taken the time to notice before.

No wonder Reader had been so adamant about finding this sketchbook. This must have been hours upon hours of careful work.

Carefully, Viktor closed the sketchbook and sat back in his chair. It felt heavy in his hands, and he almost didn't want to put it down.

The door to the lab swung open then, and Jayce called out a greeting.

"What you got there V?"

And of course, Viktor was contractually obligated to show him. It would simply be criminal if he didn't show his partner just how well their resident illustrator managed to capture his winning smile. A much more accurate depiction of it, compared to the 'man of progress' merchandise the academy sold nowadays.

The sketchbook continued to go unfound.

Reader was growing more and more distraught.

The guilt gnawed at Sky and she confessed.

All hell broke loose.

An hour later, Skye came SPRINTING into the lab, the double doors CRASHING into the walls in her haste to get into the room.

Both Viktor and Jayce jumped in their seats in the kitchenette. Viktor barely managing to keep from spilling his sweetmilk everywhere. And Jayce almost THREW the little black sketchbook across the room, where he had been admiring its pages.

“Woah there, where’s the fire?” Jayce tried to joke, but Sky looked GENUINELY scared. 

“Sorry! Sorry! I left something in here, and the owner is NOT happy with me.” Sky scrambled to explain, as she charged towards Viktor’s desk and began pulling apart stacks of paperwork. Sweat beading on her brow.

“Hey, calm down. What is it? Where did you see it last?” “It was a sketchbook. Um, uh, black, hard cover, it was practically bulging with how many pages it had stuck in it.” Sky explained, "I could've sworn I left it on Viktor's desk." Viktor’s brows jump up in realisation. His eyes dart over to the sketchbook in Jayce's hands, before leaping up to meet the man's wide, knowing eyes.

“I take it that Y/n found out you took it then.” Viktor spoke up. Sky winced. “I may have let it slip-” her voice began to backpedal, before the distant stomp of approaching footsteps made her pale. The gait the recognisable, the tempo just a touch faster than its normal pace. “DON’T THINK HIDING BEHIND VIKTOR OR JAYCE WILL SAVE YOU NOW!” A booming voice hollered from down the hallway. 

Sky became frantic again. She redoubled her efforts.

Jayce very slowly lowered the sketchbook down to his lap, where the table would conceal it from view if anyone peered into the kitchenette. And Viktor just sighed as he got comfortable.

Heavy footsteps approached the laboratory door, which was then promptly kicked open, so fast that the door smacked into the opposite wall for the second time today. Y/n, brandishing a broom of all things, visibly seethed in the doorway. 

“Do you know how much <i>work</i> has gone into that sketchbook?” They demanded, more furious than Viktor had ever seen them before. “How many hours I’ve spent amongst those pages.” Sky looks appropriately guilty. “I know! And I’m so sorry I lost it, I really thought I was doing you a favour!”

Reader’s lip curls up into a furious snarl, eyes narrowing. “And I thought I told you to leave it alone!” They snarled.

“But they’re just so good. I seriously don’t think you should be hiding your talent. What if the right person managed to find it, like Councillor Medarda, imagine the connections-” “And how, pray tell, is Councillor Medarda, supposed to come across my sketchbook in the laboratory of all places.” Skye’s voice lowers. “Well, she does stop by to see Jayce often enough.”

Reader sighed heavily. "Side-stepping that poor excuse, because we both know you were just trying to embarrass me-" "I was not! They're good drawings!"

“Where is it Skye? For the final time.”

They stepped menacingly into the room then, broom clutched tightly in both hands, only to pause when a single sheet of paper slipped out of their pocket and fluttered to the ground. The action clearly held significance, because Sky winced.

Meanwhile, Reader took a deep, steadying breath, before slowly, calmly leaning down to pluck the paper off of the floor. It was only for a second, but Viktor could have sworn he saw yet ANOTHER sketch of him and Jayce, which HOW? They'd been with the pair of them in the lab ALL DAY!

“Now look at me, I’m shedding paper left and right without my sketchbook to keep all my thoughts ORGANISED!” “I’m sorry! I’ll buy you a new one.”

A groan. “Skye, that is NOT the point-!”

“Okay, okay! Time out! Let us all take a breath.” Viktor interjected to which both apprentice and Illustrator startled. 

Reader visibly seethed in place, whilst Sky just winced and ducked her head.

It was the former who spoke up first. “Sorry for the interruption.” They said sharply, eyes cutting over to Viktor and Jayce. To which Viktor just inclined his head, whilst Jayce very poorly concealed his guilty wince. Reader was too preoccupied with Sky however to notice as they turned back to her. “May we continue this debate outside? Preferably away from the workshops?” Skye seemed to shrink in on herself more. Eyes darting over to Viktor, then jumping up to Jayce. 

“Sky!”

“Only if you promise to stop yelling.” She demanded. 

Reader breathed out forcefully through their nostrils. Expression thinning out, shoulders easing, although the tightness to their jaw remained stubbornly present. “Fine.”

"Leave the broom!" Viktor called after them, to which Reader audibly groaned but let the broom in the lab before stepping out into the hall with Sky. The door clicked shut behind them. 

Jayce and Viktor shared a look and held their breaths. Waiting. Listening. The conversation that inevitably started up once the door closes was fast paced, but in the promised quieter tone. 

"I'm just going to-" Jayce began to say before motioning to the desks out in the main lab. Viktor shrugged, and allowed his partner to stand, sketchbook in hand, only for both of them to freeze when a loose slip of paper fell out.

"Oh no." Jayce said aloud as Viktor quickly pinned the sheet to the floor with the toe of his shoe, before it could drift away. "This is going to be adorable, isn't it?"

Viktor did not reply, as he stooping to pick it up. He turned it over, and he and Jayce collectively sighed as they discovered yet another sketch of the pair of them.

They're stood in front of the chalkboard, which seemed to be Reader's favourite place to draw them without being discovered. And it was clear from the way the pair were facing each other that they were deep in one of their debates. But what really caught the pair's attention, was the way that their drawn selves were looking at one another.

Viktor's with a small, knowing smile and a visible twinkle in his eye - which should have been an impossible thing to capture with merely a pencil. And Jayce's who was staring down at Viktor with an intensity in his eye and a playful lift of his eyebrows that spoke of challenge. They looked happy together. Feeding off one another's energy.

And it was startling that an outside perspective had managed to capture such a moment without either of them noticing.

"We don't get that absorbed in our debates, do we?" Jayce asked tightly, a soft look in his eye now as he gazed down at the sketch with reverence.

Viktor did not bother to deny it, because they both knew that they did. Here was a sketchbook stuffed with the evidence right before them.

Jayce tucked the sketch back between the pages, his expression complicated and yet oh so fond for someone who was no longer in the room with them.

Jayce and Viktor put the sketchbook back on Reader's desk, who later comes back in, visibly more subdued, and Sky nowhere in sight.

Viktor cracks a joke about them having stuffed her in a supply closet somewhere.

To which they reassure him that, "no, she had a meeting," and he would still have an apprentice turning up to work tomorrow.

Jayce looks up from his work, as does Viktor, when they make a beeline for their desk. In time to watch Reader stiffen when they see the little, black sketchbook placed neatly on top of their larger, official lab sketchbook. Then they lunge forward, snatching it up and flipping through the pages, shoulders loosening when all seems to be in order.

"You found it!"

"Viktor found it." Jauce interjected.

To which Viktor just preens and makes another joke about Sky thinking twice about getting between Reader and their belongings. He also throws in a compliment on the penmanship, just to see how Reader reacts.

To both of their surprises, Reader locks up at the compliment. “Please tell me you didn’t look though it.”

“I liked them." He said truthfully, "you certainly captured my likeness.” They groan and drop eye contact. 

“Please don’t joke about it.” They plead, “it was just anatomy practice. But I completely understand if it makes you uncomfortable-”

“Uncomfortable?" Viktor parrots back, shooting Jayce a look. "Why would it make us uncomfortable?" "You might feel watched?" Reader offers.

Jayce shrugs. Viktor waves off their concern.

Jayce, "can we put some up on the pin board?" "No. None of these are remotely good enough to be hung up on display!" Reader is quick to deny.

By the end of the day, there are three new papers pinned to the pin board above Jayce's desk. One drawn by each of them in the lab. A chicken scratch drawing of Jayce, courtesy of Viktor. A carefully, but wonkily drawn Reader, courtesy of Jayce. And a recognisable and remarkably good drawing of Viktor done by Reader.

(Yes, they had a drawing competition and sat in a circle around someone's desk, simultaneously posing for and drawing each other. The boys had to do some major convincing so that Reader didn't assume they were being made fun of. And they all ended up having a great time).

Next part

[l0vedrvgg]

let’s play a game!

a game i used to play with my cousins when we were young and its how i shifted when i was 5.

game rules:

-you have no limits you can even shape shift and have super powers!

-let go of the outer world because once the game starts you become who you chose to be.

-choose someone to play the game with for better acting but you can still act alone.

now lets start!

choose your desire.

choose someone to play the game with (optional).

the outer world and any worries or thoughts related to the 3d don’t exist anymore once the game starts.

start the game and have fun! you are now in your desired world!!!.

end game whenever desired but make sure to have fun!.

now why does this work?

because you are now embodying your desired self and forgetting about your old self/world and you’re just letting it be

you wont care anymore about what you see because you have it now!

you accept your imagination as the real and only reality no matter what you see and the game is actually fun because you can have wtv you want with no limits

actually once you accept the game as real you will notice that your imagination will align with your desires by itself which means that the 3d will start reflecting your desires!

im gonna give you 2 examples

example-1

lets say that you want to shift to your favorite movie or series. now start the game and once it starts your house becomes your dr house, your parents? dr parents or characters, your siblings? your dr siblings or friends. remember when you were a kid and you acted like you had super powers and stuff? literally do the same thing you used to do thats how you act as if. it has always been fun and it was never like a chore.

example-2

lets say that you want a different appearance. literally talk to yourself about how you look so gorgeous and how you look exactly like you how want. every time you walk see your desired body walking, every time you look in the mirror you are actually seeing your desired face. literally when you are walking in the streets everyone is seeing you with your desired appearance and imagine all the compliments theyre thinking of if not saying.

the reason i like this is that you dont have to close your eyes and affirm or imagine as if its a chore or smth and then go back to your old story. no you have your desires now and you are actually living it and its fun because its a game! you can even include other people in it which makes it more fun. and this way doesn’t separate the 3d from the 4d which imo is much better