#while all of the others did it as a subconscious group think kind of deal
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hersterical · 1 year ago
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You guys are right. Here’s a link to a second poll for second place. Feel free to vote on this one as well if you want. Mayor Tyler Cutebiker will be awarding the Mayor/main character of the runner up town with a flower crown and sash which will then be immediately incinerated and then forgotten about.
Link
Edit: Nevermind, you guys telling me it was going to be a Gravity Falls sweep were wrong!
Still, as coiner of the phrase Mayor Tyler Cutebiker will still award the winner with a flower crown and a sash which will then be immediately incinerated and forgotten about even if he has to give it to himself
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Furry Visual Novel Book Club: Echo Week 7 SPOILERS
Hi everyone, here is the SPOILER FREE discussion post for “Echo - Carl’s Sunday-2 Electric Boogaloo???”  
Links: Previous - Next - Original - Spoiler Free Version
Feel free to respond in reblogs/replies/or asks :D
We open this section with Jenna on the scene, having just struck Carl with a stool 
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Jenna ignores the ram she had just knocked over the head and explains she stumbled into the house looking for Tj and that things have been crazy after Carl and Chase left the lake... About Tj seeing Sydney among Leo acting strange. She continues that something is happening to everyone, mentioning gunshots from main-street. The trio explains that things aren’t much better here either. Really dying for the reverse Carl-Route fic with Tj, Flynn, and Leo
This is the really only ‘Silent Hill’ type route, where the party is trapped in a nightmare dimension while all other routes deal with experiencing the Hysteria. This initially disappointed me on my first play-through, because I got hooked on the Silent Hill aspect. We do get more, with the horrors generating themselves mostly as these the subconscious nightmares of the characters, but this is the only time it’s front and center. It’s definitely more in-line with Cosmic Horror nature of the Entity to do it the other way, but at least one more nightmare route would have been appreciated. Good fanfic space where we can throw out themes because the game did the themes though!
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Raven opens the newly unlocked door, and the group all pass out. Chase awakens to Raven calling out for Chase and Carl, reminiscent of events of the kitchen. Chase hobbles downstairs in a new location, to find Jenna and Carl in front of wardrobe containing a screaming Raven. Raven is let out and the group determines they’re in a log cabin of some kind.
I think this is where Raven works the best in the narrative. They need someone a little dumb and someone a little detached from the horrors other than Chase to help ground things (As well as giving Jenna SOMEONE to talk to). Also is this a ‘Raven in the closet’ joke??? He’s obviously a LITTLE fruity, at least how he acts/responds. Maybe he’s just metro-sexual.
Chase peers out of a window for the source of beating drums and sees a large bonfire some ways from the cabin. The group see ‘something’ moving outside and resolve to find more evidence as Neutral kicks in, relaxing the mood. The group split up to look, with Chase commenting on Carl’s possession condition.
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I was initially upset by the ending of the route where Carl and Chase don’t end up together, but seeing lines like this so before the ‘climax’ makes it make a lot more sense in full context. Carl was truly mostly gone.
The music cuts as Chase dwells on the feeling of being watched… From the lines “I hold still, then lean back, tiling my ear towards the sound,” a twenty second timer kicks in before playing ‘Bent’, an unsettling piece, accented by the ‘something’ from earlier presumably rustling around just outside the cabin. The ‘something’ appears in the window to Chase, Chase’s body freezing upon seeing it. An unknown voice commands it to stop, something from INSIDE the cabin. 
My best interruption is that this is ANOTHER Echo/Ghost of John Begay. With James I being the voice over Chase’s shoulder. Which leaves us with maybe three? The one possessing Jenna, the Smoke Monster, and now this fox. The spirits are also more ghost-like (white and appearing over shoulders). Definitely something I’m looking forward to getting some more concrete answers to in either TSR or a potential rewrite. (As this ‘entity is dropped too... unless it’s supposed to be the shadow monster from the next part too? And it’s just taking different forms to spook people??)
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The creature cackles in response, replaying the cackling sound from earlier in the route. The rest of the group rush down stairs as Chase is finally able to scream. Carl badgers Chase for information on what he saw, only for the conversation to be interrupted by Raven finding a newspaper clip. The newspaper catches fire only after Raven is able to read a single line
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Carl and Jenna argue about the burned paper, attacking and defending Raven over igniting it with a candle on accident respectfully. The group end up searching for a few hours and decide to sleep on different floors for the ‘evening’. Chase comments that all of Carl’s mannerisms are different and the two settle into bed together to sleep. Carl embraces Chase, pulling the otter into him. Chase has trouble falling asleep, and after doing so, explores downstairs to find water after waking. Chase finds Raven asleep, and a convenient cup of water on the table.
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mmhhh... buppy <3
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He takes a sip only to spit out a foul liquid. A loud sound scares Chase and he goes into the adjoining room to investigate. The wardrobe Raven was trapped in early starts to shake. 
Black tendrils from the wardrobe make the shape of hands and feet, before the wardrobe opens violently, followed by a black creature from within attacking Chase. Chase suffocates as the creature engulfs him… Chase wakes up from a nightmare, only to see Carl over him in bed.
We also see this kind of creature in another game doing something very ... similar. It feels at least especially inspired by this line too...
EXCELLENT use of nightmare setup. We’re already conditioned to just accept whatever weird thing is happening, and with the layers of nightmares already seen, it fits in while still being ‘explained.’ Also was the liquid in the cup this route’s piss joke?
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I had completely misread this scene wrong the first time. I thought Carl/James I was shaking Chase awake/drove off the monster... but it does sound like he was trying to ‘mount’ Chase in his sleep and the weight on top of him caused his sleep paralysis nightmare...
Jenna barges into the room as “Anger” begins to play. Jenna tackles Carl out of bed and starts to beat on Carl who is now on the floor. Chase notices a shadow making Jenna appear larger… only for Chase to notice the same kind of shadow around Carl. Raven shows up to drag Jenna away from the scene. He questions her and she responds: 
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The forms of the shadows disappear, and Chase helps Carl up. 
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Neutral comes back in as the two talk and have a serious talk about ‘them’. Intimate plays as the two discuss what’s going on, asking how much of James influenced the ram. 
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(Hi, as soon as Silent Echoes is wrapped up, I’m going to be entering my Carl Brain-Rot era after replying this scene)
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This is where the Route splits into two branching narratives. For the purpose of this Book Club, we will be selecting ‘Fight it.’ We will cover ‘Let it help us.’ at a different time! In my opinion this was the ‘harder’ route split option to choose ‘correctly’. They really did make Carl to be a bit inept, and I was on the bamboozle train that John was the child abuser not James I (which after a scene in TSR, maybe they both are????)
Chase doesn’t trust the entity and tells Carl to fight it. 
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‘We ARE in this together’... the ship that only sails when Carl has the pedo-ghost... truly fucking tragic these two idiots don’t ever talk to each other otherwise because they make such a good/cute pair when they do.
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🐺   🪢  ......... I like to think this was on purpose
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Chase awakens to Carl spooning him, and the two let themselves enjoy the moment. 
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They eventually remember the spooky hell dimension they’re in after being a little to loud.
Personal Note: BOOOOOO, GET BACK TO THE BED AND STOP THINKING. Also this frumpy, bloodied up Carl sprite is TOP FUCKING TIER
Chase heads downstairs to resume the search… 
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And that wraps our reading for this week. Despite the ‘length’ of this section, not much happens. The new setting is certainly interesting and Jenna and Carl’s worsening conditions sure are interesting.
Next week will be our longest one, approximately double the length of previous weeks. There’s a fail state on the next choice, so make sure to save in case you don’t remember/want to reread the death scene yourself. It’s not very long but I’ll be sure to cover it!
This will be the end of Carl’s Route. Be on the look out for a poll about the branching narrative option!
Remember, this is the spoiler version, Spoiler Free Version HERE
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booksandchainmail · 2 years ago
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Pale 8.2
It looked amazing.  Set outside the door to their dorm room was a little cart, and the food was laid out on that cart, each dish covered.
I can't tell if this is thanks for giving Bristow to the brownies, or an attempt to bait them into expressing gratitude for a final bit of revenge
“Aaaaaieee,” Verona kept her voice very quiet, picking up a skewer and bringing it close to the bubble.  “Before I pop, call me mister bubble, esquire.”
I mean, I laughed. But maybe Verona shouldn't be involved in trying to convince other students that the Kennet Trio are normal and not dangerous and trustworthy
“What do you think?” Verona asked.  She used her own Sight.  The dishes took on a weird uniformity, all white with red things struggling in them.
I suppose if that doesn't bother her, neither would the potential cannibalism?
“Souls, though,” Verona mused.  They left the cart behind and headed for the front door, against the loose collection of students.  “Do we really need souls?”
...yes?
More students were leaving the school campus than usual. Hadley Hennigar, the Legendres, Xerxes and his little brother, Jarvis’s group, who were waiting and looking impatient while Silas talked to Estrella, off to the side…
all allies of Bristow, the reverse of the beginning of the last arc. And I understand why: even if Ray isn't going after them, there's a chance other students might try to retaliate for things they did in the past days.
“It’s not a murderer’s truck, it’s a truck that murders on its own,” Clementine explained.  “She found her way to me a few years back.  I love the aesthetic, and I figured as long as she’s with me, she’s not racking up a body count."
... alright then! This sounds like the setup for a weird dark comedy
New Aware:
Old veteran who returns to war when he sleeps
Young woman whose work takes a long time
Guy who is being hunted by people who "want what they're owed"
“I wouldn’t want to be the one to try,” Shellie said.  “They’re frustrated he’s so hard to get to, these days.  Kind of like certain school staff, who were pretty eager for someone to give them a reason.” Verona looked away. Shellie laughed.
weirdly comforting to see that Verona is bothered by what happened to Bristow (and what almost happened to her)
Her stomach was sore, like she’d been punched there a few times and couldn’t relax the muscles.  She didn’t remember taking any hits there yesterday.
could be emotional? I know anxiety can sometimes show up as stomach pain
"What would do the most damage if I didn’t deal with it? Either in terms of mess and her opinion of me, or the… I don’t know. The reversed music box that turns random people nearby into babies. Lotion that makes you immortal, but more and more cruel. A paper airplane that was really good at flying, and slitting throats with papercuts.”
this is making me feel better about the amount of cleaning I don't do
“Start big. The most obvious, problematic stuff. And the stuff that’s easiest to handle. Then you work your way down. Then you ask yourself what the next biggest problem you’re facing is. What needs to be handled? And you work your way down."
priority matrix time
“You should be good at that,” Shellie said.  “The way you dealt with the biggest threat last night, and murked our landlord.” That feeling in Verona’s stomach, like she’d been repeatedly punched, shifted all at once. Like hands were gripping her guts, twisting.
ah. yeah that's the guilt hitting. I thought Verona was being a little callous/blase earlier, even by her standards. I think she was probably subconsciously trying to stave off the emotional impact of winning a fight that left the other guy as good as dead
The food stuff made her think of the brownie’s gift, like a prize or some crap, and the pain made her think of her dad, and of not going home, and karma, and the-
and also she ended up in some pretty dark places emotionally when she got captured and thought she had lost, and I don't think getting out of that situation actually resolved those feelings, just tabled them
“Verona bottles crap up and doesn’t think about it until it blindsides her.  It’s been a few years since you did that like this, Ronnie.”
right, Lucy mentioned this before, like when Verona trashed her room. She doesn't seem to have lost any memories this time at least?
“Not girlfriend. Partner, I think. I might be jumping the gun on that one, but… I really want it to be the case. I took the leap, reached out after talking to Charles, that old man you introduced us to. I told them my life was complicated, they’re okay with that. I’ll ease them into the rest.”
love wins <3
also happy that Avery is meeting more queer people
“They came after us, over and over again. They used us, they pit us against their enemies,” Lucy said.
Lucy switching to the plural here because she's referring to Alexander as well as Bristow
“I’m not glad it happened, I wish we found another way, but the important thing is that we found a way,” Lucy said.
honestly, this seems like a pretty healthy attitude. Yeah, it's fucked up what happened to Bristow, but they didn't have options for less lethal approaches and they gave him multiple chances to back down. No sense in beating themselves up about it.
Lucy hadn’t slept well last night.  None of them had.  But Lucy less than either Avery or Verona. A lot of Lucy spacing out today made sense too. She gave Lucy a one-armed hug, walking beside her. Lucy returned the hug.
friends help friends cope with murder :)
She’d seen enough monsters, enough shitty people.  Practitioners… she got why Matthew was so spooked, dropping them off here, the way he’d talked about the other kids and teachers.
Thinking back to one of my early theories on why, if the Kennet Others want their own practitioners to be homegrown and not acclimatized to normal practitioner society, they would send them to this school: Because the school/people are bad enough to make the girls poorly disposed to other practitioners
She didn’t want the light in Lucy to go dark.  She didn’t want Lucy to stop being about justice and fighting injustice and being elegant and being someone who could fit in with beautiful people like George and Amadeus and Mia.
:)
“We gotta keep each other on the straight and narrow, away from all those traps,” Verona said.  “Keep the best parts of ourselves.”
I've talked before about how being a three person team gives them a strategic advantage, but it also helps emotionally/morally. I think without other people they could trust, they'd all be spiraling. Verona the most.
“Self, spirit, soul.  Who are you?” the new teacher asked the class.  No introduction or anything.  “Who or what will each of you become?  What were you when you began, except your parent’s child, and what will you be when your story closes?  Do you really change, from start to finish?”
well that's on the nose
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The old Reaper Brothers stories.
So, a coincidence in @baggebythesea 's ongoing Choose Your Own Adventure poll-story got me thinking of a set of old fics of mine. Robin and Jerome's Excellent Adventures. The main OCs also show up in a few of my stray fanfictions that are not a part of the series. They premiered as random characters in a Hordak-centric fic and I borrowed their names for an idea I had an, well, it went from there. I haven't written a new fic for them in a while. This is mostly because the people who used to be interested in them aren't interested anymore. I had a falling out with most of the "clone fandom" that existed once upon a time over some misunderstandings and behaving very awful and self-destructively. I think interest was waning, anyway, and clone-fandom has never been a big subset of Spop fandom. It is very, very niche and I think most people like humor with them, not as much the drama that I like to do. At this point in my life, I do not know if I will ever write a full story / centric on them again. This is because of events in my life. It is honestly kind of weird that I basically spent 1-2 years parsing out a lot of my views surrounding the subject of Death via these stories. They started out as just an idea about the possible needs of clones in a more serious version of the She-Ra setting. I think it may have been possibly subconsciously inspired by the Covid-19 pandemic and seeing massive death-tolls in my own country as well as a comparison worldwide whenever I turned on the news. These were all people I would never know.* I probably had some switch flipped in my brain to deal with it with a fictional species who were of the "nameless mook" variety, because it felt like how most of us were at the time (us "essential" retail workers and such). Anyway, I did these stories and I'm glad I did them, even though they are often brutal and heavy and what humor in them trends pretty dark. (As I think clone-humor would, honestly. I headcanon that most Etherians cannot stomach clone stand-up shows because of the things they joke and laugh about for relief). As my life is now, well... I lost a couple of my aunts last summer. *(One a late-contractor of Covid, compounding a lung-condition). I was rather distanced from them, so I took their loss with a wistful sadness and a small, futile regret that I never got back to Arizona to see them again before they went. Last month, however, I lost my dearest friend. My 39 year old nephew (by my partner) who often came over for extended visits (and was with us for months on end during the lockdown), one of the three geeks in our "three geeks in a pod" group, my gamer-buddy, one of the few people on the planet who ever actually understood me died. I've been dealing with the Hell of grief full-on, although I feel a little better after he visited me in a dream the other night. (Those of you with a depressingly materialistic worldview are free to think that it was just my brain doing a thing, but I would like to keep this as something spiritual, if it's all the same). In any case, I am suddenly dealing with a lot of DEATH full-on in my real life, including "Okay, we have to figure out an appropriate memorial service" and it's making me just feel like I cannot continue this specific set of stories anymore. I can have Robin and Jerome show up in miscellaneous fics not having a direct connection to their job, because I like the characters, but I am not sure I have the heart anymore to continue the series. We'll see, but probably not. I think what these character needed to tell me has already been told. I do, as always, appreciate any reviews anyone wants to leave on the existing fics.
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floripire · 1 year ago
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speed watching my way through s4, let's go!
4x01: flori is there when mali-landon's minddive is happening and she just winces through the entire interaction / monologue because "that's what i tried to tell you all, you're gonna have to deal with his conscious mind because he's aware of it all, instead of his subconscious mind which you're aiming for! it'll bounce back on us, too, he'll have access to our minds as well!" but she joins kaleb and tv!doctor s in mali-landon's conscious mind to keep him busy, despite the fact that mali-landon can definitely turn the tables on her and make her relive her own memories if he so wishes and he does: she starts in kaleb's, then moves on to her own (which is a mixture of the night her parents died, the night she turned into a vampire and sue died, and her stay at and break out from the detention facility). once everyone's back in the real world, she stays with kaleb for a while to make sure he's good before she goes off to find loren and mia.
4x02: flori vc: i am keeping this shirt and no one can do anything about it! because she's stoked about the whole movie in the square thing even though she can't be there in person to help out with the event. flori thinks it's kind of unfortunate that king kong was the chosen movie. i do think that she'd be with the anti squad + the super squad to help research while the others do the community service to make up for the last football game fiasco. (h: "that looks perfect. why doesn't our transfusion braid look like that?" / w: "uh, they recommend lion's hair." / h: "and what did you use?" / j: "shoelaces, mostly." / f: "but we could have another go at it if there is something - anything - left of that sphynx or any of the other creatures that we've dealt with so far. i'll call blaise and thea, they've gotta know something." / j: "we'll make it happen, hope, we promise." / w: "have you figured out who we'll be transferring into malivore yet?" / h: "i'll give you one guess." / f: "oooh, i'll play, it's gonna be that weird white guy, right? the one who disguised himself as vardemus before? sorry, word still travels about as fast as a vampire can run here, that never changed. news has wings, while the ground has ears.") at one point she's probably put on mali-landon watch and they talk about what happened in 4x01 aka her memory (triad, her sire, etc.) before clarke shows up. after the transfusion ritual fails, there is a moment in which flori just swears spectacularly in english and tagalog (because she's a sore loser and tired of all of this) and everyone looks at her like ??? and she's like: "that motherfucker had one job! one! job! and he fucked it up like he fucked up everything else!" plus, also, clarke worked for triad and maybe everyone else forgot about that but she will not be doing that, thank you very much! who's to say he's not just here to drag her back? "he might have turned over a new leaf but i don't trust that, i don't trust him, and i'll rip out my earrings and step into the sun before i go back to that hell-hole!" she's also there at the end of the episode where mali-landon chokes ethan with the chains.
4x03: mali-landon is out of his cage and back at the school there is a lot of arguing going on about whether or not hope should go full tribrid. flori stands off to the side with mia and loren, listening in on the conversation too. (personally i will be ignoring the upcoming dragon kaleb thing unless i can tie that into the night world lore i've established, potentially making him related to the drache family.) later on, kaleb and mg do the trolley problem and i feel like flori (directly or indirectly) gave mg the idea for that. it sounds like something she'd use to walk herself (or others) through a difficult problem or choice. flori is there during that big meal outside and she's sitting next to mia and loren while wade tells the group about that one time hope spelled a blowhard professor to only speak ancient babylonian and cringes when dorian reveals his favorite hope memory. as hope, josie and lizzie walk away to do a final spell, flori whispers not her favorite memory but an apology that she is sure hope will pick up because of her lupine hearing: "i am so sorry that i, along with many others, put you on a pedestal for so long. i will endeavor not to do it again. it is my sincere hope - pun not intended - that we'll get the chance to actually be friends and make good memories together too. i've never been to new orleans before. i think i would like to visit when all of this is over."
4x04: w: "one banshee candle and all the salt from the kitchen, as requested." / j: "hey, i thought we were helping you." / js: "believe me, i need all the help i can get." / j: "okay, well, do you need me to channel another monster? because i totally crushed it last time!" / f: "not if you actually want me to hemorrhage." / js: "no, i actually need you, wade and flori to be my last line of defense." / f: "which would be a much stronger line if loren and mia were here too. loren's a bennett witch and mia's a damn good wolf." / j: "..." / f: "you're also a damn good wolf." / j: "thank you, but wait, what do you mean, we just sit on our asses? no way!" / js: "it's important. i need you to clear out the school. make sure that no one can get in or out of this room. no matter what happens." / j: "we'll check in every thirty minutes." / w: "and we'll order pizza." / f: "i'll call the mystic tap to make sure they still have the good stuff on hand." much, much later on when cleo makes her entrance at the end of the episode, flori is relieved but saddened to hear about landon's fate.
4x05: hope has flipped her humanity switch and is now mia and with doctor s dead, flori is preparing herself to chase down every possible lead on hope even if it means she drops from exhaustion halfway through. the super squad is ruptured. but flori considers herself part of the anti squad first and foremost so she can still talk to kaleb and to the other members if need be.
4x06: flori is there during the simulations. she's getting her tongue pulled out, her fingers broken, her neck snapped, her head cut off and her heart ripped out. and watching as the same happens to her friends and loved ones. trying to fight simulation!hope doesn't work. trying to talk to simulation!hope doesn't work either. flori always goes down before cleo does so she doesn't know about the red oak stake. js: "are you skipping class now?" / ls: "we all grieve in different ways. we were supposed to meet up and go through spells hours ago. where were you?" /js: "trying to figure out what to do about hope." / ls: "our father is dead and you're more concerned about the person who killed him?!" / js: "dad wouldn't want us to give up on hope." / f: "and we might not have to. i just got off the phone with aradia crowley and she told me that the old powers are resurging in response to hope becoming the tribrid. to balance the scales a bit, the wild powers have also been activated: four people with special gifts. it may be a drop in the bucket, but we have to try. i'm gonna go see if i can track them down digitally and if not, then i would like to request a prolonged leave of absence." / ls: "granted." / js: "we can't do this alone." / ls: "watch me. or don't. 'cause you'll be going off, doing whatever else." / js: "if you'll figure out a spell, i'll be there, i promise." flori is not present for the training session (and even if she was, she'd want to sit it out). she is, however, present at the end of the episode; j: "look, uh, i shouldn't have said what i did." / k: "dude, it's... you're good." / f: "hi, i'm so sorry to interrupt, but if you're going after that thing on route fifty, would you mind dropping me off in harmony afterwards? i've got family there. and they know more about the wild powers than i do. oh, and speaking of knowing things: you should go for the eyes when you take it down. i'll wait in the car."
4x07: hope comes back to the school. flori is not present for salvatore idol (or whatever the darker equivalent of that is) as she is still in harmony, virginia.
4x08: flori formulates her own plan to find and work with the wild powers. she checks in with mia and loren and with the super squad. (in josie's simulation, flori is a technician who works together with wade, a nurse, and has a crush on jed.)
4x09: josie leaves the school and mystic falls, meanwhile, flori comes back to the school with new allies, new family members, and with a fully formulated plan to deal with the old powers. the sucky part of the plan is that there's a high chance flori could get hurt.
4x10: from this point on, my canon diverges significantly because i do not acknowledge the gods storyline. lizzie still turns into a heretic. aurora still enters the picture. but that's about it. instead of the gods, aurora is after the old powers to get tristan back.
4x11: flori works together with cleo to stall or stop aurora who is also looking to get her hands on the old powers so she can bring back her brother.
4x12: hope returns to mystic falls, still without her humanity.
4x13: hope comes to the school, looking for an army. not to fight the gods, but to stop the old powers from destroying the world. in all honesty, flori thought that hope might want to deploy those powers - those ancient forces of magic - to get landon and her parents back.
4x14: flori is there when vardemus does his chess game thing. meanwhile, hope's humanity is flickering, trying to get back in one inch at a time.
4x15: flori spends this episode working with the wild powers in preparation to push back the old powers.
4x16: hope's humanity is back on. flori visits her in the holding cell before lizzie shows up.
4x17: aurora doubles down on trying to get her hands on the old powers to restore her brother to the point of trying to summon hecate witch-queen, the ancient queen and ancestor of the hearth-woman (aka harman) witch tribe. hecate witch-queen and flori have a conversation about her role in the plan when hecate witch-queen astral projects to her, claiming that while flori might be a vampire, she knows a hearth-woman by heart and soul.
4x18: ft: water would just make the chain reaction bigger, you have to make a chemical solution to stop it. i asked an expert, you know, the one with a mind like a steel trap? the one you should talk to, maybe? she's worried about you." later in the episode, flori is there when hope gives her speech. instead of ken, aurora kills kaleb but he gets restored back to life.
4x19: aurora dies by hope's hand and the final battle begins.
4x20: through everyone's combined efforts, the old powers' resurgence has been stopped. though not without heavy losses. afterwards, flori attends so many funerals she's stopped counting them. while she's very stressed at the thought of potentially losing her home, she also realizes that she has one waiting for her in harmony, virginia, too. still, when she hears that the school won't be closing it's doors after all, she's relieved.
post canon: flori graduates from the school and goes on a roadtrip to find jed's sisters, gets drawn back to her own home town, fights the hunter trio after a reverse headdive and finds out that her sire wants to kill hope but that she's first on his list because he thinks she's a weak link in a long chain that will ultimately lead to her, anyway. at one point, hope kills derek and flori splits her time between immersing herself into the night world properly and trying to roll up whatever remains of triad industries together with mg. aside from that, she also does cyber security for the salvatore boarding school going forward.
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oftarotandnoodledragons · 2 years ago
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Seventy-Four: Five of Pentacles (Reversed)
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Real cases of suffering ... tend to go unheard. This is not only because people who are genuinely suffering typically lack the resources with which to publicize their condition, but also because ... many forms of suffering deprive people of the very ability to express, sometimes even think, the fact that they are suffering. -Jamie Mayerfeld, Suffering and Moral Responsibility
He had a fever when he was in Spain, And when the fit was on him, I did mark How he did shake; 'tis true, this god did shake: His coward lips did from their colour fly, And that same eye whose bend doth awe the world Did lose his lustre. -William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar
When a rule is enforced, the person who is supposed to have broken it may be seen as a special kind of person, one who cannot be trusted to live by the rules agreed upon by the group. He is regarded as an outsider. But the person who is thus labeled an outsider may have a different view of the matter. He may not accept the rule by which he is being judged and may not regard those who judge him as either competent or legitimately entitled to do so. -Howard S. Becker, Outsiders: Studies in the Sociology of Deviance
Have I stopped misposting? Okay. Good.
The overarching theme for the home straight of Tarot has been that of challenges. The Two and Five of Cups were the challenge to look at the undercurrent of much of this journey, that of coming to terms with my self-esteem; a process that is continuing. This card, the Five of Pentacles, on the other hand, is a reminder of another challenge for me: the ability to synthesise and find the meaning and application of the cards. Being of the Pentacles, and the last of them, it is apt that it talks to the physicality of the cards in this regard.
So, while I'm still looking to June 13, the blog's tenth anniversary, as a "deadline", I've not felt ready to deal with this card; and now I have a scant two weeks for the remaining four cards, some of which I know will require a lot of work (I feel like that this will play into the Eight of Wands, when it appears...). The challenge since returning to the blog post-migration is that I feel like I've not been able to tap into my intuition, that it's been dulled, and thus I've not been able to address the card and its energies in a way that I feel is fair and deep enough to crystallise my understanding and be a guidepost for future reference; similarly, some of the cards for me are faded memories and have regained unfamiliarity. That's why I lament when I feel like my posts become academic exercises, like a lecturer has asked me to "compare and contrast the approaches Bunning, Thirteen and Esselmont have on this card". But sometimes, that's all I can do, because I don't know the card; yet through that, I find some understanding.
The Five of Pentacles is a card that exemplifies this. In the way that Temperance was the first card I drew when I made my notebook, the Five of Pentacles is the second. Its notes are lacking the depth and maturity of the past ten years of experience, and partly because it was before the blog, I don't have a memorable, relatable moment to attach it to. My notes' depth of interpretation is weak, and the format I've written here seems incongruent with the standard that has since emerged; yet, I remind myself that much of the writing has come from my intuition rather than my intellect, my subconscious speaking to my conscious. The interpretations written in my book are just one foundation to my Tarot understanding: this journal is, as I intended long ago, designed to flesh this out and provide a means for new insights and greater familiarity.
Existential writing aside, let's actually take the time to look at this card. So be it, then. Extending beyond my usual four muses, Smith's imagery in the RWS version is apparently regarded as one of the most famous; I would disagree since it didn't really strike me outside of Tarot, but I would rather call it one of the most iconic, and that goes back to the very root of that word as well: icons. Given that Tarot is full of symbology, this image forms the basis of many, many interpretations of this card. Rather than derive at a meaning from my muses, I'm not going to source my interpretation because it seems so prevalent, and because it's taken from the story the card tells in the RWS imagery: two ailing peasants in the cold, trying to fend for themselves and suffering in the process outside the window of a church that they don't even look to, where there is warmth and sanctuary. That then lends itself to views ranging from lacking emotional security of one's childhood (thanks Ediya) to being too proud to accept help from others and failing as a result. From this central artistic theme is where we can then look at how my muses address it.
Let's start with Thirteen, because they discuss their cards systematically in the context of the whole. The card is a Five, and it is the instability that follows from the stability (or stagnation) of a Four. Just like the Page of Swords, they tend to be humbling challenges that will strengthen those who go through them. So since the Pentacles are that of the material realm, this card feels like it is the brother to the Five of Cups: if that one is the card of loss (and how one deals with it), then this is the card of lack. Lack is what Bunning focuses on with her themes: "hard times", especially financial hardship, "ill health", since Pentacles relates to the body after all, and "rejection", the lack of social acceptance. Esselmont expands on these, but then adds her own take: that of a "lack mindset" or fearing one doesn't have enough, where one focuses on what they don't have rather on what they do. To this all, Thirteen suggests that to deal with these energies, one should reconsider their values and focus on what one has; that the hardship teaches who one's friends truly are, who is honestly generous, and what really matters to someone.
And then we get to the Tarot Nova and Fairchild and Paschkis. Fairchild just gives all of this a glib, seemingly off-handed remark, with the majority of his prescription being that of one's hard's work and devotion to others not paying off and that one should let others know what one expects in return. That seems to go rather at odds to the accepted "canon" here. Indeed, Paschkis throws out the traditional imagery and doesn't allude to it at all: she shows a crocodile with five Pentacles on it as if it were a constellation. Compared to the richness of the RWS image I find it lacking (hah); however, the image of the toothy crocodile coming to consume is one that I can see linked to the more common themes of the card.
In my head I had thought that this card would be linked to The Tower or some other sort of loss and I was fearing it; but, this card has come out Reversed and this is one of those times that I feel like a Reversal is like night and day. Of course, that means I should temper my view to not be in complete opposition, but more in terms of the day following the night. Thirteen, in typical Thirteen style, focuses on the church and the ability of being that sanctuary; except nope, it ain't there, the peasants are on their own, cold and alone. And that's not what I'm finding right now; that's not day after night. So Fairchild and Esselmont are where I go again. Here I find more resonance, and it's woven through a lot of their prescriptions and analyses. The thought of not having enough expands into a "poverty mindset", where one feels unworthy because of their lack of possessions, that they do not deserve expensive things, that their money is spent on the trivial and not on what one desires; the call here is to determine if "I can't afford it" is a truth or a limiting factor, and that one will make it happen if they truly value it. I've been a little more outgoing with my money as of late, especially since I just went to a convention, yet I know I have debts that must be repaid. Speaking of this: Fairchild talks about a new source of income, and Esselmont talks about the end of hard times. I applied for a credit card for the first time ever and after a few weeks of silence, I was approved. Of course, it's not really a source of income, but a means to delay payments; I'm naturally cautious about it but considering that the bank offers cashback, it's a nice thing to have, and will help allow me to get a credit rating and potentially bigger purchases in the future.
But Fairchild leaves one of his esoteric yet resonant prescriptions: to learn the value of self-discipline and teamwork since they will bring rewards, and to express oneself as they choose despite others trying to make one conform. I feel this is related to my work, and it is something that I have been working on as I move through my new managerial position.
So the thing I've learned from this card is that I shouldn't be afraid of Fives; I should treat them like the Page of Swords and think of them as a challenge. Also, with this card, I've completed the Fives and also the Pentacles. The thing about the Pentacles is that it feels like it has a narrative that runs through the entire pips, and that the Five is the turning point of the tale. I would argue that it's my favourite of the four suits given its themes and internal reflections based on this critical mid-point: everything after this point is redemption and success with mature, positive energies in the Upright compared to the immature energies that come before this one.
Four cards remain and I must press on, finally feeling ready to do so. The next challenge lies with the card that I thought would be last, the redeemer, the nice departure for the blog: XXI The World. But it's Reversed. And as it is, of all the cards in the deck, The World is the card that I currently know and relate to the least. Herein lies the challenge.
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mika-dawn · 3 years ago
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Okay,,,,,i have a req! how would eruhaben, cale, and bud ilis deal with a soft hearted and weak s/o?
❝Weak and Soft S/O❞
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��...Summary: TCF/LCF characters with a soft and weak S/O
✎...Characters: Eruhaben, Cale, Bud (separately) x gender neutral reader
✎...Note: GOSH THIS IS THE FIRST TIME I HAVE WRITTEN FOR TCF IM SO S*@,@,#(
✎...Warnings/Info: none !
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#Eruhaben
•If we're talking about the arrogant and self-centered Eruhaben back when he was young, he would've ignored you. He didn't hold any animosity towards people who are weak but you simply wouldn't have captured his attention. If you were a troublesome human then he would've grumbled while dealing with you but he would've only seen you as small fry, you weren't a threat therefore he had no reason to use his strength.
•It would take a lot of luck, coincidences, and headaches for the younger Eruhaben to warm up to you.
•OKAY but first of all, give him a break. Eruhaben is still young in dragon years but he feels himself age at least one hundred years each time he sees you try to defend him from the other dragons who ridicule him for his attribute, he understands that you're kind-hearted but you're also weak, if he hadn't gotten there in time--
•Ironically, he wouldn't get angry at you (he's secretly touched), he'd get angry at the ignorant dragon who tried to attack you. He nags them and maybe.. maayyybbbeee let off some steam. (Translation: he beats them up) 
•If we're talking about the more mellow and wise Eruhaben in his late years, he sees you as someone he must protect. He sees that you're weak and he isn't afraid of saying that, though he doesn't say it in a bad connotation, says it more as a fact. It's similar to how he calls Cale an unlucky bastard (affectionate)
•He most probably thinks you're the most normal thing he's seen ever since he's been dragged around with Cale's group, it's actually a bit refreshing.
•Is gentle with you. It's more of a subconscious gesture of his, he doesn't exactly know when he started treating you like that, it just… happened.
•Wonders how you can be so.. soft? If you were someone who was a part of Cale's group (because you really would have no other reason to be able to meet Eruhaben in the first place if you weren't in Cale's group), then you would've seen the terrible things others have done first hand. It's impressive that you can stay kind despite the not-so-favorable circumstances.
#Cale Henituse
•Cale is skilled at picking a person's strength and weakness and using those attributes to make them improve themselves. You're no exception, Cale doesn't think you need to change yourself but a little self-improvement never hurt anyone, did it?
•It doesn't really change his perception of you. He himself is quite weak though soft-hearted is… debatable. (That's in his opinion anyways, he's definitely soft-hearted but he has a higher chance of chugging a liter of sour lemon juice before he'd admit that)
•He tries to keep you out of dangerous situations, a lackluster attempt really. You follow him to prevent him from getting out of trouble and get injured less but you could get injured in the process and he doesn't exactly know how to tell you that the reason why you shouldn't worry too much is because he has a self-healing ancient power. (Though your attempts at making him behave himself and get injured less because after a while he understood, he gets injured = you get injured as well)
•You might as well become a nurse because you're always the one tending to his wounds and doting on him. Ron jokingly mentions that someone's stolen his job when he sees you hand Cale some lemon tea (You saw him drink it often so you assumed it was his favorite but you don't realize the sheer amount of terror and despair he felt when you gave it to him)
•Extra: The kids and Choi Han use you as leverage whenever he's overdoing it. Again. 
•"Cale-nim, [Y/N] has been irritated because of your injuries recently. They might get upset to see you in such a terrible condition."
•"They'll be really angry! They might even cry nya~" 
•"Weak human! Don't make [Y/N] cry!"
#Bud Illis
•Probably clings to you a bit. We've seen how the others treat him, he knows they don't mean anything from their actions but it can get annoying. 
•Goes to you to relax. He finds comfort in.your soft personality and regularly invites you to go drinking with him. Even though it ends up with him stumbling out whatever bar you guys were at with him clinging to you. (He's probably not even drunk)
•Rants to you. Okay it sounds a little annoying at first, but, Bud isn't the type to blabber his mouth about his issues. It shows he trusts you to confide in you and he never really knows if you'll betray him but if the comforting words falling from your lips is a good sign then he'll take it.
•Gives you a position that will keep you near him but also keep you out of danger. Think… a secretary! You're the secretary of Cale's secretary! He only gives you small tasks and errands though, it can be a bit irritating but it isn't hard smacking some sense into him, literally and figuratively 
•Glenn thanks the gods Bud had someone like you to help him take care of him or else he would've lost his mind (if he hasn't already)
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trivalentlinks · 2 years ago
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since i have been coming up with increasingly niche and unhinged e/q meet-cute concepts lately here’s another:
(warning: temporary character death, mention of child death, references to torture, mention of suicide-adjacent themes)
So it’s about five years pre-canon, while Moreau is at the peak of his power, with Eliot a steady presence by his side, and things are only looking up for him.
Quinn, on the other hand, is not having such a great time. See, he took a job in Egypt that should have been a slam dunk, but what he didn’t know was that he was actually working against a Moreau subsidiary group that was a lot better funded and better connected than he thought.
So Quinn is stuck handcuffed to a chair in a warehouse, held hostage by people who are far more competent than artifact smugglers have any right to be, and he’s resigned himself to a slow, unpleasant death, when suddenly a Mysterious Woman appears out of nowhere.
It turns out, she’s here to offer him a job. She wants him to remove Eliot Spencer from Damien Moreau’s side. She’s not in a huge rush: she’ll give him six months to do it.
She asks Quinn if he can do this and he’s like “Oh, yes, absolutely, I’m definitely the one for this job.”
[This is partly because he thinks that if he takes this job, she’ll at least help him get out of his current predicament (that’s basic manners, right?).
But it’s mostly because he’s an arrogant 25-year-old who really thinks he can take out Damien Moreau’s right-hand man even though last time he went up against a Moreau subsidiary (a week ago) he ended up getting captured and still has no good exit.]
When she smiles at him and offers a hand to shake on the deal, he's about to ask her what he's meant to do with that when he realizes that his right hand seems to have slipped out of the handcuffs, which is a bit weird. When did that happen?
His thumb is dislocated (had it been that way before and he just hadn’t noticed? He's sufficiently fucked up that it's possible, though it seems unlikely), but he quickly uses his mouth to reset his dislocated thumb and shakes on the deal.
After shaking on it, the Mysterious Woman turns around to leave, her heels clicking lightly on the warehouse floor.
"Wait, you're just leaving me here?"
She turns around and raises an eyebrow at him. "Why? Do you need help getting out?"
He glares at her.
"Aisha has a false pocket. Front left. That's how she accesses her hidden knife. Omar has injured his right hand, which he usually uses to draw his gun. It'll take him two seconds to remember to draw with his left."
"That's all you're giving me?"
"If that's not enough, then you must not be the man I thought you were," she says with a smirk before sauntering out.
Which is rude. More than fair, but rude.
In the end, though, it is enough for Quinn to get out and eventually make his way back to his safe-house in Rome.
Once there, he starts to wonder what exactly happened. Was the Mysterious Woman even real? He has never had such a vivid hallucination before, but he was very fucked up (roughed up, drugged, sleep deprived, and dehydrated).
She did give him some good intel that helped his escape, but then again, it was all the kind of info that he would have figured out himself if he weren’t so out of it, so. Could still have been his subconscious mind.
He asks around his contacts a bit (as much as he can without giving the impression that he’s gone round the bend) and finds that nobody’s heard of anyone like her, and who in their right mind would try to go up against Damien Moreau?
After concluding that she was probably a hallucination (which is disturbing, he’ll have to make sure never to fall into that kind of state again), Quinn decides to go on with his life.
Three months later, after a successful job in Chelyabinsk (one shot, through a brick wall, in the dark, after waiting an hour in 20 below freezing temperatures), Quinn goes back to his hotel room and finds the Mysterious Woman, sitting on the armrest of the plush hotel chair, looking like she owns the place and asking him if he’s made any progress on the job.
So, uh, oops. Turns out she was real, and now he has three months to remove Eliot Spencer.
That’s fine, though, Quinn is feeling like he’s on top of the world now, he can totally take down Eliot Spencer.
This turns out much, much harder than expected. Even getting any intel at all about Spencer's whereabouts turns out to be unfairly tricky.
After working his way through Moreau lackeys of various stripes, Quinn finally manages to get close enough to see Spencer at the docks of the Port of Mombasa. Unfortunately, Spencer sees him first, and by the time Quinn's aimed his weapon, Spencer has put a bullet in his chest.
Quinn is pretty sure that the shot he fired hit Spencer, too, but by then Spencer has put another bullet right through his heart, so he doesn't quite have the time to find out.
His last thought is that there are worse ways to die than in a gunfight with Eliot Spencer.
~
~
~
~
~
When Quinn wakes up, everything hurts. Also, he's drugged, sleep deprived, dehydrated, and handcuffed to a chair in a familiar warehouse in Cairo.
He's not too surprised to hear the clicking of stilettos against the warehouse floor and to look up to see the now-familiar Woman.
"You didn't think you could get out of our deal by getting yourself killed, did you?" She asks with a raised eyebrow. "Remove Spencer from Moreau’s side. You have six months."
~
The second time around, Quinn starts the hunt earlier, and manages to sneak up on Spencer at close enough range that the latter doesn't get a chance to draw his gun.
It's too close range for Quinn to use a gun, either, though.
Murdered by Eliot Spencer with his bare hands turns out to be a much less pleasant death.
~
This time, when Quinn wakes up in the warehouse again, the Woman isn't there. She must have figured he knew what he needed to do by then.
~
The third time around, he tries to make use of some of the things he knows from his previous run-throughs.
This goes very badly for him.
Left to die after being worked over repeatedly by an Eliot Spencer who's intent on figuring out where Quinn got his Intel on Moreau's organization is not a pretty way to go at all.
~
Quinn decides to make the fourth run-through about intel collection only.
He survives the six months that time. In those six months, he learns quite a lot about Eliot Spencer.
Not habits or preferences. Spencer doesn’t have those, other than the standard ones of a competent professional. It figures. Habits and preferences could often be turned into weaknesses, so of course, Spencer wouldn’t have those. That would be too easy.
The biggest thing is the depth of Spencer’s loyalty. Spencer would do anything for Moreau. It makes Quinn a little wistful. He’s dealt in that kind of loyalty before. He learned the hard way that it wasn’t for him.
(Quinn doesn’t think it’s for Spencer, either. Sometimes it seems like the things Spencer does for Moreau are killing him inside. But Quinn’s not here to judge.)
Another thing he notices is the accent. Somehow, improbably, unbelievably, despite everything he’s done, Eliot Spencer still speaks homicide with an accent. Quinn couldn’t believe it the first time he saw it. After two more incidents, though, it’s undeniable.
In theory, this should be a weakness. Quinn had known people who couldn’t shake their accents, even after years. They didn’t survive long. (”We all call it an accent, but you know what it actually is, right? It’s being human,” a friend had screamed at him through tears when they were thirteen. She didn’t make it to her fifteenth birthday.)
And yet Quinn knows, as much as he knows anything, that somehow, for Spencer, the accent isn’t a weakness.
It’s unfair, really. That’s the thought on Quinn’s mind as he drifts off to sleep before waking up six months earlier in a damn warehouse.
~
The fifth run-through, Quinn infiltrates Moreau’s organization. This goes remarkably well. By the times he’s six months in, he’s working a job directly under Eliot Spencer. (It helps that he knows from previous run-throughs exactly what he needs to do to get promoted as quickly as possible.)
Quinn doesn’t lose track of time, exactly. He knows precisely when his deadline to get rid of Eliot Spencer is.
He does get a little distracted, though. Who could blame him? Working with Eliot Spencer is incredible. He’s learning so much, and hey, it’s not like he’s in that much of a rush. If this iteration he doesn’t kill Eliot in time, there’s always the next one. He can just call it another intel-gathering round.
(And if that doesn’t explain how bereft he feels when he’s pulled back six months into the past, well. He doesn’t owe anyone an explanation, anyway.)
~
The sixth run-through, he manages to start working with Eliot much earlier.
It’s a good run-through.
The first time he spars with Eliot happens in this one. The first time Eliot smiles at him and calls him a show-off after he takes Eliot down with a perfect flying scissor sweep. (It’s a fair criticism, but hey. If you’ve got it, flaunt it.)
It’s also the one where he gets to know Eliot’s sense of humour, the way his lip twitches and he ducks his head sometimes when he’s trying to hide a smile.
This one was just for intel, too.
~
On the seventh run-through, Quinn finds out that Eliot has surprisingly strong opinions about proper julienne technique for someone who refuses to do any cooking himself. This will need more investigation.
~
On the ninth run-through, he actually manages to goad Eliot into making dinner for him. It’s a waste, Quinn muses, for this kind of talent to go so unused.
~
On the twelfth run-through, Eliot admits to Quinn, on a late-night stake-out, that he’s not entirely sure that Quinn is real.
“It’s just... sometimes it feels like you were custom made by G-d for me,” Eliot says.
“That’s surprisingly romantic of you,” Quinn says.
“Not like that,” Eliot growls, glaring at Quinn. “I just meant that you remind me what it’s like to feel alive. You do it so easily, like you were made for it.”
“You do realize that that’s even more romantic, right?”
“Or maybe you were just sent to kill me,” Eliot says with a roll of his eyes.
Quinn freezes for a moment, just for a fraction of a second before he remembers to snort at the joke and keep a light tone as he says, “Maybe I was.”
Eliot catches the way Quinn paused, though. He narrows his eyes. "Wait, what was that? I know you aren't actually here to kill me, because you’ve passed up at least half a dozen good opportunities to do it."
Quinn swallows. "I was offered a job to kill you once, some time ago," he admits.
"Why'd you turn it down?"
"Who'd be crazy enough to take a job like that?"
Eliot smiles at that, as Quinn intended, but Quinn can't shake the off feeling the conversation had put in him.
The next morning, he cuts the run-through short.
~
The thirteenth run-through Quinn tries to kill Damien Moreau. The job was to remove Eliot from Damien's side, and that should count, right?
He fails. For all the times that Eliot has trusted Quinn with his life, he would never trust him with Damien's.
Well, it has been a while since Quinn has been killed by Eliot Spencer.
~
The fourteenth run-through, Quinn does manage to take out Damien Moreau.
His resulting death at Eliot's hand is slow and brutal, but he does console himself with the thought that at least this one will be permanent.
It isn't.
The Woman appears again, this time.
"You wanted him removed from Damien's side, I removed him from Damien's side! That should have counted," Quinn rages at her.
"If you think Spencer's loyalty would have died with Moreau, then you must not understand either of them."
~
On the fifteenth iteration, Quinn relives all of his favourite moments.
His favourite jobs that he shared with Eliot. The exhilarating ones when they worked together like a well-oiled machine, and the quiet ones where he saw the softer parts of Eliot that the latter usually kept hidden.
The time he goaded Eliot into cooking for him. The time they destroyed the kitchen when they tried to cook together.
The time he found just the right song and the right mood to get Eliot to sing along to the radio on the drive back to the airport after a nice, clean job in Krakow.
(He doesn't relive the time Eliot told him with palpable guilt and shame about the man who had taught him to use his knife to create rather than destroy. The man who had tried to save him from himself.)
He relives all his favourite moments and tries to carve the memories into stone.
~
The sixteenth iteration, he kills Eliot Spencer at the first opportunity. (Before Spencer comes to like or trust him. Before he would see it as any kind of betrayal.)
As soon as it’s done, without even checking whether he got paid, Quinn calls the agents he’s worked with until he finds one who offers him a job that he can start immediately. It’s a long one that looks like it will be dangerous and difficult. Exactly what he needs.
He only makes it one day into the job, though. That first night, he goes to bed only to wake up back in that damned warehouse again.
“What the fuck?” Quinn yells out, when he sees the Woman casually leaning against the wall. “I did exactly what you fucking wanted this time!”
“I said remove him from Moreau's side. I didn’t say to do this by killing him.”
“You... didn’t say not to,” Quinn says, furrowing his brow.
“That’s fair,” the Woman acknowledges with a tilt of her head. “It’s the same to me anyway, so if that’s how you want to play it, fine. Just close your eyes and count down from 10, and you’ll wake up back on that job you lined up looking for that monkey. I won’t save you from Moreau trying to hunt you down for killing his right hand man, though.”
She takes a step forward and bends down to look at Quinn at eye level. “Is that how you want to play this?”
"... What choice do I have?”
“You can’t think of any other way to do this job?”
Quinn thinks of all the moments he shared with Eliot, the happy ones and the more painful ones. He thinks about the guilt in Eliot’s eyes as he told him about Toby. He thinks about Eliot admitting late one night that Quinn made him feel alive. He remembers Eliot inadvertently reminding him of what his job was (what he thought his job was?).
“Well?” The Woman asks. “Can you think of another way you’d rather do this job?”
Quinn smiles up at her. “Absolutely.”
This will be interesting.
[End]
Edit: Now on AO3 here! If you liked it, I’d really appreciate a kudos/comment there <3
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reidsnose · 4 years ago
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buggin
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overview: reader enlists the help of her neighbor (who shes never met) to get rid of a gnarly bug in her apartment
genre: fluff
a/n: thought of this today after i moved the shower curtain, saw a centipede crawl out, and screamed for my dad to come help me. anywayyyss i thought its be cute so as always lmk what you guys think :)
masterlist
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you walked into your bedroom, fumbling frantically with the buttons on your shirt as you raced to leave your house on time. hair brush hair brush hair brush. where was your hair brush? you knocked over countless items trying to find it but with no luck. bathroom! you quickly made your way to the bathroom, opening the door so fast that wind blew through your hair.
and then you saw it.
a gnarly, long, nasty, creepy crawly centipede.
you let out a loud shriek and promptly shut the door. if you didn't get to the interview one time, it would surely be a bad first impression. but then again so would showing up with a bird's nest of hair on your head. you tried who knows how many times to go back in and kill it or catch it in a cup but each time you saw its countless, spindly legs you backed out. you checked your watch, 10 minutes until you had to leave.
you walked out into the hallway of the apartment building, and in a frenzy, you bumped into a tall, handsome man leaving the apartment across from yours.
he chuckled an apology before looking to meet your eye, breath hitching in his throat as he did. you were arguably the most beautiful woman he had ever seen (despite a very questionable hairdo). and when a surge of desperation ran through your body you rambled an explanation to the stranger, telling him about your job interview and time crunch then promptly begging him to come inside and get rid of the centipede for you.
and something inside him couldn't say no. he wanted to, i mean when an objectively crazy looking person lures you into their home to catch a bug, generally one says no and goes on with their day. however, maybe it was his complete an immediate infatuation with you or maybe his empathy for your situation, he decided to quickly help you and then try and get to work as fast as he can.
he couldn't help but subtly and subconsciously profile you based on your home as soon as he stepped inside. he liked it. your decorations, the small mess that makes it feel lived in, the general 'vibe' as morgan would say was incredible.
you gave him a sheet of paper and a cup, per his request, and led him to the dreaded bug bathroom. you couldn't help but watch in awe as he walked in with no fear, explaining to you in great detail how this was only a house centipede and it only had 15 pairs of legs which kind of counters the name. and how it isn't poisonous to humans and infact eats other bugs. you loved his facts so much and you followed him all the way to the window where he let the bug out, listening intently to what he had to say and swatting away the apology that came after the ramble, insisting that you genuinely enjoyed it.
"thank you so much,.." you trailed off, not knowing his name.
"Spencer." he filled in, offering a tight lipped smile.
"Spencer! wonderful. well again thank you so much and i owe you once I'm back from this job interview!" you smiled as you both walked to the door.
"oh you don't have to-" he began.
"no i insist! just knock on my door when you can and ill take you out." you stated, causing his eyes to widen, " not with a gun! i meant like ill buy you coffee or something!"
"i didn't think you meant with a gun?!" he laughed, handing you the hairbrush this whole ordeal was about. you laughed along as you closed and locked your apartment.
"I'm sorry i'm like completely fazzled right now! i have to go or else i'm never gonna get this job ill just brush my hair in the car! ok bye Spencer!" you called as you jogged down the stairs.
"wait i don't know your name?" he called after you.
"ill tell you when i buy you a coffee!" your giggle echoed through the building followed by the loud shut of the downstairs door.
he smiled to himself, wondering if he should tell the team about his funky morning encounter. he smiled the whole train ride to work, and then the walk from the stop to the building and then the elevator trip up. he just couldn't stop smiling. he thought about you brushing your hair while you drove and even giggled to himself on the train causing a few strangers to toss him some concerned looks.
how could he be living next to such a beautiful stranger?
when he walked into the bullpen, he saw the. whole team huddled around a desk, staring quite obviously at hotch's office. a new curiosity piqued his interest though his thoughts of you continued to be front and center in his mind.
"whats going on?" he asked, joining the group and craning his neck to try and see into the office.
"new agent interview." jj whispered.
"really? since whe-"
"shh!" Garcia shushed.
"you cant even hear them!" Reid defended.
"quiet helps us read their lips." prentiss whispered.
Spencer continued to crane his neck, moving around yet only being able to see hotch, who was throwing his head back in laughter. hotch laughing? wow this new agent must be pretty cool!
"oh my god! i've never seen him laugh like that before!" Garcia squeaked.
"she has to get the job now," morgan added.
"ah we have to wait for the handshake, thats when we see if he really approves," Rossi countered, "if he double hands the shake then its a done deal."
they all watched excitedly, waiting impatiently for the end of the interview. after a few minutes they saw hotch stand up and shake the possible new agent's hand with his right, firmly clasping his left over the handshake.
"was that the double handed handshake?" Garcia asked excitedly.
"yup." Rossi replied, popping the p.
as soon as the door began to open, the team tried ever so gracelessly to disperse, bumping into one another and murmuring fake excuses. a familiar outfit caught Spencer's eye as the new agent left hotch's office and he dared sneak a glance.
no way. his mind raced, thoughts of this morning flooding it a mile a minute. could it really be the girl from this morning? he watched as you excitedly left the building, beaming far to much to notice any other people as you left.
"bug?!" was all he could muster. not even loud enough for you to hear. unfortunately, loud enough for the people around him to.
"theres a bug? where?" morgan asked, looking around.
"no um...bug-she..is bug- um. nothing." he stammered.
"did you nickname the new agent bug?" jj laughed.
"what? no! do not say that in front of her!!" Spencer stammered.
after a couple teasing remarks, to Spencer's relief, they seemed to have let it go. the day was case-less and flew by quickly, the most exciting part was the morning interview and hotch's announcement that there would be a new agent starting tomorrow.
you sat at home, beyond excited about your successful interview, all thanks to handsome neighbor Spencer. you couldn't help but feel extra indebted to him. you feared you may have scared him off when you offered to take him out but it was the best way you could think to say thank you. but your nerves had transferred mainly to the upcoming first day of work.
as he got hone he debated knocking on your door but decided against it, knowing you were probably busy preparing for tomorrow.
when you arrived tomorrow a series of seemingly unfamiliar faces sat in the conference room, awaiting you and hotch.
when you stepped inside your eyes scanned over each of them, all looking very excited to meet you.
and then you saw him.
handsome neighbor Spencer was sitting RIGHT THERE. the stars have aligned and finally life is in your favor. after a brief introduction the meeting began and you took the only seat open which happened to be next to Spencer.
you gave each other polite smiles though both of your cheeks glowing red told a different story than two people who had just met.
"wheels up in 20." hotch concluded.
you all walked out together, the team making sure you felt included.
"so hows the first day feeling, y/n? or should i be like my friend Dr. Reid here and call you bug?" morgan asked slightly amused.
"oh my god you told?!" you laughed, looking wide eyed at Spencer.
after a high pitched denial from Reid and tears of laughter from the team as you told them of the events of that morning, you already felt like you were a part of the team.
as you boarded the jet, you decided to sit next to Spencer.
"you know, i still owe you a coffee," you mentioned nonchalantly as you pulled a book from your go bag, trying as hard as you possibly could to not blush.
he smiled slyly, picking up his own book to hide the rouge that fell upon his cheeks, "and ill hold you to that, bug."
-
-
ultra mega super cool taglist:
@mac99martin @imhreid @spencersmagic @hollydaisy23 @raelady1184 @a-broken-pact @padfootswife @star-stuff-in-the-cosmos @hey-there-angels @sonnydoesrandomshit @averyhotchner @laurakirsten0502 @reidyoulikeabook @rem-ariiana @spencerreid9 @vampire-overlord @takeyourleap-of-faith @s1utformgg @violetspoetic @b-a-utiful @aperrywilliams @eevee0722
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ladyyatexel · 3 years ago
Text
"Strange Shapes" - YuGiOh Offering
In gratitude for donations and commissions, here is one of many pieces of content I'm offering as emotional sacrifice to my benefactors.
Malik Ishtar drifting a bit post-canon and trying to figure out Ryou Bakura.
Most common descriptors from others who have seen it in the rabbit holes I dig myself on Discord to share it with 2.5 people are 'sweet, sad, strange, soft'. Primarily talking, no warnings or such.
This is very much raw snippets with pieces held back as I'm actively working on this currently and want to post the whole thing properly. It's, uh, 17K in the document right now? So this is a preview I offer on the altar of angstshipping and not getting kicked out of my apartment. Between snips is filled in with [...].
It's not the full thing, @sturionic, and you've seen what's here, I'm sure, but you did tell me to tag you once!
I hope it's enough to enjoy and get a feel for what's happening!
Malik makes his way as casually as possible out to the edge of the friend group where Bakura - the real one, the only one who was supposed to be there - is watching with a small, but real, smile.
"Can I talk to you?" Malik touches his arm slightly, just to try to indicate this conversation should be even further from the others.
"Me?" Bakura blinks, confused.
"Yeah. The real you."
"Ah, yes." The smile becomes a bit awkward and he rubs his arm where Malik had just brushed it. A sick feeling flashes through him as he realizes the spot is also where Bakura had been slashed in the midst of Malik's deals with the Bakura from the Millennium Ring. He tries not to wince too much and presses on.
"I don't want to bother you. Just a few minutes."
Bakura shakes his head, awkward seemingly gone. "It's okay. I don't mind."
Malik suggests a seat along the wall. No way for someone to sneak up to interrupt, still visible, hopefully feels safe.
Even with just this little, Bakura is already different. He moves differently, smiles differently. His voice is technically the same, just like his features, his hands, and the color of his hair, yet it's all completely someone else.
"I've done a lot I can't undo," Malik says when they're comfortably seated out of easy earshot. "But I at least want to apologize to people who give me the chance to. Especially to you. About everything, not just your arm."
"It wasn't you that did that, was it?"
"No, it wasn't even my idea, but - I was with him, I gave him the motivation, I guess. I thought I could use him for what I thought I wanted. I went along with it."
"Mmm." He nods. "I see."
"Didn't you know?"
"Oh, I could guess," Bakura says. "I even assumed. It's happened before, see?" He holds out his left hand, unprompted, and shows off a healed but still present scar in his palm and one between two bones on the other side. "But I didn't know. He kept me in the dark a lot. And when he didn't, I think my subconscious did. There are a lot of blank spaces in my memory, so there are things I’m just used to not being sure of." He smiles. It's kind, and polite, and pretty, and feels just as completely wrong as it does appropriate.
"I'm sorry," Malik says. "About that, about you getting hurt, about using the Rod to manipulate you, your friends… all of it."
"I understand." Not an 'okay' or anything about forgiveness or forgetting, but understanding.
“I hope we can be okay?”
Bakura shrugs and retains his sweet polite smile. “Sure.”
The response is so casual it throws Malik a little off balance. Bakura looks and sounds like Malik cut him off in traffic at worst.
Admittedly, many of his apologies to Yuugi’s friends have been similar. Yuugi himself had needed nothing beyond their last meeting when Malik completed his family’s purpose. Malik had said he hoped they could be friends while trying to hold onto some sense of dignity and that had evidently been enough for Yuugi.
Yuugi's group hadn’t brought the blonde woman, Mai, with them. Malik is still considering sending Yuugi back with an apology for her that includes a message that he is having nightmares about her, too. There are many people he hurt who want him to suffer as payment. Mai might be one of them.
Bakura, though, seemingly isn’t.
"How has it been for you since… everything?" This might be invasive or taking more time and consideration than he's owed, but if the quiet Bakura wearing scars he didn't earn was willing to talk, Malik wanted to hear what he said.
"Don't worry,” Bakura says. “I'm not going to hurt anyone."
"That's not - I didn't mean that. I just wanted to know how you felt."
Bakura pauses and the smile shifts. Maybe it's more genuine, or maybe it's a specially constructed layer for just this question.
"No one's really asked me that."
"Really?"
"I think they might be a little afraid to mention it." He looks almost like he's on the verge of laughing about it. "It's okay. I don't blame them. It's nice to still have friends."
"... and how you feel? What about that?"
He looks away from the others and properly at Malik for the first time since sitting down with him. "I don't know. I think I have feelings that aren't supposed to exist at the same time."
Bakura does understand.
"I think I have the same thing."
"I thought you might."
"Is it always like this? You away from everyone?" Malik wouldn't have to worry about this himself if he simply went home, stayed close to his siblings, replaced everyone he'd ever known with someone new and just avoided a few countries all together. But the connection right here, with the only other people who'd had something like his own experience? It scared him to lose it while it was still acceptable to touch.
"Not always."
"Are you lonely?"
Bakura laughs, though it is quiet and soft. "Not always."
"I'm sorry."
"You understand it too, don't you?" He looked at Malik wearing a tired resigned smile. “You wonder about the space between being told you’re someone’s friend and whether they actually trust you. It's why you're talking to me, isn't it?"
The longer he sits with the real Bakura, the more what he thought he’d find before meeting him gets hazy, but whatever that was, Malik is pretty sure this wasn’t it.
“It's not - I just wanted to apologize,” Malik says, though he doesn’t even sound convincing to himself.
“We’re the ones sitting out here, though.” Bakura tilts his head toward the rest of the group, engrossed in their game.
“They’ve all known each other a long time. They’re close.” It's an excuse. On several levels.
Bakura looks off at the group, almost through them. “I read somewhere once that you can’t get closer to someone than you do by killing them.”
More Malik wasn’t ready for.
“...I think I once employed a guy who said the same thing.”
“It’s okay. I told you; I don’t want to hurt anyone.”
“I don’t think I thought you wanted to. I was just surprised.”
“I just meant maybe being close and being friends is different sometimes. Or maybe being close comes in strange shapes. Something like that."
Malik has spent less than an hour talking to Bakura, but already a link he hadn't totally expected tugs at things inside him he hadn't planned on being reachable.
“Strange shapes sounds right.”
[...]
“What do you do now?” Bakura asks. “Now that you can just have a life if you want it?”
‘If you want it’ rings strangely in Malik’s head.
“Mostly, we talk to a lot of researchers. Rishid and Isis too. After everything, I thought -- well, I wasn’t eager to tell people or get weighed down with officials and government, but it looked like the way to do the most good with...” He tries to motion over his shoulder to indicate his back as a stand in for everything.
“What are they researching?”
“What aren’t they? Us existing just detonated a giant bomb in the entire Egyptology field. I guess people out here have been trying to figure out how to pronounce the language we all learned as babies for a few hundred years, so we’ve been seeing a lot of linguists. But archaeologists want to talk to us, psychologists, general historians, people yelling things about aliens… I don’t understand some of it, to be honest.”
He wouldn’t normally have admitted that last part, but Bakura feels like someone he can trust with it.
“I haven’t heard about any of this.” It’s not a challenge, more an expression of wonder.
“They aren’t releasing most of the information to public channels, yet. It’s too big, too drastic. They want to make sure we’re real first.”
“Did they find you after the tournament?”
Malik twitches at just the thought of the experience. “Yeah. Several people did. I probably owe being able to live normally to being scientifically significant. Otherwise, I don’t know, I’d be …” He shakes his head. “Locked up? Being hunted for sport somewhere? I don’t know. In the end, it’s probably because of my sister or Kaiba that I’m not constantly in danger of being arrested.”
“Are people afraid?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.” He pauses, considers everything that happened as it plays out in flashes in his head. “Probably.”
“Hmm.”
Bakura stays quiet but for the small thoughtful sound.
“Are you afraid of me?” Malik asks.
Bakura laughs. It’s cute and soft and almost insulting. “No. But don’t you think my answer would be the same either way?”
“I was kind of hoping we were being honest, given the circumstances.”
“I am.” He smiles serenely, like he’s meditating or enjoying a breeze. “You’ll just have to trust me when I say that.”
“I can do that.”
“Good.” Bakura looks at him as though they’ve finalized a contract. “I’m not afraid of you. And I’m glad you’re just a scientific curiosity, and not in prison.”
He had to laugh, even at his own weird traumatic situation. Bakura laughed with him, proving either a true lack of fear or a surprisingly iron resolve. Either one made him fascinating.
[...]
"Would it be okay if we kept talking after this?" Malik takes his phone (admittedly still one he didn't obtain through the cleanest of channels) out of his pocket.
"Oh, yes! Here!" Bakura enthusiastically takes the phone and immediately begins entering information. "I'll give you my number." He smiles so much he nearly sparkles as he saves the number and hits the call button, which sets off a soft tone near his hip. "Now I have yours, too."
It is just the number to a definitely, totally, in no way illegally obtained cell phone, but the eagerness Bakura shows to have it is more comforting than any words Malik has heard from anyone else in a long time.
[...]
“Well? What did you think?”
“Um, I had my eyes closed the whole time,” Bakura admits.
“Oh, come on.”
“Sorry! Maybe I’ll do better next time.”
“‘Next time’?” He sounds hopeful and he’s not sure he meant to. When would there realistically be a next time? The next time Bakura casually takes a quick vacation halfway across the world to say goodbye to a supernatural member of his friend group?
“Oh, sorry, I didn’t mean to assume anything!”
“No, no, it’s okay! You can come with me anytime!”
"Wow, thank you! I'd love to!"
This feels unreal and kind of like being adrift. Are they both just pretending they live across the plaza from each other and can visit whenever they want?
"What are you all doing tomorrow?"
"Oh, the museum! Aren't you coming with us?"
"No, I wasn't invited. I don't want -"
"Then I'm inviting you!"
"I - Okay?"
"I'll find out when we're leaving and let you know." His cheerfulness waned somewhat. "Sorry. Unless you don't want to go; I'm sure you've seen it all more than enough."
"No, no, I really want to! I might have a different perspective on them now." He might. Bakura may be providing that perspective. Malik may mostly be interested in spending more time talking, whether it takes place in a cesspool of tourists on a backdrop of his childhood or not.
"Then I'm looking forward to having you with us again. Sorry I kept you so late."
"You really didn't. It was me too." He grabs his helmet to try to force himself to not stay even later. "Do you know you apologize a lot?"
"I do, don't I?" Bakura smiles, his eyes almost squeezing shut. This is either sincerely a little self mockery or a dodge of some kind, but Bakura's arsenal of smiles is so large that one night has not been enough for Malik to learn them all.
The only right response seems to be laughing, an impulse Bakura seems to share.
Malik gets on his bike with a lingering feeling that he’s been snagged on something.
“I’ll see you tomorrow, then?”
“Yes!”
Bakura smiles. It looks sweet, happy, and genuine. Or maybe Malik just hopes it does.
[... ...]
“You didn’t have to come with us.”
“What?” Malik startles when he hears Bakura’s voice so close.
“You just look uncomfortable,” Bakura says.
Malik shakes his head and refocuses on reality. “I’m okay.”
“Good. I’m glad you came.” This isn’t the same smile Bakura used on Jonouchi. “Do you want to go to the next room with me?”
Truthfully, he doesn't particularly want to go into any of the rooms, he just wants to figure out more of Bakura, but the answer is still the same.
“Sure.”
The next room rounds a bit of a corner and a colossal broken head of a pharaoh sits against a center column to welcome them to the next display. Bakura looks as closely as he can at the polished stone, as though he’s being pulled in.
“How do you feel?”
At first, Malik thinks he’s asking the stone, but then there’s a pause and Bakura turns to him, head tilted. “Oh,” Malik says, “you mean me.”
“Of course you.”
“I don’t know, you felt kind of like the type to talk to statues.”
“Were you just going to stand there and let me?”
“What would I have said? We’ve both seen weirder things, right?”
Bakura smiles brightly and nearly laughs. “True.”
The smile is different even from just in the other room. He’s still joking and still cute, just like he was with Jounouchi, but joking about being a guy who talks to rocks seems to make Bakura’s smile more sincere than the manufacture of mummies.
“So?” Bakura prompts.
“Oh, yeah. How I feel.”
“Unless you want to wait for him to answer.” Bakura points at the giant stone face.
“I feel... “
Veneration of a world he was raised to serve covers every surface around him. There’s not a single room that isn’t about it. If he thinks about how much there is and how it’s wrapped around him in every direction, whatever emotion the thoughts conjure tries to compress his lungs. He might as well be buried in it.
He lets out a long breath to make sure he's still able to.
“I feel a little overwhelmed, I think.”
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ratofthemedievalsewers · 3 years ago
Text
Heart of Steel - Part I
DBH Connor x Male Reader
Word Count: 2.5K+
Content warning: Minor injury detail, PTSD, language
Original game dialogue I got from this video:
https://youtu.be/32Np9LKI1Vg
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We were attacked in the night.
After returning from a mission back to an outpost several miles from the red zone, we removed our gear save for a few pouches on our belts we could bother with later. Our team leader set up a fire while the SQ800s, CyberLife commissioned combat androids, began loading up the trucks with extra artillery and resources. A job that could have waited until morning, but Alpha always gave the androids something to do. He said that they creeped him out when they would just stand there in a dormant state, waiting for their next mission to be given to them.
"You know what I'm going to do when I get home?"
"Here we go again."
"I'm going to get me a WR400," Foxtrot; not everyone's favourite but he certainly kept us entertained when there was nothing to do.
"Uh-huh and with what money are you going to be using to pay for this WR400? A military salary definitely ain't gonna cut it." Echo always called out Foxtrot's bullshit, he was the only one that had the patience to deal with him.
"Fine, my birthday is comin' up, if you put towards two-thirds of what it costs we can share. How does that sound?"
"I am not sharing anything with you, I don't know what diseases you carry." Their constant back forth sent chuckles through the group.
"Alright, that's enough you two. It's getting late and past everyone's bedtime, I want you all awake by O-five-hundred at the latest," Alpha would often stop them before Foxtrot would take it too far, but he could never hide the twitching smile on his face.
"Yes sir," Foxtrot mock saluted as he stood from his seat around the campfire. "Hey Echo, that offer is still-"
One moment Foxtrot had a wide grin on his face, the next there was a hole in his head between his eyes, the sound of gunshot ringing in everyone's ears.
"SHOTS FIRED! GET TO COVER NOW!"
"FOXTROT IS DOWN! I REPEAT, FOXTROT IS DOWN!"
It was dark, we couldn't see where they were firing from. The android was the only one still standing, firing off in random directions as they were gunned down. The next was Delta, shot in the left shoulder, then the throat. My gun was back in my tent and there was no chance of me getting it. Stupid.
"MEDIC! GET TO DELTA! NOW!"
"GRENADE!"
I heard the thump by my feet before I saw it. You would think it would be terrifying, to know you're staring death in the face, but for a second it was peaceful. My body was cold and I already felt like a corpse, the Rigour Mortis freezing me in place, just softly gazing at what would kill me.
Something grabbed me before the grenade exploded, saving my life but destroying the android.
The bedsheets were crumpled and soaked in sweat again when my eyes shot open. It was hard to breathe, the panic was still running through me and closing up my throat at the memory.
In; one, two, three, four. Hold; one, two, three, four. Out; one, two, three, four. Hold; one, two, three, four.
It took a few minutes for me to remember where I was. That I was home and that I was safe. Out of nervous habit, I gripped my dog tags, they were wet from the sweat that had soaked through my shirt in the night.
"Shit." It was four in the morning, there was no chance of getting any more sleep and the station wouldn't be open for another two more hours at the least. Saying that; Fowler wanted to speak to me first thing, which never meant anything good for anyone.
It was aching again at the joint. The biomechanical component always felt itchy where it joined at the elbow. Anytime I would have that dream I would scratch at it in my sleep, it was like my subconscious knew it didn't belong. It knew my rotting left arm was still in the desert somewhere being picked apart by vultures.
It's almost ironic; to be saved by an android and then to have part of one attached to me. I hated it.
*****
"Morning Cyborg, you look like shit." Gavin was forever pleasant to talk to.
"Fuck off, Reed." He constantly hovered around the coffee machine, hogging it like it was his newborn baby. "Is Fowler in yet?"
"Not yet, you in trouble?" He took his time making his coffee, exceeding in being the department's resident asshat. "Did he catch you looking at porn on your work terminal again?"
"I'm pretty sure that's only ever happened to you." Not wanting to be reminded of his previous escapades I got no response. Gavin let out a small huff before moving to the side with his fresh cup of coffee, freeing up the machine.
"Officer (L/N)." Oh for fuck's sake.
"Sir?" Captain Fowler stood outside his office, his coat half soaked from the rain.
"My office, I need to speak to you." He didn't give a second glance to me before turning and letting the glass door shut behind him.
"Ha, good luck cyborg." Shooting Gavin the middle finger, I followed Captian Fowler into his office.
"What was it you wished to talk about, sir?" Feet shoulder-width apart, back straight and hands behind my back; habits from the army were destined to die hard. Often I would find myself moving my hand up to salute before leaving the presence of a superior, something else for Gavin to make fun of.
"You're aware of the deviant cases I've assigned to Lieutenant Anderson, correct?" Fowler sat at his desk, wet coat now hung on its rack, but there was slight dampness to his suit blazer where his coat had been left open.
"Yes sir. I believe he's being accompanied by a prototype RK800 from Cyberlife."
"That's correct. I'm sure you're aware that these deviancy cases are on the more..."
"Dangerous?"
"...Unpredictable side. Now, I can't exactly issue a gun to a prototype android if it's going to be in the field and, while I value Hank as a police officer, his record is on the rougher side."
"Captain Fowler, with all due respect, I don't believe-"
"Office (L/N), with all due respect, you don't have an opinion in this matter. I want you to accompany Lieutenant Anderson in these assignments just in case a deviant becomes too much for him or this android to handle. You've certainly got the skillset for it and you're not unfamiliar with working alongside androids, unlike quite a few officers in this department."
"I understand that, but-"
"Whatever you're gonna say I don't want to hear it." Captain Fowler didn't give me a chance to argue as he stood and walked to his office door, the annoyed look on his face worsening. "Hank, in my office!"
I let out a sigh before Captain Fowler turned back to his desk. Through the office wall made of glass Hank reluctantly made his way towards us grumbling something under his breath at the request, the RK800 model obediently following behind him like a little, lost puppy. Hank sat in the chair opposite Fowler while the android stood next to me, giving a small smile as a greeting.
Captain Fowler was the first to talk, "I've got ten new cases involving androids on my desk every day. We've always had isolated incidents, old ladies losing their android maids and that kind of crap... But now, we're getting reports of assaults and even homicides, like that guy last night. This isn't just cyberlife's problem anymore, it's now a criminal investigation and we've gotta deal with it before the shit hits the fan. I want you to investigate these cases, alongside officer (L/N) and see if there's any link."
"Why me? And why do I need a god damned partner? A stupid android is already too much. Why do I gotta be the one to deal with this shit?" Props to Hank for trying, but arguing with Fowler was like talking to a brick wall. "I am the least qualified cop in the country to handle this case! I know jack shit about androids, Jeffery. I can barely change the settings on my own phone."
"Everybody's overloaded. I think you're perfectly qualified for this type of investigation," They were already starting to blow up at each other.
"Bullshit! The truth is nobody wants to investigate these fuckin' androids and you left me holdin' the bag!"
"CyberLife sent over this android to help with this investigation and I've given you (L/N) as well. You've got a state of the art prototype and a leading police officer to act as your partners."
"No fuckin' way! I don't need partners, and certainly not this plastic prick and some action hero fucker."
"Nice working with you too, Lieutenant Anderson," I said under my breath, not intending for the others to hear. Connor turned his head slightly in my direction, I could see his LED blink yellow for a moment before going back to its bright blue.
"Hank, you are seriously starting to piss me off! You are a police lieutenant, you are supposed to do what I say and shut your goddamn mouth!"
"You know what my goddamn mouth has to say to you, huh?"
"I'll pretend like I didn't hear that, so I don't have to add any more pages to your disciplinary folder 'cause it already looks like a fuckin' novel! This conversation is over."
"Jeffrey, Jesus Christ! Why are you doin' this to me? You know how much I hate these fuckin' things. Why are you doin' this to me?" Most of the department knew why he had such a distaste towards androids, no one could necessarily blame him. Ever since losing his son Hank had become completely different as both a person and an officer. Admittedly, Fowler was harsh on him, but if he wasn't then Hank would drift.
"I've had just enough of your bitching. Either you do your job or you hand in your badge. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do." Hank left in a strop, letting out his frustration on Fowler's office door.
"Well then..." Connor was quick to break the tense silence. His voice caught me off guard, it was smoother, more human than any android's I had heard before. The SQ800's voices had always been more robotic than other models so it had been a shock when the androids back home had sounded so normal, it felt like that all over again. It was jarring. "I won't keep you any longer. Have a nice day captain."
Connor left and I followed behind, giving a small nod of dismissal to Fowler despite him still looking at his terminal screen.
The android went straight to Hank either oblivious or ignoring the lieutenant's current bad mood, granted there was never a time the bastard was in a good mood. Heaven itself could rain down on Detroit and he'd huff at it like a hair in his food.
"I got the impression my presence causes you some inconvenience, Lieutenant. I'd like you to know I'm very sorry about that. In any case, I'd like you to know I'm very to be working with you." Ever the enthusiast.
"I'd give in now. You're talking to a toddler in a fifty-year old's body and the toddler is having a hissy fit." I half sat and half leant against Hank's desk, using my arms to support my weight.
"Apologies, I don't believe I've introduced myself. My name is Connor, I am the android sent by CyberLife." He turned to me, a gentle and manufactured smile on his face. "It's a pleasure to be working with you too, officer (L/N). I'm sure we'll make a great team."
"Er... (Y/N) is just fine."
"Is there a desk anywhere I could use?"
"No one's using that one." Hank points to the desk opposite him, while still sulking like a child.
"Gasp, it speaks," I said in a sarcastic tone while turning to Hank.
"Fuck off. I've already got an android on my ass, I don't need you on it too."
I grabbed a terminal pad before perching myself back at the edge of Hank's desk while Connor got comfortable at the empty one. The light at the side of his head flashing yellow for a moment like he was hesitant to speak."You have a dog, right?"
"How do you know that?"
"The dog hairs on your chair. I like dogs. What's your dog's name?"
"What's it to you?" Hank shifted in his seat, "...Sumo... I call him Sumo."
"Under all those shitty shirts and questionable stains there's a warm, beating heart," I say more to myself than the other two, skimming over the recent case files sent in by Fowler.
"Officer (L/N)... (Y/N), knowing that we'd be working together I read your academy and field records. You have quite an interesting background."
"Oh yeah, then you understand that I may be a little driven to get these cases over with. I can't say I'm a fan of you terminators."
"I understand you have a... warped view of androids due to what you've experienced, but I hope you understand that I am your partner and not your enemy."
"Connor, you're not my partner, you're cyberlife's latest gizmo for us kick around." I sigh, turning to sit at my desk adjacent to hanks, taking the terminal pad with me. "Just look through the deviant case files. Terminals on your desk, knock yourself out."
They're nothing but machines. They are not your friends.
"Two-hundred and forty-three files, the first date back nine months. It all started in Detroit... And quickly spread across the country." Connor had only connected the terminal moments before.
"Don't work your CPU too hard," I mutter under my breath, catching a quick huff of amusement from Hank.
"An AX400 is reported to have murdered a man last night. That could be a good starting point for our investigation." Hank was doing his best to pretend Connor didn't exist, but the android was persistent. Connor stood from his chair and made his way into Hank's personal space.
"Uh, Jesus..." Hank turned his chair away.
"I understand you're facing personal issues, Lieutenant, but you need to move past them and-" For an android, Connor has some balls on him.
"Hey! Don't talk to me like you know me. I'm not your friend and I don't need your advice, okay?" Hank's mood had soured like milk, it wouldn't be long until Fowler was adding another page to Hank's disciplinary folder.
"I've been assigned this mission Lieutenant, I didn't come here to wait until you feel like working."
"Connor, you're just gonna-" I had wasted my breath, Hank had already stood and was grabbing onto Connor by the collar of his Cyberlife jacket and slamming against the screen next to his desk. "Hank!"
"Listen asshole. If it were up to me, I'd rather throw the lot of you in a dumpster and set a match to it. So, stop pissing me off... or things are gonna get nasty."
"Hank," I placed a hand on his shoulder to try and lightly pull him away from Connor but only earned a nasty side-eye. "Leave off him, you don't get paid enough to replace him."
"Lieutenant... Officer (L/N), uh... sorry to disturb you," Looks like the tin can was saved before Hank could knock the light out of him, "I have some information on the AX400 that killed that guy last night. It's been sighted in the Ravendale district."
"I'm on it." Hank didn't glance back when he dropped Connor's collar. The puppy dog look on his face almost made me feel bad for him... almost.
"Come on, WALL-E. Don't want to keep the old man waiting."
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thefanficmonster · 4 years ago
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My Kind
Corpse Husband x Reader (Female)
Warning: Swearing
Genre: Fluff, RPF (Real Person Fic)
Summary: Having been chosen by the gang to be a guest streamer on today’s stream of Among Us, it’s safe to say Y/N’s super excited but also a bit nervous. The whole of her anxiety gets lifted off her when she meets someone with the exact same vibe as hers - yeah you guessed it.
Requested by @monizzle96 Hi dear! Thank you so much for your wonderful request! I’m so terribly sorry it’s taken me so long to write and post it but here it finally is! I hope you come across it and read it and if so I hope you enjoy it! Love, Vy ❤
This has to be the fiftieth time I’ve checked my setup in the past twenty four hours. But no, I’m definitely not nervous, what are you talking about. Pshhh. Nah, being nervous isn’t in my brand. Plus, what do I have to make me nervous - a group of famous streamers inviting me onto their stream to play Among Us with them because they enjoyed my own streams? Ok yeah, that’s a pretty good reason. Not gonna lie, I almost chucked my phone out of excitement when I received that DM from Toast, telling me they’d picked me to be their guest streamer for today’s date. My stomach was doing somersaults for a good forty-eight hours following that text and then the anxiety slowly started setting in fueled by the expectations they probably have of me.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not inexperienced in the streaming field, I’ve been a streamer longer than some of the members of Toast’s streamer gang actually. But I never managed to garner that big of a following which I’m honestly quite ok with. I have a modest - ok, maybe larger than modest - following consisting of incredibly loyal fans which I will never stop being grateful for. They are all so respectable of me, my privacy and my boundaries. They know the main rules: no shit-talking in the chat or in any of my comment sections, no bashing other YouTubers in my comments/chat, and most definitely not asking for a face reveal. Fun fact: I didn’t even set up that last rule, they all just collectively know not to ask for it. 
I’ve been keeping my brand pretty low-key to avoid garnering some unwanted attention - some of which I’ve already experienced on certain social media platforms following the full body pictures I posted on there - face not visible of course. I tend to also have my webcam on, facing towards my hands working away on the keyboard sometimes when I stream. I don’t know why people obsess over faceless content creators’ hands, but I appreciate the enthusiasm - it also drives me to do a manicure every now and then which ain’t so bad, self-care and all that you know.
Now, back to the subject of my ridiculous nervousness.
You see, it has layers.
I’m nervous of ‘preforming’ underwhelmingly and I’m nervous of what my own fans will think of the person I will become during this stream. They know me as a super chill and laid-back person, which I am by the way, but they might think I’m putting on a show if I exhibit any nervous gestures/vocabulary. I highly doubt they would, but the possibility is not letting my mind rest. And now that it’s about ten minutes till the stream starts, I’m getting doing my best to calm my nerves.
They are all just people. You know they are super chill too. Just be yourself, that’s why they invited you, because you are yourself on all your streams. They liked you for your personality, humor, maybe even your gaming skills. So chill the hell out and be yourself, damn it!
Easier thought than put into action that’s for sure.
I start my stream five minutes early just so I can vibe with my viewers for a little while before I have to meet the gang. My fans always have a way of injecting me with confidence, they remind me of where I was when I started and how far I’ve come. How much I achieved when I thought I’d be nothing and no one, someone the algorithm would simply overlook. But then they entered my life and I entered theirs and it all became much better than I ever thought it would get to be. I rarely tell myself ‘good job’ for the milestones I’ve reached or the hard work I’ve put into my content, but that’s probably cause I orient myself based on that quote from the movie Whiplash: ‘There are no two words in the English language more harmful than good job’ - simply put, I’m never satisfied with what I do and I always strive to do better. My fans, however, make sure I don’t go overboard with it - always serving as a reminder that I’ve done plenty for myself and others. And that’s what makes an amazing fandom, one I consider family.
Whoa, when did those five minutes fly by?!
Ah shit, here we go. Deep breaths, Y/N you got this.
“Hello!“ I say as I enter the Discord call, subconsciously biting my lower lip, grateful the camera isn’t capturing it. However, I make a mental note to keep my hands steady cause that’s the one part of me people can actually see and the last thing I want is for them to see how much my fingers are trembling.
“Oh hi, Y/N!“ Toast is the first one to greet me, “Welcome to the stream! Thank you so much for accepting our invitation.“
“Thank you for having me and inviting me, Toast. This is a huge deal for me. You guys are basically YouTube legends, this is unreal to me.“ I reply, cringing immediately afterwards because of my fangirl rambling. Great way to make first impressions, Y/N. Bravo.
To be fair, they already have an impression of you. Quit stressing.
Aright, you’ve got a point, me.
“Oh please, we owe all that to our fans. We’re really nothing special. All streamers are almost completely alike, we all owe where we are to the people who helped us make it there - our fans. We’re no legends.“ Toast says, bringing a small smile to my face as well as a light pink blush to my cheeks, “And from what I’ve seen, you yourself have quite the following. And your fans seem to adore you.“
“And I absolutely adore them.“ I chuckle, “They mean the world to me. They are the reason I’m here today.”
“Then we have to give them a special thank you, don’t you think?“ The teasing, familiar giggle, widens my smile - it’s Rae, “Nice to meet you, Y/N! I’m Rae, and, no cap, I’m quite a fan of your content. No joke, I binged your entire series of Resident Evil 7 as soon as I found your channel when Toast said he’d invite you.“
This rattles me a bit. I can hardly believe it - am I really receiving a compliment from an A-list name in the streaming world? My fans must be hella proud of me right now. A quick glance at my chat confirms that they indeed are. That in and of itself fills me with joy and newfound confidence.
“Oh Gosh, thank you so much Rae! That means the world to me. You’re all so sweet.“ I reply, lifting my ice cold hands to cool down my burning cheeks, my lips spread into a grin, my stomach filled with butterflies.
“Oh please, we have some real savages around here.“ A male voice, seemingly Charlie’s scoffs, “Don’t overlook us please.“
“Wait, we do?“ A deep voice, one I immediately know the owner of speaks up, “Who? How come I don’t know about that?“
I can’t help bust snort, “Nice to meet you, Corpse. Sarcasm central, I see.”
He laughs, “Just returning it to where it’s due. Nice to meet you too, Y/N. Sick Outlast series, by the way.“
Ok, wait, I have two A-list streamers complimenting my content. Ok, I’m bound to crack open a few beers to celebrate later cause OH MY GOD.
“Thanks! I’m a horror junkie so I’d be lying if I said I haven’t binge watched all your story-times. Personal favorites are the deep web ones, they fascinate me.“
“Oh, you’re one of my kind even more than I expected, huh?“ He replies, the tone of his voice changing, raising a bit due to what I can only describe as excitement and enthusiasm. “I’ve had people tell me it’s twisted, but I really like seeing the lengths to which the fucked up human mind can go to. Like, the shit I’ve read is insane! Some stories I didn’t narrate cause I would’ve probably had my video taken down, it was that messed up.“
My eyes widen, sharing the same excitement at the thought of digging deeper into this phenomenon, “Careful, Corpse, you’re walking a dangerous line of tempting me to deep-dive on Reddit in search of those exact stories.”
“No need.“ Corpse says, his tone now taking up a bit of a cocky note, “I still got them all saved, I can send them to you no problem.“
“Please do! I seriously gotta read them now. If I can’t sleep afterwards, I’m blaming you, Corpse. Just FYI.“ I say, giggling slightly, finding myself all but completely comfortable now. I wonder where all that anxiety went? 
“Blame fully taken. Given that I’m not much of a sleeper, I’ll keep you company whenever you think there’s a killer hiding in your closet or fear a red room pop-up will appear on your computer screen.“ He replies, chuckling.
“Um, that’s oddly specific.“ Charlie comments, “Been there yourself, buddy?”
“Perhaps.“ Corpse wheezes, getting a laugh out of me too, “I will neither confirm nor deny.“
“You know what, I’ll just private message you my number so if you see it call you at some ungodly hour, you don’t freak the fuck out. Sounds good?“ I ask, already prepping to type it out and send it to him. 
“Perfect. Wait...“ he pauses for a second, sounding puzzled for a second, “You don’t have mine.“
“Oh, do I not?“ I reply with a sinister tone - thought to answer the question, I of course don’t have his number.
“Oh, do you?“ He sasses me right back. “If so then you don’t need me to send it to you. Cool.“
Ah, shit
“Wait, no! I-I need to confirm it’s the correct one!“
Damn, never did I think I’d be complimented by some of the most important streamers on this platform, but to get a number of theirs too? That’s a whole another level that will take me time to process. But I’ll do that another time, right now, I have to kick these people’s butts in Among Us and later I have some deep web stories to read.
Turns out, all it takes to get comfortable in a new surrounding is someone of your kind. And Corpse is definitely one of my kind.
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tryingmyves · 3 years ago
Note
Hey Ves! I have a request for you! May you please do Shinsou, Todoroki, ( A character of your choice) who got hit by a quirk who turns them into a lil toddler and they’ve got the biggest crush on their female chubby/plus size classmate 🥺🥺💞 and when they turn back they confess to her💞
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hiiii @blossominglark ~ tysm for your request! i’ve haven’t written something like this yet, so i hope you enjoy! ✨
Shinso’s First Crush
PAIRING: Hitoshi Shinso x Y/N (female, plus sized)
c/w: toddler!Shinso, mostly fluff
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When you went to class this morning you thought it was just going to be a normal Monday, but the arrival of Mr. Aizawa with Eri and a small violet haired boy in tow announced that today would be different.
“Awh! Who’s this cutie?” Ochako asks, spotting the unfamiliar child first, “Did you make a new friend, Eri?”
“Don’t call me that!” the boy responds, his pudgy fists balling at his sides.
“There was a mishap last night while we were practicing Eri’s quirk,” Mr. Aizawa says, “She uh, rewound Shinso a little too far.”
Every eye in the classroom is now on the pint-sized Shinso, silence filling the room before a cacophony of reactions burst out all at once. Kaminari and Sero are laughing hysterically. Mina and Hakagure are fawning over how adorable little Shinsou is, while Midoriya is rushing to Eri from his desk to assure her that mistakes happen and no one is mad at her. Iida is questioning how to reverse the effects of Eri’s quirk, and even Bakugo looks amused at the announcement. You’re the only one who notices the quivering lip and watery eyes of tiny Shinso.
Since his introduction to your class you’ve been attempting to befriend him. He made it clear that he hadn’t transferred to the hero course to make friends, but you see passed his uncaring facade. He’s let other people’s comments of the possible malicious nature of his quirk effect his self perception. He is so used to people calling him a villain he can’t fathom he’ll ever be called a friend. And you are determined change that. You’ve made small progress towards your goal in the last month. He sits with you in the cafeteria and even accepted a few invitations to study with you and your group, but no significant progress. But now, seeing Shinso so vulnerable in front of your entire class makes you stand from your desk. Even if he isn’t “here to make friends” he needs one right now, so that’s what you are going to be.
You quickly walk to the front of the room and use your chubby frame to hide him from the overwhelming sight of the his classmates gawking at him. Lowering yourself to your knees so your plump face is level with his, you say, “hey, it’s alright Shinso. Everything’s going to be okay.” Subconsciously, your voice becomes softer and there’s a melodic tune to it. You know that the toddler in front of you is a member of your class and typically two months your senior, but right now he’s just a scared little boy. You can’t help but treat him like any other child.
He wipes at his nose with the back of his sleeve, sniffing back tears, “Y/N, they’re all staring at me. I… I don’t like it!” Shinso is mortified at his current state. He was so determined to do everything by himself to prove he belonged to be in the hero course, but now he’s been reduced to a helpless little kid. Worst of all, the kind, curvy and optimistic girl he’s been secretly crushing on the last month is now trying to console him. He’s normally so good at containing his emotions, but it seems Eri’s quirk has reversed his emotional maturity along with his age. Right now all he can manage to do is try to hide his face so no one can see his tears.
You extend your cushy arms outward, offering a hug and Shinso can’t help but rush into it. He feels so exposed right now but when you hold him against your plump body he feels a little safer. Like he’s wrapped up in a cocoon of you. He hopes he can just stay cloaked in you arms until his metamorphosis back to his old self is complete. However, that possibility is dashed by the arrival of All Might and a man you don’t recognize at the classroom door.
“Sorry we’re late, Aizawa. This is who I told you about on the phone.” All Might says, clapping a hand on the stranger’s shoulder. It turns out, among the countless connections All Might made as the Number One Pro Hero, is a hero who goes by TimeSkip, with the ability to fast forward time. In the hero world, he typically puts his quirk to use at the sights of natural climate disasters by accelerating the regrowth of the land so entire communities aren’t displaced. Luckily, he’s capable of aging or time skipping any living matter, not just plants. Mr. Aizawa had called All Might for help after the incident and was relived his colleague knew someone who could fix the current predicament. 
“Shinso, go with All Might and TimeSkip. They’re going to get you back to normal,” your teacher says.
But Shinso just burrows himself deeper into you, pressing himself up to your chest. You can tell that he doesn’t want to separate from your comforting embrace. You turn your head over your shoulder, “Mr. Aizawa, would it be alright if I went with Shinso?” You drop your voice so you won’t be overheard by your classmates, “For emotional support,” you say with a light nod to the weeping Shinso in your arms. He just gives you a nod. You whisper down into Shinso’s hair, “It’s okay, this is almost over.” You take his small hand in your own and lead him out of the classroom, using your large frame to keep him out of sight of the others. 
The pair of you follow All Might and his friend through the halls, eventually stopping in a vacant training room. TimeSkip explains how his quirk works to Shinso, who is still holding your hand and trying to hide behind one of your legs. With some gentle easing from you, Shinso finally lets go of you and takes TimeSkip’s hand instead. You stand in the hallway with your back to the door while Shinso is returned to his normal self. The hero had explained his clothes would not be growing with him, so it was best for you to wait outside. A few moments pass before the two heroes open the door and step out of the room. 
“He’s all set in there, Y/N.” All Might says, “I think he’s a bit embarrassed, maybe you can cheer him up before the two of you return to class.”
You nod, thanking both All Might and TimeSkip before stepping in to talk to Shinso. He’s wearing his uniform now and leaning back against the wall, head low, and face covered by the mess of his purple hair.
“Hey Shi-“
“Please don’t talk about it,” his voice is quiet and filled with humiliation.
“Oh, yeah. It’s no big deal,” you try to brush it off. You want to comfort him and tell him that he doesn’t have to be self conscious, but you know that will just make him feel worse. “I was just coming to see-“
He cuts you off again, “Y/N, I have to tell you something. When I first transferred into the hero course I told you I wasn’t here to make friends. But then you kept talking to me and trying to get to know me and you started inviting me to lunch and study groups. And I… started to think that having you as a friend wouldn’t be such a bad thing.”
He looks up at you now and takes a step closer, moving away from the wall. “And I realize I like you more than that. I love how soft and round you are, and that you always make sure everyone’s included. That you don’t make yourself smaller because you deserve to take up space. I think you’re beautiful and I am too scared to say it.”
He take a few more steps towards you, so there’s only a foot left between you, “But then when I was frozen there in front of the class you swooped in. And I didn’t hesitate to fall into your arms. I didn’t let my stupid brain get in the way… so I have to tell you now, before I think better of it…”
You can help but smile at the confession. You’ve thought Shinso was cute from the moment you met him, but decided he needed a friend before trying to be something more than that. You didn’t realize that Shinso was crushing on you too. “I thought you didn’t want to talk about it.”
Shinso lets out a light chuckle, finally letting a smile reach his lips. “I don’t. But I had to get it out before I changed my mind. It only would have made it worse.”
You take a small step forward, halving the distance between you. “I, uhm, like you too you know.”
“Why would you want some lanky, closed off guy like me when your so curvy and beautiful?” Shinso breathes in disbelief.
“I guess I have a thing for tall guys,” you joke.
He just shakes his head at you, “Y/N, do you want to go on a date with me tomorrow night?”
You giggle and nod your head, holding out your arms the same way you did in the classroom, “I would love to,” you beam.
Shinso steps forward, enveloping you in a hug. Despite your plus size frame, he easily lifts your feet off the ground for a moment before gently setting you back down.
“I’ll pick you up at eight, okay? And… thank you for helping me today.”
“That’s what friends do,” you assure, excited at the possibility of becoming something more.
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auncyen · 3 years ago
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I kind of wish p5r was a little clearer about the nature of the dead brought back in third semester. I mean, I personally believe that the dead of the third semester aren't meant to be seen as "real", especially for the sake of any moral/ethical dilemma. Maruki is opposed to wishes he sees as selfish but never tries to fling "you're denying people the chance to live" at the PT, which is pretty important because the most clear-cut ethic of the PT is not killing, which seems like it should set off a lot of handwringing about "okay, this person was dead but they're alive right now, and they'll go back to being dead if we force Maruki to stop, so..." This is why I don't think Sumire can really be called selfish for not wishing Kasumi back, because that would mean she had to think it would be the real Kasumi actually resurrected and not just like, an extremely realistic memory of her sourced from group cognition. Unless Sumire believes the real Kasumi would be brought back to life, wishing for her back is just as much running away from her death as wishing to be her, and one isn't actually better than the other.
Haru's third awakening in particular paints the dead as not being real. "No matter how important he was to me, he's gone now, and I cannot bring him back. Surely, if... if I could just rewrite the past for my own benefit, it would be terribly selfish." This seems to be saying that she doesn't consider Maruki's reality to really have brought her father back, or benefitted him; it was just comforting herself. By Haru's POV, Sumire wishing Kasumi back would be selfish anyway--although Haru probably wouldn't judge Sumire as harshly as she does herself.
Futaba's third awakening though is a little more confusing on the matter. She seems to be agreeing with Haru at first: "I know this isn't real. I figured that out a while ago. But I thought...if I got to see my mom again, then it was okay..." Again, saying it's not real, and focusing on the benefit to herself rather than saying anything about her mother getting to live again.
But then... "So like... Dr. Maruki's reality isn't totally one hundred percent illusion, right? [...] So...that means I really did get to see my mom again."
BUT THEN... "I mean, I know now that this is all in my head." And she finishes by thinking about how she'd want her mom to feel proud of her, and doesn't seem to be thinking "well, and she'd like to be alive again", so yeah. In the end the dead seem to me to be extremely realistic, but not actually the dead getting to live again. But there are definitely lines that are like "are you sure about that?"
(And then Akechi is an extremely weird case where Ren doesn't know what's going on, and Akechi doesn't know what's going on, and even Maruki may not know what's going on because it's confusing how he even knows about the engine room events anyway; if he knows just from Ren's subconscious wish, his knowledge might end where Ren's does if he couldn't glean anything else from Mementos, leaving Maruki to deal with "this teenager either died or survived in some way where he hasn't made contact with ANYONE in the mass cognition for days if not weeks, the latter of which is concerning for what the hell is he going back to if my reality gets undone".)
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maddieinwonder · 4 years ago
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A Lesson In Romance #3: The Cast
Spencer Reid x Fem!BAU!Reader
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Genre: Fluff
Warnings: None
Word Count: 1.5k
Plot: Reader keeps getting caught in rom-com situations with Spencer Reid. This time, the team figures it out.
A/N: I'm guilty of writing too much Morgan and Garcia but I can't help it — they're so much fun! I think them plus Emily would have the most dramatic reactions to Spencer in a (potential) relationship, though I'm excited to write about the rest too.
(Also, the reference at the end is from Lord of the Rings, because I love Lord of the Rings.)
Masterlist | All chapters here!
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If you've learned anything from rom-coms, it's that every romantic lead needed a supporting cast. Whether they were siblings, parents, or childhood best friends, the main character needed somebody who would drop everything to talk to them — preferably showing up at their doorstep with face masks, nail polish, and a bottle of wine.
In your life right now, you suppose those people would be your teammates from the BAU.
Of course, this hypothetical scenario didn't require your potential love interest to be from work, but let's say for the purposes of the discussion that they were. Then you hoped, at least, that they would have an IQ of 150 or higher and a propensity for wearing mismatched socks.
But you were getting ahead of yourself. You were simply imagining the hypothetical scenario where your life was a rom-com. Hypothetically, you would need a love interest, and hypothetically, you kind of already had one.
“Hey,” Spencer waved you over from across the coffee shop. It wasn’t difficult to spot him when the place was nearly vacant. Everything was slow and quiet this early in the morning, and you weren’t going to make an exception.
“Morning,” you greeted softly as you sat down, relaxing into the smell of freshly roasted coffee and baked goods.
“I already ordered yours.” He smiled, tucking his book away in his messenger bag. “They had bagels this morning. Yours is cream cheese, but mine is strawberry jelly.” He looked overly pleased with himself, and you couldn’t help but crack a sleepy smile.
You eyed the spread in front of you, before lifting your gaze to meet his. “So your theory that you can predict my taste in desserts seems to be getting better.”
"Yes!" He shout-whispered, silently raising his fists in victory. “I knew I was right.”
You giggled at his overexcitement over something as small as getting your dessert order right. Although, he did once spend ten whole minutes explaining to you why dessert for breakfast was an underrated concept, so you couldn't say this was beyond your expectations for Dr. Spencer Reid.
You propped your head up with your arms, a smile plastered over your face. “Have I ever told you that you’re a weirdo, doctor?” You teased.
“Why, yes. Yes you have.” He replied with a smile, gesturing at you to try the bagel. His own was almost-gone, so they must be good.
And it was. Your eyes fluttered shut as the heavenly combination of carbs and cream woke up your taste buds. It was made even better with a sip of the perfect cup of coffee.
"Perfect," you sighed happily, digging into your breakfast further as Spencer quietly caught you up on the latest news in classical art.
Two weeks ago, you wouldn't have guessed that you would talk to Spencer alone, much less spend your mornings together with him. But as it turned out, a lot could change in a few days.
After the initial awkwardness between you had passed, you found that the two of you shared a lot more interests than interdimensional doctors and space opera. You both loved coffee, obviously, but you also had a mutual love for desserts, classical literature, and history.
It didn't take long for these interests to seep into the weekend, resulting in a suspiciously date-like afternoon with Spencer at his favourite museum. But you tried not to think too much into it. After all, the day had ended with a "see you at work", and not a "would you like to come in?"
Still, your dance between friendship and something more continued to grow wilder as days passed, until it reached a point where it inhabited your every waking thought. The only time it didn't, ironically, was when you were spending time with the person in question and every stray thought seemed to fall away.
Your mornings with him brought a necessary reprieve to the dark realities of this job, and some days you almost had to drag yourself out of your seat, knowing that you were straying from the calm of his company straight into the lion's mouth. But duty always called.
Your sudden hesitance to be apart from the resident genius hadn't gone unnoticed by the rest of your team either; ever since the two of you walked into office one morning with matching coffee cups and smiles on your faces.
At first you enjoyed Spencer's company too much to care, but you knew that it was going to bite you back one day. And today seemed to be that day.
You could tell, because the lift doors to the BAU opened to one very determined Penelope Garcia with her arms folded across her chest. "Spit it out, you two," she said sharply without any greeting.
You and Spencer looked at each other, confused, before looking back at Penelope. "Spit out what, Pen?" You asked, a frown starting to form between your eyes.
"You know what I mean!" She squeaked, dropping her stern facade for a brief moment. "Are the two of you dating? The entire team has been dying to know, and I mean, d-y-i-n-g because there's a huge pot of money with my name on it if you are."
"Ah— No— I mean, you think—" Spencer stammered, his face instantly turning beet red in embarrassment, while your face began to grow red for another reason entirely.
"I think what he means is 'no', and what I mean to say is— what do you mean the entire team?" You half-yelled the question, while Penelope raised her hands defensively.
"What I mean, sugar, is that the two of you went from avoiding each other completely, to coming into work together everyday — and I know you spent last weekend together too, because you couldn't stop talking about it the next day at work and everybody noticed." She stated, pushing up her glasses.
"Not to mention, Dr. Reid here started wearing brighter colours subconsciously." She continued with her observations. "I know this, because in the almost four years I've worked with this man, I've never seen him wear anything brighter than violet. Or white. Or beige. But those don't count." She shook her head, getting back to her point.
"You get what I mean— and you," she pointed her pen in your direction, causing you to jump slightly. "You finally stopped doubting yourself as a part of this team. I knew this when you started talking more often during briefings — which I have nothing against, B-T-W, I totally support any effort in self-care and personal growth — but you also stopped shifting in your seat which you used to do when you felt nervous."
Penelope took a deep breath, preparing for the climax. "So all I can assume, is either you've been attending one of the 52 self-help classes that happen every weekend in Virginia, or somebody has been helping you find some serious zen."
"And my money's on the latter because every time you think nobody's watching, you're making eyes at Reid. But you're wrong. Garcia is always watching." She concluded triumphantly, raising one finger to point at herself.
"You might make a good profiler yet, doll." Derek remarked, walking up to the group with a smirk firmly affixed to his face.
"Expert at all things romance, and Cupid of the Behavioural Analysis Unit, Penelope Garcia at your service." She smiled, graciously curtseying to your other teammate.
"I know you're smart like that, babygirl," he grinned, draping his arm around her shoulder, "but you also don't know pretty boy as well as I do, because they aren't in a relationship."
He turned to you questioningly. "Are you?"
"No." You replied, glancing hesitantly at Spencer for his response, but his face simply looked blank with shock.
"See? Now it's time to collect my payout." Derek grinned at the tech analyst, making the motion of raining dollar bills.
Penelope tailed behind him grumpily as he walked into the BAU office, surely to share the "good news" with everybody else.
You hesitated to follow, imagining what teasing and looks would follow regardless of the outcome. Then you felt a tap on your shoulder. Turning around, Spencer gestured back at the empty lift with his head and you smiled, realising what he meant.
"That is the best hypothesis you've had all morning," you said. The two of you shared a laugh as you got back into the lift.
Even behind glass doors, you could hear a muffled "What?!" that you guessed came from Emily. "There's absolutely no way those two aren't together already. Have you seen them?"
There was a brief pause, then a loud groan.
"I know, that's what I told him!" Penelope's high-pitched voice was clear. "You know I'm going to be right about them eventually—"
The lift doors finally closed, blocking out the rest of their conversation. You looked up at Spencer, your gaze meeting his clear hazel eyes. He looked at his watch briefly before saying the next words.
"We've got time. Are you up for second breakfast?" He asked, referencing a movie from a conversation two weeks ago. He remembered. Of course he remembered.
You cleared your throat before replying the next line. "What about elevenses? Luncheon? Afternoon tea? Dinner? Supper?"
He laughed, and you felt a familiar peace return to you.
Whatever your teammates were yelling about, the two of you could deal with it later. Together.
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Tag list:
@blue-space-porgs @nobutalsoyes @lady-loves-a-lot
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reach-her-eyes · 2 years ago
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Reach Her Eyes
Chapter Nineteen - It feels like signing your life away.
Mentions Nomus and fighting? And like... mild sexual tension if you squint.
Taglist: @mirayasimpinghard
The way he grabbed your face would have been hilarious in any other situation. Your cheeks were squished in, lips pursed against his slowly heating palm. Blinking up at him you watched his eyes fall into a squint before he spoke, each word punctuated with a light squeeze of his fingers. "Keep your voice down." He shoved you back, letting your face go in the process.
Your face felt tingly, but you shook it off before following him again. "What do you mean he was captured? What happened? Are we going to get him out?"
Dabi groans slightly. "We aren't going to be able to get him back from a high security prison, Newbie. We would lose more people trying to do that."
You frowned. "Yeah, I guess that's true…” You thought to yourself a moment before speaking again. “ So what even happened?"
He shrugged. "He went out looking for something. And got caught."
You looked at him and sighed. "Could you stop withholding information from me? What was he looking for?"
Dabi smirked. "Where's the fun in that?" You groan and his smirk widens. "He was apparently looking for some sort of 'power' All For One left behind for the boss. We aren't sure what he was talking about or what it was. According to reports, he was seen and people called it in. They tracked him down before he finished what he was doing. We didn't have time to stop it."
You watch your feet. "That… really puts a damper on things."
He nods. "So we are walking."
You laugh a bit. "I can see that."
Walking with him to the Doctor was much less tense now that the silence had been broken. You both were still on edge from your previous encounter with each other. You knew you overstepped a boundary with him, and while you typically like to respect peoples boundaries, you also knew he would have fought them right then and there if you hadn’t. You two avoided the topic all together, but with the ice finally cracked, it felt more comfortable now than it did in the beginning.
As much as you hated to admit it, you couldn’t say you didn’t miss the closeness. Or that you didn’t enjoy watching him study your face. Or the way his body seemed to subconsciously melt into yours. You knew from watching him with the group that he never really engaged in any kind of physical contact. Hell, if he could he would avoid even brushing up against someone. So it was interesting to see him seem so touch starved, if only for a moment in a dirty alleyway.
Even though you still felt like you were biting back words that were trying to force their way out of your throat, you didn't feel like you were completely walking on eggshells anymore. That was enough for now.
~~~
Dabis little warning of don't wander off started to hit a little differently when you took a good look around the Doctor's 'office'. 
The comment had bothered you at first. The patronizing undertones rubbing you the wrong way. All while it made you feel like you were bothering him. That by just being there you were a burden to him, even though you didn’t really have a choice.
Then with the sight of those creatures in the tubes, you were beginning to convince yourself that it was his way of looking out for you. But logically, he probably just didn’t want to deal with the repercussions if you were to become a new experiment.
You took your time following him over the wires that blanketed the floor. Each clump grouped together running not only to each individual tube, but seemingly into other rooms. Fully aware that the room held a suffocating amount of unsettling energy, you tried not to spook yourself further by thinking of what the other rooms could be holding behind their walls.
The dim lighting did wonders highlighting the doctor's creations, while concealing himself just enough to set you on edge. You kept glancing at Dabi, trying to gauge his reactions, hoping to find some direction on how to carry yourself, only to be met with his usual composure of indifference. There was a moment of time before the doctor spoke, that only proved to intensify the almost grotesque sounds that the incubation tubes made. Each one sounded like an aquarium that was powered by much more tech savvy machines then you could really understand.
You knew from Fox that the Doctor was one man who had some unusual skills and a knack for the more unethical side of medicine, but nothing you had come up with in your mind at the time would ever compare to this. These creations… they looked to be human. At least, at one point they were. It took a second for that unsettled feeling to leave you but once it did, you started to take them all in for what they were. You could see that some of the creatures were still closer to humans than others, leaving you to believe they were newer to his collection. Their bodies looked to be mangled in a way, like they couldn’t really handle what they were being put through for transformation. And while you weren’t usually one to dwell on whether someone deserved what they got or not, something tells you these people may not have deserved this fate.
“I see you are admiring my work.” The voice pulls you from your thoughts abruptly. You focus on keeping yourself from seeming jumpy and let your eyes slide to make contact with him.
“Not something I can say I have seen before. It’s intriguing to see the clear changes over time.”
He nods, the grin barely being held back from looking like a child being praised for a drawing they had completed. “They are original works from All For One and I. I would be more surprised if you had said you had seen something even remotely similar. Though they were mostly started around the same time, some are just… processing slower than others.” You hum, taking a few small steps closer to what appears to a slower one, nodding to Dabi. The doctor shifts his attention to him, “Shigaraki mentioned you would be coming. He said you had something for me?”
You let their conversation slip from your attention, choosing instead to focus on the creatures.
All of them held a more sturdy physique, and some of them held an odd air of familiarity to them. You took your time looking over them. You weren’t sure how exactly they were created but from what little you had learned about their abilities from previous uses, and their now confirmed ties to All For One, you could assume these were far more complex than the ones you had heard about previously.  
You let yourself picture them moving, fighting, trying to focus on what powers they could possibly have that would be necessary for Shigaraki’s advancements through the villain world. All of it left you feeling uneasy. Sure you loved Fox, and yeah you always said you would do anything for her, but you were starting to think that maybe you guys were in a little too deep and were in too far over your heads. This was a bit of a slap in the face and you weren’t seeing how this whole thing would end up being anything but a suicide mission when apparently creatures of this nature were going to be needed.
You made it over to the last of the twelve chambers before Dabi made himself known beside you. “Newbie. Let’s go.”
Your skin, which was already sporting that cold and clammy feeling, raised with goosebumps at the tone of his voice. Something had changed during their conversation, and while you had noticed them slip out of the room for a bit, you didn’t think he would come back so hostile. You took in your surroundings and gave him a court nod before following him back the way you came.
From his body language and the look on his face you could tell there was something he was mulling over in his head. He didn't seem like the type to want to talk about it but you had some questions about the creatures and just hoped that wouldn't set him off.
"Hey… Dabi?" He only gave you a short grunt in response so you continued. "I uh… it's not really my place but what… were those things? And where was the twelfth one?"
He rolled his neck a bit before glancing at you. "They are high end nomus. He has activated one of them, and once it has stabilized he wants me to test it out."
Huh. At least he was giving you more information at a time now.
You try to think of why that could have possibly made him seem this uncomfortable but came up short. "I see. Is that a problem for you?"
Maybe it was the subtle challenge you offered or maybe it was the fact that the conversation proved a decent distraction but as you watched the smirk return to his face you couldn't be bothered to care. He spoke much more freely now, with a certain glee he was lacking before. "Oh no, Newbie. It won't be a problem. I can promise that."
~~~
It wasn’t going to be long before the high end was considered stable and Dabi was going to be sent to return to the Doctor and test it out. Since you had returned to the hideout he seemed less on edge and more like he was hyping himself up for something. He stayed near Shigaraki, and they kept their conversation relatively hush-hush. While you know if you wanted to you could focus on their voices and hear everything they were saying, it just didn’t seem like it was anything you should really concern yourself with at this time. Instead of standing by and watching them, you went to find Fox, you had some questions for her anyway.
When Fox came into view she looked… frazzled at best. She was tucked away in a back area, and had set up shop on some crates. Her hair looked like she had put her hands into it with much more frustration than usual, and her face seemed permanently contorted to show the stress she must be feeling. You almost felt bad when your voice startled her. “I was unaware that I was signing my life away with a group doomed to be killed off one by one.”
She took a second to look you over before swallowing thickly. “If it is any consolation, neither was I.”
You made your way to her then, observing the large spread of papers before her. They looked to be an assortment of maps, and printouts of pictures and information of what you could only hope was other villains. “What the fuck is going on then?”
She went to start scratching at her neck, something she had unfortunately picked up from Shigaraki in the past few weeks, only for you to swat her hand. “I… I’m not sure anymore. At least, I don’t think I am. Look, this started as him just wanting to take All Might down. And he did… Sort of I guess. But now it has evolved, which I knew it would, into changing the very way hero society is. I just… I didn’t realize just how he planned to do this. Y/n, I promise I didn’t think this was going to be how things were going to go.”
You watch as she spirals a bit, continuing to sift through the papers before sighing. “This is going to be a bloodbath, you know that right? One with us in the center of it all.”
She pauses, her eyes meeting yours. “I don’t see it going any other way anymore honestly.” You slump back against a crate, her frustration almost easing you a bit when she continues. “I heard Dabi is going to be testing one of the Doctor's creations soon. What… uh… what do you think of them?”
You wiggle your jaw. “Were they human?” Nothing but silence follows. “Thought so.” She ducks her head a bit, attempting to hide the shame. “They seem… interesting?” Your tone sounded full of discomfort even to you and when she snorted you took it as a good sign that she noticed. “I uh… I’m not sure I exactly agree with the way those things are created but if things go the way we think… they could be our best hope at some point.”
She sighs, one from deep within, that holds way more tension than it should. “So… You aren’t going to leave?”
You make a face, choosing to focus on the skin around your nails. “Truthfully, if I had half a mind I would but… Between you… and him… I don’t think I could if I wanted to.”
She stops all movement for a moment before taking her chance to really look at you. She seems to stare into your eyes a bit too long before offering you a half smile. “The soulmate bond is really starting to get to you huh?” You could only shift on your feet before she continued. “Look, I’m not sure if Shigaraki or Dabi want me to say anything, and truthfully, I probably shouldn’t… But Dabi is set to leave here in a bit to test out one of the new Nomus, and if it goes to plan he is taking it to some sort of trap set up by a recruit prospect he picked up after causing trouble in Musutafu a while back.”
You snap your head to her at that. “Musutafu huh? What kind of trap?”
She gives a look before sucking her teeth at you. “Dabi is good at what he does Y/n, he doesn’t need you to protect him just because you are around now.”
You squeeze your eyes shut and let out an overly slow breath. “Fox. I really need you to tell me where he is going.” You weren’t sure if it was your tone, which admittedly didn’t leave much room for argument, or if it was the small rise in temperature that caused her to stutter out the location.
~~~
Fukuoka wasn’t really a place you would have had in mind when you thought of testing out a man made weapon of this nature, but if it got the job done you guess it couldn't be too bad. You could see the appeal to pick that spot if you were wanting to make a huge impact with an attack. The city had a large population, large buildings bound to be full of people, shopping malls that were also packed, and was pretty common among residents and foreigners alike. An attack of any kind in that city was almost guaranteed to pull a huge coverage with not only the people but the media. Now that you think about it, that could be exactly what Dabi and the Doctor were wanting.
By the time you made it to Fukuoka you were unhappy to say the least. Anger had clouded your judgment and while you seemed to make it here in an almost record time, you had no idea where in the city this was all going to take place because you didn’t ask that particular question. Sure, you would probably have a pretty accurate idea once things popped off but you weren’t exactly here to watch the action. No, you were here for one reason and one reason only. To see just who was worth the League going to this extent to recruit. To see just who was inadvertently the reason your sister was harmed. Boy were you hoping they were worth it.
You heard the emergency broadcast before you got close enough to hear the screams of terror. Quickly finding it much easier to navigate the chaos from the rooftops you chose to stay off the ground till you could find Dabi. Once you got close enough to see the damage that was spreading you stopped moving closer. You weren’t really wanting to get involved but the nice view point from your vantage spot made it convenient to get the information you wanted without being spotted. You watched the buildings around the Nomu slowly become more destroyed, every large hit and fire blast making you wince.
You can’t say you were shocked to see the new Number One taking this head on. But you also can’t say you weren’t pleased to watch him struggle to do so. The High End that was currently wreaking havoc was definitely giving that man a run for his money, and with each new quirk the Nomu seemed to show, the moment of shock on Endeavors face alone was almost worth making this trip.
The heat in the area was intense, causing the whole fight to feel more like a blur. You tried to keep track of what quirks the High End showed off, but you started to lose track after five or so. 
It seemed to have some sort of storage quirk, but you only saw it be used for the smaller weaker nomus he released from his body, so maybe it was only a cloning type of quirk? You couldn’t be sure, and the smaller numos looked to have been taken down by other nearby heroes.
What did come as a small surprise to you was to see the Number Two hero present. Sure the guy was conventionally pretty, and truthfully decently skilled, you just weren’t sure with his attitude how he really made it to the spot he was in. Guess that's why he seems so close to Endeavor. 
With the High Ends ever evolving fighting style, he took to the sky as well with what you could only make out as small jets from his back somewhere. It was interesting to see what looked to be an internal struggle for the creature to figure out how to use all the things he was now equipped with. It took some trials and a bit of error but he seemed to be bringing some other quirks into play to keep himself in the fight. You could only really make out his arms changing shape and a regeneration quirk taking place through the hits.
It took a bit longer than you thought it would for both Endeavor and Hawks to start to figure out a decent strategy to take the nomu down, and once they started to overtake the fight, the nomu became almost feral. It made you a little sick to see how backed in the corner this nomu felt, and knowing this was the end for somebody whose body was forcibly taken and used for this, you stood to take your leave. You made your way to the other side of the building, realizing you had ended up following the fight much further in than you had hoped, letting the final blows be done without your attention.
The cheers from the civilians hadn’t even reached their peak when the heat quickly rose to a much more familiar level. Dabi. You all but sprinted back towards the vantage point you had. What could he possibly be doing down there? The fight was over, and you were sure the High End would have been toast by now so he couldn’t have been trying to salvage it right? You watched him draw a ring of fire, effectively caging the two heroes in with him. Even with Endeavors injuries, and Hawks down quite a few feathers, you knew that they wouldn’t go down easy. You almost wish you had chosen a ground point for this, maybe then you could hear what was going on.
Dabi only sent a few attacks before Mirko arrived, which appeared perfectly timed with the appearance of the black liquid. Even so, Dabi’s scream of “Todoroki Enji” was enough to tell you that his qualms with the hero were much more personal than you had originally thought.
~~~
Sometimes, you hated your mothers quirk. Vampirism essentially branded you evil from a young age. But right now, you thanked whatever gods were listening that you could use it to find Dabi now that he had been pulled from the scene. You knew from previous jobs that Dabi had a tendency to linger in the area more than most villains would dare. Almost like the man had a bit of regret in his 'wrong' doings and wanted to make sure things were taken care of before leaving. So you made your way towards the edge of the city. If you remember right there was a neighboring city that harbored quite a few construction sites and abandoned buildings. You should start your search there.
You would think that a man as wanted as Dabi would do better about watching his back, but with a long range quirk like his, his confidence and lack of care was almost justified. It was similar to childsplay finding him, and somehow easier to follow the man to wherever he was going. You kept yourself hidden by staying toward the tops of the alleyways and buildings, doing your absolute best on keeping your footsteps and landings silent. All you could seem to think about was that you needed to work on your stamina because it was a lot harder to control your breathing than you remember it being. You had stopped to catch your breath and stretch a little bit when you watched Dabi slip into a nearby building.
You let out an exhausted sigh, “What is he even doing?”
You hopped down from your spot, slowly making your way around the building, finding a broken window to peak inside. It took every ounce of self control to hold back the gasp of betrayal when you watched Hawks come into view. You could feel the heat rise to the surface and did your best to breathe through it, you couldn’t afford to get seen just yet. Their conversation shocked you, and finding out Dabi was working with a hero, recruit or not, hit a nerve. So you waited. You watched as they both walked off their separate ways before taking off after Dabi.
You had followed him mostly out of the area before dropping down audibly behind him. “Shigaraki is aware you are working with a hero?”
His body had tensed, fire dancing on his fingertips when he spun around. The flames dissipated after one look at you. “You shouldn’t go poking around in other people's business, Newbie.”
You leaned against a wall, crossing your arms for comfort. “You didn’t answer my question Dabi.” His name slipped through with more venom than you had anticipated.
He took slow, calculated steps. Making his way towards you now. “Shigaraki is very aware. But I don’t see where you think you need to be.”
You scoff. “What? I can’t worry about our members?”
He chuckles, full of condescending doubt. “Oh, I really don’t think that is why you went through all this trouble. Tell me Newbie, you got an obsession brewing for me?” He stood before you now, looking down at you, like he knew everything.
You stood up straight, your crossed arms pressing against his chest. You leaned your head just enough forward to be unbearably close to his face before whispering. “I really really hope, your little recruit, was worth harming an innocent civilian Dabi. That's all I really care about.”
You wish you could have watched his eyes flicker over your face for a bit longer, but you needed to get back to base. It was almost laughable to watch him deflate when you walked away from him, but if you stood there any longer, you knew the two of you would never back down willingly.
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