#white helix labs

[sissybabycucksophia]

😨😨Not What I Expected Part 3😨😨

Having been outside the house dressed in, or rather “locked in” the demoralising purple dress and made over to look unrecognisable, The last thing i remember was passing out…

Gradually i began to open my eyes for a moment forgetting i’d had fake eyelashes put on and wondering why my eye lids were so heavy. As i opened my eyes I attempted to raise my right hand to my face to rub my forehead but found it unable to move… restrained in place. Trying to move my head to look down i found that it too was strapped back against the chair in which i was sat, as my eyes opened further i found that i was quite heavily restrained to a cushiless metal chair. As if the limited movement afforded to me by the tight purple dress wasn’t bad enough, straps held my wrists and elbows tight to the chairs arms, a strap was tight around my neck and forehead making it impossible too move my head. From there a strap went under each arm pit holding my shoulders tight in place, then directly beneath my fake boobs was a strap, with another round my waste, two over my thighs and two over my shins.

Whimpered i looked around to find i was in a sex dungeon of some kind, Fear filled my body like a paralysing nerve agent. How had I gotten myself into such a defenceless and humiliating position, and why was it all making me so horny! I could feel my caged penis rubbing against the inside of my frilly purple satin panties and moan softly trying to shimmy, tense and rub my caged penis as much as possible to orgasms through the cage. Maybe if i could orgasm i could shake the subspace i was in and be dominant and demanding enough to be heard and set free, or at least thats how i rationalised being so desperate to cum from such a degrading and humiliation experience. Though even if I weren’t caged, the movement the dress and chair afforded me was minuscule and nowhere near enough to encourage an orgasm, but dammed if my desperate ass wasn’t going to try.

So focused on trying to orgasm I’d forgotten just how serious and no longer a mere play session this whole thing had become! As i heard a door open behind me i would snap back to reality remembering that i had been injected with HRT by the man insisting i call him Master. Crashing back hard to reality i begun to scream like a scared little girl, “PLEASE!!! Stop this!!! Let me goooooooo!!! Im a man! I dont want this!!! Im begging you don’t do this to me!!!” I Cried out as tears welled up in my eyes and i felt the extremely long extensions which had been weaved into my hair tickle my cheeks as they hung down to my stomach. Eventually the door behind me would open and footsteps could be heard coming down the stairs… not just one set but two. Continuing their conversation as though I weren’t even there Master spoke with a female voice.

“So this one is just a naive and stupid failed man you’ve kidnapped from tumblr? What do you need me to do to him then?” The woman asked coldly and callously. As her and Master stopped behind me and were unable to be seen. At that i began to scream and beg for freedom again as loudly as i could. Putting all my strength into fighting for freedom from the dress, the bonds and the chair I managed to shift the chair until it became off balanced. Unfortunately at that the chair with tip and with a painful clatter and reverberation through the metal My full chair restrained self would his the cold concrete floor.

“Wilful and stupid little cow this one is he not Johnny?” The woman snorted as i caught a glimpse of her in my peripheral. She stood wearing a floor length black SKIMS bodycon dress, black 6” high heels, a pristine white knee length lab coat which she kept open. Her long jet black hair was slicked back into a high ponytail all except 2 neon pink face framing strands which came down from the front of her head and swept down each of her cheeks. She wore thin black framed glasses and in one ear work a black Helix piercing. By all accounts this woman was absolutely stunning, so much so I wanted to make a move on her, so much so I was making up pick up lines in my head.

That line of thought was shattered however as Johnny smashed his foot against the back of the chair directly behind my head. Being that my head was tightly restrained to the back of the chair it felt like Johnny had just booted me directly in the back of the head. Tears pouring down my face i went quiet as the pain shot through me. “Shut the fuck up sissy! Keep speaking out of turn during this consultation and i promise you’ll make it worse for yourself!” Johnny growled, as he then looked back at the Woman. “Well I’ve started this week little faggot on Hormone replacement therapy today, so naturally I’ll begin to see his body naturally feminise BUT I don’t want to wait, i need to shatter his masculinity and belief thats shes a man NOW! Thats where you and your work with all my other projects comes in~” Johnny said as he then effortlessly picked up the chair and me back upright and turned me to face the two of them. Tears streaming down my face I whimpered as I looked at the woman through watery eyes.

At that she stepped toward me, and began to trace her hands down my face. On her nails were long neon pink acrylic nails which tickled my cheeks. “I must say what a shame it is you’ve gotten your hands on him Johnny, intent on making him a girl… he’s kinda cute… well I mean in a Twink sorta way after all he’s hardly as handsome or manly as you… oh well~ you realise it wont be cheap but theres definitely things I can do to ruin his masculinity and give him some gender dysphoria” The woman said wickedly as I winced feeling my penis strain hard in the cage for freedom as she spoke about me as though I weren’t even there while looking directly at me.

“Gender dysphoria? Yes! Perfect! I want this ‘Man’ to look in the mirror, when i allow it of course, and only see a girl of my design and be humiliated, embarrassed and hate every second of it!” Johnny said with an evil smirk as he stepped closer and stared directly into my eyes. At that the woman looked to johnny and begun, “Well, firstly we’ll do some Permanent Laser hair removal so he’s completely bald from the ears down. Next I’m going to suggest shortening of his hamstrings, by shortening them enough we’ll force him to walk slower, take shorter steps and we can force him to take on a waddling gait which will make him sway his hips more effeminately when he walks. After that I suggest a gastric band be fitted to his stomach, I don’t imagine you’ll be over feeding him anyway Johnny but a band will shrink his appetite and should keep him from getting fat. After that i suggest lip fillers obviously, be harder for him to talk with some bimbo pillow lips oh and while I mention talking, I strongly suggest Vocal Feminisation surgery, by shortening, tightening and modifying his vocal cords we can bring the pitch of his voice up forcing him to sound more feminine with a high pitch voice. And finally just to complete his emasculating surgeries I suggest we shave down his adams apple, that way he should have a nice effeminate neck with no evidence of having been a man~” the woman replied to johnny as i sat in shock, my penis getting harder with every surgery on the list but my heart racing and brain screaming for freedom.

Looking at Johnny I begged like the week little girl he wanted me to see in the mirror, “Please master don’t do this to me, don’t make me have those surgeries! I’ll never leave and I promise I’ll never try just please… I’m a Ma…” with that i was interrupted by a slap across my face. Closing my eyes tightly with the stinging pain I didn’t see Johnny as he grabbed a role of thick black electrical tape and taped my mouth shut.

“What? So now that its all becoming real and not just some pathetic fantasy you can jerk your mirco penis too, now you don’t want it? Bullshit! Cry all you want, shoulda chose masters more carefully if you didn’t want to be held to your fantasies FAGGOT!” Johnny growled as I slowly opened my tear filled eyes to look at him. At that the Woman stepped forward, leaning in she seductively said in my ear, “such a shame you picked johnny to message sissy… I think your one adorable looking twink that i coulda had fun cucking. But you clearly have shown the kind of gay little sissy girl you are in your choice of manly man Johnny here as your master~”.

Before I could bring myself to respond, I found my mouth being forcefully filled with a thick black 8 inch dildo held in place by the panel gag it was attached to. Feeling the strap keeping my head back against the chair be removed, The woman would help johnny fasten the gag in my mouth. The audible sound of a padlock locking behind my head forced me to accept I was now to continue to gag and boak on this 8 inch dildo.

“Thats it faggot, sh’up and accept your place… now me and Rachel here are going to go discuss money and fuck like real men and women are allowed to… you sit here and come to the understanding that your MY property to do with as i please now!” Johnny said as he then covered my eyes with a purple fluffy, frilly and thick eyes mask which looked like it’d been hand picked to match the dress which i was still humiliatingly incased in. Once blind i tired to moan, beg and cry for freedom but all i was met with was johnnys hand grabbing him face and slamming my head back against the chair and the strap going back across my forehead once again completely immobilising me in this chair.

“Its clear your sissy needs time alone to take everything in, turn out the lights when we leave and we’ll go for dinner then we can have our usual fuck-fest once we’re back” Rachel said as i heard her footsteps on the stairs. “You always know just what to say Chel!” Johnny replied as he followed her up the stairs. Then i heard the flick of the light switch and before i knew it the room was pitch black and I heard the door slam shut followed by the sound of 3 separate locks.

So there i was…Fake extensions woven into my hair so i had long girly hair down to my belly buttom. A face plastered with over the top feminising make up. An 8 inch dildo gag locked in my mouth. A purple fluffy frilly padded mask over my eyes. Wearing fake breast padding, hip and ass padding. Forced to wear a hideously stupid purple frilly bra and pants set. All covered by the humiliating and unbearably pathetic purple long sleeve high necked mermaid fit purple maid outfit which was locked on me at 4 points. Wearing purple dolly flat shoes locked on my feet. Restrained to a metal chair by the Wrists, elbows, armpits, neck, forehead, ribs, waist, upper thighs, lower and upper knees, ankles and feet and sat in a kink dungeon in the pitch black behind a door locked at 3 different lock from the outside.

Worst of all, the most embarrassing and degrading thing of all…? I was so ungodly desperate to orgasm and so unbearably horny that all i could think about was getting the cage of too masturbate…. How pathetic am I?

[wisteriaiswriting]

𝔻𝕦𝕖𝕝𝕚𝕤𝕥 𝕙𝕖𝕒𝕕𝕔𝕒𝕟𝕠𝕟𝕤

Includes : If they smoke, vape, do blunts or none | Fav ice-cream flavours | Fav kissing places - giving and receiving | Height | Age | Extras

Words: 1029

Has smoked once a few years ago but it didn’t feel good so he won’t do it again, leaving him to vape every few days. Can survive without it tho

Not a huge ice-cream fan but will eat white chocolate + raspberry

24 years old

5’11 / 180cm

Receiving: He isn’t a huge fan of receiving kisses, but if he did receive them he would rather them on his hands and wrists. Giving: A fan of just off the lips, either above or right next to them. Finishing with one directly on them.

Used to be a hardcore vaper, slowing down before stopping. Still constantly smells like mint. (Very artificial)

Is very basic with anything sweet, so she gets vanilla bean each time.

She is one for anything extra, so when either receiving or giving she will try to embarrass you. Oh, you need to go somewhere, and without her? She is giving you loud and non-stop kisses at the door all over your face.

But even Jett needs to wind down, so give her a forehead kiss while stroking her hair back, she will be knocked out quickly.

5’4 / 164cm

22 years old

She will only vape at social events or around a few friends. (Mainly any younger agents who also vape or tolerate it.) Even then she can not handle vaping for a few days at a time. No matter the smell, will handle them like they’re not even there.

She loves her sweet treats as well, so she instantly turns to her all time favourite; Bubble gum. And will add just about every topping if she isn’t stopped. (Has become sick too many times from this, and keeps doing it.)

Loves giving nose kisses. She’ll run past a leave a quick peck before leaving, if there is enough time she’ll stay back and have penguin kisses. Is a fan of receiving butterfly kisses, they are simple and cute. (She is also very ticklish.)

5’2 / 160cm

19 years old (Making her the youngest agent)

Is most likely the clumsiest when it comes to making out. 90% of the time teeth will clash, but still staying passionate. If she gets confident her partner might get a small zap, along with the surrounding area. Will act confident but in reality, you’re her first.

Has two piercings, a silver industrial and a matching gold helix. (With Raze.)

He does a mix of all three, (Smokes, vapes and does blunts.) normally with a friend each night.

Loves his caramel flavours, mainly salted but will eat any with caramel.

Receiving: Anywhere and everywhere on his face. Giving: Anywhere on the body, if given the chance he will kiss even the most hidden areas.

5’11 / 182cm

23 years old

Lost a bet once and the consequence was to get a dick piercing.

Wingnix: (Gekko x Phoenix)

One night Gekko tried to give Phoenix head and the piercings got caught on eachother. Unable to free themselves they had to call Yoru, who won’t let them live it down.

Phoenix only found out Gekko was trying to become clean because of Reyna. Who confronted Phoenix about him halting the process, only to realise he didn’t know. Since then Phoenix has tried to help Gekko.

She vapes in most of her free time unless around Killjoy, who she will not vape around. (Smart enough to keep it away from any labs.) 

Will only get and eat the rainbow ice-cream (Unless Killjoy, Neon, Phoenix or Breach offer.) Also adds a variety of popping candy flavours.

Receiving: Loves receiving the same amount of attention, is strong enough to catch her partner if they did the same thing. Is also a fan of softer moments.    Giving: Is a fan of crashing into her partner and covering their face in kisses. Not letting them go until she successfully covers their face.

5’4 / 165cm

23 years old

Has a gold industrial. (With Neon)

She has not and will not do any type. Her and Killjoy are helping Gekko to stay clean.

Is a fan of the more unusual flavours, her most favourite is boysenberry.

Receiving: She isn’t one for pda a lot of the time so small pecks before rushing off fits her, only to gain ‘compensation’’ for the lack of attention later. Giving: In public she’ll give you more formal kisses, like the back of your hand, wrist or even on the cheek. In private it’s anywhere she can reach, lips down to your neck, leaving hickeys.

Will watch as you continue about your day with her lipstick marks all over your face. She saw them immediately but said nothing, letting someone else tell you about them.

5’8 / 174cm

30 years old

I feel like she has more piercings, one or two golden studs in her ears. With a relatively simple belly piercing, in gold.

After a while she got some small tattoos for Gekko and his creatures. Each of his buddies have a simple design, while Gekko himself has his name, Mateo, written in front of a graffiti like background. The only person aware of this is Cypher, who has been threatened into silence.

Wouldn’t call herself a fan of shitty spanish shows but will binge watch them at night.

Is a fan of romance and thriller books, especially if there’s a mix. Reads them in bed at night, even when she’s alone during the day. (Has a pair of reading glasses but rarely wears them, so it takes her twice as long to read.)

Doesn’t smoke but vapes regularly, mainly blue raspberry. And every few days he will roll a blunt with Phoenix. Although he doesn’t mind the smell of any type.

Is pretty basic when it comes to sweet food, especially ice-cream. His favourite being double chocolate, this also includes most chocolate flavours

Receiving: Will never kiss in public, (Has a reputation to upkeep) but enjoys a more intimate moment. Being all tough and scary on the battlefield leaves him melting in your embrace instantly.  Giving: Still a fan of intimate kisses, but also gives rough and romantic moments.

5’4 / 165cm (Though his hair adds an inch, making him 5’5 when it’s styled.)

26 years old

Extras

Especially in his last few teenage years he got a lot more ear piercings, though over the years he let them close over, only keeping the one current piercing. (Having 3-4 more.)

His fashion sense isn’t terrible, but it isn’t amazing either. Since the protocol pays their agents well, Yoru pays the more expensive pieces but they aren’t good looking, as long as it looks cool (only to him) and most of the time blue he’ll buy it. This has caused other agents (Phoenix, Jett and Neon) to try help his fashion sense.

[thusspoketrish]

WIP SNIP

OKAY! TAKE TWO! Thank you to @smehur for the tag!

Guys, I'm so silly. I had originally posted a snippet but forgot that the fic is for an anonymous fest! Whoops! Now this one, not for an anonymous fest! Anywho! It’s Halloween night, and married Harry and Draco are hoping to enjoy a romantic evening with a few scary films and a big bowl of popcorn. But their quiet evening is disrupted by an endless stream of trick-or-treaters—some of them more trick than treat. Also tagging (again, sorry!) @orangepellets @lizziedrip @xxspideyrebellexx @vukovich @sortofshea @newskyillusion @fictional, I'm so eager/curious to see what ya'll have been working on lately! No pressure to participate, though! xx

There, at the end of the drive where the streetlights barely reached, a shadowed figure stood watching him. 

Harry squinted, brows furrowed in confusion. The person was blanketed in darkness, just on the outskirts of the moon's silvery stream of light, their form indistinct. He couldn’t make out any details—just the unsettling outline of a person no taller than the hedges, standing perfectly still.

Frozen for a moment, Harry called out, "Hello?” his voice steady but edged with a sharpness. 

No response.

The figure didn’t move at first; it simply lingered there, a part of the shadows. Harry stepped forward, believing he must be mistaking a branch for a figure, but then, without a word, the shadowy figure turned and walked away, disappearing into the night.

A faint unease crept through Harry like winter’s first chill, breaking his skin into gooseflesh. He shivered, wrapping his arms around himself as he quickly stepped off the porch and cautiously made his way toward the end of the drive, his defensive instincts kicking in. He glanced up and down the road, seeing no one. His unease began to fade as he returned to the house. It was probably just some nosy teenager pranking him on Halloween or a local curious about the new residents. After all, the house at the end of Helix Road had remained empty for almost two decades.

As he shut and locked the door, Harry’s mind drifted back to when he and Draco first saw the two-story house. It had been charming in a way that caught them both off guard—an old Victorian with ivy creeping up the white brickwork and a wide porch with a teal-coloured door that seemed to beckon them in. They had fallen in love with it almost immediately. It was close to the Muggle primary school where Harry taught PE and the basement was easily converted into a lab for Draco’s potion-making. Everything had lined up so perfectly that it almost felt like fate.

The estate agent, of course, had tried to be discreet during the initial showing, lowering her voice as if the very walls might overhear her and seek retribution. She whispered that the house had a haunted history—perhaps even a lingering ghost or two. Harry had snorted at the idea, and Draco had rolled his eyes in amused exasperation. They’d faced Voldemort, Death Eaters, dark curses, prophecies, war, and death. A ghost or boggart would be a welcome distraction compared to what they’d endured in the fifteen years since the end of the war. “Haunted” was hardly a threat; it was practically a warm welcome to their usual brand of crazy. He had assured himself that they would handle whatever entity lingered in the shadows here without ever breaking a sweat. 

But now, as he stood in their foyer, his hand still resting on the doorknob, concern wormed its way into his thoughts. It was nothing, he reassured himself, a harmless shadow or an annoying local, and no reason to alarm Draco. Draco would only smirk and say it was his overactive sense of vigilance getting the better of him again.

[cloudbattrolls]

Arrival

Etuuya Vannyn | Present Night | Kaningård Cavern

This drabble is followed by Aftermath.

Tuuya stared at the printed notice without really taking it in, their soft hands holding it limply. Their bright green eyes were blank, almost unseeing, their body still. They barely moved within their skin, worms leaden with shock and helplessness.

Hello Matron Superior Vannyn,

We are pleased to inform you that you will be receiving and maintaining Miss Ardoat Lentya as a full matron in Kaningård when she arrives on -

The rest blurred before them.

All that mattered was the name.

The name, and the red trident crisply embossed into the stationary the notice had been typed on.

“Ardie…” they whispered, as if saying her nickname with apology could undo the suffering they’d inflicted on the jade.

The worm swarm shook their head. No use staring at the wall and being miserable; they had to tell the others. She supposedly arrived tomorrow night; no doubt the empire hoped to catch them unawares.

Well, thought Tuuya as they grabbed their silver cane and rose to their feet, stuffing the notice in their sylladex as they walked out of their room, they were going to have to try a little harder than that.

As they walked, they took out their phone, texting all their immediate subordinates; the coordinators in charge of the lab, the kitchen, the young mother grub, the egg incubation room, and so on.

I want things spick and span! Don’t spare the sponges.

A true statement. Also a code to clean up and conceal any suspicious activities, shuffle any mutant grubs and wrigglers to the hidden containment areas or evacuation tunnels, disguise any jades who might be not entirely legal themselves, and purge all their message logs and call histories.

A clumsy job, and the absence of such things would certainly draw attention if investigated, but fortunately, they had an excuse for that.

Viruses could be so unfortunate, Tuuya would comment. Remarkable how this one managed to get even into a cavern system, wouldn’t you know it? Perhaps someone was a little too careless on an online gaming site…or, goodness, pirating movies! The sheer cheek, they’d say, shaking their head in imagined abashment.

Admit to a lesser crime, apparently embarrassed, to conceal a greater one.

Then they made a call, speaking a few sentences before hanging up

“Selene. Take Chroma for a field trip. There’s sandwiches in the fridge.”

Another code. He knew what to do, how long to stay away, to not communicate with them beyond this message until he got the all-clear. 

Then they called Uunive.

“Ardie’s coming.” They said lightly, as if the very name was not a heavy weight between the pair of them. “You know how she is.”

Again, they hung up quickly. 

Only the worm swarm and their daughter did in fact, know how she was. Or how she’d been, once, kept in this very cavern…

They made it where they’d been intending to go. Curse their slower pace, but they knocked on the door, and opened it to see a dear, familiar frown.

“You have to evacuate.” They said quietly to Ailene. “An imperial agent is on her way. One placed here permanently. You know where to go.”

Their human daughter nodded, the large moths she bred fluttering around her as she immediately went to grab necessities in preparation.

Tuuya noticed, as they left her, some beetles in the hall. Hardly unusual; Uunive had her own swarm of them she communed with. But as these scuttled out of sight, Tuuya noted they were not the same species; similar, but their carapaces were silvery gray.

Unease prickled through the worm swarm, and it took restraint to not start tying their insides in knots. No, surely if the empire was already here they’d be getting their doors broken down by drones this very moment. Or else it would have already happened.

Still. There was something about them…

But they weren’t swarm-white, and there no others besides themself, Gallen, Inshii, and Helixe.

Helixe…

Tuuya cursed themself in Svenska. How could they be so stupid! Their pupa needed them -

No. They forced themself to stop. Helixe would be fine. They had taught it about evacuations, it had learned just like the other at-risk wrigglers…

But they still ached to think of their youngest in other hands, no matter how capable those hands were.

Stress turned to hunger, as it always did. Tuuya sighed, impatient with their own body as ever when appetite struck while they were trying to get things done.

But there was no denying it. They made their way to the nearest fridge in a common room, bereft of other people as they heard distinct activity signaling their orders were being followed.

Ears flicking, they downed a gallon or so of chilled blood in quick gulps. Tuuya preferred it warm, but this was no time to be picky; they needed to stay focused. 

Right. Yes. Time to warn Crimew and Florah against visiting. They texted both of their children at once, wishing they had time to send personalized messages to each, but the basic code would have to do.

At least Melina was safe, totally unknown here as she was. Their quadrants were away; Jaskir never visited, Kamala and Vrayan were busy, and Channi rarely left his hive’s grounds to begin with.

They sent all four a warning to not contact them for the moment, again wishing they had time to personalize it to each one, but no, quick was the word when all their quads were mutants.

Tuuya sat down heavily on a chair near the fridge, propping their cane against it before stretching out their limbs and trying to make sure they de-tensed from gripping their bones so tightly.

Just a minute’s rest, then they’d -

Their phone chirped with a cheerful tone, a red trident flashing on the display.

They felt an eerie calm form from the pit of their anxiety. Yes. They had figured the empire had lied in the notice, hoping to make them think they had more time than they did…

…but this was still quite soon.

Ardie, they thought. You deserve to hate me, to punish me for what I did to you. But it’s not just me at risk here; it’s so many others who do not deserve what the empire would do to them.

The drinker hauled themself up, cane in hand, and strode as fast as they could to the nearest elevator to take them to Kaningård’s top floor.

Where all visitors were received.

The doors opened with a pleasant ding not long after they’d gotten in, and they gripped their cane tightly as they exited, a pleasant closed-mouth smile on their face. Wouldn’t do to show off their needle-like dentition right now.

She looked over to them, expression pleasant, her choppy chin-length hair so much more gray than when they’d last seen her. Her face had lines it had not shown before. Yet she looked as calm and relaxed as they weren’t, if intrigued and perhaps a little baffled to see them.

It was all normal. Sickeningly normal. 

“Tuuya…?”

Ardoat said in a questioning, almost amused voice.

“Is that you?” She added.

They blinked, then remembered how she had last seen them and chuckled despite their tension.

“Yes, I’m rather bigger than I used to be.” They said with humor, for Ardie had only seen them skinny and with fully black hair. That was three sweeps ago.

Three sweeps that they had, if unintentionally, abandoned her.

“Been through a few knocks.” They remarked, lifting their cane briefly. “But I’m still here, and I…I am sorry.” They said, sagging a bit.

Her face was peaceful. Unsettlingly so.

“It’s fine, Tuuya.” She said. 

Her tone was patient. Encouraging.

“Show me what you’ve done with my old home and we’ll call it even.” She added with a light laugh as she walked over to the elevator. They dutifully followed. 

“I admit - I got here early because I was so excited. But I should still get right to the incubation room; reports to write, you know how it is.”

They nodded.

“Of course. I’m sure you’ve picked up new brooding techniques we could use.”

She waves a hand. “You know I won’t be able to say until I examine the whole facility and see what needs to be done.” She said crisply.

Tuuya twisted up inside, dozens of worms gripping their ribcage; this was what she should have been doing for the hundred-plus sweeps they’d held her captive here.

Instead Ardie’s knowledge had only been good for tutoring Uunive, kept in a light fog so she wouldn’t leave - wouldn’t remember she’d seen worms or a limeblood, wouldn’t tell the empire.

Camouflage for a monster. A tutor for their child.

That was all she’d been for such a long time.

Because they’d put a worm in her head. Controlled her. 

All to keep themself safe.

Tuuya led her to the incubation room, praying the trolls there were ready.

They prayed they were ready.

For they had no idea how to send her away without arousing suspicion. They were trapped.

No harm could come to Ardie without the blame being laid on their head, her blood - literal or metaphorical - on their hands.

Their hunger rose again, but Tuuya had no trouble quashing it.

Guilt easily filled them up instead.

[chiyoda-division2]

“You may live to see man-made horrors beyond your comprehension.” -Nikola Tesla

Introduction ⚡️

Raiden Otoha(音羽雷電),  a.k.a. Tesla on rap battles is an electronics design engineer and the 2nd member of Chiyoda Division’s 狂音INC.. He’s a genius in the field of electronics, aspiring to one day be called a ‘mad scientist’ just like those he idolized so much since he was little. A former delinquent, Fusao saw potential in his brilliance and scouted him to work at his audio equipment company, Wonder⇓anD Sound Systems.

It’s believed that he joined the DRB not only to let people further know about his ‘genius’ but also to enact revenge against a certain priest from Ginza.

Link to neka used

Link to picrew used

Appearance

Raiden is an albeit taller than average man in his mid-late 20s. His beige skin is littered with countless burn marks, most notably one on his right eye and at the palms of his hands. He has shoulder-length, black hair with blonde inner colouring dyed in to match his golden eyes, whose pupils grow abnormally large whenever he gets excited; sometimes, his bangs are held back by a yellow clip in the shape of a wing. He has two beauty marks under his left eye.

At work, Raiden is usually seen with a white button up, a black tie, black pants and brown dress shoes. His shirt is partially unbuttoned as to reveal the tattoo on his neck: an ECG graph.

Outside work, he puts on a beige overcoat and a black harness underneath that, and his dress shoes are replaced with knee-length boots whose soles further add onto his height.

He always wears gloves regardless of the situation.

Name Meaning

Raiden(雷電) - Thunder and lightning (also one of the alternative spellings for the god Raijin)

Oto(音) - Sound

Ha(羽) - Wing

Nicknames and Aliases

Tesla - MC Name

Mad Genius/Scientist - Himself (rarely, others)

936_HRTZ- online username (he is using something else that isn’t PROFILE)

Smartass, Madman, Crazy bitch, etc… - others

Rabid dog(affectionate)- Fusao

March Hare/Haigha

Nozomu “Zom” Yunichi

Berserker

Biographical Info

Gender - Male

Age - 28

Birthday -  November 26

Star Sign - Sagittarius

Ethnicity - Japanese

Hair Colour - Black and (dyed)blonde

Eye Colour - Gold

Height - 6’1” (6’5” in boots)

Markings - ECG graph tattoo on his neck, burn marks scattered across everywhere most notably on the right side of his face

Piercings - Lobes; double helix (left ear only)

Family -

Estranged Father

Estranged Mother

Voice Claim: Tetsurou Noda (speaking); Takuya IDE (singing/rapping)

Fun Facts

Occupation - Electronics design engineer, scientist (self-proclaimed), vigilante???

Division - Chiyoda

Team - 狂音INC.

Position - 2nd Member

Favourite Food - Toast

Least Favourite Food - Pork

Likes - Chiyuri’s naivete,  his friend group aka the ‘Shunsai-gumi’, Nikola Tesla and his ‘death ray’, tinkering with electronics, being called a scientist

Dislikes - Chiyuri’s naivete, Fusao’s concerned stares, people questioning his genius, adulthood, Masa and his little sheep, the concept of family

Image Color - Lightning Yellow (#FCC01E)

Hypnosis Microphone

Raiden’s Hypnosis Microphone takes the form of a handheld mic, the band right between the windscreen and the handle has 2 prongs on opposite sides. The handle is black with a yellow triangle containing the letter T stylized to look like thunder on it, lastly, the bottom of the handle has a yellow lightning bolt sticking out.

Raiden’s speakers is a replica of the Wardenclyffe Tower, the lab building that accompanies the tower has all of its windows replaced with speakers. Lightning strikes the top of the tower depending on the beat. Whenever he activates his mic, a ‘high voltage’ warning written in white with a red glow flash around his speaker which disappears after a couple moments.

Raiden’s rap ability, Death Ray 936 electrocutes his target, stunning them for 3 turns, he can only use his ability for 3 times in one battle and the cooldown is loooooong.

Raiden’s rap themes mainly revolve around the mix of ‘lunacy’ and ‘genius’ and sinking further into madness. He references breakthroughs in the history of electromagnetism a lot; he also raps about how there’s one absolute truth: physics and that there is no higher being besides that. Another thing he raps about is refusing ‘adulthood’ not in the sense of growing older, but rather letting go of one’s dreams and aspirations just for pleasing the world around them and becoming a husk of yourself.

If it’s not his turn to rap he’ll most likely laugh like a maniac in the background.

Personality

Unfortunately for Raiden, he comes across as loud and obnoxious at first and practically lacks an inner voice. He believes in his own abilities a lot and this pretty much causes conflict with his co-workers quite often, though, he is very passionate towards his work, even if sometimes it doesn’t really align to the kind of job he took.

Due to a large part of his childhood, he has great distrust and disdain towards adults and has a different perception on what counts as one. He rarely gets along with people older than him.

Despite everything though, he’s an honest person through and through, he immediately goes to the point in things that he wants to say. He is very loyal to people he consider important and he can get quite overprotective toward his loved ones a lot, though this comes to a point that he wouldn’t hesitate to resort to violence (and even destruction) if it meant their sake.

As for that vigilante persona of his… that’s something else to talk about in another day.

Background

<???>

Trivia

His birthday is also Lucien Gaulard’s death day, known for developing a power transformer with John Dixon Gibbs, a major contribution to the development of alternating current

He can reverse engineer almost any kind of device regardless of its complexity and size

One time he broke several windows on his workplace with speakers, his co-workers and Fusao were not happy about it

He thinks Kanon Hojo from Shizuoka is cute C:

Had he not been in the field of electronics/physics, he would be in the medical field instead

When he was younger, he swore that he wouldn’t live past 21 years old

He has a strange relationship with Nishio of Echizen division that even his friends couldn’t comprehend

Despite idolizing the likes of Nikola Tesla, he hates pigeons

[inkwell-and-dagger]

!!

LETS GOOOOOOOOOOOOO HI!!!! :D

okay I'm gonna talk about my lovely new oc, Ailean-Conall Hemlock! he is the main character of Hemlock Philosophy, a lab / medical whump series created in collaboration with my wonderful mutual, @er0s-1s-whump1ng!!

Ailean-Conall is a twenty-seven year old transgender man (undergone top surgery so far) with a curse that makes his bare skin — similar to that of a hemlock flower, hence his surname being Hemlock and the series being called Hemlock Philosophy — dangerous to touch. if he were to touch someone's bare skin, or vice versa, it would cause paralysis and death in the other party. in floriography terms, hemlock also symbolizes death in general, which is a very frequent topic in his backstory. he has very outgrown blond hair and light green eyes, along with pale skin and a tattoo of — you guessed it — a hemlock flower on his arm. there's also a tattoo which he was forced to have put on him by the lab he's stuck at, holding the name of the lab, the logo, a barcode and his TS number

Ailean has killed many, many people accidentally because of this curse; even his parents when he was much younger. constantly paranoid that he'd kill somebody again if he stayed another moment in open society, he found solace in adventuring alone and running away from his problems and burdens. aka he likes nature. he can climb trees and has probably slept / gotten stuck in one more than once.

very soon, STS labs (jokingly and frequently called STD labs by me) just sorta. casually found him and took him into the lab itself to be tested on. there, Ailean would spend most of his years, from 19-27 years old, so eight years! his test subject ID fucking Thing™ is TS-0166. why is that specific? cause 0-a sorta bland, really light blue / grey, 1-white, 6-green. I associate these colours with Ailean's character design :3

so far, he's just sorta chilling in STS. he's probably killed a researcher or two but that doesn't matter. also there's a ginger in his story 😨?! /j his name is Helix Vellen and he's a head researcher for that branch of STS :D!!

anyway here's my sopping wet cat of a man. feel free, as with any of my ocs, to whump him. he deserves it lmao

picrew credit

[svnblinds]

( davika hoorne , cis female , she/her ) — amongst the faces lining the staff portrait wall, you recognize SAVINA MASOE, the thirty one year old lab assistant within the school. having spent two years as a member of the verum staff, students say that they’re reminiscent of white light passed through a glass prism, a fractured reflection in the looking glass, blooming plants in a thriving greenhouse, a dream forever just beyond reach and eyes so bright they see right through you. their perceptive and inquisitive temperament brings color to these halls, but be warned, you may also find them to be competitive and single-minded. regardless, hopefully, they’ll remain when it’s time for verum to open its doors again.

&. BASICS.

full name: savina masoe

age: 31

birthday: february 16

birthplace: unknown, but raised in cynefin

gender & pronouns: cis female | she/her

orientation: *gestures vaguely* 

residence: verum academy staff residence, often returns to their family home over the weekends or term holidays.

&. DETAILS.

education: graduate of verum academy, anima major. 

magic: khemia, anima. 

occupation: lab assistant, aspiring professor or researcher of some capacity. assists with the family textile business in the little free time she has. 

relationship status: single 

piercings: both earlobes, helix on the left ear 

tattoos: n/a

&. PERSONALITY.

zodiac sign: aquarius

mbti: INTP

likes: cool soil on bare feet; blooming plants in the spring; a new mystery to unravel; experimenting in the lab; long days in the greenhouse with her father; rolling green hills and sea salted air; people watching; the smell of freshly baked pastries; lists. 

dislikes: being away from home for too long; black coffee; losing; cheating; early mornings; big cities; accounting; conflict; places with no windows or gardens; mess, disorganisation. 

habits: chewing on the ends of her pen; dog earing pages; sleeping with a window open; sleeping through her alarm.

(+) inquisitive, perceptive, kind, sociable, ambitious, loyal, outdoorsy, empathetic, family orientated. (-) nosy, single minded, competitive, stubborn, self-indulgent, petty. 

&. BACKGROUND.

adopted as a baby, the masoes — a wealthy merchant family — are the only parents savina has ever known and ever cares to know. she loves them both dearly, though she is closer to her father due to their shared affinity for khemia than her mother. 

savina spent her childhood exploring the rolling hills of her parents property with her beloved little brother, finding all the nooks and crannies and secrets the land had to offer. as far as childhoods go, it was almost idyllic. 

growing up, savina always knew her place would be to one day take over the family’s textile business. founded by her grandparents decades ago, it’s through the ambition and hard work of her parents that the business thrives as it does now and they want to see their legacy carried on. many days were spent learning everything from managing the finances to the ideal growing conditions needed to produce the highest quality fabrics. while competent, savina never did fall in love with numbers the way her mother hoped, always preferring to be in the greenhouse.

discovering her magic changed that plan. savina followed in her father’s footsteps, studying anima at the academy and falling in love with the way she could make flowers bloom instead.  

savina travelled for a year after graduating the academy and loved every minute of it, but homesickness and duty eventually brought her home. the salty air of cynefin runs in her blood and as intriguing as the wider world is, no where else could ever be home. the crushing crowds of the city cannot hold the candle to the unforgiving fills of cynefin.

in any case, savina missed her brother, and her parents needed her. she returned to take up a position as a lab assistant at the academy with the hopes of one day making professor while also assisting with the family business on the side.

the mudslide has hit their family hard. unable to export their products any longer, they rely on the business of the academy and local townsfolk to keep them afloat. the pressure is on for savina to return home where she belongs.

guilt gnaws at her the longer she avoids making a decision — her parents are getting on, and there isn’t much time left. her brother certainly doesn’t want to assume the mantle of heir, and savina would never be so selfish as to foist that burden on him. but she doesn’t want it for herself, either. she feels like she’s letting them all down by not being who they want her to be and savina doesn’t know to reconcile her love for her family with her unwillingness to follow in their footsteps. 

TLDR; generally friendly, has an unfortunate habit of hearing the things you don’t say a little too well, can be very single minded when she’s found a new interest or theory to prove/disprove - especially if she wants to prove someone wrong. savina feels pulled in several directions and a little lost/torn on where to go. she has tendency to adopt the habits/mannerisms of people around her and honestly, she doesn't really know who she is anymore. there is tension between her and her parents over taking over the business versus her own career plans (the person she thinks they want her to be versus the person she thinks she is).

&. CONNECTIONS.

docs link template credit

[nitewrighter]

Did any of the kids have a pet? Also, besides Murphy, which pets, if any, would the adults have?

Marti keeps bettas! I actually have a fic of how she got her first one here. She would also count her spider robot Ebo as a pet.

Aedan has his albino pet lab rabbit, Creggan.

Rei doesn't have any pets but she's the one who maintains all the bird feeders around the watchpoint. She also helped take care of a hutch of finches on the roof of her apartment building during her time in Hollywood.

Samir has a soft spot for cats and is always trying to feed strays, but he doesn't own one. There are several cats around Gibraltar that recognize him, though.

Not a pet but I can see Akasha with an emotional support Marimo.

Pharah did talk about getting a dog (a rottweiler, I think?) since one of her coworkers at Helix has a puppy.

Orisa has her Frenchie/boston terrier puppy, which I've headcanoned to be named "Bean."

Bastion has Ganymede, but that may be less of a pet and more of a companion.

Brigitte has Mitzi the big chonky cat, of course.

I imagine Moira likes keeping creepy crawlies, mainly centipedes, her favorite animal. She also has that one spray which suggests she might have dogs but it's not clear/confirmed.

I like to imagine that, during their time in the Necropolis, Soldier and Ana befriended a stray dog that they ended up kind of rehabilitating. Like it started out as, "It's injured and I can't leave the poor thing to suffer" and then it just kept... hanging around. They couldn't bring it with them, but it's still at the Necropolis. It can take care of itself.

I know it's a bit on the nose but I do think Lúcio would have a big cool tank with a couple of White's Tree Frogs in there (I don't know the legal status of pet frogs in Brazil though, RIP). It's one of those things where like, they're just as much a beloved pet as they are a carefully maintained decoration in his living room.

I don't trust D.Va with an animal. That is a girl who has killed multiple tamagotchis.

[ultimatecryptid]

informal + bling for Em? :)

YES she <3 Questions from this ask game.

informal: What's your OCs lazy-day look? How do they like to dress when they're winding down?

so i deleted the first two attempts at this, then during the third i got too excited and had to sketch out a concept. its tall so i threw it under the cut :)

so!! this is essentially the base of the hypothetical "Em got to pick out her whole outfit", in Orzammar she wouldve mostly worn Rica's hand-me-downs and whatever armor she could argue for. i think this kind of look is something she mightve gone for in Amaranthine. something moveable in cool tones. the knee pads are because i like to imagine orzmmaran fashion includes light armor into casual wear, and i think thatd be something Emery sticks to! the off the shoulder sleeves are something that i really waffled on, i think they're something em would really like the look of, but they do then to restrict movement so maybe she wouldnt like them for casual looks? its there for now. the white pants arent very practical but i couldnt resist. i also think em would Love a good cape.

the white pants arent... practical. but i couldn't resist. this one is on me.

i have many thoughts on costume design but im not very practiced at it so i WILL be making many changes to this look while i try to make dragon age costuming make any kind of sense to me because right now it does not. whatever is going on in game needs to be studied in a lab (my mind)

bling: what jewelry does your OC wear? Does it have any meaning?

Em has a hefty chunk of piercings, the ones I've 100% settled on are:

Right ear: 3 helix, 1 horizontal industrial, 4 mid helix, double lobe w/ bottom lobe stretched to 16g with ring

Left ear: 5 helix, 2 conch, 1 lobe stretched to 12g with ring, 2 unused lobe scars

Face: labret, medusa, smiley, tongue web, 2 left eyebrow, right nostril

Torso: belly button

but I may add some more. if i think she'd like them

i like to headcanon that metal accessories are super popular in Orzammar, and piercings are generally an easy and cheap way to self-decorate. i dont think theres any meaning in them besides the fact that she wanted them, so she got them for herself. which i think is beautiful in its own way. (also. she definately did like. most of them on herself.)

[butchdarling]

[ID: Digitally drawn Vocaloid fan art of Hatsune Miku. She is wearing a cropped white blazer, black turtle neck, brown dress pants, brown dress shoes with blue soles, blue latex gloves, and round glasses. Instead of her usual twin tails, she has two long double helix strands of DNA on her head. She grins and strikes a pose with a peace sign extended towards the viewer; in her other hand she holds a syringe. Blue text in the top right reads "Lab Miku Says..." and yellow text in the middle right by her knee says "Always practice sterile technique! / 'Keep your DNA extraction DNAase free!'" There are three different arrows pointing to her with different text: to her hand, "wear gloves!" To her syringe, "Use sterile pipette tips!" And to her shoes, "And of course, close toed shoes, please!" The background is yellow. End ID]

lab miku says !

[denimbex1986]

'“Oppenheimer,” Christopher Nolan’s staggering film about J. Robert Oppenheimer, the man known as “the father of the atomic bomb,” condenses a titanic shift in consciousness into three haunted hours. A drama about genius, hubris and error, both individual and collective, it brilliantly charts the turbulent life of the American theoretical physicist who helped research and develop the two atomic bombs that were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki during World War II — cataclysms that helped usher in our human-dominated age.

The movie is based on “American Prometheus: The Triumph and Tragedy of J. Robert Oppenheimer,” the authoritative 2005 biography by Kai Bird and Martin J. Sherwin. Written and directed by Nolan, the film borrows liberally from the book as it surveys Oppenheimer’s life, including his role in the Manhattan Engineer District, better known as the Manhattan Project. He served as director of a clandestine weapons lab built in a near-desolate stretch of Los Alamos, in New Mexico, where he and many other of the era’s most dazzling scientific minds puzzled through how to harness nuclear reactions for the weapons that killed tens of thousands instantly, ending the war in the Pacific.

The atomic bomb and what it wrought define Oppenheimer’s legacy and also shape this film. Nolan goes deep and long on the building of the bomb, a fascinating and appalling process, but he doesn’t restage the attacks; there are no documentary images of the dead or panoramas of cities in ashes, decisions that read as his ethical absolutes. The horror of the bombings, the magnitude of the suffering they caused and the arms race that followed suffuse the film. “Oppenheimer” is a great achievement in formal and conceptual terms, and fully absorbing, but Nolan’s filmmaking is, crucially, in service to the history that it relates.

The story tracks Oppenheimer — played with feverish intensity by Cillian Murphy — across decades, starting in the 1920s with him as a young adult and continuing until his hair grays. The film touches on personal and professional milestones, including his work on the bomb, the controversies that dogged him, the anti-Communist attacks that nearly ruined him, as well as the friendships and romances that helped sustain yet also troubled him. He has an affair with a political firebrand named Jean Tatlock (a vibrant Florence Pugh), and later weds a seductive boozer, Kitty Harrison (Emily Blunt, in a slow-building turn), who accompanies him to Los Alamos, where she gives birth to their second child.

It’s a dense, event-filled story that Nolan — who’s long embraced the plasticity of the film medium — has given a complex structure, which he parcels into revealing sections. Most are in lush color; others in high-contrast black and white. These sections are arranged in strands that wind together for a shape that brings to mind the double helix of DNA. To signal his conceit, he stamps the film with the words “fission” (a splitting into parts) and “fusion” (a merging of elements); Nolan being Nolan, he further complicates the film by recurrently kinking up the overarching chronology — it is a lot.

It also isn’t a story that builds gradually; rather, Nolan abruptly tosses you into the whirl of Oppenheimer’s life with vivid scenes of him during different periods in his life. In rapid succession the watchful older Oppie (as his intimates call him) and his younger counterpart flicker onscreen before the story briefly lands in the 1920s, where he’s an anguished student tormented by fiery, apocalyptic visions. He suffers; he also reads T.S. Eliot’s “The Waste Land,” drops a needle on Stravinsky’s “The Rite of Spring” and stands before a Picasso painting, defining works of an age in which physics folded space and time into space-time.

This fast pace and narrative fragmentation continue as Nolan fills in this Cubistic portrait, crosses and recrosses continents and ushers in armies of characters, including Niels Bohr (Kenneth Branagh), a physicist who played a role in the Manhattan Project. Nolan has loaded the movie with familiar faces — Matt Damon, Robert Downey Jr., Gary Oldman — some distracting. It took me a while to accept director Benny Safdie as Edward Teller, the theoretical physicist known as the “father of the hydrogen bomb,” and I still don’t know why Rami Malek shows up in a minor part other than he’s yet another known commodity.

As Oppenheimer comes into focus so does the world. In 1920s Germany, he learns quantum physics; the next decade he’s at Berkeley teaching, bouncing off other young geniuses and building a center for the study of quantum physics. Nolan makes the era’s intellectual excitement palpable — Einstein published his theory of general relativity in 1915 — and, as you would expect, there’s a great deal of scientific debate and chalkboards filled with mystifying calculations, most of which Nolan translates fairly comprehensibly. One of the film’s pleasures is experiencing by proxy the kinetic excitement of intellectual discourse.

It’s at Berkeley that the trajectory of Oppenheimer’s life dramatically shifts, after news breaks that Germany has invaded Poland. By that point, he has become friends with Ernest Lawrence (Josh Hartnett), a physicist who invented a particle accelerator, the cyclotron, and who plays an instrumental role in the Manhattan Project. It’s also at Berkeley that Oppenheimer meets the project’s military head, Leslie Groves (a predictably good Damon), who makes him Los Alamos’ director, despite the leftist causes he supported — among them, the fight against fascism during the Spanish Civil War — and some of his associations, including with Communist Party members like his brother, Frank (Dylan Arnold).

Nolan is one of the few contemporary filmmakers operating at this ambitious scale, both thematically and technically. Working with his superb cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, Nolan has shot in 65 mm film (which is projected in 70 mm), a format that he’s used before to create a sense of cinematic monumentality. The results can be immersive, though at times clobbering, particularly when the wow of his spectacle has proved more substantial and coherent than his storytelling. In “Oppenheimer,” though, as in “Dunkirk” (2017), he uses the format to convey the magnitude of a world-defining event; here, it also closes the distance between you and Oppenheimer, whose face becomes both vista and mirror.

The film’s virtuosity is evident in every frame, but this is virtuosity without self-aggrandizement. Big subjects can turn even well-intended filmmakers into show-offs, to the point that they upstage the history they seek to do justice to. Nolan avoids that trap by insistently putting Oppenheimer into a larger context, notably with the black-and-white portions. One section turns on a politically motivated security clearance hearing in 1954, a witch hunt that damaged his reputation; the second follows the 1959 confirmation for Lewis Strauss (a mesmerizing, near-unrecognizable Downey), a former chairman of the U.S. Atomic Energy Commission who was nominated for a Cabinet position.

Nolan integrates these black-and-white sections with the color ones, using scenes from the hearing and the confirmation — Strauss’ role in the hearing and his relationship with Oppenheimer directly affected the confirmation’s outcome — to create a dialectical synthesis. One of the most effective examples of this approach illuminates how Oppenheimer and other Jewish project scientists, some of whom were refugees from Nazi Germany, saw their work in stark, existential terms. Yet Oppenheimer’s genius, his credentials, international reputation and wartime service to the U.S. government cannot save him from political gamesmanship, the vanity of petty men and the naked antisemitism of the Red scare.

These black-and-white sequences define the last third of “Oppenheimer.” They can seem overlong, and at times in this part of the film it feels as if Nolan is becoming too swept up in the trials that America’s most famous physicist experienced. Instead, it is here that the film’s complexities and all its many fragments finally converge as Nolan puts the finishing touches on his portrait of a man who contributed to an age of transformational scientific discovery, who personified the intersection of science and politics, including in his role as a Communist boogeyman, who was transformed by his role in the creation of weapons of mass destruction and soon after raised the alarm about the dangers of nuclear war.

François Truffaut once wrote that “war films, even pacifist, even the best, willingly or not, glorify war and render it in some way attractive.” This, I think, gets at why Nolan refuses to show the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, world-defining events that eventually killed an estimated 100,000 to upward of 200,000 souls. You do, though, see Oppenheimer watch the first test bomb and, critically, you also hear the famous words that he said crossed his mind as the mushroom cloud rose: “Now I am become death, the destroyer of worlds.” As Nolan reminds you, the world quickly moved on from the horrors of the war to embrace the bomb. Now we, too, have become death, the destroyers of worlds.

***'

[immortalcowboy]

last words

id under the 'keep reading'

(click for better quality)

[ID: A digital drawing from episodes 176-177 from Rusty Quill Gaming. It is separated into 3 panels.

The first panel is set when Cel is asking Sassraa if they want to come back to life. Sassraa is a red kobold with four small horns on her head and spikes running down their back. Her horns and spikes are bright orange. They have blue eyes. She's wearing a beige shirt, a white lab coat and safety goggles. Their looking sadly at a conical flask with blue liquid in it on a table. There's also two test tubes on a wooden rack with small amounts of blue liquid. Behind Sassraa, Cel is sat at a table with a white tablecloth over it. It has a heart banner pattern around it. They are in the middle of erasing part of an equation, but are looking at Sassraa with a concerned look on their face. Cel is a white half-elf with blonde hair standing up on it's end. They have several piercings on their face and ear. They are wearing brown goggles on their head with red lenses. They are wearing a brown coat with the collar standing on its end and brown trousers. They have one green eye and one brown eye. In the background is a wooden bookshelf with various red books on the shelves. It has a heart engraved at the top of it. Above the bookshelf is a wooden clock. The time is midnight. The wallpaper is stripy red and white.

The second panel is set when Azu is asking Carter if he wants to come back to life. Azu is lying on her stomach smiling at Carter, who is in the middle of drawing at looking at her with a timid look on his face. Azu is a black orc with dark brown hair shaved very short. She has a scar through her eyebrow and one of her tusks has been snapped off. Her eyes are brown. She has hot pink gages with a small light pink heart in the middle and a heart-shaped helix piercing. She is wearing glowing hot pink armour and a light pink turtleneck shirt underneath. She has her glowing pink axe on her back. Carter is a white human child. He has short brown hair and blue eyes. He's wearing a beige shirt. Carter is also lying on his stomach and has hidden underneath a stone bench. He is drawing over some maths questions with question marks at the end of his answers. They are in a room with a wooden floor and beige walls. On the wall is a painting of a grey simplified houses of parliament. The time showing on Big Ben is midnight. Underneath is a gold plate with 'LAST WORDS 176-177' engraved on it.

The third panel is set when Zolf is asking Wilde if he wants to come back to life. They are sat on a wooden boardwalk hanging in the sky. The wind is very strong. Wilde is a younger version of himself and looks like he did in Paris. He is a tall white human with brown chin-length hair. He has brown eyes. He's wearing a red suit and shoes, a white poet shirt, a royal blue waistcoat and bright yellow socks. He is hunched forward slightly and is looking down sadly. Zolf is sat next to him. Zolf is a white dwarf with short white wavy hair and a long braided beard tied with a golden circlet with an emerald in it. He has green eyes. He is wearing a blue raincoat and boots, grey trousers, green shirt and silver chest plate. He has several piercings in his left ear. He is looking at Wilde with a sad expression. He is holding Wilde's hand. End ID.]

[diamond-dangeresque]

Humans

Open necromancy—in other words, shambling corpses and bodyparts casually walking alongside the living—is seen as something of a cultural no-no outside of Elona, and in Kryta specifically it's mostly seen as a thing done by bumpkin adventurers or fanatics of Grenth.

Canthans are the most likely to worship entities outside of the Five/Six, though what/who is worshipped varies on things like whether their ancestors arrived to Kryta before or after Usoku closed the country off and what part of Cantha their heritage belongs to. Ancestor-worship and Envoy-veneration are perhaps the most common forms of these extended faiths, the latter sort of resembling White Mantle traditions of sainthood and saint worship.

Modern Ascalonian cuisine is a combination of "old-world" recipes passed down from generations plus a lot of improvising from needing to source ingredients ad hoc; many recipes were modified from their originals due to times of bad harvests, the civil war resulting in poisoned or burned crops, and so on. Food has been a strong way for Ascalonians to both remember and honor their history through recipe.

Charr

While normally not superstitious, it's sometimes seen as bad luck to file down or clip one's pinky claws. This superstition is the especially prevalent in the Blood Legion and seems to have origins to the Flame Shaman dominancy era.

A lot of early Charr machinery and early Human machinery actually look very similar to each other; where they begin to diverge are the Charr's machines having safeguards designed around preventing machines from dragging living beings into gears or spokes by way of grates and barriers, as it was sometimes very common at the dawn of the Charr Industrial Era for their fur to get snagged and at best merely being ripped off in patches. At worst...

News of the Olmakhan's existence spread far and wide into the four Legions, much more than other non-Charr would have you believe! But most keep their opinions on them to themselves. Legion propaganda varies from painting them as mostly innocent if savage descendants of defectors to being irresponsible and derelict especially once they made contact with the outside world. Many Charr would quietly pursue this dream of a more peaceful life outside of and away from warband culture; this pursuit was what, ironically, fueled the most desertions and defections during the civil war between the United Legions and the Dominion.

Asura

Asuran romantic relationship dynamics are polycular and with a slight demiromantic/demisexual lean. It's seen as kind of off-putting to be driven to procreative lust merely by appearances, though that standard is only held up to other Asura; they expect bookahs to Be Like That. As well, monogamy is sometimes seen as a "psychosexual quirk fetishizing isolated exclusivity" and is basically disparaged behind backs.

Blindness is actually a very common physical affliction amongst the Asura, and not merely blindness caused by freak lab accident. Highly sensitive tactile receptors in Asuran hands and feet, combined with their large ears, mean that they actually adapt very well to going blind; possibly a residual genetic adaptation from ancestors living in dark, cramped tunnels underground. Their tech can be easily modified and adapted to blind-work in a wide variety of ways, from holo-monitors with minor 3D-projection capabilities for touch-reading to the floors of places like Rata Sum being textured so subtlely different per floor that only an Asura can really feel the difference as they walk. A major downside, however, is that such Asura are severely hamstrung when moving around or living outside of city cubes.

Like with their ancestors, decorating ear lobe flaps is a major cultural aspect to Asuran life. But where before it was simple things like using large jungle leaves to expand the size of one's ears, modern Asura decorate their ears with floating baubles, hanging trinkets, complicated loomwork that hang from the helix or concha of the ears, and so on. Some particularly counterculture Asura have noticed Humans' and Norn's strange ways of modifying their ears, including lobe stretchers and bars, and have begun experimenting with such forms to use their ears as living artpieces.

Sylvari

It's become a small trend within Soundless Sylvari to cultivate one's physical appearance away from Humanoid standards. The flattening of nose bridges, the exaggeration or toning-down of mouth slits, resculpting eyes to appear stranger or even more bestial, and so on are being adopted as further accentuations of separation from the Pale Tree.

Sylvari attuned to the Dream are very low-context as far as cultural norms go for conversation and communication. It just doesn't come across as all that beneficial to be subtle or nuanced in speech when something needs to be conveyed, especially if that thing is of great importance and sugarcoating only delays the inevitable. Nuance is learned in Sylvari and not often retained through the Dream of Dreams.

It has also become somewhat popular for Sylvari to travel to the Heart of the Maguuma, making the way to the lair of the former Jungle Dragon and trying to understand their people better along the way. This is a sentiment held more by fifth or sixth generation saplings, those born long after Mordremoth'a demise. These excursions are discouraged by the Firstborn and Secondborn, who still feel the echoes of the Dragon in their minds.

Norn

Norn are, of the five "major player" races in Tyria, the ones still most stubborn about adopting writing into their common culture. Which is to say: they'll use it for things like commerce and for exchanging information with other races (and of course Norn within societies like the Durmand Priory are A-OK with written works), but with regards to keeping their cultural/racial history alive they highly prefer to maintain oral traditions and use skalds to preserve and tell back stories. However, the rise of digital recording devices has become very popular—albeit controversial—with these elders; as much as it allows someone to record a story and retell it with a playback, keeping perfect cadence and tone for the tale, some caution it as a trap that will encourage Norn to become more forgetful because they can "afford to".

A Norn venerating a non-major Spirit of the Wild can take on a form resemblant of their spirit animal, but typically for one that isn't Bear/Wolf/Raven/Snow Leopard only a havroun of that spirit can do so, and that form tends to look...off. Especially for the spirit of Wurm. For lesser adherents, it's not advised to try and do. Especially for Wurm followers.

Fermentation, pickling, and salting are incredibly popular forms of food preparation/storage for the Norn and much of their food culture revolves around both learning the old techniques and establishing new, personal ones. The introduction of wider trade across the globe for the Norn mean greater accesses to different spices and salts for such processes, and it's allowed the creation of... interesting foodstuffs. Pickled sour omnomberries are one such modern item, difficult to eat due to strong smell and taste. (It became surprisingly popular with Kurzick expats!)

you. share with me your headcanons about each of the races’ cultures. go now

[ash-isnt-writing]

“On a scale of one to ten, how much pain are you in?”

“Please just kill me.”

Cole chuckled at the pleading, pained tone in Rayan’s voice, almost sadistically so. “Now now, be sensible, would you?” He responded, before crossing one leg over the other as he sliced the wound open further, eliciting a cry as sharp as Cole’s scalpel from Rayan’s throat as blood spilled out, staining Rayan’s baggy white shirt and the testing bench beneath him. “We have an audience.”

Rayan just whimpered, eyes drifting to Helix, who was standing over in the corner. Of course, it made sense that Helix was watching Cole - his son - with a judgemental eye. But it didn’t make him hate this any less. “Tough crowd” He hissed out, resting his head back.

Cole chuckled, before easing - or more, ripping - the cut open, making Rayan cry out again. The whole point of this test was if they could figure out what made Rayan so.. different. They’d tried everything else, and had decided an internal exam might give them the answers they needed.

But Cole just had more questions than anything. Nothing was different, or out of place. Everything looked how it was meant to..

“Impossible..” Cole muttered, leaning forward slightly. No. He couldn’t accept this. His father was watching. He had to turn up with something…

“Is something wrong, Cole?”

“…Ah- no, uh” Cole swallowed nervously. “I think we should take samples, for the lab boys of course.”

“Of course, brilliant idea.”

“What- no, not brilliant, what do you mean samples?!” Rayan yelled, tugging at his cuffs. “What fucking samples?! Where-?!”

Before he could finish the question, a searing pain shot through his nerves as Cole began cutting off a part of the organ tissue from his heart. He screamed, a raw, fearful sound from his throat. Cole made the Survivors seem like a daycare.

Rayan just kept screaming as Cole continued taking tissue samples from here and there. He couldn’t even think. It was just pain. Blinding, searing pain, that made Rayan see red.

This wasn’t fair.

It wasn’t.

Not that STS staff would ever care. Especially not after Gale’s death, and Simon’s leave.

He was in so much pain that he’d barely noticed when it had stopped. It lingered so strongly that he felt like he could just curl up and die, right there. Even as the cut was stitched back up carefully. It hurt, and it hurt bad.

But he knew that, even if he wanted to, he couldn’t die. But it hurt so, so bad.

“Now, we ask again,” Helix spoke, as Cole sorted the samples. “On a scale of one to ten…”

=====================================

A/N: oh boy this is. so rushed. idk i’m still getting used to writing whump stuff i can never quite get it right without feeling icky.

anywho!! Rayan belongs to the spectacular @v-3-ll-1-ch-0-r (a.k.a @v-3-ll-1-g-0-r-3 ), and the prompt is courtesy of @rookthebird.

[remuscore]

please post them my goodness

Okay hang on

Patton

Full Name: Patton Leslie Picani.

Date of Birth: January 15th.

Age: 28.

Gender: Genderfluid.

Presentation: Masculine or feminine; switches.

Pronouns: He/him and she/her.

Sexual Orientation: Aromantic Pansexual.

Status: Single.

Height: 5’8.”

Body Type: Heavyweight; strong.

Hair Color: Black and blonde; uses temporary dyes sometimes.

Hair Type: Corse; fade haircut.

Eye Color: Dark brown/black.

Race(s): African decent.

Piercing(s): None.

Tattoo(s): None.

Physical: None.

Mental: Severe clinical depression and Bipolar 1.

Family:

Parent(s): Emile Jacob Picani and Leah Flowers Picani (dead).

Sibling(s): Jeremy “Remy” Micah Picani.

Pet(s): None.

Occupation(s): HR worker.

Skill(s): Comedy, gardening, cooking, baking, and caretaking.

Goal(s): To work with children, have a little cottage with tons of plants and animals, and tons of friends.

Logan

Full Name: Logan Mackenzie La Ray.

Date of Birth: November 3rd.

Age: 20.

Gender: Agender.

Presentation: Masculine.

Pronouns: They/them.

Sexual Orientation: Homosexual.

Status: Taken (w Roman and Virgil).

Height: 5’10.”

Body Type: Underweight.

Hair Color: Dirty blonde; shoulder length.

Hair Type: Wavy.

Eye Color: Brown and light blue; Heterochromia.

Race(s): White.

Piercing(s): Both lobes and two flats on left ear.

Tattoo(s): Stick and poke Gemini constellation on right wrist, E=Mc^2 written on the crook of elbow.

Physical: Disordered eating.

Mental: Autism and disordered eating.

Family:

Parent(s): Vivian Ann La Ray.

Sibling(s): Thomas Foley Sanders (half-brother).

Pet(s): None.

Occupation(s): Lab Assistance for a medical researcher; college student.

Skill(s): Math, writing, problem solving, teaching, drawing, and cooking.

Goal(s): To get a general teaching degree, a good paying job at a high standing school, pay off student loans by 40s, and maybe have a long healthy relationship with Roman and Virgil or whatever.

Roman

Full Name: Roman Henry Maurice Romeo.

Date of Birth: June 25th.

Age: 19.

Gender: Male.

Presentation: Masculine with lots of feminine aspects; sometimes completely feminine.

Pronouns: He/him.

Sexual Orientation: Homosexual.

Status: Taken (w Logan and Virgil).

Height: 6’1.”

Body Type: Fit; a little soft in the belly and upper arms.

Hair Color: Brown and white (dyed brown).

Hair Type: Curly; just beyond the ears.

Eye Color: Hazel.

Race(s): Afro-Latino.

Piercing(s): Both lobes, both upper lobes, and a nose stud on right side.

Tattoo(s): A couple branches with red flowers on left arm, stems aimed at the wrists and the flowers aimed at the crook of the elbow, but spread out with the leaves and two hearts on the outside of wrist on left arm, colored red.

Physical: Piebaldism and chronic joint pain.

Mental: ADHD, PTSD, clinical anxiety, and clinical depression.

Family:

Parent(s): Luis Javier Teo Romeo and Marianne Evelyn Romeo.

Sibling(s): Remus Luis Edward Romeo and Elijah David Charles Romeo (half-brother).

Pet(s): None.

Occupation(s): Baker for a small bakery; college student.

Skill(s): Drawing, singing, acting, music, writing, and dancing.

Goal(s): To become a famous Broadway actor and rich as all hell with the most handsome, successful husband in the world (maybe two handsome successful husbands at this point).

Remus

Full Name: Remus Luis Edward Romeo.

Date of Birth: June 25th.

Age: 19.

Gender: Non-binary.

Presentation: Masculine/androgynous.

Pronouns: Any, but most use He/They.

Sexual Orientation: Queer/unlabeled.

Status: Taken (w Janus).

Height: 6’1.”

Body Type: Thin.

Hair Color: Brown and white.

Hair Type: Curly; shaggy with Mohawk shaved sides.

Eye Color: Hazel.

Race(s): Afro-Latino.

Piercing(s): Both lobes, both upper lobes, orbital, industrial one left, both tangus, both nostrils, tongue, right eyebrow, vertical labret, and belly button.

Tattoo(s): Stick and poke devil smiley face under right ribs, decapitated rat head on right breast, teeth wrapped around left nipple, barbed wire under breasts, matching skulls on stomach tongues reaching to bellybutton, stick and poke “Notes” on right arm, spiderweb on right elbow, knife on left forearm pointing at elbow, stick and poke guy on skateboard with “Eat Ass” on right thigh, black and red crosses on right thigh, “Carl Marx” written above both knees, “Fuck Me” written above hips on lower back, big stitched up scar on the left side of head, and stick and pokes of his rats on each arm with their names.

Physical: Piebaldism, bad vision in left eye, and chronic joint pain.

Mental: ADHD, PTSD, and clinical depression.

Family:

Parent(s): Luis Javier Teo Romeo and Marianne Evelyn Romeo.

Sibling(s): Roman Henry Maurice Romeo and Elijah David Charles Romeo (half-brother).

Pet(s): Jonathan and Butt Plug (domestic rats).

Occupation(s): Janitor for an office (name forgotten).

Skill(s): Drawing, singing, music, and writing.

Goal(s): To not get killed and maybe live to be a weird old guy.

Janus

Full Name: Janus Rain Greyson.

Date of Birth: February 3rd.

Age: 21.

Gender: Female.

Presentation: Feminine or androgynous.

Pronouns: She/her.

Sexual Orientation: Queer.

Status: Taken (w Remus).

Height: 5’3.”

Body Type: Triangular; flat.

Hair Color: Ginger (dyed).

Hair Type: Wavy; long with shaved sides.

Eye Color: Green.

Race(s): Asian and White.

Piercing(s): Lobes, upper lobes, two helixes on left and one on right, right nostril, philtrum, and snake bites.

Tattoo(s): Thin vines wrapped around left wrist leading down to elbow, one thin vine wrapped around right wrist, a moth and two cover up lines above on right bicep, coffin with a skull in it on right thigh spread out almost all the way down to the knee stabbed with a cross, eyeball on the back of neck, and snake with two heads leading down sternum.

Physical: Port-wine stain birthmark, anisocoria, seizures, and Tourettes.

Mental: Clinical depression.

Family:

Parent(s): Dean Jackson Warren, Ruth Rose Greyson, and Monica Greyson.

Sibling(s): Virgil Storm Greyson.

Pet(s): Jekyll and Hyde (two headed corn snake).

Occupation(s): Bartender; college student.

Skill(s): Dancing, fashion, poetry, and self care.

Goal(s): To live long enough to be a successful, lawyer and just in general a rich as fuck woman. Also a hot wife would be delightful.

Virgil

Full Name: Virgil Storm Greyson.

Date of Birth: December 19th.

Age: 19.

Gender: Demiboy.

Presentation: Masculine.

Pronouns: He/They.

Sexual Orientation: Questioning and Asexual.

Status: Taken (w Logan and Roman).

Height: 6’3.”

Body Type: Chubby; fluctuating weight.

Hair Color: Black (dyed purple fringe).

Hair Type: Wavy and thick; very shaggy haircut.

Eye Color: Dark brown/black.

Race(s): Asian and White.

Piercing(s): Both lobes, both upper lobes, septum, dimples, and two labrets (spider bites).

Tattoo(s): None.

Physical: None.

Mental: Severe clinical anxiety.

Family:

Parent(s): Ruth Rose Greyson and Monica Greyson.

Sibling(s): Janus Rain Greyson.

Pet(s): Charlotte (tarantula) and Phantom (black cat).

Occupation(s): None.

Skill(s): Baking and poetry.

Goal(s): None.

[hermannsthumb]

I know you don't usually write PRU stuff, but if you ever feel inclined, here's a ficlet idea! so: Newt is trying to fight off the Precursors by constantly reminding himself that He Is Human. but whenever newt thinks about what makes him Feel Human, the answer is always hermann. so newt starts conjuring up vivid mental images of hermann (doing mundane, hermann-y things) to ward off the Precursors. bonus point if, like, newt fondly remembering smth innocuous (like the scent of Hermann's chalk dust?) is enough to actually sever the alien mind control.

Anonymous asked: Maria!!! Would you ever write an angsty post uprising prompt? Or even a pre uprising? Anything with Newt fucking around with Kaiju and being sad i am HERE FOR 👏

in honor of the sequel’s 3 year anniversary, let’s try something a little different 👀 THIS ONE GOT AWAY FROM ME RE: LENGTH....I'll leave it up to interpretation whether or not the bonus is wholly fulfilled.... also on proofing this I realized it might need content warnings? so vague refs to disordered eating and alcohol drinking (ie, newt’s body is inhabited by aliens who forget how human stuff works)

-----------

Honestly, Newt’s life has been kind of a shitshow lately. He’s too, like, high strung. Too many responsibilities. Not enough hours in the day to get that shit done. He’s even higher strung than he was during the war, which is nuts, because certain doom was lurking around every corner. Maybe that’s why it’s not that nuts, though. The war was chaotic—and Newt’s fueled (or, used to be fueled?) by chaos. The kaiju were unpredictable. The kaiju didn’t run on a 9-5 schedule. The kaiju didn’t expect Newt to have three new jaeger prototypes on their desk by noon on a fucking Saturday, which is usually the day Newt spends two hours in his expensive bath tub and drinks a nice bottle of wine, and definitely not a day he wants to spend giving himself a stress migraine and shouting at underlings to make themselves useful. On top of that, his usual cafe got his coffee order wrong—when Newt had to run in to get it, himself, on a Saturday morning—and it only had half the espresso shots he really needs for the day. No wonder he’s going grey at forty. Fucking nightmare. Stable employment is exactly the kind of chaos that’s bad for Newt—give him the kaiju any day, thanks.

“Dr. Geiszler?”

Newt pushes his sunglasses up, and scowls at whichever one of his employees has dared to interrupt his catnap. The fluorescent overheads are brutal on his poor eyes right now. The lab needs more natural lighting. Maybe if he complains, they’ll knock out some walls in put in a few more windows. “Did you find any Aspirin?” he says.

Wordlessly, Newt’s assistant passes him a bottle. Newt pops the cap off and takes at least four. The coffee he washes it down with is cold. “How are the last simulations coming along?” he says, flicking his sunglasses back down. He seems to have so many migraines these days. It’s the contact lenses, he thinks—making the switch over from frames so late in the game. Screwing with his perceptions. Newt went thirty years with frames, after all. “We only have two hours before—”

“We’re almost done,” his assistant cuts in. “We’re working as fast as we can, Dr. Geiszler.”

“But are we gonna make the deadline?” Newt says.

She fidgets, and moves her clipboard to her other arm. “Well—we’ve had some—issues.”

Newt stands up with a long sigh. Double overtime, probably. Sunday lost to this shit too. That new bottle of wine waiting for him on his kitchen counter bought for nothing. “Gotta do everything myself, huh? Unbelievable.”

He follows his assistant over to the main lab down the hall, where his team of j-techs are hurrying around. Hardly anyone in proper lab attire—no labcoats—someone in sweatpants—Newt wasn’t the only one who had his Saturday ruined, probably. No one else is going grey, though. “What’s this shit?” he says, stopping in his tracks with one foot through the doorway. The high-tech holo-smartboards have been pushed aside, and instead, someone’s wheeled in a huge…chalkboard.

“Technical issues,” his assistant says. “The other floors are having the same problem—something in the new interface update that downloaded last night, we think. They’re all out of commission. Technology is working on it, but for now, we had to pull that out of deep storage.”

Two of his scientists are scrawling across the board quickly—one with white chalk, the other with pink. They’re debating something in hushed tones. Newt hasn’t seen a chalkboard in years. It doesn’t fit with Shao Industry’s whole chic, sleek, futuristic aesthetic. So—bulky. And messy. “Of course it would happen today of all days,” Newt sighs. The sight of it makes him feel odd, and he can’t seem to drag himself any further into the lab and any closer towards it.

His assistant says something. Newt doesn’t hear—he’s listening, instead, to the squeaking of chalk across the blackboard. So noisy and obnoxious. It reminds him of years and years ago, of working in a grimy little basement, of…

“—look it over. Dr. Geiszler?”

“Hm?” Newt says. It was like a layer of fog had begun to lift from his thoughts, but the interruption sends it rolling right back in.

“I said we’re ready for you to look it over. Only if you want too, of course,” she adds, nervously.

“Uh-huh,” Newt says.

Newt’s never had anyone fear him before, not like his employees seem to fear him—he’s not sure he likes it. His scientists shut up the second he looms over (well—under, Newt’s never loomed over anyone in his life) their shoulders to inspect their work so far. The squeaking stops. One of them lowers their piece of chalk. “Wait,” Newt says, too-loudly, surprising them and himself. They both look at him with the same nervousness as his assistant, like he’s about to start shouting or something. “Keep doing that.”

“Keep…?”

“Writing,” Newt says. “On the chalkboard.”

The scientist frowns at him. “Um, okay,” she says. “What am I supposed to write?”

“Anything,” Newt says. “Seriously. Anything.”

She hesitates.

“Anything,” Newt repeats.

She picks up the white chalk, and writes out her name, then doodles a few random pictures—a DNA helix, a flower, a cat face, a star. Newt shuts his eyes, and breathes in deeply. That smell. He snags the forgotten piece of pink chalk from the ledge. “Can I have this?” he says. He doesn’t wait for them to respond—though they both nod yes frantically, and bewilderedly—before writing out his own name on the board. Dr. Geiszler. It looks wrong, so he writes Newt beneath it. He shuts his eyes, and writes Newt again. Why does he feel like he’s done this sort of thing before? This thing is ancient—before his time at Shao—he wouldn’t have used it before they carted off to the basement. Newt, Newt, Newt Was Here,he writes, Newt +, and then he stops.

He opens his eyes. “Who’s Hermann?” his assistant says.

Newt + Hermann. Newt didn’t realize he wrote it. “Someone I knew,” he says, faintly. “Years ago. He was my—” He swallows. He feels strange. “My colleague?”

Strange. Dizzy. The Aspirin isn’t working. Definitely the contact lenses. He could afford laser eye surgery now, if he wanted, maybe he should look into it. He grips the ledge of the chalkboard, swaying, and grits his teeth; his two scientists back away from him slowly, no doubt worried he’s about to hurl all over their shoes. He might, to be honest. Newt + Hermann. Hermann was his colleague. Hermann was his— “Are you feeling okay, Dr. Geiszler?” his assistant asks. “You look…”

“Tell Shao I’m taking the rest of the day off,” Newt says.

“What?”

“You guys got this shit handled without me,” Newt says. He pockets the chalk. “I’m not—I’m not feeling myself. I think I need to go home and lie down. Seriously, you’ve got it under control—all these numbers look, uh, good, I trust you. If you guys don’t get it finished you can just tell Shao it’s my fault, okay?”

She gapes at him. “Uh,” she says. “Okay?”

Newt doesn’t go home. He goes to the nearest shop he can find instead, and makes a beeline for the art supplies aisle. Only a few boxes of chalk in stock. Four multicolored, two all-white, one yellow. He drops them all into his basket but the yellow, which he rips opens and immediately smells. Newt + Hermann. Hermann always smelled like chalk dust—he always had a fine layer of it on his clothing, patches of it on his blazer, his sweatervest, even on his undershirt. Newt used to tease him for that. He closes his eyes, and breathes in again. Funny—all those baths, all those bottles of wine, and this stupid little box of chalk is what’s finally making him feel calm for once. Quieting down his brain. He didn’t realize how loud it’d gotten in there. When Hermann would kiss Newt, he would sometimes stain Newt’s clothing with chalk, too, and Newt would pretend to be annoyed, but he never really was.

Someone is speaking to him. An employee. They’re staring at him, a cautious distance away, and Newt’s not sure what they’re saying.

His vision’s gone blurry—he didn’t realize he’d started crying, either. He wipes his eyes on the cuff of his blazer and sniffles. “Sorry,” he says. The box of yellow chalk is wet. “Um. Do you have any more of these in the back?”

He takes the bus home for the first time in years, one hand stuffed in his little brown shopping bag the whole time, wrapped around a box of chalk. When he gets back to his apartment (his big, lonely, apartment), he pulls out the only food in his fridge—some leftovers from a Shao Industries event three nights ago—and settles down on his big, lonely couch. He can’t stop thinking about Hermann. Five or so years, maybe more, not thinking about Hermann, and now suddenly—it’s like the floodgates have opened. He thinks about Hermann’s haircut. (Bad.) He thinks about Hermann’s smile. (Silly, and sweet.) He thinks about Hermann’s dumb accent, and the clack of Hermann’s cane on the floor, and Hermann’s chalk squeaking over his chalkboard, and how it felt when Hermann would wrap him in his arms and kiss him and whisper things to him. Hermann’s sweaters always smelled like mothballs and stale cigarette smoke. Terrible combination.

Newt’s stomach growls. He’s finished the small bit of leftovers without realizing, and is apparently still hungry. He would kill for some sushi takeout right now. Or pizza, God. Yeah, it’d be screwing with his new diet and fitness plan—he casts a guilty glance over at his brand new exercise bike, which is gathering dust in the corner by his TV—but he’s tired of doing stupid kale and juice cleanses or whatever, just to please—well. He’s only human.

He is?

He walks up the stairs to his bathroom, and stares at himself in the mirror. Stupid vest. Stupid tie. Neat hair, clean-shaven cheeks, contact lenses. Newt’s only human. “I’m human,” he tells his reflection. Is he human? He felt human standing by that old chalkboard back in the lab, and holding that box of yellow chalk in the aisle of that little shop. He felt human when he was remembering things. Because of—Newt blinks at himself. Because of whom?

“Hermann,” he says, and smiles at the way the name makes him feel. He should text him, maybe.

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

“I must say,” Hermann says, “I was quite surprised when I received your dinner invitation. You’ve done a rather fine job of ignoring my calls as of late. I’d thought— Ah, thank you,” he adds, as Newt holds the door open for him. He steps into Newt’s apartment and cranes his neck around, squinting curiously, and then shoves a bottle of red wine at Newt’s chest. Hermann is much more personable than Newt remembers—what little Newt remembers—and he wonders if it’s age or something else. “I’ve been holding onto this one for a while. It’s the one you gave me as a part of a gift for my thirty-seventh birthday—you remember? Oh, but isn’t it so terrifically, er, modern in here.”

“Is it?” Newt says. He’s never given much thought to his apartment before, but he stares around at it now in mild interest. It is very chic, isn’t it? Monochrome. Impersonal. Not something Newt would’ve picked for himself. “Yeah, I had some interior decorators come in and do it for me.”

Hermann arches an eyebrow. “How…”

“Modern,” Newt offers. He puts the bottle of wine on his marble kitchen island. “Thanks for this, by the way, but I’ve actually been trying to cut back on the—” He bites back drinking. No need to alarm Hermann. “—Calories, so if it’s cool with you I’d rather not open it. I’m doing a, um, a new fitness program.”

“Ah,” Hermann says. “I suppose that explains that, then, doesn’t it?” He points at the dusty exercise bike. Newt watches his gaze move from that, to the barren leather couch, to the short staircase which leads to Newt’s shut bedroom door. Newt can practically see the gears working in his head. “Will—ah, what was their name, that little flight of fancy of yours—a dalliance, one might say—will they be, ah, joining the two of us?” He looks at Newt out of the corner of his eye. “Alice, was it?”

“Who?” Newt says, blankly.

Hermann breaks out in a broad grin, which he quickly tries, very badly, to turn into a sympathetic frown. He pats Newt’s arm. “There’s the spirit, then, Newton! All in the past, I presume? Hardly any use in dwelling on a broken heart. Then again—it’s not as if you were together long enough to warrant those sorts of dramatics, were you?” he says, cheerily. “What I mean is—certainly it wasn’t as if you had any sort of deep or emotional connection with—?—oh, I’ve forgotten the name again.”

“Uh,” Newt says. He’s not really sure who Hermann’s talking about, but just based on that fact alone, he would assume Hermann is right. “I guess not?”

“Precisely as I expected,” Hermann says, with a satisfied nod. “Rotten grounds for a relati—for a fling. You deserve far better, Newton.” Hermann touches Newt’s arm again, and this time, he doesn’t move his hand. It makes Newt’s skin prickle pleasantly. “You look well these days, though I admit it’s a bit of a shock to see you without your glasses,” Hermann continues, flicking his eyes up and down Newt twice. He lingers on Newt’s left hand, over the bare spot where—until this morning, when he suddenly realized how stupid it looked and yanked it off—he was wearing that Elvis ring. “Ending things must be treating you kindly. I don’t suppose I could dash to your loo?”

“Loo?” Newt says. “Oh, right. Yeah, it’s that door there, right off the living room.” He drops down onto the leather couch. “Knock yourself out. I’ll be right here.”

Hermann disappears into Newt’s bathroom, and comes back out three minutes later with combed hair, a straightened collar, and the vague smell of cologne. He’s tucking a small bottle into his top pocket. “I found a box of hair dye in your medicine cabinet,” he declares, smugly. “I knew there was no bloody way that was natural. Though I’m not surprised it fooled Alice.” He rests his cane against the glass coffee table and sits down next to Newt. Right next to Newt. The whole sofa to pick from, and he’d rather their thighs touch. Newt doesn’t mind—actually, the contact is strangely grounding, like Hermann’s hand on his arm had been earlier. He’s here, in his living room, with Hermann, his friend Hermann, his colleague Hermann, his—well, question mark—Hermann.

“Hermann, can I ask you something?” he says. “Something important?”

“By all means,” Hermann says, leaning in and fluttering his eyelashes. Even over the cologne, Newt can still make out that mothball-chalk-smoke smell.

“Do you take your coffee with sugar?” he says.

Hermann laughs. “Do I—what?”

Newt repeats the question. The smile slips off Hermann’s face, and he draws away, furrowing his eyebrows. “Well,” he says, “yes, usually, only I’m not sure what—”

“Sugar, and some milk,” Newt says. “It was the same with your tea. And you had a mug that you would use—you wouldn’t use any other. It was blue, and it said—” He exhales through his nose. “It said TU Berlin. That’s where you got your PhD.”

After Newt sent Hermann a text about dinner last night, he sat down with a pen and pad of paper and made a list of everything he could remember about Hermann. He started with what Hermann looks like, and who Hermann is, and then moved into the harder stuff like what Hermann likes and the sort of things Hermann used to do. He stayed up all night doing it, until his hand cramped and his head hurt even more than it had that morning, and then recited it over and over to himself in a whisper as he fell asleep. Hermann has brown eyes. Hermann likes blackberry jam on his toast. Hermann wears little glasses on a chain. Hermann uses a cane with a tiny little nick in the brass of the handle. The list is in his pocket now; it makes Newt feel calm, and even calmer when he reaches into his pocket and touches it. He exhales again, hard, and then inhales. “We were together,” he says. “When we closed the Breach, you told me you loved me.”

“I did,” Hermann says, quietly.

“I said it back,” Newt says.

Hermann nods.

Slowly, Newt reaches out and puts his hand over Hermann’s. Hermann makes a strange noise in the back of his throat—like a sigh, or maybe a groan. His pulse twitches erratically under Newt’s fingertips. “I bought chalk,” Newt says.

“You—” Hermann echoes, his voice choked. “You bought chalk?”

“It reminded me of you,” Newt says.

He’s not surprised when Hermann kisses him, but he is surprised at his knee-jerk reaction: to pull away, or push Hermann away, and to order him to get out of his apartment. He’s surprised, because those aren’t his thoughts. He doesn’t want Hermann to leave—he wants Hermann to stay longer, and kiss him more, and help him remember more. “Oh, Newton,” Hermann says. “Newton, Newton—” He moves his mouth to Newt’s neck, kissing, breathing, and whispering his name, and Newt shuts his eyes and forces himself to remember his list.

“Tell me things about you,” Newt begs. “I want to remember you.”

Hermann’s laughter, hesitant and confused, comes out in a puff of hot air against his skin. “Remember me?” he says. “I’m not sure— Are we not a bit—?”

“Hermann,” Newt says.

He grips the back of Hermann’s sweater, digging his nails in Hermann’s skin through the layers of fabric. Hermann must hear the urgency in his voice, because he shakes his head with another laugh, kisses Newt’s jaw, and says, “Well, alright. What am I even meant to tell you?”

“Your favorite color,” Newt says. Hermann kisses his chin. “Your favorite song. No, wait—” He nudges Hermann away from him, just enough so that Hermann can see him smile. “Tell me what you like about me.”

“Feeling rather egotistical tonight, aren’t we?” Hermann teases. He reaches out and brushes his fingers through the side of Newt’s hair. One of the spots Newt dyed—it was too grey. He catches Hermann’s hand by the wrist and pulls it away gently, but only to press himself up against Hermann’s chest instead. He can feel Hermann’s heartbeat. “I like—hm,” Hermann says. “I like your stubbornness. I like your passion. I like…”

His voice vibrates in his throat—Newt can feel that, too. He listens.