#why are they so goddamn durable

[chaimeanstea]

yes but, finding >20 ticks across one's body every day

from late spring to late fall

for the past seven years

does very little for my kindness towards those little bloodsucking schnorrers.

[choctalksalot]

i think mechanical calculators might be some of the most beautiful things ever

[mtchee]

Silence is Silver, Your Voice is Gold - [Katsuki Bakugo] SOULMATE SERIES | GN

blurb:

You've got the cranky egoist in 1A as your soulmate. Deemed as an 'extra' in his straight laced life, you've resigned yourself to covering your soul words and sealing your lips, becoming U.A's first year general course prodigy, the silent designer. Despite his distasteful character and colourful atittude, as one of Bakugo's primary costume creators, you work to your utmost to satisfy beyond your client's needs. It's unfortunate that despite your title, the angry pompom won't take a goddamn hint from your silence. When you even go out of your way to avoid him, you start to think that he knows you a little too well despite never having uttered a word.

cw: not edited, second-person-pov, [name] is a general course student, swearing, sassy [name], lowkey enemies to lovers, you hate him, he likes your attitude, onesided e2l??, i know nothing about textiles and design except the bare minimum, [name] and bakugo are kinda cute why am i eating this up omg, [name] tormenting bakugo with bright pink and ribbons

| masterlist | boku no hero academia collection |

[2.5k]

Avoiding Katsuki Bakugo has been a piece of cake.

The guy has such an inflamed ego that he expects the people to part for him wherever he walks.

You met him when the hero course first years were scheduled to mix with the costume design students to discuss both the practical and fashionable output of their hero costumes.

You'd been one of the main designer's for Bakugo's suit, with two others having asissted you in its curation. From his original sketch, you'd syphoned the relevant materials for the prototype, your colleagues aiding in the stitching and detail while you further assessed how it could potentially enhance the use of his quirk.

'Beat it, extra.'

The words had tingled on the back of your neck after he growled at you before you could consult him on his gauntlets' latest design. You had swiftly looked him up and down with disgust at his audaciousness before slapping your sketchpad on the table in front of him and storming off.

You remember hearing the maniacal laughter of his friends while one of your other classmate's (the designer of Shoji's suit) shakily explained to him your presence.

You'd had much better things to do that day, but had decided to go out of your way to personally discuss with him his preference in design and utility so you wouldn't have to go back and forth with various prototypes.

Instead, you got cussed out before saying a single word; what an utter waste of your generous time.

Like hell you were going to deal with a soulmate like that.

You started wearing a thick, velvet choker to hide your golden inked soul words.

Since then, you'd sent your assistants to deliver any sort of message to him. With them doing your communicative bidding, you could put your full focus on the active improvement of his hero costume.

When it would come back burnt from training, you would change and reinforce its material until it was fire resistant. When it got ripped, you would reasses its durability. When his gauntlets got in the way, you would restructure them for better mobility and control.

One day when one of your assistants reluctantly relayed to you Bakugo's irrational displeasure with the pigment of his headpiece (for the seventh time), you'd sent it back hot pink with a black and white frilly ribbon.

He broke your lab door the same day.

Since then, when you'd send off your poor assistants in sacrifice, he'd rattle them and demand for you to face him personally.

You ignored him, but then when your classes started mingling more you couldn't get away from him quick enough.

One of your classmates would sweat in a panic off to the side as you worked at your bench tirelessly with thinned lips and an irk whilst Bakugo yelled and threw a hissyfit at your every move.

"What the hell is that supposed to be? Spandex?!"

"That looks like a lump of shit."

"God, it's ugly."

"Whaddya using that for? Weakass bullshit cloth."

"STOP MAKING IT PINK!"

"No way would that work with my quirk!"

"I'd blow that to smithereens easy."

You had to stop yourself from throwing your sketchpad at him most days. But sometimes you caved and summoned a roll of pink ribbon to stuff in his loud mouth.

He spat it at you and yelled even more, but that single moment of peace and his reddened face made it worth it.

On occasion, you would be lucky and actually get a few decent conversations out of him. His mouth was still foul, but his volume would be acceptable, and his suggestions surprisingly competent and reasonable.

On those days, he would leave with his voice intact, and you with one step closer to the final product.

Your impeccable work ethic and skills and Bakugo's mild decency lead you way ahead of the others in your unit. Eventually, you started having enough time to help out with some of the other hero costumes too--with the permission of both the creator and wearer, of course.

They've all been more than thrilled to work alongside U.A's renouned silent designer.

Although you worked quietly, you made more of an effort to communicate personally with the heroes in training regarding their costumes.

Most were surprised at that, having only known you to work alone and to commune from afar as you've done with Bakugo.

While word of your ingenius spread, unfortunately so too did your most recent work relations.

Bakugo didn't seem to find it funny that you talked to everyone but him.

So you threw all your stationary at him when he stormed into your design lab to make it everyone's problem.

But more specifically, to make it your problem.

"Miss me, nerd?"

Your scathing glare did nothing to Bakugo's arrogant smirk as he waltzes his way past everyone to your work bench.

You narrowly snatch up your latest prototype sketches before he sets down a pair of cold drinks on the table. The condensation drips down, pooling on its surface.

"This it?" He casually quirks up a brow at the strip of hard textured fabric and metal atop your bench. He picks up one of the drinks and slurps from its straw obnoxiously to get on your nerves, "hm, doesn't look like shit this time."

Lately you've been redesigning his utility belt to match the clasps between his protective gloves and gauntlets, additionally extending it to hold extra grenades that activate through his quirk. You've already sent in a request to the support department for those.

"Put ribbons on it like you did last week and I'll kill you."

You fight back a petty smile, recalling the pretty little pompoms decorating the numerous tiny pink bows stitched to each belt loop. He scoffs at your poorly concealed pleasure, and you turn your nose up at him, biting the inside of your cheek mischieviously.

He narrows his eyes at you before rolling them, placing his drink down way too close to your precious papers--again--and resting his cheek on his fist boredly.

Your lips twitch downward in ire at his intrusion of your space, but you work around him nontheless. You don't blink when he cusses as he smacks away a scrap of fabric you toss at him in casual vengeance.

"When's this gonna be done anyway--quit it. I've got a mission in Shinjuku next week." Bakugo snatches a pen you throw at him in mid-air.

You shrug at him, not your problem, but hold up two fingers anyway.

"Two days, huh," He clicks his tongue, "you slackin'?"

He cackles demonically while you log a chunk of stainless steel at his head.

Swear to god--you're gonna make his whole suit neon pink!

He visits you again after his mission, which is evidently successful judging by the fat cocky smirk on his face as he approaches while you stitch up a hero costume from class 1-B.

You deadpan at him as he drops a take away paper bag at the corner of your work bench. Then he tosses his empty utility belt over your most recent handiwork.

"Clasp blasted off."

Bakugo makes himself at home in the spinny chair opposite you, leaning back and putting his boots on the desk as he snags a tasty pastry from the paper bag before pushing it towards you.

An eyebrow twitches as you stare at the no longer existing metal clasp on the support item. A square char mark is left where it would've been. The belt is otherwise untouched.

What, was he aiming for it or something?

Scrunching your nose at him distastefully, you flick the belt off the costume you had been working on and resume your stitching.

"Oi! What about me!?"

You shoot him a sharp glare that makes him scoff. He pipes down nontheless, settling back into his chair with a roll of his eyes and a grumble.

Bakugo's visitations become more frequent.

At this point in time, his hero costume shouldn't need any more major improvements or adjustments until the start of your second year. And yet he's coming in what seems like every other day for any single little thing that bothers him.

Hell, he even comes in to bug you about repaires--you don't do repaires. But he argues that he doesn't want anyone but you 'touching his shit', as he so eloquently explains.

He's come in for his belt clasp six times now, his visor for four, his gauntlets for five, and for the sole of his boots thrice.

The bottom of his fucking shoes.

He can eat your sparkly, bow tied, hot pink and purple swirled shit.

He doesn't even need you anymore!

You're just some stupid non-hero extra. The hell is his deal now?

Bakugo's come in angry today.

He's normally angry, but it's different this time.

You watch him wearily from the corner of your eye as you type out a risk assessment at your desk. School's finished now, but you've been putting this off for a bit, and wanted to get it done while you were still feeling productive.

Less than ten minutes after the last bell rang out and everyone left for the day, Bakugo had come barging in with a stiffer than usual scowl and a dissatisfied furrow in his brows.

But he's been silent.

Bakugo's never been silent.

He sits in the seat adjacent to you, leant all the way into the backrest with his arms tightly crossed and his eyes narrowed, boring into your form.

Each time you glance at him you look away in a hurry as you meet his gaze.

Okay, now it's getting to you...

Slowly, your fingers stop typing, unable to function properly under the intensity of his stare. You don't look at him this time though, and you sweatdrop uncomfortably.

The tension causes your skin to prick, and you tug at your choker discomposibly. The velvet rubs at your skin, irritating it.

You jump when he suddenly speaks.

"What's up with you, huh?" He says it more like a statement, "you're so damn quiet it's eery. Say something."

You give him a disgruntled look.

Is he for real? Is that what his tantrum is about? He can go eat grass.

You turn your attention back onto your laptop, typing again.

He growls at that.

"Don't ignore me, damnit! I know you can say shit!"

Oh, and the shit I would say. You snicker to yourself, but that only seems to tick him off more.

"[name], answer me."

Your stomach drops--he's never called you by your name, let alone your first name. You glance at him again; Bakugo leans forwards with his elbows on his knees, eyes piercing you with a threatening intensity that sends off warning bells in your head.

You look back at him once you grasp the gravity of his tone.

Your annoyed frown fades, and your features soften as to prompt him. He takes in a deep breath, gaze flicking up and down your form as he processes his thoughts first.

He meets your eyes again with a determined resolve.

"I know you're my soulmate."

Fuck, what.

Bakugo scowls when you visibly stiffen, shock coursing your system.

"Get over yourself, you ain't slick. 'S why you've been runnin' from me." He crosses his arms across his chest, lips firmly downturned at your lack of verbal response.

Ice freezes your blood and your gaze flicks away from him apprehensively. What exactly is he expecting from this? Bakugo is a cocky bastard.

An egocentric prick with the means to flaunt it. He's one of the top students in the hero course and he knows it--what the hell does he want from you?

You feel your temper flare.

So what if he knows your soulmates? He obviously thinks he's too good for this shit; fuck fate and all that it stands for, you're just some side character behind him, just like he's said.

You aren't shit to him, and if he thinks he can actually do better than you, well then you know that you can. Who is he to pick and choose who he deserves? In that case, you know what, yeah, he's right, because you deserve better than him any day-

"What?" Bakugo's unappreciated tone fans the flames of the rapidly burning thread containing your tolerance, "still silent?"

"Shut up, asshole! You think you're too good for shit!" Your outburst as you slamming your hands down atop your work bench, the few utensils scattered about clattering in tandem with the vibration, "I'm not just some side piece you can bulldoze! I know my worth, even if you can't fathom it, you eighth-grade-syndrome twit!"

A tense silence settles over the room, and his eyes harden as you stare him down with an unwavering resolve.

Bakugo's lips twitch.

And then he's cackling like a hyena.

You flinch at the abrupt switch, scrambling to process whether you should feel glad or offended that he doesn't seem to be taking your words to heart.

You know for a fact you would not beat Katsuki Bakugo in a fight.

You shiver at the thought, and he beats his fist on the edge of the table as he recovers from his laughter. He lets out a long winded breath, wiping an exaggerated tear from his eye which you deadpan at.

"Ah, damn," Bakugo snorts, "we're really meant to be, eh?" He lifts up the edge of his loose shirt just enough to reveal the glowing golden words inked vertically on his toned waist, "knew there was a reason I could tolerate you more."

"Ditto." You spit out despite the relief flooding you as he stays put. You rub the back of your neck subconsciously.

He eyes the movement skeptically before motioning for you to move towards him. You scrunch your nose at him but oblige when he clicks his tongue irratedly. You've tested his patience enough already.

Once you're close enough he yanks you down and unclasps your velvet choker. You emit a scandalised gasp, feeling naked without it.

"Hey!"

"Give it up," He drawls, "get over yourself."

Bakugo latches a hand around your nape, pulling you forward so your head is bent level with his chest, and your face flushes. Both your hands grip at the armrests of the chair, caging him in as you fight not to fall off balance.

"Ack-" You choke at the feeling of him ever so gently tracing beneath the words on the back of your neck, "-stop that!"

He huffs a laugh, and his breath pans over your skin.

His eyes soften ever so slightly, "You're not jus' some extra, you know..." He lets you up. He ignores the imbuing embarrassment that pairs with the subtle blush tinting his cheeks.

You mull over his words for a second, pushing yourself back to face him head on. You blink slowly, registering his meaning. A gentle warmth settles across your cheeks, and a quiet glee bubbles inside you.

"Yeah?"

Although you bite back a smile, there's a hopeful glimmer in your eyes.

Bakugo grins, "Yeah," and places a reassuring hand atop your head, "not my soulmate."

[radiance1]

(Cha'll know Hornet from Hollow Knight? Yea, she inspired me for this along with her song recently made by Man on the Internet.)

Danny's reveal went wrong. His parents operated and experimented on him until his body couldn't take it anymore, and, well.

He died on that operating table.

Jack and Maddie weren't immediately concerned, really, since it's just a ghost. They weren't, at least, until that ghost transformed back into their son.

They were far too stunned to properly process it. Their son was phantom, their son was the ghost they spent a while chasing through the streets of their town and hunting.

They killed their own son on an operating table.

When Jazz found out she, well she wasn't pleased. At all. She screamed at them, tears streaming down her face when she found out her brother was dead. The brother she spent raising in her parents place, the brother who went out and risked himself fighting ghosts for the town, her little brother.

She couldn't take it anymore, couldn't deal with them anymore. She had a friend over a Gotham, a very good friend who would let her crash for a while at their place until she could get back on her feet. So she packed her things and left Amity Park and her parents behind.

The Fenton's were racked with guilt, because they killed their own son and the last damn thing he saw was them operating on him. They had to make this right.

They never really, truly, dabbled in genetic engineering much. But they could goddamn learn, they were smart enough for it. They built and put Danny in a pod to keep his body from either melting or decomposing, they never could tell which would happen after learning of his unique biology and got to work.

Their first try at cloning him was a failure. The clone barely lasted a second before melting away into a puddle of unusable ectoplasm and DNA. Their second clone had the same effect, so did their third, fourth, fifth, sixth.

It was incredibly harder than they first thought to clone the unique biology of a halfa. But they couldn't, wouldn't, give up. They had to do this, they had to right what they did wrong.

It took 4 years for them to engineer the 'perfect' clone. 4 years in which they haven't left their home, 4 years in which they haven't seen their daughter, 4 years of trying to atone for what they did, and they finally did it.

Subject 'Omega' was built to last. Superhuman durability, superhuman healing, unable to physically age. Everything they could think of that allowed it to not die they engineered into it.

They couldn't clone his ghostly abilities, would make it too unstable, it would have to develop such things on its own. They couldn't clone his memories either, but it was ok, they could make new ones!

Subject 'Omega' was released from its pod and unlike the other failures, it didn't melt into a puddle as soon as it left the pod, nor a few minutes or hours after. They kept it around for a day, fully ready for it to destabilize and be regarded as a failure, but blessedly it didn't.

They then kept their son's body in that room, putting it on full lock down and ensuring that it could never get in.

They finally succeeded in making the perfect clone. One almost exactly like their son, stuck between life and death, black hair, blue eyes the whole shebang. Sure, he didn't have the memories or the abilities that Phantom possessed, but it was fine.

They had to treat it properly, raise it right, even. Teach it all they knew, take care of it properly, that's what parents did right? Sure, maybe it wasn't as perfect as it should have been, missing memories, missing abilities, for example.

But they still loved it regardless!

It was unable to transform into Phantom. It had ghostly abilities, yes, but it was fully stuck as just Fenton, they didn't get it, they made him as perfect as could be why couldn't it just do that-

Did they miss something? Was there a problem with its design? The missing memories they could attribute to themselves, the abilities they could write off as having been replaced by the abilities they built into it to make it last taking priority over pre-installing the ghost abilities.

But this.

THIS.

WHY COULDN'T IT JUST DO THIS ONE, SIMPLE THING!? THEY MADE IT RIGHT, NOTHING SHOULD HAVE GONE WRONG, IT SHOULD BE CAPABLE OF DOING THIS.

But it was ok, it was fine, sure he didn't have the ability that Danny should have. But it was ok, they still loved him even if he wasn't perfect, they told him so all the time.

Everything is ok.

----

Subject Omega, or Danny, as he was told his name was. Loved his parents quite a lot, or at least he's been told he loves them. He didn't have any memories of them, nor of this house, nor of that girl in the pictures, but he was told it didn't matter.

He was told he had Amnesia, that it was so bad he couldn't remember any of his memories before today. They were his parents, parents who loved him with all of their might, this house was their house that he's lived in since he was born and the girl in the pictures was his sister.

He asked where she was, they said she left, he asked why, he didn't get an answer. He didn't question it, really, it was intriguing to know who she was, but his parents didn't want to share and a good boy doesn't ask questions that his parents don't want to answer!

Apparently, he was what his parents called a Halfa, a hybrid between a human and a ghost and he had the abilities to prove it. The standard ghost powers of Intangibility, invisibility and flight, with his own ability to form ectoplasm into string, or silk (he had them whispering about that, but it was probably nothing of concern) along with a numerous amount of abilities either related to durability or healing.

He was confused when they asked him to 'Go Ghost', because he didn't know what or how to do that. They showed him some audio, apparently something they had to hack through a lot of cameras to even find, of him shouting "Going ghost!" and what they believe to be him then transforming into another version of himself with white hair and green eyes they called 'Phantom'.

He tried it out, they seemed hopeful, he didn't want to disappoint them. But he couldn't do it, they urged him to try again and again when he failed over and over. He was worried he was disappointing them, but he told them he just couldn't do it.

He was scared, of how they reacted to. His mother screamed at him for why he couldn't just do this one simple thing, the thing he was supposed to do, while his father grabbed onto his arm and dragged him to his room. He couldn't feel physical pain, or much of it so his parents told him, but he had the idea that it should hurt.

He was told to never leave his room until he could figure out how to go ghost, and then the door was slammed shut in his face. He tried to do it, he really tried too! Even forgoing sleep to try and go ghost repeatedly.

It turned morning, and he still couldn't do it. He wasn't even tired, so he could continue trying until he got it right! But then a knock came from his door and his mother came through, he was preparing to apologies when she just told him to come down for breakfast and said she loved him.

He, didn't know what to feel about that.

he questioned his parents about it, a while after he came downstairs. But they acted confused, asking if he had a bad dream or something of the like, so he hesitantly recounted what happened and his mother just hugged him. Telling him that they would never do that because they loved him far too much to yell at him and treat him that way.

So, maybe he did just have a bad dream and nothing happened.

He was glad for it, too.

He didn't go to school, they pulled him from school because of his accident and decided to homeschool him. He had a lot to learn, really, all the stuff from inventing, mathematics and fighting from them!

He loved it! Really, he did! Sure, some of the stuff made him brain hurt from so much knowledge crammed into his head, but he was getting better at Martial Arts! He got so good at both that he even got a gift! A giant needle sword thing that was supposed to go hand in hand with his thread and such!

He didn't have anything else to be learnt, but he wasn't allowed to go outside, so he just stayed home really. It was just the three of them here, and it was his whole world.

One day his parents went out, which wasn't unusual as of recent, so he took to refining his technique with the needle, he could go on for hours and not feel the barest of fatigue, that's how it always was said his parents. But when they came back, they seemed, different, it was a subtle thing, but they seemed paler.

They were also a bit panicked, telling him not to go outside (not that they let him) and then going down into their lab to do something. He was curious about it, but didn't mind it, he knew his parents probably didn't want to worry him about something, so he just lost himself into refining his technique.

Over the passage of a few weeks his parents kept going out and then coming back into their lab, carrying samples of something. They never told him what it was, so he didn't bother asking, it seemed very important, so he shouldn't bother them.

Even if they seemingly had less time for him and more for whatever they had down in the lab.

Over those weeks his parents seemed to become ill, he didn't know what it was, but they seemed to have contracted something. Sometimes they came back covered in blood, sometimes coughing, or injured.

One day they didn't come back up from the lab, and Danny left them there because he didn't want to disturb them. He had to refine his technique after incorporating string after all.

Another week passed, and his parents still didn't come back up, he was worried, extremely so. So he sneaked down into the lab, he was prepared for being punished or shouted at for doing so, but he just needed to know if they were ok.

They weren't.

The first sign was a terrible smell of rot, the first repugnant thing he's ever smelt oddly enough. The second was the smell of iron, and the third was seeing his parents' bodies lying on the ground, blood splattered from their mouths.

He didn't understand why they were just lying there, why blood came from their mouths or why a terrible smell came from them. Maybe they were napping? A weird place to do so.

So he tried dragging upstairs and putting them on the couch or in their beds. Which he managed to do after a while, putting them to put and covering them with sheets, then went down back to the lab.

Because there was a newly opened door his parents had opened, and he was curious, and it didn't look like they were gonna wake up soon so surely, he could take a peek.

He didn't know what he expected, but seeing himself in a pod wasn't it.

Then he found out that he was a clone. A clone of the original, dead Danny and there were hundreds upon hundreds of other failed clones. He didn't know how to take it, apparently his original was hero, a hero they hunted down and killed because he was a ghost, and the only reason they made him was because they didn't realize and killed their son.

He wanted to march up there and demand an explanation, but he was scared, scared of how they would react if he were to bring it up. They killed their own, true son, so why wouldn't they just kill him and continue cloning too?

They left the way to lock this section of the lab in one of their entries, so he locked it and left, waiting for them to wake up.

Except, they never did.

Then a while later some people entered his house unannounced, clearing through the house. They asked him if he knew where his parents were, and he took them to their bedroom. they said his parents were dead, and then completely disregarded him after and went down into his parents' lab and took basically everything they could get their hands on, including his parents' prized Ghost Portal.

He couldn't stop them, too busy trying to process the fact his parents died, and he didn't know.

Awhile passed and he went outside, seeing the town basically abandoned for some reason. He saw no one but those men for a while, people he later learned to be some government agents.

And just like that the town he was in became the testing ground for the government to dump their failed experiments, either too hostile or not what they wanted.

More so the former than the later.

The original Danny protected this town, was a hero and stopped ghosts. There weren't many ghosts around here anymore, at least the humanoid ones his predecessor fought off, but there were the ghosts of animal's or experiments who kicked the bucket, and then there was the experiments who were still alive and wandering the town, extremely violent and animals that got mutated from some kind of chemical those ghosts dumped around town.

Probably another failed experiment.

So, he decided that just like the original he would try and protect this town, from the government, from the failed experiments, from the mutated animals, from the ghosts of experiments and animals long dead. He would preserve this place to the best of his ability, it was the only thing he could do now.

And just like that, 5 years passed. 5 years of fighting off experiments and beasts with his nail and thread, 5 years of zero human contact, 5 years of just fighting and surviving and honing his skills.

And then, one day. A group of people came to his town, not the government, he could tell when they were coming. No, this was a group of different, newer, people.

People he had to dig through his memories to find, because he only saw one article on them before his parents switched him to a server they made for him.

The Wayne's were in his forgotten town for some reason, and with them was the girl he saw in the original's family photos, he didn't know her name, but he knew she was the original's sister. He would watch and wait, see what they do, and if he determined them to be a threat.

Well.

Threats to this town have to be eliminated.

[gigglebone6]

ithink this is what tumblr would be like in the dogman universe: a simulator

😀 randomcivillian-956 follow

can those villain asshats get control of those goddamn monsters i have lost literally every single fucking thing thanks to those brainless pieces of shits last week a fucking T-REX SKELETON destroyed my fucking HOUSE and everything around it

🪻 inmylane-1999

how are you able to say those words

😀 randomcivillian-956 follow

what words?

🪻 inmylane-1999 the a word, f word, and s word

😀 randomcivillian-956 follow

oh i see you're one of the Collardale inhabitants. screw the fuck off your town is a CURSE

🪻 inmylane-1999

what did i do? :(

10 notes

🪰 greenweirdthingwithteeth follow

hnstly i dont get y Daryl hangs arnd that pig guy hes rlly mean & bad

🐊 piethrowingboss

didnt u help us go after him when he ditched us after the mini jail broke 2 bits?

🪰 greenweirdthingwithteeth follow

yeh butt hes still rlly mean & i was a lil moar concerned 4 Daryl

🐊 piethrowingboss

ohhhh kk

5 notes

🐕 zupabuddiezthezenutz

zomg did u guyz watch that new mini-documentary w/ Petey The Cat n Zarah Hatoff??? that waz tragickk..

#holy shart i have so much moar respect 4 him now..

6 notes

🔄 24hotdogsatyourdoorstep reblogged

🌆 icareforyou follow

still dont know why people are supporting Petey Duckhat just because of that documentary, didn't he terrorize the city for more than a month or two?? ntm he quite literally MUTILATED Officer Knight and Greg The Dog's bodies bad enough with that bomb to where they had to become that sick and horrible abomination i have to stomach through seeing on the news every week.

😀 randomcivillian-956 follow

i know right?? like hes genuinely a horrible cat but people are supporting him for no other reason other than "oh hes a victim!!" like shut the fuck up and grow up.

comicpanel-deactivated-98325749857

op i wouldn't say DogMan is sick and horrible, he seems to be in great condition despite such an accident and hard surgery to conduct, and looks perfectly happy. while i don't support Petey Duckhat either, you took it a step further and suggested that DogMan is currently in conditions horrible enough to render him an "abomination".

🌆 icareforyou follow

dont you post tips for fucking evil monsters on your blog.

#LMAOOO dude was SLAUGHTERED so hard they deactivated #redogs

1,509 notes

🌭 24hotdogsatyourdoorstep

walking on the street with a small can of living spray in my pocket and the nearest cop explodes into blood guts and viscera

10 notes

🦷 bigmonsterinyourheart

okay i get that Dr. Scum is a real and kinda sucky person and all that but his labcoat kinda fucks!!

0 notes

✨ lookatthestars

Hot take or whatever but I don't think we should trust a guy who gets really distracted by squirrels and balls and a kitten who could easily get hurt to protect our city. Lightning Dude IS one of the better options as they ARE a highly durable and strong robot, but The Bark Knight and Cat Kid maybe aren't our best bets, they could get hurt easily and aren't exactly professionals.

Don't get me started on the Friendly Friends, I don't think we can trust two guys who JUST left the same exact trio that was responsible for that marshmallow factory's destruction (which left many injured, some DEAD), what if they're pretending? Also the bugs could easily get killed, they're small and fragile, the most work they can do without a high risk of getting smashed is spying on villains.

Commander Cupcake's a different story, as I'm pretty sure that guy only helped out, like, 3 times.

#anti-supa buddies #anti-friendly friends #twinkle twinkle little star

15 notes

🪁 lalalalala89

dude imagine if we were in a book rn and ppl were posting on tumblr abt us

0 notes

🎠 supastarr

remember, calico trans toms are perfectly valid! even cis toms can be calicos, and fur pattern doesn't determine exact gender, especially with fur dying technology nowadays! :)

506 notes

[voxofthevoid]

On this fine morning/evening/witching hour, I bring you vore: Demon/Hunter Horror Wednesday #17, featuring a brief fight and Yuuji's continued development of questionable dietary habits.

This time, it's Gojou on the menu—can't let Sukuna have all the fun ✨

(Also, there won't be any WIP Wednesday snippet next week.)

“Performance issues?” Satoru asks doubtfully a while later, staring at Yuuji stare at his own hand.

“I can’t—” Yuuji’s jaw clenches. Satoru can almost hear teeth grinding together. “It was working fine yesterday, I don’t know why it’s so hard now.”

Satoru hums, eyeing the pulsing red tendrils practically groping Yuuji’s spiritual energy. “I can venture a guess or two.”

Yuuji’s eyes snap to him. ��What is it? What’s happening?”

“Your spiritual energy is unstable.”

“I know that,” Yuuji grits out. “I can feel it.”

“Can you, I wonder.”

“For fuck’s sake.” It’s practically a growl, low and rumbling. “Would it kill you to not be a cryptic bastard for one goddamn second?”

“Oh?” Satoru straightens up from his slouch against a tree, giving Yuuji is full, undivided attention; the boy doesn’t quail even a little under the force of it. “Are you getting angry, Yuuji?”

Yuuji’s mouth twists into something that’s all teeth and no smile. “I’m starting to think you want me to be.”

“Only starting?” Satoru mocks softly. “Well, you are slow on the uptake sometimes.”

Yuuji leaps.

It’s an impressive movement, all grace and power. The space between them vanishes in what would have been a millisecond to any pair of eyes except Satoru’s, and for a moment, he’s torn between delight that he can see every minutia of Yuuji’s attack and regret that he can’t experience the raw shock of it.

Then Yuuji’s arm is impaling the tree, at just the right height to have punched through Satoru’s gut a moment ago.

Satoru whistles. “Tōji’s rubbed off on you.”

Yuuji whirls around; his arm tears through the trunk instead of sliding out of the hole it made, and the splinters have barely started to fall before he’s on Satoru, eyes wild and teeth bared.

Satoru fends him quite thoroughly, but it’s not what he’d call easy. Yuuji moves with an agility that belies the power in his body, acrobatic motions shifting seamlessly into inhuman bursts of speed and power, and he’s not lacking durability either, bouncing back barely out of breath each time Satoru sends him crashing into the ground or through a tree.

He’s not on Tōji’s level, but the only person alive who can counter that monster is Satoru himself. Perhaps Nanami would be a better comparison. It’s been quite a while since Satoru’s fought his former underclassman, but Nanami is a prime specimen of a hunter.

Yuuji would give him a run for his money.

Take away spiritual energy and fancy techniques, and Yuuji would win.

Unlock in Yuuji what’s sure to be an impressive birthright, and again, he would win.

As they are now, Yuuji a beast with only the sputtering dregs of his tainted power to call upon and Nanami a seasoned hunter with a versatile technique and a sharp mind to boot, Yuuji would eventually lose. He’d make Nanami pay for it.

The heat that pools in Satoru’s gut isn’t exactly sexual, but it’s certainly nothing as wholesome as admiration.

So he indulges Yuuji far more than is wise, leading him away from the barrier but deeper into the forest, and Yuuji’s eyes are too sharp to not know what’s happening, but he follows Satoru willingly, if violently, making the best of every movement and even taking advantage of the environment to assault him from all angles, and Satoru can never not see him coming, but he gives Yuuji his flesh all the same, Limitless tucked away to leave Satoru a thing of warm, bruisable skin.

Yuuji bruises nothing, but not for want of trying.

There’s a concerning amount of trying, in fact. Now, past the initial rush of Yuuji trying to punch through his gut and committing to the choice with extreme prejudice, Satoru’s starting to notice the subtler tells. The fury on Yuuji’s face can only be organic—it’s too hot, too real. But it wasn’t so long ago that Satoru was marveling at the revelation that Yuuji’s anger burns cold, and that’s not what he’s seeing right now. And his eyes are wide and manic, fixed on Satoru with blistering intensity, but when the light hits them just right, pinpricks of red shimmer within the darkened brown.

The longer this dance goes on, the less Satoru can ignore all the ways the steps aren’t quite right.

It suits Yuuji, this bestial rage. He’ll be a calamity someday.

But it’s Yuuji that Satoru wants—all of him, only him.

He plants his feet, a casual retreat turned into an unforgiving block, and Yuuji’s quick to adjust, knocking Satoru’s arm away and striking out, his face still set into a snarl that gleams white and pink.

Satoru catches Yuuji’s fist with his palm, closing his fingers tightly around it.

Yuuji doesn’t waste time trying to pull it back, immediately driving his free hand toward Satoru’s stomach, all five fingers spread like he’s planning to gouge out a fistful of flesh.

“You keep going for the gut,” Satoru says, his hand clamped around Yuuji’s straining wrist. “You were very fond of it—but that’s not what this is, is it?”

Yuuji growls, the air between them quivering unnaturally.

“Scary,” Satoru murmurs, not for the first time. He yanks Yuuji closer, easily overpowering his attempts to pry free. This close, the red in his eyes is deeper, brighter. “But it’s sweeter when it’s all you, Yuuji.”

The growl cuts off, the snarl fades—and Yuuji strikes, snake-swift.

Satoru still sees it coming enough that he has to allow it, but it’s startling enough that Limitless tries to flare anyway, caught and smothered a split second before Yuuji’s teeth sink into the meat of Satoru’s right bicep.

They cleave clean through fabric and flesh.

“Ah,” Satoru gasps, the sheer novelty of the sensation more shocking than the pain. It’s not the biting. He’s familiar with Yuuji’s teeth despite the boy’s best efforts to be gentle. And Satoru’s had his fair share of partners who got nippy in bed. There were even a few times Suguru looked tempted during their teenage tussles, though he never did lower himself to it.

Demons who’ve tried have only ever gotten a mouthful of infinities.

No one, not even in Satoru’s wildest dreams, have bitten off a chunk of flesh—and the cloth over it.

It’s a peculiar kind of pain, distinctly different from the bite of even the roughest bladed weapons. He can feel Yuuji’s teeth in his flesh; he can feel them straining to meet. He can taste the power in his jaw and the wet heat awaiting his flesh.

The muscles of Yuuji’s neck flex, tendons shifting under sweat-slick skin. There’s a minute shift in the line of his jaw.

It clamps down tight, tearing through the last shred of resistance in the meat between his teeth.

The moment his teeth meet is the moment Yuuji’s all Yuuji again.

Satoru takes it in past a reflexive swell of tears, blinked impatiently away so he can commit to memory the rich tapestry of emotion woven live by Yuuji’s features—his brows furrow, his lashes flutter, his lips flinch.

The wet red mess he’s still kissing throbs in answer.

The horror comes, of course it does, but before that, there’s this moment—dazed eyes and slack lips and soft, serene satisfaction. It’s an expression Satoru’s seen on this boy’s face a sweet handful of times, mostly when he emerged from his happy home between Satoru’s legs, his lips slick and swollen from a sweltering eternity spent stoking and swallowing Satoru’s heat.

“Easy,” Satoru says the moment Yuuji’s eyes widen, their bulging whites eating through the last of that satisfaction. “Don’t open your mouth.”

Wild eyes swivel to Satoru, the angle only serving to make Yuuji seem even more deranged. There’s a noise—not quite a question, not quite a cry. It trembles against the open wound on Satoru’s arm, which bleeds more against Yuuji’s tightly shut mouth.

He hasn’t swallowed yet.

Satoru lets go of Yuuji, even that simple motion shuddering down his right arm to make his wound pulse and spurt, and Yuuji makes another noise, distinctly despairing. Satoru raises his uninjured arm, gently cupping the back of Yuuji’s head—and pressing his mouth more firmly into the shredded mess he’s made of Satoru’s bicep.

Yuuji shivers, violently enough that Satoru feels it in his wound. There’s an answering pulse from his arm and his groin.

Satoru valiantly ignores it, instead stroking the silken undercut under his palm.

Yuuji’s starting to shake. His eyes are tightly shut.

Satoru says, “Swallow.”

There’s a low, wounded noise. He thinks Yuuji would shake his head if the movement wouldn’t force his face to rub against Satoru’s bleeding wound.

Satoru pets him a little more, winding his fingers through the damp strands of Yuuji’s hair and palming the fuzzy bristles of his undercut. Yuuji’s spiritual energy is barely a thrum now, as if it’s retreated into itself the way Yuuji so clearly wants to, but Satoru’s own is lashing under his skin, caught in a war between carefully cultivated instincts and ironclad will.

His good sense wants that wound healed and Yuuji’s teeth away from it, but Satoru—

“Swallow, Yuuji,” he repeats, squeezing Yuuji’s nape. “You have to keep what you take—waste not, want not.”

[obey-me-disaster]

I think a incredibly durable mc would be funny as hell. Like when mc trys to protect Beel and Luke Lucifer would try to attack them and they are just perfectly fine much to the confusion of literally everyone including Lucifer. The plot would get even weirder with the lesson 16 incident or lack thereof like Belphie trys to choke them and he just gets progressively more annoyed with how mc is just sitting there unaffected by getting choked. Like would he eventually just get pissed and throw them down the stairs or would he just begrudgingly give up and let them live? (You can treat this as a request or just a discussion I just wanted to share this with someone)

All the demons are getting humbled by the fact that they can't kill the powerless human exchange student.

Lucifer really knows how to gather the weirdest of people around him. Just look at MC and his brothers.

The weirdly durable MC

Literally 60% of the angst would be thrown out of the window because of that.

Lucifer tries to attack them? TWICE?! It never works.

During the first attack Lucifer thinks they are just bluffing, trying to save time for the chihuahua and his brother but no. Even after his attempt at their life, MC is still standing like nothing happened. His pride is hurt and he has to wonder...how, from all the humans on earth, did he choose the most durable one??

The second time, during the reveal that they have talked with Belphegor behind his back, in his rage he tries to attack them, only to be humbled and reminded by the fact that they are goddamned nearly indestructible.

Satan tries to throw threats at them? Both of them know it's bullshit. It's just a poor scare tactic and Satan knows it and is frustrated by it.

Belphie tries to choke them but it doesn't work? See, that's why he hates humans, the can't even let him have his revenger, surely, throwing MC down the stairs will work right? WRONG. They just land at the fight of the other brothes, without as much as a scratch on their body while Belphegor IS FUMING looking down on them. Why are they not dying?? Aren't they supposed to be human?? Now he looks like a fool in front of everyone.

His brothers don't know if they should be angry at him for trying to kill you or feel bad for him cause HOW DO YOU FAIL THAT BADLY?

After the whole Lilith incident he is happy that MC is actually durable.

Since MC is so durable he can't use the excuse that he needs to protect them in order to spend more time with them. His excuses get dumber and dumber as the time goes on.

Tbh, even if MC is durable, these fools would still try to not let any harm come upon them. Just cause they are durable it doesn't mean they can't feel pain, right? So they would still be protective as hell over MC. At least they are more willing to include them in dumn pranks since they won't get hurt as easily.

[carionto]

So, dinosaurs are a bust, BUT we got the next best thing

Part 1 2 3 4 (and extra)

The "dinosaur" """science""" station around the planet Ramforinkus is facing an existential crisis:

The dinosaurs they engineer keep dying on the planet that likes to set itself on fire all the time. Go figure.

And they are trying. Everie Jackobson, Henrietta Kostoyeva, and Gieverne de la Roquohe (everything after Ro is silent, obviously) will never give up on their dreams of... I'm actually not sure what they're actually aiming for anymore. It's become almost like a fever, this urge, this need to have dinosaurs as seen in Jurassic Park on a planet that is absolutely hostile to pretty much all living things except the very peculiar ferns, moss, algae, and fungi that coexist in this strange symbiotic cycle of conflagration.

Their latest solution?

Cybernetics.

Yup. Robo-dinosaurs.

If the flesh can't survive, metal will. They still want biological things in there, or it won't be a "real dinosaur" whatever importance that has at this stage.

But there's no fauna on the planet for them to hunt and eat, and there's no point to making a Dinosaur Planet if you can't have a goddamn TYRANNOSAURUS REX running around eating people. I mean, other dinosaurs. Whatever.

The solution? Make them able to digest metal that the cybernetic herbivore dinosaurs will be made of. Can't be solving self-inflicted problems without creating boatloads of additional work that will result in other problems that themselves will need extensive and complicated solutions, which in turn will continue the cycle forever.

Hmm?

Why are they adding guns to the carnivorous dinosaurs now?

Well, the cybernetically enhanced herbivores are a lot faster and more durable than their pure organic counterparts, so O B V I O U S L Y you need to compensate and balance things out.

But oh no, the weapon discharges are catching the planet on fire more frequently and reducing the herbivore's food sources dramatically, who could have predicted this, I wonder.

Aaaaand now some of the herbivores are salvaging the ranged weapons off of the occasional dead carnivore and gearing themselves up, so now the raptors need better defensive capabilities and stealth tech to even get close to their prey.

Yeah, go for it, that certainly won't cause more problems. Do a mecha-dinosaur arms race, these three """"""scientists"""""" are really putting their brilliant minds to good use over here. Well done.

...and now the dinosaurs are putting their differences aside and planning a rebellion against the evil sky wizard tower.

And you know what the three stooges are thinking?

Guess.

.

.

.

Wrong (unless you did guess this next part).

"I wonder how long until they develop their own space program and join us as a Galactic civilization? I can't wait! Dinosaurs in Space!!!"

[onthegreatsea]

i needed to test a joycon and had left totk in my switch so i sat down and was just casually playing it and like.. fuck man. its such a frustrating game. why is everything so cumbersome?

it uses every button on the controller constantly and its still not enough! its so poorly designed. i honestly cant believe this was the best design they could come up with why the fuck cant you just fuse things in the menu? why do i have to select the item in the menu, drop it, exit the menu and then press two more buttons to fuse it? assuming i am not accidentally too close to another item that is also fuseable and then have to run around to get it to auto select the thing i want? (god forbid the physics make it roll down a hill)

like im in the middle of a fight and want a special arrow and what do i have to do? spend the next minute in a menu scrolling through items while the game is paused.

weapons break so fast and it STILL doesnt auto equip another one so you have to manually do it yourself. and now you also have to fuse the weapon first? because adding more steps to their tedious durability system definitely makes it more fun.

oops your bow broke in the middle of a fight better force you to pause the game and take all the tension out of it so you can scroll through 20 of them trying to find the right one. pausing is fun right?

what a dynamic battle system

and of course i was forced to deal with the fucking stamina system again

im not opposed to stamina systems but link starts off with such a pathetic amount. barely any stamina in a huge world where everything depletes it and your top speed feels like a snail. how did they not fix this?

and yes you can spend hours slowly getting items to upgrade your stamina but like.. i've already done this in botw. it was a chore then why would i wanna do it again? and you need four of the goddamn things to improve your stamina *slightly*, it requires you to sacrifice improving your health, it takes forever and requires a huge amount of commitment just to get to a point where its not a constant annoyance. the stamina pieces dont feel like rewards that improve you; instead it feels like they're punishing you for not having enough of them to start with

seriously tho its ridiculous how much time you have to spend stuck in menus with this game

you still cant just select ingredients in a menu and combine them there; you have to back out, put them in a pot (that you had to light yourself) and hope you dont hit the stick and drop the ingredients on the floor. and why the fuck cant it save my recipes and just let me make multiple dishes in one go? hey why the fuck cant link just auto eat food when i lose health? why do you want me to spend so much time in your cumbersome menu system selecting shit instead of outside it doing the fun stuff?

why do i have to spam a button to pick things up? why cant link just auto pick things up that dont take up inventory space?

why cant i just auto change an entire outfit instead of selecting each bit manually? why cant i save specific outfit combos?

in fact why are so many useful abilities assigned to specific outfits so i am forced to keep entering the goddamn menu to change every time i want to have the highest climbing speed instead of have highest attack? and why does every outfit only have ONE ability?

the complete set bonuses just make this worse. if they didnt exist you'd have less reason to constantly be changing shit because you could mix and match the best abilities into one outfit. like every other RPG in existance already figured out decades ago.

how did they not realise how annoying all this menu shit is in over ELEVEN YEARS of development? how is this the best interface they could come up with?? in ELEVEN YEARS?? its fucking baffling

seriously, every time i think i can get some enjoyment out of it i collide head first into the constant tedium of its poorly designed interface and wonder how the fuck this got a metacritic of 96

[heaven-s-black-box]

Luck- Wash x Fem!Ex-Freelancer!Reader

Return to File

Recovery date: January 8th, 2025

Description: Hiya!!! When I saw your requests were open I just had to as for a Agent Washington from RvB(could be a short scenario or a full fic) because out of the very few writers put there for him I think that you are by far the best!!

Notes: CW Reader is vaguely implied to be suicidal (not wearing her armor in a war zone) This work was recovered in conjunction with an anonymous researcher, we thank them for their contribution. Went for a different route with my freelancer reader this time, she defected with Tex instead of being sent to Blood Gultch.

Word count: 1 181

Back to directory

Y/n pinched the bridge of her nose, letting out a long and tired sighed.

She was standing in a doorway of… it didn’t really matter. Nothing really mattered to her in this moment. Not the concerned and questioning stares of the New Republic soldiers as she walked around without her armor, not the strategic questions Kimball bombarded her with, and certainly not the dog pile in front of her.

Griff seemed to be on the bottom, she’s pretty sure she sees his armor peeking out, and Simmons is directly on top of him. She assumes Griff decided to sprawl on the ground in protest of something and this was Simmons’ way of getting him to move, because Tucker is on top of him like they were trying to make it uncomfortable. Then Caboose is on top, and she’s not even surprised.

She pities Kimball, putting her faith in these morons right now. But more than anything she pities them, the reds and blues- No. Tucker, Caboose, Griff, and Simons. The reds and blues includes Sarge, Lopez, Donut, Wash, Carolina, Church, and Doc. They are not the reds and blues, not right now.

Griff continues to yell incoherently, drowned out by the pile above him and everybody else yelling.

“Would you please,” Y/n yelled, shutting them up, “try to behave yourselves.”

Everyone was facing away from her, but Caboose craned his neck awkwardly until he could kind of see her.

“Y/n! Where’s your armor?”

“Being repaired.” A lie. She still had her freelancer armor, it was more durable than anything these guys had and that was why she wasn’t wearing it. “Caboose, get up. Same with the rest of you.”

Caboose practically jumped to his feet and ran over to her, locking her in a strong hug– he’d been doing that more recently since they got separated from the others.

Separated, that’s what she kept telling him. It’s what she kept telling all of them, but she wasn’t sure she believed it anymore herself. Did she ever really? She’d seen so many miracles that maybe her luck had finally run out.

Luck.

Wash did not believe in luck, and if he did his was definitely shit. York was always the lucky one, and he was dead so clearly the well of luck must be running dry. But in this moment, he could only hope that whatever drops might be left land on him.

Him, or her? Y/n. Who really needed the luck right now?

He watched Sarge grill some poor Federal army soldier on weapon maintenance while Donut cheered him on in the background and Lopez seemed to be commentating in Spanish. Was this making him miss the blues? He’s not sure, but he definitely misses Y/n. Or as Tucker so kindly puts it, the other brain cell.

Not only does he miss her, but he’s worried about her. Does she know he’s alive? He hopes she does, but the only way to know for sure is to see her. So he has to get this goddamn rescue mission off the ground.

“Sarge! He knows what he’s doing, let him work!”

“How do you know that? You weren’t there for his training, we gotta make sure this mission goes off without a hitch! We gotta save your princess in a tower! You know, operation rescue Simmons! And if Griff accidentally dies, then that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”

“La princesa te matará por eso,” Lopez replied,and for once Donut’s translation was on the mark.

“I agree with Lopez, Sarge, I think Y/n might kill you for that.”

“Why? Princess’ can kick ass, you ever seen Xena: Warrior Princess? Or Wonder Woman, she’s a princess! And that Princess from the Italian plumber game, sure she keeps getting kidnapped but when she fights she kicks ass.”

Wash isn’t sure if he’s more baffled by Sarge’s take on princess Peach or just his list of pop culture princesses. He wasn’t even sure if Xena counted as pop culture.

“Just,” Wash sighed, waving his hands in surrender, “leave the poor guy alone.”

How far apart were they, on this strange planet?

They’d definitely been further apart, they’d been so far apart after the project fell. He’d refused to leave, becoming a recovery agent, and she’d been one of the first to defect. He would have left if she’d asked, but that wasn’t her style– in that sense they were the same. They were the worst, the most timid, barely scraping by it seemed while everyone else flourished. Wash only stayed to help Epsilon and the AI, but if Y/n had asked him to leave, to join the fight from the outside, he wouldn’t have hesitated.

That was her strength, always the negotiator, and his strength, she’d always called him a jack of all trades; a strength that had saved them time and time again, whether he realized it or not.

As if bound by an unseen force, both freelancers return to their rooms.

They collapse into their stiff beds, and Wash groans as his helmet bounces off the metal slab of a cot. The back of Y/n’s head hits the sweater she’d folded up as a pillow, and it barely cushioned her from the stiff weave of the collapsible cot. Her armor was piled in the corner of her room, the helmet set on top staring at her.

Wash closes his eyes, takes a deep breath, and then begins adjusting his radio signal.

“Y/n? Carolina?” He calls into the empty room. He’s on the old freelancer channel, but he gets no reply, so he changes the channel again. “Y/n? I know you’re out there.” Wash stares at the empty ceiling, it’s an old channel that the MOI didn’t monitor. Good for late night gossip with the others, but it had long since fallen into disuse.

In the New Republic base, Y/n rolls onto her side, cushioning her head with her arm and stares at her armor. The dark visor stares back, and the scratches and chips in the paint remind her that they have survived so much already.

“I’m coming for you. We’re, coming for you, all of you. I’m worried about you, you know, so just hold out a little longer, please.”

Groaning, Y/n pulled herself from her cot and dragged herself over to her armor. She picked up the helmet and dropped back onto her cot, holding it above herself at eye level.

Wash took another deep breath, opening his eyes for a moment to make sure no one was in the room. He closed them again and let out the deep breath.

“I love you, and I’m telling you in person when we come save you. I think… I should have told you a long time ago.”

Y/n lifted her head and pulled the helmet on, starting up the systems and watching the hud light up. She flicked through channels until she landed on the old freelancer channel.

“Wash? Carolina? Are you out there?”

There was no reply.

[racfoam]

Okay, poll time regarding an important purchase in my day-to-day life.

In short, I am ready to upgrade from my (glances to the Acer laptop that's been dead for a year) laptop...

I now have a very big budget (it's considered big in my country) that I got over the summer to finally spend it on an upgrade.

I need a poll because now I got an idea to buy a PC, which is dangerous territory for me for numerous reasons. Some background: I haven't had a PC since I was 14, I got my laptop (which is dead now) right as I entered high school, and it was a cheap one, it couldn't even run Minecraft without lagging which at the time pissed off my gamer childhood self.

But, as a functioning, employed adult, I finally did it. I finally saved up enough money to buy a new device.

The accesibility & portability of laptops is def what I need overall for my professional life. They're not a MUST at my work place at all, but it would be NICE to be able to access my documents on laptop & edit them there or during the way home rather than go to the office again for the PC.

Here’s the thing. The laptop I can afford is not better by performance against the gaming PC I can afford.

Why a gaming PC?

Because I am a whimsical little shit. I see a program and I want to master it for hobby's sake, or just cus I'm that curious. What if I one day want to pick up Blender or 3D sculpting or some shit just to try it?! It's happened before, and it continues happening. I jump from hyperfixation to hyperfixation like a ping pong ball. A laptop at the price range I want to buy won't be able to run complex games or Blender.

The childhood me, in my soul, wants that freaking PC. But my basic normal thought process is also aware if I get a gaming PC it may distract me from my work bcs... Well the PC will be able to do EVERYTHING. At least I'm self-aware enough of that.

Another thing is...

Durability & longer-life & upgradability

I can always upgrade the PC, I know my way around PC hardware. The PC will last me longer than the laptop probably will, and I can't upgrade the laptop.

But then I have no portability & always-accessibility the laptop offers, and if I get the laptop it will be for work, Photoshop & fic writing if I get used to it (I won't, I hate writing on laptops). Which is perfect, I'll be able to do my work even on the go, I can carry it with me, etc etc and I WON'T BE DISTRACTED.

So! I guess, vote bcs at this point I'll toss a goddamn coin! And before anyone asks, no I won't put the Macbook on the list, I like having my liver, thank you.

My biggest fear is that I've grown so used to the laptop interface if I buy a PC I'll just take time re-configuring my brain to use it, so what if I hate it? I have so many fears, and I don't want to waste my money and then go like "ugh, I'm disappointed". I'm used to reading on the laptop, typing on the laptop, working on the laptop, etc. I have all PC peripherals except a monitor but the IT stores are having huge discounts & sales now I can grab one from anywhere at this point so that doesn't concern me a lot.

This is a purchase I'll treat myself with for my birthday. I've spoken to friends, some say laptop, some say PC. Anyway, here is the poll. I'll put it for today.

I just love both but I have to pick, but I can't. Laptop is more familiar to me now than a PC 🤣 a PC would be dangerous cus I will def get the urge to play games instead of WORKING, but on the off hours it'd be a party 🤣

For info, the

PC would be

Processor: AMD Ryzen 5 5600

GPU: RX 6600

RAM: 16GB

That is the overall idea and I even found a custom pc builder in my country, too, if the prebuilt ones are too expensive, haha.

Laptop Models:

Lenovo Ideapad 3 with Ryzen 5, 16Gb RAM, Integrated Intel GPU

Lenovo V15 G5, also Ryzen 5, 16gb ram, integrated Intel GPU

[trippinsorrows]

I feel like we need a short that details Solana delivering the twins!

How and where did she go into labor?

Where was Roman and how did he react?

What was the procedure? Lmao Did she birth at home? A center?

LMAO I lowkey can imagine Roman being stressed the fuck out because he hates his wife being in pain. And maybe, just maybe, she’s in labor for a couple hours and a little uncomfortable…but the twins show up thinking they’re being supportive but they’re really just making Roman need his blood pressure medication refilled immediately lol

They would get a glimpse of Solana from the hallway and go…

“ Damn. I hope Soso gone’ be alright pushing out them big ass kids. Shit look like it’s gone hurt, uce. Specially when she get to them shoulders and ears’.” Jimmy winced, thinking about Solana’s double load of a task at hand.

Meanwhile Jey nervously ran a hand down his face, before saying, “ Fuck, man. She ain’t got no choice but to be alright. It’s Fajita Tuesday tomorrow. And she told me she was gone make me and the kids the lil spicy Taco Bell ass sauce she make wit’ em.”

“ Fool, she is not gone be able to move around and make us no goddamn’ food tomorrow after having them kids. She just might barely be able to make it to the bathroom good after that.”

“ That’s why she meal prepped our food in the freezer. We just gotta go to big dog house and get em’. Pop in the microwave and allat’.” Jimmy followed up, smirking at the thought of Solana’s cooking on demand for the next week via carefully curated tv dinner tray style meal prep packages for the them and the kids in the event she did go into labor.

Wearing an almost identical smile to his faternal twin’s, Jey said, “ Hell yeah. That’s why I love Soso, man. Always looking out for us. Thats why I can’t wait to come over with Nicki and the kids after the babies born. See em, spoil em, and stuff.”

“ Hell we might stay a couple days. See if she need Nicki help at all. Ya’ know be supportive fa-“

Just as Jey was about to finish his thought, the door to the birthing room wrenched open to reveal a somewhat flustered and annoyed Roman who glared holes into his cousins’ faces barking, “ If yall don’t get your fuckin’ asses out this goddamn place. I swear I’ll have you both fucking castrated before Solana dilates another fucking centimeter.”

“ And let it also be known that anyone I see step a fuckin pinky toe on my property once we go home will be shot on sight. Men, women, children, and any creature thats not my wife’s whiny ass dog is getting a hot one in em’!!”

“ On second thought, kids get rubber bullets to test their future durability. But ya’ll stupid assses are fair game. Especially your dumbass wife. I got something special for her if she steps foot on my shit.” Roman pointed a finger to a now visibly pissed Jey, before slamming the door back and locking it to go return to his wife’s side.

“ See, look on the bright side, uce. You see how the babies already warming up big dog heart. Before that he woulda’ shot the kids with regular bullets too. Look at em’ being a father and what not.” Jimmy goofily beamed.

Hope this interpretation was alright ✨🤦🏾‍♀️💕

NO CAUSE THE WAY I LOVE THIS SO MUCH OMG 🥺🥺🥺🥺😭😭😭😭😭❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️

the way i can absolutely see the twins showing up to 'support' solana only to act a damn fool as you so greatly depicted and end up getting kicked out by roman. 😂😂😂😂😂 hell, and any child after that, it's an automatic thing where they're just banned from the hospital altogether 😂😂😂😂😂

them talking about her cooking when sis is literally in labor is so on brand for them.

as far as her birth with the girls, ngl, it's giving me angsty vibes. 😭 i hate to do this to ya'll, but someone asked the other day about this and we were causally putting out there it being angsty 😭 and idk.....i feel like it would be.

i feel like they'd come early to some extent, or when roman is out of town. and solana is rushed to the hospital. she's already a little nervous because this isn't how they planned it. they were expected on or after the due date. not before. and roman would want her at a hospital to make sure she has all the resources and care she needs. he'd also have the whole damn floor cleared, and you can bet bloodline security is all up in that bitch. ain't nobody getting inside that's not supposed to be.

solana would be very emotional and overwhelmed, both because of it happening but also roman not being there. like, of course bayley and naomi are there, but, respectfully, she doesn't want them. she wants her husband.

she's already sad because her mom isn't there, and she dislikes hospitals in general, so roman not being there is super hard for her. of course this man is rushing like hell to make it there, and i'm not evil. he'd make it on time for the birth, but you can bet poor solana is crying both from the physical pain but also her emotions. crying that she wants roman and the infamous, 'i can't do this without him." 😭😭😭😭

i also agree she'd have a long labor, which roman hates cause like you said, he can't stand to see her in pain.

[6ad6ro]

so after much procrastination and many breaks, i finally beat zelda tears of the kingdom. so let's talk about it (there WILL be spoilers).

totk improved on botw in almost every area. but i still think botw is one of the worst mainline zeldas, so totk remains flawed in some areas. the story is pretty great. but the way the story was executed was just so damn bad... like for example, i came across zelda and the master sword very early, just through natural exploration. and so through most of the game, link is around all these characters freaking out wondering what happened and searching for zelda, asking link directly, and link doesn't say a goddamn word. just goes along like nothing happened. this story deserved to be told in a linear way, not in this stupid scattered out of order open world way.

then there's the dungeons, like a huge improvement (again) over botw because this actually HAS dungeons. except they were really small. once again, they should have taken away 75% of the dumb ass shrines and given us REAL dungeons. oh and speaking of shrines, they were mostly shitty physics and building puzzles. idk who designed these "puzzles", but i just hate the way that person thinks. shrines are the worst thing to happen to zelda since skyward sword.

ftr, i loved the physics and building when it was optional, and how they fixed the idiotic weapon durability issue by making it fun to modify said weapons. but any quest that had strict bullshit attatched? like the dude holding up the sign? were offensively bad. and the enemy difficulty balancing was horrendous until you upgraded your gear a bunch, which required so much shitty busywork? that i'd say a guide was REQUIRED just to get through that part as fast as possible. then, once you got up to like 40 or so defense, the combat became very enjoyable. all i can think is that, much like the heavy minecraft influence? the devs were "inspired by dark souls" and decided to make the game worse on purpose to appeal to that dumbass fanbase. idc why they did it, but never again. but listen... there WERE many great parts too. like fighting the sky monster and the tornado pirateships. blindly finding zelda and the master sword and realizing "oh my god". finding my first giant hole in the ground way before the story took me there, and feeling my way around in the dark until i found the first light root. only to realize HOLY SHIT this game is massive! the ganon fight was rad. as was naturally finding the shadow temple stuff by sheer exploration, along with the mech reward. speaking of the companions, they're one of the coolest mechanics i've ever seen in any zelda. and i like how they opened up world traversal by offering a bunch of high and low points to help you speed things along. credit where it's due.

all in all, it's a... a good but flawed game. if i were to rank all the mainline zeldas, it's prob: oot, lttp, mm, la, tp, ww, TOTK, z1, aol, and then the rest far behind. totk makes botw obsolete. i can't see myself going back to botw when totk exists, which is a good thing. but i'm also sick of massively open world zelda. any more past this and i'll have to let the series go.

[radiance1]

You know I had this real random au I made on discord on my other account that I logged out of and subsequently lost!

Where Vlad was a priest and Plasmius is his contractually obligated partner.

Except, said contract is actually 50-50 all the way on the scale of a good deal, but meh.

So baaaaaaasically, Plasmius was (I think) a demon that appeared before Vlad while he was in the hospital suffering from Ecto-acne and basically gave him a:

"Bind yourself to me or die."

Offer.

Like, literally. Vlad became Plasmius' vessel in the mortal world and Vlad is free to live his life. Well, whenever Plasmius wasn't living his life that is.

Which is pretty rare but anyways.

Vlad was a goddamn workaholic who spent most of his time working away on whatever little thing he could, before the rest of that time was spent with Plasmius taking over his body and doing whatever he wanted.

Most of which, due to having a mortal vessel and not as durable as his demon body, ended up with Vlad being injured a few times than not before Plasmius got a grasp on what Vlad's body could and couldn't take, well, compared to his other human vessels he's had in the past of course.

Then, a few years later, or whatever, Vlad and Plasmius have been going around killing a multitude of priests. Mostly the ones that have a high position and the like, and having Vlad replace them and work there for a while.

Why?

Because Plasmius wanted to find a suitable vessel for his son.

Which Vlad was totally a-okay, the killing priests part and taking their place he means. Taking over their roles were surprisingly easy, and he's memorized enough verses that he could recite the entire thing back-to-back from book to book with no real difficulty.

Oh, and he also found how to make holy water! And he could even confidently say that it works because, hey! He's literally the guy being possessed right now, and if it works against him then it'll definitely work on your probably possessed child, miss Samantha!

(He doesn't tell about the demon possessing him part of course, because that would be more paint something that most surely works in a negative light.)

It quite literally never even became a thought in his mind to try and use said holy water against, well, you know. The literal demon possessing him.

But hey, Plasmius brought it up once and Vlad just gave him the most, blank-eyed stare he's ever seen, and then just moved on with his life.

And Plasmius?

Well shit, he's realized he's picked a wonderful vessel.

(Usually, they would try to eject or kill him at their first opportunity, which is quite rude since he helped. But y'know, past is past and what not.)

So then comes time, after Vlad's like, 25th switcharoo they managed to find a picture perfect vessel for Plasmius' son, and he's like:

Plasmius: Kill him.

Vlad: What-

Like, kill priests? Sure no problem Vlad legit does not care, but killing a child? Not something he can do, he gets some shade for his decision, of course, but he's adamant about it.

So Plasmius, powerful demon from hell who is used to taking what he wants.

Lets him.

At the cost of the boy becoming his son's newest and first ever vessel of course.

And Vlad was kinda on the fence about this, but due to the contract- in which he stated that he'll do anything so long as he lives- is, well, there, he had to chose between the two.

And that, was how one young Daniel Fenton, was made the vessel of demon going by the name of Phantom.

Of course, he wasn't happy about such a thing, but it was going to happen eventually, so at least compared to the original plan he'll live.

(Can't remember if Danny's fam was alive or not here, so I'll just say they dead as hell in that Nasty Burger explosion. Cept it was more of a celebration thing, and Danny was running a little late on his way there and then BOOM.)

Vlad tries to make Danny as comfortable as possible after the possession, and of course Danny isn't happy about it, give all three of them snark and sass and being a genuine little shit. Except Phantom doesn't like that, and since Danny is the equivalent of a newly gotten toy, it doesn't end well for him.

Mostly, in the form of numerous injuries that leads to Plasmius lecturing his son about how fragile mortals are and some- looking at Vlad- even more fragile than some others

You know, since he was trapped in a bed for years and all that.

So then Plasmius and Danny wander around, dragging their vessels along behind them. Vlad and Danny do get a quiet a bit closer during this time, Vlad explaning that hey, he didn't want to subject a child to his fate, but it was either that or death so.

And that kinda thaws the ice a little between them.

Vlad says that it'll eventually get better, he's been at this for years and Plasmius regards him as either his most loyal henchmen.

Which is an upgrade from being viewed as a pet since he can actually add his opinions now, well, he could before but now Plasmius would actually take them into consideration if Vlad doesn't wanna do this or that.

Danny is very obviously bummed out about that, and also kinda pitying Vlad but is also still dealing with the trauma of his family and friends exploding and then having to share (Not really even THAT) a body with a demon who leaves him injured far more often than not because of his stunts.

Well, you could say he isn't having a good time.

Then, cut to a while later, and Vlad managed to make these things that allow for them to be separated, but not past a certain point.

Why?

Because Vlad was getting tired about Plasmius' wants for his body getting in the way of working through Vladco (a business idea he pitched and Plasmius backed once he found out he needed money) and there's only so much mental calculations he could do before he tries to find a way around this.

Plasmius thought that Vlad was finally about to do the expected 'fight back against the possessor' and was even a little hurt, before realizing that no, said thought still hasn't crossed his host's mind and he's just upset that he couldn't work on Vladco because of Plasmius' need of his body.

Plasmius, once again. Realized he picked a wonderful host, though this time he thinks there may be a little something wrong with him.

But that's okay, he still loves his henchmen regardless.

Meanwhile, Danny and Phantom are ecstatic, more so Phantom than Danny, and instantly use them. Thankfully, unlike the rings Vlad and Plasmius have, they have bracelets, the point extends city wide comfortably, a fair bit while past that if they strain it though.

So, Danny has been having the best time of his life now, able to spend it doing normal teen things instead of stunts that'll injure him or kill him and having fun.

Phantom?

Well.

He joined the Super scene.

If I remember correctly, he was a hero and his father played the villain, mostly because Phantom wanted to play as a hero, but he didn't have a nemesis like everyone else or something so-

Then for Phantom and Dann's birthday (Phantom kinda declared Danny's birthday his because it was the day he came to the mortal plane), Plasmius decided to kidnap various heroes to participate in an escape game that's really just an elaborate ploy for said party.

Some balloons here and there, confetti, a few gifts and a lot of things you wouldn't expect when kidnapped by a villain. Then at the end there was a birthday cake and a Happy birthday sign hung up there.

Then a Tv turned on and it showed Plasmius, sitting there in a classic villain chair with Vlad standing next to him- a surprise to most heroes there since Vladco was relatively clean actually- and then Plasmius going Happy birthday and then waving over at Vlad saying that he planned most of it.

Kidnapping various heroes was his idea, of course.

But everything else, from the design of each room to the traps to gifts and all of that, and Phantom excitedly shouts a thanks Dad and Papa, with Danny giving a quieter thanks Dad, which leaves the two of them shocked. Then Vlad, who was currently standing to Plasmius' side and working through Vladco investments and business opportunities, tries to play it cool but everyone (heroes included) can see the pink dusting his ears.

While Plasmius is just laughing his ass off at Vlad's reaction.

That's all I can remember right now, of course with a few tweaks here and there because, well, you can probably tell why.

Oh right, there was also this funny thing where, because of the matching rings that Vlad made and the two were wearing. The heroes thought they were married lmao.

[pandorafallz]

Vampire AU | The Raiding, P1

Waiting for the call back was long and almost painful, even past the four-hour mark that meant they were in the Tipani Territory and even then, there was nothing.

Jake wasn’t the only anxious one either but thankfully, while they waited at the Tech Yard, they were busy. The pilots remained unbothered and asleep.

Bree and Alejandra had areas reorganised and more lighting and spare mirrors pulled up from the supplies so it was nearly as bright as day inside the cave structure so it was easy on their eyes when they started to organise.

New tents were put up and Gates and his team were still trying to find a new area to live in that could accommodate the 15-16 of them (depending if Conner chose to live with them).

There was even a new mountain radio hub also set up which was monitored by Danielle who was listening in to RDA chatter to also help monitor activity. She had real skill with radio tech and knew how to access it without giving them away; in the most part as Danielle had first explained was the fact the RDA didn’t invest too heavily in firewalls from external penetration; the Na’vi aren’t a technological threat and those who left seemly left the area so why worry?

“Sully,” Daniele called, her stone sharp which was enough to pull his attention and Tsu’tey.

“A problem?” He asked kneeling beside her.

“Possibly. Listen.”

“… and sweep more of the goddamn jungle. We can’t lose another transporter. A whole ship cannot just turn invisible. Get it sorted.”

“Sir, there’s no proof they’re even crossing into the local’s territory. Our patrols have been turned around from getting too close.” Came the more stern voice of a man. “We should look more west; open territory and less likely to run in with the natives.”

“I don’t care. Up our patrols in all areas if we need to. Over.”

Jake spared a look at Danielle with a frown. “So we have to be more careful.”

Tsu’tey tisked. “I must request for more warriors in the sky and a few on Pa’li for any ground groups.”

“Wait, they’re missing an entire transporter?”

“Wyvern Troop Transport, to be exact,” Danielle stated, her brow pulling in behind her mask. “That’s a huge fucking vehicle to lose and without any leads. The RDA’s second largest vehicle next to the dragon ships. Third, if you include the Valkyries.”

“Wow.” Jake whistled.

“What can you tell us of this ship?” Tsu’tey pressed.

Danielle’s head tilted. “It’s armed with standard Samson weapons but the main purpose is to transport supplies or troops to areas. It can hold up to four AMP suits at a time with a squad or two of eight soldiers. Two pilots, eight rotary propellers and more durable than Samson’s but less protected than the Valkyrie or Dragon ships. I can dig out the pictures for you and your warriors later. Bree’s new system is taking a little getting used to but her mother’s taken over the digital libraries so it’s far more organised than before.”

Tsu’tey nodded.

“The fact that one’s no longer in RDA control…” Jake laughed a little. “I bet Selfridge is losing his fucking mind over it. It could probably transport a lot of supplies. Whoever stole that, I bet they loaded up well and bolted.”

“I can listen out but I can’t promise much.”

“Chances are they’ve left the Omatikaya territory entirely. With a vehicle that size being taken, only fools would stay within such a close range of the RDA.” Jake reasoned softly. “Still, it’s weird that there are no leads to figure out a single direction.”

Surely there had to be something to that. Still, hearing how stressed it made the RDA far more enjoyable to hear. Shame though they didn’t make themselves known now; they could really do with that sort of vehicle to help with the goods transport.

Jake patted her shoulder, “Keep us informed.”

“Aye, sir.” Danielle gave a salute.

“<You aren’t concerned about this… trooper ship?>” Tsu’tey asked with a sniff.

“<Not particularly. The fact the RDA can’t find them means a lot, the ship means they’re probably a hundred miles away by now and if that’s the case, we’ve got little hope to even start. Even if they packed poorly, they can still live in the trooper but I believe they packed well to be comfortable.>” Jake explained. “<Danielle might be able to get an idea who took it and how many left when the RDA continue their search. I suspect they might just avoid Na’vi entirely but I can’t know for sure.>”

Tsu’tey didn’t look thrilled but more accepting of his word. Felt like a win so Jake took it.

Jake didn’t go too far from the radio hub, even when lunch was handed out and he helped Bree with updating the other pieces of tech with the new UI and accepted the thumb drive for their home server updates which sat in his pouch in a waterproof baggie.

Thankfully, Danielle called the alarm and Jake was back at her side.

“They’ve called back!”

“And?”

“The line’s open, Sully. We got good news and bad news>” Kim called through. “The Tipani’s agreed to the removal but the Tsahìk’s only allowed a night and a day. Half the time.”

“Ah, shit,” Jake grumbled. That wasn’t enough time.

“Relax, marine.” Kim called again, “We can alter our plan. They just want it out of their territory. Harper suggested we use the Valley of Mo’ara as the mid-way. We move everything there then we can move everything from there to the Omatikaya.”

“That could work,” Ming added in, looking a little sleepy. “But fuel’s gonna be tight unless we move or get together a fuel refinery.”

“We can ask the group onsite if they’re a refinery we can take or put together.” Harper’s voice echoed but she sounded different; lighter. Seemed she was in a very good mood. “But you should really start moving.”

“Alright.”

“I plan to do a sweep of the Valley for our touch-down spot, Neytiri and Harper will go off to the humans and they’ll give an idea of how much we’re dealing with.” Kim added in, “Once I find it, I’ll send you the coordinates. We can work during the day in the Tipani territories a lot more so we can work within the time limit.”

“The RDA are upping patrols. A new group escaped recently and is off the radar.” Jake added in so the other group was aware.

“… noted. Any leads?”

“No, but I doubt they’re in Omatikaya territory. We can worry about them later.”

“Copy. Let’s get your asses in the air.”

-

They staggered their exits, each Samson had a Dreamwalker or Na’vi escort while over the Omatikaya territory, Tsu’tey and his warriors split off to fly the patrols near the borders. The changeover had meant that two of the three ships carried an available and emptied shack for cargo and most of the seats filled with humans; meant for a quick switch around. In the event of the RDA spotting then, they’d drop the shacks and bolt which was why no humans were inside for now.

The Tech Yard was being supervised by Sean and Danielle who were keeping their ears out on the RDA’s radio chatter and a direct radio to Tsu’tey and his warriors as well.

Jake rode on the back of Bob beside Zeke’s ship, the second one out after Ming who was shadowed by Ashley and left with Nadine lastly was N’deh.

But each one took their break at the Valley for the Ikran sake with the coordinates Kim sent and Jake was amazed at the site Kim had picked out.

It was a large opening to an underground cavern that had two arches above. It had a tall, 300-foot waterfall from the open top dropped into it and a fast-flowing river cut through its left side and disappeared into a cave system. There were a ton of trees and foliage, but they weren’t as dense as a forest either and the ground was mostly moss covered with bushes and the trees looked to be half their size. A single great vine descended in a loose coil down to the edge of the northern side of the cave where there was a stone plateau rested just a little off from the riverside.

The Samsons were settled down along the stone plateau and Jake helped detach the cables so Zeke could touch down safely. By the time that was done and the ship was settled, he turned his attention out to the humans who were out and stretching their legs.

“Another cave?” His eyes slid to Kim who was being hugged by her husband.

Kim laughed softly, pulling back but kept an arm around him. “<Felt like a good place; large and open with the ability to be hidden. With the lip of the cave out south that way, the supplies should be protected from the rain.” She pointed out, nodding to the entry above.

“We can use this as the drop spot, seems good but how’s the other two?”

“I’ve not heard back just yet, I think Harper’s waiting till you were there to get into it,” Kim said, her eyes sparkling. “But, the good news is that René’s alive for the last couple of years.”

Morgan gasped lightly. “Oh!”

“Who?” Jake asked dumbly before he felt the distant conversation bell echo; he remembered something about dead scientists Augustine had mentioned before he bailed; two of them being Kim and Jerome.

“Really?” Kendra nearly pushed past Zeke as she hurried to the Dreamwalker. “He’s alive!”

“Dr René Harper. Trinity’s uncle.” Morgan hissed towards Jake in an informative manner, “I only met the guy once before I got abandoned but he seemed like a good guy. Smooth talker.”

“Oh,” Jake nodded, “Wait, saved like you, Kim?”

“Yes,” Kim said, “but he can tell you all about it.  He’s planning to help so let’s drop off the humans who are sorting the shit out. So, I have already told the team and the Bell couple should be sorted to start bringing their own shacks for the drop-offs. We might cross over with them.”

“Our Ikran needs rest for at least an hour.” Jake started. “Will that be inconvenient?”

“No, Ikran’s can rest but the ships don’t. We’re halfway there and the pilots don’t need all escorts this far from the RDA. My Ikran’s already rested so I can lead the Samson’s to the pick-up spots to start. Either sit in the back or wait your Ikran’s out but I’m not waiting time here when there’s so little time to waste.” Kim said sharply. “I do think the Ikrans are gonna have to sit it out unless you’re transporting people out. If they have to rest every two and a half hours for each way then they’re not useful.”

Jake stared at her for a moment, then eyed Zeke’s ship. “I’ll take a ride in the back. I’m better served onsite.” He decided.

N’deh opted to remain with the group and take care of the Ikran, Ashely, when Nadine touched down opted to take a ship to allow Sushi to rest and fly about the valley while they worked.

The humans continued to potter, take a pee break and enjoy a snack before those who were helping onsite got back in the Samsons. Jake only had to step in once when Kung and Alejandra began to argue about optimal places for storage before it began to get personal so he literally stepped in and ordered Kung to follow; standing behind her and blocking her view of Alejandra to get her moving. In all honesty, he was scared of getting involved if it devolved into a catfight. Both women were trained but Kung had sharper nails and had a Major in her rank history. He had seen how those sorts of fights ended in school when people tried to get involved and more people got maimed stopping the fight than the two involved.

“I don’t know what your problems are but you’re coming on site instead. Leaving you two to fester together is gonna end with someone getting something broken.” Jake decided, standing firm on the matter.

The former Major just glowered with her arms folded as she sat in one of the back seats as he strapped in as well. “I hate her.” Kung sniffed. “There’s a reason why I ran the mine and she followed orders and she had shit organisational skills. I wasn’t going be the one to back down.”

Still, the latter half of the trip felt long, and as warned, passed a scorpion hauling a link shack underneath to which he waved at the pilot and passenger in passing. Soon enough they veered off towards a section of forest where he noticed an old run-down building; large and to scale of Na’vi.

Avatar Station.

They passed it, Jake realised but not too far did he see why; they were heading to a cleared-out zone; looked very similar to a landing strip if it wasn’t for the matter of the foliage and the masses of boxes and crates there were already loaded up for transport. Workers be busy.

Bree and her team were already buzzing about; sorting it out with the unfamiliar people before he unclipped and slid down the cable to detach the shack for filling. Kendra’s ship looked hallway on being filled; not just the shack in the landing zone as he noticed that there were at least eight other shack modules about; one was damaged with claw marks and missing its entire airlock door but it was clearly patched up and ready to be used.

Each was labelled in some sort of piece of paper in the window: FABRIC, FOOD, LAB 1, LAB 2, LAB 3, WEAPONS/TOOLS, UTILITIES and TECH.

All were open and there were crate boxes being passed between people.

“Alright, Sully.” Called an unfamiliar voice.

Jake looked down at the small human woman, dark skin with a buzzcut and sharp brown eyes, SecOps by her uniform. “Hi?”

“Corporal Meg Elkins.” The women instructed. “Kim’s filled us in on the plan; we can keep a ready rotation of our five ships to the Valley but I want to see if you or your other Avatar buddies could also help with other means of transport.”

“Oh?” He pressed. “Go on?”

“There’s a river that flows and heads directly south out of Tipani territory and stops a few miles short of the Valley; we can load up Gators and put those in rotational as well but they need a Na’vi or avatar escort with them.”

“What supplies will they be taking?”

“Basic cargo. Nothing heavy, expensive or irreplaceable. We’ve spent the last few week bringing and condensing everything into more useful or bigger boxes. We’ve cleared First Forward Camp already and brought them all here. Shacks, Solar Containers and Cargo. We’ve left trackers, trash and RDA shit that’s unusable out in the open or too risky to take with us. Avatar Station, we’re still hitting. Willows has her lab packed up into three shacks and Daisy’s taken the important shit, like the grow tanks and those specific supplies.”

��Yes, I saw her passing,” Jake remarked. “Glad to hear you’ve got a good portion sorted. Who are your other folks here?”

Meg turned, “Josh Winslow and Marvin Winslow, not related for the obvious reasons.” She pointed to the short, bald white nerdy guy with glasses first and then a tall black due with thick muscles and with near identical buzz-cut but with shaved designs down from his left temple. “Then we got Blake Lawson and Liana Pendle by the refuelling station.”

Blake was a mixed race dude from Asian and black parents, glasses with curly black hair and was average in build with a significant height to him. Liana was a true ginger and distantly by her accent as she worked undisturbed, very Scottish.

“Then down there is Shad, Cynthia Willows and Jahan Reza.”

Jake froze, his raising rising. “Jahan’s here?” Ohh…. Nadine was going to throw a fit. Oh no. Oh… “Fuck…”

Meg’s brow pulled in. “Problem?”

“Er… I hope not but can you keep Jahan on… the down low? Nadine will throw a complete fit with her appearance.” He said, bending down to face her with a serious look. He knew how… precarious this was for Nad and… it worried him.

“They’re sister, right?”

“Twins but Nadine’s not...” He paused, trying to think how to phrase it. “Nadine has…personal issues. Mental health issues that Jahan overstepped in and it blew up in her face. Nadine can’t know Jahan’s here yet.”

Meg continued to frown, sucking her teeth and sparing a look down the way. “How serious?”

Jake considered the question and then leaned down to keep his voice quiet and she stepped into his space as well. “Suicidal, once. She’s not ready for even a glimpse unprepared.”

Meg’s face turned to stone. “You know your friend, what you think is appropriate?”

“Nad’s running the last ship from our side so she’ll be here in thirty minutes. Jerome can work with Jahan and let them run the Gators down. I’ll switch with Nad’s ship. I’ll… tell her when I can find a good opportunity to that won’t upset our entire plan. She can’t fly freaked out.”

Meg nodded once. “Jahan didn’t go into detail about their personal relationship. She left to find her, Sully.”

“I… don’t blame Jahan for her wishful thinking but it’s a rocky relationship. I won’t go into the details since it’s not really my place to. Take what she says with a pinch of salt. Let her know to hide from her sister until the end, please.”

“Got it.” Meg nodded and stepped back. “Let’s get the people to work, shall we?”

-

It was an odd routine, like watching ants work to bring the looted supplies to the Landing Zone from the other sites. Since the only time to kill was the wait for the ship’s return, they could afford to make the effort to bring it all from the sites down unless there were shacks or large items that couldn’t fit on a Pa’li, Gator or one of the buggies they found.

Weapons from the armoury were brought forward for consideration on whether they were taking them or leaving then behind. The tools were already packed up into the shack.

Jake eyed the boxes of guns for a moment. There was mostly a wide range of guns (with ammo), but the rest were machetes, various knifes types, AMP knives, a fucking katana of all blades, axes, hatchets, and even a case of eight plate-sized chakrams. Then there were the explosives. Mine explosives, C-4 and crates of grenades.

René, the mysterious avatar survivor made his appearance and joined Jake, Kung and Neytiri at the weapons selection. Jake greeted him with a nod.

“<How’s your husband?>” Neytiri asked.

René chuckled. “<Not thrilled about me being here but is eager to hear about it. I take it you’re indecisive on what to do with the weapons?>”

Jake hummed in agreement. “<We can take the blades and stuff like that but it’s the guns and explosives that are the problem. Leaving them here poses a risk of the RDA reclaiming them, but equally exposes ignorant Na’vi to deadly weapons if they get too curious. If we take them, we’re responsible for them and for whoever gets hurt>”

“<Why don’t you neutralise them?>” René asked as if it was obvious. “<Separate the ammo from the gun and render the gun itself inoperable. Bury them and let Eywa rust them. I suggest you take the explosives since they’re more dangerous to leave on their own. You can leave them in a cave and get a warning for Na’vi to avoid.>”

“<Some of these are unfamiliar.>” Neytiri mentioned, examining a shotgun with a shrewd eye. “<We should keep some for our warriors to become familiar with if a fight with the sky people becomes necessary; we should see the impact and damage to learn how to defend ourselves against them>”

“<Are you sure?>” René sounded genuinely surprised at her suggestion.

“<I do not like them, but going into a fight with sky people is foolish if we’re blind to their capabilities.>” Neytiri said, her eyes sliding to him. “<Tsu’tey may agree.>”

“<I helped Eytukan and Tsu’tey get familiar with the standard weapons and vehicles when I first arrived here.>” Jake mentioned. “<That’s a good idea. Let’s take a small selection of each of the guns but what we don’t take, we neutralise.>”

“<I can do that>” Kung offered. “<I know my way around weapons>”

“<I’ll sort through what we’ll take>” Jake decided.

-

Neytiri stared at the clear course set out in the overgrown with the broken fence with a contemplating look. A sight similar to the area she had seen in the Sky People village when she was only six. Bigger, obviously and kept in good condition. This was small, old and dangerous now without the care to maintain it in the last two years since it was abandoned. Eywa reclaiming her lands.

She had been inside the facility and the humans had worked fast into stripping it down into. The beds that they used were folded down or used as a sledge for other supplies. Mirrors pulled off the walls, lightbulbs taken, even areas of the walls were dug into for the wires to be pulled out of and posters were doodled on that Neytiri was certain were insults of some kind. The windows were broken to remain open now to allow life in.

Grace had once told her a human story about things called Gremlins, or Pixies; creatures of chaos and causing havoc. Seeing the humans come together against the RDA in such a harmless manner seemed to show where the myth stemmed from. Their own nature and a common enemy. It was… enjoyable to witness them in their own environment like this.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the movement but heard nothing of the Dreamwalker’s steps; learned well in the way of the Tipani.

“<They’ve officially finished with Avatar station. Anything thing that’s here is to be left.>” René spoke. “<They’re going to start the Second Forward Camp, the last area since they cleared Vacant Facility days ago. We should help since Zane’s found some Pa’li foraging by the south side of the Station close to the irrigation bypass.>”

Neytiri turned to him with a nod. “<I’m surprised how fast they’ve worked.>”

René chuckled softly, waiting for her to walk beside him to lead out towards the treeline. “<Humans are motivated and the pre-planning on both sides helped. The only thing they can wait on is the ships to get them out>”

“<Do you think they can manage it within the timeframe?>” Neytiri asked

“<Yes, as long as we also put together alternatives for the smaller stuff. Gators, Ikran, Pa’li and from the looks of it, Drones, three ATVs and two Buggies from the RDA’s warehouse. They plan to strip what vehicles they can’t take down for parts. The ATV’s have been stripped of their weapons to be made useful for supplies; they don’t see a massive need for missiles. There’s another Samson, who can’t fly but is salvageable. They’ll cable it along if they need to.>” René explained, “<But we’ve found Na’vi artefacts, I’ll need to return to the Tsahìk to inform her about them once we’re done. Most are Tipani but some look Tawkami and Omatikaya. Ruby suspects they were originally taken to be sent to Earth to be sold. Alien artefacts appeal to the wealthy on Earth.”

“<Why?>” Neytiri couldn’t help the disgust.

“<They’re foreign, one of a kind and some rich people like owning items like that since it makes them look… important or increases their social status. The wealthy on Earth have their own culture that is different to the common workers that you know. They value connections with other wealthy people, companies or businesses, exclude those who do not fit or share the same values and care about the percentage of their wealth and maintaining that. If an alien artefact gets them to better, more comfortable places, then they’ll take It.>” René explained. “<Pandoran lumber also fetches a high price for artists to use.>”

Neytiri wrinkled her nose. Horrible logic and it shows the cold divide between Humans. Unfathomable to most Na’vi if they weren’t familiar with sky people. “<That’s awful>”

“<Indeed, but it’s their way and it’s how they’ve maintained their powerhouses over the people for the last few millennia.” René sighed deeply. “The Tipani will take their items back. You can take your people’s items as well as the Tawkami’s, as you’re closer to their clan than ours.”

Up ahead, there were two Pa’li waiting and sniffling at some shrubs. She took one and he took the other to make their trip. Seze had vanished, probably to hunt.

Neytiri watched him from the corner of her eye. He looked… younger than she expected the longer she looked. Was it due to the fact she knew his sky people's age was far longer lived than that of his Dreamwalker form? Like Jake, who was a little older than her and yet his Dreamwalker was a little younger than her. She noted how René sat, his clothes and the Txursm shells on his shoulders; hand painted with delicate pictures which did differ from the Tipani who kept them blank. Personal style. His black hair looked braided, well, traditionally to the style of the clan. He looked at peace as one of the people.

“<The Tipani have accepted you. Fully.>” Neytiri gave him a questioning look, despite his patience in her quiet observation. “<I thought Sänume was stricter than my father with allowing outsiders in such a fashion.>”

René laughed, a little amused. “<It’s both complex and simple.>”

“<Go on.>” She pressed, curious to his achievement.

“<Their care for me was the work I put in to help them for years. They came to understand me and respect me. I learned from them and helped them in turn. I was near equal in their eyes by the time of my death, decades of work into crafting our bonds… but the easy part to secure my place without question was the fact my human body was buried with their ancestors.”

Neytiri’s eyes snapped to him in surprise. “<That simple?>”

“I still had to learn their rites but it was my foot in the door. Kim and Jerome’s human bodies were also buried alongside mine so they too have an opening with the Tipani people. I can’t know for certain if Sänume would permit their rites if they aren’t welcomed back to the clan and live in another territory. I don’t know if they’re aware of their place. I don’t think Sänume considered it until after I had woken up and asked her of their rites for my place.>”

But there was truth to René’s words. Neytiri knew from her mother’s teachings that it was a similar vein for the Omatikaya. A person living with a clan, learning and aiding the clan, and having a family member be buried with the ancestors of their hosting clan that granted Uturu would automatically grant them a place among the clan. Unlike the Tipani who clearly still had rites of passage to accompany that, the Omatikaya by tradition would accept them regardless. Rites afterwards were typically for security or for coming of age to accept or take a mate.

Her heart leapt a little, fluttering at the realisation. It opened up several opportunities for the Dreamwalkers. Humans not so much but… with Jake’s brother had yet to be set to rest she could secure him to the Omatikaya clan. She had… options that did not go completely against her clan. Unlike her uncle to tried to mate outside of the clan with Grace, Jake wouldn’t seed her exile unless her father truly saw Dreamwalkers as unworthy matches or as equals. The only problem she would face was… losing her place as Tsakarem. She’d not be the Omatikaya’s Tsahìk if she chose Jake.

But she still had options, from what René had already suggested in terms of creating the clan as a true belonging. But that meant leaving her family behind. Her parents. They had no other children. As much as her flame was growing for Jake… she couldn’t abandon them. Neytiri put those thoughts behind her for later.

“<Will you tell them?>”

“<Not without talking to Sänume first.>” René said.

“<Of course>” Neytiri agreed.

They made their way along the bypass into a trot, bypassing an abandoned and burned-out remains of a fuel tank and damaged RDA vehicle, an excavator as René called it. Xavierholten looked to be busy with it and pulling out parts and putting them into a basket with a few canteens that smelt like some sort of oil.

Getting to the Second Forward base, they were met with a busier site of humans.

Philmooregraves was surrounded by boxes of medical supplies and a large box; looking to be sorting and decantering them in and making a note on his tablet with each box he looked through. Trinityharper was by a pile of square bags; looking through which appeared to be clothing items and sorting them into three piles. Female, Male and Dreamwalker, if she wasn’t mistaken.

“Since the avatars are wearing Na’vi clothing, we can probably just keep the shirts and turn them into dresses or sacks.” Trinity was saying, holding up an oversized T-shirt against herself.

Further down, Morganlangley was surrounded by a range of items. Games, boxes of items and toys of sorts; some looked hard and colourful, and some looked soft and squishy, some looked shaped after Earth Animals.

“Do we really need these fire extinguishers?”

Neytiri’s head turned to see Jake beside Morankelis who looked rather pleased with the collection of red canisters.

“Some of them are useable but not why they’re useful. Technically, we only need half of the actual canister. I only picked the ones that don’t melt easily, like the aluminium ones. I thought the titanium and steel ones would be useful to create crucibles for metal working.” Moran said.

“Huh, empty them out and cut them in half; that’ll lessen the weight and open up more space,” Jake said.

Moran nodded brightly. “Awesome.”

“<I’ll help load up the Pa’li.>” René decided, swinging off the Pa’li silently and headed towards his niece who lit up happily at the sight of him in a way that Neytiri had not seen before.

-

The night came, and more items came forward, decantered, divided and re-secured into the shacks and boxes. Humans on vehicles, Ashely with her Ikran loaded up and left, the ships came and went, pausing to be refilled by the leftovers.

Jake was focused and he found himself leading the group and listening to the problems that came up and helped with solutions but it was a weird stretch of being really busy or moments of long moments. Food was handed out and eaten on the go. He got the odd feeling he was being stared at every so often but his work pulled him from investigating.

He had only seen Nadine once when she stopped for a pee break and food, by the time she returned back to the ship, it was refuelled, boxed to the brim and the shack ready to go. He opted not to mention her dear twin before she left and he stayed behind to oversee the group.

Nonetheless, he did find Jahan when she returned with Jerome, wet, muddy and tired. He watched her as she took a hot drink and sat by the fire they had; the quiet now being used for rest while they waited for the ships to return. Some people were still occupied with organising but it was clear to see most were asleep now in group or sipping tea by the fire. The Second Forward camp was almost emptied so it made more sense to conserve the remaining energy for each pick-up. They still had tomorrow to continue.

Jahan sat on her own, taking a breath then removed her mask to sip the tea and slammed her mask back on.

“You know, coming out here is a huge risk,” Jake said, deciding to broach the scientist. “Hope you’re not expecting Nad to take it well.”

Jahan’s body froze up for a second, her eyes turning up to him cautiously. “Hi, Tom.” She said, her voice soft before her eyes widened. “Oh, god. I’m so sorry, Jake.”

Jake winced, the mistake hurtling like an impact to his gut but he kept it off his face; jaw tightening more than anything. “What the hell are you doing out here, Jahan?” He asked, sitting down and swiping the bowl of tea that was kept warm by the fire. Probably N’deh’s.

“I wanted to see Nadine.” She said, her tone turning tight. “I know I messed up but she’s still my sister.”

Jake fixed her dry look. “So what? You’re still putting a huge risk with Nad’s mental health with hope and faith on your part.”

“I know she’s your friend, Jake but I can’t make anything right by staying away. I want to… try again and I can’t do that without talking to her.” Jahan’s fingers tapped nervously over her cup. “I want to try again… and out here I have a better chance.…”

“Honestly, Jahan, I don’t care what you want. I care about what Nadine needs. Right now, that isn’t you.” Jake knew he was being harsh, but he had spent the last three months with Nadine to judge that. “I haven’t told Nad yet since she’s too damn busy but you’re not to go near her until she’s been informed and ready to talk.”

Jahan gasped, outraged. “That’s not fair!”

Meg didn’t tell it, it seemed. Oh well.

“No? Says the woman who abandoned her newly amputee veteran twin to the hospital while going to space to study aliens. The RDA would have allowed that given the ship rotation is every 60 days.” Jake glared at her. “Tommy was there, he took six months of his training off to help me… and Nadine. He got her a new leg so she would walk without a chair. He did that. Not you. Sure, the only thing you did was put Nad’s name in the RDA’s sights but you weren’t there for her. Nadine had to put work in herself to get stable enough to be accepted but even then, that’s not guaranteed that she wasn’t going to find the edge of a cliff. She’s better now with the supper we’ve given her… but don’t think for a moment that you can just waltz into her life and expect her to be okay.”

Jahan’s eyes welled up, her cheeks turning pink and her grip on the cup was white but he said what he needed to, downing his stolen tea and left her to it, ignoring the few eyes on him.

Masterlist

[voxofthevoid]

Ch 248 is once again a mixed bag for me. On the bright side, it has a development I've been looking forward to the most since Sukuna left Yuuji's body—Sukuna acknowledging the effect Yuuji has on him. Until now, he's mocked and belittled Yuuji, deeming him weak and boring, except that the specific brand of vitriol Sukuna reserves for Yuuji has made it very clear that his beef with Yuuji is a lot more personal than his conflict with any other character. There's a pettiness there, a kind of irritation that's borderline childish, that wouldn't be present if Yuuji didn't well and truly get under his skin.

So to see Sukuna take a moment in the middle of battle, complete with arms on his hips and a goddamn pout, to reassess himself, his ideology, and his enemies and their goals, all to figure out why Yuuji irritates him and then to see him conclude that it's because Yuuji has indomitable will that he can't stomp down? It's sweet, sweet vindication. Sukuna's immediate resolution to tear that will down with, again, a kind of personal vendetta we rarely see from him marks the exact kind of fight I want out of Yuuji vs. Sukuna.

And Yuuji himself has been a sight to behold despite his relatively fewer scenes so far, from his final moments with Higuruma to the reveal that he can use RCT. His greatest strengths so far have been how quickly he grasps CE usage and now attuned he is to his body. The two combined is what's made him so lethal despite the lack of a CT or even advanced techniques like simple domain. RCT fits quite neatly with the kind of power progression he's shown so far, and combined with his natural durability and sheer resilience, it'll make him even more of a monster.

These are elements I'm very happy with. However, this chapter confirms Kenjaku's end and sets up Sukuna as the final villain, and that's... underwhelming at best. I'm not complaining that Sukuna isn't a particularly complicated villain; it's refreshing and suits how he's presented himself from the beginning. But part of what compensated for one villain being like that was the other being a mad scientist with a pretty cunning mind who kept plotting and planning with every tool in their arsenal. You could trust Kenjaku to keep things interesting while they sought the chaos they dearly wanted, and even the merger coming from them would've had certain meaningful implications because not only is it a dream they strived to fulfil for centuries, but it's also a way to see them finally "let go" of Tengen after exhibiting some fascinating attachment behaviors with her. That authority passing on to Sukuna is about as impactful as Yuuta killing Kenjaku—that is, not at all.

The Yuuta+Rika vs. Sukuna fight that's currently being teased makes me wary for similar reasons. It lacks the buildup Gojou vs. Sukuna had (battle of the strongest, i.e., clash of two immense fucking egos), and another contest of raw power sounds about as appealing as watching paint dry right now. Maybe it'll surprise me, but I'm not holding my breath.

To compare this to Shibuya, the emotional component that made its climax so compelling is almost entirely missing from this fight. It's there in Yuuji facing off against someone who took Megumi and Gojou from him, like how he fought the curse that took Nanami and Nobara from him, but overall, the deaths feel hollow and the stakes are so impossibly high that they start to feel like nothing at all.

I can't even fully capture what I'm feeling. It's not that I'm not looking forward to the upcoming chapters; I am. It's not even that I think the plot and climax are unsalvageable; they are, to an extent. But by this point, the plot fumblings and wasted potential have added up to a looming shadow I can't ignore even when there are parts I'm genuinely excited about.