#you can tell the owner guy's not important because he doesn't get a tag lol

[reborrowing]

snake tank (part one maybe?)

little snake lady can have a borrower. as a treat. ~2100 words cw: captivity, dehumanization, neglect, cruelty, violence, fear, pet…treatment? - I don’t want to call it pet trope because that implies sentient pets are normalized and this is weird and awful in-universe as well. not actually vore! idc if you interact from that side of tumblr, but you'll be disappointed if that's what you're hoping for

Poe

I threw myself against the glass one last, futile time as I heard the door on the far side of the study creak open. My fingers nearly brushed the lip of the prison I’d been placed in, nearly caught onto that ledge that might let me pry open the lid and make an escape. I was still in the air when I felt his eyes land on me. My fur stiffened as his heavy footsteps approached. His towering form blocked out what sunlight had filtered through the closed window as he sat at his desk.

“You quit that, now. You know you aren’t getting out. Unless you’d like to try speaking with me again?”

I turned to face him rather than wait for him to spin the jar I was sitting in. I slunk to the floor, drawing up my knees as if they could shield me from his . He looked annoyed this time, rather than intrigued. I shook my head and stared at my hands. It wasn’t as if I would want him to dump me into his cold hands even if he wasn’t upset. I was bruised enough.

“I don’t have anything else to say. Sir,” I said.

He rolled his eyes.

“There's no one else!" I insisted. “It’s just me, the others ran away months ago, I’m the only one left.”

It wasn’t the truth, though by now it was close. The Copper family had moved out after Mellie reported that the master of the house was now collecting dangerous, exotic pets in his showroom. It was just the most stubborn of us left, or the most foolish.

“What to do with you, then?” the master of the house hummed.

He tapped a finger on the glass thoughtfully, right behind my head, in case I needed the reminder that my skull was no larger than the tip of his finger. I grimaced and looked back up at his face, where his wide lips twisted into a grotesque smirk. I closed my eyes as they curled back and revealed his teeth. My stomach twisted as he kept talking.

“My …friends tell me your kind is more trouble than you’re worth. But perhaps I could get some entertainment out of you?”

“Let me go, please. I’ll leave. I won’t bother you again,” I begged.

“Oh, but I do believe you owe me, little thief. How long have you been squatting here, hm?”

I slumped and curled in on myself. I had thought maybe, just maybe, if this guy cared for a zoo of strange animals, he might have a thread of compassion hiding in his oversized heartstrings. I’d—god, I had bet my life on it, hadn’t I? And now I was going to pay up.

Entertainment.

~

Hecate

A hand lifted away the log that I’d been curled up under.

I flinched awkwardly at the sudden light, then rolled to face the front of my enclosure. The man liked it when I “looked” at him. I couldn’t tell if he knew I was blind or not. All my eyes told me was that there was a large, blurry shadow standing over the tank. It could’ve been a tree, for all my eyes could understand.

I knew it was him though. I could sense his blazing warmth through other means. More importantly, I could smell him.

The hands. The nice hands. The man. Hugh Morton.

I smelled something else, too, something new. Another person, maybe? I listened intently for another heartbeat, another guest. I didn’t want to be shown off right now. I wanted to go back to sleep.

His hand reached back down to ruffle my hair, then run a rough finger across my scales. He rumbled something about feeding and I slumped back down to crawl back to bed. I wasn't hungry enough to want to fight and for all the good these hands did, they never killed my meals for me like the last ones did.

"Don't be so fussy, Hecate, I’m giving you a treat,” he chided. The ground shook as he flicked a finger against the glass wall. “You must get bored lying around in there all night.”

I huffed and and backed into a better position, against the side of one of my ceramic caves. I was still nursing a bite on my flank from my last dinner. 

I licked the air as Hugh slid open one half of the wall. I frowned. The prey was not a creature I knew. Hugh’s hands dangled a warm shadow by a long tail, then flicked it into the soil and the prey squeaked as it landed. It didn’t smell like a rat or any other rodent I’d encountered before. It did smell afraid.

It already understood it was being hunted. I didn’t like that. Scared meals fought back. I had scars to prove it.

Hugh scoffed in annoyance as the creature scrambled towards the opening in the glass. He knocked it back into the enclosure several times while I waited for a chance to strike.

“Don't make me break your legs," Hugh sighed.

The creature stopped moving. Strange. Its little heart was hot and hammering. Was it trained? Why would anyone take the time to train food?

Maybe it was afraid of Hugh’s voice. 

I took advantage of its stillness and lunged. It turned to run in the split-second before we collided. It slammed into one of my open arms. I fumbled as it flailed, then got myself curled around it anyway.

It felt strange against my scales. Not furry. Not naked. Synthetic. Was it wrapped? Humans wrapped their food, but not mine. They used those crinkling papers. This was wrapped in something soft.

Was it clothed?

I hesitated in my confusion and the prey bit back. Something long and sharp stabbed in between two ventral scales. I flinched, hissing, and the prey slipped away. It left the sharp thing behind, but it didn’t bleed. I put a hand on the sharp thing and realized it wasn’t a tooth. It had some kind of handle. Plastic. The point was metal. Some kind of tiny knife? I swayed uncertainly and let the little creature run.

What was he feeding me?

~

Poe

It had never occurred to me that there might be peoples other than humans and my own kind living in this world. I wish I had the time to found out.

The caged creature I had been placed with was, as most things were, comparatively massive. Its front was that of a vaguely humanoid woman, small, but still at least twice the size of my own top half. Her eyes were vacant and unfocussed. She was pale, fat, and lined with scars that told me she had much more experience than myself in fighting. 

The bulk of her body was what truly scared me. She was a python that trailed lazily across the near half of the terrarium. She was coiled, so I could only guess at her true length, but her girth was easy to make out. I regularly crawled through tunnels narrower than this snake, making it all too easy to understand what would happen to me. That the master of the house had returned my thumbtack seemed like a joke. I had no prayer here. This would be a cruel combination of all the worst deaths I'd been taught to fear—caught, crushed, and consumed.

Entertainment!

I wanted to refuse him the satisfaction. I let myself lie down and cry as the master of the house threw me back into the dirt with an unambiguous threat. I might as well. No one else would know to mourn me for weeks, even months.

It would turn out that my inborn will to survive was stronger than my desire to spite the host I'd lived under for so many years. I rolled out of the way, only a split second two late, as the snake woman pounced. She caught me in the crook of her elbow then shoved me into a wall of scaled muscle. The python whipped around me before I could take a breath. I barely had the space to think, never mind resist. It was sheer luck that wedged my thumbtack between two plates of her underbelly.

And it was enough. She spasmed and let go of me.

I fell forward into the dirt, coughing to refill my aching lungs. I don’t think she had left any part of me unbruised, though didn’t waste time taking inventory of my injuries.

“Hey, don’t let it get away now, girl, get up!"

I scowled up at the master of the house as I pushed onto my feet. There was nowhere for me to get away to, not while he was leering over the open door.

I didn't understand him.

I didn't understand how a thinking creature such as himself, with all his power and all his resources, would resort to blood sport for entertainment. The study I'd spent my life beneath had a beautiful library. Page after page told of the world's endless mysteries, of beauty and majesty and life for him to go out and pursue. And he would choose to spend his time watching some monster eat me alive.

I saw the snake-woman moving out of the corner of my eye. My stomach twisted at the utter silence of her movement over the dirt even before she started sliding towards me, and then it was like a switch went off in my head. Gone was higher thought, blown away by the sheer force of the ancient instinct to run.

The terrarium was full and well-decorated, with plenty of greenery both faux and alive as well as several dark spaces to hide. I doubted any would shelter me, this place had been built for her. 

I had nowhere to go and I ran and I ran and I hit the glass and I ran and there was a branch so I climbed it and I reached the ceiling and there was more glass and I turned around and there she was crawling after me and I jumped and her hand brushed my leg and I kicked and she fell  around me like an avalanche and it was over.

Her long body surrounded me and as soon as I moved, she struck. Walls of scales encased me again and this time, no tack would save me. Everything went dark.

Several seconds passed. She loosed her grip. I heard the master’s muffled voice droning through her flank. I took a breath and shuddered. Long minutes of silence passed and the knot she’d wrapped me in fell away. 

I admit I didn’t know much about snakes, but she didn’t seem to be very good at this.

I sprung to my feet, desperate to get at least a few inches between us again, but her hand wrapped around my face. She grabbed the back of my shirt’s neckline with her other hand and I thrashed as she pulled me off the ground.

Slowly, her palm pulled away from my face. She rubbed two fingers over my eyes, traced the curve of my nose, and drew a thumb across my lips. I bit down as hard as I could. She barely flinched, just wiped a little blood off on the side of my face.

“Beb?” she croaked.

Her blank eyes narrowed in concentration as her tongue flicked out of her mouth and brushed against my nose. Tasting me. Her lips twitched. I felt cold.

“No, please! Please, please, please, kill me first, please,” I cried.

She tilted her head to the side. Her tongue flickered twice more and both times I flinched. She babbled something in a tortured voice. 

“Please,” I begged. “If you can even understand me, please, just kill me before you eat me. I don’t want to suffer.” 

She frowned and hissed several times. My blood trembled through my veins. She slowly shaped her tongue around some word I did not know. She patted my head and sighed, then set me gently on the dirt beside her and slithered away.

~

Hecate

The prey had the face of a person.

The little thing was clever enough to talk, but not smart enough to understand me. They were small like a hatchling. They ran on legs like a bird. 

They screamed and cried so I let the little one have some space, whatever they were.

I hoped they would come back to me. They were very warm. Like the sun, but in a person. Like food. Like Hugh.

Like this lovely little cave in the back of the tank. I curled up and burrowed into myself for a cozy rest.

I hoped they wouldn’t try to kill me.

[oasisofpassion]

bro you gotta tell me more about that fic you mentioned in the tags of that reblog that sounds like smth id like bro idc about what fandom it is i just wanna read it

oh bad news I worked on for two years and then never wrote it lol.

BUT I DID WORK ON IT FOR TWO YEARS SO I CAN SURE INFODUMP! WARNING: VERY LONG RANT INCOMING!! Like... incredibly long. I can't stress to you enough you can take your time reading and responding to this because it is that long. The word count is in the thousands.

fic contains: mentions of abuse, rape, trafficking, body horror, gore, suicide, basically just... a shitton of angst. like so much angst, dude. not all of these are in the first part but they will be in subsequent parts.

Ok, idk what you know about DBH so I'm just gonna give this a quick preface by just explaining all the important parts to the fanfic.

Basically DBH is some anti-racist game that failed at being anti-racist, somehow. Probably because David Cage wrote it. Also something about it takes place in 2038 there's technological advancement and androids and the androids do this deviation thing where they suddenly get the ability to Make Choices and Feel Emotions.

1. Zlatko

Zlatko Andronikov is some villain guy in the original game that you have to pass through in Kara's storyline to know about where they need to escape to—Canada. He also takes androids and does one of two things; resets them (erases their memory, basically undeviates them) or he makes them absolutely fucking horrific.

Like truly horrific! They're actually quite tame compared to their concept art, and many of them—not including this one—have been badly burned. Apparently androids don't feel pain canonically but everyone ignores that because it's fucking stupid.

2. Connor

Connor's your obligatory Autistic-Coded Nonhuman Character because he spends most of the game as a robot who doesn't understand The Human JokesTM, sarcasm, and the like. He also deviates very late in the game. Obviously this is game has like 40+ endings but for the purposes of this you only need to know that he deviates. Also his story was objectively the most competently written because David Cage literally didn't have too much influence in it. The actors for the main duo, Bryan Dechart (a twitch streamer who played Connor and is seriously the most wholesome man ever. He made some videos with Jacksepticeye.) and Clancy Brown (Yes, Mr. Krabs Clancy Brown who played the Old Grizzled Alcoholic Detective character Lieutenant Hank Anderson/Connor's father figure or husband or best friend depending on who you ask) wrote a lot of the story by seeing the script and saying "Fuck this lol."

Here is a picture of Bryan Dechart and his wife Amelia. It shocked me to find out at the time of writing this that Bryan Dechart is older than Philza Minecraft. What the fuck. Also during my looking through videos for this, I realized I had forgotten how fucking attractive this man's voice is. I want to steal crumbs of his gender from under the table like a starving Victorian child working for the rich family above me.

Actually all of this was just unnecessary gushing. Connor's a cop. He gets thrust into a shitty position by the Evil Corporate Overlord (DBH is also anti-capitalist! And it actually did an OK job at that one so) CyberLife, the company that created androids. He gets the fantastic job of Most Advanced Prototype CyberLife Has Ever Created who Hunts Down The Defective Deviants With The Detroit Police Department. In canon, this causes a shitton of political discourse, because the unemployment rate in the US is already in fucking shambles due to CyberLife's androids being dirt cheap (seriously they're under 10k USD) and preprogrammed to do certain tasks that make it easier for business owners to buy androids rather than hire a human workforce. He deviates because of all the deviants he hunts being like, actual fleshed out people who feel real fear, his buddy cop Hank learning to no longer be racist, and him starting to tangle with his own emotions as well.

Another thing about Connor: He likes dogs! He can also pet Hank's dog when he goes to visit his house. That's not important but it's nice to know.

Also he canonically uses puppy dog eyes. Like. People would joke Ha Ha Yes He Probably Uses Puppy Eyes On Hank and. And it was canon. They didn't have to headcanon it, it literally happened. And the kicker? It fucking worked. It is exceptionally difficult to find the clip, though. Like. Really hard. I've been looking for like ten minutes and I can't find shit. It happens in the chapter The Nest when Connor just stands around doing jack shit and Hank tells him they gotta skedaddle before he "dies of an asthma attack," but Connor makes him stay because idk fatherly instinct or something.

3. The Jericrew

Markus, North, Simon, and Josh. North is the only one with any personality. She is my second favorite character in the whole game. Markus and Simon had homoerotic tension and they were originally supposed to have a romance path but David Cage is homophobic so he made Markus and North date. I kept this in the AU because I think North deserves nice things, and Markus is a nice thing. Josh is a pacifist. North wants to kill people (this is because she was a victim of sex trafficking who killed her rapist and escaped. She believes that violence is the only way humans will understand their message. Markus, at least for these purposes, decides if he's gonna die he's gonna die a martyr and continue to be robot MLK.). Simon is a Markus simp. He literally has no opinions on Markus. Practically everything you do will up your relationship with him. He is fucking in love, I swear. In one of the endings he is literally North's replacement if she dies and Markus gets shot and has to have someone come save him. I'm sorry but "Our hearts are compatible, you have to take mine" THAT IS FUCKING FRUITY AS HELL.

4. RK900

Okay. This guy is 100% fanon. Like. His character showed up for 30 seconds in one ending you have to try to get. He stood there looking pretty and didn't say a word. Usually in fanon he's portrayed as Hot Tall Sexy Burly Stoic Big Dick Sex God because the fandom is really horny and he is somehow the second person in the most popular ship (reed900, they literally have a movie, uh, i think the ship's a bit problematic though, for a few reasons). In this fic though I decided to make him kind of a nervous wreck lmfao. The most popular names for him are Nines and Conan (I like Nines though so I went with that). Also we didn't even know that Nines is taller or more muscular than Connor but we assumed so based on pure vibes.

OK. SO IF YOU ALREADY KNEW ALL THAT OR IF YOU READ IT ALL: HERE'S THE AU!

Now, I've forgotten a ton of this AU. I think it's been exactly six months since I've thought about this story. I have forgotten a scary amount of it, but trust me, in its prime? It was amazing.

Basically, it was... four years after the events of the game? 2042. Lots of found family shit. Connor and Hank are PURELY vibing, especially with Connor's jobs with the Detroit Police Department + working with the Jericrew. Uhh. Yeah basically Connor, Hank, and Nines are all roommates who all support each other. Mutuality or whatever. Hank's a recovering alcoholic, Connor is... a lot, actually, he is so much, he has so many issues, especially after he gets home, but that's later, and Nines has just some major fucking anxiety issues. Sumo is a dog. He is happy all the time because he is a dog except when his family goes to work then he's sad.

Connor reads textbooks for fun. He's a big Knowledge Enjoyer and has a crippling astronomy hyperfixation. Did I mention I projected my ADHD onto him? I projected my ADHD onto him. He has ADHD. Don't ask why he can have mental disorders because he's a robot and that wouldn't make sense, yes they can, and because I said so.

Then, one day, something happens I literally don't remember I think he gets hit with some sort of Robo Blow Dart in his back neck port. That gets explained later though. He was on a bus. So he gets kidnapped! Cool.

He's taken to Zlatko's mansion, which looks a little something like this:

and gets put in a terrible cell full of android guts which looks a little something like this:

(I was like 100% I had more screenshots than this but apparently not. It's so hard to get a screenshot of these cells though because they are just that dark).

So yeah! He's not very happy about this.

Oh, and fun fact: androids have the ability to communicate across long distances. Like, they're walkie talkies.

Not Connor! Zlatko broke that shit so he can't call for help.

There are three other androids with him who are also get a very similar treatment Connor is about to endure:

Harry

Faith

and Iris

So ya! They're all pretty fucked up. Harry was a military bot, Faith was a maid, and Iris was a sex robot. Harry and Faith are the only straight couple ever except for maybe Phil and Kristin. They have a child, who Connor has actually met before, so it's like... pretty imperative they get out.

But remember that Robo Blow Dart?

That's permanently in him now. It's in all of them. And it's controlled by the big bad villain... Zlatko.

So any chance of escape could just be stopped by him hitting a button and knocking them all out, and they wouldn't be able to do anything about it.

Also, Connor's like. Kinda fucked up as well.

Some time later, idk, we meet BEST BOY EVER.

ENTER G R E G O R Y

THINK WE CAN TELL ON HOW MUCH EFFORT I PUT INTO HIS HEADSHOT BASED ON THE OTHERS WHO MY FAVORITE IS, BECAUSE HE MEANS ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING TO ME.

Alrighty, here's what you need to know about Gregory for now: He's 5'6 (this will become funny later), very quiet, a little bit curt, but all the same a very sweet man who is just trying his best so that everyone under his care doesn't go fucking crazy. His hair goes down to his ass and he has a bunch of tattoos. He's also my favorite. Have I told you he's my favorite yet? He's my favorite.

He is just as under Zlatko's thumb as the other androids. He has been in Zlatko's possession for about... eight years, if I remember correctly. He was born in 2036 and wasn't alive for long before Zlatko snagged him and reprogrammed him to do the snagging for him (He's actually a canon character and is the trash bot who tells Kara and Alice where Zlatko lives). After Kara and Alice left taking FUCKING ROBODAD (his name is Luther he's not important to this story but he means absolutely everything to me) MY BELOVED with them, Zlatko took Gregory to go be like, his helper, and fill in Luther's place. So Gregory gets to help with Zlatko's surgeries and food and such. He doesn't leave the house.

Ever.

Except for one time. I'll get to that later.

Gregory and Connor have this sort of, like, rivalry. Gregory's pretty used to running the house and how it functions, and it irks him a bit that Connor just waltzes in his fuckin house and starts bossing people around as if he owns the place. Part of this is because Gregory resigned to his fate a while ago. Like, he's pretty sure he's gonna be stuck in this endless loop forever, but there is absolutely no way he's killing himself, lest someone take his place and abuse the androids under Zlatko even more. He is their last defense, and he is not trusting anyone else with the job.

Another thing? Gregory's got a bit of a silver tongue. He knows exactly what he needs to say, how he needs to say it, and when. It comes from years of experience of working with a volatile piece of shit who does drugs and gets off to torturing innocents he knows feel emotions. How I know he knows it? It's his whole fucking business model. Also he's a bit of an artist. Just a tad. He likes to do the draw. it's his coping mechanism.

That's really all you need to know for the exposition/inciting incident.

Let's get into the real plot now.

Um... I don't remember it.

I. I don't remember the real plot.

Because there were so many different fucking arcs I had to juggle. So some shit is gonna be kinda fuzzy, especially with the trio (Harry, Iris, Faith) because I'm gonna be honest... I did not focus on them that much lol was too busy with the main duo Connor and Gregory.

Alright, here's the second most important character in the entire fic:

Emerald. Except I'm getting way too lazy to draw now so.

Emerald is like Gregory 2 except they're allowed to leave the mansion. Emerald is the key to everyone's fucking escape. Emerald and Iris are dating.

Emerald is the mansion security guard. They watch all the security cameras. This is important, because as far as Zlatko knows, all the money he's paying them is going to keep them bitches STORED.

Not gonna happen, though. Not on Emerald's watch.

Connor starts spitballing ideas to escape.

Nobody likes this.

Especially Gregory, who, by the way, is absolutely scared shitless of Zlatko. There's a reason for this! There are so many reasons for this. Holy shit, I cannot even tell you how many reasons there are for this.

Some shenanigans happens. Eventually, they do some wacky shit and manage to do Something?????? All I know is that the trio is out of commission, not dead I don't think they were, Connor is unconscious for a bit and Gregory's just. Fucking having a panic attack I don't know.

Little bit later Connor wakes up and we're introduced to BEST GIRL. BEST GIRL EVER.

ANDROID BEAR!!!!! Her name is Aurora and I love her and she's the best thing ever.

THIS IS GETTING REALLY LONG AND IM GONNA SPLIT THIS UP INTO PARTS SO THERE'S THE END OF PART ONE!!!!