#and not just... the obvious 3 missing chemicals...

[monitor-kernel-access]

got so stressed out by the chemistry puzzle that i asked my sibling for their input and. long story short i am fucking stupid and overthought it. it is so obvious i am so embarrassed

[madfantom]

Full animatic And so, part 2 of my comments, let's start.

◁Part 1 || Part 3 ▷

In the last part, and here, the order in which the children got to William is shown, and I will explain why it is not the order of the murders Here is a MEMO with missing children to make it easier to navigate, since I drew very simplistically.

I mean, when watching usually fnaf animations, I myself had the question "who the fuck are all these kids?" and, either in another animation I understood, or I did not understand at all, or the designs were so simplified that you can guess (I mean a child in all red or with a pirate armband is foxy, Freddy is all brown, etc.) So I just made outlines of their hair and costumes and that's it

It's just a little complaint here, don't pay attention, I'll just say it once, and that's because I didn't think that someone would write the same thing all the time when writing AU And one more thing. Chick's name is SOFIA. Please guys, I know that Suzy from fnaf 6 exists, okay? She's there, hell, she's even in the animation next to Cassidy. I just shifted her from being a chick to another one, not removed. And she also has an interesting role and a different design logic, I just don't have time to do everything. In fact, I even have a reason why Sofia exists and I wrote a very long text post about it, but I haven't finished drawing sketches there, so you won't see it yet. It's just that I'm starting to get a little bit hung up by the same type of comments from Pinterest, although to get rid of this, I write in big letters everywhere that it's AU

Let's go back to the animatic

I have displayed the methods of killing, which will then be reflected in the appearance of the ghosts. In fact, I took the idea from my old horror zine Fnaf art when I was thinking about how the children died there to make their appearance more creepy. Some of the ideas remained, and some were redesigned, as well as some designs

Sofia was placed in a ventilation unit. William caught her and left her there suffocating in the off ventilation , after a light strangulation, suffocating in the off ventilation. She didn't actually die, but she was the first (And I refer to this also in a custom night with the phrase "I was the first, I have seen everything!") And now imagine how the room smelled of chemicals after cleaning it from all kinds of oils and other liquids necessary for mechanisms that are very difficult to wipe off. While ventilation did not work and the girl was locked in a narrow place after she was strangled, forced to watch through the slots for the children who were after her That's why Sofia's ghost makes such a quiet clucking sound, as she coughs as if she's still in the ventilation. She won't die of suffocation, nah, in this comic she's still alive and William can cut her throat.

About the rest it is more obvious, well, not counting the pictures on the Background.

Jeremy was electrocuted, so his ghost hair is pulled up as if by an electric shock. He also has charred lips and eyelid skin and no eyebrows, and his hands have torn and charred stripes from just the same clamp. He looks like the most crippled of the three

Fritz couldn't stand the blows from blunt and sharp objects and in the end they attached a mask to his face with a nail gun or something like that and set it on fire quite a bit. Well, just a little bit. His background is directly related to the comic, which Redraw at the beginning, and now I continue. I'm still doing it, but I need a lot of time for it

Gabriella was basically cut while they wrapped one of those cables around his neck that are forever hanging on the walls in fnaf and pulled out his eye after death

[detectivestucks2]

Mean, Rich, & Mine Pt.2

18+ content, Minors do NOT interact

Pairing: Frat Boy Sukuna x F!Reader

Warnings: bullying, degrading

Summary: Your already limited luck seems to have run out now that Sukuna's your lab partner. The man doesn't understand boundaries and crosses the line. Now it's up to him to make it up to you.

Art Credit: @innaillus

Word Count: 2.6k

Chapter 1 I Chapter 3

“Well well well, guess you’re forced to unblock my number now. Aren’t you, Charity?”

You take a deep, steadying breath, coming to grips with reality. ���That’s still not my name,” you grumble testily, knowing it might as well be, cause for the next 15 weeks, that’s what he’s going to call you. 

After some introductory slides about lab safety and basic equipment usage, you’re prompted to go to the back counter of the classroom and pick up the list of supplies. Just as you stand up, Sukuna decides to stand up too, brushing up against your back. Your breath hitches as you feel his pelvis rub against your rear. 

“Sorry partner,” he whispers in your ear, “I can get it this time.”

You silently nod and drop back in your stool, feeling weak in the knees till Sukuna returns, missing one of the more important items on the list. 

“You forgot the micropipets.”

“The what?”

“The micropipettes. They administer exact amounts of chemicals for mixing compounds?”

He looks at you as if you have three eyes, so you continue, “The thing she just spent ten minutes talking about?”

Still nothing.

Your hands meet the table with force as you stand up and breathe out in frustration. “It’s fine. I got it.” Yet, even as you storm away, his fingers brush your thigh and you don’t miss how the small touch makes you clench. Get it together girl.

You return with the supplies and show him how to use them, assuming he wasn’t listening at all when the TA spoke. Knowing Sukuna, he was probably plotting out his newest scheme for torturing you instead of doing the things he’s at school for. Fortunately, he catches on quick enough once you explain, but it’s becoming clear that you’re going to have to do everything this semester if you want to maintain your perfect GPA. That’s nothing new. What is new, however, is how Sukuna keeps finding new ways to reach around you and press up against your back or graze your hip. Each time your eyes close, your body reacting to him like you're a rich dessert, ready for him to devour you.

He notices it too, that smug smirk set firmly in place. You want to slap his mouth off his face but you continue to ignore and pretend, just like you always do. Sukuna is yet another version of the same old crap; just stay calm and try to get him to move forward in the assignment. It's all a game and he'll get bored eventually.

But he doesn't get bored. It goes on like this for weeks. Sukuna touching you, breathing on your neck, whispering in your ear. It’s the world’s most obvious seduction act, and you’re not going to fall for it. Even when it makes your nipples erect, and your gooseflesh rise. Sukuna loves that part. He'll intentionally brush your chest when he sees your shirt strain from your arousal.

Last semester, he thought he was bored of you, but the beginning of this semester marked a new era in this game he has with you, and this time, the game is more fun than it’s ever been. The plans he has for you never stop.

If the physical instigation wasn't enough, then there are the texts. The ‘accidental' late-night booty calls 'meant for other girls,' the unsolicited shirtless pics from when he’s going to meet you after the gym, and the random ‘how are you’ texts to make it seem like he cares. It’s a full-on assault, but still you ignore him, because you have time for none of it. 

His newest stunt is showing up at your work-study, pretending he has questions about lab.  “Sukuna, I’m working. We can talk about this any other time.”

“But you’re not doing anything.”

“I am doing something, it just doesn’t involve you, and apparently that’s a problem you’re trying to solve.”

“Damn straight.”

“Look, you can’t keep popping up at my assignments like some crazy stalker. You need to leave." He stares back at you like it's a joke. "I’m not above campus security getting involved.”

“Ha! You really think those pansy’s could cart me off?”

You look up from your seat at the business office front desk. Your gaze studies the man leaning against the oak that separates you two. He’s a wall. A seven-foot monstrosity, all muscle and height. No one’s moving him. The sigh that leaves you feels like a five-pound weight. “Why are you doing this to me? You’re going to get me fired, and then I’ll have to drop out.”

“You won’t get fired. Who else is going to do these crappy assignments for free?”

“Gee, thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“Go away, Sukuna.”

“Fine. I’ll go see if Shenice wants to help me. I'm sure she'd jump at the chance for a little alone time to study and then some.”

“Yes, you go do that.” you say, burying your face in your hands as he lingers, pretending to leave you alone. 

You force yourself to not care about the photos of the lingerie he ‘meant to send to Shenice.' You force yourself to ignore how he’s always touching you. You force yourself to pretend you’re not thinking about him when you’re alone at work. This full-on physiological warfare is draining you, but you know you’re not going to crack. You quite literally can't.

Somehow you survive five weeks of this crap but now it’s time for midterms and you have a lab report to do together. This assignment can’t be completed in class and needs to be done during your independent time. You close your textbook at the end of lab that Monday and ask Sukuna if he can meet you in the library on Thursday to write the paper.

“No can do, Charity. I have obligations for the fraternity.”

“Stop calling me that.” He just grins back at you “Whatever, what day works for you then?”

“I can still do Thursday, miss work-study, but it’s gonna have to be back at the house cause we got a major party coming up. The guys need to be able to come to me with questions and I need to be able to speak with the vendors.”

“I’d really prefer doing it at the library with no interruptions.”

“And I’d prefer the comfort of my own home.”

“Please don’t make me go back there…” you say defeated and embarrassed.

“Ah! The real reason reveals itself. You scared?”

“It doesn’t matter, the library is still the better choice.”

“Sorry, Charity, I’m gonna have to take a hard pass on this one.”

Exhausted you let out a deep exhale. You do a lot of that these days. “Fine, we’ll meet at your place. Doesn’t make sense, but, when have you?”

He continues grinning, those menacing pearly whites creating the false impression that this guy could possibly be innocent. We all know he’s not; he’s the manipulator-in-chief and you’re his faithful punching bag.

Deep breaths. Deep, deep breaths.

You’re back at the frat mansion from hell when you knock on the door. Some man almost as tall as Sukuna answers. His hair is long and pulled back in a half-up bun. “Hey, it’s you again.”

“Hey.” you answer sheepishly, remembering how he grabbed your breast last time you were here. “Is Sukuna home?”

“Right, the lab paper. He’s upstairs. His room is at the end of the hall to the left.”

“Thanks”

You shuffle past him, making sure not to so much as brush against his baggy sweatpants. You want there to be no mistake about your reason for being here. There better be no funny business this time either, or you might sock these men in the nuts. 

You walk through the kitchen and living room and past the parlor with the stripper pole still at it’s center. A few of the guys smirk at you while carrying cases of beer through the house. Their gaze makes your skin crawl, especially as you near the front of the house, entering the foyer and approaching the base of a grand staircase. 

Of course this place has some kind of movie-magic staircase designed for watching debutantes descend in ballgowns as their prince awaits at the bottom holding a rose. Only here, these same stairs are probably used for sex, or mattress surfing, or some other kind of dumb pastime.

Another deep breath before you ascend, marching up towards Sukuna. It feels dirty, walking to the upstairs of a fraternity house. You never thought you’d be headed towards the bedroom of some frat brother, but here you are, walking straight into the lion's den.

Each step towards Sukuna’s room fills you with dread, like you’re going to get chlamydia just from touching the door knob, but you focus on the task at hand. I’m just here for a project. It’s fine. Just here for school…

You do as the other guy said and head to the end of the hall and knock on the last door to the left. “Sukuna?”

“Come in.”

There better not be chlamydia on this.

You twist the handle and step in, wiping your hands on your shorts as soon as possible, getting rid of the cooties. “Hey”

“Hey!” His smile is big, too big. Why does he look so happy to see you? Probably cause he got you to come back after the shit he pulled last time. 

“So, where should we do this?”

He pats the bed next to him and you return with a look of annoyance.

“No.”

“Why not?”

“Cause I’m not getting into bed with you!”

“What? You want to move to the desk? I mean, I'm fine sharing a chair if you want to write our report in my lap.”

You growl in frustration as you flop down on his bed. “Fine, have it your way.” Aggressively you pull out your laptop and open it once it’s resting on  your thighs. “How are we splitting this up? You wanna take a few sections and I take the rest? You wanna both write the thing together? You design the experiments while I report the findings? How do you wanna do it?”

“How about this?” he shifts his weight towards you, his palm rubbing circles over your back, making the hairs on your neck stand on end from his touch. “You write the entire thing, and I,” Sukuna yanks you so that you're straddling his lap, facing him, “will let you sleep with me.” His face is close, dangerously close. Even a millimeter off and you'd already be kissing. That's when your eyes fall to his lips as you feel his bulging, hardened pelvis beneath your center. You tense against it, aroused by the very man you hate. You want him; your stupid hypothalamus wants him.

Then it clicks. He thinks you’re some desperate girl who’d be so grateful that a guy like him would even consider sleeping with you, that you’d be happy to do all the work alone. That's the kind of man he is. One who only thinks highly of himself while he looks down on others.

After the small hitch of your breath at the feel of him between your legs, you catch yourself. Your eyes flick back on his, those dark red contacts staring back at you like some supernatural villain. “Fuck you!” you say with a shove.

“Exactly. I’ll fuck you, princess, and then let you handle the paper for us both.”

“Is this why you insisted I come here?! Cause you were planning on bribing me with sex?!”

“No, I actually need to be here. We’re having a major fundraising party this weekend. Gotta pull out all the stops, which means coordinating with vendors. Having a secluded spot to pound into you was just a bonus," he winks. "Don’t pretend you don’t want it, Charity, I can feel how bad you're clenching right now.”

“How about this, asshole, I write the entire thing, and you never speak to me again.”

“No need to get upset, C.”

“That’s not my name! You know what? Fuck off Sukuna! I’m done.” you clammer off Sukuna’s bed, snatching your discarded laptop and stuffing it into your bag. Sukuna opens his mouth but you shout before he can say a thing. “Don’t! I don’t want to hear another word out of your slime ball mouth again... ever!”

Sukuna, who was full of confidence moments ago, has an unreadable expression on his face now. Shock maybe? He really thought he was gonna sleep with you. However, you don't get to find out cause there is a knock at the door as you’re about to leave, “Is everything okay in there?”

You swing open the door in a rage, fire practically shooting out of your pupils, “Just peachy!” You shout, looking between this guy with long blue hair and Sukuna. Then you shoulder check him on your way out, hearing his laughter while you're sprinting down the stairs. Running, for the second time, out of this damned house while crying at the hands of Sukuna. 

The next day is Friday, and your lab with Sukuna is first thing. The one person you do not want to see right now is about to be breathing down your neck for the next two hours. Your insides retch at the thought. So, in a defensive move to avoid him as much as possible, you sneak into the room just before the bell rings. Quickly, you glide over to your seat next to Sukuna, who’s sitting there looking annoyed. 

“Where’ve you been? I was waiting on you.”

“Last I checked, it wasn’t a crime to use the bathroom before class.” you whisper back angrily.

“I got here early today.”

“Whoopty-fuckin- doo”

“Hey, watch your language. I was here to talk.”

“As I recall, I specifically asked you not to do that if you want me to write our paper.”

“Look, I feel bad about yesterday.”

“Still talking…” you warn, frustrated that he’s not allowing you to listen to today’s lab prompt, which is supposed to tie into the paper you're arguing over.

“Can you just listen?”

“No, I’m done listening to you. Now stop talking to me if you want to pass this class. I’m not above intentionally failing us.”

“You wouldn’t do that. You’re only able to afford this place cause you’re ‘really good at school.’”

“Exactly. My GPA can afford to take the hit. Can’t say the same about yours. You’re one bad class away from being a drop out.”

“You checked my GPA?”

“I work for the school, remember? I have access to everyone’s records cause of my work-study.”

“And you looked me up.” he grins, like it’s a compliment but then his face drops to a serious expression when you turn away again. “So you hate me that much that you’d really try to get me kicked out of Calvary?”

“You’re the one who let their GPA nose dive, I’d just be the final push.”

“Wow, that’d be a pretty ballsy threat if you could bring yourself to look me in the eye just once. But, no, you’ve been staring at the table every time you face me. You scared of me or something?”

Your mouth sets into a firm line before you finally raise your eyes to meet his. “I’m not scared of you. I never have been.”

That’s when he sees it; your face is puffy, especially around the eyes. Ones that are tired and bloodshot. Didn’t you say you were in the bathroom before class? Fuck, you’ve been crying, and he can see on your face that you know he realizes it. Then something uncomfortable tightens in his chest. He gets this weird pain he’s never felt before. Sure, he felt bad after you left last night, cause you’ve actually been a pretty good lab partner, but this feels different. “Have you been crying?” The words come out hoarse. His voice, strange to him. He knows the answer; he just wants you to admit it.

You snap your face forward again, gaze trained on your notebook. Then Sukuna’s hand brushes yours, “Charity, I-” but your sudden movements cut him off. You quietly close your notebook and slip it into your backpack. As soon as you turn to get out of your stool, Sukuna’s arm lunges out and grabs your wrist. “Please don’t leave.”

“Let. go.” you warn.

His hand squeezes tighter.

“You’re hurting me. Let go.”

“Stay.”

“I’m not your dog. You can’t order me around.” your voice waivers. You’re on the brink of tears again and you don’t want to do it in front of the entire class.

“I’m not letting you leave till you hear me out.”

Tears start slipping past the rims of your eyes and streak down to the tip of your nose. They drip onto the black lab table, leaving noticeable wet spots. Sukuna releases your arm, and you immediately walk out the back of the classroom, the TA not even blinking at your sudden departure. Sukuna’s stool scrapes against the floor behind you as you speed out of the room, hiding your face till you’re alone in the hall, where you break into an all-out run. 

“Wait!” His voice calls after you.

“Leave me alone!” you shout, not bothering to look back, but the pounding of feet against the tile floor is soon followed by two large hands spinning you around, forcing you to look up at your least favorite person in the world. Eyes red and damp, the tears freely fall out of them. Your lip trembles, and you just don’t understand why he’s doing this to you. How sick does someone have to be to get off on doing this to another person? He holds you firmly in place, searching for the words.

“Just… just- I’m sorry. Okay, Charity. I’m fucking sorry. I didn’t mean to make you cry. There, I said it.”

“Oh, you’re sorry. Now it’s all better.” you bite back bitterly. “I’m a person, you know. Just cause I didn’t grow up with money doesn’t mean I don’t have feelings. What’s so hard about understanding that? What, you suddenly feel bad cause you realize I have emotions? Or because you want me to save your grade?”

“It has nothing to do with that. It’s just, our parents pay a lot of money for us to go here and it rubs us the wrong way that you’re here on a hand out. Like we’re paying for your free ride.”

“Free ride- the fuck? If anything I’m the only one here who’s not on a hand out! I earned my way into this place. I worked hard so I could get my scholarships. I work a part time job and all my work-study jobs, and I’m still on the Dean’s list! I don’t have parents to fall back on if this falls through. Just myself! You’ll never know what that’s like! There’s a difference between something being given to you and earning it yourself. As someone who never earned a damned thing in his life, you wouldn’t know!”

He stands there, speechless, while you pull heavy breaths in through your nose. Did you really just yell at him? Sukuna’s never been put in his place before, and for once, he cares about your words. He respects them even.

“I guess… I guess I never really thought about it that way before.”

“Why would you? You don’t think about anyone other than yourself.” your voice treacherously cracks from emotion.

“What if I try to make it up to you?”

“And how is the mighty Ryomen Sukuna going to make it up to his poor, pathetic lab partner?”

There’s a glint in his eyes when you say his full name, quickly followed by cool, calculated confidence. “You don’t have connections like the rest of us, right? What if I can change that? What if I invite you to our party this weekend? It’s invite-only and not your average fundraiser. It’s still a house party, but with alumni and recent graduates. Everyone attending has some kind of pull in their field. Cozy up to any of them and you’ll have a job lined up by the time you graduate.”

Your skin starts to feel tight as your tears dry and the salt sinks into your cheeks. “You’re serious? Sukuna if I find out you’re fucking with me-”

“I’m dead serious.” he cuts in.

“What if they won't talk to me? The people here take one look at me and know I don’t belong. My appearance screams poor.”

“Fine.” Sukuna starts digging in his back pocket, “Need a weekend sugar daddy? I’ll give you my card. Go pick out something nice today, and wear it tomorrow.” He slides out the piece of plastic and shoves it in your hand. “Go on a shopping spree for all I care. Just make sure you have something short, a little slutty, but expensive for tomorrow night. Heels are a must.”

You hold the black card between your fingers at a loss. “Why would you do this?”

“Cause I don’t wanna flunk out.”

“Right. That was a dumb question.”

“Also…” you look back up at him, “I do actually feel bad. I was being a dick and I got kinda carried away.”

You press your lips together into a line. “Yeah.”

“So, we good?”

“I guess.”

“Okay then. I’ll text you some brands to buy. Things that say old money. Come to my place early tomorrow and I’ll coach you on how to act and who to talk to.” Your eyes start to mist up again. “Please don’t cry. It does something weird to me, and I’d rather you not.”

“Don’t grow soft on me, now.” you say with a light shove, “You’re still an asshole.”

“Better." he grins, "I’ll see you tomorrow. I’m gonna go back to class and bum some notes off one of my friends for us.”

“Thanks. I’m gonna go pretend I’m a rich butt munch.”

Sukuna smiles at you. Not one of those smiles that says he has an agenda, but a real one. There’s something friendly behind those crimson contacts for once, and it makes your stomach jump to see him looking at you that way. Like a person, a peer he actually recognizes.

Wow, he really set the bar on the floor. 

He heads back while you turn and head to the bathroom to splash cold water on your face. You don’t want to show up to some fancy shoppe with puffy eyes; you’ll already be out of place as it is. After finishing, you're reaching for a towel to dry your soggy mug, when your phone dings with a list of brands, items, boutiques, and general instructions for tomorrow about how to look rich. Your eyes scan the lengthy text in disbelief. If this is a prank, then he's putting a lot of effort into it.

Well, this time if he’s fucking with me, at least I’m getting a boatload of expensive shit out of it.

With renewed resolve, you head to your car and plug in the first boutique's address to your GPS. Within 20 minutes, you’re parked at some shoppe with a golden door and crown-molded ceilings. Your Honda looking extremely out of place among the Maseratis.

Masterlist I Chapter 1 I Chapter 3

[currently-exsisting]

. ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁Alchemy and Anarchy . ݁₊ ⊹ . ݁˖ . ݁

(Jinx x Fem!Reader)

Part 1 Part 2

Summary: So we all know Jinx is a genius. Even without school she is able to engineer such high tech things. Making her own bombs, fixing broken things, creating a mechanical arm for Sevika, etc etc. Well what if she runs into the reader who is an alchemist from Piltover who has come to Zaun to get some illegal ingredients for her experiments. But their first encounter isn’t a particularly pleasant one… nor is their second or even third. One day Jinx realizes she hasn’t seen the reader in a while and is bored- definitely not missing the banter she would have with reader- so Jinx sneaks up to topside only to find reader isn’t home- or anywhere for that matter.

Warnings: minor talk of sedatives, explosion, mentions of deadly material (bombs, potions, poisonous plants, etc). lmk if there's anything I missed!

Note: This is my first Jinx fic so please be nice! The reader identifies as a female and she/her pronouns will be used. Also, this is part 1 of a multipart series (I’m thinking between 3-5 parts but we’ll see how it goes). 

Word count: 1.6K

You were absolutely exhausted by the mundane, lackluster lectures of the Piltover Academy’s alchemical department. The professors had a knack for making you study for hours just to grasp the most basic concepts in the most roundabout way. On top of that, your time in the actual lab was painfully sparse. When you finally got lab access—once every two weeks—the experiments were excruciatingly slow and yielded results so obvious that they felt like an insult to your intelligence. Sitting through those endless three-hour lectures, you often questioned why you had chosen this field in the first place.

That frustration was the catalyst for your decision to take matters into your own hands. You found an abandoned classroom and transformed it into your personal lab, a space where you could tinker with your own concoctions, free from the constant scrutiny and prying eyes of the professors. This turned out to be one of the best decisions you’d made since coming to the academy. Your independent research allowed you to take scientific liberties that were otherwise forbidden. At first, you limited yourself to ransacking the chemical cabinets in the student labs, careful not to disturb the order of the vials or take more than you could conceal. But even the academy’s supplies soon proved too rudimentary for the ambitious experiments you wanted to pursue.

Potions that erupted into bursts of flame with just a pinch of powder, sedatives potent enough to render a person unconscious within seconds, and vials of liquid smoke that blanketed entire rooms in seconds—these were the kinds of alchemical creations you aspired to make. But the university wasn’t equipped to support your level of innovation. So, you made the decision to venture into the Undercity.

Every student at Piltover Academy had heard the cautionary tale of Jayce Talis. The former student had sourced materials for his experiments from the Undercity and paid the price—expelled for his illegal activities, despite his so-called “good” intentions. His story was the kind parents used to scare their children into obedience. But you weren’t Jayce. You had no intention of getting caught.

You packed your bags and threw on some ragged, worn-down clothes in hopes of not standing out in the undercity. As you stepped off the lift and into Zaun, however, you realized how naive you had been. To be a Zaunite wasn’t the clothes or the avoidance of eye contact- the undercity had imprinted itself on the very souls of its citizens. It was evident in how they held themselves, always with an air of caution and skepticism, everyone around you had been living in the closest place to hell and it was damn clear to see that there was no way you were fitting in.

Yet, you still attempted to, just wanting to get your business finished and head back to your lab. You were itching to complete this potion meant to cause temporary blindness to those who breathed in its fumes. The final chemical you needed was sold in a small shop at the back end of an ally in Zaun. How did you hear of this secret location? Let’s just say some professors, frustrated by the academy's limited chemical stock, had been less discreet in their private grumblings—and you knew how to listen. 

Keeping your head low and your heart pounding like a drum, you navigated the narrow, dimly lit alleyways until you reached the shop. By some miracle, you managed to purchase the outrageously overpriced chemical without incident. Relieved, you thought the hardest part was over. Now, all you had to do was retrace your steps to the lift and head back home. It seemed simple enough. The shopkeeper had been stingy, but the Undercity itself wasn’t as terrifying as you’d imagined. Less than ideal, sure, but manageable. Desperate times called for desperate measures, after all.

Lost in your thoughts, your mind wandered to the experiments waiting for you back at your lab. You were so preoccupied that you didn’t notice where you were going. Without realizing it, you walked straight into something very sturdy. 

Looking up, you saw the figure turn around, long blue braids swaying as her sharp pink eyes locked onto yours. “Hey! Watch where you’re going, asshat!” she snapped, her voice brimming with annoyance. Clearly, she’d had enough, and you were just the unfortunate straw that broke the camel’s back.

You attempt stuttering out an apology, but you too were caught off guard by the interaction, “oh- uh sorry- my bad.” You keep your head down and try to maneuver your way around her. But she was faster, sidestepping to block your path.

“Well, well, well you’re not from around here are you?” she said, her tone laced with suspicion. Shit. She found you out. Was it that obvious? She leaned forward slightly, arms tucked behind her back as she assessed you. “Soooo… whatcha doing here?”

Realizing there was no way out of this, you decided to meet her gaze. “Nothing much, just on an errand for, uh… deadly ingredients.” You said this with such a deadpan expression that the blue-haired girl took a moment to process what you said and then laughed. She laughed in your face. You were so over this city. The disgusting streets, the terrifying atmosphere, and now the crazy people. You shook your head and tried to go on your way back to Piltover, back to your cozy lab- to finally continue your experiments. Shaking your head, you tried to sidestep her again. “Whatever. I’ve got stuff to do,” you muttered, heading for the lift.

“Well shit toots, you won’t find anything deadly in some plants and dirt,” she called after you. 

“If you want deadly, I’ll show you deadly.” You stop at her words but by the time you’re halfway turned back around to face her, she had pulled out one of her bombs and disengaged it. She nonchalantly tosses the bomb off to her right. The explosion sent a rush of heat and wind that caused her long blue braids to whip dramatically in the air.

“Oh my gods, what the hell are you doing? Are you trying to get us killed?” Your eyes were wide open in shock and you clutched your bags with your ingredients close to your chest. 

She shrugged, a smirk curling at the corner of her lips. “Relax. If I wanted to get you killed, you’d already be dead.”

You stared at her, dumbfounded. This girl was completely insane. “You call that deadly?” you said, exasperated. “That’s just… chaotic and uncontrolled! Chemicals can be deadly and precise. You can get them to do different things—different kinds of deadly.”

Her smirk turned into a pout, her entire posture slumping as she groaned. “Ugh, that’s so boringggg. Deadly is deadly, there’s nothing faster or funner than bombs.”

“First of all,  “funner” is not a word.” She rolled her eyes at your correction, but you couldn’t help the smirk tugging at your lips. The absurdity of arguing with someone so casually dangerous was almost entertaining, and you found yourself wondering if she always defended her bombs with such childlike stubbornness. “Secondly, potions are much more controllable, can you sedate someone with your bombs? I don’t think so.” you put your hand on your hips and gazed at her in a judgmental manner. She could insult you all she wanted but she wasn’t going to say anything bad about your life’s work.

She raised an eyebrow, her pink eyes gleaming with mischief.  “Why would you bother with “sedating” when you can just knock ‘em out cold with one of these?” She patted the satchel slung over her shoulder, the sound of clinking metal confirming it was loaded with explosives.

You roll your eyes. “Right, because bludgeoning someone with a bomb is so subtle. If you need to get out of a situation quietly, my potions are better. Or, do you enjoy being loud and drawing attention to yourself all the time?”

“Yeah, well duh. Subtle is boring. Loud is exciting! All those plants and concoctions, it’s all boring nerd shit.” Her blue braids swayed to one side as she tilted her head, to edge you one. She looked almost like a puppy. Almost-puppies aren’t as bothersome or volatile as this Zaunite was.

You noticed your shadow growing longer as the sun began to set and decided that your argument should be saved for another day on account of your safety. If the undercity was this hectic during the day, you didn’t want to stay around and discover what the nightlife entailed. “One day I’ll show you how awesome this “nerd shit” really is.” 

The blue-haired girl smirked at your words, clearly not taking you seriously. “Pfft. Sure, nerd. Maybe one day you’ll grow a spine and ditch those snooze-fest potions for something with a bang.”

You sighed, already regretting engaging her this much. The faint flicker of street lights turning on further contorted the shadows, the chaotic streets taking on an even more ominous feel.

“Yeah, well, I’m not sticking around here to debate with someone who thinks explosions solve everything.” You adjusted your bag on your shoulder, carefully avoiding her gaze. “Enjoy your bombs, loudmouth.”

She scoffed, leaning against the wall with a smug expression. “Enjoy your boring potions, nerd. Do yourself a favor and try not to spill anything and melt your face off.”

Without another word, you turned and walked away, forcing yourself to focus on retracing your steps. The weight of her gaze lingered on your back, but you didn’t look back. There was no way you’d let her see how much she’d gotten under your skin.

[stevie-petey]

heyy i know you prob need to write chap 3 (btw cjapter 2 wa sso well written as usual), can i req a blurb? maybe one where he cheers bug up after a bad day or some fluff of steve, bug n robin

since chap 4 was so ,,,, dark, heres some fluffy steve rob n bug <333

enjoy !

"im legally owed time with y/n."

"jesus!" steve nearly drops the stack of movies hes precariously balancing in his arms. he didnt hear robin come in, she isn't even supposed to be working today.

robin slides on top of the counter and stacks yet another movie onto steves already too large pile. "hey, did you hear me?"

"why are you here right now?"

"because im legally owed time with y/n."

"what does that even mean?"

"that im legally owed time with y/n."

steve nearly throws the movies hes holding in robins face. shes been here for not even a minute and he already wants to strangle her. he loves the girl, shes his best friend, but steve forgets how infuriating robin can be when she wants something.

angrily setting down the stack, steve pinches the bridge of his nose and faces robin. "alright, what the hell are you talking about?"

she stares at him. "i am owed. time with. y/n... legally."

"robin, i swear to god-"

"why are we swearing at robin?" you appear from the breakroom, carrying a few rentals in your arms. stopping next to steve, you hand them to him with a smile. "i found the rest of keiths stash. he has a very weird obsession with molly ringwald."

"y/n!" robin throws her arms over you and hugs you fiercely.

you squeak in alarm, though you allow your body to rest against hers. while youre always happy to see her, youre confused by robins sudden affection. "um. hi?"

"im legally owed time with you."

steve covers his hand with his hands and groans obnoxiously loud, but you simply laugh and nod eagerly at robin. "oh, i absolutely agree."

"you actually understand what shes saying?" steve looks at you incredulously. he cant believe it. youre actually going along with robins weird new scheme.

you roll your eyes at your boyfriend. "i mean, isnt it obvious?"

"yeah, harrington. its pretty clear, like crystal." robin butts in, shoving her hip against steves, effectively pushing him away from you so that shes the one now next to you.

"robin is legally owed time with me, so of course i have to abide by the law." you shiver slightly. "crime scares me."

it sickens steve how in love he is with you sometimes, and it sickens him even more that he finds you painfully adorable in this very moment. shuddering at the idea of crime, abiding by robins made up laws in a way that makes his heart twist.

"i'll be sure to never let you anywhere near crime then, angel." steve laughs fondly, pressing a quick kiss to your forehead.

robin gags and you giggle. "thanks, honey. does that mean youll let me go spend some legally obligated time with robin today?"

"but-"

"you hog her all the time!" robin steps between you again and she glares at steve. "i mean, i get it. youre in love and whatever, but y/n is my girlfriend, too."

you blink. "i am?"

not that youre upset about it, but it wouldve been nice to know sooner.

"i had her first!" steve scoffs. "and i dont hog her, i simply am always with her. theres a difference."

robin flicks him. "is the difference the chemicals imbalance in your brain from all that stupid hairspray?"

"okay, i do not use that much hairspray-"

"what happened to not letting me anywhere near crime?" you poke steves chest, pouting slightly. admittedly, you have been slightly distant from robin lately. not that its anyones fault, shes just been busy with band and you with the party and college applications. still, you know she misses you, and you miss her. "im sure you can survive one day without me, steve."

"no i cant."

robin gags again. "youre pathetic."

"youre the one who insisting youre legally owed time with y/n!"

"because i am!"

"hey!" you clap your hands, the sound loud enough to break up whatever quarrel is happening between steve and robin. "im right here, you know."

robin grabs your hand and pulls you away from steve. "and now youre leaving with me."

"oh, alright." you dont do much to fight her, allowing her to drag you towards family videos front door. "i was going to go willingly, but this works too."

"y/n!" steve shouts halfheartedly. he knows hes lost, but he doesnt mind. secretly, he loves how close you and robin are. he also recognizes how little time youve spent together, and he cant help but feel a little guilty about it.

you wave briskly at him, giggling under your breath. "call me tonight?"

"always."

"i love you!"

steve laughs. "i love you, too." then, just before the door closes and you and robin disappear, he calls out, "bring our girlfriend back in one piece, buckley!"

"make me!"

and with that, the door swings shut and the sound of your laughter lingers in the store.

steve smiles softly, the warmth of your presence enough to ignite his chest. he'll miss you today, but he knows that tonight itll just be you and him. no one else.

and thats enough for steve.

until he turns around and remembers the giant fucking pile of movies he still has to restack.

"fuck my life."

“COME HOME” BLURB MASTERLIST

if you’d like to buy me a coffee ☕︎

[holmesianlove]

Chapter 3 - Crime Scene

It would have been a good fifteen minutes later, in the cab when Sherlock and John finally spoke.

John was looking out the window, deep in thought, uncommunicative. He had seemingly forgotten the earlier trauma, but then, as the cab moved past a particularly dark section of a building, he was greeted by his own reflection back at him from the window glass, triggering a renewed cry. “I’m green, Sherlock!” he said again.

“I am aware,” Sherlock replied calmly.

“You are responsible, you mean?”

“John, I’m sorry. I truly am. If I thought you’d believe me that it was accidental—“

“Green!,” John said again, sulking back out the window. “How am I supposed to explain this when we arrive at the crime scene?”

Sherlock sat in silence for a moment and then sucked in a breath. “I have an idea,” he finally offered. He leaned forward and redirected the cab.

John had turned his head to watch, a slight frown on his ridiculous green face. Sherlock didn’t fill him in. He simply gave John a reassuring nod and sat back in the seat.

“I’m not sure I trust your good ideas any more,” John said.

“John,” he scolded back. “It should only last a day or two. It was simply a chemical reaction between some products and it will simply lose its potency as your natural body oils—“

“Enough Sherlock,” John groaned angrily. “I don’t want to know.” He let out a frustrated sigh, throwing them back into silence for a while. “So the case then?” he finally managed to ask.

“Ah yes,” Sherlock replied, clapping his hands together. “Missing person. Supposedly. Ended up dead in another home. There is some confusion about his identity.”

“Right.” John waited for more information but that was apparently all he was getting.

“Any indication how the victim died?” he asked.

“Well, apparently stabbed.”

“Apparently?” John looked confused. “Surely that would be obvious enough?”

“Apparently not.”

“I see…” John said, his brain now whirring with possibilities. “No, actually, I don’t see. I don’t think I understand at all.”

“John, you have so little patience. Sometimes things need time to become apparent,” he said mysteriously.

There was a strange look on his face when he said it. John wondered if he was talking about the crime scene at all now or if he had heard more of Mrs Hudson’s words than he had let on.

“Sherlock…?”

“Ah! Here we are,” he announced as the cab pulled up, ignoring John. “We won’t be long, he announced to the cabbie as he leapt out. “If you’re happy to stay, I will compensate you for your time.”

John sat for a moment, completely confused. He made eye contact with the cabbie who was watching him, probably judging him.

Sherlock poked his head back inside the cab. “Are you coming?” he demanded.

“Me?” John asked innocently.

“Yes, Miss Elpheba. You,” Sherlock said, running off ahead again.

“Hey!” John cried out, offended. “You think I don’t know musical references? I’m not a complete heathen!” He shared a look with the cabbie again who couldn’t help giggling before John leapt out, chasing after his cruel flatmate. Surely Mrs Hudson’s observations were off. Sherlock was bloody enjoying this far too much. Not a caring bone in that body of his.

They headed down a narrow side street between some shops and when they rounded the corner there was a quaint little shop at the other end.

“I thought…” John began when he finally caught up.

“What?” Sherlock asked.

“I thought we were at the crime scene…” John said, looking at the shop. “Is this…?”

“A solution. For you,” Sherlock offered.

There was something uncomfortable about Sherlock’s posture all of a sudden. He seemed unsure, as if he finally knew he needed to make amends properly. After all, he had said he was sorry - an accidental outcome of a hypothesis and so on. But did that mean anything at all? To John it was just words. More of Sherlock’s words. But maybe, just maybe he actually did want to fix it as best as he could manage.

Besides, there was no way John was staying home when there was an interesting crime scene to look at. It had been ages since they’d had an interesting crime scene to go to. Actually, now that he thought about it, that probably explained the rogue experiments.

“Well, come on then,” John said, in a more gentle tone. “There’s a crime scene waiting for us. We better come up with a solution.”

With that he took the last few steps confidently and walked into the shop.

—-

@notjustamumj @lisbeth-kk @helloliriels @totallysilvergirl @221beloved @safedistancefrombeingsmart @givemesherbet-blog-blog @naefelldaurk @a-victorian-girl @phoenix27884

[briarmoon1015]

What are your headcanons on the halbarry?

lol I have so many headcanons buckle in

1. I’m a big fan of Barry falling first but Hal falling harder. We do not get enough of pining Barry and I need it. I need to see more of Barry letting Hal crash at his place, and having to hold back any feelings he may have as the two eat like five pizzas and watch the latest Star Wars movie that Hal missed in space. Barry is a master at holding in his secrets, so it just makes so much sense to me

2. I like to headcanon that Barry isn’t a fan of pda, but the instant someone isn’t around he’s very touchy. Doing things like brushing hands with Hal or knocking knees makes him giddy.

3. I also like to think that Hal gets pretty bad insomnia when he gets back to earth from long space missions. His ring makes it so he doesn’t need sleep, so getting back into that cycle can be difficult. Barry also has pretty bad sleep habits. I imagine speedsters struggle to sleep eight hours straight thanks to how fast their bodies work, and with Barry having a somewhat typical 9-5, he isn’t catching up on sleep any other time. Whenever Hal gets home they both focus on getting their sleeping patterns down, and find it a lot easier to do with the other one around.

4. Hal knows he’s one of Barry’s lightning rods and takes full advantage of it. He will be getting healed by Barry after every stupid situation he gets himself into, and he will drag Barry out of the speed force every time Barry tries to do something even stupider. He also tries not to get stuck in other dimensions or in the speed force himself, just to avoid throwing Barry off.

5. Whenever Hal is away on missions, Barry will often go outside to star gaze. He doesn’t tell anyone it’s because he’s missing Hal, but his family will join him anyways. Hal, on the other hand, likes to find the direction earth is in and just take a moment to breathe.

6. Hal is a Star Wars fan and Barry is a Star Trek fan. They get into a ton of nerdy arguments about it, but they both watch them together. They also love Top Gun. It’s Hal’s favorite movie for obvious reasons, but I think it’d be hilarious if it was also Barry’s gay awakening.

7. Neither of them are good at cooking. Barry’s lack of patience while trying to heat things up often means undercooked food, or overcooked when he tries to use his powers to heat things up. Hal can make a couple of really good dishes but beyond that he is incapable of making edible food. It never turns out right because he tries to do his own thing instead of following a recipe, and ends up getting the proportions all wrong. They often eat out.

8. I need to stress how nerdy each one is. Barry may seem like it the most with his love of chemistry and dressing up like an old man half the time, but Hal will talk your ear off about planes. Not even just types and models, but also weird history facts about them, and mysterious crashes that happened. Because of this, Barry now is quite good at telling the make of a jet, while Hal has a good chance of being able to tell you what chemical compounds you are looking at.

9. On occasion, the two will need to stitch each other up. Hal is a lot faster at it, but his technique isn’t always perfect. It does make do, however. Barry, on the other hand, more gentle and effective, but he’s quite slow at it. He tends to overthink each stitch.

10. Hal doesn’t let a lot of people wear his dad’s jacket, but he often leaves it with Barry when in space. Barry often will leave it on the kitchen table chairs as a reminder of Hal, and will occasionally fix it up if need be. Having to mend his own suit has made Barry a pretty good seamstress, but he takes extra care with Hal’s jacket.

These are just some general ones :) hopefully you enjoy them

[frogonamelon]

Powerpuff girls deserves the TMNT treatment where every iteration is wildly different from the last. Here ya go! Pulling inspiration from the original, reboot, and anime!

Before we start, I think I should state the most obvious and potentially controversial change: Buttercup's color isn't green.

I did this for three reasons: 1. It gives the girls the CMYK color scheme, 2. I thought it fit her dangerous but still 'girly' self more effectively, and 3. Her name is... Buttercup....

Ok back to your regularly scheduled notes!

Backstory:

In a world where superpowers are the next arms race, the government hired a small team of scientists working outside of Shichi, Japan to make superhuman soldiers. They agreed and so they, including one Professor Utonium (true name: unknown), bioengineered the triplet children of a young astronaut woman who wouldn’t be able to care for them. They injected her with a chemical concoction (including sugar, spice, everything nice, and the ever-mysterious Chemical X), manipulated some choice genes, and studied her thoroughly throughout her pregnancy.

As the months went by, the government became impatient for their weapons and displeased when they ended up being infants, scrapping the project and ordering the subjects to be killed. As Utonium had grown close to the woman (any romantic feelings went nowhere trust me), he stole the girls and ran away with them instead of killing them. 

Luckily for him, Shichi had a large and often untracked orphan population. There, he would give the three children to an orphanage so they could hopefully be raised normally. The girls, named Bubbles, Buttercup, and Blossom (after their signature colors by Utonium) were adopted by separate families.

Bubbles was taken in by a young mlm couple who wanted another child and sibling for their older daughter, Beatrix “bunny”. Blossom was adopted by a rather strict perfectionist couple who couldn’t have children of their own but loved the idea of raising a child to become something great. Buttercup was in the system for much longer, either running away or getting lost at the age of 5 and being found by a couple with three children. They loved and adopted her soon thereafter. 

It is by sheer luck that they all attend the same Junior High School (and in the same class at that). When their powers fully kick in on their twelfth birthday (days into the school year), they are rediscovered by Professor Utonium (as well as some less savory characters from their unknown past).

When Bunny goes missing, Bubble’s is sent on a vigilante path, coming across Utonium who tells her of her origins. She’s the one that finds and attempts to recruit her newfound sisters, to mixed reception.

Buttercup is ecstatic to be a superhero but Blossom declines, believing that her parents would kill her for putting herself in danger and throwing a wrench in her already incredibly busy schedule. She’s spent her whole life hiding what little powers she had (wearing tinted nonprescription glasses to hide her eyes and everything) and has no interest in parading around with them now. Little does she know she won’t have a choice for much longer.

There was another created much more successfully (though without the triplet telepathy): Bliss, who appears much older than the girls and is a local hero and celebrity. Her new mission is to hunt down her sisters in order to give them proper training to fulfill their purpose.

Powers:

The girls’ powers work differently to previous iterations.

1: They have always had some small amount of power (jumping higher and being just a little stronger than the average small child) but it kicks in fully when the girls turn 12

2: The girls can all fly, are exceptionally strong, fast, and durable, and can communicate telepathically (haha triplet telepathy). 

3: They can each form a colored energy that they channel through their respective weapons (Ex: Bubbles can blow bubbles of energy, Buttercup can surround her boxing gloves for a melee attack, and Blossom can shoot tennis ball-like projections that are smaller but faster than Bubbles’ but require more precision and concentration)

4: They are fueled by emotion, with their eyes turning their respective color when their powers are activated, fading to brown/ black when calm or suppressed.

Speaking of their weapons, each one was an ordinary object made into a conduit when their powers kicked in. Bubbles was doing an amateur bubble show in a park, entertaining a group of small children, Buttercup was practicing boxing with her brothers (she is the only one with family in the know because of this), and Blossom was playing tennis against her best friend Robin (who jumped over the net to catch her falling). 

Various Other Notes:

Their suits are plain, but I am fully convinced this is how Professor Utonium would design them. Don't worry, they'll spice them up later when they're a more fully formed team.

Bubbles would absolutely dress in Lolita whenever given the opportunity

Buttercup's younger brother is nicknamed 'Bullet'

Shichi is a combination of ‘Shiti’- city and ‘Ichi’- market/ town>> best equivalent I could come to for ‘Townsville��. If anyone that speaks Japanese has a better one, please let me know. Google was not my friend in this regard

I tried to find named for the girls in Japanese as well.... key word being 'tried'. I really want to keep their alliteration and tie them to their original names to keep them recognizable.

It's hard to tell since its just line art but Buttercup is wearing a black tank top under her jacket don't worry.

[queenshelby]

Chemical Reactions (P. 12)

Pairing: Cillian Murphy as J Robert Oppenheimer x Student Reader

Warning: Age-Gap, Infidelity, Smut

Words: 1,678

Note: The fic is spoiler free and my own fantasy and imagination. It is not historically and scientifically accurate.

Previous Parts: 1; 2; 3; 4; 5; 6; 7; 8; 9; 10; 11

Just as you both heard the familiar voice, you startled and without even being able to precisely comprehend what was happening, the door opened, giving you barely any time to cover up.

General Groves, however, did not appear to be surprised to see you like this when he entered while you and Robert, on the other hand, were utmost embarrassed by being walked in on by a high-ranking army official.

“Put on some clothes Robert!” the General ordered before throwing Robert his pants which is also when you finally spoke up after finally having collected your thoughts.

“You have no right to come in here like this” you spat while holding on to the sheets and thereby covering your naked breasts.

“I have every right Miss Y/LN” General Groves corrected you before pointing out that Robert was now working for the US government and, therefore, had to adhere to certain rules.

“Now, please, follow me, Robert. I have some important matters to discuss with you” the General then said, turning to Robert as he awkwardly watched him getting dressed.

“And these matters can’t wait?” Robert sighed and, going by the sound of his voice, it was obvious that he was annoyed.

“No Robert, they cannot, although you will appreciate what I am about to tell you” General Groves continued to say before instructing you to leave the hotel and report to Officer Nichols at Berkley university at nine o’clock sharp.

“Why? Am I being interrogated?” you asked after having noticed that there were two more army officials outside your room, listening in on your conversation with General Groves. “We did not do anything wrong!” you thus pointed out which was a statement that, in the end, made General Groves laugh.

“That remains to be seen. Now please, follow my orders ma’am” General Groves told you before pulling Robert towards the door and out of the room.

“Just do as he says Y/N. Please” Robert begged you before he left the room and followed General Groves down the hallway before taking a sharp left, into another room which was equipped with several devices.

The devices he saw were top of the art monitors and radios that had been connected to listening devices inside your room, which is when Robert realised that, this entire time, you had been listened to, even when you had been intimate with each other.

The thought of this made Robert sick and he immediately questioned the General as to how, on earth, he justified this kind of action after Robert, himself, had been nothing but committed to the project.

“Your commitment is not the problem, Robert” Lesley Groves explained before telling Robert that he had been given clear instructions not to see you again, which were instructions he clearly refused to follow.

“I had no such instructions” Robert although ought to clarify before explaining to General Groves that all he was instructed to do was not to liaise with communists and, in his eyes, you were not a communist.

“You are very well aware of Y/N Y/LN’s communist ties, Robert” General Groves argued but Robert shook his head and chuckled.

“Alleged communist ties” he corrected his superior who, as usual, enjoyed Robert’s attitude and arrogance to a point. It was one of the reasons he hired him and he now had to deal with the consequences of putting such a stubborn man in charge.

“Very well, alleged communist…” Lesley Groves then began to chuckle momentarily before making a suggestion which Robert did not expect.

“If I was to bring her on to the project at Los Alamos, will you albeit by the rules? Because I need you to have a firm grip on this Robert and I most certainly need your help with implementing and enforcing compartmentalisation inside the complex, which is something I cannot do if you keep stepping out of line” Lesley Groves said with some anger in his voice, seeing that, to date, some of the scientists were running havoc, causing the project’s integrity to be at risk.

“You want to bring her on to the project?” Robert asked in disbelieve as this was contrary to what General Groves had told him in the past. He was so certain that you would not receive security clearance and wondered what made the officials change their minds.

“Yes, in a department of your choice” Groves confirmed, causing Robert to furrow his eyebrows.

“And you will give her clearance? Really?” he ought to clarify, to which the General nodded.

“She will have clearance to join, but she cannot withdraw. There is no exit plan for her until the project has been concluded” Lesley Groves advised Robert who pointed out to the General that there was no exit plan for anyone.

“What I mean is that she must stay at Los Alamos until this is done and I expect you to keep her in line. There will be no letters or telephone calls for her to the outside that are not monitored by us and she will report to Officer Nichols every week, if she chooses to join the mission” the General explained and Robert was, of course, curious about what was going to happen after the war.

“And what happens after?” he thus asked and the General informed Robert that the army would be monitoring you as well as any other worker on the project they came suspicious of which, to Robert, seemed reasonable.

“So, what is in this for you?” was Robert’s final question and this answer was not one the General could answer easily.

“Other than the fact that I can trust you to control your team, not much” the General thus told him which, of course, was not the entire truth behind his reasons for clearing you to join the project.

“Oh, and Robert, you know that, if something we do at Los Alamos was to become known to the soviets, then it will be your girlfriend who the officials will look at first. Therefore, I expect you to act diligently with the information available to you. Any suspicions you may have about anyone in your team committing treason must be reported to me or Officer Nichols, are we clear?” the General then warned before heading out of the room and leaving Robert to deal with one of the other officers in respect of the particulars of onboarding you at Los Alamos.  

***

You too, learned about the General’s proposal at your meeting with Officer Nichols who you considered to be somewhat creepy.

He had a strange way of looking at you, almost with both, lust and despair in his eyes, and this kind of look made you rather uncomfortable.

He also asked you several personal questions which you did not think to be relevant to your assignment and, yet, you answered them as you were keen to join Robert at a place you now knew was called Los Alamos.

Officer Nichols also made you take a lie detector test which, to you, was not surprising and since you answered all the questions truthfully, you passed it with flying colours.

Also unsurprising to you was the fact that your background check had already been completed and that you were only being granted conditional clearance which, in the end, did not allow you to move about freely.

That meant that, for a period of at least two to three years, you had to give up your life but, since you knew what this was about, you agreed to do it nonetheless.

Just like Robert, you wanted the war to end and, even from a career perspective, this was a chance of a lifetime for you even though you knew that, just maybe, your relationship with Robert was only temporary. He was still married after all and you knew that he was not going to leave his wife and child for you.

You also knew that Robert’s wife was not living at Los Alamos as she had no desire to live in the dessert, but this did not mean that she was not allowed to visit her husband or that Robert was not going to see her and his children during his external trips, away from the compound.

As such, the compound, located near the project, was all that was accessible to the wives and spouses of the scientists working within the project’s facilities. These compound was heavily guarded and it was believed that none of the non-working residence knew about the so called gadget.

That, of course, was utter nonsense you thought as, in your believe, everyone at Los Alamos knew what Robert and his team were working on. It did not take a rocket scientist to figure this out and, no doubt, all of the external and travelling wives and spouses were being watched like hawk, including Kitty Oppenheimer.

Just like the other single scientists, you were going to stay in a room at the so-called quarters and, whilst according to Officer Nichols, you were free to see Robert at his residence whenever you liked, you were instructed to do so with discretion.

After all, he was still a married man and Officer Nichols had no problem in pointing out to you that you were both committing adultery, which was a sin.

“I appreciate your concerns sir, and I am sure to act diligently” you chuckled, seeing the irony in this all after you had just found our that Officer Nichols and Officer Kent were both listening to you for the entire night, committing this exact same sin.

“Very well then, please report to transport in five days. Here is your clearance. I suggest you pack some sunscreen, ma’am” Officer Nichols then told you nonetheless before sending you on your way.

[themoppets]

Day 4 - Dreams

More writing, yay!!! This is one is more cute and less depressing, like day 3...

Another special thanks to my friend to beta read this!

-–—–--▪︎☆▪︎--–—–‐

This is set in another speculative AU. This one is, respectively, a cyberpunk au. So, if you know cyberpunk 2077, imagine Edward and Alphonse being in a Johnny and V situation. But, with slightly less of Edward slowly dying.

Word count: Unknown (at the moment)

CW: Non-graphic injury

The song is an English cover of "Wiege" by Vivinos.

English cover : https://youtu.be/fygBPJXkns4?si=dRJyyY1kTbwk_Sqj

Original : https://youtu.be/rrngM9DmDfk?si=oe8rRFULJLDgAw-p

"What'd you want to be when you were small?"

He almost missed the question over the annoying drone of the AC unit—it sounded busted; looked close to flames. He could fix it. But attempting to figure out the chemical composition of something that should've been thrown in dump a long time ago was the least of Edward's problems.

"Winry, don't waste your strength," Edward chided, lifting himself out of the shabbily upholstered chair that sat across the room from where Winry laid—He was surprised it didn't break under his weight, considering that it was held together by duct tape and glue.

The worn-in mattress groaned under Winry's weight as she slumped over to face Edward—hissing in pain as the poorly done stitches in her side were jostled, "Y'know, your worse than Granny, Ed."

"Quit movin', you’re gonna undo your stitches," The stitches were at best shoddy; they would make a seamstress cringe. But they'd hold long enough for Winry not to bleed out—if she quit moving.

"How about this?" Winry said, she looked pale; sheen with a layer of sweat and a feverish determination in her eyes, "I'll quit talkin' if you answer my question."

Edward sighed. It's clear she wouldn't give up until he played along.

"Fine." Edward muttered, anything to get her to stop trying to paint the room red.

It wasn't a hard question to answer by any means; it was obvious, Winry should've been able to guess, "Wan'ed to be an Alchemist."

Winry scowled at that, booing rather loudly. Ed stiffened, a flush of heat rushing through his cheeks.

"What?!" He snapped.

"You’re borin'!" She complained, like a whiny brat. "Come on, you couldn't’ve always wan'ed to be an Alchemist."

"Well, what if I did?"

"Then, you’re sad." She drawled.

There was nothing wrong with wanting to be an alchemist! At least, Ed thought so. He and his brother had always shared that dream and Mom never hesitated to support them. Besides, Edward couldn't think of any other dreams he may have had.

Wait.

Maybe, there was another. A stupid, childish one.

"You can't laugh," Edward started. Winry grinned; her excitement only served to make Edward regret his choices. He pressed, "Promise! Promise, you won't laugh."

Winry nodded, growing more eager by the second, "I promise with all my heart to not laugh at you." She said it mirthfully, but her promise was earnest—Ed knew that.

"...A singer." Edward muttered, avoiding Winry's gaze, "I-I wanted to be a singer."

The silence was horrific, Edward passed the time by staring very intensely at the muddy sludge that clung heavily to his boots—he should've taken them off, but, If the state of the carpet was anything to go by, a bit of mud isn't the worst thing that’s been dragged through it.

"I’ve never heard you sing," Winry finally said, breaking the silence.

Edward floundered, "Well– I only really sang around Al, and y-ya know… Mom."

Edward really wished in that moment that the AC would burst into flames. She was gonna laugh, it was evident—a singer? It was a silly dream. She had the right to laugh, who wouldn't? He shouldn't have said anything, should've just said he only wanted to be an alchemist. Stupid, stupid, stupid—

"Can you sing for me?"

Edward froze, "What?"

"Can you sing for me?" Winry repeated.

Edward hadn't sung in years. The last he sang was when Mom got sick. It was hard for him to remember any songs, let alone sing them.

"Please?" She looked so feverish, sweat pouring off her. She needed to rest.

Edward sighed. He stepped across the hideous, yellowing carpet, dragging mud along with him. He kicked off his boots before pulling himself up onto the mattress—it groaned under the added weight.

"’Course, Winry," Edward breathed. He tried to think about what he could sing, it was hard to remember anything. There was one song—he remembered Mom singing it for him when he was sick. That's a good one.

“Hush, my little child

And drift into your dream

A place where you can leisurely play

Our paradise

Hush, My little Child

It's time to go to sleep

And in this moment

There's only a sad moon

Icy gaze yet so silent

Falls upon our soul like a fragile fire

Trembling in the storm

The gentle wind

Writing its symphony

The morning comes

Unshaken and so certain

Without a word

You will embrace

The endless sea that sings”

Edward felt his hands shake, a hesitant breath escaping his lips—he wouldn't cry, not over a dumb song. The soft breaths from Winry were peaceful; she had fallen asleep. Good, she needed the rest.

"I missed your singing," Alphonse whispered, like if he was any louder, he'd risk waking up Winry. He wouldn't, Winry couldn't hear or see him. No one could, no one but Edward.

Edward glanced up towards the Avatar that Alphonse enjoyed presenting as, a dashing Knight with shining armour. He was crouched before Ed's feet, looking up at his brother.

Edward snorted, wiping away tears that dared to well up in his eyes, "Well, maybe when I get you back your body, I'll sing a song just for you."

"Promise?" Alphonse asked, his avatar flicking with his excitement.

"Promise."

[an-au-blog]

I have a horrible au idea...

cw: mention of human experimentation, child abuse, violence, panic attacks etc

(if anyone writes this pls send me link or tag me or something)

Modern au (with the og 5) where the strawhats are true crime content creators and like to dig in old cases, visit "haunted houses" and urban legends.

When one day they start looking at the Vinsmoke family's child disappearance case. There was almost no evidence and the Vinsmokes weren't even the ones who filed in the missing persons report. It was one of the private tutors they had. He was fired afterwards. The case was deemed a cold case and officially closed. The Vinsmokes moved to Germany and left a huge mansion behind. No one wanted to buy or maintain it. Many thought that they covered it up. There were too many oddities around the family.

So obviously Luffy decided to break into their old mansion. It's been almost 10 years since they moved. So they didn't expect any inhabitants.

They found the top floors abandoned and dusty (as expected). Creaking and spiders on the walls only added to the uneasy feeling that a standard haunted mansion vibe. The lower floors looked like someone actually came once in a while but they thought it's because a lot of people came here on dares or like them: for content.

What they weren't expecting was to hear noises from the cellar. Or attic? Whatever was down there... it was behind a wall and it sounded like crying. They couldn't find a way to bust down the walls but Nami and Usopp found the crack of the entrance and they cranked ot open.

It was what looked like a hiden prison with only a window for air to come in with bars on it. When the secret door thing was open, the crying stopped. They called out if anyone was there. No answer.

Bloodstains and rotting rat carcasses were on the floor. There was an operation bed and a cabinet of chemicals, syringes and other rusted tools. When one of them pointed it out there was a sound that came from the locked room.

It was obvious at this point someone was in there. They opened to see, to their horror that there was a skinny blond boy shriveled in the corner. Shivering and holding his hands up to protect himself.

He kept flinching and the surprising cries get louder every time any of the boys tried to approach him, he keeps getting full on panic attacks. The only person that didn't evoke that kind of reaction was Nami. (She looked a like his sister: short light hair (plus pink and orange look alike in the dark) and the rest of the men from his family used to abuse him) He was almost entirely nonverbal but a dna test confirmed that he was the Vindmoke's missing son: Sanji.

He slowly started warming up to the rest. He was going through a rehabilitation program but they kept visiting him. He started warming up to Usopp first. Sanji kept staring at his hair. The first time they saw him smiling was when Usopp let him play with his curls. The next to make him cheer up was Luffy. At first Luffy kept his distance because he felt so horrible he couldn't do anything and he couldn't bare to see Sanji act like that at the mere sight of him. But once he heard Usopp was a "safe" person, he did everything in his power to make Sanji laugh. The only one who Sanji never opened up to was Zoro. With his stature and green hair, he looked too much like Yonji. Zoro stopped going into the hospital room. He just waited in front of the room or in the car. He knew when he was unwanted.

That was until he finally revived and could leave the hospital. Nami couldn't come because of her finals, Luffy had to to pay his brother bail and Usopp was left preparing the surprised "party" for Sanji's release (it was going to be just them and a few family members like Nami's sister, Usopp's fiance etc).

It wasn't ideal, but Zoro was stuck picking him up. Sanji stayed at least 3 meters away from him at all times. When they got to the car three weirdly dressed men with colourful hair tried to approach them. Sanji started getting a panic attack, all the progress they've made down the drain. Zoro told them to fuck off but they kept walking closer. So he started fighting them. The security of the hospital got involved. And a mental note for a restraining order was made.

After that Sanji no longer saw Zoro as a copy of Yonji, but as a big guard dog to hide behind.

[succulentlesbians]

Nat dying in endgame isn't canon? Her and Yelena are out living their sex in the city fantasy and bonding and making up for all the time that was stolen away from them :) I'm also rereading your fic again :D I'm deeply curious to know what it looks like from Yelena's pov, I've just gotten to the part where they've gotten on the plane but god just. The conversation about Hive. Tfw the one bright spot in your life is most equipped to understand you. But god it hurts they went through that too. </3

nat dying in endgame is absolutely so not canon To Me. her and yelena are out having the time of their lives, don't know how anyone could think differently.

saw you say curious about yelena pov and was like hmm what small tidbit could i give you that would be fun?

umm. rewrite of hive conversation, yelena pov:

Yelena turns to look at Daisy. Her arms are horribly discolored above her wraps and she's holding them precariously against her body as she lies on the bed, trying to prevent more pain.

Yelena hates it. This was avoidable, absolutely. Yelena could've taken out every person in that warehouse herself and they should both know that. Daisy is a spy now, she has to know that she needs to stay healthy. Doesn't she want to be healthy?

Yelena reaches out near unconsciously to Daisy's arm, as if she can make everything better though magic. She wishes she could.

"You don't have to tell me why," she says, "but I don't like seeing you hurt." She's not going to force Daisy into anything, but she needs to make her opinion clear that seeing Daisy in pain makes her hurt too.

She wraps her arm around Daisy's torso, hoping to offer comfort.

Daisy lets the silence go a for minute. "When I got my powers," she says finally, "I thought I was cursed."

She must have had to learn to control them. Now, Yelena can clearly see that she knows what she's doing. She hopes Daisy didn't kill anyone she didn't want to in her practice. She's not got much confidence in SHIELD, but they have to have better training practices than the Red Room.

“But I was convinced they were a gift by the other Inhumans.  And even when my mom died, I believed that I could do something good with the gift I’d been given."

Her mom had died? Another thing they have in common. Another unfortunate thing to have in common.

The rest of her words, that's the Daisy that Yelena knows. That's the girl she met who convinced her of good people in the world. Daisy is always looking for ways to help.

"So I kept working with SHIELD.  And—”

Daisy's voice cracks.

What happened to her? What made her hurt like this? If it's not already gone, Yelena is going to hunt it down and slaughter it. With delight. Great delight. And with excruciating pain.

"There was a thing with this bitch-ass octopus-looking fucker.  Hive.  He could do this thing to Inhumans—" he could do this thing to me, Yelena fills in with a sense of dawning horror— "where he made you feel like obeying him was the only thing you ever wanted to do in life.  Like there was something missing from your life and he could provide it.  Something to do with our brain chemicals, I don’t know the details.”

Yelena can't stop herself from a sharp inhale. It's obvious what happened.

Fucking mind control.

It sounds even worse than her own. Yelena, at least, hadn't been infatuated with Dreykov. She didn't know what her own feelings were all the time, if they were even real, but she knows it wasn't like that. She'd had uncharitable thoughts about Dreykov, even if she knew she'd never be able to hurt him. She'd at least had that choice. That Daisy hadn't is horrific. Absolutely horrific. Forced excitement to be enslaved is quite frankly, the worst thing Yelena can think of.

Daisy continues in a hushed voice. "I almost killed everyone. I hurt them.  Badly.  I threatened them.  Everyone in his path, I cleared."

It’s all the more devastating for someone like Daisy who cares so much about people. Someone who built up relationships with everyone she met, who did her absolute best to connect with them. It’s brutal.

Yelena grew up with killing. For better or for worse, she's generally unfazed by it. But Daisy? She may have changed from when she was Skye, but there's no way that death doesn't drag on her mind.

"When we finally took him down, good people died." Her voice wobbles dangerously. Her eyes begin to glisten as she fights tears. "So now I’m out here, trying to make up for everything I’ve done.  For all of the hurt I gave out.  The suffering I’ve caused.  And if it hurts?  It’s worth it.  And… maybe I deserve it.”

The worst part is, she sounds convinced of her words. Daisy genuinely believes she deserves it. The pain she's feeling right now, she thinks she deserves it.

It's complete bullshit.

Yelena could understand if there was no other option, that Daisy would need to use her powers. But she doesn't. So the only reason she's doing it is a misguided sense that she was somehow in charge of her actions while being mind controlled and therefore needs to suffer. Again, complete bullshit.

For someone as good as Daisy, just the fact that her body committed the action is enough to incriminate herself in her mind.

She reaches out to grab Daisy's hand, needing the comfort. Wanting to give comfort.

If there's one thing she's locked onto after getting free, it's that she was not in control of her body. Maybe she can extend that to Daisy.

"It's not your fault," she says as firmly as she can. "It wasn't us. It wasn't our choice. It wasn't your choice, Daisy."

A solitary tear begins to roll down Daisy's face. "But I did it. And I felt happy about it."

Hive, Yelena knows, is dead. She was able to find out that much. In the back of her mind, she's been stabbing him again and again. How could anyone do something like that to Daisy?

She recalls the emotionless state when she killed Oksana and the sudden onset of feeling afterward. She had gone from being glad to have completed her mission to abject horror as Oksana died in her arms.

She brushes the tears off of Daisy's cheek. "Even our emotions, they didn't belong to us." She won't ever forget the whiplash of that moment. But it reminds her— "But now they do. Now we can decide. We have our own thoughts and feelings."

Daisy tilts her head, ever so slightly. Indecision rolls across her face, crinkling her eyebrows. For a brief second, Yelena is reminded of her mother, comforting her just as she is comforting Daisy now. She would knit her eyebrows together like that too as she thought of what to do.

"You've been so brave. You’ve held onto this pain for so long.  It’s made you strong."

Pain only makes you stronger, Mama had told her the day she died. Yelena has held onto those words. She's been through so much and it's made her stronger. She's come out the other side of everything.

“Those things happened and they can’t be taken back."

There's a lot that Yelena's done that she could regret now and Oksana's death is at the top of the list. There's plenty of other deaths that cross her mind. She has to put that behind her. Oksana... she'll complete her dying request. She'll free the Widows. But she's going to experience being free too.

"But it’s okay to let it go.  It’s okay to want good things for yourself.  It’s okay to live your life.” 

It has to be okay. It wasn't her fault. She didn't choose any of her past. She can choose her future. She's going to choose her future. She's figured out contacting Daisy, she can figure out the rest of it too.

“We’re our own people now.”

Daisy's face crumples and she bursts into tears, turning to bury her face in Yelena's shoulder. Yelena strokes gently at her back.

"It was supposed to be me," Daisy mutters quietly. "Why wasn't it me?"

Yelena has no idea what she's talking about. It sounds like something she should disagree with on principle based on the other thoughts Daisy has been having about herself, but she's not going to act without knowing more. And she's pushed Daisy enough tonight. Getting the seeds in there is as far as she'll go.

So she doesn't say anything else that might bring up bad memories for Daisy. Instead, she starts to sing an old Russian lullaby, one that Mama had sang to her as a child. She waits as Daisy sinks into sleep, dried tears tracks on her face, before she dares to drift off herself, carefully holding Daisy. She's not going to let her do this alone. Not anymore.

[samferd]

This is probably gonna be really really long, so I'm putting all this shit below the read more. But this is the post where I explain my cool and awesome original species.

So. Let's start with names first. X-Parasites are the name (yes I know that's the name of the parasites in Metroid Fusion but by the time I learned about that I was already in too deep and that was years ago, now I'm in waaayyy too deep).

Anyways, anatomy!!! Yippee!!! Do you like weird sci-fi and biology? I sure do. Get ready girlsss.

This is what they look like in their "true form":

And this is what they look like disguised:

Now you may be saying, "Oh Samferd, that's just a human! That's not original at all!" And to that I say, shut the fuck up, they're my freaks and I get to choose what they look like! Buutt just because you asked not so nicely, I'll tell you some fun tells that are different from humans. Here’s a diagram:

A weird quirk about X-Parasites is that depending on the region they're born in, they'll have slightly different quirks with their biology, here's some examples:

Last biology thing before I move on to a slightly different thing. Why are they considered parasites? It's in the name and yet I haven't mentioned it yet. Well this is the right spot to be if you'd like to know why. There's a thing in this slightly alternate version of Earth called xenia (Pronounced like it's a z. I just thought the x was funny lmao). This is an energy source that all living things naturally create by eating, drinking water, or sleeping. I lied though, X-Parasites don't make xenia. Well how do they get it then? Go into a bloodstream, stupid. Xenia is stored in the blood and there might be a little guy in there taking it! Don't worry though, most times they're like, just hanging. Yeaaahh most times they don't really act out their namesake and instead go for the commensalistic route. Xenia (at least in humans) is very easily extracted. And at the fast rate that 99% of people regenerate it, there's usually no harm in having an X-Parasite in you from time to time. Help a little guy out! And if you know of their existence inside you (you likely wouldn't they were wiped out of history but we'll get to that in a bit), you can do some funky shit. They have this weird reaction with the pain killers they produce (yes they secrete pain killer chemical shit, they love you and getting a drill into your bloodstream would suck without it). This makes it so you can create metal blades in whatever shape you want out of the area you're in. Want blade wings? Go ahead! Wanna make a cool dragon helmet out of even more blades? Sure! Wanna actually use it like a weapon? Laaaame that's the obvious answer. But sure. Also the metal's light blue cause it's cool.

Now this is all sounds great, this isn't parasitic! You get a funky guy (yes they can communicate and read thoughts when they're in you, don't question it) and cool blades? Disappointing! But don't leave just yet! The more dangerous method is similar, you know, they get in your bloodstream and shit but instead of just extracting the xenia, they can just straight up drink the blood! Also by doing this, they can get better access to your nervous system, letting them just control your body! Whoops! People tend to die in 3 days if they stay in there, which if they started controlling you, they most likely would! It is very frowned upon in their society, so the rate at which it happens (especially in present day) is very low.

History time!!! Did any of you miss history class? I didn't think so! I don't care though! Have some fake history (now with substantially less diagrams):

Waaaayyy back in the day (when humans were first becoming humans as we know it), X-Parasites existed alongside them. Consuming so much of their xenia made them be able to be human like, it took a very long time for them to really look human though. However, a side effect of this was that they evolved to only be able to eat human xenia. Humans nearly worshipped them due to their ability to help create the previously mentioned blue metal. People would harvest this and use it in buildings and weapons and it was incredibly durable. This also happened to lead to a lot of X-Parasites becoming blacksmiths and them having painted chainmail tapestry called a Kexiv (Yes I am gonna find a way to put an x in all of the names, no I have not named the actual metal). Also a side note because I don't know where else to put this, they can live for hundreds of years, ten years of living as an X-Parasite is comparatively one year for humans. Anyways, soon after European colonists came to America to steal some land, people started getting paranoid. This is mostly due to a lack of relations with many of the X-Parasites and increasing racism(? does it count as racism if they're different species??? I guess speciesism??? Is that a word???) and the lack of relations is primarily due to people messing around with new and cooler metals. The paranoia led to an all out "war" and by "war" I mean literal genocide. This led to most of the X-Parasites all dying out and seeking refuge in the sewers. People ended up literally burning and destroying all traces of their existence so the royalty of the world would look better by making it seem like there wasn't a literal genocide they did. They are slowly recovering however, they built colonies inside the sewers they took refuge in. It's significantly less gross (they have a floor and society and shit. Yippee!!) That's not to say everything's all fun and games (not to say living in a sewer is ideal, far from it), there's very few people that know of X-Parasites anymore and most that do are people that have had their ancestor's bigotry passed down and thusly tend to be x-hunters (fairly explanatory, people that hunt X-Parasites). However, it is slowly getting a little better :) nature is healing.

Ummm I don't know how to end this. Bye.

[van-goghs-smoking-skull]

It's slow going at the moment, but I've finally gotten maybe 1/3 of the way through reading Blindsight, specifically the section before the Rorschach chapter begins, and I have a theory I haven't seen in any of the (admittedly few) summaries and discussions on the plotline and meaning of the novel.

The closer Theseus gets to the radiation-bleeding, thorny heart of Rorschach, the more frequent and noticeable Siri's sightings of something 'wrong' become. Sarasti is similiar enough to humans, but not quite human, the others have been augmented, and no one on the ship is really baseline (normies or NT). Sarasti seems more like the ship itself, just with different programming, data unclouded by emotion, at least of the sociable sort - everything is calculated. The others quite literally do have an organic brain/computer connection on the inside, their ND traits and the extra processing power in service to learning about both other humans, and now an alien entity, which is perhaps a lifeform or perhaps not entirely alive.

The crew maintains the idea that they, and humanity, likely don't have anything Rorschach could possibly want, as Rorschach's composition is so chemically and behaviorally different from anything humanity has encountered before. Guesses are made as to why Rorschach is the way it is, including the guess from conversations they have that Rorschach is a Chinese Room.

And perhaps that's true insofar as the verbal conversation itself, but that's not the only form of communication, just as much as physical resources aren't the only thing humanity possesses. I think Rorschach is intelligent enough to know how to mimic a Chinese Room, disarming some of the crew's fear and suspicions. But Rorschach wants information about humanity, and not the nonsense vagueries the crew feeds it, but the sort you really only get as a silent, invisible outside observer.

Rorschach uses cloaking to hide from Theseus. Rorschach requests that the ship should not approach, then mentions that it is a threat to life and systems onboard Theseus. It knows humanity is curious. The more it claims it wants the crew to avoid it, the more curious the crew becomes, and the closer the crew gets to Rorschach, like moths to a flame.

And those odd, wrong things Siri notices? Perhaps Rorschach has someone or something inside Theseus, observing the crew, unseen and unheard, because it too is cloaked, and the closer the observer gets to the main body of Rorschach, the less the cloaking works, at least on Siri's senses, as Siri isn't trying to understand the information he picks up so much as he merely interprets it as a human version of a Chinese Room.

Rorschach very much does intend something for humanity, our solar system is very much a petri dish full of organisms to be studied, but the crew is so close and so loaded with their own ideas in the effort to make Rorschach understandable to them, that they simply can't see the obvious intentions Rorschach has.

I could be wrong, but perhaps that's why it's Blindsight. That which we recognize as necessary for seeing (perception) is absent in Rorschach, but Rorschach does in fact have the ability to see (sensation), much like in actual cases of blindsight. In fact, humanity as a whole, or at least the crew itself seems to be suffering from Anton syndrome - that which is needed to see is damaged, causing blindness, but the crew still believes it can see and acts accordingly, and walking straight into closed doors because of it.

Perhaps it is humanity missing the full sensations for actual awareness, and Rorschach is a more complete form of awareness.

[sunshine-tattoo]

i think a pretty big pet peeve of mine is people who don't dress for the weather/ climate and then complain when they are uncomfortable.

like the obvious one is early 20s white girls going clubbing and then freezing their asses off going home because there ain't a jacket among them.

but there are quite a few that are honestly worse.

example: a few summers ago I worked at a kids outdoor camp. for many days it was over 30C (90F) with over 80% humidity.

in other words HOT.

we also had very limited shade and were usually in the full sun for most of the day.

so i made it very clear to all the parents and caregivers that every child was required 4 things:

1. Sunscreen

2. Sunglasses

3. Water

4. Weather appropriate clothing like shorts and t-shirts

for the most part I didn't have any trouble.

kids came with what they needed and I made sure they took plenty of water breaks and applied sunscreen every hour.

but there were two instances where things got bad.

Instance One

a mom refused to have her child wear sunscreen. I don't know if it was a fear of chemicals thing or her just believing that because their family was slightly olive complexed but whatever.

either way this kid went three days in intense UV with no sunscreen.

can you guess what happened?

he got so badly burned that he had to miss the rest of camp.

I was furious.

this kid had to stay home and be miserable all because his mama didn't listen to me about sun safety.

darker skin tones might protect you a little compared to paler ones but at the height of summer it don't matter what shade you are.

You. Will. Get. Burned.

my family is mixed and my auntie always said:

"Black don't crack but it does fry."

so me (white as fuck) and my cousins (50 shades of brown) wore the same amount of sunscreen every summer.

Instance Two

the camp being in Toronto we had a lot of first generation kiddos from a wide variety of cultural backgrounds.

which was awesome. we all learned so much from one another.

except for one family.

they were from Saudi Arabia and had only been in Canada for a few months.

they sent their little girl to camp in full traditional clothing.

- long dress

- legs and arms covered

- head scarf

which in air conditioned spaces or ontario's frozen winters is fine.

but NOT in the middle of summer with no place to cool down.

I tried to talk to the parents about it, telling them that their girl was gonna be hella overheated all day and that was a health risk.

the dad just scoffed and said "our country is much hotter than this and everyone dresses this way she will be fine."

yes its hotter but its also a DRY heat.

I may live in Canada now, but I grew up in the swamps of the south eastern USA.

if there's one thing I know, it's that you can't treat humid heat and dry heat like they are the same thing.

in dry heat, flowy layers like traditional Saudi clothes are perfect. they keep the sun off and encourage breeziness.

humidity don't work that way.

layers will only suck up moisture like a sponge and lead to burns and rashes.

the key is limited clothes (like shorts and t-shirts) and then coating yourself in sunscreen and chugging water to keep up with the sweating.

I tried to explain this to the parents, but they didn't listen.

And you know what happened?

this poor girl passed out from heat exhaustion and we had to call a fucking ambulance.

then. because the EMTs told the parents directly that this girl needed different clothes. the parents took her out of camp entirely!

they would have rather wasted a few grand and not let their kid go to camp all because they refused to dress for the weather.

like I understand dress and tradition and faith are important but not to the point of risking personal safety.

bottom line of these stories: I need people to be less dumb when it comes to how they dress and what they do in extreme weather.

either dress for the day. or have a plan to keep yourself safe like going inside regularly to cool off/ warm up.

temperature-caused aliments are no fucking joke and they can easily be avoided if you actually use your brain.

[deadcactuswalking]

REVIEWING THE CHARTS: 05/08/2023 (Travis Scott's 'UTOPIA', Calvin Harris/Sam Smith, Central Cee/Drake)

Content warning: More Drake than usual

For a ninth consecutive week, we have Dave and Cench at the top of the charts with “Sprinter” - welcome back to REVIEWING THE CHARTS!

Rundown

This sure was a week. A pretty busy one at that, one that’ll be a pain to write about, so in all honesty, my main goal is to keep this pretty brief… not that it’s all that easy when there are 12 new songs and a ton of what we always start with - the notable dropouts, which are songs exiting from the UK Top 75 after five weeks in the region or a peak in the top 40. This week, we say farewell to last week’s debut, “K-POP” by Travis Scott featuring Bad Bunny and The Weeknd, for obvious reasons we’ll discuss later, but also songs that actually stayed around for at least one week longer, like “Militerian” by J Hus featuring Naira Marley, “Makeba” by Jain, “Toxic Trait” by Stormzy and Fredo, “Don’t Say Love” by Leigh-Anne, “Tattoo” by Loreen, “Cupid” by FIFTY FIFTY, “Until I Found You” by Stephen Sanchez, “Boy’s a liar” by PinkPantheress, “I’m Good (Blue)” by David Guetta and Bebe Rexha, “I Ain’t Worried” by OneRepublic and “Riptide” by Vance Joy - why was that still here anyway?

We then see returns for Post Malone as his #3 album AUSTIN makes its impact. We have a debut later on, but “Mourning” and “Chemical” re-enter to take up his other two spots on the chart at #56 and #24 respectively. As for our gains, which are usually infinitely more interesting, we see boosts for “Highs & Lows” by Prinz featuring Gabriela Bee at #60, “Asking” by Sonny Fodera and MK featuring Clementine Douglas at #51, “Nothing Compares 2 U” by the late Sinéad O’Connor at #30 since the impact of her death straddled between two weeks and then gains for the Barbie phenomenon: “Pink” by Lizzo is at #27, “I’m Just Ken” by Ryan Gosling is at #14 and Charli XCX gets her sixth top 10 with “Speed Drive” at #9.

This week’s top five on the UK Singles Chart has most of the surrounding madness kind of absent, as it’s pretty standard - it consists of “vampire” by Olivia Rodrigo at #5, “Barbie World” by Nicki Minaj, Ice Spice and Aqua at #4, “Dance the Night” by Dua Lipa at #3, “What Was I Made For?” by Billie Eilish at #2 and of course, “Sprinter” at the very top. Now for the mess below.

NEW ARRIVALS

#72 - “Deli” - Ice Spice

Produced by RIOTUSA

Okay so not only is this a busy week, it’s also not a great one. A lot of these new arrivals I am not near to being a fan of - apologies to break the illusion that I write these in order - and sadly, this deluxe track from Ice Spice is no different. Sure, the Jersey club beat is propulsing and overwhelming with its slightly fuzzier but still dominant bass and the pretty cool syncopation with the large, distorted claps and the 808 - it sounds cool, bordering on intricate beatwork and unplanned synthesis. Miss Poopie here, however, tries to convince us she’s not a “regular artist” by raising her voice for once and providing incredibly basic bars in that still limited flow. Personality doesn’t really make up for everything, and given the lack of groove or really all that many dynamics in the very short time this song has to even do anything, I think I’m starting to already be kind of over the slight novelty of Ice Spice. It’d be great if someone like Lay Bankz was here to do the beat some justice.

#68 - “Rave Out” - Turno, Skepsis and Charlotte Plank

Produced by Skepsis and Turno

Who, who and who here are UK drum and bass DJs Turno and Skepsis, and singer Charlotte Plank, who’s still charting with “Dancing is Healing” as of this week. The song is… fantastic. Genuinely, this is incredible. We have three drum and bass songs to cover here, they’re all kind of the saving grace of this week, but this one is by far the best. I don’t know if this is a sample - I couldn’t find one in my research - but the hypnotic reggae beat that starts the song is really unexpected and incredibly smooth, with the apathetic blast of horns and organic bass perfectly fitting the content about the comedown from a “rave”, which I think means a lot more than a party here. The way everything from this reggae instrumental just melts down into a liquid drum and bass groove, as Plank repeats the same paranoid questions asking where the person is going to go “when the rave’s out”, is really striking, especially with the start-stop tendencies of the chorus and the splatter of spikier bass tones warping in and out in the post-chorus. The horns come back with rising synths, but none of it is worth all that much when it gets compressed into this mindless, carefree break. If I had to nit-pick, Plank isn’t exactly as enveloping as she could be to make this tone really work, but considering the song is actually relevant to men’s mental health, with the echoed reminders from Plank serving not as a complete control over the guy’s mind but rather just a sinking feeling regarding how men don’t feel like they have much of a space to actually confide in people or relax their brains due to constantly feeling like they have to be in control or stoic. It’s a touching message and a mesmerising banger of a song to tell it in, so good work - hope to hear more of it on the charts. Oh, wait, I will…

#65 - “Bittersweet Goodbye” - Issey Cross

Produced by Luude

Alright, Luude, this may be getting kind of silly now. “Bitter Sweet Symphony”? Really? When I first heard of this, I wasn’t necessarily shocked of the sample flip but it was amusing and when I first listened to the song, I nearly did a spit-take. To do my due diligence as the chart person, I should mention that the original song by The Verve hit #2 in 1997, being blocked by Puff Daddy’s version of “I’ll be Missing You”… both songs actually sample classic rock bands, funnily enough, though The Verve do it in a much more subtle way, even if the strings from the Andrew Oldham Orchestra’s version of The Rolling Stones’ 1965 #1 hit “The Last Time”. That’s right - this is sample-ception already before Luude even touched it. For the record, I’m not much of a fan of the song, but the orchestral lead - that I personally think gets very tiring over six minutes - is pretty iconic nowadays. It’s also a bit risky to sample, given the song is infamously the host of a slimy songwriting dispute, but Richard Ashcroft is now the sole writer credited on the track as of 2019 so most of the Issey Cross royalties I have to imagine are also going to him, which should help on some of the lost residuals. There is actually very little to say about the new song itself, funnily enough, as whilst Luude may be making his money doing silly drum and bass flips of classic songs, the returns aren’t always fantastic. I still laugh every time Ms. Cross harmonises with the string melody in the pre-chorus, and the drop has fairly enough push to it to work without being fully comical. I’m not big on the song overall, but it is a fairly standard flip of a very difficult-to-deny loop, with an okay vocal performance so it just by a pinch becomes serviceable, mostly on novelty factor.

#58 - “One Direction” - ArrDee and Bugzy Malone

Produced by LiTek and WhYJay

This new collaboration from ArrDee and Bugzy Malone isn’t exactly the best song ever, but what makes it beautiful is that - okay, I’ll stop, mostly because I can’t say this is beautiful. The horn line is just staccato and obnoxious, as even if it provides some needed bombast to drill that ArrDee can absolutely replicate, it does blow the song up to grander proportions that it cannot fully reach, mostly because the refrain is… awkward, as they vaguely trade bars, and the verses range from ArrDee ironically saying that comedians should steer clear of him - in a really lazy Eddie Murphy reference that doesn’t actually make any sense - whilst delivering what is basically a comedy-rap verse. Bugzy sounds more awake than usual, sure, but mostly because he’s surrounded by annoying sound effects so it’s like he has to work for the attention of the mix, which to be fair, is pretty well done considering how much it has to deal with that is just straight-up annoying. I really want to like this given the energy, but I can’t endorse something as obnoxious as this unless it embraces the silliness of itself more so than just a couple pop culture references.

#52 - “Enough is Enough” - Post Malone

Produced by Post Malone, Louis Bell, Rami and Max Martin

Dropping on the same day as UTOPIA seems like a mistake in the short-term but honestly, I somewhat doubt the audiences overlap that much anymore, especially considering that I’m convinced now that this synth-infused depresso pop-rock is the kind of music Post actually wants to make. This didn’t stop the Official Charts Company from accidentally missing the song out when they first posted the chart, so maybe they agree that enough truly is enough? Well, I don’t see how you could be convinced either positively or negatively by this track in particular. It’s 12 tracks into the album, without a video, so this really must be the fan favourite… and it’s okay. It’s got a typical acoustic frolick and Post’s signature warble, sometimes reaching into really rough falsetto, but any potential it could have had is quashed immediately by those terribly-mixed synthpop drums crashing down into the song and rendering it worthy of car adverts, with no update to the lyrical content to warrant a more serious sound, and no real bridge to be found… so this is practically just a regurgitation of a pop formula that vaguely works. I wish Post the best, but this is dull and doesn’t really make me want to check out any more of that album.

#53 - “Big 7” - Burna Boy

Produced by Danitello, MD$, Mike Wavvs, Otis and Super Miles

Burna Boy seems to be leading up to an album with these singles and honestly, overall, they seem pretty promising, ESPECIALLY this one. Sure, it’s another pop-R&B crossover, but the vintage-sounding keys function great off of the messy bounce, which may get in the way of Burna Boy’s flow initially, but he quickly grows into it and delivers one of his richer, more soulful performances, with a rasp on the chorus that sounds experienced and wiser as a result of the deaths in his life that he mentions in the verses, of Sidhu Moose Wala and Virgil Abloh, wherein he starts to come to grips with his now-international role as a self-proclaimed simultaneous “ghetto gospel preacher” and “two-times community service breacher”. It’s not exactly anything all too new or out there, but it’s an honest and catchy song about his experiences that deserves some spins.

#31 - “Baddadan” - Chase & Status and Bou featuring IRAH, Flowdan, Trigga and Takura

Produced by Chase & Status and Bou

Read the song’s credit and its production credits - you’ve just said the word “and” five times, and it would be generous to call whatever you constructed a sentence. If you’re thinking “Who the Hell are these people?”, I kind of am too, but apart from the drum and bass DJs at the helm that we know, as well as Flowdan from the Roll Deep grime collective who actually charted earlier this year with Skrillex on “Rumble”, we have IRAH, who seems to post at least one voice-over of Family Guy scenes on his Facebook page, Takura, who’s from Zimbabwe and has actually charted with Chase & Status before at #98 in 2011 on “Flashing Lights” and Trigga, who sure is Trigga, and has collaborated with Bou before. In fact, they all seem pretty accustomed to emceeing or at least guesting on drum and bass tracks, so what harm can be done by putting them all on a track together? The trio at the production helm have curated a pretty atmospheric and dark, menacing beat with a very 2014-feeling progression, especially with the wonky synth and reverb on Takura’s voice, and none of the emcees really impress or disappoint. IRAH’s introductory verse has the most menace, but Flowdan kind of runs away with the spotlight, mostly because his rhyme scheme is so percussive that it perfectly plays with the breaks. Most of the content are just threats, and I can’t say I’m over the Moon about the drop or Takura’s contributions in general, but the melodrama Chase & Status always bring is still there, and I could see it growing on me due to its sheer intensity soon enough.

#26 - “On the Radar Freestyle” - Drake and Central Cee

Produced by Harley Arsenault and Kid Masterpiece

“You know that’s how Jesus died, that’s how Julius Ceasar died - I bet they were decent guys, I swear they remind of me sometimes” already feels like a classic Drake bar. In fact, the song has a vintage aura surrounding it - mostly because this is the best verse Drake has delivered for about a decade, and the soul sample in the back, whilst bizarrely mixed like everything else in this “song”, adds a lot of sweetness to this otherwise hype-focused Jersey drill beat. Hell, for a YouTube freestyle video, this production is pretty unique, smattering the silky sample in a lot of filtering to the point of unrecognisability under an insanely hard and groovy drill pattern. I actually really like Drake here too - I’m not a hater, but I’ll sound like one later - as he actually delivers some pretty great lines regarding his status in Canada and he’s not going for menace or intensity here as much as he is just rampantly flexing, and it comes off pretty well, especially with that recurring “six” theme referring to where he grew up in Toronto, but being implemented really slickly - particularly in the opening line where he has to put emojis over three faces because the feds can’t see those (six) eyes. When Drake wants to, he can really deliver, and the awkward pauses after some of the weirder sex bars seem absolutely built for the reaction videos. Whilst Cench isn’t nearly as lyrical, stepping up to rap after old man Drake sits down, he sounds relentless in a lot of honestly pissy and vengeful-sounding bars, riding the beat excellently and intensely with lyrics a tad more compelling than I think is probably given credit, and his flow, whilst the same as Drake’s, sounds effortless and honestly kind of better coming from Central Cee. This may not really be a song, but it’s a damn impressive set of two verses that actually has some replay value for me so whilst I don’t think it’ll stick around at all, it was great whilst it was here.

#21 - “HYAENA” - Travis Scott

Produced by Travis Scott, MIKE DEAN, WondaGurl, Noah Goldstein and Jahaan Sweet

I didn’t like the substanceless void of vaguely-cool-sounding nothingness that was UTOPIA. At best, it was a set of guest collaborators putting in their best efforts only to be trampled on by the lack of ambition of its lead artist, and at worst, that lead artist’s ambition somehow gets way ahead of him and makes a formless mess that failed at any point to actually grip me into his world like he’d done before. We don’t exactly have the three best tracks from the album lined up here either, but at least we have one of them in the form of the opening track, “HYAENA”. It is on here that Travis sounds the most focused, and it is absolutely a convicting opener when you first press play on a Travis Scott album and are met with isolated progressive rock vocals carelessly slopping into a distorted jungle of groove. It probably has Travis’ only good verses on the entire album, delivered with energy and full of… well, nothing, but it’s at least delivered well, in place of a real hook, because it really doesn’t need one. Even when trying to deliver a crazy, industrial track, Travis ends up sounding the most human on this one, even if the content isn’t exactly thoughtful. Sadly, what I expect is for this one not to last and be replaced by a fan favourite like “I KNOW ?” next week, as can be the case when the three-song rule and big albums collide.

#18 - “Desire” - Calvin Harris and Sam Smith

Produced by Calvin Harris and BURNS

Hmm… this sounds familiar. Anyway, ahem… You know, even with a weak chart, I did not expect the hype for a new Calvin Harris track to be this [DECENTLY] high. After all, his disco efforts were met with underwhelming results, and… [SAM SMITH] hasn’t had a [SOLO] hit of [THEIR] own in years, so this collaboration being as immediate of a smash as it was kind of took me aback. I do like that Harris can experiment now and step his foot into different passions for both singles and albums markets, even if the British public clearly prefers one over the other, and with BURNS on co-production (yes, seriously, that hasn’t changed either), I think I’m predisposed to as well. [SAM SMITH] sings about a relationship that gives [THEM] a heavenly euphoria and begs [THEIR] partner to take the chance to go further, and I could not think of a better instrumental for that young-love energy, as spiralling keys and synths surround [THEIR] cooing. Once [THEY GET] into [THEIR] falsetto, the plummeting hardcore bass arrives and picks up the pace, allowing for the rickety drums to clash through. Instead of a drop after that, though, we get an – admittedly cheap but charmingly so – piano breakdown that then builds itself up through a simple emotional force. It’s a basic piano melody that then hides itself back under the catchy hardcore beat for another verse, until [THEIR] falsetto once again rubs itself against a deeper bass fuzz, except this time the escalation is immediate and grandiose, with fluttering percussion reflecting their accelerating heartbeats. It never fully locks into a groove either, because their love going further, whilst possible, is still a “[DESIRE]” – only starting to feel real. My only real complaint is that it fades out for radio purposes, when I want to hear this go further and further because it deserves an even higher level of detail, I want to hear this narrative pushed through, I want to hear what happens next, and that’s the most frustrating thing. Maybe a remix will give me more closure, but an extended edit would be great, or even just hearing how this is used in a DJ mix. The fact that Calvin Harris and BURNS have me gripped into the sonic theming of this track should be telling of how well they’ve constructed it though, and if Harris is going to briefly dip back into EDM tunes, I absolutely want to hear more where this came from - and God, if that’s what I said all those months ago when I first reviewed “Miracle”, maybe the blame is on me, but this is alarmingly similar down to even the lead vocal melodies, the song’s limited vocabulary and I have the exact same qualms, given it’s also way too short… but I’m not as interested in the Sam Smith narrative than I am Ellie Goulding’s, and it does come off as a cheap recreation. Just like this review.

#13 - “FE!N” - Travis Scott featuring Playboi Carti

Produced by Travis Scott and Jahaan Sweet

This is depressingly bad. We start with cheap rage synths that don’t carry any of the filtered weight as many of the beats Carti ends up on, so it just flairs through the instrumental as Travis murmurs an intro before the beat shuts down said synth into a clogged-down bassy trap number, as it remains for the rest of its runtime. In Travis’ verse, you can hear these little MIKE DEAN-esque synth inflections that are sprinkled on top in a desperate attempt to make anything about this actually interesting, especially Travis is full of nothing as always, and Carti’s hook is mind-numbing. His verse… can you call it that? Does that fit the legal definition of a verse? His second one does, and I at least appreciate his attempt at going for a deeper voice and inflection - it’s more experimentation than Travis is doing on this. With that said, the song ends abruptly with no catharsis for any of the previous three minutes, before Sheck Wes, who’s on ad-libs, can even get a word in edgewise, which is a shame since he’s the most interesting vocal presence here. Maybe with a more lyrical rapper on one of Travis’ more mindless cuts, there can be at least something of intrigue, so we’ll see with…

#10 - “MELTDOWN” - Travis Scott featuring Drake

Produced by Coleman, BNYX, Boi-1da, Vinylz, Tay Keith, Skeleton Cartier and Travis Scott

I get so easily tired of “menacing” Drake. It never sounds authentic, and is more often just an excuse for him to say absolutely embarrassing bars and still come off as “cool” - as he does in this, or deplete himself of any required energy, as he tries not to do here but considering all three of these beats - it’s like the BTEC “SICKO MODE” - refuse to wake up. We have a rote Memphis-influenced beat with strings, followed by a beat that acts like fanfare - or at least it would if we didn’t have sound effects and Travis’ backing vocals drowning out any impact the bass could have had. I do kind of like the way that certain parts of the beats maintain their presence, even if the transitions are not as exciting or innovative as “SICKO MODE”, which it is clearly trying to emulate, especially given the last beat is a Tay Keith clunker wherein Travis kind of sounds like he’s alive… vaguely. Apparently, Drake sends shots as Pharrell and Pusha on this one, but to be honest, if I were them, I wouldn’t see much point responding as the man burns bridges for headlines that he doesn’t need. Once again, I am asking for you to retire.

Conclusion

Once again, that sure was a week. Best of the Week goes to Turno, Skepsis and Charlotte Plank with “Rave Out” though the “On the Radar Freestyle” by Central Cee and Drake was way closer than I’d usually admit, as it grabs the Honourable Mention straight from poor Burna Boy this week. As for the worst, it really is a plentiful set to choose from, but I’ll go with “FE!N” by Travis Scott featuring Playboi Carti as the Worst of the Week with a Dishonourable Mention to… hey, look, it’s Travis Scott again with “MELTDOWN” featuring Drake. Hopefully a lot of this will clear out soon enough but for now, thank you for reading and I’ll see you next week!