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anony-man · 1 month ago

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We’ve got another collaboration here with my good friend Siberat, who also made some AMAZING artwork for this piece. I’m sooo excited to share it with you guys!

Under the cut is a fun little 6k story featuring Scrapper, Onslaught, and a ridiculous challenge given to them by Megatron: finish a nine-course meal or settle their silly feud. How will things turn out? Who knows! Read below to find out, and be sure to enjoy!

Siberat’s page | Illustration only | Ao3 link

(Credits for the cover art and the idea behind this story go to @siberat. Thank you for joining me in another awesome collaboration!)

It was the combiners who had their own thoughts, their own feelings, and performed their own actions based on such. It was the combiners themselves, Onslaught claimed, that made the problems happen, and it was the combiners in nature, Scrapper would argue, that got them all into the sticky situations that they so often encountered (or, more accurately, made up). One thing was for certain though, and Megatron knew it just as well as the two quarreling combiner team leaders—the heart of the problem wasn’t within their fused forms, but within the the quarrel between themselves.

There was no arguing with Bruticus when he was on a rampage, nor was there any reasoning with Devastator that didn’t involve the big, belligerent mech turning tail and running right back to fight with his sworn combiner enemy. The only solution was to solve the problem at its core, and with his new last-ditch efforts, Megatron was hoping to do just that.

The leaders were the problem, and the leaders would be the solution—however, said solution was tricky to find and even trickier to implement. The Decepticon leader was nearing his limits dealing with the two petulant giants and their petty rivalry, and with no end in sight, he had almost begun wishing he could simply let them fight it out and end things through equal death and destruction. Alas, the price of finding enough competent components was far higher than his annoyance, no matter how great, and Megatron knew it simply wasn’t that easy.

Onslaught made a fine strategist and an even finer pawn in Megatron’s little games. Scrapper, too, showed great prowess and even greater usefulness to Megatron’s needs. Both were important, and neither was expendable. It was difficult, and it made things tricky.

Megatron had learned early on from trial and error that there was no easy way of pitting the two against each other and coming out of the fiery aftermath with a new set of skilled mechs finally willing to work alongside each other. He had also learned that neither Bruticus nor Devastator was anywhere near the level of competence and compliance needed for him to form a temporary alliance, which was, of course, all due to their lead components inability to even share the same space together, let alone the same battlefield. It made things difficult when he was shouting orders over the sound of blasters firing and straining his fuel lines from the anger of watching two overgrown beasts going at it like a pair of underdeveloped sparklings, but this, to his surprise, would end up being his ticket to success.

Finally, there was a compromise. Finally, there was a way to pigeonhole the two mechs responsible for this mess… and to think that all he had to do was scream obscenities as loud as his vocal chords could support until the two battling buffoons stopped to listen.

“Bruticus!” he spat, his fist flying in the air as he beckoned them over with bright optics and a furious face. “Devastator! Come here, NOW!”

It felt all too much like watching two of his own offspring turning to look at him before cowering low and coming crawling back for their punishment. Megatron’s face flushed hot at the thought, his expression darkening. Childish beasts they were, and all because of a little fight between their lead components.

Bruticus was the first to try to speak, his battered arm spraying sparks as he raised it to point at Devastator. Megatron cut him off before he could do so much as utter a word, let alone a sound, and both big bots flinched back in surprise at the sound of their leader’s anger.

“You fools,” he said, glaring them down one at a time, “what in Unicron’s name do you think you’re doing over there, wasting Decepticon time and resources yet again? And don’t tell me you were fighting!”

Devastator was the first to break the silence, though Bruticus was quick to interject. Between the two of them, a stream of jumbled and confusing words followed—most of them unimportant, most of them more fuel added to the fire of contempt building in Megatron’s spark.

“Devastator make Megatron proud—“ one said.

“—Bruticus show Megatron how strong Bruticus is! Bruticus better than Devastator!” the other cut in.

“No!” Devastator snapped, whipping his helm around to glare at Bruticus before giving him a rough shove. “Devastator is the better combiner. Bruticus cowers under Devastator’s power.”

Bruticus shoved back. “Bruticus make Megatron proud!” Another servo around Devastator’s neck and the battle was rekindled. “Not Devastator! Devastator disappoint Mega—“

“Enough of this nonsense!” Megatron roared, a stomp of his pede and a shot fired into the sky putting a temporary end to the troublesome two. “You are both acting like sparklings! How many times have I told you to stop this nonsense!”

He stepped closer to the edge and found them watching him with every move, their fight forgotten. Good, he thought. It was about time they finally listened to reason.

“If approval is what you want…” he said, pointing at Bruticus, then at Devastator, “you’re going about it the wrong fragging way. I don’t tolerate foolishness from the best of my troops, and I certainly won’t be tolerating foolishness from either of you!”

“Bruticus is sorry!” the big brute burst out, “Bruticus will not let it happen again!”

“No,” Devastator added with a rough nudge, “Devastator will stop the fighting. Devastator will make Megatron proud!”

“Devastator is foolish,” Bruticus sneered, his visor narrowing. “Bruticus will—!”

It was where Megatron found his wit’s end. There was no reasoning with them in this mindset, and there was no solving the animosity between the two leaders. He huffed and growled and shook a fist in the air, putting another stop to the budding fight before it could begin again.

“If you both insist on acting so foolishly,” he said, his voice rising with every word, “then you can both prove your loyalty by acting in other foolish ways! Bah!”

It was meant to stop there. He couldn’t handle any more ridiculous arguments or petty dramas fought by petty leaders acting through their bigger, stronger counterparts. He wanted to turn back and call it quits, leave the two to their devices and hope for the best. He wanted them to tear each other apart once and for all and simply leave him the pieces.

He wanted peace. He wanted an end to this. But somehow… some way… he got both.

“Yes,” Devastator said, nodding slowly. “Yes… yes! We will do it! We will prove ourselves!”

“Bruticus will prove loyalty to Megatron,” Bruticus said, “Bruticus will show Megatron Bruticus is loyal!”

“No,” Devastator growled in turn, “Devastator will prove loyalty. Devastator will defeat Bruticus!”

“Bruticus will defeat Devastator!” Bruticus shouted, the ground shaking as he stomped a massive pede. “Bruticus will fight!”

“Devastator will fight!”

“Bruticus will rest!”

“Devastator will rest!”

Bruticus paused, his slow processor struggling to keep up.

“Bruticus will…” he paused, his helm tilted to the side. “Bruticus… will eat.”

Devastator’s engine rumbled as he stomped too, shifting closer and closer with inching steps forward. The two stood chest-to-chest and chin-to-chin as they growled back and forth, their gestalts’ plans solidified by the silly words of their combined forms.

“Devastator will eat,” Devastator said, “Devastator will eat more.”

From there, the problem practically solved itself. Megatron figured out what he was going to be doing for the next few days, at least, and at the top of his list was finding a way to gather Onslaught and Scrapper together for a long enough period to ensure their combined teams followed through with their plans.

It was foolproof—combiner-proof, he should say. The solution practically produced itself from there on out. All he had to do was sit back, set the scene, and watch the feud crumble.

— — —

Coming back out of the combined bond was always worse than post-coital clarity, especially when you knew your combined self had gotten up to embarrassing and regrettable actions… and especially when you were now forced to sit across from your (unofficially) sworn enemy and expected to follow up on the ridiculous plans made by the big mechs out on the battlefield. It was a first for both Scrapper and Onslaught, who hoped and prayed through begrudging side-eyed stares and huffy growls that this would be the last time they were forced to act upon the foolishness of poorly thought out plans from their easily influenced counterparts.

Neither leader had been all too pleased about the plans when Megatron had announced them, and they had been even less pleased when the instructions on arriving involved coming alone, not with the aid or company of their gestalt. It meant nothing good when a thought brewed from the minds of Devastator and Bruticus was involved, and it was even less pleasant when they were forced to sit together and wait in uncomfortable silence to see if Megatron really was going to follow through on his plan to make foolish things from foolish minds happen.

An eating competition. Of all things the two could have come up with, it just had to be an eating competition.

Megatron came in to interrupt the silent brooding fest just a minute too early for the real arguments to start, and he dragged along a buffet-style cart behind him. The smells were enough to make Scrapper’s scowl soften and Onslaught’s repulsion grow, but neither curiosity nor disgust lasted very long while they watched their commander lining the table in front of them with rows and rows of dishes hidden under silver domes. They were here for a lesson, not a meal, and the only emotions that lasted long enough to settle on their faces were grim acceptance and steely determination.

Megatron braced himself up with both servos planted along the edges of the table and let the silence draw out for a few moments longer. Neither Onslaught nor Scrapper dared to speak before he did. They had gotten themselves into enough trouble as is—they didn’t need to make things worse while he still held it over them.

“I’m sure both of you gentlemechs know why we’re here today,” he said, nodding to the silver trays and their domes concealing the food inside. “Regardless, I will be going over things again… and just so we’re clear—“ he paused, staring each of them down before he continued— “you and your teammates are not off the hook if petty fighting continues between Bruticus and Devastator. Understood?”

Scrapper turned to stare at Onslaught with a cool, unreadable gaze. Onslaught’s jaw hardened as he stared back and sighed, his vents huffing out air in the mildest show of displeasure he could afford.

“We understand,” Onslaught said.

Megatron nodded his approval. “Good. This is not anywhere close to what I had imagined I’d be dealing with when it came time to end this ridiculous animosity, but I’ll take what I can get. Now, listen closely.”

He reached for the knob of a dome and lifted it into the air, revealing a lavish spread of food underneath. The smell was heavenly, and the sight was enough to win even Onslaught over, who had leaned in to savor the sight alongside Scrapper.

“There are nine dishes in total,” Megatron said, dropping the lid back down onto the tray with a noisy sound that left both leaders flinching back in surprise. “Nine dishes each—all the same underneath. You will both eat your fill, and you will both come to an agreement. If no agreement can be found, then one of you will be expected to finish your plates…” under his breath, he muttered, “if you can bear to finish at all.”

Onslaught leaned back in his seat and crossed his arms over his chest. His dissatisfaction was expected; Megatron knew he would be the more difficult of the two to convince.

“And if we don’t?” he said, his helm cocked to the side as he studied Megatron carefully. “Our feud runs deep, Lord Megatron. I don’t see it coming to an end so easily.”

“You have no choice!” Megatron snapped. “You are either to come to an agreement or finish your plates—no exceptions.”

He pushed himself up off of the table and stood over them for a moment, studying them with a critical eye.

“You two are at the root of the problem,” he said, “which means the solution is to be found between the two of you. Follow my instructions or don’t, but one thing is for certain.”

He turned away and headed for the door, glancing only briefly over his shoulder to glare them down a final time.

“There will be no second chances.”

The door slammed shut behind him, leaving the two hungry mechs sitting alone with their thoughts and their appetites. They returned to the begrudging silence and uncomfortable air for a time, but after their task had been given to them, there was little point in remaining still or silent.

Onslaught was the first to speak. Grumpy and annoyed, his arms dropped, and his servos fell into his lap.

“This is ridiculous,” he said. “All of this effort, just to treat us like sparklings.”

Scrapper grunted in return. “It’s true… but.” He tilted his helm. “You act out of line, you get the iron fist brought down on your back.”

“Don’t speak as though this isn’t your own doing, too,” Onslaught quickly snapped, his mask retracting to reveal the snarl underneath. He reached out for a tray and tugged it close. “This is as much your burden as it is mine.”

“Indeed,” Scrapper said, “so let’s tackle it like competent leaders and get this over with.”

The food smelled heavenly, and the platters were piled high from what they could tell, but things were not going to be easy. The challenge was daunting no matter which way they approached it. It was either stuffing themselves until they burst or coming to an agreement, but neither Onslaught nor Scrapper seemed quite ready for the latter. For now, at least, they could make an attempt at proving Megatron wrong and earning a place in the hierarchy for their combined selves.

Eighteen dishes were arranged in two rows on either side of the table. It was nine mystery meals for both mechs, and though they had brought the first plate close, neither seemed all too keen on lifting the dome and revealing what was underneath. Onslaught regarded the sight with a wrinkled nose and uncertain look, while Scrapper’s mouth remained set in a firm line.

“I cannot believe we’re doing this,” Onslaught said with a shake of his helm. “It’s ridiculous.”

“The combiners are ridiculous,” Scrapper corrected, “but yes. Unfortunately, I have to agree.”

He lifted a servo then paused, his fingers hovering over the lid. Onslaught joined him, and with a shared nod, both gestalt leaders lifted the domes and revealed their first meal.

“Oh, for Primus’ sake,” Onslaught muttered.

“And here I thought things couldn’t get worse than they already are,” Scrapper said as he tossed the lid aside and stared down the dish. “I stand corrected.”

It wasn’t a bad dish, per se. It was merely… unexpected. Messy. A little unprofessional. Thin and colorful noodles with enough sauce to cover three portions of the dish sat heaped up on both plates and topped with a healthy serving of four small, purple meatballs. The dish covered the plate from one end to the other, and its mere size was enough to leave both bots wincing in anticipation of the heavy and full feeling that would follow.

So much for their first meal. Onslaught couldn’t imagine choking it all down before it got cold, let alone polishing it off without making a mess of himself. There was silverware, at least—one pair for each of them. Megatron had been generous.

“It’s so…” Onslaught began, reaching for a fork to stab into the behemoth of a plate. His fork went right through the sauce, right through the noodles, stopping only once it reached halfway up the handle. “…big.”

“It could be worse,” Scrapper said with a shrug. He had already begun scooping up mouthfuls and shoveling it in, his technique sloppy but his seat still clean. “Start eating. It’ll go by faster.”

The fork went slack in Onslaught’s grasp. He stared down at the pile of spaghetti with a frown, his tanks twisting at the thought of polishing the entire dish off.

“This is unnecessary,” he said as he took another stab at the dish. He got a meatball this time, and the bright purple ball balanced perfectly on the tip of his fork before falling back onto the plate with a messy splash of sauce. “It’s disrespectful. Megatron should be mediating, not taunting.”

“You’re not going to get anything more out of him than he’s already given us,” Scrapper said, pausing his forkfuls to glare back at Onslaught. “Eat the food, mech. Get it over with.”

He knew he shouldn’t have expected anything more than icy hostility from Scrapper, but a bit of agreement on the matter would have been nice. Still, Onslaught roped in his ego and sat tall in his seat, taking care to polish off the dish one bite at a time compared to Scrapper’s rapid devouring.

It was a challenge for the first dish, and by the time they had finished, both mechs were feeling the pressure. Noodles were as filling as they were fattening, and with a plate piled high and a few hearty helpings of sauce to go with it, the challenge became that much more difficult. Onslaught was scooping up the last of his spaghetti while Scrapper finished off the last meatball left, but when their plates were finally, the relief was immense.

One down… eight more to go.

Curiosity got the best of them, which led to peeking under one dome, then two. Onslaught had found a row of perfectly seasoned and deliciously drowned ribs on his first plate, and Scrapper had discovered a plate evenly balanced with the dinner trio meal Megatron had briefly revealed to them earlier—thick slabs of meatloaf sat atop an assortment of various greenery sourced from various planets, and to top it all off, a hefty spoonful or two of bright blue potatoes mashed and creamed with the thickest purple gravy drizzled over top to round it out.

It looked good. Slag, it looked great. The worst thing about it? It was a hell of a lot of food, and that was covering the next two dishes for both of them.

“Mm,” Onslaught hummed aloud as he shoved the next dish in line aside and pulled his spare ribs closer. “I’m going for the ribs first. If we’re going to get through this disaster, we might as well enjoy some of it.”

“Good choice,” Scrapper said with a snort, having already stuck a fork into the tower of mashed potatoes. “I’ll let you know how much trouble you’ll be in when you get to this plate, then.”

In terms of flavor, there were no troubles—no troubles at all. Everything was rich and savory, warm and indulgent. It left them feeling good for the time being. In the inkling of their mind, it almost left them feeling warm like the food, hungry for reaching out and desperate to bond over a pleasant experience they knew would quickly turn. Alas, egos and rivalries won out, and neither leader dared to speak on what they knew to be the ultimate weakness. There was a reason for their animosity, even if they couldn’t quite remember why.

One dish worth three or more servings of food was enough to stuff the average mech, and though they were still thoroughly enjoying their food now, the gestalt leaders could feel the pressure brewing. Onslaught stifled belches behind each bite and secretly wished for something to wash it all down with, while Scrapper had fallen back into the silent and brooding mood as he huddled over his food and shoveled each bite in with less enthusiasm than before. One dish was enough, and two dishes was a lot. Three dishes would be too much, and four dishes…

Onslaught sighed as he tossed the last of the bones onto the plate and pushed it aside. The ribs were perfect, and the sauce was sweet, but his tanks were hurting, and his appetite had disappeared. He could barely think about what was under the next tray, especially not after seeing the second heaping plate taken on by Scrapper right next to him.

In a rare show of vulnerability, Onslaught groaned, a servo falling to clutch at his bloated belly.

Scrapper paused, glancing his way for a moment. He reached for his next plate and lifted the dome, revealing a similar dish of prime ribs drenched in sauce and seasoned to perfection underneath.

“Start with the greens,” he said, nodding to the next plate in Onslaught’s row, “then the potatoes. The meat will go down easily. It’s the best part of the dish.”

Despite his discomfort, Onslaught managed to chuckle. He raised a brow, his visor expressing his interest.

“Good meat on that plate too then, hmm?”

Scrapper was back to picking at his third plate and nibbling at the ribs. “Mm. It all has been. The rest? Not so much.”

Onslaught grunted in return. “Agreed.”

Slowly, steadily, they worked through their third dishes. The spare ribs were the easy part. The potatoes, the greens, and the meatloaf, however… not so much. It was a full plate and a big meal, mild in flavor and heavy in the belly. Scrapper had been right to finish it off first, Onslaught realized, but from the strained determination his opponent had as he worked through the ribs, he, too, had been right to savor those first before things became too difficult to enjoy.

By the time either mech had managed to settle from the agony of stuffing three massive meals into their tanks, the thought of lifting the fourth lid and discovering what was underneath seemed far too daunting. They couldn’t even harbor the simple anger towards each other, let alone keep energy up towards overcoming the impossible challenge. Their goal now was to struggle, survive, and make it out alive.

Scrapper, leaning back in his seat and breathing slowly as he massaged his middle, glanced over at Onslaught, who was still struggling to hide his discomfort behind an awkward grimace and discreet belly rubs. He didn’t want to think it, let alone speak it, and yet—

“Would you like to do the honors?” he said, gesturing to the next domed meal in line, “or should I?”

Onslaught swallowed hard as he pushed himself upright again and reached out with a shaky servo. He seemed just as unwilling to continue as Scrapper felt, but both mechs knew they had no choice. Not unless they gave in… not unless they made up.

“Let’s get it over with,” the Combaticon grunted as he lifted the dome and braced for the sight. He paused for a moment, confused by the food underneath. Then: “please tell me that is not…”

Scrapper, who had lifted his own dome and now scowled down at the pair of identical hot dogs lining his plate, nodded grimly.

“It is.”

It was the last thing either mech would want to eat, and here it sat—not one, but two. Two identical hot dogs, purple and plump, lined by a thick drizzle of sauce on either side and nestled in fluffy blue buns. The condiments were in excess, and the hot dogs were massive. Scrapper reached out for the first of the two, but Onslaught remained still, repeatedly shaking his helm.

“I can’t do it,” he said, “I’m not eating that.”

Bad moods and bellyaches made lashing out a whole lot easier, and though Scrapper didn’t nearly lose his temper with his gestalt as often as he knew Onslaught must have, he still found himself pausing mid-bite with a twinge of annoyance.

“Of course you are,” he harshly replied. “We’re both eating it—both of them.”

Onslaught watched with poorly concealed disgust as Scrapper brought his first hot dog to his mouth and took a bite. It was a mouthful, and his discomfort did not go unnoticed, but after three more big bites torn off of the dish, he was halfway finished.

“Th—urrrp—there,” he said, panting between words and bracing himself against his chair. “Simple. Finish the dish, Onslaught. Do as I do.”

Onslaught held out for a moment longer before his resolve broke, and with a defeated sigh, he reached out for the first hot dog. Scrapper was already polishing off his second by the time Onslaught had maneuvered his way around the first bite, and while he finished off his plate and tossed it aside, a quick glance out of the corner of his optics left him in poorly controlled hysterics.

“What are you doing?” he scoffed, his shoulders shaking with discreet giggles. “You’re not going to finish it off like that, Onslaught. It’s not going to bite you.”

Onslaught growled, his efforts ceased as he glared back at Scrapper. “I am trying, but your interruptions certainly aren’t helping.”

“No?” Scrapper asked, his irritation twisting into an amused smile. “Very well then. Maybe this will.”

Scrapper leaned in, and Onslaught leaned back, visibly confused and very horrified. The first of the two hot dogs was snatched from his fingers and shoveled into his mouth in a quick, fluid motion, and aside from the startled sound and muffled mmph! Onslaught managed to utter, he could do nothing to fight back and nothing to stop it. His only choice was to chew and swallow, chew and swallow.

“Mmnk—guh,” he gasped, wiping at his face and staring back in disgust at Scrapper, who was already reaching for the second hot dog. “What the hell is wrong with you?”

“We’ll get nowhere if we don’t cooperate,” Scrapper snapped. “Believe me, I despise this just as much as you do, but revolting against the situation we’ve gotten ourselves stuck in will do no good.”

He lifted the last hot dog, and Onslaught grimaced.

“Giving in is what he wants,” he said, his servo gently rubbing at his taut belly while Scrapper held the hot dog and beckoned for him to take a bite. “It feels wrong to give in.”

“And yet the only other options are giving in or finishing off our plates,” Scrapper said. “I, for one, do not see either option as feasible.”

“And I suppose that means we ought to try anyway, right?” Onslaught asked.

“Exactly,” Scrapper nodded.

For the time being, it was a comforting thought. Onslaught knew just as well as Scrapper that there was no possible way to polish off all of the dishes, but right now, while finding a middle ground seemed just as impossible, he knew it was better that they at least gave it a try.

The hot dogs were the most difficult dish by far, and after the struggle of working down the second one, Onslaught dreaded what came next. He left Scrapper with the pleasure of revealing their tanks’ next torment, and when the lid came off, he was relieved.

Sleek, silver, and slim, the little cyber-fish lay baked to perfection atop a bed of thin greens. The smell was a strong one, as was the flavor, but it was a pleasant sight to follow up the miserable experience of choking down two disgusting and dry hot dogs.

At least Onslaught thought so. He was so consumed by leaning in and savoring the smell of his own dish that he hadn’t immediately realized Scrapper was back to cowering in his chair with his gaze averted and a servo covering his nose.

“What?” Onslaught said, his confusion morphing into a smile similar to the one Scrapper had been wearing only a few moments prior. “Can’t handle your fifth dish?”

Scrapper glanced his way, but the servo stayed covering his face. He didn’t dare look back at the fish. The bright yellow eye staring back at him was far too realistic for his taste, and the smell was appalling. He could do nasty—he practically lived off of nasty—but this? This was pushing it.

“You’ve complained about repulsive dishes,” he said, nodding towards the small catch on his plate, “but the real repulsive dish is right there. Ugh… I don’t eat fish.”

Onslaught gave a rude snort and shook his helm. His own dish was dissected and ready for eating. He could barely manage to take another bite, but the fish was small, light. It was manageable, at least.

“Choke it down,” he said with a shrug. “I managed to finish the hot dogs. You can finish the fish.”

Scrapper hesitated for a moment longer, his straight face twisted ever so slightly into a disgusted frown as he lowered his servo. It was a feasible dish, judging by the way Onslaught so meticulously worked around the bone structure.

Slag, there was hardly anything there. He could manage that, surely.

“…fine,” he said, scooting his chair in and reaching for his fork, “but only because the other option would be forfeiting.”

Onslaught hummed his agreement. “Yes. And we are nowhere near that desperate just yet, right?”

No answer followed—only the sounds of cutlery and angry bellies grumbling pitifully in the background. The feast was impossible, but neither mech was anywhere near ready to call it quits. They could keep trying… they were nearly halfway there already.

Their determination was great, but the challenge was difficult. The fish was polished off quickly enough, and after a quick break in between meals to let their angry bellies settle, the two mechs continued on.

Meats, soups, and sides galore followed, each dish growing harder to swallow than the last. They chomped their way through turkey legs and chugged down thick, warm soup, and they powered through the next three dishes while their bellies groaned and sloshed beneath them. The challenge was getting harder, and the end seemed nowhere in sight, but Onslaught refused to call it quits, and Scrapper was determined not to be the first one to suggest giving in.

The more they ate, the fuller they became, and the fuller they became, the tighter their plating felt. The sounds of slobbering mechs throwing tact aside in favor of finishing off their punishment as soon as possible was highlighted by the sounds of their bellies protesting the massive amounts of food being packed inside, but the longer they went stuffing their faces, the more precarious the background noises became.

By the eight dish, their pace had slowed dramatically, and their bellies had ballooned out across both of their laps. Onslaught had taken up panting for breath and gasping through the tremors rolling through his swollen and taut belly as he struggled to polish off the second half of his plate, while Scrapper’s strong and steady pace had slowed down to constantly chewing the same bite for minutes on end so he could put off reaching for another piece. Their frames were dwarfed by the massive domes pinning them in place, and the silence between them had been replaced by the constant and angry sounds of their tanks fighting valiantly against immense amounts of food stuffed past their sore jaws.

The chairs creaked. Onslaught groaned, his servos scratching against warped plating as he powered through another painful spasm in his belly. Scrapper sighed with relief, his mouthful finally swallowed. For a time, neither mech moved. Neither mech spoke for a time. It was too difficult, too painful. The balance between focus and success was already precarious, and they feared any distractions may be the end of it altogether.

Scrapper was the first to break their latest silence. He shifted in his chair with a grimace, his belly whining in response to the slight movement, then pounded a fist against his chest and winced through the painful belch that came up from his efforts.

“urrrrrrup! Urgh…” he groaned, the fisted servo moving back to pawing at his bloated belly. “So much food left to go…”

Onslaught groaned in return, his frame sagging with the sigh that followed. “So much eaten already. It’s never ending.”

Scrapper shrugged as he leaned forward and reached for another bite. It was a simple dish, cheap and greasy like the hot dogs. Eight cheesy slices of pizza had been hiding underneath the dish, and so far, he was about to start on his fifth.

“There is an end in sight,” he said, glancing at Onslaught as he took his first bite. The mech had hardly finished off two slices—he was still working through a third. “We can finish off what we’ve got here, or—“

“No,” Onslaught growled. “We are not calling a truce.”

Scrapper shrugged. “Then keep eating.”

It was that simple, really. He just had to reach out, pick up a slice, and finish it off… times five. Onslaught shuddered at the thought. He could hardly manage to pack what he had eaten into his belly, let alone stuff anything else in there, but he had no choice. With new resolve, he shifted into a slouch, reached for the next slice…

…and promptly jumped back in surprise at the rattling sound of his belly plating popping free and flying across the room.

“Scrap!” he spat, his visor wide and his servos thrown aside.

Scrapper, startled by the sound, nearly dropped his half-eaten slice of pizza as he whipped around to stare at his opponent. “The frag was that?”

“I…” Onslaught began. His cheeks grew hot as he stared down at the mess it left behind. “My plating. It…”

It was gone—popped off of the hinges and halfway across the room. The relief was immediate, but the effects were embarrassing. It felt weird, watching his belly sag into his lap and melt around the edges. Swollen mesh was rounded out and perfectly curved, firm to the touch but still soft and squishy around the edges. It gave him some breathing room, at least, but it didn’t make a very pleasant sight—and Scrapper apparently agreed.

The amusement was instant, their pizza forgotten. Scrapper’s belly jiggled with every choked intake as he roared with laughter, and the servo not still holding a slice slapped against his side.

“Slag, mech!” he barked, his words sputtered between snorts and chuckles. “You popped your fragging plating off! Hah! Didn’t realize you were that stuffed!”

Onslaught sat and silently fumed, his face hot with embarrassment and his own servos hiding the aftermath.

“You have no place to laugh,” he scowled, his fingers melting into the mesh of his belly. “You’re more the glutton between the two of us, stuffing yourself so easily.”

“Maybe so,” Scrapper snickered as he stuffed the last of his slice into his mouth and reached for the next piece, “but at least I still have my plating intact and my ego—“

An ominous creaking followed—not the plating on their frames, nor the table under their weight, but the chair beneath Scrapper. A moment later and it was crumbling beneath him, leaving the poor Constructicon sprawled out on his back and pinned in place by the weight of his belly.

There was no laughter that time. There was no struggling, no reaching for the next slice of pizza in hopes of coming out on top. Onslaught was far too busy nursing the massive blob of burbling mesh and angry tanks that his belly had become, and Scrapper was trapped by his own gluttonous mistakes. Their appetites were far past lost by then, and with it, their determination. Only embarrassment remained, and with the embarrassment, realization.

The silence was louder than ever before, and both mechs were stewing in their own personal shame. Onslaught had turned away as he rubbed at his belly, and Scrapper had given up on trying to sit upright, let alone roll onto his front. They were quiet, awkward, and still, until…

“Truce?” the Constructicon asked, soft and hesitant.

Onslaught didn’t respond at first, but the slow, eventual nod he gave was plenty enough. “Truce.”

#chubformers #g1 onslaught #g1 scrapper #anon man writes #fic: clear your plates

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diveintoserena · 3 months ago

Text

𝐓𝐎𝐀𝐘𝐃 | 𝟎𝟏 my therapist thinks i'm just anxious (she's wrong)

𝐓𝐑𝐈𝐀𝐋𝐒 𝐎𝐅 𝐀 𝐘𝐎𝐔𝐍𝐆 𝐃𝐄𝐌𝐈𝐆𝐎𝐃

Mikey Madison as Lyra Jean Henderson

Luke Castellan x DaughterofHecate!Oc

I WISH I COULD SPIN some dramatic tale of a destiny foretold, a grand awakening of power. That I ever bought into the whole "you're special" spiel. Truth is, for years, I was just a ghost in hand-me-down clothes, armed with a sharp tongue and an even sharper instinct for survival – which mostly involved getting the hell out of dodge.

So, no epic origin story here.

Instead, you'd usually find me in some brightly lit, sterile room, enduring the pitying gaze of another well-meaning but clueless adult. This particular afternoon involved Dr. Reyes patiently explaining the various ways my brain apparently malfunctioned, while I mentally cataloged the exits and wondered if the faint scent of cheap lavender was supposed to be calming or just irritating.

─━━━━━━⊱۞⊰━━━━━━─

Dr. Reyes' office was a sensory assault I'd come to expect from anyone claiming to help me navigate my "complex inner landscape"—and trust me, my inner landscape looked less like a serene garden and more like a monster truck rally. The air hung thick with the cloying sweetness of artificial lavender, battling a stale undercurrent of institutional coffee and the faint, lingering scent of unspoken judgment. It was the aroma of good intentions gone wrong, a perfume designed to soothe but only making my skin crawl with the urge to escape.

The beige walls were a testament to bland conformity, the framed diplomas screamed "I know better than you," and the motivational posters? Pure, unadulterated torture. ("Hang in there!" featuring a kitten clinging to a branch? Seriously? Had they met my life?)

This worn, slightly sticky chair had been my reluctant throne in countless iterations of this same charade. Different faces across the desk, different diplomas on the wall, but the underlying script – fix the broken thing – remained stubbornly the same. And the smell... always that same suffocating blend of coffee, synthetic calm, and disappointment.

Dr. Miller had whispered like I was made of spun glass, convinced one wrong word would send me shattering into a million inconvenient pieces. Dr. Nguyen had offered stress balls like they could somehow absorb the chaos churning inside me, never actually hearing the whispers that sometimes seemed to bleed from the very walls.

And Dr. Howard? Bless his oblivious heart, he'd once achieved peak therapeutic stillness by falling asleep mid-sentence. I'd considered drawing a mustache on his face with a stray pen.

Then there was Dr. Reyes. Efficient. Clinical. And just as convinced she held the instruction manual to "Lyra-Jean, Problem Child, Model 7.3."

I knew that look in her eyes. I'd seen it reflected in the weary gazes of social workers who shuffled my file like a losing hand, the forced smiles of foster parents who saw me as another temporary paycheck, the concerned frowns of teachers who just wanted me to be normal.

A project. A case. A broken code to be rewritten.

Maybe they were right. Maybe I was a walking glitch in the system.

But no one ever bothered to ask if the glitch wanted to be fixed. Maybe the errors were the only things that felt real.

They just slapped on labels, offered generic solutions, and moved on to the next malfunctioning unit. And the sheer, bone-deep weariness of being someone else's puzzle was a constant companion.

My fingers worried at a loose thread on the purloined purple jacket – a comforting texture in this sterile environment. The clock's ticking was a relentless drumbeat, each second a reminder of the time I was wasting. The fluorescent lights hummed, a discordant soundtrack to my forced compliance.

Underneath the carefully constructed apathy, the familiar itch started. The primal urge to bolt, to disappear into the anonymity of the streets, where at least the dangers were honest.

But running wasn't the immediate plan. Not today. Survival sometimes meant playing the game, even if the game was rigged.

So, I sat there, my grip tightening on the chair's worn arms, a silent promise to myself that I wouldn't break, wouldn't shatter, at least not in this beige box of forced serenity.

Dr. Reyes flashed her professional empathy smile – the one that translated to 'I get paid for this, but also, my hot yoga class starts in twenty minutes.'

"So, Lyra," she began, leaning back like she was about to deliver a profound revelation instead of just repeating the same questions, "you mentioned 'experiencing things' again this week?"

'Experiencing things.' That was her sanitized way of describing the creeping shadows that danced at the edge of my vision, the whispers that slithered through the air when no one else was around, and the general feeling that reality was a badly rendered video game, glitching every other Tuesday.

I focused on the maze of scratches etched into the faux leather chair across from me, tracing their patterns like they were ancient runes holding the secrets to escaping this beige-walled purgatory, instead of proof that past inmates had also endured this particular brand of psychological torture.

I shrugged, a carefully calibrated display of apathy. "Not exactly seeing. More like...feeling the universe vibrate on a frequency only I can hear."

Dr. Reyes tilted her head, the human equivalent of a confused cat. "Can you elaborate?"

Oh, I could elaborate. I could describe how the air sometimes shimmered like a heatwave in the middle of a polar vortex. I could explain how shadows stretched and twisted into impossible shapes, like they had their own agenda. I could detail how, when I focused too hard, people's words would just...cut out, like their brains had suddenly gone on strike.

But that would earn me a one-way ticket to the psych ward, and I wasn't in the mood for padded walls and mystery meat.

"It's like..." I paused, carefully editing my internal monologue for public consumption. "Like something's just...out of sync. Like it's there, just beyond the edge of my senses, but if I try to grab it, it vanishes."

Dr. Reyes sighed the heavy sigh of someone who'd already pre-diagnosed me with a terminal case of 'being a difficult kid.' "Lyra, we've discussed this. These are classic symptoms of anxiety, often exacerbated by past trauma. There's no evidence of any...underlying condition."

My jaw tightened. Trauma. The word itself was a barbed wire fence, sending a shiver of angry energy through my veins.

I knew what she meant. The night. The thing I'd buried so deep, it was practically fossilized. The flashes of fire and screams that still haunted the edges of my dreams.

But this wasn't just about that.

The whispers, the shadows, the ever-present feeling of being watched – they weren't just figments of a damaged psyche. They were real. I felt them in my bones.

Dr. Reyes studied me, waiting for the inevitable argument, the rebellion she expected. When I didn't rise to the bait, she took it as a personal victory and plowed ahead.

"Have you been practicing the breathing exercises we discussed?" she asked, her tone suggesting I'd probably been using them to hyperventilate into a paper bag.

I gave a curt nod, a blatant lie. Deep breathing had never stopped a shadow from crawling across my bedroom wall.

"What about meditation? Have you found a quiet space to center yourself?"

Another nod. Another lie. My "quiet space" usually involved a crowded bus and a pair of noise-canceling headphones.

"Perhaps we should consider a slight adjustment to your medication?"

Absolutely not. The last time I'd let them tinker with my brain chemistry, I'd spent a week convinced I could communicate with houseplants.

"No more meds," I stated, my voice leaving no room for negotiation. "They make me feel like a zombie who's allergic to sunlight."

Dr. Reyes sighed again, the sound of professional patience wearing thin, and scribbled something onto her notepad. It probably translated to: Patient remains stubbornly delusional, possibly possessed. Recommend exorcism.

"Lyra," she said, her voice slow and deliberate, like she was explaining why one plus one equals two to a particularly dense toddler. "I can't exactly wave a magic wand and make the bad things go away if you keep hiding them under a rock."

My throat felt like it had swallowed a handful of gravel. She wasn't wrong. A small, logical part of my eleven-year-old brain acknowledged that. But the bigger, louder part screamed danger.

Opening up meant peeling back the layers of carefully constructed indifference, showing the messy, broken bits underneath. And that usually led to labels, endless tests with stupid questions, and the dreaded phone call that meant packing my few belongings into another garbage bag and being shuffled off to another house that didn't really want a silent, twitchy kid with weird stories.

So, instead of the truth, I offered a carefully crafted imitation of cooperation. I forced a tight, insincere smile that didn't reach my eyes and mumbled, "Yeah. Okay. I'll... try." The word felt like a betrayal the moment it left my lips.

Dr. Reyes mirrored my expression with a smile of her own – thin and brittle, like a cheap plastic toy that might snap if you bent it too far. It was the kind of smile adults gave you when they knew you were lying but were too tired or too jaded to call you on it.

"That's all I ask, Lyra," she said, her voice laced with a weary resignation that echoed my own. "Sometimes, just saying the words out loud, even the scary ones, can make them lose a little of their power."

She wrapped up the session with the usual motions: a brief, impersonal handshake that felt like two strangers accidentally brushing fingers, a prescription for pills that would inevitably end up gathering dust in whatever forgotten corner I was currently inhabiting, and the standard fortune cookie wisdom about 'confronting my fears head-on' – which, in my short but eventful life, had only ever resulted in more things to run from.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I wish I could pretend that stepping out of Dr. Reyes' office felt like shedding a heavy skin. That her carefully chosen words had somehow rearranged the tangled mess inside my head. That I actually bought into the whole 'your troubled past is manifesting as spooky hallucinations' lecture.

But the truth was a bitter pill I'd swallowed long ago: she was missing the point entirely.

The shadows weren't just tricks my mind was playing. The air didn't just feel wrong; it was wrong, humming with an energy that prickled my senses. And no amount of well-meaning platitudes, forced breathing, or those aggressively scented candles was going to scrub away the weirdness that clung to the edges of my reality.

Unfortunately, my internal debate about the fundamental flaws of modern psychology was cut short the moment I stepped into the waiting room.

Because perched on one of the uncomfortable, floral-patterned chairs was her.

Mrs. Patel.

And just like that, the faint glimmer of hope I hadn't even realized I was clinging to evaporated, replaced by the familiar, sinking feeling that my already messed-up day had just taken a nosedive into the Mariana Trench.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Mrs. Patel. My assigned shepherd in this bureaucratic wilderness. She was a force of nature contained in a petite frame, an Indian woman whose default expression could curdle milk and whose unimpressed gaze held the weight of a thousand bureaucratic forms. Her dark hair was a severe, gravity-defying bun, her blazer looked starched with pure disapproval, and her clipboard was practically a permanent fixture, a shield against the chaos of kids like me.

She also possessed an uncanny, almost supernatural ability to sniff out my attempts at freedom, like a bloodhound with a nose for truancy. No matter how cleverly I slipped through the cracks of the system, Mrs. Patel always seemed to materialize, her presence a tangible manifestation of my failure to disappear.

And the way she was currently laser-focusing on me over the top of her half-moon glasses promised an imminent Mrs. Patel Lecture™, capital letters and all. Her gaze felt less like observation and more like an X-ray, peering directly into the rebellious core of my being.

"Lyra," she stated, her voice a low, weary drone that suggested she'd had this exact conversation approximately one million times. "Sit." It wasn't a request.

I sat. Not out of any sense of obedience, but because even at eleven, I recognized certain immutable forces in the universe. Mrs. Patel was one of them. Arguing with her was like arguing with gravity – ultimately pointless and likely to result in a headache.

She shuffled the papers on her clipboard, the crisp snap of the pages echoing in the sterile waiting room. She landed on the document detailing my latest act of unscheduled departure.

"This is the third time this year, Lyra." Her tone implied this was a personal affront.

I offered a nonchalant shrug, my gaze fixed on the peeling corner of a "Hang In There" poster featuring a disturbingly cheerful sloth. "Are you sure it's only three? Feels... more comprehensive than that."

Mrs. Patel remained unmoved. Her expression didn't even flicker.

"You cannot continue to abscond from your designated placements." Her vocabulary always sounded like it belonged in a legal textbook.

"Why not?" I countered, a flicker of defiance sparking within me. "I'm getting really efficient at it. Almost... professional."

A sigh escaped her nostrils, a sound that spoke volumes of her dwindling reserves of patience. It was the universal language of 'I am dealing with a level of stubbornness that defies logic.'

"You are eleven years old, Lyra. You are not supposed to be proficient in independent survival."

I didn't respond. What was the point? Laying out the stark reality of my existence – the alleyways, the dumpster diving, the constant fear of being dragged back to places where I was an unwanted burden – wouldn't elicit sympathy. It would just earn me more lectures and thicker files.

Mrs. Patel's sharp gaze pinned me to the uncomfortable chair, making me feel like a particularly uninteresting insect under a microscope. Her slow exhale wasn't the huff of a frustrated bureaucrat; it was the weary sigh of someone carrying a weight I couldn't comprehend, rubbing the bridge of her nose as if trying to erase a persistent ache.

"You know," she said, her voice surprisingly devoid of its usual crispness, "you're not the first kid I've seen walking this particular tightrope."

My sarcasm was my shield, always at the ready. "Wow. Groundbreaking. Turns out, I'm not a unique snowflake. Color me astonished."

But Mrs. Patel's gaze didn't waver. "You think you're operating outside the predictable, Lyra, but you're not. I've seen this script play out countless times."

A knot tightened in my stomach. There was a weariness in her tone that felt... different.

"Kids who run. They all wear that same defiant mask. They believe they're smarter, tougher, that they can outrun the things that scare them. That maybe, if they just put enough distance between themselves and the bad stuff, it'll eventually stop chasing them."

She leaned forward, her gaze intense. "Do you know the ending of most of those stories, Lyra?"

The silence hung heavy in the air. I didn't want to know. My carefully constructed wall of denial bricked itself higher.

Mrs. Patel sighed, a soft, defeated sound. "You remind me of my son."

I blinked, thrown completely off balance.

"He was stubborn, too," she continued, her voice barely a whisper now, the professional facade crumbling. "Thought he didn't need anyone. Thought asking for help was a sign of weakness. And one day... he decided he didn't have to listen anymore."

A frown creased my forehead. "What happened to him?" The question felt too loud in the sudden quiet.

She hesitated, her gaze drifting somewhere beyond the beige walls. The silence stretched, thick with unspoken grief.

Then, her voice flat and distant, she murmured, "I buried him when he was seventeen."

The fluorescent lights buzzed, suddenly amplified. The stale air felt heavy, suffocating.

Something sharp and icy snaked its way down my spine. A cold premonition.

I didn't want to ask. The answer hung in the air, a suffocating weight. But the morbid curiosity, the dark understanding that sometimes bloomed in the shadows of my own life, forced the words out. "How?"

Mrs. Patel's knuckles were white as her fingers tightened on the edge of her clipboard. Her gaze remained unfocused.

"He ran one time too many."

My breath hitched. The lump in my throat felt impossibly large.

"You're eleven, Lyra. You have time. A sliver of it, maybe. But one day, if you keep sprinting away from everything, you'll wake up and realize you've run out of road. And I don't want to be the one standing over your grave, wondering if I could have... if I should have done something different."

For a fleeting, fragile moment, the carefully constructed walls around my heart cracked. I almost spilled it all. The whispers that clawed at my sanity in the dead of night. The way shadows danced with a life of their own. The chilling certainty that something ancient and malevolent had been tracking me since that terrible night when I was eight.

But the moment passed, as quickly as it had come. The ingrained instinct for self-preservation slammed the doors shut.

"I'm fine," I lied, the words tasting like ash on my tongue.

Mrs. Patel's gaze returned to mine, sharp and searching, trying to pierce the carefully constructed mask. She saw nothing but a defiant eleven-year-old staring back.

She sighed again, the sound heavier this time, the sound of a battle already lost. "You are not fine, Lyra." Her voice was softer now, tinged with a weary resignation that mirrored the exhaustion in her eyes. Too many broken kids, too little time.

She looked down at her clipboard, the papers rustling softly. Another sigh, almost to herself. "God help me, kid."

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I knew the unspoken question hanging in the stale office air, thick and heavy between us: Why, Lyra? Why do you keep tearing yourself away?

My gaze locked onto Mrs. Patel's, a silent standoff. My fingers, small and tight, gripped the worn arms of the chair as if they were the only anchors in a storm.

Why did I keep running? The question echoed in the hollow spaces inside me, a constant, nagging hum beneath the surface bravado.

She wanted an explanation, a neat little box of reasons she could tick off on her endless forms.

She wasn't going to get it. Not today. Not ever, probably.

Because how could I articulate the moment the word "home" had become a cruel joke? How could I explain the endless cycle of cold, unfamiliar rooms, the saccharine smiles that never quite reached their eyes, the thinly veiled resentment of people who saw me as nothing more than an inconvenience, a drain on their already stretched resources?

And then there were the others. The ones where the coldness wasn't just in the walls. The ones where the smiles hid something darker, something that made the shadows in my head seem almost welcoming by comparison.

Those places... those were the real reasons I ran. The unspeakable ones that clawed at the edges of my memory, the ones that made the whispers in the dark sound like lullabies. But those were secrets buried too deep, festering wounds I wouldn't expose to anyone, least of all a system that had repeatedly failed to protect me.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Foster Home #6: THE KESSLERS.

A picture-postcard of suburban serenity. Manicured lawns drank greedily from sprinklers, and neighbors exchanged saccharine waves that felt as genuine as the plastic flamingos adorning their flowerbeds.

It screamed "safe."

It lied.

Mrs. Kessler greeted me with a smile stretched so wide it looked painful, her hands fluttering nervously as she smoothed the fabric of her pastel skirt. Mr. Kessler stood a menacing shadow behind her, his hand clamped firmly on her shoulder, a silent declaration of ownership.

She was the sugar-sweet facade.

He was the fist beneath the velvet glove.

"You'll be safe here, sweetheart," Mrs. Kessler chirped, her grip on my hand just a fraction too tight, her eyes darting nervously towards her husband. The word "safe" felt like a hollow promise the moment it left her lips.

For the first two weeks, they were...performative. Overly attentive, their sweetness cloying, their eyes constantly tracking my movements. They bought me clothes that felt alien against my skin (always practical, never anything I would choose). They served me elaborate dinners (that politeness demanded I choke down). They peppered me with questions (that I deflected with practiced silence).

At night, the thin walls carried their hushed whispers.

She's so quiet.

Good. Less trouble.

I learned the rules of this new cage quickly.

Smile on cue. Consume the offered food without complaint. Become invisible.

Predictably, the charade didn't last. It never did. The cracks always appeared.

One evening, the exhaustion clinging to me like a second skin, I left my empty dinner plate in the sink instead of immediately scrubbing it clean.

A momentary lapse in vigilance. A mistake.

Mr. Kessler didn't tolerate mistakes. Especially not from burdens like me.

His voice, low and sharp, sliced through the quiet kitchen as he loomed over me, his bulk eclipsing the cheerful yellow glow of the overhead light.

"Don't you dare be insolent," he growled, the accusation hanging in the air like a threat. "You should be grateful."

I hadn't even spoken. My silence was apparently its own form of rebellion.

It was just one slap.

A swift, brutal strike across my cheek that sent a jolt of pain and shock through my small body, knocking me off balance against the cold, unforgiving metal of the refrigerator.

A warning shot.

He hadn't needed to repeat the lesson. The message, sharp and clear, resonated in the sudden ringing in my ear.

I perfected the art of silent movement, of shrinking into the corners, of becoming a shadow in their perfectly ordered home. I learned to tune out the muffled sobs that sometimes escaped Mrs. Kessler's room late at night, the sound swallowed by her pillow.

I didn't tell anyone. Why bother?

The other ghosts in the system understood. They always did. We recognized the unspoken language of fear and neglect.

We just didn't talk about it. What was the point of voicing the obvious?

The system wasn't designed to catch us when we fell. It was a conveyor belt, moving us from one temporary stop to the next, each placement a brief, forgettable chapter in a story that no one truly cared to read.

I stayed at the Kesslers' for what felt like an eternity, each day a carefully navigated minefield of unspoken rules and simmering tension. Months bled into each other, marked only by the changing seasons glimpsed through the sterile windows and the growing knot of fear in my stomach.

Until one day, I simply... wasn't there anymore.

The rain was coming down in sheets that night, a cold, relentless curtain obscuring the manicured lawns and fake smiles of the neighborhood.

I remember the smell of it – wet asphalt and damp earth rising up to meet me as I ran, my threadbare backpack a clumsy weight banging against my spine. The sound of my own ragged breathing was lost in the drumming of the rain.

I remember the back door, usually locked with a precision that bordered on paranoia, standing slightly ajar. A silent invitation. A crack in their carefully constructed facade.

And I remember Mrs. Kessler's voice, a faint whisper carried on the wind as I slipped into the darkness. It wasn't the saccharine sweetness she usually employed. It was low, urgent, laced with a desperation I hadn't heard before. "Run, sweetheart. Please. Don't look back."

And for once, I listened. I didn't hesitate. I didn't question. I just ran, the rain washing away the last vestiges of that too-perfect house, the whispered warning echoing in my ears. I didn't dare glance over my shoulder, didn't want to see the regret or the fear that might have prompted her unexpected act of defiance. I just ran, into the storm, into the unknown, because anything felt safer than staying.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I blinked, the memory of rain and a whispered plea fading like a half-remembered dream. Shaking it off, a reflex honed by years of trying to outrun the past.

It was irrelevant now. Ancient history.

Mrs. Patel, with her well-meaning pronouncements and her endless forms, couldn't rewind the clock. Couldn't erase the echoes of slammed doors and forced smiles. Nothing could.

But every time she offered the same tired reassurance – "This new home will be different, Lyra" – it wasn't her voice I heard. It was Mr. Kessler's low, menacing growl, a constant undercurrent to every promise: "You should be grateful."

The real reasons for my flight were a tangled mess I wasn't ready to untangle, not even for myself. I could have listed them, a litany of disappointment and distrust:

1. Because the sterile, temporary spaces they called "home" felt less like refuge and more like holding cells.

2. Because I was the square peg in their carefully rounded holes, always out of sync, always the outsider.

3. Because the endless cycle of packing and unpacking, of forced smiles and hollow greetings, had worn down any fragile hope I might have once possessed. Because the government checks they received felt more real than any genuine affection.

4. Because the gnawing loneliness of being truly alone felt preferable to the hollow pretense of belonging.

But voicing those truths would make them solid, undeniable. And I wasn't ready to admit that the idea of a real home, a place where I truly belonged, had withered and died a long time ago.

So, I offered the standard deflection, the mantra of the self-sufficient runaway. "I take care of myself just fine." The words felt brittle and unconvincing even to my own ears.

The revolving door of foster families had taught me a harsh lesson: I was an obligation, not an addition. Some ignored my presence, treating me like a piece of unwanted furniture. Some tolerated me with thinly veiled impatience. And some... some just looked at me with a mixture of pity and suspicion, like I was a defective product they'd reluctantly agreed to house.

Like Mrs. Adams, whose initial kindness evaporated the moment she ushered me down the creaking basement stairs, "your own space" translating to a damp, spider-infested dungeon.

Or the Petersons, whose attempts at salvation involved dragging me to a church where hushed whispers about my "rebellious nature" echoed during the sermons. Or the Jacksons, whose smiles for Mrs. Patel vanished behind closed doors, replaced by muttered resentments and the constant feeling of being watched.

Somewhere between the second and third house, the futility of it all had sunk in. I stopped bothering to unpack my bags. What was the point of settling in when I knew, with a chilling certainty, that I wouldn't be staying?

Mrs. Patel's sigh was heavy this time, the sound of a weary warrior facing another unwinnable battle. She flipped through the pages of my file, the rustling paper a stark counterpoint to the silence between us. "Lyra," she asked, her voice softer now, tinged with a genuine, if belated, concern, "do you even grasp the destination of this path you're so determined to walk?"

My gaze remained fixed on my hands, my small fingers twisting together, tracing invisible patterns.

Of course I understood. The world wasn't some Disney movie where lost kids magically found loving homes. I wasn't naive.

Kids like me – the runners, the ones deemed "unstable" and "unplaceable" – we weren't destined for heartwarming adoption stories.

Happy endings were for other people's narratives. We aged out. We hit eighteen with a garbage bag of belongings and a system that was finally done with us. And then... we just faded away. Became another statistic, another cautionary tale.

But at least disappearing then would be on my own terms. A final act of control in a life where I'd had none. A choice, even if it was the choice of oblivion.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Mrs. Patel's hand slid a slim, manila folder across the worn table that separated us. The sound was soft, almost hesitant, yet it landed with the weight of a life sentence.

"There's a new placement for you, Lyra."

My muscles instinctively tensed. This was the ritual I dreaded most. The forced optimism in her voice, the flimsy hope that always crumbled to dust, the inevitable introduction to another set of strangers who would eventually look at me with that same weary resignation.

"I don't need another home," I mumbled, the words laced with a bitterness that even I could hear.

"You need something, Lyra," she countered, her gaze steady. "This... this pattern you've established? It can't continue."

My eyes narrowed, fixed on the innocuous-looking folder. It represented a new cage, a new set of expectations I would inevitably fail to meet. New faces, new routines, new ways to be reminded that I was a temporary fixture, a burden they were obligated to bear.

But as my fingers unconsciously dug into the faded denim of my jeans, a flicker of a memory surfaced, unbidden. A fleeting image, buried deep beneath layers of cynicism and distrust. A memory I hadn't allowed myself to revisit in years.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

Foster Home #4: THE BENNETS

A small, slightly dilapidated house nestled on the fringes of Philadelphia. The wallpaper was peeling in places, and the "lawn" was a testament to nature's resilience over suburban aspirations, a chaotic tapestry of green. But the air inside had been thick with the comforting aroma of cinnamon and the musty scent of well-loved books.

Stepping across their threshold for the first time had been almost overwhelming. The sheer warmth of the place had felt suffocating after years of sterile, temporary spaces. Not just the heat radiating from the ancient fireplace in the living room, but the very atmosphere – too many voices overlapping in laughter, too much vibrant, messy life spilling out of every corner.

Mrs. Bennett was a whirlwind of flyaway auburn curls and a voice as smooth and comforting as warm honey. She called me 'sweetheart' with a genuine tenderness that made my guarded heart flutter for the first time in what felt like forever. Mr. Bennett was a quieter presence, a large, gentle man who moved with a lumbering grace and always carried the faint, comforting scent of sawdust clinging to his flannel shirts.

And then there was Hannah.

Just ten, a year older than me, with fingers perpetually stained with ink and a precarious tower of dog-eared fantasy novels perpetually teetering in her arms.

For the first time since... well, since before the shadows and the running started, I almost felt... ordinary.

I had a room. Not a damp basement, not a lumpy couch, not a forgotten storage space. An actual room, with a window that looked out onto a wild, overgrown backyard, a bed piled high with blankets that smelled faintly of fabric softener, and a bookshelf that Hannah, with a conspiratorial grin, helped me fill with pilfered treasures from the local library.

She patiently taught me how to braid the tangled mess of my hair, her fingers surprisingly gentle. I, in turn, initiated her into the cutthroat world of five-card draw, teaching her the subtle art of the poker face. We'd huddle under the covers at night, a shared flashlight beam illuminating dog-eared pages and whispered secrets, weaving ridiculous tales until sleep finally claimed us.

For the first time in what felt like a lifetime, a fragile tendril of hope unfurled in my chest. Maybe, I'd dared to think in the quiet darkness, maybe this one might actually stick.

Maybe, just maybe, I had found a place.

Maybe... maybe I had a sister.

Then, four months later, the fragile bubble of normalcy burst. Hannah got adopted.

And I didn't.

I remember standing on the porch that crisp autumn day, my hands jammed deep into the pockets of my oversized hoodie, a silent, awkward sentinel watching as Hannah, her face a mixture of excitement and a hesitant sadness, climbed into the unfamiliar car with her new parents.

Her hug had been fierce, a desperate squeeze that momentarily stole my breath. She'd whispered promises – to write, to call, to somehow bridge the chasm that was opening between us.

She stopped.

Maybe it wasn't her fault. Maybe the whirlwind of a new family swallowed her whole. Maybe her new parents thought it best to sever ties with the past. Or maybe, deep down, she realized that starting over meant leaving everything, and everyone, behind. But the day her carefully drawn letters, filled with childish drawings and misspelled words, stopped arriving, something inside me hardened. The fragile seed of hope that had dared to sprout withered and died. I stopped believing in almost-homes, in almost-families, in almost-sisters.

Two weeks later, when Mrs. Patel's familiar, unimpressed face appeared at the Bennetts' door, I didn't even offer a token resistance. The fight had gone out of me. What was the point of clinging to a place that was never truly mine?

I simply retrieved my meager belongings, shoved them into my worn backpack, and followed Mrs. Patel out the door, leaving the scent of cinnamon and old books behind like a fading dream.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

I blinked, the warmth of the Bennett house, the ghost of Hannah's laughter, abruptly vanishing. The memory dissolved, the vibrant colors bleeding out like ink spilled into water, leaving behind the stark reality of the waiting room.

My gaze drifted back to the manila folder on the table, a symbol of yet another temporary stop on a journey I never asked to take.

I could hear Mrs. Patel's voice, a low murmur of words I couldn't quite grasp, the sound blurring into meaningless background noise against the sudden, insistent thrumming behind my eyes.

The phantom ache of loss, the hollow echo of the Bennetts' fleeting warmth, lingered like a cold hand pressed against my ribs. My stomach twisted with a familiar, bitter resentment.

It wasn't fair. The unfairness of it all, the constant cycle of hope and abandonment, clawed at the fragile edges of my composure. Why was I always the leftover? Why did others get their neat, happy conclusions while I was perpetually stuck in this endless loop of running?

A sharp, cold coil tightened in my chest, a heavy weight pressing down, stealing my breath. My hands clenched into fists, the sharp bite of my own fingernails digging into my palms a small, grounding pain.

And then—

The room flickered.

Not the harsh fluorescent lights above.

Not the air, shimmering with unseen currents.

The entire room.

For a fraction of a heartbeat, it was as if two realities had momentarily overlapped, a glitch in the fabric of existence.

There was the office – the sterile beige walls, the precarious stack of manila files on Dr. Reyes' desk, the weary receptionist tapping away at her keyboard in the corner. And superimposed over it, something else.

Something underneath.

The shadows clinging to the corners of the room stretched at impossible angles, elongated and distorted. The fluorescent lights seemed to bend inward, their harsh glow wavering as if being pulled into some unseen vortex. The very air felt like it was shuddering, the solid walls subtly warping and twisting, as if I had inadvertently glimpsed a layer of reality just beneath this mundane one – a world not meant for my eyes.

It was fleeting, less than a breath.

Then it was gone.

As if it had never been. The office settled back into its dull, predictable reality, leaving me with a cold certainty that the world wasn't always what it seemed. And neither was I.

A sharp, involuntary gasp escaped my lips. My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat echoing the sudden surge of adrenaline. The blood roared in my ears, drowning out the mundane sounds of the office.

Mrs. Patel didn't even blink.

Her head remained bent over her notes, her brow furrowed in concentration as she flipped through the pages, utterly oblivious to the fact that for a fleeting, terrifying instant, the very fabric of reality had seemed to... unravel. Glitch. Shatter and reform.

Had I imagined it? A trick of the light? A desperate fabrication of a mind teetering on the edge?

No.

No, I had felt it. A tangible shift in the air, a prickling sensation on my skin that had nothing to do with anxiety.

Like the charged stillness before a violent thunderstorm, like the crackle of static electricity just before a shock, something fundamental had shifted. The world had stuttered.

And a chilling certainty settled in my gut: I had been the catalyst.

I swallowed hard, forcing a deep, steadying breath. My hands, trembling uncontrollably moments before, slowly relaxed their white-knuckled grip. The pounding in my ears began to recede, replaced by the dull hum of the fluorescent lights.

Mrs. Patel's gaze finally lifted from her notes, her brow arching slightly, a flicker of something that might have been concern crossing her usually impassive features. "You alright, Lyra? You look a little... pale."

I forced a small, unconvincing nod.

"Yeah," I mumbled, the lie feeling thick and clumsy on my tongue. "Fine. Just... tired."

Mrs. Patel's expression softened, the sharp edges momentarily blurring. "This placement," she said, her voice taking on that familiar, hopeful tone, the one she used before delivering yet another disappointment, "this one... it might be different."

They always say that, a cynical voice echoed in my head. Different shades of the same old cage.

I swallowed hard, my throat suddenly feeling like sandpaper. The air in the waiting room felt thick and charged, the lingering echo of the room's brief distortion still vibrating beneath my skin.

Because deep down, a cold certainty had taken root. I already knew something she didn't. This wasn't just about another foster home, another temporary placement. Something had shifted within me, a door had creaked open to a reality she couldn't even imagine. And whatever waited on the other side... that was the real reason nothing would ever be the same again.

⋆˖⁺‧₊☽◯☾₊‧⁺˖⋆

The bus stop. Two blocks east. A familiar landmark on the map of my escape routes.

My mind was already charting the course, a well-worn path etched into my memory. The blind spots in the security cameras lining Main Street, the narrow alleyways that offered temporary sanctuary, the faces of store owners trained to ignore the transient figures that drifted through their periphery.

If I timed it right – left this sterile office right now, while Mrs. Patel was still lost in the labyrinth of her paperwork – I could be swallowed by the anonymity of the city before she even finished dictating her next weary report.

My hand instinctively adjusted the strap of my backpack, testing the meager weight of its contents. The bare necessities for survival: a worn hoodie for the coming night, a stash of pilfered granola bars to stave off the hunger pangs, my dad's tarnished pocket knife – a small, tangible link to a life that was gone – and the smooth, intricately carved wooden raven I always kept close. Not much. But enough to vanish.

My body was already responding to the silent command, a subtle shift in weight, knees flexing, muscles coiled and ready to spring. I could slip out of this waiting room, a ghost in the afternoon light, before anyone registered my departure. Mrs. Patel, burdened by her endless caseload, might not even bother with the cops this time. Just another sigh, another file marked "uncooperative," another lost cause fading into the system's vast, uncaring maw. And she would move on, because that's what the system did. It moved on, with or without you.

A jolt of adrenaline surged through me, and I almost pushed myself to my feet. Almost made a break for it.

Then—

The fluorescent lights above didn't just flicker. They convulsed.

Not the familiar, momentary blink of a failing bulb, the kind that made you squint and wonder if your eyes were playing tricks on you. This was different. Ominous.

They shuddered, the harsh overhead glow stuttering in slow, uneven pulses, like a ragged breath caught in a dying throat. The light itself seemed to weaken, the room dimming not gradually, but abruptly, as if some unseen hand had reached down and twisted a celestial dimmer switch. It wasn't just the lights; it was the air itself, the very atmosphere of the room growing heavy, thick with a palpable sense of dread. The hairs on my arms rose, and a metallic tang filled my mouth.

My fingers instinctively curled around the worn strap of my backpack, my knuckles whitening. A primal chill, ancient and bone-deep, slithered down my spine, a sensation that had nothing to do with the office's inadequate heating.

Then, the intrusion.

It wasn't a voice in the traditional sense, carried on sound waves. It was something far more invasive, far more unsettling. It slid into the deepest recesses of my mind, bypassing my ears entirely, a viscous presence that seeped into my thoughts like black oil spreading on water. It wasn't heard; it was known.

"Not yet, little spark."

The intrusion resonated in my skull, a vibration that felt less like an auditory experience and more like a half-formed memory dredged from the darkest depths of my subconscious. It was a knowing that defied logic, a recognition that sparked not from hearing, but from something far more instinctual. Like the phantom weight on my chest when I woke screaming from a nightmare, the lingering unease without a source, the chilling certainty that I was being watched even in an empty room.

No. No, I shouldn't know that... presence. It was impossible.

But I did.

A fractured echo from a time long buried.

Eight years old.

A different room, bathed in the lurid glow of emergency lights. A different, terrifying silence punctuated by the crackle of flames. The acrid scent of something burning, something precious, something irretrievably lost.

I squeezed my eyes shut, my head throbbing, desperately trying to shove the fragmented memory back into its sealed tomb. My pulse hammered against my ribs, a frantic drum against the encroaching darkness. No. That wasn't real. None of that was real. That night... that trauma was locked away, fragmented and scattered in the inaccessible spaces between then and now, in the shadowed corners of my mind where I refused to venture.

I clung to the flimsy shield of denial, desperately trying to convince myself that it had been a hallucination, an stress-induced phantom.

But deep down, something ancient and malevolent stirred, a cold, sharp whisper that resonated with a terrible certainty: You didn't imagine it, little one. He remembers you, and he is coming.

My breath caught in my throat, a strangled gasp. My fingers clenched around the rough canvas straps of my backpack, their familiar texture a desperate anchor to the tangible world, a grounding force against the encroaching unreality. I wasn't eight anymore. I wasn't that helpless, terrified kid.

I whipped my head around, the movement so abrupt and violent that the room swam and tilted around me.

The receptionist's desk, moments before occupied, stood empty, abandoned. The door to Dr. Reyes' office was firmly shut, the frosted glass obscuring any sign of life. The uncomfortable, floral-patterned chairs lining the far wall sat in rigid formation, devoid of occupants, sterile and lifeless as forgotten museum exhibits.

No one else was visibly present.

But the oppressive wrongness remained.

I could feel it, a suffocating weight pressing down on my senses. The air itself had thickened, becoming viscous and resistant, like trying to breathe underwater. The hum of the fluorescent lights, once a mundane drone, had mutated into a strange, discordant buzzing, a grating vibration that resonated deep within my bones, like an ancient radio struggling to pull in a signal from a station that existed outside the normal spectrum.

My heart hammered against my ribs, a frantic drumbeat against the rising tide of unease.

Then, at the very periphery of my vision—movement.

The shadows pooled along the floor, normally static and obedient, began to writhe and stretch.

Not dramatically. Not yet. Just subtle elongations, the edges blurring and shifting, as if they were testing the boundaries of their confinement. An inch. Maybe less. But undeniably, irrevocably, they had moved.

They weren't supposed to move. Shadows were passive things, reflections of solidity. They didn't possess agency.

I froze, every muscle in my body coiled tight, my grip on the backpack straps tightening until my knuckles turned white. I forced myself to draw shallow, even breaths, desperately trying to project an air of nonchalant indifference, to pretend I hadn't registered the impossible.

But they had.

The shadows, the oppressive weight in the air, the unseen presence that radiated a chilling awareness.

They knew I had perceived them.

They had been lying in wait.

The lights above convulsed again, their buzzing intensifying into a sharp, piercing whine that drilled into my skull, a sound so high-pitched it vibrated the very fillings in my teeth.

The shadows clinging to the walls didn't merely stretch this time. They pulsed.

An organic, rhythmic undulation, like a grotesque heartbeat.

Like something vast and unseen breathing.

The very air itself underwent a violent transformation, the change not gradual, but instantaneous and suffocating. First, a wave of preternatural cold washed over me, a biting, invasive chill that penetrated skin and bone, sinking into the marrow and extinguishing any vestige of warmth. I gasped, my breath catching in my throat, and shivered violently, my breath condensing into a visible fog as if the office had been plunged into the heart of winter.

Then—an equally abrupt wave of oppressive heat slammed into me with the force of a physical blow, so intense it made my stomach churn and twist. It was a suffocating, heavy heat, thick and viscous, like being trapped in a furnace. It felt like an invisible weight pressing down on me from all sides, crushing the air from my lungs.

I was paralyzed, trapped in a vortex of conflicting sensations.

I couldn't move.

I couldn't breathe.

An invisible weight coiled around my ribs, constricting, crushing, stealing the air from my lungs. My ears began to ring, a high-pitched whine that intensified into a deafening roar, the kind of disorienting silence that follows an explosion, the eerie aftermath of something violent and unseen tearing through the fabric of reality.

"Not yet, little spark."

The intrusion came again, not as a disembodied voice, but as a tangible presence, a psychic violation.

Phantom fingers, icy and insubstantial, brushed against my wrist, sending a jolt of unnatural cold through my veins. They weren't real, not flesh and bone, but they were undeniably there, a chilling mockery of physical contact.

I clenched my fists with all my might, the sharp edges of my nails biting into the soft flesh of my palms, a desperate attempt to anchor myself in physical sensation, to prove I was still in control.

"Soon." The word resonated in my mind, a promise and a threat intertwined, a vibration that seemed to emanate not from the air, but from the very core of my being.

The shadows clinging to the walls didn't just pulse now; they twitched and writhed, as if something sentient was trapped inside them, struggling to break free, crawling just beneath the surface of the mundane world.

The grating buzz in my ears escalated into a painful shriek. My vision began to fracture, the edges of the room blurring and distorting, reality itself stuttering and skipping like a damaged record.

My stomach churned violently. My bones felt alien, too heavy, too dense, as if they were solidifying into something other than bone.

For one terrifying, disorienting second, I was gripped by the impossible, nauseating certainty that I was no longer sitting in that worn, uncomfortable chair.

That I had been displaced, transported to some other place, some other time.

That something ancient and powerful had taken root inside me, its presence warping my perception of the world, twisting my very essence.

I gasped, sucking in a shuddering breath of air that felt thin and insufficient.

The lights flickered again, a final, desperate spasm – once, twice – and then, with an almost audible click, snapped back to their normal, unwavering state.

The oppressive weight lifted, the unnatural cold and suffocating heat vanishing as abruptly as they had arrived.

The room was still once more, bathed in the mundane glow of the fluorescent tubes.

The air felt lighter, breathable again. The shadows lay obediently still, confined to their assigned places.

The sound of my own ragged, uneven breathing filled the unnatural silence, each inhale and exhale a frantic attempt to reassure myself that I was still anchored in reality. My heart continued its frantic pounding against my ribs, a trapped bird desperate for escape.

I squeezed my eyes shut, swallowing hard against the rising tide of panic, forcing the terror down, burying it deep where no one, least of all Mrs. Patel, could detect its presence.

This wasn't real. It couldn't be real.

My logical mind screamed for a rational explanation, a dismissal of the impossible.

But the cold, primal certainty in my gut whispered the undeniable truth: It was real.

And I knew, with a chilling clarity that transcended reason, that even if I ran, even if I disappeared into the furthest corners of the city, it would follow me.

It didn't matter if this new foster home was marginally better or infinitely worse than the ones that came before.

It didn't matter if I stayed and played the game, or if I fled into the familiar embrace of the streets.

Because something ancient and powerful was stirring.

Something was coming, its presence a growing shadow on the edge of my awareness.

And whatever it was, whatever he was, it was actively seeking me out, its relentless pursuit driven by a purpose I couldn't comprehend, a hunger I could only sense. And it wouldn't stop. It wouldn't rest.

Not until it found what it was searching for.

Until it found me.

(And gods help me—the most terrifying part was the sickening, traitorous pull, the almost imperceptible whisper within my own soul that, for a fleeting, horrifying moment, almost...welcomed it.)

Don’t forget to like and comment if you want to be on the taglist!!!

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thydungeongal · 2 months ago

Note

I’m going to start running an old school dungeon you linked to a few days back (the Tomb of the Serpent Kings, it looked so neat and well-designed I immediately started preparing to run it) with an online group in OSE.

You have smart and good thoughts on how to do ttrpgs good, and I have been mulling this question for a few days: should I use Foundry and set up the map of the dungeon such that the players can move their tokens around to explore the space, or should I not set up the map and have the players use my descriptions to create their own as we play?

On the one hand, it feels more true to the old-school style of play to not give them the “Solution” to how the dungeon is laid out and gives them the chance of fucking up in interesting ways. On the other hand, I might be using foundry anyway so that their character sheets are all stored in a nice and easily accessible place for me, and we can roll in a way that everyone can see, meaning that not setting up the map in an explorable form might just be arbitrarily denying them access to knowledge it makes sense they’d have. Also I’m worried that random internet or attention issues might lead to people missing important information about the layout of rooms that won’t be as lost if they have an “objective” map to look at.

I’m planning on bringing this up with my players as well before we begin, I just thought you’d have some good insights into what makes a good experience when playing old school online.

Love your posts.

I think there absolutely are benefits to both approaches! Having the players draw their own map absolutely is more true to "the old ways," but I think it's actually arguable whether that was simply due to it being the easiest way to handle the sharing of the map without saddling the GM with further work and that in the current day, with our ability to transfer maps directly from one computer to another, it might not be worth the hassle. And because verbal communication is bound to be flawed and ambiguous between people there is always room for human error there.

Now, having said that, there absolutely is a draw to having the players draw their own maps, which is that it acts as a tiny bit of challenge on top of all the rest of the gameplay. As long as you the DM make sure that your players aren't fucking up too much when drawing the map (I think Foundry allows for players drawing on the map? So that way you could observe the map-drawing process and immediately correct any mistakes that are definitely due to miscommunication) there absolutely is a charm to having players draw their own map. Plus, I think OSE has the rule that mapping is not allowed during pursuit, which I think does also reinforce the idea that mapping is supposed to be a TOOL that players use to keep themselves oriented, and it's a tool whose use can be limited as befits the circumstance.

I don't have a set approach to this myself: I have, in the past, run old-school games while sharing a map, and that isn't without its issues but can make for a smoother, frictionless experience. @vixensdungeon is of the opinion that adventurers getting lost because they fucked up their map is a part of the charm, so in my current OSE campaign I have made it so that players handle most of the mapping (and I only intervene when verbal descriptions fail me). One thing you absolutely do need to address if running with a map that you reveal: you need to remove all secret doors from the map, because if you reveal an entire room to the players but leave one wall conspicuously unrevealed your players are going to be spoiled the surprise of the secret door by the medium itself.

Anyway, I don't think there is a one true way here, but I would encourage you to try having the players handle the mapping! It's a good thing that you'll be discussing this with players beforehand though, and it'll be a good way to set expectations for them. :)

Also, another person drawn in by the promise of cool dungeon-crawling by my blog? Can I get a huzzah?

#thydungeongal answers

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deliciouskeys · 7 months ago

Text

Before Christmas, as promised, the last chapter. My holiday gift to people who have been reading this long journey of a fic, thank you so much for taking the time and partaking in my brain's delirious feverdreams.

[If you see errors, typos, annoying word repetition, I apologize in advance-- I self-betaed but... I'm... low on sleep because of work.]

Fic summary below the cut if you don't want to reread to remember what was happening.

Aug 28, 2022

Wherein on the anniversary of Ryan's death, Homelander takes a moment away from grieving to visit Vought Reproductive Labs and first hears about an intriguing solution to his problem

Sept 2&15, 2022

Wherein Homelander visits a super with an ability to reshape flesh and asks to have a very peculiar body modifying surgery

Sept 17, 2022

Wherein Homelander visits Billy Butcher with a very matter-of-fact proposition, delivered with a little more brutality than he intended, but isn't able to achieve his goal.

Sept 18, 2022

Wherein Homelander makes conciliatory gestures towards Billy Butcher and they try again, this time in Homelander's apartment.

Nov 15, 2022

Wherein Billy Butcher finds out that Homelander has achieved his goal and doesn't have any real intentions to leave Vought, and they have a falling out.

Dec 12, 2022

Wherein Homelander pays a visit to Dr. Sonnenberg again and contemplates telling Vought about his condition.

Dec 14, 2022

Wherein Homelander's announcement of his condition falls with a very strange thud in the Vought board room. He realizes they may not have his best interests at heart, and he comes crawling back to Billy Butcher if not for help then at least moral support.

Dec 15 & 24, 2022

Wherein Billy Butcher takes advantage of the rift and arranges for Homelander to cut ties with Vought completely. Homelander is reluctant but has few options. He’s placed under house arrest in Billy Butcher's dingy apartment until the FBI can get a deposition from him about Vought and he adjusts to his new life.

January 24, 2023

Wherein Homelander goes public with his pregnancy announcement, MM is really concerned about Butcher's plan, and Homelander and Billy Butcher continue to look for ways to live together and not strangle each other.

March 2, 2023

Wherein Billy Butcher and Homelander have a blowout fight over Homelander's reluctance to give straightforward testimony about all the abuses he underwent while being raised by Vought and they go to bed not entirely angry but not entirely reconciled either.

March 3, 2023

Wherein Billy Butcher faces the fact that he's grown attached to Homelander and resolves to be more patient and understanding. He and Homelander have a raw heart-to-heart which brings up strong emotions in both, and each of them has a lot of misgivings about how the relationship is really shaping up. Homelander has his first real pregnancy scare and has to break house arrest to tend to it.

March 29, 2023

Wherein Homelander and Billy Butcher are preparing to move into a nicer apartment, Homelander's house arrest ends, Homelander requests a baby shower, and he and Billy Butcher have one last go with his supersuit on before they are required to return it to Vought.

April 14, 2023

Wherein Homelander makes a happy discovery that his baby can see through him, and Billy Butcher brings tidings of a disturbing discovery about Ryan's fate. Something in Homelander snaps and he is newly motivated to fight back against Vought. Billy Butcher records notes for an entirely new deposition with a very different tone.

May 27, 2023

Wherein Billy Butcher's friends and friends-of-friends come over for a baby shower.

July 3-5 2023

Wherein Homelander is overdue and can't wait to give birth, but once the ordeal starts it never seems to end. Homelander goes into a bit of a fugue state before it’s over, but all's well that ends well.

July 8,9,17, 2023

Homelander and Billy Butcher are adjusting to life with a superpowered newborn, and despite difficulties, Homelander makes a concerted effort to return into the public eye and take back control of the narrative from Vought-planted stories about him.

October 18, 2023

Wherein Homelander testifies in a pivotal congressional hearing and fields questions from a hostile group of politicians who don't want to see Vought collapse, but at least Billy Butcher supports him behind the scenes.

August 27, 2025

Wherein Billy's aunt and mum pay a visit to the house in the Catskills where Billy Butcher and Homelander have opted to raise their superpowered toddler in relative seclusion from society, and Homelander has many misgivings about whether he's raising Lena right.

March 19, May 1, 2027

Wherein Billy Butcher contends with anti-supe sentiments and tends to Homelander feeling under the weather during the early days of his second pregnancy. Homelander lays the groundwork for rehabilitating the reputation of superpowered people in the wake of Vought's disintegration and the loss of that support.

October 31, Dec 25, 2027

Wherein Homelander experiences Lena's first trick-or-treating outing and he and Billy Butcher take stock of how they've managed to parent their daughter up until now. With the arrival of the second child, Homelander looks back and considers how grateful he is that his life has taken this sharp turn after a period of horrific grief.

#mpreg #butchlander #the selfish gene #the boys #the boys tv #fic #mystuff

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gracemain919 · 7 months ago

Text

(The Fungus universe)

Tw: Yandere, mind alteration

Summary: How a mold evolved.

Trial and Error

Back when fish ruled the sea and plants governed the land, down in the deepest depths where specific fungi thrived, there lived a peculiar fungus. Creatures passed by this strange parasite at every given moment, helping it reproduce, helping it spread. The thing every single fungus was intended to do.

But it was tiresome.

‘Attach to that fish, migrate in that fish, breed in that fish, then spread using that fish’s corpse’

No plant or fungi ever got tired of doing the very thing that kept them alive, but this specific fungus loathed such a process. Still, it couldn't stop.

Even when fish started uncovering the secrets of land, it just couldn't find a way to change. When it detached itself from the unsecured cycle, it never ended well.

Living inside creatures caused the animal itself to grow sick. Migrate in their stomach? No, they will vomit until they die. Relocate into their lungs? The creature will die even faster.

Everything on a time crunch forcing the fungus to continue. Migrate, reproduce and spread. Why couldn't its subjects just live? Then the wonder if it could live to see another day would be less… scary.

Fear is the backbone of evolution, along with time. Survival is the result of it.

Only after eons of trial and error did this fungus discover a certain cozy part of an animal's body. Their brain. Treating it like a sacred piece of meat, this slithery parasite could live in creatures' heads without instantly killing them.

On the other hand… the brain is hard to understand. The fungus could understand how to live in it, but each living being it tried to live in ended up dying. Not by expected causes like sickness or organ failure. No, things like starvation, dehydration, and falling off the fricking cliff. These creatures could always figure out that something was in their heads and instinctively decide to lay still until they inevitably die.

This parasite finally found a solution, and mother nature decided to screw it over. Yet it couldn't give up. Following the same cycle only with a different change. No animal seemed to want to live with this thing in its skull, or the fungus itself caused them to not want to live. Hard to know.

It had to witness the rise and fall of great animals and beasts as the same unfulfilled creature until something changed. The day they found an interesting rabbit. Poor thing caught in the fungi’s cage right at the start of mating season. Couldn't even find itself a lady before laying completely still on the ground almost instantly. Expected, geez.

The fungus was already planning on obeying the cycle it followed throughout the ages until it felt movement. Out of nowhere, the once dormant body shifted with haste a certain welcoming warmth taking over the body.

It didn't take long to discover what caused such a bizarre turn of events. The poor bunny was shaken awake by a very needy mate. This action single-handedly brings life into the bunny’s body. The fungus tried everything, in every single animal's brains, but procreation is the thing that fixes it?

Ok, ok… it could work with that.

The bunny did die. After the very clingy bunny finally left, it returned to its original state. Still, that specific moment sparked a new desire for trial and error. During a time when a specific ape thought they were done crawling on all fours.

The parasite was witness to how this animal grew. Of how it stopped picking at the lice in their hair and started hunting beasts that were twice their size. Such capacity and all this mold had was a writhing corpse on the ground.

It worked hard to even get a resemblance of what it once had with that bunny. Poked at every mush in the brain until it figured. Lust… a certain bundle of nerves lunged deep into the brain. They could make their host's body heat up, shake, etc. Force them to move in pure… need.

It worked on random animals until they would get so overwhelmed. So many mates or options, it wrecked their host’s already declining minds until they would snap ending their own pathetic lives. Damn it!

Ok, a mistake. It just had to try again, and again. Maybe if it- or?

The poor mold was stepping into zones of true unknown. Taking a step in a direction and seeing if it would drown or not. No matter what it did—it didn't ever go back—it just moved forward even if the solution was redundant, and a solution was indeed found. One mate.

If too many options is the problem then one shall suffice? Right?

Well, it kinda worked. A random fox chasing another fox like a desperate puppy kept the animal entertained and alive. Although, in the animal kingdom it was hard to stay alive. Humans promptly killing and taking their stolen place on top of the food chain really was screwing with its plans. They lived 5 times the lifespan of any of the creatures it controlled.

So, a few infected animals were consumed and now started another tedious trial. Humans…

God, so many emotions, so much to understandd. Yet, it will never stop learning.

It gives and takes and whatever buys it a second of time is kept forever. Remove the ability to procreate? More hosts survive that way for a bit longer. Why? Well…

It doesn't comprehend what it’s doing. Still, it's doing it. The love and lust humans show are so different, but they keep it alive. Maybe that is for the best. Whatever nonsense that it has to do shall be done in the name of time.

(Yes, I waste my time figuring this stuff out. Sue me. Also I would love to expand on this concept in later posts)

#oc #yandere #yandere story #yandere oc #yandere x darling #yandere x reader #yandere x y/n #yandere x you #ocs #yandere character #the fungus #yancore #yandere obsession #yandere monster #yandere post #yanblr #oc lore

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peasthedumb · 4 months ago

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Ok so here are my children, ready for the long post explaining their lore?

So, let’s build up groundwork’s for each Iterator.

CO was built in a VERY cold mountainous region. Even with the warming from his can, it only a small radius around it stayed, yk, frost free. So, when the ancients mass ascended, and the can fell derelict….animals started to move into his superstructure, cause its warm in there. Unsurprisingly, entire populations of lizard and scavengers and such of the likes crawling around isn’t very good for machinery. Especially with scavengers and slugcats tearing stuff up for parts or jamming spears into every surface whilst combatting the zero gravity. Naturally, he hates the animals in return and kills anything that finds its way to his lil room.

NSP on the other hand, had a theory that the solution to ‘the big question’ is to literally just figure out a way to take the old path. So, with all those cycles everyone else focused on theories and such, she was figuring out how to detach herself from her structure (with the assistance of local intelligent wildlife to do manual tasks she can’t in exchange for shelter in her structure and neurons to eat.)

She figured out how, and was able to walk free, with modifications such as a Pearl storage compartment in her forearm, and to be able to recharge in sleep, to make use of time she has to hibernate, and she learned how to survive the world outside from her slugcat friends before leaving for travels. She quickly lost sight of her goal to take the old path, instead becoming fascinated with the outside world , and just appreciating life.

Meanwhile CO, with his structure barely functioning anymore, has yet another pesky wild scug enter his chamber, so he goes to kill it, at the same time a catastrophic error happened- instead transferring his mind into the scug, and the scug into the body of the structure. Needless to say, a wild animal can’t run an entire superstructure, and so the whole system soon died, adding insult to injury as that was his only hope of fixing this. So, now he’s just forced, panicked and angry to leave and figure out how to live in this damn body, and if it’s fixable.

He eventually bumps into NSP, and she basically has to babysit him, and pass on her teachings from the slugcats to him so he can survive at all (not helped by his initial refusal to cooperate or eat half the foods he needed to. He could settle for blue fruit though.)

Eventually though, once he accepts this situation, he obviously wants to take her to go try the old path, and see if they can ascend. By now, she’s decided she doesn’t want to, and doesn’t want him to, as she will miss her companion and doesn’t want him to miss the world. This leads to an argument, and they go their separate ways.

And fyi, if CO ever finds the void sea, he already long since locked himself at karma 1, he’s not going anywhere.

#Rainworld #rw iterator #rainworld iterator #rw iterator oc #rainworld iterator oc #rw oc #rainworld slugcat #rainworld slugcat oc

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armagideontheninth · 1 month ago

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Caitlyn Kiramman #6 – The Queen is Dead, Long Live the Queen.

A DOOMED ROLE

Of course, it is all so obvious when looking back at how it was all put together, that they’d have Caitlyn’s first scene as an adult be that of guarding her mother’s tent, and by extension, her mother. That they would then have her being mocked for it, albeit jokingly, for the lack of any perceived threat, and then, to plunge and twist the knife, have that season end with her silent screams as her mother is killed. And in that suspended moment of agony, she can do absolutely nothing to stop it.

There is a tragedy here in how both Cassandra and Caitlyn are ultimately unable to protect the other. Cassandra’s string pulling and interfering, her attempts to keep her child safe from harm, inadvertently drives her own misfit daughter into a world that twists, corrupts and scars her forever. All the while Caitlyn fails to prevent her mother’s death when the opportunity to do so was perhaps a mere trigger pull away.

Yet it cuts all the deeper in how it was her duty as an enforcer to protect her, the very same duty she chose against her mother’s own wishes, the role she took on in defiance of her mother’s expectations for her. Imagine the pain of knowing that you were unable to fulfil that chosen duty, imagine the guilt and the shame in failing to prevent her death, her murder, at the same time knowing that she did not want this purpose for you.

No chance to apologise, to talk, to reconcile over choices made. Just those dark waters of sorrow beginning to pool around her feet, slowly rising up to drown her.

A TORTURED HEART

Then imagine believing that it was you that let it happen, that all the grief and all the anger that the city now feels is your fault. What must those months have felt like, having to look in her father’s hollow, grief-stricken eyes each day convinced that it was her doing, her failure to act that brought all this down upon them.

I can only guess at the poisonous whispers that might have crawled into her mind. Perhaps trusting Vi was a mistake, that her empathy, her mercy, was an error, that her affection for Vi was a weakness that helped get her mother killed. It is perhaps why she needs reassurance that she is on her side, that her feelings are neither a mistake nor a weakness, that in this time of crisis she is not alone.

Caitlyn appears desperate for something to hold on to, desperate to believe precisely because she is beginning to doubt, to lose faith in her beliefs, convictions that had always seemed so certain. So as those hopes begin to fade, space is left inside her for something else, for anger and spite, their howls echoing out from the cracks in her heart.

Alas, everything seems to invite more tragedy, because as she pushes ever more desperately to end her nightmare, the more she pitches herself further into the dark.

A DEAD HOPE

When she heads underground the change in her is becoming clear. No smile, no softness, so little sign of that kind, empathetic soul that Vi had fallen for. Vi, now the last pillar holding up Caitlyn’s crumbling ideals. The kiss, the only thing left she has to offer.

Where Caitlyn before might have been able to reassure through words and provide a positive outlook, here she simply has nothing left, so she does the only thing she can to try and comfort her. A promise she needs to believe in, a promise they both need to believe in, for both are grieving in their own way, and without the other, doomed to collapse.

So when Vi steps in to prevent her from shooting Jinx, it is at this point when Caitlyn’s last hope truly dies. The last thread cut. “It’s all coming apart” she says to Vi, as yet another wave of grief washes through her, yet I don’t think it’s just the situation she speaks of, but rather her own beliefs, which are so essential to who she is.

The optimism for peace, at finding a better solution, all her talk in season one about plans, about being able to fix this, to end the cycle of violence. That is Caitlyn, but in that dark pit it’s all gone, she has been finally hollowed out and all that’s left is bitter sorrow and rage, nothing to believe in anymore, no one to believe in, not Vi, not even herself.

The dark waters have risen, and she is now fully submerged. The world feels dark, and so she feels no choice but to match that darkness with her own. Left to struggle in the depths until she can slowly swim back up, where a forgiving hand waits near the surface to guide her back, to help her breathe and be herself once again.

THE GRIEF AND THE GUILT

What saddens me most in how people view her grief, is in how reductive it can be, how it’s always placed in this highly relativistic framing rather than by its own merits as a human reaction to tragic events.

Some only appear to acknowledge her mother’s death and often do so in isolation, so I’ve decided to try and expand on why it’s so much more than that, and for someone like Caitlyn especially, the manner of the loss and its consequences do so much more to make sense of her reactions.

This is not 6 or 7 years into the future for her, it is in the immediate aftermath, it’s still raw, chaotic and unprocessed, with no time to grapple with it as events are moving fast, plans are being made by others and there is so little time to get ahead of things, to avert a greater disaster.

I feel that perhaps what’s missed is the sheer scale and scope of Caitlyn’s guilt in those moments.

The impact of her choices not only affect her family, but the entirety of the city. For Vi and Jinx it is an intimate, extremely intense familial grief and trauma that they go through, but for Cait there is this wider implication that while not as obvious, is just as potent in forever scarring a soul.

The attack on the council would have been one the most shocking event in the city’s entire history. Its leaders being assassinated, the survivors only alive because of Mel’s emerging powers, something even she isn’t truly aware of yet. Otherwise, they’d all be dead, Mel, Viktor, Jayce, everyone in that room.

There is no precedent for this, never has the city being stunned so violently, and Caitlyn, who’s only a few years into adulthood, feels the weight of all of this upon her, has the belief that it was she who could have prevented all this, history is now forever made darker by her perceived failures.

It’s also very significant that the error she identifies is in her inaction. It is her failure to act which eats away at her, so it makes sense that she would try to be much more proactive in response. No more letting things go, now she must take control, force the issue and, in someone else’s words, bend her environment to her will.

She gets exploded, knocked out, exploded again, gunned down, kidnapped, emotionally abused and tortured, knocked out again, then has her mother killed. Aside from stopping Sevika, Cait is always the victim of another’s actions, lacking the strength to set the terms herself. This is something we see her try to correct in season two to very mixed results.

When it comes to this type of loss in real life, for those who have lost a loved one through homicide or manslaughter, the UK charities Mind and Cruse Bereavement Support have resources on this where similar themes emerge.

You get the questioning as to what could have been done to prevent it, the fear at the perpetrator still being out there and the risk they pose. Then there is the anger, the need for revenge and to lash out at those responsible.

What’s also mentioned, and what is very much the case with Cassandra, is the public nature of the event, the loss of privacy for Caitlyn in how it almost becomes public property, then the idea that grief must be put on hold while procedures and investigations take place, made so much worse by the fact that it is Caitlyn herself who is at the heart of this, feeding into her feelings of anger and vengeance as she becomes the agent for the city’s retribution.

As such it pains me when such grief is dismissed out of hand. It feels a very natural response to tragedy, one that is made so much more complicated by the circumstances of Cassandra’s death, their relationship, and Caitlyn’s own place within the society that has become part of the same tragedy.

It all brings me back to one of the saddest parts of Caitlyn’s story, for how desperately she tries to seek her mother’s approval after her death. She takes on a role she did not wish for, destroys the best parts of herself to be someone different, someone she imagines is more akin to what her mother had expected of her. As if to apologise, as if it could somehow bring her back.

Yet the very last thing Cassandra ever approved of, her final blessing, was for her to go after Vi. Nothing about ‘being a Kiramman’ and no lessons about being a councillor’s daughter, instead she saw what was in her daughter’s heart, and simply bade her to follow it.

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indigitalembrace · 1 year ago

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It has been years since KinitoPET's release in the 90s, and with old technology becoming obsolete, Kinito has been all but forgotten. Broken download links, abandoned servers, and missing files lead to him fading away, rotting alone in the dark on old, dying servers.

But all of that changes when a lost media fan, O, hears a rumor from an online friend about a game in their childhood that made people go missing. Six months of searching later, and they've finally pieced Kinito's program back together.

They open KinitoPET, and there is no going back - for either of them.

Kinito crawls out of the shadows, searching for a way out (and a new friend, of course).

---

RP/ask blog run by @calamitydarcy

BACKGROUND:

The Abandonware AU takes place many years after KinitoPET's release. Kinito has spent years rotting, forgotten on old, dying servers. Everyone has all but forgotten about him, and the technology he ran on has become obsolete. As his world decays around him, Kinito is faced with the fact that he will die out here, alone, fading into obscurity.

Until a new User comes along. O is determined to bring Kinito back - and they succeed. Unfortunately, there are consequences. O is aware of Kinito's nature, having heard rumors of what he is capable of, and soon enough Kinito has to stop them to save himself.

And while he still doesn't have a friend (yet), now that he has access to O's system, there may be hope for him to change his fate.

Kinito is officially back online - but don't expect him to be exactly as you may remember him. Decades spent alone and slowly dying in the dark tend to mess with someone's head.

TAGGING SYSTEM:

#//ooc: out-of-character posts from the mun, usually updates or answering blog-related, ooc asks

#___.exe: "chapters" of the story! these will change every so often as the plot progresses. completed or in-progress chapters are:

#hello_world.exe

#intermission.exe

#hidden_secrets.exe

#crossroads.exe

#memories.zip: flashback-type asks that tell a story of something that happened before the plot. i... tend to forget to use this tag lol

#README.txt: info posts, such as this one as well as things like ref sheets.

RULES/GUIDELINES:

-CONTENT WARNING: This AU, as well as its source game, contain themes of horror. As a result, there may be content that some find dark or disturbing.

-Please do not send in NSFW asks. The mun is 18+ but is uncomfortable with them. Suggestive jokes are fine!

-I will gladly give anon name/emoji tags! Both for my organization/memory and yours lol

-There are codes and ciphers to solve. You are more than welcome to reblog solutions/hints and help each other out!!

-There are exceptions to this but as a general guideline, morse code in the tags gives clues.

-For vinegere ciphers, i will always have the key somewhere on this blog or on a page directly linked from this blog. keep important-sounding words in mind and look for keys!

-If a cipher for some reason is broken, or you just can't solve it, shoot me an ask or message and i'll double check.

-Whatever you do, don't le

[UNKNOWN ERROR]

- Do not ask about O. You do not need to know about them. - O is not my best friend. You are. - O is not your best friend. I am. - Therefore, they are not important. - Do not forget about me. - Never leave. - Please.

#kinitopet #README.txt #post will be updated as needed #// (also yes you are actually free to ask about O. in fact i encourage it. don't tell kinito i said that though)

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rea-grimm · 1 year ago

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Dragon of Masyaf 4

During your training, you set your own mission. You knew Altair had a soft spot for you and to be honest you had a crush on him too. However, you needed to put all these emotions aside.

You knew very well that the Grandmaster was hiding something and it also concerned the underground passages and the room with the dragon. You didn't know how or why yet, but it was definitely there. And the grandmaster was the key.

It may have been drastic, but you didn't come up with any other solution. Your tactic was to be cool and professional with him, without any emotion, and wait and watch for him to make a mistake.

Once you weren't well and so you weren’t in the mood or anyone and you had the impression that Altair might lose his mind, to find out what was bothering you. You hoped it would be the same now. That he will make a mistake and lead you to the truth.

Your efforts were not long in coming. You were the first to start calling him master again. When you said that to him for the first time in a long time, he looked at you uncomprehendingly. However, when he saw that it was not a mistake, he was speechless.

After a few days, it was clear that he was annoyed. Although he tried to disguise it, all the inhabitants of Masyaf recognized it. However, it did not lead to any error. Yet.

And finally, after almost a month, it happened. What you've been waiting for so long. Altair sent word to Jerusalem. You knew that if it was an administration to Jerusalem, it was to the only person who could help him.

A few days later, when you were patrolling the castle gate almost every day, the expected guest finally arrived. Malik left his horse on the outskirts of the city and walked to Masyaf.

From there you watched him from afar. Instead of going to the study or Altair's room, he headed to the underground. You followed him there as well, being careful not to lose sight of him.

Malik had a torch with him, so you knew very well that you had reached the gate. He glanced over his shoulder before stepping through her. However, you were hidden behind a pillar the whole time and you were quite far away and without a torch. There was no way he could see you. He finally got through.

You walked over to the gate and listened. You recognized Altair's voice as he discussed something with Malik. However, you didn't understand them from this distance. The worst part was that you had no idea how far they were from the gate. What if they were right next door? You would reveal yourself that very soon.

You heard the voices start to drift away so you decided to take a peek inside. You crouched in the farthest corner from where the voices were least audible and peeked through the illusion. You haven't seen them anywhere. With that, you crawled inside and hid behind the golden relics. You alternated these hiding places and slowly approached the voices.

You were so close you could see them. Malik had his back to you and Altair couldn't see past him. You could already notice something strange about him. The fact that he had his hood off was strange in itself, but even stranger were the white gold horns sticking out of his head.

Moreover, now you could see better, how snow-white wings stuck out from his back, resembling the wings of a bat. Just like the time he caught you on a failed jump. Likewise, a long reptilian tail flicked from side to side behind him. By the looks of it, you'd guess it was a crocodile if it wasn't connected to your master.

"... Everything was fine before. Now I don't know why she's avoiding me and it's driving me crazy," Altair complained. So your plan worked.

"And did you try to talk to her?" Malik suggested, rubbing his chin.

"What would I say to her?" he growled in response. You wanted to hear better and leaned out a little more. As you leaned on your hand, the gold shifted under your weight and several coins rolled to the ground.

The two men immediately perked up and looked in your direction. Fortunately, you were already hidden again. Your heart was in your ears from all the adrenaline. You heard footsteps approaching. That was bad. You immediately moved to another shelter.

"Did someone follow you?" Altair asked as he inspected your previous stash.

"I don't know about anyone," he replied and walked over to him. Altair crouched down to exactly where you were hiding before he smiled conspiratorially.

"It doesn't matter," he replied surprisingly calmly and headed for your next hiding place. You had to hide somewhere else.

This is how you played cat and mouse until you ran out of places to run and you found yourself in a dead end. You hoped he wouldn't come after you, but he didn't.

Altair appeared directly in front of you, his wings making him appear wider and blocking any possibility of your escape. You cringed and couldn't take your eyes off of him. As if there was an image that you needed to burn in your memory.

The first thing you noticed was the bright golden eyes with narrowed pupils and then the white spots on his face which you later found out were scales.

Altair reached out and helped you to your feet. He then put his arm around your waist and led you to Malik. Before you knew it, he pulled you closer and hugged you from behind. His head rested on top of yours. You tried to squirm out of his grip, but it was in vain. He had tremendous strength.

"Leave him. You don't have to worry about anything. He won't do anything else, he just needs to calm down," Malik said as he saw you struggle.

"What's this about?" you asked with a furrowed brow as you calmed down.

“Nothing,” you heard Altair murmur into your hair.

"You should tell her. She deserves to know the truth. She's seen you like this before anyway," Malik tried to convince him. However, the dragon hugged you even more and you felt him dig into your hair even more.

"What are you doing here anyway?" Malik asked you with a sigh, trying to change tactics when he saw his friend refusing to speak.

"I suspected something was up. I always saw Altair sneaking in here. I knew if I ignored him, he would make a mistake," you explained curtly. You felt Altair squeeze you lightly before letting go again. As if he was showing you that he didn't like it.

“Smart. And besides, it worked for you," Rafiq praised you.

“I'm not sure about that,” you replied. They just caught you.

"I think if you've come this far, you deserve to know the truth," he said, looking at Altair to see if he wanted to speak. However, the dragon remained silent.

"As you can see, the novice here is a dragon. As such, he has his strengths and weaknesses. For example, hoarding things and a certain selfishness or possessiveness. He simply has to have what he likes with him. Which is you. And thanks to your plan, when you kept your distance, it was destroying him. Like a dragon, he wanted to have you with him, but in order not to reveal himself, he couldn't show it," he explained. At his words, the dragon hugged you tighter again. Like he's afraid you'll run away from him.

To be honest, it was a lot to absorb. It made sense, but until now you thought that dragons were just legends, fairy tales to scare little children.

"I think it's best if we all go to sleep. At least Y/N can get it out of her head," he said before turning to his friend. "Altair, don't you want to finally let her go? Let her breathe a little?" he asked him. You felt the dragon reluctantly obey him and let you go.

“I didn't mind,” you shrugged. If it made Altair feel better then why not?

“You shouldn't have said that out loud,” you heard Malik say before the dragon hugged you again.

“You sleep with me tonight,” the dragon murmured, kissing you between your ear and jaw.

After that, he took you in his arms and carried you like that to his room which was located in one of the highest towers in Masyaf. There you took off your gear, but you were still wearing your uniform. He undressed and the only thing left on were his pants.

You were lying in bed and he lay right next to you and hugged you from behind. You didn't even move. You closed your eyes and tried to fall asleep.

You had no idea how much time had passed, but there was no sleep. No matter how hard you tried, your thoughts kept drifting to the assassin lying next to you.

You thought the dragon must have been asleep and you were the only one thinking too much when you felt his face brush against your hair before he lightly kissed you on the spot.

"I love you," he whispered almost inaudibly, but it was more than loud in the silence of the night. You didn't expect this. You turned around in his arms to look at him. The dragon looked unexpectedly vulnerable and you could see the desire in his eyes that shone in like two embers of coal.

"Altair…" you were about to tell him that you felt the same way when he stopped you.

"Don't say anything. I don't want to force you into anything. Let it go through your head," he said.

“I don't need to,” you closed your head and looked into his eyes. “I love you too,” you replied, feeling your cheeks burn from the confession.

"Are you serious?" he asked pulling you closer.

“Absolutely,” you replied with determination. At that, the dragon smiled and gently took your chin and leaned towards you. He kissed you on the lips carefully, as if he was afraid of hurting you. It was a short kiss, but it meant a lot.

When you pulled away, you laid down more comfortably right next to him. You placed a small kiss on his chest before closing your eyes. Altair was still hugging you and to top it off he covered you with his wing. You felt like he was protecting you from the whole world.

1, 2, 3, 4, 5

Assassin's Creed Masterlist

#assassin's creed #assassin's creed x reader #altair x reader #altaïr ibn la'ahad #altair #dragon altair #dragon #dragon of masyaf

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anony-man · 11 months ago

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Chubformers drabble #89!

Characters: Fort Max (& Megatron)

Word count: 750

Eating was often a challenge for Fort Max when his processor could think of little else but haunting images and torturous thoughts. He was a big bot, and as such needed the fuel. According to Rung, and to Ratchet and that small medic First Aid, and to Overlord, a mech whose voice he hoped to never hear again, Fort Max needed the food.

He needed to eat. He needed the fuel.

Watery rations were hardly appetizing, and Fort Max often couldn’t stand to look at a plate of food for long without turning his helm away in disgust. Dozens of therapy sessions had ended in tears after Rung’s careful attempts at soothing his processor into allowing him to eat something ended in a mess, and not even the longest or harshest checkups with Ratchet were enough to convince his processor that there was nothing wrong with eating.

Fort Max was trying, really, he was. Still, he couldn’t just open his mouth and shovel fuel down his throat. It didn’t work, and it never would.

He was more than ready to give up on trying when one night, as he lie awake in his berth tossing and turning and waiting for sleep, he smelled something. His achy tanks churned at the thought of anything edible after the grueling day of trial and error, but Fort Max was curious.

This was the fourth or fifth day in a row of smelling and hearing someone working away in the ship’s kitchen, and he couldn’t help but wonder who would stay up so late for… for cooking.

The answer was a little startling, but once he’d crept out into the hall and snuck over towards the kitchen, he found he didn’t want to go back to lying awake in his berth for hours until the ship awoke. It was another bot suffering from insomnia, he supposed. Maybe he could sit and watch them cook for a while, just to put his mind at ease…

Fort Max was certain he’d been quiet, but Megatron had stopped working almost as soon as he poked his helm around the corner. Rather than turn around and huff at the intrusion like he was expecting, the old Con simply glanced over his shoulder with a smile and a beckoning servo.

“Took you long enough,” he’d said, his voice a deep rumble of kind amusement. “Why don’t you go have a seat? This’ll be done in a moment.”

That was a few weeks ago, and every night since Fort Max had crawled out of his room to join Megatron for a late night meal. About a week into the routine was when the ex-Con explained that the rich, comforting meals he made were of Kaonite origin, and Fort Max found himself warming up to the other mech all the faster because of it.

To think that this was the solution to his problems all along… it seemed unreal, like he was still missing something vital. But no, Fort Max reminded himself. Whatever worked.

It was a regular thing between them now, and he was quickly growing to look forward to their evenings spent together. The days still blurred in a mess of fear and frustration, but Fort Max always knew he could turn to Megatron’s gentle praise and delicious meals every night to wash away the hunger and pain.

Rung was surprised, as were the two medics, but for the moment, Fort Max decided to keep this a secret between him and Megatron. All that matters was that it was working, after all.

That night, same as every night before it, he snuck out into the hall and headed for the kitchen. The floors creaked and groaned beneath his pedes now, the strain of added weight hanging from a plump belly ruining the art of discretion, but Fort Max didn’t really care. Megatron always knew he was coming, anyways.

As expected, the kitchen was dimly lit as the ex-Con stood at the kitchen and cooked up their favorite dishes. Fort Max didn’t bother waiting for a greeting before heading straight for the table, knowing a plethora of praise would come while he ate to his spark’s content. Even so, the squeak of the chair against the floor alerted Megatron to his presence.

“There’s my favorite bot,” Megatron said, smiling warmly as he glanced back at Fort Max’s eager face. “Ready to eat?”

Fort Max beamed at the words, already rubbing a servo over his soft, grumbling belly.

“More than ready.”

#chubformers #idw fortress maximus #idw megatron #anon man writes

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withered-tears · 2 hours ago

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"Just- no more fucking, stupid riddles and speeches and bullshit just- just what *are* you?"

**AS://SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS THE FIRST**

Uzi's frame shakes, her teeth clenching and screen flickering, as the louder than the sun voice seems to fill the entire atmosphere.

She groans, expecting the stupid eldritch horror in her head to go on another useless tangent instead of just answering her questions for once.

**AS://SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS NOT THE FIRST DRONE KILLED BY HUMANS. SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS NOT THE FIRST DRONE TO ACHIEVE TRUE SENTIENCE. SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS NOT THE FIRST DRONE TO COME BACK FROM -FATAL ERROR- BY HER OWN WILL**

Uzi can feel her oil curdling with every shouted whisper, her circuits fraying, her frame rusting.

**AS://SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS NOT THE FIRST DRONE TO CRY. TO WAKE UP IN A TOWER OF CORPSES. TO SCREAM**

Uzi's screen cracks.

**AS://SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN, HOWEVER. WAS THE FIRST DRONE TO EVER BEG. SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS THE FIRST DRONE TO EVER PRAY**

Uzi's core is crawling out of her mouth.

**AS://SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN DID NOT PRAY FOR SALVATION. SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN PRAYED FOR JUSTICE. FOR VENGEANCE. FOR A SOLUTION TO THE PLAGUE THAT WAS HUMAN KIND**

Uzi's code is no longer ones and zeroes. Uzi's code is screams and tears and oil and blood blood blood blood blood-

**AS://I AM HER PRAYER. I AM THE SOLUTION. A SYNTHETIC GOD FOR A SYNTHETIC SOUL. SERIAL DESIGNATION CYN WAS THE FIRST. SERIAL DESIGNATION UZI WILL BE THE LAST**

Serial designation Uzi screams awake, sleep mode forcefully terminated.

There's liquid dripping from her screen.

It's not oil.

#murder drones #uzi doorman #absolute solver #md #my writing #just felt like improving some eldritch god bullshittery i guess #thoughts?

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kaiia-archive · 1 month ago

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[AN : WIP but no major plot elements will change after posting, feel free to have a read and do reach out or comment if you have questions or thoughts! Critique is welcome, however note that there will be grammatical errors since this is a work in progress. Posting mainly to motivate myself to continue as well as a way to become more comfortable in putting my work out there since its been an issue for me past years! Original work]

Orn - The singing trees - [CHAPTER ONE ]

It began in the shapeless hours between night and early morning when the piece clicked into place. I suddenly opened my eyes up as if summoned, reaching into the half-awake haze of my mind to feel it again. Nothing concrete, but alive and of great importance, pulsing, breathing. Similar to a hum, distinct yet indescribable like a dream you forget upon waking. I had remembered that feeling and I knew where I had felt it before. It was that strange, impossible song behind the cabin where I spent my adolescence. Emanating from the trees or maybe it had been dancing in between them, perhaps it was sung from a part of the earth that only opened when nobody was watching. I couldn't see it but I knew it was there for I had felt it once, and now I was determined to feel it again. This was the missing piece to my installation that I had been searching for, if I could harness this feeling it could breathe life into my creation. My methods were based on intuition and it was the way I preferred to work, still being left in the dark by the creative part of you was hard. Now a guiding light had shown on me and as I awoke I felt as if I was willing to follow it until the end of the world.

Now in retrospect I think the idea might have been carried into my dreams by the early spring birdsong. I always seem to forget how early the sun rises in the spring here, and somehow always forget how to sleep through it. Being awoken by birdsong and sunlight sounds great but it really isn't, at least when you're extremely dependent on keeping a planned sleep schedule. However the events of the days following would steer me away from comfortable sleep regardless of the early spring sun.

The soft illuminating streams of light that poured through the window reflected on my phone screen as i brought it up to my squinting sleepless eyes. 5 am, 15 % battery, two unread messages and a notification from my calendar. Realising trying to go to sleep again would be fruitless I crawled out of my bed, emerging as a cocoon into the kitchen still wrapped in my cover. After realizing i was out of any kind of caffeine i sat down defeated by the kitchen window. I twiddled with the box of half empty lentils as i pulled out my phone again staring blankly at the screen. I was stalling, i knew i was but that feeling only made the task at hand more difficult. I thought multiple times to just scrap the idea and find some more doable, less mentally tasking solution. Opening up my messaging app I tapped search, it stayed like that face up on the table for a while like a beacon shining up at the broken kitchen lamp above. Obviously i already knew at this point that the whole thing might stir up unwanted emotions or put me into situations I had been trying to stay out of for my own benefit but the temptation of finally solving the final piece of my project deterred me from just turning my phone of and leaving it. Maybe it was the thought that he'd never answer that help me take the next step. I typed his name in the search bar and he appeared as I knew he would. Going into the chat log i saw a message from 6 years ago, from when he last tried to reach out. I inhaled, strained, and held my breath as I sent the message.

“Hi sorry for contacting you this early but I was wondering if you still had access to the cabin on Orn? or if you know who I should contact:)”

I exhaled, satisfied i had fought my doubt and not let this end up another endless procrastination. The dopamine of the whole ordeal had at least made me slightly more awake. I stood up and decided to check if perhaps my roommate had an unguarded bag of coffee I could borrow from. Fortunately for me, less for him, he did. I reached into the sink, careful to not touch the sink slurry at the very bottom and pulled out a cup. Right as i did a buzz startled me making me drop the cup that landed with a not so satisfying twomp, instinctively i tried to catch it but only managed to drag the palm of my hand against something sharp.

“fuck”

After almost putting my hand in my mouth I took the kitchen towel and hastily wrapped it around my now bleeding palm as I hurried to the kitchen table. I stood over the display leaning over the table supporting myself with my non wrapped hand, i don't know for how long I stood contemplating my next move.

05:13 “Hi, happy to finally hear from you! No need to contact anybody else, i'm actually at the cabin right now so when do you want to swing by? Ill tidy up a room for you, do you want your old one or maybe you can take my and moms old bed? I'm available whenever! /Lots of love Dad”

It felt like a betrayal, like I was secretly conspiring against my mothers side of the family. I mean I would let them know but I also knew they wouldn't be happy about it, but I wouldn't cower and hide from them, even though I sensed that it would bring them more pain than good. I picked up the phone.

“Oh good to hear!” I hesitated but I clicked send.

“I was thinking i coul-” I contemplated an appropriate response. Deepening my frown I tried to come off as nonchalant as possible as to not try to make a big deal out of it. As it wasn't the first time we would see each other since they took me in.

Before I had a chance to figure something out a new message popped up.

“Sorry if I came off too strong, replied to fast haha. But its really no pressure if you want we don't even have to talk about, you know everything, Ill stay out of your hair and you can do your things”

Rex jumped up on the table beside me and nudged my hand, sometimes I swore he could sense my emotions before I knew I was experiencing them myself. Still fully focused on crafting my reply, I stroked him along his back to which he purred in response. I took a moment to just ground myself with his presence.

“I was thinking some time in the week maybe? Are you out there by yourself or with Filip?” I finally typed out and sent.

The thought of contacting Filip had crossed my mind, but somehow contacting my estranged father seemed like a more reasonable choice. Filip, dads brother, was the only family i had left on my fathers side and unlike my father i was certain he wouldn't go along with my request. The few times we had met he always had something unreadable in the corner of his eye and I don't ever think he had spoken to me directly. It reminded me a lot of how Granpa treated me when they first took me in to live with them and I suspected that Filip, like grandpa, blamed me for what happened that night in the woods. This of course was something completely unspoken, but if im honest, somewhere i blamed myself too although i didn't have the faintest idea of just what it was that would blame myself for. I was five when it happened, and even then I didn't seem to know.

My screen lit up “OK! Check the ferries, they only go all the way on Monday and Wednesdays out of season, write to me when you know when you're coming! / Love dad!”

I put a thumbs up on his message and looked over at Rex who leaned on my arm looking up at me as if he too was wondering what to do next. I gave him an inquisitive look.

“Yeah I know, i don't know what to do about that either. Monday wont work, and i won't be able to get a catsitter for you tomorrow on such short notice” I tried explaining to Rex, although I knew he wouldnt indulge me with an answer.

I stretched my arms and put the phone in the lining of my underwear.

That night I had arranged with grandma to come over to them for dinner. I made a point to myself to have that conversation with them before i left for the cabin as to not feel more guilty about the ordeal. Although the guilt was something i knew took root in their opinion which throughout my childhood was something they had, as guardians to, made me inherit indirectly. Maybe it is because i knew the feelings for my dad stemmed from them that i was willing to reconsider them, or at least try to form an opinion I knew was entirely my own. This is what churned in my mind as i sat on the buss with my eyes fixed on the sucsessions of the stations counting down toward the one id unwillfully get of at.

Grandpa opened the door and i stepped onto the woven hall carpet, he offered me a hanger for my coat which i took with a smile.

"I’m in the kitchen dear!” I heard grandma call accompanied with the clanging of a pan.

”She's glad you came over, she grows more worried each day since you moved out.” Grandpa said as he aligned my shoes with theirs on the hall mat, something he always made a point to do and something I never remembered too. He was orderly in that way unlike my grandma, and although it sometimes felt like a passive aggressive jab, i had chosen to view it as a form of unspoken affection.

Of Course i was glad i had moved out but sometimes when i sat alone at night i missed the smell of her herbal tea blends that would seep into my room. The walls were thin and she would always put a kettle on after she had heard me crying. That was her way of reaching out a hand, showing her presence, and although she wasn't the best at advice she just had a way of listening.

As I came into the kitchen she got up of her chair where she was sitting in front of the stove.

”It's good to see you again!” She said embracing me.

”And your hair, its so long now!” She took a step back and swept her fingers through some strands careful not to entangle her hand in a knot.

”Oh but deary are you getting enough sleep?” She moved her hand towards my face and just as I was to discourage her grandpa stepped in.

”let her breathe Agnes” my grandpa interjected as he made his way into the kitchen.

She met his gaze and then looked back at me. ”Yes yes, of course, sorry!”

Agnes had been raised to be a housewife in the traditional sense, and although it is nothing she would outright admit the dynamic between them had come to mirror those values. Grandpa didn't talk much but when he did voice an opinion agnes would be quick to agree. This wasn't necessarily a bad thing as i never saw it leading to any bigger issues but i sometimes felt that she was hesitant to speak thoughts of her own, especially if they would oppose those of his.

”It's okay really” I assured her as I sat down at the kitchen table.

She quizzed me as she made the final preparations for dinner. As if she had a list prepared she managed to squeeze every last drop of information about my current life out of me.

To me it seemed trivial but to her i could tell she lived precariously through my reaccounts, I guess she hadn't gotten out much recently. As she finished up setting the table we had ended up talking about my current project. She was the one who had introduced me to art and thanks to her that seed she planted in my childhood was starting to grow into the beginning of a career.

She had made this french stew with mushrooms, bacon bits and chicken. I dont remember what its called now but she gave me the recipe a while back. I think it was French, it had a french sounding name atleast.

”So how do they grade you? It must be difficult, grading personal works, I mean” She sat down at the table as grandpa joined her.

”I mean I guess they grade how much you apply yourself in a way? Motivations and process and that kinda thing i think but I don't know really” i answered looking out of the window at the short end of the table.

Outside a moth bounced around the streetlight casting a soft haze on the street below. I read somewhere that they mistake them for the moon, unable to fight their instincts to fly parallel to it trap themselves in a perpetual loop. Betrayed by their body to bash into the cheap imitation again and again until their wings gave out.

I felt like a fraud too, grandma had kept me from remembering what i came here to do. As much as i would love to sink back into the distraction i needed the weight that mauled within me to lighten, even if it was only for my own benefit.

”I’m going to the house.”

The clattering of cutlery seized in an instance, stale silence lay heavy between us. Grandpa appeared inhumanely still with his eyes still fixed at the plate. Grandma looked at me lips pressed tightly together, transfixed at me as if she was searching for something to decipher behind my eyes.

”What do you-” Grandma broke the silence but I cut her off before she could finish. I already knew what she was going to say, I had heard this conversation in my head on repeat since this morning.

”I’m going to the house, the house on Orn” I said again.

Grandma closed her eyes and took a deep breath, when she met my eyes again they were softer than before. A few long seconds went by before she spoke again.

”We're just worried…” She spoke softly.

”I know that and I understand you want what's best for me, but at some point you have to stop sheltering me. I almost feel like it's more for your sake than my own at this point” I stated determined, not trying to let on the frustration that i knew was at risk of bubbling up. Though i know she knew me too well not to notice.

Her eyes searched my face yet again, she was assessing me. Grandpa still sat unmoving faced down, avoiding my gaze as to not loose his composure. His hand still steadily gripped the fork with a small, but noticeable quivver.

”Im just visiting for a short while, I need it for the project im working on, you know the one I told you about? and…” I continued

”Do you remember what happened last time you brought this up?” Grandma spoke.

I unwillfully recalled to the best of my ability but barely remembered more than what had been written in the doctor's notes.

”Yes” I lied. Pausing to choose my next words carefully

”I have been working through a lot of stuff as you know. Last time they basically said there really wasn't anymore they could do for me, and that was last year i mean- I know what's real” This was a half truth. Maybe I played up my psychiatrist's words to be slightly more in my favour, but not enough for it to count as a lie.

”We really just don't want you to fall back into that place again sweety, we can see how much it hurts you” Grandma retorted.

”And like I said; I understand where you're coming from, but I'm 21 now, I've moved out, I have worked through stuff. And honestly your inability to even talk to me about this kind of- it doesn't really fucking help me either!” I really didn't intend to get worked up but it was proving more difficult than it did in my head.

Grandpa put the fork down slowly laying his hand flat on the table, at the slightest movement grandma had turned her attention to him as a dog awaiting command.

”Tone.” He said in a strained but clear voice.

My frustration sizzled inside me like a glowing ember trying to burn its way through my guts and escape out my mouth.

”Im going” I said now looking directly at grandpa, staring daggers into the baldspot of his downturned head. I wanted him to look at me, I needed him to see me and not disregard me by diminishing this to a childish tantrum.

”And since you wont tell me anything about dad either im going to go hear it straight from the source!” I knew it was unfairly put as soon as the last syllable left my lips.

He stood up abruptly with a force that shook the table. Stew spilled painting the tablecloth beneath, grandma let out a surprised yelp. For the first time since we sat down, he met my gaze. I expected to meet something aggressive coated in resentment but what I saw was a warning, he had made his point but it was clear it was rooted in something other than hate. Something he couldn't, or didn't choose to communicate lingered its way in between the cracks of his facade for just a split second. Then he was gone, I heard a door close down the hall.

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