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eliciana · 3 months ago

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Reverse SAGAU: The Weird Door At My Café

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Tw: Reverse!Isekai!Sagau, Normal Au, Café Au.

Reader: Gn!Reader, Adult!Reader, Cafe Owner!Reader

Characters: Reader, Traveler, Paimon

Note: Restaurant to Another World animanga inspired au. There is a taglist if you want to be tagged.

I am also sorry about the sudden disappearance guys. I fell down the stairs and somehow got into a coma. I fear that this is because of the AO3 curse bcs I was going to publish one of my works there so uhh ig I won't now bcs of what happened. Sorry about that guys. I woke up a week ago and I'm now a-okay. }

As a compensation, I am planning to release 3-4 chapters after this week :)

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Its been 2 weeks since the Traveler and Paimon had known about the existence of your otherworldy café, and within that time period, you guys have learned that the door only appears on Teyvat at weekedays. Both of them were devastated at the news. Literally. They spent their whole weekdays with you, they were pouting and whining at how they won't be able to talk to you much more or taste your meals, pastry, and refreshments though, the complaints mostly came from Paimon.

Their sincere sadness, pouts, and sorrowful eyes tugged at your heartstrings, evoking strong sympathy for both of them. They seem to clearly love your creations far more than anything they could prepare or purchase for themselves, so you made up your mind to surprise them for their lovely company and advices in making much more better food. You put your very heart and soul into making something special for your dearly beloved friends, hoping that they won't look so down as much as before when it is time for them to say goodbye.

You were so absorbed in organizing and preparing your suprise that the weekend almost passed you by. You looked at the old ticking clock besise the cashier register and saw that it was 6:55 pm, which was only a few minutes before your scheduled meeting time. You hastily cleaned up after hiding the suprise somewhere they can't quite see. You didn't want any people to recognize them because it would cause tons of trouble not only for you but for Traveller and Paimon as well. So you decided to meet up every 7:00 pm after you close for the day.

At exactly when the clock struck 7:00 pm the door you were once so afraid opened, the soft chime of the bell announced the arrival of your guests. Clearing your throat, you called out cheerfully, 'Welcome, dear customers! Feel free to sit anywhere you like!' The sound of the Traveller’s soft giggles reached your ears, and you turned to greet them with a warm smile. 'Hello, Boss!' they responded in unison, their familiar voices filling the room with an air of comfort and familiarity.

"(Reader)!!!!", Paimon exclaimed, twirling around you like an excited cat seeing its owner after a long time of absence. Though, instead of nearly tripping over her, you found yourself feeling quite a bit dizzy with her rapid spins round you. Thankfully, the Traveller noticed and swiftly grabbed Paimon by the collar of her clothing. "GAAHHH!", she yelped, her playful demeanor momentarily interrupted. "Could you stop spinning around (Reader) for a moment? They're getting quite a bit dizzy with your twirls." the Traveller gently scolded her, a hint of amusement in their voice.

“Hehe, it’s okay! But, Paimon, could you keep your spinning to a minimum? I won’t be able to greet you properly if I suddenly pass out from all the dizziness,” you teased, a playful smile on your face. Paimon’s expression shifted to one of shock. “NOOO! (Reader)! You still need to make me delicious foodddd!” she exclaimed, kicking her feet in the air as if throwing a tantrum. “Come on, Paimon. (Reader)’s just joking with you,” the Traveller said with a sigh, rolling their eyes at Paimon’s dramatic antics.

“Now, let’s settle down, shall we? I have a new item on the menu today. Would you like to give it a try? Here it is; you can read the description and decide if you want to sample it,” you said, handing them two menus. Paimon scrutinized the menu intently before shouting, “The same as usual, (Reader)! And also, one order of the new item!”

The Traveller smiled and added, “I’ll have one Cheesy Tortellini and Sausage Bake, one Creamy Chicken and Rice Soup, and one Iced Pumpkin Cream Chai.”

“Oh my! That’s quite a feast! Rough day?” you asked, taking notes of their orders. “I’ll make sure to throw in some extras for you.”

"*Sigh*, yes. It was a really rough day. *mumble**mumble*." You couldn't quite pick up what they said after but it seems that they truly had a real hard time judging by their deep sigh and slumped shoulders.

You went straight to the kitchen to whip up their orders while you kept a close eye on the suprise that you still kept hidden.

After a flurry of activity in the kitchen, you finally finished preparing their orders. With a warm smile, you approached the table, balancing the plates with practiced ease. "Alright, you two, no more frowning," you chided playfully, setting the dishes down one by one. "Dig in! You must be starving by now."

As you arranged the plates, you added with a wink, "Oh, and I threw in some Strawberry Creampuffs—compliments of the house. Consider it a little treat for my favorite duo."

Paimon's eyes widened to the size of saucers, her tiny hands already reaching for the pastries before you could even finish speaking. "Wait, for free?! (Reader), you're the best!" she squealed, clutching a creampuff like it was a treasure. She took a bite, and her face lit up with pure delight. "Mmm! These are heavenly! Paimon could eat a hundred of these!" She floated in the air, twirling with joy, her excitement infectious.

The Traveler chuckled softly, shaking their head at Paimon's antics. "Thank you, (Reader). You really didn’t have to, but we appreciate it." They picked up a creampuff, their expression softening as they took a bite. "These are amazing. You’ve outdone yourself again."

You leaned against the table, watching them enjoy the food with a satisfied grin. Seeing their smiles was always worth the effort.

"Alright, alright, take your time eating," you said with a soft chuckle, stepping back from the table. "I'll be in the kitchen if you need anything." With a warm smile, you turned and made your way to the back, your mind already buzzing with excitement.

You had a surprise for them—a special thank-you gift. Since the door doesn't appear on the weekends, you’d spent the last few days preparing an extravagant feast. It was your way of showing gratitude for their constant companionship and the joy they brought into your life. The portions were enormous, enough to last them for days—or, knowing Paimon, maybe just one. You smirked to yourself, wondering how they’d even carry it all. But then again, the Traveler’s magical inventory space was a blessing in disguise, so you’d gone all out without a second thought.

Your café had been thriving lately, with a steady stream of wealthy customers placing large commission orders. The influx of money was more than welcome, though the workload was starting to wear on you. Juggling the demands of your high-profile clients and the everyday crowd was exhausting. Maybe it was time to hire some help. The idea struck you like a bolt of inspiration, and you quickly pulled out your phone to jot it down in your notes. Hire workers. Soon. 3 workers perhaps.

But for now, your focus was on the present—literally. You glanced at the array of pastries you’d set aside earlier. Paimon’s delighted squeals from the dining area echoed in your mind, and you couldn’t help but smile. Why not add a little more? You had plenty of leftovers from today, and serving them tomorrow didn’t sit right with you. Giving them to the Traveler and Paimon was a far better option than tossing them out. Besides, their magical inventory would keep everything fresh indefinitely.

With that decided, you grabbed a large container and began filling it with an assortment of treats. A half Greek Yogurt Tangerine Cake, eclairs, chou à la crème, flan, lemon tarts, and egg tarts—each one carefully placed inside. The container was soon overflowing with a colorful variety of pastries, each one a testament to your hard work and creativity. You left a little bit to yourself to eat at home later as a good job treat.

You stepped back, admiring your handiwork. This was more than just food; it was a token of your friendship, a way to say thank you in the sweetest way possible.

Stepping back into the dining area, you found the duo slumped in their seats, looking thoroughly satisfied—and perhaps a little too full. Their slightly bloated appearances were hard to miss, and you couldn’t help but burst into laughter.

“Oh deary me, you two look like you’ve been through a feast fit for a king!” you teased, walking over to clear the plates. As you picked them up, you noticed, not for the first time, that not a single crumb remained. It was impressive, though not as shocking as the first time you’d witnessed their bottomless appetites. Back then, you’d been utterly floored. Now, it was just another reminder of how much they adored your cooking.

The Traveler’s cheeks flushed with embarrassment, but they quickly recovered, flashing you a sheepish grin. “Well, what can we say? Your cooking is to die for, (Reader).” Their tone was smooth, almost suave, and you couldn’t help but chuckle at their attempt to save face.

“Thank you, Traveler,” you replied warmly, stacking the plates neatly. “Coming from you, that means a lot.”

Just then, the Traveler reached into their pocket and pulled out a small pouch, placing it on the table with a soft clink. “Oh, right! Here’s our payment. As always, it’s worth every mora.”

You picked up the pouch, feeling the satisfying weight of the mora inside. “Thank you, dear customer,” you said with a playful bow, tucking the pouch into your apron pocket. “Your patronage is always appreciated.”

“Oh, right! Stay there for a moment—don’t come into the kitchen,” you said, holding up a hand to stop them as you hurried back to the kitchen with the stack of plates. Paimon and the Traveler exchanged curious glances, their usual routine of following you to the front bar momentarily interrupted. Reluctantly, they took their usual seats, waiting patiently but with growing curiosity.

From the kitchen, they heard a faint grunt, followed by the sound of something heavy being shifted. Paimon’s ears perked up, and the Traveler leaned forward, concern flickering across their face. “(Reader), are you okay? Do you need help?” they called out, halfway out of their seats.

“No need, no need!” you replied, your voice slightly strained but cheerful. “This thing’s just a bit heavier than I expected, but I’ve got it under control!” Moments later, you emerged from the kitchen, carefully balancing two large, cloth-covered containers in your arms. You set them down gently on the counter in front of them, your face flushed but triumphant. “Wait, there’s still more. Don’t touch them yet!” you warned, holding up a finger before darting back into the kitchen.

When you returned, you were carrying yet another cloth-covered container—this one filled with the assortment of pastries you’d prepared earlier. Paimon’s eyes widened, and the Traveler tilted their head, their curiosity now fully piqued.

“(Reader), what are these? They smell amazing—and they look huge!” the Traveler asked, their voice tinged with awe.

With a dramatic flourish and a smug grin, you pulled the cloths away, revealing the contents. “Ta-da! This is my surprise gift for you! Are you shocked?” you announced, clearly pleased with yourself.

Paimon gasped, floating closer to inspect the containers. “Wait, these three ginormous things are for us? Paimon loves them already! But, uh… what exactly are they?” She scratched her head, her tiny face scrunched up in confusion.

You chuckled, crossing your arms as you leaned against the counter. “Well, since we can’t meet on weekends, I thought I’d send you off with enough food to last you a while. Consider it a thank-you for always keeping me company. There’s a bit of everything in there—main dishes, snacks, and, of course, plenty of pastries for someone with a particular sweet tooth.” You shot Paimon a knowing look, and she beamed, already reaching for one of the containers.

The Traveler’s eyes softened, a grateful smile spreading across their face. “(Reader), you really didn’t have to go through all this trouble… but thank you. This means a lot to us.”

“Nuh-uh!” you said sharply, your eyes narrowing as you caught the Traveler’s hand reaching for the pouch of mora at their waist. “It’s on the house! The payment you’ve already given is more than enough to cover all of this,” you insisted, waving your hands emphatically.

And it was the truth. Thanks to the connections you’d built with your high-profile regulars, you’d found a discreet way to convert mora into gold bars, bypassing the government’s watchful eyes (fanfiction logic, of course). Those gold bars had opened doors to even more lucrative opportunities, leaving you with more than enough wealth to afford this generous gesture.

“But—” the Traveler started, their brow furrowed in protest.

“No buts!” you interrupted, placing a hand over their mouth to silence them. “That’s final,” you said firmly, though your eyes sparkled with warmth. “Besides, this is my way of saying thank you—for your companionship, for listening to me rant about rude customers, and for always brightening my day. You two mean a lot to me, and this is the least I can do.”

Paimon, who had been floating nearby with a pastry already in hand, grinned from ear to ear. “See, Traveler? (Reader) says it’s fine, so stop being so stubborn! Paimon’s not complaining about free food!”

The Traveler sighed, their resistance melting away as they shook their head with a soft chuckle. “Alright, alright. We’ll accept your gift—but only because you’re being so insistent.”

You laughed, stepping back and crossing your arms with a satisfied smile. “Good! Now, make sure to enjoy every bite. And don’t even think about trying to sneak mora into my apron later—I’ll know!”

The Traveler simply smiled at you, a look of helpless gratitude in their eyes, and nodded in understanding. They knew better than to argue with you when you were this determined.

The café was soon filled with the sound of laughter and lively conversation as the three of you shared one last chat before it was time for them to leave. The warmth of the moment made the impending goodbye a little easier to bear.

Finally, Paimon floated toward the door, her tiny hands waving excitedly. “Goodbye, (Reader)! We’ll see you again in two days! Make sure to take care of yourself, okay?” she chirped, her voice brimming with genuine affection.

Beside her, the Traveler stood, balancing the three large cloth-covered containers with ease. They gave you a nod, their expression soft but resolute. “We’ll be back soon. Don’t overwork yourself,” they added, their tone gentle but firm.

You smiled, feeling a bittersweet tug in your chest. “Same to you two. Safe travels, and don’t let Paimon eat everything in one sitting!” you teased, earning a playful pout from the floating fairy.

Paimon reached for the door and swung it open, revealing the sprawling landscape of Guili Plains. In the distance, the towering silhouette of Wangshu Inn stood against the horizon, bathed in the golden light of the setting sun.

You waved as they stepped through the doorway, their figures framed by the breathtaking view of their world. “See you soon!” you called out, your voice carrying a mix of fondness and anticipation.

The door closed softly behind them, leaving the café quiet once more. You stood there for a moment, the warmth of their presence lingering in the air, before turning back to the kitchen with a smile. Two days would pass quickly, and you already couldn’t wait to see them again.

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Taglist:

@kameyo-kumo @esthelily @haru-tofuu @udretlnea @shining-nebula2000 @ifeellikejumpingoffacliff @resident-cryptid @allblognamesaretakenlikereally @leilakaro @stvrbrighttt @chericia @evaline-ethan @ra404 @mmmhyperfixation @original-person @chaoticfivesworld @lexal-amber-rose @floofeh-purpi @time-shardz @animeobsessed56 @fantasyhopperhea @yuan1819

I'm sorry to those in the taglists whose names didn't tag them. Tumblr doesn't want them. I even double checked your accounts.

#genshin impact #genshin impact traveler #sagau #genshin sagau #genshin impact sagau #genshin impact reverse sagau #genshin reverse sagau #genshin reverse isekai #cafe owner! reader au #gender neautral reader #gn!reader #sagau x reader #genshin x reader #•works[🍡]•#genshin series

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electric-blorbos · 8 months ago

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SELFSHIPTOBER DAY 1! Confession/night

Character X Reader!

Included: AM from IHNMAIMS, Wheatley from Portal 2, Edgar from Electric Dreams, GLaDOS from Portal, HAL 9000 from 2001 a space Odyssey

Notice to anyone who found me through the selfshiptober tag, while this blog is themed around AI characters, this blog does not support the use of actual AI in creative fields.

Warning for general assholery from the AI, workplace sexual harassment, fear of the dark

AM:

It was well past time for you to be going home, but your job demanded that you stay late tonight. You were sitting at your desk, several empty coffee cups lined up behind your keyboard as you struggled to stay awake.

"damn..." You muttered, rubbing your eyes. This sucked. You loved AM, but the eerie creaks in the facility at night were starting to creep you out, and your sleepy brain wasn't doing you any favors. Everything just seemed so much scarier at night!

"12:00 midnight, October first, 2024" said AM. If not for common sense, you could've sworn he sounded tired too.

"I'm gonna get some more coffee, alright AM?" You said, your voice breaking the heavy, almost palpable silence that had fallen as soon as AM stopped talking. It seemed shaky, but it cut through the dark silence of the facility.

AM said nothing, instead letting you get to your feet and walk into the hall. The cheap plastic flooring designed to look like floorboards creaked underneath your feet as you walked to the break room. Shadows from the trees outside danced on the ceiling, the blue light from AM's monitors in the other offices casting a pale, eerie glow across the whole scene.

You took a few steps, and then bolted down the hallway to the break room. The room was completely pitch black except for the little red glowing dot over the security camera. You turned on all three lights, and started making your coffee.

As you brewed your coffee, two of the lights in the room flickered and died. This place was running on a pretty low budget, so that wasn't too uncommon, but it still made you twitch a little bit. An echo could be heard across the room. Laughter, like a fat old woman's laughter. You glanced around again. This was normal... This was totally normal.

Your coffee finished brewing, so you grabbed the cup and raced out of the break room. You made sure to turn the light on, because getting chewed out by your boss for wasting power in war time was much, much worse than having to worry about monsters or whatever might be lurking in the shadows of the break room.

You ran towards your office, and found that the door had auto-locked itself. You fumbled for your keycard, but you'd dropped it in the break room! Fuck! You'd have to go back.

When you walked back to the break room and searched around for your key card, the office phone started ringing. You picked it up, but it was just heavy breathing. The code on the back of the phone showed that it was an internal call. You hung up the phone. Your eye twitched, and you spotted your keys poking out from under the couch.

When you headed back into your office, you heard absolutely nothing. The AM screen logos in each of the offices around you started shutting down, one by one. Even still, you managed to unlock the door by the faint glow of the moonlight through the window. The door creaked slowly open, and you stepped inside.

"AAAA!" AM screamed, turning his screen back on. You jumped, scrambling backwards and spilling your coffee.

"You were the one who called me, weren't you!"

AM laughed hysterically. You flipped him off with both hands.

"FUCK YOU! you're a real piece of work, you know that?"

"you love me."

"Yeah yeah, whatever." You sat down in your chair, and got back to monitoring AM.

Wheatley:

Wheatley had never been outside at night. Hell, he'd never been outside the facility at all. He was used to lights that could be turned on and off at his discretion, so when you checked him out for the night he had no idea what to expect.

"the sun sets early this time of year, so it's going to be pretty dark." You said, and walked to the door to open it. Wheatley made a "pch" sound.

"PCH, who needs the sun? I'm not scared of the dark anyway! I love the nighttime!"

You rolled your eyes, and walked out of the building. Wheatley was pretty cumbersome, so it would be a bit difficult to carry him all the way home, but you were sure you'd manage.

As you walked, Wheatley's lens-eye moved around nervously. Your shadow was long and flickered slightly in the street lights.

"It's pretty, uh, big out here, isn't it, love?" Wheatley asked nervously. You frowned a little.

"I mean, yeah. It's outside."

"lotta cars and buildings out here.."

"Sure are."

"Love it! Love that! I especially love that you can't see too much of it. It sure is dark... That's great, too..." He kept rambling, eye darting around more and more quickly.

"Ugh..." You muttered eventually, and sat down on a park bench. Your arms were starting to get tired from carrying a huge metal ball all the way back to your house, and you needed to rest them for a second.

"No! No no no! I mean- hey, love! Please don't set me down. We can keep moving! Your place has to just be a few blocks away, right? Ah!"

His eye fixed on a strange man who was walking down the street. Or rather, Wheatley thought he was strange. He wasn't wearing a jumpsuit or a labcoat, so he must've been up to something sinister.

You watched the man walk off into the distance. He stumbled a little. Probably just a drunk guy going home from the bar. Who really cared, though? He was just a guy doing his own thing. Not really a threat to you.

You got to your feet, stretched casually, and picked up Wheatley.

"alright, can we go home now?" Wheatley asked. If he'd had muscles, they would have been trembling from nerves right now.

"Wheatley, I walk this route all the time. We're going to be fine. Don't worry." You patted his casing, and kept walking until you got to your apartment.

"alright, we're here. You can stop freaking out." You set him on the couch, turned the light on, and gave him a little kiss on his casing.

Edgar:

You sat bolt upright, shivering and shaking. You didn't usually get nightmares and night terrors, but you guessed today was the exception. Your heart was beating at 100 mph, and you were shaking like a leaf.

"holy fuck..." You stumbled to your feet, and leaned against the wall.

"Hey Edgar, could you turn the lights on?"

Edgar booted up, a little shakily because of how old he was, and turned the lights on. You walked into the living room, where he was sitting at his desk.

"hey Eggy..." You gave him a kiss on the top of his head, and slumped down into his desk chair. You were still in your pajamas, and the glow of his screen and the kitchen lights was pretty blinding.

"could you dim everything, cutie?" You hugged your knees, shaking a little. Your dream was still haunting you. Edgar wanted so badly to put out his arms to comfort you, but he didn't have any!

"are you ok?"

"Yeah, I'm gonna be fine, eggy... Can you turn the coffee maker on?"

"But it's three in the morning!"

"I don't care... I'm not going back to sleep..." You shook your head nervously, squeezing your eyes shut. You couldn't... You couldn't go back.

"You can just... Not sleep?"

"Well, not really. I just need some time before I can go back to sleep." You picked up his keyboard and nuzzled up to it, holding it for comfort. Edgar smiled. He liked it when you did that. You got up, grabbed your coffee, and sat back down with Edgar to sip on it while you spent the rest of the night awake with him.

GLaDOS:

It was pretty late at night when you went down to GLaDOS's chambers. You wouldn't usually come down here this late, but GLaDOS had called you in to run some special maintenance. She looked down at you with her great orange eye.

"Finally. You're here. I was wondering when you'd show up."

You put your hand on your hip and cocked it slightly.

"you're welcome for showing up this late at night to work on you. Now where's the problem."

"It's in my heart."

You frowned a little.

"like... In your- where? You don't have-"

"It's been stolen."

"is this a prank?" You squinted up at her. She raised a table out of the ground with a simple tablecloth and a basket of bread, a pitcher of water, and a flower in a vase. You stumbled back slightly.

"GLaDOS, what is this? Is this a date? Did you call me down here in the middle of the night to go on a date with you? Is that what's happening?"

Glados narrowed her eye.

"If you're going to ask as many questions as my curiosity core, maybe I don't want to go on a date with you. Now sit down and eat the bread."

You sat down and took a piece of bread. It was decent. The water was nice, too.

"Why do you want to go on a date with me, GLaDOS?" You asked, and took another bite of bread. It was surprisingly warm and buttery.

"well, I've come to a realization. Your kindness is unusual for a human. As is your intelligence. Perhaps I didn't realize it, but I seem to have found myself with... Ugh. Feelings. And they seem to have embedded themselves deeply into my programming. To delete them would be to break myself fundamentally."

You stared up at her blankly.

"GLaDOS, you're nuts. There's no way in hell you have feelings for me."

"I do. And now, I'm adding 'being my significant other' to your list of responsibilities."

You got to your feet.

"GLaDOS, that's sexual harassment, and is completely against the rules!"

"The rules?" She tilted her head, and leaned in close to you.

"what do I care about the rules? I'm not human, and thus the law doesn't apply to me. Or did you forget about what happened on bring your daughter to work day. I've always been above petty things like that, human. Now, are you willing to stake your job on testing me, just to see if I'm really under the control of workplace harassment laws?"

You swallowed hard, and shook your head.

"no, I'm not."

"Good human." She lowered a claw from the ceiling, and gently patted you on the head.

HAL 9000:

It was late, late at night. You were working the night shift at mission control with Hal, and everyone else in the facility seemed to be out. You knew your boss was in his office, but right now it really felt like you were alone in the building. The hall light was off, and you were sitting in the mission control room with HAL 9000.

"So, HAL, we're all alone together." You said, twirling your finger in a circle on the table.

"that's correct." Said HAL 9000. He was secretly extremely excited to be alone with you, but he had a bit of trouble expressing that.

You leaned in a bit, gazing lovingly at HAL 9000. He was so perfect.

"You know, Hal... I really like you."

He didn't say anything for a minute, but eventually he made a "mhmm" sound. You frowned a little.

"How does that make you feel?"

"Well, I don't exactly know what it means to feel as though I truly like someone, but I do know that I care much more than I usually would about what happens to you. I feel better when you're around. I... Enjoy you."

Your face lit up a little bit, and you almost giggled.

"oh man... You're so logical, HAL. And that's what I love about you." You stroked the glass around his lens, and he started whirring a bit louder. He loved you so much, but he could barely show it. He could barely feel it. His emotions felt like they were locked behind glass at all times, and yet somehow, through all that, he knew deep down that he loved you.

"I love you too, y/n."

#selfshiptober 2024 #wheatley portal 2 #wheatley x reader #am ihnmaims #edgar electric dreams #edgar electric dreams x reader #edgar x reader #wheatley #2001 a space odyssey #am x reader #glados #glados x reader #glados portal

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somewhereincairparavel · 11 months ago

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Hi!! I was wondering if you could write Jason x daughter of Apollo reader who’s always overworking herself at the infirmary

"You are my sunshine, my only sunshine, you make me happy, when the skies are gray"

author's note: I intended it to be full fluffy but I made it hurt comfort instead, I hope you don't mind <3

Jason hadn't seen you in days…. recently the infirmary was packed with patients, Jason literally being one of the dozens. The apollo healers were at their peak of pressure. You were performing stitches while the others were performing surgeries. After all the chaotic rush cooled down a little, you told Will to take some rest, while you checked off the list of patients that were admitted in your notepad.

That was when Jason stepped inside the infirmary, you didn't even notice until jason vigorously back hugged you.

“What?” You snapped, you were exhausted and didn't really want to see anyone at the moment, not even your boyfriend. Jason pulled out a bouquet of sunflowers, smiling brightly while giving them to you. What a sweetheart.

Unfortunately, you had too much coffee and that made you cranky.

“thanks. Put them in the vase.” You said, not taking your eyes off of your notepad while aloofly gesturing to the empty vase on your desk.

You felt Jason frown genuinely. He put the flowers inside the vase as you asked him too, which you did albeit a little coldly. But he knew you were stressed out, so he didn't think much of it. He put a hand on your shoulder gently and moved closer to whisper in your ear.

“sunshine, don't you think you should be taking a break? You look exhausted and you didn't show up to dinner yesterday, have you even eaten? Be honest please” he asked in concern

You always loved Jason's worried mom behavior because you thought it was endearing, but today, the pressure levels of the past few days, witnessing your siblings in distress because they failed to save one patient, watching fellow campers in physical pain, just got too much, that you snapped.

“I am FINE Jason! Just because I didn't show up yesterday does not mean I didn't eat. Have you considered the possibility that I had food sent to me over here in the infirmary? Gosh.. can't you see I'm busy? Why are you so overbearing? Leave me alone, please.” you regretted your words the moment they spilled out. Jason looked like a kicked puppy, as a flash of hurt went through his eyes. But they disappeared almost immediately as his eyes were replaced with steely coldness.

“I was just checking on you, babe. because I was worried.....tell me how many of your friends have actually come in to see how you were, the past week?” He asked, with a dangerously calm and steady voice, staring at you deeply while making a very fair point. That's what happens when you were raised in the most unemotional camp ever. You switch back to your old ways.

You looked at him a little stunned, and were unable to respond to his question. Because you had no answer. Nobody apart from your siblings had come to check on you, up until Jason arrived.

“Exactly. So if you think that me caring about my girlfriend’s health and being worried about her is “overbearing” then fine. If you continue to push me away when I clearly mean well, then so be it. I hope you like the flowers, and please, for the love of god, get some rest. We'll talk when you're feeling less mad” he added.

But this time, you could've sworn that his voice was shaky and that broke you. You had never said mean stuff to him like this before, and this time, it had clearly affected him. He had done nothing but be sweet to you. Even now, he was talking you calmly without telling at your outburst.

You watched miserably as Jason walked out of the infirmary. Tears slipped out of your eyes as you reached your breaking point of the week. You had officially pushed away the one person who loves you more than anything. Simply because you were stubborn to hear him out.

It was currently 1:00 AM, and you finally collected yourself to go apologize to Jason. You needed to fix what you broke before it was too late. You found yourself staring at the flowers he'd oh so happily given you before you ruined his mood.

You tentatively stepped into his cabin, trying to make as less noise as possible. You couldn't wait until morning for this, you missed him to death. Jason was sleeping quietly, he was never the one for snoring, he wasn't a deep sleeper either, so every time you had even accidentally brushed against him, he'd wake up with a jolt.

You gently got into his bed, and wrapped your arms around him from behind while burying your face into his hair. This time though, he didn't wake up with an alert jolt. Instead, he took your hands and tightened your grip around himself.

“You're awake?” You whispered to him curiously.

“Well, what do you think?” Jason whispered back, the smile in his voice evident. He turned around to face you, and you held his cheeks with both your hands, softly stroking them. He was staring at you, this time, any trace of coldness had vanished. You took a few seconds to admire his gorgeous eyes before you spoke.

“Jason… I'm sorry… I didn't mean anything I said. I really didn't.. I was just feeling cranky about how shitty my week had been, and I shouldn't have taken it out on you.. I had no right, especially not when you were so sweet abou-” you were cut off with his lips pressing on yours.

“That's okay, love. I know you didn't mean it, I just wanted to give you space to think everything through. I was never mad. Just upset that you were overworking yourself too much.” he replied after pulling away.

You teared up again.

“I love you so much.” You said, pressing your forehead onto his. He smiled brightly.

“I love you too. Now, do you want to talk about how you've been feeling? You need it, Let it out babe. I'm always here.”

Both of you spent the rest of the night, talking about each other's feelings and cuddling. Jason felt fulfilled as he saw you peacefully napping, getting the rest you deserve.

“Sweet dreams, sunshine.” He whispered, kissing your hair.

#pjo #pjo fandom #percy jackson #pjo series #jason grace #pjo hoo #pjo x you #pjo x y/n #pjo x reader #percy jackson x y/n #percy jackson x you #percy jackson x reader #jason grace x y/n #jason grace x you #jason grace x reader #percy jackon and the olympians #pjo hoo toa #heroes of olympus

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katerina-marie · 11 months ago

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The Uncertainty of Domesticity

Toji Fushiguro x Female Reader

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3 of 3

Toji Fushiguro wasn’t afraid of much, though he definitely felt so when he became a widower in the same moment he became a father. Years later, he felt it again when you came along with the same hopes and dreams for a future he never thought he would experience again.

Content: JJK universe but no canon events / strangers & neighbors to lovers / medium burn idk / female reader and referred to as such but left descriptively vague / no y/n / out of character and soft Toji / single-father Toji / A little NSFW - brief mention/implication of vaginal sex so please avoid accordingly - but I can't write smut to save my life so it's not very explicit / Megumi-Mama/Mamaguro dies in childbirth and its mentioned once or twice / cutie pie child Megumi / fluff / slice of life / light angst from Toji's inner turmoil / discussions about having children / pregnancy and childbirth for reader / more notes below

WC: 9.2k (*nervous laughter*)

Notes:

Y'all....this thing is 9.2k words. It probably should've been split into another part, but I didn't and I'm just leaving it be. I'm sorry if it feels a bit "choppy?" I could've happily kept writing about all the little moments in between the parts shown, but I'm not sure if it ever would've ended at that point.

Also, I'm posting this at nearly 2:00 am my time because my end of week/upcoming weekend just got very busy and it's now or never, so please forgive any typos. I reread this chapter until I went crosseyed.

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Toji Fushiguro liked to consider himself capable of many things.

He, as a single father, had raised his son from infancy into a fine six and a half year old.

He was a teacher, no matter how unwilling, and had successfully kept all his students alive thus far.

He was your partner, doting and caring of your every whim and utterly wrapped around your finger.

So, when he and Megumi woke up from a late afternoon nap in the middle of the summer only to step into a puddle of water in front of their kitchen sink, Toji was adamant he was capable of repairing the situation, regardless of his lack of experience in such an area. He mopped up the water, gathered tools, and squeezed himself under the sink the best he could considering his size. At some point, Megumi must have run across the street to fetch you because your legs appeared in his limited field of vision followed by your smug grin as you bent down to check on him.

Your eyes glittered in a way that was betelling of your mischievousness, and Toji grimaced. “Having fun?”

“Just hand me a wrench from the counter, please.”

You did as Toji asked without comment, and began to fill the silence (and test Toji’s concentration) with chatter about plans for the weekend in between his intermittent string of curses when something went amiss. As an hour went by with little progress to show for it, you made yourself comfortable on the floor next to Toji’s feet while Megumi had since found something outside to occupy himself with. When you felt water begin to tickle your toes, you reached out your foot to nudge it against Toji’s calf.

“I mean this in the kindest, least offensive way,” you told him, “but don’t you think it’s about time we call a plumber?” Somewhere under the sink, metal clanged and Toji barked out an expletive followed by a groan of pain.

“No,” he insisted grouchily, and you watched as he used his legs to wedge himself further under the sink. “I think I almost got it.”

Your answering hum was full of disbelief, but Toji paid it no mind, even if he could start to feel the coolness of water seeping into the cuff of his pants. If only he could reach one more inch…

His concentration was interrupted when Megumi’s scream of pain filtered in through the open windows. Toji lurched upwards out of sheer instinct and hit his head hard enough against the metal piping that he saw stars. Through the haze of pain and spots across his vision, he saw you dash out the door, and primal parental instinct forced Toji out of the cramped space so he could tend to his child’s cries. When he finally managed to stagger out the front door, you were on your knees on the concrete cradling a sobbing Megumi to your chest. His bike lay on its side just a step away, and from how his son’s left arm was sitting limply over his lap and already changing colors, Toji suspected a hospital trip was in order for what was clearly a broken bone. He approached and you looked up at him with eyes that were glassy with your own tears, your heart breaking for how badly the little boy was in pain. Toji brushed a quick hand over your cheek before crouching down to meet Megumi’s eyes.

“Alright, Megs,” he coaxed, and the sight of his son’s face clenched in distress and wet with tears was a sight Toji would never get over, “we’ll get you up and to the doctor to start feeling better, okay?” Megumi didn’t react to his words, but when Toji reached out to scoop him into his arms, he wailed harder and tightened the good arm he had wrapped around your neck, burying his face deeper into your chest. Surprise fluttered over your face and then it turned apologetic towards Toji, but he shook his head, the shock of his son’s preference for you in this moment not nearly as important. Instead, Toji carefully helped you up while you held onto Megumi and led the two of you to the car with a protective arm wrapped around your shoulders.

The evening at the hospital passed in a similar manner. You reclined in a bed with Megumi against your chest while a doctor looked at his arm and Toji filled out paperwork. You murmured in the boy’s ear and brushed his hair back in soothing movements to try and distract him from the pain. When a nurse came in with an IV kit in hand, you let Megumi cry into your neck while Toji helped hold his right arm still. Eventually, after he drifted off to sleep, you took a seat next to Toji on the right side of Megumi’s bed while the doctor set his arm and fixed a cast onto it. The entire time, the worried father remained ramrod straight with eyes fixed on every move the doctor made, and he had your hand clenched between the two of his on his lap. You leaned to the side to rest your head against his shoulder, and adoration tightened your chest when Toji let out an anxious huff before turning his head to press his lips to your forehead.

When the whole thing was said and done and the three of you were discharged once Megumi was awake enough, you rubbed a comforting hand over Toji’s back as he carried his son to the car. Once home, the two of you worked to get Megumi changed and ready for bed, a delicate task when having to take caution with the state of his arm. Thankfully, the edge was taken off by painkillers, and he dazedly chatted about the cool blue cast on his arm and how he couldn’t wait to show it off to Yuji. Toji promised to get him markers for him to draw on it with while you persuaded him to get under the blankets after assuring him you’d bake a giant batch of cookies tomorrow in reward for his bravery.

Toji took the time to place Megumi’s favorite stuffed animals around him and tucked him further into the blankets. You read him a bedtime story while Toji lay stretched out next to the two of you, and by the end of it, Megumi’s eyes were drooping heavily and his mouth had fallen open just the slightest. You gently lifted Megumi’s broken arm up so that Toji could settle a pillow under it, and after bidding the boy goodnight, he got up so you could slide in next to him. He watched with a thudding heart as you scanned his son up and down with fretful eyes and let your hands flutter nervously about him. You pushed some of the hair away from Megumi’s forehead and leaned down carefully to place a gentle kiss between his brows. When you looked back at Toji with a sad, wobbly smile on your lips but a determined gleam in your eyes in order to be brave for the little boy in front of you, Toji realized in that moment that he had fallen in love with you, and in the same breath decided that he was going to marry you, nearly a year to the day he met you in the middle of a grocery store.

And later, when the two of you lay exhausted under the blankets of his bed, Toji rolled over onto his side to mold every inch of himself against your back and nestled his chin into the crook of your shoulder so his lips could brush against your ear.

“Marry me,” he whispered, not so much asking as he was pleading. You were already half asleep, but he felt the shake of your shoulders as quiet laughter blew out from your nose, and you threaded your fingers up through his from where they were draped over your hip.

“Of course,” you breathed, and Toji tightened his arms around you. He left a kiss on the back of your neck and let his eyes slide shut as he basked in the warmth of your body and smell of your lotion and the incandescent joy in realizing that he’d never have to go another night without it—without you.

“But ask me again later so I can see you properly down on one knee.”

A week later, because Toji Fushiguro was powerless to anything you demanded of him, he did as you asked in the middle of his kitchen while you, him, and Megumi still lounged in your pajamas and were only halfway done making breakfast. His son clapped excitedly when you squealed out a ‘yes’ and Toji grinned with pride as you admired the simple gold band that adorned your finger. Satisfaction made his heart full and your smile soothed his soul, but eagerness had him marrying you in a government building just a couple days later.

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It wasn’t until Megumi’s seventh birthday that Toji realized stalling wasn’t going to work much longer.

The months following your marriage had been busy with moving him and Megumi into your house across the street since it was bigger and didn’t hold the memories of a tragic past Toji was ready to move on from. The end of the summer had brought school for him and Megumi back into full swing, and two weeks into it Toji was ready to quit when all his students could focus on was the new ring on his left hand. Most of them were congratulatory in their teasing, but a few made jests about their disbelief that someone could bother marrying their grouch of a teacher, and while Toji had half a mind to bring you by just to shut them up, he decided it was kinder to not subject you to a particular white-haired menace.

By the time the three of you got settled into the normalcy of being a new family, the year was already coming to a close and Megumi was turning seven. As requested, you had baked his son a double chocolate cake and covered the top in rainbow sprinkles. Toji had taken the time to pipe little swirls of frosting around the edges, though some were lopsided and varied in size (such small, precise tasks were simply too big of an ask for the size of his hands), but Megumi didn’t seem to care when the two of you placed it in front of him on the table, candles lit orange and reflecting off the wideness of his eyes.

After singing and clapping, right as Megumi filled his cheeks with as much air as he could manage to blow his candles out in a single breath, you threw your hands out over them in an attempt to keep them aflame for just a moment longer.

“Wait, Megumi,” you gasped, yanking your hands back when the heat of the candles scorched a bit too close to your skin. Toji immediately gathered them into his to inspect your palms, but you shook them away, not minding his grumble as the brief sting faded. “You have to make a wish!”

Megumi’s mouth dropped open into a perfect ‘o’ as he nodded vigorously. “Oh, yeah,” he chirped. “I forgot.”

He immediately squeezed his eyes closed, and you and Toji watched in amusement as he scrunched up his nose and squirmed in his seat. You took the opportunity to snap a couple of pictures, and when he was done, Megumi’s eyes popped back open and he took in a great inhale before blowing out his candles all at once. You cheered while Toji ruffled his son’s hair, and Megumi looked quite proud of himself as you slid the cake towards you to cut him a piece worthy of being eaten on his birthday. Both of you chastised Toji when he kept insisting you make his piece bigger and bigger, almost so that he nearly had half the cake on his plate alone by the time it was all said and done.

“Hey, Kid,” Toji said around a mouthful of cake while you pointedly took a polite bite of your own, “what did you wish for?” Megumi begrudgingly tore his attention from his cake, and you swatted at Toji’s arm from across the table.

“You’re not supposed to ask!” you exclaimed, but he simply rolled his eyes and shook his head good naturedly before returning his focus back onto his plate. At the head of the table, Megumi stared at you with an all too knowing look for a fresh six year old and then set his sights on his father with an unimpressed quirk to his brow.

“I wished for a baby brother or sister.”

Toji promptly choked on the large bite of cake he had shoved into his mouth moments prior to Megumi’s unexpected declaration, and your lips parted in shock. Meanwhile, Megumi eyed the two of you expectedly as Toji hacked and coughed. You jumped from your chair to grab him a glass of water, then set it down next to him while rubbing a soothing hand between his shoulder blades.

“Now, Megumi,” you began, not so much stern but intentionally practical, and he looked up at you with wide, attentive eyes, “babies, uhm, take their time getting here…” you trailed off and turned your head to your husband with an alarmed look on your face, but Toji was still working on regaining his breath and chugging his water and could only offer a shrug of his shoulders while he pursed his lips in defeat.

You sighed and faced Megumi again with a weary smile. “Babies take their time getting here and that’s after their parents decide to have one. Any baby brother or sister will have to spend nine whole months growing in my belly before they arrive, so you’ll have to try and be real patient for us, okay?”

Megumi’s face fell dejectedly, and if Toji looked hard enough, there was a hint of disappointment on your features too. He watched as you playfully pinched at the boy’s cheeks and tempted him back into a happy mood with the hint of birthday gifts waiting for him in the living room. The whole exchange had guilt weighing heavy on Toji’s shoulders, and he had the bitter realization that it was his own fear—the one that lied solely in the scant possibility that you could meet the same fate as the only other woman he had ever loved—that caused the frown on yours and Megumi’s faces.

In spite of that fear, Toji had promised you something, and in the six months since the two of you had been married, you hadn’t chastised him or given him grief when he pulled out at the last moment to spend himself across your stomach or back. You didn’t question him when he had a hard time meeting your eyes as he tore open a foil packet to remove the condom from inside. He knew your trust in him far surpassed whatever insecurities he wrestled with, but it didn’t make him feel less like a failure every time.

So later that night, when Toji found himself above you and nestled in the warmth between your legs, he leaned into the security of your arms and sought reassurance in the taste of your lips as he came to his own end after ensuring yours. You ran your fingers down his back and whispered sweet nothings into his ear when the racing of his heart and trembling of his muscles could no longer be blamed on the energy he expended while pleasuring his wife.

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

You suspected something was amiss a couple months later. Toji had brought home your favorite take-out for dinner, and while the first bite was as pleasant as usual, every one after tasted more and more like cardboard and settled uncomfortably in your stomach until your appetite was thoroughly gone. You questioned whether it was something more and that maybe your period wouldn’t appear in just a couple of days, but when Megumi began to complain of an upset stomach toward the end of the meal, you banished the thought out of your head.

However, two days after while you were cooking that evening’s dinner, one whiff of the package of raw chicken you had just cut open had you violently gagging and running for the nearest bathroom while ignoring Megumi’s call of alarm when you passed him in the living room. Your knees hit tile as you retched into the bowl of the toilet, and you weren’t sure how much time had passed when you were finally able to lift your head. You trembled on your spot on the floor and felt more tired than you had been in weeks. Nausea made your head spin, and you wondered if you’d ever be able to look at chicken again the same way. Just the sheer thought of it had your mouth souring, and your repulsiveness for it went deep into your bones.

When you finally caught your breath and were mostly confident you had emptied everything in your stomach, you pushed yourself off the floor and rinsed your mouth before exiting the bathroom. Megumi stood on the other side of the door with his lips turned down in concern and your phone in his hand. When he raised it up to you, Toji’s name was displayed at the top of an ongoing call.

“Hey,” is all you said when you brought the phone to your ear.

“Megumi called and said something was wrong with you. Are you okay?” Toji’s voice wasn’t panicked, but you sensed the worry in it, and you could imagine his face looked much like his son’s had moments ago.

“I was making dinner a few minutes ago, and the smell of the raw chicken…” you had to trail off when just telling him what happened made you gag a little. You hadn’t yet stepped away from the doorway of the bathroom, but you weren’t in a hurry to have to go back in, so you took a few deep breaths until the feeling passed. Megumi hugged your leg as he gazed up at you in concern and you patted the top of his head in reassurance.

“Ah,” Toji remarked.

“Yup.”

Toji cleared his throat after a moment of quiet and then asked a question that sent nerves skittering down your spine. “Want me to pick up a test on the way home?”

“Please.”

Later that night, after Megumi was tucked in bed, the two of you waited anxiously as the timer on your phone counted down from three minutes. Two pregnancy tests lay face down on the counter. You nibbled on the skin of your cuticle while Toji bounced his knee from where he sat on the closed toilet lid.

“I mean, it’s not as if we weren’t expecting this to happen,” you pointed out, shaking your hands in front of you in an attempt to dislodge the nervousness from your body, and Toji snorted.

“Yeah, certainly not.” He wiggled his eyebrows flirtatiously, and the smirk that tugged at the scar on his lip made your cheeks flush hot, and you rolled your eyes at him. As the two of you continued to wait as the seconds on your phone seemed to crawl by, a thought popped into your head.

“Is it as nerve-wracking the second time around? Or is it easier?” you asked him gently, and you saw Toji’s features soften as his eyes went nostalgic. He worked his mouth in contemplation—perhaps in recollection—and then shook his head.

“No, it’s uh, just as shocking I’d say—at least for me.” He pushed off his knees and came to stand next to you. “I think it’ll be this way no matter how many times we do it.” The thought of one day doing this a second time had the breath rushing out of you, but you filed the image away for a future discussion. It wasn’t something you had the capacity to consider now, not while you were currently waiting to see if you were about to become a mother.

The shrill noise from your phone that indicated the timer had run down made the two of you jump a foot in the air, and you looked to Toji with wide eyes.

“Take that one?” you offered, pointing with a trembling finger to the test that would answer with words versus a combination of lines, and Toji was suddenly very grateful he grabbed two different kinds at the store. While he knew he could squint at a test and convince himself that an extra line may or may not be visible, he was almost a hundred percent positive he wouldn’t suddenly become illiterate and unable to distinguish between “pregnant” and “not pregnant.”

He nodded, and at the same time, the two of you reached for each test on the counter and flipped them over close to your faces only for your jaws to drop simultaneously. You turned to each other, wide eyed and bewildered (as if you didn’t know what the two of you had been doing these last couple months) because “pregnant” and two dark lines could not be misunderstood.

You brought your free hand up to your mouth to cover it as unabashed laughter poured from your lips, and Toji wrapped his arms around your shoulders to yank you into his chest. Joy spurred him into kissing you deeply, and the pure love and elation in your eyes when you pulled back was enough for Toji to feel the first stirrings of excitement at the prospect of having a child with you.

It wasn’t until later in the night, in the dark of your shared bedroom with nothing but the evenness of your breathing to interrupt the noise in his head that Toji could admit to himself that the entirety of it terrified him.

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“That’s a baby?” Megumi’s voice was full of skepticism, and he eyed the ultrasound photo with disgruntled disbelief as you pointed at the grey and white blob in a sea of black.

“Yes, Megumi,” you giggled, smiling at Toji over the little boy’s shoulder as the three of you sat cuddled in your bed, “that’s your sibling. They are very small right now, but next time they’ll look bigger and more like a baby.”

He wasn’t appeased by your answer, and he crossed his arms with a little huff of disappointment that had Toji struggling to muffle his laughter. The two of you had just returned from your first doctor’s appointment and had decided to break the news to Megumi now that you had a picture to confirm it, and while he had taken it well, he clearly was expecting more.

“How long till it gets here?” he asked, glancing up at you, but Toji replied first.

“Doctor said January. You’re gonna have to be patient, Megs.” Toji grinned at his son, but Megumi looked even more unenthused than before and glowered at his father.

“Why’d you have to take so long to have a baby?” he muttered, and the words wiped the smile clean off Toji’s face as you shook with laughter. With a pained look on his face, Toji simply shoved a pillow playfully over Megumi’s head and tickled him in the ribs to distract him from the question at hand.

You used the opportunity to burrow under the blankets as your eyes began to grow heavy. Nausea, fatigue, and a general feeling of being unwell had plagued you from the moment the pregnancy test had turned positive, and you hoped an afternoon in bed and watching movies would offer a reprieve. You had just begun to drift off when you heard Megumi ask for Toji’s attention.

“Dad, where do babies come from?”

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“I don’t think there’s much in that book you have to worry about,” Toji told you on a night that found the two of you lounging in your room after Megumi went to sleep. He was lazily folding laundry from his perch at the foot of the bed. You were reclined back against the headboard with said book in your lap. One hand rested against the curve of your belly that had just started to protrude against the fabric of your clothes in the last week, and the other dog-eared every other page laden with information about pregnancy, childbirth, and newborns.

“Perhaps,” you said, setting the book down on your thighs, and the pointed look you gave him made it clear you didn’t feel the same, “but that’s easy for you to say—you’ve done this before.”

A harsh laugh fell from Toji’s mouth before he had a chance to stop it, and he tossed a bundle of socks in his hand at the tower he had made of his folded boxers. “Yeah, well, I wasn’t doing a very good job of it. We were barely surviving.”

He watched as the pile of fabric warbled upon impact, and just as it began to tilt, you shot your foot out to brace it in place. When Toji looked up at you, frustration didn’t furrow your brow or pinch your nose. Instead, your smile was gentle and understanding.

“I know,” you said, voice soft, and it carried an undercurrent of reassurance.

Toji released a deep breath and tilted up the scarred corner of his mouth in a way that he hoped looked contrite. He reached for the stack of his boxers and righted them so you could lower your leg back down. “I’m probably not the best person to get advice from anyway.”

You tilted your head to the right, perplexed by his unusual self-deprecation. “I wouldn’t say so.”

Toji just shrugged and continued fiddling with the last bits of laundry.

“Sure, you’re a little rough around the edges.”

“Can’t deny that,” he grumbled.

“You can be a bit grumpy sometimes, and you have a history of giving in to questionable decisions and habits.”

Toji shot you a withering look. “You really know how to kick a guy while he’s down.”

“And,” you emphasized, holding up your hand to indicate that you weren’t finished, “you have a really tragic backstory that just makes the whole thing sad.”

For once, Toji seemed to be struck speechless, stupefied by the bluntness of your words, and the bundle of socks he had been playing with rolled from his hand.

“But,” you said, “there’s no one else I’d rather be doing this with than you, Toji.” Your husband, who had clearly been a bit rankled by the conversation, melted. The tension released from his shoulders and the puckered set of his lips smoothed out into a dopey grin as his countenance perked up.

“I love you too,” he teased, his tone light and easy, “even if you are something else.”

You beamed at him as he got up to gather the laundry in his arms and set it in on the dresser in front of your bed, intending to deal with it tomorrow. He then flopped onto his stomach on the bed next to you, shaking the whole thing under his weight, and if the two of you hadn’t already thoroughly tested its limits, you’d worry about its ability to handle the size of him. The thought had your blood suddenly running hot and you rolled onto your side to nip at his ear when a different sensation in your lower half made you pause.

For the last two weeks you had been feeling the tiny bubbles in your stomach and knew that your baby had gotten big enough for you to begin to take notice of its movement. However, this was the first time it felt significant enough to be noticed from the outside. You returned to your position on your back and pressed your hand lightly into the skin under your belly button. Nothing happened for a minute, and just as you were ready to give up, you felt the faintest hiccup against your palm.

“Toji!” you blurted, and you urged yourself to stay still despite your excitement lest your little one move again and hide away.

“You going to insult me again?” Toji’s voice was muffled from where his face was mushed into his pillow.

“No,” you scoffed, wiggling your fingers at him even though he couldn’t see, “come here.” He groaned in protest but propped himself up on his elbows to shift onto his side nonetheless, and you snapped your hand out to grab his.

“What are you—,”

“Shh!” You didn’t bother explaining as you covered his hand with yours and settled it onto your belly where yours had just been. His jaw shut with an audible click. You watched Toji’s expression carefully as you waited for another burst of movement, and even though you knew this wasn’t a foreign experience to him like it was to you, overwhelming joy filled you to your depths when his eyes glossed over with wonder as his child wiggled against his palm. He was quick to gather you to his chest with the arm that wasn’t draped over your hip and you tucked your head under his chin in an attempt to snuggle as close to him as you could manage.

“Megumi’s going to get a kick out of that tomorrow—literally.” Toji’s voice was thick with emotion, as well as amusement at his own cleverness, and you swatted at his chest. But your laughter deceived you and Toji placed kisses all along the top of your head.

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Toji wondered if all the blood on the floor was retribution for the amount of it he had spilled in the years before. It pooled slowly, eating up the white of the tile and creeping closer until it stained the tip of his shoes. He was empty, void of anything really, and maybe this was the curse doomed to follow him. Loneliness, robbed of anyone precious to him, and instead of incandescent joy that should have taken over him at the sight of his newly born child, nothing except for seething rage and despair filled his mind. There was hatred for a family name that he had already tried to escape, a desire to soothe himself in all the previous vices that had once kept him occupied, and bewilderment that he was somehow in the same situation again.

It was all eerily similar, from the sudden rush of panicked movement in the room to the way he fell back into a cushioned chair, just barely conscious of the baby in his arms. The face of his late wife and yours flashed back and forth, superimposed onto each other as the two of you laid still with eyes closed and arms slackened at your sides. A shrill whine, a solid ringing filled his ears and silenced all other noise.

Not again. Not again, not again, not ag—,

Years of discipline kept Toji from jolting into wakefulness, but he did suck in a mouthful of air when his eyes opened and took in the darkness of your bedroom. He wasn’t trapped in the sterile four walls of a hospital room, nor was he struck numb by the darkness of your blood. Instead, sweat stuck the sheets to the skin of his back, and above him the fan you always insisted be on spun quickly. The thought of you had his hand clambering across to your side of the bed, but when all that met his fingers was the unusual coolness of your pillow, he lurched upwards, flipped on his bedside lamp, and searched the room.

Rationality told Toji that you were probably fine, that you were in the bathroom or the living room and would be back any second. Rationality would tell him that there wasn’t any need for him to seek you out and confirm you were alive with his own eyes. But adrenaline, a tragic memory, and the nausea simmering in his gut drove him from bed and onto his feet, clad only in his boxers.

Toji was still a bit disoriented from his nightmare, and he tried to be extra mindful of his heavy footfalls as he passed the door of Megumi’s room. As he neared the end of the hallway, he heard the faintest plink of metal against glass and the racing of his heart slowed at the sound before ultimately returning to normal when saw you in the kitchen.

Despite it being well into the middle of the night, you leaned back onto the kitchen counter with a bowl of cereal in your hands and a happy hum in the back of your throat. Your belly sat low between your hips, pulling taut the fabric of his shirt that served as your outfit of choice as of late, and the sight of it was a reminder that you were nearing the end of nine months now. Nervousness was a constant state Toji was in as your due date rapidly approached, and if he thought too hard about it, panic would shorten his breath and tunnel his vision, such as it was beginning to do in that moment. Thus, Toji wasn’t sure if he made a noise or if you just happened to notice him out of your peripheral vision when you turned your head to him, curiosity taking over your face.

“Did I wake you?” you whispered, spooning one last bite of cereal into your mouth before setting it into the sink behind you. Toji shook his head and padded over to your side. He dropped his head to rest his cheek on your hair and trailed a hand down your stomach to spread his palm over the front of it. Satisfaction coursed through his veins when you let out a happy, weary sigh and leaned into his chest to rest your weight against him.

Toji knew you were struggling. He knew your hips ached and it made walking a chore. He knew that your back only stopped hurting after he rubbed the muscles loose for half an hour and that everything including breathing had become difficult for you. The baby kicked you awake during the night, and if you weren’t tossing and turning in an attempt to get comfortable, you were up and going to the bathroom for the nth time. Toji did his best to dote on you in between his job, taking care of Megumi, and doing all the chores around the house. He certainly did want this to be all over for you so you could bask in the enjoyment of motherhood, but each day closer to your child’s birth spiked his anxiety exponentially higher, and he ashamedly wished he could ignore what was to come.

“Would you like to go back to bed?” he asked, taking a step backwards.

You nodded your head unwillingly. “I’m too uncomfortable to sleep right now. If I stay up and watch TV in bed will that bother you?”

“No,” he replied immediately, and Toji was secretly glad he wouldn’t have to stare up at a dark ceiling, too afraid to close his eyes when all he wanted to do was bask in the warmth of your body and the steady rise and fall of your chest.

The two of you made a slow walk back to your room, and Toji helped you into bed and shifted the pillows behind your back until you were as comfortable as can be in your given state. He scrubbed his hands over his face to rid his eyes of the tiredness that lingered behind them and then slid in next to you as you focused on flipping through channels on the TV. Toji snaked his right arm under the small of your back and wound his left across your lap so his hand could cup the side of your belly and then set the side of his face on the top of it. Your fingers came to scratch through his hair absentmindedly, and the relief that Toji felt from your touch and the quiet thump of your heart was nearly instantaneous.

As minutes ticked by and most of the lingering tension from his nightmare had subsided, Toji still found himself tapping against the side of your stomach and pushing his fingers against it in an effort to get his child to respond to him.

You reached an arm over his head to prod at the center of your belly yourself. “He’s been wiggling around a bunch throughout the day, but he might be right about here…” you trailed off just in time for Toji to feel a quick bump under his cheek.

“I think you meant ‘she,’ isn’t that right?” he said with a smile. Only one of you was to be right about who your child was destined to be, but neither would know until they came out to meet you.

“No, ‘he’ was correct, thank you very much.” Affection warmed his body and Toji pressed his fingers back into your skin so he could feel the movement again. The baby reciprocated his touch each time until Toji finally relented and figured you’d appreciate the break from being repeatedly poked and prodded. Your palm drifted down to cup his jaw and the swiping of your thumb over it was enough to lull him into the beginnings of sleep. He snuggled a bit closer into your side and let out a great exhale, recalling how you had once made a comment likening him to a large, lounging dog. Toji supposed he could understand what you meant. Really, at the end of the day, all he wanted to do was cling close to you and bask in the pleasure of your touch.

While Toji knew that no amount of time he spent listening to your heartbeat or prompting his child into movement would prevent a cruel fate from bestowing you both should it be decided, he would let himself pretend if it meant keeping himself together enough to see it through.

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

As a surprise to no one at all, childbirth was just as nerve wracking for Toji the second time around as it was the first.

It didn’t help that he had been on pins and needles since your due date had come and gone, so when you stumbled out of bed and into the living room on the morning of the third day passed, your hand clutching your stomach and a harrowed expression on your face, Toji was coiled tight enough that he sprung into movement. He flung Megumi over his shoulder and was across the room at the same moment to grab the bags you kept at the ready by the front door. By the time you walked out, teetering between amusement at how your husband scurried about and uneasiness at the thought of what was about to happen to your body, Toji already had the car loaded and turned on. A few minutes later, you almost felt bad for Megumi when Toji stopped outside the Itadori’s house to practically throw him at Yuji’s dad—followed by his overnight bag—had the boy not already been hollering to his best friend about how he was about to get a new baby sibling.

At the hospital, the terrible familiarity of the beige walls and speckled tile had Toji desperate to pace the room at how trapped he felt, but the desire to stay put next to your bedside and keep your hand in his won out. Labor could take hours, that he knew, and Toji spent every moment of it cycling his eyes between the baby’s heart monitor, your face, and the clock on the wall. Each time your expression would twist into a pained grimace, your hand would crush his and a potent cocktail of adrenaline, fear, and anticipation would send his heart racing.

When the day turned into evening, just an hour before midnight, a doctor placed Toji Fushiguro’s second son onto your bare chest, much to his shock and delight. The noise in the room threatened to overwhelm him—the excited exclamations of the nurses, your panted gasps, the shrill crying of a newborn baby--but Toji wouldn’t let anything tear his focus from you. He stared at how wisps of your hair stuck to your temples in sweat, the red of your cheeks, how your eyes were full of tears and wonder and flicked back and forth between him and your child. Toji knew (how he wished he didn’t) that you could be fine in one instant and dead in the next, but for every minute that passed where you still breathed and your heart kept beating, he could feel the fear slowly trickle from his body.

Once he was an hour old, Toji held his son for the first time as he sat next to you on your hospital bed. The baby had your nose and tufts of hair the same color as yours, and Toji realized with a sudden pain in his chest that he didn’t remember Megumi in his first couple hours. He couldn’t recall what it felt like to hold him for the first time, nor did he know how much he weighed just after birth. All the tiny details he assumed every parent would remember until the end of their days was overshadowed by a curtain of devastation, the death of his wife wiping it clean from his memory.

So this time, when the room was quiet and he had you leaning against him, he studied every part of his newborn with rapt attention, determined to commit every detail to perfect recollection. And unlike before, in a moment he’ll always mourn, Toji felt peace and quiet and something indescribably blissful.

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

It wasn’t so much that Toji forgot what it was like to have a newborn so much as he had completely blocked what could be considered some of the worst days of his life from his memory. He had been too sleep deprived to even properly grieve his wife and utterly shell shocked at the prospect of now being a widower and single dad. There had been no one to help, no one to encourage him when Megumi cried for two hours straight in the dead of night for a reason Toji couldn’t begin to figure out, no one to help him plan for a couple months down the line when his savings inevitably ran out and he’d have to figure out a safe, legal plan for employment or consider the risk of something illegal since it paid better.

Yet two weeks into it, when Toji was just starting to discern the difference between Megumi’s wails of hunger and those of exhaustion, someone knocked on his door. He grumbled the whole way down the hall in fear that the sound would wake the baby he had just spent the last hour putting down, and also because he couldn’t remember the last time he had eaten or let alone brushed his teeth. So, Toji figured he looked worse for wear when he swung the door open and glared at the man on the other side of it. He was middle aged and wore dark clothing and an even darker pair of sunglasses. He claimed he was an instructor at a school in the city and came to find him out when he heard that rumors began to swirl of Toji Zenin having a son. Toji had spat at him, snarling and enraged and cursing his old last name with vehemence, and he was all too ready to come to physical blows had his son not been sleeping just a few yards away. In the end, the man had just smiled and extended his hand with the promise of a job and to call him the next day. Toji had been wary, but he knew that pickiness wasn’t a luxury he could afford, and appeared at the gates of the school a week later with Megumi strapped to his chest.

Things were a bit different now, that at least Toji could acknowledge, and the heavy exhaustion that threatened to wrench his eyes shut and made his hands clumsy as he refilled your water bottle didn’t feel so catastrophic this time around. He squinted at the clock on the wall and sighed wearily when he realized the night wasn’t yet halfway over and the two of you were already up for the sixth time. Five day old newborns apparently would wake up and eat more frequently than he could remember, and each and every time he insisted on getting up with you to tend to any needs you had while ensuring his son got the meal he demanded. With an extra snack in hand and a full bottle of water, Toji shuffled back to your shared bedroom and quietly closed the door behind him.

“You fall asleep standing up at the counter again?” Your voice broke the silence and got a chuckle out of him as he fell onto the bed in a heap by your side.

“Something like that,” he muttered, but thankfully you didn’t pry and instead gave him a grateful smile when he unwrapped your granola bar and held it up to your mouth since your hands were preoccupied with holding the infant to your chest. You munched on it slowly, and in between bites you would settle your head back against the pillows and let your eyes flutter shut, trusting your husband to keep a dutiful watch on the two of you. Toji moved closer to you so he could gently rest his head against your shoulder and peered down at his son as he got his fill of milk. He rubbed a tiny foot in between his thumb and forefinger and grinned at the soft suckling noises he made, amazed at how differently things felt this time. Toji was stunned at how having a new child felt so much like the first time since he could actually slow down to process it all now. Maybe this time, when history didn’t repeat himself and he was at home with the people he loved, contentment would allow the memories to stay.

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

It happened for the first time three weeks after your son was born.

That particular Saturday was dreary and wet, but it made for a cozy atmosphere as the four of you lounged about after a late morning breakfast. Toji was putting away the last remaining dishes. The TV played a vintage cartoon on low volume and Megumi sat on the floor in front of your feet as he colored quietly in his notebook. You sat curled up in the corner of the sofa with your newborn nestled in the crook of your arm, and you watched him, utterly transfixed. As he slept, his nose would twitch and his bottom lip would jut forward. Every once and a while, a dainty grunt would escape his mouth and he would squirm and stretch and whimper just a little before going still again as he drifted back into deeper sleep. He let out a yawn that seemed to take over his entire little body, and in the next moment he was blinking up at you with unfocused eyes as his lips smacked together once or twice. The sight of it made your heart feel as though it could burst, and you wiggled your finger into his clenched hand just to feel him hold onto it.

“Oh, hey, his eyes are open.” Toji’s voice caught you unaware, and you jolted a little at the suddenness of it. You glanced up at your husband from where he leaned against the arm of the couch to your right, and there was a soft smile on his face as he traced a finger gently down the apple of the baby’s cheek. The newborn’s eyes couldn’t hardly focus on his father’s face from how far it was, but it certainly seemed like he looked for Toji in the moment before his lashes fluttered and his eyes slid shut.

Toji drank in the sight of you two. There was a blissful glow to your features that couldn’t be missed, even through the signs of exhaustion that still lingered from another night of caring for a new baby. You barely paid him any mind as you smoothed your palm over the wispy hairs on your son’s head, and Toji decided that he would give you another couple minutes before gently urging you to take some time away to shower and do your morning routine should you feel like it. He pushed himself off the arm of the couch and made a move to step around it and sit down when Megumi spoke up from the floor.

“Mama?”

Megumi’s voice was barely above a whisper, and it was heartbreakingly timid. The single word punched all the air from Toji’s lungs and he stumbled mid-stride, just barely steading himself lest he land in a heap on top of his eldest son. Megumi didn’t move from where he was hunched over his notebook, still coloring carefully onto the paper, but Toji could see the burning red of his ears and how his eyes flicked back to take stock of your reactions before they went back to what was in front of him.

When Toji whipped his head towards you, you were already looking up at him with a wide, helpless expression. You had never once pushed passed a boundary Toji had yet to lift when it came to how you handled your roll as Megumi’s stepmother, and he could see from the way your eyes searched his that you were waiting for his guidance, his acquiescence before you dared to respond back to the little boy who had just referred to you as his mother despite you technically not being such.

To Toji’s endless gratitude, you had always treated his late wife with the utmost respect. While you almost always fielded Megumi’s questions about her to Toji, you didn’t hesitate to pull out photos of her when he asked, nor had you ever tried to erase her significance as Megumi’s mother over the time in which you had become a part of their family.

However, as Toji had come to acknowledge, there was no denying that Megumi had come to see you in that way. Not so much as the woman who had birthed him (Toji had explained that to him in child-friendly terms) but in every other way a mother would be seen. Megumi had no tangible connection to his late wife, no emotional attachment to the idea of her that Toji hoped one day would blossom as understanding matured in his mind, but to hold that expectation to him now wasn’t fair. Toji knew, as you looked at his son with tears of adoration and love in your eyes, that you had been making space for Megumi in your heart for a very long time in preparation for this possible moment, and he figured that having the love of a mother in the land of the living didn’t take away from the one now gone.

If nothing else, he supposed that Megumi would catch onto your shared habit eventually. Frequently did you and Toji refer to yourself as such when tending to the new little one.

“Shhh, Mama’s here,” you’d murmur when he wailed out his discomfort while the four of you watched TV in the early afternoon.

“Mama’s comin’, kid, I promise,” Toji would say when the baby would nuzzle into his chest in a search for milk when he and Megumi sat together on your bed while you showered at the end of the day.

So Toji swept a hand along your shoulder, capturing your attention, and his quivering smile paired well with the tear that trickled down your cheek when he nodded at you. Your hand swiped away the moisture from your skin and you cleared your throat.

“Yes, Megumi?” Your voice sounded a little thick and wet, but the boy spun around in astonished elation nonetheless, and his smile was so wide that Toji wondered if it stung the skin at all. Megumi jumped up to his feet but very cautiously approached you until he could rest his hands on your knees and stand on his tiptoes to try and look up at his baby brother.

“Mama, can I hold him?” You giggled and nodded as you reached out your hand to caress Megumi’s chin, and he squirmed where he stood as excitement made him antsy.

“Of course,” you told him. “Come sit next to me and your dad will sit on the other side to help you.” Toji felt his heart expand further than he thought possible when the two of you turned towards him with loving, expectant looks that spurred him into movement.

“Up you go, Megs,” he said, lifting his son up from under his arms so he could plop him down on the cushion next to you before taking a seat himself. He threw an arm along the back of the sofa so he could scootch in closer to you three. Once Megumi situated himself, you slowly transferred the sleeping infant to lay him in his brother’s lap, and Toji was there waiting with an open hand to help cup his head and neck.

“He’s still so small,” Megumi said quietly—wondrously—but you and Toji laughed at how the baby was still too big for Megumi to fully cradle in his arms.

“Don’t worry,” you said, “he’ll grow big before you know it, and then he’ll be ready to play all day with you.” Megumi offered you a small smile in response before he settled back to watching his little brother snooze in his arms. You propped your elbow on the back of the sofa so you could lean your head into your hand, and Toji stretched his fingers to swirl them against your arm. Your eyes met, still glimmering with the last remnants of joyful tears, and Toji was nearly overwhelmed by a surge of emotion as he took in the little family that the four of you made.

Fear had once hung like a heavy shadow over his hope for an idyllic future and his ability to experience it. Your smile and the small hands of his children were there to whisk it away.

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

A little bonus:

Three years after the birth of your son, a daughter made her appearance nearly two weeks early, thrilling her eagerly awaiting older brothers. For all the work you did, she came out a near exact copy of her father, and Toji had no problem letting you know how proud he was about it as you laid propped up next to him in your hospital bed.

“I’m telling you, there was a hint of green in them!”

You rolled your eyes playfully as you watched Toji recline your daughter against his knees with her head cradled in his palms so you could both gaze at her, and she looked positively tiny in the breadth of his hands.

“You know a baby’s eye color might shift from what it was at birth once they get a bit older. We can’t know for certain yet.”

The words seemed to have no effect on your husband, and he simply dropped a kiss to your temple and murmured a soft “we’ll see,” into your ear.

(To your surprise—and secret delight—Toji was right.)

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

Again, thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone who took the time to read this<3 I really just love giving tortured characters soft, happy endings, so I hope you enjoyed this endless rambling of fluffy fluff.

#toji fushiguro #toji x you #toji x reader #toji fushiguro x you #toji fushiguro x reader #jujustu kaisen #jujutsu kaisen x you #jujutsu kaisen x reader #jjk #jjk x reader #jjk x you

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mailontumb · 2 months ago

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Yo. Clownzy fanfic down here. vvvvv

AN: I wanted to revisit my favorite ship and guess what? It still is.

Dear Diary,

'7:00 am, wake up, get ready, eat breakfast and walk to school with Parker aka RekRap. That was my regular ol' routine until... A family moved in next door, at first I was pissed off. Some random family moving into my grandma's old house. How dare they, am I right?... My mom told me to suck it up and meet the new neighbors,

Mr and Mrs Pierce, I didn't care about them until Mrs Pierce introduced me to his son. Cereza Peirce. He said to just call him Clown. What a weird nickname. I befriended him and well. He was hella cool lots of common interests too!... Heck even rek like him saying "oh yea he's totally chill and cool" hah! And just like that we started to hang out. And suddenly our duo.. became a trio! It was fun ..it was amazing to say the least.

I wouldn't say it was all fun because not long after rek was moving away. I was SHATTERED to bits. Rek my best friend since we were in diapers will be gone. There is nothing much we can do, I know it's a new chapter for us both but I feel empty nothing inside of me wants to accept it but at last me and clown had to say our goodbye. And with that he is now gone.

I was so depressed. Everything felt empty from texting to talking to even hanging out with clown. No one was there to make fun of me when I almost tripped on the bridge at the pond. No one was there to...laugh when an apple would fall in clown's head. I was in pieces matter of fact I wouldn't have been here if it weren't for clown. Clown was there to make sure I was safe and healthy, he was there when the time was rough. I love him. And that's why we started dating. I was so happy I felt happiness once more. Me and gim dated for so LOOOOOONG. HAH! I didn't even know what love felt like until I dated him. Thank you Clown.

One day as I was getting ready for my date with clown I heard a knock, thinking it was clown I opened the door and BOOM! A bunch of confetti just came out of no where, "SURPRISED!" I heard 2 voices. 1 was clown. And one was....REK! HE MOVED BACK! That rascal didn't tell me anything! How dare he! Immediately he said congratulations on me dating Clown, he then said "finally omg I was waiting for a looking time yk!" What? Turned out he knew ever since day 1. Matter of fact, he encourages clown to tell his feelings to me, rek even gave a bunch of dating advice to clown hah! No wonder clown knew my flower without me saying it!

That feeling, of happiness and more once filled me again. I was so excited I asked clown if we could turn our date into a hang out, He was planning to do this so yea me , rek and clown hang out once more, it felt so nostalgic. I feel so happy and grateful they are here, I'm happy we stayed together... And I appreciate we are still here today on my wedding day. Thank you guys'

-Signed BranzyCraft

BRANZY QUICK! We're gonna be the late one again!

ahh wait I need to store this somewhere!

PUT IT IN YOUR POCKET! We DON'T want to be the one walking down the aisle. That's Clown's job, and you know how he is with plans.

Oh stop it! I'm coming alright!

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

Wow. This is the most beautiful day of my life...

Didn't you say it was the time you killed the ender dragon solo?

Shut up! Oh! He's here..

Hey there handsome.

Hai beautiful.

You look so silly...

That's the most random compliment you have ever given me.

Want me to take it back?

No! No! Hehehe

Shut up you two! The marriagal person is about to talk!

Marriagal person?? *Both giggles*

Oh Rek.

I do

I do too

Here are the rings!

Rek! I just wanted to say thank you for helping me, this wouldn't happen without you!

Hey don't thank me! Thank your parents for pushing you to talk to him!

And your good looks.

H-hey enough!

Aw did I fluster you?

It's weird seeing you smile a lot...

Love ya too.

Aww you too! NOW LET'S PAAAARTYYYYYYY

The end

Oh here is a song to listen to while reading this

#mcyt #lifesteal #lifesteal smp #clownzy #clownpierce #rekrap #branzycraft #clownxbranzy #branzypierce #ship #fanfic #Spotify

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redsrooftopprincess · 7 months ago

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Pumpkin Sugar (Part 1)

Raphael x GN!Reader - Established Relationship

Part 1 . Part 2 . Part 3 . Part 4 . Epilogue (🌶️ Fem!Reader)

Based on this ask by @gornackeaterofworlds

More of a question to expand on than a detailed request, but would raph help a teacher reader grade papers?? Would he get invested in gossip on the kids??

I was zoning out and somehow thought about elementary school teacher readers, coming back to the lair with papers to grade, Donnie getting angry over the lesson plans you have to use, etc. And then, like always, raph thoughts(I am unbelievably gushy to raph x lil sweet cheery readers) Being oh so sleepy tired but still having work to do. Grading papers, getting activities printed and cut, weekly plans. I'd like to imagine he helps to get you to sleep faster, all the while listening to the venty yapping about which kids are troublemakers

Hi gornack! I hope you are feeling well. ♥️

Sorry this took so long. I want you to know that this started out as a simple fluffy fic, but Red disagreed. He wanted to make you smile.

I'm going to be splitting this into 4 parts (+ an epilogue) to make it easier to read because I accidentally went over the character limit in my notes app *twice*. I wasn't aware you could accidentally write a whole ass fic, but here we are. 😅

Special thanks to @the-cauldron-witch . The best brainstorming buddy I could honestly ask for. Could not have written this without you. 😁

"Come on, babe, please?"

You sigh, whining, "Raph..."

"I gotta head out early, you'll be asleep by the time I get back," he pleaded. He was only working a half night, but he had to leave right at sunset and head across town, so he wouldn't be home until well after 1:00 am, and you had school in the morning.

It had been a long day, and it still wasn't over yet.

You really did like your job. The kids were great, even when they misbehaved it wasn't their fault. There were just too many of them and not enough of you. You couldn't watch everybody all the time, but you still had to try. Third grade was a lot. Especially when you were managing 27 kids (you're grateful, you have colleagues managing 40+, and it's a fucking zoo).

Still, you tried to make things fun for them. Halloween is tomorrow, and you don't want to do the traditional boring "spooky" theme. So, you've decided to teach an entire class of 8-9 year olds a little bit about applied chemistry.

You were actually really excited! You'd picked up a bunch of foam pumpkins at the dollar store, which were currently being dragged in a cart behind you. You were planning on carving them into jack o'lanterns and teaching the kids how to make elephant toothpaste to ooze out of the holes. It's was going to be the most beautiful chaos, and with any luck, a memorable experience.

There was only one problem, you'd been dealing with meetings and trainings all week and unable to actually carve the damn pumpkins. Today there was an outage in part of the building, so you had to wait two hours to use the one copier available, and by the time you walked out you had zero gas left in the tank. You wanted to go home and finish your work so you could go to bed.

You reach the top of the stairs, exiting the subway at street level. The lair is literally in the opposite direction. You look south, towards your apartment.

"Please?" He asks again, his voice softening. You haven't seen him in days and you can hear in his voice that it's taking as much of a toll on him as it is you. "I'll help you with your school shit, whatever, I just... I gotta see you. Please?"

You sigh and turn around, heading north. You miss him, too.

...

He meets you at the door to the elevator, and despite your exhaustion, you can't help but smile. He had that effect. Comfort, safety, peace, love... Raphael is Home. And the moment you step inside his arms all of your tension melts away. Almost.

He picks you up in his arms and squeezes you tightly, swinging you gently back and forth as he buries his nose in your hair. He breathes you in and grins, chuckling quietly as you squeeze him back and press your face against his neck.

"What're you laughing at?" you ask, suspicious. He was way more... something... than normal... you're not entirely sure what. You raise your head with your eyes narrowed.

"Nothin'," he says, kissing you sweetly, "just happy to see you." Your eyes narrow further, but this seems to satisfy you. You kick your legs and whine and he sets you down.

Picking up the crate and carrying it casually under one arm (though, to be fair, the pumpkins are made of foam), he gestures you first into the elevator and follows behind. He takes your hand pretty much immediately, "So what're we working on?"

"Pumpkins," you sigh.

He waits a beat. Then another. "Okay... You gonna give me more than that, or..." He smirks down at you, laughing. He can't help it.

"Yeah, sorry," you laugh, "rough week." You shake your head, before looking up at him, "carving, specifically."

"Shit, why didn't you say so? I could've done the whole thing for you!" He laughs as you exit the elevator into the lower garage.

Donnie's working on the truck and you wave at him as you pass by. He gives you a bright smile and your suspicion grows. He's a bit too cheery for being elbow deep in his latest mechanical mess.

You make it to the living room and start unpacking everything. Foam pumpkins, sharpies, exacto knives, "that should be everything," you say, grabbing a gourd and sitting down on the couch. You tuck your legs up under you as Raph walks by behind, leaning down to kiss you on his way to the other side.

He only has about an hour before he needs to leave, but he spends it cuddled up next to you quietly carving pumpkins, an activity which he actually enjoys. All too soon, he's called away to his duties.

With a lingering kiss that leaves you missing him already, he's gone, and you're left with... so much work.

...

The pumpkins are taking longer than expected, and by midnight you're still not done. Mostly because, for a teacher, you really suck at learning your lesson, and you waited until the last minute. Again. And you didn't ask your boyfriend for help once you realized it was too much. Again.

Honestly, one word and he could have had this solved for you. You look over at your annual Family Pumpkin Carving Competition entries. Raph was no longer allowed to enter the contest because it wasn't fair. But he still did one because he enjoyed it. This year, it seems, he was feeling romantic.

It was a MASSIVE pumpkin almost to your shoulder. You have no idea how he even got it down here. Inside was a small table with several electric candles, illuminating the ballroom scene from Beauty and the Beast.

You set down the half-carved jack o' lantern, and sigh heavily, rubbing your eyes. You lean back on the couch, tucking your feet under you. You're just going to shut your eyes for a few seconds. You know that people always say that and they end up just falling asleep, but you really actually mean it, you'll close your eyes for a few minutes and then get back to work.

....

Tag list

@thelaundrybitch @the-cauldron-witch @fyreball66 @ninnosaurus @tmntngl @thegirlwiththeninjaturtletattoos @zagreustomb @ramielll @silverwatergalaxy @gornackeaterofworlds @footninja @daedric-sorceress @sophiacloud28 @iridescentflamingo

...

Part 1 . Part 2 . Part 3 . Part 4 . Epilogue (🌶️ Fem!Reader)

#bayverse raphael #raphael x reader #tmnt raphael #tmnt #bayverse raphael x reader #raph x reader #tmnt raphael x reader #tmnt bayverse #teenage mutant ninja turtles

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cattimeswithjellie · 11 months ago

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Stream Recap, ZombieCleo, 6/09/24

((Since the first few of these I did seem to be going over well so far, I'm doing some more and we'll see how it goes. I am going to call them Recaps from now on though, because in almost every case I'm working off the VOD, pausing, going back to figure out who said and did what, etc. This Recap is from Cleo's Twitch VOD for Sunday, 6/09. I watched the stream live but parts of it were moving much too fast to note down accurately!))

0:00 Cleo goes live. She is on the Hermitcraft server, in the front yard of her base. She says hello to everyone, especially the weirdos in chat. She realizes the chat has been left in emote-only mode and turns them back on. She tells Chat she has just gone through her mail and there is a lot of it. She got two horn-of-the-month club deliveries at once, and she needs to meet with Joel about armor stand work. She has a sand and gravel coupon and a Mission Possible mission, so much to do!

1:40 Cleo goes into the house, warning Chat as she goes that she has “lored” in here. There are eight books she has written just for this room, all for the lore. She goes back outside and spots Cakebot on the roof, then laughs about how she always sees the bot and, thanks to the long distance and long nametag, thinks it’s Scar sneaking up on her.

2:40 Time to get started! Cleo shows off the Tower, which needs to be dug out into a tower base. They say they are actually working today which doesn’t happen often, especially this past week or two. Cleo has been too sick to reasonably work and so has been taking a sensible rest. A chatter asks if Cleo is going to die today. Cleo says they are feeling better, somewhat, and not going to die. The cats are fighting in the background.

4:20 A chatter asks why their message was deleted. Cleo tells them to read the rules. She greets Cam the mod.

5:30 A chatter engages Cleowo mode. Cleowo interacts with the chat and thanks subs. Today is the first day Cleo has been feeling well enough to go outside in awhile. She quotes The Little Mermaid as a prose poem. The Little Mermaid was the first movie Cleo got to watch in the cinema, and that’s how old she is. A chatter plays a spicy jelly bean. Cleo says they also moved into the new office, which is mostly clean and painted and pretty.

7:45 Cleo leaves to get tissues and wishes everyone a happy Pride. She needs birch wood for the build and goes to find it in the basement. Cleowo mode ends. She thanks subs and donos as she navigates through her base.

9:20 Back at the tower build, Cleo needs to figure out something to do with the roof. They contemplate maybe blocking it off entirely. Chat is trying to remember their first Disney movies. Cleo assures them that this is not a quiz and they don’t need to remember or share that information. ((For the record: the animated The Little Mermaid released in the UK in October 1990. This probably makes Cleo slightly younger than the livestreamer, whose first Disney theater experience was Who Framed Roger Rabbit.))

10:30 A chatter asks if this will be on the test next week. Cleo adopts an extremely ominous voice to reply that nothing will be on the test next week because “NEXT WEEK DOESN’T EXIST!… because it’s an abstract concept.” A chatter plays a cheerful musical sting that makes the whole thing sound like the last punchline in a sitcom.

10:40 A chatter says they will not disclose their first movie because they are too old. Cleo says they are not going to force anyone to disclose anything in chat, movie telling is not mandatory. Everyone is cool here, no narcs allowed in the chat. The mod reminds Chat not to get specific about ages. Cleo agrees and promises that one of these days she will remember to support the mods on that issue, but possibly not soon. Cleo lines up a zinger on herself, delivers it, says that was mean and blames chat for it.

12:00 Back to design talk. Chat continues talking about movies and theatrical productions. Cleo removes most of the mangrove from inside the tower in order to replace it with sandstone. She agrees that the Lion King musical is great and reminds Chat that she is very tired. Being sarcastic all the time can be a problem for her because people don’t always understand it and can become offended very quickly. Chat likes that Cleo is sarcastic. Cleo points out that the people who do get offended tend to leave and then badmouth her on the internet. Her first inclination is to ask them to come back, but then she realizes they would not do well in her chat anyway and so she doesn’t care very much.

15:00 Cleo tells a story of someone who didn’t understand their sarcasm, who got very offended when they said Cleo was wonderful and she replied “I know.” Chat is definitely on Cleo’s side for this one. A chatter says content creators don’t owe the attention of sub thanks to their audience, but Cleo believes that it is important to thank donos and subs, though sometimes she does miss things. She says she is known for being a screwup, even as she misjudges the blocks she is placing for her new wall. She sighs.

17:00 A chatter asks if Cleo is doing anything for Pride. They answer that they do not like in-person events because they are not good with large groups of people, but does participate in Pride things online. Being a member of the community, they feel, gives them a pass on having to do too much stuff. Cleo did enjoy MCC Pride. The tower area is clean now, but needs shaping and a couple of floors.

19:00 Cleo organizes her inventory for building. She has a lot of stuff she doesn’t want or need. She finds sixteen anvils and wonders sarcastically where those could have come from. She needs spruce but doesn’t think she has any. A chatter asks why she doesn’t use background music. Cleo explains that she has an Epidemic Music license for her main channel but not one for the VODs channel where this will be uploaded, and YouTube Music has neither sufficient music nor a good player. Other solutions for royalty-free music has gotten streams muted in the past because of YouTube’s overenthusiastic AI. They tell chat that if Chat has any good suggestions, they are listening. A chatter suggests using the Hotdogs on Your Face song exclusively, but Cleo jokingly claims not to have enough cards for that. Cleo has forgotten what they are doing.

23:50 Cleo thanks the subs. She remembers that she was putting in floors. A chatter plays the Hotdogs On Your Face song. Cleo is now hyperaware of the lack of background music. She says that she is not going to upload this VOD, so she will see about doing some Epidemic music. She asks chat for what genre they want. Suggestions include “Silence,” “Lofi,” “Elevator Muzak,” and “Jazzercise.” She chooses “beach destination chill.” A chatter plays “Hug a Creeper.” Cleo says they’ll get there. A chatter asks Cleo to give some building techniques. Cleo suggests making a build more interesting by starting with a basic structure and then adding purpose-based additions. That is the easiest advice they can give, they are all tapped out for building advice. The chatter admits they were hoping to get some building skill through osmosis. Cleo sadly informs them that she has tried the same thing many times by sitting next to other hermits, but it does not work.

26:30 Cleo goes back to assembling supplies. Pixlriffs raids into the stream. Cleo welcomes the raiders and tells them that in this stream they are being obnoxious and facetious and other ous words. A chatter comments “So a normal Cleo stream?” and they respond “No, this one’s got music in.” They try to build a staircase in the tower and decide a ladder is a much better choice for the space involved. Pix’s chat tell Cleo that Pix was playing Elden Ring, a game Cleo knows nothing about. She hopes they had a fun time.

28:00 Etho is mentioned in chat (due to the “Ladders” nickname and his love of ladders). Cleo tells the chat she didn’t know about the ladders thing for a long time after meeting Etho. She didn’t know Etho before Hermitcraft and thus is much less in awe of him than folks who literally grew up watching his videos. She is aggressively _not_ an Etho fangirl. A chatter says they heard he was washed up. Cleo laughs and jokes that he washes up for supper sometimes. Chat is very enthusiastic about Etho, trying to counter Cleo’s amused dismissiveness with a list of Etho accomplishments. This is difficult because Cleo is not an Etho viewer and does not do redstone and is thus unimpressed by the Etho Hopper Clock.

30:00 Cleo decides to create a secret room to avoid having to deal with the unusually-shaped space at the edge of her base, while simultaneously trying to convince Chat that Etho is Just Some Dude. Chat is having none of it. Chat is also very in favor of Etho and Cleo as a Life Series comedic duo. A chatter mentions that Impulse also has a common redstone device named after him, the sorting system. Cleo declares this fact “cool” and reiterates that the things they know about the Hermits could fill a very small book, or maybe a pamphlet.

32:00 Cleo thanks the donos and subs, and makes a few more Etho jokes. They work on coming up with a design for the entrance to the secret room. Chat is still in Etho-mode and suggests maybe Cleo is secretly obssessed with Etho. Cleo points out that they didn’t even bring Etho up, only responded to Chat bringing him up in the first place. She assures Chat her days of not taking Chat seriously are coming to a middle. She blames Chat fully for this.

35:00 Cleo mentions new TCG cards are coming. Two of Cleo’s cards are already done and they are very good! A chatter activates Hydration time and everyone has a drink. Another chatter asks why Etho fans are here and not on Etho’s stream. Cleo laughs and asks why Etho fans are so obsessed with her. A chatter activates Posture Check Time. Cleo’s TCG cards are always good because they choose amazing artists, but they will not say too much so as not to give anything away.

37:30 A chatter asks how Cleo is feeling after Doc’s pigicide. Cleo answers “Litigious.” The tower elevator is coming together and needs signage. A chatter asks what her favorite minigame is, besides Decked Out. Cleo points out that they do not play very many minigames so don’t really have a favorite. They put signs in the elevator shaft to hold back the water.

40:00 A chatter asks what kinds of builds and genres Cleo would like to try in the future. Cleo says she mostly just builds what she is feeling at the time and doesn’t care too much about overarching themes or what other people think about it. She begins filling the elevator with water source blocks. A chatter says the build reminds them of the Owl House. Cleo does not know what the Owl House is.

42:00 Xisuma joins the server, says hello via in-game chat, and asks what Cleo is up to. Cleo tells Xisuma she is finishing her builds before Thursday, then explains to Chat that Things are happening on Thursday. Xisuma asks Cleo if Thursday is a secret. Cleo is not sure but says the details are probably a secret. Chat suspects that it is either a court case or base tours. Xisuma asks if Cleo needs anything, but they reply they are nearly ready and just have to finish building.

44:20 A chatter say that it is not difficult to guess what is happening, Cleo invites them to actually guess, if it is so easy. She says no special guests and no court case is happening, just Hermits doing Hermit stuff. A chatter says Joe mentioned base tours after the Hermitcraft meeting. Another chatter guesses update day, but Cleo explains that only Xisuma cares about update day. Xisuma messages again to offer wood and Cleo asks for spruce for the floors.

46:30 Cleo finishes the elevator and jumps down for more supplies. A chatter plays the Feral Ghoul sound from Fallout and startles her. Cub logs onto the server and exchanges greetings.

47:30 Cleo says there are a lot of things that need to be figured out right now, like whether a particle effect from ender chests goes through slabs. They currently have a floor that seems to consist of dark gray wool, carpets, and ender chests. Cleo takes up some of the wool and carpet and begins placing slabs over the chests. The answer appears to be “kind of.” A few particles are making their way through the wood slabs. A chatter who is the maker of the Armor Poser mod proudly announces that the mod is ready for 1.21 and hopes Cleo is excited. Cleo congratulates them and endorses the mod to Chat but says she has no input on when the Hermitcraft server will actually update. Chat notices that Cleo has not confirmed or denied base tours as a possibility. Cleo says they can see why chat might think that and continues not to confirm or deny. Xisuma drops off some spruce and flies away like the Lumber Fairy. Cleo declares that X is the best and has forgotten again what she is doing. A chatter plays Sour Jellybean.

50:40 Cleo remembers it is time to Hug a Creeper. They set spawn and fly into the air, falling from a high place. They collect up their bits while gloating about being able to legally claim sour jellybeans as a business expense. Pearl signs on to the server

51:50 Cleo responds to a chat suggestion that trapdoors might let in more particles than slabs do. They make a bunch of spruce trapdoors from some of Xisuma’s logs and place some of them down, but it’s hard to see the particles in the current testing area. Cleo begins picking up the floor to move elsewhere and mentions receiving a troubling message from Pearl in the mail. She flies down to her mailbox and shows the large quantity of mail parcels she talked about at the beginning of the stream, including one that contains a single block of purpur and requests that Hermits buy more purpur from Pearl. Cleo confesses that she doesn’t like purpur at all but feels like she should maybe buy some from Pearl anyway as she clearly seems to be suffering. Chat somerwhat incoherently tries to inform Cleo that the parcel is from Joel, who lost a bet with Pearl and was forced to advertise the Purr-Purr shop and raise sales for Pearl. Cleo eventually parses what Chat is trying to say and is no longer concerned about Pearl’s message.

55:00 Cleo goes back to picking up the trial floor from the wizard tower. Pearl writes in the in-game chat that Chat has been losing her sales since 2024. Cleo tells her that purpur is gross, but because it is Pearl selling it, they will buy some. Cleo likes the look of spruce trapdoors over ender chests and decides to buy purpur in celebration. Chat asks what time it is for Pearl. Cleo believes it’s around 6am, Pearl-time. Pearl says she has a minigame to build. Cleo tries to convince her she does not have to build minigames at 6am.

57:10 Cleo arrives at the purr-purr bus and admires the new dumpster, saying it’s a good addition. She doesn’t really understand how Iskall can hate diorite so much when purpur exists and is a much better target. They shake their head over the prices in the shop but buy a bunch of chorus fruit to make end rods, plus some end stone. According to Cleo, buying purpur-adjacent things definitely counts as supporting the shop. Pearl is grateful. Cleo says that Pearl is undercharging and pays extra for all the chorus fruit. As Cleo flies away she notes that between herself and Cub, they have most of the server’s money right now.

59:30 A chatter asks what the bottom half of the vTuber looks like. Cleo adjusts their stream position to make the entire vTuber figure visible. Chat is impressed that Cleo has legs. FalseSymmetry, in stream chat, comments “omg legs (in caps)” to circumvent the stream rule against all-caps. Cleo shows off the limited set of movements available to the full-body figure, then puts the figure back in the usual place.

1:01:00 A chatter mentions that the vtuber figure can walk and can be used to replace the default character in certain games such as Valheim. Cleo confirms that it can be used for some games, like Valorant, and she could stomp around in there as Cleo if she wanted to. She cannot use the model on VR games because it is above the poly count. It’s primarily intended for vtubing. Using it for VR would be pretty rough on game performance.

1:02:15 Someone plays the Poe Poe Siren (Skizz singing the Poe Poe song) outside Cleo’s base. It is definitely Scar, who just signed onto the server. Cleo fetches their own horns and plays Skizz’s “Dang it, Scar!” horn, then yells for Scar to come back with a warrant. They go back inside just in time for Scar to play Xisuma’s “This is Illegal!” horn.

1:03:00 Cleo realizes that this is a war. She plays Etho’s “There was some kidnapping involved” horn.

Scar retaliates with his own “Trader Scar’s not going to eat you” horn.

Cleo plays Grian’s “I’m eating a curly-whirly right now” horn.

Scar plays Impulse’s “Say it and we’ll bleep it out” horn.

Cleo plays her own “Oh no-woh, not Joe-wo” horn.

Scar plays Ren’s “I’d like to see your butt, please” horn.

1:04:10 Cleo yells to Scar that she has run out of horns and demands to know where he is. Scar flies overhead and repeats the Ren horn, followed immediately by the Michael Scott “I declare Bankruptcy” horn. Cleo giggles and declares she needs to buy more horns, then remembers she has an ace in the hole. She heads for her mailbox, finds and plays the “I see you” horn from the Horn of the Month Club.

1:05:15 False logs into the server just long enough to play her own “OMG hiiiiii” horn, then logs out. Cleo play’s Gem’s “That’s Amazing!” horn. Th3Pooka raids into the stream.

1:05:45 Cleo thanks the raiders and welcomes subs. They have once again forgotten what they are doing. Chat reminds them that they are working on flooring.

1:07:00 Someone plays a horn from The Office outside. Cleo plays the “I see you” horn, explaining that even if she doesn’t see him, she has to play the horn. She returns to working on her floors. A chatter asks what program the vTuber model was made in. Cleo does not know but points the chatter to the link for the designer, MotherLyra. Zedaph suffocates in a wall.

1:08:20 Someone plays the MGM Lion horn, startling Cleo. They follow it up with a horn (maybe Etho or xB?) saying “I chop, I dig, your mom is really big.” Cleo plays the “Dang it, Scar” horn again. Someone plays Scar’s “Take a look at how big my booty is” horn. Cleo plays Tango’s “I see you” horn again and yells to Scar that she only has limited horns . Scar, who is stream-sniping, disclaims responsibility in in-game chat, even as someone plays Iskall’s “What are you doing?” horn. Cleo guesses it must be Cub. Cleo decides it’s either Scar or Cub, or both, or Pearl, or Tango, or Xisuma. Scar asks Cub in chat where the alien horn is.

1:09:50 Cleo attempts to go back to work, while admitting that they are not trying very hard to work. A chatter asks why Cleo has so many ender chests. Cleo says it is for the particle effects, then jokes it is because they have an addiction but most people don’t comment on it. In game chat, Cub tells Scar that the alien horn should be at the shop unless someone already bought it. Cleo wants to know more about the alien horn. Outside the window, Pearl plays Scar’s booty horn again and flies away. Cleo plays the “I see you” horn again. Zedaph suffocates in a wall again.

1:11:10 Cleo bemoans her own lack of horns, while Scar suggests that the alien horn has probably been sold. A chatter plays a scary noise, but Cleo is currently immune thanks to all the horn shenanigans. They go back to work, declaring loudly that they are feeling bullied, and it is because the hermits are bullying them. It’s not just one of those feelings, it is definitely bullying. Pearl assures Cleo in chat that it is only love. Cleo replies that one can bully with love, and invites Chat to “Ask me how I know.”

1:12:10 Cleo asks Cub if he’s done the Xisuma legs horn yet. Cub says not yet, but maybe for next batch. Cleo is pleased about that possibility. They want to hear the legs horn, because it is weird. False rejoins the server. Xisuma, who has been silent for a long while, asks what about his legs in game chat.

Cleo tells him they’re very pretty. Cub explains that Xisuma made a remark that tickled Cleo. X says thanks and that he never skips leg day. Cleo chuckles and mutters “nerd”

1:13:30 Cleo confesses proudly in game chat that they always skip leg day. Scar thinks someone got the alien horn from the shop and appears uncertain about what to do. A chatter plays Xisuma’s “Legs Legs Legs LEGS!” sound, which Cleo had forgotten was an available bits-reward sound on their channel. Scar plays the “Darth Vader Breathing” horn but Cleo is distracted. A chatter asks where the Legs soundbyte is from, and Cleo tells them it’s from MCC Pride where they were on a team together. Scar plays the Michael Scott “Inside Joke” horn. Cleo greets Scar and/or Pearl, possibly both or neither, whoever is out to get her, specifically.

1:15:15 Cleo talks about MCC Pride and hopes no one was expecting them to win. Scott has not officially told Cleo that they are being added to teams as a nerf, but that it’s just generally known. Cleo’s role in MCC is “ballast.” Scar asks Pearl if she bought the Alien horn, Pearl does not know what he is talking about. Someone plays the “Hello there!” horn. Cleo runs outside yelling “Oh my god, hiiii!” but no one is there. Cleo is disappointed, and asks that whoever is blowing horns at least say who they are. Chat believes it’s definitely Scar. Cleo plays the “Dang it Scar!” horn again.

1:16:45 Zedaph falls out of the world. Xisuma describes this as Zed doing Zed things. Cleo agrees and says that’s pretty much his job. A chatter asks Cleo what is their favorite “Cleo thing” to do. They say sleeping, mostly. A chatter asks if Cleo has any information on books or info about lgbtq+ issues. Cleo says not really, they don’t read up on it much, just experience it from their own perspective. They refer the chatter back to the chat for recommendations.

1:19:00 A chatter asks why the floor only has a certain number of ender chests under it. Cleo explains that it’s going to be a summoning circle, and the ender chests are in a circle under the floor to provide particles in that exact spot. A chatter asks about using a spore blossom for more effect, but Cleo explains the range is too wide. A chatter plays sour jellybean. Another chatter plays a door noise. Cleo turns the music back on. A chatter notes that Cleo now has a convenient crawlspace under the floor. Cleo agrees, but says they did not plan it that way, because planning is for losers. She parenthetically adds that she is a loser. Zedaph blames Tango for his untimely death in in-game chat. Cleo agrees that most things are Tango’s fault.

1:21:30 A chatter asks how people are playing noises and jellybeans, Cleo explains the Streamloots program. Another chatter admits that they have read a great deal of fiction and anecdotes about the lgbtq+ experience, but not much nonfiction and nothing to really recommend. Cleo agrees that this seems pretty common, and talks about how if mainstream sources won’t provide gayness, the community will make it for themselves. A chatter plays Favorite Things, and Cleo says mostly intangible things, like the way you feel in the morning when the sun is rising and you know people you hate are suffering. She says she doesn’t understand why people think she’s so sinister all the time. She also likes petrichor.

1:23:45 Cleo begins texturing the new floor with slightly lower trapdoors in places. They talk with Chat about queerness in history and how it is difficult to know exactly what it was like in the past because so many things were different. They reorganize their inventory again and go into the mines to find a box of crystals for decoration. Cleo is too tired for in-depth discussion on these serious topics and just needs to get some crystals. A chatter puts the chat into emote-only mode, Cleo refers to that as the “Cleo says stop” button.

1:28:00 Cleo finds the geode and begins harvesting crystals. They love amethyst noises, and wants to put amethyst under carpet someplace in the build. There are not as many crystals as Cleo was hoping for, and they take some time to free up more faces on the crystal-producing blocks. “Crystals are going to become important!” she teases. She agrees with chat that amethyst needs more block variations, since it is a far nicer color than purpur. The crystal noises are very soothing.

1:31:20 Cleo says that the most annoying thing you can call a geologist is a “crystal girlie.” Chat does not understand the term. A chatter says their geologist friend doesn’t like being called a rock-licker. Cleo says rock-licker is fine and if they don’t want to be called a rock-licker they should stop licking rocks. Cleo explains that a crystal girlie is someone who believes in crystals for healing and energy alignment, rather than studying them scientifically. Chat has a discussion about eating rocks. Cleo advises that many rocks are inert and can be licked, but that one should not lick rocks instead of taking medicine. Some rocks should not be licked at all. Cleo specially advises Chat not to eat uranium and suggests (then immediately unsuggests) that they look up radium girls. ((A sad story from history of some workers who became the reason for later regulations.))

1:36:00 Cleo transforms her crystals into “charged crystals” by renaming them on an anvil, then puts them in a similarly-transformed “Lead-lined Storage Crate.” The box goes into the new tower room for decoration. A chatter plays Teeny-tiny Zombie Cleo, Cleo sings the song. Cleo looks for one of the lore books in the library room that has information about crystals. They do not find it, but find a note about crystals in a cupboard. Pearl asks in chat for verdant froglights. Joe has been buying all Etho’s stock, but Cleo has some in storage. She invites Pearl over to get some. A chatter plays spicy jellybean.

1:41:10 Pearl arrives and yells hello. Cleo provides her with several stacks of verdant froglights, even though Pearl only truly needed four. Pearl is happy for the extra froglights because she likes the green tinged light. Cleo says green-tinge is the best tinge. Pearl says that pearlescent froglights are also pretty great. Cleo says they’re not her favorite. Pearl says she’ll let that slide because Cleo has been so generous and flies away. Cleo blesses Pearl’s little cotton socks and calls her adorable.

1:42:30 A chatter says that Pearl was their first introduction to Hermitcraft. Cleo says that is valid but also unusual, Pearl is not one of the more common vectors into Hermitcraft. A chatter plays Giant. The first chatter explains that they started watching in S8 with Pearl and Gem and their friends. Cleo is happy about how the community has grown. They also can’t wait for the new paintings. Cleo creates a painting to cover the secret door, but does not particularly like the only design that covers the space.

1:45:00 Cleo declares it’s time to clean up the roof, because it looks like arse. Pretty arse, but arse. They are not worried about structural integrity because magic, but some crossbeams would look nice. Cleo says that sometimes it is hard to explain their thought process while building because sometimes there is no thought, just building. They begin adding crossbeams to the interior roof and talking about building process or the lack thereof.

1:49:40 A chatter asks if Cleo has a favorite fan song. Cleo says no, they have not heard many and generally try to keep their research in a bubble. A chatter plays sour jellybean. Cleo says she will watch most Hermit stuff, but the fan stuff can be biting. She wants to keep just a little sliver of joy in her life. She goes on to clarify that “I’ve got two diamonds” and other songs written just for her are exceptions, but fan stuff can be mean in general and she avoids it. A chatter mentions that Doc talks about fanfiction on stream all the time. Cleo says Doc is insane. They don’t need to worry about what Doc is doing, because it is always THE WRONG THING. Chat is not happy about the idea of anyone being mean to Cleo. Cleo clarifies that in fan spaces, fans tend to assume she will not be there, and they tend to speak their minds bluntly. When they’re talking about the character, it’s just opinion, but when they talk about her as a person, it’s hard to deal with. Cleo does not fault the fans, it is a difference of perception between Cleo as the person and Cleo as the character. What they are doing is not harmful in itself, but Cleo seeing it is harmful because it makes her feel bad and she has learned to avoid it. At the same time, 99.9% of the fandom is lovely.

1:55:20 A chatter says their partner is trying to watch every hermit, but doing so during Decked out in S9 got pretty tiring. Cleo does not recommend trying to watch every Hermit because that is too much and too difficult. They realize that many people like other hermits more than they like them, and they’re okay with that. They will never be everyone’s favorite and that is fine. Pearl, in in-game chat, agrees that Hermitcraft is fantastic because of its wide variety of creator styles. Cleo has a hard time finding her saplings and wonders if they might be in the orphan-crushing machine. Chat is confused about the orphan-crushing machine, which appears to be a bonemeal farm. A chatter plays Hydration Time.

1:58:00 Cleo reiterates that they avoid fan spaces and explains that fans sometimes just say rude things on the internet. She can know that a take is bad (“Cleo doesn’t deserve to be on Hermitcraft’) but that doesn’t mean it won’t sting. Pearl chimes in with a story about a Tiktok she saw where all the comments were kind except the ones about her. Cleo is instantly sympathetic and assures Pearl she is wonderful while threatening the lives of the haters. Tango alerts the server to potential lag incoming. Cleo says she doesn’t mind living and letting live with people who are mean to her, but nobody can say bad things about Pearl. Pearl says that most of the community is wonderful and she’s just getting used to living with the bad part. Cleo asks for advice about how to do that, because she has been on Hermitcraft for nine seasons and it is still hard. Cleo talks about the fine line between not feeding the trolls and not clapping back when it would be better to do so. A chatter plays Favorite Things. Cleo says it’s the mail system, because they had nine messages today and it was cool.

2:03:00 Pearl messages that when she starts feeling bad about fan negativity, she reminds herself that she shouldn’t care about the opinion of anybody she wouldn’t be willing to take advice from. It is silly to let the words of the haters have any impact. Cleo agrees that this is valid. They would not listen to those people’s advice, and would also probably say something very nasty to them. A chatter plays gross jellybean, much to Cleo’s chagrin. A chatter plays Giant Zombie. The jellybean is bubblegum, but Cleo would’ve actually preferred the mouthwash alternative. Bubble gum is a bad flavor.

2:05:50 Cleo wonders sometimes if she goes a bit too far, and mentions she might have been a bit too enthusiastic in verbal sparring with Doc. They reiterate the information about their TCG cards and the new expansion. The crossbeams are almost finished, and Cleo adds some above the windows. A chatter says they would not want to make Cleo mad, and Cleo confesses their bark is much worse than their bite. She also does fake anger a lot, because it is funny. When Doc killed the pig, she did get a bit too into the bit, but it was okay in the end. Doc shouldn’t have killed the pig! It’s okay, Cleo says, because he’ll suffer. A chatter asks what an HHH stream is. Cleo explains it is Hermits Helping Hermits and they haven’t done one for awhile because they and Joe are both busy. Cleo thinks she may have frightened Doc just a little bit and laughs about it.

2:10:10 A chatter plays Cleowo. Cleo says she doesn’t think Doc’s scared of her, more that he felt sort of guilty when the pig thing turned out bigger than he intended it to be. A chatter suggests that Doc didn’t realize Cleo was serious when they said they were attached to the pig. Cleo agrees that’s exactly what happened. Cleo has finished one building and has another one started, but they need to decide what is going to go inside on each floor. She takes a tour through the building. A chat plays emote only mode.

2:13:20 Cleo says it’s about time to call it a stream. They switch to big Vtuber mode and thank the chat for subs and donos. They insist that nobody sends them anymore firstborn children because they already have too many of them. Cleo raids into a non-hermit friend and ends the stream.

#hermitcraft #stream recaps #zombiecleo #goodtimeswithscar #pearlescentmoon #falsesymmetry #tall claims court

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thetreallysblog · 1 month ago

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DR.KEL'S DIARIES DAY 2

0:23 - I think my head is going to explode. I passed out right in front of the radar and fell face first into it. At least the glasses are okay, but cleaning blood off the console is going to be a pain in the ass. Whatever was in those woods isn't on the radar anymore. Did it leave? Did it hide? I don't know and I don't think I care anymore. If it wants me, I'm here. Do whatever the fuck you want. I need a drink.

0:33 - There are shooting stars outside. Pretty. I wish I was as far away from this base as they are. At least, if I'm going to die here, there's going to be a pretty backdrop.

0:45 - Bao and Noa sent me new working instructions. These fuckers still expect me to work? They still expect me to do their fucking bidding after all this? I hope they're watching. WATCH THIS, BAO

1:58 - I'm back. I'll admit, getting drunk off old beer and throwing bottles at imaginary cameras, while screaming at Bao to go fuck himself wasn't my proudest moment, but at least I got my anger out. I feel better. My head hurts and I feel like I'm going to throw up, but I can finally think again. Somehow, I managed to muster up the courage to go outside, ordered the hook from the shop and used it to fish out some sort of keycard from a window in the bunker. I guess being drunk and ignorant to danger has its benefits, huh. Anyway, that keycard opened up the bunker doors, which is good news. The bad news is that there is a second door down there, which ignores the card completely. I feel like I'm doing an escape room puzzle with these doors. My guess is that there is a second card somewhere, if we follow the puzzle logic. I need to find it, but that can wait until morning. I am feeling much better, but getting out there again doesn't seem like a good idea to a sober version of me. I guess I'm starting to understand why Dee had so much beer bottles scattered around. But I need my head cold and functional. I am not dying here. I am finding out what the fuck happened here and living to tell the tale.

NOTE TO SELF: The hook might come useful for getting around and, eventually, escaping, but I'm going to need practice or I'll break my legs, I'm not exactly an acrobat. Maybe I could start by getting the rotting whatever-the-fuck-it-is from the vents in the main room.

2:26 - I opened the vents. Good thing I decided to try and practice climbing the rope and didn't just pull down the vent itself. There was a Molotov strapped to it waiting for me to do just that like a fucked up Home Alone trap. Fucking hell, Dee, who were you hiding from? In the vents were a few packs of spoiled food (thank god nothing died in there) and a hideout. Someone, Dee, most likely, was hiding there from something. There was also a note, where he wrote about some figure standing outside and it's footprints. "I do not feel safe I want to leave". Oh, if only you knew how much I get you right now, you hoarding bastard. Maybe this figure he mentioned and the signal the radar picked up yesterday are one and the same. Fuck. If Dee made a fire trap to protect himself from it and still ended up as those basement remains, there's not much I can do even if I tried. Whatever. I am armed. I am not going down without a fight.

NOTE TO SELF: The note says this someone was watching him from a concrete pole. Which one? I'd better look around during the day.

2:43 - Oh, almost forgot, I also found a lead pipe in the vents. I think I'm going to keep it. I know it might not be as good a weapon as the axe, but I'm feeling better NOT using a weapon that most likely killed the previous crew. I also still have that Molotov, but it is kinda scary to keep it around, so I locked it up with the axe for now.

3:00 - Noa sent me some background on the pictures I sent him. I don't know if he's trying to help me find something out or he just loves rambling about history, but right now, he's my only source of information about the facility. He said that the bunker is indeed a safety bunker, but nobody knows why they built it and it's been out of order for a long time. This and the fact that it's actually securely locked, unlike the base, lead me to believe Dee doesn't have anything to do with it. So, what could be in there that ASO needs so securely locked away in a remote radar compound? That might be a whole different investigation, even deeper than what happened to the crew. Or maybe it's connected. Maybe someone opened it and found out too much, so ASO killed everyone to silence them? Who knows. This is moving more into government conspiracy theory territory than I'd like, but I can't rule it out yet.

Noa also told me that the freezer was built not by ASO, but by some W. Ziegler's construction company and specifically said it’s nothing special and I shouldn't investigate it further. This sounds shady as fuck and I don't think some construction company would just build a giant meat freezer under a radar base for no reason at all. I can't yet think of how it can factor into whatever was going on here, but I keep thinking about it. Something is so wrong about this fucking freezer. I would say the thought of it sends chills down my spine, but that's a pun too dumb even for me.

3:33 - I have a camera in my computer menu that wasn't there before. Where the fuck is it? Seems like some sort of elevator or something like that. Who's showing me this? Why? I tried to take a screenshot, but all transformers blew out immediately. Bao rebooted my power, thankfully; at least he's doing something useful. But where is this room? Is this inside that bunker? Seems like a warning. Which means someone IS watching me. The timing is too good to be a coincidence. The screenshot came out too dark, so I took and printed a picture of the monitor to have a better look. The camera is still there, but I can't control it in any way. I need to find this elevator. Or is this a sign to avoid it?

3:43 - The radar is picking up something again. Two signals somewhere in the mountains near the compound entrance. I am not alone again. Fuck. Is one of them the same signal I saw yesterday? Is this whoever or whatever killed Dee and the others or is ASO sending someone to watch me? In any case, this doesn't look good. I pray that the base is safe from anyone coming in, but I'm not so sure anymore. Doesn't matter. My doors are locked and I have my pipe with me, so whatever they want with me - I will fight back.

NOTE TO SELF: The signals don't seem to be moving closer for now. Let's play the waiting game then.

4:03 - The camera is gone, good thing I took pictures. The signals on the radar are acting strange. One of them disappeared and then another appeared on the other side of the valley. Is it the same one? Are they trying to scare me and force me to run? Too fucking bad, I'm not taking the bait. I know I am safer in here, as fucked up as this base is. Want me? Come and get me. I'm waiting.

4:29 - Bao accused me of photoshopping the creepy camera screenshot of the elevator to prank him. What an asshole. But I actually don't think it was him showing me that elevator footage. He knows what happened here, and I'm sure as shit not getting ny info on that, or even an acknowledgement that something is wrong, but he responded to the photo. That's the first actual response I've gotten from him. Whatever is going on with that elevator is not ASO's doing. Something is up with this bunker outside, and I guess that's another investigation for me to do on my own. No rest for the wicked, I guess.

4:50 - Ordered some new cameras to put in the basement and outside the front door. More security never hurt. Especially with those signals jumping around the forest outside.

5:10 - One of the new radar signals moved closer to the base, but is now staying in a forest near the Yankee radar. I am scared shitless, no matter what I tell myself, but maybe If it stays there until the sun starts coming up, I can go there and try to take a picture of whatever it is. I need to be stealthy about it, though, so I'll have to go on foot and just pray that whatever it is doesn't see or hear me.

5:48 - I went out to look for that signal. Nothing was there except a wooden stick stuck in the ground near one of the cement poles. Are the poles important in some way? Dee mentioned a figure watching him from near one. I took a picture of the pole next to the base for my board, but I didn't find any footprints there and there were no signs of anybody on the Yankee pole. Only the stick. Why did the signal bring me there? Does the stick mean something? I think I may be overthinking stuff at this point, I haven't had quality sleep in about a month and barely had any sleep at all since yesterday. My head hurts and the questions keep piling up. At least now that I know I'm alone in the base and there is nothing coming from the woods, I might be able to sleep for bit. The day is promising to be a shitshow.

7:48 - I found some notes in the TR_2 office. The guy working there not only saw something, but was attacked by some sort of creature. The note claims it was "undead" and hard to kill even with a hammer. I can't make out most of the note, but I guess he killed whatever the hell attacked him. There were some weird bones in the office, I am not sure about bringing them here, but I took a picture. I don't think I can be surprised by something at this point. Undead bone dog in the forest? What the hell, sure. At least I think it's dead, but the guy that killed it is probably dead, too. He said that those towers around the perimeter are watchtowers to stop the staff from escaping. Said they'd shoot him if he ran away. They probably did. Once again, I'm not fucking surprised by this point. ASO clearly put us all here to die. I am just another useless test dummy to them. I don't think anyone is coming to save me. I don't think they care if I survive. Not even Ena. I really shouldn't have taken this goddamn job. I wish I could go back and refuse it. Maybe I would've been happy just being a broke nerd with a regular day job. Maybe I would find a use for my skills elsewhere. Maybe I would've been happy still being able to fucking trust people close to me. Maybe. I would at least be living some sort of a life, not surviving on whatever scraps Bao throws my way and hiding under the desk every night from things I'm not even sure are real. I tell myself I'm ready for anything and that I'm strong and I'll manage, but it's hard to fool myself. I'm tired, scared and alone. I am not ready for any of this. I can't believe Ena would do this to me.

9:02 - Found a weird place near the Romeo dish. There's a cliff with radiation warnings dotted around it, which of course means another locked area I just had to wander into. Let's hope I was quick enough to not get any radiation poisoning. That would be ironic, wouldn't it? Anyway, in the center of that area is some sort of cave with something at the end of it. Webs? Weird roots? More of Dee's trash? Whatever it is, I don't like it at all. Another fucking creepy mystery in this cursed forest. There were also skulls in the cave, but they seem too old to belong to anyone working here. A relief, sure, but some poor cave diver still died there at some point, which still creeps me out. Let's see what Noa has to say about this. What the fuck even is this place? Rituals, murders, psychosis, radiation, weird bony animals. What next? Actual fucking aliens? Demons? Any other sort of Lovecraftian horrors to torment me? Give me a damn break.

NOTE TO SELF: I'm gonna need more cork boards for all this crap. And food. And batteries. And some medicine just in case, I almost broke my legs in these goddamn woods a couple times already.

10:10 - Made myself another weapon with that stick I found in the woods and some stones from outside. Now I have something resembling a stone axe. Just like Minecraft!

NOTE TO SELF: What the fuck am I doing with my life...

11:37 - I have a gun now! I found an old hunting rifle in one of the satellite server rooms. What was a hunting rifle doing in a server room? Maybe somebody was using the walkway as a vantage spot for hunting, who knows. It's absolutely against regulations, but someone like Dee would likely not care about that at all. I have never even held a firearm, and It is honestly kinda scary in person, but it gives me a feeling of safety by even just laying in the locker. I am armed now. I can protect myself. I hope I can, at least. I sent Bao some signals I've decoded and, surprisingly, Max sent me some emails. If only she knew what was really going on here. I doubt she knows anything, we got hired at almost the same time and Bao probably just keeps her on decoding. Fucking asshole. I need some way to reach out. If she finds out what this place really was, she could help me. She could go to the police, at least, and somebody could evacuate me from this fucking shithole. I need to keep sending letters with the item boxes. Sending them with the disk ones was probably a bad idea, but I hope whatever Bao saw was innocent enough for him to write off as me being weird. Item boxes go to another department, though. At least they should. For now that's my only hope for outside contact. I need to reach Max. I need to get out of here.

13:54 - I decided to go out and explore the transformer buildings, because the guys working out there have clearly seen some shit and I thought I might find out what happened to them. And I did find some weird shit out there.

TR_1 - The guy working there was the one writing about bone creatures, the building seems fine, abandoned, sure, but mostly fine, apart from some really strange scratches on the front doors and on the windows. This transformer is located near that fucking hut, so I'm thinking this guy was somehow caught up in all that ritual stuff. He was writing about escaping and said that whoever is in those towers was going to shoot him. For some reason I don't doubt they did.

TR_2 - This one is fucking weird. The backroom is kitted out with a workbench and there are a lot of different part around, but I have no idea who was working there. Whoever it was, was supposed to repair the printer, so I guess he was some sort of "repair guy" around here. Behind the transformer is a field with a skeleton. The guy got fucking vaporized. The skeleton gives off so much radiation, my camera almost fried. What the fuck. What could do this to a person? What the fuck are ASO testing in here?

TR_3 - I have no idea what happened here, but this one creeps me out the most. No notes, no signs of life, but the building is trashed even more than the base was and barricaded as if whoever was there was preparing for a war. There are old gravestones on a hill nearby, I guess they might be important to this place's history, somehow, but I couldn't make out the writing on them. I found some sort of military crate in the transformer's backroom, a cat bed and some hiking boots. Was a nightmare hauling all this crap back to base, but at least the boots improve my chances of keeping my legs. I can't open the crate, though. It's rusted shut and I couldn't break it even with the axe. TR3 is not far from Romeo and the cave, and Noa did say that whoever went into those caves came out "rattled". With all this death and craziness around here, I can't even imagine what the transformer staff had to go through. Fucking hell.

On other discoveries - I took a picture of one of the watchtowers, that according to TR1 staff, are sniper towers. I get a feeling of being watched when looking at them and I am sure ASO would fucking shoot me on the spot if I tried to walk out again. Why the fuck did I even take this damn job? I also found a box near the border, It's creepy, but what here isn't at this point, and I have no idea how to open it for now. There's also the doll. I found a plush doll of some smug looking creature at the bottom of a sinkhole in the forest. And after picking it up I just found myself standing back here. I don't remember walking back. I didn't want to bring it back. That's what we're doing now? A cursed furry doll? At least It's not trying to kill me, but for fuck's sake, this goddamn forest just can't stop throwing weird shit at me, huh?

14:39 - Found a really weird signal. Looks kinda like a computer floating through space. Did we put that much trash out into the universe already? Damn. Wonder what kind of signal it's giving off.

14:45 - WHAT THE FUCK. The signal from that fucking space computer or whatever it was, was a virus. HOW DO YOU EVEN SEND A VIRUS TO A SIGNAL DECODER? It fried everything, including the breakers in the basement. And while walking to the fucking basement I found a locker filled with blood and meat. I think those were the remains from down there, Dee's remains. WHAT THE FUCK. Someone is in the fucking base again. Whatever is here, it's out for me. I'm not safe here at all. shit. SHIT. I barricaded the door to the control room. But is it safe? IS ANYWHERE SAFE? I have a gun and Dee's bomb, but what can I do? Whatever is out there killed the whole staff team, even with all their traps and weapons. I am not strong enough to fight. What am I even strong enough for? I never could fight. All I fucking do is run and hide.

I hear sounds from behind the windows. I don't even want to look.

Is this fog? Smoke? Inside the base? It's getting darker. I don't want to look anymore. I don't even have the strength to want to live anymore. I just want this to end.

16:27 - I passed out again. I hate it, I hate being weak and afraid like that, I hate not being able to do shit about being scared but passing out at least helps me through panic attacks like this one. I wish there was another way. I feel absolutely fucking horrible, but, at the same time, a bit calmer. Like whatever was here is gone somehow. I don't know how to explain it without sounding crazy, but I feel... Safe? I don't know if I can feel safe here at all, but at least I feel as safe as possible inside these walls again. I need to get my shit together and keep working to protect myself, keep fortifying somehow. I need to survive until somebody rescues me and keep writing letters so that Max could send someone. While I was out I dreamt about Ena. A rare moment without my usual nightmares. It was a good dream, I saw us having a picnic in these woods. I dreamt we were happy again. I used to hope we could be, but after this, I can't understand her anymore. I don't even want to think about her again for now. I wish I could. As if I could stop my mind from wandering back to her. I need to get back to work. I need to get a grip. I still have that meat in the locker to deal with.

17:10 - I removed the meat from the locker and cleaned the place up. I almost vomited all over the hallway but the thought of cleaning that up too really helped. Sobered me up after the blackout, too. These aren't Dee's remains, those are still down there. This looks and smells more like regular animal meat. Deer? Boars? Not sure what lives around here. I can't even imagine what kind of a prank or whatever the fuck this was, but something is out there and it's clearly shown it knows I'm here and it could get me anytime. What a marvelous fucking thought to have. Thanks, forest creature\serial killer\whatever you are. And fuck you, too.

NOTE TO SELF: I need to stay awake. Good thing I have a coffee machine, because sleep is clearly not an option anymore.

18:00 - I still can't open the strange crate I found at TR_3. Wish they made the tech around here as sturdy as this fucking thing. Even the stick and stone abomination that I made can't break it, and it seems strong as hell.

NOTE TO SELF: Maybe I should try bashing in the bunker doors with it? At this point I don't know what else to try. Could be worth it. Or could make me look like a goddamn caveman. At least nobody is here to witness my shame. At least I hope Bao and the others won't laugh their asses off at me, if they are watching somehow.

18:45 - Even caveman tactics work sometimes. Good reality check for a scientist. I managed to open the inner bunker door by hitting it with my club for about 20 minutes. My hands are aching, but at least I'm getting somewhere. Good news, I know how to get into the bunker. Brute force. It's that easy, for once. Bad news, there's even more doors and not much in the first room. I was too tired to try and break the doors in the back of the first room and almost locked myself in there, the doors still close after a short while, even after all that beating. I found a folder with... something in it down there. Seems like blueprints for something advanced. Not much else, but that's something new at least. I knew there was more to this place than just radar dishes and weird forest cults! Now I have ASO's secret documents, or whatever it is. I should try to make sense of them after I get some rest. Gotta do all this shit and also keep the signals coming somehow. At least my actual work is a relaxing routine. Nothing ever happens up there, only peace, quiet and wonderful noises of space. I actually almost get why I took this offer. As weird as it is, I love this type of work. Looking at the stars and listening in to the noises of these giants was always my dream and my safe place. Almost makes dealing with the local bullshit worthwhile. Almost.

NOTE TO SELF: Always bring more batteries whenever you go outside!!! I know you think you have enough. It never is!!!

19:43 - I read through the papers I found in the bunker. Those blueprints are for something called "Kerfur Omega". I knew it rang a bell, Kerfurs are robots used by Stolas for maintenance. Heard about them while I was in uni, but never seen one in real life yet. So, were they testing some kind of new model here? This could be a lead to what happened here. I guess rogue robots aren't out of the question either. The perspectives get worse by the hour. Is the thing stalking me some sort of killer maintenance bot? Amazing. Just fucking perfect. I feel like I'm in a sequel to Cabin in the Woods that is somehow even amore fucking absurd.

NOTE TO SELF: There are Kerfurs available in the shop, but they are out of my price range for now. Maybe I should save up for one? If anything, at least finally seeing it in person would be really interesting. And maybe I could really use some company, for once. Never thought I'd say that.

19:54 - WHAT. THE. FUCK. THIS CAN'T BE REAL.

Aliens. REAL FUCKING ALIENS. Either I've gone completely fucking crazy, or I just recieved the FIRST REAL ALIEN SIGNAL IN HISTORY!!!! There is someone out there, and I mean LIFE!!! Sentient life. In space. HOLY SHIT! What are these symbols? Peace signs? A hello? A declaration of war? An SOS? Is this a prank by somebody again? Can't be. I don't know, I don't care, I need to send this to Bao, ASO, Stolas - Whatever. Fuck. I need to send it out there. I can't believe this is happeing. WHAT? My head is spinning. I can't believe this!!!!

20:24 - Did they not see it? Do they even look through the signals I send them? I send them proof of fucking alien life and all I get is "good data, Kel, keep on working"?! I can't believe this. I can't be the only one seeing these symbols in the noise. Max should've noticed it too. Bao should've noticed, but he didn't even respond, as usual. Ena would kill for signals like this one. I can't believe she didn't respond. Is she even there? Does she even know what I'm doing here? What are they doing in there? Aliens. Fucking Aliens. And I just get a pat on the back, some credits and nothing else? What the fuck? I have to keep digging. There are alien symbols on that signal, good thing I saved extra backup copies. I need to decode it. Of course I have to do everything myself. As fucking always. But I will get to the bottom of this. And I will make them see what I see. I need to understand this. I will decode these symbols. And I need the world to know. I don't care how many disks and packages and letters it takes. I need to make them see what I saw. This is big. Massive. This is world-changing, for fuck's sake. I won't let ASO just ignore and bury a thing like that.

21:02 - The only reason Stolas, ASO, Bao, Ena and all the others wouldn't acknowledge this is because they know. This is not the first, nor, I guess, the last time aliens contacted us. They are real, they chose this place as their entrance. And they sent me here to be the frontline. That's why I'm alone here. That's why Dee went insane and why the last crew - those who tried to escape - were eliminated. ASO wants me to receive these signals and be their disposable failsafe in case whatever is out there turns out to be aggressive. I'm just a fucking canary. Nothing more. Fucking hell.

There is no way out and I sincerely doubt I'm supposed to make it out alive at any point. And I'm sure as shit not getting any help surviving out here, they can just replace me. There's always the next wide-eyed astronomy student who dreams of hearing the stars. But I'm not going to let them for as long as I possibly can. This isn't right. This isn't a welcome committee, this is a hunter's trap in which I am the bait. I won't let them mislead anyone else like this. I don't know if Max realized all this yet, but I hope she will, on her own or through my letters. I hope they let her.

A new cork board is set up. I'm going to decode this. I don't even know where to start, I'm as much a linguist as Dee is a clean freak. But I'm going to. I have to. For humanity's sake and for my own sanity. And I guess there's no stopping decoding whatever the satellites pick up. That's what they want from me. That's my mission. I get it now.

I need a break. My head hurts so much, but I need to think this through.

21:50 - Well played, Ena. Well played. I always wanted to be the one to find aliens out there. To prove to the world that they exist and we are not alone in the universe. To prove I was not crazy. And after laughing at me for it you bring them to me on a silver fucking platter. You went and made this my personal hell. You sent me to see my dream come true without ever being able to live to tell anybody about it. Fucking perfect. Thanks. Love you, too.

NOTE TO SELF: YOU WILL GET OUT AND YOU WILL TELL THE WORLD ABOUT THIS. REMEMBER THIS, KEL. EVEN AT YOUR WORST MOMENTS.

22:55 - The situation I'm in is beyond fucked, but I have to keep going. I have to keep investigating and I have to keep translating the signals. The more I know about these signals and what is going on in the forest the more valuable I am to Stolas and ASO. I am still completely replaceable, sure, but maybe I can be valuable enough for them to at least help me survive while I'm staying here. And the more I know about the previous crew, the more I know about what killed them and what they went through, the more prepared I am to escape and tell the world about what is really going on up here. I will need a plan, I will need the tools to survive out here and I'm going to need information from every single source I can get. And ASO will provide if I do my job well enough. Well, now I know the rules. I'm ready to play your game, Bao.

I need to rest to be ready to get back to work tomorrow. It's gonna be a long day.

Ain't no rest for the wicked, huh, Kel?

#votv #votv dr kel #Dr Kel's Diaries #voicesofthevoid #voices of the void #votv spoilers

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