#They do regain their human forms... eventually it just takes a while for things to stabilize

[puppetmaster13u]

Prompt 125

So. Apparently touching unknown artifacts is bad. Who would have thought. Not the Dannys that’s for sure. They had been distracted with their prank war after all. 

But uh, now they’re in a new world, with a black-haired child staring at them with borderline stars in his ice-blue eyes. 

Nine year old Bruce just saw some sort of portal open up (MAGIC?!), and drop some sort of really spherical eggs that hatched into what he’s pretty sure are some sort of raptors within two seconds. A trio of feathery raptors that he takes inside to show Alfred, who would be far more worried if not for it being the first time he’s seen Bruce smile in nearly a year. 

Well it seems they have a trio of sapient raptors. That can apparently breathe fire, ice, and electricity respectively. They can… totally deal with this. At least that robber didn’t lose their foot. 

[muletia]

✧˖° 𝐅𝐎𝐑 𝐓𝐇𝐄 𝐒𝐈𝐍𝐆𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐀𝐍𝐃 𝐃𝐑𝐄𝐀𝐌𝐈𝐍𝐆 — 𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐎𝐍𝐄

mer!optimus x human!reader

𝐂𝐇𝐀𝐏𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐓𝐖𝐎

summary: optimus waited for his mate for a very long time. but just when he was starting to lose hope, you decide to save him from loneliness. after so many years you finally heard his song. his mate. you.

word count: 5200

optimus is barely in this chapter btw. but don't worry, he will get more desperate later ^^

oh, and I couldn't resist throwing two polish easter eggs somewhere in the middle hehe

The first thing you hear upon waking is the rhythmic murmur of waves gently striking the shore. The soft sound soothes the initial flickers of disorientation, cooing deceitfully so your body doesn’t sound the alarm just yet. Unfortunately, you fall right into the trap.

Your eyelids seem to weigh several tons as you try to lift them, alarmed by the cocktail of not knowing where you are, why you’re here, and how you got here. With great effort and after several attempts, you finally manage to do it, but the blinding white light sabotages your success, forcing you to shut them again.

Each blink seems to shake off a few more kilograms from your eyelids, and eventually you manage to regain some control. Just enough to squint them into a narrow slit, a poor defense against the light, but enough not to go blind within seconds.

The view before you says little. Grains of sand, losing detail with every further centimeter, form a bleached-yellow stripe that stretches all the way to the horizon, the only part of the landscape you recognize. Just above the sand, a luscious blue sky announces fair weather, interrupted only on one side by faint streaks of green. Palm leaves, you conclude, as your brain sluggishly processes the gathered information.

Did we already land on the beach? you wonder, because you really do feel like you're on vacation. The pleasantly warm sand heats your torso, while the ocean mercifully cools your legs up to the knees, whispering with the sound of the waves that you don’t have to do anything anymore. No worries about corporate work. No stress about endless traffic jams right when you’re rushing to the office, or hot water getting turned off on a chilly day, or another cockroach infestation in your kitchen.

Hmm. This is nice. Wrapped in comfort, you close your eyes again, wanting to enjoy your vacation for as long as you can. You wonder why you chose to lie flat on the sand instead of using a beach chair, but you blame it on being tired. You didn’t really miss the chair all that much. The sand was nice, warm. And so clean, almost impossibly so. You wouldn’t mind lying here for your entire vacation. All five days of it.

Probably couldn’t be bothered, you think. It was a long trip, and you don’t have many days to rest. You have to make the most of every second of doing nothing before you’re dragged back into the chaos, chronic stress, and confined spaces. It’s nice here. Wonderful. You just hope someone wakes you in time for the return flight. You wouldn’t want to waste your already-paid tickets, and the plane definitely won’t wait for latecomers.

The plane.

You furrow your brow, not understanding why the mere memory of a flying machine caused a sharp jolt of pain in your head. Perfect. Just what you needed on vacation, a completely unnecessary pounding in your skull, disrupting your lazy lounging on tropical beaches and sipping coconut drinks surrounded by handsome men and beautiful women practically begging for a quick, steamy vacation fling.

But wait… if you were lying on the beach at your resort, why weren’t you hearing the usual mix of foreign languages and broken English? Why aren’t you hearing anything at all besides the waves and your own racing heartbeat?

Something’s not right. Something is ver much not fucking right. You would never venture alone onto an unmarked beach because why would you? Why take the risk and ruin your vacation?

Where are the people? Where’s the laughter of children and the occasional drone of small plane engines?

Where… are you?

With a speed worthy of light, you lift your head, and then your torso, supporting your weight with your arms. Only now do you realize something is pressing into your neck. You’re choking, some unknown object is tightening around your chest more and more with every second, like a constrictor snake robbing you of precious oxygen.

You have to get rid of it. You have to claw it off, throw it away. With clumsy, chaotic movements, your hands fumble around your neck, fighting the strangler, digging in your nails just to make it let go. Just so you can breathe again.

The enemy relents after a few desperate attempts, when you finally decide to pull it over your head, a task far from easy, considering how tightly it clings to your body. You throw the snake with all your might, and it lands in the sand several meters in front of you. At least now you can breathe again, celebrating the return of this rather useful skill with several deep breaths.

But the sense of freedom and relief doesn’t last long. It abandons you once more when you finally dare to look at what was robbing you of air.

And your entire world stops. Your heart ceases to beat, your lungs freeze mid-motion. Every microscopic process down to the atomic level defies the passage of time.

What you threw off was a life jacket.

And suddenly, everything comes back to you, like a high-speed train, knocking all the air out of your lungs.

Looking out the window and seeing the plane’s engine on fire.

Screaming, chaos.

“We ask that you remain calm and put on your life jackets.”

Getting slammed into the hard walls and something sharp grazing the front of your shin.

And then being swallowed by the ocean. How easily you disappeared into its depths, fighting helplessly against gallons and gallons of water until the jacket pulled you up to the surface, where the situation was just as tragic. The burning plane slowly sinking into the sea, bags floating around you.

And bodies. So many bodies.

You tried to swim to one of the floating bags when a stronger wave dragged you underwater again.

The memories come alive all at once. They catch up to you, enveloping you in a storm of sensations. Falling from the plane, crashing into the cold, churning ocean.

Swallowing water. You must have involuntarily gulped down quite a bit. Eventually, even your lungs remember the uninvited guest, now coughing up traces of nonexistent water in a rattling wheeze, still recalling the vile, wrong feeling of salty water washing through the inside of the organ.

Trying to piece the story together, you come to the conclusion that you lost consciousness just below the surface, already preparing to extinguish your lungs that burned from lack of air.

And then you woke up here. The life jacket was kind enough not to let you drown, and the ocean merciful enough to spit you out onto some island, though you don’t feel particularly grateful, not when your odds of survival still hover dangerously close to zero.

You feel like you're about to explode.

“Oh no, no, no. Please,” you sob. “I want to go home.”

You consider curling into a ball and crying the stress away right here, but when a particularly strong wave soaks your already-wet shorts, bringing a new wave of discomfort, you find the last bits of strength in you to crawl further inland, tail tucked between your legs.

Your thoroughly soaked sneakers, one with its shoelace untied, leave marks on the wet sand before sinking into the dry stretch, where you decide to stay for your meltdown. You drop onto your butt, pulling your knees close to your chest, and break into sobs, finally letting go of all the nightmares haunting you.

You have no idea how long it takes for you to pull yourself together. How much time you needed to cry before your mind began analyzing the situation? Half an hour? Five hours? Ah, if only your watch had stayed loyal instead of falling to the bottom of the ocean. And you can forget about your phone, once glued to your pocket.It divorced you the moment the fight for survival began on that plane. That’s exactly how your luck plays out.

“Well, I just had to fucking go on vacation.”

You say aloud, though the only recipient is the endless horizon of the now-calm ocean. You envy its peace, its ability to tame rage. If only it had used that power during your flight, maybe you wouldn’t feel the urge now to charge the largest organism on Earth with your bare fists. Maybe you wouldn’t be throwing handfuls of the cleanest sand you’ve ever seen just a few feet in front of you, your bare feet digging into it, skin still wrinkled like a raisin. Your sneakers and socks are drying nearby, but you bitterly suspect they won’t be fully dry by the time you need to wear them again.

Even the wind dares not show its face, as if sensing your grief, your fury, your despair, and all the other emotions that should never have appear during vacation. The sun doesn’t scorch; it hides shyly behind a few thin clouds, looking for an excuse not to show up today.

Perfect weather. Too perfect not to mock you.

Hey, see how beautiful your vacation could have been? Too bad, you get to rot on a deserted island instead.

You’re barely holding yourself back from screaming, crying, curling up into a ball, and kicking sand with your feet. All at once.

Just the thought of moving makes you want to cry. Actually, any thought does. You tried to get a grip and focus on what matters most, survival, but it’s still too soon to muster any resolve. Or maybe you’re just too weak? Too used to comfort, to the ease of city life, you’re not ready to let it go.

The truth is, you’re scared. No, you’re terrified. Fleeting sparks of reason urge you to release your primal instinct, to return to the wild animal within, struggling to survive in untouched nature.

But you don’t want that. You don’t want to be an animal, not yet, clinging desperately to the remnants of your old life, warding off thoughts like fire against wolves snarling for food, drinkable water, shelter, warmth. Things so trivial and easy to come by before, you never even imagined you’d need to fight for them, with your steady job and uncomfortable apartment, but at least four safe walls.

You lower your head onto your knees and pull them closer. You want to remain modern, not primal, so you chase the wolves away again. This time they retreat into the dark as you close your eyes for a moment, but you know they’ll return. And soon.

Despite your still-swollen eyes and nose clogged from crying, another sob shakes your chest, drawing out a deep, ancient human stress, long forgotten by many.

More precious minutes burn away doing nothing, but even in your hazy state, you notice the shift of the palm shadows on the beach. Your quiet alarm bell. You need to move, you tell yourself. Now.

Just get up. That’s all. That will be your first success.

Desperation flickers to life again as you consciously swallow, your saliva sluggishly dragging down your throat that now feels like sandpaper. Suddenly you realize how badly you need water. When was the last time you had anything in your mouth that wasn’t saltwater?

It’s not enough to make you embrace your current predicament, but it is enough to get your pampered city ass off the ground. Which your long-unused legs do not appreciate. Forced into bending, then suddenly straightened, they refuse to cooperate, stiff and tingling from inactivity. Thankfully, after a few wobbly steps, you regain control of your body, grab your sneakers and socks, and begin walking along the shore, where the waves gently devour the sand, tracing a path and border for your feet to follow.

You’re a long way from being a survival expert, but you try to follow logic. Or at least what’s left of it.

First, you check for injuries. Something you really should’ve done immediately, but upon waking up... well, you were a little preoccupied. You extend your arms, turning them slowly, bracing for the worst, broken or dislocated bones, but feel relief seeing only a few bruises on your forearms and a dull ache in your shoulder, likely from the chaos on the plane. Nothing alarming, nothing to worry about yet.

Your legs seem to be fine, too. Also peppered with bruises of all sizes, but your joints haven’t been swallowed by swelling. The only new feature is a long but shallow wound down your shin, already sealed with a black scab.

Great, you think. You can now focus mainly on finding  water.

You briefly lift your gaze from the shoreline littered with shells and tiny scuttling crabs fleeing from the two-legged intruder, and peer into the island’s thick jungle.

You know you’ll have to go in there eventually. Face nature head-on. Face the wild. You’ve been putting it off for too long. Curling into yourself was just an excuse, a way to nurture the hope that this is all just a cliché nightmare you’ll wake up from any minute now. But deep down, you know it’s not a nightmare, not a dream. It’s something far worse because it’s real.

The wolf of thirst bites at your throat again. You push it away one last time, continuing your slow walk along the shore.

Soon, you tell yourself. Soon you’ll head in there, find water, find something to eat. You start laying out a plan, praying it’ll be as simple in practice as it seems in your mind. Surely, there must be some exotic fruit here, right? The island looked far too big not to grow anything edible.

Ugh. You just want to go home already.

You turn your head toward your new nemesis — the ocean — scanning the waves for familiar shapes of suitcases, bags, or backpacks, proof of civilization, but the ocean senses your hatred and hides its treasures from you. You see nothing. The water has swallowed your hopes.

Your expression drops, sours. You promise yourself that you’ll never set foot on a beach again. Yeah, next vacation, you’re going to the mountains. So many choices. The Alps, maybe the Tatras? You’ve heard the Bieszczady Mountains are beautiful this time of year. Just you, trails stretching for miles, a cozy cabin in the middle of nowhere, and zero sand.

But first, you have to get off this island. If I even make it off, you think bitterly.

You will, you convince yourself. You definitely will.

Someone will start looking for you eventually, someone will notice that an entire plane disappeared in the middle of the ocean. Mhm, just a few days of survival. Once you’ve figured out a source of drinkable water, found some food and a safe place to shelter, you’ll draw huge SOS signs across every beach. Yes, you’ll get out. It won’t be easy, but you will.

Your auto-pep talk fills you with new determination. It’s just a few days. You’ll manage, definitely. By the end of the week, you’ll be asleep in your comfy bed again, you think with enthusiasm. With that boost, you keep walking another dozen meters along the shoreline, scanning for any loot among the waves but quickly give up, as the rhythmic crashing of water only sharpens your thirst.

Drinking water. Now.

You glance toward the green mass of vegetation swallowing most of the island. It makes it hard to gauge the island’s shape or size, but you can tell it’s not small. The beach stretches endlessly like a runway, paralleled by a line of coconut palms heavy with their armored fruit. You make a mental note to return to them later with an exceptionally sharp rock.

You slide on your still-damp socks and sneakers, wincing at the unpleasant wetness enveloping your feet, then take a cautious, tentative step into the wild, into the unknown and the primal, and the green of exotic flora swallows you whole.

At first, navigating the sparse greenery is easy. You just have to occasionally push a leaf aside or duck under a branch. The problems start later, as the vegetation thickens and spiderwebs begin appearing everywhere, always with eight-legged residents at their centers, along with a variety of beetles and ants. The last two don’t make you want to catapult out of your own skin in fear, at least.

Finding your bearings doesn’t come naturally. Large and small leaves blur into one endless shade of green, but now and then you manage to spot a landmark to guide you back. An odd-shaped tree, a big rock. To be extra sure you won’t get lost in this breathing green labyrinth, you find a dry stick and start scratching an X into every third tree, marking the path in both directions.

You’re just about to give up hope of finding anything useful when suddenly the thicket begins to thin, tempting you with open space and pumping new energy into your legs, urging you to speed up. The dryness in your throat is unbearable now. You’ve soothed it a few times by forcing yourself to lick drops of water off leaves, but honestly, you’d rather never do that again.

You know survival on a deserted island means doing weird things. But still, you feel… humiliated, french kissing leaves for a single droplet of water. This is not how you imagined your exclusive vacation.

“It’s no longer vacation, you idiot.” you hiss.

You part a leaf blocking your view and can’t help the smile forming on your face.

“Or maybe... it kind of still is?”

A large lagoon greets you with open arms, framed by a beach of pristinely clean sand. The pool in the middle glistens with dark, but clear water, surprisingly deep for a lagoon.

You let out a quiet, appreciative whistle.

“Wow. It’s beautiful” you say aloud, only to purse your lips into a thin line.

Really? You’re already talking to yourself? Bit early to be going mad.

You scan the length of the lagoon with your eyes, wishing you could be here under completely different circumstances, when your gaze locks onto something... familiar. You squint, slowly moving toward one corner, where sand fades into solid ground, and with each step it becomes clearer. The mass of green you took for ivy and bushes is actually shaped like something man-made.

That “something” turns out to be the crumbling remnants of a stone house. Cracked and neglected, finally caught by the passage of time, merciless even to the strongest of materials.

The house has no roof and is missing one wall, but the remaining three offer tempting shelter from wind and potential rain, should you plan to (which you definitely don’t) stay here more than three days.

The problem is, if you want to get off this island, you’ll need a clear view of the ocean, something the narrow lagoon outlet doesn’t provide. But surely there’s no harm in spending one night here, right? You can already picture a fire in the center of the ruins, the warmth, grilled fish over the flames...

And you’re not sure if you’re successfully gaslighting yourself or if some ancient force is now in charge, but suddenly the cracked walls, floor overgrown with moss and weeds, and a massive branch sneaking in through what might have once been a window seem... cozy.

Honestly, your apartment back in the city wasn’t much better.

That thought convinces you to settle here for at least one night. And when you look toward the corner where a tree has also sought refuge, you spot several large papayas growing near its trunk, and you know: this is your camp. Your lips curl into a smile as you realize the fruits are ripe and hanging low enough to grab. Just a little jump and you are now clutching two plump fruits to your chest. You even kiss one in joy, unable to believe how fucking lucky you are.

You won't die of hunger! And you'll quench your thirst a little while you're at it. Really, it couldn't be better.

But, alas, you’ve just never had good timing.

The sound of water breaking pulls you out of your bliss. Before you even have time to process what’s happening, you press yourself tightly against the cracked wall, right beside a rectangular cutout that probably once served as a door, and you cover your mouth with your hand, forced to hold the large fruits with just one arm, which, practically speaking, is no easy task.

You hear dripping water and loud splashing sounds, the kind you associate with a large body leaving the water, but it’s the volume of those sounds that worries you the most. You have no doubt that whatever just crawled out of the water is big. Huge, even.

A whale? An orca? You try to guess, unconvinced that it's worth risking your life just to satisfy your curiosity. But you instantly disprove every guess with what you already know about those animals.

Still, you want to look. You know it’s stupid and it could end in disaster, but you want to. Just for a moment, for a second. You’ll peek out gently, careful not to make yourself an easy snack or target, and you’ll slip back to your beach silently.

Mhm, you’ll even let that thing have your (when did it start being yours anyway?) little corner, you won’t hold a grudge.

But you have to peek. Just for a second.

Undecided, you gently bite your lip.

You’ll look. But just for a millisecond.

But the very moment you stick out even a millimeter of your head and eye, you know you’re a liar. The millisecond is gone. Then a full second. Then a second more. Then a third. And you can’t move.

He’s beautiful, unearthly. Not belonging to your world, ripped straight from fairytales and legends, teasing your brain just enough that it no longer knows whether what you glimpse from the corner of your eye is even real. Or maybe such a drastic relocation into entirely unfamiliar conditions was enough to start seeing things?

A merman. A real merman.

Your jaw nearly hits the floor, but you shut your mouth just in time before a startled squeak can betray you.

The creature is enormous, roughly the size of an orca, though you know that the tail hidden beneath the lagoon’s surface could easily stretch your estimation by another meter or two. What draws your eye is the exotic palette of colors decorating his smooth skin. Muscular arms sunken into the clean, wheat-colored sand blaze red, though the crimson is interrupted by streaks of grey that trail down his forearms to his neck, where they fan out toward a white underbelly. His head, adorned with a crest rising from the center of his forehead and extending into a long dorsal fin, suddenly bursts into a pastel navy blue that flows down his back to the massive tail — a mishmash of the entire color wheel.

Humanoid. Too humanoid. Toying with your understanding of human beauty’s uniqueness. And yet here it is, just a safe dozen or so meters ahead of you, breathing. If you squinted, he really could pass for a person.

To keep yourself from going insane and to chase off intrusive thoughts, you pinch your forearm. Ouch. You’re real. But that also means he is too, giving you one more reason to go crazy.

Unable to tear your eyes from the siren monster, you decide to examine him more closely. You focus on his face, bizarrely human, yet ancient. Nothing like the stony mugs of instinct-driven animals. You feel like deep thoughts are swirling behind that blue skin, thoughts that also brim in those enormous, azure eyes. The distance between you is small enough that you can even make out the emotions running through him.

He looks sad. Pitiful, even, if you could compare the size and glint in his eyes to a sorrowful puppy, which your brain tries and fails to reconcile with the scarred body, head, and a face bearing the marks of a long life. You know instinctively this creature has years of survival behind him, every second of existence spent fighting for access to basic needs.

Which might also mean he's well-versed in the art of hunting humans, you realize with dread. You can only guess what makes up his diet, but judging by the sharp claws on his long webbed fingers, you suspect he’s not a peaceful herbivore.

Not that you’d risk an interaction with him just to test your theories. No, you'd really like to get back home in one piece.

Great. So now you’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. There’s no way you’re getting out of here without catching the siren’s attention. In fact, no matter where you go from here, there's a chance of encountering him again, and you really, really didn’t want to find out if he’s a man-eater.

Or worse — a hungry man-eater.

You glance around, looking for a wide enough gap in the foliage for a silent escape, but you're not even given the chance to take a single step. Your shoes are nailed to the earth by...

Singing.

A siren's song.

Mournful, pleading, and so raw that you hold your breath, afraid of it interrupting his piece.

It reminds you of the whalesong you’ve heard in documentaries, but each chirp, whine, and groan is loaded with sorrow and bitterness, bombarding your heart, even if you don’t understand the lyrics. You don’t need words to grasp the melancholic message, one that cuts through interspecies barriers.

The siren doesn’t stop singing, feeding his hidden audience new verses, each as depressing as the last. Like a newly discovered song, you can’t stop listening. All your senses retreat to make room for sharper hearing. You inhale his song, fill yourself with sad sounds, experiencing his suffering as if it were your own. Even if it’s just a trick to lure a tasty human snack out of hiding.

That slightly tempers your emotional response.

Right. Of course.

Maybe he knows you’re here. Feels you. Smells your tasty human flesh and is trying to coax you into the open like you were some kind of takeout.

You blink a few times, shaking off the last traces of compassion, proud of yourself for seeing through the sad facade of those puppy-blue eyes and the angsty concert. In the blink of an eye, you remember you need to get back to the beach, your only chance of spotting a ship or a plane in the patch of sky not covered by trees, because he already won the fight for the cozy shelter.

You return to searching for an escape route when suddenly, you freeze.

Your entire body blue-screens, and it must have rearranged every organ inside you too, because now you can feel your heartbeat in your ass. Because to your left, right by your head, a giant brown tarantula is slowly crawling along a cracked wall. So close you can see every hair on its abdomen.So close you can hear the soft tippy taps of all eight legs.

Oh, fuck.

“AHHHH!”

Your body reacts faster than common sense can remind you that the real predator, the one that could actually kill you, probably shouldn’t know it has company. You leap right, springing through the remains of a door straight onto the warm sand surrounding the lagoon.

Still clutching two papayas tightly to your chest, you try to stay upright on your wobbling, jelly-like legs, but it’s no use. You drop to your knees, the soft sand cushioning the pain. You know you should be running, right now, immediately. You urge your legs into action, begging silently but desperately for your own body to cooperate, but your rapid, ragged breathing drowns out your pleas.

When you realize that an immediate escape is no longer an option, all you can do is curl into the fetal position, forehead kissing the warm sand.

Hmm. Nice feeling, you think. You wouldn’t mind dying surrounded by the softness of this tropical, clean beach.

You hear nothing but the whistle of air sucked through your lips.

Nothing else.

Nothing...

You freeze.

You don’t need a mirror to know your eyes are now the size of dinner plates.

For a moment, you wonder how the hell you’re still alive. How come you don’t feel claws and teeth ripping through your flesh like a piece of paper? The agonizing pain of muscles tearing and bones shattering while you’re eaten alive, disappearing into the siren’s jaws. Bite by bite, until the last memory of your existence belongs to him.

But nothing like that happens. All your tissues are intact. You are neither bitten, nor scratched, nor swallowed alive.

Why the hell are you still alive?

Out of stupidity or curiosity, though you suspect it's more the former, you decide to make eye contact with the predator.

Slowly, you lift your head, gradually rediscovering his form. Milky white belly, swirls of red and grey skin on his chest, and finally, his head, flanked by small, bristling navy fins.

Still beautiful. Majestic. Enormous.

But as potential prey, can you allow yourself the pleasure of such hidden compliments? You wonder if deer also think like this before being devoured by wolves. Do they finally recognize the predator’s beauty only moments before death?

The humanoid face is turned toward you, expression frozen in comforting, familiar shock. The enormous eyes, adorned with remarkable white pupils, have doubled in size, and his mouth has fallen open, giving you a limited glimpse inside.

Teeth. Sharp teeth, undeniably those of a meat-eater.

For the second time that day, you feel some incomprehensible force rearranging your organs.

A flicker in the blue eye. A twitch in the human-like torso. A subtle lean in your direction pulls your heart from your ass back into place, and with it, apparently, the feeling in your legs, because suddenly, you’re ready to care about your own survival again.

You never believed those myths about time slowing down in the face of mortal danger. You thought that was a tired trope from action movies, overused to the point where you physically rolled your eyes whenever you saw it on screen.

But apparently, it’s very real.

Because there’s no other way to explain how slowly the creature’s expression morphs a few meters in front of you. His brow furrows, jaw opens and closes again and again, chewing, analyzing.

As if wondering what to do with you. If this pitiful, miniature oddity before him was even worth using as a toothpick?

To eat or not to eat? That is the question but you don’t want to know his answer.

Your body gambles on the oldest bet known to humankind.

You go all in on running.

Faster than you've ever moved in your entire life, you bolt toward the green thicket.

You could swear that the pathetic, almost pleading howl behind you and the shifting sound of something slithering across the sand belong to the siren, but you don’t have the courage to turn your head and confirm it.

You disappear behind massive leaves, blindly trying to make your way back to the familiar beach.

And ever after a long while, you can still hear the lamenting wail creeping up behind you.

[ppssession]

Wonderful freedom

In a long time there used to be a group of demons that lived in the human world. They were extremely lustful demons but sadly their bodies were not attractive to them. These demons that craved hot bodies came to the human world. They often lured many humans into falling for their sweet offers. Humans who fell for their sweet offers would eventually have their bodies snatched away. These demons would then possess humans.

Legend also says that it was so greedy for male genitalia that it didn't care whose body it belonged to. Kings, royalty, knights, peasants, and many others were possessed by the demon and used for sexual purposes.

Fortunately, at one point, the world of those demons was sealed off by a group of people with special powers, and the stories of demons possessing human male bodies were gradually forgotten.

When he finished reading, Brandon closed the book. “These legends are so ridiculous, where in the world would there be demons possessing men for sexual purposes?” Brandon complained about the collection of stories he had rented from a bookstore.

The handsome young man, Brandon, put down his book and prepared to go to the library to return the boring book he had borrowed.

Shortly after Brandon returned the book, he began wandering around the large library, looking for interesting books to take home and read.

But suddenly the library became dark. Even though he wondered what was going on, he continued walking to find the book he wanted to read. He walked back and forth in the darkness where he could see things.

After a while, he found a strange-looking book. It was a black book with an eye in the middle. At first, Brandon thought it was just a fancy book with just plain paper inside.

But as he was about to walk away, his mind felt strange, as if his body was being led to open that book, his mind ordered it to be that book, he slowly walked over to touch the book, when he picked it up, he felt that something was definitely going to happen, but he still couldn't stop himself from opening the book.

When he opened it, he looked inside, there were countless unknown characters, and those characters slowly floated out, they gathered together and turned into a large smoke, as the large smoke in front of him rushed into his body, a large amount of smoke entered his body through his mouth, causing Brandon's body to twist, his muscles twitched, and his eyes rolled back.

The book cover slowly crawled into the smoke, and the strange-looking book turned into an ordinary book.

Brandon's body, which was inhaled by the strange smoke, slowly twisted his muscles and moved his neck a few times before speaking with an evil smile, "I confess, I'm free now. That stupid seal only locked me for a few hundred years. Do you think I can't wait?"

A demon that desires a human body like mine can live for hundreds of thousands of years, it wouldn't know. The demon possessing Brandon replied yes as his body rubbed against it. "Wow, it seems I hit the jackpot, this body is insane, these muscles are making me horny," a large tent formed between Brandon's legs.

But unfortunately, I don't have enough power. I'll let this guy control his body for now while I take my time to recover and devour him. Haha, after speaking, Brandon's eyes rolled back and forth, he regained control of himself, and he couldn't remember anything about the strange book. "What happened? Oh yeah, I got the book from the library. Oh, I can't remember. Never mind, let's go home."

After that, about a month passed. แบรนดอนกำลังนั่งสบายๆ อยู่ในบ้านหลังจากทำธุระมาทั้งวัน เมื่อเขารู้สึกแปลกๆ ในท้อง

“Ahh, what happened?” Brandon’s body didn’t listen to his commands, it started moving on its own without his control, his muscles tensed, his penis hardened uncontrollably.

His hands were rubbing his body, now Brandon's mind was spinning, instead of being afraid, his mind was enjoying this feeling, the feeling that something was slowly taking over him, his eyes rolled back, that was the last time the real Brandon was conscious, suddenly his eyes returned to normal.

I'm so horny

The devil has taken over Brandon's body.

Okay, I have to deal with my hard cock first. One hand unzipped my pants and pulled out my big, thick, long cock from my pants.

His thick hand lightly touched the large cock, the other hand played with the nipple that was on his shirt. The moans of a man possessed by a demon echoed throughout the room that only he could hear.

Soon, the new Brandon was chasing after the climax, the speed of his hand was increasing, the rhythm was becoming unstable. In no time, the moan of the possessed man was heard along with the semen flowing out of the tip of his cock. “Ahhhhh.”

Brandon took a weak breath, this was his first release after being sealed away. He picked up his phone and found news of a new park being built in a nearby town. “Oh yeah, that’s where another one of my friends is locked up. I should probably go help him out, since he has the same taste in body possession as me.

Then the devil took a photo of himself with his new hot body a few hours later. The new Brandon was busy masturbating all night long.

After finishing, I must say that this story will have a sequel where Brandon will release the demons that are imprisoned in various places. Let's see what kind of demon friends the new Brandon will meet. See you, bye.

[jennifer-jeong]

Fluff | Genshin x GN!Reader What Made Them Fall For You?

Xiao, Wanderer/Scaramouche, Diluc

SUMMARY Headcanons on what makes the genshin pookies fall for you <3

CONTENT Fluff, gender neutral reader, men falling for reader, reader is not traveler but is friends with them, mentions of character's trauma, CHARACTERS ARE 18+

AUTHOUR NOTES I hope to eventually write about all the men >:) it will probably take a while to get to it but I’ll try to keep each one short to encourage myself to finish them all hehe.

XIAO

I think Xiao would start to fall for you because you see through his tough, mean guy act. You can tell that even though his words are harsh and he’s telling you to leave him alone, he’s just protecting you. You might not see it at first, but as you understand his condition, his karmic debt, you understand him. Your realization makes you feel warm knowing that Xiao is really just an innocent soul who wanted to keep you safe. He wants so badly to never hurt anyone ever again and “repent” in solitude even though he has nothing to really repent for; he was forced to kill by his previous master and his karmic debt only comes from killing the remnants of old gods and absorbing their debt.

You start to hang around him more as a result and, much to Xiao’s dismay, he doesn’t hate it. In fact, he actually enjoys how you reignite the warmth in him, the warmth he hasn’t felt in so long since his fellow Yaksha have passed. But did he want to let you in? Shouldn’t he push you away? He’s been alone for so long, why change that now? He felt like he didn’t deserve to enjoy company again, that he didn’t deserve you and your kindness. But maybe just this time… just once, would he allow it.

WANDERER

I think Wanderer would start to fall for you because you make him feel human emotions like he’s never felt before. He’s always searched for a “heart” in the form of a gnosis, thinking it would make him human and make him feel loved and wanted. But even when he had it, it didn’t feel right. Even now, with his anemo vision, he feels more, but still not what he wants. But with you, it feels perfect. Others would probably describe what he feels as something like “butterflies in my stomach” but since he probably doesn’t really experience physical things like that, being a magical puppet and all, he thinks about how you make his vision glow. When he feels a surge of emotions, it feels like he’s using his vision. It feels powerful, happy, strong, and warm, like how a light breeze feels on a sunny afternoon.

You know about his past, what he did, and how the world wronged him. He’s been so traumatized and can barely comprehend his emotions. So when you reach out to him after he regains his memory and a new anemo vision, you try to help him through his emotions in the gentle way that you do. You’re so soft with him and it makes his vision heart ache. He believes he doesn’t deserve you but you try your best to show him otherwise. As you two get closer, you never really notice, but the wind always picks up just a little bit when he sees you.

DILUC

I think Diluc would start to fall for you because you don’t just see him as “the young and rich son of the Ragnvindr family estate.” You see him for him: Diluc. You see a beautiful soul with a broken heart that has put up walls that he intends to never break down again. Others might think that Diluc is just cold, but you and the others close to him know that no matter how cold he may seem, the pure fire that burns inside him always spreads its warmth to those around him. He’s believed for a while now that barely anyone can see what he’s hiding underneath, that people want him for his money, his property, his material things. But you prove him wrong time and time again. You sweetly say hi to him every time you see him not because you want to put on a facade to get on his good side. You don’t help him break up a fight at the tavern and clean up after because you want a monetary reward. You don’t bake him an adorable strawberry cake for his birthday because you want something back. No, you do it because you care, because you have so much love to give, and Diluc feels so lucky to be a part of your life.

He feels his feelings grow for you as time goes on. He feels you getting closer and he barely hesitates to let you in. You didn’t break down his walls, you politely made a door for yourself to enter and it makes you both laugh to think about it that way. He stays reserved around most others but always holds the door open for you, physically and metaphorically.

|| MASTERLIST ♡ || Thank you for reading! ||

[rowayneau]

Caretaker Alastor AU

What if Charlie is born later, around the 1900s? Lucifer and Lilith were hoping for a baby, but it took them a little while, and eventually, Charlie came along a bit later. So at this point, Charlie is just a baby, but she's also a demon. So, essentially, a human is able to summon her forth if they have the right conditions or enough power. Lucifer really went all out with the crazy requirements and restrictions for Charlie's summoning. He wanted to make sure that no selfish human could just waltz in and take advantage of her.

Since no one will intentionally summon a demon baby at this point, he planned to do it when Charlie was a little older. The key term is "intentionally." It turns out that even as a baby, Charlie can be summoned by humans. Can you imagine the shock on Lucifer and Lilith's faces when their little girl just vanishes from her crib, with the summoning magic still lingering around?

Both parents went into full panic mode as their little girl was gone, summoned onto Earth with no idea who summoned her or what that person was going to do to her. Their baby will be in the hands of some horrible human and most likely will suffer under them. Both parents waste no time, gathering the Sins and forming search parties to go to earth to find their baby. The longer they delay, the more their baby suffer

In the meantime, back on Earth, Alastor has just completed murdering his most recent victim when he stumbles upon a pentagram on the forest floor. It seems like the woods he was in were actually a spot where the local cult performed their ritual summoning. The cult packed up and left town not too long ago, probably after a ritual that didn’t go as planned. Alastor, intrigued by the pentagram, started to poke at it to figure out what was so fascinating about it. He accidentally cut himself on a broken beer bottle that the cult had left behind, and his blood dripped onto the pentagram on the ground.

Suddenly, the entire pentagram burst into light, and a massive flash illuminated everything. Once everything settled down and Alastor regained his sight, he was honestly taken aback, to put it mildly. In the middle of the Pentagram, there's a baby. It's a demon baby, to be precise. So, Alastor somehow managed to summon a demon, but it looks like it's just a little baby one. Alastor started to feel a bit panicked; if he had somehow summoned a baby to Earth all by himself, it meant the angry parents wouldn't be too far behind and were probably going to come after him for taking their child. Alastor remained in the woods with the baby, just waiting to see if the parents would show up to pick up their child. If they did, Alastor could speak with the parents about making a deal or maybe just letting him go free in return for bringing their child back.

Alastor waited all day, but the parents never showed up. It’s just him and the baby, and he found out her name is Charlie from the blanket she was wrapped in. After a long day and with Charlie getting crankier, Alastor really has no choice but to take the baby home. He figured he could look after the child until her parents arrived, assuming she still had them around. Fingers crossed he didn't go and adopt an orphan demon baby.

So, Alastor started looking after baby Charlie. Initially, he saw her as something he had to deal with. Looking after her isn't just the right move; it also gives him a bit of leverage if her parents show up, letting him use her to strike a deal or keep things safe. But as time went on, he started to really like the kid more and more. He may not completely view Charlie as his own child, but he definitely sees her as someone he should care for and keep an eye on.

But there’s this issue with Charlie; she’s not growing the way a typical human child does. She spent several years as a baby, and others started to take notice. People think Alastor is up to some witchcraft with his Voodoo, and they believe the baby is a demon of sorts (which actually is the case). Alastor made an effort to clear up the rumors, but during the Great Depression, people were struggling and frustrated, and they were eager to find someone or something to point fingers at. Alastor and his child really seem like the ideal target for it.

People are talking about how Alastor and his baby might be the reason for the food shortage, and they stipulate that the town's economy is struggling because there's a guy in the woods doing some sort of demonic Voodoo witchcraft. That's the reason everyone seems to be struggling—there's a demon causing them all this trouble. Before long, things got really heated, and one night, an angry mob stormed into Alastor’s house. They fired at Alastor multiple times, and just when they were about to aim at Charlie, Alastor stepped in to protect her. Alastor, feeling the rush of adrenaline, managed to scare them out of his house, but he was left in a pretty bad state.

The mob, scared of Alastor and the potential demon baby, decided to set his house on fire, aiming to destroy everything and take out both the witch and the demon. Even with the place going up in flames, Alastor somehow got to his feet, injuries and all, cradling baby Charlie in his arms. He finally reached out for help for the very first time in his life. He shouted for Charlie, not for himself. If anyone out there is listening, whether it's a god or a demon, please protect this child. Whatever they decide, just give Charlie a chance to become the person she always dreamed of being—even if it means taking his soul.

Just as Alastor was starting to fade out, he noticed someone coming his way. The figure then mentions that he would save both of them, but Alastor would have to give up his soul when he dies. It makes sense, really, considering Alastor took his daughter away from him. He can see, however, that he loved her very much and was prepared to put his life in danger to protect her. He would spare Alastor's life in Hell and make his stay there a little easier. However, Alastor would be working for both him and his family. Alastor, realizing he doesn't have many choices, decides to go along with this mysterious demon. After they struck the deal, Alastor passed away.

After Alastor wakes up in Hell, he discovers that Charlie is actually the Princess of Hell, and her dad? Well, he's none other than Lucifer Morningstar, the Devil himself. Right away, Lucifer and Lilith, along with the Sins, started questioning him to get to the bottom of things. They were curious about why Alastor called Charlie and how he managed to do it, along with a bunch of other questions. Once it became obvious that it was just an accident and Alastor didn’t mean any harm to Charlie, they finally let me go, though not without a bit of hesitation. They're still watching him for any suspicious activity.

Not that he could, anyway; Alastor is now owned by Lucifer Morningstar and serves the royal family. He is shared between Lucifer, Lilith, and Charlie. If they asked him to do something and it was an absolute order, he really wouldn’t have any choice but to go along with it. Alastor is always busy helping out the Morningstars in all sorts of ways. He takes on roles like being a guard, a nanny, a cook, and even a secretary to lend a hand with paperwork from time to time. Lucifer and Lilith both start to really like Alastor, and now Charlie has a third parent in addition to her mom and dad.

For a while, everything was calm, but as the tension between Lilith and Lucifer increased, they made the decision to take some time apart in order to clear their heads. Charlie, feeling a bit alone with her mom and dad not around much, really relies on Alastor for emotional and parental support as she works on opening her Hotel.

So, this brings us to the pilot, where Charlie kicks things off with Alastor and Vaggie by her side right from the start.

[sammyycain]

Sam Winchester and parallels to Christ

Despite religion and religious imagery being extremely prominent throughout the 2005 tv show Supernatural, one import figure in both Catholicism and Christianity is missing, Jesus Christ himself. I found this strange when I was watching the show and while I still do, I think that we as an audience can attribute a great many “Christ-like” traits to one of the main characters, Sam Winchester. He, just as Jesus did, must go though a great many periods of suffering in order to prove himself, with one of these periods even being referred to as a trial. However, unlike Christ, Sam is not able to attain holiness and absolution in the eyes of the Lord.

Religious symbolism is rife throughout most of Sam’s plot lines, with him often being cast as the pious believer as a character foil to Dean who is often cast as a very sinful person. This is shown when a town outlaws drinking, gambling and premarital sex in order to gain. God’s favour and Sam remarks that those things are “90%” of Dean’s personality. It’s also revealed that Sam prays every night and has done so since childhood. This connection of Sam to God s further strengthened when in season 15 Sam and God or in this case Chuck are rather literally tethered by the bullet that Sam shot him with. Another thing to note about this is that the “bullet” is made of Sam’s flesh and blood, further showing that despite Sam constantly praying and giving to God it ultimately only leads him to be harmed.

The God that exists in Supernatural is no longer the hallowed name that we all know, this version of God only takes, instead of giving like the merciful version of the Lord that children are told about who helps and cares for humanity. This God has existed for so long that he only knows boredom, and consequently created Dean and Sam to entertain him. Dean was always His favourite with Chuck intending for him to become the vessel of the archangel Micheal, a holy and noble job. Sam on the other hand, was created for only one purpose, and that was to become the vessel to Lucifer, Dean’s opposition. Sam was never created, or intended to be holy or even able to attain that title, even despite his longing to do so. He can pray and give himself to the Lord, but is unable to attain or regain purity.

Sam must, through the trials, combat evil by closing the gates of hell, in a way reminiscent of how Christ had to suffer the persecution, bearing off the cross and eventual crucifixion. Jesus was always aware of his fate, just as Sam was during the trials. They both understood that in order to better humanity, they would have to suffer and eventually die. The trials were Sam’s cross to bear, just as Jesus was only able to accept minimal help throughout his suffering. This help, for Sam comes in the form of Dean, who helps kill the hellhound and takes care of Sam, just as the bystander who carried Jesus’s cross for him for a time. They both were able to help share the load, even if it was only a temporary relief.

Sam is also referred to throughout the show as an abomination and unclean, by both himself and other characters, particularly in plot lines that are heavily rooted in religion. During the trials in season 8, Sam recalls a time when Dean was reading a book to him about the knights of king Arthur and their search for the holy grail and Sam says that despite wishing that he could go on a similar quest he knows that it’s impossible as he’s “unclean.” This further cements how despite being the most openly religious and pious character in the main cast of the show, apart from Castiel, he is not considered holy enough to serve the Lord. This is due mostly to what happened to him as a baby when he was fed demon blood by Azazel in order to groom him into becoming the antichrist and leader of the demon army. As I discussed in my last essay on Sam Winchester, this is a very obvious metaphor for CSA (child sexual assault), especially due to the line “so he could bleed in my mouth.” This quote in particular pinpoints this original “sin” as the catalyst for the subsequent events of Sam’s life.

The theme of purity and by extension, holiness is incredibly prominent in Sam’s character and plot lines, especially during the demon blood arc and subsequently any one that involved religious themes or ideals. Because of the fact that he’s “impure”, Sam is unable to reach “true holiness.” The closest that he ever came during the 15 season and 327 episode runtime of the show was during the trails in season 8. Not only do the trails bear a striking resemble to the trials that Jesus himself had to endure, specifically the 40 days in the desert, but they also help to “cleanse” him of his sins and wrong doing. Whether they were committed on him by others on done by his on hand seems to not matter to the God that exists in Supernatural as they all bear the same consequence. These perceived sins render Sam impure, unclean and unholy.

All of this is further highlighted during the season 15 reveal that Sam, Dean, Castiel and by extension all of the characters in the show are nothing but playthings for the all powerful God, or as he calls himself, Chuck. Sam Winchester is not special, not holy and not favoured by the Lord. He is but one of many, existing only through the lense of how entertaining he can be to his God. It’s revealed that he was created on a whim by a bored God who wanted something interesting. He, along with Dean and Cas, find out that they are one of the many versions of themselves that God or Chuck has created, and that they have only survived this long because they were interesting to him.

Another period of suffering that Sam goes through for the greater good of humanity is his time in the cage. During the season 5 finale, Sam Winchester, once again gives up his autonomy in order to save people. He allows Lucifer to use him as a vessel, Sam then overpower’s Lucifer and causes them to both fall into the cage the Lucifer was originally trapped in. Sam, in many ways does this as a repentance for his sins. In this case, it’s the sin of allowing himself to be manipulated and groomed into drinking demon blood and subsequently, freeing Lucifer from his cage. This action results in Sam being stuck in the cage with Lucifer, where it is heavily implied that he was not only tortured for thousands of years in every way imaginable, but also raped and sexually assaulted. When he is finally freed, it’s only his physical form, or body, leaving him soulless. While he does eventually regain his soul, he is so traumatised that he is hospitalised for a good amount of time. During this period, he is constantly experiencing flashbacks and hallucinations of Lucifer, in a manner that is heavily reminiscent of PTSD. However, like most heavy topics in the show, this is fairly quickly brushed over.

To conclude, Sam Winchester is one of the most pious and prayerful characters in the show, which is a stark contrast to his brother. However, he was never intended to be a holy man and was thus doomed from the start. Despite suffering plentifully, he is incapable of reaching sainthood or canonisation as he will never be holy, clean, or pure enough in the eyes of the angels or the Lord.

[rhymeswithchronic]

I’ve seen a little bit of speculation about how Evbo’s abilities as Parkour God would translate to PvP Civ in relation to Vengeance for the Lamb, and I’m not sure how much I’d be able to actually state in story, so enjoy a little bit of personal thought dump!

First, I like the idea that people from Parkour Civ are immune to PvP damage and vice versa. This definitely means Evbo is quite overpowered in a place where Parkour isn’t really practiced, and the same goes for Boey (PVP Evbo) who can’t be hurt by Parkour. Unlike Boey who actually has been shown to not be terrible at Parkour, Evbo has no experience in physical combat. He can definitely take hits but he sucks at giving them back. He can grab shit really hard and that’s scary when he could break your weapon, but he ain’t gonna be able to outfight anyone in sword to sword combat

His abilities are kind of funky. He retains any personal abilities given to him by his divinity, but he lacks the connection to the world that he has in Parkour Civ, where he could feasibly do whatever he wants whenever he wants by editing the source code. That isn’t available to him in PvP Civ. He’s A god, not THE god. He has no control over the wider world whatsoever. The closest thing he has is that he can revive people and set spawn points, but that’s because those are less intrinsically tied to the world and more tied to the actual players.

Physical attributes are still present. Physical strength, limited teleportation, brief moments of spectator and of course, tapping into his proper Godly form. (CookieGod had one too and I like to think it was based on a dragon. It would probably be a full dragon though rather than the still human like form Evbo has because the old god fully gave into his godhood whereas Evbo still clings to his humanity while only occasionally tapping into that ability)

The one thing that definitely marks him as divine is his ability to create and destroy matter/blocks. He can access the creative mode inventory, but he’s not coding anything like he could in Parkour Civ.

Evbo also could not survive indefinitely in PvP Civ. He no longer has to eat food to survive (though he certainly can and still feels hunger, he wouldn’t starve) he still requires energy to sustain himself. In Parkour Civilization, this energy comes from a few different sources: Devotion (which is typically consumed in offered food, with things like bread and cake that have to be homemade having more than food made with less care), worship (the active worshipping of the Parkour God) and the act of Parkour itself. He is Parkour after all

In PVP Civ, he receives none of these things except for the very faint scrap of the occasional parkour done during fights. While it’s something I’m probably not going to explore in Vengeance, it might be fun to do an AU of an AU exploring this aspect more. He’s fine for awhile, working off of the stored excess of energy gained from his home world, but eventually, cut off completely, he would start to starve again. This process would be quickened by things like overuse of his God Form, but no matter what, he would eventually run dry. At that point, he would essentially become mortal again until either he died or made it back to Parkour Civilization, in where he would be able to regain the lost energy.

He’s running on a Duracell battery right now essentially. Technically, someone could ‘feed’ him by doing Parkour and what would be hilarious to imagine

So! What I like to imagine basically is that he is powerful, but not ALL powerful like he is in Parkour Civ. Hope someone finds this interesting or just the image of someone furiously doing parkour to feed a hungry Evbo funny lmao

[detectivemaker]

my own idea for a bill redemption story

So it starts like a lot of others I’ve seen with Bill being to earth to try and make some progress, but with an extra executive, which each steps he takes in bettering himself, he gains one of his powers

When set of twins come back to find that the triangular nuisance of their existences is back in existence he’s regained the power of levitation and mind reading, he regained these abilities because he saved me from falling down stairs she’s pregnant and that counts as saving two lives

after soos talks

Ford down from blasting the triangle into re non-existence, melody suggests   that the younger set of twins and  bill go around town to find problems to solve

Only Mabel agrees to do this so she and Bill go around town doing little tasks, none of which spark any flair old Power into Billy boy,  eventually they get back to the shack  and decide to  stargaze

As they do so bill senses that Mabel  is trying to not think about something he inquires about what she's trying to keep from the Forefront and that causes the floodgates of both tears and anxiety thoughts about their parents impending divorce to burst  open

Bill consoles her about feeling like she's losing her parents and says that he can relate (cuz you know he literally lost his parents),   she continues to have sad feelings in her brain even after the tears are wiped from her eyes,   bill thinks of something to give her to give a spark of happiness again and in a proof it comes into existence, and with that he's weakening disability to just make things appear

During another trip into town to try and find little tasks to do the ambushed by a group of gnomes who are trying to kidnap Mable to be their Queen again,  dipper has accompanied them and whatever the Gnomes has a very dangerous looking stick, boo pushes the boy out of the way of the stick-wielding gnome and it's likely grazed in his place,  summoning a leaf blower he blows away many of the Gnomes except for the leader, he commands little creep to march his way to the knee was body of water and stick his head in, the gnome does so without any complaint, and just like that he's gained his ability to control minds again

Sometime later in the story bill and  stan get into an argument and he admits something that he's never admitted to anyone, he loves Stanford,   stan says he's lying and bill says in a serious tone he's never used in a long while

" you can call my bluff on a lot of things  stanley,  but when I say that I love your brother... I'm not lying"

And then you tell the ports to the guest room  he's been using as a bedroom, and he cries himself to sleep, something he hasn't done since the night after the distraction of his entire dimension

Breakfast the next morning is tense, and it's his turn to bring a plate down to Stanford seeing as he hasn't left his lab since he learned that bill was back, the ride down the elevator to the basement is quiet, he's half expecting an atom  destabilizing gun to be pointed in his face when the elevator doors open, but they're Stanford sits  lit by the overhead lights, he's writing down something,  he doesn't start her when Bill levitates and places the plate of bacon and eggs on to the table he's  working at

"  i've been thinking about us ", bill says  sitting tensed  on the wood of  stanford's work desk," and I just want to say i'm sorry", he doesn't have to say that  stanford doesn't have to forgive him it just seems to be something that's already known between the two

Bill knows you're probably be hit with a metal wall if he tries to peer into the man's thoughts, but somehow he knows that Stanford's been thinking about  them too, maybe even before he learned that he was still alive

He relaxes when a six-fingered hand placed itself a top his

" i've missed you" one of them says it doesn't matter which and was a exhale bill thinks about change

And that's when he is suddenly shapeshifts into a more human form causing the table he was sitting on to turn on to its side

That's sort of all I have for right now

[pikuna]

Missing Parts of Me - Chapter 2

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Category: F/M, Gen

Fandoms: Dandadan (Manga)

Relationships: Ayase Momo/Takakura “Okarun” Ken, Takakura “Okarun” Ken & Turbo-Granny

Characters: Ayase Momo, Takakura “Okarun” Ken, Turbo-Granny (Dandadan), Zuma Unji, Ayase Seiko, Shiratori Aira (Dandadan), Enjouji “Jiji” Jin, Vamola (Dandadan)

Additional Tags: Youkai Takakura “Okarun” Ken, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Insecure Takakura “Okarun” Ken, Takakura “Okarun” Ken Needs a Hug, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Dandadan Manga Spoilers, Post Danmara arc, Pre-Relationship, No Confession previously, Momo never shrunk, Events of Kozuka Knives Arc haven’t started yet, Found Family, Enemy To Family, Canon-Typical Violence, canon-typical cussing, Romantic Fluff, Eventual Relationships

Summary

Never would Okarun have thought that he would actually miss it to transform into his Yokai form. Or that he would ever miss Turbo Granny. Both things had changed his life forever and while it hard been a...troubled start to put it mildly, he had become accustomed to both and also relied a lot on his ability to fight. Lucky for him there is a chance for him to regain both things.

It was just bad timing. A Bloodmoon is always a very tricky time for young Yokai or those desperate souls. And Okarun was both young and desperate. Desperate to finally get his feelings for Momo straight. And so desperate for something akin to a family.

AO3 Link

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"It's been a week cat. What? Did not find a new nice tunnel to hide in?" Seiko tapped her shoulder with the baseball.

"Probably just wants to freeload again, stupid hag!" Momo punched her fist into the palm of the other hand aggressively.

From Ayase to normal human translated: They were very happy to see Turbo Granny back, but didn't want to show it openly. Especially since they didn't know what her agenda was.

The doll just turned up her nose and sneered at them. "You lot should be more grateful that I grace you with my presence again!"

"Don't make me laugh, you little...-" Momo grumbled, but was interrupted by her grandmother who swung her bat from her shoulder to the ground and leant on it. "So, what is it? You hungry?"

"Tch. I came here because of him." Turbo Granny pointed at a surprised Okarun, before looking back at Seiko with a mischievous grin. "Wouldn't say no to a good meal tho."

The two grannies stared at each other for a moment, before the spirit medium sighed. "Go wash your dirty paws. The Kami knows where you've been." The cat doll let out a little yippee and immediately waggled towards the door of the house.

"Hah!?" Momo looked at her grandmother shocked, who also walked towards the door. "Just like that? Shouldn't we make sure she doesn't want to...I dunno, kill us or something?"

"Moron, if I'd wanted to kill you, you would be dead meat long ago." Turbo Granny shouted back at her, waiting impatiently for Seiko to open the door.

"As if we can take your words for that!"

Okarun let out an amused huff. It took less than five minutes, and everything seemed to be back like things were before Turbo Granny had left. He felt...relief at this familiarity. While he was curious what her return had to do with him, he just was happy that she was with them again.

"I'm sure we will be fine Ayase-san," he then tried to calm down a still agitated Momo. "I don't think she harbours any resentment towards us after all this time." His face split into a grin. "Besides, Turbo Granny is way too blunt to plot anything behind our backs." With an unusual chipper mood, he jogged towards the door to follow the two grannies inside.

Momo just looked after him a bit baffled. "Did you forget the time she cheated with the counting...?" she mumbled more to herself, but then just shrugged. With a slight spring in her step, she followed suit.

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

Dinner had been the normal chaotic deal.

After Vamola returned home, she gave Turbo Granny a big hug in delight of her return, which the old Yokai grumblingly accepted.

As usual, Turbo Granny would attack anybody who would dare to take any of her favourite dishes. But the squabbling was short lived, and everyone relented more food to her than she would ask for. If she noticed it, she didn't say a word and just chomped down everything with a satisfied expression.

"Alright neko hag, spill the beans," Momo demanded as soon as dinner affairs had been dealt with. "Why are you back and what does it have to do with Okarun? You got all your powers back from him."

Everyone looked expectantly Turbo Granny, who cosied down on her favourite cushion, before her eyes wandered to Okarun.

"Say four-eyes. You feeling funny or something since my spiritual power left you?"

Okarun's eyes widened in surprise. How did she know that?

"Actually...yeah. I often drift off without realising and I have been...less excited?" He made a slightly annoyed noise, not feeling like he explained himself well enough. "It's hard to put into words. I...don't really feel like myself sometimes. As if...I'm drifting away...." He almost did in that moment, but was able to shake it off. It scared him a bit that it would now happen even while he talked himself. 

"Takakura strange in last days. Everyone is worried," Vamola chimed in.

"Yeah. You were really...out of it at times." A mix of worry and guilt appeared on Momo's face and she chewed her lip. "I didn't know it was that bad."

She had of course noticed it too but had dismissed it as him having trouble adjusting to being without powers again. Whenever she had asked him if he was fine, he had snapped back to his usual self and gave her a reassuring smile. That fiery enthusiasm of his when talking about aliens, that was always so infectious...it hadn't been there too. And she missed it. But she had been so busy with ravelling in her own bad mood about Turbo Granny leaving and how it had affected her grandmother that she had hoped he would just be back to normal again soon.

Momo felt like a horrible friend in that moment. "I'm sorry Okarun." She was not able to look into his eyes. "I should have paid more attention to you."

"Ayase-san..." Okarun wanted to hold her so badly, but he stopped himself. She already had to worry about him not being able to defend himself anymore. He didn't want to add to her worries, just because he felt a bit off. He didn't want to be more of a burden to her than he already was.

Meanwhile, Turbo Granny nodded, as if she had expected the answer from Okarun. She closed her eyes and leant back on her cushion. "Figures. Seems like the transfer of the spiritual power did not go down as smoothly as it should've been." She opened her eyes to shoot a smirk towards Seiko.

"Watch your mouth you little rotten tangerine," she warned her. The cat doll was very unimpressed by the empty threat.

"Anyway, apparently I accidentally took a small part of your soul with me. And it's bothering me like a pimple on my butt cheek that I can't reach."

Well, that got Momo out of her not so cheery mood for a moment. "Ewww, gross!" She shuddered. She was glad that they already had eaten.

"What do you mean, you took some of my soul? How is that possible?" Okarun asked, just ignoring the disgusting words.

"Not on purpose. Who would want that miserable piece of teenage angst?" she waved the implied accusation away. He deflated a bit at that. That was...really not nice. Why did he miss her again?

"Momo," Seiko spoke up. "Check their auras. If it's true what the cat says you should be able to see something."

"Okay!" Not wasting a second, Momo closed her eyes and concentrated on Okarun first. His aura was the usual blue, way calmer now that the Yokai powers have left him. It swirled around in a blue flame, confined to the form of his physical body. But...the flame had holes? Little pieces were missing in the centre of it. Well, that confirmed one part of the story. She shifted her focus to the cat doll, wincing at first. The spiritual powers were way more aggressive with her than they had been with Okarun. It was also not in the shape of the Maneki Neko doll, but her true form, the old woman. A swirling mass of red...dotted with a few blue pieces that clung to the spiritual power, turning it into a shade of purple.

"That's what we get for waiting so long," Turbo Granny spoke again, not waiting for Momo to confirm her claims. "It seems that a small fraction of four-eye's soul attached itself to my spiritual power. And even changed the parts it touched. The nerve!"

Momo opened her eyes and nodded towards the others who were looking at her. "She tells the truth." Her eyes went to Okarun. "That's the reason why you feel off. Because parts of you are missing!"

Stunned at that revelation, Okarun put his hand on his chest. It really would explain a lot. He did feel like something was missing from him aside the spiritual powers, but he hadn't expected it to be so literal.

"Well, I don't want it!" Turbo Granny jumped up from her cushion and walked over the table towards Okarun, poking his chest with her little paws. "It makes me feel antsy and I have this stupid feeling of second guessing myself. It's degrading!"

"Oh, I'm so very sorry about that." Okarun's voice was laced with sarcasm, glaring at her. It was not like he had wanted to give her his anxiety.

"Ungrateful brat," she scoffed. "You should be glad I am willing to give it back to you. Who knows what would happen to your little, fragile soul if it stays fractured?"

"Granny, be nice!" Vamola chided the cat doll and picked her up to get her away from Okarun.

"Getting a whole soul out of a body is one thing," Seiko chimed in. "But fragments? You have a plan how to do that?"

Freeing herself from Vamola's hold, the cat pointed now at Momo. "That will be her job."

"Me?" Momo asked perplexed, pointing at herself. Turbo Granny nodded. "Yep, you just have to pluck the soul parts of the little nerd out of my spiritual energy and put them back where they belong. Easy-peasy."

"Is that actually save to do?" the girl asked uncertain, looking at her grandmother, who could only shrug with a shoulder. "This is probably a first-time case, so who can say? But given the risks of a fractured soul, we don't have much choice." Seiko tried to sound casual about it, but Momo could tell by the way she furrowed her brow that she was hesitant.

"What..." Okarun gulped. "What would be the risk?"

Seiko gave him a side glance, before taking in a deep breath. "That you will lose more of yourself. And just be a husk of a person." The teenagers gasped. "There have been different occasion and different ways of a soul being damaged or completely shattered." she continued her explanation, not looking at them. "Never a pretty sight. Can also turn into a nasty, mindless Yokai."

Momo heard Okarun's breath hitch at that. One look at him told her that he was terrified of the prospect of either loosing himself or turning into an actual Yokai. And she was just as terrified of the thought of losing him. She looked at her physical hands, trying to imagine removing those soul fragments from the whirlwind that was Turbo Granny's power with her spectral ones. They were great to grab on things, to throw objects and being used as a shield. Even good for snuffing out unwanted auras. But something so fragile as handling small fragment parts that were important for Okarun?

Her hands started to shake in fear of what could go wrong. She hated how her usual confidence and bravado just crumbled away like this. But she couldn't help it. Okarun's soul was on the line here. The idea of him being any different than his sweet and shy but also energetic nerdy self made her heart ache painfully. Let alone the possibility of him loosing himself completely and turning into something she had to fight.

"But what if I can't manage to get all his pieces? Or if I squash one by accident, or-"

"Ayase-san."

Okarun took her hands in his own warm ones. They had a slight shake to them too, but when Momo looked him into the eyes, she only saw complete confidence in them. Confidence in her.

"If anyone can do it, it's you. You're amazing in handling your psychic abilities and dealing with new situations." He gave her hands a slight squeeze, his smile turning a tad shy. "I trust you."

"Okarun..." Momo looked at him with wide eyes, before her face relaxed. She took in a deep breath and squeezing his hand back. It grounded her, chasing away the initiate panic. "You're right, I can do this. Easy-peasy, just as Turbo Granny said." Her cheeks turned pink, eyes crinkling from the sweet smile she gave him. "Thank you."

His heart jumped up his throat at that sight. "D-don't mention it! If at all, I should thank you for helping me," he stammered and let go of her hands, before she could realise how sweaty his had gotten for no reason at all.

"We're friends dummy," Momo laughed at his reaction and gave him a gentle punch to the shoulder. It always put her in such a good mood when she saw him this flustered. "Of course I'll help you."

"If you two are done doing goo-goo eyes at each other, we should get started," Seiko interrupted their little moment. Naturally, both jumped in their seats and turned away from each other, heads steaming from embarrassment. They had totally forgotten they were not alone.

"Kids these days," Turbo Granny sighed annoyed, while Vamola giggled.

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

They had gathered outside in the courtyard, the waxing moon and a few candles their only light. Okarun and Turbo Granny sat opposite of each other, Momo between them. Seiko had put on her shrine maiden outfit and prayed, together with Vamola. Never hurt to have some divine backup.

Momo took in a deep breath and closed her eyes. She inspected Okarun's fractured soul, trying to map where his holes were. Then she took a close look at Turbo Granny's spiritual energy. It was hard to locate all the soul fragments, the energy was a constant whirlwind.

As soon as she was confident enough, she stretched out her right physical arm towards Turbo Granny. The spectral arm formed around it, smaller than she would usually summon for battles.

"Here it goes," she said in a calm voice and reached into the spiritual energy.

It felt like reaching into a stream with a very strong current. Momo gave herself a moment to adjust to the resistance and started to tug at the first soul fragment. Gently at first, but it didn't budge so she had to pull harder. She tried her best to only remove the blue fragment, but the stronger she pulled, the more of the purple and even red parts of the spiritual power would also move. Before she ripped everything out, she stopped and let the soul fragment snatch back into place.

"Dammit...," Momo cursed under her breath.

"What's wrong?" Okarun asked worried. She opened her eyes to see him nervously looking at her. "I can't get your soul fragment without pulling a good chunk of Turbo Granny's spiritual power too!" she groaned frustrated. Maybe she should form a spectral scissor and try to cut the connection? But what would be too much and what too less?

"Had a feeling that would be bothersome," Turbo Granny sighed deeply annoyed. "Whatever. He can have some of it."

"I can have what?" Okarun asked, looking as confused as the others at the doll. She gave him the side-eye. "Some of my spiritual power. Your soul has infected it anyway and is of no use for me anymore." Now she looked at Momo. "So just pluck those pesky things out and what sticks goes to him."

"You would give up part of your powers voluntarily?" Seiko asked, having paused her prayers and looked at the other elder with a raised eyebrow. "This time you wouldn't be able to get them back." She got a scoff as answer: "Pah, my powers are boundless! What I would give up would be just mere breadcrumbs."

"Does that mean..." Okarun started hesitantly. "...could I transform again?"

"Sure thing. Would probably be even on pretty much the same power level as you were before, since you barely tapped into my potential." Turbo Granny's face stretched into a wide grin. "Am I not generous?"

"Hell no, that's way too suspicious!" Momo said, slamming her hands on the ground. "You wouldn't just give up your precious powers like that. You're planning to possess him or something again!"

"Oh, get it into your thick head, you moron!" the old Yokai hissed. "It won't be my power anymore. It would be his own. Wouldn't be any different than pinkie or 'brella boy."

"Really?" Okarun's face lit up at that. There was his chance to be able to protect his friends...Momo again and this time not with borrowed powers. They would belong to him, given by Turbo Granny.

Momo saw how happy the idea of getting the powers of a Yokai again made him. Any form of protest just fizzled out, not that she was distrusting Turbo Granny that much in the first place. She was just worried about Okarun. All she wanted was to protect him. And if she thought about it for a moment, this would be the best way.

She groaned, rolling her eyes and flailing her arms in an overdramatic fashion: "Fiiiine, if you really wanna turn back into your downer form so badly, who am I to deny you?"

He knew that she was just joking around, so he chuckled. "Thank you, Ayase-san."

"Dunno what the fuss is about," Seiko sighed. "Four-eyes needs his soul fragments back one way or another. So get going Momo. It's getting cold out here."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm on it now."

"Finally..." Turbo Granny muttered.

They went back to their previous positions and Momo started to tug at the soul fragment, less gentle this time. She pulled and pulled, until the fragment ripped out of the whirl of red spiritual energy, taking a small part of it with it. The blue soul fragment and red spirit powers danced between her spectral fingers, until the fragment seemingly absorbed the spiritual power. It pulsated and turned into a swirl of red energy.

"Okay, I removed the fragment. Will move it over to Okarun now," she informed the others.

The red swirl was passed from one spectral hand to the other and held towards Okarun's blue soul flame. For a moment she wondered in which fractured part she should put the swirl, but she didn't have to think long. As soon as her spectral hand was very close, the red energy practically jumped out of it and into Okarun's soul. She watched how it found a hole and slowly closed the gap.

"Woha!" she could hear Okarun exclaim. Immediately her eyes flew open to look at him. "Are you alright?" she asked.

The panic that he had gotten hurt or something was quickly squashed when she saw that he looked fine and he was marvelling his hands. "Just surprised, didn't expect this strong, tingling feeling all over my body," he assured her with a quick smile, rubbing his hands over his arms.

Momo breathed out in relief.

"Your soul is absorbing something that wasn't part of it before," Turbo Granny explained. She didn't seem fazed at all. "Something powerful. Of course you would feel that."

He nodded in understanding, before his eyes met Momo's with an excited smile that she hadn't seen in his eyes for a week now. "Let's continue. I'm prepared now."

After making extra sure that Okarun was alright, Momo continued to pluck the soul fragments from the spiritual power and put them back into his soul. True to Turbo Granny's words, her own storm of an aura didn't wane much after all fragments had been removed. For Okarun it was the opposite. It looked like his aura had become stronger, denser. The centre of his soul was now almost completely red. The color was less aggressive and bold than Turbo Granny's, calmer. It swirled in harmony with the blue of his soul, creating a transition of purple between them.

Momo remembered that before, the blue of Okarun and the red of Turbo Granny had clashed or one had overtaken the other. Seeing the colors now being in tune with each other eased a lot of her worries.

"All done," she proclaimed with an exhausted sigh and lowered her arms. Doing such a delicate act over and over took a lot of her concentration.

"Took you long enough," Turbo Granny grumbled and got up to stretch her doll limbs. Momo just huffed in slight annoyance and focused on Okarun. "How are you feeling?"

He had stood up, eyes focused on his hands and flexing fingers. "Honestly? I feel great!" The bright smile he gave her made her heart swell so much, she thought it would burst out her chest. "I wasn't even aware how out of it I was. My head feels so much clearer, and I could just...run!"

At his last word he started to take his shoes off. This was the moment of truth for him. Everyone waited with bated breath when Okarun closed his eyes and focused.

It took a few seconds, but soon the familiar ghostly shift in his clothes started, his limbs grew longer, his hair billowed into white, and his skin turned into the familiar undead color. The black maw appeared with it's typical krikkrak noise and the two red lines formed on his face. A pair of striking crimson eyes peered at his hands after opening them.

"Wicked..." he mumbled, voice in the deep tone of his Yokai form.

"It worked! Okarun, you really can transform again." Momo cheered. He looked from his hands up to her. "Momo-chan..." Her heart skipped a beat. God, she hadn't expected to actually miss him calling her that. He closed his eyes again and let out an amused huff. "Still feel bummed tho."

"Told ya it had nothing to do with me. All your own doing," Turbo Granny grumped and gave him a disapproving look. At that, Okarun slouched forward in a dramatic fashion. "Not cool at all, yo..."

Momo couldn't help herself and started laughing. She was just relived that Okarun's soul was patched up again with no immediate issues and that he was able to defend himself again. The side effect of his transforming making him gloomier was just a side effect they had adjusted to by now and the familiarity of it made her happy in a way.

"Takakura is back!" Vamola now cheered and walked over to give Okarun a comforting pat on his back. "Thanks, Vamola-chan." he sighed and straighten up again as much as he would in this form.

"Would you look at that," Seiko mused, fishing out a cigarette from the sleeve of her robe. "Wonder nerd is all patched up and back to normal. And no catch or mishaps at all. How unusual."

"The night is young. Something could still explode in our face," Momo said in jest, earning an amused noise from her grandmother. She then looked back at Okarun, who was flexing his toes, contemplating something. As soon as he felt her watching him, he looked up at her. It was amusing how listless he could be in this form, but she could clearly see in his eyes that he was asking for permission. Why, she didn't know, he really didn't need to ask her. But she appreciated it nonetheless that he didn't dash off without a warning.

"Go on Okarun, stretch those gangly legs of yours."

He let out a deep rumble of gratitude. And in a blink of an eye, he was gone.

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

Okarun couldn't explain it. Before, the spiritual powers of Turbo Granny had not fitted within him, they had clashed many times in a fight for dominance. It felt like something that shouldn't be there, that wanted to overtake him. But now...it all clicked into place. Not only were the holes patched, it felt like his soul had become bigger. As if he had become more.

It was strange.

And so exhilarating.

The transformation hadn't been as awful as it used to be. The stretching of his body, the cracking of his bones...they still felt uncomfortable, but it didn't feel like someone was breaking his body into this shape, tearing him apart to make his limbs longer. It felt more deliberate, as if he was just stretching his arms and legs during warm-ups and they just happened to actually grow.

There was no nagging feeling of something else in the back of his mind. All he could hear and feel where his own thoughts and his Yokai instincts.

His own.

Not from someone else. He had full control over himself, aside from the lack of filter still being embarrassing.

He could draw out the powers easier, without relying on forcing them out with emotions. They obeyed him with no resistance, no fighting over who controlled the body.

Everything felt more like...him. As if it had always belonged.

And he enjoyed to just run.

The night blurred past him with its black and dark blue colors, the stars in the sky turning into lines that followed him everywhere. The earth beneath his feet and the cool wind rushing through his hair. This was his own enjoyment and not some lingering thing from Turbo Granny.

And he wanted more!

Without thinking about it, Okarun went All-Out, shooting like a rocket over the long stretch of path towards the Ayase house, absolutely relishing in the speed and surge of power it gave him.

Run. Run. RUN!

Faster. Faster. FASTER!

His mind single focused on running, zoning in on the speed.

The torii gate came into sight and he almost would have run past it, in his rush for speed. But then someone walked out on the path and waved at him.

Momo!

His mind and feet came to a screeching halt, stopping just right before her. Still in motion, his long arms wrapped around her to lift her up and spin around in circles.

"Momo-chan, I missed you!" he declared. She had yelled in surprise at first, but now laughed at the boy's silly antics, gripping his arms to keep her steady. "You dork, you were gone for like two minutes."

"That's long enough," he argued back and slowed down the spinning. All his instinct that had chanted to run now focused entirely on the girl in his arms.

Momo gave him a playful slap to the shoulder, now that she didn't need to cling to him anymore. She was still laughing and saw how his own eyes turned into a smile. Apparently, he was able to show some more emotions now in this form. A quick look into his soul revealed that the blue was now in the centre and the red swirling around it. But still in harmony. It really was all him, nothing gave her the impression that it was still Turbo Granny's influence. Her nerdy space otaku was completely back, together with his own powers now and he was happy. Which made her happy.

So happy in fact, that she grabbed his maw and planet a quick kiss on the side of it. She hadn't been thinking, it was an impulse action, spurred from relief and joy. The second she did it, she went rigid, realising what she had done. And she was not the only one.

Still holding her up, Okarun had come to a standstill, his wide red eyes directed at her. But after just a few seconds they grew so incredible soft, and she swore she could see how the skin on his cheeks that was not covered by the mask darkened.

"Momo-chan~" he hummed in an even deeper voice that sent a shudder down her spine. He placed his maw under her chin and started to nuzzle her.

"O-okarun, stop it!" she squeaked, face flushed and tried to shove his face away, with little result. His eyes got a mischievous glint to them. "You started it."

"You picked me up first!" she tried to argue, but it was a weak argument. Feeling his chuckle more than she heard it, she just accepted the nuzzles, albeit she did not look at him at all.

"Can you two stop with your canoodling on the open street? It's embarrassing."

Momo spluttered at Turbo Granny's sudden appearance, while Okarun wasn't fazed much. If at all, he sounded annoyed when he retorted: "Nobody out here to see us."

"I'm here and it's a damn eyesore," the doll sneered.

Just to rub it into her face, he would have liked to cuddle even more with Momo, but he could feel how the girl was struggling in his arms now. With a heavy sigh he put her down on the ground, noticing with a smile how she tried to hide her red face by quickly turning away. Deep down he knew that it would be his turn to be a blushing mess as soon as he turned back, apologising to her profoundly. But in the moment, he relished the flustered sight of her.

"You got it out of your system brat?"

Turbo Granny's question snapped him out of his musing, and he moved his eyes towards the doll. Knowing what she was referring to, he nodded: "Just feels a bit different than before."

"Like you getting carried away with what you are doing?"

Okarun thought about it for a moment. He definitely got carried away with wanting to just run as fast as possible. And there would be people who would say that he got carried away with picking Momo up out of nowhere and just spin her around like he hadn't seen her in months. But he couldn't agree with that.

Still, he made an affirmative hum at Turbo Granny, who clicked her tongue in slight annoyance. "Figures. You have made my powers your own, so you have better control over them. But your Yokai instincts lack my maturity. Wouldn't say they're like a newborn, otherwise you would go haywire. But try not to get lost in them."

"Easier said than done..." he grumbled. It made sense what she said, but he hadn't even been aware that he was so easily falling into his instincts back then. His frame dissolved into a slouch again.

"But Aira had no problems when she got all of Acro Silky's powers the first time," Momo countered, patting poor Okarun on the back, which cause him to get a bit more straight again.

"And that's the point," Turbo Granny replied. "She got everything from Acro Silky, knowledge how to use the powers and the control over the Yokai instincts. Her powers also don't compare to mine. Four-Eyes here had some time playing around with them and my matured instincts, otherwise he would be acting more like Evil Eye."

"Hmmm, would it be bad then if he lost himself in his instincts?" Absently Momo had started to stroke over Okarun's back, much to his joy. The low purr that was coming from him was not registered by her, as she was deep in thoughts.

"Most of the time it would just be mild nuisance I guess," the doll shrugged. "Would worry more about times when he feels the things he stakes a claim on are threatened." With a side-eye, she looked pointedly at Momo.

Confused, both teens blinked at her, but before they could ask what she meant by that, she stretched her doll limbs and turned around to walk back through the torii gate: "Well, can't be helped. Guess I'll have to teach him one or two things about being a proper Yokai."

That caught them by surprise. "You will stay?" Momo asked, stopping her strokes on Okarun, who just ever so slightly grumbled in disappointment. 

Turbo Granny stopped, but didn't turn around. "Sure, why not? Have nothing better to do and you turds can't get shit done without me."

The teens exchanged a knowing glance at that. "Whatever you say, hold hag," Momo chuckled and followed her inside, Okarun right behind her.

"Pah, ungrateful brats!" Turbo Granny spat, barely any venom in her words.

[aurelim]

additional merfolk lore

hey everyone! It’s been a while, but I hope that nobody forgot me while I was gone lol. I’ve been in the background writing ATOL (something finally awoke within me that gave me the motivation to write) and Swapped.

Anyways, I just wanted to address a few things about the merfolk that weren’t mentioned in the game. Some of these were answered by asks a long time ago so I’m sorry if I sound repetitive. I don’t know if I will add this but this is just some extra information about them!

First and foremost: the relationship between humans and the merfolk go back centuries. Humans, for the most part, are unaware of the merfolk—contrary to the popular belief among the merfolk. Many don’t even live near the shore or are out fishing to notice their presence in the waters. The merfolk, on the hand, are all-too-well-aware of the dangers of humans, and have thus tried to avoid them while simultaneously killing them off (for the obvious reason of collecting energy). There are a lot of complicated feelings but the general consensus among the merfolk is that humans harm their environment, and therefore are evil.

Second: the merfolk do not know how to read or write. There are no books, pen or paper that could last long in the water, and even if there were the merfolk have no idea how to use them. They are taught by their parents on how to swim, speak, and sing, which is all they can go off of since learning is limited. There are no schools that teach the younger merfolk as most live independently and away from others.

Third: the merfolk do not need to use the “bathroom”. Not only is there no such thing in the ocean, but they simply have no urge to go. Everything they absorb and even consume (take seaweed, for example) is converted into energy within them and replenishes their body.

Fourth: the merfolk speak their own language, Mermian, but when speaking to humans of any nation it will come back to the humans in their own language. If a human speaks English and a Merfolk speaks to them, it comes out as English. However, how the language barrier works is that a Merfolk must have their focus, attention, or even their eyes on the human and must be directly talking to them. If they aren’t focused on the human before them or looking away distantly when speaking, their words will come out in the merfolk language.

Fifth: there’s no such thing as an underwater seawitch like The Little Mermaid. In fact, there is a very specific way if a Merfolk were to hypothetically become a human…and it’s not by just going to the shore and willing themselves to become a human.

Finally: the merfolk cannot have “sex” in the human sense, neither for pleasure nor for reproduction. It’s not like there’s retractable reproductive organs coming out of their scales. They already get stimulation and pleasure when receiving energy.

In order to reproduce, the two parents have to generate a large portion of energy out of their bodies in order to form a medium-sized egg. Not roe-sized, but slightly bigger than a American Condor egg and rounded. The mothers will guard the egg for nine months, providing it with sufficient energy to help it develop, before eventually it breaks out of the egg into a little merbaby. It’s near to impossible that twins or even more than two babies can be born at the same time, but occasionally within the egg the embryo could split, resulting in identical twins or triplets. While it sounds easy to have children, it really takes a lot out of the parents. Sometimes they die due to exhaustion of the energy supply to the point where it’s hard to regain it all back quickly enough. Not to mention that the eggs are susceptible to creatures like sharks and are incredibly fragile. They can die if not provided enough energy, knocked over and broken, complications in the egg, etc.

[asherisawkward]

How do you think a "hero and villian are forced to work together" type of episode would have worked between Luz and Belos?

(Note, this is a rough outline of what season three could look like but without any focus on subplots.)

The intro would play the way it does in Thanks to Them, and we’d get some scenes of the Hexsquad adjusting to Earth while Luz is in school. She’d still be suffering from guilt, but it would be related to abandoning Camila without thinking about how that could affect her, especially with Manny’s death. Additionally, there would be a scene where Vee and Luz talk about what happened, and Vee apologizes for taking over Luz’s life and throwing out her things without permission. I think it’d be a good thing to give Vee some more time to develop and acknowledge her own mistake.

At school, we could have a few scenes of Luz trying to fit in and being shunned as evidence for why she was so eager to leave behind the Human Realm. We’d still have the scene of Flapjack finding the Codex and the Hexsquad deciding they’d go searching for the Titan’s Blood as a surprise for Luz. It would also be around this time that we see Gus and Hunter being Cosmic Frontier nerds. They’d get the scene of the group finding giraffes and getting terrified like in canon, and they meet Masha, who gives them a hand with the code.

It would then switch to follow Philip wandering about the Human Realm, possessing or feeding on animal corpses in an attempt to regain his strength. This would be an incredibly grim set of scenes focused on the difficulty Philip has with physical survival and regaining his strength after what the Collector did. A lot of his screentime would focus on the after effects Philip experiences after the Day of Unity. He’s falling apart and having a hard time becoming stable without a form to take over, and he would frequently be interrupted and distressed by various memories that Gus went through in King’s Tide coming back and tormenting him.

He’d start working up in forms until he got to a deer and get hit by a car just like in canon, and goop would get sprayed and spilled over the road, attracting Luz’ and Camila’s attention as they’re driving home with groceries. This is the point that Philip becomes a variable to the Hexsquad, and they start trying to plan around him.

Then, as the episode continued, each party would individually realize that the Collector is a threat to their respective goals (Luz’s goal being to save the Isles and Philip’s being to destroy them) along with the unwanted necessity of needing the other person in order to be able to stop the Collector from going on a rampage. Philip could help them make another portal if they gave him the right incentive with it. The group is rightfully conflicted on it, and Hunter is the most outspoken one on the Anti-Philip side of things for obvious reasons.

Philip would probably be more active about seeking Luz out because he’s more aware of her and the Hexsquad, while the latters are still putting pieces together about where he is and grappling with the fact that he may be an asset. Eventually, he’d move to digging up corpses and possessing them to get back his human form without actually hurting any humans before he forced himself into his human form briefly to get his clothes back and starts hauling himself to the Noceda household.

The scene of Philip knocking on the door of the house that the Hexsquad’s adopted would be very tense because, a) everyone is already there, so who’s knocking on the door, and, b) Philip is possessing a literal corpse to be here. Along with, you know, he’s Philip.

He wouldn’t ever say “I need your help to take down the Collector,” because he would not want to confess that he needs help and cannot take the Collector on alone. Instead, he makes it about how the Hexsquad needs him to make a stable portal and his magical expertise will be invaluable to them. Hell, he’ll even be generous and swear to not attack them while they’re teamed up. After a lot of debate and bargaining, they come to an agreement and start working together.

The rest of the episode is about how the various characters come to terms with having to be around the monster that tried to murder them all, and how Philip attempts to balance his recovery and creating the portal. On Halloween, they go out and have a bit of fun before they go to leave, and they still see the Tale of the Brothers Wittebane. The episode would end with the characters going through the portal, except for Vee, who stays behind how she does in canon. She’s been incredibly brave in facing and dealing with her abuser/captor, and I like that she’s not expected or forced to go along after that.

In For the Future, it would focus on King and the Collector for about half of it (with a little bit of Eda and Lilith) and the expanded Hexsquad for half of it.

On King’s side of things, he is dealing with a very sadistic and manipulative Collector (Shadow Collector, my beloved /j) They’re still playing Owl House with the Collector as Luz, but they’ve amped the stakes up. Instead of puppetifying everyone immediately, the Collector is forcing everyone to play their parts through intimidation, and if they mess up, then they start getting turned into a puppet slowly. It travels kind of like possession but slower, and the victims lose control and feeling of their limbs as the spell progresses. I’m thinking a horrifying situation that kind of goes, “my body is not my own.” Once someone is completely transformed, the spell is irreversible like petrification and basically becomes a corpse that is forced to move around and talk by the Collector. Eda, Hooty, and Lilith are set up by King as vital characters and are given a bit more leeway because King said they’re necessary for the game. Still, the Collector is becoming more violent as he starts to get bored with the game.

With the Hexsquad, Gus is quickly becoming one of the more important characters in the episode. The earring the at he took from Graye had a slice of Galderstone, which, contrary to popular belief, amplifies the complexity and scale of illusions that can be done. Using this knowledge, Gus makes and maintains an illusion as the Hexsquad walks that makes it seem as if there is nobody there without needing to hold breath the way they would with a glyph. He does a double-layered spell: one layer that has slight changes to the area around them and a couple animals to explain the noise they’re making, and another that just makes the group invisible to other eyes.

Willow and Amity will start talking properly about the way that things have changed over the past couple years and how just because Odalia and Alador made them stop being friends did not excuse the bullying that she did for years. Amity could properly acknowledge this and work to be better.

Camila is being a momma bear while also trying to adapt the way Luz did, and Luz finally gets to explain to her mother how she came to the Isles and how she fell in love with the place as a whole. It’s a really good bonding moment for the pair, and I think it could really help flesh out the way they interact as a family as a whole.

They’d stop at the Owl House and take a break, and Gus would have a moment where he talks to and connects with Philip. He explains his fascination and interest with humans and how he spent his childhood being enamored with them. He thought they were strange, amazing creatures that were good as a whole. Now, with what he’s seen in Philip’s memories, he feels disillusioned and hurt, like he’s lost a part of something integral to himself. How it that humans can be so horrible to people?

It would be really interesting to watch Philip and Gus to mourn their childhoods and the loss of that bright-eyed innocence about the world. After all, even if Philip believes humanity is good, he knows that there are bad people, and it can’t have been easy to learn that.

It would be a moment of genuine connection between the pair, and Philip could point out that there are good and bad people in every group, and that for every murderer or thief, there are doctors and authors and other amazing people who change the world. After listening to that, Gus pauses for a moment and says, “Have you ever considered that it’s the same way for witches, too?”

The pair stop talking after that.

Finally, finally, Luz and Philip get to talking about the way things are. Luz shares some of her concerns about being like him and how she’s a bad person for helping him meet the Collector. Philip roughly says, “You aren’t like me; you’re like Caleb.” Then we get a brief flashback scene as Philip explains a little bit of his childhood—being orphaned and dependent on Caleb with no one else in his life, the way he was all but destroyed when he saw his brother leave with Evelyn, how certain he was that Caleb wouldn’t abandon him, and everything else about his story.

At that point, Luz starts feeling awful about what happened with her mother and how scared she must have been when she found out that Luz wasn’t at summer camp and instead another realm. She wonders how she could be so thoughtless and what other ways she could have hurt the people she cares about. Philip points out that Camila is still alive and that there’s time to make things right between them. Hearing that, Luz runs off to go talk to her mother.

Camila is a bit surprised that her daughter comes to her suddenly and says that she needs to talk with her. They go into another room, and Luz pours her heart out about everything that happens and apologizes for leaving the way she did and not talking about things with her. Camila is gentle and comforts her, saying that she had been incredibly scared, but she’s proud of how much Luz has grown from her time in the Boiling Isles and how she could never ask her to leave someplace so dear to her forever.

Luz’s palisman wish in this is, “All I wanted is to feel like I belong somewhere,” because it still fits into her theme of being a weirdo and feeling misunderstood without putting pressure on her friends and family to bend over backwards to understand her even when they disagree. Stringbean is still her Palisman, but she’s just a snake as opposed to a snake-shifter.

Meanwhile, the Collector is becoming more and more suspicious of their “friend.” King goes away too often, and he’s always so secretive around Lilith and Eda! What if he’s planning something? What if he’s going to betray them the way Philip did? He begins preparing himself for King’s betrayal and spends some spies to follow the Titan. Eda, Lilith, Hooty, and King wander about in some of their limited time away from the Collector while they’re distracted or sleeping.

Eventually, the two groups meet up, and there’s a lot of joy for everyone as they reunite with each other, explain what’s been happening in the different realms, and introduce Eda, Lilith, and King to Camila. The Hexsquad is ecstatic to know that their loved ones are okay, as King confirms that he hasn’t seen any of them get puppetified (and King’s almost always there when that happens). However, once the shock has worn off, they realize that Philip is there, and they become incredibly suspicious about him. The situation is quickly explained, and the Eternal Oath between the two groups soothes them for now, but Lilith makes sure to tell Philip that she’s watching him for any suspicious business. The episode ends on the Collector, revealing that he’s seen the whole interaction.

In Watching and Dreaming, it would start shortly after Eda, Lilith, and Hooty were reunited with Luz and the rest of the Hexsquad. Philip is awkward and generally standing off to the side due to his mistreatment of both witches in the past and the growing realization that with the fight approaching, they will have to fight and either die or suffer, and Philip will have to turn against them in the end.

Eventually, the Collector would find the group and try to take King hostage for betraying him and working for his downfall. That would trigger an all out fight where everyone would scramble to get King free. Hunter would succeed by grabbing King and teleporting away after Amity restrains the Collector for a short period of time.

I’m not the best at describing fight scenes, but it would be a mess. Willow would be shooting vines at the Collector and making sure that everyone had the potential to get in range and get away if needed. Gus would be distracting, diverting, and attempting to visually overwhelm the Collector with his illusions. He might even try the bad memory thing again.

Amity would attack utilizing abomination matter and attempt to restrain the Collector’s movement. Hunter would have Flapjack and go about his usual teleportation-and-retreat based fighting style. King would use his Titan powers and Lilith would use potions (and Hooty) to destroy and hold back the puppet army. Eda and Camila would be doing their best to give the Collector hell while protecting their kids, and they’d be absolutely badass at it.

Philip would be fighting like the devil, and it’d be another opportunity to get a true sense and scale of his power. I’m thinking that because he’s the most durable and survived being liquified by the Collector, he jumps in to take most of the damage for the Hexsquad. Finally, Luz would be absolutely amazing with her glyph combinations now that Philip has had some time to teach her some of his combinations.

The fight would eventually end when Philip partially petrifies the Collector before Luz slams them with a glyph combination that nice again traps them in their prison. Then, the Hexsquad absolutely demolishes the tablet that’s used for the imprisoned and the real world to communicate.

There’s celebrations, laughing, crying, and hugging. People are hugging, and Amity and Luz kiss after the latter hugs her mother. Everyone’s celebrating, except for Philip. He’s standing off to the side and kind of staring at the scene before him. He’s seeing proof, actual proof, of the goodness of the witches and demons that he thought were evil. His entire life has been dedicated to a lie, and everything that he used to see as good is monstrous.

Philip is badly wounded, but he interrupts the festivities to attack the witches around him. Luz uses Stringbean to deflect the attack and begins fighting him back. With the wounds he has and the knowledge he’s been wrong his whole life, Philip is not fighting nearly as well as he does in his prime, making it easier for Luz to fight against him on more equal ground.

Luz asks him to stop, saying that there has to be some other way to resolve the situation. Now that she understands the situation and what caused it, maybe find another way. (Basically, she tries to pull a Steven Universe)

“How else could this have ended with how far I’ve gone?” Philip asks, continuing to fight. They continue to fight, the man getting more and more injured as they go on. Eventually, he’s too wounded to go on, and his body gives out beneath him. He passes on soon after. Luz is there when he dies, but she is not responsible for it. I want it to feel kind of somber, because he’s a pretty tragic character as a whole.

————

That’s my idea for Season Three if Philip and Luz had to team up. A lot of Thanks to Them comes from @chiconisroc’s “Was Not The Hero,” because it’s got the same sort of premise.

[premamelody]

a year on here yayyyy yayyy

I'm prema/auk and I mainly draw a lot 💥💥💥💥💥💥💥💥

IN THE US TERRIFIED? LEARN TO FIGHT BACK

um idk what else to out here ❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️❗️🔥🔥🔥🔥😈

fandom list here uh

wof, mother series, sth, murder drones, utdr, splatoon, kirby, a bit of wc

current fixation uh undering the tale

im always open for asks btw & only repost my art w/ credit to me in addition to not claiming to be the artist. never under any circumstances use my art to train AI, credit or not.

note: I not responding to fundraisers from asks. I cannot verify them nor the vetters as some have turned out to be illegitimate and I do not wish to spread a post of it could he a scam. these will deleted. I apologize if you're genuine but I do not want to add to the fire by accident

SONAAAAAAA

art tag!

mus posting

writting bits

art sprints - 45 minute drawings of pokemon in the art sprint event that i partake in a pmd server. mostly kop lore with some base pmd ocs and general mon designs.

other general posts

answering asks

asks i sent

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thing that made me wheeze

stuff I saved

tutorial stuff

palettes

spoopy corner - my favorite pokemon just some content of it. this grows bigger eventually

kingdom of pokemon - inspirations of wings of fire, warrior cats, and other societal animal books to a pokemon world slightly set in pmd where no humans exist...or at least can reach them. they created multiple kingdoms, a recipe bound for conflicts

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wof auss

wof extension au - an au where ocs are made to be as close to canon as possible and fill in some canonical lore gaps

wof design posts - bunches of wof designs

murder drones wings of fire au - md but wings of fire

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ut au conga line

past your runtime - an undertale au where the true pacifist route doesn't end properly and is instead left to run on forever, almost.

purple & green - ut au covering hcs of the green and purple soul and their time in the underground

uty surviving death - clover completely escapes flowey's sight in his mind causing an endless chase as clover tries to regain parts of himself to face flowey again

ut pmd - undertale but pmd beamed uty main focus

patron of justice - a uty au in which the rerouted path for clover eventually works the way flowey wants and he gains the 5 souls and takes clover's reaching his omega form. he decides to roll the universe back to see any new changes but wants to watch from afar, making clover as physical vessel to act with instead.

---

md nothing good lasts forever - formerly known as the md happy future, mdnglf au is based around a slightly different ending where uzi wholly becomes a new type of solver and its first host, the original one still being present around. for a while it was unable to grab another host due to uzi registering most as under her administration, though as time goes on many drones go unchecked and ones open for a new admin begin to appear. doc here

splatoon thingy

alterbound - a collection of a couple of mother aus i have, 1 per game

the current vibe:

+

[burningexeter]

[PITCH]

Street King

What is it —

A computer-animated superhero series that's a character driven crime drama or more specifically a character drama with superheroes than a show about superheroes.

PREMISE:

Set in New York City or as it's also known as "The City That Never Sleeps", we follow a Serbian immigrant named Miroslav Stojanovic who turns out is a former disgraced soldier that's suffering from PTSD who's come to America not to start a new life and put his past behind him but instead has arrived to seek revenge against those who betrayed him and left him for dead during the war.

Cynical, sarcastic, cunning, quick-thinking and a master of stealth all due to his experience in the army, he begins bringing his own sense of justice to the streets, becoming a brutal vigilante that's given the name "Street King" much to his indifference. All that matters to him is getting to the people he needs to take down and in doing so comes into both contact and conflict with criminals, the FBI, underworld organizations, superheroes and supervillains of different kinds - each underestimating how far he's willing to go and what he's willing to do.

As the series progresses more and more however, Miroslav slowly but surely starts regaining his humanity that he thought was lost and wasn't there anymore, becoming this distinct anti-hero who may not always be a "good person" yet has a clear and strong even determined moral code that drives him and even leads him to doing the right thing with certain faces he's crossed coming together for him and ultimately forming an unlikely and unexpected as well as unconventional team led by him.

NOTES/TRIVIA/DETAILS:

• The whole show will be a very hard TV-MA rating. Not only will it have plenty of swearing but it will also have plenty of violence, sexual content and even full frontal nudity that's either from the males or females depending on which is which.

• Miroslav Stojanovic is best described as a cross between Niko Bellic and Jon Bernthal's Frank Castle/The Punisher while at the same time having his own distinctive personality and way of handling things to make him stand out all on his own.

• The tone and overall aesthetic for the show are Daredevil: Born Again (hence the GIFs), Batman: Arkham Origins, Grand Theft Auto IV, Grand Theft Auto V (that's the most surprising one here) and even the criminally underrated as all hell King Of New York (1990). Just all in 3D form.

• I have yet to find the perfect voice actor to play Miroslav (or in this case, voice him) but I do have in mind a couple of others for the rest of the characters - Cherami Leigh, Logan Marshall-Green, Eli Roth, William H. Macy and Maile Flanagan. Yes, Naruto Uzumaki, who would've thought.

&

• If you're wondering who are some of the superheroes and even supervillains he comes across and eventually forms a team with, believe it or not this is where things get interesting. They're supporting characters from other media with the actors and actresses reprising their roles, retroactively establishing them all in the same universe. To name a few, Sydney Gardner, Katherine Ryan and Molly McGarth from Max Steel (2013) and Arcee and Airachnid from Transformers Prime. Sydney is here attending college, something she does brings Katherine and Molly into this and Arcee and Airachnid have found their ways back to Earth and managed to turn themselves to the size of humans.

[h-worksrambles]

So I've seen a number of people talk about the prospect of the Sonic movies eventually adapting Sonic 06 at some point after movie 4, with some wanting to see Silver or Mephiles show up at some point. Now, utterly nuclear take incoming, but I think Sonic 06 is...um...very bad. And I don't have much love for the characters it introduced. I didn't care for Mephiles as a villain, and I didn't ever warm to Silver, in his later appearances. So I wasn't all that excited at the thought that they might get featured in the movies someday. But then a thought occurred to me. Because of the lore changes the movie has introduced, if Mephiles is introduced, he might potentially be a completely different character from his game counterpart. And the more I thought about that, the more the potential excited me.

Let's start by clarifying what Mephiles' deal was in Sonic 06. In that game, he was originally an artificial being named Solaris who was created by the people of Soleanna. Eventually, it turned against its former masters, and was separated into two beings: Iblis, who represents its power, and Mephiles, who embodies its mind. Iblis gets sealed inside Elise, Soleanna's Princess, and Mephiles is sealed into a macguffin by Shadow the Hedgehog (through...time travel shenanigans). When he gets out in the present, he tries to fuse with his counterpart and regain his true form, while alternating between trying to take revenge on Shadow, or tempting him to his side.

So, what is the original game going for with this character? Well the crux of it was mostly to give Shadow an antagonist to meaningfully bounce off of. Shadow spends his entire campaign chasing the guy down. He looks exactly like Shadow for most of the game to be as literal a reflection as possible. He's also a manmade creation who wants revenge on humanity, and repeatedly tries to convince Shadow to embrace revenge again. He does other things in the plot. He tries to get Silver to kill Sonic, before doing it himself. But most of his meatiest interactions are with Shadow.

Does this intent work in execution? I mean...it's Sonic 06, what do you think? There's numerous things that don't pan out here. Mephiles lacks characterisation besides moustache twirling evil and a vague desire for vengeance. Shadow's campaign ends up being a wild goose chase to hunt down with Mephiles that just kinda fizzles out just before the Last Story. Mephiles' plan to make Elise cry by getting Sonic killed is convoluted makes no sense but inexplicably works anyway. Mephiles has no meaningful dynamic with anyone except Shadow but is still treated as the overarching villain. Plus, Shadow being tempted to go back to hating humans is something we already went over...in the very last game (that being Black Doom in Shadow the Hedgehog). So yeah, Mephiles has the nugget of a decent idea (and a great voice actor). But it does little to endear me to him. He feels more like someone's overpowered villain OC in practice.

So why does the thought of him in the movies get my attention? Well, because he likely wouldn't be Shadow's nemesis.

He'd be Knuckles'.

Shadow is no longer an artificial being made in a lab in the movies for one thing, so the parallels between him and Mephiles would be much weaker. But most importantly, Iblis is already an established thing in the movie canon. In the Knuckles show, we learn that Knuckles has already fought and defeated Iblis, and now wields the Flames of Disaster himself. That in turn implies Movie!Iblis probably has a different backstory and likely isn't made in a lab. So if Mephiles gets introduced, and is still the other half of Solaris, his goal will likely be to target Knuckles and release Iblis from him. And this immediately has more dramatic potential because his target is no longer Princess Elise, a new character and extremely underdeveloped damsel in distress who we don't really care about. It's now Knuckles, a major character we have two movies worth (and wider franchise attachment) of investment in.

I'd like you to imagine a thought experiment. A Sonic movie where Mephiles is the new villain. But specifically how he was originally introduced in his first cutscene in Shadow's story. A shape shifting puddle of goo who can copy other people's appearances, weak on his own, but cunning, and out to take his lost power from Knuckles, even if removing the Flames might cost Knuckles his life. Sonic and co. now have to try and escape a relentless stalker who can hide in plain sight and strike from anywhere. You can still have him copy Shadow's form and take his OG game appearance at some point for fanservice, but he no longer has to spend the whole story like that. I'd also suggest that it's very important that you commit to keeping him weak. None of this Kingdom Hearts darkness power bullshit. Mephiles is a manipulator out to regain his lost strength. He shouldn't be going toe to toe with powerful characters like Shadow. He should be fighting with every dirty trick in the book. Maybe even have him take control of Robotnik's tech to make up the power difference. He can hold his own in a fight, sure. But if we want to commit to him being a brains over brawn character, we are going to have to nerf him a bit.

I'd also suggest rewriting how the Flames are released. In the game, it happened when Elise cried. On paper this was meant to be part of Elise's arc of closing off her emotions out of necessity, but learning to open up and be true to herself. But it's also SUPER arbitrary and just makes Mephiles' plan even more contrived. Instead, maybe have them by released when the host loses control of their emotions (think the Nine Tailed Fox seal in Naruto). So any powerful emotion, not just tears, can set it off. Sounds like a pretty dangerous threat for a naive, short tempered Echidna warrior, huh? You could even rewrite Solaris' lore to be related to the Echidnas (effectively taking Perfect Chaos' role from the games) for added drama, as Knuckles is now confronting something from his lineage. Mephiles' manipulative side can now be used to coax Knuckles into a rage, pushing him to tap into the Flames' power more and more, potentially set Iblis free.

There's also the question of whether Silver should be involved too, and how. That's kind of its own discussion, but I do think it'd be best to limit time travel specifically to HIM. A big part of why Sonic 06's story falls apart is because multiple characters can time travel easily, but don't, especially Mephiles himself. Limit it purely to Silver with some much needed limitations, and he shouldn't be too hard to integrate too, as long as you can give him something meaningful to do.

So yeah. Originally, the thought that we might get Mephiles in the movies didn't fill me with such excitement, but when I thought of how many creative liberties the movies could take (and especially seeing how many liberties movie 3 took with Gerald), I can't deny I'm intrigued.

"So you'd only be excited about seeing Mephiles if he was adapted to the point of being barely recognisable?"

Make of that what you will.

[grossrottie]

omg woaw that’s so sad !! (sixth doctor loses memory reblog) is there a reason you can’t go back to your old relationship after or can’t help him regain his memory?? :o is it a like you’re physically gone situation or you deliberately just choose to not help him/or he literally can’t at all regain his memories ?? that’s so interesting!!

also can you tell i’ve never watched the series ;;

- komilys :3

eeeeeee ty @komilys i love rambling abt my F/Os!! you are an absolute dear omg

Yesss there is a reason!! I looooove a bit of angst, and I was also trying to figure out how to tie all my Doctor Who (the Doctor's regenerations/versions specifically) plotlines together without making my S/I immortal. Plus, there's a few hundred years time gap between the Sixth Doctor and my next Doctor F/O in the lineup (the Tenth regeneration).

So I figured I'd make it a multi-Doctor plotline where they meet, then skip a few regenerations before reappearing!!

So it's a bit of both "physically gone" as well as "he literally can't regain his memories"!

Technically, he got mortally wounded in this plotline and he had to be reverted to a slightly younger version, therefore completely deleting all memories of his time with my S/I. Since they're undone in time rather than just blocked or repressed, he cannot ever regain them. The time together still happened but his body and mind have never experienced it.

Some rambling details about the Sixth Doctor plotline: (using coloured sections for readability bc there's a lot)

The Doctor and Forest meet by happenstance on Earth and they hit it off!!! Forest is a human who is enthralled and intrigued by this cocky Time Lord with the vocabulary of a genius, while the Sixth Doctor revels in the adoration of a silly human. There is seemingly an unrequited crush on both sides, though neither are aware of it, nor do they make a move. There is also a slight power imbalance because Forest really wants the Doctor to like and approve of them!!! They travel for six months together but then then an emergency happens on an alien planet and the Doctor gets badly injured, too injured to be able to regenerate (aka change bodies into his next form).

The TARDIS (his time travel machine) goes into emergency mode and takes Forest back home, dropping them off with no warning or explanation before disappearing back to the emergency far into the future to save the Doctor.

It manages as best it can, and it appears around the Doctor and does the only thing it can do in that moment; it reverts him to a slightly younger version (10 months or so) of himself before he was injured. Unfortunately, that is also before he met Forest.

The Doctor loses all memory of his adventures with Forest, because to him, they never happened. Even their name and face are completely erased from his mind. The Doctor is frazzled and confused while he heals up from the disorientating event. His body is fine but his mind is struggling to make sense of this weird deja vu.

The TARDIS realizes it made a mistake and attempts to fix things. It follows Forest’s timeline and brings the Doctor to a point where they should be able to reconnect.

But (somewhat similar to Donna and the Tenth Doctor in the Adipose episode) Forest and the Sixth Doctor keep missing each other by a hair. Coincides keep them apart even as the TARDIS repeatedly attempts to find them, and eventually the TARDIS gives up.

Time passes for the Doctor and for Forest, but at very different speeds. The Sixth Doctor eventually regenerates into the Seventh, then the Eighth, then the one they don’t talk about, then the Ninth, and the Tenth. Forest is forgotten. The only thing that remains is the vague stories the Doctor stumbles upon in his journeys, the comments of "Tales say that you had a companion last you visited our planet" and "Don't you remember your previous stay in our lovely Saturn Serenity Inn?" that lets him know that something is truly missing. He was reported to have travelled for some time with a partner, and yet he can't remember when, why, or who. He never visited these places. But over the next few hundred years, he repeatedly hears stories that don't add up.

Meanwhile it’s only been two years for Forest. They have no idea what happened. To their perspective, the Doctor got mortally wounded, the TARDIS disappeared with Forest in it and dropped them off at their home, the TARDIS disappeared again, and they were left on Earth with no answers. The Doctor could be dead for all they know—or perhaps they were just abandoned. Which would be worse?

They eventually try to forget about the Sixth Doctor, and they never see his face again.

BUT!!!! They stumble upon the Tenth Doctor after two years, during an alien invasion in a shopping mall.

Forest is getting a birthday cake at a local shopping centre which happens to be (by genuine coincidence) invaded by an alien species at that exact moment. Before they know it, they’re snatched by aliens, tied to some random chatty stranger, and left to squirm while the aliens scour the shopping centre for something.

Forest is mostly focused on lamenting their dropped cake until the stranger mentions something odd. He rambles that he wouldn’t be in this situation if he had his sonic screwdriver, but that he had given it to a nearby bedazzling kiosk before the invasion happened.

Over the next few minutes of confused questioning by Forest (who recalls the Sixth Doctor having a sonic lance), the stranger reveals that he didn’t always have his sonic, but that it’s been a worthy tool for the last four regenerations or so. Forest doesn’t get a chance to ask much else before the stranger wiggles from their shared ropes and grabs their hand, telling them to “run!”

Eventually they save the day together but Forest realizes over those hours that 1) the stranger is truly the Doctor, 2) it’s a later regeneration than the one Forest knew, and 3) he does not remember them.

But the Tenth Doctor seems to enjoy Forest's company, so they keep their mouth shut as they save the day together, not wanting to ruin things by mentioning who they are. If the Sixth Doctor ditched them and then completely forgot about them, why would they risk it by mentioning their past? What if a lapse of memory was all that made the Tenth Doctor want to still be around Forest? What if Forest had made a terrible mistake that cost them their relationship two years ago, and the only reason the Doctor was speaking to them was that he didn't realize it was his old companion? They don't dare remind the Doctor. They see it as a second chance and they don't want to lose it.

Aaaaaand then it's kinda up in the air!!

I haven't solidified it, but I think I'm gonna throw in another angsty 'ending' for the Tenth Doctor's plotline, where Forest gets corrupted by an alien who wants to deconstruct and alter human DNA (sorta a 'godlike entity doesn't understand or care that humans can't withstand an unravelling' theme) and then they get split into pieces along the Doctor's timeline, popping up in the next few Doctors' timeline but never remembering him or staying around for long. A bit of a reversal to the Sixth Doctor plot >:3

PHEW I rambled so much omg I hope this makes sense!!!

If you ever choose to watch the series, lmk!! I'm so curious what your thoughts on it would be :3 and THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK AAAAA ;W; It always makes my day to chat abt my F/Os!!!!!! I love piling on the angst at every turn >:3

[thryth-gaming]

Vancian Casting

One of the key mechanics of D&D is Vancian spellcasting where the spellcasters have a certain number of "spell slots" that they can prepare in a given day. Magic Users (the precursors to wizards, warlocks, and sorcerers) would "memorize" spells and the Clerics (and later Paladins) would "pray" for spells. Later, druids and rangers would be added which would also pray for spells.

This was one of my biggest stumbling blocks for getting D&D magic because it didn't make sense to me that you just stopped knowing something because you used it once. And while I get the idea of becoming tired, the spell slot system was too rigid to represent how exhaustion works.

The Concept Broken Down

This is called Vancian magic because it is based on the Dying Earth novels by Jack Vance. None of which I've read, which probably contributes to my just not meshing well with Vancian casting.

In the series, magic was released by using magical words and the human mind could only hold a limited number of syllables in mind at a time and using them would wipe the knowledge from their mind. So the wizards would have to study their tomes everyday to regain their ability to perform magic. This mechanic was carried over to priests save that they would begin the day by asking their god for specific miracles. In both cases, the spellcaster needed to pick specific spells and couldn't change over to different ones if they decided that they didn't need a prepared spell after-all.

Raymond Feist, the novelist who created the Midkemia setting and wrote the Riftward novels, did some earlier work on D&D and refined this narrative into the idea that spells were long rituals but wizards had eventually built in a cutoff at the end where they could leave a spell unfinished save for a word or two. They would then have that spell basically just hanging on their word to release. Mechanically similar, though the narrative is different.

I have read some of that series and his approach to Vancian casting was the first one that made some sense. It accounted for why you "forgot" a spell. You didn't, you just expended the ritual and didn't have time to set it up again. And it explained why you had to prep spells ahead of time. Again there would be no time to do the ritual on the fly. However, it still didn't account for why the spell slots were rigidly structured on a level basis. And I still felt that surely you could do something with all that raw power even if you couldn't shape something intricate.

My Epiphany

What finally made the idea of magic slots work for me ... sort of ... is the video game Nioh 2. But even here there aren't slots, there's a "capacity" and each technique uses up a certain number of points of that capacity. But that's not the big "ohhh" moment for me here.

In Nioh 2, your Onmyou (and Ninjutsu) are physical tools and talismans which are consumed. So you would go to the nearest shrine and choose to "Ready Jutsu"

This would bring you to a menu show your capacity and what skills you've learned.

And then you could assign those pieces of gear to one of your eight hot-key slots. Resulting in me having a bunch of stuff I want available immediately and some items I use between fights so I can take my time about activating them and thus don't need to use one of my limited hot-buttons.

The main thing that made me go "That makes Vancian magic make so much more sense" even more than Feist's rituals with the cut-offs. Is that each of these tools is a consumable item and once you use it, you have to make another one.

The energy isn't something you have on tap where rituals are used to funnel it. It is something you take effort and time to create and then you expend it like a grenade, potion, or ammunition.

On top of this, Nioh 2 does have powers that you can use repeatedly over time as power builds up in the form of yokai powers and yokai shift. Both of which hinge on your nature as half-yokai and the yokai spirits that have allied with you. For these powers you have two pools of endurance that build up over time, one of which you can use piecemeal to summon your yokai powers and one of which you have to build up to a specific threshold in order to shift into a yokai form.

So they both have consumable one-use spells in the way D&D does in the form of Jutsu and inherent magical energy to fuel powers in the form of Anima (fueling yokai powers) and the Amrita Gauge (the threshold for changing into yokai form). But they are separated.

I'm going to set aside Anima and Amrita because they are basically "Sorcery that makes sense" and function by getting rid of spell slots.

The Jutsu is the method I'm focusing on here again because:

Each prepared "slot" represents a tool prepared using engineering, chemistty, mystical reagents, or appealing to spirits.

The stuff that makes the tools and talismans is external to the character.

The slots are not specifically numbered. As a note, point pools have been an alternative magic casting method since late 2nd edition.

This combination of creating a physical consumable and dropping the level-sorted slots was the thing that made Vancian casting make so much more sense. But then again... this wouldn't be Vancian casting, would it?

Side note, another facet of Nioh 2's "Jutsu" system is that leveling up the skill does not improve the damage that technique does. Fire Shot I, Fire Shot II, and Fire Shot III all base their damage on your Magic rating and other inherent bonuses.

What leveling up the skills does is increase their efficiency and increase the maximum number you can craft. For example

Fire Shot I: Prepare 1-6 fire shot talismans at 1 capacity each.

Fire Shot II: Prepare 1-8 fire shot talismans at 0.8 capacity each

Fire Shot III: Prepare 1-10 fire shot talismans at 0.7 capacity each.

This is largely just neat and not part of my epiphany on Nioh 2 and Vancian casting.

Now, you can't just change D&D to match that. It would be a completely different flavor of magic. But it is curious to see how it things would have developed if they had taken this track.

What If...

The big change here is that this mode of "magic" is more akin to being a D&D artificer than a D&D wizard. As you can also see, it would also have worked with some rogue abilities too with craftable thrown weapons, grenades, and medicines.

My suspicion is that if D&D had started with the assumption of wizards and clerics preparing relics and talismans between fights then it would be the sorcerer that was a late comer rather than the artificer. Though the artificer might not have been called such since it would be the base assumption.

I kind of suspect if the sorcerer had been introduced in that environment we would have heard something akin to the "no sci-fi in my fantasy" we get with artificers today but instead we'd be having "no mutant superheroes in my fantasy" with sorcerers.