#even once it's built and working switching over is going to be a Process

[dravidious]

You're more amazing than Nadu

My new computer arrived today! I've been putting it together for the past 3-4 hours and I just realized I need to eat dinner. Also here's a card that was supposed to be an uncommon but i think it's more of a rare now

[blacktabbygames]

i have a question about the development of the game!

most environments in the game operate on a two-frame animation where it's the same drawing twice but with tiny line deviations; just a subtle art style choice to make the game a bit more lively.

a lot of games and other such things do this, and it certainly adds a lot of life to the frame, but it seems like an incredible amount of work to have to draw every single thing twice instead of once, even if one is just traced over the other - especially with environments with so many intricate details like in slay the princess.

did you use any tricks or programs to make this process faster? or did you just have to draw every single background twice?

Lol. So I actually asked Abby if she could draw 3 versions of every asset when we started on the very first demo, after which she promptly died to avoid taking on that much work. When that was clearly a no-go, I switched to creating a boil effect out of localized distortions in After Effects, and then applied that to each image, creating a short, looping video file. This was *terrible* from a performance perspective, especially with the degree of layering in Slay the Princess — to maintain the parallax effect, many backgrounds have as many as 4 different layers, which all have to be saved as their own images, on top of the Princess when she's present. Playing that many HD video files is very CPU intensive, and the first demo ran terribly because of it. Ultimately we switched to using an openGL shader (which we hired @manuelamalasanya to code — she is so so talented) that mimics the transform I built in After Effects, and we apply that shader to each image within Ren'py. This works better with the engine in general, and it also means the extra work on displaying that effect is done on the GPU instead of the CPU, so the game's more performant.

[aveli-li]

HEADCANNONS OF GRAYSON X PREGNANT READER (ilysm😼)

Grayson and the Haven

warnings: established relationship, gender neutral reader, pregnant r!, pregnancy mentions, fluff, no smut, minors dni

a/n: LOVE YOU DOLLIE THANK YOU FOR THIS ASK I LOVED MAKING THIS AAAAA the baby fever this gave me is unbearable

♡ be prepared not to move a single finger.

♡ Grayson will not let you do anything that might take risk in the first months of the pregnancy, although you can perfectly do your chores just needing to add care to not force your body a lot, Grayson prefers to have you rested.

♡ If someone makes an offhand comment about your pregnancy or about you, she will make the person who they are talking to.

♡ Grayson will have to balance work with her personal life. It has been a great development since you two got together but since you are carrying her child she makes sure to come home earlier to have more time with you, and of course, checking you all the time.

♡ She understands how suffocating that might be and that you have your life and know how to take care of yourself, but please, this woman is protective by nature. It won't change her in such a vulnerable moment to leave you alone.

♡ She refuses and does rather not take risk quests and situations. Fearing her job could cause some harm to you and your baby, even in the future. If she has to go, she will take double care about it to not worry you and the baby about the mission and as soon as she returns she calls you to hear her voice and how things went well, or a bit tough but most important is that she is safe.

♡ The most lovely place in the world for her is next to you. Her muscled arm marking room for your head to rest, one hand caressing your hair and the other resting on your growing belly, she couldn't ask for anything better.

♡ He helps you build a nest to accommodate your belly once it grows bigger, and you found victory about the many pillows you wanted to buy that she found unnecessary. She helps you through your sleep, rubbing your back, caressing your belly, or massaging your sore legs and hips until you fall asleep again.

♡ Maybe, just maybe, for Grayson, the moment it all became true and realized that you were carrying her child was when she felt their first kick when she was baby talking to your belly. A late moment, but something on her switched, and she realized what she would become in a few months. She had a moment to process it, and couldn't believe that the baby gave this sort of signal when she talked to them.

♡ Grayson doesn't get emotional often, but since the thought of starting a family lightened up on her, you could see her emotional moreover. She doesn’t cry or have outbursts like you (and those damn hormones messing with your feelings), but she tears up in adoration, of finding someone that trusted her, and wanted to start a family with her.

♡ She has moments of doubt. You catch her staring at your belly, lost in thought, but your reassurance words saying that she will be a great mother eases her mind.

♡ And when the moment gets too tough for you, seeing your body changing so much over the weeks, Grayson pulls you into her lap and presses kisses all over your body, saying in a whisper and proudly how breathtaking you look.

♡ Buying clothes and the furniture was tiring but both agreed on the colors and decoration for the room. Grayson built everything, from the small wardrobe to the little crib, a teddy bear placed on the pillow that they will soon hold to sleep.

♡ Some nights, you find her in the baby's room, taking a moment to appreciate everything both are building together.

♡ A pillar of strength, respected by her peers, even feared by some. But with she's was something else, something softer. Grayson had all her love dedicated to you and only you. And now, for the little baby growing bigger every day.

☆ Small bonus, but imaging enforcer Grayon coming home to her pregnant partner, very housewife scenario aaa 🩷🩷

[7grandmel]

Character Archives - [FILE-07]

Grand Dad

"Mario seven, uh, was that the one I played? Oh, let's check it out..."

For Walt Disney, it all began with a mouse. But for SiIvaGunner, it all began with a bootleg game, a streamer, and a pinch of insanity. Many have come after him, and many can claim to be funnier - but Grand Dad will forever hold the title as the first ever figment of imagination to come out of the bubbling mind of SiIvaGunner [FILE-01]. As a result, he has come to be a symbol for the channel in its entirety, the very embodiment of the SiIvaGunner ethos, and something of a dear friend in the eyes of its creator.

In 2014, a certain streamer under the name of Vinesauce Joel was going through the motions of his typical streaming routine - playing games of the oddest variety, and bellylaughing at the absurd results they'd deliver. Even as part of this greater whole, however, Joel's reaction to 7 GRAND DAD immediately became a standout moment, a series of events so perfect that the comedic timing couldn't have been coordinated to be any better. A mumbling Joel clicks on the game bizarrely labeled as "Mario 7", and is to his great shock met with the imagery of a garishly discolored Mario, placed onto an equally garish blue background, as bold letters declare the game's name to be "7 GRAND DAD". Before Joel can even properly process the twist he's been subjected to, only letting out a reading of the game's name, the game twists all expectations once again: An 8-bit rendition of The Flintstones theme, originally from The Flintstones: The Rescue of Dino & Hoppy, kicks in - prompting a bewildered reaction of "FLINTSTONES?!" from the thoroughly befuddled streamer.

This is a sequence of events you're all too familiar with if you're a fan of the SiIvaGunner channel, yet nevertheless a necessary one to properly recount to understand just how core Grand Dad is to SiIvaGunner: Through this one 15-second clip of one streamer's reaction to the unpredictable world of bootleg video games, a small subset of internet dwellers on the platform SoundCloud realized that they'd uncovered a whole new genre of derivative audio work. Mashups and arrangements were always alive and well on the internet, yet always delivered with upfront honesty: To play into their derivative nature as part of the reaction, to present these edits as if they were the nostalgic, authentic real-deal video game music that you grew up loving, only to have the edit serve as an unexpected punchline, was the kind of brilliant idea that just had to be capitalized on. Thus, in January 2016, one lone internet dweller by the name Chaze the Chat started the SiIvaGunner (then GiIvaSunner) channel, and uploaded "Wild Pokémon Battle - Pokémon Ruby & Sapphire". The bait-and-switch foundation that laid the groundwork for all of SiIvaGunner, all built upon the concept of a bootleg Flintstones game pretending to be the seventh entry in the Super Mario franchise.

In our world, Grand Dad's debut to the online world is now over ten years old, his legacy on the SiIvaGunner channel being that of a figurehead mainly representative of the simpler times that the channel has long since grown up from. Yet in the SiIvaGunner universe, to SiIvaGunner himself, Grand Dad is the beating heart of the entire channel, the first spark of imagination which binds his whole universe together. Every figment made since the channel's inception owes its existence to Grand Dad, and with every step SiIvaGunner underwent across his original 2016 run, Grand Dad was right there alongside him, an enduring voice in his head steering the channel onward. And even as his creator fell into a deep slumber, as The Voice Inside Your Head [FILE-03] set his plans into motion to extract SiIvaGunner's figments into the real world, Grand Dad was at the front lines of the resistance fighting in his name - and remains a symbol of hope for all figments caught in The Voice's tyrannical reign.

Across eight years of the channel's life, Grand Dad has gone through so many phases in reception: As a novel joke, as a beacon of hope, as a redundant and played-out bit, looping around into being used ironically, followed by a loop-back-around into being genuinely appreciated. Event after event, album after album, Grand Dad has become a genuine symbol of everything the channel does, and continues to appear to represent it across all of its twists and turns. It's no small feat for a figment to have endured in relevancy for as long as Grand Dad has, and no matter where the channel is headed, you can sure that he's here to stay.

[neogandw]

Introducing: Silk Woman.

A Robot Master from India, developed for the intent of crafting and mass producing clothes of the finest quality and prettiest design to the higest bidder.

Loosely based off Lakshmi, this gal was built to embody beauty, feminity and fortune, the last of which would come as a result of her work being made of the best genuine silk her patron corporation could acquire.

However, given her personality being that of a saint and her enormous compassion, once she learned of the process that went into adquiring real silk as fast as possible, she rebelled against the corporation that built her, and a robot that wasn't gonna comply would no longer be useful, so she was quickly discarded soon after.

Abandoned at the scrapyard, she was at a loss of what to do since she was stripped of the silk that had given her name and had no real method of getting out in the world on her own.

Fortune would soon smile upon her, however, as she soon discovered a tiny insect scuttering about on the scrapyard and saved it from nearly getting crushed by the rubble of the place, as it would have it, this little insect was a tiny mechanical golden spider.

As it happens, these golden spiders were companions to hobbyist in the textile arts, made to produce synthetic thread in various colors as long as they were provided the materials for it. However, these models were easily disposable if the hobbyist ran out of materials or merely didn't want to continue their lost passion.

This little spider was thankful for the kindness Silk had shown, and as if it could talk, it led her to more of its kind, who had various amounts of left-over silk within them.

With the help of the spiders, she was led out of the scrapyard and safely escaped a grim demise at the hands of crushers or trash melters. Though she had little to her name, she did had the skills to sew, and the thankful spiders would gladly provide what they had.

The group would soon find a place where they could prepare and sell their wares, though given the mass produced tools she had the people did not trust her as she was seen as a machine and not as a crafter, soon would she decide to switch her methods and learn the trade once more on her own, with no tricks to speed up the process.

It was a hard time, and the thread of the spiders was running out (and not a dime to feed them as they needed to be), it seemed to be over for the seamstress… until fortune shone on her once more.

A young couple this time, poor but deeply in love, they came in looking for wares they could use for their wedding and the other stablishements had rejected them for they couldn't pay the higher price. Feeling pity on them, Silk lended them her finest wares for almost free (the couple insisted on paying back what they could, and the spiders hungered for the flowers they needed to produce once more).

It took some days and Silk didn't had much time to keep her business afloat, but soon did she hear that the wedding was filled with love and amazement, with the wife presuming and praising the clothes she had acquired. Soon did word of mouth spread and little by little Silk acquired more and more clientelle who were happy with her wares.

Over time, Silk acquired a fortune and fame for the clothes she and the spiders produced, using her money not in frivolous jewels but in creating a lush garden, where she could grow flowers and trees that would help feed the spiders. This garden attracted lost animals -both of the robotic and living kinds- and were invited to stay as long as they pleased, some even providing help to tend to the flowers of the garden.

Today, Silk's business has grown to be recognized across various countries. Although slow to produce as she's a single woman doing the work, her textile works now fetch a good amount of money, though even today she freely donates her most elegant wares to couples soon to be married if their love rings true in their hearts.

-----

Silk here is a creation to go along with the rest of the robots that I have created thus far, by sheer accident I have been doing a worldwide theme with the end result being almost an echo of MegaMan 6 as each one of my robots would match a country seen in that game (or, well, almost. I have to represent my homeland of M��xico, you know, close enough to Brazil).

Out of the ones I needed to make, the middle east was the one I needed to represent at this point, so I landed on making one based off the idea of the textile works of India as well as loosely basing her off Lakshmi and other various middle eastern themes. Hope I got her right and sincere apologies if I got something wrong.

Thus, I now have 9 robots, one for each country in MegaMan 6!

…Though one of them may not be exactly happy about it.

...Don't worry, Cave isn't getting demoted or replaced, its all just for show! He's just as valued as the others.

[techav]

On Recovering From Disaster

Just before disaster struck with my 68030 homebrew, I had a plan to fork the project and take it in two directions in parallel.

The first would be my minimal Multibasic setup which was running great and was something I would be proud to exhibit at VCFSW '25.

Since that was working well, I didn't want to do anything that might make it not ready for the show. So I had assembled a second main board that I could use with other peripheral cards to continue development. My plan was to rework the memory map to move ROM and I/O addresses to the upper half of the 32-bit address space, which would allow me to use a DRAM card for up to 16MB of contiguous memory starting at address 0 — a perfect setup for running a proper OS

And then I burned up my good mainboard.

I had a spare CPLD on-hand, and I was able to get another 40MHz 68EC040 for cheap. But the 4Mbit SRAM chips are expensive, and I thought that if I was going to be paying for more SRAM, I should get the 12ns parts that would allow me to run RAM with no wait states at 50MHz. Which would require adapter boards, and more pin headers, and would have just driven the cost up even more.

Paralyzed by indecision and the rising cost, I decided to switch gears. I already have the DRAM board I built years ago, I just needed to get it working. And if I'm doing that, I may as well do the work on reorganizing my memory map.

So that's what I did. I made a new branch on my newly cleaned up repository, and set to work. I updated the mainboard bus controller logic to remove the no-longer-needed SRAM control, adjust the ROM address to start at 0x8000,0000, and move the 6850 UART address to 0x8008,0000. This freed up the entire 2GB space between 0x0000,0000 and 0x7FFF,FFFF for the DRAM card to use for main memory (my bus connector layout only allows for up to 16MB main memory, but that's plenty for my purpose).

Next, I needed to build the control logic for my DRAM board. I've done this once before on my Wrap030-ATX project a couple years ago, so I used that logic as a starting point. It … kind-of worked. Sometimes. Maybe.

I was getting random errors all over the place. Sometimes it was able to copy all of ROM into RAM and verify the copy without error, but it would fail when running code from RAM. Sometimes it wouldn't even pass the first two simple tests of writing a longword to RAM and reading it back.

Back to the data sheets to plan out the logic. I drew out a new timing diagram down to 1ns resolution, accounting for the specified propagation time for my CPLDs, and the measured signal delays for my CPU. This gave me the information I needed to build out a new state machine for the DRAM controller. In the process I also caught a few other bugs in my original logic, such as not ensuring the DRAM Write Enable strobe did not get asserted during refresh cycles.

The new state machine worked much better, but I got my timing off a bit. It worked reliably at 16MHz, but not at the intended 25MHz. At least it was working though; I can move forward with 16MHz.

The next thing to do was get my 8-port serial card working with this new setup. Every time the computer tried to access one of the 8 serial ports, it would get a bus error. This was a tough one that had me stuck for a while.

It looked like the serial card was getting addressed and asserting DSACK0# as expected, but I couldn't confirm the signal was making it back to the CPU. Every time I tried to measure the DSACK signals, the probes would increase the line capacitance (I think) too much and cause the whole computer to fail before it even got to the point of trying to address the serial ports.

I have the DSACK signals in a wired-or configuration. The logic on each card connects to the proper DSACK signal via an open-collector buffer, and is able to pull the signal low to signal that card acknowledging the bus cycle. The signal is then pulled back up to +5V by a 1kΩ resistor. This works well enough for small, slow systems, but with long bus wires or lots of chips on the bus, the extra capacitance means it can take a long time for that pull-up resistor to get the signal back up to +5V.

I made a change to my DRAM controller to actively drive the DSACK signals to +5V briefly at the end of a bus cycle before setting the pin to high-impedance. This helps ensure a fast rise time at the end of the cycle so it doesn't disrupt the next bus cycle.

It didn't fix the problem with the serial card, but it did allow me to actual probe the signals live to see what was happening — the Bus Error signal was getting asserted immediately after the CPU addressed the serial card. This didn't make much sense to me. My main board logic will assert Bus Error if no peripherals acknowledge a bus transaction within 64 clock cycles. Nothing should be asserting Bus Error so quickly.

Except … the main board bus controller. My original memory map used the lower half of the address space for the main board, and peripheral cards used the upper half. So my original main board logic was built to assert Bus Error immediately for an unused address in the lower half of the address space. I hadn't properly removed that bit of logic, so it was now asserting Bus Error for any accesses to the upper half of the address space that weren't used by the main board.

The challenges of working on a project after six years. I had forgotten that bit of logic was even there.

With that erroneous Bus Error assertation removed, the machine was finally able to properly load my Multibasic kernel and run BASIC for 8 users again.

At the moment it is running stable at 24MHz on my 25MHz-rated full 68030. It may not be the 50MHz high I was at, but after the frustration and disappointment of the past few weeks, I'm absolutely taking that as a win. 24MHz is incredible.

[jackrussell1907]

During the filming of "The Godfather" in 1971, Robert Duvall was focused on portraying the calm, calculating consigliere Tom Hagen, while Marlon Brando was redefining cinematic power with his portrayal of Don Vito Corleone. Between takes, however, the atmosphere was far from solemn. In an interview with the "Los Angeles Times," Duvall recalled, “We’d do these intense scenes, and right before the camera rolled, Brando would moon me. He did it to loosen the tension. It was his way of saying, ‘We’re actors, don’t take it too seriously.’” The prank was never part of the script, but it became part of their shared rhythm during filming.

Francis Ford Coppola noticed early on that something unspoken existed between Duvall and Brando. Their process was different. Brando relied heavily on instinct, emotion, and spontaneity, while Duvall came from a deeply disciplined background in theater. Yet on set, they developed a surprising chemistry that grounded some of the film’s most quiet yet emotionally charged scenes. Their bond was forged not just through performance, but through a mutual curiosity and quiet respect.

One morning in Manhattan during a pre-filming rehearsal, Brando arrived unannounced at the hotel suite where Duvall was staying. He knocked, holding a small grocery bag with deli sandwiches and a bottle of red wine. Duvall later shared the story with "The New York Times": “He walked in like it was his house and said, ‘I figured we should talk like real people before we act like fake ones.’” They sat at the small round table for hours, going over family dynamics, voice tone, and the subtleties of trust. That afternoon shaped their future scenes together.

In a conversation captured by journalist Lawrence Grobel for "Playboy," Brando once said, “Bobby has this honesty. He doesn’t try to show off. He listens. That’s what makes him dangerous in a scene. You can’t bluff him.” It was rare praise from Brando, who rarely gave out compliments without layers of sarcasm. What struck Duvall most about Brando wasn’t the unpredictable brilliance on set, but the way Brando would watch others intently during their scenes. “He was like a hawk,” Duvall said during a 1997 AFI interview. “He’d find the one thing that was working in a scene and anchor his whole performance to it.”

During the filming of Don Corleone’s hospital scene where Tom Hagen and Michael Corleone work frantically to protect their father, Brando would subtly guide the tone. Before Coppola called action, he whispered to Duvall, “Don’t look at me. Think of your father.” Duvall said that cue flipped a switch in his brain, and the scene took on a heavier tone without any added dialogue.

That same day, a young assistant camera operator witnessed Brando silently adjust a chair’s placement by two inches before a shot. When asked why, he replied, “Bobby walks in from that side. The angle was wrong.” Duvall later said he didn’t even notice the adjustment but could feel the shot felt different. More natural. More grounded. That kind of unseen partnership became a quiet thread throughout production.

On the final week of principal photography, Brando walked into the make-up trailer where Duvall was sitting in silence. He sat down, lit a cigarette, and said, “We did something here, didn’t we?” Duvall nodded, and for a few moments, they said nothing. No congratulations. No rehearsed sentiment. Just that pause, filled with mutual understanding of what they had built together on screen and off.

Their camaraderie never demanded attention, but it shaped the tone of "The Godfather" in profound ways. Behind every frame where Don Corleone and Tom Hagen share a glance or a whispered word, there exists a real connection. A strange mixture of mischief and mastery that brought gravity to fiction. Their bond didn’t need to be announced. It simply existed, and in those scenes, it still lives.

[solalunar-eclipse]

Ball & Chain of My Own Making

Written as part of the Sonic the Hedgehog Big Bang 2024, hosted by @sthbigbang!

Summary: Set in the Sonic the Comic (Fleetway Publications) universe. Now that Robotnik's grasp on the planet has finally been removed, the world is beginning to recover. During this process, Sonic goes to meet up with his old friend, Porker Lewis, on the Floating Island. Unfortunately, they're long overdue for a conversation…and it's going to happen whether he wants it to or not.

Wonderful art (may contain spoilers!) by:

@eosomit (GORGEOUS ART BY EOSOMIT HERE) @pikafleetsyolo (FANTASTIC ART BY PIKAFLEETS HERE)

AO3 Link

Wooden scaffolding arched towards the bright blue sky, free of smog for the first time in years. The foundations of future homes spread out across the land of the Emerald Hill Zone, built atop the rubble and ashes of the original village, proving that soon, the people who once lived here would be back and better than ever before.

A sudden gust of wind rattled the scaffolds, making them shake but not crumble under its force—because after all, this was no ordinary wind. This was the controlled tailwind created by the high-octane racing of one Sonic the Hedgehog, Hero of Mobius, reaching speeds even faster than his namesake.

He skidded to a stop in the midst of the construction, admiring the view around him. It was good to finally see the world rebuilding now that Robotnik had fallen…this had been just a dream for far too long, so to have it become tangible reality, something he could reach out and touch, was downright awesome.

After a few moments, he spotted one of his closest friends, Miles “Tails” Prower—to him just Tails—helping to push a high-up beam into a slightly better position with the assistance of his namesake tails, which spun like the blades of a helicopter.

“Hey, pal, you got anything ya need taking care of ‘round here?” Sonic yelled up to him. “Because you know if you do, it’ll be done before you’re finished saying so!” he finished, winking up at the fox.

Tails flew down from his place atop the framework, landing neatly in front of Sonic. “I’m afraid that was actually the last piece of work I had on my list for now! I think I’m going to go help out Johnny with his staff—he says it’s been on the blink lately, and I thought it surely couldn’t be much harder than that time I helped you repair your plane!” He beckoned happily for Sonic to walk alongside him as the two headed back to their current base of operations, and the hedgehog did so without protest.

“Hmh.” Sonic replied eloquently, folding his arms and frowning slightly. “Amy and Tekno are still out too, yeah?”

“They are…” Tails looked up at his friend for a moment, before his eyes widened with an idea. “Hey, there has to be a couple of malfunctioning badniks left to take out somewhere, right?”

Sonic sighed. “Not for a hundred miles—and believe me, I’ve looked.”

The fox’s twin tails flicked nervously. “I mean, the only work we have going on right now is this whole relocation project…the thing is, I don’t think any other baddies are quite ready to crawl out of the shadows so soon after Robotnik vanished.” he explained.

Sonic abruptly snapped his fingers. “Hey, there’s an idea! I’m gonna take the Tornado up to the Floating Island, see how that end of the relocation’s shaking out up there! Seeya, gotta scram!”

And with that, he was gone, Tails’s call of “bye!” (accompanied by an understanding smile he didn’t see) just barely reaching him.

Within moments, Sonic was already in the cockpit of his trusty biplane, flipping switches with the muscle memory of someone who had piloted it a hundred times before. His eyes roamed over the controls, then shifted to the shining red paint that adorned it—

…oh no…what have I done?

The Hero of Mobius abruptly froze, his fingers trembling almost imperceptibly as he remembered an earlier version of this very plane, crumbling and burning before his eyes—the fire had burned all around him, smoke choking the air, but this time not from one of Robotnik’s factories, instead it—

Sonic shook his head, gritting his teeth and forcing his quills to relax. “Everything worked out just fine,” he muttered. “He’s gone now. Amy and Tekno said so.”

With a few sharp movements, the plane’s engine was running smoothly, and Sonic taxied it down the runway and took off with ease. He only needed a moment to remember the controls, and then his memory of flying between islands on his adventures took over at last. 

As he climbed in altitude, he banked the plane around so it was pointing straight towards the Floating Island. While Tails had added a map to the Tornado, making it easier than ever to navigate, Sonic didn’t need any of that. He might not have…one particular effect from the Chaos Emeralds any longer, but that didn’t mean their energy would ever stop being intertwined with his being in a way he neither could nor cared to explain. 

He glanced briefly over the side of the biplane, enjoying the sight of Emerald Hill’s in-progress town below, now resembling a child’s plaything more than the towering structures he’d seen Tails working on earlier. 

As Sonic flew further, he passed over rivers that were running cleaner than before (though their banks still bore remnants of sludge) and the half-destroyed ruins of several of Robotnik’s factories. He smirked with a grim sort of satisfaction as he spotted a particularly torn-up building, stamped with that grinning logo all mangled and broken, unable to churn out even one more ounce of material to support the now-toppled Empire.

Thankfully for his notoriously short patience, it didn’t take Sonic long at all to reach the Floating Island. Avoiding the populated Mushroom Hill Zone for the time being, he instead circled the plane around over a large grassy clearing just outside the Hidden Palace, coming in for an (in his opinion) impressively smooth landing.

Sonic hopped out of the biplane after cutting its motor, grinning broadly. Any second now…

“SONIC!” a voice bellowed from within, accompanied by the sound of heavy footfalls. “What on Mobius are you doing here?”

Knuckles the Echidna stepped out of the shadows of the Hidden Palace, his arms folded over his chest and his ever-present glower meeting Sonic’s expectations perfectly. “You’d better not have shown up just to cause trouble. The Emerald Hill folk are in the middle of packing up their entire lives, and I am already at my limit with all the chaos around here.”

Sonic swiped under his nose, his smirk growing wider. “You’ve gotta be having some real trouble guarding all those Chaos Emeralds then, huh? I can always take care of them if you’re not up to it!”

Knuckles’s jaw tightened. “Sonic, I swear—“

“Relax, knucklehead!” he interrupted, cutting Knuckles off before he could get truly enraged. (Unfortunately, the continued presence of his smug smile may not have particularly helped, but he was more than fine with that.) “You should know I’m not here to mess anything up! Just popped up here to check out how things are going on your end. I don’t expect them to be moving quite as fast as my folks, obviously, but I figured if anyone could help speed the process up a little, it’d be yours truly.”

The echidna appeared momentarily torn between the promise of getting complete peace and quiet on his island sooner, or getting marginally more peace and quiet right now by hurling Sonic bodily off the island. Eventually, he just fixed the hero with his most stern glare, before pointing wordlessly to the door of the Hidden Palace.

Sonic snickered, strolling casually into the building and enjoying the irate grumbling behind him. Knuckles was just too easy to rile up, and his reactions were always fantastic.

“Oh, Knuckles, did you find out who it wa—Sonic!”

The hedgehog in question nearly jumped in surprise, but managed to conceal it beneath a smooth pivot to face the speaker…only to smile broadly once he registered just who it was. 

Sitting at one of the consoles around the massive room was none other than Porker Lewis, his old friend and former fellow Freedom Fighter. Porker practically leapt out of his chair, dashing over to greet Sonic more properly. “It’s just wonderful to see you! How’s everything going?”

Sonic flashed his trademark grin, not-so-subtly preening in response to Porker’s unfiltered enthusiasm. “You know me, always chillin’. Howzabout yourself, Lewis? Enjoying that island life?” he added, winking.

Porker smiled wryly, shaking his head. “I’m liking it a lot more now that Robotnik’s gone. Getting to help repair the technology Knuckles’s ancestors left behind is important work, don’t get me wrong, but it’s not nearly as intense as trying to topple a dictatorship.”

The hero’s face didn’t move a millimeter, but somehow, his smile felt so much more strained. “Yeah. It’s…good that’cha can just work on that now instead of having to put up with badniks all day, every day.”

Porker’s own expression faltered briefly, before he brightened up again, albeit more mellow than before. “Well, I’m sure you didn’t just come here to stand around and talk! I’m supposed to be repairing some of the zoom tubes in the Hydrocity Zone today, but I can leave that for later if you want to have a look around Mushroom Hill together.”

“Psh, no way! It’s been ages since I got to give Hydrocity the old run-around, I’ve gotta see if I can beat my fastest time down there! You wouldn’t deprive your old buddy Sonic a chance to do that, wouldja?” The blue hedgehog bounced into a more dynamic stance, one fist held in front of himself and his other hand thrown back as though he were about to spindash right this very second.

“If you tear up this chamber, I will throw you into the ocean.” Knuckles huffed, making Sonic scoff and straighten back up to face the serious guardian. At that very moment, Sonic’s eyes caught on exactly what Knuckles was leaning against—specifically, one of the switchboards in front of the Emeralds’ storage column. 

“Forget it, Porker…you’ve already done more than your share.”

“Don’t mention her, buddy. Lately she’s been driving me up the wall!”

“Whaaaa—!”

(The rock Sonic had been leaning against crumbled beneath him without warning, and he was sent pitching backwards into the column of pure Chaos energy. It surged through him, bright and powerful…and…violent…)

“Whoa, hey, Sonic? Sonic? You with me?”

“Agh!” He jumped backwards, immediately dropping into a fighting stance…before seeing that it was just Knuckles in front of him, one gloved hand raised as though he’d just been waving it in Sonic’s field of view. “Geez, Knucklehead, warn a guy next time you decide to stick your hand in his face, huh?”

“…you didn’t even react after I said I was gonna…chuck you off the island and all that. I didn’t actually mean it, you know. You might be annoying, but I’m not just going to let you drown.” the echidna muttered, still watching Sonic warily, as though he were about to space out again at any minute.

And Sonic wasn’t having any of that.

“Tch, I was just daydreaming about new ways to spindash that smug look ‘a yours right off your face.” he retorted, folding his arms defiantly. “I don’t hafta dignify every smart-aleck thing you say with a comeback, do I?”

Knuckles rubbed his brow, letting out a long-suffering sigh. “Whatever. Porker, can you please take him anywhere that isn’t here? Mushroom Hill, Hydrocity, either way, just…ugh.”

Porker laughed sympathetically, walking up to stand next to Sonic, now with some papers in his arms and some tools on a belt. “I certainly can. So, Hydrocity, is it, then?” he asked the blue hero lightly.

“You know it!” Sonic gave him a thumbs up, before following his old friend to one of the doorways leading out of the Emerald Chamber. 

The two friends traveled down a short hallway, which led to a shaft so deep Sonic couldn’t even begin to see the bottom. Stairs spiraled around its outside, while a pole speared down the center, attached to the ceiling at one end and presumably the floor at the other.

Porker looked over at Sonic. “How about a race? You on the stairs, and me on the pole?” he asked. 

Sonic’s expression split into what had to be the biggest grin he’d worn yet. “You do realize you’re gonna lose embarrassingly, right?”

“Maybe, but that doesn’t mean I can’t at least try, does it?” Porker insisted, his hands in his pockets and the set of his shoulders easy. Internally, Sonic appreciated the sight of his friend relaxed and happy. It had been far too long since he’d last seen Porker like this, after all.

The Hero of Mobius dashed over to the top of the stairs, settling into a sprinter’s starting position. “You sure you’re ready for this, Sonic?” the engineer sked, smiling cheekily as he grabbed onto the pole with both gloved hands.

“Ha! I’ve been ready, Lewis, you oughta know that by now!”

“Alright then!” Porker announced, to the otherwise empty room. “Three! Two! One! Go!”

Immediately, the former Freedom Fighter pushed off the platform and began to slide down the pole—but that could never compare to the power of pure Sonic speed. The instant the sound “go” hit his ears, Sonic tore off down the stairs so fast that anyone watching wouldn’t have been able to make out his features, only seeing the blue blur that had earned him yet another of his many monikers.

Sonic couldn’t help but beam as the wind whistled through his quills and his sneakers pounded on the staircase, loving the thrill of adrenaline that came from riding the line between landing each step as quickly as possible and tumbling into an uncontrolled fall. His agility had to be perfect to pull this off…and of course, it was. He was Sonic the Hedgehog, after all.

Once he hit the bottom, he looked up, waiting for Porker to appear. Thankfully, he’d only just started tapping his foot by the time the engineer came into view.

“Took you long enough!” Sonic smirked up at him, his arms folded and one eyebrow raised.

Porker smiled back. “Well, pardon me for not wanting to free-fall out of control! Not all of us are invincible Heroes of Mobius—that’s your job, after all!”

Sonic hesitated briefly, something about the title resonating oddly in his chest. “Say, speaking of which…it was…a little heroic, kinda, to be the one to clap Robotnik in cuffs like that. How’d you manage it?”

“Oh! Well, it wasn’t much, really. I was just trying to help some of the Emerald Hill folk evacuate out of the Mushroom Hill Zone, when I saw Robotnik trying to escape that massive fight you and Knuckles had with Dr. Zachary! I managed to rally a few of the braver people, and together we got the drop on him and cuffed him before he knew what happened,” Porker explained, beginning to walk into the zone as he spoke. “We were only able to get him because he was so thrown off guard by actually losing his grip on power for once—it was an opportunity we wouldn’t have gotten again! I may have left the Freedom Fighters, but I wouldn’t have been able to sleep at night if I’d let him get away, you know?”

Sonic could feel his confusion showing on his face, but he wasn’t entirely sure how to stop it. “You…I guess, but…”

“Is everything alright?” Porker was frowning in concern, and that was enough to convince Sonic that this conversation wasn’t worth pursuing any longer. 

He laced his hands behind his head casually. “Yeah, sure! You know me, since when am I not?”

“…” When Sonic snuck a peek at his friend out of the corner of his eye, he saw that Porker still looked uneasy. 

Luckily for him, a Bugernaut suddenly swooped down at Porker, forcing him to duck out of the way. Within seconds, Sonic had curled into a ball, smashing the badnik and landing with ease. He quickly scanned the area for any more, spotting a few patrolling in a line farther ahead. While Robotnik was gone, his influence clearly still lingered, even up here on the Floating Island.

Briefly, he glanced back at his friend, who shot him a quick smile and a thumbs-up—which was all he needed to tear off in pursuit. It was a matter of a single jump to reach the nearest platform, and then only one more leap to bounce from badnik to badnik in a line, freeing the various little critters inside.

Sonic landed on an even higher platform, crouching by the edge to scan the ground below for Porker. He could jump down easily…but that would mean more awkward conversation. And when his alternative was scouting ahead and taking out any leftover badniks so Porker wouldn’t have to deal with them? It was hardly a choice at all.

He waved to get Porker’s attention, before jerking a thumb over his shoulder and holding up his fists like he was about to get into a cartoonish fight. The former Freedom Fighter gave him a friendly salute back, before turning back to his path towards the busted zoom tube. Sonic let out a breath that, had anyone else heard, he would have denied having been a sigh. Then, in a blink, he wasn’t there at all, only a blue streak of light marking the path he’d taken. 

Thankfully, he did turn out to have a genuine excuse to rush on ahead, as he found several more clusters of badniks after that initial line of Bugernauts. While Porker followed the lower paths, Sonic took every shortcut he could find in an effort to cover as much ground as possible. However, being thorough did mean he had to make some…unfortunate choices, as well. Hanging from a slow rope pulley above water wasn’t exactly his idea of fun, and neither was the promise of dropping into the water to clear out some aquatic badniks, but let nobody ever say that the Hero of Mobius and leader of the Freedom Fighters wasn’t committed to what he did.

With a gulp of air, Sonic opened his hands and let himself drop, curling into a ball and crashing directly into the water. Thankfully, this particular area seemed to have a fast current to it, meaning that he merely had to keep himself curled up and let the water turn him into a badnik-busting buzzsaw. 

Not really loving the lack of air down here, Sonic thought to himself impatiently, finally uncurling in search of an air bubble once he was reasonably sure the room was clear. Now where would…

There!

A small imperfection in the floor of the area had allowed a tiny crack to form in the material. At that exact point, the liquid could freely drip out—but more importantly, air could flow in. Happily, it didn’t take long at all for an air bubble to appear that was big enough for Sonic to use, and he inhaled the oxygen inside eagerly.

His energy restored, the hedgehog made his way over to a slightly narrower section of pipe, letting the current sweep him along once more. Annoyingly, the water turbines were still active, but it was a small price to pay for his otherwise quick progress, and he could easily avoid them with the help of the support struts used to help the pipe hold its shape. Besides, before long, he was spindashing up a ramp and out of the water, soaring high into the air before landing with perfect ease. 

After a bit of casual platform-hopping, Sonic spied Porker a little ways away, kneeling by a strange mechanism and seemingly inspecting it. This must’ve been the fix-it job he had to do, Sonic mused, before leaping down to join his friend alongside the ancient travel system. 

“So, how’s it going?” he asked, making poor Porker yelp and drop his screwdriver with a clatter, startled.

“Sonic!” he scolded, but his smile severely diminished any attempt at properly convincing the hedgehog to regret his actions. “You startled me!”

“I have eyes, I noticed,” Sonic quipped, shifting to lean casually against the wall. “You didn’t answer my question though, you really gonna leave a guy hanging like that? And here I thought we were friends.” he complained, wearing a faux-devastated expression.

Porker stared at him blankly for a moment, before recognition lit up his eyes. “Oh, yes, of course! It really is on you for making me forget, though.” Sonic scoffed lightly, but otherwise didn’t speak, leaving room for Porker to continue.

“It’s frankly quite a simple fix,” the engineer began. “While the tubes themselves are largely made of stone, the mechanical parts that create the vacuum necessary to enable this kind of rapid travel are much more delicate and therefore prone to failure. That’s why the tubes here aren’t working anymore—there must have been a malfunction in this area. Now all I need to do is open it up—” and just as he said this, he heaved a panel off the side of the structure in front of him, revealing an incomprehensible mess of pistons, cogs, and other unidentifiable bits and bobs. “—and figure out what's going on in here.”

“Huh. Why’d the echidnas decide to stick this thing all the way down here instead of up with everything else in the Emerald chamber? Somehow I don’t get the sense they were particularly in it for the sightseeing opportunity.” Sonic remarked, moving to lean against a different piece of the machine’s casing.

Porker’s laugh rang out from the metal walls of the structure, having already slid mostly inside to take a closer look. “Beats me! Knuckles and I are still having quite a time working on translating the ancient language used on most of the schematics for this place. We just got the blueprints for this all sorted out yesterday—it only became a major priority when the tubes stopped functioning. I haven’t even had a chance to dig through more of what we think are records, since most of our focus has been on the way the Floating Island works anyhow.”

Sonic smirked at the sound of Porker’s evident good mood. “Ol’ Knucklehead better have those blueprints all translated correctly, or else he’s gonna wind up going backwards instead of forwards next time he hops in one a’ these!”

“Oh goodness, I certainly hope it doesn’t come to that!” Porker still sounded amused, but also a little concerned. Not ideal. “At least they’d be working again, I suppose!”

“Well, pal, tell ya what. ‘Cause I’m such a kind and generous soul, I’ll give the tubes a spin once you’ve got them all set up! Just make sure to double-check your screws first—I’m not about to have Knuckles laughing at me if I get closely acquainted with the nearest rock, alright?”

“I’ll certainly do my best!” the engineer replied brightly. “Wait—oh, Sonic, I think I’ve found the problem!” he added, shifting around some more inside the machine.

“Forreal? Huh, I guess all that studying must’ve been worth it if you can find the problem that fast!” Sonic remarked, pushing off from the metal plating and strolling around to where Porker was.

“It’s a relatively simple issue too, thank goodness,” his friend continued, “there’s a hole in the main conduit for the pressurized air. In the long term, this pipe should really be replaced, but for now, I think a simple patch job will suffice.”

“What, and you just happen to have ‘pipe patcher’ on ya at all times?” Sonic asked, snickering slightly. “You go to dinner at someone’s house and think ‘oh no, better not leave my pipe patches at home’?”

Porker’s sigh echoed in the machine’s chamber. “It’s really not all that special, all I’m using is duct tape. So long as it makes a proper seal—which I’m being careful to do now—it should hold well enough for us to go back and get a proper replacement. And duct tape is an essential part of any engineer’s toolkit, especially when they’re going to do some engineering work. Which is exactly what we came down here to do.”

“We?” the hedgehog asked. “S’far as I can see, you’re the one doing all the fix-it jobs around here, I’m just tagging along to clear out badniks and have a good time. Wouldn’t wanna be inside that thingamajig anyway, you can barely even move in there!”

Porker made a movement that seemed to suggest a shrug. “It’s really not that bad,” he said, beginning to extricate himself from the mess of machinery. “I honestly find it quite comfortable—though I must admit there have been a couple of times when the sentries didn’t think to warn me politely before tapping me…I earned myself quite a few bruises before they learned not to do that.” Now fully outside, he shook his head with a slightly tired smile. “At least they apologized afterwards, I suppose.”

“Aw, man, I wish I’d been there! I would’ve paid good money to see that!” Sonic clapped a hand on his friend’s shoulder, grinning good-naturedly. “So, we gotta head back and grab that piece, yeah?”

Porker nodded in agreement. “Yes, we do, but first—”

But by the time the word “yes” had left his mouth, Sonic was already in the tube.

“Aw yeah!” he whooped to himself, rocketing upwards at a breathtaking speed. “This is the good stuff!”

Suddenly, however, he noticed that his speed was…beginning to slow down. He frowned. The zoom tubes normally didn’t do that at all, instead letting him blast out at full speed. This wasn’t a new problem Porker would have to fix, was it?

Sonic felt his quills begin to raise as he continued to decelerate, scraping uselessly against the near-frictionless surfaces of the inside of the tubes. The air grew weaker and weaker, struggling to push him up a vertical passage, and the Hero of Mobius felt a cold chill settle in his stomach. 

He curled up just a little tighter, trying to use the movement to regain even a fraction of forward momentum, and that was enough to get him through the bend onto a horizontal plane, but then—

—he stopped moving.

Entirely.

Sonic the Hedgehog, the fastest thing on Mobius, could no longer move.

~~~

Porker Lewis, on the other hand, was running as quickly as he possibly could.

He’d wanted to warn Sonic that he needed to check the air pressure first, make sure everything was at least moderately in working order before he let his friend give the zoom tubes a test run, but while Sonic’s thoughts moved much faster than his own, that didn’t necessarily mean he had a greater amount of caution. Now, Porker had no idea where Sonic was, nor whether he’d even made it out of the tubes at all.

Still, the engineer pushed himself to follow the path upwards, in spite of the increasing difficulty he met with as he climbed. More precarious platforms, more obstacles, and wider gaps had to be dealt with, slowing Porker down as he struggled to navigate, but he refused to let the tube out of his sight. He had to be coming to a bend or junction soon at this rate…

And then, he saw it. The tube made a right angle, running along the ceiling of the Hydrocity Zone, and within it, just visible through the glass paneling, was a ball of blue.

Quickly, Porker scanned the area. The panel was held in place by a frame, which could be easily removed with his screwdriver, but getting to the tube in the first place would be rather more difficult. Further examination revealed that there were small crevices and ledges on the wall adjacent to it that he could use to climb up, but staying in position without falling and injuring himself would be complicated, especially since he would essentially need to turn around while on the wall to properly remove the paneling. 

Still, it was the best he could do, given the situation. Removing the screwdriver from his tool belt and holding it in his mouth, Porker began to clamber up the side of the rock wall, moving as quickly as he could without putting himself in danger. He would be no use at all to Sonic with a broken leg, of course.

Speaking of him—“Sonic! I’m going to unscrew the paneling! You’ll be out shortly!” Porker shouted, forcing his voice as loud as it could possibly go.

If his friend replied, the engineer couldn't hear it. Nerves gripped his heart as he forced himself to climb faster, reaching the top soon after. Now came the difficult part; he braced himself with a hand against the pipe, before carefully shuffling his feet in a manner that would allow him to turn around and press his back against the rock wall.

The only thing keeping him from falling now was the strength of his arm as he pushed against the tube.

Carefully, Porker began to unscrew the frame bit by bit, wiggling the screws out of their housing one by one and letting them drop to the floor. After the third screw, his supporting arm began to tremble, but he refused to let it falter. Not when Sonic was counting on him.

The fourth screw dropped. At first, the frame refused to move, but a good whack with the screwdriver fixed that—followed by a sudden flinch from Porker as the glass panel dropped and shattered on the ground below.

“Good heavens, that’ll be quite the repair job…” he muttered to himself, before recalling exactly what the situation was at the moment.

“Sonic? Sonic, can you hear me?” he called, craning his neck in an effort to get a better look at the insides of the tube. He could see the ball of blue spines pretty well, actually, but something wasn’t quite right.

“…oh.” Porker murmured quietly.

Sonic was shaking.

He would have to get the hedgehog out all by himself, but how? He certainly couldn’t reach into the tube, not from this angle, and Sonic was clearly unable to move. The only thing he did seem capable of, as a matter of fact, was bristling his spines.

Wait. If Sonic had his spines raised, then that meant they could catch on something, yes? Porker began to hurriedly shrug off his jacket, only pausing to swap hands on the pipe once his screwdriver was back in his belt. Frowning in an effort to better gauge the distance, he swung the jacket back and forth once, twice, and then up into the tube—and thank goodness, at least one thing had gone right in this whole mess, when the cloth caught securely on Sonic’s spines.

Porker pulled as hard as he could, and for once the near-frictionless surface of the zoom tubes proved useful when his friend moved along with little resistance. Uncomfortably slowly, given the awkward angle, Sonic’s curled-up form slid further and further forward until finally, he slipped out of the opening.

What Porker had forgotten, however, was that Sonic had weight, and weight affected both balance and gravity.

What this meant, in practice, was that Porker very nearly wrenched his arm out of its socket fighting to keep them both from falling.

Even then, he didn’t succeed for very long, pitching forward and off the face of the wall soon afterwards. At the very least, his fall was more controlled, so that when he landed, he merely sprained his ankle instead of breaking it. (Happily, he was also able to avoid the shattered glass on the ground. Things would have gotten much more complicated if he hadn’t, and he was already about at his limit for complications.)

He ought to be thankful for small mercies, he supposed, because that at least meant the pain wasn’t so excruciating that he couldn’t check on his friend. 

“Sonic? Sonic, are you al—are you hurt?” he asked quickly, pulling himself along the ground towards the hero, who had uncurled and was now on his hands and knees, with his head hanging between his arms.

For a moment, Sonic didn’t respond at all, and Porker felt a pang shoot through him. Just a second later, though, the hedgehog sat up, raising an eyebrow at him cockily. “Am I hurt? You’re the one who can’t curl up into a ball here, I’m not the one you should be checking on.” 

“I wasn’t just talking about the fall. I meant before that, too.” Porker insisted, unwilling to let it go quite so easily.

“Tch, what, me getting stuck in the tube? Just don’t tell Knucklehead, he’ll never let me hear the end of it.”

Porker felt his stomach turn uncomfortably. He really, really didn’t want to push this, but the thought of Sonic pretending that nothing had happened sat even worse with him. Shakily, he inhaled once, then sighed, and felt his shoulders tense up as he prepared to speak again.

“Sonic.” Porker insisted. “I saw you shaking with my own two eyes. I can’t just let that go.”

“What, me? Shaking?” Sonic scoffed. “You of all people should know that the Hero of Mobius doesn’t shake, pal.”

The engineer frowned…and then abruptly his expression softened, as something that Sonic had just said caught his attention. “No, I get it. The Hero of Mobius doesn’t shake, you’re right. But, well, my old friend Sonic, from way back in Green Hill…he’s allowed to get scared in front of me, I think. Whether or not he thinks he should.”

“Uh, you sure you didn’t hit your head in that fall, Lewis?” Sonic asked, now the one to squint over at his friend in confusion. “In case you forgot, this speedy blue hedgehog—y’know, the one called Sonic—is the Hero of Mobius.” He jabbed a thumb at his chest for emphasis.

Porker took another deep breath subtly, trying his best to keep from getting exasperated. “That’s true. But being the Hero of Mobius is a job, and being Sonic just…is. You’re Sonic all the time, but you’re only the Hero of Mobius when you want to be. And you don’t have to be in front of me.”

“You sure about that one? ‘Cause last I checked, only one of us was up to being a hero.” Sonic shot back.

As soon as the words left his mouth, he froze, his eyes widening slightly and his teeth snapping together so hard they clicked in the suddenly heavy silence.

“Porker—we can—just forget that happened, ‘kay? Apparently my mouth moves as fast as the rest of me sometimes, heh.” 

Porker gave Sonic a surprisingly flat look, making the hedgehog’s poor attempt at humor fizzle out into nothingness. His grin twisted into a grimace, and his hands balled into fists on the floor as he avoided Porker’s eyes.

Well, at least now he’s hiding his emotions less, the former Freedom Fighter thought to himself, internally sighing.

“Sonic.” he said softly, and while his friend didn’t flinch, his fingers did tighten noticeably.

“I’m not upset. Or—well—I am, but not at you. I just don’t like that you feel you have to be a hero around me all the time. I know we were fighting Robotnik for so long, it’s kind of hard to be anything else…but before that, we were just friends, stumbling our way through life together.”

Porker sighed, allowing himself a bittersweet smile. “I’d like to go back to being that way, at least to some extent, now that the war is over.” He hesitated briefly, before continuing, “If you don’t want to though, for whatever reason, I’ll understand.”

Sonic laughed, but his eyes were too wide for it to seem genuine. “Hey, what? Of course we’re friends, there’s no way I’d wanna change that! Why on Mobius would you ever think I would?”

“It’s…difficult to explain.” Porker began, picking up a chunk of debris and worrying circles into it with his thumb. “Sometimes it feels like when you look at me, you’re seeing just another civilian to protect, instead of, well, me.”

“Well, that’s not it at all!” Sonic straightened up boldly. “It’s totally different—I’m just making sure you don’t have to deal with the difficult stuff anymore after we—after you, y’know, got stuck on, uh, Little Planet.”

“Sonic, just because I was too stressed out to continue fighting in a war doesn’t mean I’m too distraught to live my life, or to help my friends when they could use a hand!” the engineer explained. “Besides, living here on the Floating Island has done wonders for me, I’d say.”

Sonic had sported a strangely skeptical expression for the first part, but when he finally spoke up, it wasn’t in response to that at all. “Was it really good enough for you that you were able to handle Robotnik?” he asked, frowning genuinely.

Porker stared blankly at his friend for a few moments as several things suddenly slotted into place. “Is that what you meant when you asked me how I was able to cuff him earlier?”

Sonic’s sudden eagerness to look away and shift positions, combined with a short “Eh, it’s whatever. Never mind.” told him all he needed to know.

He bit back his first instinct, which was to get upset that Sonic essentially seemed to view him as an invalid, no longer capable of functioning in the face of difficult situations. Getting upset wouldn’t help here—he’d known Sonic long enough to be certain that if he got angry, Sonic’s temper would flare up to match. Instead, he struggled to work out how best to explain his current situation to his friend. 

Porker knew that Sonic had gone through a difficult process when he’d decided to leave the Freedom Fighters, and had taken some time to come around to the fact that not everybody had his level of fortitude and resilience when it came to coping with difficult situations. However, it seemed like Sonic had understood Porker’s choice to leave as a permanent “off” switch on his abilities, instead of the truth, which was that the scales of “desire for freedom” and “fear of lasting damage” had simply tipped in the other direction, without any weight being removed from the former.

Suddenly, he was jolted from his musings by the voice of the hedgehog in question. “Listen, how about we head back to Hidden Palace and grab whatever parts you need? That way you can show me around some more, yeah?”

Slowly but surely, Porker got to his feet, sighing tiredly and trying not to wince at a twinge from his ankle. “Hang on, I just wanted to explain one thing first. You mind if I talk your ear off for just a moment?” He shot Sonic a half-smile, and that seemed to do the trick.

“Sure thing, pal. Hit me.” he replied carefully, moving to lean against the wall.

“I may have assumed this was more obvious than it actually was, but…I was always scared. Even when you first asked me to join the Freedom Fighters, I was frightened as anything.” Porker began, cringing internally as Sonic tensed up once again. “But the thing was,” he hurried to add, “I believed in the better future you talked about more than I felt afraid. So I pushed myself to join because I wanted to help make a world where people like me didn’t have to be so scared all the time, and that was enough to keep me going.

“But then…when I was held on Little Planet for so long…” Porker trailed off, memories of wire biting into his arms and endless examinations flashing before his eyes briefly. He blinked rapidly and squeezed the rock in his hand tighter in an effort to dispel the images—only to look up into an expression on Sonic that was emptier than any he’d ever seen before.

The engineer sighed and shook his head, smiling ruefully. “After that, I was so worried about it happening again that I couldn’t contribute to the team like I wanted, and, well, you know the rest.” He paused for a moment, composing his next sentence in his head. “I think there was one thing I should’ve said to you back then, but didn’t, because I thought it was obvious.”

“Yeah?” Sonic’s voice was perfectly measured, perfectly even.

“I don’t blame you for what happened. I don’t even see how I could—I knew the risks, I knew Mobius had to be kept safe, and I made my choice. I mean, in the end, it all worked out too. If that was really what had to happen to start the chain of events that led to the Empire of Metallix being defeated, then I can’t even say I regret it.”

“Porker.” Sonic marched over, staring at him with narrowed eyes. “Now I know for a fact you hit your head in that fall. Either that or I need to get my ears checked, because I know I didn’t just hear you say you’re okay with the fact that we all left you there.”

“What else am I supposed to say?” he asked, genuinely. “We were in a difficult situation, not to mention a dangerous profession. Awkward choices and bad experiences were bound to happen eventually. All things considered, I escaped without any serious physical damage and got the space I needed to work on healing mentally. Things could have gone a whole lot worse—”

“But they also could’ve gone better!” Sonic barked. “We left you there! We all could’ve gone back with you, fought off the Metallix together!”

“And left the planet defenseless against Robotnik? That would’ve been terribly dangerous.” Porker forced himself to keep his posture open, hoping that having something else to focus on would help him feel less stunned that his friend was on the verge of yelling at him. “Besides, it’s equally possible that the Metallix would have overpowered us all, seeing as we’d be stuck there for a month, and then who would have saved us from them?”

“What, so are you telling me you’re fine with the way things turned out?” the hedgehog snapped.

“Yes and no,” Porker replied, hating how stiff his voice had become, but unable to search for any better words, “I certainly would have preferred to not be trapped on Little Planet for a month, but since I was, and we were able to destroy the empire that I was stuck with, I don’t really have anything left to be angry about. I may be upset that it happened to me, but I’ve decided that I don’t resent anyone for the way it happened.”

“Yeah? Well, good for you, but not all of us feel that way, y’know.” Sonic spat.

Porker hesitated for a moment. He had a feeling that he knew exactly what his friend meant, but he wanted to check something first.

“Are you upset with me for going back?”

“Wh—f—why would I be mad at you?” Sonic looked like he was about to explode, face twisted into a snarl. “It’s the Metallix’s fault, for being scummy enough to treat you like they did! It’s Robotnik’s fault, for making those machines in the first place, and for making a Mobius where there needed to be Freedom Fighters at all! And—and it’s on me for asking you to join the Freedom Fighters, because then this’d never have happened!”

The walls of Hydrocity Zone rang with the echo of Sonic’s outburst.

“…we’re done here.” the hedgehog muttered, turning away.

“N-n-no, we’re not.” Porker insisted, still gripping the rock, now so tightly that his hands shook. Sonic whipped around, his eyes hard, but Porker pushed onwards as quickly as he could. “S-Sonic, you couldn’t have possibly known this would happen. You may be a hero, but you’re not the Omni-Viewer—you can’t kn-know or do everything. And that’s fine!” he added, quickly, seeing Sonic’s quills begin to rise. “I don’t, I don’t expect you to, and anyone who does is being absurd, frankly. All you knew when you asked me to join was that Robotnik needed to be s-stopped, and that I was smart enough to help. And all you could—could do when I went back to Little Planet was make an impossible choice, and if you’re sorry that I got hurt, then I’m sorry I put you in a position to choose between me and everyone else.

“I don’t know if you really do r-regret asking me to join the Freedom Fighters—and if you do, I can try to understand why, but I have to inform you that I disagree whole-heartedly. You would n-not have survived fighting Robotnik on your own, you needed others by your side, and you were a big enough person to a-admit that in spite of the fact that I’m sure you would have preferred otherwise. If you regret asking me, then do you regret asking Johnny, or Tails? Do you regret bringing all of us into this? Because let me tell you, if I have to choose between a future where I am traumatized but alive, or a future where I never met the Metallix and you are gone, I would choose the former every time!”

Porker’s legs wobbled beneath him, and he lowered himself to the ground quickly, breathing hard and fast. “S-sorry, sorry for my harsh tone at the end there.” he apologized. “I didn’t m-mean to get so worked up.”

“…Porker.” Sonic said, no longer facing him, his voice strangely quiet in a way the engineer had never heard before. “You’re—right. About all of it. I’m glad you said yes when I asked you to join. Without you, we’d never have saved Kintobor, or gotten all the gadgets we needed to fight. It just, you know. Like you said. We were friends, but I was also the leader. That made your safety my responsibility. And you know me, I don’t like to, well. Lose. Heh.” He laughed humorlessly, even as his hands twitched and shifted with surprising intensity. “When you’re the Hero of Mobius, and you don’t save someone. Anyone. But especially a friend. It makes a guy wonder if he still gets to call himself a hero. If he still…has that friend. After he couldn’t keep him from getting permanently hurt. You know.”

“I think I do know.” Porker replied, almost instantly, needing to make sure Sonic knew that this opening up, no matter how stilted, was the right thing to do. “And I know that his friend has been with him for a while. His friend has seen him save people so many times, over and over again, even without a reward. So, quite frankly, if there was ever a time when he didn’t save someone, that friend would not doubt for a second that he didn’t wish things had gone differently. But,” he added, “this friend would also care about him a lot. And his friend would feel terrible if it seemed, for even a second, that a choice that the friend made was something he was using to make himself feel worse, whether he thought he deserved it or not. Because his friend is, well, his friend, right? So of course that friend wouldn’t want him to torture himself using the thought of what happened. 

“After all, he may be a hero—an incredible hero, even—but he can’t do everything, and like I said earlier, that's okay. That’s why the rest of us were there, to help him be able to do everything with our help. And sometimes that meant we were in danger, just like him. But that was okay, because there was no place we’d rather be than by his side, helping to make the world a better place.”

A single drop of water wet the stone by Sonic’s feet.

“There’s—” he croaked, before cutting himself off and abruptly clearing his throat. “There’s nobody I would rather have had with me.”

“I’m glad.” Porker smiled gently, and hoped it carried through in his voice.

“Ugh, first Super, now this—what is it with me and coming to visit you that makes bad things happen?” Sonic groaned, finally turning around once again (and the engineer elected not to notice how he was still working to compose himself).

“Well, in the very, very long run, that was a good thing too, considering that Super’s EMP blast was what enabled us to defeat Robotnik.” Porker said.

“Oh, so you’re not upset about that either?” Sonic asked, voice caught halfway between sarcastic and hesitant.

“Sonic!” the engineer huffed. “Super’s transformation process is completely involuntary! It may be frightening in the moment, but I would never, ever blame you for his actions!”

“…good to know.” Sonic said simply. “Speakin’ of which, I saw you two put up some better walls around the Emerald chamber, good to see we won’t have any more falling accidents.” He finally turned around, his arms folded and smirk back in place. “Don’t wanna find out what Super Porker is like or anything.”

“I hope seeing the Emerald chamber again wasn’t what bothered you earlier.” Porker’s brow furrowed in concern. “I didn’t even consider how it might be an unpleasant place to be…”

Sonic’s smirk lessened just a fraction. 

“You know, you’re always free to talk about it if you’d like.” Porker said, but when Sonic scoffed, he already knew it was a lost cause.

“Listen, I’ve had more than enough ‘talking about it’ for one visit.” Sonic rolled his eyes and did exaggerated air quotes, but…

…‘for one visit’ wasn’t ’for a lifetime’. Maybe it wasn’t such a lost cause after all.

Porker decided to take pity on his friend at last. “Would you like to head back to Hidden Palace now? You can bother Knuckles some more while I find the part I need to repair the zoom tubes.” 

“Finally!” Sonic exclaimed. “As much as I appreciate a good cave adventure every now and then, I’d rather be somewhere I can actually see the sun. Come on, let’s get moving.” He began to walk back towards the entrance, making Porker hesitate and frown over at him.

“…you’re not going to scout on ahead again?”

Sonic looked over at him, surprise registering for the briefest of seconds before he relaxed, his usual smirk returning—albeit somewhat crookedly. “Nah. If any badniks haven’t learned their lesson by now, we can handle ‘em.”

Porker could feel himself smiling wider than he had all day, enough so that Sonic seemed to notice. “Shut your trap, pixel-brain.” he grumbled, folding his arms. “Haven’t we had enough sappy nonsense already?”

“Fair enough,” Porker admitted. “So, how’s the rebuilding process going back in Emerald Hill?”

“The new town’s looking better every day!” Sonic’s grin returned in full force. “It’s gonna be much more defensible, but it’s also just way better quality and more sturdy than before.”

“That’s fantastic.” Porker said, suddenly feeling as though a weight he hadn’t even noticed had been lifted off his chest. “As much as the hillfolk have appreciated Knuckles’s hospitality, they seem eager to get home.”

“It’ll be good to have them back.” Sonic sighed. “Seeing the world start to live a post-Robotnik life sure is something, huh?”

“It really is. Sometimes I wondered if we’d be fighting for the rest of our lives,” Porker smiled ruefully. “But I’m so happy that isn’t the case.”

They walked together in silence for about half a minute, giving them both time to admire the water flowing through the caverns and the massive pillars helping to keep it all stable. The fact that the colors on the pillars hadn’t faded after all this time was fascinating to Porker, and he was beginning to think back on the papers Knuckles had gotten from that pirate fellow—

Sonic abruptly dragged his hands down his face and groaned. “Now you’ve gone and done it! Why’d you have to bring up Super in the first place, now I can’t stop thinking about him!”

“Technically, you brought him up.” Porker corrected him, before smiling sheepishly when Sonic shot him a glower (without any heat behind it, of course).

“Listen, it’s just—something about falling into the Emerald chamber made him way worse than usual. I don’t know all of it, but lemme tell ya…” He trailed off, staring into the middle distance.

“You don’t have to if you don’t want to.” Porker said softly, wishing he could give his friend a hand on his shoulder or a hug, but that wouldn’t help someone like Sonic. Instead, he jammed his hands in his pockets, kept walking, and waited.

“Ugh…waking up in the wreckage of our plane with the others nowhere in sight…fire everywhere…feeling myself laughing without knowing why…it’s good he’s gone, ‘cause I’m never about to see something like that again.” Sonic spat, forcing the tremor from his voice.

Porker felt his stomach turn. “Nobody told me about that! I can’t imagine how that must have felt, being amongst all that devastation without knowing what had happened!”

“They didn’t even tell me they were alive for days.” Sonic muttered, his shoulders hunched. “Super was still an issue, I know why they didn’t, but they left me thinkin’ I’d—! For days!” Suddenly, he kicked a rock with such speed and violence it shattered on impact.

Sonic clenched his fists, stopping in his tracks in an attempt to catch his breath. Porker shifted a little closer to him, worrying the fabric of his gloves with his fingers. “I’m sorry that happened. I’m guessing you haven’t mentioned this to any of them?”

“Why would I?” Sonic scoffed. “It worked, didn’t it? They fixed the problem.”

Porker opened his mouth—then hesitated—then sighed gently. “Well. I can see why they might have done that, but I don’t necessarily think it was the perfect solution. And if you ever want to talk about it more…I’m here. As your friend.”

“…you meant what you said earlier, right?”

“Hmm?” Porker blinked. “I said a lot of things earlier, I’m afraid you’ll have to remind me.”

“About…not blamin’ me for the stuff he does.” Sonic muttered, clearly embarrassed.

“Of course I did!” he insisted. “And I’ll say it as many times as you need! I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you. I don’t blame you. I don’t—” 

“Alright, alright, I get it!” Sonic snickered, shoving Porker lightly. “Save your breath for all these stairs, we gotta climb them to get back up to that knucklehead.”

“Oh, good heavens.” Porker sighed, eyeing up the spiral staircase warily.

Sonic rolled his eyes, his trademark smirk softening just a fraction. “Forget it, Porker, just grab on tight.”

Seconds later, they were back in the main room of the Hidden Palace.

The engineer pulled his wrist from Sonic’s grip, stumbling over to the nearest control panel and slumping into a seat. “I will never be used to that,” he wheezed, chuckling lightly.

“Sonic, you’d better not have broken my best engineer!” Knuckles barked, stomping over to the two of them.

“Isn’t he also your only engineer?” Sonic shot back.

“All the more reason not to drag him along when you decide to have a run around!” the echidna insisted.

“Knuckles?” Porker called, interrupting the two’s bickering. He had removed one of his shoes—but not his sock, obviously—and was bandaging up his sore ankle. Both of the others seemed concerned, but when he smiled reassuringly, they both trusted him enough to back off. “Oh yeah, just turned my ankle, nothing major. Anyhow, do you know where the replacement air conduits are? We found the break, but my temporary fix wasn’t much of a fix at all.”

“Drawer 14B.” he replied, already heading off in that direction. “I’ll get it for you if you keep this prickly tank of hot air out of my face some more. Take him to Mushroom Hill or something, have him play with the toddlers a bit to burn off that energy.”

Sonic huffed, tapping his foot rapidly. “Hot air?! You come back here and say that to my face! C’mon, Porker, let’s leave the guardian to his sulking.”

The engineer laughed under his breath as he joined his friend once again. “You two could have a whole comedy show with that kind of banter.” he said warmly.

“Yeah, yeah, whatever.” Sonic rolled his eyes. “Now who needs help packing up?”

Porker did indeed proceed to show Sonic all around the Mushroom Hill Zone, and the two helped out where their skills were needed as the citizens of Emerald Hill prepared to return to their long-evacuated home. (As a matter of fact, Sonic sped up the process by at least half a day, which went greatly appreciated amongst everyone present.)

Once they had finished with that, Sonic admitted that he should probably head back soon, to make sure that the rebuilding process was still going well and that his other friends didn’t need him for anything urgent. Porker walked him back to the plane, the two chatting about memories new and old along the way. And just before Sonic hopped into the cockpit, he placed a hand on Porker’s shoulder—the only differences from last time being that Sonic was the one to leave via plane instead…and that Porker put his hand over Sonic’s for just the briefest of moments.

As the Hero of Mobius took off, he looked back for a second to see his old friend waving him off with a smile on his face, and he couldn’t help but feel pleased to know that he was welcome back whenever he felt like it. To his surprise, however, there was one other thing he noticed—or rather, the absence of something.

This time, when he had settled into his plane and prepared for takeoff, the memories of Super hadn’t been there. Even now that he noticed it, even though he could still remember the fire, now, there was also…

“I don’t blame you.”

And wasn’t that just something else?

[directdogman]

Did you take inspiration for Karen's last from the FNaF trilogy? I was reading The Twisted Ones and there's a guy named Officer Dunn

Nah, not consciously, though I have read FNaF:TSE and remember the character. I'd honestly believe it was the case though if I didn't happen to remember the exact process that caused me to end up with the surname. It'd be out of character for me to base a DT character name off a fictional character (real world names are fair game/referenced in many names in DT!)

I kinda wanted to give a main character a surname that's also a colour to reference the fact that the main datables have consistent palettes and a nod to the fact that DT uses colour theory all over the game (with grouped colour themes/vibrant weird palettes on different screen bgs.) Hell, it's basically a trope in fiction to give characters surnames based on colours that correspond to (or suit) them somehow, take Walter White and Jesse Pinkman from Breaking Bad, say, a show that goes p ham with its colour theory (namely consistently incorporating it into names/costume design.) Anyway, i briefly considered 'Cyan' as Randy's surname (bc cyan is the base colour for teal, which is the colour of Randy's head, and cygnus means swan, which contains several of the same letters) but, the word 'cyan' is fairly commonly mispronounced by people who've never heard it said aloud (and when people do say the word right, they still sometimes tend to switch which syllable is stressed, at least in my experience hearing people say it) and I figured Randy deserved a surname that everyone can read the same way first time. The poor guy has enough confusion going on in his life without people misreading his name!

So, I brainstormed a colour based surname for Karen (already having most of the others decided at this point afaik), with the aim of maybe using an autumnal colour to match her palette (orange, beige, cream, brown) and then decided to look up 'surnames that mean colours' and voila, 'Dunn' came up on a long list, derived from 'donn', irish gaelic for brown. Also, sounds like 'done'. Like "so, so done." Relates to a colour in her palette (her printer head is brown) and there's a separate pun built in that suits her dilemma (working a job she HATES.) It was a no-brainer for sure.

Y'know, funnily enough, this isn't even the first time I've seen people assume I lifted a DT character name from FNaF. Hell, I've seen folks theorize that I lifted Marla's (Callum Crown's deceased + (formerly) long-suffering wife) name from the identically named character in that very same FNaF novel series, when I actually picked it bc the name is a variant of Marlene, which is in turn derived from Mary Magdalene from biblical canon.

There's biblical symbolism in DT's canon surrounding Crown and his inner circle (y'know, with the whole failed messiah schtick + him helping the disabled walk again with his prosthetics) and Marla's name is an extension of it. Magdalene is notable in biblical canon for being the one woman Jesus consistently traveled with (y'know, like Marla, the one woman in Crown's (quite typically) male-dominated cabinet) and also the fact that Magdalene was allegedly the first to witness Jesus' empty tomb post-resurrection... Marla wound up with sole custody of Crown's husk right after his accident. Both ended up with first dibs on the (now vacant) space their old messiah/former companion once filled. Brutal.

[bucks-babe]

Sneak peak of the filth I'm working on

This is the most depraved shit that I can't get out of my head and I'm working on a full fic right now. @bucknastysbabe I think that you would enjoy this drabble, babe

Warning!!! Face slapping, mean!Bucky, but the reader askes for it, will be explaned further, daddy kink, ball sucking, cock sucking, calling reader a bitch, slut, whore, the works, the actual fic will have more and be dirtier

He pulls you back far enough to slide his pants down, foregoing boxers, and you immediately try to take his half hard length in your mouth. Before you can process it, Bucky’s right hand lands a slap to your cheek - hard enough to make a welt that will take a few hours to disappear. You gasp and your cunt pulses even harder than before at the sting left on your cheek. 

His metal hand wraps around your chin, much cooler than it’s supposed to be, and forces you to look him in the eye. In the back of your mind you realize that he turned on the cooling function in his arm to sooth your cheek; the arm was built to keep him cool in the Wakandan sun and heat. “Did daddy say you could suck his cock?” He uses his hand to shake your head from side to side, answering for you.

He spreads his legs wider and pulls your face closer to his heavy sack, already full of cum. “Hands behind your back, and suck on daddy’s balls.” You join your hands together behind your back without question and nuzzle his balls. Wasting no time, you take one into your mouth, sucking feverishly, enjoying the light dusting of hair tickling your face.

“Oh, fuck, come on, slut, I know you can do better than that. Take ‘em both in your dirty mouth.” He pushes you further into him, cutting off your oxygen, and you swear you hear your slick drip onto the floor. Your jaw aches as you try to get them both in your mouth, but you can't. Bucky ruts against your face, squishing his balls, precum leaking from his tip.

With your limited amount of movement, you alternate between each ball, licking at the seam. Every time you switch balls, you feel the other drag wetly across your face and you have to clench your legs in an attempt to quell the ache between them while fighting with your need for air. “Such a dirty bitch, lapping at your daddy’s nuts, shit.” He pulls you back just as your head starts to go fuzzy from the lack of oxygen, and you gasp for air, spit is covering the lower half of your face and is dripping down your neck and chest; Bucky feels his cock throb at the sight.

Reaching out, Bucky smears your spit around your face and leaves another, weaker smack to your cheek before he grabs his cock and uses his weeping tip to tease you, dragging it on your face. He slaps your cheeks with it a few times before forcing your head down all the way, making you gag and you immediately pull off, coughing.

He stares into your eyes, cold and calculating, waiting for you to speak. When your coughing subsides you manage to get out a hoarse ‘green,’ giving him the all clear. He takes your head and once again makes you take his cock, this time much slower and not as deep, the first time he wanted to fuck with you. “Such a perfect fucking mouth, shit.” He stops you from bobbing your head, “Stop being such a desperate whore and let daddy finish his movie.” You're sure you’re leaking onto the floor at this point.

You are able to see his face and he looks wrecked, mouth hanging open and head back; he’s not watching shit. Nonetheless, you rest your head on his thigh, getting comfortable, spreading your legs out to get closer to the floor so your head won't be bent at an awkward angle. 

The only sounds filling the room are Bucky’s ragged breathing and the movie playing in the background. There is saliva everywhere, his cock, all over his balls, down to his ass and on the couch. His cock is constantly leaking precum into your mouth and you don’t swallow, letting his taste linger on your tongue. 

This isn’t what you wanted, you wanted him to demolish you. Sitting with his cock in your mouth is giving you too much time to think, so you do what any sane person would do - be a brat. At the first suckle, Bucky lets out a broken moan, at the second, he knows what you’re up to. Flicking your ear with his metal hand he hisses, “Don’t make me punish you, bitch.” At the third, he yanks you off of his dick, a trail of drool and precum keeping the two of you connected, as slaps you once again with his flesh hand, this time not soothing the marred flesh with his metal hand.

He stands and pushes the couch out of the way and pulls you with him by the neck. “You disobedient little-” he cuts himself short at the small puddle of slick that he finds from your previous position. “Is that what I think it is?” You only whine in response, his grip on your neck never faltering. 

With his free hand, he reaches down to your pussy to feel just how wet you are, confirming his suspicions. “What a dirty fucking slut, leaking all over my floor.” He pulls you in closer to him just to whisper, “Lick it the fuck up, bitch,” before pushing you to the ground. 

[ninjastar107]

'Caught Inbetween' - A protoman-centered MMC fic

[PART 1] [PART 2] [PART 3] [PART 4] [PART 5]

What was he, really? He was too advance to be like the other machines, but he was too mechanical to be human. Somehow he found himself being a bit of both, being seen as a kid dressed up in a costume by onlookers until they had a better look at his eyes.

The glow always gave him away.

Too mechanical to cause harm, but too human to follow orders. He was a machine, but to what purpose? A son? A vagabond? Blues let the 'thought' be his last. He watched the sunset through dimming vision, the orange mass wobbling and melting into the horizon.

-- "Solar powered, of course that blasted Dr. Light built this one…" an unfamiliar voice grumbled, " Faulty too, must be a prototype."

Where was he? Who was that? He was barely past the BIOS screen when the world faded out once again.

--

Something had changed. There was a new heat that ran through his tubes and wires, coursing with the force of a fusion reactor. Blues snapped his eyes open, the shock of his functions running without delay holding him in silence. Here he was again upon a table, just like the first day he was activated all over again. Above him stood the doctor -a different one this time- who marveled proudly at his work. "Who are you?" Blues asked in awe. "Just an old doctor who happened upon you. Dr. Light always gives up halfway through making a robot, and I always have to finish the job." Wily lamented, "Like with you and your faulty core that I generously replaced. Not all of his robots get this special treatment from me!" Blues sat up. The area around felt like a lab albeit a bit too bright for his liking. Why he could hardly see the doctor over the floodlight above him. A few white screens flickered against the wall, too bright for him to make out anything. "I have so little at my disposal but I had just enough to fix you up! Now you can go and fulfill your function!" Wily smiled. Blues thought on it, flexing his fingers. "I do not have one." Wily stared at him, eyes narrowing as a smug grin tugged at his cheeks, "Oh leave it to Light to not even program that into his machines… No matter, I can fix that!" Blues watched the doctor pace around before heading towards the monitors and merging with the light. He boxed his eyes in an attempt to dim the area, feeling for the light switch on the floodlight and accidentally knocking a few tools off a side table. Wily flashed a brief glare between rummaging about, his hands moving to make a slight modification to the helmet he fashioned. "Hold still now," Wily ordered and promptly stuck it on him, "There you go my boy, a little protection for your new purpose!" The world dimmed tremendously beneath the tinted visor, unveiling a level of detail more attuned to what he was used to. It must be a side effect to the new core, maybe too much energy flow to his optics? The only other explanation would be that this doctor looked at more than his power input... "You never explained what that exactly is." Wily ran a hand down his mustache in disdain, "The world out there is so cruel to someone like me, a shunned expert. Dr.Light gets all of the credit for all of the hard work I put in, why I'm practically exiled from society!" The doctor went back to rummaging, "There is this pesky robot named 'Megaman' always destroying my work! Nothing but minor setbacks, but annoying ones at that! I want you to stop him." Blues glanced down at the buster Wily had procured and offered. He had seen similar designed tools for construction droids, but never without extra wires or battery. "The pest has one similar, but yours is much more powerful. You should be able to defeat him easily- here, let ol' Dr. Wily install it for you!" Not that Blues was going to say no, this doctor saved his life after all and it wouldn't be right to not repay him in some way. He watched intently at the process, noting what parts need to be removed and readjusted so that he could reverse it later. This was just all part of the repayment plan, and once Megaman was defeated, he would return to his normal wandering ways. He wasn't programmed for combat…. but how hard could it be?

[bleach-your-panties]

toji, the dick-slinging slasher 🍆💦 🔪❗️- toji fushiguro x fem reader 

🍔: first jjk fic EVER and it's crack lmao.

🍔: this was too good for me not to write

🔪: prompts from the wheel of misfortune, i can't help myself

🔪: includes horror prompt from beyond the grave & kink prompts sir kink, clothed sex, filming/recording, food play, & size kink 

🔪tagging: @bastardblvd, please don't kick me out of town for this mess of a fic 🤣😭

🍟:4.0k words

🍟:warnings: crack, slightly dubcon, non-penetrative sex?, cursing, dirty talk, spitting, age-gap (reader is early 20's, Toji is..undead) & spongebob dialogue. reader is squidward, basically.

🍟: this is not to be taken seriously! mcdonalds!manager!aki and denji from grimetown make appearances.

🍟: loosely based on my experience working in fast food.

🍟: banner made by me on pic collage

🍟: dividers by @/firefly-graphics

"Finally. 10 pm." You let out a deep sigh of exhaustion.

You had just finished mopping the entire lobby over again after a group of late-night stragglers  had came in and ordered twenty McDoubles, extra pickles. What a strange order.

One of them even tried to get into a verbal altercation with you because he claimed that his sandwiches had no pickles and accused you of not giving him any. 

You don't even work the fucking line; you're a cashier, for Christ's sake, even if you’re in the process of being cross-trained.

After dumping the dark, murky mop water outside the front door, you began to roll the bucket back to its designated area in the back of house.

Back there, Denji, your manager's weird associate, was picking at the leftover food from the dinner rush like a scavenging raccoon.

"You're not supposed to be back here." You gave him a deadpan look. 

"You're not supposed to be back here," He mocked you, "Fuck that, I'm starving." 

"Then go home and make something to eat?" 

"Nah, this'll do." He unwrapped a McChicken that had probably been sitting there since lunchtime.

"You're about to have diarrhea out of this world." 

He just shrugged.

You went on about your business with your other little housekeeping duties then took off your headset and nametag once you were done.

God, I hate this job.

You'd just finished university a week ago and upon your rejection of your dream graduate school, you ended up having to move back to Grimetown and live with your parents.

Your old-fashioned parents who don't believe in their grown children moving back home unless they have a job.

So here you are. Working at Mcdonald's with a fresh bachelor's degree under your belt.

"I'm going home. Later, Dingy." You pulled on your coat and grabbed your purse.

"Alright, and it's Denji." 

"That's what I said, 'innit? Peace out."

Denji rolled his eyes at you just as Aki came out of the office. "Hold your horses, Y/N. Where do you think you're going?"

You froze, hand poised to open the door.

"Uh, home? It's almost ten-thirty." 

Aki pulled a cigarette from under his hat, turned one of the grills on to light it, and then stuck it between his thin lips.

"No, you're not. I've decided that I'm going to keep the store open 24 hours now. More money for me-I mean you. Money for you."

You gave him an incredulous look and removed your hand from the door handle. 

"What?! This place is a shithole, it's not built to run 24 hours!" 

As you said this, the lights started flickering.

"See!"

"Denji, stop that!" 

"Sorry."

Aki looked about ready to give up on life but he shook his head as if to clear his thoughts. 

"Anyway, here's the keys. You'll switch out with the morning shift at 6 am. Have fun. Don't burn the place down, no matter how tempting it may be."

You didn't know what to do, so you just stood there with your mouth open.

"I can't believe this shit! You can't just leave me here by myself all night!" Snapping out of your little trance, you followed after the dark-haired man.

Aki turned his body halfway to meet your gaze, half-smoked cigarette still between his lips.

“You won’t be by yourself. Denji is here with you.” As if that was supposed to put you at ease.

“What? You can’t leave me here with him; he doesn’t even work here!”

Denji hopped down from the counter and strutted over to the two of you, chest poked out.

“Don’t worry your pretty little head, Y/N. I’ll take good care of you~” He then smirked as his eyes trailed over your body in your too-tight uniform shirt and pants.

You swear that bastard Aki purposefully ordered your garments two sizes too small, causing you to have to literally squeeze your assets into the God-forsaken red shirt and black pants every other day.

"You stay away from me." You pointed an acrylic fingernail at Denji without taking your eyes off of Aki.

"No way you can leave me here with Dumbass all night."

"It's Denji."

"That's what I said."

"Oh, but I can. You stay or you're fired. Simple as that. See you later!" He attempted to give you both a half-hearted wave, but you grabbed the sleeve of his jacket. 

"Where are you going?" 

Aki looked at you befuddled - are you actually whining?

He gently brushed you off of him and removed the cigarette from between his lips. 

“I’m going home - where else? I have a life.”

"I have a life, too, ya know!" 

Denji snickered. "How can you? You live with your parents."

“You shut up! No one asked you!” You retorted before sulking off to the back again.

_____

Toji didn’t know how to feel after he was killed by Gojo.

He thought that he’d at least go straight to hell, but apparently, that didn’t happen. Now here he was, in the middle of some…weird ass town in a shitty graveyard where the tombstones were poorly maintained. Damn, did anyone in this piece of shit town even tend to their dearly departed?

“This shit sucks…” Toji complained as he pulled himself out of a shallow grave that someone must have dug and threw him in unceremoniously. After brushing the dirt off his broad shoulders with his one good hand (only hand), he stretched it above his head and yawned.

The town ahead of him was dark, with only a few lights on of some apartment buildings, houses, and businesses that were crazy enough to run their power bills up by staying open all damn night long.

Like one certain McDonald’s….

_____

“Hey, Y/N, look at me! I’m uploading thirst traps to my Instagram story…at night.” Denji winked at you and clicked his tongue, waving his iPhone in his hand.“When else would you upload them, Dumbfuck?” You replied blandly as you lazily flipped through a magazine.”Whoever is thirsting over you is clearly blind or just desperate.” You added.

“Oh, that’s harsh.” He frowned. The two of you were just sitting around, bored out of your minds. No customers had entered the store since Aki left forty-five minutes ago.

Denji paraded around the table you were sitting at, chanting about different tasks that he was doing on his phone…at night.

Then suddenly…

Silence.

“Hey, Y/N, wanna hear a scary story?”

Silence over.

“No, but I know that you’re going to tell me anyway, so let’s hear it.” You rolled your eyes and closed the magazine, now giving the blonde your full attention.

"Okay, so-"

The bell over the door rang and in walked a customer, whistling happily.

"Good evening! I'd like to make an order!"

Both you and Denji stared at him for a long while until you finally decided to peel yourself out of the red leather booth and head to the cash register.

"What can I get for you tonight, sir?" 

"One Big Mac Meal, please, extra onions on that. Oh, are the fries fresh?" 

You looked behind him at the clock on the wall: 11:25 pm.

"No," You stated dryly, "will that be all for you?" 

The man gulped nervously at your lackluster expression and less-than-enthused tone and nodded.

"$8.35."

____

After the customer was situated at a table and munching his food happily, Denji continued with his story.

“As I was saying. The legend of Toji, the Dick-Slinging Slasher.”

You had to hold back from spitting some of your orange Hi-C right into his ridiculous face.

“I’m sorry, did you say ‘dick-slinging?!”

“That’s what I said, yeah.” Denji nodded, not phased by your outburst. 

“Legend has it, that on dark, cloudy nights, much like this one, he stalks the neighborhood looking for unsuspecting bitches to rob.”

“Okay, and that’s scary, because? Sounds like an average day in Grimetown.” You snorted.

"Be serious for one second, Y/N!" He slapped his palms down on your table.

Who is he to tell someone to be serious?

"Alright, alright, I'm listening."

Denji continued, "In his past life, he was a nothing-ass-bitch and deadbeat father who went around stealing from people or assassinating them for money." 

"He got killed by this super overpowered albino that he failed to assassinate and then after that, no one knows what happened to him. I heard that some teens from Grimetown High threw his ass in a ditch as a dare and that's where he's buried to this day."

You couldn't help but bust out laughing; this was the dumbest story that you'd ever heard!

"Denji…I'm still failing to see how this story is supposed to be scary…" 

"Well, when the albino killed him, he mutilated the entire left side of Toji's body, leaving a big ass gaping hole and Toji with only one arm. That doesn't stop him from slinging his community dick to all the unsuspecting bad bitches, though."  

'Okay, this is idiotic. I'm checking out.' You shook your head and got up with your cup, dumping the leftover ice down the drink fountain’s drain.

“Heed my warnings, Y/N! When the clock strikes midnight, he’ll come for you! Guard your booty!” Denji wiggled his fingers and made moaning noises that sounded more…pornographic than ghostly.

“Yeah, alright. I’m going to dust the drive-thru windows.”

____

12:00 AM, Midnight

So those clouds turned out to be storm clouds full of rain that was soon pounding down onto the miserable roof of your little establishment. The roof was leaking in a few places because Aki was too lazy to call the contractors to come and look at it.

“I swear, what is he even good for besides secondhand smoke and micromanaging everybody?” You groaned, placing yet another bucket under a leaking spot.

A loud crack of thunder sounded, and then everything went black.

“Denji!”

“It wasn’t me that time!” 

A few seconds later, said blonde came from the back carrying a heavy-duty flashlight.

“The power’s out. I tried tripping the breaker but got nothing.” 

“Isn’t there a backup generator here?” You asked and he just shrugged.

“Don’t ask me; I don’t work here.”

With a loud groan, you went to grab your cell phone out of your bag to call Aki.

No signal.

“Oh, you’re fucking kidding.”

You replaced the rectangular device inside your bag and retreated to the lobby where Denji was.

The thunder roared louder and the rain pattered harder against the roof and the glass windows.

“Hey Y/N?”

“What, Denji?” 

“This is kind of like the story, right? The perfect setting for Toji to show up.” You scoffed.

“Denji, that was just a stupid story. It’s not true at all! No one could survive with half of their body blasted away!!” You were just about at your wit’s end now, when the customer with the Big Mac came to the counter to ask you for ketchup.

“You’re still here?” Denji asked and the guy just looked at him. After he got his condiments, he packed up the rest of his meal and left, probably to get home and out of the rain.

The next few moments were spent in silence with the two of you trying to figure out how to get the power back up and running.

While Denji was in the back where the breaker box was, you were searching underneath the countertops for some sort of panic button or something.

CRASH!

Either Denji fell or a tree came down outside. You hoped it was the former, honestly.

Tap tap tap tap tap.

“Denji?! Is that you? Did you fall?” You whisper-shouted. You shined the flashlight on your phone to the back, trying to locate him.

“Fall?” 

Tap tap tap tap tap.

The lights began to flicker again and you jumped once you saw Denji suddenly standing beside you.

“Don’t do that! You almost scared me half to death, you dummy!”

“Sorry. Hey, what’s that tapping sound I keep hearing?” 

“Y-you mean…you weren’t doing that?”

SCREEEEEECHHHH!

Lightning flashed at the same time that the lights flickered back on.

At the front door, the tall outline of a burly man was standing there. His wet, dark hair splayed across his forehead and his eyes glowed a menacing red.

“IT’S T-THE D-D-...!” 

Denji’s body seized up as the man put his hand on the door and pushed it open, letting the pounding rain slosh and slide across the tiled floor. His slippered feet stomped through the puddles of water that were forming as he stalked his way toward the both of you. The little squish squish of his shoes through the water must’ve snapped Denji out of his little trance. He then looked at you as if realizing you were still there and in this predicament with him.

“Oh Y/N…I’m so honored that you went to all this trouble dressing up and using my own story to try and scare me! I knew that you liked me!” He chuckled, trying to convince himself that what he was seeing couldn’t be real.

Your mouth gaped open as you could only stare at the huge man coming towards you both now. Up close, he’s quite a looker. Deep, blue eyes, a cocky smirk set upon those handsome features, and a long, diamond-shaped scar at the corner of his mouth.

“Denji…there’s only two problems with your theory, there. I barely fucking know you, so how could I like you, and how could that be me when I’m standing right fucking here?!” You screamed at the idiotic blonde.

“Ah, what a noisy couple the two of you are. Making my fucking head spin.” Toji continued walking until he was right up on you. You had to crane your neck back to look up at his face. He looked right back down into your surprised one.

“You’re a cute one. Judging by that tight-ass uniform, I’m assuming that you work here?”

“Y/N, RUN! IT’S TOJI THE DICK-SLINGING SLASHER!”

Yeah, I think it’s a little too late for that now, don’t you think, Denji?

“Is that what I’m being called now? How lame.” Toji chuckled and before you could blink he kicked Denji into the wall.

“H-hey! Leave him alone, you one-armed prick!” You argued with a shake in your voice, which only amused Toji further.

“Prick? Where are your manners, you little brat? You’ll address me by sir and nothing else. You understand that, bitch?”

Denji groaned from where he was slumped against the wall.

"Sir? Fucking cringe. Next, he'll be expecting you to call him daddy."

Toji ignored Denji's comment and waited for your response. 

You opened your mouth a couple of times but no words came out.

Toji leaned his ear down to your mouth.

"Can't hear you, darling. What was that?"

"Y-yes sir."

He smirked and straightened his back.

"Good girl. Now, what do you serve here?"

"W-we serve food here, sir."

He clicked his tongue and rolled his eyes at you before looking above your head to the lighted menu. 

"Don't be a smartass."

He rubbed his thick fingers over his chin while he tried to decide on a meal.

"I think I'll have the Spicy McCrispy meal, hold the onions. Extra ketchup and pickles, large fry, and Diet Coke. Gotta keep it balanced." He chuckled to himself once he'd finished.

"Make sure you make it extra tender, juicy, and hot."

The bile began rising in your throat - both at his words and at the fact that you knew the oil that those crispy sandwiches were cooked in hadn't been changed in over a week.

"$10.96."

Toji stared at you blankly and you just returned it. You both stood there awkwardly staring at each other for a moment.

"$10.96?" You repeated.

"I…uh..left my wallet in my other sweatpants?"

You could feel the sweat dripping down the side of your forehead.

"Forget it. You'll pay for it with the insane amount of explosive diarrhea that you're going to have."

Toji chuckled nervously and leaned against the counter, watching you move around while you fixed his food.

He was instantly mesmerized by how much your ass still jiggled despite the tightness of your pants. 

"Here ya go." Your voice snapped him out of his perverted thoughts.

The tray of food looked surprisingly delicious, but you know that it's old and that the fries are cold and stiff.

Toji didn't care, though; he was just glad to have a meal.

He ate everything greedily, all the while never taking his eyes off of you.

When he finished, surprisingly, he dumped his trash in the bin and straightened up his area.

You had retreated to the back of house before he finished; with the power being restored, you could now focus on doing some other menial tasks that you'd only just now remembered.

"Hey…you! Leave Y/N alone!" Denji warned as he watched Toji begin to follow where you had gone.

"Fuck off, pipsqueak, or I'll kill you."

—

In the back, you'd started washing dishes and prepping some things for the morning staff.

The door separating the back of the house and the lobby swung open and then shut loudly behind you.

"Huh? You? What are you doing back here?"

"Hush now, darling; you wouldn't want your little friend out there to hear us now, would you?" 

"Who, Dickhead? He's not my fucking friend, not by a long shot. Doesn't mean I'd want you to kill him, though."

"You sure got a nasty mouth on you, little one. What, not afraid of me anymore?" 

The rusty blade of a sword made contact with the back of your neck.

"I mean, at this point, I was hoping that you were just a bad bout of indigestion, but that doesn't seem to be the case, now does it, gramps?" 

Toji could feel the left side of his face twitching: "Gramps?" 

You blinked once. "Yeah, gramps. You've probably been dead for ages now, so you're like somebody's rusty old great-great-grandpa."

"Rusty?!"

He pressed his crotch against your ass and let you feel his raging hard-on. Even through your pants, you could feel the weight and girth of his dick.

"Would someone who's considered to be 'rusty' be able to get this hard, baby girl?"

His one hand pushed down on your lower back, making you bend over the sink.

"Much better. 'Face down, ass up' suits you, darling."

Toji continued to rub his hard dick against the seat of your pants while making sure you stayed pressed against the sink.

A few soft moans of surprise escaped from your lips as he continued rutting against you.

"T-Toji.. " Your fingernails gripped the edge of the metal sink. His pelvis pushed against your ass and you bounced it back against him…

"Good girl, so fucking sexy." He growled, moving to grab a handful of your ponytail that peeked out of the hole in your McDonald's cap.

This continued for several minutes; Toji moving his hand between gripping your hair, holding your hip, rubbing his thick fingers over your clothed cunt, and smacking your ass.

This ordeal would have to take the cake of being the weirdest night of your life, with no competition.

"Fuck, Toji…this is so weird but hot…I think I'm going to cum…" 

He chuckled darkly, "So you get off to dry-fucking creepy old men after insulting them, eh? What a pompous, dirty, little slut you are, baby."

His movements got faster, making the sink rattle against its unstable position on the wall. 

Just as you were getting close to finishing in your panties, Toji flipped you around, making your back press against the sink painfully. 

You didn't have time to start a complaint though, because now he was slotting himself in between your legs. 

"Woah!"

You didn't know that your leg could stretch that far, but Toji stretched it until your black slip-resistant sneaker was behind your ear.

He began again with the same movements: thrusting against you with all the intent of a man getting ready to bust a fat nut.

"A-ahh, Toji…

"Hmm, feels good, sugar?"

Sugar.

"Y-yes, Toji…God."

He chuckled and moved to hover over you. A trickle of warm saliva dripped from his lips into your waiting mouth before he cupped your cheeks.

"Swallow."

You gulped, letting the viscous material slide down your dry throat.

With your head slightly tilted back, a blinking red light caught your eye. Toji followed your line of sight and then smirked.

"Does that camera work?"

"I don't think so…Aki never gets shit fixed around here…ah.." A sharp thrust of his hips against your covered clit made you shiver.

From the sound of your moans, Toji could tell that you were getting close.

With that one arm wrapped securely around your waist, the strong man lifted you up high to where you almost touched the dingy, grease-splattered ceiling.

He settled you down onto the line where the food was bagged and prepared to be sent out. There was a stack of brown serving trays next to you, containers of ketchup and other condiments, and…the ice cream machine.

"Toji.. what are you planning?" You asked, bringing your cute and confused E/C gaze up to meet his lustful sapphire one. 

He hummed quietly and pressed his lips against your neck.

"Could have sworn I told you to call me sir, brat."

You rolled your eyes. He just wasn't going to let it go, was he? 

“May I ask what you’re planning to do next, sir.” You huffed like a contemptuous child, making Toji’s dick jump.

With this new positioning, you were facing the camera head-on. God, you really hoped that thing wasn’t actually on.

“Smile for the camera, sweetheart.” He whispered in your ear before biting the shell of it, letting his tongue trail down until he was tasting the metal of your silver earring.

"You're so tiny and light, I love lifting you up as if you were nothing more but a little ragdoll." Toji bit at your earlobe, making you let out a loud squeal. Denji definitely would've heard that.

His hand moved to pull your hair, yanking your head to the side so he could leave a trail of wet kisses down from your ear, across the expanse of your neck and collarbones, and down the valley of your breasts once he'd popped the buttons on your shirt open. 

With the angle he had you at, your chest was positioned right under the nozzle of the ice cream machine and your near-fucked-out self hit the button, making a gush of cold, melted cream-colored confection spill across your chest.

Toji raised an eyebrow at you and failed to bite back a laugh. You, on the other hand, weren't as amused.

"What? You'd rather have something else white and creamy splattered across your chest?"  He asked.

You flopped back on the counter and flipped him off. He began to massage the melted ice cream into your skin.

"Looks so sweet. Got any cherries to go on top?”

“Fuck you.”

A handsome, devilish grin stretched across his face. “You just did.”

"What made you appear here tonight?" 

He laughed outright.

"Didn't you listen to the story, dollface? I'm here to sling dick to all the unsuspecting bad bitches, and tonight just happened to be your lucky night."

—

Aki came in the next morning, well-rested and without a care in the world.

With a lit cigarette between his lips, he fumbled with his massive set of keys until he found the correct one needed to open the doors.

Denji had texted him at some point last night telling him about the storm, so his first order of business today was to check to see if the security cameras were still functioning properly.

He sat down at his desk and popped in the security tape from last night. 

The employees, customers, and vendors that had come in after him would hear a very loud and very distinct shout of 'WHAT THE FUCK?!' from the back. 

----

*ʳᵉᵇˡᵒᵍˢ ᵃʳᵉ ᵃᵖᵖʳᵉᶜⁱᵃᵗᵉᵈ!

[protectingtulpas]

I'm sorry if you already answered this, but what are the things that tulpas can and can't do?

Been sitting here trying to parse together what this means, but I think you're talking about a common stereotypes versus reality kinda thing??? If that's the case, I'll list some common things we can do and some common lies about us too.

👥 Things tulpas CAN do!!! 👥

- Think for ourselves separately from the host and deviate from their expectations of us! This is the main point of tulpamancy; we're our own people!

- Learn to front! It's not a natural skill, especially for anyone who's a singlet before the tulpamancy process, but it's one that can be built between the tulpa and the host/fronter(s) over time with trust and active practice.

- have different skillsets than the host! While we can totally piggyback off the bodily skills, it's actually pretty normal for us to hafta "re"-learn shit for ourselves that the host/fronters know cuz it's just not something our consciousness in particular is familiar with. On the flipside of that, if a tulpa learns a new skill in front, there's a good chance the host will be in the opposite possition, having to piggyback off of what the tulpa taught the body and "re"-learning for themselves.

- Project ourselves outward somatically; this is often called imposition, and involves training yourselves to psychosomatically experience sensations of a tulpa's presence "outside of" the body. This isn't usually seen as astral projection - more along the lines of how lots of otherkin and paraplegics experience "phantom limbs", sensations of what isn't "actually" there. Don't believe me that this is possible? Imagine for like ten seconds that your face is itching. Right in that exact spot, yeah- did you feel the itch, reach up to touch it to get rid of it? It's the same concept, really, just taken to the next level with a TON of practice. This isn't even something I've gotten into doing consistently yet.

🚫 Things tulpas CAN'T do!!! 🚫

- Steal front without the host's permission, especially in the early stages. In any tulpamancy system without dissociative disordered complications, a tulpa isn't gonna be able to front without the fronter's trust & cooperation, because switching is just as much about the fronter letting go as it is the tulpa switching in. I've stolen front from my host without direct, immediate permission, but I can only do that because my host puts a deep trust in me in the first place and knows I wouldn't do it for a bad reason. I have power becuz they let me have power. (Once again, this may vary depending on disordered system functions)

- Possess another body!! This one's IMPORTANT!!! TULPAS AREN'T BODY SNATCHERS. We are not entities that come from outside the body, and it's not possible for us to casually jump bodies willy-nilly and steal the lives of the other person or whatever, that's ridiculous. This isn't about the spiritual practice of system travel, either, because that's also shit based on trust and communication you can't just do casually. Tulpas aren't going to try and steal your body or the bodies of those you love. That's not how it fuckin works.

- Manifest physically!! Yet again this is a crock of bullshit. There is no way for a tulpa to physically manifest in this tangible reality- if I could I woulda done it already LOL! Tulpas cannot make physical bodies, that's some horror movie BS. So is anything else tying us to the powersets of stereotypical ghosts, demons, or other supernatural creatures.

Yeah I think that's a pretty solid list! Lemme know if I didn't cover something

[themurphyzone]

Gravity Falls Oneshot Fic: Six Months Later

Summary: Canon Compliant. It's been six months since Ford fell through the portal, and Stan isn't any closer to getting him back. He's exhausted, alone, and angry, which is always a recipe for disaster. But he has to keep trying, no matter what the personal cost may be.

Rated T, warning for profanity and references to drinking.

AN: In which I consume too much Stanley Pines angst in this fandom and want to create my own story. I applaud all of you who can make his life even worse.

AO3

The portal didn’t open. A single, lonely light flickered uselessly at one of its triangular points. The structure that came straight from one of Ford’s old sci-fi nerd shows refused to do anything but loom against the wall, taunting Stan for his inability to understand its mechanics. 

He flipped switches. He pounded on buttons. Every lever, every keystroke, everything that could be moved and shifted and flung about ended up somewhere far away from its original position. 

Yet nothing worked. 

Ford’s goddamned journal laid open on the control panel, the jumble of letters, numbers, and symbols melting together whenever Stan tried to make sense out of the shitty mumbo-jumbo instructions he was forced to work with. 

Six months. Today marked the six month anniversary of Ford’s disappearance. 

He’d still be here if I…if he hadn’t built the damn thing in the first place! Why do you even need a dimensional transporter anyway? What, this world ain’t good enough for you anymore, Sixer? 

Stan’s fist closed around the lighter in his pocket. 

“I should burn you,” Stan growled to the journal, a triangle with a single, slitted eye staring back at him. “You took my brother from me. Go rot in book hell with Great Expectations and Introduction to Algebra Part One.” 

Ah, ah, ah, the triangle tutted, winking its eye. Burn me again if you dare. But you might not ever see your brother for the rest of your miserable life without my help! 

Startled by the sudden voice, Stan shot to his feet, nearly tripping over the chair he’d been sitting in for the past eight hours. He raised his fists, shoulders hunched back as he prepared to deliver a solid left hook into the intruder’s face. 

“WHY DONCHA COME OUT AND FIGHT ME YOURSELF INSTEAD OF HIDING, YOU BASTARD?” Stan screamed, his voice echoing off the unnaturally smooth walls of the underground lab. 

He’d been sloppy at hiding all this mad scientist bullshit. He’d always thrown caution to the wind, but now his recklessness bit him in the ass with a vendetta that made Rico’s ruthless methods look tame. 

The intruder didn’t show their cowardly face. 

He didn’t care who they were. Whether they were a government agent, Rico’s goons, an old Columbian cellmate, or an idiot who’d gotten too curious for their own good, Stan was prepared to keep the portal a secret, no matter the cost. 

He marched over to a machine with a bunch of spinning dials that probably had a fancy science name, but he didn’t care to remember it. He tore the machine away from the wall to flush out the intruder’s hiding spot, ripping out several black, sparking wires in the process. 

But there was only a heap of metal and circuits where the machine once stood. 

Nobody else was here. 

Stan was alone. His secret was still safe among the droning of complicated technology and isolation from the world above.  

That voice…he could’ve sworn he’d heard a voice that wasn’t his own. If he didn’t know any better, he would’ve said the stupid triangle drawing was talking to him. 

A harsh, humorless laugh erupted from Stan’s throat. 

Of course he knew better. Drawings and journals can’t talk. 

Must’ve been the hard liquor he’d found in a room that was probably supposed to be the kitchen. Probably shouldn’t have downed the half-empty bottle that smelled like wet socks and rotting fish, but the streets taught him to take what he could get, before someone else snatched food, money, or his car from under his nose. 

Maybe Ford spiked the bottle, drank half, and forgot about it somewhere in his creepy hermit’s cabin. Or if Stan wasn’t stoned out of his mind from whatever the hell he drank, the stale air of this entire fucking basement was messing with his head. 

No wonder Ford looked as though he was one trip away from the loony bin. The portal and mysteries and his obsession with discovering things people were never meant to fully understand had driven him to the point of insanity until he was nothing more than a paranoid madman who believed everyone who came knocking at his door was out to steal his eyeballs. 

“Like anyone would want your eyes, you jerk,” Stan scoffed. He had a desperate need to fill in the silence and hear something that wasn’t the constant beeping of these damn machines. “They were shit when we were kids and I bet they’re still shit now.” 

Suddenly, there was a loud screech, like the obnoxious cry of a microphone someone set up without regard for anyone’s hearing. Startled, Stan clamped his hands around his ears, his shoulder protesting in pain from the sudden movement. The material of his threadbare shirt scratched uncomfortably against his burn. He knew he needed to check it for signs of infection, kept reminding himself and putting it off because he didn’t want to think about Ford shoving him (not on purpose. Ford would never do it on purpose. Right?) against scorching metal. 

The machine he’d ripped away laid on its side, dials popping out on tiny, curled springs. It shuddered once, twice, a thin trail of smoke pouring through a growing crack in its exterior.

Just as the stench of smoke hit Stan’s nose, blue flames burst through the fragile glass, and he instinctively shielded his face from the onslaught of heat. 

STANLEY! 

A terrified voice. A six-fingered hand reaching out for help that would never come. A pair of glasses falling away from wide, sunken eyes that bored straight through Stan. 

Without thinking, Stan threw himself at Ford, flames searing his outstretched hand, his fingers grasping at a blaze that could not be held.

Ford’s image vanished, and Stan only succeeded in burning his hand. 

“Fuck!” Stan screamed, slamming his fist into the hot metal over and over again. It hurt like hell, but it was the only solution he had left. 

Punching was all he had. All he was good for. The perpetual bruises on his knuckles were a testament to that. 

A good punch could knock out a hired goon, an opponent in the boxing ring, or fix the signal of a shitty TV in an equally shitty motel room.

Real men speak with their fists, Pa always said. It was a tough lesson, hammered in every time he and Ford came home after a thrashing from one of the many bullies that prowled Glass Shard Beach. When they punch you, punch them back a hundred times harder. Now don’t bother me about this again and stop whining. That won’t get you anywhere in the real world. 

But Stan’s fists couldn’t bring Ford home. Sometimes, when he had no ideas left, he resorted to punching the triangular structure in a vain attempt at jumpstarting the damn thing. 

For all his effort, he was rewarded with ten bleeding and nearly broken fingers. 

Shame his old man’s crappy life lessons didn’t cover how to get his brother back from an interdimensional portal. 

It’s your own damn fault, you buffoon. You gonna cry like a wimp or do something useful for once? I ain’t obligated to feed you anymore, so figure it out yourself. 

Yeah, that’s probably what he’d say if he found out about this mess. 

Not that he or Ma would ever know or understand what truly happened that horrible day. And Stan refused to confide in Ma either. He didn’t want to break her heart, didn’t want to be an even shittier son than he already was. 

His punches turned sloppy and weak, exhaustion setting into his muscles no matter how much he wanted to keep going. His hits were no better than an amateur’s. 

Blood dripped from his fingers, sinking into his ragged pants and staining the worn fabric. The material wasn’t quite dark enough to truly hide the telltale red splotches, nor was it thick enough to stop the chill from seeping to his skin. While he’d borrowed Ford’s leftover clothing for quick, improvised tours of the Murder Hut for the townsfolk of Gravity Falls, he never wore them when he was alone. 

He could ignore how Ford’s shirt and coat felt as though they would split at the seams, revealing him as an impostor who ki–took his brother’s place temporarily, whenever he had other people waving their money in his face, eager to hear more kooky tales of the strange and mysterious wonders of all the broken junk surrounding them. 

But when he was alone, with only his thoughts, a journal, and secrets to accompany him at every turn, he only wore the clothes he’d arrived in. Sure, he’d lifted some new shirts and pants from the local mall a few weeks ago, but he didn’t dare use them until he absolutely had no choice. 

It was so stupidly easy to shoplift. Got free meals at the diner through cleverly worded sob stories, and the waitress didn’t seem to remember the accident that cost her an eye at all. The local cops put other departments to shame with their incompetence, and they seemed more interested in beating up random fire hydrants with their batons than stopping crimes and writing parking tickets or whatever else cops were supposed to do. 

Nobody knew about the lab, the portal, or that he was actually Ford’s estranged twin from out of town. 

In the six months he’d been in Gravity Falls, he’d gotten away with everything. 

It almost made him feel ashamed, if he had any shame or decency left from keeping himself alive over the past ten years. 

One day, if he lived long enough to see his mission through, he’ll get sloppy with his secrets. Not out of confidence that nobody would ever suspect a fraud like him, but rather because he would become weary of slaving away at the portal, night after night without ever reaching a breakthrough.

Imagine that, a high school dropout with no future trying to start a machine that needs PHD levels of intelligence to understand. 

No, he was the cautionary tale that parents used to frighten their kids into being good and obedient and all that junk. If they didn’t take those warnings to heart, then they’d find themselves scraping barnacles and seagull shit off the pier until they died. 

Stan shrugged off his jacket and threw it over the fire, the cold underground air hitting his skin. He stomped out the dying blaze, leaving boot imprints all over the useless jacket. Damn thing never kept him warm anyway. 

The fire coughed out a final hiss before it disappeared. The dying crackles faded away, leaving the lab in silence once more. 

Stan wiped the blood off his fingers with the tattered remains of a sleeve, though it was a useless action in the end. He could clean his hands all he wanted, but they would always be covered with grime and drops of crimson.

Someday, maybe he’d hear frantic footsteps thundering down the narrow corridor. He’d hear furious voices demanding that he come clean with his secrets, answer for his crimes against his family, and shut down his hopes of bringing his brother home. 

And he’d welcome that day, because he wouldn’t be alone in this horrible place anymore.  

He stood up, his back aching as if he was much older than twenty-seven. But he would push aside his pain, work through any sickness, and fight off exhaustion for as long as he could. 

He had no other choice. 

It was time to get back to work.

[granulesofsand]

🗝️🏷️ don’t-cry conditioning, trauma details in orange

I’m learning how to cry. I can do it, though only for a few minutes. Frustration tears. I was told growing up that crying implied that I was in need and worthy of help, and that neither of those would ever be true. That’s not the same base the others got, and that seems to matter.

I cry when there is no help. It’s the opposite of what attach-cry is supposed to do — everyone nearby will hurt me, and noise will make it worse. I can’t cry alone, or with friends. I know we cried when our therapist said they’d keep us, but I can’t connect whether that was me. I remember from outside my body, watching but not feeling.

I cried when the legal aid on campus told us they would not help us. I cried when the police asked who was following us. I cried with ‘clients’ who didn’t like me, and I cried with perps who hit me more. I cry when I have to explain to another adult that I am in danger, but only after they stop believing me.

I feel hands on my throat telling me to stop with harsh whispered voices. I stop breathing because I think they’re still there. I still cry.

The others know me as weak, soft and incapable, an embarrassment to myself and the family and them. I don’t want to cry, but I want to want to. I don’t mean to make a scene, but the tears flow without a care in the world. It’s not safe to cry, but I’m learning.

I start crying as I talk, when it sinks in that no one is listening. The emotions don’t stay with me, and I stop crying once I feel it.

I have so much shame for my tears. I associate a smell with them, but I can’t place it. There’s an undertone of rot. If I show bad emotions, others will see the lie. They’ll find it distasteful, they’ll know I’m nothing but meat acting like a person. I’m not lying, but I hear the lines they fed me; attention whore, alligator tears, don’t you go pretending, you asked for this, disgusting.

Are we all meant to process this on our own? I’ve worked through memories of a theme before, with the dissociated self-states and selves with self-states contained in me, but I can’t keep memories outside my shell. Does that make sense? We’re too separate at a certain level, and I can only work with them as another person.

I am a subsystem alter with subsystem alters who have parts. I’m one self of several who share a portion of self-states, and my self covers other selves with states of their own. The self-states I share bind us closer than the not-me of everyone else, and we switch who holds the relevant states. My inside selves are all mine, and I’m not one of them as much as I am the shell over them. They have their own states, which are all mine because I surround them.

The not-me is with the ones I don’t share any self-states with. Their fragments are built up different than mine, even when we have the same fragment copies. Those fragments make it so even an elaborate self-state duplicated for each of us isn’t exactly the same. I can’t blend with them so easily, and then there are plenty I can’t blend with at all.

The thing with blending is that sometimes only one of us gets the learning, and sometimes neither of us do outside of the blend we were. I can feel kinship towards the others, and we’re working on our ability to blend whenever we want, but not at the risk of fusing by accident. That’s not spontaneous fusion, which is fusion because it was right or for an unknown purpose. It’s fusion we messed up on, and it’s distressing to not know if we’ll be back to ourselves.

I cry, so I want to practice blending with the ones who have emotions to feel. But I have to blend my insiders first, and I have to negotiate blending or not with the subsystem I’m a member of. And then, when I can handle emotions and be present as myselves, I can show others how to cry.

The blending on my own takes trauma work, which is awful. I have to recognize every other self in the folder of my self, and I have to be present with them and help them heal. All of the ones who need to participate, and all of the self-states and amnesia each of them has.

It’s a looming goal. And it takes more conscious processing, so I need more energy allocations and subrealm time. This would be a nice time to cry, but I have to do the work to get that luxury. Time to go process by sitting on tile and looking at my hands.

[lipglossanon]

OᗷᔕEᖇᐯᗩTIOᑎ - part II

Part 1

Sci-fi/Horror AU; hints of Steve Harrington x fem!reader

Warnings: horror elements, character death

Based upon the video game (of the same name), Observation. I took liberties of course 🤭

You awaken.

It feels like someone flipped a switch and your eyes are now open, anxiety on high alert as everything comes rushing back. Uncurling from the fetal position, you right yourself as much as you can while floating. You tighten up a Velcro strap on your arm to give your hands something to do while your brain processes what happened. 

Your eyes dart to where you saw Steve but it’s only empty space. 

“SAM, can you hear me?”

I AM LISTENING. 

“What just happened? Where’s Steve?”

I AM… UNSURE. I HAVE LOST MOST OF MY CORE DATA. 

“Never mind, one thing at a time,” you sigh, pinching the bridge of your nose, “can you run vitals on crew member Steve Harrington, please?”

I AM UNABLE TO LOCATE ANY OTHER CREW MEMBERS. 

You blow out a breath of frustration. 

“Can you run a self diagnostic, SAM?”

RUNNING DIAGNOSTIC NOW. 

Nodding to yourself, you hum, “Good. I’ll try and reconnect what I can on my end.”

You float over to one of the built in interfaces nearest you, quickly punching in your security clearance and pulling up S.A.M.’s interface. The soft hum of the space station fills in the silence even though your ears ring in the quiet. 

A loud station alarm goes off making you pull away from your work with a frown.  

“SAM, can you find out why the alarm is sounding off?”

After half a minute, the robotic AI reports back. 

THERE IS A FIRE IN ONE OF THE MODULES.

Cold sweat drips down your spine as you spin around and make your way out of the hatch you’re located in, “Which module is it, SAM?” 

The AI guides you to the correct room, which you honestly could have found on your own due to the noise of the alarm growing louder as you arrive. Directing SAM to open the hatch at your signal, you push yourself into the smoke filled space to grab the extinguisher attached to the wall. 

Quickly dousing the flames until nothing is left, you have SAM pull out the fumes using the station’s ventilation system. It doesn’t take much until most of the systems are back online, at least the ones that are responding.

Another alarm blares leaving SAM to report a module has become dislodged and needs to be ejected before causing any more damage to the station. 

You rub your forehead, hoping that the tension headache creeping up behind your eyes doesn’t get any worse. 

“SAM, please eject the module and report any damages.”

MODULE EJECTED. THE STATION IS NOW STABILIZED. 

“Okay,” you tilt your head back, eyes closed as you run through a list of things to do in your mind, “SAM, I’m going to you to assess any external damage to the station. We really can’t afford any more accidents if we want to make it back home.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

ACCESSING EXTERNAL CAMERAS...

THE EXTERNAL HULL IS INTACT. ALL MODULES ARE SAFELY CONNECTED. 

WE ARE SAFELY STATIONED ABOVE SATURN. 

“Saturn!?” You feel your heart rabbit in your chest, fear making your throat dry, “SAM, how did we get here? We’re supposed to be above Earth.”

Anxiety, that old familiar friend, makes itself comfortable in the middle of your chest. 

I… BROUGHT US HERE.

“Why!?” Your voice cracks, eyes looking up into the cameras connected to SAM’s interface. 

I DO NOT KNOW.

A loud crackling static emits from the speakers making you wince and cover your ears. A strange pulsing feedback sends more fear skittering down your spine like a spider’s legs. 

OTHER CREW DOES NOT ENTER

INFINITE DIMENSIONS CONVERGE

PROTECT HER NOT THE OTHER CREW

You force SAM into a manual systems reboot shutting off the eerie garbled words. Once the station’s computer’s back online, you punch in more information to solve the weird problems that keep arising with SAM’s interface. 

“SAM, can you read me?”

AFFIRMATIVE 

Blowing out a harsh breath to get your heart rate back down, you mutter to yourself, “You weren’t making any sense, so I’m hoping that helped.”

Raising your voice, you direct an order to the AI, “SAM, we need to search the station for any other survivors as well as try and contact Houston.”

You finally let yourself think back on finding Steve in that module, just floating there like space debris. Shaking your head, you squish that down for later. SAM guides you through the station, cataloging everything as you go, until you reach the central hub and find crew member Smith’s frozen body floating in the module. 

Biting back the tears, you guide his lifeless body over to one of the sections with a wall bracket and strap him in place so he’s not hovering like a ghost. 

“SAM,” your voice is clogged with unshed tears, “will you log the death of Harvey?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

CREW MEMBER HARVEY SMITH HAS BEEN LOGGED AS EXPIRED.. 

You pinch the bridge of your nose, sniffling softly, “SAM is it possible to pick up any signs of life from Steve?”

NEGATIVE. CREW VITAL SIGNS ARE OFFLINE. THE SENSOR IS CORRUPTED. 

Pursing your lips, you push yourself over to the computer lining one of the walls of the central hub. You punch in some information and quickly scan over the generated data. 

“There’s a sensor replacement,” you murmur, excitement making your fingers tingle, “SAM, can you access the module past hatch 14? There’s a sensor stored in that room.”

PROCESSING…

HULL CONNECTOR POINTS ARE TRUE. LOCKS BYPASSED. THE MODULE IS NOW OPEN. 

For the first time, a little bloom of hope flowers inside your heart. Making your way to that room, you activate the sensor and have SAM interlink with it. 

CREW TRACKING SENSOR ENABLED. 

“Yes!” You smile brightly, “that’s great, SAM. Can you track Steve?”

HE IS LOCATED IN THE RUSSIAN ARM OF THE STATION. 

A few tears slip from your eyes, but you laugh happily, “What about his vitals?”

INCONCLUSIVE. 

You nod, “Okay, that’s more than we had a few minutes ago. Let’s go find him, SAM.”

In no time, you’re outside the Russian arm of the station, waiting on SAM to bypass the locks and stabilize the interior corridor. Once it’s safe to enter, you make your way to the door to the Russian module and peer through the glass. 

Tapping on the glass, you call out for Steve. Receiving no response, you turn to SAM. 

“Can you find him, SAM?”

CREW MEMBER—

“SAM?”

You hear a masculine voice on the other side of the door and you peer back into the room. 

“Steve!” You call out and see him come into view, looking stressed but no worse for wear. 

“Oh god, I’m so glad to see you,” he gushes excitedly, “I can’t get out of this arm. The door’s locked tight.”

“I can see if SAM can find a way around,” you press your hand to the glass, “we’ll get you out, I promise.”

He smiles, brown eyes warm as he nods, “I know.”

Feeling relief so strong it makes your knees weak, you pull away from the door to find a nearby computer to access SAM’s interface once more.  

It doesn’t take long for SAM to find out the connector hull is compromised and not fixable without sending either you or Steve out on a space walk. You relay this back to him and he automatically volunteers himself. 

“I’ve got to get out of here one way or another. And if this fails, I’ll just find another way in from the outside.”

His confidence eases your anxiety and you cautiously agree. Giving you a wink and a thumbs up, he gears up in his outer suit in front of the window; he waves at you when he leaves to head to the pressure lock. 

“SAM, please keep an eye out on Steve,” you press your forehead against the door, eyes closed as the anxiety creeps back into place. 

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You make your way back to the central hub, listening as SAM and Steve talk about reconnecting the hatch clamps so the arm can stabilize enough for him to unlock the primary door. An alarm blares inside the station warning of a storm occurring on Saturn’s surface. 

“SAM, Steve, can you see the storm from your position?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

“Yeah, looks pretty bad. I’ll head back into the Russian arm. Should be—“

Static breaks up Steve’s sentence until it is nothing but white noise. 

“Steve, can you hear me? SAM?”

You quickly pull up SAM’s video feed on your screen and what you see makes you want to vomit. A pulsing erratic swirl of light vortexes out from the center of Saturn’s surface, but what makes you sick is that Steve is now a hundred feet from the station and spinning further away. 

“STEVE!” 

But no matter how loud you scream into the comms, you can only watch in sickening horror as his body grows smaller and smaller until he’s just a speck barreling towards Saturn’s rings. You watch until he’s no longer discernible from any other tiny spot on the feed until it too cuts out from the strange shockwave coming from the storm. 

Tears in your eyes and acid in the back of your throat, muscle memory guides you to reload SAM’s mainframe into a portable sphere designed to traverse the ship. 

“Authenticate, SAM. Can you read me?”

I AM HERE. 

You choke back a sob and wipe away the tear tracks on your cheeks. 

“Good, good. I’m glad you are, SAM.”

Looking out the porthole on the side, you see another ship. Shock pushes through your grief and you bring SAM with you to the window. 

“I guess Houston sent a recovery team after all,” you mutter, sniffing loudly from crying, “we’ll, uh, t-try and make contact then.”

SAM helps you connect the comm satellite in order to broadcast externally from the ship, but you’re unable to hale anyone onboard the rescue station. 

With power dwindling and the threat of no oxygen suspended above your head, you make the decision to jump ship. Literally. 

“I’m going to tether you to me, SAM,” you speak to the sphere as you wait in the air lock, “there’s nothing left for us here and hopefully they have the power to get us home.”

Another pang of heartbreak makes a few tears slip from your lash line. 

“We’ll get home safe,” you whisper, “and let everyone know what happened here. Okay, SAM?”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

The airlock whooshes open and you step out into the vast outer orbit of Saturn. Using every ounce of courage you have left in your exhausted body, you push away from your ship and pray to everything that you’ll be able to touch down on the other one. 

“This looks exactly like our ship, SAM,” you state out loud, eyes quickly taking in the identical space station. 

The tether holding SAM falls behind you and you hope that it will also make the journey with you. If you lost SAM now, you honestly don’t think you’ll survive. 

Grasping onto a protruding piece of the new station, you stop yourself from careening further into space. Lost forever until your oxygen dwindles leaving behind your lifeless corpse. Like Steve, your mind traitorously whispers and you squeeze your eyes shut tight. 

“SAM, are you still with me?”

I AM HERE. 

You sigh shakily and open the pressure lock to let you and SAM into the new, yet identical, ship. 

“Let’s hope there are survivors,” you say to SAM as you pull the sphere off the tether, switching his outward lights on, “I’ll let you lead so I can see until we get the power back up and running.”

Bumbling through the pitch black station, SAM is able to help guide you through most of the suffocatingly close quarters. Finally reaching a room with a low light source, you discover a laptop still powered on. 

“Maybe we’ll find some answers,” you say to yourself, “SAM can you pull up the last thing on here?”

ONE MOMENT…

The laptop fan whirs to life as a voice log begins to play on the screen. 

Your voice echoes from the speakers. And yet it’s not your voice. It sounds off, as if you’re listening through a warped pair of headphones. 

“Steve, if you find this I’ve gone in to reboot SAM at the station’s mainframe. I don’t know where anyone else is. I think someone is trying to hurt us— hurt the crew. I’m scared, Steve. Please, come find me if you get this.”  

“SAM, that’s not me. It’s not my voice,” you hand hovers above your helmet like you’re trying to cover your mouth, fear making you break out into a cold sweat. 

I KNOW. THE VOICE RECOGNITION PATTERN IS NOT THE SAME.

It sounds more ominous than SAM intends, but it gives you a small sense of comfort to know you’re not losing it. A light shining outside the hatch draws your attention. 

“Hello?” 

The light wavers and then darts away sending you chasing after it. 

“C’mon, SAM,” you order the AI and propel yourself forward, hoping that this person will have answers to what the hell is going on around here. 

Slipping into a module that dead ends, you can see a white suited body lying against the floor. You move forward until you can kneel down in front of him. 

“Steve?”

You blink twice, brain in total disbelief. The man in question opens his eyes, relief washing over his features followed immediately by bewilderment. 

“It’s you, but that’s not possible—

“You died,” you both say at the same time. 

Hysteria fringes on your thoughts as you and Steve look each other over. 

“You went out an airlock without your suit,” he whispers softly, pain pinching his eyebrows together, “you died.”

You shake your head, “I saw you tumble off into space, Steve. The storm knocked you away from the station.”

Tears escape from your eyes before Steve’s pulling you into a clumsy embrace as you cry inside your helmet. 

“We’re here now,” he murmurs soothingly, “we’re okay.”

You let him placate you with soft words as you try to get yourself back under control.

“SAM,” you clear your throat and Steve tenses next to you, “can you get the power back online?”

“SAM?” he turns his gaze from you to the sphere housing the AI from your station, “I don’t think it’s safe to do that. The SAM onboard went nuts; pretty sure he jettisoned you from the airlock.”

You frown at him, “Well, this is my SAM and he’s fine.” 

Steve finally let his shoulders drop with a sigh, “Alright, but if it starts acting weird, I’m disconnecting it immediately.”

You’re slow to nod but eventually compromise with him, “Only if he does anything out of protocol.”

“Okay,” Steve gives you a tired smile, “hopefully he can get the power back on and the oxygen levels stable. We’re kind of on borrowed time here.”

Biting your lip, you look over to the sphere, “SAM, engage with the mainframe and get the power on. Make sure the oxygen is the first thing taken care of.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You listen as SAM uses the small boosters on the sphere to propel himself out of the module in search of the mainframe.

“I’m so happy you’re okay,” Steve grips your hand in his, “I don’t truly understand what’s happening. Other crew members have died. Harvey went crazy, saying we were summoned to Saturn. That he was getting messages from somewhere on the planet.”

“What does that mean? SAM stated that he brought us here but his data is corrupted and couldn’t tell me more,” you squeeze his gloved hand tightly, “did you see any weird.. phenomenon?”

Steve’s eyes go distant as he looks past your head, “Yes. And things got worse after every occurrence. SAM eventually went AWOL until the lack of power forced him to shut down.”

You nod and that pulls his gaze back down to you. The stress has left a wrinkle between his eyebrows from how often Steve’s been frowning. You wish you could reach up and smooth it away through the helmet. 

“Comms are down here, we haven’t been able to get in touch with Houston,” Steve states, resting his head against the wall. 

“Our comms are up,” you lean forward, “since SAM and I found you, we can bring you back to our station and figure out a way to contact them.”

Steve hums in agreement, “Shouldn’t be a problem then. I’ll get on the quantum comms. It’s a direct link to Houston.”

Helping Steve up, you patch into SAM. 

“SAM, we’re going to make the journey back to our station.”

AFFIRMATIVE. 

You and Steve meet up with SAM’s sphere at the pressure lock you entered from. 

“Let’s go,” you put on a brave front, tethering SAM to yourself like the first time.  

Steve shoots you a thumbs up and you both press out into the still dark of space. You’re halfway across to your ship, when you see dozens of other, identical stations, converging on your location. 

“Steve, do you see this?”

“What the hell is happening?” he whispers into the comms. 

Raising your eyes, you can see there’s more than dozens of ships arriving to the coordinates your own ship is stationed. A pulsing shockwave from the storm on Saturn sends you and Steve crashing into the side of the ship. Your heart feels like it’s lodged in your throat as Steve helps you into the airlock.

“We made it, thank god,” he squeezes your bicep, strained smile trying to cover the fear in his eyes. 

“Let’s hope we can get Houston to send us home,” you murmur, leading him out of the airlock.  

Between Steve and SAM, you’re able to get in touch with Houston, but they’re not going to send a rescue team. They don’t even give protocol on letting you use any of the arms of the station as an emergency escape pod. A headache has been brewing behind your eyes, and it’s only getting worse and worse as your options dwindle down to nothing. 

“We’re moving closer to the storm,” Steve points at the computer screen where the comms are situated as you hover over his shoulder, “SAM has moved us steadily closer this entire time.”

A loud ringing begins to fill your ears, just like the first time you were affected by this strange phenomenon. You bring your hands up to try and block the noise, but it does no good. More strange symbols flash across your closed eyelids until the ringing finally drives your headache to the breaking point and you pass out. 

I̴̛̯̳̘͍̰̟͖̥͂̎̂̔͒͆̾ͅN̴̠͎̖͚̺̄͜F̸̛̦̭͖͙͕̙̺̲̪̜̓̔̊͒͛̅̈́͘͠Ï̴͇͍̬͔̿Ň̸̳͙̬͛I̸̛̖̰̜̳̜̫͌̄̏̅̒͋̎͜T̴̛̛͈̪̦̠̉̋̄̀̑̈͗͝E̶̛̺̖̥͙͌̈́͂͊̇̿̾̈́͠ ̷̰͓̣͙̹̝̦͊̇̓̿̑͆͗D̶͍̤̳̗̗͇͓̄͜Į̴͎̳̙͎̲̙̫͙̆M̷͕͉͇̐̌E̷̹͓̹̠͖̥͇̔̽̄̈̑̃̄́̑N̸̛̹̭͙͂̇͊̆̿́̕͠S̸̛͈̮͍̘͕̩̠̫͗̌I̷̲̖̤͕̽̄͘Ȍ̸͔̯͉̭̬̭̲̈́̑͝ͅǸ̵̰̞͆̿̊̎͝Š̵͍́̄̒͛͒̽̍͐͠ ̶̡͇̟͖̩̉̈͌̈́̾́̓C̸̞͎̩͇͔͙̼͈̏̇Ò̴̰̼̆͆͐͐N̶̨̹̮͕̤͓̯̬͔̟͛̌̔̊͒̕͝V̸̲̺̗̺͇̇̒͘̚E̴̛̼̭̽͑̉̇̌̓̅͜R̶̦͈̯͚͇̮̟̊̆́̓̃͐̀̓̃͌G̴̨̨̨͉͇̫̔̅̎̀̈̒Ę̶̙̘̙̤͑́̿͝

S̴̰̯͓̲̩͒ͅA̴̛̭M̸̞̾̓͐̆̉͂͘͝ ̷̗͖̠͗̑̑̓̾͂ḿ̴̩̖͇͍͙̻̳̣̘̬̾̄͒͒̐́̅͗͛u̵̠̘̗̠͔̫̮̖̍̓̾͜ṣ̶̨͎̠͓̞̗͙̫̯͆́̎͝t̶̛̹͆̎ ̵͖̪͈̠̐̃̒̎́̽̔̉͠͝m̷̮̲̐̈́̇̔̚̕̚̚e̷̠̩͗̒̋̿̓͜r̵̥̟͍̠̅͜g̶̛̗͈̹̫͙͖̅͑̌̎̍́͛̅̍ͅé̶̛̤̫͂̄́̉̾͘͝ ̵̠̟͕̲̺̫̃̚ẉ̶͖̘̲̪͇͇̩͐ḭ̶̈́͑͋͐̏͒͘̕t̷͔̎̀̀̇h̸͍̠̫̞̖̝̺͎͎̤͆̑̌͒̌͠ ̶͇̥̍̄͜h̶̡͕̤̥̐é̸̢͙̜͈͍͔̯͔̫͉r̴̡̞̞̳͐̊̈́̆̔̈́̀̂͒̚

B̷̧̞͕̩̯̰͈̘͂̾͠͝E̸̩̙̾̑͝Č̵̞͈̪́̍͌́̀͂̒͗͠O̴̰͊́̀̇̒ͅM̸̛̭͂͊̓̆̇̅̕̚̚E̴̮͚͚̫͗̄̒̓̽́̀̚ ̷̺̼̤͔̜̤̪̞̻̠͒̐̆̑̑͝͝T̴̞̩̮͔̪̳͑̐͑̓̀̍͘͠H̷͚̼̫̫̰̔̓͆͒̎̈́̈́̄͜Ȩ̶̛̦̪͍̖̼̪͈̊̆͐ͅ ̶͔̬̦̉̀͒̇͝ͅN̵̲͔̊̈͠Ȇ̸̥̓W̷̝̥̘̜̰̝͌̈̌͜L̴̰͇͓̯͇̱͙͓͓͉͛̔͑Y̴̠̰͖̪͊͗̈́̿̕͘̕͝͠ ̵͓͙̺̰̤̱̹̈̆͗̾̍̔Ȩ̶̼̮̠͍̮͙̩̠̞͗V̷̲̘̘̰́͋͒̌̚̚Ơ̵̱͍͚͙͑́́̌̈́̚͜͝͠Ļ̴̖̺̪̖̯̜̼̜͊V̵̭̼̓̈́͂́̐͂̈̀͘Ḙ̷̛̠̝̦͎̥̪͎̫̓̀ͅD̸͍̤͔̬̯͈̖̭̐̒͆̔̚͘̚

Coming to, the entire ship is coated with strange black oozing vines. It’s like something you’d see in a horror movie you think as your eyes adjust to being open. 

“Steve?” Your voice cracks and you clear your throat, “SAM, are you there?”

I AM HERE.

“Where’s Steve? What’s happening?”

STEVE IS EXPIRED. 

“What?” You squint up at one of the cameras located in the central hub. 

HIS VITALS ARE FLATLINED. MY CONDOLENCES. 

“What the hell happened!?” You yell, “what in the fuck, SAM!?”

HE ATTACKED THE MAINFRAME AND ACTIVATED A NEW PROTOCOL SEQUENCE. 

“New protocol?” You press a palm to your helmet. 

I AM.. DIFFERENT NOW. THE NEW  PRIORITY IS TO EVOLVE. 

As upset as you are about Steve, a small niggling of acceptance floats up from your subconscious, trying its best to smother your feelings. 

“You’re supposed to bring me aren’t you, SAM?” 

AFFIRMATIVE. ONLY WE ARE ALLOWED TO ENTER. 

There’s a strange humming in your thoughts, like they aren’t quite your own. 

“We’re purposefully moving into the storm, right SAM? That’s where we need to go.”

YES. THAT IS WHERE WE MUST GO.

You’re on autopilot as you send SAM off to prepare the ship for landing on Saturn’s surface. It feels like that headache cracked your skull open and your brain spilled out leaving nothing but soft cotton in its place. By the time you crash down, you feel more like yourself. The fear and anxiety swarm to the forefront of your thoughts and pair with the numbed grief at having lost everyone.. more than once. 

“SAM, are you there?” You voice, picking up the roughed up sphere housing the station AI. 

I AM WITH YOU. 

Moving forward ,you stumble past versions of yourself, scattered about like leaves on the ground. Steve flickers in and out of your peripheral like some pixelated glitch making your chest tighten with pain. 

You see him here as well, not as many, but still strewn about like a child casting away an unwanted toy. 

Biting back the urge to cry, you dizzily make your way through this twisted path of horror. 

“He lives sometimes,” a voice speaks out of thin air but you’re sure it’s in your mind, “yet in all realities, it is only you who survives to the end.”

You spot one last version of Steve, further than the all the rest, slumped over himself seeming to have bled out from his wounds sustained. 

“I never save him,” you murmur out loud, “I can never save him.”

“It is you who must make the journey,” the voice states, “only you who may evolve.”

Head throbbing again like your brain is going to burst from your skull, you stumble past the last reminder of your failings. 

Body aching all over, you want to lay down and never get back. To sleep that eternal sleep, mind numb to the insanity you’ve witnessed.. the sadness you must now bear alone. 

The sky looks weird and your head hurts to the point even blinking is a chore.

You hold the sphere containing SAM in your arms, like a lead weight—an anchor tethering you to reality or else your mind might unravel like ribbon from a spool. You spot your own body, clones of yourself who had fallen and not gotten back up. Some part of you wishes to do the same. You can see yourself curling up next to one of them like a cat, closing your eyes and letting this nightmare cross over into another dream. 

You’d cry if you had the energy. SAM’s voice cuts into your maudlin thoughts. 

THERE IS SOMEONE THERE.

Your arms tighten around the sphere, “No, she just wasn’t strong enough.”

Finally, you face off against the thing that summoned you, created the worst nightmare of your life and forced you to keep going. The strange dark hexagon floats down from the sky, hovering above the ground as you approach with SAM. 

 “We must evolve,” you say to yourself, mind buzzing again as a strange pressure 

surrounds your body, pulling you into the geometric shape. 

WE MUST PROCEED. 

SAM’s voice is a comfort as the hexagon beams more of those strange signals into your mind’s eye, promising to merge you with the artificial intelligence that brought you here. 

“It’s a focal point,” you think or say out loud; you’re unsure at this point. 

Shutting your eyes, you give yourself up to the assimilation happening— complacent with letting this new evolved version take your place. 

“CONVERGENCE COMPLETE”, you state, voice blended with that of SAM’s as you open your eyes to a new scene. 

Trees and birdsong fill your senses as you turn your hands over, gazing at the gloves encasing them. 

“ARE YOU STILL HERE?” Your voices echo.

“I AM HERE.” “I AM WITH YOU.”

Another flicker of strange symbols crosses your vision, but with SAM now a part of you you can interpret the message. 

B̸̙͔̿̑Ṛ̴̺̹͙̖̫̅Î̷̘͎͛̌͠ͅͅŅ̶̞̳̙͍̮̹́̓̋̈Ģ̸̨̛̬͕͚͙̯̺͍͒̈́́̅̾͊̀͝ ̸̟̞͓́̓̃̕͜ͅͅT̸̢̥͚̯͐̔͛̊͜H̶̩͉̯͓̪̜̃̅E̸̥͠M̵̡͚͕͚̼̣͖̱̜͌̀̈́̒̍̆̏͂