#he had to get out the floppy disk for this okay!!!!!

[tryingonametaphor]

favourite headcanon right now is that 20 year old mike wheeler wrote a good omens fanfic in 1991 using one of his university computers after he read the book for the first time, and then 48 year old mike wheeler watched the tv adaptation with his partner of 29 years and finally posted that fic on ao3

[postersofleon]

Wrong Chocolates

notes: sorry for taking too long. anyways: "rivials' to lovers with a fem!reader. ada is just being ada wong. smut, probably ooc ada and not completely realistic. public sex, no minors

- requested

All the hotel rooms could hear was angry women fighting with muted heels clicking in the carpeted ground. Some people wanted to see why, but curious will kill the cat once they realize how dangerous it is to listen to this conversation. Two mercenaries with different looks of the world were discussing a plan. This plan led them to be invited into a party thanks to your fault.

Ada wanted this to be the most simple thing ever, but you... you!

She rubbed her eyelids not caring of her makeup anymore. "I told you stay back." Ada swallowed her anger. She didn't need an audience to wake up even more. You fought the urge to roll your eyes. You hated being scolded when a guy was being too gross around Ada. 

"He was," You sighed deeply, "Horrible. He wanted to kiss you." Besides, the bodyguard had been drinking so much he might have hurt Ada. The main difference between you and Ada were forming little by little. You weren't a field agent like Ada. Sometimes you could barely stand in your two feet when you tripped inside the hotel. 

Ada sighed, "Kissing sometimes is part of the job. To convince the idiot." She was tired of how you constantly wanted to protect her. You wouldn't even last a day with Wesker. 

"Well, don't kiss an idiot." You replied with a very Duh expression. 

An very tired sigh escaped Ada's lips, she took off her heels and went to her room ready to ignore all your words. "Ada!" You stomped forward. "Ada." Ada rolled her eyes. She was willing to let you sleep outside. She shut the door on your face and went to sleep; Ada sat on the queen bed boredly, trying to figure out the mess and how to clean it up. You and Ada had been mistaken for a queer couple because you trying to defend her.

That's the least thing she wanted from you, but now Ada needed to commit to you. She grabbed the hotel room's phone and sighed, "Can I get sex chocolates?" Ada had another plan now hoping you wouldn't ruin it again.

The next day, Ada found you in the restaurant eating breakfast with a couple. Ada's brow tilted, she slowly approached you and the pair in the attempts of hearing what you were speaking about. But the pair stopped. They gave you a thumbs up before leaving you and Ada only. 

"What was that about?" Ada asked. 

"We woke them from our fight, they decided to invite me to sleep in their room when you locked me out." You forced a smile to her. But you decided not to test your luck with her, you let out an exhale, "So, I'm guessing you have a plan." Your fingers gently touched the silverware before fully committing to grab them to eat your breakfast. 

Ada nodded her head, "Yes," She nodded her head, "I decided it's not the end of the world for you to place us in a party." Especially when the the party was in a club. Ada leaned closer, her knees touched your knees, "Considering that our target barely let's go of the floppy disk, I'm sure she'll have it with her." You wanted to doubt that someone will bring something important in a club, and Ada looked so determined that all you had to say was. "Okay." Ada was like a cute chipmunks with her cheeks puffed up. 

She finally smiled at you. "Good." She stole your drink before heading somewhere else. You let out a small groan, your hand rubbed your forehead. "Can I get another one?" You asked your server. You knew why you were here giving support to Ada, but... you wished you weren't doing this. 

"Happy New Year, ma'am." The waiter smiled.

"To 1999." You muttered. You needed 1998 to finish quick.

When you were done with your breakfast, you went upstairs to your hotel room you shared with Ada. Almost immediately, you hurried to take a shower and wash your teeth. You heard the door open, "Ada?" You left the room and saw Ada indeed standing there. She had two plastic bags with a red dress and the other was black dress, "Good thing you took a shower." She sat on the bed, "Here's your dress." It was a typical satin cocktail dress with small ruffles for texture. Ada always adored to dress in fancy dresses when the event was unknown complain or in a fancy situation. 

"How our company has enough money for your clothes is amazing." You whispered softly. Ada wouldn't dare actually wearing her actual clothes in real missions especially with missions that deal with blood. And writing clothes for taxes wouldn't count (As if Ada paid for taxes).

Ada laughed softly. "I got my ways." She handed you a sticky bra, "Can't wear a normal one with the dress." For the first time, there's peace between you and Ada, and even Ada noticed. You knew Ada was beautiful. There's no denial for you to say otherwise, but you couldn't deny either that she was a pain of an ass. Unnecessarily cold. She was a mercenary yet most of her employers were bad people. The worst that you couldn't imagine.

She was the worst yet you couldn't hate her. You knew... why she was like this. Nobody out of the blue decides to become a mercenary.

But peaceful moments are always interrupted by something stupid, mean or both. The hotel room was knocked by, it was room service and once again. It was too much for any random person looking by, the tense was tight and close. 

It didn't look like two friends enjoying time together. 

Room service awkwardly placed the chocolates on the bed and left you alone. 

"Get dress." She whispered.

"Yes, ma'am."

Ada went to the bathroom to shower herself as well. So, the mission wasn't clear yet, but you had to understand before anything else. You dried your body up and put on the dress, it was perfectly tight around your body. No tights. No stockings. Just heels and the dress. You sat on the bed waiting now for Ada to come out, you grabbed the remote and turned on the TV. Empty channels with nothing. How dull.

As you flicked through the channels, Ada finally came out with her bra and panties without shame. "It's a Thursday, why isn't there anything in TV?" You turned to see Ada in disbelief, "I have seen this damn strange commercial for Mr Clean like three times. At least MTV, is interesting." 

Ada put on her black tights, "Well, it's the Christmas season, you know how people are." Soon her red dress. "Zip me." Ada told you. You stood up and zipped up her dress. "You have the strangest scars, Ada." Your finger traced her back, her skin was always so smooth.

"But there aren't visible." Ada muttered back.

"They'll be later. You have seen the people in our work." You whispered. Ada grabbed the chocolates and dumped them in her bag, "Yeah, well, maybe in seven years," Ada looked at you, "Let's go to the damn club." 

The pair of girls began to walk towards the end of the hall. Tolerating the cold for like twenty minutes and entered the taxi. Ada fixed her dress a bit. The city lights reflected in her face, the details of Ada will definitely kill you.

When you two finally arrived at the club, Ada looked at you, "Don't mess it up." Ada's daily reminder of not screwing up. "So, you'll be alone?" You asked softly.

"Of course," Ada entered and like always swayed her hips back and forth, "Be a good girl." Ada only spoke to you in that degrading manner in front of people. You mocked her immediately when she turned her back. 

But Ada lost a fight today. You stole one of her chocolates; without a doubt, you opened the wrap and ate the chocolate. 

In the club, people had those cliché 1999 glasses as they drunk their souls away. Ada looked around and found the target. All of Ada's movements were planned. A gentle step here and another there, and she perked up her breasts. The target was an idiot. 

Those were her favorites.

Especially the jealous ones. The target was a fan of Ada's body. Ada smiled, "Hi." She put her hands on her hips once she saw her target in a close way. The flashing lights of green and blue were making her shine. The target smiled, "Hi." She answered back.

The target chewed on her lip, she rubbed her legs, "Your girlfriend isn't here?" Ada barely opened her mouth, but nothing came out when she felt your arms on her waist. The target groaned.

Ada turned to see you, your cheeks were flushed, "Um," Ada spoke your name softly, "Are you okay?" Ada checked on your face and they felt warm. She completely gave you her attention, she cupped your face and forced you took at you.

You felt so damn horrible. Your heart was beating so fast, blood was flushing all over your body. You were barely separated by Ada for twenty minutes, and you felt so... uneasy. "C-can you take me back to the hotel?" You begged weakly. 

Your thighs clenched up. All the blood in your body was focused on your pussy and your breasts. You though refused to use those words especially in front of the target. Ada nodded her head, "Yeah, sure," Ada put her hand on your waist and slowly dragged you away, "What did you eat?" Ada whispered softly. 

"I stole one of the chocolates from your bag." You admitted.

Damn you.

Ada sighed. Another plan of hers ruined because of your... dumbself. Ada dragged you out of the club, "Barely, barely a second in and you messed it." Ada hissed softly. 

You just felt turned on by her scolding. "Yeah, I know. I suck." You muttered.

Ada stopped a taxi. She didn't want to leave you alone in this state of mind. Your fingers were holding Ada's hips. "They'll last about three hours." Ada gently put you inside the taxi. It was a small wave throughout your body, it was focused on your nipples. You wanted to calm down. You needed to calm down. 

"Three?" You asked softly. Ada nodded her head, she entered inside with you and closed the door. Ada felt your warm body, the small trembles as your hands rubbed your thighs. Ada grabbed your hands to stop you. "No." 

This felt like a goddammit ovulation. Your pussy... you could feel it pulse. Your clit needed the simulation to get rid of this feeling. You rested your head on Ada's shoulder, "W-why didn't you tell me?" You asked weakly. If Ada just told her that they were sex chocolates, you wouldn't have touched it. Ada rolled her eyes, "I... I wasn't suppose to just tell you everything I do." 

But Ada knew you were right. Ada had worked alone for so long that she accidentally shot her own partner in foot. 

You two arrived back to the hotel. You were hold Ada, holding and loving her warmth, but never push your luck. It was a harsh difference from yesterday's fight. You two entered the elevator, your grabbed the bar and kept your legs open. You took in deep breaths over and over.

Ada wrapped her arms around your waist, "Listen, I may be a bitch," Her hands traced your thighs gently, "But it's my fault you are like this." That sounded good enough to convince herself as her fingers slowly raised your dress. 

Your thighs had goosebumps from the cold and from her simple finger moving up. All the shame you had was disappearing, it's was what you wanted. Ada's fingers slowly pushed away your panties and found your wetness. Her middle finger entered, her thumb was gently rubbing your clit. 

"Fuck," You grabbed more of the bar as that small gasp of a simple curse escaped, "Ada..." A pathetic whine. Ada's left hand rubbed your hips gently, "I know. I'm sorry." She kissed your neck. Her finger began to flick inside of you, her thumb and all of her remaining fingers were getting all your wetness. Your nipples felt so sensitive, so sore and needy to be touched. You couldn't complain about Ada. Her finger was fucking your pretty cunt as her thumb rubbed your clit.

Ada's hand grabbed your tits and squeezed them nice and good. Her breathing was increasing little by little. "You barely listen to me and you actually put on that sticky bra." Ada's hands lowered to your stomach to grab you properly. 

Her slender fingers forced themselves shoved inside of you. Her index and her middle were now being pumped over and over. The overwhelming smell of sex was stuffing this poor elevator and anyone who came back could tell. 

Your dumb mind was so happy that she had short nails, but it was obvious why she kept them short.

Ada was enjoying the show as well. Your dumb hips were attempting to keep still, but those small trembles. She smirked. Her fingers removed themselves from your cunt and rubbed around your needy clit. A high pitched whine escaped your mouth, "Ada..." It even trailed off a bit. How fun. Ada sucked her fingers.

"Turn to see me." Ada muttered in a low tone. 

You turned around. Your cheeks were warm, "Okay." Ada's fingers caressed your lips for a bit until she got into her knees. Her hands slid down your body until they grabbed your hips. Ada licked your wetness directly from you with long lick. Her nose pressed against your clit as she made out with your lips. 

You couldn't take it anymore. "Ada, fuck." Your hands grabbed her black hair and force her closer. Ada's fingertip grabbed your thighs tightly as she gave your cunt those teasing licks and sucks. Her warm tongue licked up all your messes, licking your folds over and over until it shoved itself inside your cunt. Your cunt immediately clench around it, but you weren't ready to cum. But it didn't matter when you came.

The elevator finally dinged at your level. Ada stood up and grabbed your hand tightly. Everything was happening to fast and quick when she opened the door. Ada finally kissed your lips, she wasn't as patient with your mouth as she was down in her knees. She slowly and carefully pushed your legs to walk backwards until you were on your back. She slide her own dress up and grinded her pussy against yours. This was cursed. Her tights and your panties were avoiding any proper touch.

Three hours of this. 

All because you ate the wrong chocolate.

[darkwitchingflower]

ITS BEEN A WHILE but here's things me and my friends have said as pjo character pt 4/5???

Annabeth: That's not very feminism of you (@wraith--2)

Hestia: maybe build like a life size bread bloke (@carpcranium)

Leo: Feels like my toes are bleeding but it's just cause they're defrosting (@wraith--2)

Percy to annabeth: Nooo pookie don't leave ill get her a spider abortion (friend not on tumblr)

Annabeth: I thought I'd die before seeing common sense in this gc (friend not on tumblr)

Jason: It's not boring to want money and to not be even more mentally ill (@indecisivenb)

Leo: Sure bud (me)

Piper: Jesus was not straight (@wraith--2)

Some random camper in the dining pavillion: Hes staring into my soup (@wraith--2)

Leo: Everyone needs a piece of Leo (friend not on gc)

Leo: Me dehydrated: must not drink sex juice (@wraith--2)

Jason: Me and Percy cockfight like 3 times (@chefchennan)

Piper: Harry x hermione

Ron x jesus or smth

Luna x whoever tf she ended with? (Friend not on tumblr)

Mr D to someone being given a quest: You don't have a choice

They don't have a choice

It's equality all around (me)

Piper: Im not a people pleaser, im a woman pleaser (friend not on tumblr)

Jason (idk why but i instantly thought Jason): saggy balls? (@chefchennan)

Thalia: From your local asexual xx (@wraith--2)

Thalia: Homicide on Pinterest is an interest (@wraith--2)

Chiron: oh that's nice to see! A camper with a smile! (My criminology teacher)

Annabeth: ye I made percy smile by telling him I didn't like him in greek! (Friend not on tumblr)

Apollo: Will! Thoughts on be crime do gay?! (@carpcranium)

Thalia about Frank: Me and him are still friends we shoot kids together yesterday (@chefchennan)

Will doing some form of doctor test idk: I'm gonna skedaddle into your scrotum (@wraith--2)

Thalia: I f**king love garlic bread yummers. Its gotten so bad that I eat is everyday. I sweat garlic butter and shit out logs of bread. It's an endless cycle and I remake the garlic break with what I unleash (friend not on tumblr)

Percy to Annabeth (leo helped after frank found them in the stables): Thine eyes are blessed with the sight of her. Her.

Who I wake to every morning and think of

Who I dream of at night

Aphrodite has forsaken me yet she is my light

The waves will roar and crash

And I know, she is always up for a smash (@wraith--2)

Leo to literally any girl with a pulse: When I see her thoughts are gone

And all I can do is simply long

She could never be mine

Yet still I pine (@wraith--2)

Rachel thinking abiut percy: Days will pass and the sun shall set

All the while I'd place a bet

That I'm still there

Twirling my hair

Dreaming of something that was never fair (@wraith--2)

Thalia: is is the most fun I've had in ages, I'm trying to teach the bot aromanticisum (@wraith--2)

Thalia: As a matter of fact I am definitely aromantic but thanks for the suggestion (@wraith--2)

Leo, he meant to say floppy disks: Have you ever seen one of those floppy dicks-...🤏 (friend not in tumblr)

Mr D: Anyways orgies (@wraith--2)

Will to Nico: She's like nah, no love hearts have an onion were like Shrek now (me)

Percy: When I go to sleep I'm going to dream about gay sea creatures aren't I? (@wraith--2)

Annabeth: It's okay I'm a big girl I cry into my pillow (@wraith--2)

Annabeth: ohhh right in the trust issues (@thatonelazyghost)

[arlana-likes-to-write]

Face to Face

Another “What if” of Family is More than Blood 

Summary: When Alexei tells you over dinner that it’s time to go on an adventure you and Natasha know excatly what he means. Melina said you didn’t have a choice, the mission was over, and it’s time to go home. But to you your choice would always to save your sisters. 

Warnings: gun shot, bullets, brief mention of killing

Word Count: 5k 

1995 - Ohio

Something was wrong. You could see it on Melina’s face as you sat down next to Natasha to eat dinner. She wouldn’t look at you. “Girls,” Alexei said. “Do you remember when I told you that one day we would have that big adventure?” Finally, Melina looked at you and Natasha as you felt your sister grab onto your hand. “Today’s the day.” 

“Yay!” Yelena exclaimed. Your stomach dropped and you felt your throat close. No. You didn’t want to go back. You wanted to stay here. 

“Alright, let’s go!” Alexei said, slamming his hands down on the table and standing up. He walked out of the dining room with Yelena close behind. But you, Melina, and Natasha didn’t get up to follow. Natasha squeezed your hand. You knew the world that was waiting for you as soon as you left Ohio. 

“I’m sorry,” Melina whispered. Was she? You couldn’t tell if she was telling the truth or not. She left the table. 

“Y/n,” Natasha whispered. You looked at her, fear in her green eyes. 

“I know,” you said, placing your hand on her cheek. “Go get your shoes. It will be okay,” You stood up and ran to your room. You dunk underneath your bed and pull out a small box. With shaky hands, you opened it and a pistol rested inside. It’s been three years since you held one. You attached it to your hip and put on a sweatshirt. Before leaving, you grabbed a photo strip of you and your sisters. You sighed and ran back to the living room. 

“Leave it, leave it,” Melina said to Natasha as she had the photo album in her hand. Natasha put it down and ran to the garage. Melina watched her run before picking up the album herself. 

“You don’t want to go back,” you said. She didn’t look at you as she put the photo album into the bag she was carrying. 

“We don’t have a choice. The mission is over,” you grabbed her arm before she could walk away. 

“Help me,” you pleaded. “Help me get them out of this.” 

“Come on, let's go!” Alexei’s voice called from the garage. Your heart was pounding in your rib cage. 

“I’ve been circled through the Red Room three times before you girls were born,” her Russian accent slipped through each word. She pulled her arm out of your hold. “I don’t have a choice.” But she did. She was the only one that could give Natasha and Yelena a better life. 

“What if I give you one,” she stopped. “A way to take Natasha and Yelena away from them. A way for you to escape.” 

“What are you doing?” She asked. 

“Nothing,” it was the truth. But the wheels in your brain were turning. From the moment the Red Room assigned Natasha and Yelena to be your sisters, you made a promise to yourself to protect them. It was wishful thinking because you knew the mission would come to an end but you needed to try. “Nothing at all.” You followed Melina into the garage. 

“You have it?” She asked Alexei. You opened the side door that Yelena was on as you watched Alexei hold up a floppy disk and put it in his bag. 

“Move over,” you told the blonde. She started to whine about being in the middle but you gave her a pointed look and she moved over. You got in and closed the door. Alexei and Melina got in and he threw the bag at your feet. Alexei pulled out of the driveway, not bothering to close the garage door and driveway from the only home you knew. There were still kids playing in the street and you saw Natasha rest her head against the glass and watch them. You wished you knew what was going on in her head. 

“Where are we going?” Yelena asked. Her bare feet barely touched the ground. She was too young to go back. You and Natasha were younger but it wasn’t a competition. 

“Home,” Melina’s eyes flickered to yours in the mirror. Yelena giggled. 

“Mommy, you're silly,” she smiled. “We just left home.” You sighed, resting your head on the window. She was right. You just left home. Russia and the Red Room wasn’t home because a home is where you felt loved and safe. But the mission was over. You had to return home. 

Soon the neighborhood changed as Alexei turned onto the highway. The car ride was too silent for your liking and you saw Yelena getting antsy. “How about you play some music?” You asked Alexei. He pushed the cassette tape and American Pie began to fill the quiet car ride. 

“Bye, bye, Miss. American Pie,” you sang along with Yelena. Melina rested her head on her hand, a frown edged on her face. Natasha was watching a football game as you drove by. You glanced at the bag at your feet, ideas moving in your head. 

*

Alexei pulled down a dirt road and Yelena leaned into you more as the lights disappeared. “It’s okay malen'koye solnyshko (little sun),” you whispered. “I’ll protect you.” 

“Promise?” She asked, looking up at you. Your heart began to pound against your ribcage. Could she feel it? Could Alexei hear it? 

“Yeah, promise.” Alexei stopped the car and you were the first one out of it. 

“Grab my back,” he told you. You did as you were told. Melina helped Yelena out of the car as you ran over to the greenhouse where the small prop plane was hidden. You tore down the plastic and took away the brake from the front tire. It clicked in your head as you looked over your shoulder and Melina was telling Natasha and Yelena to run. Yelena was holding onto a small teddy bear. Alexei flipped a trailer to clear the path for the plane as sirens approached. It was more of a chance than a choice. A chance for the three of them to live. You opened the door of the plane and jumped in, closing and locking it behind you. A single shot from Alexei’s rifle made you jump as you moved to the pilot seat. 

“Open the door,” Melina said, banging on the door. You took the floppy disk out of Alexei’s bag and pushed it into her hands from the window of the cockpit. 

“A choice, right?” Another gunshot and you saw a police car flip. “Save them. Save yourself. That is your choice.” You turned on the plane and the engine roared to life. Melina looked at you, her jaw clenched. “I’ll try to keep them away from you.” You were running out of time. 

“What’s going on?” Natasha asked. You ripped the photo strip in half and put one half and the pistol in Natasha’s hands. 

“Look after them for me, sestra,” you smiled. Her green eyes widened. 

“Don’t let them take your heart,” Melina told you. You nodded, closed the window, and drove the plane out of the greenhouse. The Red Room taught you many things but Melina was the one to teach you how to fly in case something went wrong. You drove down the runway as Alexei ran beside it, shooting the cars behind you. He jumped onto the wing and he didn’t mask his confusion when he saw you flying. It was short-lived as bullets hit the plane and you were shot in the arm. You screamed in pain and the plane began to drift. You couldn’t crash though. They needed time to get away. 

‘I don’t want to go back,’ you heard Natasha’s voice. 

‘Promise?’ That was Yelena’s. You turned the handle to get the plane under control. Two cars were coming for you. 

 ‘Hit the accelerator,’ you heard Melina’s voice. The plane sped up. Alexei fired forward and bullets hit the window. ‘Hold it steady.’ You listened to her. ‘Pull back at 55 knots. Let’s count together.’ 

“45, 50..” you counted, dodging another bullet. Alexei shot out a tire and the two cars flipped. 

‘55. Pull back. Pull back with all your strength.’ You yelled as you got the plane in the air. The adrenaline wore off and the pain of the wound on your arm became worse. Once you got the plane steady, Alexei opened the door. 

“Where are they?” He asked, his English accent gone. “I asked you a question, where are they?” You didn’t answer, focus on flying the plane and trying not to bleed out. “Turn us around,” You laughed, glancing at him. He had the rifle aimed at you. 

“Or what?” You asked. It felt weird speaking with your native accent. It sounded wrong. “You’ll shoot me. If you kill me the plane goes down and even with the serum you’ll die. Do you know why?” It was his turn to stay quiet. “Because no one will come looking for you.” There was an intense hatred in his eyes, something you’d never seen directed at you. “We finish this mission without them.”  

*

Cuba

“Where are they?” He asked you. His guards were pointing their guns at you as if you were the threat, the enemy. You were a 14-year-old girl with no weapon and a gunshot wound in your arm.  

“I don’t know,” you admitted. It was the truth. You weren’t sure if they got arrested, shot, or killed. 

“I can deal with her,” Alexei said. You glared at the man who was your father for 3 years. But Dreyokv helped up his hand to stop the man. 

“No need, old friend,” he said, taking your chin in his hands. “I know how to deal with bad, malen'kiy pauk (little spider).” 

*

2007 - Washington DC 

“Romanoff, Barton, my office,” Fury said, walking past the two agents toward his office. Clint shrugged his shoulders and followed the director. Natasha sighed, running through a mental checklist of all the responsibilities she needed to take care of. All those boxes were checked so that wasn’t it. She hoped he wasn’t sending her on a mission because she planned to go home this weekend. When she entered Fury’s office, Clint was sitting down and Maria and Phil were there. She closed the door and joined her friend at the table. “This is strictly needed to know,” Fury said. “Our friends in the council have tasked us to bring down an individual. She’s responsible for over 100 confirmed kills and is extremely dangerous,” the screen flipped through different government officials, police officers, and civilians who have been killed. 

“So you want us to bring her in?” Clint asked, taking a sip of his coffee. 

“The council wants you to eliminate her,” Maria said. “Fury has other plans,” Natasha smirked at the eye roll she hid from her boss. The agent sent her a wink. 

“They fail to see the benefits of having a Russian agent on our side if we can get her to defect,” Natasha’s heart skipped and her stomach dropped at the mention of Russia. Clint stole a glance at her. The only people at SHIELD that knew the truth about her past were in this room. 

“Do we have an identity?” Natasha asked. 

“No confirmed identity but we have a list of aliases and a picture,” Phil put up a blurry picture of a girl with her hood covering part of her face. It was impossible to run that picture through facial recognition software but Natasha could never forget your face. 

“She goes by Black Widow and-”

“She’s from the Red Room,” Natasha cut Fury off. “Do we have a location for her now?” 

“We think her next target will be in the States,” Phil explained. That scared Natasha even more. Were you after them? Was the Red Room finally caught up to them?

“Who is she, Nat?” Maria asked. The redhead sighed, picking at the skin of her thumb. 

“Technically,” she said slowly. “She’s my sister and I may know who her next target is.” 

“Who?” 

“My family.” 

*

West Chester, Pennsylvania 

“Mom, I’m home,” Yelena called out, toeing off her sneakers and throwing her backpack on the couch. 

“There’s food in the kitchen,” she heard Melina call out. After soccer practice, Yelena was always starving. She walked into the kitchen and found the muffins Melina left out of her. 

“Is Nat coming home this weekend?” She called out, her mouth full of the muffin she was eating. 

“What have I said about speaking with food in your mouth?” Melina asked, pouring more coffee from the pot. Yelena merely shrugged. “I believe so but you never know with her job.” Yelena was proud of her sister but she missed her. The first soccer game of her senior year was this weekend and Natasha said she’d come to see her play plus she always brought Yelena something from DC. It was a win-win. The house began to ring. 

“I got it,” Yelena said. “Hello,” she answered. 

“Is mom there?” Natasha asked. 

“Speak of the devil,” Yelena said, playing with the cord of the phone. “Do you have cameras in the house we were just talking about you?” 

“I need to speak to Melina,” Yelena sighed, leaning against the counter. 

“No hello or how are you,” she said. “Are you coming to my soccer game this weekend? Oh! You should have Maria tag along with you.” She teased. She’s only met Maria a handful of times but she saw the way her sister looked at the agent. It was cute, disgusting but cute. 

“Yelena, give the phone to Melina.” The blonde rolled her eyes. 

“The princess wants to speak with you,” she gave Melina the phone and grabbed an apple from the bowl of fruit, ignoring Melina saying something about spoiling her dinner as she walked to the living room. But something caught her eye out the window and she stopped. There was a black car parked outside, a car she’s seen around town, at school, soccer practice, and a diner with her friends. This time she saw who was driving. It was a woman, around Natasha’s age, and she was leaning against the driver's side door with a drink in her hand. She had sunglasses on, black jeans, and a hoodie. Yelena saw her smile. “Mom,” she called out, not taking her eyes away from the stranger. “Mom, there is someone outside.” 

“She’s here,” she heard Melina say and hung up the phone. 

“Who’s she?” Yelena asked but Melina didn’t answer. Instead, she pulled Yelena away from the window. 

“Go to my office and lock the door,” a gun was pushed into her hands. “Don’t come out until I tell you to.” 

“What’s going on?” Yelena asked. 

“Please do as I say, okay?” Melina cupped her face in her hands. “Your sister is on her way.” 

“Okay,” Yelena nodded. “Okay.” She ran for Melina’s office, closing and locking the door behind her. Her heart was pounding against her rib cage. She tried to steady her breathing but her mind was transported back to when she was young and gunshots hit the car she was in. But a voice told her to breathe. She heard that same voice now. She listened to it and her chest loosened up and air flowed into her lungs. They were going to be okay. 

*

You watched as Melina dragged Yelena away from the window. It took your breath away how old she’s gotten. Your baby sister was a senior in high school and a star soccer player. You smiled, pulling up the sleeve of your jacket to look at your watch. You knew Natasha would be on her way but you had time to go see them. You put the empty cup and sunglasses in the rental and walked to the front door. The neighborhood was nice, a split image of the one you lived in Ohio. But this time it was real. They weren’t on a mission or a job and you hated you had to uproot their life but this was important. Before you could knock on the door, it swung open and Melina was holding a rifle to you. Your hands went up. “Well,” you said, slipping into your American accent. “Hello Mama, this is one way to greet me after all these years,” you smiled. The older Widow didn’t budge. “I’m unharmed minus the knife on my hip.” She took a step back and you took it as a silent confirmation to enter. You kicked the door close, not breaking eye contact with the woman you haven’t seen in 11 years, who checked you for weapons and found only the knife. It had dried blood on it. 

“Whose blood?”

“Mine,” you told her. “Upper left thigh,” it was already beginning to heal because of the serum in your veins. “I had to take the tracker out.” Even with the admission that you didn’t want to be followed Melina still didn’t lower your weapon. It hurt that she didn’t trust you but a part of you understood. “I’m not here to kill you, Melina. Or Yelena or Natasha,” you whispered. 

“Sit,” she ordered you to sit down at the dining room table. You noticed the photo album as you walked by. You sat down, keeping your hands visible. The last thing you wanted was for her to shoot you. 

“What now?” You questioned. 

“We wait.” 

*

Natasha’s leg wouldn’t stop bouncing. They were still an hour out and she knew Melina could handle you but that didn’t quiet your anxiety. They were free from the Red Room for 11 years and she hated it if everything was ruined. Yelena was so close to graduating high school and Fury already offered her a spot at SHIELD if she chose to join. “Hey,” Maria sat down next to her. “Everything will be okay.”

“The last time I saw she jumped into the pilot seat before Melina could and I watched the plane she was in get shot at,” she said. “She told Melina to save us. We escaped while she flew off.”

“I don’t think she’ll hurt you,” Natasha shrugged. 

“We don’t know that,” she whispered. “She was with them for 11 years. We don’t know what they did to her.” Her leg started to shake again. Maria placed her hand on top of her leg. 

“Your right but whatever happens we’ll deal with it together,” Natasha smiled, placing her hand on top of Maria’s, interlocking their fingers. Together. That sounded nice. 

*

“Are you sure you don’t want one of us to go with you?” Clint asked, his hand resting on his chin. Natasha put on the earpiece that Phil gave her. They were a few houses away from hers. 

“She doesn’t know any of you. They could set her off,” she said. “I’ll bring her in.” Clint sighed. 

“I don’t like this. I don’t like this,” Natasha smiled, placing her hand on the archer’s shoulder and squeezing it. Once Phil put a camera on her shirt that gave them eyes and ears inside while she was comforting you, she was ready. 

“Don’t do anything stupid, okay?” Phil asked. 

“Never,” she teased and walked over to the black car. The engine was cold so you’ve been here for a while. She let out a shaky breath, pulled out her gun, and entered. “Melina,” she called out, closing the door.

“Dining room,” the older woman called out. She made her way over there and saw Melina sitting at one head of the table with her rifle on the table. 

“Natalia,” you smiled. There you were, in the flesh. Not in her nightmares of the few years she had to go through the Red Room or that night in Ohio. You were sitting right in front of her. It was unsettling. “Look at you. All grown up.” Natasha squeezed the grip of her gun. 

“Has she hurt you?” She asked Melina. Her mother shook her head. Natasha saw the frown replace the smile on your face. 

“Did you think I’d hurt them?” You questioned. Nastaha wasn’t sure. She wanted to believe you were the same girl that pushed a photo strip in her hands and told her to look after Yelena and Melina. 

“Where’s Yelena?” You shrugged. 

“No idea,” you said. “I saw her from the window and when I opened the door Melina had a gun to my face. I’ve been sitting here ever since.” Natasha took a step forward. 

“I could kill you and all this will be over,” you chuckled, shaking your head. 

“You won’t kill me,” you smiled. Natasha was getting visions of years spent together in the Red Room. Every time the instructors put you against each other, you could flash her that smile. 

“Now why wouldn’t I?”

“Two reasons,” you put one finger up. “One, you would get blood all over the wall and Mama was a stickler for messes when we were younger and I don’t see that changing now.” Natasha heard laughing in her ear. “And two,” you stood up and Melina mirrored you. You walked over to Natasha so the barrel of the gun was pointed at your heart. “There is a part of you that’s curious, right? Why after all these years am I finally reaching out? If it’s not to kill you then why am I here?” You were right. If Natasha pulled the trigger none of their questions would be answered and Fury wanted you alive. 

“Why are you here?” Melina asked. Before you could answer a door opened and closed. 

“Can I come out now?” Yelena asked. Her footsteps echoed through the quiet house and she froze when she rounded the corner. Her eyes went from you to Natasha then to Melina then back to you. “I know you,” she said. “Your Y/n,” you nodded. Natasha could see the tears forming in the corner of your eyes. “I don’t understand. What’s going on?” Natasha put her gun down. 

“Call in your friends that are waiting outside,” you told Natasha. “We are going to need some help with this.”  

*

You found yourself sitting on Melina’s couch after making a quick introduction with Maria, Clint, and Phil. Yelena was sitting down next to you. Clint was standing in the corner and Phil was in the extra chair. Maria and Natasha were on the other couch, sitting next to each other. You could see their fingers brushing against each other. “You’ve grown up,” you said to Yelena. 

“No shit,” she laughed. You smiled at the sound. Melina brought a bottle of vodka and a few glasses for everyone. 

“How much do they know?” You asked, pouring yourself a drink. 

“Everything,” Natasha took the bottle for herself. Well, that would make things easier. You were still struggling to believe you were sitting with your sisters and Melina and the people closest to them. You dreamed of this reunion for years but not like this. You took a shot. 

“11 years ago the Red Room conducted a mission. They needed an American family to blend in and steal information from a SHIELD Facility. They chose myself, Yelana, and Natasha as siblings and Melina and Alexei were our parents.” 

“Where is Alexei?” Yelena asked. 

“The last time I checked a Russian prison,” you stared into the clear liquid. You’ve thought about breaking him out but the hatred in his eyes in Cuba still haunted you. “Alexei drove us to an airport and a firefight broke out. I got into the plane before Melina and locked them out,” you sighed. “I told Melina to save them and I gave Melina whatever Alexei stole,” you took another shot. “I never saw them again.” 

“What did you do with it?” Phil asked Melina. 

“Destroyed it as soon as we were safe,” Melina took a shot herself. She leaned back, crossing one leg over the other. “It was research on brain functions.” 

“Why are you here?” Clint asked. You looked at him. His arms were crossed and you knew by the look on his face he didn’t trust you. 

“Dreyvok wants them back,” you said. “He believes he’s at a palace where he can bring them home.” You watched Natasha tense up and Maria placed her hand on her thigh. The color drained from Yelena’s face. But Melina kept her face neutral, you weren’t surprised by that. 

“And he sent you to bring them in,” you nodded. “Why you?” Maria asked. Your jaw clenched. 

“Punishment,” you whispered. “He knows I had a hand in helping them escape.” 

“I’m surprised he didn’t have you killed,” Natasha said. You sighed. 

“Death would have been a blessing,” you mumbled. You could feel his hands on you and his breath on your neck. The vodka you drank was turning in your stomach. 

“What do we do?” Yelena asked. 

“We kill him,” Melina said. “We bring down the Red Room.” 

*

It was easier said than done as the Red Room was impossible to find. But a plan began to be formed. You used Melina’s shower and changed into some of Natasha’s old clothes. It was a brief moment you felt normal. However, it was short-lived when you stepped out of the bathroom and were surrounded by photos of Melina, Natasha, and Yelena. You were standing in the home they built, a place you didn’t belong. You picked up a photo that appeared to be from Natasha’s graduation. “They fought a lot,” Yelena said, walking up to you. “Especially when we first moved here.” 

“About what?” You asked, putting the picture down. 

“You.” your mouth dropped, not expecting her answer. Yelena smiled. “Natasha wanted to go find you and bring you home but Melina said it was too dangerous.” 

“Home?” You questioned. Yelena nodded, motioning for you to follow her. You did and she led you to a closed door. She opened it and let you walk in. It was a simple bedroom and you recognized some of your things from Ohio. Your guitar, a blanket that was thrown on your bed, and a stuffed animal you got from a fair. 

“I sometimes found Melina and Natasha in here,” you sat on the bed, moving your fingers over the blanket. 

“I’m surprised you remembered me,” you whispered. She sat down next to you. 

“I could never forget you,” you smiled. 

“I missed you so much, malen'koye solnyshko (little sun),” you pushed away a tear that fell from Yelena’s eyes as she recognized the familiar name. She hugged you tight and you let out a shaky breath, not used to touch in this way. For the past 11 years, each touch left a bruise, a scar, and blood. 

“Please don’t leave us again,” Yelena whispered. 

“I won’t,” you promised. It was a dangerous promise to make. 

*

Natasha found you sitting on the floor against the bed. You were strumming against the guitar. It was an odd sight, she thought. She never thought she would see you again. Natasha listened to you play, lost in your world for you to not notice her. She knocked on your door. You looked up, your eyes were glossy with tears. “Hey,” you said, putting the guitar down. 

“Mind if I join you?” You shook your head. Natasha sat down next to you. “How are you doing?” You sighed, bringing one of your knees to your chest. 

“I’m ready for this to be over,” you admitted. You had a far-off look in your eyes but you snapped out of it quickly. “So what’s the story between you and Maria?” You asked. Natasha couldn’t help the blush that appeared on her face. 

“Shut up,” she mumbled. You laughed, shaking your head. Natasha couldn’t help but wonder what he did to you. The smile on your face wasn’t as bright as it was back in Ohio. “When this is all said and done, what’s your plan?” She asked. 

“I don’t know,” you mumbled. Natasha felt her stomach drop. “I never had the choice, you know?” Natasha nodded. She knew to an extent but for the past 11 years, she had choices. 

“You could join SHIELD,” she said. “Use everything they taught us to do some good in the world,” you hummed, nodding your head. “We could be a family again; you, me, Yelena, and Melina,” she took half of a photo strip out of her pocket and handed it to you. You smiled, tracing each face in the photo. 

“Family, eh?” You questioned. You went into the pocket of the sweatpants you borrowed from Natasha and took out the other half of the photo. You connected them where you ripped them. 

“I missed you,” the redhead admitted. “I replay that day over and over again in my head and wonder if we could have done something different so all of us could have gotten out of there.” You shook your head. 

“Someone had to fly the plane and it wasn’t going to be Alexei,” you smiled. 

“Why you then?” She asked. You looked at her, staring into her green eyes. 

“I’m your big sister,” you said. “It’s my job to look after you.” Hurried footsteps running towards your room, stopped the conversation. It was Yelena. 

“Dinner is ready,” she said. “Mom told me to come to find you,” her hands rested on her hips. “This house isn’t that big. I don’t know why it took me so long.” Natasha laughed, standing up. She held out her hand to help you stand up. 

“You are going to need to sharpen those skills, sestra,” Natasha said. “How else are you going to make it through the academy?” Yelena huffed. 

“Who said I want to be a SHIELD agent?”

“I guess you’ll miss spending some extra time with me then,” you smiled, putting your arm around Natasha’s shoulders. Yelena’s eyes widened. 

“You're joining SHIELD?!?” You nodded. 

“Yeah, I guess I am,” you said. “Together, right?”

“Promise?” Yelena put her pinky up. You wrapped your pinky around hers. It didn’t take long for Natasha to join. 

_

I thought this was fun and another way to look at our favorite sisters! Let me know if you want to see more of this. 

[the-irken-pony]

Okay but. A THSC/Inscryption crossover is So Cool and has a LOT of potential. Like Henry could 100% fill Luke's role with ease, he's the kinda idiot to go do that shit but SURVIVE actually. Alternatively, THSC characters filling the Scrybe roles? *chefs kiss*

Ooooh, YES

I just have this idea of a post-T4L thing like

Reginald goes missing without any sign of what happened, and Henry and RHM spend months trying to find him. Then someone makes a comment about how “last time I saw him he was heading to the computer room to play that weird game”, and Henry and RHM start to wonder if the game is at all connected to Reginald’s disappearance considering they found it through dubious methods (same way Luke did).

As it turns out the floppy disk is still in the computer after all this time. Since the Right Hand Man is a cyborg, the two of them decide to upload his consciousness into the game to try and look for Reginald (listen their designated brain cell went missing).

So, RHM takes the role of the player character and has in-game control, Henry takes the role of Luke and has outside control through menus, and because RHM’s body is still outside they’re still able to communicate. No one takes the role of Amanda because the Toppat Clan isn’t dumb enough to tell anyone that they stole something.

Because of the nature of Inscryption being a deck builder game, the two had some difficulty. By which I means multitude of deaths. RHM’s cybernetics have some pretty hefty antivirus and firewall software, so he’s protected from in-game death (being how he remembers everything and still has the camera roll. He can still make death cards though (even if they all look the same) and he and Henry have fun making the most busted cards they can.

After the first death, when Leshy introduces bones, he gives them the opossum card. In the following battle, they discover this to be another talking card. Yes, this card is Reginald. Same stats as the death card, but in the Opossum card rather than a death card (two bones rather than three + no sigil). The stoat gives him shit for being cocky and Reginald finds its nagging and nitpicking annoying. It’s through this exchange that Henry and RHM find out what exactly happened to Reginald in the first place (finding himself trapped in the game and losing a game to Leshy).

Things progress mostly as normal from this point on for act 1: they try to figure out how to beat Leshy, hoping that doing so will solve their problems. Meanwhile all Reginald can do is talk to the other talking cards & RHM.

But then Act 2 hits and they realize there's more to deal with.

Reginald is briefly missing but he's found easily enough (and is actually himself this time), and tags along. He can't play the game himself like RHM and Henry can but he can give commentary here and there. He wanted them to collect as many Mox cards as possible in the hopes that they could take their gems back to the real world, to which he got a "look" from RHM.

Act 3 comes around and Reginald becomes a talking card again, this time called Copperbot, with the Cowardly sigil (whenever an enemy would attack he moves into an empty space, if the option is available). RHM is strapped to the table for the first bit and is unable to leave the game until he's released.

No one dies at the end but they're eventually able to get Reginald out and the three of them all have a long nap afterwards skjfhskjf

Uhhhh fuck I don't have more ideas from this point on but here's what all I have, I'm a little bit insane about it

[lightblueminecraftorchid]

Okay I’m talking about OneHalf anyway I like it too much.

Imagine you are an employee at a large company in the mid 1990s. You use MS-DOS; your company hasn’t sprung for Windows 3.0 because it would be expensive to update all of their equipment, and DOS works just fine for spreadsheets. Besides, everyone here is still using Lotus 1-2-3, and you don’t want to bother learning a new spreadsheet program like Excel.

You and your coworkers on your team share files a lot. You have to, really; you have a lot of data that needs processing, and it’s best to get a second set of eyes on something before you give it to your boss. Right now, you’ve just received a floppy disk from your coworker, Dan, to run on your computer and make sure everything looks right. Apparently his computer has been making some weird noises lately, and he’d rather be sure that everything saved alright, since your computer hasn’t been having any issues.

You insert the floppy into the disk drive, boot up DOS, and run the files. He’s got some spreadsheets, and a copy of Adventure; a game you’ve been wanting to play with him for a while. Dan’s great like that. Everything works fine. Looks like everything saved okay, but you keep a copy on your computer, just in case. You pass the floppy disk back to Dan and quickly move on to something else. Soon, the workday is over; you save your work, maybe take your floppy disks home if you have a home computer, and power down your computer. Maybe Dan’s just been having a bad week; computers make weird noises or hang unexpectedly sometimes, it’s just a fact of life. You hope it clears up by Monday, but it’s not really your problem right now.

Next Monday, you go into the office and start work again. Your computer boots up and- did the disk drive always sound that way? You feel like something’s off, but… your computer boots fine. Your files open normally, Lotus 1-2-3 doesn’t have any issues. It feels like there’s a tiny bit of lag between typing commands and programs opening, but that’s nothing new. These computers haven’t been updated in a while; maybe they’re just getting old? Or maybe Dan’s anxiety over his computer got in your head. It’s probably fine.

But on Tuesday, it still sounds weird. And Wednesday. And Thursday. You’ve heard of viruses before; there was that big news scare over Datacrime II and Michaelangelo, although they didn’t turn out to really be an issue. You know that viruses usually increase your file size, so you just check real quick. Graphics seems fine, 19,742 bytes still. You check Lotus 1-2-3; seems fine. It’s fine. VSafe isn’t pinging you, so… you’re probably just overthinking it.

Several weeks pass. You get used to the new way your computer boots up; Dan and you commiserate about the computers getting old and out of date. You joke about it with other coworkers; your boss hears about it and assures you that your computers will be replaced when there’s a budget for it, but for now, please try to take care of these machines.

And then, one day, while you’re working, you hear Dan pause. You look over, and you see that he’s just staring at his screen. His computer, which he had just booted up, says “Dis is one half” on the screen.

You both share a look, and then he hurries off to the IT department.

He comes back with a guy you’ve seen in passing, but don’t really talk to. He’s holding a floppy disk and explaining to Dan that, since this just happened, he probably has some sort of virus on his device. The IT guy finds that Dan’s files are the size they should be, but that the drive’s making some weird sounds, so he’s gonna be safe and install a clean version of the Master Boot Record, just to be safe. It’s probably some silly prank from a coworker with a hobby computer at home; he starts asking Dan if he’d left his computer on unattended lately, or used any floppies from people he didn’t usually work with.

Your computer was making those same weird sounds. Now seems like an important time to mention that, but the IT guy keeps talking and you’ve got to go home soon. In five minutes, you’ll be off the clock, and your boss has a habit of shooing everyone out the door who isn’t doing something past 5. You say your goodbyes and tell Dan you hope his computer gets fixed soon.

The next day, you walk in to an ashen-faced Dan waiting by your desk.

His files are trashed. That clean copy of the master boot record must have been corrupted or something, but the IT guy used the same floppy on a test computer and it worked exactly as it should have. Whatever happened after was enough to get the IT guy panicking, and worse, everything Dan has done on that computer for the past three years is toast. Even programs that come with the computer, like CONFIG, seem to be broken; he tried to run it, only to get back a ton of gibberish text.

The IT guy comes running back in, saying that his test computer is now making that weird sound from Dan’s computer. He’d taken another floppy and downloaded some of Dan’s surviving files, and now that he’s run them on another device, he’s confirmed it; Dan’s computer had a virus, and removing the virus is how the computer broke. Problem being, none of the three of you know what that virus is. All you know is this:

- Dan’s computer made a weird sound on startup

- Dan gave you one of his floppy disks, and you ran it

- Right after that, your computer started making the same noises

- Dan didn’t lose any of his data until he tried to get rid of the virus

You realize you have a very important decision to make. Do you let the IT guy try to disinfect your computer, so this doesn’t spread? Or do you keep working as usual, hoping that your computer doesn’t break like Dan’s?

This is what OneHalf does; it creates an encryption key, and then, every time you boot up, it encrypts the last two sectors of your hard disk. It’s memory resident, so any .com or .exe files you run get infected (like that copy of Adventure), but it uses stealth techniques to hide the increase in file size. It also decrypts files you try to access that are encrypted, effectively hiding from the user that there’s an issue until it’s much too late. Because it has to spin the disk to the encryption key to decrypt your files, and because the virus itself leaves instructions to decrypt your files in the master boot record, the seek test sound on startup is noticeably different.

Once half of your hard disk is encrypted, OneHalf will show the message “Dis is one half” when you boot up. That’s the first explicit sign that you’re infected. By then, much of your data is encrypted, and if you try to remove the virus by installing a clean copy of the master boot record, the instructions to decrypt your encrypted files are lost, and those files become unrecoverable. Specialized programs have to be used to find and save the encryption key and decrypt your files while safely disinfecting your computer.

[sailor-toni]

Danny Fenton Football Captain and the East Coast Vampire

Epilogue

You can also read this on A03, FF.net, and Wattpad

The Amity Park airport was small, it only had eight gates and one lonely Mcdonalds stand that waited for its passengers behind the TSA checkpoint. At the checkpoint stood an overweight and shabby TSA guard. He stood there watching the Fenton family as he picked a booger out of his nose, before he flicked it to the side. Jazz looked sick and tried not to gag.

    Meanwhile the whole situation made Danny want to vomit. He had only been out of the hospital for a day and his parents were already dragging him to see him . Vlad Masters stood a foot smaller than his father but his ego was larger than the empire state building. He wore a pitch black casual suit, with a gold handle umbrella in his right hand. In his left Desiree was wrapped around his arm, her long black hair had been moved to hide her black eye. She gave Danny a kind motherly smile. Danny just rolled his eyes, shifting his weight to a leg that wasn’t currently hurting. 

“Well V-man! It was nice to see you again,” Jack said.

“Yes, it was a pleasure to see the both of you again. Hopefully we can meet again soon,” Vlad replied. 

“Of course, and hopefully there won’t be another fire alarm prank next time. Maybe we can spend a nice night together. You know just the four of us?” Maddie said. 

“Yes! We will have to goona double date next time. Won’t that be fun Vlad?” Desiree said. “Maybe next time you can visit us and we can take you to that restaurant we liked. The one with the deconstructed sushi with the gold flakes?” 

“That sounds amazing! Isn't it Jack?” Maddie said.

“What the heck is deconstructed sushi?” Jack stated. 

“Oh Jack, I’ll have to show you. It has to be one of the best things I have had in a while,” Vlad smoothed the mood over. “It was also nice to finally meet your children.” 

“Yes. It was great to get some advice for college and meet someone like Mr. Masters” Jazz said. 

“You don’t need to call me Mr. Masters, you can just call me uncle Vlad,” Vlad said. 

“Maybe someday Mr. Masters,” Jazz gracefully put it. 

“That is okay. Take your time,” Vlad then turned to Danny. 

Danny sighed “It was nice to meet you sir,” 

“It was nice to meet you to Daniel, I hope we can meet again soon. I see bright things in your future,” Vlad said. 

    His parents kept the conversation up with him before he was forced to go to his private Jet. Right before Vlad turned the corner to his gate, Danny could see his blood red eyes. 

. . . 

It was a few days before Danny could go back to school. The teachers and students had created a get better soon card for him and several students bombarded him with questions and well wishes, making it difficult for him to traverse the hallways. During Mr. Lancer's class he was handed another note, this time with a sticker of a bat pushed on it as a sort of seal. It had in it very set instructions to meet Sam in the library classroom. 

The library classroom was used for computer storage nowadays and was rarely used, but rumor had it that one could book the room. And for Sam it seemed it was possible. In the room were old mac desktops and boxes of floppy disks, all shoved in the corners collecting dust. The wallpaper here looked the same poisonous one, as the rest of the first floor. 

Tucker and Star were on a modern gaming laptop. He was clicking through documents showing her something. Danny assumed it had to be nerdy stuff that he wouldn’t understand. Across the room Sam was teaching Kwan self defense. She was holding a mat and having Kwan kick it at different heights. 

“Hey guys,” Danny said. 

“Danny!” Star rushed over and hugged him. “How are you feeling?”

“Ah, a little pain. The doctors say I can’t play a game for a month, but I should be back by the end of the season,” Danny closed the door behind him. 

“That’s good! At least you’re not dead,” Tucker said, still at his laptop. 

“So Danny,” Sam began, “Can you tell us what happened between you and Vlad?”

“Yeah, but it’s gonna be a long story so sit down.” 

. . .

    The school day came with a chaotic close with half the school body asking about Danny’s health and football ability. He was only able to get away by phasing through the boys bathroom and walking around the school. At the end of the sidewalk Paulina stood there with a sour look on her face. 

“Hey Paulina,” Danny said. He opened up to say something else but Paulina shaved a card into his chest. 

“I’m sorry!” Paulina said. 

“What?”

“I’m sorry for causing drama. I wanted you to ask me out and I got pissy when you asked Valerie out and I took my anger on you. I also didn’t mean to spill the punch. That was an accident!” The words spilled out of her mouth like a stream. 

“Woah, woah, woah. Paulina it’s okay,” Danny said. 

“No, I want to make sure I make it up to you. While you were in the hospital Dash and I talked and I don’t want to lose any of you as friends. So I’m sorry.”

“It’s okay Paulina. I forgive you. Really I was never really mad at you.” 

“Really?” 

“Yeah.”

“Oh thank god.”

    A silence fell between them but not a heavy silence. It was one of understanding and forgiveness.  “Hey Danny, do you want to go to Nasty Burger with me? I’ll buy you an apology burger,” Paulina said. 

“Thank you, but I’ll have to take you up on that later. Right now I’m running late to see someone else,” Danny hopped on his bike. 

“Okay. Call me later?”

“Yeah! See ya later Paulina!” They waved goodbye to each other as he rode down the street. 

. . .

    Danny biked up the park path, his wheels crushing all the dead leaves below him. The brown and black leaves littered the ground like a thin blanket, tucking the earth in for a long sleep. Above him the trees were barren without a soul in sight. The songs of birds that he had heard only a month ago were replaced by the distance cries of crows. 

    He rode past the playground, the yellow caution tape now broken and flying in the wind and saw a small patch of sunlight on top of a hill. Valerie sat on a pale knitted blanket, her body covered in heavy coats and thick leggings. A bright red scarf hung around her neck like a medal. Her bright smile made a fire light up in his chest. She had gotten them some containers of soup and grilled cheese, each of the items fogging up their closed take out containers.  

    He huddled close to her taking in the scent of her sweet perfume and the warmth of her body as they watched the last autumn sunset fall below the city lights.

[desdemonafictional]

Short story suggestion: Banners Turrets or not, Tarn appears in Megatron's peaceful post-war life and Megatron realizes he has to try and do right by him as a proper mentor. Or maybe Tarn kidnaps Rung and Rung has to dom his way out. I guess that might be too long though. XD;

okay don't take this too seriously but

Megatron arrived home from a long day of Jury Duty to find that his livingroom had yet again been overtaken by a gaggle of newsparks. Rodimus’s warm-constructed mentee was on the floor attempting macramé under Sunstorm’s guidance, while Rodimus had another one of his periodic “I should never have been a parent” breakdowns at the kitchen counter. Rung was patting the mech gently on the back. Ostaros—ah, there he was, surreptitiously eating the other end of the macramé string.

Megatron sighed. At least Getaway wasn't here.

Starscream, whose thrusters were kicked up in the apartment’s most comfortable chair, continued filing his nails. “Don’t start sighing yet,” he said, and blew the dust off his hand. “It gets worse.”

Megatron glared at him. “Don’t talk in riddles, Starscream. What else is going on?”

“Well,” Starscream said, “the fuse box is acting up again, my amica’s abominable spawn brought some kind of reptile into the apartment then lost it, and you have mail.”

Megatron stood there for a moment. He indulged in a brief bought of nostalgia for the old days when this sort of thing would have been Soundwave’s problem. All he'd needed to do in those days was give speeches and shoot things.

“Alright,” he said, “give me the letter.”

Starscream fished a floppy disk out of his chest compartment and waved it vaguely at Megatron, who snatched it up impatiently. It was postmarked from the Kaon detention center.

He pinched the disk open and skimmed the projection until he arrived at will be released under supervision.

“What?”

At the counter, Rung startled up from where he’d been gently patting Rodimus’s slumped back. “Dear?” he said. “What’s going on?”

“Tarn,” Megatron snapped. “He’s up for parole, apparently.”

“Ah. Oh dear.” Rung pressed his fingers to his thinned lips. “Well. If he was still a present danger to anyone, surely they wouldn’t let him past the parole board?”

Starscream snorted loudly. Rung grimaced.

“You don’t think he’ll cause problems for us, do you…?”

Rodimus picked up a bit from his sniffling, apparently having noticed that attention was no longer on him. “Who’s this guy supposed to be?”

Hm. A part of Megatron was offended that his carefully crafted machines of fear were so easily forgotten by the other side. But then again, Tarn had been constructed to put the fear of Megatron in his own army, not the enemy’s.

“An unfortunate wartime necessity,” Megatron said.

“An absolute prick in an overcompensating cosplay,” Starscream said.

“Megatron’s mentee,” Rung said.

Megatron whipped around. “What?” he said again, with similar outrage.

Rung looked back, nonplussed. “Your mentee,” he said. “Of course, things were different in our military days, but by all modern standards, Damus very much was a mentee of yours.”

“Preposterous,” Megatron said.

Rung started to frown. “You picked him out, trained him personally, taught him how to fight—darling, you even commissioned his current frame. He worshipped you.”

“I,” Megatron said, “he was a project.”

Rung very frowning very deeply now. He had such a way of making Megatron feel wrong-footed, without knowing why or how he’d come to be standing on the wrong foot.

“I mean that he was a soldier,” Megatron said. “Should I be personally beholden to every soldier who rallied to my banner?”

Rung looked at him a moment longer, unsmiling, and then said, “I don’t know, my darling. Should you?”

Then he turned back to Rodimus and said, “Come on, then, let’s see what your bitlet has made with Sunstorm. You’ll feel better.”

And he left Megatron standing metaphorically lost upon the howling windswept cliff, although of course he was in reality only the length of a couch away admiring a sparkling’s macramé on the floor.

[getmemymicroscope]

Excitement, Somewhat

Growing up, I used to love sports. Some of this was a part of being a loner in a state where I was a clear outsider, some of it was because of the cyclical "think about sports -> loner -> more time to think about sports -> more loner."

I watched basketball, and baseball, and football, and occasionally soccer (world cup), and, as I grew up a bit more, cricket (world cup), and parts of the Olympics, and ice hockey. I played sports video games, A LOT (MVP Baseball; Madden, even the one with the 'vision cone' - which I loved!; NBA Live; Blades of Steel; FIFA; NCAA Football; NCAA March Madness, that 1 time; this random PC cricket game that required MS-DOS that we got from India on a floppy disk; whatever that android-based football game was for the original Nintendo system that was damn near impossible to figure out how to play; Mario Tennis, and Baseball, and Kart). ... In fact, pretty much every video game we owned growing up sports related (except, I guess, a couple of Pokemon games).

And I absolutely LOVED NBA and NFL draft season. Like, as much as I sorta enjoyed the games (made harder because the teams I rooted for sucked, and mostly still do suck*), the best part was the off-season and the draft (well, except for the fact that it took forever to reach and then immediately ended and left a giant swathe of empty time). Even in the sports video games, I cared less about playing the actual game and more about the team-building through drafting and free agency and trades.

At some point, probably around the time of undergrad, this love started dying. Some of it was just getting busy with other stuff (okay, that didn't really happen til I got to med school), but mostly it was things like seeing how horribly biased the officiating was (the fact that a 'foul' wasn't a foul if you were a superstar was always ridiculous to me), plus the move towards team automatically 'tanking' halfway through a season and not even trying to win, plus annoyance of the same teams winning over and over again (I do believe parity should be present, but I realize some of this was just that some teams never fully tried; but this was made worse by the biased officiating) - especially my chosen teams being utter hell. I remember, in particular, one game early in my undergrad career where my team essentially won a close game on a tough play at the end, but the star on the other team essentially glared at the official until he called a foul and allowed for free throws (and an eventual overtime win for the bad guys), and another instance years before that before another superstar committed a foul but was allowed to get away with it to win a game for his team. Beyond that, I'm not ashamed to say that I rooted for some teams that were perfectly happy with their "never gonna win it all" status quo - one team at least had playoff aspirations every where, whilst another was clearly just a way for the owner to make some dough without spending a cent (and remains so).

That second team did have a brief bit of limited glory (early playoff exits) around the time I got into med school, but it had been so long that even an early playoff exit was exciting. But since then, they've gone back to the dumps. But that, combined with the realities of med school, essentially crushed any interest I had in sports.

In fact, aside from like the Super Bowl (with friends), my watching is essentially now limited to World Cup soccer and/or cricket, a bit of tennis. the early rounds of March Madness, occasionally a hockey playoff game, and, in the case of one 3 month span where I couldn't find much else to do, curling. I'll occasionally watch a bit of 'Red Zone' football, mostly cuz I have some friends who are big fans and I like talking to them about it. (Keeping in my tradition about loving the off-season, I actually spend more time reading about the transactional stuff than the actual games most of the time.) Noticeably absent - NBA and MLB, which were my 2 favorite ones growing up (also, funnily enough, the ones with by far the worst/most biased officiating). And also college football, which I used to love before it turned into the SEC-biased fuck-fest that it is today.

But this all comes up because recently, I turned on a WNBA game. Caitlin Clark, of course, against the LA Sparks (her team's first win of the season, as it turned out).

In the end, it was a close game. I had only turned it on in the 4th quarter - so I didn't know at the time that she was like 0-7 or 1-8 or whatever from downtown at that point. But as the clock wound down, I said to my wall (still with the being a loner - I guess some things never change) "she's gonna make one now" - and she promptly, of course, hit one of her calling card long-distance shots. A few minutes later, she did the same thing again (another 1 I told my wall was coming before it did). And that level of excitement I felt when she hit those shots...!

Now, of course she's good and that adds to the excitement a bit - if it was me out there, I think people would just be like "what the fuck, bench that loser!" But like, that level of excitement is something I haven't felt in/from the NBA, or MLB (or honestly, even the NFL, which again might be a bit of a parity thing combined with questionable officiating that has become the norm), or college football in a long, long while. Seeing her hit those shots, though - even as someone who hasn't watched the WNBA since the local team left my at-the-time home state years ago and as someone who definitely doesn't having a rooting interest, team-wise - was absolutely awesome. It was honestly just enthralling, the type of thing you'd want to talk to your friends about and watch again (if, you know, they weren't of the mindset that the WNBA is shit), the type of stuff you'd want to watch on repeat.

The type of excitement I haven't felt in a sporting even since the time a player on my team hit a shot to send them to the finals for the first time ever, or when I correctly predicted a Super Bowl onside kick (though that was admittedly more about my accurate prediction than the actual play), or the Sosa/McGwire home run chase (steroids be damned - that was a level of excitement the MLB has not been able to garner in YEARS, and to deny them the Hall of Fame when they literally saved your sport back then is fucking stupid as fuck).

Like, literally - baseball was all but dead - and they made it a nightly thing. You'd turn on the game games to watch them get one swing closer to the mark - the contest between them literally brought baseball into the households of millions. And now, not only are they not in the Hall of Fame, but we have to deal with whatever the fuck this nonsense umpiring is (literally, they seem to be getting worse by the minute, and more power-hungry by the minute as well) plus this NBA-level bullshit (or '90s NY-level bullshit) of a few big teams literally buying all the big-name players.

At some point, I'll make a list, for sure. But just that feeling of watching Caitlin Clark make those shots - maybe it was because it's her first win, maybe it is just because I'm starved to watch and care for some basketball again now that the NBA is all but dead to me - is the most excited I've been by a sporting moment in quite a while.

That level of excitement from sports has been missing from my life for a long, long time (and even when something happens, the overall exciting moments have been delayed for me, like India winning the cricket world cup whilst I was literally in the middle of microbiology course final in undergrad). I think I could get used to that again. Now I just need to find a sport that hasn't been completely ruined by bad and/or biased officiating, lack of parity amongst teams/leagues, or whatever the fuck is going on with college football (lets just ban the stupid conference, life would be better for everyone that way).

[devandahlcourte-work-in-progress]

Section 11. 2 chapters, ending with chapter 56

I am reposting these first eighty-two chapters (in 22 sections) plus the prologue and the preface.

These posts will be the updated versions from my DeviantArt account, and since Tumblr may not display all the text correctly (it destroys anything I had in italics or underlined) I would still recommend reading everything there, on DeviantArt. They will also include internal links that navigate between the chapters on DeviantArt and will take the reader off Tumblr if clicked.

This came about because I noticed search engines were finding random sections of my book and displaying them along with some other people’s blog posts.

Okay, so that’s why I installed those internal links in each one… so that if anyone gets to a random section by way of a search engine and would like to read the story from the beginning, they can.

Only then did I realize that it wasn’t getting it’s search results from DeviantArt, but from old Tumblr.

There’s another problem at work here besides unrefined searches…

There is a new species of virus on the internet that likes to eat ancient Tumblr posts and barf them back up infested with adware - spyware - malware etc. The virus goes by names like TumGIR, TumBIG, TumPIK, or Tum(anything else but ‘blr’). The caps were added by me for emphasis so that maybe you can double check in case you’re not looking at an actual Tumblr post right now but one of these so-called “mirror” sites.

If you’re looking at this text through one of the counterfeit Tumblrs that I mentioned, then no link you click (assuming it even copies it with my links intact) will take you out; it will redirect you and show you all of the spam ads it wants to. So read carefully what url is showing on your browser right now.

If it is one of the untrustworthy ones I would suggest closing your browser window and doing whatever else you normally would in order to reset settings.

As far as my science fiction novel entitled “If And Only If,” the safest way to find it is by going to my Instagram:

@michelle.de.vandahlcourte

From there you can click on the link in my bio. It will take you to the beginning of the story on DeviantArt… the safe one! No malware.

P.S. None of this is Tumblr’s fault! It’s the malware/adware/spyware developers who are stealing people’s tumblr posts.

The actual content of this page appears below here👇

Section 11. 2 chapters, ending with chapter 56

↩️return to previous section, section 10

↩️↩️…and if you arrived here because of a search engine and you would like to read this story from the beginning, click here.

Renaldo

The first trip to Austin was to copy everything off the old phone that Brenda had given Wheeler for safekeeping. I told him I would store the offline device that I backed it up to, in a really safe place: a close relative’s safe deposit box in a downtown Austin bank & office building. He agreed it would be a good idea because, as a former Stalko-Taco fan whose memory had been erased before, he considered himself susceptible to their memory tricks and didn’t think he might be the best choice Brenda could pick for something like this.

The second trip was kind of social. At least in a science-geeky sort of way. VAMS, or Variable Age Main Sequence, was the name of the simulation software that came with one of my old astrophysics or cosmology books; on an antique 3.5 inch floppy disk in an envelope attached to the inside of the back cover. The reason he liked being called by only his last name, was a physicist whom he admired named John Archibald Wheeler (no relation) who was a coauthor of a book we both had: Gravitation by Misner, Thorne, and Wheeler.

The dude was truly as much of a scientist as he was an artist and thought it was cool that he shared a last name with the guy who invented the concept of the “wormhole.” I mentioned to him that I had a copy of a “solutions manual” for Gravitation, photocopied by some grad students in Russia in the late 80s and brought here and given to my father in grad school in the early 90s. He already had one!

I thought of the Monty Python scene where the French were trying to get rid of those silly English “Kanigits,” but he wasn’t kidding; he really did already have one. What he didn’t have, and what I knew he couldn’t resist, was VAMS. I told him the disk had the source code which he could compile for himself but that it also had an .exe file. The source was useful if he ever needed to debug it (unlikely) or enhance it somehow (more plausible).

He assured me that he had access to a fully functioning dos pc in his dad’s garage workshop – complete with drives for accepting either three-and-a-halfs or five-and-a-quarters. I told him the VAMS disk and the astrophysics monograph with which it came were in a storage facility in north Austin, out towards Tech Ridge, that I was helping that same relative clean out; especially by getting a lot of my old stuff out of his way. I could bring VAMS and the associated book by in a few days if he’d like. He did like, and was looking forward to it at our next meeting.

My “backing up” of the phone Brenda had given him went beyond just copying the relevant files. I got all the photos, vids, text files, apps, and everything down to her wallpaper. I had to jailbreak the thing to get some of it done, for the project that I really wanted to undertake. I also got the model number, serial number, and all of those other tech details from the general/about page. Through subtle questioning I had already confirmed that neither Brenda nor her family had ever bothered to record that information anywhere and didn’t really even know where to find it on the phone.

For our second meeting, I did bring VAMS and other goodies to dazzle him with. I also brought my fully cloned, rigged, counterfeit phone to swap for the one he was holding. I’d even practiced the bit of slight-of-hand that I would need to secretly pull off the swap – tricks I’d learned from Brenda’s stage-magician dad a couple of years earlier.

So yeah, I stole the phone right out of Wheeler’s room.

No slight-of-hand was necessary; his dad evidently considered that garage workshop of his to be some kind of inner sanctum. The rule, Wheeler said, was that guests were not supposed to see where the keys were kept, how many locks there were, exactly how they got opened, etc. Furthermore, the antique computer was already on a cart and Wheeler simply had to roll it into the kitchen. In accordance with his dad’s own rule, he appropriately asked me to simply wait in his room until he came and got me.

I had six unique and redundant, overlapping-spectrum gadgets on my person for detecting optic bugs. If Wheeler had any nanny-cams in his room to observe me which I could not detect, then he was a far better Stainless Steel Rat than I was. And although not necessary, I went ahead and used that little bit of magician’s trickery anyway.

I still didn’t know these people that well. If Wheeler’s mom- um, If Nancy, was meditating while standing on her head in some tiny secret room, I didn’t want her popping out of some hidden panel in his wall at the exact moment I made the exchange. If any Murphy’s Law enforcers had bungled in right then, it would appear only that I was engrossed in examining all of Wheeler’s fine photography endeavors from the last decade, and was lifting a photo up to see the one behind it whilst trying not to knock down the little cloth bag where he kept sister-phone.

The old phone that he was holding for Brenda was still in its smallish bag hanging on the corkboard full of pictures where we’d left it several days ago – predictably behind the bunch of pictures I remembered. They had been printed on stiff paper and were unlikely to flap around very much. It was a hiding place which probably would’ve been difficult to find if I hadn’t already known exactly where he kept it. The switch was anti-climactic.

Just like I did with the phone that she had given me to guard, I had gone to eBay, letgo, and wherever else they had deals on used stuff… And simply bought the identical model old phone in the correct color to match the one Wheeler had been given. The one that Wheeler would now have in his room would be impossible to distinguish from the phone Brenda had given him. Right down to the variety of free apps her sister had installed which were no longer available anywhere because the developers no longer supported the old operating system or they’d just plain quit making them.

And that internal page that had all the cryptic id numbers? The one I said I’d screenshot and send her? Of course it was the one for the “new” old phone and so it would be a perfect match if she bothered to check it.

More importantly if “they” checked the screenshots Wheeler and I sent – upon Brenda’s retrieval of the phones – everything would appear to be in order. The only difference between these devices and the actual ones which Brenda had given us... would be that if she or Wheeler or anyone else tried to play those vlog files, the only thing they would see is a blacked out screen and the message: “unknown playback error.”

If they tried to airdrop the video files to other devices, their players would say things to the effect of “corrupted file” or “damaged file.” The files were in fact filled with random gibberish that had subsequently been encrypted.

I and I alone would have the actual vids – which played just fine by the way – in a hiding place only I would know about. The Powers-That-Be would see Brenda trying to cooperate and retrieve the things to the best of her ability, and would conclude that the files didn’t contain anything readable. At that point they could still order her to destroy the phones or execute an “Erase all content and settings” command.

As Brenda was perfectly willing to admit to anyone, she wasn’t a technical expert-type person. (Although that’s something I see possibly changing, soon.) But for now, it wouldn’t be too surprising that she’d somehow screwed up the production of some vid files that were recorded near the end of our senior year.

And of course there was no safe deposit box in a bank in downtown Austin. And there was no storage facility up near Tech Ridge Boulevard, and I didn’t have any relatives at all – close or otherwise – in Austin. Those were all lies just to provide a plausible explanation for my presence in his city both of those times.

Naturally through all of this, I was counting on the fact that my utter lack of interest in all things creepypasta, and continued apparent lack of interest in whatever Brenda was up to, would make me immune to their mind-tampering signals.

I almost blew the whole damn thing by being late. And that was entirely due to my stomach. If I’d “gone vegan” as Brenda had and often urged me to try, I wouldn’t have witnessed what happened. But I’m still technically a flesh-eater. One who makes healthy and informed choices, I’d like to think. So my apatite for dead animal, as she would criticize it, nearly resulted in me being late for our meeting.

A driver’s quick response and a pedestrian’s general physical prowess were what stopped me from witnessing a fatal accident.

Renaldo and Petra

It wasn’t a long walk back to the private parking lot from the little restaurant I had seen about the last dozen times I’d driven or rode through Austin – and never got a chance to stop at. The parking dichotomy was: cheap-but-far or close-but-expensive and I had opted to spend the little extra money and not have a long walk. It was a very safe area either way. Very touristy. The cops seemed to ride by on bicycles about every hundred feet. But just my luck, I walked into a sort of lull – a copless moment in the streets. Had there been one, then he or she could have functioned as a reliable witness and I wouldn’t have felt so compelled to stay and report what I saw.

The way the restaurant had been set up was cafeteria-like; lots of college-age people in the crowd of course. I was hardly the only one sitting at a table by myself, so I didn’t look or feel out of place. The logistics of the joint screamed “churn ‘em and burn ‘em” as far as the employees functioning, while pulling customers in to the assembly line process. The food didn’t live up to the hype. Not disappointing, but something I could’ve easily gotten in San Antonio and for less money. A new problem as I walked to my car, was heartburn.

Whatever combination of spices they were using was about to make it necessary for me to stop at a convenience store or some corner drugstore to get some generic chewable antacids. They had some kind of construction projects going on as usual, and thoughtfully accommodated pedestrian traffic by constructing wooden conduits along the sides of the road where sidewalks would normally be. They were covered in such a way as to prevent falling debris from hitting anybody, so that was good thinking I guess.

But then someone needed to seriously talk to whatever slacker had left a double-wide garage-door-sized sheet of plexiglass leaning up against the wall right outside one of those things. When I first saw it I was like: déjà vu! I honestly thought for a moment that I was looking at Nancy’s art again. A quick blink as the thing warped in the breeze and repeatedly flashed rainbow-refracted sunlight in my direction revealed that it was not the same diffraction grating art, but just a large transparent piece of plastic which had been leaned up against a wall by some careless workers.

I was still across the street when I saw her, and just briefly imagined she was motioning to me and started darting over in my direction. But there were a couple of dozen other people around me whose attention she could’ve been trying to get, and the darting was no doubt just because she had a walk sign and an intersection devoid of any stopped traffic at the light; so reasonably safe for her to power walk on through.

The traffic going parallel to her would have been a different story. Multiple cars all doing the speed limit of 30, I’d say. As long as she stayed in her crosswalk everything should have been fine for the smartly dressed young businesswoman-type in sensible shoes.

It was fine, right until that one malicious gust of wind caught the improperly stored piece of plexiglass and set it in motion like a sail from some Moby Dick era ship. It hit the unsuspecting woman – who still seemed intent on flagging down somebody in my general direction – from her side and swept her away like a giant broom, tumbling her into the oncoming traffic.

I’ll say this for her: she might very well have been a good basketball player in high school or college – definitely not much older than that – and she may have had some martial arts experience. Strong, agile, acrobatic and with fast reflexes... She came up from her little tumble, on her feet, slightly crouching like a fighting stance almost. And then, commenced a standing hi jump that got her almost a good 2 feet off the ground; it was just nearly enough to clear the hood of the oncoming car. In a movie stunt, the stuntwoman of course would’ve run up the hood of the car and over the roof and jumped off, totally unharmed.

Reality didn’t go so well for her; she missed clearing the oncoming hood by maybe a couple of inches. The driver, as I alluded to earlier, really did do his best to try and stop and steer away from her. What he had as proof of his efforts was a minor collision with a big municipal trashcan on the corner where I had been standing.

And I must admit that I was probably out to lunch on the day they were handing out that macho gene that makes guys know f-ing everything about cars. Sort of a sports car obviously, and a bit older. So bear with me... but I wanna say it’s kinda like the one driven by the guy who raced Wooderson. But maybe not as old as 70s. And no giant bird wings on the hood. Same low profile though.

So instead she fell onto the car’s hood, rolled up onto the windshield like a ramp, hit it with enough force to crack the glass, continued with enough momentum to make it onto the car’s roof, and finally tumbled off and fell back to the street. The fall wasn’t as bad as it could have been because she grabbed onto some kind of rain-guard on her way down; it got ripped off the car, to be sure, but it helped her fall occur feet-first and in three stages until she was all the way flat on the ground. Screams echoed around the intersection, but not from her. Several other people had seen her apparently get run down and possibly killed for all they knew.

I had my phone out while jogging the rest of the distance to her, making sure to not only pay attention to traffic but also to be on the lookout for that damned piece of plastic!

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

Correction, not my phone. That silly phone from Brenda’s sister! It shouldn’t have been a problem; even without a SIM card it should still be able to dial 9 1 1. The trouble was, it was off. I’d have to wait for it to go through all of its start-up gyration procedures, waiting for the apple to appear, etc. Meanwhile mine had gotten moved to my backpack while this one stayed in the zipper compartment of my cargo pants firmly against my thigh where my phone would normally be.

All right never mind, I thought. I can see probably five other people in the area on their phones including the driver who got out and was on his phone. I just concentrated on getting there.

Some guy was already kneeling next to her doing the airway check which I recognized from first aid and CPR training. “I know CPR how can I help?”

“No CPR needed here,” he responded with possibly professional calmness, “she’s breathing fine. We just need to keep her from moving and make her comfortable until the EMS gets here.”

Suddenly shifting his body weight and re-directing his head, his voice switched to a drill sergeant’s bellow with: “has anyone called 9 1 1?”

He scanned the crowd including me but before I could answer, replies came in near-stereo from many directions: “they’re on the way!”

“What you can do, son, is go move one of those A-frame traffic barricades with the blinking lights out into the lane this guy was in.”

I scampered off to follow his instructions; good thinking, since other drivers in the distance were still approaching in this lane unaware, and might need more warning time to change over, slow down, or even stop.

Finally. The cops. A gaggle of them sped in on bicycles. One posted himself in my lane a little further down and thrust out a firm hand, palm-first while directing traffic to move over. Another relieved me of the barricade and just said “thanks, I got it from here.”

Once he finished with the large plastic A-frame thing I got his attention before he sprinted. “Who can I give my statement to? I saw the whole thing.”

He motioned to a patrol car just pulling up and said “He’ll be here for awhile. You can talk to him. For now it’d be best if you’d wait under that awning.”

I stood where I was directed to, briefly calculated my travel time back home, glanced at the woman who was now talking and trying to get herself propped up on one elbow, against an officer’s advice... and also scanned the streets for that absurdly large piece of plastic. The trip home could still happen in time to meet Brenda without having to call her and ask her to wait – If there was no traffic delaying me from getting out of Austin. Okay, so that’s one of those if-a-frog-had-wings kinda things.

Somewhat concerning was the complete lack of any debris at all in the streets, and certainly no giant sheet of plexiglass. My account of what happened would make more sense if the thing was still flopping around some place nearby. Had it been blown down one of these two streets, away from this intersection? No way, with the traffic. It couldn’t have gotten that far.

Just then I thought I spotted it. Right across the street from me. But another blink confirmed I was mistaken; what I’d perceived to be “it” was actually a puddle of water with soap in it. The swirling regions of soapy film on the puddle were making pretty rainbow effects as the stuff steadily flowed into the storm drain at the other sidewalk-corner.

Wait, I thought: it couldn’t have melted. Could it? That kind of plastic would stink up several blocks of the city if it had melted to a liquid form and that was in fact “it” trickling into the street drain.

“Officer Fazzio, is this the one who saw something?” Another booming voice startled me a split second before a shiny badge gleamed at the corner of my vision. The patrol car dude reminded me of some character from those Police Academy movies. I tried not to giggle but did smile just a bit; with what hopefully passed for a pleasant disposition.

“What happened?” his monotone delivery was much more like a Vulcan than a silly movie personality.

I matched him as a fellow Vulcan would, giving an exact geometric description of all our locations and momenta. When it came to the plastic thing – as I noticed the soapy looking liquid puddle was all gone – I simply called it a “piece of construction debris” and possibly plastic which had gotten caught in the wind. I made it perfectly clear that it was neither person’s fault. The driver looked to be going the speed limit and tried hard to stop and avoid her, and she had been crossing properly before the thing just knocked her off balance.

I asked him if anyone else had seen a piece of plastic or some kind of construction material blowing into her. He avoided answering and just said to stick with what I saw.

In retrospect that was really stupid of me to ask. Of course he couldn’t give an answer either way without the risk of biasing my observations and my description. He asked me just a few more questions, thanked me for my time, and then before I could say anything he dashed off as other officers were beckoning to him. They all had to go suddenly and only one bike cop stayed back to handle traffic.

The paramedics almost had her ready to transport.

I could take as long as I wanted to go and get my car. They’d just be drooling over how much they were getting to charge me, the longer I left it. But I’d already started walking on in that direction when a classic text tone called “minuet” got my attention from the gutter. Not quite the gutter, I saw. At the corner where the woman got hit, daytime crews had previously stuffed canvas-looking sandbags along the corresponding storm drain openings on this side. The gaps were enough that water should be able to flow through, but they would prevent large chunks of construction material from falling in. Possibly a city regulation? Now if only they could pay attention to the regs about not letting shit that’s big enough to knock people over go blowing down the street!

I’d missed it before because the tote bag sort of blended with the sandbags. Just as I heard the minuet, the accident victim raised up a little on her stretcher and reached out an arm while murmuring something. It was obvious what I needed to do.

I may never grasp senseless bureaucratic red tape. The ambulance driver was already in his seat, they’d positioned her on her stretcher or gurney or whatever it was called, parked outside the open ambulance back doors... waiting... while the one other guy walked up front to the driver with some kind of electronic clipboard. Well, it was good to know her injuries evidently weren’t that bad, I supposed, since dotting i’s and crossing t’s was more important to them.

She wasn’t totally unsupervised though, as the traffic-directing bike-cop was about 15 feet away and had an eye on her while there was a significant lull in the traffic. He heard the same tone, saw both of us, saw what I was doing and was okay with it as I approached her with the hemp cloth bag from the street. Brenda would approve: no leather or any animal products in the thing as far as I could tell.

Some stuff had nearly spilled out and I scooped it back in, trying not to touch too much because I would’ve felt creepy at the idea of going through someone’s stuff. But I couldn’t help seeing the company ID badge. And her name I guess. The minuet continued to play multiple times rapidly – someone sending her multiple texts in a row. Petra Mitternacht? That’s what the split second glimpse of the badge seemed to read.

“Petra” was right out of my dad’s old college German textbook; one of the sample characters I think. It might also have been a popular name elsewhere in Europe. But the other word? It wasn’t a surname that I knew of and I was pretty sure it just meant midnight. A second split-second glance as I jostled the thing around to keep stuff from spilling out revealed it was part of the name of her company: Mitternacht Cryptosystems. With no last name indicated for Petra.

A very intriguing company, to me at least, since cryptography and cryptanalysis had become two of my favorite hobbies in the last couple of years. Under other circumstances I would have loved to chat with her about what services her company offered, what her job description consisted of, etc. But as it was, “Ma’am, I think you dropped your bag” seemed most appropriate as I handed it to her. She thanked me and said a few other things about being glad her phone went off otherwise she’d have forgotten about it in the chaos.

It was enough speech that I could discern a decidedly German accent. By then the EMT had sprung into action and no doubt come to see who was interacting with the patient. She was holding onto her bag, sort of hugging it against her chest like a kid with a stuffed animal when the ambulance driver appeared from out of nowhere and they finally started reaching for the gurney to load her into the back. I returned to about the same place where I’d talked to the cop and behind me I heard her say “It’s alright, she’s my boss. She’s going to follow us to the ER.”

I didn’t actually see her boss but guessed she was in one of the nearest cars presently stopped at the light.

Then I noticed that light levels had changed rapidly as some clouds seemed to have rolled in to cover the sunset. A sunset which I was catching the end of through a reflection in a store window. I sort of spaced. I don’t remember visibly observing anyone leave.

Noise levels switched abruptly as well; the ambulance was gone as was the bike cop. Just a normal urban intersection again. Not sure why I felt it was appropriate to wait until the ambulance had gotten underway. It just was the correct thing to do. The secondhand-type store’s window display proudly showed off different tackle boxes. The dark-greenish one offered the most overall storage volume, in cubic inches, for the price they were asking... I wasn’t really clear on what had prompted me to estimate such a thing. It wasn’t like I was going fishing any time soon. Most of my friends these days were “alternative” type people, many of whom were experimenting with veganism or at least vegetarianism. But my brothers would gladly go –

Brothers? Home. Shit! I still have to get back to that parking lot, pay, get in my car... I’m so fucking late! Well at least my heartburn had somehow magically disappeared, so I wouldn’t have to stop anywhere.

Continue on to next section…

If And Only If

Copyright 2015

by Michelle Viviénne de Vandahlcourte

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, places, events, locales, and incidents are either the products of the author’s imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental.

First Edition. © December 16, 2015.

[ticktockmyclockworkhart]

who do u think made cals body

i mean it obviously wasnt scott or damien

i like to think it was vicky

Yes, that’s my hc too actually!!

I mean not completely but I think Vicky definitely did a lot of helping. In my Monster Prom universe/interpretation (of sorts) I think Vicky was the one to both release Zoe from her totem and also help Cal become a real student, though she was a lot more actively involved with the Zoe situation than Cal’s.

(Since the DLC is the second term, I like to think both of those events happened first term of their junior year, Cal and Zoe joined as actual students at second term of junior year.)

Vicky was, like, actively responsible for obtaining the Power Totem of Z’gord, but the Floppy Disk was something Scott and Damien got their hands on on their own (again, in my interpretation, thing with visual novel dating sims with so many potential endings is you really have to specify what happened in “your” version of how the game’s story went lmao) and when things started to go especially weird with the computer that would become Calculester, at that point both of them tracked Vicky down for help because they’re both idiots and know Vicky is probably one of the smartest people in the whole school. I think she came in and out of the Floppy Disk ending shenanigans never fully engaged, just getting regularly called in by Scott and Damien whenever something went wrong (or they at least thought something did) and it was kind of a trip for her considering there was some new crazy shit happening every time she got called back to the situation. Like Scott downloaded an obvious virus? Typical. The computer is emitting purple smoke? What? The computer is now sentient and riding around on an office chair in a trench coat and trilby hat trying to pass as a student? Okay, how did we get here?

She and Cal nonetheless got along pretty good getting to bond over all the times Vicky had to step away from her already insane pre-prom shenanigans to micromanage whatever the hell Scott and Damien got him into this time and just relating over being two out of like five monsters tops who actually understood morality. She was also the one to introduce Cal to Oz the following semester as she was pretty sure they would get along great with how refreshingly sane and kind Cal is and how gentle Oz is, plus them both having the same social struggles (she was VERY right, but that’s neither here nor there).

I think between semesters Cal was the one to construct the blueprints for his eventual body, crunch the numbers, make adjustments to ensure everything stayed together and moved properly, evaluate the best materials for the construction, etc, and with Vicky’s knowledge of engineering she was able to help him put it together. When it comes to physical assembly I think Vicky started on her own, but by the time Cal’s head, upper torso and one of his arms were in place he became pretty helpful in contributing to his assembly.

That got really off topic lol but that’s the beauty of a game with so many endings and interpretations like Monster Prom is that we really do be out here practically with our own whole AUs for each individual person with just how the game events played out for our depictions of the characters and I get carried away infodumping about mine lol

[astronomicartz]

Okay so, since I’m not sure if it’ll ever get fully written, my fic/au idea goes like this:

Act 1 starts off based on @randomgamefan’s excellent Playtester AU, since I’m a sucker for the whole “protagonist gets sucked into media” premise. (In this one, Luke’s an only child after the death of his sister and doesn’t have much contact with his family.) Luke’s computer crashed and G0lly’s upload failed, but one rushed copy did manage to be created on Luke’s computer, a sort of imperfect cut and paste of the original Inscryption; all that remains on the floppy is the OLD_DATA… but that doesn’t mean the copy is free of it. Luke wakes up generally confused, meets the Scrybes, and finds out he’s in the game... or part of him at least, according to Grimora.

(He was never shot. When he viewed the OLD_DATA, he couldn’t eject the floppy in time and it took his mind, leaving his body comatose and crashing the computer. Since he never called the press, Amanda wasn’t alerted for the last resort and she took the disk and his evidence once the house was empty.)

He tries to help out, but what little working relationships the Scrybes had before are completely shot through now, and the damage to the game, a mysterious illness, and other strange occurences aren’t helping matters. Cue some detective work while trying to play peacekeeper, filler slice of life, a massive battle with the source of the illness, and finding out how to get Luke back into the real world. Outside the Scrybes’ knowledge, during the process of getting him home, Luke tries to bring them with him by focusing on all his encounters with them.

Act 2 is where things gets fun and where the idea for this whole thing originated! Luke wakes up from his coma and rushes home once he’s discharged. He finds his house neatly ransacked but empty, until he checks the floppy disk drive and finds four official-looking Inscryption card-game cards depicting a three-legged stoat, a face-marked stinkbug, a one-eyed wolf, and a moss-covered grizzly bear… and they can talk (P03 is so pissed about being a stoat again and it wants everyone to know it; Leshy is living the dream). More than that, they find out that the Scrybes can exit their cards as the beast they’re depicted as during the daytime, and assume their true forms during the night. After fixing the computer, the rest of the game’s characters can all still be interacted with and use the floppy drive to interact with the real world (though with a time limit).

I call it the Roommate AU! This part is basically funny slice of life, small conflicts, and relationship building, while also setting up the pieces for Act 3. Including but not limited to:

- Trying to keep a frequently-wandering Leshy out of sight of the neighbors before they call animal control

- Stoat-P03 using a Roomba as transportation

- Luke waking up to find Grimora holding a seance in his living room and immediately going back to bed

- Decorating Magnificus like a Christmas tree

- Found family and the requisite angst and comfort that comes with it

Act 3 is where everything comes together for one last big conflict that requires all that built-up trust and teamwork to overcome. The details of said conflict are still up in the air, but would likely include GameFuna really coming after Luke after one too many close calls rather than being the looming but indulgent threat from the previous act, making a true Inscryption game using all of the Scrybes’ expertise, and other things.

There we go! I’m currently writing some bits and pieces, but for now it’s just ideas. I’ll probably post some drawings/snippets if people are interested. Feel free to ask me about it!

[amysteriousmessenger]

The rfa + saeran sending nudes to mc

I got you anon!! I hope these are okay! <3 

RFA (+ Saeran and V) sending Reader nudes Headcanons (NSFW)

Yoosung Kim sending Reader nudes Headcanons

Yoosung has literally never taken a nude picture in his life, he gets embarrassed even at the thought of it. It’s not something he would really be into usually, but if you get him really in the mood and send him a couple of pictures first to make him feel more comfortable he might consider sending one or two.

He isn’t really sure what it is you want to see, and he definitely doesn’t feel like he can ask Zen or Seven what he’s supposed to do because they would literally never live it down. He’d also never survive the shame of asking in the first place. 

Yoosung is a little bit self-conscious of his body and doesn’t think particularly highly of himself, so the most you would probably get from him is a picture of his semi-erection bulge through his trousers, maybe with his hand slipping underneath. 

He’s not one for taking pictures of himself but he’s more than happy to see some of you, if you’re willing to send them. He can’t believe how lucky he is that he’s the one you chose to share these photographs with.

Zen/Hyun Ryu sending Reader nudes Headcanons

  Zen? The chance to share another selfie? He’s already on board. It always sits in the back of his mind that he worries the server will get hacked and that the pictures will leak and it could damage his career, but he has faith in Seven’s protection.

He doesn’t even need a reason to take them, he already has a bunch stored. He tries to keep them tasteful, so there’s never really any full cock action, it’ll be concealed with a towel or a well placed shampoo bottle. He has to make sure the lighting hits his body just right to show you all of his best muscles. He has a full length mirror in his bathroom, and by God, he’s going to make use of it. Most of his nudes are post-shower pictures because he thinks he looks particularly good when dripping wet. Well, he is dripping with good looks after all.

He’s also definitely one to get turned on by his own pictures, and his own moans too if you’re having phone sex together. He definitely prefers sending them whilst talking over the phone because he wants to hear your reaction to them and to hear you praising him.

If you wanted a fresh TM picture, you’d be most likely to get one of Zen pulling his grey sweatpants slightly down to reveal his abs, V-line and the top of his pubic hair. He’d also lift his t-shirt up so you could see his abs in the shadows. The lighting would be dark and he would just be lying in bed but*chef’s kiss* it’s still OnlyFans worthy. 

Jaehee Kang sending Reader nudes Headcanons

Jaehee has also never really been one for taking and sending pictures of herself. It makes her rather anxious and she doesn’t really think there’s anything special enough about her body to justify taking a picture of it. Like Zen, she would worry about the pictures somehow getting leaked and damaging her career, but reassures herself that there’s essentially zero chances of that happening and if they did, Seven would make sure that all evidence was destroyed. 

She’s always pleasantly surprised and extremely flustered to receive images from you, but she might need a little coaxing and reassurance in order to send one back.

She’d start simple, with nice pictures of her thighs, maybe her stomach with a little bit of her bra revealed whilst she worked up the confidence to send anything else. 

Even when she is more comfortable, Jaehee doesn’t really take her underwear off for these pictures. So, the most explicit you would get from her is her ass reflected in a mirror in some lingerie that she bought for the two of you to enjoy on her. 

Jumin Han sending Reader nudes Headcanons

As much as Jumin enjoys receiving explicit images from you, telling how much you want and need him, he rarely sends one back. He much prefers to call and hear your voice and tease you saying that you’d have to wait for him to come home before you can have him, and that you deserve a punishment for pulling something like this when he’s at work, especially when you know he has a meeting he’s supposed to be concentrating on right now.

On the occasion that you do get a picture back, it’s a blurry. Barely even visible. You wouldn’t even know it was a concealed erection otherwise. The majority of Jumin’s lewd pictures are of his bulge through his suit trousers, hidden under his desk. 

Whilst he would fuck you in his office, he’s not one for masturbating at work so he’d sooner send you a picture of his clothed erection and tell you what you have to look forward to the second he steps into the penthouse.

Besides, him ignoring his erection now is only going to make it feel even better later when he finally gets his hands on you.

Saeyoung Choi sending Reader nudes Headcanons 

Every time Seven gets a picture from you, he mutters a prayer and kisses his cross, asking forgiveness for the sins he is about to commit. 

Seven’s nudes still have Honey Butter chip crumbs on his trouser leg. Tasteful. Classy. 

He worries about one of the hackers chasing him somehow coming across yours and his nudes, so whilst he Cannot bear to part with your wonderful, blessed, gorgeous images, he’ll keep them on an encrypted floppy disk that only he knows how to gain access to. He is the only one that will ever get to see such photos of you.

He’ll send images similar to Zen, with his V line and pubic hair visible and his hand disappearing beneath his trousers, but the outline of his dick very much visible. 

He’s also very much someone that would want to call you so he could hear you as he was touching himself. Bonus points if you’re putting on a show for him on one of the cameras whilst you’re on the phone with him, because then he gets live action visuals. 

Sometimes he’ll wear his maid outfit and send you pictures of his ass, jut to keep it fresh and remind you that he does have a rather nice ass, if he does say so himself. 

When he’s jerking himself off, he’ll bite onto the hem of his t-shirt so he doesn’t cum on it and revealing his stomach and chest in the process, but it is Quite a few to see him finish on his abdomen, which he would probably send you a photo of before cleaning it up. 

Saeran Choi sending Reader nudes Headcanons (Unknown)

[The only alters I can see actually sending nudes would be Unknown and Suit Saeran, so I’m going to write this with Unknown in mind!]

Out of Saeran’s alters, Unknown is the flirtiest and probably the one who would actually send a nude first once it was established both parties were interested. He’d take the picture from below whilst he was lounging on a chair, so the phone has the upward angle and got to include all the Best TM aspects that he wanted in the picture. 

Unknown would bite at his shirt to reveal his abdomen and to show a devilish flash of a grin. The phone is set to an angel that it’s exactly what someone would see if they were on their knees in front of him, which was entirely intentional on his part.

The photo would cut off above the smile, and his free hand would be resting just next to his bulge, most definitely drawing attention to it. His legs are slightly spread and his tattoo is even more visible than usual.

It wouldn’t be a full nude, but definitely the outline of his cock pushing through the leather trousers and the caption, ‘I bet you want to see more, right?.’

If you sent him a picture back, don’t expect a lot of praise because the only thing you’re going to get back is a ‘heh, not bad’. That means he really liked it.

V/Jihyun Kim sending Reader nudes Headcanons 

V rarely sends his own nudes, but you know what he Would send? Your nudes. He would absolutely send you photographs of lewd polaroids that he had taken over the course of your relationship. To him, that was better than any pornography available and it was the only material that he had any interest in it.

He doesn’t really think he’s anything special or worth taking pictures of, but you on the other hand, he could take a picture of you every minute of every day and it would never be enough.

The closest you would get to a nude from V would be his silhouette looming over the bed that was covered in these pictures, the shadow of his hand over his crotch. 

It would have been creepy if anyone else was to do it, but V was your partner and you thought it was rather hot that he prized and worshipped  your images in such a way. He adored the way the expressions you made, the emotion, the purity and how good you were making one another feel in those photographs. 

[soratsuart]

Sentient Protagonist AU - Chapter 1

Hello everyone! As promised, I'm bringing you the first chapter for this AU I've been working on -the Sentient Protagonist AU!

This AU retells the story of the game from the point in which Luke starts Act 2 after beating Leshy, only this time a new character steals the spotlight, the protagonist of Inscryption themselves! What will happen now that Luke knows all these characters are sentient from the beggining? How will his and the not so silent protagonist relationship affect the events of the story? Only one way to find out!

P.S.: I apologize for any grammar mistakes as English is not my native language. Having said that, hope you enjoy this!

In the beginning… the world did not know cards. That is… until the day The Scrybes arrived. Each had their own unique method of… Inscryption to create cards.

Grimora used her quill to inscrybe the epitaphs of the dead…

Leshy used his wildlife camera to capture beasts…

P03 used a particle scanner to copy the CPU’s of robots…

And Magnificus used his brush to paint his wizard pupils.

With the cards created, The Scrybes had solidified their power. Until, one day, a Challenger arrived to replace one of the Scrybes!

…

Luke watched as the game he had been dealing with for over a week now managed to surprise him yet again.

“What is this?” he asked out loud, nervous laughter mixing with his words. When he had started a new game after beating the man in the cabin —who he now knew was supposed to be Leshy, the Scrybe of Beasts—, the last thing he was expecting was the sudden change in graphics. The 8-bit game that was now in front of him was completely different from the realistic 3D graphics that had been present until now. He supposed at least it made more sense for the game to be concealed in a floppy disk like this, even if it was still nowhere near possible.

Anyway, back to the game itself. Luke watched as the so-called “Challenger” appeared on screen. It was a human looking character, made to represent the player, he supposed. He tried the keys on his keyboard to move the little character and then focused on the scenario he was in. It looked like some kind of cliff with four monuments, each representing one of the Scrybes introduced before, though he supposed he had actually met them all back in the cabin, most of them having been turned into cards. A text box prompting him to “choose his ambition” blocked the only path.

According to the information given, he was supposed to choose a Scrybe so he could fight them and replace them as a new Scrybe himself, which he guessed was what had been happening during Leshy's game. Huh, no wonder the guy was so hostile towards him, then. He was pretty much trying to overthrow him. Still, if he wanted to find out what this game was really about, he'd have to defeat one of them anyway, so he wasn't about to feel bad for this. So choosing a Scrybe it was, huh? Okay, he could do that. Luke moved forward, intending to check all the stones.

Only the character didn't move. At all.

“What? What’s happening?” he said. No matter how much he tried pressing the keys, the character wouldn't move. In fact, rather than that, the screen glitched and turned black. “You've got to be fucking kidding me”.

Did the game break? That would be literally the worst. He had lied to the face of a GameFuna worker just so he could investigate it despite the legal risks it entailed, so if the game just decided to not work anymore then it all would have been for nothing. Sure, he technically could get rid of the disk and any evidence of it ever being in his possession but still…

Just as he was debating what to do, something else happened. The screen glitched again and suddenly the game came back, everything as if nothing had happened. Hesitantly, Luke pressed the button for his character to move forward, holding his breath. It took a single step before its sprite suddenly glitched and Luke took his finger off the button. He waited for something to happen, for the screen to fade to black again or the game to become corrupt. Nothing happened aside from the little character glitching some more. It seemed the sprite was bugged, but otherwise worked correctly. Oh, okay, so it fixed itself on its own, cool. Guess now he would be anxious for the rest of the game in case it freezes again or more things than just the graphics bug!

With a sigh, Luke tried to ignore the avatar's glitching every time he moved and made his way to check the monuments again, only to be interrupted, again. This time it didn’t seem to be an error, at least.

“Do we really have to replace one of them?”

The new text box appeared out of nowhere, so he guessed some new character would make an appearance to further explain his character’s motivations or the context in which the story took place. That is how this type of game worked, right? He clicked the screen, waiting for a new cinematic to happen, but instead got more text.

“I really don't like the idea of fighting them without reason, you know? Is it really so important to become a Scrybe ourselves?”

Luke slowly realized it was his character talking here. Huh, interesting. He thought it was supposed to be a silent kind of protagonist, never really speaking and only knowing its story through other characters' interactions. Maybe it was the type of protagonist that only spoke when alone? Or maybe it wasn't hows he thought at all?

“Well, not like I have many options anyway” he said as an answer for the little character's question, knowing fully well it couldn’t hear him but getting used to talking alone is what happens when you work in front of a camera.

He wasn't particularly interested in becoming a Scrybe, of course. At least not more than what the game wanted him to be. He just wanted to know what happens next in the game and why GameFuna had become so aggressive over it.

“There are other options, though. There are always other options!”

What.

Did it just…? Did the character answer him? Answer the thing he said in real life?

“What the fuck?”

‘Cause really, what the fuck was that? It couldn't be that the game was answering to him, right? His heartbeat skipped a little. No, of course not. If he stopped and thought about it, the dialogue could still make sense from an in-game perspective. It was probably just a coincidence. That had to be it. He was just a bit on edge from all the weird things happening lately and the game almost crashing before.

“Stop freaking out at everything, Luke. You're making a fool of yourself on camera.”

“Who's Luke?”

Luke froze, and just like that any sense of calm he could have had disappeared. He read the text box over and over again, trying to think of a logical explanation as to how the game could possibly know his name. There was none. Even if he assumed the game had registered it from back when he made his death card after dying the first time in the cabin that didn’t explain why the sudden mention of it. The same applied to the possibility of it just reading the name of his PC. The timing just didn’t make sense. He sighed, already feeling a headache forming.

“What the fuck? Just what the fuck is this game?”

“Player? Is something wrong?” as if to mock him, the character on screen spoke again, not even bothering to wait for him to click something this time. The question would have felt offensive if he hadn’t been panicking. There were many things wrong, starting with its apparent capability to communicate. Luke tried and failed to slow down his heartbeat. It seemed that no matter what, the game was keen on freaking him out more and more. Well, you know what? He refused to let the damm disk win. He could deal with this. He could try and pretend that none of this scared him and keep playing as he had been doing until now. He was going to discover the truth behind this game and no creepy sentient character was going to stop him.

“Player?”

Oh, right. The character was still waiting for him to answer him –God, that was so weird–. He supposed that if he was going to keep playing he might as well try to find out what was the deal with it... Them? Guess the first thing was to figure out if they could actually hear him and think by themselves. If they didn’t answer him then he could just feel like an idiot for getting scared at something that most likely was nothing and go on with his life. If they did… Well, that was something to worry about later. Taking a deep breath, Luke prepared to ask something he wasn’t sure he was ready to get an answer for.

“Can you… hear me?”

[santigarcia]

Floppy Disk 💾

Human Touch Part Six

Part One | Part Two | Part Three | Part Four | Part Five

word count: 1.2k

rating: T for sexual references, some angst

summary: You see something you weren’t supposed to and things get heated. 

a/n: thank you all so much for reading this series! let me know what yall think! thank you to @punkpascal​ and @sergeantkane​​ as always!!

“So, are you coming with me or not?” You ask Nathan from your bed. He’s in the bathroom brushing his teeth, the door is open so he can hear you. “My mom is dying to know if you’re coming.”

You’re going home for the holidays, and you want to bring Nathan with you. Especially now that you’ve been together for almost a year. You miss your family, and you want to introduce him to them.

“I don’t know,” he spits in the sink and leans against the doorway. “What if they love me more than you? I don’t want to hurt your feelings,” he slowly starts to smile, and you throw a pillow at him, which he catches.

“Are you worried they won’t like you?”

“Oh, I know they won’t like me,” he laughs. “I don’t need their approval, but I know you do.”

“Is that what’s been bothering you?” you reach for him as he sits down on the bed. “Something is bothering you. Makes me nervous.”

“Nothing to worry about, okay? Now you get some sleep,” he presses a kiss to your forehead.

“Where are you going?”

“Burning the midnight oil. Got a new idea, I need to work out the kinks.”

“Don’t stay up too late ok? And please decide. What if I say yes that you can fuck me in my childhood bedroom?”

“Fuck really? Then count me in as a yes!” he throws you a wink. He taps the doorframe with his hand before he leaves for his lab.

Since you can tell you’re going to be alone tonight, you get out of bed and make your way to the kitchen. You grab a snack (some chocolate- you made Nathan get you some when new freight came in) and go into your bedroom. Not the one you share with Nathan, but yours. The one he gave you.

Each room in the house is temperature regulated, some of which are for Nathan’s projects. His bedroom is a few degrees colder. He runs hot and if he’s too warm he gets drowsy. And he’s a little shit and turns it down colder so you’ll curl into him and your nipples poke through your shirt. But your room, your room he has a little warmer. If you’re ever in there it’s because you’re sleeping without him, and most times those are occasions like this when he’s working into the night.

You take your chocolate and curl into your bed, enjoying the warmth already. You’re not quite sleepy yet, so you pick up the TV remote and decide to watch some “Nathan TV” as you call it. His lab is on one of the channels, and you flick it over to watch what he’s doing.

What you see shocks you.

Nathan has another woman pinned up against the wall. He’s naked and so is she. You can hear his groans and you watch as he thrusts hard into her. You turn it off in horror before you can see anything else. Your mind starts racing, your blood runs cold. Surely, he didn’t bring another woman into the house without you knowing. Right?

You sit trying to catch your breath. The chocolate is half eaten and now melting in your hand. You scream and launch the chocolate bar at the TV and swing the bedroom door open. You storm down the hallway towards Nathan’s lab.

The door is closed, but it’s not locked. You shove it open and you find a very naked Nathan writing something down, he’s leaning over the tall tables in the lab. Normally you’d have delighted in seeing his ass, but not right now.

“Who is she? Where is she?” you start crying as soon as you open your mouth.

“Who?” Nathan turns, his expression quizzical and it makes your blood boil.

“You know who. I saw you on the TV.”

“You sure that wasn’t some footage of our greatest hits?” he smirks, “I like to play those sometimes.”

“Nathan, you ass. Her hair is a different color than mine! I thought you were better than this.”

“I hate to break it to you, but I have had other lovers here. Like I said, old footage.” He shrugs and goes back to making notes.

“Ok, then why are you naked?”

“What’s with the interrogation? Fuck. Sometimes I like to work naked. And yeah, okay I fucked a robot. Happy?”

You’ve had arguments before. Every relationship has disagreements. Most of your arguments with Nathan are small, easily resolved. Most revolve around habits he has due to being alone for years. Either you interfere with a train of thought, or he works too much and leaves no time for you. But those are worked around.

But this, this one feels different. You feel betrayed, and he’s acting so cold.

“A robot? So now you have to lie to me?”

“It’s not a lie.” His voice is dry, he very intentionally does not look up from his notes.

“Right, I forgot, you don’t mince words. And I guess that answers that then. I’ll go home alone.” You reach for the door, unable to look at him before he whips around.

“No, it doesn’t, don’t walk away!”

But you do. You don’t want to hear it. Robot or not – it still hurts. He picked them over you. You saw the woman, she had curves in all the right places you didn’t.

Why did she have to look so perfect if this was for science? And why is he so defensive? Are you not good enough?

You hoped this day would never come. But it hurts too much to stay. You call your cousin and it’s not long before she picks you up.

You fly home for the holidays, and you don’t fly back. Nathan texts you and calls you multiple times a day, but you ignore them. It hurts too much to talk to him. And you don’t trust yourself with him. With one word he could have you crawling back and you’re angry.

You’ll grow to regret ignoring him, but after some time the texts and calls stop. The last you hear from him is a few months later when boxes of your stuff arrive at your front door.

Months pass. A year or two goes by and you thought you moved on. You’re engaged now to a man named Jack. He’s kind, but honestly boring. You thought that’s what you needed, but there’s no passion in your life anymore. But he’s safe, and after what happened with Nathan, it’s more your family’s decision than it is your own.

Your life is simple. You live with Jack on his ranch, with little reminders of Nathan out there.

Until one day, you see a news story.

“Bluebook CEO, Nathan Bateman, survives a near fatal AI accident.”

You gasp seeing the story, causing your fiancé to look at you with question. You grab your phone and search all news stories related to him. From what you can gather, one of his AI’s stabbed him. Twice.

Tears well up in your eyes. What if you had been there, you could have stopped it. And you feel bad for him, this wasn’t how he would have wanted to show his AI masterpiece to the world.

“That’s not about your asshole ex is it?” Jack asks with a snort.

“Yes, it is actually,” you shake your head and continue to read. You look for where he’s recovering, you want to see him.

xx

tagging: @pascal-isaac​, @wasicskosgirl​, @velvetmel0n​, @huliabitch​, @shadow-assassin-blix​, @writefightandflightclub​, @aellynera​, @softboywriting​, @veuliee2​, @spider-starry​, @mylifeliterally​, @millllenniawrites​, @ntlmundy​, @foxilayde, @writingletterstothefire​, @mandoplease​, @anetteaneta​, @feelmyroarrrr​, @artsymaddie​, @shakespeareanwannabe​, @poedameronsbeard​, @deanfanatic67​​, @magicsuperheroes​​, @phoenixhalliwell​​, @that-one-weird-one​​, @mariesackler, @yourbucky084​​, @woakiees​

[mediawhorefics]

marie! i haven’t seen you on socials in a while! how are you? how is life going? missed you <3

heyyy !!! i've mostly been hanging out on my personal blog... sorry it's felt like i've been mia. i usually try to log on here once in a while to answer asks and stuff (same on twt) but i haven't received many lately so i guess i've let this blog go a bit uh? i'm sorry, i've actually missed chatting with you guys.

i've been... okay? a bit stressed in general. i'm slowly getting ready to go back to work and that comes with..... a lot of anxiety so that's :/// but in general things have been good i think? i haven't been very productive re: writing/reading which is always a huge disappointment for me tbh. but i've been slowly working on reorganizing and redecorating my bedroom, so that's been really fun. bought a new duvet cover cos mine was falling apart and got some cute cushions to match. kept my louis ' bedtime for me' one tho cos that one is Top Tier.

finally got my underwood 1917 typewriter into my hands (it was a bday present but she was a couple hours away from me) so she's queen of my space now and has a great displaying spot:

also got a cute green velvet chair to make a little reading/writing nook in the corner of my bedroom. it's just been the best so far, i love it!

AND i finally put up my star wars embroideries on my wall so there's no question as to whether i'm a massive nerd or not:

so yeah, i've been busy working on my Interior Designer credentials i guess haha. as you can see, i don't believe in minimalism rip.

what else ?? my dad brought me a box of old childhood/high school stuff recently too so it's been fun to go through those memories! i found all my old synchronised swimsuits and turns out even with the ~quarantine 15, i still fit in most of them. after like.... 16 years. which is actually kind of wild ??? but yeah lots of cringe journals and old CDs and stuff! found a fucking FLOPPY DISK ???? with what i think is old star wars fanfiction me and my high school best friend were working on (according to whats written on it at least ????). A FLOPPY DISK GUYS. I AM ANCIENT !!!! i truly wish i had something to READ IT because i bet it's the most cringy shit ever hahaha. i also found all my old revenge of the sith movie tickets which got me really emo because i'm star wars/rots TRASH and i've always been lol.

what else? what else? i've been binging narcos? mostly because pedro pascal is super hot, but also because it's really good if slightly upsetting in nature. so that's been fun (tho not relaxing). also slowly trying to get my dad into supernatural, which.... i'm not sure how he feels about it but he's powering through s1 haha. we shall see 👀👀👀

today, unfortunately, my stepdad's family is coming over for dinner, which my introverted antisocial ass is not happy about, but i'm gonna be making some cream cheese brownies and an apple crumble for it later this afternoon so that should be Fun/Relaxing at least.

and yeah, honestly that's it. there's not been much going on tbh? i don't really keep up too much with 1d fandom rn tbh, but i try to catch a few gifs from harry's tour because i do miss stage harry. even tho i still think pandemic touring is dumb af !

this is probably more update than you actually wanted, i'm sorry. i guess i felt like rambling today uh ??? rip.