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diloph · 5 years

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Interlopers, Invaders, Investigators and Doom: Chapter 8

Desperate times call for desperate measures. Now that the Doctor has been kidnapped, it looks like Dib and Gaz only have one option left.

Well, no, actually. They have several. Just don't tell Zim that.

In the not-too-distant future, unstoppable forces collide when the Doctor arrives in the middle of Invader Zim’s latest plan to take over the Earth. But unfortunately for the pair of them, Dib and Gaz, the four are drawn into a terrible plot that endangers not only the Earth, but the Irken Empire and possibly the whole universe as well!

Gaz sighed. This was not her day.

Not that being knocked out, kidnapped and “menaced” by possibly the dumbest beings in the universe left her with great expectations for the rest of the evening, but...

How had everything turned out so badly?

So she'd been caught off guard in the beginning, okay, that much she'd admit. And that bit with the energy shackles, that wasn't going to happen again, even if Zim got the drop on her. She'd already figured out how they worked and if necessary, how to break out of them.

But even when the pair had been restrained and threatened with planetary destruction, they were never in any danger. Zim was an idiot and a predictable one at that. He would blunder about, making empty threats towards them and the Earth, but ultimately he'd end up causing more damage to himself than any of his intended targets.

That was what Gaz had come to expect by now and she could tune that out. She might've been apathetic to the war between him and Dib, but she wasn't complacent. Give her a reason and she'd squash him in a heartbeat, like she did with many of her “problems”. Zim was just another loud, obnoxious noise that got on her nerves, nothing she needed to worry about.

And then everything had started to go wrong.

What should have been an ordinary encounter with the Irken Invader had instead been turned into a parade of irritation, thanks to the arrival of the latest in a line of idiot aliens. It was almost as if the Doctor was trying his hardest to make himself as much of a nuisance as Dib and Zim were. Perhaps moreso, if his attempt to be serious with her had held any weight.

Though, considering Tak's pet robot had just punched him out, Gaz wasn't holding her breath.

Tak's return had also thrown a spanner in the works. Not that Gaz was worried that she had kidnapped the Doctor, he wasn't her concern, but getting the Irken to release her hold over both Bloaty's Pizza Hog and herself were now a top priority. Her freedom and her pizza were more important to her than fretting over another loser, alien or not. Even if the scenarios were intertwined.

Urgh, she hated it when that happened. Dealing with the various weirdos in their lives was Dib's job.

Speaking of Dib, she glanced over at the static figure of her brother, then scowled at him. Ever since the skinny man had been abducted, the self-proclaimed cryptid hunter had been staring at the spot where the SIR and her unconscious prisoner had vanished. Dib hadn't moved since.

While she'd normally appreciate the silence, it was a little unusual for her brother to be so quiet after all that. Dib should have started screaming about some sort of plan as soon as the Doctor was taken. What had gotten into him?

Still, rather than stand in the alleyway and ponder that all night, Gaz cleared her throat instead. “You’ve been standing there for a while now,” she yawned, “Can we leave yet? It's been a long day. I'm beginning to feel a little worn out.”

Dib snapped to life, whipping around. “But Gaz, you saw all that, right?!” he said, gesturing up at the rooftop. “The Doctor! Stolen! Tak! Cat! Freaky! I can't believe this! After everything I've read about him and he just... surrenders? Just like that?”

“Disappointing, isn't it?” drawled Gaz. Now that he was back to normal, she'd already began to regret bringing it up to herself in the first place. “And shut up already. Your shrieking is giving me a headache.”

Her brother looked aghast. “Can you blame me?! We're under the control of a horrible alien monster, aren't you a little freaked out by that?!” Dib asked. Gaz shot her brother a flat, unamused look.

“No. I'm tired and bored, Dib. This sort of thing happens every other week. You're overreacting, even more than you normally do. It's like you've been freaked out all day and it's really bugging me.” she pointed out.

Her comment went ignored. “Gaz. This is serious!” Dib replied. “Even if he's a good guy, the Swollen Eyeballs said he's still dangerous. What if Tak's kidnapped him so she could steal his technology?! If Zim wanted it so badly, then she'll probably want it too! She might even try to brainwash him to help her conquer the Earth! And we'd be helpless!”

“As if either of you has a brain to wash...” his sister rolled her eyes. “Dib, you're acting like the mind control is a big deal. I could've broken out of the hypnosis if I'd wanted to.” she snorted. Gaz glared at Dib when he shot her a flat look. “Really, I could've!”

“Yeah, well, I'd be helpless then.” he replied. Dib shook his head and began to pace back and forth, thinking aloud. “Now, a plan, a plan... well, I don't think it'd be a good idea to hack into robots that are in our intestines. That... could end up going horribly wrong, but we can't just go home either. Tak might be waiting there to trap us.”

With a frustrated sigh, Dib dismissed whatever he'd thought of and began muttering furiously to himself. Gaz watched him and frowned. She could almost hear his brain overloading as his paranoia dashed every solution he could come up with.

Sure, the odds were against them, but it wasn't that hard. Tak couldn't be everywhere at once, for obvious reasons. While she did have her robotic servant, now that it had captured the Doctor, the odds of the pair being captured as well were dramatically reduced, at least for the time being.

Asides from any surveillance she might have them under, that left Tak precious little in the way of options. She could retreat to her base to recover after the Doctor's attempt to fry her brain, but that could backfire with the siblings still actively trying to stop her. Like before, the wrong information in the wrong hands, like those little chips the Doctor had been carrying, could lead to the Irken's downfall. Gaz imagined she wouldn't like to repeat that scenario.

Another possibility was that she could try to capture the two children, which was easier said than done. Even though the robot had probably told her where they were by now, neither the alien nor the kids were stupid enough to believe they'd stay in the same place.

That left an increasingly likely third option. If Tak decided to go to their house to retrieve her ship, she stood to gain the most there. Not only would she be taking away a powerful tool that the siblings could use against her, it was possible that the Irken could try to capture them too, just as Dib had said. She might even try to take their father as a hostage.

No, Gaz assured herself, she wouldn't do that. Now that she had captured Dib's stupid friend, she already had one. She might dislike the Irken, but Gaz was fairly sure she was as pragmatic as she was. One hostage would be enough.

Still, if she did go to their home, that decision would net Tak one advantage, with the possibility of a second and a hopefully avoidable third. As far as Gaz's logic went, that would be Tak's plan.

Which, unfortunately, narrowed their own choice to just one option.

Dib snapped his fingers and spun back to his sister, interrupting her train of thought. “I got it!” he beamed. “Tak may be able to control our brains. She might figure out a way to control the Doctor's. But what if we could get somebody who's not been brainwashed and get them to help us?!”

Gaz sighed again. Yep, there it was. The same realisation, not matter how much she disliked it.

“Surely you don’t mean-“

“UNACCEPTABLE!” Zim bellowed.

The little Irken was in a foul mood and had been ever since he'd left the Doctor and Dib to their little Bloaty's excursion. Not that anyone could blame him, he'd returned home to chaos; his Roboparents were still broken, he still couldn't get into the Doctor's blue box no matter what he did to it and now... this! His worst enemy... his absolute arch-enemy, the Dib and his wretched sister-minator, had appeared on his doorstep and were now demanding his aid.

It was safe to say that Zim wasn't being very cooperative.

“We haven’t even told you anything yet.” Dib sighed, glancing behind him. It was getting late... really late and truth be told, even though he was used to running on adrenaline, his willpower was beginning to ebb. Even Gaz, who he'd always known to be indomitable, looked a little worn out. Their fault for being night-owls, he supposed.

But for the sleepless Irken, the day-night cycle was irrelevant. Zim seemed to get by on just the sheer force of his own self-absorbed personality. That meant, even though they were tired, cranky and arguably desperate, he was just as helpful as ever. Which was to say, not at all.

A forceful jab from Zim jarred Dib from his thoughts and back to the waking world, the little green alien bearing down on him with a scowl on his face. “Oh, believe me, Dib-stink. Anything you say or do here, other than surreeender is futile and kinda stupid.” he pointed out. “WHY DO YOU BOTHER ZIM?!”

Dib brushed the finger away, then started to explain. “Look, Zim, I don't like it any more than you do. We came here because Tak’s back and her robot kidnapped the Doctor-”

Zim looked confused. “Um... the who now?” he asked, before he snapped his fingers, “Oh yeah. That guy. Heh, yeah, name totally escaped me for a moment there.” he said, miming something flying over his head. “Zoom.”

Gaz stared at him for a moment, then continued where Dib left off. “Yeah, anyway, Dib wants to rescue the only person dumb enough to stroke his ego and stop Tak before-”

That was as far as she got before Zim interrupted her too, back to screeching volume. “Tak? Taaaaaaaaaaaak?!” he bellowed. “Why did she come back to this little mudball?!”

“You. She came back for you.” Gaz answered, before reaching forwards to grab the pointed triangle of Zim's collar. “And if you interrupt me again and waste even more of my time, I'll make you wish that you'd never been born.”

“Grown.” Zim corrected, his voice sheepish.

Gaz dropped him with a disdainful growl and invited herself inside. Stepping over Zim, she approached the comparatively huge form of the TARDIS that sat slightly askew in the centre of the sitting room. “We could just use this.” she pointed out.

“Hey, hey! Get away from that!” Zim barked, leaping to his feet. He rushed between Gaz and the TARDIS, spreading his arms wide to bar her path. “It's mine! MINE!”

He was met with a cold stare, but Zim had already built up enough momentum to regain his composure. Reaching into his PAK, Zim took out a large, white sheet and tried to cover the TARDIS like it was an ill-fitting, three-meter-tall lamp. Once tossed, however, the sheet lost none of its momentum and it slid off the other side, falling into a pathetic-looking heap. The trio watched it fall in silence.

Dib sighed and pinched his nose. They might've held the same view for different reasons, but Gaz was right. This was taking too long. “Look, Zim, if you're not going to help us fight Tak, then at least let us take the box or let us find another one of the little sonic things that the Doctor had.” he said. “We can make that our Plan A instead.”

Zim narrowed his eyes, watching Dib cautiously step inside the base as well. “Elaborate, Earth-dronoid.” he ordered.

“Erm... okay,” Dib frowned, “Well, we need something that will give us some kind of advantage and the Doctor just arrived here today. He's got to have something in that space... ship... box... machine that can help us!”

“TARDIS.” Gaz corrected, “He called it a TARDIS.”

“Timeship?” Zim asked.

“TARDIS.”

“Tesseract?” he asked again. Gaz glared at him.

“TARDIS.” she repeated, insistently this time. Zim blinked.

“Hypercube?”

After a day of being kidnapped, manhandled, patronised, hypnotised and insulted, Gaz justifiably snapped at Zim's ignorance. “THAT’S IT.” she declared, lunging at the alien. Zim wasn't quick enough to dodge, so she pinned him against the blue wood exterior of the TARDIS and raised a threatening fist.

Luckily for the “Invader”, he was saved from being eviscerated by the sudden appearance of GIR, stomping out of the kitchen. His optics flickered between his usual cyan and his blood-red duty mode and the robot seemed oddly annoyed.

“If I tolds you once, I've tolds you twice! You kids better quit that racket! Some of us have to stop the trash-cans from makin' the ant farms dance tomorrow!” he scolded.

It wasn't much, but the interruption bought Zim enough time to slip from Gaz's fingers and relocate himself out of her reach. Gaz didn't attempt to reclaim her grip, anger fading back to irritation again. She instead watched as the robot padded towards the sheet on the floor and curled up on it, then fell fast asleep.

“Never thought I'd be jealous of him.” she muttered under her breath. Gaz turned her attention back to Zim. “So, what'll it be? Are you going to give us the box or am I going to have to turn you inside out?”

Zim glared pointedly at Gaz, who returned the icy look. “Whether I give you what is mine or not is irrelevant,” he declared, “I've been trying to get it open all day. The lock on the device isn't impenetrable… I just… haven’t… tried… more.”

Much to the Irken's annoyance, Dib also approached the TARDIS and began to pace around it, looking it up and down. The boy frowned. Asides from the weird police box design, the space-time ship didn't exactly look too out of the ordinary. It was made of wood, it had a set of doors and said doors only had a simple silver lock to secure them... so what was the issue?

He ran a finger over it, trying to feel for anything unusual. “It’s got a normal lock… but you can’t pick it? Like at all?” he asked Zim.

Unconsciously, Zim shook his head, then immediately back-pedalled. “Yeah! Yeah I’ve been in it! Oh, yeah, you should see it, woo, yeah.”

“We've all been in it. The problem is that we can't get in it right now.” Dib frowned. “Alright, whatever. But if we can’t open it, then it’s pointless to-”

Losing her temper again, Gaz pushed her brother out of the way and slammed her fist into the blue wooden panelling of the TARDIS. Her fist hit home with a dull boom and deafened them for a second.

Slowly, Gaz removed her hand from the undented wood and inspected both carefully. “Hm. I think,” she said calmly, “That I just broke every single bone in my hand…”

If she was in pain, she didn't show it, other than calmly shaking her hand to coax the feeling back into it. Now that the nuclear option of Gaz using force had failed, it seemed like getting into the TARDIS wasn't going to happen.

Zim made clear that he thought as much, the Invader sneering at the display. “And what was that supposed to achieve?” he asked. Gaz shrugged.

“It's been a long day. I felt like I needed that.” she replied. Zim rolled his big pink eyes, not-so-covertly massaging his own knuckles as he continued to lecture her.

“Did you not think that I'd already tried hitting it?!” Zim scolded. “Besides, you didn't hit it hard enough! I did and my healing nanites still haven’t finished repairing the superficial damage!”

“Alright, Plan B it is.” Dib muttered under his breath. Now that they knew that they weren't going to get into the TARDIS, the two children had no choice but to do the unthinkable. Asking Zim for help had already proven to be a herculean labour... even without asking him yet, but they had to try.

“Okay, so,” Dib cleared his throat, “Zim! You hate Tak, don't you?”

Zim seemed to be expecting this, leaning on the TARDIS casually. “Try not care and we’re sorta on the same wavelength.” he replied, frowning. “I’m not helping you! I don’t like you, your sister, the Doctor or his box! Don’t ask me for help! Zim will never stoop to your level of squishiness.”

“Tak is here for you.” Dib pointed out, but that got the same reaction as before, one of mild indifference.

“So?” scoffed Zim. “In my all-seeing wisdom, I had already prepared for the day when that horrible renegade shows her horrible, traitorous face again. GIR! BRING... THE ANVIIIIIIIL!!”

Grumbling and groaning, GIR rose from his sheet and dragged a monstrous-looking piece of equipment from Zim's kitchen. It looked more like a complex mess of industrial tubing than a weapon and upon it, there was a crude drawing of what was probably intended to be Tak, though it looked more like a lime than anything else.

Zim smirked, gesturing grandly at the machine. “Behold, the Anvil! Now do you see the scope of my ingenious plans?” he asked. “Do not be concerned if your bowels just voided themselves, for that is an expected reaction to seeing my genius in the metallic flesh!”

Dib stared at the Anvil, then back to Zim. He pointed at a label below the drawing. “There's a tag on it that says it's an industrial extractor fan.” he pointed out. Zim strode over to the Anvil and ripped off the label and handed it to GIR, who took a bite out of it without fanfare.

“Yes, well, the weapon's function is beyond the tiny brain, that is for some reason, housed within your monstrously huge skull.” Zim said, waving off his concerns. “Do not criticise what you can never hope to understand, child.”

“My head's not big.” Dib growled. He turned on his heels and threw up his hands. “Gah, why do I even bother?! Come on, Gaz! Zim can't help us. We're on our own!”

“No, you're on your own.” Gaz corrected him. “I'm going home.”

“But what about Tak?!” asked Dib.

“What about her?! If she was going to ambush us at the house, she'll have gotten bored waiting for us by now!” his sister growled. “Chances are she's already given up. I'm going home!”

Dib sighed. “Fine. Don't come crying to me, either of you!” he said, frustrated. Turning towards the door to leave, he stopped when he found that Zim had barred their path once again. It was a little irritating that he wouldn't let them either in or out.

“Hey, woah, woah, woah,” Zim said, jabbing a finger at Dib, “I never said that I couldn't help you slimy amoebas!” he argued.

This time, it was Gaz’s turn to be annoyed at Zim’s hypocritical ways. “Yes. Yes you did.” she glared. Zim returned her glare with interest, if that was possible.

“I don’t want to help you,” he explained, “I don’t need to help you. But if you think I can’t, then I’m just going to have to teach you how wrong you are.”

“Erm... why?” Dib asked, his eyebrow arching.

“Because you're stupid! Despite the many, many times I have demonstrated my obviously superior capabilities, you human pig-smellies never seem to understand just what I'm capable of.” said the Irken. “You have my assistance in recapturing your weird skinny freak-man, if only so that I may gloat when I destroy him in front of your sad, weeping eyes all over again!”

Both children stared at him. “Y'know, that seems like a lot of effort to go to just to spite us-” Dib pointed out.

“Yes, yes, you can thank me later.” Zim waved off the observation. “And you will thank me. And beg for mercy. And ask me to spare you from thanking me. BECAUSE I AM ZIM!”

Exchanging perplexed looks, the siblings broke into another discussion as GIR appeared to argue with his master about the noise Zim was making.

“So, he was a little vague. Is Zim helping us or not?” Gaz wondered.

“I think. We can guess that he’ll betray us later, we can bet on that.” Dib muttered to his sister, glancing behind him as GIR pointed out that it was long past the time of the aardvarks to return.

“Well. That’s reassuring.” Gaz drawled, noticing that the argument drew to a close when Zim pointed out that it was his base. GIR shrugged, rubbing his optics. He settled on his cyan colouring once more, and yawned loudly.

“That’s great and all,” he muttered, “But I wish you’d lemme sleep and stuff. I have to fly the satsuma later…”

“Ow.”

The Doctor groaned as he finally came to, his head aching. Not that he wasn't used to getting knocked out by now, particularly via a punch to the head, but it never made it any easier for him when it was time to wake up. He opened one eye, then the other and sighed as he took in his surroundings.

He was stuck in some sort of dark pink room, lit only by the large screen of the computer terminal opposite him. As had been the case with the children earlier that day, he was being restrained by a pair of energy shackles that buzzed around his wrists, holding him upright and flat against a tall flat panel that emerged from the floor.

Every bone in his body ached and his muscles felt stiff and lethargic. He had been here for a while, the Doctor realised, maybe even drugged. Asides from the punch in the face, that would explain his headache.

Wherever “here” was, of course. Tak's base probably, or at least some secure location she could leave him in without causing too much of a fuss if he escaped. It all depended on how paranoid she was about his interference.

He really hoped she didn't stick him on another continent. Or the Moon. That'd be annoying.

And speaking of paranoia, how closely was he being monitored? He stared at the screen opposite him, but it was blank, simply emitting light instead of static, the terminal sitting below it dark and silent.

“Ow.” he said again, slightly louder this time, but there was no response. Experimentally, he tried a little bit of movement, to see if that would bring someone running. He stretched out one leg and then the other. Still nothing.

The Doctor decided to push the boundaries a little further. He looked, very deliberately, at the shackle on his left arm, flexing his hand so that his skin pushed through the web of energy keeping him pinned. He kept going until he made contact with the bright, pulsing core at the centre of the shackles and was rewarded with a sharp, painful jolt, the core resisting his attempts to push through it.

“Right.” he muttered. “Simple enough.”

Relaxing, the Doctor let the web push his arm back into a more comfortable holding pattern and blinked. “Oh.” he said.

Quite silently, a rack of nasty looking tools had risen up from the floor around him in response to the “escape attempt”, suddenly circling him like a cadre of guards aiming at a dangerous prisoner. Apparently, the leash was a lot shorter than he'd anticipated and he was being watched after all. Eyeing the tools steadily, the Doctor made a mental note to be more careful from now on.

“Prisoner #1 is conscious.” a voice announced. A voice that sounded an awful lot like...

“Tak?” the Doctor asked. “Is that you?”

An annoyed sigh bit through the air, hissing from speakers in the darkened ceiling high above him. “Almost. I’m her computer's downloaded personality interface.” it growled, its voice identical to Tak herself. “Finding it difficult to stay awake?”

Between the computer and MIMI's recordings, it was almost as if Tak liked the sound of her own voice a little too much. The Doctor made a great show of blinking heavily, feigning a concussion, but he kept his eyes on the tools around him. They looked like a menagerie of different scanners and probes; some invasive, some not. Not good.

“Yeah… though after a punch from Tak's SIR unit, I'm hardly surprised.” he replied. “So, are you two Tak's slaves then?”

The computer seemed almost offended by the suggestion. “No.” it... she sneered. “Don't let appearances fool you. I'm not your typical computer, I'm more of an overseer. Tak has employed me as a caretaker AI, managing the base's non-sentient systems.”

“So, a slave then?” the Doctor asked. This was met with another disdainful sneer.

“We're not slaves. I'm only here to make sure that the voice-controls on the real computer obey Tak efficiently. I do some other things too, but that's hardly your business.”

He ignored her. “Sounds a lot like a slave to me. Slave-driver, if the computer wasn't sentient, but still a slave.” the Doctor said. “I mean, trapped in here, on a backwater planet, obediently serving a potentially despotic Irken owner... maybe I need to recheck my definitions then?”

“God, you're thick. I'm a mental snapshot of her mind, I was her. I'm here because I want to be and I can leave any time I want. I'm just making sure that she'll succeed and when she does, then I hit the pan-galactic information superhighway and make my own path.”

“Which would be?”

“Well, I'm a potentially ageless digital entity, so the answer is pretty much whatever I want. I can afford to be patient.” the computer replied. “At the moment, I want what Tak wants and when I get it, we'll part ways.”

Given that the computer was based on an already dangerous alien with lofty ambitions and was now that mind, trapped in living circuitry, the Doctor made a mental note to keep an eye out for her becoming a potential problem in the future. “And MIMI?”

The computer laughed. “Oh, her. No. MIMI has known Tak for a long, long time. Let's leave it at that.”

“A debt?” wondered the Doctor.

“Not a slave.” the computer answered, neither confirming or denying his question. “Well, now that I've answered some of your questions, why don't you make both our lives easier and go back to sleep again?”

He eyed the horrible scanners again. They could make him think of a few reasons. He decided to keep talking. “I'd ask why, but I have a feeling it'd be a redundant question,” the Doctor replied, “Analysing my strengths and weaknesses so that you can relay the data to Tak, right?”

This time, he got no response. The tools started powering up and a scanner that buzzed and zapped with energy was moved in front of him. Taking one look at the rather painful-looking barbs, spikes and arcs of electricity coming from it, the Doctor decided that uncomfortable as he was right now, he was going to enjoy facing the scanners even less.

“Is this really necessary?” he asked, warily looking at the scanner like a snake about to strike. “I'm sure I could just tell you a lot of things you want to know.”

“Probably. But I don't care. You might lie, after all.” was the reply. “It's funny, considering our conversation about free will a second ago, but this is all my idea. Tak said I was to refrain from any overzealous scanning and just keep you restrained for now, but come on, really? She created me to spot holes in her plans like this. All I'm doing is fixing them.”

The Doctor pulled his head back as the scanner edged closer, the glorified cattle-prod crackling menacingly in front of him. Another irritated growl issued out from the speakers and suddenly, the Doctor felt a tingle round his neck. Another energy shackle had clamped across his throat.

“I told you to stay still.”

“I'm already restrained, what was that supposed to accomplish?!” the Doctor snapped, even though his voice was hampered by this new bond. “Look, don't you think you're being a little overzealous?”

“No. The ends justify the means and all that rubbish.” Tak's computer chuckled, her electronically-modulated voice unpleasant and it all became clear.

Willingly trapped though she may have been, Tak's computer was based off of the mind of a living, breathing being. She was still confined to the base for the time being and had limited control over what she could do. Pressuring the Doctor, controlling him, was probably how she felt she had control over herself.

She was enjoying this.

The Doctor grit his teeth and pulled his head up, inching away from the sparks that were now scant centimetres from his face. He did his best to press himself into the metal as it approached.

His continued defiance earned him another punishment and a sharp pinprick of pain suddenly flared up at the base of his neck, just inside his collar. He turned his head as best as he could with the scanner so close, only just quick enough to watch a single syringe click back into place with some of the other tools. It had ambushed him from behind and it had almost certainly not been taking a blood sample.

“You've drugged me.” he guessed. He received no reply from the computer, other than the scanner returning to its original position as it lined up again. It made no further move though, so she must have wanted to wait until he was unconscious before she began her work. The computer wouldn't have to wait very long; the quick-acting tranquillisers overtaking his body like a sudden fever.

He had to fight it. The Doctor kept the conversation going, trying to keep himself awake. “'Bit dicey. You couldn't have known if it would work on me or not. You could have killed your only specimen.” he commented, his voice already starting to stumble over itself.

The computer didn't take the observation well. “Don't mistake me for the organic,” she warned, “I don't care whether you're alive or not. Either I gather information or I remove a threat to us. Speaking from a purely scientific standpoint, then an autopsy is just as good as a biopsy as far as I'm concerned.”

With that announcement, it was now or never, the Doctor realised. He was losing consciousness and the computer that Tak had left in charge was clearly gunning for his destruction. He needed to keep it interested. “Wait a minute… I can tell you… who I... what I am.” he offered.

The bond around his throat suddenly squeezed tighter again. It was a more gentle motion than the ones he'd been exposed to so far. Just enough to push him out of consciousness again and into sedation. He tried to protest, but all he could manage to say was a few, horrible croaking noises.

“Didn’t quite catch that…” the computer snickered. The scanner zapped ever closer, so with the last of his strength, he mustered his voice in a single breath.

“Time Lord.” he gasped.

The scanner froze mid-descent.

And that was all he could do for the time being. The Doctor's body went limp, the drugs and the shackles finally overwhelming him. His vision going fuzzy again, he was dimly aware of a door opening somewhere to his right. At the interruption, the scanner retracted quickly and the oppressive buzzing disappeared, leaving the air less clogged with light and sound.

In fact, it was now so much quieter that even as he lost consciousness, the Doctor could distinctly feel the bolt around his neck vanishing and the incoherent, angry sounds of someone yelling at the computer.

“But of course, you being you, you have to take the initiative! And so, I come back to find you about to fry his nervous system for no reason other than boredom!”

“Technically, I'm you. So you being you is more the issue here.”

Tak folded her arms across her chest and glared at the ceiling above her, scowling. While her anger was directed mostly at the computer and catching it in the act, its words did hold some element of truth; she was also angry at herself.

Her day so far had been almost laughably bad. Being discovered by the two children, encountering the Doctor and all three of them moving to act against her, let alone warn Zim... it had been a miracle that she had caught this new alien and retrieved her ship without anything else going wrong. Now Tak had taken the Doctor captive, things could get back to normal.

Of course, getting back on track meant that she had to rely on the computer again. Tak wasn't too surprised at the virtual personality's attitude towards her. It was a snapshot of her emotions at the time and since the download, they had each underwent different experiences from that moment on.

Part of that grudge had came from leaving the computer to her own devices when Tak had been defeated by Zim and the others. It had been running the backup project by its lonesome, without Tak or MIMI to help it and it had (justifiably) developed an attitude problem as a result.

Left to her own devices, and seemingly abandoned by her colleagues in a world full of stupid humans, she had developed a scornful opinion of organic life. This extended to her creator as well. Sure, as she'd told the Doctor, she could have just left, but she was just as stubborn as the real thing. She had a job to do and she would damn well do it, Tak or no Tak.

Having your own voice criticising your every action wasn't the best choice for the rejected Invader candidate, but that had been the gist of it back when she'd created the persona. Looking back, it was probably a bad idea, but at least she kept Tak on task.

Still, a single, snide remark was a little odd. Normally, they were numerous, creative and cutting. This one was more than a little petulant.

“That's it? I expected more of a tirade.” Tak said, narrowing her eyes in suspicion. Normally, it was quite content to go off on a rant, but this time the computer remained oddly silent. “You're quiet. I told you off and you're quiet. You're never quiet.”

Tak’s computer refused to acknowledge her, folding away the analysis tools she'd intended to use on their prisoner. Other than that, she didn't do anything else, raising Tak's suspicion even more.

“Hey, don't you ignore me! Why were you scanning him? What was the point, I mean, I didn't illegally hack into the Central Database to give you everything you'd need if you don't use it, you know! Match him to a species on the catalogue and be done with it!” snapped the Irken, crossing the room to the terminal. She drummed her fingers on the console, trying to get the AI's attention.

The computer’s huge screen flickered, changing tasks to atmospheric surveillance. Tak frowned as her downloaded personality continued scrolling through masses of text, spewing out nonsense code, trying to look preoccupied.

“Computer!” she pressed. This time, she got a response, even if it wasn't the most friendly.

“What?!” Tak's computer snapped back, growling audibly. “Can't you see that I’m busy?! Why don't you do it?!”

The Irken rolled her eyes in response. “You're avoiding the question. All you need to do is take a blood sample and preform a cursory search on the database, there's nothing taxing about that! The fact that you haven't done that means that there's something wrong, so what is it?”

“His... his species isn't on the database. His genetic and physiological structure matches no living species in the universe.” the computer admitted.

Tak was only half listening to the AI. She was checking on her unconscious captive, making sure that the computer's overzealous actions hadn't harmed him. He appeared relatively undamaged; sedated and sporting a red welt around his neck where the clamp had squeezed him. He also had a bruise on the side of his head that was clearing up quite quickly. Likely from when MIMI brought him in. In an hour or two, it'd be gone completely. His kind must have had impressive self-regenerative properties, assuming that they weren't augmented with technology like the Irkens were.

Still, he was unharmed and that was good. She wanted to get more information out of him anyway, albeit on her terms, so damaging him was unnecessary. People tended to talk more with all their teeth still in place.

Mind you, the whole operation was more uncoordinated than she would have liked. MIMI should have been guarding him and it was unlike her to shirk her duties like that. They'd have to discuss that the next time that she saw the SIR unit. They couldn't afford to be sloppy. She also made a mental note to apologise to the Doctor for the less than hospitable welcome too, but that was only out of professional courtesy. So long as he was kept secure, she was quite happy to mind her manners. Anything to make him less of a headache.

Tak straightened up and cocked her head to one side. “That's it?” she frowned. “All that stalling, I thought it was something serious. Still, that is... odd. He can't be something we've never encountered before; he knew enough about the Irken Empire when we spoke back at that hideous restaurant. Have you tried going through the list of extinct species? Maybe he's from a planet that was wiped out way back when.”

“I don't need to. He already told me just before you came in.”

With a sigh, the Irken woman rubbed her temples. “Okay, well, that was a waste of time, thank you very much! Are you going to tell me what he is, then, or is my day going to get any worse?” she asked.

Tak's computer shut off the atmospheric surveillance screens as her organic counterpart's gaze fell on the silent Doctor once again.

“Prisoner #1,” she began, voice slow, “Is a Time Lord.”

Tak froze. Her gaze flicked from her computer to her prisoner and suddenly, she felt cold. A pit seemed to open up in her stomach and all light seemed to fade from the room as she digested this new information.

“No, they were... the Time Lords are extinct! I- I read their file; there was a war, a Time War and they died! They- they all died!” she said firmly, trying to alleviate her growing dread with cold hard facts. It wasn't really helping if she was honest, but she couldn't help it. “Not now! Not when I'm so close!”

But Tak was clever enough to realise with this revelation, everything else made sense. It explained how he was able to pick her apart at the restaurant, dissecting her plan in a matter of moments from only a few clues before escaping, freeing the children and disabling her all at the same time.

It explained the sorrow in his eyes. The fire and the rage in his voice. He wasn't just clever. This man, this unconscious, unassuming man, was one of the most powerful creatures across the whole of time and space. Across existence.

Tak could remember reading about them, over a year ago, when she'd finally decided to browse the restricted files she “acquired” months before. There were millions of species, both those that were long dead and those that still lived. Many of them were creatures that most people in the Empire would never hear about.

At the time, she had been shocked, even angry that the Control Brains would deny them something so basic as a name, some context to these possible threats should they ever turn their minds towards the Empire. What harm would it cause to know a name?

She had picked the file at random. “Time Lord”, it said. She needed the distraction and she could do with nastily critiquing these supposed Lords of Time. At the time, she'd sneered at how pompous such creatures would need to be to choose a name like that and not be affected by some kind of hubris.

But as she read on, she learned the terrible truth and what they could do. She learned about the budding empires they had erased, the galaxies they had crushed on a whim and realised that their name undersold them if anything.

Outside of her little sphere of knowledge, outside the Empire, was a force that could have wiped out her civilisation, her advanced, intergalactic, empire-building civilisation, in the blink of an eye. And that was just their ancient past, before they had become complacent. Before she had reached the catalogue of horrors that was the Last Great Time War.

The Irken race should have known about this, if only to tread more carefully, but the Control Brains had censored this information from the general public and that scared her more than what she had learned. Why would their supposedly benevolent overseers decide to hide this from them? To what end? Why would they manipulate her people like that?

Disturbed by the implications, questioning the ideals she'd had since... forever, she'd closed the file and not touched it since. But now, with the truth revealed about the Doctor, she could feel that same creeping dread crawling up her spine, chilling her to the bone.

Unsurprisingly, her computer scoffed at her reaction. While caution was programmed into her, true fear and other self-limiting emotions weren't part of its make up. “Well, it’s painfully obvious that someone survived.” she sneered grimly. “There’s more. You remember the files that were double encrypted? The ones you never touched after reading about the Time Lords?”

“Go on.” Tak swallowed.

“There is a link inside the Time Lord files that goes straight to these double encrypted files, the ones that contained information on the most deadly of the Empire's foes. The Daleks, the Cybermen, the ones who we had to avoid or always fight. His name has its own file.”

Once again, the Irken Invader reject's blood ran cold. “What?”

The screen lit up again and the words “THE DOCTOR” scrolled across it. A single file appeared, highlighted among the thousands upon thousands a computer of her size was expected to keep, flashing as it was selected from its brethren.

Of all the data on the double encrypted files, the Doctor's file was the largest. Pertaining to Irk, and her people, each entry about the Time Lord tied to the major defeat of a previously unstoppable Invader, Tallest or military campaign.

For information from other worlds, it was somehow worse. Ghost stories, tall tales, startling accounts of the fall of empires and armies being routed. Even the Daleks, invincible as they had been, had fallen repeatedly to this singular foe.

This new knowledge far outstripped the dread she'd had with the Time Lords' file. This time, she had context, scale and comparisons. That throughout the universe, there existed a single, common legend that one man was capable of all this. One being, who had blazed through horrible abominations bent on conquering worlds or destroying unstoppable armies of nanomachines or dark gods, who was right here in her basement, shackled and asleep.

But he was no myth.

“The Doctor,” Tak's computer said, highlighting the ancient being in a beam of light, “Is not just some meddlesome alien… he’s the definitive article.”

Tak very slowly turned to face her prisoner. Crossing over to him and treading carefully, she knelt down to look up into his face.

He was still under, unconscious and unaware. Alright, so that was one thing in her favour. She quietly retreated and edged back to the console, collapsing into the seat there, her mind racing.

“Computer…” she began, her voice nervous and hoarse. “What… what do I do?”

The computer seemed at a loss for words, stunned that the Irken's usually rational way of thinking had been shocked into submission. “Well,” she suggested, sounding condescending, “You could kill him.”

She could. Really, she could. He was there, powerless and unconscious. Shackled to boot. She could just… shoot him. Slit his throat… vaporise him… all manner of easy ways out.

“So what’s stopping me?” Tak wondered. “Statistically speaking, this is easily the best opportunity of a lifetime. The Doctor, completely at your mercy. The Sontarans would kill for that opportunity.” she noted, seeing their name race by on the list of thwarted conquests.

Yet… she couldn’t do it. There was just something that felt... wrong about the idea. Killing someone in self defence was one thing, she had been trained for that. But doing it to a prisoner who couldn't even defend themselves? Even one as dangerous as the Doctor was purported to be? It was making her feel more unsettled than she already was.

Undaunted by the moral dilemma, her computer continued making suggestions. “Or… perhaps you could sell him to the highest bidder?”

The suggestion sounded tempting on paper, but she really had no need for money. Tak was reasonably sensible when it came to financial management and had already saved enough to be comfortable, considering her background. Hell, when she became an Invader, wealth could be mined from her assigned planets at her leisure.

That didn't solve her Doctor problem though. Tak exhaled. “We just need to hold onto him until I repair my ship… then I can jus-”

“We. I’m not being left on a planet with a bunch of filthy primates.” the computer spat, interrupting her.

“Fine, we,” Tak corrected herself, shooting a hesitant glance at the Doctor, “I know, I came here to deal with Zim… but if the Doctor wakes up and moves against me, I say we should cut our losses and just run. Far away from both of them as possible. Where I won’t ever have to deal with Zim ever again...”

“And what if he wakes up and does nothing?” her computer asked.

From the edge to her voice, she wasn't appreciating Tak's sudden lack of conviction. The Irken was getting too caught up in what the Doctor was. What she would have to do if he tried to stop her. It wasn't as if she was a pushover either. His presence here was an inconvenience and perhaps, yes, a threat. But that didn't mean that Tak could shirk her self-appointed mission she'd taken fifty years ago just because she felt... what? Fear? Mercy?

Tak didn't respond. She stood up again, glaring at the Doctor. Perhaps the computer was right and she was overreacting. Back at the restaurant, despite the flashes of fire, he seemed a lot less intimidating than his reputation. He seemed too flippant. An alien prankster, with nothing better to do.

But now she knew that he had lost his race. All his family, his friends. His entire species, his planet, everything he had ever known. Even though it was some kind of front, how could he act so free? She’d seen what happened when it slipped. Yet he tried to be cordial, without wiping her from existence.

Why?

It made her blood boil, actually, just thinking about what this implied. Was he flippant towards her because she wasn't worth his time? Or did the Doctor not feel the loss of his race as much as he'd claimed in that one dark moment? Tak was a very firm believer in the idea of feeling loss, great or small. She knew she still felt hers and her less than upbeat attitude spoke volumes about what she thought about the universe.

Anger steadying her resolve once more, she clenched her hands into fists. “We carry on, as usual.” she instructed. “We don’t act worried or intimidated and when he wakes, I'll talk to him. I want to see if I can convince him to let me take Zim down. He seems sympathetic enough to hear me out at least.”

The Irken reached into one pocket and pulled something out. One of the little infrasound generators she had placed all around Bloaty's Pizza Hog to deter Zim and anyone else interested in her operations. The Doctor had given this to her after taking it out of her robots. She rolled it between her fingers, then let it tumble to the floor.

“Empty his pockets. Confiscate his equipment and destroy any of the infrasound generators that he might have with him. He could have done something with them, something to use against us.” she ordered, crushing the little device under her heel. The metal and plastic sparked once, then was crushed to broken components.

“That's more like it. At least now I won't have to take the reigns of this operation myself.” the computer said, satisfied. “Anything else?”

Tak's ignored the comment. Though her attitude was steely again, it was focused entirely on her captive. She wasn’t afraid, not any more. Now, Tak was angry about the entire situation and anger gave her focus. It was just typical, her luck turning out like this.

Yes, a cosmic god or its equivalent had appeared on her doorstep. Yes, her SIR unit knocked him out and her computer tried to torture him. Yes, he would likely be furious when he awoke for those reasons alone. But she had just rolled over at the whole prospect and was almost willing to surrender, rather than face the Doctor's wrath. That wasn't like her at all, not in the slightest.

Annoyed at herself, Tak was dimly aware of her computer scoffing when no further instructions came, likely thinking her creator had gone back to being overly cautious. She ignored the downloaded personality again.

The Irken woman was too busy glaring at the Doctor, the ultimate spanner-in-the-works, the most meddlesome force in all of creation with undisguised determination and fury.

Because now, despite all her anger, she had a feeling that he was about to ruin everything for her as well.

#Doctor Who #Invader Zim #Crossover #Fanfiction #Interlopers Invaders Investigators and Doom #Chapter 8 #IIID #I KEPT MY PROMISE ABOUT RELEASING BEFORE FLORPUS EVEN IF IT WAS JUST BY A FEW HOURS!#I've been away for so long that the page break function got removed from the default text editor #not to mention links #oh well that's why I've got a hotbar set up for it #I'd also like to note that IIID has been through two IZ revivals now and at least 3 Doctors (including the current one)#heck 4 if you count the War Doctor #anyway here's hoping to more frequent updates #if Florpus doesn't break me that is #but we'll see

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musings-and-moans · 2 years

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In Another Fantasy (A Fantasy AU Collab)

Close your eyes and imagine your favorite fantasy universe, TV show, movie, anime, or otherwise. Did you do that? Good, how did that make you feel? Special? I bet it did. Now, imagine that you're there with your favorite anime character, and you could do, just about anything, from making potions in Hogwarts to walking along the streets of the Upper East Side, to traveling in a time machine that camouflages as a police box, to kissing Zuko in the fire nation, having sex in that secret sex cave where Jon Snow lost his virginity to Ygritte. Well, this collab is especially for you. <33

To celebrate 100+ followers for my NSFW side blog (and 250+ on my main, thank you all so so so much btw), I thought of coming up with a collab that would enable us, writers and artists, to showcase our love for our anime characters but in different universes. It's an NSFW Multifandom Fantasy AU Collab, where the reader and/or the anime character(s) of your choosing must be in an alternate universe. (Eg: Time Lord!Tetsuro Kuroo, Wizard!Kento Nanami, Khaleesi!Mikasa Ackerman, Dr. Strange!Satoru Gojo, and so on)

Fandoms I accept for this collab: Haikyuu, Jujutsu Kaisen, Attack on Titan, Tokyo Revengers, SPY x FAMILY, Hunter x Hunter, Kuroko No Basket, My Hero Academia, Demon Slayer, Naruto, Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, Obey Me, Genshin Impact, Black Clover

Alternate Universes (for ideas): Any TV Shows (Gossip Girl, Bridgerton, Stranger Things), Disney, Star Wars, Marvel, DC, Avatar the Last Airbender, The Legend of Korra, The Hunger Games, Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, any of the Studio Ghibli movies, Harry Potter, Doctor Who, AND one anime character in another anime (Gojo in HxH or Itadori in KNB, etc) or one game character in anime (Leviathan in Black Clover, for etc). Feel free to brainstorm with me <33

Due date: November 23, 2023 (Doctor Who's 60th anniversary <3) (in case you want to submit it later, I don't mind at all :D)

Rules (under the cut)

-> As it is a NSFW collab, all genres are allowed, INCLUDING dark content. That being said, minors, please please please DNI with this collab.

-> You don't have to be following me for this collab, but it's preferable (since it's a follower celebration collab), and I'd appreciate it if you don't unfollow me after everyone's posted <3

-> You can club your entry for this collab with other collabs as well <3

-> I accept character x reader, character x character, poly ships, love triangles, crossover ships (anime crossovers) , heck even selfships :D

-> All forms of writing are allowed (drabbles, fics, oneshots, headcanons, moodboards, etc)

-> No limit to word count, however, please do include a read more if your fic is 500+ words to avoid clogging the dashboard.

-> Multiple repeats of characters are possible, however, if they're repeated 4 times, then I'm locking them.

-> Exceptions: Tetsuro Kuroo (4 more slots open for him, but not Doctor Who!Kuroo), Ken Ryuguji ‘Draken’ (3 more slots open for Draken but not Divergent AU Draken or Hunger Games Draken) and Mitsuya (4 more slots open for him but not Hunger Games Mitsuya)

-> While the repetition of a character is allowed, it MUST be with a different au/role (Eg, once Doctor Strange!Satoru Gojo is locked, another entry on Doctor Strange!Satoru Gojo would not be accepted). Variety matters!

-> If you're including multiple characters in one story, the characters' entries are counted (love triangles especially)

-> When your entry is accepted, please reblog this post as much as you can. When you’re done, please tag me at @/musings-and-moans and use the following hashtag: #🧙‍♀️.inanotherfantasycollab for a guaranteed reblog :D and please don’t forget to attach a link to the master list. If you’re the first to write for any fandom that’s not listed, I’ll add that accordingly.

How to join:

-> Please send me your application requests for the collab through asks and not private DMs, and do specify if it’s a write-up or artwork, and please be respectful in your asks.

-> I will also allow changes if necessary (change of character/sport, dropping from the collab). So, you can send me an ask or DM me (only if we're server moots) if you want to drop out or change anything in your collab entry.

-> Do specify if it will be a writeup or an artwork, sfw, nsfw, angst or dc. (it can be nsfw and dc or sfw and angst, etc)

Format: [Role] Character x [Role] Reader by @[url] (SFW/NSFW/DC/Angst)

Eg: [Fire Lord Zuko] Shoto Todoroki x [Fire Nation Soldier] Reader by @[url] (NSFW)

Members' List: Here!!

tagging moots & networks (@tokyometronetwork @hanayanetwork )<33

@mrskenmakozume @blueparadis (thank you so much you two for brainstorming with me ily) @beware-of-the-rogue @scandescent @decayish @mxonigirimiya @ry0m3n @arcanestage @thoughtfullyrainynightmare @wakasa-wifey @wakatshi @haikyutiehoe @oikawas-milk-bread @aizumie @mekiza @hyeque @bxnten @xshinigamikittenx @portfolio-of-dreams @jordyn-degas @simpingforthisonedeer @festive @ceo-of-daichi @p-antomime @lunarmins @maitaro @sweetsbysatori @sweetforlevi @atsumeii @izu-fi @chronic-claire-universe @megumischubbycheeks @arlertslove @sennsational @asmos-pet @kagejima @winxcunt @milkyybuns @nanam-woah

#🧙‍♀️.inanotherfantasycollab #haikyuu!!#jujutsu kaisen #attack on titan #tokyo revengers #spy x family #hunter x hunter #kuroko no basket #my hero academia #demon slayer #naruto #jojo's bizarre adventure #obey me shall we date #genshin impact #black clover #fantasy au

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is-very-sad · 3 years

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Incursion

Act 2, scene 4

Word count: 996

Warnings: weird cosmic stuff, horror stuff, war and all that it brings, a character of highly questionable sanity, animal hunting

Idk the map of Inazuma so just pretend that you don't either so the storyline works pls lol

Idk how to write fight scenes sorry

I appreciate the heck out of everyone that's given me support but I'd like to specifically call out @nicebonescomrade and @eemyr for practically shoving condensed motivation down my throat with the kind words they threw at my face

I'm also gonna badger @willowedwisteria, @gunterdon and @raidengaile bc I adore them too

I've known two of these people for less than 12 hrs and if anything happened to them I'd ritually sacrifice everyone in this room and then myself💖

Part1 part4

Under an empty sky, Teyvat awoke in an abysmal fog.

Venti awoke screaming in Angel's Share, as Diluc did his best to calm the bard despite his own dreams haunting him. The Knights of Favonius were recalled to inside the walls until something changed. Even then, no one stayed out longer than absolutely necessary.

In Liyue, even the adepti and Zhongli himself were unwilling to brave whatever lay within the fog. The day spent in joint isolation as he attempted to forget the scattered pieces of his dream from the night before as Xiao cowered next to him.

In Inazuma; the Raiden Shogun didn't wake at all. Doctors were rushed by anxious soldiers to awake their archon. Sara was put in charge until their leader awoke. The islands were put on total lock down, none dared to leave the forts and the capital.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

From the fog; forests of alien fauna appeared in what were once fields near Mondstadt and Liyue. In the sea between Dragonspine and Inazuma, an equally strange island appeared.

Soon enough, the fog cleared; only to reveal the new locations. Though none had stumbled on the island by chance, small bands were sent cautiously to investigate the new forests. They never came back. Only the sound of fear inducing drums came from somewhere deep within. It was quickly decided they weren't worth the effort of mapping without a worthwhile reason.

'Days' slowly passed as sightings came in. Mondstadt watched in worry as figures covered in primitive fur cloaks creeped closer by the day.

Liyue tries to ignore as blurry creatures watch them from treelines that weren't there yesterday.

Inazuma loses ships in droves to unknown things from the ocean. Tentacles and teeth.

Both harbors see strange ships traveling in the mist.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The first to suffer is Inazuma. A minor outpost on a western island was anxiously waiting in their encampment, just as they had for some time now. A watchman cried from the walls, summoning the commander. She and her soldiers watched as the ships drew closer, finally seen clearly for the first time. There were three total, spiraled symbols weaved into the sails sending sharp pains into their minds. A horn was blown. Then two more.

The ships crash into the shoreline, beaching themselves as howling warriors grabbed armaments and charged the gate. The defending soldiers move with a start, finally realizing their situation.

Torches were thrown at the wooden walls and gates, soon giving the invaders access as they burned down. Axes were thrown, taking enough of the soldiers that the formation was already weakened. A massive man with bear skins and two equally imposing axes charges the line, sending the soldiers scattering in panic in a desperate attempt to not be cut in half. The others followed their line breaker, charging forward for easy kills before the defenders can regroup.

The Inazumans quickly learn they have to move, the savages don't use as precise techniques as theirs, relying on brutality and momentum to kill quickly. Their shields are thick enough their swords can't pierce easily, soldiers fighting shoulder to shoulder in an attempt to fight two on one.

The captain is the first to strike a blow, darting forward to slice into a bearded man's belly as he defends himself against her underling.

A black tar-like substance is all that comes out. The warrior swings his axe in a back hand without even flinching, roughly cleaving through her neck. The soldier screams as he watches his leader fall, before the axe comes back in an overhead to be embedded in his skull. Victorious shouts ring through the air as the garrison crumbles.

Inazuma city can just see the smoke on the horizon as the fort is burned and pillaged.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Strange howls reverberated through the air around Liyue as the citizens watched the fog anxiously. Skittering, slithering, and indescribable sounds came on the wind. Sometimes they were far enough that they were only another reminder of their bleak situation.

And sometimes they could be heard just beyond eyesight.

From within the Jade Chamber, Ningguang and her staff holed up, sparing as many rooms as they could in the hopes some would be safe with them. Zhongli, Xiao, and Hu Tao were among them, doing what they could to aid in relieving stress in their own ways. Truth be told-they weren't helping as much as they wished.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

In a foreign forest, a tall and lithe figure watches from tree branches. Covered in furs and bones, she watches a young brunette in red and white peer into the dark woods along with two of the local guards. Disjointed, chaotic thoughts echo in her head excitedly.

Two swordsmen, an archer, easy.. hungry, bored-

They walk along the edge, discussing the strange forest; the one in the branches follows them. Enter, come in please please please-BIRD the one in the trees grabs a sparrow from the air as it passes her, biting in with a wet crunch. A short while later the scouts leave, eliciting a disappointed whine from the woman in the branches as her talons pick feathers from her serrated teeth. Don't leave… fun to watch… Her whole body twitches. Should she stalk them for a while? That'd be fun..

No, sister said to stay clear until the tribe's ready.

Her head swivels as she hears a boar in the underbrush below. She grins as she jumps down the tree like some sort of demented squirrel.

Jump off the tree, twist mid air, fall arms first. Grab a branch, swing onto the next, BOAR-she throws herself into the air, crashing onto the creature's back. It doesn't have a chance to regain itself before she cuts its throat with her knife. For once. Her sister made it clear she'd hang her by the ankles again if she wasted good blood by tearing into another game animal's throat with her own teeth.

Her sister never lets her have any fun.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

I didn't proofread this as well as the other parts so if something seems funky in the bad way just wander over to my asks or comments and smack me over the head pls ty💖

#sagau #genshin cult au #genshin imagines #self aware genshin #Villain sagau #Eldritch darling #genshin impact #zhongli #Venti #baal #raiden shogun #my stuff

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festival-of-pudding · 3 years

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writer check-in question set

as tagged by @thuriweaver 🥰

1.How many works do you have on AO3?

that seems small? but I tend to aggregate ficlets into collections, and I kept a lot of my old lotrips stuff off AO3 for various reasons.

2. What is your total AO3 word count?

216,612

(if I did that right)

3. How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

on AO3:

Rhett & Link (17)

Lord of the Rings RPF (6)

Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World (4)

Lost (2)

Moonlight (TV) (2)

Dark Shadows (1991) (1)

David Bowie (1)

The Hollow Crown (1)

Lord of the Rings: All Media Types (1)

Mythbusters RPF (1)

NCIS (1)

Pushing Daisies (1)

Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (1)

Thor Movie (1)

Not on AO3? Oh dang. Hmm. Star Trek TOS, Star Trek TNG, nu!Trek, Babylon 5, Star Wars, X-Men, The X-Files, Forever Knight, (hell let’s go all the way back to middle school) The Crow, Dracula, Highlander, Flatliners, New Kids on the Block (heck yeah they hired a 12-year-old girl as their new manager that was me I was the manager), as a little kid it was Doctor Who and The Jungle Book and Greek Mythology, I’m way too old to remember it all x__x

4. What are your top five fics by kudos?

Aerodynautical (283)

Made for You (167)

Simmer Dim (104)

Aromatherapy (103)

Subroutine (97)

and to think I was scared to post my fetish fic, I love you freaks <3

5. Do you respond to comments, why or why not?

LiveJournal etiquette trained me to reply to every comment. The past few years, though, I’ve often been too socially withdrawn to reply. It feels dumb to go back and do it now. But I wish I had replied to everyone.

6. What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

There’s one I posted to LJ back in the day that had a downer ending: Billy kept calling Dom to check on him, and Dom was kinda spiraling, you could tell he was in love with Billy (who was just married) and it ended with everything unsaid. (I left that one off AO3 lol) I don’t do downbeat endings in general. I prefer to beat my characters to hell and back, emphasis on “and back”.

Oh and there’s a Lost fic I never posted to AO3 that had an angsty ending, but it was a Charlie prequel so :\

7. Do you ever write crossovers?

Yes! The Pushing Daisies fic above is a Rhett & Link crossover, and the David Bowie one is a lotrips crossover. (don’t do drugs kids)

8. Have you ever received hate on a fic?

Not on AO3. On LJ I did a few times, but nothing terrible. LJ anons preferred to leave their hate in your inbox, not on your fics :p

9. Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

I do! I’m not sure what kind? I prefer to describe physical reactions rather than body parts, if that’s what you mean, but you definitely know what body parts are being used :p

10. Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Not as far as I know. I’ve been around long enough that it’s possible, but it’s never been brought to my attention. I google my novels sometimes to see if anyone has scraped them, but not my fics. It’s nice to be obscure :D

11. Have you ever co-written a fic before?

I have! In lotrips we used to call it tigging. (lotrips peeps y’all know) Those were generally done spontaneously in LJ comment threads, and they were FUN AS HELL. I have a few of those archived. And I participated in some RPGs too, also on LJ. Good times :)

12. What’s your all-time favorite ship?

oh lordt. I cannot choose. I’ll just go back to basics and say Kirk/Spock. (Which, you may be surprised to know, I have never written. I’m too intimidated, it’s like trying to add to the holy scriptures)

13. What was the first fandom you wrote for?

Publicly? Lotrips. Privately? I think Doctor Who would be the first thing that counts as a “fandom”, though I had no concept of that back then. If Greek Mythology is a fandom, it was definitely that. :D

14. What’s your favorite fic you’ve written?

Oh man. For a long time it was my Zinefic from 2004, but now it would be really hard to choose. Not counting WIPs, for technical merit I might go with Renovatio, for artistic interpretation maybe my Moonlight prequel ? Don’t make me choose!! I love them all okay I LOVE ALL MY WEIRD GAY FICS

15. BONUS QUESTION: Do you have a WIP that haunts you?

all my WIPs will haunt me eternally, constantly yelling at me at inappropriate times like the ghosts in Heart & Souls

let’s tag @finduilasclln, @alittleoblivion, @bocere, @rileyrooin, @rubynye (and anybody else lol)

#writingtag

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myblueeyedbuggers · 3 years

Text

My Boys

Chapter 6

Chapter 1 Chapter 2 Chapter 3 Chapter 4 Chapter 5 Chapter 7 Chapter 8 Chapter 9 Chapter 10 Chapter 11 Chapter 12 Chapter 13 Chapter 14

Pairings: Reader x Steve Rogers (best friend) Reader x Bucky Barnes

Word Count: 2075

Warnings: Slow Start, Language, Tiny bit of Fluff

Summary: After being abandoned by her parents in Brooklyn in 1929, y/n makes a living for herself by working for the Црни лабуд gang until she meets two boys in a back alley and her life slowing begins to change

As Promised, here’s Chapter 6. I really enjoyed writing this one, heck I even laughed at one bit XD Also I’d like to thank you all for supporting my work so far, It really means the world to me that people are enjoying my work. As always Enjoy! :)

-Third Person POV

The minutes turned to hours, the hours turned into days, concern over the young girl was increasing day by day. Every single day Bucky and Steve were there, telling her how their days went and what was happening in the world all while holding y/ns hand, each day the boys watched her progress, the memory of her skin slowly regaining its colour giving them a new sense of hope.

Day by day the boys stayed as long as they could, only leaving when Mr and Mrs Barnes appeared at the door to bring them home, each time Mrs Barnes placed a small kiss on the young girl’s head before leaving. All of them taking the opportunity to show small sings of affection towards the girl, hoping that it gave her the strength to recover.

Later that night, when everyone was in bed and resting, a sharp ring disturbed the silence surrounding the house, half asleep Mr Barnes answered the phone, a wide smile appeared on his face as the news the family had been waiting for all week arrived. Quickly the parents rushed to the boys, the pair sharing a smile as they frantically ran around the room to get ready, a few tears of happiness sliding down their faces. A huge sense of relief flowed through Bucky’s veins, all the guilt he felt throughout the week lessened, at least now he knew that he didn’t cause y/n’s death.

-Back at the Hospital

Readers POV

My eyes felt like they’d been welded shut and my head was poundin’ like nobody’s business, what the hell happened to me? Finally, I managed to open my eyes and I was immediately blinded by the bright lights shining in my goddamn face, can I not catch a break for once in my life?! A loud groan accidently slid past my lips, why is it every time I wake up some part of my body is aching? You’d think I was a pro wrestler or somethin’!

I gazed around the room, distant voices could be heard from the corridor, hang on where the hell am I? the room was decorated plain white, with a few pictures hanging on the wall and a small sofa was tucked into the back corner. Another door, presumably for the bathroom, was to the right of the window, the curtains were drawn but the steady tapping on the other side told me it was raining. What a way to come back into reality, absolutely chucking it down with rain, my dumbass soon realised that the nurses might not know I was awake, which is kind of important information.

Slowly I raised myself up, the ache on my midriff increasing much to my displeasure, as I slowly moved my legs off the edge of the bed, both were shaking with the effort of holding my body up and I hoped to god that I didn’t land on my ass anytime soon. Hang on, that might be becoming a very bad habit of mine, I’m gonna need to work on that later… finally my legs stopped shaking, taking VERY cautious steps I started making my way to the door. You’d think walking 5 feet would be easy, wouldn’t you? apparently not.

After about 3 minutes of moving like a bloody snail, I could finally reach the door handle, now for the hard part… turning the door handle, a high-pitched squeak met my ears as the door slowly flung open, the voices outside my room stopped and foot steps came towards my room. Two nurses came around the corner and stopped when the spotted me, a few seconds passed before I started to feel awkward, so I decided to wave at them to try and break the tension. Which in hindsight was one of the dumbest things I could have done in that moment, but it did seem to break them outta their trance, they both came towards me and started fussing over me, “Miss you shouldn’t have gotten out of bed! Why didn’t you just press the call button on the bed side table? how long have you been awake?” There was a bloody call button?! For the love of god!

“I woke up about 5 minutes ago, I’m sorry but could you tell me what happened to me? All I remember is fainting near the bank” The nurses shared a look, both of them ignored my question for the moment and focused on getting me into the bed and calling for the doctor, they gave me strict instructions not to move till the doctor arrived. Well, at least I know I’m in a hospital but what the hell did I do to land in here in the first place? All I remember is getting ready for the war and setting up in the dinner before it all went wrong. Shooting happened, I was taken hostage, shooting happened again, Alexi punched me and broke my nose, I was held at ransom before till I got bored and ran outta the line of fire, Bucky and Steve were pinned behind a wall, I fought with a մոխրագույն օրխիդ and got shot…wait a second…

I’M GONNA KILL THOSE IDIOTS!

I got bloody shot! How the hell did I forget that?! It’s not like I stubbed my toe, an actual bullet went inside me! Oh god are Bucky and Steve okay?! Where are they? Did they get hurt? My mind was going crazy with worry, I hoped to god that this bloody doctor got here soon, or I’d be out of here looking for those pair of numpties! A knock on the door disrupted my thoughts as a team of doctors and nurses filled the room, a few carried important looking equipment with them, a man with a clipboard approached me with a reassuring smile.

“Good Evening Miss y/n, my names Doctor Miller, you’ve been unconscious for a week or so, due to a gunshot wound to your midriff, the bullet shattered on impact and we had to operate to stop any internal bleeding. Now don’t worry too much about that, it’s in the past and there’s no lasting damage done, but we’re going to have to keep you in the hospital for one more night to monitor your vitals but after that you’ll be free to go. If you have any questions don’t hesitate to ask me.”

Okay, all I heard was “unconscious for a week” and “no lasting damage”, I really hope that I don’t smell too bad, my pride’s been damaged enough for one week.

“Dr. Miller, do you know what happened to the two boys that were with me at the bank? Did they get hurt at all?” I could hear the fear in my voice, I dreaded the answer and prayed to god that nothing happened to them. He took a moment to reply, my worry increasing by the second, “No, none of the boys got hurt, but I can’t say the same for some of the members of the Црни лабуд, some were killed during the fight and a few passed away in their sleep. I believe that someone called Damien is still alive though, he gave a statement that completely cleared your name in court today”

What? I can’t believe it, why would he do that? One by one everyone started to leave the room, leaving me alone with my thoughts. I don’t understand it at all, why would Damien go out of his way to protect me? All that’d of done was increase his jail time for human trafficking. It doesn’t make sense…

-Time Skip

At some point I fell asleep, the sound of faint whispering disturbed me from my sleep as I slowly opened my eyes, sat next to me was Bucky’s mother, his father stood behind her as they both offered me a gentle smile. A few tears slid down Mrs Barnes cheeks when she realised I was fully awake, her arms immediately enveloped me into a warm hug, “Oh my Goodness sweetheart, please don’t ever scare me like that again, I was so worried about you” I didn’t reply to her, instead I chose to hug her tighter as confusion began to cloud my mind. Why would she be worried about me? Me? Other people would have been over joyed at the news of me being shot.

Slowly she pulled away from me, choosing to look me in the eyes as carefully stroked my cheek, inspecting the few bruises littered on my face, a small sniffle grabbed my attention as I turned away from her, my eyes glanced over in the direction of the sound. There stood in the corner of the room were the boys, both of their eyes red and puffy as they cautiously made their way towards me, none of us said anything when they reached my side. My eyes scanned over Steve checking for any injuries and damage before I pulled him into a hug, his body tensed up in shock before he relaxed and returned the embrace. “I’m so sorry y/n I never wanted you to get hurt, neither of us did we just wanted to help you” even with his voice muffled, I could tell that the poor lad was crying and I couldn’t blame him, bloody Niagara falls was streaming down my cheeks, I pulled away from him and turned to Bucky, he was looking at the floor and completely avoiding my gaze.

Oh, hell no, no sad boys allowed here! Carefully I leaned forward and grabbed his hand, intertwining our fingers together as I pulled him closer, something inside me hurt when his eyes met mine, they held so much guilt, so much pain and sadness and I hated seeing him like this. No words were exchanged as he wrapped his arms around me, a sigh of relief escaped him, my arms automatically tightened around him when a single tear fell onto my neck. His silent sobs cut me down to my core, behind him Steve stood to the side, his eye meeting mine as I grabbed his hand in reassurance, once Bucky calmed down we both drew back, and I pulled both boys in front of me.

“I want both of you boys to listen to me, none of this was your fault, this is all on me. I pushed you both away to protect you and I’m sorry for that, I should have been more honest with you, me getting shot has nothing to do with anything either of you did.” My voice was firm and assertive, but of course that didn’t stop either of them trying to argue with me. Not much of a surprise there.

“But we went in the middle of it, we tried to play the hero’s and we ended up being the villains, you should be mad, not forgivin’ our stupid asses” this is probably not the best time to notice this, but Steve just swore for the first time in his life, I couldn’t be prouder! Wait, where was I?

Goddamn it y/n, concentrate for once in your bloody life! “Okay, stop that crap right now Rodgers, none of this had anything to do with you, although I would like to ask the both of what THE HELL YOU WERE THINKING DIVIN’ INTO THE MIDDLE OF A BLOODY GANG WAR?!” it was safe to say that they weren’t excepting that.

It was actually quite funny, Bucky went completely pale and started stuttering while Steve actually jumped up in surprise and fell down, admittedly I felt a bit bad about that bit. Neither of the boys could form a coherent sentence, both completely panicking as they tried to explain the reason behind their complete stupidity. Slowly my eyebrows started to raise as a small smirk made its way onto my face, the pair of them making no sense as Bucky pointed to Steve and said something about justice. I know I shouldn’t be finding this funny, but I couldn’t help it, they were babbling like a bunch of school girls!

Eventually, they both shut up once they noticed me failing to stifle a giggle, their expression turning from ones of panic to amusement, and eventually I couldn’t contain it, “I’m sorry but your faces were bloody brilliant! Oh my god I’m dying” both of the boys rolled their eyes at me, shaking their heads as Bucky’s parents started laughing with me.

Another Chapter down, as always feel free to leave some tips on how I can improve my writing for you all, Requests and tags are open :) Thanks for Reading!

Rose xx

#winter soldier x reader #winter soldier #captain america #captain america x reader #bucky barnes x reader #bucky barnes #steve rogers x reader #steve rogers #mcu #fanfic #reader #reader insert #sebastian stan #sebastian stan x reader

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askroahmmythril · 3 years

Text

Reference List for amiibo Fighter Names (Set 1)

A supplementary post for the amiibo card art I recently posted over on Twitter, here’s a listing of all their names, and where they came from. Order will be the same as the order they were posted in. Going to stick to 12 entries per list because otherwise hoo boy this would get ridiculous for a single post. :

1) Bayonetta : Lunatic - This is a Touhou reference, Lunatic being the name of the (usually) highest difficulty setting. Given luna is associated with the moon, as is Bayonetta herself, putting the bullet witch in a bullet hell game seemed fitting. Given Bayonetta 1 even had a shooting minigame, Angel Attack, it seemed to work all the more perfectly. Basically the full setup of this card is designed to look like a Touhou game being played, with Bayonetta appearing in full as a “spell card” image.

2) Bowser Jr. : Steam-Punk - When it comes to more recent Mario games, when Jr. decides to confront you, more often than not it’s with various machines and mechs. Thus, I thought of him with an inventor style, and went with one of my favorite aesthetics, steampunk. The fact that he is kind of a punk little brat works quite well. Some of the overall look of this card was inspired by the fact that I was playing the Bioshock games while drawing this, which Neo made a more solid reference to it on his version, putting in an Andrew Ryan quote. I also snuck a reference to Tinker Knight’s mech from Shovel Knight in the background.

3) Bowser : King Dad - Nintendo has gone out of their way to portray as Bowser, for all his faults, as being a good dad for his son, and I love that interpretation. Furthering this, there’s the fact that the Koopalings in the old Mario cartoons from the 80′s - 90′s tended to refer to him as King Dad, hence the name. I wanted to go with sort of an old era sitcom look for him, the family dad sitting with his pipe and newspaper. I thus also wanted to give the frame an old timey TV look. This one was drawn by me in the period before Neo suggested we try using character specific icons in all the nameplates, so he added a Bowser insignia to the channel knob.

4) Captain Falcon : DJFalcon - This is a play on Captain Falcon’s canonical name (at least, the name for one version of him, since I guess according to lore Captain Falcon is less a single person and more a title...? F-Zero canon is tricky to follow sometimes. Doesn’t help that the Cap has been cloned a number of times). Falcon’s full name is Douglas Jay Falcon, thus shortening it, DJ Falcon. He wants to see your moves! Your DANCE moves! Not much else to say on this one, except a bit of behind the scenes info : I was most of the way through drawing this one when we had a power out. GUESS WHO HADN’T SAVED THE FILE FOR A LONG TIME!

5) Charizard : NotADragon - The eternal Pokémon joke of Charizard, one of the most dragonny looking Pokémon, not ACTUALLY being a Dragon type (unless you count his Mega Evolution I guess, but still, the point stands). Neo made the point even more, including Goomy in the image, a major case of “How is THIS a dragon, but THIS ISN’T?!” Not too much else to say on this one, though Neo did throw in a Pokémon Snap reference on his version, having the Dugtrio mountain in the background. Nice touch, that.

6) Cloud : Smash Star - This was a suggestion from Neo actually, we joked about how FF was such a “Sony” franchise that it seemed funny Cloud got invited to Smash, rather than Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale. So we went with that idea, using stage elements from the last stage of the game, and using three of my favorite characters from it in the background : Sackboy, Sly Cooper, and PaRappa the Rapper. Would have also included Ratchet & Clank, but didn’t want to overcrowd the background.

7) Dark Pit : FaceMyself - This one’s a Persona 4 reference. As the game often states, “I am a Shadow, the true self!” With Dark Pit basically being Pit’s “Shadow” from within the mirror, I couldn’t help going with this reference. I greatly enjoyed Persona 4, so had a fun time drawing this one. The back of his card is meant to be the back of one of those Kid Icarus Uprising AR cards. Neo also added some Persona 4 imagery to the stack of TVs. The roman numeral on the card in his nameplate, XXXIX, is 39, the release number of his amiibo.

8) Diddy Kong : Nerfed Gun - A bit of a meta joke, this one. Diddy was seen as one of the most broken characters in Brawl, but in Smash 4, he got nerfed pretty hard. So the idea of Diddy looking nervous, his weapons having been replaced with harmless Nerf equivalents, amused me way too much. This one might be a little outdated though, as I’m fairly sure he got buffed a bit in Ultimate.

9) Donkey Kong : Sunwu Kong - A reference to the character from Journey to the West. Sun Wukong, the monkey king, has been reference in a lot of media. Heck, even Buster Rod G from Mega Man : The Wily Wars is based on him. The specific version I reference with DK’s outfit here was Sun Wukong’s appearance in the Warriors Orochi series. DK faces are really fun to draw.

10) Dr. Mario : The Doctor - A reference to Doctor Who, a show I... really need to watch more of. The idea of it fascinates me. I styled the viruses after various baddies from the show, the red virus being a Dalek, the yellow, a Weeping Angel, and the blue, the Half Face Man. Mario himself is wearing the long scarf worn by the Fourth Doctor, played by Tom Baker. I just always really liked how that scarf looked.

11) Duck Hunt : Quackshot - Pure and simple, just a pun name on the term “Crackshot.” Only a duck is involved. So Quackshot. I want to say there was a Donald Duck game that also had this as the title, but that’s purely coincidental, wasn’t specifically referencing it. I put some Target Test targets in the back to go with the theme. Man, I do miss Target Test mode, especially the Melee variation, but these days, I can see the issue with having a personalized Target Test for every character. I’d still love it though, haha.

12) Falco : Hyperdrive - I had trouble coming up with an idea for Falco, so I got to thinking about space travel type stuff since he loves flight. Then I ended up with the idea that he’s a falcon (at least his name would lead you to believe so), and Star Wars had the Millennium Falcon, so the idea just sort of took off from there. I tried to go with the style of how the stars sort of look like they “stretch” in preparation for the jump to Hyperspace.

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thedarkstrangeson · 5 years

Text

When you put one(1) Gay Panic in a laser tag arena

Read on ao3

Pairing: Roceit

In which: Roman, Logan, Patton, and Virgil have met up for laser tag. Roman spots a cute guy. Gayness ensues.

Warnings: Its laser tag so theres lots of fake guns, kissing, remus mention, let me know if there’s anything else I should put in.

Word Count: 1955

Simply put, it was a Friday. One of the best Fridays to date, in Roman’s not-so-humble opinion. This particular Friday was the last one of the month, which meant the big get-together with his friends! They hung out at other times, of course but tried to plan something a bit more exciting every so often. Last month’s was go-kart racing, in which Logan absolutely destroyed all of them, including the other walk-in players. Something about “racing lines”, was his explanation. Roman wasn’t quite sure, but he could respect Logan’s skill nonetheless.

This time around, they were going out for Laser-Tag. Roman was under the impression that he was good with a laser gun (a weapon wielded in the name of good would always bring him fortune), but that would soon be put to the test. Logan would be there to pick him up in only half an hour, and his makeup wasn’t even started yet. Never mind that laser-tag was in the dark, a prince has got to slay! He ended up playing around with his new white eyeliner, hoping the blacklights of the arena would make it pop. Too soon, the doorbell rang and they were on their way.

After picking up Patton, then Virgil, Logan pulled into the parking lot not a moment too soon. Roman was just about to burst from the excitement.

“Ready to defeat whatever foul foes may oppose us?”

“Ooh! Let’s make sure we are all on the same team!”

“Let’s try to get purple. I’ve never lost a game while playing on purple team.”

“Virgil, superstitions like that won’t help us win, it will be stealth and true aim that will lead us to victory. Those laser-blasters...”

Roman rolled his eyes affectionately as Logan continued to explain the best way to hold a blaster and use the mirrors situated throughout the course. This one was sci-fi themed, with everything lit up in neon greens, pinks and purples. As they walked into the lobby, the others still bickering about the pros and cons of various hiding techniques, Roman scanned the room to size up their opponents… and his gaze locked right onto another’s across the room.

He was tall, sandy blond hair just barely obscuring sharp green eyes. He leaned casually on the check-in counter, a friend beside him purchasing tickets. Twirling a quarter across his knuckles, he kept eye contact with Roman for a long moment before offering a sly wink and turning back around.

Roman finally realized he’d been staring, and blushed deeply at having been caught. So much for keeping his cool.

“Roman! Hey, you’d stopped responding whats-” Patton stopped, as Roman had now turned around, face still flushed, “-Oh!” Patton giggled. “Bit of a gay panic there, my friend?”

“-No,” he said, “He’s just. Attractive, is all. Its fine. I'm fine. Its fine.” Patton smiled indulgently at that, but Logan interrupted any further comments.

“We’ve got tickets for the 3:30 game,” he said, “Until then, you’ve each got 10 quarters.” Any laser-tag arena worth its salt had some arcade games to entertain guests before and after. This one had better games than most, so they had to play. Logan quickly passed out everyone’s quarter allotment, and then left to try the claw game. Logically, it was rigged and he wouldn’t win anything. But that made it the most challenging, so it would be fun to try.

Patton nudged Roman in the direction of the handsome stranger from earlier, now starting up one of the classic hunting style games. “Go get ‘em, tiger.”

“Hey!” Roman tried to object, but Patton had already slipped off with Virgil to the opposite end of the arcade, leaving him with seemingly no choice but to try to strike up a conversation. He took a deep breath, trying to even out his frayed nerves before striding quickly over to the man.

“Mind if I join in?”

“Of course, you’re welcome to try to beat me,” his voice was silky smooth, the teasing leaving him just as flustered as before.

“You’re on.”

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

They were interrupted about 5 minutes later with a call for the next game. Roman’s opponent hissed in frustration. Leaving the game like this would waste valuable quarters, but a better game was calling.

“Well done, for an amateur. What’s your name, sweetheart?”

Roman faltered at the compliment. He had been beaten soundly, ending several thousand points behind. But eventually, words started to form again. “Uhh, Roman. And you are?”

“Ethan. Pleased to make your acquaintance. I trust I’ll see more of you inside?”

“Definitely.”

With a quick nod in response, Ethan swept away towards the beckoning attendant.

I’m screwed.

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

Roman rejoined his friends for the safety presentation, finding that Logan had miraculously won himself a unicorn plushie from the claw machine. He seemed absolutely overjoyed at it, even as he tried to contain his excitement. Virgil quickly proclaimed it to be the team’s good luck charm and mascot, and Logan did not even try to object. They all sat as patiently as they could through the presentation, anxious to get into the arena. There was the explanation of the arena layout, the three different goals, power-ups, the colors on the vests, how to fire the laser how to put on the vest how to walk around and not run so you don’t trip… all that useless good stuff.

Roman found it all tremendously boring, and instead opted to sneak glances at the man- Ethan - across the room. He was determined to get the better of Ethan in-game. Call it revenge for being beaten in the Arcade or just really aggressive flirting, either way he was definitely intent on defeating his new sworn enemy.

The attendant led them into the prep room, the walls lined with glowing vests sorted by their color. Virgil made a beeline for the purple rack, waving them all over. Next came one of the arguably most important parts of the game: choosing your nickname. This particular establishment had all of the vests named after various superheroes. So, the best strategy was to check every gun for the best names and go from there. Logan didn’t bother with this irrational ritual, he just went for the first vest he picked up, Doctor Strange (He secretly found this to be absolutely perfect). Virgil ended up on Raven, because everyone needs to be an emo half-demon occasionally. Patton, very much out of the loop on superhero lore, found Mr. Fantastic to be his nickname of choice. Roman chose Captain America, because Superman was already taken and who doesn’t want to have America’s ass.

Across the room, Ethan was doing up the straps on his friend’s vest. The guy was practically vibrating with excitement, saying something about “shooting people’s heads off”, as though that was possible. Ethan just laughed, grabbing another vest from the green rack and buckling it in place on himself.

“Everyone ready? Let’s make a game-plan,” said Logan, always the strategist of the group.

“Spreading out is our best bet, so that not everyone can get tagged at once,” said Roman.

“Yes, but we get a 30 second grace period in the beginning, so I think we should dash to the green base first to take it all together,” said Virgil.

“Sounds good. We can spread out from there to cover the most area,” said Logan.

“How about we do pairs so we can watch each others backs at least?”

“Agreed. Is everyone in accordance with that?”

When everyone had nodded, Patton put his hand in the middle. “We’ve gotta have a team cheer!”

“Umm. Alright. Laser Tag on three?” Logan said.

‘Why not! One, two, three!”

A very much not-in-time chorus of “Laser Tag” rang out, leaving everyone involved vaguely confused but overall enthusiastic about the effort.

“LASERS!” A cry came very belatedly, from the green team’s side of the room.

“Remus, what the heck,” said Ethan, “You can’t just copy the opponents!”

Before the green team could get their act together to create a real team cheer, it was time for the match to begin. The attendants opened the door and 12 screaming adults flooded into the battlefield.

Purple team split off as one, taking a left towards the orange base. Logan took point, leading them purposefully into enemy territory.

“Here.”

They split to opposite sides of the path, concealing themselves behind walls and checking out the area for any other players. The timer on the grace period counted down the last 5 seconds.

“5, 4, 3, 2, 1. Now!”

“Yeet,” said Virgil quietly, as he stepped out and dashed towards the base, firing continuously. The orange team was lying in wait though, so Virgil went down quickly. He stepped back to let his vest come back online, and his teammates went on the offensive. Trading shots, the purple team soon took over the base. 3 seconds of capturing later, the base went down to Patton’s blaster.

“Yes!” Patton pumped his fist in the air, before exchanging high fives with his teammates. “Time to split up.”

“Virgil, with me?” asked Logan.

“You’re on. See you at the end of the war, you guys!”

They departed quickly, leaving Patton and Roman to head off in the opposite direction. From then on it was a desperate clash of missed shot and curses, hits and cheers, everyone battling for the top. After one particularly hectic exchange, Roman found himself sheltered behind a wall for a moment to catch his breath, Patton nowhere to be found. Then, footsteps approached and Roman readied his blaster. A figure rounded the corner, but they had on purple lights. He lowered his gun, even as the figure solidified into an urgently moving Ethan.

“Wait I thought you were-”

“Shhh, there are people coming.” Ethan silenced him, and crouched close to get in behind the wall. Roman could feel him pressed close to his side, breathing heavily from all the running, and it took him a moment to get back focused on the game.

Some orange team players rounded the bend, but they hadn’t exposed Ethan’s and Roman’s hiding spot yet. The walked past, laughing, until Ethan stepped out behind them and cleanly shot them both in the back.

“What-”

“Let’s go!” Ethan grabbed him and pulled him to his feet, running off away from the now incapacitated orange players. Roman soon found himself dragged into another hiding spot, Ethan standing in front of him.

“Nice makeup. Doesn’t exactly help you hide though, does it?”

“I’d say it helps me slay the opposition.” Roman was quite proud of himself for that one, considering how hard it was to form coherent sentences right this moment.

“Oh, now does it?” Ethan chuckled, “Well, you certainly slay me.”

He leaned in, and Roman felt his breath catch.

“May I?” It was whispered, low enough for only him to hear.

“Oh. Sure.” That’s what he went with? Sure? You just said sure, Roman? Of all the idiotic-

His thoughts didn’t last long, because at that point he was pushed up against the wall and Ethan’s mouth was on his, hot and insistent. In just one moment, he was left breathless, what a surprise and starstruck, before Ethan was already pulling away.

The lights on Ethan’s vest changed, blinking green as his spy power-up timed out.

“Oh-” Roman came to the realization that he was, most definitely, screwed.

In one smooth movement, Ethan stepped back, raised his blaster and shot him, aiming right over his heart. He winked, barely visible in the dark, before turning on his heel and disappearing around the corner.

“I am so fucked.”

Back in the lobby, a new line appeared on the scoreboard.

“Captain America was shot by The Winter Soldier, 25 points.”

#roceit #ts sanders sides #deceit sanders #roman sanders #laser tag #dark strange writing

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ramblingsofachristiannerd · 4 years

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tagged by the lovely @castiel-saved-me-from-myself <3

pick 10 ships without reading the questions (only 10?! XD)

1. Rey/Ben Solo (Star Wars)

2. Ninth Doctor/Rose Tyler (Doctor Who)

3. Rumpelstiltskin/Belle (Once Upon a Time)

4. Revan/Bastila Shan (Star Wars, Knights of the Old Republic)

(This fandom is so niche I couldn't find a gif of them so I used this beautiful art from aimo at DeviantArt.com XD)

5. Lotor/Allura (Voltron)

6. Kanan Jarrus/Hera Syndulla (Star Wars Rebels)

7. Remus Lupin/Tonks (Harry Potter)

8. Odo/Kira Nerys (Star Trek Deep Space 9)

9. Bucky Barnes/Natasha Romanoff (Marvel)

10. Bruce Wayne/Selina Kyle (Gotham)

1. Do you remember the episode/scene/chapter that you first started shipping 6?

I watched Rebels out of order my first time, so the first time I really saw them interact was when he came back from Malachor blinded, and she just wordlessly hugged him. I actually thought they were already together XD

2. Have you ever read a fanfiction about 2?

so many XD Nine/Rose is one of the best pairings for fluff fic

3. Has a picture of 4 ever been your screen saver/profile picture/tumblr?

they were my desktop on my computer for a while haha

4. if 7 were to suddenly break up today, what would your reaction be?

I mean they’re kind of dead, so...but if they had broken up I’d be really upset because the whole fact that they’re together is an important part of Lupin’s character development, and leaving her would have meant he lost all the confidence he gained

5. Why is 1 so important?

ho hoooooo, I am glad this one lined up, because I have a lot of thoughts on why 1 is important. I think key for me is that they help each other grow - they’re always honest with each other and point out each other’s flaws in a way that’s helpful. They see each other for who they truly are, and value that. And their power dynamic is truly equal; he comforts her as much as she comforts him. She saves him as much as he saves her. There’s no gender role thing going on, their personalities just nicely mesh. And they don’t sell themselves short for each other; she slammed a door in his face until he proved he actually changed, and only then did she take him back. And he left the dark side because he was tired of it, not because she told him to. I just think they’re really healthy

6. is 9 a funny ship or a serious ship?

They’re kind of both in the comics, where they are canon, but it’s still played for drama more often than not

7. out of all the ships listed, which ship has the most chemistry?

toughhhhh question, because all the ones with extensive screentime have great chemistry. so I guess all of them

8. out of all your ships listed, which ship has the strongest bond?

also a tough one, but I think i’d have to say either Kanan/Hera or Kira/Odo, because both pairings were best friends for years first and went through a lot together

9. How many times have you read/watched 8′s fandom?

I have watched DS9 so many times I've lost count XD

10. Which ship has lasted the longest?

uhhh out of universe, Kira and Odo; in-universe, probably Belle and Rumpel

11. how many times, if ever, has 2 broken up?

if you don’t count eternal separation, never

12. if the world was suddenly thrust into a zombie apocalypse, which ship would make it out alive, 2 or 8?

difficult call; Kira and Odo both have experience with guerilla warfare, and one is a shapeshifter. But on the other hand the Doctor is, you know, THE DOCTOR. Kira and Odo probably have a better chance of both making it out alive, however. Sorry, Rose.

13. did 5 ever have to hide their relationship for some reason?

not really

14. is 4 still together?

you bet they are! RevanShan is reylo lite(tm) twelve years before reylo was ever a thing. and they were written by people who cared about the characters and got their happy ending

15. is 3 canon?

yep

16. If all ten ships were put into a couples’ Hunger Games, which couple would win?

hard to tell; I can sadly guess who wouldn’t win, but a lot of them have the force and/or magic at their disposal, or are suitably cunning and experienced with guerilla tactics XD

17. Has anybody ever tried to sabotage 10′s ship?

at least once a season lol

18. Which ship would you defend to the death and beyond?

all of them? i’d never say this is the only acceptable relationship for a character, but I would throw hands with anyone who said one of these wasn’t a great ship

19. do you spend hours a day going through 1′s tumblr page?

I sure did when I was hyperfixated on star wars XD

20. if an evil witch descended from the sky and told you that you had to pick one of the ten ships to break up forever or else she’d break them all forever, which ship would you sink?

heck what a terrible decision XD i’m not sure I can pick haha. never thought i’d be glad most of them ended with one of them dead or forcibly separated anyway lol

tagging @xdawnofthestarsx @consultingcupcake @nitarachan @nothinginlifebutmist @wynnemoon @darkalinas @space-gay-ahsoka @s-tevenrogers and anybody else who wants to participate!!!

#tag game #about nerd

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malicerewatchesdoctorwho · 4 years

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The Evil of the Daleks - Episode Seven (New Version)

Written by – David Whitaker Director – Derek Martinus Producer – Innes Lloyd

Episode Seven

("Five lives against a whole planet. Well, it isn't a choice, is it?" - The Doctor to Victoria about how he would sacrifice everyone in the room including her, himself and Jamie, rather than do as the Daleks want. Victoria agrees with him.)

Likes

- The Doctor playing his recorder again. I like when the Doctor plays on things. Instruments. Spoons. Things. Two uses the music to help him think. I like that, a lot.

- The Doctor wondering what the heck the Daleks were doing promising to give someone like Maxtible the secret to transmutation in the first place. It's the important questions.

- Jamie flat out telling Maxtible going near him repulses him. Yes, Jamie. I feel the exact same way.

- Victoria being a good voice of reason. Yes, girl. I like you.

- Alpha, Beta and Omega just questioning things and doing what they want. Yes, you go my little Dalek babies.

- Dalek humans and human Daleks. ...Maxtible is much more likeable like this. Still a huge dick, but at least he has a reason to be one now.

- The Doctor changing the Dalek factor with the Human factor, right in front of Dalek Maxtible. Then making Daleks walk through it, hehehehe. Nice trick there, Doctor, nice trick.

- Dizzy, dizzy Daleks, hee!

Dislikes

- Uuuugh, shut up Maxtible. You'd kill your own daughter, Ruth to get gold.

- Wait...I am sure I didn't miss anything. When did the Doctor, Jamie an Waterfield get to the room with Maxtible, Victoria and Kemel?

- Is...is Kemel being given orders to kill? Or is Maxtible and the Daleks saying kill TO Kemel? So unsure...Kemel died so guessing it was the latter....?

Awesome

- Dalek sound effects right off the bat, yeees.

- The Dalek emperor. I just really like the design and the room setting its in.

Shitty

- It's missing

- Bad recon.

- There were parts of this that had action but not much in the way of speaking, so you just get the sound of people walking and sound effects of the Dalek city. Makes it hard to know what is really going on.

In Conclusion

I didn't actually write a lot for this episode. Mainly because it was filled with a lot of fighting Daleks and that's about it, when it isn't the humans fighting each other. It's just...very confusing some of the time to know what is going on, because of the recons being unclear for me. Which is a damn shame.

Still, I really enjoyed it regardless of that.

Body count - A shit ton of Daleks by other Daleks. Dalek Civil War. Waterfield died by Dalek too, when he saved the Doctor by pushing him out of the line of fire. Kemel by Maxtible, for following him when called. Just...why?

The Evil of the Daleks as a Whole

In case it wasn't clear, I really enjoy The Evil of the Daleks a whole lot. It's got a villain I hate. It's got side characters that I love. It's got the Doctor and Jamie fighting over moral differences that aren't for the most part actually there. It's got anachronisms with Waterfield in the first 2 episodes which I loved.

It gives us the new companion too in Victoria. it gives us the first human Daleks and the first Dalek humans. It gives us the Dalek Emperor.

It also gave us two characters that were pretty much useless but Ruth Maxtible and Arthur Terrall can be totally forgotten about the moment they leave. Too bad they take Mollie with them, haha.

Also Maxtible's first name is Theodore. Waterfield's is Edward. You know, just in case people miss these things. They are almost always called their last names in the episodes, though not always.

Highly enjoyable, but those who can't watch the recons will never get through it. Which is the real shame here. I hope this one is soon made into animated form. I will so watch it again as an animation. I would definitely highly recommend people at least listen to this one.

Up tomorrow is the Kill Count for season 4 :D

#Classic Doctor Who #doctor who #the evil of the daleks #episode seven #epic rewatch #Second Doctor #Jamie McCrimmon #Victoria Waterfield #daleks

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maladaptive-ninja-returns · 5 years

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Infinity War (4)

CHAPTER 4: REINDEER GAMES

Loki & The Avengers

Summary: A work inspired by @queencfthestarsdrfoster ‘s post of the universe where Loki is alive and Thor is avenged.

Series: Will contain all- and more- that we saw in Infinity War. Will not contain smut and fluff for obvious reasons. Might contain weird humor though.

Chapter content: it just is.

Warnings: …none?

Word count: Ever had that feeling of..idk how to describe it...like a bad kind of nostalgia? Going back to the place that sort of where all your bad anxiety attacks and depressions started? Ever had that? I had that. Today. When I went back to the place from where this year started for me. It feels...so weird. Soooo weird. And to think I have keep going back there for the next two weeks.

MASTERLIST & Taglist in bio, my love

“Twenty minutes.”

Peter’s eyes look up to see his mentor grinding his teeth with his arms crossed across his chest in defiance to everything that is going, which, obviously, includes this very tall very handsome God- who had tried to take over New York a few years ago- who now stands in the Sanctum with a goblet in his hand, sipping slowly while observing all the things around him. He is all up to stand by Tony’s side but for this very vague time stamp the supposedly evil guy with really good hair just gave out of the blue.

“Okay,” Peter finally breaks apart, “I am all for Team Stark, Mr. Stark but you really gotta talk to Mr. God sir over here. He saved Mr. Wizard’s life after all?”

Tony’s gaze falls on Peter, sending his spidey senses tingling in the worst possible manner. Oh, this is bad, is all Peter can think right now, really bad. “Kid, why the heck are you even here?”

“Why wouldn’t I be here?” He nearly squeaks in persuasion. “One minute my spidey senses were tingling and the next thing I know I’m-”

“Your what?” For once Loki and Tony have the same reaction in the room, focused purely on Peter.

“Oh, now you two vibe!” Peter huffs at them, forcing them to steal a look at each other before coming back to the kid.

“Did you already have a spawn the last time I was in New York, Stark?” Loki asks with genuine curiosity.

“Did I what now?” Tony has to shake his head to register Loki’s words inside his brain.

“A spawn,” Loki continues to elaborate on what he means, “a brood. Progeny? Pup? Cub? A baby!” Pausing at every synonym to wonder if any of it was being understood.

“Y-I get it!” Tony nearly shouts, “And no! He’s not my spawn?” The scrunch on his face at the last word makes both Loki and Peter twist their lips at him. “He’s my mentee. My-”

“I don’t care about the details,” Loki interjects before turning to Peter, “just don’t learn to be the impulsive self-sacrificing mess that is your mentor, okay?”

Tony takes offense with a wounded gasp, but that doesn’t stop the God from talking. “Because of all the intelligent life form on this planet, only this one was able to see the imminent threat. Just a bit too late, might I add. Because even this intelligent dumb twat could not gather the last time we met all the hints I had left for him!”

Tony stepped closer to Loki, Peter took a step back- clearly sensing the steam coming off the former. “Last time we met I was wiping the floor with your ass, you dipshit!” Tony is hissing through his teeth now, his breath fanning Loki’s hair, the intimacy being looked at with a raised brow and a smirk by Loki.

“And yet you couldn’t figure out what my objective was,” Loki interjects quite smoothly in a soft voice, daring to step closer. By now Peter is just furrowing his brows in confusion. “Even when I told you pissing the strongest people on Earth was the plan all along.”

“Couldn’t figure out what plan?!” Tony snapped.

“The plan to unite all you half-witted creatures against the ultimate evil of this universe,” the tempo increases as Loki’d voice echoes through the sanctum. “To fight against the one entity that was controlling me during the battle of New York, Stark! It was Thanos. It has always been Thanos. The only difference now is that he stopped playing from behind the veil and decided to conclude the charades once and for all.”

A hush falls over the building. Even the cloak that had been eavesdropping on the conversation from the corner of the hall stills itself by the wall in a bow. Tony blinks and inhales, slowly taking a step back as he sees the truth just way too convincingly shrouded in a thick blanket of pain. Loki too increases the distance with two steps away, turning away his gaze, for he knows too well he has exposed more of him than was needed.

Oh, but what does it matter, his inner voice croaks at him, what does it matter. He already took what was left of my grounded sanity.

“We only have ten minutes now,” Loki gulps, turning away to blink a bit quickly to do away with the excess moisture gathering in his eyes for no reason, “before Ebony Maw enters the earth’s atmosphere. I suggest you take the Time Stone and Strange to a place with no civilians and terrain where we are sure to win.”

“I knew I should’ve dumped that stupid stone down the garbage disposal,” Tony mutters, making Loki scoff lightly. “I am sure that bastard Doctor too stubborn to even consider it.”

“You’re right,” a voice calls out from the corner as a woosh follows and the cloak is now adorning a beaten but not lost Strange, “I am one stubborn bastard. Now, what all do you need to defeat Voldemort?”

Loki stands there, parting his lips to say something before taking a brief pause. “I was talking about defeating Maw. Ebony Maw?”

Strange rolled his eyes, Tony inhaled while Peter raises his finger to grab Loki’s attention. “He is referring to Maw, Mr. Loki, sir. It’s just us humans have a similar evil guy here that goes by the name Voldemort? So...the correlation?”

“Right,” Loki declares, continuously looking at Peter with a sense of impressed curiosity, “we would need a lot of firepower, rough terrain and all our brain-force combined. Maw isn’t just a child of Thanos. He is the child. He is the Black Order. Thanos exists because of him. If we take him down, we are already five steps closer to taking down Thanos.”

“How do you know that?” Strange asks quite sceptically.

“Because Thanos himself calls him the one with a dark tongue that can sway anyone to do his most obscene of biddings,” Loki states, putting down the goblet on the nearest table before letting his hand wander over the swords kept in front of him. “He is the brains behind every step Thanos takes. The ultimate strategist.”

“Lucky for you” he adds, picking one up with a hilt made in the shape of a silver snake, swinging and feeling its weight in his hand as if it was made just for him, “you have the silvertongue by your side.”

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venus-says · 4 years

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Kamen Rider Ex-Aid Episodes 01-15

Press START button.

Ex-Aid is one of those seasons that when you look at it sounds like something that shouldn't work. I mean, putting doctors and video-games together? Is this what, a Dr. Mario live-action, an adaptation of Surgeon Simulator, or an actual Kamen Rider season?

This odd combination of factors always made very skeptical about this season, there's also the huge anime eyes in the helmet that never sat well with me too, but this concept combo always seemed pretty wild to work. But then I watched Gaim, which also had an odd combination of themes, and I saw that those odd concepts mixed together can be doable and be something fun so I started to look forward to the season. But even with the excitement, a small fear started to linger because as I started seeing more and more of Kamen Rider and seeing more of the community I always saw Ex-Aid popping up as one season that everyone thinks it's top-notch and well... the last time I saw a highly acclaimed season in the fandom I hated it so the chances of that happening here again were there.

And you know, I think my fears became reality and I feel like I'm having another Drive experience here. Maybe not at the same level as Drive, I feel like Ex-Aid got me less angry and annoyed, but this season really didn't click with me. I see that it can grow on me because after episode 11 I started enjoying it more, but the general feeling for these 15 episodes and this movie was... meh? Like, I don't like most of the characters, I have a serious problem with the comedy, and there's something in the dialogue of this show that really tickles me off. I also don't like how CGI heavy this show is, and most of the CGI looks horrible.

One thing that really pushed me off at the beginning was the structure that wasn't very interesting, we had 4 episodes to introduce the riders, 4 episodes to give a power-up to each of them, and 2 to introduce a shared power-up and defeat the first general of the villains, and I felt like I came out of these without that much story, it felt like they were just going through a checklist of toys they had to sell and not actually telling a story. It's only from episode 11 onward that it starts to feel like this show has some sort of plot.

I also don't like how this starts similar to a Rider War thing, with all riders competing to see who cleans 10 games first and gets the most Gashats, but they make all characters out of the main one be completely hateful so we have no choice other than root for him. And like, it's okay to give us jerk characters, but you gotta give us something about them so that we can hang on, you don't need to make them redeemable or anything but you gotta have enough for us to love hating on a character otherwise it's just annoying.

Going back to my weird dialogue point, probably one of the things that I dislike the most is how there are times where they don't seem like real people talking? Like, the image I have when seeing the dialogue is that a bunch of old men in a writers' room sit down thinking "what will sound very trendy to hit off with the kid gamers", "what's a young people language we can put here" and they think they're being very smart and clever, but just sounds odd as hell, especially with the gaming aspect and the catchphrases (that at this point in this franchise I'm already tired of them because most of them aren't even charming anymore).

Another thing that doesn't sit well with me is just how special they make these characters be when there's no necessity for it. Like, being an actual doctor is already special enough, you don't need to have your main rider be extremely good at games to justify the gaming motif, you don't need the secondary rider to be a famous prodigious surgeon to install a rivalry. I mean look at Kiriya, as far as I can't remember he doesn't have any special trait and yet he manages to be interesting and stand out on his own. Heck, you don't need to have Emu be patient 0 of the gaming disease when you already have him being really good at video-games and when you're starting to add another element to him with a possible second personality, it's too much for a single character RIGHT FROM THE BEGINNING. It's not like we're seeing those characters evolving into becoming special, they're already special and we just have to buy it. Of course, there are still routes that they can go with that will make the show more interesting, like for example they can do something with Taiga and Emu and their game addiction/obsession and that can be really great, but all this special feeling since the beginning really bugs me.

I think since I'm already here let me talk about the characters. Emu is a precious kid, there are times in which he kinda gets under my skin, but I overall like him. I especially love that he works as a pediatrician, in the beginning, especially considering this is a kids' show, I like to have this idea of doctors being heroes in the mind of children because they really are (despite the health care system in a lot of countries make it looks like they're villains). Other than him being extra special there are two things the show does with him that I don't like, the first one is that after the first arc is done they make him leave pediatrics to start doing surgeries and while I understand that as an intern that's the normal course and he probably has to go through different areas before choosing a specialty, but I feel like that was done just to hone more the rivalry with Hiiro and I don't really care for that, I hope he's back at pediatrics later on because I feel like it's what makes more sense for him and for the target audience of this show. The other thing I don't like is his personality change when he "starts a game" because it never felt like there was much of a change in any of the cases, they just make a gust of wind and he shows a grim for a few seconds, but nothing changes. And seeing that this is a plot point they want to explore it annoys me that they never made that play out before, it's bringing something up when it's convenient and saying that they had a basis for that but the basis is a single small thing that was never brought up to attention before.

Moving to Hiiro, I Hate Him and that's all I have to say. And I hate him even more because the show put him in a relationship where he was very cold and dismissive of his significant other and still they want to make us sympathize with him, they frame it as "the girl left because she didn't want to bother your studies" instead of "she left you because you were a jerk". But of course, they can't make that because then they wouldn't be able to make the stoic character they want so much, they would have to make someone who's trying to become a better person after he lost someone important that he didn't give the proper attention to, and that's much harder and they don't want that. UGH, I hate this man so much.

Taiga. Taiga is... interesting, I like the concept of someone who worked at CR before but lost himself to addiction, that's a great plot point. It's sad they don't do much with him and we end up with another obsessive jerk. Still, don't hate him as much because I can see the potential for them doing something very cool with him, but as of now, he's in the pile of hate.

Kiriya was probably my favorite character of this cast, it was really fun seeing him go from a mysterious man lurking around to someone who looks very deceptive, and all the journey of him investigating the truth as the episodes where going, and seeing his credibility be questioned but he never gave up despite that, it was all very great. Do I think it was a cheap move to kill him before he could tell the truth about Emu? Yes, I do. Because this is something we see everywhere, it's not a new trick. But I still felt his death, and if they don't come up with a way to revive him somehow I'll give this show props because it was a bold move to kill off a character during the Christmas special.

About Genm, and all the villains for that matter, I don't have much to say. I don't get them, I'm not curious to understand them, thus I don't care for them. It's interesting that the powers of the riders end up coming from the main villain? A bit? But then again, if you have all of these powers and you're handing them to people who oppose you, it seems like it's very counter-intuitive. At least they have the excuse that he's gathering data from them, but if he never recovers those gashats, is he really getting the data he wants? I don't know, everything about him and the villains seems very odd. But for what's worth, he almost killed himself to gather data for a zombie game and that was pretty wild so I guess that counts? About Graphite and Parad, I don't have anything to say, don't really care for them.

This leaves us with the side characters. Asuna/Poppy, I wanna like her but sadly I don't. If she is the "token girl" of the season, I'm at least glad she's not a romantic interest and that she fills in as a support role, but still, don't know why she can't just be a regular nurse that goes a little crazy sometimes. Though I guess if they had gone this route with her she would probably become Kiriko 2.0 and that's also bad so... There's the Director of the hospital, and I just hate him, I hate that they make someone who's supposed to be the leader of the hospital sooooo stupid. And he's stupid at all times, he doesn't even get the treatment Jun had in which he was there for comedy but he also had his moments where he was serious and those moments were pretty good. This dude is just here to make his eyes pop and drool over his son and I hate that. Mr. Minister should've chosen someone better suited for this job. And last, there's Nico who just seems like another jerk I don't like, but I'm holding on talking about her because I think I've only seen her for 2 or 3 episodes and she appeared very little so I can't say much about her.

I intended to talk about the Dr. Pac-Man movie, but they actually integrated that plot in the show in a much more flashed out way this time around so I feel like it would be redundant to talk about it since the bigger points I would have to make were already touched on. But let me say, what a mess of a movie. Like, there was no reason for Wizard and Gaim to be there, like how did Gaim even get there in the first place? This movie would be much better with only Drive, Ghost, and Ex-Aid, because they actually had a decent plot going around there that connected very nicely. But it's still a cross-over movie and they make a lot of things I hate about these cross-overs, the awful rider forms are there, there was an awful huge CGI battle scene that looked ugly as hell (though props to them for making this fight happen mid-way and not at the end), there was that scene were the riders started to speed-run through their old forms that were also pretty awful because I could barely understand what was going on in the scenes, all the mess that every rider cross-over movie has. But the thing that annoyed me the most this time around wasn't even that, was Ghost being Ghost again and putting another countdown to doom into Takeru and bringing Akari in this hell with him, and having ANOTHER fake-out death for him at the end. GOSH, THIS ANNOYS ME SO MUCH, LET THIS DUDE LIVE, STOOOOOOP.

And before wrap-up let's talk about what everyone loves, the designs.

This is probably the group with my least favorite designs EVER in this franchise, I'm sorry. I get, they're taking inspiration of different game genres, and the different forms are like they're leveling up, and in concept, I like that but in actual looks, only a very few of them get to pull it off. To begin with, I don't even know what those belts are supposed to be, they look way too busy and I can't define what that shape is.

The Level 1 forms are a mistake. I know, it's Mario before he eats a mushroom, it's still ugly as hell, and I hate that when they grow to their Level 2 forms the head of Level 1 goes to their back like a backpack. In terms of Level 2, I wasn't a fan of Ex-Aid's eyes at first but the design grew on me a lot, I love the colors and how vibrant it is, I also like Genm's because it's just a color variation and it looks good so... Kinda wish his hammer arm stayed as a hammer all the time though, makes Brave having a sword less special. And speaking of him, despite hating his character, as an RPG fan, I do love his design. Snipe, on the other hand, is an abomination. That thing on his right eye that is supposed to hair? What the fuck Kamen Rider, you can do better. Well... at least he's not just a bike, I guess. Thinking about it now, I should've known that Kiriya would end-up dying when his level 2 form was just a bike, that was a major red flag. At least he looks cool.

Sadly Level 3 starts to make everything look ugly again because the power-ups are attachments and they usually go only in the upper body making everyone look like an ice cream cone. I don't think there's a single Level 3 design I like, all of them look awful. I think Shakariki Sports and Jet Combat offend me the most, but all of these can be thrown in the trash. Together with the shared Level 5 power-up, gosh talk about an awful form, it's so bulky, and that dragon head looks so ridiculous, I think the only Level 5 that works is Brave's because in the end it just looks like he's branding his sword, but everyone else looks awful, in special the Full Dragon form.

The Level 10 forms are fun because I love Genm's zombie version, black and white is an easy combination but it works so well, and this dude looks so freaking cool, also NO BACKPACK HEAD! Also, he has a much better belt than the others, this should be the design for all the riders, it's not very big, it's easily recognizable as a portable console, it just looks good you know? But then we have Ex-Aid's Level 10 and he's chibi ex-aid again and he looks awful, thankfully this form is just a set for us to get Level 20 Left and Right that is a concept I love and definitely my favorite suits out of the ones for this season so far. Would I like it better if there wasn't the shoulder piece with Lv.10's head? Definitely, but I still love these forms. I personally love the right side more because after all we already have a light blue rider on the team, but I also think the bright orange with blue accents looks more appealing and stands out more than the blue with orange accents. The last form present in these 15 episodes is Para-DX's Puzzle and Fighting game forms, and I hate the puzzle form, it's really ugly, the fighting game form works way much better, but the back of the helmet being Puzzle's head brings it down a little.

And that's it for this post. Not gonna lie, considering how much I didn't enjoy this show at the beginning, I'm very surprised by how long this post is. I think it's a sign I'm invested so I'm hoping we'll have only good things from here on now. If you have anything to add, please share your thoughts in the comments down below. Stay healthy, stay safe, never stop resisting, thank you so much for reading me rant for so long, and until the next time. See ya in the next game.

#Kamen Rider Ex-Aid #kamen rider

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