#i like the implication that the rats run my brain

[tributes-vamps-and-ginnyweasley]

I'd like to propose a new term for "I'm a little depressed right now". It's fine. It's informative. It's adequate.

But it lacks that something *extra* that could help.

Anyways, I propose "the rats in my brain are feeling unwell. They are taking their sick days."

It's fresh. New. Interesting. *extra*. Spices it up a bit.

[lazycats-stuff]

HEYYY, firstly how are you! I wanted to ask if you could write about a teen male reader with the Batfam. He is kinda like the winter soldier if you know what I mean ( skilled fighter, metal arm..), since he lived with the Batfam he was doing a good mental recovery, but one day he goes back to winter soldier mode on the fam, and they try to get him back to normal again, idk

Thanks you bye !

Hi anon, I'm well and I hope you are doing okay too. I can do it, no worries.

Summary: (Y/N) gets back into the Winter Soldier mode.

Warnings: implications of torture, mind control, mentions of Hydra, Bruce is sad for (Y/N), some violence... And everything else that goes with Hydra and brain washing.

The road to recovery is often a long one. Bruce thought of it when he first saw (Y/N), aka the Winter Soldier. The infamous one, a ghost within the intel community. Many people didn't believe that the Winter Soldier even existed. But the trail of neat and clean murders was the one thing that made Bruce think there is something more.

Of course, the way to get (Y/N) was hell. Hell being and understatement of the decade. Bruce at one thought that he was indeed chasing a Ghost, but something in his mind told him that the Winter Soldier was real. Something in his gut made him chase that ghost.

Months of chasing, fighting and hoping he would be alive by the next encounter, they finally got him. Bruce was lucky to be alive. He hugged all of his kids right then and there. (Y/N) was put into a glass box, strong enough to contain Bane.

(Y/N) refused to back down, refused to retreat. He punched the glass of the cage with his metal arm and some were worried that he would actually brake it. Bruce knew that even if he broke the glass, he had no handler anymore.

His organization has been destroyed. Everyone important was caught. Those who weren't... Well, their time was running out. They may have scattered like rats, but you can bet your ass on anything that the League would find them all. Especially since they didn't burn down their base. One hell of a mistake.

Bruce and the rest searched through the base and they found something that can only be considered as a holy grail when it comes to someone who was brainwashed.

A dark red book, bounded in leather, with all the trigger words written on those pages... Bruce knew that he has hit a jackpot. He looked through them and then has decided to burn it. They also found the footage of (Y/N)'s brainwashing,

The footage, as much as it is damning, making it very easy to persecute anyone they needed, it was also nauseating. (Y/N) was tortured with electricity, memory wiped with electricity... Worse of all, (Y/N) fighting.

It had shaken Bruce to his core and made him triple check the manor security and it has made him check on his sons 5 times that night. He couldn't sleep at all. He refused to sleep that one single evening and night.

And when he stood in front of the glass cage, (Y/N) looked utterly defeated. He was sitting down, looking down at his metal arm and his human arm. He seemed mad beyond belief that he was even caught. Bruce knew he would have to be delicate and gentle with this (Y/N). He had taken the book with him, to try and have some sort of leverage.

And to show him that he was free. (Y/N) was finally free of the mental shackles that they have put on him. Bruce took a chair and sat down near the cell, but far enough to make sure that there was some sort of space.

He couldn't have (Y/N) feel cornered.

He sat down, book in his lap. (Y/N) still looked down, but looked up after a few moments.

" They will come and get me back. " (Y/N) said and Bruce wanted to laugh.

" Hydra is gone. " Bruce simply stated and watched (Y/N)'s reaction.

Nothing. Huh.

" Lies. "

Bruce stayed calm and shook his head. " I'm afraid I'm telling you the truth. The book you see in my hands? The book with your trigger words. Do you really think they would hand it over ever so willingly? " Bruce asked, showing him the dark red leather book.

" You are officially free. " Bruce said as and watched the way (Y/N) reacted.

Bruce nearly broke when he saw hope in (Y/N)'s eyes. He never lost hope.

" I'll never be free... " (Y/N) said quietly, looking at his metal arm. Bruce saw that it was not a nice arms, made with quality. While it looked strong, it wasn't made to be comfortable. And Bruce could see the claw marks at the part where the flesh and metal met.

" That may be true. But you can start healing. You can start working through all of the trauma that they put you through. Mental scars will always be there, but I can help you. " Bruce said softly and (Y/N) was still emotionless and with hope glimmering in his eyes, there was something else too. Bruce could only decipher it as happiness, but he knew that (Y/N) would rather die than admit it.

" I'll be with you the entire way. I have a great friend who can help you unpack everything they put you through. And I can give you a better metal arm, something that wouldn't be so uncomfortable and something that reminds you off the organization. " Bruce said as he looked at (Y/N), holding the book close.

" And what about the book? "(Y/N) asked quietly and Bruce knew exactly what (Y/N) meant.

" It will be destroyed by me. I wanted to show you that the thing keeping you in their grasp is destroyed. Well, will be destroyed. " Bruce said as he put the book down on the chair before moving closer.

" And you can officially start your new life. "

" I'm not sure if I can... " (Y/N) said softly and the defenses were slowly cracking.

" I can assure you, you can. You will have to put some work into it, but it will pay off. I'll be there to help you to start. "

" But the feeling of guilt will never go away, will it? "

" After some time it will. One way is to go through therapy and work it out or you can become a hero. But that only if you want it and after you went through therapy. " Bruce said softly.

" Maybe then I'll atone for it... " (Y/N) said softly.

" One step at the time (Y/N). One step at the time. " Bruce said softly.

And that's exactly what has happened at the time. Bruce made sure to be with (Y/N) before and after the therapy sessions. He made sure (Y/N) knew he had support while he was talking to the Black Canary. And once Black Canary said he could start meeting new people, Bruce slowly started bringing his sons around.

Damian knew exactly how (Y/N) felt. Being in that environment is not easy and it's just the battle of the fittest. And one hell of a battle for your mind. You truly had to be strong enough to make sure to not completely break. Somehow, (Y/N) has kept his humanity, but he had to give a part of his soul to keep it.

Jason just talked to him about stuff and has made sure that he has access to TV shows and movies. (Y/N) needed to be connected to the outside world. And also, Jason has been bringing books for (Y/N) to read. Jason took him his favorites and often took him some classics. (Y/N) appreciated it and liked all the recommendations that Jason has brought to him. It was a nice break.

Tim has always sneaked in some snacks and the two would just talk. It was a hell of a time and since (Y/N) has started school, Tim would help with mathematics and some other subjects. (Y/N) couldn't really go to a public school or any type of school, but he still needs his high school diploma.

And Dick? Dick has been involved in making sure that (Y/N) was getting physical activity. (Y/N) was stiff in Dick's opinion and he wanted to make sure (Y/N) felt good in his body too. Dick did stretches, some tricks and considering that (Y/N) did have some knowledge about gymnastics, it was slightly easier. Not to mention, stretches were something that everyone needs.

About a year after being saved, (Y/N) has moved into the Wayne Manor. It was a nice change of scenery for (Y/N). Beautiful manor, garden, not to mention no noises... And Titus, the Great Dane being an emotional support animal for (Y/N)...

(Y/N) was incredibly happy, but had hard time showing it. Everyone knew but didn't comment on it. They were helping him get adjusted to his new life now and they were more than happy to help. And one thing that made (Y/N) happy out of his mind was the fact that he got a new metal arm. It was black, with red, blue and green accents. It was something to signalized that he was a member of the family.

Bruce was going to adopt him soon enough. Just give him some time and he will do it.

But something happened at the two month mark. Something made him reverse back into the Winter Soldier mode. Bruce was certain that they wiped the triggers from his mind. Not to mention, the boys remembered the trigger words, just in case something like this happened and that they could be careful.

But something must have snapped inside of (Y/N). The boys were careful, but something must have gone awry. Something.

Jason and Dick were the first ones to see it and were the first ones to see it and the brunt end of it. Jason was hurled out the window, while Dick was thrown at the wall like a rag doll. The commotion woke Tim up and Damian was curious as to what was going on.

They were also thrown around the room.

" (Y/N), you are not a Winter Soldier, relax! " Jason said as he made his way through the window, grunting at the pain.

" Please, (Y/N) this is not you! " Dick yelled as he gripped his sides, huffing and panting.

(Y/N), seemingly didn't hear anything and nothing was reaching him. The cold and murderous look in his eyes was more than enough to tell them that they had to subdue him.

Somehow.

Damian jumped on (Y/N)'s shoulders, trying to take his metal arm off. Once they get that off, they are going to be fine. They hope at least.

" (Y/N) come on! Fight it! " Damian raised his voice, trying to make (Y/N) see his senses. (Y/N) didn't listen and threw himself into the wall, back first to throw Damian off and then he threw Damian into the shelves, making him groan in pain.

Bruce walked in from the outside and froze in shock. His adopted sons in various stages of pain and (Y/N) in the Winter Soldier mode. Bruce stayed calm as he glanced over his sons.

They were alive and breathing. That's the important thing right now.

" (Y/N) listen to me. " Bruce said softly as he moved closer, quickly checking on his sons, who were all softly confirming that they were good.

" Look at me. Remember me. It's Bruce. You are safe. The Winter Soldier doesn't control you, you control him. " Bruce said, raising his hands in the air, trying to make sure that he didn't look like threatening.

" You control him, remember that. " Bruce said as he quickly checked on Jason.

(Y/N) looked like he was confused and shook his head. Bruce watched in silence as (Y/N) was getting his bearings together. And once he saw tears falling down his cheeks, he swooped in and hugged his son.

(Y/N) wept as Bruce embraced him and everyone, including Alfred, brought him into a hug. It was a tight hug and Bruce refused to let (Y/N) shatter. And (Y/N) felt safe Bruce's embrace, but by God, guilt was eating him alive.

Apologies were falling from his lips and everyone assured him that it wasn't his fault. It really wasn't his fault.

[writersdrug]

Ghost x Reader x Konig: I Don't Need You (Ch. 10)

<- Previous - Next ->

Summary: Thankfully, things have been resolved between you and Konig. You start to settle in more with your team, and Roze shares a few thoughts with you over a smoke. The memories are still there, but just like the winter around you, they're cold and unwelcoming. You and Konig open up to each other a bit more, more than you had ever opened up to anyone.

WARNINGS: implications of masturbation, cursing, angst (if you squint?), plot building, graphic depictions of animal torture and death (PLEASE CONSIDER ALL WARNINGS BEFORE READING THIS, I AM NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE MEDIA YOU CONSUME thank you kindly)

Notes: Yes! Hello! I exist!! I've been in a slump, and I really do apologize for that. Many of you have been very patient with me and I love and appreciate you all for it! I had to intake as much CoD literature as I could in the past few weeks to get me motivated, which helped a LOT (not to mention I discovered no fewer than ten works that currently have a hold on my heart). But it's here! I forced myself to write over half of the following chapter so that it would be less daunting to finish up. I also plan to make a wip post for yall, just to share will everyone what goes on in my rat brain.

This was edited at 3 am (god it's 4 am now, i just saw that), so if there are any grammatical or spelling errors you have my full consent to call me out on it! Please enjoy!

(sidenote, I completely didn't research how old you need to be to become a navy SEAL, so reader's age is a bit inaccurate in regards to that. pls ignore lol)

(last sidenote then you can read, does anyone have tips for customizing the layout of their fics? I see so many cool ways to style the font and cute banners and errything but I have no idea how nor what to do)

- - - -

The sky hung low with a blanket of gray. It looked like it was about to snow, although the threat was soon dismissed when noon came around and there wasn’t a single flake. The air was cold and dry, forcing me to zip my jacket up all the way and tuck my nose into the collar. I blew steady, warm breaths into my jacket and tried to soak up the heat into my bones.

It was as if the incident had never happened.

Konig and I ended up driving to the liquor store, which was a blessing, since I had run out of Yeungling (and I didn’t understand enough Turkish to converse with the clerk, nor did I have any of the appropriate money – Konig was graced with both of those necessities). We talked like there had never been a week and a half of silence between us. He talked about how he had nearly forced Ridgeback to drag me out of my room and into the common area, “… but it would have been too early for that.” He commented. That, and I would have rather died.

So life went on as normal: dreary, aside from shooting people and getting shot at. Nonetheless, it was normal, and there was a peace to be found in that.

I leaned against the building to the training room, with Roze to my left. I had intended to come out and soak up whatever natural light I could – when I saw her standing there, possibly trying to do the same, I felt the instinct to play it off as if I was just leaving the building. But she cocked her head in a greeting, and a part of me took an interest in her worry-free aura. Out of everyone, she always seemed to be the least-stressed person in the room, even in the middle of a warzone. It was the balm to my anxious mind that I never knew I needed, but gratefully stood by.

We remained together in a comfortable silence (one I would most definitely would not have been comfortable with a while ago), staring ahead, watching the indecisiveness of the brooding clouds above. I wondered what the rest of the world was doing – if they might have been as calm and carefree as us, or if they were in some kind of peril, and the horrors of it were blocked out by the clouds.

I was drawn back to the present when I heard the click click click of Roze’s lighter. I turned my head and watched as she shielded the weak flame from the wind, lighting the cigarette that hung loosely from her lips.

“You smoke?” I asked.

“Sure do.” She replied nonchalantly. “Want one?” she extended her pack of cigarettes towards me.

I glanced at the box, feeling a sour taste in my mouth.

I lay on my stomach, my muscles still twitching and shaking as I tried to even out my breaths. Ghost had tossed a thin blanket over my lower half. I hadn’t even moved from the position he had ruthlessly fucked me in – my body ached too much to even try, and my mind was still recovering from the past hour.

I watch Ghost as he reclined next to me, pushing the bottom of his mask up to place a cigarette between his lips. It was the first time I had seen any part of his face all day. He grabbed his lighter from the pocket of his pants that were discarded on the floor, lighting the end of the cigarette and inhaling. He tossed the lighter back down to the floor as he tilted his head back, exhaling a long stream of smoke. I watched it swirl in the lamplight, settling in a cloud around us. He continued puffing, staring at the wall across from the bed as I lay beside him, although I felt worlds away from him.

He'd started off the night with a mountain of stress from a mission gone sideways. Instead of the usual slow build, where he would run his hands under my shirt and kiss my lips slowly and tenderly – he had walked in and immediately demanded I remove my clothes while he began stripping out of his. I had assumed tonight was going to be a passionate one, until he threw me onto my stomach and shoved my face into the pillows. It wasn’t the first time he’d been rough with me, but it wasn’t just rough – it felt dehumanizing. An hour of constant, merciless thrusts, and a hand around my neck that restricted both my blood flow and my oxygen, and I had fallen into a state of shock.

But, in the end, I was happy to be caged in by him again.

I was happy.

He turned his eyes towards me, seeming to sense that something was off. He exhaled another puff of smoke. “Everythin’ alright?” he asked, completely void of any genuine concern.

I met his eyes with my own. I felt like I shouldn’t have to answer the question, and it stirred up a bitterness in me. But I didn’t feel like arguing with him, and I certainly didn’t want him to leave – so I nodded my head, slowly blinking my eyes. “Just tired.”

He hummed and faced the wall again. He brought one of his knees up and rested his arm against it. “Want a smoke?” he asked, still looking away.

I shook my head as much as the pillow beneath me would allow. “No.” I replied.

He sighed disappointedly. Apparently, my lack of enthusiasm after being used like an old fucktoy was irking him.

To be fair, I never spoke up about how I felt.

He grunted and rose from his position, snuffing out his cigarette in the ashtray by my bed, and picking up his clothes and pulling them on. My heart ached slightly as I watched him slide his shirt over his torso. I felt the threat of tears sting in my eyes as I wished his hands were holding me instead, keeping me warm and grounded. He pulled his jeans on and fastened them, buckling his belt rather quickly; and all while he faced away from me.

“Well, I know you probably need some alone time.” He muttered, sliding the skull attachment over his mask. “So I’ll get going. I’ll see you around.”

He grabbed his tactical vest and jacket and slung them over his shoulder. He paused by the door. “Thanks for tonight.” He mumbled, before finally leaving the room and softly closing the door behind him.

My eyes lingered on the ashtray with the half-smoked cigarette. A thin trail of smoke plumed into the air – I wanted to throw the tray across the room and shatter it. But it was Ghost’s, so I couldn’t; I couldn’t regardless, because it was a piece of him that remained with me, even when he left.

That, and the smell of smoke.

“Nah, I’m good.” I replied, facing the cold, empty base ahead of me.

“Good.” She said, pinching the cigarette and blowing a stream of smoke. “Stay that way. Did you know these bastards give you cancer?”

I chuckled into the collar of my jacket. “Do they, now?”

She hummed affirmatively, sucking another breath in through the cancerous bastard. “Who would’ve thought…”

We fell back into silence. I continued watching the stillness of the base, trying to see if the sky would follow through with its promise to fall. Now that my free time wasn’t spent holed up in my room, it somehow felt like there were fewer ways to spend it. With another mission on the horizon – a simple recon, yet dauntingly close to a heavily-guarded compound – no one was out and about when they usually were. Finding Roze outside and seemingly not worried was usual, however, and a warm sight, compared to how the rest of the team was on edge. Even Askel seemed grumpier than most days.

I hadn’t been seeking out someone to spend time with, no… that I would never do (or admit). But talking to a familiar face provided a comfort I had grown to need over the past couple of months. And, frankly, I felt like Konig might be getting tired of how much I ran to him when I craved social interaction. Though he had never said anything about it, I felt like I needed to branch out to other team members than just my Colonel. One might think I was trying to kiss his ass (I knew the accusation had already crossed Juno’s mind, but the young soldier was good at holding his tongue – when Konig was around, at least).

“You ever think about how ‘little girl’ you would react to this?” Roze asked, and I turned to face her. She had her nose scrunched, and a tinge of pink dusted over her cold cheeks. “Guns, war, no playdates or days at the beach…”

I sighed. “Probably would have cried.” I replied, allowing my freezing nose to poke over the collar of my jacket. “Especially if I had known that being a princess now adays meant spending more time worrying about becoming a hostage than anything else.”

Roze chuckled. “It’s a good thing we didn’t know then.” Her face was mostly blank, but I thought I noticed a hint of bitterness in the way her gaze landed on the ground. I watched her flick her cigarette with a bit more aggression than usual. “I would’ve tried to convince my entire family to run away to Scotland, live in hiding and pretend the rest of the world was a dream.”

“Scotland?” I asked. Soap’s cocky grin and heavy Scottish accent stirred in my mind, but it felt like nothing more than a small cloud of dust.

“Yeah – heard it’s fucking gorgeous over there.” She waved her cigarette in no particular direction. “Now, I don’t know how peaceful it is in terms of politics and war, but it’s pretty spacious. Simple, too. I feel like if I talked about throwing all my shit away and becoming a fisherman for a living, I wouldn’t get people trying to talk me out of it like I would in the States.” She took another drag, and laughed out the smoke.

“Fisherman?”

“Yeah.” She chuckled, a hardened smile gracing her lips. “I don’t know why it sounds so appealing… it just does.”

I hummed and looked back out at the compound. I wondered about Roze’s past; she had never said or done anything to indicate that it was particularly rough, as it was for the majority of us (us – I still wasn’t used to including myself, but it was becoming more of a habit each time), but the weariness in her eyes when she spoke about her younger self made me question what that girl had been through. Maybe it was just nostalgia. A yen for simpler times. Roze seemed to appreciate the simple things in life.

“You know Askel goes ice fishing?” she said suddenly.

I smiled underneath my jacket. “Seems like something he would do.”

“Every winter.” She continued. She dropped her cigarette to the floor and crushed it into the gravel. “He takes about three weeks of leave, if we’re lucky enough to get it, and goes to Norway. Sits on a frozen lake for hours a day, just waiting for a fish.”

“You make it sound like he’s never caught one.” I point out, my eyes lingering on the cigarette.

She shrugged her shoulders. “So does he. Every time I ask him what he caught, he just laughs. Says he’s never expects to get a bite.”

I closed my eyes and hummed in response. It was easy to picture the scene – Askel, sitting on a thick layer of ice, nursing the hoppy beers that he and Konig loved so much and waiting for a fish to bite. I wondered if he even bothered to reel the line in when he did catch something. Or if he even went fishing at all. Maybe he just went out there to get a sense of peace, to pretend that war and death didn’t exist.

The motion of thick, heavy snowflakes falling from the sky caught my attention. They landed on the skin of my nose, resisting the warmth for a few moments, before they eventually melted into trickles of water. A sudden gust of wind blew a flurry of them towards us, making the both of us flinch.

Maybe fishing doesn’t sound too bad.

- - - -

The shooting range was mostly silent, save for the occasional conversation between me and Konig. The lights were low, easily illuminating the gunpowder and dust swirling in the air. Konig and I stared at the paper target as we analyzed my shots. A few hit dead center, although most of them were clustered around the lower left of the bullseye. My lips were pursed into a scowl as I glared at my sub-par aim – it wasn’t typically so awful, but of course it was while Konig had been watching.

“Eh, are you sure you didn’t lie on your paperwork about being a sniper?” Konig asked as he stood behind my left shoulder, taking the target from my hands and looking at it closely. “You weren’t even ten yards from it. This is very poor marksmanship.”

I scowled in embarrassment, taking my pistol to the counter and pulling out the mag. “Rough day.” I answered bluntly as I started packing more bullets into the small compartment. It wasn’t a lie – I had barely gotten any sleep the night before. I was in the middle of a rather interesting dream involving me and Ghost, until my alarm woke me up before anything of importance happened.

“Very bad…” he mumbled to himself. I clicked my tongue in annoyance.

“Y’know…” I grumbled, loading the mag back into the gun and shoving it in my holster, “I don’t like stereotyping, but the boot really does fit you.” I walked past him and out into the hallway, not waiting for him to follow.

“Hmm?” he made an indignant noise, momentarily stuck in his spot, before he came jogging after me. “What does that mean? What stereotype?”

I chuckled. “Haven’t you ever how Germans are extremely blunt?” I asked.

“Austrian.” He retorted. “Do I need to brand that onto my face for you?”

“Wouldn’t do me much good, with the mask ‘n all.” I replied.

He laughed – rather snorted, as usual – “Ah, you’re right. Maybe I am blunt – just as much as you are defensive.”

I stopped at the end of the hall, right in front of the exit. “Defe-“ I turned on my heel to scowl at him. “I am not defensive! Where did you get that idea?!”

He stopped behind me, his eyes widening. He gestured an open palm in my direction. “This.”

I huffed, turning back around to punch the door open. The snow from earlier that day had ceased, blanketing the base in a thin layer of white. The moon seemed that much brighter against the crystalized ground, and the yellow lights scattered across the compound made parts of the snow look like sandy dunes. My nose tingled from the nip of the chilly air, and I pulled my jacket tighter around my body as the door fell shut behind me and Konig.

“Well, what am I supposed to say when you call me defensive?”

“You could agree.”

“But I don’t.”

“Which proves my point.”

I huffed in frustration, despite the smirk curling on the edges of my lips. “So, either I have to agree with you, whether I really do or don’t, or you’ve corralled me into a paradox.”

I can practically hear the gears turning in his head. “A what?”

“A paradox, like a – y’know, never mind. It’s too difficult to explain.” I let him fall in step next to me, although he was the one who needed to slow down to match my pace. “We can just agree to disagree, how’s that?”

“Agreed.” He nodded, and I chuckled. “It won’t change the fact that I’m right, you know.” He added.

I bit my lip and tried to keep my smile from growing ridiculously larger. I looked up at him and patted his shoulder – he looked down at me, and the corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled back. A stray, reddish-brown curl poked through the side of his balaclava, and I found the miniscule detail warming my heart through the cold air. He felt real, and in this moment, too human for this kind of life.

“Why did you choose the military?” I asked, turning back to look at the ground as we walked.

He hummed. “Isn’t that every boy’s dream?”

“Well, yes – but most of the time, it never becomes more than that.” I responded.

He shoved his hands into his pockets, mimicking my own position. “I’m not really sure what made me push so much for it. I almost didn’t make it, for obvious reasons.”

I chuckled. “Size does matter, huh?”

He looked down at me with a deadpan gaze, one that I refused to meet. “It almost did, in a bad way. And I almost backed out before they could be the ones to turn me away. But, of course, they knew they would find some use for my size – so they took me in.”

“And what did they do with you?” I asked, looking back at him.

“A ‘human battering ram,’ as my superiors had so nicely called it.” He framed the description with his hands in the air, as if it had been written on a plaque. I laughed and looked back down at my feet.

“Seriously?” I asked. “So they just had you breaking down doors, and then what?”

Konig laughed with me. “Well, I still had a gun, so I was able to shoot, thank goodness. And I had a bit more gear so I wouldn’t break my bones against the doors – I still dislocated my shoulder a few times, however…” he rolled his left shoulder, as if there was still a lingering pain from how often he had thrown himself at doors. “It was actually during a period of recovery when I proved that I could still be a sniper. My shoulder was still healing, so I had to give up being a battering ram for a while. I was sat with Horangi on the side of the mountain to give him cover. Of course, he was ambushed – he had to fight the Arschgiege right when we were given the order to shoot, so I had to take position behind the gun.” I noticed that his chest was puffed out a bit from pride. “That really knocked their pants off.”

I chuckled, choosing to ignore the inaccuracy of his phrase. “Did it now?”

“It did.” He replied, then looked at the ground. “For a moment. I got a good earful for overstepping boundaries that day, but it’s what ultimately landed me here – so I’m grateful for it.”

I nodded and hummed. “What was Horangi picked for?”

Konig shrugged, his hands now back in his pockets. “He never said what he and Commander had spoken about in his office. But, even if he wasn’t chosen – I like to think we come as a package. If I go, he goes, if he doesn’t, I don’t.”

I felt my heart warm at his words. The memory of how Juno had described Konig couldn’t be farther from my mind. It almost felt like I was talking to someone I briefly crossed paths with in my youth – not a war criminal, not the bloody and stiff soldier who had stepped onto the heli after our first mission. I envied his ability to separate his work stress from the time he had in between missions.

“Why did you decide to join?” He asked, catching me off guard.

It was only fair that I opened up to him, since he was so willing to do the same. Always the one to go first, too. But I had to be careful. I didn’t want this to turn into a pity party, and I didn’t want to dig anything up that I had worked so hard to bury deep beneath my subconscious.

“I was… a weird kid. Like you.” I said, making Konig scoff and roll his eyes. “Looking back now, I hate my younger self. I was so sensitive to what people thought about me, and I just wanted to be independent and strong. I wanted to be a ‘different girl.’” I gritted out the words that left a sour taste in my mouth. “I think I just wanted attention at first – of course, when I heard how everyone said they hated how annoying teenage girls were, and how gullible and weak they were, it just – it made me change. I wanted to prove everyone wrong, it wasn’t just about being different anymore. So, as soon as I turned old enough, I enlisted. Didn’t get to Navy SEAL right away, of course… but I joined every program I was allowed in until I could submit my application.”

I sighed, then chuckled. “Thought my family would say they were proud, that I was successful, that I was doing a good job… they were just angry. Said I was throwing my life away for business that didn’t involve our country.” I opened my mouth to say more, but I ended up scoffing and closing it once again. I felt like I had shared enough.

I looked at Konig, expecting him to acknowledge what I said. “That’s how the story goes…” he would say. But, when I met his gaze, I only saw concern. His brow was creased with what I imagined was pity, and my stomach churned. It was the exact opposite of the reaction I had hoped for. I only wanted to share stories with him, and now it was… this.

“I think you made the right choices.” He said, and I looked away.

“You don’t need to make me feel better, Konig. I appreciate it, but-“

“I’m not just trying to make you feel better.” He said, his accent slightly thicker from his exasperation. “You’re good at what you do. Your parents are just probably worried for you, and they don’t know how to show it.”

I bit down on my tongue, my eyes settling on the building in front of us with a hard expression. If only.

“Maybe that’s it.” I muttered, hoping he would drop the subject. He seemed to understand, and turned to look ahead with a disappointed sigh. My heart sank the tiniest bit at the sound, and I internally scolded myself. Still a people-pleaser, apparently.

We continued walking in silence, the buzz of the lights above us mimicking the static of a communication system that had been severed in a time where it was needed most. The edge of the barracks appeared into our view, just around the corner of the arsenal sheds that stood between us and our destination. I continued to stare at the ground, pretending to watch my steps and try to not slip on the snowy asphalt. My heart twisted with each second of silence that sat thickly between us. It wasn’t technically a fight, but somehow, it felt worse. It felt like the first time I had pissed him off, the first time we had spoken to each other – and god, did I already hate myself for the way I had acted towards him during those first few weeks. I didn’t want to drive another wedge between us, not after the ones that had already been worked back out.

I exhaled heavily through my nose. “Sorry.” I mumbled quietly, but loud enough that I knew it reached his ears. “Sensitive topics.”

He flitted his eyes in my direction, but didn’t bother to move his head. He sighed, and I nearly jolted when I felt his wide hand on my upper back. It rubbed back and forth, and it took me an embarrassingly long time to realize that he was comforting me. Or, trying to, at least.

“I know.” He said, and his hand rested on my shoulder. “I’m sorry for pushing you.”

I didn’t know how to respond. I was stuck on the feeling of the roughness of his palm, which I could gleam through the fabric of my jacket. How his fingers squeezed gently and released twice. There was no hidden meaning, no forced contact or any kind of attempt to put context into the touch. It was… natural. Warm, comforting, and it spoke a thousand words that I wouldn’t have been able to stomach if he had said them. It broke past my self-hatred and walls of ‘don’t be weak’ that I would have used as my defense if he had tried to verbally convey any sort of consolation. It was the first time I didn’t feel awkward about being so close to him, let alone when he was touching me. I wondered if he did this on purpose, or if he had no idea what he was doing at all.

I let myself stand nearer to him, almost tucked under his arm. I looked up and smiled as genuinely as I could – not that it was hard for me, but because I wanted to make sure that he really knew how much I appreciated the gesture. Although, if he knew that this simple act of comfort would pierce through my outer shell, was it really necessary?

“Thank you, Konig.” I said.

He looked down at me and smiled. That damn smile. I wondered how much more refreshing it would be when he wasn’t wearing his mask. It was already too much for my soul to bear when it was just the crinkling in his eyes that I could see.

“Anytime, Bonnie.” He replied, patting my shoulder before tucking his hand back into his pocket. I grieved minimally at the loss of the touch, but I was happy for what it was. “And I mean it. Anytime you need to talk – or not talk, and do that empty staring that you do – just come find me.”

I quirked an eyebrow in his direction. “Anytime?” I asked amusedly.

“Mhm!” Konig replied, his eyes on the ground as he watched his steps. Then, the realization hit him, and his eyes went wide with panic. “Oh- well, eh- I guess, not anytime-“

“You gonna tell me when?” I joked, and he laughed. “You need an open/closed sign on your door.” I jogged ahead, trying to reach the door to the barracks before he did.

“How about this?” he called out, and I could hear the grin behind his mask. “I’ll nail a chalkboard to my door, and if I’m busy, I’ll draw a stick guy jerking off in his bed!”

My cheeks burned after I heard him. “No!” I shrieked, laughing nervously. “You’ll traumatize Juno!” I quickly tried to pin this on someone other than me.

“Juno, hah?” Konig teased, and I had half a mind to run into the building and leave him on the quad. “I don’t care about him. Kid needs to be traumatized.”

I laughed and threw my head back, turning the corner around the arsenal shed. “That’s not very-“

Immediately, my heart leapt into my throat, and I gasped. Konig nearly ran into my back as he skidded to a halt.

Sick, sick, what the fuck, I feel sick-

“Stimmt etwas nicht?” he asked, concerned. “What- oh, scheisse-“

We both stared at the bird on the ground. A crow from the looks of it, though it was hard to even decipher that it was a bird in the first place, due to the state it was in. Its belly had been cut open, entrails and bloody bits pulled from the abdomen and strewn to either side of the bird. Its wings were stretched to their full capacity and most likely beyond it, crushed and missing a large number of feathers. Both of the legs appeared to have been ripped off and tossed to the left of the crow. Its beak was the worst of it all: pried open, the jaw probably broken from how wide it was spread. A haunting look of terror in the crow’s red, glossy eyes made a violent shiver run up my spine.

I exhaled shakily, my eyes still glued to the horror. “Holy shit – what the-“

Konig quickly walked around me and knelt in front of the crow. I shifted to look over his shoulder, still fearfully curious, but he held a hand out behind him, urging me to stay in place. With his other hand, he pulled at one of the bird’s wings, stiff and heavy. Whether it was frozen from the cold, or this was the effects from rigor mortis, I couldn’t tell.

“How – did a fucking fox do that?!” I asked. Are there even foxes in this area? How the hell did one get on base?

“Nein.” Konig replied, still looking at the corpse. His gaze fell upon it with a sense of… familiarity, maybe? “Not a fox, no.”

“Then what? It – whatever it was didn’t even eat-“

“I’ll take care of this.” Was all Konig said. He stood up and marched past me – I was barely able to catch a glimpse of his furious expression. His eyes were hard and narrow, and as he walked away, I noticed that his shoulders were tense and his hands were balled into fists. I didn’t dare say anything to him; he almost looked the same way he did after our first mission together, except this time, his anger seemed to be directed at something, instead of just a post-mission adrenaline high.

“I’ll see you later.” He said over his shoulder. There was an obvious fury to his words, and although I knew it wasn’t intended towards me, it still made me freeze where I stood – almost as if I might anger him more simply by taking a step after him.

Whatever it is… I thought, watching him disappear into the compound, he’s sorting it out. I can take care of myself. Although, with such an abrupt and tense departure, I was at a loss on what to do next. I looked back at the bird; its terrified eyes locked onto the sky above it, frozen in its last wish to fly away from whatever horror it endured.

A shiver ran up my spine, prompting me to look away.

- - - -

Taglist: @igotmajordaddyissues @princekonig @vixionix @v3lv3tvampir3 @theoneandonlykymberlee @luvvnightingalee @dillybuggg @sun-joo @perfectus-in-morte @evilive @satakingslime @comfortless

Please let me know if you would like to be added to the taglist!

[jellazticious]

JELL YOU CANT JUST DROP THIS RANDOM LORE ON THE FLOOR AND RUN AWAY!! TELL US MORE PLEASE IM BEGGING YOU

If this is about the Peppino clone theory then alright, buckle up cheesebags

First of all it's a theory and a headcanon, not lore, I don't want anyone acting like what I'm saying is canon 😭

BUT ANYWHO

I just thought it's weird that Peppino supposedly has never seen the tower in his life before or he has but he gets no association with it BUT he is plastered all over the posters, graffiti, boxes, etc in the background like he was part of the team. There's even like toys and robots designed after his scrumptious physique.

Next there's his malleability. I know this is a cartoon world with cartoon logic but alllll I'm saying is why doesn't Gus have that same whackiness? It's all mostly Brick doing the comedy. The most we have to Gus deforming his body was during the double jump where he turns into a ball. Peppino on the other hand? Turned to cheese, turned to a pizza, turned to a puppet, able to handle being in the front of a rocket, his body contorts during exaggeration of poses, way faster on foot than a rat etc.

He is just as cartoon character as the residents of the tower compared to the human levels of the outsiders like Gus and Stick. I mean yes, Gus can have exaggerated body parts but he is never as exaggerated as Peppino is

Next reason, the WAR level and the very confusing and retconned implication of what Peppino did. Some say it was canon that he was an actual veteran, some say he was technically not a soldier but a pizza delivery guy for the soldiers, and some say he accidentally wound up in the crossfires. Other than the war setting, the level, for zero reason or explanation, transitioned to a laboratory with clones of Peppino and the big ass tube in the bg has Pillar John in it. Cloning is not new to the tower but by god are they SHIT AT IT

Also here's a little intermission because I just LOOOOOVE this one tube in the bg so much

it's so stupid, he looks like he wanna die and he isn't even born yet, that's how you know you're getting a Peppino variant njsngjksrkj

but anwyay back to topic

I'm pretty sure we all think that the WAR level is the tower's last attempt at getting rid of Peppino by making a horrendous cheap move with making him relive his trauma. I love that take so much man, to think that the tower is this desperate because Peppino is SO CLOSE to destroying it that it didn't even have Pizza Time but a constantly ticking timer.

It makes sense with the war part of the level. That is clearly a traumatic event but then it turned to a lab which gets confusing.

I kinda stitched the two together and made them two different memories. The first one came from the original person the clones are based off and the other is Peppino's. I like to think that Faker and Peppino are opposites lol. Peppino has the perfectly structured body but not the mental stability while Faker is smart as hell despite being animalistic with a constantly shambling body. They're sorta the best ones to come out of the lab. but yeah, sorry for putting that tangent there. It's so to give a little context with how Peppino remembers stuff.

His brain is done fucked up that he cannot tell which memories are from him or from Bruno. It's like when you're dreaming and you already have stock knowledge in the dream's universe and it just hurts your brain when you try to pinpoint when exactly you got that information. He'd say some shit about his childhood and full believes he was the kid in the memory, and to Peppino he'd admit that all his memories are hella fuzzy for some reason but he just shrugs it off with "I'm just getting old". Also he kinda gets dreams about the lab and shrugs it off as some weird ass nightmare about the restaurant debt lmao.

(btw, Faker is well aware about Bruno's memories and know how to distinguish it from his own. I really love interpreting him as the alpha of all clones, it's so fun)

But yeah those are my reasons why I formulated and headcanoned Peppino as a clone.

All else that you need to know about this is that Peppino escapes, spends time in the real world, forgets his origins because brains are weird and it does this thing where it forgets traumatic events, and runs the restaurant (instinctual thing???), and seeing that Peppino is thriving on his own, Pizzahead thought how funny it would be to bring his ass back to the tower. Pizzahead is Pizzahead, his choices are whack asf

but all in all, I have always interpreted clone Peppino in all my silly little doodles gbjsbgksrbkj but like no one's gonna ask about it so I never made a peep nor a sound. But now you know lmao, which would raise questions that I'm more than happy to indulge

[hesawifebeaterdanusethegun]

Part Two of my as yet unnamed Dark City fic! EnjoyI Also here's Part One:

Part One

Part Two

            Doctor Schreber checked his watch. Almost midnight. Time to get to work.

He called them the Strangers. He’d been working for them for nearly three years. He could say working, but really he was a slave as much as any of the others in the City. Three years ago, he’d been taken by the Strangers. All he remembered was a bright light and then pain. So much pain. He hadn’t been the same since, as was obvious the second you looked at the poor fellow. He remembered nothing before the Strangers came to take him away. They beat him, forced him to create for them, forced him to erase his entire life. He hated them.

His job was to make memories. He created whole lives, rich tapestries of feeling and events, all the things that made a person who they were, through their memories. He did what he did under the threat of torture and death, and felt the coward for it, although nearly anyone else would have done the same, in his opinion.

The Strangers were searching for something that he personally felt they would never find: the human soul. A hive-mind, they never experienced anything of their own, had no memories of their own, no personalities of their own. When they observed humans and found each one unique, they set out to determine how this was possible, and what they could do to make it possible for them. So they created a city that they controlled entirely, a City that they fine-tuned on the daily (or nightly as it were) in their seemingly endless search for some sort of holy grail of humanity, changing people’s lives and memories as they slept as well as the City landscape that surrounded them and studied the results, hoping to find the source of human individuality somewhere in mankind’s memories.

            Doctor Schreber mixed and matched these memories for the Strangers, and one injection to the brain later, you had a whole new person in front of you. As much as he hated doing it, as immoral and unethical as it was, he couldn’t help but find it fascinating, he even sometimes enjoyed his work, reveling in his abilities and the chance to utilize them to their full potential could feel great at times, when he managed to forget what he was actually doing with all these memories he tinkered with.

The imprinting was the worst part, when he actually administered the new memories to their host. Seeing the person who’s life he was about to upend in real life was something he could never get used to, no matter how he tried to forget the implications of what he was doing, the sins he was committing in the name of science for a predatory species that thought of him and his kind as nothing more than lab rats.

But in the meantime, as he worked so closely with the Strangers, he was awarded some special privileges. While he had his memories erased at the start just like everyone else in the City, he was permitted to keep his scientific knowledge in order to help them. Unfortunately this meant that he also retained the memory of what he’d lost. He remembered nothing of who was before save his name, but he knew that those memories were missing, unlike the others in the City who went about their business oblivious to what they’d had taken from them. He supposed he considered this knowledge a blessing and a curse of sorts, but he’d rather know than be blissfully ignorant like the rest of them, however happy they may be.

He was also permitted some semblance of normalcy when he wasn’t hard at work in their laboratory, running his own practice, seeing what few patients he had time for, and performing his own experiments in his own lab.

“Not that one,” he told Mr. Book, the one who seemed to be the leader of the Strangers. “We can’t touch that one, I need her.” He spoke of course of Katherine, his newly hired receptionist and personal assistant, who over the course of a few weeks had made herself indispensable to him, quickly and accurately transcribing his (admittedly nearly illegible) notes, making and canceling appointments, and taking care of supply orders and anything else he might need around the office.

“Very well, doctor, we shall not touch that one,” he nearly spat the words in disgust, frustrated at the doctor’s insubordination. Doctor Schreber didn’t care, he only cared that he got his way in this, as far as he was concerned it was non-negotiable. She was not to be touched, he’d make sure of it. He hurried off to get back to work, satisfied that he’d gotten his wishes across thoroughly.

Part Three

[overandunderland]

It's Not a Sleepover (Seeker Of The Warrior Chapter 9 Excerpt)

"Your kids will walk through these doors again, no matter what. Even if I don't," he promised, his voice steady yet tinged with a finality that belied the seriousness of his commitment.

The implication of his words was stark; he was prepared to ensure their safety at any cost, even if it meant sacrificing his own well-being.

The air seemed to thicken with the weight of his promise, the room charged with a mix of apprehension and a deep, unspoken understanding. Grace felt a chill run through her as she processed his words, the reality of the situation settling around her like a heavy cloak.

The tension in the room reached a crescendo as Owen pressed, his voice blending urgency with a stark, commanding edge. "I need you to say that you understand, Grace."

Grace's response was quick, her voice tinged with rising panic. "Owen, I DON’T understand—" she began, her words trailing into a plea as she grappled with the enormity of the situation thrust upon her.

“I need you to say okay Grace. If I don’t come back—"

"Stop saying that! I'm not going to tell you to d–" Her protest was cut short, her voice cracking under the strain of emotion, her eyes glistening with the beginnings of emotion. She had barely been able to agree to let them go, to shoulder this type of assurance. That wasn't fair, not to any of them. But the boy wasn't letting up, he was unrelenting in his pressure. Like the rats, snarling against the glass, slobbering and scratching the walls of their tiny apartment back in New York. She could almost hear them again, chattering, squeaking getting louder and louder in her brain. Untill Owens voice cut through:

“Say Ok.”

“OKAY!" The word burst from Grace in a yell, her voice echoing off the walls, laden with frustration and fear, the acknowledgment forced from her by the unyielding circumstances.

A heavy, tense silence enveloped the room, broken only by the distant chirps of morning birds and the soft rustle of leaves outside—a stark contrast to the internal swell. After a moment that seemed to stretch endlessly, Grace spoke again, her voice shaky, through her clenched teeth.

"If it comes down to you or my kids, You will make sure they come home."

Have I told y'all how much I love Grace Campbell?

Chapter 9 is out now ❤️💜

[kstewdeux]

@sometimes-icanstillhear-sitboy

InuPrompt 2022: Wish (11.11.22)

Summary: Kagome orders some cheap exercise clothes from the predecessor of Wish and learns some things.

“Why do I gotta be here? Why not use Sango?” Inuyasha huffed irritably as he shifted his weight. This whole thing was so utterly embarrassing. It wasn’t like he was an expert in fashion. Besides, whatever opinion he ultimately gave would be taken as an insult somehow. That woman could interpret everything he said to everyone else so easily but when it came to herself, Kagome might as well as have been blind. She could be so stupid. So willfully ignorant.

“You’re the one having to carry me around all the time,” Kagome called back - the sound of ripping plastic and the scent of chemicals erupting followed. Inuyasha gagged and had to repress his shudder.

“The hell are you doing back there?” he snapped irritably, “If that’s the clothes, I already say no. Cloth shouldn’t smell like that.”

“Well, sometimes synthetic fabric smells like gasoline at first. It goes away so keep an open mind,” Kagome called back, “I just thought that it would be better to wear something more practical and I’m tired of chaffing.”

Inuyasha laughed softly at that. He’d been wondering since the beginning how that stiff fabric and obscene skirt was working out for her. Far as he could tell it didn’t breathe and he’d seen the evidence of irritation himself. Still, if she wanted something more comfortable, he would’ve found her something instead of her ordering stuff from a magazine. Especially if he had known the magazine crap smelled like death. She probably thought that he’d get her something tacky but more likely, he would’ve scoured the earth to find a fire rat robe so they could match.

See, now that would’ve been cute and serve many purposes. Mainly, it would show the world that she was his and he was hers. That they were a unit in many interpretations of the word. Even if her understanding kept getting lost in translation.

Inuyasha smiled to himself and hummed. What a weird thought. Matching. But weirder still, the idea of matching with her made him very, very happy. Especially if they had kids one day. They could all match. Hell, if the kid didn’t have ears like him, they could use a bow to…

His smile faded and he quickly locked those images away where they couldn’t hurt him.

“If you wanted new clothes, I could’ve found you some,” Inuyasha huffed in frustration as he cricked his neck, “Still might. Ain’t no way chemicals are better for your skin.”

“They were so cheap they were basically free,” Kagome called back - her voice muffled by what Inuyasha assumed was a top, “Now I want you to think about how great this would work in battle. Able to move better. Probably run faster. Less me losing focus trying to keep my skirt from flying up.”

Snickering softly, Inuyasha had to admit he’d enjoyed that view often enough to know exactly what she meant.

“So you’re trying to be more modest?” Inuyasha offered with no lack of amusement, “If you are so concerned-“

“Well that too,” Kagome offered and Inuyasha made a face, “And villagers won’t be whispering about whether I’m a floozy.”

Inuyasha snickered at the strange term. He didn’t have to know the word to understand what she meant. Good little girls didn’t wear skirts that didn’t even go below the fingertips. Never accidentally showed off their beautiful, flat, flawless stomachs. Especially didn’t let men grab their bare thighs.

Inuyasha wrinkled his nose.

“So you’re covering up then is the idea,” he stated more than asked - disappointed at the implication that he wouldn’t be granted his favorite privilege anymore. Still didn’t explain-

“Again, why am I the one who has to cast judgment? This is a girl thing,” Inuyasha sighed heavily, “I’m sure whatever it is will be…”

Kagome began coming out and Inuyasha’s brain flatlined.

“Well Sango is a little more traditional. She already doesn’t approve of the outfit I normally wear and I don’t trust that she’d give me an honest opinion,” Kagome continued as she began smoothing out some of the wrinkles, “She’d just shoot it down.”

Inuyasha was not proud of the noise he made when Kagome fully emerged from behind the silk screen. Something between a moan and a whine. His knees turned to jelly and he promptly sank to his butt while the woman in question looked at him like he was insane.

That is, until her eyes widened in understanding and her face erupted in flames.

“They’re for exercising,” she blurted before blushing harder when she realized Inuyasha’s dilated amber eyes were focused on a very specific part of her anatomy, “Are you even listening to me?”

Inuyasha nodded absently while his chest heaved. Thank god the monk wasn’t here. Gouging a friend’s eyes out wasn’t something Inuyasha particularly fancied doing but if Kagome was going to wear something like that, Inuyasha was going to make damn sure he was the only man allowed to see her in all her glory.

God, how long had he wanted this? Permission, arguably, to look at her with next to nothing on. An acknowledgement that he had the right. Honestly, it’d gotten to the point where he believed she’d never catch the hints he’d dropped. There were only so many ways to interpret ‘I need you’. Only so many ways to demonstrate that he could be a good provider in every way. Making her medicine. Taking every blow meant for her in battle. Following her to a world that smelled like ass and going out of his way to impress her family. Doing everything they asked and helping them with whatever they needed. Sure, he royally screwed up where Kikyo was concerned but he hadn’t left Kagome once since he declared he’d chosen her. Not once!

But still, somehow, she hadn’t seemed to catch what he was throwing at her.

Until now.

Inuyasha let out another pleased moan as his heart melted. She knew. She finally knew.

Wish granted.

“I mean I know it’s tight,” Kagome mumbled as she quickly began moving backwards towards the screen, “But when it’s just us, I thought it’d be more practical than what I normally wear. The leggings…”

Blinking a few times, Inuyasha’s foggy gaze lowered to the shapely legs that were fully covered. Those he could definitely do without. He liked being able to touch her skin. Gave him a weird comfort in the midst of their day to day struggles. Made him believe, if just for a moment, that she really did trust him.

Kagome turned away from him and Inuyasha immediately changed his opinion. She could wear those all day and he’d never get tired of looking.

“People wear stuff like this all the time in my era,” the miko muttered miserably as she disappeared and Inuyasha let out a soft huff of frustration, “I just thought destroying these would be better than my uniform. I’ve gone through sixteen of them and they’re so expensive.”

Inuyasha would like to say he was listening or that he cared about the cost but the image of Kagome wearing what amounted to a skin tight suit was burned into his mind.

“Looks nice,” Inuyasha called out - wincing when his voice changed in pitch mid-word. That hadn’t happened since he was…well younger and growing. Although, technically something in him was growing at the moment so maybe that had something to do with it. But what did she expect? That top was completely transparent and…

Inuyasha let out another muffled moan and closed his eyes to revisit the memory.

A face peeked around the edge of the screen and she gave him a curious look.

“I have some others. Things I ordered. Maybe they’d be better?” she admitted slowly and eyes flying open, Inuyasha immediately perked up with almost childlike enthusiasm.

“Yeah. Yeah let’s see those,” Inuyasha breathed - his voice still doing whatever the hell it was doing. The innocent face he put on was both precious and disturbing. Since when did she give him a reaction like this?

Figuring this little fashion show would do wonders to her self esteem, Kagome unpackaged another top and squeezed it over her head. Size medium her butt. This tank top was basically a bra and exposed fat rolls that probably didn’t even exist. Heinous was too kind a word and the color was nothing like what had been advertised on the website. What was supposed to be emerald green was a strange combination of neon green vomit and mop water. There were no words to describe how utterly disgusting this color was and no way in hell she was exposing Inuyasha’s HD vision to this. For all she knew, those amber orbs could bubble and start melting out of their sockets from seeing something so hideous.

Squinting her eyes, Kagome pulled the fabric forward and found the pièce de résistance. A weird watermarkish pattern that looked like a kawaii sheep with anatomically correct squid tentacles. What was that?

“You can’t see this one,” she called out as she began trying to tug it over her head only to quickly begin wondering how she’d even gotten the stupid top from hell on. Somehow, someway this stupid piece of cheap nylon had fused itself to her skin or something. Much to her horror and relief, upon almost tripping over her book bag with the shirt over her face, a single claw was there. Effortlessly cutting through the fabric to help rid her of her veritable prison. It was so tightly on there, though, Kagome would’ve sworn she heard the vacuum seal pop.

As relieved as she was to be free, though, that second that poor excuse for fabric hit the ground, his lips were on hers. Which brought with them a whole new type of panic. His fingertips exploring every inch of her torso they could until they finally delved into her hair to keep her in place.

“Those are for me,” Inuyasha laughed almost playfully against her lips before his hands reached down to hoist her legs over his hips, “Only for me.”

As he quickly maneuvered so that her back hit the wall, Kagome’s eyes widened as her mind started to race. Especially when, after he secured her, his hands slid up to pin her wrists above her head. Yeah…this was moving way too fast and far too soon. There was still…well a skyscraper high tower of mess they needed to clear up before, well, any of this. And this wouldn’t and didn’t mean anything to him. He clearly had made some presumption or, you know, was just male and instinct driven.

Inuyasha’s lips began tracing her jaw before moving down her neck and she lost her train of thought.

“S-stop,” she finally managed in between little whimpers and moans. His reaction was immediate. Panting heavily against her skin, Inuyasha froze and went rigid.

Scared of him. She was scared of him.

“W-what?”

“I said stop,” she repeated. Inuyasha’s breathing hitched a few times before he took a step back and gently placed her feet back on the floor. His face, however, remained hidden in her hair. She could feel his breath coming out in fast uneven puffs. Ticking her hair and skin as he tried to get ahold of his reaction.

“I didn’t…” he tried - his voice cracking wildly as he pushed his nose closer and a strange whine worked it way out, “I just thought that y-you…”

Without further warning, he turned and hurried out of the room. It was then and only then that Kagome registered something wet sliding from her hair into her cheek. Running the odd clear liquid between her fingertips, she was far too frazzled to immediately recognize it but when she did, you had better bet she was throwing on the nearest shirt so she could chase after him.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t gone far and she nearly tripped over his body which was planted firmly just outside the door.

He caught her. Of course. But her life flashed before her eyes on the unexpected way down.

“Stupid,” he chided hoarsely as he quickly took a moment to wipe at his face, “Why’d you go and do that?”

There was a double question there. Kagome knew it. Inuyasha knew it. The remanent of the poorly made garment even a child couldn’t fit into knew it.

“You shouldn’t be out here,” Inuyasha huffed as he grabbed her arm and moved to roughly yank her inside, “That shirt is almost see through and-“

“I didn’t want you to go,” she offered sheepishly as he forced her to sit and then slammed the door shut.

“Well I’m here,” Inuyasha snapped much harsher than he intended before plopping down in front of her and glaring, “Happy n-“

His anger faded quicker than Kagome could blink as his eyes lingered on her throat.

“Now?” he finished lamely. A look of misery, longing and shame adorning his features. Furrowing her brow, Kagome made to speak before realizing what he was probably looking at.

A hickey. He had been rather…attentive.

Moving her hand to cover the bruise she knew was there, she was surprised when he reached up to gently grab her wrist- staring at the spot with the oddest expression.

“Don’t. Please,” he requested with a shuddering sigh, “Just don’t.”

“I mean, I’m going to have to cover it up if it is what I think it is,” Kagome mumbled in confusion before shaking her head and getting to the point, “Inuyasha, all I meant was that…we, um, can’t be doing…that.”

Nodding stiffly, Inuyasha averted his eyes and tucked his hands into his sleeves.

“Fine. That’s…that’s fine,” he agreed barely above a whisper before glancing at the futon and adding, “Y-you should get some sleep.”

“Inuyasha, what I’m trying to say-“

“You’re really useless when you don’t sleep,” he added a little desperately as his body curled into itself like a dog anticipating being hit by a newspaper, “And…and I don’t want to have to carry you everywhere. You’ve got two legs, ya know? And-“

“Inuyasha. Will you look at me?”

“No,” he huffed as he stared at his right knee, “Go to bed.”

“Inuyasha. Look at me,” she ordered firmly as her hand reached up to try to force his chin, “Look. At. Me.”

“No.”

With him not looking, he completely missed the split second decision that played out behind her eyes. The realization then pleased understanding.

What he did not miss was her suddenly straddling him and wrapping her arms around his neck. Stunned, confused and more than a little hurt, Inuyasha lifted his head only to find his lips being captured in a way that heated his cooling blood.

“I’ll only wear them for you,” she breathed before nudging his chin up so she could attack his throat, “If that’s what you want.”

Nodding absently, Inuyasha was too busy trying to breathe in a dignified fashion to worry about anything else. For so long, he’d assumed trying to start anything with her was a suicide mission. That Kikyo and his general jackassery had ruined any chance he might’ve had. But this…

This seemed to prove otherwise. Mostly. It was within the realm of possibility that she didn’t actually want him. That she was just trying to comfort him or something equally bizarre. She’d kissed him like that before after all. When he was injured and needing to be saved. Maybe he was turning and he didn’t even know.

When she hit a particularly sensitive spot, his back arched and a soft whimper passed over his lips.

“Now. I think we need a talk,” Kagome cooed as her fingertips moved to stroke his hypersensitive ears. It sounded like a proposition from his dreams but given everything, he didn’t really want this to end. The world liked to play cruel jokes on him. Give him hope then snatch it away. If he went along, if he agreed, he’d set himself up for more heartbreak and honestly, he didn’t think he could handle any more.

She pulled away. Clenching his eyes shut, Inuyasha tried to mentally brace himself for impact. After all, what she’d just done wasn’t like her at all. None of this was like her at all. Maybe he’d found himself in the arms of a succubus which overrode his judgment and gave him ideas he wouldn’t normally entertain. That made more sense than what was happening.

“T-talk?” he managed after a few moments before pulling her closer and resting his nose against the nape of her neck. The last thing he wanted was for her to say that he’d ruined everything. That her kissing him was just to soften the incoming blow. He could tell by scent alone that she’d been scared of him and he really didn’t want to hear her say those words out loud. To tell him she was leaving or that she didn’t trust him anymore or that...

“Well…for one thing, you were right. These clothes aren’t the best. I think this stupid shirt ripped,” Kagome admitted as she trailed her fingertips up and down his back, “And the seam of my leggings popped already.“

Letting out a soft groan, Inuyasha didn’t move and tried to hold onto his fairytale for a few seconds longer. At least right now, until she told him otherwise, he could pretend that everything was fine. That maybe she even loved him. But why would she after all the crap he pulled? Like just now. Talk about making presumptions. Even if she did love him, she probably thought he only wanted her because he was turned on. Lust was different than love. Yeah, sure, there’d been both but she wouldn’t know that and she was obsessed with Kikyo. It would take a miracle for her to figure out he would choose her in a heartbeat if things were easier.

But Naraku liked to play with his food. Had already killed one woman. Killed thousands others in ever more creative ways. Played on insecurities and, more importantly, doubt. And Kikyo, well, her opinion on whether he should die or not changed from one second to the next. Was completely unpredictable and he had promised to avenge her. To protect her…

And he’d already screwed up so hard where that was involved. He’d made too many mistakes and…

“But mainly I want you to talk because I love you,” Kagome finished softly as she gave his trembling body a light squeeze.

For the longest moment, Inuyasha’s breathing hitched as he waited for her to correct herself. To realize what she’d said and take it back.

But she didn’t. Quite the contrary. She pulled him closer and whispered the sentiment again. Unsure what was happening, Inuyasha slowly wrapped his arms around her waist and gently nuzzled her throat. A tense contradictory peace began flowing through his veins making it easier to breathe and making his muscles relax.

“I love you too,” Inuyasha offered hesitantly. Kagome hummed and pressed a kiss against his cheek.

It was almost beyond belief.

Maybe, just maybe, something in his life was simple for once. Easy for once. For the longest, he’d assumed any confession he made would be met with a long list of everything he’d done wrong. Being told that he was mistaken and have to live the rest of his life trying to prove he wasn’t. Have to fight like hell and bend himself out of shape to gain her trust. But there was no fight. No accusations. Just love. Beautiful unconditional love.

A lingering tear slid down his cheek. He held her closer and pressed a single chaste kiss against her neck.

“I…I’ll talk but...” Inuyasha trailed off into a breathy chuckle. A faint blush blooming across his nose.

“But I want to see the rest of that shit on you first,” Inuyasha mumbled after a long period of him breathing in her scent to calm his frazzled nerves, “And then we’re burning them all.”

“Deal,” Kagome agreed and Inuyasha felt the broken pieces of his heart begin to sew themselves back together.

And so, in between sessions of making up for lost time, they did just that.

[goldensunset]

ok y’know the theory that time travel in khux wasn’t even inherently what made everyone lose their memories; they all just had other stuff happen to them coincidentally (like brain damage or w/e. or losing their hearts. or getting literally split in half)

i’m just like obsessed with the potential implications of that for lauriam bc we know that it was xigbar aka luxu that recruited marluxia to the organization. and marluxia seems to think that it was losing his heart that caused him to lose his memories and i’m pretty sure it’s established that he willingly chose to join the org and wasn’t like forcibly and violently nobodied or anything lol. and he said that he understood there was a risk of losing his memories but chose to take it

so like what if

•lauriam (fully remembering and grieving the loss of his friends and family) runs into this crusty old man (who presumably knows exactly who this kid is but the kid doesn’t know who he is)

•crusty old man probably talks him into joining the organization with the promise of finding the people he cares about (and lauriam’s like ??? how do you know any of that about me). probably very similar to how xemnas got isa to join. tooootally manipulating this sad kid’s emotions

•wondering if xigbar would’ve mentioned the amnesia-risk thing. probably, or lauriam just kinda figured that out by himself. but like can you imagine xigbar framing it as like ‘well hey if you keep your memories you can focus on finding your loved ones. but whether you keep your memories or not at least you won’t have to feel the emotional pain of not having your loved ones here’ like basically selling him on not having a heart bc a heart is just pain right?

•it works out in xigbar’s favor for the time being- free ruthless org member without any sentimental memories!- but then once lauriam is recompleted years later and begins to remember stuff. hoo boy. luxu is in for a Bad time. lauriam realizes like ‘hey that crusty old man manipulated me and completely ruined my life and stole everything from me and i’m still no closer to finding my sister and friend’. proceeds to go sicko mode the next time he runs into the immortal rat. kh4 please 🙏

•optional- only thing stopping recompleted lauriam from straight up killing luxu is the ‘hey i sent that data construct of your sister to another world/the future lol. don’t you wanna find her?’ bc like really what was that true dandelion thing about. unfortunately it turns out luxu really did have important intel after all but has been withholding it. screw this guy

[sophia-sol]

Paladin's Faith, by T. Kingfisher

Any book by Ursula Vernon (the author behind the Kingfisher penname) will have certain features, and those inherent features are ones that keep me coming back book after book to everything she writes. I love how she does worldbuilding, and I love her practical get-things-done heroines, and I love how everything's always grounded in the odd specific annoyances of what it would actually be like to be in the fantastical circumstances she writes about. And she does SUCH good road trips! So many opportunities to run into fun NPCs and cool regional worldbuilding!

I'm not quite the right audience for her paladin romances, unfortunately -- I think because I just get too irritated by the depth and breadth of their ability to feel guilty about absolutely everything. But I keep reading them because I'm having fun with everything else anyway, and because the wider arc of the business with the dead god fascinates me, and we get a bit more about it every book!

This book, though, feels to me a little less successful than the previous paladin romances in the series. It feels a bit too much to me like several different books squished into one, I think, instead of like multiple strands of the same book, and I just don't love all of those books.

There's the one where Marguerite is trying to get herself free of the Red Sail by finding the missing artificer and leaking the plans for the salt-making mechanism and thereby destabilizing the economy of the whole region, and there's the one with the Dreaming God's paladins and the Saint of Steel's soul-scarred ex-paladins dealing with the demon who wants to be a god, and there's the one about the romance between Marguerite and Shane.

The first one is a perfectly good spy plot, not really my go-to genre of book but fun enough, and I do enjoy the temple of the white rat being willing to meddle in these things.

The second one is FASCINATING to me and I want to think about the implications forever and I want more details!!!

The third one is….yet another guilt-ridden paladin romance………also featuring a spy who doesn't trust anyone but just KNOWS in her HEART that she can trust HIM and he's the exception to everything about how she's conducted her life. It's just really really not my kind of romance story. Also both of them are extremely allosexual and are continually having their higher brain functions disabled by how attractive the other person is and it just seems comically over-the-top to me, an ace person who Doesn't Get It. (okay I AM charmed by the type of kinky not-quite-bondage that Shane turns out to be really into when Marguerite is like, ok I gotta find SOME way of achieving good sex with this guy who can't get out of his own head about anything.)

I'm sure the romance part of the book is good for some people! but that's um. not what I read Kingfisher romances for, surprise surprise.

So let's go back to the demon who wants to be a god, shall we? I was FASCINATED by Wisdom and by what demons are. And by the implications of what a god is, too, tbh.

Wisdom seems to genuinely care about its followers to some degree, has figured out how to live as a part of the world, has thoughts and feelings and motivations and relationships and goals. It's definitely been doing some worrying stuff, but is it any more evil than a really powerful human can be? What ARE demons, and what makes them appreciably different from gods, in the end, in this world? They clearly CAN have comparable types of bonds with humans if they so choose, and some gods are definitely terrible if I'm remembering stuff from previous books, so why couldn't demons have the possibility of being basically okay.

And what is Hell? It's the place where demons are from, and it's the place where paladins can bind a demon to never be able to leave (if they're powerful enough to manage the binding), and from what little we hear from Wisdom about it, it seems like an undesirable place to be. Wouldn't most folks kind of suck in some respect if their entire prior existence was in a place like Hell?

I really hope this series is going in a direction of non-evil demons tbh! maybe even….some of the major gods today having previously been demons? Maybe the saint of steel was a demon and someone murdered him because of that!

anyway my increasing pro let-demons-be-people agenda means I feel weird at the end of this book about Shane taking up with the Dreaming God in the end, the god who is well known to be virulently anti-demon. Is this god unambiguously a good guy and nothing else?

I'll be very curious to see where this whole plot continues!

[alittlebirb]

Some hilarious highlights from the MCC 21 Pink Parrots:

-Of course, the skins. Sneeg and Ranboo dressing up as the prettiest princesses, and Wilbur dressing as a stripper.

-Sneeg messaging Ranboo at 3 am telling him to also dress as Princess Peach, and Ranboo agreeing in a haze of exhaustion

"It looks like it came out of a dumpster? Yes, it just came out of the bag." -Ranboo

"I feel like a caged animal right now, and there are 50 people looking at me. And I can't throw my poop at them. So in a way it's worse than being a caged animal." -Ranboo

-Diversity win! The actor cast in the role of live action Princess Peach is a teenage Twitch streamer of unlabeled sexuality!

-Ranboo deciding to hold a unicorn plush (Rupert) in front of his chest in order to keep his stream Twitch-appropriate

"He's disappointed in me. That makes sense." -Ranboo

-Awwww Ranboo's parents get so excited about him playing MCC that they put his stream up on the TV to watch it <3

-Wilbur mocking Ranboo for not winning a single MCC in the time since they've parted as teammates

"Imagine playing in every single Season 2 MCC, and not winning once. L, Ranbus." -Wilbur

-Wilbur responding to the homosexual allegations

"You think I'm gay, Ranboo, is that what's implied? Just because I'm half naked wearing a feather boa, in a room full of men, I- I don't even know where you'd get the implication from." -Wilbur

-Wilbur??? Affecting the accent of a sickly, malnourished Victorian gutter boy during PW practice??? For some reason???

"Mother dearest, I require more minerals. Oh, Lady Penelope of the Shire, I require minerals in my water. Please Mother dearest, give me your crystals."

-Wilbur naming his stream "miencshchampionsh" and Niki complimenting him on his German

-Wilbur reacting to Ranboo and Sneeg's outfits by saying he's never played Mario, except that one time when Game Grumps forced him to

-Him also mocking Sneeg's Princess Peach skin for being matte

-Wilbur joking that every time he'll ask people if they've seen the Dream SMP, and if they say no he shoots them with a gun, and Ranboo replying he does the same thing "in the alleyways of Brighton"

"The alleyways of Brighton are quite safe, actually." -Wilbur

"Not when I'm around." -Ranboo

-Wilbur petting the dogs and commentating it like an first person shooter

"Headshot one, headshot two. There are hearts, there are hearts."

-Okay so. In the Discord groupchat, Wilbur and Ranboo were roleplaying Wilbur gifting Ranboo a rat, which prompted George to "throw his own rat into the ring", and send an image of a man holding his penis, except the penis was a rat. A shaven rat. Causing Discord to block his message due to inappropriate content.

Hey so what the fu-

-"George held out his hellacious cock for the camera...Your overwhelming cock, George, YOUR OVERWHELMING COCK." -Wilbur

-"It's a fucking rabbit." -Wilbur in the decision dome

-Ranboo attempting to give advice about Survival Games and everyone immediately disregarding him

-"I am the Daddy of the MCC. I am the dom." -Wilbur (why)

-George and Wilbur having their minds in the gutter when looking at the formation of the haybales

"Looks like a hellacious cock." -Wilbur

-Everyone abusing the word 'hellacious' to an unreasonable extent

-"We just got juggled. We absolutely got juggled." -Sneeg, after they were taken out with a mere 18 coins to their name

-Wilbur pulling out the Spirit Box to answer their questions while waiting for SG to finish, and offering a child's brain in return for its wisdom

"Why did we lose this game?" -Wilbur

"In the summer, God went away." -Spirit Box (translated by Wilbur)

-Sneeg screaming at Philza to "run, Peepaw, run!"

-George failing to get the dogs in the hub game before time ran out and Wilbur chastising him that "if only you were a liberal you would have gotten it"

-Sneeg dunking Cyan and everyone clapping and cheering when Seapeakay types "weird dunk"

-George and Wilbur making jokes about Holes in the Wall and Sneeg chiming in "I think they call that a window, guys."

"Or maybe a door." -George

"Ohh, BIG hole!" - Sneeg

"Hole in the wall, I call that an architectural disaster." -Wilbur

"I call that an outlet." -Ranboo

-Wilbur claiming MCC stands for My Cool Cousin, who gives me weeeed

-Wilbur yelling at George to DO DRUGS WITH HIM

"I don't even know what a drug is." -George

"Oh George, you will." -Wilbur

-"Ngl, that didn't hit as hard as Wilbur coming first." -George about Ranboo's third place in HITW

"Nothing hits as hard as me coming...first." -Wilbur

-"We can all come together, guys." -Wilbur

-"Speaking of primes, you know you could get a free Twitch Prime right now if you subscribe to the person you're watching. You could rob Jeff Bezos right now if you wanted to." -Wilbur

"You're taking money out of his pocket and giving it to us!" -George

"We'll make unions. Unlike him." -Wilbur

-Wilbur dying in HITW and Sneeg saying, "don't worry, the princesses are up."

-Wilbur lamenting all the dog petting he's missing whenever he does anything else in the hub

-"I'm close." -Wilbur

"What." -Sneeg

"Maybe don't be. Maybe don't." -Ranboo

-*obligatory Wilbur Soot pines after Grian moment*

"Is it because I'm on the Dream SMP, Grian? If I was on Hermitcraft, then would you pet the dogs with me?"

-"Bark bark." -Ranboo

-Wilbur has a sixth sense for when they're going to be dunked, to the point where he predicts whether they'll be dunked before every round with 100% accuracy

-Ranboo laughing maniacally in the middle of the decision dome, and George being genuinely concerned

"I'M GETTING CONSTANT TROUBLE ON THE INTERNET!" -Ranboo

-Ranboo reacting to Grid Runners by excitedly saying "we get to team!! we get to work!"

"I'm so excited to be a team with you guys." -Sneeg

-Tommy constantly asking Wilbur if he can make jokes about being a liberal and whether he'll get canceled, and Wilbur responding "it's just not very funny, Tommy. You won't get canceled, it's just not funny though."

-Ranboo asking Wilbur to take out the Spirit Box to see if the demons will give them good luck for future games

"It said 'Yes sir!' Thank you demons, now go and possess Georgenotfound, his address is 123 Fake Street!" -Wilbur

-George saying "if I got it wrong, it's not my fault!" in the colored wool room in GR

-Pink getting scammed on the flipped trapdoor in the Shoot the Targets room

-Ranboo saying "after this, it gets better!" during the GR room scoring and the three subsequent placements immediately disproving him with 10th, 9th, and 8th

-"I'm dogging guys, I'm dogging. Sneeg, drop an 'I'm dogging' for us." -Wilbur

-"That's exactly 2005 coins away, what were you doing in 2005, Ranboo?" -Wilbur

"I was only two years old, so I was probably getting a lot of head injuries. I hit my head on a lot of things as a kid." -Ranboo

-"I'm 37th by the way, so I'm currently carrying." -George

-Ranboo shifting (twerking) next to Scott's team in order to gain his favor

"Man, Ranboo, you're gonna make me act up, shit, man." -Wilbur (in the fuckboi voice)

-Ranboo being trigger happy with fire bombing the first game to have flowers in Decision Dome, and everyone retroactively realizing that was actually a game they wanted

-"Phil used to be good at Rocket Spleef, don't give him too much credit now." -Wilbur

"PHIL SUCKS NOW." -Ranboo

"Everyone should type that in his chat." -Wilbur

-Wilbur saying "I came out now, I'm no longer inside" in RSR and Ranboo saying "Lame."

"You really just got mad at him for doing the same thing you did. 'How could he, poser." -Sneeg

-Wilbur having so much fun flying around that he forgot to actually move along with the map

-Everyone scolding Wilbur to not start quarrels after he said "I eliminated your mum" to George

-Everyone else vocalizing as Wilbur falls to his slow death in 40th place after he accidentally used his updraft 10 seconds into the round and continuing to sing after Wilbur screams his rage into the mic and leaves the room for a hot minute

-Ranboo laughing his villainous laugh after stealing George's coins on a kill

"MY COINSSSSS." -Ranboo

"DIE, IDIOTS." -George

-Wilbur repeatedly joking to George that he's going inside him, he's trying to go inside him but he keeps slipping out, he's trying to get inside-

-"You're a slippery boy, aren't you George?" -Wilbur (WHY)

-George letting out the most bloodcurdling screams in RSR and everyone cracking up

"Someone just saw his family die." -Sneeg

-Everyone just losing their fucking minds from sheer rage in RSR and Wilbur going into poetic fury spirals of speech

"HOW COULD I HAVE DONE BETTER FOR YOU, YOU SHITTY GAME? DO YOU WANT ME TO BRING YOU CAVIER ON A TRAY? DO YOU WANT ME TO PRODUCE FOR YOU A LITERAL PILE OF SUSHI? SOME GOLD CRESTED FLOWERS?

I WILL POUR PERFUME ON THE VIOLET. I WILL GUILD REFINED GOLD. I WILL GUILD THE LILY. IF IT MAKES YOU HAPPY, PLEASE MCC. HOLY SHIT.

OH, TOMORROW AND TOMORROW AND TOMORROW CREEPS IN THIS PETTY PACE FROM DAY TO DAY." -Wilbur, possessed by the demon of a Shakespearean actor

-Everyone making Petezahhutt their public enemy no.1 for no reason other than he is winning

"He's skipping like a pebble on a lake!" -Sneeg

"Oh, CONGRATULATIONS, Petezahhutt." -Ranboo

"YOUR NAME IS A RESTAURANT." -Wilbur

-"You know what this is making me crave? Just cocaine. You ever do cocaine, Georgenotfound? You want to do cocaine with me?" -Wilbur

-George looking up words that rhyme with 'vote' in order to make his terrible puns

"Audience vote, more like audience federal reserve note." -George

"Alternatively, audience rocky mountain goat."

"George I love you, but if you continue I really will have to just kill myself, so please stop." -Wilbur

-Ranboo and George strategizing to build penises and swear words in Build Mart

-"Am I being gaslit and girlbossed right now?" -Wilbur, during a bit where the other team members pretend they can't hear him

-Billzo coming into Ranboo's room soaking wet and yelling at him, and Ranboo telling his team that there was a rat in his room

-"Guys, I think our team dynamic is getting a little rocky-" -Ranboo

"SHUT THE FUCK UP! FUCK YOU!" -Sneeg

-"My Chakras are very misaligned right now, and if you don't realign them soon I might have to start horoscoping all over the place." -Wilbur

-Wilbur desperately defending the extensive use of brick within Britain

"Brick keeps things warm, it's a cold place!" -Wilbur

-"You are off your rocker." -Wilbur to Ranboo

"I am fully inside my rocker, okay? I am so far on my rocker I am inside it." -Ranboo

-Wilbur saying his "thing" in SB is placing the TNT up the candy cane elevators, and he can't do it this time :(

-"We'll go over to Red, give them a little *kiss noise*" -Wilbur

-"Yeah that's right, back up bitches!" -Sneeg

"Back up! I've got this bread!" -Ranboo

"Hey, nice dude." -Sneeg

-George trolling them by saying he's dead when he wasn't as a. as a little white lie. as a little funny-

-"BURROW, SNEEG. BURROW LIKE THE MOLEMAN YOU WERE ALWAYS MEANT TO BE." -Ranboo

-Wilbur kicking Sneeg from his guild because his comms weren't clear enough

"You can cough, coughing is fine. Georgenotfound, you can sniff a little cocaine if you want. But the rest of you have to be quiet." -Wilbur

-"Look at us, when we apply ourselves, it's like Breaking Bad!" -Wilbur

+Ranboo immediately falling into the void after he says that

-Wilbur's chat constantly asking him to talk to demons again

-Everyone just repeating the phrase "they're building a house!" to each other for several seconds like a cursed record, until they transition to saying "they're building a bridge! They're building a house-bridge!"

-George getting upset at Sneeg for not inviting him to his wedding even though they literally just met

"Your mistake was not getting to know me earlier, I guess. Should've invested in Sneeg when you had the chance." -Sneeg

-Wilbur insulting Sneeg and Ranboo for crying at the wedding, and Sneeg calling him a "drunk bastard"

"You were like, 'Sneeg, I haven't gotten super drunk in a long time. I'm gonna do it tonight,' and I was like okay man." -Sneeg

-"Better watch out George, I'm coming for that 38th place." -Sneeg

-Sneeg proposing his Dream SMP character to be an old man on a mountain who shows up at the end credits and just says "Wow. That was weird."

-Ranboo momentarily transforming into Eggman as he releases his MEGA Egg

"It's a MEGA Bunny released from my MEGA Egg."

-"A minecraft bird can't fly with two left wings!" -Wilbur

-"Buy an M4 and shoot Tommyinnit. Sorry, what?" -Wilbur, whose automatically response is apparently violence against Tommyinnit

-"He's like, 'YES, I KILLED HIM, AHAHAHA'. Shut up." -George

"Nobody wins in ~war~." -Wilbur

-Wilbur and Ranboo repeatedly saying Penis. Penis. Penis. Balls. Balls. Balls. while staring at Red's wool formation in BB

-"I love this team dynamic. They're gonna write about this one." -Ranboo (Yes.)

-"From here on, should I be the one to do the sneaky ninja stuff? Should I be the sneaky ninja?" -Wilbur

-"They're coming for you George, they're clopsing on you." -Sneeg, language innovator

-"No!! I hate everything! I hate everything! I thought I could be special!" -George

-Wilbur commanding everyone's chat to Begin Barking, it gives them power

-"Guys, if we keep acting like this the Reddit is going to write negatively about our team dynamic, and I can't have that!" -Ranboo

-"Ahhh!! Grian!" -Ranboo

"That's how I feel every time I open up my sub box." -Wilbur

-"Wait, George is gonna beat me in the leaderboard, FUCK!" -Sneeg

"YEAH, GET OUT OF HERE, I HATE YOU! WHY DIDN'T YOU INVITE ME TO YOUR WEDDING. WHY DIDN'T YOU INVITE ME TO THE WEDDING." -George

-"I love MCC, I love MineCraft Championships. I love MineCraft Championship 21, on the 30th of April, 2022." -Ranboo

-The team dynamic degrading to the point that Sneeg and George decide to forego competing in the championship and instead focus on beating each other up

-"George, if you don't pick up the pace, they're gonna call you a support player." -Wilbur

"They're gonna say he has good comms." -Sneeg

-Everyone having a deep bloodlust for the death of Build Mart

"BURN. BURN. BURN." -Ranboo

"Whoever did that had big hellacious dick energy." -Sneeg

-"Hey guys, can I quickly drop some Sand Daddy knowledge for a minute here?" -Wilbur

-The two White Noise boys going off together in SOT

-"Will the fish stop shitting on me, oh my god, bro. Just take my money. Jesus." -Sneeg

- Wilbur helping Ranboo solve a puzzle and saying he's "a bit of a Riddler ;)"

-George LITERALLY running the timer up to less than 10 seconds left in SOT in order to get those last few coins and giving everyone a heart attack

-"Maybe we just don't vote. Maybe we let fate decide. Look, the demons are on our side!" -Wilbur

-The story arc of Pete being Pink's enemy this MCC being resolved by him failing to get Build Mart and everyone celebrating his demise with wild rapture

-Wilbur breaking into a song of victory and George listening in silence for a minute, then responding "ok."

-"You've got this George. You're on well-known speedrunner Jack Manifold." -Wilbur

-Ranboo entering the hunter box in PKT and George expressing Great Distress at the fact he's been boxed

"You're trapped! Get him out, get him out!!" -George

"Don't leave me here, George!" -Ranboo

-(WHY does George scream like that it's so shrill he sounds like a dying cat)

-George telling Wilbur to stay alive and Wilbur taking that as his cue to break into another impromptu Hamilton cover

-"Didn't we get projected 7th? Yeah, get shit on. Get absolutely destroyed!!" -Sneeg, after Pink finished in 6th

-Everyone attacking Ranboo for not having a coin yet

"See that's the thing, you've all won once!" -Ranboo

"I've won twice, actually." -Wilbur

-*obligatory everyone is shook by how good Sapnap is*

"Oh yeah, I forgot that Sapnap was actually so good at Dodgebolt." -Ranboo

"He's a menace!" -Sneeg

-Wilbur encouraging all future doctors to become streamers instead

"No, we need doctors!" -Ranboo

"We need streamers! How else will I sit on my couch and watch streams?" -George

"Yeah, we need another guy with brown hair." -Sneeg

-Wilbur making beeps for "ambience" and Ranboo and Sneeg being absolutely convinced he's rigged the arena with a bomb

"If Blue team doesn't win this, all of New York is going down!" -Ranboo

-"At the end of the day, I'm the real winner here." -George

"That's true, you do get the honor of being Georgenotfound." -Ranboo

"Nobody could wear it better." -Sneeg

-Wilbur getting first on dog pets with 2214 pets, and Sneeg calling him "the goodest of boys" and "the Pet Master"

"I'm a first place petter, through and through." -Wilbur

[capsironunderoos]

Fire

DINCEMBER - December 7 - Fire

Din Djarin (The Mandalorian) X Reader

Summary: Din’s cyare has been captured and held at an Imperial base, and he stops at nothing to get her back.

Word Count: 2.8k

Warnings: Mentions of torture via Imps, a very angry Din, some fighting, and very brief mentions of death

Author’s Note: Ahhh this is so overdue! My student teaching started back up again after finals and I had some assignments to complete for it that kept me from writing. I had hoped to write more today, but that just didn’t happen. I hope to just post a bunch of the Dincember prompts at once in the next few days to get back on track! Anyways, I hope you enjoy this!

Here’s the previous prompt:

DINCEMBER - December 4 - Hoth Chocolate

And the link to my masterlist: capsironunderoos masterlist

This is the hardest that he has ever pushed his body. 

His arms are weak and his legs tremble, but he doesn’t stop. 

He can’t stop. 

If he does, he will suffer an unbearable loss, and there is only so much he can carry, so much that he can endure. 

His blaster never leaves his hand, becoming almost an extension of himself as he fires without so much as a glance. 

It makes no difference, the blaster bolt hits homes every time. 

He is focused, his skills as a bounty hunter and Mandalorian warrior continuing to serve him as he tears through the Imperial facility. 

Din thinks to himself that the Imps are beginning to multiply faster than womp rats, but he does not stop to dwell on the implications of that thought. 

If he stops for anything, to catch his breath, to check his surroundings, he will surely collapse. 

The stress of the past few days, of the constant searching and questioning have begun to take their toll. 

He shakes the thought of stopping from his mind, forcing himself to continue, regardless of the pain in his legs, and the ache that has already settled into his shoulders. 

He has never fought so hard before. 

His hands land punches that force the receivers into the nearest wall, and his feet connect to bones with such strength that the sound of their cracking rattles around his helmet like thunder. 

He spots an officer now, watches as he is hunched over a switchboard, punching at buttons as he glances from the control panel to the Mandalorian stalking towards him. 

Din will not admit it, but the fear in his eyes spurs him on. 

Good, he thinks, let them tremble before me, let them be afraid of the repercussions of what they have done. 

When he reaches the control panel, he grabs the officer by his throat, pushing him as he walks until they reach the wall. 

The officer’s head bounces off of the wall from the force of Din’s hand around his throat, cueing his hat to fall, and the echoing thud of his skull settles into a sick sense of satisfaction in Din’s stomach. 

“Where is she?” 

He growls out from behind his helmet, and the modulator amplifies the anger tenfold. 

The officer is visibly sweating now, thick bullets running down his forehead as he tries to look anywhere but at the enraged Mandalorian in front of him. 

This only stokes the fury growing in Din’s chest, and he picks his hand up off of the officer’s neck just long enough for him to gulp in a breath of air before his hand is settled around his throat again, and this time Din does not hold back. 

He cannot stop himself before a sickening crack fills the room around him, and the officer falls to the ground below him. 

Din huffs in annoyance, his adrenaline beginning to surge again. 

The pounding of his feet begins to subside as the chemical overtakes his body, and he feels a renewing sense of energy. 

He strides over to the control panel and is pleased to see different angles of a room displayed on it. 

The feed is live, and he stands stoically still as he sees you suddenly fall into frame. 

Your clothes are tattered and dirty, and your hair falls around your face as you collide with the floor. 

He can see your chest rising and falling, and a sense of relief begins to overtake the adrenaline. 

Din silently chants for you to get up, to show him that you never gave up hope that he would come for you. 

Maker how he hopes and wishes that you never gave up on him, that you always knew that he would travel to the farthest edges of the Outer Rim just to have you safe again. 

His heart rate speeds up when he sees two stormtroopers taking their time as they walk to where you still lay on the floor. It’s clear that they are speaking amongst themselves, but he doesn’t know how to work the control panel in order to hear what they are saying. 

He watches as one of them bends down to scoop you up and off of the floor, and as soon as he does, you leap up, swinging your leg to knock his out from under him. He lands on his back, and before either of them can react, you have grabbed his blaster, aimed, and expertly killed the both of them. 

Din watches with bated breath now, and he isn’t sure he remembers how to move. 

Seeing such a small glimpse of you, and in such a drastically different mental state than the last time he saw you, is enough for him to forget how to even breathe at all. 

His brain screams at him to move, to find you, but he does not listen until he sees you run out of the frame. 

He locates the identification numbers of your cell on the control panel and begins to run. 

Din is sure that the pounding of his feet against the floor would be enough to crack the tile, but he doesn’t care. 

He pushes himself, harder than he ever has before, to reach you as quickly as he can. 

You have been gone from his presence for far too long, and he cannot stand another second without you. 

As he rounds yet another corner, he knocks into something solid, and further extends his already drawn blaster in order for it to be in front of him, pointing at whatever he just knocked over. 

His actions quickly change as he registers that it’s you. 

You quickly jump to your feet, the trooper’s blaster you had stolen aimed at Din. 

He notices your hands shaking, and he can see bruises and cuts laced around your face. He notes how swollen your right eye is, and the blood resting against your split lip. 

“Din?” You whisper, almost in disbelief, and his heart plummets to his stomach. 

Had you given up hope that he would come for you? 

“They said you were here, but I didn’t believe them. I’m sorry, I didn’t believe them,” you begin to repeat your words, and Din notes that you are still aiming the blaster at him. 

He slowly holsters his own, before raising his hands in surrender in front of him. 

“Cyare, it’s me. It’s me. It’s Din.” 

He repeats, hoping that the words will register and that you will lower the blaster. 

Upon hearing his name, you do just that, and the blaster clatters to the ground before you fall into his raised arms. He is caught off-guard, but moves quickly to catch you before you meet the ground. 

You are crying now, soft whimpers as you clutch onto the chestplate of his beskar. 

He wraps you up into his chest, pulling you to him as he holds you. 

The alarms are blaring, and the lights are starting to flash, but he ignores all of it. 

When he hears the distant tone of talk through a stormtrooper helmet, he does not hesitate to scoop you into his arms. When you don’t protest, he looks down to see that you are either sleeping or have passed out, and he hopes that it’s the former. 

Despite the fact that he had to fight his way in, he manages to remember a way out, and by some miracle he doesn’t run into any trouble, except a mouse droid he has to shoo off. 

Once he emerges into daylight again, he begins running and he feels his body physically sigh in relief when he sees the Crest sitting just before him.

---

After jumping onto the Crest and immediately taking-off, Din quickly discovered that you had indeed passed out. He had let you be for the few moments it took him to launch the Razor Crest, but as soon as he was able to click on the auto-pilot he was back at your side, moving you to rest on the cot the both of you share. 

He sits beside you on said cot now, his hands moving to cup your face and turn it towards him. 

“Cyar’ika. Please wake up,” he begs, and oh, how he begs. 

He begins to make promises to the Maker, to the stars, hell, he thinks he even makes a promise to the force at one point. 

Din knows you require medical attention, but he wants you awake so that you can explain to him what has happened to you, even if he is unsure that he will be able to listen to you describe what you have endured. 

His hands move to your shoulders, and with a firm, but gentle, shake you gasp back into consciousness. 

You grab at his arms and he helps you sit up before realizing that you think he is one of them. 

“Cyare, I’m not going to hurt you. It’s me, it’s Din.” He whispers, and you look at him with wild, wide eyes. 

He can tell you are trying to figure out if you should trust him, but when you catch a glimpse of the signet on his right shoulder pauldron relief instantly floods your eyes and you look down at the similar symbol on your skin. 

His right hand finds it, his glove-clad fingers coming to rest against the mudhorn there on your wrist. 

You look back up at him then, and you can feel the emotion and exhaustion rolling off of him. 

“I need to get you cleaned up,” he deadpans, but his words are soft and laced with care. 

You nod and allow him to lead you into the cockpit of the Crest. 

He softly guides you into the pilot’s seat before he disappears for a minute to retrieve supplies, but you barely notice his missing presence. 

Your eyes have found the stars, and you drink them in as if they are cold Bantha milk. 

It had been days since you had seen them, and you missed how many there were, how easy it was to stare at them and have them calm every thought in your mind. 

When Din returns, he stands for a moment to watch you look at the stars in wonder. 

Their light shines into the Crest, illuminating the cockpit and painting a stark silver onto your features. He notices then just how bad your bruised eye is swelling, and how the bright light from the stars seems to deepen every cut he finds on your skin. 

Din can’t help but to let out a shaky sigh at the thought of what you’ve been through, and at the thought of what would have happened had he not gotten there when he did. 

Hearing his breath escape through the modulator cues you to snap your attention in his direction, and he wonders how long it will be before his presence no longer incites fear. 

“Cyar’ika, it’s me. It’s your Din. I’m not going to hurt you.” 

Your eyes stay wide and wary, but a small smile works its way onto your lips before it falls again. The cut on them has begun to bleed at the motion, and Din slowly makes his way to you to tend to it. 

He squats down in front of you, and you sit rigidly still. 

He lifts a wet cloth in front of you, and watches as you look between it and him. 

“I need to clean that up, okay? Is it okay if I do that for you?” 

You slowly nod, and his left hand moves to cup your cheek and keep your head still as his right gently swipes at the blood sitting on your lip. When he is satisfied that he has stopped the blood flow, he exchanges the cloth for another. 

“Now, cyare, I need to clean up the cuts and bruises here okay?” 

At the word “here,” he taps his left thumb softly against your cheek as his hand still cups your face. 

You nod and he removes his hand to brush the hair out of your eyes and away from your face. 

You whimper at the loss of contact, and the sound and action is so unlike you that it catches Din off-guard. 

“Haar’chak, what did they do to you?” 

He whispers, and he takes note of the tears that begin to sit along your waterline in response. 

“I wouldn’t tell them,” you start, and your voice cracks at the use of it. 

Din is quick to hand you a glass of water, and you take it from him, greedily gulping it down. He wonders then if you have been fed or given water at all since your capture. 

“I wouldn’t tell them where you were, or where he was. That got me time with some angry troopers. I think they may have broken a rib or two. One of them could land a pretty solid right-hook, for an Imp.” 

You try to laugh off your words, to pass over them as if they are nothing, but the sound won't come. A sad smile rests on your lips as Din continues his ministrations. His touch is soft as he does his best to clean the cuts on your face.

“Then I wouldn’t tell them your name, or the name of the child, and that afforded me a visit from an angry officer. He asked for the cameras to be turned off, and then proceeded to beat me so bad that I couldn’t stay conscious for most of it.” 

Din can feel his hands beginning to tremble as he continues to clean you up. They shake in both anger and sadness, and he is glad that it is time to apply the bacta patches. This gives him a moment to gain control over his nerves.

“I need to apply bacta now, okay?” He asks, and you nod. 

When the medicine hits your open wounds, a sharp hiss escapes through your gritted teeth, and Din’s heart constricts at the sound.

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles, and you shake your head before talking again, trying to mask the pain of the healing agent against your open cuts. 

“When I didn’t tell them if he was special, or gifted, or whatever they want to call him, they sent in the firing squad. That was when they told me you were there to rescue me. I didn’t fully believe them, but I knew if you were there that it would be my best chance to escape.” 

“I’m sorry it took me so long to get to you, cyare.”

You place your hand on his arm that rests in your lap, and he glances down at it.

“I never gave up that you would come for me, Din.”

He nods and returns to his work, his heart beating so fast he is sure that you can hear it hitting the beskar that sits on his chest.

As you sit in silence now, Din softly rubs at the cuts on your skin, his mind growing increasingly angry the more he thinks about what you endured, but his heart reaches out to you, aches for you. 

He was in pain too, upset that your capture had been because of him. That they had tortured you to get to him, to learn about the little one. 

As if you can read his mind, you ask him about Grogu.

“Where is he, Din? Please, please tell me he is okay,” you whisper, and it is the first time Din has been able to fully meet your eyes. 

“He is safe, cyare. I left him with Cara on Nevarro. We’re going to get him now.” 

You nod, satisfied with his response. Din hands you a cold compress and instructs you to press it onto your swollen eye. 

“I got this when I wouldn’t explain my relationship to you, or why I wear our clan symbol.” You mumble, and Din’s eyes flit to the mudhorn on your wrist once more. 

He thinks then about his clan of three, small and a little broken, but strong, and his all the same. 

“I’m sorry.” He whispers, and you stare at him before he says it again, louder this time. 

“I’m sorry I turned my back for too long during that fight. I’m sorry I didn’t come for you sooner. I’m sorry that I’ve dragged you into this mess, this is no life for you, or the child.” 

He rushes out, and you are shaking your head in disagreement so hard that it has started to ache. 

“Do not sit there and apologize to me, Din Djarin. I know what I signed up for, and I willingly signed up for it. I would give my life to protect that child, and I would do the same for you. Have I not proven that? Ni kar’tayl gar darasuum.” 

Din’s helmet jumps up at the quick movement he makes upon hearing those words escape your lips. 

His eyes search yours through the visor, and he finds nothing but sincerity staring back at him. 

“I’ll kill them for what they did to you, cyar’ika.” He states, and you smile at him. 

“I would set the world on fire to keep you warm.”

Here’s the next prompt for Dincember:

DINCEMBER - December 9 - “Let It Snow”

[incoherentbabblings]

every new cover or variant of the batgirls comic that comes out shows how beautiful stephanie is like I fully believe she could be a model she's always been beautiful but now it's like on bombshell level of gorgeous

my headcanon is whenever cass and damian see tim they tell him he traded down & steph is the best he'll ever do 😭

This ask set something off in me so apologies for the length and how it doesn't really talk about what you spoke of but it's my brain and it does this. So, a two pronged response. Firstly: BERNARD AIN'T A STEP DOWN DON'T BE MEEEAAAAAAAAANNNNNN.

He is perfectly cute and as vanilla-esque as you would expect a blonde blue eyed seventeen year old boy to be and absolutely no-one came out looking good by comparison from the early artists during Willingham's Robin run when Bernard first popped up. In comparison everyone in Urban Legends are just so generically cute and it's just blindingly clear Tim has a type. And that's...fine.

They cute...

I can't be too mad. A sea of white people...

Anyway. Part two is the interesting way Steph's physical beauty (or lack thereof) is treated (or not treated) within the comics themselves.

She's never been drawn as the prettiest girl in the room, and literally no-one in canon has ever called her out for being particularly attractive, save villains who are just doing so to degrade her and reduce her value to what she looks like. And yes okay a character does not have to be called beautiful in canon by her mother or boyfriend or friends to be such... but at the same time, her appearance is nowhere near the first notable thing about her. Superboy recognized her voice when she was Robin before her body or hair. She never even considers her own physical appearance either, which is something Cass has even done. She just... is. Which honestly I fricking love.

Though to be clear, she is meant to be attractive, even if not outstandingly so. Again, just because she's not explicitly stated as such doesn't mean we don't all have eyes. She's conventionally attractive by western euro-centric standards in literally every possible way. She's white, blue eyes, blond hair, average height, slim and hourglass and yet simultaneously athletic figure... Like Steph is drawn to be attractive, definitely.

It's really hard to give her any defined facial features aside from her colouring (and even her blue eyes have shifted to purple and green occassionally) but in general she seems to have a slightly longer nose and face and fat lips compared to other female characters her age like Harper (who, at the risk of sounding mean, is typically drawn more like a rat, with more close features). Steph does canonically have good legs and butt, if Barbara is to be believed, but Steph was a gymnast first before putting on the costume, so no surprises there.

I just find it interesting that for a character who, for a significant chunk of her existence, was designed to be a love interest, and yet has little to no textual commentary on her appearance. Even more so considering how much her initial costume completely covered her face, hair, body to toes, not to mention the cape which could hide her body too.

The only time I can think of when she comments on her own appearance tends to be concerning her hair; how she got its colour from her dad, and then when she cut it, she snarked about the implication of short hair implying a smarter more put together person than a long haired blonde bimbo. But even then, no-one actually ever comments on her hair cut, she just brings it up herself when Cole tries to (badly) flirt with her.

Her appeareance is just conventional enough to not be commented on.

Save the times when she'd being assaulted and degraded.

I don't know what to think about that honestly. Bad guys calling her hot and making comments about her body is obviously bad, but paired with the fact that no-one else ever does... it's interesting.

Personally speaking - so we've departed canon and just what I like - I've spoken before about how I like my Stephanie's to have a frankly illogical and impractical amount of long curly hair. But DC artists tend to go for shoulder length straight blonde with bangs. They have a vendetta against curly hair I swear... I also do like the idea of her having green eyes like she did when she was Robin. But she has been consistently blue eyed since 2008 ish? So I don't really have a leg to stand on there. I like the bird analogy really for her, since she was Robin after all. Pointed features, round cheeks, pouty lips. Slim and not particularly curvy is how I imagine her personally, in that way where most gymnasts certainly don't have hourglass figures, but hey. This is comics. The world's greatest acrobat Mr Grayson is apparently 5ft 10", which is likely too tall to be said world's greatest acrobat. Steph's proportions, hair and so on don't have to be perfect therefore.

ANYWAY. She is a very pretty girl, all things considered. I do really enjoy the artist they have for the upcoming Batgirls series. Giving her the blocky haircut back, the rabbit teeth and the freckles are excellent choices. Her eyes are the size of dinner plates I love it. Making her visually distinct from Cassie, Mia, Kara and Courtney is nothing but a good shout in my book.

I also won't say no to the cheesecake issues either. If DC want this girl to be explicitly beautiful then fuck it go for it. I just wish sometimes they'd remember that she is still a teenager...

Finally, to actually answer your ask. Yes. My Steph stan brain go brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr prettiest girl in Gotham y/y?

[sagamemes]

quotes from tabletop games, part i.   thank you to whomever decided in the first game i was in to start collecting quotes being said during the table—here’s a sentence meme featuring 100 sentences that have been said out loud or written down during various tabletop roleplaying games i’ve acted as a game master for, or in conversations surrounding it. sentences edited to fit written roleplay better. it’s a mixed bag, y’all. tw:  implied sexual content and jokes, death and violence mentions.

❝  holy shit, /i'm/ the professional in this situation.  ❞

❝  i don't think there's a lot of water in her birth chart.  ❞

❝  you know how much I love goading you into bad decisions.  ❞

❝  [i/you] did faceplant.  ❞

❝  i hope you know this is all your fault, [name].  ❞

❝  wouldn't it be nice if you could bite it back?  ❞

❝  [person] could've bonked the knob to death.  ❞

❝  a little bit of making out in the cupboard is not a security threat.  ❞

❝  no-one else can see it, but [person] is definitely being haunted by an ex-girlfriend.  ❞

❝  she's a new yorker, leave her alone  ❞

❝  we've all known each other for about four hours and we're making goblins of ourselves.  ❞

❝  you’re laughing!  [name] is dead and you’re laughing!  ❞

❝  god, what a weird little man!  ❞

❝  i don't speak [fandom/media].  ❞

❝  because, of course, you don't immediately run out of blood in your head—  ❞

❝  technically shoes are skin without feet.  ❞

❝  if it helps, she does have a youtube channel.  ❞

❝  should we even play d&d, maybe we just do therapy instead.  ❞

❝  oh great, what can i do with a dead body?  ❞

❝  the man with no face is just a raccoon.  ❞

❝  or whatever the victorian equivalent of reaching into the fridge and grabbing a block of cheese.  ❞

❝  i do not acknowledge more men than i need to.  ❞

❝  he footless because he got paws.  ❞

❝  [i am/they are] intrigued by the bundle of scarves.  ❞

❝  i thought she landed on her wrists?  ❞

❝  i'm glad i didn't faceplant, at least.  ❞

❝  it is not resistant to bonk damage.  ❞

❝  my interpersonal skills are shit!  ❞

❝  is he made of bees?  ❞

❝  oh well, she's got one of those as well.  ❞

❝  —which is objectively the wrong way to eat books.  ❞

❝  no teeth, no feet. simply vibes.  ❞

❝  we're going to have to listen to soft ballet while we fight this thing.  ❞

❝  that was my third frowny face.  ❞

❝  puff puff pass but instead of getting high you have a coherent thought  ❞

❝  oh yeah, i killed your neighbour, didn't i?  ❞

❝  we're city kids, we know what traffic is.  ❞

❝  give me a gay vibe check.  ❞

❝  THE QUEEN IS MICE.  ❞

❝  doesn't matter which of us die because i'll see you all again on hell.  ❞

❝  you know how when a person's decapitated—  ❞

❝  i don't even have my eyebrows on.  ❞

❝  we will create chaos.  ❞

❝  i heard g-string.  ❞

❝  i have a masters degree in library science and i googled  ‘ feetless man ’ !  ❞

❝  am sad. want ham.  ❞

❝  you are the most powerful person in the room with that cheese tray.  ❞

❝  you'll wake up to something you don't wanna see  ❞

❝  buff mice.  ❞

❝  —but it would've been a sexy thing to do.  ❞

❝  THE GAME'S OVER! THE GAME'S OVER! WHY ARE YOU STILL DOING THIS TO ME?  ❞

❝  it’s mice mentality.  ❞

❝  i know the implication was not that we were little beans but shh...  ❞

❝  it's your turn!  ❞

❝  charlie's angels, more like [name]'s headaches  ❞

❝  it's me, the bitch who failed  ❞

❝  i'm really good at that! ... no, i'm not.  ❞

❝  i love this absolutely doomed party.  ❞

❝  unless someone wants to try to overpower two peasants.  ❞

❝  we don't make good leather.  ❞

❝  you could definitely be mistaken for a respectable person now.  ❞

❝  unfortunately, my alibi is dead  ❞

❝  you would not think that english was my first, and frankly my only, language.  ❞

❝  what the fuck happened to my music?  ❞

❝  [name], that's gay behaviour.  ❞

❝  i truly just want u to imagine putting a hand on a titty and feeling a sack of dust through the skin.  ❞

❝  we've conspiracy theory'd this ghost and now it's a feral raccoon.  ❞

❝  does the number of heads you have factor into how easy you are to hit?  ❞

❝  i wanna do something weird.  ❞

❝  are you trying to reason with a drugged cat?  ❞

❝  what die do i roll? the one with numbers?  ❞

❝  i'd avoid plants if i were you.  ❞

❝  i want to be the burger king of a ruined world.  ❞

❝  just because i can be charming doesn't mean i will initiate conversation.  ❞

❝  that scream didn't have an american accent.  ❞

❝  i guess he was just two horses in a trench coat in the end  ❞

❝  make meth, i dare you!  ❞

❝  holy shit, you read french?!  ❞

❝  i've already put down two frowny faces on my notes.  ❞

❝  [person/animal] doesn't have good stamina, actually.  ❞

❝  we've established that the bees are trustworthy, [name]!  ❞

❝  i can't find the fucking d!  ❞

❝  frostbite'll do that to you too. you're not so special.  ❞

❝  we laugh in the face of a vengeful god  ❞

❝  sorry, but for the sake of the mission, i gotta drown everyone.  ❞

❝  i don't know anything about... men.  ❞

❝  i didn't consider all the emotional implications!  ❞

❝  it's a little known fact, but the h in  ‘ goth ’  stands for hrt.  ❞

❝  thank you for giving me an opportunity to murder you.  ❞

❝  don't worry, i'm a very gentle dom  ❞

❝  i'm gonna stay riding it, then.  ❞

❝  just two dudes who may or may not have done a murder  ❞

❝  you can't even count on [name] for numbers.  ❞

❝  'twas the night before christmas and all through the house not a person was stirring, because they were all dead.  ❞

❝  how is that rat bastard looking?  ❞

❝  maybe [name], because he has rights  ❞

❝  maybe [name], because he has no brain  ❞

❝  i'm cruel but i'm not an asshole.  ❞

❝  we're just two cartoon dogs vibing in the fire.  ❞

❝  in the spanish dub, [person a] and [person b] kissed before [person a] left  ❞

[stark-tony]

underrated irondad and spiderson fic recs part 1

Men's Synch 3m Platform by loudestfandomsoftheworld

summary: or 5 times Peter Parker goes dumpster diving, and one time he does something else... " “You took my nephew dumpster diving?” Ben asked incredulously.

 His wife stood tall with a toddler strapped to her chest, tugging at one end of a couch with all her might. “I did not,” 

“Twash!” Peter yelled."

pairings: none

tags: fluff

warnings: none

do you even remember what the world looks like? by iron_spider

summary: Tony’s heart has been working on overdrive since this whole thing started. Friday has a countdown clock plastered on the heads up display, but it feels like hieroglyphics to him at this point, like some ancient language he could never master.

Because when Peter Parker is missing, things start losing their meaning real quick.

“Should be around here,” Rhodey says on the com. May is still on the other line, listening in, because once a certain amount of time goes by without word from Peter, things move into Extremely Worried Aunt territory. They’re already in Tony Is Panicking territory, and when both of those territories overlap it’s never a good time for anybody.

Time? What the hell is time? His mind is blanking numbers out entirely. Minutes are seconds are hours are years.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

Empty Casket by Jen27ny

summary: After the Vulture, Tony should have known better.

He should have listened to Peter.

But he didn’t.

And now, Peter is dead.

pairings: none

tags: angst

warnings: none

Patient #2252 by TheSoulOfAStrawberry

summary:  When a warehouse comes down on Spider-Man’s head and leaves him with a brain injury, Queens social worker Bianca Browne and Dr Grace Li of NY-Presbytarian Hospital find themselves racing the NYPD to uncover Spidey’s identity and get him help before he can be charged with a litany of crimes.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: police brutality

That's why they call me mr. fahrenheit by SparrowFlight246

summary: Peter’s on fire.

He wakes up fast, and before he even gets the chance to feel the pain, the aches, the dizziness, he feels the heat. It’s all encompassing, a raging inferno blooming from within him and burning him up from the inside out, and god, it—

—god, it hurts.

-

Peter gets whammied by a 24-hour superbug, and Tony’s left to keep him alive until tomorrow morning.

It sounds a hell of a lot easier than it ends up being.

pairings: none

tags: angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: none

not like megatron by iron_spider

summary: “Hi! This is Peter Parker, I can’t get to the phone right now, so leave a message and I’ll call you back later! Hopefully not too much later, but don’t get your hopes up!”

Tony knows that message by heart. He’s heard it hundreds of times, in a greyer world, and it sends shivers down his spine as he climbs into the car.

He doesn’t think about that place. That half-world. No way, that’s done, that’s over, that’s history.“Hey, kid, don’t you know it’s bad etiquette to go and disappear on your birthday? Not allowed, really, really bad vibes from the universe. What’s going on with your suit? I wasn’t watching. Nope. Just got an alert. What’s going on? Uh, call me back.” He clears his throat and hangs up like a moron, driving out into the street.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff

warnings: none

Peter Peter Pumpkin Eater by frostysunflowers

summary:  ''Dying.''

''You’re not dying.''

''Totally am.'

'''God, I hope not, otherwise May will skin me alive.''

or

A weekend visit to the cabin doesn't go according to plan.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, humor

warnings: none

an irondad's misguided approach to homesickness by livingtheobsessedlife

summary: Peter mentions it once. Once. That he’s maybe kinda sorta vaguely somewhat homesick. MIT is no Queens, that’s all really. All in all, Pete’s having a great time at college. Really, truly.

The thing is that Tony’s never really taken the whole ‘only mentioning it once’ thing all that well. Not when it comes to Peter at least.

This time is no exception.

pairings: none

tags: fluff

warnings: none

you held your pride like you should have held me by searchingforstars

summary: “I had to take the risk!” Peter snaps. “I saved your life.”

Tony’s stare hardens. “Yeah, and nearly ended your goddamn own. This isn’t a trade-off. It wasn’t your call to make.”

“You would have done the same thing to protect me,” Peter points out. Tony just seethes at the statement.

“I don’t care about what you think I would have done. You are not me. And I don’t know who you think I am, but I’m perfectly capable of looking after myself."

--

or, as the timer ticked down, Peter knew his only option was to take things into his own hands. He just didn’t expect Tony to be mad at him for saving his life.

pairings: none

tags: angst, hurt/comfort

warnings: none

always on duty by parkrstark

summary:  Peter manages to convince Tony to take him to a gala, but when Tony is hurt, he realizes that it's just as dangerous to be Tony Stark as it is to be Iron Man. 

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff, humor

warnings: none

Out of Left Field by blondsak, seekrest

summary: Even if Tony didn’t end up becoming a big fan of the Mets, Peter knew they’d still have a great time at the game. And the fact that Tony wanted to go with Peter badly enough to make it clear that he should buy a pair of tickets as a birthday gift?

Peter shakes his head fondly.

Maybe for once the month of May was going to work out for him after all.

pairings: spideychelle

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

three weeks, two days, seven hours by crowkag

summary: It was a mess. A real mess. Peter had been gone for three weeks, two days, and seven hours, taken right out from under their noses.

And Tony was laying on the floor.

(AKA “you’ll always get there first”, but from Tony’s POV.)

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff

warnings: 

for as long as i live and as long as i love (i will never not think about you) by searchingforstars

summary: When Tony first started to forget things, Peter thought maybe it was just age. People’s memories fade as they get older, right? Minds get weaker. It’s just natural.

But Tony has arguably the sharpest mind of the 21st century. Peter should have realised that it was never going to be just getting weaker. It was never going to be just age.

No - not when the sharpest mind of the 21st century also happened to come into contact with the deadliest amount of gamma radiation known to man five years ago.

--

or, Tony’s sacrifice is still haunting them five years later. Peter has to come to terms with the fact that Tony’s memory is fading.

pairings: none

tags: angst

warnings: none

a dream is a wish by floweryfran

summary: Tony seems to panic for a moment, shifting his weight foot to foot, before spitting out in one mouthful, “I have a business trip in Florida right before your spring break and I talked to May and she says I can bring you to Disney for the week once it’s done ahhh.” He then breathes, grins plastically, and holds his hands out, like, I’m Tony Stark, hold your applause.

Peter runs the words through his head no less than three times to make sure he had understood them properly. “Disney—you and me—spring break?” he repeats.

Tony nods, hair flopping. “I mean, like, don’t feel obligated to say yes, but I thought it would be fun since May says you’ve never gone and she would’ve been working for your whole break anyway, y’know, at least this way we won’t be worrying about you sitting home alone for hours doing G-d only knows what—building accidental robot armies or something, or, worse, becoming a couch potato and forgetting every bit of knowledge I’ve ever carefully placed in that rat trap you call a brain—”

“Tony,” Peter says, waving his hands to shut Tony up. Something warm sits in the core of his chest, hovering. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, yeah, for sure, let’s—Disney. Let’s go. Wow.”

pairings: none

tags: fluff

warnings: none

Of birthday cake and millennium falcons by frostysunflowers

summary: "You still haven’t answered my question," MJ says, taking another sip of her juice.

 "Isn’t it obvious?" Tony replies, scratching at one of the scars on his neck with the end of a screwdriver. "It’s Ben’s birthday."

"And Ben’s birthday warrants a…" MJ waves a hand vaguely, "what the hell is that thing anyway?"

or

Tony has no self control when it comes to birthday parties and his grandson.

pairings: spideychelle

tags: fluff

warnings: none

what i have, i give to you by aatticsaltt

summary:  Tony would give everything to Peter Parker, if he asked for it. When May calls telling Tony she thinks Peter isn't feeling well, he drops everything to go check up on his favorite spider kid.

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff, hurt/comfort

warnings: none

Smile! by aatticsaltt

summary:  Taking Peter to Disney World was one of Tony's better ideas.

pairings: pepperony

tags: fluff

warnings: none

and when it's hard, i'll place your head into my hands by hopeless_hope

summary: “Tony,” Pepper sing-songs to get his attention. “Your mother hen is showing.”

“What?” he snaps indignantly. “I am not a mother hen. This is just... concern. Of the average kind. Perfectly normal.”

“Of course,” Pepper humors him, and he shoots her a dirty look as he types out a quick text to Peter.

or

It's been five days since Tony's heard from Peter, who's away at college, and Tony is not coping well. (Neither is Peter.)

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff

warnings: none

Of Wally-Crawly Harnesses and Over-Enthusiastic Hat-Bestowing Capabilities by TheOceanIsMyInkwell

summary: Tony raises a brow at him in triumph, then sniffs and rubs the side of his nose. “Besides, think of it this way. Now you got a bullet-proof neck.”

“Nobody would even shoot a sad-looking orphan bundled like a spring roll in Red Heart yarn,” Peter points out. “That’s just low.”

“Excuse me, young buck, I resent the implication that I would let Red Heart come within an inch of your skin.”

“You’re insufferable,” Peter says flatly. “I hate you.”

“And just for that, I think this calls for those wool socks I was working on,” Tony says brightly.

“No--no, wait--”

“It’s time to learn that your consequences have actions, Parker--”

“Wait, wait, I love your knitting, I think it’s super healthy and fulfilling and honestly the best thing that’s ever happened to you since you retired!” Peter hollers at the man’s figure as it retreats quickly down the hallway. -- After Peter faints into hibernation because he can't thermoregulate, Tony isn't taking anymore chances. Out come the wool skeins and the knitting needles.

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

how do you sandwich!? by killerqueenwrites

summary: “Why are you buttering toast before you toast it?

”“I’m not toasting this.”

“Then what are you doing?” Peter demands.

“I’m making a sandwich.”

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

What I Can't Live Without by aatticsaltt

summary: Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown. Heavy lies the heart of the father who has to watch his son bow beneath the weight of the world.

or: When Peter calls Happy needing a ride out of the Netherlands, it's Tony who comes to the rescue.

pairings: none

tags: angst

warnings: none

Tales from Quarantine by just_a_hungry_author

summary: Peter, Morgan, and Tony are all stuck inside during the Coronavirus quarantine. Morgan learns to play Monopoly, Tony struggles to help with 1st grade math, and a prank war ensues.

God, this is the longest two weeks ever.

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

if we have each other by ftmpeter

summary: "Do you ever just, like, feel like you’re upside down?"

"You are upside down, Pete."

"Sounds fake."

pairings: none

tags: fluff

warnings: none

What Happens in the Blanket Fort Stays in the Blanket Fort by TheOceanIsMyInkwell

summary: “Well, I was gonna discuss with May some legal particulars about changes to my will that involve you,” Tony drawls, “but looks like I’ll just have to change my plans.”

There’s a beat. And then a yodel: “I’m just a poor boy, I need--”

“If not for this goddamn quarantine, I’d be there in a flash to shut you up myself, Spidey-Tighties.”

“You made these ‘tights’.”

“Funsie-onesie.”

“Mr. Stark.”

“Cooty-footies.”

“Mr. Stark. I’m begging you. What does that even mean.” -- Tony comes over to keep Peter company during the quarantine while the kid waits for May to come home from work at the hospital. Bants are had. Feelings are spilled. And maybe, just maybe, a hug or two is shared.

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

On his Shoulders by snarkymuch

summary: “Please, please,” Tony begged, “Keep breathing, kid. Don’t do this to me. You can’t leave me like this.” The morning started like any other for Tony. He kissed Pepper good morning and sipped his coffee. He scanned his emails and chatted with Pepper about the vacation they were always planning but never took. The calm should have been a warning, as the storm always followed.

OR

Peter and Tony get trapped in a building collapse and Peter is gravely injured.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

coronapocalypse by peterstank

summary:  “This whole quarantine thing shouldn’t even apply to me.”

“Uh, I beg to differ, it’s very serious,” replies Tony’s voice, slightly muffled like he’s got his phone pressed between his shoulder and chin. “We’re all on lockdown, which means no leaving your place unless it’s for emergencies.”

“And what qualifies as an emergency?”

There’s a pause.

“Why do I get the feeling you’re not in your apartment?”

pairings: none

tags: fluff, humor

warnings: none

Little White Lies by snarkymuch

summary:  Peter gets injured and tries to treat it himself, hiding it from Tony, but he can't keep it hidden forever.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

Peter Parker and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Semester by just_a_hungry_author

summary: "So tell me, Kid." Tony said, patting the space next to him. "What's been going on?"

"Nothing's been going on." Peter denied, but he sat down anyway.

"Pete, don't bottle your emotions up. Only I'm allowed to do that."

When Peter again didn't smile at his joke, Tony continued. "I know you're stressed, Bud. But tell me why so I can help you."

"It's nothing you can help." Peter mumbled.

"Can I at least try?"

"I've just been having a bad week."

OR: Peter’s been having a rough time at college, Tony tries to jump in and help. 3000 words of pure fluff.

pairings: none

tags: fluff

warnings: none

Windy Webs by silentsaebyeok

summary:  And that was it. He was officially an idiot. Peter didn’t mean to be dramatic, but this was one of the most embarrassing things to ever happen to him, even if there was no one around to witness the fall of the century. -- Peter goes web-slinging in dangerous weather and gets seriously injured. It doesn't help that he has to spend the whole summer living with the consequences.

pairings: none

tags: hurt/comfort

warnings: none

Peter gets the chickenpox by snarkymuch

summary:  Peter and Morgan both catch the chickenpox. Morgan's case is mild, but Peter's is severe. Tony takes care of them both.

pairings:  none

tags: hurt/comfort, fluff

warnings: none

[tiifalockhart]

End of the F**king World

Pairing: Sephiroth/Reader

Word Count: 3k

Warnings: major character death, implications of stalker behavior, mentions of torture, mentions of insanity, portrayal of mental illness, end of the world, anxiety, depression, alludes to suicide

A/N: this wasn’t a request, however, this idea had been on my mind for quite awhile. with lots of motivation, i finally put it into words. please keep in mind that there are huge trigger warnings for this content, since it is probably the most angsty and intense thing i’ve written on this blog!! i hope you enjoy reading, feedback is greatly appreciated

Ao3 || Masterlist 

After it all had fallen apart, there was nothing left to hope for. 

Genesis was gone, Angeal was dead, Zack was dead, Sephiroth was... Dead? His body was found deep inside the destroyed Nibleheim reactor, so it was possible that Sephiroth was dead, right? But...

You aren’t supposed to see dead people.

So why was it that Sephiroth was constantly following you around? Why was he silently watching you at all times? No matter where you looked, he was there. It was chilling to see his cat-like mako eyes pierce into your skull. His twisted smirk made your stomach churn and want to run away as fast as you could, but there was no where to run. He was always with you. Whether you wanted him or not, it seemed like you didn’t have a choice. 

What did you do to earn such a strange connection to the dead? 

That’s right... In Nibleheim, you were there. You were one of the sole survivors that witnessed it all. The roaring flames, the deafening screams and cries of dying people, the sound of buildings collapsing and blades crashing against one another, you relived it every time you closed your eyes. 

Sephiroth sought out to kill you, even though you were a simple bystander. But... That wasn’t the complete truth, was it? You were more important than anyone else at Nibleheim. That’s why he came after you, right? Think of it as... Young love, a childhood best friend, his only friend, that’s what you were. That is, until you mysteriously disappeared and left him all alone. You were taken far away from Shinra after being deemed as... “Intruding.” You and Sephiroth were just children, you didn’t understand the world. You always thought wishfully because even as a child, you knew that Sephiroth didn’t belong in a laboratory twenty-four-seven. You put all of these ideas of “running away” or “sneaking out” into his head. He became obsessed with the idea for the longest time. He wanted to run away, he wanted to experience this life that you mentioned so many times, he wanted to experience normalcy. 

When Hojo caught wind of this... Disobedience, he sent you and your family far away. He sent you as far away as he could. Your father began to work at the Nibleheim Mansion as a book keeper as punishment for your indiscipline. Sephiroth felt betrayed by your disappearance. He blamed you for the punishments he received for wanting to escape. He blamed you for leaving him alone to deal with it. He never forgot about it, instead he bottled it up and chalked it up to some kind of cruel training he had to go to. 

As he grew up, those thoughts bothered him less and less. He figured he would never have to see you again, therefore he would never have to face that trauma again. Instead of coping with it, he pushed it away to the deepest place he could and tried to forget about it. But as things around him began to crumble, all of his past traumas began to surface again. Genesis ended up leaving him, so did Angeal. His two friends, his only friends since you, ended up leaving him. Sounds familiar, doesn’t it? 

Surprisingly, it didn’t take long for him to snap. The moment he knew he was being sent to Nibleheim for a mission, dread began to build up inside of him. As if it were a sixth sense, he knew something was going to happen here. He made sure to keep his guard up as they arrived at Nibleheim, who knew what was going to happen?

What he didn’t expect, though, was that the threat he was dreading would end up being himself. Dealing with the loss of his two friends was enough, but he never expected having to face you after all those years. You looked exactly the same from when you were a child. Sephiroth knew who you were in an instance when he saw you in that village. He knew that he couldn’t stay. He had to run from you, he had to run, he had to. He avoided you like the plague, unwilling to unpack the bottled-up regret and anger he held for you. His mind couldn’t stop wandering to his childhood with you, he began to question everything. Why were you here in Nibleheim? Why did you leave him? Why was he punished because of you? Why did Genesis and Angeal have to leave, too? He felt sick, he felt weak and dizzy, nothing was making sense anymore. 

That was just the tip of the iceberg, though. 

The moment his eyes landed on those monsters in the reactor, he felt something inside of him shatter. He needed answers. He needed anything. 

He needed something. 

Something to grip onto.

He was losing his mind. 

What was reality? What was real and what was fake? 

He couldn’t hear himself over his own thoughts anymore. He was descending into madness. He couldn’t stop himself from wandering into that library. It was similar to a deep, primal instinct. It felt like he was hunting for prey. But there was no prey. He was hunting for... Nothing? It didn’t make sense, nothing made sense anymore. The voices of concern were drowned out by his mind screaming at him. His mind told him that he couldn’t eat or sleep until he had answers. Who was he? Who were his parents? Why did he want to escape? What are these voices in his head? 

He paced back and forth until his legs were numb, his fingers frantically flipped through the pages of those books, his heart pounded in his chest to the point where it was deafening. He was terrified for the first time in his life. But it wasn’t because of some foe he had to face. No... 

He was terrified of himself. 

That’s when he stumbled upon the documents named ‘Project S.’ His fingers trembled as his eyes scanned the pages. His arms grew weak, he couldn’t stand anymore and ended up collapsing against the wall. He slid down the wall slowly as he took in every bit of information. 

He was... A monster? 

No.

He was an Ancient...

He was a God.

This was his world. 

It all belonged to him.

He was betrayed by everyone. He was treated like an experiment on his own Earth. He was destroyed and numbed to the cruelties of this Earth, used by simple humans for their own bidding. He was dumbed down to a puppet. Everyone else had to have known, right? His mother was Jenova... The J.E.N.O.V.A.? They lied to him. How could they all keep this from him..? His own friends, his mentors and companions? Why did they... It didn’t make sense. Even Zack hid all of this from him... His last friend...

It all started with the books. 

Sephiroth burned them all. He was caught up in a fit of rage. He was betrayed by everyone. Everyone he’s come to know has known what he is, but decided to hide it. His entire existence was a lie. It was all fabricated from birth. How many people knew besides the scientists? The people he laid down his life for ended up betraying him. He would never forgive the human race for what they’ve done.

Before he knew it, the entire village was in flames. Overcome with rage, Sephiroth decided he was personally going to rip the world apart. Everyone would suffer because of what they’ve done to him. There was no room for negotiation anymore, they lost that privilege many years ago. 

During this fit of rage, Sephiroth’s eyes managed to land on you. This was where it all started, wasn’t it? You could have saved him, you could have told him the truth. You knew what he was, but you participated in treating him like... Like some lab rat. You lied, and you were just as guilty as everyone else. 

He couldn’t stop himself from raising Masamune over his head. His vision was red with anger, he was no longer thinking for himself. His mind screamed at him. This is what they wanted, wasn’t it? A truly powerful being... 

He’d show you what power really looks like. 

It was all your fault. 

How you managed to escape was a mystery to all. How Sephiroth was still alive was a mystery to you. You couldn’t wrap your head around it. 

You remembered that day very clearly. You hadn’t even known Sephiroth was in Nibleheim. You didn’t know that he still remembered you. You didn’t know that you planted the seed for his inevitable mental break. 

Now, you were cursed with a daily reminder. His eyes would never leave you for as long as you lived. You assumed the same fate followed you into the Lifestream. 

The day of the Nibleheim Incident, you took off into hiding immediately. You couldn’t face the guilt that possessed you. You could still clearly hear the pain in Sephiroth’s cries as he stood over you. “You took everything from me!” It played in your mind on repeat. He died knowing that it was all your fault this happened. His last few words would be permanently ingrained into your brain. You slightly wished that he had just finished the job in Nibleheim... But you somewhat convinced yourself that that wasn’t his intention. 

Now that he was staring you in the face, you couldn’t believe that he intended for you to die in Nibleheim. He fully intended on you living with your sins and carrying that burden until the end of your time. 

It’s been months now since his first appearance. You remembered when you first saw him after Nibleheim many months ago. You were making your morning deliveries, casually walking around the Sector 5 slums. You approaching the small orphanage located at the top of the slums, ready to face the children when you suddenly stopped in your tracks. Your eyes had been focused on the ground as you walked, so when you saw black boots suddenly appear in your vision, a confused expression formed on your features. You slowly lifted your head to look up at the mysterious figure, only to let out a blood-curdling scream and fall back. 

In front of you stood the silver-haired SOLDIER, he wore a twisted and sickening smirk, his eyes held a glint of... Desire. His left hand tightened around the hilt of his blade as he stared down at you. Fear consumed you as you prepared to finally die, your eyes squeezing tight as your hands came to cover your head. 

When nothing happened, you slowly lifted your head again to see everyone around you staring at you in confusion. Sephiroth was gone as if he completely vanished into thin-air. The ladies working at the orphanage stared at you, fear evident in their eyes. They held the children back from approaching you, as if you were the one to be feared.

No one else had seen Sephiroth. 

You were the only one. 

You quickly got up, not bothering to dust yourself off or gather your things, before taking off to your small shack. Surely, it was part of your imagination. People have mentioned having hallucinations and stuff, maybe that’s what happened. You tried to think it through logically as you splashed cold water on your face. When you lifted your head again, you felt his presence in the back of the room. 

“Why are you here?” You asked, your voice shaking as you turned towards him. He was leaning against the wall casually, his smirk still present. Instead of answering you, he simply looked in your direction before walking further into the house. His gaze sent chills down your spine. What kind of desire is he holding inside? 

Life went on like that for months. Eventually, you were forced to grow used to his presence, no matter how oppressive it was. He would follow you anywhere, basically. He hardly said anything, if he did, it was probably something obscure and ominous. Eventually, you began to talk to him more, finding it unreasonably hard to cope with what life has become. You were never sure if he was listening or not, but deep down inside, you kind of hoped. 

You were never sure what Sephiroth was intending to get out of spending all of his time with you. It kind of made you anxious, knowing that you had some... Purpose to him, something that made you special from everyone else. Even through the hard times like the fall of Sector 7, he hardly ever left your side. 

There was one night where you felt particularly lonely. Sephiroth seemed to be gone, no where to be found. It was odd, even if you were his sworn enemy, you still found yourself concerned if he wasn’t around. That night, to somehow distract yourself, you wandered out into the Sector 5 slums, hoping to cope with the suffocating loneliness. That’s when you heard the news channel booming from the monitor at the center of the town. You approached the crowd quietly, feeling your heart drop at the announcements. 

President Shinra was dead. They claimed it was from Avalanche, but you knew better than that. From behind you, you heard his chilling voice. 

“You agree that he deserved it, don’t you?” Sephiroth asked, his voice low. It sounded like just a whisper in your ear. The question was odd... He wasn’t asking for your opinion, instead he was asking which side you were on. 

President Shinra did deserve it, though, didn’t he? While you would never wish death upon someone, it was undeniable how terrible of a man the President was. You could only respond with a weak nod of your head, feeling too repulsed to give him anything more. 

You moved to take off back to your home, only to feel the burning sensation of his gloved hand wrapped around your forearm. “The end is nigh... Who’s side will you be on?” He questioned. You forced yourself to look back at him. 

“What end?” You asked, your voice shaking as you spoke. Sephiroth didn’t give you an answer, instead he let go and slowly backed into the shadows, leaving you alone once again. 

What end was he talking about? ...End of the world? No, he doesn’t have that kind of power, does he? Honestly, you weren’t sure what Sephiroth was capable of in this form. He was powerful before he died, but what is he capable of now that he is dead?

You wouldn’t know his true power until it came to you in dreams. Since President Shinra’s death, and your odd conversation with Sephiroth that night, you had been having weird dreams. They weren’t the kind of weird that you forget in an instance of waking up, no... These dreams were visions. They were of what was to come. You saw visions of people you didn’t know dying, you saw a giant star in the sky slowly closing in on the Midgar tower, you saw visions of the Lifestream erupting from the ground... They had to have been connected, didn’t they? 

Sephiroth was no longer around for you to question him. It’s like he suddenly vanished, like he never existed after Nibleheim. Had you imagined it all up? It was getting hard to tell. You couldn’t bring yourself to search for him. You didn’t want to see him anymore. Truthfully, you wished you had never seen him in the first place. 

It seemed like months had passed since then. You were really keeping track of time anymore, honestly. Things began to change in the world around you, though. Above you, in the sky, a meteor pushed against the atmosphere of the world. Everyone else was terrified of it, but... You honestly couldn’t say that you were afraid of it anymore. After months of visions, you saw it coming. 

This was the end that Sephiroth was talking about, wasn’t it? 

The end of his torment.

The end of the human race.

The end of the fucking world. 

You hated him for it. There was no one that could stop him... He knew that, everyone seemed to know it except for the innocent lives. You heard the daily questions from bystanders.

“Why is this happening?”

“Are we all going to die?”

“There is nothing we can do to stop it, is there?”

Humanity’s downfall rested in the palms of a revenge-stricken God, and there was nothing that could be done about it.

By now, you had already accepted death. It was inevitable at this point. The fates of everyone were completely compromised at this point, death stared everyone in the face. It was only a matter of time until the Meteor made contact with the Earth. 

You remembered when the evacuation of Midgar began. Every single person was forced onto trains, cars, buses, whatever mode of transportation was available in poor attempts to escape fate. You watched from the window as the bus drove away, your eyes glued to the Meteor. Only a few days from then...

Those next few days were absolute torture. The entire world played a waiting game. There was really nothing to do to prepare for impact. Any preparations would be futile. In the end, there seemed to be a collective loss of morale. 

This was the end.

Just a few hours before the Meteor struck, you remembered hearing that familiar unsettling voice. “What a beautiful creation.” Sephiroth commented, his eyes fixated on the star. You looked up at him, your burning gaze quickly turning into one of shock. He stood next to you, blood decorating his face and suit. 

“What happened to you?” You asked softly, your brows furrowing slightly in concern. As much as you hated to admit it, you still cared for him. 

He shook his head slowly. “I...” He hesitated, seeming to return to his old self for just a moment. He slowly turned towards you, regaining that twisted look. “Will never be a memory.” He hissed, before completely dissipating in front of you. 

Below you, the ground began to shake. Your eyes shot up to the Meteor, expecting to see Midgar destroyed by now, but to your surprise, streams of green were fighting it off. There were screams coming from the people around you, they all cheered on the Lifestream. You couldn’t bring yourself to cheer though. This was fate, wasn’t it? You found yourself strangely conflicted. 

In the end, the Meteor ended up being destroyed before it could even touch Midgar. You watched as the Meteor disintegrated into small rocks. The population around you cheered unendingly, thanking the Gods for survival. You found yourself unsure. You survived, but at what cost? This battle with Sephiroth isn’t over... You knew that deep down. A quiet sigh left your lips as you turned away from the celebrating crowds, finding it hard to relate. 

This wasn’t the end, after all. 

[raptorsandpoultry]

Can a chicken’s gut feelings cause her to peck her flock mates?

I did my undergraduate thesis on poultry behaviour and welfare, and my research was part of a bigger project looking into feather-pecking, a serious behavioural disorder in captive chickens. It was recently published - you can give it a read here, or check out a quick summary under the cut below!

In the wild, the red junglefowl that all of today’s commercial chickens are descended from spend 60% of their waking hours foraging – scratching and pecking around in leaf litter. This tendency still persists in their domestic counterparts. But what happens to this naturally high motivation to forage under farm settings, in which egg-laying hens have little or no access to foraging substrates? It’s been suggested that foraging behaviour becomes redirected towards the feathers of other hens, and that’s when you run into a problem called feather-pecking.

Feather-pecking is a serious animal welfare concern on many commercial egg farms, and it includes abnormal behaviors such as repetitive pecking at the feathers or cloaca of other hens, the act of pulling out and consumption of these feathers, and in the most severe cases, it can lead to cannibalism. The development of this abnormal behaviour depends on a hen’s environment, as supported by numerous studies that have shown that the occurrence of feather-pecking is reduced, and subsequently feather condition scores improve, when hens are provided with things like wood shavings as a substrate, but not when they’re housed on a bare floor (this is why providing enrichment in the form of foraging toys/activities is so important if you’ve got backyard chickens!). Genetics is also an important factor, as demonstrated by studies that have created two experimental lines of hens divergently selected for high or low tendencies of feather-pecking. There are tons of hypotheses as to what exactly causes chickens to feather-peck, but there’s no solid answer yet since there are probably so many other factors at play.

Apart from having significant differences in mortality due to feather-pecking and cannibalism, some of these studies also found gastrointestinal differences between high and low feather-peckers. One of the findings was that high feather-peckers have accelerated feed passage times in comparison to low feather-peckers. This is thought to be due to the fact that high feather-peckers also eat a significantly larger number of feathers, which may enhance grinding activity of the gizzard (stomach) and promote peristaltic movements throughout the rest of the GI tract. One part of the GI tract in poultry that sets them apart from most other groups of birds are their large and well-developed caeca. The functions of these paired organs include fermentation and further digestion of food particles, especially insoluble fiber, primarily through the microbial action of bacteria. 

Given these previous findings, and the fact that cecal contractions produce mixing or stirring movements that might aid in feather digestion, researchers wondered if high feather-peckers had altered cecal motility in comparison to low feather-peckers. Specifically, we defined altered motility as any statistical difference in the average velocity, frequency, or amplitude of the contractions from normal, healthy animals, which in this case, were the hens selected for low feather-pecking. 

We found that hens who engaged in feather-pecking behaviour more often had greater contraction velocities and amplitudes than those who did it less frequently.This is consistent with results of previous studies that have looked at feather-pecking and GI tract physiology. Makes sense, given that keratin, which is the protein that makes up feathers, is not readily digestible, and may require more robust mixing and stirring activity of the ceca.  

It’s interesting to consider these results in the context of the microbiome-gut-brain axis, since previous research done in our lab found that high feather-peckers have higher microbial activity in their ceca. We know that in humans and mice, dietary changes can alter gut microbial function, which can affect GI transit and motility, and vice versa. If any of those factors change the composition of the cecal microbiome, and therefore the types of bacterial metabolites that are produced, any of those can then go on to influence behaviour.

For example, propionate, which is found in higher levels in the ceca of high feather-peckers, has been found to alter social interactions, induce hyperactivity, and increase the frequency of abnormal repetitive behaviors in rats. It’s also been implicated in the regulation of satiety, which could have an influence on foraging behaviour. I could go on forever, but that’s just one example. So, it goes without saying that the interactions between gut microbes, gut function, and behavior are all very complex, and we know even less about them in chickens than we do in mammals. This was sort of a pilot study that will hopefully pave the way for further investigations on how gut motility influences behavior, or vice versa, what the roles of specific bacterial metabolites are, and so on. It might also reveal promising targets for therapeutic strategies against feather-pecking. What we actually did after recording baseline motility was add in a probiotic, since it’s been shown that changing the gut microbiome through the use of probiotics can alleviate stress-induced gut dysmotility and behavioural anxiety in mice, among other things. While the probiotic did have a noticeable effect on gut motility, we’re not entirely sure yet what this means, and how it would translate to changes in feather-pecking behaviour. Still, it’s been really interesting so far and we’re excited to keep going forward with this work, as no one has ever looked into solving the issue of feather-pecking quite like this before!

Sources:

All references can be found at the end of the article: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41598-020-69928-6.epdf?sharing_token=4S5k7a6AmE3LWyQ5tfR6ztRgN0jAjWel9jnR3ZoTv0Ozvq_6r6IerQhqItZc7d0bjDkRMGVBbUZbfixBBTtDIZgZkUGkZuUcOWrIYmioNbq4RPKPSiQ04K9lc43k2XqYJGbrsabrWBdhu8msLeM9RHi97F9QaU7iLIkwilZ8qb8%3D