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ghostbeam · 10 months ago

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Oblivi_n.exe | Dabi/Touya Todoroki

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

As Dabi’s new handler, you’re well aware of his history, how frequently he goes through handlers assigned to him. Not that he ever uses them—it’s more complete resistance. You’re not particularly good at your job. Transferred from the PLF for lack of success in handling any of their pilots, you’ve always been far too gentle. You lack authority. Your pilots never respected you. You don’t think Dabi will be any different. You give it a week.

Notes: okay wow hiiiii it’s been a long time since I’ve posted an actual fic (nearing almost a year now😬) this is something I’ve been working on for a bit. I have mech brain rot curtesy of @streimiv and @hawnks (both of whom this is dedicated to bc there’s no way I could have written this without yapping to them abt it and also mint helped me come up w the acronym for HERO’s) and we’ve all got our own mech fics in the works atm but anywayssssss this is kind of my baby atm but I hope it makes sense it’s very inspired first and foremost by pacific rim and then also NGE (mostly through consumption of YouTube vids bc I haven’t actually watched it pls don’t hate me) it’s a whole mess of things and Dabi is kind of a bitch and reader is slowly coming into herself and at the end of the day they both wanna be metal fused to one another forever (no matter how hard he denies it) also I’m not a huge computer person idk if this title makes sense so don’t make fun of me pls ok anyways I hope u like it!!!!

Warnings: 18+, minors DNI, pilot!Dabi x handler!reader, there’s no explicit sexual content in this part, not even a kiss sorry guys, mentions of robot gore (exposed wires, insides described as guts), brief descriptions of being trapped inside a small space, descriptions of burning while inside said space, mention of surgery to fashion a metal jaw onto someone, mentions of child abuse (nothing graphic just allusions to the todoroki family and touya’s past), angst, many run on sentences, a small cliff hanger

Words: 7.9k

Pt. 1 | Pt. 2 (coming soon)

You are nothing without your machine.

It’s the first rule, the first thing beaten into his brain by his father. You carry the burden of the mech alone, or you’re weak. You don’t exist.

U.A. raises the best and brightest pilots, navigators, mechanics, and handlers, each one carefully trained to ensure the most important outcome: winning. It should be protection. It should be defense. But if Touya has learned anything at all, it’s that winning means glory. It means worship. It means HERO’s (Human Engineered Robotic Objects) are saints, and pilots are gods.

Touya used to be one of those best and brightest before his accident.

First son to Enji Todoroki, Touya was supposed to be the golden child, the first Todoroki to pilot without a handler. He was supposed to carry the burden alone, something his father couldn’t do, something only one man has ever actually been capable of.

But Touya is born weak, bad bones, a brain unable to handle all that the mech needs to unload onto it. One too many accidents results in him being expelled from the pilot program, his HERO discarded and collecting dust in its pod, and Touya is promptly transferred to mechanics.

It should have been a smooth transition. If one kid can’t handle it, the next will. Because they have to.

He doesn’t take the news well. It’s a fit of tears, a persistent fight, unable to accept the loss of his machine—of his body. Because Touya loves it. What he lacks in strength, he makes up for in pure passion, and despite being unable to handle the burden, there’s no denying that he’s good. He’s almost perfect.

But almost is not enough for Enji Todoroki, and no matter how hard Touya tries, he’s made up his mind.

After months of mechanics, Touya makes a decision. When the next fleet of HERO’s is deployed for the next kaiju battle, Touya sneaks in among the chaos, tucked neatly inside the chest of his machine where he belongs. It doesn’t take long for things to go south, for Touya to get caught in the crossfire, losing control of his mech and burning from the inside out.

It should be an excruciating death, stuck inside a machine made for war, fire raining from above as a battle continues on outside without him.

But he survives, because what he lacks in strength, he makes up for in resilience, and his mech is programed with solutions to every situation. He’s stuck inside for months before he’s found.

Tomura Shigaraki rescues him, pries open the chest of his mech and pulls him from inside. His group feeds him, takes him in, fashions a new jaw for him made from the metal of his mech, and allows him the decision to join their cause or go back home.

And since there’s no home to go back to, Touya finds his footing with the league and becomes one of their top pilots. One who vehemently resists any and all handlers.

…

Touya Todoroki, known as ‘Dabi’ to the league, quirk class: cremation, mech title: Blue. You’re his new handler.

Following closely behind Tenko, formerly Tomura, he quickly explains to you the in’s and out’s of the pilot/handler relationship, along with a warning about Dabi’s resentment toward the whole idea. You try to keep up, but he talks quickly and uses his hands a lot. Even so, you can tell he’s a natural leader, something he had to grow into after overthrowing the man who raised him. His story is a tragic one, and it resonates with you because Tenko came out the other side stronger. Now, the league is a community with a cause, one you really believe in. Even if you and Dabi aren’t the right fit, you still have a place here.

You follow Tenko into what he calls the garage, a large floor of the abandoned academy that serves as the league’s base, this part of it full of HERO’s and mechanics all focused on the machines in front of them. It’s completely different from how HERO’s were worked on at UA, where you grew up, and even the PLF didn’t have one dedicated floor to this sort of work. You can feel the energy of the room buzzing on your skin, music blasting from old radios and mechanics tossing tools towards one another in a familiar routine. Tomura leads you to Dabi and his HERO, Blue, though you’re instructed not to call it a HERO around him. With goggles over his eyes and gloved hands, he brings two wires from Blue’s ankle together, sighing at the way they spark each time they connect.

“Dabi.” Tomura calls over the music coming from the radio hanging off of Dabi’s waist. He drops the wires and his gaze flickers toward the two of you. Pushing his goggles up to his forehead, he gives you a once over. His eyes are the brightest you’ve ever seen—kaiju blood blue—and burn scars litter his body. He’s striking in a way you’ve never seen, almost too beautiful to be human. Giving Dabi your name, Tomura explains that you’re taking over as his handler, seeing as he couldn’t keep the last one for more than a couple of days. “She’s your last handler. If you can’t keep this one, then go ahead and fry your brain. See if I care.”

“You say that every time.” Dabi calls from around sucker as Tomura walks away, leaving you alone with your new pilot.

You just your hand out in a greeting, “I’m looking forward to working with you.”

Eyeing your hand, Dabi shakes his head and turns his back to you, picking the two wires back up and connecting them again, despite the same spark from before igniting between the two. He looks back up at Blue, touching his fingers to the slim lines starting at the back of her ankle and running all the way up her leg. You peak over his shoulder at the wiring, noticing that he’s connecting two of the wrong ones.

“It’s the wrong wire.” You tell him, and he spins around to look at you, tearing his goggles from his face as he scoffs.

“Here we go.” He sighs with a roll of his eyes, pulling the candy from his lips and tossing it onto the tool cart without a care. “Handler know-it-all bullshit. This is my mech.”

You push passed him and grab the similarly colored wire from beside a red wire and connect it with the one in Dabi’s right hand. Blue lights up cyan through the thin lines that run along each of its limbs and torso, connecting with the two cameras within its head, which seem to blink before the light reaches them.

In an instant, you’re being pushed up against the hard metal, a strong arm over your chest—pinning you up against the HERO. Dabi, now having discarded his goggles, looks at you full of white, hot rage.

“Don’t fucking touch her.” He growls. You’re suddenly aware of the close proximity, eyes flickering between the snarl across his lips and his angry gaze. For a beat, you both freeze, the air suddenly charged like you’re waiting for one another to strike. Snapping yourself out of his hypnotic stare, you push against his chest, forcing him to let you go.

“If I’m going to be you’re handler, you’re going to have to trust me with her.” You remind him. He lets out a harsh laugh, like he can’t believe you would suggest such a ridiculous idea.

“I don’t trust anything but this machine.” He speaks, turning away from you to seal up the machine’s exposed wires. It’s a challenge you’re willing to accept.

“Well, I’m here to change that.” You tell him, before turning on your heel to leave him alone.

He thinks he’ll give you a week.

…

One of the worst parts of being assigned a handler, Touya thinks, is the way that pilot/handler living quarters are set up. He assumes the academy, before it was abandoned and turned into a base for the league, created this sort of set up so that handlers could keep a close eye on their pilots. The handlers Touya has burned through up until now also assumed the same.

The door that connects both the pilot’s and handler’s dorms doesn’t lock, and all of Touya’s past handlers have taken advantage of this fact. He’s been pulled out of bed far too early, pushed around and commanded and barked at. Most handlers behaved as if pilots belonged to them, which was the sentiment drilled into their brains from being thrown into such a fucked up system at a young age.—unless you were a pilot of status like a Todoroki. While he league dedicates a lot of its time to reversing these ideas, most handlers look at Touya like some kind of challenge, this arrogant pilot begging to be tamed. It never takes long for them to realize how easily he’s able to flip the switch on them. You’ll be no different.

But hours pass and you still haven’t entered. You don’t swing the door open and demand he apologize for his behavior earlier. You don’t try and punish him with training regimes, a command of a set of push ups, a schedule you expect him to follow, an extremely detailed meal plan. The entire evening comes and goes without so much as a sound on the other side of the door so he knows you’re even behind it.

He falls asleep unnerved by this, waking up late into the night in a cold sweat, expecting you to barge in, rip the covers from his body and demand to train together. When he wakes up (peacefully) the next morning, there’s no sign of you. He rises from his bed, drinks orange juice straight from the carton and eats a candy bar for breakfast. He fiddles with the navigation screen from his mech that stopped working a couple of days ago, tools spread out on the counter in front of him. Once he’s got the thing working again, your knock sounds from the unlocked door between the two of you. He thinks this might be it, the commands he expects to fall from your lips at the ready as he swings the door open, but you stand there, nervous, hands twitching as your eyes finally meet his.

Greeted by a shirtless Touya, hair mused from sleep, cargo pants hung low on his hips, dog tags swinging against his chest, his scars on display, unashamed and proud. The sight of him knocks the breath out of you, and you clear your throat in embarrassment, hoping your state of dreaming comes off as nerves rather than lust.

“Dabi. Or do you prefer Touya?” You smile. When he doesn’t answer, you continue. “I wanted to see if you wanted to eat breakfast together in the caf. I think we should start over. Yesterday was—”

You’re promptly cut off, “I already ate breakfast.”

With a harsh slam of the door, he leaves you stunned in your room.

You eat alone.

When you started as a pilot, back when you’d entered UA (a few years about Touya’s accident), you went into it believing you could change the world. The exam had placed you into the position of handler, and you were assigned a pilot who had always seemed a little frightened of you despite your obvious lack of authority. Bringing the fact up to your instructors did nothing. They all assured you that this was the ideal dynamic, that the handler always had the upper hand, but you hated that feeling. You weren’t a team like you expected to be; you were urged to control your pilot. You were there to keep them in line, not to be a pillar of support. The bond was never built on trust, and the soul link was always a looming threat. No matter how many pilots you went through, the link was never held as a gift, but a prison, something you would both be stuck with for the betterment of society, a sacrifice to make.

You’d been expelled from the handler program after guiding your pilot to help save another in the wreckage of your first battle together, resulting in the damage of your pilot’s HERO. Your pilot was okay, but the other couldn’t be saved, and you were blamed for the damage of both mech’s.

When you found the league (or when the league found you), you were working with the PLF, but proved to be a weak handler. Every pilot you were assigned to took advantage of your optimistic outlook on the kind of relationship dynamic that pilots had with their handlers. Despite all that you had been through at UA, and with the rest of the pilots you’d been paired with after, you never gave up the hope that handlers and pilots could behave as a team, or, even better, one entity.

Tenko had taken one look at you and demanded you’d be transferred to the league. There hadn’t been much of a choice in the matter, not that you really cared. You were miserable everywhere else. But when you arrived at the abandoned academy and taken a peak behind the kudzu covered walls where each and every area of the building acted as multiple moving parts in collaboration with one another in order to create one massive system, you realized that this was the future you imagined for yourself—and for the world you lived in.

Tenko saw something in you that day, something you aren’t sure you even see in yourself. And so Dabi was your first task, one that’s proving to be very difficult. But he doesn’t treat you like all the other pilots before had. He doesn’t use you. In fact, it seems like he wants nothing to do with you. And while that’s a problem, it’s still one you can work with.

You’re broken from your thoughts by the sound of a voice through an overhead intercom asking for everyone to meet on the first floor of the academy at their earliest convenience. Judging by the quick movements of those around you, you figure you’d better head downstairs as soon as possible.

The meeting on the first floor makes you very aware of just how small the league really is. While it’s definitely not a tiny organization, it’s still much smaller than both UA and the PLF. With everyone piled up like this in one group, you realize it feels more like a community, and the hum of conversation that surrounds you comforts you in a way you’ve never felt within the walls of any other academy before.

There’s discussion about the upcoming mission, one which may be the league’s most ambitious yet; the plan to hijack a mech and kidnap a pilot may be a little unorthodox compared to the league’s past missions, but the jaded pilot they’re targeting has a high chance of joining the cause. Or that’s what they have assumed. As the bodies move and speak around you, it strikes you how different this meeting is from any other meeting you’ve ever been a part of. Tenko is less a dictator and more a wrangler for the disembodied voices of your peers.

You don’t know much about his story, save for the vague details you’ve heard, but Tenko’s status as a lone handler is something you find yourself curious about. If he’s able to work without a pilot, why can’t you? It’s an idea you keep in your back pocket, one you think you can fall back on if things with Touya don’t work out. But you want them to work out. So badly.

You aren’t sure what it is about him, but he’s reignited that spark inside of you. You know he’d rather you give up, and maybe the you from a couple of months ago would have, but something about him—and this place—won’t let you leave.

As you observe the meeting, you take the time to look around the room, taking in your peers and their attentive faces as they listen to Tenko intently. You turn to your right, your eyes meeting a pair of blue ones, impossible to miss. Dabi holds your stare for what feels like ages, and when your colleagues erupt in a fit of many simultaneous discussions, you tear your eyes from his to observe the commotion. When you glance back in his direction, he’s gone.

You don’t seem him again after that. You train with other handlers, get to know your peers a little better. Everyone else seems to be welcoming, and most offer you sympathy when they find out you’re Touya’s new handler. From what you can gather, he’s had his fair share of them, all of which have quit or left in hysterics due to his harsh nature. When you ask around about where he could be, you’re told that he’s most likely in the garage, a place you assume he’s in more often than not.

You don’t know if you’ll ever get used to the garage. A place so completely different, so against the ideas and beliefs of any other academy you’ve been a part of, the chaos and community within is so foreign to you. You find Touya with Blue, working inside of her chest, where the cockpit is.

“Touya!” You call up to him and watch as he peaks his head over the edge of her metal plating. Annoyance falling across his face, he jumps down from where he stands, landing hard on his feet in front of you.

“What are you doing here?” He questions, his figure so tall and imposing above you. He’s not particularly muscular, not even all that tall compared to Tenko, but he makes you feel small regardless, in more ways than one. Rolling your shoulders back, you stare straight into his eyes, unwilling to back down.

“I figured you wanted your space today.” You explain, as Touya moves around you to get to his rolling cart of tools, forcing you to turn toward him and follow him if you want him to hear you. “I know adjusting to a new handler is rough, and I never want to make you uncomfortable. But I was thinking we could try some of those pilot/handler bonding exercises. It might be good to start training like some of the others do.”

He drops the wrench in his hand onto his cart with a loud thud, turning around toward you with a look of disbelief on his face. “Pilot/handler bonding exercises? They really brainwashed the shit out of you at UA, huh?”

At the mention of your past academy, your eyes widen in surprise. You had no idea he knew about that. Clearing your throat in order to compose yourself, you speak again, “I left UA for a reason. I have no attachment to their methods, but you guys do the same stuff here, so what’s the issue?”

“The issue is that I never asked for a fucking handler in the first place, especially not one as eager as you.” He spits, “Sure, you’re understanding now, all that bullshit about ‘giving me space,’ but the moment you get a lick of power over me, you’ll change. You’re not different.”

“I don’t want power over you. This is an equal exchange. Pilot’s and handlers are meant to be a team—” You try and argue, but he doesn’t let you finish.

“That’s what they told you, right? We’re a team, and as teammates, you make sacrifices. And it doesn’t matter if one of you turns into the other’s braindead dog because that’s your place.” His words hit you hard, the exact thought process you went through when leaving UA, completely disillusioned with their idea of “teamwork.” He’s right, and you know it, but since coming here, you thought that wasn’t how it had to be.

“Look, trust me, I get—” You’re cut off again.

“You went to UA! There’s no trusting you.” He scoffs, “It’s not like you’ll last here, anyway.”

“You are such a hypocrite! You’re from UA!” You retort, throwing your arms up in desperation. “You can hate me all you want. You can resist and resist and fry your brain ‘till there’s nothing left, but I believe in this shit. And you don’t get to tell me that I don’t, or tell me I’ll turn into something I worked so hard to get away from.”

Touya stands there, surprised by your outburst, completely unaware that you were capable of all of that. He doesn’t say anything back, and you roll your eyes. “So fuck you, and, by the way, her angel port is smoking.”

At your words, he turns in a rush, seeing the smoke billowing from Blue’s chest as he climbs his way up her form. Once inside his machine, he extinguishes the port and allows himself to relax. There are two things on his mind in this moment: how you could have possibly known it was the angel port without being inside of Blue’s chest and how, for the first time in a long time, he feels bad for his handler.

But for you, it’s the first time you’ve ever held your own against a pilot before, and that feels good.

…

Something feels weird.

Off, unsettling, strange.

He realizes, much to his dismay, that it’s your absence. Despite only having you around for such a short time, Touya has realized that your lack of presence now feels wrong. He hates it. He hates you.

He can’t find you. You haven’t knocked on his door. You’re not in the caf, not the garage, not the sparring floor, not in your room. And he did check—without knocking.

He’s not even sure how he can feel an absence. You aren’t a regular part of his life, and he never wanted you to be. But he feels all fucked up.

During training, Touya jams Blue’s halo core and she leaks vibrant neon from between her ribs. It takes him half an hour to get her reboot her system and rips one of the cables attached to the back of his suit in the process. He spends the afternoon cleaning HERO fluid off the sparring floor.

During repairs, he shocks himself over and over while trying to fix her core, fingers burning from the sparks each time he arranges the wires inside. The cameras in her eyes won’t work from the reboot, and Blue won’t let him unlock the lens panel to fix it. It’s almost like she’s mad at him too.

He’s a complete mess. It’s your fault. He has no choice but to go looking for you. Again.

He searches every wing of the academy before concluding that you’re in your room. He barges through the joint door, spotting you at the counter in your tiny kitchen. You’re surprised by the intrusion, a frightened gasp falling from your lips as you jump in your seat. You turn toward him, prepared with angry words on your tongue, but Touya speaks first.

“You’re not getting an apology out of me, so don’t expect it.” He begins, moving to stand in front of your swiveling kitchen stool as he looks down at you. “But I’m willing to be civil with you, so we don’t have to do this shit anymore.”

You’re not exactly sure what “this shit” is, but Touya looks a little worse for wear at the moment, so you don’t question it. He places a tray from the caf down in front of you that you hadn’t noticed in his hands upon arrival, says nothing else, and turns to leave the room. After shutting your joint door, you look down at the tray of food, noticing one of his suckers placed onto a vacant compartment of the tray.

You’re greeted the next morning with a knock on your door, Touya dressed in his pilot’s suit on the other side as you swing the door open. “C’mon. You’re gonna watch me train today.”

You watch him turn around to leave, expecting you to follow. You rush to pull on your combat boots and grip your dog tags in your fist as you rush to catch up to him. He doesn’t spare you a glance as you fall into step beside him, taking a look around his dorm before he leads you through the exit door.

“You need to get a feel for my fighting style.” He explains as you walk down the corridor. “I’m not saying I’ll listen to you when it comes down to it, but it’s important for you to know.”

You nod, agreeing that you should definitely observe him inside of his HERO. By understanding his moves, you’ll be able to understand the way he thinks, and you’ll be able to help him in actual combat if needed. He’s already said he won’t listen to you, but it won’t stop you from trying. He stops abruptly, turning to look at you, and you stop with him.

“If we’re gonna do this, it’ll be on my terms. I’m not your dog.” He tells you, seriously. He eye’s you up and down, taking in your expression as you nod at his words. “If anything, you’re mine.”

He begins walking again, leaving you in your spot, irritation filling your chest as you watch him, smug. “Asshole.” You curse under your breath.

“What’d you say?” He barks, turning to look at you abruptly.

“You’re an asshole.” You speak louder. He walks back toward you, making sure to tower over you intimidatingly as he looks down at you in annoyance. His eyes flicker down to the tags around your neck before hooking a finger on the chain and pulling you closer.

“Watch it.” He drops the chain and walks away again.

You follow him to the sparring floor, and he shows you where to go to watch. Stood behind a large window that looks over the sparring area, other members of the base watch the HERO’s engage in combat below. You spot Tenko and he motions for you to stand beside him.

“I knew he’d warm up to you.” He comments. The last of the previous battle finishes and you watch the two enormous machines retreat to the sides of the area, their pilots emerging from their chests with their handlers rushing to the bottom of the mech’s in support.

“He hasn’t. He’s not.” You shake your head. You aren’t sure why you deny it, if it’s some way to keep your expectations low or if there’s some kind of embarrassment aspect to the whole thing. Whatever is happening between you and Touya feels intimate and private, something that the two of you need to figure out for yourselves, not something meant for the eyes of others.

“Hm. Okay.” Tenko shrugs. “Guess not.”

You hadn’t noticed Touya enter his mech at all. You see the swing of one giant mechanic arm, too close to the window you stand behind, and you’ve shifted your full attention to the scene at hand.

The enormity of the room surprises you, despite the fact that you had seen it just moments before. But when you’re truly looking at it, watching these huge machines go at each other, the way the ground shakes, the leaves outside shake, the deep forrest clear in view from the wall that opens out to the greenery (the lack of a wall is likely from the academy’s abandoned state, but it’s a good feature to have on the sparring floor when giant robots are toppled over onto various surfaces).

The way Blue moves is electric, mechanic movements almost feel fluid with the way that Touya pilots her, easily dodging attacks from their opponent and moving around them in the most graceful way a giant machine can. It’s beautiful, unlike any fighting style you’ve ever seen in a HERO before.

“He’s showing off for you.” Tenko observes from beside you. You don’t argue with him, only because you can’t dispute it. This is your first time seeing him in action. It makes your heart beat out of your chest. There’s this ache like you should be inside with him, cables connected to both of you, tucked neatly inside of Blue together.

It doesn’t take him long to get his opponent on their back, the heavy thump against the floor jostling the ant-like figures on the ground below, handlers waiting for their pilots to finish. It goes on like this for a while, his training, using different methods of combat and winning each time. He’s amazing, and you can tell why his reputation is the way it is, second only to Tenko, who you have yet to see in action.

When he finishes his last session, you watch Blue walk to the edge of the room, and Touya emerges from her chest, jumping the long way down her body without any issue. You watch as he looks toward the window you’re behind. He waves at you, an acknowledgment of your presence, and you wave back, though you aren’t sure he can actually see you.

It’s the beginning of everything for the two of you. You think Tenko was right.

He lets you stay with him afterwards while he does maintenance on Blue. He helps you climb up the path to her chest, hauling you over the edge to sit inside with him. He turns around abruptly, holding a hand up before allowing you to walk any further.

“Do not touch anything.” He warns, completely serious, before letting his hand fall and allowing you further into the cockpit. You take in your surroundings, the guts of his machine, analyzing the different control panels and screens that line the interior. You can tell he takes good care of her, and he spends a lot of time in here. It looks lived in, stickers stuck to metal plating and pieces of him all over. He’s made a second home in between the ribs of his mech. You feel a little jealous, though you aren’t sure of what.

The two of you sit against the left side of Blue’s interior, waiting for her updates to finish, the loading screen on each of her monitors display a fire graphic that grows with the increasing percentage on screen. Between you and Touya sits an opened bag of sour gummies, which Touya picks out the lemon flavor and drops the candy in your palm with each new handful he gathers.

“How do you know all this stuff?” He questions around a mouthful of sour cherry, “Like, the real names for things, where stuff goes, how to fix them. That day with the wires…”

“I spent a lot of time around mechanics at UA, and then also at the PLF.” You explain, picking the yellow colored candy from his open palm as you speak. “I couldn’t connect with other handlers. I didn’t like how they thought, or how they viewed the pilot/handler relationship. Mechanics were mostly neutral, and they loved these machines like nothing else. They reminded me of why I joined UA in the first place.”

“Hm.” He nods, thinking about your past. “Well, I guess if you spent so much time around actual professionals…I could maybe use your help sometimes in the garage.”

“Really?” You question excitedly, a spark lighting up your eyes as you swerve your head toward him. He feels something tight in his chest at the sight.

“Yes, but only on the outside. I don’t want you messing with her insides, yet.” He establishes. “And never alone. I have to be there at all times.”

“Of course, yes, oh my god. Touya!” You smile, gripping his shoulder firmly, a gesture of thanks, communication of how much his trust means to you. “I’ll be so careful with her, I promise.”

“Yeah, well, you have no other choice.” He shrugs, throwing another pile of candy in his mouth. “I’ll kill you if anything happens to her.”

You take the threat seriously, but his heart isn’t in it. He’s realized that you’ve wormed your way into his life and he hadn’t even noticed just how entangled you were now.

As the weeks go by, you spend a lot more time together. You work on blue together, and you rest inside of her chest, sometimes allowing yourself to drift off against his shoulder on especially tiring days. He sits beside you in the caf, and while he doesn’t always say much, the feeling of his arm against yours is comforting. You can tell people are starting to notice, and they’re starting to talk. You’re being dubbed someone who’s tamed him, but you know how far from the truth that is.

Despite your differences and the petty arguments that come up when Touya feels like you’re intruding on his independence, you’re growing attached. You wonder if he is, too.

…

Spending time together in the garage becomes the new normal for the two of you. Being in each other’s dorms feels far too intimate, so you always meet in the garage. This way, one of you is always busy doing something with your hands. There’s no room for any strange feelings in the pit of your stomach to seep in.

You sit in the crook of Blue’s neck, watching Touya as he repairs the lenses in her “eyes.” Blue has three pairs of eyes; in her head, her chest, and down near her hips, which all footage is projected onto monitors inside the cockpit so that Touya has a full view of what’s in front of him.

He’s so peaceful while he works, you’ve noticed, almost like he goes somewhere else completely. It’s a part of him you don’t think many people get to see, a piece of him just for you, and you want to be selfish with it.

“Can I ask you something?” You question, leaning your head back against the metal. “But you can’t get mad.”

He looks up at you, still fiddling with a lens, a mocking look on his face. “I’m not making any promises.”

You take a deep breath, preparing yourself for the possible fallout of the question you’re about to ask, “What do you think about the soul link?”

“No.” He shakes his head. “I’d never do it.”

You nod your head in understanding, “yeah, I get it. It’s weird, right? The idea that someone else would be inside your brain.”

“It’s fucking invasive.” He says.

“You know, at UA it always felt like a threat, you know. Like, it was a way for a handler to control their pilot, not a tool or a bond like it should be.” You begin, thinking back to how you viewed the soul link back then. You didn’t like how the bond was presented as this power that a handler holds over their pilot, a threat to keep their pilot in line. But, you could understand how the link could be used for good. “But since coming here, I can tell it’s not all bad. People trust each other here. I mean, there’s obviously some people who abuse it, but, for the most part, everyone seems to understand what it really means to be a pilot and a handler.”

You’re mostly just thinking out loud, but Touya doesn’t say anything to your ramblings. He continues to work on the lenses, and you can gather that he doesn’t want to talk about the subject anymore. But you can’t let it go, yet. There’s something you’ve been worried about since you met him.

“And what about…your brain? They say when a handler and a pilot don’t complete the soul link, the pilot will eventually fry their brain.” You can’t help it. You think about it all the time, what will happen when he can’t take it anymore. The closer you get to him, the realer it feels. “Are you ever worried about that?”

He looks at you, an expression you can’t quite make out fall across his face as he stares. It’s almost soft, the way he looks at you in this moment. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

The truth is, this is a reality Touya has accepted. He’s not afraid to die, and he never has been. He’ll probably die inside of Blue, and he has no problem with that fact. He doesn’t need to be around for long, just enough to show his dad what he’s capable of.

“C’mon.” You stare. “That’s not fair.”

“Shit. I left some of the screws for this in my dorm.” He curses. He looks where you lounge, tucked into Blue’s shoulder. “Keep an eye on her, okay?”

You watch him jump down, much higher than his usual height at her chest, but he lands anyway. He doesn’t turn to look back at you as he jogs away. You climb up the side of Blue, and look at the lenses in her head. They’re already repaired, and you know Touya used the excuse of missing screw just so he wouldn’t have to talk about the soul link.

But it’s the first time he’s ever left you alone with Blue before.

…

As the mission draws closer, Touya throws himself into training. You’re on the training floor with him most days, standing behind that big glass panel as you watch him spar with his peers. He still doesn’t let you down on the floor with him until he’s full out of Blue and close enough to the edge of the sparring floor to get to you. You’re not allowed in the actual training area, and even though he says he doesn’t want you clinging to him, it’s really because he wants to keep you safe. Seeing your human body near the giant machines that are HERO’s makes him want to grab you and keep you inside of Blue’s chest forever.

You can tell all the training is taking a toll on him. With an excess of headaches and the occasional nosebleed, you continuously get into arguments about him cutting back on training inside of Blue. There are other ways for him to prepare that don’t involve his fragile brain being hooked up to an entity that takes so much. He doesn’t listen.

Later and later into the night, as your fellow pilots and handlers disperse and return to their rooms to sleep, Touya stays inside of Blue, testing her movements and sparring against test dummies and obstacles. Once you and Touya are the only two left on the sparring floor, you speak into the intercom attached to your head.

“Touya, I think you should take a break.” You tell him, “It’s late. Get some rest and then we can pick it back up in the morning.”

There’s a pause, then, “I’m gonna stay for another hour. Get some sleep. I’ll be done soon.”

“No, Touya. You’ve been at it for hours. You barely took a break for dinner. C’mon.”

“You know, you sound awfully like a handler trying to tell their pilot what to do.” He teases, but you can hear the irritation in his voice.

“You are insufferable. I’m worried about you.” You groan.

“I’m fine. Go sleep.” He insists.

“If I find out you aren’t out of here in an hour—” Your line is promptly cut off, leaving behind static in your ear. You sigh and throw your com to the side. You hope he’s telling the truth.

With one last look at Blue, you make your way out of the training floor and find your way back to your dorm.

Touya doesn’t answer the door when you knock the next morning. With a frustrated groan, you leave your dorm and head to the training floor, assuming he woke up early to get some extra hours in. The closer you get the the floor, you notice other members of the base rushing in front of you. Feeling panicked, you pick up the pace, jogging toward the training room to make sure something isn’t wrong. You collide with a body in front of you, nearly falling to the floor as you steady yourself. Toga stands in front of you, her cheeks red and eyes glossy as she explains something your mind can’t catch up to understand. The only thing you recognize is his name, and you’re running toward the training floor in an instant.

You watch as Blue stomps around the area, her arms swinging in all directions, losing her footing as she moves. Knowing you can’t do anything on the floor, you make your way up to the overlook, finding Tenko yelling into your intercom.

“What’s going on? What’s happening?” You ask him, pulling the headset off of his head and placing it on yours instead.

“He’s out of fucking control. He won’t answer. I don’t even think he’s conscious in there.” He tells you, running a hand through his hair, pulling at the roots in anxiety. “You’re not linked yet, are you?”

You shake your head, closing your eyes in frustration as you try to think. You know it’s the only way. You have to take some of the burden off of him, make him share it with you. It’s the only way he’ll survive right now. “Do you think you can get into Decay right now and knock him down somehow?”

He hesitates, “I can get inside. I can’t guarantee I’ll be able to touch him at all.”

“You have to.” You plead, desperately. “I just need him down for ten seconds, tops. As long as I can get inside of her, I can save him.”

He looks at you like you’re insane, and maybe you are. But you know you can’t live with yourself if you don’t try something. Tenko nods.

“I can do it.” He tells you. You rush passed him, following the stairs down to the training area. You feel Tenk grab your wrist firmly. “You bring him back, okay?”

“I will.” You nod.

He dodges Blue’s movements, weaving between her legs as he finally makes it to Decay. It takes a few moments for him to connect, but he goes straight for Blue. You watch the giant machines fight one another, but it’s clear that Blue’s lack of control hinders much of her ability. She needs Touya just as much as he needs her. It’s tough for Decay to dodge her swinging arms, but Tenko manages to knock her down quickly.

The fall shakes the room, but you waste no time running for Blue. Climbing over the side of her, you manage to touch your thumb to the pad on the outside to open her chest up. She begins to stand up, and you slip down, grabbing onto a bar beneath her ribcage. You let out a frustrated groan as you try to pull yourself up over the edge of the cockpit. Finally making it over, you see Touya sitting there, still connected to his pilot’s chair, eyes glazed over and blood gushing from his nose. You push the button that closes the panel in Blue’s chest, and you’re suddenly alone with him.

Touya’s body is being jerked around by the movement of the mech, and you hang onto the walls of her chest in order to make your way to him. You situate yourself in his lap, taking his head in your hands as you look at him with tears in your eyes.

“You fucking asshole! I told you to take a break.” You sob, resting your head against his as you try and think of what to do next. “Touya, please. Please, baby, I need to you come back. Just fucking come back so I don’t have to do this without your permission, please.”

With no response from him, you wipe your tears, coming to terms with the fact that you have to complete the soul link now, or he’ll die. “I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry, Touya. Please forgive me.”

The soul link isn’t exactly an action so much as it is a feeling, an experience. There’s no trigger for it, no way to make it happen. It just begins.

It’s Touya, aged thirteen, wild, chubby-cheeked and happy, in the pilot’s seat of his father’s HERO. It’s his drive, his determination, his anger, his hurt. It’s the day he snuck into battle, the day he couldn’t get out, flesh burning and fusing to the metal walls of his mech, the feeling now deep in your skin. It’s you, aged fifteen, hopeful, alive, shaking hands with your first pilot. It’s your heart, much too big and much too open for your line of work, it’s your passion, your fire, every piece of you that was broken down again and again until there was nothing left. It’s Touya and it’s you, and every single bit of your souls now tied together in one big knot.

There’s nothing but darkness. And then there’s screaming. And then you can hear everything. Every thought running through Touya’s brain right now echoes in your head as you slowly come back to yourself. He can hear the same of yours.

It’s overwhelming at first, to have two sets of thoughts in your head at the same time, but you manage to focus. You can feel an anger inside of you like you’ve never felt. It’s almost like it’s your own. You need to come back. You’ve lost control of Blue.

In an instant, you feel yourself come back to your body, now straddling Touya like before, you feel his arms shoot around you and he tucks his chin over your shoulder to pilot Blue like he’s used to doing. He pays no mind as he presses up against you, but you feel your heart rate increase at the closeness.

He’s so close.

I have to be. You’re in my lap.

Shit. I didn’t think—

Clearly.

I can’t fucking believe you. I told you we weren’t going to do this.

You were dying!

Then you fucking let me!

You’re jostled around in his lap for a moment as he stops Blue from destroying any more of the training floor, and Touya wraps an arm around your waist, holding you steady.

He gains control of her quickly, moving her toward the edge of the room. You tuck your face into his neck, not wanting to distract him and keeping your thoughts at bay so you don’t overwhelm him. He powers Blue down, severing the neural connection between the two of you, and shoves you from his lap and into the pilot’s chair like you’ve burned him. He storms out of the cockpit, climbing out of his machine and leaving you inside. You think about the argument you had within each other’s head, how Touya would have rather died than be linked to you like he is now.

You slump against the seat, comforted by the metal cage you’ve been left inside of.

#dabi x reader #touya todoroki x reader #bnha x reader #tw claustrophobia #just in case it’s like so brief and doesn’t describe much yet but I just wanna be safe #ghost.writes #ghost.fic

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prettycottonmouthlamia · 1 month ago

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My Works and Commissions

Hi everyone! It's Ana, again, yapping about her writing. I know that in the past I have linked to my Ao3 account as well as my ROM account so that people can look at my works, but I figure that I could also have a post with a list of my various works on it. So, without further ado, here we go.

Fanfiction:

A Hunter's Plaything - This is the first work of mine on Ao3 I still feel pretty proud of. I got really high one night and had a fantasy and wrote it down, it's an Abyssal Hunter x DoctorF work. (Arknights)

la Piccola Morte de Texas - Texas and Sora meet after a show and Texas brings Sora to a porn theater she visited when she was younger and they proceed to have sex. Public sex rocks and they should bring back porn theaters. (Arknights)

A Different Kind of Deep Water - Skadi's hypnotherapy takes a surprising turn when Laurentina learns that she is very susceptible to hypnosis, and grapples with her newfound arousal while receiving advice from Skadi's hypnotherapist. (Arknights, Hypnosis, a slightly unethical medical professional)

Original Works:

Slag and Rust - My very own mechsploitation list. I'm going to just copy/paste the summary I wrote previously.

Marié searches for her love, the mech pilot Emer, years after Imperial Forces lost their war against the Riccian Alliance. She searches on the thinnest of threads, her knowledge of the secret military program that Emer was a part of very limited, but refuses to give up. Emer is a retired mech pilot, forced back into military service to serve in a top-secret military program run by Major Dunamis, her soon-to-be Handler. She struggles to not repeat the trauma of the past while navigating the reality of Dunamis's plans for her and the squad she's been given. Plans that will leave them all forever changed, warped to Dunamis's vision. At the end of a story of deceit, trauma, loneliness, secrecy, and horror, can Marié and Emer even face each other at the end?

(CW: This story contains NTR, forced body modification, significant character death, forced feminization and masculinization, and potentially distressing scenes of abuse, gaslighting, brainwashing, and medical procedures.)

A Goddess's Replacement - A rather horny reimagining of the tale of Persephone and Demeter, where Demeter, in her grief, sees a mortal who looks very similar to her lost daughter and decides that she will make a fine "Persephone".

(CW: Contains nonconsensual brainwashing, kidnapping, personality replacement, identity death, and really messed up family dynamics. Demeter is a bad person folks.)

Enough Thread to Hang Yourself - Dorothy's relationship with her girlfriend Lisa is failing as she struggles with depression and grief, and Lisa's friend Victoria offers to help by hooking her up with a new anti-depressant. She immediately feels better, but nothing is without its consequences.

(CW: Identity death, drugging, NTR, and graphic scenes involving neck related trauma.)

Porcelain Pull - Dahlia is a sky, skittish trans woman who is a massive doll fetishist and avid gacha player. Her dreams are seemingly realized out of the blue as she is given early access to a gacha game populated entirely by dolls: but the game will wrap her friends, and Dahlia herself, under its spell.

(CW: Gacha games, dollification, forced transformation, NTR because I've been on a kick, and reality warping)

Commissions:

Commissions are to be done via DMs here on tumblr or by email at [email protected] (it's an old email, okay?). My rate is 3 cents per word and I ask for payment up front before beginning my work; I have been scammed before.

I specialize and like writing works involving hypnosis, mind control, brain washing, and transformation. I do not have many things I will not right, but if your commission has content I am not comfortable with writing I will let you know before payment is made.

I will only be able to do one or maybe two commissions at a time: writing a long process.

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patheticpoems · 24 days ago

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heyy! If it's fine with you, I'd love for u to mention ur whole journey with loass, how and when exactly in ur journey did u end up manifesting ur dream life, (like go into detail as much as possible if u can cz i love hearing ppl yap about how much the law or void has changed their life) and if u ever had any doubts and if yes then how did u tackle them, etc, etc.

Also, I absolutely loveee ur blog, so thankyou so much for taking out ur time to write all these valuable posts!

TYSM LOVELY this is very messy and the order is very..... not comprehensive imo but bear with me😞 I swear I'll make a cleaner version at some point dating back even before I got into loass maybe

okay so my journey with loass started back in 2021 i believe? I was introduced to it throught the solar subliminals creators code and at the time that really caused like an influx of posts to start coming up. I wasn't on any apps at the time (I'd occasionally use amino or ig but you can understand how these weren't the most active or very comprehensive, didn't feel like I was informed enough - which rlly, you don't need to be, you don't need to know the works of something for it to function for you - but that lead me to installing tumblr. I had heard a lot about the community so I was interested in seeing what's up and christ, it really was different. At the time there were many creators who have now deactivated but there were a lot and I mean a lot of good posts I even had a loass blog by a diff name then.

I think the paragraphs of text accompanied by the aesthetics really just lures you in more, but in a sense i think I was enjoying reading other peoples success stories more than having my own. at the time I understood how loass works and I had a lot of the same opinions I do now but the weird this, is that the thing that was having me not try is a mishmash of I never felt the need to and also I lacked discipline. Consistency was a very hard thing for me, I'd always flip flop, go back and fourth on everything. I'd get these random moments of motivation, tell myself I'll stay consistent and listen to this subliminal playlist till I have what I want but ironically, I somehow didn't realise that I was still putting the power outside of my own hands, that I was still assuming I didn't have it because I didn't see it. Which for me was very surprising you could say. I always felt i was in power, not as a person but as more and I don't mean that in a corny way but it was more so because I had my own opinions about who we are, what we are, which can now be explained as pure consciousness, awareness.

For a long time I struggled mostly because I didn't care? Like i felt like I should, I felt I should have strong emotions over what I'm getting but for me it was really just meh. Like nothing. It wasn't like I hadn't manifested deliberately, I have but only a couple. The mistake I was making is acknowledging what I didn't want. Its like imagine I tell you, "pretend I didn't say that" and you went and repeated what I said back to me, I was doing that to myself, I wasn't paving my own path, I was reacting to whatever I saw.

The tackling part kind of came easier for me, mostly because I someone who can detach from things very easily or just blatantly ignore them very quickly. What I particularly had trouble with was feeling like I was doing it well. I'm not someone who actively thinks, matter of fact I rarely hear my voice in my head, so I always feel like I'm watching a silent film so it felt hard for me to know what my assumptions were. That was something I had to suck up. If I didn't know how I naturally felt about it I'd assume that its obviously that I have my assumptions. It was very annoying somewhat, but I'd try not to linger on it and just forget about it, go on with my life.

My success came earlier this year since it was when I finally decided I had like a lot of things I wanted and I was ready for them to come to fruition. I felt an actual desire for them which for me was usually hard to have.

#poems asks 🐈‍⬛️#loablr #law of assumption #manifesting #manifesation #loassumption #loass #loa tumblr #loassblog #loa blog

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theunbrightside · 1 year ago

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(this is not a fanfic, if that is what you are looking for, please scroll on by)

hello everyone, i would like to put my two cents onto the internet for everyone so they can look at the perspective of my own thoughts. alot of people are not going to LIKE this, but, whatever your two cents about this topic is also appreciated! you are totally free to put your opinion on this topic as well. however, your opinion will not be considered valid if you did not read the entire post.

TLDR: please dont pretend to care about minors on your blog if you use "minors dni" or "age in bio" it is NOT the correct way to combat minors. infact, its stupid. you cannot use "minors dni" as a way to combat minors. you also cant use "age in bio" as a way to combat minors, its dumb and as an adult, you should know that it's dumb, which really makes me question if alot of fanfic writers are actually the adults they claim to be.

given that the statement is true, there are two possible options for the people who use this statement on their own blog; they are either REALLY oblivious, or they don't care about minors in their spaces as much as they say. to be honest, i think they care more about how many notes they get.....they just also want to look like the good guy at the same time. before i start the yap session, i would like to make it clear who i am blaming and adressing in this post, if you are not mentioned, you do not apply..... i am blaming ADULTS who write PORN and PRETEND to care about MINORS reading their content when they don't use the NEEDED PRECAUTIONS in order to keep them out.

I am NOT saying you need to care about minors reading your content. As long as you are following the rules of tumblr, you can post whatever you want. you also need to understand that it goes the other way around, people can read whatever they want to, that includes the contents of your blog.

if you DO care, you can't be fucking stupid about it, you need to take the VERY IMPORTANT REQUIRMENTS in order to do so.

minors, i know you read the porn on tumblr, and you can because alot of the adults don't care about you reading their content. however they act like they do, which makes me angry if you think you are mature enough, you have the ability to do so. this is not meant to target you, it's meant to target the adults for trying to act like a saint while being the problem at the same time, okay? (tw large amounts of opinionated yapping. oh boy i might be ambushed for this....oh well)

given that obliviousness is one of the options here, i will explain my standpoint as to why it is stupid. this is tumblr. and alot of you are writing porn around a fandom that gravitates towards minors, especially certain anime. ESPECIALLY ones like my hero academia, demon slayer, jjk, those type of things. YES, i am aware adults also watch anime, and some adults want to read porn about their favourite characters in said anime. but do you want to know who reads porn about their favourite characters more than adults do? MINORS! and because most of you have a really airheaded way of combating minors, guess who the main consumer of your content is??? MINORS! it's mostly minors reading your content, sorry to break it to you. and i have decided to point the finger here, people who write about MHA are the absolute worst when it comes to this situation. because not only are you creating a toilet paper wall to "stop" minors from reading your content, you are writing porn where the fandom is pretty much all teenagers and some young adults. AND ON TOP OF THAT! MOST (keyword most) of the characters you are writing porn about are literal minors in the show! LIKE??? i personally dont care too much if it stops you from writing porn about ACTUAL children....but like...please do not pretend to care about minors reading your content it pisses me off if you actually want minors out of your blog, I have a solution for you! let me help you! Solution, promote your writing with SFW content only on your tumblr blog, and put your NSFW content behind a wall that requires age verification. you have multiple ways to do that! for example, use something like patreon, or if you want to bump it up a notch, use something that requires genuine age verification, like an ID. the down side? you won't be as popular, infact you'll most likely be unpopular! and you will realize how little the amount of adults in your blog are, because your likes will be VERY LOW on your nsfw content. but.....that's okay! as long as minors aren't in your blog! ....right?

#mha smut #demon slayer smut #bakugou smut #todoroki smut #deku smut #tanjiro smut #muzan smut #nanami smut #toji smut #sukuna smut

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the-emo-cockroach · 6 months ago

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lil rant, sorry about this but i need to get it out-

Yall Ao3 is such a scary place istfg-

So i was just reading a lil cheeky batfam fanfic cs you need a bit of entertainment in your life and it was one based of that tumblr post where its all the bats have their own call sign thing and batman does it and hears freshly undead jason’s call sign- anyway, off topic but like it was a bit angsty but overall, a really good fic- like really good writing and what not. So, i’m just like, ‘oh, wonder if the author has any more of these’ click on her page. She’s got the little things to filter it and she has a ‘batman’ one so i click on that- guess what’s the first thing i see?

Damian!horse. Okay, ykw, animal au, i’m not gonna judge, its just fun and frolics, its fine ig-

next tag. Mpreg.

Next tag. A/B/O.

I would say no words but i got one word-

JAIL. THAT IS FUCKING PRISON TIME RIGHT THERE- THOSE TAGS SHOULD NEVER BE SEEN IN EACH OTHERS VICINITY-

This is the point where you think ‘hm, i should just put my phone down, thats enough internet for today’ and leave it BUT NO, ME BEING THE MORBIDLY CURIOUS FUCK I AM, SCROLLS DOWN THEIR PAGE. IT JUST GETS SO MUCH WORSE-

DAMIAN. BATCEST. AMPUTATION. MPREG. OMEGAVERSE. BREEDlNG. BODY MODS KlNK.

ALL IN ONE FIC.

LIKE I DONT WANNA JUDGE BUT WHAT THE ACTUAL FLYING PEICE OF TOFFEE CAKE IS THIS.

I’M I PRETTY ACCEPTING PERSON, LIKE I’M TRYING BUT IF I WAS ANY MORE OPEN MINDED, MY FUCKING BRAIN WOULD FALL OUT OF ITS SKULL-

Yk, whatever tickles your boat, floats your fancy idc but WHAT?

No bcs the worst part is- IT WAS A FUCKING REQUEST??

Someone came up with this idea

thought, hm, ykw? Imma send this in as a request

typed it out

read it through and sent it

then, someone else read

DECIDED IT WAS A GOOD ENOUGH PLOT TO WRITE?

PROOF READ IT

AND THEN POSTED IT??

HOW DID NO ONE AT ANY POINT IN THAT PROCESS SEE THE SLIGHTEST FUCKING COOKIE CRUMB OF SOMETHING BEING WRONG THERE? IT HAD 19 KUDOS. THAT MEANS AT LEAST 20 PEOPLE READ IT AND THOUGHT ‘ah yea, love that one’ WHICH IS NOT A LOT BUT ITS STILL TOO MANY-

LEAVE MY BOI DAMIAN OUT OF YOUR WEIRD KlNKS OMLL

Ight yap over 😋

#rant post #rant #anti batcest #No hating but im hating #Justace for damian wayne #HES A CHILD TOO?#ADD V0RE INTO THE MIX ASWELL-#batfam

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karamell-sweetz · 10 months ago

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rui kamishiro, the alchemist - an extremely jumbled overanalysis

⚠️ LONG POST AHEAD ⚠️

hello rui fanclub. instead of doing schoolwork i think about rui as the alchemist. what’s new with me i know.

but why is he an alchemist specifically?

because if you look at it simply, rui’s jobs in the shows could also garner the title of ‘mechanic’. where you take a lot of metal and make it into something functional, or fix it so it works again. fundamentally that’s what he does right? with all the robots and staging ideas? and to some extent he could also be a ‘poet’ or ‘philosopher’ because we know he and tsukasa write the shows (during the pxl arc anyway) and he’s constantly coming up with new show ideas. there’s stuff like ‘magician’ or ‘wizard’, which could also be used to describe how he does things with such ease — and we’re not even going to mention ‘genius’ or ‘whiz kid’, okay?

so with all of that said, rui haters /j can essentially say that rui’s title of ‘alchemist’ is just him trying to sound a little cooler — and to some extent they might be correct. like have you seen this man

but let’s get to the nitty gritty of today’s wall of text, because there’s no way sega would call him an alchemist and not know what that entails. putting on my swirly nerd glasses.

✨alchemy✨ according to the merriam-webster kids definition is as follows:

“a medieval chemical science with the goals of changing less valuable metals into gold, discovering a single cure for all diseases, and discovering how to live forever”

and is commonly cited by most articles i read on the topic to have been a mixing of science and magic, having been the predecessor of modern chemistry. that part sounds like rui, doesn’t it?

and honestly, that alone should be enough to stop me from yapping, BUT WE NEED TO HIT THE BOTTOM. HAND ME MY SHOVEL I’M GOING IN /lyr

by the way!! i am completely aware of the more metaphorical meaning of alchemy where it’s essentially synonymous with magic, e.g. “he performed his alchemy o’er the pot and the water became soup”. but since wxs are often cited as the guys with the whimsical references to olden times (gestures wildly at revival my dream) i have no reason NOT to analyse him from the philosophical perspective.

so basically the alchemist has three main goals as we said before and just for my sanity (and my english teacher’s approval even though she’s not ever going to look at this) i’ll use them to organise my thoughts.

⚠️ DISCLAIMER: this post is not properly structured or organised and may be hard to understand. if you need any clarification on anything i say here please let me know! and ofc feel free to add your own ideas! also this is not too serious or in-depth ⚠️

websites used for research have been linked in underlined words :D (ex. wikipedia)

the transmutation of metals a.k.a. turning ‘lesser’ metals into gold

this one is pretty straightforward. rui is somewhat of a metal manipulator by making his robots, and while he doesn’t turn them into gold literally he DOES make them more valuable by giving them something better — life.

now obviously your life is more valuable than gold — although capitalism says otherwise! /j

also, as wxs’ alchemist specifically, rui’s job is to take them as they are — let’s say, their base forms — and make them shine through his directing, thus making them into something brighter, like gold! (addition for all the ruikasers in chat: gold shares its alchemical symbol with the sun and the sun is a star and guess who’s a star COUGH)

something else interesting though: according to the royal society of chemistry:

“To the medieval alchemist's mind the different elements were but the same original substance in varying degrees of purity. Gold was the purest of all and silver followed closely.”

it kinda gives a bit of weight to rui’s character and (just because i have to revise it for school) his relation to the general human experience in a way. we know that rui’s been outcasted for most of his life because of his interest in shows — but at his core he is still human, just like everyone else. i keep thinking about that line from rmd whenever i think about rui and the human experience, where little rui says “i am me, people are people”. it’s not wrong per se — but he’s just as human as everyone else, is he not? that’s why his story (especially pandemonium) hits so hard imo. it also then makes sense why rui treats his robots as his “little darlings” and gives the plants so much care, because all the world is made of the same stuff — according to the alchemist, at least.

…sorry that was me extrapolating. MOVING ON

finding a single cure for all diseases

now we get into the stretchy parts of this analysis.

getting rid of all diseases would theoretically better the entire world, at least in a medical point of view. now what does rui use all of his fancy robots for? as a catalyst for making people smile with his shows, of course! as we all know, laughter is the best medicine, and a smile can brighten someone’s day (so they say).

and furthermore, all of rui’s little exploits, and generally just his character overall, work for the good of others. i don’t know if i’m using this term correctly but i feel that he’s sort of a chaotic good person: working for what is good and just, even if it goes against authority. i mean, we see this right from the start of the game’s story — making nenerobo so nene can continue pursuing her dreams; the mall area conversation where he makes a balloon stegosaurus when the employee isn’t looking, claiming that it’ll be a much better present for the lucky kid who receives it; doing his robot shows in public even if the police chase him and nobody stops by to watch it all anyway, perhaps in the hopes that just one person will be even lightly amused by his antics. even when he intended to work alone, he sought to better other people’s lives, even if they didn’t appreciate him for it. (which ofc makes me so sad)

finding the elixir of immortality

now this one i initially struggled to get a good argument for because there’s a lot of things you can talk about here. the immortalisation of an individual is one of them — in making a show or story you essentially make a permanent memoir of the ideas you had for it, or the world at the time in which you wrote it, and i suppose in the case of the wonder stage immortalising the memory of a person in keeping grandpa otori’s stage alive.

but then it hit me.

rui wants to immortalise a *moment,* not necessarily one person. the time he has with wxs. which we are all aware that they are running out of.

this isn’t that clear in the early story because he’s not as attached to them yet — which i suppose leaves a hole in my argument since he’s used the title since before the main story. but maybe he only gained this goal in its full extent after joining wxs. curtain call and our happy ending make it very clear that rui wants to be with wxs, ideally, forever. and let’s not even MENTION the fact that they worked in phoenix wonderland which is supposed to be an immortal bird!!

i suppose at its core the idea of immortalisation is to spend time with the immortal individual forever, so that they can continue to have all the wonderful moments of life. everyone fears death to some extent, after all. so therefore: rui’s current alchemic quest, alongside/after the wxs training arc, would be to find that elixir for wxs and somehow find a way to make shows with them forever… even though realising that he *needs* to let go is probably going to be the most groundbreaking part of his character progression.

rui’s philosopher’s stone (not the harry potter book)

you might be wondering why i’ve titled this section this way but i promise i’ve got a point

so the philosopher’s stone is basically related to all three of the alchemist’s goals in some form. apparently if you put it in the ground it produces metals faster? (because apparently they thought it just grew like that. you DO get stones from the ground so i guess that checks out. AND THAT’S WHY RUI IS A GEOLOGIST IN THE KIRAPIKA SET.) i think i saw an image with its symbol that called it the ‘end of all ends’. so it’s kind of a miracle object in the sense that, once discovered or created, will instantly fulfil the aims of alchemy.

now obviously being in the modern age, rui isn’t looking for something that can solve all the world’s issues forever, because that’s proven impossible. but maybe there’s something that can do the next best thing — and for rui, that’s doing shows. it might sound silly (and i’ll come back to that in a bit) but rui knows how wonderful shows can be, how they make people smile and forget their ailments for just a small moment — they don’t get rid of them, of course, but they offer the next best thing he can give. that fateful little mermaid show gave him a purpose in life, basically, something he could work towards that could affect people in ways that a robot on its own simply couldn’t.

and i suppose, in that sense, all of wxs are alchemists, too…? well, if we apply this to some sort of medieval fantasy game, they’d be in his party and help him out, right?

the alchemist as an outcasted figure

so basically from most of the stuff i read, alchemy was generally frowned upon (and even outlawed in england) due to being associated with fraud, with con artists of the time utilising the transmutation thing for their own personal gain, and just generally looking for something impossible. i think in some way this could be connected to rui being ostracized by his peers because of his ideas — he’s not a fraud, but the actual alchemists of the time tended to receive the same reputation as the con artists. and i imagine the alchemical experiments were pretty dangerous back in those times, so there’s that whole thing with people not trusting rui’s ideas to be safe and practical.

bonus related discussion: do you think maybe people were envious of rui’s ‘genius brain’ and wished he would use it for something other than shows… like scientific endeavours? idk this is just a half formed thought i had after writing this particular section. in the same way that alchemy started to become an old practice, did rui’s love for theatre and whimsy grow to be seen as farfetched at any point? maybe in that mysterious elite high school— okay that one is just me grasping at straws. but it makes you think, right?

main conclusion

the role of alchemist really fits rui to a tee, right down to the context of the times. and i’m karamell, chairwoman of the rui fanclub. and there are literally so many things that sega could play with in regards to card symbolism (COUGH the alchemic symbols COUGH COUGH) that i secretly hope to see in the future!

(and now you, dearest reader, have some completely impractical information about a bunch of pixels under your belt. read and flourish!)

bonus: planetary references

in ancient alchemic writings the planetary symbols were actually used for alchemy as well, as in they were used to identify some of the main metals. as such most of the metals are associated with the solar system as well, notably gold with the sun, silver with the moon, and mercury with, well, mercury.

now… what is rui’s colorfes card themed around?

that’s right: SPACE.

now this could be entirely coincidental bc its implied in the story that his colorfes sekai was based on one of his favourite sci-fi books (show? movie? i’m a fake rui fan what text type was Trip to the Moon) but sega likes their extended metaphors and symbolism.

so anyway that’s the REAL end of the post. that will be all. no, i didn’t need to write all of that, but i did because isn’t that what my training is for?

#karamell yells #project sekai #rui kamishiro #karamell’s confections #rui the alchemist post #has been sitting around since july… so here y’all go. happy reading ig #this is 10% research and 90% me making stuff up 😁#but um. this is the length i go to for my boy

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terrifiedtrinket · 6 months ago

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back again with more yapping bc i haven’t seen enough people say this so

TW. YAPPING, MOUTHWASHING(so sa gets mentioned yk the drill)

i was talking with gang the other night abt this:3

I LOVE MOUTHWASHING SO MUCH ITS SO WELL WRITTEN AND I SEE SO MANY PEOPLE OVERSIMPLIFYING IT AND ITS BS

people boil down anya to her trauma, outright ignore the fact that jimmy isnt the only bad person on the ship*COUGH COUGH* CURLY!!!! they treat jimmy like just… how people treat him

i get the jokes and i wont say that some of them aren’t funny but people will hate on jimmy then turn around and be like “OH EM GEE AM!!!!”

people like characters who have done the same thing and worse

this does NOT mean that it’s okay to be a jimmy apologist. but there’s no issue with liking him as a character. HE IS EXTREMELY WELL WRITTEN.

all the characters in mouthwashing are so well written and it honestly pains me to see how oversimplified they get.

ANYA!!! not even any coughs

the way people boil her down to her trauma is just???? and they’re like “oh, but thats how she acts” MOST OF THE GAME IS IN JIMMY’S PERSPECTIVE!!! OF FREAKING COURSE SHE IS GONNA BE A LITTLE NERVOUS AROUND HIM!! if you look at how she acts when we’re playing as curly she is SO much calmer.

JIMMY PROJECTS ONTO HER

WE ARE PLAYING JIMMY MOST OF THE GAME

WHEN HE SAYS SHIT ABT ANYA HE IS PROJECTING!!! the fact that anya is able to keep curly alive is absolutely insane when she has basically a first aid kit

ANYA IS EXTREMELY COMPETENT

jimmy just doesnt see her as an equal. hence why he doesnt “take responsibility” for actually assaulting anya but just taking away potential life from the baby essentially

mothwashing isnt just “jimmy rapes anya and ruins everything”

mouthwashing is about SO MUCH MORE than just THAT. its about the culture AROUND THAT the way that people(LIKE CURLY) let their friends or people in general get away with things like that. its about rape culture.

CURLY IS NOT A STAND UP CITIZEN! i see so many curly apologists. HE DID DO WRONG!!! HE LET JIMMY GET AWAY WITH WHAT HE DID TO ANYA!

he 100% DID NOT deserve what happened to him, but he still wasn’t 100% a good person either.

and the babyfication of daisuke(and anya tbh).. like it gets to a point where i genuinely just cant anymore. that is an adult man and i get it to a point but like… c’mon guys. this happens way to much in fandoms in general and it’s saddening.

like thats not ur smol bean baby do no wrong, that is a well written character that you are oversimplifying a disgusting amount.

speaking of, not enough people really acknowledge how dehumanized curly really is. i know its for shits and giggles most of the time but burned up curly gets treated like a dog when he is still fully conscious and painfully aware of his situation

this goes again with the whole ignoring every other part of the game except for the part that jimmy gets anya pregnant. i feel like too many people ignore the true horror of mouthwashing.

ALSO SHIPPING SHOULD NOT BE PART OF THE MOUTHWASHING FANDOM? at least not within the canon characters

i love seeing people’s self insert ocs keep posting that in general:3

BUT THE ONLY SHIPS THAT SHOULD BE IN MOUTHWASHING ARE SWANSEA X HIS WIFE

and maybe jimmy x polle bc it’s funny

i love the one artist that draws jimmy like.. hallucinating polle flirting with him. that shit is amazing i eat it up. anywayz

i HATE curly x anya it is NOT cute it is NOT couples goalz; curly is her abuser’s enabler.

i think that everybody on the tulper just has their own relationships at home. there doesnt need to be romance in everything.

stop shoving things where they don’t belong especially when there’s no base!!

i could go on and on forever repeating myself probably barfing up and stumbling over what im trying to say, but im just gonna stop here

the mouthwashing fandom makes me mad

i love the mouthwashing fandom and they can be really cool sometimes

but it makes me mad

BAD MEDIA LITERACY DNI!!1!!!!1!!1!2!!!!!!1!1!

this has been in my drafts for like 2 weekz

#media literacy #rant post #not so mini rant #mouthwashing #mouthwashing game #yapping #text post #mouthwashing rant #ugh #yeah

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jazzically · 6 months ago

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YAY OK IT IS TIME FOR MY FAVORITE MAG.....

#30 — killing floor

:3 i love this im glad i started relistening

(god lmao jon hasnt even started reading yet and i already yapped enough to create two other posts)

OOOOUGH OKAY i nearly forgot but one of the reasons i like this ep so much is bc of how smoothly the introduction pieces segue into one another. david (the statement giver) talks about how he used to work at an abattoir, then how it's in the middle of nowhere, then about how slaughterhouses are usually not near anything because people get weird vibes™ from them, then his own indifference (which, as foreshadowing, he mentions in the past tense) to these weird vibes, and THEN with that tense setup out of the way, the story begins. it's already got such a good mood in place. nothing is overdone, no long-winded speeches about how the institute's archives must think him terribly cold-hearted or whatever...

(and u just know its gonna be good because. i mean. of course meat processing plants are gonna be breeding grounds for horrifying flesh-adjacent manifestations!!!! this is in s1 btw so its not like immediately super predictable. mass production, bodily insignificance... classic metaphorical hotspots for my dear viscera)

ok resuming now

GOD DAMN SORRY PAUSE AGAIN. remember when i posted about panopticon by harvo? well ever since ive been listening to the songs obvi and the one for the Flesh (spoilers for aforementioned album sorry) samples a line in this statement. i completely agree with their selection but its just so UUUGHHH. so um. visceral. if youll permit my joke. ha ha. EEEEEEEEEEEEGH perhaps you oughta go listen to it (shameless propaganda of a fanwork i love) it's so good!! i wont say which line but i could almost hear the instrumental going with it when it came up lmao spooked me just as much as when i first heard it in the song

man!!!!!! the overlap between fears is just so cool!!!!!! i love you endless abattoir with your themes of insanity (the slaughterhouse changes its structure; no doors lead where they should) and insignificance (every animal is just one more body in an endless ocean of produce) and senseless violence (the inherent bloodshed that comes with carnivorism) and coming death (knowing you are about to be met with a grisly end) and uncanny valley (is this where i should be? is this how we remember each other? what kind of animal looks like that?) and control ("casual human brutality") and escape (the frantic search for an exit) and isolation (no one was there; no one was anywhere) and of course bodily mutilation (what are we but another organism?)

anyway applause applause all around!!!!!! that was brilliant!!!!!! also i entirely forgot about the giant torso grinder cavern room so that came as a delightful surprise

it reminds me of the flesh pit/meat mouth in mag 130 (exactly a hundred episodes later :0)

#tma #the magnus archives #tma.txt #mag 30 #jazz freaks out about tma #the flesh

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vnzndt · 2 years ago

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Honestly like this is gonna sound really annoying or whatever but finding out that he doesn't run the fanart acc after the initial sort of disappointment it was like. Kind of really relieving for me because I left twitter completely a few weeks ago, and it was the only thing that made me wanna go back was the sliver of a chance he might see my shit but. Idk. It makes me feel better about leaving. I got my rt and my reply I think that's enough :)

nooo i don’t think it’s annoying at all

imo there’s been a lot of unspoken jealousy and competition in the fanartist community when it came to the dranart account and i think it clouded a lot of artist’s vision and motivation when it became such a driving factor in posting fanart. it definitely was not dream’s fault and it’s also not any artist’s fault because jealousy is a very natural emotion which is bound to be triggered ESPECIALLY when posting on a platform as toxic as twitter (which essentially feels like literal high school with its cliques and popularity and weird hierarchies, not a dttwt problem, but an every fandom on twitter problem)

all in all i think relief is a super valid reaction to all of this and i definitely feel it too even if i don’t plan on leaving twitter. the need for validation via a dranart like was affecting me a lot more than i realized and that sliver of hope he would notice it was definitely a driving factor behind my motivation & how it somewhat shifted from drawing for fun -> drawing for attention

i think it’s been both disappointing and eye opening and i hope more artists feel comfortable enough to talk about the burnout that was unintentionally caused by the nature of twitter & its algorithm, including how that swayed who got a dranart notice or not, not wether dream actually “liked” your art or not.

i also hope this is an opportunity for growth when it comes to the community uplifting artists, not just dream, which i think is something we’ve struggled with as a fanbase in the past. i think that alone plays a big part into the toxic mindset a lot of us have developed where dranart notice = huge boost from the community, huge boost from the community = feeling insecure about a lack of interaction on posts that didn’t get a dranart notice, when it could easily be somewhat avoided if non-artists uplifted art by simply looking for it out of their own volition and not because dranart put it on their timeline

i’m yapping so much but my point is it’s okay to be relived and i think we should embrace it & acknowledge that there’s a reason as to WHY we’re relieved, because that relief doesn’t just come from nowhere 🥸

#i could talk about the fanartist community and its dynamics for hours #what 4 years in dttwt does to a mf #ollie asks #yapping

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nerdlvr · 9 months ago

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heyy aggy, just wanna start off by saying how i am so sorry for the hate you’ve been receiving. you honestly don’t deserve it like you’re litch my fav writer and i love your smau’s. idk how u do it but its like you put some sort of magic in your work to make it so funny yet entertaining.

anyway idek if this is where you’re supposed to send things like this (this is my first time writing on tumblr so idk how it works). anywho, i was thinking of writing my own fiction, (still unsure whether i want it written or smau or a mix of both) but tbh, idek how to set up a public profile and if i just post my first chapter immediately or do like an intro as my first post or smth 😭😭. so if possible, is it alright if you can give me some tips on like writing, posting and using tumblr and all that stuff.

also another issue i have is like time management 😅😅. like tbh i sorta roughly planned a fic based on jaehyuns songs dandelion & roses when they first got released. ive written a rough plan for fun and now idk i js feel like actually making it come to life despite it not rly being that original and possibly rly boring 😭. but let’s say i do make it happen, my school just loves giving me tests and projects during the same week and day !! so like idk if im gonna be dedicated enough yk

i js realised i yapped a lot and my writings all over the place so i am really really really sorry and i understand if you don’t get to this soon 😭😭🙏🏻🙏🏻

hi! thank you cutie 😭

well the first step is always choosing a cute layout for your tumblr page, just make it your own whether it's your bias, favorite color, or something you like. your profile layout is the image of you basically.

when it comes to posts it depends on what you'r trying to plan. i started with a post like this to kinda make a base for my profile (i am obsessed with links) that post can direct people to different parts of your page and it's a way of letting readers know who you are and what you do!

when it comes to the actual writing: for smau's i typically make a masterlist post like this to kinda give a preview of what the smau is about, it's kinda like a teaser. also don't forget to add tags to ur post that way you can reach your target audience and make sure the certain fandoms reach your work! when it comes to writing fics or blurbs you can only pretty much rely on the tags, so you just have to rawdog it and post the fic 😭.

i feel like one of the issues i have when i post is "will someone actually want to read this?" and tbh you just gotta go for it 😭 there will always be works with similar themes or concepts and that's okay as long as you're not taking someone else's work! something like the enemies to lovers is a trope that is literally everywhere, it's just about making it your own! don't be scared to post just go for it and as you make more posts you'll get used to it and everything will just flow. sometimes there will be interactions and sometimes there won't be, and that's okay! it's about being proud of your work and continuing to grow as you go!

time management is also an issue for me and the most i can tell you is to understand that coming on here and writing should be something enjoyable for you not a chore, so when you have downtime you can come and make a post, you don't need to post consistently, sometimes a writer doesn't have all the time in the world and you should make it clear to your readers that you are busy and will post only when you have time! as long as you know you'll come back and continue your chapters or updating then it doesn't matter if you're gone for 2 weeks, those who grow to love you will stay and wait!

#jji lee #asks!

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tamaharu · 1 year ago

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okay because i got frustrated i decided to crunch some numbers 🫶 join me for my yapping below

firstly ill say outright im talking about faith for the second run. i wasnt going to read it because some of the first chap annoyed me but when i saw a bunch of people drawing sumire about it i decided i may as well see what the hype was about. and its fun! its very generic honestly but i had an enjoyable enough time. until i started to notice a certain pattern.

FFSR tends to shift POVs when it shifts scenes. sometimes itll stick with one POV over multiple scene changes in the row, but it just outright shifts more often then not. so um. hey why is sumire seemingly getting less POV scenes than ren and akechi considering shes initially presented as the main-main character.

one dont think too hard about the implications of what went into doing this. two this count does not factor in A. when sumire is featured in a non-pov section, B. the actual word count of each section, or C. how actually cool and feministly written this may or may not be. also its fanfiction and doesnt matter. but im making this post both to fact check my own feelings of annoyance and point out a very frustrating trend.

there are 232 different POV sections in the 40 chapters that are currently released.

sumire is the POV character 83 times

akechi is the POV character 78 times

ren is the POV character 61 times

someone else is the POV character 10 times

which! hooray, sumire gets the most POV scenes! but um hey quick question why is sumire only leading by five scenes ahead akechi in her own goddamn fic. why do shuake have 139 scenes in the sumire fic. that is a solid 60% of the POV scenes, where sumire is closer to 36%. hi?

and like. whatever! it doesnt even matter! its a fanfiction! they can write whatever they want! they were upfront about it being a royal trio fic and had both ren and akechi POVs in ch2! who cares! but like. i care. i was kind of going into this in part because i am a fan of a severely underutilized female character, one who often gets written away as the third wheel to the male main characters, or just straight up not written at all. and its so tiresome to have that happen again and again, especially on something that should ostensibly about should be about her. shes a side character in p5r, sure, but its a pattern everywhere, for every piece of media, for every female character. it doesnt matter, and it does. it matters so much. god i wish people actually cared about sumire.

reading that 'sumire time travels to the beginning of the year' fic and its pretty good but sometimes its like. they already made a game about the gayboys. can we please talk about sumire more.

#the clock chimes at midnight

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its-deputy-caleb · 4 years ago

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would u possibly do some NSFW morbell? where they're up in colter ( i loved ur original morbell post on them ) pls do more as i love ur blog 💛

this is an absolute mess oml i literally have no idea how to write anything smutty but here we go i guess. I love this pair but i kinda went off topic and centred this on a praise kink for micah. ANYWAY this is probably terrible since i'm melting, its literally 40 degrees and the aircon is broken so its unedited af and i wont look at it again until i have a cold drink. but pls enjoy some morbell <333

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

‘Cold up in Colter’

Fuck, what a mess Blackwater had been. The Pinkertons were on them faster than ever and they found themselves fleeing from a blood bath.

That was almost three days ago and Micah hadn’t had an ounce of sleep. He’d been sent out with John to scout ahead, having found a homestead which ended up burning at the hand of O’Driscoll’s. Okay maybe house burning down was his fault but he tends to make stupid decisions when he’s had little to know sleep. And it was so fucking cold.

That didn’t stop heat rising to his face when he felt Arthur’s hands on his shoulder, pushing him back with a roughness he could only wish for in another way. Damn Arthur Morgan and his ability to have Micah curling in on himself and blushing like a virgin at the mere thought of a hand on his shoulder.

He should hate Arthur, really the two are nothing more than rivals, competing for the spot of Dutch Van Der Linde’s right hand. At the beginning, almost six months ago now, Micah couldn’t stand the sight of the man but somehow that anger tapered off into something more akin to admiration and that admiration slowly turned to desire.

He’ll never admit to how badly he wants Arthur but he won’t deny however that he’s pushed the man’s buttons more than once just to have an interaction with him. All he had to do start a silly argument over camp earnings or a bet at five finger fillet to have the man shaking him by the collar and threatening to break his nose.

It almost always ended with Micah sneaking off into the woods with half a bottle of whiskey and his pants bunched around his ankles as he thought of the way Arthur roughed him up by his shirt collar. Fuck he was pathetic sometimes.

There were other occasions where the two had actually managed to get along and that’s what pissed Micah off more than any threats of violence. Arthur just had to go and bring him a beer as he grabbed one for himself, letting their fingers touch accidentally. Or he went and offered him a seat by the fireplace where they ended up much to close for his comfort. Damn Arthur for always leaving him short of breath with a hole in his heart.

Despite what Micah did to impress Dutch, Arthur was still the camp’s favourite by a mile and he never failed to outcompete him in the eyes of the gang. Micah never minded much, not looking for anyone’s approval, but the thought of proving himself to Arthur, of being worthy of his praise is enough to have his wild side reined in.

Naturally that didn’t stop Micah from losing it from time to time and wasn’t surprised when his jealousy shot up again as Miss Grimshaw announced Arthur got his own cabin while he shared with the rest of the fellers. And he’d be damned if he had to share a room with Williamson who didn’t stop snoring.

That’s why he found himself huddled in the makeshift stables, choosing instead to wrap himself in his coat and down a bottle of whiskey to wait the night out. He cold planks he was sitting on offered little comfort and the draft in the room had his lip shaking. But at least he wouldn’t have anyone in his hair and he’d be left alone, just the way he liked it.

Of course that didn’t last long when the cranky wooden door was barged open, spooking some of the horses in the opposite end of the room. A broad figure entered the room, blocking most of the door way but that didn’t stop to whoosh of cold air flood into the room, draining even more colour from his face.

It wasn’t until the door was closed and the man stepped closer when he realised it was Arthur.

“Micah? What the hell are you doing in here?”

Arthur sounded surprised, with only a hint of concern in his voice.

“Sleepin’— what the hell ya doing here Morgan?”

There wasn’t much of a response from Arthur, only a quiet noise which was barely heard over the whistle of the wind between the planks. He walked over to the horses, checking over them and ensuring none of them were freezing to death. Micah watched in silence, scared to disturb the man as he patted along Taima’s neck.

It wasn’t until after Arthur had checked over all the horses did he turn his attention to Micah.

Micah watched as Arthur’s gloved hand extended out and offered itself to him, he hesitated before taking before taking it and being pulled to his feet. Arthur’s hand draped over his shoulder which he didn’t realise had shaking in an effort to keep warm, having drunk the remaining whiskey from the bottle.

“Common now, yer gonna freeze in here alone.”

Micah dug his heels into the ground, not allowing Arthur to pull him any further to the door as he tried to hold his voice steady. He’d be damned if he ever let Arthur know just how much he affected him.

“I ain’t sharing a bunk with Williams—“

Arthur tutted, pulling Micah out the door as he pushed him towards his cabin in the snow storm.

“Quit yer yapping, you’re sharing with me and I ain’t having any more folk die tonight. Now let’s go.”

Arthur didn’t utter another word until they were well and truely in his room, wrapped in a blanket that was barely big enough for the two of them. The bed wasn’t much bigger, having been made for one person which was evident by Arthur pressing against Micah’s back in efforts for them to fit. The only thing that kept them apart was the fabric of their jackets, otherwise Arthur would probably hear Micah’s heartbeat which was beating much to fast for his liking.

The uncomfortable silence was broken when Micah cursed under his breath which caused his teeth to chatter and Arthur spoke up.

“Yer still cold, c'mere”

Micah’s breath fell short as Arthur’s hands slid under his coat, resting his hands on his tummy to use his body heat as a source of warmth. In doing so Arthur had moved even closer, ensuring Micah’s back was flush against his chest.

Despite that Micah wanted to protest, to go straight to his default of arguing he couldn’t help but feel as he began to warm up and he slowly relaxed under his hands.

A blush rose high on his cheeks as Arthur also relaxed into their embrace, accidentally letting his hands drift lower until he felt the hard press of Micah’s straining erection against his knuckle.

Micah instantly sucked in a breath, panicking and trying to push his way out of Arthur’s hold.

“Shit Arthur I—“

Micah froze as Arthur gently pulled him back to the bed and rubbed slow circles along his stomach.

“S’alright Micah, I’m not mad…”

Arthur held him close, letting him relax before talking again before he whispered right into the shell of his ear.

“…This what you want? Is this why you’re always staring at me from across camp, why yer always picking fights and asking me to robberies?”

A high pitched noise left Micah as he shivered, feeling Arthur’s hot breath against his ear. His blush deepened as he pushed back slightly into him, whimpering at the feel of Arthur’s own erection pressed against his ass.

Fuck it, he thought as heat pooled in his abdomen and he finally allowed himself to have the one thing he’d been craving for months. He nodded frantically, grinding back onto Arthur’s clothed dick and squirming in his grip.

“Relax boy, gonna give you everything you’ve been waiting for— just be good and you’ll get it”

Micah nodded in agreement, a needy, desperate sound leaving him at the promise of praise. He wanted, no needed to be praised by the man so badly that he’d do anything for an ounce of it from the man.

“Oh god Arthur! I need it, need you. Fuck I can be good I promise.”

He knew he was probably being too loud but apart of him didn’t have it in him to care. He moaned softly as Arthur moved him to roll onto his back, towering over him but ensuring they were still kept under the blanket.

Arthur spent the next ten minutes undressing him without exposing much of his skin to the cold. He unbuttoned the lower buttons of his leather jacket, enough for Arthur to work his fly down and pull one pant leg off. He whined pitifully, grabbing at the lapels of Arthur’s coat in a silent plea for him to undress him properly.

Micah mentally scolded himself at just how desperate he was for Arthur to rip his clothes off and fuck him like a bitch in heat but he knew that wasn’t happening any time soon. Arthur however caught on pretty quickly to what he wanted, it seemed the man knew just what made him tick.

“I know sweetheart, once we’re well and truly outta here I’ll get us a room and we can do this properly.”

Micah’s eyes beamed at the thought of Arthur taking him to a hotel in the future, panting as his mind raced with images of Morgan making him fall apart on his cock for hours on end.

While Micah was busy in his mind, Arthur took the opportunity to retrieve the gun oil from his satchel. It certainly wasn’t the best option but it was their only choice with their limited supplies.

Arthur draped himself back over Micah’s body, kissing at his jaw and nibbling as he coated his fingers. The air was cold, only making the oil feel colder as he slowly dipped his index finger past Micah’s rim.

A devilish grin came to Arthur’s face as he heard Micah sigh and take his finger easily, deciding to work his way up to two sooner than he was expecting.

“You’ve wanted this for a long time haven’t you? I saw you once, bout a week ago. Head down, ass up with three of yer fingers inside you while you cried out for me to fuck you. It all clicked in my head then when you started acting different around me at camp.”

Micah flushed a deep red, coughing on air as he realised Arthur knew about his little crush. He tried to think of an excuse, to weasel his way out of it but his thoughts died in his head when Arthur twisted his fingers, scissoring and stretching him open before adding a third.

Arthur dragged a lip along Micah’s cheek to his lip, ghosting his lips over his before kissing him properly. This time Micah didn’t even try to fight for dominance, opening his mouth instantly for Arthur’s tongue to enter. Instead he sighed into it, pulling his legs to wrap around his waist as his hands wrapped around his lover’s shoulder.

It went on like that until Arthur was satisfied that Micah was well prepped enough, simultaneously rubbing against Micah’s prostate while he kissed him deeply. He only pulled away to pull his own leaking member out, bunching his pants around his thighs so he had enough room to move but could stay warm. He coated the rest of the oil onto his member, jerking slowly as he stared down at the sight of Micah below him.

Micah looked like an absolute mess against the pillows already, his face was flush and the scarf around his head had unwrapped slightly, revealing his disheveled blond hair. His chest was heaving as he panted and his thighs shook from pleasure as the weakly wrapped around his waist.

“You look so pretty like this sweetheart”

To say that Micah hated the pet name was a lie, one that he didn’t try deny as he moaned softly. His back arched and he gripped Arthur’s coat tightly as he felt his cock slide between his cheeks and over his hole. He’s wanted this for so long now and yet somehow it still didn’t quite feel real as his mind was clouded with arousal.

Micah’s toes curled and he moaned when he felt Arthur push into him, slowly inching forward until he felt him bottom out.

“Ah— ah! Oh Arthur fuck! Please fuck me, I’ll be good I swear.”

Micah practically sobbed with pleasure as Arthur set up a fast pace, pulling almost all the way out till just the tip was left inside his tight hole before pushing back in quickly, brushing his prostate in the process. His cock twitched from where it rested against his tummy, pinned between Arthur’s jacket which caused a string of moans to fall from his mouth.

“Look at you, so good for me— fucking perfect Micah. Such a good boy”

Arthur’s hands came to hold onto Micah’s hips for leverage, pulling on his slight muffin top under the jacket to help pull him back to meet his thrusts. Beneath him he heard Micah whine and whimper at the praise so desperately needed to hear.

Micah bought a finger up to his mouth, biting on his knuckle to silence any more noises he deemed to be pathetic from slipping out of him. He hated how close he already was just from being praised by Arthur.

It seemed Arthur wasn’t having any of it when he pulled his finger away from his mouth before kissing him like he had done not that long ago. He swallowed every one of Micah’s noises, mindful of Dutch sleeping next door and slowing his thrusts to something deeper and slower.

His hands roamed all over Micah’s clothed body, breaking away for air and whispering praises down his ear.

“That’s it, make those pretty noises for me sweetheart.”

Micah eye’s rolled into his head as he cried out.

“You’re mine, all for me— my good boy.”

More moans slipped from his lips.

“Atta boy— taking me so well, so good.”

His back arched and he withered in his embrace

“So eager to please aren’t you? I’ll take care of you now boy.”

“—Arthur! I’m close— Ah, I’m gonna—“

“Go on sweetheart cum for me…that’s it good boy.”

Micah’s whole body when rigid as he finally came. His mouth hung open, tongue lolling out as his orgasm dragged out with each thrust Arthur delivered, eager to chase his own.

He collapsed into the pillow, thighs shaking as he whined at the oversensitivity. It didn’t last long before Arthur’s thrusts changed pace to something more erratic, picking up the pace as he spilled his load inside him.

Arthur groaned into his neck, pulling him close and collapsing into him as he regained his breath.

He pulled out slowly with a wet and obscene pop, sitting up and helping Micah put his clothes back on. Micah only weakly managed to fiddle with the button on his jacket while Arthur gently manhandled his jelly-like limbs to fit back into his pant leg. He used the blanket to wipe the cum off his tummy, a weak attempt at cleaning up and something they would both no doubt regret come tomorrow morning but for now they were keen to sleep after such a horrific and chaotic few days.

Arthur pulled Micah into their original position for the night, the only difference being that his face was now tucked into his chest. Arthur rested his chin of Micah’s head, littering his hair with kisses as he played with his hair between his rough fingers.

Micah was the first to fall asleep, curled up with his forehead against Arthur’s collarbone. Arthur wasn’t far behind him either, finally letting himself get some much needed rest but not before he pressed a soft kiss to his hairline.

#morbell #micah bell #arthur morgan

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