#the clone thing opens up way more questions than the robot

[boyrobott]

everybody says they love me (but i'm still brokenhearted)

It's been six days now since Astro fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

Read on AO3.

It's been six days now since Astro fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

Actually, now that he thinks about it, there are a whole lot of things wrong with him, and it's probably more than enough to fill up an entire book at this point — or, at the absolute least, make for a pretty long list. And it begins with the fact that he's a robot — a real actual robot, like those guys calling themselves the RRF, or the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard, or the new zeronium automations rolling off the factory line in the Ministry of Science this month — and he knows it's true, he knows it's real, he saw the wires and circuits under his skin with his own eyes, he saw the Core spinning slow and steady in his chest, crackling with electricity and burning blue, but he just can't get his head around it.

Every night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, his eyes wide open in the dark, staring up at the splintered wooden bottom of Zane's bunk, right above his own, and he tries to figure out exactly where Tobi ends, and where Astro begins. Every night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, and he tries to figure out if all these feelings swirling around inside him — the grief heavy and cold in the pit of his stomach, and the hope a tiny, tentative flicker of light in the center of his chest — are really his feelings at all, or just lines on lines on lines of code written into his brain by the man who made him, and then threw him away like he was garbage.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he was just a robot.

Maybe it wouldn't be so bad if he was just your ordinary, average, run-of-the-mill factory-made machine. Maybe that would be okay. Maybe he could get his head around that. Maybe he could figure out what to do with that.

But that's not what he is.

He's the mechanical replica of a dead boy. He's a copy of a corpse. He's a clone, a faint echo of somebody long gone, a pale and empty and imperfect imitation that isn't even supposed to exist, and no one wants him, and he looks in the mirror, and a face that isn't his looks back at him — Tobi's brown eyes, and Tobi's round cheeks, and Tobi's spiked-up black hair, and Tobi's nose, and Tobi's ears, and Tobi's mouth, and Tobi's voice coming out of that mouth, and Tobi's favorite blue jacket on his shoulders and Tobi's favorite red boots on his feet, and this face isn't his and this body isn't his and these clothes aren't his and this brain isn't his and these memories of a whole entire life before last week aren't his and these feelings aren't his and everything he's ever had and everything he's ever said and everything he's ever thought and everything he's ever felt isn't his,because he's not even a real person!

The one and only thing he can truly call his own is his new name.

And he's spent the last six days down on the Surface below Metro City, trying to pass himself off as a Totally Normal Human Boy With Absolutely No Inexplicably Robotic Attributes Whatsoever. No, siree, just your average, ordinary, unremarkable preteen kid over here!

But here's the really crazy thing: It's working.

Astro can barely believe it, but no one has asked him any probing or uncomfortable questions, or even spared him a second look, since the night he showed up here, trailing behind Cora and Zane with his heart in his throat and his stomach tied up in knots, and nervously stammering out flimsy half-truths about his parents and his past, praying no one would dig any deeper, and so sure that he was doing it all wrong, that his posture was too stiff and too tense, that his facial expressions were shifting too fast and too smoothly until they all blended into each other in the most glaringly and unnaturally inhuman way possible, and what if he forgot to blink as much as everyone else? what if he forgot to breathe as much as everyone else? what if the truth was written all over him somewhere that he couldn't see — on his forehead, or on his back, maybe, spelled out in big bold letters saying this isn't a real person, this isn't a real person, this isn't a real person, don't let him fool you, he's a fake, he's faking, he's not a real person, he looks like he's a real person, but he's not, he's a fake, he's a fake, he's a fake!

But it's been six days now, and nobody has said anything about it.

Not even yesterday, when they were cleaning up ZOG for the Robot Games (which Astro still isn't totally sure he understands, but when he tried to ask them about it again, Zane shrugged it off and said it's a Surface thing, dude, so that probably means he'll just have to see it for himself before he really gets it) and Cora slipped off the robot's gleaming bronze shoulder, the bottoms of her shoes slick with soapy water, and he had to fire up his rocket boots to catch her before she hit the ground (because what on earth was he supposed to do in that situation, anyway? just let her fall?) she didn't call him out on it, and nobody else did, either.

And that must mean nobody saw it.

Look, he knows he can't keep this up forever, okay? He knows he has to tell them the truth sooner or later, and he knows it's better to just face the music, just get it over with, and more than anything, he knows they deserve it — after everything they've done for him, the way they welcomed him into their home and their family and their lives with open arms and no reservations, treating him just the same as every other kid around here even though they only met him last week.

They deserve to know what he really is.

And they deserve to hear it directly from him.

Seriously, what does he even have to be afraid of? Hamegg said himself that he loves robots, after all, and it's not like the other kids have any problems with them, either — they were so excited to meet ZOG just a few days ago when Astro got him back online, rushing right over to the giant without so much as a minute of hesitation, and they definitely dote on Trash Can every chance they get, petting him and praising him and spoiling him with treats of all kinds — so it's not like they're going to do a complete one-eighty and decide they hate him specifically for being one, right? Sure, he's not exactly as cool and awesome and crazy-strong as ZOG, and he's obviously not cute and charming and lovable like Trash Can, but there must be something in him they like, right? There must be some reason they let him come home with them that day in the junkyard, right? There must be some reason they didn't just walk away and leave him to fend for himself in the scrap heaps, right? There must be some reason they like him, right? There has to be something they like about him. There has to be something, and if it was enough to convince them to let him into their weird, wonderful family, it must be enough for them to like him even though he's a robot.

Right?

He really shouldn't be so nervous about this.

He really shouldn't be so afraid.

But it's been six days now since he fell to the Surface, and there is something wrong with him.

His whole body has been aching like one big bruise all day long, a dull but constant pulse of pain spreading out and out and out like ripples on a pond until every last inch of him hurts. His arms and legs feel oddly stiff, and sore, almost swollen at the joints in his knees and elbows, and when he tries to bend his limbs, or stand up, or turn his head, he—

—he creaks.

Like the rusted metal hinge on Tobi's locker door at school as it swings open. Like an old wooden floorboard when it takes on too much weight. Like a couple of steel gears grinding roughly together. Like a failing engine in a broken-down hovercar. Like a window that hasn't been opened in a while. Like the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard. Like a robot.

And it's so excruciatingly, piercingly loud that the other kids can actually hear it, too, looking around the room with baffled frowns on their faces for a second or two before they shake their heads, shrug it off, say it must be ZOG, or Trash Can, or some new project that Hamegg is working on down in his shop, and Astro knows he really shouldn't be so nervous about this, he knows he really shouldn't be so afraid, but every time he moves, and that godawful screeching, scraping noise rings out, he holds his breath and he waits for them to work out the truth, his hands trembling in his lap and all the air in his lungs turning rapidly to ice.

He really shouldn't be so nervous about this.

He really shouldn't be so afraid.

But his secret is closer to the surface than it's ever been before, and he is so, so terrified.

That night, he lays awake long after everyone else has already gone to sleep, his eyes wide open in the dark, staring up at the splintered bottom of Zane's bunk, right above his own, and he tries not to move around too much, because it hurts, and he tries to figure out what on earth could be wrong with him.

"I-I don't know what's going on," he whispers, finally, to Trash Can — who has apparently decided he doesn't actually mind Astro all that much, because the minute they started shutting off the lights and crawling under the covers, he trotted over to Astro's bunk and curled up at the foot of the bed with a contented little whirr. "I don't know what's going on with me, Trash Can. If I can't fix it…"

Trash Can yawns so wide that his mechanical jaw pops, and gives a single, drowsy beep in response. Boy needs oil.

Astro goes dead still beneath his patched blanket, breath catching somewhere in the back of his throat. He didn't hear that right. There is no way he heard that right. There is no way he actually heard that right. "W-What did you just say?"

Boy needs oil, Trash Can repeats, slower and sleepier this time. Robots creak when oil is low. Boy creaks because oil is low.

"What?" Astro says, reflexively, even as all the air rushes from his chest in a heavy, shuddering gasp, and his whole body goes cold as ice — of course he knows that robots need oil, because Orrin's body used to groan like this whenever he was due for a refill, and ZOG drank almost two entire gallons of the stuff earlier today, and Trash Can will lap it straight from his dog bowl in the corner of the kitchen with his tiny, metallic tongue, but he's never actually connected any of that to himself, because he's not like that.

…Is he?

Boy is robot, Trash Can chirps unhelpfully, like he really thinks Astro needs the reminder right now. Robots need oil. Boy needs oil.

Astro shakes his head, and he doesn't even care about the horrible noise it makes anymore. "But I'm not—I'm not like—" he swallows, a little too hard, the word burning a hole right through the inside of his mouth until he has to shift gears in the middle of his sentence, "—that."

Trash Can whines in confusion, lifting his head an inch or two off the lumpy, torn-up mattress. Hasn't boy ever needed oil before?

"…I don't think so?"

There's a long stretch of silence then, and Astro is just beginning to think the dog must have fallen asleep, or gotten bored of him, or something, when another shrill beep rings out from the foot of the bed. How old is boy?

"Uh…" He frowns, and plucks at a loose, fraying thread on the edge of his blanket as he thinks it through, careful not to put too much strength into the motion so he doesn't accidentally unravel the whole thing. "I-I don't know. No one told me. It's been about a week since I woke up in the lab, though, and I think that was my first day."

Oh, Trash Can says, like everything makes perfect sense now, and he sits up a little, ears perked. Why didn't boy say so before? Boy is baby!

"What?!" Astro isn't actually sure if it's physically possible for him to blush, but a rush of heat definitely floods his face. "No! I'm eleven years old! Th-That's, like, practically a teenager!"

Babies are small, Trash Can chirps at him, with an air of absolute authority. Babies don't know anything. Everything is new to babies. And boy is small. And boy doesn't know anything. And everything is new to boy. Boy is baby.

And then the dog curls up at the foot of the bed again, paws tucked under his chin and eyes squeezed shut, like the matter is settled.

Astro scowls at him for a second or two — just because he's only been alive for seven days total doesn't make him a baby! — but he's got way bigger problems on his plate right now than his age, and everything it apparently means in Robot Years, or whatever. (Or… maybe it's just Robot Dog Years? Are Robot Dog Years different from Regular Dog Years? Maybe he should ask Hamegg.) He doesn't want a refill of oil to be the solution to his creaking body and aching joints — which is really kind of stupid, actually, because a refill of oil is just about the simplest, easiest fix in the world, and he could go ahead and take care of it now, while everyone else is fast asleep and no one will ever know and no one will ever find out — but it's not like he's got any better ideas.

"Do you…" he nudges the dog lightly in the side to get his attention again. "Do you really think it will help me? Oil, I mean?"

Trash Can lets out a sleepy, affirmative beep. Robots need oil. All robots need oil. Even baby robots.

Astro pointedly ignores the jab. "Right… yeah… um… Hamegg has some in his shop, doesn't he?"

Man has oil, Trash Can nods. Man has lots and lots of oil. Man will give oil. Ask man to give oil.

Astro doesn't know why he didn't expect that, but he really didn't expect that, and it sends a sharp, awful jolt straight to the pit of his queasy stomach just to hear it. "No! I-I can't do that!"

Trash Can sits up again, cocking his head to the side in confusion. Man gives oil. Trash Can asks, and man gives. Man gives oil to all robots. Boy is robot. Man will give if boy asks.

And Astro is sure he's right, sure that Hamegg wouldn't withhold a basic necessity like that from any robot who asks (even if they have spent the past six days lying to him) but his insides still feel like a writhing, hissing nest of angry vipers when he thinks about it. "No, Trash Can, I… I can't. I just can't." He tries to swallow, but there's a hard block at the back of his throat, and it won't let him. "I-I don't want him to find out like that." I don't want him to find out ever, but he pushes the thought away, shoves it to the back of his mind and locks it up tight, because that's bad, and wrong, and not fair to the man who has treated him as nothing less than his own flesh-and-blood son ever since he stepped through the door.

Trash Can considers this for a long, silent minute, his bright blue eyes glowing faintly in the dark and his tiny ears flicking back and forth, before he finally lets out another, more authoritative chirp. Trash Can knows where oil is. Trash Can take you to oil.

Before he can say anything to that, the dog jumps off the bed, and scampers out of the room — through the raggedy, rust-red curtain that divides the bedroom from the rest of the house, through the empty, darkened living room, up the stairs, around the corner, and right through the automatic door that slides open with a big whoosh as soon as it senses the weight and motion of living people in front of it.

And then, just like that, they're in Hamegg's workshop.

Even as Astro follows Trash Can over the threshold and toward the big plastic crate in the corner chock-full of tin cans, his stomach is tight with guilt, and he feels filthy all over. He shouldn't be doing this. He really should not be doing this. He should just wait until tomorrow, when he can tell Hamegg the truth, and ask him for some oil face-to-face. He should just go back to bed and come clean to everyone in the morning. He shouldn't be doing this. He shouldn't be using them like this. He shouldn't be using Hamegg like this. Hamegg trusts him, and here he is, sneaking around in the middle of the night and stealing from him.

This is no way to repay the people who took him in when no one else wanted him.

But he takes a seat on the rusted windowsill anyway, the metal cold as ice through the thin cotton of the flannel-patterned pajama pants Zane loaned him when he found out Astro didn't have any clothes except his jeans and jacket, and he pulls a can of oil out of the crate below, automatically popping up the spout just like he saw ZOG do earlier.

And then he realizes, abruptly, that he actually has no idea what on earth he's supposed to do next. Robots usually ingest it through the mouth, he knows that, because that's what ZOG did, and Trash Can, too… but… that can't be what he has to do, is it? But he really can't think of anything else to do but drink it — maybe he could open up the energy chamber in his chest and pour it in through there, but that doesn't sound exactly right, and he really doesn't want to find out the hard way that it doesn't work. What if it gums up his gears? What if it hurts the Core? What if it makes him malfunction? What if it kills him?

"Uh…" he glances uncertainly between the thick, sludgy, thoroughly unappetizing black liquid swirling around in the canister and the dog curled up comfortably beneath the window. "So… I just… drink it, then? I guess?"

Trash Can gives a high-pitched little warble of amusement — if boy is not baby, shouldn't boy know what to do with oil? — and then a quick trill of confirmation: Silly boy. All robots drink oil.

"Oh," Astro says, with absolutely no enthusiasm. "Great. That's… so great. This is great." He allows himself one last apprehensive look at the dark fluid before he finally lifts the can up to his lips, cold tin clinking lightly against his teeth, and takes the tiniest possible sip.

It tastes exactly like what it is: motor oil.

And it tastes… good.

Before he even knows what he's doing, he's already taken another swallow, bigger than the first, and then he goes in for another one, drinking it down so quickly he actually kind of forgets to breathe in between sips, and the can is more than half-empty by the time he finally pauses to drag in a gulp of air instead, though he knows rationally that his artificial lungs don't really need the oxygen at all. He takes a second to wipe his mouth before he finishes off the rest of it, and when he pulls his hand away, the pale skin is stained a sleek, glossy black, glistening faintly in the starlight pouring in on him through the open window.

He doesn't know why it hits him right then. He doesn't know why it hits him so powerfully, and so painfully, but the longer he looks at that dark, gleaming streak on the back of his hand, the deeper and deeper it begins to sink in: he just drank almost an entire can of oil in one go, and he liked it.

Because he's a robot.

Like those guys calling themselves the RRF, like the millions on millions of old, outdated machines in the junkyard, like the new zeronium automations rolling off the factory line in the Ministry of Science this month, like Orrin, like ZOG, like Trash Can. His stomach twists, clenching up like a closed fist — tighter and tighter the longer he thinks about it — until there's a horrible second where he really thinks the oil is going to come right back up again, and he's going to vomit all over the floor of poor Hamegg's workshop in the middle of the night. And then he remembers that he won't, he can't, and he already knew that, of course he knew that, but the reminder still slams into him like a speeding train, smacking him off-kilter and knocking all the breath clean out of him in a single blow.

I don't want to be a robot, Astro realizes, with a clarity so sharp it stings. I don't want to be a robot. I don't want to be a robot. And he definitely doesn't want to be a robot like this — a clockwork clone of another kid who died months ago, a messed-up mimicry of a human with wires instead of veins, iron instead of bones, coolant instead of blood, and a star where his heart should be. He doesn't want to live like this — sneaking out in the dead and dark of night to drink oil where no one can see, and hoping with every gear and cog and circuit in his body that Trash Can won't give him away, that ZOG won't give him away, that he won't give himself away, that he can keep this up for just one more day, just one more hour, just one more minute, just until he's ready to tell them, just until he figures out how to tell them. He doesn't want the rest of his life to be like this — trying to make sure his posture isn't too stiff or too tense, trying to make sure his facial expressions aren't shifting too fast, or too smoothly, and trying to remember to blink as much as everyone else, trying to remember to breathe as much as everyone else, his heart in his throat and his stomach tied up in knots as he carefully carefully carefully arranges himself into a shape so close to human that no one can ever tell the difference.

He doesn't want to live like this. He doesn't want the rest of his life to be like this. He doesn't want to pretend to be normal. He doesn't want to have to pretend to be normal. He just wants to be normal.

(He doesn't want to be different.)

[popculturebuffet]

Helluva Boss: Fizzarolli and Ozzie retrospective He, Mammon (Patreon Review for Brotoman.exe)

Happy almost valentine's day you happy people! While i'm deeply alone romantically, like many I can take comfort in the wonderful world of shipping. It's jsut nice to see two character bond or two think about two character sbonding even if one is a clone whose life's ambition is to be batman and the other is a teenager named after edged weapons. Bonus points if you figure it out. Point is i'm not immune to a good romantic endorphin rush, and not opposed when one of my patrons has the same idea, so as part of our buid up to valentine's day, we're taking a look at the most stable couple on one of the most unstable show arounds. One's a clown who sounds like Beetlejuice, the other's a giant rooster god of lust. Somehow they make it work.

I haven't really covered Helluva Boss episode to episode on here less out of neglect and more because I intended to juts review the seasons. And while tha'ts still something I do for shows frequently with so many NEW shows coming out I can do season reviews for and such a tight schedule, not ot mention shows people pay me to do a whole season of, I realized it was a bit unwiedly so was glad to do this when Brotoman suggested the mid season special and I upped it to a full on retrospective.

It's also been a WHILE since I did a character focus retrospective, the last one being Tom from star vs the forces of evil and I intended way more, life just got in the way. I mean I have retrospectives that are only getting done thanks to the kindness of others paying for them, allowing me to put them back on the board easier. So this is an experiment to see if I can do this again and if anyone else is intrested in one of these, drop me a line. Mos tprobably won't be this short, but I do like doing these, seeing how a character evolves... and it's also nice that unlike most i've thoguht of the character in question hasn't been horribly screwed over.

Anyways it is nice to cover helluva boss and opens the door to cover other episodes or clusters of episodes, another thing i'd be more than happy to do on comission or my own damn time. Now the shamless self promotion is over join me under the cut to talk about gay clowns, literal cocks, less gay australian clowns, looking at this, fire, kidnapping fetishes, burgers, viiibratttorrrrsss, sexy fish persons, public humilation and spenting life bent over with someones fis tin their a.

Loo Loo Land

Fizzy's history on the show is a bit weird. The first glimpse we see of our faviorite gay clown isn't ACTUALLY him but his non union robot equilvent. In fact the episode dosen't make it clear FIzz is an actual person and this is a robot of him, Robofizz comes off as a chucky cheese style mascot complete with a horrifying army behind him, with only word of god at the time (I assume as I got into the show around "The Harvest Moon Festival), revealing that Fizz was a real person with a real history with blitzo. Blitzo's hatred of "that fucking clown" seems to be about having to work with robofizz in the past.

That being said this brief apperance nad inevieitble park torching fight with an anamatronic which happens every time Blitzo goes to a theme park, does set up a lot of things about Fizz that are key to his character and apperances: We see his resentment of Blitzo is so great his robots picked it up, that he works at mammon's mascot and that he's famous and succesful enough at Clowning, Blitzo's former dream job, that he has robots of himself. He also, likely not concidentally, first shows up in an episode with Blitzo and Stolas, a trend that would only be broken with MAMMON'S MAGNIFICENT MID SEASON SPECIAL, and an intentional one.

Loo Loo Land in fact gives us a good intro to Stolas and Blitz's relationship. While their "Transactional fucking" had shown up in the pilot and murder family, with my faviorite gag of the show spotlighting the start of the affair

And the second setting up their monthly fuck fest, this is the first episode that really shows how the two FEEL about the situation: Stolas is clearly infatuated beyond just sex: while he couches everything in how fuckable blitz is, he also makes an excuse to see him by having him bodyguard him and octavia for the day. We also get a sense of just HOW awkward he is, calling him "The only man who can fuck me" to his daughte'rs confusion and grossing both Blitz and Octavia out by greeting blitz with a sensual "Well hello my big dicked blitzy". The resulting one of the fuck is a close second to sorry I fucked your husband, might even top it. It's clear Stolas dosen't JUST want to fuck Blitz, enjoying seeing him on the job, flirting with him.. but it's also clear WHy Blitz is so annoyed with the situation and with said flirting. Stolas can't go two mintues without saying something sexual, which given what we learn about his realtionship makes sense; He dosen't realyl seem to know the diffrence between romantic love and sexual love and thus combines the two. Blitzo spends the episode trying to be professional as he's "not a day hooker"> He's fine with fucking to get what he wants but sees this relationship as nothing more for both of them while it's Clear stolas is , in his own fucked up way, trying to introduce the two. It's just he phrases it with dicks so Blitzo dosen't realize that's what this partly is, and Octavia , SHOCKINGLY wants no part in meeting her fathe'rs lover she's afraid he'll run away with. It's only her running away herself that makes him realize MAYBE inviting his side piece to the park with his daughter while his marriage is falling apart around him and said daughter can see it every day was a bit of an oopsie.

As for Fizz himself he's played by Alex Brightman, best known for playing beetlejuice, who does a fantastic job here, using the beetlejuice voice to great effect. His first song of the series "Loo Loo Land" is great, a cheesy theme park song right out of chuck e cheese or a children's stage show. We also get nice hints at Mammon LONNNNGGG Before we actually met him, and it's nice to know Viv .. really had the sins planned out fully before their debuts. While we don't see him the fact he made a tacky theme park he blantantly stole from Lucifer, gladly let's his attractions steal from the big boss of hell's own daughter by singing a verison of "I have a dream", and the fact the park has no saftey standards, a ton of lawsuits an da mascot that's a pervert undre there. It sets up both how shoddy greed is and how shoddy Mammon's products are way before we actually meet him.

We also get a fun subplot where Richard Steven Horvitz pisses himself off and does a fun goofy voice. Good times. Loo Loo Land is a great episode.. but an okay-ish intro to fizzy. but it was intended to simply TEASE at the man himself as a few episode and a year or two later... we get

OZZIES

OZZIE's is where our boy gets a proper introduction along side his boss, love of his life and best friend Ozzie, aka Osmodeous, the sin of lust.

Ozzy's intro is a big milestone in Hellaverse history as it's the first time we properly met one of the Seven Deadly Sins. It's easy to forget how big a deal this was now we've also met hot lava lamp fox, clown bastard man and depression dad 2: he did your wives, but before this episode was promoted it wasn't a sure thing the sins would even show up in hellva. Our heroes are mostly small time and one of the sins was tied to Hazbin, which at the time had nothing resembling a release date or schedule. So having one be suddenly announced for the season finale was a big suprise.

It's also one of my faviorite thing the franchise is had: While Viv and co go all out for the designwork, the series has some of the best extras in all of animation, the sins naturally get some of the best of the best, each embodying their animal theme while also being gloroius. Ozzie himself gets a great one with tiny heads I forget exist, chest hair (feathers? fuck man I don't know) a glowing neon suit, and a massive tail, with a giant size that shows off just HOW far the gap is in status and power between him and the rest of the cast, and allowing him to dwarf both his boyfriend and unfortunate victim Moxxie. It's also hilarous in hindsight as Bee ,at least in regular mode is normal sized and Lucifer is a short king.

One last personal note on this that has nothing to do with the matter of hand but what the heck: wait for the sins reminds me more of the various gem fusions from steven universe, something exciting as hell every time it comes up but also agonizing fanwork wise while you wait for them to finish the set.

Anyways Ozzie's setup is simple as it is fucked up: Moxxie and Millie are having their one year anniversary. It's weird to think given HOW close they are it's really only been a year. I mean the relationship could be longer. We don't know.

Blitzo naturally wants to be a third wheel, which Moxxie shoots down even harder than usual. Blitzo agrees.. then stalks them to their date anyway. Unfortunately for him it's one of the biggest restraunts/sex clubs in all of hell, probably the biggest and the bouncer is used to guys trying to fuck him to get in. Blitz.. has to call for backup.

This is where Stolas' genuine feelings for blitz really start to come through: previously the show played coy, having just enough hints that he reallyc ared.. but also having him call Blitz thigns like "his little imp', mock his buisness, or hit on him in front of a large crowd. And this was all in one episode. Stolas LIKES Blitz.. but due to his insulated spoiled background and his only relationship having been with one of the worst people in hell or heaven, only topped by a genocidal dude bro, the clown from it's australian cousin, a homophobic controlling abusive mobster, and a rapist. It's easy to see WHY Stolas had no idea HOW to talk to Blitz properly or to actually ask if he wanted the cutsey nickname. He's never HAD to think about how someone feels.

Yet when Blitzo calls for the date.. he lights up. He's happy, overdresses and rushes to go meet him, easily getting them in and is happy to genuinely TRY to get to know him. It just dosen't work as the way he'as acted.. means Blitz dosen't GET that he's trying or that he enjoys this date and just wants to stalk his employees

Karma however bites Blitz hard as he was so focused on stalking.. he forgot who runs this place.. and thus whose EMCEEING THIS PLACE: Fizz.

While this episode was already one of the series best hindsight helps it.. mostly. The show could've been better on following it up as both Moxxie finding out Fizz is at the club and Blitzo telling off stolas only have subtle effects afterwords, and the actual argument ove rit.. is releigated to a tex message fight we see in Western Energy.

The episode DOES however only gain more from later ones when it comes to Fizzy: When we see him on stage it's instantly clear that he's not so famous just because he works for Mammon and that he dosen't have his job because he's fucking the owner: Fitz is genuinely talented, doing fun crowd banter and some acrobatics. It's also clear he genuinely loves working the crowd and people in general. Sure he's about to spend most of the episode mocking someone who just wanted to serenade his wife, but for the most part he actually seems to like bantering with the guests.. except the guy who bought like 4 of his sex robots. Keep that guy away from him.

It also sets up one of the keys to the character: He's a mirror of blitz. It's something I didn't have fully sink in till I watched this video from sarcastic chorus. I originally had the link in there but i've tried ot ease off youtube that way as it instantly becomes the page image for some reason when used in a link.

I don't agree with the guy on everything, but I respect his opinons and this one was so obvious in retrospect I can't belivie I didn't notice. But Fizzy.. is who blitz WANTED to be: a performer, rich, in a circus. He still got the office he wanted as a kid, but it's clear Blitzo's life didn't work out the way he wanted it to: mostly alone with two friends he keeps harassing and a daughter who takes a whole season and a yearlong delay thanks to record company jackassery to tell him she loves him and finally admit he's her dad. He's a deeply lonely person who loves his job but wishes he had more and the one possible relationship he does have is rife with power imbalance issues.

In contrast, Fizzy seemingly has it all: he's famous across all the rings as a performer, has tons of merch in his name, a regular gig at one of the nicest places in hell and a loving boyfriend who supports him and is there for him. The worst he seems to have in this episode is PRETENDING like he and Ozzzy are doing more than fucking, and that's , at least for now, more an image thing. Fizzy has everything Bltiz ever wanted and seeing him only drives that in..a nd makes it clear the second Fizz sees him shit's going to get bad.

Staying low though.. isn't really an option, as Moxxie done goofs up, singing a love song at a sex club. Granted... Fizzy and Ozzie are giant dicks here, singing a long, gorgeous song about how stupid Moxxies being and how he shoudl sing about doing his wife. It's also hilarious in places, with Fizzy pulling out his reading glasses and has two of the series best extras in these two

I like big beformets and I cannot lie. And skinny ones too clearly. No idea how the candle thing works though.

The song.. is fantaI stic, one of the series best, and a big showcase for James Monroe engleheart, who didn't really get to sing as Vortex. The series also wasn't a full musical yet so that didsn't help. But it's clear Viv knew who she had and thus gave him a giant, most of the episode number that steals the damn show and sells just how IMPOSSING ozzie is and how fucked Moxxie is.

Thankfully they change targets as Blitz TRIES to do something heroic and stand up for M and M.. but does so by both revealing he followed them here, and you know... that he watches tehm have sex. Granted MOXXIE already knew that

But it's still a weird thing to admit in public. So Fizz zeroes in on him, as does Veroskia whose been sorely missed this season. But hey ANY cristina vee is good cristina vee. Stolas dosen't get off easy as Ozzie points Stolas out and connects the dots and joyfully sings about he sold his life for a thrust.

It's.. weird going back to this one as in their next appearnce.. these two.. aren't antagonists. Fizz is hostile to Blitzo.. but as we learn he has every reason to be. With them debuting like this, it was easy to assume that they were yet another set of rogues to be added to the gallery, instead of valuable allies. It feels like a delberate bait and switch that MOSTLy works: thier a bit TOO cruel here to completely buy it.. but there's hints at who they are behind closed doors and it DOES make sense contexually: Moxxie did pick a sex club to do his song at instead of ANYWHERE else, simply because it was a big fancy place, so a little mockery is fair, and Fizz zeroing in on blitz is.. entirley in character given he truly hates the guy at this point. Only Ozzie saying what he did about stolas "trading his life for a thrust" feels disgenouious and even then he might simply not know the many complicated factors involved like Stella being awful or how much the divorce affected Octavia. The two know each other and it's clear from Oops stolas can easily book a meeting with the guy, but they aren't really FRIENDS or anything.

Still the two DO get their compuance as Millie wacks Fizz with a guitar. Sure they have to get out, but ... I mean Millie got away with el kabonging the boyfriend of one of the rulers of hell. That's still a hell of an achievement.

We also have the Stolits fallout which is still one of my faviorite scenes of the show. I talked about it in depth in my best episodes of 2021 list, but it's just so heartbreakingly good, even better having rebinged the series recently: you see how it's evolved, how Blitzo has this impression.. and how him laying it out really lays it in for Stolas how badly he fucked up and knowing what we know now, the last shot of Blitzo sobbing after seeing his mom.... it somehow hurts more.

The Circus

Full Confession: I almost forgot to put this one in here. I know, big oversight but it's easy to jump from Ozzies to Oops, which functions as a sequel to the former. The Circus itself is a sequel AND a prequel, both showing Stolas finally divorcing Stella after Ozzies and showing Stolas and Blitzo's pasts including just how we got to "sorry I fucked your husband", an origin story worthy of telling if ever there was one.

And while it is indeed mighty the main thing we're here for is Fizz.. whose in about maybe two, three minutes of the episode tops. But while I nearly glossed over this it is important as we finally see how the two interacted as kids: Fizz was both a star performer AND a surrogate son to Blitzo's dad while Blitzo... simply didn't have it yet. IT's clear from his acrobatic skills and poster in his office he later found his niche with his sister but as a kid he just didn't have the natural talent Fizz did and his morbid humor, referring to the only horse of his that dosen't explode as having lost it's legs from diabettes, simply dosen't fit the setting, while Fizzy, even as a child, is deft as hell at reading the crowd.

While the two are very diffrent.. it's clear BLitz and Fizzy were still super tight and simliar enough to play together. Granted Fizzy wants him to knock off the diabites jokes or he'll punch him, fizzy dosen't mind Blitzo's over the top violence or weirdness. It's clear he was one of the few people who ever understood this guy.. so what happened... wellllll

Oops!

While OZZIE's introduced these two hypocrites, it's Oops! that fleshes them out as people, as the episodes starts with the two when their not putting on a sex show for everyone. Their still horny as shit, I mean one of them IS lust himself, but it's clear while it's fuck o clock a lot at Ozzie's tower, the two have a loving supportive relationship that's just.. downright adorable.

It's shown from the start: Fizz is asleep on Ozzie's chest, wakes up, gets them coffee, and then wakes his lover up with an airhorn, a thing that clearly happens a lot and is a running bit with the two (Don't blame me blame how fucking fun they are) and we see the two help each other get ready for the day: Fizz wakes Ozzie up, prepares his schedule complete with these really fun reading glasses

I'm a sucker for someone wearing glasses that resemble 3d glasses.. or just 3d glasses like that one guy in back to the future

That guy is, without exageration

THE SHIT

It shows that while Fizzie's clearly the weirder flighteter one of the two, he still supports his boyfriend well and in a way that's vital: he's essnetially ozzie's assitant and he apparently has one or two as seen by this lady that walks in on them later.

Fun fact, I think she's really cute. Also fun fact I think her walking in, them doing couple shit and then trying to act like they were just fucking is just something she has to put up with every day. I mean this...

This isn't the look of someone whose COMPLETELY suprised by this, it's more the look of someone whose like "Okay you two keep kidding yourselves just leave me out of it".

Anyways back to the point at hand, Fizz still clearly does a lot for Ozzie and in turn Ozzie makes breakfast, resigned to the fast he just gets. .assigned this job... and to the fact of Fizz tried it again we'd die. I picture Fizz trying to make a pee wee herman style breakfast device and it going terribly. I also figure with Fizz's love of burgers for breakfast he orders burger king a disturbing amount and Ozzie is fine with it.

Anyways it's a sugary sweet scene but said cute freckle imp and /or sucuubus lady lady run in shows the contrast: between who they are in private and the face they put on for the public, that Fizz is just a fuck toy. It also highlights that it's.. unecessary. Their assitant dosen't seem to care and is more weirded out at the half assed show they put on for her. As we establish next episode practically everyone in hell who knew about the two knew it. Their only fooling themselves to keep up apperances. I COULD be wrong and there could be some fallout from them going public, we'll get to that later, but given we've now met Lucifer... I dont' think he'd care much about the sins acting like their sins as long as they get the shit they do done and keep their citizens happy. As long as Ozzy's willy wanka dildo factory is going strong, he dosen't give a shit. Man's got ducks and depression to keep him company. And now his daughter but we don't know where those episodes take place in relation to each other. Did helluva season 2 synch up with Hazbin season 1's 6 month, was it just season 1? Am I insane am I blind I just can't seem to trust so many regulations comin back at ya? viv please clear this up if you haven't already.

Where was I? Oh yes, point is the two really put on a show for a public that mostly dosen't care more than themselves. The only conflict they have is that Fizz wants to go out alone, and while Ozzie wanting to go with him everywhere COULD be a read flag.. Fizz is going to the greed ring which literally has a town called ransom. Like I said, Lucifer dosen't give a shit. OR didn't. Again this timeline is a lot to take in.

Fizz promises to be incognito.. but being both a literal fucking clown and Blitzo's foil... he arrives in a dildo confetti canon limo, with an army of queeves (dog like creatures that can strip someone to bone), this lasted all of 0 seconds.

It's then Fizz runs into an old friend.. yes it's Blitzo o clock as he was just getting coffee and happened to run into his old friend turned enemy he's seen all of once and the two argue for a bit, with Fizz accusing blitzo of stalking him, Blitzo pointing out how shitty a stalker that'd make him and then calling Fizz a purse dog, the only thing tha tgeninely pisses him off.

Just to prove this opening set piece runs on conicdence, just outside we run into two old foes; Crimson, moxxie's homophobic mafia don father and Striker, our faviorite cowboy imp suprimacist jackass. I like this use of both: Striker had already had his rematch with the m's and is still a personal enough foe to Blitzo, fucking with his bread and butter and all, to work solo, while Crim.. is a mafia don. Of course he has more things to do than plot revenge against his son.

It also underlines something about the show that was easy to forget in season 1: the villians.. aren't arc based for the most part. Striker and Stella are exceptions but most are introduced to likely have an episode later. Granted they could follow up on these characters faster, but I get that guys like the CHERUBS, DHORKS and crim himself, while likely having an end point at some point, are more threats to bring back later than a recurring backbone of the series. So bringing crim in for a normal day of buisness for him works. He's the crime boss of the greed ring, why woudln't he be doing crime boss things when not plotting his son's death.

In this instance it' sa job interview: Striker, presumibly fuming at how Stella alterted the deal and thus fucked up his chance to kill a royal, has decided to change bosses to someone more his speed. Crim wants a demonstration.. and our heroes happen to be outside arguing so he lassoes them in. Fizzy is now a hostage and Blitzo is a co-hostage simply because Striker assumes their friends

The upside of this kidnapping is it gives the two a chance to hash things out.. which naturally STARTS tense, as it tends to do when the last time you've spoken in 20 years involved public humilation and not the fun kind.

So naturally Blitzo tears into fizz, assuming OZzie dosen't care the relationship won't work etc etc, really just projecting every insecurity he has about him and stolas onto them, not able to accept a royal and an imp having an actual relationship. .because it'd force him to consider it actually possible and that the heartfelt texts, check ins and other stuff Stolas has been sending him since , presumibly Western energy (since their text history seems to only go back to the day after ozzies), and Stolas' genuine attempts to respect Blitz's space since, not flirting with him nearly as agressively and using his actual name. It's clear to everyone BUT Blitzo Stolas is putting in an actual effort, learned from his mistakes, and is trying... and the reason it isn't is that BLitzo KNOWS he is, can tell now on some level he wants more.. but his deep inscurties, the mess he's made of his previous relationships and his DEEP self loathing from events we're about to get into and others we likely aren't privy to yet make that hard. It's hard to accept that someone LOVES him and dosen't just want to fuck him and it's harder to accept this just.. might work.

Granted Blitzo gets that hammered in as Striker agrees with his denails because Striker is a suprmacist prick. He really was the perfect antagonist here: while crimson provides nice backing being the reason Striker did this plan and the resources to be an actaul threat and put forth a ransom demand, Striker does the heavy lifting, clearly hating both imps for being race traitors in his eyes and wanting both dead, NEARLY killing fizz simply for pissing him off.

Speaking of Ransom

This brings us to our b plot: Stolas , proving Blitz wrong with some dramatic irony, is having lunch with Ozy, wanting his help. We also get some more shading as Ozy rejects the idea of a love potion out right: he likes consent as much as he likes clown penis. Stolas however isn't a monster, and instead wants to give Blitzo a choice: he wants as asmodeon crystal, what the succubi use to travel since, for reasons we're not privy to yet, Ozy's one of the only ones allowed easy surface travel. Ozy rejects it: he WANTS to help but Fizz hates Blitzo for reasons he hasn't told his partner, and Ozy respects that, though he DOES sympathize.

Luckily for Ozy though stolas is there as Crimson springs his ransom plan.. which in hindsight is just... it...

Okay so Ransoming Fizzy.. ISN'T the dumb part. While it is fucking risky to ransom the lover of one of the 7 most powerful people in hell, we seen soon after Ozzy REALLY dosen't think clearly when Fizzy is in danger, and had Stolas not been there, he would've gladly blindly signed papers giving Crimson all his shit and allowing Crimson to kill fizzy.

The problem.. is Crimson is so damn smug he has no plan B, to a point i'm starting to think he's a fucking moron whose only been a threat because he has a LOT of resources and in his first apperance, still has an abusive hold on Moxxie. He shows his face, and while he dosen't say his name... not only am I sure one of the big bosses of hell itself can search for him by face.. CRIMSON PUTS HIS NAME ON THE CONTRACTS. This makes sense from a "I need to get his stuff" perspective, but not a "what happens if I somehow loose the clown" perspective. This isn't derailment as Crimson was just as short sighted with his last plan that assumed A) A notrious fuck up whose only assets are being hilarous and having a big dick wasn't lying to his face B) His son who ran away from him would do what he said and C) that the people he KNOWS are professional killers won't rescue moxxie in a pinch and will just die to his sloppy hitmen whose record so far in universe is 0 and 3 in actually killing anyone. 0 and 4 if the ones after Mimzy work for him, which they probably do, let's say 4 L's at this point. It works as Crim is mostly a threat due to his resources, and his vengeful impulsive personality both fits a mob boss, and makes him a good foil for his son/arch enemy: Moxxie overplans to the point of panic attacks, while Crimson underplans to the point his usually fall apart, not helped by him not understanding most people.

I'd also like to highlihgt one line I took at face value first two times around: Crimson calling Ozzie the "weakest of the sins". While it is possible Oz is the weakest... I forgot that hte person saying it is an overconfident jackass whose TRYING to underplay how powerful his opponent is. OF course he'd call Ozzie weak. Honestly, especially given the climax of our next episode, i don't think any power gaps within the sins are that huge until otherwise shown or stated: most of them are in the same boat of being so powerful in hell almost nothing else can really touch them: the only things above their league are Charlie, whose easily the nicest person in all of hell and won't fight unless pushed and this guy

Who likewise probably won't pummel you into the ground unless you piss him off bad, and the sins have known Lucifer long enough to know not to do that. I mean Mammon has plagerized him a lot and is still breathing. So while I do think Lucifer is a large reason for the stalemate, I also don't think he's naive enoguh to think the sins wouldn't start shit with one another subtly if they weren't just close enough in power to not backstab each other. They can posture, but a full on war would bring down the angelic fists of cuckining and no one wants that.

Thankfully for Ozzie though Stolas loves reading and is willing ot be his bird lawyer. Hoot hoot.

Thankfully for both of them though, Blitzo is plenty capable and while he makes a flashy dick of himself as usual, he DOES help fizz escape.

Eventually, as the two are dodging bullets, they can't dodge the issue and Fizzy finally explodes, revealing to the audience exactly WHY he hates blitzo and why they aren't friends these days.

So we get.. the fire. We find out on Fizz's birthday years ago Blitzo was going to confess, got upset seeing everyone else fawn over him and accidently set the place on fire and from Fizz's perspective ran the fuck away. As it turns out the white on Blitz's face, in a pretty stunning reveal honestly isn't some cool extra mark.. their burn scars, and the reason Fizzy is white faced.. is because he got it BAD. The cyborg arms weren't piece by piece replacing himself for fun and profit.. their necessary prosthetics. Fizzy lost everything he had that day: his home, his family, everything... and as BLitz tearfully reveals so did he as it's HEAVILY implied he ran to go save his mom.. and din't fail. I'd assume Blitz's dad died too but face it we're not that lucky.

This.. puts a lot into persective for Blitzo as a character and is part of why this episode is so great: We see WHY he hates himself so mucH: he lost his mom to an accident, lost his best friend who he was TRYING to confess to and his sister who blame him for it and .. well he' sprobably not lucky enough to loose his dad. Though when Cash DOES finally kick off hopefully loona will lift her dad up so he can dance on his casket. He los teverything and can't feel he deserves love as a result, while still DESPERATELY wanting it as seen with his constant stalking of m and m or how he treats Loona. The sad part is he dosen't even have to go that far: while they don't want to fuck him the m's do like and respect him and Loona does love him, she just had he rown issues to adress.

The good news about this trauma.. is it finally get the two over their trauma and to start reconcling. Before they can though they need a distractoin so we get look at this, a hilarious number that Fizz apparently used to sing to distract Blitzo's dad to so Blitz can steal booze and is here a flimsy escalating number as Fizz tries to distract. I also like how Fizz.. isn't a combatant. He's a performer and didn't have to learn to fight and has had the protection of two diffrent sins.. granted Mammon's "protection' isn't exactly healthy but more on that in a moment.

The two escape and collapse the warehouse crimson was using on him.. but Striker is still after them at this point just wanting pure vengance. I also love how not only does his "break you like a horse threat fail" predictbly on Blitzo but Fizz's suprised "your still on the horse thing?" There's just so much good banter between the two this episode, brightman and rogers have great chemistry.

While Fizz gets a new kink and Striker finally reaches his limit of his foes kinks, Blitzo saves fizz then saves him from fire this time, finally reconcling the two. Of course this being Blitzo he has to fuck it up by asking if they can make out but it's a start.

It's also a nice possible turning point for the series: i'ts early to call if this is just a one time thing or if Blitz will get the chance to do this more.. but it's the first time Blitz has been confronted with someone from his past.. and it hasn't blown up in his face. With Verosika he clearly hates her as much as she hates him and her smug attitude and treatment of Moxxie just cemented it, and with Barbie she didn't WANT to forgive him. With Fizz.. he WNATED to at least try again, the two just never had the chance. Someone kept Blitz from speaking to him. And now it's finished.. the two are buddies again. Blitzo HAS an honest to god friend whose also not working for him and who, one attempt aside, he isn't trying to bang and Fizzy has someone besides his partner to go to. They needed each other.. and now they have each other.

Wrapping up the rest Fizz returns, and Stolas leaves now his part in things (getting a better deal on the ransom Ozzie now dosen't have to pay), is done leaves Fizzy to get fucked.. after he and ozzie kill the lawyer who stupidly thinks he can run after this. The ending, like the start is a genuinely sweet moment from the two and shows off a neat other side to Ozzie: he's a mechanical genius, having designed the arms (Or at least the model Fizzy uses now) nad is th eone who repairs them for his lover any time they get hurt. While granted Ozzy also wants Fizzy to never leave again, Fizzy's fine with that given teh whole kidnapping and just as fine to share some kinks.. and to let Blitz have his crystal. He's more than earned it. A sweet ending to one of teh shows best.. an da good lead into our closing act tonight

MAMMONS MAGINFICENT MUSICAL MID-SEASON SPECIAL

So we've come ot the episode that clinched this idea for me and brotoman, one of the series best and at the time of this writing the latest episode. Will I do anothe rone of these in a year or two or follow up on other fizz episodes? Probably. But for now this is our grand finale and it delivers. While Helluva Boss slowly became a musical over it's run, likely inspired by viv doing the same to it's sister series, this is the episode that leans the heaviest into it: 4 songs, all bangers, and one big story.

It's also the shows' first stab at an episode focused on the series side cast. This reminds me most of the simpsons: While they aren't the only one to do this, Simpsons is famous for having a war chest of spotlight episodes focusing on the other characters. The simpsons are still involved but how much can range from Lisa's Date with Density, where Nelson is a main feature but Lisa is just as important, to A fish Called Selma, which focuses entirely on Selma and Troy McClure who you may remember from such episodes as Selma's choice, Lisa the vegetarian and Bart's Friend Falls in Love.

This one reminds me of the latter: Blitz is involved and is plot important, but he's not the focus. The episode's entirely on fizz and it's a larger gamble than you'd think: Fans love fizz and Alex Brightman gives a remakrable performance and showed last ep he more than had the range with this character to carry an episode, this both the second episode with only Blitzo in it out of IMP in a row, and in a season that, while I love it, does have it's pacing issues. So throwing down an episode about a popular side character was a risk.. but it's one that paid off gloriously. Clearly fans were hear for it as even people who don't like this season love this episode and i'm hoping it means Fizz will only show up more as we go.

So for the episode itself we start with a flashback

Fizz and Blitz are going to see teachers and it's here we get one of the best villians in the franchise so far and certainly one of the most hilaroius, MAMMON.

Mammon is our third sin and voiced by Smiling Friends and YOLO creator Micheal Cusak, a casting choice I didn't see coming, but is perfect. Not only does it help ease the gap till Smiling Friends and/or YOLO return, but his loud , boisterous australian style perfectly fits the loud, obnoxious mammon, with just enough subtely. He's like Krusty the Klown if he got the bad ending.

Mammon's intro is brilliant spending his time constantly spewing profanity, shilling to a crowd that spent every dime to get here, and promoting his next big thing: an annual clown pagent. It's like one of those fucked up beauty contests for kids but it's with clowns so IT'S BETTER. We also get a fuckton of great jokes from him taking a whole second to wlak back saying he'll exploit the winner, to saying women aren't funny as Viv's writing credit comes up, to my faviorite saying the winner will be like the son he's never had and Mammon will be like the stepdad who only loves you when it's convienent.

Mammon is also a departure as he's the first of the sins, and so far the only one of four, to be just.. straight up evil. All of them are mildly sketchy with Ozzy being a dick in public, Bee shoving cake in people's mouths and having a shitty adoptions system and Lucifer being incredibly neglectful until five minutes ago.. but all are at their cores decent people: Ozzy prioritzes consent and is a loving, caring supportive partner, Bee is both also a good partner and is a kind, vivacious person that dosen't want her patrons endulging just to hide their pain, is genuinely impressed to be drunk under the table, and her response to someone having a clear defenseive crush on her boyfriend.. is to borderline invite her to join, while my boy Lucifer had his dreams snapped in half and when called out on being a cyncial asshole, reveals PART of why he wasn't supportive of his kid was a worry the angels would fuck her up the same way they fucked him up, and when shown just HOW important her dreams are, backs her 100%, showing mercy to an enemy who dosen't deserve it when she asks, swooping in to save the day (if late for reasons i'm sure we'll learn later), and helping her get her spirit back up after a terrible loss. Each embodies their sin but they do so responsibly: Ozzy values consent, Bee values not using it as coping, and Lucifer is egotistical, but also uses that ego to help others and to help his daughter be proud of herself and what she's acomplished after she can't see it.

In contrast Mammon is every nasty thing about greed there is: he's selfish beyond all measure, wanting only what makes him money, cares nothing about the consequences, and will gladly exploit anyone who can make him money, throw htem out of they don't, and keep milking them dry till he's gotten every last dollar even if it kills them. He cares not one iota of a shit for the consequences of his actions as long as he gets paid. It's telling that while Lust is simply a red light district and sex toy making (and presumibly selling) mecca, Gluttony is a nicely apointed sky, and Pride is a luxiruous, if crime ridden, city... Greed is an industrial hell hole where toxic waste runs rampant and the crime seen in Pentagram City is dialed up to ungodly levels. Ozzie is neglectful like Lucifer.. but dosen't have Lucifer's excuse for it or eventaul comeback. He just dosen't care and never will.

The show, which we don't see in full end sup disapointing blitz, who isnt happy he spent his life savings to watch his idol vomit on stage and bury them in clowns, but Fizz BADLY wants that prize depsite Blitz's assurance he dosen't need it. We also meet Arick

Arick is an obessive stalker and it's very clear both from design and just how he's portrayed.. Viv's drawing from personal experince: Arrick comes up to fizz, gushes about how much he loves his work.. then talks about how they coudl work together ina very posseive and creepy way, how it could be bette rif he was involved and making Fizz very uncomfortable till Blitz tells him to fuck off.. and even then that dosne't completely stop him as he begs Fizzy to not make him go then turns on him when he understandably rejects the creepy guy whose been stalking him. Arrick's opinon shoudln't matter.. but dispaointing ANYONE clearly affects Fizz, something I can relate to: that drive to, even if someone's treating you like shit, make them care about you and want to make everyone love you. When... really not everyone's going to like you let alone love you and accepting that is healthy.

So we cut to a ways after with Mammon promoting robo Fizzy and how "YOU CAN FUCK HIM", and how Fizz got what he wanted.. but is clearly DEEPLY uncomfortable with semi sentient robot duplicates of himself creepy people can fuck.

So we finally get to the present: It's the clown pagent again and Fizz wins every year. It's also something Ozzy REALLY dosen't want him to do, as not only is it not necessary given his win streak and the amount of money he has.. but it's not healthy. in one of my faviorite lines all show Ozzy makes it clear he's known mammon a LONG time, since hell started, and knows just what a manipulative talentless prick he is, and he's somehow gotten worse , making nothing and explotiing others for money. "He can eat my ass. In a bad way. " It's clear from how much fizzy is stressing about a possible blemish and his weight that Ozzie is right.. but he also can't convince his boyfriend out of this. Fizzy NEEDS to do this.

So Ozzy calls for backup: since he both can't be there for publicty and since Fizzy only apparently has one friend, he calls Blitzo, whose milling around on a saturday afternoon, presumably watching reruns of "Yeah I Fucked Your Sister So What?". I love Blitz's reaction to ozzi'es call too calling him " your sin— Sinness? Sinfulness? Sin— [stammering] Ya royal, big man?" but still being casual. He's still Blitz, not bowing to standards.. but is still respectful, both knowing the gap between the two is wide.. and that Ozzie clearly deserves it as he clearly makes Fizz happy.

And being a good partner Ozzie is calling Fizz entirely because he CAN'T help Fizz with this: the pagent's bad for him, mammon is REALLY bad for him, but Fizz has also clearly heard this song and dance so many times it's become white noise to his crippling nisecurites, even with Ozzie correctly figuring out his partner hates the sex robots and the creepier fans they give. So Fitz needs someone to both protect him, and to get in his ear so he can get the strength to end this himself.

We also get a really nice touch as both previous times Blitzo's been asked to be a bodyguard, he was pissed, only accepting when Stoals offered to pay him monnneeeey and rejecting a possible repeat "it was a one time thing we did poorly". Here.. he agrees without a remote fight and while it could be because Ozzie simply won't take his shit like Stolas would it comes off more like he wants to: even if it's not on brand.. his friend needs him and when a friend's boyfriend asks for help you help him.

At the pagent Ozzie prepares to clear out, though Fizz pretty much sees through it, not calling ozzie out but finding it very weird he suddenly hired his best friend for security calling it "a little sus babe". It's also a nice moment as i'ts clear Fizz is annoyed at the transparent attempt to put someone they both trust on Fizz's shoulder for a situation Ozzie hates... but also gets on some level his boyfriend is just looking out for him and that Blitz being here isn't inherently harmful.

What is is Mammon who right away questions fizzy's weight while needling him with doubts he could win, hoping he does "You won't let me down right". And this part.. shows range with Cusak I didn't know he had. Don't get me wrong he's brilliant in both Smiling Friends and Yolo... but usually when he's creepy there it's loud and acomplanied with nightmarish animation. Here he takes a character whose loud as hell.. and has him get quiet and manipulative. Just the tone he takes SOUNDS concerned.. but you can just feel the manipulation coming off it, something anyone who isn't his victim could see... but easily works on Fizz. It's something tons of performers have gone through and heartbreakingly so, and something that's just.. chillingly realistic. It's one of the creepeist moment sin the franchise.. just how CASUAL mammon is with ita nd how much he's clearly done it.

Blitzo is here this time and not only stops the fucker but calls him out. This is another nice subtle thing I didn't notice my first few times watching this one but sunk in on binge watching the series through again: Blitzo.. has met all three sins introduced on this show thus far, and thus we get a nice range of his reactoins: with Bee he treats her like anyone else, which fits as she treats everyone equally and is fairly down to earth and observant, if still just insulated enough to miss some cues here and there. With Ozzie he's also casual, but more respectful, trying to give him a title and being honest with him. He respects Ozzie enough for titles, but is still himself with the guy as he clearly has learned to trust the royal big man, or at least trust what he and fizz has is 100% real.

With Mammon... he's confrontational.. but only because he DOSEN'T respect him: Mammon could end his ass righ tthen and there.. and he dosen't give a fuck. he's a terrible performer, an abusive prick and deep down blitzo knows he's not stupid enough to threaten what image he has left by killing someone in a large crowd.. I mean I asssume every sin has done this, but doing so because some guy talked shit about you to protect his friend isn't great optics.

We then meet the twins, Glitz and Glam played by Faye Mata of Miraculous Ladybug Fame. Yes those of you who have also suffered through that monolith of a show, WE GOT ANOTHER ONE. Sinners rejoice. The two are catty, insulting fizzy right away and not even getting laong too well, your standard contest episode heels. Also credit to the episode it's easy to tell them apart both by personality and appearnce; Glitiz is the manic one with mask like fins ove rher eyes, and glam is the more reserved one next to her. Naturally Blitz wants Fizzy to "piledrive those sluts" on principal now.

We get our first song next, Juggling iz Cool, by a guest performer near and dear to my heart, Austrlian singer, Tik Tokker/ youtuber (I use the latter, the former I mostly avoid), and mustache man Tom Cardy, a comedy singer with a great libary form songs that use "Human centpede: as a chorus , to painting ladies to toally not avoid sex, to planet metaphors to help you discover your self worth, to one of my faviorites Jurassic Park 10: it's dino time, where Tom accurately sums up the jurassic park movies while sick and possibly high on cough medicine, then creates his own ones giving us the now iconic line "I should not have given my robot dinosaur a penis, because like anything with a penis it's going to want to use its penis" said as if he's mildly drunk on cough syrup. His music is impeciable as his song topics can be utterly insane. Give him a listen.

Juggling is cool is a nicely tense tune showing just how much pressure fizz is on as Tom narates the contest, nicely conveying the tension the poor guy is feeling as the Twins easily equal him. What i laso like is that while the twins are jerks... their GENUINELY good. They have talent, even setting themselves on fire, and easily equal Fizz and despite their arguments pre show are perfectly in sink.

It also works because ultimately the contest.. dosen't matter. Fizz WANTS to win and we want him to win.. but th ereal conflict isn't "will fizz win or not" but... "SHOULD he keep doing this or not". He's got a supportive boyfriend who will support him emotinally and finacially, he's got enough fame to do whatever the fuck he wants next. Fizz attributes everything he has to Mammon.. but Mammon was simply the right opportunist in the right time. The talent's all Fizzy.. the explotation's all mammon. Even when Fizzy wants something resonable as a break instea dof doing a singing, Mammon guitls him into it.

Granted.. Fizzy IS really good at interacting with his fans and it's clear while assholes like Arick plauge viv regularly, as they do any celebreity sadly, this scene gives us the impression there's been plenty of GOOD fan reactions to counter act that, as Fizzy eagerly plays the crowd and we get one of the standout scenes of the episode when he talks asl with a young fan. It's a nice little bit that shows while a lot of his fandom are exausting.. Fizzy GENUINELY loves his fans and to interact with them. His love of performing is there: we saw it at ozzies. He loves playing a crowd. It's just exausting when parts of those crowd don't see you as a human being.

Speaking of which Arrick returns, calling out fizzie.. .and a creepy fantasy of Fizzy on a leash in a gimp suit makes it clear just what his "love" means. Nothing wrong with bondage, after all..

But it's clear Viv likes using leashes as a symbol of toxic relationships, seen by the chain leash that can be summoned by contracts in hazbin, the chains blitzo saw in his halluciintion in truth seeker and this one here.

Arick isn't as lucky this time as Blitz is now less a teenage dirtbag baby and instead an experinced assasian not affraid to blow his head up in front of a bunch of children. Arick backs off.. for now but it's clear the encounter rattled poor Fizzy and rather than show actual sympathy Mammon once again fakes it.. but glares to make it clear he expects him to perform.

He does "agree" to put the twins on first but it's once again a manipulation tactic. It's what makes mammon so unsettling here: every move to fizz is just another form of gaslighting and you can see the strings... but Fizzy either can't.. or has simply internalized them.

So with this we get Klown Bitch, a true banger of a song, performed by Allison Kaplan subbing in for Glam and Faye Mata still rocking glitz. THe result is a sexy, well done pop number that sums up the duo, their using sex to sell things, and their talent as the harmonies are just delcious. The lighting is also aweosme, being blue, shifting to a purple for Glitz' rapid fire rap solo, and highlithing the two, while mimicing biolumensince. And i'll admit some bias: I like fish women and I like siren songs. But i'm not SO horny that I can't see great production value, killer singing, and god tier animation for what it is, and what it is is excellent. This is easily one of the best looking bits of the series so far.. and only isn't best... because of what's to come.

So naturally a number this good leaves Fizzy having a nervous breakdown since mammon's too busy on his throne to gaslight him out of it this time. Blitz has done what he can, planting the seeds of doubt that Fizzy REALLY needs mammon, even if he's trying not to listen... but ultimately he's simply not who his best friend needs nor the guy to give a heartfelt pep talk. I mean I think he has it in him but it'd take a lot to get him there and Fizzy dosen't have tha tkind of time.

So instead Blitzo summons Ozzie, who despite not being in the crowd.. INSTANTLY teleports to his lovers side. No risk of their relationship being revealed for what it is is worth Fizzy's pain.

Ozzy is FINALLY able to draw out why Fizzaroli is having a panic attack.. he's worried he's not good enough. The pagent is an annual reinforcment that he deserves everything he has and the poor clown feels if he looses it he'll loose it all: that if he can't PROVE he's talented, prove he's the best, prove himself he'll loose Ozzie. Despite having come far, gotten everything Blitzo wanted.. he still has every bit the self loathing his bestie does, just channeled diffrentlY: Blitzo channels his into self destructive bullshit, pushing people away before he assumes he'll loose them, while Fizz goes the opposite route: instead of pushing what he loves away, he works himself to near death to keep something he was never going to loose. Both are deeply unhealthy, ones just easier to see. It's why Ozzie hasn't been able to get through to him: Fizz wasn't honest with the real reason.. or his body dismorphia, utterly hating his burned broken horns underneath his neat hat.

Thankfully Ozzie finds a way around this by both pointing out WHY he loves him.. and exactly what he finally needed to hear.

"Fizz, Mammon didn't do shit. You already were this. You'd be this no matter what! You are the most inspiring demon I have ever known, and meeting you was the best thing that ever happened to me. I adore your inventiveness, your attitude, your resilience. Aaaaand you're just the cutest little thing alive. *nuzzles Fizz's cheek* Also, you are a waaaay better performer than Mammon ever was, and thaaat's just facts."

It's what Fizz needed and what those of us with a lot of sel floathing need; someone telling you ou don't suck, you've earned what you got, and your a good person.

To hammer this in we get our penultimate number, crooked.

Crooked is a song that has reallyg rown on me since last time I saw it. It's a fantastic song, but it's sandwitched between "two minutes of watery fanservice" and "a glorious triumphant fuck you to someone who defintely deserve it", It's a great song, but it's sandwitched between two other great songs that have a slightly memorable presentation.

Crooked by contrast is a simple r n b love ballad.. but damn if it isn't adorable. James Monroe Engleheart once again gets to flex his voice but this time instead of a grandose display of lust, it's a tender display of love. It's a beautiful song where Ozzie gently shoots down Fizzy's self doubt pointing out he's not wasting his time, he's got nothing but it, and that there's so much in Fizzy he can't see. I'ts sweet and the oh oh oh's are just.. such a godo touch, being both sexual and romantic and just perfect.

Naturally after this tender display, we get.. Arrick who bursts in with a knife

Thankfully Blitz blows his head off SECONDS after he enters and clearly heard the whole thing, congradulating the two on being fucking hyocprites, someting warrnated, welle arned.. but also clearly in good nature: he won't hestiate to needle them about how many airs they put on about just beign sexual.. but he gets they need each other.

So with this we transition directly into our final number. I wans't kidding abotu the sadnwtiched things. There isn't all that much between Crooked and two minutes notice.

So .. there's no easy way to say this.. Two Minutes NOtice.. is the best sequence in the series so far. It's gorgeously animated, packed with tiny details, beautifully caps off the episodes themes, and has the series best song by far. And both as the best sequence in the show and the best musical number it has a LOT of competittion that it just.. blows out of the water.

There's just so much expressivness in Fizzy's movement, so many fluid and fun moves, even the little things like how he lights a match on his own arms to spell out fuck you in the sky or his big smile while doing his acrobatics during the first chorus. It's a joyous celebration that shows just how.. LIBERATING this fuck you is to Fizz, after years of eeling like he needs mammon.. he now knows what and thus spends two minutes+ telling him to eat shit.

What also sells it is story wise.. it's a fucking perfect parallel to the oepning: mammon gave his hordes of fans a half assed show promoting other shit he was doing and apparently vomiting on stage. Fizzy, fresh off both a panic attack AND a stalker barging in and seeing said stalkers brains go out, without any time to really prepare, IMPROVISES a routine that' sincredibly acrobatic, has tons of extra stunts packed in he does effortlessly from the fire writing to the now iconic riding on the ball bit to slapping his own ass (And Ozzie hiding his erection is just.. pricless. And somehow adorable. Never has hiding your boner been this sweet), all with a charm and charismA. We'd seen enough of Fizzy to know he's a talented performer.. but this shows EVERYTHING he has laid on the table to give his fans one final farewell for now. He could've half assed it or even jus topened with quitting.. but he cared enough to put on one hell of a show to end this chapter in his career. The love of his fans was clear before, but little bits like him going into the crod to interact iwth them or telling the deaf fan from earlier thank you... it's very clear this man didn't want to let them down. He's not doing the show for Mammon.. he's doing it for them and he's doing it for himself.

The song is also just great, a fantastic beat, Sam haft outddid himself, and Brightman's vocals at their absolute best. The show's going to hav ea HARD time topping this and it's okay if it dosen't.

So Mammon.. didn't really get the point till Fizzy, post song, thanks all his fans before quitting. And once he does. .he's fucking furious, angrily shouting at Fizzy, dropping the illusion of kindness and jus straigh tup lapsing into abuse. And Fizzy.. just flips him off. Mammon lost his power over him the second he stopped letting him have it. It's telling who has the real power in this conversation when MAMMON resorts to his full form, a giant spide rmonster form it and scremaing at Fizzy with the voice of the legion. It's genuinely terrifying and Micheal Cusak does a great job making this throughly silly monster into a regular one once again.

Unfortuantely for him.. it's just.. not working. Fizzy has zero fear of Mammon. evne if he kills him.. all Mammon has done is insure no one is going to want to actually work for him unless their really that desperate. I mean there are people that desperate but it's still a pretty big gamble.

Thankfully before Mammon can shout some more or do some spider shit, Ozzy steps in, having already been ready to the moment Mammon made the mistkae of going full spider.. and naturally Ozzie has the cooler form, his normal form but with a crimson middle head and his two other heads now fully manifested. How he does it is also awesome, standing behind fizz like h'es his fucking stand, fully bared.

Mammon.. isn't thereanted, planning to use the old chesnut that's hung over the two since the start; revelaing thir relationship. Problem is, and in a nice subtle arc.. it's clear the dyas events have finally hamered it in for Ozzie that who knows about thema nd who dosen't.. dosen't fucking matter. He loves Fizzy, Fizzy loves him, and he's finally ready to shout it, with Fizzy being genuinelys hcoked when Ozz says he dosen't care.. and even more when eh reveals it to a crowd

"What that I lvoe him, well I do"

And the crowd.. goes apeshit for it, complete with the hilarous guy with a three phone duel disk and Mammons' response is a hilarously subdued "oi, ya dirty bitch". He tells Ozzie he'll regret this, and he probably has some evil shit planned... but for now Mammon.. ha slost. Fizzy has his freedom, he and Ozzie can be pub lic damn the consequences. It's the perfect capper to a perfect episode.

For now the members of the crowd mammon didn't kill are happy, our heroes are happy.. and Blitz wants to know who tops.

So yeah.. I love this episode... adn it made me truly love this character, it's gorgeously done and damn i't sgood.

Overally Fizz... has a strong arc, one built with small hints at first but then hitting full tilt with what's essentially a two parter. I was happy to cover him and i'll be happy to cover this unvierse again any time. Thanks for reading and happy almost valnetine's day.

[spectresbase]

Naughty November Day 15

Collected tweetfics from day 15 of my Naughty November Project. To follow the project live, check me out on Twitter!

Themes for this set were: Blindfolded - Groping - Robots Hope you enjoy the filth!

Hooking a booted foot between Kiva's legs, somebody ran their toes along her naked slit. She shivered. Bent over and blindfolded she had to guess at the foot's owner. The pace was slow. Controlled, Deliberate. It was all she had to go on. It was enough.

"Amelia."

Peebee had built POC as a test to see if she could. Her second repurposed Remant Observer was built with a specific goal in mind.

Floating in her zero-g pod, mechanical tentacles churning her insides, she let out an ecstatic cry that mixed pleasure and pride in her success!

As her teacher droned on about Ethics in Robotics, XJ9 leaned over, hiding behind the low wall of the seating row, and sucked off the student next to her, reveling in being bad. She was still gulping down his cum when the teacher called on her to answer her last question.

Whoring out Athena was the most fun Aphrodite'd had all year.

"Agape? No… Iason." Bound and blindfolded, Athena did her best to guess the identity of the cock pounding her aching pussy. She'd gotten the last three right, and she wanted to finish strong.

Aphrodite swore.

"Bruce!" Ororo squeaked, hopping away more on instinct than out of an actual desire to escape the hand on her ass. Bruce followed her, pressing up against her back so he could reach around her to get a grip on her chest. She pressed back against him, grinding. "Again? Already?"

"Hmmm... thick, with a rich flavor..." Asuna rolled the cum around her mouth a little more, musing. The blindfold had stopped her seeing who was who'd just shot his load in her open mouth. Guessing correctly would earn her a second load. She swirled it again and smiled. "Kline!"

She'd done this to herself, pulling a sleep mask over her eyes before looping the cuffs over a railing in the tram and locking herself naked into the middle of it. She'd hoped she'd be fucked. Instead Palmer's simply found herself groped. Each touch left her even more desperate.

"I have found an additional platform to be advantageous in many situations." EDI said, stroking chrome fingers along Shepard's shaft.

Beside her 'Eva Core' tickled his balls and groped her metallic clone. "Would you not agree, Commander?"

Shepard did indeed agree.

Ashley and Miranda might not be the biggest fan of aliens, but both harbored a secret. The touch of nonhuman hands made their knees go weak. Pressed together in a cramped lift with a Krogan, a Volos, a Turian and no room to move, they learned they shared at least one thing.

Whoever said robots were cold and unfeeling had never had their face squished between Haydee's generous breasts, or their cock squeezed by the walls of her very slick, very warm cunt. You can hardly catch your breath as her hips crash atop yours with mechanical persistence.

It was good that the camera was focused on Cindy's face. Because while her digital expression remained smiling and unaffected, there was no way the camera could miss the hands of her interview subjects as they roamed across her body, testing the limits of her synthetic nerves.

A drunken bet that she could outlast the machine found Cass bent over the bar, knees spread onto a pair of stools and FISTO standing behind her proving that no amount of personal stamina could out perform the RobCo "Reliability Guarantee". Their bots just kept going, and going!

Sometimes what Darcy needed to cum was a wild pounding from a godly dick. Other times, it was the simple touch of strong fingers on soft skin as Thor groped and massaged her ample breasts.

Okay… maybe the thick fingers between her legs might have had something to do with it…

2B's heeled boots had been a source of pain for no few enemies. And a select few friends. Digging the heel into you, the blindfolded robot leaned forward, adding a bit more weight and pressure to the exquisite spike of pain. She knew what you liked.

[devilyn]

is that too much to ask? | tsukishima kei

— alexa, play: love somebody by lauv

I don't wanna be the one to say

That we gotta have a conversation

I don't wanna watch the tears roll down your face

Know, I hurt you, and I, I'm sorry

All I wanted was to love somebody

— synopsis: tsukishima avoids physical affection with you as often as he can, and you wonder what it is that you’re doing wrong in your relationship.

— genre: angst, happy endings, & the product of my writer’s block

— word count: 2.6k

You knew Tsukishima wasn’t the affectionate type--you knew that when you asked him out in your second year of high school. You knew that if you hugged him in front of his volleyball teammates, he’d stiffen and cringe away from your touch. It was natural for you to start reaching your arms out towards him before stopping yourself and resorting to a proud pat on the arm and a bright smile. It was to the point where even Hinata once commented that he’d never even see the two of you hug.

Now that the two of you were in university, and almost three years into your relationship, you started wondering what exactly it was about physical affection with you that Tsukishima hated so much. You started to experiment--slipping your hand into his when you walked back to your shared apartment together after his long volleyball practices, or tossing your arms around his neck in excitement after he wins a tough match. Each time, he’d react the same way. He would pull his hand from yours, or he’d put his hands on your shoulders and put some distance between the two of you.

At first, you believed it to be embarrassment. He didn’t like PDA--you could understand that. Even you had a limit to how much you could flaunt your relationship status in public. But even when the two of you were in the comfort of your apartment, you wondered why he never initiated any physical affection.

“Kei,” you whispered his name softly, and he looked up from his phone to meet your eyes. “Do you...not love me?”

He blinked, raising both brows in genuine surprise and slowly lowering his spoonful of cereal back into his bowl. 

“...Are you dumb?”

You scoffed, rolling your eyes and tightening your grip on your keys.

“It’s whatever,” you murmured, pulling the front door open and not bothering to spare him a glance over your shoulder. “I’ll see you.”

You left quickly to not have to deal with the aftermath of your sudden question, the door shutting firmly behind you.

Was it selfish of you to want more proof of his love for you? Sure, there were small things. Things like how he always helped you study for your exams if he could, or how he’d make you a cup of coffee before you left because he knew you struggled with staying awake during your morning classes. You knew he loved you because of these things.

But there was always a small voice in the back of your head asking if he only did those things to drag your stagnant relationship on. For a year now, it felt as if every day was the same with him. Actions were repetitive, dates were infrequent and only occurred when you asked, and at times, each day with him felt like a clone of the previous. Which is why you started wanting to hold his hand, and melt into his warm embrace.

Your fingers tightened on your tumbler, holding the contents of your boyfriend’s love--the coffee he made you this morning. 

Even at home, he would merely pet your head when you cuddled into his side on the couch. Kisses were rare unless you initiated, and he’d always tease you whenever you whined about wanting him to kiss you first. It’s not like you two never had sex either, so what was so wrong about your relationship that left you wanting more?

Your phone buzzed in your other hand, and you glanced at it briefly.

u ok?

You tucked your phone back into your pocket without replying. You never should’ve asked. Now you’ve disrupted the peace you had in your stagnant relationship.

Though, maybe it was okay to want more.

“Is it really a problem?” Kuroo sipped his drink through his straw, raising a brow in your direction. “You’ve been dating for three years. I’m more surprised that you didn’t bring this up to him earlier.”

Your fingers tapped rhythmically against the half empty tumbler, teeth gnawing anxiously at your lower lip.

“...I think I was too scared in the beginning,” you murmured.

“Mm,” your friend hummed softly in agreement. “You’ve changed. You were always affectionate before.”

You blinked, raising your gaze from the table between the two of you to meet Kuroo’s grin.

“How’d you know that? We just became friends in uni--”

“Tsukki told me,” he cut you off, and your fingers stopped tapping against your drink. “And it’s not like I don’t notice that you hug me more than you hug your boyfriend.”

“First of all, don’t say things that can be so easily misunderstood,” you tossed a crumpled up napkin at the former captain, and he quickly dodged it with a short laugh. “Second, what do you mean Kei told you? He said I used to be more--affectionate?”

This was news to you. You never thought that he would notice how you changed to make him feel more comfortable with your relationship.

It was true that towards the beginning of your relationship, you were always scared of upsetting him, so you did everything you could to change to his needs. You held back words you knew he wouldn’t want to hear, and only ever spoke up if something truly bothered you. It worked up until the end of your first year before you started opening up to him slowly. But something you could never seem to breach was Tsukishima’s habit of avoiding physical affection. 

“You know how he is,” Kuroo waved his hand dismissively, “Your boyfriend’s terrible with emotions. I tell him all the time that I’m surprised you lasted so long--”

“Don’t talk badly about him like that,” you scolded your friend with a scowl, to which he snickered quietly.

“Well, you can’t deny it, can you? He sucks, but he has his good points. That’s why you’re still dating him, right?”

It was true that you couldn’t deny it. Tsukishima had many faults, and his lack of desire for physical affection was only one of them. Still, you were just as much at fault for not communicating with him out of fear that he’d leave you.

“He’s just scared, y’know,” Kuroo rested his chin in his upturned palm. “Just like you. Even after three years, he’s not used to affection. Why don’t you just talk to him instead of sulking about it to me? I feel like I might as well be the third person in your relationship with how often you two come to me about each other.”

You were quiet for a bit, swirling the now cold coffee around as you processed the thought of confronting the issues you’ve been burying for so long.

“...he’d never date you,” you finally murmured, turning your gaze out the window.

“Ah, and you would?”

You didn’t need to look up to see Kuroo’s smug smirk.

“You wish.”

But no matter how much you didn’t want to admit it, there was some truth in Kuroo’s words. You had used him as a therapist far too many times, when your issues could easily be solved by confronting your fears and sitting down to talk with the man you lived with.

If only speaking to Tsukishima about your problems was as easy as it sounded.

By the time you finally gathered up the courage to even speak his name, your boyfriend was standing from the dinner table to grab your plates and heading towards the sink where his dishwashing responsibilities awaited him. The sight of his broad back seemed to glue your lips shut. 

You couldn’t get the words out.

“Do you hate being touched by me?” was the first thing you wanted to ask.

“Is it wrong for me to ask for you to tell me you love me sometimes?” would probably be the second, paired with, “Can you just kiss me once in a while without complaining about it?”

It all felt so childish, even before the words left your lips. So instead, you sat frozen in your chair, gazing at your boyfriend’s back that you longed to embrace.

Slowly, you stood. Before your brain could tell you how stupid of an idea this was, your feet moved forward until you were standing just a step away from Tsukishima’s much taller form.

Your arms wrapped around his waist from behind, and you could feel the way he jolted in surprise as you rested your cheek against his warm back.

“I’m washing--”

“Do you hate me?”

Silence.

Well, that question didn’t come out as expected, though it’s not like you didn’t wonder that too.

“Don’t turn around,” you pleaded quietly over the running water. To someone else, you must’ve looked like a fool, clinging onto your boyfriend like your life depended on it while he soaped up your dirty dishes.

He granted your wish, and didn’t whirl around to pull away from your touch. Instead, he continued scrubbing at your dinner plates.

“You have until I finish washing the dishes to explain yourself,” he stated calmly, and your arms tightened around his waist. It was a demand.

“I heard...from Kuroo that you said I used to be more affectionate before we started dating,” you stammered out quickly, “If you knew that, then why do you get so stiff and push me away when I try to initiate physical affection even after we’ve been dating for three years? Do you hate being touched by me so much?”

The kitchen was quiet, now that your boyfriend was drying the dishes. His hand stopped moving robotically over the wet plates, and he slowly set them down on the counter instead. You could tell he wanted to say something, but wasn’t sure how. So you continued.

“I do know that you love me, Kei,” you murmured weakly, voice muffling against his shirt as you shifted to rest your forehead against his broad back instead. “I do. I know you’re always thinking of me, and I love that about you. But when you push me away, I can’t help but think that you’re just pretending to love me for the sake of convenience.”

“If I wanted convenience, I wouldn’t date you,” he mumbled under his breath, and the words stung to the point that your arms dropped from around the middle blocker’s waist.

No longer confined by your embrace, Tsukishima spun around and grabbed your shoulders, his eyes wide with panic.

“Y/N wait--I didn’t mean it that--”

“You’re such an ass,” you averted your gaze from his, trying to blink away the tears that began to blur your vision.

“Listen--” his voice was frantic, but you didn’t let him continue. You were scared to hear what would come next if you did.

“I guess I was wrong, and the voice in my head is right,” you cut him off, voice trembling. “So I’ll just tell you everything that I held back since it’s all going to fall apart anyway.”

It took all your courage to turn your teary gaze back to his deceivingly sorrowful golden eyes.

“Is there something so disgusting about me that you don’t even want to hold me? Even after this many years?” you began, fully prepared to spill every one of your fears from the past three years. “Am I asking for too much when I ask you to kiss me every once in a while? Is it wrong for me to want you to just tell me you love me sometimes? Am I a bad person for thinking our relationship has become so boring because neither of us want to make the first step to try and change because we’re both scared of scaring each other away?”

You rubbed your arm against your eyes, trying to pretend like you weren’t sobbing into your sleeve. Though you’re sure you weren’t a very good actor, with the way you hiccuped and took shaky breaths between your questions.

“Did I make a mistake trying to change myself to fit your standards? Should I have never confessed to you back--”

Your voice was suddenly muffled into your boyfriend’s chest, and you gasped at the suddenness of his hug.

“Please don’t regret it,” he requested weakly, his voice trembling just as much as yours.

Those simple words were all it took for your sobs to come out freely, your shaky hands clawing upwards to grip onto Tsukishima’s t-shirt, clinging onto him as if he was the only thing keeping you grounded. It was a hug you’d been craving for ages--one he initiated. You hated that it took you throwing your heart at him for it to happen, but what were you to do?

He allowed you to cry as he continued.

“There’s nothing wrong with you,” he murmured into your hair. “There’s nothing wrong with what you want. I was...just scared, like you said.”

“Of what?” was what you wanted to ask. And like he read your mind, Tsukishima elaborated.

“The more I hug you, and the more kisses we share, the more I fall for you,” he whispered, as if fearful of the words he was admitting to you. “The deeper I fall, the more scared I get that you’ll leave me when you remember how bad of a boyfriend I am. I want to give you 100% of me, but at the same time, I’m too scared to do exactly that.”

Your cries were quieting down, and you took shaky breaths, inhaling his familiar scent each time. Just his embrace managed to soothe your frantic sobs.

“So I avoided anything that would make me fall too much in love with you, but it’s already too late,” he laughed bitterly, pulling back slightly so he could cup your cheeks, thumbs brushing at the wet streaks staining your skin. Your lips pursed into a small pout, and he couldn’t help the smile that tugged at his lips. “I already love you too much to let go of you, and you know it.”

“...you’re really, really not allowed to be cute right now,” you grumbled, and he laughed.

“Yeah, I could say the same to you,” he joked, leaning forward so his lips could brush over your forehead.

“...can you kiss me now?” you murmured shyly, and his grin morphed into a weak smile before his hands tilted your jaw up towards him. His lips met yours softly, and though this wasn’t your first kiss, it was the first time you’d felt this way with Tsukishima in three years.

When he pulled away, you were crying again.

“Stop crying,” he cursed, “If someone saw you right now, they’d think I was bullying you.”

You babbled something incoherent through your tears of joy, and your boyfriend’s expression softened in a way you hadn’t witnessed in what felt like years.

“You have to take responsibility, you know,” his palms cupped your jaw, pulling your teary gaze back up to his as his thumb brushed over your lower lip. “For making me fall so deeply in love with you again.”

You laughed, tears dripping down your cheeks as you wrapped your arms around Tsukishima’s neck to pull him down into another love-filled kiss.

“Until when?” you grinned when you pulled away, his eyes closed as he sighed happily and rested his forehead against yours.

“Until I make up for the three years I put you through,” he mumbled, and you smiled softly as your lips grazed over his lightly. As you pulled back, he leaned forward and peppered kisses across your face.

“So, until forever?” you teased with a quiet giggle.

“Until forever,” he whispered, lips meeting yours once more.

[aboardthehavocmarauder]

A “Replacement”?

The Bad Batch x Reader (Platonic) • They/Them Pronouns • Utility!Reader • ANGST/SFW • Canon bits

Requested by: Anon

The story has been told a lot. Either it be a couple or a group of mischiefs finding an abandoned orphan and taking it in as it’s own…or a billionaire taking on multiple and training them to beco—-Wrong universe but the story has been told a lot that you can learn a lot with just the spark notes.

Y/N was found by the bad batch on a distress call in Tatooine. The batch not wanting to leave the child and inevitably growing attached, made things difficult regarding the Kaminoans. But once discovering a few things about the kid, they have become of use but more so forming domestic properties in the bad batch while the child gained few of their perspective skills. Y/N has been with the batch since before Echo and when Echo joined, he instantly bonded.

Now we’re faced with this situation…

“…C-Crosshair” Y/N stood between the sniper and the padawan as they held their hands out before them knowing what they’ll have to do if he tries anything.

Instead of a knock to the head or a talking to, Crosshair dropped his sniper when the tears started rolling off Y/N’s cheeks. He froze and felt like he just did what he wasn’t supposed to do. He wasn’t controlling himself in that moment until they broke down before him.

“Kid…I-I…”

Caleb couldn’t stand there for much longer and had to jump across the ravine to save his own life. While Hunter catches up to the two finding Y/N balling as Cross broke the space between them engulfing them in his embrace.

“I’m sorry…I-I’m so s-sorry…” Crosshair held onto them like he’d explode if separated.

The flight to Kamino was quiet as Y/N kept their distance for a moment from the others. More felt something more was wrong. They calmed down since the incident with Crosshair, but the tears still threatened to fall.

“Little one”

Y/N swiveled the gunner’s seat a bit to find Hunter climbing up to join them. They held Lula and had one of Tech’s blankets wrapped around their shoulders. But of course he didn’t come to ruin their comfy bundled self, only to make sure that they still weren’t upset over what happened with Crosshair.

“I’m fine.”

“You have said that so many times that it’s not even a phrase anymore. Y/N…is something else wrong? You’re heart rate hasn’t calmed down since we got back aboard”

“…That kid. The Jedi. I…I could’ve. It could’ve been way worse than what had happened…” They turned away to keep their tears to themselves when Hunter wasn’t going to take that. He got up entirely and picked up the kid carrying them in the blanket with Lula in hand, heading out of the gunners seat and taking the seat at the work bench.

Hunter got comfortable before letting Y/N adjust all they want to be in his embrace laying against him.

“Nothing will ever happen to you, as long as I’m here”

Arriving to Kamino was welcoming? More so the bad batch being requested by Tarkin and the curious child following the main research scientist to come watch the six at work.

“Promise me, you won’t show anything during this mock mission. We can’t have you taken away from us. Okay?” Tech waited for Y/N to nod as he felt reassured enough before putting his helmet back on opening his pack for them to put a few questionable things in the bag. They watched him lock it to reassure them and that’s when the hatch opened lifting them.

Nala Se watched carefully from the gallery which peaked Omega’s other interest. Being Y/N. The only non clone in the bunch. But the way she could read the Kaminoans better than most, drew her curiosity in.

When the robots turned off the stun and started to show some real damage, Y/N got knocked off their feet and dragged against the metal floor by one of the brute builds. Wrecker immediately taking action when Y/N felt the ground tear at their skin making them react in a way Tech didn’t want them to.

“Who is that officer?”

“Not an officer. Y/F/N Y/L/N was a rescue. Clone Force 99 acts as their guardians. “Dads” in layman’s terms. Or how they would put it when talking during reports. They are fascinating and know each of their skills. Plus a few more added bonuses” Nala Se reports handing Tarkin the file they have on Y/N as Omega approached the glass closer to watch Wrecker quickly cover the kid while Crosshair took down the final bot.

“Come on lovebug. Let’s get you to the medbay” Echo helps Y/N to their feet as he gave a quick glance to the viewing room and his anxiety got the best of him. “I’m not leaving them” he tells the others when Tarkin asked over the intercom to meet with the bad batch.

“Go ahead Echo. We’ll meet you there once we are done” Hunter lead the rest as Echo was now glued to Y/N the second they started to move.

———

“Y/N? Are you okay?”

The little one kept their distance from Echo since he’s new and they haven’t warmed up yet. But they had just watched Hunter get shot down and as the others took care of getting him to the medbay, Echo stayed behind in the marauder with Y/N.

“It’s okay you know…he’s okay”

“…o-okay”

“Y/N…” Echo knelt down beside them minding their space and his sudden drop given he’s almost mainly metal. “It’s okay if you’re not okay. You can say that. You can say your worries. Fears. Everything. None of us are going to shun you or make your feelings not valid.”

“I…” Y/N uncurled but the tears were more noticeable. “I can’t lose anyone anymore…I-I can’t”

Echo gently wipes away the tears he caught as Y/N let him without retracting immediately. They continued to ball and eventually end up in Echo’s protective embrace.

______

“We are grabbing Omega and leaving as soon as possible. None of this is right. And I’m not working for no empire.”

“Agreed. But the second we land. We are putting few of us at risk. The Kaminoans know that Crosshair’s chip can still be manipulated and used in their favor. Or more so Tarkin’s. And the same goes for Y/N but in more ways than one. We can’t risk either of them being taken in any way”

“So what do you suggest Tech? They have infrared scanners and they’ll know that the two are on the ship once only four of us exit”

“Then. We make sure neither of them get separated from the rest of us” Echo interrupts as they have arrived back to Kamino.

Then it…sort of went down hill since containment.

When the field opened to the cell and the shock troopers forced Crosshair out. That’s when Y/N didn’t care who was watching and literally brought themselves through forcing the ones holding him to hit the sides of the hallway. But they were then shot by the one trooper that was manning the control panel. Which lead to Wrecker not giving any more damns and rushing in to take care of the rest of the shock troopers as Hunter immediately picks up Y/N trying to keep himself level headed even if his kid was bleeding.

“Follow us Omega. We’ll head to the hanger and quickly get out of there” Tech took lead as Hunter’s silence started to drive some of them insane.

“Did they wake yet?” Echo asks as Hunter shook his head before handing them off to Wrecker once they reached the hanger.

“Get inside and Echo jam the hanger door” Hunter orders as the two did what needed to be done. Crosshair suddenly picks up Omega once she grabbed Lula and tossed her into the Marauder.

Crosshair retrieved his and Wrecker’s gear before boarding the ship while Hunter and Tech took care of their own. Echo ran back getting his and Y/N’s when the doors were blasted open with a thermite.

“TECH” Hunter yells once everyone was secured on the marauder to get them out of there.

Once they were in the clear for now, Omega found curiosity in the space before her. She sat in the co-pilots seat with Hunter standing behind her enjoying her wonderment with his brothers beside him minus Crosshair who kept his distance while also being close to Y/N when they woke.

It wasn’t until the group reached Saleucami when Suu got to take a look at what happened.

______

“You kidnapped a child”

“We didn’t kidnap a child! Well. Okay at first yes. But now it’s more so…the kaminoans know we can be humane on tougher missions?!” Hunter explains while his anxieties got the best of him since he risked the squadron’s position and Cut’s by being in a deserter’s safe house but also for the fact that he and his brothers don’t exactly know how to take care of a young kid.

“Well, what’s the problem then?”

“Y/N is sick and we don’t know what to do”

Suu quickly glares at Cut as he only gave her a smile in response. Next thing you know, Y/N was moved from the bunk in the Marauder to the hammock in their home letting them be bundled and cared for while the batch made a risky decision letting them take care of Y/N while they finished a mission.

When the little one woke to no one and nobody, they started to worry and tear up. But was immediately met with a gentle hand resting on their forehead.

“They’ll be back, lovely. You’re safe”

Y/N frowns adjusting a bit in the hammock only to to find Lula logged between them and the sling. Wrecker would always leave Lula with them no matter what situation.

______

Now it just stung more

Y/N woke up to their shirt missing and replaced with a bandage that wrapped their chest then over their left shoulder. They felt around the bed they were laid in and didn’t find Lula. Their anxiety got the best of them as they brought themselves out of the bed grabbing the clothes left for them to dress and meet with the commotion outside.

Omega had just had the encounter with the beast and was scowled by Hunter, before being reassured and reminded that she is okay. The look Hunter gave her, didn’t mean to hurt Y/N this much.

Before they could make their presence known themselves, both Crosshair and Echo spotted the kid standing by the house in a loose tank to avoid snagging the bandages with a grayish red poncho over it all. They didn’t have their boots on just the socks that went a bit over their pants. Regardless. They had woken up and didn’t feel the need to put shoes on. Nor watch them no longer be of main concern…at least to a few.

“You should still be laying down, but thank maker you finally woke up. It’s been a few days kid” Cross frowns, keeping a close look at their hands and how they kept gripping their wrists too tight. “Y/N…are you in there?”

“Are you still in pain?” Echo asks noticing the same thing as he carefully took one of their hands to knock them out of their own mind. “You don’t have to be verbal, lovebug. We just need something to know you’re okay”

Y/N nods, and only agreed, to everything Echo asked. Knowing Crosshair wasn’t buying the fact that they weren’t in any pain that when the night rolled in, he woke up from his bunk after taking a shift to watch the Marauder to the sound of wincing when Y/N tried to climb onto the top bunk.

“You are a challenge. Come on. Take mine if you’re going to insi—“ Crosshair stopped when Y/N did and look at him with tear filled eyes as he stopped saying anything more that night.

Crosshair took the only pillows from the marauder and made a pile for Y/N to lean against in the bunk as he laid beside them.

“You guys don’t like me anymore…” They suddenly sprung up as Cross waited for anything more. “The second I felt uneasy when returning to Kamino the first time, I knew everything would change…and everything did. Im just. A reg. Who’s force sensitive. Da…Tech told me to not show it or I would be killed. So I’m normal…in kamino standards until I broke out and almost got killed. I should’ve….just not woken up”

“Woah. Stop it” Crosshair quickly sat up turning to Y/N. “You can’t say that. Shits different now. I know you wanted to call us dad the entire war and everybody wanted you not to to keep you safe. But again. Shits different and as much as the galaxy is still a dumpster fire. You’re my kid. I would’ve fucking stolen the marauder and crashed it into wherever Tarkin is if I lost you. I would be devastated.” Crosshair held their face wiping away the tears that fell.

“I’m just a flight risk…” Y/N cries as Crosshair had enough of this as he readjusted them to be in his wrapped embraced keeping in mind the injuries they still held.

“I don’t care. I won’t let anything happen to you” Cross whispers holding them close to his person staring out into the rest of the ship spotting Tech who held their first aid kit in case Y/N wandered in here in pain. He gave Cross a worried look reading his body language and the look in his eyes before pushing the kit aside and sitting down to be present in case of anything.

“…Im ok Te….dad” Y/N gripped onto Cross tighter as Tech immediately looked over and got up to bring himself closer to them resting his hand on their back rubbing soothing circles.

______

Tech readied his blaster when the silence was interrupted by a metallic drop, and when he quickly turned the pilot seat aiming his gun he watched Y/N drop their glass.

“Oh, love I’m sorry” He frowns putting his gun away as he quickly got up from his seat to pick up their glass setting it on the counter before picking up Y/N suddenly. “Come on. You can hang out with me”

Didn’t take long for Hunter to look for Y/N and only to find them comfortably on the pilot seat wrapped in Tech’s and Cross’s blanket. While holding a small tool kit for the analyst under the control panel.

“Don’t stay up too late” Hunter whispers to Y/N gently petting their head before returning to his bunk.

______

“Y/N…are you okay?”

The chips activated in Crosshair and Wrecker. Thankfully Rex had stunned Crosshair after he managed to knock Echo off his feet along with Y/N when they tried to cover him and Hunter. Then went for Wrecker when he followed Omega. But the event stung.

“Yeah. Why, Omega?”

“You haven’t spoken to Crosshair or really any of them after what happened. They are accessing the ship we are in for anything that could help us…we could be of help”

“We? Just go. You can go help them. I don’t…I don’t want to see any of them right now and I really…really don’t want to see you” Y/N hissed at Omega as they quickly left the ship before she could even say another word.

“Need some help?”

Tech pushes himself out from under the panel finding Omega. “If you Uhm. Don’t mind finding—“

“They don’t seem to like me so I’d…appreciate it if I can just…” Omega frowns as Tech nods gesturing to his tool box to be brought over and for her to join him in connecting a few wires.

Wrecker was scavenging the ship yard as he stopped to the sound of anger and distress. He quickly approached and draws his gun in addition. He didn’t need it and should’ve have held his weapon out because the tear stained cheeks and tired stance from his kid only made him feel awful for thinking it was an enemy. Y/N suddenly forced Wrecker back when a piece of rubble they had forced above a few miles up had finally fell. He walked around it to find Y/N now sitting on the ground holding their legs close to their chest letting the tears continue to fall.

“…I wouldn’t have let that fallen on you. You’re our little firecracker. We can’t lose you” Wrecker may not always know what’s happening always, nor would any of them go to him first. But he knows how they are feeling through the body language and they were not okay.

Wrecker held Y/N for what felt like an eternity. They didn’t want to move and he didn’t want to let go.

•

“WE NEED TO GET OMEGA”

“We’ve opened all the channels and are tracking any ship within radius that the Marauder can track.” Echo informs. “And one of the channels is checking every address of any open channel within radius. We followed as much as we could and only following what we can”

“All we can do is hope now” Y/N states getting up from their seat as Hunter grabs their arm suddenly before they could go to the back.

“Please, kid. Do what you can”

“Hunter. Follow our protocol. Don’t force our kid to do anything they don’t want to. Especially with the force” Crosshair bites, not giving a single damn if Hunter is reacting to his injury and the bounty hunter that took Omega.

“She’s being hunted. By not one. But two bounty hunters and all we can do is find her and protect her from all that can happen.” Hunter tells Crosshair as the second Y/N pulled away and he quickly stood to give them his entire attention. “Please. The force is only traceable by other force users. You can do your best to find her and bring her back to us”

Y/N blankly stares at Hunter and didn’t say another word as they walked past him to retrieve their noise cancelling headphones from Echo. Then move to the storage compartment to lock themselves in there uninterrupted.

To them it didn’t take long for Omega to find the open channel and for them to find their location.

Once Omega returned to the comforts of the Marauder and the child finally got some rest after what happened…Hunter sat in the co-pilot chair while Y/N took the pilots. The two sat in silence for a while before one decided to speak up.

“I’m going to stay with Cid while you six take on her jobs.”

“What? No. I don’t approve of this”

“I’m old enough to make my own decisions and when the fuck did you start to care again?”

“What do you mean, kid? I’ve always cared. You’re also always going to be my kid. I don’t want you to stay with Cid and then eventually run off to wander the galaxy alone. You were alone when we found you. We’re not going to force you back to that”

“Stop saying we when it’s you that has changed” Y/N snaps. “You don’t talk to me. We don’t train anymore. Hell you don’t even give me the time of fucking day anymore. If you say I’m your fucking kid, I sure as hell don’t feel that way. I’m just. No. Omega replaced me. And not because of the shiny and new aspect. But because Omega is special. Wanted. Needs to be protected. She’s smart as hell. Knows how to act in certain situations. She can help herself and she’s amazing. I’m just me. I had to be trained and it comes naturally to her. Even this force shit isn’t interesting. I’m not good at it and I certainly didn’t fucking want it”

“…what do you want me to say kid…” Hunter pushes the chair to face him seeing Y/N pull their legs to their chest immediately. “Omega is Omega. And you are you. But we picked you. Out of everybody in the galaxy. Not to be a part of a team. We raised you and the kaminoans helped up until the point of the war. Then we did everything we could to keep them away from you. As much as the Kaminoans want Omega. They want you to because even if you’re not a part of the council and you’re not part of the bad. Someone would come after you once we part. So no. I’m not letting you separate from us for anything. You’re my kid. You’re my family and I’m not letting anyone hurt you in any way.”

“I’m still mad…and jealous. You’re not getting my forgiveness that easily”

“Well. I’m willing to wait a lifetime for it and I’m not going to stop taking care of you”

“Hunter…”

“Yes?”

“Please don’t scare me like that again…”

“I promise”

[wolveria]

Inside Your Wires - Ch 31

Pairing: Human!Connor x Android!Reader

Series Warnings (18+ only): Eventual smut, slow burn, fantasy bigotry, violence, brief noncon elements, angst with a happy ending

Chapter Summary: Connor begins to question their mission, his change of heart having everything to do with a certain prototype.

AO3

Yin remained quiet on the ride back to the city, which wasn’t an entirely odd thing for her, except Connor had the feeling she was being more introspective than usual.

Not to mention the guilt and shame. Connor had never seen that in an android—one that wasn’t deviant, anyway.

He kept sneaking glances, worry settling in his chest like an old friend. He’d been worried over her before, it was hard not to when she handled herself with reckless abandon, but this was the first time he’d been concerned over her state of mind. He couldn’t see her LED from this side, but he assumed it was going through quite the light show. A product of the android’s looming existential crisis.

Connor couldn’t blame her, not with that freakshow that Stern had put on for them. The sadistic ringleader of the circus. Even with two twin brothers, he couldn’t quite fathom what it would be like in a room filled with his own clones. Colin and Conrad were their own people, but that mansion had been filled with pretty dolls with eyes that were too sharp and watchful.

He shuddered and knew that something was definitely wrong with Yin when she didn’t immediately turn up the heat and harass him with kindness.

Allowing the android the time and silence she needed to sort her thoughts, Connor drove on without a word, not speaking until they pulled into the apartment complex parking lot over an hour later.

Connor winced at the sight of the building. He’d almost died here, and worse, he thought the prototype wouldn’t have cared. He knew better now, but it was hard to shake off the memory of his anger and borderline hatred. He was going to make it up to her, for that and for so much more, starting with the rats. Connor would let Yin take care of all the rats in Detroit if it would make the worried crease between her brows vanish.

She followed him up the stairs, trailing him on silent footsteps like a ghost. Connor was actually worried something inside her had been irrevocably damaged, that Stern’s mind games had done more harm than he’d thought, but at the sight of her expression lifting as soon as the door opened and the rat cages were in sight, Connor knew she would be just fine.

“Just a moment, Detective. This won’t take long.”

And with that, she busied herself exchanging water and food dishes, even doing a bit of cleaning and replacing the old bedding with new.

Connor didn’t complain. He merely leaned against the wall, arms crossed, watching as she worked. He would have offered to help, but he had a sense that taking care of these animals was something that might turn out to be therapeutic for her.

Deviants are known to show an interest in pets and insects. Isn’t that what she’d said to him when he asked why a deviant would keep rats?

Connor thought the words over as Yin placed her hand in the cage, speaking to the animals as if they could understand. It was bizarre and impossibly cute at the same time, but more than that, there was a change in her behavior. Connor hadn’t noticed it, it must have been subtle, but against the backdrop of the apartment he could now see it.

The first time they’d been here, Yin had been stiff and, well… robotic. She’d barely acknowledged his presence, only sometimes watching him creepily out of the corner of her eye as she examined the apartment for evidence.

But now, she moved with nearly the fluidity of a human. She still did things in a very android way, but now when she caught his eye, she would offer a small smile that he would have no choice but to return.

I’m not… I’m not a deviant.

Was Stern right? What the fuck did it mean if she was a deviant? What did it even mean to be a deviant? If he could actually interview one without it self-destructing, maybe he would have some goddamn answers and he could actually help her, because at the moment, Connor had no idea what to do. The voicemail Hank had left him didn’t clear up the issue either, and after everything he’d endured with Yin…

…it made him wonder. Were they wrong about deviants?

Connor blinked when a white-and-black piebald managed to leap and escape from its cage, but the deft android caught it before it even hit the ground. She cradled it for a moment as if unsure what to do with it, and then she placed a finger on its furry back. Brows furrowed as if engaging an especially complex task, she stroked along its fur. The rat immediately settled down, closing its eyes, and twitching its whiskers in bliss.

Something ached in Connor’s chest, sudden and without warning. It hurt, but it was a bittersweet pain, and with it came a startling realization.

There was no denying it. As Connor watched Yin, the pain in his chest expanded, grew until it faded in sharpness and left a yearning that made him want to reach out and pull her into his arms again.

I’m so fucking gone for her.

The android returned the piebald rat to its cage, completely unaware of the sudden turmoil going on inside her partner. And thank God for that. Connor didn’t know what he would do if CyberLife prototypes could read minds, but she was sharp enough that she’d catch on if Connor wasn’t careful.

The android approached and gazed up at him, hands dutifully pulled behind her back.

“I’m finished, Detective. I apologize for the wait.”

And I apologize for wanting to kiss you hard enough to make you overheat again, is what Conor didn’t say.

“Sure,” he said instead, rubbing the back of his neck. “No need to be sorry, we’ve got time to get back to the station. Figure out, uh… where to go next.”

“Go?” She tilted her head.

“Yeah, uh, like, figuratively. How to proceed. About the deviants.”

Fuck, now he was all tongue-tied and the android was peering at him in that way that meant she was scanning him down to the molecular level. Probably.

This is what I get for falling for someone much smarter than I am.

“Anyway,” he said quickly, “after the morning we had we deserve to grab some lunch before heading back.”

Connor walked ahead of her, knowing if she walked next to him, he’d want to do something crazy like put an arm around her. Poor robot was confused enough, she didn’t need his sudden affection making the waters even murkier.

“I’ll show you the Chicken Feed,” he added with a crooked smile. “Hank loves the place, but it’s a grease deathtrap. Told him he needs to stop eating there, but he never listens, so I can at least show you Detroit’s largest health hazard. We might even catch him there.”

Connor knew he was babbling, but he didn’t care. Yin’s expression brightening at the mention of Hank’s favorite hole-in-the-wall was enough to make Connor’s entire day.

Yep, he thought with undeniable, cheerful certainty. I’m doomed.

Next Chapter

[worth-more-than-two-thousand]

Omega’s Observations

Request:  Congrats on starting the blog!! Pumped to have a new writer's work to read 🥰 If you need some requests, how about an echo/gn!medic reader who he develops a crush on, for a little of that sweet sweet mutual pining action✨ Dunno if you write pre-citadel or just BB echo, but I'm happy with either. Have a good weekend!! :) (@krussyfed)

Author’s Note: Whew! This took a while for me to get to a place where I felt good about posting it. Honestly, as most of my writing does, it got a bit away from me, but that’s because I love fleshing out a story, showing-not-telling, and building on events from the canon. But if I saw this through until the end, I probably wouldn’t end up posting this for months! So I hope what I have here is worth the wait, and if you want more, let me know! 

Story Notes: Unbeta’ed, no obvious warnings. 

🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑 🖑

Ask her brothers to describe her, and ‘still and quiet’ would not be two of the words any of them would use. 

Hunter would call her curious to a fault, then ruffle her hair to let her know that he meant it in the nicest way possible. 

Wrecker would boom with laughter, proclaiming her one of them (“Always ready for action and adventurin’! Let’s go get those gundarks!”). 

Tech would probably consider for a moment, then use a four-syllable word. Like effervescent.

Echo would call her young and energetic, but his brow would furrow as though this might be a bad thing. Then he would inevitably follow up with a reminder to stay within sight and keep out of trouble. She didn’t mind. She knew he just worried about her. Omega would always reassure him that she would keep close to her brothers. Of course, whether it actually happened was usually another thing. 

Crosshair, if he was with them, would probably call her troublesome. 

But really, this was a tactical advantage. Her brothers never expected her to be still and quiet, so she could settle in and be observant when it was least expected of her. 

Omega was actually quite accustomed to being taciturn, at least when she needed to be. Her time with Nala Se, after all, was mostly like this. 

Watching over like a stone guardian as Nala Se pored over the capsules containing her modified brothers…

...being as unobtrusive as possible during another endless meeting with Lama Su…

...laying noiselessly and without complaint as Nala Se inserted a needle into her arm for yet another blood sample…

 These days, Omega could be as boisterous and vivacious (two more words Tech had taught her) as she wanted to be, so long as there was no chance of enemies being around. The only time she was obediently still by choice during these times was when she was being treated by Y/N, Clone Force 99’s on-board medic. 

Again, this was mostly out of habit from her time with Nala Se, but it wasn’t as bad. For one thing, Y/N fielded all of Omega’s questions with unending patience. And their hands were less clinical, more gentle than Omega was used to. Nala Se was efficient, not a movement wasted in her examinations. Y/N, however, always offered a comforting touch on the back after a scary encounter, and would gently but firmly place their hands on Omega’s face to look her in the eye to assess emotional well-being. 

The first time Y/N had done this was on the Ordo Moon, as Y/N was finishing wrapping up Omega’s small scratches on her hands and knees from her misadventures in the underground tunnels. 

At this point, not used to such close eye contact, Omega averted her eyes and looked over Y/N’s shoulder for something to distract her from the unusual awkwardness she felt. 

Her eyes met Echo’s. 

Her awkwardness vanished as he seemed to startle, a faint flush appearing on his neck, as he coughed, crossed his arms, and turned away, suddenly much more interested in examining the ship’s ceiling than anything else. 

What an interesting reaction. Her brain filed it away, curiosity piqued.  

Then, over the course of a few weeks, Omega confirmed her suspicions. 

Echo was always watching Y/N. Echo liked Y/N. 

Omega caught him absentmindedly gazing at Y/N’s hands as they tapped thoughtfully on a datapad while Wrecker carried new medical inventory aboard the Marauder during a supply run. 

After Wrecker’s successful inhibitor chip removal on Bracca, and Tech volunteered to go next, Omega watched Y/N’s hands fly across the medical controls, fierce determination sharpening their features. Glancing up, she saw that Echo’s attention was similarly arrested, a look on his face that was bordering very close to adoration. 

He seemed most captivated by Y/N’s hands, however, whenever they were treating him personally for any ailments or injuries. Echo always sat pin straight, almost comedically robotic (it would be funnier, but his history brought a sort of cruel irony to the thought) and allowing Y/N to turn his body and maneuver his prosthetic arm however was needed without any fidgeting or complaint. 

But his eyes were another story. Darting back and forth everywhere their fingers touched, such a stoniness to his face that Omega was certain he was committing every graze, every feather-light touch, to memory. Y/N, as always, was so focused on the medical work that they never seemed to notice. 

Omega saw things, though. Echo was like Y/N’s shadow, often slipping into the same room or area Y/N was in, like a ghost. She observed with fascination how he always angled himself to face her whenever there was a conversation in the cockpit. It didn’t matter if it was just the two of them, or if the entire squad was there and discussing a mission, it was as though he had attuned himself to wherever Y/N happened to be and was drawn to them.

Like a sunflower always facing the sun. 

She saw in the field how Echo, not Hunter, was usually the one to call the Marauder to check in or alert Y/N to any injuries that would need to be treated when they returned. How the space between his brows would crease whenever they would radio in but only receive the static of communications interference. 

Or worse, no answer at all. 

Echo wouldn’t say anything, but Omega felt that her brother’s steps would quicken, just a little. And she wasn’t sure she was just imagining a sudden sense of urgency in the air as they completed the mission, with just a bit more efficiency, a bit more ruthlessness than was usual. 

Omega saw how Echo always let out a tiny breath in relief, as though he had been holding it the whole time, whenever they returned to the Marauder with its medic unharmed. 

And she would never forget that one time they had returned to the Marauder, doors blasted open, interior trashed, with no medic in sight and droplets of blood leading away from the ship. 

Omega had never been in war, had only heard about it passively from the conversations between Nala Se and Lama Su, then a bit more directly from her brothers once she was allowed out of the private lab. 

She had once asked Tech about the war, but his response clearly paled in comparison to the dark look on Echo’s face, as they battled their way through enemy after enemy to rescue Y/N.

Omega felt as though she understood war a little bit more after this. At least its motivations. 

It took longer for Omega to figure out whether her brother’s feelings were reciprocated. Y/N’s affection wasn’t as obvious, but the trick was to watch more for their actions than in body language. 

Since Y/N and Tech slept the least, they would swap bunks and so were usually on opposite sleep schedules. This meant that Y/N would stay up late into the night well after the rest of the boys had retired to their bunks, face alight in the glow of a datapad. They would concentrate fiercely, chewing on their thumbnail and pausing often to tap notes into the margins. 

Omega eventually managed to snatch and break into Y/N’s data pad, and saw that they were working their way through a series of medical journals, detailing the latest treatment for prosthetics. There were also several articles on treating post-traumatic stress disorder for former prisoners of war. 

Omega had even checked Y/N’s search history, and discovered that they had been using an encrypted channel to search for chatter on the whereabouts of the former 501st legion and its various members. Unfortunately, it didn’t seem like Y/N had much luck so far, but if the number of searches were any indication, they weren’t giving up. 

Omega wondered incredulously how none of her other brothers had yet caught on to the two’s clearly mutual affection for each other. Until she realized that no, they already knew.

Once, when Omega had offered Echo some of her Mantell Mix, Echo had sniffed it, much to her amusement. Her giggles subsided immediately when Echo murmured apologetically that he sometimes had trouble digesting pretty much any food that wasn’t nutritional paste, due to half his digestive system being completely artificial. 

Of course, this meant that he must have been experiencing constant abdominal discomfort, as they hadn’t had any nutritional paste on the ship since their escape from Kamino. Hunter once mentioned to her that even the plainest of rations seemed to bother him, but he gamely never complained.

One day, Hunter was giving out rations in the cockpit, and had already given Tech and Wrecker their usual. Then he pulled out a green, unlabeled squeeze packet instead of the usual rations bar, and handed it to Echo, who took it with some confusion.

“What’s this?”

“New brand. It should be easier on your digestive systems than the usual stuff. Tastier, too.” 

Echo glanced at the packet skeptically, unscrewing the cap and sniffing at its contents. 

“It smells...fresh?” 

“Try it,” Hunter urged him, to which Echo obediently tried a small amount. 

His mouth rounded in a surprised ‘oh’. Omega wished she could have captured the look on his face with a holovid. He stared at the packet in his hands, with a look that was a bit like wonder and amazement. 

This didn’t escape Wrecker’s notice, who immediately stood up in protest. “What? Why does Echo get something new to eat?” He glanced forlornly at the slightly crumpled, stale rations bar in his hand. “I want some!” 

“They’re too expensive for your appetite, Wrecker,” Hunter replied, just a bit too quickly, though none of the others seemed to notice. “Besides, you probably wouldn’t like it.” 

“I’ll be the judge of that!” Wrecker proclaimed, swiping the packet from Echo’s hands despite Hunter’s attempt to chastise him. Wrecker took a giant slurp. 

...and immediately spat it out, some of it splattering on poor Gronk. 

“Blech! That tastes weird.” 

“Probably because it’s made of fruits and vegetables,” Tech said dryly, “Your palette likely isn’t sophisticated enough to appreciate the subtle bitterness and natural sweetness that are characteristic of those food categories.” 

Echo eyed Hunter skeptically. “And we have the money to keep buying these?” 

Hunter hummed, closing the rations box and turning away from the cockpit. “Omega’s paying for it from her holochess winnings.” She startled at the sudden mention of her name. “We have extra to spare, for now.” Hunter subtly winked at her when the others weren’t looking. 

“Oh. Thank you, Omega,” said Echo, looking at her with true gratitude. Omega flushed a bit, but mostly because it actually didn’t have anything to do with her. She played along, however, and insisted it was no problem. It did seem to make him happy, so there was no harm in a small lie like that, right? 

She cornered Hunter later, though, and insisted on him telling her the truth. After wearing him down a bit, he finally relented.

“Okay, but you can’t tell the others, all right? Believe me, I’ve already tried to talk them out of it. But Y/N has been doing some medical work on the side, working at one of the clinics near Cid’s bar. They’ve been using the money to buy these.” 

Omega’s face screwed up in confusion. “Why can’t you just tell Echo that?”

Hunter sighed. “Because they don’t want Echo to know. Figures that Echo wouldn’t like them going out on their own to work in the slums for his sake. They’re probably right, of course.” He rubbed at his forehead, a sure sign of an impending headache. 

Omega frowned, then decided to go for it.

“You know they like each other, right?” 

Hunter blinked at her, looking surprised. At her determined stare, he gave a sigh and muttered something like, ‘I’m getting too old for this’. He proceeded to explain patiently to her that perhaps Echo and Y/N liked each other, but pointed out how awkward or difficult it could be to have a romantic relationship in such close quarters, especially when they as a team also had bigger things to worry about. 

It sounded like Hunter had given this exact speech at least twice before. 

So Tech and Wrecker knew, then, but were being polite about it (or, in Wrecker’s case, had probably gotten an earful from Hunter earlier about tact and ‘minding one’s own business’). 

Well. That wouldn’t do. 

By the time Echo got up the nerve to say anything, he’d probably be old! (Omega wouldn’t, but she tried not to think too hard about that particular fact.)

So, she began to scheme. Quietly. 

She had the tactical advantage, after all. 

[brittanyslibrary]

Liar ✦ Shota Aizawa (part two)

part one

Summary: How could he be so relieved at her return, yet so angry at the same time?

How were they supposed to move forward when everything seemed so broken?

“You’re a real hero, Electra!”

“What would we have done if you didn’t take them down?”

“We are forever in your debt!”

She wanted them to shut up, she wanted them to leave her alone with the swirling thoughts that plagued her every waking moment.

Yes, she had completed her mission, but at what cost? Her sanity? Her friends? Shota?

She nodded stiffly, still opting to stay silent. She hadn’t said a word since she revealed herself as an undercover pro hero to her “comrades” and had the words “traitor” spat in her face more times than she could count.

Her heart raced as one of the nurses announced that she would finally be able to have visitors.

Though, she was thoroughly shocked when Hizashi was the first one to step into the room.

Without his gleaming grin or booming voice, the man looked so out of place. He stood rigidly in the doorway, until she nodded for him to come in.

“I know I’m not who you expected to show up first, but..” the words died on his lips when he noticed the tired acceptance on her face.

“I knew what was going to happen when I accepted this mission, and I knowingly broke his heart. I expected him to be angry, it’s alright” she sent him a weak smile, one he saw right through.

“Fuck,” he spoke her name gently. “everything has been in shambles since you left. I can’t even tell you the state U.A is in. And Shota....I, just, why? Why did you have to be the one to do this? What made you decide faking your death and not telling any of us was the best course of action?”

The bite to his words stung like a slap to the face, but she had expected this as well. They were shocked, they were angry, they were confused.

How could she blame them? After everything she had put them through.

“My quirk was best suited for this, as well as my background with stealth operations. If it wasn’t me that took on this mission, it’s success rate would have dropped drastically” she droned on with no inflection or passion in her words.

She sounded like a damn robot, like the emotions she’d always seemed to display had been sucked out of her.

“Did you even think about us? I’m your friend, so is Midnight and All Might and...and class 1-A? They’re so different, now. Muted, like the life has just been snatched from them”

She asked him to stop.

“Shota...it’s like he’s dying. It’s like when I lost you, I lost him too. He drinks and he teaches but he’s not even there! It’s like a fucking clone took his place or something. He’s more cold and bitter and the nights that he gets so drunk he can barely stand all he does is ask why he wasn’t there to save you. He blames himself for all of it, he doesn’t even sleep anymore, he barely eats. God, he’s my best friend and I don’t even know him anymore and you...you took everything from him when you decided to leave us all behind for-“

“I said that’s enough!” Her voice cracked, hoarse from all that time of not using it. “It was your reactions that made it believable. These thugs knew exactly who Eraserhead was, they were taking all these extra precautions to kill him when he would inevitably be swept up in their plans. The only thing to make them let their guard down was my death, because they thought they’d gotten rid of two birds with one stone. Without me, Eraserhead wouldn’t be on his best game, and they could afford to get sloppy. That was my time to strike”

The reasoning was solid, but as the tears fell freely from her eyes and her shoulders shook with tiny sobs, she knew she would never be able to make this up to them, to anyone.

Hizashi looked away, staring at the blue curtains separating them from the waiting area.

“I don’t know if Shota’s coming or not....but know that he loves you, that he is so relieved that you’re alive but so fucking hurt that you lied to him, to all of us. Don’t question how he feels about you just because he needs time” Hizashi stood, sparing her broken body one last glance.

“I won’t,” she whispered as he passed the threshold, the curtain swaying gently behind him.

It was hours later, after the news outlets had been shooed away and class 1-A had taken the time to stop in and express their gratitude that she was okay and their hope for her return in the classroom, that she finally saw him.

He sauntered into the room with all that grace, but he was off. The usual burnt out appearance seemed too..artificial. As if he’d been trying to come off that way to ward off any sympathetic stares.

To anyone who didn’t know him, he looked like regular, exhausted Eraserhead.

But those eyes, the way they regarded her with nothing but pain, that was her cue to what was really going on.

Her chest ached, she wasn’t sure if it was because of the pain he felt or the fact that it had been months since she’d seen the love of her life, but it ached.

“Hi..” her voice came to be barely above a whisper, and he averted his gaze.

His fists clenched, knuckles turning white and eyes falling closed. He lingered in the doorway, where she’d finally been moved to her own room.

They wanted to send her home tomorrow, but she wasn’t sure she had a home anymore.

“Shota, please look at me” her voice cracked, this time from the tears that already blurred her vision. “I haven’t seen you in months...I just want you to look at me” she pleaded.

Moments of silence passed between them before he sucked in a deep breath.

“How can I?” he simply asked in a low rumble.

Before she could ask him what he meant, or to elaborate, he was speaking again. The edge to his voice got sharper and sharper as he spoke.

“I’ve been wondering, since I saw you on the television this morning, why you would ever accept a mission like this” his arms were folded behind his back as he paced back and forth, like a caged lion.

“I thought you surely must have been blackmailed into it. Or, perhaps there was no room for you to argue as you were being pressured by the police to take on such a daunting mission. So, tell me, were you forced into it? Did you feel like you didn’t have a choice?” the condescending tone was one not usually used on her, making it all the more intimidating.

“Shota, let me explain. It’s not like that-“

“Yes or no?” he demanded.

“No, I wasn’t forced into it. I had a choice, and I chose this mission but-“ once again, she was interrupted by a mirthless laugh.

“So you chose to lie to me? You chose to hurt me? To break me? That’s what you’re saying?” he sneered.

“No! I would never! I love you!” she insisted.

“But you did!” he exclaimed, turning on her. “You lied to me! You betrayed me. Not to mention you betrayed everyone who ever cared about you” he spat.

“You of anyone should understand why I did this! Innocent people were going to die, Shota. I was the best fitted for this mission and if it hadn’t been me then who knows if it would have been successful?” she attempted to defend herself, to make him see this was never about hurting anybody.

“That’s fine, that’s what I loved about you. You save people without a moment’s hesitation, never caring about the affects it will have on you. But this wasn’t just on you this time. You could have told me, warned me at least. Fuck, I thought...I thought I lost yet another person I loved and...” he pinched the bridge of his nose and squeezed his eyes shut, clearly trying to stop tears.

Still, his words echoed in her head like a mantra. What he’d said, what he’d insinuated.

“Loved?” she questioned, fear gripping her in its icy cold fingers.

His silence remained, still unwilling to look at her.

“You don’t love me anymore?” her voice had morphed into a pathetic whine while tears tracked down her cheeks. The heart monitors she was hooked up to mirrored her rapidly beating heart.

His tired eyes found hers, but they were damn near empty.

“I loved a woman who supposedly died three months ago saving a family of four from a burning building that collapsed on her” he fixed her with an even glare.

Then, he left, and took a piece of her with him.

She was discharged the next day, heart in her throat at the thought of having to ask Shota if she were still welcome at home.

Thankfully, Principal Nezu had an extra dorm open and offered it to her for the next few days, as he was well aware of the situation between herself and Aizawa.

He was still his chipper old self as he steered her to the empty dorm room. It was two buildings away from class 1-A’s dorms, she noted to herself.

In case she wanted to attempt to see him, but she doubted he’d even let her in the front door.

After lingering for a few extra moments, Nezu nudged her calf to gain her attention. When her eyes met his, stopping at the thick scar over his right eye, she could see a sentimental smile on his face.

“Your performance was so believable that even I had no idea you were still alive,” he admitted, crossing his arms over his chest. “But, for what it’s worth, I’m so glad you’re back. I’m sure Shota will come to his senses soon enough” he nodded assuringly.

She swiped a stray tear that had fallen and thanked the Principal once again for his graciousness.

That night her sleep was plagued by nightmare after nightmare, not only from her experiences undercover, but one Shota Aizawa who would never end up forgiving her and would eventually move on with someone else.

Someone who wouldn’t lie to him.

“Shota...it’s me,” her voice was shaky over the voicemail he had argued with himself for twenty minutes straight to listen to.

He could barely hear the sound of the fan she must have been using to lull her to sleep in the background, and he would have smiled if he could muster it.

Even when it was freezing, she still needed that damned fan.

“Um, I know I have no right to ask this of you...at all, but could you pretend to love me? Maybe just for tonight?” she sniffled, and he could hear the sound of rustling sheets.

“I just really need someone right now-“ her voice broke, but she charged on. “I keep dreaming about them, and about you and-and I just need someone to hold me if only until I can fall back asleep. I don’t know what else to do and I feel so alone right now...”

The broken, tiny sobs he heard yanked at his heart strings painfully. There was nothing he wanted to do more than hold her, or just be near her.

He’d missed her so damn much, and it was getting harder and harder to stay away from her. Then, he would remember how she lied to him, knowing how it would hurt him, and did it anyway.

“I know you probably felt alone, too, when I did what I did. Shota, please know how much it killed me to do it. I didn’t want to, but it’s my duty as a hero to protect those who can’t protect themselves. As much as I hated lying to you, I....I can’t regret it”

No, he wouldn’t expect her to regret it. She’d saved hundreds of lives that day.

. He asked himself, then, if he would have done the same thing. He wanted to think that he would have warned her, allowed her to be in on the facade so she wouldn’t worry.

But what if the circumstances forbade it? What if her knowing affected the mission to the point that it was necessary she be kept in the dark?

Would he still accept it, knowing if he didn’t, people would die?

In his gut, he knew the answer to that question.

He grabbed his jacket off the hook beside the door and began his short trek in the chilly night air.

A delicate knock on her dorm door caused her heart to race and ears to perk up slightly. Was she hallucinating, or had she truly heard a knock?

It resounded again, a little louder this time. She crept toward the door, the floor creaking beneath her bare feet. Her hand hovered above the door handle, obscenely hopeful.

She could barely make out his form through her blurred vision, tears weighing heavily on her waterline, but she knew it was him.

He smelled like that cologne she’d pestered him to get when they first started dating.

“You came..” she whimpered, which prompted her to reach a trembling hand to cover her mouth.

He stepped into the room, pushing the door closed behind him. The gentle click of the latch felt like it was the loudest sound to invade her ears.

He was standing directly in front of her now, hands frozen in mid air, as if he wasn’t sure how to proceed with her. The back of his throat burned, eyes glossy as he watched her fall apart.

She waited for him to make the first move.

Just when she thought he wouldn’t, he roughly pulled her against his chest in a strong embrace. His face fell into the crook of her neck while her shoulders shook with relieved sobs.

He gently rocked them to an imaginary rhythm as they remained standing by the door. She was far too distracted by Shota’s presence to be worried about where they stood in the dorm room.

“I..I thought-“ her voice shook through another sob. “I thought you didn’t love me anymore” she nearly lost her breath with the force that she was heaving her sobs out.

Shota cursed himself for saying such a damaging thing out of anger, out of pain.

“I’m so sorry,” he murmured into her neck, the strain in his tone muffled by her skin. “I don’t even know why I fucking said that..”

For hours, the reunited couple held each other in the dim light of the television screen, by the front door of her temporary dorm room. The last few months would never be forgotten, both of them knew as much.

But as they climbed into their shared bed that night, slipping under the covers and relishing in the nearness of the other, it was evident that this was worth fixing.

They were worth fixing….

[mqgriett]

Crosshair- It Won’t Stop

Prompt: “Hey, look at me. Focus on me alright?” and “I didn’t know where else to go” requested by @bluehumanknightzine !! Thank you so much for the requested

Pairings: Crosshair x Fem!Reader

Warnings: blood and being shot

Summary: Crosshair will never pass up on an opportunity to teach a shiny a lesson, so when someone insults Echo he has to take charge. It doesn’t always go as planned.

Notes: this is based off of @sorry-but-no-sorry ‘s art!! Please go check them out!!

79’s was basically deserted, mainly because it was pushing 0300 in the morning, but Crosshair couldn’t sleep. Not after what had happened earlier that night. 

Typically the callus sniper wasn’t easily pissed off. Odd looks and judgemental whispers from regs was something he was used to by now. He developed thick skin, learned to just enjoy a night of drinking with his brothers and let loose a little. He was used to the rude remarks, Echo wasn’t. 

None of the regs recognized him anymore, his robotic legs and the bolts screwed into his head along with his pale skin made him difficult to recognize. The normal clones would never intentionally bully the lost 501st member, but they would happily bully a bad batch member. 

Crosshair scanned the room for the 312th trooper, knowing he would still be here. Worst thing was, the trooper was a shiny, and he had only identified his battalion by association. 

Sure enough, he was still in the back booth, lips practically swallowing a young twi’lek dancer. He rolled his eyes, strutting over to the pair in the back. 

The shiny seemed to feel Cross’s icy presence, taking a break from his makeout with the dancer to move out of the booth. 

“Back so soon?” asked the trooper, crossing his small arms and jutting his chin out. 

The sniper of Clone Force 99 didn’t waste any time with small talk, he withdrew his fist and landed a punch to the jaw of the shinty. It was so strong that it even knocked the reg back, the only thing that was preventing him from falling to the ground was catching himself on the table. 

The clone rubbed his jaw, eyebrows arching to form a cold smirk on his face. “Lose a touch of common sense in your test tube? Eh, defect?” he grumbled. 

Crosshair didn’t reply and calmly pulled a toothpick from his pocket, sticking it in his mouth and allowing it to methodically roll from side to side. He prepared to charge, but what he didn’t expect was for the shiny to pick up his blaster and shoot him in the side of the stomach where his armor didn’t cover. 

Cross stumbled backwards, hand already gripping the underside of his stomach. 

The trooper had no clue what he had done, he had reacted out of pure instinct and hadn’t calculated the consequences when he fired. He froze momentarily, proceeding to toss the blaster to the side and sprint out of 79’s. 

Crosshair still couldn’t believe what had happened. Even as he started down at the crimson liquid beginning to stain his blacks, he refused that he had been shot. 

He couldn’t go back to the Marauder, he wouldn’t make it back alive. 

There was only one other person on Coruscant he knew he could get to before bleeding out. 

***

At first you thought it was a dream, when you heard the knock at your door. You rolled onto your opposite side, flipping the silk pillow to have the cold side press against your face. 

Another knock made its way to your bedroom. 

If there’s a third then I’ll get up,

Five seconds pass, and the third knock sounds weaker than the first two. 

Swinging your legs off the side of the bed, you reach for your housecoat and move a few pieces of hair out of your face. “Coming!” you shouted, voice a little groggy.

As you enter the living room, you catch a glance at the clock and see how late it is. 

The small droid in your room beeps in attention, it’s different colored panels lighting up. “It’s alright R4, I’ll see who it is.” 

R4 chirps in response, rolling to the kitchen and out of view. 

You opened the doors to your room, the cold chill of the hallway hitting your bare legs. Squinting, you could hardly make out the figure in front of you. “Crosshair?” You yawned, wrapping your robe around your torso. 

His words sounded difficult to push out, “I’m sorry.” He sucks in a sharp breath between his teeth, something falling and hitting your foot. 

“For waking me up?” you responded tiredly, reaching down to pick up whatever he dropped. 

As your hand touched the fallen toothpick, you found that something was dripping from his armor. At first you perceived it to be nothing but sweat; however, the putrid smell that met your nose told you otherwise. 

“R4 turn the lights on.” You said sternly, within milliseconds you could fully see him standing in front of you. 

“Shit.” You mumbled, finally seeing the huge gash in his stomach. 

His entire face was pale and he was obviously nauseous, yet he still refused to let you help him onto the couch. He stumbled his way to the sofa, collapsing once he got there. Every movement that Cross produced was followed by a muffled groan or wince.

You crouched down next to him, starting at ripping all of his armor off while calling out to your droid, “R4, get me the emergency bag.” 

Your hands tore the soiled fabric away from his torso, leaving him with nothing but a sad excuse of a shirt and his pants. “Dank Farrik, Cross.” You said out of pure frustration, seeing just how bad the wound was. 

His head lulled to the side, a small stream of tears falling down the side of his face as his eyes closed. 

“Crosshair, no.” You reached up and pinched his chin, jerking his head to face you. It woke him up, “hey, look at me. Focus on me alright? I need you to tell me what happened.” You were no medic, but every senator was required to know basic medical skills. 

“79’s,” he began as R4 handed you a bottle of alcohol, Cross winced as you poured it onto the gash and shifted uncomfortably, “shiny made-“ he groaned loudly, “- shiny made fun of echo.” His brother’s name was clouded by his shaky breathing as you poured more alcohol. 

“What’d he say?” 

You placed a clean rag on top of his wound, cleaning around it as he tried to continue, “Went back and he shot me.” He ignored your previous question, not wanting to say it out loud. 

“This is going to hurt, but you need to stay still.” You commanded, the threaded needle lingering over the exposed and seared skin. 

Without looking up, you heard him speak again, “what’s happening?” 

“You’re bleeding out.” You sighed, “I need to give you stitches.” 

“No, this,” he wiped his face with his bare hand, examining the clear liquid dripping down his palm. 

“You’re crying, you got shot.” 

He shook his head and tried to sit up, “no, what is happening? This isn’t possible.” He wiped his face again, over and over. “It won’t stop,” he sobbed, “why won’t it stop?” 

You wanted to console him, but you had to get this gash closed. You stuck the needle through his skin, and it was almost like he didn’t feel it due to how preoccupied he was with the fact that he was crying. 

Cutting the thread with your teeth, you handed the needle back to R4 and placed a strip of bacta over his wound. “R4 comm Tech. Tell him to come down here immed-“

“No!” Cross jumped, “he can’t see me like this.” 

You placed your hand on his knee, “he’s seen you hurt thousands of times.” 

He pointed to his face, “Like this.”

His eyes and cheeks were stained red from crying. Blood was dried in his hair and it stained all of his body. You knew how embarrassed he felt because he understood how helpless and weak he looked in the moment.  

You calmed your tone, not wanting him to jump again and possibly burst the stitches, “R4, comm Tech that Crosshair drunkenly stumbled to my quarters in the senate building and is now sleeping on my couch.” 

Beeping in approval, your small Astro droid excused himself to your room to fulfill his duties. 

Your hands would most definitely be tinted red tomorrow morning, rather this morning, at your meeting with Bail Organa. 

Wiping your forehead, you stood back up to inspect the damage that had been done. 

Your white couch was now a lovely red tie-dye, as was your white nightgown. 

Crosshair refused to look at you, “I didn’t know where else to go.” 

“I’m glad you came here.” You ran your hand up and down his thigh, just as a gentle touch to remind him that you were still there. 

“I need a shower.” he mumbled. That was his way of asking you to help him get cleaned up. 

Carefully, you helped him to the refresher. Your back was turned to him as you drew a bath, wanting to give him as much privacy as possible as he undressed. You poured a small amount of salts in the water, to help rid his body of any bacteria that had already begun to settle in his wound. He rejected your offer to help him into the bathtub, his ego not allowing him to accept. 

You sat behind the marble tub, just so you could see the back of him. Placing your hand on his forehead, you gently pulled his head back and poured water over hair. His dusty green eyes fluttered shut each time you did this, his shoulders finally relaxing. 

Once his hair was rid of blood, you moved onto his face. You wetened a clean cloth, and benevolently wiped it under his eyes and neck. He sighed heavily, “he called him a deficient defect.” His jaw clenched under your grip. 

You froze momentarily, feeling your own anger bubble up at the thought of Echo having to hear that. Echo had always been tough, but you knew that that probably hurt him. If it didn’t, Cross wouldn’t have gone back at 0300 to teach the shiny a lesson. 

After wiping the final strip of blood off of him, you turned your head and helped Crosshair up. He wrapped a towel around his waist, flinching as it touched the wound. Luckily the medicated bandage on top of it kept it numb, making it easier for him to do things on his own. 

It wasn’t unusual for the bad batch to randomly stop by whenever they were on Coruscant. When General Kenobi would ask for their aide in a mission they often needed to wait a few nights for approval from the council. This usually led to all five of them sleeping in your bed with you. In the morning Hunter and Tech were frequently found on the floor though. 

You set a fresh set of black pajamas on the edge of your bed for Crosshair, leaving him in your as you went to choose a new nightgown from your closet. You chose the same sleepwear you had on now, just in black and not covered in blood. 

It felt immaculate to shower, and with enough scrubbing all of the blood successfully left your hands. 

Crosshair had already situated himself on your bed, flicking through the holodramas you had recorded. You wrung the excess water from your hair, tossing the dirty nightgown into the trash can and doing the same with the towel once you were finished. 

Once you were comfortable, Crosshair turned his head towards you while his eyes were still fixated on the holo. “What’s the one you, Tech, and Wrecker watch?” 

You raised an eyebrow, “I thought you said it was annoying.” 

He didn’t answer, facing his head back towards the colorful projection. 

“Ails of Alderaan.” you smiled, pointing to the title he was about to skip. 

Despite his lack of core strength in the moment, he still managed to pull the blanket underneath you to get you closer to him. He gently pressed his head on your shoulder, gingerly touching at your fingers before intertwining them with his own. “Don’t tell the boys, please.” 

Crosshair wouldn’t care if you told them he was shot, he was referring to the fact that he cried earlier. 

You moved your head to the side and kissed his temple, “I won’t.”

[dumdumsun]

Of Starlight

A/N: Honestly one of my favorites

Word Count: 3040

Warnings: mentions of violence, guns and blood

————————————

Chapter 6: The Best of the Best

For what seemed like the hundredth time, the video footage of Grace standing by as Reginald writhed in his bed flashed before (Y/N)’s (e/c) eyes, along with the eyes of her siblings who stood beside her. Though the evidence stood true and before her, her gut was begging her not to believe what she saw. Swallowing, she tuned in to hear what Vanya had to say, “I mean, do you really think Mom would hurt Dad?”

“You haven’t been home in a long time, Vanya,” Luther turned away from the television to his sister. “Maybe you don’t know Grace anymore.”

“If he was poisoned, it would have shown in the coroner’s report.” Diego stated matter-of-factly, (Y/N) nodding in agreement. But Luther hadn’t been so easily convinced.

“Well, I don’t need a report to tell me what I can see with my own eyes.”

“Then your vision’s fucked, dingus,” (Y/N) moved closer to the television, clicking a button to rewind. “Look. Dad has the monocle on, then Mom stands up, the monocle is gone.”

“Oh, yeah!” Klaus chuckled, the clone from earlier still standing at his side. Diego walked away from the television.

“She wasn’t poisoning him. She was… taking it. To clean it.” He guessed. Everyone’s bodies turned towards their vigilante brother, Luther in disbelief.

“Then where is it? No, I’ve searched the house, including all her things. She doesn’t have it.” A moment of silence passed before Diego raised his hand.

“That’s because I took it from her. After the funeral.”

“You’ve had the monocle this whole time? What the hell, Diego?!” Allison leaned away from the pillar she was against. Luther stuck his hand out immediately, demanding Diego give the monocle to him.

“I threw it away.”

“You… what?” Luther blinked as Allison scoffed, going for a drink from her glass. (Y/N) rubbed her temples as Diego explained himself,

“Look, I knew that if you found it on Mom, you’d lose your shit, just like you’re doing right now.”

“Diego, you son of a bitch.” Luther took a couple threatening steps forward as Diego got into a fighting stance. (Y/N) and Vanya immediately got in between the two of them, halting both their actions.

“Hey. No. Calm down. Look, I know Dad wasn’t exactly an open book. But I do remember one thing he said. Mom was, well, designed to be a caretaker, but… also as a protector.”

“Oh, yeah,” (Y/N) slowly nodded in realization. “She was programmed to intervene if someone’s life was in danger.”

“Well, if her hardware is degrading, then… We need to turn her off.”

“Luther!-”

“Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, wait,” Diego’s voice rose in panic and anger. “She’s not just a vacuum cleaner you can throw in a closet! She feels things, I’ve seen it!”

“She just stood there, Diego, and watched our father die.”

“I’m with Luther.” Allison shrugged.

“Surprise, surprise.” Diego muttered.

“Shut up.” She shot back as (Y/N) crossed her arms.

“Well, I’m with Diego.” She voiced her opinion, her brother gratefully smiling at her. She returned the expression as Luther scoffed.

“And what does your opinion matter? The moment you moved out, you went and found the woman who gave you up the moment you were born-”

“Don’t you ever, ever, speak about my mother that way!” She boomed as she pointed a finger at him. “That woman has done more for me than I’ve ever asked of her and has supported me through everything I’ve done since I left this shithole! You have no right to give your fucking opinion on her! Even with that said, Grace is my mother as well and I will treat her as such. We were all raised by her, so my opinion matters just as much as yours, Apeman.” When she stepped back, Diego rested his hands on her shoulders from behind to steady her. Luther only stared at her in shock, not expecting her to blow up at him. Backing down, he turned to Vanya, as well as everyone else, to hear her opinion. The woman looked between her siblings, stammering out her answer before Diego interrupted her,

“Yeah, she shouldn’t get a vote.” He removed his hands from (Y/N) and moved away from them. She and Luther were going to start yet another argument between them when Vanya finally gained some confidence.

“I was gonna say that I agree with you.”

“Okay! She should get a vote,” He concluded before turning to Klaus, who leaned against another pillar. “What about you, stoner boy? What do you got?” Klaus looked up at them with raised brows.

“Oh, so, what? You need my help now? Oh, ‘Get out of the van, Klaus!’ ‘Well, welcome back to the van!’.”

“What van?” Allison questioned, clearly not understanding the situation that happened earlier. (Y/N) rolled her eyes at her druggie brother as Luther scoffed.

“What’s it gonna be, Klaus?”

“I’m with Diego, because screw you!” He furrowed his brows as Diego pointed at him, pleased that he and his brother agreed on something. “And if Ben were here, he’d agree with me.” A second afterwards, he hissed at the air beside him, (Y/N) guessing that Ben had disagreed with Klaus, but she wasn’t going to voice that. She sighed and turned to Luther.

“That’s three, Spaceboy-”

“Wait-”

“To two.” Diego finished, holding the numbers up with his fingers.

“It’s not final. Five’s not here.” Allison pointed out and (Y/N) sighed. He wouldn’t be here to give his say on the matter, anyway. Diego groaned.

“Oh, come on, he’d just agree with whatever (Y/N) has to say.” He motioned toward Number Eight, who bristled to argue with him.

“No, everyone in the family gets to vote. We owe each other that.” Allison shook her head as Luther and Vanya agreed with her. They all left the room, minus Diego, who stayed with a look of defeat. (Y/N) pat his shoulder as she left. She truly didn’t want Grace to be shut off. Granted, it was suspicious that she watched Reginald die without acting on it, but she would never hurt anyone. She showed the most care to them as kids and she couldn’t disregard that for anything.

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

As the night washed over the sky, (Y/N) found that she would not have been much use to Five. When she left the Academy to join him, she saw that he still sat in that van, still watching that building. As much as she had begged to help, she was slowly starting to realize that Five wasn’t letting her in on everything. She knew he hadn’t been lying about the apocalypse, but she wished he would’ve told her whatever else he was in on. She felt horrible about it, but without even alerting him of her presence, she left him and arrived back at the mansion. As she wandered, she still felt tension between her siblings, and decided that it would be best not to interact with them for now. However, she felt a tug pulling her towards the bathroom. This familiar tug was what alerted her of her clones’ presence nearby. She followed the pull and peeked inside to see Klaus taking a bubble bath, her clone still watching over him. She quietly giggled at the sight, startling her brother and causing him to sit up quickly, some water splashing over the tub and onto the floor.

“Christ, (Y/N)! Don’t scare me like that!”

“You okay?” She whispered, side-eyeing her clone. Klaus sighed and relaxed once again.

“Yes, dear. Now can you take your robot with you? It’s been following me around for hours!”

“No, I still want it to make sure you don’t die. It’ll help if you, uh… drown or something,” She grinned before leaving the room, ignoring Klaus’ calls to her. As she continued to wander around, she found Diego, who seemed to be in deep thought. When he caught sight of his sister, his tense posture relaxed before he went to stand at her side. “Hey, what are you doing?”

“Just thinkin’,” He answered. “About what you said about Mom… how she raised us all and cared for us… makes me wonder how Luther could just choose her over Dad…” He shook his head and clenched his jaw. (Y/N) surveyed his expression, gently nudging him.

“I just don’t think Luther has much of an emotional connection with Mom… Not like you do,” He turned to her with a questioning gaze. “Oh, come on, Diego. You are a Mama’s Boy and you know it. But it’s not a bad thing! It’s not like Dad gave a shit about her. It’s good that someone checks up on her and actually takes her thoughts and emotions into consideration. You have no idea how good it feels to hear your kids ask how you’re doing.” The two shared a soft chuckle as they headed towards the rooms again. They halted their steps, however, when they heard guns cocking. Slowly turning in the direction it came from, they saw two people in suits and creepy kids’ masks pointing guns at them, ready to shoot.

“Shit. Go, go!” Diego pushed (Y/N) forward, the two bolting down the hallway as gunshots zoomed past them. Right as Diego launched his knives and hit the intruders, a bullet grazed (Y/N)’s right outer thigh. She cried out in pain and nearly fell if it hadn’t been for Diego catching her. Without a second thought, he lifted her onto his back and ran further down the hall, swiftly swinging around a corner and hiding the best he could. As gently as possible, he set (Y/N) down to her feet, the girl holding in a wince as she supported herself on the wall.

The sound of footsteps echoed and increased in volume. Just when they were right beside the two, Diego jumped out of their hiding place and attacked the taller intruder with his knife. (Y/N) heard him call out for his partner to shoot, but they couldn’t get a clear shot of Diego, not being able to see (Y/N) from where they were. Diego kicked his opponent against the wall before taking off down the hall, but not before grabbing his sister. She tried to ignore the throbbing in her leg as they ran just above the parlor. Without warning, Diego wrapped his arms around her and threw them off the bannister, landing on the couch in the parlor. Since he had broken her fall, her body nearly knocked the wind out of him, but he didn’t let himself recover. He jumped off of the couch with (Y/N) and hid behind a table. Once his arms were removed from her frame, she tried to stop the bleeding in her leg by pressing down on her wound. Diego placed his own hand down over hers, eyes moving around frantically before they landed on the portrait of Reginald on the wall across from them, bullets lodged into his face.

Footsteps approached the parlor and his head snapped in their direction. “(Y/N), stay here.” He whispered right beside her ear. She looked up and shook her head.

“No, I wanna help-”

“Do not help. Stay fucking here.” He violently hissed before starting to shuffle away, but he didn’t get very far, for bullets started flying towards them. Diego quickly wrapped his arms around his sister again and threw them down to the floor, his body curling over hers. The bullets stopped and they heard fighting, (Y/N) recognizing Allison’s grunts. Diego moved himself from his sister and allowed her to climb onto his back again. She whimpered as she willed herself to move and wrap her legs around his waist, arms around his neck. When Diego stood, the two intruders had been thrown out of the room by Luther. Allison whirled towards Diego with wide eyes.

“Who the hell are these guys?! (Y/N), did they hurt you?!”

“Yeah, kinda…” She sighed as Luther turned to them.

“You’re welcome.” His words made (Y/N) groan as Diego shifted her on his back.

“I was doing fine!”

“Oh, yeah, you really had them-”

“(Y/N) is fucking hurt, what the hell did you want me-” Diego stopped talking when the intruders started shooting once again, everyone ducking down. In his haste, (Y/N) had fallen off his back and landed on the ground. She started to do an army crawl out of the room along with her brother, who yelled for Luther and Allison to go. When the two were on their feet again, Diego grabbed her hand and continued to run, the intruders heading to the opposite direction. “We need to get you to a safe place!”

“Nowhere is really safe at this point!” (Y/N) let him drag her wherever. He eventually stopped and turned her towards him. Sweat covered her forehead and blood seeped through her pants. Her eyes met his, full of concern. She shook her head and shakily sung her tune, her clone appearing beside them. Hating the order she was about to give, she clenched her teeth. “Protect me,” Immediately, the clone went to attack Diego, but (Y/N) stopped it, climbing onto its back. “Follow Diego.”

Just as the three headed towards the basement, where the shorter of the intruders had followed Allison, Klaus had been dancing around the house, completely unaware of the threat around him due to the headphones he wore. (Y/N)’s clone from earlier simply followed, standing to cover him if any bullets came near. When the three entered the basement, they saw that Allison had just been struck and was now leaning over the pool table, her lip bleeding. “You wanna rumor this psycho?” Diego questioned, Allison wiping her lip.

“I don’t need to, because this bitch just pissed me off.” She spit before turning to the woman.

“We just want the boy.” She tried to explain before Allison attacked her. Five… These bastards are looking for Five… (Y/N) thought. That information alone made her blood boil. She hopped off her clone’s back just as Allison was kicked to the ground by the intruder. Diego whistled as he approached her, the two starting their own fight. Following its second order, the clone stepped forward to follow Diego, but turned back to the stumbling (Y/N). It was confused, and she could tell. (Y/N) quietly cursed before commanding it to help her fight. The intruder broke away from Diego and Allison and headed towards (Y/N) and her lookalike. Number Eight smirked and grabbed her clone by the hand, using all her strength to swing it around. It used its legs to kick off the wall and then the woman in her chest, causing her to fall to the ground with an “oomph!”. The clone, after landing on its feet, steadied (Y/N) by her arms. This gave the intruder time to stand and make her way out of the room, but not before Diego launched, what (Y/N) could only tell as something sharp, into her leg. She cried out in pain, but continued up the stairs. The four followed her not too long afterwards, but lost her once they were at the top. (Y/N) whimpered again and hummed her second tune, the clone disappearing.

“You good?” Diego held onto her, receiving a nod in answer.

When the three made their way to the entrance, Allison cried out to Luther, who was laying on the ground in pain. (Y/N) wanted to join the two in helping him up, but her strength was wearing out, so she leaned against the wall. Looking up, she saw the female intruder going to mess with the chandelier. Luther had noticed at the same time, for they both called out for their siblings to watch out. Luther pushed Diego and Allison out of the way, allowing it to land on him. (Y/N) slumped to the floor as her breathing got shallow. She could only hope Luther had been safe before she blacked out, but not before she sang her three-note tune almost silently.

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

(Y/N) awoke to a sharp pain in her leg. She almost shot up, but felt a hand on the flat of her chest. It was Allison. “H-Hey, hey, it’s okay, sis. Just patching your leg up…”

“W-Who?” (Y/N) turned her head to see her clone, silently stitching up her leg. She let out a breath and relaxed against the cushions of the couch she was laying on. She turned her head to Vanya, who was nursing her own bleeding head with a rag. “Shit, Vanya, I didn’t even know you were here. You okay?” She received a nod from her sister before she heard footsteps. Diego walked in, his breathing shaky. Vanya looked up and called out to him softly. He turned to her with a cold stare.

“What are you still doing here?”

“I’m just trying to help-”

“No, you could’ve been killed! Or got any of us killed. Shit, we’re lucky (Y/N) didn’t die from blood loss!” He yelled before leaning closer to Allison. “She is a liability.” He muttered before heading towards (Y/N). Kneeling in front of her, he watched her face scrunch up in pain as the clone lifted her leg slightly to wrap it up. She reached over and placed a hand on his shoulder.

“I’m okay, don’t worry…”

“I told you not to help.” He slightly growled and held the hand on his shoulder. Past the growl, (Y/N) detected a whimper. Looking into his eyes, she felt the pain in his stare. Only it was a type of pain she knew all too well.

“Diego, what happened…?” She whispered just as she saw Vanya stand from the corner of her eye. She and her brother turned and watched her leave.

“Vanya, wait.” Allison tried to rush after their sister, but Diego told her to just let Vanya go, that it was for the best. (Y/N) heavily sighed and let her head fall back against the cushions. She hoped Five was doing fine, wherever he was.

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Taglist: @melinda-hargreeves @43sparrows @sapphicsyn @m00n-sh @starcurrent @alexander-hamilhoe @youcandalekmyballs @wonderlandfandomkingdom @yrdadjstcallsmekatya

[thepartyresponsible]

For the wip ask (they all sound very interesting ngl it was hard to pick just one!) LostSteve

lost steve! yeah, so. what if shield defrosted captain america, and he broke out and just...kept running? what if they lost him? what if he ended up hiding out in tony’s tower, away from the fight for long enough to get his feet underneath him?

this fic is mostly about steve and tony finding each other first, so they can form the heart of the avengers, instead of the fault line that splits the team in half. here’s the first part of it.

                                                          —  

There’s an alert from Nick Fury that Tony chooses to ignore, for the sake of his convenience and Fury’s ongoing character growth. JARVIS announces its arrival and then diligently reminds Tony about the message twice before Tony tells him to mute it until morning.

“If it’s really that important,” he says, “they’ll just send someone to break in anyway.”

Which is why, on some level, he’s not at all surprised to find a man sitting on a couch in his penthouse twenty-seven hours later. He will admit to being caught somewhat off-guard by the specifics of the situation, though, because Steve Rogers has been dead for longer than Tony’s been alive.

“Zombie?” Tony asks. “Hallucination? Oh, clone? Are you a clone?”

Steve Rogers looks at him the way people look at wax sculptures. Like he’s interested in the details of the creation in front of him, but doesn’t believe for a second that what he’s looking at is real. “Mr. Stark,” he says, politely. His voice is deeper than Tony would’ve guessed.

“Robot,” Tony theorizes. “Sexbot? Updated Trojan Horse? If I let you inside me, are you gonna--”

The man’s brow furrows, and his mouth twists down, and his eyes are too sad for circuitry. No one would code that kind of grief.

Tony pauses for a moment, rocks forward onto the balls of his feet and then back onto his heels. He studies this intruder carefully. Someone sent him a Steve Rogers lookalike in a white t-shirt and stained khakis. He’s hale and healthy, built like a god, but his feet are bare and dirty.

Bloody, too. There are bloody footprints on the carpet.

“Wait,” Tony says. “Wait. Who the hell are you?”

There’s a long beat of silence. The man on his couch just stares at him, eyes tracing over Tony’s face, his shoulders, looking at him like he’s starving for something. He’s quiet and small, somehow, in a way that doesn’t relate at all to the amount of space his body takes up.

And then he stands, light and graceful on his bloody feet. His jaw tightens, and his shoulders pull up, and he’s an American Hero, suddenly and decisively, like he’s made some kind of choice about it.

“Mr. Stark,” he says, again, “I’m Captain America.”

And he is, Tony thinks. The same way that he’s Iron Man. Because once you put on that kind of armor, whatever else you used to be is irrelevant.

                                                           —

He’s Captain America, and he’s back from the dead. SHIELD had him and lost him, and Nick Fury wants Tony to go looking for him. That’s the message he left with JARVIS over a day ago. And Tony can’t imagine he was the first name on their list, which means Steve Rogers has been alone in the wrong century for an unknown but considerable amount of time.

“Hey,” he says, calling out from where he’s slouched against the kitchen island, watching Captain America dutifully eat through every scrap of leftovers Tony had in the fridge. “How long have you been here?”

“I was born here,” he says, through a mouthful of fried rice that he hides behind a napkin. He chews, swallows, and jabs his fork over Tony’s shoulder. “In Brooklyn.”

Tony knew that. Of course he knew that. He memorized everything about Steve Rogers back when he thought he could become enough like him to make Howard consider him worthwhile. “No, I mean,” he says, waving his hands, “in this century. How long have you been--- Jesus. I dunno. Awake? Aware? Unfrosted flakes?”

Steve blinks at him. He stares for a second and then ducks his head, stirs his fork through the open takeout box in front of him. “Spent a couple days,” he says. “Looking around.”

Looking around. Steve Rogers, unwitting time-traveler, barefoot in New York. What had he been looking for? Why did he come here?

“Why didn’t you get any shoes?” Tony asks, instead of any of the more complicated questions.

Steve tucks his feet under his chair. He washed them half an hour or so back, walking uneasily into the bathroom Tony showed him and then locking the door behind him, like he thought Tony was some kind of pervert who would bodyslam through the door to catch a glimpse of him sudsing up his bare ankles.

“Didn’t have any money,” he says, surprisingly mulish about it.

“You couldn’t smash and grab a pair of Sketchers?” Tony shakes his head. “If you get lockjaw, you’re gonna have to tell Fury you caught it from somewhere else. Fuck’s sake, when was your last tetanus booster? 1943?”

He shrugs. He doesn’t seem concerned. He’s busy eating his way through enough calories to keep your average winter-starved grizzly happy.

It’s hungry work, coming back from the dead. Tony remembers the unholy things he would’ve done for a cheeseburger.

“Didn’t have any money,” he repeats, scraping his fork around the sides of the takeout box, diligent and serious, like it’s the very last scrap of food he’ll ever get.

Tony clears his throat, hip-checks the counter to heave himself to standing. “I’ll get you some cash.”

                                                           —

There’s a weird moment, when Tony gives him the money. It’s just a few hundred dollars. He’s not Tony’s problem, not his project raised from the dead, but he still doesn’t want to give Steve Rogers the means to get himself truly lost in a world he doesn’t know.

Five hundred dollars will get him some food and somewhere to sleep for a few days, but it won’t get him far enough out of SHIELD’s orbit to get himself in trouble.

He looks up when Tony gets close. There’s a well-worn wariness in his eyes. He watches him the way a dog from a bad home might watch him through the bars of the shelter’s kennel. Resigned instead of hopeful, like he knows how this goes, like he knows he can survive it.

“Here,” Tony says. He leaves the money two chairs away from him, within easy grabbing distance. “And I have shoes your size, if you want to borrow them.”

“I don’t need that,” Rogers says, pointing at the money.

Tony lets his mouth tip up sideways, smirks like this is the part of the whole situation he finds truly unbelievable. “You’re going to come into my house,” he says, “uninvited, unannounced, and then you’re going to refuse to accept my hospitality? Rogers, what would your mother think?”

There’s a stall point in Roger’s stare, like watching a bird fly into a window. There’s a moment, right around the word mother, when those blue eyes blank out, and Tony’s just staring into empty space.

“She didn’t,” he says, and it’s fascinating. He’s stitching himself up right here at Tony’s dining table. Tony can practically see it happening, vertebrae stacking up, pulling him taunt like a needle tugging on a thread. “She never liked charity.”

Tony is familiar with pride. He has something of an overabundance himself, although he comes by it honestly. He knows hurt pride hates an audience, so he looks away.

“I imagine she hated the idea of you starving, too,” Tony says. “Probably worked very hard to make sure that didn’t happen. Going to waste all her work now, Rogers? Seems ungrateful.”

He’s half-taunting by the end of it. He’s not sure why. He finds weak points like a magnet finds iron. Sometimes he doesn’t even know what he’s pulling on until after he’s accidentally ripped out someone’s heart. It’s not one of the traits he’s proud of, but, like his pride, he knows where it came from.

Rogers glares at him, but he hooks the next takeout container over anyway.

“I’ll get those shoes,” Tony says. JARVIS has already measured; Rhodey left some boots that should fit.

Steve doesn’t say anything, but, when Tony comes back, the money is gone, and so is he.

                                                           —

Tony doesn’t tell Fury a damn thing. If Fury lost a national icon, that’s his problem. And anyway, Tony’s still not completely convinced that the blonde who materialized in his penthouse was actually Steve Rogers and not some kind of really confused, really well-built homeless man. Or a stripper.

Tony’s never actually met a stripper who showed up in khakis, refused to disrobe, and then ate ten pounds of takeout before silently disappearing, but he’d be willing to pay another five hundred dollars for a repeat performance.

He figures out how the maybe-Steve got into his penthouse. He upgrades the security, but he tells JARVIS to let him in if he ever comes back. He’s not sure what he’s hoping for, but he’s too curious to lock him out.

                                                           —

There’s a bit of nothing that kicks off in New York, some Hammer tech that goes haywire. Tony puts it down like the cheap knockoff that it is, but he gets stuck in debrief with Phil Coulson afterwards, because he’s not quite quick enough to abandon the scene after the fight’s over. In his defense, he was holding a car above a partially-trapped bicyclist, and Coulson caught him before the EMTs could finish disentangling her.

He makes it back to the Tower after an hour of mostly-wasted time. Steve Rogers is sitting at his dining table. Tony bites back the ludicrous urge to “honey, I’m home!” him.

“Hey,” he says instead, as he steps in from the balcony, stripped down to the skintight suit he wears under the armor. He didn’t expect company. “You get something to eat?”

Steve seems somehow offended by the question. “I didn’t break in here and steal anything,” he says.

“Okay,” Tony says, moving past him. “Well, that’s a gold star and an empty stomach for you, Rogers. We’re all very proud.”

“It’s not my food,” Steve tells him. If he had hackles, they’d be raised. Tony wants to pat him on the head, but only because he’s always had a sort of neurotic tendency to see how hard people bite before he decides whether to trust them.

“Yeah, and a twenty-dollar grocery bill is really gonna break me,” Tony says. He takes a smoothie out of the freezer. “You want pizza? I’m gonna order pizza.”

Steve stares at him for a long moment before he shrugs. “I could eat,” he says.

“Great,” Tony says. He has JARVIS order three pizzas, because he wants at least half of one for himself, and Steve Rogers is a human garbage disposal.

Steve takes a shower while they’re waiting. He asks first, which Tony supposes is the polite thing to do, and he takes his backpack with him, like he’s worried Tony’s going to steal his wallet.

“You know,” Tony says, when Steve remerges, wearing another knockout set of some grandpa’s Goodwill khakis and button-down shirt, “you keep showing up like this, and it’s gonna get harder for me to lie to Fury about having no idea where you are.”

Steve flips open a pizza box and carefully selects a slice. His hair is wet and neatly combed back from his face. He’s handsome from a distance but damn near devastating at close range. Tony takes another bite of pizza, hopes it’ll help swallow back the urge to sink a few grand into war bonds.

“Fury’s the guy with the eyepatch?” Steve doesn’t settle into a seat. He takes his pizza and wanders over to the window, stares out at the skyline.

“Yeah, that’s him,” Tony says.

Steve makes a face. Tony can see it, dulled and faded, in the reflection on the glass. “He’s persistent,” he says, slowly. Not like it’s a compliment.

“Yeah,” Tony says, again, “that’s him.”

Steve doesn’t say anything else. Tony finishes his slice of pizza, eats another one. There’s an ache in his right shoulder from being wrenched around by Hammer’s ridiculous creation, and he should be icing it, but he doesn’t want to. Not with Steve Rogers here.

He’s never liked looking human in front of an audience. His problem has always been that he couldn’t figure out how to stop. At least, not until he built his armor.

Steve comes back when he’s out of pizza. He’s catlike in his wariness, in the way he seems pissed at Tony for daring to exist in his proximity.

“That fight,” he says, apropos of approximately nothing at all. “Earlier.”

“Oh,” Tony says, rising out of his chair and moving toward the bar, giving Steve the room to loom over the pizza like he’s defending his kill. “You see that on the news?”

“Saw it on the street,” Steve says. “Heard the screams.”

Heard the screams and came running. So he’s still in the hero business. Fury will be happy to hear it.

“You’re gonna get yourself killed,” Steve tells him. He sounds angry about it. At Tony, not the situation. “Where’s your backup?”

“Backup,” Tony repeats. “Cap, c’mon. Read a newspaper. I work alone.”

Steve Rogers looks up from his pizza perusal just long enough to roll his eyes. It should feel like a slap across the face, and maybe it does. However it feels, Tony likes it. Wants more of it. There’s always been something grounding in being dismissed, like Tony’s never known where he stands until someone shows him how he doesn’t measure up.

“Is that supposed to be impressive?” Steve asks. “Men who work alone die alone, Stark. And they’re not very effective when they do.”

Tony knows he’s meant to be offended. He is, probably. But he couldn’t bite back his smile for anything. “I think I liked you better when you called me ‘Mr. Stark.’”

“Seems to me,” Steve says, “you want everyone to call you Iron Man these days.”

“Oh Captain, my Captain,” Tony says, “surely they had that line about glass houses in the ‘40’s?”

Steve frowns at him. “I never asked anyone to call me Captain America.”

“And yet,” Tony says, tipping a bottle of whiskey his direction, “that’s how to introduced yourself to me.”

Steve gives him a look like he thinks Tony’s being deliberately obtuse. “That’s who I am,” he says.

Tony rolls his eyes and flips a tumbler right side up. “But when I start using a stage name,” he says, “suddenly I’m a narcissistic asshole who doesn’t--”

“Do you think,” Steve says, looming up suddenly, shifting gears like something mechanical, going battle-ready with more decisiveness than a faceplate clicking down, “that anybody spent years, spent—I don’t know. Millions of dollars? Do you think anybody did that for Steve Rogers?”

Tony’s caught wrong-footed. He did it again. Drilled until he found the nerve, cut until he broke the skin.

“I think you don’t get one without the other,” Tony says, trying now to soothe. But he’s not very good at it. His instincts don’t run this direction. His whole life, the only things he could ever repair were machines.

Steve shakes his head. He steps away from the pizza. He looks around, eyes zeroing in on his backpack.

“Stay here,” Tony says, sidling out from behind the bar, whiskey now in hand.

Steve straightens up like a cobra, like he’s going to spit venom in Tony’s face. Tony wants to put his mouth on him, which is probably only half because he’s always been hellbent on his own destruction. The other half is that Steve Rogers is beautiful like something made in a lab for aesthetics alone, carefully designed for universal appeal. Tony likes to tell himself he has a taste for the exclusive, but the reality has always been he wants exactly what everyone else does.

“You don’t want SHIELD to find you,” Tony says, “then stay here. Trust me, this is the last place they’d think to look.”

He’s not standing between Steve and the exit. He was careful about that. Whatever SHIELD might think about him, he doesn’t have a death wish. And also, when he’s thinking about it, he’s not usually deliberately an asshole. It’s just that, most of the time, he’s not thinking about it.

“Why should I trust you?” Steve asks.

Tony shrugs. Hell, he has no idea. “Why’d you come here? The first time. When SHIELD lost you, you came here. Why?”

“I went home,” Steve says, argumentative, all squared shoulders and tight jaw. “I went to Brooklyn. But it wasn’t there anymore. None of it was—I couldn’t find…”

He trails off, shakes his head, sharp and agitated, a horse bothered by a fly. It’s hard to look in his eyes. There’s something in them that Tony doesn’t want to see. It’s like watching a statue bleed.

“I heard there was still a Stark in New York,” Steve says. “I read about you. I thought maybe you’d--”

“You thought I’d be like Howard,” Tony finishes for him. “Sorry to disappoint.”

“I thought you’d be like me,” Steve says, which doesn’t make any sense at all.

“You,” Tony says. And then, a little helplessly, “What?”

Steve looks away. He shrugs, looks back. “I saw the suit,” he says. “On the news. I saw what it can do. I didn’t think--- things have advanced a lot. I didn’t understand. I thought Howard had…”

Tony squints at him. “You thought Howard did a Rebirth redux and tested it on his kid?”

“I thought a lot of things,” Steve says, snappy. “It was a very confusing couple of days.”

Tony can imagine that it was. “So you thought I was Rebirthed, and you wanted--”

“I didn’t want anything,” Steve says, and there’s that flash of exposed nerve again, that look like a sinkhole in the backs of his eyes. “That’s not the point.”

Tony takes a sip of his whiskey. It settles, warm and sweet, into his stomach.

I didn’t want anything.

I shouldn’t be alive, unless it’s for a reason.

Tony holds the tumbler out. Steve needs the warmth more than he does. “Here,” he says.

Steve takes it, seemingly on reflex. “I can’t get drunk,” he says.

“Well,” Tony says, circling back toward the bar, “not with that attitude.”

[hermit-god-au-pog]

[OLD AND MAY BECOME NON-CANON LATER ON] Got some short stories for ya’ll!

After much struggle i managed to think of some more lore based prompts for some short stories! They’ll be under the cut!

One of a conversation between Helsknight and EvilXisuma, the other of an interaction between TFC and GeminiTay! What can i say im a sucker for these two. The stuff is only slightly proof-read by myself so sorry for any mistakes in grammer or if things sound weird lol

Anyway, I hope ya’ll enjoy! And if i need to add any tw’s just say! I dont think i will though! Long post under the cut though

EX&Hels have a conversation

“So let me get this straight,” Helsknight sat up in his seat and leaned on the table between the two” You’re not considered a hels hermit at all?” Evil Xisuma rolls his eyes but chuckles at the other, he doesn’t blame him for not knowing, hell the only ones who probably knew were him and Grian’s little buddies.

“No, I am not a hels hermit like you. But, I work very similarly. Me personally, I’m the axolotl’s evil clone according to my code. But, and I can’t speak for the others, I still fill up the role of why a hels is created.” Helsknight slowly blinked at the other and rose an eyebrow.

“What is that supposed to mean exactly?” Evil X let out a snort at the other’s question.

“Well basically, Hels exist for one reason, to keep the gods, or hermits as we know them, in check. Granted they’re all too nice to do anything we’d do, but the point still stands. Hels are here to counteract the hermits, and the Axolotl doesn’t have a hels per say because I exist. But that’s not stopping the void from making a hels version if need be.” Helsknight leaned back and crossed his arms, narrowing his eyes at Evil X.

“Ok, so because you already existed, the void didn’t make a counterpart for the admin. But what do you mean it could make another? Why would we need a third Xisuma?” Evil X tapped his chin as he thinks of what he should say.

“Well, let’s just say the void has already planned for that” Helsknight could feel the shit-eating grin the other was giving him. But Evil X gestures to another person in the room. Helsknight, begrudgingly, decided to look, and see’s what the other was talking about. There was a turtle Xisuma sitting at a bar, but he looked almost vacant, like an NPC almost.

“Now, I’ve never talked to that guy, and based on the interactions they’ve had with others, he’s entirely just a placeholder, an NPC ready to be coded into action.” Helsknight turned back to Evil X who was looking at him now.”But unless something happens to me, I keep the role of a ‘hels counterpart’ even though I’m not a hels.” Blinking, helsknight picked up his drink, downing the rest of its contents, this was a very weird conversation they were having but, informative. Then something struck him.

“You said something about others earlier” Evil X feigned innocence and confusion, making helsknight growl.

“Earlier this conversation! You said ‘ But, and I can’t speak for the others, I still fill up the role of why a hels is created’. There are others who aren’t technically hels hermits on the server?” Evil X snorted then started laughing. Helsknight slammed his hands on the table and stood up.

“No! I’m serious! Who the hell are the others?!” After Evil X got done with his laughing fit, he pretended to wipe away some tears.

“You really are dense my friend” before the other could reply, Evil X continued” The only ones I personally know of, are actually Grian’s-”

“You said that using plurals, does Grian seriously have 2?” Helsknight looked at the other bewildered as he nodded.

“Indeed he does my friend. I don’t entirely understand it myself. One calls themself NpcGrian, or NPG for short, the other one calls themself Robot Grian or RG for short. And between us, RG is definitely the eviler and smarter one of the two. He’s probably the one considered the hels version.” Helsknight slumped back in his seat and rubbed his temple, letting out a heavy sigh.

“Alright, to get away from that confusing topic, you said hels were made to counter the gods?” Evil X nodded.

“Yee-p” popping the p at the end, Evil X leaned forward.” All the gods being together in one space can be seen as quite a dangerous predicament, and if they ever decided to team up and rise up for some reason, no one would know before it’s too late. So to try and stop that, keep the gods on their toes and aware, the hels were made. You were one of the first to become sentient and seek out your counterpart actually”

Helsknight looked at the other for a moment then realized something. Something that didn’t settle right with him.

“How do you know all of this information? I’m pretty sure not even Xisuma knows this crap.” Hels rose an eyebrow as the other’s expression got darker behind the mask he wore.

“Let’s just say, being locked in the void for ages gives you some free time. And the ability to look through your and your clone’s codes, even though I was never able to edit them.” Huh, well that made sense.

TFC helps Gem out/aka being a god is overwhelming

    Sometimes, to really appreciate the world you live in, you just gotta walk around. Taking in the sights of what the world holds and what your fellow hermits have made. And honestly, TFC is usually blown away by how talented the hermits are. He may not be much of a builder himself, but he’s happy they’ve kept him along the way nonetheless. Little ol’ miner TFC, walking amongst godly builders, figuratively and literally.

    Sometimes on TFC’s walks, he’ll come across other hermits, not often, but it’s always pleasant when he does. TFC admits, he should get out to talk to the others more, but he can’t help it. The mines make him feel at home. But today, walking into one of the newer hermits areas, he had a bad feeling in his gut.

    Deciding to stray from the path TFC decided to look around the area, a bit more in dept. And low and behold, once getting close to one of the new hermits custom trees, he heard soft, stifled crying. Like they were trying to cover it up. Eyes softening, TFC went over to the home next to this wonderful tree and knocked, before letting himself peek inside.

    GeminiTay sat in the corner, her head snapped up and it was obvious how overwhelmed and tired she looked. TFC gave a slight smile and walked inside, closing the door gently. Gemini watched tensely as TFC walked over, his pickaxe he used as a cane clicking with every step. But, TFC sat down next to her and softly asked.

    “Would physical touch help this situation or worsen it?” Seeing Gemini’s tears starting to well up more, TFC opened his arms, offering her a safe space. And she took it. Gemini scrambled to get up and hug the other. She didn’t know why his presence felt so...comforting, but it did, and once she started the hug, the floodgates were let loose. She couldn’t hold back her tears even if she tried.

    TFC held the young girl close, gently rubbing circles into her back as her whole frame shook and twitched. TFC did notice the leaves that moved like butterflies flying about in the home. He semi-watched them as he comforted the hermit in his arms, taking notes on the situation.

    Once TFC heard the girls’ cries soften and as her body became less shaky, he decided to start talking.

    “I understand if you’re too overwhelmed to talk right now, but was this panic caused by some aspect of your godly nature?” TFC waited patiently, and when he felt a soft nod on his shoulder he let out a little sigh.

    “You are one of the newest gods in general, not even to the server, have you been taught anything more than the basics yet?” a small shake of her head.”So you’re not yet in tune with who you are and the powers you possess, and due to that, something within you snapped, and you started hearing noises or voices, am I correct?” TFC could feel Gem tense like he had just read her mind, but she gave a soft nod. TFC looked around at the leaf butterflies, more seem to have gathered.

    “Are the voices still present? Have they gotten any louder or more intense?” With the soft nod, TFC was starting to understand a bit more. Gently sitting Gemini up, he made the corner they were in into a cozy one full of blankets and pillows. 

    Gemini then watched, rubbing her slightly puffed-up eyes, as TFC started to gather the leaf butterflies. Once he got a good amount he gently set them free outside. And the more he let go, the less overwhelmed Gemini felt. Once most of the creatures were out TFC made his way back over and sat across from Gemini.

    “Ready to talk?” Gemini nodded, sniffling and wiping away any stray tears. Taking a deep breath Gemini starts talking.

    “So...So I was just doing my normal routine, today I decided to do some enchanting. But then my tree, my /tree/ started talking to me and I got confused. So I went over and put a hand on the tree.”Gemini paused, breath hitching again. TFC gently held one of her hands, reassuring her to take her time. After catching her breath, Gem continued.

    “And..And then I...And then I heard all these voices and cries. Some were asking me for help, some were..thanking me? Some were crying, some cheering...But they all came at once and I couldn’t shut them off. Then I started hearing more despair than anything else and I... I couldn’t do it. My body got all fuzzy! And my eyes got blurry but different from tear blur. I felt my body...change. And so I ran in here. And I only started to feel my body go back to normal shortly before you came..” Gem panted softly when she was done, her tears back and starting to fall again. She was looking down at her feet.

    But when she felt a soft big hand on her cheek, whipping away her tears, she looked up. TFC gave her a gentle smile, a reassuring one, and, it honestly helped her more than she would have thought.

    “That my dear was your body being forced into its godly form. Every god has one, but most prefer not to be in them, as they can be taxing after long uses. But they’re nothing to be afraid of. You just went into it unwillingly.” Gemini nods softly, following along so far.”And if you would like, I can help you learn how to go into it and out of it, at will. I’ll do it with you.”

Gemini thought about it for a while. She didn’t know how long, but TFC never rushed her into deciding, only waiting patiently, giving her time to think. But, if she learned how to control that form, maybe it would be less frightening if this ever happened again. Gem then looked at TFC and gave a quick nod.

“Yea, ok. I, I want to learn how to control this...godly form of mine. But you’ll do it with me right?” TFC nodded and scooted so that they bot sat criss-cross, knees touching each other. TFC then gently held both of her hands.

“Ok, to start off with, think of why you became a god, and what you’re the god of. Think of what that means to you.” Gem nodded, closing her eyes as she held TFC’s hands. Furrowing her brows a bit Gemini thought.

Thought of the event that lead her to be a god, why she did what she did. She thought of what that event meant to her and why she would do it again. And she felt the tension in her shoulders released. Gem then thought of what it meant to be the goddess of the forest, what the responsibility and future actions might hold for her.

“Good, you’re doing great” TFC’s voice rang through her ears.”Now hold onto that feeling, clutch onto it, cherish it. Once you’ve done that, let go. Let yourself feel your body change, let it morph and melt into something new.”

Taking one more deep breath, Gem followed his instructions. The feeling her ‘job’ gave her, the hope she had for herself, and so on, she held it close to her heart, and let herself stop caring about the mortal plane for a bit. And she felt herself change. Like what happened earlier, but less jarring and harsh. She felt her body almost melt, felt it slither around while being on one spot. The feeling wasn’t unpleasant like it was before. It felt like shifting over in bed, something familiar.

“There we go, you’ve done it, you can open your eyes.” Cautiously, Gem opened her eyes, and instead of being met with the soft grandpa from before, there was a whole new person. They looked like TFC but also now. They had more sharp edges and the particles of different ores around them were very present, and they radiated the energy of a god. He reached over and cupped her cheek.

“How do you feel?” Gemini thinks, she looked down at her new self, realizing how much bigger the two were now. She looked at all the leaf butterflies, not being as scared of them now. She felt power coursing through her, the whispered of the plants and tree’s outside. But now that she’s not in her panicked state, it was a lot more comforting. Gem felt a soft smile form over their lips. Looking up at TFC she felt warmth in her chest.

“Now that I’m not panicking, it feels nice. It feels warm, and I feel stronger.” TFC nods, looking pleased.

“Now, let’s go back to normal shall we?” Gem nods and puts her head down, closing her eyes again.

“Now, recognize your form, recognize the power coursing through you. Hold that feeling, and imagine yourself tucking it away for later. Let yourself relax and let your body morph once more” And once again, Gem tried her best to follow along.

And next time she opened her eyes, the normal TFC sat in front of her. Looking down at herself, Gem saw her she was back to normal. Smiling Gem leaped up to hug TFC. Hugging back TFC gently pet her hair.

“Now, let’s get you to bed, You need some rest after all that. Tomorrow we’ll talk more about this stuff ok?” 

And with that, TFC and Gem got comfy in the small comfort fort TFC had made and Gem fell asleep. During the afternoon Bdubs came to see gem, but finding her and TFC sleeping, he just smiled fondly and closed the door quietly. Informing the server not to disturb the two for the rest of the night and left the sleeping duo to rest

[vickysaurus]

What if season 5 was two seasons?

So watching through season 5, I kept noticing how fast the pacing had to be with the amount plot threads there were and how often I went ‘I wish we saw more of X’. So as I’ve mentioned a couple of times, I’ve started wondering if it might’ve been better if its story had been spread over two seasons rather than one. Now, obviously I understand that kind of change would not have been in the crew’s hands and no matter what they wanted would likely have been impossible. This is not intended as a ‘they should’ve just done this’ but as a thought experiment. Would a sixth season even have worked? So I’m gonna try and figure out how season 5′s content might’ve been done over two seasons in an alternate universe. In order to keep straight how far in the seasons we are, I’m gonna number the episodes 5-1 to 5-13 and 6-1 to 6-13 for clarity.

-5-1: We’re gonna start off immediately inserting an extra episode: The Fall of Bright Moon. Rather than a time skip, we get to see the first days of the invasion and the evacuation of Bright Moon in the face of overwhelming force. Micah has to switch back into being king, Adora has to deal with losing She-Ra, Bow has to deal with losing Glimmer. There’s a major subplot about Scorpia working up the courage to apologise to Entrapta and the two of them reconnecting. Perfuma probably helps her with that. That sounds like a pretty busy episode, but I think the first two Velvet Glove scenes from Horde Prime should probably be moved to it to not just leave Catra and Glimmer hanging completely.

-5-2 to 5-4: Horde Prime, Launch, and Corridors stay mostly the same. Since I moved the first Velvet Glove scenes to 5-1 and we can probably cut a bit of exposition from Horde Prime with the addition of that episode, these episodes get a couple minutes extra, which is split between an extra Glimmer and Catra in jail scene and some more of Scorpia and Entrapta’s friendship in Launch.

-5-5 and 5-6: An extra season gives us time for worldbuilding and more of the new characters, and since I like the Star siblings I’m gonna selfishly give them a bunch more screen time. The plan to save Catra takes more preparation in this version, leading Best Friend Squad and the Star siblings to go on an adventure on another planet after Stranded, one that is under Horde occupation but hasn’t been destroyed by them. They’re there for either information or some kind of device they’ll need to get on the Velvet Glove, but end up sowing the seeds for a local rebellion on the planet. We’ll see more of that plot later on.

-5-7: Save the Cat. It’s perfect as is.

-5-8: Taking Control’s A plot, enhanced with some scenes from Don’t Go into a full episode.

-5-9: This is where Taking Control’s B plot with the chipped Etherians goes. To go with it, Best Friend Squad is going on another space adventure after a rendez-vous with the Star siblings while they try and escape the Horde. I’m thinking maybe Hordak could be one of the clones searching for them, and while he doesn’t come face-to-face with Entrapta we could see some more of his conflicting feelings building in the course of this. Just a moment’s hesitation on his part allows Best Friend Squad to escape. Catra befriending Glimmer and Bow is a major part of this episode, and it basically bridges the gap between the little overtures between them in Taking Control and Catra as a part of Best Friend Squad in Shot in the Dark.

-5-10: Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio only get a cameo in season 5, and that’s something I really want to change. I want to give them a ‘Lower Decks’ episode where they’re basically just trying to go about their lives post-Horde but rapidly discovering the war is impossible to ignore. I feel like we don’t see enough of the normal Etherians in general, and I think these three are a great way to show how they’re doing.

-5-11: Perils of Peekablue. However, the scene at the end where it turns out Micah is already chipped and so are enormous amounts of Etherians doesn’t happen yet.

-5-12 and 5-13: So now I need to have a big season finale happen, and unfortunately Shot In The Dark, while a great episode, is also a little too low-energy to fit the bill. So what I’m gonna do is make it the B-plot of a finale two-parter. The A-plot is set on Etheria, and is basically some big climactic business where the Princesses, General Juliet, (remember her?) and many common Etherians take the fight back to the chipped princesses, and things go well until disaster strikes and Micah gets chipped. Pretty vague, I know. The ‘Lower Decks’ episode we did sets up a lot of the plot here; Lonnie, Rogelio, and Kyle are probably involved in it. The two-parter ends with the big ‘Oh fuck everyone’s chipped’ moment at the end of Perils of Peekablueas the big season-ending cliffhanger. After that scene, we switch to Best Friend Squad landing on Etheria, and that’s how season 5 ends.

-6-1: I think An Ill Wind would be a solid season opener as is.

-6-2 to 6-10: Yeah, I’m gonna take this whole block of episodes in one go, because this is where it gets complicated. Return to the Fright Zone and Failsafe take place in this block, but it’s beyond my ability to figure out the full plot developments of this entire season. While for season 5 I can keep to the structure of Best Friend Squad’s space adventure, season 6 is gonna be a lot more freeform, and would presumably have major plot elements added. Here’s my thoughts on these nine episodes:

-The chipped princesses get unchipped earlier. They provide good heartwrenching moments, cool bossfights, and allow for major villains ranking below Prime without having to introduce new characters, but I think ultimately it does the chipped princesses a disservice since they just don’t get to show character in the second half of the season. Just compare how well we know Netossa as a character with how well we know Spinnerella. So they get unchipped over the course of these episodes and get to be with the Rebellion again afterwards. Mermista and Spinnerella get unchipped the same way as in canon. Scorpia actually gets to talk while chipped and has a heartwrenching confrontation with Catra in which she basically responds in the worst possible ways to Catra’s regrets (the same way we saw chipped Catra basically being am expression of her worst traits) and they have a fight that’s super rough for Catra, but Catra manages to damage her chip and save her. They have a better chat afterwards, and that’s when they make up and hug it out. I think Micah is the last one to be unchipped, and I might actually keep him chipped until Heart, Part 1 so Glimmer still gets that climactic confrontation with him. Now, a possible concern is that this means there’s just not gonna be enough ‘bosses’ around to fight in Heart. Solutions to this could include for example advanced robots, chipped minor characters like Huntara, Dumbface Octavia, and alien monsters. Maybe Hordak? Though I definitely want him back on the Velvet Glove’s bridge in time to give Prime his date with gravity.

-So that’s sort of the major arc, but there are several characters and plot threads that I feel could easily be an episode’s A- or B-plot in this bunch:

*Catra is mortified when she realises she caused Angella’s death and has a big freak-out over it and tries to run away, Glimmer confronts her and they deal with their feelings on the matter

*Another Kyle, Lonnie, and Rogelio episode

*A Wrong Hordak episode where he discovers his own identity and picks a name, also feat. Entrapta’s attempts to reach out to Hordak

*Madame Razz episode where Adora tries to get her help, possibly involving the Crystal Castle and George and Lance

*Sea Hawk and Double Trouble drama kids adventure where they try to save Mermista (I think Mermista vs. Sea Hawk and Mermista being unchipped gets moved to the end of this episode). These two were delightful for the little time we saw them together in Perils of Peekablue and I want Sea Hawk to somehow rope Double Trouble into an adventure.

*All the space adventures and world building I put in season 5 coming to a head when some form of space reinforcements led by the Star siblings come to help.

*And of course Return to the Fright Zone and Failsafe.

-6-11 to 6-13: Heart is now a three-parter, deal with it. Horde Prime is beaten at the end of part 2, or more likely the start of part 3, and the rest of part 3 is that sweet dénouement I crave.

So with all that laid out, let’s return to the question: would this work? I think if it had originally been written to be two seasons, the story could have easily worked for two. As is, I’m retrofitting a single season to be two, so some of the stuff I’ve added sounds rather redundant or vague. There are certainly enough plotlines and characters to make a split work, but of course those would’ve had to have been written into the plot from the start to not feel tacked on. Of course, brevity is the soul of wit, so even if two seasons had been an option, it’s quite possible a single that has too little time is still better than two that have too much.

[aellynera]

The Common Kiss (Poe Dameron x Reader)

THE COMMON KISS - part one

(full disclosure - this has been in my wips since may. of 2020. and it’s been rewritten at least twice and ignored for long enough, and i finally like where it’s going. i plan on four parts total, and here’s the first. i hope you like it.)

Word Count: 1.6k(ish)

Summary: Something weird may or may not being going on around the base, and you were not aware that one of Poe’s official duties was to become a private eye. Spoiler alert: it’s not.

Warnings: Exasperation and nerfherderism (...nerfherding? it’s a thing, ok?) Smooching.

(A/N: Tan Divo was a member of the Coruscant Security Force during the Clone Wars; he is just referenced here in the same way as calling someone Poirot or Clouseau, etc.)

~1~

“Something’s going on around here,” Poe Dameron announced dramatically, setting his tray down on the table and dropping himself onto the seat across from you.

You hardly looked up from your own tray, barely giving him a raised eyebrow before returning to poking around in your stew. It wasn’t terrible as far as meals in the base mess hall went, but the fact it was mostly unidentifiable and extremely grayish-brown didn’t make it particularly appetizing. But it was oddly fascinating...you shook your head and stabbed at a chunk of maybe-protato. “We’re in the middle of a war, Poe. There’s always something going on around here.”

Opening his own container of stew, his nose wrinkled at the contents and instead of sticking his spoon in it, he pointed it at you. “I’m not talking about the war, Stardust. I mean, like, right here. On the base. Something’s up.”

Poe had started calling you that the first day you’d met, the day you arrived on base. He said he liked your name just fine, but “Stardust” just felt more right to him, and it stuck. Every time you heard it, it made your stomach jittery.

Since that day, the two of you had spent more and more time together. Flying missions, patrol duties, Poe sometimes helping you try and decipher intercepted communications from the First Order, games of sabacc lasting well past midnight when you had the rare free day, long talks over a few shots of fire whiskey that Poe always seemed to be able to get his hands on. If you could call anyone in the galaxy, and especially on base, your best friend, it would be Poe Dameron.

There were days you seriously questioned that life choice.

You were completely used to his antics and hyperbole. That didn’t mean you weren’t going to give him a hard time about it.

“Always something going on around here, too,” you replied. “Gonna need to be more specific, Commander.”

The shift in his seat was so subtle, Poe was certain you didn’t notice it.

(You did. You ignored it.)

“Look over there,” Poe replied, pointing his spoon across the room.

You followed his utensil three tables over, where Finn and Rose were sitting across from each other, ignoring their food and talking animatedly. They were both smiling and seemed to be quite the conversation. As far as you could tell, they were acting like two completely normal adults while Poe was bordering on deranged.

A line appeared between your brows as you watched them. “So, they’re talking? They usually sit together and they’re friends. What are you talking about?”

Poe snorted. “But they usually sit with us. They’re sitting alone.”

“Maybe they just need a break from you.”

“Funny, Stardust.”

Shrugging, you went back to your tray. The Keshian spice roll didn’t look too bad - Maz Kanata had recently sent a shipment, just because she could and probably because she knew you and a certain pilot had eaten your combined weight in said rolls the last time you had been to Takodana. She also had a soft spot for Poe, much to your amusement.

“I’m serious, though,” you said, chewing on a bite of roll. “So they’re sitting together but not with us. So what? That doesn’t mean anything.”

“It means something.”

“Poe, it doesn’t mean anything. We got here at different times. Maybe one of them needed to talk about something privately. Maybe they have something to do after lunch and want to make sure they get out of here without getting sidetracked. There could be any number of reasons.”

Poe tore his own spice roll in half and shoved half of a half in his mouth. “I’m telling you, something’s up.”

You rolled your eyes. “I’m telling you, you’re being ridiculous.”

“Hey, where’d they go?” Poe asked, mostly ignoring your admonition. You both looked up to where Finn and Rose had been sitting, then towards the doorway where you could see the back of Rose’s head disappearing. Finn was nowhere in sight.

Poe grabbed your hand and pulled you to your feet. “Come on!”

You stumbled slightly and tried to pull out of his grip, but he just latched on harder and pulled you behind him. “Poe! What the hell are you doing? I’m still eating and you are being a complete nerfher---”

He shoved the other half of his Keshian spice roll in your mouth and simply replied, “Recon. Let’s go.”

~~~

Finn had been minding his own business. He had left the mess hall a few minutes ago after his lunch with Rose, his attention completely switched and his nose now buried in a datapad. He was checking the most recent reports of the First Order’s outpost activity in the nearest systems. His focus was almost totally on the datapad, with just enough presence to not walk face-first into walls and barely enough to not walk face-first into people. He had almost taken out several personnel and two droids along the way so far. Each time he mumbled offhand apologies and went right back to the reports on his pad.

No, that doesn’t look suspicious. No, that’s just a natural outcropping. No, that’s...well, maybe...nah. Nothing there. No...wait...hmm...maybe? His mind was trying to wrap around the intel before the next command meeting, and frankly, he was kind of bored. He knew the work was important but he really had to concentrate to get his work done. And concentrate a little extra to not bash into people, or robotic friends.

He was really just wandering, back and forth, round and round as he thought and worked.

That’s why he never saw Rose.

He definitely never saw you or Poe, who had been trailing a few feet behind Rose at Poe’s insistence and amid repeated whispered proclamations that something was definitely going on. As Finn came into sight, Poe made you crouch down behind a bulkhead and paid no attention to your eyeroll. But even Poe’s eyes went wide with what happened next.

One minute Finn was trying to figure out if there was any pertinent information on the recon data. The next minute he was being yanked into a storage closet by a hand that shot out and grabbed his elbow.

“Okay, so if nothing’s happening, then what the hell was that?” Poe hissed at you.

“Oh, shut up,” you shot back. “This is so stupid, Poe, I’m going back to the hangar to work on my ship.” You stood up and started to turn away.

He grabbed your arm and pulled you back down. “No! Come on, Stardust, we gotta see how this plays out.”

The irritated sigh you planned to give him stuck in your throat as you suddenly realized how close your body had pressed against his. His voice was low and very close to your ear and was it getting warmer in here? You tried to quietly clear your throat and remember how to breathe.

You hoped Poe didn’t notice.

(He did. He chose to not say anything.)

Meanwhile, in the supply closet, Finn’s datapad went crashing to the floor and he yelped in surprise, a yelp that was suddenly cut off by Rose’s lips pressed against his as the closet door slammed shut behind them.

His eyes went wide, then closed as he responded and leaned into it, her lips soft against his. The datapad and the recon reports and anything and everything that had to do with something other than Rose’s lips was utterly forgotten. After a few minutes, she pulled away and they looked at each other. At the exact same time, they both said, “Wow.”

“What was that for?” Finn finally asked, his brain switching back on and finally finding his voice. “That...that wasn’t part of the plan.”

Rose gave him an impish grin and pressed a finger to his lips as she whispered in his ear, “Cause I knew you wouldn’t do it first.” With that, she turned and exited the closet, leaving Finn staring after her, once again dumbstruck and speechless.

~~~

Poe’s head perked up as he heard the *shhhik* of the closet door sliding open. You both looked over to see Rose saunter out with a suspicious skip in her step and a sly grin on her face.

Poe turned to you, clearly about to make some comment or ask another inane question, but he was cut off by Rose calling over her shoulder as she passed.

“Hey, Y/N!” she said cheerfully. She glanced down with a confused expression. “Dameron. What are you guys up to?”

“Hey Rose,” you replied, trying to sound normal.

“I was...uh...just tying my boot,” Poe replied. You rested your forehead on the wall and closed your eyes.

Rose lifted a shoulder, rolled her eyes, and kept walking. “Poe, stop being weird.”

You didn’t bother to try and hold back your laugh.

Poe scowled. “Do you think she’s onto us?”

He grimaced as your elbow sunk into his side. “We’re behind a bulkhead,” you pointed out, “not really concealed at all, and you told her you were tying your boot. Next time maybe plan your paranoid surveillance mission a little better, genius.”

Before Poe could stick his tongue out at you, his attention was diverted back to the closet door.

Finn emerged a moment later, still with a dumbstruck expression on his face.

Poe stood up, dragging you with him. He ignored your elbow in his side this time. “Finn! Buddy! Hey, uh...is everything okay?”

Finn didn’t respond for a few moments, then seemed to focus on Poe as if seeing him for the first time in ages. “Huh? Oh...yeah,” he replied. “Everything...is fine. I, uh, I’m gonna go lie down for a bit, I’m just, uh, feeling a little off...think maybe I caught something.”

Without another word, he stumbled off towards his quarters.

“See!” Poe hissed at you. “I told you there was something going around.”

You closed your eyes and shook your head. “I can’t with you anymore today. I’m going to work on my ship. Try not to get into any trouble, Divo.”

~the end...for now~

Taglist:  @anetteaneta @autumnleaves1991-blog​ @damerondjarin​ @deeandbobbymcgee​ @rosemarysbaby13​ @iamthe-shadow-on-the-wall​ @itspdameronthings​ @poedjarin​ @sergeantkane​ @spider-starry​ @woakiees​ @writefightandflightclub​ @veuliee2​ @yourbucky084​

Poe Dameron taglist:   @millllenniawrites​ @waatermelon-sugaar​​

>>taglist is open and the form is here<<

[adultswim2021]

The Venture Bros. #16: “Powerless in the Face of Death” | June 25, 2006 – 10:30PM | S02E01

Well fuck me, an actual good show. I sorta dread reviewing The Venture Bros. Because I feel a slight obligation to not phone in a write-up for it.

Last time, on Venture Time: the Monarch is in jail and Dr. Girlfriend is now with Phantom Limb due to his sinister meddling. Dr. Venture's absorbed twin brother Jonas has ejected himself from Rusty's body, and is now a walking, talking little guy. 21 and 24, the Monarch's most likable henchmen, have killed the Venture Bros. under Orpheus' watch. How can a show called The Venture Bros. continue without the titular “Venture Bros.”?

This one starts with a bit of a fake-out, implying that the new titular “Venture Bros.” are actually Doctor's Rusty and Jonas with a modified opening. So that's it? No more Dean? No more Hank!? What the Hank? Fear not, Dean Reader: the boys have a convoluted science-fiction-style return to the series: it turns out that Dr. Venture keeps “clone slugs” of the boys in the event of their accidental or meditated deaths. In fact, the boys we knew and loved in season one weren't even the original Hank and Dean: they were the fourteenth or fifteenth iteration of the boys, illustrated with a hilarious and freewheeling montage of the boys getting compromised to a permanent end, mostly in stupid accidental ways of their own doing.

This raises some dark questions: when we see only one boy get killed in the montage, what happens to the other one? Does Brock take Hank out into the woods and shoot him with a revolver if Dean gets squashed by a giant robot? If one of the boys is survivably maimed but crippled for life, would Rusty finish the job himself so he can start over with a fresh clone rather than rehabilitate the messed-up one?

Also in this episode, before I forget: a really good opening sequence set to a licensed song, which they point out on the commentary was perilously almost cut (they play the voicemail of them getting the bad news that the song wouldn't be paid for by Cartoon Network; luckily that wasn't the end of it and the show got it). There I mentioned it. In a just world The Simpsons’ music budget would all go to The Venture Bros. because not once would The Venture Bros. ever place an NRBQ song on their soundtrack. This real-world battle would bleed into The Venture Bros. frequently.

There's a scene featuring Brendon Small doing a brown guy AND a black guy! We call that 50 shades of HEY! THAT'S RACIST! NOT COOL, BRENDON SMALL! Nah just kidding it is freedom of speech and it is always good.

There's also a scene where 21 & 24 meet each other in a henchmen support group, seeing each other out of costume for the first time. I've already mentioned so much stuff that’s happened in this episode, but a lot of those things are standalone scenes that don’t really drive the main story forward. Come to think of it, I don't think I've even properly discussed the main plots of this episode!

Okay, the main stories here are Dr. Venture being partially stuck in a wall because of a malfunctioning teleporter. This converges with another subplot where Dr. Orpheus is trying to bring Hank and Dean back, sensing their presence as though their spirits are haunting Venture compound. This has some eyebrow raising scenes where we see Dr. Orpheus explicitly visiting a spiritual realm of some kind. So I guess there's an afterlife in the Venture-verse? As a cool nihilistic Rick & Morty fan I gotta SMDH. Anyway, this is how we broach the subject of Venture's clone slugs, which are half-formed humanoids that are roughly the age of Hank and Dean, ready to be implanted with their memories and grown into normal boys.

Okay, so the clone thing: The thing that the Venture Bros. does reasonably well is turn jokes into lore. The joke-to-lore pipeline is real, and you see it happen all the time: There are small things like references to characters who eventually become fleshed out (Dr. Sunshine is mentioned here during the henchmen support group and we won’t meet him until season 4). There's a smaller-scale one here during Monarch's prison break subplot where he is seen with therapy butterflies (which he's planning to use to aid in his breakout). When somebody says “I can't believe they let you keep those” he lists off other people who are allowed therapeutic pursuits, and says “King Gorilla has all those Tarzans”. Funny line, but it actually comes back a little later on when Phantom Limb presents King Gorilla with a cake with the corpse of one of his guys baked inside of it. These things are often NOT jokes at all in-universe, but just stated facts that can weigh on the plot. That last bit actually helps drive the story forward; King Gorilla is momentarily intimidated by Phantom Limb and betrays the Monarch because of it.

The big example here is the Hank and Dean clone slugs. They could be seen as a jokey way to poke fun at how TV shows maintain their status quo. I think most Adult Swim shows would opt to do something like reveal it was all a dream but do it in a detached ironic way. When Sledge Hammer! ended season one with the world getting blown up, they began season two by inauspiciously announcing that this season takes place before that event. This didn't bear any importance on the plot at all; the show pressed forward in ways that would contradict that “fact”. But The Venture Bros. Cares about world building. And people who watch Venture Bros. care about that stuff being real, too. It’s funny in a meta way but still sticks to an in-universe reality for the canon-obsessed. The clone thing is now lore, and it comes back fairly frequently. There's an equal obsession with pressing forward and changing the show as there is with preserving it's past as being important.

The show would get even further up it's own ass in season three, but until this point the show had been fairly episodic. But this episode seems like it only makes sense if you, at the very least, watched the last few episodes of season one before watching this. That's not uncommon for season finales and their following premieres. The scenes with 21 & 24 are almost completely stand-alone and only really serve to give weight to the cold open of the next episode, where they reunite (is that the next one? I'm assuming it is). I guess what I'm saying is that this show is becoming more serialized. And what's really important is that I'm smart, and I noticed it.

MAIL BAG

I kept forgetting about the Mail Bag! AHHH! Here’s a message I got after my write-up of Bass Fest.

You don't like the reveal that WiZZard makes that his son is dead?

I think sometimes I don’t wanna make my Tom Goes write-ups to just be me listing jokes I like. But maybe I should do that. Maybe I should list every joke I like. And don’t like. And all the dialogue and stage directions. Maybe I should transcribe the episodes?

maybe that part is undercut a little by the in-credit reprieve where bob starts raprocking badly "oh no where my fucking son go? I dont know but you better fucking run hoe". Kind of a nasty go for Bob there. Is it just me or is Bob especially nasty when he works with Tim and Eric? He never really does any of his more measured or cerebral characters with them.

Bob really cuts loose with his boys, that’s for sure. I think he really did get a new lease on life from them. I probably said all this once, but: shortly before Tom Goes to the Mayor Bob had co-hosted Jimmy Kimmel Live (the early episodes he’d have a guest co-host each week). I forget where or why, but I read some online missive from Bob, maybe on the Bob and David website, where he started bemoaning the fact that none of his comedy was going over on the show. One sketch he mentioned was a video piece where he visited with the costumed characters on Hollywood Blvd; one of them was Brian Posehn dressed as Osama Bin Laden. The main joke was that he didn’t get why he was so unpopular, and nobody wanted to take pictures with him.

The twist at the end is that it really IS Osama Bin Laden, and NOT a costumed character. Bob said that people reacted as though it weren’t even comedy; like they got upset when Osama Bin Laden ran away, as if it were all actually real. Bob basically was like “I don’t think I’m going to be performing comedy much anymore”. Who rescued who?

[letsunity]

Not Afraid - Chapter 1

Summery -  

The Bad Batch go to Tatooine to resupply and avoid the Empire. As per the usual, Omega gets separated from the group. Fortunately for her, Krayt's Claw just so happens to be nearby. Bossk and Embo guide her to Boba Fett, who takes interest in why the Kaminoans want her. It's a reluctant partnership, with the Bad Batch having to rely on Krayt's Claw to navigate non-military life.

Tatooine is hot, dry and bright, the opposite of Kamino. She stayed by Hunter's side, inquisitively looking at everything around her. Everything was new and interesting; she wanted to learn everything. The heat emanating from the suns above bore down, drying out her mouth and cracking her lips.

The market was bustling with aliens of all kinds, from giants to dwarves, each with their own story. Everybody had their own experiences, which fascinated Omega, as she had none. She hadn't even experienced dirt until recently.

 "I don't think credits are enough here," Echo sighed, irked by the constant rise in temperature. "Not to mention the place is infested with lowlifes."

 "Considering how Pantora went, we fit right in," Tech continued blankly, earning an eye-roll from the cyborg. "It's possible we'll have to do a job in exchange for supplies."

 "As much as I don't want to agree, it looks that way," Hunter said, nodding slightly. "It's not like we can go to Jabba the Hutt for a job, though. There aren't a lot of people who won't turn on us in a second."

Although it was important, she struggled to pay attention.

The crowd became thick like an ocean, slamming against the group. Something was going on, and whatever it was, Omega wanted to see. Wrecker picked her up, sitting her on his shoulder so she could see above the rest. From the looks of it, a man was duelling someone else, the fight brutal and lawless.

Whoever they were, they must be important, given the crowd. Several people bumped into Wrecker, betting on who'd win. One shoved him hard enough to cause Omega to fall off, angering the hulking clone. Unsurprisingly, this led to another fight, which Hunter and Echo tried dragging him away from.

She wasn't sure why, but he'd been a little more aggressive as of late. Maybe it was because they're hungry? That would make sense. Hunger made people act weird.

People from the first fight got involved in Wrecker's, creating a cacophony of chaos and excitement. As people hurried to surround them, they shoved Omega away, pushing her from side to side. Before she could try fighting back, somebody else shoved her down, sand seeping into her clothes and hair.

She pulled her hand, avoiding it being crushed by someone's boots. Anytime she tried to move, someone walked over her or into her. They didn't have a care in the world that she was in their way, so she stayed put, waiting for it to dissipate.

The moment it seemed safe enough to get up, a Rodian sneered in disgust, thinking she was some slave. Revolted by her, the Rodian kicked the humanoid thing, wanting it away from him.

 "Big mistake," hissed someone behind him.

As Omega rubbed her eye, trying to remove the sand, she could make out a hand.

Embo helped the child stand, asking if she was alright. She didn't understand him, so he helped wipe some sand from her eye, looking to Bossk.

The Trandoshan licked blood from his claws, finished with the Rodian pest. With Marrok grunting beside him, Embo requested that he talk to her.

Bossk knelt, looking over the girl. Her condition and clothing meant she wasn't from here and couldn't be more than around ten. The kick would bruise, but he didn't feel any broken bones.

 "Where's your family?" Bossk hissed, looking around for someone like her.

She wouldn't say, closing up. A wise decision, given how hostile Tatooine is to foreigners.

 "Alright. We'll give you a place to stay while we look for your family or friends. You look dehydrated, and you could get sunburnt. I'm Bossk, and that's Embo, plus his mutt Marrok."

Embo protested to the insult of his fuzzy son. Bossk rolled his eyes, not understanding his attachment to the oversized Massiff.

Omega hadn't met a Trandoshan before, although she was aware of them. She didn't know what Embo was, nor his animal companion. She didn't want to follow them, but she didn't know what else to do. Unlike the orange helmet lady, they actually helped her. Her eye hurt, but Embo's assistance made it tolerable.

They waited patiently for her to decide, their presence scaring off some people. The Trandoshan offered a hand, his arm creepily long. Though hesitant, she just wanted to go home, and they were all she had. Hesitantly, Omega took the reptile's hand. Instead of clasping back, his hand was relaxed, giving her control.

Gently, they walked beside her, Marrok walking behind them. They were purposefully slow, doing it for her sake. So far, they were nicer than the mean lady.

Embo spoke to Bossk in a language she didn't know, the Trandoshan making several expressions she didn't understand. She wanted to understand, but that would take a while.

They led her to a house-like location, opening the door for her. Embo mumbled something to Bossk and left, presumably to find her friends.

The reptilian motioned for her to sit, pointing to a large table belonging to a cantina. As Omega sat down, she examined the location, understanding it to be a home base of sorts. There were locker-like contraptions in the walls with symbols etched into each one. Bossk opened one, likely his, and tossed a bottle to her.

As Omega opened it, a funny smell ran through her nose and assaulted her tongue. Instead of waiting for her, he took one himself and drank it, a long tongue licking his scaled lips afterwards.

She took a sip, feeling cold water trickle down her oesophagus. She didn't realise how thirsty she was.

 "What's your name, kid?" Bossk asked, sitting across from her.

 "I'm Omega. Thanks for the water, mister."

 "My nephew and I have a strict code about children. If there's one in need, it'd be wrong to turn them away. Embo's adopted the same code since working with us," he said casually, looking at her clothing. "You aren't from around here. What brings your pals to the sandy rectum of the galaxy?"

 "We needed to get supplies. We were meant to get them on Pantora, but a mean lady with an orange helmet got in the way. She had red strings in her hair, too."

He nodded, aware of the woman Omega described.

"Fennec Shand. She's fairly new to the Bounty Hunting game, more of the assassin type. Someone must want you bad if they hired her. You don't have to worry about me, though; I don't do bounties with kids."

The door opened as two more entered. There was a man with cloth around his head and C-Assassination Droid. They stared at the girl, surprise on the man's face, and they slowly looked at Bossk. Apparently, this wasn't the first time he'd brought a kid back.

Bossk introduced her to Dengar and Highslinger, part of his group. Dengar sat down, shoving the Trandoshan to make more room. The reptile hissed, but Dengar waved it off, seemingly afraid of nothing.

"What is it with you lot and adopting kids, huh?" Dengar joked, getting a growl from the reptile. "Don't give me that, grumpy. Don't urate yourself or whatever you do."

The droid spoke up, essentially calling Dengar a moron. Bossk nodded in agreement, pushing Dengar off his seat. The man casually got up, used to the Trandoshan's friendliness, or lack thereof.

They reminded her of Hunter and the others.

 "Be a good moron and look for her friends. What're their names?"

 "Hunter, Echo, Wrecker and Tech. They've got an Omicron shuttle, Havoc Marauder," she named, eager to reunite with them.

 "Omicron, huh? That'll be an easy find. You don't see a lot of those hovering around these days," Dengar assured, walking back outside. Highslinger provided a robotic wave, following the tanned cyborg.

"It's a big place. In the meantime, have a nap while I make some food. You look like you could do with some."

They weren't anything like the mean 'Fennec'.

Bossk watched over the girl, pausing as she fell into a deeper sleep than either anticipated. Slowly, he lifted her, holding her against his warm body. She was underweight, having near to no muscle on her at all. Poor thing was exhausted.

Her clothes were old and tattered, having seen far better days, and her boot soles were near non-existent from wear. Not just that, but her clothes were Kaminoan, which worried Bossk.

Slowly, the Trandoshan walked out the back, stepping into the Slave-1. The smell of saltwater seared his nostrils, but it helped Bo sleep. Since Jango died, he couldn't sleep without the smell of Kaminoan oceans, even though he hated the planet. He felt her breathing changing like she was more comfortable.

That confirmed that she was from Kamino. It was good that she wasn't there anymore, but still.

Carefully, Bossk pulled out a makeshift bunk, having set it up for Jango many times. The man overworked himself, often falling asleep in the cockpit. It was something that Bo inherited, the little scamp, so much like his dad.

Every day, Bossk missed that asshole more and more. Even the grump of Cad Bane missed Jango's enthusiastic crazy, and weirdly, Jabba took it worse than Bossk, and Jango was his brother. Not even as a close friend, he was raised by Jango's adoptive parents.

He couldn't imagine how mom was doing. She struggled with Jaster died, but with Jango gone as well? He couldn't fathom it.

As Bossk placed the sleeping girl into the makeshift bunk, several questions clouded his mind. What did Fennec want with this kid? She was as normal as Bossk had ever seen, just a plain child. For the likes of Fennec to be sent after her, things were serious. Before leaving her, he made sure to tuck a blanket over her, keeping her secure.

Concerned, Bossk checked her bounty, and unsurprisingly, the Kaminoans issued it. When it came to those lunatics, he loved the idea of getting in their way. Helping her meant upsetting them, which was good.

In the meantime, they'd have to find her friends. They were probably worried sick for her.

When Bossk exited the Slave-1, he found Embo waiting for him.

 "She's asleep. She'll have a black eye, but nothing too severe. What've you found?"

 "Someone saw the kid with four men in altered clone trooper armour, all with skulls painted on. Apparently, similarly-armoured hooligans were sighted on Pantora recently. Think they're clones?"

 "We shouldn't rule it out. Get Derrown or Black Krrsantan to find their ship; I'm sure Dengar's getting pissed somewhere. Do what you do, Em."

Embo nodded, whistling for Marrok. As they set off, Bossk wondered what the Kaminoans could be up to. From Ventress' info, before she died, they were out of fresh Jango Juice. There's no telling what the hell they're thinking.