#this is. so sketchy but WHATEVER I HAD TO GET IT OUT OF MY SYSTEM FHDSAKJ

[scimagic]

Sigh..... Chat I may have fallen line, hook and sinker into the ship.

LISTEN AFTER WATCHING THE MOVIE WITH THE HOMIES WE ALL KINDA FELL IN LOVE WITH THE CRACKSHIP FHDSKA NOT SO MUCH A CRACKSHIP ANYMORE THOUGH IS IT!!

And of course I had the epiphany that Mr. Puzzles MIGHT have a type.

That type being Fish.

[inverse-problem]

enter the cyber grind

[nhura]

Life is too short.

[ my art ] [ twitter ]

(detail + ratio rambling under the cut >_>)

This is one of those "I need a break between my ten other illustrations, let me do a lil sketchy sketch :D" that got too ambitious etc. etc. I never want to see the color red again" moments. BUT!

I really, really like to explore Ratio's viscerality and what's happening between his brain and his nerves, like... all of this thorough control and discipline and he still has to breathe and react to himself and his surroundings, you know? His accomplishments are insane for "his age"* but he's going to run out of "age" at some point! His ambitions are so far reaching that he's not worried about getting doctorate degree Number Nine! Rather, his efforts are pointed outwards, into the universe, for the universe. As you know.

Speaking of his degrees, I had a half thought a while ago that we've seen him with two types of laurel pins.

One is him in his suuuuuper cute mother goose avatar (three leaves) and the other is the hat he's wearing everywhere else (eight leaves).

The thought was, "Aww, what if they're like commemorative pins counting the number of his degrees or whatever :)". Literally only because there's eight in the current one. This is kind of silly because then you'd HAVE to have an obscene number of degrees even for a normal person for your leaf pin to start looking like a laurel in the first place so scratch that BUT it's cute to think that it's still academic regalia. Something something I work in higher ed myself and it's like... it's like that.

The university goldsmith appreciates the job security.

I REMEMBER WHY I BROUGHT THAT UP. FOLLOWING the fantasy where more leaves = more knowledge!, in summary, even though Ratio seems to be a little beyond trying to get a prize every time he learns something now. But he does want to Keep Going. He can only Keep Going.

So I drew him in a bathtub full of an uncountable amount of gold leaves looking at the camera with an indescribable expression born from a hunger that will never be satiated lol DETAIL SHOT!

*Referenced only vaguely in a comment in the context of astonishment, but it could have easily have been "woah he's accomplished so much for his age (young)" as it could be "woah he looks good for his age (older)". There is no canon age and even then, reconciling standardized system time versus planetary time versus "does his particular breed of lizard human have the same lifespan as tumblr user nhura?" is a losing game for everyone involved! Here's what I think: I think he started going grey in his early twenties, whatever that means in spacefantasygame, and that that's very cute on him.

Do YOU think Ratio would be tempted by immortality???? Or would he MIND HIS BUSINESS

[dwobbitfromtheshire]

I'm clearing out my draft folder again.

Steve and Robin were running through Starcourt, high as fuck when Steve skidded to a stop in front of Eddie Munson.

"You look like Eddie Munson," Steve giggled.

"Steve!" Robin said with wide eyes. "I think that is - "

"Man, what happened to your face?" Eddie asked.

"Funny story, can you keep a secret from Eddie?" Steve said seriously.

"Sure," Eddie grinned.

"No, Steve, that's - ,"

"ANYWAY," Steve rolled his eyes at Robin. "I had this crush on him in freshman year. Do you think I should tell him?"

"Uh - are you guys on drugs?" Eddie asked.

"YES! But we didn't want to," Robin said. "They wanted information."

"Aw, fuck, there's this guy that works with Rick. Real sketchy. I told him he needs to let him go before he gets Rick into trouble, but does Rick listen to me? Nah!" Eddie exclaimed. "Look, whatever the hell he gave you should wear off. Not all drug dealers are like that. What we pitch to you is what you get. What you want is what you get. Okay, let's get you guys to the bathroom and try to get it out of your system. Come on."

"I'm going to tell Eddie," Steve said with a grin. "Shh! Wait here. I'll tell you how it goes."

Steve ran off with Robin on his tail. Eddie cursed and chased after them. They got distracted by the lights hanging overhead and started spinning around, gazing at them in awe.

"You guys do not want to do that," Eddie said, and they started heaving before they ran off in the direction of the bathrooms. "And that's why."

He ran off after them and into the bathroom room, where they vomited into the toilets. Eddie knelt down next to him and stroked Steve’s hair as he emptied the contents of his stomach. Once Steve was done, he leaned his head into Eddie's touch and closed his eyes, letting Eddie stroke his hair. He whined when Eddie moved away and saw him go to the sink. He came back with a wet, soapy paper towel and started cleaning Steve’s face.

"I guess I'm chopped liver," Robin said. "It's okay, I'll get it myself."

Steve laughed and made a face at the taste in his mouth. Eddie clapped a hand on his back.

"I'll be right back," Eddie said.

He rushed off to buy a couple of toothbrushes and toothpaste. He also picked up what he thought was lip balm. When he returned, he he heard them talking. They were clearly bonding, solidifying their working relationship into a friendship. Or maybe something more considering how Robin was talking about watching Steve. Shit, maybe Eddie should leave. They were talking about someone else now.

"But Tammy Thompson's a girl," Steve said.

"Yeah," Robin said.

"Oh."

Or maybe not. Oh God, Robin was coming out to Steve, and Eddie was overhearing it. Oh God, what should he do? He was frozen to the spot. Steve was going on about how Tammy Thompson was a total dud and how she sounded like a Muppet. Eddie snorted. Yeah, that was true.

"I can't believe you're making fun of my crush," Robin laughed. "What about yours?"

"Hey, at least Eddie can sing," Steve replied.

Fuck! Okay, so he had been telling the truth then.

"How do you know he can sing?" Robin asked.

"My car broke down near the Hideout one night, and I heard him singing. He was playing with his band, Corroded Coffin," Steve said. "They were really good. I was going to go talk to him, but I kind of thought that the drummer was his girlfriend, but that's crazy. I mean, guys and girls can just be friends, right?"

"I like to think so," Robin replied.

There was a long pause in their conversation, which gave Eddie plenty of opportunity to burst through the door.

"Okay, so I have a green toothbrush and a pink one," Eddie said. "Which one do you guys want?"

"Ooh, pink," Steve said and they stared at him. "What?"

"Nothing," Eddie said in amusement.

He watched as they brushed their teeth. Well, he mostly watched Steve.

"So, how much of our conversation did you hear?" Steve asked, setting his toothbrush on the sink.

"What? I didn't hear anything. Were you guys talking about something?" He asked.

"Seriously?" Robin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"I didn't hear anything that you guys didn't want me to hear," Eddie said.

"I don't think you're the kind of guy who would spill the beans on us," Robin said. "At least, I hope not so you don't have to deny anything."

"Ooh, lip gloss," Steve plucked it out of Eddie's hand. "May I?"

"Yeah, I thought it was lip balm," Eddie frowned. "So, have you always known that you liked guys?"

"Not just guys, girls too," Steve said as he started applying the lip gloss to his pouty lips. "I'm bisexual."

"Did you always know you were bisexual?" Eddie asked as he watched Steve’s lips intently.

"Well, yes and no," Steve said. "It was more like a slow build-up to my realization. Like more and more evidence started piling up that I could no longer deny."

"So, it wasn't like you looked at someone one day and realized 'shit, I'm into dudes, now?" Eddie asked as his eyes raked over the swell of his ass.

"It's always kind of been there. Why?" Steve asked as he closed the lip gloss.

"No reason," Eddie blushed, looking at his shoes.

"Oh my god!" Robin exclaimed. "You woke him up."

"What?" Steve asked.

"You woke him up!" Robin exclaimed, and Eddie quickly hid behind his hair.

"It's the outfit!" Eddie shrieked.

"So, what is it about the outfit that does it for you?" Steve asked.

"It's everything! The socks! The shorts that fill out your ass fantastically, by the way! And the shirt with the red bow tie in front," Eddie said. "It's just the whole fucking outfit."

"You should see me in the hat," Steve said in amusement.

Suddenly, Dustin and Erica burst into the bathroom before Steve could say anything else.

"There you are!" Dustin shrieked.

"Hey, could you give us a minute?" Steve asked Robin.

Robin quickly started ushering the kids out of the bathroom.

"But, Steve?!" Dustin asked.

"Out!" Robin yelled and shut the door behind them.

"I like you and as badly as I want to kiss you right now. . . I don't want it to be after I vomited in a bathroom. Plus, you still need to figure things out. If you still want me a few days from now. Call me. I have to deal with these kids I babysit. So go home and think things over," Steve said softly.

There was something that Steve wasn't telling him, but Eddie knew that he was also right. Besides, it was late. Steve placed his hands on Eddie's shoulders and pressed a kiss to his cheek, close to the corner of his mouth. It felt much like Steve was promising him something. Steve pulled away and started moving toward the door.

"Hey, Steve?" Eddie asked.

"Yeah?"

"I'm definitely going to call you," Eddie said.

Steve laughed and walked out of the bathroom, leaving them both with hope for the future.

[dana-chan-the-control-brain]

After 2 months of TSAMS mental health no contact, I FINALLY start considering going back to gameplay/reaction videos, and apparently I'll hafta deal with the shitty company killing their love even more and them acting out by guilt tripping the audience?

Yaaaaay......

I can only speculate.

But Davis and Reed don't say "watch this video at 2x speed" on their MAIN channels and they are talking strictly for monotization reasons.

So I don't doubt the company made them say this.

I've never liked the company behind tsbs and I have never trusted them.

They are hands off in terms with how they want them to tell their story. Which is great. They have real creative control to do whatever they want. Which is the appealing part of the company.

But half the time I feel they have too much control when they are only supposed to build their status in the algorithm. And tend to go beyond their duties of what a company like this does.

Like yes. Davis and Reed were asked to do tsams and hired by them to do it. And the company tells them what games to play sometimes and what things are trending sometimes. And there are lots of NDAs involved and ownership of fan characters. Which is normal (but is technically not legally binding at all because Solar and Lunar are not legally distinct enough for them to not be sued by Scott if he willed it. However the Astrals and Earth would be within their right to claim as their own copyrighted character.)

But here's the thing. Davis and Reed are NOT obligated to do what the company says. The company is there to offer GUIDANCE. And to help smooth over problems on the business side of things.

Such as when Ironmouse's channel got deleted due to malicious striking. She called her managment to help deal with it because they can then handle it with Youtube so she doesn't have to do the legal shit herself.

But I never see Blackshore do that type of thing. As when Laes channel got deleted I heard no word from the company and to my knowledge Kat, Reed and Davis had to navigate the YouTube system themselves. but there could things behind the scenes they do secretly we just will not know.

GRANTED please take everything I say with a grain of Salt. Because in all likelihood I could just be talking out my ass and sharing my bullshit opinion online like so many other people. I do not know Davis or Reed personally and have no affiliations with Black shore Company.

But everything I see on their website is sketchy and so non specific. And the fact that they have a lot of young people working for them.

And the fact that they are a YouTube Management company, yet they tell their actors to say to watch gaming videos at 2x speed. When doing this actually tanks you in the algorithm and sabotages your own videos. Because it counts as less watch time overall which means less monotization. Meaning less money, making them think the videos are preforming poorly. When they don't really get any more or less views then an average slice of life vrchat episode or a joke episode where nothing happens.

And when they cancelled MASM, all the videos were marked as private for a long while. Which nets them no benefits to do so. Because it means no one can see the old videos meaning they can't gain revenue off of them. They must have realized this because Femnights made the videos public again.

Again, for a YouTube Management agency they seem to not manage well or know how the algorithm works so I don't know what they are doing.

Again. I am not affiliated with the company or know any of the actors personally.

I am just sharing my thoughts and I ask don't go out of your way to harass people involved in tsbs.

I can only speculate and hope that everyone working for and with tsbs is having a good experience and isn't being taken advantage of.

Just sharing my thoughts about Blackshore that I've been sussing out for awhile.

[legacygirlingreen]

Easing Tensions

Pairing: Tech x F!Reader

Summary: When introductions go wrong, watch as Tech slowly has to earn back your good graces after he insults your abilities as a mechanic. From friendship to something more, eventually the two of you find some slice of heaven on Ord Mantell despite all odds... no use of Y/N!!

Warning: Smut! Tech and reader are definetly not virgins so not first time (unless you wanna count first time together). Mild dom/sub vibes. Casual/playful spanking. Don't worry Tech's still really sweet. Mentions of Omega being kidnapped by Cad Bane and events of Bracca.

Minors do not engage!

Notes: This is my first time posting for Bad Batch content so I really hope that everything goes okay! I want to thank my awesome friend @strawberrypinky for bearing with me and encouraging me despite her not having watched TBB before! It's so wonderful to have a friend who's so supportive!

Word Count: 16.5 words (I apologize for my inability to do porn without a plot!)

Warning: Smut! Tech and reader are definetly not virgins so not first time (unless you wanna count first time together). Mild dom/sub vibes. Casual/playful spanking. Don't worry Tech's still really sweet. Mentions of Omega being kidnapped by Cad Bane and events of Bracca.

***no use of Y/N!!***

Notes: This is my first time posting for Bad Batch content so I really hope that everything goes okay! I want to thank my awesome friend @strawberrypinky for bearing with me and encouraging me despite her not having watched TBB before! It's so wonderful to have a friend who's so supportive!

Definitely pulled some inspo from some AMAZING fanart that I've seen on here. There's this wonderful image of Tech with tattoos by @cloned-eyes and so many incredible ones by @eggdrawsthings like this who often draws Tech with his cute little undercut!

Word Count: 16.5 words (I apologize for my inability to do porn without a plot!)

Ord Mantell wasn’t the nicest part of the galaxy, but- 

It is home..? 

It is tolerable..? 

It is a steaming pile of bantha shit? Yeah that’s probably as close as you could get to describing it. 

  No one intends to live in this sketchy city in the mid-rims: you just end up here. That’s how you got here after all. After having a few good years working on Coruscant, designing starships for Senators and the Aristocrats of the Republic. But then the war started. The Republic discovered they had been funding an army of clones, and all those privatized contracts dried up, rent went up and you’d been forced to leave the planet of lights. 

  After your ship had a malfunction, ending up in the space port just outside Cid’s place, the Trandoshan oddly taking pity on you, allowing you a place to crash in exchange for repairing her arcade machines… and the dish washer… and rewire her a new security system… and so much you lost track before word got around of your mechanical engineering skills. 

  Rotations kept going and it wasn’t long before you found yourself with a small shop, running jobs within the city on household appliances, droids, ships - you name it. It wasn’t much, just a tiny building full of spare parts, a work space, a front with some small devices to sell. Not to mention the small loft apartment above it - not that you actually made it up there, often falling asleep burning the midnight oil at your desk - but it was still a home. 

  Only occasionally getting robbed or having some creeps passing through town hitting on you being the few things that threw a damper in what turned out to be a decent enough existence. And as sketchy as Cid might be, or the cast of characters she keeps around, you still kept a soft spot for the lady. Always repairing whatever she claimed needed fixing… it was usually nothing. But you’d let her pour you a drink while you ‘fixed’ the slots for the hundredth time. After being tossed out of the highlight of the galaxy, you were finally at peace with where you wound up. 

  That was, until they showed up. 

  Bolo had stopped by in the morning, claiming Cid had broken the slot machine again, to which you said the usual: I’ll stop by after I finish this. 

  This being a machine for one of the only doctors in town. While most of the folks on Ord Mantell were less than ideal, the few good people made it worth sticking around. The doctor needing a medical device for internal issues fixed being an actual emergency over Cid’s loneliness. However, that rationalization soon would be something you’d regret. 

  Hours melted away, soldering iron finishing off the last of the repair. Standing from the desk, cracking your back and fingers prodding at the crick in your neck. Soreness being the reward for a hard day’s work. Well that and the small burns and cuts on your fingers. But that was an occupational hazard of doing repairs. 

  Slipping a coat on with the blaster you kept for protection underneath it was a quick delivery, with a joyful thank you - and a thank you pie courtesy of his lovely wife - and you finally made it to Cid’s. 

  You recognized the armor immediately. Having heard a few weeks back about the end of the war, you wondered what would happen to them. The clones. The ones that took your job. Took any chance at a promising career as a ship designer, because free labor is better than cheap labor. 

  Why were clones on Ord Mantell?

  All with their helmets removed, one near the bar turned to face you almost immediately. His face half covered in a tattoo as he made eye contact. You scowled, turned away, pushing your unresolved anger onto the man as if he personally was the cause of your misery. 

  Next to him was a clone that looked more metal than man. What had the Republic done with their clones if he wound up this bad? You thought to yourself, watching as his pale eyes glanced over your frame. The coat rack behind you suddenly reminds you that perhaps it best to remind these men you meant business. 

  Slipping off the outerwear, holster and gun on full display over the tight, oil stained work suit, you once again turn to examine just how many clones were in the parlor. A very large one, entertaining… a child? You knew for a fact these men were clones. Having been hit on by enough, regretfully having slept with a few before you skipped town - you had seen enough brown eyes to last a lifetime. 

  Then the joyful call of your name, Bolo and Ketch welcoming you over as Cid emerged from the back with yet another clone. 

  “Took you long enough,” she said, an almost undetectable smile working on her face as the others watched the interaction. 

  “Well, some of us had real work to do,” You tell her with a fake annoyed expression, stepping closer to the bar. 

  “You call tinkering in that dark room, work? When I - a paying customer - requested services,” Cid said. That caused the laugh to burst from your mouth, startling the watchful eyes of the new strangers. Soon Bolo and Ketch joined in, slapping the bar excitedly. 

  “I think I would be concerned if you did actually pay me,” You say through a chuckle, grabbing a tool off your belt as you turn towards the open room. “So where’s this slot machine that’s broken?” You emphasize the word, knowing it was likely from the one wire she always slightly disconnected to make you feel better for drinking without paying.

  “Same one as always, you know the drill. But hold on, I want you to meet my new boys. They are going to be running some jobs for me in order to keep a low profile with everything that’s going on,” Cid said, gesturing to the small squad of clones. 

  “I thought you said you would keep our business discreet?” Face-Tattoo growled as Cid waved him off. 

  “She’s a trusted acquaintance. The last stray I took in. Now look at her-” Cid started as Ketch spoke at the same time as her. 

  “A successful business woman-” Cid said.

“Covered in grease-” Ketch said.

  Bolo reacted immediately, laughing till he started coughing. The largest of the clones joining the Ithorian in laughter as you scowled at them. 

  “Cid it almost sounds as if you like me when you put it that way,” you warn her as she shakes her head, pushing you towards the slot machine. 

  “Eh don’t get carried away. Anyways, introductions. This is bandana-” she began as he grumpily spouted out, “Hunter”. 

  “This is muscles,” she pointed to the large one, who said “I’m Wrecker!” offering a smile and a hand, which she awkwardly shook. 

  “That’s tiny-” Cid pointed to the small girl, lingering near the one she called Wrecker. 

  “Hi! I’m Omega! You are really pretty-” she said, offering a hand as well. Her compliment catches you off guard from all the time with Cid’s sarcasm. 

  “Oh, uh… thanks kid. I like your uh… enthusiasm” you try to give her a compliment, the politeness so foreign it came off forced but the kid didn’t notice. 

  “Not sure what to call that one but he’s more metal than man at this point-” she pointed to the cybernetically enhanced one. 

  “Echo” he said plainly and you nod, appreciating the simplicity in his response. 

  “And this is goggles” she said, gesturing to the last one, who didn’t bother to look up from the device he was working on to even acknowledge you. 

  “Charming,” you reply sarcastically, finally drawing his attention as he watched the tail end of your eye roll. His own eyes fixating over the unique attire you donned along with the tools on your belt, his eyes narrowing as he wondered about your occupation. 

“His name is Tech, not Goggles,” giggles Omega. 

  “Ah, I see you are already acclimated to Cid’s show of affection. She must really like you all. Well, now that the introductions are out of the way, Cid-” You began, wanting to get out of there as quickly as possible if there were now going to be clones at the parlor. Despite these one’s looking… vastly different, they still played a role in why you left. 

“Fix, then drink. You know the deal,” she explains. 

  Nodding you quickly sliding on your back, you open the circuit board, quickly locating the same wire that was always ‘altered’ prior to your arrival. Just as you went to reattach it however, a voice near your head startled you, the yelp leaving your lips as the wire’s exposed end shocked you. 

  “Ah!” filled the parlor, everyone’s attention turning towards the slot machine which Tech had inadvertently shoved himself underneath alongside you as he began troubleshooting the issue. 

  “Perhaps you should consider replacing the whole circuit board and wiring system if this one machine persists with issues. I am inclined to doubt your mechanic skills if you continually have to come back for repairs on the same device.” He spoke bluntly as you dropped the tool in your hand, anger rising to the surface as he stared at the machine, hands starting to trace the circuit board when you lost it. 

  “What are you doing?!” You demanded, finally drawing his attention, when Tech realized he had invaded your personal space a bit more than he intended. 

  “Oh, I was curious if my knowledge of engineering would be helpful given you seem to lack the knowledge in order to fix this devic-” he started but you weren’t hearing it, sliding away from him instantly as you brushed yourself off and stood, angrily stomping in the opposite direction.

  Cid called your name but you weren’t hearing it, reaching for your coat, tossing it on despite the many eyes watching your hasty exit. “Clones!” you gritted through clenched teeth, eyes rolling as you started up to street level. Steps on the stairs being the last anyone heard of you as you left a wake of confusion. 

  “Way to go Goggles” Cid chastised him as he stood, having propped himself up when you stomped away. 

  “I fail to see the issue. I merely pointed out the flaws in her previous attempts to fix the slot-” Tech began to defend himself. 

  “I don’t think insulting her was the right move,” Hunter groaned. 

  “Yeah, why did you make fun of how she fixes stuff? She was really pretty.” Wrecker said, sheepish look. 

  Echo remained silent, watching as Tech did not grasp what had happened, once again firing into an explanation as to why he believed he was not in the wrong.

  “If one continually has to return to fix the same device, I believe it only fair to question the validity of their credentials. Why else would it-” Tech spoke, only to have Omega step towards him, gently placing her hand on his armored shoulder before she said, “Tech, I think that for the two of them, fixing the machine is Cid’s way of asking for her company. That’s why it’s always the same device that’s broken-”

  “What you are saying is that the slot machine is a humorous bit of sorts?” He asked, glancing back at the way the panel lacked 2 bolts on its cover. When he looked at the spot, now vacated by you, he noticed you left a wrench on the ground. Walking towards it, he bent at the waist, picking it up and examining it. Carved into the handle were some initials, he assumed must be yours. 

  “It seems Tiny is smarter than you are Goggles,” Cid said with an eye roll, walking to the backroom, leaving the clones with the two regulars who awkwardly watched the interaction. 

  “I did not mean to appear rude-” Tech sighed, fingers probing his temples as Omega looked at Ketch. 

  “You know her don’t you?” Omega asked. 

  “Yeah… I can take it to her place on the way home. She tends to hole herself up there for days at a time-” Ketch explained only to have Omega shake her head. 

  “If you could tell us where it is, I can return it.” The small girl informed the group, immediately having Hunter protest, but Echo nudged him, pointing at Tech. 

  “Fine but take Tech with you,” Hunter realized Echo was alluding to Tech being granted an opportunity to apologize. 

  “I still believe it best to wait until morning given the nature of this town being less than ideal,” Tech protested. 

  “It’ll be fine Tech, we can take them!” Omega said enthusiastically, grabbing his hand and her newly acquired bow. 

  “I’m assuming them to be the metaphorical enemies we may run across?” He sighed, reaching for his helmet but Omega yanked him harder. 

  “Omega my helm-“ he yelped and she kept dragging.

  “It’ll be fine. Besides, if you are going to apologize it’s better to let her see your face when you do so,” omega explained. 

  “Why does seeing my face matter?” He groaned, the two of them coming to the street as Ketch pointed them in the direction of a street, giving them a piece of paper with your shop logo before leaving. 

  “Well, I don’t know. Maybe she’ll think you’re handsome,” Omega spoke with a mischievous grin, still tugging her brother along as he stumbled behind her. 

  “That is rather doubtful,” He told her, sigh passing over his lips as he realized it would likely be the same story he’d known many times at this point. Any time they were on Corrasaunt, they did worse with the presence of Regs, and the few women that glanced their way were always going for Wrecker, Crosshair or Hunter. He had lucked out in some ways, that Echo seemingly did just as bad with women, the two of them only rarely completing the mission so to speak. On the rare instance he did find himself, it usually felt awkward, unsatisfying and with them forgetting his name by morning. Despite being well versed in how to assist women, it always felt forced and against his nature to behave in the more dominant nature most females found appealing. Not that Tech was going to be the one to explain the intricacies of sexual relations to Omega. He was certain via scientific means that she was aware of how the act worked, but beyond that it felt more like a conversation between her and genuinely anyone else. 

  “I think that’s it!” She pointed out, and he raised the crude drawing on a napkin they had acquired that showed the logo of the shop. Above the shop was a light in what he figured to be a small domicile she occupied. 

  “I believe you are correct, however it may be best to attempt entry from the back. It appears there is a set of stairs that lead to-” he began, only to have the girl bound off without him for the alleyway, a slight skip in her step. 

  From within your apartment, you were angrily stomping about, tossing random parts into a crate. Circuit board, wires, tools. Who was he to question your ability to fix the damned machine? Fixing to make your way back to the parlor, you were dead set on proving him wrong. 

  In the midst of your sharp movements a knock at the apartment door startled you, causing you to stumble and ram your toes into the leg of the nearest table. The expletive ringing through the air as you hobbled towards the door, hand on the gun in case some creep had followed you. Pulling up the image display you had installed for security you saw the girl from the parlor and - 

  Door sliding open, you leaned against the frame to prevent putting weight on the throbbing extremity. 

  “Can I help you?” You grumpily scoffed at the pair, the little girl undeterred by your perturbed nature while the Clone, much less confident now glanced around awkwardly, his arms clutching his sides. 

  “We came to return your wrench,” she smiled up at you, her innocent brown eyes sparkling with the low lighting of your flat reflecting. Dammit. 

  “Well, that is unexpectedly kind I suppose. I assume Ketch told you where I live, so why not just let him do it?” You ask, still unsure why she sought you out to return something as simple as a wrench. You had hundreds. Still feeling the pain in your foot, you began to worry that you had actually broken or fractured something, given it had lingered, so as you looked down at the young girl you once again shifted weight, a slight hiss exiting your lips, nearly undetectable, but with the way Tech was scrutinizing you he noticed. 

  “Oh, I just thought that maybe since you and Cid are close, our squad could become friends with you-” Omega began only to have Tech interrupt her, stepping between the two of you. 

  “You are injured,” he bluntly said, gesturing down to your foot. 

  “Yes. I do not get visitors, especially this time of night, and certainly not men who have insulted me coming to my door. The knock startled me,” you hissed out as you straightened up, forcing him to maintain eye contact with you as you glared at him. 

  “Tech did not mean to be rude-” the girl began sensing the shift in hostility between the way you had spoken softly to her and the way tension grew the second Tech spoke up. 

  “I’m sure Tech-” you cut her off and test the waters by using his name before continuing “-doesn’t need you to apologize on his behalf. He’s a big boy. He can do it himself,” You glance down at her before once again turning to face him, arms crossing over your chest. “Unless of course, he isn’t sorry?” You challenge him to speak up with your tone. 

  “I-” she spoke after the beat of silence, only to have the man interrupt her once more. 

  “I believed myself to be perfectly within the bounds of questioning your skillset given the information I had at the time, being your frequent return to the parlor-” He began and you rolled your eyes, back of your head leaning back to meet the frame of the door as you scoffed. 

  “So you came to further insult me.” You said as he paused momentarily to look at you. 

  “No, I was-” Tech began and you waved him off, dismissing him. 

  “Sure sounds that way to me Brown Eyes,” You push off the frame of the door despite the pain in your toe, to get as close to face level as possible, despite his extremely tall frame. “I’ve dealt with enough clones to last a lifetime. And my experience has always been that of arrogant, inconsiderate men who think too highly of themselves and too lowly of me,” you lean in closer to his ear so only he will hear as you whisper, “especially for men who continually failed to finish me off…” 

  Leaning back you smirk watching the realization, possibly even horror cross his features as the tips of his ears burn red. 

  “Omega, go back to Cid’s-” he stuttered out as you laughed. 

  “Not this time of night Tech. Ord Mantell is far from the worst place in the galaxy but that doesn’t mean it's safe for her to navigate alone, especially with what’s on the horizon.” You warned him, eyes glancing up to the sky. 

  “Whatever do you mea-” Tech began, watching in horror as Omega’s hair began to slightly stand up as she giggled, while a large flash of light overhead. 

  “Electrical storms. I am surprised you didn’t note them in whatever archives I suspect someone of your calliber to have examined about Ord Mantell before or shortly after arrival,” You mention, looking down at the young girl. If it was just her, you would have no issue letting Omega in. But the extremely tall trooper wasn’t exactly in your best sights currently. Sighing you step aside, gesturing to come inside. 

  “I have not had proper time to examine known information on-” Tech straightened up as you interrupted him. 

  “Save it. Just get inside. They get downright nasty. I may not like you very much, but I am also not a monster who’s going to let you get electrocuted in the streets,” you scoffed at him, allowing the pair to pass through your flat’s entryway. 

  “Wow you have your own room!” Omega joyfully exclaimed, rushing around to look at your sparse belongings and wall decorations. Some random plans, some spare parts, a few drawings, a few photos - nothing abnormal. 

  “I can’t say I make it up here most nights to actually enjoy it, so apologies about the mess,” you hush out. Tech’s eyes were wide as he had trained them onto the back of your small sofa. Getting closer you realized what caused his nervousness as a bra tossed over the back came into view from where you’d flung it one evening. Crossing ahead of him, you reached for it, shoving it into the cushions. 

  While Tech commed back to the rest of their team, informing them the plan to wait out the normal evening storm here, you double checked no other artifacts of awkward origins to be lingering about. 

  The apartment wasn’t much, just a bed in the back corner behind a screen, a small kitchen with one burner and a stove, along side a small refrigeration unit. A refresher behind a door right at the entry way and some sparse furniture. Mostly, the space just spilled over spare parts from downstairs. 

  “Omega stop meddling in belongings that are not yours, it’s rude” Tech warned as he came back from discussing with Hunter. Omega hadn’t sat still, running around your flat as new items of interest took over her young mind. 

  “She’s fine,” you tell him, leaning against a wall looking at how he shifted slightly under your scrutiny. 

  “Tech look! It’s our ship!” Omega shouted from near one of the windows and he moved towards her, assuming her to be pointing outside in the direction of the hanger, but as he got closer he saw a small model of the standard ship, along with some drawings on the wall. 

  “Well, technically Omega we use a heavily modified version and this is the standard model of the-” he started as you chuckled. 

  “Omicron Class Attack Shuttle,” You tell him, coming to stand on the other side of Tech. 

  “How do you know have these? They are for military usage only, and I calculate the probability of one ending up here during the war to be quite low,” Tech asked. 

  “She helped design it.” Omega mentioned very plainly as Tech’s eyes bulged, turning to the young girl in time to see her fingers pointing towards some of your old sketches, signature and date marked many moons ago. 

  “But that-” he came closer to what Omega pointed out, heart beat picking up as he realized not only had he flown a ship you apparently helped design, but he had just earlier insulted your knowledge of mechanics. 

  “Was a lifetime ago. But yes. I used to live on Coruscant and worked as an engineer. Until contracts for civilians dried up. When I left, my ship had a malfunction and this was the safest planet to land for repairs. Haven’t left.” You explain to him, shifting the weight back off the injured toe, which you could feel swelling in the confines of your sock. 

  “These drawings do not match the standard regulation manuels for the shuttle. Why are they different? They closer resemble some of the modifications I have personally installed.” Tech asked you, fingers tracing over the worn schematics as he noted a different configuration for the main compressor and hyperdrive. 

  “I was only a junior engineer at the time. My supervisor demanded the changes be made no matter how much I protested. That’s why I was surprised to hear you boys fly one, but I suppose your modifications have extended it’s life. The changes my team made were less than ideal. But still, it’s my favorite ship I’ve designed,” you explain, feeling a strange mixture of relief and anxiety to bring up the past like this. 

  “Fascinating… What other ships have you designed if you don’t mind me asking?” he asked without looking up from the remnants of your old work. 

  “There’s a data pad right there on the table. Not sure if it’s got enough power to charge up, but it has the schematics of what I worked on. I’ll warn you, it’s mostly shuttles for senators or higher ranking military personale. Not many are military craft,” you explain pointing out the data pad, noting the Omega had disappeared from view, finding her sitting on the sofa as she smiled and waved to you. 

  Moving across the apartment you sat next to her, curious why 4 clones were traveling with a child. 

  “So what’s your story kid?” You ask her, watching as Tech poked around your small corner of relics from time spent as an engineer, his fingers picking up some of the small models as he continued to flip through the data pad he got working with a small transportable battery pack, muttering out undistinguishable words ever few moments. 

  You split your attention between half listening to Omega’s explanation of how she was a clone like the others to watching Tech’s half smile as he glanced over your old work. Strangely enough when he wasn’t insulting you, he was handsome. Different from other clone’s you’d met in the fact his face was more angularly and thin. Hair and skin lighter in color than the others, he looked so familiar and yet so unique. 

  Suddenly a weight on your shoulder broke you out of the trance you had developed as you stared at Tech, who was still distracted as he propped himself up against the wall. Omega, having fallen asleep, was leaning on you as her breathing evened out. 

  You knew sleep wouldn’t come with the strange clones in your apartment so you carefully lifted her, as she weighted very little, and began to move her towards your bed. Least you could do was let her sleep on a real bed for the first time in a while. Tech’s eyes flashed when he saw the movement, not saying anying as he watched you carry her.  Setting down the datapad he realized you would not be able to move the privacy screen while your arms were occupied, so he adjusted it out of the way as you bent a bit to set the young girl on the bed, pulling the recently washed covers up around her. 

  Omega’s eyes cracked open slightly as she smiled and snuggled down into the bed before drifting back to sleep, the two of you bearing witness to how sweet she looked as sleep overtook her young body. Nodding your head he stepped aside, allowing you both to leave the designated area for the bed and he once again closed the screen. 

  “You did not have to do that, my calculations show that the storm is likely to pass within the next few hours,” Tech whispered as you shrugged. 

  “When was the last time she slept in a real bed?” You challenged. 

  “Point taken. I do have several questions on various ships I examined while looking through your datapad, but I feel it inappropriate to ask given I insulted you earlier,” He said in a hushed breath as you nodded. 

  “So how do you plan to rectify that hotshot?” You aren’t sure why you felt the need to shift your tone to playful as you nudged his shoulder, forgetting he had on plastoid as it made contact and immediately stung.

  “I am uncertain. I do not have data to base interactions such as this upon in order to determine the best possible course of action,” He whispered out as you sighed, going to put on the kettle. 

  “It’s as simple as saying you are apologetic,” you explain to him calmly, realizing now that perhaps Tech lacked some social awareness despite that big brain of his.  You were used to it in the field of engineers. Kind people who weren’t always the most adept at dealing with emotions.  

  Tech’s eyes watched as you began to heat up water on the stove, the slight hobble in your step still apparent. 

  “I apologize for being rude. You are still injured from earlier,” he nodded to your foot. 

  “I’ll live. But thank you for your apology. Tea? Calf? What’s your poison?” You ask him nodding to the water. 

  “I don’t think there’s any reason to trouble you with either on my behalf,” he said simply as you rolled your eyes. 

  “It's no trouble at all. Besides with how nasty those electrical storms are you are going to want to get comfortable. Feel free to take off the plastoid, I can’t imagine it’s pleasant to be in all the time,” you tell him. 

  He simply stands, not wanting to argue, carefully removing the pieces and stacking them in a neat pile on the floor. You take out two mugs from the cabinet, deciding that he seemed like more of a cheap ration calf man, much like yourself, so you spoon it into the cups and pour the water on top before setting one down in front of him before grabbing the sugar from the pantry and setting it out. 

  “Thank you,” Tech mentioned, ignoring the sugar and just began to sip it as is. 

  “No problem, so these questions?” you came to sit on the adjacent barstool, nodding towards the schematics he had pulled up. 

  Tech felt his stomach drop seeing you so close, leaning over the holopad ready to answer his questions when only an hour ago you were content to ring his neck out. Having someone to discuss his area of expertise with was rare, especially not someone so pretty… 

  ₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

  Several rotations and jobs for Cid under the Batch’s belt, you’d formed a very unique relationship with the clone to say the least. When getting along, things were great. However, you still occasionally found yourself frustrated with his affinity for saying things, while true, that came off as callus or dismissive. 

  Such as the most recent issue. Tech let you poke around the modifications he’d made to their ship in some down time, during which you pointed out a better alternative for the power cufflinks. This led the man to get defensive, jumping to an explanation that once again challenged your expertise. Leading to a speedy exit from the hanger and ignoring his feeble attempts at knocking on your door, Tech left Ord Mantell to meet Rex on Bracca with you still very much angry at him. 

  He’d sent a message, to which you ignored on the private com channel he set up for you, as you warned the boys that while you adored Cid, she wasn’t particularly known for being trustworthy. Despite your occasional frustration at times with Tech’s less than appealing behavior, you didn’t want anything bad to happen to them. 

  Going off-world for an unknown amount of time to remove a device that might cause us to lose bodily autonomy and certain cognitive functions that were part of our programming. It is imperative we do so, however there are unknowns with such a procedure. Things may not go according to plan. ~ Tech

  You didn’t respond, set in your stubbornness as you ignored his message that matter of factly stated his plans. Your largest complaint about the man, despite his very kind nature overall, was that he struggled admitting he was wrong or had hurt your feelings. 

  After a few hours you received another ping. 

  Landed and waiting to meet our contact. ~ Tech

  You sigh, continuing to twist the bolt holding together the maintenance droid someone recently allowed you to have, trying to fix the pile of scrap so you could gain some relief with fulfilling projects. 

  Another ping came in less than an hour later. 

  I apologize for once again hurting your pride. I am unused to dealing with those who are not my brothers, and they have acclimated themselves to my more undesirable traits. It is not an excuse, but please know that I am attempting to correct such habits in the name of maintaining our friendship, as it is something I am coming to value. ~ Tech

  You look at the screen. He was trying his best and you could recognize that. It softened the anger you felt. You weren’t fully ready to discuss with him however, leaving the message open on your tablet, losing yourself in the work in front of you as your mind tried to form a proper response. 

  [Incoming message from Tech]

  Wrecker’s inhibitor chip activated. Things were more intense than I initially anticipated. He did not hesitate to try and harm us. Omega was frightened by his actions, however no one was injured beyond him briefly rendering me unconscious. That being said, I am fine. We are waiting for him to wake up. Still unsure the safety of this procedure as his vitals have not stabilized. I will continue to keep you posted even if you are neglecting to respond. ~ Tech

  Staring at the screen the sudden concern for the safety of their team outweighed you silly argument with Tech, fingers forming a response, and hitting send despite the several crafted responses you had spent the last hours mentally cataloging. 

  From the ruins of the jedi cruiser on Bracca, Tech was surprised as he saw an incoming response from you, sitting up immediately as he read it. 

  I am sorry for not responding. I needed time to mentally process your apology, as your words do hurt sometimes. That being said, we do not have to discuss things further. I hope Omega is doing better. I cannot imagine how frightening that must have been for her. Tell her she's got a girl's only night when she returns filled with all the street food her heart desires. Let me know when Wrecker wakes up. Please try and stay safe. Drinks are on me when you all get back to Ord Mantell. 

  Tech smiled down at the message, leaning back some in the seat. He didn’t want to push his luck by responding to you. You were kind enough to offer an olive branch and accept his apology once more.

  Soon Wrecker woke up, prompting the others to take turns removing their chips. Tech wasn’t sure why he felt the need to wait to be last. Perhaps he wanted confirmation that things would be alright? Perhaps he was more nervous than he anticipated. But when it was finally his turn to lay down, his last thought before drifting off was of a pretty mechanic back on their new home waiting for him. 

  ₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

  “This is the Havoc-Marauder - *static* please, come in,” the vocal element of your com began blaring through the otherwise quiet shop as you continued to repair projects. Boosting the signal you reached down to the tablet, pressing the button, trying to figure out why the boys seemed so distressed. 

  Tech had informed you that they were all able to remove the inhibitor chips successfully and that they were going to attempt to recover valuable assets from the ship before their departure. Not worried about the plan, you were surprised to hear the fear in their voices as you waited for a response. 

  “The empire showed up and in the chaos of it all, a bounty hunter named Cad Bane took Omega and injured Hunter. We are trying to locate where they may have taken her, since it was off-world. Do you have any contacts who may know more? We can’t get a hold of Cid-” Echo spoke through the coms instead of Tech. 

  “Actually, I have more information that may be useful” came Tech’s faded voice from the back of the transmission, as you allowed him to speak. “Omega is more valuable than we realized,” Tech spoke, leading a winded Hunter to question why, as you held your breath waiting for information that may be useful. 

  “I further analyzed Omega’s genetic profile and discovered she has pure, first generation DNA-” Tech spoke, and while you weren’t fully versed in cloning or the Kamino process, you assumed that made her more valuable than the others. As Tech continued to explain for the others to understand, you reached over for the long range transmitter and sent a message to an old friend, who quickly read and began typing. 

  “If she’s vital to the Kaminoans cloning operation, they must have put the bounty on her-” you heard Echo say, confirming the suspicions you already had. 

  “So how do we find this bounty Hunter?” Wrecker grumbled just in time for you to speak up. 

  “I may have an idea, if anyone’s up for it-” you offer, wishing more than anything the boys were in range to see them instead of just hear them. Something about putting eyes on them would’ve been a comfort, but you’d settle for their voices. 

  “That is why we contacted you, so please,” Hunter mentioned. 

  “Well, I had a friend back when I was on Coruscant. She worked closely with the cloning operations medical staff, and was transferred to Coruscant at the start of the war. She said there’s several decommissioned Kaminoan facilities throughout the galaxy. If the Kaminoans are the one’s after Omega, shouldn’t they want a secure location that only they are aware of? At the very least, it’s a starting point. She was able to inform me of 3 she knew about. Two in close proximity to your location. The other is closer to Ord Mantell if you wish for me to check it out-” you explain only to have Tech cut you off. 

  “Negative. With a bounty hunter as dangerous as Cad Bane I do not wish for you to go anywhere near that facility. Transmit the coordinates and we shall examine the closer one’s first-” he said. 

  “If Omega is at that facility, you all will miss her transfer between the bounty hunter and Kaminoans. That’s not worth chancing it. I can decide what risks I wish to undertake on my own-” your voice raises to accommodate the frustration you feel.

  “Regardless it is not a job you should undertake given your skillset is not that of combat,” he tells you, the others growing silent as you dismiss his concerns. 

  “I am transmitting the coordinates. See you all when you get back. Let me know if something happens.” You state bluntly, and as Tech goes to question you once more, you cut the call, not wanting to hear his concerns. You didn’t want Omega injured or removed from her brothers. He wasn’t going to stop you from looking. That wasn’t Tech’s call to make.

  Quickly rushing around the messy flat, you collected what you through you may need before going down to the hanger which held your rusty bucket of bolts. It wasn’t much, but it would do. Rarely having time to work on it, you knew the ship needed a massive overhaul, but that could come after you saved Omega. 

  It was when you came out of hyperspace in your small shuttle that you received another transmission. 

  “Omega was able to get away from the bounty hunter but we aren’t sure for how long she’ll be free. She is at the location closer to Ord Mantell, in the Lido system but we are uncertain if we will reach it in time-” Hunter spoke feverishly as you looked down at the planet’s surface. 

  “Then it’s a good thing I am already here,” you tell them, flying close by to the facility seeing three ships already landed, meaning the transfer was happening or soon to be over, and that a possible third party was involved.

  “I thought I cautioned you to stay on Ord Mantell where it was safe,” Tech said, anger laced in his tone as you set the ship down on an abandoned platform, reaching for the baster you kept on you at all times. You may not be the best at fighting, but you did have the ability to cloak, as you developed a small experimental hood that utilized the same technology as your cloaked shuttle. It would have to be enough to locate Omega and hope you all could slip away from the bounty hunter before someone realized you were here.

  “You did. But it’s a good thing I elected to ignore it. Do hurry, I will try and find Omega or at the very least stall until you all can reach the system. Over-” you called, turning off the device so that the sound would not give you away and slipped outside. 

  You didn’t make it very far before you heard shouting and Omega fell onto the platform adjacent to your own after awkwardly riding atop a small droid - possibly a techno service droid but it was too far away to notice. Rushing towards her before she could get very far, you removed the hood disguising your head. 

  “Omega!” you shouted, drawing her attention as she turned and quickly ran back in your direction, a small limp in her step which must have occurred at some point during her escape.

  “You came for me!” she leapt into your arms, as you reached for a small multitool from your belt to cut her binders. 

  “Of course I did, your brothers aren’t that far behind, we need to get out of her-” you started, only to be cut off as you watched in horror. The droid, which Omega was running from, had activated a panel on the platform your ship was on, causing it to fall into the ocean depths below, preventing your escape.

  “I just paid that off,” you cried watching it fall as Omega dragged you down a small set of stairs, noting the pods for escaping the Kaminan facility just ahead. 

  “I’m sure Tech will help you fix a new one, we need to hurry, the bounty hunter who tried to get me on Pantora is here fighting the one who took me. We don’t have much time” she mentioned, the two of you cramming into the pod before one of the bounty hunters could emerge. 

  Just as the pod was activated however, the little droid who destroyed your shuttle appeared in the viewport, demanding to know where you were going. Omega didn’t respond, angrily typing until the pod launched, her falling into your lap and you held her tightly and the droid flew out of the view. 

  “Do we have any control over this thing?” You demanded to know, the little girl turning in your lap as she shook her head no, loud blaring of an emergency alarm filling the pod. 

  “Alright, we aren’t going to panic. If we survive the landing your brothers will be here soon enough okay? So just hold on-” you try to reassure her, running a gentle hand through her hair as you continue to fall towards the ocean. Not sure if you even believed your attempt at calming her, you didn’t want your final moments to be filled with fear before the unknown of what came after all this. 

  “I’m scared-” she said quietly, eyes closing as she snuggled into you. You didn’t respond, pulling her close, the scent of blaster fire lingering on her frame. You were going to be okay. The boys weren’t close behind. Everything would be fine-

  Suddenly a loud thud came over the top of the pod, stalling the descent. Pulling the blaster you looked up, pushing Omega as far behind you as it would allow in the cramped space, ready to shoot if it was the bounty hunter who’d locked onto the escape pod. When it opened however, and the smoke cleared, Wrecker leaned his face into view. 

  “Omega?! Are you in there?” He shouted, looking down as his eyes landed on the both of you. Putting the gun back at your side you lifted her into his waiting arms. Once she was being lifted out of the pod, you began climbing the small ladder, as Wrecker welcomed her back. 

  “Tech your girlfriend is in here too-” he said cheerfully, Echo reaching down to help pull you out as well. 

  “Wrecker that is inappropriate as we are not courting-” Tech yelled from the cockpit as you found footing inside their ship. Hunter, who was still heavily bandaged turning to you as Omega greeted Echo from within Wrecker’s arms. 

  “You came to help. Why?” He asked you, pain still evident in his voice from whatever injuries he sustained. 

  “Because she needed it.  I didn’t really do much if I am honest, just covered her exit-” you explained as Omega solemnly looked at you, tears welling in her eyes. 

  “I am so sorry about your ship,” she said as you shook your head. 

  “Don’t worry about it kid. Ships are replaceable. You aren’t.” You told her, ruffling her hair as she made her way to Hunter. Suddenly the waterworks started and he checked on her as you moved back, to allow them a reunion. You couldn’t imagine how frightening it must have been for her the last few days. 

  “Thank you for helping us find her. We would not have been able to do so in a timely manner had it not been for you.” Echo complimented.

  “No need to thank me,” you began, only to have a clearing throat behind you prevent you from speaking further. Tech was leaning up against the wall leading into the cockpit, his face turned completely to the side, facing the control panel. 

  “If you’ll excuse me-” you told Echo, following Tech's stomping footsteps as he led you into the cockpit, promptly shutting the door behind you to allow privacy. 

  “Before you berate me can you at least-” you started, only to feel arms pull you, quite awkwardly, into a plastoid covered chest. 

  His helmet was off. You could tell by the way his breath ruffled your hair gently as he leaned his face down along the top of your head. Once the initial shock wore off, your arms moved behind him, tightening around his back in that section between his armor and utility belt, feeling the warmth as his body gave off from beneath the black suit. 

  Sure he was a bit musky from having gone a few rotations without a refresher to clean up, but he was here, solid and strong. Under the lingering scent of sweat, ash, and grime you could smell that GAR issued soap they kept on board, which always clung to him and became apparent when you leaned in to see the datapad over his shoulder. 

  “Thank you. Despite being reckless, your actions and intel were able to help us retrieve Omega,” he whispered against your hairline, his lips barely brushing the skin there as he spoke. The featherlike contact, making you shiver, goosebumps raising along your skin. 

  Not anticipating his gratitude, you didn’t respond initially, soaking up the rare affection as you noticed Tech didn’t often seem to enjoy people in his personal space. Any time you got too close he’d clear his throat, shifting away. Any time you’d accidentally brush your fingers against his own, he’d wipe his gloved palms over his thighs as if to remove any traces of you. This jump to initiating contact catching you off guard. 

  “I don’t regret anything. She’s safe. That’s all that matters,” you tell him, fingers finding the area just below the chest plate as you rub your hand up and down his back slowly, as if to test the waters. He doesn’t say anything, even if it did bother him, as you remain there for a moment longer. 

  “While Omega is a large priority of mine, I argue that your safety is also important,” he said, uncertainty laced in his voice. 

  “Well, that’s good to hear. I am glad you all are safe. I was worried when you said Wrecker temporarily went rogue.” You admit to him, removing your cheek from the harsh chestplate, putting your forehead there instead. Removing your arms from behind him, you prepared to end the embrace, despite not really wanting to. 

  “We are fine,” he said softly, noticing you pulling back as he dropped his hands slowly. 

  “Really? All here now? No missing limbs-” you start to tease as you pull away, finally catching a glimpse of him as you chuckle. “Oh. Missing hair though it would seem-” you point up, noticing the way he now sported a shaved patch on almost the entirety of one side of his head, where a small bandage covered a section just back from his temple. 

  Tech’s gloved fingers immediately sought out the side of his head, grazing the patch as he looked down, almost embarrassingly as his arm fell back to his side. 

  “Rather unfortunate but it’ll grow back. Although, Echo did take off more than I believe to have been necessary. Small price to pay for the removal of those chips. After seeing what it did to Wrecker, I do not mind having the peace of knowing that it will not affect me in the future-” He began to ramble, only to trail off as he noticed you lean up some, inspecting his hair with an unreadable expression. “Something wrong?” he asked, uneasiness setting in.

  Not responding, you looked closer. Reaching your hand up gently, fingertips tracing a similar path that his own had, his eyes growing wide as you inspected the short hairs now on that side of his head, which contradicted the opposing side, where it remained slicked back. Small smile on your face as your hand fell away, but you kept close proximity to his stunned face. 

  “Not at all. I don’t hate it actually,” you slyly smile as his eyebrows shoot up in response. 

  “I find that hard to believe-” he states plainly as his eyes drift away momentarily before coming back to search for the truth. A part of him partly expects you to be playfully teasing him, as he’d come to accept that as part of your personality.

  “Be that as it may, if I were you, I’d consider keeping it,” you tell him honestly, eyes glancing back to his own from within the confines of his goggles. 

  “Really?” he pressed, uncertain as he imagined it looked horrid, since he’d only felt around for it with the chaos that persisted after they removed the chips. 

  “I like it. It’s rugged in a way that is quite handsome,” you tell him honestly, stepping back from the almost trance you were in caused by the change in his appearance. Your cheeks burning red at the honesty you had spoken. The quick departure from his personal space made you miss the mirroring pair of pink tinted cheeks on the soldier. 

  “Oh,” he said, almost surprised as you turned away to rejoin the others. When you opened the door back to the main hull you barely heard Tech’s soft voice say, “fascinating…” as his fingers once again grazed his short hair with a childlike grin gracing his face. 

  ₊˚.⋆☾⋆⁺₊✧

  You were going to kill Cid. That was, assuming the Pykes didn’t kill you first. Not only had she conspired to have the bad batch steal spice to get rid of Roland Durand, who had moved in and taken the city in their absence. Fortunately your shop, not valuable without your knowledge of how to use the spare parts, had been spared, but not Cid’s. 

  When things had gone south, they lost the spice in an old mine shaft filled with a hive of irlings. Returning to the parlor, Omega were held in order to make the boys co-operate, and yourself to make Cid. 

  Hands bound next to the Devaronian male who instigated the whole situation, you couldn’t fully fault his anxiety. If the batch wasn’t able to recover the spice, you were as good as dead. So was Omega. Which is why you put your trust in them, praying to the maker Tech could figure out a solution that left you all to walk away. 

  You tried to remove the image of Tech’s very angry face as the leader of the Pykes told them that Omega and you would remain with them as collateral, his eyes snapping to yours as his hand reached for the pistol on his hip and held it up ready to fire without a second thought. Something about it was so incredibly protective. As someone who’d been on their own for such a long time, it made your stomach swarm with butterflies. 

  “Don’t try it. They’ll kill you,” Roland warned, your eyes snapping to Omega who was eying an abandoned gun on the floor near where you were all bound. 

  “I hate to agree but he’s right,” you whispered, gesturing for her to stay put. If there’s one thing you knew, it was to not mess with the Pykes. 

  “If your friends don’t return with the spice, we’re all dead. That’s what happens when you meddle in other people’s business,” he said very pessimistically. 

  “Us? You’re the one who took Cid’s parlor from her-” Omega began to argue, and not wishing to participate in their spat, you leaned your head back.

  Ever since you all had rescued Omega from the bounty hunter, things had been different with you and Tech. Not incredibly so. He resumed the distance physically he always kept between you. It seemed he truly didn’t wish to invade your space and kept you from doing the same. That being said, there had not been an argument to date. Not even a slip of tongue from him that indicated a lack in your skills. 

  A part worried that he regretted it, or was possibly trying to keep you from making another advancement. You aren’t sure why you had complimented him, and despite the positive reaction it seemed to warrant, things had gotten somewhat stagnant. More awkward when you were alone, as if he was unsure. At this rate you left it in his court to decide. You made up your mind some time ago in that cockpit that you had feelings for the man, regardless of if he returned them. 

  You hoped he did. After all, he had decided to keep his hair buzzed down on the sides once it began growing back in, since you mentioned that you found it attractive, the shorter hair accentuating his more prominent features like his sharp jaw or chiseled cheekbones. That’s got to count for something, right? And when they were away on missions, he still messaged when he could check in or chat on long flights. You assumed that was a good sign. 

  There had also been an uptick in time he spent at your shop or flat. Sure, the others did as well. Omega often came by since she needed escapes from her brothers. Wrecker loving to come pilfer food from your pantry. Echo occasionally needed help with malfunctions in his mechanical arm or legs. Hunter was the one you saw the least, and never alone, but he tended to keep to himself. However Tech was there at seemingly every free moment he had - fixing stuff alongside you in the shop, occasionally reading up on manuals late at night in your flat as you briefly spoke about ideas for projects to help their jobs with Cid. 

  Just as nightfall began you all were ushered to the hanger, the Marauder visible you were pushed outside, landing on your knees next to Rolland and Omega. The boys exited the ship, Cid on their tails as Wrecker began to unload the spice. Glancing up at Tech’s worried eyes you felt relief knowing that the hard part was over. 

  Once Wrecker unloaded the last crate, one of the Pyke’s came behind you, knife in hand as you grew nervous. The Pykes weren’t galactically known for playing fair, and with Omega off to the side, you worried that they might punish you for Cid’s rash actions. 

  Tech watched, fingers reaching for his weapon as he saw the fear in your eyes. You made eye contact with him once more as you waited for whatever outcome may present itself, hoping that they would do their best to take care of you if it got ugly. Feeling movement on your wrists, you were relieved when they cut the bindings, pushing you forward. 

  “Since the spice has been returned, the matter between us is resolved,” they spoke, as you reached forward, Tech’s hand pulling you next to him as Hunter grabbed Omega. From over Cid’s head, you watched as they weren’t finished with the Devaronian, and you didn’t really care watching him deal with their anger. 

  “Are you unharmed?” Tech’s eyes found yours as you stabilize yourself, nodding to him. From the corner of your eye the others attempted to defuse the situation, to no avail as Roland had one of his horns shorn and the Pykes left. 

  The way Cid turned, offering everyone drinks as if she hadn’t looped you all into her mess, angered you. She’d almost gotten you, Omega, and the other’s killed because she wasn’t strong enough to stand up for herself in the face of a gangster. 

  Fire and brimstone in your blood, you felt your hands shaking as you let go of Tech’s arm. “I just want to go home,” you said, pushing his armored chest and began stomping away from the others, who were heading inside the Parlor, excited things had worked out. 

  Tech watched your retreating form, understanding your frustration but confused as to why you hadn’t wanted to celebrate with the others. After all, things had worked out, no one was injured. His voice calling your name wasn’t enough to halt your exit from the hanger, as you continued walking away from him. 

  Tech shot a glance at the others before diverting from their path to follow you back to your apartment, quicking his strides as he attempted to gain on you. You weren’t really sure why you kept on, ignoring his calls for you to wait. Perhaps anger at Cid. Maybe frustration at the situation. Or a feeling you couldn't quite put your finger on - either way you kept walking, rushing up the stairs as he was hot on your heels. 

  Just as you opened the door to your flat with a shoosh, Tech shoved his foot in the door before you could close it, pushing his way inside before you could lock him out. A bit presumptuous, but a small part of you felt relief seeing him make it in before you shut the world out. 

  “You heard me calling after you,” he said bluntly. 

  “I did,” you tell him, catching your breath from running, scowling when you realized that he didn’t have the same issue. Curse those genetically modified lungs. 

  “So why did you keep going?” He asked you, staring down at you. His helmet still held in his hands as you shifted your weight to the other leg, uncertain how to answer. 

  “I am not sure,” you tell him honestly. He pauses, before speaking. 

  “Do you wish for me to leave?” 

  You shake your head. 

  “Do you wish for me to stay with you?” 

  You nod. 

  He lets out a deep breath, setting the helmet on the table right near the door and probing his temple with his extremely long fingers. 

  “Should we just sit? Talk? What can I do? I need direction on how you wish to proceed,” he quietly begged as he set down the heavy backpack and removed the utility belt. It wasn’t the first time he’d been here and easily began stripping down to his blacks. 

  You didn’t respond, using your toes to put pressure on each of your heels as you slipped out of the worn leather boots and made quiet footfalls to your bed, sitting on it as you looked out the window. The electrical storm your devices predicted would be starting any minute. Despite the more destructive tendency they had, you thoroughly enjoyed watching them - even if they knocked out the power temporarily from time to time. 

  Tech watched you from near the entryway, your legs tucked up near your chest as you stared out the window, chin resting on your knees. Following behind you he made his way to your bed, neglecting how uncertain it felt as he lowered himself onto the comfortable surface. Never having sat on it before, he was surprised the way he sank into the plush material of your duvet. Sitting at the end of the bed, while you had propped yourself up near the wall, there was still a sizable distance between you both.  

  “We don’t have to talk if you do not wish, but may I try something-” he asked and you nodded, not tearing your eyes away from the first few flashes of light. 

  Gentle hands pried your shoulders away from where your legs were pushed up, as he pulled you back with ease. Positioning his body between yours and the wall, Tech arranged you between his long legs, leaning you back once more onto his chest. Arms dancing along your waist, he wasn’t sure if he should fully hold you or allow you to just rest against him, but something internal told him that this position was appropriate given the circumstances. 

  You made the call for him, pulling his arms up across your chest, sinking back into him more, eyes drifting close momentarily as he brushed the hair from your right shoulder to over your left. Soon his nose found the back of your neck as he leaned into your body, picking up the faint hint of the perfume you must’ve applied there hours ago. 

  “I am sorry that you got caught in the crossfire between Cid, Roland and the Pykes,” he whispered against your skin. 

  “It’s Cid’s fault, not yours,” you whisper, enjoying the way his exhales felt against the delicate skin of your neck. He doesn’t speak immediately, pulling you tighter to his chest as you feel his heartbeat along your back.  

  “Had we not agreed to assist in stealing the spice to begin with, none of it would not have occurred the way in which it did,” Tech admitted the error in judgment which nearly cost you and Omega your lives. 

  “You were trying to help out Cid-” you tried to reason.

  “Which would’ve destroyed me if you had gotten hurt due to my poor decision to do so,” he whispered. 

  “Why is that Tech?” you whisper back, eyes watching the electrical storm pick up outside the window. 

  Once again he let the silence linger. Nervous to speak or not wanting to hurt your feelings with his response - you couldn’t be quite sure. Turning slightly, so that your shoulder rested against his chest to look at his face for answers. With the reflection of the window you couldn’t see his eyes.

  Deciding to be brave if he wasn’t, you lifted your hands, fingers probing the edges of the goggles that always adorned his face as you quietly asked, “may I?” He only nodded as you lifted them very carefully up and over his head, setting them down on the bed next to you. His eyes had closed when you started to lift them, so you had yet to see his eyes unobstructed. Not pushing him you turned back towards the window, allowing him to speak when he gathered the nerve. 

  “I don’t like the thoughts of you getting hurt because I-” he started to murmur once more, a baited breath entering your lungs and staying there as you waited for him to continue. The air stinging your lungs as you realized he had paused once more, softly blowing it back out past your lips as you repeated the action once more. 

  Tech gathered as much nerve as humanly possible. He could easily be thrust into high stress scenarios. Battles? No issues. Firefights with gangsters? He always had a plan. But when it came to you? He had no baseline to establish it from. Sure he had been intimate before with strangers when the opportunity presented itself. He found it to usually lead to an unsatisfying place in which he was pretending to be something he wasn’t. Usually forcing himself to touch them despite feeling repulsed at being that close with someone. But when he was in proximity to you things were different. 

  That spark of electricity often cited as being drawn out by a member of the opposite gender was present, catching him off guard every time your fingers crossed paths. He found your sweet aroma to be so intoxicating. The flash of your smile, utterly adorable. The face you made when you concentrated on a repair - where your tongue darted out of the corner of your full lips - to be nearly stunting. Everything about you he found captivating. 

  I care for you. 

  You almost didn’t hear him whisper it, as the volume was so minimal it barely passed over his lips audibly. Turning to face him once more, you saw the nervous eyes of a caged animal, finally unguarded by those yellow frames. 

  Brown. But not dark and unwavering like Hunters or tinged with the grayish hue of Echo’s. Wreckers one good eye had a more blue undertone and Omega’s were nearly hazel. But Tech  - Tech’s resembled honey. His iris illuminated with each flash of lightning from outside the window. And then suddenly, with a bright flash, the power went out, leaving you both in the dark as you continued to remain in his arms. Only sound being the matching pair of unsteady breathing.

  “Tech…?” you whispered, while he looked back down at your anticipating face. 

  “Yes?” Tech questioned, knots in his stomach as you hadn’t responded to his admission of caring for you. 

  “Would you do something for me?” you posed the question. 

  Tech was certain you were going to kick him out, despite the storm, or at the very least make him go downstairs to leave you alone. Your silence only told him that you were likely formulating a way to let him down gently because surely someone one like you wouldn’t want anything to do with him. He was a clone. Clones stole your promising future. He frequently was unaware how to speak to you. His frustrations occasionally came out poorly as his jealousy for your knowledge plagued his mind. His blunt nature, often at odds with your proper socialization. You were perfect and he was just a copy of a man who was long gone, and a relic of an army that had been corrupted. 

  Distracted by his racing mind he almost didn’t hear you whisper it at the conclusion of his small nod. 

  Kiss me. 

  Tech did a double take, his attention snapping to you as your eyes locked with his own.  He couldn’t stop the lump that formed in his throat as your angelic eyes blinked up at him through your lashes. The distance between you insurmountable as, despite the seated position, he would always tower over you. His gangly limbs and narrow frame creating such a divergence between your sizes.

  “You want me to-” 

“Kiss me. Please.” You begged, eyes trying to catch his own to reassure him it is what you wanted. 

  You were growing concerned with the way his mind seemed to still be running astray. Perhaps he meant he cared for you in a similar way that he did Omega. Oh maker, what if he meant it that way. Suddenly you were glad the lights were off. That way he couldn’t see your crumbling self esteem and wavering confidence. You were certain when he spoke the way he had, paired with the many small moments mounting over the last months, that he liked you. Only now to realize he most likely hadn’t meant it in a non romantic way. 

  “Tech, I am so-” you began only to have his warm, ungloved hand find purchase on the side of your cheek, lips meeting yours in fury. 

  The first thing you noticed, when the shock wore off, was that his lips were so incredibly soft. How could a soldier, constantly on the run from danger, be this plush and inviting? That sharp wit and wise energy always spilling past these lips - the same ones that insulted you when you first met - now on your own in a heated embrace. 

  Soft sighs exiting your lips, entering his mouth as Tech opened his own to invite tongues to this lovely endeavor. He had hardly needed to caress your bottom lip with the tip of his tongue before you both fell into that wonderful song and dance of exploring each other’s mouths. 

  Breaking away due to the unfortunate need for air, you tried to see him the best you could with the limited lighting situation. His hand falling to the side of your neck instead of on your cheek, he pulled your forehead towards his, resting his nose against your own. Eyes searching yours for any sign to end this interaction. 

  “You are the most enchanting woman I have ever had the pleasure of meeting,” he admitted with a small chuckle, almost embarrassed of the words falling out of his mouth. Surely they resembled the words of a love drunken fool, not a soldier and engineer such as himself.  Perhaps that is because they came from his heart, not his logical mind. 

  “Please do that again,” you beg him, a smile working its way on your face as you trail a hand up his chest, finding stability by wrapping it around the back of his neck. Your breathing having leveled out from the heated exchange, just as he instigated another one. 

  This time, he didn’t wait to request entrance to your mouth, tongue slipping in almost immediately. As soon as he began kissing you once more, your hand traveled up into the brown locks that sat just against his collar, tangling in them, separating the obnoxious gel he insisted on using to keep it from matting inside his helmet. It made you long to see him first thing in the morning or right after getting out of the refresher - when his hair was wild and carefree. 

  That wasn’t the only thing that you wanted to come undone as he effortlessly pulled you from being on the bed in front of him into his lap, legs going around his thighs as you perched yourself against him. Tech’s wandering hands began as soon as your bottom left the bed, his large palm tracing over the skin of your clothed ass, caressing it before his fingers flexed, digging into the roundness as he groaned into your mouth. 

  Tech, despite his reservations for touching anyone, had always enjoyed the roundness of an ass under his feelings. Especially an unclothed one. His brothers, arguing for a pair of breasts as more appealing, but he would always remain on the team that supported his large hands grabbing the meat of an ass.  

  For someone so lanky, and much thinner than his brothers, Tech certainly had a hidden strength to his frame that you hadn’t anticipated. Briefly on display as he lifted you into his lap with ease, he continued to further prove his ability as his demanding hands found your hips and squeezed, bicep flexing as your free hand landed on his left arm. 

  You aren’t sure what possessed you to do it either, but breaking away from his lips as you trailed kisses over his cheekbones until you found the skin of his earlobe, nibbling it between your teeth all while he groaned. Watching the always poised and put together pilot turn to putty under your mouth and body, making that wet spot of arousal in your undergarments grow by the second. 

  As you continued to trail the nipping to his neck, you mumbled out something about his shirt being in the way, fingers reaching under the top near his lower back as you tried in vain to remove it from his body. Pulling back, since he had developed that unexplainable sense of urgency at your kissing, he stripped it away with skilled ease, tossing it to the floor with reckless abandon. 

  It was odd. When he normally removed the parts of his armor in your flat, they were carefully and methodically unlatched and organized in a neat pile. Now, rocking into his lap as you stared down into his wild eyes, the dynamic propelled into a direction you never could’ve dreamed. Something in the pair of you had shifted from just awkwardly maneuvering around each other to actively lighting that fuse within your bodies. 

  He didn’t allow you the chance to examine his unclothed top however, as he quickly reattached your lips to his, pulling you closer as his head tipped ever so slightly to the side, accommodating the clashing of teeth and tongues in the fury. Still anxious to know exactly what he was like under that thick black suit or vest he always wore, you allowed your fingers to act as your eyes in the moment, all while getting such a lovely taste of his mouth while you exhaled through your nose which was harshly pressed against his cheek from the intensity the kisses you’d both developed.

  Your hands trailed along his flamed but extremely solid body. Fingers finding purchase along the defined lines of his chest, and the valley that separated two pectorals that were much harsher than you would’ve anticipated given his much thinner frame. Sliding down, that same hand counted six definite sections in his abdomen as well, as you removed your lips from his in hast to such a much needed breath of air while your mind stilled. 

  Eyes finally seeing just how wonderful tanned skin of a soldier could be, you enjoyed the lovely view of dark hair trailing down just below his navel and into tight pants. The nearly vacant patch of hair along his chest meaning he either removed it or didn’t have it wasn’t a bother - you didn’t really love overly hairy men any way - as you gasp. He was the perfect blend of scars, moles, muscles, and… tattoos? 

  The chuckle that tore from your throat at the sight of black ink along his skin, was met with that ever so quizzical eyebrow as he flushed at your laugh. 

  “I must admit that laughter at the sight of one’s nakedness does not instill confidence,” he noted as you shook your head. 

  “I hadn’t expected you to have tattoos, it was more of a shock than a jest,” you comment, sliding back ever so slightly while remaining on his lap to get a good view. 

  “Why would you assume I would refrain from body modifications? You have seen Hunter’s face, and you’ve heard me mention our brother Crosshair-” he started as you placed your index finger along the seam of his lip, effectively silencing him with a sultry stare and the simple action. 

  “You just seem so much more straight laced than your brothers, I hadn’t expected you to cover yourself in something as trivial as artwork. But, that being said, I can’t help but find it so incredibly alluring…” you lean down to the simple ‘99’ tattooed along the same shoulder his armor detailed a similar marking, lips familiarizing yourself with the lines as you pulled back. 

  “I can assure you, despite my reserved nature, I am hardly straight laced, as you say,” he quipped, relinquishing the time he allowed you to study the marks in his bronze skin. He’d let you examine them some other time, possibly even with explanations of their origins. Right now, he was growing impatient. 

  Pulling you forward by the back of your neck, he changed his mind at the last moment, deciding that your collar bones sticking out of the shifted top you wore looked delectable, sucking them between his teeth as you squirmed along his lap once more. Satisfied with the mark it left in his wake, Tech found himself in your sex-hazed gaze once more. 

  “Tell me that you wish for this to continue. Please. I am not sure I can find it in myself to behave like a gentleman if you wish to stop much further than this,” he groaned, voice strained by a tone you had never heard from him. Tech’s voice was quite different from his brothers. The husky tone he now used, reminiscent of a crackling campfire as it came from the back of his throat, and laced itself into a pleasured groan. 

  “Please. I want this- I want you,” came your whisper into his jaw, lips grazing the sharp bone there.

  I want you. 

  Tech couldn’t remember a time he was truly wanted. Usually his hookups stemmed from mutual boredom or someone realizing his brothers weren’t interested in them. A system of happenstance, of convenience of simple chance and mutual need for release. But to be told that he was desired, and that an intimate connection was wanted with someone he actually cared for on a personal level? A first.  

  And as for you, you wouldn’t admit it out loud but things certainly got lonely on Ord Mantell. Those friends on Coruscant slowly lost interest once you departed, leaving you with just Cid and acquaintances. The rest of your time alone in a dingy workshop or flat hidden away from the world. That was until Tech and the others came around. He brought a sense of belonging you hadn’t known. He brought company you’d been craving. He made you feel seen, appreciated and cared for.

  He brought his hand up under your shirt and bra to cup your breast. 

  One of the first things you had noticed about him, all those rotations ago, was how long and dexterous his whole body was, but particularly his hands. Fingers so thin and nimble, wound with callouses, scars and distinguishable marks from his times tinkering. It had been rare to see him without gloves, but that barrier’s first time being removed showed just truly how captivating such a mundane body part could be. 

  These were the hands of a soldier. A man bred specifically for war. These were the hands of a pilot, who’s tight grip upon the steering wheel had saved thousands of lives. These were the hands of a fellow engineer and mechanic who understood the complexities of how your mind worked. These were the hands of a man who cared for you. 

  And those hands currently were squeezing your nipple with the perfect amount of firmness to make you purr. 

  Deciding that the only thing in the world you wished for right now was the feeling of his chest on your unclothed one, you pulled back, hands finding the bottom of your top as you flung it just as unceremoniously as he had done with his own. Tech wasted no time in finding the latches on your bra, unhooking the material and tossing it to the side as his hands finally held the weight of both your breasts within him. 

  Despite his larger than normal hand size, your breasts fit inside his palms like a perfect handful, while his thumbs continue that onslaught along your nipples, his lips finding that wonderful spot below your ear that makes you breathe heavily. 

  Your own hands, still running through his caramel locks while he worked your body with such expertise, tugging every now and again as he groaned against your neck between kisses and leaving smaller marks that would likely fade in only a few hours. 

  “Are you adequately protected?” came the husky question into your jaw, followed by another nip. 

  “Implant…” you hummed out, head falling to the side to accommodate his mouth as he snickered slightly in response. 

  Lifting you from his lap with no warning, Tech’s fingers found the latches of your pants with no problem, undoing them and tugging them down your legs as you wobbled from where you stood on the floor. Once they were lowered enough, Tech abruptly stood next to you, steading your arm as you stepped out of them, his feet stepping on the trousers in order to help you remove them easily. 

  Your face turned to meet his own, his body towering over your own as he looked down at you. Despite the full head’s distance between you both, and the darkness of the flat with the power being knocked out, you could still see the way his eyes darted from your full, unclothed breasts to the newly revealed skin of your legs. 

  One of his hands found purchase along your chin, tipping your face up even higher as you rose along your tiptoes to match his height the best you could. His other hand started along your mid back, trailing down until he found your panty clad rear, rubbing along the now exposed right cheek. 

  “Would you allow me to take charge here Mesh’la?” He asked gently, his hand still caressing your skin reverently, but despite the unexpected softness of the words and actions, you felt that with the look he gave you there was something more. Something almost predatory in his eyes. 

  “What does that mean?” you ask, unable to shake the curiosity at his use of the language you presumed to be Mando’a. 

  “Such an inquisitive mind you have…” he chuckled, using the hand on your chin to move your face to the side. Your eyes drifted close as he pressed a sweet his to the side of your face, trailing down more until he reached your ear. “I can’t get enough of that mind of yours,” he admitted, nibbling your earlobe once before continuing, hand tightening around your ass as the tone shifted. “Beautiful. It means beautiful. Which is exactly what you are, my mirdala girl…” he whispered so gently as he pulled back, hand dropping as he wound them both around your lower back. 

  “You keep using words I do not understand, and you have to realize I will continue to ask what they mean,” you tease with a small smile, hands finding his shoulders as you lock yourself in the embrace. Tech still had on trousers and you only had on underwear, but something about the stillness of it all, yet with contradictory the electrical storm raging outside, was strangely peaceful. Tearing clothes off one another and jumping into bed was one thing, but this, this was building towards something much more intimate. 

  “Clever. I called you my clever girl,” he nods your direction, fingers trailing up and down the expanse of your exposed back ever so slightly. 

  “Ah,” you thrum out as your lips tug at the corner into a small smirk, barely visible in the low lighting. “Your clever girl? I wasn’t aware you had claimed me. Sounds a bit possessive don’t you think?” 

  “I suppose it could be considered possessive, although I do not see you running away from the notion. I am to assume that not only are you fine with that, but based on the way your grip in my hair has just tightened and your pupils have dilated, that you want that. That you want me to claim you in some way,” he notes, and you realize he is correct. His attunement to your body language is uncanny as you hadn’t realized you had done so. Unable to form a response, you nod gently. 

  “If you wish for me to stop, at any point, all you need to do is say so. Do you understand,” Tech let one hand fall from your back, reaching for his belt and once again you nodded, causing him to pause. 

  “Verbally. I want verbal consent. You can do that for me right my clever girl?” he used the phrase once again and you shuttered. Something about the way his voice dribbled with arousal in the fact he found your mind to be brilliant brought forth a surge of confidence. 

  “Yes. I trust you Tech,” you speak calmly and clearly despite the shaking in your hands. Anticipation building to the point your body could not contain the excitement of what he had planned. 

  You barely caught the smirk on his thin lips before he gripped your hips and spun you around, pushing your back down as you got the memo, laying yourself across the bed as you heard the sound of the belt buckle being undone and pants abruptly being shoved to the floor. 

  Once again his hands resumed that gentle and reverant stroking along your backside as a hum spilled from his lips. Looking back over your shoulder you saw such a glorious sight. Tech’s hands wrapped around his length as he stroked it slightly with one hand while holding your ass in the other. He glanced up from your bottom to make eye contact briefly as he took his bottom lip under straight white teeth. 

  Pausing momentarily he saw the thin scrap of underwear disappearing between your lower cheeks and decided now was a good time to rid you of the offending material, grabbing them and tugging them down slightly until they landed near your knees, allowing you to step out of them. 

  His hand resumed its position on your body, but this time, it gently nudged you up onto the bed, and you complied with his nonverbal request, positioning your body just slightly up on the bed as you held yourself up on your knees. From behind you could hear the way Tech sucked in a breath between his clenched teeth as his hand found that spot along your backside once more. 

  You had deduced early in this exchange of kissing that he likely was a man who preferred a bottom to breasts. Most men had a likeness to one over the other, and Tech was no different. The knowledge made you feel proud, arching your back ever so slightly as if to present it to him in the most appealing way you could given the position. 

  “You look so wonderful like this. I wish you weren’t behaving so nicely, so I would have an excuse to bring my hand down on you and mark you right here. However I would feel guilty doing such actions when you are being so perfect,” he admitted and you smiled at the wall, glancing back over your shoulder at him. 

  “Who said you can’t anyway. I hardly need to be a brat in order for you to spa-” you began the permission and he quickly resolved himself to take it the second you had granted it. The smack, not nearly as hard as you were anticipating but still firm, filling the air and stopping your sentence midway as you let out a squeak at the contact. 

  Your biceps flexing as you locked your arms to maintain your position on the bed, holding yourself up as his hand soothed the red flushed skin with care and attention. Tracing the hand up, you felt him rest it along your upper back as his fingers hooked over your shoulder, and near your knees you felt the mattress dip ever so slightly. 

  Tech covered the expanse of your back with his body, his left arm coming up to the side of you as he braced himself up just hovering over your back, his right hand moving to brush your hair over your shoulder so that his nose could trace along your upper back. You could feel his eyelashes fluttering along the skin of your shoulder blades as he lowered his mouth to kiss your back a few times gently. 

  “So pliable for me…” he praised as he continued to issue praise in the form of tender kisses that slowly made their way ending with your sweat-dampened temple. 

  Tech had always had sexual relationships from behind. There was an impersonal attitude that came with engaging in the act similarly to the way animals did. Not seeing the woman’s face, and only focusing on the connection of his body with theirs - it made him feel less awkward about the exchange. But something about the way his body caved around yours felt right. He was touching your body with his own almost completely, and he nearly fainted when he realized that he was enjoying the contact. Instead of feeling overwhelmed by the damp nature both your bodies had developed in the precursor to intercourse, he felt delighted knowing he’d caused such reactions. So against every previous metric in his mind for engaging in sexual relations, he manuvored your body to your back, so that you could stare up at him as he lowered himself on top of you. 

  Tech wasn’t sure how to quantify the way his stomach began to flutter at the way you stared at him, nor the way your velvety skin along his felt, other than bliss. Something about the intimacy shook him to the core. It made him want to come undone and he hadn’t even slid into you yet. 

  You were surprised as his ability to be tender, as his index finger pushed the hair back from your face, cupping the back of your neck to lift it from the pillow as he pulled the longer strands of your hair - which you’d uncomfortably been laying on - above and around your face like a halo. How he’d realized you were slightly uncomfortable with the tugging caused by your back, you’d never know, but you’d be grateful for long after this exchange nonetheless. 

  “I’ve never met someone who had made me experience what I am feeling at this present moment,” he admitted, his nose leaning down as he gently caressed your own. Keeping it there, his forehead soon pressed against your own as his eyes searched yours for a reply. 

  “What are you feeling?” you whisper, eyes focusing on his right iris as the pupil waivered slightly larger before he continued speaking. 

  “Bliss. Euphoria. Revelry. Perhaps those are words that I could use to quantify it, and yet-” Tech began, hand searching for yours as you allowed him to wrap his fingers around yours while you stared at him expectantly. Your legs widening to accommodate him as you feel his tip slide between your folds and line up expertly with your hole. You are uncertain what he is trying to say, and in all honesty it appears that he is as well. His eyes drift close as, in a rare turn of events, his body wins out over his mind, and he presses within you before completing his thought. You can’t stop the way your eyes flutter shut at the feeling, no point in remaining open if his own are closed anyway. 

  You had expected him to slide in slowly, as his sweet words and actions leading to this point had been cautious almost, but instead he is direct in the way his cock slides into you as if it’s coming home. As if he’s returning to a place he was always meant to be. The stretch is gone in an instant as he plows into you abruptly at first, but pausing as he reaches the entrance of your womb with his tip. “They do not come close to describing the way I feel right now,” he whispered, making your eyes fly open once more as you stare up at him.

  You have died and gone to the afterlife. The Pykes most certainly killed you and left you in an alley on Ord Mantell. That is the only logical explanation for the way you were feeling. The only thing you can do is affectionately tighten your grip on your joined hands as you raise your hips slightly, giving him permission to move. 

  Tech didn’t need to be encouraged twice, sliding in and out of you with joy as he held himself up with one of his arms. Your head falling back into the pillow as you lose yourself between his calculated thrusts, he decides that not being able to look into your eyes while he continues to make himself at home within your body isn’t what he wants.

  You feel his grip slipping from your hand and anticipate it will go to your breasts for a playful tug, but when you feel his fingers on your jaw, pulling your face back you once again look up at him, curiously. 

  “I. Want. To. See. Your. Eyes. On. Me.” he commands and you feel a shiver that starts near your neck and travels the length of your body as you nod, legs widening even further as he picks up the pace ever so slightly. 

  His hand abandons your chin as he places it along your side, raising your body at the hips so you can meet his thrusts, your eyes staring deeply into his own. Tech had surprised even himself in demanding to see you staring at him while he plowed into you, but something about watching your face as he pushed you both in the direction of release made him feel a pride he’d never known before. With each lewd noise coming from where you were joined, to each whimper or sigh leaving your lips, to the sweat he felt along his brow from exertion - he felt more of that blossoming heat in his stomach at the passion between your bodies. 

  You feel similarly, as you wrap your legs around his thin waist, holding him there so that your union is only intensified and he can reach that absolutely tender spot within your walls that becomes electric when he begins to repeatedly stimulate it over and over again with his steady thrusts. “Tech…” you whimpered as he continued his movement, no external indications that he is approaching orgasm, despite the fact it is true. 

  “Say my name again, please-” he whimpers as you nod, once again saying his name while he pushes inside of you especially hard, a yell tearing from your throat as your hips chant up after his retreat, wanting another harsh thrust. He delivers it immediately, his body pushing you into the bed as he begins frantically diving into you with reckless abandon. 

  “Where?” he demands, your hips held in his hand as his fingers squeeze harshly. You can tell he’s close now, the fire in his eyes doing nothing to dull the flames of desire that both of your bodies are feeling as he plunges into your warmth.

  “Inside-” you give him the permission and once again he does not hesitate to take it, his hand abandoning your waist in order to rub feverish circles upon your clit so that you approach orgasm the same time he does. Your voice calls out his name loudly as you feel every nerve ending within your body set ablaze. He responds to you, chanting yours in response as he pushes his load so deeply within your walls you gasp at the way his tip quivers against the opening of your womb. You feel the throbbing inside until he slows to a stop, body collapsing on top of yours as you both gasp for air. 

  His breathing, erratic against your neck as you push his now half gelled and half wild hair off his forehead while you slow your heart rate the best you can. He’s growing soft within you, but you can tell that even while flaccid he’s still larger than the average man. Tech eventually pulls back from your neck, eyes searching for yours as his hand cups the side of your face lovingly. 

  “You are incredible,” he comments kindly as you blush, feeling as he begins to slip from within you, his spill landing somewhere on the covers below you. You don’t really care. You can clean it later. 

  “So are you,” you return the compliment as he smiles, leaning in to kiss you once more, this time only using his lips in order to show affection not reignite the passion of your endeavor. 

  “Yes, but I was genetically engineered that way. You have come by your splendor naturally,” Tech replies as you laugh, lights immediately flickering back on as you both startle at the suddenness of seeing each other without the dulled darkness of your flat. 

  “That is one way to put it. Still doesn’t make you any less wonderful Tech,” you tell him, immediately feeling more self conscious with the added light. This becomes something he notices almost immediately, as he leans up to get a better view of you. Your body was covered in small love bites and a few bruises from where he’d gripped a bit too hard. Lips swollen from his kisses and sweat covering all of you. Hair disheveled and yet - you looked like the most beautiful woman he’d ever seen. 

  “And I thought you were lovely in the twilight, but my dear you look positively exquisite,” he encourages you as he lowers his mouth to your brow before kisses between your eyebrows and then over each closed eyelid. 

  “Such a way with words,”  you say sweetly and he immediately begins snickering as you blink confused at his outburst. 

  “If I recall, the first time we met, I insulted your ability to fix Cid’s gambling device” he reminds her. It seemed so long ago he had done that, and from then you had only grown closer. Finding a mutual understanding. Finding friendship. Finding the beginnings of love. 

  “You did,” you scoff at the memory. 

  “I remember crawling under the control panel and when you yelped, thinking that I thought I was going to stop breathing,” Tech admits and you are surprised. 

  “What do you mean?” 

  “I just couldn’t help but think that I had suddenly found myself in close proximity with a very beautiful woman. And that feeling only intensified once I discovered your love of engineering. Since then it’s grown to a point I find it distracting,” Tech explains and you smile. 

  “Oh so you really like me then,” you chide, almost childishly as he rolls his eyes at your antics. 

  “I believe the fact that my seed is actively leaking out of you to be sufficient proof as to my interest in you,” he bluntly states. You grimace looking down at the sheer quantity of said mess. It was more than you realized. 

  “Would you like to get in the refres-”

“Yes,” he cuts you off abruptly as you laugh. You figured he wouldn’t enjoy being unclean. He lifts his body off of you with ease and holds out a hand to help you rise from the bed. 

  “I am going to want a full detailed report on all of these,” you tell him, finger tracing one of the tattoos on his shoulder. 

  “I believe I can arrange that,” he chides with a small peck to your forehead, pulling you along to the small shower stall your flat has. 

  As he walks just ahead of you, you can’t help but think that this blossoming romance might have been worth the emergency landing on Ord Mantell all those years ago. 

The end.

[argumate]

@autogeneity the ideology we were talking about combines three main things: evil to work against, good to work towards, and a decision theory based on distributed coordination that doesn't require explicit communication, just introspection on what an intelligent agent should do (this is my own take on the ideology, based on sketchy familiarity and scattered reading, so don't take it as gospel -- then again, don't take anything as gospel).

the evil part is easy:

"the capitalist hellscape" that constrains people's lives to labour in support of an evil system, run by bosses and landlords and enforced by cops and prisons and all the brutality that entails.

nationalism, borders, deportation and war and assassinations and all the inhuman violence of geopolitics.

the system of gender and the soft coercion and brutal violence employed to compel everyone to conform to it.

the majority of humans are carnivorous and raise intelligent creatures in unpleasant conditions in order to kill and eat them, which if you ascribe sufficient moral weight to such creatures easily outweighs every war or genocide in human history.

I'm sure that barely scratches the surface (I didn't even mention the US public school system or racism or Bay Area rents or whatever) but of course the big one that animates everything else in this list is (in the words of Maciej Cegłowski):

Death! The bus that one day comes for us all! The skeletal, icy hand on an unprepared shoulder! Pain, a flash of light, then numbing darkness.

which is to say the death of every individual and all that they hold dear and everyone they know and ultimately all of us, humanity snuffed out as if it had never existed, as the universe winds down to freeze in endless silence.

so that's a lot of evil, what about good? good is usually more sketchy to describe because it's hypothetical, while evil is with us right now and everyone is intimately familiar with it, even though we do have a tendency to downplay and deny the horror of it, if only to get through the day.

the greater good would combine happiness, but also agency, to avoid issues of wire-heading where everyone ends up comatose in Matrix-style pods perpetually flooded with endorphins, which would technically maximise happiness but at the cost of giving up all agency over reality.

I'm not going to spend much time on the greater good as I personally think it's incoherent, much like the human ability to say phrases like "square triangle" or "eat your cake and have it too", it's one reason why no religion has a particularly compelling vision of heaven (also I keep writing "greater food" so I must be getting hungry).

but even in the absence of the greatest possible good, it's easy to imagine a world in which humans and human derived creatures and maybe even the entire biosphere can live fulfilled lives for a thousand years and have meaningful accomplishments without the same degree of pain and suffering that we have to deal with today, so even if lower our sights to this mundane outcome it's still a dramatic leap from the world we currently inhabit.

who is working towards this better world, and how do we reach them? and who is working to keep us trapped in hell, and how do we stop them?

one decision theory would be to introspect what a sufficiently smart and moral agent would do, then do that, secure in the knowledge that other agents out there will follow the same reasoning and act in alliance with you, even if you never meet or communicate with them.

this isn't a particularly novel insight! you can dress it up in fancy terms of acausal cooperation, but it also seems very similar to the age old golden rule, or Kant's principle of "act as you would wish everyone else would act", or even "be the change you want to see in the world".

where it takes a darker turn is how you react to threats, explicit or implicit, for example if someone knows you will bargain for hostages then they will take hostages, so they have to know that you will not bargain for hostages, then they won't take hostages; in fact maybe you yourself shoot the hostages, that will demonstrate how committed you are to not giving in to blackmail, and nobody will try to use it against you.

even that logic is not quite enough to justify stabbing a guy on the street, which surely won't achieve anything useful and will attract extreme retribution, but I think you can justify it if you employ what I think of as "quantum cope" and start imagining decision theory across every possible timeline, such that even if you lose in this timeline (by being imprisoned for murder perhaps) it still has some positive effect across the multiverse generally, somehow.

I don't really believe or buy that, so I can't convincingly explain it; I think there are so many opportunities to do good that a win should obviously look like a win; if you choose to do something stupidly bad and obviously losing then constructing complicated justifications for why it's technically maybe not a loss is just foolish sophistry.

anyway, there's a lot more to it than that, because these aren't abstract ideas considered in the platonic realm but actual interactions between real people, and if you fuzz out all the words it ends up looking very similar to any other religion that weighs heaven against hell to justify their power and any other cult that manipulates its followers to break down their individual agency and subordinate them to the charismatic leader.

[aikohellscape]

Im working on this Evo nightsilver fic on and off since 2019. I only really got into it while I was manic. So now I have to go back and deep edit so the characters are more themselves and not just pining idiots right off the bat. I pulled out my sketchbook and have written down the plot so I can see where things are clearly too rushed. I feel bad cuz theirs this one active reader who’s always in my comments (I love her she’s so nice) and now she’s gotta reread all my bullshit if she wants to be up to date. Cuz I’m making major plot shifts to push the actual story line, I’m trying to push myself threw the editing so I can focus on the part I want to work on, Lance, Toad, and Tabitha. So i wrote some small things to help me cope with being stuck editing

Here are some fun little drabbles from my fic:

Toad is 100% the Brotherhood’s biggest stoner and unofficial weed dealer, always carrying pre-rolled joints like it’s part of his daily essentials. He’s got a steady supply from some sketchy high school connections and will smoke just about anywhere, anytime. Lance, being the opportunist he is, bums one off him at least once a week—not because he doesn’t have his own stash, but because why waste his when Toad practically hands them out for free? It’s an unspoken agreement at this point. Toad never complains, and Lance never thanks him, but they both know the deal.

Toad and Lance have a standing tradition of getting their piercings done together, hitting up the same slightly sketchy shop run by some dude who definitely doesn’t check IDs too hard. Lance plays it cool like it’s no big deal, but Todd treats every new piercing like a badge of honor, hyping it up way more than necessary. Meanwhile, Tabitha? Absolutely not. She has standards. No way she’s letting some back-alley piercer with a questionable sterilization routine put a hole in her body. She’s got her own guy—professional, expensive, probably does celebrity clients on the side—and she never lets the boys forget it.

Lance is Peruvian, not that he really talks about it though. Family isn’t exactly an easy topic when you’ve spent more time in the foster system than with the people you came from. Most of his early memories are hazy, blurred at the edges, but one thing that’s always stuck with him is the sound of his mom playing Peruvian cumbia while she cleaned the kitchen. He doesn’t remember much else—what she looked like, the exact shade of her eyes—but he remembers that. The music, the warmth, the way the whole house smelled like lime and cilantro. Sometimes, late at night, when everything’s too quiet, he’ll pull up an old cumbia playlist and let it play low in the background. He misses her. He just… never says it out loud.

Before the amnesia, Kurt had this habit of picking out jewelry for Toad, always keeping an eye out for pieces that would suit him. Toad acted like he didn’t care, like he’d wear whatever just to humor him, but the truth was, he never took off the stuff Kurt picked—especially the little star-shaped septum ring. It was Kurt’s favorite, said it made Toads canines stand out when he grinned, which made Toad show his teeth more often, made him smile a little wider. He’d never admit it, but even now, with Kurt not knowing who he is, Toad still wears it hoping Kurt will remember why it’s important.

Before the amnesia, Pietro barely spared Kurt a second thought. Sure, they argued sometimes—Pietro lived to get under people’s skin, and Kurt, bless his heart, was basically Xavier’s walking, talking success story. Too easy to poke at, too predictable in the way he’d get frustrated, which made it fun. But it wasn’t deep. Not to Pietro. Just another way to entertain himself, another game to play. Kurt, though? Definitely took it deeper than it was meant to be. Maybe it was just frustration, maybe it was something else buried too deep for even him to recognize, but Toad saw it. Saw the way Kurt would get way too in his head after a fight, the way his tail flicked sharply whenever Pietro so much as breathed too cockily in his direction. Yeah, maybe Toad tried to steer him away from that mess, kept nudging him toward literally anyone else, because come on, Speedy was the worst option possible. Not that he was jealous. Nope. Not even a little.

Scott has absolutely no idea what Kurt sees in Toad—seriously, out of all people, why him? But it doesn’t really matter, because here Toad is again, climbing through Kurt’s window like a little goblin, tracking mud onto the carpet, and grinning like he just thought of the world’s dumbest, most annoying prank. And of course, Kurt’s laughing, already in on whatever disaster is about to unfold. Scott can feel his blood pressure rising because he knows—he just knows—that his night is about to be ruined, and there is absolutely nothing he can do to stop it.

Kurt likes hanging out with Todd because, for once, there’s no pressure to be anything other than himself. Even with the X-Men, there’s always this quiet weight pressing down on him, this reminder that no matter how much they accept him, they don’t have to hide like he does. They get to be themselves without a second thought—he has to put on a mask just to exist outside. But with Todd? There’s none of that. Todd leans into being the scrappy outcast, the guy nobody wants around, and somehow that makes it easier. He doesn’t make Kurt feel like he stands out—he just makes him feel like he belongs.

Jean doesn’t understand why she can’t sense Kurt. Ever since he went missing, she’s tried—God, she’s tried—stretching her mind out again and again, searching for even the faintest whisper of his presence. But there’s nothing. No thoughts, no emotions, not even that subtle, familiar hum of his consciousness at the edges of her awareness. Just a void where he should be. She tells herself it’s fine. That there’s an explanation. That maybe he’s just too far or something’s blocking her. But every night, when she’s alone with her thoughts, the truth slithers in—the one thing she refuses to say out loud. Maybe he’s dead. Maybe that’s why she can’t reach him. She can’t tell the others. If they knew she couldn’t sense him at all, they’d think it too. They’d believe it. And if they believe it, then it’s real. So she keeps pretending. Forces herself to act like she’s still trying, like there’s hope. Because as long as no one asks, as long as no one knows, then maybe—just maybe—she can keep pretending he’s still out there somewhere, waiting to be found.

Back when Toad was living in Brooklyn, he picked up bits and pieces of different languages—some conversational Mandarin from the old ladies who ran the corner store, but a lot of Spanish from growing up around it. It’s not perfect, and his accent is definitely rough, but it gets the job done. Lance loves that he finally has someone who actually understands him when he slips into Spanish, even if that someone is Todd. He also loves to give Todd endless shit for his pronunciation, mocking the way he butchers certain words just to get a rise out of him. Toad, of course, just rolls his eyes and fires back a stream of insults in Spanish, half of which don’t even make sense, but all of which are deeply offensive. It’s their thing.

When Tabitha got her navel pierced, it basically became her entire personality for a solid few months. Every outfit? Crop top. Every movement? Deliberately positioned to make sure people noticed. Didn’t matter where she was—school, the Brotherhood house, committing minor crimes—she was showing it off. It took actual winter weather to finally break her streak, and even then, she only caved begrudgingly. Of course, Lance and Toad immediately seized the opportunity to tease her about it. Every time she wore a normal shirt, one of them would casually go, “Wow, guess the belly button era is over, huh?” or “Damn, we really lost something special.” Tabitha would glare, threaten violence, maybe even chuck a small explosive their way, but the second it was warm enough again? The crop tops were back.

Toad is secretly way more sentimental than anyone would ever guess—not that he’d ever admit it. He’s got this whole stash of photos and videos saved up, just little moments of the people he actually gives a damn about. A lot of Kurt, because, well… obviously. But he’s got plenty of Lance and Tabby too—dumb inside jokes, random nights of them messing around, even the rare, unguarded moments where they actually look happy. And then there’s Pietro. The problem with Speedy is that he’s either moving way too fast for a normal camera or he’s making some deeply annoyed face at Todd for even thinking about taking a picture. The result? Pietro is mostly just a collection of motion blur and irritated side-eyes in Todd’s little archive. Toad hates that his collection of memories is full of useless, streaky nonsense instead of actual pictures, but whatever. Speedy will just have to live on as an artistic choice.

Pietro doesn’t mind when Kurt gets high—hell, he knows now that Kurt and Toad used to get high together all the time, which is honestly kind of hilarious. He even joins in sometimes, though it never lasts long. His metabolism burns through everything way too fast, making him the ultimate heavyweight. Joints and edibles don’t do much for him—he’s more of a dabs guy, the only thing that actually lets him feel anything. Still, just because he’s chill about it doesn’t mean he’s not watching Kurt like a hawk. No way is he letting his boyfriend green out or, worse, try to keep up with Pietro’s freak metabolism like it’s some kind of challenge. If Kurt’s getting too spacey, Pietro’s the one making sure he’s got water, making sure he’s eating, making sure he’s not about to tip over somewhere dumb. He plays it off like it’s just because he doesn’t want to deal with a mess, but the truth is? He’s stupidly protective, and no amount of weed is ever gonna change that.

Toad doesn’t really care what people call him—nicknames, insults, whatever, he’s heard it all—but there’s something kinda nice about hearing his actual name from his friends. Lance only ever calls him Todd when he’s exasperated, usually after Toad’s done something particularly dumb, like, “Todd, for the love of—can you just not?” Meanwhile, Kurt started calling him Todd the second he found out it was his real name, like it was the most natural thing in the world. No teasing, no hesitation—just Todd, warm and casual, like it belonged to him. Tabitha, on the other hand, takes it to another level, dragging it out into Toddy whenever she’s feeling playful—or right before she’s about to blow him up. And then there’s Pietro, who only calls him Toad—except, every now and then, he slips up, a careless Todd tumbling out in a moment where he’s not thinking. Toad never calls him on it, but they both know what it means. He doesn’t need some big declaration to know Pietro cares—he just needs to hear his name.

[coldflasher]

still thinking about my post from the other day about eobard making barry the flash about a decade earlier, when he's still a teenager, so he'd be easier to manipulate. and then obviously i started thinking about where len would be in this scenario because i'm unwell and i have permanent leonard snart brainrot :)

assuming barry's 13 in this AU and we're sticking with the same age gap, len would be around 30... so then i started thinking about how different the dynamic would be, with a lonely barry who's being increasingly isolated by eobard, right in the thick of the most tumultous time in his relationship with joe, because he's always sneaking off and coming back all busted up and lying his head off and acting all cagey and exploding with temper every five minutes---except while joe thinks he's just a traumatized kid acting out and having a hard time at school, really he's off every night being "trained" by eobard and then being pitted against fully grown adult metas... though i do think i'd make at least some of them the same age as barry if only because imagine the ANGST of barry getting his powers, thinking he finally has one up on his bullies, and then the other kids at school start turning into metas as well.

i'm thinking specifically of tony woodward—all the pain and frustration and humiliation that twenty-five-year-old barry felt facing up against his childhood bully, now with powers... imagine that, except he's still at school, still stuck in the thick of it with this kid who's made his life hell, except now his bully has superpowers, and so any fantasies barry might have had about kicking his ass now he's the flash and is more powerful than any of the kids at school could imagine? well, forget it, because tony's STILL bigger and stronger than him and now he's now kicking barry's ass outside of school too

anyway i'm getting sidetracked. my point is i was thinking about moody teenage barry and an older len who's faced up against the flash, thinking there's a new player in town, only to discover that the flash is some scrawny punk kid with no one in his corner, and all the adults in his life are failing him, ESPECIALLY this creep eobard thawne who's "mentoring" him. len takes a very dim view of anyone who's getting a kid mixed up in the criminal world, considering his own father did it to him, AND he's just getting skeevy vibes off eobard anyway because he's an adult and better equipped to see through eobard's manipulations, unlike barry, who's doing the infuriating teenage thing of thinking he's sooo mature for his age and knows what he's doing and is not gonna listen to anyone who's trying to warn him that this whole thing is super sketchy and he's falling victim to a predator, but unfortunately he's not gonna realize it until he's a decade or so older and his frontal lobe develops---

and so we have this (platonic bc barry's like 13/14, though barry probably has a lil unrequited crush) coldflash dynamic with them kinda being friends bc len's somehow inadvertently ended up a mentor/support system for this fucked up, scrappy, little meta kid because god knows no one else is looking out for him, and anyway here's a small snippet of what my brain's doing (unedited but whatever we're just having fun and god knows i can't start another insane sprawling AU right now as much as i've been violently chewing on this idea all day, soooo)

Barry picked at the splintered wood on the table. “Eobard makes me feel kinda weird sometimes.”

Len watched him out of the corner of his eye. He didn’t like the sound of that. “Weird how?”

Barry shrugged his birdlike shoulders.

For a moment, Len focused on the map laid out in front of him, considering his next move. When it came to locks, carefully getting them to open up was his specialty. When it came to people, not so much.

He decided to be blunt. “He touch you?”

Barry’s mouth popped open, outrage and disgust mingling together. “No!” he protested, his voice cracking a little. Immediately, his mouth snapped shut, jaw jutting out mulishly, and he glared at Len. “Not like that.”

Len scrutinized him. He was pretty satisfied it was an honest answer. The kid wasn’t a bad liar, given time to prepare, but he sucked at improv; put him on the spot and he crumbled in seconds.

“He’s just… intense, that’s all. About my powers.”

Somehow Len doubted that was all he was intense about. Clearly something about this Eobard creep was making the kid’s spidey senses tingle, and probably for good reason. Len knew his type—there were plenty like him in prison, doing time for their proclivities. And plenty more on the outside who were better at hiding it. Just because the guy hadn’t put his hands on the kid so far didn’t mean he hadn’t thought about it.

“You thought about talking to someone?” Len asked. “An adult?”

Barry gave him a withering look like only a teenager could, then looked him insolently up and down, like he was missing something very obvious. Len gave him a similarly derisive look right back, one with over a decade of extra power behind it, just to show him how it was done. “I meant an authority figure.”

“You mean like a shrink?” Barry scoffed—which was pretty similar to what Len’s response would have been if anyone had made that suggestion to him. “Pretty sure Joe’s insurance wouldn’t cover another one. And we’d have to go out of state. I’ve seen every shrink in the city and they all think I’m crazy.”

“Your Dad, then.” Not that Len believed a guy who murdered his wife was exactly a stellar role model, and clearly Henry Allen was no stranger to manipulation himself, to have the kid so staunchly convinced he hadn’t done it when it had happened right in front of him—but having a father in prison had its perks. Len’s own father wasn’t exactly father of the year, but even he’d have called in a few favours from Iron Heights if he caught wind of some creep sniffing around his kid, if only on principle.

“I’m not allowed to see him,” Barry muttered.

The dark look in his eye told Len that there was little use in suggesting he told Joe. Clearly, they still weren’t getting along.

[greyias]

Back in 2011, there was this midseason replacement show that premiered on CBS about a group of wildcard spies that relentlessly haze their newbie while being absolute chaos mongers abroad and causing many international incidents. It seemed relatively obscure at the time, even though it had the perfect recipe for being fandom catnip bait (ie: being about a bunch of white guys with varied personalities).

Every now and then, I'll suddenly remember it's existence, and then furiously start Googling to try and find any way to watch it. Legitimate streaming sites. Illegitimate streaming sites. Sketchy DVD sales that inexplicably have copies of shows long out of print/never released. And then, of course, this stupid Amazon link always comes up and mocks me:

One can only assume the streaming rights for it are largely ignored, or stuck in legal limbo for one reason or another, and thus, it will forever remain "unavailable". Still, I have never seen a show so collectively memory holed and forgotten as my poor abandoned spy show. Heck, I was once able to track down a copy of Veritas: The Quest for a a birthday present for a friend in the early 00's, a show possibly even more obscure other than the fact that it's where Cobie Smulders got her start.

I have a nearly dead TiVo I've been hanging onto for years, meaning to extract the contents of its hard drive, because I know I have a bunch old episodes still on there (possibly the entire series because I refused to let it delete any of the episodes). I mean, they're all in standard definition because I'm a cheapo who refused to pay for cable and just got whatever I could over the air... but still.

One day I'll get to rewatch it. If I can remember how TiVo's file system format worked.

[shsenhaji]

Les Misérables - 1.1.2: Monsieur Myriel Devient Monseigneur Bienvenu

Day two of posting about Les Mis Letters 2024, and today I have actual Thoughts!

My overall impression is that I'm enjoying the original French a lot better. I'm definitely able to pick up a lot more nuances, and I'm glad I decided to go this route in 2024.

First main thought: Monsieur Bienvenu is very much not the same thing as Monseigneur Bienvenu, and I have some Feelings about the fact that the English translation (at least for Les Mis Letters) does not carry that over.

Of course, those who are more knowledgeable about the ins and outs of this translation and the others are free to jump in, but I wouldn't have thought it would be so hard to just go with Monsignor Bienvenu, or even keep Monseigneur Bienvenu. The title for me makes a very big difference, in terms of the character and what Victor Hugo is trying to do. Especially since, as the chapter title says, Myriel goes from Monsieur to Monseigneur from the will of the people of Digne.

His new title also is part of the theme that we are presented with in the very first chapter, of having to overcome first impressions or being judged in a skewed fashion - either too harshly or too well - by others; I think the English version does the reader and the story a disservice for not keeping that specific word.

My second main thought is that I was able to grasp a lot more nuances this time around, such as the fact that in M. Myriel's budget, there are several items that have to do with prison rehabilitation and improving prison conditions and freeing fathers imprisoned for debt. As I told my friend, who is reading Les Mis in French for the first time with Les Mis Letters (not his first re-read, though), the foreshadowing is not subtle at all. We love to see it :)

I also do like how this budget helps makes Monseigneur Bienvenu's actions regarding Jean Valjean later on much more understandable. He's already for helping ex-convicts already, if only in theory. As we see later, Myriel's lofty thoughts and principles don't always come through to real-life issues, especially when he has a personal bias, but having that mentality of wanting to help out is already very important. It's also very sad, because all the money in the world doesn't help out very much in this case, as we see again and again throughout the book when encountering systemic and societal issues.

Finally, as many others pointed out last year and this year, the fact that Myriel does all of this charitable work at the expense of his sister and his housekeeper, and not even giving them a choice in the matter, is kind of sad.

Not only does this self-sacrificial impulse negatively impact these two, who already don't have much agency in their world, but it's also that he doesn't seem to realize that they may want him to have some things as well. The line "Bon, dit-elle à mademoiselle Baptistine, monseigneur a commencé par les autres, mais il a bien fallu qu’il finît par lui-même" [“Monseigneur began with other people, but he has had to wind up with himself, after all."] really stood out to me.

My friend rightly pointed out that "when self-sacrifice turns into sacrifice of others, you've gone too far," which I think is true in this case and is even more obvious later on. I really wonder where a certain Jean Valjean gets it from... It's a total mystery...

Last parting thoughts: I liked how the relationship between mademoiselle Baptistine and M. Myriel was described in French a lot better than I did in the English version; for whatever reason, it sounded less sketchy and more heartwarming, though I couldn't say exactly why: "Pour cette sainte fille, M. de Digne était tout à la fois son frère et son évêque, son ami selon la nature et son supérieur selon l’église. Elle l’aimait et elle le vénérait tout simplement."

All in all, I'm very glad I was able to listen to this chapter today - I was so engrossed while listening to the story that I totally stood while doing nothing else for more than five minutes just listening to the narrator tell me all about our bestie Monseigneur Bienvenu. 😆

I hope to have more thoughts tomorrow!

[choko-flan]

Hiiiiii choko!! Still looking over ur progress every now and then!!! How are you doing? I hope you've been well ^^ I still remember first playing the velorem demo all those years ago lol.. I was travelling and downloaded a bunch of rpgmaker games to play and I loved yours in particular Would also be really cool if you started posting just the stuff you draw or your thoughts on whatever u wanna ramble about, idk if you use tumblr a lot tho, I like seeing that the creators i like are like, still alive and stuff you know? only if you want to though! Wishing you the best through whatever is going on right now!!! Signed: Olliver

Hello, apologizes for being super late replying to this been all over the place and haven't had time to fully write out a response. I'm really thankful you are still looking over my progress also always wanting to send me an ask, really means a lot. I've been doing alright like above been all over the place with dev work, hobbies, and taking classes to help with getting a job not related to game dev as this is a hobby (also the industry scares me), though at times I do struggle with imposter syndrome thinking I'm not good enough or smart enough but rn I feel confident in myself (I need to work on my hw...) ;v; means a lot you loved Verloren's demo, I really need to kick myself to work harder as I really want to put out a newer demo as the old one is a bit outdated. The newer one would be longer and have different mechanics which the original didn't have also I can show off my 2nd favorite character bc I need to give him screen time. Though that demo would probably happen when I make a ton of progress on the game like it's close to being done. Or maybe I just hold off and drop the whole game and everyone looks to me because I've change things. The main premise is the same just I changed things idk if anyone is interested I can ramble in a different post about the changes. I still care for the demo I posted in 2020, really want to get the game done so everyone can see the story and characters who been spinning in my head for 7ish years... I keep telling myself to stop hoarding what I'm doing but it's easy to say as I'm often going back hoarding bc perfectionism so here's a few things I've worked on: This isn't the 2nd fav but he's another character who wasn't in the demo, his name is Wally and would be another companion character who would help Chris with his journey. (very sketchy)

Been reworking the inspect system as you can see the thought bubble leaves after certain objects are gone, using thought bubbles to avoid a problem I always face in rpg maker games which is being confused what leads to progression so I often smack the character onto everything until I find the correct thing which triggers progression. Want to just make it clear what is decoration vs actual importance intractable objects.

(this isn't how this map will look I just through it together for testing purposes) This was posted on my Bluesky (X) which I will try to use semi more, I need to go back finishing this but was using a unrelated oc who isn't a character in the game to help me figure out the portrait style.

Was mainly influences by the style of these portraits, still need to go back to figure it out tho.

Tho I shall stop dev rambling as this wasn't an ask for any updates but just thought to share some things I've been doing.

Tbh I get worry about posting about non dev related things here, I did have a personal blog but I haven't used that one in years plus it was mainly to reblog stuff I liked. Worried it would feel like opening the floodgates as it would led to a lot of rambling like for example I'll just post a few things I've been doing on the side if anyone is interested (This is all going to jump around a bunch super sorry.) For starters I like Project Sekai mainly bc I am a vocal synth fan, I do have a lot of scores saved mainly full combos but I'll just post my current FC counter (there's songs I haven't played yet bc lazy)

The 8/27 is because that is Mizuki's birthday which I am a very normal Mizuki fan I only have a few of her 4 star cards and have somewhat tier <- 100% normal fan (don't speak to me about not getting the new year card...)

(yes I have a discord server to plan a year in advance which cards I'm saving for) I don't have a screenshot of the event itself but for her 1st mix event I got T1k (i've been here since the global beta testing before day 1. Tbh I knew of the game before global was announce)

I didn't tier for this one bc I am saving for E5 so this is my worst one.... (I should find people to help with E5 Mizuki) but I care for my dother <- owns 3 plushies and almost all the CDs with her commissions songs and has preorder the newest one on amiami She is just my silly who makes me happy ANYWAYS speaking of gacha games I got back into the hole which is HSR, I am behind in the plot but it's just been the game I open to stare at my wife who took a billion pulls to get then I close it. I love him...

Btw I am F2P I will never spend money on a gacha again looking back on my genshin days I wasted 90 bucks on a game i don't play anymore like it's been 3 or 4 years. I just often farm like crazy and save until the thing I really want is here. Moving away from Gacha but still on the topic of gaming, one of my friends they convince me to get into Retro Achievements which is a fun site to use when you are playing games to collect achievements. So far the sets I've done is Okage: Shadow King and Pokemon Channel.

There's other games I've been doing the sets for but I am a fool that picks games with 100+ achievements. Another thing that same friend above got me into is learning HTML and CSS so I have been working on a website on the side which you can see here: https://choko.neocities.org/ Really want to make a page for Verloren on it, feel that would be cute

RN it's very bare bones at the moment also not mobile friendly, I need to work on that. The only page which works at the moment is the about section but it's also a wip mess.

Do plan on getting a media diary page done as I've been keeping track of everything I've watched, played, or read. I needs some more work but at the moment it looks like this

Below is what it used to look like this but wasn't happy with it, like each entry having it's own clickable page rather having the person scroll to see them.

Umm I guess art idk we are jumping around, I've been stuck thinking about characters for a campaign which hasn't started yet. He is my silly (the dude who I was making pixel art above) I often spam my friends doodles of him bc he has become my favorite oc to draw and he's just a npc to my player character of the campaign.

One day I'll make a full drawing of him so then I can shove him into the faces of people. (I been working on a oc page on my site so if I get that up any info of him will be there also other ocs) I guess if any of these are interested I could start making post about this stuff more, super sorry that you asked something which turned into me full on rambling. I suppose this can be used as a test to see if anyone else would be interested. ^^b thank you again for sending an ask, I hope this wasn't like too much rambling. Will try to use tumblr more, I hope you are doing alright and best of wishes to you!!

[skibidirizzlergyatohio]

IT BURNS DOWN BELOW

CHAPTER 4 DEPARTURE

(SERAPHINA POV)

ACT 2

TW: SWEARING, DRUGS, MENTION OF

STRIPPERS

Hi. I bet you’re wondering what happened to me, huh? well, for starters, i didn’t stick around after Lorelei lost her shit and started destroying everything. i slipped out of the grand hall, heading for my room. i packed my stuff, but it wasn’t much because we only really wore our robes, so what i actually mean by stuff is over 500,000 celstons. like it even made a dent in our savings. the oracle has infinite celstons, because it makes them in the first place. i probably would have taken more, but that’s all i could fit in the suitcase. i took jewelry too, not a spear, but a emerald crossbow, and i think that was about it. i waited a few hours before going back down there, just in case. the first thing i saw was Constance, standing in the middle of the room, hunched over. covering her left eye for some reason? “where’s Lorelei?” “..gone” “i see.. well, cya.” “wait, where are you going???” “i’m gonna pursue my dreams as an entrepreneur.” i stated confidently, but with a unserious tone. “..what?” “what?” “your just gonna.. leave???” “uh, yeah?” “why??? you have everything you’ll ever need here??” “got bored.” i shrugged. she had this disappointed look in her eyes, her face contorting a bit. she played it off with a smile, but i knew. “well then.. i wish you the best of luck.” “till we meet again, dear sister.” i waved, she waved back. i couldn’t help but feel somewhat guilty for leaving her behind, knowing she was gonna be alone for the rest of her life. she’d get over it, i was sure of it. or at least i thought i was?

i began my immigration to the underworld shortly after that. it wasn’t actually that bad down there. definitely completely different from the overworld though. i know those on earth would probably compare the overworld and underworld to their heaven and hell, but it’s actually different, even though they are pretty similar. obviously the system in the overworld is different from their heaven, and the underworld has no devil to rule over it. it’s anarchy down there basically. it is pretty fucking hot though. i started with getting a apartment for myself. i couldn’t be walking around the underworld looking like a princess. i cut my hair, gave myself a long wolf cut, and dyed it black. i stared at myself in the mirror. i felt.. odd.. something was missing.. i went walking on the streets and found a piercing shop.

i looked at the options they had displayed, and spoke to the oxen lady, with short blue hair. “hey, can i get one of those and one of those?” i pointed to the spider bites and the anti eyebrow piercings. “alright just come sit right here.” she gave me the piercings, which i couldn’t really feel anyways, and gave me some stuff to treat it. “do ya like it?” i looked in the mirror. now THIS is better. there was just one more thing. my clothes. i went to this cute little shop and got myself a cheeta print dress, belt, heels, purse, all that good stuff. and i barely had to pay anything! anyways, i paid and continued walking down the streets, looking for a club or something, because they seemed to be a haven for the kind of people i was looking for. i knew if i was gonna form some kind of powerful or influential allies or connections, my best bet were those sketchy motherfuckers in the mafia, or apart of those cartels. one thing i learned quick about the underworld is that it’s full of junkies. i went to this club, saw strippers for the first time, that was.. something, but it gave me ideas. not those kind of ideas you disgusting creatures, for my casino. yea, for whatever reason i was set on the casino thing. i figured it would do well down here because there weren’t many around, and it would make me a shit ton of cash. oh yeah, another thing, celstons are worth like 10x more than cheltons. probably because they’re from the sacred land. anyways, i’ll spare you the details, i made a couple of friends, pulled some strings, and got this ginormous building within just a few months! at first, it was just a huge, empty, 7 story building, but as years went by, it grew. it was beautiful. as soon as you walked in, giant champagne fountain, red carpet, two grand staircases that curved, balcony above, and slot machines upon slot machines. probably even more tables for gambling, a huge bar, restaurant area, a pool, it also doubled as a hotel. i also went through with the stripper thing i mentioned earlier, and of course live entertainment, even fucking karaoke! i even had my own office. of course i got more fancy clothes, everything here was of up most quality. i had many different outfits, but my favorite was this short cut red dress. now i think about it, leaving the palace was probably the best thing i could have ever done for myself. a ridiculous amount of people are in debt to me, and i’m filthy rich. sometimes i wonder where Lorelei went, and if she was.. down here? eh, whatever, not my problem. not anymore. i couldn’t care less about any of them. they never liked me, it was all an act. ya know, maybe Lorelei actually HAD a chance, but me?? never. i was forever destine to be the odd one that just coexisted. a supporting character. well guess what? i’m in control now bitch.

(LORELEI POV)

i had been living with jeffery for quite some time now, i suppose i grew on him a bit? i taught him how to fence. i always won. “so.. ya got any idea of whatcha wanna do?” jeffery asked. “what do you mean?” “like, with your life?” “uh.. no??” “is there anything you want to do?” i shrugged, running a hand through my hair. “well, i could always try finishing the job?” “job?” “well ya know, finishing off the oracle.” jeffery laughed “and how the hell are you gonna do that? you almost died the last time you pulled that shit.” i sighed, “my entire life was leading up to being the host, and that cheating bitch, and that lying bastard stole it from me. my life never had any other meaning, i was born to lead, jeff.” he frowned. he pitied me deeply, i could see it in his eyes. whenever he looks at me like that.. i feel like he’s looking at someone else.. “sorry shad, but i don’t think it’s a good idea to go back there. who knows what they would do to you.” he put his hands on my shoulders, “if anything were to happen to you..” he paused. “if you did hypothetically follow in with this, you’d need an army, and i’m not exactly sure you and me are enough to consider an army.” he said sternly. it was funny how he acted like he was my father or something, as if he isn’t thousands of years younger than me. “i guess your right..” i slouched over slightly, looking out the window. this was hopeless. that’s when i saw a billboard sign. “THE GREATER THE RISK, THE GREATER THE GAIN, THE EMERALD CITY.” a little section on the bottom right read, “SPONSORED BY SERAPHINA INC.” Seraphina?! what the hell was she doing down here??? “Seraphina??” “yea, what about her?” “you know her??” “sure i do, she runs the biggest casino in the whole city, probably the biggest in the whole underworld.” well, guess i know where i was getting my help from now.

[sineala]

Hi Sine! I find myself in possession of a very long plot (not going to count how many of those are in my inventory), and was hoping you'd share what program(s) you use for yours? I'm the sort who'd use a murder-wall with notecards but I don't have space rn. I *should* use tagging systems but all the ones available are so sketchy and unreliable that I lose focus just typing. Also I tried to search but. This is tumbs. Thanks - Shusu

Oh boy, this question was made for me!

The first novel-length story I wrote, I wrote in TextEdit. All 90,000 words of it. I basically just made a list of the scenes I wanted in the order I wanted them in, started typing the story above the list, and deleted every scene from the list when I had written it. I don't recommend this.

These days, I use Scapple and Scrivener. I have much more detail below. I am sure I have talked about them before but, as you say, Tumblr is hard to search.

Different things will work for different people, and I don't always start this way, but sometimes, while I'm still trying to rough out an idea, I start with a mind mapping program. You know that brainstorming technique that you learned in, like, third grade, where you take a piece of paper and you write down the main idea in the center in a bubble and then branch lines out from those with more bubbles containing related ideas, and then branch things out from those, and so on? You can get programs to do that instead of a big piece of paper, and the advantage to doing this on a computer is that your piece of paper can be infinitely large and you won't ever run out of space.

I will sometimes skip this step if I already know what order things are going to happen in (in that case, I just make an outline), but if it's the kind of unformed idea where I just want to write down everything that happens as I think of it so I won't forget it later, then I use a mind map.

I also use it to write down bits of dialogue as I think of them; the program I use lets me change fonts and colors and so on, so I have color-coded my dialogue by character:

I feel like I have probably posted this before but Tumblr is not letting me search. Also, this is probably not how you're supposed to use this, judging by how it exports data, but whatever.

There are a variety of programs that can help you make mind maps, and I'm sure a lot of them are good. The one I use is Scapple, which I like for a few reasons: it's very easy to use (you type something in, and then to connect two bubbles you drag one on top of the other) in a way that gives you a lot of freedom; it's not a subscription model like a lot of apps are (you buy it, you pay once, you can use it forever, and it costs about $20); and mostly, it's made by the developer of the writing program I use (Scrivener), meaning that the two programs integrate very well.

So then there's Scrivener.

Scrivener is probably the absolute most useful software I have ever owned; I have bought it four times now. (All three desktop versions and then the iOS version.) It is a word processor that is designed to help you structure and write novels. There are similar programs for free or at least cheaper, of course, but this is the one I use. (It also isn't a subscription; you just buy it.)

The downside is that it's a very complex program. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it can look a little daunting. It's one of those programs that has hundreds of features and you will only use about fifty percent of them, but everyone uses a different fifty percent, so there's something for everyone. (It can generate character names! There's a feature on the Mac version where it can highlight words by part of speech! You can change all the icons! The LaTeX export is pretty decent!)

Honestly, as long as you can figure out how to make scenes, rearrange scenes, edit synopses, and get your work out of the program, you're good to go; that's probably what you'll be doing most of the time.

Scrivener is basically designed around the murder-wall-of-notecards writing approach. A Scrivener project contains your Draft, which can have a bunch of folders in it (chapters) which can have individual documents (scenes). Each scene has an index card associated with it, and each index card is where you can write a synopsis for each scene.

You can view your story as single scenes or as a whole story (optionally with a window showing the synopses, so you can remember what you thought was going to happen while you are writing; I have shown this above) or you can just view the synopses as an outline or as index cards, like so:

There's your murder wall right there.

Rearranging the index cards also rearranges the scenes. (Rearranging the scenes using the list in the sidebar also rearranges the scenes.) So if you want to swap scenes around, you can do that. If you want to write the end first, you can do that. If you want to add three more scenes in the middle, you can do that.

You can also search your whole project, color code the index cards, tag them however you want with keywords (e.g., a keyword for every character who appears in the scene) and then look at everything you've tagged with particular keywords, notate scenes by whether they're done or not, and basically everything else you can think of. Mostly I have used this to color code scenes by POV so I can keep track of who's talking; I could also have used keywords.

So my first move when I start a project in Scrivener is to make a bunch of blank documents for all the scenes I think I will have, give them some kind of meaningful title, start writing down on the notecards things that will happen in each scene, and then move them around. This is where Scapple comes in handy -- both because I already have an idea from making a mind map in Scapple of what scenes I want, and also because the integration between Scapple and Scrivener makes it really, really easy to get started.

How do Scapple and Scrivener integrate, you ask? If you make a mind map in Scapple, you can drag and drop it into Scrivener and it will automatically make one scene for every bubble you have, and the text of each bubble will be on the notecard, so you can basically start with all of your scenes that you already have made in Scapple and then reorder them as you like.

Scrivener projects also have a Research section, where you can store basically anything related to what you're working on; you can set it to show your draft and your research at the same time. Basically anything can go in here. Mine usually have notes, more notes, character information, lines I cut but wanted to save somewhere (there is also a versioning system built in if you prefer that), comics panels, reference pictures, and entire webpages. This way, you'll never have to figure out what you did with that thing you looked up for your story, because you can keep it right there with your story.

Scrivener costs $60, which is kind of a lot, but there are very often coupons for 50% off from online software retailers (I just saw one on Boing Boing a couple days ago that still works as of the time I am answering this; I can vouch that they are a legit retailer). Also if you know anyone who has won NaNoWriMo, they get a Scrivener coupon as part of their winnings, and some people don't use theirs. It has a thirty-day free trial period (IIRC that's 30 days of use, not 30 calendar days) so you can try it and see if it works for you.

I also made a Compile Format for Scrivener 3 -- the current version -- so I can export HTML suitable for AO3 or Dreamwidth in one click. Scrivener can export your work in basically any format you can think of, but the default HTML exports all have too much stuff in them for my liking.

(Scrivener also has a bunch of preset templates for various kinds of writing -- like, there's a Novel template with room for character sheets and settings and all of that. You can make your own template, too. I actually made my own template for writing fanfiction for AO3. I'm not sharing this one because it is so personalized to me that it wouldn't be useful -- but, for example, I already know that I'm going to want a document in my Research section where I list notes about canon, and one where I list what bits I need to edit, and one where I copy in any conversations I've had with beta readers that I might want to refer to, and one where I list the things that will be in the AO3 header (it contains empty spaces for Title, Fandom, Tags, Summary, etc) so I can now always start with that. You can make a template yourself by opening a new project, setting it up exactly the way you like with the Research documents exactly the way you want, and then doing File > Save as Template. It will copy everything including any text that's in there so you want to use something that doesn't already have any story or research content written in it because then that will get copied. But it's a real timesaver.)

Anyway. Scrivener is the best.

[sarcasticsciencefictionwriter]

For the three sentence prompt! How about Henry and Kate but they work in an office (you can choose the type of office)??

*claps hands* Thanks you! Okay, the way I work with these, I write three sentences and then do an extended scene underneath, because I have zero self-restraint. (I also have zero knowledge of office jobs, so I hope you like this 😅)

____

Henry was trying to ignore just how much Kate was questioning him, arguing with everything he said, laughing when he smacked his head on the desk that he was laying underneath, calling him by a nickname that he was very unappreciative of.

It wasn't that he didn't like her, because he did, in an annoying-little-sister way, but it was getting a little tiresome, especially considering the fact that he was doing this for her as a favor, not because he was actually being paid to do it.

Still, Kate's triumphant crow of that nickname when her computer lit back up with her work was worth it, along with her helping him to his feet, especially when she suggested that she pay for a meal once they were both out of the office for the night.

"Are you sure that you know what you're doing, Hank?"

"Henry. Not Hank." Henry corrected, annoyed, as he navigated the mess of cords that were underneath the desk.

"Whatever. You've been down there for a pretty long time."

"I wouldn't be down here at all if someone hadn't tried to play a CD at the same time they were going through a boatload of data."

"You're joking! There's no way my music did all that. It has to be the database."

"Whatever software you downloaded to use the CD made the whole thing overload." Henry countered, navigating another cord and silently cursing.

It really was time for an upgrade on the tech, like he had been insisting, because the amount of cords down here was ridiculous.

But he finally managed to get the CD to eject and he snatched it out of the drive, sitting up only to crack his head into the bottom of the desk.

Kate laughed, leaning over the cubicle wall a little further. Henry had no idea how she was managing that, considering that she was practically too short too even see over them in the first place.

"This thing is the whole problem, not the system." he said, waving it as he rubbed his head.

"So you say."

"Yes, so I say."

"You have no proof." Kate said smugly, grinning as she looked down at him.

"If you wanted proof, you should have called the IT department, not me."

"IT takes forever and you're ten feet away. Do the math, Hank."

"It's Henry."

He dove back under the desk, fiddling with things.

Henry liked Kate. He really did. She was new and probably not well suited to an office job when it really came to it, but she had 'needed a job that was considered boring and legal' and, well, the boss always liked to take in strays.

But she was also infuriating, calling him Hank, taking folders full of files and not putting them back when she was done, using company computers to play CDs on sketchy software.

Then running to Henry when something happened.

The thing about Kate was that none of it was malicious. She simply did something and was bewildered when it made someone unhappy or something stop working.

Which was probably why Henry liked her as much as he did.

That, and she reminded him powerfully of someone else.

"Do you actually know what you're doing down there?" Kate repeated now, as he disconnected a cord.

"Yes, I do."

"Mmm."

"Call IT if you want it done differently."

"Can't, it's like ten thirty. Everyone else went home."

"Why didn't you?" Henry grunted as he shoved himself further across the carpet to get a better look.

Kate didn't answer for such a long time that Henry figured that she just hadn't heard him. Which was fine, because it allowed him to work in silence.

"I can't mess this up." Kate said quietly. "Magnus took a chance on me. I can't show her that she made the wrong choice."

Henry paused for a moment, deciding not to say anything. The boss wasn't likely to boot Kate for little mistakes, especially when she was new, and she probably would have been shocked to learn that Kate was still here, though there was no doubt in Henry's mind she herself was still up in her office, going through the paperwork that always piled up.

Kate fell silent and Henry realized that his silence probably hadn't been the most helpful thing in the world, but he ignored this as he finally managed to reroute things so that the computer would reboot without erasing anything. It was a little trick he had learned a few years back, teaching another stubborn girl to use the system.

"Way to go, Hank!" Kate crowed and he slid out from beneath the desk to see that the computer screen was glowing once again, displaying the database.

Kate walked around the cubicle wall and reached down, surprising Henry, but he took her hand and let her help haul him to his feet.

"Just try not to do it again." he said, running a hand through his hair.

Kate nodded, looking a little sheepish.

"I'm buying you dinner when I'm done." she declared, poking him in the chest and dropping down into her chair.

"Fine, but I get to pick."

"Deal."

Henry edged out of Kate's space as she spun in her chair, drumming her fingers along the edge of the desk before she went back to typing.

Really, most private medical foundations wouldn't have hired someone like Kate, especially not for the data, paperwork, and filing bit, but she was a hard worker and stubborn as they came.

Henry trudged his way back into his office, leaving the door part way open and dropping back down at his desk and the stack of papers that was still sitting there.

He was supposed to be going over the reports from their latest medical study for Magnus, reviewing them and stuff before sending them up to her for final approval, but he was finding it extremely hard to concentrate at the moment.

He was pretty sure that the actual doctors and medical geniuses had the easy part of the job. All they did was cut people open and perform treatments. The people like Henry and Kate were the ones that kept the gears turning.

Henry had only been back at it for about ten minutes when there was a knock on his doorway.

He looked up to see Kate standing there.

"Yeah?"

"It didn't exactly say thank you."

"Don't worry about it."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

Henry rubbed his eyes tiredly as he skimmed the reports, taking notes of the side effects and such so that he could enter it into the database at some point.

It was easier to take notes by hand as he went instead of having to read it all and enter it all in the database at the same time.

"Hank?"

Henry sighed a little and looked up at Kate.

"It is past office hours."

"So?"

"You wanna get dinner now?"

Henry felt his shouldres slump, even as he smiled a little.

"Yeah. I'd like that."

"Great!"

Kate bounced back out into the main office area to her desk, which Henry could see from his door. He watched as she powered down the computer and pulled on her jacket.

"Hank, come on!"

"I'm coming!"

Henry got up, turned off everything, and followed Kate out of the office.

[hazelnut-u-out]

i've been neglecting morty in my fics lately, so i tried my hand at writing him again.

just something short and sweet to play around with, plus some effort to explore a few other characters!

anyway, ao3 link here! full text below the cut. :)

'Choosing to Sabotage Your Social Life'

2400 words

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Morty tightened his grip on the steering wheel, that familiar vortex pulling at the inside of his ribs and aching his stomach. 

Anger. 

It was budding from annoyance. He had to be honest, he’d been angry since his phone had rang an hour ago, and even angrier when he’d realized Rick had locked the portal gun in his safe. 

There was a whoosh and a slight jolt as the ship entered the asteroid’s artificial atmosphere, marked by a distinctive layer of thick cobalt clouds. 

“Arrived: Asteroid 3-D89,” the ship’s AI said flatly. “If anyone cares, that is.”

“Jeez, man,” Morty huffed, tapping his left foot with irritation. “I’m not Rick. You don’t have to be so harsh.” 

“Try not to take it personally. I’m programmed with a predisposition to conversational flippancy.” She still sounded annoyed, but Morty was beginning to think it was her default. 

“Whatever. Thanks for the directions.”

Morty squinted, trying to get a feel for the parking situation the best he could in the flashing neon haze. 

These sorts of things always made him nervous. He’d only been to this bar one other time, and Rick had been driving. Morty still wasn’t sure why they’d gone there, but he’d chalked it up to some sort of sketchy space drug deal. Most of Rick’s shit was like that– or close enough that he could get an idea of what was going on by picturing that scenario in his head. 

One visit– especially one where he hadn’t driven– wasn’t enough to be comfortable with the location, and his chest swelled with anxiety. There were a lot of variables he couldn’t account for. 

He brought his right thumb to his mouth, gnawing on the edge of the nail. 

Morty thought most people must feel bigger when this far above everyone else. He knew Rick did. He assumed that when everyone looked so tiny and you were already a raging narcissist, it was hard not to feel more important.

Morty felt smaller up there, though— especially when he was alone. 

The asteroid wasn’t anything impressive, literally just a mid-sized building and a parking lot large enough for twenty-five to thirty crafts at most. The horizon was the edge of the bar’s flat roof. It was rosy pink in some parts, and dark violet in others. Probably just peeps of the light mostly obscured from the three-star center of this system this time of their solar cycle. It was nearing the season change for the outer belt. The gas giants were shifting to let those blushing swathes of light reach the outskirts. 

Morty caught a glimpse of two aliens sharing what looked to be something like a cigarette at the far end of the lot. 

Still no space.

His stomach hurt. 

“Oh, thank fuck,” Morty breathed out, finally noticing an empty spot near the front right of the establishment. Relief let his shoulders fall as he pushed his hips forward. 

He positioned the ship above the space, reaching out and pressing his index finger against the auto park button.

He had to admit, it did come in handy.

Morty sighed as the ship began to lower itself slowly, bringing his hands up to cover his face. Finally– a moment to collect himself in silence. 

He sat there, a few long breaths hissing past his tense fingers and warming his cheeks, before shifting to pull out his phone. The lights outside gave a tacky overcast to the whole scene. 

He scrolled, finding his chat thread with Squanchy and typing out a quick message:

‘send him out, thx :)’

Morty stared blankly at the screen. He felt sick. 

He wasn’t ready for whatever drunk Rick was about to do or say.

“Ugh.” He pressed the home button and opened Instagram, scrolling through the explore page numbly. He thought about queuing up a playlist, but he’d probably be too overstimulated to drive and listen to music with Rick in the passenger seat. 

There was a tap at the window. Morty started, turning his head quickly and throwing his phone across the ship as he met Squanchy’s apologetic gaze. 

“Shit,” the teen muttered, plastering on an awkward smile and rolling the window down sheepishly. 

“‘Sup, kiddo?” Squanchy said softly, rubbing his elbow and lowering his eyes. 

“Nothin’ much, man!” Morty replied. “H–Hey, thanks for calling me. I wouldn’t have wanted you guys to be stuck with him.”

“Ah, no worries, buddy.” Squanchy laughed, but reached out and gently placed a warm paw on Morty’s shoulder, giving it a comforting squeeze. “Look, I’m really sorry you had to come all the way out here. I know it’s a school night on Earth and all, and you shouldn’t have to be dealing with this sorta shit.” 

Morty didn’t know why, but he felt a lump in his throat. He swallowed it down, leaning into the kind touch a bit. 

“Don’t be silly. My parents hardly notice when I’m gone,” he said, bringing a hand up and resting it on the other’s paw. “Where is the old fart, anyway?”

“Uh…” Squanchy pulled his arm back, that apologetic look creeping onto his expression once again as he rubbed the back of his neck. “He said to tell ya he’d be a minute, and that you could come in and watch him if you wanted. I told him you’d probably say no, and that they don’t let kids in here.”

Morty quirked an eyebrow. “Watch him do what, exactly?”

“Karaoke… Sort of. It’s more squanchin’ at this point.” The words came out with an uncomfortable twinge. 

“Oh,” Morty said, more flatly than he’d meant to. “Just… tell him I’ll be in the car, yeah?” 

“I’ll let ‘em know,” Squanchy said, turning. Morty reached to roll the window back up before his grandfather’s friend turned back around. “Sorry, again. Let me know when you guys make it home, yeah?”

“It’s really no problem, but sure thing, dude.”

Morty rolled the window up the rest of the way. 

It was a few more minutes before a large, burly-looking turquoise alien came out, grasping a flailing Rick at the shoulders with a sturdy set of tentacles. Morty took a breath to steady himself— trying to remind himself how to look normal— and hopped out of the car, his slippers making a gentle sort of ‘clack’ sound on the pavement. 

He was suddenly very aware of his matching yellow pajama set. They probably thought he was ten years old! 

“Over here!” The boy waved one arm over his head, motioning for the creature to deliver his grandfather to where he stood. 

The alien acknowledged him with a kind nod, tucking the old man in on one side and adjusting his trajectory slightly to their left. 

“Thanks for bringing him out, sir,” Morty said bashfully as the creature got close enough to hear. He gestured for him to follow, walking around the ship and opening the passenger side door. “You–You can put him in here if you want.”

“Don’t thank him, you little dick,” Rick slurred with a hiss, spittle flying out when his teeth touched. “Asshole pulled me o–off stage in the middle of an encore.” 

“Morty, right?” The alien asked, ignoring Rick and placing him on the seat. He leaned in and secured the buckle, much to the elder’s physical protest. 

His syntax was sort of clicky and had a rasp to it that Morty found quite pleasant. 

“That’s my name!” Morty said, throwing out a little finger gun in a desperate attempt to seem casual, immediately regretting it. 

“Mooooorty,” Rick whined. “I said do–” 

A tentacle reached out and slammed the door, cutting the old man’s sentence short.

Okay, yeah. Morty really liked this guy. 

“Your grandpa here talks a lot about you. I hear you’re a pretty smart kid,” he said, closing two of his four eyes in what Morty assumed was a rough approximation of a wink. 

“Pffff, nah,” the kid said, waving one hand dismissively. 

“Whatever you say, little guy. Well, have a safe trip home!” The kind stranger trilled, heading back towards the opening of the bar. 

“Yeah, you too!” Morty chirped in response, making a mental note to punch himself for it later. 

“That was real rude of you, Morty ,” Rick snapped when Morty climbed back into the driver’s seat, hissing his grandson’s name as if it were a curse word. 

Morty sighed, clicking his belt buckle into place and twisting the key. 

Angry drunk it was, then. 

“What was?” Morty inquired, lifting the ship from the ground. “Car, could you pull up some directions to get us home, please?”

“Sure, yeah, of course,” the ship replied, displaying a little map with a yellow point to indicate their current position. She spoke slowly, almost as if she’d made a conscious effort to sound pleasant. 

It didn’t work.

“Thank you.” 

Morty made a point to thank her when he remembered to. 

“Not comin’ in t–to watch me perform. You wonder why no one likes you, but… but maybe it’s because you don’t even try,” the elder grumbled, bringing his knees up to hug them and pressing one cheek against the glass.

The ship punched a second hole in that layer of plush clouds and the blur of stars started to lull past them. 

“Oh, yeah. I’m so sorry for coming to pick you up at 3 a.m.” Morty gripped the wheel so hard his knuckles turned white. “I have a math test in the morning, you know.”

Breathe. 

“I’m jus–just sayin’, buddy. If you wanna have a social life, you’ve gotta make an effort.”

“Yeah, and I’m sure hanging out in some sleazy bar with a bunch of senior citizens would’ve really opened some doors for me in that department. Thanks, Rick.” Morty rolled his eyes.

“Morty, I don’t know a single alien culture as uptight about aging as humans.” 

“Good to know,” Morty said, trying his best to shake off the animosity he held and be amicable. He didn’t feel like spending the whole ride arguing, “Did you have a nice time? It must be nice to see old friends.” 

He thought maybe he tended to expect the worst with these kinds of things, often getting angry before there was much to be angry about. After all, in terms of Rick doing fucked up shit, this was a notably tolerable level of fucked up.

“Yeah, it was nice. You tend to see friends when you’re actually able to make them,” Rick replied, scoffing. Morty flinched. “Can I ask ya something?” 

“Shoot,” Morty said, checking his blind spot.

It was pointless. Space was painfully empty, but Jerry had argued with Rick about it during a lesson once and his brain had latched onto the idea of something being there— not that there was even a need to merge. He just made sure Rick never caught him glancing. 

“Do I have a vibe about me?” 

Morty raised a brow, not able to stop himself from smiling at the humor in the question. “Uh, I’d say yeah. Everyone does. That’s how vibes work.”

“But I… I—I mean, like, a safe vibe that makes people think I’m a good listener,” Rick clarified, looking comically earnest. “Like a, uh… therapist vibe, I guess?”

Morty let out a deep laugh at that one, much to his grandfather’s bewilderment. He abandoned the wheel to clutch his stomach. Wiping away a tear, he wheezed out, “No. I’d— ah… I’d say you’re good on that one. I don’t think I’ve ever gotten the vibe that you wanted to listen to me.”

“Well,” Rick said, pouting and crossing his arms with a huff. “I think all the lonely old drunks in there would’ve disagreed.” 

“Oh, really ?” Morty teased, giggling again. 

“Yes!” Rick said, seeming to miss the sarcasm in Morty’s playful retort. “Had some weird lady come up and tell me her brother died in some accident the other day. I don’t even have any siblings!” He threw his hands in the air for dramatic effect, looking more like a wrinkly child in a disheveled lab coat than a live-in grandpa of two. Morty stifled another laugh. “D—Do I look like a guy that could relate to that? What do you even say to something like that as an only child?!” 

“Maybe you just look like a sad drunk,” Morty offered, shrugging. “Or maybe it was the charming karaoke that made you seem so open-minded and approachable.” 

“Eh.” Rick tried to shrug, but slumped forward too quickly, bouncing his head off the dash. Morty winced on his behalf. “You ruined the whole night, though. Had to tell ‘em I had to go because you—you didn’t wanna come in and spend time with your grandpa. Fu—Fuckin’… family and your generation don’t mix.” 

Morty felt that familiar itch beneath his skin— that incessant irritation begging to bubble out of him and grab Rick by the throat. 

“I dunno why you say these things,” Morty grumbled through clenched teeth, his back straightening. “I just wanted to be helpful. That bar wouldn’t have let me in, anyway. I’m in my pajamas .”

“I mean, think about it,” Rick said mockingly. “At least her brother died in a way she couldn’t control. You left your sister to die. We’re one and the same, buddy— you and me.” The elder threw a hand out on his shoulder, shaking the teen so hard that the ship rocked with them. “Deadbeats.”

Morty didn’t know if the tears were from anger, grief, guilt, or that ever-constant pit in his chest he could never quite fill up, but he let them slip out silently, anyway. 

——

“What did you say to her?” Morty asked, barely audible, after a bit. 

“Hm?” Rick hummed, now reclined and nearly comatose on his back, wrapped in a tight swaddle he’d clumsily fashioned from his own lab coat. “Who?” 

“The lady whose brother died. What’d you say to her?” 

He didn’t really know why he cared what Rick had said. He thought, maybe, he just wanted to know if he’d have done something different. 

“Oh. I told her to fuck off,” Rick slurred matter-of-factly. “Did her a favor. Ya can’t expect the universe to baby you. We all lose something to it.” 

“Huh,” Morty breathed, feeling a bit lighter. “I would’ve offered her a hug,” He thought out loud. “I would’ve listened.” 

Rick snored. Morty listened.

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