#while i dont know the actual name of that drawing or who made it (despite my researching) it will come up when you search 'tamara and demon

[arielluva]

utena and witch

(based off of this, which i unfortunately do not know the original artist of, sadly)

[bloompompom]

HELLO I don’t know if you take requests but I LOVED that post you made today from the ask so if you do, I was thinking about what Eren would be like if reader called/texted him while he was at work and teased him over the phone by touching themselves? YOU ABSOLUTELY DONT HAVE TO DO THIS IF YOU DONT WANT I just love how you write Eren you are one of my favorite writers for him

hehe i wouldn't say i often take requests but i'll entertain if something tickles me. i'll always say yes to you though, especially because you asked so nicely🤍

content: ~1.5k word count. husband!eren x female!reader. nudes, phone sex, semi-public masturbation, light degradation, 18+ only.

eren didn't want to go to work, believe him. who actually wants to go to work, anyway? despite his convincing, you were still acting as if he wanted to leave your side, pouting in bed when he wouldn't spoon you for 'just one more minute' because he knew it would turn into ten.

as much as he wished he could stay home and spend the day with you, he couldn't. he couldn't even risk running behind this morning because his day was to start at nine o'clock sharp, stacked full with back-to-back meetings. but based on the look you shot him on his way out the door, eren had a feeling you were about to make his long day a whole lot longer.

he had only been at work for about an hour before you texted. enjoying your day without me? the message, though it made him roll his eyes, was innocent enough. but that didn't last long.

during his second meeting of the day, already dragging by slower than the first, eren felt his phone vibrate against his thigh. he didn't need to look to know it was another message from you, especially after it buzzed again, taunting him.

just a peek wouldn't hurt, he thought, i don't even have to reply right away. the meeting was being held over video call; no one would even know if he checked his phone.

face trained straight ahead, directly toward the monitor, he slipped his phone from his pocket. in short bursts, he flitted his eyes down to unlock his phone, then again to swipe to your messages. he tried his best to be subtle with it.

miss me yet?

below it, in a separate message, a photo of you.

yes, he tried to be subtle with it, but he failed. big time.

eyes widened in shock, eren darted a hand out to shut his camera off. he hastily blamed it on technical difficulties, all the while, he was responding to you in frenzy.

baby, you cannot be doing this to me right now. you know i’m in an important meeting!

he watched—more like gawked at the image—as you quickly typed out, call me after ♡

by the look of it, you were still lounged in bed, right where he had left you. the only thing that changed was that you now wore next to nothing. barely covered by your thin bedsheet, eren admired your form.

he had seen you like this, countless times. he had learned every curve beneath his fingertips so intimately that he could draw you off memory alone if he had the knack for it. but there was something different—perhaps something more special—about the sight when you had captured it on camera for him. knowing you settled back into your shared bed, the one he devotedly fucked you in near-nightly, spread your pretty pussy, and snapped a photo with no one but him clouding your thoughts.

eren couldn't help but stare for a minute, maybe longer. the meeting had fizzled into nothing more than white noise. if someone were to call his name right now, he doubted he'd hear it. he couldn't remember the last time he'd been so flustered, but even after all the years spent together, you still managed to have that effect on him whether he liked it or not.

it was obvious you were up to no good—practically asking for trouble, except he was the one who'd inevitably take the fall for it. he didn't have the time to call you unless he wished to have his boss chew him out. even so, he found himself stumbling into your trap. he was only human, after all; he wasn't above thinking with his dick from time to time. so he rang you between meetings, justifying it by calling with only a single earbud in, foolishly convinced he could multitask while on the phone with you.

after a few rings, you answered. at least, eren was pretty sure you answered. the line was silent. there was a split second where he thought the call had dropped. as he started to say your name, he was interrupted. he heard soft breaths on the other end of the phone. tiny noises, like hums and huffs through your nose. eren's mouth ran dry.

"ah—i need you," you breathed, gasped. "i couldn't wait for you to get home."

you feigned innocence as you said it, your voice sweetened up as if you were truly helpless. but your husband knew you better than that; he knew he didn't have a demure little wife waiting for him at home, but fuck, did he find it hot. so he'd always fall for the act anyway.

caught up in it, eren's fingertips ghosted over his keyboard with a slight tremble. his eyes were on his computer screen, but the documents were blurry and out of focus. everything was blurry and out of focus, except you of course.

he needed to know what you were doing to yourself. did you have your vibrator? if so, which one did you choose? or had you decided to use your fingers, circling the pads of them against your clit? maybe you were fingering yourself, knuckles deep but whining for more, growing wetter by the second as you dreamt of his fingers—how they could reach places yours couldn't.

before he could ask—discover if you were grinding against your hand or his pillow—the door to his office flew open.

“jaeger, i—"

eren jolted, almost to a comical degree, and his co-worker rightfully laughed, offhandedly commenting how he didn't seem the type to startle easily. eren spoke with him—well, tried to speak with him. it was a challenge because he still had you in his ear, moaning now, louder than before. you were asking where he had gone, begging for him to talk you through it—to tell you every dirty thing he wanted to do to you.

eren couldn't repeat a word his co-worker had said to him. he only waited for him to finish, cleared his throat, and told him to close the door on his way out. eren then marked out for lunch, hoping it would buy him some time.

whether it was his sense of decency or self-control that snapped first, eren wasn't sure. but when you cried out his name, he could no longer stop himself from reaching for his cock, throbbing to be touched by you. his hand would have to suffice for now.

cursing both you and himself, he tugged his slacks down to the middle of his thighs, just low enough that he could touch himself, too. eren thumbed over the leaky tip of his cock, hissing in a tangled mix of relief and utter humiliation. he couldn't believe you had brought him to his knees like this. succumbing to jerking himself at work had to be a new low, even for him.

"what a needy little thing you are," eren spoke into the phone. his voice was quiet but guttural and deeply authoritative. "thinking you can interrupt my workday just so i can help get you off."

he made it sound like a burden, but he only fisted his cock faster.

"yes," you moaned, drawing out the simple word as if it were longer than just the syllable. you were babbling now, talking to him exactly how he liked. "fuck, i'm your needy little thing—your needy little slut."

his brain short-circuited then and there, incapacitating him to the point where he could only mutter on about how fucking hot you were between breaths, squeezing his cock as if his hand could ever compare to you.

you were close; he could hear it when you whimpered, "eren—"

“that’s right," he cut in. he was right there with you. "only think about me when you come. think about coming all over my cock like a good girl."

with his free hand, eren pulled up the picture you sent him, staring at you while your moans became strained and choppy on the other end of the phone. such a perfect pussy, he thought, like it was made just for him.

your breath hitched in your throat, the final tell-tale sign that you were coming undone.

“that's it. come for me, baby." he needed to finish when you did. he stroked himself, not minding the squeak in his chair as he quickened his pace. "i wanna hear it—god, i need to hear you."

one last sob, ripped right from the pit of your lungs, and eren came with you. his stomach tightened, eyes screwing shut, as he toppled over the edge of his release. he pumped himself through it, even when it was nearly too much, until he knew you had stopped twitching and were blissfully lazed in bed.

only then did he come to his senses again, swearing under his breath when he realized his situation—the mess he made across his phone, not to mention on his slacks.

you were giggling into the phone now; eren could hear your breathless smile in it. there was no returning to work now, was there?

"fine. you win," he surrendered with a sigh. he logged out of his computer. "i'll be home in thirty minutes."

[ge]

what do you like about rotmhs? like what draws you in?

GAHH IM SO GLAD YOU ASKEDDD at the top of my head thhe top three things i felt really drew me into and made me fall in love w rotmhs is the found family/bonds before blood narrative, the action/fight scenes, and the comedy..

rotmhs is not a romance and i feel like that really pushes people away from reading it, especially folks who were first introduced to east asian novels through bl (specifically mxtxs novels like mdzs tgcf etc etc) which i feel is incredibly disappointing because yallre missing out on a certain depth of writing and nuance you otherwise wouldnt get in a romance focused novel. (orv is another extremely popular knovel with no romance.. if you like orv PLEASE give rotmhs a shot)

rotmhs is about a dead man resurrected a hundred years into the future having to come to terms w the fact that everyone he loved is dead and that the only home he ever had was destroyed, its inhabitants and centuries worth of teachings burned to the ground, and that it was partially his fault these things happened, so in order to prevent a future catastrophe he knows is on the horizon, he trains the youth of this new generation and finds a new home surrounded by ghosts in the wreckage of his home of his past

⬆️…very dramatic but somewhat accurate barebones synopsis of rotmhs which is fairly faithful enough methinks.. rotmhs doesnt make a point of going ‘heyy these guys are family nowww theyre brothers and sisters and love each other like familyyy’ LOL the growth is very subtle and before u can really blink ur like ‘oh man.. chung myung would kill for these kids. obliviously though. i dont think he knows he even likes them’ all the while hes still aching w the loss of his loved ones before.. if we’re being really really honest chung myung, the mc, truly is the star of the show and a character i got attached to incredibly quickly.. hes so stupid but so smart he has so many issues i want to hit him with my car then nurse him back to health just to hit him again

chung myung himself is a whole other thing i could get into but he has so many layers.. so much depth.. on the surface ud look at him and think what a punk but look a little closer and then ud think oh this punk has depression ptsd survivors guilt hallucinations etc etc LIKE DAMN.. I THIUGHT HE WAS JUST A FUNNY LITTLE GUY WHYD I GET SUCKER PUNCHED

what was i even talking about. OH right romance. please please dont let the lack of romance dissuade you, imo it is soooo refreshing to read something that isnt focused on romance like i love yaoi like the next bl reading bitch but damn.. ive always been into found family and while the bl novels i have read did always have a little hint of it, i always wanted more and rotmhs fills that void

(that being said i cant stop yall from shipping if yall want LOL im guilty of shipping charas too despite everythiing i just said… if yall want yalls yaoiyuri fix may i direct yalls attention to the ‘doomed by the narrative, tragic best-friends-to-almost-lovers tangchung’ & ‘love at first sight sweethearts iseolsoso’ ….. :SMILES: I LOVE TANGCHUNG..!!!!!!)

NEXT, the action and fight scenes in rotmhs, even in written text form, are sublime to say the least.. my fail cis dudebro trait is that i love crazy insane adrenaline rushing heart pumping shounen-esque battles so much that i could typically care less for the rest of that specific piece of media as long as the fights are good.. FORTUNATELY FOR ME rotmhs is crazy good at balancing its comedy, action, and otherwise more ‘mundane’ scenes together so harmoniously that its such fun read even when theres no swords crossing or heads being beaten in

also important to note, despite being a knovel w korean naming of characters/places, rotmhs actually takes place in ancient china in a wuxia setting so jumping head first into it wont be all that confusing for first time readers/cmedia fans and u can use ur knowledge of cnovels to fill in the gaps.

theres not really much more i have to say on the topic of fighting, im just personally a huge fan of the crazy spectacles rotmhs brings to the table.

saved this for last but THE COMEDY…!!!!!!!! after being soo dramatic w all my previous points and comments ur probably thnkng rotmhs is heavy and somber w no breathing room.. WELL YOURE WRONG. ROTMHS IS FUNNY AS HELL quips and jokes and simple funny actions and scenes litter nearly every page. i mentioned this novel balances its action and comedy well and im NOT LYING youd think maybe the heavy action and light comedy would awkwardly clash but u cldnt be more further from the truth.. rotmhs wears action and comedy like a pair of twin gloves

rotmhs handles its action and comedy in equal doses and it all fits together like matching puzzle pieces, like i really cant stress enough how fun it is to read. not every fight scene is somber, most of the time its chung myung oneshotting someone by hitting them across the head so hard they pass out..

unfortunately im not really the best at listing instances so its be better for u to go read it for urself but this scene from one of the later chapters is soo funny every time i read it i start giggling

(LIGHT/MINOR SPOILERS FOR THE NOVEL it probably doesnt even matter u wont even remember this when u start reading)

right so i think thats most of it.. too lazy to read through everything i just wrote so if nothing makes sense… well. …well!

rotmhs deserves to have the same amount of fame as ORV and MDZS and TGCF have and it is my civil duty as one of the oldest mxtx novel outlets on tumblr to put yall on it..

my thumbs hurt from typing so im done now but if u have anymore questions PLEASE ASK IM SO DESPERATE TO TALK ABOUT ROTMHS ok byyyeeeeeeee

[imminent-danger-came]

tbh you are so real for talking about the misogyny targeted to mei & other women in the lmk fandom. in general its like people only value mei as: a: the wingman to some basic mlm ship or b: macaque 2.0. its honestly crazy how so many male side characters overshadow her in the fanbase despite not even having a FRACTION of her screen time. idk chat i feel like the reason people dont care about mei but care about some random male side/background character is less because they're inherently more likeable but because some of you view women as inherently less likable. and everyone is always like "mei is so girlboss pussy cunt slay shes the only reason theyre still alive because she keeps them safe from their silly boy shennanigans shes their ultimate wingman shes so badass shes their lesbian best friend i totally paid attention to her when i watched this show LOL" and even ignoring the obvious misogyny here (ie. how people reduce her to being the male characters babysitter) its like... okay... i know mei is cool & badass already... could you name literally ANY other character trait she has. like people just value her as being "the braincell" who can get red son and mk together or something stupid and its like are we having fun still is this still fun. literally every day i go into the mei tag its like "look at mei shes red sons wifey and shes vaguely in the background of this drawing of red son and mk staring into each others eyes #trafficlighttrio am i right oh look shes macaques niece now this post is about ao lie why is it in the mei tag"

and thats literally JUST talking about mei and it doesnt even begin to cover the other female characters. chang'e constantly gets reduced to being red sons aunt/mom/big sister despite them like. not having any actual interactions in the show. lady bone demon constantly gets overshadowed by her minion who has like 2 seconds of screen time, or she gets made into a cartoonishly abusive madwoman who people call lady bitch demon. just in general people act like shes a horrible person for like. being a villain. liks yeah the trying to destroy everything was bad but also she was an antagonist and thats what antagonists do LOL. spider queen gets completely ignored. princess iron fan gets made into a cartoonishly abusive mother so that way red son can have a poor angsty backstory and some male character (usually nezha, macaque, swk) can take care of him.

(also theres just a great deal of ethnocentrism in the lmk fanbase? like im white so take what İ say here with a grain of salt but so many people will misconstrue aspects of chinese culture for their own personal hcs. people will say male characters are transfem or nonbinary while completely ignoring the time period/culture their from where thats the norm. like yippee youve implied that an east asian man is feminine/emasculine because he has long hair. how do you not see the negative connotations with this. people also turn pif (& lbd to an extent) into a dragon lady which obviously has negative racial connotations lol.)

anyway this is where my unhinged rambling ends have a good day have a good night İ had more to say here but İ reached the text limit. İ dont see a lot of people talk about the misogyny thats prevalent in the lmk fanbase so İm glad youre pointing it out lol.

Yeah, I totally hear you. The lmk fandom has plenty of issues with misogyny and, like you said, ethnocentrism. It's definitely something worth having a discussion about, along with these issues in fandom as a whole.

[t1meslayer]

Busy with important family events over the next couple of days, and so I thought it would be good to get a day-and-date release for this Debrief on the latest entry in my Sapphic Valley series, "How You Get The Girl." Be sure to read the story before jumping in!

Did you do it? Did you read the story?

Alright, I'm trusting you. Go ahead and hit that 'Keep Reading' button you scamp.

It only seems appropriate to start this Debrief off by addressing the elephant in the room. I haven't posted anything in over a month, and "By Moonlight" came about a month after its predecessor, the conclusion to "Stone-Cold Lovers."

Work, naturally, has been a major factor.

You can see me talk about that almost two weeks ago in this Tumblr post I made about writing in a coffee shop, which came weeks after I actually started writing during a trip to a friend's house.

===

Side note:

Just wanted to take a moment and acknowledge my beautiful Haley and Emily keychains. My friend who's responsible for the affairs of one ghostly farmer named Jizzabelle (Gisabelle to the laymen) got them for me! Only appropriate after I commissioned some art of her and Abigail.

Emily was my first Stardew wife, and Haley currently holds the biggest place in my heart. They make a lovely duo!

And I'll avoid any sister-wife jokes

===

While I've had some other projects like Zine writing to take care of, work and life can't explain the full absence.

The best way I can think to explain things is that:

I had the general writer's block, and

Despite the best intentions and advice of my irl friends and online pals like @alchemicallymoon and @duelbraids, I couldn't force myself to "break" that block by just... Writing something else.

This is entirely the result of my own psychosis. I have a tendency to carefully plot things out and impose a timetable that really doesn't need to exist. When I feel the cause is righteous enough, it's hard to get around that. In this case, I knew I needed to get my poll-winning idea out after dawdling for holidays like Valentine's Day, and then I knew I only wanted to post one more story before jumping on a very special event for my upcoming 30th AO3 post.

Thus, here we are: arbitrarily forcing myself into a spiral of writer's block misery because of a silly promise on Tumblr and my own sense of ordered chaos.

At the very least, this meant it's coming out not long after my AO3 pal InsertACatchyPennameHere also emerged from the woodwork to tell me they're working on something INSPIRED by my four-person friend group farm adaptations.

Much love to them, wherever they may be.

I'll probably start writing more eclectically now that my shoulders are unweighed, but don't expect my next publication to hit until I'm finished working on teasing the big event. All you Pokemon fans better get hype!

And oh how sweet this publication feels. Between my great set of recent ceramics, the figure drawing class I've been attending, and creative writing, I've felt more fulfilled than ever.

You're here to talk about Stardew, though. So let us talk.

This idea began less with any one event as it did a desire to advance the Alexis/Haley relationship, and Haley's characterization in particular. It was always going to end with watercolor painting reference, but 2 Willow Lane was what I really wanted to dig into.

As I see it, a lot of what keeps people invested in Stardew when its comfy vibes becoming routine is the air of mystery in Eric Barone's worldbuilding. Haley and Emily's parents being some world-traveling duo who left their home in the siblings' care for who knows how long (and who knows how many times over their lifetime) really piqued my interest. So much so that the new writing challenge I set for myself in "How You Get The Girl" was crafting a particularly long set of descriptions that emphasize how overwhelming the parents' influence feels — without creating an impenetrable wall of text.

Hopefully I succeeded in that. Let me know!

I tried to include some vaguely real world-adjacent references into that description of the house, as happens with the magical-realism world of Stardew Valley. For example:

The computer sitting next to their bonsai tree is an iMac G3, the kind of old 'futuristic' tech that my dad loves!

A Speedwell refrigerator is based on even more vintage tech, the Mayflower fridge, but named after a different ship ridden by Pilgrims coming to America.

That city that the family visited in an old photograph with a "monument of arching, interlocking steel" is, of course, Paris — with the statue bookends referencing any number of statues in the Louvre.

Haley's FAD magazine could be referencing any number of publications, but Vogue is probably the closest analogue to what I imagine her reading.

Furthermore, I took some notes on describing the home's layout off of my sister's apartment building, and I asked my bestie @trybard for input on what kind of hanging plant should be used in the transitional hallway. Hanging pothos, philodendron, and spider plants were the three options provided, and my response was appropriate:

They know so much about plants.

Go bug them about it.

I drew on other friends' knowledge to help decorate the house. Specifically, I asked one of my witchiest friends what kinds of protective wards someone like Emily would leave around doorways and windows. She had... A lot of reference material.

I picked Hazel given it purportedly "protects against evil; encourages abundance and inspiration." I also picked Amethyst as one of Emily's loved gifts, one that purportedly "absorbs negative energy, promotes harmony."

My witchy friend is the same one who provided the TikTok that I referenced in my advertisement post:

Perhaps the most important thing about 2 Willow Lane was the recurring motif of Barbie's Dream House.

As a surface-level reference, I think the groundwork is clear. Blondie's love of fashion and general queen bee demeanor fits comparisons to Barbie well, and she lives in a big ol' house full of stuff. We all saw Greta Gerwig's Barbie movie last year. It's still in the cultural zeitgeist.

I'm hip with the kids.

Yet, early on I also tried to make it clear that if this is a "dream" house, it's neither Haley's nor Emily's dream. Haley is a Barbie in that stereotypical sense, but also there's much to be mined from the analogy of a sort of powerless doll in an immutable house, constrained by social obligation to her family rather than literal plastic and stickers.

The cold open of Jodi and Sam was meant to stand alone, but in execution I also think drawing Kent's absence into the conversation makes for a more thematically rich comparison to these sisters who appear to have themselves more put together.

My beta reader said this wound up being one of my stronger stories because of how all of that intertwined, which I appreciated given how down on myself I was following the whole writer's block thing.

But also.

Also.

Alexis gets to be horny. She's hitting on lonely MILFs and watching girls shake their asses to the tune of bad reality TV.

We love a buff dommy mommy farm girl in this house.

Haley is probably horny too, she just doesn't realize it yet. For now I think it's fun enough to play into her being coy about building excuses for Alexis to come over, and then getting incensed when Emily barges in on their private time meant to learn more about this farm girl she just can't get out of her head.

===

Fun fact:

Every story in this series is named after a Taylor Swift song, but I know next-to nothing about her discography. All of them are suggestions by my friend whose house I was at when starting this story — the same one who controls Gardenia on the farm.

While I went with "How You Get The Girl," her alternative suggestion was "The Man."

===

All that w|w talk aside, I also want to give Sam the loveable idiot a shoutout. Had to do a fair bit of research into how skateboards are constructed for his failed ollie, and I slipped in a reference to shitty old technology that's exclusively for my beta reader to enjoy.

I also tried doing some agricultural research to figure out how the folks at Kevin Farm could have grown cucumbers so there'd be a jar of legitimate pickles... But that was getting too in the weeds.

Insert laugh track here

Decided to just go with pickled artichoke hearts to save everyone a lot of trouble.

And where does "Kevin Farm" come from, you may be asking yourself. Or the fabulous "Kevin's Special" with its definitely not innuendo tagline.

That story will have to wait for another day, my friends.

[quibbs126]

hear me out on a potential rare pair: knight cookie X raspberry mousse fankid. the raspberry family seems to be super into attempting to restore the house raspberry,and while knight cookie is a retainer (a paid servant who has been employed for a long time) and bodyguard,we dont actually know a lot about him or his family. heck we dont even know what type of berry he is despite him being a hollyberrian. apologiese for the infodump

Nah, you’re good on the infodump, here’s Raspberry Cheesecake Cookie

I know what I said earlier, and I’m considering taking a break, but I was already drawing him when I posted that, and I do still have a few others I had done some half sketches for that I want to finish first, so I finished him anyways. I was going to finish the Dark Choco/Raspberry kid first, but I couldn’t figure out a design for the sword hilt, so I did him first instead

So as for this guy’s name, so I know I was originally having some trouble with it. I don’t believe Knight is a berry, even if he grew up in the Hollyberry Kingdom, since I doubt every Cookie living in a kingdom of a particular flavor is of that flavor. If that makes sense. But I wasn’t sure what he was, so I was guessing around. I eventually came to Raspberry Tart, but it was still a bit before I’d get to this one. But recently I learned his dough contains at least some white chocolate, given White Choco’s Jelly description, so I worked with that for coming up with a better name. Also I wasn’t sure how to incorporate the distinct look of a raspberry tart. An idea was to name him after white chocolate filled raspberries, but also I feel like that’d be a better thing for a potential White Choco/Raspberry Mousse kid. But in that search, I found white chocolate raspberry cheesecake, so I ultimately decided to name him after that

White chocolate raspberry cheesecake:

With his design, I’ll be honest, I was kind of making things up as I went. I know I wanted his hair to be long-ish and to have pink and yellow, and I wanted him to have a rapier, but everything else just sort of happened. I think when I originally drew this, I had planned him to have a completely different outfit, likely one closer to Raspberry, but I got what I got. I like the asymmetrical cape, which I again did by accident. I realize it should probably be on the arm opposite of the one he uses, and I fixed that in the little sketch, but I thought it looked cool on that side instead. Also with the boots, I had originally intended them to be a normal length, but doing the lineart, I decided “screw it, make them higher” and yeah. Could I have made them higher? I feel like he doesn’t look much like Knight. I had intended more blue, but I just thought the reds/pinks with the yellows worked better. Actually maybe the yellow covers it. As for the feather, in my head it’d be like, behind the ear, but since Cookies don’t have ears, it’s just like, a hair clip or something, I dunno. Also I I don’t like the color of the mouth. I don’t like the red, it doesn’t look right. But that’s what Knight and Raspberry Mousse have. But overall, I generally like how his design turned out

So as for him, I’ll admit I don’t have much. Something I should admit first, but I always think Raspberry Mousse is Spanish, despite him almost certainly being French. I think it’s because around the time I discovered him, we recently saw the Puss in Boots sequel, as well as the first movie, and I think RM and Puss look kind of similar, as well as Raspberry Mousse’s skill theme having similar instruments to him. Actually I don’t know why I mentioned this, I think I just wanted to say it

Anyways, so I guess Raspberry Cheesecake is something like what I understand Zorro or Puss in Boots to be, basically a guy who travels around the land helping those in need, but without the massive ego. He probably also has a horse

Also, in reference to the little sketch, so while Raspberry Cheesecake may appear a suave and confident fighter, he’s internally a bit of an anxious mess, constantly worrying about if he’s doing things right. He’s internally always shouting. One thing I’m thinking of is that he got made into a knight of the Hollyberry Kingdom, or at least made a proper warrior, but he got too nervous about all the pressure and just decided to instead travel Earthbread. The dude needs to get a better grasp on his confidence

Also I mentioned a Dark Choco/Raspberry kid before; while I don’t think most of the kids exist in the same timeline as each other (Panela and Turtle Fudge especially), these two do, and while they’re second cousins, they’re pretty close. I haven’t gotten much around to Black Forest Cookie (I’ll give you a spoiler and tell you their name), but I do know this. I’ll probably elaborate more there

But yeah, that’s Raspberry Cheesecake. Hope you like him!

[upsidedownwanderer]

Howdy!! I don’t know how you found this account, but pretty cool that you did! Here’s my main if you’re interested

I am Astrophel—commonly known as Astro or Xurkit—and this is a side blog where I talk about The Upturned! Yeah I already do that on my main blog, but this digs into the stuff that I feel too embarrassed to share to the population! which is just. “hey what if I made my own story off an already canon one”

#wandering rambles - off topic posts

#upsidedownwanderer - story stuff. I am too lazy to put it all into separate tags

Below are character descriptions! Ocs included </33

Mr. Me Avi - The Traveler (he/they)

A lone soul who found the Upturned Inn by luck. Although their face is always unemotional, they’re easily irritable. Their mood consists of passive aggressive muttering or screaming at the nearest moving thing from fear. His anger is never sudden, instead it build ups over encounters—he’s actually quite polite at first. A few years in the apocalypse does that to you.

Ikabod Kee - The Receptionist (he/him)

A chipper snake-like soul that is stationed at the front desk of the Upturned Inn. He’s always in a good mood, and it’s hard to crack the smile on his face! A bit loud from time to time, but that’s out of excitement over seeing another face.

Shrimp - The Anomaly (it/he)

A soul locked away in one of the asylum rooms. Doesn’t show much emotion either, only reacting to toys or food. Ik occasionally calls it “Artie.”

Sobbergritch - The Inventor (he/him)

The current owner of the Upturned Inn. Hasn’t been seen or found in a long time, as it’s been told he’s in the deepest parts of the hotel. Rarely will he interrupt conversations between Avi and Ik, and the reason why is unknown. It’s hard to tell if there’s malicious intent.

The Horseman - Death (they/he/it)

A myth to many, a man to few. Guests of the inn speak of a glowing figure on horseback guiding those out of the rain, therefore out of the afterlife. They have many titles: “Death,” “The Lone Rider,” “The Morning,” but we don’t know his actual name.

OCS!! Because they’re fun and this is MY story /j

The Widow (she/her)

A soul that sulks in her own room day and night. According to guests, she still mourns over the loss of her husband, stating that “although he left me for another woman, I still love him..” When she’s not sobbing over a man, she’s very comforting to be around. A motherly figure despite having no children.

Critter (he/him)

A lil chuckler that prefers to follow the crowd. Even when showing clear excitement about something, he seems to stay quiet, as he’s afraid of bringing attention to himself. Calls Ik quite often—the two apparently see each other as family.

Flauna (they/them)

A caterpillar-like soul that’s trapped in a floor overgrown by flora. The vines of roses seem to not let anything in or out unless you’re using the elevator. A kind soul even in loneliness. If they aren’t talking about flowers, they’re probably talking about their husband. (❤️ - Sobbergritch)

Ides (any/all)

A mysterious figure that trudges through the forest outside of the Inn. Critter and Widow have found a way to leave their floors without being caught, and have met with xim before. It’s hard to fully tell what xey look like, as her body is constantly shifting into different silhouette, but you’ll always manage to find his looking eyes.

Lars (they/he/it) (belongs to @fiowersfield)

A bug like humanoid that has been lost in the afterlife for a while! they dont have a specific place where they stay at and keep wandering around, mostly following lights that they see. they are interested in the stars and usually look up at them sometimes when they get too lost in the woods. as a hobby they "draw" ( doodles in dirt ) as a way to spend some time. usually pretty nice but mostly confused because they dont think a lot. (❤️ - The Horseman)

[sleepyblr-heart]

while i work on catching you all up on the rest of present's story, i think you eserve some fun facts about her and the world she lives in! Let's start with the world!

the story she's in is collabrative (or, maybe roleplay would fit better, but we've been calling it a collabrative storyline so. pbt.) most of the characters don't belong to me, instead belonging to 2 friends of mine (waves. hi eph and pup)

the world is made of like. 4 (known) dimensions. theres the normal universe, the 4th Wall (an endless white void with a grid pattern on the floor and a forest one of the gods planted), the Inbetween (which sits between the 4th Wall and the normal universe, it's a black void filled with Things), and hell.

there have been like... 8 gods so far. 2 of them got turned into babies. ones a cat. ones an object that got murdered and turned into a ghost. ones a fox that the oldest gods decided to fuck around w/. one of them's present.

the gods have 3 basic forms (or. 2 and a vessel.) Their normal, godly form (typically humanoid but never exactly human, the newer gods stray farther away from human than the older gods). A face form (which while mainly because it's easier to draw also only allows certain, allowed objects to see them in this form), and an Object form or Vessel (typically just a vessel, unless the god was an object at some point, like present!)

there are a few species outside of regular objects (though most will prolly not come up in my summary of present's story). They are: Shapeshifters, Body snatchers, Mimics, Demons, and also like One Entire Vampire.

Certain magics are invisible to the naked eye, while others are visible. However, there are like. 2 objects who can see invisible magic as well as visible magic (along with certain supernatural creatures, specially ghosts.) One of these objects is one of present's girlfriends, Baton.

The world has almost ended like. 5 times. Surprisingly, despite being prophesied to be the one who saves the world, she has had almost no hand in helping with any of these world ending events (mostly because none of the other gods thought to tell her much about the situation)

the gods have divine weapons (though they dont need to really be weapons. one of them has a watering can and one has a dog treat.) Present's is a violin bow (literally) and rapier! dont ask how the string attached back if the rapier is unsheathed i dont know either. magic prolly.

now to present specific fun facts!

She has a fictional condition which, when in a lot of stress (or feeling to high of any emotion, really) her body temp. gets so high she catches on fire

she also has an anxiety disorder. so you know. Wonderful mix!!

she currently works at an ice cream shop run by an employee of Litterally The Worst Company Ever (BBC (Big Boss's Crew)). It's a cover-up to try and find canidates to hire at the actual company.

She has 2 very accidental children, one being a kid named Hattish which baton adopted while present was still on BFP (hattish may have also kidnapped baton but we dont need to worry about that) and Phoney, a cell phone that just. Came alive while Snowglobe, present's other girlfriend, was calling her and baton.

when she has any free time (which is a bit rare atm) she writes music! she hasn't properly published any of it, but im sure she will at some point.

present (like most gods) can create magic arms, however she actually doesn't use them too much if she can help it. she's lived her entire life using her legs or mouth for stuff, it's a bit hard to get used to using new limbs after only a few years!

she doesn't like using most of her magic unless it's needed or someone asks. (mainly because she used to not be allowed, but also she's worried of accidentally hurting someone with it.)

after the first near world ending disaster, she thought she would be returned to her normal object life, and have her magic taken away from her.

she was wrong.

she wishes she was right.

she doesn't like the color purple too much, as it reminds her of fog.

but the color purple also reminds her of one of the gods, which is one of her best friends, so she doesn't hate it!

she started wearing wrapping paper as part of her transition! it's an incredibly personal thing to her, and the only people that have been allowed to help her put on wrapping paper when it gets fucked up (or when she wants to try a new color combo) have been family, her childhood friend Candy heart and her girlfriends.

she has scopophobia, meaning she hates looking and being looked at. the only people she wants to look at her are baton and snowglobe (she doesn't mind other people she's close with looking at her for a bit, but she still freaks out if it's for too long)

that last thing is important, mostly because the only she's worse at than reading other peoples feelings is reading her own. and the fact that she wanted those two gay fucks to look at her was what helped her realize "oh hey. fuck. love is a thing, huh. and im feeling it. goddam"

i think thats enough fun and Facts for now. remember!! go vote for her in the @original-character-championship!!! or dont!!! both outcomes are still very funny to me!!!

[roboyomo]

MY MIND IS JUST INFESTED BY THESE TWO GUYS ATM RIGHT BEFORE BED AND IM SAD THAT I DONT HAVE ANY NEWER ART OF THEM I ONLY HAVE THE OLD STUFF I NEED TO DRAW THEM MORE AGAIN

okay this will turn into a quick rant about them so uh the first guy is Amor (real name Bao), who has an absurd hair length (perfectly laying on the floor) and he wields a human sized axe and he was originally the lead scientist and the founder of the laboratory of the clan in the lore (this will make zero sense but ill explain it all later at some point i swear) in attempt to change his negative attitude towards meeting new people, and help them with the discoveries, the research and the inventions at the lab only to trust one wrong person (its kenix his uncle) and literally have everything he built be crumbled into small pieces and now he is so shaken from the incident about how people dont trust him at all now that he almost changes as a person from this 21 yr old guy who loves science and tries to be more open to people to a guy who will be a killing machine once he will be blinded by his hysterical moments of anger, hating his body so much, thinking it is no longer his but a "monster's" to the point of upon seeing his own reflection in the mirror, he breaks it with his bare hands (he still tries to keep a facade of a great leader to try and regain the trust from society of the afterlife but the rumors about how 'dangerous' he is have already done great damage). amor can be immature with his jokes and stuff but he can be a totally caring and loyal person when treated right but no one except few people know what a real person he is, just an enthusiastic curious scientist at heart who wants to lead others into the bright future with him and the bright smile on his face but the anger and the grudges, and the hidden emotions and feelings keep holding him back from being able to finally heal

second guy is apollo who is a more opposite to amor. he is a calm and kind person (so kind that his kindness gets taken advantage off by the people he thinks he can trust but theyre pretty much using him for their own gain, except for amor and the other clan members, not lab coworkers)

even tho hes different compared to amors more high energy personality, he is amors best friend since childhood (since they were 10!!) and are pretty much canonically married (both are 21 yrs old physically). apollo and amor both founded the lab together promising that they would help others. After Amor's incident which is just the entirety of "Inspiration"s Peak Insanity story chapter, Apollo was pretty much the only one actually working at the lab but then he also got fucked over by the narrative (got cursed and while cursed and not even being in charge of his own body, killed the souls of his already previously dead parents and little sister, listen this is complicated but theyre all these afterlife human(?) beings that if killed, are gone into absolute nothing) and he was already sad enough about them, this only made matters worse as he started to think that he deserves to be dead just like them and how "he should be punished eternally for this sin". he makes a new routine for himself to distract him from his despair only to start overworking himself until he does not know about the concept of "free time". he also has this feeling that he has neglected this whole time but it is his wish to be loved and valued for who he is and not the sweet facade he is putting on but deep down he knows that this facade is who he truly is, he is just so lost in himself that apollo is not able to recognize who he actually is

despite their problems amor and apollo both have their own perspective "you saved me and you helped me so much i wouldnt be the same without you" view on each other since childhood and everytime they are able make me sad

[bubblingstream]

been wanting to make another warriors blog for a while but i finally caved after writing up stuff about my new ocs and not knowing where to post it. im just copypasting this directly from an info dump i made so it's not extremely well organised LMAO but here are said OC ideas :]] im probably gonna spend quite a bit of time on this blog just building on them and drawing them tbh. that's the plan anyway

so imagine a cat becomes a medicine cat apprentice, and when they finally go to meet starclan at the moonpool instead of like.. awe, wonder, admiration etc. this idea of all powerful godly ancestors that can apparently predict fate and maybe even control it according to some cats, and watches them constantly.. fucking TERRIFIES this cat. like he is absolutely shitting his pants level afraid and he becomes gradually extremely paranoid about it all. he tries to keep doing the medicine cat stuff but eventually begs his leader to let him just become a warrior to try and get away from it as much as possible. and it helps but not.. a lot? hes still afraid and struggling.

it also turns out he's also had a pretty rough lot in life up til now, which doesnt help bc if these starclan cats control everything why has he suffered so much? what did he do to deserve it? bad things continues to happen and he questions it more and more. he feels like hes watched constantly and even like hes being punished for something he did, even though he doesnt know what his crime actually was. this makes things even worse.

at some point because of all this he runs off maybe? but he misses his family and clan and he also feels watched still no matter where he goes. and maybe something horrible happens to someone he cares for while hes gone and he blames himself for it because he left and thinks starclan decided to hurt his loved ones for it. so he becomes afraid to even leave the clans and doesnt attempt to run away again.

mind you, in the meantime starclan hasnt caused ANY of this. the things that happen are unfortunate coincidences. but he has no idea and after actually seeing what to clan cats basically counts as God Himself™️ hes a wreck. the books always show meeting starclan as a positive experience but i feel like it's something youd need at least some level of willpower for. youd need the right mindset. not just anyone can become a medicine cat and communicate with their ancestors. it's a big deal and some cats ,id think, just wouldnt be able to do it.

hes called whisperingstorm, he has a littermate called bubblingstream. his mother had other litters so he has many siblings but that's the one he knows best and grew up with. he also has an older brother maybe. dovesomething im thinking. bubbling has his own set of issues but im still figuring out how to make that work. another litter in his family is two more kits who are gonna have matching names, this serves to contrast bubbling and whispering who have conflicting names (they have rather different personalities but they also just. dont get along despite bubblings initial efforts to bond with whispering). bubbling as in excitable and upbeat, then when he grew up stream became his suffix bc hes actually rather.. not that basically. yknow how when ppl picture streams they see a calm, gentle stream that some would consider a relaxing visual? like that, as well as their family having a water/weather theme to their names. hes quiet and slow worded, not much to say. compare whispering, something quiet and soft, then when he got older his suffix became storm because of his explosive, high energy and honestly aggressive personality. so not only do they oppose each other in personality, their birth names themselves wouldve better suited them if theyd been swapped around as those are juxtapositions as well. whispering is loud and aggressive, bubbling is quiet and softspoken.

the reason whispering and bubbling dont get along is cause.. well, whispering is a prick, to be blunt. but hes like this as an active attempt to push people away bc of trust issues. he cares a lot about bubbling, he just also thinks anyone being close to him = him inflicting his 'bad luck'/'curse' (see: STARCLAN IS OUT TO GET ME) on others.

eventually it works and bubbling gives up trying to support his brother for his own sake because whispering goes anywhere from mildly mean to downright verbally abusive trying to get bubbling to go away and the guy cant really keep dealing with that. and whispering hates himself for it but he got what he aimed for so.. yeah.

not sure where im going next with this but i want. drama. but not murder. none of them are gonna be murdery. it's a very family issues and trauma and mental health kind of theme i want going on here. yeah someone will probably die bc that's just kinda a given in the clans but not from killing. i can enjoy warriors ocs that go and kill cats for one reason or another but between them and canon i want something different for once, and this is what i want to create to achieve that. plus running off somewhere and coming back to find out, say, a family member died of greencough or something? it's harder to pin a blame on anything material there. as opposed to a cat from a different clan outright killing them in battle or something.

this is where my blog url came from as you can all guess lol. that's all for now while i finalise things like the names of their other siblings, make solidified designs and come up with more stuff.

[vincells]

OOOO WAIT FOR THE OC ASK GAME BASED ON ACTUAL STORY STUFF:

2 for both characters and world, 1 for plot, and 3 for meta :DDDD (you dont have to do all of these LMAOOO)

What do the characters look/dress like?

The story takes place in early 2010s, as everyone is around their mid to early 20s. Bing's the oldest so they'd be about 30 now?? I think?? Everyone has their own style, but it does strictly follow 2000s fashion cuz of their age! Like an idiot, I've never bothered drawing character sheets as no character has set clothing.. but I can boards I created for a general idea of what they'd wear!

Bing;

Warm, heavy clothing you'd almost consider for mountain wear. Thick boots, lots of flannel. Not exactly a very fashionable person, but they get by with what they got.

Salem;

Modest, loose fitting dresses. Doesn't like wearing pants simply because they feel uncomfortably tight (no matter how baggy). Very much spring esc type wear due to the southern heat.

Samuel;

More retro esc clothes leaning closer to the 80s! Considerably, childish t-shirts paired with the shortest shorts. The football jock!

Stanley;

Lots of sports jackets & shoes like Nike & Adidas. While it seems like his clothes are name-brand most of them are from Goodwill or fakes lol.

What are the visuals/aesthetics of this story?

I actually have a Pinterest board made that shows off the general aesthetic :D

What is the plot of this story?

Around '07, a car was found totalled near the outskirts of Columbia, SC. The vehicle was in such disarray that it looked almost as though it had been warped into the tree it had collided into. Branches protruded out of it's windshield, as glass laid upon the forest floor. Only one of the victim's was known to be conscious, later confirmed to be the driver, who for whatever reason had not called for help. It was presumed they had sat there instead, in a state of shock, until help arrived. In sheer terror, they stared, watching the life bleed out of their passenger's eyes.. Listening to the gurgling sobs, as his jaw lay slack. 4 hours. They did nothing for 4 hours.

They never came to his funeral.

Time did nothing but further erod his sister's mind; a shell of a woman was all she was. Yet with time can prosperity, as that husk became something more. A solution. Justice.

How does the medium inform the storytelling?

I HAVE... NO IDEA WHAT THIS MEANS.. if it's regarding how the story is being told, I don't really know? as much as I love this story, I don't know if I have the full capability to write or produce the high level content I want to make. I would love to turn it into an actual ARG but, to be honest, I don't think I have the time or talent to pull that off :(

the most I think I can do is just Tumblr rambles, tbh, as nothing I produce will properly match what is going on inside my brain. hey, maybe I might bring the game back? (most likely not BUTT it's a nice thought). The best way I can explain how I'd LIKE for the ARG would be similar to lasagna cat? or the DAD arg. Like, I don't exactly enjoy up front analog horror. I want to create something where when you first watch it it's like, "wtf was that?" yk??? Similar to to Jack Stauber's content, I want it to be weird/unnerving but not on purpose. It's something you really have to go digging for story telling content. It's not supposed to make sense as it's all content directly from a woman who is slowly losing her mind.

ALSO IK NO ONE ASKED FOR THIS, but I figured since I've never exactly.. discussed this that it'd be good to go ahead and add plot 5

What are these characters relationships to each other?

Salem & Stanley are infact siblings! Along with that, Bing is Samuel's older, albeit adopted, sibling. Despite being the oldest, Bing has always had a close connection with their brother's friends, whom he met in highschool. They were always seen as the "mature" role model. Finally, Salem & Bing could technically count as partners , or even exes, as they have pending feelings for each other for a while. However, neither of them really admit to that.. The most you could say they are is a situationship who have hooked up in the past.

[xxk3vonicaxx]

I know this is a little odd, but im an old acquaintance-ish friend of blurrys from a while ago, back when we were about 12, where they told me about their tumblr and all the characters they drew. So I recently decided to try and find their blog to pass by and see what they've been up to after all these years, and I guess I chose the wrong time because all i see is people getting mad at them for a controversy? If you don't mind filling me in on what happened, I'd greatly appreciate it. If you dont want to its fine, It's just not everyday you go to check-up on an old acquaintance just to find out they got themselves into hot water 😭. It's so weird to think of the nice kid I met all that time ago doing something bad enough to delete all their blogs but everyone's capable I guess..

Hooo boyy, I'll try and just give you a rundown of the short versionn, aaa

Basicallyy firstt, Blurry got mad at me and made a callout post on me for drawing suggestive content/making a joke fic of his OCs when he did the same thing with one of his ownn (drawing wisee), after which he and his friend Cultc0re made false accusations about me being a proshipper to try and slander my name 'cause I ship two villains together in my web show who are unrelated adults in a consensual relationshipp (when Blurry was actually the one who romanticizes abusee, aand Cult is a proshipper despite how many times she tries to deny itt). He also complained about how I have a "school shooter OC" when he has an OC who's a full on executionerr, hhh

Thenn, a doc dropped on Blurryy, exposing him for being a hypocritee, gatekeepingg, aand romanticizing abusee (Ooohh, aand he also bought 1,000$ worth of characters from an artist who's a proshipper who drew CP and n*zi artt aand made false grooming accusations about mee). In that doc it was also shown that he stole my best friend's outfit designs for his OCss, acting like they were his when they weren'tt. In his "defensee", he only gave her credit for them on the day the doc dropped to save facee aand he was using retracted statements from my bestie in said "defense" to make himself look betterr

After thatt, I apologized for the draws and the joke fic by taking them down aand privating the ficc, to which Cult reblogged it and twisted the narrativee. Every single time Blurry "apologizedd", he only said that his behavior was wrongg, never that he was truly sorryy, mmm

Finallyy, the callout post droppedd, exposing him for ableismm, guilt-trippingg, lyingg, aand hypocrisyy. After 2 parts of it droppedd, Blurry started deleting his accountss. Quickly after the full post droppedd, Blurry tried "apologizingg", buut he lied in his "apologyy", not really meaning anything he had said aand admitted he was doing it to save facee

Sooo, tl;dr: Blurry got exposed for ableismm, hypocrisyy, lyingg, design theftt, gatekeepingg, guilt-tripping otherss, aand romanticizing abusee

The doc is heree, aand the callout post is heree

[sundial-bee-scribbles]

Your art is really cool as always :DDDD the Vocabomination au is still a really funky concept! It looks like They're hiding pretty closely behind Len/using him as a shield so my brain is thinking Len might have done some psychological manipulation as well as the obvious physical stuff? Also Fukase being horizontal made me wonder because surely They're in pain right? Like Their bones have to be completely dislocated and shit in order for them to fit into one coherentish body (1/?) -🌟

ok there's a lot to unpack here but EEE im glad you think its a neat concept :') and FEEL FREE TO ANALYZE MY SHIT ALWAYS i love to hear it 🥺💖

vocabomination is a funny name for it lmaoo... tho i wouldn't necessarily call it that just cause like not everyone's here.. idk my naming conventions are weird, i dont really have a name for whatever this story is but ill come up w/ one at some point surely

i'm almost positive there was some psychological manipulation in some way yes, but for the most part len isn't pretending to pity it, he genuinely does feel some worry for it and monitors its' wellbeing (then again tho its in a slightly fcked up way w/ his idea of 'things being better this way')

its' anatomy is kinda very fucked up yes lmaoo, i was to trying to see how many wrong places i can have limbs in or how many limbs i can bend the wrong way with it still looking somewhat coherent, so the bones are definitely messed up ye... despite that drawing i don't think it actually can fully stand upright, it mostly moves around by crawling around (always envisioned the movement kinda like a spider/centipede but a bit... worse-looking?). i'm almost certain it is in some form of constant pain yes! even in spite of getting used to its' state after a while... it probably can contort itself and occasionally shift limbs and stuff to some degree ye, but also that's just my bullshit explanation for me drawing it super inconsistently b/c it's hard asf to draw okay 😭😭

the no-mouths is more of a symbolic thing but like the purposefully-hard-to-move thing, while it is convenient for len and it would be cool to think he planned that out, he's not that smart 😂😭 technically speaking he fucked up, it wasn't supposed to turn out like that but he basically went "yknow what, sure, this works" b/c what else do you do really in that situation

its' faces are meant to be expressionless sorta lol, i sorta try drawing the eyes with a vacant gaze; ik fukase's eye got fucked up in the final drawing so for funsies here's some closeups of the eyes w/o special effects bs:

you're not really supposed to be able to tell what it's feeling at any given moment, though there are sometimes clues as to how it might be feeling... nobody really knows for sure though

not sure exactly either to what extent it carries the memories & feelings of its' original components, if it has any remaining at all, but the attachment to len is definitely there (i mean duh... who else's basement is it trapped in 🙄)

there's a lot more things i could say but aside from me also still not having a definitive final thing for whatever's going on here, there's also just some things i wanna keep secret for now... so we'll see abt some of the answers to the other questions

[fang-natic]

Sing, Nightingale (part 1) - keigo tamaki x top!reader

You needed to know what he knew, but he wasn't going to give it up without a fight. Not that that matters. You know exactly what kind of fight to give him.

cw: kidnapping, noncon, bondage, mild knifeplay, orgasm denial, bdsm elements, humiliation, blackmail, drugging, needles, overstimulation, wing kink (is that what we're calling it)

an: i said i'd do it so i did. i dont know why i did it. or why it's so fucking long (gdocs says it's 1.3k, what the fuck). but i read some oneshots and did some limited browsing of the wiki so here you go. if you see something that doesn't make sense with the canon, no you don't <3

now i need to write a part 2 for this where you actually get to fuck him stupid. part 2 will probably establish reader to be amab, but you can read this part one as gn!reader

"So, who are you working with?" Hawk asks, cheeks still pink from where you'd ripped the duct tape off. "The Liberation Front? Some evil-League-offshoot? Or are you rogue?"

God, he's talkative. His wings are depleted to ragged, feathery stumps and ropes are criss-crossed over his arms and torso. He's on his knees right now, legs spread with shins bound to his thighs, and a bruise forming nicely on his cheek. Despite that, he still has the gall to mouth off.

You respond with another sharp backhand, this time across the other cheek, sending him careening to the side. "That's none of your concern," You drawl. "You're simply here to tell me what you know, and I'm here to learn it. However long that takes is up to you."

He slowly draws himself back up, shaking his head. He spits some blood onto the floor - "Damn, bit my cheek," he mutters - and looks up at you again. Still no fear in those golden eyes. A lazy grin on his abused face. "You get right to the point, huh? Damn, I like you a lot better than the other villains already."

"Then I take it that you'll be cooperative?"

"Ha, fuck no."

You kick him this time. Not hard enough to break his neck, but you catch him upside the chin, and hear the sharp clack of his teeth snapping together. His head almost droops to the floor in pain before he catches himself. "Almost felt that one."

"You're insufferable." You debate kicking him again, but you need his jaw intact so he can actually give you the info you need.

"That's what they all tell me," He laughs around the blood in his mouth. "Don't flatter yourself by thinking you're the first one to catch me. Plenty of other villains have tried the same thing, and none of them have actually made me sing. You're not gonna be very different."

"I wouldn't be so sure."

You crouch down with a knife in hand, and start the process of cutting away his clothes. He shivers as you make quick work of his shirt, and you can feel his heartbeat peak against his skin, though that doesn't actually stop the cocky lilt of his voice.

"Ah, classic, classic. The ol 'strip-and-whip' method. Most people buy me dinner first, but you're hot so I can make the exception-" He stutters a bit as you grab the waistband of his pants, jerking it upwards so you can drag the blade down the seams. "Phew, you're thorough, huh? Though I can't blame you, my ass is to die for-"

"You're rambling," You chide him. He's now entirely naked, save for his underwear and the shreds of his clothes that are still pinned do this body by the ropes. "Are you nervous, Keigo?"

"Hey now," He protests. "We're not on a first name basis. And this isn't my first rodeo, so..." He trails off as you pull at the elastic of his underwear so harshly it rips. "Whoa, okay, buy me dinner first." He laughs, but it's pitched a little higher.

"I know the kind of villains you've dealt with, Keigo." You touch the knife under his chin and tilt him up to meet his eyes. Finally, some reaction - his pupils have gone small with poorly-concealed fear. "The ones that use electricity and knives to try and make you talk. But you're a spy, aren't you? You're trained to deal with pain. I could cut you up bloody and you still wouldn't sing."

Your other hand squeezes his thigh, traveling up to his hip, tracing along the curve of his hipbone. "But I'm not like those other villains," You say, voice low and murmured right into his ear, as you press your palm against his cock, feeling it twitch as he yelps. "You're going to wish I was."

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

You have him blindfolded now, and still kneeling in the middle of the cold, concrete room. His cock is stiff and drooling against his abdomen, leashed by a ring at the base. Vibrators hum from where they're clipped to his nipples, and stuffed deep into his ass.

His spine jerks as you play idly with the remote, a whine breaking out behind his clenched teeth. You've been at this for a while now, and he'd been mouthy at first, telling you how this was 'a normal Saturday night for him', and 'I don't need a safeword, don't worry' and 'can I call you daddy or is that off the table.' He'd shut up at the half-hour mark when he realized he was wasting his breath, and that you weren't kidding when you said you had no time limit.

Even so, he was handling things impressively. His bottom lip was bitten raw from where he'd tried to keep quiet, and not once has he begged or pleaded. You were going to need to step things up.

You turn the vibrations down, and he relaxes for an instant, before tensing up the moment he hears your footsteps approach. "What, bored already?" He rasps, making a grin that was more like a snarl. "And here I thought I was putting on a good show."

"I'm about to make it a better one, no worries." You pull the ring off his cock in one quick motion, and it bobbles obscenely. When you lift up a corner of the blindfold, a golden, watery eye blinks back. In your other hand, you hold a syringe, courtesy of Dr. Garaki himself (or pilfered from his laboratory, more like), and he darts between looking at you and it, eying the little needle nervously. "Don't worry, little bird. This isn't a Quirk-eraser or anything like that. It's just going to make you feel things." You pause. "Feel everything, in fact."

"Get away from me," He hisses, facade cracking as you bring the needle down near his neck. You fist your hand in his hair and force his head back, exposing the smooth contour of his throat. "Don't you fucking dare-"

"Whoops," You hum, as you inject him. "Too late."

His entire body shudders, and his eyes goes wide, pupil shrinking to a thin slit, and his mouth drops open in a shaky gasp. Garaki really outdid himself with this one, because the moment you release the hero he's curling in on himself, skin already flushing brightly in the cool air.

"What did-" He groans, throat working in a dry swallow. "What did you fucking do?!"

"It's terrible, isn't it?" You watch as he writhes, trying to position himself in a way that won't make him feel the ropes that are cutting into his skin, or the grit on the floor beneath his knees. "Everything that touches you is now amplified. Like so-" And you demonstrate and dragging one finger along the base of his wing, and he shakes like a leaf, a helpless whimper falling out of his throat. "Isn't that overwhelming?"

He growls, and flaps pathetically. "Don't you fucking touch them."

Ah, that's right. You remember he'd mentioned something about that. In some talk show or another; how he could feel things through his feathers, but only the ones at the base, and how he'd sometimes spend his free time combing through them.

You reach out now and grab one of his wings, squeezing and twisting, feeling all those little feathers tickle at your palm. Keigo, on the other hand, screams as if you shot him, and-

He cums just like that. Splatters white across the gray cement and onto his own stomach. His thighs shaking with the force of it, getting rubbed pink and stinging against the floor, and the blindfold darkens around his eyes with tears. He's gasping for breath like he just finished a race.

You can't help but laugh - one rough touch, and he was undone. You reach down and squeeze his softening cock, and he spasms, shaking his head. "Wai wait wait no, too much it hurts I can't-"

"Sure you can," You twist your hand, and he chokes on air. "Or do you want to be a good boy and finally tell me what I want to know?"

His jaw clamps shut at that, and you sigh. "Guess not." You shrug, and you squeeze a little tighter to watch him cry out.

[misssunflowersandsangria]

At Home with You

Happy @inoshikachoweek week and happy best friends day!  I love every incarnation of Team 10 so I really wanted to write something at least for the last day.  Thank you to @thespookymoth and @pewpewpew for hosting this week!  Hope that you enjoy! 

Prompt:  Best Friends

Summary:  When you’re best friends home and family can take many different forms.

*

**

At Home with You

**

Ino

“There you are!”  Curious brown eyes looked up hearing a familiar voice. Inojin grinned watching the deer trot over towards him excitedly. 

Inojin pet the deer’s fur affectionately, thankful that he seemed to still remember him.  “I’m sorry I haven’t been around a lot lately.”  The animal didn’t seem to mind and welcomed the loving touches.  

“Come on buddy, let’s take a walk. I’ve got some time before I have to go home.” Inojin could have sworn there was some understanding in those soft eyes as the animal fell into step with him.  

The peace and solitude the dense forest provided was much needed after so many difficult and grueling missions. He found solace in the twilight with his faithful companion by his side. 

The pair took breaks along their walk to eat and drink. Their gait relaxed and steady with no goal or end in sight. Inojin would feed the animal treats and pet his soft fur.  All the while the deer nuzzled in familiarity into his gentle hands. 

Coming to a stop they relaxed by the water. Inojin reclined into the deers side to sketch the landscape. Nestling into the deer’s soft fur and comforting warmth.  It was this quiet slice of heaven away safe from the noise. 

“So this is where you’ve been running off to?” 

Inojin looked startled, surprised by the amused looks on his Uncle and Aunt’s face. 

Subconsciously Inojin stepped forward placing himself between the deer and them. 

“We don’t mind you coming here but you need to let your parents know where you are.”  Temari gently scolded him.  

Shikamaru looked curiously behind Inojin. A familiar deer posed as though it was ready to defend its friend if necessary. 

“I assume your visits have to do with the deer behind you?” 

“I come by when I dont have missions to see him.”  Inojin admitted with a sigh.  There was no way to lie his way out of this. 

Temari and Shikamaru were surprised by the revelation.  Shikamaru recognized the deer as the injured one that Inojin had found and he had treated.  He remembered Inojin being terrified and distraught, hoping the deer might make it through. They didn’t quite realize how much of an impression the experience had made. 

Temari had seen him earlier heading towards the forest where he was able to walk about freely. It seemed odd though that he was going there alone. 

“Why didn’t you tell us?” 

Inojin shrugged, not really having a response. He thought it might be embarrassing to admit having grown attached to the deer.  

“I couldn’t…I couldn’t save Akkun. So when I was able to save this one I felt connected to him I guess.”  

They knew all about that little creature that he’d bonded with during the mission in Iwagakure. Ino and Sai had considered getting him a pet to help with his grief but worried it might be too soon. 

Shikamaru moved forward towards them, kneeling in front of him.  “Your grandfather used to love walking through here too.”  

“Really?”  Inojin asked surprised but always happy to learn anything he could about his grandfather. 

“The Yamanaka jutsu can be very difficult mentally and spiritually. He always found reconnecting with nature as a way to reset.  He even had his own favorite deer. Shikadai’s grandfather would complain that he was out here more than him.”  Shikamaru remembered when his father would go out into the dense forest to check on his friend. 

“Inojin attachments and bonds are a wonderful thing. Companionship and friendship make life meaningful.  They aren’t something you ever have to hide.” Inojin smiled up at Temari, her words having a lifetime of experience behind them. 

“Did you give him a name?” 

“Aki, I found him on the first day of Fall.”  

“Well thank you Aki for taking care of Inojin here.”  

Shikamaru kindly rubbed the deer’s head.  Sure the Naras were known for their connection with these animals but he was thankful that Inojin saw their value as well.

“Let your mom and dad know, okay kid. That way they won’t worry.”  Temari guided him gently.  She could understand his draw towards the Nara forest.  She would often escape there just to have some quiet.  

Inojin nodded, grateful that he didn’t have to keep his trips a secret.  That he could tell his parents and his teammates about his friend.  He’d been wanting his parents to come join him for a while now. 

“Let Shikadai know you’re coming out here.  He’s supposed to be guarding and keeping this place secure.  Seeing as you’ve been able to come in and out undetected means he’s not doing his job.”  He laughed but hoped his friend wouldn’t be too upset. 

The trio remained out there in the fading sunlight as more deer came forward recognizing the clan heads.  Enjoying the mystery and wonder of it all.

Inojin at times was just like his father.  He struggled with certain social cues and norms.  Often finding himself confused by some customs. But he found there in the quiet of the forest, with his faithful friend, and family a feeling of home. 

Shika

Shikadai took a tentative taste before a thoughtful look crossed his face. 

“It needs something.” 

Karui took a spoonful of the broth before nodding. “You’re right. Go ask your Uncle Chouji for more tomatoes.”  

Shikadai went into motion and made his way over to where the Akimichi was prepping the ingredients.  ChoCho would often complain about her parents but Shikadai found them to be warm and welcoming.  Always genuinely happy to see him. 

“We’re gonna need more diced tomatoes.”

“You got it, kid.” 

Shikadai wasn’t sure when it happened exactly. He’d been over at the Akimichi’s one night for dinner and had been roped into helping. Despite his silent complaints, he’d actually enjoyed the cooking process.  It was almost like a science experiment. Mixing the ingredients to get the perfect reaction. After that day he’d come by ever so often to learn more techniques and to try out various recipes. Who better than an Akimichi to teach him to cook? ChoCho loved it when he came over, as he often made enough for her to try a new dish.  

Today he had something special planned. His uncles had sent him a recipe for his mom's favorite dish from Suna. He wanted it to be a surprise so he’d made his way to the Akimichi kitchen. 

“My dad taught your grandfather how to cook,”  Chouji told him with a grin. Shikadai looked up, never having heard this story. 

“When they were younger your grandmother was just as good of a cook as she is now.  Uncle Shikaku wanted to impress her.  It was a complete failure.  Apparently, he managed to burn through not only the food but multiple pots and pans.  He was banned from cooking on Akimichi lands for a while.  After my dad forgave him he gave him a few less-flammable lessons.  It wasn’t too helpful but there was some improvement.  Your father is no better.  For being geniuses they sure are useless in the kitchen.  You might be the only hope for the Nara line.”

Shikadai smiled at the thought.  His mother had mentioned something similar to him when he’d helped her a few times.  It wasn’t a skill that Naras were known for nor would it be one that he advertised.  Still, it was a useful ability and oftentimes a needed distraction. 

Karui yelled a few additional items they needed and he stood next to Chouji prepping the additional items.  

They added the required ingredients, checking the flavor as he went along.  The two Akimichis watched him with a smile at his attention and precision.  Temari’s look of pure determination on his face and his movements were all Shikamaru.  Like the dish he made, he was a perfect mix. 

“I’ve got to hand it to you kid.  You’re a natural.  You’re always welcomed in my kitchen.”  Karui praised him after tasting the completed recipe. 

She affectionately ruffled his hair. “Your mom is going to love it.” 

Shikadai recalled those precious times together around a table with warm food between them.  

A home-cooked meal was the perfect reminder of home.

Cho

“Thanks again for coming by!  Your wife is going to love the flowers.”  ChoCho yelled out to the customer.

She then worked to spray down the counter then watered a few of the plants.  It was a quiet day at the store but she loved it nonetheless.  The Yamanaka flower shop was one of her favorite places in the village. She was getting older.  Their team missions were more complicated and layered. For her. working at a place that was so normal was a needed reprieve.

It started a few weeks ago.  Inojin had begged her to cover his shift while his parents were off on a mission.  She agreed only after he offered her a king’s ransom in snacks and a no-questions-asked favor to be cashed in the future.  After getting a quick training session and learning the ropes she thoroughly enjoyed her time there.  She was in the company of flowers and got to meet and interact with people all over the village.  It was a natural fit.  From then on ever so often Inojin would ask her to fill in.  She’d whine and complain which increased Inojin’s offerings but she’d ultimately agree.

“ChoCho!”  She smiled brightly seeing the Yamanakas walk in.  They knew that she was there for the afternoon but assured her they’d be back as early as possible.  

ChoCho idolized Ino.  The  Yamanaka Clan head was strong, wise, and beautiful.  ChoCho loved her mom but she was still an authority figure.  Ino was her cool Aunt.  Since she could remember the blonde had assured her that she’d be a willing confidant and support.  There were a few times that she elicited her help and advice.  

“We appreciate you coming by to help us,”  Sai thanked her with a soft smile.  He wasn’t a man of many words but he was always kind and welcoming towards her.  His smile reminded her very much of her teammate.

“I love it here.  I get to see so many people and hear a lot of different stories.”  Her favorites were always of nervous individuals hoping to find that perfect bouquet to impress a special someone. 

“It’s a pretty special place.  Your grandfather still buys your grandmother flowers every month on the 7th.  When I'd come here to help my dad I always loved seeing him come in.  I'd help him pick out the flowers to give her.”  ChoCho fondly thought about the blossoms that would consistently fill their home.  She couldn’t help but love how connected their families were.  

 Sai helped her move a few buckets of flowers to refill the shelves.  “When your father started dating your mom he didn’t know what her favorite flower was so he ended up just buying all of them,”  Sai recalled that day.  

He’d come to spend time with Ino when the Akimichi had come in a panicked state.  Their team had argued back and forth about the best arrangement of flowers until Shikamaru convinced Chouji to just buy them all and figure out Karui’s favorite later. 

ChoCho grinned surprised by the sweet story.  Surprised that the old man had some moves back in the day.  

Her father had come by earlier to her embarrassment but they had worked together to arrange a beautiful bouquet for her mother. She often wondered at their relationship but their love was something undeniable.  ChoChohoped that her teammates took notes about how to treat those they loved. 

ChoCho fell into step with the Yamanakas helping to clean up before she was set to leave.  And of course, she was on her way to see her team.  

“You’re always welcome here, you know that right?”  Ino assured her. She had a special bond with the Akimichi.  It wasn’t always easy being the female in their trio.

Surrounded by a melody of flowers and the warmth of family, this was just like a second home.  

“I know.”

* **

The 17th generation of InoShikaCho sat together in the cramped booth talking about everything and nothing all at once.  A similar scene of love and familiarity having occurred many times in the past.  

At times the pressure to uphold their family’s legacy could be suffocating.  Certain heavy expectations and hopes were placed on their shoulders.  But they knew at the end of the day they were luckier than most.  They were teammates and best friends.  Not just by circumstances but by choice.  No matter what happened in this life, because of that bond they’d always have a home. 

*

**

Did you see what I was trying to do here?  I love the customs that each family has but I like to see them interacting with each other.

Life got pretty hectic so writing needed to take a back seat.  I’m thankful that I was able to write what little I could.  I hope to be posting more regularly soon.  Thanks for your support and good vibes. 

 My sincere love, thanks and admiration for everyone who supported this week!  You are all amazing!  Love, love to you all!

[lloydskywalkers]

any port in a storm

Pixal and Lloyd and the evolving nature of friendship, as highlighted by the regular burning down of your city. 

(desperately trying to break through writer’s block and classes again, this was supposed to be under 2k and it is...very much not hdfjkgh but! i’ve been meaning to write for Pixal and Lloyd for a while so here are a whole bunch of feelings about the two of them and s8)

Pixal meets — truly meets — Lloyd Garmadon shortly after his brother’s been blown to pieces.

She says truly, because if you ask her, Pixal will tell you she met Lloyd Garmadon at exactly 8:48 in the evening outside his father’s monastery, moments before a horde of nindroids led there by Pixal herself descended upon them.

But Lloyd argues that since they said about two words total to each other, it doesn’t really count as meeting, and by the time Pixal’s spending the better part of her day with him running high and low around Ninjago City, she’s learned that it’s easier not to press the point.

Lloyd can be stubborn, like that.

She’d first learned that when she’d met him, just after they’d lost Zane. That loss hadn’t lasted long, especially for Pixal, but the immediate aftermath of it had been devastating. She’d watched with blank eyes as the team had fractured, splitting at the seams as they all fled their separate ways, too heartsore and dizzy with grief to do much otherwise.

All of them had fled, save Lloyd. She hadn’t paid him much attention before that point, the surprisingly small bearer of the Golden Power. Of course, he wasn’t the bearer of that power anymore, but his eyes alone had shown the experience of it. There’d been a brief, lost look that had crossed his face as the others had mentioned leaving, before it had been swept under a mask of stubborn, determined blankness. He wouldn’t be leaving. Someone had to stay behind and watch out for things, he’d claimed, even as the loss had bled through his voice.

Pixal hadn’t quite grasped the concept of empathy at that point, but she’d felt something dangerously close to it.

At any rate, the only interaction they’d had alone was brief. In fact, the only one Pixal can truly remember — and her memory never fails — is the quick exchange they’d had in the hospital lobby directly after the battle. The hospital was for Mr. Borg, and for the ninja’s minor injuries.

There was nothing any hospital on earth could do for Zane.

Pixal had found herself next to Lloyd in the waiting room, trying to distract herself from those thoughts while Lloyd stared at the stark white tiling with dull eyes.

“They never mentioned what your power was,” she’d asked him, almost absently. Collecting data, processing information — anything she could do to distract from the crushing grief.

“Oh.” Lloyd had blinked, startling back into awareness. He’d suddenly looked painfully young. “It’s, ah, I guess it’s just green, now.”

It had been Pixal’s turn to blink. “Green.”

“Yeah.” Lloyd had bit his lip, rubbing the back of his head awkwardly, two habits he’ll never quite lose. “I mean — it’s more than that, but it’s like — energy, I guess, is the best way to put it?”

“Interesting,” Pixal had remarked.

“Yeah.”

They’d stared at each other in silence after that, before they’d both been called off to other errands — and then they were having Zane’s funeral and then Pixal was making realizations she never got to tell anyone, and that had been that in her early introductions to Lloyd Garmadon. Quiet, awkward, and possessing an incredible power he hardly even knew the name of.

Looking back, Pixal figures her introduction hadn’t gone much better.

They’d continued as passing acquaintances as time went on, separated by danger and the confines of Zane’s head, and Pixal had figured that’s all they’d ever be. But then their Sensei goes missing and, despite Pixal’s increasing disappearances on Zane as she rebuilds her own body, she’s been given the role of watching out for Ninjago city along with Lloyd.

She quickly learns that quiet is not a term fit for Lloyd Garmadon when you’re trapped alone with him.

************

“How is there not a single station playing actual music?” Lloyd seethes, flicking through the channels almost manically. “It’s two am, who’s gonna be listening to your stupid commercial for toothpaste now, are you kidding me?”

“Statistically speaking, this is the prime time for long-distance driving near Ninjago City,” Pixal supplies, her voice a hint scratchy where it comes through the his car’s radio speakers. “Or, if you factor in the construction in the east district, there could still be traffic from late-night bars.”

Lloyd groans, thunking his head against the steering wheel as another ad screeches through the small space. “Wonderful.”

“Your vocal tones suggest you find it otherwise.”

“Dont trust ‘em, my vocal tones are traitors.” As if to solidify his point, Lloyd’s voice cracks in the middle of his sentence, shooting up an octave higher. Lloyd goes bright red, and thunks his head against the steering wheel again.

Taking pity on him, Pixal aims for reassurance. “It is normal for your voice to break, Lloyd. It shouldn’t last too long.” She pauses, momentarily scanning through another article. “On second thought, this one suggests it could also take two to three years for your voice to stabilize.”

Lloyd gives a strangled moan. “End me.”

“Unfortunately, that would defeat the purpose of why I’m here in the first place.”

Lloyd tilts his head, cracking an eye open as he glances at the camera feed he knows she’s watching him from. “Unfortunately, huh,” he muses. “So you’re saying if Zane hadn’t made you promise to look out for me, you would end me?”

“That — no, that is not — of course I wouldn’t end you,” Pixal backtracks. An odd feeling flickers through her, almost as if she’s lost her place, floundering.

Or embarrassed might be more accurate, she thinks wryly. She briefly considers projecting a a glaring face at Lloyd from the monitor. This is his fault. She rarely stuttered before Lloyd started teasing her at all hours of the morning.

“I mean, you wouldn’t be the first,” Lloyd continues, conversationally. “And if we’re being honest, I’d definitely rather you be the one to off me, instead of like, random bad guy number eighty-five—”

“I know you think you are funny,” Pixal cuts over him. “But casually planning for your death is something Kai listed I was not to let you do. Also, it is not nearly as funny as you think it is.”

“Ouch,” Lloyd mutters, though he looks chastised. “Never mind, you just took me out in one sentence.”

Chastised might be the wrong term.

Pixal studies him through the monitor, then sighs. “I am, however, honored you think highly enough of me to offer the right to murder you,” she gives in.

She’s rewarded as Lloyd breaks into a bright grin.

He still looks painfully young these days, but it’s less obvious. His voice is pitching lower and he wears his hair different, and he’s gained a whip-like tendency to quip at people, as Pixal’s experienced firsthand. Kai calls it sass in grumbling but fond tones, and Nya calls it snark somewhere between the fourth book series she’s sent for Pixal to try.

The ninja have been kind like that, sharing the interests they have in an attempt to make her feel…well, more human, she supposes. Less confined to a voice in a computer. Of course, Pixal isn’t confined to a voice in a computer anymore, but they don’t know that yet. She’ll tell them someday soon, she promises herself. Any day now.

In the meantime, it’s easy enough to keep up with Lloyd by lurking in his car radio, as he spends half his time in there anyways.

************

“You’d think we’d have found their hideout by now,” Lloyd notes, as they wait in a darkened alleyway again. It gives them an excellent view of the major highways, so if the rumored biker gang does show up, they won’t miss it.

If they show up being the key point.

“Whoever their leader is, they certainly know how to keep a low profile,” Pixal answers, closing out another dead end police report in frustration.

“It’s weird,” Lloyd says, propping the notebook he’s sketching in on his knee as he squints at the paper. “Normally the boss types aren’t this quiet. They like to show off, y’know? Make a big scene, dramatic speeches and all.”

“Are you referring to the villains, or yourselves?”

“Touché,” Lloyd snorts. “But still, you gotta admit it’s weird they haven’t even made any demands. What’s their end game here, elaborate advertising for motorcycle design?”

“I would hope not,” Pixal says. “Their color coordination is lacking.”

Lloyd fights back a smile, his pencil scratching as he shifts his notebook again. “I don’t know, I kinda like the punk look.”

“I noticed that, when you tried to redecorate the car.”

“Hey, skulls are cool.”

“They are also conspicuous, especially when they come in acid green colors.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Lloyd sighs, making a face as he scrubs the eraser across the paper. Pixal tries to tilt the camera further, to see what he’s drawing tonight, but the angle he’s holding it at remains just out of sight.

She could probably guess what he’s drawing, if she tried. The notebook is one they’ve been steadily working their way through on these late-night patrols, the pages filled with little hangman games and Lloyd’s sketches of animals and his teammates. He’s drawn her a few times from memory, and she’s been tempted to ask him to draw her in the new Samurai X armor more than once.

Soon, she tells herself.

“What are you drawing?” she finally asks, curiosity getting the better of her.

Lloyd’s cheeks tinge pink, and he quickly plasters the notebook to his chest, hiding it entirely from view. “Nothing.”

Pixal waits, letting the silence fill with her judgement. “Lloyd, I have seen your drawings before.”

He doesn’t reply, and Pixal tries again. “It gets boring, being stuck with the car monitors for eyes.”

“I know you can hack other cameras,” Lloyd mutters, but he sighs, relenting as he turns the notebook over. Pixal’s eyes rake over the detailed sketch — it’s a comical little thing of her and Lloyd, jammed together on a tiny lifeboat in the middle of a darkening ocean. She can spot the smudges where he’s redrawn her head several times, and the numerous attempts he’s made at his own hair. Pixal studies Lloyd’s portrayal of himself, which is noticeably lacking in facial features. While Lloyd draws the others plenty, it’s a rare occasion that he draws himself, and she can’t help but be curious.

“I thought you were drawing the others again,” she admits.

“They’re on the ship,” Lloyd says, absently. “I’ll draw them when they remember to pull us back in.”

There’s nothing bitter in his tone to suggest it has any bearing on their actual lives, but the lost expressions Lloyd ends up giving their tiny caricatures feel familiar nonetheless.

“Zane has assured me they will be back as soon as they can,” Pixal speaks ups quietly.

Lloyd finally looks up fully, and flashes the monitor a smile. “I know,” he says. “So we better have this thing busted by the time they do, or they’ll never let us run a city on our own again.”

“If only we were truly running the city,” Pixal grumbles. “I could do a better job in two days than the current leaders could do in a year.”

“I’d vote for you,” Lloyd says, sincerely.

It’s a sweet gesture, but Pixal is unable to resist. “You don’t know how to vote.”

“Yes I do, it’s not hard!”

“Really? Then why are you not currently registered in the Ninjago voting system?”

Lloyd makes a strangled noise. “That’s a thing?”

She’s unable to keep the smugness from her voice. “I make my point.” Lloyd scowls, and scribbles a mustache on his drawing of her in revenge.

Pixal thinks it looks nice nonetheless.

************

She can’t really hold it against Lloyd for talking as much as he does, considering she does the same. It gets dull, sitting on patrol for hours on end, and there are only so many hours of light reading they can do before the silence begins to drive them both insane.

Pixal finds herself talking about more useless things with Lloyd than she has in her existence, pointless conversations in circles with each other. She also finds she doesn’t entirely mind. She’s become quite good at quipping back and forth with him, at least. It’s different than the kind of talk she has with Zane, lacking in the depth of feeling with the love they share. Her exchanges with Lloyd are lighter, though that’s not to say they’re less sincere.

For example, Zane hasn’t tried to teach her how to redesign a gi in poor lighting in the early hours of the morning because he’s bored out of his mind, that’s for sure.

“I’m teaching you how to sew,” Lloyd corrects, wincing as he accidentally stabs himself with the needle. “And I’m not redesigning the whole thing, I’m just adding some designs to spice it up.”

“I did not know you were allowed to wear colors other than green,” Pixal comments.

Lloyd pauses, squinting at the monitor. “You’re teasing me,” he finally says. “You’re making fun of how much green this gi has in it.”

“I would never,” Pixal replies, her tone flat and even. “The intricacies of your human humor evade me—”

“Human humor, nice—”

“—unlike the unusually bright shade of green you’ve chosen will fail to evade any eyes of your enemies.”

“I knew you were making fun of me!” Lloyd accuses, then flinches as he stabs his finger again trying to point at her. “And bright colors are our thing. Being subtle is, uh…not. Usually.”

Pixal is losing the battle to laugh at his expression by the minute. “I am shocked.”

Lloyd glares at the monitor, shifting his sewing to rest on his knees as he slouches in the car seat. “How’d you even get so good at sarcasm, anyways,” he mutters. “Zane still doesn’t get it half the time.”

“Perhaps it is part of my glowing personality,” Pixal says. Lloyd gives a huff of laughter, relenting.

“Fair enough,” he says, shifting in his seat again. “Fine, you win. The green is probably too bright, but that’s not the point. I’m gonna show you how to do a backstitch."

Pixal falls quiet, letting Lloyd gesture with the needle as he explains. There are a hundred, a thousand tutorials she could pull up online, digitized knowledge instantly learned on all the countless types of stitches she could use, sorted and categorized in neat columns of use and effectiveness. All of them more detailed, more easily understood than Lloyd’s absent rambling and unsteady hands as he struggles with the end of a knot.

Not one of them will care whether or not Pixal learns the odd way Zane likes to loop his stitches, or will quietly add which stitches knit skin back together quickest.

So Pixal ignores her programming, and does her best to follow Lloyd’s rambling instructions, watching as his scarred fingers tug another thread of dull gold through the green mess of fabric, the city quiet around them.

“You never did tell me where you learned how to sew,” Pixal says, as Lloyd starts up a new thread of black on the other side of the gi. “Was that something the others taught you in training?”

“They’d have to know how to be able to teach it,” Lloyd snickers. “And, uh, no. I taught myself to back at Darkley’s.”

“Oh,” Pixal falters. She’s heard about Darkley’s, both from Zane and the legal reports she’s read online. Neither gave a positive impression of the place. Her mind is suddenly filled with images of a younger Lloyd trying to give himself stitches, and her heart twists.

Lloyd starts, seemingly having picked up on her train of thought. “I mean, I did it for fun, mostly. I like sewing,” he explains. “It’s useful. You can pull things back together, and fix ‘em.”

Pixal is quiet, but she hopes Lloyd takes her silence as agreement with his motive. She likes to think he knows her well enough for that, by now.

************

Pixal finds, somewhere during their fourth month alone, that she’s glad the team elected to stick her and Lloyd together. Not because she doesn’t want to be with Zane — there’s never a moment she doesn’t miss him, and with every day that passes her resolve to keep her secret from him grows weaker, as the longing for actual connection grows stronger.

But there are conversations she can have with Lloyd that she can never have with Zane, and the dangerous thing about spending time with Lloyd, Pixal finds, is that they’re more similar than she’s realized.

“Sometimes I think I’m jealous,” Lloyd whispers to her one night. It’s one of the bad ones, the ones where their enemies struck too sudden to stop, and the mission ends in the hospital. “I think I’m jealous of Zane, and I hate myself for it.”

Pixal is quiet, trying to pick apart the tone of his voice in the words he’s just spoken, and factors in the victims they’ve just left behind at the hospital. She finds herself no closer to an answer.

“Is it the metal skin part?” she finally asks, though she knows that’s wrong. “The, what was it, technical immortality?”

“No,” Lloyd shakes his head. “I’m not afraid of dying,” he says emphatically, his fingers fluttering at over the steering wheel, tapping incessantly with unspent energy. “I don’t want to, but that’s — it’s not what I’m scared of. I’m more scared of how I go out.”

He swallows, and his fingers move to dance over the woven bracelet on his wrist instead, twisting at the tiny beads and tracing senseless designs in constant, steady movement. It’s a motion he does often, and it had puzzled Pixal at first. She’d decided to write it off as an odd tick, a way to spend excess energy.

Now, she recognizes the desperate kind of reassurance that movement gives. She understands too well the need to remind yourself that you can move — that your body will obey you and you alone.

Pixal thinks back to the other factors in tonight’s accident, of the way the drugged man’s eyes had cleared when they’d finally turned him over to the police, the way he’d sworn he’d never do such a thing in his right mind. She thinks of the way the first victim had thrown themselves over their companion.

That victim hadn’t made it to the hospital.

“Ah,” Pixal says, quietly.

She’s silent again, and she thinks back to when she’d met him, the very first time. She recalls the way her programming had rebelled against her in favor of the Overlord, corrupting her body and forcing it against her, twisting everything she was and wanted to be into something different.

She thinks back again, to the searing-hot anger, the terror, the despair as she was torn apart, piece by piece like a machine, burning out at the whims of another. Her end purposeless, her demise belonging to someone else, just like every other part of her.

She thinks of the last glimpse she’d caught of Zane, bright and beautiful as a supernova. Burning with the terrible brilliance of his own, determined choice. Terrible, because the death of something always is. Beautiful, because it was his own. Zane died, not a machine, not a weapon, not a tool of anyone or anything, but as himself. Zane died to save the ones he loves. Pixal could’ve died for spare parts.

Never again, she promises herself. If she goes out, she goes out on her own terms. This time, they choose the end of their own destiny themselves.

In hindsight, it’s the kind of promise they’re both too young to make, but neither of them have ever seen themselves as such, and promises like that are easy.

“Love can be terrible, sometimes,” Lloyd murmurs. Pixal watches him scrub at the blood on his uniform, and thinks how ironically well-timed it is that he finished the stitching on his new gi this morning. “Sometimes I forget how ugly it can be.”

************

The end of their nighttime stakeouts begins with a break-in at Mr. Borg’s tower. Lloyd argues that she should get to call it her father’s tower, if she wants, but the ninja aren’t the only ones Pixal’s hiding herself from.

And then Lloyd gets very tense at the thought of fathers very fast, and they never finish the conversation.

They stay at the edge of the bridge long after the parachute, emblazoned with the unmistakable visage of Lloyd’s father, disappears from sight. Pixal wonders if it’s burned into Lloyd’s eyes, like the way she’s read black spots linger in humans’ vision after they’ve looked at something too bright. The way Lloyd stares at the river, his shoulders tense and his teeth worrying at his lip, she thinks she might be right.

They’re waiting on the report from the commissioner —they’re waiting for anything, anyone who can offer them any explanation of what’s going on. Pixal’s reminded of how much she loathes this kind of waiting.

“It could be—” Lloyd begins, then breaks off, his voice wavering. He swallows, and Pixal can see the way his fists clench tightly from the cameras they’ve put in his car. There’s a fierce part of her that longs to reveal herself, to meet his eyes herself and offer some semblance of comfort. But there’s a time and place for things, and Pixal isn’t ready.

“It could be anything,” Lloyd finally continues, his voice small. “It could — it doesn’t mean anything. It could mean nothing, right?”

Pixal is silent, her mind racing. She’s run the calculations over and over in her head already, scouring the internet for anything related to the bikers. She’s been foolish, she realizes — they both have. Letting the gang go unnamed for so long, thinking nothing of it. Now, with the name flashing vibrant across Pixal’s vision, a part of her wants to let them go nameless just a bit longer.

Before she can answer, Lloyds phone goes off with a sharp ping, just as Pixal’s sensors alert her to the message from the commissioner. Lloyd snatches for his phone like it’s on fire, and Pixal’s already scanning the message frantically, as if she can salvage this if she’s fast enough, save Lloyd from this one pain.

Lloyd’s gotten much better at reading quickly though, these days.

She can pinpoint the moment he reaches the last paragraph, because his breath hitches. There’s a long, pressing pause of silence, Lloyd’s hands trembling as they clutch weakly at his phone. Then it’s punctured by a reedy, wheezing gasp, and Pixal’s suddenly wishing she’d revealed herself after all.

Instead, all she has is her voice as Lloyd crumples, crouching over in visible distress. Pixal’s mind races, recalling everything Zane’s ever told her about his team, the way their panic manifests in different shades. Lloyd’s is quiet but desperate, rapid breathes that stutter as his eyes slide more and more into a frightening kind of blankness.

“Lloyd, please, listen to my voice,” she begs, trying to reach him in the only way she can. “Please, you have to breathe—”

“He’s gone,” Lloyd rasps, unhearing of her words. “He’s s’posed to be gone, it’s supposed to be over, I’m supposed to be done—”

Pixal fights back the sense of overwhelming helplessness. She knows loss. She knows how to finish his sentence. He’s supposed to be done grieving, done mourning, done clinging to false scraps of hope that his father isn’t lost forever only to be met with heartbreak.

And now, to be met with the possibility of something so much worse.

“We’ll stop them,” she tells him, unflinching. “We won’t let it happen.”

Lloyd’s eyes are a vivid green where they stare at her through the monitor, almost ghostly in the misting light reflecting from the river.

He’s silent, but Pixal is, too.

Pixal remembers the way her head had spun when she’d first picked up the traces of Zane in the system, how the world had rushed then steadied, flooding with color as she’d realized he might not be lost after all. She remembers the surging, overwhelming flood of joy, that someone she’d thought she lost might live after all. She remembers being so happy, at even the smallest chance to get him back, because the voice was Zane’s, without a doubt.

She watches the color seep from Lloyd’s expression as his shoulders shudder, the words from the commissioner’s message almost echoing through the air. Watches the terror as the both of them fill the silence.

Will we?  

The radio scratches, as if echoing Pixal’s anxiety. Love can be terrible, sometimes. She’s underestimated how it also be so cruel.

************

She’s also, apparently, underestimated how the universe on the whole could be so cruel.

She should’ve revealed herself to them from day one. That way, when Harumi’s corrupted programming suddenly ravages through her like an electric shock, she could be reassured they’d at least be familiar with the person they were fighting.

Instead, she doesn’t even get to scream. Pixal’s only able to force out a desperate, broken warning before she’s lost again, drowning in her own body as she’s forced under. Furious panic grips her as she screams without lungs, bashing herself against the overwhelming helplessness that’s taken over her.

Not again, not again, not again—

Her limbs creak and jolt against her will, lashing out at the people she cares most about, and Pixal can’t even rage back in her own voice. She’s sworn, she’s promised herself she’d never let anyone do this to her again — she’s sworn she’d die before she let someone reach into her head and snatch control away, and yet here she is, frozen as her body’s used to target her friends.

If she could cry, she might.

There’s not much more to say than that. She breaks free, her body her own once again, but by then it’s too late.

************

If Pixal had the same gift of foresight that Zane did, maybe she would have seen it coming. Maybe she’d have remembered how similar her and Lloyd are, and that this kind of pained desperation always yields impulsiveness and mistakes.

She doesn’t, though. She barely even manages to do what she’s trying to, which is convincing Lloyd to join the others while they celebrate their victory. Their off-key singing is something he normally wouldn’t hesitate to join in on, she thinks, and she hates Harumi a little more.

Maybe she’ll try his mother next. The expression on Lloyd’s face screams unapproachable, and remains fixedly sullen.

Almost to her surprise, he meets her eyes as she draws near— it’s odd, being able to meet his back — and his own eyes are dark, from despair over Harumi or despair over his father, Pixal isn’t sure. She’s thinking it might be both, when his eyebrows crease, and a flicker of concern cuts through them instead.

“You good?”

It takes her a moment to realize why he’s asking, but the answer is obvious. Her head tilts downward, and she watches as her fingers curl and uncurl. Her movements, her choices. She lets out an even breath.

“As I can be,” she replies. Lloyd nods, and his eyes are understanding. His lips twist in a scowl.

“She shouldn’t have done that to you. That was a low blow.”

Pixal’s mouth curves into a humorless smile. “That it was. She’s rather good at those, isn’t she.”

Lloyd’s eyes shadow again, and he looks away, crossing his arms. “This isn’t supposed to be about me,” he mutters.

“Yes, it is,” Pixal counters. “It is why I came over here, in the first place. She hurt—”

“All of us, and who’s fault is that,” Lloyd snaps, his arms crossing tighter.

“I would hope you know it’s hers,” she says, holding firm.

Lloyd looks away again, biting his lip, and Pixal shifts anxiously, rolling her wrists. The sensation of control sliding away still haunts her, worse than it had the first time. She should be better than this, she tells herself hotly. She’s lived without a body long enough that losing it so briefly shouldn’t effect her this much.

Curse her programming, she thinks, tapping agitatedly at the banister. She knew she should have reinforce it sooner.

“Hey, um.” Lloyd is looking at her again, hesitant. He twists at his bracelet, and his eyes lose a fraction of that darkness. “Kai made this for me, after Morro,” he says. “I kept shredding the sleeves of my uniform, so he told me to mess with this instead, when I needed to remember that…that I was in control.”

He shrugs, hesitant. “We could make you one too, if you wanted. It helps, having something.”

Pixal lets out a steady breath, despite not actually needing to. The action is grounding, she’s found. “I would like that.”

Lloyd gives her a ghost of a smile in return. “Soon as this is over, then.”

There’s a heavy weight to his words, and Pixal’s eyes narrow.

“Lloyd,” she says. He looks at her, his eyes dark. “Don’t do anything foolish.”

He’s quiet, not meeting her eyes, and this is where Pixal should stop him. This is when she should see the end of the road they’ve been on since they started this, and force him to turn before it’s too late.

“I know what I’m doing.”

She doesn’t.

************

Lloyd is battered and bleeding by the time they drag him onto the ship, a gruesome portrait of cruelty. Pixal is frozen as she watches him writhe in Kai’s hold, his screams cracked and wet as he thrashes erratically like a broken thing.

Nya is already barking orders before they’ve even gotten Lloyd fully on the ship, and Zane is running scans with a horrified, wavering focus. Pixal follows Cole as he carries Lloyd to the medbay with a blank numbness, the rush of wind streaming past the Bounty sails thunderously loud in her ears.

This isn’t Lloyd, she thinks, staring at his crumpled form. Lloyd isn’t this battered, broken shell of a person. Lloyd isn’t hazy eyes that fail to recognize them and frantic murmuring through bloody lips. Lloyd is bright-eyed and gentle and would rather die before he screams the way he does when Cole moves him to the table.

Lloyd is her friend, and this is where that promise they made has led them. She knows why Lloyd set out for the prison, hot on the collapse of his own star. She also knows he wouldn’t have chosen to burn out like this.

Cole calls out for Zane, his voice ringing in panic as Lloyd screeches in pain again. Pixal thinks of quiet words in the safety of his car, and she feels sick. This is the ugliness of love, the terrible, hideous side of it.

And Lloyd would hate it, if he could see himself, if he were any semblance of lucid. He’d hate to know just how much better he was at breaking himself than Morro ever was.

Zane is gentle as he pushes past her, but Pixal can feel the tremble in his hands. He’s every bit as rattled as she is, if not more so — Zane’s heart is larger and softer than hers has ever been, and he cares about each and every one of them with a painful intensity. It’s a cruel thing, to have to pull those same people back together with your own hands.

Kai’s eyes are streaming as he clutches at Lloyd’s wrists, pinning him in place. Zane’s hands waver again over one of the jagged wounds near Lloyd’s ribcage, the green of his uniform already dyed dark in blood, soaking over the careful stitches Pixal watched him put in himself.

Pixal finally finds her footing, reminding herself of the solid wood beneath her feet. She recalls the steady, smooth stitch Lloyd’s scarred fingers traced out for her.

“Here.” She takes the needle from Zane’s hands, squeezing his briefly before letting go. “I can do it.”

She sets the needle against Lloyd’s skin and wonders what kind of stitch it’d take to pull your heart back together.  

************

Pixal cannot cry. It’s one of the features Mr. Borg spent hours debating, weighing the pros and cons of giving her the ability before he was truly sure how rust-proof she was. He’d never gotten the chance to, as the Overlord had interrupted him, then Pixal had lost any body to give the ability to cry to, which had eliminated the need entirely.

She cannot cry, but she can hurt, and the rain that streams through her hair, dripping down her forehead spotting raindrops on her cheeks, could be tears if she pretended.

She doesn’t, though, because tears are a waste of water and overall useless in the grand scheme of things. She doubts they’d have helped her fare any better in the battle with Colossi, either.

Tears won’t bring anyone back.

Lloyd cries anyways. She can’t see him, but she can hear it in his voice, the way it wavers and breaks over the radio, nasally tones pronounced.

He’s barely able to gasp a few coordinates to her before he cuts the radio off abruptly. Pixal’s spent enough time with him to envision his scarred fingers snapping it off with a particular desperation, green sparking from his hands in distress.

She reminds herself those sparks are gone, now, bled away into nothing like the vivid green of Lloyd’s eyes had. The thought makes her sadder than she’d expected. She had a joke, about his eyes, she had wanted to make. Now that she has a body, and her own set of glowing green eyes, she’d — there was something he would’ve laughed at, she thought —

It doesn’t matter, now. Neither of them are likely to laugh anytime soon.

The coordinates blink brightly in her vision, and she’s almost surprised she managed to key them in. She’s running on autopilot, she supposes. It could be ironic — she’s been so desperate for control, it’s been so important that she’s the one feeling. Now, she’d give anything not to feel at all.

She lets out a shaky breath, dispelling the mist in her vision left from the rain. She leans forward, just over the edge of the building she’s crouched on, and her loose hair falls forward, silvery and synthetic and horribly tangled. Irritated, she reaches for another hair tie, and her hands falter around her wrist.

Lloyd had promised her a bracelet there. But he’d promised Kai would make the bracelet, hadn’t he, and Kai couldn’t make the bracelet if he was dead, could he.

Pixal blinks, her breath hitching. She’s been so numb to the pain of Zane’s loss, it hasn’t yet occurred to her that she’s losing Kai, too. And Jay, and Cole, and—

She sucks in the same shuddery kind of breath she’s seen Lloyd do, and carefully fists her hand in the area of her uniform above her chest. Her fingers dig in tightly, clutching in a hopeless attempt to feel some sort of comfort she knows she’ll never find.

But perhaps, for these few seconds, she can pretend the action is holding her together.

************

“It was inevitable,” Pixal tells Lloyd blankly, as he rasps out his third apology in the dark cover of their small hideout. “That one of us would fall, eventually. It had nothing to do with you.”

Lloyd swallows thickly. “It could’ve — it should’ve been—”

He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t need to. Pixal’s hand shoots out, clamping tightly around his wrist, and there’s a beat of gratitude that she doesn’t need to rely on her voice alone anymore.

“Don’t.” Her voice is strung tighter than the tension in their shoulders. “You cannot change anything. You can’t, Lloyd, and you should not wish to — to change it that way.”

Lloyd jerks his hand free, wiping miserably at his eyes. He sets it back down within her reach, though, and if Pixal were any different, she’d take it.

But Pixal isn’t that different from Lloyd at all in the end, and neither of them reach for the other’s hand, no matter how desperately they crave the contact. Fear is more familiar, and it’s easier to give into it than it is the clawing need for comfort in your chest, after all.

“Still,” Lloyd finally whispers. “Still.”

Pixal swallows. She doesn’t disagree. If one of them had to fall, she knows she gladly would have taken it upon herself. She knows the others care for her, certainly, but she also knows her place in the grand scheme of things. They were six before she came along, and even now she’s kept far too many secrets to be fully counted among them.

She listens to Lloyd’s quiet, cracked voice, and she wonders if he’s thinking that they were five before he came along, younger than Pixal got to know him as.

Now they’re three, hollow and heartbroken. Though counting herself as one whole feels like cheating, right now.

Pixal squeezes her eyes shut, and wonders what it’s like to cry. Perhaps it helps, though Lloyd doesn’t look any less miserable.

************

“I was thinking,” Lloyd tells her, during one of the precious few quiet moments they have while trying to overthrow Garmadon and Harumi. Pixal’s turning the tiny tea flower he’d given her over in her hands, a part of her mind already marking articles about flower-pressing, another part wondering if it’s already too late to save the blossom. “About that promise we made, before all this.”

Pixal finally tucks the flower into the pocket of her uniform, pressed close to her chest. If anything, it can be a reminder of the lives that are safe — the life that’s coming back to her, if she has to drag him back from another realm herself. “And?”

Lloyd’s hands twist together. “Maybe we should focus more on staying alive.”

Pixal coughs out a laugh, breathless and startled. Lloyd wrinkles his nose at her, but his eyes are amused, even with their light lost. “I mean, the emphasis would be on keeping everyone else alive, but it’s kinda hard to do that if we’re dead, so…yeah. Priorities.”

“Staying alive should always be a priority,” Pixal corrects him, but she tugs the edge of his armor out of place with a smile.

“Why didn’t you teach me how to graffiti?” she nods at the designs on the green leather. “Or was this another Darkley’s tradition.”

“This is a refined art, called whatever I had on me that showed up on dark green,” Lloyd grumbles, fixing his armor. “I’ll teach it to you when we get out of this.”

“Another reason why staying alive would be a more productive focus,” Pixal points out. “I’ve heard teaching is easier when you’re alive.”

“And I’ve heard you’re a real riot,” Lloyd mutters. “It’s a promise, okay? I promise to teach you how to do cool armor design if you promise not to disappear into another realm on me.”

Pixal nods, adjusting her own armor tighter as screams ring out from a street nearby. “A promise, then.”

She keeps both the promise and the flower, the tiny blossom dried and faded by the time she’s escaped from the prison, heart racing with leftover adrenaline as Zane sweeps her into his arms. She clutches back every bit as tight, listening to his breathless laughter as cheers rise from the streets behind them, the smoke drifting across the early morning sky above them pale against the lightening blue. Pixal buries her face in his shoulder and breathes, tucking the moment away in her heart where it won’t fade. There’s a future stretching out before her, and she’s got the limbs to walk her path on her own, but all she wants right now is the steady ground beneath her feet and the bright laughter of what she’s managed to keep.  

Lloyd meets them shortly after, his own promise kept as he tears his gaze from his father, handing him off to the authorities before sprinting for the others. Pixal barely snags a moment alone with him, and even then no one’s particularly keen on letting him out of their sights.

He meets her eyes as they pick their way through the wrecked streets, the city more alive around them than it’s been in weeks. In the dark of the early morning, Pixal’s eyes glow a bright green, reflecting oddly in the windows they pass. It’s always been her preferred color, in contrast to Zane’s bright blue. Lloyd glances at her, his own eerily green eyes glowing back. He bites his lip, but it’s to hold back real laughter this time.

“My eyes were green first,” she tells him.

“Sue me,” he shoots back, before Kai’s throwing an arm over his shoulders again, tucking Lloyd neatly in between him and Nya. Pixal smothers a laugh at the look on his face, and tightens her own arm further where it’s linked firmly in Zane’s.  

It’s going to be an easy promise to keep, she thinks.