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#(but Psychonauts is no stranger to those sooooo)
bcdrawsandwrites · 1 year
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[ID: The first image Psychonauts fanfic banner on a black-to-gray gradient background. On the left in white text it says “Prompt #5: Never Be Hurt Again” On the right is a light blue animated figment of a scaler (a long metal dental tool with thin hooks on either end).
The second image is a Bad Things Happen Bingo card. Various prompts are marked with a half-brain (prompt requested but not filled) or full-brain (prompt requested and finished) symbol, while the “Never Be Hurt Again” prompt specifically is marked with a full brain symbol. /end ID]
Okay I keep forgetting to post this, but I thought of it just now so I’m finally taking an opportunity to get this posted! Here is, FINALLY, my next fic for my @badthingshappenbingo​ challenge! \
I am currently NO LONGER OPEN FOR REQUESTS. I have enough to work on to get a bingo! I MAY decide to reopen prompts later if I want to keep going after finishing these fics, but for now, requests are closed!
This request is for @loveandmad​! Hope you enjoy it! Also big thanks to @jaywings​ and Pinky G Rocket for beta-reading.
Prompt: Never Be Hurt Again Characters: Caligosto Loboto, his parents, and various OCs for his backstory Warnings: Emotional manipulation/parental abuse, (SPOILERS: implied dental torture)
---~~~---
Traffic honked and wailed in the streets below his window. It was not the city he had been in originally, the one that his parents sent him to a few years ago; he had chosen this city.
—~~~—
"Stoneton?" Caligosto looked from the pen in his father's outstretched hand to the application on the kitchen table. "That's on the other side of the country."
"Yes, but it's a very good city," his mother replied, with the same enthusiasm she'd used to talk about the "very good highschool" or the "very good summer camp" that he'd been forced into in the past, that he still had nightmares about.
"I don't know..."
"Look, son, we're doing you a favor!" His father slammed the pen onto the table. "You want dental school? Here it is. We're offering to pay for your tuition!"
"Your father is willing to give up the money he was putting toward his second yacht! We're making a personal sacrifice for you!" His mother looked away. "I don't know how we managed to raise such an ungrateful child..."
"No, no! It's not that—"
"We're doing this for you, son! You want to live your dream of becoming a dentist, we're letting you do that!"
You never wanted to before, Caligosto wanted to say, but the words retreated back down his throat. To live his dream... he couldn't let this slip away. He stared down at the application again, then grabbed the pen, the yellow gleam of the kitchen light glinting off its metal surface.
—~~~—
Light danced on the tip of the hook as he turned the scaler in his hands. He stared at it, feeling its weight in his palm, remembering the last time he'd used it.
His fingers clenched around it, knuckles white beneath the glove.
—~~~—
The room was a blinding white and silver, save for the dull gray chairs and the dummy heads strapped to them. The heads were painted in flesh tones, faceless save for gaping mouths with complete sets of teeth. Many of his classmates had shied away from these at first, but Caligosto had always rushed to his assigned dummy, half his mind giddy with the thought of finally getting to practice, and the other half with the thought of his parents seeing him as a successful dentist.
He held the scaler down toward the dummy, ready to practice methods of scraping plaque from teeth, when his professor strolled by.
"Now, you'll probably deal with patients who put up a fight," she stated. "Some patients will struggle and squirm. Some may try to bite."
Of course, they'd gone over this before. This professor had always liked to make a show of taking off her glove and revealing a scar one of her own patients had left on her hand. So he nodded along, continuing to move the hook between the fake teeth, digging gently into the silicone gums.
"But you may even have patients who are... unnatural, so to speak."
He paused.
She strode toward a cabinet in the back of the lab as she spoke. "Of course, you need special methods when dealing with them. There are certain tools we have in the medical profession to deal with them, which I'll show you in a moment." She glanced over her students with a glint in her eye.
Slowly he looked back down at the dummy, unsure of why his hands were going numb.
"They're known for all sorts of tricks," she went on, turning to open the cabinet. "They can dismantle your tools with just a look!"
His hand twitched, leaving a small scratch on a fake tooth.
"Or they could reach out and infect you with a deadly virus, just by their touch..."
He gripped the scaler, his knuckles turning white.
"Even if they don't touch you, some can reach out with an invisible hand and change your future, just enough to bring you misfortune!" Finally she turned around with a strange pair of earmuffs in her hand, and something about the sight of them sent a jolt up his spine and caused his chest to burn, and he jumped away from his dummy. His professor didn’t notice as she continued, "That's why—"
"Th-that's not true."
He suddenly became aware that everyone was staring at him, and that his professor's grin had fallen. "Pardon?"
It was too late to back down, so he straightened his back. "They can't dismantle something instantly. They can do it without their hands, but they still need to pull it apart. And there's no psychic power that can cause illness, unless they're spinning you around like a ferris wheel!" He snorted. "And if they could change their future, wouldn't we see a lot more of them winning the lotter—"
"Stop."
He shut his mouth, but his eyes were locked on the earmuffs she held, and he wasn't sure why the sight of them was making him tremble.
The professor approached him, her gaze dark. "Are you defending these mentalists, Loboto?"
"Wh-what?!" he sputtered, head snapping up. "No! I just—"
She got in his face, and he swore he could feel some form of terrible, familiar energy from the earmuffs in her hands. "Never in my class would I ever have expected to encounter a psychic sympathizer!"
The phrase turned his stomach to ice and lit his head ablaze—outraged that she would accuse him of such, and horrified by the implications.
It wasn’t the last time he would hear it, or even worse terms that he didn’t like to think about.
They came up during a meeting with the dean regarding his dismissal from the college. They were spat upon him when he tried to apply for jobs in the area as he scrambled to find his footing. They were hissed at him from former classmates who had once gotten along with him.
The term was even snarled at him over the phone, when he contacted the last two people he could think of for help.
“Psychic sympathizer.”
—~~~—
The shriek of metal on glass brought him out of the memory, and he stared down at the faint scratch across his window.
After taking a moment to unclench his jaw, to breathe, to set the tool aside onto its cart, he turned away from the window and strode across the dark room. There was no point in reflecting on those memories, those terrible manglings of his character, those people who chased him away from what had felt like the one chance of ever achieving his dream. They were behind him now.
But his foot nudged a book that stuck out from the lowest shelf, and he reached down to adjust it, frowning when he noted the misaligned printing on the spine.
—~~~—
Caligosto plucked up the book, flipped through it, picked off the sticker, and slipped it into his jacket. It had gotten easier after the first several times; his hands no longer shook, though his nerves still fluttered in his chest. After browsing through the shop for another quarter hour, he shrugged and trotted out, bidding the owner good-day as he headed back to his apartment to plot his next course of action.
The book, while a measly paperback, was a signed copy, and would surely yield him enough money to cover the rest of this month's rent, which was due in two days. He just needed to choose the next store carefully—one he hadn't been to in a while. There was Jamie's down the road, but he'd just sold a set of pilfered baseball cards there a week ago. He hadn't been to the one on 5th and Maple in a while, but it was closed today... Ah, right, the one another town over—he hadn't been there in a couple months, so that one should be all right. It would be a bit of a hike, but it would be worth it.
So he made the trip, which ate up a chunk of his day, clutching the book under his jacket. Just one more time, and he would be set for another month—another month to figure out how to get out of this dump.
"Got a good one for you this time!" Puffing up his chest, he slapped the book onto the counter. The force at which he'd done it had caused the binding to come somewhat loose, and he fought the urge to wince, hoping the man wouldn't notice. "It's a signed copy, you see?"
The shop owner slid the book closer to himself, lifting it up and turning it this way and that, studying it through narrowed eyes.
Even though he'd gotten away with it before, the sweat still trickled down his back as he awaited the man's evaluation. Maybe he could settle for a lower price if the shopkeeper wasn't willing to pay what it was worth—just so long as he could cover his rent, that was all he needed—
The man huffed out a laugh, shaking his head. "Not a signed copy," he remarked. "It's a photocopy." He'd pointed out the spine, which, now that he looked more closely, didn't even have the title aligned, part of it folding over onto the back cover of the book. When the man opened it, his finger traced the margins, which didn't line up with the edges of the pages. He set the book back on the counter, giving him an unpleasant grin, one with poorly-placed veneers, revealing the blackened teeth between where the porcelain didn't line up with the gums. "I'll give you two bucks."
He trembled all over, the blood rushing from his face, before his mouth twisted. "I hope you choke on your own rotten teeth!" He snatched the book before storming out.
His trek back to his apartment was made in a blind, numb haze, his stomach sinking as he wondered just how he could word a plea to his landlord to allow him another week to pay the rent. If his landlord would even allow that, if his landlord hadn't already heard the gossip being spread about him.
The thoughts left him the second a hand grabbed his arm and yanked him behind a building. His mind clicked into self-preservation mode while some voice screamed in the back of his head that this was it, someone had caught him, or someone had heard the rumors and come after him—
"C-Caligosto, is that you?"
He found himself staring at a young man with a frightened, pale face, and dark circles under his eyes. At first he narrowed his eyes at him, prepared to bolt, only to realize he recognized the man's messy orange hair, though it was a lot messier than the last time he'd seen it.
"...Bower," he said slowly, yanking his arm away. He'd shared a few classes with the student during his short time at the university. "What do you want?"
"Help," Bower choked, huddling in on himself. "I... I just need your help with—"
"I haven't been a student in months, in case you haven't noticed," he said, voice dripping in bitterness.
"Yes, exactly, that's exactly why I need your help!"
He stared at him. "What."
"Everyone avoids you, so—so... no one would know!" A manic smile stretched across Bower’s face as he spread out his sweaty hands.
"...No one would know what?"
"Look, I-I kinda owe someone some money—"
"You're talking to the wrong person."
He turned away, but Bower caught him by the shoulder and turned him back around. Jerking his arm away, he grit his teeth and glared down at the man, who held up his hands.
"I owe them a lot of money! And—and if you can help me get some, I'll give you half."
He opened his mouth to protest, and closed it, looking away as he mulled things over. "Do you have a plan of some sort?"
"I-I do. But it's risky, and I need help. And after that, you never have to speak to me again!"
"...You never spoke to me anyway."
"Look, I know, just—please, just this once?"
Deep down, he could feel something—something telling him it was nice to feel needed. Not to mention, he did need the money on short notice.
He steeled himself. "All right. What's the plan?"
—~~~—
He shook his head. While it had been the moment to launch him into his current career, he'd been foolish to think that he'd been needed by that idiot. No, Bower hadn't needed him specifically. If he'd refused, he would've found someone else. No, Bower had used him, and had been planning on keeping all the money for himself, if he could get away with it (which he hadn't—as he'd predicted, Bower had gotten caught by the police, and ratted him out, but he'd been long gone by the time they'd come looking for him).
He'd been free.
—~~~—
With his few possessions in a duffel bag hanging on his shoulder, Loboto strolled down the sidewalk of the new town, which looked brighter and more promising than his old college town ever had.
It would be a new leaf for him. Perhaps he could forge a license and start a dentist practice, if not here, then somewhere further out. The robbery had given him more than enough money to rent a new apartment for the rest of the year, so housing wouldn't be a problem for a while. Just so long as he could find a job to start with...
He stopped at the bulletin board, perusing the job postings and skimming past event fliers. He wasn't terribly picky, so long as it was something that could pay for rent and still have some left over for food and savings—
A pair of familiar glasses caught his eye, and his blood ran cold.
Wanted: Caligosto Loboto.
His teeth grit so hard they nearly cracked, he tore the poster from the board, and ran.
—~~~—
...It was better now.
The police hadn't found him, of course. Never, in the past few years of his career, though they'd searched. Oh, they'd searched, and he'd had to move again later, but it was all good now.
Especially since his new client had opened up a world of new possibilities to him.
—~~~—
Loboto found her staring at the tools, still in pristine condition, arranged on the shelves. "Interested in those, are we?" He tipped his head. "Do you need some dental work done?"
No sooner had the words left his mouth than his heart began to flutter in excitement, and he perked up. "I know you're here for business, but if you ever need some work done on your pearly whites, I can—"
Nora held up a finger. "I'm just here for business."
His heart and hopes dropped to the floor, and his shoulders drooped. "Yeah, of course."
Yet she was still looking over the tools, eyes narrowed. Without a word she picked up a dental hook, pressing it into one of her fingers until it drew blood.
"Hey!" he cried. "You should be wearing gloves—"
"These tools, Cal," she said quickly, rubbing the finger she'd pricked against her thumb, smearing the blood. "They look like they would hurt."
Grumbling, he snatched the hook away and hunted for a bottle of cleaning alcohol and a cloth. "No," he said absently, stooping down to snatch up a bottle. "In the right hands, the procedures can be mildly unpleasant at worst."
As he disinfected the tool, Nora reached out to him. "So could those same hands..." She gently grabbed one of his palms, and he yanked his hand away, shooting a glare at her. "...make them hurt?"
He stared at her.
"Perhaps, enough for a patient to beg, to plead, to give whatever information you want?"
Loboto held the hook away from her, but hesitated a moment. "...Why do you ask?"
Nora stepped back, regarding the tools on the shelves. "It doesn't look like they've seen much use, and it would be a shame for them to go to waste."
—~~~—
His hands shook, in spite of his smile.
This was it. He was finally going to see his dream come true—perhaps not in the way he'd originally planned, but that's the fun of it, isn't it? He was past all of that nonsense—his parents and professors and even the police trying to control him, trying to get in the way of his goals.
His dreams were coming true. He was finally, finally getting to put his skills to use. And no one was going to convince him otherwise.
"Cal!" a harsh voice called from the room he'd remade into a new "dentist's office." "Your patient isn't cooperating. Get in here!"
"Right away!" he called in return, wheeling his cart into the room.
On the other side of the room was his client, Nora, leaning against the wall with her arms crossed. And before her, strapped to the dental chair, was his patient. Both his mouth and eyes were wide, the former from a mouth prop forcing his jaw open, and the latter from terror.
Loboto looked him over, selecting the scaler from his cart and fighting to keep his hand from shaking. He looked from the patient's teeth and gums, then to Nora, who nodded impatiently at him. He stared down at the pointed tip of the tool in his trembling hand—one of many tools that hadn't seen use since his college days.
"Get on with it," Nora hissed.
He clenched the tool, forcing his hand to still, and aimed it at the patient's gums, grinning down into his terrified eyes. "Say aaah!" he said, and jabbed.
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modesty-blaise · 5 years
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Since I'm curious, what caused you to become very possessive of your gifs? Not out of rudeness but curious, since no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr which automatically credits you at the bottom of the gif.
Hey. Tbh, at first I didn’t wanna bother with yet another anon but since I see no ill intent behind this, I decided to go and answer it. Unfortunately, half-way through I realised my reply is turning into incredibly long semi-bitter rant and expands well beyond calling out just one person in Psychonauts fandom (and yes, this is related to Psychonauts fandom – you do know that these anons are not really that anonymous, right?) so… buckle up! All that beneath “read more”.
I’ve been on this hellsite for like…7-8 years? Maybe more? Can’t really tell cause I moved blogs and my old blog now consists of only 4 posts I’ve made close to leaving so I honestly have no idea how much time I’ve spend here before moving. Anyway, during those few years I’ve spent on my first blog I’ve met a lot of creative gifmakers who enjoyed sharing their love for fandoms they were in. I’d like to point out that this was waaaaay before tumblr created that insert-gif option so, back in the day, the only way to add gifs to your post was to: 1. make them yourself 2. take them from someone else. And a lot of people were taking them from someone else which resulted in many gifmakers giving up on making gifs and leaving fandoms and/or even leaving tumblr – and I’ve had many of my friends give up on what they love and have their games/shows/movies/whatnot ruined for them cause people would not stop stealing from them. And many of my friends eventually left tumblr cause they couldn’t deal with it anymore.
Tumblr adding insert-gif option, in my opinion, honestly, just made it worse for gifmakers. Cause now people had the opportunity to use gifs for their posts, with or without creators’ permission/knowledge, but it was alright and it was perfectly fine cause creators were credited. There’s their name at the bottom. It’s alright. Like… it doesn’t matter if they’re actually okay with people using something they’ve put hours into making or if they’re not – tumblr gives them credit so they SHOULD be okay with it. Simple as that.
Well, we’re all different and some people are not okay with that. I’m not okay with that. It took me weeks to figure out how to use photoshop correctly. Took me countless hours of looking through different tutorials and basically trial-and-error-ing my way through the process. Whenever I make gifs, it takes me hours to record videos and then hours trying to achieve that 3mb limit on gifs (thank lord these days we’re beyond 1mb limit). After all that effort I put into creating gifs for games that I love and enjoy, someone is going to make 2 clicks and have that same gif added to their post, without even asking. So how is that okay?
Back to your question. Yes, “no matter what you do a lot of them show up in the gif function on Tumblr”, that is true and that is something I was aware of when I saw you-know-who announcing they would be starting 30 days Psychonauts challenge. So, hating to see my gifs used against my will, and not wanting to start any unnecessary drama and threaten people in advance with reporting them if they do use them, I’ve made my blog as private as I could. It was only accessible through the dashboard, it was not showing in ANY search engines inside and outside tumblr, and my gifs were impossible to find through insert-gif function – I’ve made sure. I did all that cause I just knew that during those 30 days, someone would use my gifs and I would get mad and I desperately wanted to avoid that (hence going extreme). And you know what happened? You know what creator of this challenge (who prevously already reposted my gifs) did? *drums* They used my shit anyway. :3 They just uploaded it from their computer, where they’ve saved it earlier.
And like… a lot of people see pretty pic and decide to save it - I mean, we all do that. Heck, even I have a folder full of shit I saw online and liked it – but i’m not uploading it online cause I haven’t made it. It’s not mine to share.
But some people are not like that.
Some people see fanart of something they like and they want to share their opinion on it – and instead of making their own post, maybe drawing the fanart themselves, they decide to use someone else’s art for their post. Do they know who made it? Do they have creator’s permission to share it? If the answer is NO, then they should be a decent human being and not do that to creators. Oh, they shared it anyway but now people in fandom are calling them out BUT this actually happened on accident? They know who the creator is but, somehow, they accidentally forgot to credit them? OK, well, it’s possible, shit happens, but they better make sure it doesn’t happen again.
Then sometime later these same people decide they want to make a post appreciating their fav character and they want to include pics cause duh, you can’t have character appreciation post without pics, right? Now they have several options: they can get their own screenshots, make their own gifs, maybe draw something… or they can just take someone else’s creation. Do they know who made it? Well there’s my fuckin name on it, and since they’ve stretched it from 245 to 500px, it’s really hard to miss, plus it’s not like there are that many people making Psychonauts gifs. Do they have permission to share it? Hmmm, nope, didn’t ask me. Is this also an accident? Could be. I mean, I’ve seen stranger things happen, so accidentally forgetting to credit content creators twice… kinda suspicious but still possible. Who am I to say?
Now if these people then decide to make a post appreciating their fav ship and they want to add a cute pic of the loving couple – yup, you guessed it! They can either create something or take something. Again: they know who did? They asked for permission? Got the permission? No?!?! But they posted it anyway?!?! :o Could it really be, that after being called out publicly, after being told that reposting is bad (something that’s very easy to understand), after even having tumblr staff intervene and remove stolen shit from their blog, after all that - could it really still be an accident?
Nah, man.
They just don’t give a shit.
Cause if they did, they’d stop with that crap first time they were called out.
(and if you think Psychonauts fandom is their only fandom and that they’re not doing this crap in other fandoms too - hoooo, boy, do I have some bad news for you! Do you know how many stolen and butchered HP fanart is on their blog? Hobbit stuff? They seem to be one of the most accident-prone users on tumblr. And honestly - it’s a real miracle their blog’s not been terminated.)
Back to what I was talking about - I’m not okay with people using my gifs and I’ve made it very clear. I literally do not give a shit if I’m credited or not, I’ve made it very clear that I don’t want my gifs used without my permission. If you like them and want them on your blog, there’s a fuckin reblog button. It’s sole purpose is to allow you to share other people’s creations. Or shitposts, cause lord knows we all love those.
So that’s why when someone spends hours going through my Psychonauts tag and goes as far as to send me “I love your gifs” anonymous message, but the very next day makes stim moodboard post including one of my gifs, now cut and resized to fit 3x3 format they’re going with, I get mad. And that’s why when someone uses one of my gifs to promote their RP blog, butchering it to fit their aesthetics, and later when confronted going as far as blaming their good friend on it cause god! they’ve had no idea it wasn’t theirs, I get mad. (makes you wonder though: if they friend has such skills, why not making them gifs themselves?)
Like…. I’ve had my gifs stolen plenty of times. I’ve had them stolen for roleplaying, for headers, for imagines, just for notes… I’ve had them stolen by people claiming to run official fan sites (that’s a real wild story but I won’t get into that now)… I’ve seen them on pinterest, weheartit, FB, all those random gif sites… and I’ve seen EVERY. POSSIBLE. EXCUSE. ranging from: “well i found it on google so why should i credit you” “lol dunno who made this but its pretty so im posting it” “ive had it on my computer for years so i don’t remember where i got it from” “i dont know how to make gifs so im using weheartit as a source” “credit to whoever made this” (that’s my fav) to “its just a gif so who gives a shit” (it’s not – it’s hours of creator’s time and lots of love that you’re now shitting on so thanks) and “i have an /illness/ and getting notes makes me feel better so dont u dare blame me for stealing” (I don’t remember exact excuse but it was something along those lines and like… how do you even respond to something that without looking like an asshole?).
And sometimes it really is just an accident. Sometimes people really do forget to credit you and/or ask you for permission. And I’ve had my fair share of those accidents. People in Psychonauts fandom have been using my gifs for various crap but, when approached, they’ve removed it and apologised. And it’s something I really appreciate. (if they actually bother reading this and they recognise themselves: i’m really grateful and thank you for not being an ass)
But you know what I don’t appreciate? People making a call out posts about me, asking about my gifs when they know very well they’re the main reasons why I’m not making those gifs anymore, at the same time failing to address any of the issues I have with them and instead rather explaining to others what happened BUT explaining only the parts that make me look like a villain cause how I even dare be mad about them stealing? How I even dare call them out on it? That is so ridiculous and criminal of me, and it’s so so sooooo bad that they need to call me out. I deserve to be called out by the very same person who’s been stealing my shit.
And their explanation is…well… it’s something.
They were sympathetic and polite? When did this happen? Did I completely missed that part? Please someone fuckin enlighten me with such post/message where they expressed their sympathy and politeness and I’ll apologise right this second.
I told them to “literally fuck off”? Yeah, that did happen, I admit that. Did they bother explaining why I told them to fuck off in the first place? Did they say they were caught stealing from me and had tumblr stuff remove my shit from their blog? Did they get into details of how they demanded the proof of my so very wild and obviously false claims but then when I showed it, they just deleted that “how dare u call me out cause I would never do such thing” post? No, they didn’t and geee, I really wonder why.
Instead, what did they choose to address? Out of all the things I’ve said. Hm? What did they choose? Me telling them to fuck off. Me dropping the F-bomb on them, rudely rejecting their obvious kindness and politeness. Nothing else.
Back to what I was talking about before I got derailed again: no, I’m not mad cause this person used my gifs without crediting me. I mean – I am, but that’s not my main issue with them (and they know it). My main issue is that this is someone who will continuously lie and steal and still deny any of it, even when there’s plenty of proof (and you can always count on me to show up with proof tbh), and then go as far as to publicly ask about my gifs and try to call me out. Like me getting mad that something I’ve put hours of work into, and something I’ve made cause I love the game and I want to share my love and appreciation for it, is now being shared against my will and my knowledge - like me getting mad over something like that is so unreasonable that they need to make an entire post about it while pretending they have absolutely no idea why I’m even mad and why we have issues.
And I have every fucking right to be mad. 3 times is not an accident. 2 times to the same person is not an accident. They know it. But yeah, playing stupid is their defense so it’s not like I expected them to actually address their actions this time either.
And you know what? Just because I swear a lot doesn’t mean I’m wrong. Doesn’t mean there’s no solid ground for my claims. People on tumblr have always been and always will be stealing shit. Sometimes they will credit you, often they will not, and that’s just how it is, doesn’t matter if you’re okay with it or not. But that doesn’t mean I’m just gonna sit quiet and accept someone’s shitty behaviour. Especially when it’s directed at me.
TLDR: giving credit =/= having permission
but my previous posts leading to this ask were not about that
you knew that already
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