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phoenixcatch7 · 1 year

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The Wayne doll house

Have some haunted doll au, since it's been bubbling away in my mind.

The bat cave is large and sprawling, many layers and tunnels and hollowed out cracks in the walls. It takes many years to fully reinforce to prevent stray kids from tripping into stagnant waters or fall down crags as he once did. The doll cave, as it becomes known, is in one of the deepest, darkest corners, one where the lights of the furnished caverns above don't reach.

It's one late night sitting at the computer when it suddenly occurs to Bruce that his first encounter with a doll was at the well entrance, many levels above.

There was nothing there when he went back.

The justice league stared at the subaru. The subaru, having no eyes, did not stare back.

The seven of them had just finished a very long, arduous mission, and narrowly escaped government censure after the base they'd been raiding had turned out to belong to some corrupt official. With the alert up, they couldn't escape through city airspace, or even in their hero suits.

So civilian it was.

Batman had hotwired some bloke's car while the rest of them ducked into alleys and shop bathrooms, but the problem remained. There was seven of them. And five seats.

"I can shift into something more suitable for being carried," suggested j'onn, "but I believe one of us might have to hide."

"Foot well?" Hal tried, and everyone looked around at the tall, bulky, broad heroes.

"Think they'd have to go in the boot," Barry finally said. Everyone immediately turned to him. "No."

Batman spoke up before the discussion could devolve.

"I think.... I would be best for that."

The team stared.

"Batsy?"

Having no lungs meant he could not drag in the tired sigh he wished, but whatever force allowed this body to talk was capable of approximating something suitably resigned.

"As I am, I am... incapable of fully passing as human. It would be best if I remained out of sight."

"So just? Go change? I swear we won't be weird about whoever you are under the mask. Even if you're like, bald."

"Thank you, Wally, but I'm afraid I'm being serious." Reaching for the mask in broad daylight was unpleasant, but the glue and wires held as he gave it a few thorough tugs. "It doesn't detach."

Everyone stared. Clark reached out as if he wanted to check, but withdrew.

"Do you even have a civilian identity??" Oliver eventually asked. "Because at this point I'm genuinely not sure."

Wayne Enterprises and Queen Industries had a meeting that same evening. "Hn."

"Can we go back to the 'incapable of passing as human' part?!"

"We can discuss it in the car," he snapped, stalking past Barry and popping the boot. "In case you haven't forgotten, we're on a time limit."

For once, that seemed to encourage them, and batman, with great dignity, folded his joints and cape into the small space, ignoring Hal's mutter of 'what kind of contortionist -' as he slammed the lid. With a little shuffling he managed to activate his comms.

"I will inform the watchtower of our delay."

"Batman, they're tapping all outgoing signals, you can't -"

"It won't trigger," he interrupted, before he twisted his consciousness and sent it spiralling across the country.

Bruce awoke with a groan, stretching his limbs and taking a moment to marinate in his annoyance before he reached for the comm and voice modulator on the beside table.

"Batman to watchtower, we've encountered delays. If the Texan state government calls we haven't entered the state in six weeks. Batman out."

"Alien?"

"No."

"Reanimated corpse?"

"No."

"Uh... Demon?"

"Hm. No."

"You're not just a meta human, are you?"

"No."

"Vampire?"

"No."

"Robot??"

"No."

"Batsy, please, someone's got to win the bet eventually. How do we even know you're not lying?!"

"You don't," Batman said, not looking up from his paperwork and Flash groaned, letting his sticky notes fall to the floor as he buried his head in his arms.

"One day," he bemoaned to the keyboard, "one day we'll figure it out."

"Until then please keep your eyes on the monitors."

Flash groaned again.

Robin ducked under superman's arm as he scuttled down the corridor, laden with the night's haul of snacks. The real problem wasn't getting them - stopping league members from raiding the kitchen would be extremely counterproductive - but keeping them until he could return home to his human body to eat them. Batman had started searching him each time they left and it was really cutting into his daily sugar intake. Unfair! Just because he didn't actually use energy to stay up my night to fight crime, it felt like he did!!

'Oh, you're broken, Robin, oh, don't go out until the glue has fully set, Robin' his arm was fine! It wasn't like there was much crime to be fought on the watchtower anyway! At least not physically.

So he was pretty pleased with himself until he went to set the snacks down and found that the tar like glue they used had soaked through the sleeve and gotten all over his chocolates.

With his other hand, he tried to pry them off, wincing as the wrappers tore and stuck. He tried to shake it, ignoring the way his elbow rattled in the joint.

"Come on, come on - aw, cheezits."

The arm fell off. Robin stared despondently at the limb, surrounded by torn wrappers and dripping black glue where it connected to the elbow. The sour stink of formaldehyde filled the air.

He was going to be in such trouble with Bruce.

The click of the door jerked his head up.

Flash stood in the doorway, wide eyed. Robin stared back.

Flash screamed.

Oh yeah @dehydratedmockingbird have a thing

#batman #Possessed doll au #bruce wayne #justice league #cryptid batman #Cryptid batfam #Didn't fit in there but I wanted to include that every bat member has a mask that covers their mouth #They've all got nutcracker jaws #I don't know the technical name but you know the ones where only a block moves for the mouth and the cheeks don't?#Super creepy on a life size thing I'd imagine #So if their mouth guard or mask gets ruined guess who's having nightmares that night!#Normally cryptid batfam go to great lengths to Look Inhuman and these guys still do it's just easier to not get joints jammed if you cover #Them up. Doesn't mean they haven't pavloved the whole criminal underground into terror at the sound of wooden clacking #They can turn ALL their joints 360 and it terrifies the average goon when you try to sneak behind a bat and it just swivels around to lock #With you. They grapple by shooting their hands out (so they can't lose their grapples) and it doesn't look nice. Yes they use it to #High five from across rooftops or grab things. Punch people in the face from the rafters. (pie the joker)#Their outfits look painted on (they mostly are). Ears swivel. They each have gliding wings installed in their backs after a scare with ivy #Clark was too polite to ask about the rattling and hissing noises he made until one day he was scouting with xray vision glanced over #And nearly screamed XD #long post #long tags

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twilights-stuff · 7 months

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Took a break from studying and decided to self indulge myself with an GF X Odyssey/Epic au

Ford is now Odysseus babyyy. Basically just like in the book as well as in the musical, Ford spends 20 years away from his home Ithaca, his beloved twins Dipper and Mabel and his brother Stan who became a regent taking over Ford's place while the king was away for war and raising his niece and nephews for the last 20 years. Still figuring the other stuffs tho. Mostly based from the musical rather than the myth itself but I also took some creative liberties.

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flowery-king · 2 years

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Oops forgot i had these

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other-peoples-coats · 1 year

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For reasons that don't need going into, I'm once again thinking about the logistics of hyperspace travel, and like.

Ok so you know how map makers put in trap streets and fake islands and alter the elevation of mountains and generally put in teeny tiny (or not so teeny tiny) errors to catch plagiarists? That, but hyperspace maps.

Like there has to be a fuck load of -- if not laws, at least generally accepted norms? about what you can and can't do, because... look, at the distances you (hypothetical GFFA space faring traveler) would be traveling, you're off by a fraction of an inch when you launch in the direction of planet funtimes-vacation-land and you end up like. 80,000,000,000 lightyears away from your goal, at planet oh-fuck-deathworld and/or in the literal middle of a moon and/or lost in deep space forever and ever, where no one can hear you scream.

So there has to be a sort of mutual agreement that hyperspace maps can't be like, 'oh yeah, there's def a planet here😉 it for sure orbits this totally real star😉😉 at 90000skm (space kms) a syear (space year)😉😉😉'; because, like. otherwise everyone would die and no one could use hyperspace ever, basically.¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Only takes one 'whoops they were trying to avoid our fake planet and crashed into an inhabited planet, killing all 4 billion inhabitants via the most literal meaning of terminal velocity' to make hyperspace travel a wee bit dubious as a concept.

(and also get your particular cartography company/space-gps company sued out of existence, either by the people who survived Alderaan V-0.01, navigational error edition, or by the big scary conglomerates that had interests in the outer rim mining planet you just got blown up, as relevant.)

Ditto altering the speed at which planets (moons asteroids etc etc what the fuck ever space shit is out there) orbit their relevant local stars; again, fractions of a second off really adds up over that sort of scale.

I'm assuming that there has to be rival cartographic companies, simply because like. gffa is medieval end stage capitalism on steroids. There's multiple map companies, even if it's just that kuat drive yards have their hyperspace maps for their ships, and dodgy-joe's shonky ships have their maps for their ships, and the jedi temple have their maps (which they have to install on the jedi ships by way of jailbreaking/rooting the navigation systems, presumably, every jedi runs the equivalent of a mid 2010s iphone with a million sketchy apps sideloaded), etc etc.

Anyway. Fake planets (moons etc) are out for reasons of not turning random tourist space-bus no #7629 into the Death Star (analog edition), ditto altering the speed of existing planets, ditto, presumably, putting in things like extra space stations or fake hyperlanes or black holes or whatever.

Which basically leaves you with renaming things! presumably most mapping places go real world analogous, and pick something pretty easy to think is real - asteroid #12-z-3095-y labeled #13-z-l14r, or the 56th moon of ult'klssyk and the 59th having their names mixed up, etc-- but presumably at least some do like. the most obvious examples.

Long story short nine million words later there's at least one map that labels Alderaan as Coruscant and Coruscant as Mandalore and Mandalore as Alderaan, and the ensuing media shitstorm/spwitter hot takes/spunglr memes takes over the galactic news for like. a month and a half.

At the minimum.

#coats chats #coats originals #star wars #star wars meta #....technically. kind of. tbh it's mostly a shitpost with some logistics for flavour #also au where the empire gps is running on the jankiest map full of every error ever #and the death star shows up outside of 'alderaan' which is actually like.#idk some uninhabited dustbowl.#alderaan proceeds to become the Bielefeld of the gffa #it doesn't exist. obviously. the empire blew it up.#yes we just got a shipment in from alderaan no it doesn't exist because again empire blew it up.#(also the reasons are: it's going to be fourty fucking degrees tomorrow so I'm loading books on my phone #bc I plan on staying out of my office [west facing‚ evil] and spending the day in bed in the aircon #and added a couple of cartography related books to my phone. hence this whole train of thought.#yes I do have the adhd how did you ever guess.)

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skyloftian-nutcase · 1 month

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Oh hey look it's an AU of my AU because my brain won't shut up :D

Ganondorf dragged his feet, slowing his pace as he stared at the deli.

"No," Nabooru immediately cut in. "I know what you're thinking."

"I want some," he said simply, stubbornly, resolutely.

"You're not a child," Nabooru argued. "Have some blasted self control. It's not on the grocery list."

As the pair argued, Link wandered over, a box of goldfish in hand. Nabooru immediately raised an eyebrow at him.

"My budget," he reasoned with an innocent shrug.

Nabooru sighed. "Fine. Put it in."

"Oh, so he gets to grab anything he wants, but I can't?" Ganondorf grumbled.

Nabooru rolled her eyes. "He is paying for his own groceries. How old are you?"

As the two continued to bicker, Hemisi poked Link, motioning with her phone. "You've got to see this meme, it's hilarious."

Link peered over her shoulder, eyes curious as a smile pulled at his lips. Meanwhile, Ganondorf finally conceded, glaring into the void as they continued their trek beyond the beloved meat section.

When the family got home, Link helped Ganondorf unload the groceries, setting his own aside, while Hemisi and Nabooru greeted their poodle and made sure he had dinner. Eventually, everyone settled, with Ganondorf and Nabooru humming along with the radio while they meal prepped for the next day, and Hemisi and Link relaxing on the sofa together, both on their phones. Occasionally the teenagers exchanged memes and videos, giggling.

When the parents were finished, Ganondorf moved to dismiss Link for the night when he saw that both children had fallen asleep on th sofa. Hemisi was laying across it, her legs draped over Link's lap while he sat slumped on the corner, arms resting over her. Nabooru smiled at the pair as her husband sighed.

"The boy might as well move in," Ganondorf half joked. "He almost always falls asleep here."

"That's a dangerous idea having them actually live together while they're dating," Nabooru chuckled. "I can't watch them 24/7."

Ganondorf hummed in agreement, walking over and gently picking up his daughter. Yes, she was fifteen, but he didn't care - she would always be his little girl, and he was gentle enough that she didn't wake up. He tucked her in to her bed and watched her a moment, smiling.

Meanwhile, Nabooru grabbed a pillow and helped ease Link to lay down across the sofa, covering him with a heavy blanket and kissing him softly on the temple. "Rest well, baby."

The parents stayed awake a little while longer, chatting quietly at the table as they sipped some hot tea. When Link abruptly startled awake, falling off the sofa and nearly hitting his head on the side table near it, the pair rushed into the room to settle him. His nightmares weren't too frequent, but they came often enough that both were familiar with it.

"Link," Ganondorf said gently, grounding him as he gasped for air. "It's all right. Relax. You're safe."

Link stared at him, disoriented, and the man sighed, pulling the teenager into a hug. Eventually, he picked him up, settling on the recliner and letting Link rest on his lap. He yawned as he rubbed the boy's arm calmingly.

"Maybe he should move in," Nabooru said with a half smile as she threw the blanket over them both. "You gonna stay here for the night?"

Ganondorf grunted in the affirmative, and Nabooru's smile grew. "Perfect. That means I get the bed to myself. Come on, Ghirahim!"

Their poodle trotted happily after his mother as Ganondorf scowled, but he got over his grumpiness soon enough. The house grew still, and peace filled the air.

#y'all wanted them to just be happy so here #have them just being happy <3 #yes I'm making aus of my aus #no I won't elaborate #or continue LOL I HAVE ENOUGH WIPS OK BLORBOS. DO Y'ALL HEAR ME #*side eyes imprisoning war blorbos*#writing #is this worht self reblogging LOL #whatevs I said I would for all my writing >.<#Ganondorf's “I take what I want” paired with Link's “oooo shiny” would be disastrous in a grocery store y'all #that's literally what I thought when I was grocery shopping and then this whole scene happened haha #hero of shadow #technically #his nightmare was of the actual story LOL #good thing modern Gan is nicer #ganondorf #lovelies the idea of Ghirahim being the family poodle is SENDING ME HAHA

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shmorp-mcdurgen · 3 months

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does shadow mark ever realize/learn that hes just bugs now (and have an existential crisis over it-)

Eventually, yes. he does.

The Willow itself told him.

#asks are neat #tmc monster au #shadow mark #And. yes. this did cause some. intense dread for him #I mean. he found out that not only is he basically a hive in human skin but.#also that. the REAL Mark Heathcliff is. technically. dead. eaten whole and replaced without even knowing it.#so. is he really Mark Heathcliff? or does he just share the memories of the real one.#A living ship of theseus.

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amazingspider-z · 10 days

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Smashing two separate aus together to reach terminal velocity for fun and profit on accounts that

1) Gigai should lean into the being fake bodies bit, I think. Have people with spiritual pressure Notice that shinigami are Not Human actually bc something about them is. Off. They don't blink. They don't breathe. etcetc

Or. They should have leaned into the half-human angle for the Kurosaki kids more. Ichigo was already bullied for being a redhead just. Add a little spice and have them set off some kinds of alarm in the back of most people's heads. Let them be half actually physical and half made up spirit particles only you know, nobody told them ever. (And yes ik it is A Major Plot Point that Ichigo was alive and even got his whole soul chain cut but! I posit mind over matter. Nobody told his ass he could Danny Phantom it up (well. nobody actually knew they could do that tbf but also nobody ever hit him with the oh yeah your dad was never alive in the first place) and so well. Good luck with the Shattered Shaft I'm-definitely-not-hollowfying-you-on-purpose Ichigo! He figures it out. At some point. Eventually)

and

2) I do Not claim the aftermath of the Winter War/timeskip/Lost Agent Arc okay. Power loss arcs/storylines squick me out, okay! They're just. Sad. And I hate 'em. So a 'fix-it', the basis being that even if the Old Man and White Zangetsu were fused, it was the Old Man acting as 'Zangetsu' when Ichigo used the Final Getsuga Tensho, so the backlash went a little. Funky. (Bc yes i go with the theory that the Final Getsuga is a shinigami/Shiba thing not a bastardized Vollstandig and that mattered) so instead of losing his powers, Ichigo's soul started to destabilize (which yeah, did affect his power levels, but more on the his reiatsu is back to where it was before the Dangai instead of. Well. Everything) which to be fair was Very Bad and potentially fatal in the moment, so he had to be placed back in his body and was medically forbidden to leave it until his soul healed (which. for the purpose of the fused au is also how Ichigo figured out about the able to turn into a ghost on command thing-the combination of being forced to transmit spiritual energy through his physical body while he was healing+learning that his goddamn old man was. a shinigami actually shifted his worldview enough that when he was okayed to leave his body he just. Transformed instead). Alas, on account of his soul barely holding together with spit and determination and the teensy little detail of him being part-Hollow (and actual-Zangetsu being the only one awake to frantically try damage control) meant that some wires got crossed as his soul was healing itself, and well, instead of re-solidifying in it's previous state some elements from (both of) his Hollow form(s) filtered in accidentally to his new base state. Which. Yk. Is a super fun thing to find out and absolutely not at all horrifying to learn to live with.

#bleach #kurosaki ichigo #ichigo kurosaki #yuzu kurosaki #karin kurosaki #unstable spirits au #is what im calling this #long post #and YES ik about the whole #isshin binding his soul to Masaki's and becoming a shinigami-human hybrid whatever to become her opposite or whatever but #a) as i learned from the hell pit of comics i start to pick and choose how rigorously i stick to canon #and b) its still a FAKE body #like yes. i get that urahara (and mayuri) are mad scientists who play god but like. have fun with it #making as close to exact copies is something that urahara might do yeah but. fucked up meat puppet fun #and yk even if he was playing god working out dna out of nothing for reproduction was a work in progress and the kids were uh. a surprise #couldnt fit this above but. ichigo does end up speed running realizations bc the Old Man is knocked out HARD #(and technically his quincy powers except well. he never used those AS quincy powers but that's what uryu's for)#meanwhile ichigo is having multiple crisises over the state of his soul and his history and the Real Zangetsu (and uh. their relationship)#also as an aside yes ichigo (and karin and yuzu) still have fullbring potential just from. whoo hybridization does weird things

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catsafari25 · 5 months

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A/N: Hello again, and with this I think (?) I may have succeeded in writing enough bionicle fic to get it out of my system (unless another plot bunny hits me like a cannonball, but... eh, we'll see) and thus, here is the companion piece to the Vakama & Roodaka oneshot.

This time, exploring the scene where Vakama entered the Great Temple, from his side of things! This was also partially inspired by the scene in Challenge of the Hordika where Nokama is almost physically repulsed in trying to enter the Great Temple :)

In the tunnels beneath the temple, Vakama must stoop.

At first he shuffles, mutated arm tucked against him and his sole hand brushing only briefly along the floor to steady himself, but the passages are dark and deep and lined with creatures which seek out the weak. The eyes that watch him are not hungry. They keep their bellies too full for that.

In the end, it is easier quicker to drop to all fours, to share the weight between claw and tool that feet alone cannot. His altered form folds into the new stance with frightening familiarity. It's comfortable.

Natural.

The crown of his mask grazes the tunnel's ceiling, but only in passing. His gait is sure. Well. Surer than the ungainly slouch it had been before.

It was said – back when Matoran were awake to say such things – that even the strongest swimmers of Ga-Metru would hesitate before plunging into the depths of the protodermis sea. Not because the creatures there had any fondness for the taste of Matoran. In truth, it was thought that the rahi actively disliked the flavour. No, it was because the way Matoran swam was indistinguishable from the rahi's usual prey. Only when they had sunk tooth and jaw into their meal would they realise their mistake.

It was an annoying, if harmless mistake for the rahi.

Matoran couldn't say the same.

Vakama's early crawl through the passage had been like that of a Matoran swimmer: functional, but slow and indiscernible from wounded prey. Creatures drag themselves down into these depths to die, in hopes that they will be devoured only when they are too far gone to feel it. The eyes are patient. They will wait to see if this newcomer is similarly inclined.

And so when Vakama drops to his haunches, the eyes blink. Reassess. He moves less like the hunted and more like the hunter now, more predator than prey, and the eyes – and teeth – keep their distance after that.

The path Vakama stalks through was once a protodermis pipe, made obsolete even before the cataclysm. Newer conduits had been built, more efficient, more resilient, and this one had been disconnected but never dismantled. When he reaches its origin, it takes some effort – and his blazer claw – to break the seal across the hatchway, but when he does, one of the temple's protodermis purification chambers looms above him.

The room beyond is quiet.

Unmarked.

He doesn't realise he's stopped until the chittering of his audience draws closer. The snarl he throws back echoes off the pipe's walls, and the eyes retreat, but do not leave.

Vakama curls his hand around the lip of the hatch, and then falters.

Something is wrong.

It's not a pain, because the feeling does not hurt as it ought, but something is undeniably, fundamentally wrong. It causes his breath to catch, his hand to flinch, and it would be so easy, so easy, to turn and walk away, only...

Only he came here for a reason.

The wrongness flares, amplified for a moment, and then he pulls himself up. The eyes watch, but do not follow. Do they feel it too? Can even such base creatures sense the innate malice the temple exudes?

He clambers out of the purification chamber – empty and abandoned now – and stumbles upon his landing. He catches himself, but does not rise back to his feet.

Wrong.

This is wrong.

And at the edge of the wrongness there is a strange sort of terror. It dreads the same way the fire fears the sea, the same way the prey fears the predator; it is the meeting of two primally antithetical forces where only one can survive. It whispers turn back through his mind.

He moves into the next room.

It's one he knows well. Light filters down from the rot-stained windows, centering – as it had the day he'd first seen it – on the suva, and casting long sentinel shadows of the columns standing to attention around it. A crack mars the suva, its stone dome now split cleanly in two from the quakes, and – drawn by some desire he cannot identify (instinct, curiosity... nostalgia?) – he approaches.

It seems so small now. Even bowed and altered in his Hordika form, he looms over the Ta-Metru symbol he'd once had to stretch to reach.

Unbidden, his hand moves to the niche where once he'd placed a Toa Stone – where once he had though himself chosen, duty-bound, destiny-gifted – and falters a breath from the stone.

The wrongness spikes.

Screams.

And with a twist of something he will not call horror, he understands it is not originating from himself.

But from the temple.

It is repulsion. It's alienation. It's recognising him, but as other, as rahi.

It's disgust that a monster would dare enter its sanctuary.

In the Ta-Metru carving, stone once polished to the point of fragmented reflection, he sees a glimmer of his own face. Neither Toa nor Matoran. Nothing blessed by Mata Nui.

Vakama recoils.

And then a wave of his own disgust, propelled by that fury that runs so close to the surface now, rolls through him. If you didn't want us as the Toa, you should've stopped Makuta from choosing us, he thinks, and digs his claws into the stonework.

The wrongness sings.

But he knows it for what it is now, and his morphed, clawed hand gorges scars through the carving. The stone is soft. Its makers had never imagined someone would take a blade to it.

There comes a tapping from across the room, echoing brazenly off the ancient stone walls, and Vakama retreats instinctively into the shadows. A Rahaga enters.

Norik?

No, this Rahaga's armour is more akin to a Po-Matoran than a Ta-Matoran's, the colour of dust and stone. Vakama tries to recall the Rahaga's name – and then dismisses the attempt.

It won't matter, in the end.

The Rahaga walks as he always has, stooped and slow, but clearly unhindered by the temple. He passes by the suva and runs one gnarled hand across the stonework, his movements marred by curiosity rather than reverence.

The rage arrives a fully-formed creation. It drowns out the wrongness, floods the apprehension, and he is moving before he's decided that this is the path he wants.

It is not pain, for it does not hurt as it ought.

But it does still hurt.

Whatever the Rahaga might once have been, they are old and weak now. Four are captured before Vakama's rage has a chance to cool, but the ire is no less dangerous when it does.

(That's the thing about Ta-Metru; it's not a place of fire so much as it is of magma. And magma doesn't extinguish with the cold; it sets. It moors itself into place, an unmovable, burning force.)

The rage settles, solidifies around his heart and lungs and carves a home between his breaths.

(Magma is not fire. It does not leap blindly from one source to the next. Instead it advances. Slowly. Steadily. It finds a channel, a destination, and it engulfs all in its path until it reaches it.)

He finds the last two remaining Rahaga, pathetically ignorant to their brothers' fates and still scavenging the temple for answers. He hears the way Norik appraises his sister's translation, relief clear in his voice that they are one step further on this wild rahi chase. Relief, surely, that the Rahaga are one step closer to regaining their Toa form.

(And Vakama's anger has found its destination.)

He does not descend on the Rahaga's leader the way he has the others. No. Norik will know what's coming for him first. He gets to fear. Vakama waits until Gaaki has gone, until Norik is alone, and then he circles. The wrongness thrums in his veins, weighing him down and labouring his breaths. It doesn't matter. Let Norik hear his approach.

Norik doesn't try to run. Vakama will give him that much. (A wise choice. Vakama intends for this encounter to last, but if Norik runs, Vakama cannot be sure he won't chase.) Instead, the malformed once-Toa calls out and actually tries to approach him. Stupid. Doesn't he know that he won't win any fight, transformed as he is? As both of them are? No, instead, he tries to talk. As if they are equals, as if Norik has done anything to deserve his respect rather than his scorn. As if he has earned the temple's forgiveness for his trespassing.

Even when Vakama raises the fate of Norik's fellow Rahaga, Norik attempts to sway him with the illusion of reason, talking of duty and unity, as if he's not using the other Toa Hordika to chase after a rahi myth for his own desires. As if their roles are in any way comparable, both Toa of Fire once, both leaders, it's true, but Vakama hasn't forgone his duty to chase after selfish needs.

And it stops now.

Vakama circles closer, and Norik is still talking, unease in his voice, but not fear. Still searching for the right words to turn Vakama to his bidding as he has the other Toa Hordika. Ever the voice of two-faced logic.

Why won't he just shut up?

Does Norik think him to be as gullible as the others? As quick to desert his duty as them?

And Vakama knows he wants – needs – to shake that assurance, that arrogance out of Norik. Needs to see that facade of self-righteous wisdom crumble into the terror of his situation.

The growl begins deep in his chest and, unleashed, it becomes a roar. He rears out of the darkness, into the weak sphere of light surrounding Norik – and there, there he finally sees true fear fill the old fool's eyes.

Something slams into Vakama and he reels, his roar cut short. His hand reaches automatically, defensively, to his mask. He finds only water there. It clings to him, imbued with some sort of power – he can feel something other in it – but otherwise impotent.

"Leave my brother alone," Gaaki snarls. She stands in the doorway, small and hopelessly overpowered, but her shoulders are tensed with a stubborness Vakama recognises. Already, her spinner is powering up for another shot.

Well. Two can play at that game.

Vakama's rhotuka fires into motion, but the water has seeped into the mechanism, and dowses the fire before it has a chance to catch. He gives it a withering look, before turning the expression onto Gaaki. "Very clever."

Another water spinner hits him, but this time he is braced for it and all it does is wash harmlessly off him.

"Is that all you have?" he asks. His blazer claw splutters, but the claws on his hand flex. After all, there's more than one way to defang a muaka...

Gaaki steps back. Good. She knows she's outmatched. "It's a devastating attack underwater," she offers, and her words are strong but there is a cracked edge to them.

"Then you'd better start finding a puddle," Vakama growls, "before my claws find you," and he drops into a run, feet pounding and fangs bared and that ever-present wrongness humming about him.

She doesn't flee. Just like Norik, she stands her ground, gnarled fingers wrapped tight around her staff. Her eyes are hard, but he sees the way her hands shake.

How long will her resolve last, Vakama wonders. Before or after the claws find their mark?

He never finds out.

He's knocked off his feet before he reaches her, and when he hits the ground, ropes of energy pin him to the earth, like a water-bound rahi caught in a net.

What–

Norik.

He'd forgotten Norik.

He thrashes against the restraints, but they hold strong – for now. His blazer claw splutters again, but it does nothing to the energy that binds him.

He stills as he hears footsteps approach.

The two Rahaga hobble into his line of sight. Gaaki is breathing hard, as if only now is she allowing herself to feel the fear. "You left that late, Norik," she says, and even the breath that follows sounds more like a shaken wheeze than a nervous laugh. "Almost too late."

"I only had the one shot. I couldn't afford to miss," Norik replies. "He's got our brothers. Gaaki, go find–"

"I'm not leaving you alone with him," she retorts. "I only went for a moment before, and look what would have happened if I hadn't returned."

Vakama tilts his head as well as the energy net will allow. He grins at the Rahaga, anger curdling it into a sneer. "Yes, Gaaki, you're very good bait, congratulations." He shifts his gaze to Norik. "But you've always been so good at getting others to do your dirty work, haven't you, Norik?"

Norik doesn't even have the decency of guilt. Instead, he simply looks tired. "Whatever you think you know–"

"I know the truth! You don't care about the Matoran, you only care about yourselves!" He strains against the ropes, and although they do not break, there's a little more give in them than before. He slumps back to the ground, breathing hard. "You might have the other Toa fooled. You might even have the temple fooled, but not me," he growls, and the temple's hatred presses down on him, straining his last words.

Gaaki places a frail hand on her brother's arm. "Norik," she says, and there is such unbearable sorrow in her voice. "He looks in pain."

"It's not my doing," Norik assures her softly. "My snare spinner only binds."

Vakama snarls. "I don't need pity from the likes of you. I know what you are."

"We're allies, Vakama," Norik says, in that insufferably reasonable way of his. "Friends."

"You're frauds," Vakama snaps. He twists against his restraints. They slacken, just a touch. "Liars. You don't deserve to walk these floors."

And the Rahaga stand there, unburdened by the temple's hate, strangers to this land, to Metru Nui, and yet it is Vakama the temple repulses? After everything he has forgone, the life he's abandoned, the friendships he's lost, Mata Nui punishes him?

His rhotuka fires off a fire spinner, and it goes wide, cracks a wall. Norik and Gaaki stumble back, Norik preparing another snare shot, but the energy net holding Vakama snaps. Vakama lurches forward, suddenly free, and slams into Norik.

The snare spinner wraps itself around a column. It lights up the room with crackling energy.

A blast of water grazes past his shoulder, too shy of hitting Norik to commit to taking the easy shot, and Vakama reels towards Gaaki. He fires with a snarl, but hears the snare spinner coming again and ducks at the last moment.

Again his own attack misses and the shot cleaves clean through a wall. Something on the other side begins to smoulder.

Then it begins to rumble.

It's a low sound at first, as deep as the earth and just as vast. Almost like a distant growl. But then the cracks begin to spiral out across the roof, along the columns, and the room buckles.

The light flickers. The frames of the high windows above collapse.

The world becomes fragmented, filled with flickering images. Falling masonry and toppling pillars and dust – but the sounds never relent. Even in the depths of the passing darkness, the thunder continues.

And when the dust settles, so does an awful silence.

Vakama straightens, or does his best approximation of it. Fragments of cracked protodermis fall from his shoulders, his head, his back. He withdraws the hand which has somehow found itself raised above Gaaki, knocking aside the stone slab caught against his arm.

Where's Norik?

Both Hordika and Rahaga stand side by side, that quietness disturbed only by the skittering of stone shards settling. There is wrongness in his breath, his head, and it's impossible to separate where the temple's ends and his begins. But any moment now, Norik will reappear from the wreckage, bearing that ever-same holier-than-thou look, and the anger will rise anew in Vakama.

Any.

Moment.

Now.

"You've killed him," Gaaki says, and her voice breaks that terrible stillness. She draws in a half-breath that cracks into a sob. "You've... oh, Norik..."

No.

No, it was an accident. He hadn't meant to– Norik had simply been in the wrong place. It wasn't as if he'd taken a blazer claw to Norik, or hit him directly with a fire spinner. He'd only meant to... what? What had he only meant to do?

Something swings towards him and he grabs the staff before he even registers what it is.

"He's not dead," Vakama says, and maybe if he says it, he might even believe it. He snaps his gaze to Gaaki, as if her grief is bringing it to pass. "He's not. He's not as easy to kill as that. When the others– when the Toa find him, he'll be fine. Fools like him always find a way to survive."

Gaaki attempts to pull her staff free, but her strength is no match for Vakama's. He wretches it out of her grasp and tosses it aside.

"Stop that."

She doesn't listen to him, only steps back and charges up her rhotuka. The grief in her eyes fogs into hatred.

The water spinner hits him but does little more than rock him.

"Stop."

Gaaki screams, a sound of rage and anguish, and releases a volley of spinners as ineffectual as the first.

Vakama's patience – or whatever had held him in place until now – snaps. He lunges forward. His claws close around the joints of Gaaki's rhotuka and pins the mechanisms harmlessly into place, in the same manner one might pick up a baby ussal crab by the widest edge of its shell. She thrashes, but Vakama's grip holds.

"I said, stop," he snarls.

She's breathing hard, her gasps sharp-edged with agony. "You killed him," she says, voice hoarse and hateful.

His insides twist, and – Gaaki hauled by his side – he starts the ascent to where the rest of the Rahaga are trapped. He doesn't look back to the rubble. Doesn't glance for one last glimpse of Norik's resting place.

He's not dead. He's not dead he's not dead he's not

The wrongness, the hatred, has woven so deep into him, it's almost a part of him now.

Toa don't kill. Vakama can't remember who taught him that (he recalls, briefly, the flash of a gold mask, but it comes with pain – grief – and he pushes it aside before it can take root) but it gnaws at him like a trapped stone rat. Toa don't kill.

But he was never meant to be one.

And if the Great Temple – if Mata Nui – thinks a mistake was made in Vakama's destiny....

Well. That's somebody else's problem.

The Hordika that returns to Roodaka is different from the one she sent out. There's something new in his eyes... or perhaps something lost.

"How was the temple, Vakama?" she asks when it's just the two of them.

He looks to her. Beneath the anger, beneath the rahi, there's almost a haunted look to those eyes. It vanishes a moment later, but Roodaka never doubts her own eyes.

"Unwelcoming," he replies, and Roodaka smiles. She could have suggested Vakama pick the Rahaga off one by one in the chaos of Metru Nui, outside where her Visorak could have been an aid... but the temple had been too good an opportunity to miss.

"Good." She sets a hand on his shoulder. "You owe no loyalty to Mata Nui, Vakama. Not anymore."

He rolls his shoulder, but not sharp enough to dislodge Roodaka's hand.

"One thing I do not understand," she says. "What happened to the sixth Rahaga?"

The Toa growls. It is a gutteral sound, rooted deep in the chest and at home in a way it wasn't before. "You wanted a message left for the other Toa. I needed a messenger."

"Alive?"

Vakama shrugs his shoulder again, and this time she lets him roll her hand loose. "Does it matter, so long as they understand?" he growls.

No, Roodaka concedes as she surveys the remains of the Toa before her. She supposes not.

#bionicle #cat writes #lego bionicle #do i have a weakness for the hordika arc? you'll never know #(yes. look i was a well behaved 12year old kid who loved plots about characters going feral. i ate the hordika plotline up)#(and two decades later or there abouts i still have nostalgic fondness for it)#heya so how do we feel about vakama returning to the temple and finding it is repulsed by him?#a discovery that might not only confirm he wasnt chosen by mata nui but has been forsaken #and yeah this was the fic i technically titled 'damned'#but also casually thought of it as 'god called to let you know he hates you personally'#because that's definitely a normal thing to name a fic #also yes i like the idea that roodaka pushed vakama to enter the temple knowing he would feel abandoned by mata nui #and thus helps sever the 'destiny' part of the three virtues #i like the idea that just like matau had to invoke the three virtues to get vakama back #roodaka worked on severing vakamas ties to the three virtues to get him to turn his back on the others #and while she succeeded with unity and destiny #duty she could only derail or corrupt rather than sever entirely #and that (esp since duty is vakamas whole shtick) is why matau reminding him of his duty finally worked #i'll probably add this and the stasis tube au to ao3 in time #but for now it goes here

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eryanlainfa · 5 months

Text

Wanted to draw something for this silly headcanon forever ago but since I still haven't you get this post instead.

About that DC au for Vat7k I have, where the team is the young justice league. Random fun fact : they all play DnD together, its a homebrew campaign where Varian is the DM, the campaign is called The 7 Kingdoms. And as you may have guessed, its actually just the vat7k story.

"But Varian is the DM how can he be the main character ?" Thats a good question audience I do not have! You could also ask who tf gets to play a fantasy campaign and just.. play as themself ? (Well. Probably some people cuz you can do what you want but our beloved characters wouldnt pass the opportunity to be literally anyone who isnt them.-)

Actually Varian doesnt play Varian. Hugo does. It started as a joke to bother him but the rest of the league thought it was the funniest thing ever and wanted to add to the joke. So Hugo is Varian, Aiden is Hugo, Nuru is Yong, Yong is Nuru and Varian wants to kick all of them out of his house rn.

They are all terrible caricature of each others. It actualy ends up helping them understand each others better- also free therapy I guess-

#the number of 'I dont act like that' 'yes you do' every session is astronomical #its also funny to them to imagine a 'normal' version of themselves. with no powers or hero drama #they are also completely unhinged because technically its roleplay so no consequences #Nuru and Yong keep scores of everything they get to destroy and fights over whoch one of them cause more damages both in and out game #Aiden uses rp as an excuse to flirt with Hugo every chance they get #varian is a very mean dm and decides to throw other characters in it based of their real relatives- and the DRAMA #its your usual campaign starting as a joke and then it becomes more and more serious and youre attached to your character a whole lot #eryanwrites #headcanon #youngjustice!au #oc x canon #ALSO THE OUT OF CONTEXT THINGS THEY CAN SAY IS TERRIBLE #'no no I didnt mean the real Yong I was talking about the rp character. Yong did not explode a building yestersay.-#... as far as I know at least'

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carrottyshark · 11 months

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ooh oc post! i never saw you talk about your oc(s), not that i'm following you for a long time but anyway!! will you tell me about them 👀

RU! HELLO!!!

I didn't expect to get an ask about my OCs in this time, but I did talk? about them before from an ask, which is on the left.

Thing is, it's been a long while and I've sort of drifted off from them. Recently, I've been thinking about a pair of OCs more inclined and focused on the Milgram theme which is on the right! (So that I can match what my blog is mostly focused on as well. Although, I'm more focused on their backgrounds rather than their current Milgram state.) You inspired me to draw the mini reference sheet of them, so thank you! I'll add a short description of each of their lives below too, but it's not fully fleshed out yet since this is pretty recent XD

Fair warning, some of what I'll mention can be upsetting and will contain suicide, abuse, drugs, murder, and violence.

Small background, but this would mostly take place in the slums, and one would know what to assume in places like this. This got a bit long, sorry!

So before Milgram, Krow was a troubled teen. The core reason he landed in Milgram was due to his mentality of "ending things from the root" which shaped him this way thanks to his past. Having a shitty life at home led by parents who only want to meet their end, at one point he's figured the only way out was by force, and kills his parents, whom he deems to be the root, or the cause. Around this time, Milgram doesn't register this yet, and his life continues. (Man, I just realized how edgy this sounds, he would possibly be a year or so younger when this happened, anyway continuing.)

A year or so figuring out a way through life, although going more and more downhill, he finds his way to the slums. His life by himself wasn't as bad as he thought, but it wasn't too great either. He moves from place to place, some taking him for a few days, but at the end of the day the entire environment he was in could only do so much. He could only get as much pay as well, along with the side jobs he could get and handle. His knowledge and experience did increase, and he's thankful, as a person who's killed his parents, he'd always had lingering doubts. That his mentality might as well be who he really is, but he thought that might not be the case after all.

There in the slums, he meets Yui. They get along, and even with a rough life, she still tries to find places she thought he could at least stay in, give him as much food as she can, and managed to help him. It doesn't take long for Krow to learn about her rough life; in a place filled with drug abusers, Yui receives the terrible end from both of her parents, things unimaginable. He figures the way out was none other than back then, and he strikes for the kill. Running wouldn't get them anywhere with their deteriorating state, and they wouldn't be able to recover in time if they're continued to be pushed down.

Yui is a kind person to a fault, frustratingly so, and doesn't let this happen. She didn't want him to be a killer, and at the very start, she had always wanted to take her own life, but she just couldn't.

The catch? Krow had already killed someone. This was something he admitted, but regardless she never wanted him to harm anyone ever again. Out of all options, one day, Yui tries to stab herself to end it all. Krow intervenes of course, and what he thought that he'd long forgotten comes back again, his idea of simply "ending things from the root". He kills Yui himself, to which she didn't want. He tries to kill himself after, but he end up not doing it. Here she unravels the truth he's always avoided, that yet being so similar, they're also both vastly different. She would never hurt anyone, no matter what she's faced, the very thing he's done now. Worse, it was something she didn't actually want. Was it out of desperation that she didn't actually want to die? Was it because she didn't want him to be a killer? Was it something else? It was too late and he'll never figure it out.

She also made him realize things aren't entirely black and white, like his household, like how the people in the slums ended up, simply killing her, or anyone else, can't be the only option. Right? He tries to end things for himself too, but he ends up not being able to, and his only way was to move forward. This time vowing he wouldn't hurt again.

Cue Milgram, which would be a few years after, and he'd be around 21-23. I don't really know how to insert him in the canon story, and even figure out the timeline plus time gap, but for the sake of the idea I had, Mahiru, especially T2, would be who he's going to be connected to most, for the better or worse.

So the question, Would the cycle continue?

┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈┈

And that's it! Thank you if you read this far! Since the focus was more on Krow, Yui got a bit overshadowed, but I do treasure her as much (if not more.) One thing I want to point out as well is the symbolism I have for them, because I fricking love symbolism:

The Cosmos symbolize Yui as a flower, before he "pulls it from its roots" and hangs it by rope.

Essentially, most plants grow fuller only when cut, and this is the case for Krow (similarly Yui). Having endured too many hardships, he's grown the most, but anything too much is a bad thing. The flower that would symbolize him would be Black Dahlias.

Orange Cosmos in flower language means resilience when healing oneself, and also forgiveness.

They both have plant clippers, symbolizing how they can harm either their own self or someone else. Krow's is rusted for obvious reasons, meanwhile Yui's isn't.

The rope itself is a metaphor about how Krow kills the person "for them", as so far the people he had killed were those he thought and deemed to "not want to live" anymore. He also happens to like dried flowers.

He brought the two hair bands Yui uses to Milgram.

The flowers that would symbolize Krow's deceased parents would be Yellow Carnations and White Roses.

Some other stuff! This is the audio I was continuously listening to and thought would work if he had a song.

(I don't really know the lyrics, I just liked the vibe LMAO)

youtube

Finally, this is the closest thing to Krow wearing a Milgram prisoner outfit (I didn't really think I'd be too into it before and just drew for something for the heck of it but here we are now.)

Thank you again if you read this far!

#Ah yes 'I will make a happy OC' turned into 'Poor thing suffering so much... would be a shame if I add M O R E'#Although technically Krow and Yui have been an OC of mine for a while... just not in the way that they are Milgram style #So technically they're happy and are just acting for it? :D Like an AU?#Sorry if this got angsty Ru... ;; I PROMISE THEY'RE ORIGINALLY HAPPY #Also looking back this entire thing feels like a mix of Shidou and Mahiru's story... looks like they got the most impact on me.. maybe #Also the whole OCs resemble the Creator thing? Yeae I suck at character design.#I actually had no idea what to do with Krow's straps so I just went to hell with it #thank you for the ask!#carrotty art old and new #ocarrotty

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