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#but I have some serious issues with it
inkskinned · 9 months
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you were raised in comparison.
it wasn't always obvious (well. except for the times that it was), but you internalized it young. you had to eat what you didn't like, other people are going hungry, and you should be grateful. you had to suck it up and walk on the twisted ankle, it wasn't broken, you were just being a baby. you were never actually suffering, people obviously had it worse than you did.
you had a roof over your head - imagine! with the way you behaved, with how you talked back to your parents? you're lucky they didn't kick you out on your ass. they had friends who had to deal with that. hell, you have friends who had to deal with that. and how dare you imply your father isn't there for you - just because he doesn't ever actually talk to you and just because he's completely emotionally checked out of your life doesn't mean you're not fucking lucky. think about your cousins, who don't even get to speak to their dad. so what if yours has a mean streak; is aggressive and rude. at least you have a father to be rude to you.
you really think you're hurting? you were raised in a home! you had access to clean water! you never so much as came close to experiencing a real problem. sure, okay. you have this "mental illness" thing, but teenagers are always depressed, right. it's a phase, you'll move on with your life.
what do you mean you feel burnt out at work. what do you mean you mean you never "formed healthy coping mechanisms?" we raised you better than that. you were supposed to just shoulder through things. to hold yourself to high expectations. "burning out" is for people with real jobs and real stress. burnout is for people who have sick kids and people who have high-paying jobs and people who are actually experiencing something difficult. recently you almost cried because you couldn't find your fucking car keys. you just have lost your sense of gratitude, and honestly, we're kind of hurt. we tell you we love you, isn't that enough? if you want us to stick around, you need to be better about proving it. you need to shut up about how your mental health is ruined.
it could be worse! what if you were actually experiencing executive dysfunction. if you were really actually sick, would you even be able to look at things on the internet about it? you just spend too much time on webMD. you just like to freak yourself out and feel like you belong to something. you just like playing the victim. this is always how you have been - you've always been so fucking dramatic. you have no idea how good you have it - you're too fucking sensitive.
you were like, maybe too good of a kid. unwilling to make a real fuss. and the whole time - the little points, the little validations - they went unnoticed. it isn't that you were looking for love, specifically - more like you'd just wanted any one person to actually listen. that was all you'd really need. you just needed to be witnessed. it wasn't that you couldn't withstand the burden, but you did want to know that anyone was watching. these days, you are so accustomed to the idea of comparison - you don't even think you belong in your own communities. someone always fits better than you do. you're always the outlier. they made these places safe, and then you go in, and you are just not... quite the same way that would actually-fit.
you watch the little white ocean of your numbness lap at your ankles. the tide has been coming in for a while, you need to do something about it. what you want to do is take a nap. what you want to do is develop some kind of time machine - it's not like you want your life to stop, not completely, but it would really nice if you could just get everything to freeze, just for a little while, just until you're finished resting. but at least you're not the worst you've been. at least you have anything. you're so fucking lucky. do you have any concept of the amount of global suffering?
a little ant dies at the side of your kitchen sink. you look at its strange chitinous body and think - if you could just somehow convince yourself it is enough, it will finally be enough and you can be happy. no changes will have to be made. you just need to remember what you could lose. what is still precious to you.
you can't stop staring at the ant. you could be an ant instead of a person, that is how lucky you are. it's just - you didn't know the name of the ant, did you. it's just - ants spend their whole life working, and never complain. never pull the car over to weep.
it's just - when it died, it curled up into a tight little ball.
something kind of uncomfortable: you do that when you sleep.
#writeblr#warm up#my dad was actively doing bad shit to us and we STILL were told we were lucky . and to a point i do think im lucky#i just think also there's somethin to be said about like. how about we stop using comparison to dismiss ppls individual struggles#yes there are people who have no perspective. for the reference tho having perspective actually made me really unwilling to get help#for what was a serious and debilitating mental health issue. bc i thought i didnt DESERVE IT#and i would rather have 600 ppl who aren't THAT bad get help and get heard and get seen#than make any 1 kid. do the math that i did: look at the world that is dying and the people who are hurting and say#''oh. okay. others have it worse. they are probably better people than i am. i am being unreasonable. i cannot ask for help#i am not good. i am taking too much space. i am not worth saving.''#bc our WHOLE lives we are taught a scarcity mindset - that you can 'steal' from someone. so that instead of changing a system that doesn't#actually offer fair support to everyone#we put the impetus on the individual to just... demand less.#and here's something - there are probably ppl who think i DIDNT deserve to get help#bc i DID have it better than other people#and something about that is ... so sickening. bc i think all of us in some way at some point WILL need help.#we were supposed to make communities. we were supposed to offer our hands. we were supposed to raise the barn#instead we said: it could be worse. now handle it yourself
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everysongineverykey · 2 years
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dhmis is great because imagine a series centered around three roommates living in a small incredibly isolated house in a story run by a strange omnipotent woman with unclear motivations who amuses herself by tormenting the roommates over and over again in various awful ways by dangling something new and exciting in front of their faces and then making it backfire horribly thus traumatizing them all and often maiming and killing them and they can't escape because they're nothing but puppets in her little show and they're chained to a narrative that will not let them go and one roommate is a naive kid with a sadistic father who traumatizes him horribly when he isn't neglecting him and also eats people and another roommate is almost aware of his situation but will never be able to save himself or his friends and is constantly rejected by his own kind and only wants to leave the tiny house but nothing, no one, will play along and the third roommate is caught in the middle, not a naive child but not quite meta aware, and thus is doomed to fall victim to the same traps over and over and also they're literally the only three people in their entire world besides the evil things that keep intruding in their home and terrorizing them and they can't call for help. ok and now imagine they look like this
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marisatomay · 8 months
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“you don’t owe anyone anything” actually you owe everyone everything!!! you OWE your table server and your coworkers and the elderly person you pass on the street and the dog on its walk and the child toddling along in the park and the driver trying to merge next to you and the pregnant person standing on public transport KINDNESS in return for theirs!! the connections we build are what give life meaning!!!
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dyketubbo · 3 months
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forgive me if i lose tubbo character analysis points (rolls eyes heavily) over this or something but i honestly dont think the date was very ooc or that the frubbo romance is going to be played as something that makes qtubbo better. obviously qtubbo gained a lot of trust issues and lost a lot of hope in others + started to strongly believe that love only hurts after purgatory and the funeral. and hes an extremely defeatist guy at heart
but he also makes exceptions because no matter how much he tries to disconnect himself he still cares so so much about others. he has such a weird fucked up view of love and justifies seeing sunny as an exception by saying they wont hurt each other because their love is unconditional and yet he also claims empanada isnt safe when bagi is around because the eye workers will use that connection to their advantage And Yet he constantly looks after and takes care of sunny anyways. even though hes already mourning her before theyve even died. even though by his own logic it may be safer for sunny to not be with him
and like.. he says dont get attached empathy makes you weak but he tries to ruin fit & pacs date so they dont abandon him. he still jokes around with them and has happy moments with them bc ultimately theyre his friends and even if they dont Really understand what hes going through or what would help him they want to be there for him and make him happy and they Do make him happy. bc qtubbo doesnt spend all of his time with his friends whining and groaning about how theyre going to leave him some day and despite being suicidal and defeatist and at times a fucking jerk that isnt his whole personality
depressed people Have happy days. they have ups and peaks in their life and yeah actually many of them do manage to have nice relationships and theres a lot of depressed people out there who are fully capable of just. not being complete downers to be around all the time (cough a lot of comedians have depression cough). if anything i would argue it isnt just in character but realistic for qtubbo to be able to just. have a normal date where hes a bit of a loser and manages to get through an actual confession
and its not like hes going all in oh we're dating and we're going to get married now bc he doesnt even consider themselves boyfriends and he turns down sunny claiming fred as another parent. he just had a happy day and it boosted his mood a little. i dont think fred is really on his list of trusted people and in fact i feel like him just being very silly and awkward during the date is a Part of him not fully trusting fred or wanting to be super serious around/with her. i think to qtubbo fred symbolizes sure some pain from the whole funeral situation but also still a lot of happier simpler times and ultimately a time where tubbo was happier and openly hopeful
if anything, tubbos relationship with fred is another form of escapism for him. of course it isnt going to make him better. he literally brought fred to him and sunnys island where they plan to live far away from everyone to avoid their problems. its all a fantasy for him, and one that he isnt even allowing himself to fully jump into but will joke about and dance around the subject of nonetheless
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qprstobin · 3 months
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I am BEGGING this fandom to realize that ST is just not as deep as some of y'all make it out to be. Like the Duffers just aren't that good at writing or directing.
Also! Half this show is nostalgia bait! Which is actually a really important part of this conversation because I've seen people use scenes that were literally just movie throw back scenes to talk shit about characters when the scenes were literally just there to be Easter eggs. The Duffers barely even put any emotional direction into their scripts, it almost always ends up on the shoulders of the actors (which frankly explains some inconsistency with the party's characterization when you aren't giving enough direction to the literally child actors, some of which didn't start acting professionally until st). A lot of the metaphors they put into the show are also not that subtle. Which to be fair to the Duffers on this point, they don't NEED to be! The problem is that a lot of this fandom just glances over the obvious canonical metaphors and wholesale makes up new meanings to things. Like it's at a level that is extremely concerning!
Analysing works on a deep level is great, and there's plenty of media out there that does have 50 million meanings that you have to read or watch over and over again to catch every single line, joke reference, etc. but stranger things just ain't one of them.
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sydmarch · 10 months
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ok actually I have one more thing to say but as someone who actively participates in fandom, fandom is rotting some people's brains I swear. "please don't hate me for this it's just my take" is for shit like "I actually think blorbo would be a top" not for when you're completely showing your ass talking about fictional portrayals of addiction in a way that says a lot more about how you view real people who are actually struggling with addiction in real life than it does about your whether or not you like a character
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askblueandviolet · 3 months
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Do you still have problems with the other mayors?
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Bonus:
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"we need more lawyers who are good at winning cases" you guys couldn't even handle manfred von karma
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lazitoelgato · 4 months
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What’s wrong with them???
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harbingerofsoup · 7 months
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begging y’all to remember that aziraphale and crowley aren’t men
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generic-sonic-fan · 6 months
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Transcendence
Summary: The Chaos Emeralds grant power to those with the will for them. 
Seek all seven, and your conviction can reshape reality. 
Word count: 4257
Metal Sonic remembers the first time he touched an Emerald. 
(When he finally starts winning, of course. Or, at the very least, not losing. When his body is finally fast enough to obey his will, fast enough to steal the gemstone from where it lays before an organic hand can reach it instead.)
Metal Sonic remembers how it thrummed against his palm plating. 
(He should feel nothing. Dr. Ivo Robotnik, as referred to on days he succeeded, or Master, as referred to everytime else, had removed his tactile sensors in a bid to shave more weight off his frame. What need is there to be precise when the aim is to kill and one’s entire self is the knife?)
Metal Sonic remembers the surge of energy. Emergency insulation systems had snapped into place, redirecting the chaos away from his processor and back into his chest turbine. 
(Metal Sonic remembers a whisper.)
(A tugging from the deepest recesses of his processor.)
(But the connection is severed before it can form, discharged out the hole where his heart should be, just like every other burning spark he might contain.)
There is a first time that he witnesses Chaos Control. Shadow disappears from the battlefield and into a realm of perception beyond that which scanners can penetrate. There is no time to react, for an ordinary Badnik. The Egg Pawns are trapped in the span between milliseconds. 
But Metal Sonic feels something. Behind. Above. In that span between milliseconds, he rotates around to face it.
But his body betrays him. He is not fast enough. Shadow’s downward kick sends him tumbling onto the rocks below. 
“Now that’s a curious development,” his master says upon reviewing the memory file. “How’d you know he’d be there?”
Metal Sonic knows better than to reply to the rhetorical musings of a genius at work.
“You don’t have the sensors for it.” 
Not anymore. Those were removed three defeats ago, outsourced to a handheld scanning unit that could be discarded upon entering battle. The modification had shaved off three whole pounds. 
“Some sort of new tactical positioning calculation you came up with? Or a mere lucky guess?”
A guess, Metal Sonic replies over the data cable. 
“Correct answer. Your operating data doesn’t show any particularly useful thinking on your part.” His master smiles. 
His master’s foreign program retreats from his memory banks. The extraction drags its pointed barbs against the other segments of his operating system. Metal Sonic stays very, very still. The data cable is pulled without warning, taking a few lines of him with it, but it is easier to stitch over the tear himself once his master leaves the room than to mention the damage. 
Metal Sonic remembers the first time he saw him use it. 
His body has failed yet again. Sonic’s hand brushes the glassy cyan surface, and before Metal Sonic can lunge, there is a flash, and he is gone. 
Behind. Below. At the bottom of the temple stairs Sonic stands and smiles. 
“Pretty neat trick, huh? Shadow passed it along.”
Metal Sonic redirects all power to his turbine system. He shoots forward and his claw scrapes Sonic’s tan cheek before it disappears. Above, to the right. This time he doesn’t try to face the source. He maintains his trajectory and Sonic reappears to kick nothing but empty air. 
“Okay, maybe it’s not that neat of a trick.” Sonic is still grinning. “But it’s one you can’t do.”
Metal Sonic swerves his head around faster than his programmed tolerances should have allowed him. But his wretched organic copy has unwittingly spoken the key. Other core directives fall away, leaving his consciousness with a single command. Maintain superiority. Remind the rodent of his match. 
Metal Sonic activates his reverser and in the span between milliseconds he is flung backwards with enough g-forces to pop a few soldered connections from his motherboard. His body bludgeons into Sonic, knocking the Emerald from his grasp. It tumbles across the uneven yellow bricks of the temple, as they do. Sonic hits the floor first. His shoulder digs into a outcrop in the brick, but Metal Sonic does not linger long enough to hear a cry spill out. He jumps off and scrabbles across the floor, claws reaching for cyan.
It’s calling him. Ahead. Ahead. 
He brings it into his palm and it thrums.
(This time it offers warmth. Warmth, like that of flesh and blood pressed against his plating. Ghosts of Amy’s touch where he’d held her as he’d carried her on Little Planet. Touches that had been erased from his files upon the removal of his tactile sensors.)
And the energy beckons. 
(A whisper.)
But the surge protection activates, and insulation is slammed onto the wires running up his spinal column. The energy is expunged out the back of his turbine like it always has and not for the first time does Metal Sonic wish to rip his plating off to reshape himself. He chooses instead to use the burning for what little use it gives and takes off, shattering a hole through the brick wall of the temple. 
He does not realize what he’s left behind until another shockwave joins his own from the ground. The rest of him wakes from its dream. Targeting protocols, force calculations, and kill simulations slam back into his awareness. 
He’d turned his back on Sonic instead of killing him. But where he expects to find disgust at the concept, he merely finds the thrum of the Emerald, fainter now but still registerable to his non-existent sensors.
He abruptly changes course for the coastline and is able to lose Sonic amongst the waves. 
“A success! A good long while since we’ve had one of those from you, isn’t it?”
Metal Sonic places the Emerald into Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s waiting palm. The man’s mustache twitches as he studies the crystal. His eyes do not dart about the many multitudes of reflections behind the glass. His hand does not shift around the surface in time with its pulse. He places it into a holding container. 
“Well done. I’ve tracked Prower’s plane to a small soiree back on the mainland. Where there’s the fox, there’s him. I’ll allow you a free fight for once.”
Metal Sonic points to the Emerald. 
“What?” Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s brows narrow. 
He lowers his hand. 
“I’m not going to let you hand Sonic back the Emerald when you inevitably lose.”
He shakes his head.
“No. Now go fulfill your function.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik grabs his shoulder and pushes him to the door. “I’ll be waiting to receive your distress signal.”
The biplane designated as The Tornado had been modified to utilize an Emerald when one was available to achieve supersonic speeds. And here, in this tiny municipal airport, unguarded in a hangar with only a feeble padlock on the door, is the plane. Metal Sonic grabs the padlock and pulls until the metal is twisted and useless. 
His processor continues to tick upwards in framerate. His targeting protocols jump at shadows and his logic processing suggests a trap. Even as his cameras adjust to the light of the interior, he is still in the dark; he doesn’t have a scanning unit with him. He is throwing away an opportunity for an ambush and defying the mission commands on a “guess”. If he withdraws now, there will still be time to plan the encounter and explain the deviation in his flight path. 
Metal Sonic crosses the concrete floor until his claws hover just above the red skin of the plane. He recalls the file where he’s attempted to codify the sensation given by the Emeralds into readable bits of data, but the clusters of numbers are hardly more than gibberish. There is no special calculation to generate more, no secret scanner setting to employ; nothing in the memory files to review, as his master so astutely observed. 
The plane waits before him.
He tears open the engine compartment and yellow light floods the hangar. The tips of his claws scratch the crystalline surface-
(-and he hears music. Not being played from a speaker driver, but as if all the air itself is being plucked like a string, the sound too big to be contained in such a space. Echoes reflecting, twisting, turning off the roof and floor and spilling into the spaces between the boards of his central processing unit.)
(As if he is singing.)
-before alarms ring out. Metal Sonic snatches the Emerald from its casing. The song dies as the surge protection clamps down on his body. He bursts from the hangar and dives into the surrounding forests, weaving through trees until he hits the edge of land. On the beach behind, another trail of sand is kicked up before his own has a chance to settle, but its creator is forced to stop short of the water line. 
Metal Sonic can’t allow himself to look behind until he reaches the base on a distant shoreline. He cuts his turbine, ending the brilliant ejecta behind him, and falls. His feet hit just short of the landing pad and impact the soil between superstructures. It is here that he whispers to the Emerald, some voiceless combination of coaxing and pleading, but there is nothing in response except the hot fire building in his chassis. The Emerald pulses weakly. Its warmth caresses his neck but can travel no further. 
He presses the Emerald against his forehead.
(He presses the Emerald against his forehead.)
And he feels the dirt beneath his feet (coarse, powdery) and the wind against his skin (smooth, cooling) and the sun on his face (warm, radiating across his cheeks) and the music spills forth, softly bowed strings beneath the whistles of birds. He smells flowers (he shouldn’t) and tastes honey (he can’t) and there is nothing to analyze, nothing to calculate. His processor is still. 
(All is well. He can understand this now.)
He reappears in his master’s workshop and clatters to the ground. He is assaulted with every variant of error warning that his diagnostic programs can bludgeon him with, but the codes slip past his awareness like the smoke billowing between his fingers. 
“A chaos control.”
Metal Sonic awakens.
“You know, I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t checked the cameras.”
It hits him again. The weight. The analysis and calculations and scanning, scanning, scanning; no instances of Sonic the Hedgehog found, but that readout is not enough to calm the chorus. It all comes back and it’s all he can do to steel himself enough to keep processing his master’s words. 
“Still- what brought that on? Did you even know it would work?”
His master’s program prods him through the data cable. Yes, he responds. 
(There’s no data to support this conclusion.)
“. . . do you think you can do it again?”
Yes, he affirms. 
Dr. Ivo Robotnik laughs, and laughs, and laughs, claps his hands together, and smiles. The workshop becomes a flurry of movement and somewhere in the carnage Metal Sonic’s head plating is unscrewed and tools jammed inside. He offlines himself to prevent any program corruption during modification. 
He awakens again and it’s three days later. There’s an Emerald on the counter ahead of him and Dr. Ivo Robotnik waits behind a wall of thick glass. Metal Sonic stands. Checks his diagnostics. Surge protection has been removed. 
He grabs the Emerald and it burns. Liquid hot fire spills overs his head and flames lick at the corners of his visual sensors. Where is the cool breeze? Why does this hurt? Why does-?
He should have expected this. The Emerald is nothing more than a new master. When he wakes and the gem lies in front of him, he bows his head. He grasps the crystalline surface and allows it to consume him. Change me, use me, he begs, and if it responds he hears nothing of it besides the scream of overloaded wiring and the dripping of melted insulation.
“I expected results.”
Metal Sonic sits on the table and stares at his original master’s feet. 
“You are wasting my time. My valuable time, spent repairing a malfunctioning robot!”
He is slapped across the faceplate by a glove thick enough for the perpetrator to feel as much as he does, an equal amount of nothing. More words. The repairs have grown haphazard and his audio fizzes as his left audial sensor quits completely.
“One last chance. One, last, chance! Then we’re done with this silly little venture, and you’ll be taking a long vacation in storage until I can come up with a way to make you useful again.”
His master steps aside, revealing the taunting yellow glow emanating from the pedestal. The light from Metal Sonic’s own irises is refracted amongst the hundreds of edges within. He slides off the table. He walks, forward, enough for the glow to bathe his surface. He listens, not with his audial sensors. The hum is faint, but-
His master shuffles his shoes against the floor and coughs. Metal Sonic pictures snapping to him, clenching his throat shut, silence, silence, before he realizes what he’s done. Reprimand programs slam red over his vision; he disguises the shudder with another step forward. He can’t cling to the fleeting image as it’s erased, can’t create it again. 
He looks at the Emerald.
He pictures his claw crushing it, shattering it into a thousand shards. No reprimand touches this vision. 
He snatches the Emerald from the counter. The surge scorches its way through his arm and up his torso and when it reaches his head he clenches the crystalline surface harder. 
(And he envisions it, envisions its demise, in the span between milliseconds, he takes it through every variation of shattering, the shards painting trajectories of shards across the workshop floor. It burns-)
(And he burns back.)
Like a whip he snaps his own willpower to the space ahead. 
(A chord soars out of the Emerald, clean and crisp and clear in both audial sensors.)
A bright flash.
(He is floating. A bright light is behind him, but he cannot turn his head to face it. Something caresses his faceplate. It is the same area that his master had struck. This touch is. . . soft.)
And he is dropped. He lands on both feet on the other side of the pedestal, but diagnostics show that he has not fired his turbine to achieve this effect. 
The Emerald pulses in his hand. Its burning creeps back up his neck, but a quick lash of his will cools the temperature to a level where he can process again.
“Well, well! Seems you finally had it in you!”
Dr. Ivo Robotnik strolls over. He reaches down and his glove brushes against Metal Sonic’s shoulder before he recoils.
“Hot! Hot! Good grief, how could you possibly be withstanding those operating temperatures?!”
Metal Sonic turns to the man. He locks his irises with the whites of his eyes. 
“Well? Are you going to give me a diagnostic report? We need more data before I let you use this in combat with Sonic, you know.”
Metal Sonic teleports over to the computer and begins typing up his report. 
“Bringing that, for me? What, you have a change of heart or something?” Sonic flicks his nose and grins.
Metal Sonic does not imitate his taunt. He doesn’t need to, not anymore. He clutches the Emerald tighter. Instead of wind blowing through trees, or useless lesser organics chirping and singing in their futility, there is only music. 
(And he is humming along.)
Sonic charges. 
(A crescendo.)
And Metal Sonic appears behind him, swinging a kick that connects to the side of his head. The inferior hedgehog flies into the cliff face. A rock breaks open, bathing his frame in a red glow. 
(Like sunlight warming the surface of the water, this revealed Emerald offers him. Soft, like red sand between your toes.)
He focuses his intention and appears beside the red Emerald, plucking it from the shattered rocks. Sonic lies on the ground ten feet away. Vulnerable.
(playing dead, a whisper offers where his own processing cannot. Exploiting gullibility. Trained reaction. Disengage.)
Protocols scream against the action, but a quick burst of Chaos energy dulls their roar as Metal Sonic uses the power from both Emeralds to retreat. 
“You marked Sonic was vulnerable there, didn’t you? Why did you not engage?” Dr. Ivo Robotnik points to the footage. 
Metal Sonic cannot look to the screen- moving his head that far would unplug the cable feeding the very screen. 
I’m not going to let you hand Sonic back the Emerald, he recalls the memory and projects it onto the screen.
“Yes, of course, and I’m certainly grateful for the extra Emerald. It’s simply. . .” The doctor puts his hand on his chin. “Simply that you’ve become better at long-term planning, that’s all.”
Metal Sonic finds the red Emerald on the pedestal across the room. It’s joined the other two. Four pedestals left. Dr. Ivo Robotnik unplugs the cable and Metal Sonic’s thoughts are his own once more. 
“It was inevitable, of course! Eventually you would catch a clue- you’re my creation, after all. I’m grateful it was sooner rather than later.”
It was not your development, Metal Sonic thinks. 
Dr Ivo Robotnik’s smile does not waver. 
It’s difficult, having sensation. His fingertips buzz, searching for stimulation as if they possessed a separate processing unit from his own. It’s cold, within Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s metal walls and testing rooms. The air is dry, like a desert should be, or so the yellow Emerald tells him.
(It makes him cough, when he forgets that he does not have lungs.)
The white Emerald is buried under sixteen feet of snow in a glacier. When he retrieves it, he offers it a memory of the memory of sunlight, and it accepts not unlike a starving organic with a meal,
(mouth salivating, stench intoxicating, stomach throwing an odd equivalent of damage errors. Then a relief unlike any he’s ever felt before. For a moment, he is sated. Whole.)
The blue Emerald lies on the seafloor. 
(It offers him darkness. True darkness of the visual spectrum, shedding the flickering of ultraviolet and the false hum of infrared. Scanning is impossible. In the one environment on the planet where Sonic cannot go, there is something called peace.)
(All is well, he understands again, until Dr. Ivo Robotnik requests a status report.)
He doesn’t need the handheld scanner to find the Emeralds any longer. Once Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s satellite scanners detect a positive, it is quick to search the hundred-mile radius. The prior three sang, their chords growing thunderous with his approach.
Something is different with this one. Something is wrong. 
(Levity. He finds himself rising in altitude if he doesn’t focus on his flight path. The air is smooth across his skin, twirling around from his waist to his hips. Soft laughter.)
He has no skin. He cannot laugh. This is wrong. But the sensation of elation only increases as he follows his course. By the time he reaches the junkyard, he feels like he is glowing. Like his body is somehow part of him, not just a disobedient tool his consciousness inhabits. This cannot possibly be a sensation organics experience.
He stomps through the rusted metal plates and other refuse piled around him. He crushes glass underfoot, but he feels nothing.
(Incorrect. He is flying, but his turbine is not activated. The air continues to swish around his feet and over his skin in such an elegant way. Sing, it urges. You are brilliant.) 
Metal Sonic grabs an I-beam from the hill of garbage ahead of him. His claws pierce through the metal as if it were just a flower petal, before he throws it to the side. The purple Emerald lies perfectly seated in a half-broken pipe. 
He grabs his forearm as he did with the I-beam and holds it to the mocking gem. 
(Is that who you are?)
Metal Sonic pauses.
(An identity, it suggests, is a distinction of one from another. It is something that is comfortable, something that does not prickle at your skin whenever heard.)
Metal lets go. The Emerald is lifted from the refuse. The robot turns the gemstone about.
Neo, the Emerald whispers.
(A woman’s voice is laughing. She is laughing so hard that she cannot catch her breath. Tears slip out of her eyes and run down her faceplate, dripping off her nose and onto her skirt. She holds the Emerald in her hands. She is laughing. She is crying.)
Neo looks up to the sky. She wipes away the memory of tears with her free hand, tucking the purple Emerald close to her chest. 
The last Emerald lies in the possession of Shadow the Hedgehog, and it is against this opponent that Neo is not in any way restricted. Not so long ago she might have dismissed this small mercy as a trap, but now she is undeterred. She follows the scent of the green Emerald to a jungle thick with vines; through these vines cuts her target. He’s alone. 
She grasps the purple Emerald tight against her palm but Shadow skids to a halt in a small gap in the foliage. He glares at the Emerald in his hand.
“Alright, I’m here,” he mouths. “Now what?”
Neo hums and teleports behind him. As his head turns over his shoulder, she yanks the Emerald from his grasp and sends all of the energy from his shock to her turbine, kick-starting her ignition. She sails skyward. Shadow the Hedgehog can do little more than hover above the treeline in her wake.
(This Emerald offers her the planet, glowing green and blue below the stillness of space Energy courses through her, both exhilarating and painful. Beside her is a person she trusts and above her is a purpose she for once identifies with.)
She accepts the memory with appropriate gratitude before pushing it to the back of her processor. She calculates the flight path back to the workshop and tears across the sky.
Neo brings the last two Emeralds to the room where the other five are held. She is holding her breath. Her feet are hardly her own. What she once called a chorus before was hardly a whisper compared to the cacophony of energy before her, caressing her, beckoning-
A hand clamps around her forearm.
“Not yet, my creation.” Dr. Ivo Robotnik purrs. “I’m still coming up with a suitable scheme.”
(Energy crackles in Neo’s shoulders, but she keeps it there.)
“If you go super, what do you think you could achieve?”
A question she doesn’t know the answer to. 
“Now come on. To the table with you.” Dr. Robotnik releases his hold.
She sets down the Emeralds. She steps to the diagnostic table, but stops as her gaze drifts to the computer cable. 
“Come on, up you go!” He smiles.
(Something has changed. Something has changed within her, something desperate and burning, and it is something that she cannot put out. The whites of his teeth flicker warnings in a language she could not translate to him.)
“Really? Malfunctioning now, after all this?” Her master sneers.
Neo pictures snapping to him, clenching his throat shut. Silence. 
Just. . . silence. Not a single reprimand program blares within her processor. She refocuses her optics and Dr. Ivo Robotnik is merely standing there with his hands on his hips.
She turns around and picks up the purple and green Emeralds. 
“Put those down!”
She walks forward to the pillars containing the rest of them. 
(As they glow, so does she. She knows this now.)
“What are you-? emergency shutdown code - - - - - - -!”
She turns around. The plexiglass containers shatter behind her and the Emeralds lift from her palms. 
“Override - - - -!” The man before her shouts. He then scrambles for the door.
(Heat. She burns brighter, brighter, brighter, scalding her plating and her processor, and everything else. Her optics fail first, followed by her audials. Her limbs lose power.)
(She gasps. Her lungs are on fire and her heart is racing. Each breath sucks in soothing cold air and she drinks it in.)
(Cool air swirls around her legs, except now it is more tangible. Her fingers travel to her thighs and find satin.) 
(She)
(opens)
(her)
(eyes.)
She bursts through the roof of the base and shoots across the sky. She is a star in the night. The eyes of the world are on her. She sings.  
She awakens in a field of green. The wind blows across her skin, cooling her from the heat of the sun. The air whistles through the grass and into her nose. The scent of flowers fills her. She exhales, and her breath tastes like honey. 
She stands. Waits. But the sensations do not leave her. She scans the grass around her, but the Emeralds are nowhere to be found. The fire in her chest is gone. 
“All is well,” she whispers, and thinks, thank you. 
The last of their energy caresses her cheek, before disappearing in a mote of light. 
She bunches the fabric of her skirt in her hands and makes her way to the treeline.
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moeblob · 27 days
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Deacon loves two things: Ymber and digging himself a grave.
Fulj hates one thing: Deacon.
#my characters#waiting on some info on the next commission so i indulged in ocs today bc i doubt i will have as much time for lil comics for a bit#deacon is so devoted hes like yeah i would kill for a deity that could easily kill anything himself but yknow teehee#and fulj just did you tell him you needed therapy also does he even know youd murder in his name#deacon caught red handed haha no of course i havent told him it should be obvious enough haha.... and its in his defense not his name :c#man really does have some issues but i love him so much and hes so devoted but like. unhealthily after a while#he does in fact need a chill pill and therapy but to be fair#ymber has needed therapy for centuries and yet he just bottles it all up and suffers so#its pretty unhealthy until they yell at each other one (1) time bc they are so insecure about things and get mad over very valid reasons#but then theyre like you know what that was necessary and i still want to stay by your side if you let me#and then fulj is like dude hey sorry you seem really happy did you fu- and ymber is like no please stop there we have not#fulj just squinting cause have not is very different than will not but whatever she doesnt wanna think about that with deacon involved ew#and eventually fulj is like hey ymber im sorry to say but i really do hate deacon and i dont even know why but he makes me uncomfortable#while deacon is just. in the room. hearing this and thinking how he knows she thinks hes weird but wow that wording hurts#and ymber doesnt wanna fill in memories better forgotten by fulj which she had forcefully removed#so he just says oh well his hair and clothing are black and you had someone in the past that you might see in him and its not a pleasant en#so you know maybe its that idk#and fulj is then WHATST i was rude to him for someone i cant even remember? lame im gonna try SO HARD to be nice to him now#and deacon just still sitting there with some food like this is v awkward and i wish i could not be here for it#and later he asks ymber about who he resembled and as ymber is descibing her it clicks in deacons head and he gets really sad#that he might somehow remind fulj of the woman she loved before she was punished for loving a mortal#and he feels kinda bad pestering her so much with his curiosities about deities and he kinda gets it#the fact hes close to ymber might remind her at the core that she was once that close with a mortal if not closer#anyway story time in the tags again#im so obsessed with these peeps and i have made them suffer so much but they do all end on a happy note#its still funny and nice to me that while fulj is creeped out by deacon and doesnt like talking to him#he still expresses the most emotions to her - he tries hard to remain serious around ymber and collected and obedient at all times#and when out and about with ymber he has to be intimidating and refuses smiling but fulj?? all sunshine and smiles and emotions easy to rea#and she is just that is so weird go away i hate you
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mqfx · 11 months
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mu qing has intimacy issues because he hates sharing his space with others and he views every possible interaction through the lens of power dynamics. feng xin has intimacy issues because he still abides by outdated codes of chivalry and articulating his desires was never something he was expected to do. they are both terminally repressed in deeply personal ways. and let's not even get into what hualian got going on because I truly don't have all day
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fleshdyke · 1 year
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i know its a joke but my autistic brain is going wild at that raccoon vs goose post. why would u ever take a raccoon in a fight over a goose. geese are mean sure but theyre FINE like theyre not really gonna do much damage. the most you’ll get from a goose attack is like a bruise and MAYBE a small cut if it claws you on a spot with no clothes covering skin. the most you’ll get from a raccoon attack is rabies and die
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arsenicflame · 1 year
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i sometimes get the impression that a lot of people forget that while our flag means death is a comedy, it does know how to handle trauma well within the narrative. we are shown it over and over with the flashbacks for ed and stede and jim. at no point do they play the real trauma of the situation for laughs, its treated with the weight it deserves, while still being part of a comedy show
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