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yanderes-galore · 3 months

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I would like to see what a human romantic Yandere Mewtwo would be like! :3

Honestly, I like this idea. Keep in mind this is a HUMAN POKEMON story, which means Mewtwo is a human with some Pokemon-like characteristics and powers.

Yandere! Human! Mewtwo Concept

Pairing: Romantic

Possible Trigger Warnings: Gender-Neutral Darling, Obsession, Dark themes such as the following; Human experimentation, Neglect, Telepathy/Telekinesis, Violence, Mass Murder, Blood, Clingy behavior, Delusional behavior, Kidnapping, Forced relationship implied.

In this story, Mewtwo would be more of a chimera than anything.

He's mostly human but has been spliced with Mew's DNA.

As a result, he is a human with a purple tail, white nubs near the top of his head like horns or ears, and extreme psychic abilities.

He has white/silver hair, purple eyes. and a lean but strong build.

He is the first attempt at a living weapon, a human spliced with the raw power of a Pokemon.

Naturally, due to his upbringing, he comes across as volatile.

You meet the chimera hybrid as a scientist/caretaker.

You were hired to research the new experiment as he learns and is trained.

Obviously, Mewtwo feels less than human.

All the other scientists treat him like he is below them.

But he knows the truth... he is easily better than all of them with his power.

The one person he does not feel this way with is you.

Similar to how Mewtwo in canon has never felt proper compassion, you give said compassion to him.

You're the only one who gives such a thing to him.

You can't see this experiment as a Pokemon.

You feel Mewtwo is too intelligent and human-like to be treated as anything less than that.

Really, what makes him different other than some characteristics and powers?

You pity that he only gets to wear loose experiment clothes or some sort of tight skin-tight suit for training.

You wish he could live a normal life...

In secret you try to give him that, even if he's behind some glass.

You talk with the hybrid in private and even teach him some things.

You answer any questions he seems to have.

He often asks why the other scientists aren't as nice as you... to which you say you aren't sure.

If he wants to speak to you in private he trains his telepathy to continue to read your thoughts and converse with you.

Naturally, if you're the only one he feels is safe to be around, he gets attached to you.

When he sees you he acts very cat-like, purple eyes dilating with his tail swaying when he sees you behind the glass.

He may look very cold but his telepathy says otherwise when he appears to be ecstatic when projecting his thoughts.

You are never allowed to touch or hold the experiment and can only interact behind the glass.

You slide food into his enclosure and provide him stimulation through speech and tests.

Yet Mewtwo always voices his distaste to you for this arrangement.

Mewtwo probably feels a connection with you to the point he wonders about romantic attraction.

Granted, he still is new to such a thought.

He's a genetically altered human and can read the thoughts of others.

Eventually, he interprets his feelings for you as romantic due to the thoughts he's picked up.

I imagine Mewtwo's mental state drops as the transition to making him a weapon begins.

When they put him in a tight battle suit and all that heavy armor... he's frightened.

Even more so when he sees you're no longer in his sight.

After all, by this point, he no longer needs to be watched.

He's a weapon... almost able to be put to the test once his mask slips on.

It all becomes too much.

Mewtwo makes his big escape... a massacre left behind him.

The facility collapses, his psychic power causing tech to fail as he lays waste to the scientists who have created yet imprisoned him.

He cares for none here... none but you.

Blood covers the heavy armor he wears as he searches for you.

Even if you weren't in the facility at the time, he doesn't stop his search.

The faster the hybrid finds you... the faster his carnage ends.

By the time he finds you, he sees you cowering.

You stare at him like he's a monster, a weapon...

Perhaps that is what he is in the end.

But he doesn't care now.

He pulls off the mask they gave him and drops it to the floor, you can see the pale purple tint on his skin as he stares at you.

All you smell is metal and gore.

He would try to comfort you... yet now he and you will be on the run.

He proposes the idea of you both becoming a "couple" like humans usually do.

But you don't answer him.

Oh well... maybe you'll come around?

It's then that Mewtwo decides to take you to Cerulean Cave, a cave out of the way for the two of you in Kanto.

You can live there with him...

Maybe even teach him how normal humans live life now that the facility is in ruins.

#yandere pokemon #yandere human pokemon #yandere human mewtwo #yandere mewtwo #yandere pokemon hybrid

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amyyythestarry · 5 months

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CHAPTER 109 OF TBHK!

I love how Tsu’s feet is just kicked up, like always. I find it so hilarious because people are calling him fruity💀.

Fruity a** pose.

Him and his brother, omg.

The bestie look, the look of secret telepathy I knew I would see it from them. I really want to see it from the Yugi twins too. Like, twin telepathy, then saying stuff at the same time/doing something in sync, maybe as humans people get them mixed up or they swap for the day. I always imagine them just being silly stereotypical twins.

Yes Teru is pissed.

Also Mirai not being able to read is funny to me.

In an au where they are alive, in my aus where they are all in the Near Shore, she just has dyslexia.

Tsu’s smug smile, enjoying his ambiguity and unknowing-ness. Just a drama king in disguise and wants to mysteriously introduce himself.

Mr. B**ch. Step forward.

Jesus.

They for real called him out. Can’t even claim it’s bs.

I didn’t realize this before, but the fact Tsukasa is surprised is really funny.

Because if you think about it, Hanako has been acting more like how he was as a human, ‘Amane’, than he is as a supernatural, as ‘Hanako’. Being embarrassed for himself.

The Amane Tsukasa knew was not perverted, and if he was then he probably kept that to himself, instead of Hanako, who outwardly acts as a perv.

“Amane, you want to do pervy stuff?” - 🫢

Tsukasa, as the very non-perverted person he is, must actually be shocked that his dear old twin brother would be and want to do such a thing. Maybe not disgusted like Teru and Akane obviously is, but since that’s not a part of Amane he know he will hold this in his memory bank. Now he knows you’re a pervert Amane. He’ll probably never let you ‘live’ this down.

She just a little baby, she can’t even reach over the thing!

Her first time in court she was only 3 years old.

I wonder when she’ll turn back to normal?

I love love love Akanene, I’m sorry y’all.

But c’mon, HE’S DEFENDING HER, STICKING UP FOR HER, WANTING HER TO WIN HER CASE.

Platonic or not, they are the sh**.

In the MangaUp translation it said “Do you really think I’m a sociapath?” ( Or something like that ) He definitely is.

Not Tsu saying he would. Everyone’s reading him like an open book, omg. 😭

Akane has nothing to say.

The way he just smiles silently, looks up to see if his fellow criminals will defend him, even a little. Not even Nene did though.

C’mon Teru, Akane was expecting a message of love. Whatever, they’re the yaoi ever.

Pose of innocence.

Then rats himself out.

He can’t help his brutal honesty.

The word ‘smithereens’ is something I don’t want to hear.

Feed him to the owls is crazy.

I love characters who talk in first person when addressing themselves. Doesn’t Tiara also do that?

Totally random, but Tiara and Mirai would be besties.

And Tsu smiling without concern.

I cannot be the only one who is dissatisfied that something didn’t happen to him?

Like really, we could have seen what the Tsu of TBHK future was, we could have seen him disappear/die. And I love him with all my heart, but you cannot admit that that would not be a plot turner, or exciting to see something bad happen to him.

He just had to use that little sprinkle of hope, the power of what? F**king friendship? Loyalty to carry out his job? From thin air.

He’s still amazing though.

Was he yelling as Amane, the caring big brother, or Hanako, the leader of the mysteries who used his twin powers to predict what Tsu was going to do and knew it was going to lead to something bad? Maybe both.

Also, is this just a general warning, or will this have consequences later?

Signature move I guess.

Jii-san. Says the person who doesn’t care for supernaturals, calling the supernatural that tricked and got him involved with the school mysteries, ‘grandpa’..

Let us just hope Akane will survive the next chapter ok?

I wonder if his body is actually different from his human body though? Does he actually have gears inside of him? Or is Tsu just making assumptions.

But, wasn’t he in Clock Keeper form when he got a hole stabbed in his chest in the severance arc?

Oh god.

Whatever, I’m just gonna place my bets that Tsukasa will somehow be stopped. Probably not by Akane though, he’s the weakest school mystery and can’t even stand a chance against Teru.

Nice chapter, I was honestly expecting jail time.

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pastelwhile-art · 7 months

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it'd absolutely make my day too some makokuu from you (i loved that illustration of them im insane about them)

what about some domestic makokuu 👀 them spending time together at home :3 no pressure ofc

Help I know I asked for saiki k requests TWO months ago and I had a really fun idea for an illustration, but my brain is a smooth cube. so that idea stays up in the air.

For now take a really quick silly crack doodle about one of the many possibilities I think Kusuke/Makoto telling Saiki/Teruhashi would go. Spoiler alert: it’s hilariously horrible.

(Saiki thinks they’re messing with them and Teruhashi is seething. Are they pranking them? Who knows.)

And ya know what? Beneath the cut take my redesigns of these guys and my notes for them because I made several months ago ‘cause I haven’t touched them since :(

Warning: I talk a lot.

A quick note! These designs aren’t meant to say ‘fix’ the original-they’re just for fun! Even if I think elements of mine look better, clearly the original works and are well loved. Also I’m not especially fond of these anyways JAJSJANW

Saiki doesn’t change much other than his palette is a more balanced. Also I really like designing hair, and wanted the idea that Saiki really tries to sleek it down to something very generic and unassuming, but the hairpins get stuck in the way and his hair sorta moves outwards from there. Continuing the idea that his powers make him subtly less normal. It also accidentally made him look A LOT more like his parents, oops.

Also I drew a comparison from his canon hair to his redesign, because I didn’t think it was particularly clear until side by side.

Also I actually gave this one a proper illustration lol.

Teruhashi’s design was actually partly inspired by @lu-kario’s human mlp designs because they’re really good :^ She’s also pretty standard except her hair and color (which I’m not too satisfied with.)

I like the idea of the Teruhashi Siblings being a bit supernatural, so along with weird shine effects, they also get constant wind effects! Like in all the anime where they have flowing hair at just the right times even though it wasn’t windy at all before? Yeah! Except that’s more Makoto’s thing while the shine stays Kokomi’s.

Also what ethnicity are these characters now? To me they’re still Japanese, but I think people don’t ever use a range of skin tones for the same ethnicity. But really these are just fun designs I didn’t really think too hard.

Kusuke! He was the first one I did and an absolute PAIN. He was also the reason I did this, because as much as I love Saiki K and respect the author, I just got to know what is going on with his debut clothes.

Well not like I did that much better… Kusuke is stuck with four alt palettes because I can’t decide which shade of weird yellow and purple to make his head and gown (I’ve resolved to draw his hair a different shade of yellow in every drawing.) His eyes also match Saiki with purple eyes, because I think they look better lmao.

Also, that’s his Cambridge gown he’s wearing. And fun fact-they have a great amount of rules on what color does gowns get an accent of based off what subject people are taking! I decided to not think too hard on that and just gave him a better looking gown.

And I really like the hair I gave him, the original to me just lacks a bit of anime shape style. Also his headgear is shaped like a graduation hat now lol.

He also has a silly little doodle for what he’d look like with his lab coat. It’s not here, but I like to think he always puts a ponytail up!

Last and also least xp, Makoto! He’s uhh about the same with the points I said with Teruhashi. Just very angular now. I swear I tried to design a better fashion for Makoto but I just ended up with the same.

I tried to style his hair how Japanese celebrities would, but I don’t know if I succeeded. His hair as I said is constantly blowing to the left lol. Also he has a hair clip now! In my head Kusuke gives him a telepathy canceller disguised as a hairclip.

Also anyone can draw or get inspired by these designs if you wanted lol Though I don’t really like these, I still use these hairstyle for drawing them cause I think they look cool lol.

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adriankyte-writes · 1 month

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Ooh can you tell us about The Derelict? 👀

A tiny bit of backstory...I decided that I wanted to start selling smut on Amazon, and the best way to do this would be to rip the serial numbers on some fanfic. So I took my favorite ideas from SGA, Battlestar Galactica and Farscape to build my setting. It's grown pretty out of hand and I'm not sure it's going to really resemble any of those series in any way when it's finished LOL.

Excerpt: (The POV character is an Air Force Major named Jasper Ward)

It is several long moments before he can lift his head. The pain in his head has lightened. He stands, meaning to find a towel to clean up the mess but the movement is too much and he drops to his knees, vomiting until there is nothing but bile coming up.

When he is finally able to stop, he’s on his hands and knees, panting, vomit on the floor. He pushes himself shakily to a sitting position. He has managed to keep his pants clean but there is vomit on his shirt. He pulls it off and uses it to wipe his face. His breathing returns to normal and he tosses the shirt aside. He pushes to his feet, his dog tags dangling from their chain.

His legs are shaky, but they hold him.

A change in the light quality brings him to full alertness and he looks up quickly, terrified to find that the Daiomon is in his quarters. Its head is tilted uncannily to the side, like an owl hunting prey. He wants to reach for his radio, he needs to call for help, for backup.

Instead, he locks up, staying put.

The Daioman locks eyes with him, and he can’t move. He’s never been this close to one, but he’s read the survivor reports. The way they can entrance their victims, drawing them in with only a look. So many people simply walked into their embrace to die in their first few encounters with the menacing race.

He feels himself take a step towards the Daiomon, feeling a sensation of peace settle over him. He knows something is wrong, something should bother him, but he can’t remember what. He feels the fabric of his shirt slip from his fingers as he takes another step forward. He is within arm’s reach of the Daiomon and it raises a cool hand to his cheek.

He closes his eyes and rests his cheek against the hand which gently cups his face. The clawed fingers trace over his flesh. Those claws, so deadly; they are hollow, used to inject a poison of some kind to neutralize prey, and yet he doesn’t fear them. Somehow, ridiculously, he feels safe.

A voice in the back of his mind is screaming at him, because this is exactly how the report, from the only expedition member to survive being fed on, described the moments right before the attack. The Daiomon’s eyes trail over him, a finger traces his cheekbones, tilts his face to examine it from different angles.

This time when he smiles Jasper doesn’t resist, doesn’t snap out from under his influence. He runs a finger over Jasper’s lips and he feels his lips slide open, an urge to lick the clawed finger creeps over him but he’s too hazy to act on it.

The Daiomon steps back, his trailing fingers falling from Jasper’s face, and Jasper steps forward, blindly following him from the room. A part of him is still screaming that he’s in danger, but there is no agency in his steps as he wanders down the corridors and through crawlspaces that lead deep into the ship. Far deeper than their explorations have reached. He notes, in a vague hazy way, that the fleshy valves which serve as doors open for the Daiomon as he approaches. He never needs to touch a wall, to find a tendon to tug, as the human explorers do.

End excerpt

This is part of a series centered around a group of explorers called the Cygnus Expedition. They are stranded in the Cygnus galaxy with no way to contact Earth, trying to find a way to fit in with the native alien species, both sentient and not. They are running low on supplies and don't have a way to repair their machinery as it ages, so when they find an abandoned Daiomon (predatory, insect aliens who communicate telepathically...hush they get way less wraith-like) ship on a planet they are exploring they decide to wake it up and use it as their own.

Jasper Ward and the science team have been working on getting it operational and Ward is expected to fly it. What they don't know is that Daiomon bond rather intimately with their ships, and to get it to accept him as its pilot Ward is going to have to get it to trust him. In this scene the ship is trying to communicate with him, but it's using a daiomon avatar because that is all it knows; at the same time Ward is pretty delusional due to exposure to some of the ships fluids during repairs.

#writing #writeblr #writers on tumblr #creative writing #writers #WIP game #wip tag #tag game #original sci fi #mostly original sci fi

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mangoshorthand · 1 year

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Before A Fall [Five Hargreeves x F Reader]. Ch 3 (Hard Feelings Part 2)

SUMMARY: As your life begins to grow around Five's, his attitude becomes a little sinister. When does protection become suffocation and when does taking matters into your own hands become betrayal? (weekly updates) Chapter One - Chapter Two - Chapter Three - Chapter Four - Chapter Five - Chapter Six - Chapter Seven - Chapter Eight - Chapter Nine - Chapter Ten - Chapter Eleven - Chapter Twelve

An overheard conversation causes a fight and a visit to Santi's school ends in a sinister suspicion.

Fashy Five below. Proceed at your own risk

Chapter 3: Übermensch

It’s been a long day at work. After lunch with your best friend, you returned to the office to find everyone panicking: one of your firm’s biggest clients unexpectedly decided to jump ship and your boss, Joe, was on the prowl, looking for someone to blame.

When he seemed primed to blame one of your subordinates (who had only worked on a single project with them), you stepped in to defend her.

In pointing out that there were many compound reasons (mostly unrelated to your team) for the client to not renew their contract, it naturally became your fault according to Joe for approaching the issue by ‘bringing problems rather than solutions’.

So when you come in from work that night, frustrated and stressed, all you want is a cuddle and a head massage. You kick off your heels in the hallway and head in the direction of Five’s voice, issuing from the living room. “-not worth you being upset about.” “But they’re mean!” “And I’m telling you: what they think shouldn’t matter to you.” Santi sounds upset. You lurk in the entrance hall, not wanting to break in on this. Even with all the stress of this afternoon, you’ve kept thinking about his sad little voice this morning. You think maybe a talk with his uncle is just what he needs. “There will always be mean people. Has it occurred to you that they’re mean because they’re jealous? Maybe part of them knows you’re special and they’re not. Don’t let them push you around. Fight back, kick the crap out of them.” You’d been intending to head up to the attic and wait for Five there, but this and the timbre of Five’s voice gives you pause. “I don’t have nobody to play with.”

Santi’s voice sounds small. Five sighs, “Well, I’m not going to lie to you, little man. Ours is a lonely life. We’re not like other people.” “…I’m like Alyssa.” A short silence follows. “Sure, Alyssa’s a nice friend," Five answers slowly, "But she’s not on our level. None of them are.” You lean into the door frame, hand against ornately carved dark wood. You can just picture him as he says it. Leaned back in an armchair by the fire, legs crossed. His ‘man-to-man’ tone is particularly off-putting. It’s as if he’s about to offer Santi a cigar and a glass of cognac. “Huh?” “The problem with having our gifts, Santi? They set us apart from other people. We’re stronger, we’re faster. We’re exceptional.”

The word niggles at you, ringing tiny alarm bells. Maybe he’s just phrased it poorly? “What does esseptional mean?” Santi asks. “Exceptional: Extraordinary. Above and beyond normal people. We can do things they can’t do, have lives they could never dream of. We’re just better than them.” There’s a pause now. This is more than poor phrasing. You feel like you should stop this, but there’s just a void where the volition to act might be; to hear the man you love speaking like this…and to a child? It’s chilling. It sends a little rush of anger into your chest, a little spike of adrenaline.

When Five’s voice drifts to you again, he’s contemplative. “Y’know Santi- it could be we’re the next stage. For humans, I mean. But for now it means that we have a lot of responsibility and a lot of burdens to bear.”

You find you share a certain telepathy with Klaus, and today is no different. He’s sensed your mood. So far, your quietness has fallen under Five’s radar, occupied as he is with Santi. For now, it’s just nice to have another adult around to act as a buffer between you. This adult in particular is especially welcome: his personality can fill the absence of at least three others. Tonight, he’s more than usually voluble, perhaps in a deliberate attempt to shield you. Now, he encourages Santi to play with his pad thai. As Five struggles to restore some semblance of table manners, Klaus forms a couple of noodles into a second mustache and pulls a face at him. “Don’t listen to him Santi, he’s trying to stifle our creativity!”

“Yeah Uncle Five, don’t stifle us!” Santi giggles, wearing a shrimp as a nose ring. Klaus looks over at you, in the hope of extorting a smile. You give him one. In that small, but expressive moment, a small conversation passes between you. Feeling better?No, but thanks for this. Removing the shrimp, Five says: “If Mommy comes home to find Santi eating like this then it will be Uncle Five’s balls she puts in a vice, so I’d thank you not to do that.” Santi laughs more at the word balls.

Once Santi is in bed, Klaus makes himself deliberately scarce, sensing a discussion is needed between you even when Five doesn’t. He announces his intent to retire to his studio with odd ceremoniousness, letting you know that the floor is yours before he leaves you and Five alone in the living room. Five himself sits in one of the leather armchairs by the fireplace, holding a glass of scotch in his fireside hand. He looks exactly as you’d imagined him in the overheard conversation, lounging with legs crossed. You're sat on the far couch, almost as far away as the room can divide you. He doesn’t notice your eyes boring into the back of his head. Eventually, he turns his head and smiles, uncrossing his legs and holding out his arm to you in a gesture of supplication. He wants you to walk over, take that hand and maybe sit on his lap. You don’t move.

“We need to talk.”

A shadow crosses his face: concern, confusion and guardedness. You can see the defensiveness building before he even knows what you’re going to say.

“I’m all ears, dear one,” he says, smile rather forced. “Did you mean what you said?” “Huh?” “In here, today: what you said to Santi.” It takes a second for him to place what you’re referring to.. “Oh. Yeah…sure I did.” he looks nonplussed. “Is that a problem?” “You told him to kick the crap out of them.” “And?” “They’re seven years old.” He raises his eyebrows, amused.

“So? I could hold my own in a fight at that age. I had my first mission when I was nine.” “Exactly,” you scoff “and how did that work out for you?” He looks at you darkly and then looks moodily away into the empty fireplace. You continue to stare at him…encouraging Santi to violence wasn’t the worst of it. You try to give voice to what’s particularly worried you. “Do you think your powers give you some sort of…right over people?” “What?” his voice is icy. “You were saying you were the ‘next stage’ for humans or whatever.” He sighs exasperatedly: “Of course it sounds bad if you say it like that.” “You said you were all better than normal people.” “Well,” he shrugs, “we are.” “You think you’re some kind of…Übermensch?” He balks at the word, head whipping round to face you. “Don't be ridiculous." You let out a derisive ‘ha’ of humorless laughter. “Come on, Five. I might be just an unpowered normie but I recognize fascist bullshit when I hear it!” “Fascist?” You don’t give him the time to formulate a response, the blood’s pumping in your head now. Usually, you default to tears in anger but today’s different. “So what about me? Am I on your ‘level’ or am I lower functioning or something?” “Don’t be so dramatic. You know I think you’re smart.” “Do you? Or is it that it’s nice to have me around? Maybe I’m nice to look at, maybe I make you laugh, maybe I make you feel less alone and maybe I’m smart enough but at the end of the day, I’m basically on the level of a labrador you can fuck?” Five slams his glass down and stands up. His hands go into his pockets and his jaw sets. He takes a full ten seconds to get himself under some semblance of control. You can see the unuttered invectives flickering in his eyes. Finally, he speaks in clipped tones. "Funny. Now you mention it, you're certainly not acting like a being capable of higher thought." Your eyes lock in confrontation; both daring each other to step even further over the line. The rage between you is directly proportional to the intensity of your love, its presence making the slung comments all the more sore. Your jaw sets as his chin tilts. When he speaks again, his would-be-casual tone belies the resentment simmering beneath: "I think it’s best if I have an early night and give you a chance to calm down.”He heads for the door, his speed proving his continued anger. As he sweeps through the entrance hall, you yell after him “Okay, Mengele. No need to wait up!”

The next few days were frosty. Though you both took care to play nice in front of Santi, it’s been hard to stop the atmosphere affecting him.

After the fight, all you wanted to do was call Ellie to vent, but you thought better of it after thinking about how she was over your lunch that day. She’s having a hard time of things herself at the moment, having just lost her grandmother, and it wouldn’t be right to bother her with this.

Furthermore, you didn’t want to inflame things further between Five and herself.They seriously butted heads when you were unconscious after your beating courtesy of Michael Monroe.

He’d stayed broodingly at your bedside, sleep deprived and guilt-ridden. His attitude then had been one of snappish, slightly mad intensity. He had no time for Ellie’s feeling of greater claim over you, insisting that her care would be useless beside his ability to reverse time and bring you back from the dead if necessary.

While he might have been technically correct, the vibes he gave off didn't exactly endear him to her. Though they’d been polite to each other since, you didn’t want to solidify that bad first impression by saying something to her that you might later regret. There was nobody else to talk to. Were she here, Lila would have leapt at the chance to trash-talk Five.Klaus was another option, perceptive as he is but, as Five’s brother, you thought his loyalty would always sway too far in his direction.

So, that night, still boiling with rage, you slept in one of the many spare bedrooms, thinking with satisfaction about him sleeping fitfully alone in the attic. Let him wake up panicking with one of his nightmares and see if he feels like ‘the next stage for humans’ then.

On some nights, he wakes brushing imagined ash out of his eyes and panting. It can take him a few minutes to remember that he’s home and safe, no longer having to eat bugs or scavenge expired food from wreckage. So, you soothe him, propped up on your elbow, whispering comfort and stroking his hair. In the worst of these, he shrinks from your touch, wide-pupiled eyes rolling and unseeing; like a rabbit caught in a trap. On other nights still, you’re wrenched from sleep by a screaming, bolt upright figure beside you. Often, these cries are formless, but sometimes he shouts for you, for Dolores or one of his siblings. Then, just as suddenly as he sat up, he’s lying down and asleep again, never truly awake.

He doesn’t remember these episodes when he wakes up, and you stopped telling him about them months ago. The idea that his mind could work in ways of which he is not conscious is unbearable to him. Night terrors, of course, being for lesser mortals than he.

But, as upset as you were, you only spent that first night away from Five’s bed. Your spiteful feelings about his night-time fears faded by the morning, to be replaced by guilt at ever having had them. After your first transports of rage were over, the idea of him waking up alone and terrified was unconscionable to you.

Your love for him is now more fundamental than you’d like: how much easier to be able to punish him, to not care about his terror? You couldn’t leave him alone for long when his own mind betrays him. Over the next few days, you fall into an uneasy truce, contingent on the unspoken agreement that neither of you mention that day again. When he comes to you with a request a few days later, you keep your tone intentionally polite and neutral. “I got a forwarded email from Diego. There’s a meeting at the school I need to go to.” “Oh?” “Yeah. Something about student support for the second grade. It sounded quite urgent. “Alyssa?” “Probably.” “Do you think she’s deteriorated?” He shrugs and sighs, “Unlikely this soon, but I don’t know. Would you be happy to take Santi tonight and get him some dinner?” “Yes. No problem. We’ve been talking about going to the movies anyway.” “Thank you, dear one.” It’s the first time he’s used this endearment since the fight.

The school is a collection of sleek, modern buildings that simply reek of investment. Evidence of recent building work is apparent, with one building still covered entirely in scaffold. Hung from this is a huge lime-green banner, proclaiming: JUICED: X-PANDING YOUNG MINDS. Holbrook Elementary's new planetarium, opening soon!Five follows the trickle of parents through the main entrance and into a hallway that, to him at least, is an assault on the eyes. The walls seem to be made of LED-screen paneling which cycles through content simultaneously. Class information, a school map and exhibitions of student work are replaced every twenty seconds or so with more lime-green. Repeated dozens of times down the hallway in electric blue text is: JUICED- THAT X-TREME TASTE!Though Five has never been in an elementary school (or any school) before, the impression he’d formed through popular culture didn’t quite match up with this. Can a soda company brand a school? This seems too…corporatocratic to be compatible with an educational establishment.

Every so often, the screens give way to vending machines in which JUICED seems to be the only drink available. Fully stocked lime green cans stand stacked behind the perspex in militant uniformity of lines. There are water fountains, Five notes, but they’re the only feature of the gleaming school that looks shabby. As he’s borne along by the people heading for the auditorium, he takes glimpses through windowed doors into classrooms leading off from the hall. He catches glimpses of plush furniture and high-tech solutions: 3D printers, VR headsets and yet more screens. Each student desk has an idling touchscreen integral to the table top; the JUICED logo drifts, slowly ricocheting off the edges of each screen. The auditorium itself is in the same style and, to Five’s mind at least, far too ambitious a space for an inner-city elementary school. It feels more like a conference center. Dozens of hexagonal acoustic panels in JUICED green and blue are placed at regular intervals along the walls. They form pillar-like arrangements with strip-lighting connecting them together. He takes an aisle seat on lecture-hall style seating. The head of the room is walled with more screens like those of the hallways. He can tell their nominal purpose is to aid the presentation of whoever’s speaking, yet their real function is clearly to advertise JUICED at every unoccupied moment. The principal steps up to the microphone’s lectern. “Thank you all for coming to this meeting. I know it was called at very short notice. I’m sorry to have not given you more of a lead up, but this is a very urgent matter." She clears her throat. "As I’m sure you’re aware, we have a second-grade student, Alyssa Johnson, who has been diagnosed with brain cancer. Last week, I’m very sorry to tell you that three more second graders started exhibiting symptoms: Cole Bennet, Joe Fredericks and Robert Smith.”

The hall breaks out into rippling mutters. Five leans forward in his seat.“Over the weekend,” she continues, “their parents informed the school that they have also been diagnosed with glioblastoma. The boys have been identified quickly which means their treatment is able to start early, but-”

Five stands. This can’t go unchallenged.

“You’re saying four second graders have glioblastoma?”

“Sir, could you please reserve your quest-”

He speaks over her.

“Four? In one school? Shit, in one grade? You realize the odds on this?”

He tilts his head, maintaining eye contact with the principal. When she stutters, he raises his hands and points a finger at her.

“How many kids get brain tumors on average? About five thousand a year? And how many of those are glioblastoma? It’s gotta be under fiver percent. Are you telling me that four of those two hundred-fifty kids go to this school? That's one hell of a coincidence.”

The principal seemingly decides that it’s useless to try to suppress this.

“Yes, we are aware that this is a strange cluster, but I can assure you that the possibility of a link is being investigated.

“Investigated how?”

She draws herself up, going into public relations mode.

“Well, I’m happy to say that JUICED co. has affirmed their commitment to Holbrook Elementary in our time of need. They’re taking all the burden of investigation upon themselves and have generously set up a fund to ensure that our sick children get the very best medical-”

Five shakes his head vehemently and steps out into the aisle, the better to pace, hands in his pockets.

“Are you this dumb?”

“Shut your mouth, asshole!” calls a leather-lung from somewhere in the seats. Five ignores him.

“What am I seeing here? JUICED plows money into this school, right? And for what? Advertising? Exclusivity? Just plain old ‘corporate responsibility’?”

He claps a hand to his head and then throws the arm wide.

“You think that’s it? And now, when four kids get cancer they start investigating and paying their medical bills? You think that investigation is going to be transparent?”

The principal sputters, a bit spooked.

“Does this not sound just a tiny bit like ass-covering to you?”

Tag list: (please comment to be added or removed.) @dilfjohhny , @sunsunhe, @w4stedtr4sh,@nevbrooke-555

Masterpost Alternatively, join me on AO3. Here is a link to the whole series

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boundless-ut · 3 days

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Here again with more questions abt the lore!

For these current characters, a few dont really seem to be human... or normal paper folk anyways, are there any unique species? Or are these goof balls just unique ones? Like quark, the skull candle fella (forgot their name) and page most of all!

Is there a reason page doesnt have a face? Or will they get one in later versions of the game? How do they communicate to others? Telepathy? Sign language? Writing? Or do they just... talk anyways?

I so would love to make ocs for this already!!

Oh and a silly ask, if I gave quark a konpeito would they be offended? (Konpeito is a candy that looks like their head shape)

-paper anon

Thank you for the questions! I'll answer them as best I can! The responses get a bit lengthy, so I'll number them.

(In the future though, I'd highly recommend sending questions individually. If there's ever the case where I can't answer a question to the point where not answering would also be an answer, I'd have to scrap the entire ask even if there are other questions I can answer, and that'd be a shame!)

1. Species:

In regard to species, the Lorian Plane is a very magical place, as such, many unique and interesting species have come to exist within this reality! Quark is a part of a broad species called "Thingkin", an in-universe term for all the 'object head'-esque characters. Thingkin are created when an otherwise inanimate object becomes animated through an ancient form of magic. The less refined version of Thingkin are just called 'Things', which describes an animated object that looks more like itself than a humanoid body with the object for a head.

Candlevera (a unique-ish name, it's Candle + Calavera! Candlevera ✨) is a different story. The same way magic can bring inanimate objects to life, there's magic to animate dead things as well! (Bones are just things after all) It's a bit rude to be woken up from your eternal slumber like that, but Candlevera is making the most of it. There are also a few others that are 'one-offs' like Diamond where you might not necessarily see more of their species in game, but there are. There will be some 'one-offs' that are actual one-offs but they're rarer cases and are going to be mostly things like (main) bosses. On the subject though, the 'normal paper folk' are actually these little fellas!

(L➡R: Digsby Jones, Train Station Master, Plain Dotty) They're called Dotties! They're a bunch of soft little fellas with fluffy tails, named after their typical face marking which is a dot of color on their face. Though, like in the case of Digsby, that 'dot' can come in a variety of shapes.

Dotties can also have a colorful body and a white marking / tail! Or have a colorful body and colorful marking / tail, or even have the same color for both. I created them to be flexible and fun to customize :)

2. Page:

What Page is is a bit of a mystery! Page doesn't quite fit into any of the 'defined' species that exist in the lorian plane. The lack of face is considered strange even by lorian standards, but in a world full of oddities it's one that most can look over once they get to know Page better. Despite a lack of a face, Page is able to talk with others just fine! Those unfamiliar with Page might have a hard time gleaning what Page is feeling at the moment at a glance (considering the lack of face), but in conversation Page makes up for this with a greater emphasis on body language. Page's design is pretty set in stone for the time being, so I don't expect it to change any time soon. In terms of character design norms, it's probably a bit of a risk to have a faceless protagonist, but I think I can make it work well enough.

3. Konpeito:

I'm glad the fact that Quark is a konpeito came through! Though I suppose it's a shape you'd recognize if you know what it is. He wouldn't be offended at all. In his case, it'd be like giving someone a gingerbread man...or...giving a magical gingerbread man a gingerbread man (since Quark is a konpeito thingkin)

It's definitely a complicated question, but the simple answer is that he'd eat it, (he has a bit of a sweet tooth!)

#boundlessut #indie game #indie dev #mail #professor quark #king cackle #point #page #cacklejack #digsby jones #art

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torpublishinggroup · 2 years

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The Atlas Paradox - Excerpt Reveal

The Atlas Paradox is the long-awaited sequel to @olivieblake‘s New York Times bestselling dark academic sensation The Atlas Six.

Six magicians were presented with the opportunity of a lifetime. Five are now members of the Society. Two paths lay before them.

All must pick a side.

Alliances will be tested, hearts will be broken, and The Society of Alexandrians will be revealed for what it is: a secret society with raw, world-changing power, headed by a man whose plans to change life as we know it are already under way.

Please enjoy this free excerpt of The Atlas Paradox by Olivie Blake, on sale 10/25/22

╔═══════ ❀•°❀°•❀ ══════ ❀•°❀°•❀ ═══════╝

Gideon Drake shaded his eyes from the red-burning sun and swept a glance across the scorched and blackened hills. Heat rippled in the air between particulate clouds of ash. Little moth wings of de-

bris floated delicately across his limited vision. The smoke was thick, chalky enough to stick in his throat, and if any of it was real it would constitute a medical emergency on the spot.

But it wasn’t, so it didn’t.

Gideon glanced down at the black Lab beside him, frowning at him in contemplation, and then turned back to the unfamiliar scene, pulling his shirt above his mouth to manifest a thin veil of semi-breathable air.

“That’s very interesting,” Gideon murmured to himself.

In the dream realms these burnings happened from time to time. Gideon called them “erosions,” though if he ever met another of his kind, he wouldn’t be surprised to learn there was already a proper name. It was common enough, though almost never this . . . flammable.

If Gideon had a philosophy, it was this: No sense despairing.

There was no telling what was real and what was not for Gideon Drake. His perception of dreamt wasteland might be a completely different scene to the dreamer. The burnings were a fine reminder of something Gideon had learned long ago: there is doom to be found everywhere if doom is what you seek.

“Well, come on then, Max,” Gideon said to the dog, who was coincidentally also his roommate. Max sniffed the air and whined in opposition as they headed west, but they both understood that dreams were Gideon’s domain, and therefore their path was ultimately Gideon’s decision.

Magically speaking, the dream realms were part of a collective subconscious. While every human had access to a corner of the realms, very few were able to traverse the realms of dreams as Gideon was.

To see where a person’s own consciousness ended and others’ began required a particular set of skills, and Gideon—who knew the shifting patterns of the realms the same way sailors know the tides—had even keener senses now that he rarely left their midst.

To the outside world, Gideon presented as a fairly normal person with narcolepsy. Understanding his magic, though, was not straightforward at all. As far as Gideon could gather, the line between conscious and subconscious was very thin for him. He could identify time and location within the dream realms, but his ability to walk through dreams occasionally prevented him from making it all the way through breakfast upright. Sometimes it seemed he belonged more to the realm of dreams than to the world of the living. Still, Gideon’s apparent somnambular flaw meant that he could make use of the limits others faced. A normal person could fly in a dream, for example, but they would know they were dreaming, and therefore be aware that they couldn’t actually fly in real life. Gideon Drake, on the other hand, could fly, period. Whether he happened to be awake or dreaming was the part he couldn’t always figure out.

Gideon wasn’t technically any more powerful than anyone else would be inside of a dream. His corporeal limitations were similar to those of telepathy—no magic performed in the dream realms could possibly harm him permanently, unless his physical form suffered something like a stroke or seizure. Gideon felt pain the same way another person might feel it in a dream—imagined, and then gone when they woke up. Unless he was under unusual amounts of stress that could then cause one of the above bodily reactions, that is . . . but that he never worried over. Only Nico worried about that sort of thing.

At the thought of Nico, Gideon suffered the usual twinge of something exposed, like having misplaced one shoe and carried on trudging without it. For the last year, he had trained himself (with varying degrees of success, depending on the day) to stop cataloguing the absence of his and Max’s usual companion. It had been difficult at first; the thought of Nico usually came back to him reflexively, like muscle memory, without preemption or forethought, and therefore with the unforeseen consequence of disrupting his intended route. Sometimes, when Gideon’s thoughts went to Nico, so did Gideon himself.

In the end, the pitfall and the providence of knowing Nico de Varona was that he could not be readily forgotten, nor easily parted from. Missing him was like missing a severed limb. Never quite complete and never whole, though on occasion the vestigial aches proved helpfully informative.

Gideon allowed himself to feel the things he tried (under other circumstances) not to, and like a sigh of relief, he felt the realms shift courteously beneath his feet. The nightmare gradually subsided, giving way to the atmosphere of Gideon’s own dreams, and so Gideon followed the path that came to him most easily: his own.

The smoke from the dream faded as Gideon’s mind wandered, and as such he and Max found themselves moving through conscious perception of time and space. In place of scorched earth, there was now the faint suggestion of microwavable popcorn and industrial-strength laundry detergent— unmistakable top notes of the NYUMA dorms.

And with it, the familiar face of a teenager Gideon once knew.

“I’m Nico,” said the wild-eyed, messy-haired boy whose T-shirt was inadvertently folded up on one side from the presence of his duffel bag. “You’re Gideon? You look exhausted,” he decided as an afterthought, tossing the bag below the second bed and glancing around the room, adding, “You know, we’d have a lot more room if we bunked these.”

Was this a memory, or a dream? It was hard for Gideon Drake to tell.

It was difficult to explain what exactly Nico had done to the air in the room, which Nico himself didn’t appear to have noticed. With mild claustrophobia, Gideon managed, “I’m not sure we’re allowed to move the furniture. I guess we could ask?”

“We could, but asking so diminishes our chances at a favorable outcome.” Nico paused, glancing at him. “What is that accent, by the way? French?”

“Sort of. Acadian.” “Quebecois?” “Close enough.”

Nico’s grin broadened. “Well, excellent,” he said. “I’ve been wanting to expand linguistically. I think too much in English now, I need something else. Never trust a dichotomy, I always say. Though on a relevant note, do you want top or bottom?” he asked, and Gideon blinked.

“You choose,” he managed, and Nico waved a hand, rearranging furniture so effortlessly that in the span of a breath, Gideon had already forgotten what the room looked like to begin with.

In real life, Gideon had learned very quickly that if there wasn’t space, Nico made some. If things sat still for too long, then Nico would inevitably disrupt them. The school administrators at NYUMA had felt the only necessary accommodation for Gideon’s presence was to label him “in need of disability services” and leave it at that, but given everything Gideon had observed about his new roommate within moments of meeting him, he was uneasily certain that it was only a matter of time before Nico found out the truth of him.

“Where do you go?” Nico had asked, proving Gideon right. “When you sleep, I mean.”

It was two weeks into the school year and Nico had climbed down from the top bunk, manifesting at Gideon’s side and startling him awake. Gideon hadn’t even known he was sleeping.

“I have narcolepsy,” he managed to say. “Bullshit,” Nico replied.

Gideon had stared at him and thought, I can’t tell you. Not that he thought Nico was going to turn out to be some sort of creature hunter or someone planted in his room by his mother (although both were a distinct possibility), but there was always a moment when people started to look at him differently. Gideon hated that moment. The moment when others started to find something—many somethings—to reinforce their suspicions that Gideon was repulsive in some way. Instinctual knowledge; prey responding to a threat. Fight or flight.

I can’t tell anyone, Gideon had thought, but especially not you.

“There’s something weird about you,” Nico continued matter-of-factly. “Not bad-weird, just weird.” He folded his arms over his chest, considering it. “What’s your story?”

“I told you. Narcolepsy.”

Nico rolled his eyes. “Menteur.”

Liar. So he really was planning to learn French, then.

“What’s ‘shut up’ in Spanish?” a former version of Gideon had asked in real life, and Nico had given him a smile that Gideon would later learn was exceptionally dangerous.

“Get out of bed, Sandman,” Nico had said, tossing aside the covers. “We’re going out.”

Back in the present, Max nudged Gideon’s knee with his nose, just hard enough that Gideon had to stumble for balance. “Thanks,” he said, shaking himself free of the memory. The dorm room faded back into the erosion’s distantly blazing hillside as Max supplied him with an unblinking look of expectation.

“Nico’s this way,” Gideon said, pointing through the thick brush of smoldering evergreens.

Max gave him a doubtful look.

Gideon sighed. “Fine,” he said, and conjured a ball, tossing it into the woods. “Fetch.”

The ball illuminated as it picked up speed, dousing the forest in a low, reassuring glow. Max gave Gideon another look of annoyance but darted ahead, following the path that Gideon’s magic had created.

Everyone had magic in dreams. The limitations were not the laws of physics, but rather the control of the dreamer. Gideon, a creature who constantly wavered between consciousness and unconsciousness, lacked muscle memory when it came to the limitations of reality. (If you do not know precisely where impossibility begins and ends, then of course it cannot constrain you.)

Whether Gideon simply had magic or was himself magic was perpetually a subject up for debate. Nico was adamant about the former, Gideon himself not so sure. He could scarcely perform even mediocre witchery when called upon in class, which was why he had stuck primarily to theoretical studies of how and why magic existed. Because Nico was a physicist, he saw the world in terms of pseudo-anatomical construction, but Gideon liked to think of the world as something of a data cloud. That was all the dream realms were, in the end. Shared space for humanity’s experience.

The real Nico was closer now, and the edge of the burning forest quickly dwindled to a thin stretch of vacant beach. Gideon bent down to brush his fingers over the sand, then plunged an arm through it, testing. Things were not burning here, but his arm did disappear instantly, swallowed up to the cuff of his shoulder. Max gave a low, cautioning growl.

Gideon retracted his hand, reaching over to give Max a little chin scratch of reassurance.

“Why don’t you stay here,” Gideon suggested. “I’ll come get you in an hour or so.”

Max whined softly.

“Yeah, yeah, I’ll be careful. You’re really starting to sound like Nico, you know.”

Max barked.

“All right, fine, I take it back.”

Gideon knelt on the beach with a roll of his eyes and submerged his hand again, this time leaning into the sand until it overtook his body and he slid fully into the other side. Instantly there was a shift in pressure, high to low, and Gideon found himself tumbling headlong into more sand, dropping from the sky onto the rolling hills of an arid desert.

He hit the sand face-first and spat a bit out of the side of his mouth. Gideon was not what one might call a lover of nature, having been exposed to a few too many of its less pleasant gifts. Were there worse things than sand? Yes, definitely, but still. Gideon didn’t think it was entirely out of line to find its effects offensive. He could feel it everywhere already, in the lining of his ears and in his teeth, taking residence in the rivulets of his scalp. Not ideal—but, as ever, no point despairing.

Gideon dragged himself upright, struggling to maintain his balance in the endless ribbon of sand that rose to the top of his calves. He peered around at the dunes, bracing for something. What it would be, he had no idea. It was different every time.

A buzz in his right ear had him pivoting sharply (or trying to) with a yelp, swatting blindly at the air. Anything but mosquitoes—Gideon did not care for bugs. Another buzz and he flicked it away, this time suffering a needle prick to his forearm. A welt had already started to show, a plump tear of blood pearling up from the puncture. Gideon brought his arm up to inspect the wound more closely, brushing away an exoskeleton of metal, the minute trace of gunpowder.

So. Not bugs, then.

Knowing what type of obstacle came next was usually a mixed relief, because it meant that Gideon now had both the ability and the necessity to plan his defense. Sometimes entering this particular subconscious was a tactical matter. Sometimes there was combat, sometimes there were labyrinths. Occasionally escape rooms and chases and fights—those were preferable, owing to Gideon’s general proficiency (up to this point) at eluding death and all its horsemen. Other times it was merely about the sweat of it, the strain, which was a matter of simple but terrible endurance. Gideon couldn’t die in dreams—no one could—but he could suffer. He could feel fear, or pain. Sometimes the test was just about clenching your jaw and outlasting.

This dream, unfortunately, was going to be one of those.

Whatever tiny weapons were being fired at Gideon now were too small to dodge and too quick to fight—probably nothing that could exist on Earth or be operated by humans. Gideon took the blows like the unavoidable bites that they were and dove into the whip of the wind, closing his eyes to guard against the sting of sand. It mixed with his open wounds, blood streaking across his arms. He could see the blurs of red between slitted eyes, bright and relatively benign but still ugly. Like tear tracks on the statues of martyrs and saints.

Whichever telepath had set up these wards was without question a sadist of the highest, most troubling order.

Something pierced Gideon’s neck, embedding in his throat, and Gideon’s airway was instantly compromised. Choking, he rushed to apply pressure to the wound, willing himself to regenerate faster. Dreams were not real, the damage was not real—the only thing real was the struggle, and that much he would give without question. That much he would always give, always, because in the deepest caverns of his heart, he knew it was justified. That it was not only righteous, but owed.

The winds picked up, sand crusting his eyes and lips and adhering to the sweat in the folds of his neck, and Gideon, summoning the volumes of his pain, let out a scream—the primal kind. The kind that meant the screamer was giving in, letting go. He screamed and screamed and tried from somewhere inside his agony to offer the proper capitulation, the secret password of sorts. The right message. Something like I will die before I give up, but everything inside your wards is safe from me.

I am just a man in pain. I am just a mortal with a message.

It must have worked, because the moment Gideon’s lungs emptied, blistering with pleading and strain, the ground gave way beneath him. He fell with a slurping sound of suction before being delivered, mercifully, to the sudden vacancy of an empty room.

“Oh good, you’re here,” said Nico with palpable relief, rising to his feet and approaching the bars of the telepathic wards that separated them. “I think I was having a dream about the beach or something.”

Gideon instinctively glanced at his arms for evidence of blood or sand, indulging a testing inhale to check his lungs. Everything appeared to be in order, which meant that he had made it inside the Alexandrian Society’s wards for the hundred and eighteenth time.

Each time was a little more nightmarish than the last. Each time, though, it was worth it.

Nico smiled as he leaned against the bars with his usual smuggery. “You look well,” he remarked in playful approval. “Very rested, as always.”

Gideon rolled his eyes.

“I’m here,” he confirmed, and then, because it was what Gideon had come to say, he added, “And I think I might be close to finding Libby.”

#the atlas six #the atlas paradox #atlas series #olivie blake #bookblr #booktok #book excerpt #dark academi #breaking brand-character to actually say that this book literally rocked my sh*t

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factorialsotherfandoms · 6 months

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Okay so exactly one person gave me permission, and I know its my blog and all but shh, so xcom qsmp crossover au and egg hours! TW for various flavours of physical and emotional child abuse and severe neglect by the evil parties towards the eggs.

The eggs form the biggest divergence from xcom2 plot, at least of the bits during actual gameplay. With no Commander (Felps takes the place of being rescued kickstarting the plot, but he's no tactical genius), the Avatars do not need to be possess-able... By player characters, at least. Also, there's no 'wouldn't it be cool to send you with them' reason to have the avatar need to walk into the final portal to hold it open and take the fight underwater. To open the Gate the eggs will just help out, and stay shipside to keep it open.

Instead, the eggs take the place of the Avatar bodies. Just like in XCOM2 they are genetically engineered almost-humans, created mostly for the psionic capabilities, who were synthesised to serve as hosts for the dying elders. However, unlike in game, they are fully sentient. When the elders possess them (and some from the same experiment have been possessed in the past!), the personality and person they were is just killed. There is no saving them unlike a mind control - their entire spirit and consciousness is yeeted out of their body. Luckily for the eggs we love, the Elders will not possesses one until they're at least adult human height.

(Each one also has a different genetic make-up, the alien components and things like their hair and eyes customised to the Elder they were created for's tastes)

With their psionic abilities, the eggs have a low level telepathy between all of them. They cannot tell the difference between asleep, unconscious, and dead - Dapper has some idea, but even he is not entirely /reliable/ - but whenever the others are awake they are aware of each other, sharing some level of emotions. More importantly however they can feed from someone's "psionic energy" (its basically mana pool slash life force), so long as they have formed a bond, allowing them to heal much better than a normal human. The Elders intended to use this to make themselves borderline immortal - the eggs use it to survive (egg is how they are referred to by the aliens, with 'hatching' being when they are possessed. The first group to be found it was written on their cages and their parents just went with it at first).

As for bonding with adults - this is for a few reasons. The first is to make it easier to heal themselves, the second is because a lot of the eggs we love have been rejected for one reason or another by the Elders as hosts and some need the bond to stabilise their own souls, the third because its comforting, the fifth because they get sick without it, and the last because without the psionic energy they physically cannot develop or grow. I highlight this last one - they need to eat and drink to live, but to develop they need life energy. The aliens had been the equivalent of injecting them with it, made from souped up humans, causing them to grow very fast. Using a connection to one or more humans and just taking what they need will have them grow at a rate similar to a human child instead. Some level of proximity to their human is required for this to work, however, and it is painful for both the parent and child to be separated too long. For the eggs doing this is instinctual, and many of them don't realise they would need to ask.

Prior to being named by their parents the eggs refer to each other by number - dead eggs have their numbers assigned to new ones, but the eggs themselves will amend 'a, b, c' to ones who are dead to distinguish between each other. This uses their names for simplicity's sake.

So now some bits on the specific eggs:

Chayanne - eldest of the surviving eggs. He's the only one who was around for every single egg which has already died (whether via possession or being discarded as a failure), and the absences where siblings used to be makes him deeply, deeply protective of the rest. His psionic bond with Tallulah is incredibly strong, to the point they can use actual word telepathy, but he was supposed to have that strength with everyone - with the others he just has passive awareness. He was originally designed for the chief of the Elders to possess, but because his psionic bonds are lopsided was sent to the Assassin as a plaything. When she remembers he and Bobby exist they were punching bags, but mostly they were just forgotten about. The Elders still planned to use them both as hosts, just for lesser members of their number, hence sending them out to the Assassin rather than keep in the very limited space bunker. When they hear shit going on upstairs they break each other out and decide to cause trouble.

Dapper - one of the triplets, and orchestrated their escape. When Chayanne was deemed a failure, Dapper was created for the same role. She was in the alien's underwater base, but became aware of the intended purpose for the eggs. When they did he gathered the two others present and managed to get them out. The portal trip, however, fried all three of them's memories a little, such that they don't remember why they were so scared. Of the group he is the most magically sensitive and has the greatest general command of the psionic bond, able to tell the difference between asleep, unconscious, and dead.

Ramon - He was never quite sure why one day Dapper broke into his cell and told him to run, but he did. It was Ramon who first learnt how to hack the Gate to let them out, though he'd need a lot of experimenting time to remember. Like Dapper and Leo he's found lost around The Gate, memory fucked but clinging to his siblings. He's not a failure or especially interesting in any way from the Elder's point of view, but leaving a bored child in a room fully of alien tech is a great way to get a tiny supervillian.

Leo - The Elders' favourite, and she hates it. Perfect little host who can do no wrong, a matter she absolutely uses to get shit for herself and the others with her. Seems passive at first, but is more cowed than anything - out of the Gate was killing shit left and right to keep themself and their brothers free, getting them an escape, but the moment something with authority appeared got thrown. Was the distraction so Ramon and Dapper could get the Gate open, and ran away with them.

Bobby - The psionics really did not take for him, making him a bit useless to the Elders, but he's a feisty little guy so he was given to the Assassin to train as a guard, or perhaps when he grows up another of the Chosen himself. He doesn't get much opportunity to be adventurous or protective, as mostly he's just locked in a cell with Chayanne and abandoned. When he isn't, he's more being beaten than trained - the Assassin is not a teaching sort. He's been under her care longer than Chayanne, having been written off very quickly (early enough that the Elders were still trying to find uses for their right offs, rather than just killing them). It was Bobby who convinced Chayanne to use the chaos to break out

JuanaFlippa - For a long time, JuanaFlippa managed to hide her terrible eyesight with an uncanny awareness of the world, and the ability to feel it out with her psionic powers. It was eventually noticed, however, because eyesight that bad is hard to hide. Like a good number of her siblings JuanaFlippa was sent to the Hunter to use as target practice - only three of them have survived this long. How long none of them are sure, but this long. Of the three JuanaFlippa takes the lead, plotting to steal the Hunter's gun with Tilin and get revenge. It won't work, but that won't stop her.

Tilin - Sent to the Hunter at the same time as JuanaFlippa. He doesn't know why she was deemed flawed, but for some reason he was (desired alien traits did not take properly, and undesirable ones did). They are close friends who do their best to cover each other's flaws to keep each other alive as they're hunted for sport. Tallulah is new and Tilin is a little scared of her, but doing his best. When they get time off from being chased - the Hunter has many duties, after all - Tilin is usually the one patching everyone up.

Tallulah - The youngest surviving egg in the Hunter's care. Her poor hearing was discovered very early, but overlooked when they realised the strength of her psionic bond with Chayanne - strong enough to actually communicate. However, even with every sort of training from kind to torturous she could not make it transfer to anyone else, and in some of the physical stuff her asthma was discovered. At that point, she was deemed a failure, and sent to the Hunter. There she met JuanaFlippa and Tilin, and the three do their best to look after each other - Chayanne, too, using their telepathy to do the very little he actually can. Of the three she has the hardest time with being chased, but is by far the best at hiding.

Richarlyson - Richarlyson's creation was flawed, leaving him with a missing leg. The Elders immediately wrote him off as an option, seeking only perfection, and made another. The Warlock asked for him, wanting to experiment a little on a completely blank slate - something he couldn't obtain with the other rejects, as they were a little older when their flaws noticed. Same as his siblings he was still forced to grow fast, though with the intent of making him a test subject and living battery to power the Warlock's magic. It is probably fortunate that being constantly severely drained of life-energy made it difficult to impossible for Richarlyson to form full memories of his time as a test subject, though like all of the eggs he does suffer somewhat from it.

Pomme - Unlike Richarlyson, Pomme remembers everything. Her psionic abilities were a little weak at the time of her creation, but not so weak as to deem her useless - as such she was handed to the Warlock, the alien's psionics specialist, to train them. At first she was willing to be his little apprentice, but seeing what he did to Richarlyson made her deeply protective and turn on her master. They both know she's turned, but neither has yet raised the point - Pomme continues running around in his steps, and training with what weapons she can find to sometime break her little brother out. Thankfully, they are rescued before she has to use it. Her time as an apprentice was still horrific, but because it lacked the physical component she doesn't recognise it in the same way.

Trump - One of the older eggs, but the Elder he was intended for died, so he has just kind of been left. The other Elders did not want to take Trump's body, considering him as the corpse of one of their own. They stopped giving him psionic juice, though the Federation Workers in the lab would feed him just enough food and water to survive. Nothing more, nothing less, just alive. Because of this he's both physically and mentally less developed than the other eggs his age, and everything he knows is either something accidentally shared through the bond (writing is a big one for all of them), or the lab itself. He does know where the successful eggs are kept, though, there is that. Just. He's also starving.

Allie (A1) - In the same lab as Trump there is a stasis chamber. In the stasis chamber is a completed - perfected - egg, being kept frozen for the last few weeks before she's ready for possession - after all the runaways, their near completed eggs are kept under tighter lock and key. Trump knows about it, he saw her be taken in there. She's skittish and quiet and easily cowed, but none of that matters to the Elders who intend to erase her very self.

Memory - Memory was discarded a long time ago, though they didn't realise it at the time. In the eyes of the Elders their flaws are many, having been one of the earliest eggs, back before the technique was reliable. They were kept for a little while, usable to sustain an Elder's life at least even if they would not work as a long term solution - but discarded when everything became more reliable. By discarded I mean transferred to another facility, placed in a cell, and told to wait there. So they waited, and waited, and with the scraps of paper they had with them at the time wrote a diary. Drink from the puddle, eat the bugs and the dirt, but it's not enough to survive on long term. Eventually they passed out from a combination of starvation and dehydration, still clutching at the papers.

#qsmp x xcom #the bonding bit feels poorly explained blegh #hope that makes sense my brain turned off multiple times

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moonfurthetemmie · 3 months

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Untitled.MP4

Previous | Next | First (with warnings)

Part 6

June 19, 20XX

Mercury looks tired. His hair is messier than ever.

"I completely forgot I was making these. Sorry, I- Wait, why am I apologizing? It's not like anyone will have to wait between the video entries. God, I've been alone too long already."

He runs a hand through his hair.

"Okay, what's happened in that past...how long has it been? Uh...Well, there was a noise outside last night. Didn't sound like an animal. It seems like there's something outside that's just staying out there, but I can't tell what through all the mold and gunk on the windows. The front door isn't exactly guarded, but-"

Mercury suddenly snaps his fingers, his eyes lighting up.

"Oh! That's right! The big mushrooms! Oh, shit, and the smaller mushrooms; yeah. Okay. So, firstly, the smaller ones-"

He reaches off screen and pulls over a bag of mushrooms. The caps are tall, a rusty orange color, dotted with dark red and black spots. They look dry.

"Some of the mushrooms out there are edible. Was it stupid to try? Absolutely, but I can't leave and anything left in the kitchen is either spoiled or compromised at this point. Maybe both. I had to find something to eat."

He sets the bag off to the side.

"It's only a certain size and shape, though I'm not sure I could tell you the difference without showing you more of the ones outside. I've found that exposing them to high heat burns off the spores. I've been living off of them for the past few days, and I haven't had any adverse effects yet. They might not be completely safe, but it gives me some extra time, so I'll take it. They seem to have most of the basic nutrients a human needs, which is weird, but for now I won't question it. So, yay."

Mercury's look becomes more grave.

"Some of the big mushrooms, though...I think they're how Zircon and Koroit knew I was in Jade's room, and part of how they know when he's trying to escape. I say 'part', because I think the mushrooms let them communicate without actually speaking."

Mercury pulls out a phone, and shows the screen to the camera. It's a large entry way, with mushrooms reaching all the way up to the ceiling flanking a pair of large double doors. There appears to be a complex network of roots on the floor.

"I'm not certain about the mushroom telepathy between them all, but if I get too close to the doors, someone shows up to stop me. Always. But, if they can sense things from those mushrooms-"

Mercury sets the phone down,

"-Then I don't know why they couldn't communicate with each other with them. Since Jade's covered in the mushrooms, I wouldn't be surprised if he was connected to that network, too; and it would explain how he knew that people were coming to his room."

He folds his arms over the desk.

"If I wasn't living this fungal nightmare, I'd be fascinated. Unfortunately, here I am. Aaaand...What else, I feel like I'm forgetting something..."

Mercury gazes around the room, before settling on something.

"Oh, yeah, I've started trying to find a cure," he says, casually. A note despair can be heard in his voice. "I have no idea if I'll find anything. This thing is...It's not normal, whatever it is. I know mushrooms and fungus and things are weird, but this is...this is a whole new level of it. I've been given no reason why it would be even harder to deal with than your average fungal infection, but given everything else I've seen, I wouldn't be surprised if it was."

Mercury sighs, and shakes his head.

"I'm not sure what else to do, though. I suppose I could try to get Zuli, but frankly, I don't know that he's even alive. The basement was disgusting enough already. Even if he had enough food, who knows what kind of illnesses he could catch down there."

He reaches forwards.

"...I'll try anyways. I could use the company."

The video ends.

#Untitled.MP4 #JMV Mercury #how IS zuli doing i wonder?#heheheh #Moonfur Writing

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kariachi · 2 months

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Companion piece of yesterday's fic. Takes place after it, post teaming up with Tennysons. A bit of introspection on the effect of being most raised by whers for years.

Kevin was under no illusion that he’d turned out ‘normal’. Not that the label had ever fit him, or that he’d ever really expected to attain it- even in his darkest moments that had never been more than a pipedream. But five years raised by whers had taken those abnormal edges and sharpened them into something that would never quite mesh. Really, he didn’t want to anymore, not like he had before the pack had taken him in, when he’d been different and not even in a way that people could forgive.

His powers were a skill to hone, rather than a future, a threat, looming. The pack had encouraged his practicing, his learning, celebrated every improvement just as they did the rest of the youngsters’.

His pushing against authority was ‘ranker behavior’ rather than a sign of immorality. Even now he only answered to Lachia, even then only just, and this was accepted as simply the structure of their pack.

His drive towards machines and art rather than ‘proper’ jobs for a mutant like emergency services and heroing were delightful rather than a waste of potential. In the end his siblings had learned over his shoulders, both his hobbies and everything his tutors had taught, and the pack had come out all the better for the knowledge.

His gender and such were a complete non-issue. He had a name, pronouns he preferred be used by those who couldn’t just use telepathy, and while he hadn’t yet run or chased he had every intention of doing both eventually, all of which were simply facts and manners and in the case of the last one only used in knowing his place in the complex web of relationships that was a wherpack.

‘Weird’ as he may have been, it was hard to feel like it in those circumstances.

And yes, the whole ‘raised by whers’ thing had left indelible marks. He’d missed out on cultural touchstones that his human peers took for granted. There was some struggle with interacting with humans his age. Sometimes terms got messed up, or he needed longer than others liked to pick up on something. Sometimes, especially when he was tired or stressed, he forgot that he had to actually speak to non-telepaths. Recently he’d been hit with the glaring realization that he didn’t know what proper, realistic courting looked like in humans. Many of his mannerisms had edged away from human and toward wher over the years. If Ben introduced him without his title one more time he was going to start biting people.

No, he did not care that only whers supposedly cared about the titles, it was rude at best and belittling at worst. And if there was anything he’d never taken well to, it was belittling.

Really, you would think that the fuckers that had been dealing with a wide range of species for nearly as long as he’d been dealing with two would adapt faster. Or at least figure out that he was happy with his lot, not yearning to leave his pack behind and rejoin ‘normal’ human society, no matter how happy he was to regularly indulge in it. No, not even because Gwen was cute and it would make her life easier. The whole Tennyson lot could get used to his eccentricities and his pack, the same way he was getting used to working with non-whers his age again.

After all, no matter what, he certainly couldn’t be the oddest fucker they’d ever dealt with.

#fanfic

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stud-yawgmoth · 5 months

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A swirl of orange light dances over the frozen ground. Addison sits cross-legged with their guitar in their lap, playing a particular series of notes and chords. A warm hat covers their curly orange hair, and a heavy cloak and scarf protect them from the cold. As Addison finishes the spell, a man appears amid the fading light, lying on the ground, asleep.

The cold begins to wake him. Addison quickly puts a blanket over him, and offers a vacuum flask full of hot coffee (non-caffeinated, so he can get back to sleep) and a handful of gold pieces.

"What the devil?" the man mumbles groggily. He's maybe 35, and looks completely normal - more human than Addison. The only thing suggesting he's fey are his slightly pointed ears.

"I'm sorry," Addison begins. "Let me explain. I'm a wizard, and I've summoned you to help me." (They're not a wizard. They never studied magic in a university, and no wizard casts spells by playing the guitar. But they don't really know what a wizard is.)

The man sits up, holding the blanket around himself, and peers around at the night. He doesn't seem too far from home (the mountains feel familiar) but there's no sign of civilization besides a campfire and some tents in the distance. He regards the money Addison offers him.

"Are you human, then?" he asks.

"I was hoping you could help me with that," Addison replies.

The man takes the coins, putting them in his nightshirt pocket. Through telepathy, Addison can sense he's starting to cotton on. (Maybe something like this has happened to him before?) He knows he's a changeling, and he knows how to deal with the fae.

"I'm trying to figure out if I'm human, or if I'm like you," Addison continues. "How do you know you're a changeling?"

The man's eyebrows go up. He's never been asked that before. He begins to think about his early childhood - it was much like Addison's. His parents knew something was wrong about him. They didn't love him as much as his brother and sister. He never acted right, never did what he was told, his schoolwork was bad, he was always getting in trouble...

"It's things like this," he says. "Magic works differently on me. You cast a spell to summon a fairy, right? And here I am. So I must be a fairy."

Addison ponders this. "There were never any signs in childhood?" they ask.

"No," the man says flatly. "I was a normal kid."

He's not lying. He believes his childhood was normal. People have argued with him before that his behavior was a sign of his fae nature, but he's met plenty of regular humans who misbehaved as kids.

"What sort of magic doesn't work on you?"

"Fairy-type things," the man says, still too groggy to be talkative. "Tricks. Illusions. Don't work on me. Folks back home just think I'm clever."

In his mind, Addison senses the memories of this man reacting to strangers. Most of the time, all he does is reassure his neighbors there are no illusions, but once in a while, he'll catch someone trying a trick. Addison's always wished they could be clever like that.

"Thank you," Addison says. "That's all I needed to know." With a wave of their hand, they send the man back where he belongs. Disappointed, they bring their flask and their guitar back to the camp, where their traveling companions are all sleeping.

Addison should be happy about this. Being human means they belong with their town and their family. It means their family should accept them, because they're normal. It means everyone who called them a freak and a monster was wrong. But that fellow, that changeling, he wasn't a freak or a monster either. And their mother wouldn't be happy to learn Addison really is her own kin.

They would have rather been a fairy. They look like one, and act like one. What good are they as a human? Being a fairy would have made so much more sense.

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kittlesandbugs · 2 years

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Taking it back (AO3 Link) Fandom/Pairing: FHR / Argentstep / Chargentstep Word Count: 2275 Warnings: PTSD, dealing with past trauma, nothing violent or graphic Summary: Sidestep lets Lady Argent give her a haircut. Something more like the old days.

A heavy hand on your shoulder presses you down into the seat. Mirror in front of you. Tired grey eyes stare back, framed by fresh little scars. You resist the urge to reach up and touch them.

Clippers on the table. A monthly ritual you kept for years, only recently discarded. The other stations are empty. Just you this time. The runaway, brought back into the fold.

"You know what to do."

You do. You do but…

"Get to it."

Your eyes rise to meet his gaze in the mirror. His eyes harden, brows narrowing, hand on your shoulder tightening, bruising. Talodine burns in your veins, but you don't need your telepathy to sense the indignation at your gall.

"No."

The hand on your shoulder, a vice now. Footsteps from behind and you brace for—

"Riley?"

A name. Not a number. You're here. Now. Not there. Not then.

A silver face in front of yours, brows knit, slight frown. Silver hands loose on your arms. She's concerned about you, projecting it a bit, wants you to know. How long were you zoned out?

You pull on a shaky smile for her, fingers flexing in your lap. You wish you had something between them and settle for worrying on the frayed threads of your sleeves.

"Are you alright? You look like you're going to throw up."

"I'm okay." Slow deep breath through your nose, hold it, release it. Again. Relax. You have to relax. "It's just…"

Your eyes dart to the clippers on the sink. They're what set you off. Too many bad memories. She hasn't even turned them on yet. It's been three? four? years since you tried to do it yourself. Longer still since they last forced it on you. How can you still be this weak?

"Are you having second thoughts?"

You aren't sure if you regret your offhand remark admiring some stranger's undercut. You might regret taking up her offer to help you cut your hair. You're too stubborn to give in, regardless.

"No. I want— I need to do this." Choice, you remind yourself. Your choice. No one's holding you down, holding you to it. You stare down at your scarred knuckles, resisting the urge to pick at them like you did back then. "Just… please be patient with me?"

"Okay." A pause, a little unreadable eddy spinning in her mind. "Can you look in the mirror for me?"

Always a hard ask, but you comply after a moment. The good thing about wearing so many layers is you have one to spare for this endeavor. Don't have to stare at the tattoos and make this worse than it already is.

She runs a finger along the side of your head, just grazing the split tip of your ear. "Up to here?"

"Higher. Like… up to the crown."

"Here?" Another drag through your hair, right where your skull starts to curve.

"Yeah. But sides only."

"Leave the back long? Same width stripe all the way down?"

"Yeah. Same all the way." You meet her eyes in the mirror, curiosity furrowing your brow as it finally occurs to you that you can't picture her with a shaved head. "How do you know how to use clippers anyway?"

A sad, nostalgic smile graces her lips. "My mom taught me the basics. My older brothers would let me do their hair sometimes, then just buzz it off if they didn't like it."

A reminder of the divide between you and people that always feels insurmountable. How different would you be if you'd been reared by someone who actually cared about you? Was invested in you for you, not for whatever experiments they could concoct to torture you. Maybe still not normal, normal was never in your cards. Less broken, at least. Less twisted up inside. More human.

She starts parting your hair, digging out the line she's going to follow. Cool hands, cold metal clips to keep it in place. You let your eyes fall shut. Breathe. You're wound tight as a spring and you haven't even gotten to the main event yet.

"Your hair is so thick," she says quietly. "Have you ever grown it longer than what you had when we met the first time?"

Almost touching your shoulders then, savagely self-hacked with scissors to keep it tamed. You didn't care about what it looked like before Ortega barged back into your life. You did after. "Once. After I… returned to Los Diablos. It got to be too much of a hassle."

"You kept it all shaved as Sidestep, right?"

"Yeah, out of habit."

"But not after you got back?"

"No."

"What changed?"

"Me." You swallow down the sudden lump in your throat. "Everything."

You feel her curiosity bubbling to the surface, but she patiently continues pinning up your hair, letting you find words at your own pace.

"I actually did try to grow it back then. For Ric. And me, I guess. He asked about it and I couldn't answer. It was right before…"

You were theirs again.

Rough hand on your head, knotting in locks just long enough to pull. Hard. You can't stop the yell at the entirely new pain. You don't need telepathy to know how much they enjoy it, it's clear in the cruel laughter.

They could have cut your hair while you were half-catatonic and saved themselves the struggle. But they wanted to test you. Wanted to show how easy it is to strip away what little was still yours. Still you.

"… it stopped being my choice." Not that it had been the first time you were there but you hadn't known freedom then. Choice is irrelevant when you don't know it exists.

"Riley." Quiet, but firm. A cool gentle squeeze at the base of your neck stills your shivers.

Fuck, you're definitely tight there. You bite back a groan. "Yeah?"

"It's okay." Absolving you of having to talk about it. You haven't told her about the Farm yet, but she knows enough to put it together with being taken after Heartbreak. Her thumb rubs gentle circles in the taut muscle. "Do me a favor and look at the mirror again."

You open your eyes and can't contain the snort of surprise at the sight of your hair pinned up in a dozen different directions. Tension drains out of you in a fit of helpless giggles, you look absolutely ridiculous. She echoes your smile in the mirror, flicks a floppy clipped up chunk over into your vision.

"Hey!"

"You okay?"

You grimace as you look at the clippers on the sink again. "Maybe."

"You sure you're sure about this?"

"Yeah." You force your gaze back to meet hers in the mirror. "When you do it. Please don't pull my hair?"

The plea comes out more pathetic than you intended and her face twitches. Something roils under the surface of her mercurial thoughts. Offended that you think she would? Anger at the ones who did? You won't delve deeper to find out. Your word has never been worth much, but that's one promise you intend to keep as long as you can.

"I won't." A quiet pledge as she picks up the clippers. "You ready?"

"No, but do it anyway." You squeeze your eyes shut.

A click and the buzz goes straight to the base of your spine, a prickly itch skittering its way up to your skull like spider legs. A cool hand on your head. A flat, open, gentle grip to steady your tremors and tilt you a little to the side. She has you. She'll stop if you ask. You suppress your flinch as she makes the first pass with the clippers, buzzing in your spine so much worse when it touches. Suppress the maddening urge to throw yourself off the stool at the next one. No pain or pulling, just a light rain of hair on your neck. One more and then the buzzing recedes as she withdraws. You let out the breath you didn't even realize you'd been holding.

Cool fingers massage your skull between the clips, warmer lips press to your forehead. "You okay?"

"Yeah." Not fully the truth but you're better than you thought you'd be. It's enough to get there.

"Good. You'll look really stupid if we stop now." Her tone is light, teasing, and again you can't help the snort that slips out.

You crack your eyes open to look at the patch of peach fuzz behind your ear. She's not wrong. You run a finger through it. So soft, you missed that texture.

"Is that length good?"

"Yeah."

"Ready to go again?"

"Mhmm."

You close your eyes again, steel yourself for another pass, and another. Her hand shifts, finger pressing your ear gently out of the way as she works around it. The buzzing echoed in the base of your spine doesn't get any more bearable, but the urge to flee does.

A brief pause as she moves to the other side. Hand shifts and tilts you the other way. Same thing once more. It's probably all over faster than you think, but time has never been on your side. Another click as she turns it off, brushes the hair from your neck and shoulders.

You open your eyes to examine her handiwork. Run your hands through the fresh cut, back to the waves still brushing your neck. The sides are level, even. Your face looks a little younger without all the hair framing it. A little sharper. More like the old days, before the scars. Most of them, anyway.

"Let me see."

You hold still as she examines your cut, tilting your face in multiple angles. Care in her gaze and handling, not like before. Not like you're a piece of meat on the block. You let out a held breath when she turns you loose.

"It's a good look on you, shows off those lovely cheekbones and earrings." She nods her satisfaction and digs the scissors out of the kit you brought. She doesn't need to own a pair with her hair. "Just need to trim some strays and you'll be done."

"Okay." You tilt your head as she directs you, watching in the mirror as she carefully works around your ears.

"You know we'll have to do this again in a month or two if you want to maintain it."

Not the most pleasant prospect, but this went much better than when you tried to do it yourself after you escaped. Easier to accomplish when the hands doing the deed aren't shaking hard enough to lose their grip. Easier to take with support. Maybe it'll keep getting better. Other things have.

"I can handle it. Do you mind?"

"No." She cleans up the line of your cut and moves to the other side, lips quirking in a soft smile. "I like playing beauty parlor."

She releases your hair from the clips once her trim is complete. It tickles over the shaved parts, a strange and new sensation, but not bad. You ruffle and fluff it with your fingers. Try to resist scratching your neck as tiny hairs trapped under your shirt irritate your skin.

"Definitely liking this look on you." You glance over to find her watching you with a wide indulgent smile. "I bet you feel itchy though."

"Can I…?" You gesture to the tub.

"Of course." She puts the scissors and clippers away, spotlessly clean after a silver hand trails over them. "I'll have some coffee ready when you're done. Ricardo should be here in an hour or so."

—

You're both settled together on the couch, well after the promised hour, when Argent suddenly perks up. She unfurls from her curled up recline against your side and heads for the door. You don't sense anyone on the other side, but he can't hide from her security like he can your mind. It's handy to have machines looking out. Might be worth adding more to your lair.

"How're my ladies today?" Ortega asks as he steps in, kicking his shoes off at the entry.

"Ready to kick back with some movies and doughnuts." Argent pulls him down by the collar for a kiss and you hear a hiss from him. The teeth are out. "You're late."

"Sorry. Got tied up helping Wei." A little apology peck on her forehead. "How'd beauty parlor go?"

"See for yourself." She gestures towards you.

"Oh…" An exhale of the softest wonder. "Now that's a blast from the past."

He sets the boxes on the counter, takes a seat on the edge of the coffee table. Knees intertwining and bumping yours. Warm hands cupping your cheeks, fingers caressing your newly clipped fuzz.

"You kept the top long."

"Yeah. Back too."

His hands trail back, burrowing into the waves at the base of your skull as he gently butts your head. "I love it."

"You love all my haircuts…" you mumble, cheeks warming. He's had a gush of compliments every time you see a stylist. Likes that you're taking care of yourself more.

"I especially love this one." A little kiss on your forehead. Nose. Lips. A glance over your shoulder. "You did a fantastic job, Angie. Maybe I should ask you to give me a haircut too."

"You couldn't afford me, Ricardo." A scoff but you feel little undercurrents of pleasure at the compliment. "But I guess I could make an exception this time. We haven't cleaned up the mess yet."

"Hmmmm, I do like you fluffy like this." You bury your hands in his curls, butt his forehead back gently. "But maybe you could use a trim."

#kitbug writes things #fhr #argentstep #chargentstep #lady argent #ricardo ortega #sidestep #riley owens #2k words of haircut fic no one asked for #this is so thoroughly self indulgent #riley deserves a stupid haircut for b3 #it's a metaphor #i've been picking at this for like eight fucking months #i'm so tired of it being in my wip folder #please enjoy XD

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bylertruther-moved · 2 years

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will has powers, a theory:

i know there are some people that are vehemently against other characters having powers, but idk.. 👉👈 i think it’d be really cool if they called out will’s connection to the supernatural for what it is, because it clearly isn’t normal. they got the mind flayer out of him and yet he still feels vecna: his physical state, what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling. like... sure, he can’t move things with his mind, but clearly he’s capable of other things? things that not even eleven can do?

there are a lot of theories about this and nods to it in the show, but will’s abilities thus far are a lot like shining from stephen king’s work, except rather underdeveloped and we’ve seen that he only has a true telepathic connection to vecna. still, it's eerily similar. at its heart, it's a supernatural sensitivity which in his case would be for the upside down and everything that hails from it. (i'm largely watering this down, as shining presents differently for mostly every character in king's work.)

eleven possess telepathy and telekinesis, but she lacks that innate sensitivity. will knows when something isn't right and isn't supposed to be in their world. he can detect when vecna is near and when he isn't. unlike eleven, these aren't things that he needs to deprive his senses for or actively do. like he says in season two: he doesn’t need to think; he just knows things now. another thing, too, is that it doesn’t hurt him to use those powers. eleven has a nosebleed every time she uses her powers, but will was able to “spy” on the mind flayer without any physical repercussions (not including memory loss, which was only because vecna overpowered him).

we know that the upside down resembles hawkins, that it’s frozen on the day that will went missing, and we saw that his kidnapping was different than everyone else’s. every other victim of the demogorgon and vecna faces an immediate, gruesome, and violent death. will, however, was stalked. he was able to hide from the monsters in the upside down, but when they did finally find him and barge into castle byers, they didn’t immediately kill and eat him. instead we saw that he was still in tact at the library and that the vines were leaching from him. we heard directly from will, too, that the mind flayer didn’t want to kill him, it wanted to kill everyone else, including eleven.

time and time again, we’re shown that will is special and that he’s worth more to vecna alive than dead.

vecna killed every single one of those kids in the lab, except for eleven—someone else that he saw himself in, thought he could turn, and believed was worthy enough to stand by his side. they’re clearly narrative foils, but i believe will is one, too.

vecna was once small, misunderstood, artistic, alienated, and sensitive, only he let his rage and hurt turn him into a monster, whereas will and eleven have only ever led with love. when he was first defeated by eleven, i believe he thought that will could be the next best thing and that’s why he didn’t kill him either. we know that vecna thinks little of humans and death. he could have easily killed will, but he didn’t. there had to have been something there, something untapped within will that he wanted to harvest and had never seen before. (and i do mean never, because eleven's powers are the result of experimentation, unlike vecna’s).

additionally, i personally believe it’d be beautiful if they turned his “affliction” into a source of power for him, something he can hone and control, too. eleven’s powers came at a price, but now it’s her that’s in control of them and she’s come a long way from viewing herself as a monster or a weapon. maybe, just maybe, they could do something similar for will: turn his extensive trauma into something he can stomach and draw his own strength from, rather than it being yet another thing that casts a shadow over his life.

#will byers #will #will theories #byler #long post #no such thing as being a will has powers truther bc it's jus canon baby<3 #also putting it in the byler tag bc i'm scared of the rest of the fandom but want ppl to see it. DBFJHDBJ #i'm problematic i kno <3 #my thoughts #my posts

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elliebell77 · 2 years

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PSA TO ALL BEINGS WITH TELEPATHY!!

As I’m sure everyone is aware, most intelligent beings have some sort of telepathy, and those who do not are equipped with the Dream Mask (TM), which allows them to communicate telepathically just as well as those who can do it naturally.

However, there are a select few intelligent beings that are physically unable to communicate telepathically, even with technology aiding them. Take the Galapoleans, for example, who do not have a conscious mind and therefore cannot have thought. Or the infamous Calistii, who have 7 different minds therefore making telepathic communication confusing at best and maddening at worst.

There is one species that has been especially prominent in the Milky Way as of late, known as Homo Sapiens (often shortened to just “humans”). They are unique in the fact that they give brain waves, but are completely unable to receive them.

This means two things:

1. Without any kind of telepathic resistance, you have unrestricted access to their mind. This is basically the same as trying to communicate with someone who is sleeping, which we all know is highly illegal under the Calistii Code (article 6, page 29).

2. Humans are constantly giving off brain waves. This is because every single thought they have gives off brain waves. If you have the ability to, you will hear everything they are thinking, all the time. This is both annoying and highly disturbing at times.

If you are telepathic and must communicate with a human, here are some things that personally work for me:

1. Brain plugs. Like earplugs for speaking folk, brain plugs are a simple device that mutes all telepathic communication. While these work like a charm for humans, I would only recommend these if there are only humans present, and not other beings that may try to communicate to you through telepathy.

2. Druigh Glass. Yes, I know they’re usually only used for prisoners, but this is still a viable option. Brainwaves are physically incapable of traveling through this glass, meaning you will not hear the human’s thoughts. Also, other telepathic beings can stand on your side of the glass, leaving communication with beings other than humans unhindered.

3. Other means of communication. Not all communication has to be in person! It is not only normal but even encouraged to communicate through transmissions or other means, as nobody wants to travel through the galaxy just to talk to someone.

There are probably some other methods I missed, but these are the ones that have worked best for me. If you have any more, make sure to message me or comment/reblog them below this post. Remember to stay safe out there guys!

#humans are weird #psa #sci fi #aliens #kinda rp #halfway thru writing this i accidentally deleted like a third of it #so that sucks #:(#telepathy

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eolewyn1010 · 10 months

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Farewell, Darkover - part 4

I definitely had a much better opinion of her books then than I now think they deserve. There is knowing of MZB's crimes and how it makes her careless handling of consent and normalization of abuse sickeningly close to real life, yes, but there's also stuff that, in hindsight, makes me wonder how poor my reading comprehension actually was.

The racism, for one - racism was said to be an unknown concept on Darkover... because everyone there was blindingly white, to the point that no one even had dark eyes! When Terrans came to Darkover and some of them had brown eyes, the Darkovans described them as having animal eyes, and were surprised that said people could talk at all. Nah, that doesn't sound wrong, does it? They asked people with darker skin if they had gotten that way through illness. I remember it was set up as a curious innocence on part of the Darkovans - but MZB wrote this. She must have known how it sounded. No innocence on her part. It didn't crop up much, granted, as her protagonists in general didn't get darker than pantone 727. Oh, wait, I was wrong! Ysaye was dark-skinned! What happened to her again? Yeah, her asexuality was overwritten by a psychoactive drug so she wound up having sex with someone equally drugged, she was pregnant afterwards and couldn't even remember how she got that way, an abortion was performed on her against her will, and then she painfully burned to death because of the psychic power reflexes of someone telepathically stuck in her head at that time. Lovely, especially the bodily autonomy. Such feminism.

Additional to that, there was a specific kind of chauvinism that MZB introduced by way of her "special" groups - and that's something her narrative never attempted to excuse. It was presented as a plain fact that those with psychic gifts (on Darkover those with laran, in MoA those with the Sight) were superior to "normal" humans and had a claim to nobility by virtue of their abilities. Not even abilities they worked for, no; something they were born with. I remember one specific line from a Darkover book in which someone thought that, for him, having sex with a non-telepathic person would be like coupling with an animal. Yeah... how do I put that? That is vile. Putting other human beings down to the level of animals? I realize that telepathy would make a difference in how one perceives the people around oneself, but defending this as one's right to superiority? On the basis of an innate trait? Social Darwinism much? And remember that this kind of elitism was something MZB only ever presented as the natural order for her magic societies.

The acclaimed feminism is something else that isn't really there when you look at the books up close. A whole part of Darkovan society considered women as property to be sold, which no one really thought was an injustice to fight against. Darkovan women were mostly at their father's and husband's mercy. Similar to what The Mists of Avalon did, there was made a theoretical point of how virginity wasn't really that valued - except in practice, there was still a lot of slut-shaming over a damaged hymen (learn some anatomy, geez) and over how a pregnant girl was dishonored and couldn't marry well anymore, so there goes that.

For MZB's ideas on women having to serve as brood mares? I'll let her speak for herself: "Darkover Landfall stirred up a furor because some outraged feminists objected to the stand I took in the book, that the survival of the human race on Darkover could, and should, be allowed to supersede the personal convenience of any single woman in the group. [...] to those who refuse to accept the tenet that "Biology is Destiny", I have begun to ask them to show me a vegetarian lion or tiger before they debate the issue further." - quoted from here. TERFs must love her. But sure, have all the women in your colony raped into a dozen of pregnancies - with no say even to whose children they have to bear and birth. Why would humans have a claim to spread there in the first place? They weren't native to the world. I gotta say, I only found this particular quote in my most recent look at the subject. When I read Darkover Landfall, I was sure the whole point of it was that the beginnings of Darkovan society were rooted in a terrible crime against half of the population. I had no idea that MZB was defending this viewpoint extra-diegetically.

And then the more basic stuff. How every beautiful woman who chose a place in society away from sex and marriage was deemed a "waste", how the worth of a woman was, even thousands of years after said first colonization, measured by her fertility, to the point that it was considered subversive that the Renunciates vowed to only bear children whenever the fuck they want, how most marriages were arranged without consent, how women treated each other as competition to be bitched out instead of allies. There's nothing particularly progressive about this. Women's rights, in MZB's books, are only something for her "specials", for the few chosen individuals who are born with the right genes and / or stand in the center of the narrative. Everyone else can go hang.

#Darkover #Marion Zimmer Bradley #hell is too good for MZB #The Mists of Avalon #tw racism #tw rape mention #books

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summergirl2408 · 1 year

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hellooooo

i came here to ask the expert (you) about cute and/or badass cat pokemons 😌😌

also here to ask how you're doing!!!! muah😘

You gotta know asking me about pokemon stuff is a dangerous thing cause I'm gonna full on go down this rabbit hole and provide you with a complete essay 😌👀

There are actually quite a few cat and/or cat-adjacent pokemon so I'll try to properly break it all down

Also I'll have to break this up in parts because of the image limit 😂

First up: pokemon that are undeniably a cat

Starting with what is definitely the most iconic cat pokemon and one of the most iconic pokemon overall: Meowth

Most iconic because a meowth is known as part of team rockets most iconic team aka Jessie, James and Meowth

This specific meowth is one of the only pokemon that can speak human language (in the pokemon anime)

There are some other pokemon in the anime that can technically speak human language by using telepathy, illusions or mind control (more often than not mind control of that specific meowth actually) but the number of pokemon speaking in a human language with their own mouth is at <5 I think

The reason why this meowth can speak human language (and also why it walks on 2 legs for that matter) is because he learned it to try and impress a female meowth but she rejected him anyways 🥲

Meowth can evolve into Persian

A persian also has quite a prevalent role in the pokemon anime as the main/companion pokemon of Giovanni, team rockets boss

(Ya know it's that whole "mafia boss turning around in his chair while slowly petting his cat"-trope)

Also fun fact: it is kind of an ongoing debate whether or not Giovannis Persian is a shiny because the shiny form of persian doesn't look that different from the normal one (the most obvious difference is the pink inner ear)

and in some shots of the anime the Persians ears do look somewhat pink-ish

I'm pretty sure the most common opinion is that it is not shiny tho as its first appearance in the anime actually predates the existance of shiny pokemon alltogether

Meowth also got 2 different regional forms by now (making it one of only 2 pokemon to have more than 1 regional form and the only one that has regional forms from more than 1 region)

First off we got alolan Meowth (alola being the region/country in the pokemon world this regional form occurs in)

this one is a dark type instead of the normal type the regular Meowth is

Alolan Meowth obviously then evolves into alolan Persian

which I always thought looked like it just got it's wisdom teeth out

Then we got the other regional form which is galarian Meowth

this one is a steel type and also partly based on a viking which becomes even more apparent in its evolution which isn't galarian Persian but instead is called Perrserker

Oh yeah and then there is also Meowths gigantamax form (a special battle gimmic from gen 8 that makes a pokemon giant and stronger and changes its form) and that one is legit just longcat

There are 2 starter pokemon (the ones you get to choose at the beginning of every pokemon game) that are also undeniably cats

For one we have Sprigatito

the grass type starter of gen 9 (that everyone refused to call anything besides weed cat when it was first revealed) which evolves into Floragato

and then Meowscarada

In its final evolution it is a grass and dark type inspired by magicians and masquerades (and btw this is the starter I chose this generation cause 1. cat and 2. I always choose the grass type starter)

Meowscarada also has a signature move that imo is really goodIt's a base 70 power physical move that always hits and always is a critical hit (meaning it does 1.5 times damage)

The other cat starter is Litten

the fire type starter from gen 7 which evolves into Torracat

this one also has some hints of a tiger in its looks which is why the final evolution of this line is covered further down in the cat-adjacent section

Next up we have Glameow

another normal type that evolves into Purugly

I really love this evolution line cause you got this dainty little kinda snooty cat that goes on to evolve into a mean grumpy chonker

Now to probably the most forgettable cat pokemon there is: Skitty

another normal type and genuinely 9 times out of 10 upon seeing this pokemon somewhere I'll go 'oh yeah that thing still exists'

It's evolution is covered further down in the maybe a cat section

Another one is Purrloin

a cute little dark type pokemon that along wirh sprigatito and glameow probably resembles a normal house cat the most

Still all in all a fairly forgettable pokemon

It's evolution can once again be found further down in the cat-adjacent section

Now to the last pokemon in the undeniably a cat section: Espurr

aka if a little child that accidentally walked in on its parents having sex was a pokemon (like look this thing in the eyes and tell me it hasn't seen things it shouldn't have)

Fittingly its a psychic type cause it probably took some psychic damage from that experience

It evolves into Meowstic

the first pokemon covered here with an obvious gender difference (the left one being the male form and the right one being the female)

Meowstic is kind of on the border between undeniably a cat and cat-adjacent tho as it is technically not based on a normal cat but on a nekomata, a kind of cat yokai from japanese folklore that, according to legend, can evolve from a normal house cat

#ask #asks #pokemon

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