#and instead just generated sonic noise that hurt people

[robocops-a-christ-allegory]

Denys Cowan Peacemaker appreciation post

Denys Cowan Peacemaker Appreciation Post

#Long post #If only he drew more Peacemaker....perhaps in the 1987 run of another Charlton character that he also penciled..... #He just looked so good. #I used to think the way Cowan drew his mask was goofy and weird but then I realized he was making it look like a executioners hood and now- #-I think its one of the best Peacemaker helmets #Also love that hes carrying his helmet around in a big fucking circular metal case #Also Incheresting that Cowan was drawing both his logo and the little dot for the lasers.... #Peacemaker generally always just had his logo on his helmet at this time because it didnt shoot lasers anymore #and instead just generated sonic noise that hurt people

[bitter-sweet-coffee]

Sonic Twitter Takeover fic prompt? Well, here you go:

Their breath was fogging up the glass. The wind which expelled from their lungs could not pierce that invisible barrier, so it clouded instead. How do pilots steer through clouds? Did it hurt when they flew through them?

Cotton candy is sticky, and it smells like blood.

"I don't think this is going to work Maria, we never heard back from them," the hedgehog mumbled, fidgeting with the girl's robin-coloured sleeve that hung from her stiff arm. Despite his concern, Shadow couldn't suppress the glimmer in his eye as he watched his sister tidy up the control panel that she had been toying with.

Maria simply laughed and shook her head, and faded gold strands of hair unwound from her scalp. The cleaning staff was always puzzled that the creature didn't shed, but the human girl manifested tumbleweeds that plagued the barren ARK like it was the wild west.

"They communicate with the planet all the time Shadow, it's definitely possible! I just had to rig this so it could transmit anywhere, and our shuttle is arriving tonight so we'll know for sure if it worked," she explained, before elaborating in words that her alien companion couldn't follow.

Instead of asking questions, he simply nodded as his mind wandered elsewhere. He would go on to regret this in about 50 years though, when his memories of her become sparse.

Maria continued to cover up their tracks, stifling a laugh at the visibly inattentive Shadow. She would never tease him for his lapses in focus, aware of how overworked the poor hedgehog was. "Let him rest," she had insisted with the project coordinators and grandfather but they seemed unconcerned.

"It's the Ultimate Lifeform, if it needs rest then the specimen can always withdraw and accept its termination," someone had told her. The cuts on her palm had yet to heal from the wrath of her jagged fingernails, and the insides of her cheeks were raw as always.

They'd leave, they just had to be patient.

Before Shadow could open his mouth to change the topic to something more comprehensible, an alarm began blaring from the intercom, startling the hedgehog into his sister's side. He was never a fan of loud noises, but Maria's hands were already over his ears— they were used to this series of events.

Just another few days weeks months never before they could get the hell away from this.

Maria was about to shut the panel off and deal with the intercom, but a rhythmic beeping was being transmitted that required her attention, head snapping back down to the source.

Unable to write things since her hands were preoccupied with muffling the shuttle alarm, the girl began tapping on Shadow's forehead, which made the hedgehog wrinkle his nose and squirm.

"Focus on this instead, I need you to double check with me, okay?" Maria whispered calmly, pulling Shadow a little closer to her side.

He did as she instructed and let the morse code beeping merge with her fingertips, the sound of the alarm fading away. When the transmission ended, the alarm truly was gone.

"No fucking way... it worked!!!" Maria cheered, scooping Shadow up and swinging him around, gripping him tight so he didn't get flung across the room like last time.

The hedgehog yelped from the sudden movement but it eventually devolved into giggling, his fists ramming into her back as he shook with laughter.

Shadow eventually regulated his amusement and pulled back to look at the girl, expression faltering when he saw the strain in her smile, eyes glazed. He quickly let go and landed on his feet, steadying Maria as best he could.

"You're not supposed to move that much Mar," he reminded, but she was a Robotnik after all— the stubbornness was genetic.

Maria shrugged and began stumbling out to the hallway, headed for the first floor; "Do you want your pizza or not? C'mon, I want to try cheese and the best way to have it is when it's still stringy!" she cheered, doing her best to mask the whistling from her lungs with her heavy footsteps.

When the hedgehog didn't budge, she looked back with a smug grin, "I know you're curious what crust tastes like, you're not subtle... I see you looking up toasters in the catalogue. If you want the crunch, then follow me, okay?"

Rolling his eyes and growling in defeat, Shadow followed the girl as best he could, their bare feet slapping the ground hard enough to warrant echoes.

Arriving at the main deck, the two snuck their way onto the shuttle that just arrived, taking note of the uncanny box that was haphazardly thrown on top of the better preserved food shipments.

The ARK had its own garden, so produce was never difficult to obtain. Meat seldom lasted and dairy was uncommon, so what was sent up would be primarily starches and other low-moisture foods for budget reasons.

Pepperoni pizza however, was not a dry, meatless, dairy free starch. However, this didn't stop the pair from contacting GUN before the food shuttle left to demand a pizza.

Shadow still worries about the poor intern that was spammed with morse code transmissions until they did what was instructed by the mad scientist and her loyal henchhog. They probably got fired, but that means they got away from GUN, so he considers it an improvement.

Maria snatched the box and grabbed Shadow's hand, ducking behind the pallet of saltine crackers; "Can you chaos control us back to my room?" she whispered, as the unloading team approached their hiding spot.

"I um, well I'm still not good at taking other people, are you sure it's safe?" the hedgehog asked warily, pulling away to adjust his inhibitors.

The girl shrugged, grabbing Shadow's hands back with her free one, "Let's go."

He nodded firmly, and with a quiet chaos control, they were safely pulled away from the crime scene and back in Maria's room, flopping directly onto her bed.

Shadow beamed at his success, but his sister was too busy melting into her comforter with glee, sighing.

She wasn't usually allowed in her room since it wasn't sterile enough according to her doctor. While usually kept immaculately, the duo would leave behind a never-ending generator of crumbs on that bed.

Shadow thinks they're still there today, but he won't go check. He hasn't been back in that room since.

After stuffing themselves with the foreign food, the siblings learned an important lesson on introducing new ingredients into their diet, and how having multiple things you're not supposed to eat at all or in large quantities... has unsatisfactory results.

"Do you think we shouldn't have done this?" Maria groaned, sprawled out and hanging halfway off her bed. Shadow was face first on the floor below her, and merely offered a pathetic thumbs up.

The girl giggled weakly, swallowing the fear that this would cause internal bleeding, and worried that if she cracked for just a second, the fun would be over and she'd be put in isolation again.

Fortunately, this wouldn't be the case, though she'd still bleed a week later as bullets were fired into her back.

"I'm sorry I asked for this, now we feel like shit," Shadow groaned, using his limited strength to roll over and stare up at Maria, a pained expression on his face.

The girl shook her head; "We've been so patient this whole time, what's the harm in waiting a little less for something?" She shifted back towards the wall and patted the open space on her bed, prompting Shadow to join her.

Smiling, the hedgehog crawled up and wiggled under the weighted blanket, sighing into Maria's lavender-scented pillow as she placed a hand in his quills, scratching gently behind his ears.

"Even if we feel gross now, we still had fun, and the pizza tasted good! Even if we're a bit sick now, it proves that sometimes waiting pays off," Maria assured, looking down at her hedgehog as he began to drift off.

The Ultimate Lifeform may have been too tired to say anything back, but both of them knew he agreed— they were used to waiting for freedom anyways.

"So... was it worth it?" Sonic asked, holding his slice of pizza between his fingers like a cigarette.

Shadow eyed his untouched plate, almost tempted by the still stringy mozzarella that he remembered throwing at Maria before remembering that it looked like her entrails.

"Should we keep ordering illegal foods until we can go down there for real?" he asked.

Maria laughed but shook her head, "No, I think we're done for now! We'll be experiencing the planet together soon anyways, I don't want to ruin the surprise. Plus, you never know if this stuff tastes better there, so I don't want to ruin everything with a space bias! We'll just have to wait a little longer, it'll be something to look forward to."

"No," Shadow admitted, "it wasn't worth it."

What he failed to communicate was that it wasn't the fact they did it, but the fact they never did it again.

#shadow the hedegehog #maria robotnik #space colony ark #gerald robotnik #sonic the hedgehog #sonic adventure 2 #sa2 #sonic twitter takeover #wip fic #not proof read #i literally wrote this in my notes app in like 20 minutes and spent the rest of the time getting distracted or redoing the format #it didnt transfer i was so mad #sonic fic #sonic analysis #see if you can find the references

[solalunar-eclipse]

Scars You Can’t See - Chapter 8

Chapter title: Countdown

Word count: about 3500 words

Author’s Note: I tried to make this one slightly more light-hearted, but we’ll see if that worked out! Also writing fight scenes is difficult.

First | Previous | Next

...

At this rate, it was honestly a miracle that Tails hadn’t had to buy a new carpet yet.

Thankfully for Sonic’s sanity, his little brother’s determination to preserve their house meant that he’d been given lots of free rein to run around outside whenever he felt like leaving. He’d also been given fewer chores lately, as Tails knew from experience that Sonic did not thrive on order and routine like he did.

It had been three days since their visit from G.U.N. and their last contact from Omega- and Team Dark in general. Though he never said as much, Sonic was really having an issue with the fact that Tails had gotten to contact his friend twice by now, while he hadn’t heard from Shadow in ages. He tried his best not to worry, but it had just been such a long time since he’d spoken with the other hedgehog.

And Omega had said that Shadow was struggling...had practically had to relive one of his most traumatic memories….

Sonic decided that he didn’t care about any of the hybrid’s usual thoughts about expressing emotions or vulnerability- the second he got to see Shadow for real, that guy wouldn’t be able to escape the hug he had coming. The hero was practically determined to drag his friend (because they were friends, no matter what Shadow might say) to a therapist, too, since Chaos knew the guy needed it.

The blue hedgehog slowed down considerably and began to stalk through the forest instead, trying to get the majority of his anger out through his legs and movement. It wouldn’t do for Tails to see him like this…

Sonic’s thoughts circled back to how his hands were tied by what he’d promised Shadow- the hybrid had been so insistent, but now Sonic regretted agreeing not to go after G.U.N. Truthfully, the only reason he hadn’t broken his promise already was because while Tails was an incredibly clever and talented person, he could never forgive himself if the young fox got hurt. Otherwise, he would absolutely have long since blasted into G.U.N.’s headquarters, grabbed the commander by the front of his military uniform and told him in no uncertain terms that he had better stop hunting Team Dark and he’d better do it immediately. The hero had had enough of his friends suffering while he was forced to sit safe at home and wait.

His phone buzzed then, pulling him out of his tangled web of thoughts. Tugging it out of his windswept mess of quills, he saw that it was Tails calling and of course picked up immediately.

“Yeah, lil’ bro, what’s up?” he asked, hoping that most of the frustration had left his voice by now.

“Uh, Sonic?” the fox said, sounding pretty tense himself. “Since those agents came to our house a couple of days ago, I managed to hack into G.U.N.’s main server and now I can see some of what they’re doing- mostly where the organisation's sending people and all that.”

“Epic!” Sonic cheered. He began to wonder- could they use this to help their fugitive friends?

“Well, yeah, it would be...except that they’re sending an entire squad to our house. Like, right now.”

His grin froze in place. A squad of soldiers? The hero almost felt a grim sort of delight in that- finally, he’d be able to vent some of his frustration on the organization that had caused this whole mess. He hoped the house would remain standing, though. Tails had built it around a tree from scratch and was really proud of it. 

Sonic decided he’d work that out once he got home, and just a moment later, a sonic boom exploded across the landscape as he took off. 

…

Once the hero arrived at home, the duo began to set up the house’s various defense mechanisms- since they were a) very famous, b) hated by one of the most powerful supervillains in the world and c) one of them was an engineer, it was only natural that the house would be at least as well defended as a high-security bank vault. Sonic practically bounced around the house as he helped activate certain parts of their machinery, nervous tension running high. G.U.N. wasn’t going to be pulling any punches this time, he was sure of it.

Tails, by contrast, was absolutely calm. The fox was ridiculously mature for his age, and Sonic suspected that he instinctively knew by now when he needed to counteract his elder brother’s wild energy. Once everything was set up, the two built a makeshift barricade as a last resort at the front door, and waited.

Thankfully for Tails’s sanity, it didn’t take long for the trucks to arrive. 

As the three trailer trucks parked outside his house, ten soldiers poured out of each one, while several technicians began to set up some sort of weird-looking prototype laser device. The fox laughed for a second at the sight of it in a way that sent a few chills down Sonic’s spine. His brother could be downright terrifying at times.

Tails scoffed. “Please. That laser doesn’t have the power output to break my shields….wait.

“What the heck?”

The four technicians had begun to hook up the laser to- of all things- one of Eggman’s old power cores that he usually used in his bases. 

The young engineer tugged at his tails in frustration. “That’s so dumb! Sure, it might boost the laser’s strength, but there’s at least a twenty percent chance it’ll blow up in their faces! A small machine like that wasn’t made to withstand the amount of power it takes to charge an entire Eggman base!”

Sonic blinked and looked at his brother. “Those aren’t bad odds….”

“They aren’t good ones, either! I’d never let someone use a creation of mine with a one in five chance of failure. It’s just embarrassing! And it shows how far behind their engineers are!” Tails’s fur was fluffed up in outrage and irritation.

The hero almost laughed. “That’s what you complain about first? Not the fact that they’re gonna try and blow up our house?” he asked, his tone light. He snatched up the fox and rushed them both away from the front door as a precaution- that was definitely going to be their first target.

Sonic pushed Tails into the highest room in the house, before launching himself out the window and curling up into a deadly sphere of razor-sharp spikes. He vaguely heard one soldier yell something in a panicked voice, but didn’t pay much attention to it. He slammed into the ground, still in a ball, and tore off towards the laser cannon at top speed, leaving a cloud of dust behind him as he went. 

Irritatingly, the soldiers’ gunfire spattered all around the cannon, making it impossible to tear the thing apart. Sparks flew across the ground as Sonic careened around it before jumping up into a running stance and taking off in their direction. The air snapped around him as he broke the sound barrier and landed a furious kick on one of the trucks, denting the heavy steel and flipping it onto its side.

Sonic stumbled as a loud explosion rocked the ground, but kept sprinting after a glance assured him that Tails’s shields had held against the blast. The hedgehog smacked one man’s rifle out of his hand, the sheer speed of the blow bending it in half (and was almost certain he heard a distinct ‘why do we keep fighting this guy with guns?’) before he moved on. 

A dozen soldiers were on the ground either unconscious or groaning in pain by the time someone thought to radio for reinforcements- which they’d apparently had on standby ready to be helicoptered in. The blue blur wasn’t sure whether this high estimation of his fighting skills was something he should be proud of...or not.

The fur prickled on the back of Sonic’s neck as a humming noise filled the air.

A moment later, he threw himself to the ground as a red-hot laser carved a wide arc above him, slicing through the area where his midriff was a few seconds ago. He heard a faint yell of outrage from inside the house above all the noise, and stuck out his arm for a quick thumbs-up to Tails. 

A couple of seconds later, one very familiar and well-used earpiece landed in the dirt next to him as the laser swung back across the battlefield to refocus on their shields. Sonic shoved it into one blue ear before running up the side of the second truck and backflipping to land behind several soldiers. “Miss me, guys?” he asked smugly, before smirking and delivering several well-placed blows to said soldiers’ kneecaps that left all three doubled over on the ground. None of them had even seen him as he moved, which was really a testament to Sonic’s skill.

Tails’s voice crackled to life in his ear as he sent another person flying. “Awesome job! By the way, they’ve already fired the cannon three times, so either their luck is going to be great with this next one, or else…”

The cannon’s shot breached the shields, but Sonic noticed as he ran that its casing was burning red-hot, and- 

A shockwave blasted out from the cannon, making all four of its attendants fly into the air, yet in the seconds before they hit the ground, Sonic had time to:

Heave a lengthy sigh at their overestimation of the cannon.

Decide that even if they were working for G.U.N., a life was still a life.

Run around and safely place all four of them inside of a truck...

And avoid the explosion as it tore up the ground within a ten-foot radius of the machine.

(The hero had known for quite some time that being the fastest thing alive meant that he could do some really cool tricks.)

Dirt exploded in all directions, leaving a crater and a smoking lump of metal on the ground. Unfortunately, though, the house’s main defenses were down, and any second now, the helicopter would be there with enough soldiers to take out the rest. And his little brother was still inside...

As though he’d heard the hedgehog’s thoughts, Tails’s voice crackled to life through the speaker. “Sonic! The reinforcements are almost here- we can’t take them all, even if I come out there!”

“Not happening, pal, not unless you’ve got your mech.” Sonic insisted, putting on his ‘big brother’ voice. “Hey, wait- where’re they going?” he asked suddenly, watching as the remaining soldiers retreated to take cover behind one of their trucks. That wouldn’t really help them, but Sonic knew that they knew he couldn’t take the whole organization on by himself.

“They’re waiting it out until the rest arrive...but we won’t be here by then.” Tails said, sounding confident.

“And why’s that, pal?” He folded his arms, keeping one eye on the soldiers.

“Because-” and here Sonic suddenly heard a loud roaring noise coming from the back of the house, “-we’re going to get out of here!”

That was when the Tornado soared directly over their heads.

The G.U.N. soldiers certainly tried to shoot the plane down, but of course, they couldn’t keep up with Tails’s expert flying. Bullets embedded themselves into nothing but trees as it flew away into the forest, a blue streak taking off after it at top speed. Sonic kept up with the red biplane easily, just waiting for the right moment to...there!

He launched himself off a particularly well-placed branch, flinging himself high into the air before landing perfectly on the wing of the plane. “Alright, Tails,” he yelled, trying to make himself heard over the roar of the engine, “where to now?”

The kitsune winced and tapped his ear. “Earpiece, remember?” he asked, and Sonic cringed, realizing that he had forgotten what it was like to wear the little speaker while on the Tornado.

“Ahah, gotcha.” he said sheepishly. “So?”

Tails sighed, but not in an irritated manner. “Angel Island- nobody can find it if Knuckles wants to stay hidden. I called him up while you were out front and he said we could crash there.”

“Oh, sweet!” Sonic said happily. “It’ll be like a sleep...over…”

He trailed off weakly, suddenly remembering their home. “Sorry about the house, pal...I know ya worked hard on it.” The hero ran a hand through his quills, unwilling to meet the other’s eyes.

“It’s okay.” Tails said bravely. “I brought a few things-” he gestured to the backseat- “including all my blueprints, so I can always build us another. And besides…” here he leaned forward, catching Sonic’s eye, “home is wherever we are, so long as we’re together.”

The blue blur quickly nodded before looking down pointedly at the biplane’s wing, hoping strongly that Tails didn’t notice that his eyes had begun to glisten just a little more than usual.

(He did, though.)

…

Knuckles was happy to see them, of course, if a little less obviously so than usual due to the circumstances that had forced the two into this situation. The guardian immediately began to move the island to a new area where it would be hidden from view, while Sonic and Tails just relaxed and looked through the various items that the latter had thought to bring: a spare pair of shoes for Sonic, a toolbox and the aforementioned blueprints for Tails, plenty of food for the three of them, and of course lots of important technology.

As Tails left to go check on Knuckles, the blue hedgehog stretched out on the grass and heaved a deep sigh. What he’d give to know how Team Dark was doing right now…

…

Two days later, he found out.

The very moment that the team released the video, all three inhabitants of Angel Island sat down to watch it on Tails’s screen. The fox had been constantly monitoring the Internet for anything about the other team, especially their social media, so of course he was alerted the second anything came up.

Before they started the video, the hero had been vibrating with energy. 

By the end of the section about the ARK, he was completely still, his eyes as wide as they could go.

Tails paused the video there, as the massive wave of responses was already starting to flow. Sonic blinked back to reality to discover that his nails had nearly torn holes through his gloves- that was how tightly he was clenching his fists. He rolled his shoulders, trying to get the tension to leave his body, but he couldn’t stop thinking.

How in the name of Chaos did Shadow watch that?

They agreed that Tails would watch the rest while the other two stepped up to support their friends, and support they certainly did. Both of their tempers were running hot, and more than once the fox, glancing over their shoulders, had to remind them that caps lock was not going to be helpful right now.

Not long after Team Dark had stopped responding to questions, Sonic and Knuckles sat back down to view the other part of the video. They watched in shock as the peace and power of that meeting was violated, people arrested just like that, and yet neither of them had heard anything about this event.

Immediately afterwards, the latter got right back onto his phone and started typing out absolutely vicious responses to some of the more ridiculous conspiracy theorists. His violet eyes were narrowed in anger as he tore into their ideas- while he might not be able to convince the people themselves, he could hopefully stop more from being sucked in.

Sonic, meanwhile, just lay half on his side in the grass for a minute, trying to restrain the urge to scream. Why hadn’t he done more damage to G.U.N. when he’d had the chance? Why hadn’t he been able to see that this ran so deep?

Sonic turned his head to the side to look at his brother. “Tails?” he asked, trying to keep his voice under control. “Where’s Team Dark gonna go next, d’ya think?”

The kitsune frowned. “I don’t know...but if I had to guess, they’re probably trying to figure out how deep this whole problem goes. That’s what I think we’d do if we were in that situation, at any rate. To find that kind of stuff, though, they’d have to head straight to Central City and hack directly into G.U.N.’s mainframe...which would be incredibly risky on a good day.”

Sonic shot upright. “What if they are gonna do that next?”

Tails shook his head vehemently. “After running away from the entire organization for so long? That’d practically be a suicide mission! Even if they somehow managed to escape with the information, G.U.N. would be able to hunt them down in no time!”

The two brothers stared at each other. “But that sounds like them….doesn’t it.” Tails sighed, looking down at the grass.

“Knux!” Sonic yelled, rushing over to where the guardian sat. “We have to hang around Central City, man. If the team’s gonna head anywhere, it’ll be there. And if they’ll be in that much trouble by the time they get out of there, we have to be there to pick them up.”

Knuckles leveled him with a stare so flat it put sheets of paper to shame. “Sonic. Literally three days ago, I helped you guys escape G.U.N. and we have been hiding ever since. And now you want me to move my island, with the last ruins of my tribe’s temple and my Master Emerald, within reach of an organization that would give anything to be able to take it all for their scientists to look at.

“No. Way.”

The hedgehog widened his stance. “Knuckles.” he began, stabbing a finger at the ground for emphasis. “Literally ten days ago, Team Dark escaped G.U.N. all by themselves and have been on their own ever since. And now you want us to leave our friends, and remember, your girlfriend at the mercy of that organization, for the sake of a giant rock.

“Yes way. Absolutely.”

Knuckles scowled and blushed, avoiding Sonic’s stare after that mention of Rouge. “I guess….if we stayed away from the city itself and out of sight….”

Tails decided that this was a slightly safer moment to chime in. “I’ll try and monitor the airwaves in the area- we can move away if we think they’ve noticed us!”

“All of this is assuming that they’re even actually there.” the echidna replied, seeming slightly irritated at being outnumbered. 

“It isn’t the most logical place for them to go.” Tails agreed. “It’s ridiculously dangerous, and G.U.N. probably knows that. But, it’s also their most powerful building, which means that it’s going to have all of the more recent files there.

“While this video is some damaging evidence, it’s not nearly enough to permanently damage their standing overall...they definitely have the cash to sneak out of this level of bad press. A bigger release- now that we know this isn’t a one-time event- is definitely the best way to deal with them. And what better way to do it than to find all their super-secret files at the source?”

Sonic sighed. “Plus, I’ve got a feeling G.U.N.’s gonna underestimate that team’s habit of suffering to save others.” His shoulders sagged slightly at the thought, but he felt a little bit of the weight lift off of them when Tails leaned against him slightly with an understanding look.

The echidna watched them sympathetically for a moment before remembering that he was supposed to be arguing against them. “Well, why don’t they just go back to whatever place they busted first? That sure wasn’t in Central City.”

Sonic rolled his eyes. “It’s ‘cause they’d be expecting them there, knucklehead. Never return to the scene of the crime. That’s what they say in all the TV shows, right, Tails?”

“Well, while this is not a TV show, Sonic, you’re right.” the kitsune said, sighing. “That’s another reason for them to go to Central City.

Knuckles gave a mixture of a sigh and a growl, stalking back to the altar where the Master Emerald floated. “Fine. But if this goes south, I am blaming your-” he pointed a vicious finger at Sonic- “spiky butt for all of it.”

The hero grinned at his friend in a way he knew got under his spines, and was rewarded with a huff and another grumble. Yet the island still began to move, shifting eastward from the center of the country towards Central City. 

Hold on, guys. Sonic thought, feeling properly hopeful for the first time in over a week. We’re on our way.

#shadow the hedgehog #rouge the bat #e 123 omega #team dark #scars you can't see #sycs #i tend to imagine certain scenes from fanfics as movie scenes #and i think that shows in the fight in this chapter #by the way #i'll try and release a new chapter every two weeks #but that schedule is very #very #VERY tentative #there should probably be about 13 chapters in all #give or take #hope you're having a nice day! thanks for reading! #(and i hope this chapter turned out alright too) #sol’s fanfiction

[flightrules]

Which Kind Do You Want to Be?

Chapter 6: No Promises

Sometimes, a sleepless night is a good thing.

Summary: This is a story about trust and kindness, loneliness and loss, belief and transgression. And two people crossing paths just long enough to find each other.

Previous chapters: I keep hearing tumblr suppresses posts with links. So, visit the pinned post on my blog or the same username on AO3.  

Relationships and characters: Din/female reader (both similar age to Din in canon), Grogu, and a cameo from Peli.

Rating: Mature? Explicit? Anyhow, grown-up sexy stuff. Please be old enough to be reading this kind of thing.

Tags and warnings: Moments of angst, domesticity, kindness, explicit consent, and Din doing his best to be a conscientious parent in the midst of everything. Heads up for descriptions of canon-typical violence, mention of past dubious consent, and a moment of (unintentional) violence between our protagonists. Ending is bittersweet.

Supper is the same as the midday meal, cold rations washed down with tinny tasting water. "You eat like this all the time?"

"I try not to," he says. "He needs real food. I haven't had much chance to go shopping."

The child is sitting on your lap now, as you hold his little tray for him and he picks out bites to eat. He's seemed subdued ever since your game of chase went so wrong. 

It's a bit of a balancing act to manage your own meal while keeping the tray steady and the little body balanced. But you turned down the man's offer to take him.

You should be careful about letting the child think there's something changing here, that you'll be a presence in his life. 

It's just so nice to imagine, for a small moment, that you could be. That a child's laughter could be part of your world again.

There's not much conversation over the meal. You're tired and your body still has that vague achy feeling, like it isn't ready to forget getting thrown to your knees. 

The ration trays get washed in the sink again, and then the child gets a bath in the sink again, too.  

"You don't mind, do you?" he asks first. "He doesn't like the sonic shower. I think it's hard on his ears."

You stay at the table while he pushes his sleeves up past his elbows, pops the child into a mess of warm water and soap bubbles, and lets him splash around a bit. By the time the man lifts him out again, there are bubbles all across the counter and water on the floor. "I've told you not to do that," he says mildly as he wraps the child in a towel and, holding him in one arm, swipes a rag across the counter and then uses one foot to wipe the rag along the floor. 

He crouches to pick the rag up again, a perfectly balanced movement with the child cuddled against his chest. 

"I'll let you get him ready for bed," you say, getting up from the table and resisting the urge to go over there and melt yourself against this man. You are not his family, or the child's, and you need to remember it for yourself as much as for the little one.

The bedtime routine consists of a quiet, one-sided conversation, the man narrating all the little things they did today and the child cooing in response. You take the opportunity to use the ‘fresher while he’s busy in the little sleeping room, then spread out your bedroll, stuffing some clean clothes in a carry-sack to serve as a pillow. It's early, but you stretch out and close your own eyes, letting your back and shoulders rest flat against the blanket. 

There's something comforting about his voice, the slight gravel in it, the way almost everything he tells the child is framed as "we." You've never been sure how much the child understands, but you hope he can at least hear how safe he is in this man's care.

You're almost asleep, yourself, by the time he gets to how he hurt you. "I made a mistake," he says, clear and matter-of-fact. "I'll always protect you, but that doesn't mean it's all right to hurt our friend. I want you to know we can trust her. Don't make the same mistake I did."

*

That's very sweet, you think drowsily. As if the tiny creature could do you any harm. 

"Are you awake?"

You open your eyes to find he's standing a couple of meters away. Earlier today you might have thought that strange, but now you think, Right. No sudden moves.

"May I…" his voice trails off.

You sit up, making room for him to join you. And now it's your turn to ask, as he's left a careful few centimeters space between. "I'd like to touch you."

His voice is quiet, his usual confident tone sounding suddenly half strangled. "I'd like that."

You don't do it right away, though. You look at him, contemplating. There are curls falling over his forehead again. The scruff of beard he had yesterday is gone. Did he shave for you, or is that just something he does every few days? With the helmet covering his face all the time, he certainly wouldn't have to worry about looking neat. 

Loose as it is, the shirt he's wearing does nothing to hide his solid-looking shoulders, and you've already seen the shape of his chest and waist from the t-shirt he had on this morning. Stars, that was so long ago.

You turn your body toward him and reach out, so slowly, to skim your hands over his hips and under his shirt, pushing the fabric up to bare the flat plane of his stomach, and then a little more so your hands are framing the bottom of his ribs. "Help me?" you say, meaning help me get your shirt off, but he's just staring at you, lips slightly parted, not moving at all.

"You tell me if you want me to stop," you remind him, and then get up onto your knees so you can lift his shirt further. The bruises from earlier remind you to move carefully, but you're able to shift your weight so it almost doesn't hurt to kneel.

He has dark hair across his chest. You resist the urge to run your thumb across one nipple, instead asking him more clearly to lift his arms so you can get the shirt over his head.

He does, now, taking over with a single smooth movement and then actually stopping to fold the thing and set it aside. 

There's something about that that makes your heart hurt. That makes you think you could fall in love with him, if you had the opportunity to try.

You do finally have the chance to see what happens when you drag your teeth across his ribs. You start at his collarbone, lining kisses from neck to shoulder, then down over the muscles of his chest. As you do you can feel his breathing quicken, turning to a gasp as you go from soft kisses to the scrape of teeth. You should probably remind him to breathe but now you're tracing your tongue along a pale line of scar where, you realize, the beskar breastplate doesn't reach.

His hands on your shoulders stop you. He's gentle but firm, guiding your body back upright, giving you plenty of time to fight it if you want to. 

You don't want to. 

"Show me how to kiss you," he says. 

"It takes practice." Kissing a new partner's mouth usually starts out clumsy and uncoordinated, until you find each other's rhythm.

"We have until morning," he says. 

It is, indeed, uncoordinated at first. He's obviously got the general idea--you can't spend 40-something years in this galaxy without seeing what people do--but no idea how to actually do it. He's a quick learner, though, echoing back your movements until he's got the hang of it. And then that precision kicks in and he's got your mouth trapped beneath his, tongue at the corner of your lips and then gently opening you up to his warmth, and you're the one who's forgetting how to breathe.

It's new to him and it's been a while for you, and the two of you end up making out like teenagers for a while, his hand against your jaw and your fingers in his hair, and when you need to catch your breath you bury your head in his shoulder until gently insistent hands lift your face to his again.

What stops you is a small sound from the child. You might not even have noticed it, coming from behind the metal door, but he's already turning his head to listen. He kisses your forehead before getting up to trigger the controls.

The noises from the hammock sound like sobs. 

"Hey," the man tells him, sitting on the edge of the mattress, leaning in to lay a hand over the little body. "Whatever it is, I'm here." He turns to you. "He cries in his sleep sometimes. Usually I sing to him."

"Then you should." You get up to go sit beside him on the floor and lean your head against his knee. It's the same lullaby you heard that first night on board the Razor Crest. He can barely carry a tune but that's all right, you don't know the melody anyway and you don't understand the words. You stay there for a while even after the child's cries have stopped, as he continues through a half-dozen verses, you resting against him and his hand against your hair.

*

More of the evening disappears into figuring out his body, into his hands finding confidence in how to touch your skin. 

The last time someone touched you with such reverence, you were probably sixteen years old, trying new things for the first time with a boy you'd grown up with, whose body you'd seen change as you both slipped toward adulthood. He's long gone, that boy, not even buried, just lost in the ash that used to be your home.

Your shirt's off now, too, and he folded it for you, and you can't even explain why that makes you ache inside.

He's tracing your breasts with his fingertips, light against your skin but following every curve. He seems to know, by instinct maybe, to leave your nipples until they're aching for him to touch, and then to follow his fingers with his mouth, with his tongue and then lips and then, so very gently, with his teeth. He's got you panting, your fingers digging hard into his shoulder until you suddenly realize that's the side that was bothering him and you drop your hand. 

He looks up at you, and it takes him a minute to find words. "What's wrong?"

You're slow to make sense, too. "You--you're hurt, I don't want to--" 

He looks down at his own shoulder, the one you were working on together this morning. Then he's pulling you in to him, so very slow again and careful, until you're skin to skin against his body, your breasts pressed up against the muscle of his chest, his head bent down to yours. "Thank you," he says, and it's a whisper against your temple and then just the two of you breathing together for a while, the hum off the ship's engines the only other sound.

You know the shapes of the muscles on his back now. You've run your fingers along the grooves between them. You know now how his skin feels different over scars, and how the burn scar at his neck is different from the knife scar on his side. 

You were surprised to find the small, circular bump of a contraceptive implant on his arm, and at first you looked at him in accusation. From what he’s told you, he shouldn’t have needed it. But he just shrugged. "When I swore the Creed," he said, "I swore I would care for any child I made. I've never been in a place to be able to care for a child." You could feel your eyebrows go up as you nodded toward his bunk, where the tiny being in his care was sleeping. "I'm still not," he said. "It seemed like a good idea, to make sure it couldn't happen." 

He knows the most sensitive spot on your neck by now, and he knows the way you'll move your head if he kisses you there. He knows that if he runs his hands over your belly you'll jump at first, ticklish, but then lean into his touch if he uses a little more pressure. He's figured out what happens if he traces the shell of your ear with his tongue. 

Right now you're kneeling behind him, one hand on his chest, one finger sliding over a stiffened nipple while the other hand traces the hair that trails down his abdomen to the waistband of his trousers. For the first time, you slide your fingertips beneath the fabric. His hand comes up to wrap around your wrist and hold your arm still.

But he doesn't tell you to stop. 

You tuck your chin over his shoulder and ask him if you should.

He doesn't answer. He's sitting up straighter, though, that uncomfortable posture you'd started to hope he'd left behind.

Carefully, you move your hands from his body, and his fingers slide from your wrist as you do. You shift around to face him. 

Slow. You promised him slow. 

Your own body is edging toward impatience. You've been wet for him for hours and, although you're not complaining about any of this so far, there's a sense of emptiness that your body is letting you know, in no uncertain terms, it would like him to fill.

You check in before you move next, get his permission to settle yourself back on his lap, knees to either side of his hips. It lets you press against the length of him through his trousers, and you find you're shivering as the most sensitive part of you connects there.

His voice is a vibration through your own chest as he says, "I can't."

You know you should let go, move back, but your muscles won't listen to your brain until he speaks again, until ingrained reflex takes over when he says the word "Stop." 

He's keeping his hands to himself now, still breathing a little hard but keeping his body constrained. One hand clenches and then slowly opens, coming to rest at his side.

"If we keep going," he says, "I'm going to want you to stay."

Your heart skips for a second, and you're already thinking, yes.

"I can't let you stay." He's sitting so still. His fingers move again, what seems to be an involuntary tic. It's his right hand, the one that would reach for the blaster that's usually at his hip.

"I can't be distracted. If I had to choose between you and the child--"

He doesn't finish. You don't need him to. You reach over, slowly, slowly, and take his right hand. Slowly, you help him open those clenched fingers, and you place a kiss on his palm. "No promises," you remind him. And then, because there's nothing else you can say: "I'm leaving at Pavotha."

It's still so curious, getting to see his face. How sometimes his expressions are open and sometimes they're unreadable, like in all those years with the helmet on he's lost the ability to mirror certain feelings. Lost the muscle memory.

Right now, though, there's no mistaking that you're looking at pure gratitude.

"Do you still want to stop?" you ask him, and you're asking a little bit for him, but it's mostly because your body is longing to see the rest of his, to touch him in new places. To settle in against him, take his cock inside you, and move together until the rest of the galaxy disappears.

"No promises?" he says.

And, although your whole body is screaming at you not to say it, you tell him again: "Only that I'm leaving."

*

If you were planetside, it would be dawn by now. But here in the dimly lit hold, there's only the chrono to tell you it's near morning.

You're not looking at it though.

You're sitting on his lap again, legs around his waist and feet planted against the floor. His hands are on your hips. You showed him how this position works and now he's helping you move, bringing you down against him so his cock is buried deep inside you, holding you so there's pressure against your clit as he presses closer, then lifting your body so the length of him slides against your opening, setting every nerve on fire. You didn't teach him to pause sometimes, keeping your hips in place against him, and lean up to kiss you. He figured that out on his own.

He lasted longer than you might have expected the first time, when you drew his body over you and slow disappeared when he said "Are you sure?" and you said "Yes." And although you guided him in gently, carefully, neither one of you could stop after that. You bit your own lip so hard, trying not to cry out and wake the child, that there was blood on both your faces by the end.

You're going to have to sleep soon, before the child wakes up and the new day starts. But for now you're going to stay like this, your skin slicked with your sweat and his, the taste of him in your mouth, and the sacredness of trust between you.

#the mandalorian #fanfic #din djarin x reader #din djarin needs a hug #touch-starved din djarin #reader character also needs a hug.

[slurrmp]

#52. exhausted numbness after crying ( for 13 x reader also hi ily & your writing 💞)

                                                     sensory prompts.                                                          INBOX CLOSING SOON.                                                   #52. exhausted numbness after crying.                                                           for @findingyouagain

trigger warnings for this particular prompt.nothing explicit, just mentions of torture...

You had a bad feeling about this whole thing from the moment you stepped out of the TARDIS and on to the planet. The air smelt wrong, like sulfur and acid and everything bad had happened here, but the Doctor didn’t seem worried. Well, at least she didn’t let her friends know that there was something to worry about. So, you all had cautiously taken her lead and followed her through the ruined towns and homes and eventually came upon the first humanoid almost an hour into your adventure.They had called themselves the Resistance, original, and they were battling against the other occupants of Langara, the planet you stood on. The Doctor’s face had gone through two separate emotions and you had trouble trying pin down the right one. So, instead, she covered it up by explaining who Langarans were. A race that had been at war with each other for generations, separated by the north and south of the planet. The north being a lot more technically advance than the south, which is where you stood now. But sometime in the future, they would figure out their problems and the planet would once again become a peaceful and thriving home for billions. Though, right now you couldn’t see any of that happening, it was like a wasteland. The Langaran’s from Kelowna Provence wanted the Doctor’s help in fixing their main reactor, which would eventually help them start making weapons again. Though, the Doctor was hesitant, she eventually agreed to help but only so that she could come up with another solution to the fighting in the mean time. Knowing, that any more attacks would make things worse.

And yet, somehow, when things seemed to be going right - if you don’t count the ongoing bombing raids, you just had to find yourself trouble. The Bad Guys, so to speak, had captured you as you were walking back to the TARDIS, the Doctor needed something and you weren’t about to argue going to get it. The underground tunnels that the Resistance had their headquarters based in was starting to give you a headache. Though, now you wished you stayed indoors, not even five minutes outside and you had already been hit on the back of the head and dragged away.

There wasn’t pain anymore. The cuts and the bruises didn’t hurt, the pit of your stomach no longer churned with hunger and you were finally able to see out of both your eyes. Ish. The Bad Guys were indeed a bunch of dicks and you weren’t surprised to see the Kelowna’s fighting for their planet. From the little you could make out when you came too, their side of the war was bad. So much for technically advanced. Everything was either decaying or dead and the people didn’t fair much better. Their technology could only help so much.

Your shoulders finally didn’t give way every time you swayed with the little breeze that came through the skylight and your legs no longer burned as your feet tried to touch the ground.

Your tears had dried long ago and now there was just ... nothing. Just a numbness, that you knew would take ages to go away if you survived this. There was a slight snort that escaped you as you thought about it. There was no way that you would survive this, it was suddenly one adventure too many. You had called out for the Doctor the first night you were thrown into the cell, your wailing pleads falling on deaf ears as the humanoids ignore you, instead opting to finding the best course of torture.

It felt like you had been there for months. But in reality it had only been a couple of days. Groaning, you tried to push yourself upwards, straightening your back was hard, all your strength had left you and you just wanted to sleep. The Bad Guys wanted to know what was going on with the Resistance, wanted to know if their rector was operational. But you had no idea, but like always, they didn’t believe you. Their race was known to be slightly telepathic, which you only found out when the hallucinations started. Your parents, your siblings all visited you and you didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t anymore.

The door creaking open suddenly made you flinch out of your thoughts, eyes slipping open slightly to see nothing but the tail ends of a lilac coat. Your name floating through your ears and you just shook it off. Another one of their mind games, you could bare the cuts and the bruises but using your friends against you was such a low fucking blow.

“Yaz...” the name made you stir once more. “I found her.” that voice was so familiar and you desperately wanted it to be real but you shook your head.

“No ... no.” You mumbled pulling yourself upwards with all the strength you had left. “I won’t tell you anything. I don’t know anything!”

Your name once again. “It’s me. It’s the Doctor...” Then suddenly hands were on your cheeks and a warm breath against your face. Words in a language you couldn’t understand stumbled around you, almost like a swear.

“Language.” You managed to slip out as you opened your eyes once more, almost flinching when you realised how close she was. Trying your best to swallow, you couldn’t help the tightness that formed in your chest. “You came.” you mumbled. “You found me.”

“Of course I came,” The Doctor stumbled for a bit, before she ducked underneath your raised arms and wrapped an arm around your waist, allowing you to put all your weight onto her. She then used her free hand to sonic the chains that were holding you up. The buzzing noise was like music and suddenly you were free, your whole body crumpled down and the Doctor struggled slightly to catch you, but eventually both arms were around your waist, holding you against her chest. You couldn’t help the slight cry of pain that left your lips, as everything suddenly jolted against your wounds.”It’s okay, I’ve got you. You’re safe now.”

Your body felt like it was on fire, your shoulders felt dislocated and you couldn’t feel your legs. You knew you should have been crying, but the numbness was still there. “You found me.” And you buried your face into her neck as she shifted and moved to wrap one arm underneath your legs before lifting you into her arms.

“Yaz, get the medbay ready.” Then you were leaving this place, there wasn’t any cries or yelling. No weapons fire and no one coming to stop you. “Just keep your eyes on me...” Your head was resting against her neck still, but you tilted it back slightly, forehead coming to rest against her chin. “Focus on me.” And you tried, you really did - but you couldn’t help but look over the Doctor’s shoulder when you came to the main entrance of the Bad Guys lair. Bodies littered the floor, all of them. Some clutching their heads, others their stomachs, their knees and some didn’t move at all.

Your eyes flickered back to the Doctor’s face and you noticed the sharpness of her jaw and the stiffness in her shoulders. She did all of that ... just for you. A heavy and shaky sigh escaped your lips before you buried your face into her shoulder again. “Can’t go to sleep yet,” Your name was spoken so softly that you felt like you were imagining it. “You have to stay awake for me.”

But you couldn’t, everything was too much and the numbness was starting to fade. You knew that you would be screaming when you came too again.

#13th doctor x reader #doctor who #the doctor x reader #thirteenth doctor x reader #dw #tw torture mention #* & SPYRO WRITES. #tHIS IS SHIT. #but like honestly. #i loved writing it. #and i might wanna do a sequal. #B). #also i l ove your writing as well x #findingyouagain

[lakesandquarries]

After the Storm (Chapter Two)

WHOOPS i forgot to post chapter two. here it is. 

AO3 link

A brief list of things Sonic doesn’t know about:

- scented candles

- dinosaurs

- microwaves

- math

- most foods, generally

- dog food, specifically

Sonic is eager to learn. There’s a certain Look he gets when encountering something new, tilted head and perked ears, that Tom is learning to recognize. And, for the most part, he’s easy to teach. The candles confuse him a little, until Maddie lights one for him. He’s delighted by the concept of dinosaurs, and figures out the microwave pretty quickly. Math...proves a bit trickier, but that one’s probably more on Tom and his lack of teaching skills. Food is easy to teach about. Tom just has to say something is food, maybe what type of food it is, and Sonic will dig in. He’s usually willing to try anything out.

This backfires.

“What’s that?” Sonic asks, bouncing on his heels as Tom pours kibble into Ozzie’s bowl.

“Dog food,” Tom says, and before he can even blink Sonic’s got a handful and he’s shoving it in his mouth. “Hold on, that’s not for -” humans is what he was about to say, but, well, Sonic’s not a human. “You shouldn’t eat that,” is what he says instead.

Sonic frowns. He’s still chewing. “Why not? I mean, it’s not as good as the other stuff I’ve tried, but it’s not that bad! Ozzie seems to like it!”

Tom sighs. “That’s because Ozzie’s a dog. And this is dog food. It’s food for dogs. So, not for people , and that includes hedgehogs.”

Sonic’s got that Look again, the confused one. He doesn’t say anything for a moment, which is never a good sign, instead tapping his finger against his chin thoughtfully. He seems like he’s mouthing something to himself - a newer habit of his. Now that there’s actually people around to hear him, he’s learning how to internalize his thoughts a bit more.

“Is there special hedgehog food?” is what he finally asks. His voice is light and cheerful and very clearly fake.

“Yeah,” Tom says, not wanting to push him. “But dog and cat food is a lot more common to find.”

“Do any other animals have special food?”

At least this is a subject Tom knows a bit about, thanks to Maddie. He nods. ”Yeah, lots of animals do. At least, ones that are domestic - which are animals like pets, and farm animals, and things like that.”

Sonic has a lot more questions after that, enough that Tom ends up enlisting Maddie to help, because at a certain point Tom only knows so much, and the intricate nuances of what’s considered pets vs farm animals is definitely past him. But he’s glad Sonic asks them about things, that he’s interested in learning, that he’s comfortable enough to ask in the first place.

He’s also glad that Sonic doesn’t try eating any more dog food.

There’s a couple things that are confusing Sonic.

Well, maybe more than a couple things. A lot more, actually! Sonic hasn’t quite figured out math yet, but he knows “a lot” is more than “a couple”. And there’s so much stuff that confuses him! He’d thought he had everything figured out from watching people, but apparently the world is way more complicated than he thought.

Like, dinosaurs! Tom had put on Jurassic Park for movie night, which Sonic had never actually seen before (it looked too scary), and afterwards Sonic had said he was glad dinosaurs weren’t real and Tom had told him they actually were!

Well, they used to be real, but that was billions of years ago or something, and they’re  extinct now, which means they don’t exist anymore. And they probably can’t actually be brought back like in the movie. Sonic had made a joke about how Eggman was the kind of guy who’d wanna bring them back, and use them like in the movie, but Tom had gotten really quiet so Sonic had changed the topic.

Anyway! He liked getting to learn new stuff, even if some of it was less fun, like math. Math was hard. But dinosaurs were cool, and the microwave seemed pretty neat, and Tom kept showing Sonic all these new kinds of food and that was awesome .

Except the dog food. That had been kinda awkward. Honestly, Sonic didn’t really get what the big deal was! Ozzie ate it, so it couldn’t be bad , right? He was Tom’s Best Friend, and Tom would never do anything to hurt his Best Friend. And Ozzie ate human food all the time! So it should work the other way around, right?

And, well, that’s the other thing Sonic keeps thinking about. When Tom had tried to stop him, he’s said that’s not for - and then cut himself off.

Sonic can’t stop thinking about how he was gonna finish that sentence.

He doesn’t say anything about it that night. Or the night after. Or the night after that. But it’s there, in the back of his head, ‘ that’s not for -’ for what? He ends up staying up way past his usual bedtime, pacing back and forth and thinking . He’s getting better at thinking quietly, keeping it in his head, but he finds himself mumbling out loud as he tries to sort through this, acting out an argument.

“He was just gonna say hedgehogs,” he says to himself, sitting on the beanbag. “Tom’s a smart guy! He wouldn’t say something stupid like -”

Lying across his bed, he counters - “Then why did he cut himself off? And say something completely different? He’s the Donut Lord , he’s normally great at talking! He wouldn’t do something like that unless -”

On the beanbag again: “But he said later that it’s not for hedgehogs.”

“Not for people . Including hedgehogs.”

“Exactly! So that’s what he was gonna say there, too. He just didn’t wanna say the same thing twice.”

On the bed, he buries his face in the blankets, muffling his frustrated noises. He sits back up, staring at his hands, at his gloves, at the blue fur and quills.

He’s not human.

Tom knows this, Maddie knows this, Eggman knew it, the whole town knows it. And that’s fine! He’s the coolest hedgehog on the whole planet. He doesn’t want to be human. Not even a little. He’s never, ever wished he was just a normal kid with a normal family who went to school and had friends and didn’t live in a cave. Not even once.

He’s also a really, really bad liar, even when the only person he’s lying to is himself.

He doesn’t even realize he’s pacing until he feels that familiar, awful surge of energy, fur standing on end suddenly as electricity sparks between his quills.

“No, no, no!” He tries to pat it off him, but it just gets worse, bright blue arcing off him and shutting off the lamp by his bed. Before he can think better of it, he’s down the ladder and out the door, and by the time he realizes what he’s done he’s halfway to his old cave. Hopefully Tom didn’t notice him leaving. It is pretty late, after all. Tom should be asleep, not worrying about his...about….about….

“Stop it,” he says out loud, hoping it’ll make his spiralling thoughts slow down a bit. He’s fine. It’s fine! Maybe he’s basically just another pet for Tom and Maddie, but that’s not a bad thing, is it? Ozzie seems pretty happy. It’s fine. He’s never gonna fit in anywhere, not really, but this is the best he’s gonna get, and it’s good, and he shouldn’t ruin it all by asking for too much. He’s not gonna ruin this, not like he did with Longclaw.

He runs a hand through his quills, and this time the electricity seems to be a bit better, so he starts back in the direction of the house. Not running, just walking, slow and steady. Calm.

He’s fine.

As he gets closer, he hears noises, indistinct at first but clearer with each step he takes, until he realizes what it is.

“Sonic!” Tom yells, and Sonic can see a flashlight beam cutting through the forest. “Sonic, where are you?”

Oh. Oh no.

He breaks into a sprint, nearly slamming into Tom. “I’m right here!” he says, waving his arms.

Tom deflates, leaning forward with his hands on his thighs and breathing out slowly. “You scared me,” he says, sighing.

“Oh,” Sonic says.

“It’s okay, just let me know if you need to go outside or anything, okay? Little concerning to hear a crash and go upstairs and see my - and see you missing.”

Sonic opens his mouth, intending to say sorry or okay, I won’t do that again or I just needed to do something or literally anything else than what he actually says, which is: “What were you gonna say?”

“What?”

“You cut yourself off,” Sonic says. “You said it was concerning to hear a crash and go upstairs and see your - and then you cut off.”

Tom doesn’t respond, possibly because Sonic doesn’t actually give him time to. “And a couple days ago, when I tried Ozzie’s food, you told me to stop because it’s not for - and you cut yourself off. That’s twice. So it’s gotta mean something, right? I have to -”

Sonic’s the one cutting himself off, this time. His throat feels clogged, like there’s something stuck there, and when he speaks he has to force the words out. “I’m something, right?”

Tom kneels down so he’s eye level with Sonic. “Hey, hey, it’s okay. Just breathe, okay?”

Sonic sniffles a bit when he breathes in, but after a few rounds of in and out, Tom seems satisfied.

“How long have you been thinking about this?” Tom asks. Sonic shrugs.

“A while,” he admits.

Tom holds out his hand, waiting for Sonic to place his on top and gripping it gently.

“Am I your best friend?” Sonic blurts out. Tom smiles.

“Not quite,” he says, placing his other hand on top of Sonic’s. “You’re family.”

“Like Ozzie?”

That gets a laugh out of Tom, somehow. “Sorta. But Ozzie’s a pet, like what we talked about the other day. He’s not a person. I love him a lot, and he’s part of the family, but it’s different than you or me or Maddie.”

“I’m not like you or Maddie either,” he says, wiggling his fingers.

“Well, no. Most kids are pretty different from their parents.”

Sonic blinks at Tom, his mouth hanging open slightly. He uses his free hand to push it shut. “Parents?”

“That’s pretty much what we are, isn’t it? Teaching you things, making sure you’re safe, taking care of you….that’s what parents do. It’s not how Maddie and I originally planned to have kids, but….you’ve got a place here. And I’m sorry I didn’t make that more clear.”

Sonic’s vision is starting to get a bit blurry. He uses his free hand to wipe at his eyes, and his hand comes away wet.

“But what if Eggman comes back? Or something new happens? They’re still looking for me.”

“And I’m not gonna let ‘em find you.”

His legs feel weak, kind of like when Tom had first hit him with the tranquiliser. This time, when Sonic falls, Tom catches him.

“Woah there,” he says, letting Sonic collapse against his shoulder. “Lets head back, okay?”

“Okay,” Sonic says into Tom’s shirt. He’s running his hand through his spikes, and that combines with the emotional whiplash of the last hour or so has him suddenly feeling exhausted . Tom carries him back to the house, and Sonic vaguely wonders why they’re not climbing up the ladder, but then he’s being placed in a bed and maybe it’s not his own but it’s warm and comfortable and he’s asleep in minutes.

---

When he wakes up, Tom and Maddie are still there.

#sonic 2020 #sonic the hedgehog #sonic the hedgehog movie #sonic wachowski #tom wachowski #cora writes #ats tag #after the storm

[mobius-prime]

255. Sonic the Hedgehog #186

Mogul Rising (Part Two: Devil's Due)

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! and Matt Herms Colors: Josh Ray

Sonic struggles to fight against Mina, Mighty, and Tails at once, as Mogul speaks to him through them. He angrily tells Mogul to let them go, and when Mogul mocks him for not listening earlier that day Sonic rightfully points out that Mogul didn't even begin to explain his own position in any amount of detail, instead just basically saying "haha, surrender." Ash, alerted by the noise and the empty bed, appears in the doorway of Freedom HQ and seeing the chaos, leaps in to grab Mina, not realizing she's being controlled.

Abruptly, all three mind-controlled friends break off the fight and run away in opposite directions. Ash is upset and confused as to why Mina would act so strange, so Sonic explains what's going on and then offers to bring him along to interrogate Mogul, something which Ash immediately accepts if it will let him save Mina. Once they get back to New Mobotropolis Sonic furiously orders Mogul to tell him where his friends are, and Mogul happily obliges.

Both Ash and Sonic are horrified, especially with the knowledge that Sonic wouldn't be fast enough to save all of them in time, something Mogul gloats over before offering them a deal - he'll bring them all back unharmed, if Sonic brings him the Chaos Emerald currently being kept within the city. Sonic, seeing no other choice, grimly agrees, before rushing away with Ash to sneak into the castle, into the chamber where the emerald is. Nicole, realizing they're trying to steal the emerald but not knowing why, starts putting up barriers trying to stop them, but they dodge without breaking stride and nab the emerald, rushing it back to Mogul as a montage shows the three puppets coming closer and closer to their deaths…

Nicole hysterically asks Sonic why he would do such a thing, and Sonic and Ash explain why they didn't really have much choice. Mogul, tiring of their conversation, uses his magic to force Nicole's hologram to dissipate before knocking Ash aside and telekinetically grabbing Sonic. To Sonic's shock, Mogul immediately announces that he has no further need of his new Fearsome Foursome and "releases" him from his service. Why? Well, apparently, he's realized one key rule of this universe - Sonic always wins.

With that, Mogul teleports himself and the other prisoners away, and Sonic and Ash return to Freedom HQ, which the three formerly-enslaved individuals have returned to. Ash comforts Mina while Sonic talks to Tails and Mighty. They're both embarrassed at what happened, Mighty even admitting he now knows how Knuckles must feel, but Sonic reassures them both, saying that while the villain may have won this time, they're going to get their chance to strike back sooner or later.

Honor-Bound

Writer: Ian Flynn Pencils: Tracy Yardley! Colors: Josh Ray 

Hey, speaking of Knuckles! He's having a pretty bad time of it as he flies over Albion in secret, watching the last of his people work to rebuild the city while blaming himself for everything. He's glad that at the very least Remington has been returned to normal, but can't bear to face his own family or anyone else, believing that for now they'll be better off without a Guardian looking after them. He uses a warp ring to leave, but Kneecaps notices him and babbles, and Lara-Le barely manages to catch a glimpse of him before the warp ring disappears. Man, poor Lara-Le. I miss when she was a much more major character, to be honest. She's so sweet, and doesn't deserve any of the terrible things that have happened to her. Knuckles warps himself to the oasis in the Sandopolis desert, where the entire dingo army has set up camp. With General Kage gone, General Helmut von Stryker, who has apparently been hanging out here all this time, has once again taken control of his people, and upon seeing Knuckles curtly informs him that his people are thriving here, and expect to make their way back into the heart of Angel Island before long.

Knuckles, I'm sorry, but what the hell are you thinking?! Look, I agree that the dingoes have been wronged by the echidnas over time, but have you forgotten that not long ago these guys turned into literal Nazis as soon as Eggman gave them a chance to? Did you completely miss the fact that they are the ones that ran the concentration camps that killed off ninety percent of your people?! I would think that that alone has completely robbed them of any chance at redemption. Like, Knuckles seriously seems to think here that Kage is the sole mastermind behind the echidna concentration camps, but meanwhile here in the real world we kind of all agreed that "I was just following orders" wasn't a good enough excuse for all of the grunts who served in the Nazi regime, and I would think the same should hold here. Do you really want to welcome an entire army of people back into the heart of the island who not two months ago were gleefully torturing and slaughtering your people? Again, we are talking about a literal Nazi allegory here, this isn't me projecting, these guys were literally modeled after the Nazis. I think forgiveness and "live and let live" is not the right choice here, especially if Knuckles is already feeling so guilty about hurting his people, because the dingo regime hurt his people far more than he ever did during his single day as Enerjak.

Jesus Christ. Anyway, Knuckles returns to the main part of Angel Island, hiding in the bushes near "Shrine Isle," which is apparently what we're calling the tiny floating island that houses the Master Emerald shrine. I guess everyone just decided that keeping it blatantly out in the open is the best plan now, so the Chaotix have worked together to build a bridge over to it for easy access. Ray had spotted Knuckles using a warp ring earlier but was unable to follow him, and Julie-Su says sadly that if he doesn't want to be found, he won't be. Knuckles, watching from within the bushes, hopes they'll go away now that the bridge is finished, but Rouge's voice from behind him interrupts his brooding, asking if he plans to just go back to being a hermit once again. He's irritated, not wanting to talk to her right now and insisting that everything bad that's happened on the island only happened because he left, but she presses on, reminding him that with Eggman's sheer power and Finitevus' unpredictability, the island likely would have been attacked and decimated anyway and it's not solely his fault. Knuckles gets angry at this, yelling that the Brotherhood's methods protected the island successfully for hundreds of years and he's the only one (besides Athair) who's really broken tradition.

Well, good on you, Rouge! Knuckles thinks on it for a moment, watching his friends play around next to the shrine, and then concedes the point, deciding that he should protect everyone he can after all. He walks out to greet everyone, who are overjoyed to see him… and then Rouge smirks from her hiding place, murmuring to herself about how gullible Knuckles is and how she can't wait to "wrap him around her little finger." Oh come on, Ian, really? Look, if there's one character I think Ian has not at all figured out yet, it's Rouge. He seems to see her as this scheming, callous, manipulative bitch who's only interested in treasure and breaking up relationships for fun. Hell, Penders wrote her better than Ian currently does, and that's saying something. In the games, yes, Rouge is manipulative and a bit shady, but she's not at all a bad person. After her experiences with Shadow in Sonic Adventure 2, she explicitly mentions how she's been influenced to become less materialistic and to search for "something better" in life, and by the time of '06, she's nothing but a positive influence on those around her. Sure, she's still not above using shady or illegal means to get her way - she is part of Team Dark, after all - but in general her morals always end up lining up with those of the heroes, and she's intensely loyal to those she considers her friends. There's hints here and there within the games that she may have a thing for Knuckles, but to be fair, there're just as many if not more hints that she's not into anybody and only flirts at all to get an edge over others. Adding in this little bit at the end where she's acting all scheme-y while watching Knuckles just makes her seem like this terrible and insincere person when that's not what her character is supposed to be like at all. To be fair, Ian does get better at writing her later on, particularly when she finally starts being paired up with Shadow as a team, but for now, I'm definitely pretty salty at how she's being treated here, considering she's one of my all-time favorite Sonic characters across all canons.

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 186 #writer: ian flynn #pencils: tracy yardley #pencils: matt herms #colors: joshua d ray

[owenshire]

Robert Muhlbock (virtually) Inducts Nine Inch Nails into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame 2020

Nine Inch Nails. One band, and often one man, with a computer (and guitar) against the world. Oh yes, Nine Inch Nails have added members for live performances and gained members (well, a member) for studio compositions, but from this “band-like-musical-entity’s” earliest days, it was just one person—one person who combined pop-hooks with industrial whirs, and harrowing rage with uncomfortable vulnerability. And his name is Trent Reznor.  

No one should claim that Nine Inch Nails invented a genre. They didn’t. But they sure as hell popularized and perfected it. Electronic, Industrial, ‘Disco Death Metal’—whatever you want to call it, the labels don’t really matter.  In fact, I think the genre should just be called “sounds like Nine Inch Nails” which is compliment enough on its own, right?  

Nine Inch Nails are one of the most important, vital, inspirational, talented, and unique of musical artists. I love them. And now I’m going to tell you why…in a lengthy video essay, so settle in.  And if you don’t have the fandom or attention span for what I’m about to say, go back to consuming shitty tweets and dumbfuck Instagram posts because you’re not wanted here anyway.

                            _______________________________

My first introduction to NIN began like so many others: by catching the iconic video for “Head Like A Hole” on MTV—the band rocking out amidst electrical wires and magnetic tape, until it seemed like the entire writhing mess would consume them whole.  It’s an image as potent today as it was some 30 years ago.

However, my real introduction to NIN was originally steeped in urban legend. I was in grade 10 and I heard Pretty Hate Machine played on my school bus on the way home. The owner of this cassette tape, a “cool girl” who shall remain nameless, told me that the album was “out of print” and “unavailable.” In short, she assured me that I would never be able to find a copy, but, guess what, I did.

In a trade with former MMA coach Shawn Tompkins—and in my grade 10 art class no less—I swapped two ninja stars for a box of his old cassette tapes, and Pretty Hate Machine was one of them. This was my own NINJA moment, if you will—does anyone get that reference—anyway, upon witnessing said trade some random guy in my art class immediately offered me $25 for the Pretty Hate Machine cassette tape—a king’s ransom in 1990—but of course I wouldn’t sell. I knew it was valuable—and in more than one way. Instead I played the hell out of the cassette in my Walkman. I was 14 years old. “Terrible Lie” was my favourite song from the album. And it still is.

And then—poof—like that, NIN dropped out of my life. Where’d they go? Well, I guess they were making a name for themselves during Lollapalooza 1991, white chalk dust and all. Not that I knew any of this. Pre-internet I had no idea what was going on.  In fact, I wouldn’t hear any new NIN music until almost a full year later when one of my friends with a penchant for industrial music introduced me to the Broken EP. As he handed me his CD for borrowing, he warned me that it was “pretty extreme.” And he was right. The Broken EP is why album warning stickers were invented: it was a fist to the face, a kick to the face—it was even an ass to the face.

Anyway, the Broken EP was my real introduction to the seemingly bottomless rage of NIN. When I heard Broken I was just starting to get into so-called “heavy” music, but nothing could have prepared me for the lyrical and musical brutality of “Wish.” While Reznor’s litany of profanity was extreme—at least to my sheltered 16 year old ears—what truly staggered me was the song’s main riff (you know the one I mean) the one that is so distorted, so disturbing, that it sounds like a guitar being burned alive while flailing in a wind tunnel.

I’d never heard anything like it before—it wasn’t cock-rock; it wasn’t fake satanic rage done for laughs, theatre or to impress--no. Instead it was the audio embodiment of complete destruction and utter despair. And 30 years later, it’s lost none of its power.

                          __________________________________

These same sentiments must be applied to The Downward Spiral, Nine Inch Nail’s career defining work that launched the band into mainstream success. Too often discussions of the record get bogged down by emphasis on “Hurt” or “Closer,” or, to some extent, “Heresy.”

Yes, “Hurt” is the perfect album closer and expression of pleading vulnerability, and, yes, “Closer” and “Heresy’s” choruses were brutally raw and shocking in 1994 (and, it should be said, still above average shocking  in 2020), but I feel the album is best presented as a whole. This was the beginning of NIN’s discovery that (to paraphrase one rock critic) just as much tension can be generated with a whisper as with a scream.

Dynamics have always been a huge part of NIN’s’ sound, and The Downward Spiral stands as a defining moment.  The album, as all of you know, begins with “Mr. Self Destruct” (well, that’s not entirely true—the album actually begins with the audio of what appears to be a man being beaten to death while submerged underwater)—but anyway, “Mr. Self Destruct” was as sonically astonishing to me as “Wish” was two years prior. As I listened to the verses of “Mr. Self Destruct” I kept asking myself “Is it supposed to sound like this? I can’t hear what he’s saying”—it was such a cacophony of meticulously detailed and layered noises, but of course not without substance or a melody: its quiet refrain of “And I control you” buried so deep in the mix, it mirrored the subconscious itself.  

“Mr. Self Destruct” gives way to “Piggy”—again a haunting track that’s almost tender and such a shock in sequence given the song that preceded it. Again. Dynamics. Surprise. Making the atypical typical in the best non-traditional way. Does that make any sense? Anyway, I felt the same way about the mini-piano solo/ lyric pairing of “now doesn’t it make you feel better” before the dramatic pause in “March Of The Pigs”—I don’t think any of us saw THAT coming. I was literally shocked when that phrasing appeared out of no where, emerging like a tiny ironic rainbow out of the whirlwind of thrashing drums, crazy guitars, and “stains like blood on your teeth” screams the preceded it.  

Speaking of screams, the title-track of The Downward Spiral still stands as a monument to vulnerability, despair, and pure abject horror. It’s the only song I’ve ever heard that I am afraid to listen to. When I listen to The Downward Spiral, I wait for the song the way a child hides behind a blanket awaiting glimpses of a film monster: I know it’s coming, and I know it’s going to be horrifying…and it always is. So why do I subject myself to it?

                                     ______________________

That’s a fair question. Let’s be frank here: Nine Inch Nails isn’t for everyone. It takes a certain personality to fully appreciate the band’s complete package of black, blue, and bleeding, “but you can dance to it!” Still, NIN is more than mere nihilism and hopelessness. Those who label the band in such ways, kind of miss the point. To me, NIN has always been—lyrically at least—about catharsis: I suppose ALL music functions as such—a tool of understanding, and a mechanism for coping. Trent Reznor once commented on the vulnerability of his lyrics, saying in an interview with NPR that his topic of choice was less about vanity than it was about delivering a performance with honesty and integrity. The only topic that mattered—his emotional struggle—was the only subject he could speak about with authority and with conviction.

However, it just so happens to be a struggle that millions of other people share. When Trent Reznor sings “Now you know/ this is what it feels like” on The Fragile’s “The Wretched,” he is inviting his audience to share in his pain. Whether he intended it this way or not, his is a gesture borne or isolation but ending in comradery: many of us certainly know what “this” “feels like.” And many, many more of us can certainly relate to the words “Dear World, I can hardly recognize you anymore.”

In short, Trent Reznor’s lyrics, as personal as they are, speak for us: his fans. He speaks for me. He still does.

Interestingly, themes consistent in NIN’s best work offer a type of almost emotional ambivalence: caring, but not caring; wanting to be helped, yet rejecting help; and most importantly, wanting to be alone, yet desperately wishing to connect with others. The songs “We’re In This Together” and “The Fragile” perfectly illustrate these sentiments.   To me, it is no coincidence they are sequenced side by side on the “some-critics-didn’t-like-it-at-the-time-but-have-since-come-to-their-senses-album” The Fragile.

                                      _________________

Musically, however, NIN is best known for three distinct styles of music: computer chaos, groovy beats, and symphonic soundscapes. I’ve touched on the first—and will return to it—but for now, let’s discuss the second. I’m not a huge fan of the term “death-disco”; however, NIN’s long list of ass-shaking beats, should not be overlooked. What began on Pretty Hate Machine with “Sin” and “The Only Time,” pleasantly resurface on “Into The Void” only to be perfected on “The Hand That Feeds,” “Only” “Capital G,” and “Discipline” not to mention a large portion of Hesitation Marks.

But back to computer chaos—or maybe just chaos in general. I can think of no better example to illustrate my point than the final coda to the song “The Great Destroyer” on the fabulous dystopian opus Year Zero—one of my favourite albums of all time: the sound of things falling apart—wires frayed, systems destroyed, screens cracked: static humming and ‘please stand by’ messages flicking forever. The Eater of Dreams. “All we ever were—just zeros and ones.”  

                                           ____________________

The final cornerstone of NIN’s musical contribution is soundscapes and instrumentals, and what a can of worms THAT is given all that’s transpired since 2011.  Anyway, when The Fragile was released in 1999, more than a few fans bemoaned its inclusion of no less than 7 instrumentals, and yet these contributions have always been a signature addition to NIN’s body of work: from “pinion,” “help me I am in hell,” “a warm place,” the deeply personal “La Mer,” to Ghosts I through VI, NIN’s experiments with sound have always been integral to their songwriting process—a willingness to experiment and a love of discovery which surprisingly, yet somewhat inevitably, lead to NIN’s work in soundtracks. Beginning somewhat inadvertently with Tony Scott’s Man On Fire (look it up), and then deliberately on the video game Quake, this creative direction eventually resulted in (as we all know) various Oscar and Emmy nominations and wins for Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross, and yeah, while technically not “Nine Inch Nails” releases, I think we can all agree it’s hard to separate the two sometimes because as we all know, the line begins to blur, amiright?  

The point is this: Nine Inch Nails were and are no strangers to pushing boundaries musically, visually, and artistically. Some defining unconventional moments in the band’s career to me are as follows:

·  The 97 one-second tracks on the Broken EP before its final two songs; the infamous Broken film itself—a movie I found on a bootlegged VHS tape and rented for a mere 1 dollar at the time—and then proceeded to wish that I never did.

·  Moving on, there is of course the band’s seminal 1994 Woodstock performance, where the musicians arrived on stage in a foggy haze, caked head to toe in mud, and bringing the apocalypse with them;

·  Next we have the Alternate Reality Game developed around the release of Year Zero,

·  There was the free download of The Slip; and the free downloads of Ghosts V and VI some years later

·  Who could also forget about the NINREMIX website where fans were invited to remix the band’s songs and post them for all to enjoy, and copyright be damned.

·  Um, there was also that time they said “a heartfelt fuck you” to the Grammy’s.  

·   And finally we have Nine Inch Nail’s unexpected live appearance on the rather toned down Austin City Limits.

And the list goes on. Trent Reznor once explained such actions in the most self-aware terms possible: he likes pushing himself (as well as his fans) out of comfort zones, to flirt with mainstream conventions but to approach and execute them as only Nine Inch Nails can: with integrity and—to borrow Trent’s appraisal of the late David Bowie—“uncompromising vision.”      

                               _______________________________

Speaking of integrity and uncompromising vision, NIN’s humility is one of the band’s most inspiring and endearing characteristics. In Reznor’s case, we’re talking about an accomplished artist who admitted publically that he still feels he has so much to learn about his craft—that he’s barely scratched the surface regarding his mastery of sound and songwriting; a man that mocked his own starry eyed expression upon receiving an Oscar by pairing it with the caption “I see unicorns” and inviting fans to provide similar self-deprecating taglines.  A man who speaks in measured tones about his opportunities and successes in his life—and does so, repeatedly I might add, quietly, humbly, and gratefully.  

Such self-awareness is extremely rare in show-business let alone by a band that’s achieved as much as Nine Inch Nails.

And guess what? Here’s the thing. I think there’s no stopping them. With Nine Inch Nails—particularly, Trent and Atticus no matter what they call themselves and until they are inducted into the IHOR as solo artists, anything’s possible:  

·  Scoring a children’s movie? The upcoming Pixar film Soul? Why not? Let’s have some more. Give me a children’s album!

·  Creating a vintage jazz ballad (the unparalleled “The Way It Used to Be”) in a week and making it indistinguishable from other songs of the era? Of course!

·  Winning a Tony Award to become part of the EGOT club—I say sure. In fact, prediction: before the end of the world (so basically, in about 30 years) Nine Inch Nails will get an EGOT.  There. Prove me wrong.

                                       ______________________

In 1997 Spin Magazine once hailed Trent Reznor as “the most vital artist in music today,” while in that same year Trent Reznor appeared on Time Magazine’s list of the top 25 most influential Americans.

These accolades were well earned; however, I prefer a statement made by some music magazine critic whose name escapes me in their review of a Nine Inch Nails album whose name also escapes me: they said, “we can only hope something else pisses him off,” sentiments which I’m sure are echoed by many, and to which I reply…there seems to be no worry about that.

                                      ____________________          

Nine Inch Nails encompass a facet of popular art that is as necessary as it is compulsory: they remind us that the world is not pleasant; tragedy is inevitable; the game is rigged; faith is a lie; and everyone you know will abandon or disappoint you.

But guess what? If you’re lucky, the way out is through, motherfuckers.

I am honoured to induct Nine Inch Nails into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.  

#trent reznor #Robert Muhlbock #Owenshire #Nine Inch Nails #Rock and Roll Hall of Fame #Rock Hall 2020 #The Fragile #Year Zero #Pretty Hate Machine #Broken #Hesitation Marks #The Downward Spiral

[sassyduckqueen]

Even in Silence, I Still Love you (Lukanette)

Dark_Phoenix6661

Summary:

Lila had won. She had officially turned everyone against her, even Adrien, leaving Marionette heartbroken. Now she's perfect prey for Hawk Moth but not everyone believes Lila's lies. The Couffaines are still on Marionette's side. Especially Luka and it hurts him to see her so upset, especially since it's been caused by Lila and her so called friends but he'll change. He'll make them sorry for hurting her or they can all suffer in silence....

Notes:

I just had to try out writing Silencer. He is awesome. This is set after Desperda and Silencer and is based on the Episode Ladybug. Also like Stormy Weather in Stormy Weather 2, Silencer is more powerful. He still has the power to steal and use voices but he can also use sound as a weapon and nullify it too. The Akuma is in his guitar and he still talks with his hands (because i think that's cute)

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Marionette didn't bother wiping away the tears that slid down her face. She was too hurt to care. Lila had finally done it. She had turned everyone against her. Alya, Nino... everyone. Even Adrien hadn't tried to help her, despite the fact that he knew that Lila was a liar. Like everyone else, he had betrayed her. The worst part was part of what Lila had said had been true. She was a terrible friend. She was constantly abandoning her friends so she could play hero and when Adrien was around, she was even worst. She couldn't think clearly and she hurt people. A prime example of this was Luka. She had completely disregarded him as soon as Adrien turned up. She frowned to herself as more sorrow swallowed her up. Right now, she was perfect prey for an Akuma but she didn't care, Hell, she'd welcome the little butterfly if it meant for a few minutes she couldn't feel this pain. She had even taken out her earring rings. A soft knock on her trap door pulled her from her thoughts before her mum came in.

"Honey..." She whispered, frowning as she saw how broken Marionette looked. "You have a friend here to see you,"

"What friend?" She asked bitterly, making her mother frown. "I don't have any left,"

"That's not true," The familiar voice of Luka Couffaine caught her by surprise. She jolted up, completely taken back as he climbed into her room. He looked amazing as usual. His hood was down and he had his guitar on his back. He shot her a kind smile. "Jules told me what happened so I thought I'd come by to see you,"

"T-thank you, Luka," She sighed before lying back down. "But you don't need to pretend,"

"Pretend?" He questioned before shaking his head. "I'm not pretending. I don't hate you and neither does my sister, Marionette,"

She sighed and frowned, looking at him. He took off his guitar and walked over to her, placing his hand on her shoulder as he looked at her with loving eyes. Marionette couldn't help the blush that rushes across her face. Despite all she had done to him, Luka was still here, looking at her like she was the most important girl in the world. She jumped when Sabine cleared her throat.

"I'll go get you two some drinks and cookies," She smiled, shooting it towards Luka as if to say Thank you. Luka smiled back before turning his attention to Marionette.

"I meant what I said the other day, Marionette. You really are the song playing in my head," He smiles softly before lightly wiping her tears away. "I hate seeing you hurting like this,"

She looked down.

"I deserve to," She muttered, making him frown. "Lila was right, Luka. I'm a terrible friend. Just look how I treated you when Adrien actually made it to band practice. I completely disregarded you twice. I should have told Jagged to pick you but-"

"Marionette, it's ok. I know how you feel about Adrien," He smiles softly.

"Felt," She corrected, making him frown in a confused manner. "He didn't even bother to stick up for me today. He knows Lila's a liar and he didn't even try to help..."

"I'm sorry," He muttered, frowning.

"Why are you sorry?" She asked, confused. "You don't need to apologize for anything. You're perfect- I mean-"

He chuckled softly as Sabine knocked on the door again. He got up and opened it, taking the tray off her.

"Thank, Mrs DuPan-Chang," He smiled kindly before placing them on the desk as she went back down. He picked up his guitar and slowly began to play as Marionette slowly sat up and wiped her eyes. She still felt hurt, angry and betrayed but at least, she had Luka on her side. She picked up a cookie and slowly nibbled it as he played his guitar softly. He glanced over at her and smiled as she met his gaze but then his eyes widen in fear as he saw a black butterfly. Marionette saw his expression change before she saw the butterfly. She screamed as it flew over to her, screwing her eyes up in process but nothing happened. She slowly opened her eyes and gasped as she saw why she hadn't changed. Luka was leaning over her with his eyes screwed closed. The area around his eyes were red and he looked like he was in pain. Even worst, his guitar was black. Marionette almost started to cry again as she realized he had taken the Akuma for her. Slowly, his eyes opened before the black ink completely took over his form, transforming him into Silencer once more. Marionette stared in shock as he flipped the guitar on his back before he cupped her face lightly with one hand and lifted his other.

"I won't let them get away with this," He stated with his hands before he suddenly jumped out the window. Marionette rushed over but he was already gone.

"No... no!" She gasped before grabbing the ear rings and putting them back in. Tikki groaned softly as she appeared before blinking.

"Marionette?" She questioned.

"Tikki... I can't let him do this because of me. I know i just keep on hurting people but he took an akuma for me!" She cried, confusing Tikki.

"Wait... who did?"

"L-Luka!" She gasped, tears streaming down her face. Tikki gasped in shock before nodding. "T-Tikki... spots on!"

(***)

Silencer jumped across the roofs til he came to the house of Alya Cesaire. As it happened, Nino was also there. He silently slipped in before carefully creeping up on her older sister. Before she could even react, he had his fingers to her lips.

"Sshh," He pressed his free finger to his lips. She gasped and coughed up her voice before gasping. He held his hand to his ear as if to hear and her voice zoomed to him. Alya's older sister went to swing at him but he ducked and grabbed his guitar, using it to hit her with a sonic wave, knocking her out. He smirked, moving her out of view before lifting his hand.

"Alya! Can you come here?" He asked in her sister's voice.

"Coming," She shouted back. He moved behind the door. She walked in, looking at her phone as she did. "What's up?"

"I need to ask you something," He replied, in her sister's voice. She turned around and gasped before he placed his fingers to her lips. "Sshhh,"

She went to shout out but coughed up her voice instead. He mimicked his previous action, stealing her voice too. She ducked underneath him but he merely turned around and followed her with his hands up.

"Alya, Nino!" He sung in her voice as he walked into the living room. Nino instantly moved in front of his girlfriend.

"Luka?" He gasped. "You- you've been akumatized,"

"Luka isn't here anymore. Only Silencer," He replied in Alya's voice. "But I won't hurt you if you apologize to Marionette,"

"Apologize?" Nino questioned. "What for? She's the one who lied to us, Luka!"

"Lies!" He snarled, shocking both of them before tilting his head. "If you can't say anything nice then don't say anything at all,"

He went to place his fingers on Nino's lip but a yoyo wrapped itself around his wrist and pulled him back. He looked over and saw Ladybug on the window seal. He tilted his head to the side.

"I don't want your voice, bug," He stated.

"Don't do this," She reasoned. "This isn't the right way to help Marionette. You know she wouldn't want this,"

"They won't listen to her so I'll take their voices from them!" He states in Alya's voice. "At least then they can't lie about her,"

He generally looked like he meant every word and Ladybug knew he did but then he pulled his arm, yanking him to her. However, he didn't move to steal her voice or her earrings and caught her. A blush crept it's way on her face as he stared at him but naturally, Nino ruined the moment. He grabbed a lamp and went to smash it over Silencer's head. Silencer pushed Ladybug out of the way and flipped his guitar so it was in his hands before striking the strings, sending a sonic wave of noise across the room. It knocked Nino to the ground and Silencer once again slipped out the window. Despite the pain they had caused her, Ladybug helped Nino up. She was still a hero after all.

"Don't worry. I'll stop him," She smiles wearily, turning to leave but Nino grabbed her arm.

"I can help you," He states but she shakes her head.

"No. I appreciate it but having you there might make things worst. He seems pretty pissed at you," She states, making Nino frown. "Are you sure your Marionette was lying by the way? I know it isn't my business but she seemed like she just wants to help people,"

Before he could answer, she climbed out the window and headed to the rooftops.

(***)

Silencer landed on the roof of the houseboat before lowering himself down and walking into the living room. Rose, Ivan and Juleka were all there and it appeared al three of them were talking. Silencer cleared his throat, making them all gasp and look at him.

"Jules. I need to know who started these lies about Marionette," He stated, using Alya's voice.

"You're not going to steal my voice are you?" She gasped, clearly frightened.

"You're my sister," He stated. "I would never steal your voice. Rose and Ivan, on the other hand,"

He turned and glared at them, causing Rose to squeal and hide behind Ivan as he stalked over.

"Luka, don't!" Juleka gasped, moving in front of them. "I know you want to protect Marionette but they don't hate her. I swear they're on her side!"

"Then why weren't they there for her?! Why didn't they stick up for her?!" He states. "She almost got akumatized. She's in pain, Jules. Her so called friends turned against her. Well, they d-"

"We don't believe the rumors!" Rose suddenly speaks up, surprising him. "We tried to stand up for her but no one listened to us!"

He narrowed his eyes before lifting his hand.

"Who started all of this?" He asked.

"Lila Rossi," Ivan spoke up. "I don't know her address but she works for the Agrestes,"

"Thank you," Silencer grinned before leaving, Juleka let out a breathe of relief as Ladybug jumped down onto Deck. She saw her and rushed out.

"Ladybug!" She gasped, getting her attention. "My brother... he's bee-"

"Akumatized. I know," She nods. "Are you guys ok? He didn't steal your voices, did he?"

"No," Ivan replied. She let out a sigh of relief before swinging her yoyo. "Wait, we know where he's going,"

"And who he's after," Rose added in, making Ladybug stop.

"Who?"

"He's going to the Agrestes and he's after a girl called Lila Rossi," Juleka explained, causing Ladybug to mentally groan. It was bad enough that she was tracking him alone as Cat Noir was nowhere to be seen but now she had to face the one person who could have helped her and failed to do so. "She started these horrible rumors about a friend of his and he's determined to punish everyone who believed it. We were only spared because we don't believe her,"

"You don't?" Ladybug asked with genuine surprise.

"Of course not!" Rose gasped. "Marionette is our friend and she's helped us with so much. We love her,"

Ladybug's heart filled with joy at those words.

"Ok. Don't worry. I'll save Luka,"

~At Agrestes' Manor~

Silencer slipped into the manor before using his guitar to knock out the bodyguard before slipping into Adrien's room. Adrien was leaning over his computer as Silencer walked over to him. He lightly tapped him on his shoulder. Adrien turned around. As soon as he did, Silencer pressed his fingers to his lips and captured his voice before lifting his hand.

"I know what you did to Marionette," He stated in his own voice. "She believed you were her friend and when it mattered, you weren't there for her. Now you will never speak again or hear again,"

Adrien looked confused but Luka strumbed his guitar. Instantly, all sound disappeared to Adrien, causing him to fall as he tried to shout. Silencer turned on his heel and walked out.

"Father? Where are you?" He asked in Adrien's voice.

"Your father's out at the moment," A woman replied, causing Silencer to look her direction.

"Oh, ok," He replied.

"What is you wanted?"

"I was going to ask if he was going to see Lila today," He stated, walking into the office.

"Oh yeah. She'll be at the park at 4pm," She replied, typing. "Not that he'll actually turn up,"

"That's ok. I just need your voice to talk to her," He stated, making her spin on her chair and turn round. Instantly, he stole her voice before thanking her with it. She tried to shout as he walked off. A few seconds later, Ladybug rushes in and rushed over to her. She pointed to her throat before gasping silently and rushing to Adrien's room. He was still dealing with the loss of his voice and hearing.

"Are you ok?" Ladybug gasped but he didn't hear her and tried to say what. She frowned before helping him to his bed. "Just stay here!"

With that, she rushed out the window and flew off to chase Silencer.

~The Park~

Silencer frowned to himself as he hid behind a tree. There was a lone girl sat on the bench, waiting for someone. That had to be Lila but he needed to be sure.

"Lila?" He asked in Adrien's voice, causing her to look up.

"Adrien?" She replied, frowning as she looked for him. "Where are you?"

"Over here by the trees," He replied, causing her to get up and walk over to him.

"I can't see you," She pouted before catching a glance at him. Fear filled her eyes as he stepped out. "You're not Adrien!"

"No, I'm Silencer and I'm here to put an end to your nasty little lies," He stated in Alya's voice. She turned on her heel and went to run but he grabbed his guitar and strumbled it, knocking her down with a sonic wave before sending another one to knock her out.

~ The Top of the Eiffel Tower~

"Wakey, wakey," He stated, using Adrien's voice. Lila slowly opened her eyes before trying to move but found she was tied up onto a chair. The wind blew through her hair as she looked around. Fear filled her heart as she realized she was on the edge of the top of the eiffel tower. "It's a long way down, Lila so I wouldn't struggle too much,"

"What do you want?" She gasped.

"For you to admit that you lied about Marionette," He states in Alya's voice.

"I didn't lie! It's not my fault that she's so jealous of me! She's mean and horrible!" She cried fake tears. "She wouldn't even let me sit at the front of the class despite that I have tinnitus in my right ear!"

"Juleka told me you said it was in your left ear," He stated, before resting his hand on the edge of the chair. "And that it got cured so suddenly so you could sit next to a boy in your class,"

"It c-came back!" She gasped, looking to her left. "W-wait... you know Jeluka? You know I broke her photo curse right?"

"No," He stated a little too calm. "Marionette did. Not you,"

"No, no. Marionette lied about-"

"Then tell me how you broke it,"

"Well, I knew a photographer and we got him to t-"

"Lies!" He snarled, making her jump. "Juleka told me herself that it was Marionette and how she went out of way to make sure she was in the photo and even took photos with her after school!"

"B-but-"

"Are you calling my sister a liar!?" He didn't just sound annoyed. He was livid. Lila shook her head and shut her mouth. He stepped back, bringing his guitar down."I think you deserve to be punished for all those lies you say!"

He went strum the strings but Ladybug knocked him down before landing in front of him.

"Oh Ladybug! I just knew you would come to rescue me! This psychopath was planning to torture me-"

"Shut up, Lila," Ladybug stated before turning to Luka. "Luka please. Give me your guitar. I don't want to fight you,"

"I'm sorry, Ladybug but she deserves this!" He growls before strumming his strings. Lila suddenly cries out in shock.

"I can't hear!" She shouts, looking terrified. Ladybug looked at him shocked before turning back to him. "Help me, Ladybug!"

"I can take her voice too. She'll never be able to tell another lie about Marinette," He states as he walks over to her.

"Luka..." She whispers before shaking her head. "This isn't right! This isn't justice. It's vengeance and Marinette wouldn't want this! I know she wouldn't! I'm sorry I have to stop you! Lucky Charm!"

A mirror appeared out of thin air and she caught it, confused as usual. Before she could think about, Silencer strummed his guitar, causing her to jump out the way off his sonic attack before they charged at each other, fight. She avoided his attacks before jumping out and grabbing the mirror as Lila screamed loudly, distracting Silencer for a minute as he took away her voice. She looked at it and looked around. He lit up in red and black before she looked back at the mirror, causing it to light up. She placed it against an area where he would be able to see his reflection before she attacked him, moving him there before she suddenly stopped, confusing him. He grabbed his guitar and went to attack her but stopped when he caught his reflection.

"Music is everything to you. Do you really want to use it to hurt people?" She asked as he stared at his reflection. She walked over. "Is this who you really are, Luka? Are you really villain? Because I don't think you are and I know Marinette thinks of you as a great person,"

For a second, he saw himself as Viperion again and then as himself before it turned back to Silencer. Ladybug held her breath as he could literally turn around and steal her voice but to her surprise, he took off his guitar and handed it to her. She took and slammed it against the wall, allowing the akuma to escape.

"No more evil-doing for you, little akuma," She stated, lowering her yoyo before spinning it. "Time to de-evilize!"

She caught the butterfly in it and it closed around it.

"Gotcha!" She gasped, catching her yoyo before tapping it and freeing the now purified butterfly. "Bye-bye, little butterfly,"

The black ink returned and restored Luka and his guitar back to normal as she picked up the mirror as he blinked.

"Ladybug?" He questioned before his eyes went wide. "Oh no! Marinette! She's gonna-"

"No... she's ok. You took the akuma for her, which was really amazing and brave of you," She smiled but Lila screamed, causing Luka to look over at her, slightly confused. Despite his confusion, he put two and two together as to who the girl was. Ladybug shook her head, not noticing Luka take out his phone and filming Lila, struggling to break free and screaming about she couldn't hear.

"Miraculous Ladybug!" She shouted out as she threw it up. Instantly, lots of red bugs flew around Paris, restoring voices and hearing to Silencer's victims as Luka looked around confused and putting Lila back in the park. She walked over to Luka and helped him up as he slipped his phone away.

"Thank you," He smiled.

"You're welcome," She states. "But you should get to your friend. I'm sure she's worried about you so you should get back. I can-"

A beeping noise suddenly alerted her.

"I'm sorry. I have to go. Are you ok getting back to your friend on your own?"

"Yes. I am," He replied, smiling. "Thank you Ladybug,"

She smiled back before throwing her yoyo and swinging off into the city. It didn't take her long to get to the bakery but soon as she landed, she turned back into Marinette and caught a drained out Tikki, who weakly opened her eyes.

"Did we save him?" She asked as Marinette climbed down into her room and gave her a macaron.

"Yes we did," She states as Tikki ate it. She couldn't help but smile as she heard the door to the bakery open. She rushed downstairs and into the bakery as Luka held his knees and caught his breathe. "Luka!"

She rushed over and hugged him, surprising him.

"God, I was so afraid!" She cried out. "Why did you do that?!"

"I couldn't let you become like the people who hurt you," He stated, looking to the side as a blush went across his face. "You're too pure and kind to be akumatized,"

"Luka..." She gasped, blushing. "Please... don't do anything like that again!"

He looked at her shocked as tears began to flow down her face as she thought how she could have lost him. She hated fighting him as Silencer.

"Please, don't cry Marinette!" He gasped, thinking she was upset. "I didn't mean to hurt -"

"You didn't. I'm not upset. I'm relieved that you're ok!" She gasped, wiping her eyes. Luka smiled at her softly as she took his hand and dragged upstairs. He followed her. Tikki kept hidden but Marinette took a deep breathe as she locked the door and closed her curtains.

"Luka... I need you to promise me that I can trust you," She stated. He took her hands and smiled softly.

"You have my word, Marinette. I will never betray you," He stated, truthfully.

"I'm going to tell you a secret that no one else knows. This is why I always have to run off or why I make terrible excuses..." She mutter before walking over to Tikki and gently picking her up. Tikki gave her a look. "I trust him,"

She wasn't suppose to tell anyone but Luka had stuck by her side, tried to cheer her up, protected her and even took an Akuma for her. He had earnt the right to know. Tikki nodded, giving her approval before  faced him. She took a deep breathe.

"Tikki! Spots on!"

~The Next Day~

"Wow, I can't believe Ladybug chose you to wear the Bee Miraculous," Alix stated as they walked out of the school with Alya, Nino and Adrien. Lila grinned at the attention.

"Of course, she did. Me and Ladybug are super close and I totally helped her take down Silencer. If I hadn't paralysed him, she would have been-"

"Funny. That's not how I remember it going down," A voice stated, gaining everyone's attention. Leaning against the wall was Luka, clearly waiting for someone. Probably his sister. Adrien couldn't meet his gaze and Alya gulped in slightly fear but Lila grinned.

"You were akumatized so you couldn't possibly remember-"

"True but I do remember after Ladybug caught my akuma and you were still tied up on top of the eiffel tower, screaming about not been able to hear," He states, rolling his eyes. Lila snorted, clearly not believing him.

"Prove it then,"

"Ok," He states, pulling out his phone and playing the video he made. Lila's eyes went wide as she heard herself screaming that she couldn't hear. Luka didn't say a thing as the other students watched the video before moving his eyes toward the exit of the building as Marinette came out with Ivan, Rose and Juleka. She saw him and instantly waved as he turned off the video.

"You lied," Alya stated as Nino frowned. Lila gasped and held up her hands.

"It's not like that!" She states. "He's out to get me because of Marinette!"

"Nah," Luka smirks. "That would be Vengeance. Not justice and honestly, you're just not worth my time,"

He chuckled as she gaped at him before walking over to his friends. He moved his arm around Marinette's shoulders and lightly kissed, shocking everyone. Marinette smiled into the kiss before gently pulling and linking her hand with his.

"Come on! You've got a new song to write,"

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This is also posted on my Archieve of our own profile :) Anyway hope you like   

#lukanette #Lukacouffaine #marinette dupen chang #silencer #miraculous ladybug #Pro LukaMari

[kacchanislife]

If requests are still open could you maybe write something for Hizashi/Present Mic? A new hero(with a quirk of your choice), whose helping to teach at UA. They’re partially deaf and they will sometimes sign back and forth with him. Maybe something fluffy where the reader is across the hall and asks him out on a date? And he starts getting flustered and his class is so confused bcus they don’t see his crush signing at him? Thank you! If not, i understand. Have a good day!

AHHHHHH, I HAD LIKE HALF OF THIS WRITTEN AND THEN I ACCIDENTALLY DIDNT SAVE AND EXITED THE APP. AHHHH

BUT I LOVE YOU ANON FOR REQUESTING PRESENT MIC!!!! I HOPE YOU ENJOY

(I totally meant to post this when I first got it, buuuttt I had a bunch of essays to do, I hope you like it!)

A Friendly Hand

Warnings: not really? Idk ASL or JSL very much tho

Pairing(s): Hizashi Yamada/Present Mic x Reader/Pulse

You had always looked up to Present Mic, the voice hero who defied what it meant to be a voice hero. He was partially deaf, just like you, and earned a career as a teacher, Pro-Hero, radio show host, and he’s a singer. You look up to him because he can do it all and doesn’t let his disability slow him down or stop him. You admire that about him, you admire him in general.

As a hero from America, there’s a lot of stigma about people with disabilities- even quirk related ones. You struggled from day one to get recognized as a hero, you already had hearing problems as a child and when you’re quirk was developing it only got worse. You can’t have sonic propulsion as a quirk and not expect a side effect that didn’t affect your hearing. Sonic booms from space shuttles could render a human permanately deaf and your quirk rivaled those sounds, so it was no wonder your hearing got progressively worse as you got older. Which just made it harder to be a hero, if you can’t communicate with your team, how are you suppose to work effectively?

But you didn’t care, you were going to be a hero no matter what. You took extra precaution to wear noise cancelling headphones, you worked with another hero who could link your team together so no verbal communication was required, you had a speech pathologist who helped with your speaking, and a pair of hearing aides for when you weren’t working. It’s a lot of work, but you were determined to be like Present Mic and follow your dreams.

Which is why you were so happy when all the struggle you’ve been through to be an amazing hero has finally paid off. Even with all the setbacks and the struggles to establish yourself a hero, you’ve done it. You’ve been invited to become a teacher at U.A. High School in Japan. THE hero school of hero schools! Many great heroes have graduated from U.A. and you’re incredibly honored to even be considered as a teacher there. Of course, you readily accepted and started to make preparations for moving. This included learning JSL, or Japanese Sign Language, so that you could communicate while you learned Japanese. Which, you knew, was going to be difficult. You can speak English, but pronunciation and volume control is still hard for you, which means pronouncing words in a language you don’t know will be even harder.

You can do it, though, you’ve pulled off greater feats in your life so far. Plus, you were going to meet your personal hero! You couldn’t just give up on learning a new language because it was hard, you were going to be an exceptional hero- just like Present Mic! 

Settling into your new life at Japan didn’t take that much time surprisingly, you were mostly using the time you had before you would start helping to teach to get accustomed to the language and customs. You didn’t want to offend anyone and you needed to learn the language to communicate with others. Though, you figure if you really need the help you can hire a translator while you’re still learning, but first you wanted to try on your own. Which proved to be really difficult and by the time the start date of your new job at U.A. rolled around you felt wholly unprepared to communicate with others. 

You could’ve cried you were so frustrated with how unsuccessful learning JSL had been, you stare at the books in front of you, willing them to make more sense or to magically transfer all the knowledge to you. A part of you wishes that was your quirk instead of the one you have. No, you thought, I can’t think negatively about this. It just means you need to work harder, you can do this. 

Today, well, today was just going to suck as you struggled to communicate with others. You hope that at least one of them knows English enough for you to verbally communicate if that is what it takes. As you arrived at U.A. you were astonished by the size of it all, it was beautiful and definitely lived up to the name of being the number one hero school. You feel yourself getting giddy again and ignoring the complications of communication for now. 

The badge that had been mailed to you was fished from your purse and you held it up to the gate where it scanned you in. You exhale softly as you prepare yourself to meet your new coworkers and mentors. You take the plunge and never look back. 

And you’re glad you didn't let your struggle to communicate hinder you from accepting one of the most rewarding jobs right after being a Pro Hero. Looking back six months ago you would not have guessed you could integrate seamlessly with Japanese Pro Heroes, but that doesn’t matter now. You were now the assistant English teacher at U.A. and held an elective Japanese Sign Language course. You’re so proud of all the progress you’ve made and if you were being honest, you owed half that success to your personal hero. 

Present Mic, or Hizashi as you call him now, instantly understood the struggle you had with communicating with them all and stepped in to help you. As someone who knew JSL, ASL, English, and Japanese he was more than capable of helping you out. Principal Nezu decided that it was best you accompany Hizashi as his assistant teacher- which worked perfectly for you because you’re native tongue is English. If there was ever a man you respected, admired, and loved more than Hizashi it had withered away when he offered his help. From then the two of you had become the best of friends and constantly going out with each other as well as sharing inside jokes. 

Which is what leads you to today. You’ve been thinking about it a lot and you have come to the decision that you want to ask Hizashi on a date, as more than friends, and you’re going to make that happen today. You had to plan it perfectly, you didn’t want your intentions misread and you certainly didn’t want to risk NOT asking him and chickening out for the rest of your life. As you got ready that morning before school would start a plan formed in your mind and took action. 

First step: stop by the store and get a little statue to Ebisu, the Japanese Shinto god that was said to be deaf

Second step: ask Shouta for a pair of Hizashi’s headphones (you know that man has a few somewhere)

Third step: wait for your free period and set up the headphones and statue on his desk in the teacher’s lounge with a picture of the two of you

Fourth step: AVOID Hizashi until your next period with him

Fifth and Final step: ask him out in ASL when he inevitably looks at you questioningly after step three and four

As the day progressed your plan was in perfect motion and by the time your last class of the day with Hizashi rolled around. You know from Nemuri and Shouta that Hizashi has been trying to find you since fourth period, but you skillfully avoided him. Nothing could ruin your plan and if you were honest if something were to ruin it, you would be greatly discouraged to follow through with it all. 

So! You avoided Hizashi until it was finally sixth period. You were in the classroom first with all the students and setting yourself up in the back of the class to watch over the students as they took a quiz. It took a moment for Hizashi to get settled and pull the quizzes out before he noticed you in the back. As he looked at you with questioning (and slightly hurt) eyes you signed to him slowly, ‘Someone once told me that asking for help is better than struggling to overcome an adversity on their own. Thank you for all your help Hizashi.’

You paused before you started to sign again, mustering all the courage that you could, ‘You’ve been my hero for as long as I can remember and getting to work with you these past six months have shown me that I more than admire you. I really like you and I was wondering if you’d like to go on a date this weekend to the pier?’

An instant blush formed on Hizashi’s cheeks and you could see some tears swell in his eyes. The students had been expecting their quizzes to be handed out only for their teacher to stop functioning it seemed. The students didn’t know sign language and they sure as hell weren’t paying attention to you in the back when their quiz was so close to them in the front. You smile at Hizashi as you cross the classroom to him and gently take the quizzes from his hands to pass out. 

The kids still aren’t sure what just happened, but Hizashi has a seemingly permanent blush on his cheeks and is unable to get any words out. Several times when you glance at him you see his hands moving to try and sign back to you, only for them to fall as his blush continues to deepen. Once all the quizzes were passed out and you were back to your post in the back of the class Hizashi seemed to reanimate. Students paused taking their test to glance up as he moved very quickly to the back of the class where you stood in your nerves. He hasn’t given an answer yet, after all. 

When you glance back up, Hizashi is right in front of you and seconds later his lips are on yours. The blush that springs up on your face is fierce but you kiss him back briefly before he pulls back. Hizashi’s hands fly up and he’s signing back to you, ‘You have no idea how much I like you too. I’d love to go on a date with you this weekend.’

All the students are silent as you beam at Hizashi and kiss him softly again, even if it was on the inappropriate side for being in class, before they all cheer. Everyone’s been wanting the two of you to get together and it seems it’s finally happening. Both you and Hizashi blush like idiots before he shoos them to pay attention to their quizzes. 

The rest of the class is spent signing back and forth to each other like usual. The only difference is the never ending blushes on your cheeks. 

#bnha #my hero academia #hizashi yamada x reader #hizashi yamada #present mic x reader #present mic #kacchanislife really fucking love present mic #request #partially deaf reader #implied partially deaf present mic #I don't know asl or jsl #don't hurt me

[kiruuuuu]

Fuze/Wolf oneshot in which Wolf can’t sleep and Fuze assists. (Rating G/T, emotional hurt/comfort + fluff, ~2.7k words) - written for @viral-marketer​!! ♥♥ Thank you for the commission and I’m very happy you enjoyed this piece :) I’ll link more information on Wolf as soon as it’s available, and you can find my commission info here!

.

Sudden panic makes Wolf’s stomach drop. It’s as if she’s lost a limb, like the time a firecracker exploded in her hand because she didn’t realise the fuse actually took to the pitiful flame from her dying lighter and she couldn’t feel her fingers for ten minutes, like getting up too fast and almost blacking out. Like the time -

There’s no necessity to finish that thought, the memory burns white hot in her mind as it is, every time they’re on a mission, every time she shrinks away from a loud, unexpected noise, every time it happens with Boomer out of her sight. Just like now.

Her weapon falls to the ground with a clatter she barely hears as she dives head first into rubble, hitting her elbows on collapsed pieces of concrete, attempting to push past the debris, force her way through the entryway which is no more after part of the abandoned building collapsed to block it completely, trapping Wolf on this side and -

And Boomer on the other.

There are voices she doesn’t acknowledge, a hand on her upper arm she shakes off violently, and by now she’s drenched in sweat, frantic and desperate, claws at the obstacle hard enough to break a nail or two even through the gloves, hardly noticing the pain over the screeching in her head – it’s her own voice screaming at her, telling her she’s too late, she’s not going to make it, and it only ceases once an iron grip yanks her back, a tall figure towering over her and regarding her with concern.

“It’s alright, Grays”, Montagne informs her quietly yet doesn’t let her arm go, probably recognises the deafening static in her head, louder than the radio chatter, louder even than the pounding staccato of her heart. “Tina got him. Calm down.”

A myriad of questions pop up simultaneously but she gives the mountain of a man the benefit of the doubt, listens to comms for a moment and finds his words confirmed: the operators on the other side of the building sound carefree, relieved, someone mentions excited tail wagging and yes, Montagne speaks the truth. They just finished their mission successfully, the explosion separating her and Boomer marking the tail end of the fight.

Slowly, reality creeps back in, makes her feel the ground under her feet keenly as if it was something she’d been missing for the last week. Her breath evens out after a few deep inhales and eventually, Montagne lets her go with a reassuring nod, after which she looks around the room to gather her bearings. The sideglances she earns make her face flush and shame pool in her stomach – she must’ve been obvious in her panic, possibly pathetic in her flailing, certainly not behaving like a professional at all, but the noise and not being able to see her dog and the memories -

“Don’t worry about it, happens to all of us.” Montagne’s soothing baritone is doing wonders for her nerves. “You did well regardless.”

And the way he pats her shoulder stays with her until they’ve left the building, a reminder that people place their trust in her and she hasn’t let them down, a gesture she appreciates fiercely. She was focused when it counted, certainly assisting the organised assault, with Boomer even saving Blackbeard’s life at some point with his quick reflexes and instant reaction to her monosyllabic command. She did well indeed.

But she finds no rest until she spots Fuze, him of all people, carrying the energetic bundle of joy in his arms and struggling to hold on as Boomer tries to flail out of his grasp, eventually succeeding and rushing over to Wolf’s side for much-deserved ear scratches and praise.

“Your stupid mutt almost jumped out of the window when he saw you”, the Uzbek grumbles. It’s very clearly an invitation, a familiar song and dance they perform regularly, usually centred around Boomer – it started when Fuze first met her, not an hour after she arrived in Hereford, his first words being: I don’t like dogs. He might’ve claimed so but showcased very obviously that he does like bickering with a tiny American woman and thus Boomer has become a fantastic conversation starter between the two of them, with Fuze complaining about perfectly normal dog behaviour and Wolf enlightening him on this fact, and it usually ends in pancake recipes or the correct way to hide a body.

Normally, Wolf would gladly accept this invitation, but with her thoughts still in disarray, pulse too quick and fingers shaking, all she does is hug her dog and bury her face in his fur, seeking solace as well as support. He’s alive. He’s well. He made it.

It’s the mantra she repeats to herself all the way back to base.

.

That evening, she tidies up her kitchen. Not that it was necessary, not really, but taking out all the glassware and ceramics, lining them up on the counter and her table only to put them back in different places as if they were playing musical chairs soothes her, oddly enough. Cleaning isn’t a chore she enjoys and yet she dusts all the shelves, mops her entire flat and eventually catches herself eyeing the furniture in her bedroom, wondering whether she could rearrange it somehow to give it a new look and, most importantly, a new feel.

This is when she understands what she’s doing.

It doesn’t stop her, or else she wouldn’t choose to cook for herself after a day as stressful and exhausting like the one she had, and definitely not a recipe which requires her to chop a ridiculous amount of vegetables. She keeps herself busy. Not only that, she carries her phone around with her and makes it blare her favourite music, upbeat melodies accompanying the sizzling in the pan and tricking her into singing or humming along. When she eats, she does so in front of the TV, Boomer curled up next to her on the couch and doing what she’s desperately trying to avoid: sleeping.

Eyelids heavy, she forces herself to follow a generic action film, then another, playing around on her phone in the meantime, the stimulation keeping her distracted up to the point where she nearly dozes off despite the noise and flickering lights.

She’s scared, she realises belatedly. But she knows one person who can help.

Sometimes, Fuze can’t sleep either, though his condition sounds less like self-imposed insomnia and more like something out of his control, and maybe, just maybe, today is one of those days. Thumb hovering over the screen, she hesitates, mulls her decision over but eventually presses down, trepidation settling in her chest. She neither wants to be a bother nor come off as needy, but Fuze has never objected to her random messages, never once voiced any protest about early morning photos of sunrises or useless trivia she found online and, as she’s come to understand, lack of protest implies approval – at least with the Uzbek.

Communicating with him has been… strenuous at times. Anxiety and taciturnity usually don’t mix well and in the beginning, Fuze’s unflappable demeanour intimidated her immensely, but something pulled her towards the quiet man nonetheless, convinced her to keep trying. Being part of his friend group was the first step, allowing her to hover in his vicinity and direct questions at him now and then, though his monosyllabic replies briefly demotivated her. Glaz came to her rescue, however, by pointing out Fuze rarely even acknowledges others, let alone offer to do favours. And Wolf looked down at the phone Fuze voluntarily fixed after she’d dropped it the previous week; he didn’t require any prompting, merely overheard her mention it to Kapkan (who’d been enthusiastically petting Boomer, it seems the Russian really appreciates other hunters) and wordlessly held out his hand.

Over time, she’s come to realise that the silences between them are of a comfortable quality and the longer she watches him, the better she understands. Whenever anyone sits in his vicinity who’s too loud or whom he doesn’t like, he changes seats. If someone attempts to rope him into a conversation while he’s working, he lets them know not to bother him. His bluntness, too, was daunting – what if she incurred his ire herself? But despite her regularly barging in to ask him something while his clever fingers are tinkering away, he never turns her down, never once rebuked her.

And this is why she messages him, a simple: do you know the earliest man-made sonic boom?

She knows he enjoys fun facts like this, especially when it’s one he can figure out by himself. After pressing send, she stupidly waits and stares at the indicator telling her whether he’s received and read her question for entirely too long before deciding to relocate. Maybe she could go for a walk with Boomer, yet when she gets up and stretches her aching limbs, remnants of the bomb disposal mission they completed much too early in the day for her comfort, the animal by her side makes no move to follow her. Compassionate, dark eyes glance at her in defiance and Boomer makes himself as heavy as possible when she tries to pick him up. It’s his way of telling her it’s long past her usual bed time.

A small buzz catches her attention and she wakes up her phone to check Fuze’s answer, a simple, sincere: Let me think.

Wolf feels her lips stretch, her chest lighten, her restlessness diminish just knowing that he’s up, that he’s definitely thinking of her, holding his device in his steady fingers and pondering her prompt earnestly because it’s what he does. He’s always taken her seriously, it’s one of his traits she appreciates the most – not only is he honest, he also humours her whenever possible.

Spontaneously changing her plans, she gets ready for bed instead of forcing herself to stay up, going through her routine with a spring in her step and excitedly glancing at her phone repeatedly. It wouldn’t be the first time for her to text Fuze until she dozed off with it in her hand and more often than not, her sleep ended up uninterrupted as a result. She suddenly looks forward to diving under her covers and once she does, Boomer trots over now that the threat of her dragging him outside has vanished.

When instead of a soft vibration, the beginning chords of Rasputin begin to play (and whenever she hears it, she remembers Fuze’s adorable blush and mock indignation when she informed him of his new personalised ring tone), she jumps but accepts the call while snuggling deeper under her blankets.

“It’s a whip crack”, Fuze’s calm voice speaks into her ear, sparking a comfortable shudder running down her spine. “Isn’t it?”

“Did you look it up?” She knows he didn’t. He might be prideful but not arrogant, feels no need to appear smarter before her than he is.

“No. But it’s too loud and produces sound even in the air, so it’s not the end hitting the ground which causes the noise.”

“You’re right that it’s a sonic boom, but it’s not the earliest.”

She can almost hear his vague frustration and suppresses a giggle when she’s met with silence for a minute while he clearly racks his brain for the actual answer. There’s defeat underlining his words when he finally admits: “I give up. I don’t know.”

“It’s part of Glaz’ breakfast”, she hints and buries one of her hands in Boomer’s soft fur.

Another minute of silence. “Cornflakes?”

“Yes! Crunchy food breaks faster than the speed of sound. So if he ever chews again with his mouth open, tell him to turn down his sonic booms.”

Fuze snorts, audibly amused. “Tell that to your mutt. Sounds like he lives up to his name whenever he chomps on his dry food.”

They chat a little more, inconsequential and idle banter but Wolf eventually realises she hasn’t been this relaxed all day, never allowed her thoughts to wander for fear of where they’d land. But like this, surrounded by the safety of her home, listening to the even breaths of her dog and Fuze’s dry humour, it’s hard to imagine a world not filled with bliss and tranquillity.

“You should sleep, Grayson. It’s late enough”, Fuze reminds her after a lull in conversation.

“And what about you?”

“I’ll sleep too. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Wait”, she cuts in before he can end the call. Getting used to his direct style of communication was a process and she had to witness Fuze hanging up on people mid-sentence if he deemed their talk finished before realising that he extended her every courtesy in their calls. Words tingle on her tongue and uncertainty paralyses her momentarily but she’d somehow feel dishonest if she kept quiet about this. “I – had a flashback. Earlier today. Almost a panic attack. Did you hear -”

“Yes”, comes the instant reply and it’s obvious he’s been waiting for her to mention it – he wouldn’t done so himself, wouldn’t have wanted to make her feel weak. “Are you alright now?” She makes a soft affirmative noise and glances over at Boomer whose twitching paws indicate that he’s dreaming. “I’m worried.”

The admission makes her heart skip a beat, even though he’s probably referring to her work. Has to be. “Don’t be, I’ll get the job done no matter what.”

“I’m not worried about that, I know you’d never let any of us down.” The way he dismisses the implication of her potentially failing any of her colleagues causes pride and affection to bloom in her chest. There’s no room for doubt in his statement and she’s immensely grateful for the faith he places in her. “I’m worried about you. You can’t save everyone, you know. And you can’t let this fact weigh you down. I know you’re used to getting overlooked but you’re damn good at what you do – don’t let your past rule over your future. You might miss out on opportunities along the way.”

She knows what he’s referring to. After a long day, they sat alone in the workshop, Fuze’s project forgotten on the table between them, atmosphere serene and facilitating honesty – she admitted to being afraid of getting close to anyone in Rainbow. She talked about Nitro, about the helplessness she felt upon having to watch him die, and about the random visions of anyone she liked getting killed on a mission. About how she tries not to let this influence her behaviour; she still seeks people out, opens up to them, listens raptly. But the underlying fear is always there.

“Yeah”, she agrees quietly. “I’ll try.” It’s all she can promise him.

.

The next day is of a comfortingly different quality, allowing for genuine laughs, and is much more lenient with someone who only caught a few hours of sleep. She does chuckle at Fuze’s bleary face when they see each other for the first time, but it gets stuck in her throat when he wordlessly pulls her into a hug out of the blue. The embrace doesn’t last long but coming from him, it leaves her reeling nonetheless, unfocused for the first few hours and… dreamy. The feeling of his arms around her never really goes away.

At some point, Glaz joins her, notices her dazed expression and asks: “Bad sleep?” Following her tired nod, he adds: “I figured. I heard Shuhrat’s phone go off last night.”

“Oh, did he forget to mute it?”

The Russian sends her an odd look. “He never puts it on silence when he sleeps, in fact I think he even turns up the volume. And you’re the only one who messages him in the middle of the night. Otherwise he’d sleep like a baby.”

And oh. That’s -

It’s impossible, there have been so many nights which they texted away, yet she neglected to ask for details on his alleged insomnia, and this means -

She completely misses whatever it is he tells her next, merely nods along as her thoughts are going haywire until she eventually rudely interrupts him: “Sorry, I gotta go.” And as she gets up and hurries over to where she suspects the Uzbek to be, she remembers Fuze’s words from the night before.

He’s not an opportunity she’d ever forgive herself for missing out on.

#rainbow six siege #fuze #wolf #fuze/wolf #fanfic #oneshot #commissions #basking in fuze's presence sounds pretty great to be honest #also late night texting is adorable to me

[sinesalvatorem]

Finding Friendly Frequencies For Fish

Content: Wild animal suffering, discussion of the experiential lives of marine animals, speculative plans to improve them, and caring a lot about music.

Yesterday I was in a sociological discussion group where, while discussing big picture world-saving projects, I happened to float one of my ideas for combating wild animal suffering. The people in the group seemed to have a generally positive impression of the idea, so I thought I might as well write up a clear overview of it online. (Plus I have Tumblr asks on my world-saving plans from folks like @gatherers-incorporated, so here’s one answer):

Due to human activity, the oceans are now buzzing with industrial noise. A lot of it is chronic noise from the high volume of shipping we do, while some of it is acute sonic devastation caused using massive pulses of sound for things like sonar and oil prospecting.

The problem is, we aren’t pumping all this noise into a vacuum - the ocean is alive, and the things that live in it are being tortured pretty much continuously by a screaming din from all directions. Living in an acoustic hell can have all sorts of detrimental effects for humans - if you don’t believe me, imagine living in a screeching subway car - but this can be even more extreme for animals whose primary means of perceiving the world is through sound.

Cornell University’s marine bioacoustics expert Christopher Clark, when asked about the effects of seismic surveys on whales, said:

We don’t have all the details on that yet. But we can show that there are entire sections of the ocean — 100,000-square-mile areas at a time — that are awash in this sound and where whales just leave the area or shut up completely. We noticed them trying to hide behind rocks to escape in a sound shadow when seismic surveys were being conducted along the California coast. Some of the gray whales actually came right into the surf — we could see their bodies in the breaking waves — to try to get away from this. Hey, if I lived in the ocean and every ten seconds there was a brain-rattling explosion, I’d try to get away, too!

But Clark actually suspects the effects on large whales are less severe than on smaller animals:

In fact, I would argue that the whales are fairly robust. They can tolerate pretty severe acoustic conditions. But with fish, we just don’t know. The Norwegians have conducted some good research that has shown that the fish are moving out of noisy areas, and that the survival rate of the newly spawned young are greatly decreased when there are high noise levels. And science is only just beginning to pay attention to what the invertebrates are doing — the squid, the shrimp.

OK, so we know we’re scaring them away and killing their babies. What else have we learned empirically? For that, one of the best sources I’ve found is Lindy Weilgart 2018, on the impacts of noise on fish and invertebrates. Just the abstract is downright horrifying. Here are two excerpts:

Noise impacts on development include body malformations, higher egg or immature mortality, developmental delays, delays in metamorphosing and settling, and slower growth rates. Zooplankton suffered high mortality in the presence of noise. Anatomical impacts from noise involve massive internal injuries, cellular damage to statocysts and neurons, causing disorientation and even death, and hearing loss. Damage to hearing structures can worsen over time even after the noise has ceased, sometimes becoming most pronounced after 96 hrs. post-noise exposure. Even temporary hearing loss can last months.

Being hit by a blast of sound underwater when your own body consists of a tiny sack of water is apparently physically harmful. It causes serious damage to existing bodily structures, as well as the ability to develop new ones with maturation. I would probably liken it to being thrown against a wall. Hard. During a seismic survey, maybe every 10 seconds. However, even when the noise isn’t causing “massive internal injuries”, it’s still injurious to the psyches of fish. Because, well, how the hell can they think in this mess?

Stress impacts from noise are not uncommon, including higher levels of stress hormones, greater metabolic rate, oxygen uptake, cardiac output, parasites, irritation, distress, and mortality rate, sometimes due to disease and cannibalism; and worse body condition, lower growth, weight, food consumption, immune response, and reproductive rates. DNA integrity was also compromised, as was overall physiology. Behaviorally, animals showed alarm responses, increased aggression, hiding, and flight reactions; and decreased anti-predator defense, nest digging, nest care, courtship calls, spawning, egg clutches, and feeding. Noise caused more distraction, producing more food-handling errors, decreased foraging efficiency, greater vulnerability to predation, and less feeding. Schooling became uncoordinated, unaggregated, and unstructured due to noise. Masking reduced communication distance and could cause misleading information to be relayed.

Pictured here: A fish leaning in real hard to hear his mate at a party, except there is no party and his mate has internal bleeding.

Basically, when sufficiently stressed by the fact that THEIR ENTIRE WORLD IS SCREAMING AT THEM AT ALL TIMES AND THEY DON’T KNOW WHY, fish fall apart. In particular, they fall apart in a remarkably human way: They live by a hair trigger, become aggressive and flighty, and stop devoting their energy toward maintenance and improving the future. No more nest-digging; no more nest-care; no more seeking mates; no more children. How can you even think about tomorrow when the screaming is happening RIGHT NOW.

As I’m a very musically inclined person, I feel like the only way to really get this is to hear it in song. As it happens, you can! Ends by clipping. is about how dysfunctional living the ghetto is, but the amazing thing about it is that it’s self-demonstrating. It strategically recruits (mild) noise pollution into the substance of the music, by making you sense what it feels like to have your whole life narrow down due to living on the edge. The experience of the song is the experience of a life too constrained to make a story out of it. You can’t fit a beginning, middle, and end into life in the hood.

Once upon a time *drum motif begins, as if starting a story, but then trails off into ambient noise without resolution* Once upon a time, there was a middle of the story But fuck it, they need some ends Shoot up in the air See if it come down See if it come down Don’t look now

The psychological experience of living within that song is the experience of living in the ocean today. It’s what it feels like to be a fish while your world is screaming. When it doesn’t feel like there’s enough space to construct a life, because everywhere around you is saturated with hostile energy. Once upon a time, there was a middle to their lives, but fuck it, we wanted shipping. Blast sound into the sea. See who it’ll hurt. See who it’ll hurt. Don’t look now.

OK, so it seems we’re torturing trillions of lifeforms at all times. What now? There are already various initiatives around that aim to deal with acute noise pollution, like the seismographic surveys that make whales try to beach themselves. However, as far as I’m aware, no one is focused on solving the problem of noise pollution from shipping (if you know who is, please point me to them!). This is despite the fact that commercial shipping is probably responsible for the majority of the chronic sonic suffering we inflict on small animals.

Which is why it’s the focus of one of my world-saving projects. The goal is to get basically all large ships to run their propellers and internal machinery at frequencies that are harmonic intervals of all the other ships. Basically, I want every ocean-going vessel to sing in the same key, so that fish swim through music instead of screaming.

Some of this will require research. The most basic version of this proposal would require that all machinery be run at frequencies that are 2^x of some base frequency. However, this would seriously limit the amount of control ships have over their speed and maneuvering, so it might be a hard sell. Luckily, there are more harmonics than just overtones - it’s just not yet clear how more complex harmonics affect various nonhuman animals.

I’d like to conduct research into empirical, cross-species music theory, so we can learn if the harmonic intervals that sound pleasant to humans are also pleasant to sound-sensing beings in general. I expect that in the course of further abstraction, the final “Aquatic Scale” we end up with, as an ideal for pleasant fish lives and giving ships more degrees of freedom, will look quite different from existing music within the Western twelve tone system. However, I certainly intend to start by building on the existing body of Western music theory.

Then there’s the small matter of getting people to actually do it. This will probably involve a lot of interfacing with various political machines to pass various regulations which are in practice worse than the pure idea. Oh well. Any important work means learning how to deal with the existing institutions. My hope is that it’ll be easier to do if instead of asking people to tone down their activity, they’re just required to shift into any of a long spectrum of Schelling point frequencies.

This would, however, require that people actually care at all. That might be a little difficult in the current social and moral climate, where people still argue about whether the suffering of pigs matters, and few spare a thought for fish. 

However, even here I’m hopeful. I think the current trends toward expanding circles of concern will make people more generally concerned about suffering. I think the vegan movement and increasing identification between people and their pets is causing a long-run increase in concern for animal welfare. And I think it’s actually possible to make people care by getting them to really understand how fish feel (and, yes, I don’t think you get those obvious patterns of stress response without them feeling the stress), and the ways this parallels parts of our own experience.

Plus, I’m not even asking people to stop eating fish! Unlike factory farmed land animals, I think most of the suffering to fish due to the human consumption of them occurs during the relatively short period during and right after being caught. It would be nice if even that didn’t happen to them, but it’s further down my priority list. There’s no ethical consumption under later capitalism or heterotrophic biology. Rather, I’d like to find as many ways as possible to get two seemingly-opposed parties to in fact move around each other without harm. Coordinating ships on a couple of frequencies to free up the water for life is one of them.

Finally, one of the reasons we should make the ocean into a symphony is because we can. We’re already completely remaking the sound architecture of the ocean right now. The power is here right now and being used to create a hell on earth by accident. We live in a modern world with precious few obvious miracles, but here an opportunity to make one is staring us in the face. We can turn the oceans to song. We can turn the oceans to song.

In a sense, they already are. The pulsations of life underwater do tend to sync up with each other, and with higher-order cycles such as tides. The continuity of frequencies like these have caused the rest of nature to build itself around it. What if we laid laid down our own frequencies? An underwater monument to our civilisation, to be known by trillions in the deep.

Once we were foolish. We poisoned the world in a thousand ways. We were confused and disorganised and sung a cacophony of a million dissonant voices. But then we grew up, and we learned to clean up our messes. We are sorry for the pain, and what we leave in its place is the song of our people. For it would great wonder bring to make the very oceans sing.

#animal welfare #effective altruism #science #marine biology #music #mother visible #long post cw

[capaldisrighteyebrow]

The Cost of Living - 10/Rose Fic

I wrote this story years ago, but it’s been on my mind a lot lately and I don’t think I’ve shared it here. Find it on: FanFiction.

Summary: The TARDIS lands in the midst of a worldwide tragedy, triggering wartime memories for the Doctor. Rose helps him through one of the most difficult times of his life: remembering Gallifrey's fallen children. Pre "Army of Ghosts." Mostly hurt/comfort and friendship. K+

Word Count: 4,000  |   Warnings: Discussion of genocide; military attack

The Doctor was fretting over the console, analyzing scans on the monitor and adjusting knobs, when Rose took hold of the handle that would lead them to their next adventure. By the time he began muttering no-n-n-n-no-No-NO, the left door was already cracked.

"Rose! Don't!"

His warning shout came entirely too late; the TARDIS doors stood fully open.

Instead of a grassy knoll or a perch overlooking a glamorous city; instead of a high-tech hospital in need of a shop or the Roman Forum at its height; instead of someplace serene or flashy or quaint, Rose's eyes met with carnage and smoldering debris - destruction like she had never seen.

It resembled the middle of a war zone, except there was no overt military presence: no tanks, no gunfire, no soldiers. Everything was ash or splinters. Pieces that had escaped catching fire blanketed the treeless landscape like mulch. Rose couldn't make out one building or home that had withstood the decimating blast that had consumed the city and spit out bits of timber and concrete like bones.

There were people - bodies - scattered randomly throughout the debris. Though charred and disfigured, some buried beneath matchstick rubble, she could still identify their outlines. Most were small; even the figures she believed to be adults were slight of frame. These were the remains of children and their mothers, their aunts, their grandparents. . .

Rose clung to the wooden lip of the doorway at the unsettling realization. Her stomach heaved, wanting to purge her system of the stimulus that had made her suddenly ill.

Whatever glitch they'd encountered in the materialization process must have completely reset their course, dropping them in the epicenter of an event so tragic that it was only spoken of in hushed tones by the people of her time, if at all. Though it had taken her mind a moment to match the scene outside to the black and white photos in her old history textbooks, she'd finally recognized where - and when - they were.

Surely he would never bring me here intentionally, the young woman thought, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind her ear as she attempted to compose herself. Not to this place, this date. He wouldn't do that.

Or would he?

Once, when he had worn a dark leather jacket and harbored a cynical streak as long as the Thames, he'd made her watch the literal end of her world as an almost-invited guest. While she'd passed his test of emotional endurance - or, perhaps, to see how far she was willing to go to escape the life of a shop girl - she'd only been a bystander at the event.

Viewing the planet ignite in flames from hundreds of thousands of miles away, with a plate of thick glass between her and the destruction, wasn't anything compared to the scene outside of the timeship now. Five billion years into the future, she hadn't smelled the fires, or coughed on smoke that was mixed with the ashes of buildings. . .and the ashes of those buildings' occupants. While she'd nearly died along with the Earth that day, the Doctor had managed to save her.

Here - where death perfumed the air and saturated the soil with toxins that would linger for generations to come - at ground zero of the nuclear devastation, there was nothing left to save.

A movement among the piles of wood and concrete distracted her from her sickness. Rose thought she saw the head of one of the smaller victims twist minutely. Everything else in the universe dropped away as she focused on the child's head. Her foot was on the edge of the TARDIS' step, ready to run and investigate, when the Doctor's firm grip on her elbow stayed her action, intervening with her instinctive desire to help.

When had he appeared beside her? More importantly, why wasn't he out there already, searching for survivors?

She glanced up at his clenched jaw and serious expression. "Can't we do something?"

He shook his head once. "The bombing is time-locked." His voice was tight. "We shouldn't be here at all."

Unsatisfied, Rose returned her gaze to the head. It was definitely moving.

"But we are here," she observed softly. Maybe fate or some other cosmic force had led the TARDIS and her wayward travelers here for a reason.

Once again, she attempted to step forward, but the Doctor held tight, not allowing her to set one foot outside of the ship. His grip was almost painful.

How could he stand by and watch a child suffer? Angry and hurt, she opened her mouth to accuse him of being heartless, despite having two, but stopped when she saw that his gaze was fixated on the child as well. Tears glossed his sorrowful, old eyes.

"The radiation levels outside the TARDIS are enough to kickstart my next regeneration," he explained delicately. "It would kill you in a matter of minutes."

"So we're just going to watch? We're not going to do anything?"

"We're leaving," he informed her resolutely.

His tone was much too detached, as though he was capable of shutting out all the suffering and destruction. But Rose knew the Doctor's true emotions ran deeper than expressions and intonation. His forced indifference was a sign of how greatly this tragedy upset him.

Pulling her fully inside the ship, the Doctor shut the TARDIS doors and locked them with the sonic for extra assurance his companion wouldn't try wandering off. Once secured, he turned without giving Rose half a glance and strode back to the console to enter new coordinates. His fingers punched at the keys. With a roar, he threw up the main throttle lever, sending the TARDIS up into the atmosphere. The ship creaked and groaned as it pushed through Earth's troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, and finally rocketed into space.

Silence fell over the both of them. Unable to process the shock of all she had seen, Rose soundlessly slouched against the closed doors at her back, wiping private, unobserved tears on the cuff of her track jacket. Black smudges from her mascara marred the pink fabric and made her rub more earnestly underneath her eyes to conceal the evidence.

Of all the mis-landings they'd survived during their travels - the kind where they ended up miles or centuries away from their intended destination - this was the most heartbreaking. It was one thing to land in the middle of a battle or step out of the blue box just in time to foil a scheme to end the human race; it was a different thing entirely to show up after the action had happened, when it was too late to do anything but watch the dancing flames.

The Doctor didn't do aftermath. Hopelessness and desolation and damage were things he avoided.

Rose stood unsteadily, leaning against the wooden doors behind her for support, then shoved her hands deep into the pockets of her jeans. Even sandwiched between fabric, she could feel them tremble. More tears welled in her eyes, but she sniffed them back.

Over the rumbling engines, she tried to verbalize the horrific detail that gnawed at her view of humanity. War was one thing, but the scene outside had been nothing short of the undue slaughter of innocents.

"All those children. . ." she whispered, "dead."

The Doctor visibly flinched, but carried on with his furious piloting, as if in a desperate rush to escape the topic.

Had she been a little more collected, Rose may not have continued to press the subject; however, in her current state of distress she sought a way to digest one of the biggest travesties in history. She turned to the one man who usually had the answers.

"How could someone do this, Doctor, knowing the lives they were taking?"

Her question seemed to be ignored, blocked out by the deafening rage that exuded from his tense shoulders and stiff stance. It was as though he'd slipped inside himself, fighting a battle within his mind - a penchant of his previous incarnation that reminded Rose she was only viewing one side of a single decagon. Regardless of the face he wore, the Doctor internalized his griefs and anger in the same way.

The obliterated Japanese city had struck them both to the core, though the Doctor's reaction went beyond Rose's initial shock and following disgust. Something had been triggered inside him: something dark, something secret. A fierce, almost inhuman scowl burrowed within the creased lines on his forehead and around his lips. He seemed primed to strike out at the smallest disturbance. Rose had to turn away, feeling that she was - at least in part - responsible for his foul mood.

When the engines thrummed a steady, tenor cadence, she knew they were in orbit around the planet. Only then did Rose dare to turn back. Though she expected to see him bent over the main console, brooding and moody, the Doctor was no longer at the controls. He'd managed to slip away unseen and unheard.

Then, below the central deck, came a storm of sound. His shouts were mostly incoherent noise, but they weren't pointless; the Doctor was yelling phrases in another language, one the ship wouldn't translate into English for her benefit: Gallifreyan. After a moment, Rose realized the verbal beratement was directed at the unseen, yet ever present, conscience of the TARDIS.

"Why today?" he asked in English while throwing metal bits and bobs around to punctuate his frustrated cries.

Rose didn't have a clue why today held such significance to him. Perhaps it was an anniversary of something unpleasant, though she'd always thought - being a Time Lord and all - things like specific dates would get somewhat jumbled. When she'd worked at the shop, she'd lost track of days of the week; there were only 'on' days and 'off' days. Of course, the Doctor was the Doctor. If she ever bothered to ask him for the time, he'd be able to rattle it off down to the millisecond.

"Isn't two hundred years long enough to watch me suffer?"

Two hundred years since. . .? Oh. Rose slowly closed hers eyes as everything clicked. How didn't I realize before?

It wasn't the TARDIS' fault that he was teetering along the brink between fury and despair; it was hers. She'd reacted without thinking and let unfiltered thoughts slip past her tongue to strike him. She knew about the Time War and the Doctor's actions on that fateful day, that he had sacrificed his own people in order to defeat the Daleks to keep countless other races across the universe from falling. There had to have been children on Gallifrey - thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands.

All those children. . .dead. In her detestation of those responsible for the murder of an entire city, she'd vilified him as well. How could I have said such a terrible thing?

Rose inched closer to the stairs while he continued to curse the ship unjustly. When he ran out of stray objects to toss about, he took hold of his hair with both hands and pulled in opposite directions as though yanking a painful memory from his thoughts.

She couldn't let this go on any longer. She cared for him too much to watch him wallow in the pain of his past, to let what he'd done lifetimes ago drag him back to the darker days by making him relive the end of the War. There had to be some way to bring him back into the light.

From the top of the landing, she called down to him, "It's not the same."

He stilled abruptly, as though just realizing he had an audience. Dropping his hands from his hair - a grown man guilty of throwing a fit and getting caught - he peered up at her through the grating. Two people stared back at her: one, a lost and lonely young boy, the second, a stubborn and unforgiving old man.

"Yes," he said. "It is."

Extracting her hands from her pockets, Rose gripped the banister in front of her instead, attempting to focus her nervousness into the cold metal. To go head to head with the last of the Time Lords would take all her courage.

"I wasn't making a comparison," she insisted. "I didn't mean it that way."

Slackjawed, he ran his tongue over the roof of his mouth once, testing the taste of her statement. He didn't like it. "Doesn't matter. Still holds true."

"You saved the universe," she stressed. Does that count for nothing in his mind?

"At too great a cost," he rebutted morosely.

She descended the stairs to level her eyes with his. Maybe he would be able to glimpse the truth through her point of view. "You had no choice."

The Doctor held her gaze for a few seconds, then tore himself away. "I chose to ignore them: the children I sacrificed in the name of peace. I made their deaths unimportant; turned them into collateral."

"I don't believe that." Rose was vehement in her denial, though her voice was soft. "Not for a minute."

"I never counted. I didn't want to know." Collecting himself with a shredded breath, he continued in a stronger voice: "I'm no better than the refuse who planned and executed the attack outside. I'm worse."

"No, you're - "

He cut her off with a frustrated growl: "How thick are you? The reality of what I did is staring you in the face, yet you still deny it!"

Rose did her best to hide the stricken look that flashed red on both cheeks - his hurtful words stemmed from self-hatred, not from her refusal to see him in the monstrous light he was attempting to cast upon himself. Even so, she couldn't bounce back from his comment rapidly enough, and he slunk further away from her, deflated from his hasty insult, yet stoically unapologetic. His silence suggested she keep her distance.

But Rose would not surrender to his glowers and contempt. She was going to prove to the Doctor that, regardless of his past decisions, he was still the savior of worlds and the peoples' champion. He was the hero of children's stories, not the villain.

She approached him with caution and spoke to him as though talking to a wounded soldier. Her tone was firm, yet understanding. "You're wrong, Doctor," she told him, watching him closely. "You know how many children were on Gallifrey that day."

"I don't," he insisted.

She bristled over his continued denial. "Stop lying."

He did that at times: lied. It was what he did to hide a painful truth or to protect others from learning information that would put them in danger. But, in this case, he wasn't only lying to her; he was deceiving himself.

"Rose, I -"

It was her turn to cut him off. There wasn't any stopping her now. "The number is in your head, Doctor. You're not the sort to make decisions without understanding the consequences. You wouldn't have ended the Time War the way you did unless you knew what it would cost."

He braced himself against the stem supporting the console platform and shut his eyes over her words. For a long moment he remained silent. The only sign of his struggle to rein in the pain and anguish seeping from him was a long tendon stretched taut along the column of his throat. When he finally spoke, his words were drenched in the cold sweat of self-disgust.

"They had faces," he began, his voice heated, yet his tone icy. "They had hopes and dreams and disappointments. They had lives to look forward to, and I stole them. I stole them all from existence."

"And you saved the rest of us," she pointed out once again, steadfast in her belief. "Without you, endless species across the universe would have been exterminated or never had the chance to begin. Think about it: without you, I wouldn't exist. Mum. Mickey. None of us. We're here because of you."

"That doesn't excuse my ignorance."

"Or your bullheadedness," Rose mumbled, adding, "Maybe you pushed the tally from your thoughts to cope with what happened, but when you chose to save the universe, you knew that number. And, somewhere in that brilliant mind of yours, you still do."

Rose held his gaze, challenging him to argue with her again. Eventually - after much huffing and frowning - he gave into her will.

He closed his eyes and laid two fingers against his left temple. It looked as though he was trying to concentrate on a memory - one buried deep in the catacombs of his mind, where he'd tried to keep it hidden, but it lurked about, waiting for the chance to resurface. His breathing became labored over the task, but Rose stayed absolutely still, her eyes never blinking.

Finally, a number: "Two. . .point four seven bil-billion."

Staggered by the figure, she could only nod at first. She'd expected a high number, but she never imagined it would equate to over a third of the Earth's total population by comparison. "Say that again?"

He swallowed the lump in his throat and locked his gaze on hers again. "Two point four seven billion," he repeated without stumbling. "That's how many children were on Gallifrey the day I set it ablaze."

Motionless - her mind trying to digest the magnitude of the what he'd done to end the Time War - she didn't know what to say. What could she say?

The Doctor crossed the lower deck to the stairs, sinking down under a weary weight that would never be fully lifted from his shoulders. He threaded his fingers through the hopeless disarray of hair standing in all directions and reiterated his exhausted point: "I'm no better than the men responsible for this bombing. Do you see that now?"

The sheer amount of lives lost was tragic, yet the fact that the Doctor had acted alone and was the sole survivor of his race was even more heartbreaking. Rose decided to refocus her energies to helping him move on from the mental rut into which he'd fallen. She lowered herself down next to him and released a small sigh.

"Maybe not," she allowed, though her tone lacked the barest hint of conviction. "But, what you did doesn't change the way I see you, Doctor."

Rose felt his body shift, turning toward her. Before he could start in again on how he was a child murderer, she shot him a sharp look through her lashes and said, "I can forgive you."

The honest statement appeared to derail his formulating speech. His mouth hung slightly ajar. Rose took the opportunity to give him what she thought he really needed. Snaking first one arm across the broad span of his back, then wrapping the other around his front, she tugged until they were pressed together. From where her head rested awkwardly against his chest - given their side-by-side position on the stairs - she could feel his shock slowly release and dissipate.

For a few moments all Rose could hear was the drumming of his hearts. The Doctor didn't move, but Rose was not discouraged by his unresponsiveness. It made her hold on to him even tighter. She wouldn't let go until he pulled away. Her mother - though not the most openly affectionate parental figure - had once imparted some solid wisdom: when you hug somebody you love, you should never be the first to let go.

So, Rose clung to the Doctor with all the strength she had.

"I do forgive you, Doctor," she whispered underneath his chin, "but only if you promise to never forget the children of Gallifrey."

His hands inched up her back until they were cupping her shoulder blades. Then he squeezed, and Rose felt like crying all over again with relief. She'd finally gotten through to him.

"I promise," he vowed softly, embracing her a few moments longer. When he pulled back, he did not disengage entirely. His hands gripped her forearms, thumbs rubbing circles into the fabric of her jacket. He looked at her with shining eyes. "What do I do now, Rose? How do I live with myself?"

Much to her surprise, the words rolled off her tongue as easily as if they were ingrained in her DNA. "S'pose you have to do what the rest of us do: carry on. Day after day, year after year. You carry on and keep living. And remember, Doctor."

His response was a slight nod and a quiet admission. "You're too good to me."

Then, in another heartbeat, he jumped to his feet and started scaling the stairs back to the main console two at a time, a smile lighting up his whole face.

It was a most bizarre, drastic mood shift, even for the Doctor. Rose struggled to change gears in order to keep pace with him. Eventually, she chased him up the stairs and stood on the opposite side of the TARDIS console. He glanced up from the switchboard and smiled a genuine smile that caught Rose off guard more than anything else. If he intended to disregard the last half hour and return to his normal, wonderful self, she supposed it was best to follow his lead.

Sometimes it was almost too easy to slip back into the happy, adventure-awaits-mindset with him.

"Of course I'm too good for you. Which is why you won't say 'no' when I ask you for a favor," she added with a characteristic cheeky grin.

"Anything. Name it. Just so long as it's not -"

Rose raised one of her dark eyebrows, as if to ask, Didn't you just say anything? Her mind was already set on what she wanted, and she had a feeling that the Doctor knew what it was as well.

It must have been an expression he was used to, because he exclaimed, "Must we? We just dropped in on her!"

"Weeks ago!" Rose countered in mock exasperation. "I need clean clothes. All these spare rooms and no place for laundry. How do you expect a girl to get by like that?"

He gave in with a dramatic sigh. "Fine. But I'm not staying for supper." After a moment of typing coordinates and time-ordinates into the TARDIS, he added in a more solemn voice that gave her more comfort than the phony exchange about going to see her mum: "I'm so sorry, Rose. I never wanted you to see this."

She wasn't sure if, by 'this,' he meant the carnage outside, or his ensuing meltdown. Either way, she had seen. "I'm glad I was here," she told him in the same soft, reverent tone. "You shouldn't be alone to face a day like today."

His answering smile was appreciative, yet sad - real. Now she began to wonder if all his previous smirks and laughter weren't just covering up the guilt and hurt he'd suffered all these years. Rose longed to hug him again, but there wasn't time.

"I don't know what I'll do without you, Rose Tyler."

His mumbled words were almost lost in the open space between them, but it never failed to register with her that the Doctor avoided responding to her sentiments of being his companion forever.

"Well," she corrected gently, "you'll never have to find out."

A brief flash of something - a stinging look that branded her as human and perishable - glimmered in his eyes, but it was quickly replaced with his usual mischievous grin. With a flip of a yellow switch, the TARDIS jerked to life and began her materialization cycle. They both gripped the edges of the main counsel as the Doctor called out, "Jackie Tyler, here we come!"

#dw fic #ten x rose fic #ten x rose #doctor who fic

[mobius-prime]

200. Sonic the Hedgehog #132

Can you believe it? We've reached the two hundredth issue, everyone! It seems like not that long ago that we had only reached one hundred, yet here we are! Of course, the actual comic itself is nowhere near two hundred yet, but we're counting total volume of issues here. We're over halfway done with reading the preboot by now, but we still have over a hundred left to go in front of us, so we'd better dive right in!

Home (Part 3 of 4): A.D.A.M. and Evil

Writer: Karl Bollers Pencils: Dave Manak Colors: Jensen

Eggman can't believe what he's seeing as Tails and Sonic fly overhead, having been certain that Sonic could never be fast enough to reach him in time to stop the missile launch. Sonic leaps down from the Tornado with a pair of handcuffs to arrest Eggman with, but Eggman isn't worried, as he has M to protect him… and as Tails hacks into Eggman's database to stop the missile launch countdown, he finds he has another problem to worry about.

Well that's worrying… Meanwhile at Fort Acorn, as General D'Coolette gets the soldiers under his command ready for battle, Julie-Su argues with Knuckles inside the fort. Knuckles apparently wants to take point in the fight, but Julie-Su is adamant that he not put himself in such direct danger, as now without the power of the Chaos Emeralds, the only power he can rely on is his natural strength, which while formidable pales in comparison. She's doubly worried since last time he put himself in direct danger like this he literally died, but he still insists that he can handle it, pointing to his backup.

Uhh… looks like Amy has seriously powered up since last we saw her! Vector is in charge of heading off the swatbots' first advance, which he does by blasting his music loudly enough that it literally blows all the robots apart before they can reach the fort. While this is going on, Sally, her parents, and Uncle Chuck monitor the situation from the Technolo-Tree, as now that A.D.A.M. has taken control of the Tornado Tails is in serious danger. However, Chuck reasons that with A.D.A.M.'s attention split three ways, he may not be able to properly concentrate on controlling the plane, the missile countdown, and the robot army at Robotropolis effectively. A.D.A.M. forces the controls of Tails' plane down, intending to make him impact with the water of the ocean to kill him, and with M attacking Sonic in revenge for hurting her "father," things look bleak. However, Tails, thinking fast, decides to test A.D.A.M.'s skills with riddles, asking him "Why does the chicken cross…"

I think you've found A.D.A.M.'s weakness, Tails! As he keeps the virus distracted with some more puzzles, Vector laments the destruction of his stereo equipment due to the sheer volume of noise he just unleashed on the swatbots. However, that's only the first wave - and Amy Rose is ready to take on the second wave single-handedly. M starts viciously beating up Sonic while Eggman gleefully "introduces" her to him, noting that unlike A.D.A.M., she was an intentional creation to act as his personal enforcer. She flings Sonic into the water nearby, and Sally, watching from home, is horrified, as she knows Sonic can't swim.

This is kind of the beginning of the era where the comic started to clip Sally's wings. A year spent thinking her closest friend was gone has robbed her of some of her usual fire, and though many people call it out of character for her, while to some degree I agree, in other ways I kind of don't. Sonic is in many ways the opposite of Sally - he rushes into things, acts first and asks questions later, while Sally is much more calculating and prefers to have a plan before jumping into action. With the wild attitude of Sonic gone from her life, she's had her parents in her ears for the past year, once again pushing her to act like a princess and not get involved the way she used to. Instead of being the general, the leader of the rebellion that she's always been, she's being pulled back, reined in, told that she must only direct her troops' movements from the safety of her home. While certainly Sally isn't the type to meekly listen to whatever her parents tell her to do, I think the trauma she's faced has affected her in more ways than even she's aware of, and she's not nearly as certain of herself anymore, leaving her more open to manipulation from her parents than she once would have been.

At Fort Knothole, Amy is only half-conscious after the battle due to exhaustion, but perks up when she's told that she managed to wipe out half the attacking swatbots… on her own. If there's one thing I love about the comics, it's that they never downplay Amy's immense strength. She's a one-woman army in her own right, as long as she has her hammer in hand, and ultimately the comics give her a lot of chances to shine as the badass she is. Everyone prepares to fight the rest of the bots, but a shadow above alerts them to the arrival of the special GUN team from Station Square, heralded by Rouge the Bat. In Old Megaopolis, Eggman tells M that he won't believe Sonic is dead until he sees a body, so she dives into the water, just as Sonic manages to pull himself from the water after finding a lucky ladder close by.

M's eyes begin to glow, glaring at Sonic as she prepares to attack…

Mobius 25 Years Later: The Unveiling

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Steven Butler Colors: Jensen

There isn't much teen interaction in this second installment of Mobius 25 Years Later, so there isn't as much to complain about compared to last issue, but there are still a few things to cover. For one, we get our first introduction to Kenders' weird attempts to include some diversity of sexual orientation in his work! We open at Lara-Su's Unveiling, as Julie-Su proudly watches her dance with her father in the middle of the festivities. An echidna named "Mace" arrives, and from his dialogue we can gather that he's Knuckles' half-brother, the one whom Lara-Le was pregnant with before Sonic's space adventures. Julie-Su questions his friendship with a friend of his, Demi-Na, but he insists that the two of them are just friends and it's "nothing serious." She then warns him away from flirting with any of the other people present, as they're all already married. Apparently, Kenders' intention here was to indicate that Mace is in fact gay - that he's not interested in Demi-Na because he's not into women, and that Julie-Su never specified the gender of the people he shouldn't be flirting with. However, there's not even the slightest hint of any of this in the dialogue - y'all know how online fandoms will grasp onto any tiny hint of two same-gender individuals being cordial to one another as being true love and ship them accordingly, but I doubt even the gayest of fans would look at the dialogue surrounding Mace and think "Oh, he's definitely A Fellow Gay!" I do get that at the time this comic was released, acceptance of LGBT individuals wasn't nearly as widespread as it is now, which would actually make Kenders a bit ahead of the curve of society as a whole in terms of acceptance, but this is still a really, really weak attempt at including a gay character in his work - and it's not even the weirdest example yet.

See, even here, something that could have been an opportunity for gentle ribbing from father to daughter is instead used as an excuse to essentially pull a "well, other people have it worse" on Lara-Su. The dress really doesn't suit her personality-wise, making me wonder who even decided that was what she should wear in the first place. Meanwhile, we finally get to meet Cobar, Rotor's old friend, as the two meet up and discuss a very serious matter.

Okay, this is definitely the most interesting thing we've seen so far in this world. This is a problem much more reminiscent of the types of conflicts we see in the main storyline of the comic. However, we're already facing another weird "LGBT inclusion" scenario! Go ahead and take a look at the way Rotor and Cobar interact with one another. Seem shippable to you guys? Well, despite the fact that they seem no closer to each other than two ordinary scientists with a polite working relationship, Cobar is basically supposed to be Rotor's husband! That's right, Kenders apparently always saw Rotor as gay, and while I'm 1000% on board with that interpretation… well first of all Cobar looks like he has one foot in the grave while Rotor would barely be like forty-something in this timeline, but also, again, there is no noticeable hint they they're even slightly into each other, let alone in a long-term relationship. Frankly, Rotor deserves better if we're looking to set him up with a nice man.

Meanwhile, back at the Unveiling, Vector and his son Argyle arrive fashionably late to the party, and Vector and Knuckles step aside to have a chat while Argyle moves in to dance with Lara-Su. Vector frets, thinking that Argyle essentially isn't cool enough to know how to charm a lady, but his fears are totally unfounded.

Hmm, seems serious, Knuckles… I'm sure this interesting part of the plot isn't going to get sidetracked by trite teenage drama and a bunch of adults yakking at each other about Adult Stuff, right?

#nala reads archie sonic preboot #archie sonic #archie sonic preboot #sonic the hedgehog #sth 132 #writer: karl bollers #writer: ken penders #pencils: dave manak #pencils: steven butler #colors: jason jensen

[stillthewordgirl]

Central City Rendezvous, chapter 13 (of 16)

Rip Hunter never came for the Legends. But maybe some meetings are meant to be... (A Captain Canary AU.)

Yeah, yeah. It’s now 16 chapters. I promise that’s it. :) Expect one every two days from now until March 20, just about the one-year anniversary of my first CC story! (Well... that’s the plan. The only chapter that’s not done at this point is 15.)

This also takes place during the Flash episode “Invincible.” Many thanks to @larielromeniel for the beta.

Can also be read here at AO3 and here at FF.net.

Sara can't reach Laurel, her Laurel, in Star City.  

And somehow that just makes it all worse. Because it’s tough, so very tough, to look at the image of the smirking, slinking, black-clad woman on the surveillance camera footage and remind herself that that’s not Laurel, not really, that Laurel is mostly confined to a wheelchair right now, and she’s still in Star City, and she's OK. She is. Sara has to believe that.

It’s hard, too, to watch Wally strike the… Black Siren… with his car, even though it’s not Laurel, not her Laurel, and she’d been about to hurt Barry, and, and…

She turns away, closing her eyes, but stops when she bumps right into the man who’d been standing behind her. Leonard lifts his hands to her arms, then hesitates and slowly lowers them to his sides after only a brief touch.

And then, a moment later, she feels them return, feels his hands settle firmly on her upper arms, holding her, anchoring her, and all the watchers be damned.

But no one says a word.

“She’s a meta. And she brought down all of Mercury Labs,” Sara says a bit numbly. “While we were out there?”

“You all were on the other side of the city,” Barry offers. “And we didn’t know… who it was… at the time.”

Leonard turns to level a glare at Wells. “You knew about our Earth-2 counterparts. But you didn’t tell them about her?”

Wells meets him stare for stare. “Frankly, until Mr. Allen had his run-in with her, I thought she was dead.” He shrugs. “Zoom didn’t take the death of... well, her failure to capture... your counterpart well. And there are other meta powers that can take down buildings.”

“Yeah, well, no one else managed to kick Barry’s ass.” Cisco’s grin slips a little as Barry turns to look at him. “Uh. Anyway, we’re putting together some tech to take down all the Earth-2 metas—it uses vibrations, it’s kinda weird, just trust me,” he rattles off. “We just need some time. But she says she’s just going to keep taking down buildings for Zoom. We don’t really have another good way to stop her. We just need…”

The silence hangs for a moment before Sara finally opens her eyes, then turns around and looks at him.  

“… time,” she finishes. “You need a distraction.”  

As if on cue, a noise from the other side of the room breaks into the tableau. Caitlin reacts first. “Cisco, it’s your metahuman alert app.”

“That’s the hi-rise development on the west side,” Joe says, eyes on the display as Iris comes up behind him.

“Hundreds of people live there,” she breathes in horror.

But Harrison Wells is moving already, running for a bank of computers. “Ramon, we’re up! Let’s go. Set that pulse off right now.” He pauses to point at Barry. “Allen, you start generating that refracting field around the city right now.”

“But… all those people…”

And, just like that, there’s no more time. Sara takes a deep breath. “Where is she?” she whispers. “Black Siren. I’ll go.” She looks at Barry. “Admit it. I’m the perfect distraction. With what Wells has told us, she’ll be completely focused on me. Not on what you’re up to.”

“She’s right,” Wells breaks in before Barry can respond. “And Black Siren… she knows capturing this Sara could be a ticket back into Zoom’s good graces.” He holds up a hand as Sara looks at him. “But… she gets angry. That’s how… well. Be careful.”

“I’m going too.” Leonard’s voice is flat and profoundly unhappy. It’s his turn, though, to hold up his hand as Wells starts to speak. “She needs backup. It’s me.”

And that’s that.

They park the bikes a block or so away, then split up, Leonard giving Sara's elbow a quick touch before vanishing into the night. She watches him go, then takes a deep breath, sets her shoulders, and gets on with it.

Black Siren, obviously waiting for someone to respond to her use of powers, is lingering in an abandoned building near the development. She turns as Sara steps through the door, a quick blink the only sign of surprise she shows.  

“Well, well! If it isn’t my sweet lil’ sister," she says, stepping closer. "I'd wondered about you."

"Not quite," Sara responds tersely. But Siren doesn't even seem to hear her.

"You look like quite the bad-ass here. I heard it went a bit differently, on this Earth.” She makes a tsking noise, shaking her head as she strolls slowly in a large circle around Sara, who turns to keep her in view. “Dear ol’ Ollie. I wonder if my version harbored any of the same thoughts? I’m going to guess… yes.” She shrugs. "Maybe he just didn't have the balls to go for it there. Doesn't matter."

Sara licks her lips, moving her bo from hand to hand, unable to escape the visceral feelings of guilt that she and Laurel are long since past, that don't, can't apply to this Laurel.

"I'm not her," she points out, as much to herself as the other woman. "And you're not... you're not my sister."

"No." Siren stops, cocking her head to the side, birdlike. "I'm not. I'm ever so much better." She smiles as Sara's eyes narrow. "Oooh, protective of your dear sissy, are you? My s... she was, too. Or at least she pretended to be."

Keep her talking. Just a little longer. She doesn't dare look past Siren to where she knows Leonard is skulking silently at the other side of the building. "Oh?"

It's almost like this Laurel wants to talk, wants to air her grievances. She continues, still moving, still circling, as Sara watches.

"I came to Central for a fresh start, but everywhere, it was always about her. Sara, working her way up through the ranks, fighting for women's services. Sara, the young, hard-working director of the CC YWCA, helping women with nowhere else to go." Her tone is light, but with a bitter edge, Sara thinks. "And then, the perfect story, the fairytale romance with the politician no one thought had a heart. My baby sister was fucking the goddamned mayor, after I'd lost..." Siren stops, spins, and stares at Sara a long moment, then smirks again.

"And then! I got the meta powers, you didn't." She does a little pirouette, smiling, black leather flowing out around her legs. "So much potential, I thought! Maybe... now, I could…” Her expression hardens. "But people hated metas. And all that potential... the only one who wanted it was Zoom... and, oh, it's just so much fun to watch things crumble and fall..."

Sara, who's been watching Siren's throat, tenses as she sees the muscles tighten, but the other woman doesn’t attack her. Instead, she spins, screaming, sonic waves aimed at the back of the room and causing havoc in their wake. Leonard dodges and rolls out of the way, bringing himself into view in the dim light.

“Oh, you did! You did find him here!" Black Siren actually sounds quite pleased about this, taking a step closer to see the newcomer. “And, my my, you look a lot more bad-ass on this Earth, Leonard.” Her tone is admiring as she looks the crook up and down. "I like the jeans, and the black leather, of course."  

She taps a finger against her lips. "Other you is a lot more... staid. Cute, in a preppy, older sort of a way, but staid. Should have realized there was a bit more potential there, given how difficult he's proven, but... well, that's besides the point."  

Since the jig is up anyway, she can see Leonard weigh his options… and then shrug in typical Captain Cold insouciance, sauntering over to stand by Sara.  

“Thanks,” he drawls, hand on cold gun, “I think.” She can see the gleam in his eyes. “I might appreciate it a bit more if you weren’t so obviously insane.”

Siren actually laughs. “Oh, I do like you better! But I’m not insane. I just like being the one with the power. It’s such fun.” Her eyes narrow. “And now, speaking of which…”

Come on, Cisco!  “Laurel!” Sara says in desperation. “We could really use your powers here, use them for good. I'm sorry they weren't appreciated there, that you weren't appreciated there, but you could be, here."

She sees a spark of surprise in the other woman’s eyes, quickly concealed. Siren pouts, dark lips forming a moue of annoyance, as she steps closer.  

"The time for that is past, dear Sara," she says lightly. "Besides which, she tried to convince me of that, too." A shrug. "She was wrong. And then she died."

Sara can feel Leonard's arm move as he grips the cold gun besides her, as she grasps for more distraction. She seizes, then, the very real grief she feels bubbling up at the other woman's words.

"You were her sister," she cries, her tone full of anguish. "Even if you hated her... even if you had reasons... how could you kill her? Just tell me that."  

Siren seems just as stunned by Sara's words as Sara herself is. She blinks a moment, then says, "It was an accident."

They both stare at the Earth-2 woman. Black Siren glances away, but she continues.

"You had earplugs," she says, as if to herself, as if she's forgotten again that this is not the same Sara. "They fell out. I didn't know... Zoom was going to let me go, he was... he was just going to use you..."

Sara takes a step, feeling Leonard tense again. But she needs to take this opportunity, for more reasons than one. "I mean it," she says quietly. "You don't need to work for him here. You could change sides. It's not too late."

For a moment, Earth-2 Laurel Lance stares back at her little sister's Earth-1 version, and there's almost something besides mockery in her eyes. Something wistful.

But then they harden again, and she laughs.

"Oh, please. Really? After I've disposed of lover boy here and taken you back to Zoom, gotten him off my back, I think I'll head to Star City, see what my counterpart is up to." Her lips curve. "She should be easy to dispose of, and then I might be able to get an actual life back. Is it any less than she deserves, for being such a little..."

Sara lunges for her, bo in one hand, knife in the other. Leonard curses, bringing the cold gun into firing position. And at that moment, the S.T.A.R. Labs secret weapon blankets the city in vibrations designed to take out the residents of Earth-2.

And Black Siren claps her hands to her head with a look of horror on her face--before dropping like a marionette with her strings cut.

Sara stutters to a halt, then drops to her knees by the other woman's side, a hand covering her mouth, shoulders shaking. With her free hand, she reaches out toward the Black Siren’s shoulder, stopping just shy, her fingers trembling, unable to bridge the final centimeter of space. Leonard hesitates just a moment, then puts a hand on her shoulder, and she reaches up to put hers over it.

They're still there, motionless, when Barry arrives.

They go back to her apartment this time, the solitude much-needed, Sara giving the request to Leonard in a voice that’s more numb than anything else.

Once they’ve parked their bikes, he takes one look at her standing there, staring at the building with a blank expression… and then makes a decision. Moving slowly so she can see what he’s doing, he steps closer, then swings her up into a bridal-style carry and makes his way toward the door.

Then up the stairs. Into a sparse apartment that has less sign of someone actually living there than the S.T.A.R. Labs medical rooms. Into the bedroom, where she finally stirs from her curl in his arms to motion, still wordlessly, for him to put her down. When he does, she divests herself of her uniform in small, efficient, unthinking movements, finally peeling back the bed covers only to stare at them like she's not sure what to do.

Leonard's the one who gently pushes her down until she’s stretched out on the bed, then pulls the covers up over her. But as he does, small, strong fingers wrap around his wrist, tug him toward her and down.

He caves, lying down next to her and pulling her into his arms with a sigh. She curls up there with a sigh of her own and is asleep in moments.

Leonard intends to wait only until she’s out—as comfortable as he is, and as much as he’d like to stay with her, there are things he needs to do. But it’s been a long day, a long, exhausting, stressful day with only one brief rest. It’s not much longer before he’s out too, breathing evenly and deeply as they slumber.

Sometime in the middle of the night, he wakes from a sound sleep to find Sara staring at him from only a few inches away, eyes nearly purple in the dim light, hand on his chest. After a moment, she leans forward to kiss him, lips soft, then increasingly urgent.

They’d been having fun, before. Blowing off steam and enjoying each other.

This is different. This, he thinks, not long later, every sense filled with Sara, is what people call love-making. 

He’s never understood that before, not really. He does now.  

This is… healing. Far more than the physical, more than a satisfying release. And when she whispers his name on a breathless cry, hands tightening on his shoulders, the words he responds with are not her name.

It’s nothing he’s thought out. Nothing he’d expected to ever say. But other words and thoughts from throughout the day keep echoing through his head and…

Since I knew it contained Sara Lance.

There are people who simply seem to find each other in all the worlds we know.

You were each other's balance, on my Earth.

… and life can change, so fast.

He sees her eyes widen, even as he, too, gasps, shuddering over her as her arms tighten again around him. And then she whispers. His name.

A few other words.

He lowers himself to the bed, pulls her into his arms. She buries her face in his neck.

And they hold each other.

He waits until she's sound asleep again, then carefully disentangles himself, rising and searching for the clothing discarded earlier. Dressed, he scrawls a quick note, then stands there a moment, looking down at her, thinking about the paths he's chosen and those he's walked away from, and why he's done what he's done.  

What he wants.  

How it's changed.  

And then he goes back to S.T.A.R. Labs.

#central city rendezous #captain canary #legends of tomorrow #sara lance #leonard snart