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steddieas-shegoes · 6 months

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Drabble idea for the ask thing: Steve works at a tattoo shop and Eddie works at a flower shop, they both get odd looks when they tell people about their job. Bonus: Eddie gets a tattoo of a flower from Steve and that's how they meet.

This is like if you took call me sunshine, send me to space and made it cuter with a flower shop and made Steve the tattoo artist instead. I'm just gonna write the bonus scene because that's a lot to keep 500 words or less and we all know how I go on 😂 Don't @ me over the super sappy ending, someone with spoons please write another 50k of this.

🌷🌼🌻🌷🌼🌻🌷🌼🌻

"You want a wildflower bouquet in the space of your full sleeve?" Steve stared at the fully tattooed man over his glasses, brows raised in disbelief. "I'm not one to judge tattoo choices but you seem to know what you're doing and I'm a bit confused as to how that fits with...anything else on your arm."

Steve had definitely done some wild tattoos. He was actively part of so many bad decisions made by people who would live to regret getting their girlfriend's name on their neck or the face of their best friend on their thigh.

But this one was different in that this guy had clearly meticulously planned out every tattoo on his body, and that was a lot of tattoos, and now he wanted to add...wildflowers. In between skulls and guitars and some metal band logo. Right.

"Yeah and if it's a problem, I can go somewhere else, man. I just heard a lot of good things about you and my flower shop is two doors down, so-"

"Wait. You're Eddie? You're the guy who owns the flower shop." Steve perked up, face relaxing more into a smile.

"The one and only. You been by?" Eddie didn't remember actually seeing Steve before.

He'd been shocked to walk in and see a barely tattooed Steve sitting behind the counter. Assuming he was the secretary, he'd said he was here for an appointment with the guy in charge, and Steve smiled and explained who he was.

"I haven't. But someone brought me a bouquet you made when I first opened and it was beautiful. Managed to keep it alive and thriving for almost two weeks, which is a record for me, and then someone said it was because of the way you take care of them before they're sold and the minerals you use in the water and I'm turning into Robin. Jesus."

Eddie was endeared.

Steve was looking down at his tablet in front of him, a barely visible sketch on it.

"Is that what you've come up with?" Eddie asked as he leaned over the counter to get a closer look.

They could talk about his love of the bouquet Eddie made later.

"Yeah, but. Now that I'm looking at you...I'm not sure it's right," Steve sighed, closing the app and looking back up at Eddie. "I can redesign at no charge and set up another consultation."

"Can I see?"

"Sure."

Steve pulled his tablet out and opened the picture back up.

It was beautiful, actually resembled a bouquet Eddie had done not long ago for his friend Jonathan.

"It's perfect. Can it be done in one long sitting or do we need to break it up?" Eddie smiled at Steve, pulling up the calendar on his phone to make an appointment.

"Uh. Well." Steve cleared his throat. "I guess you could probably handle the pain so all in one is fine with me? It's probably gonna be six hours with breaks every hour. Are you sure this is what you want?"

Eddie looked at the tablet again, tilting his head as he thought back to when he'd made this bouquet.

"Do you know Jonathan Byers?" Eddie asked, not looking away from the picture.

His eyes focused on the coneflower that he'd only been able to use in one bouquet before his part time employee found out they were allergic.

"Yeah...why?"

"He got you that bouquet, right?"

Steve nodded.

Eddie didn't really believe in fate or destiny or whatever type of miracle people tended to wish for. He also didn't believe in soulmates or the perfect partner.

But wildflowers grow anywhere, and sometimes love can too.

#steddie #steve harrington #eddie munson #stranger things #drabble #this is technically more than the one sentence thing but ah well #i kept it short still

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clouvu · 8 days

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Nothing in the world belongs to me But my love, mine, all mine

#genshin impact #arlecchino #peruere #clervie #ouhhhhhhhh im never gonna be able to emotionally recover from watching that animated short #ever since it came out a couple days ago just thinking of these two makes me feel like my heart is physically being ripped in half #i cant stop thinking about how Clervie was the only person in Arlecchino's life that she truly loved #like dont get me wrong Arlecchino loves her children in her own detached-fucked up way as much as any person with her amount of trauma can #but Clervie meant so much to her that even just her presence alone kept Arle's curse at bay #and it seems that no one other than Clervie herself has ever been able to break this unemotional/detached wall that Arle has put up #and maybe no one else ever will #DONT GET ME WRONG I still fw arle x other female harbingers like that shit is still peak #but oh my god the idea that arle never moved on after clervie's death and will never love anyone the way she loved her makes me want to SOB

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buwheal · 5 months

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BEACH OUTFIT 💥💥💥💥

He used to surf the web back in 98'.

#the clothes were so difficult for no reason i kept having to edit them #i actually really like this one lol #cunty uncle type thing going on #Also i love the HC that he as a plush tummy thats so cute and im stealing it #i was about to give him flipflops until i realized he cant do that #He had a dolphin print shirt but it looked ugly with the shorts and i really wanted the striped shorts lol #deltarune spamton #spamton #spamton g spamton #spamton fanart #deltarune #deltarune chapter 2 #i think it looks fine but still i hope it comes across he's resting his right arm on an invisible prop for the pose lol #there was a small little fella in the back of my mind who wanted to put him in a two piece but i couldnt sorry lmfao #edit: I forgot to write this out but I wanted to put it on any post bc i dont want to post a txt post just for this #but honestly he's gotta be some flavor of queer.#It doesnt matter to me which type all that much but I HC that even though he probably is #he has never been in a relationship and i dont think he ever will #he is so full of himself and he's kind of an ass tbh. That and i doubt he trusts anyone with what he's gone through #even if he got time to heal i dont think he'd ever trust someone enough to make a real relationship that way #Thats it thanks for coming to my ted talk #if you opened the tags here's your secret paragraph & im not sorry #BuwheArt

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sea-slug-rave · 2 years

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Cut lines/ scenes that I missed the most in the reboot:

“You took to long, now yo candy’s gone. BUCKOW!!”

“I liked your fairytale Puppycat. If you want we can try to figure out a nice ending.” Then the mysterious flash of the space outlaw in the window instead of just showing you earlier

Puppycat singing the birthday song “wow I didn’t think you’d actually do that 😳👀”

“It’s okay we can work with this!!”

“Your toilet’s leaking into my toilet.”

Scene where Cardemon hits Puppycat off the shelf with his hammer and while he’s falling he’s like “so.. this is how I die. What a sad life I lived. Whatever.”

The “I hate water” dance

Soon it will be cheese 😏

“If you didn’t have all these animals.. I’d murder you 😑”

Idk I liked the original scene of Puppycat walking in on Bee fixing her arm in her dad box better in the original it was more vulnerable and less “yeah you already knew I was a robot” LOVED that it showed that her box is a portal to her dad but didn’t like that that scene drowned out their conversation with the “what do you want to be when you grow up?” “I don’t know. Everything? Is that an answer? Everything.” The way she said it was just so comforting

Old man’s dog choking on Bee’s hair and her not even giving one fuck

THE OCTOPUS AND THE PRINCESS SONG MY HEART UGH

In cardemon’s little baby 5 year old posh voice: “she’s been asleep for a long time. I read somewhere that only a prince can wake up a sleeping princess. I thought if I helped you fall in love with sticky, I’d be acting princely, and maybe my mom would wake up. *buries his wittle hair into sticky* have.. you ever been in love Puppycat?”

“The hell you say? Time to go.” Then Puppycat floating over to Pretty Patrick Lunchtime and kicking snow over those ladybugs

“My ass. My ASS! MY AAAAASSSS!!”

“BETRAYAL.”

“Raicepe- reh- raicipee- recipe :)”

#bee and puppycat #I LOVED the reboot don’t get me wrong I’m not hating on it and I know the original shorts are still on YouTube #but I wish they would’ve kept a couple of these

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skala · 5 months

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Sometimes a question isn't asked to elicit a response. Sometimes a question simply demands itself. It imposes itself upon the scene like an obligation, weighs down the air, rustles the silence like a page of a script—

"What did they do to you?"

—and tears it apart, forcing itself to be spoken regardless of any particular desire to hear its answer.

Regardless, of whether one Dark Lord couldn't just look from the deep gashes etched across the prone figure before him to the cord tied tight around their neck and make an inference.

He took a half-step forward, from the doorframe into the harsh light of the cell. The figure recoiled a little. When they raised their head from the ground their expression appeared momentarily apprehensive, though it clouded at the sight of him. What did those [redacted] misbegotten sons of [redacted]s DO to you?

Only before he could speak again there was a movement, a painful struggle of limbs weighed down as if exhaustion lay upon them heavier than iron—yet when they gained their footing they lurched, reaching out, reaching for, and in that instant the questions ceased to matter. The broken glass and the walls around them ceased to matter; the urgency of escape, like the sounds of battle somewhere above them faded to background noise, as distant as the past. Here, at this time, they were The Dark Lord and The Chosen One—just them, each holding to the other as if nothing had changed and nothing else mattered except you, you're here, you're alive.

The Dark Lord was alive. He could feel his heartbeat where Chosen's head was resting against his sternum, the pulse of his code steadier than it had any right to be. He could hear Chosen's voice, a whisper like a caesura between wracked breaths; he could feel his throat constrict as he tried and failed to respond.

He could hear Chosen's voice. He couldn't remember it ever sounding like this, but some things didn't change.

"Dark?"

Dark. That's right, he remembered, that's the way it was. Dark, plain and simple. It was Chosen who'd started calling him that, wasn't it? Before he'd called him Chosen. Dark, as though he wasn't some lord of darkness but the darkness itself, because—what was it he’d said? Because darkness could be whatever it wanted?

(Not that he could remember exactly what his past self had wanted. There were details missing, in murky pools of memory he wasn’t especially keen on stirring right now… but he knew he'd never wanted to be a lord. He just wanted to be—)

"Dark," Chosen repeated, his voice returning with a suddenness that caught at something in Dark's chest. It drew him higher, reigniting a few sparks of the long-dormant flame therein.

Chosen's embrace loosened by degrees. "You can't—be here, you're not—"

He abruptly stiffened, pulled back to search Dark's eyes with a kind of tempered mistrust. And Dark remembered they'd been enemies too. He'd seen that expression once before.

But before Chosen could say anything else Dark reached up, caught the rope around Chosen's neck with one fist and lit his palm on fire.

"I am. Believe it." Dark let the smoldering rope fall to his feet and stepped over it, meeting Chosen’s stare. "And none of that 'I must be dreaming' crap, not from you."

Chosen rubbed at his neck. "…No. I know I'm awake."

"Good. I've been asleep for the past three years, so I’m certain. I'm here," Dark grinned. He looked around. "And now, Chosen... you're gonna tell me where the hell 'here' is."

#ava #animator vs animation #ava the box #ava fanfic #just a short one - still gotta decide where I want to take this concept #(context: rocket org found Dark's body post-showdown and kept him in stasis in the hopes of using him against the animator once revived)#(what they didn't account for is that upon reanimation Dark would break out and find Chosen in about 10 minutes flat)

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bonebrokebuddy · 2 years

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A TROPE I WOULD LIKE TO SEE EXPLORED MORE:

I’ve seen many fics where it hits the general story beats of: Danny gets approached by Gotham citizens. They talk to him like they know Danny but he has never seen these people before in his life. Eventually he finds out that people are mistaking him for a batkid. Eventually the look-alikes meet and they share stories of how they got confused for each other and wanted to meet the other to see who they kept getting confused for.

I’ve seen authors do this mainly with Gotham citizens or a member of the batfamily mistaking Danny for a member of the batfamily.

But I haven’t seen many examples of the reverse. An Amity Park citizen approaching a batkid thinking that they are Danny.

Imagine the possibilities. The many hcs about creepy Amity Park would mesh perfectly with this. The batkids would be massively confused and be very concerned because like,

What the fuck is wrong with these weird people who keep approaching him and asking when his parent’s wrist rays are going to go back in stock because their old one broke? Who is this “Danny” guy and why do they look enough alike for them to be mistaken for the other multiple times in one day? What the fuck is wrong with the town these guys are coming from because when they are background checked they’ve all came from this small town in Illinois? And why do these people keep thinking he’s been possessed by ghost then pull weird sci-fi looking guns out of nowhere and fire at him with weird green goo when they say they’re not Danny?

Ways this prompt could work in many different ways for different batkids with the above scenario (but if you write something about Amity Park members mistaking a batkid for Danny, please tag me i would love to read it):

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DAMIAN

Initially, the Amity Park citizen thought that Danny was doing his “spooky eye” thing but then after the kid said he wasn’t Danny, they realized it was a sign of possession. Damian isn’t possessed; he just has green eyes.

ANOTHER ROUTE:

Damian thinks that one of his clones has escaped the league of assassins and now is living a normal life in Amity. Seeking to get rid of the weaker clone, Damian goes to Amity to kill Danny. They fight but Danny tries to talk it out and eventually, after nearly being murdered in his bed multiple nights in a row, consents to DNA testing. The best part? Because Danny canonically has fucked up dna due to that “his molecules got all rearranged” so, for this, it means that Danny’s DNA is so fucked up when trying to do any testing on it, that it’s essentially unreadable. So they are never able to actually finally disprove that Danny isn’t related to Damian (who is paranoid that the birth certificates and baby photos of Danny could be elaborately faked by the league of assassins because they cannot biologically disprove that they are not related but jokes on him, they’re not actually related. They just look alike).

——————

TIM

Tim notes the name Amity Park and once he gets back to the batcave, he begins his research. And is then immediately concerned at the blatant digital non-existence up of the entire town. There are some news reports, a town website, articles about places to visit and restaurants to eat at. But that's it. Just articles and official websites that are oddly blank. He can find no social media posts or blogs or any online activity at all from people inside Amity Park. No tweets with the location set to Amity, no youtube channels, no school email addresses, no nothing from people within Amity.

Just complete digital silence.

Whoever was responsible was doing a pretty shitty job at hiding that they were covering up something big. And all it took was a VPN with the location set in Amity with Justice League clearance and he was in.

Amateurs.

Tim sat back as the batcomputer began compiling and sorting the previously hidden information. Five minutes into the scan, a popup appeared with the first set of interesting things about Amity. The most notable was that the town has been being attacked by monsters they called “ghosts” for over 5 years now. The second was that there was an previously undocumented organization that claimed to be government funded but with further research, it wasn’t clear which government as a little digging revealed the money to be sourced from multiple of them. The third was the Dr.s Fenton research. Research seemed to have changed from the belief that ghosts were non-sentient forms of energy fueled by their last emotions alive to the current perception of ghosts not only being sentient but there being countless and very intriguing research papers on the history, governments, and cultures from a variety of ghost societies.

The fourth popup was the surface level information on Danny Fenton. As the batcomputer would need more time to find more information. And holy shit. The guy did look like him. Well, almost. In the most recent photo that Danny posted with his friends, Tim could clearly see that there were a few differences. Namely, his build. Fenton was visibly more muscular with broader shoulders and a few inches taller. But scrolling back through the images, he found one from before Danny got his apparent growth spurt and they looked nearly identical. Sure Tim had a slightly different jawline, different eye shape with the color a different shade of blue. But Danny looked like if someone tried to draw Tim from memory. It was uncanny. But there was much larger things to worry about as a new chime from the batcomputer brought his attention and to his shock, he already had access to the ghost investigation ward’s database. There is no way that the batcomputer's program automatic searching for firewall weakness actually worked on a government clearance server. But probing around in the server, it became quickly apparent that it wasn’t easily accessible false information to give to people so they think they’ve achieved their goal. No, the automatic system actually worked and someone had left a convenient backdoor to the server that gave him access through an “Agent K’s” clearance.

There was so much data available that it quickly became clear to Tim that it would take a while to sort through it all. Glancing over the different files, Tim froze and clicked on a file labeled “Fenton-Lazarus-Agreement.pdf”. It took a while to read as the scanned contract was so compressed that it was nearly illegible. This “Ghost Investigation Ward” was planning on performing experiments combining Lazarus Water with a substance only referred to as “purified ectoplasm” to see how it affected ghosts, humans, and to see how it could be integrated into weapons that could equally affect both. Horrified, Tim began to comb through as much information as he could find. But while Agent K had clearance to know about the upcoming plans for these tests, they did not have access to any other communication about it. So, with no other easily exploitable trapdoor, Tim set to work sorting through encrypted and classified information.

No shit whoever it was left the obvious backdoor, he would too after how damn long it took to unencrypt the damn messages, it was almost inhuman how difficult it was. He had to meet the guy who hacked into the organization first. Because whoever it was, had his undying respect and he just wished that the dude got access to the rest of the database because if they were hiding it this well, it must be something really bad.

Several hours later, the lights of the batcave have long since automatically shut off. The light from the batcomputer being the only source of illumination still on, casting harsh dramatic shadows across the billions of dollars worth of equipment and trophies around him. While Tim knew he shouldn’t be down here this late because the light will disturb the natural sleep cycle of the bats within it, right now he did not care. But Tim’s attention wasn’t focused on the familiarly creepy atmosphere of the cave or the sound of the unnaturally active bats. His eyes, now red and dry from straining for hours looking at the bright light were focused on the records of communications between the Al Ghul’s glaring down at him from the screen. The unencrypted emails detailed an agreement for the exchange of “Fenton Works weapons and gadgets” in return for Lazarus water. Tim reread the emails again and again. Fenton Works. He knew that something was up. From what he recalled from the guy who shot green goo at him earlier that day, they mentioned something about “wrist rays” available for purchase by the Fentons. Guess his doppelganger was more involved in Tim’s life than he previously thought. .

After spending many days researching and compiling information, Tim was able to send a full, cohesive report to Bruce first, then the Justice League as further investigation of goings-on in the Ghost Investigation Ward and Amity Park revealed that there was much more being covered up than just the ghosts and the connection to the League of Assassins in the little midwestern town.

Tim was able to convince Bruce to let him be apart of the scouting and information gathering team when the League was cleared to investigate Amity Park. He really wanted to find the guy who was able to hack into the Ghost Investigation Ward’s security, get some Fenton Works tech incase ghost attacks ever occurred in Gotham, and to maybe meet this Danny guy and see if he can ask him if there is a way to get ectoplasm out of clothing because the last Amity Park guy who thought he was processed got a shot in and the ectoplasm stain wont come out of his favorite shirt.

--------

Jason

This wasn’t Jason’s first encounter with an Amity citizen, but this was the first time they landed a shot in and it hurt. The middle aged black man stood in front of Jason with his gun still raised. The man wore a light blue work polo with tan pants. The shirt was embroidered with a company logo of an “Axion Labs” in white followed by the attacker’s name, Damon Gray, embroidered in black.

Barely having any time to recover from the shot, the Gray continued his barrage of fire and yelled, “GET OUT OF DANNY YOU GHOST!” Jason narrowly dodged the rays coming at him of the weird toxic green energy that was so bright it almost flickered out of human perception. So Jason did the reasonable thing and ran. He needed to escape the barrage of bullets and couldn’t fight back in his civilian gear. Dodging into a nearby alleyway to escape the blasts, Jason jumped up in the nearby fire escape and hastily began to climb. Pain erupted from his shoulder as he looked down and saw Gray with surprising amounts of dexterity and mobility for a man around 50, easily hop up on the fire escape and continued to fire. And so the chase continued. The guy was a surprisingly good shot, as evident from the stinging pain in his back and shoulder and it was a relief when finally Jason was able to loose the attacker. But by the time he donned his red hood gear, the asshole was gone.

Unbeknownst to Jason, Damon Grey had hurriedly changed course as he realized that if he missed the meeting he flew over 800 miles to get to, his boss would kill him regardless if it was to stop a possession or not. On the train, he opened up his Amity Alert App and reported the possession and location to let the rest of the town to keep a lookout for Danny and excuse any actions he may make until the ghost is removed.

800 miles away, three alerts rung off from three phones, one with a galaxy case, one in a purple case, and one in an absolute brick of a case that looked like it would survive a nuclear blast before it let the phone inside break. Tucker looked up from his computer and went to turn the alert off before he paused. Looked back the notification then over his shoulder where Danny sat at assembling a Fenton Works device (Danny seriously regrets letting Tucker set up that online shop because now his days are mostly filled with helping keep up with the backlog of orders. His parents’ age are gaining on them and they don’t have the ability to constantly be making inventions like they used to. So, Danny does his best to help out.) with Sam working on a different order next to him. Both of them haven already turned their respective phone’s alerts off.

“Hey Danny”, Tucker called out, making Danny pause from his current task of assembling a Fenton Lipstick Blaster and turn his head to look at Tucker,

“Yeah dude?”

Holding his phone close to his face and clearly enunciating to emphasize the message, Tucker began to read, “Are you aware that at 12:43pm today you were spotted being processed in Gotham by Valerie’s Dad?” Tucker lowered his phone and looked back up at Danny who had fully put down his tools and reached for his own phone.

“Didn’t you say that El was visiting Spain right now?”

“Yeah, she sent me a photo of a seagull stealing someone’s hat from there, like, two hours ago.” Tucker could see Danny tapping around on his phone, presumably opening his conversation with Dani.

Danny’s eyebrows furrowed and he paused looking at his screen. “No, she definitely wouldn’t have been able to travel back to the US by now unless she found a natural portal or called Wulf. But I’m going to text her again really quick just to make sure.”

Tucker got up and walked over to where the ghost boy and Sam sat at the workbench. Then they waited. A few moments later, the typing indicator’s dots popped up and a new message appeared.

It read, “Nope! I’m still in Spain? I saw the alert, are you okay?”

After typing a response, Danny laid his phone down on the cluttered workbench rubbed his face in his hands and turned to face Sam and Tucker.

“What the fuck do we do now?”

#dp x dc #dc comics #batman #danny phantom #jason todd #damian wayne #tim drake #writing prompt #dp x dc prompt #who am i kidding this is basically the outline of a fic #you can tell that as i went on i just kept getting ideas and it just kept getting more and more eborate #this was meant to be 200 words tops #this is now 2.4k #my bad im awful at keeping stuff short and not shoving weird bits of worldbuilding and story detail into things #my bad #im awful at keeping these short and keep adding random bits of worldbuilding and technicalities and story detail i #into what is meant to be just prompts to get the idea out there #and now i have around 10k of unfinished story ideas and fairly elaborate worldbuilding about fawcett city that i have been working on #for maybe about a month or so and i keep just adding things to it #and most of it i still need to transfer into writing because the ideas are for the fawcett city stuff is mainly stored in audio notes #and i need to write them out and make them less of vague ideas #and i just know that is going to take me ages #the worst part is i have to post my original founding idea of where most of my other ideas for fawcett stem from #and so the adding on ideas dont make as much sense if i dont have the main thing posted already #so i have tons of halfwritten things for fawcett city worldbuilding and how to make it super memorable and have golden age comic logic #be essentially integrated into the very founding of Fawcett #but i keep having new ideas so i dont work on that one but i also really want to get it done because im very proud of it but ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh #anyways #thats all for now #hope you enjoyed the prompts

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murkybu · 2 years

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kill kill maim kill etc

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nicoscheer · 5 months

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SIIIIIIRRRRRR ?!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

especially cause he ain’t linked nowhere in the post

Always great fun when official sites use edited Milex pics for their posts 🤣🫠

#like utterly unlikely cause Miles is touring his own solo album in 2024 and Alex is in his post tour hibernation #but we can be delusional #I personally doubt we’ll see Alex out of hibernation for at least another two years lol 😭😭#and will have to live of rare pics ever few months to know he’s still alive and hopefully still has hair #tlsp3 #‘rumor’#we’ve been extra delusional and manifesting this week it seems #but honestly kinda hope they’ll wait a few years cause I need money 😅😅 (and would love to a short reprieve before Alex suddenly jumps onto #stage as a polar opposite to his the car character cause otherwise I might get whiplash)#adoring the choice of photo 🥹#would be kinda sweet if they kept the eight year gap but most unlikely #maybe he just liked it cause he likes that we still think and are delusional about them or cause he likes the Idee to come back #also love that he hasn’t removed the like #oh my puppetsspace posted my pic on their story so honored

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graceofagodswrath · 2 years

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Humans Are Feral: Part 2

Wow, I did not expect that last post to be received so well, and so fast. Thanks so much to all those who left awesome comments, reblogs and notes. And since it was received so well, I decided to go ahead and write the part two I’ve been thinking about since part one.

So, humans can vicious and absolutely feral at times. Our society often criticizes such behavior, referring to it as “acting like an animal.” And don’t get me started on how humans love to make themselves seem important by separating ourselves from the rest of the animal kingdom whether from religious belief or simple egotism. But our animal instincts are still a part of us, even though they have been suppressed through hundreds of years of societal evolution. The biggest example of these primal instincts is the fight or flight response. This is one we commonly experience in day to day situations, however small they may seem. From situations like: being in a crowded room and feeling the urge to run because of overwhelming social anxiety. Or being at the in-laws and they make a rude comment, and you just want to snap back or run out of the house. But you suppress those feelings in order to appear “civilized/normal.” Just some tidbits on human psychology I think about a lot.

But that thing that I mostly think about is how we react in extremely stressful and dangerous situations. One’s in which we perceive are life-threatening. I have been put in a situation where I was nearly fighting for my life, and I remember the wildness I felt. There were no verbal thoughts in my head, nothing I remember being normal. All I could feel was this kind of fear-rage in which I was scared as hell, but also angry because I was scared. I remember the adrenaline and the realization that if I was going to die, I was going to fight with everything I had. Which, looking back, seems kind of strange. Many animals often give up if they realize they’re going to die. But humans don’t. Any kind of hope, any kind of need to fight and survive is all we need to keep going. We rarely just give up.

Imagine:

A ship of imperial soldiers of the Fiuldarian Empire had sighted the Star Chaser. All crew had done their best to push the ship to her point, trying to outrun the imperial flagship. But it was no use. Within a few ticks they had been flown down and anchored. But the soldiers never boarded, which scared Captain Din:ai. She stood in the control room before her holoscreens, staring with fear-blown eyes. The imperial ship never sent a communications, nor did it fire any weapons. She had no idea what was going to happen.

Until something did happen.

From the comm, Equaloi’s high-pitched screams shattered the tense silence. The feathered Unaga’o cried out something in their native tongue before a wet gargle cut his voice. His comm cut off, but not before a strange clicking and growl were heard. All in the room stood still, antenna, fur, and scaly plates twitching with anticipation. All eyes stared up at the Captain, awaiting her orders. Or reassurance. Something. But the tall Diralo stood as still as her crew, three-fingered hands balled tightly.

The comm went off again, making several in the room jump. This time heavy breathing sounded. “I just found Equaloi and Fir’nad.” Alex Risach, the only human among Din:ai’s crew. They sounded unnervingly calm, but there was something off about their voice. “They’re not…alive. And they’re all over the place.” Din’ai drew in a sharp breath, her breathing cavities in her chest whistling lowly. Two dead. But not from soldiers.

Din:ai pressed the receiver. “What do you mean by ‘all over the place’?”

“I mean,” Alex said. “That they are in pieces. Torn apart.” Alex’s next sentence made Din:ai’s blood grow cold. “Imperial soldiers did not do this.” Din:ai remained silent, thinking desperately about what to do. Her long kallocks of experience did not prepare her for this situation. Because as much as she wished to deny it, the last few minutes made it clear what was going on. Something was aboard the Star Chaser. And it was extremely dangerous.

“Risach, listen to me. You must make your way to the control room. Any crew you find must follow these same instructions. Whatever is aboard is extremely dangerous, and must not be approached until we know what it is. Do you copy?” There was silence on the other side. Din:ai grew tenser with every quiet second. “Risach, do you copy?”

A click of the comm. And an alien screeching. Angry words could be heard in a human language, one Din:ai did not recognize as a common tongue. Then a feral scream, one that had the scales along Din:ai’s back arching in terror. Every crew member listened in rapt attention, all trying to imagine what was going on behind the sounds.

Then Alex’s voice screaming above the commotion.

“GET SHIT ON MOTHERFUCKER!” A howling squeal followed. A click as the comm turned off. Another click as it turned back on. “On my way to the control room. I recommend all weapons off safety and for everyone to take cover. This thing is mean and ugly as sin.” Their heavy breathing didn’t hide the deep gruffness in their voice. Din:ai pushed away the observation. She could worry about deciphering human language tones later.

She reached under her command center, grabbing the firearm she had hidden earlier. All other crew in the room followed suit. Din:ai pulled up a hole map of the ship, centering in on Alex’s orange-dotted life signal. And the life signal following them. The label above the beeping red dot read ‘unknown’. Both signals were closing in on the command room’s eastern doorway. The giant Diralo captain signaled to all crew present to aim their weapons at the door.

“Anything non-human coming through that door gets shot, understood?” Nods and chirps of agreement. The room became quiet once more, the atmosphere thick with fear-scent. Then sounds could be heard beyond the door. A strange clicking-screeching drowned out everything. Din:ai jerked when banging sounded on the other side of the door. Alex’s voice muffled through the walls.

“OPEN IT!” Din:ai shouted. Yugi, a derumo juvenile who was closest to the door, hit the controls beside it. The door slide upward, exposing the dim hallway and the blood-covered human behind it. Alex sprinted through, turning to aim their weapon at the open doorway.

Then the creature appeared. All recoiled at the sight. Alex spoke true. It was immensely ugly. It resembled a Terran arachnid, long spindly legs supporting a large, hulking body that stood just above Alex’s height. But that is where similarities ended. It was covered in black chitinous armor, spiked and sharp. A pair of spindly arms with elongated claws sat beneath its head. It’s head swayed low, its mouth shaped like a five pointed star shape, teeth covering every flesh surface. Beady black eyes stared from its skull, reflecting the light beaming down. It screeched and charged toward Alex. The crew opened fire.

The gunfire seemed to stop it for a moment before it grew confident again. Because the barrage of bullets and energy weapons barely dented its thick black armor. The clawed arms beneath its head rose to protect its eyes from the oncoming assault.

The gunfire began to lessen as ammo was lost, and the creature noticed. With its head shielded, it approached through the fire storm. That’s when a cloud of fire billowed over it. It screeched and fell back. Alex stalked forward, their weapon drawn against their shoulder, and let loose another bout of streaming flame. The creature retreated, it’s clicks an incessant stream of fearfulness.

“I am so glad I grabbed my flamethrower instead!” Alex shouted. Many of the crew realized their weapons were not effective against the creature, backing under their respective shelters beneath command boards.

Alex’s weapon sputtered and lost its flame. A curse under their breath and they scrambled to reload. But they weren’t fast enough. The creature sprang forward in the moment of weakness and latched its jaws around Alex’s leg. Alex screamed as the beast tore into flesh, red blood spattering on the white floors. It but down and began dragging Alex away, swinging and throwing them around. Alex screamed and cursed in their human tongue, beating at the creature’s head with their weapon.

The weaponless crew could only watch as their human crew mate battled a seemingly hopeless war. Some had run to the western doors, opening them and running away into the depths of the ship.

Din:ai was of the few that stayed, aiming a nearly empty energy gun at the armored beast. She was horrified watching as Alex was tossed about. But what more surprised her was the continued struggle on Alex’s part. They didn’t stop. They continued to beat down upon the creature’s head, screaming and kicking with their free leg at any exposed hide. Even as more blood was lost they fought back.

And Din:ai felt some of her courage, if not shame, return watching the small human fight. She aimed her gun, locking onto the beast’s one exposed weakness: it’s eyes. The black beady things were covered with it’s strange claws, shielding itself from the onslaught of Alex’s flamethrower. The creature was snarling as it dragged Alex, but Alex was snarling back. Din:ai, waiting for an opening, watched as Alex dug the flamethrower beneath the creatures contorted claws, letting go and tearing at it face with their own hands. Their fingers tore wildly, landing on the creatures jaws, trying to part the cage of flesh and teeth latched to their leg. Alex was able to tear away one of the creature’s jaw flaps and pulling with all their strength, ripped it off. Din:ai’s eyes widened. The creature screamed, and Alex screamed back.

The pain the creature was experiencing caused it to lose focus. It’s claws dropped, exposing its eyes. Din:ai took the shot. The wet, electrical sound of an energy discharge into flesh was heard. The creature stopped screaming. Instead it contorted and struggled. Alex was dropped, rolling away and clutching their leg. The creature continued its death throes for a moment more, then its legs curled together and it slumped to the ground, becoming still.

When Din:ai was sure the creature was dead, she crawled down to Alex. The human was clinging to their leg, clutching the horrific wound still leaking blood. Din:ai leaned over them tearing of her clothing covering her torso. She went to move Alex’s hands, but the deep growl the human made caused her to freeze. Din:ai had never heard such sounds come from humans, nor did she know they could do such things. They sounded as ugly as the creature’s. She stared down at Alex.

“Please remove your hands. We need to stifle the bleeding.” Alex stared up at her with large eyes, the white around the brown irises strangely animalistic. Scared and wild. Their chest was heaving, breath loud and raspy. They growled again, baring their teeth in a ugly grimace, then exhaling and letting their hands drop. Din:ai surveyed the wound before wrapping it. The beast had torn the flesh away from the bone, the off-white color unnatural underneath the red flesh. Bits of skin and meat hung from the wound, held together by the thinnest of muscle sinew. It was terrible.

Din:ai wrapped it, ignoring the red blood collecting on her hands. She instead focused on Alex’s wellbeing. “You are extraordinary.” She said. “I always wondered why you humans are held in such high regard. You should not be alive after that beast had you in its jaws.”

Alex snorted. “I’m from Australia.” They grunted, grimacing in pain. “I’ve seen bigger fuckers than that thing. Dealt with worse than that thing.”

Din:ai did not doubt her colleague’s words.

~~~~~~

Wow this was fun. This is the kind of stuff I like to write. Horror-thriller short stories with a little bit of badassery sprinkled in. Thank you again to everyone who bombarded my phone with notifications about how liked my first post was. That was wild. Brought me back to my Wattpad days. If anyone has any suggestions for future story prompts, I may or may not use it. I love writing about how humans can be stupid badasses, it brings in the serotonin. This blog might even become more sci-fi short stories with “humans are space orcs/Australians/insane” prompts. Dunno. lets see what happens.

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