thesarcasticside

[thesarcasticside]

Me: man I miss my space au but I'm so behind and out of the fandom I'd be so unqualified/write ooc

My space au: is literally so outside of canon I could do literally whatever I wanted

#im still alive #i should add writing cosmic latte to the list of things i want to do this year

[thesarcasticside]

Hey guys Etho's base has a fun format

#looks more like an alien ray gun to me lol

[thesarcasticside]

Who’s she?

[ID: Janus Sanders in his skirt look, sitting with his hands clasped and looking away from the camera. White text in a thin loopy script at the top of the image reads, “Dukeceit Week 2022.” Further down, more white text reads, “August 14-20 @dukeceitweek.” /end ID]

Remus

The prompt list is coming soon—keep your eyes peeled!

Join the discord server here!

Reblog to spread the word, and be sure to follow + turn on post notifications to stay up to date on all the latest Dukeceit Week news! :)

[thesarcasticside]

concept: a robot girlfriend calling you pet names like ‘highest priority’

[thesarcasticside]

A robot's endless efforts to smile acceptably

This fic has been a long time coming, in the sense that it’s the first thing I post for this AU since late 2020. I am not sure if it’s anything my followers recall and I think the taglist I made for it has faded into obscurity. I will tag the people on the taglist that still have their URL from back then, and they are all welcome to tell me to remove them from the taglist, in case there will be any new installments again in the near future.

The AU in question is “A victorian steampunk fantasy scientists and robots AU” (click that link for the previous fic written for it)

This will serve as a prequel of sorts! It can potentially work on its own for that reason, but I do recommend my previous one. I’m still kind of proud of it and it has a lot of loceit banter.

Thank you so much to @rainbowbutterfrosting​ for beta-reading and for adding to the ending!

Read on AO3

Characters: Patton, Roman, and some original human characters

Warnings: Strong feelings of inferiority, distress, implied forced memory loss, mistreatment

Summary:

It was January 15th of 1887, when Patton was created. When he heard the voice of a human for the first time and clung onto it like nothing else. He learned how to function properly, and how to stay aware of his shortcomings. Yet something is amiss at the facility, and a robot much like him is malfunctioning in strange ways.

A prequel to “How two exasperated doctors adopted three robots” detailing Patton’s creation and early existence.

Word count: 4019

It was January 15th of 1887, when Patton was created. It was that day he first recognized a human voice. Nothing else but that voice mattered, he decided, because he wasn’t sure what the rest of the passing lines of code and words within him meant. The human voice made sense, so he listened carefully, even if he couldn’t quite understand it all.

“Is it on?” a voice asked.

“Hm, its eyes don’t seem to be working,” another one said.

“Can it speak?” the first voice asked, “Patton. Speak.”

Something within Patton started circulating because it appeared to realize that he was ‘it’ and ‘it’ was ‘Patton’. “Hello.” 

“It has to be capable of saying more than that,” the second voice noted.

“Patton. Introduce yourself.”

“Hello. I am Patton. What can I do for you?” he responded mechanically. 

“Better. Go fix the wiring for the eyes, will you?”

Keep reading

[thesarcasticside]

Senecio rowleyanus (Curio rowleyanus)

Senecio is a large genus in a large family - the Asteraceae, or Daisy Family. All members of the family have small flowers grouped in a cup-like structure called a capitulum, and often the outside ring of flowers have one stretched-out side, giving them the “daisy” look seen in such familiar flowers as marguerites or black-eyed susans or coneflowers. In the case of Senecio rowleyanus, there is no such outside ring, so we see only a cup of tiny flowers - but it is still in the Daisy Family. The plant itself lives up to its common name “string of pearls” on account of it small spherical leaves arrayed like beads on a necklace along the string-like stems. Native to dry parts of western South Africa and neighboring southern Namibia. Recently, this species and its relatives have been moved into the new genus Curio, but this has not yet gained wide acceptance.

-Brian

[thesarcasticside]

I wanna find out who is still in the sanders sides fandom to follow more people. Please interact with this if you are still part of the fandom!

#Still like Sander Sides though I think I have started liking minecraft a lot more it's okay though

[thesarcasticside]

Reblog if you are a fanfiction author and would like your readers to put one of your fic titles in your ask + questions about it

#Fanfic ask game

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

#Just gonna give this another reblog #Somebody please attempt my secret code #its fun and angsty I promise :'D

[thesarcasticside]

I had the pleasure to work with the fantastic @dramaticsnakes for @ts-storytime 's Big Bang! They wrote an incredible fic about faes and mysteries, so please do yourself a favor and go read it here!

also bonus because I especially loved these two's dynamic

#not mine #this is so cool i love it so much

[thesarcasticside]

The Worldless Woods

@ts-storytime Oh damn it’s time. Welcome to my entry for The Sanders Sides Big Bang challenge of 2021!

I’ve been working on this since February and it’s been quite a journey. I’m incredibly proud to have planned and completed a project of this size with a deadline. I had no idea I’d be able to do something like that.

Please check out this incredible art by @doydoune.

Thank you to my beta-reader @rainbowbutterfrosting, to @a-vintage-snake, as well as my queerplatonic partner @anxiously-creating. A longer author’s note can be found by the actual fic on ao3.

AO3 LINK

Pairings: Qpr Dukeceit, Qpr Royality, Romantic Analogical

Word count: 88,974

Cw: past child abuse, past psychological and physical abuse, ableism, death/murder mentions, slight hints at suicidal thoughts but nothing explicit, body horror/animal body horror illusions, dead animal illusions, things that move when they shouldn’t, basically Remus makes creepy illusions, isolation, being trapped, threats, manipulation, unsympathetic side-characters, spider mentions, organ mentions, blood mentions, innuendos, food

Fic summary: Janus seeks an escape after being locked away by his parents his entire life, rushing through the dark and magical forest that separates his town from the rest of the world, hoping they won’t find him. Tales of the fae and other terrifying creatures in the forest make him on guard, and he expects either death or an escape. What he doesn’t expect is to encounter a faerie, who is not at all what he imagined one to be, and who is in many senses of the word, just as stuck as he is.

When Patton learns of Janus’ escape, he rushes after him, fearing the worst has happened. What Patton finds in the forest however, is both startlingly similar, and exceptionally different to what Janus found there.

Meanwhile, there are whispers among the townspeople, and new attempts at scientific discoveries, that seem to bring increased attention upon the otherwise solitary forest.

#not mine #YOOOOOOOO

[thesarcasticside]

In case you were wondering why I asked this... needed to do research so I could include him as a character for my fanfic :D

Hiiiiii! Do you know what episodes of Sander Sides the stove is in?

Way Too Adult!  It’s the only one unfortunately... episode dropped November 21, 2016.   I will be celebrating Steve’s Birthday that day:)

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

#rebloging for a later crowd #a later crowd being a slightly different day in august

[thesarcasticside]

lol meant to post this to the side blog

Here are my pieces for the @ts-storytime ! My partner for the event was @thesarcasticside ,it was really great working with her!

Go check out her part of the event too!!!!

#ts (INW) #ts (INW) art #ts (in other worlds) #ts Anything #ts Virgil #ts Janus #ts Remus #ts the dragon witch #eira machina #electric stapler #prisma #mikelle #seth #steve stow #piccard #ts steve the stove #steve the stove #ts ice machine #ts electric stapler #ts printer #ts microwave #ts self checkout #ts card reader #ts storytime 2021 #ts storytime #ts big bang

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DDD

Summary

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

Janus is a cyborg who works for the Dragon Witch, a criminal mastermind who runs a company that designs cybernetics.

He meets Remus, a self-taught biomedical engineer, and a variety of other robotic and alien characters, all of whom are trying to convince him that he is more than just a cybernetic puppet.

But who is “Dee” if not an empty husk created only to be controlled?

General warnings

Psychological horror, body horror, cybernetics, missing limbs, artificial limbs, Non-consensual forced medical treatment, physical abuse, blood, violence, guns, mind control, permanent amnesia, manipulation, emotional abuse, gaslighting, nightmares, streams of consciousness, unreliable narration. Content that resembles depersonalization, derealization, or dissociation

More notes, links, and chapter text under the cut

AO3 Anything, AO3 series, Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6, Chapter 7, Chapter 8, Chapter 9, Chapter 10, Chapter 11, Chapter 12, Chapter 13, Chapter 14, Chapter 15, Chapter 16, Chapter 17, Chapter 18

This is my story for the 2021 Storytime! Big Bang! @ts-storytime Thank you to @ben-phantomhive-trash, who is the artist I was partnered with for the event! They created this fantastic art!!!! I love it so much I can't even.

Thank you to PunkRock for helping me figure out the shorts characters and other plot things. Also thank you to AryaSkywalker, Thembo, and Carrotflowerking17 and the Big Bang 2021 discord for additional help!!!!

This fic is an alternative entry point to my (In Other Worlds) Series. This fic happens at the same time roughly as Millennia, a companion novel. You can read this fic and then check out the rest of the series, or check out the series and then read this.

Also, I don't use Janus's actual name throughout the fic for thematic and narrative reasons. You'll see. I hope that does not put you off too much. Consider it part of the angst.

Clarification of general warnings and pairings, minor spoilers

I added the tag unreliable narrator, but I will clarify that the narrator is not actively lying to the audience. This tag relates to Janus's memory issues and the uncertainty resulting from that. tbh I would not worry too much about the events being untrue, and more be concerned about these being Janus's imperfect recollection of events.

I think this fic is a bit more violent than Millennia at times, hence I added the archive warning for violence. I still feel like a teen would be fine reading this, so I am keeping the rating Teen and Up. This fic focuses the most on what I dub psychological horror (angst, mind control, memory issues, consciousness, nightmares, etc.). I also tagged this story with disassociation, and content in this fic may resemble derealization and depersonalization.

If you think I should warn/rate this fic differently, I am happy to hear feedback and reconsider.

I tagged this as Remus/Janus, but like, ya gotta squint. Mostly banter and being soft. I love romance, but I have a hard time writing it. Could be seen as platonic too.

HINT 1: KEY.

HINT 2: "kind of" not "kinda"

CHAPTER START

NAME J. D. Dedrick ID 25:35--25:44 / 51:09 ALIENRACE Dūcesnaca OCCUPATION Robotics Researcher

Chapter Warnings cybernetics, missing/artificial limbs (eye, legs), forced medical treatment/experimentation, amnesia, depersonalization/derealization/dissociation, unreliable narration, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, the Dragon Witch, Virgil (not by name)

He could have been anything. When he looked inside his own mind, he dug through darkness. Memories like ashes, the particles filling his lungs were all that were familiar to him—and those only felt like nothing. No fragments, just a fine powder.

He woke up to yellow in his eyes, stinging and unfocused. Lights beyond the veil flickered. He saw a figure move; he looked small. After a brief glance into the world, he began to drown. He threw everything into the yellow encasement, and after an agonizing struggle, the rush of acceleration threw him to the ground.

When the air touched his face, black fireworks exploded in his hazy vision, and the first memory he had was gone.

He woke up again, like a corpse left in the stale air for vultures: beaks plucking out his skin piece by piece. His vision blurry and halved, he stared up at the birds breaking his body into bits.

Reports say he was involved in a huge space crash. DRACANA has generously sponsored his artificiality.

That sounded like a lie. That sort of blatant untruth where there was no connection to reality tied to it. Everything his senses told him felt unreal, everything except the pain that grounded him like a shot duck.

Whispers like gossip broke into his mind between droughts of consciousness. His senses were pieced together and broken apart, like pieces of clay in a kiln shattering. Memories of vultures and lab coats glued together by agony floated through space until eventually he was awake.

Probably just one of her business rivals

Dei’dra—he knew her name—loomed over him, to his right. He could see nothing to his left. The light stung, he squinted and blinked his eye. He could feel nothing on the left side of his face. Dei’dra smiled at him.

“Wake up, dollface. Didn’t think you’d make it, but you pulled through.”

He did not know where he was. He did not know who he was. All he knew was that this woman was Dei’dra, the Dragon Witch, and he hated her.

“Well, he seems to be doing well. Might as well put him under and move onto the next stage.”

He lived out his days creating sand sculptures in his mind. He saw himself running in place, downloading skills and targets and concepts. The sand would blow away each day, leaving him with nothing to remember them by.

Between bouts of black unconsciousness, he saw grey, and white, and pale pink, brown, and blue. Abstract shapes morphing into creatures that prodded at him. Cold metal seething, machines twisting his body together like crochet. He gave nonsense names for some, not even names consisting of words, just pure thoughts.

Slowly, he lost sight of the sand in his brain, yet the grains still dripped from his ears when he shook his head. He became a part of reality. Or perhaps he became part of a hellish dream.

Darkness huddled in the damp sides of his eyes, danger snapping at his bruised joints and soles. Deep inside his chest, his heart damned, words mixed with intuitive instincts, daring his body to live beyond the yellow veil.

Stage One of Project $DEE has been completed.

$DEE was not his name. It was what he was called. One of the words that would echo in his brain. Dee. Dee. Dee. Like a rhythm, like the beeping machines. Like the ringing of the heart monitor. It was embedded in his ears. Baby words jumping around, forming pictures, babbling him into nothing.

Dee, his brain still a desert, started to make better sense of this reality he lived in. He could control his body sometimes. He could move his arms. Or what was left of his limbs. Or what they had lent him.

The second picture in his brain, the one after the yellow veil: it was the artificial lights on Lab C’s ceiling. Grey illuminated by white, he stared up at the square tiles and textured glass, like undulating waves of melted sand.

With how long he was locked in place staring up at this picture, he memorized it. He could close his eyes at any moment and picture it in its exact detail again.

“Time to get up, Doll-face. It’s time for your first mission.”

He saw Dei’dra’s face again. He felt his restraints loosen and break away.

His first mission was not all that glorious. He was lanky, unused to moving in his body. He was a wall of meat. Disposable. He followed a trail like a zombie. He barely spoke to the team he was placed in. He remembered their orders regarding him.

“He’s still pretty out of it. Give him some good experience, but we’d like to keep working on him so bring him back in one piece.”

Dee felt like a puppet, simply put. Some machine inside him aimed his cannons and lasers. He stood in place, shooting at targets. He was guided by an invisible leash by the team he was assigned to. He saw sepia shapes. Blurs of bodies. All he could feel was the emotions in his gut telling him, repeatedly:

Youaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieyouaregoingtodieagainyouaregoingtodiestoppleasestoppleaseyouaregoingtodiestopstopstopstopstop.

He was kept suspended in place while his body completed the mission. And then he was back in Lab C, mind clearer.

He was thinking in sentences now. He could monologue, like any great villain. That is what he had become, hadn’t he? Why a villain? Where had he learned that word? The more he sifted through the sand, the more words he could find he no longer remembered learning. They were just there, connected to nothing. No memory. No past life.

He kept thinking these words. And then he decided that since his jaw was not glued shut, he would give speaking a try. Garbled and slurred at first, he kept talking as much as they let him.

They made him run between ceilings of grey. They made him speak between illuminated square tiles. He practiced lines of a script. Subterfuge settled in his brain like a mirage in the distance between the settled sand.

He could walk on the unsteady ground once again. He could see. He could hear. He could experience the world around him. He gazed up at the ceiling but was interrupted by a splotch of dark violet.

Another blot. Another vulture. He stood there out of the corner of his artificial eye.

“What are you waiting for? Get on with the tests.” His voice sharp, cutting through his tongue.

This was an unusual time of day for tests. To say it was a time of day was generous. It was more like he would be experimented on for hours upon hours and then suddenly they would stop. Nothing to do but bask in the nothingness it brought.

At this point, Dee thought that he was done with most of the tests. He had his limbs. He had an eye, which he opened wider to get a better look at the violet blotch. Something about the blotch was connected to something else in his brain, but he could not quite place it.

“Well, whatever it is, get on with it, it certainly could not have waited until morning.”

It shuffled closer to him. Less of a blotch now. He could make out shapes. He could recognize his face now if he saw him again.

Air escaped his lungs, and then he said again, asking, “Whatever might you need from me today, doctor?”

The blotch was shaking. “If you are just here to sight-see, I am going back to sleep.” His eyes weighed heavily on his face, eyelids falling through his willpower.

“Are you… okay?”

No, I am not ‘okay’. I am ‘$DEE.’

“Do I LOOK okay? Yeah sure, I am right as rain, having a grand old time—feeling peachy, even.” At this point, the words just spiraled off his tongue and through his teeth. The blotch made a sound, and Dee’s frustration grew, the pain of today’s tests ricocheting in his body.

“If you aren’t here to run another one of your little tests, then just get out. Go tell your superior, or better yet, go tell Dei’dra to go fuck herself and leave me alone.”

And he left him alone. He wondered vaguely what that was all about. He then fell asleep.

#Bringing this to the top in case it got burried #ts storytime 2021 submission #oh goodess formatting and publishing this fic both on tumblr and AO3 was so rough like this fic flashed before my eyes #reblog

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DEE

NAME Dylan ID 42 33 77 52 11 ALIENRACE human hybrid (unknown) OCCUPATION computer scientist

Chapter Warnings mind control, illusions, manipulation, death threat, emotional abuse, psychological horror, swearing Chapter Characters Janus, Remus, The Dragon Witch, Virgil (mentioned)

HINT 4: MESSAGE STOP (See AO3 for end of fic notes/comment section for secret message)

AO3 Chapter 1 Previous Chapter end

The curtains—their color and texture analogous to that of verdure scraped across a canvas with a palette knife—were suspended by bronze colored curtain rods. Chips and scratches revealed a true grey metal beneath the metallic paint. Sunlight poked through holes in the fabric like constellations. The glass of the panes was fogged, years of weathering clinging to the transparent wall.

Dee’s real hand clenched, the desire to run his fingers through the texture palpable. He gripped the edge of the curtain, the finished seam like the edge of a dull blade against his palm.

Leaning against the glass, Dee let the coolness creep into his pressed limbs, torso, and forehead—he let the filtered light soak into his skin. Dee took a deep breath, exhaled, and let his eyes wander the room—his room.

A single mattress laid on a bed of wires, the metal columns and springs and screws poking out, ready to scrape his shins. The white sheets were clean, just as if they were bought yesterday, but the quilts and crocheted blankets were worn, their colors desaturated over time, into charcoal browns and dead leaves.

Dee could not remove the image of Remus—without hesitation—lifting boxes of junk out of a spare room, clearing it out, for him.

Knowing that Dee had nowhere else to go.

The hardwood floors and paneling were in good condition despite the scratch marks. The walls were covered in random posters and framed pictures, probably to hide more so than decorate. Strings of warm light were strung across the ceiling and wall at the head of the bed.

Bookshelves covered an entire wall—books that Dee did not care to read, judging by their titles.

It was simple—It could be much more elaborate—the memories of grand halls, filigree, murals, he saw on his missions came to mind. Yet it was million times better than the crisp, perfect white walls, the red carpets, the geometric planter boxes, the red tinted windows…

It hurt—that is what it felt like, that swelling in his chest. Certainly not anything that would make him feel giddy with glee, anything that would bring warmth to his visage, or anything that would make him feel welcomed for once in his goddamn life—It hurt that Remus did not hold it over him.

He could come and go as he pleased.

Dee left the window, and left his room, and Remus was there in the kitchen, making some god-awful abomination that might taste good or kill them both.

Dee walked to an open counter.

The ritual of making coffee was quite relaxing. Dee enjoyed it immensely, carefully measuring and grinding the beans. He stood in the kitchen, waiting, watching the coffee dripping through the hourglass, the aroma meeting his senses.

Remus in the background was loud, clunks and clicks, hardy laughter, shimmying shoulders, traversing the small kitchen with skips. Dee was barely halfway through the coffee making process when Remus turned around, jumped in the air like a cat, just noticing his presence, with a yelp. His eyes widened with glee, amused by the scare.

“Mornin’!”

Dee shot out a sigh with a smile and replied, “morning.”

“Hey, if you want, we can go out shopping today for more stuff for your new room, roomie.” By shopping, Dee figured Remus meant dumpster diving. Though, if he asked, Dee was sure that Remus would be willing to travel somewhere off planet for things.

Problem was, Dee never had any possessions before. He did not know what he needed. It was as if Remus was shoveling piles of stuff into his arms, and Dee was starting to get overwhelmed by his generosity.

“Eh, I’m good. Would rather chill today,” Dee, after all his years under Dei’dra, did not feel like doing anything.

“Alrighty then, I had a dream last night and, in my dream, I came up with the perfect recipe for scrambled eggs. Decided to test that out. You’ll be my first taste-tester—Hey Dee? You alright?”

Dee had stopped moving. The coffee held in his hands crashed to the floor.

Dee tried to blink away the silence pouring into his ears, drowning out Remus. He tried to hear the colors and mismatched filigree of Remus’s cramped kitchen, but there was nothing—but white walls and red carpet and grey floors.

He was alone, in a room, suddenly, like every moment he spent by Remus’ side had been a dream.

He blinked again and Dei’dra was there in front of him. The room was off—the dimensions were too small. He could feel her breath, which stunk of stale coffee and vomit, on his face, as he looked up at her.

He did not let this shake him. He repeated in his mind that Dei’dra was taken care of. That he was in a Junkyard. That this was not real. He spent long enough not feeling real to know the difference.

“Good day, doll. I hope you’ve enjoyed your vacation in the trash heap. Soon enough, I’ll have another mission for you.”

“Go get fucked Dei’dra. You and I both know you’re going to rot in jail for the rest of your sad human life.”

Dei’dra laughed, but there was a tone in there that seemed to acknowledge that as being somewhat true.

“The reality is, you and I are in this together. Forever..” And he felt a pulling sensation in his mind, like ropes against his brain, the friction drawing blood. “I have a plan—just like I always do—and you’re going to follow it.”

“Oh, really?” He scoffed, “How about you make me? Going to override my systems? Make me Project $DEE again? Good fucking luck.”

“Oh… All that research put to waste, disabled by the hands of a fish.” Dei’dra’s face was twisted—at first, she had appeared as he met her, put together and clean, but soon enough the knotted frizzy hairs and crumpled skin begun to fade into view. “Alrighty then, I’ll call you later. Nice knowing you.” She turned around, leaving this strange room of his mind’s own making.

“Rot in hell,” he managed, his throat filling with sand. She turned around, eyes blinking with colors, colors like the device that was now in pieces.

“Oh, before you go, darling. You remember that house plant of mine?” She was talking about Virgil. He was free. He made sure of it. He watched over him, as he healed, as he flew far away from him and her. No longer burdened with the dragon’s horde.

A chilly unease crawled along his back, gripping his shoulders with icy talons.

“You were quite fond of him, weren’t you?”

“What of him?”

He had to play indifferent. He could not get sucked into this trap. Yet he knew he could not hide this from her. He could never hide from Dei’dra.

“I’m going to be blunt; he is as good as dead. I can kill him at a touch of a button.” And then the woman had the nerve to smile and point at the bracelet at her wrist. “I would love to press it—oh, I want to press it, especially after his big betrayal.” Then she pouted, “It’d be a shame if I had a reason to keep him alive.”

“You’re full of bull, and that’s a lot coming from me.”

“You really think that tracker was all that was keeping him here?” Her eyes were red. “That after all these years, I didn’t think to up my security. Upgrade his controller?” She burst out laughing, “Doll, you are a riot!”

“Leave Virgil alone. He’s free. You lost. He won. Die in prison, you bastard.” He found that his voice was cracking, tumbling into silence.

“I won’t.” Dei’dra’s eyes were shining, bright, like an angel. “Unless you cooperate.”

—And in his mind, amidst the sand, a doorway appeared to him. Texture like that of sandstone, he could feel himself run his hands down the door frame. He could read the engravings, like pieces of memories put back together, but not as it was before—like a sculpture instead.

And he was back in the present, Dei’dra fading from view. And he was rumbling, wind blowing through him, sand blasting at his ribcage, ready to burst from his throat. Dei’dra faded from his mind, but she already got what she wanted.

He had to play this game. It was a rematch. He was just at the loading screen. He would bide his time, play along, lie, and wait.

But he would change the rules. The player characters would be different. The mechanics would shift. He would change.

He was on the ground. He lifted his head. Remus was standing over him, semi-crouched, blunt concern on his face, confusion upon his brows. He stood up, dismissed the offered hand. He brushed his coat, took in a breath, and turned to face Remus.

He was not doll.

He was not $DEE.

He was not even Dee.

But he was going to stop her—kill her—whatever he had to—so he could live his life how he wanted—because fuck Dei’dra.

Remus was staring at him, waiting for an explanation.

“Remus, from now on, please call me—"

He was, “—Janus.”

#ts (In Other Worlds) #ts (INW) #ts Janus #ts deceit #ts the dragon witch #ts storytime #ts storytime 2021 #ts big bang #ts Virgil #sarcasm writes #sarcasm ts fic #thomas sanders #sander sides #sander sides fic #ts Anything #ts Remus

[thesarcasticside]

Anything-$00000DED

NAME Douglas ID 88 31 ALIENRACE human OCCUPATION engineer

Chapter Warnings Swearing, innuendo Chapter Characters Remus, Janus, Virgil (mentioned), C!Thomas (mentioned)

AO3 Chapter 1 Previous Chapter Next Chapter

“Where the fuck is Virgil, Remus?” Dee kicked opened Remus’s door, who really should have spotted the space cowboy across his yard but did not.

“Virgil?” Remus blanked for a moment. “Oh, that guy! Yeah, he left. The TSUU picked him up like a week ago. You know him?”

“That idiot almost got himself killed!”

“Ah, well that explains a whole lot. Thanks for the referral! I got a ton of spare parts from that.”

Dee crossed his arms, leaned on a hip, and stuck out a forked tongue for a split second, seething.

“Kinky” Remus laughed, noticing the tongue for the first time, not taking Dee all that seriously. Upon seeing his face twist even further, Remus sighed. “He recovered really well. And he went with Thomas’s friends willingly. What’s going on?”

“We were trying to kill the bitch, but Virgil decided to play the hero. Now she’s plotting.”

“Didn’t she get arrested though?”

“Yeah, but like that’s going to last long.”

“You sure? I mean, I heard from my bro that they were totally not going to let her off easy, or at all.”

“You’ve never seen her in person. She is unhinged.”

“Wild, what a fun villain you got there Mr. Space Protagonist.”

“Gosh, will you ever stop talking?”

“Nah, if I think of something, I say it. If I tried filtering my mouth now, there’d be nothing left for me to say.”

“You’re insufferable”

“Awww, thank you! Want me to get your face fixed up?” Dee had not noticed that the side of his face started pealing. He let out a breath of air, and let his body loosen.

“Yeah, thank you Remus.”

“Hey, do you want another pair of arms?”

“Uh… sure,” but what the fuck

#ts (In Other Worlds) #ts (INW) #ts Janus #ts deceit #ts the dragon witch #ts storytime #ts storytime 2021 #ts big bang #ts Virgil #sarcasm writes #sarcasm ts fic #thomas sanders #sander sides #sander sides fic #ts Anything #ts Remus