"I Gotcha Fam"

@soul-of-justice--uty

The Game Awards is an annual awards ceremony honoring achievements in the video game industry. Established in 2014, the shows are produced and hosted by video game journalist Geoff Keighley. In addition to the awards, the show features premieres of upcoming games and new information on previously-launched titles. These years awards have been infamous for eliminating fan-favourite titles Dragon Ball Sparking Zero and Sonic + Shadow Generations early on, with S+SG losing in the first round of voting, leading many to think the votes were rigged.

Do you think Game Of The Year was rigged?

UT/UTY fanart peaked with this.

Are we not going to talk about how that guy sent that post on the first of January 1970

when people put "trigger warning" on their content without specifying what the trigger warning is for

I AIN'T GONNA SUGARCOAT IT

Roundstart 5M 2M 2L 5L 5LL assist dash 2M 5M jump J.L J.M J.H J.2H SD J.L J.M J.H J.2H airjump J.L J.M J.H 236L combotag DR Lvl 3 Super

When you're arguing with someone on Discord and you notice that they have linked their Youtube in their bio:

Peak fiction ✍️🔥

More Maria Lives AU content! It's essentially the prequel to this and where the story properly starts.

It had been a perfect evening.

Grandpa had surprised them by actually sitting down to dinner with them, usually he didn’t have the time in the evenings. He took his work long into the night. But tonight they sat down as a family for a dinner of brisket, mashed potatoes, and green beans. They had apple pie for dessert. She and Shadow even got an extra slice each.

Afterwards, they tucked themselves into the blanket fort. Maria brought her guitar. She tuned it, plucking on each of the strings until they sounded correct. She demonstrated a few chords for Shadow, explaining to him how the different combinations of notes made them sound more ‘happy’ or ‘sad.’ They both fell into a small laughing fit when she tried to get Shadow to mimic her hand position on the guitar’s neck, but his gloves got in the way. She was just about to start a rendition of Hey Jude when the doors burst open. Grandpa stood there, shaken and wide eyed.

“Kids, we have to go. Now.”

It had been a perfect evening.

It was difficult to run across the smooth floors in just her socks, but Shadow’s firm grip on her hand kept her steady. There was a disconcerting cacophony of sounds all around. The blaring alarms. Distantly (and frighteningly) there was gunfire. They rattled together inside her head. Poor Shadow couldn’t be faring much better, since his hearing is significantly more sensitive than hers, but he didn’t show it.

Grandpa tugged them along through the hallways, away from the noise. She recognized the route they were taking. It led to the elevator that would take them to the hilltop. 

“What’s happening?” she managed to ask between ragged breaths. At first, she wasn’t sure Grandpa had even heard her over the alarms.

“They want to take Shadow away from us Maria!” he hastily explained, also out of breath.

‘They? Who is ‘they?’ Has the base been invaded?’ she wanted to ask. But there was no time. There was shouting behind them. They were being followed. 

The next few seconds were as if time slowed down.

There was a shout. 

A flash of light.

 Glass cracked.

She gasped.

Grandpa’s white lab coat.

White everywhere.

Then it was dark.

Ringing.

Her ears were ringing. She coughed, dizzy and disoriented. Her arms hurt as she pushed herself back up to her knees. She had been blown back several feet. She was scraped and bruised. The air was hotter than it had been a moment ago. As she got her bearings back she realized now that parts of the room were on fire.

“Gran-! Sh-sha-!” She tried to call out, but ended up choking on the smoke that clogged the air.

“Maria!” Shadow called out to her. His quills were ruffled and out of place, covered in soot from the explosion. He stood over….

Maria ran to her grandfather’s side, falling to her knees. His eyes stared up at nothing. A trail of blood leaked from his nose.

“Grandpa?” she asked in a small voice. She shook his shoulder slightly. He didn’t react. “Grandpa… get up. Get up, please.”

“Maria.” Shadow’s quiet call startled her. His eyes flashed to the side, she followed his gaze to see a squadron of men in army fatigues approaching. She recognized the uniforms, their sleeves emblazoned with the American flag.

“Help!” she called out to them. “Please help! He’s not breathing, call a medic, please!”

To her shock, instead of any one of them reaching for their radio and making the call, they all raised their weapons.

“Down on the ground, now!” a soldier shouted.

Not comprehending, Maria cried again, “He needs a medic, please!”

Shadow inched closer to Maria. He watched the soldiers apprehensively. She continued to beg for assistance, but went ignored as Shadow’s movements only put them more on edge. The apparent leader trained his weapon on Shadow.

“Back away from the girl!”

Shadow didn’t back away, but he did stop his movements. He glanced down at the Professor’s body, then back at the squadron surrounding them. The energy in his quills started to quietly crackle.

From the back of the line another figure pushed his way forward, lieutenant Walters.

“Maria!” he called out. “Maria, just… just walk over here to me, no one is going to hurt you.” He held his hand out, beckoning. Maria just shook her head minutely. Her hand reached out to take Shadow’s.

“Walters, I don’t….” She didn’t even know how to finish that sentence. She couldn’t wrap her head around what was going on.

“I understand you’re scared, Maria. You’re a civilian, you shouldn’t have gotten wrapped up in this. But these men have their orders. So please come away from there and come over to me.” he beckons her again. 

Maria pulls Shadow closer. She wasn’t sure if the hairs on her arm were standing on end from the crackling energy he was emitting or because of the dread washing over her.

“What about Shadow?” she asked. Walters looked apologetic.

“He has to go with them, Maria,” he gestured to the squadron. “It’s going to be alright, please just… just walk away from Shadow and come over here.”

Maria stared at Walters, at the pleading look on his face. The men around him were stone-cold. Eyes hard, they looked through Maria and Shadow. She looked back at her grandpa. At his slack face, his eyes fixed at a distant point. With horrible clarity finally dawning on her she knew that they saw nothing.

“No…” it came out quietly at first, then she screamed, “No! You killed him! You killed him!” She pulled Shadow fully to her chest, curling around him protectively. He wrapped his arms around her in turn, the energy building up around him made her hair stand up and fizzled in her ears.

The squadron took aim in spite of Walters’ protests. Maria screwed her eyes shut, preparing-

She heard something like a fzzzzzzzz-pop!

And then she was falling.

Or more accurately, she was tumbling.

She grunted as she rolled over grass and flowers and dandelions. While Shadow was able to curl into a ball and had his quills to protect him, Maria rolled gracelessly down the hill. Her night dress became littered with grass stains and new scrapes and bruises were added to her arms and legs. When she finally came to a stop at the bottom she sprawled out like a starfish. The stars in the sky above her spun in a way that told her she wasn’t just watching the rotation of the Earth. She pushed herself to her feet in spite of the dizziness.

“Shadow?” she whipped around, looking for him. He unfurled himself not too far away. He clasped her hand in his, and once again they were running.

-*-*-*-

Shadow’s ears were upright and alert, listening for any signs of the military.

They had run until it became apparent that they couldn’t stay out in the open anymore. Soldiers had started combing the woods for them, both on foot and in search helicopters. So when they found a hole in the ground that seemed to go back a few feet and was just wide enough for two kids to climb into, that’s exactly what they did.

They’d practically held their breath for hours. They listened to the whir of helicopter blades as they flew past their little foxhole. They passed by each time. He supposed they were just lucky that they didn’t think to bring out search dogs, or else he suspected that they’d find their exit blocked by the barrel of a gun.

As night slowly bled into dawn, Shadow stayed alert, not satisfied that the search parties had truly passed until hours went by in silence. He didn’t need to sleep, but Maria was ragged.

She had nodded off a few times, only for a few minutes each. Every time she woke herself back up, probably from the anxiety of the situation, and the general discomfort of sitting in a dirt hole in the ground. But now there were circles under her eyes.

She sat with her knees drawn up to her chest. A small sniffle drew Shadow’s attention away from listening for soldiers. When he looked at her, her tired eyes were red rimmed. She swiped fruitlessly at the tears running down her cheeks.

“Maria,” he said, murmured, really.

He crawled over to her, sitting himself down in front of her bent knees. She sniffled again. Her eyes shined with tears. She put her hands on top of his head to pet the soft fur on his ears. It was something she did for him a lot, but she misunderstood, he wasn’t seeking comfort from her right now. He wasn’t the one who needed it. He took her hands in his and intertwined their fingers. She let him. He wasn't really sure what to do with them at that point so they just sat for a bit, holding each other’s hands between them.

After a little while though, he felt compelled to break the silence.

“I think they’ve moved on by now,” he started, still soft spoken.

“Okay.” Maria replied, equally quiet.

Shadow frowned, his ear flicked.

“I’m sorry,” he confessed. Maria shook her head.

“What do you have to be sorry for?” 

“I’m sorry,” he said more insistently. She wasn’t getting it. “None of this would’ve happened if it weren’t for me.” If he wasn’t so powerful, if he wasn’t so strange, if he didn’t make them so afraid.

“No,” the word came out sharp. He doesn’t think he’s ever heard her sound like that. “No, Shadow. Don’t say that.” Her eyes, still shining with tears and with something else now too- something he couldn’t name- bore into his. He looked away, his ears flattened on his head. He knew his next words would just upset her more.

He’d had all night to think about what happened at the base. When he’d teleported them out, it was more of an impulse than a rational decision. But seeing the professor on the ground like that, and with those men pointing their weapons at Maria, he couldn’t stand the thought that she would look like that too.

“... I think we should go back.”

She pulled her hands away from his. Cold seeped into his palms even through his gloves. 

“What?” she asked incredulously.

“We should go back to the base. Even if they cleared it out by now I’m sure they left a few officers patrolling in case we came back. Walters was right, they only wanted to take me, so I’ll let them. You’re a civilian, they’ll protect you.”

“Protect me from who? Them? They’re the ones who-” she choked on the words, “who… killed grandpa.”

“And if they killed him just to get to me what do you think they’d be willing to do to you if I don’t give myself up? Maria, I told you I don’t know what I would do without you.”

“And I don’t know what I’d do without you.”

Her declaration hung heavy in the air. It stunned him into silence for a moment. Then;

“... You saw their weapons. And the explosion? It was all me. My chaos energy. It’s dangerous, I’m dangerous. I’m only going to get you hurt.”

“Hey,” she took his hand again, “I told you, you can do or be anything you want. Okay? You decide who you are, nobody else. Just because they took your power and turned it into a weapon doesn’t mean they get to make you into something that you’re not.”

She said it with such conviction, that for a moment, Shadow wanted to believe her words as much as she did, but it was hard to swallow down his fear past the tangled knot in his chest.

“We’re not going back,” she said. She held up her other hand, pinky extended outwards. She looked at him expectantly. “We’re not going back,” she repeated.

Trepidatiously, he lifted his hand and wrapped his pinky around hers.

*-*-*-

Forest litter crunched underfoot as they walked along somewhat aimlessly. While Maria had decided that going back was not an option, they didn’t really have a plan other than forward and thus further and further away from the base. But the base was purposely isolated from civilization, and they had found their hideaway by pure chance, they weren’t exactly keeping track of where they were going when they had been fleeing through the darkness. So when they had finally clambered out of their foxhole into the daylight, Maria had simply glanced around, picked a direction and started walking. Shadow followed suit.

And so that’s how it had been for the past couple hours. The sun moved along its trail in the sky, and they walked in uncharacteristic silence. Maybe not uncharacteristic for Shadow, he had always been more quiet and the most he talked was around Maria. But that was because she usually led the conversation. But she’d been tight lipped since they set off. She could of course still be angry with him for his earlier suggestion. Yet every time he stole a glance at her face he couldn’t seem to find any sign of anger. At least, he thought he didn’t. Really, it would have been a first for making Maria mad at him, so he had no frame of reference for what that actually looked like. He never would have expected her to pull the same grimace or snarl or look of disgust he would get from the scientists when he made them upset. Yet the look on her face now, mouth quirked as she chewed the inside of her cheek, and her eyes downturned as her brows pinched just slightly, he couldn’t quite bring himself to ascribe that to anger. 

But his last attempt at apologizing had gone so poorly, he was at a loss for how to even begin again this time. Luckily, he didn’t need to.

“I’ve been trying to wrap my head around it all,” Maria said, suddenly breaking the awkward silence.

“What do you mean?” Shadow prompted. So that was it. She’d been thinking this whole time.

“I mean,” she paused, both her words and her steps. She looked up as if the trees had the answers she was looking for. “I’m trying to make sense of it. Why go to all the trouble to raid your own base? Why bring armed men at all?” she asked no one in particular. 

“The Professor said they wanted to take me.” Shadow offered up anyway, he crossed his arms over his chest as soon as he said it. He was starting to get frustrated with how often he was repeating that one fact. It’s the only solid piece of information they currently have and it’s utterly useless. But if Maria shared that frustration she didn’t show it, she continued to think out loud;

“Alright but then why put up a fight about it? They could just as easily have ordered Grandpa to turn you over, so then why did they come already armed? Unless….” She turned her eyes back to the ground, her face once again pensive.

“Unless?”

“Unless they did order Grandpa, and they knew he was going to disobey.” 

“You think the Professor knew they were coming?”

Maria shrugged, crossing her own arms.

“Maybe.”

“And you think he was willing to disobey orders, for me?” 

Maria was quiet for a long moment.

“I think he already did.”

It was Shadow’s turn to become pensive. The idea that the Professor would risk everything, and lose his life for it, for him? Around them, the forest was filled with the sounds of life, cricket chirps, animal calls, and birdsong. His sensitive hearing picked up on all of it, but in his head it started to sound less like the symphony of nature and instead more like a cacophonous ringing of why?

Meanwhile Maria sighed. She ran a hand through her hair.

“Hey,” she broke Shadow from his spiral. She offered her hand out to him, and he accepted it. “You and me, we have each other, right?” She smiled, it didn’t quite reach her eyes, but something in Shadow felt lighter seeing that she still had the strength to smile even after everything.

“Right,” he agreed. They did have each other. And as long as they had that, they could get through.

"Now, something like this will only appeal to someone with a mental age of nine. So me... and every other man."

- Jeremy Clarkson

Beyblade heavyweight division

One more

Beyond the stars, the ultimate life-form!

Bonus:

Uhhh

You do know your fanbase right?

I mean

And

And don't even get me started on

I will just let you know that when checking my inbox, 5 people have said the same thing plus image back to back.

And when this ask goes life I expect there will be so much more.

That I will all delete.

Because we don't have to point out the same joke 286 times in a row :)