Don’t Panic.

𓈒 ˳ ˳ 𝐁𝐄𝐓𝐓𝐄𝐑 𝐁𝐎𝐁𝐁𝐘 𝐌𝐀𝐒𝐓𝐄𝐑𝐋𝐈𝐒𝐓.

Bobby's been a shit boyfriend for months. When you disappear through a wall in the basement of Clark's furniture store, you wake up in the Backrooms, where a better version of Bobby is waiting. One who actually shows up, one who loves you, one who never, ever wants to let you go.

bobby franklin x f!reader x entity!bobby

cw: emotional neglect, psychological horror, backroom entities/lore, implied creature violence, emotional manipulation by non-human entity, alcohol abuse (secondary character), ambiguous grief/loss, verbal arguments (no physical violence), angst.

𓈒 asks/mini concepts 𓈒 𓈒 𓈒 playlist

Ꮺ୧ part one / concept. Ꮺ୧ part two. Ꮺ୧ part three.

extras:

Ꮺ୧ making out w/ better bobby. Ꮺ୧ better you!

1: that's not the fucking story

2: as a certified Pathetic Bitch who defaults to fawning, your fics are actually really cathartic for me in a weird way? ik it's odd to say this to a stranger but reading your works makes me feel less bad for having a fawn response bc i can recognise that it came from abnormal circumstances. like im being told "it's okay, you were trying to survive"

3: i feel like more folks would fawn in the situations you write because they are, again, survival situations where someone is manipulating you and being awful. not everything has to be a power fantasy

it is funny when people want a power fantasy story out of certain aus. whenever i would post about the cult au and people would talk about changing price or how they would simply outsmart the cult i would think "are we reading the same story?" because the cult au's narrator is a depressed insomniac who is rapidly approaching suicide and looking for a reason not to kill themselves by latching onto the hint of friendship and aid that is being offered to them... you think that person is going to suddenly rise up and rail at the cult for preying on the vulnerable, you think that person is going to seduce price and have him wrapped around his finger such that he worships them like a god?

EVERY DAY I GET CLOSER AND CLOSER

They come across the tank-grown Krogan first, who tells Shepard:

"You don't smell like this world."

The sort of fun stuff Shepard can hear after the Lazarus Project. And obviously no one is going to stand there and stay in their feelings hearing this -especially when there are mercs around and there's a mission going on- but I wonder if Shepard comes 'home' later, in their new ship, and just thinks: I don't smell like this world. What it is like? Makes me a bit sad, to be honest. EDIT: could be specific to that world in particular, but in this wide context, that's what came to mind!

And when the krogan goes on and on about "glass mother" and how he was rejected because he was not perfect, the camara shows him:

and the squadmates a second later:

And obviously the game is busy with other things, one squadmate is already reacting to what's going on. But having Shepard and Miranda both look at him as he keeps repeating: I was not perfect, that has a special meaning. Especially as it happens after the conversation about greatness between Shepard and Miranda.

Miranda insists she was engineered for it while Shepard was "great before" they rebuilt them. Shepard can talk about spirit and personality making someone great but Miranda is not really convinced:

That's kind of you... I'm not sure I believe you, but thanks for saying it.

And later Okeer's very words are very focused on purity, his legacy, not caring about the "rejects" along the way. Basically just echoing what Miranda sees and knows of her own father. Which is why I think it matters that Shepard can call Okeer cruel and manipulative, and Miranda can be there to hear it.

Then Miranda witnesses Okeer dying, saying "My legacy is pure... This... one soldier, this grunt. Perfect."

And look at this picture:

Isn't this amazing? It says so much.

And my own interpretation at this point in ME2 is that Miranda is Not Okay, she hasn't dealt with her past yet and she's very much tied to insane Cerberus beliefs.

So she doesn't see Grunt as a person yet, she sees "a thing" and insists it's dangerous to let "it" out of the tank, that he was "educated by a madman" - which to be fair to her history, she might have a point there.

But still, not seeing the person, seeing the "it"/"the thing" makes it even more meaningful when Shepard hears her and goes:

With him.

A gentle reminder that they are all people: Grunt being tank born, Miranda being engineered, Shepard being new and resurrected.

The increase in fics I've seen where the writer is just like "well it's how I write so scroll if it bothers you"