Hello! You can call me Hollister-mc, just hollister, just MC, or Edge!
Pronouns are She/her!
I am 23
I write and do art sometimes. My main fandoms are Transformers, MHA, Undertale, Supernatural, as well as many other medias. My interests often shift but a fandom that has been with me since I was 5 was transformers, so you can count on me being into it on a constant basis.
You can ask me anything, I am a safe space for anyone except hateful people or people that harm others.
part 1 | part 2 | part 3 | part 4 | part 5 | part 6 | part 7 | part 8
• noah diaz x mirage (guess who’s back, back again, norage’s back, tell a friend)
• warnings : idk man shit’s all outta whack none of us even have any idea what we’re doing anymore, not me, not noah, and definitely not mirage
• yes it has been 2 years, yes i am a terrible person, yes i am just as confused as noah about where this is all going pls don’t look at me
When Noah trips his way into Kris’ room, he has absolutely no idea what he’s expecting to find.
He’d meant what he’d said to Kris. It doesn’t make any sense for Mirage to be inside the apartment. He’s pretty sure standard Brooklyn apartment ceilings are like a seven foot maximum height.
There’s just no way a twelve foot alien robot could possibly fit.
But Mirage has done nothing but awe and shock Noah so far, so it really shouldn’t come as much of a surprise when somehow, there he is; Mirage, just standing in Kris’ bedroom.
Only there’s something… completely off about him.
Obviously.
Noah’s jaw drops, brows scrunched as he lets his gaze do a comprehensive up-and-down sweep of the mech.
Mirage’s helm— which is missing that round baseball-cap piece around the back— is about half an inch from the ceiling, and the bot has to duck under the ceiling fan as he moves around the room. He’s so busy checking out all the posters on the walls— Super Mario and Mortal Kombat and Superman— and all the action figures on Kris’ shelves that he hasn’t even noticed that Noah’s made a bumbling entrance and is just standing there, gaping.
Like an idiot.
Noah picks up his jaw and squints at the mech’s back.
His tires are gone. In his rootmode, Mirage’s tires are separated; two on the back of his shoulderpads and the other two on the back of his lower legs, just above his pedes. But they’re nowhere to be seen now. Just completely gone.
As are the Porsche’s taillights that normally sit just beneath the nape of the bot’s neck.
What… the fuck.
Noah reaches up and digs the knuckles of both his pointer fingers into his eyelids, rubbing them back and forth, before blinking his eyes open. Mirage is a blur of silver and blue for a moment, before his eyes focus.
The bot is keenly staring at Kris’ extensive collection of Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles action figures, his helm tilted to one side.
Noah doesn’t think the sight should be so endearing. Because there are bigger concerns at the moment. Like the fact that Mirage looks like he’s shrunk.
Noah purses his lips off to one side, forehead scrunching, as he continues to study the mech’s back.
There are definitely other parts of him missing, aside from the tires and the headlights. And it looks like there’s less space between all of the mech’s moving parts as well. Like every opening between his metal plates are thinner now, just a sliver.
Noah is equal parts fascinated and horrified by the sudden transformation. So when he finally speaks, he’s pretty sure both the trepidation and bewilderment he’s simultaneously feeling is super evident in his blunt tone.
“Where’s the rest of you?”
Mirage winces, startled, and his right servo— which Noah hadn’t even realized was reaching out to grab the Michelangelo action figure— snaps back to his side as he turns to face Noah and promptly smashes the forehead part of his face plate into one of the ceiling fan’s plastic blades— snapping it in half; the broken piece immediately flinging itself across the room.
Noah yelps, ducking as it whips past his shoulder and smacks into the wall behind him.
When he straightens, his eyes wide, Mirage is looking at him with a sort of abashed look on his face.
“My bad,” the mech admits feebly, chuckling through gritted teeth almost nervously as his face does that weird thing again where a bluish tint seems to bloom on the plating just beneath his optics. “You good?”
Noah doesn’t respond vocally, just nods kinda distractedly.
Mostly because he’s doing another one of those up-and-down scans of the mech’s front portion.
Because there are a ton of missing pieces in the front too. The Porsche’s headlights, which usually sit at Mirage’s shoulders, are gone. There are pieces of both his vanguards— including the pieces of metal that serve as his handguards— missing, as well as parts of his greaves. The cooling fan that normally sits smack dab in the middle of his lower torso area is gone too. Even his pedes look somehow more… skeletal?
Noah’s not sure how to even describe it.
It’s like half of the mech is just gone.
One of Mirage’s servos jerks up and Noah flinches minutely, wary of any more fan debris flying his way, and Mirage immediately slows his servo’s trajectory down a bit. He slowly points a digit over his, now decidedly less, broad shoulderpads.
“Great, so can you explain to me the difference between an action figure and a toy?” he inquires, his voice doing that mile-a-minute thing where he talks super-fast and it’s sort of amusing because he’s actively attempting to do the exact opposite with his body’s movements. “Because I said, ‘Cool toys!’ to Kris and he did not like that. Also, what are these awesome little green dudes called? They’re— babe? Are you listening to me?”
Ugh.
Noah resists the urge to lift both of his hands into the air, ball them into a fist each, and groan his frustration aloud. He is not going to deal with babe right now.
Again, more pressing matters and all.
“Fuckin’— forget the toys, man,” Noah scolds, lifting both hands to gesture at all of Mirage and steadfastly ignoring the mech when he quietly points out that, again, Kris said they were action figures.
“Where is the rest of you?” Noah repeats, his teeth grinding around the words.
Mirage glances down at himself and perks up, as if, for a moment there, he’d completely forgotten about his little magic trick. When he returns his gaze to Noah, he’s grinning like a madman and Noah kind of wants to die because he feels a stupid fluttering sensation somewhere in his chest in response to the sight of his friend’s million-watt smile.
Probably not his heart or anything.
Goddamnit.
“You like it?” Mirage calls in a teasing sort of lilt as he places a servo against a hip and cocks it to the side as if he’s striking a pose. Except he accidentally sways forward a bit too far and once again smacks his helm into another one of the ceiling fan’s blades. This one, thankfully, remains where it should and in one piece. Although it does creak ominously for a moment and Mirage slowly pulls back before freezing in response.
“Maybe I should just stop moving,” he surmises, pouting.
Noah thinks he can almost physically feel all the irritation melt out of him. He’s so excruciatingly fond of this alien that he can’t even pretend to be mad. Although he is still very much confused. And it must show on his face, in the pinched expression, because Mirage nods his helm toward Kris’ bedroom window.
Noah’s gaze slides over to the window and the fire escape beyond the green-and-blue striped curtains framing the dirtied glass and nearly chokes around nothing but air.
Because, there, sitting in a haphazard pile on the rickety metal grating of the fire escape just outside Kris’ window, are Mirage’s missing parts. The tires are stacked two-high each whilst the other parts lie around and in-between them.
It’s a horrifying sight. Mostly because Noah likens the bot’s parts to his own and Noah figures that would be like him removing his hand and just casually leaving it outside the apartment before strolling in for the day.
He lifts a shaking finger and points out the window.
Then he kind of stutters and stammers for a moment, before he’s actually able to formulate something akin to an intelligible phrase.
“I… uh, I was— I didn’t know that… that was a thing that you guys could… do,” he gets out finally, wincing horribly the whole way through like it physically pains him to get the words out.
And then Mirage does that thing again where he shocks and absolutely awes. And Noah’s starting to wonder if that’s even a good thing at this point.
“Neither did I!” he claims passionately.
What… the fuck?
A sharp, furious rush of alarm floods throughout Noah’s systems so rapidly, he thinks he can’t really be blamed for his reaction. He crosses the room in the blink of an eye, stepping into the bot’s personal space.
“So you just ripped yourself apart?” he cries out, eyes wide and crazed as his hands are reaching for Mirage— even though he’s barely aware he’s doing it and he’s not even sure what he’s reaching out to. “Are you insane?”
His intensity must freak the mech out because Mirage releases a noise that sounds like a high-pitched, “Eep!” and he takes a step back, only to freeze once more when his back thuds softly against the shelves behind him.
Kris’ action figures wobble dangerously for a moment but none topple, thankfully. Kris can get really annoying about those damn things.
“No,” Mirage denies promptly, confident for all of a moment before his shoulderpads lower and he continues on in a slightly more bashful tone, “I mean, not really? I kinda just started messing around with taking stuff off and putting ‘em back on while Rat-face had me locked up in his medbay.”
Noah’s brows furrow and he takes a small step back as well, heaving a great long breath as the tension that had raised his shoulders into a ridged line lessens.
Fuck, why had he reacted like that?
Dramatic as fuck for no reason.
“When he wasn’t hovering,” Mirage goes on, rambling and doing his damned hardest not to talk with his servos like he usually does. “Cause, man, that dude does not know how to chill. And if I tried it in front of him, he’d probably lock me up and try to do some freaky-ass experiments on me for the next fifty deca-cycles.”
Noah frowns.
He’s so confused. He thinks it might actually be starting to hurt. There’s a dull, insistent throb beginning to pulse at his temples.
“Why would he do that?”
Mirage kind of flounders for a moment.
“Why would he experiment on you?” Noah inquires a tad bit more emphatically.
Mirage’s gaze seems to bounce around Kris’ bedroom, steadfastly looking at everything and anything but Noah for a moment. Until finally, he sighs.
“Well, cause, I’m kind of the only one who can really do it?” he offers meekly, raising his shoulderpads in a sheepish sort of shrug. “To this degree anyway.”
He makes it sound like a question too and Noah doesn’t know how to react to the revelation.
He’s the only one who can… do it? What does that even mean?
“At least, that I’m aware of,” Mirage continues, ultimately giving into the urge and talking with his servos— although he’s doing his best to remain spatially aware of his surroundings. “I didn’t wanna ask OP because it’s not like I’ve ever seen him do it and I wasn’t too sure how Arcee and Bee would react so I just, I don’t know, kept it to myself? And screwed around with it a little bit whenever I was alone. I think I’m really starting to get the hang of it though! This is the most I’ve been able to take off so far before it starts to get a little uncomfortable. And I really wanted to see what the inside of your apartment looked like so I thought—”
Noah’s not sure but he’s pretty sure there’s only one expression visible on his face in that moment; horror.
Mirage pauses, effectively cutting himself off, when he realizes he can’t just ramble his way past what he’s just revealed to Noah. His face scrunches ruefully as he looks down at Noah, assessing him, before he seems to inhale sharply.
“I, uh— I think it’s a side effect,” he admits. “From… Peru.”
Noah feels his breath hitch and his stomach drop.
Oh no, he thinks, oh fuck.
“What happened down there,” Mirage admits softly, hanging his helm— not that it helps much because he’s nearly touching the ceiling so Noah can still see his face and the soft apprehension it seems to convey. “Y’know, after what happened, like, between us. When we, uh…”
The mech trails off, uncertain, the ridge above his optics moving closer together as he tries to gauge Noah’s reaction. And that thing is happening yet again. Second time tonight. Where the mech’s faceplate is flushing a dark blue just beneath his optics and across the bridge of his nose.
Wait, Noah tenses. Between them? So it’s not an aftereffect of the nearly dying bit. It’s something else. It’s…
“Between us?” he parrots kind of numbly. “What do you mean between us?”
Mirage looks away, one side of his mouth tugging down a bit.
Noah decides immediately that he doesn’t like it. That unsure look on his friends face.
“When we what, ‘Raj?”
The question comes out a lot more forcefully than he initially intends it too and he doesn’t even register the nickname until much later. It just spills out of him naturally. Kind of desperately. Because he is. Desperate to know just what in the hell the bot is talking about.
Mirage won’t look him in the eye. And that can’t possibly bode well.
And then…
“Don’t get mad,” the mech pleads.
Noah‘s hands immediately fly up to place the spaces between his thumbs and index fingers around the top of his forehead in an almost hysterical way. Like it’s all too much. Because he somehow instinctually knows that Mirage is about to drop a metaphorical fucking bomb on him. The biggest one he’s got.
Mirage’s servos meet just in front of his chestplate, twiddling his digits.
“Alright, look,” he admits. “I’m actually not like, super positive, but that thing I did where I transformed into like... a suit?”
Noah’s eyes widen, his entire face blanching all at once.
Oh fuck, had that not been a normal thing?!
Mirage waves his servos quickly in between them— as if to stop the train wreck he imagines must no doubt be happening inside Noah’s head— and then flinches when he remembers he’s too big for the space he’s in and tucks his elbows back into his sides.
“No, no, it wasn’t a bad thing!” he assures immediately. “It’s been done before. I mean, it’s not like super common but it’s not weird or anything.”
Noah’s hands drop to his sides. He can’t take much more of this anxiety. It’s killing him. He feels like his goddamned heart is about to give out. And maybe his legs too.
But he obviously needs to know. Probably because he’s a glutton for punishment or something.
“So?” he prompts.
“Okay, so the thing is—” Mirage starts once more, then winces and trails off again for a moment before he lets out a frustrated, raspy grunt and looks up at the ceiling instead— which looks kind of funky because it’s literally right in front of his face when he looks up.
“Frag, okay,” he decides, dropping his arms as well, his digits curling into the palmplates of his servos to form two fists at either of his sides. “So when I went offline, or faded, or… whatever we’re calling it. I used— or at least I thought I was using the last of my energon to transform into the suit. So I could protect you. Because I promised Kris.”
Noah forces himself not to recall that moment. He’s already on edge. If he thinks about it, he’ll crack.
“But I think that it was more than that,” Mirage goes on, gaze dropping but settling resolutely on something just beyond Noah’s left shoulder. “I think something happened that changed me.”
Noah remains silent. Because there has to be more. And also because his throat is dry as a desert and he thinks that if he attempts to speak in that moment, all that will come out is some horrible, garbled noise.
Mirage finally meets his gaze dead-on, bright blue optics almost pulsing.
And Noah sucks in a sharp, stuttered inhale because the look on his friend’s face is so, so intense and it’s intimidating as all fuck.
“I think it might have changed us both. Maybe, I don’t know. But…”
Noah stares up at the mechbreathlessly, his heart constricting painfully in his chest.
“I can feel your sparkbeat, Noah,” Mirage whispers. “Sorry, your heartbeat. And it’s not just when you’re sitting in my altmode or when you’re near me. I— I feel it all the time.”
Noah’s going to scream. Or pass out. Probably both honestly.
“I think it’s what kept me online. Kept me alive. I’m not sure what—”
Kris’ bedroom door cracks open with a muted creak, followed immediately by a sharp whine from the hinges— because Noah keeps forgetting to drop by the hardware store to pick up some WD-40 for that— and he glances over his shoulders stiffly to see Kris pop his head in through the crack.
“Are you two done making out?” Kris taunts immaturely— like the quintessential annoying little brother he is— before the boy’s gaze drops to the floor and his jaw drops. “Wha— are you serious? Who broke my ceiling fan? So not cool, dude.”
Yeah, Noah thinks dazedly. There is so much happening that is so not fucking cool.
I think the funniest part about Starscream’s existence is that the franchise rags on him and the characters themselves hate him but in fandom spaces, he gets a billion bitches per minute.
I spent years avoiding reading From the Sidelines, and now that I've finished it I'm physically ill, I can't stop thinking about it. My stomach hurts, my chest hurts, my head hurts. It was the best work of fiction I think I've ever read. And I honestly don't know what to do with myself anymore.
A rant/dump about my current MHA project, I avoid spoilers for the current arcs
Yall I'm literally ill, I've never had a show impact me this much, I've never had characters affect me this much. I stopped watching mha during the Eri arc due to personal shit, like me moving and just losing motivation to watch. I still consumed the media, like fanfics, or honestly chat bots, but I just didn't watch the show anymore. (still havnt but I'm working on it)
I have a long-term fanfic that I've been working on for like... years at this point. It's longer than The Great Gatsby currently. I flip-flopped forever on the main ship, and even if it was going to be an x reader. I think I've ultimately decided that it's going to be Bakudeku/OC. And I need yall to understand why.
I originally started this fanfiction years ago as kinda a crack fic. It was a self insert of me and my best friend at the time. We were twins I put us into the series. Of course, we started it cause we simped for the characters. I wrote it, and she would give me input and ideas, but I ultimately did the main work, which was fine, I was the writer. Our friendship slowly faded, and so I slowly stopped writing. I was hurt for a long time, we were best friends for like 8 years, and she gradually stopped talking to me after she got into her first relationship.
The fic was abandoned for a long time, until during a trip to go see my other best friend across country. We talked about what happened with my old friend. At one point I told her about the abandoned fic I had, how I had started the fic for fun for us, and we had sort of a plot line for our characters, but of course nothing serious, as my ex friend just stopped giving me input and ideas for everything. I told her it made me sad, but overall, I was just bitter from what my ex friend had done. My long-distance friend looked at me and said, "Why don't you just turn it into your own? Redo it. Consider it like a personal revenge." And that my friends, is what sparked a flame in me. I reformed everything, I actually developed lore, I made characters, storylines. In doing so, I realized the main characters were no longer me and my ex friend, but two completely new characters. I won't bullshit you, the main character used to be me, but she, Iris, has completely transformed into this new character. That's why I decided to make it an OC fanfic instead of reader. I put too much work and soul into her, there was no way to portray her in a vague light, enough for anyone to put themselves in her shoes. I worried for a bit, cause I know a lot of people don't like OC stories. But I personally never turned away from OC fics unless the characters personality was too much for me to focus on and insert myself into. Cause I won't lie. I read to escape my reality, most of the time, I put myself into the main characters' shoes. So I figured, I probably wasn't the only one. In the end, I'm doing this for me. If people enjoy it too, then damn that's a plus.
Another thing I want to be clear, yeah I started rewriting this story as a way to express my upset at my ex friend, but truthfully, it's no longer like that. When I think about what happened with my friend, sure, I'm still bitter sometimes. But for the most part, it's become a part of my past, theres nothing I can do to change anything. I've worked for the past few years writing, drawing, and just daydreaming about this story. Im not lying to you when I say there isn't a day that I don't think about it at least once. I haven't been able to write lately, and it's been killing me. I moved out for the first time in my life months ago, and before that I was so busy and worked to the bone I had no motivation to write, even when the thing I wanted to write about consumed my waking moments. I'm still exhausted, but goddamn if the new episodes and Manga chapters haven't grabbed me by the metaphorical balls and twisted. I won't go into detail for anyone who isn't caught up, I gave up on trying to avoid spoilers.
I think my biggest hesitation is the fandom, and potentially backlash. Is that I'm no longer the teenager that started this fic. A lot of people don't like that, and will probably see it as weird that I'm making a fanfiction based around teenagers, especially the romance part. But honestly, I don't care. I started loving these characters when I was their age in show, and I'm sorry that they don't age like I do, but unfortunately, for us all, I still have an unhealthy attachment to it. So we're just gonna deal with it. The other side was the question of ships. I bounced back and forth for a long time on if my OC was going to be with Deku or Bakugo. It was hard, cause my initial thought was 'fuck it, both' but I hesitated cause poly ships, especially like that, aren't common or popular in fandoms, or taken seriously like I want this fic to be. Recently in the fandom I've seen how much popular the Bakudeku ship has gotten, and I finally decided to say fuck it, and just go with my original idea. So this fic will not be a love triangle, well- honestly it'll have juicy dramatic parts, but I'm going agaisnt the norm and saying fuck it, they all love eachother. I myself am not poly, (at least I think? Idk I'm unlabeled, the only poly relationships I've ever thought about being a part of are with fictional characters lol) So it won't be perfect and maybe not entirely accurate. If anyone who is poly wants to give me advice I'd be open and appreciative of it. Now that, that's all out of the way...
I'm going to give a summary of my plot, and i want to know if you guys find it interesting.
In a world where humans are given superhuman abilities, the norm, quickly changes. This world is not black and white. Prejudice and discrimination never truly leave humans, if it's not one thing, it's another. And in this world, if you don't have a quirk, or if your quirk is seen as undesirable or... potentially dark in nature, then you are immediately singled out and ostracized.
Our main characters, Iris and Ivy Blackwood, are born into an unfair world, where they are ultimately dealt with a hand that is hard to burden. Being the children of famous pro heroes is one thing, it's another when said pro heroes are constantly in the eye of the public. A scandal happens every week, it seems. You can't go far in research without seeing someone question the pro heroes' motives. Forsythe and Natalia Aphelion-Blackwood are powerful people, with powerful quirks to match. What sets them aside is the nature of their powers, powers that aren't normally seen as heroic. In fact, the whole blood line is filled with ominous powers, shadey actions, and downright morally questionable choices. When these two families married together, the media burst. Obviously, it was a quirk marriage. The only thing was they just couldn't prove it. When the twins were born, everyone waited in baited unease. Just what the hell could these bloodlines produce in power? Surely it couldn't be that bad...
Ivy's quirk manifested shortly after her twin, sprouting fox ears and tail(s) her quirk was Kitsune. Similar to her father's shape-shifting quirk, but of course had stark differences. Iris, on the other hand? Well, let's just say she won't be stepping into churches anytime soon... At the ripe age of 5, Iris Blackwood sprouted, wings, horns, a tail, claws, and red eyes to match. This girl was given powers seemingly from the devil himself. Her quirk? Demon. The nature of her power is unknown, the extent? unknown. No quirk specialist stuck around to figure out just what the hell she could do, but from the brief research done, it's believed the girl is able to do whatever a demon can do... What an odd analysis, considering no one really knows what that can entell.
Iris was forced to keep her abilities under lock and key, with great luck she's able to hide her physical features. The rest of her powers, she doesn't know, and she honestly doesn't want to find out. She's trying to become a hero, what kind of hero has a power like that? The twins' parents put them on a path, one that was built and prepped long before they were even born, what a burden to put on children. Iris wants to defy all odds, to show the world that she's not her quirk. It doesn't matter if no one believes in her, not even her own parents. She has her sister, her twin, someone who's been by her side since birth. Someone who will always have her back, that will never change... right?
This story is one of betrayal, manipulation, all kinds of abuse, moral questioning, and even questioning of one's sanity... but it's also a story of friendship, trust, found family, love, and the indomitable human spirit. This is the very definition that sometimes, your family can end up being the ones you share no blood with.
Okay, so tell me, does that sound interesting? I hope so, cause these characters, this plot, has been on my mind for years nonstop, it's something that needs to be told. And I feel like a lot of people can relate to some of the things in this fic. I'm currently rewriting the first 6 or so chapters, cause once I picked up the story again long ago, I just kept writing from where I left off, so the first chapters aren't adjusted to the new direction the fanfiction is now going. It's going to be Canon compliant but not perfectly, it will have its own arcs and storyline, and of course, depending on how the show finishes, I'll have to adjust. But overall, I love the plot of MHA, so I don't want to change too much. I appreciate anyone who supports me with this. Thank you guys a lot. Stay tuned.
