#meli-val.xml

[meli-writes]

okay fine yes, you can take the enemy mech pilot to the on-station bar for shoreleave-- no do not call it a 'date' and--

hey! *snaps fingers* look, she has to wear a tracking collar while you're gone and you need to warn her it'll shock her if she tries to run, okay?

what do you mean 'is there a manual for the shock function?'

[meli-writes]

mech pilot whose conditioning makes them feel painfully obligated to do what everyone tells them. handlers have to keep them isolated, to maintain the illusion of control. but anyone just needs the pilot's ear. once there's options, they have choices.

because it's not a gun-to-the-head, that's not... economical to produce, comes with too many psychological defects. instead it's that they just don't own their own executive function and know it.

rebels know it too. and a few are bleeding hearts enough to risk cracking open a cockpit and just saying "stop." and after have to learn that even posing things as questions, ones like, "do you wanna cuddle?", are still mentally costly to rgh fefuse.

options. it's any options. "or do you wanna sit with me?" so they can say in return "i'd like to be alone for a while, but later". options that include hope, hope that there's a way out. that there's one where it'll all get better.

then maybe one day they can pick it.

[meli-writes]

protagonist girl at the all-boys mech school who's way better than everyone else not for not some magic special bullshit but just bc she traded being allowed to transition for having a bunch of experimental body mods forced on her.

[meli-writes]

finally breaking the magic lock on the villainess' tome of dark spells to discover it's actually just all of her deeply private fantasies about losing and getting completely fucked & owned by you and the other heroes.

[meli-writes]

you think i kept you alive because i respect your strength? pfff. i did it 'cos i wanted to fuck you, now get over yourself, princess, and spread.

[meli-writes]

vampire who's been a big hit in the local hypnokink scene and doesn't know how to admit it's just regular hypno and she can't thrall people.

[meli-writes]

making it pitifully easy for my evil advisor to finally take over the kingdom and take me as a consort because i'm kind of over this ruling business and i've read her secret diary and to be honest all of her fantasies about me are really hot, sweet even?? she has some like threesome ideas in there too if you wanna get in on this btw.

[meli-writes]

villainess who wakes up and doesn't even remember how she ended up in this anti-magic collar, because she was beaten as a failure by her own dark master before the heroes even arrived. and now those heroes swaddle her and tell her, "it's already over jorana," and it's not it can't be not like this.

and it hurts. every spell she tries cast makes her buckle over in pain and no amount of time of being tugged along the road and sleeping in a hated knight's arms will stop it.

because it's instinct. it's breathing. her glamours and the mending of her clothes and keeping herself warm and making food. like they cut off a hand and left it bleeding, this fucking knight there to catch her and coo about, "it's all going to be okay jorana," and it's not.

it's over.

her face a bruised and ruined mess, a dress that meant something once left to fall apart before they reach the capital, hands clinging to herself in the bitter cold.

just to live, live in a shadow of herself. how the fuck is she supposed to do that carentis. are you going to be there to catch her every day this happens, to tend the cut from a kitchen knife when she tries without thinking a third time to hex it sharper?

will you be? please.