#Orphan Data

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Keiko O’Brien

By Ames

Ring ring ring. Take your seats. The first period school bell just rang, and that means we’ve got to talk about Star Trek’s botanist-turned-school-marm: Keiko Ishikawa O’Brien. She’s another character that bridges both TNG and DS9, the former cementing her mostly in the role of Miles’s wife and the latter taking every opportunity to give her the week off. Keiko never really gets a fair shake on either show, which is a shame because she has so much potential. So A Star to Steer Her By is going to give her some time in the sun this week to see how she grows! Like a plant… because she’s a botanist… Moving on.

Amusingly, even though last week we joked that all of Garak’s moments should go on BOTH his Best and Worst Moments lists, it’s actually Keiko for whom we’re seeing the most simultaneously good and bad arguments! So grab your pruning shears and ring your school bell with us as you read on below and listen to us argue with Miles on the promenade on this week’s podcast episode (jump to 59:28), or else you’ll have to stay late for detention!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

Try to touch the cup Introduced halfway through The Next Generation, Keiko mostly seems to be around to support other characters. So in “Violations,” she’s there to help with the investigation into the mind-probing Ullians. She doesn’t do much, but she’s there. And we’ve got to admit that her scene remembering her childhood with her grandmother is rather sweet.

I would die to save the life of my child Keiko shows some badassery in “Power Play” when Miles is possessed by a being who seems to relish the idea of tormenting its host’s significant other, really twisting the knife and making things personal. Keiko bravely demands that the being let baby Molly go and even expresses she would rather die than let this thing survive. This all to the face of the man she loves!

So easy a child could do it I shit on “Rascals” a lot (and rightly so), but one thing it actually succeeds in is giving Keiko something to do. Even if it is the child form of Keiko, and not that great a child actor to boot. But she does get to help foil the Ferengi takeover of the ship, which somehow the adults on the ship are unable to do. So, uh, low bar but she and the other kid-crew leap over that sucker.

Children are the future By the time Miles and Keiko have moved over to Deep Space Nine, the little missus is looking for some way to contribute now that her botanying is basically on pause, and she leaps feet first into taking on the education of all the children on the station in “A Man Alone.” It’s a commendable endeavor since, even in the future, teaching is drastically underappreciated.

Separation of religion and station We also have to stand up and applaud Keiko for standing up to Vedek Winn in “In the Hands of the Prophets” when the Bajoran leader wants her to stop teaching the science of the wormhole and instead enforce their backwards religion. Keiko’s spot-on response “I don't teach Bajoran spiritual beliefs; that's your job” is the secular philosophy Star Trek is all about.

You know, that was a very ugly thing you just said We give Miles shit for his anti-Cardassian racism, so it’s refreshing to see Keiko do the same and call him in on his dog whistling in “Cardassians.” Miles tries to insinuate that Cardassians had gentleness bred out of them, and Keiko won’t hear it. She lets Rugal stay with them, she encourages him to play with Molly, and she even tries (and fails) to feed him like she would any kid.

It keeps him up all night! Keiko later foils the Kelleruns’ plan in “Armageddon Game” when she sees through their doctored recording of the harvester-deactivation team getting wiped out by some failsafe or other. The whole thing, of course, is a lie. Without Keiko insisting that the thing is a forgery because Miles wouldn’t be drinking coffee ends up saving the lives of Bashir and O’Brien.

We call it Voight-Kampff for short Viewers at home don’t even realize it until the end, but Keiko does a great job not rumbling the game for Miles’s replicant in “Whispers.” The twist at the end reveals that she’s been hiding from him that everyone on the station knows he’s not the real Miles, but she manages to keep him from fulfilling whatever his directive and treats him like the actual deal as much as she can.

I have no intention of testifying against my husband Even while cemented into the limiting role of “Miles’s wife,” Keiko gets some moments to shine. Ostensibly, she attends Miles’s trial in “Tribunal” just to be the face of the defendant’s family (and to give Miles the chance to blame domestic abuse if he wants), but Keiko never gives the corrupt judiciaries what they want, pushing back against their legal system the whole time.

Be the best damned botanist in the galaxy When Keiko is forced to close down the school when the Bajoran kiddos leave the station in “The House of Quark,” she’s back to where she started in the premiere. So it’s great to have her go back to her roots and agree to join the agrobiology expedition on Bajor rather than wallow in despair. Was it just to write her out of episodes? A little, but at least it’s in character.

Cheer him up a little This one probably belongs on Miles’s Worst Moments list, so let’s cover it now. Miles spends “Accession” moping that he can’t hang out with Bashir anymore now that Keiko’s back from her botany assignment, even though she never once gives him any indication he can’t still have fun. So she tricks him into going to play with his friend like setting up a toddler playdate.

You’re family now More on this in the Worst Moments section, but first let’s praise Keiko for how she treats Kira, who is surrogating Yoshi after the events of “Body Parts.” The O’Briens have Kira move in with them during the pregnancy, and Keiko is super progressive during “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places” about how Miles takes care of the Major. It’s sweet, right? Right…?

—

Worst moments

Runabout Bride I griped about this in both Data’s and Miles’s spotlight posts as well, but really Keiko is the one who started it! In her series debut “Data’s Day,” she continuously tries to call off her own wedding on the day. And even worse than that: she makes poor Data (of all people!) do it for her! The franchise really starts off this character as demonstrably unlikeable. But don’t worry, there’s more!

Plankton loaf du jour Chris put this on our Miles list as well, but it bears repeating. In “The Wounded,” immediately after their marriage, Keiko makes them breakfast of kelp buds, plankton loaf, and sea berries, which to my Western palette sounds awful. And then turns up her nose at Miles’s food culture. Did you two never eat together before this or did you go straight to the “I do”s with a stranger?

Is our marriage over? So Keiko and the kids outsmarting the Ferengi in “Rascals” made the good list, but the rest of her behavior while a child is just WEIRD. As a twelve-year-old, she tries to act like her relationship with Miles should remain the same. Excuse me? It’s one thing for him to be supportive of you in a crisis, but your life is entirely upended. Do not put this man in this position.

This garden transplant didn’t take Another element of the Keiko character that we brought up before in the Miles post comes when they transfer together to DS9 and Keiko effectively loses her job as botanist. How this wasn’t a conversation between the two of them is beyond me, as they spend all of “A Man Alone” publicly fighting at Quark’s and on the promenade about their terrible life choices.

School is now in session The writers strangely decide to make Keiko a school teacher in “A Man Alone” just to keep her character relevant to the new show. It’s a good thing for someone to do, as we mentioned in our Best Moments list, but frankly it feels like a disservice to her character, who already had a life before this. It just didn’t fit the Frontier Station™ setting, so Keiko gets a personality overwrite.

No more pencils, no more books Standing up to Vedek Winn in “In the Hands of the Prophets,” it turns out, is a terrible idea, as Keiko essentially stirs up racial tensions all across the station, resulting in most of the students pulling out of school, which ends up getting blown up. Coincidence? Oh definitely not. And shame on the writers for not giving Keiko another line after the destruction. Boo.

The best part of waking up… We’re still not sure what we think of the reveal that Miles does indeed drink coffee whenever the hell he pleases in “Armageddon Game,” as it negates the insight that Keiko had earlier brought to the episode (and to this blogpost!) when she saves the day. It feels like the writers are saying “nyah nyah!” because it turns out Keiko doesn’t know her husband as well as she thinks.

I don’t even want to sit at the same table with you More fighting in public with Miles. We loved Keiko getting back to her botany roots, but springing on her husband in “Fascination” that her survey expedition was going to take seven months longer than planned is an argument that should not have been happening at Quark’s in the Gratitude Festival. The writers made any excuse they could to not have her on the show!

So you wish Keiko was a man? Keiko is upset at Miles at the top of “Hippocratic Oath” for putting a workshop in the bedroom during one of the myriad times she’s away, and clearly there was another argument about it in which Keiko accuses him of living like a bachelor again. Bitch, you’re not even there 90% of the time. No wonder Miles admits to Julian he wishes she were more like a man.

I think she’s actually enjoying it, Miles We talked in both Kira’s and Miles’s posts about how ridiculous their B-plot was in “Looking for par’Mach in All the Wrong Places,” but Keiko is so naive that she keeps forcing them together by accident. What’s even worse: this whole surrogacy plot was a fabulous opportunity to have Keiko and Kira bond instead, as two women who rarely have scenes together. What a ripoff.

Where’re Baloo and Bagheera when you need them? I will never stop giving Miles and Keiko (and to some extent Odo!) grief about how they send feral Molly back into her cave in “Time’s Orphan.” How anyone can neglect their child this blatantly and then be rewarded for it by the episode’s intent is just terrible. Keiko doesn’t even resist the idea when Miles shares it, but is onboard immediately to give up on their child rather than get her actual help.

But the cat came back the very next day A smaller detail in “Time’s Orphan” hints at how Keiko doesn’t like Chester, the cat that O’Brien takes in after he absolutely gets Bilby killed in “Honor Among Thieves.” Keiko strongly insinuates that she’d be happy if Chester ran away, never to return, if they brought him on their picnic. How this woman cannot love this poor orphaned cat is beyond me and deserves some hate.

—

Aaaaand we’re all suspended for setting off stink bombs on the promenade. We’ll be back next week though to highlight Keiko’s arch nemesis. No, not Miles. Kai Winn Adami! Look forward to that, keep up with our trip through the Delphic Expance with us on our Enterprise watchalong on SoundCloud (and the other podcast places), pass notes in class to us on Facebook and Twitter, and no fighting on the promenade!

[13thpythagoras]

i wanna give a shout out to all my tumblr people who don't have living parents / contact with their parents... orphan gang ride or die all ages... if you got questions or ponderings then I for one am here for you... doctors just wanna make a buck off us, the system they represent blocks cures, doctors are just like cops to me. i'm in that anton chigurh school of medicine, i heal myself and i don't ask for permission to do it, and i am glad to teach others about real cures that don't fit the patent system, so the french kissers of boots hate me and i say let em, let em see me as their villain and one day they'll look in the mirror and see a lap dog on the porch of the establishment barking at people saving lives staring back at themselves

[empressofthelibrary]

...Do you think Troi and Data ever had a conversation about the children they had for a very short time but loved so much and lost far too soon?

[ao3scrapesearch]

This tool is optional. No one is required to use it, but it's here if you want to know which of your AO3 fics were scraped. Locked works were not 100% protected from this scrape. Currently, I don't know of any next steps you should be taking, so this is all informational.

Most people should use this link to check if they were included in the March 2025 AO3 scrape. This will show up to 2,000 scraped works for most usernames.

Or you can use this version, which is slower but does a better job if your username is a common word. This version also lets you look up works by work ID number, which is useful if you're looking for an orphaned or anonymous fic.

If you have more than 2,000 published works, first off, I am jealous of your motivation to write that much. But second, that won't display right on the public version of the tools. You can send me an ask (preferred) or DM (if you need to) to have me do a custom search for you if you have more than 2,000 total works under 1 username. If you send an ask off-anon asking me to search a name, I'll assume you want a private answer.

In case this post breaches containment: this is a tool that only has access to the work IDs, titles, author names, chapter counts, and hit counts of the scraped fics for this most recent scrape by nyuuzyou discovered in April 2025. There is no other work data in this tool. This never had the content of your works loaded to it, only info to help you check if your works were scraped. If you need additional metadata, I can search my offline copy for you if you share a work ID number and tell me what data you're looking for. I will never search the full work text for anyone, but I can check things like word counts and tags.

Please come yell if the tool stops working, and I'll fix as fast as I can. It's slow as hell, but it does load eventually. Give it up to 10 minutes, and if it seems down after that, please alert me via ask! Anons are on if you're shy. The link at the top is faster and handles most users well.

On mobile, enable screen rotation and turn your phone sideways. It's a litttttle easier to use like that. It works better if you can use desktop.

Some FAQs below the cut:

First off! If you're seeing an old version of this post, you may not have seen that we now have our first tool to poison AO3 fics! This is still experimental, and it's likely we'll find issues with it as people start using it! But if you want something like Glaze and Nightshade but for fic, this is what we have right now. Before you decide to use it, please read all the info you can--most importantly, using the poison in its current state makes your fic inaccessible to certain users. All the TTS tools I've tried work with this as long as your readers know to save the fic in a certain way! But people who need to download an offline copy to adjust the colors and can't do that with an AO3 site skin will NOT be able to download your work with the current version of the poison. For downloading EPUBs, it preliminarily looks like Calibre can support "unpoisoning" the fic so it's readable again.

"What do I need to do now?": At this time, the main place where this dataset was shared is disabled. As far as I'm aware, you don't need to do anything, but I'll update if I hear otherwise. If you're worried about getting scraped again, locking your fics to users only is NOT a guarantee, but it's a little extra protection. There are methods that can protect you more, but those will come at a cost of hiding your works from more potential readers as well.

"I know AO3 will be scraped again, and I'm willing to put a silly amount of effort into making my fics unusable for AI!": Excellent, stick around here. I'm currently trying to keep up with anyone working on solutions to poison our AO3 fics, and I will be reblogging information about doing this as I come across it.

"I want my fics to be unusable for AI, but I wanna be lazy about it.": You're so real for that, bestie. It may take awhile, but I'm on the lookout for data poisoning methods that require less effort, and I will boost posts regarding that once I find anything reputable.

"I don't want to know!": This tool is 100% optional. If you don't want to know, simply don't click the link. You are totally welcome to block me if it makes you feel more comfortable.

"Can I see the exact content they scraped?": Nope, not through me. I don't have the time to vet every single person to make sure they are who they say they are, and I don't want to risk giving a scraped copy of your fic to anyone else. If you really want to see this, you can find the info out there still and look it up yourself, but I can't be the one to do it for you.

"Are locked fics safe?": Not safe, but so far, it appears that locked fics were scraped less often than public fics. The only fics I haven't seen scraped as of right now are fics in unrevealed collections, which even logged-in users can't view without permission from the owner.

"My work wasn't a fic. It was an image/video/podfic.": You're safe! All the scrape got was stuff like the tags you used and your title and author name. The work content itself is a blank gap based on the samples I've checked.

"It's slow.": Unfortunately, a 13 million row data dashboard is going to be on the slow side. I think I've done everything I can to speed it up, but it may still take up to 10 minutes to load if you use the second link. It's faster if you can use desktop or the first link, but it should work on your phone too.

"My fic isn't there.": The cut-off date is around February 15th, 2025 for oneshots, but chapters posted up to March 21st, 2025 have been found in the data so far. I had to remove a few works from the dataset because the data was all skrungly and breaking my tool. (The few fics I removed were NOT in English.) Otherwise, from what I can tell so far, the scraper's code just... wasn't very good, so most likely, your fic was missed by random chance.

Thanks to everyone who helped with the cost to host the tool! I appreciate you so so so much. As of this edit, I've received more donations than what I paid to make this tool so you do NOT need to keep sending money. (But I super appreciate everyone who did help fund this! I just wanna make sure we all know it's all paid for now, so if you send any more that's just going to my savings to fix the electrical problems with my house. I don't have any more costs to support for this project right now.)

(Made some edits to the post on 27-May-2025 to update information!)

[donthitanybody]

@poppy5991 tagged me, so I guess these are mine.

RULES: make a new post with the names of all the files in your WIP folder, regardless of how non-descriptive or ridiculous. Let people send you an ask with the title that most intrigues them, and then post a little snippet or tell them something about it! and then tag as many people as you have WIPs.

Moon Heart

I Let the Moon Into My Heart to Ventilate

I felt my Shelter Burning

Rose's Journal (Although I think this one's dead bc the discord server imploded a year ago lol)

I can't remember all the peeps who are writers, but I think @sleepymccoy @superbcandyangel @apokalypse-arisen @intergalacticauthor @fox-mulder-gets-pegged covers most of yall.

There's more of you sorry if I forgot you. If you see this and you write, consider yourself tagged.

[sayruq]

Israel has killed 14,350 Palestinian children between October 7 and April 4. This means children account for 44% of all Palestinians killed in Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) said in a press release ahead of Palestinian Children’s Day. Women and children constitute nearly 70% of over 7,000 additional persons missing in the same period, and the majority of the over 75,000 wounded Palestinians are women and children. Out of a total of 455 Palestinians killed in the occupied West Bank by the Israeli forces in the same period, 117 were children. Over 17,000 Palestinian children have also been orphaned or separated from their parents as a result of Israel’s genocidal attacks, according to UNICEF data, after either both or one of their parents were killed in the Israeli bombings and ground offensives since October 7.

[kharti]

so here's the thing

It's 2am, I should be asleep, but instead I'm on my phone scrounging in the dark for validation on AO3 and social media, and you've activated my trap card

Lately I've been thinking about their first meeting. What that was like. What the circumstances were. There're a lot of possibilities, a lot of ways to interpret how it could have happened. In my fics, I generally put a vague "assigned to him" sentence as backstory and leave it at that.

Here's how it went down in my head when I muse on it.

Robotnik is an unlikable loose cannon, right. He's the department's pet genius with anger issues. No one wants to work with him... blah blah we all know that story.

But what if no one wants to work with Stone? What if Stone is a problem, too? What if Stone is a high-performing asset who doesn't get along with others because he sees them as inferior. On missions, he doesn't play nice, doesn't cooperate, goes rogue to take care of things his way because he thinks he knows best.

Maybe one time he leaves a man behind. Maybe they assign him to Robotnik as punishment for it. Take him out of field work to be a lab rat's assistant. It should be a blow to his ego, and at first, it is. He's bitter when he walks into the lab that they would take their best agent out of the game over the life of someone who couldn't shoot a target.

Is it love at first sight? Is Robotnik getting funky to some loud music, hips gyrating all sexy like? No, I think Robotnik is cold and dismissive and everything we know him to be, and it shocks Stone out of his own anger. He knows about Robotnik, everyone does, has probably witnessed his wrath before, but Robotnik delivers a speech—something he intends to rile him up... except all it does is make Stone become smitten with him.

"So you're the one who fucked up so royally that they sent you down here as punishment?" Robotnik asks without turning away from his work when Stone enters the lab. "I read your file. High marks in everything except social skills. Must be the mommy and daddy issues."

"The—"

"Oh, that part was redacted, of course, but poorly hidden. It was child's play to retrieve the data. Orphaned at a young age, left to rot in the system, passed around from home to home because nobody likes a little boy who doesn't act according to society's rules. So you learned that you could only depend on yourself, right? That's what you think?"

Stone barely gets a syllable out before the doctor bowls right over him, still continuing to work uninterrupted by his own speech.

"But instead of that, you signed up to be a government dog. Learned to sit and stay and roll over. Dedicated your teeth to the man. Now you depend on higher-ups to tell you what to do, never thinking for yourself anymore."

Robotnik finally looks at him, sneering. "So since following orders is all you can do, be good and fetch me a coffee."

Stone is used to people being intimidated by him. He's used to watching them flinch under his stare, used to his presence causing others discomfort. Now, he's faced with a stronger force of presence that makes him want to avert his eyes and submit.

But he shows his teeth anyway in a facsimile of a smile. "You work for the same people as me. I'm not the only dog in this room."

Robotnik's hands still. His head turns to the side before the rest of him follows, an almost unnatural jerkiness to his movements, as if he were a robot himself. Then he grins, wide and maniacal. "That's the difference between you and me, puppy." He takes a step forward, then another, slowly approaching him as he speaks. "I'm the one holding my own leash. I bite the hand that feeds me. And I get away with it because they need me."

When he's right in front of Stone, he grabs him by the tie and yanks down to tighten it on his throat. "They don't need you. I could kill you right now and they'd dispose of your body without another thought. You wouldn't even get a proper burial."

Stone has more than enough training on ways to defend himself. Instinct should drive him to break out of the hold; it would be so easy. Robotnik is wide open. One jab would be enough to disarm him.

Instead, Stone feels something tickle in his brain. A pleasant tingling sensation. A certain rightness to this current situation. He looks up at the man grinning down at him, and he smiles. A real, genuine smile.

"Yes, Doctor. You're absolutely right."

Robotnik's brow arches. He didn't expect that reaction. It intrigues him, piques the scientist in him to wonder—what will it take to break the agent?

And as we see in the movies, it takes more than the doctor can dish out, because Stone loves every fucking second of what he's given.

[kyupids-skull]

Teehee I’m waiting to get my car fixed so I’m writing in a notebook and >:3c

Tbh I really like this idea so I might make it an actual fanfic? It would cover differences brought on by Masaru and Chika being orphans- so focusing on a few different relationship dynamics, events outside of the main plot, etc.,

[sshbpodcast]

Character Spotlight: Miles O’Brien

By Ames

Though he was introduced in The Next Generation (in the pilot episode, no less!), Miles Edward O’Brien doesn’t really get to stretch his legs until he gets promoted to chief engineer in Deep Space Nine. Not much room in the transporter room, I’m afraid. As Star Trek’s most epitomic everyman, the chief isn’t some magic-powered alien or augmented human or even a pinnacle of futuristic ethics. Hell, it’s his flaws that make him more relatable than most other characters in the franchise, and he remains one of the most popular crewmembers all around!

Is it Colm Meaney’s approachable yet nuanced performance? Is it the strength of the writing of DS9? Or do we just love watching a grown man suffer in the way only O’Brien can? Find out below as your hosts of A Star to Steer Her By shine this week’s spotlight on the chief, and listen to this week’s banter over on the podcast (beam over to 55:13). Jaysus!

[Images © CBS/Paramount]

Best moments

They say you will be doing this manually, sir. No automation.  O’Brien shows up in the first TNG episode, “Encounter at Farpoint,” though he doesn’t get a name yet. And even though Picard orders Riker to reattach the saucer section as a test of his skills, frankly O’Brien does almost all of the work. Riker really only tells O’Brien to reattach the two sections and he just goes and does it while Riker gets all the credit. No respect, I tell ya!

The minstrel boy to the war has gone For most of TNG, O’Brien is stuck in the transporter room, but he gets to use those abilities to beam over to the Phoenix in “The Wounded”! Even through shields! Now that’s impressive on its own, but there’s more. Despite his predilection towards hating the spoonheads, he talks Captain Maxwell out of destroying a Cardassian supply vessel and surely inciting another war.

I’ve been doing this for twenty-two years and I haven’t lost anybody yet One more great use of transporter chief O’Brien comes when Barclay is exhibiting transporterphobia in “Realm of Fear.” Though most of the crew view Barclay’s eccentricities as irrational, O’Brien remains understanding and patient throughout, and works with Reg to figure out what’s really going on in the pattern buffer and save the crewmen trapped in there.

Now you are Tosk as well, O’Brien Our overall favorite Miles moment from the show is probably how he stands up for Tosk in “Captive Pursuit” and helps him escape from his hunters. In one of our best examples showcasing when it’s a good idea to disobey the Prime Directive, O’Brien makes a statement by taking off his combadge to go do what’s right, saving the life of a subjugated person.

I’ve met some Cardassians I didn’t like, and I’ve met some I did O’Brien starts off “Cardassians” being racist about letting Rugal play with Molly or share their table, but it’s commendable how he warms up to the boy. They find common ground. Granted, it’s in how much they hate Cardassia, but it’s something. But it’s truly a great moment when he bonds with Rugal: someone who’s had no choice in life and whose future is being decided for him.

I want to die on my feet Here’s a quick badass moment from O’Brien. When he’s already dying from the bioweapon in “Armageddon Game” and the T'Lani and the Kelleruns are about the execute him to get rid of all people with knowledge of the harvesters, Miles requests that they allow him the dignity of dying on his feet instead of slumped in his own filth. There’s something powerful about that.

He’s their commander. They trusted him. He can’t leave them. This one’s controversial since “Hippocratic Oath” is so multifaceted in a lot of ways. Last time, we commended Julian for his humanitarian (Jem’Hadaritarian?) attempts to save our Dominion enemies from their ketracel-white addiction. Well, O’Brien is there to save Bashir from himself when the doctor’s attempts fail and a bunch of rabid alien soldiers are ready to tear the humans apart.

That boy’s life is in our hands and I won’t let anybody give up on him O’Brien’s friendship with Quique Muniz culminates in some beautiful scenes in “The Ship.” Muniz is dying a whole lot and O’Brien never gives up on him, even battling (verbally and physically) with Worf over how to handle his approaching death. And when the inevitable does occur, it’s all the more heartbreaking when Worf joins in the ritual ak’voh.

This is how an engineer plays kotra You don’t see a lot of scenes between Garak and O’Brien throughout the show. Now some of that is probably that they don’t like sharing Julian’s attention, but the rest is that there’s no trust between the Cardassian spy and the hero of Setlik Three. We get to see them stand off in “Empok Nor” and O’Brien impresses by outsmarting the homicidal Garak using his engineering skills!

Good cat, Chester! Even when infiltrating the Orion Syndicate (for reasons), O’Brien tries to do the right thing. He tries to tip Bilby off in “Honor Among Thieves” when he has entrapped him, though that does neither of them any good. But even more importantly, Miles agrees to take in Chester, who is a pretty cat and a good cat, and your SSHB hosts here have to give him credit for that.

The cause of death was the Orion Syndicate In fact, O’Brien was so dedicated to his sorta father figure that when Bilby’s widow has vanished in “Prodigal Daughter,” he goes looking for her. Without asking or informing anyone, which probably wasn’t the brightest move, but this is Miles we’re talking about. And without him, we’d never have solved her murder case at the hands of Ezri’s messed up family’s business.

You gotta friend in me Just as we did in the Julian spotlight, we’ve got to close out on O’Brien’s sweet friendship with the good doctor. Bashir, who never looks before he leaps, frequently finds himself needing the constant support and level head of someone like Miles when he does asinine things like leap into Sloan’s head in “Extreme Measures,” even when it’s a bad idea, as we've discussed before.

—

Worst moments

Don’t phaser the messenger I’ll avoid citing marriage to Keiko as a Worst Moment because that’s mean, but the way they got married in “Data’s Day” was painful to watch. The audience’s first impression of their relationship is one in which both parties refuse to communicate over something as important as their marriage, and make Data (of all people!) act as their middleman. What a terrible start!

Sweetheart, I’m not a fish Don’t worry, there’s more to drag about how Miles and Keiko’s relationship was depicted in TNG. In the very next episode, “The Wounded,” we see just how they clearly didn’t know each other before deciding to get hitched. Neither likes how each other eats. Guys, you can hate each other’s food because, ya know what, food replicators exist! Order your own potato casserole!

I hate what I became because of you We give Miles a lot of grief on the podcast for his systematic racism. Which is fair – he certainly is quick to hate on other races on occasion. We see this explored interestingly in “The Wounded,” for which we already gave him credit for transcending his racism above, but not before he snaps at Daro and blames the Cardassians for Maxwell’s actions before knowing if he was even right or not.

Grapevine says Chief O’Brien and the missus are having problems But let’s move on to when Miles makes it to the main credits in DS9. As expected, we’re starting off with more Keiko drama. We learn in “A Man Alone” that Keiko was none too pleased about being uprooted (cuz she’s a botanist, get it?) from the Enterprise, and they argue about it publicly at Quark’s. In front of everyone. Do they never communicate before major life changes?

I suppose you’d be happier if I was miserable? I’m sorry that there’s more Keiko drama to include. I didn’t do this on purpose. In “Fascination,” Keiko is finally doing actual botany work and feeling useful doing a long term study on Bajor, and yet she and Miles end up fighting (again, in the middle of Quark’s!) about extending her assignment. And to make matters worse, Miles insinuates she’s having an affair! Dude! Stop.

They call me Smiley Smiley O’Brien is almost indistinguishable from our universe’s Miles (they’re both inherently good guys who suffer enormously), so I’d say it’s safe to include kidnapping Sisko in “Through the Looking Glass” and coercing him into pretending to be mirror Sisko on the naughty list. What a bold move! The Terran Resistance is lucky to have him even if we the audience are getting sick of mirror land.

They’re killers. That’s all they know how to do. Jake may have included saving Dr. Bashir in “Hippocratic Oath” on his Best Moments list, but we’ve also got to reprimand O’Brien for sabotaging Julian’s attempt to cure the Jem’Hadars’ addiction. It’s not just in order to save his friend’s life. Miles states up and down that Goran’Agar is not to be trusted because he’s a Jem’Hadar and starts spewing all the old propaganda again, like a racist.

Just leave a Yelp review, dude While it’s always sadistically fun to watch O’Brien suffer (Colm Meaney does it so well!), it’s also rough to see just how poorly he recovers in an episode like “Hard Time.” Miles is suffering hard from PTSD and guilt and he takes it by attacking Quark. Even worse, he nearly beats Molly when she’s annoying him, which is shocking coming from Miles. Please, seek professional help.

All the time you were holding out on me Later in “Hard Time,” we learn what was on Miles’s conscience the whole time. While in his memory jail, he gets paranoid enough of his cellmate Ee’Char that he murders him in cold blood over a couple orts of food that Ee’Char wasn’t even hoarding for himself. Even though none of it was real, the knowledge that Miles could be pushed to kill an innocent man is a huge blow for him.

It gets worse. There’s a view. We ragged on this plotline in the Kira spotlight as well, but there’s enough discomfort to go around. Those weird, unnecessary feelings Miles develops for a pregnant Kira in “Looking for par'Mach in All the Wrong Places” are just a bad plot device. It feels forced to make two people get romantically awkward just because they’re in proximity with each other. Just lazy.

There’s no hiding from the Syndicate Does it make a ton of sense to force O’Brien to infiltrate the Orion Syndicate in “Honor Among Thieves”? Especially in the middle of the Dominion War? Maybe not, but he does a decent job winning the trust of Liam Bilby using his engineering skills and general good nature. In fact, he does such a good job that he certainly gets Bilby killed in Starfleet’s scheme, like a little rat.

Molly and the Hendersons It is just deplorable how “Time’s Orphan” treats the developmentally stunted Molly O’Brien, and the most shame belongs to Miles and Keiko. What parent would give up on their trauma-ridden child after just a few days and release her into the dangerous wild to live like an animal? I am appalled that not once did anyone float another option to aid in Molly’s rehabilitation, but even more appalled that getting rid of her was the proposed solution.

—

And that’s the way the Alamo crumbles. Keep your eyes here for more character spotlights! DS9 certainly has a lot more to cover, so make sure you’re subscribed to our Tumblr, follow along with us on the podcast over on SoundCloud or wherever you get your podcasts, sing us an Irish ballad on Facebook and Twitter, and replicate up a nice potato casserole!

[aealzx]

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Prologue | AO3

Previous Next

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“You came all the way out here to ask me to identify a plant?” Pamela was understandably incredulous as she blocked Tim from entering her current residence.

“Weeelll,” Tim drawled, shrugging with one shoulder. “Spoiler and Orphan said you’d be the best to contact. We could go elsewhere, but then I’d have to find somewhere else for these bacon and egg sandwiches,” he explained, revealing the hand that was behind his back to be holding a paper bag for a local food joint. It was a bribe. Or payment for services rendered if one wanted to be posh about it. But he was fine calling it a bribe.

“Aw hell yeah!” Harleen’s voice came from further in the establishment, and Tim caught just the faintest hint of a smile twitching Pamela’s mouth. She tried to resist, but Tim held his ground with a decidedly innocent smile, the bag of egg sandwiches still held in offering.

Eventually Pamela sighed and held out her hand. “Fine. What identifiers do you have for it?” she relented, letting Tim set the bag of food on her palm.

“Not much honestly. The locals call it a blood blossom, but I doubt it’s a haemanthus coccineus. We don’t have a picture, but we’re told it looks like a red rose bud with black leaves,” Tim answered. He’d done his own research already while waiting for the food to be made, and that was part of the reason he didn’t feel bad for following through with the others’ idea to ask Pamela. He had a few guesses already, but it would be nice to get a second opinion.

“A rose with black leaves?” Pamela repeated, her disappointed expression becoming thoughtful. “That’s it? Nothing else?” she asked soon after, frowning deeper if possible.

“Nothing else,” Tim confirmed, both disappointed and pleased that Pamela also didn’t seem able to come up with an answer.

“Sounds made up,” Pamela answered bluntly, shifting to move back into the building. “There aren’t any roses with black leaves unless they’re mutilated. The closest you’ll get is a begonia switzerland if you’re just going by appearance.”

“Oh…. that’s what I thought too,” Tim hummed, raising a curled finger to his chin.

Pamela’s eye twitched. “Then why did you-.... Goodbye,” she stammered, then figured it wasn’t worth her time to deal with Tim further, and closed the door on him.

Tim could only snort in amusement, raising his voice for just a moment. “Thanks for the info! Enjoy the food!” he called, grinning as he turned to grapple himself back to the rooftops.

So the blood blossoms were either an extremely obscure name for some other plant, or they didn’t actually exist. And if they didn’t exist, then what had poisoned Danny? At least Dick and Damian were heading straight to the manor to follow up with Alfred about meals, and bring the tissue sample with the plant based poison to where Bruce could use their tech to better analyze it. And Barbara had already mentioned she’d meet them there, so while they might not have a good start on two of the three questions they should at least be able to figure out who these kids were exactly.

—----------

“They don’t exist,” Barbara’s conclusion about the five Phantom kids they had custody of was short, but did little to answer any questions the others had. After spending a few hours gathering her data she had decided to join the others at the manor, the three who had returned from the rescue mission, Bruce, and her now gathered in the Bat Cave by the computer. Admittedly that hadn’t been something they fully expected to hear, so there were sagging shoulders from both Dick and Tim at the announcement.

“You ran the search in all of the databases, yeah?” Tim asked, immediately trying to figure out what they had missed. Barbara was usually extremely thorough. It was hard to believe she came up with nothing on a group of five people. Especially when two of them had superhuman abilities.

“Yes, Tim,” Barbara responded quickly. “If you’ll let me continue before you try to solve the problem yourself I’ll save you some steps,” she added, getting a mildly teasing smile. When Tim relented with a mild shrug Barbara turned her chair back to the computer, pulling her reports up on the huge monitor.

“The DNA samples came up with no results. Amity Park doesn’t exist on any map. There’s no social media posts about any combination of their names. And the photo Jason sent of Jazz’s ID also has no results. It doesn’t even resemble the official driver’s license format of Illinois or any of the other states, so it’s not hard to see why the bank teller would call it a fake,” she listed, bringing up the reports from her data scouring as she mentioned them. “The only activity I can track from them is here in Gotham, starting 72 days ago. I believe that’s when they first arrived here.”

The date caused Bruce to shift, breaking out of his silence once it seemed Barbara had finished summarizing her findings and drawing a connection to a separate report he’d gotten more than a month ago. “72 days ago is when the Justice League got readings of an anomaly on the outskirts of Gotham. Investigations revealed some remains of unknown technology, but no one was there with it.”

“...What kind of anomaly?” Dick asked, tensing slightly at a thought that crossed his mind. Unknown DNA, unusable bank and ID cards, two of them claiming to be beings that were never heard of before now.

“Please don’t say multiverse breach,” Tim whined, revealing that he’d had the same thoughts as Dick.

Instead of answering them Bruce just opened a different report, having been locating it as his sons had been speaking. When the data appeared on screen both Dick and Tim let out extended groans, their forms sagging even more as Barbara chuckled softly.

“It had to be dimension garbage,” Tim whined more, squinting at the report confirming suspected multiverse breach residue in the affected area.

“That explains all the missing data,” Barbara commented, just glad to have an explanation for why all her research was coming up blank prior to the anomaly. It was because they literally had nothing on this earth before then, and not because they were some sort of geniuses that could manage such an extensive data wipe to make even her systems come up with blanks.

“That also explains why Dr. Isley was unfamiliar with the blood blossoms,” Damian added, seeming unfazed by the revelation.

“And literally everything else that was weird about them,” Tim encompassed, frustration bleeding into his tone. What kind of puzzle didn’t even have answers in this world? He felt like that was cheating.

“Do they seem aware that they are no longer in their dimension? We’re sure this wasn’t a deliberate transport?” Bruce asked, masking his growing concern for the dislocated children by suggesting they might still be hiding something.

“Please, these kids can’t hide anything that well,” Tim huffed, giving a wry smile. “The only reason they’re able to hide anything is because they’re also oblivious. Otherwise it’s way too easy to tell they’re keeping something a secret.”

Bruce only frowned more at the response, and Barbara couldn’t help add her own support of the idea that the Phantoms had no idea they weren’t even close to home. “They seemed to have had enough to deal with, I don’t think they had time to consider it. Almost 80% of their activity ties back to them looking for ectoplasm. The other 20% is just general medical care and necessities of living.”

“Ectoplasm is the stuff they said Danny needed,” Dick added unnecessarily.

“I remember,” Bruce responded, though he could also understand why the kids had such a hard time tracking down a source. Most of Gotham didn’t even believe in ghosts, and the only people he or his family knew that matched the category were Boston and Greta. “Their search led them to a Lazarus water exchange.”

“Yeah. But apparently even though it’s similar enough, the Lazarus water is ‘freaky’ and they don’t want to use it according to Danielle,” Dick confirmed, using air quotes for what the small girl had said.

“All five of them have traces of another substance I’ve never seen before that seems similar to residue from Lazarus water as well,” Barbara spoke up to add, reaching over to the computer once more as she once again had their attention. The DNA analysis reports were enlarged, and she used a screen sketch app to mark the unusual traces. “It’s most prominent in Danielle and Danny, though Danny’s levels read a lot lower. But the other three have small traces as well.”

“The one called Danielle made mention of Danny having expended a significant amount of energy, to the point his accelerated healing ability has been hindered. And that there was a lack of locations with an abundance of said energy for them to absorb,” Damian recalled, ignoring the face Tim pulled as he slowly turned to look at him.

“You made that sound way more complicated than she did,” Tim grimaced.

“Silence Drake,” Damian retorted simply.

Dick could only snicker while keeping his gaze on the reports like Bruce was doing. “This will make it easier to track some of the substance down. I’ll see if I can create a collection device to make it easier for us to get larger amounts, and work on a way to neutralize the residual plant material,” Bruce commented, already making plans for the next course of action.

“After dinner,” Dick enforced, resting his hands on the back of Bruce’s chair.

Bruce seemed to consider it, falling silent and keeping his gaze on the monitor, giving no answer other than a short grunt after a long stretch of quiet.

Dick only leaned on the chair more, pulling it back slightly. “Aaaaafter dinner, Bruce. Thirty minutes isn’t going to be that big of a loss,” he prodded.

“...Alfred put you up to this, didn’t he,” Bruce pointed out instead of responding to the request.

“He did,” Dick confirmed, admitting to being requested to make sure Bruce got at least one hearty meal before getting lost in his work once again.

Bruce considered it longer, and by then the rest of his children were already on their way back upstairs. Did he really want Alfred hassling him again? “... Very well. After dinner,” he relented, getting to his feet with a slight sigh and locking the computer screen.

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Dimension hopping confirmed~ And I just realized I now have 2 fanfics that involve dimension hopping X'D that was unintentional.

Questions for the people following/interested: because I'm not familiar with most of DC or really DP's canon and fanon content and there's so freaking much of it out there, which characters would you like to see involved? No guarantees that they'll be in if I can't figure out how to get them to fit, but I need somewhere to start researching stuff X'DD. Also there's essentially 2 goals, wake Danny up, and get Team Phantom back home. How difficult should these tasks be, and which one would people rather have more focus on?

This fic originated from a prompt I found, so I think it might be fun to kind of keep that going? A different kind of writing exercise than what I'm used to. So that's why the questions instead of me just going heheh have a cliffhanger.

Though I will say I'm still of the opinion of no romance, so please don't suggest pairings |D

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Tag list: @galaxy-sharks-and-bottled-ships, @starscreamlover, @nerdynonnativenarnian, @dragongoblet, @zeestarfishalien, @bellathecatastrophe, @cj-ghostemoji-destielpie, @asexual-insomniac, @wolfeyedwitch, @tkiesai, @fanaroff, @raven1508, @nebulainajar, @serasvictoria02, @oliocelottafanfics, @honeysuckletook, @omniithe-deer, @wolf-under-the-stars, @gingernutcalo, @that-random-fangirl

[dangeroustravelermultiverse]

Neglected wintersoldier! Reader x batfam

Chapter 3 : Ghosts in the shadows

TW: Violence

Location: Gotham City — 2:03 AM Target: Retrieve stolen WayneTech data from rogue arms dealer Vasili Krymov Status: Active

(I wanted to put a credit on this art but I found this in Pinterest so I don't know who draw this.)

The city hadn't changed.

It still reeked of rot and rain. It still bled corruption through every alley and whispered violence through every crack in its broken concrete. The skyline loomed jagged above her like the ribs of a dead god. Gotham was a graveyard, and she moved through it like a ghost.

Her boots made no sound against the damp rooftop. A cold breeze kissed the exposed edge of her black tactical suit, which blended seamlessly with the shadows. Her mask concealed every part of her identity, its visor glowing faint red, casting a dull light across the rooftop ledge. The metal arm, sleek and plated in black alloy, flexed as she adjusted the sniper sling across her back.

Winter Soldier didn’t feel the cold. She didn't feel anything.

Only the mission.

Behind her, two silent figures waited. Dressed in similar black stealth armor, the two backup agents—Agent Kova and Agent Mikhail—stood with rifles slung, eyes scanning the skyline.

"In case she falters," Mikhail muttered in Russian, nodding toward her. "You say the first three. I say the last two. Understood?"

"Understood," Kova replied, eyes never leaving the perimeter.

Just in case.

Winter Soldier pressed two fingers to her comm.

"This is Winter Soldier. Target compound in sight. Four hostiles on perimeter."

"Confirmed," her handler's voice responded in her ear—calm, clipped, in Russian. "Eliminate. Secure the drive. No witnesses."

Her eyes narrowed behind the mask. With one fluid motion, she leapt from the rooftop, landing in a crouch behind a stack of rusted crates. She counted the guards silently.

One smoking near the fence. Two more walking a lazy patrol near the loading dock. The last one was nodding off by a security panel.

Winter Soldier moved.

The first died with a blade across the throat. The second and third didn't even have time to reach for their weapons before her silenced pistol dispatched them with two clean shots. The last one barely gasped before her metal arm slammed him into the wall hard enough to break his neck.

She approached the warehouse door, scanning the lockpad. A few seconds of silent work, and the door hissed open.

Inside, the flickering industrial lights illuminated rows of crates stamped with WayneTech logos. Krymov was hunched over a workstation, shoving encrypted drives into a bag.

"You're late," he muttered in Russian, not bothering to look up.

"You're dead," Winter Soldier replied.

He barely had time to turn before her boot collided with his chest, sending him crashing into a metal shelf. His gun clattered uselessly across the floor. She walked toward him with clinical calm, withdrawing a blade.

Just as she reached for the data drive—

"That's far enough."

The voice came from above. Familiar. Dangerous.

She turned instantly, blade raised.

Shapes descended from the rafters and shadows. One by one, they emerged: Nightwing, flipping acrobatically to the floor. Red Hood, twin pistols aimed. Robin, sword already drawn. Orphan, silent but watching. Red Robin, analyzing the scene with sharp eyes. And at the rear, stepping out of the darkness like a judgment—Batman.

They surrounded her.

Y/n's pulse didn't change. Her training kicked in.

Assess. React. Eliminate.

From across the compound, Kova and Mikhail crouched in the shadows, watching closely.

"She’s hesitating," Kova whispered. His hand hovered near his mic. "She might be glitching."

"Trigger sequence," Mikhail replied. He raised his comm and spoke softly in Russian:

"оставление. тень. назначение."

Then Kova finished with:

"без страха. удар."

The flicker behind Y/n's eyes vanished.

Jason took aim. "Who the hell is this?"

"Doesn't match any League profile," Damian said coldly. "But she moves like one."

"Familiar," Orphan whispered. Her head tilted. "Too familiar."

Batman stepped forward slowly. "Identify yourself."

Y/n didn’t answer. Instead, she adjusted her stance and charged.

The first hit was aimed at Red Robin. Tim dodged narrowly, his staff meeting her blade with a sharp crack. Her strength was overwhelming, forcing him to retreat. Nightwing intercepted her next strike with his escrima sticks, sparks flying from the impact.

"She’s strong—too strong!" Dick called out.

Red Hood fired two shots toward her legs. She flipped over them, landed behind Jason, and landed a sharp elbow to his jaw, sending him stumbling. Robin rushed in, sword raised, slashing fast and precise.

She parried each blow effortlessly. Her metal arm caught the blade mid-strike and twisted it from Damian's grip. She kicked him across the floor.

Orphan stepped in next, engaging in close combat. Their movements were a blur—strike, block, twist, pivot. Orphan aimed for pressure points; Winter Soldier deflected every attempt with brutal counterattacks. The fight was surgical.

In the chaos, Batman approached from behind, aiming to incapacitate her with a precise nerve hold.

But she ducked, swept his legs, and drove her elbow toward his chest. He blocked at the last second, but stumbled.

She was winning.

Then she threw down a smoke pellet.

The room exploded in black fog. Coughs. Shouts. Disorientation.

When the smoke cleared, she was gone.

All that remained was the unconscious arms dealer, the stolen drive—and a broken batarang embedded in the wall, its edge crushed in a mechanical grip.

Batcave — 4:30 AM

The footage played on a loop.

Bruce stood in silence, arms crossed, staring at the slowed-down video. Winter Soldier caught the batarang mid-air. Crushed it with ease. Not with anger, but precision. Purpose.

"She dodged me," Damian said from the side. "Like she knew my strikes before I made them."

"I got a clear shot. She moved the moment my finger touched the trigger," Jason muttered. "Like she'd been trained to read me."

"She fights like one of us," Dick said quietly.

Orphan stood in the corner, arms crossed. "It was her."

Everyone looked at her.

"We don't know that," Bruce said, but his voice lacked conviction.

"She moved like her. The hesitation. The way she didn't strike me when she had the chance."

Tim frowned. "You think that... thing was Y/N?"

No one spoke.

The silence in the cave was deafening.

Bruce turned back to the screen, watching the figure vanish into smoke again.

His daughter had once begged to be a part of their world. She had trained herself to the brink of exhaustion for a place in their shadows.

Now... she was the shadow.

And they didn't recognize her.

W-17 Extraction Point — Undisclosed Safehouse, Gotham — 5:12 AM

She sat alone in the corner of the room, helmet off, visor resting on the table beside her. The data drive was secure in her hand, clutched like a lifeline. Blood—some hers, some not—dried on her suit. Her metal fingers twitched slightly, remnants of a surge triggered by that damn batarang.

She hadn't expected them to be there.

No—she hadn't expected herself to care.

She squeezed her eyes shut.

Focus. Forget. Reset.

But the voices lingered.

The red one. The blue one. The boy with the sword. The quiet girl. The big one in black.

She didn’t know them.

She shouldn’t have known them.

And yet… something pulsed in her skull. A flicker. A whisper.

"Dad?"

She flinched.

A gloved hand suddenly touched her shoulder. Mikhail.

"You hesitated," he said simply.

Y/N didn’t look up. “Just a flicker.”

"Flickers become fractures," Kova warned from across the room.

"Say the sequence," Mikhail ordered.

Her jaw clenched.

"Say it."

“…оставление. тень. назначение. без страха. удар.”

The words burned now. Like chains around her tongue.

“Good soldier,” Kova muttered.

“Successful extraction. Mission complete,” Mikhail said into the comm.

Y/N stood, walking toward the window overlooking Gotham’s skyline. Her city. Her past.

They hadn’t seen her.

Maybe they never really had.

She clenched the drive tighter.

She is Winter Soldier now.

And ghosts don’t get remembered.

Notes: Boom Shakalaka ! SURPISED EXTRA CHAPTER! I do this on the spot just to distract myself from reality because who needs them ? Sure I have my assignments but I need to do something to get my minds off depressing thoughts.

[marielovesmints]

Cale and opening himself again

I have been rereading TCF and I want to talk about something I realized.

Cale Henituse, previously Kim Rok Soo, accepts easily his new reality. His new "him".

He keeps everyone at arms' lenght, just like in the past. But why the change?

1. Thanks to reading Boah, Cale knows the characters and the world, so doesn't have high defensas and in survival mode at every instance. He has data, to his relief.

2. He isn't on Earth, so his trauma fades slowly. He isn't confronted by records of destruction, despair, blood and deaths every moment of his day. He isn't in the Company, where he has made many memories with his first Team. There aren't monsters in Nameless 1, so, in someway, he is "able to move on".

3. He thought Boah was just a book, so he (at first) sew the people there as characters. He knew them like that, so there was already a connection (reader and character). Moreover, Cale knows how strong they are, so they can protect themselves. To be powerful is important to form part of Cale's group.

4. The kids! The kids are the ones who made him to be soft and to start to care for— and be close— to others again. He did care for his old Team in his own way, but they weren't close. Also, it isn't the same type of care. He—because he assumed the responsibility of taking care of them—has to do it right. Cale knows what children need so well, and in that way, he provides them with physical touches and words to make them feel safe and confident about themselves.

5. He doesn't feel attached to his past world. (Which I believe it isn't just because of the transmigration, but something that was inside of him since a long time ago. He was just surviving, not living at all.) He begins to see himself as Cale, he sees Roan as his kingdom and the Henituses as his family. He acts as trash (well, tries to), because that's how it's supposed to be.

He detaches himself from his past since he embraces "Cale Henituse". Who was he? Kim Rok Soo, orphan and an office worker. He doesn't mention the apocalypse at all when thinking about his past. While it makes sense that it isn't mentionated at all at the start (because for readers it would very confusing and the surprise factor later would be lost) I believe it’s because Cale didn’t want to remember that, it was painful. He was leaving that behind.

(I want to make another post about this, about how Cale views reality. First is Boah, second is despair test, third is the rest of god temple test. Then, we have his dreams and wind test, which doesn't classify as reality for him.)

[namelessgakusei]

Glory to Mankind

Mark Grayson x Reader

Warnings: angst(?), death, mentions of killing, abrupt ending, no beta we die before our birthday

Notes: Been wanting to write this for a long time now but haven't gotten any ideas on how this will turn out so here's some snippets:——?

Hello, Gaku of 5 minutes later here. Have the full fic instead lmao.

Synopsis: Made as a fail-safe executioner, a certain android started deviating from their orders.

"I mean, if you want to give me a name, it's totally okay."

9S!Reader who was made by GDA as a fail-safe should superpowered heroes or civilians go rogue. All combat and personal data about anyone was ingrained in their code, enabling them to quickly dispose of any enemies. Programmed to analyze and gather information, they're naturally curious about almost everything.

Despite it all, you were friendly.

You were initially a secret. A solo operative that moves in the shadows. You receive orders and only answers to Cecil; and to prevent any deviation from your side, the agency required you a "blindfold" that restricts your normal vision but enhances your fighting capabilities by having your visor display information in real time, this also serves as a way for GDA to monitor your movements in real time from your point-of-view.

But just after you finished your mission of apprehending deserters, you moved on your own despite your creator's orders, appearing to assist a hero in their fight. Piloting a flight unit, you provided support fire power and served as a decoy while this seemingly newbie got back on his feet. Amidst the fight, you scanned him and found out that he's Invincible, Omni-Man's son.

After the villain was subdued, he looked up to you in confusion, not being briefed about this kind of "hero". It's to be expected, Cecil never introduced you to anyone to keep your efficiency at 100%. Even so, you wanted to have friends, to know your co-workers, to establish camaraderie. You thought that it's because you're made to be a scanner that you inherently wanted to know more about people, but such desires will jeopardize your position within the organization, so you tuck it away in a folder where not even Robot can find it.

Cecil finally relented and gave orders based on your actions after weighing the options, giving you permission to formally introduce yourself to the young hero.

"You must be Invincible."

You smiled from your mech.

"I'm 9S."

"I received orders to support you."

9S!Reader who was finally formally included in the roster of heroes, albeit with some limitations due to their circumstances. You're not allowed to do anything except for hero work, and will only be deployed by Cecil's orders. Others expressed concern for your schedule, as you're always seen in the agency, but you simply brushed them off with a smile and optimism. While you're finally able to mingle with others, it's not like they knew about your true identity as their executioner.

If they knew, would they still want to associate with you?

You made calculations that the possibility will be below 10%

9S!Reader who was soon approached by the first hero they talked to. Invincible was curious about you, albeit, with more passion than the others. Upon the unspoken agreement that you two clicked, with his geeky nature and your own inquisitiveness, the both of you quickly became friends.

While Mark was curious about your appearance, he never pried too deep, silently accepting that tech was your schtick as a hero. What he really wanted to know was your name. You told him that you're 9S, withholding the information that it truly meant No. 9 Type S(canner), but he insisted to know your real name.

You couldn't give one.

When he found out about that, you noticed that his expression is a mix of pity and shock. You supposed it is expected, humans who have a similar situation as yours are likely orphans, and that might be what's running inside his mind right now. You diffused the situation before he starts talking badly about your creator, offering him a chance to grant you one instead.

"I mean, if you want to give me a name, that's totally okay."

It took him a week to decide on one, insisting that it needs to be "special" since you'll be using it your whole life. You refrained yourself from saying that it won't matter but soon found the idea flattering. You'll be having something that wasn't already prepared for you by GDA. In a way, it's something that's yours and yours alone, untethered by the cruel role you were made of.

He settled for (Y/N), saying that it suits you the most while shyly rubbing the back of his neck.

You hoped to never get an order to exterminate Mark.

He told you that he also thought about possible last names but you cut him off by proposing his' instead. It was supposed to be a joke, something to elicit a laugh out of him, but strangely, Mark went red. You immediately backtracked upon the implications of your words, assuring him that you only jest.

You didn't miss the slight disappointment in his expression and tone.

?

What does that mean? Does Mark want you to be a Grayson? That doesn't sound too bad, but he doesn't really know about your circumstances now, does he?

You want to tell.

But you're not allowed.

...?

Are you?

...!

Your primary orders are to follow Cecil's orders. The secondary one is to gather information about enemies and exterminate hostiles to humanity. On top of it all, you are also given permission to adapt to any situation given that it would be beneficial to your cause.

With that said, you'll be able to get more information about Mark if the two of you get closer, right?

Besides, what else would be beneficial for your mission if not to win the trust of your potential targets?

...

You confessed to Mark after some time. It was inevitable, really, having been stabbed in a spot that's lethal to humans yet is somehow still functioning after. It was a relief that only he was the sole witness of the event, giving you a good enough reason to fess up while you patch yourself.

You're a robot. Created with the battle data of every hero. There isn't an ounce of humanity in your synthetic body.

Mark leans in, hands going behind your head and undoing the knot of your blindfold, removing your visor from your face. For the first time, you squinted from the natural light, seeing everything outside your enhancements. He smiles at your reaction, telling you that no matter what you truly are, you're still (Y/N).

You didn't get to tell him that you're here to kill him in case he goes rogue.

You started to feel strange after that. Your internal temperature seems to be malfunctioning at random times of the day. Gone is the usual chatty android during joint missions, you're somehow always worried, especially when it involves a certain hero. Why is that, you ask yourself. There are no viruses present in your system, not that they could fester inside you without being eradicated the second you get breached. Were you perhaps malfunctioning?

Any equipment given to you by the GDA proved to be useless in discerning what's really happening to you. Something is eating you from the inside yet you don't have any references of data about it. It is only when you're in Mark's presence do you calm down. It's strange, you don't recall any of his abilities that are related to your condition. Further investigation is required. But for now, you want to stay a little bit longer with him.

The breaking point for you was when Omni-Man turned on Earth.

What you felt upon seeing the footage must be fear. No, rage. No, worry. You don't know. All you know is that, you rushed out before your comrades could even prepare themselves.

Cecil immediately orders for you to be deployed, alongside with other heroes to perform a rescue and extraction mission. Extraction? Not extermination? Did Cecil want Nolan alive? Why? He's killing all those people! He's hurting Mark!

"Fire missiles."

You muttered, inside your flight unit, as your arsenal fires at the Viltrumite. He easily comes out unscathed, but they were just decoys meant to obstruct his vision. It's unfair, you thought, that he's murdering helpless innocents. They hold nothing against him, yet, they die because of a simple difference in power??

The Viltrumite finally got ahold of you after you maneuvered around to avoid his attacks, tearing you away from your flight unit and crushing a third of your hardware. Squirming around his grip, you can feel the electricity spark around your body, with systems threatening to shut down if you don't get out of there quickly.

You lock eyes with Mark, and something in you snapped. Within a second, you conjured a sword and sliced Nolan's arm cleanly off his body.

In the laboratory, where I was created.

Around you were corpses of people whom Omni-Man nonchalantly killed while trying to convince Mark to join him, but his son refused, insisting on getting his father to see that what he's doing is just outright wrong.

Lies and deception recurred.

You fought off Nolan with a battle cry, going berserk as your body borders on shutting down. Nevermind the system failing, you only have one goal in mind. To kill this Viltrumite.

And my dear person, who I was unable to protect.

Cecil orders you to pull back, to salvage something of Nolan. But his words no longer affect you, having long overridden his control via your special permission.

To atone for those sins, I will continue to fight!

You dug your sword deeper inside the Viltrumite.

That is why, this world will be...

Mark cries out for you.

Broken by me!

Standing over the desecrated corpse, you removed your visor, eyes glowing red.

...

...

...

Connection failed.

[mollysunder]

The Plot Thickens: A Confirmed Timeline in Noxus

Riot recently flew LoL creators in to showcase some new developments. Necrit, a creator who attended the event, was able to get confirmation on what's going on with Noxus.

Timeline

By the time Mel arrives in Rokrund (Noxus) as we see in the "Bite Marks" cinematic, Swain is the new Grand General of Noxus, but Swain has NOT formed the Trifarix council yet. (The "Mel is Guile" theory is back on!)

Another thing that was cleared up in the cinematic was the nature of Katarina's job. Sure we know she was sent to kill a man, but who was he and why did he need to be killed?

It turns out that the masked man Katarina killed was meant to be the "host" that Vladimir mentioned in the "A Dark Gambit" cinematic. That means that LeBlanc wanted that dude seen above to become the host body for one of the darkin, a corrupted god warrior, soul weapons.

That's not all of course, because it turns out it was Swain who sent Katarina to kill LeBlanc's host like many of us assumed, it was Vladimir! Even better, there's proof!

For Katarina's bio for her Masque of the Black Rose skin, she's given her assignment via unsigned letter. Within it was a drawing of the target's (host) mask, soon after the Bite Marks cinematic premiered, Riot Twitter released this art with the following caption:

"You should know by now, darling: There are no coincidences in Noxus 🩸"

This room belongs to Vladimir. You can tell not just by his trademark "Darling" used in the caption, but by the vials of blood, the green jeweled crest (for Camavor?) he wears in the cinematics, and the metal claws the metal claws give it away.

More importantly, in the foreground is a sketch of the masked man Katarina was tasked to kill. In fact, it was almost certainly the exact sketch sent to Katarina for her mission.

Now that data mined lore tip that goes:

"Even the best-laid plans can be foiled by two-faced hemomancer. That's why LeBlanc always has a back-up plan".

is a lot more clear.

What Does Any of This Mean?

The story hasn't officially started, but the lines are already being drawn. LeBlanc and Vladimir's centuries' long partnership (frenemy-hood?) has reached a key break because of the darkin plot. LeBlanc has more major enemies than friends now. Vladimir's now a rogue element that likely still has plans for Mel and his "kingdom".

Whatever Vladimir's actual plans are they almost certainly run counter to Swain's own designs. Right now Vladimir has Katarina, a future key ally of Swain's (and a daughter figure I think) in his service, and they've both clearly set their sights on Mel. It's a scramble for Noxus' most emotionally orphaned heiresses to rule!

Sidenote: It's really funny to go back and watch those cinematics and understand all the effort Vladimir went through to stop LeBlanc from going through with a bad idea, and lobby for his idea to get Mel, all for LeBlanc to double down and pull out a back up. She's gonna start twenty apocalypses to stop the Mordekaiser one even if it kills them all. I adore their dynamic so much!

[lostyesterday]

I made the following graph because I was interested in which words show up most often in the titles of Star Trek episodes and movies:

I included episode titles from all twelve canon TV shows and all thirteen movies. I only counted nouns for the graph to avoid including boring words like “the” or “and”. I also counted plurals of a word as the same word (“stars” counts as “star”) and compound words where the singular word still carried the same meaning (“starship” counts as “star”). A complete list of episode/movie titles for each word listed in the graph is below the cut.

Time:

Amok Time (TOS)

The Time Trap (TAS)

The Naked Time (TNG)

Time Squared (TNG)

A Matter of Time (TNG)

Time’s Arrow (TNG)

Timescape (TNG)

Hard Time (DS9)

Children of Time (DS9)

A Time to Stand (DS9)

Time’s Orphan (DS9)

Time and Again (VOY)

Once Upon a Time (VOY)

Timeless (VOY)

Time Amok (PRO)

The Time Devouring Scavengers (PRO)

Star

Beyond the Furthest Star (TAS)

Starship Mine (TNG)

Starship Down (DS9)

Far Beyond the Stars (DS9)

North Star (ENT)

Battle at the Binary Stars (DIS)

The Brightest Star (Short Treks)

The Girl Who Made the Stars (Short Treks)

The Star Gazer (PIC)

The Stars at Night (Lower Decks)

Starstruck (PRO)

A Moral Star (PRO)

Man

The Man Trap (TOS)

Where No Man Has Gone Before (TOS)

The Schizoid Man (TNG)

The Measure of a Man (TNG)

Manhunt (TNG)

Tin Man (TNG)

Man of the People (TNG)

A Man Alone (DS9)

Our Man Bashir (DS9)

Inside Man (VOY)

Renaissance Man (VOY)

Magic to Make the Sanest Man Go Mad (DIS)

Home

The Voyage Home (movie)

Home Soil (TNG)

Homeward (TNG)

Move Along Home (DS9)

The Homecoming (DS9)

Homefront (DS9)

Homestead (VOY)

Home (ENT)

Far From Home (DIS)

Coming Home (DIS)

Child

Friday’s Child (TOS)

And the Children Shall Lead (TOS)

Plato’s Stepchildren (TOS)

The Child (TNG)

Galaxy’s Child (TNG)

Children of Time (DS9)

Child’s Play (VOY)

Children of the Comet (SNW)

Children of Mars (Short Treks)

Life

Half a Life (TNG)

The Quality of Life (TNG)

Life Support (DS9)

Lifesigns (VOY)

Real Life (VOY)

Life Line (VOY)

Life, Itself (DIS)

Eye

Wink of an Eye (TOS)

The Eye of the Beholder (TAS)

The Mind’s Eye (TNG)

Eye of the Beholder (TNG)

Eye of the Needle (VOY)

Blink of an Eye (VOY)

Kayshon, His Eyes Open (Lower Decks)

Light

The Lights of Zetar (TOS)

The Inner Light (TNG)

The Darkness and the Light (DS9)

By Inferno’s Light (DS9)

In the Pale Moonlight (DS9)

Point of Light (DIS)

Light and Shadows (DIS)

War

A Private Little War (TOS)

The Dogs of War (DS9)

Warlord (VOY)

Warhead (VOY)

The War Within, the War Without (DIS)

Under the Cloak of War (SNW)

Night

Night Terrors (TNG)

Wrongs Darker than Death or Night (DS9)

Night (VOY)

Two Days and Two Nights (ENT)

A Night in Sickbay (ENT)

The Stars at Night (Lower Decks)

Game

The Gamesters of Triskelion (TOS)

The Game (TNG)

Armageddon Game (DS9)

The Killing Game (VOY)

Endgame (VOY)

The Least Dangerous Game (Lower Decks)

Shadow

Shadowplay (DS9)

In Purgatory’s Shadow (DS9)

Shadows and Symbols (DS9)

Shadows of P’Jem (ENT)

Light and Shadows (DIS)

Through the Valley of Shadows (DIS)

Mirror

Mirror Mirror (TOS)

Shattered Mirror (DS9)

In the Mirror, Darkly (ENT)

Mirrors (DIS)

The Mirror Universe (PRO)

Enemy

The Enemy Within (TOS)

The Enemy (TNG)

Face of the Enemy (TNG)

Silent Enemy (ENT)

Behind Enemy Lines (PRO)

Battle

Let that Be Your Last Battlefield (TOS)

The Battle (TNG)

Battle Lines (DS9)

Nor the Battle to the Strong (DS9)

Battle at the Binary Stars (DIS)

Mind

Dagger of the Mind (TOS)

The Mind’s Eye (TNG)

Frame of Mind (TNG)

Mining the Mind’s Mines (Lower Decks)

Mindwalk (PRO)

Blood

Bloodlines (TNG)

Blood Oath (DS9)

Ties of Blood and Water (DS9)

Blood Fever (VOY)

Flesh and Blood (VOY)

World

For the World is Hollow and I Have Touched the Sky (TOS)

The Best of Both Worlds (TNG)

Strange New World (ENT)

All the World’s a Stage (PRO)

Strange New Worlds (SNW)

Ship

Ship in a Bottle (TNG)

Starship Mine (TNG)

Starship Down (DS9)

The Ship (DS9)

One Little Ship (DS9)

Day

Day of the Dove (TOS)

Data’s Day (TNG)

Day of Honor (VOY)

Thirty Days (VOY)

Two Days and Two Nights (ENT)

[rock-omelette]

MAFIA AU

In the light (or more precisely, the dearth) of Mafia AUs in this fandom, I have resolved to shut my trap and make my own.

BASELINE (Gerald, Ivo and the Family Business)

The founder and patriach of the Botnik Family Business is Gerald, and immediate family consists of Maria and Ivo, his surviving grandchildren.

The Family Business started off as a fairly powerful gang, due to Gerald's own efforts in commanding a good portion of DC and San Francisco. But it didn't REALLY take off until he took Ivo in as his right hand man after the deaths of Ivo's father, who had been his eldest son.

Gerald did most of the raising, in some sense of the word. He didn't like Ivo much--Ivo was a neurotic, combative, insubordinate and was even more ambitious than he was. But Ivo was a GENIUS.

Gerald paid for Ivo's education, middle school to every doctorate. He had 3 PhDs by 25. He had 5 by 30. He had 7, technically, on account of several new academic developments in medical industry, but Ivo had always regarded the last two were just "honorary."

Ivo respected Gerald, but he knew he could be better, could be greater than Gerald ever could be. He started developing weapons in high school, and it was his idea to establish a military liaison selling his inventions in college. They took off focus from crude revenues like "Protection rackets" and instead focused on global underground arms dealing, mercenary work, biochemical drug testing and organ harvesting. The Family Business exploded. They were calling it a proper "Empire." People were more scared of Ivo than they ever were of Gerald, and all these combined, Ivo and Gerald's relationship only got more tetchy as they grew.

MARIA

Gerald discovered Maria in his 90's, and Ivo's 50's. She's the daughter of an old mistress, left on his doorstep when she died of cancer. Gerald fairly adored Maria from the get go. She's sweet, charming, kind and obedient.

He doesn't say it out loud, but Ivo suspects Gerald plans to name Maria as his heir whenever he finally dies despite...everything. Ivo doesn't HATE her. He has too much affection for family, or he'd have killed off Gerald years ago. No, he wishes he could hate her, but he doesn't really. Maria thinks he does though, and is fairly confused and frustrated by Ivo's cold shoulder. She hasn't got any other family. She's 14.

SHADOW

Maria is closest with Shadow, who was a homeless orphan Gerald randomly takes a liking to when he found him in DC. Gerald liked his moxie. Up until he found Maria he treated the kid as some kind of foster son of sorts (Ivo thinks Gerald's gotten sentimental in his old age. He DOES hate Shadow.), so now he entrusts Maria to Shadow as her primary bodyguard. They have a sibling-like relationship. Shadow is 17.

STONE

Stone is Ivo's right hand man, bodyguard and assistant, and he has been so for a decade.

Stone is an ex-CIA who discovered the Robotnik through work and has, shall we say, developed an obsessive one sided crush on Ivo through the years.

Like he's heard of Ivo since his years in active military duty, and his inventions never fail to be groundbreaking. And they only grow more and more impressive over time.

He's been trying to find a way to get on Ivo's radar for years. He gotta be smart with it. He got his chance when he was deployed for a retrieval mission by a ticked off general. It's an off-the-book mission. His fascination with the Mad Doctor is an open secret among the ranks, and his perfect ops record made him the perfect agent for the job. Ivo had managed to get some dirt on him that he's threatening to use as blackmail, and he needs Stone to steal it back from him.

Stone uses the opportunity to prove his worth. He steals the data, and "slips up", getting caught. He confronts Ivo face to face, and reveals his intentions to be an interview of sorts. Proving the fact that he had succeeded in his mission nonetheless. Ivo was greatly amused (and slightly impressed) by the sheer recklessness, audacity and skill.

He tells Stone to prove himself by assassinating the General who sent him on the mission in the first place, and to do it in 5 hours. Stone succeeds in 3. Ivo hires him. The rest is history.

MISCELLANEOUS

Rouge, Omega, Cubot and Orbot and Sage are all part of the family as well! Human AU. They are all Shadow's inner circle, and are exceptionally fond of Maria.

The goons are called Badniks, which consist of both human people and mass produced drones. 90% of any added human goons are done by Gerald. Ivo works primarily with his drones, because he thinks people are too "squishy, annoying, stupid and inefficient." The divide in loyalty is clear but unspoken--the drones and tech are more loyal to Ivo, and the people (save maybe a few like Stone, Metal and Sage) are more loyal to Gerald.

Ivo usually hates like. Touch and bodily fluids. He wears long sleeves and gloves. But he DOES enjoy killing and maiming and the like. He thinks its entertaining as all get out. Nothing like a good torture session to let off some steam.

Ivo walks with a cane sometimes. Not for any specific reason he just looks hot.