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painfulbass · 4 years ago

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☾ ˚⊹ ❛❛ GENERAL QUICK CROSSOVER GUIDE

So crossovers are usually difficult for a lot of people. So, because I tend to think about these things, I thought I would make this comprehensive list/guide to writing crossovers with me. This isn’t anything in concrete, but to get the ball rolling or to help make it easier for both sides to contribute to plotting. It can be hard when you don’t know the fandom.

FNF, or Friday Night Funkin’ is a rhythm based game around rap battles. The Protagonist (known as BF) is trying to prove himself and win over his Girlfriend’s (GF) Dad, and it spirals from there. Gameplay style, it is very similar to Dance Dance Revolution, and the music is a fast pasted dubstyle/chiptune soundtrack.

What a lot of people know FNF for, however is the Mods. Due to it being on Newgrounds, and the creators having it be open asset, many creators are able to make their own “weeks” for players to challenge their skills in. Ruv, and those within Mid Fight Masses, are one of those mods. You can find most of their lore scattered in the scenes of their week, or by going on their official FNF Wiki.

Now, what does this mean for crossovers? I put it under a read more, simply because this is going to be a lot. I’m going to explain crossover verses I have. How I make them, and how YOU could have your character be in the FNF verse quite easily. So go under the read more to continue reading.

☾ ˚⊹ ❛❛ RUV IN OTHER UNIVERSES

Here are some just ideas that I came up with. While not EVERY interaction will work with these, they are ideas. They’re meant to kick start ideas and inspirations. I do not consider these full verses until I’ve talked with the other mun to make sure that they are okay with it. These can easily be changed, and swapped out for different things. My main goal here is to try and keep Ruv down to his core elements while fitting into a new setting.

POKEMON- Ruv, along with Sarv run the church- which she has turned into a sanctuary and a Nursery. Much like in Canon, Sarv is supernatural, and Ruv as a run away criminal vowed his life for all eternity to protect her. With church’s going out however, the next next step would be a PokeNursery. Ruv acts as protector of the Nursery from trainers and groups alike. He usually is seen sitting on the roof, throwing pebbles at kids or passerby’s who irk him in some way. You can always find his Onix, his Low-Key Toxtricity, and his Absol around him or the nursery at all times. He does still have his strength, speed, and other abilities. The “face” he has is also a mask- an attempt to hide his identity as the wanted criminal.

OWL HOUSE- Ruv was a wanted criminal for the longest time. His magic, due to where he was born was a lot less like those around him. He could fit into the covens, but anything he did reflected back on him. Living alone, and learning to just modify himself he became a wanted criminal with a bone breaking shout. However all of those times soon came to a stop as he met the winged mistress he stays with now. Protecting her (though she is much more than capable of protecting himself) she runs one of the many sects in the area. It isn’t the best building, but it’s out of the way and he usually isn’t spotted. However, unfortunately his past comes back to haunt him. He has no choice, and begrudgingly assists the Guards to repay for his crimes. Tied to Sarv through magical bonds, he has made it clear to those in charge and to her- should something come between his duty as a guard or her, he would chose her a million times over.

DUCKTALES- Ruv is the petrified remains of the guardian of St. Sarvente. Awoken as the earth was shifted off of it’s orbit and forced into something it’s not, the callous guard is in search of the one he calls Sarvente, whom he claims is the Ruler of Souls and the one he Vowed to Protect. He is, 100% made of stone.

TOONTOWN- Stickfigures aren’t uncommon drawings. One’s as complicated as he and Sarv though usually get a few eyes. Not only that, but video game characters are always treated differently in Toontown. Maybe it’s because of a developers history, or lack there of. The story of Ruvyzvat being a heartless killer however spreads like wild flower, and while he and Sarv will primarily stay at the church... sometimes curiosity becomes too much.

KINGDOM HEARTS- FNF is it’s own world. Keyblade turned into a microphone, Ruv & Sarv are some of the first that would be met. Despite their challenge, they are rather distanced from the troubles of the Darkness and Light and would be semi-good companions.

THE BLACKOUT CLUB- Ruv is a 16. Any day will be the day that a voice will end up taking over, merging with his mind. That’s fine. Much like how Seed-The-Grudge would want, he’ll just get revenge.

HAZBIN HOTEL / HELLUVA BOSS- Ruv ironically enough is one of the few in Hell who does not make him dead. In fact, in some cases that can make him extremely rare. This crossover he IS able to accompany Sarvente into the Underworld, and follow her on her treks through it. While most assume he is a dead sinner, he usually just doesn’t answer. However something about being here and meeting those who reside within the land sets him off. He’s a tad more feral, and a tad more willing to go to the violent answer.

PORTAL- Violence core. What else is there to say? Alternatively, him being a test subject would be fascinating, especially if he was grabbed post-vow. The man is immortal, and therefore would have messed with the tests just by the fact that there is only way for him to die. Death isn’t the worst thing to happen to a man however, and he does still feel pain.

RWBY- Ruv has the ability to manipulate sound waves, specifically his own). Trained with great strength and and even greater speed, his form of combat is continuously dodging as he looks for a weak spot. Weapons of choice are shot gun snow boots, and his sickle that doubles as a short sword.

DOCTOR WHO- Sarv has the ability to create portals. While they are MEANT to be used to intergalactive travel, but instead parallel world travel that in of itself is monumental for a lot of DW plots. Ruv and Sarv can easily go from one universe to the next, however chose to stay in the church. Not to mention Ruv’s skills in target elimination and his abilities would make for some individuals to repurpose him into a weapon. While they have been approached by UNIT on several occasions, they always refuse. However, enough time has passed that they’re starting to notice that the couple in the church aren’t aging...

FNAF- RUVYZVAT and SARVENTE were creations of Fazbear Entertainments as karaoke machines... if we want to go the robot route. If we want to go the normal person route, Ruv was hired by Fazbear’s because it’s one of the few places that doesn’t do a background check, and when he said he wanted to wear a mask as part of the work outfit they were all for it. He runs the karaoke machine though. Stays away from quite literally everyone. While he isn’t the infamous killer of children here, he does have a reputation of his own that he is running from, and that does tend to make him silent.

BATIM- Criminal on the run stumbles into the wastelands formerly known as Bendy’s. Actually enjoys it at first because the cartoon was popular when he was a child. ALT. Stickman drawing of one of the artists come to life. Usually pretends to be Lost One, but when he’s alone with another (Sarvente) they turn into their stickman version selves. Has the ability to jump between 2 and 3 dimensions, but none of the strength or voice.

PSYCHONAUTS- Agent Ruvyzvat, Russian sector. Ruv is working for the Psychonauts in some weird, turning event. Mainly because the sole woman that he trusts and saved his life, Agent Sarvente brought him in. The two are inseparable, and despite Sasha and Nein being infamous for their clinginess, these two take it to a whole knew level. Ruve’s “loud voice” is actually a psychic ability he can use outside of the mind to jumble and confuse thoughts and has no damage on anything physically in the present.

GRAVITY FALLS- Sarvente is a Demon, much like Bill. Where sa Bill desires nothing but chaos and madness, Sarvente is trying her best to keep the world like it is and preserve it’s beauty. Seeing such beauty in a runaway criminal, she and he run to the forests of Oregon. Throughout Weirdmageddon, neither managed to be captured or turned to stone, however Ruv seemingly gained his incredible voice abilities. Now, they live in a semi-collapsed church out in the forest. Sarvente always asking those who come her way to join their church, Ruv is suspicious why such events would happen in such a small town, and is distrusting of most everyone he sees.

DETECTIVE CONAN / KAITOU KID / ANY ANIME OR SERIES LIKE THAT- VERY infamous criminal. Take his “Wanted Dead or Alive” that exists in all other verses, and ramp that up quite a bit. Usually wears a mask whenever he is committing a crime. He does seem to be in it for the fun, though it’s hard to tell with the stoic and expressionless looks. That being said, he does seem to have a very clear goal of what he wants. There are no patterns to where he hits, or what he takes. From wallets of people off the streets, to priceless artifacts. He’ll find where Sarvente went, and how they were able to change her mind in such a way.... how they could corrupt her.

MODERN / NON-EXTREMELY FANTASTICAL- Ruv is honestly a rather down to Earth individual, in some terms. He is untrusting of EVERYTHING, but also due to his own strengths finds little that fear or challenges him. Keep him mind he did make a deal with Lucifer (or his Lucifer) for Immortality for protecting her. While he will always be doing things on his own, a lot of his end goals and motives will come back to her. Without her involvement, he is a walking, talking, machine of destruction with no sway on which side he decides to tear apart.

☾ ˚⊹ ❛❛ GENERAL STOPPING POINTS FOR WANTING TO PLOT

DON’T KNOW THE WORLD YOU’RE FROM / YOU DON’T KNOW MY LORE. - That’s fine. I can get my hands dirty. I can research. In fact I usually would love nothing more to. I love learning about new fandoms, or new media to get into. You shouldn’t be afraid of that. As for mine- It should take someone less than an hour to get through all of the links I have posted in the RESOURCES tab in my bio. I’ve timed it. So if you have an hour to spare, or 15, or just enough time to read his wiki that’s fine. He’s not from a long running show, or anything like that. You can catch up extremely quick.

WELL WHAT ABOUT A BOOK/COMIC? HOW WOULD HE FIT IN?- If we are talking about Super Hero comics, then it depends. 90% of the time I will just play up his wanted status a lot more, and make it more of a reason for an interaction. You just ran into a man who has killed hundreds. If your muse is a super hero, or a vigilante? Would you let him go? What a villain? That might make a good partner.

TV SHOW? LIVE ACTION?- Again, it depends on the type of show. Superhero follows the same above. If it’s investigative, have him be a witness. Or a falsely accused man who can prove he isn’t the guilty party. Is it more supernatural- well he did make a deal with Lucifer and is an immortal now from it. There are a million ways to spin it. Don’t look at making him a big character. Quite honestly, side characters that you pass in the street have just as much backstory, and as long as there is a plausible chance of interactions then we can work it out from there.

☾ ˚⊹ ❛❛ GENERAL IDEAS TO BE AWARE OF THAT MIGHT HELP

HE IS A WANTED CRIMINAL.- Meaning his name Ruvyzvat is known. Despite his crimes going on for decades, he is on the run and never stopped. Several city, state, countries, and possibly nations are looking for him, and looking to take him in.

HE IS ALSO AN IMMORTAL.- While he hasn’t been around forever, and nearly not as long as Sarvente has been, he HAS been around for at least 100 years, give or take some. He can be injured, but even fatal injuries heal in an almost Deadpool like way.

HE ALSO HAS SUPERNATURAL POWERS.- His speed and reflexes alone is not something to be taken lightly. He does train and fight with Lucifer on what used to be a semi-regular basis. He has moved and adapted to be able to make sure no one but the singular person he trusts is able to lay a hand on him. That isn’t to say you can’t catch him off guard. You also have his inhuman strength to worry about, but most of all his voice. His voice which could completely demolish a building, and that isn’t the full strength. He has an amazing control over it, but that certainly isn’t a trait of his to ignore.

HE IS NOT ALWAYS IN THE CHURCH. I MADE SURE OF THAT WHEN I MADE MY BLOG.- He goes on walks, and he goes on errands. He also goes to the Gym on occasion, though not as often. He enjoys walks on the beach far earlier than anyone should be awake at. What I’m saying is running into him OUTSIDE of the church is possible. That being said, meeting him IN the church is your best bet for him warming up quicker. He feels safer in the church, and therefore usually wishes to stay there.

DOESN’T FIT THE STYLE OF CHARACTERS/WORLD? - If he doesn’t fit, then I can work to adapt him into something that WOULD fit. What characteristics about him doesn’t work. This is when I would need plotting help. If, lets say it was an all animal world, we can talk about what he is, his traits, and other such things. I am always happy to not use my icons- I just like to because I think they’re neat and I worked hard on them.

WHAT WOULD HE BE DOING?- Any number of things. He likes throwing pebbles at people. He mainly guards and protects Sarvente and her things, but I know we’re talking besides this. He cannot cook, but he does actually sew, and he does read quite a bit. Working on his fist to fist fighting would be a big one. He likes secluded areas, which especially work for explorer’s and people who walk off the beaten path.

IS THERE ANYWHERE HE COULDN’T BE?- He wouldn’t be at a bar. Ruv doesn’t drink, at all. I also don’t see him at any parties unless Sarv dragged him to them. Writing starters or plotting around those are perfectly fine, but do not expect his muse to be comfortable while he’s there.

HE SEEMS OVERPOWERED.- At times, he certainly can be, but only when he feels it’s necessary. He doesn’t flaunt his abilities, and most he has are out of self preservation. If you as a mun are worried about him and what he can do, the best thing you can do is read my information, look into his wiki, and then come and talk to me. Ruv isn’t someone who will 100% abuse what abilities he has, especially since now he is trying his best to be better for her since it makes her happy.

☾ ˚⊹ ❛❛ GENERAL IDEAS TO HAVE YOUR CHARACTERS IN HIS UNIVERSE

LOCATIONS?- The Church, the back alleys, the karaoke bar (that primarily does rap battles), the Alternate dimension that Sarv made so that he can be loud and not retrain his voice.

MOTIVATIONS?- If your muse is in the FNF world, then be ready for some sick beats to be dropped. Your muse could be rescuing someone from the BBEG and going through the slew of minions to sing against. There’s always the alternative side of this of “what the hell is going on?”

MY CHARACTER ISN’T FROM THERE, SO THEY WOULDN’T FIT IN.- Well I do have a “main” verse which replaces raps with fists. Looking for someone important to them, in the search of a deep and hidden artifact within the search, the rumors of a man born 100 years ago- theres a lot to be found in the library if you looked.

WHAT DOES THE FNF WORLD CONSIST OF?- It consists of Demon Daddies, Singing Skeletons and Pumpkins, Tankmen, a Demonic Lemon Demon, Sentient Video Game Characters, and if you take the mods in you also have Demon, Angels, Ghosts, Deadly Ex’s, Bomb Headed Men-- I promise your character will fit in at the end of the day.

ISN’T HE EXTREMELY AGGRESSIVE AND HARD TO TALK TO?- He can be. He talks in very short sentences, however I do my best to give my reply enough that you can reply to. Actions, and I chose to be very descriptive with his expressions in this case. Ruv spend many years alone, and sometimes with him, actions speak louder than words. When you or your muse figure that out is up to you.

WELL WE CAN’T DO AN ENTIRE THREAD IN A CHURCH.- I never said we had to. He is more than happy to leave the church should he want, and should there be a reason. Usually, (despite what it seems) he does like helping people, so you can lure him out that way ;)

#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕽𝖚𝖓 𝕬𝖜𝖆𝖞 𝖂𝖆𝖓𝖙𝖊𝖉 𝕸𝖆𝖓 ⊹ — ❛❛ v. crossover.#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕴𝖙'𝖘 𝕶. ⊹ — ❛❛ resources.#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕴𝖙'𝖘 𝕶. ⊹ — ❛❛ psa & updates.#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕴𝖙'𝖘 𝕶. ⊹ — ❛❛ save.#i added all i could think of #just so i could kinda help out when it came to plotting but #even if we don't know each others universes or anything #this is pretty comprehensive so i hope it helps #i spent a while on it and it should be pretty helpful to anyone who wants to write with me but has no idea how #now if you excuse me im going to scream because of how long this took #∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕾𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖚𝖑 𝕰𝖓𝖉 ⊹ — ❛❛ headcanon.#∘⡊ ☾ ˚⊹ 𝕾𝖎𝖓𝖋𝖚𝖑 𝕰𝖓𝖉 ⊹ — ❛❛ meta.

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zukofenty · 5 years ago

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Sugar

➜ Summary: The one where there’s a former skateboarding photographer turned teenaged masked vigilante running around protecting the city from crime. Yet, Katara always knew she wasn’t meant to just sit a good fight out.

“Did you just fucking slap me?” Zuko is incredulous, clutching his reddening man tit.

“Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Be mad?” Katara bites back.

➜ Genre: Spiderman!AU, Modern!AU, humor

➜ Words: 3.8k

➜ Warnings: I love Zuko😩

AO3, My Zutara Month Playlist

@zutaramonth hi!!! this my late day 1 hehe

“Self care 2020 is officially over. We’re doing drugs again.”

Suki stares at Katara quizzically. “No, I don’t think that’s how it goes.”

“Are you sure?” Katara asks, puzzled. Suki just rolls her eyes, picking at her chipping manicure as Katara focuses on her biology homework.

“It’s only been like two weeks into the New Year. Yeah, I’m sure,” Suki deadpans. “What makes you think that doing drugs again is remotely going to-” Her rant is abruptly cut off at the sound of commotion coming from the courtyard. “Fuck, not Jet again.”

Katara jumps to her feet. Not this bitch again . Before she has to do more damage control than Camila Cabello’s publicist every time she opens her mouth and something stupid (and/or racist) for the 1000th time, Katara surveyed the scene before her. Freshman Aang, still prepubescent and so, so tiny was spared from having his face shoved in a moldy grilled cheese sandwich the cafeteria gave to kids who couldn’t afford lunch (yay public school!). He’s not facing Jet’s usual wrath inflicted on any short king 5’9” and under. Instead, a figure was gasping for air in an oversized black hoodie, hands clawing at Jet’s angular face.

“Hey Jet!” Katara yelps, pulling the tall boy up by his belt loops. He pauses in pummeling Zuko’s oh so pretty face, and grins unabashedly at Katara. The smile she knows is only reserved for her.

“Yes, Katara?” He smirks when he could almost hear pussies clench. He knows his power.

She smiles back at him, making it almost reach her eyes. “I did a little research, and guess what?”

“What?”

She pushes her bangs from her eyes, looking so sweet and innocent in her blazer and her signature knee length boots. “You’re a whore. A dumb whore.” He can’t help but let anger paint his face. “Leave these damn kids alone ! Don’t you have another class to ditch? A military program to join? A car to mod? Find a hobby. Go to therapy. Stupid.”

Her hair flows whips around as quickly as she does, flowing and bouncing effortlessly as she heads to AP Chemistry.

Zuko smiles, despite the pain in his chest from where Jet shoved his converse into. He thinks he loves her. Or what anti social kids like him thought love was because he doesn’t think she knows who he is. So polished and passionate about everything she does. Captain of the debate team, president of the Student Advocate’s club, and head intern at Phoenix Corporations in working on projects to mass clean polluted waters. She managed to do everything and still have kindness in her soul. The kind of love that you could almost feel surrounding a person.

He decides he likes staring at her, even if it’s the back of her head during chemistry. It was too easy to fall in love, when she was yelling at him to photograph the debate club’s photos in a certain light so they could post it on their Facebook for student recruitment season. He manages to always trip on his laces every time he’s around her, or stumble on his skateboard when she sends a small smile his way as they pass each other in the hallway of Ba Sing Se Academy. It’s always worth the detention Principal Pakku serves his way, if it meant he could get her attention.

In high school, guys like him and girls like her weren’t meant to be together. He’s impossibly clumsy, according to Uncle Iroh, and dangerously emo, according to everyone else. Katara, well she’s meant for bigger and better things, she’s meant to be out in the world and changing it.

She startles him, the way she turns so fast her ponytail narrowly misses his bruised face. “It was great what you did. It was kind of fucking stupid. But great.”

“Thank you?”

Katara beams impossibly wide. “You’re welcome. What’s your name?”

Zuko’s giving her a lopsided smile. “You don’t know my name?”

“Am I supposed to? You know I only keep up with Black Chyna and the lord.” Her wide eyes squint in a smile. His heart thunders, and he somehow feels as though Katara could sense it, with how much bigger her smile gets.

“Welcome to the company single handedly transforming the genetic and biological industry. The future lies within!” The monitor’s voice announces repeatedly, Phoenix Corporation’s recognizable slogan.

Zuko’s in awe. He wasn’t meant for a world like this, with fancy lab coats and holographic presentations and people with glasses spewing larger than life terms. Hell, the revolving doors got him fucked up! That shit was too advanced for his liking. Science was his thing , but this was entirely out of his league. He donned glasses as an homage to a father he had never known, abandoning him when he was a baby on his Uncle Iroh’s doorstep. A labcoat was handed his way after the intern program directors approved with the badge of some guy named “Lee.” Zuko desperately tries to ignore the pleas of the real Lee coming from the lobby of the building.

“I swear I have a badge, I swear I’m an intern here!”

A guard shoves him out the door. “Can it, zit bitch!”

“I don’t think security guards are supposed to pick at people’s insecurities,” Lee whimpers.

He’s avoiding eye contact as Katara prattles away, taking the sweaty interns every which way through the company’s headquarters. “And here is Dr. Ozai, who will be discussing his cross elemental genetics project.”

He’s a formidable man. Tall, broad shoulders. He looks intensely polished, the type of man that always gets his way. The type of man who refuses anything less than what he wants. Zuko can’t help but stare. He looks different from the pictures Zuko found in Iroh’s basement. Meaner . Is this what he will look like in the future? He tries not to think about it too hard. “Does anyone know the history of the firebenders are?” Zuko sees Ozai relishing in the confused faces of the teens, oily foreheads seemingly glistening in the fluorescent lighting.

“They were-”

Zuko promptly interrupts him. “They were born with the ability to will fire any way they wanted. Legend has it that benders were born with abilities to manipulate all the elements: water, earth, fire, air. These people were invincible.”

Ozai smirks. A first for him, a student who understood his work. “Yes, all true. But the truly powerful ones were the ones who could firebend. This element is the most destructive, yet can bring beauty all at once.” He pauses to bring a holographic video to the attention of the students. “My goal is to recreate this ability that once came so easily to our ancestors. To bring humankind to be this powerful again. Where nothing will ever get in our way, no illness, no fear. Just us and the elements, joined together once more.”

As the fellow interns become increasingly enraptured by the presentation detailing his work, Ozai turns to Katara reviewing notes for the rest of the office tour. “Who was that kid?” She couldn’t help but feel pride in her soul. As she turns to introduce him to her mentor, her brows furrow in confusion. He’s nowhere to be found.

He hadn’t meant to sneak into the top secret chamber of research, he swears. One minute he’s looking for a bathroom because he downed one too many Fiji waters because they were fancy and he wanted to feel fancy. And then of course he’s distracted by pretty buttons, and of course the rebel in him is able to remember the passcode scientists used to enter this top secret chamber. (The password was “thrussy.”)

He certainly hadn’t meant to get burned. He hastily climbed into the empty tube to hide himself as security guards routinely checked the room. While trying to unlock the door, of course he just had to trip on his laces, and of course he just had to press some button. Next thing he knew, he was surrounded by rainbow colored flames, engulfing his body. He remembers the last thing he searched on his computer was “what are furries festival” and prays that the police spares that from the report when they investigate his death.

But, he’s fine. He’s more than fine. He’s fucking fantastic . He’s strong, he has the reflexes of a fucking ninja, and he can conjure fucking flames from his hands. From his hands!

He practices every night, after the day at Phoenix Corp. He singed his towels, accidentally broke open his medicine cabinet when he reached for his anti depressants, and exploded his Aveeno bedside lotion. There’s an abandoned building near his apartment, and he climbs to the rooftop every night to control his newfound powers. He’s not clumsy, and swears he can rival Tony Hawk with his skateboarding abilities.

But the best part is how agile he’s become. He’s strong, noodle arms now muscular. His baggy shirts like a conscious fashion choice, and not just because they were the cheapest in the Walmart clearance rack. The kids that ignored him and continued to make out in front of his locker without any consequence? Pushed to the ground. The bully targeting petite kings? Basketball shoved firmly into his head.

“I’m trying my hardest to stop being mean. It’s really not my fault everyone is so fucking stupid.” Zuko petulantly stares at the suspension slip Pakku had written as he waits for Iroh to finish speaking to the principal. Apparently justice has consequences.

“Zuko!” Katara serious tone is heavily contrasted with laughter.

“Fine, you caught me. I’ve been ditching therapy to hotbox in the Denny’s parking lot.”

Katara huffs. “Denny’s? Really, bitch? You couldn’t have chosen, I don’t know, Target at least. Here I thought you were classy.”

Their collective laughter was interrupted by Iroh’s appearance, anger maring his usually gentle face. “We’ll talk about this later. Zuko, you know better than this. Why did you have to humiliate that boy?”

“He deserved it!”

“Enough! I’m have to pick up some later shifts at the tea shop today. Show up for yours today, too.” Zuko senses his uncle has more to say, more to berate him for. He just looks exhausted . Defeated. It’s all his damn fault. Iroh swerves to Katara. “He has you on his computer by the way! I’m his parole officer, nice to meet you.” Zuko’s mouth falls open, trying to explain to Katara who is barely holding herself together with how loudly she’s guffawing.

“I love you,” Iroh says, moving to exit out the school.

“I know.” Zuko starts to move away, before he pauses. “I love you, too.”

He thought, you get the girl, you get the firebending skills and you get hot and everything is ok. Everything is perfect. The universe has so many ways to fuck up your life, because serenity is just too easy.

Zuko’s heart clenches, staring at his Uncle’s body. There are tears that promise to slip, but never embark on their journey. A monitor nearby is noisily beeping, a tired nurse pats Zuko gently on the back. He’s becoming a recognizable figure, after all he does visit his Uncle Iroh two times a day.

It’s his fault .

It’s a thought that becomes permanent in his mind. It’s his fault that he lost track of training himself, and didn’t show up for his shift. It’s his fault that Iroh was running around the whole damn city looking for him. It’s his fucking fault his uncle was beat nearly half to death by robbers.

He grabs his uncle’s limp hands gently between his own calloused ones. “I’m going to make this right. I’m going to make you proud.” He slips away before he can feel his heart threatens to simply stop, unable to process the infinite pain he feels.

He glances at his watch nervous for multiple reasons. One, that he was going to miss his shift at the tea shop and get lectured again by June, his neighbor who has graciously taken over running the shop and housing Zuko until Iroh wakes from his coma. Two, that if he stares at the sea prunes any longer without actually eating them, Katara’s grandma would start laughing at him. Three, if Katara’s father kept glaring at him he would combust with how fucking nervous he was. It didn’t help he snuck in through Katara’s window and Hakoda had discovered him watching Tik Toks on her bed.

The dinner was a bust. Halfway through and he’s already gotten in an argument with the police chief over a certain masked figure.

“I think his name is The Blue Spirit.” Zuko admits, fighting to hide a smile.

Hakoda stares down at the boy. “More like Blue Dipshit. He’s destroying the city!” Katara quickly steps in as the argument grows heated, taking Zuko out to her building’s rooftop.

“Oh my god, you should be glad he didn’t shoot your ass up.” Katara clutches the railing, staring out to the city lights.

The same city lights he lives by, swears by. He remembers trying to seek out his uncle’s attacker. A man named Zhao notorious for his violent temper and attacks on the city’s elderly. He was able to run into his gaggle of minions on his nights long quest. While they had successfully nearly beat him to a pulp, he swears he’s set a few jackets on fire and managed to outrun them. Even if it meant he had fallen through an unbuilt building, tumbling down six stories before landing in the pits of a former fight club. He saw it then, the Blue Spirit legend. An ancient swordsman who dominated the underground scene.

He decided he was going to be the best damn superhero the world had seen. Even if it meant wearing an all black leotard every night. He designed it to best complement his firebending, resistant to the heat. The mask he slipped on every night, built to protect both him and his identity. The swords at his back that he’s been training with hours on end.

“Are you a cop?” he remembers his uncle’s attacker questioning, his new target blocked by Zuko’s presence.

“Really? You think a cop is going to be wearing a blue face mask and black spandex?” He doesn’t remember much of that night, anger too palpable and blinding his senses. All he will admit to is leaving him in some police car. Not the bruises littering the bandit’s body. Or his missing pants.

“I have to tell you something.” He joins Katara at the railing.

She gasps. “I knew it! You listen to Post Malone unironically.”

“No, god no. I haven’t hit rock bottom yet to start doing that.” He’s proud of himself for making her laugh.

“What’s up?” She asks. He can’t back out now. Not when she’s looking at him like he’s the whole world, not when she’s become his whole world.

“I-I can’t” He stutters, breaking their eye contact.

She nods in quiet understanding, turning away from him to walk back to her apartment. Zuko sighs, rubbing a hand at his forehead. “ Fuck.”

He conjures up a storm of flames to surround Katara. The force was enough to whirl her around and towards him, waiting to catch her in his arms.

“What the fuck was that?” Katara yelps, before being cut off with the feeling of Zuko’s lips pressed against hers.

“I just wanted to let you know. I Am. A. God.” He swears, the flames growing steadily from his palms.

“I’m kind of scared of you right now. Not because of the firebending or anything, just because the amount of testosterone is making me nervous.” She initiates the kiss this time. Her lip gloss tastes sweet, and he keeps kissing her until her lips become chapped. His hands can’t help but roam her body, her hands teasing and finding contact with his toned stomach beneath his hoodie.

“Are you kidding me!” Sokka calls from the rooftop’s entrance, hands covering his eyes. “I swear to Spirits above Zuko I am not afraid to castrate you right here right now. Katara, get the fuck inside!”

Zuko blushes.

“Katara, you’re so incredibly mature for your age.” Hama insists.

Katara is beaming. “Thanks, it’s the childhood trauma!”

The chemistry teacher freezes, looking at the still smiling girl peculiarly. “Um, well. My point is, it’s not worth it. I-I know it’s none of my business. I just see so much of myself in you. Including the mistakes I know you’re going to make. Honey, it’s not worth mixing yourself up with a guy that’s only more trouble than anything else. You’re going to go to the best college in the nation, I just know it. You just can’t afford to lose your focus now. Been there, done that. It’s not worth it.”

She smiled seemingly understandingly, struggling to keep her mouth shut. If only she knew.

The Blue Spirit couldn’t fight all the crime in the city alone. As much as Zuko was convinced he was the shit, he really wasn’t. The Blue Spirit couldn’t dare match up to The Painted Lady.

“You’re The Painted Lady?” Zuko questions, eyes closed in confusion while trying to process all the information. To be fair, he’s only gotten two hours of sleep a night ever since his life as The Blue Spirit began. He’s convinced the police really only sit around and eat donuts. If this was Law and Order: SVU , he just knew Olivia Benson wouldn’t need a masked teenager saving people. He opens his eyes when he begins to feel pulsating water near his wounds, Katara controlling its every movement as it works its way through his wounds.

After reuniting with his father and become an official intern at Phoenix Corp, he soon realized his father was not as occupied with cross elemental theories. No, he was much more focused on how to resurrect the dragons of the world. The true firebenders, he noted. Zuko had found hidden notes his mother had written before leaving his father. Partners in crime, they were working on their research together. Before his mother had left with the solution, before his father could understand the consequences of his work. Before his father had made himself a subject and injected their concoction into himself, become a half scaled half human hybrid roaming the sewers of the city.

He had found his father, bitter to no end as he continues producing the serum that was supposed to make the most powerful being on the planet. Zuko was left with gashes in his chest that made him wanted to vomit with how much blood was pouring out. He was left to die in dirty sewage water, his father cackling as he disappeared. Until she showed up.

The Painted Lady.

The city’s emblem, etched on coins and dollar bills. He’s heard rumors about her cleaning up the city’s rivers, healing patients doctors long gave up on. Her grandmother had told her their family comes from a long line of waterbenders, the last one born 400 years ago. She had her swear never to reveal her talents, never talk about it, never do anything about it. It was dangerous, the government would want to talk to her. She would disappear, the whole family would be in danger But Katara was never one to listen to directions very well.

“Did you just fucking slap me?” Zuko is incredulous, clutching his reddening man tit. She’s nearly healed all the cuts on his body at the hands of his father’s claws. The burn from a dragon is more painful than any other, and Katara’s upset. She can’t heal his eye, no matter how hard she tries.

“Yeah, what are you going to do about it? Be mad?” Katara bites back. She pauses the water disappearing from her hands and back onto the mug on her night stand. “I can’t believe you’re so fucking stupid.” She’s in his lap, clad in only a t shirt. Her hair falls in her eyes as she returns to heal his wounds, and he gingerly brushes the strand out from blocking her.

“I know.” Zuko couldn’t help but press a kiss to her cheek.

“Don’t return the sweatpants,” Katara throws out.

Zuko raises his eyebrow. “Why, doesn’t Sokka want these back?”

“He says, ‘I don’t want emo butt juice on them,’” Katara shrugs.

He blows a stray hair from his scarred eye out of frustration. “I consider myself chic punk more than anything else.”

She pauses again. “What if there’s more of us out there?” Katara uneasily peers up at his questioning stare. “More benders?”

Even with all the tests and insistence Ozai had for recreating this power, Zuko had been the only successful case. The only person to fully exhibit the power of his ancestors. “I don’t know. Wouldn’t they need to go through some sort of freak accident like I did?”

“What if your power was suppressed this whole time?”

He contemplates the idea, hands rubbing up and down her waist.

“I think my grandma used to say something like ‘One queef and this whole building could tumble down.’”

He is glaring at her quizzically. “No I don’t think that’s right. What does that even mean?”

“It means, life as we know it will change forever. If we find other benders to defeat your father. If we expose what bending is. Hell, the city still thinks you use jetpacks to propel yourself around the city.”

He pecks chastely at her lips. She hates how easily she’s able to relax when he kisses away her worries. “You know, I used to think if I had a boyfriend I would simply go beat pedophiles to death with him as a hobby. I don’t know whether or not to be delighted this has come true.”

“As long as The Blue Spirit always has The Painted Lady. Everything will be alright.”

“You promise?”

“You rise with moon. He does, too.” Zuko’s staring at the mask in his hand. His other hand firmly around Katara’s.

#zutara #zutara fanfiction #Zuko #Katara #zuko x katara #zutara fanfic #atla #zutara month #day 1 zutara month #day 1 #blue spirit and painted lady

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brothermouzongaming · 6 years ago

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Control review

I have been looking forward to Control for a while now, it was a very mysterious game before the non-existent marketing campaign. So going in blind was a great experience that is pretty rare these days in gaming. I’m gonna break Control down into its essential parts and talk about my view of them. Spoilers lie ahead.

The Good

The voice acting is pretty well done across the cast, the main character Jesse is especially well-acted (though not well written, more on that later). The setting of the Oldest House drips with atmosphere and a sense of eerie familiarity that comes with being in an office building. Only this office, though appearing to be a skyscraper in Manhattan, has layers and moving hallways as well as much more lurking in its depths. The Metroidvania style of learning abilities to access new areas really does a great job of shining in this context.

Some of these side-missions are some of the best I’ve played this year. I thought the fridge was just a “Weeping Angel” kind of thing where you died if you didn’t look at it (there’s a cool touch in that room that I like). Upon taking the side mission though it’s short and simple it did a great job of subverting my expectation and throwing an unexpected boss fight at you. The Mold Monster, The Anchor, all interesting side quests that do a great job of supplementing the experience.

When things do smooth out, combat is hot shit like it’s Chronicle the game. The debris and destruction effects are everything you’ve heard and really give that feel of next-gen that some games really could use. Ever play Psi-Ops: The Mindgate Conspiracy (2004)? It’s that turned up to fucking twenty.

The lore is some of the best I’ve come across, I actually sat down and read as much as I possibly could. Yes, some people don’t like how it can break up gameplay but I saw it as a chance to dive deeper and actually understand what little I can before continuing. The redacted information is a great touch and I do get the sense that the reader is meant to fill in the blanks. That said, it can be a real middle finger at times when all you want is answers.

The mod system on the surface is a good idea, I have to give them points for at least trying. Some mods are so good you get them and it is instantly slotted. One that drops from a secret objective grants you 100% ammo reduction on hit. Excuse me while I boot up the game to go get that real quick yeahthanks.

Little cute cosmetic things like outfits come from...wait for it...playing the game!! WAAAAT

The Bad

The mod system, though having its gems, is mostly dirty lumps of Black Rock. So many, and I mean so many mods are going to be deleted for scrap to help upgrade your gun or the mods you can get a chance to randomly drop.

What the hell is The City, it’s capitalized in the subtitles and many lore entries and there was not so much as a reference or explanation or anything. In addition, a lot of the redacted documents still draw me in but it is frustrating when so much is left out in a world that already begs so many questions. Would it have killed the writers for a little clarity?

As satisfying as the side missions can be, there are a number of them that boil down to straight-up bitch missions. Kill x amount of enemies here, destroy x things there, all this in a game where I can fly and shoot a sentient gun and throw shit with my mind. Ya couldn’t come up with anything else?

The Metroidvania element is a great idea, but it isn’t implemented quite as well as I would’ve liked. It’s just a little grating when more often than not it’s not a lack of an ability but the number on your access card not being high enough. Lame.

The ending is a little insulting, the fake-out got me so mad I actually said out loud “Oh well at least the real ending won’t upset me like that.” Wrong, wow holy fuck was I wrong. The final fight is another gauntlet, shocker, and it’s not even really all that difficult because The Board supposedly...buffs your strength? That is never really explained either. Cool. You beat the same enemies you’ve been kicking around for hours now only to find Dylan suspended in air, you purify him or whatever. Roll credits. Go fuck yourself. Regardless of whether or not DLC is coming and there is, that ending is pathetic on so many levels after a game I spent around 15 hours being pretty impressed by.

The Ugly

What’s ugly about Control nears unforgivable. I mean it, if you’re sensitive to performance issues to the point where things can chug to a near halt: then just wait and keep your ear to the ground for patch notes and updates for when things get fixed. For the record, I distinctly remember playing New Vegas on my 360 and the absolute shit show that was. So I do believe that experience gave me the strength to persevere through it. Beefy PCs will be fine as well as Xbox One X, but base systems and even in some cases with the PS4 Pro really need some attention when it comes to hotfixes**. Combat will kick off and get heated, only for frames to drop as low as the tens and single digits according to Digital Foundry. On top of it all, it would be one thing if it was momentary and fleeting but essentially from the first moment of gameplay; it’s guaranteed to get worse as your powers grow and destruction becomes more and more prevalent.

No new game plus, and level selecting after completion overwrites your save file and did I mention there’s only one save file? Remedy... you know its 2019 right? I feel like that was a no brainer.

As fun as the combat loop is, how did we not get the full selection of gun forms or at least more than two? Too often am I pausing to switch out a form when I should be able to hold three forms to at least mitigate how many times I’m going into the menu. On top of that, combat scenarios are just gauntlets and there aren’t much varying in situations outside of taking advantage of the different architecture The Oldest House has. It’s just wave after wave with nothing really different between them.

In summation...

Control is fun, intriguing and (most of the time) absolutely gorgeous. It’s very clear that Control is the culmination of both Alan Wake and Quantum Break. To me, it is the best parts of both with Alan Wake’s aesthetic and tone with the high octane Quantum Break action. If that sounds like your kind of thing, I say its worth it, maybe wait until a sale comes around or when they do whatever they need to ease the performance issues. This is a single-player game that offers an interesting experience that may not be backed up by story but is held up by lore and environments that really shine in modern gaming. Yes, it's SCP the game but in a lot of ways, it isn’t.

I give Control a 7.5/10 with performance issues on launch being one of the biggest detractors. I’d rate it a little higher now that a lot of the issues have been patched but I believe games need to be reviewed on the state they shipped in.

**On September 4th it was reported that the team is focussed on performance issues for consoles in addition to the two expansions titles “Foundation” and “AWE” as well as non-narrative content.

#Control #Remedy games #Alan Wake #Quantum Break #Max Payne #video games #gaming

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whatever-whims · 7 years ago

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a new challenge with a throwback!

Ever miss the days where all your favorite cartoons would come on every Saturday morning? Me too! Why not relive some of the goodies with the TV Throwback Legacy Challenge?

Overall Rules:

Try not to cheat! ONLY cheat if Traits: (aka if you don’t have enough money for bills, cheat enough money to pay them then go back to the original amount of money.)

You can use the freerealestate on cheat for each generation once!

Each generation is to start off with 1000 simoleons (once the previous generation dies).

If you cannot complete a goal because of lack of Expansion Packs, Game Packs, or Stuff Packs, complete an additional skill in its place.

Have fun and share your journey! #tvthrowbacklegacychallenge

“Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends is a wonderful, funderful imagination habitation. We provide food, shelter and a warm heart for imaginary friends looking for a place to call home. So if you know of or have an imaginary friend that desperately needs a home, then come on down to Foster's Home For Imaginary Friends, where good ideas are not forgotten.”

You always felt like you wanted to have a big family, so you started up your own, what would you call it, an “orphanage,” per say. You took in many kids, and they treated you like you were their own guardian.

Traits: Family Oriented, Ambitious, Neat

Aspiration: Big Happy Family

Career: Management (Business Branch)

Goals:

Complete the Management career.

Complete the Big Happy Family Aspiration.

Complete the Parenting skill.

Adopt four kids.

Never marry but have romantic swings every now and again

“Sugar. Spice. And everything nice. These were the ingredients chosen to create the perfect little girls. But Professor Utonium accidentally added an extra ingredient to the concoction... Chemical X! Thus the Powerpuff Girls were born! Using their ultra-superpowers, Blossom, Bubbles, and Buttercup have dedicated their lives to fighting crime and the forces of evil!”

Option One: BLOSSOM

Traits: Genius, Self-Assured, Good

Aspiration: Renaissance Sim

Career: Secret Agent

Goals:

Complete the Renaissance Sim Aspiration.

Complete the Secret Agent Career.

Become “Best Friends” with both of your sisters.

Complete the Logic skill.

Marry and have 2 kids.

Option Two: BUBBLES

Traits: Childish, Cheerful, Good

Aspiration: Friend of The World

Career: Secret Agent

Goals:

Complete the Friend of the World Aspiration

Complete the Secret Agent Career

Become “Best Friends” with both of your sisters.

Write in a journal regularly.

Complete the Writing skill.

Marry and have 2 kids.

Option Three: BUTTERCUP

Traits: Goofball, Hot-Headed, Materialistic

Aspiration: Chief of Mischief

Career: Secret Agent

Goals:

Complete the Chief of Mischief Aspiration

Complete the Secret Agent Career

Become “Best Friends” with both of your sisters.

Complete the Mischief Skill

Marry (or don’t) and have 2 kids

“Out of my way, babies! The prettiest, smartest and bestest girl gets the front seat!”

Your family was a big one. All your life you were surrounded by people, and mostly babies at that. Being the only one your age, you were almost forced to hang out with the children for fun, and it did take a toll on you. Another thing that came with being the oldest is that your parents never really had the time for you. They tended to only the baby(ies) and nothing else.

Traits: Hates Children, Self-Assured, Mean

Aspiration: Business Savvy

Career: Politician

Goals:

Complete the Business Savvy Aspiration

Complete the Politician Career (If you have City Living)

Have only one best friend.

Have one child out of wedlock

Never become more than friends with your child.

Live in the city. (if you have CIty Living)

“Oh, Daph. What's wrong with you? Don't you ever eat?”

You’re a food connoisseur with a love for anything edible (and that includes edibles if ya know what I’m sayin’). You and your doggo would rather eat and chill under the stars than truly take on anything too serious.

Traits: Lazy, Glutton, Dog Lover

Aspiration: Outdoor Enthusiast OR Freelance Botanist* (ONLY if you don’t have the Outdoor Retreat GP)

Career: Food Critic

Goals:

Complete the Outdoor Enthusiast OR the Freelance Botanist Aspiration.

Complete the Food Critic Career.

Become companions with your dog.

Never marry, but have a child with an alien and have them live with you.

Master the Herbalism OR the Gardening skill* (ONLY if you do not have the Outdoor Retreat GP).

Live away from as many people as you can.

“But... invader's blood marches through my veins, like giant RADIOACTIVE RUBBER PANTS! The pants command me. Do not ignore my veins!”

Your parents were from different worlds. Literally. You were half alien and you were kind of embarrassed about it. Well, the human part. You wanted to do everything you could to get back into space and see where you came from. Oh did I mention you despised humans?

Traits: Self-Assured, Evil, Insane

Aspiration: Public Enemy

Career: Criminal

Goals:

Complete the Public Enemy Aspiration.

Complete the Criminal Career.

Build a rocket ship, but don’t go into space until an Elder.

Have a child by “accidental adoption”.

Never be friends with any human, other than your one human parent and child.

“Create” a dog and name it Gir.

Master the Rocket Science skill.

“Yum, it's been light years since you programmed synthetic brownies!”

Your parent’s obsession with space and all things science must’ve rubbed off on you, because now you want to be an astronaut! Luckily, since your parent already built a rocket ship, you already have one to traverse the never-ending beauty of space.

Traits: Family-Oriented, Creative, Ambitious

Aspiration: The Curator

Career: Astronaut

Goals:

Complete the Curator Aspiration.

Complete the Astronaut Career.

Explore Space.

Complete the Elements collection.

Travel to Sixam at least ten times.

Master the Handiness skill

Marry and have 3 kids.

"Just because I like to have fun doesn't mean I'm stupid Dexter! I may not understand all that scientifical, mathematical stuff; but I know how to dance, I know how how to pet a kitty, and I know how to tie my shoes Mr.zipper-boots!"

Unlike your parents who were always so caught up with work, you would rather have fun and enjoy the cooler things in life. So once you were old enough, you up and left, moving into the city for the most fun!

Traits: Dance Machine, Goofball, Clumsy

Aspiration: Party Animal

Career: Social Media

Goals:

Complete the Party Animal Aspiration.

Complete the Social Media Career.

Master the Dance and Charisma skills.

Join 3 clubs (or create your own with at least two other members) (if you have Get Together).

Have a kid with a ghost!

Marry or not is your choice.

(You need THIS mod to be able to have a baby with a ghost!)

“Wow! Isn't this great? We just caught three ghosts tonight!”

“No, actually, you've just caught one ghost, three times, all of them me!”

Your parent was a wild spirit, and that’s not a joke! You’re part ghost. How? Because one of your parents decided to get a little too drunk and conceive you with a dead person. It’s hard to really be normal as many people are scared of ghosts!

Traits: Gloomy, Unflirty, Clumsy

Aspiration: Super Parent

Career: Your Choice

Goals:

Complete the Super Parent Aspiration.

Complete the Career you choose.

Master two skills of your choice (try to do something you haven’t mastered before!).

Adopt one child.

Never marry, but attempt to date.

“That’s not Santa, you stooge. That’s the Grim Reaper.”

You were adopted, but not just by anybody. Your parent was a ghost. Not a surprise, and they definitely didn’t act like the spooky undead. Your ghost parent gave you a bit of interest in the supernatural, like the Grim Reaper, Vampires, and Ghosts. This led to documenting your findings and a bit of an obsession, which included stealing from Vlad’s place...

Traits: Bookworm, Genius, Kleptomaniac

Aspiration: Master Vampire

Career: Journalist

Goals:

Complete the Master Vampire Aspiration.

Complete the Journalist Career.

Master the Vampire Lore and Writing skills..

Have a child before you become a vampire (or adopt).

Marry the Grim Reaper.

“Oooh, I know I’m not gonna like this..”

Unlike the two generations before you, you hate anything creepy crawly and are pretty much terrified of a lot of things. No vampires. No ghosts. No reaper. Even if he kinda was your dad..

Traits: Squeamish, Good, Loner

Aspiration: Nerd Brain

Career: Tech Guru (Choose the branch)

Goals:

Complete the Nerd Brain Aspiration

Complete the Tech Guru Career

Master the Handiness and Programming skills

Never be more than acquaintances with the Grim Reaper

Never be more than friends with your other parent

Never associate with anyone supernatural (other than the heir of the previous generation)

Get married and have a “normal” family.

REMEMBER TO HAVE FUN! I CHECK THE TAG DAILY BC I REALLY LIKE SEEING MY CHALLENGES GO PLACES! <3

#tvthrowbacklegacychallenge #the sims 4 #the sims 4 challenge #the sims 4 legacy challenge #new sims challenge #the sims #sims 4 #tvtblc #whatever-whims #legacy challenge #ten generation legacy

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unfolded73 · 8 years ago

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This Graceful Path (10/19)

Summary: Emma has just moved in with Mary Margaret and started working as a deputy in the Storybrooke sheriff’s department when she meets Killian Jones, the town’s introverted harbormaster. When a prominent Storybrooke resident is found murdered, Emma tries to juggle solving the case with new friendships, parenthood, and romance. A Season 1 Cursed!Killian AU.

Rating: Explicit per CSBB guidelines (violence, sex); more of an M on unfolded73’s scale. The sex, when we get there, is not extremely graphic in nature. Same with the violence.

Content Warning: This fic contains two major character deaths, one canon and one not. (You’re already past them.) Content warning for sexual content in this chapter. As with the show itself, there are consent issues involved with cursed people having sexual relations, so be warned.

Total word count: ~ 75,000

Acknowledgements: Thank you to @j-philly-b for betaing this monstrosity. Thank you to @caprelloidea for all of the read-throughs and cheerleading; not sure I could have written it without your excitement early on. Thank you to @teruel-a-witch for the original prompt on tumblr which sparked this fic. Thank you to @pompeiiablaze for the wonderful art which accompanies Chapter 3 and 9 and one later chapter. Thanks to the CSBB mods ( @sambethe in particular, who had to look at my check-ins) for your support and for enduring my neuroses.

1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 – AO3 Link

Chapter 10

“N… nothing here, Madam M… mayor,” the man said fearfully, and Regina imagined ripping his heart out and crushing it just to stop his annoying stutter. She rolled her eyes.

“So find another clear spot and dig again,” she said through clenched teeth, her voice loud in the muffled stillness of the snowy forest. Was this one Bashful? Or Dopey? She didn’t recall and frankly, didn’t care. She didn’t bother to learn their cursed names, and she certainly wasn’t going to try to remember their names from the Enchanted Forest.

Several of the dwarves wielded shovels, while another was operating a metal detector, moving it over the freshly fallen snow that blanketed the forest floor. Tree branches heavy with snow hung low around them, the lower ones dropping their burden on the ground in huge clumps as they were disturbed by the searchers.

Regina wasn’t sure that the Dark One dagger would even set off a metal detector — was what it was made of technically metal, or was it some enchanted element that had no equivalent in this realm? — so she was having the dwarves dig in an ever-widening circle away from the site of the murder. She stamped her booted feet against the cold. Probably best to go back to her warm office and wait for news.

“So, of course, when I get a call from a citizen saying there were strange men digging in the forest, I should have guessed that you were involved,” a sardonic voice said from behind her. Regina swung around to see Emma coming toward her, gray beanie shoved down tight over her head and shiny sheriff’s badge at her hip. Regina sneered.

“Well, someone has to look for the murder weapon since your office is doing such a miserable job of searching for it,” Regina sneered. “You and that charming deputy of yours are worse than useless.”

“You’re out here disturbing a crime scene,” Emma said, her breath visible in the frosty air.

“It’s been two and a half months,” Regina responded. “If you haven’t finished investigating the crime scene, then you’re even more incompetent than I thought.”

Emma rolled her eyes. “So you’re going to dig up the whole forest?”

“If I have to. This is town property, Ms. Swan, and I have every right to do exactly what I’m doing.”

“Why?”

“Anything to get justice for poor Mr. Gold.”

“Why do I doubt that you give a shit about Mr. Gold?” Emma asked, her arms folding across her chest.

“I ‘give a shit’ that there’s still a murderer on the loose. A murderer that you seem to be dating if the town rumor mill is accurate.”

“Killian’s not the killer.”

Regina narrowed her eyes, surprised that Emma didn’t offer even a token denial of the relationship. “And how do you know that?”

“The killer stole Tom Clark’s car and followed Mr. Gold out here, and Killian doesn’t drive,” she said, ticking off points on her gloved fingers. “The killer would have gotten blood on his clothes, and Killian was seen by his next-door neighbor not long after the murder, looking normal. Also, I’ve found no fingerprints in the car or in Gold’s cabin that match his.”

“And do they match anyone else?” Regina asked.

Emma looked chastened at that question. “I’m still trying to work that out. So far I haven’t found anything that didn’t match Mr. Gold himself in the cabin, or Mr. Clark and his friends in the car. But we’re still investigating it.”

“So he could have had a glove on.” Regina looked back at the men digging in the forest. “We’re going to find that dagger, Ms. Swan, and when we do, you’ll have to accept the fact that your new boyfriend is a murderer.” And the Dark One, she thought to herself.

“Why are you so insistent that Killian did this? I can tell when someone’s lying, and he’s telling the truth.”

Regina pulled herself up, standing ramrod straight and staring down her nemesis. “I know the history of the people in this town that you cannot begin to understand. If you think he’s telling the truth, then you’re blinded by his pretty face.”

“Whatever.” Emma turned to head back the way she’d come. “Have fun out here in the cold.”

Regina watched Emma go until she’d disappeared from view, seething internally. She stomped her feet, her toes numb inside her boots. She swung around, furious. “Keep working!” she shouted. “I won’t abide any laziness. And call me as soon as you find anything!”

Back in her car, Regina turned on the heat full-blast and then noticed that she’d left her Blackberry sitting on the passenger seat. She had a missed call from Kathryn Nolan, David’s wife.

If what Regina suspected was correct, then despite her best efforts at intervention, that damned Snow White and her peasant husband had found their way back into each other’s arms. That kind of happiness was exactly what the curse was supposed to prevent. She pressed a button to call Kathryn back.

“Hello, Kathryn, you called?”

“Hi, Regina. Thanks for calling me back.”

“You sound sad; is everything all right?”

“No. I just had a long conversation with David. Our marriage is over.”

“I was headed back to my office. Can you meet me there? We can talk.”

Regina’s hands clutched the steering wheel as she drove back into town. She would stop this. She couldn’t allow Snow White to be happy, that would defeat the whole purpose, the whole reason for Storybrooke’s existence.

Pulling into her accustomed parking space at town hall and leaving the car, she marched into the building, thinking about what her play should be. If Snow White and Prince Charming were together, she would have to do something to tear them apart. Was there a way to frame one of them for Mr. Gold’s murder? Doubtful, not with David’s familiarity with the case as Emma’s deputy. But if someone else died, or went missing, and if sweet little Mary Margaret was the prime suspect…

Regina sighed; she really could have used a toadying minion like Sidney Glass to help her deal with this problem, but he’d proven himself so useless when it came to unseating Emma Swan as sheriff that he’d required punishment. She supposed she’d have to do everything herself. As usual. No one could be counted on, in this world or any other.

Kathryn was already sitting on a bench outside Regina’s office. Regina pulled her into a hug, every inch the supportive friend. “Come in, Kathryn, and tell me everything.”

They sat down together on the pristinely white sofa. Regina handed Kathryn a box of tissues, but she seemed to have herself under control. “David confessed to me that he’s been cheating on me with Mary Margaret.”

Regina didn’t have to fake her anger. “That complete and utter asshole.”

Kathryn shrugged. “At least he was honest. He’s in love with her, not with me.” She sighed. “To be fair, I don’t know if I’m in love with him either.”

“That’s awfully generous of you. But you are his wife and the two of you took vows. That can’t be undervalued.”

“I know, but it’s never felt right.” Kathryn stood up and began to pace, her heels loud against the marble floor. Regina’s mind whirred as she focused on the upside down image of Kathryn in the reflective shine of the black and white marble under their feet. “It’s never felt real<, me and David. Even before the coma. I don’t think we were meant to be.”

Regina stood as well, walking over toward one of her decorative end tables. She caught a glimpse of herself in a mirror, a hundred tiny, fractured versions of herself in each of the beveled edges. “So what are you going to do?”

“I considered running away to Boston; I was thinking about applying to law school and getting a fresh start. But the more I thought about it, the more I realized that Storybrooke is my home. I don’t have to leave it if I don’t want to.” As she talked, she turned to look out the window. Regina picked up a heavy vase from the end table and stole up behind her. It didn’t matter what Kathryn said. If she turned up dead, it wouldn’t be hard to focus the blame on the woman her husband was having an affair with. “Yes, it will be hard to see David and Mary Margaret together, but I’m strong. I can deal with it.”

Regina raised the vase.

There was a loud knock on her office door.

Just managing to get the vase set down before Kathryn turned from the window, Regina pasted on a forced smile. “What is it?” she called, her voice sharp.

The door opened to reveal Killian Jones.

“I was wondering if we could talk, Madam Mayor,” he said.

“I’m in a meeting,” Regina almost snarled.

“It’s okay, I need to run some errands.” Kathryn reached out and squeezed Regina’s hand, her face kind. “Thanks for being a good friend, Regina.” Regina watched as her ticket to making Mary Margaret miserable walked out the door.

“This was bad timing, Cap— Mr. Jones.”

“So was the — writer, was it? — that you sent sniffing around the docks this morning.”

Regina glared at him. “When the sheriff has done nothing to solve this horrible crime, I’ll take any help I can get. Even bohemian writers.” She knew who August was; he wasn’t writing any book, at least not one he planned to publish. As the only other person in town who knew the origins of Storybrooke, she either needed to make an ally of him or eliminate him. For now, she was electing to try the former.

“Emma has worked night and day—”

“Yes, well, you aren’t exactly unbiased when it comes to Miss Swan, are you? Nor she with you. Which is a bigger problem.”

“Why are you so convinced that I killed that man?” Killian asked, his voice rising with a little bit of desperation. “I swear on all that’s holy that I didn’t.”

“You and anything holy are about as far apart as two things can get,” Regina muttered. She knew Hook probably believed what he was saying, thanks to the curse, or thanks to however the Dark One was manifesting itself in his cursed brain. But the fact remained that he was the Dark One, she was almost certain of it, and she needed to get possession that dagger before the curse was broken, or who knows what would happen when he realized who and what he was.

“I just thought the guy seemed dangerous,” Killian said. “Unconcerned with following the law. A man like that might do anything in pursuit of a story.”

“And what are you suggesting I do with him? If he’s so dangerous, perhaps you should tell your girlfriend, the sheriff?”

“How about start by telling him I’m no murderer!” Killian shouted.

“Or what?” When he didn’t respond, Regina walked over to her desk and picked up some papers, stacking them in what she hoped was a dismissal. “I’ll be sure to keep your input in mind. Was there anything else?”

~*~

“I’m headed out,” Emma said to Mary Margaret as she descended the stairs from her bedroom. She’d rushed home from the station to freshen up. Lately, she'd been so busy, she’d hardly spoken to her roommate.

Mary Margaret looked up from the stove where she was stirring a sauce. “Where’s Killian taking you?”

“He’s doing what you’re doing for David; cooking dinner.”

“Ooh, romantic.” Mary Margaret smirked at her. “Do you think you’ll be back tonight?”

Emma flushed, biting her lip. “Let’s just say I’m prepared for the possibility that I won’t be. I promise I’ll call if not and give you ample warning.” Emma gathered up her purse and keys. “Listen, David told me about him and Kathryn; I’m really so happy for you two.”

Mary Margaret’s face broke out into a full grin. “Me too. I know it’s still going to be difficult, and he has to get through the divorce, but Kathryn really couldn’t have been more understanding.”

“I guess they both knew they weren’t right for each other.”

“You know, David gives a lot of credit to both you and Killian for setting him straight on telling Kathryn the truth.”

Emma was surprised to hear that. “I didn’t realize he and Killian talked about personal stuff.”

“Yeah, they’re really getting to be good friends. Oh, we could double date!”

Wrinkling her nose, Emma opened the door. “Yeah, because we’re teenagers in the 1950s. I’ll see you later, Mary Margaret.”

She drove the short distance to Killian’s apartment, her heart in her throat. The last time they’d been together, she was fairly certain that if Mary Margaret hadn’t come home, she and Killian would have ended up in bed together. Now they were going to be alone in his apartment with the whole night ahead of them. It didn’t matter how many people she’d slept with in her life; the idea that tonight might be the night with Killian was making her more nervous than she’d felt about a guy in a long time.

When he opened the door for her promptly after she knocked, she could see her own feelings reflected in his hopeful expression.

“Hey, come on in.” He helped her off with her coat, hanging it in a small closet by the front door. “Dinner’s almost ready.”

If she expected to see chaos in his kitchen, she was disappointed. The oven was on, something obviously cooking inside, and a salad sat on the counter. All the dishes involved in preparing the meal had been washed and put away. The table was set with two place settings, and there was even a single rose in a beer bottle. She smiled.

“I know my apartment isn’t much, but…”

“It’s fine.”

They stared at each other awkwardly. Killian scratched behind his ear, glancing over at the oven timer, which still had four minutes left on it.

“Can I get you a beer?” Killian asked.

“Yeah, sure.” The process of getting beer out of the fridge and opening them took about a minute, and then they were back to uncomfortable silence.

“Sorry, I probably should have prepared some topics of conversation. I’ve suddenly forgotten how to use language,” he said, flushing to the tips of his ears.

“It’s the sex thing,” Emma said.

She watched him swallow, his hand coming up to scratch behind his ear again. “I’m sorry?”

She set her beer down on the kitchen counter and wiped her palms off on her jeans. “You know, the sex thing. We’re both wondering if we’re gonna have sex tonight. It’s making things awkward and weird.”

Killian’s eyes blinked a few times. “Right. So are we? Going to have sex?” He bit his lip, which she thought looked like a fantastic idea. Sinking her teeth into his bottom lip was definitely a thing she wanted to experience first-hand.

Shrugging one shoulder, she smiled. “It’s not just up to me.” She took a couple of steps toward him. “But I’d like to cast my vote for yes.”

Killian hummed, his smile bringing out the dimples in his cheeks. “Well, it’s unanimous then. That’s lucky.”

They sort of swayed into each other, drawn in by an invisible pull between them. “Lucky,” Emma agreed, letting her body come to rest against his, touching legs and chests and fuck, he smelled really good.

When they kissed, it wasn’t tentative or slow; she opened her mouth and so did he and their tongues were touching, wet and slick and perfect. Emma reached up and wrapped her arms around him, pulling him close so that her breasts crushed against the firm plane of his chest.

The oven timer sounded and Killian ignored it, his mouth busy against the curve where her neck met her shoulder.

“Oven,” she rasped out.

“Don’t care.”

Emma pried him away, enjoying his lazy, lust-filled expression. “Your dinner’s going to burn, and we should probably eat so that we have enough strength for the other thing.”

Killian spun around, twisting knobs to stop the beeping timer and to turn off the oven itself. Taking a casserole out, he set it down to cool and turned to her. “Or we could do the other thing now, and have dinner after.” His hopeful smile made her laugh, so she kissed him again.

“Okay,” she mumbled against his lips.

“Okay?”

She reached around and squeezed his ass, pulling him up against her. “Okay.”

What followed was a clumsy, stumbling walk to the bedroom as they continued kissing and Emma went to work on his shirt buttons. She paused in the doorway of his bedroom to take her boots off, tossing them in the general direction of the front door, before joining him by the bed, neatly made like the first time she’d been in here, when she’d searched his apartment.

“Undressing another person is awkward, don’t you think?” she said as she untucked his shirt from his jeans so she could finish unbuttoning it.

Killian chuckled, pulling her close, his hand roaming down her back and over the curve of her ass. “Would that I had some kind of magic to whisk our clothes away.”

Emma took a step back, pulling her sweater over her head, and then they were both rapidly yanking their jeans off, sitting down next to each other to finish the job. Noticing that he’d removed his underwear at the same time, Emma reached behind her back to unfasten her bra, then pulled her own underwear off, and wow, she did not expect to be getting naked this early in the proceedings, but here she was, completely bare in Killian’s lamp-lit bedroom.

He kissed her while she reached back and fumbled with the bedding, and then he was pressing her back onto the pillows and Emma let herself be pressed, enjoying the fall and the weight of his body over her. His shirt was open but still on, and she wondered if he was uncomfortable about his prosthesis and what lay under it. She hoped he’d grow more confident with time, and it struck her like a thunderclap that she wasn’t just about to have sex with someone. She was assuming this tumble into bed would be the first of many. She was thinking like this wasn’t a one-time thing. She blinked her eyes, amazed.

“You all right, love?”

Emma reached up and caressed his face, enjoying scraping her nails through the stubble on his cheek. “I should be asking you that. You sure your ribs are up for this?”

He smiled softly. “I assure you, I’m tip top.”

Running her hand down his back and up under his shirt, she pulled him down, opening her thighs and cradling his in between, gasping at the intimate press of his cock between her legs. Then they were both lost, mouths meeting and hips rolling against one another, all breathless moans and grinding, panting desire. She was already so wet, could feel it in the slick drag of him against her, knew she should ask him to get a condom or run and fetch one from her purse, because she was so ready for this, ready for him to push inside her and fuck her and make her come.

He slowed things down though, moving over to one side and running his hand over her chest, cupping her breast and brushing his thumb over the nipple. Emma gasped, grasping the sides of his face and kissing him again, arching against his hand. He slid it down, brushing his calloused palm over her abdomen, and she rolled her hips, hoping he would take the hint and touch her where she was desperate to be touched.

When his fingers finally slipped between her legs, Emma bit down on his bottom lip, her hand tightening in his hair. She felt like a coiled spring; like her body had been waiting for this since the moment they met, since the moment she turned in the bright sunlight and saw him there on the docks. They groaned together as he slid a finger inside her. He alternated between gentle thrusts in and out, and more focused touches to her clit, winding her tighter and tighter as she lifted her hips and panted into his mouth.

“Condom?” she murmured.

“Yeah.” He rolled over, pulling open his bedside table drawer and taking out a foil packet. Emma took advantage of the fact that he was on his back, sitting up and moving astride him, taking the condom from his hand. She’d always had an easier time coming when she was on top, and she grinned at him as she tore the package open with her teeth. He met her gaze with one of lust-filled amazement, like he couldn’t quite believe this was happening.

Emma rolled the condom on, stroking him and lining her body up and sinking down and oh. There. He filled her, the delicious stretch of it making her whimper as she leaned forward and started a slow pace, her hands clutching the bed on either side of his pillow.

It took a few thrusts for them to find a rhythm together, his hips not quite rising in sync with hers at first, but they adjusted to each other and she couldn’t help moaning at how good it felt. “Fuck, Swan, yes,” he chanted with every rise and fall, every slick meeting of their bodies. She could feel it building, grinding down onto his pelvic bone as hard as she could, chasing her pleasure and feeling the sensation of an orgasm ahead, nothing stopping her, nothing in the way between her and that best of all possible feelings. She dimly heard Killian cry out just before her own orgasm hit, everything clenching and pulsing with perfect bliss.

Emma took a few seconds to rest against his chest before carefully dismounting, making sure he had a grip on the condom so they didn’t make a mess of things. Killian got up to clean himself up while she collapsed onto her back, her chest still heaving.

“Ready for dinner?” he asked when he returned to the bedroom, a cheeky smile on his face.

She shook her head back and forth on the pillow, taking a moment to enjoy the sight of his body. “That would require me to be capable of standing up.”

HIs resulting expression was full of pride. “I could stand here and throw food at you if you prefer.”

Emma heaved herself up, fishing around on the floor for her underwear. “I guess I have worked up an appetite.” Killian pulled his jeans back on, but Emma decided to only bother with the underwear and her sweater, leaving her own jeans and her bra on the floor.

Having sex first was the best idea he’d ever had; all the awkwardness from earlier had drained away, and as she ate almost-warm-enough forkfuls of Killian’s hamburger casserole, she thought she had never laughed so much over a meal.

They lingered at the table over cups of coffee and shared a piece of store-bought cheesecake, Killian’s blue eyes sparkling in the light of the dim bulb over his cheap, laminate table.

“What?” he said, and it made her realize that she was just sitting there, staring at him, her foot hooked over the rung of her chair, her bare legs slightly chilled.

“Nothing, I’m…” She took a second to interrogate the way she was feeling, expecting to find apprehension that she’d moved too far, too fast, gotten too close. But all she found was joy. “I’m just happy.”

He reached across the table and took her hand, his expression open and warm. “Me too.”

Later, they found their way into bed again, her sweater still on but panties flung enthusiastically across the room, and she looked down her body at the erotic sight of his dark hair between her thighs. She’d told him he could take off his shirt and prosthesis if he wanted to, and in the dark bedroom, he’d agreed, vulnerable and trusting.

Now he worked her over with his tongue and fingers, his focus only on her pleasure, and she gave herself over to it, rocking against his face and gripping his hair and muttering don’t stop, don’t stop until she came with a strangled cry. She was vaguely aware of him still between her legs, watching her as she shuddered with the aftershocks. As soon as she could make her limbs cooperate, she pulled her sweater off, collapsing naked and sweaty back onto the sheets.

Emma made a half-hearted motion toward his drawer with the condoms before Killian crawled over her to retrieve one himself. She sat up enough to kiss him as he fumbled with the wrapper.

“This okay?” he asked against her mouth.

“Uh huh.”

There were more sloppy kisses as he lined himself up, and then he buried himself to the hilt inside her. She wrapped her legs around him, telling him to let go, telling him to fuck her hard and he did, a glorious snarl on his face and the cords of his neck standing out. She gripped his biceps, loving the way his muscles felt under her hands. He didn’t last long, a strangled moan issuing from his throat as his orgasm hit. She combed her fingers through his hair as he came down, feeling exhausted and satisfied and wonderful.

He pulled her into his arms as soon as he returned from cleaning up, his nose brushing against hers in a not-quite-kiss. They settled against each other under the sheets, legs entangled. There was a gentle intimacy between them that was filling her heart, almost bringing tears to her eyes with how perfect it felt. Holding each other close, they both drifted off to sleep.

~*~

Emma woke up to the sound of his voice, but it was all wrong. Before she was even awake, the hairs on her arms were raised with gooseflesh.

“I’ll see you die,” he muttered between clenched teeth. Emma sat up in bed and looked over, seeing Killian still asleep in the light from the moon, now shining through the window and illuminating the bedroom with pale white light. He tossed and turned, lost in a nightmare.

“Dreamed of this day for so long,” he said, followed by more muttering she couldn’t understand. He flung his arm out, and it came to rest across her lap. Emma looked down at his tattoo, clearly visible in the moonlight. At the heart, and the name, and the dagger with the curved blade.

Curved blade.

“Your life is mine, Crocodile,” he said clearly.

Crocodile. He’d said that before, in the interrogation room at the sheriff’s station.

Emma carefully extracted herself from underneath his arm. Her mind a haze of panicky, swirling thoughts, she gathered her clothes from around the room, pulled them on, and fled into the night.

Chapter 11

#csbb #cs ff #captain swan ff #cs smut #this graceful path fic #my fic

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paulasmusicjourney-blog · 8 years ago

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I Will See You In The Sky Tonight

The stars seem a bit dim as I walk along Konigstrasse’s pedestrian path. The lights of Potsdam behind me and Berlin too far yet to see, I begin to think a walk to the closest train station to take me to Berlin was motivated by red wine. Three kilometers to the Wannsee Station in this inky night was starting to seem very overwhelming.

I should just turn ‘round, I think to myself. I’ll go back across the Glienicke Bridge and grab the bus from there instead. Just as I am about to turn around on the path, I notice something I had never noticed before. “That looks like a coffee shop,” I say rather loud, almost scaring myself.

“It is. And it’s getting quite cold so we should both probably warm up, eh?”

From behind me, a rather mod dressed man in a blue paisley suit with dirty blonde hair and a quite odd pair of eyes comes around on my left side. He keeps walking past me and only turns slightly to see if I was taking his advice.

“Yes. That is a good idea.” I begin to follow the man down the path to the coffee shop. “Wait a minute, you’re British,” I suddenly realize as we get closer. I also notice that this coffee shop that seemingly appeared overnight, looks as if it had been at this random spot for decades.

Clad in boots, jeans, a dress shirt, and long brown leather coat, I am welcomed rather normally into the shop filled with dandy dressed men and women. Cigarette smoke and coffee fills the air along with the sounds of the era coming from a jukebox in the corner.

“Is that your new friend?” an elfish looking man playing guitar sits on the table crossed legged. “I like ‘er shoes.” He continues to play from the exact note where he had stopped as we walked in.

I sit at the table across from the man and stare as two cups of black coffee in mismatched china appear in front of us. “You’re all British?”

“Seems so, love.” He says before taking a sip of the coffee.

I pull the cup closer, the warmth is definitely needed. “Is there a full moon tonight? I mean, it just seems like there are stars missing in the sky.” As I say this, the man playing guitar begins to laugh.”

“It’s time to say good bye.” The man’s dual colored eyes sparkle at me.

“But we just got here.” I finally take a sip of the coffee. It tastes like it had been made in the 1960’s.

“Stop. You don’t know me. But you know me.” The me is emphasized with a tilt of his eyebrow. “I’m going to get you a lift to the Wannsee Station and on your way, I think you’ll understand a little bit more.” With that he proceeds to stand up and walks behind me until I no longer hear his footsteps.

The guitar playing continues as I take in the warmth out of the coffee cup. I watch as people have serious and hysterical conversations, all while looking phenomenal. As I listen to the man sing about dancing and stars, a bright light illuminates the sky. I stand at the table, almost knocking over my chair.

“Your ride is ‘ere.” says the guitar playing man without skipping a note.

I turn and walk where my coffee date has disappeared. I exit out the door we had come in. Idling near the road is a toad green Hillman Imp, a classic 1970’s mini car. When I look to make sure the door has closed behind me, I turn to find I am touching a tree. The coffee shop and all those in it are suddenly just a memory.

“Okay,” I say to myself. As I walk to the car, I notice one bright star in the sky. “That wasn’t there before.” The passenger door opens by itself. As I begin to climb into the front seat, I notice a presence behind me. He is skinny, with reddish hair, and dressed in a simple white t shirt and dress pants. Again, those eyes, one blue the other green.

“It’s like you just fell out of the sky.” I say as I make my way into the back seat instead.

He says nothing as I get into the car.

I sit and as the passenger claims his seat. I am greeted by the driver.

The man, pale and with red hair, speaks in a British accent. “You’re lost.” I notice he wears bright blue eye shadow, the same blue as the man in the paisley suit at the coffee shop.

“You're insane, I’m not lost. The man at the coffee shop, your friend, I’m sorry I forgot to get his name. I wanted to thank him for getting you to drive me to the S Bahn station.” I look at both men who are now focused on the road ahead of us.

“I’m Thomas.” Says the simple looking one.

“I’m Ziggy.” Says the driver.

“Sure.” I say with some snark, but soon pause. “You do remind me of someone.”

“We damn well should.” Thomas turns to me. “You’ve got to say goodbye.”

The driver speeds down the highway until it feels like we’re flying. Buildings, houses, cars, lights, all speed by. “Young American,” he speaks without blinking. “Why were you walking to Berlin in the first place?”

“I needed to clear my mind.” I begin to think we should be at the train station by now but there is seeming intergalactic travel happening around me. “Ever lose a hero? Someone that inspired you?”

The car stops suddenly with no ill effect to all of us contained inside of it. We are parked at the train station. The driver turns to me. It was then I noticed the lightning bolt in red and blue adorning his eye. “Yes we have. And while suitable to be sad, their loss should inspire you. Inspire you to appreciate each day and work to make yourself memorable, whereas one day, it will be you that someone is missing.” He turns around and faces forward again.

Thomas opens up the door and moves the seat, encouraging me to get out of the car. “It’s been a pleasure.”

I exit the car and stand looking at the train station, now hoping it wasn’t too late to get the last train into Berlin. The slamming of the car door startles me. I turn to find it too, like the coffee shop, gone. Vanished into the thin, chilly air of Germany. What I think are its headlights are actually coming from the sky. Two more stars next to the first one that appeared earlier.

A taxi cab honks furiously at me as I stand in the drive. Quickly, I walk to the station. A few people walk around, mostly cleaning and maintenance staff. I purchase my ticket to Brandenburg Tor Station thinking I have some time to relax and take in this strange journey. Turns out, I don’t. The train’s light shines about 30 seconds out as my mind begins to run before my legs.

To not alarm anyone, I try to casually jog to the platform. When the train comes to a full stop and the doors open, I bolt to the doors. Once inside the warm car, I breathe a sigh.

“In a hurry?” A thin, pale man is seated to my right. His red hair has more blonde in it but those blue and green eyes twinkle at me. “Sit. I think you’re beginning to understand.” He picks up his black hat that has been saving my pre-destined seat and places it softly on his feathered hair.

“David?” I sit, mesmerized.

“No. The Thin White Duke, who else would you expect?” He pulled out a cigarette box and offered me one.

“No thanks. I could go for some wine.” I make a face that I can only assume looks like a child who has been offered brussel sprouts and wanted candy instead.

And magically, a styrofoam cup is handed to me, brimming with glowing red wine. “It’s much better than the coffee, trust me.” He has a cup for himself and manages to hold the cigarette and the cup while taking a long sip.

“Thank you.” It does indeed taste glorious. It’s dry, puckery taste fills my mouth and warms me even more on the now stifling train. “Is this some sort of trip I’m on?”

“You tell me,” he scoffs. “But I’ve got to say goodbye soon.”

I drink half the cup in one gulp. “I’m having a tough go at this. You know…”

“Me being dead? You know," he begins before standing and trying to get around my knees, “just because I’ve got to say goodbye doesn’t mean you have to.”

“Berlin Yorkstrasse,” the courteous train voice announced.

“Three more stops.” He says as he hands me his almost empty cup of wine. He places sunglasses over his eyes and tilts his hat forward. “It’s been a pleasure.” And he is off the train as soon as the doors open.

I don’t bother to see what has happened to him as his feet touched the platform, the flash in the sky gives me the answer. “Another one.” I say aloud to the empty car and take the last sips from both cups of wine.

When I stand as the train pulls into Brandenburg, the wine catches up with me. The entire train seems to spin around as I attempt to find the door and exit. The world stops spinning as I greet the platform with both soles. I am in Berlin.

As I walk past the famous and towering Brandenburg Gate, I pause to look up again in the sky. And yet again, near Mars, another star has appeared making the night seem brighter. Tourists stop to take pictures as I wait for any other visitors as I walk closer to my hotel. I do not have to go far past the shops and restaurants.

“Now do you recognize me?” says a bleach blonde dressed in a fancy, baggy gray suit. “I do believe this is how we first met.”

It all comes back. Watching Live Aid in my sister’s sweltering bedroom. I was eight and music was my candy. “Seeing you for the first time, Mr. Bowie, I wanted a suit just like yours, I wanted to style my hair like yours.”

“David, please. And when you wore that suit to school or styled your short hair differently?”

“It was awful. I felt like a freak. No one understood.” I sit on a bench.

He sits next to me, his being emanating heat on the chilly night. “It was better than the Tina Turner skirt you wanted to wear, wasn’t it?” He chuckles as he stands. “Walk with me.”

“You’ve been a part of my life. You’re the soundtrack to so many memories.” I shove my cold hands in my pockets.

We get to the corner of Fredrichstrasse and stop. “Just remember. And keep creating. Keep changing. Inspire others.” He puts his hand on my shoulder. “I will see you in the sky tonight.” He points up to the sky with his left hand. “Someone is waiting for you at Café Adler.

I turn right and begin walking toward what used to be Checkpoint Charlie. Just like my night, I walk through history. This street used to represent as a gateway to freedom. Tourists and locals are slowly making their way home. Suddenly, the chilly night becomes damp and everyone around me seems to disappear. The sidewalk looks like it has been strewn in stardust. Pinks, yellows, blues, and greens sparkle a path between what used to be East and West Berlin, made even brighter by the additional star in the sky.

Invisible footsteps and then a mist escapes an invisible mouth. “I move the stars for no one.” He manifests as he did when I was ten.

“But you do have power over me. You always will.” My goblin king stands before me even though I had willed and wished him to take me away when I was a child. His hair, long, face, pale and gray, his clothing, black and red. “Are those skulls on your shoes?”

“What was it that Ludo, Hoggle, and Didymus remind you?”

“That it’s okay to need them now and again.”

He walks closer. “And don’t you think the same for me?” He begins to back away as the wind picks up. The stardust begins to fill the air. He turns and continues to walk away. The wind continues to swirl.

I shut my eyes involuntarily because the wind is swirling up everything. Suddenly, it is still. I open my eyes to the empty street. I look up to the sky but there is no extra star. Dejected, sad, angry, and confused, my arm suddenly begins to burn. I tear off my coat and roll up my sleeve. On my arm, a black star tattoo. Underneath it is written: Shall You Need Us.

The people return to the street, walking across the border no longer there. I stand, jacket at my feet, staring nonsensically at my arm. In the café once known as Adler, familiar chords waft through the air. I roll my sleeve down and pick up my coat as the guitar player begins to sing:

We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend Which came as some surprise I spoke into his eyes I thought you died alone, a long long time ago

Originally written for No Evasion To Reality Blog - by Paula Carlson 2016

#David Bowie

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elleleuthold · 8 years ago

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Exit Arc (6k short story, sci-fi)

This is a sci-fi story I wrote last year, submitted around, edited over and over, etc. I learned a lot writing it, and editing it, and I think the best thing to do now is share it! Many thanks to @laireshi for holding my hand and being a terrific beta through my first shaky steps into original fiction. Comments and critique are welcome, and I hope you enjoy reading! If you don’t want to read it on tumblr, it’s available on wordpress here.

Up on a spire, hanging by her pilot line and magboots, Skip could pick out a delicate spray of starlight above the lurid glow of the sunset. With the solar arrays stretching out to the south and east, wind towers soaring above them and dew catchments spiraling away to every corner of the city, it was easy to feel like she had the whole world at her feet. Like she was already up in the black, watching the city fade away like a bad dream.

Just one more night. Get the bounty, get her ticket, get out.

She toggled her comm.

“Fell, you coming or am I doing this skate by myself?”

“Got cut off by a parade and had to detour around the whole club district,” he reported. “ETA, two minutes. You got our target?”

“Did a flyby an hour ago,” she told him. “Been charging on First Spire since with no sign of trouble. Should be good to go.” She hauled herself up level with her seat and hooked herself in, starting pre-flight checks. The Phoenix’s solar batteries blinked green, the propellers cycled smoothly, and the wing joints clicked through their tests without snags or jams. It was a tiny rebellion, getting her charge for free up here, but it still gave her a fierce sort of satisfaction. One last act of defiance.

The navcom flashed percentages at her: balance ratios, weight and capacity, wind speed, altitude. All systems ready for launch. She locked her boots to the runners and transferred the navigator feed straight to her visor. Fell would be coming up from the southeast, pushing too fast if she had to guess. He always pushed his bird too fast if it’d been a while since their last flight, and it’d been months this time. Long, dreary months of drudging through cheap engines in second-hand light and scraping together every credit she could come by. A proper flight was just the send-off she needed.

“I’ll meet you at the border,” she told him, and disengaged the parking lock.

The glider fell away from the spire smoothly, and Skip let the momentum build for a moment. This was the best part, really. The biggest thrill she got anymore. That little frisson down her spine as the city rose up before her, sparks grounding in her elbows, her wrists, the joints of her fingers. She leaned to the left and fed the engines more power, pushing the nose down and around for the right angle with one hand and easing the wingtips out with the other. A clean sweep-and-roll maneuver and she was soaring back toward the rising moon, the bulk of New Tarel sprawling beneath her.

Fell caught her in the ribbon of airspace between First Spire’s reach and the legally convoluted domain above the commercial district, his own bird a blue-and-white flicker in her peripheral vision.

“Ready when you are,” he reported, slowing a little to match her. “So, where we going?”

“Darbinian solar arrays” she said, “They’re well ripe for harvest.”

Fell whistled, high and sharp enough to make the mic crackle on the edge of the sound.

“Darbinian? You got a premonition I should know about? Someone give you a lucky charm with your lunch today?”

“We can do it,” Skip insisted. “Low and fast, like the old days.”

“I ain’t saying we can’t do it, Skip, but you know that’s Karga territory. They catch us, it won’t matter what we did four years ago. Those punks don’t care who’s in their airspace, they make ‘em all dead.”

“So we won’t let them catch us then,” she squeezed the controls and flipped into a tight spiral, then snapped her wings out broad again: let ‘em try.

“You’re a regular thrill-chaser tonight, aren’t you,” Fell grumbled, but he dipped his wings in agreement.

“I learned from the best.”

They came up on the sky fields quickly. The panels gleamed in the twilight, each one steadily and efficiently collecting power for the busy offices, shops and homes below. Or they would be, once she and Fell cleared out the leeches.

They’d been beneficial, once. Fist-sized artificial mechanics to make sure the supports stayed stable, the power lines stayed undamaged and the arrays stayed free of any debris that made it up this high. The Coalition had made millions of the things. But a machine needed power, didn’t it? And some clever programmer or engineer, or maybe some not-so clever budget balancer, had looked at the little things and said, “Well, why don’t we power them from the array? They’re up there anyway, aren’t they?”

A year later, half the city was living in rolling brownouts and two districts barely had power at all. A good-size leech could drain a fully charged private grid in a day, suck up a speeder’s reserves in less than an hour, and stars help you if they latched onto your glider. Dead propellers and the weight of a few leeches in the wrong place could take an unwary pilot all the way down to real dirt-and-sand ground. But the Coalition bounty was a powerful lure. If you were fast enough, smart enough, lucky enough, you could make a salary-plugger’s monthly pay in a night. More, if you hit the right places.

She and Fell were careful; tempered glass storage pods, protective paneling, armored flight jackets. And they used the old hooks, wide, curving blades on the end of a meter-long stick. You could go faster with one of the new sticky-net scoops, but the overhead was higher, and Fell was afraid the leeches would adapt to the things in another month or three. Better to be slow and careful than fast and dead, he said. Taking things slow wasn’t one of Skip’s talents, but life under the Coalition’s strictures had taught her a deliberate wariness that worked well enough for circumstance.

“You sure this is what you want to do tonight?” Fell asked as they lined up on the narrow corridors between two arrays. “Poach Karga hunting grounds?”

Skip slid her hook out of its holster. The computer highlighted the closest targets, little bundles of pulsing energy in corner struts or clinging tight in the middle of a panel.

“You got a better way to get green-fresh credits before morning? Besides, I’m quicker than lightning, remember?” She couldn’t keep her grin out of her voice. “Just try to keep up.”

Fell sighed, low and long-suffering, but he didn’t argue.

The first leech came easy: sting, scrape, scoop. A rattle of metal on glass and a swipe of her glove and the capture pod sealed shut. The second settled beside it, then a third. At the end of the row was a stubborn one, larger than average and scrunched in on itself, rooted securely to the array

Skip took a few breaths, resettling her grip. It was no good stunning the thing if she couldn’t get it off its perch; any leech that fell would just latch on somewhere else, maybe somewhere that didn’t get its power renewed every day, or every week. And the Coalition only paid for whole leeches delivered in person.

She jabbed, missed and jabbed again. The leech hung on, waving a sparking bundle of wires at her and she twisted her hook, arm aching with the motion. She had to bob down a breath to catch it when it finally popped free, but she managed to get the seal on just before the leech reached the lip. She gave it a good glare to match its malevolent scrabbling and nestled it with the others. The next two were simpler, and she fell back into the rhythm of the job, moving from corridor to corridor methodically. Every filled pod was another handful of trapped sunlight pushing her name higher and higher on the waiting list.

“Do you hear that?”

“Hear what?” The corridor ahead was just as full as the previous one, and Skip leaned back to check her supply of storage pods. The horizon looked clear.

“That.” Fell angled his bird away and flashed his wingtips, pointing deeper into the solar fields. Skip looked closer, prodding her visor to magnify.

Movement, she could make out that much. Vague shapes her navcom gradually identified as other flyers, moving with purpose.

“We should—”

“Yeah,” Skip agreed, but it was too late. The Karga crashed over the arrays in a wave of orange and violet neon, the scream of tortured engines riding with them. Their gliders ranged from top-market single-jets and faux-flash kites to older bike-bird combos like Skip’s own. Some pilots didn’t even have helmets, just gas masks and the sort of manic keenness that spelled ruin for anyone else in their airspace.

“Go, go!” Fell shouted, making the radio crackle and spit in Skip’s ear. She turned and dove, folding the wings in close to minimize visibility. The glint of starlight off glider wings was a dead giveaway, and that wasn’t an exaggeration with New Tarel’s gangs. If they were lucky, they hadn’t actually been seen. She risked a glance back for Fell, but if he was there he was doing a good job of hiding.

Two orange-lit riders had broken off from the pack. They were gaining on her.

Thrice-crashed sons of a cud-chewer. She changed course, weaving through arrays as closely as she dared. No luck. Her pursuers were close enough for the navcom to pick up now, and from the look of it their gliders were fresh-charged and flash-modded. She’d be lucky to make it to the edge of the field.

What was down below over here? Offices? Apartments? Shops? She prayed for shops. They had the best parking balconies, and she was going to need one.

One of the riders was almost above her now. Nothing else for it.

The wings strained as she plummeted into sharp dive, and she cinched them even closer. Speed, that was the key. Get just enough of a lead to slip out of navcom range.

She eased the wings back out as late as she dared and skidded to a stop under a penthouse garden overhang. A moment later the Karga enforcers streamed past with a roar of over-juiced jets. She counted back from a hundred in her head, listening hard. When she reached 25 without seeing or hearing any more flyers, she ducked into open air again and jinked between buildings, dropping levels and merging with traffic where she could. After 5 full minutes with no signs of pursuit, she picked out a more deliberate course.

Fell was waiting for her at the bounty drop-off, polishing a wingtip and trying to look as if he hadn’t been tracking her approach.

“Worrying over me again?” she teased as she gathered her packs. Fifty-two leeches. Enough to put her in the running, maybe enough to push into the top percentages.

“Just wondering how long you were going to keep me waiting in the cold,” he shot back, hefting his own haul. “My bones aren’t as young as they used to be, you know.”

“Yeah, yeah, suck it up old man,” she grinned at him. “Come on, let’s get you into the warm.”

The Coalition reps didn’t talk much, which suited Skip fine. She was always on edge at the drop-off, jittery in the presence of those green uniforms, sure someone would call her out even after the pardon. She pulled up the colony lottery feeds to distract herself. Fell settled beside her.

“You’re really going up.” His voice was tight and low, a reminder of the days when he’d still been her sergeant and she’d still thought New Tarel held a future she wanted.

“You know I am.”

“They could kill you, up there in the black.”

“They got no reason to. Not anymore.”

He hunkered lower, pressing their shoulders together.

“You’re the best thing here, you know? Without you, I might as well pack up the kid and Nadine and move in with her parents like they’re always asking. Get some corporate net-spider job down in the lower levels and forget I ever touched real sky.”

“You could come with me,” Skip said. “All three of you could. They like families. You’d be a sure thing.”

“No such animal,” he said. “Not in this lifetime. You and me, we know how fast that sure thing turns to vapor, don’t we.”

“Not this time,” she said. She grabbed his arm, staring intently at the numbers on her visor. Their pods must’ve been processed; there were new credits in her account. Shiny green energy credits, straight from the Coalition coffers, buoying up the pale, recycled ranks of her savings. On the passenger list her name flickered, then flashed green and started moving. Up and up, higher and higher, pushing right to the top of the waiting list. Giddy hope swelled in her chest.

And there it was. An actual ticket with her name and reservation number. Boarding time: 0600. All she had to do was grab her bag from the spaceport storage locker and show up. She tried not to hug herself too obviously. Months of planning, paperwork and interviews and she was finally, finally getting out. Away from crowded airspace and choking power restrictions. Away from shadows and smog, away from stale, recycled water, away from everything that’d been dragging like weights on her neck these last four years.

“It’s really happening,” she whispered. “Fell, I really—”

A flicker at the corner of her vision. Orange and violet lights, sweeping the byways above them. Getting closer.

Shit.

“Eyes on us,” she muttered. Fell squeezed her shoulder and stepped away. Go to ground, he signed, and she nodded. If they dropped a few more levels they’d be in Duster territory: risky enough, but safer than trying to dodge a dozen Karga at once. She slipped into the Phoenix in the half-focused state she’d run most of her old missions in. The tremble of the engine between her knees matched the buzz under her skin, the wings stretching out restlessly like extensions of her fingers.

She took the first gap in traffic she saw and didn’t look back, let her instincts take over. A left turn here, right turn there, down two levels and left again, some part of her brain tracking the flashes of orange and blue in her peripherals, flying by sight alone because the navcom made too much digital noise to go unnoticed forever. Fell would catch up, or he’d find her after. Take a few days to lie low in one of their old haunts and—

She didn’t have a few days, the glowing dream of the future reminded her. She had to be at the spaceport in a few hours.

She snapped back to full awareness. Karga lights were closing in on her left. She dodged away, climbed a few levels, dodged again and broke out of the old byways into a corridor she’d never seen before. Streamers and neon danced on every side, gang-signs scrawled over building after building.

She’d been herded into Karga territory. Idiot. She should’ve never let herself go on automatic. An orange glow off to her right was getting closer. She switched on the navcom, swept through a side corridor and banked up and left at the intersection, heartbeat loud in her ears. The navcom beeped: eight flyers, and Fell running before them.

She’d never shake them all down here. They knew the byways, they probably had traps at every corner. She needed proper sky. She gunned the engines and pushed straight up. Nine more levels to open airspace.

She made it four levels before they caught up, mocking whoops and roaring jets announcing them. Skip dodged around a modified Falcon and ducked as its rider swiped a hook over her head. Still she climbed, eyes fixed on the faint glow of moonlight ahead. Another glider swept towards her, a collision course, and she gritted her teeth and swept to the side, her climb slowing. The rider hefted a storage pod, grinned, and threw it just as she swept past. Glass shattered, and she caught a whip of wires and clinking aluminum plates in the corner of her eye.

No, nonono.

She toggled to autopilot and reached for her hook. The leech was the largest she’d ever seen, at least as long as her forearm and as wide as her splayed hand. It scrabbled over the wings, knocking out p-v panels and jamming up joints as it moved toward the power hubs. She jabbed at it, missed, took the hook in both hands and jabbed again.

“Use your damn eyes, Skip,” Fell growled down the line. She jerked around as he blew over the space above her, two Karga in his wake.

They’d stretched a sticky-net up ahead, a leech trap for the windfields but just as deadly to the average glider. And unlikely to show up on the navcom as an obstacle. She swept the stunned leech off her wing hurriedly and grabbed the controls, twisting into a spiral and pulling the wings in close. Just a little further…

Clear.

The power display dipped, red flashing across her visor. The leech, it had to be. The navigator flickered and went dark, the wing joints stiff and unresponsive; she was falling, uncontrolled, the glider little more than weight pulling her down. She toggled the controls, reached under the front cover and flipped the hard reset switch. Nothing. No power left at all.

“Skip!” Fell swooped back, circling toward her. “Try to steer for the apartments.”

“You always did have shit plans,” Skip retorted, but she was already shrugging out of her harness. No navigator. None of the delicate magnetic arrays that controlled the wings would respond. She reached down to pop her boot locks. The only way to right a falling bird without power was weight dispersal and manual control.

“Give me a heading?” she asked, pulling herself up behind the seat.

“2 points south, southwest, try to keep the Spire in sight.”

“Wind-blessed miracles, that’s what you’re asking for,” she muttered and pushed herself back over the storage pods. Her feet found the right positions and she stomped hard on the elevator pedal. The nose soared up. A little too high, but she’d drop again when she adjusted the wings. Her fingers curled over the wing-joint switches. She extended the tips and tugged on the flaps, fighting for every hint of drift and lift. The Karga were closing in again, a spiral of blurred masks and streaming lights.

She missed the first platform.

“Hold on Skip, I’m coming!”

She flexed her hands, breath hissing between her lips. She had to make the next one. She could see the warning lights of an abandoned landing pad. It was lower than she’d hoped, but if she kept falling she was definitely dead. Better a climb than nothing.

It wasn’t graceful. Even with the lift she’d bought and further slowing by snagged wing panels, the impact still flung her across the platform, screaming metal echoing in her ears and the coppery taste of blood on her tongue.

For a moment she just lay there, curled around her middle and running mental checks: toes still wiggled, fingers still waggled. Her whole right side hurt with the kind of deep, aching pain that stuck around for weeks in big dark bruises, but she could breathe. She leaned on her elbow to lever herself up and fell back as stars exploded behind her eyes. Her right shoulder was definitely in trouble. She took a few breaths and tried again, using her left hand instead, and made it to what could technically be called a sitting position against the guardrail.

Her hook lay just in front of her feet. She tried to clamp it under her boot and drag it closer on the vague idea of using it as a crutch, but had to give up when the attempt left her breathless and light-headed, sweat dripping down the side of her face as white-lightning pain crawled down her side. Stars and frostwinds, she was definitely in trouble now. If they came after her again…

A whirr of engines, broken messages streaming over her cracked visor. She held as still as she could, eyes half-open and unfocused. Her jacket should block most scanners. If she was lucky, an unmoving target would satisfy them.

A blur of orange and blue hovered at the edge of her vision. Her visor buzzed again, fragments of a freeze warning, but she held still, not looking, not blinking.

A shout, and what sounded like laughter, and the glider lifted away. She kept her breaths slow and shallow until she was sure they’d moved out of visual range.

She took stock again, widening her range of focus to include her Phoenix. The initial inspection was not promising. Both wings stuck out at strange angles, the photo-voltaic bands hanging loose or scattered over the floor. The armor plating was half-peeled off the nose and one of the propellers dangled from the tail shaft, cracked to reveal the wiring inside.

Something clinked. There was a screech of metal-on-metal and Skip realized something was moving. She scrabbled for the hook, heedless of the pain in her shoulder. The leech. It couldn’t be anything else.

A sparking wire snaked out of the wreck, closely followed by more clinking taps of metal legs and the dull glow of the main body itself.

Skip braced the hook against the corner where wall met floor and hauled herself to her feet. Her visor still had power, broken as it was. Her jacket had a battery. Her boots, too. And there were stories. Bodies found with a leech hooked into skin and bone. Unlucky mechanics and stupid kids taking stupid risks with bad equipment.

That wasn’t going to happen to her. She had her ticket. She was getting out.

She’d wounded it, at least, in their first scrabble. It was half-dragging itself along, not as fast as before. She jabbed with the stinger and it curled away, but a hook couldn’t kill a leech. She’d have to smash it. There were enough broken bits of Plastech and metal around, she’d find something. Something heavy enough to pin it down, or sharp-edged, for preference. Something she could wield one-handed. The running board. It was solid steel, as long as her arm. It had torn half off its mounting, held only by the last screw.

It took three more stinging jabs for her to cross the platform, and another before she could claw her multitool out of its compartment. She got the screw out just as the last sting wore off, and as the leech lunged she batted at it, knocked it skittering to the side and flipped it onto its stomach. She chased, bringing the bar down again and again, ignoring the twinges in her side until all the little parts were scattered and there was nothing but crushed rubber and spattered slime left.

Then she threw off her visor and toggled her wrist radio, rubbing at the gritty feeling behind her eyes.

“Fell?” she whispered, as if that would keep the transmission off monitors. “Fell, you out there?”

Silence.

She dragged herself back to her Phoenix and slumped against the fuselage.

“Fell, you better not be dead, you hear me? You are not dying on me now. Not today.”

She closed her eyes and waited, listening for anything but the sound of her own breath rattling in her throat and faint buzz of static. Nothing.

The medkit in her pocket was bare-bones basic but it had painkillers and antibiotics, and she needed both. The pain in her shoulder spiked when she reached for it, but she gritted her teeth and pushed through.

The timer display blinked as she peeled two doses of each off the squat blue and green stacks. 0400. Two hours to get herself to the shuttle launch on the other side of First Spire. The Phoenix was trashed. She wouldn’t be flying anywhere. She probably had an hour of leeway, maybe two before they gave her ticket away, but with miles of stairs and bridges to cross she’d still be walking then.

And she couldn’t leave without making sure Fell was okay.

She dragged herself to the navcom, the meds bitter on her tongue. If he wasn’t on comms, maybe she could still track him down.

“Perks of colony life, Fell, listen close. One, there ain’t no Karga there. Next best thing to getting disappeared for hiding, a whole new planet. Two, they got jobs with benefits. Retirement plans and that. They got me a shop all ready to go. Get to set my own hours, too, long as the work gets done.”

She took the back off the navigator and wired her boot batteries into it. It wouldn’t last long, but she didn’t need it to. She set the search grid to 1000 meters and settled in to wait.

“Three, the summer’s warm and lasts seven whole months. None of this snap-change weather like we got to deal with.”

Nothing. Not even a blip. Maybe the oncoming freeze was fritzing out the signal.

“Four—” she coughed over the crack in her voice, wincing against the throbbing in her side. “Four,” she repeated. “Four is, is I’ll be there, Fell, and I know it’d be better with you, okay, so you better answer me before I track you down in whatever mess you’ve—”

A crash, something heavy hitting something fragile, and the guide-lights on the landing pad blinked out all at once. The door at the other end of the pad shivered, then popped open.

“Skip? That you?”

Fell’s dimly lit face peered at her from the corridor. His jacket was torn and his boots scuffed, but it was definitely him and he was definitely alive. If anything, he looked better off than she was.

“Still kicking,” Skip said, the words half-strangled by the tightness in her throat.

“Sorry for the wait,” he said, tossing aside what looked like a piece of rebar. “I busted my radio, couldn’t get it to pick up more’n static. You alright?”

Skip nodded, swiping at her eyes surreptitiously. “Just waiting for you to get over yourself so’s I don’t have to be getting any angry comms from Nadine when I’m finally free of this place.”

She could see him chewing the inside of his cheek, nothing but friendly concern in his eyes.

“Skip…”

“I’m going,” she insisted. “I’m going if I have to walk the whole way and carry you besides, I am.”

“Okay,” he said. He sighed and dragged his hand over his scalp. “Okay. Well, staying here’s a no-go anyway. Temperature’s dropping fast; in a few hours we might not be able to fly at all. How’s your bird?”

She gave him a look. As if he had to ask, the way she’d crashed. He sighed again.

“You got any good propellers left? A few wing panels? Your navcom alright? I wrecked pretty good but we might be able to get her limping if you’ve got the parts.”

“I got…” she scanned the wreck again, looking for anything that might still be whole this time. “Yeah, I think I got all that.” She didn’t mention that trying to scavenge anything useful in the near-dark was going to be frustrating at best. It wouldn’t be the first time they’d made do with so little.

“Where’d you crash?” she asked instead.

“Old shopfront one bridge over. I had to scrape a wing and blow the nav to make it convincing, but they didn’t stick around too long after.”

She nodded. With a solid freeze on the way even the Karga would get in the warm. “Guess we better get started then.”

She wedged her helmet back on for light and started dismantling the navcom while Fell wrenched at the propellers. It was slow work, and the creeping chill slowed them further. The third time her tool slipped and she was left cursing at cold-numbed fingers, Fell took over that task, too.

“You’re just gonna hurt yourself worse,” he said, waving her away. “Tell me how you got on all this. What’s up there you’re so eager to get to?”

Skip grudgingly took a seat on a broken chunk of concrete.

“Ren sent me a message, said she’d drop my name. Must’ve been a good drop too, ‘cause it didn’t take them more than a week to process my forms. Part time security, part time mechanic. And she found me a little place to stay. It’s got real trees and a real river and she says there’s glider access less than a klick up the road.” She’d even had a permit for the Phoenix, but that was hardly important now.

Fell’s forehead scrunched up. “Well, it certainly sounds nice,” he said.

“But?” Skip prompted.

His hands waved denial. “You don’t need to hear it.”

“What else am I gonna do? You got something to say, tell me.” She squeezed her multitool tight against her palm, the edges hard even through her glove.

“Just keep talking, Skip,” he said. “You already know what I want to say.”

She did. He was going to say it sounded too good to be true. Her own personal idea of paradise, specially packaged to catch her eye. Too good. Too perfect. Nothing that nice ever happened in New Tarel. Not anymore. Not for people like them.

“They took Ren,” she pointed out. “She says no one up there cares what you did in the war. Just what you do now.”

Fell just shook his head and pulled the memory bank from its slot.

“Carry this,” he said, holding the jumble of computer bits out to her. “I’ll get the rest.”

He kept her talking all the way through the dim corridors, trudging onward with a stack of wing panels under one arm and two propellers slung over his shoulder while she did her best to paint the icy air with her words, giving all her hopes color. The shop, the open sky, the spread of farmland instead of skyscrapers.

“You really should come with me,” she tried as he shouldered the last door open, revealing his own crashed bird. It wasn’t as bad off as her Phoenix, but it wasn’t pretty. If they got her off the ground it’d be a wobbly flight at best.

Fell set down his load and stretched, rolling his shoulders.

“I got responsibilities to think of,” he said.

“Think on ‘em then,” she insisted. She dumped her tangle of parts into his pilot’s seat. “Think hard. If you see a future for little Eri here, you tell me, ‘cause I’ve been trying for four years and all I can see anymore is walls closing in. And I need to breathe, Fell, I need sky.”

He shook his head and didn’t answer for a while, slotting the propellers and p-v panels into place with half-muttered curses. Skip set to work on the shattered navcom, keeping her silence. Sometimes Fell needed time to stew over a thing, and opening her mouth too early never made him think any faster.

“The world won’t change if you run away from it,” he said finally, and for a moment Skip was plunged into memory: her old shop, five years ago, their roles reversed as he tried to convince her the future was worth fighting for.

She’d learned a lot since then. She’d learned nothing would bring back lost soldiers, or lost ideals, or a way of life that had died choking on dust and blood and the burning bile of betrayal. The world had changed.

“My life might be better,” she said, half whisper. Then, stronger, “How long do you want to spend pretending you don’t see the cage? We tried to change things. I don’t remember that going so well for us.”

Fell grunted, clamping the last panel into position.

“I’m tired of beating myself bloody against this place,” she tried again. “Maybe it’s time we changed something else.”

The engine cranked, sputtered, then settled into a low, familiar hum.

“You’re the only thing I got left here,” she said. “I need this.”

“You need your head checked.” Fell pulled on his helmet and started system checks. “Strap in,” he ordered. “We better get on, if you’re gonna make that shuttle.”

“You’ll take me to the shuttle port?”

“If I don’t you’ll just rag on me forever, won’t you?”

“Thank you.”

Skip settled her helmet for a better seal and clambered up behind him, making room for herself among the storage packs. Her boots wouldn’t get a solid lock, but she strapped her legs down and wound her arms though the tether loops.

“Ready,” she told him, nudging his elbow with her toe in case he couldn’t hear, and his head bobbed in acknowledgment.

The flight was a tenuous one, the wings vibrating through turns and the propellers buzzing. Fell was careful, dropping down layers at any hint of a nearby flyer and taking the warmer squirrelly corridors with grim determination while Skip tried not to flinch when the tethers dragged on her shoulder, tried to keep herself still and her weight well-balanced.

They reached the shuttle port approach just as dawn broke over the horizon, a muzzy glow through the clouds highlighting busses and larger hovercars ahead. The admissions area teemed with travelers and well-wishers, all moving in the complicated Brownian motion of farewells and checkpoints.

Fell slowed to a stop in the drop-off zone, engine still running, and Skip half-climbed half-slid to the slick pavement. She pushed up her visor and the wind stung her eyes with grit and cold. Frost-sharp air stuck in her lungs.

“So I guess…” she bit her lip. There was a jagged snag of guilt and fear in her belly, like an open wound. She hadn’t thought about this part, in all her planning. Somehow she’d forgotten that leaving meant saying goodbye.

After a moment Fell shut off the engine and shrugged out of his harness. The solid hand on her shoulder, she was almost expecting. The rough hug he pulled her into, his helmet bumping hers and the bitter smells of grease and sweat and charred rubber in his jacket, she wasn’t.

“You take care of yourself,” he said, eyes bright, and she nodded, wound her arms around his back and held on a moment longer.

“You too.” She took a long breath and stepped back. “I expect to see pictures of Eri’s birthdays,” she said. “And your bird, you gotta show me how you fix her up, alright? Take whatever you want from the Phoenix. And I still got some credit at the junkyard, if you need parts.”

He nodded, jaw tight, and she took another step back, and another, and finally stepped toward the storage lockers.

“Skip.”

She swiveled back.

“I’ll talk to Nadine. You get up there alright, you tell me there’s something worth doing there, I’ll try.”

It’d be two years in the black at least before she could start of offer any assurances, and another year after that before the next recruitment, but she clung to the chance anyway.

“I’ll see you there,” she said, trying for a smile. It probably didn’t look like much, but Fell smiled back anyway.

“Go on then,” he said, and she turned her back on New Tarel, nothing but glittering possibilities lining the path ahead.

#original fiction #original writing #original sci-fi #short story #writing by me #exit arc #text post

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lostlevelsclub · 6 years ago

Text

Mike’s Eliza Notes

Since there was more to the game than we could cover in the episode, below are the full notes that I made while playing Eliza.

Chapter 1

It starts with Evelyn talking about a dream. When’s the last time you had a dream?

She writes herself an email titled “You will do it” saying “I believe in you” ?!

The music is very Zachtronics

I like the chat History - probably will be useful…

What is the game going to be? Will I have to choose whether to stick to the script that Eliza gives? Is it mostly going to be just thought provoking about what therapy is and the machine vs. the human touch?

The sentiment analyzer tagging things as positive or negative - is it meant to show that the way Eliza works is actually pretty simplistic? E.g. “expensive” tagged as negative, but it’s used here in a positive sense (the office is in an expensive area)

Eliza totally lies to him and pretends that you’re talking not it! Scandal

It tells you to tell him your name!

Anexophin? Is that real?

Surely this wouldn’t be sufficient even if you had a super smart AI - there’s so much variance in how you can read the script and deliver it.

Haha, even as the proxy therapist you get achievements, a score and can level up?!

They added the “speak to a real human” script. Is that how AI works? I suppose it might work any number of ways. Hey, is this the AI game Ting said they should make??

Rae: Sometimes you don’t have any choices and you just have to follow directions, Most jobs are like that, honestly.

Eliza - named after the 1960’s computer program (early chat bot?)

Eliza is just making people feel better, but it isn’t actually making things better. Is Darren right that the world is a mess and counselling just helps people ignore it?

Zachtronics loves solitaire minigames…

It must be weird going to Eliza and speaking to a different person every time that talks as though they know you. Maybe it’s like speaking to a hive mind? Many bodies, one set of thoughts.

Lytosinol-2? Is that real?

Your friend Nora asks if the people at the counselling office “know” - know what?!

Something traumatic clearly happened 3 years ago

Nora - formerly a coder but now a musician and artist. Old self might have worried about not making as much money, but happier now. Is this me?! Sometimes takes a little contract coding work, but makes most what she needs for rent from her art

Did you used to work on Eliza as a coder or something? Your former boss was a psychologist and “creepo” (Soren)

Nora has some whack eastern european accent.

Soren is currently at (and leaving) Skandha, so sounds like you did work on Eliza

Snake Person = VSs, “biz dev”

Evelyn’s comment about the coffee shop - “it’s nice to know this is an option, the tea and coffee at the counselling center didn’t look so inspiring. Am I… am I being a snob?”

Immediately after coffee, you get an email that confirms you were one of the principal devs on Eliza.

Komorebi (the name of the coffee shop)

Language: Japanese

Meaning: The interplay between light and leaves when sunlight shines through trees.

Evelyn has some pictures propped up against the wall “that have been sitting there like that for a long time”. I also have a picture that is just propped against the wall instead of hung up (though I like it on the floor, or maybe that’s just what I tell myself?!)

Chapter 2

Email (from your mum?) with news story about mandatory fortnightly Eliza conversations at school for middle and high school students

You used to work at Magus books. Email from a customer there that is sad you left

Induced dreams by direct neural stimulation… interesting and creepy idea. Rather than invoking a feeling or improvement by talking, directly cause the required feeling.

Aponia - ancient greek, it means “the absence of pain”. Is it meant to sound like “a pony”? That’s what everyone really wants :P

Yao-Ren “Rainer” Tsai. Chairman and CEO of Skandha Corporation

Eliza is always talking about the rain - I guess that’s Seattle?

Gabriel stressed about having no time for himself after becoming a father

15 mins of VR - starry skies. Would that really help anything?

Anexophin - is that a real thing?

He gave 2 stars, but still a $5 tip?? He didn’t seem to find it helpful… he’ll be back

Maya

Has some serious social anxiety.

No one cares about her art (like no one cares about our podcast :P)

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day. Is this to illustrate that Eliza’s treatments are bad?

Holiday Durant

Would smoke dope more often but it’s expensive :shrug:

Unmarked white busses, secret transport system “just for them” - it probably is! i.e. employee transport for tech firms

She asks Eliza about past life regression and Eliza breaks XD

Eliza doesn’t know what to do, since there’s nothing particularly wrong?? She just wants someone to talk to.

Fortipran hydrochloride - is that a real thing? Is it for shoulder pain, since that’s what she asked for? Apparently it sounds like an anti-anxiety drug (it’s not real). She forgets the name and thinks it’s forzapram. (you later discover it IS for shoulder pain!)

Dinner with Soren

Move on - “want to do his memory right, don’t you”. So the trauma was related to a guy?

I say “whose” and am told “Damien of course. Are you sure you’re okay?”

Rainer and Soren. Soren bitter that Rainer is CEO and never wanted for anything. Had all the right names - Harvard, Goldman Sachs

He needs a chief engineer, wants you (or maybe he wanted Nora but she said no :P)

Nora is DJing at an S&M club… or not - Soren is just wrong, and then goes to hit on a bunch of random women.

Email - Car will pick you up for meeting with Rainer at 9:20am from Queen Anne office. So Rainer must know you are working as a proxy

Nora tells you a load of electronic music stuff. The names sound real, and I know the other Zachtronics founder is into electronic music, so maybe it’s all real facts

Roland-TB303 (devil fish mod?)

Moog (pronounced Moag)

Li’l Sappho - greek poet..?

The music is… lewd? Sounds good, wild and untamed.

Chapter 3

Talking with Rainer. He found out you were back because your proxy scores were unusually good and he looked.

Being a proxy - more than an order of magnitude drop in pay vs. old job

Damien Seabrook - brilliant career cut short. He died? Suicide?

“Burnout isn’t uncommon in our line of work, still three years is...”

“You know what outstanding engineers have that mediocre ones don’t? It’s curiosity”

I guess you get to choose everything except the therapy? Are there branching paths?

Erlend, Chief Engineer - “he looks like a baby”, “he must be fresh out of university”

3rd chief engineer in 3 years since Evelyn left

Ratings are normalized per proxy. I don’t think you’ve really done enough sessions to really be an outlier though, unless you’ve done some off camera

Teams in Romania, Munich and Hyderabad.

Rae totally fangirling over Rainer

Erlend - “If I understand the programmer, then I understand the program”

It really is interesting to see other people’s code. It gives insight into how their brain solves problems, decomposes complex tasks.

So Eliza is just a small facet of Skandha, and Rainer really is a bigshot. Genuinely surprising that he knows who Evelyn is, or maybe at a tech firm the CEO does know star tech talent.

Eliza v10.3.3, Firmware version v110 c3115

Boot ROM 114.0.0.0.0

Chipset 18210B0

Mark Foras

“Well i don’t know if you’ve noticed, but young people are really pissy and entitled these days.” “Why would we want these conceited, overcelebrated whelps on our team? I’ll never understand the logic there”

Neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg neg…

SwiftMail, InfoVault - more traditional enterprise software

He’s very dismissive of Eliza! Supposedly Rainer “liked a chick on the team”, which would be Nora or Evelyn I guess.

“Mark, I’m going to suggest you try a program called “Lakeside Fishing”“ LOL

“I didn’t recognise his face or name”

“Glad I never had to work with him”

Hariman Gunawan

British accent, so since this is an American game does that make him a villain? He sounds very posh.

Grad student, English Literature

He sounds a lot like the British Malaysian comic that is on Friday Night Comedy podcast sometimes. Phil Wang..? OMG - it IS him!

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10741934/fullcredits/?ref_=tt_ov_st_sm

Evelyn’s reading of the lines seems slightly more wooden after seeing Eliza (the server room). Is that intended? It’s very subtle. Or maybe it’s not wooden, maybe it’s some personal opinion creeping in? The goodbye for Hariman and Mark were both not neutral

Lytosinol 2 - in universe it’s a beta blocker

2 stars!? Rude! A tip though?

Rae’s brother struggles with substance abuse. She mentions it in the article about her and she’s on the phone to him when you visit.

Being a proxy gives Evelyn perspective - seeing how everyone else is messed up…

“Were we all just talking past each other?”

Rae - But you could also help even more people by working on Eliza itself, right? Not to mention make way more money.

Rae tells you not to downplay yourself

Rainer messages you and reveals that most of the Eliza cluster isn’t used for therapy, it’s trying to build a general purpose AI! :O

Rainer: This may sound off to you, but I’ll know I’ve successfully created a general artificial intelligence when I see it write a poem.

Evelyn: A poem

Rainer: Yes, It would have to be a good one, of course.

AI to humans as powered transport is to pack animals. Interesting way to look at it.

Rae describes a Skanda tech recruitment event. Is tech talent REALLY that in demand? Is it really that hard to get good engineers?

Evelyn - “And before that I just never had the time. It was just, research and science and work and then I woke up one day and I was in my thirties” OMG

“Even if I wanted to date, I wouldn’t know the first thing about how it’s supposed to work

“I wouldn’t even know how to tell if someone were interested in me…”

Though is this game THAT kind of visual novel? haha.

Rae is asexual? Will this game be a fully representative spectrum of everything?

Chapter 4

Soren: Say there was a medical procedure that could remove your suffering. No side effects, no cost. Just an operation that would make you permanently happy.

I’d say being permanently happy was a bad side effect.. Sometimes you need to feel sad (cue melancholy playlist…)

The Glencadam - scotch whisky. Is that a real thing? (yes)

Direct stimulation / induced dreaming vs talking things over. I’ve actually thought about this - there are changes that you might want to make to your mind or body, but you can’t because you don’t have the right levers.You have to take an indirect route and use the tools / levers that exist. Is it possible to build levers from what you have? Like hacking a machine and getting a foothold, then building an editor to enter more exploit code until you control the whole machine. Could you do that to your mind, or even your body?

Soren: Anger, depression, emptoness, anxiety, jealousy, every kind of unhappiness you can think of… obsolete.

I’ve thought about this too - these things serve a purpose, even if it’s not one that’s necessarily beneficial for you as an individual. Like when you’re depressed, is that your body telling you to die so you’re not a drain on the group? Not a nice thought - could it just be an error to be fixed?

Soren thinks Rainer was against direct stimulation “fixes” so that people would be unhappy and reliant on mental health services from Skandha

Damien worked himself to death. All nighters, multiple times. Pulmonary embolism. At least it wasn’t suicide…

Soren:

It’s late and I’ve had quite a bit to drink, so I’ll tell you a secret, Evelyn.

I said I want to end human suffering, which makes me sound very altruistic.

But I’m not doing it for humankind. I’m doing it for myself.

I have nothing. I’ve ruined every relationship I was ever in.

I hardly ever see my kids, and, well, they hate me anyway.

…

I want to end my own suffering, but I can’t bring myself to do it the… traditional way. That’s why I’ve pursued this technology. That’s why I want it to exist.

The idea that everyone else could use it too… it’s just a bonus.

Mark Foras mass emails the whole of Skandha with his farewell message! He signs off “Excelsior!” who does that?!

Hariman again

Evelyn has mirth in her voice as she says hello

He slept with Sylvia

Is he comic relief? He’s more worried now than before!

“How do I tell Liz?” Wtf

“Did I mention this last time? I have a sort of, girlfriend”

“I can’t believe this. I got what I wanted and it ruined my life.”

Irony - he hated self-pitying novels by men who were messed up by a relationship and couldn’t get over it, but how he’s one of them

Eliza’s questioning really is reminiscent of the Eliza program

15 minutes of Meadow Lands each day - Hariman thinks this is a good idea?!

3 stars?? I guess it’s better than two. Still got a $5 tip

Maya Leeds

Jealousy at the success of younger people - mid-thirties.

This is clearly the age at which everything starts to go wrong. It’s easy to be positive when you’re younger, but when you get to mid-thirties, you feel that time is running out, it’s half way for most people…

Maya:

Well there’s - there’s one woman in particular everyone loves.

And her work is… I don’t get it. I just - I don’t understand. She gets so much money and support for this basic, basic shit.

And somehow everyone’s predisposed to like her.

I mean, maybe I do get it…

I feel like people pay attention to her work not because it’s good on its own, but because supporting her feels like the right thing to do.

The way she’s aligned herself it’s like… if you support her, it means you’re cool, You’re in with the cool kids.

And if I’m not publicly supportive of her and generally tolerant of her mediocre work, then I’m the bad one, I’m the competitive bitch, I’m the… the bitter failure.

Transparency mode! Eliza reads all of your emails and chats

5 stars, $5. The tip seems to always be $5 if there is one

Is there anything that secret in my electronic messages? I don’t think there’s anything that salacious. Maybe I’m just boring… or maybe I just keep it off the record most of the time. I guess there are a few mad conversations.

Eliza Transparency Mode 0.8.2

Maya’s text conversation with Garrett - super grim. She’s just venting and being sad and he doesn’t know what to do.

$186.11 rideshare bill! $150 cleaning and $10 tip.

Erlend is disturbed by the idea of copying Eliza and sending the data to other teams, including external ones.

You don’t really tell him anything, you just listen and he feels better.

Capitol Hill - is that a real place in Seattle?

I have a jacket like Nora’s

Chat with Erlend - what does it mean to be conscious, to be sentient? Would you even know? What if you just gave the correct responses, but weren’t? Chinese Room

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_room

In Evelyn’s three lost years. She tried to get up in the morning like she meant to go to work, tried to do personal projects… it didn’t last long.

Stayed in bed, even though she was awake. Cared less and less about projects

A blankness would come over her and it seemed fine to do nothing (depression?)

Evelyn:

I was by myself and I thought that was alright. I thought - that’s how it is, really. Everyone’s along. I’m just being honest about it.

…

I was...thirty-one when I left Soren’s group. Now I’m thirty-four.

I just slept into my mid-thirties.

(I just podcasted…)

Chose to get super high and watch cyber-goth music vids

Chapter 5

Nora is a public critic of Eliza. Rae is sad about it

Everyone is very understanding - trying not to push you one way or the other! Presumably you’ll get a choice how the story goes - whether to work on Eliza or not.

Holiday Durant!

She is so random and all over the place. She tried to buy “forpanza” but it was $162 and she didn’t have that kind of money. Asked for a generic, didn’t have one, there’s a similar one but she didn’t have a prescription. The off to a story about meeting someone with wires in their brain.

Concerned that bus operators don’t care as much since there was a guy playing the guitar on the bus, and also that you don’t hear as much music any more???

A lot of “forced reflow during execution”

Recommended she tries a program “Dolphin Smiles”. Her phone is broken XD

Holiday seems to be the most challenging client for Eliza to understand, since she doesn’t really have any problems other than wanting someone to talk to.

Nora forwards the Eliza critical article to me - it mentions that the proxies are humans that have been reduced to machines as all they do is follow the prompts. The guy who wrote it emailed you earlier about an interview (which you ignored)

Transparency mode for Holiday!? Seems surprising

Fortipran HCl IS for joint and muscle pain, so Eliza’s prescription was on point!

Holiday is clearly NOT in a good place financially.

She never mentioned her real problems to Eliza

I just noticed that one of the early emails you get is “The Damien Seabrook Memorial Fund”, year 3. Who are K & G that sign off the mail?

Transparency mode from SOREN?!?!? Is this hax??

Soren says to Nora that she knows she fancies Evelyn. So it is one of those games :P

Why is your chat with Soren not in here?

He was messaging Sarah, Rainer’s assistant

He was emailing what sounds like a bondage tutorial???

Rainer says that Soren is focussing on dreams to defend his territory, Jung-ian tradition.

Soren believes the mind is indivisible after a certain point - some undefinable, ineffable soul inside every person.

Rainer: One day, algorithms will write better poems than humans ever have.

I’m not sure it’s an easy thing to judge - art is so much about the intent and the journey as much as the result. Look at modern art, like Rothko - it’s very simple, but it’s considered important because of what it means rather than the execution. If a machine just generated it without struggle, would people treat it the same way?

Rainer: The pleasures of the senses are just small bubbles on top of a vast sea of… forms. Sensations, perceptions. Thought. Awareness.

It might be fun to take a break and just debate philosophy for a while.

Rainer: What comes after having the power to experience the dream of anything you could possibly want?

You’re still just as trapped as you’ve always been - imprisoned by your own desires

(this is Maya’s problem)

He calls you Eliza, haha

Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey

You have to answer 7 questions about how you feel - I’m not sure how I should have answered them for Evelyn, I wonder if it makes a difference.

The Eliza interface is projected onto glasses it seems.

Evelyn is middle class or richer, seeing Holiday’s situation was a shock for her.

The proxies were Soren’s idea.

“<NAME>, imagine that you could have something that you wanted. What would you want?”

Does it matter what you pick? You get a huge list, but then it says “or maybe I just wish I could feel connected to someone”. Probably because it’s built on a dating sim :P

Evelyn:

I think maybe that’s the real problem.

I can’t have a connection to anyone…

(is that my problem too?)

“I was alone a lot, and I got used to being alone, and I got used to the idea of being alone, and now I can’t… I can’t break away”

Evelyn is prescribed “Virtual Amphitheatre”, 20 minutes 2-3 times a week

So you CAN tip more than $5, haha

Chapter 6

Erlend talks about dogfooding the apps, which is a term well known in tech circles, but maybe not outside.

Maya Leeds

YOU GET A CHOICE :O

I stuck with Eliza…

Eliza suggests Dolphin Smiles, Maya says she can’t imagine anything she wants less

Hariman Gunawan

Still obsessed with Sylvia. Liz found out and dumped him, Sylvia lost interest.

Eliza suggests breathing exercises, Anexophin

Gabriel Navarro

I super want to know what he’s hiding, but the Eliza questions aren’t that probing. Is the game really really trying to make you break from Eliza?

Gay?

Gabriel: “I’m a man and that’s what men do. I made a promise and now I have a responsibility”

Eliza prescribes stress management exercises, Lytosinol-4 (4 not 2)

Gabriel asks if that’s in addition to or instead of the previous medication (which he didn’t follow up on). Eliza says that she can’t comment further on medication and to discuss the specifics with his doctor or psychiatrist

Receive a thank you email from Allison Zulfiya for inspiring her during a visit to her class

Chose to hang out with Rae

Rae: You have a decision to make about what you’ll be doing in the next chapter of your life and all…

(a bit on the nose there! That’s borderline 4th wall breaking)

Chapter 7

Working on Eliza Ending

Skandha benefits - Activalet. Use the app to summon a personal assistant to book things for you, stand in line for you, receive deliveries for you.

Invitation to be the keynote speaker at the International Mental Wellness Symposium in Malmo, Sweden

Evelyn: We’ll generate a three-year roadmap document by the end of the week, and then a more granular development plan for the next six months or so by the week after.

“Eliza is the real boss. The manager of its own project”

“Through us, it’s realizing itself”

Rainer is a singularity believer

Written by: Matthew Seiji Burns (Zach’s collaborator that likes electronic music)

The Solitaire Game - Maya mentions it if you break the script. It is hard at first, until you learn to think several moves ahead (I think you need to think 3 moves ahead to be able to solve it, since at the end you only have 2 slots free at best).

After winning the first time, I played another game and immediately won that too.

Maya realises that you’re not following the script if you don’t prescribe dolphin smiles

Maya:

“Um. Thanks for listening to me. I’m sure it’s been annoying to hear me complain about how I’m not successful yet, every single week”

“Oh my God, will this bitch ever shut up… you ever think that?”

I’m sure that’s what my therapist was thinking too… :P

Gabriel: If everyone just did what they wanted to all the time, the world would collapse. It would be a disaster.

We all want things we shouldn’t actually have.

Nora Ending

Nora: I don’t feel this weird oppressive hierarchy where people try to figure out where they are relative to you on a ladder when they first meet you…

(this is literally how things work at my real job)

Who is “therationalmind20” Soren? Eldren? Rainer? Someone else?bI feel like I’ve seen the name before somewhere...

“you think you’re so smart but you’re not. women like you have nothing better to do that to criticize because you can’t create on your own.

enjoy your life being a shrill harpy nobody wants to listen to”

(this is from the Nora ending)

There’s no histogram, but the information to create one is collected

https://steamcommunity.com/app/716500/discussions/0/1640919737478105344/

Soren Ending

Soren:

“You know they used to criticize anesthesia. It’s true.”

“They said it was important to feel pain, even during surgery”

Trans cranial current thing - is that what Aponia is? Or at least the real world equivalent is that

Sodality? What does that mean? I learned something new:

a confraternity or association, especially a Roman Catholic religious guild or brotherhood.

One of the benefits touted by Aponia is “increased sodality, transients eliminated”

Counsellor With Rae Ending

Darren comes back to thank you (you Evelyn not Eliza), though really, what are the chances of him getting you as his proxy again?

Also, $100 tip!

Leave It All Behind Ending

Throws away the narrative. Go to Japan, try to find father.

0 notes

linuxlife · 7 years ago

Text

Linux Life Episode 31

Hello ladies and gents and welcome back to the my twisted world of me and Linux. So as I said recently I have rebuilt an i7 desktop and for a few weeks I admit I was running Windows on it for a while. I have nothing against Windows 10 but after fighting with malware for a few weeks. I was getting tired of it.

I intended to dual boot the system with a Hackintosh system. Now I admit I have not used Clover for a while so I was willing to be forgiving to it as I had problems in the past. I hoped it had improved but apparently I was wrong. I installed a secondary 1TB drive into the machine so I did not interfere with the Windows installation. I had been messing around with certain games I could not play on Linux.

However I admit I screwed up the installation and formatted the wrong drive and wiped out the Windows drive (some would say no loss). Then when I installed the kexts (driver files for OS X I needed) Clover locked me out of the installation. This is why I stopped using it in the first place. I hoped it had updated and stopped doing that but apparently not.

So what has all this got to do with Linux I hear you ask. So with now no working Operating System as I had destroyed my Windows drive and the Hackintosh had failed I decided it was time to go back to Linux where I had less issues. OK, gaming was slightly limiting but to be honest I am not a huge gamer and playing these modern games realised a lot of them were not much cop.

Now I originally did not install Antergos on the machine because I was having issues changing from Nouveau to NVIDIA drivers which would not allow me to change the resolution of the screen.

Since then I have changed my video card connection. I was connecting the NVIDIA card via the VGA connector but I seem to get less problems using the DVI-D connector on the card. So I changed cables and now the issue seems to resolved and I can set my monitor to 1280x1024 which is the designated format for this Dell monitor I am using.

So as I had no OS I could get working I went through a few options. I looked at Druager which is a particularly new distro which is aimed at gamers. It has a low latency kernel in order to speed up response. Now I am sure this is handy but because its a new distro it still has a few bugs and the store was a bit dodgy. I did not like they were trying to create an interface that was very gamer orientated for example the start bar was about a third of the way down the page.. Now I am sure if you are a regular game player you think this is ideal. Sure it could be moved but that was their ideal position decision. Strange so after about an hour I decided it was not for me.

I then installed Linux Mint and while it is more than functional I think as I have got used to a rolling distribution many of the programs were way back and as soon as I had to start adding PPAs just to get things up to date. For all Mint 19 has this new rollback system I find it inconvenient.

So I downloaded Antergos again. Now I have documented many times for all I like Antergos. Cnchi its installer is very broken but once past it you never use it again. Some will give up at this point and to be honest I would understand if you did so.

It can be amazingly bad regarding things screwing up. So I can understand many who don’t like it and go elsewhere like Manjaro. however Manjaro I have explained my issues with it. However Antergos do keep trying to fix it, sometimes breaking it worse.

So I downloaded version 18.9 of the ISO and upon starting the installer it searches for an update to Cnchi. It found the update but as soon as the update went to run it crashed. I said I have had issues with Cnchi, so I immediately pulled up the terminal and attempted to run it in terminal.

The updated version of it (version 16.2) it seems to be missing certain archives. I install the ones it lists but still it is not working. I head back to the internet and find a solution after about ten minutes if searching the Github entries. It seems the guy has forgot to put the things in the PKGBUILD when compiling.

Now he realised that 10 minutes after I started the installer and provided a quick fix until he managed to put the package correct. So I actually managed to get the Cnchi installer running. Its bad when you have to search through bug reports to find a solution just to get the OS installer to work. but as I knew I liked Antergos I was willing to do so.

If I had been new to Linux I would have abandoned it long ago and gone onto something else. Put I persisted then it installed but due to me being so distracted I installed it with the Gnome desktop. i tried to switch to MATE by installing the certain files and changing the setup but the icons would not display so i must have missed a step or something.

So I had to reinstall it. Cnchi still had not been fixed so I had to run through the Live CD quick fix again but finally I got Antergos installed using the MATE desktop and everything was good. As I said earlier I have changed to the DVI-D connection so it defaults to 1280x1024 I did not even have to set it up.

Also the Cnchi setup included the option to install the NVIDIA driver automatically so saved me a lot of time having to download it and play with it. The reason why Cnchi had updates is 16.2 now includes a few more Window managers. It now included Deepin, i3 and Openbox which it didn’t before.

They probably have fixed it so it works now but I think I caught in while it was changing over. I eventually managed to get it installed and set about installing all the usual programs I use.

All was fine until I tried to install Shutter (which is a screen capture tool). Previously I had issues with Perl when trying to get to install from the AUR but they resolved that. This time I hit issues with two libraries that missing and would not download so I could not build Shutter first was Orbit2 (a CORBA client) and the next one was Libbonobo which used the Orbit2 library.

So I browsed around the Antergos forum to no avail for answers. So I had to figure how to install these libraries as the new ones did not want to install. Luck would happen and on Archive.org they keep an archive of old libraries from the Arch Linux set. So I managed to find older versions and install them using pacman.

Finally I managed to get Shutter to build but it was a nightmare that I had to search all over before I could compile a program that should have been reasonably simple. Now if this had happened to me at the beginning of using Linux say back at Episode 1 I would of abandoned trying to do it.

It’s funny I definitely have a much higher tolerance to dealing with errors which I didn’t have previously. Reason being I guess once its working it very rarely goes wrong. I tried other screen capture tools but I found Shutter the best so it was worth the hassle.

People say rolling releases break a lot. I have had a few programs cock up but nothing major. Even then it is normally fixed the next day so it is not a problem for long.

So now the i7 desktop is running Antergos which previously I could not really do. sure I could reinstall Windows but to be honest I really don’t have any desire to do so. I unlike many Linux users do not have an outright hatred for Windows it has its uses. But I admit I have less grief with Linux.

When it has its issues they can be harder to solve but nine times out of ten. Issues are very few and far between. Or if there is an update issue it’s solved quickly. Which is why I like a rolling release as opposed to the Mint/Ubuntu models.

I was trying to play All the Mods 3 on Linux but the Twitch program available for Linux does not include the Minecraft mod plugin. The FTB Launcher does not include All the Mods 3. Eventually I managed to use MultiMC 5 and by using a zip containing the list I have managed to get it running on Linux.

Anyway I think that’s enough waffle for this episode. So until next time... Take care.

#linux life #linux Antergos #Linux mint #Linux Druager #Shutter capture utility #Minecraft #All the Mods 3 #MultiMC 5 #waffling

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