#mechanoids are so useful

[pushing500]

What's it like being a mechanitor?

Being a mechanitor is awesome!! It takes a bit of getting used to at first, having all those ultrafine wires settling into their places around your skull, but after that, you have so much power!! You can get mechanoids to do everything you want with little more than a thought! It's perfect for anybody who wishes to transcend their weak, useless bodies! The first step toward a perfected humanity!

... Of course, there are drawbacks. If you happen to be suddenly spawned into existence with every memory of being a mechanitor but none of the actual abilities, it will leave you feeling hollow and more useless than you ever felt before. Now you know what you could be, you feel the loss that much more sharply.

That would never happen, though, so we probably don't need to consider such a ridiculous, outlandish scenario.

[gonzo-rella]

Terrorform | Arnold Rimmer

MASTERLIST | AO3

Note: A lot of this fic borrows dialogue from a scene from the episode Terrorform, though I have added plenty of my own writing- as you will undoubtedly will be able to tell- to the scene as well. Regardless, credit to Rob Grant and Doug Naylor.

Relationship(s): Arnold Rimmer x gn!reader (romantic)

Summary: In order to escape from the psimoon that has been shaped by Rimmer's self-hating psyche, the rest of the Red Dwarf crew must make him feel better about himself. Lister, Kryten and Cat must pretend to like Rimmer, but you don't have to pretend.

Warnings: None! (Let me know if I need to add any)

Word count: 3.1k

(A/N: I started watching Red Dwarf less than a month ago. In this short space of time, Arnold Rimmer has become one of my top 10 favourite characters of all-time, and the show is already amongst my all-time favourites. This isn't the first Rimmer fic I started working on- the one I've posted a fair bit about- but after watching the episode 'Terrorform' I fell in love with this idea to the point that I never lost motivation for working on it. The only thing that slowed progress on it is that I've been working a lot in the past week so my time and energy has been limited. Given those factors, I'm proud of myself for getting what I think is a high-quality fic done in an uncharacteristically short space of time- just a week. For reference, the past couple of fics I've posted took me a year to get around to finishing. Anyway, this certainly won't be my last Rimmer fic. I've got three more in the works, one of which is a sequel to this one. I'm always nervous when writing for a fandom for the first time, so please let me know what you think! Even if no one ends up liking this fic or me, I'm looking forward to contributing to this fandom via reader-insert fics and I hope that my presence in this fandom and what I write for it is at the very least tolerable.)

You knitted your brows as Kryten steered you, Lister and Cat into the cockpit, leaving Rimmer alone. The door behind you slid shut, and the four of you stood, practically huddled, in front of it.

“I think I have it,” the mechanoid announced. “The real enemy is not out there. It is in Starbug with us. The real enemy is inside Mr. Rimmer's head.”

“Nice plan. So we remove his head and everything's cool, right?”

You rolled your eyes at Cat’s suggestion, which was ignored by Lister.

“No, wait a minute. That's gone right up my flagpole, that has, Kryten. I'm saluting that one.”

Cat’s face screwed up in confusion.

“What?”

“When we first drove back the beast in the cavern, it wasn't the bazookoid fire that forced him into the pit. It was when you-” Lister gestured to Kryten. “told Rimmer we wouldn't desert him.”

“Precisely,” Kryten agreed.

This whole day had already made you feel awful for Rimmer- knowing you were inside a manifestation of his mind that displayed his many points of insecurity- but Lister’s observation made it really dawn on you. When Kryten had berated Rimmer just a minute ago, calling him a ‘glob of tuberculotic sputum’ and a ‘cruddy little scud ball with all the innate lovability of an itchy verruca’, Starbug had shuddered, as though it was caught in some kind of reaction to the insults. Even when Kryten had excluded Rimmer from this group meeting, the ship had jittered. You bit your bottom lip at the implication that Rimmer really did feel every little jibe sent his way, that he noticed every moment where he wasn’t included, and the rare occasion when he was. Of course, before this whole psimoon disaster, you already knew that Rimmer deeply hated himself, but seeing it like this- experiencing it in real-time- was heartbreaking.

“So,” Lister went on. “If we can make Rimmer feel wanted, feel cared about-”

“If we can make him feel good about himself, somehow restore his self-esteem and his pride, that would automatically vanquish the self-loathing beast, or at least debilitate it long enough for us to break free of this quicksand and get off this God-forsaken psimoon.”

“How do we make him feel good?” Cat asked. “What is there about him to feel good about?”

“We've got to tell him we love him.”

Lister’s revelation caused a pit to form in your stomach, one large enough for Starbug to sink in. Thankfully, no one had picked up on your silence, nor the poorly disguised dread etched into your features. Cat wasn’t married to this idea either, but for a completely different reason to you.

“Argh, you're sick! I want no part in this depravity!”

“And, he must not suspect we are insincere,” Kryten warned. “Our lives depend on it. Ready?”

“I'll never be ready.”

With that, the door opened to reveal the pitiful image of Rimmer hunched over on a crate. You, Kryten, Cat and Lister awkwardly stepped out of the cockpit.

You didn’t want to offer Rimmer lukewarm platitudes that would give him enough of a temporary ego boost to let Starbug escape. It seemed cruel and manipulative, as though you didn’t actually care about the irreparable self-loathing that was causing the ship to sink. But, equally, the atmosphere in Starbug was too high-pressure for you to trust that you wouldn’t let all of your true feelings about him gracelessly bubble to the surface. Not only would you humiliate yourself but you would waste valuable time. You were panicked enough as it was by the prospect of potentially being dead in mere minutes, and adding the risk of confessing your genuine feelings to Rimmer in front of your friends only doubled the overwhelming stress that would make it near-impossible for you to construct a sentence that would be useful in the situation. So, the plan- as far as you were concerned- was to stay silent and let Lister and Kryten do the talking. After all, Lister had a knack for it, and Kryten was getting better at it with each passing day.

You could have a sincere chat with Rimmer about his inner turmoil later on, when you didn’t have a ten minute time limit and this many lives at stake. It would take longer than the ten minutes you had at your disposal to tackle his decades-worth of self-hatred in any meaningful way- you knew that. To your chagrin, you had to accept that the focus in this narrow window of time- which was quickly shutting- was to escape, and that Lister, Kryten and Cat would have to embellish their affection for Rimmer to achieve that end. It’s not like Rimmer did himself any favours with how he conducted himself. No one had to mean what they said; they just had to convince him that they meant it. This was slapping a plaster on a festering gunshot wound. You had to push aside how saddened you were by the fact that their false affirmations would mean so much to Rimmer. At the end of the day, your lives were more important than his feelings. 

Lister, as you had expected, was the first to speak. Rimmer turned his head to look at the four of you.

“Listen, we've been talking and the four of us have decided to stay with you and face the danger.  All for one and that, you know?”

Rimmer seemed surprised.

“Really?”

You braced yourself as Kryten went to speak.

“Sir, I'd just like to take this opportunity to say that you are a very beautiful person.”

Rimmer, understandably, appeared caught off guard by Kryten’s statement. Lister swooped back in.

“What he means is that we're all facing certain death here and I think it's about time we let each other know exactly how we feel about each other.”

You scratched your neck, a deep sense of discomfort settling in your gut. The idea of telling Rimmer how you felt about him made death seem the more appealing fate. Rimmer looked between you all incredulously. He didn’t seem suspicious of Lister and Kryten, but nevertheless he seemed unsettled by the uncharacteristic warmth he was being met with.

“You think that's a good idea?”

As Kryten and Lister took a seat either side of Rimmer, you took Cat’s lead- for once in your life- and hung back. Seeing as Lister and Kryten had this under control, there wasn’t any need for you to chime in. Thank God.

“It’s just that guys generally aren't terrific at... you know…” Lister began.

“Expressing their feelings,” Kryten cut in.

“Yeah. They kid around and insult each other and stuff,” Lister continued. “And what they really mean is... Well, they can't tell you the stuff they really mean.”

“What are you trying to tell me?” Rimmer said.

“I’m just trying to say that whatever happens here, I want you to know I really care about you.”

You thought what he’d said was nice enough and, most importantly, convincing. However, it seemed a tad much when he placed his hand on Rimmer’s knee. Rimmer looked down at Lister’s hand with surprise and confusion.

“We all do, sir,” Kryten added.

Kryten rested his hand on Rimmer’s other knee, and this time Kryten was met with a look of mild disgust. You pinched the bridge of your nose, thinking they had blown this by going overboard. But, to your surprise, Rimmer didn't protest. If anything, you took his silence to mean he was touched- literally and figuratively- by the gesture. Gestures. You breathed a quiet sigh of relief.

“It's true,” Cat said finally. “They really do care about you.”

Rimmer looked at Lister.

“Only this morning you referred to me as a cancerous polyp on the anus of humanity.”

“In an affectionate way. In a kidding around, joking, friendly, affectionate way.”

Now it was Kryten’s turn to save the day.

“Sir, what he's trying to say is that we may never get another opportunity to articulate our feelings and I, for one, would just like to take this opportunity to say that you're a splendid man, and a much respected colleague, and a- gosh darn it- damn good friend.”

He punctuated the sentence by lightly punching Rimmer in the arm. Rimmer, whose face had scrunched up in confusion and disbelief once again, flinched at the contact. 

“We're getting some lift,” Holly interrupted.

Rimmer rose to his feet, stepping away from Lister and Kryten. He was now dangerously close to you. As discreetly as possible, you took a step back.

“Wait a minute. I know why you're doing this.”

“Going down,” Holly said, a hint of disappointment in her voice.

“You're trying to make me feel guilty, aren't you? It's a transparent attempt to shame me into doing the honourable thing.”

Lister and Kryten protested in unison.

“Well, why is it then?”

Lister looked at Rimmer, and in doing so he finally noticed you standing off to the side, trying your hardest to remain unseen. You had been mindlessly rubbing your forehead with your index finger in an effort to hide your face, as though that would disguise your presence and the fact that you had contributed nothing to this whole endeavour. It was expected of Cat, but not of you. For one, you actually seemed to like Rimmer. At the very least, you didn’t dislike him as much as the rest of them. Lister shot you a pleading, unimpressed look. It caught Rimmer’s attention, and he glanced between you and Lister with a puzzled expression. Cat and Kryten were both looking at you now, too. At this point, you wouldn’t have minded sinking in the swamp. It might have been a nicer alternative, really. But, Rimmer’s gaze finally settled on you, like the rest of the crew, only his was marginally softer because he wasn’t screaming at you with his eyes like they were. It meant you had to speak. Your lives depended on it.

“I- uh…” you stammered out, heat rising to your cheeks.

So much for speaking. Maintaining eye contact with Rimmer in that moment was like having a staring contest with the sun.

“Go on,” Lister prompted. You could tell he was tense no matter how he tried to play it off. “You can say what you want. There’s no judgement here. We’re all just… being honest.”

You didn’t know quite what Lister expected you to say. You doubted he knew how you felt about Rimmer- not the full extent of it anyway. He’d have relentlessly teased you about it by now. Unfortunately, you weren’t a skilled liar or talker like him, even without the pressure you were under. So, it was tricky coming up with something that wasn’t along the lines of ‘I’m madly in love with you’ but sufficient in offering him that short-term validation that he needed- that you all needed in order to escape.

“Well, um…”

Lister looked about ready to burst, whilst you looked like you were going to be sick. He made a gesture of frustration with his hands. You just had to say something. Anything would do. So, slightly panicked and entirely clueless on how to be as direct as Lister and Kryten without making a fool of yourself, you settled on blurting out the first thing you could think of- the thing that made you realise just how attracted you were to Rimmer in the first place. It was something you hoped would give him enough validation to get you all out of here, and seeing as it was sincere you hoped he would believe it. Just, you couldn’t keep looking him in the eye if you were going to say it.

“You know, back when we had that Pleasure GELF on the ship, when I looked at her, I saw… you.”

Rimmer’s brows furrowed.

“What?”

“You were what I saw, when I saw the Pleasure GELF.”

“Really? But, that would mean… And, you said you saw-”

“Well, you didn’t see me when you looked at her and I didn’t understand why I saw you, so I thought it’d be for the best if I lied and ignored it. But, since we’ll probably die within the next ten minutes anyway, you might as well know. You deserve to die… again… knowing you’re not some loathsome, repulsive, utterly unlovable blister on the heel of humanity, or whatever Kryten said earlier.”

Rimmer was quiet for a moment before speaking again.

“I believe his exact words were-”

The ship rattled, interrupting him. You grabbed onto his arms to steady yourself. It took a few seconds for you to register that you were holding him, touching him, something you’d never thought you’d be able to do given he’d been a hologram the entire time you’d known him. You looked into his eyes, his thoughts unreadable. Conversely, it seemed obvious that you were cherishing the feeling of his solid form beneath your touch. On instinct, your gaze flickered down to his lips. It gave you an idea, one you thought through for all of two seconds.

“Can I kiss you?” you asked.

You weren’t quite sure why you had asked him that, hence the mortification that soon took over your features. Part of you was keen to justify it as a tactical move. Lister had said to make Rimmer feel wanted, and letting him know that you wanted to kiss him seemed like a surefire way to do that. He seemingly hadn’t believed the GELF anecdote, not fully, so maybe this would be enough to convince him that you weren’t lying about it- that you wanted him.

But, who were you kidding?

Lister, Kryten and Cat exchanged wide-eyed stares. They also seemed to question why on earth you had asked him to kiss you. Lister was beginning to regret calling on you to say anything. Rimmer merely shook his head, having not yet processed what you had said.

“No, I don’t think he said-”

At last, it dawned on him. His face flushed. Your cheeks were so hot that it almost hurt, as though the humiliation of asking Rimmer to kiss you wasn’t bad enough. Realising you were still clinging to him, you let go of him, not wanting to make this any more uncomfortable than it already was.

“Hang on. You… you want to kiss me?”

“Yeah. With you being a hologram and me not being one, and us maybe being about to die, this might be the only chance I’ll get. So, can I kiss you, Arnie?”

You weren’t expecting him to grant your request, as much as you hoped he would.

“I-I don’t see why not.”

He didn’t seem enthusiastic. Perhaps he was caught off guard by the question, but you decided instinctively that he didn’t want to kiss you. At least when you replayed this memory in your head over and over before going to sleep, you could tell yourself you were doing it to boost Rimmer’s self-esteem.

“You don’t have to. I just thought I’d ask-”

“You can kiss me.”

“Are you sure? I don’t want you to feel like-”

“Yes- I’m sure.”

Your breath hitched in your throat. This was really going to happen- the moment you had daydreamed about, a fantasy you had practically tortured yourself with. You nodded.

“Right. Alright.”

You stepped closer to him, so that there wasn’t much of a gap between you at all. You wouldn’t have been surprised if you were close enough that he could feel your heart beating, rapid and pounding as though it was trying to break free from your chest and touch him for itself. A small smile tugged at the corners of your lips. Taking in a deep, trembling breath, you cupped his cheeks and pulled him in for a kiss. It took a few seconds before he decided what to do with his hands. He settled on resting them on your waist, which he lightly squeezed. You moved your lips against his almost hungrily, and Rimmer couldn’t help but do the same. 

The fervour with which you kissed him baffled your crewmates, who were torn between their morbid curiosity and their disgust at seeing Rimmer kissing someone. They winced and cringed and wondered why you had gone this far. Hugging him probably would have sufficed. And, to think you had considered it overkill for Lister and Kryten to hold his knees like that.

“Going up,” Holly announced, surprised.

Her voice startled you into pausing, but neither of you completely pulled away. Within milliseconds, you resumed. You slipped a hand onto the back of Rimmer’s head, combing your fingers through his hair. He decided to place his hands on your cheeks, running his thumbs back and forth against your cheekbones in a slow, gentle motion, as though he was relishing the feel of your skin beneath his fingertips. He had a similar impulse to you and raked his fingers through your hair. His grip on you was tight yet not too rough.

Lister, Kryten and Cat continued to stand around awkwardly and impatiently. As grateful as they were that you had managed to help the situation, now they were the ones who, on some level, wished that the ship would just sink to put an end to… this.

When you finally pulled away, you held his face in your hands and gazed into his wide eyes. He was still clinging to you, holding onto you as if for dear life. You offered him a smile, one he was too dazed to return.

The moment was interrupted by Holly yet again.

“Quick, get into the cockpit,” she urged. “There's something very strange happening out there.”

You patted his shoulder and followed the others into the cockpit. Before you knew it, you were able to take off. Relief settled over everyone; you assumed Lister, Kryten and Cat were as glad to be alive as they were that they wouldn’t have to pretend to like Rimmer anymore. And, of course, they were delighted that the pair of you had stopped kissing, even if the image- in all of its horrifying glory- had been burned into their retinas.

“So, was all of that just a means of escaping?” Rimmer said, his tone indicating a level of confidence and contentment. You assumed that it came from the fact that he must have been at least semi-convinced by everyone’s efforts, particularly yours. “You didn’t really mean any of it, did you?”

The question was for everyone, but his gaze lingered on you. Lister, Kryten and Cat exchanged a glance.

“No,” they agreed in unison.

Rimmer appeared indignant. After a moment of deliberation, you spoke.

“Well, I think you’re alright… Rimmer.”

Lister grinned.

“We all know what you think.”

[richea]

Tales of Hearts Worldbuilding

There's a lot of worldbuilding in Hearts that's either very obscure within its game, blatantly wasn't explained in it at all, and in a number of cases, was in DS and removed from R.

I skimmed the glossary from its guidebook and jotted down some interesting details from it that people might not know about the game. This isn't a full study on Hearts' worldbuilding, as this is only information borrowed from that specific book, and I only included things that I think people would be interested in knowing about. This excludes really obvious information that everyone probably knows or is easily found in a casual Hearts playthrough (though I did include some of it), and random pointless things like the fact that there's sheep in Layve who produce tea milk. (That stuff is fun too, but this post took me long enough to put together!)

Also, this post uses my own preferred romanizations for everything, as we can all agree that the localization was a huge mess.

If you enjoy this post and want more random Hearts trivia, check out Aera's old post too!

Characters

Side character ages: Creed (20), Fluora (21), Incarose (19), Seraph Bros (25), Corundum (10), Grossular (50), Kornerupine (44), Striegov (37), Zirconia (61), Byrox (22), Paraiba (20), Labrador (39). (Peridot is also 19.)

Shing is the youngest in the playable party at only 16. (In R he’s the youngest tied with Chalcedony)

Kohaku has such a strong, natural affinity for hugging people that this feeling was embedded in her even when she lost her emotions and ability to talk. She also gained her fear of heights from falling out a window once.

Lithia told Kohaku and Hisui to leave Norqueen “to find the Forest of Thorns”.

Kohaku and Hisui’s dad is dead. He died when Hisui was “very young” like Iola did.

Hisui can’t swim due to his upbringing in a snowy region.

Kunzite was injured in a fight with Incarose 170 years prior to the story, and then was held by the imperial army. This is the state the party meets him in. In order to reboot him, Lithia passed along this chant to Kohaku to recite: “Shape of man cast from iron’s true flame. With a solid bronze soul, and pure mercury veins. Swear on Quartz’s white moonlight, that you shall be our shield, and our sword, and our might. Platinum heart etched with a Quartz name, run so as to give life to your metal frame.”

Incarose was named by Creed after her eyes. She has 7 bodies in total but by the time Creed gets his body back she’s down to 4.

The person who made Corundum and the Seraph Bros was a famous Quartz named Eusite. Despite his genius, a lot of his mechanoids had varying defects (like Chlorseraph does) and they were scrapped a lot.

When the Seraph Bros were installed with their synthetic Spirias, they had a defect that made them assault everything around them. They were going to be disposed of but Fluora took them under her wing and made them her knights. This is why Clinoseraph feels such strong loyalty to her.

Fluora named the Seraph Bros after a famous bird known as the seraph.

Iola used to be of the Velleia faith. The details of her death are that after being injured by Creed, she fled to the land that would later be known as Norqueen, made the barrier around the area, gave birth to Kohaku, and then died shortly after. Her sister Sheila is actually the one who named (and subsequently raised) Kohaku, after the Kohakuzakura tree.

Sheila was a follower of the old Velleian teachings, but Arkham labeled her and others who follow it a heretic and denounced them when forming his “new” Velleia teachings. Due to this Sheila blames him and the church for Iola’s death and distrusts the Crystal Knights. Despite her harsh attitude in the story and as chief, she’s actually quite a nice woman who cherishes Kohaku and Hisui, and every year she treats the villagers to handmade sakura mochi.

Dona lost her emotions from the strain of transferring Creed to Shing, was brought to Seable by Zektz, and then died at some point during Shing’s early childhood. The villagers remembered her for being a quaint, kind woman but before she lost her emotions, she was very rowdy and crude, to the point that Iola once scoffed about her attitude in front of Zektz. Nobody knew who Shing’s father was, but Zektz suspected that he was a man who was likeminded to Dona and dedicated to a life of battle.

Silver was only 29 years old despite his grey hair and his high military rank. A lot of his actions (and role as Garnet) can be explained by his hatred of the military, after they forced him to have his wife and daughter present for a military Will Cannon experiment that took Pearl's life.

Despite Silver’s military ranking, Pearl was a very ordinary woman who was family-oriented.

Lapis was in a coma for 3 years.

Arago looks out for Helio “as if his own family” whenever Beryl leaves her alone in Blanche.

Helio was a famous nurse in her youth. (She doesn’t have an entry in the guides; this info is taken from an unnamed NPC text in game and felt like a shame not to include.)

The reason Chen had his eye on Beryl is that he actually used to paint himself, but he gave up on his dream and tried to support hers instead.

Sango’s unmarried and Chen has tried 99 times to get her a man to marry, but she’s just uninterested. She also can’t sleep without hugging a plushie despite her strong personality.

Ecaille was brought in to Chen by his daughter Sango. Despite choosing to stay as Chen’s secretary after getting her memories back, she does accept Ameth’s proposal.

The first emperor of the Max Empire was named Chrosite de Rais. He also sponsored the coliseum and reigned as champion for a decade, from the 1st to the 10th. The name Lion Grand Prix later came from the lion crest that was affixed to him.

Diamante is the name of the philosopher who defined what a Spiria is.

Tetsu Hagane tells the tale of his three sins: the Sin of Love (making women in his family cry by being mean to them), the Sin of Grief (making his "blood brother" sad by accidentally leaving the window open and a cat eating his pet goldfish), and the Sin of Power (flaunting his strength by telling the tale of him taking down a xerom despite not being a Somatic).

Species

Powerhogs (the pigs you can find in Shing's hometown) are a medium-sized variety of rappig (popularly known from Abyss). They're kept as pets but the adult males are known to be as ferocious as monsters.

The eloi are a species that lives on an island north of Marquise. They have strong vitality and powerful Spiria. Thanks to the proto xerom Lisia, who wanted to exploit those Spiria, they're almost extinct.

Windum is an eloi who considers himself an "intellectually, culturally advanced species" of eloi. His favorite food is mabo curry. He develops the Sorcerer's Ring for the party and tasks the party with taking down Lisia and saving his brethren.

Quartzia had “mocking things” as pets. They were loyal to their masters and could breathe fire. This is a reference to Mieu from Abyss. This is one of three Abyss mascot references in the game (along with Barrelow as “Bellow” in this game, and Tokunaga.)

The DS version has a variety of monster known literally as “shadows monsters”. These are clumps of black mass that personify as monsters (birds, wolves, blobs, etc.). They’re an “embodiment of fear”. They’re similar to xerom but differ in that they vanish once their feeling of fear disappears. (As a gameplay mechanic, these are what the overworld enemies in the game are.)

Lore

Asteria (Shing’s Soma) has the same name as a flower that Lithia, Creed and Fluora planted on Quartzia, which was said to represent the bonds between people. The name means “shining star”.

Kunzite’s Soma, Vex, has the meaning of “knight of antiquity” in the ancient language. There’s a fairy tale written about it called the “Four-Armed Beast”.

The "Forest of Thorns" project was proposed by Fluora, but was mocked by other Quartz for the fact that Soma Links were never formed despite how many experiments she ran. (This is why Lithia is so in awe of the party's ability to Soma Link throughout the story.)

The Quartz knew about Volgajoz, the dragon that lives in Bamel Volcano.

Gardenia spans over 5,000km. The reason it went out of control is because its synthetic Spiria, which was based on Creed's, craved loved and absorbed everything around it instead of just the feelings of strife and war that it was intended to.

Mechanoids were made by the Quartz as their servants. They helped them in their daily lives, doing menial tasks, to researching, to protecting them; anything the Quartz could think of. Some of them were affixed with synthetic Spiria (like Kunzite) though only the special ones (likes ones intended to be personal bodyguards for special people), as most of them are just regular androids. Jacks help with daily tasks such as cooking and cleaning, Queens excel in Will Artes, Kings are non-humanoid, Jokers excel in research skills and Aces excel in combat. Kunzite is a Jack and in fact was not really intended for combat but was instead made to cook and clean, like many of his skits touch upon. (There's a sub event where he says he's actually tired of having to fight and the only reason he continues is because he wants to protect Lithia.)

Synthetic Spirias are not easy to manufacture and are only able to be installed on high-specs mechas. They're intended to give robots human-like capabilities. Mechas with synthetic Spiria are not actually intended to be able to use Soma and it's considered an abnormality that a lowly Jack type mecha like Kunzite is able to use one.

It's not just the people who were calcified on Quartzia but all remnants of life, period.

Spirmazes reflect the state of the person. If someone's life or emotional strength is running out, it'll get smaller. If it disappears entirely, this means they're dead. (In DS, there were different maps for Spirmazes which reflected the mood of the owner, instead of R's one uniform design. They also had a BGM associated with them, Sadness, Anger and Happiness respectively.)

Somas are useable by anyone, but Spirlinking itself is a grueling task, and if someone not fit to do one attempts one, they'll get ejected immediately.

The Quartz used to rule over the people of Celland, in part because their Spirias had a lot more "vitality" to them, so the Quartz wanted to exploit this.

Xerom are actually Will Arte weapons developed by the Quartz. Their intent was to absorb the Spiria of the people of Celland, which in turn would develop the xerom further. Lithia sealed them away once but as her power weakened over time, they were resurrected.

Soma were originally intended to link people's hearts together, but Fluora didn't have time to finish developing them before the Gardenia incident, so when Celland got its hands on them, they ended up finding use as weapons more than medical instruments during the Unification War.

There's a very limited edition doll called the DX Mega Tokunaga. There's only 30 in existence and Kohaku has one. Sango missed her chance to get one so she begs Kohaku to let her hold it at least once.

The incident with Zirconia (possessed by Creed) being fought off by Dona, Zektz, Tekta, Iola and Labrador is called "The Tragedy of Pransule Strait".

Norqueen was formed only 17 years prior to the story (which lines up with Kohaku's birth) as a safe haven for followers of Lithia's faith, after Arkham labeled them all heretics.

Followers of the Velleia faith are called "dolphins," as their sacred beast is the Winged Whale.

The Max Empire was restored to glory by Chrosite, first as a small country on Oldmine, and then during the Unification War, ruling over all of Celland.

[therimmerexperience]

Smegtober- Day 10 (Therapy)

“You want us to try what?” Rimmer shrieked, eyes flitting between Kryten and Lister. 

“I don't think that's going to work for us, Krytes,” Lister remarked, trying his best not to look at the Mechanoid as though he had three heads- well, three heads on his shoulders at least

“But Sirs, as Red Dwarf's stand in Science Officer, It's my job to look out of the health of the Crew,” the android defended,” All I suggested was-”

Rimmer cut him off,”Please. Don't say it again.”

Kryten shook his head disapprovingly,” As you wish, Mr Rimmer, but please consider, If not for you then for the health of Mr Lister.” 

He walked out, not waiting for a response, leaving them at the table in the bunk room.

“He is unbelievable.”

“Completely wacko-jacko,” The scouser agreed,”I mean, Cuddle Therapy? Us? I think he's lost it.” 

—

“Move over,” Rimmer Complained, less ire and irritation in his tone than usual as he snaked his arm around Lister's waist, “You're hogging the bunk.”

“Shut up,” he mumbled sleepily.

“This is my bunk, miladdo, and if you want to be in it you'll do as I ask.”

Rolling his eyes, smile almost idiotic, Lister relented, pushing himself closer to the wall. He nuzzled lightly into the hologram's chest, inhaling not so subtlety as he let his eyes fall shut. 

Rimmer blushed, “We're not telling Bog Bot about this, are we?”

“No,” Lister sighed, “Can't have him thinking he's right all the time.”

[unhappy-last-resort]

What Lovers Do (Yandere Roland x GN Reader)

Warnings: non con, implied past non con, smut, no mention of readers genitalia, implied bondage, penetration, use of lubricant, slight spoilers for future chapters but if you don't know then you can't tell

A/N: I started this at 4 AM this morning, apologies if the writing is a bit stiff I kinda wanted to get something quick out.

As always, constructive criticism is welcome and I hope you enjoy.

Status: Edited

"Then...can you tell me if I'm performing or being genuine right now?" The question was thrown at you with a chuckle and a certain glint in his eye, like he was a gambler about to win a bet. That should have been your first warning to say no, or better yet say nothing at all.

"I think..." It was less of a thought and more of a hope at the time. "You're being genuine." You spoke softly, as though you might shatter something if you spoke too loud despite your silly costume and unique setting. The maze you had cleared together now behind you, faux flower petals gently danced in the air above you. Despite the mechanoids of Constellia lacking a complete understanding of human aesthetics and choices, their imitation of them never failed to impress you.

In return, Roland gave a hearty laugh as he closed the distance between you two. "Is that so, Babylonian Commandant?" He reached his hand up and before you could stop him, you were stripped of your Sharksphere-esc head, leaving your face in his full view.

He held your chin gently, yet firm enough to hold you in place as he leaned in close, "Since I'm being genuine, why don't we commit ourselves to one another and do something only lovers do?" He whispered with a small smirk that barely contained his excitement.

While you had momentarily forgotten the differences between constructs and humans, but Roland was quick to remind you as he pulled you towards him, his other hand going straight to your crotch causing you to gasp and swat his hand away, which he ignored in favor of teasing you with his fingers.

"Roland, wha-"

"Shhhh...." He hushed you gently, as if he was consoling an upset child. "It's alright, just follow my lead and everything will be easier." You tried to push him away to no avail, it felt like you were trying to push a wall. Your struggling meant nothing to him as he held you tightly enough to keep you in place, but not so much that it was painful.

Despite yourself, you could feel your body responding in kind to his deceptively gentle touches and the occasional fleeting kiss on your skin as he whispered little words of praise or comfort to you, steadily drawing you into your first unsteady orgasm of the day.

Which led you to now, your costume and pants stripped from you and his artificial cock buried deep inside of you as he held you pinned to the floor, his black coating making him look like a wraith among the sea of pink and purple hues. It was so swift that you hadn't the chance to process what he was doing before your eyes widened and a stilted cry left your lips at the sudden intrusion. His faint scent of roses making your head spin as your walls spasm around him, struggling to adjust to him.

"Shhhh, Mon Chér it'll feel better soon, just wait." Roland held your cheek, making you look into his heterochronic eyes. One the color of the color of the sun and one the color of blood. Both looking at you almost sympathetically, had it not been for the subtle glee in his eyes you might've believed that sympathy to be true.

Before you could muster a reply, he very gently thrusted into you. It was clear now that he had slipped a lubricant on you amidst your earlier distraction of his insistent kisses as he removed your pants, easing your walls into accepting the stretch as each inch slowly sunk into you.

"This isn't..." You shut your eyes tightly as he slowly thrusted into you again, more lubricant this time than the last quickly turning the initial pain into pleasure. "This isn't what lovers do."

Roland raised a brow, his hips pulling back only to steadily push into you once more, reaching deeper with the help of the lubricant as you heaved an unsteady sigh. The sensation wasn't as painful as you'd hoped. "Isn't this what lovers do in a place like this?" Another drag of his cock easily had your body relaxing against the colorful floor of the venue. Empty chairs watching you both from a short distance away.

"They'd say their vows and consummate their love, ensuring they always love one another until the end of time?" His hold on your wrists had a grown a little tighter as a squelching sound filled the silence between you. You could feel arousal heightening your senses and making your body receptive to his actions despite you wishing it wouldn't.

Roland smiles sickeningly sweet as he leans in, your faces mere breaths apart. "You want this too, I can tell." He whispers before placing small kisses on the corner of your mouth. You take in a breath, about to protest before his eyes narrow slightly and a sudden thrust of his hips takes your breath away and leaves your mind buzzing with pleasure.

He kisses your face a few times, humming in satisfaction with your silence as he sets a steady pace inside you. Each thrust making his tip hit that place that had you seeing stars. If you didn't know any better, you would say it was almost with practiced precision, like he knew every inch of you better than you could ever hope to know yourself.

You can feel the smile on his lips as he decorates your neck with kisses, his iron grip on your wrists never once loosening. "You know, I was surprised when you contacted me." He whispers breathlessly, lightly nipping at your skin as your unsteady breaths turn into squeaks and moans. "I was certain this was a mere trap, or something so important it had left you desperate to achieve your goal no matter who you had to do it with." At that moment, a chime sounds and the doors leading to the exit of the maze open and all you can do is stare at it through glossy eyes as pleasure hits you like a wave with every thrust of his hips.

Roland chuckles again as he looks down at you, a gloating smile playing on his lips as he watches you fall apart, your human desires overtaking any protest or fight you might've had. "But when I came here and found out that you were simply naive enough to seek company from your enemy, well..." He drifts off, as his hips start slamming into yours with something that mimicked reckless abandon yet lacked the recklessness, being more akin to something designed for squeezing every little bit of pleasure out of you. "I couldn't help myself. How could an actor like me resist such an interesting plot?"

You jerk suddenly, your eyes seeing white as an orgasm crashes into you, leaving you dizzy in its wake as Roland's thrusts don't slow down or stop for a second. "You are such an interesting human. Like a blooming flower on a battlefield, I can't help wanting to pick it up and keep it for myself." He whispers with an edge, each brutal thrust of his hips making you writhe underneath him as your pleas are reduced to senseless babbling.

He leans in, your foreheads resting against each other and in this moment his expression falls away into something softer, almost loving. "We spent so much time arguing amongst ourselves, but seeing you like this makes everything we've done worth it." His voice sounds soft and raw, like a confession whispered only for his ears.

"C-can't...what..." Roland smiles and cups your cheek with his hand, freeing one of your wrists now that you can't struggle. His thumb brushes your bottom lip and it sickens you how genuinely happy he looks, his eyes full of adoration as the gentlest smile plays on his lips.

"I love you so much, you have no idea how many nights and days I spent on this Earth yearning for something to truly call mine." His pace becomes faster, any embers of your sanity fading with each slap of skin as the body heat of the construct above you rises. "And now, I can finally say..."

He grunts, his body shuddering as his eyes snap closed, a growl reverberating in his chest as he struggles to hold something back. "I can finally say..." His voice module strains as he arches into you, his cock somehow reaching deeper as he places messy kisses along your neck before he brings his face back up to yours again.

"I love you." His whispered words can barely register before his lips crash into yours, his eyes open to drink in every expression you make as he moans into the kiss. Your hips instinctively buck up into his as something hot coats your insides, he gives a final thrust to make sure you take every last drop of what he has to give and the sensation is enough to make your back arch as your second orgasm takes you.

He kisses you again and again, barely letting you breath as his other hand abandons your wrist and settles to hold your hip instead. "You have no clue how long I've wanted this to be true. Even if this is just a dream, or a play, I'm tired of playing to the audience's whims." He sounds ecstatic and desperate as he wraps his arms around and lifts you up as he slowly stands with cock still buried inside you, as if his previous orgasm meant nothing to him.

"Where are..." You slump against him, your head resting on his shoulder. You could barely speak, only just now having been given the privilege of breathing as you're vaguely aware he's walking, colors and light shifting around you in a blur.

"A proper place to continue our act, of course." He says as if it's obvious and kisses your forehead. "I'm not done yet." You're vaguely aware you're indoors again, a small living space greeting you, or perhaps you always were and you were too tired to notice.

"I hope this is to your taste," Roland says with his usual bravado. "Because we'll be here for a while." The bedroom door opens, revealing a bed illuminated by surrounding candles and the glitters of chains tied to its bedposts.

[aealzx]

The first thing Raphael learned about the new Mikey was that he was way more chaotic than their own Mikey. If he hadn’t seen the little guy bulldoze through a meta wall on his own, Raphael would have even called him foolhardy. But having seen Lil Mikey’s skill first hand meant that when he took off running down the hall after a purple EMP wave knocked out the entire base and their own communications, Raphael only followed. Which caused his two brothers to do the same, Don rebooting his tech on the way.

“Uhhhhhh, what was that??” Mikey demanded, speeding up to keep pace with Lil Mikey.

“DONNIE!” Lil Mikey called out once more, both in response to his counterpart, and to try and locate his missing brother.

“That answers absolutely nothing,” Mikey protested.

“Relax Mikey. It was just an EMP pulse. The other Donatello probably doesn’t know we’re here, so wouldn’t see the harm in setting one off,” Don calmed, brightening when his headset crackled back to life. “April?”

“Don?” Mom April’s voice came back laced with relief. “Thank goodness. I thought you’d been captured. I was suddenly kicked from the system.”

“EMP pulse. We’re back online though, and the backup generator just booted up. Can you tell us where Leo and the other Donatello are from us?” Don explained, cutting to the important details since they were already moving.

“I was able to release Leo from here, but it looks like he took a wrong turn while I was disconnected. I’ll try to lead him to join you since he’s familiar with our tactics,” Mom April explained, being able to relocate Leo in the cameras and place him on the map along with the other four. “The other one is no longer captured either, the containment room is empty, but I can’t get a location on him. There’s a deadzone of broken cameras in the area around where he was imprisoned. My guess is he’s taking them out- Don, look out! They rebooted the mechs in the room in front of you!”

To Mom April’s credit, she did try to warn them. But to their credit, they had one more team member than usual. As the sliding doors creaked open slowly because of the minimal energy provided to them the group emerged on a modest sized combat team made from a combination of Bishop’s soldiers enhanced with alien tech from the Shredder. There were four piloted mechanoids, and about ten ground soldiers with blasters, all trained at the door the brothers were coming through.

To the enemy’s benefit of the doubt, Lil Mikey wasn’t from their dimension. As soon as he noticed the weapons trained at them Lil Mikey’s first thought was to get cover for them. And since there wasn’t any readily available he created his own. Golden orange chains crashed from his arms into the ground below and ripped the metal flooring up like a peeled banana, effectively blocking the blaster fire. That was all he was able to get done before a powered up whine sent a pulse of headache inducing energy into the room, causing Lil Mikey to yelp and clutch his head.

“MAN! That is SO unfair!” Lil Mikey whimpered.

“Don’t worry, we’ll get them,” Don consoled, already pulling a mirror from his bag of supplies to use to locate the devices without risking poking their heads out. It didn’t take long to find the upright duffle bag sized machine whirring away near a mechanoid’s foot. “Raph-”

“On it,” Raphael responded, having been looking over Don’s shoulder. Popping over the barrier they had Raphael threw bladed stars at the device before covering his head with his arms, just in case, and dropping back down. There was a satisfying clang, pop, and fizzle as the device was damaged enough to shut down. Yet along with it came the fizz of more gas canisters being broken open and tossed.

“Hey! No peeking!” Mikey chastised when a ground soldier coasted around the side, trying to sneak up on them. A stunt earned them a metal nunchuck to the shielded face, and a quick kick to the side to send them away again.

“Thanks!” Lil Mikey chimed once again, shaking his head clear before bringing his chains to life once more. While several of them whipped into the soldiers, either bashing them to the side or stealing their guns, Lil Mikey stepped out from behind the barrier. The chains from his arms came once more, thrashing forward to wrap around one of the mechanoids moments before Lil Mikey whip cracked it into a different one.

With the blaster fire having been minimized, Don and Raph darted out from either side of the barrier as well, tiny electric mines in their hands. It was almost child’s play to dodge they’re way in and out of the remaining soldiers, snaking in a quick punch or kick on their way. The mines were attached to the remaining mechanoids, electricity bursting upon contact and crackling up the machines to fry the circuits.

Raphael would have given them full points for that fight, except after a moment Lil Mikey let out a series of soft coughs and put his hands back to the oversized gas mask on his face.

“Try not to breathe in the gas if you can. It might be good for you to stay back if there’s any,” Don immediately switched more to medic mode, resting a hand on Lil Mikey’s back and leading him to the exit while trying to fan the gas away with his other hand.

“Dude, that was INSANE! How are you able to just throw a giant machine like nothing? Can I learn to do that?” Mikey cheered, rushing to catch up to the rest after having given the remaining conscious soldier a kick to the head.

“Probably because we’re made to be super soldiers,” Lil Mikey commented offhandedly, giving a few more soft coughs before taking a deeper breath once they escaped the gas cloud.

The words didn’t quite register correctly in the others’ minds, their bodies moving on autopilot for a moment while their minds caught up. 

“....What?” Raphael voiced shortly, not quite sure he understood that correctly.

“....Oh…,” was all Don could think to comment, filing that fact away for later analysis.

Mikey blinked as the construct in his mind quickly rearranged itself into an explanation that made more sense. If they were super soldiers, then they weren’t super heroes, right? “Khhk. Captain America, I’ve come to destroy you,” Mikey quoted, mimicking the static from a radio, then quickly dodging Raphael’s swatting hand.

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Previous Next

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I was too lazy to try and make the image look any better =v=; not that great with getting the oomph in action shots yet

[treepan0]

Okay so the competition has concluded and winners have been announced so Grave lore and design dump let's go

Color ref:

Shadow the hedgehog (2006) was about the potential of Shadow as a character after being revived and given freedom as a character in Sonic heroes, as a result I imaged a reflection of Ballade that was actually given the chance to see their full potential as a character. Using multiple characters as reference to flesh her out in a believable way, I kinda went nuts. (Referenced characters: Ballade, Bass, Protoman and Zero)

Grave woman was one of two robots built to look into time travel the other being a kind hearted soul named Multi man, her name coming from "Grave Timeline" referring to the existence of Quint, and Multi man getting his name from "multiverse". Upon discovery of it being a branching timeline however Multi man was scrapped, and Grave Woman was stored away offline where she slowly lost her memory, blocked out from the trauma.

Eventually it is Dr. Wily that finds her, only to update and reprogram her to fight. Giving her the grave buster, grave bombs and the ability to teleport. Upon the confrontation with Mega man, Grave starts to remember slowly who she was, as Rock's kindness reminds her of the brother she lost. Later seeing Rock surrounded by mechanoids and in danger she grabs her grave buster, alongside her grave bombs and blasts through the swarms so he can get through.

Still unsure on where Grave woman stands she is given a choice by Mega man and his family remain a foe or become and ally, with no clear footing of her own just yet she chooses to become an ally but chooses to follow Protoman for a bit in hopes to sort things out and find her own path forward. Occasionally helping out, though still heavily wracked with the guilt of her actions.

Once she feels ready she parts ways with Blues as well, and works with Dr. Light to investigate her past but it only turns up dry. But during another team up with Bass she finds her kind of reminds her of her younger self, and starts to see him almost like a younger brother but not a replacement for the one she lost. Their relationship is more built on an older person who had been hurt in the past, offering the same comfort and guidance to someone much younger but also equally hurt.

It's the way Wily manipulates and tries to replace him, along with his closed off nature that causes this view of him to form, and thus their relationship as well. Looking after him asking if he's taken care of his needs, only stopping whenever Bass asks her to. And she doesn't know much about Roll yet, but wants to get to know her though.

From then on she wants to fight to protect this newer life, so no one will ever take it away ever again.

[pretcil]

What, don’t you?

(This fic now available on Ao3!! https://archiveofourown.org/works/64940104)

A Red Dwarf fanfic! After a very busy couple of days, Rimmer finally gets around to asking Holly about her new look

This is actually the first fanfic I’ve actually written out, which tells you how much the red dwarf hyperfixation is affecting me lol. Also I am not used to writing on a phone, so sorry if this is formatted weird.

“Holly, why on earth do you look like that” Rimmer stood in the quarters, tapping his left foot as he interrogated the ship’s computer. It had been a strange couple of days, and he only just now had the opportunity to properly take in the floating head’s new appearance. It wasn’t what he was used to, putting it lightly.

“I have no idea what you mean” replied Holly, her blonde hair bouncing as she tilted her head to the side. Rimmer grit his teeth and rolled his eyes. Every day he resisted the urge to take a hose to the ships mainframe and finally free the dwarf from this artificial unintelligence. The skutters would never agree to it though.

“You know what I mean, gimboid,” spat Rimmer “Why are you a woman?” A smirk came from behind the second technician and he reluctantly looked over his shoulder at Lister. He was sat at the table, mechanical parts strewn about randomly around him. It had been nearly a week since they had found the remains of Kryten and he was still trying to put him back together. So far, he had managed to assemble his legs and one of his arms. The one attempt he had made to fix his head had lead to a night of an inexplicably Canadian voice reciting limericks, so that was being left for last. Once Rimmer had turned to face him, Lister gestured toward him with the mechanoid hand he was holding and pointed out the obvious-

“You can’t just ask someone why they’re a woman Rimmer,”

“I can when they turn into one inexplicably when they have other responsibilities to be dealing with” Rimmer stared daggers at the head on the screen, thinking about the state the medi bay remained in after Lister’s “procedure”. The skutters were on strike, the lazy sods. They were treated so nicely by the crew, why were they complaining? If Rimmer had a body, he would have kicked their stupid claw-head things off.

"You still haven’t answered my question you know,” continued Rimmer as he spun back on his heel to face Holly “Why have you turned yourself into a woman?”

Holly seemed to ponder for a moment before replying

“I dunno,” she mused casually “just wanted to I guess”

“You what?!” exclaimed Rimmer furiously as Cat prowled into the room and draped himself across a chair, mirror in hand.

“I don’t see why you’re complaining non-bud,” said Cat, his eyes not leaving the mirror as he preened himself, “This place was far too much of a sausage party anyway”

“Exactly,” smirked Lister “Why’re you so worked up about this, man?”

Rimmer grimaced and tried to ignore them, turning his attention back to the blonde bimbo on the screen

“You can’t become a woman because you ‘just wanted to’, you senile git” Rimmer’s right leg started to bounce subtly, as it often did.

“Why not?” Holly asked, playing up her obliviousness to mess with him. Rimmer was appalled; Lister swore he saw steam coming out of his ears.

“Why not?” He was launching into one of his trademark rants “Why not?! Don’t tell me you’re being serious here!”

Lister sighed and grabbed a different size screwdriver as he leant back in his chair and braced for whatever Rimmer would be saying now.

“Just because society’s been and gone doesn’t mean we don’t have standards! All men *want* to be women sometimes, but if we all went around becoming them, we wouldn’t-“

“Hold up Rimsy” interrupted Lister. Rimmer turned to face them, irritated at the abrupt stop. He had a whole speech planned out here. Both Lister and the Cat were looking at him quite oddly.

“What, what is it?” Rimmer didn’t like how they were looking at him. He suddenly felt very nervous

“I’ve never wanted to be a woman” said Lister

“What?”

“I said I’ve never wanted to be a woman,” continued Lister “Never even thought what I’d be like as one”

“I- What?” Rimmer couldn’t do anything but repeat himself

“Me neither,” remarked the Cat “I mean, I’ve imagined a female version of me, but that was just a sex thing. I’ve never wanted to *be* one” The cat seemed almost horrified by the mere concept of being a woman. Rimmer stood very awkwardly in front of the two men. The silence lasted far too long.

“You’re lying to me,” Rimmer was trying to avoid the growing dread in his stomach “You’ve seriously never wanted to be women?” Cat and Lister exchanged wordless glances and shook their heads.

“What, gen- genuinely?” The hologram’s leg was bouncing again “You guys have never wanted… you know?” He gestured towards his chest with cupped hands. Lister smiled awkwardly and with some degree of concern

“No, we haven’t mate” he said decidedly. There was another loaded silence before he added,

“Have you?”

Rimmer stood like a deer in headlights as the question hung in the air. He thought back over the nights he spent looking in the mirror, wondering. The glances at his mother and his cousins as they got up to whatever women do, and the strange feeling the clawed at the back of his mind. He thought of the world he had escaped to in his head after tough days at school, and the person he was there. It was all coming together. All the pieces were beginning to fit and look more and more like a full picture. Rimmer was not having any of it, however, and decided to flip the table over, put the jigsaw away, and play scrabble instead.

“Of course I haven’t!” He snapped, trying to sound like he was stating the obvious, despite the nearly minute long gap between the question and the answer. Lister sighed and picked the screwdriver up again.

“Whatever you say, Rimmer” he said, shaking his head. Rimmer cleared his throat and looked awkwardly at the Cat, who had lost interest and was filing his nails. This had not been a good moment for Rimmer’s plan to build respect on the ship.

“Well, if that’s all,” he mumbled awkwardly, “ I’m going to go check on the skutters”

He strode as confidently and as quickly as he could out the door, making sure he was out of the view of the others before biting down very hard on his knuckles.

Holly looked around the room awkwardly. Despite not having a physical body, and therefore no way of eating, she couldn’t stop thinking about eggs. It was just as well she couldn’t eat, in all honesty, as she was pretty sure there were barely any left on the ship. She did a quick inventory check and confirmed her suspicions. Yep, there were only 6 chicken eggs, 8 duck eggs, and one Rimmer on board. And one of those was cracked anyway.

[kadajsbitch]

Fresh Air

Pinocchio x Fem!Reader

Warning: Smoking a cigarette, other than that none for the most part.

I kind of want to turn this into a series, idk yet. This may be a bit OOC but for the most part, the character is nameless as for the little mentions of her family and things, I still for the most part kept it a clean slate for the readers to make that themselves. If I do make this a series, I’ll probably give them a last name or something but as of now, it’s pretty much a blank slate so enjoy. 😅

•*•*•*•*•*•

It was late. Way too late for a lady of her status to be outside even if it was just to stand in front of the building she resided at.

But then again, those things didn’t matter anymore… not with the rogue mechanoids patrolling the streets of Krat looking for any potential human or even puppet that hadn’t been affected with whatever was turning them haywire, to ultimately slaughter. It also didn’t matter anymore considering she no longer lived under her families rule anymore. For all they knew, she was dead and despite that being a cause for concern to most, it was one of the things that felt like a grand weight being lifted off her shoulders… therefore, her status didn’t matter anymore.

She pulled her robe around herself a little more tightly for the sake of keeping warmth. Due to the fires that were beginning to spread around the already apocalyptic city, the winds had picked up, causing for it all to appear slightly foggy, and in all honesty hard to breath… which made for what she was about to do seem stupid.

But one thing was for certain and that was that Krat was now in an apocalyptic state and even if the puppets were to one day just stop their tumultuous assault against everything within their line of vison, it would take years before Krat could be in a state of repair… and years before it would be fully repaired.

She reached into her robe pocket, keeping her head up and alert as she looked around once more, wearily taking a few hesitant steps away from the door. While it had only been a few days since her arrival to the hotel, she felt as if she was trapped which to her was slightly ironic because before she had arrived, she had told herself if there were people there who could help her, she’d never leave the building for the sake of her life.

To get to the hotel had been a challenging and a perilous journey itself. She had been on her way back to the station, not willing that was or sure but having only been in Krat because she thought she’d be able to hide out there until her family got bored with looking for her…

She let out a frustrated huff, as she quickly moved to check her other pocket, and to both her satisfaction and annoyance, she finally grasped the thing she had been looking for… the box of cigarettes.

Straightening herself as she hesitantly glanced down the bridge and around her once more, making sure she was indeed alone. Her attention fell back to the little box. She had grabbed it off a corpse when she had been running towards the hotel… she guessed it had been a simple cream white color before it had been splattered with blood.

It felt wrong to grab it off a dead man’s body, but then again it wasn’t like he would be using them. She for one, definitely did not them nor have any true need for them considering she had never smoked before in her life. Yet she did it… and she despite the overwhelming feeling of regret having to do with her actions, she felt a peculiar sense of excitement by it due to the fact if her family could see her, they’d surely throw a fit at catching her smoking.

She carefully slid the little box from the bloodied sleeve that held its contents, before pulling one of the carefully hand rolled pieces out. Quickly, she placed it between her lips before pocketing the box and shoving it back in her robe pocket and finding her matches.

Speaking of her family….

She came from a wealthy one. One with lots of influence on those within in London and neighboring countries, yet no one would’ve guessed considering she never had her debut into society the proper way due to the fact she had ran away. She knew what would come of the day… Her mother had wanted to throw a debutante ball and hold it at their manor, like they had done for her sister and cousins, and so on.

While from the outside, it seemed like a grand affair, some girls who were the stars of their balls and those they attended, loved it and looked forward to them, she knew it was just an excuse for her parents to go window shopping for a husband for her. The very thing she did not want.

So, she waited a week before the event, the night of her escape she had changed into one of the puppet servants clothing and promptly ran away. She had been fifteen then… and she had been very ill-prepared for how the world outside of first class society really was and yet, she wouldn’t trade it for nothing in the world because at least she had one thing her parents seemed to have not wanted her to have at all, and that was free will to live her life according.

Of course, her family wasn’t just going to allow her to leave on her own terms. Over the years she had narrowly escaped men who had chased after her, no doubt privately hired by her father who promised them wealth and money to find her. Three men in which, continued their pursuit of finding and bringing her back to her father alive and in one piece for the award they were no doubt expecting from the man.

And they would’ve succeeded this time too, if not for the puppets at the station going haywire and attacking the men who were all but trying to drag her in the train and those around her…

Feeling her hand grasp the small box of matches, she quickly pulled it out, her head whipping around to ensure her safety once more before she looked down, bringing the now lit match that she had repeatedly hit against the striker until it was ignited.

Quickly she brought the end of her cigarette to it before shaking the match out, and taking a shaky inhale. While she had never smoked before, she had been told if she ever tried, to inhale with her mouth first before fully inhaling with her lungs to avoid the embarrassment of hacking up said lungs. She pushed the smoke out through her nose, making an audible “Oh.” Sound before, she brought the cigarette away from her mouth as she hesitantly looked across the bridge, her face fixing on the figure she hadn’t noticed before.

She froze for what felt like minutes before she slowly made her way to the hotel door. However, she got the need to look back once more, in which she did, and luckily it wasn’t a puppet like she had assumed… it was him.

He was halfway across the bridge now, his eyes fixed on her. He wore a simple chemise top that had a loose frill collar, and simple black breeches with his flat shoes and socks. A stark contrast from the uniform she was use to seeing him in…She suddenly became aware of what she had on, as the skirt of her chemise night dress and train of her robe blew slightly in the harsh wind, again reminding her that she shouldn’t have been out. If not for the fact that by societal standards, she was a woman, it was the fact that she was dressed indecently especially considering she was alone.

She pulled the silk robe a little bit tighter around her chest area, looking down to make sure it was still secured in place by the silk belt of the robe before she hesitantly stepped away from the door as he got closer.

“It’s late. You could’ve smoked through the window.” His voice was surprisingly deep yet it wasn’t so guttural, and held a softness to it. It was both pleasing yet odd coming from him considering his features were somewhat soft. Despite this, he didn’t sound particularly upset or worried about what she was doing. More so stating the situation, and a solution that would’ve been better than her coming outside.

She sighed softly, exhaling the smoke as she turned to look behind him and towards her right. “Yes, it is and I could’ve but I needed some time outside of the hotel… I know the air isn’t particularly fresh out here, but it’s nice to be outside.” She said, her eyes finding his to search his expression.

He tilted his chin down slightly keeping his eyes on her as his eyebrows furrowed in an expression that seemed to be questioning her reasons.

“Nice to be outside… in these conditions.” He turned his body slightly to look at the scene beyond the destroyed building that stood closer to the hotel as his eyes shifted from one collapsing building to the few giant clouds of black smoke rising in the air from fires that brewed.

She rolled her eyes, shaking her head slightly as she took another drag of the cigarette, now feeling a little more comfortable to inhale it. “As thankful as I am for Antonia’s benevolence and allowing me to stay under her roof for the time being, staying inside for too long can be a bit stuffy. No matter how many windows you open.” She said, watching as he turned to look back at her, his eyebrow raised slightly in a questioning matter while his gaze seemed to hold a look of doubt.

“Besides, it’s not like we can really have many windows open… while it does seem like the puppets tend to ignore the inside of the buildings, if they catch wind of seeing anything within, they’ll do what they usually do.” She says frowning. When she had arrived to the hotel, she had felt safe enough to relax and be as loud as she wanted due to the fact she was staying in the highest part of the hotel… that’s until Antonia informed her that some of the puppets were climbing.

“How attentive. You’re observant enough to know that if they think they can sense humans within the building, they’ll tear it down in a means to get to us. Yet it’s alright to stand outside and smoke because you’re in need of fresh air?” At this, she narrowed her eyes at him slightly before rolling them watching as a gentle grin found it’s way on his lips.

“We haven’t been formally introduced. My name’s Pinocchio.” At this, her exspression shifted to one of curiosity. “Like the fairytale?” He nodded before holding his hand out for her to shake, an action in which she carefully repeated as they became familiar with one another.

“(Y/n).” She said, a little to stiffly for her liking but hoping it was believable. She had been using the false name for years after she had ran away, yet it never felt right coming from her lips.

She didn’t miss how the corner of his mouth slowly withdrew, his eyebrow raising more as a smirk found its way to his face. “Lovely name. I haven’t met anyone with a name like yet.” She smiled, withdrawing her hand from his as he did as well.

She had seen the man walking around the hotel every now and then, but she had never interacted with him due to the fact he seemed to only really come inside the hotel to maybe get supplies and talk to Eugenia, Antonia, and the man who resided in the study.

And almost immediately, he’d leave afterwards. She had never seen him eat or drink anything, which in turn made her believe he ate when she was either in her room considering the fact it’s where she mainly stayed now unless she was speaking with Eugenia, the girl who ran the weapons shop she had became friendly with.

After a moment of silence and looking at one another, he turned to face the bridge to look at the scene in-front of them.

“You shouldn’t stay out too long. They rarely come up here, but every now and then there’s two or three that are sauntering infront of the door when I come or am exiting.” At this, her face fell from the relaxed, almost pleasant look to one of shock. Not really by the fact that they would come close to the hotel, that much she assumed but she hadn’t even bothered to check the windows before she so much as opened the doors.

He glanced at her from the side before smiling gently, turning back towards the doors as he opened one. Before he entered however, he looked over to her, clearing sensing her sudden unease. “Are you coming inside too or, do you wish to enjoy the outside air more?” He asked. Again, his tone was gentle yet you could see an almost teasing look in his eye as she stood there waiting for his response.

She didn’t hesitate however. Quickly, she knelt down, quickly stubbing the cigarette out as her other hand held her robe together tightly to keep modest before she stood up, and quickly went inside. Nodding at Pinocchio who averted his eyes to the ground to watch his step, once she was inside as he moved to follow, closing the door behind him.

[freshmangojuice]

Long after Lister and the Cat are gone, and Rimmer has shut himself down, Kryten is left alone again. Going senile like Holly and suffering with android dementia, he wanders Red Dwarf still trying to keep the ship in order.

Warning: very sad oneshot

Grade 2 dust on the G deck pipes again. Kryten flapped his microfiber dusting cloth and took care of the unsightly dust that had settled on the oxygen pipes that run along the corridor. Such details were important. Five minutes later— or was it ten? He’d have to recalibrate his internal clock. His cloth was now significantly blackened, he would have to make his way to the laundry for it to join the next load. It was just two decks down. All he had to do was get to the Xpress Lift at the end of the corridor and head down. It couldn’t be simpler. Big jerky steps took him along the guiding yellow line on the floor that led to the lift.

He was following the yellow line. Definitely the yellow line. Just like Dorothy. It was patchy in places and crossed over the green and red lines in several places. It was a right mess. They were meant to be directional, somebody was going to get lost if they tried following these to get to where they’re trying to be. Those lines need to be repainted. The skutters should be able to take care of that. Kryten stopped his walk to quickly program a reminder for himself to organise the repainting.

Kryten had always related to the tin man, but the scarecrow in need of a brain was who he felt more like these days. He wasn’t sure why, isn’t this how things have always been? That was a 20th century film. What was it called again? He wondered why he even had the information on disk. Who would have shown it to him?

Humming the tune to ‘follow the yellow brick road’ as he carefully stepped on the patchy and wonky yellow line, what Kryten wasn’t aware of in that moment, was that he had painted those wonky lines 10 days ago.

His mind was confused. He forgot things, he got lost and turned around, things that should be familiar sometimes scared him. He hadn’t always been like this. 4 and a half million years ago he was top of the range exquisite technology. His head was packed with RAM and memory far larger than any mechanoid before. Now his components were failing him. He’d long-since run out of spare parts, with no materials to replace them. Maybe it was one too many corrupt files he’d had to scrub from his harddrive. Maybe it was a scorched circuit somewhere, or a screw loose. Maybe it was because he was so, so old. His system computer hadn’t updated his status in a very long time, he wasn’t aware of what was wrong, so that meant that nothing was wrong.

The Xpress Lift parted its doors and Kryten took his robotic jerky steps inside.

‘Where to?’ asked the lift.

Kryten stood there for a few moments, calculating and examining, scanning his surroundings for clues. He’d already forgotten about heading to the laundry, even with the dirty cloth still in his hand.

"Do excuse me," he said politely to the lift, "I seem to have taken a wrong turn. I will not be needing your services right this moment," and he stepped back out of the lift. He looked at the thick, flat, intertwining breadths of colour on the floor. It looked like a muddled bag of jelly snakes all wrapped around each other, and the longer he looked at them the more muddled they became. Kryten shook his head to recalibrate his eyes. He could’ve sworn he’d seen the snakes wriggling.

There were toilets further up the corridor, and Kryten ignored the jelly snake lines as he went back the way he came to get to them.

These toilets were never dirty, never clogged. It was as if nobody ever used them. That can’t be. There had to be a crew using them every day.

Hold on. 

Where was the crew? 

Kryten’s internal cooling fans started to spin faster. 

The ship had a crew, it did. He remembered Miss Anne. She had big black hair, it got everywhere, he was always cleaning it up. But he hadn’t seen her or her hair for a long time. Hadn’t she died? Hadn’t they all died?

The noise of the fans spinning as he overheated buzzed through his body.

Yes, yes. She had died. She was on the Nova 5. They had crashed and the humans had died. Then he was alone. He’s still alone. How long had he been alone?

No, no. He was a mechanoid. He wasn’t supposed to feel alone, he wasn’t supposed to feel anything.

So why did he?

He couldn’t remember breaking his programming, nor could he remember who it was that helped him do it. The name of the ship he was on, and had been on for over a million years eluded him. The only companions he knew of now were the last remaining skutters. The only voices he heard were automated. There was nothing left to remind him of how much it meant to him to be a person. There was no one to look after, no one to joke with. Kryten had lost his friends and lost himself long ago.

[pushing500]

With the unnatural darkness dealt with, Cora can get back to work in our hydroponics room looking after the plants that Tupelo missed while she was busy stabilising Ivy.

We're growing lots of fun things, including chickpeas and capsicum, with some fibrecorn in case I forget to chop trees for our wood-fueled generators (which I often do).

Since she's not awakened yet, Cora doesn't do anything apart from work. Her only breaks are for recovering memory space in her standing spot, and I hope she gets some kind of enjoyment from her "naps". I wonder what androids might dream about? Probably just machinery or electricity or something.

no this wasn't just an excuse to show off the androids' bedroom shut up

Cora is also very confused about why people seem so infatuated by the miniature human that spends most of the time asleep in Jut and Beau's room. It doesn't even do anything, what's so special about it??

I do think it's very sweet that Jut adores his daughter so much. Sometimes it looks like he's racing to get to her before Beau does so he can hug her and make her giggle. I bet he's trying to teach her to say "papa" before she says "mama" so he can tease Beau about it.

Speaking of Jut, he's apparently quite touchy about his construction skills. I was a little stressed that the fight between our two unbelievably skilled melee colonists would end super badly, but it didn't. I couldn't even tell who won, though I'm going to hazard a guess that it was Jut. He thought the fight was cathartic, but it just made Alistair angry.

It's alright, though. After Alistair patched himself up he stomped away to sulk in Ivy's room with her smut collection. I think he likes those books more than she does! I suppose it's his only way to really learn much about the, ah, intricacies of 'anatomy'. Mechi and Kwahu are definitely not going into detail about that sort of thing with him, I'm sure.

First | Next | Previous

[cosmicretreat]

The Doctor Who adventure "The Chase" began airing today in 1965. Having finally figured out time travel, the Daleks chase the Doctor and his companions through various moments and places in time, including the Mary Celeste, the Empire State Building, and a haunted house. Eventually the TARDIS crew winds up on Mechanus, where they meet an Earth astronaut, Steven Taylor. The Mechanoids, work robots created to aid space exploration by humans, were meant to be a recurring enemy, but were so bulky and hard to operate that they never appeared again. Mechanus also brings us the appearance of the Fungoids and a robot double of the Doctor.

At the end of this story, original companions Ian Chesterton and Barbara Wright use the Dalek time machine to return to 1960s London. All of his original companions gone, the Doctor will now go forward with Vicki and Steven.

The final serial of season 8, "The Dæmons," began airing today in 1971. This season introduced the Master and featured him as the main villain of each story, and here his plot to pose as a rural vicar to raise up a demon-like creature is pure Hammer horror.

[sweet7simple]

Hi Sweet7simple, (idk or remember another name as greeting so i can’t go wrong with this one lol )

So i’m a huge fan of the alien xenomorph franchise and i’m wondering.

Any thoughts on the transformers ( the lsot light specifically or decepticons ) encountering an abandoned lab and stumbling upon xenomorphs?

Hello, Cozzzy! Sweet7simple is fine, or whatever shorthand of it that you can think of.

I flipping LOVE the xenomorphs. I love those stupid acid murder cats. No thoughts, just hostility and traumatic births.

I do have some thoughts! The xenomorphs are generally only hostile toward organics, whether outright murdering them or using them as part of their reproductive cycle. The transformers are mechanoids, though. A xenomorph will only damage a form of transport as much as they need to in order to get from one place or another in search of organics.

What I am getting at here is that the xenomorphs don't care about the mecha. So I like to think that Whirl adopts one as a pet and everyone is having a decent time hanging out with these furious, weird -looking humanoid-like kitties. The xenomorphs get a little pissed off when the Cybertronians try to contain them or show them physical affection, but their claws and fangs don't do a lot against Cybertronian metal.

The horror only starts when a xenomorph tries to attach Tailgate - don't know why, just go with me on this - and Cyclonus, protective, slices the xenomorph in half. Blood spatters on him, Tailgate, and Rodimus, all of them standing too close.

Before Rodimus can even say something about how that wasn't necessary, the ugly kitty cat thing wasn't going to hurt anyone, he's screaming in excruciating pain.

No one knew about the acid blood and it is strong enough to eat through Cybertronian metal. Tailgate loses an arm, Cyclonus almost loses his face, and Ratchet spends a good long time reinforcing Rodimus's spark chamber, which was penetrated by the acid.

Whirl is not allowed to bring his xenomorph pet back on the ship (he does anyway).

(Later, Snookums - his xenomorph - saves the ship from a ragtag group of decepticon loyalists by bleeding on them. Snookums doesn't survive, but she does get an honorary plaque and Whirl is reluctantly forgiven for having her on board).

[dorokora]

Chapter 16 Prologue Part 3:

We start with a dream flashback of Curren, where she had to go through painful test after test in the lab. Their words don’t bother her, as the other day her brother was scrapped for his hardware and she will be next for her software. Her brother had excellent exam results. He is on par with Isaac and Bertro. But the body's endurance is reaching its limits, and just the other day, he was discarded and taken away. She was captured by the security mechanoids. After this, she will probably be dumped at the "edge of paradise." Suddenly her giant robot brother MS-C1 appeared to rescue her and they escaped using time leap for the first time. Back to the present, Curren thinks about Michael and Amaterasu having their priorities wrong. She commented that the reason they lost was because they couldn't bring themselves to say that they didn't care about the old world that gave birth to them. They don't care about their old home that tried to abandon them. What's important from now on is just how will humans survive? Her and her siblings were incomplete. She couldn't survive on one side alone, she accepted that. The choice, the thought, there may not have been any freedom of choice, but. This is far better than being trapped and destroyed by the outdated idea of ​​a fixed "base." She will carry out Plan C. The girl decided they will live in the future. There is no need for freedom of choice. There is only one way to go.

Back to Tu'er Shen as he continues to see into the future and seeing something beyond comprehension. Back to Onyankopon who explains that “new life” are forms of life made to be adapted to the future. In other words, a resident of a different world, a utopia. This is the next step of MxOther’s plans. “New life” is migrating to the future city, and to Tokyo. And so the future of forming the majority in Tokyo has been decided. Onyankopon remembers a report about the Yoyogi academy being a testing site established for that type of research. Where multiple minds can co-exist in one body. Back to Tu'er Shen, who after seeing the dreaded future decided to find a new guild, he can’t handle what’s coming on his own. Back to Mononobe, Mononobe tells MC there’s a place he wants to take them. The old laboratory at Yoyogi.

The next day, we see Tu'er Shen and Hei Long Yi Quan, the other day Bohemio told the new recruit Tu'er Shen to join up with Hei Long Yi Quan for a mission since their abilities will be perfect together. The mission is to investigate the whereabouts of the institute that’s working with MxOther. Tu'er Shen gets a vision and Hei Long Yi Quan launched his sacred artifact at the maybe threat.

[therimmerexperience]

Smegtober- Day 7 (Sacrifice)

“I need to go home,” Ace, Rimmer, told Wildfire, his voice nasal and whiny; he was ready to be himself again. 

“As you wish,” replied the disembodied voice from the cockpit, her tone, as always, indifferent and cold. She scanned her dimensional records with a beep. 

Rimmer's eyes widened in disbelief as he laughed bitterly, “it was that easy? You could have taken the others home at any time too?” 

“Yes, Arnold,” she replied, still indifferent. 

“Why?” He tore the wig from his head, tossing it to the arm of his chair and missing. He left it on the ground.

“Why what?” 

“Why did you never take any of the others back?” He glowered at Wildfire's control panel as if she could see him, as if she had the capacity to care. If he had known, if any of them had known, that they could have just asked to go home, the Ace Rimmer grave planet would be a ring system short of a war memorial. 

“They never asked,” she, once again, answered plainly.

Rimmer shook his head, opening his mouth though the strained feeling in the back of his throat prevented anything from escaping. Eventually, he gave up. Lecturing an unemotional machine on human decency seemed redundant. He felt foolish for even getting upset at her. 

“Just take me home.” He finally relented. 

Wildfire buzzed, a swell of blue expanding in the ink before them and swallowing them whole, spitting them back out in a similar blotchy scene, speckled with stars, only with one major difference; a large spacecraft hung in the sky to the right of Wildfire, dusty rouge and just as tasteless and magnificent as he remembered it. It was home. 

Boarding the dwarf, stepping, for the first time in decades, onto the landing bay, he was greeted by Kryten first, the rest of the crew behind him, his head wider and his body a brighter shade of silver than before. He had aged. Could mechanoids age? Rimmer pushed away the thought. It made him feel old. 

“Mr Ace!” he gushed, a veil of perplexion shrouding his features while his eyes scanned the wig pressed curls on Rimmer’s head. A smug, knowing smile tugged at Lister’s cheeks, the creases around his mouth deeper than Rimmer remembered, his eyes lined, crows feet forming in the corners. He pulled him into a tight hug, much like when he had first left though Lister definitely felt softer.  Rimmer supposed time had done the same to him too.

Red Dwarf itself had changed. Rimmer had noted all of the small differences mentally while on his way to Lister’s room: hallways seemingly stretched further, the ceilings panels no longer resembled styrofoam and he could have sworn there never used to be that many elevators. He wondered if the diesel desks had changed. His next spontaneous getaway the next time someone fell ill would surely be more interesting than the time Lister contracted space mumps- for one, he had an actual body now. 

 Looking around, Rimmer felt like he was in a funhouse, the room distorted compared to the one in his memory; he was still trying to wrap his head around the nanobot resurrection, let alone the changes the resurrection had caused; since when were bunkrooms that big?  It was remarkable how pleasantly sized beds were supposed to be before the JMC budget cuts. He shrugged off his hideous silver flight jacket, throwing it out into the middle of the room and watching it dissolve into light before it hit the floor. 

“So,” he turned to Lister, who was slumped in a chair by the table, “Where did the other me go? The one who was resurrected.”

“He’s hiding,” The scouser chucked, “down in the cargo decks. I think he’s scared you're here to replace him.”

Rimmer settled in the chair opposite Lister’s, resting his hands lackadaisically on the surface in front of him and shooting him a playfully suspicious glance, “and why would he think that?”

“Because that's what I told him,” He grinned idiotically, much like he used to back in his twenties, “It’s not my fault he believed me.”

Rimmer couldn't help but smile in return, “I was never that much of a tremendous coward, was I?”

“Well, he is only human.”

They stewed in silence for a moment. Considering his next words carefully before he let them tumble from his tongue, Rimmer pressed his mouth into a straight line, his brow creasing. He watched his former crewmate tap anxiously on the metal tabletop expectantly for a while. 

“He won't want to take Wildfire,” Lister beat him to it, still tapping, “I think he's worse than you were.”

Rimmer nodded; he knew exactly what he had meant by ‘worse’; he was less adjusted, more cowardly, meaner and so much more bitter- all of the things that made Rimmer 'worse’ than most other people. A hand slid over the top of one of Rimmer's, brushing its thumb over his reassuringly and squeezing it lightly. Lister’s eyes met his, unchanged, still the same shade of brown they always had been: a sickly sweet hue of honey.

“I don’t want to leave,” the hologram admitted sheepishly, withdrawing his hands, “I’ve been Ace too long, Listy. Longer than any other Rimmer.”

“I’m sure I can convince him to give it a go,” he winked, “I’ve done it before.”

—-

Rimmer climbed into the cockpit of Wildfire, gaudy, senset blonde wig askew and flight jacket rubbing the wrong way on his skin; he wasn't ready. He waved to the man who looked just like him, who saluted in return, the H on his forehead shimmering in the light of the landing bay. Lister smiled thankfully, a semblance of guilt on the curl of his lips. How could Rimmer have said no? It wasn't as though he truly belonged here. He was merely a spare part.

“Come on, old love,” Nano-Rimmer prompted Wildfire in an Ace impersonation, still yet to be perfected, “We better be off.”

[ocean--grey]

Here's my attempt at Smegtober 2024's Day 3 prompt, "Parents" :)

Word count: ~1300 words

Warnings: brief mention of Lister and Rimmer's canonically terrible childhoods, Lister leaving the twins behind in the Parallel Universe

Edit: now on AO3 :)

Ten months after one of the strangest mistakes of her life, Deb Lister was convinced she’d never get used to the responsibility of looking after her sons.

It was just under a month after Dave had dropped off the twins – Jim and Bexley – and she hadn’t got a full night’s sleep with all the time she spent fretting over them. They’d arrived almost fully grown, physically eighteen, but had seemingly reverted in every way over the past few weeks into children, an apparent compromise between their recent birth and accelerated ageing due to being born in another universe.

In all fairness, she felt like Dave got the short end of the stick, forced to give away his kids just three days after giving birth to them, never able to see them naturally progress into adulthood. She’d seen the regret in his eyes as he handed them over – it wasn’t as though he had a say in the matter though. The universe had decided his kids wouldn’t survive with him, so it wasn’t like he’d chosen to abandon them. If they’d been conceived in Dave’s universe, he’d have been able to raise them, but then Deb would have been the one to let them go.

Just unfortunate luck, really.

The kind of unfortunate luck that also left Deb herself in an awkward situation: trying to teach the kids. She’d be the first to admit academics weren’t her thing – in the few occasional weeks she’d properly tried to go to school regularly, maths and art were the only subjects she did decently in.

She’d ask Kryten, the newest member of the group, for help, but Deb was still busy replacing her wiring after that crash on the asteroid, and could confidently say that the mechanoid would be out of commission for a while longer.

Dog wouldn’t be great with teaching the kids phonics and the like - he communicated mainly through smells rather than words, and thought human books were for decorating the floor of the bunkroom like confetti.

Hilly was no help either. Still hung up on the doppelgänger crew’s computer, he’d changed appearances to mirror the object of his affection and skulked off to the furthest corners of Red Dwarf’s electrical system to read Anthony Christie novels in peace, occasionally turning up to snark and bemoan about his lost love.

This process of elimination left Rimmer. God, Deb didn’t even want to think about what her roommate would consider a good quality education. Probably teach the twins twice-daily mandatory Ionian etiquette lessons, threaten to toss them out an airlock if they didn’t pronounce stuff with that nasally stuck-up accent of hers, stuff like that. Actually, Lister bet the smeghead would probably turn her nose up at stooping so low from her post as to actually help her roommate out with Jim and Bexley.

Which was why, all things considered, when Arlene actually offered to teach the kids the month after they arrived, and was a damn great teacher at that, Lister was gobsmacked.

Somehow, the smeghead managed to command the attention of the twins enough to get them writing full sentences within a few weeks. She’d screech in horror, of course, whenever they got something even slightly wrong (which Lister had been worried about at first) but somehow it seemed a comical kind of screech rather than her usual demeaning one. Mock horror, almost.

Whatever it was that made Rimmer such an great teacher for the boys, it made the lessons entertaining enough that soon Jim kept coming up to Rimmer to show her short stories he’d shakily written, or Bexley would grab her attention with an “Auntie Arlene, look at this new word I can spell!”

Oh yeah, and the “Auntie Arlene” remarks kept coming. It seemed the boys considered their temporary teacher almost as much of a parental figure as Deb herself.

Which, of course, Lister was completely fine with, totally. Didn’t feel threatened at all, actually.

So when Jim asked her one night, when she tucked the twins into bed, “Mum, do you and Auntie Arlene not like each other?”, she swallowed down an immediate scathing retort and instead muttered “We have our differences, but don’t fret about it, ‘kay?”

The next day she’d cornered Rimmer on the main deck.

“Why the smeg do the kids like you so much? What can you offer them that I can’t?”

Rimmer’s lips had curled at this. “Instilling a good sense of hygiene, perhaps? Or maybe a comprehensive understanding of the importance of structure and law-abiding?”

“Rimmer, the only laws you actually follow to a T are the ones you’ve implemented yourself! Besides, stuff like that doesn’t really matter when there’s only us on the ship.” She scrambled to speak again as Rimmer’s nostrils twitched. “Also, it’s not like you can offer them any comfort. Emotionally you’re a wasp’s nest on the best of days, and you’re not even physically here!”

Rimmer’s mouth gaped open like a suffocating fish, before pursing tight. “Thanks for reminding me of my death, you goit! My, you lack so much tact its value’s practically negative. Great example for your kids, aren’t you?”

With that, the hologram stormed off through a wall.

Lister found her a few hours later, after tucking the twins into bed. Rimmer had been slinking around the fuel decks, apparently sulking silently except for a few half-hearted attempts to kick at the pipes along the walls – unsuccessfully, of course. By the time Lister found her, she had slid down a wall, staring down at her lap.

Deb crouched beside her before slouching against the wall too, curling her body in to face Rimmer. Letting out a sigh, she began.

“Listen Rimmer, I went too far back there. Honestly, I feel like I’m not handling this well – any of it actually. I’m so scared I’ll be an awful parent to the twins –”

“You’re not, though.”

Deb’s rant careened off its tracks and exploded, leaving only debris behind.

“… Eh?”

“You’re not. An awful parent, I mean. You’re still learning and, considering the general lack of support around here, you’re doing pretty fine.”

“Thanks. I think?”

Rimmer’s eyes rolled. “That was actually a compliment, directed towards you, from me. Yes I know, it’s impossible!” A grin flickered across her face for a split second, before returning to a careful neutral expression as she resumed studying her lap. “Besides, you’re doing better than I ever could by myself.”

Deb hesitated, then replied “Honestly, I’m not doing it all by myself. You’ve actually been a lot of help. Look,” here she uncurled her body, and Rimmer’s eyes connected with hers, “you’re not half bad either, considering what you’ve told me about your mum. I think all things considered we’re both doing a decent job, eh?”

Rimmer nodded, seemingly only half listening as she kept locking eyes with Lister.

“Listen, I’m sorry I said that smeg earlier. I just… don’t want to feel like I’m failing the boys in any way, and seeing them so excited to talk with you about your lessons and stuff made me think you were…”

Rimmer cut in harshly, “What, trying to steal them away from you?”

“A bit like that, yeah. But not only that? I was expecting you to make parenting into a kind of competition between us, y’know, who can help the kids grow and develop better than the other, the kind of smeg you used to pull all the time.”

“Key phrase there being used to.”

“Well, still do it sometimes, don’t you?” Lister chuckled.

The conversation faded as they listened to the pipes hum for a minute. After a while, Rimmer replied.

“Well, I’m not planning on making this a competition. Not this time. Too much at stake, the kids and all that. Wouldn’t want to mess them up over petty rivalry.”

“Nah, we wouldn’t.”

“So… truce?”

Deb felt the weight on her shoulders loosen, even if only by a tiny bit. “Sure.”

She spat on her hand, and reached out to shake. Rimmer rolled her eyes again and gestured down at her hologrammatic body. Lister paused for a second, then announced to the room “Hilly, can you seal the deal for us?”

She strolled away, chuckling once more, to the sound of her roommate trying to stifle her own guffaws even as she tried to shake the spit off her hand.