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elizabeth-holland24 · 2 days ago

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Racing Hearts-Chapter 3

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July 10 – Heathrow Airport, London – Early Morning

She leaned her forehead against the aeroplane window, the chill of the glass a grounding force against the whirlwind inside her. Outside, Heathrow buzzed awake beneath a gloomy morning sky, but her mind was already miles ahead—spinning through simulation laps, Milan’s electric air, the sea of glitter at the Eras Tour, and most of all… him.

Glen.

She bit the inside of her cheek, remembering the way his laugh had made her feel like summer lightning—sudden, sharp, and impossible to ignore. That dinner at Daisy’s had been nothing and everything at once. A few casual touches. A cookie shared. A laugh drawn out of him like he hadn’t laughed in weeks. A spark. And yet, it had haunted her all night.

The flight attendant offered her coffee and a croissant she didn’t have the stomach for. She waved it off politely and opened her laptop instead, trying to shift back into student mode. There was a project due for one of her industrial engineering courses, and her professor hadn’t been thrilled she was missing the next week for "professional obligations."

Canvas. Group chat. Lecture notes. It all felt so far away from the life she was currently living. A double life. She was still twenty-one. Still figuring it out. Still someone’s daughter, someone’s classmate. But also someone who just might be falling for Glen Powell under a haze of cookie dough, premiere lights, and Brisket’s wagging tail.

A message buzzed through on Messenger. She smiled despite herself. Daisy had become her anchor, her mirror. Both of them born on May 24—two Gemini hurricanes trying to balance real life with the madness of fame.

She closed the chat and finally allowed herself to sink into the seat, tugging her hoodie over her eyes. Her playlist hummed in her ears—Taylor’s “The Archer” bleeding into “The Alchemy.”

Who could ever leave me, darling? But who could stay?…

And yet, her heart wasn’t quiet. Not when every breath reminded her of his smile. Not when her phone still had that fire emoji glowing quietly under her story.

July 10 – Glen’s Hotel Room – London – Afternoon

Glen stood in front of the mirror with Brisket curled up on the hotel couch behind him, tossing a tennis ball lazily in the air.

She was gone. Already on a plane. And he didn’t even know if he was allowed to miss her this much.

They had spent one dinner talking like they'd known each other since childhood, as if every casual glance across the table had been prewritten in some screenplay they’d never auditioned for.

He swore he hadn’t meant to stare. Or laugh as much. Or walk a little closer when she left, just to say goodbye for five more seconds. But something about her peeled the cynicism from his bones. She was fast—on the track, in her mind, in the way she challenged him without even meaning to.

And then she was gone.

He opened Instagram. Her latest story was a boomerang of the clouds outside the aeroplane, with the caption:

“Here we go again ✈️”

His thumbs hovered over the keyboard.

Delivered. Read. No reply yet. He swallowed a grin and turned to Brisket. “Buddy, I think we’ve been replaced.” Brisket whined and curled into a dramatic sigh. “Yeah. Same, dude. Same.”

July 11 – Austria – Simulator Facility

Her fingers flew over the steering wheel, the simulator jolting in response. Every tight corner, every braking point—muscle memory. The tech team watched her in awe, the lead engineer whispering to the data analyst, “She’s not just fast. She’s different.”

But her mind—no matter how hard she tried to keep it on turn 9—kept circling back.

To Glen’s message. To his voice. To the way he made her feel seen when the whole world only seemed to see speed. She took off the VR helmet and wiped the sweat from her brow. Her team applauded softly, but she barely registered it.

Her coach, Akin, gave her a bottle of water. “You okay? You drove like something was chasing you.”

She offered a tired smile. “Just trying to outrun my thoughts.”

July 13 – Milan – Eras Tour Night 1

The roar of the crowd was like standing inside a thunderstorm. Her eyes gleamed as the lights rose, and Taylor stepped onto the stage like a goddess. The reader clutched Daisy’s hand, the moment surreal. Taylor had waved them in during rehearsal, called them “my favorite twins” since they shared a birthday.

“Happy belated, my loves,” Taylor had said, tugging them into a tight hug. “Tonight’s for you.”

Now the music pulsed through her veins, and her entire body moved with it—every lyric a spell, every beat a battle cry. She wasn’t just singing along. She was healing.

Then, when she was about to play "The Alchemy," Taylor paused.

“I have a little surprise,” she said into the mic, grinning. “A very fast friend of mine is here tonight. You may know her from... winning races and breaking hearts.”

The crowd screamed. Taylor’s voice dropped to a playful whisper. “Come sing with me, birthday girl.”

Her knees nearly buckled. But Daisy nudged her forward, and the crowd erupted as she climbed the steps, heart pounding. And suddenly there she was—on stage with her idol, her friend, her mirror—and together, they sang the words that had started to mean something completely different.

“Cause the sign on your heart/Said it's still reserved for me/Honestly, who are we to fight the alchemy?…”

The stadium became a blur. All she saw was light. And somewhere, in the swirl of stardust and stage smoke, she imagined Glen watching this—smiling, maybe shaking his head in disbelief. And for the first time in a long while, she felt invincible and fragile all at once.

July 13 – Milan, Italy – Backstage After the Eras Tour

The roar was still echoing in her ears, even after the final bows and backstage cheers faded into the hushed buzz of production crew chatter and swift goodbyes. Her heart was still racing—not from the racetrack this time, but from the stage, the lights, the moment.

Daisy wrapped her into a tight, bouncing hug, both of them still drenched in glitter and adrenaline. “You were so good,” Daisy squealed. “You didn’t just kill it—you ran over it at 300 km/h and reversed back with a wink.”

The reader laughed, pressing her forehead to Daisy’s shoulder. “Was that real? Did I actually just sing with Taylor? Taylor Swift?!”

Daisy nodded, almost tearing up herself. “Happy birthday again, babe. Told you we’d make twenty-one unforgettable.”

They didn’t need to say it aloud, but both had felt the weight of the past few months—press tours, races, brutal schedules, headlines, expectations. That night was theirs. A perfect rebellion in sequins and melody. Taylor reappeared from the dressing room in sweats and her iconic red lipstick half-smudged. She held out two champagne flutes. “For my favourite birthday, Geminis. You were magic up there.”

The reader blinked, taking the glass. “How do you even top this?”

Taylor smirked. “You don’t. You live it. Then you get on a flight to Hungary and show the world that you can be both a superstar and a storm.”

Something about those words sank deeper than expected. Maybe because Taylor had always understood. Maybe because Glen’s eyes had flickered in her mind again, like he was still watching from the wings, even if he wasn’t there. She pulled out her phone—hundreds of missed messages, tags, mentions. But it was one that stood out:

Her heart ached in the softest way.

July 14 – Milan – Morning

The hotel room was still quiet. Daisy had flown out early for Twisters promo in Berlin, leaving behind a crumpled note in lipstick: “I swear to God if you don’t tell Glen how you feel soon, I will.”

She laughed and tossed the note aside.

Her schedule buzzed in. She had four hours to pack, get to the airport, and settle into her hotel in Hungary before she began training again. No time to think. No time to fall apart.

Still, she paused by the full-length mirror.

Not just the girl who wore race suits and helmets. Not just the student balancing labs and lecture slides. But the girl who sang in front of thousands, and thought of one boy in the silence after.

She clicked open her messages.

She felt herself go still. How could someone know what she needed without her saying it?

July 14 – Glen’s Hotel – London – Afternoon

He rewatched the fan video of her performance for the sixth time, trying not to smile like a complete idiot. There she was—confident, radiant, singing her heart out with Taylor freaking Swift—and he couldn’t stop thinking: That’s her. That’s the girl I made laugh over warm cookies. He didn’t know how they’d got here. Or what this was. But he knew he hadn’t stopped thinking about her since the second she left London.

Anthony texted him:

He tossed the phone down and rubbed his eyes. Maybe it was too soon. But maybe it wasn’t.

July 15 – Budapest, Hungary

The hotel suite was sleek, modern, and overlooked the Danube River. But her eyes were heavy. The exhaustion of Milan was just now catching up with her, and so was the ache. She had tried to focus on training. She had tried to remind herself that Formula 1 was her dream. But something in her gut twisted every time she thought of Glen’s voice on the other end of the line. Something that felt more terrifying than a racetrack in the rain. She hadn’t meant for it to matter this much. But it did. There was a knock at her door. Room service? She opened it—and her breath caught.

“Hope you saved me a duet,” Glen said, holding a box of cookies, a nervous smile, and Brisket tucked in his arm like an emotional support plush.

“You’re here?” she whispered, stunned.

He nodded. “If it’s too much, tell me. I’ll leave. But Daisy may or may not have told me which hotel and—look, I just needed to see you.”

She stared at him. Then the cookies. Then Brisket. Then back to him.

“Do I even want to know what’s in the box?” she asked, a slow smile blooming.

“Taylor Swift lyrics. And one apology coffee for stealing your heart.”

The cup was warm in her hands before she knew she’d taken it. “You’re not supposed to be here.”

“I know,” he said, stepping in. “But I didn’t want to wait until Sunday to see you again.”

The door clicked shut behind him.

It was dangerous, this kind of quiet — where the noise of cameras and pit lanes and premieres dissolved into stillness. Where the air between them was thick with everything unsaid.

She sat on the edge of her bed, hair messy from the late-night shower, hoodie swallowing her frame. Glen sat beside her like it was instinct, like they’d always done this.

He passed her a napkin, folded around a pastry. “Brought this too. Thought you might’ve skipped dinner.”

“You didn’t have to—”

“I wanted to.”

And it wasn’t just the coffee or the pastry or the perfectly timed smirk. It was the way he looked at her, like she wasn’t just the girl from the podium or the stage — but someone worth showing up for.

“I saw the video,” he added softly.

Her heart skipped. “Which one?”

“You and Taylor.” His smile deepened. “You were magic.”

She blushed. “It was her moment.”

“No,” Glen said. “She shared it with you. That says everything.”

Their hands brushed on the sheets. He didn’t move away.

“Doesn’t this scare you?” she whispered. “All of it. The noise. The press. The fact that every time I open my phone, there’s someone dissecting who I’m with or what I wore or—”

“I’d be lying if I said it didn’t,” he admitted. “But I’ve never wanted quiet. I just want real.”

Her eyes found his. “And this feels real to you?”

He nodded once. “Too real.”

Her hand found his, fingers lacing through familiar warmth. It wasn’t a declaration. It wasn’t a promise. But at that moment, it was enough.

The Next Morning

She woke up to sunlight slicing through sheer curtains and the quiet hum of Glen flipping through channels with the volume off. He was sitting on the couch in sweats and a plain white t-shirt, Brisket curled up beside him like he owned the suite.

“You stayed.”

Glen turned. “You kicked me out of the bed.”

She blinked. “I did not.”

“You did.” He grinned. “You mumbled something about ‘downforce’ and rolled into the wall.”

She buried her face in the pillow. “Embarrassing.”

“Adorable,” he corrected, standing. “Come on, Champ. Simulator’s waiting.”

Training Facility – Hungarian GP Grounds

From behind tinted glass, Glen watched her take lap after lap in the simulator, jaw set with laser focus. Her engineer sat beside her, pointing out adjustments, but she was already ahead — always two steps, one apex ahead.

Glen had seen movie stars crumble under pressure. He’d seen athletes lose the joy of the game under the weight of expectations.

But not her.

She gritted her teeth through the turns, muttering corrections in three languages, and when the screen flashed a personal best, she barely smiled.

“She’s intense,” a voice beside him said.

Glen turned. It was one of the F1 comms team guys. “Is that… intimidating?”

Glen smiled. “It’s hot as hell.” The guy laughed. “Just wait till quali.”

THE GUARDIAN – "Formula 1’s Princess or PR Creation?"

In a sport dominated by legacy and precision, questions are rising about whether [Reader Name] is the real deal or a well-packaged distraction. Between celebrity sightings, TikToks with Brisket, and duets with Taylor Swift, critics argue she’s veering dangerously close to influencer territory instead of F1 athlete.

With back-to-back podiums and a fanbase that grows by the hour, Mexico’s 21-year-old breakout star has taken the F1 world by storm. But after a surprise appearance onstage at the Eras Tour and a whirlwind of social media buzz, some insiders are questioning whether her focus is shifting at a crucial point in the season.

“We love her personality — it’s great for the sport,” one anonymous paddock source shared. “But when you’re balancing premieres, baking TikToks, and concert cameos, you have to wonder… is she stretching herself too thin?”

July 18, Hungary – Grand Prix Week

The knock on her hotel door had startled her, and when she opened it to find Glen leaning casually against the frame, baseball cap pulled low and Brisket’s tail thumping beside him, she almost forgot how to breathe.

“You didn’t think I’d let you do this week without me, did you?” he asked, voice low, laced with that kind of calm confidence that made her knees threaten betrayal.

She blinked, then stepped back. “You stayed? How… I thought you still had to go to Berlin for press tour”

“No,” he replied, stepping inside. “I mean, yeah, I stayed. And the press tour, well I can miss one if it means I get to see you in your full element”

And just like that, the air changed. The space between them buzzed—like the charge before a lightning strike, or the humming static right before a green light at the starting grid.

Brisket trotted in, immediately claiming the floor by her sneakers as his own. She bent to scratch his ears, partly to hide the rising flush on her cheeks. Glen’s eyes didn’t leave her.

“You look tired,” he said softly.

“I am,” she admitted. “Simulators are brutal, training’s relentless. And people are… noticing.”

He tilted his head. “The article?”

She nodded. “You saw it.”

Glen’s jaw clenched. “That’s bullsh—”

She held up a hand. “I know. It’s noise. Still stings.”

He walked closer. “What they don’t see is you grinding through data at 2 a.m. or falling asleep with your laptop open to race telemetry. They don’t see you icing your wrists or eating bland protein bowls for the sixth day straight.” She looked up at him then, the weight of expectation resting on her shoulders, visible only to a few. “I want to win, Glen. Not for the followers. Not for the sponsors. Just… for me.”

His voice dropped to a near whisper. “Then do it. And let me be in your corner.”

Silence stretched between them. She didn’t know who moved first—maybe it was both of them at once—but suddenly they were close. His hands cupped her jaw, thumbs brushing her cheeks. Her fingers tangled into the fabric of his t-shirt like an instinct.

“Glen…” she started, unsure.

“I know,” he whispered. “This is messy. And fast. But tell me you don’t feel it too.”

And she wanted to. She wanted to say yes, wanted to melt into the kiss she saw flickering in his eyes. But something held her back—fear, maybe. Or the fact that this was still new I mean they still barely knew each other, besides they come from two different worlds. Yes, she drives formula cars for a living and if she's learned something is that if you're going too fast without a path you can crash.

“I leave for track walk at 5 a.m.,” she murmured, stepping back, carefully. “You shouldn’t have come.”

But he didn’t look wounded. He looked steady.

“Then I’ll be in the stands. Quiet. Invisible, if you need. But I’m not leaving.”

She swallowed hard, nodding once before brushing past him, requiring space. And just before she opened the bathroom door to wash her face, he called her name. She turned.

“I didn’t come to distract you,” he said. “I came because you’re the best part of my day—and I wanted to see you chase the best part of yours.”

She turned around and heard him sigh and walk out. And just as the reader is staring at the mirror, trying to wash the nerves off her face, she hears it—quietly, unmistakably—her phone buzzes.

A message.

From: Glen Powell

“If you win this weekend, I’m taking you to a secret trip. No world no Brisket, just us.”

She smiles. But before she can respond, a knock echoes again. She opens it—expecting Daisy, maybe a teammate. But it’s neither.

It’s…

A/N: So ive pleen planning this long chapter to you guys as a gift for all the support and love this series has recieved. Theres some easter eggs of myself here since its also like a late celebretation of my birthday. I had to leave it at cliff hanger. Who do you guys think its the mystery person, will it be Burrow, Justin, perhaps a past lover. Guess youll have to wait and see. Also please wish me luck I have a diferencial equations exam on thursday and calculus 3 on friday, hope I dont die, who told me to study engineering and to take this clases in summer.

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drarrywords · 4 days ago

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The Precision of Spite

Part 1

They try—God, they try—to be normal.

They go for coffee like they’re not still trembling from the night before. Harry reads Draco’s newest sketchbook and says it’s “dangerously emotive,” which Draco thinks might be the highest compliment Harry’s capable of.

They begin work on a collaborative exhibition-slash-lecture: “The Aesthetic Brain”, a joint venture between the science and arts faculties. Draco proposes installations; Harry builds interactive modules mapping neural responses to each piece.

They don’t tell anyone what they are.

Because they don’t know.

Because sometimes Draco leans in and Harry pulls away.

Because sometimes Harry says too much, and Draco doesn’t say anything at all.

The first crack forms in the editing room.

Draco wants the final sequence to end in silence—a pure emotional climax with no explanation. No voiceover. No graph.

Harry disagrees.

“It’s meaningless without context,” he says. “People won’t get it.”

Draco's eyes narrow. “Or maybe you just can't stand letting someone feel something without dissecting it.”

Harry fires back, “And maybe you can’t make anything real unless someone is watching.”

They stand across the room like opposing theories.

Draco speaks again, but quietly. “Why do you do this? Every time we get close, you gut it. You look for a clean incision point.”

Harry’s jaw tightens. “Because I don’t trust it. Any of it.”

“Me?”

“Myself.”

And there it is—the ghost in the room. The thing neither of them will name.

Fear.

The second crack is louder.

A conference. A panel they both agreed to sit on, where the moderator opens with a simple question: Can neuroscience predict the aesthetics of love?

Harry responds clinically.

“Romantic attraction, as we understand it, is pattern recognition. Familiarity. Memory consolidation paired with neurochemical arousal. It’s not magic. It’s math.”

Draco watches him the way someone watches an approaching storm. When the mic passes to him, he doesn’t smile, “You can chart oxytocin and serotonin all you want,” he says. “But you can’t explain why someone walks into a room and undoes your entire world.”

The room holds its breath.

“Love is not a stimulus. It’s a consequence,” Draco finishes. “And some of us are still living inside it.”

He doesn’t look at Harry.

He doesn’t need to.

They don’t speak for two weeks.

The project stalls. Emails go unanswered. Gallery slots hang in limbo. Their names start becoming whispers in opposite corridors again—what happened, weren’t they working together, didn’t they used to hate each other?

Draco starts smoking again.

Harry stops sleeping.

They both keep creating in secret.

Harry builds a closed-loop simulation—a VR reconstruction of memory fragments from the last year. Visitors can walk through it, unaware that each frame is a filtered moment: Harry’s mind reliving Draco. Over and over. Like an algorithm trapped in longing.

Draco, meanwhile, sculpts something brutal: a large-scale installation of two figures back-to-back, joined by a thread pulled so taut it slices into their spines.

He calls it “The Anti-thesis.”

The final crack isn’t an explosion.

It’s quiet.

They meet in the gallery late one night, both there to finalize pieces for the opening. They stand before Draco’s sculpture, neither speaking.

Harry finally breaks. “Is this what we are?”

Draco doesn’t look at him. “You tell me. You're the one with the data.”

Harry steps closer. “I never wanted it to be like this.”

“And yet,” Draco whispers, “you always knew it would be.”

Harry's voice catches. “Do you really think we’re poisonous?”

“I think we’re flint and steel,” Draco says. “Beautiful until we burn the whole thing down.”

There’s no kiss this time.

Only a pause.

Only space.

And the slow, tragic decision to walk away before they ruin each other completely.

The exhibition opens without ceremony.

Draco arrives late, dressed like he’s attending a wake. He doesn’t glance toward the VR station where Harry’s installation is housed, and Harry—already seated behind the security-glass interface—pretends not to look when Draco passes.

They orbit each other like silent moons. Former collaborators. Former something else, too—but they’ve stopped naming it.

Students call their work “brilliant.” Critics murmur phrases like “disquieting synergy” and “twin genius.” No one notices that the artists don’t speak to each other. That their eyes are never in the same place at the same time.

Draco stands in front of Harry’s simulation once. He watches a girl wander through it with the headset on, laughing softly as fragments of memory reconstruct around her. She pauses before a moment Harry labeled July, rain, red scarf, recognition—a half-recreated evening, where a pixelated version of Draco had turned his head just enough to smile.

The girl moves on. Draco doesn't.

Harry begins breaking by precision.

His lab is cold. Clean. Too clean. His whiteboards are full of equations that no longer resolve, models with flaws he pretends not to see. He publishes a paper on “Neural Refusal: Memory Suppression and Emotional Pruning.” It’s full of quiet desperation disguised as science. Buried in footnotes, he defines a term:

Cognitive ghosting — The mind's attempt to overwrite a recurring figure that no longer resides in one's present but dominates all reflective architecture.

He doesn’t name Draco.

But he doesn’t have to.

His colleagues begin to notice he doesn’t smile anymore. He avoids sunlight. His coffee is replaced with energy drinks, his patience with silence. When someone mentions the art department, Harry simply blinks and says, “I don’t engage in unstructured variables anymore.”

As if Draco had been an experiment that failed to replicate.

Draco breaks louder.

He paints obsessively—large, erratic canvases of faceless bodies. His colour palette degrades from crimson to grey. He begins using scalpels instead of brushes, slicing his work before stitching it back together with thread.

His professors whisper. One of them suggests a leave of absence. Another asks if he’s seeing someone.

Draco laughs bitterly. “I was.”

He writes a series of untitled pieces. They are not published. They are not submitted.

He keeps one of them folded in his coat pocket, where it wrinkles and fades:

You called it pattern recognition. I call it a haunting.I haven’t slept since you stopped imagining me.

They start seeing each other in everything.

Harry, walking home from a lecture, glances up and sees Draco’s profile lit in the window of the sculpture lab—and almost crosses the street before catching himself. Before reminding himself: We don’t speak.

Draco, returning a library book, finds one in the neuroscience section with Harry’s name scrawled on the title page. He stares at it like it’s a relic. Like it still belongs to someone warm.

They never speak. But the silence hurts now.

They could have hated each other forever and been fine.

But now they’ve tasted softness.

And nothing feels safe.

Weeks pass. Then a month. Two.

The university feels clinical now. Their names are still attached to greatness, but never to each other.

There is a winter showcase. Draco’s final piece is unveiled: an enormous suspended structure of broken glass and violin strings, wired to a sensor that makes it hum when anyone walks beneath it. The sound is low. Disoriented. Longing.

It’s titled: “Things That Break Before the Sound Comes.”

Harry doesn’t attend. But the next day, the gallery curator finds a note slipped under her door in a sealed envelope:

I don’t know what I heard, but it was mine. Please tell him I was there.

It is unsigned. But the ink is smudged like rain.

Part 3

#drarry #harry potter #draco malfoy #draco x harry #drarry fanfic #fanfic #ao3 #fic rec #fiction #imagine your otp

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alkeneater · 6 months ago

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virtual insanity (E!2080 drabble) 😵

ughhhh wellll just saying ENGLISH IS NOT MY FIRST LANGUAGE and i'm not a good writer so i wrote this because this idea was scratchin my head from inside and i wanted to get rid of it 💙

also this fic is not that angsty as i thought it's going to be, it's KINDA FUNNY TO ME I was laughing my ass off when i translated this shit

okay enjoy if you wanna <3 and yeah Jamiroquai reference 😁

“Are you a loser? A loser that doesn’t have any friends? Your life seems boring and full of disappointments? Not anymore if you purchase a VR-headset by Parallel! The organic design and convenient shape will allow you to spend hours in virtual worlds, and the augmented reality mode will embellish your miserable life!“

“That commercial again…” Joan heard familiar sounds as she walked past the room where Confucius was slowly scrolling through FlipFlop™ on his Holoband™. “Can’t you just block it? Adblock was invented a long time ago. You're into this stuff, aren't you?”

“Joan, you don’t get it!” Confucius jumped up from the sofa and approached the girl. “Thanks to commercials I can easily decide where to spend my money!”

“I wish I had your problems. But your purchases often turn out to be useless.”

“What makes you think that?”

“That laser can opener has been in the closet for a month and no one uses it. We don't even eat canned food!”

“Hey, I saw Gandhi using it!”

“He used this thing to shoot at the drones.”

Confucius thought about it and stared at the floor. Joan was about to go on with her business, but suddenly the guy exclaimed:

“But my next purchase will definitely appeal to everyone! You'll see!”

He did finger guns, expecting support from the girl, but she sighed heavily and went away.

A couple of days later, a drone with a small box arrives at the door of the house. Confucius quickly runs to take the package.

“Everyone over here! This day has come!!!”

“You bought chips?” Gandhi, smiling broadly, ran to his friend's call.

“Hollywood's calling me?!” Harriet exclaimed from the kitchen.

“The shadow government's been destroyed?!” Abe looked out from the second floor.

“You stopped ordering shit from AnyExpress?” Joan crossed her arms and went to the front door.

“Better, better, better! I bought us a VR-headset!” Confucius clutched the box to his chest as if it was his own son, “This thing is going to change our lives!”

The clones looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders. Only Gandhi remained in a good mood, who always liked Confucius's purchases.

When Confucius quickly adjusted the headset (which did not require much skill and knowledge, the design turned out to be quite simple even for an ordinary user), he started testing it. The others watched the process with interest, except for Joan, who was skeptical about technology, and Topher, who preferred to be away from the whole team. Confucius looked very funny: wearing a glowing blue headset, gloves and anklets, he moved awkwardly around the room and talked to himself. But from his perspective, it looked like an exciting game. After removing this thing from his head, he turned to the clones and exclaimed:

“This is fire! You should all try it!!”

“Can I be next?? Please?!” Gandhi ran up to the device, wanting to try it out as soon as possible.

Abe and JFK were sitting next to each other on the couch.

“It looks fun, but I'm not sure I'll use it often,” Abe mumbled as he watched Gandhi running around the room with his new toy.

“You're just a bore, this thing, err-ehh, it looks great. I would love to play some VR games right now!“ Kennedy was already interested and was waiting for his turn.

“That’s right, you can play any game on this baby!” Confucius squeezed in between them, “I'm sure you'll all find a use for it.”

“What use can I find for this thing? I don't really like videogames.”

“That's because, ehhh, he sucks at videogames,” JFK jokingly whispered to Confucius.

“Well, let's just say this headset is capable of simulating anything, just write a couple of commands. Even the gen Epsilon can do this,” Confucius rolled his eyes and grinned.

“Actually, we are the gen Epsilon,” Harriet was standing next to him, leaning on the coffee table, “Are you saying it can simulate anything?”

“Anything!”

“Even... hmm... the interior of the palace from the fifth episode of the eighth seas-”

“YEAH!” Confucius did not even listen to the end, being sure that his purchase was capable of anything and even more.

“I don't know…” Abe looked at the window, “I like our reality too. I have real friends here, a real life. They are much better than this artificial one. Yeah, Gandhi?” he turned towards his friend.

“GUYS, I'M IN OUTER SPACE RIGHT NOW! HOLY SHIT, I'M A DRAGON, RAHH! DON'T DISCONNECT ME, IT'S THE BEST THING EVER!!!”

Abe frowned. Apparently, he is really a bore, since he does not understand the delights of this device.

***

For the next few days, everything in the shelter-house was the same as always: the clones went outside to look for their friends, sometimes fought with the shadow police and quite often spent time at home in each other's company, enjoying free will. After 16 years of prison-like regime, every hour of free time felt like a two-month vacation in Hawaii.

One day, after another grueling battle, the “Old School” returned home very battered and tired, and barely dragging their feet, most of them immediately went to bed. However, Abe was the only one who felt uneasy. Even anxious. He really needed someone to talk to and vent his emotions after a brutal fight. But Joan and Cleo were not in the mood for heart-to-heart conversations, Gandhi was sleeping like a log, and JFK was lying next to him.

“John, are you asleep?” Abe looked into the bedroom on the second floor, which for some reason had a lot of beds. Perhaps the previous owners of the house had many children.

“Ehh... yes.”

“I just wanted to…”

“Bro, I’ll, err-uhh, die if I don’t sleep!”

“...talk.”

“Later, okay?!” Kennedy growled, and Abe closed the door softly with a guilty expression on his face.

It’s not the first time he’s been left alone with his thoughts.

He trudged into the room, where Confucius was currently playing with his headset. Lincoln plopped down on his favorite blue couch and looked sadly at the window, not noticing his friend. He could still hear his conversations with one ear.

“...You have the wisdom of generations, bro. You're absolutely right, I will do that! See you later!” a smile appeared on Confucius' face and he took off the headset.

“Who were you talking to?”

“Me? My clonefather, of course!”

Lincoln raised an eyebrow and turned to his friend in disbelief:

“How's that?”

“Dude, did you forget? This thing can do absolutely anything! I was just chatting with my clonefather in virtual reality. However, these technologies are not really new, teenagers were doing something like that 60 years ago.”

“Can I, well... do it too?” Abe’s eyes lit up.

“Of course! Jump in, I'll introduce you quickly,” he beckoned him closer.

Abe couldn't help but smile. Can he finally see the one who inspired him all his life? Talk to him, feel his presence? It all sounded like something unreal.

However, it was unreal.

Abe felt the soft ear pads, the gloves clinging to his palms, and heard the anklets snap on his legs. Everything turned blue in his eyes, only the silhouette of Confucius was visible, he was waving his hands and explaining something. At first, Lincoln felt anxious, but after a short briefing, he got used to the device and finally entered commands so that the image he had wanted to see for so long appeared in front of him. Confucius nodded and left the clone alone with his virtual ancestor.

“Is-Is that you? Mr. President?”

Abe could see a large empty space in front of his eyes, with a tall figure wearing a top hat. A familiar silhouette came closer:

“Just call me Lincoln. It's good to see you, son.”

The guy was confused, not knowing what to do next. It wasn't every day that he got to talk to someone whose DNA he inherited. And the man with the thick beard continued to squint his eyes and smile good-naturedly.

“I, I, I just wanted to talk to you. Can I? I promise I'll be brief.”

Abraham nodded. The clone looked around and realized that he had forgotten to generate the location, decided not to bother and chose something from the “recommended” section built into the device. The space blinked and after a moment both found themselves in a wooden cabin in the middle of the forest, with some furniture inside and a fireplace burning.

“Reminds me of the days of my youth... I used to live in a cabin like this,” the man sighed and sat down on a bench near the window.

Abe sat down next to him, still not believing what was happening to him. He has long been used to the weight of the headset on his head, he has stopped feeling the gloves, he has completely immersed himself in this charming virtual world.

“I, I, I forgot to introduce myself, didn't I?” the clone came to his senses.

“I know your name, Abe. You are…”

“I'm your clone. A copy. Genetic or something.”

“Interesting.”

The guy sighed and still decided to interrupt this awkward conversation to finally get to the point.

“There's so much I'd like to discuss with you, but I don't know where to start.… I'm always so anxious and scared, and I don't even know who to talk to about it. I would like to become a great leader like you. You probably weren't afraid of anything and knew how to do everything. And I'm just... a nobody.”

“Don't be so hard on yourself. I'm sure you'll have a great future.”

Abe looked down at the wooden floor:

“If that future ever comes at all”

***

It's been a long time since Lincoln put on the headset. “Old school” had already had time to rest, Harriet and the other girls had watched all sorts of TV shows, and the guys had discussed every topic in the world. Gandhi was eagerly waiting for his turn to play with the headset. Kennedy, who was already beginning to worry about his buddy immersed in virtual reality, was waiting as well. He decided to visit Abe again and went into his room without knocking.

“Are you done? We're already tired of, err-ehh, waiting for you! How long has it been? One hour? Two?”

Abe continued to sit on the floor and mumble something under his breath, clearly talking to someone who was not in this room. JFK was so irritated, his hands involuntarily clenched into fists.

“I'm, ehh, talking to you!” he raised his voice, causing his friend to flinch.

“Uh, John? I'm sorry, I just-just a couple more minutes, I need to talk to Abraham Lincoln…”

“You said the same thing about 30 minutes ago!”

“The conversation got a little long, that's okay!”

“You're out of your mind…”

Kennedy sighed so heavily he could be heard on the first floor. He sat down next to Abe on the floor and waited, unwittingly eavesdropping on what the clone was saying.

“Huh, yeah, that sounds so much like me. I worry a lot too...”

“Sometimes I feel lonely…”

“I'll never be like you, I'm just a loser. That's what I've always been told...”

After a couple minutes, John began to realize what Abe was talking to his virtual interlocutor about. He's just sharing his feelings, pouring his heart out. He just needed a little attention.

“Yeah? Sometimes I feel like no one can really hear me...”

John placed his palm on Abe's palm, squeezing it a little. He tried to feign indifference, but he barely succeeded in hiding the emotion with which he listened to his friend's voice. The tall guy, on the other hand, barely reacted and continued to talk loudly to the void. What Kennedy wanted more than anything right now was what Abe and his virtual clonefather had. Mutual support.

“I am so lucky to be able to talk to you right now, I am so honored!”

After sitting like that for a few more minutes, he gently releases his hand and gets back on his feet.

“Okay, I'm, ehh, gonna go.”

There was no response.

Kennedy returned to his friends on the first floor.

“Is he done yet?” Gandhi crossed his arms and frowned.

“I don't like it,” Joan added, “it's too bad for him.”

Confucius waved his hand:

“It's perfectly safe! I know you don't like all this innovation, but that's no reason to-”

“You know, let's just leave him alone. Why don't we go to the, ehh, pizzeria? Confucius, it's on you!” JFK feigned indifference, wanting to change the subject as soon as possible.

“Oh yes, let's go!” the others replied almost in unison.

The door slammed, and the house was empty. Only a voice from a room on the second floor broke the silence.

***

It took a few more hours before everyone returned home after a delicious dinner at the pizzeria. John was so engrossed in conversations with his friends and the delicious food that he almost forgot about what was waiting for him at home.

He was the first one inside, turned on the light and hurried into Abe's room. What he saw made him fearful for a split second: Lincoln was lying on the floor, pale, but still barely audibly talking.

“Yeah... I don't know…”

“Abe?! What the hell?!” Kennedy instantly dropped down beside his friend and lifted his head, “Do you even take breaks from this shit?!”

“Maybe… Huh…”

JFK really didn't want to do that, but he slapped Abe’s face. One earpiece shifted and now Abe could clearly hear what was happening in his reality.

“Ouch. That hurts,” Lincoln rubbed his cheek with the palm and tried to fix his earpiece, “Technical problems, I'll be right back…”

“No, you won’t! Take it off already! Ehhh, come on!” he started pulling the headset off.

“No, WAIT!” Abe began grasping at the device as if his life depended on it, “Please, don’t, I'm not finished! I’m fine, I swear!”

“FINE?!” he pulled it harder in his direction, “I found you on the floor, pale, mumbling something to yourself. You look like a zombie!”

Abe was already losing his grip, so he put his hands down and let it happen.

“Goodbye, clonefather. Sorry that…”

The headset finally slips off the clone's soaked head and falls to the floor. John saw Abe’s red eyes, his forehead wet with sweat, his hair messy, his skin paler than usual, dark circles under his eyes. It's a terrible sight.

“…I didn't finish,” Abe said softly.

“Holy shit, you're really, ehh, nuts.”

Lincoln tried to avoid eye contact while JFK stared shocked at his friend.

“You're crazy, Abe, you're really crazy.”

“What? Me?”

“Do you know how long you've been sitting here?!”

“A c-couple hours?... We just got back from a m-mission?”

“That was LAST NIGHT!”

“Last… what?”

Tears welled up in Abe's eyes. Either from the fact that his eyes hurt or from the realization. Or maybe he missed his toy.

“You know you can always talk to me, right?” Kennedy started shaking him by the shoulders to keep him from passing out right in his arms.

“But you all were so tired, I didn't want to disturb you…”

“Look, if talking to me saves you from that, uhhh, wire shit, then sleep can wait.”

“John, it wasn't just wire shit, my clonefather was there... The real one…”

“He's not real, you stupid! YOU are real and WE are real.”

Abe lay down on the carpet, JFK sat down next to him and began gently removing his gloves and other stuff.

“You're such a bore…” Abe smirked tiredly.

Kennedy furrowed his eyebrows, but really couldn't even be mad at him.

“And you're an idiot.”

Both of them were so nervous they laughed, which made John fall to the floor next to Abe.

“And you said you wouldn't even use that thing! You're Not So Honest Abe! Haha!”

“Haha, indeed!”

“Guys,” a familiar voice sounded nearby, “Are you both crazy?”

Joan, Confucius and Gandhi had been standing in the doorway for the last five minutes and had seen the culmination of everything that had happened. The guys looked at each other and shrugged their shoulders.

“Looks like it! Pure virtual insanity,” Abe chuckled.

“Oh, it's just like that old song!” Confucius said.

John got on his feet and reached out to Abe:

“Come on, ehh, let's talk.”

Abe caught his arm and stood up.

“Maybe next time? I'm really sleepy…” he looked at him guiltily.

JFK nodded.

“Okay, just don't give me that look. You know I wouldn't trade you for, err-ehh, virtual reality, bro.”

“I believe you.”

#clone high #clone high au #exclamation!2080 #jfabe #abefk #abe x jfk #jfk x abe #fanfiction #eughhh i'm so insecure about my writing skills but i had to share it just in case #i've spent a whole day on it #i missed writing something other than big articles for my wiki #friendly reminder if some characters seem too ooc well IT'S MY AU chill #euehuehuefjhg okay i'm done thanks for reading!!!! love ya

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tobiasdrake · 4 days ago

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The Hundred Line: Last Defense Academy 19 - Mad Dash for the Kitchen Asuras

Here we are on Day 4. Still awaiting word that will probably never come.

Are we ready to explore the probability that we've been abandoned to fend for ourselves yet?

Also, Hiruko talks about Alexa exactly the same way my family talks about our cat.

Yeah, that's my thinking too.

Also, Miss Amemiya. Very polite of you, Ima. Darumi deserves the respect.

Ooh, good catch. If Alexa isn't here then he can't get pissy about who eats what. Though I would still have some reservations by the possibility of an enforcement mechanism of some kind. We don't know what the rules are, so eating things other than dry bread might make you explode or something if you aren't using the Infuser.

We don't know what the rules are. There is a non-zero chance that all of the food in the real world is somehow lethal to anyone who hasn't Blood Cocooned themselves and the dry bread is actually for all-a y'all's safety.

Only one way to find out. I guess Now and Then have volunteered to be our guinea pigs. If you guys explode, while try to jab your corpses with Infusers and see if that's good enough for the Revive-o-Matic.

Gaku, you work for slave wages to support a family. How is something so basic as "A rule only exists so long as it can be enforced" lost on you? Have you never had to shoplift to get by?

Now and Then have definitely had to shoplift to get by. I did not miss the part where they're orphans or some shit.

But I also would have expected better of you, Gaku. Shame on you. Go outside and steal from the pharmacy until you learn.

There you go. That's better. You know, if you're this much of a stickler for obedience to authority, I bet you aren't working a union job, huh? That might be part of your problem. You're letting the capitalists take advantage of you. If you ever see your home again, you should considering unionizing.

And stealing from corporations where needed. Learn from the orphans, Gaku. They know how to get by in this cruel, cruel world. Unless they explode.

I'd at least give Now and Then like an hour to see if something happens to them. But if y'all want to dive in now then be my guests. Since we now have the full team eating, we all get to share in whatever fate may or may not await.

To be fair, that was a staged event for shock and intimidation. I don't think Monokuma could actually summon the Spears of Gungnir wherever he wanted. He just wanted Class 78 to think he could.

Now, AI Monokuma and the Exisals, THOSE were another story.

OH WOW I FORGOT YOU WERE HERE

Full team -1 eating, I guess.

Not joining the others in making a mad dash for the kitchen Asuras?

...I kinda think that's the point, Hiruko. He gave us the tools we need to defend the school and then removed himself to a place where we can't keep pressuring him for information.

We definitely aren't going to find him, but if it makes you feel better, sure.

In any case, while they're searching the school, I have one other tutorial I need to learn about.

I mean, I'm also going to be hanging out with peeps too. Sorry, Hiruko, but I refuse to only use my time productively.

VR Training simulations are practice battles for grinding XP. Yeah, that makes sense. Much bigger and more complicated than the little battles I ran into while exploring, too.

Darumi's MVP mugshot is fantastic. 10/10.

I don't know how the level system works but it could hypothetically also be good for bringing underleveled characters up to speed. That's a problem you run into sometimes in other TRPG franchises like Fire Emblem.

Aha, here we go. This is the level-up system and--

I FUCKING KNEW IT

That WAS what the Lv.4 and MAX at the end of her two skill names meant! Hiruko's fucking near-maxed out on two separate skills while the rest of us are level 1.

She has played this game before.

Alright, while y'all look around for something we aren't going to find, I'm gonna go find out what Darumi's crying about.

Well, shit. That is a crisis. In fact, it's a bigger crisis than Sirei's vanishing because we actually have a >0% chance of success searching for it.

Why would that matter, Takumi? Even if something is cheap, it still sucks to lose it. Especially if it's something you need to use regularly. Gonna flick your nose if you think like a capitalist again.

Relatable. Sometimes you just need to let it out.

Some people's problems can't be swept under the rug by running up and declaring, "I'm your Daddy now!" Take your anti-crying propaganda somewhere else, Takumi.

#the hundred line #drake plays hundred line

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serowebs · 20 days ago

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adding onto my game complaining sessions, I want to say that if you really want more games, look into the indie scene, or like, overall new and upcoming creators and smaller game studios

because there are so many hidden gems of games out there that you can just grab if you look for them

and while I can imagine a lot of them will be for pc, not all of them are

SUPPORT SMALLER CREATORS AND FUCK BILLION DOLLAR CORPS

and also, if you do want to look into pc gaming you can bridge between console and pc by using a handheld pc like hte rog ally, steam deck, etc. without immediatly exploding your wallet [especially if you get them secondhand]

you can also look into pc game stores like steam and gog that have a ton of games for cheap and/or free

I literally bought my copy of doom 2016 for 3 euros on gog and I have microsoft flight simulator 40th anniversary edition for 20-smth euros on steam instead of 70 because both these games were on sale

Here are some indie games that I for example like playing

WEBFISHING - By Iamedeveloper

Slime rancher and Slime rancher 2 - by Monomi Park

Webbed - by SBug games [they also have a 3d isopod platformer coming soon so yea]

A Webbing Journey - By Future friends games and Fire totem games

No More Rainbows - By Squido Studio [This is a VR game but still a good one]

Cooking Simulator - By Big Cheese studios [I own the VR version and it's really fun]

Another Crabs Treassure - By Aggro Crab

Burgies Cozy Kitchen - By heyNau [also really good if you are a streamer, because your chat can act as the npcs ingame]

Content warning - By Landfall

Goat Simulator 1 and Goat Simulator 3 - By Coffee Stain

KintioPET - By TroyEN

Stick Fight the game - By Landfall

Tabletop Simulator - By Berserk Games

Cats are Liquid: a Light in the Shadows and Cats are Liquid: a better place - By Last Quarter Studios [Also exists on mobile!]

That's Not my Neighbour - By Nachosama Games

There are a lot more games I could list but im getting lazy so yea

#Pc gaming #gaming #Steam #indie games #games #switch 2 discourse #switch 2 #nintendo

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prismaticpichu · 10 months ago

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I'm feeling... angsty.

Would you care to write a hurt/comfort with Sephiroth, Angeal, and Genesis while they're in training?

Hope that inspires somewhat!

Yesssssss!!!! Comfy AGS angst here we go!!! 🔪 Tysm for the prompt!! 💖💕

(Admittedly… I took the term “training” and just converted it to “training room”, so I hope that’s okay lol!! 😂❤️)

The sky was full of stars.

He seemed to lose himself in their endless quantity, mesmerized by their ethereal grace, his eyes drifting like feathers across the sky as he fruitlessly tried to count them all. Ten, twenty, fifty, ninety…. There had to be hundreds of them, thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Millions. Millions upon millions of stars that were peppering the velvet blackness overhead, sharing their light in beady ornaments that scattered all the way beyond the sawtoothed mountains of the horizon, burning even brighter against the village’s extinguished candlelight. Burning so bright and so valiantly. Burning like eternal fire on their own accord, untainted by the need of human hands… unchoked by smog and mako. Burning with nothing but their whole and cosmic purity, reigning over the planet with their brilliant gaze, watching over them all.

Sephiroth nearly forgot that they weren’t real.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?”

He let his gaze drift away from the sky to regard the burly figure beside him, something of a low hum of acknowledgment rumbling in his throat.

“Beyond.”

There was a small chuckle to his right.

“See? I told you two I should choose the simulations more often. Isn’t my taste exquisite?”

“Please,” Angeal laughed quietly in turn. “You didn’t even have the faintest clue as to what this one was.”

“Untrue.”

“Absolutely true. You picked it for the name and name alone, Gen.”

“Don’t accuse me of things that are one hundred percent correct.” Red leather shuffled and creased as Genesis folded his arms, letting out a petulant scoff, his slender shape leaning back against the soothing chill of the water tower. “Besides,” he added, turning toward Sephiroth with a quiet smile, “Sephiroth seems to be enjoying it.”

Green eyes softened at the comment.

Angeal mirrored his friend’s grin, reaching out to place a hand on the youngest First’s shoulder. “Heh… I think so too. And you know what? That’s all that matters right now.”

There was then a glove on his other shoulder, lightly squeezing through the unarmored coat.

“Agreed.”

…It was always times like these when Sephiroth never knew what to say, his gaze drifting back and forth between his two cherished friends, the two people in his life who would take so much time out of their evening to celebrate his birthday. Celebrate it when no one in the world seemed to acknowledge it; celebrate it by wanting to go somewhere private, somewhere where they could be relieved of their strenuous titles, even if it meant once again sneaking into the lower class training rooms to create that space for themselves. Breaking rules to build illusions that somehow felt so real, so unbreakable… That felt like so much more than a tangible mirage of pixels and holograms.

Or maybe it was just his current company that made it come to life.

Sephiroth swallowed, and he finally allowed a faint, quiet, but sincere smile to bud on his lips.

“Thank you… both of you. Truly.”

“Hey.” Now Angeal was the one to give his shoulder a squeeze. “This is what friends do, Seph. No need to thank us.”

“Well…” Genesis smirked. “You can thank us if you want to.”

“Genesis—“

“I’m kidding, I’m kidding...” Genesis swatted his hand through the air, laughing playfully, his gaze roaming around the sleepy, rustic village as a certain curiosity eclipsed him then. “You know what’s peculiar, though?”

“What’s that?” Angeal hummed.

Genesis canted his head, sweeping away a spill of auburn locks. “…Why was this town programmed into ShinRa’s system, anyway? I mean… Junon, yes, the company has a big influence there—same with many of the other VR locations. But why some unknown town in the middle of nowhere?”

Sephiroth had been silently wondering the same thing.

Humming thoughtfully, Angeal scratched his chin with his free hand. “You know… that is a good question. I’m not exactly sure.”

“You think they included it for variety?” Genesis crossed his legs.

“I… guess that’s possible,” Angeal shrugged. “But I’m not really certain how a town like this is a good sparring location.”

“True,” Genesis huffed out a laugh. “Can you imagine if I missed even a single Firaga? Entire place is made out of wood; it’d all go down in literal flames.”

Angeal’s eyes surveyed the town himself. “You’re… not exactly wrong there.”

“I know. Isn’t it kind of strange?”

“Very strange.”

Genesis shifted, his expression turning to that of mild amusement. “Maybe they finally caught us sneaking in here so often,” came the semi-joking proposal. “Just went ahead and said, ‘Minerva damn, if they’re going to keep using the system after hours, we might as well give them somewhere pretty to hang out.’”

“…And why would they reward us for breaking the rules?”Angeal raised an eyebrow.

Genesis smirked. “Because we’re special~”

“Yeah,” Angeal chuckled. “I don’t think so.”

“Well, what else do you—“

“There’s a Mako Reactor.”

Sephiroth’s voice was dull, matter-of-fact, his gaze having long drifted toward the wisp of jade smoke that floated in the distance, the unmistakable contours of a Reactor peeking its crown over the rugged mountain terrain. What was initially a simple scan of the village for any clues as to why ShinRa would implement it had quickly turned into a fixed, blinkless stare, the feline pupils vaguely pulsing, following into sync with his heartbeat as something within it seemed to be strummed. Strummed and grazed. Like an intangible pull that he couldn’t even begin to articulate, something in his psyche that was magnetically drawn, something that had been implanted in his skull that was directing him there. Something that was guiding him. Tugging him. Demanding him. Burning inside of him like stars, making him shudder with warmth, tight splays of fingers curling at his sides.

A calling…—

“Well, would you look at that…” Angeal squinted into the velvet gloom. “There is one. Good eye, Sephiroth.”

“Oh yeah.” Genesis spotted the structure himself. “Right there—just across that bridge.” Mako-fueled eyes narrowed slightly, canting his head, a deeper suspicion rising all again. “…Why would ShinRa build a Reactor here?”

Angeal blinked, his brows then furrowing in thought. “…Guess the small towns need power too.”

“So why doesn’t Banora have one?” came Genesis’s immediate question, and one that rendered Angeal momentarily silent as the contradiction sank in.

“…I don’t know.”

He glanced back toward Sephiroth, who was still fixated on the steely shape in the distance, his expression curling into a frown upon realizing the direction of their conversation.

“You know what? This was supposed to be a relaxing night—Sephiroth’s night. Let’s not think about this now.”

Genesis stretched his arms over his head. “Mnm… I suppose you’re right,” he hummed, and then quickly added, “but I’d be lying if I said my curiosity wasn’t piqued now.”

“Well, what do you want to do? Go and explore it—?”

Sephiroth’s voice cut through the air, immediate and bladed.

“Yes.”

To be continued…? :3c

#ffvii #sephiroth #crisis core #angeal hewley #genesis rhapsodos #ff7 #ff7 fanfic #pichu writing #asks #ty!!#angst #hurt/comfort #young AGS #ags #nibelheim

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helix-enterprises117 · 1 year ago

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Halo Reloaded - Spartan-II Training Schedule

I've wanted to flesh this out for while, but here we go. Note: this seems impossible... it's because it is.

General Information:

From Monday through Friday (except Wednesday), they start every morning with stretching, then they do 50 jumping jacks; after a quick breather, they do the following routine below.

100 total squats, push-ups, chin-ups, crunches and sit-ups. 50 of these every morning after the jumping jacks, then they do another 50 before bed.

Go to class, listen to a lecture on tactics used by the Spartans of Greece and the Roman Empire. This goes from 1000 to 1200 (Lunch Break), from 1300 to 1500 is recess at the obstacle-course where parkour and acrobatics are to be practiced, then class resumes from 1600 to 1800.

Night-Routine, then bed.

Monday:

After a one hour break from the morning routine, they go on a one kilometer run with small sand-bags tied to every Spartan-cadet's ankles. (A work-out routine inspired by Rocky Marciano.)

They practice swimming for an hour from 1900 to 2000 shortly after class.

Tuesday:

After a one hour break from the morning routine, they step into a VR-simulator that trains them to eject from drop-pods.

At 1900 to 2000, they spar with each other; two per circle (every pair gets an individual circle). The art is a martial-art native only to the Spartans called "Spartan-Kata"; it's heavily influenced by four martial-arts: Krav Maga, Collegiate Wrestling, Judo and Kali. One is armed with tonfas and is on the offensive, the other is unarmed and on the defensive; the unarmed opponent gets a turn to be on the offense while the armed opponent learns to be defensive. They switch offensive/defensive positions at 30 minutes into the sparring session.

Wednesday:

Break on both the morning and evenings. It's just lessons for the entire day. They don't even do the morning/night routines, they just wake up, recover, go to class and return to bed.

Thursday:

In the morning, they play a game of CTF in the Zero-Grav Chamber using laser-guns that respond to their Zero-Grav Suits' sensors. (It's just Ender's Game.)

In the evening, they learn to disassemble, clean and reassemble their guns (don't worry, they're not loaded) for the first 30 minutes; in the last 30 minutes, they go to the targeting range to practice their aim. From ages 8 - 11, they use laser-guns (similar ones seen in the Zero-Grav Chamer); they are taught fire-arm safety and how to properly use guns, then from ages 12 - 16, they're taught to practice with real-gunloaded with live-rounds.

Friday:

They do their usual morning and night routine, though they go to class for the first half of the day; after lunch, they don't go to recess. For the rest of the day onward, they do a group "survival-activity" that they must complete before the day is over. If any Spartan fails to complete the exercise and return to the training-facility, ONI personnel will personally collect them and return them back to base with the usual penalty for failure/coming-in-last being no dinner.

Saturday:

Rest & Recovery Day. No class or training, obstacle-course is always open.

Sunday:

Rest & Recovery Day. No class or training, obstacle-course is always open.

Meal-Time:

Breakfast: Lots of organic-eggs (either scrambled or over-easy, depends on what the cadet wants) and scalloped potatoes, a slice of ham with a side of plain-crackers. Drinks are a glass of water.

Lunch: Fried-Chicken and fish with brown rice and a side of mashed-potatoes slathered in gravy. Drinks are orange-juice.

Dinner: Turkey slathered with gravy and ice-cream covered in hot-fudge syrup. Drinks are a glass of milk.

Class-Snacks: Plain-Crackers with a glass of milk and a side of Vitamin-Gummy packs.

Additional Information:

Every night, the Spartans sleep to white-noise.

After getting themselves in bed, they are first treated with story-time as they fall asleep; Deja, the AI that teaches the Spartans in Halsey's absence, reads them stories from ancient Greece, namely the stories from Classical Mythology, but sometimes real events thay transpired then, too. Deja swaps over to white-noise once everyone has fallen asleep.

All of this was done from ages 8 to 16. In John's case, due to him being the youngest by two years, 6 to 14.

#halo #halo fanfic #halo fanfiction #halo headcanon #halo au #halo reloaded #helix studios117 #spartans #spartan #spartan ii #spartan ii training is cutthroat

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simulanissolutions · 6 months ago

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Explore how Simulanis is leading the way in fire safety VR training in India with its cutting-edge VR fire simulators and fire extinguisher training simulators. Learn how these advanced fire extinguisher simulators provide a realistic, safe, and immersive training experience for industries and individuals, preparing them for real-world fire safety situations

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sepublic · 10 months ago

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Project Metamorphosis was the Space Pirates' way of preserving their commanders, keeping them alive through technology, and most importantly, keeping them operational; With cybernetics, any leader would be able to continue leading the Space Pirates in both tactics and even battle, no matter how damaged their organic bodies were.

Those submitted to the process were Space Pirate commanders injured by Samus Aran during her first assault on Zebes; Ridley, Kraid, and Weavel. Kraid was given a cybernetic dome over his face in order to protect his recovering eyes and see for them, but otherwise his adjustments were minimal. Ridley replaced a good portion of his body, and Weavel? He ended up replacing everything except his brain and spinal cord, much to his chagrin; His injuries were much more extensive, and unlike Ridley, he lacked any regenerative abilities.

But Project Metamorphosis was not just about giving Space Pirates cybernetic prosthetics; It went further than this. Hence, Mecha Ridley; At first glance, it seems to just be a robotic doppelganger of Ridley. And indeed, one of its functions was to act as a complete set of cybernetic prosthetics for the Space Pirate, meant to represent any possible limb or organ he might lose. This is quite common as a medical practice, although the full set of prostheses being programmed to attack intruders on their own isn't...

If Ridley were to lose an arm, an arm would be taken from the mecha and applied to Ridley's injured stump. If his face was burnt off, the skull chassis would act as a mask. Fire-breathing organs could be substituted with an internal flamethrower. The modular nature of Mecha Ridley meant that if Ridley replaced his hand, only to lose the rest of the arm it was connected to, the arm taken from his Mecha counterpart could still reconnect with the robotic hand he was currently using. In essence, Mecha Ridley was the precursor to the Meta and Proteus frames, hence the missile-launching booster as less a replacement and more an enhancement.

But Mecha Ridley had another function as well; Acting as a machine with which Ridley could project his own thoughts into, and control from afar. For in order to move the body, the brain sends signals through the nervous system, which the limbs and organs receive, and then interpret to move accordingly.

These signals are electric in nature; And so are wireless signals in technology. Through Project Metamorphosis, a neural interface could be applied to Ridley's head, and receive the signals he'd attempt to send to the rest of his body, replicating and redirecting them to his robotic doppelganger. Mecha Ridley would receive his brain's signals instead, and as a result its mimicry of Ridley's limbs would move, while his actual arms -if they were even present- would not do anything.

Mecha Ridley would also absorb visual and auditory input, directing it to Ridley, who would receive it via a VR headset. It's like a simulation, except your ‘avatar�� is in fact a tangible replica acting elsewhere. This feature is useful if Ridley or any other commander is so damaged that they can't even function on the field as a cyborg. In Ridley's particular case, it's to give his true body room to regenerate without having to worry about cybernetics restricting cellular repair, while also allowing him to fight 'on the field'. It's the best of both worlds.

...The problem with this form of cybernetic projection/possession is something every gamer fears; A bad connection. The Space Pirates worked to perfect the bandwidth of Ridley's neural headset and his mecha. But if Samus were to find herself unable to destroy a fully-completed Mecha Ridley, she could get around the problem entirely by interfering with the signals, causing the mecha to move one step behind Ridley, while Ridley received its input too late.

In case of this scenario, the Space Pirates programmed Mecha Ridley with its own independent AI to control itself with, should it stop receiving reliable input from Ridley in the heat of battle. So when Samus encountered it aboard the mothership, despite not being complete, Mecha Ridley still had a functioning AI to attack Samus with. Because this encounter happened so quickly after Ridley's defeat in Norfair, he hadn’t yet been resuscitated and hooked up to the neural interface. But in a future scenario, where Mecha Ridley was rebuilt and actually completed, it might've been something Ridley begrudgingly used while recovering from Phazon withdrawal and atrophy after the destruction of Phaaze.

Otherwise, he would avoid it if he could, and even subject himself to painful cybernetics as necessary; Ridley did not appreciate having a machine clumsily interpret his own moves for him. It was a distant, out of body experience, when Ridley preferred to fight in-person and experience death and destruction through his actual senses. Nevertheless, he kept the mecha on his personal ship; In Ridley’s off-time, he would put on the headset and test controlling the machine, so science team could see how to sync the mecha to his brain signals.

Since Project Metamorphosis could help Space Pirate commanders 'transcend the body', this same principle was applied to Meta Weavel. Despite Weavel being a Zebesian, his mechanical frame ended up having a noticeably different form, more upright and humanoid. The idea was to build off of Mecha Ridley by seeing how a brain could acclimate to a body very different to the one it was programmed to control. Hence the project’s name invoking the natural process of transformation and rebirth into something radically different; After a vulnerable workshopping period, of course.

Despite Weavel's frustrations over the differences, he did eventually adapt, and his Meta frame proved to be of sufficient quality. Thus, Meta Weavel would be deemed a success; It showed potential for brains to adapt to a wider variety of foreign shapes. So for example, a humanoid brain could be made to operate an arachnid body. Or a serpentine brain could now handle a body with several limbs, when such a brain wouldn’t even have neural pathways for this.

But the cybernetics could be made to interpret and ‘translate’ the brain’s signals, meant for a different body, into movements corresponding to limbs not alike. There have already been implants that translate the pheromones of species that communicate via smell into sound, and vice-versa, to aid in cross-species interaction; All of this is the natural extension, the natural evolution, of such technology. The Space Pirates would have to test more extreme examples like these, intensifying the disparity with each success.

And the goal was to combine these results with that of Mecha Ridley, to create technology in which a Space Pirate could telepathically control and 'possess' a mechanical body wildly different than their own. Project Metamorphosis would be taken even further from there; Perhaps being used to upload minds into machinery, allowing them to interface with data and become it, etc.

It could even lead to a telepathic possession and control of technology, with Mother Brain already being this; In fact, she helped form the inspiration for Mecha Ridley (so in a way, Zero Mission’s final boss is a culmination of Mother Brain, Ridley, and Weavel’s command). During her stint as Space Pirate leader, she permitted some study of her schematics by Project Metamorphosis scientists.

They analyzed Mother’s power to telepathically control both machines and even living organisms, in the hopes of replicating this with headsets and corresponding receivers; Science team hoped in particular to implant receivers into anyone or anything, without needing permission. Imagine hijacking a body by cutting off the signals from its host brain, so it would instead receive signals from another remote brain entirely.

Imagine bypassing the need to implant physical receivers entirely, and just using brainwaves and telepathy to disrupt a body’s natural signals and replace them at will! Imagine replacing them selectively to brainwash someone, letting them handle the rest as they obey and interpret on their own a basic command, freeing up brainpower to use in other processes or thralls!

All of this is how Mother Brain’s telepathic control works; It enabled her to control the Metroids, especially since she possessed Chozo DNA that the larvae were still programmed to obey. And it helped Mother Brain take command of technology as she saw fit, even sometimes controlling her Chozo charges for them so they could just let their minds and wills rest.

It allowed Mother to influence Zebes’ ecosystem and make it hostile to all outsiders. Her job has always been to do the thinking for people, after all; She is their new brain. Mecha Ridley is just the natural evolution of cybernetics interpreting for regular body parts the brain’s signals; Mother Brain’s conquest is just the natural evolution of her own programming, which she hijacked for herself to no longer be made to control, but to control under her own volition.

#Metroid #Space Pirates #Meta Ridley #Weavel #Ridley #Mother Brain #headcanon #headcanons

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satureja13 · 1 year ago

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The morning of the playtest! But who will be the first to enter the Therapy Game?

Jack: "Fear not my furless friends! For I - the Supersoldier - will boldly go where no creature had gone before!"

Saiwa, deliberately ignoring him: "So who will test this amazing technology first?" Jack: "Me! Me, me, ME!" Saiwa: "Hm... no volunteers? I would go myself but I'll have to supervise the devices and the AI... What about you Ji Ho?" Ji Ho: "Me? ö.Ö' Uhm..." Saiwa: "Right, this would not be a good idea. You are too precious for this." Jack: "Me! I will do it! What? Am I not precious or what? Ach! I don't care! C'mon Sai! Me, me, ME!"

Saiwa, still deliberately ignoring him: "Hmmm who else is eligible?..." Jack: "ME!!! Me, me, ME!" Saiwa: "What about you, Vlad?" Vlad: "Sure!" Jack: "What? And you claim to be my best friend! Tch!" Vlad: "But shouldn't we choose the one we can the easiest live without? In case something goes wrong?" Jack: "And that would be me! And thanks for your concerns: but Tiny Can will ensure I remain unscathed. Because he loves -> me!"

Nothing is as annoying as Puppy Jack ^^'

This is the mirror episode to this one :3

Saiwa: "Let's go!" Jack: "AWOOOOO!"

Saiwa and Vlad refunctioned the Therapy Room. Jack: "Wow! Will you be able to watch on the big screen?" Saiwa: "I hope so."

Tiny can is already connected and compiling.

Saiwa: "And these are your VR glasses and the Controller Arm." Jack: "This is so cool! Thank you, Sai!"

Saiwa: "Please be careful. As soon as you experience something off or weird, tell us and we stop it! We don't know what awaits us there and Arturo might have gotten that board from the Council and ..." Jack: "Omg Saiwa, it's just a game! What can possibly happen? You sound like my mom - if I had one..." And then he took a selfie, because it's so cool...

Jack: "That's a small step for a wolf - a giant leap for creaturekind!" Saiwa: "Omg! Go already!"

Jack: "Can't wait! ... Seems there is only one place I can go, so I'll just start there?" Saiwa: "Makes sense. This is your customized therapy session after all."

Jack: "Hm, I can see nothing - but I hear a crowd chanting. 'Wolfsbane! Wolfsbane!' " Saiwa: "Us neither. Wait, I'll make some adjustments. And to Tiny Can: "Tiny Can, check your graphics output, please." Tiny Can let out a streak of beeping sounds.

Jack: "Oh I can see! It's blurry and distorted - ah... now it's slowly getting better - but... ah" Jack gasped for air.

Saiwa still can't see anything: "Jack! What's wrong?" Jack tried to speak between gasping for air: "I... I'm... locked up! ...out!" And the he collapsed. (Due to his difficult past and after being locked up as a toddler and later with Saiwa in the lab and again when he and Ji Ho almost died in a fire, Jack can't stand being locked up.)

Jack also collapsed in the room in Tomarang and Saiwa is immediately stopping the game. Saiwa: "Tiny Can, stop the simulation!"

Vlad is helping Jack up and get's him to breathe again. Saiwa cries: "I'm so sorry, cub." (That's not the first time Saiwa is mean to Jack and something happens to him ö.Ö') And Ji Ho is petrified. Jack is like a brother to him and one of his best friends. This all started so promising and could have been of so much help for them... Tiny Can also looks abashed and beeps sadly...

'Terrified of the open road Yeah, where it leads ya never know But rest assured he'll be on you back Yeah, the holy ghost through his tounges in black As the band dog howls and the young girl cries The blessed virgin in her proud dad's eye The albatross hangin' round your neck Is the cross you bare for your sins he bleeds

Rebels are we, though heavy our hearts shall always be Ah, no ball or chain no prison shall keep We're the rebels of the sacred heart I said, no ball or chain, no prison shall keep We're the rebels of the Sacred Heart'

Flogging Molly - Rebels of the Sacred Heart This is one of my favourite songs of all time and I had it as my wake-up-song for many years. I just googled the meaning behind the lyrics and it's quite interesting to read. This song seems to tell about my own upbringing and now I love it even more.

This chapter's music is going to be very Irish/Scottish. Have I ever told you how much I love Ireland? I've never been there but whenever I see pics of Ireland, I cry. So I fear if I visit, I can't stop myself from crying all the time^^'

From the Beginning ~ Underwater Love ~ Latest 🕹️ 'Therapy Game' from the beginning ▶️ here 📚 Previous Chapters: Chapters: 1-6 ~ 7-12 ~ 13-16 ~ 17-22 ~ 23-28

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fazbear-entertainment-logs · 8 months ago

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Ballistic Puppet Show

In Five Nights At Freddy's: Security Breach there is an arcade cabinet by the name of Ballistic Puppet Show. On this cabinet is depicted the Puppet, the Security Puppet from Five Nights At Freddy's: Pizzeria Simulator, and Nightmarionne from the Five Night's At Freddy's 4 Halloween DLC but probably based on the one from Five Night's At Freddy's VR: Help Wanted.

This would also mean Fazbear Entertainment knows about the Security Puppet. They probably learn about it by either finding it in the wreckage of the Pizza Sim fire, or found it in drawing and documents that didn't burn, or found security footage with it on it.

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henrysglock · 1 year ago

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It does actually upset me a fair amount that Henry's story is never about himself in fanon or canon.

TFS? Picked apart for byler parallels and willel content. Picked apart for Jopper content. Does Henry's story even register as anything more than background noise? Does it matter? Does he matter in his own story? Or is he only important as a support for someone else?

The VR game? Picked apart for byIer content, eImax content, wilIel content. Nothing to be said for Henry's childhood and time in the lab, which takes up more than a third of the game. Once again, Henry's ignored and sidelined.

For the majority of his life his story itself isn't even about him. Canon childhood? Revolves around Virginia and Brenner (and Patty, in TFS). Then he's just another dead kid in the obits. Even Patty seems to have forgotten him for whatever reason after he's taken by Brenner.

Canon teen-adulthood? Revolves around Brenner and El. He's a number, a caregiver for children who only exist because of him, but who will never be aware of that fact and the implications it carries, and a pet to Brenner...and maybe a coworker at best.

He doesn't exist as something actually lovable until El starts caring about him. His trauma as One doesn't exist until he gets his few minutes of "being quietly upset about 20+ years of mistreatment" time while he's surrounded by the corpses of children he was fond of, children that he more than likely didn't kill because they don't actually exist, given that they fucking move and blink out of existence altogether. (Even that is deemed too long by the fandom, who would really rather see cute, useless scenes of wiIlel. or byIer. or. or. or. Less than 15 minutes of words for 20+ years of abuse, and it's "too much". He's "joker-fied" for being upset at all. Really I guess he should just be grateful he got to tell his story before El blasted him into the ether (over something we can't actually prove he did), whether that ether be the darkness of NINA or the fires of Dimension X. Should he take a bow and leave gracefully? Would you like him to get down on his knees and thank the security cameras before he goes? Should he have pinned himself to the wall? Should the lamb get on the alter and tie its own legs for the sacrifice?)

He ceases to exist entirely outside of Brenner as soon as El's memories of him are wiped.

Henry only exists again in relation to crimes he's blamed for but there's only flimsy circumstantial proof linking him to.

Henry's blamed for the murder of children that often times blink out of reality altogether, children we only seem to see in a fucked up Matrix-like computer simulation. Children he sounded fond of, and who were fond of him in return, even if they didn't really know him.

Henry's accused of manipulating El, but there's no solid proof that he did so. In fact, there's more proof saying he didn't do that, and was genuinely trying to get her to leave out the tunnel...but we don't acknowledge that. We also don't acknowledge that he stuck El in a closet to keep her safe while he went out alone into only God knows what situation.

Henry's blamed for Will's disappearance, despite the fact that Vecna (whoever he is) makes no mention of Will at all in canon, and when he does make mention in the VR...Will's already in the UD/void Castle Byers. There's no actual evidence linking him to Will's kidnapping in the shed. Vecna notices Will, but as of yet we have no solid evidence that he stole him.

And if he were to come back for some kind of "redemption arc", which I hesitate to even call a redemption arc, since we have no solid proof that he's got a body count over [checks notes] two: Virginia, whose circumstances of death are muddled with TFS, and that one guard in 4.07. (Yes, only the one guard. He threw the other four. There's no confirmation that they were anything more than knocked out, especially in a scene where they make a point to clearly show who Henry killed.) We can't even say he killed Alice, since we haven't seen the circumstances of her death...in fact, it's more likely he didn't kill her, based on what we know about his powers. Henry has a reliable body count of two, and both of them arguably had it coming. One had just sold him and his best friend out to Brenner, two children as lambs to the slaughter on the alter of "give Virginia Creel her normal life back :((((", and the other was an imminent threat to his and El's safety.

So I hesitate to call his possible return a redemption arc, because what does Henry have to be redeemed for? And if he were to have this "redemption" arc, he'd likely be put on the chopping block for people who haven't given him a second glance since 1959 (El aside).

I mean...how fucking unfair.

An unloved child sold to a freak doctor, imprisoned and abused for 20 years, forgotten entirely for the next 7 years, and scapegoated to the nth fucking degree as soon as he's brought back into the picture not of his own volition but because Brenner and El and Nancy dug him up and decided he was definitely and unquestionably to-blame for everything.

And were he to be absolved of any association...he'd likely immediately be expected to sacrifice himself for the "greater good".

Like...this guy had better get a happy ending or so help me god.

#rant #long-ish post #henryposting

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