#a lot to be said about the healing powers of the computer

[garbagequeer]

you think i will have 500 conversations with communist women and this will fix me (rational thought). NO. it's not right but it's okay glee cast will fix you. and destiel.

[five-rivers]

radiology

for @dekalko-mania and @dragonsdomain

Danny looked down at his arm and leg, then up at the ER desk, then over to his mother, sitting next to him, who had witnessed the car ‘clipping’ him.  Unknown to her, it had done quite a bit more than clip him.  Anyone else, and the driver’d have a vehicular homicide charge on his hands, not just a hit and run.  

If she hadn’t been watching– If he’d seen the car– 

Well, then he wouldn’t be in this mess, would he?  He would’ve dodged, or gone intangible, or just hidden the injuries he did get until they cleared up.  Just like he’d hidden all the other injuries he’d gotten that week. 

Although, he could admit that these were pretty bad, all things considered.  Worse than he usually got, which was incredible, considering he’d gotten it from something as banal as a car accident. 

Less banal were the other injuries he was sporting.  Like, new broken bones and bruises?  That’s what he was supposed to have.  That’s what was normal to have after a car accident.

Old broken bones and bruises… He definitely still had the ones from being hit by the car, but they just as definitely had started healing already, faster than a normal human’s ever could.  So had the broken bones and bruises he’d gotten earlier in the week after a particularly nasty fight with Aragon, the bites from the ghost bear, the stab wound from an anti-ghost knife (thanks Valerie)...  But they were still there.  Those would be harder to explain.  If he even could explain them.  

He needed to figure out how to hide all of this.  Like, obviously, he couldn’t hide everything.  He had been hit by a car, and, more importantly, he’d been seen getting hit by a car.  But the weirder stuff?  He could do that.  

“Fentons?” called the receptionist.  “They’re ready with the x-ray.”

“He’s going to need a wheelchair,” said Maddie.  

They got him a wheelchair, despite his protests that he could still walk, and wheeled him over to radiology.  He eyed the x-ray machine with trepidation and distaste.  It didn’t look like much, not compared to some of the machines he’d been in, but that didn’t mean it didn’t have the power to destroy his life.  Metaphorically.  Probably couldn’t do it literally.  Probably.  

A woman leaned into the room.  “Mrs. Fenton, we have a question about your insurance.”

“Right, okay, I’ll be right back, sweetie.”

“Don’t worry,” said the radiologist, who was adjusting something on her computer.  “We’d actually ask you to leave the room while we did this anyway.  No reason to irradiate you today.”

“My jumpsuit would–”

“Mrs. Fenton, the insurance.”

“Yes, yes,” said Maddie, she walked out, leaving Danny behind with the radiologist and the nurse that had helped them back here.  

The nurse helped the doctor make sure he was arranged properly for the x-ray, each limb in place, while the radiologist took a series of images.  Then he got him back into the wheelchair.  

“Thanks David, I think we’ll be okay here for now, if you need to get back to the ER.  I’ll call Molly when Mr. Fenton’s ready to get his bones set.”

“Alright,” said the nurse, nodding.  “You’ll be in good hands, kid, Molly’s great.”

That left Danny alone with the radiologist, who was clicking through Danny’s x-rays on her computer and rapidly paling.  With a flash, he went ghost and phased into the radiologist.  

He didn’t like overshadowing people very much anymore.  It had been fun at first, getting to be someone else.  Like playing a part.  But being the part, being puppeted… That was a lot less fun, and once Danny realized that, he stopped, except for when it was going to save a life.  Or his secret.  Which was pretty much his life.  

He stared at the computer screen.  Overshadowing someone didn’t mean that he knew what they knew.  Not really.  But he did get echoes.  Impressions.  Bits of emotion.  Sometimes, he even got a snippet of something they knew so well that it was basically muscle memory.  So, he knew his x-rays were screwed up, but not in what way, except–

Oh, yeah.  That would do it.  That was probably it, anyway.  He’d forgotten that he’d phased the thermos into his stomach to hide it, earlier.  Along with a couple pencils, a spoon, and various other small objects.  That was probably also related to why his liver felt so bruised…  He hadn’t realized it’d show up in x-ray even though it was intangible, but then, Danny was still visible while intangible, unless he went invisible at the same time, so…  Yeah…  Huh, the physics behind that had to be wild. 

But that wasn’t relevant right now.  He was hurt enough that he didn’t think he could hold onto the radiologist for more than a few minutes longer.  She wasn’t really fighting him, but she had a strong sense of self.  

However… he deleted all his x-rays.  That was step one.  Now, she had to have, like, spares or something.  Something he could substitute in for the images he’d just deleted.  He minimized the window and started looking through the radiologist’s files.  The spares might not have bones broken in the same places… or even broken bones at all, but that was fine.  People got lucky in accidents all the time.  He could play it off as the car not hitting him that hard.  Or something.  

Panic and aching pain may have disrupted his thought processes just a little bit.  

Finally, he found something labeled EXAMPLE 20XX.  That’d work.  That was over ten years ago, for all that it looked like the right file type for the x-ray program, so hopefully the radiologist wouldn’t recognize it.  

He loaded the pictures up and fled the radiologist’s body.  Just in time, too.  As the radiologist was orienting herself, Maddie came back in, a scowl on her face.  However, the scowl quickly turned into naked worry when she saw Danny.  

“Were you able to take his pictures already?”

“Yes, we have a new fast imager.  But these are…”  She trailed off, examining the screen intensely.  

“Is something wrong?” asked Maddie.

“Well,” said the radiologist, “come look.”

Maddie crossed the distance between Danny and the radiologist.  “Oh, thank goodness, I don’t see any breaks.”

“And that would be good, if these were his bones.”

“They’re not?”

“Not unless he’s a thirty-five year old woman,” she said.  “Sorry, this is my sample set.  It shouldn’t be connected to his– Nothing like this has happened before.  I didn’t even have my samples open.”

“Could the undo button help?” asked Maddie.  

“I mean, if they were in here at all, maybe,” said the radiologist.  

Tucker was going to kill him for not restarting that program.  And the computer.  And emptying the ‘trash’ bin.  And probably a dozen other things that would have prevented from the radiologist and his mother being able to restore everything with a few clicks of an ‘undo’ button.  

“Oh, here they are, they’re…”  She started losing color again.  “Mrs. Fenton, do you have any idea what this… what these things are?  Or how he could have…  Dear lord, I think these are more break than bone.”  

Maddie turned to Danny.  Her stance looked casual, but Danny knew she could whip out a gun faster than you could blink.  

“Danny,” she said, “can you explain any of this?”

[eggyrocks]

bruised part seven -> the healing power of shit talking

m.list

♪ now playing: first love/late spring by mitski ♪

“Are there any concerns you have going into Worlds?”

Iwaizumi bounces his knee, leaning back against the chair at his desk. He stares attentively at his computer screen, her face pixelated across it. It’s strange, he thinks, to see the face he’s known since he was a kid splayed out on screen, twisting in thought.

She’s always hated interviews, ever since her first one, and he can see it on her now. When she gnaws on the inside of her cheek. When she crosses her arms tightly over her chest, fingers tapping against her bicep. When her lip slightly twitches before she speaks. “The bracket’s stacked with a lot of heavy hitters,” she answers, and Iwaizumi can hear the forced diplomacy in her voice, even through the poor audio quality of his desktop’s speakers. “So I just have to make sure I go in with a clear head and play to my own strengths instead of fixating in on my opponent’s. That’s gotten me into trouble before.”

He chuckles at her answer. It’s so strained and uncharacteristic. Because if it was him that had asked her, she would roll her eyes and say, “Yeah, fucking of course I do. It’s Worlds. Don’t be stupid.” But because there is a camera on her face, she puts up a front of faux concentration and gives the first bullshit answer she can think of.

Iwaizumi taps a finger against the edge of his desk, resting his chin on the heel of his other palm. He studies her as she fields another question about her disadvantages against pressure fighters. Her left hand slips under her right elbow, cradling it, thumb drawing circles over the bone. He huffs.

It’s bothering her. Of course it’s bothering her.

His first frustrated thought is that she’s stupid for not telling him, because he told her to keep him updated on how the healing progressed and if she had any pain.

And then his second, worse thought is that it’s entirely his fault that she didn’t.

My world doesn’t revolve around you, y’know.

Iwaizumi sighs, reaching forward to knock his thumb into the space bar, pausing the video right as she started delving into her defense training. He knew it would work. Still, he was just sort of hoping it wouldn’t.

And now that it has, it feels shitty. Really fucking shitty.

Absentmindedly, he digs into his pocket and fishes out his phone, hoping that there might be a notification from her and hoping that there might not be. He’s more disappointed than relieved when there’s nothing.

He opens their conversation, thumbs hovering over the keyboard. Iwaizumi looks at her last words to him just a few days back: okay, whatever. He swallows, and types out a quick and plain: I’m sorry.

Iwaizumi stares down at the unsent message. He doesn’t know how to apologize without taking it back. He doesn’t know how to take it back without setting the distance.

There’s this urge in him to be selfish. To apologize and do whatever groveling is needed to get back to how they were before. But he knows that they can’t go on like that forever. That he would always be standing in her way. That he can’t always be the person she’d choose over anyone else. And if there was a time for his honesty, he knows for certain it’s passed.

Iwaizumi deletes it letter by letter. He knows she needs the distance.

He turns his attention back to the screen and presses play on the video. She picks up mid-sentence, giving them a canned line about how to effectively defend when she’s pushed up into a corner.

“And one last question for you and then I’ll let you get back to training. Is there a driving force behind your punch? What inspires you to fight?”

She was asked the same question back in their university days. He remembers her answer, word for word as it was back then. She grinned, brightly and genuinely, and looked right at the camera as she said, “I promised my friend I’d win.”

Now, she offers a half-hearted shrug and says with a light chuckle, “Who knows these days?”

fun facts!

yn typed out “np” with actual tears in her eyes

when she said “i know i can be clingy sometimes” she did mean it but there was a (big) part of her hoping he’d deny it and say he likes the attention she gives him

iwaizumi on the other hand was trying very hard not to say exactly that

he didn’t know what the right thing to say was so he just said generic word salad and then immediately regretted it

he’s not doing great either rn

yn has a hyperextended elbow and has had issues with dislocation in the past; she’s been able to avoid surgery but she’s been getting worried abt it acting up again

she wears compression sleeves while she trains to try and keep it at bay

bonus!

taglist: @wyrcan @thechaosoflonging @publicbathroompanic @bedeater @rottingt1tz @rintarawr @deluluforcarlos55 @ahseyy @localgaytrainwreck @cherrypieyourface @baskin-robinhoods @polish-cereal @iheartamora @ferntv @eclecticeggknightpsychic @httpakkeiji @does-directions @pinkiscool @hikikaimar @needtoloveoutloud @iheartpinky @makkir0ll @cr4yolaas @k8nicole @cannibalsrider @bookworm-center @causenessus @frootloopscos @0moonii @ekeio @michivrse @phoenix-eclipses @rinthegoose69 @melancholy-nightmares @kottonkndyy @hermaeusmorax @milkwithspiceyicecubes (please complete form linked in masterlist to be added)

[catboybiologist]

Alright I can't finish this all in one sitting, but here's at least a bit of.... something? A word vomit? A prelude to smut about the eroticism of the machine? For all you robot, mecha, and spaceship fuckers out there. @k1nky-r0b0t-g1rl that means you

Pappy always said that manufacturing biological transportation was nothing knew. I mean, shit, humanity's been breeding horses for how long? To him, not much was novel about what was going on in the shipyards way out by Neptune when I was a kid.

But Pappy didn't know a lot of things. And he certainly didn't meet Roseanna.

The Federation Navy had experimented with biologics for decades. The idea was to create self regenerating ships- something to interface with the hull, move the new titanium plates and particulates into place, have a living, growing mass interfacing with the steel so that the ship didn't have to head all the way back to the yards to patch up after every dogfight.

The first generation... worked. With a full time crew, that is. Full time people on deck jabbin the rigid, chitonous interface with the hull full of growth hormones to get them to set just right. Full time onboard bioengineers to compute what signaling cocktail ya need to hit 'em with to get it to grow back right. Skilled onboard technicians to shave back the chitin when it tried to overgrow the titanium, and slap some new cells in to seed the process in heavily damaged areas. Less input material, less time in the yards, but far more manpower. Great for a Federation cruiser on deep space peacekeeping missions. Far too complex for small craft. Right?

Until some bastard put brains in 'em.

Well. A lotta suits would say that they weren't brains. They were a diffuse network of sensory neurons and ganglia, living inside the body of the ship, integrating signals from a skin of alloyed metal and fibrous protein, calculating power draw too and from various components, and integrating with the mechanical and electrical components of the ship to precisely manage the "wound healing" process of the vessel. And of course, it just so happened that one of those ganglia was larger and more complex than the rest of them, and it just so happened that the computer interfaces with this ganglia exhibit complex, thinking behaviors on the level of human cognition, and it just so happens that most pilots and navigators reported them developing their own personalities.....

But of course, the Navy didn't want anyone to have some kind of pesky empathy in the way of their operations. And they certainly didn't want anyone side eyeing the rate at which they disposed of the damn things, and let them suffer and rot after disposal. So as far as the official record was concerned, they didn't have brains.

Like most people in the belt, I found Rosie on a... unsponsored field trip to the Neptune scrap yards. She wasn't a ship then. She wasn't much of anything. Not much more than a vat with the central ganglia and just barely enough of the stem cells needed to regrow a network. But I took her all the same. Brains were valuable. Few pilots outside the Navy had them back then. Nowadays, a black market for "brain seeds", a cocktail of neuronal stem cells and enough structural stem cells to grow your own into the chassis of your ship. They were pumpin' em out, and leaving them to die. It was cruel. They may be vehicles, but they're a livin' being too.

But I digress. I'd never do that to Roseanna. I make sure she gets proper care. And for a good, proper, working ship? That includes some good, proper work.

The asteroid we were docked in was one of my usuals- good bars, nice temp quarters, nice views of the rock's orbiting twin, and a spacious hanger for Rosie to rest in. The chasiss I had imprinted Roseanna to was a 40-meter light skipper, with some adjustments for handling deep space trips. It was pretty much the smallest thing you could actually use to live and work for long periods of time, but it got the job done. The angular design made the entire ship look like a wedge, or the blade of a bulky dagger. It didn't hurt that each bottom edge was fortified with a sharpened titanium blade, turning the entire sides of the ship into axe-like rams.

Those would probably come in handy today.

I approached Roseanna on the catwalk above her, marveling her alloyed scales. I could almost see her shudder in anticipation as my footsteps vibrated through the air above her. I took the steps down, and hit the trigger to open her top hatch.

When the news got out of the Navy scuffling with a rebelling mining station, an electric air raced across the station. Some went about their day as normal. Some resigned themselves to picking at the leftovers after the dust had settled. And some, like me, knew that they could get the finest pickings.

I strapped in to the pilot's seat like it was an old boot.

"Welcome, Captain Victoria."

Rosie could talk, but more often than not, she chose not to. But she understood me just fine. Most of our communication took place using her three prerecorded lines- her welcome statement, affirmative, and negative- as well as the tiny screen showing a small, emoticon face. Many pilots chose to give their ships an elaborate render, but Rosie preferred it this way. It was the first face I gave her, from somewhere out of the scrap heaps, and she refused any offer I made to upgrade. Secretly, I was overjoyed. To me, that was her face. That was her voice. And it was beautiful to see her true self through them.

I brushed my hands across her paneling. Across the switches, the hydraulic controls for the plasma fuel, the steering, the boosts, the comms channels. The thing with biologics was that you were still the pilot. For whatever reason, they hadn't quite gotten to the point where the brains could take over their own piloting. My personal opinion was just that their personalities lacked the ambition to. But whatever reason that was, the best pilots were still the ones that knew both their ship, and the ship's brain. And me and Rosie? We knew each other well.

As my fingers touched the brushed aluminum controls, rimmed with chitinous layers rooting them into the ship, I could feel the walls around me holding their invisible breath. "Do you know what we're doing today, Rosie?"

Her tiny panel flickered on. ...?

"We got a scrap run."

^_^

:)

^_^

Her panel flicked between various expressions of excitement. My finger quivered on the main power, holding for a moment before flicking it on. The primary electronics of the ship hummed to life, and what Rosie controlled pulsed with it. My hands moved across the main functional panels- main hydraulic plasma valve, exhaust ports open, and finally, flicking the switch the start the plasma burner.

My hands gripped the steering. The hanger's airlock doors opened in front of me. My neck length hair started to float as the station's gravity shut off. I hit the switch to unlatch from the supports above. For a moment, we hang there. The dull crackle of the idling plasma burner is the only sound that resonates through Rosie's hull.

Go time.

I punch the boost.

[hi-sierra]

Biologics, chapter 0.5

Hello, hello! I finally have added a significant amount to my story, Biologics, resulting in a total of ~4400 words. Not a whole ton, I know, but unfortunately life gets to ya. It isn't quite where I want it to be to consider a proper chapter one, but I feel like there's enough written for me to post. General warning that this is intended to heavily lean into the theme of "eroticism of the machine", so if that doesn't appeal to you, you've been warned. It does, however, have many general sci fi worldbuilding elements, so I hope it has a somewhat broad appeal!

So yes, if you already read the first snippet, that's going to be mostly a one to one repeat with some grammatical adjustments. Feel free to scroll down until you get to the new stuff. Flow-wise, there just wasn't a good place to break between the two sections.

Look at me rambling. And I wonder why I can't get any of this stuff done. Anyways, here it is!

Biologics

Pappy always said that manufacturing biological transportation was nothing knew. I mean, shit, humanity's been breeding horses for how long? To him, not much was novel about what was going on in the shipyards way out by Neptune when I was a kid.

But Pappy didn't know a lot of things. And he certainly didn't meet Roseanna.

The Federation Navy had experimented with Biologics for decades. The idea was to create self regenerating ships- organic matter that interfaced with the hull, moving new titanium plates and patches into place down to microscopic precision. If you had a living, growing mass interfacing with steel, a ship didn't have to head all the way back to the yards to patch up after every dogfight.

The first generation... worked. With a full time crew, that is. Full time people on deck jabbin the rigid, chitonous matrix full of growth hormones to get them to set just right. Full time onboard bioengineers to compute what signaling cocktail ya need to hit 'em with to get it to grow back right. Skilled onboard technicians to shave back the chitin when it tried to overgrow the titanium, and slap some new cells in to seed the process in heavily damaged areas. Less input material, less time in the yards, but far more manpower. Great for a Federation cruiser on deep space peacekeeping missions. Far too complex for small craft. Right?

Until some bastard put brains in 'em.

Well. A lotta suits would say that they weren't brains. They were a diffuse network of sensory neurons and ganglia, living inside the body of the ship, integrating signals from a skin of alloyed metal and fibrous protein, calculating power draw too and from various components, integrated with the mechanical and electrical components of the ship to precisely manage the "wound healing" process of the vessel. And of course, it just so happened that one of those ganglia was larger and more complex than the rest of them, and it just so happened that the computer interfaces with this ganglia exhibit complex, thinking behaviors on the level of human cognition, and it just so happens that most pilots and navigators reported them developing their own personalities.....

But of course, the Navy didn't want anyone to have some kind of pesky empathy in the way of their operations. And they certainly didn't want anyone side eyeing the rate at which they disposed of the damn things, just to let them suffer and rot. So as far as the official record was concerned, they weren't brains. But I knew different.

Like most people in the belt, I found Rosie on an... unsponsored field trip to the Neptune scrap yards. She wasn't a ship then. She wasn't much of anything. Not much more than a vat with the central ganglia and just barely enough of the stem cells needed to regrow a network. But I took her all the same. Brains were valuable. Few pilots outside the Navy had them back then. Nowadays, a black market for "brain seeds", a cocktail of neuronal stem cells and enough structural stem cells to grow your own into the chassis of your ship, was thriving. The Navy was pumpin' em out, and leaving them to die. It was cruel. Sometimes, being scavenged and resold was a kinder fate. But more often, some nasty piece of work would pick them up eventually, and treat them like just another goddamn ship. They may be vehicles, but they're a livin' being too.

I digress. I'd never do that to Roseanna. I make sure she gets proper care. And for a good, proper, working ship? That includes some good, proper work.

The asteroid we were docked in was one of my usuals- good bars, nice temp quarters, nice views of the rock's orbiting twin, and a spacious hanger for Rosie to rest in. The chassis I had imprinted Roseanna to was a 40-meter light skipper, with some adjustments for handling deep space trips, as well as some... personal touches. It was pretty much the smallest thing you could actually use to live in and work for long periods of time, but it got the job done. The angular design made the entire ship look like a wedge, or the blade of a bulky dagger. It didn't hurt that each bottom edge was fortified with a sharpened titanium blade, turning the entire sides of the ship into axe-like rams.

Those would probably come in handy today.

I approached Roseanna on the catwalk above her, marveling her alloyed scales. I could almost see her shudder in anticipation as my footsteps vibrated through the air above her. I took the steps down, and hit the trigger to open her top hatch.

When the news got out of the Navy scuffling with a rebelling mining station, an electric air raced across the station. Some went about their day as normal. Some resigned themselves to picking at the leftovers after the dust had settled. And some, like me, knew that they could get the finest pickings.

I slipped into the pilot's seat like it was an old boot.

"Welcome, Captain Victoria."

Rosie could talk, but more often than not, she chose not to. But she understood me just fine. Most of our communication took place using her three prerecorded lines- her welcome statement, affirmative, and negative- as well as a tiny screen showing a small, emoticon face. Many pilots chose to give their ships an elaborate render, but Rosie preferred it this way. It was the first face I gave her, from somewhere out of the scrap heaps, and she refused any offer I made to upgrade. Hell, she even had a hi-res screen for external cameras and comms, but she refused to interface directly with it. Secretly, I was overjoyed. To me, the little pixelated screen was her face. That was her voice. And it was beautiful to see her true self through them.

I brushed my hands across her paneling. Across the switches, the hydraulic controls for the plasma fuel, the steering, the boosts, the comms channels. The thing with Biologics was that you were still the pilot. For whatever reason, they hadn't quite gotten to the point where the brains could take over their own piloting. My personal opinion was just that their personalities lacked the ambition to. Cuz they certainly could take over some ships functions directly, and had the skill to do complex mechanical and electrical tasks. The Navy never let 'em drive, though, and most pilots didn't even know they could give them the ability to control any of the ships functions directly. But with a little help, a little bit of solid engineering, and a pilot that knew their ship... well, you could do a lot. And me and Rosie? We knew each other well. Over the years, I'd added some nice things for her, and she loved using them to help me out.

As my fingers touched the brushed aluminum controls, rimmed with chitinous layers affixing them to the ship, I could feel the walls around me holding their invisible breath. "Do you know what we're doing today, Rosie?"

Her tiny panel flickered on.

[...?]

"We got a scrap run."

[ ^_^]

[ :) ]

[ ^_^ ]

Her panel flicked between various expressions of excitement. My finger quivered on the main power, holding for a moment before flicking it on. The primary electronics of the ship hummed to life, and the parts Rosie controlled pulsed with it. My hands moved across the main functional panels- main hydraulic plasma valve, exhaust ports open, and finally, flicking the switch the start the plasma burner.

My hands gripped the steering. The hanger's airlock doors opened in front of me. My neck length hair started to float as the station's gravity shut off. I hit the switch to unlatch from the supports above. For a moment, we hang there. The dull crackle of the idling plasma burner is the only sound that resonates through Rosie's hull.

Go time. I punch the boost.

The station shakes. Rosie was never a subtle one.

The mechanics are deafened.

The crowd of spectators are deafened.

The other pilots in the hanger are deafened.

But me? The vibrations of Rosie's hull shuddering under me was the sweetest symphony my ears ever had the pleasure of hearing. As we shot out of that hanger, I found myself involuntarily humming a high note, harmonizing with the sweet rumble of my baby's acceleration as we shoot out into the inky, black expanse of space. The twin asteroids shot by us as we disappeared, leaving only the faint blue plasma trail from our engines.

My hand is firm on the boost, weathered hands tightly gripping the bar of the accelerator. I remember installing this thing in her- it was an aftermarket adjustment, not included in the usual light skipper chassis. Gently stripping away the back of her chassis, caressing her insides as I rooted the paneling, firmly attaching the tanks and burners on her insides... these hands had taken great pleasure in that. Bested only, of course, by the first time I had felt the thing roar to life.

And what a feeling it was. Rosie's entire chassis, biological and mechanical, shuddering under my grasp. The grip of my calloused hands on the boost controls, tight and sweaty around the ridged grip of the horizontal bar. The noises she made, as if to shout in glee and wild abandon at being unchained and let loose into the eternal field of space, as she was made to do. The gentle touch of her skin on my back, my body pressed in contact with the small fraction of hers that was my seat. I glanced down at her face panel.

[ :| ]

[ :D ]

[ :| ]

[ :D ]

[ :| ]

[ :D ]

[ :| ]

[ :D ]

My humming gave way to a chuckle, and then a wholehearted, exhilarated laugh. Someone was enjoying herself. The flickering faces on her panel reminded me of the happily panting station dogs back on Mars.

But as much as I would like this to just be a joyride, I had promised Rosie a scrap run. And the pickings were looking good. I glanced down at the nav. I was intentionally headed at a slightly indirect angle- Rosie's boost was her main attractive feature (both as a ship, and as a working partner), and the extra leeway I had in travel time let me strategize a bit more. I doubted we would be the first people there, but I figured we could get in before the main rush. The only trouble was darting in and grabbing something right from under the noses of the first locusts. The scrap field in question included a disabled heavy mining freighter, a goliath of the ship larger than some of the asteroids it made supply runs between. I assumed that most other scavengers would be approaching directly from our station, and the other stations in its proximity. With Rosie's boost, we could overshoot, hook around, and put the freighter in between us and the guns of the more violent craft. Rosie has no long range weapons of any kind- not only would they slow down her miraculous speed, but she didn't like them. I tried installing a small plasma cannon once, and she expressed immense distaste. Maybe they were too brutish for her, or maybe she didn't like the way they felt inside her, burdening her with pressure from the inside that didn't befit the delicate touches I usually graced her with. Rosie loved speed, precision, elegance, and stealth above all else. It's just the kind of ship she was.

That's not to say she was a pacifist, or defenseless. Quite the contrary. She just prefers a more... personal touch.

The navicom beeped at me. We'd reached the point where we needed to make that hook. My bare feet gently swept across the titanium flooring to the steering pedals. My right hand delicately gripped the steering joystick, while my left eased its grip on the boost accelerator.

"Ready for this, darling?"

[ >:) ]

I slammed the steering to the left, and Rosie gleefully complied. The wide bank of the turn as we rotated and soared through the sea of stars twisted my body in its inertia, compressing me further into her. As the angle straightened out to the proper heading, I punched the boost again, and Rosie roared forward.

Slowly, our target came into sight. Damn. This thing had taken some serious damage. Mining freighters typically weren't heavily armored- their only job was to get material from point A to B- but this one had clearly been through some serious modifications. Modifications that now lay in ruin. Titanium plating was scattered in a field around the core of the freighter. I couldn't quite tell what was stuff left behind by the battle, and what was the result of shoddy craftmanship- but it didn't matter. What did matter was that the entire thing had been split almost in half, and the scattered cargo that was leaking out. Cargo that most likely included half the weapon supplies of this little rebel faction. Would fetch a pretty penny, to the right buyer. And hell, if it was just gonna sit here unclaimed...

Ah shit. It wasn't gonna sit here unclaimed. Despite my best efforts, it looks like we weren't the first ones here. A larger scavenger gang had already arrived, and it looks like it was one of the ones I knew- Augustus and his lot. Most likely, they'd be after the weapons intact, one more thing to use to shakedown the scattered independent stations I always flitted between. He would not be happy to see me n Rosie here. What he called his "fleet" was a single, mid-sized carrier ship, about half the size of the freighter we were looting, and the dozen or so scout fighters and strip mining crafts he had looted from the Navy and various corps, and one Biologic that he called his. I respect that part, to be honest. What I don't respect is him immediately turning around and using that charge every goddamn station his ever-increasing "protection fees". Not to mention my personal disdain for the way he treated his ship. Didn't even give her a damn name. I digress. But any chance to loot something from under that slimebag's nose was a win in my book. I knew he wasn't gonna make it easy, though.

Welp. That's what our positioning was for. The side facing us was the main starboard face, and like the rest of the ship, it was peppered in small holes and gashes. Seems like the main damage had happened from the other side, and a few cables and scaffolds on the starboard just barely kept the two rear cargo compartments clinging to the front.

"Alright Rosie, time to creep it in slow. Be quiet, now, don't want them picking up a plasma surge"

[ :| ]

Ha. That was her "my lips are sealed" face. She's having fun with this already.

I cut the booster, coasting closer and closer to the bust open vessel. I eased the reverse thrusters ever so slightly, my fingers gently stroking the dual brake levers, lightly teasing at them to wait until we were as close as I thought we could be without attracted attention.......... before slamming both sides back towards me. For just one, crucial moment.

The goal here was to approximately match the speed and trajectory of a floating piece of titanium plating. Rosie's frontal blades were essentially that, anyways, so all they would see is a somewhat more angular piece of rubble. Hopefully they hadn't seen that same piece of rubble screaming out of travel speed, but I was cautious enough with my distances that I didn't think that was a problem. And they hadn't seen me yet. Once we were close enough to the freighter itself, we were blocked from their raw sightline, and Rosie was running quiet enough to not tip off any of their energy sensors.

But there was still no guarantee. Rosie, however, had no shortage of tricks. Something that she and I had developed together was a nice little bit of snooping. Well cared for and well trained, a Biologic brain had the problem solving of a human, and the computational power of a machine. But them together, and you've got a perfect decoder. And I happened to know that Augustus used an encrypted local frequency to keep his

"Alright Rosie, thinkin you can eavesdrop a little?"

Affirmative.

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[...]

[..!]

:D

My comms crackled to life. "...7 heavy cannons in center-front portside bay, 3 replacement fighter hatchs...."

The comms crackled back and forth, with each pilot giving updates to what they were finding in their own little segment that they were slicing apart. Occasionally, I saw Augustus or the fighters flick between the slicing ships, overseeing their progress on the port bays. Good. Let them focus on the other side for now. Slowly, the fleet was overshadowed by the freighter. We made it. I released my breath- shit, didn't realize I was holding it- and took a better look at what we were dealing with. It looked as if the scattered debris field had mostly been the remnants of the hull, as well as light weapons for small craft and even infantry. They would fetch some small change, sure, but Rosie's cargo capacity was small. Packing efficiency was the name of the game. I saw the gash that it had all been flooding out of on this side- the entire freighter was covered in them- and peered inside. And ho boy, did my heart flutter.

Heavy cannons.

Jump-graded travel boosters.

Raw, precious metals.

And, hidden in the back corner, seemingly bolted into the wall.... a brain.

We'd hit jackpot, and potentially rescued a poor ship from abandonment, or worse.

"Alright Rosie. Time to get to work."

Affirmative.

And here was another lil something that made Rosie special- her manipulation arms . She always preferred that delicate touch, and wanted to interact with the world in a tactile, real way. So we worked on it. Together. I was tired of taking spacewalks to grab small pieces of scrap, or using the entire goddamn cargo bay on a piece that only had a tiny core, or scraps of precious metals inside. So we needed something that could pluck apart our finds. Do some light disassembly in the field, extract what was valuable, and load it in with the most packing efficiency possible. So I gave her arms- snake like appendages, coiled up in her cargo bay, with thousands of points of articulation. At first, I tried to make some kind of control system that I could use from the cockpit. But Rosie had a different idea. At her urged, I jacked them directly into the same sensory and motor systems that let her grip onto, position, and repair her hull. And by god, it worked.

When I showed her off the first time, no one had ever seen anything like it. Because there was nothing like it. A ship taking real mechanical control, over something so precise and delicate, was something that only a deeply intelligent, deeply skilled ship, with complex decision making and tactile movement could do.

And I was goddamn proud of her.

Every time she deployed them, I watched awe. Rosie gave a face of determination, and sinuous, metallic, tentacle-like appendages slid out in a bundle from the cargo bay opening on her underside. Each one was headed off by a different attachment- a precision laser cutter, a simple three-pointed grabbing claw, a drill, a tiny buzzsaw, camera that let me see what was going on, and more. Each one could be swapped out, depending on the task at hand. With eight of them slithering out from her cargo bay, though, there was usually something for everything. They extended out as a single bouquet, down through the hole of the cargo compartment, and split apart once inside. Each arm got to work.

Her observation monitor flickered on, giving me a view from the camera arm. I would've liked to get the brain out first, but two heavy cannons and a booster blocking the way anyways. We'd cut through that, picking off the energy cores and precious metals in the circuits as we go, and work our way towards the back. Rosie seemed to like the plan as well. My only job was to watch the comms, and watch the sensors.

I watched the camera as the petite tools of the arms excised and picked apart the titanium shell of the first heavy cannon. Her tools- the delicate 'fingers' of her arms- picked, pulled, tugged, and gently gripped every necessary notch, every joined titanium plate that needed to be undone, ever scrap of precious material. Firm, yet precise. Strong, yet never breaking or mishandling a single piece of cargo. As Rosie worked, my eyes darted across the energy sensors. I could see blips firing off as the ships on the other side of the freighter as the slicing ships worked and flitted between their stations from the other side. The comms crackled with their reports to Augustus- they seemed to be moving back and forth to the main carrier to drop off their hauls. It seemed like they had a lot to go through- we'd have plenty of time.

On the camera view, I could see a grabbing claw retracting back through the cargo bay. The first cannon had the back section cleanly excised from the massive barrel and chassis, leaving a path for the tools to get to the booster. The precious energy cell was sliding its way back into Rosie's cargo bay. God damn. She was quick with that. The laser cutter and saw were already making short work of the booster, too. We'd get to the brain in no time.

The chatter on the other line continued. We were still safe, but Augustus' crew had made more progress than I had hoped. Once the slicers had picked apart the port, they'd loop around to the starboard. We had to grab what we could as fast as we can- but I knew neither me or Rosie was gonna leave without that brain. Rosie gracefully sliced the fuel cell and ignition from the plasma burner, leaving the bracketing and vents behind. The second heavy cannon was soon to follow. Each cut through each piece had left a winding path towards the back of the chamber, allowing a physical path to what I had seen just barely poking through: a container for a genuine ship's brain. Rosie slid her camera arm in for a closer look.

The brain was bolted into the chassis of the ship, as well as some containers of growth factor. Seemed like the intent was to grow her in to this freighter. That was certainly an ambitious task, but if they knew what they were doing, it would be well worth it. A self-repairing, intelligent hauler as large as this one would be the heart and soul of resistance movements everywhere, supplying every backwater mining station or moon that longed to be free. Unfortunately, the brave and principled can still be stupid, and these chucklefucks had no idea what they were doing. Slapped in a random cargo bay, desperately trying to get growth out from there with no proper imprinting guidance... shame. If they'd've found me before running into the Navy, I might've helped them out. But at least now, we could give her a better life. I knew a lot of good, caring pilots that would take loving care of a fine ship like her.

From what I could tell, we were still safe from Augustus. Based on what I was hearing on the comms, each slicer was working on its last cargo hold subsection, and after that, they'd be poking around this side. We had to get this brain and get out.

Tenderly, her claw arm gripped the top of the brain's chamber, as her other fingers started working on the rivets. A saw would bust through part of the titanium bracket holding the chamber down, and when it got too close to the container itself, laser cutters took over, delicately slicing off each affixation point one by one. Rosie worked in a clockwise direction, first working down the three riveting points on the right, sawing off the bottom bracket, and then working up the rivets on the left.

C'mon Rosie. You got this. Just need the top plate....

"Finishing up there, slicer 5T?"

Shit. That was Augustus on the comms.

"Sure thing boss. Just gotta get this load to central. Mind if someone takes a peek on the other side for parasites before I get there?"

Shit.

"Sure thing. Fighter 3A, get your ass in gear and make a full pass of the ship."

An energy spike pinged on my sensor panels as the fighter revved up a booster.

"Gotcha boss. Starting at aft segment."

Shitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshitshit

We still had a sliver of time before we were seen. They'd wanna get a good pass everywhere- there were ships far stealthier than us out there. But it was minutes at most. We had to finish up.

"Rosie, how're we doing there? You done?"

Negative.

[ ;( ]

"Fuck. Rosie, we gotta get outta here."

Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative. Affirmative.

Rosie-speak for "I know, I know, I know"

My eyes were fixed to the scanner and my cockpit windows for a visual, but I spared one moment to check Rosie's cam. She was finishing sawing through the top bracket. Just a little more....

"Aft clear, moving to starboard cargo bays."

The brain snapped off of the hull, and Rosie's claws were zipping it back to her cargo bay. I revved the engines into standby. The arms tenderly guided it through the path we had cleared, and out through the hole in the hull. We might be able to barely slip away without them knowing.....

I looked up through the cockpit, just as the dinged-up, formerly Navy fighter showed itself from behind a piece of debris. It froze for a moment, and then lined its nose to face me. Cannon ports shifted open, and slowly took aim.

"Well shit, Augustus, you're gonna wanna see this. Get your ass over here, I'm switching to public comms."

I heard slight fuzz as he switched his channel.

"Alright, leech, I'll keep this simple. You have thirty seconds to relinquish your haul before you join the debris."

For a single, cold moment, I swear I made eye contact with him through our cockpits.

[rainbow-neko-artblog]

Sending in this ask to say !! I would LOVE to read a ramble about the Polyverse plot and I am prompting you to use this ask to ramble /nf

FNF Polyverse plot is very convoluted because as I've said before. It's an RP run by like 7-8 people and we don't stop eachother from indulging. But I suppose I can explain it >>;

Ramble under the cut!

Our story begins YEARS before the actual events of FNF take place. On a computer owned by a really talented coder we named Admin for short. Admin is really good at what they do- they even made their own firewall.

What they didn't realize was the firewall was so well made it was actually Sentient.

Admin for unknown reasons, abandoned their dream of being a coder for a really long time, leaving their sentient firewall all on its own, and it gets really really lonely- deciding to act on its own according. It catches a virus- but instead of getting rid of it, it let's the virus stay- and eventually through contact to the firewall, the virus also gains sentience.

These two are Chaos and Order. The Virus and The Firewall.

Together, the two of them used the code leftover on the computer to make their OWN world. A game world. Their own personal Earth. On this Earth, they made a race of beings called The Ancients who had the ability to change their appearance by will alone. They were shape shifters! And for a awhile things were great.

Until The Ancient Civil War.

Half of The Ancients so closely followed Order's teachings of law and right and wrong that they thought the whole of earth should value Order more, the other half saw Chaos' teachings of self control and freedom as more important, and when their wills so strongly aligned, they would shift to look like Angel and Demons respectively.

Despite Chaos and Orders pleas, Angels and Demons fought long and hard- they killed eachother- destroyed the earth in the process. Till eventually the sides realized they were at a stalemate. Angels and Demons chose to flee- with EVERY Angel fleeing to a plane above Earth they created called Heaven and with MOST of the Demons fleeing to a plane far below it, called Hell.

The Ancient Civil War was put on hold- and while the two sides were away, Chaos and Order began to put earth back together. This time with more species and varying beliefs. Humans- robots- ectect. The demons were still there because of their whole "freewill" thing but it wasn't an issue without The Angels.

This is obviously where a lot of the plot splits off, as with more creations and the earth fully healed up like this, it's obviously where different arcs come into play with the other people RPing. However my arc was BFs.

The Angel's were PISSED that the demons were still occupying earth. They felt as though the stalemate wasn't really a stalemate and vowed to destroy them all- however how to do that? How to break a stalemate with a creature that's biologicaly as strong as you? New weapons.

So a good half of the angels gave up their form to create this giant biblically accurate angel toothpaste lookin ass glob of power named The Collective - in order to CONDENSE huge peices of their code to make more powerful bio weapons.

The first three failed as you might have guessed- the 5th was SO perfect, their PERFECT Hero, that they stuffed the 4th one that was being made along side him into a robot body to go down to earth with him.

This as might have guessed, was BF. or Keith as we call him.

Keith is the Angel's perfect angelic bio weapon, destined to be sent to earth to grow up and then slaughter everyone on earth the Angel's deem unworthy to be there.

But while Miku is off getting money to keep the two of them fed and happy as her programming is designed to do- Bf falls in love. With a lot of people. A Demon girl named Lucy, Aka Gf, who the collective would obviously not approve of as a demon, A flawed murderous man by the name of Pico, who's acts of violence outweigh many of his good deeds, and a Ghost/Demon hybrid named Eric who had been stuck in a video game for so long he honestly is an abomination.

But BF LOVED them. For their flaws. For their personality. Every part of them was something he cherished. So when Miku brought him to The Collective to explain his purpose, he turned them down. Refusing to be Their Hero. Insisting that Demons and Angels didn't have to fight like this.

But The Collective had been stuck together for so long that it corrupted them- they had no room to doubt their choices and ended up chasing BF and his partners out of heaven in this epic violent chase sequence- where it then tripped, and fell off the side of the plane. Falling deep into the code when Chaos and Order dismantled it.

Leaving the 4 Poly pals to love eachother on Earth among the other angels and demons who changed their minds.

All of that though is BFs arc! There's a few other arcs like how Skid and his dad The Eyes of The Universe needed to make up in order to stop Eyes from dismantling the whole code of the game- which is how we have so many duplicate modes characters like the remixs and aus, because Polyverse is technically filled with a bunch of Holes from The Eyes. And the Eddsworld arc where BF helped Tord reconnect with his friends. The Omori arcs where he got new siblings who adopted him from the crew of FNF characters. Ectect.

We did a lot. We're technically still doing things. That's how Silly Billy/Yourself was added recently. Every new mod is a new addition to Polyverse! ^^

[lotusmi]

my success, my failures

honest post about my current life and thoughts on void 💌

Hi angels, this my most personal post and I don't know why, i felt like posting this. This is going to be an honest long post about my loa journey, void journey and whatever how my life went after I realized I was in control.

At first point I would like to recall: I am not a void state blog, I am not a void "master" (I am not assuming this, In 4d I sure AM!). My blog is more about LOA, the Neville Goddard Law, the Edward Art Law. The simple, beautiful Law that I felt in love with. I like the void state method, I have entered it a few times, I'll be talking on this in a while, first I'll tell my story until here on how I left the worst circumstances...

As I was someone like most of people are, I thought I was not the operant power. I have known the law of attraction for 7 years, and I belived I had to "beg" the "universe" to give me things, I would write letters to the "universe" asking for my desires, then I would try to have "good energy", write down million of affirmations in future tense and then wait in hope to be "deserving" of them.

As time passed by, I yes, had manifested some things with this law of attraction thing, but I never changed my state, my mindset, I did not even knew what was those stuff, I would still let myself imagine bad things happening to me, I felt unwanted, ugly, unlucky, with no freedom. I had also lots of limiting beliefs, had to drink water to subs work, listen to then million times, be deserving, be positive, afirm without saying "no/never" etc.

Things were getting worse, I felt always more unwanted, different, unlucky, inferior, all of that. My life was getting shitty, I would imagine me having fights with my parents, me crying, I would see myself as an victim of the world, and I stopped even trying to have optimism and using law of attraction, i literally gave up. At this point I had lost my faith, so I lived all my days complaining and begging God, universe, deities to "save me". In this phase I suffered like never, I was super depressed, my home was toxic and i mean TOXIC. I was anxious, I wanted to kill myself. I wanted to break free.

So at this point I was in the worst months of my life, I was not allowed to even have friends or use internet for more than 7 months straight. The things they did to me... I am even embarassed to tell about those things. I had to decide on persist or give up. So I said to myself I would do my better to ignore my outer-world and stop letting those things affect me, it was not easy. I would hurt myself and have a lot of anxiety crisis, but I found my peace within, I started living in imagination and seeing in my imagination what I most wanted to have, be. I was being delusional, I did not even knew about all of this LOA thing. I just wanted to escape of my reality.

In less than 2 months everything changed. I was more happier, and I was now allowed to do my things again, talk to friends, have my computer and all of this. I did not knew It was me, I thought it was a miracle.

Life went by, I fell in love, my selfconcept was shit, he dumped me. Still, at that time I did not knew about the law. I did not knew he did that because I assumed. I would imagine that he did not loved me, I would imagine him saying "it is over" at the point I would cry imagining, I felt that real, so I manifested. I was the cause. I did not knew.

After all of this I wanted to love myself and take care of me, I started learning about spiritualy, I learned that I am part of God. That I am God experiencing being human. I walked in love, started healing my trauma, I got a lot of it. In a meditation trying to communicate to my "higher self" I entered the void, blue gray, peaceful, beautiful... So still... I there naturally affirmed "I am calm, happy, love, ethereal". After this day everythin changed and I had no more reasons to be sad, I was healed.

But I was still in love with my ex and I only discovered the law because of it, I searched on how to manifest an ex, yea. It did not worked since of I let old story, circumstances, "false free will" let me down. But I discovered the neville subreddit, then the loatumblr, then the void, WHAT WAS, the void. And got to know I had entered it once, I wanted to do it again. I entered more of 3 times maybe until now, and also got some I AM state experiences. (They not the same to me since i feel emptiness from void and wholenesses from I AM + I AM state is golden and I see myself in other people bodies).

I learned about void with Halokisses, but at that point I thought it was some magical place, months passed by, my void concept got better but I still let circumstances bother me. I was not also doing my best to enter it to be honest. I was manifesting my life to be great even while manifesting entering in the void.

♡ What happened by this last months is that I just realized I love my life now, I love myself, my body, my friends, I have time to me, I have enough money to buy my things, I am free to do a lot of things. I never am bothered by circumstances + senses since I am in control of my states. and this made me feel like I don't even need the void altrough I still am going to enter it again, my void concept is beyond perfect right now that I fully know WHO I AM. At this point I am just so saturated about void that I relaxed about WHEN entering again because I am full convicted that I can do this and that I don't "NEED" it.

What I am trying to say is, circumstances does not matter, and you all don't need the void! You all need yourselves. I also want you to know that I AM not a "void master blog" all of that. I am someone who won the circumstances and manifested things, I am someone in love with Neville that want to help people, I am someone that did some subs for helping other people.

I know how it feels to be in a toxic home, feel ugly, be unwanted, have no friends, no money, be depressed, be anxious. I only told you the last 3 years of my life. I know how the void seems to be the only "way" and all of that. I know how it is like to just have someone to say "I am entering it for you" or wonder "When is my time?", I know how is like to think "you are the only exception" I know the void for about 8 months and I did not gave up. I manifested lots of things even while manifesting entering it. ♡ ALL I did was to change the story I was telling myself, the assumptions I held about me. I understood that 3d reflects 4d and so no matter what, everything is possible.

So please, stop begging me to "enter the void" for you or say "I can't do x so do for me". I am doing ALL I NOW can do to help you, I do posts, I reply asks, I make audios, I assume you all can do it. As soon as I enter the void I am of course affirming for you there. But until now I NEED, no, YOU need to save yourself, because even WITHOUT me, you can do this. YOU ARE THE CREATOR.

You don't have to pass by all that I had passed to realize WHO YOU ARE.

♡ My success story is I myself, I saved me. I am not depressed anymore, I am calm, happy, I am free. I never thought I could love myself this way!

₊and as soon I enter the void again, I will post my success, do more challenges, and I am even thinking of entering for it for you.

I hope this had inspired you and cleared things about me and my blog, I hope we all can help ourselves,

with love, Lotus - because I rised from mud. 💌

[reds-skull]

Not Alive, Nor Dead

[PREV PART]

This one is shorter, because I wanted to leave a cliffhanger at the end >:) Fair warning, there's a small paragraph describing wounds in more depth than I usually do!

These are getting more difficult to write haha. Maybe I'm trying to add too many plot points at the same time, but I like a good mystery or 5...

Ghost is tempted to barge into Price’s office for a third time today. He’s been getting increasingly more agitated, and with no missions in the foreseeable future, has no place to let all his frustrations out.

The fact he’s been avoiding MacTavish isn’t helping the situation.

“Avoiding” is a strong word. Ghost is simply waiting for Soap to get what he had told him back then through his thick skull. And hearing the conversations he has with the recruits tells him he absolutely didn’t.

The Scot keeps up a friendly approach with them, making light jokes at his revenant status. Lets enough information out that the recruits don’t feel the need to ask more, but not enough that they would truly understand what is going on.

It would impress him if he didn’t feel this underlying current of freezing ice every time he heard another of Soap’s ‘hilarious’ stories.

Watching Gaz beside him grimace tells him they share the sentiment. The Sergeants have been spending a lot of time together as of late, and Ghost would lie if he said he didn’t wish Garrick would take a moment to speak with him. He’s not one to really focus on what he’s feeling, but he needs to share what he knows with someone.

He wants more brains working on solving the mystery called “Soap”.

Ghost sighs before turning away from Price’s door. 

You’d think, for someone with Ghost’s powers, he wouldn’t need to train his physical strength as much. He wouldn’t, if things worked as they did before he joined the 141. He wasn’t as smart back then.

Ghost throws another flurry of punches at the sack that distracts him from his thoughts for a moment.

Back then, he went into missions back to back, annihilating enemies within a few seconds of touching ground. Receiving orders to unleash Limbo regardless of how close allies were to him. 

Limbo was emptier. Calmer. The not-dead residing within it weren’t always this… angry.

Another set of punches violently shakes the chains the punching bag is hanged by.

It was only after losing several squads that Ghost finally got his tight leash, but it was too late. Limbo was never the same. And neither were his fellow soldiers, who saw in Ghost not a brother in arms, but their friend’s murderer.

Soap might not have his own Limbo, but Ghost is certain his powers can, and if he continues on the path he’s on, will backfire.

Reapers, as generous as they are, are merciless.

He heaves, resting his arm on the abused bag. It might be time to involve Price in his concerns.

The path to Price’s office is intercepted by one floating Sergeant, also on his way to the Captain.

Ghost nods at him, “need the Captain for something?”

Gaz averts his eyes for a moment, “It’s about Soap, I think-”

“Save it for Price’s office”, Ghost restarts on his path, a little more sure of his purpose. With the three of them, he’ll might be able to find out more.

Before Garrick can knock, Price’s words fill their minds.

“I can sense your troubles from here, come in already.”

They both huffed and entered the room. Price sat in front of his computer screen, reading something before addressing them.

“Spill it out then. I’m listening.”

“Soap’s left arm has nerve damage, sir”, Ghost starts, “He needs more time to heal than the brass is giving him. He should be removed from active duty.”

Gaz’s eyes widen in surprise. Oh, so Soap hasn’t let his new friend know about this? Fucking great.

“How the hell is he supposed to fight without one arm?” He exclaims, “Sir, I’m sure this isn’t the first time he’s hiding injuries. He keeps telling stories about how many he got blown to bits and I can’t imagine he-”

Price cuts him off “The Sergeant’s arm injuries are registered and accounted for.”

“The higher-ups let him out when he’s ‘capable of preforming well on field’. His words” Ghost adds and deflates back into his chair.

“Bloody hell…” Gaz trails off.

Price watches both of them and exhales, “I’m not in charge of Soap’s next deployment. I can’t do anything about that.”

Ghost looks at the screen for the first time since entering. Schedules, of…

“Price… what have you found?”

The captain’s expression darkened, “We finally got back the decrypted intel you and Soap collected 7 months ago.”

His focus snaps away from Soap. Are they being sent on a mission finally? “Tell me where you need me, Captain.”

“Switzerland. Intel suggests a deal with a PMC will happen there in 4 days. Shepherd wants eyes on it, the smuggler hub it’s taking place in has been on our radar for months.”

Price drags out 2 files and dumps them in front of Ghost and Gaz, “you two will survey the area and take notes, no engagement. Get it done clean.”

“What about Soap, sir?” Gaz asks.

Price raises an eyebrow, “what about him? He will stay here, waiting for his assignment.” Price tries to reassure the Sergeant, “Don’t worry, I’ll keep him busy. He’ll get to have some alone time in the training grounds”.

Ghost gets up and takes the file with him. They both get dismissed and Gaz stops after a couple of steps, “you need to talk to Soap before we leave.”

Ghost raises an eyebrow, “has he said anything?”.

“No”, Gaz chews on his lip, “But I feel like if he’ll listen to someone, it would be you.”

Ghost walks away, not before muttering, “your feeling’s wrong, then.”

He doesn’t sleep that night. Which isn’t an unfamiliar experience for him, but much rarer after Price found him a bunk bed to drag into his personal room. The victims of Limbo don’t reach up high enough to grasp at him there.

Ghost looks out at the fields, a sense of discomfort lingering around him. Footsteps behind him alert him to the presence of another sleepless soldier. He doesn’t bother turning - they’ll leave him alone when they realize it’s the Ghost, if they know what’s good for them.

It’s for that reason that he’s surprised to hear the footsteps get closer to him, before feeling a body join the window.

Ghost is about to scare the bastard away, but he turns around to find Soap, a somber look marring his features.

“I’ve thought about what you told me”, he speaks lowly, a stark contrast to his usual confident tone.

Ghost hums.

“My powers… don’t allow me to do much.” Soap locks eyes with the night sky, “I either destroy or get destroyed. I supposed you figured what I prefer.”

He did. What he doesn’t understand is why Soap is so adamant that it’s the only way. He turns to Soap, which makes the other finally look at him.

“When you return from your mission, when you’re truly under my command, I’ll decide what your role will be. For now”, he sighs, “for now, you can keep playing a puppet for the higher ups.”

Soap has a distant look to his eyes. As if he’s not really all here. “I do want to learn. How to operate like the 141 does. I’ve heard a lot about you since we last met.”

That doesn’t comfort Ghost in the slightest.

“Care to share?” He cautiously asks.

Soap, for the first time in days, shines a genuine smile at him, “You’re a bit of a myth sir. Each person seems to have a different idea of what your powers really are, how your Reaping went”

He raises his head, “None of them come close to the truth”.

“What else have you heard?” Ghost continues digging his own second grave.

“Does it matter? It’s all shite anyway.” Soap huffs, “You’re far softer than any of them realize”

He barks what could be a laugh, “Softer? Sergeant, have you hit your head in training?”

Soap fucking pouts his lips like a damn child and replies “Aye I said it! Yer soft LT! Who else would’ve cared about my arm!” His smile broadens.

Ghost can feel his eyes crescent, “I think your brain’s more messed up than I originally thought.”

“That’s for fuckin’ certain” Soap snorts.

They return to their previous silence, and Ghost unexpectedly has the urge to say, “me and Garrick are leaving for a mission tomorrow. Don’t get yourself into trouble.”

Soap rests his head in his flaming hand, leaning against the window sill, smiling up at Ghost.

“Copy that, sir”.

The mission isn’t anything to write home about. Ghost does feel surprisingly refreshed for not sleeping a wink the night before.

He refuses to acknowledge that Soap’s farewell to them on the tarmac has anything to do with that.

Gaz lifts a chunk of concrete for them to overwatch the meeting happen. The PMC representatives, a dozen soldiers covered head to toe in black uniforms, exchange with the smugglers a few words before walking over to their truck and opening the back to check the “goods”. From their location, Ghost can’t see what’s inside.

The PMC Soldiers seem pleased, and bring several crates to the smugglers.

The two parties leave, and Ghost and Gaz finish their observations and call for exfil.

When they return to their home base, Ghost notes only Price waiting for them on the tarmac.

They get dragged into debrief before he can ask where their other Sergeant is.

As Price collects the various files and maps they used in the meeting, Ghost stays behind and inquires him about Soap’s whereabouts.

“The Sergeant deployed last night”, is all he’s got clearance to get.

Price tells him he’ll be informed when the Sergeant returns, and Ghost leaves the meeting room, unsettled as if he didn’t just finish a mission.

The days are incredibly unremarkable without Soap. He and Garrick have played about 15 card game rounds in 3 days, before they both got so bored the preferred doing nothing at all.

He would be drowning in paperwork if their entire previous mission didn’t unexpectedly get wrapped in red tape, so he didn’t even have that to distract him. Although, with the size of Price’s eye bags resembling several suitcases, maybe he shouldn’t complain.

At last, Gaz runs up to him to swiftly push him towards the tarmac, yapping about and telling him that Soap is about to return.

Ghost decides then that he will stick to the Scot until he’ll tell him every single detail on his mission. Specifically, in the medical department. He’s not going to let him hide such things anymore.

Gaz sees the helo nearing and Ghost’s chest does a bizarre twisting motion in anticipation for Soap and his bright smiles.

The helo touches down, and Gaz runs up to it while the ramp lowers. He calls for Soap before abruptly stopping.

Ghost pushes beyond him to see what’s the holdup, and freezes in place.

Soap stands on one, shaky leg. His left arm, bloody and bruised, barely hangs on a crutch. His entire right side is charred, black blood caking his remaining tac vest.

He hops down slowly, and Ghost sees his face more clearly in the sunlight. Or what is left of it.

His cheek was so badly burned he could see his teeth poking through, blood covering what is certainly more burn marks. One eye shut, the other so vacant it looks fake.

He glances at Ghost for a moment, before Soap breaks the eye contact and continues hopping forward, leaving droplets of blood behind him. Distantly, he can hear Gaz shaking off from his stupor and offering to help Soap, only to be completely ignored.

Ghost himself is still stuck, his eyes glued to the helo sits.

Soap’s is covered in deep red blood.

Should probably remind y'all I like angst huh

[us3rnam3-r3dact3d]

i assume you'll be coming for blood (that makes two of us)

Chapter 2

Ao3 | 3.5k words | Sweetheart's POV

Things go from bad to worse, and all of it's Sweetheart's own doing. - Fooliverse Sweetheart faces off with that first shade. They already know Milo, but things are a lot more complicated than they might have been, not least because of their own stubbornness and pride. Hopefully that pride won't get them killed. Hopefully.

TW: violence, mentions of sex, the Department, illness, arguments, general toxicity

Jet had a handful of not so kind words for you when you finally showed up to work the next day, first for being late and then for not seeking medical attention the night before.  

“If you are unable to handle a single threat independently,” Jet had seethed, emailing medical about your impending visit as he spoke, “then you might consider a change in title.”  

You didn’t say a thing in protest. You ignored the orders to report to medical, and instead made your way back to your desk in the bullpen, pulling up the open case file on your shitty, ancient desktop computer. You added new notes to the shade’s file, new findings on its abilities and appearance, and drafted an email to a magical expert on Death. Unfortunately, that expert lived in Tanzania, so you would have to find someone who could translate your message to Swahili, and his back to English for any of it to matter.  

You missed lunch entirely, too focused on the work in front of you to glance down at the desktop clock or the silver watch your father had given you last Christmas that you wore invariably. You only recognized that it was nearing one in the afternoon when a hand tapped your desk, drawing your attention away from your investigation for the first time in hours.  

Dr. Collins was an intimidating man. You weren’t afraid of him, per say, but you certainly didn’t want to end up on the bad side of his death glare. When you looked up, recognizing his Department emblazoned white coat and the irritated crinkle in his brow, you shifted your gaze from his silver eyes to the bridge of his alkaline nose.  

“Investigator,” Collins’ drawl clipped his words particularly aggressively, “care to tell me why I received a memo that you were reporting to my office hours ago only to find you at your desk, looking like you just got dragged back from Hell?”  

Doctor Sam Collins was one of the rare vampires employed by the Department’s medical division. He oversaw the onsite infirmary, headed the magical/medical research in the Department’s underground labs, and liaised with D.A.M.N. concerning their healing courses. The only reason he was afforded those positions, of course, was because of his incredible power pre-turning.  

I was a wolf, Milo had said. You wondered if Collins had that same sort of grief in his voice when talking about his power.  

“Probably because I was, Doc.” You shrugged, stretching your back for the first time in hours. A series of loud, obtrusive cracks echoed out through the nearly empty room. When had everybody else left? You checked your watch. Lunch. Right. 

“I told you you’d find them here.” An indignant huff from behind you. You whipped your head around, your neck popping audibly at the sudden movement. Cam was standing at the entrance of the bullpen, his hands on his hips. You’d never seen him look annoyed before. His face was usually blank and serene.  

“You were right.” Collins shrugged, crossing his arms over his chest. “You’re lucky your friend has a good read on you, Investigator. I was fixing to sick your supervisor after you. And I’ve worked with Jet long enough to know how unpleasant that would be.”  

You groaned, your head falling back to rest against your stiff office chair. God, your head was pounding. Your throat felt like something had clawed its way out of it. Your stomach was still uneasy. Your muscles ached.  

“You look terrible.” Cam said, suddenly much closer to you. You jerked at his nearness, nearly toppling out of your chair. The Doctor’s unnatural reflexes saved you. All of the annoyance leaked from him at once as he knelt to begin examining you. His hands were cold when they rested on your forehead, tilted your face this way and that. You wondered if it was a result of his vampiric condition, or if it was because he was a doctor.  

“Double whammy.” You muttered, your eyes slipping closed.  

“You’re delirious.” Collins replied. Healing magic sparked around you, warm and bright like sunshine. You let it wash over your skin, not fighting against Collins’ assessment or Cam’s gentle, soothing touch.  

“Are you making me calmer?” You asked Cam, more accusatory than anything. He huffed, offended.  

“I wouldn’t without asking.” Cam assured you. “I think... you’re just too tired to fight back.”  

“Something got its hooks in you.” The Doctor added. Cool hands hovered over the skin of your neck. “I’m gonna touch, just for a second. Let’s take care of these bruises.” 

“Bruises?” You croaked, just as Collins’ hands slid around your neck. His magic swelled around you, and you swung out, pushed at his shoulders to try and get him away. Your heart began to race, your body suddenly awake and alert. You stood, pushing your chair away and stumbling back from Collins and Cam.  

“Easy!” The doctor said, his hands extended in front of him like he was surrendering. Cam had a strange, sad look to him. Pity. Your stomach turned.  

“I’m sick.” You snapped, shaking your hands out at your sides. You were suddenly filled with anxious energy. “The flu.”  

Cam said your name, so soft and cloying. You knew that tone. He was talking down to you, treating you like you couldn’t handle this. You could handle this.  

“I should go home.” You said. “Since I have the flu.” Doctor Collins squinted at you. Those silver eyes nearly pulled you in. Your hand twitched to your phone. You should call Milo.  

“Let someone take you.” He ordered. “I’d do it myself if the damn sun wasn’t still up. You’re lucky you work on this side of the building, or I wouldn’t have been able to come up and see you in person.” He pinched the bridge of his nose, his body sagging a bit. He looked exhausted all of a sudden. What a waste, you thought. He can’t help me.  

“I’ll be fine.” You said, shaking your head. “I’ll get an Uber or something.”  

“Please wait,” Cam said, stepping forward, a hand outstretched towards you, “let me take you home.” 

“It’s fine, Cam,” you sighed, “you’ve gotta get back to work.”  

It was raining by the time you stepped outside, and the late-summer, early-fall chill left you shivering and soaked. You hadn’t bothered with a jacket when you came stumbling into work, and you hadn’t bothered to snag the umbrella you kept in your desk’s bottom drawer for days just like this. Summer in Dahlia meant sudden rainstorms and that damp sort of air that hurt to breathe.  

Well, breathing hurt in general, at that moment. You stalked down the sidewalk, soaked through, and tried to decide where you were going.  

Home was in the opposite direction, but you refused to turn back and be seen as wandering from the Department’s windows. You kept moving, calling up your known paths through the city, trying to remember where you could double back.  

A car pulled up beside you, low to the ground, shining, and blood red. You ignored it, crossed your arms over your chest, and kept moving. You had learned by this point in your life not to give catcallers the time of day.  

“Hey Sweetness,” the voice of this particular catcaller got your attention. You stopped short, turned. Milo’s car halted its crawl. The sedan behind him honked impatiently, but Milo paid them no mind. “Whatcha doing out here in the rain? Not that I’m complaining about the wet shirt part.”  

“Asshole.” You whispered, but you opened the passenger door and deposited yourself inside, dripping all over his leather interior. 

“Woah,” Milo said, his voice suddenly concerned, “you weren’t kidding about the flu. You look like shit.” 

“Gee,” you rolled your eyes, “you flirt. You sure know how to make someone blush.” 

“Hey,” Milo put his car into drive and peeled off of the curb, merging dangerously fast with traffic. He swerved skillfully between cars going too slow for his liking. Your stomach lurched. “I’m expressing concern over here.” 

“I don’t need concern.” You hissed. “If everybody would stop pitying me it would make my fucking day.” 

Milo’s mouth snapped shut. His anger was palpable. Good. You preferred anger to whatever else he was cooking up. Anger you could deal with. Anger was familiar. 

“I’m taking you to my place.” Milo said after a long silence. “I’ll… make you soup. Or something.” 

You sighed, resting your head back against the seat. Your head pounded. You didn’t fight sleep when it pressed against the back of your eyes. 

When you woke, you realized that Milo must have carried you inside. You were in the center of his sinfully soft, sinfully giant bed, tucked into his billion thread-count sheets. You sat up and groaned as your migraine made its presence known. You couldn’t have at least slept that off. That would make your life a fraction easier, and that wasn’t allowed. 

When you got your legs under you, shaky knees and all, you found yourself clad in an oversized tee and boxer shorts. They smelled like Milo, even if you couldn’t imagine him wearing something so casual and you knew he didn’t frequent underwear at all. Or maybe he just went commando when he knew he might get lucky. Either way, he’d gone through the trouble of pulling these out for you, undressing you, re-dressing you, tucking you lovingly in bed. The sentimentality of it all made your stomach flip. 

You could smell something cooking and followed your nose down the stairs and through the twisting halls of Milo’s giant house. Said giant house included a kitchen that gave you a stab of jealousy when you first saw it. Milo wasn’t using it, not for much, anyway. He had an extensive bar cart in one corner, his giant, state of the art fridge was stocked entirely with blood, and his walk-in pantry had one corner filled with sugar snacks. He seemed to only keep food for his fuck buddies. You shivered at the idea of anybody else utilizing those. You would have to start keeping track of them, just to be sure. 

Milo was standing over the stove, a brand new wooden spoon in one hand, his phone pressed to his ear in the other. 

“Davey,” he hissed, “I’m not asking for a lecture. I’m asking how to make it just a little more palatable.” You could hear a deep voice rumble on the other side, but couldn’t make out any words. “Jesus Christ, I should have never called you! I’m not gonna make a fucking bone broth when Cambles so helpfully provides soup in nice little cans.” His eyes flicked to you, whether it was your heartbeat or your snickering that gave you away. He extended one finger to you, as if to say I’ll deal with you in a minute. “Yeah, yeah, whatever, you pretentious asshole.” He hung up. 

“House member?” You asked, crossing to the large island that filled up the middle of the spacious kitchen. There were plastic bags from some pharmacy or another littered around it. You poked around, nosey as ever. Generic painkillers. Three cans of chicken noodle soup. A dozen Gatorades of different flavors. A smattering of cold and flu medicines. Cough drops. He must have grabbed anything he thought might help. Cute. 

“Old friend.” He corrected, turning back to the little pot on the stove in front of him. “Davey doesn’t believe canned soup is a valid form of food. I thought he might have a few ideas on how to improve it. Turns out all he was interested in was telling me off for even buying it.” 

“I can eat canned soup.” You shrugged. “It’s all the same stuff.” 

“Exactly.” Milo huffed. He turned off his burner and started to pour the soup from the pot into one of his sleek, black ceramic bowls. Even his dishware looked expensive. “You get it.” 

He walked the bowl over to you, handed you a spoon, and directed you to one of the stools pushed up under the island. You sat down heavily, snagged a green Gatorade, and downed the soup like a starving man. 

“There’s more.” Milo said, sitting next to you. “And some stuff in the pantry. I just grabbed a buncha’ shit. Don’t know what you like.” 

“You didn’t have to do all that.” You shook your head. Milo refilled your bowl before you could blink. You didn’t protest. 

“Well, you looked like you needed it.” He shrugged. He was trying to act casual, but you could feel him observing you, taking in every detail, like he was waiting for you to keel over. 

Funnily enough, once you scraped your bowl and went to stand, your knees buckled. He caught you, of course. He bundled you into his chest, your cheek pressed against the exposed skin of his peck. Stupid, silken shirt unbuttoned to his navel. Stupid pretty silver necklaces, cold without any body heat of his own. Stupid little shake in his chest as he steadied you. 

“Easy, Sweets.” He said. “Just- will you take it easy? Let me help you.” He was exasperated. Frustrated. 

You pushed back, stumbling away from him. 

“I don’t-“ you shook your head, pressed your hands into the kitchen island and braced yourself. “I’m fine.” 

“Bullshit.” Milo spat. “You look like death warmed over. I can help! Let me help!” 

“I don’t need your help!” You shouted. Your voice rose out of you, anger and stubbornness filling you with newfound energy. “I can handle this! I don’t care what bullshit they put me through, I can handle it!” 

Milo was quiet. He held your gaze. You held his. Your brain screamed to look away, but you couldn’t. He hadn’t even tranced you, but you were trapped. 

“Did-“ he pursed his lips. “What did D.U.M.P. get you into?” 

He read you like a book. You gave too much away. 

“Where are my clothes?” You asked instead of answering him. He huffed, his hands falling to his hips. His stupid, pretty hands. His stupid, muscly hips. You didn’t know if you wanted to hit him or kiss him. 

“No.” He shook his head. “Absolutely not.”

“What do you mean ‘no?’” 

“I mean I’m not gonna let you go back into whatever the fuck you’re dealing with alone.” You opened your mouth to argue, but he extended that finger again. You didn’t care for that one fucking bit. “And I know you could handle it, Sweetness, you are a force of fucking nature. But you’re not being given the resources you need, and it’s clearly affecting you. So tell me what you need and I will give it to you, Sweetheart!”

“What I need,” you spat, “is for you to stop calling me that!”

“What?” 

“Sweetheart.” You poorly imitated his accent. He huffed out a short laugh. “Sweetness. All those stupid, cute nicknames.”

“Oh, so you think I’m cute?” He crossed his arms over his chest. His face smoothed over into a smile, but you could see the tension in his body. He was giving you an out, a way to step away from the argument before you said something you would regret. 

Fuck him. You would say what you wanted to say. 

“You’re not my boyfriend.” You growled. “And I’m not your mate.” 

It was a calculated killing blow. You knew as it left your tongue that it would hurt, that it would cut him to the bone. The two of you had fucked a handful of times, talked even less, but he, for some goddam reason, had shown you the parts of him that still bled. You hadn’t wanted to use them against him, but you had no choice. Your own weaknesses were so obvious, so clear to the eye, and anybody could use them against you. He was luring you in with all coddling and sweet talking. He didn’t care about you. You wouldn’t let him back you into a corner when you knew how to get away. 

Milo’s face went slack, his whole body rearing back from that word. Your gut twisted with something like guilt. You wouldn’t have that. You twisted your fingers into the collar of his oversized shirt and held on for dear life. This was survival, simple as that. Nothing personal. That was something that Milo of all people would understand. 

“Out.” He hissed finally, breaking the silence that had overtaken the kitchen. Milo’s eyes were dark, darker than they usually were. His pupils had blown to encompass his silver irises. His face went horrific in a split second. Your body reminded you that you were facing down a monster. 

He moved very suddenly, disrupting the air in the room. Your breath caught as his hands landed on you. Your clothes were pulled off before you could protest. Your heart seized in your chest, but as that word pressed at the back of your teeth, you were redressed in the blink of an eye. Your work clothes, still warm from the dryer, were buttoned and tucked before the cool air of Milo’s kitchen could touch your skin. Your shoes were on your feet. Milo’s hands landed on your shoulders and he began to steer you towards the door. Even this angry, his touch was gentle, feather light, like he was afraid to hurt you. 

And fuck, if that didn’t make you that much more angry. 

You were out the door, unsure if you’d even managed a single independent step. Milo’s touch left you immediately. Your phone, keys, wallet were in your hands. You spun around and saw your shitty sedan parked next to one of Milo’s six priceless sports cars in the driveway. He must have picked it up while you were sleeping. Your stomach flipped. 

You turned back around. Milo was hovering in the doorway, shadows cast across his face from the low light of his house. His eyes were glazed over entirely black now. His fangs were extended, pressing into his pretty, full lips. 

“I shared that with you,” Milo said, his voice tinged with something animalistic, something wild, “as a show of trust. I told that to you because I know that I have a lot of power. I told you something that I knew could hurt me, because I know it’s not easy to do that.” His face twisted up. You were terrified, for a moment, that he would cry. “Fuck you. Fuck you for using that to hurt me.” 

“You could hurt me without even trying!” You seethed. You wrapped your arms around your middle, trying to hold yourself up. 

“Yeah.” Milo nodded. “I could. But I didn’t.” 

The door shut in your face. You stared at the stained mahogany like it might have answers for you. You screamed until your chest gave way to stuttered, panicked gasps. You got in your car and drove away. 

Your desk was waiting for you when you made it back to the office. Jet’s office was darkened, and only a handful of other investigators remained at their desks. It was late evening, bordering on much too late to be here. You sat down anyway and started working. 

By the time morning came round, you had far more information than you did at the start of the day before. For one, you had a rudimentary understanding of Swahili, and had managed to properly convey what you needed from your expert using a few online dictionaries and whatever Google Translate had to offer. He was a pleasant guy, if your translations were correct, and had affirmed that he would send a statement your way within the next few days with everything he knew about shades broken down into simple enough terms for the Department to work with. 

Your back ached and your stomach was still in knots, but you felt much better than you had the day before. Whatever affects the shade’s life-sucking-bullshit left its victims with wore off with time and rest. You added it to your notes, and sent a quick email to Collins to report your improved health. The sun had started to rise when you received a message back. 

Report to medical for field clearance. Don’t make me sick Jet on you. 

You sighed, scrubbing at your tired eyes. You knew it was pointless to resist. Collins would get you down there eventually, one way or another. It looked better for you if you went voluntarily. 

There was a whole floor to the medical department. Half of it was dedicated only to Dr. Collins’ medical research and the seminars he taught for D.A.M.N.. The other half made up the Department’s extensive infirmary. Staffed by Dr. Collins’ loyal group of doctors and nurses. They were a vicious bunch, too smart for anybody’s good, and skilled beyond all reason in both mundane and magical healing. Collins expected nothing but exceptional skill from his staff, and he wouldn’t settle for anything less.

[matsaysyes]

I’m going feral over Sonic Battle right now. The beginning story intrigued me and while the middle story was fun, it ultimately felt more like filler than anything.

Now I’m in Shadow’s story. It’s my favorite by far. While we don’t get all of team dark we do get a lot of nice friendship moments from Shadow and Rouge. Like Rouge taking him to her house to heal up after he gets hurt and then Shadow calling her his ally (so close to friend).

I’ve been playing this game with my friend and she guessed that Emerl was the equivalent to being Shadow’s adopted brother of sorts. With him being taken in by Gerald and everything. Once we got to the Shadow story our theory was confirmed. They had a bond over both being weapons of mass destruction which neither of us had seen coming.

Afterwards, we get the absolute best conversation in the whole game between Sonic and Shadow. Shadow tells Sonic that he needs to get Emerl because he’s a weapon and giving him all seven chaos emeralds would cause mass destruction. Sonic then argues that Shadow was supposed to be a weapon and he still sacrificed himself to save the world. This is the part where it gets interesting.

Shadow says that was only because of Maria. By her mention alone you can tell this is quickly becoming an emotionally charged conversation. Sonic saying that must have really hit something for Shadow.

Sonic then says that saving the world for Maria shows that that he has a heart just like Emerl. Weapons aren’t supposed to have hearts. Sonic is trying to tell Shadow that whether he agrees or not, the truth is that Shadow cares. And people care about shadow too.

This conversation isn’t really just about Emerl. It’s about Shadow.

Shadow then says, “If the world ever wants peace, they must destroy us.”

That is how Shadow views himself. As a weapon that is dangerous, that doesn’t deserve love, one that needs to be destroyed before it does more damage to the people who he cares about. Like Maria.

You can tell this leaves Sonic in shock because he immediately caves into Shadow and lets him have Emerl, at least before saying that he doesn’t believe that either of them has it in them to kill.

After that conversation you could easily get the wrong impression. The impression that Shadow didn’t care or listen to anything Sonic said. That is wrong. Later in the story, we see him contemplating these questions.

Why did he, someone made to be a weapon, have a heart, a soul, the capacity to love.

Rouge then appears, answering his questions. She had done research on Eggman’s computer. The truth is that Shadow was made to bring happiness and hope to all. G.U.N. wanted to use Gerald’s research to create a weapon of war. That is why Shadow has a soul identical to Maria while seemingly being made with the sole purpose of destroying.

Afterwards, Rouge decides to take my job of psychoanalyzing anthropomorphic animals from a kids game from me. She says that Shadow is afraid of his own powers. The truth is that he never used his power recklessly or selfishly.

This is the truth of Shadow the Hedgehog. A truth that, unfortunately, seems to have been forgotten in recent times.

[starcrossedxwriter]

Built for Love Part 3 (MBJ x Black Famous OC)

Warnings: angst, emotional distress (there will be more explicit warnings on the next chapter and beyond!)

A/N: I don't know what to say here except this is 4k words of our favs in a mopey sad phase lol

“Anything else for me, T?” Charlotte asked her agent as they sat in her office and reviewed her schedule for the upcoming months. Charlotte was finally back home in LA after filming Creed and a guest spot on a tv show, and was looking forward to a couple months of quiet before the Creed press tour. If she could push that off further, she would.  

Her nails tapped lightly on her phone as she texted her brothers, the siblings coordinating their surprise visit for their dad’s birthday later that week. 

“Just the MGM Productions Gala in two weeks,” Tamika answered as she scrolled through her calendar. 

Charlotte wrinkled her nose in confusion. “What’s that?” 

She waved her head. “Nothing big. Just a gala and party MGM throws for their Q3 and 4 movies. All the actors, producers, and writers are invited. They’ll premiere the trailer for Creed so you’ll walk the carpet with Michael, takes some pictures and likely go on stage when the trailer is shown. Seating chart has you and Michael next to each other. Nothing special but should be an easy and fun night.” 

Charlotte’s heart fell into her stomach as she heard his name, a nauseating feeling consuming her. The gala sounded like torture. How could she spend an entire evening glued to his side when he likely hated her? Would he even want to speak to her? she would not want to speak to her if she were him and now, he would have no choice.

However, she knew those concerns could not make their way to her agent. So instead, she simply nodded. However, she could not stop the quiet question that fell off her tongue, her own desires to know if Michael had raised an issue about the event were too powerful. 

“H-Has Michael heard about this?” She coughed lightly. “You know, reviewed the seating chart and everything?” 

Tamika nodded slowly, her eyes slowly but surely taking in the anxious and concerned look on the young woman’s face. 

“Yea… been emailing with his guy all morning. He said Mike ok’ed everything. Why? What’s wrong?” At Charlotte’s silence and anxious fidgeting, Tamika sat up in her chair, her arms folded against the cool glass of her desk. “Anything happen between you two that I should know about? Something that could bite us in the ass later.” 

Charlotte immediately shook her head. “No, no of course not. We’re good.” 

She knew that was not the truth. Radio silence for months hardly equated to good. She had considered reaching out to him, her regret urging her to open their text thread and type out a message only for her guilt to cause her to delete it once more. A vicious cycle she had been stuck on for weeks after the wrap party. At first, she felt his absence like a gaping wound that would not heal. It ached and throbbed so persistently she could not dare forget it. 

But in true Charlotte fashion, she threw herself into her work and her next project. It was just two months but the late nights and early mornings of tv consumed her life and energy, leaving little to no time to pine after Michael. And so eventually, that wound seemed to heal. Until today. Today, she felt as if she was bleeding out again with nothing around to stop it. 

Tamika rolled her eyes before turning back to her computer. Charlotte could tell she did not believe her. However, she appreciated that she did not push her for an answer.

“Ok well… whatever’s not going on between you two, fix it before October. You’re gonna be spending a lot of time with him to promote the film and films sell better when the cast actually likes each other. Got it?” 

“Understood.”

****

Rambunctious laughter filled Michael’s basement as he and his boys gathered for their monthly poker game. Even though he always lost money, it was one of his favorite nights. Just a night when he wasn’t famous or an actor, he was just a guy unwinding with liquor, weed, and good conversation.

“Nigga… you’d think you’d be better at this shit by now,” Steelo called across the table to Michael who merely shook his head. 

“I know, I know. I’m tryin’. Ain’t my night, I guess.” 

“Nah you ain’t doing shit. This the worst you’ve played and you the worst poker player a nigga has ever seen. It’s embarrassin’,” his trainer and friend, Calliet, told him. “Somethin’s got you preoccupied. Tell us so we can get on with the night.” 

Michael scratched the back of his head. Was there anything he could say that did not make him look like a desperate love sick puppy to his boys? Because the only thing consuming his attention these days was one person he had not even spoken to or seen in months: Charlotte. He tried and tried to push her out of his mind by fucking his way through models and actresses, hoping someone would make him feel even an ounce of what he felt when he was by her side. But none of them held a torch to her. So he tried to avoid thinking about her at all costs, locking his emotions away in a cage for as long as possible. However, when he found out about their upcoming event, the bars on that cage had gotten more fragile with each passing day. 

“Anything to do with seeing Charlotte in a couple weeks?” His brother asked with a smirk on his face. 

Everyone around the table laughed at how Michael’s entire being shifted as soon as her name was mention. 

“Ahhh there we go. It’s a woman… it’s always a damn woman,” Calliet sighed deeply. “What happened?” 

Michael tossed his cards face down on the table, his hand rubbing his eye for a moment before he shrugged. “Honestly, I don’t know? And that’s what’s tripping me up. One minute she seemed like she was all in a-and wanted to be with me. And the next, she pushed me away. Said she didn’t deserve me… whatever the hell that means.” Michael paused. “I dunno. It was fuckin’ weird. She seemed almost scared? Or like the idea of dating me had her in a panic.” 

He tried hard not to think about that night even though it often played in a loop in his head. It played so clearly in his mind like it was a movie. He could still see the tears in her eyes a-and the tension in her body, and hear the brokenness and panic in her voice. Despite his efforts to push it out of his mind, it persisted and he dissected and analyzed it ever since. 

Michael stood up and went to the bar in his basement, pouring himself another glass of scotch. He leaned over the back of his chair, watching the men continue to play. He knew there was no point in him continuing the game. That was just a recipe for him to make himself poorer while his friends got rich of his terrible poker game.

“Sounds like she’s playin’ you bro,” Michael’s brother chimed in. 

“Yep. And honestly, that shit sounds like too much baggage,” Steelo interjected. “You aint got time for that. She might be great but there’re plenty of women out here to fuck and date. No sense in being sad over one of ‘em.” 

The other men except for Calliet and Ryan chimed in with their agreement, though that did not surprise Michael. The rest of his friends were in the same place in life in terms of relationships: single and doing them. Their lives were all about the hustle, which meant love and relationships took a backseat. And he would admit, he was like them before he met Charlotte. However, she made him want more. And though there may be more fish in the sea, there was none like her. And he did not see a future as clearly with anyone else as he did with Charlotte. He knew that for certain. 

Calliet let out a low chuckle. “No wonder y’all niggas is single. “As the only married niggas here, you want our advice?” He gestured at he and Ryan. At Michael’s nods, he placed his cards down. “If you want her, you gotta fight for her. It seems to me like she’s scared - for whatever reason. Maybe you just be there for her and see if she comes around.” 

“You want him to wait around for some pussy?? Nahhhh,” his boy Tyrell threw his cards down in annoyance. “He can do better than that.” 

“Aye, watch yo fuckin’ mouth,” Michael’s tone cut the humorous vibe in the room immediately, his anger evident to everyone.  

Tyrell raising his hands in surrender as the other men snickered quietly. “My bad. No disrespect. I’m just sayin’ you got plenty of options, bro. She really worth chasin’ after?” 

“You told me day 1 she was your future wife, on screen and off. I got the texts to prove it,” Ryan waved his phone in his hand. “If you really believe that shit, then she’s someone worth chasin’. ’N I don’t know what’s holding her back but I watched y’all every day for months. She’s feelin’ you.” 

“Then why won’t she just say that shit?” Steelo argued. 

Michael just watched the men debate back and forth, his love life once again the subject of a riveting debate amongst his friends. He could not even get a word in.

“Who the fuck knows? But it doesn’t matter. She didn’t say that she doesn’t wanna fuck with you. She said she aint deserve you. That sounds like two very different things to me. Seems like somethin’ she’s gotta work through, not that she doesn’t want something with you. I ain’t sayin’ put your life on hold but you ain’t gotta close the door on it just yet if you ain’t ready. Just talk to her.” 

“I dunno,” Michael finally spoke up. “Hearing no once was more than enough for me. I never felt for a woman like I feel for her. And she just pushed me away.” 

“Look. I ain’t saying chase the girl. But you don't gotta close the door on it either just because your pride is bruised,”  Calliet added on, he and Ryan offering the sage advice Michael truly needed to navigate this situation. “At the very least, next time you talk, time as passed, you could get some clarity on why she wasn’t ready and if the feelings were mutual. Get some closure. But who knows, it might be a yes. And if she was worth the risk then and those feelings haven’t changed, she should still be worth it now. Then at least, you’ll have a definitive answer and you can stop being this mopey-ass nigga who I can’t stand. Moping around the gym n shit.” 

Michael bowed his head and laughed with the rest of the group. They were not wrong; he had been “mopey” since returning to LA from Creed but it had gotten significantly worse since he found out he would be seeing Charlotte earlier than expected.  

“Aight aight. I’ll think about it."

“My man!” The boys seated around him clapped him on the back. 

“Hit me up tomorrow, fellas," Stello called out across the table. "I'm taking bets on whether this nigga actually tries again." At Michael's surprised expression, Stello merely laughed. "Sorry man, I've never known you to chase after a woman or even give them a second chance. Relationships are the one area you play it safe." 

His words stuck with him as he slid back into his seat to continue playing. His streak of terrible luck continued as he milled over what his friends said. Steelo was not wrong, there was a part of him that wanted to write Charlotte off for pushing him away. But something stopped him every time he tried. He could not tell who was right: his married friends who told him to not give up or his friends who had known him his entire life. But he knew he only had a week to figure out what path he wanted to take. One certainly saved him potential heartache but it could also rob him of a love that was one of a kind. The other was a risk but a life with Charlotte was a pay off he could not pass up without thought. As Steelo pointed out, Michael took a lot of risks… just not with his heart.

***

“You sure you’re good, squirt?” Her dad asked as they chatted at dinner.

Charlotte glanced up from her plate, her entire family eyeing her with concerned looks. 

“Of course, of course,” she assured everyone, immediately fixing her frown into a half-hearted smile. She hoped it was big enough to draw attention away from her and onto someone else. 

“You sure? You’ve just been quiet all weekend.” 

She rubbed her eyes, annoyance settling in her as her family questioned her words. She understood why. There was once upon a time where she told lie after lie after lie to hide how she was doing. And now, if she seemed even a bit off, they did not believe her assurances that all was well even when it was. She would not believe her if she was them either though. 

“Just tired, dad. Two back-to-back projects has just been more exhausting than I thought. That’s all.” 

“Yea pops, you know how Charlie gets when she’s in the zone. All quiet and moody with all that method shit.” 

The table erupted in laughter, Charlie reaching over and gently hit her brother, Jackson, across his arm. While there was a significant age gap between her, the youngest, and her two eldest siblings, she and Jackson were only a year apart and had grown up virtually glued to each other’s hip. 

“Jack! Language!” Their dad chastised him, though there was no real bite in his bark. 

“Thank you, dad!” Charlotte, forever a daddy’s girl, threw her brother a smirk. “And method, yes! Moody, never!”

At her side glances her entire family shared with each other, her jaw slightly fell open in shock. 

“Seriously??” 

“In your defense,” her eldest brother, CJ, interjected. “I think it’s more so the characters you choose. Loners… moody…or depressed. And that just ain’t you, not when you’re yourself at least.” 

Charlotte could not particularly disagree with her brother’s assessment. It was not every character she had played since she became a professional actress. But she could not deny there was a theme across many of them. She had been drawn to characters who were alone in the world in some way: whether literally alone and without family or alone to contend with pain and struggles no one else knew about or could help with. They were all internally tortured by something. And well, that was a feeling Charlotte knew all too well. 

“So what’s next, movie star?” CJ asked her. 

She shrugged. “Ummm got a gala next week a-and then I’ll be back in LA for a while. Then we’ll have the Creed press tour and that’ll take up most of the fall.” At the mention of the movie, her thoughts drifted back to him. Though it did not take much these days for her thoughts to land her on his doorstep again. All roads led back to Michael. “B-but that’s it. Enough about me. We are here to celebrate dad.” She squeezed his hand, grateful to push the attention away from her and back to their father’s birthday. 

She barely heard the rest of the conversation that carried her family through dinner, only joining in when spoken to or to laugh along with the rest of the group. Her moodiness, as of late, had little to do with her characters and a lot to do with her impending dread at laying eyes on a certain actor again. She knew she would have to eventually but she thought she had more time to avoid him and her feelings about how they ended. That wound was reopened and all of her regret, shame, and pain flowed from it like blood. 

She knew she needed to let him go. She had given up her shot and she would need to find a way to live with that. But knowing she needed to move on and actually doing it was harder than it seemed.

However, it was her dad’s birthday and she knew her family worried about her too much so she tried to force herself to display the cheerful and upbeat disposition she knew her family was looking for. However, at the end of dinner, when she and her siblings and their spouses retreated to the basement, her facade started to fall.

“Open the windows, CJ,” Charlotte called over to him as he pulled a joint out of his bag and she grabbed liquor from their dad’s bar. “Dad’s gonna kill us if he smells weed.” 

“Us maybe,” Jackson mused. “But not his baby girl. He probably thinks you’ve never done drugs. His perfect little Charlie.” 

“Don’t be jealous,” she stuck her tongue out at him playfully. 

“She drew the genetic lottery… Youngest daughter? Best position to be in in the family. You got all us, except Tiffany,” he referenced the eldest Bennet sibling who could not attend their dad’s birthday weekend, “wrapped around your finger since birth.”  

She laughed and flopped onto the couch next to her best friend from college and sister in law, Lauren.  “What can I say,” she took the joint from her brother. “A gift and a curse.” 

Charlotte fell silent as she let the two couples guided the conversation. She rarely engaged, only laughing when necessary or moving to ensure the blunt made its rounds throughout the group. CJ and his husband, Allen, were both attorneys, which meant they tended to stir up lively debate amongst the group. Charlotte rarely engaged in their debates unless the topic was interesting. But Jackson and his wife, Lauren, while not attorneys, loved to go back and forth with them. 

So, she just let them fall into their usual banter while she tried to stop herself from falling into a sea of thoughts about Michael. All she could think about was what she was going to say and do when she saw him again. Should she apologize? Pretend like nothing happened and act like old friends? Take her cues from him? She had no idea. All of them sounded like equally terrible ideas and none of them were actually what she wanted to do, which was admit she fucked up and that she loved him. But that seemed like a terrible idea in its own twisted sort of way.

“Charlie!” Lauren shook her knee lightly to get her attention. Charlotte broke out of her quiet trance to turn to Jackson who had clearly been talking to her. 

“Now don’t hate me, C,” he started to say, causing Charlotte to immediately groan. She sat up a little straighter, her mind already ready to be annoyed with her older, meddling brother. 

“Oh no, what did you do??” 

“I may or may not have given your number to a guy at the office. AND,” he raised his voice to drown out Charlotte’s immediate protests, “Before you say no, it is one date, C. He is really cute, he’s a sports agent, really well established in the industry, and he’s sweet. Don’t fight me on this.” 

Charlotte rolled her eyes, frustration at her sibling’ meddling already boiling over. She immediately turned to Lauren, who raised her hands in surrender. “Did you know about this??” 

“I told him you weren’t gonna go for it.” 

“And yet… here he is… still presenting it.” She scoffed. “You need to listen to your wife more, big head. I don’t need a fucking matchmaker, Jay. I’m good and happy being single.”

She prayed her tone sounded decisive and sure; however, she knew it betrayed her by the skeptical looks on her family’s faces. She desperately wanted it to be true, desperately desired to be satisfied with the waves of loneliness she felt. She used to consider loneliness to be like an oasis. She felt protected and safe in its waters. It’s waves crashed but she welcomed it because loneliness was the only sure sign that no one was around to hurt her again. 

However, now, she felt as if she was drowning in it. Drowning in the frigid, dark waters, desperate for a lifeline and helping hand, someone to pull her out and hold her close. She tried to pull herself out of it, to find her way back to the oasis again, but each wave just pushed her right back down. And she knew one path to escape the waves altogether, but she could not force herself to do it. She was still not sure she was ready. 

“Well now we’re fuckin’ lyin’,” CJ muttered, causing Allen to gently hit him on the shoulder and tell him to hush. “What? She is lyin’.” 

“Alright, alright,” Lauren interrupted. “I think your brothers… and I, are just worried about you. It’s been two years. It’s great to be single and happy if you truly are. But I’ve known you for a minute, Charlotte. I don’t think you are. You don’t want to be alone forever, do you? What happens when the next guy shows interest? Are you just gonna push him and anyone else away forever? You fought like hell to leave so you could be happy. Pushing people and love away isn’t gonna make you happy.” 

Charlotte scoffed at herself, a wave of bitterness hitting her. She hated how Lauren was always right, a habit that incensed her since college. She was not wrong. That was all Charlotte knew how to do, push men who wanted her away, even when she wanted them back. 

“It’s all I know how to do,” she muttered, unable to hide that bitterness and anger at herself in her voice. 

She glanced up at the ceiling as she felt tears sting the back of her eyes. 

“Fuck!” She cried out. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” she whispered. She pressed her hands into her eyes to stop the tears from falling. Her family knew she hated to cry in front of people, hated when they saw her cry.

“Hey, hey, hey,” Jackson moved from his perch across the room to sit on the other side of his sister, his arm wrapping tightly around her. “My bad, C. I didn’t mean to upset you. I just want you to be happy.” 

“No, no. It’s not you o-or the date. I j-just hate this! Hate that I found someone amazing and I’m so fucked up, all I can do is push him away. And I t-thought it was for the right reasons but fuck, I am just miserable without him,” she cried out, finally voicing the feelings that plagued her for months. She had not meant to share that with her family or anyone. But in this heightened emotional state, she could not hold it in any longer. 

“Wait, you met someone??” Lauren’s eyes grew wide, an air of excitement settling over her. “Who was he??”

Charlotte’s eyes fell down to her cup. She was not ready to have this conversation. She had never told her friends or family about the feelings between she and Michael, or that she rejected him. She knew none of them would understand. She knew they would merely hear that she turned down THE Michael B. Jordan and think she was a lunatic. But she also knew she would not get an ounce of peace if she did not tell them now. The cat was most certainly out of the bag. 

“Michael…” 

“Wait - Michael B Jordan?? Wallace from the Wire??” 

“Your co-star, THE Michael B Jordan??” 

“Oh shit, y’all hooked up??” 

Charlotte let out a disgruntled groan as the room erupted in shock, exactly what she was trying to avoid.

“No, no. We didn’t hook up. But we got close during filming, spent a lot of time together. We kissed a-and at our wrap party, he told me he loved me. And I… fuck, it was like Shaun was right there, like I could still feel him and h-hear his voice reminding me that no one could ever love me.” Her head fell into her hands. “And I… couldn’t take it. So I pushed him away.” She wiped a stray tear from her face. “I dunno. Guess somethings never change. I’ll always be that girl he said I was.” 

“You always underestimating yourself, Charlotte.” Jackson shook his head. “You are a far cry from the woman who moved into my spot two years ago. That woman could barely fuckin’ look me or - shit - anyone in the eye. You didn’t get out of bed, you barely ate… for months, you were a shell of the woman we knew. And then you put in the work, you found you again. You’re healing and yea that shit takes time. But it’s progress. The Charlotte who was with Shaun and this Charlotte today are two different people. You gotta start celebrating every step forward.”  

“He’s right. And maybe this is the next step in your process. Finally taking a step back into the dating pool. You know the signs, you know what to look for now. You just have to trust your gut,” Allen offered her with an encouraging smile. 

“It’s not that easy, y’all. He… broke me,” her voice fell to a soft whisper. “And I just barely put the pieces back together. And Bakari is… perfect,” the word came out in a strangled sigh. “B-But if he… if he breaks me, I… just don’t think my heart can handle it again.” 

“Do you honestly believe Michael is like him?” 

She immediately shook her head. She would not claim to know Michael that well. But he was nothing like that Shaun, that much she knew. 

“I think he is the furthest thing from Shaun ever honestly. I just don’t think he’d ever do the things Shaun did.” And she truly believed that. Over a year in therapy taught her every sign she missed and when she meticulously examined her interactions with Michael, she did not see a single one with him. 

“OK then. He might hurt you, that’s true. He might break your heart. But that’s fucking life… that’s love. But if your gut is saying he isn’t Shaun then, at least, you can take the plunge knowing he won’t hurt you like that. He won’t break you.” 

“You gotta stop letting him win, Charlie.”

She shook her head. “He already won, Lo. Game’s been over. Probably what keeps him warm at night. Where ever he is, he knows he got what he wanted all the same.” 

“No.” Lauren answered defiantly, refusing to listen to her best friend’s defeatist attitude. “If the game was over, you’d be dead. That’s the endgame for him.” The tension in the room thickened as Lauren spoke, the words were harsh but Charlotte knew they were true. “And you aren’t. You’re here and you’re fucking killing it. Every day, you win by just living your life, being you and loving. Everything he took from you or said you couldn’t have and didn’t deserve? Those are his words, his lies. And every time you believe him over the people who actually love you,” she gestured to their little circle. “And what you know to be true about yourself, you give him power and he keeps taking pieces of you. Keep doing that and you’ll never be happy and you’ll never be free. Then he will win.” 

She glanced at Jackson who merely shrugged. “You and I both know she’s always right.” 

Charlotte let out a pitiful laugh. “I know and I fuckin’ hate it.” She sighed deeply. “I just… even if I deserved him, it’s too late. I have to see him next week a-and h-he probably never wants to talk to me again.” 

“That asshole stole so many good things from you, Charlie. And if there is anyone in this damn family who deserves a good thing, it’s you. If Michael is really what you want, then don’t let him take that too. When you see him next week, shoot your shot. See what happens.” 

“And if that nigga ain’t interested anymore… fuck him,” CJ called from across the room, everyone rolling their eyes at his bluntness but nodding in agreement.

“And you move on.” Lauren added more tactfully. She rubbed Charlotte’s knee gently. “But stop torturing yourself and all of us and just try, sis. Please.” 

Charlotte tearfully laughed, wiping her eyes. 

“I really hate you guys,” she whispered, tearfully laughing as she wiped her eyes. 

“We know.” 

Charlotte’s head gently fell onto her brother’s shoulder as he placed a quick kiss on the top of her head before transitioning the conversation to a lighter topic. She sighed to herself. 

Shoot your shot.

Sounded easy enough. But where Michael was concerned, Charlotte had only played the coward, too scared to face her true feelings and his. This would require her to play a role she had not in a long time, one that she feared she had forgotten entirely: someone who was fearless. While she did not know if she had it in her, her family did. And their faith and confidence in her was enough to overcome her self-doubt. When she saw Michael next weekend, she was going to choose happiness. She was going to choose him. 

Tag List: @certifiedlesbianbaddie @bangtanxmegan @reelwriter19 @prettyisasprettydoes1306 @msniaimani @hi888888sworld @lynaye1993 @destinio1 @cawi00

Read Part 4

A/N: Ok sorry for no scenes with Els/Bakari together this chapter but for my own sanity, I had to break it up into two chapters lol we will get our Els/Bakari reunion in chapter 4. We got a little bit more of Charlotte's backstory and got to meet her family who will be around… what do we think? How is "shooting her shot" gonna go? Is Michael gonna be receptive or are his feelings still too hurt from rejection? And do you think she actually follows through this time?

[checkxmaster]

"The hell is your problem, dude? Did you seriously forget about me? Or what, you think I'm a clone? Be for real."

It was getting dark, so Chad pulled his armored vehicle over to the side of the road and set about preparing to settling in for the night. Over the years, he'd accumulated a lot of tech to help him survive, from computers and GPS, to motion sensors, timers, and alarms. Generators and power storage units were essential, as were solar panels and other methods of harnessing power as electrical grids began to fail seemingly everywhere.

Some of the tech he built himself, having raided hardware stores for parts, and others he'd acquired from abandoned police stations and homes. It passed the time, to sit and occupy himself with building computers, or to set up surveillance systems, or to create spreadsheets to catalogue all of his supplies, and he liked to keep his skills sharp. Why? He didn't really know anymore. Maybe it just kept him sane. He had about a million flashlights, flares, weapons, and a multitude of ammunition types, complete with all the batteries, solar chargers, hardware enhancements, additional parts, and optional adjustments he could store.

Metal boxes, backpacks, and duffel bags were stacked in an almost hedge-maze-like fashion inside the armored vehicle he'd taken over after it had been abandoned by the military. His bed was little more than a shelf nestled into all this organized chaos, but he found it strangely comforting to be boxed in while he slept... especially since he was alone most of the time.

Occasionally he joined up with some survivors, but he found it difficult to remain with them. Their goals were vastly different, with civilians wanting to find somewhere safe to hunker down and barricade, and Chad wanting to keep on the move to see what he could do to screw Umbrella over or help other people.

He'd gotten his motion sensor perimeter up around his mobile home, as it were, and had just taken his nightly dose of painkillers so he'd have half a chance of sleeping. The deep scars from where the licker had grabbed him as well as the pain of a few broken bones that hadn't quite healed properly from being thrown off the train on the way out of the Hive had him pretty much in near-constant pain. He'd learned to live with it, and as long as he was busy and moving, he could ignore it. At night, though, he needed some extra help from good ol' pharmaceuticals. Just over-the-counter, though, nothing too heavy. He couldn't risk not being able to wake up if something significant went down. And absolutely nothing with an Umbrella logo on the bottle.

That was when one of his alarms went off, indicating that something was moving in the near vicinity of the vehicle. "Really?" he groaned, his head falling to the right as he lay in his bed to look at the screen across the way. Sure enough, it was blinking. Sighing, he sat up and typed away, looking at the camera feed indicating movement. To his severe disappointment, it wasn't one of the undead. It looked like a soldier of some kind. "Just perfect," he said cynically. Grabbing a couple guns, he went out to investigate. What he found was... startling, to say the least.

It... it was Rain. His heart began to pound. No, Rain's dead. Don't get fooled again by those stupid clones. Man, they were creepy... Clones of his now-deceased friends and comrades that often times acted nothing like the originals. The Rain ones... were always particularly nasty. He lifted his rifle, leveling it at her. "That's far enough," he said coldly, assuming this was a clone. How can it not be?

But then she spoke, and almost simultaneously he began to notice that she looked a bit older. The clones always looked young, pristine. Swallowing hard, Chad found it difficult to breathe with how vigorously his heart was now pounding, rattling his ribcage. Faltering a little in his resolve, the tip of his rifle slowly dipped a bit and he stared incredulously at her.

"N-no, I-... Of course I didn't forget about you, but..." But you're dead. You've gotta be. Forgetting Rain - or anyone else he'd lost in the Hive due to his incompetence, poor planning, and cracking under the pressure - was never an option. He saw their faces almost nightly in the twisted horrors of his guilt-fueled nightmares.

Chad blinked, not knowing what to do. The rifle lowered just a bit more at the mention of clones. "Yeah, actually, that's exactly what I'm thinking. Wait, you're-... Are you telling me you're not a clone?" Oh, how he wanted to believe that, but he'd been fooled before, almost fatally. "Come on, don't fuck with me..." he said, more with a crestfallen type of exhaustion than with any sort of real intimidation attempt. "If you're not a clone... then prove it."

If this really was Rain, the real Rain, then he was about to feel like a huge jerk momentarily. But if it wasn't... he couldn't afford to let his guard down...

[kaythefloppa]

Lion Guard Finale Praise + Rant

There is a lot I hate about The Lion Guard's final episode but the one thing that will always hold a special place in my heart is the return montage:

You can't tell in screenshots, but in the background, the LG chorus sings a reprise of the Departure Theme from the premiere episode, with this montage being a book-end to the goodbyes that the Guard said to their friends and families in that episode.

It's really sweet and powerful because it's a beautiful example of "Show, don't tell" (a rule which this show, particularly in Season 3, and the LK sequels in general are not the best at following). We see what the Lion Guard had left behind when they went on their journey to the Tree of Life, how much they had missed their home and how glad they are to be back and how that feeling was reciporicated by their friends and families.

Keep in mind that earlier that morning they were under the belief that Zira invaded the Pride Lands and had possibly killed the royal family and subjugated the Pride Lands' non-lion subjects if not giving them a same gruesome fate (since Kion knows that Zira is a lion supremacist, god-forbid what would happen if she ever got near Mtoto, Thurston, or Ajabu), and on the Pride Landers' end, the Lion Guard had been gone for such a long time with no one having any way of knowing they'd return or if they died. So this reunion was likely also a huge relief for everyone in the Pride Lands, especially Simba, Basi, and Timon and Pumbaa (who no doubt would've been scared shitless at the idea that their kid could be missing forever or dead and have no way to confirm or deny that possibility). It's just all around amazing to see. When watching the episode for the first time when it came out I thought something was wrong with my computer because despite there being 14 minutes left, I wholeheartedly thought the series was going to end there....

...which is why I'm very mad that it didn't and forever disappointed at the route they went with for the actual ending.

In the span of less than a full day since the Lion Guard returned from the Tree of Life, all of them instantly want to head back there on a whim after losing the Lion Guard contest, which would wind up in them completely uprooting their lives and leaving their home and families again for the sake of this one kingdom that we've only seen for seven to eight out of 74 episodes plus a TV movie! The reunion showed us that the Guard was strongly attached to their home and families, but now the ending forces us to ignore that to logistify the Guard willingly going to the Tree of Life without any on-screen goodbyes or send-offs. No scene of doubt, no goodbye songs, no parting ways between characters, nothing, it just jump cuts from "Hey, let's go back to the Tree of Life even though we've only been back here for a day" straight to them at the Tree of Life for Kion and Rani's wedding. Isn't the episode's title supposed to be "Return to the Pride Lands?" Yet the "return" plot stops mattering after the first 11 minutes.

The whole Guard leaving with Kion doesn't even make sense: Bunga has Timon and Pumbaa at Hakuna Matata Falls, Beshte has to co-lead the hippo pod with his father, Ono has his flock and possibly even Ona (you could argue that he would want to return to the Tree of Life because they healed him, but that's not the reason they went with - Also the poor dude lost his Mark of the Guard twice, the first being after he lost his eyesight to protect the Pride Lands from Scar, like, what the fuck?), Fuli had been the most admant about returning to the Pride Lands, and Anga showed no interest in staying at the Tree of Life and seemed perfectly ok in the Pride Lands.

Even back in the days where people were theorizing what would happen to the Lion Guard that caused them to be absent in TLK 2, I never saw reason for the whole Guard to leave if Kion ever left, and even then, I never expected any departure to be permanent because it would go against their whole life-style. It feels like they only had them leave like this for the sake of some "twist" that didn't need to be there. And even if they were going to go with this route, they could've had the Guard separate, with some staying and some going to at least make sense.

Much like Makini, Season 3 ignores crucial story elements of the main characters from the first two seasons to both justify their "plot-twist" by the end and to wrap up any “plot-holes” with the Lion King 2 and forces the audience to suspend an inappropriate amount of their disbelief. So while I like the reunion in the final episode and whilst my love for the show remains un-matched, knowing how it all ends and that (according to some writers) it was planned from the start to end like this makes me feel cheated in a way. One of the most disappointing endings I've seen from a show which I've been willing to follow from start to finish and this is coming from someone who's watched both Jake and the Never Land Pirates and Bunk'd.

[writeyouin]

Hello, I hope I'm not a bother, could I may request something w/ TFP ratchet and a male reader? 🥺 You can do whatever you feel like

Ratchet (TFP) X Reader – Time Heals All Wounds

A/N – So, I know that you specified a male reader, but I kept this gender-neutral because there was no smut in it.

Warnings – None.

Rating – T

Bumblebee chirped and whistled at you, looking to Raf for a translation of his concerns.

Raf nodded once and then translated Bumblebee’s message, “(Y/N), Bee wants to apologise again. He feels really bad about your leg and wants to check if you’re okay.”

You glanced down at your leg which was securely wrapped in a cast to help set the broken bone. Now that you had been treated, you were past the worst of the pain and were mostly just uncomfortable. You had received the injury when Bee had gotten into a scrap with a Vehicon. He had been forced backwards and you hadn’t gotten away in time. It could have been a lot worse, but Bee had managed to slow himself just in time to stop himself from crushing you, but it was too late for you to get away unscathed. Now, a few days later, you were recovered enough to walk around the base with the aid of crutches.

“It’s fine, Bee. Really,” You assured him with a smile.

You walked a short distance on your crutches.

“See, I’m walking around now and everything. I’ll be better in no time.”

Despite your attempt to alleviate Bumblebee’s guilt, his door-wings drooped and his vocaliser chirped in a melancholy register. He walked away miserably, dragging his pedes.

“I’ll talk to him,” Raf told you before following his partner, calling after him, “Hey, Bee, wait up!”

Sighing, you started the difficult journey to the top of the stairs, planning to stay out of the way on the top floor where there was a sofa for you to rest on. After a short while, Ratchet entered the room, a look of mild annoyance crossing his face upon seeing you.

“Oh, you’re here,” He stated pointedly, having yet to spend any time alone with you.

“I am,” You replied languidly, looking up from a book you had been reading.

“Well, I’m not going to babysit you. I hope you know that.”

“I wouldn’t expect you to,” You retorted drily, returning your attention to your reading material.

“Bah,” Ratchet grumbled, starting his work on the computer terminal.

The two of you sat in silence, and while Ratchet was initially annoyed by your presence, he soon realised that you weren’t going to bother him like Miko or Bulkhead usually did. Upon that revelation, he found no cause for complaint and settled into his research, continuing his attempts to come up with a synthetic alternative to energon.

Yet, as usual, Ratchet’s tranquillity was not to last as Jack arrived, requesting Ratchet’s assistance.

“Hey Ratchet, Arcee wants to know if you have any uh-” He looked at his hand, reading the smudged writing on the palm, “Nitrinsic-enjex? Whatever that is.”

Ratchet huffed, annoyed by the interruption, but before he had a chance to bark an answer, you piped up, “What does she want it for?”

“She’s experimenting,” Jack replied. “Trying to create a grenade that will corrode Cybertronian metal on impact, since things are getting tougher lately.”

“Tell her that nintrinsic-enjex is too unstable for that. If she wants to play with explosives, she should stick with the resources that Fowler provides.”

“She said those aren’t powerful enough for guys like Megatron.”

“Okay, fine. Then tell her that she should use a combination of gunpowder and Cybertronian hydrex in a thin titanium casing, with a 1:2 ratio in favour of the hydrex.”

“Uh…” Jack looked to Ratchet for affirmation of your response.

Ratchet in turn was staring at you, gobsmacked. He recovered himself enough to nod at Jack, “Yes… That’s right. Do as (Y/N) says.”

Jack stayed for a moment longer and you realised that he had already forgotten your instructions.

“Okay,” You sighed, “Go back to Arcee and I’ll text you what she needs. She’ll find everything she needs in storage room three, by the way. Oh, and tell her to handle the hydrex gently, it’s motion sensitive until it’s sealed in the titanium.”

Jack nodded at you gratefully and ran off, awaiting your text.

Ratchet was still staring at you, and you decided to address what you incorrectly assumed was the elephant in the room.

“I know,” You said disbelievingly. “I didn’t think Arcee cared for explosives either.”

Ratchet ignored your comment, loudly demanding to know exactly what was on his mind. “How did you know all of that?”

“Hm? Oh,” You held up the book that you had been reading for the last few hours. It was a printed copy of Ratchet’s research and a catalogue of the resources he had managed to obtain and create since coming to Earth.

“You’ve been reading my notes?” Ratchet said, askance.

“Yeah… Is that okay?”

“Yes, of course. I’m just surprised that you would-” Close to complimenting you Ratchet stopped short, instead saying, “Yes, well, it’s good to see someone using their brain for once.”

You exhaled a small laugh, smiling as you returned to your reading.

Over the following weeks, you were stuck with Ratchet, but it didn’t bother you as your affection for the cantankerous medic grew. Ratchet was also affected by your constant presence, at his workstation, growing rather fond of you. In an attempt to get even closer to you, he nominated himself your personal doctor.

Whilst working, he would take short breaks to remind you when to exercise and when to rest. He looked up what constituted a healthy human diet, and often reprimanded you when you didn’t drink enough water. When Bulkhead got too rowdy, or Bumblebee too loud, Ratchet would scathingly remind them that a patient was recovering and they would look at their pedes, mumbling glum apologies. Then, when it got late, Ratchet would either drive you home himself or offer you his hab-suite to rest in, seeing to it that you weren’t disturbed.

One day, when it was just you and Ratchet in the base, you dared to joke that you were on the list of Ratchet’s favourite patients.

“A list?” Ratchet scoffed. “(Y/N), you are the list. That’s why you get the best medical care.”

“Nagging counts as medical care?” You chuckled.

“If you don’t like my nagging, what would you suggest?” Ratchet demanded.

“I don’t know… kiss it better?” You joked, raising your leg for a second before letting it fall again.

Ratchet rolled his optics and marched back to his computer terminal, mildly annoyed by the low hum of his cooling fans. Fortunately, you were only a human and didn’t know what the sound signified.

Unoffended by the abrupt end to the conversation, you started playing around on your phone, awaiting Ratchet’s offer to take you home. Yet, the night wore on, and more tired than usual, you fell asleep on the sofa, dropping your phone on your chest as you drifted off.

After a few more hours of work, Ratchet finally turned to you, surprised to find you napping. Reluctant to move you, he decided to leave you there for the evening.

“Kiss it better,” He muttered to himself grumpily.

Then, sighing Ratchet pressed a servo to his lips and then moved it to your leg, touching it gently. Soon enough, your cast would be off and although Ratchet knew that it would only be time that healed your wound, he couldn’t help feeling that his love for you might help. He only hoped that when you were better you would still choose to stay with him instead of going back into the field with the others; he didn’t want to be alone again.

Like My Work? Buy Me A Ko-Fi @ https://ko-fi.com/writeyouin

[ask-carmenpondiego]

Chapter 21: No Place Like HQ For the Holidays

Once back at VILE HQ, the jet lands and the team disembarks, M procuring a wheelchair with his shadow powers and strapped Carmen in while he started to hum some carols. The mare sulked having to stay seated and not walking on her own. She did want to get up and about with these new augments so it wouldn’t slow her down. Deep down she knew it was for her own good and health to stay off her legs so they can heal properly within the cybernetic casing. “Can I at least have crutches?!” She had asked before they departed. “What? No! You put pressure on your arms the same way as your legs? You’ll blow the sutures and start bleeding all over my equipment!” She remembers Skyggja scolding her.

Blendin had already opened the double doors for the moving to begin. It didn’t take long for the HQ to be swarmed with flying and crawling drones carrying crates and boxes. Kiros went on ahead to help direct the drones with Skyggja’s help after Carmen explained which parts of the top floor was theirs. Carmen wheeled herself out of the way and into the living room, next to the big screen tv which blipped on by itself, 079’s face showing up rather annoyed. It took one look at Carmen and sighed. “Oh great. One of you is broken. This is why we cant have nice things..” She raised an eyebrow and smirked, “Good to see you too, 079. I’ll be adding two names to our household and they will be setting up a lab upstairs on the penthouse floor, so there may be another computer system connecting to ours. PLEASE behave and cooperate with these new agents. I don’t doubt they will attempt to delete you somehow if you start shit with them.” The ai rolled its eyes. “I’ll highly doubt they can but I suppose I can see what I can do to assist. I make no promises.” Carmen smiles and gives an awkward thumbs up, still getting used to the feel of the augments. “Thats all I ask, just a solid attempt in peaceful coexisting. I’ll even give you more monitors if you wish for around the HQ~” 079 gave a deadpan look with confetti and balloons on the screen. “Hooray. Now I wont have to squeeze into those abhorrent tiny screens on your mobile devices. Some of you really need to clear the phone storage from all that porn..”

Blendin hops over with a tablet to show his mother, “Hey Mom, I had some help with M and Kiros and.. 079? Anyway, we came together and we are working on a present for you! I am trying to share the knowledge of the ley line door travel system to your system so you can do what I do! Now, this stuff is super top secret so I could get in a whole lot of trouble for this if I’m caught BUT Kiros insisted that 079 will keep it under lock and key so no one else can track it! And there may be a way to even hook it up to your time machine! M said he’ll tinker with that later.”

Daring had wandered in and stayed a fair distance away and watched the two discuss the travel system. She scoffed as she saw Carmen get excited and hug Blendin, perhaps a little too tight. She didnt realize the added strength she had due to the new blood and augments, that is until he yelped. Daring was still trying to unfluff her feathers as she watched. She was glad a life wasn’t lost, even if it was one she still didnt trust. Perhaps she could tolerate her mother but she certainly kept her opinions known.

As far as she could tell, her brother had fallen right into his mother’s trap and just handed over the ability to steal everything from under everyone’s noses. There must be some way to stop it all. Her thoughts were jarred to a stop as striped arms suddenly wrapped around her from behind, picking her up and twirling her around, “Adora!!! This is a wonderful surprise!! Welcome home!! Lemme give you a big hug! Rrrrrrrr!” Waldo had snuck up on her in a way he would describe as very dad-like. Daring shrieked and flailed in his grasp, “Let me go! Help!” Carmen turned quickly, hearing the screech and instantly relaxed when she saw Wally try to be silly. “Wally!! Let her go, she’s not in the right mood right now.” He let her go with a playful pout, “Aww alright. I was just excited to see our baby girl again. You grew so tall! Look at you! Pretty soon you’ll fill out and be even more like your mom. She sure did give the attractive and smart genes to you, kids.” Daring huffed and straightened her clothes and tried smoothing out her feathers once again from puffing up “I am NOTHING like her! I may be glad she’s still here but I still think she’s up to no good!” She pointed to her smirking mother.

Wally looked over at Carmen for the first time since she came back and stopped short, worry plastered across his face. “My light! Are you ok? I heard there was an incident but it wasn’t specified how bad! What.. your hair, your arms.. legs.. your color.. what happened?!” Carmen started to explain, then when she heard the words coming from her own mouth, the realization of everything started to hit. Her eyes suddenly were pouring tears, and her new hands shook. She finally had a moment to truly process. She reached up to Wally who knelt down and embraced her so tightly, crying as well, “Please.. my light, please take this as a sign to stop. I know you are trying to help cure me but let’s.. just try to find a doctor or something. You’re risking your life to save mine, the accidents are getting more frequent and more dangerous… I want you to stop stealing. Please.” Carmen wiped her eyes, pulling away as she calmed down, making herself push the panic aside, “I can’t. I still have to try. Its what I’m good at, its what I do. Its not like they’ll accept me back into the detective programs..they’ll just throw me back into that horrible place to forget about me.” Blendin hugs his mom around the neck from behind the wheelchair, nuzzling comfortingly, “We wont let anyone take you or any of your agents away from us! And we’ll find a cure, Right Dad?” Wally smiled a little worriedly, “You said it. Now lets get you cleaned up and settled from that trip, maybe some relaxing time in front of the tv or something..” Carmen scoffed with some tears still brimming her eyes, “Relaxing in front of the tv? So I can get lazy and fat you mean?” She teased, wiping her eyes.

Daring crossed her arms and stood brooding from across the room. Ninoga and Kiros were lifting a heavy piece of furniture through the doorway and had to pass in front of Daring. She caught a glimpse of the muscles on both agents and blushed, looking away. “Excuse us, little snack. Don’t want to squish you.” Kiros chuckled with a low teasing rumble, winking at her. She turned scarlet in the face and hurried over to her family, “Guys, where’s the bathroom?!” Wally pointed just down the hall as Carmen looked at her and then at Kiros having a belly laugh while the young pegasus rushes off. “So THATS why it smells like Teen Spirit on Prom Night in the jet! Kiros! You are a scoundrel!”

Kiros shrugged as he held the furniture while Ninoga was pivoting, “I didn’t do a damn thing but I know you wouldn’t have me any other way!” He grinned, now on the move to set the furniture to its proper place. Lekir set a box down, which was picked up by a crawling drone and scuttled off, the vesk stepping out of its way with a bit of a gruff. “Its already like an infestation of these drones, you sure you wanna bring them here?” Carmen nodded, “I can tell this is the break they needed, just like they gave us a break. We have the room and they can be very helpful to us.” Lekir crouched beside her as Wally was busy looking through the tv channels. “How are you feeling? Any pain or anything?” She brushed her fingers through Carmen’s hair as Carmen put on a smile, “I feel great, I cant wait to try to get back on my feet. Wally wants me to relax… and to stop thieving.”

They look over to Wally who had been channel surfing and was currently dancing to some up beat music, occasionally singing along, before changing the channel again, “Mum!….Dad!…..Bingo!…..BLUEY! Man, Kid shows are so fun these days!… Ooooh baking competition! Thats not a cake!!… IT IS A CAKE!! Blendin! Are you seeing this?!” Lekir dropped her face to deadpan, “You? Stop thieving? Heh, thats not going to happen, is it?” She watches Wally pretty much jostle his son in excitement of a purse being sliced and revealing cake. “I will never be able to fathom what you see in him..” She stands up, her hands on her hips. Carmen smiles, “I dunno, he makes me laugh like theres not a care in the world.”

That night, after all the moving had calmed down, they all gathered around the dining room table. A couple stacks of pizza were on the kitchen island nearby, half already emptied. Carmen looked around as they all chattered, dishes and cups clinking, and all she could think about was that she had spent so much time trying to get to this point. But she found it was all worth it. She finally had connections with her family and made new family along the journey. She actually felt complete for once in a very long time.

The sounds of the gathering played over a speaker for a few moments more before a hand reached and switched it off. “This does not sound like a funeral dinner, does it?” A lower ranking gentleman in a suit lowered his head, “N-no sir. It does not.” The one in the chair facing him turned, picking up the umbrella that was placed onto the desk between them, inspecting it closely. “What does it sound like to you?” The younger rank, gulped, “A..a happy celebration, sir?” The blade sliced out from the tip and back in with a press of a button. “A happy celebration. Now. Your task was simple. I see no malfunction in your equipment so the failure rests with you. You told me, no. You ASSURED me that you would have this taken care of.” The lower rank stammers, “I made sure she was gravely hurt, at the very least, if she had a big enough injury, she would not continue.. we wouldn’t need to resort to eradicating her..” They look at the expressionless form of their higher rank. “It seems like you have forgotten what we stand for. Therefore, I will rectify your errors and put you on a path of clarity.”They press a few buttons on the console as a swarm of nanites suddenly covered the lower rank for a split moment and then returned to the opening they had come through. The lower rank just collapsing to the floor, all signs of life removed without cause nor damage or anything, as if every bit of life force was simply consumed and destroyed right from the source, without so much of a sound from the victim. Within moments, two workers came in and took the body to the incinerators. They press the intercom, “Send Mali Negatta into the field, we have a holiday gift to give the thief on this naughty list.”

A voice came over the intercom in return, “Hey all, this is Mali, I’m not available right now but I will return to accept any jobs starting in the new year! Otherwise, stop calling. Byieeee” The higher rank sighed and sat back in the chair. “What a christmas miracle. Well, all things come to those who wait..”

[darkurgetrash]

BG3 Backstory Bash by Kelandrin

Introducing Volyrr - a.k.a, my Dark Urge!

Thank you to @charmedcleric and @auspex-author for this tag!! I'm a bit late to it because I wanted to do it for my durge character Volyrr (he/they) but my computer deleted all my screenshots of him & his save file off my memory stick (laptop went for repairs) because it hates him. 😔 Now that I've healed from that annoyance and have restarted his save file... on with the tag! I tag @thisisagift-youknow, @savriea, and @thegoblinwitchqueen ~ no pressure!

AN: I have ideas to eventually write a prequel Durgetash fanfic using Volyrr. If you think that's something you might be interested in, (it won't be for a while) you might not want to read the following as there will be heavy spoilers!

Baby:

Birth/Parents:

Volyrr's father is Bhaal who, of course, poofed him into the world. He was created to be a Lolth-sworn drow to put fear into the heart of his enemies, however, before he could be found by Drow in the Underdark, he was discovered by a Myconid colony who took him in and raised him as their own.

First word / tantrum / walk / sickness:

He communicated with Myconid's through telepathy, so his technical first word wasn't actually until he was six, when he said 'thank you' in common to a travelling merchant who'd gifted him an apple from the surface.

Childhood:

Friends:

Volyrr had friendships within the Myconid colony and was wary of any outsiders. He never met another child throughout his whole childhood as Myconid's are created, not born, and children don't tend to explore the Underdark. Because of this, his main friendships outside of family came from animals of the Underdark - especially the rothe.

Siblings:

He did not have siblings in a typical manner - the whole Myconid colony were his caregivers without any distinctive roles.

Getting into trouble:

He rarely got into trouble as there wasn't much potential to; he was well disciplined by the colony and taught that peace was the ultimate way of life.

Birthday:

The concept of 'birthday' was foreign to him during his childhood. Later in life, he decided to just tell people it was the same day as Winter Solstice because it was easy to remember.

Games / Learning something new:

Because of his unique upbringing, he developed druidic powers (Circles of Spores, for obvious reasons) very early. His favourite game was to transform into a rothe and race against his animal friends. He was a very athletic kid.

Trauma:

He was a happy child, content living the Myconid way of life because he didn't know there was any other alternative. He, of course, experienced deaths within the colony - but was taught that death was a beautiful inevitability. He didn't fear it.

Teenager:

Rebellion / Running away:

I moved this label to the top of this section as it's important for clarifying the rest. When he started puberty (age 20) he also started developing the Dark Urges™ from papa Bhaal. It wasn't long until he was cast out of his colony as they revered peace even above family and could sense his urges through their telepathic bond. The urges became worse after leaving the colony and lead him to the surface, where he spent the majority of his time in wild form, hunting down prey to satisfy his urges.

Reckless behaviour:

Volyrr was reckless in murdering adventurers, not knowing the laws of the land. He was caught in the act many times but his druidic magic was powerful and witnesses didn't stand a chance. He only got seriously hurt a handful of times and was able to escape and heal himself with medicine proficiency.

First love:

After some decades of living mostly in wild form, Volyrr had learnt a lot about surface society by watching passing adventurers and had picked up a good amount of common - though was a selective-mute who rarely spoke. He travelled to Baldur's Gate and there met a fellow run-away - Enver Gortash, who was of the same proportional age (late-teen). Volyrr's quiet disposition and Enver's chatty, outgoing personality made for a compatible dynamic, and so they became fast friends. Volyrr quickly developed a crush on Enver; the first person to ever bother getting to know him as people were always put off by his drow birth and mutism.

Peer pressure:

Some years later, Gortash was recruited by the cult of Bane and pressured Volyrr into joining him. After doing so, Volyrr started receiving direct communication from his father in the form of Sceleritas Fel and decided to join the cult of Bhaal instead. This caused a rift in his and Enver's relationship and they fell out as a result.

Taking responsibility:

Volyrr was never forced to take responsibility for his crimes as there were never any surviving witnesses to them and he was encouraged by the cult of Bhaal to continue his murdering ways.

Adulthood:

Aging:

Again, I moved this to the top just for consistency's sake! Volyrr ages as a normal drow - reaching adolescence at age 20 and adulthood at 80. At the start of Baldur's Gate 3, he is in his mid-nineties.

Their "first time":

His first time was with Enver after they reunited over a decade after falling out, now both the chosen of their gods. It had happened spontaneously after they'd gotten drunk celebrating having stolen the Crown of Karsus.

Serious relationships:

After his first time with Enver, the two started acting more as a couple than just friends/partners in crime. The two never labelled their relationship and weren't exclusive, but Enver was his first love and first relationship.

After losing his memories during the events of Baldur's Gate 3, he entered into a serious relationship with Astarion and later Halsin as a polycule. When he re-met Enver in Baldur's Gate, he had no recollection of the relationship they once had and was convinced by Halsin to kill him rather than partner with him; ending the archduke's reign of terror.

Work:

Before BG3, he was the chosen of Bhaal and ran the cult of Bhaal. After the events of BG3, he returns to the Underdark with Astarion and the other vampire spawn, helping to source food for them.

Finding your place:

When Volyrr had woken up on the Nautiloid, the only memories he had were of his childhood before the urges began - this meant that he had advanced knowledge of the Underdark and still largely considered it his home. This is one of the reasons he chose to join Astarion in the Underdark rather than stay with Halsin on the surface - the other reason being that he knew Astarion would need him more. Halsin didn’t join the two, not able to leave nature behind, and so they departed amicably as friends.

Starting a family/ Found family:

Volyrr had travelled only with Astarion and Halsin, loving them both with his whole heart. After moving to the Underdark with Astarion, he considered the vampire spawn to be his new family, thinking it reminiscent of the Myconid colony he grew up in... also, he adopts a Bulette as his pet, names it Meatball, and uses it to ride around like a horse. 🫡

Thanks for reading this essay of a character background!😆 I hope it all makes sense and has minimal typos because I just proper smashed it out. I just love my guy so much and I hope that you do too now.🥺❤️ It'll be fun to eventually write fanfic for him. I might do another one of these posts for Tavlyn after finishing LMTTD, but I with hold off for now because spoilers. 😉 xo