#an exploding shell station

[sounds-in-the-fog]

Can you imagine the sheer amount of software issues mechs would have?

Wanna use that cool old weapon from the big war? Sorry, we don't do backwards compatibility in the space age.

Oh, I'm afraid this targeting system doesn't have a version for the OS your frame is running.

Without proper drivers those legs act like hands. And the space station hosting the website with drivers got blown up years ago.

Subscription based navigation systems.

Some poor mechanic trying to watch a video on space YouTube while shells are exploding in the background, just to find out which out of the thousand data ports he need to add to the firewall exceptions for the control systems to work (adding the wrong port bricks the frame).

"Your password is incorrect. The mecha will be locked for 20 minutes to protect your personal data"

[vexwerewolf]

In Golden Flame v1.03

Major Changes

 BEAT 22: The Hall of Mirrors now has two extra pages added in which it is possible to hold a conversation with CAUSTIC.

Added section in Running the Campaign: The Team (p. 61) regarding team backstories, including six new alternate backstories.

In keeping with major lore changes made to Act 2 (work still in progress), all references to the diasporan Kingdom Aniline have been retroactively removed. House Aniline is now a minor house of the House of Smoke.

Mechanical

COMBAT: A Face to a Name - the coolant pipe junctions are now in a line, and rupture in sequence. They can now also be intentionally triggered by characters shooting them.

COMBAT: Shoo the Vultures - removed Sentinel from 4-player lineup.

COMBAT: Silence the Guns - removed Rapid Response from Archer.

COMBAT: Silence the Guns - Bombard moved to 4-player lineup from 5-player lineup. Added High-Impact Shells.

COMBAT: Silence the Guns - Assault moved to 5-player lineup from 4-player lineup.

COMBAT: Silence the Guns - reactors can now explode.

COMBAT: Break the Line - added Assault Launcher to Lobber.

The Cult Influence clock did not specify how many ticks it should have. This has been rectified to 8.

Statistical

Corrected orbit distance of Impact Plaza from 357,000 km to 187,000 km. Some intern accidentally parked the station at the L4 LaGrange of the wrong moon, and has consequently been shoved out of an airlock.

Formatting

Reflowed parts of Running the Campaign: The Team (p. 61).

Reflowed combats to remove "The Battlefield" and "The Fight" section headers, ironically allowing more space for information about the battlefields and the fights.

Writing and Lore

A number of corrections in typography, spelling, grammar and formatting that, due to the fact that I started doing it way before I started making this changelog, will have to go unenumerated.

Decreased instances of the word "fuck" in Act 1 from 82 to 67, meaning I officially give 18.29% less of a fuck.

All references to "RA" by Valentinian children changed to "YMIR," to better reflect their dad's weird obsession.

Added more detail about outlander culture to ENCOUNTER: Ghost Town.

Added the worst line in the history of writing to COMBAT: Bad Star.

[the-ace-with-spades]

I know I wrote a firefighter!Bradley AU but what about an every aviator is a firefighter AU??

(I'm sorry, thinking of applying for an on-call FF role now that I'm moving near a fire station and it got me...)

Bradley as a legacy firefighter - Goose died on the job in a freak accident when he and Mav were barely starting, then Mav stuck and had a friendly rivalry with Ice around going up the ranks/getting experience in their firehouse (who first gets the engineer, lieutenant, who gets the extra high rescue training, etc), up until Ice went into the chief roles and Mav moved to captain a heavy rescue squad...

Bradley had been rejected from the local fire academy twice (because of Mav pulling the strings... Not that Ice was aware at the time, only found out when Bradley found out and exploded on them...), certified in a different fire department and after all came back when he had already been a lieutenant at that department.

All the WSOs are double-certified or AEMT/paramedics. Natasha is doing something badass as well, maybe helicopter rescue or maybe aerial firefighting in general?? Bob is definitely a specialist medic (in kinda like the Rapid Response Unit or Motorcycle Unit in the UK...)

When Bradley comes back, he is recruited as potential captain for the fire house Mav and Ice spent over twenty years in and where his dad's face and helmet is in the hall of the fallen. Mav conveniently accepts a promotion people have been trying to push him into for the past 5 or so years, becoming a battalion chief that has the office at that station and directly overlooks the station's captains... And does absolutely everything so Bradley is not deemed suitable because he doesn't want him to be a firefighter at all...

Enter Jake Seresin, the new recruit that screams trouble. He's entered the academy a few months before, at the age of thirty and after doing some other job (maybe ex-military? ex-cop?? ex-farmer?? Idk) and instantly has beef with Bradley, the legacy fire captain and firefighter since nineteen, Jake being the overconfident know-it-all...

Cue some dangerous situation happening because of Jake's overconfidence/recklessness and Bradley risking it all (and breaking protocol and getting himself in trouble) to save his ass.

And you know, Jake is still his annoying, mouthy self, but there's some respect there now. And maybe he overhears Mav chewing Bradley out (and maybe he hears a bit too much as well, finding the secret of Bradley's triple legacy).

And since then Jake kinda starts to listen and maybe Bradley is a bit soft and maybe because he sees himself from almost fifteen years ago in Jake or maybe because he's a little fond of him (or you know, attracted to him...), he starts getting him some off the job, extra one on one training.

And maybe Jake develops a bit of a crush on his (almost) captain as the time goes. Maybe he brings out Bradley out of his shell as well, gets him to relax and stop thinking about pleasing Mav and Ice's expectations. Maybe it integrates Bradley better with the team, maybe they listen to him better, etc.

Cue once again something happening - Jake's apartment burns down (to be cliché...) and Bradley is doing overtime in another station and is the one responding. There's no dramatic rescue or anything (Jake's already evacuated most of the building) but Jake has no place to stay and his whole family is in Texas so Bradley offers he can stay on his couch.

Obviously he does not end up on the couch but in the bedroom. You know, with Bradley, wearing Bradley's clothes (all his stuff burnt down...), in Bradley's bed...

(Jake's gotta have some firefighting backstory as well btw - maybe his dad was a firefighter as well but he never got to meet him, maybe he was a safe haven baby brought to a firehouse?? He just doesn't admit it until he and Bradley are already almost-kinda a thing)

(Also, Bradley calls Jake some variation of Texas, Cowboy, etc as nick name because I know fire guys would be dead set on mocking Jake being from the south and having an accent)

There'd also be some kind of big event/mass casualty/etc that makes Mav drive out with the responding team and he and Bradley end up going into action together and getting their beef settled...

[poisonheartfrog]

Somewhere in Long Beach, J-Kwon and Bad Bunny are in half of a Toyota Supra by an exploded Shell gas station, and I think that's beautiful

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Barrel Bomb

Debut: Mario Kart Tour

I gotta be honest, all this time I thought this thing was just called Obstacle. That was much funnier to me. Is it ok if I start this post over and you all pretend its official name is Obstacle? Thank you so much.

Name: Obstacle

Debut: Mario Kart Tour

Yep. That sure is an Obstacle if I've ever seen one! They really named this thing Obstacle. I can't say I disagree! It has a bright red Bowser face, and best of all, its metal rims have spikes like the spiked bands Bowser wears. This barrel isn't just designed that way, it's wearing accessories! It's wearing spiked bands, and technically, it has a face, so I think Obstacle counts as a member of the Koopa Troop. It hangs out with them, and one day, hopes to maybe even drive a kart of its own...!

Obstacle is like the evil version of the DK Barrel. Donkey Kong? Now that guy is my funny friend. If one of HIS barrels is in the way, it's probably not too intrusive, and might even have goodies inside! It might also have him inside! Remember the recent confirmation that Kongs are not apes? That makes it more likely that wooden barrels are their eggs, and they are full of albumin. Be careful breaking them... you might be in for a Wet Surprise! Don't act like it's weird, Yoshi's whole brand is eggs and we let that happen!

Don't even think about crashing into Obstacle. You'll be obstructed if you do! Maybe you'd think "This obstacle is a bad guy and I should kill it by running it over with my car" (and you would have a point because this barrel is clearly the moral scum of the earth, quite frankly), but impact with Obstacle will cause you to Explode. It will also explode if it from afar with something such as a shell, which is utilized in some challenges to defeat large groups of Goombas. You might think Obstacle was just trying to hang out with the Goombas, but remember what an utterly reprehensible villain Obstacle is. I bet it stationed itself there on purpose, so that it could sacrifice itself to destroy its supposed friends. Irredeemable!

My favorite thing about Obstacle is that they are Bowser-branded at all, here in this game where Bowser and his cronies are playable. A Bowser face to communicate "Bad! Stay away!" when you could easily be playing as Bowser. It makes sense from a game design standpoint, but it's still silly! Obstacle will make no exception for its boss. Maybe the Koopa Kingdom is the most notable exporter of obstacles in the Mushroom World, and Bowser provides the Obstacles like BaNaNa Boy provides the bananas! He should have given them a better name, though. "Obstacle"? That's so vague!

[magnoliasforyourmedic]

Bastogne Mayhem with Batallion Medic Al Mampre

Al Mampre had been one of Easy Company’s medics from the very beginning in Camp Toccoa. He developed a cyst shortly before D-Day that had to be surgically removed, rendering him unable to drop into D-Day with Easy Company and the rest of the 101st Airborne. He jumped into Holland with Easy Company, newly promoted to Battalion Medic. 

"Once in Bastogne, Mampre saw MPs directing traffic through the town’s center as artillery shells rained down. Mampre arrived at an Army barracks where Brig. Gen. Anthony McAuliffe, the acting division commander, had set up headquarters. Mampre was assigned to the regimental aid station located across from McAuliffe and began receiving wounded."

...

"Mampre experienced the same kind of luck when an artillery shell landed in front of him outside his makeshift hospital. It hit the ground and broke apart without exploding. Mampre simply looked at it and thought, “That’s a really big shell.” Yet the incident had little effect on him. “I never thought I could have been killed,” he later said. Mampre was often impressed with the medical staff as well as the paratroopers around him. Captain “Shifty” Feiler, the dentist who often had to pay for drinks back in Toccoa, treated 1,000 wounded and frostbitten men by himself, the most in the regiment. “Winters wouldn’t go near him,” Mampre recalled. Feiler had tried to repair Winters’ teeth and ended up making them worse."

...

"When the Germans bombed or shelled the barracks, Mampre and his comrades fled to the basement. During one shelling, Mampre gave his blanket and a chocolate D-bar to a man in his underwear sitting next to him. When it got light out, Mampre realized the man was a German. “Hey!” he shouted upstairs, “There’s a kraut down here!” Mampre took back his blanket. In another instance, Mampre joked with a 17-year-old English-speaking German prisoner about exchanging uniforms. Mampre would be sent back to the United States as a prisoner, he explained to the kid, and the German could return home by following the American Army into Germany. The young man thought about the offer, and then said, “Ah, the hell with you. I want to go the United States. You go to Germany.”"

[sandersstudies]

“Do you have a car?” “Yeah, in the attic.”

“Bad Bunny, on top of the Shell gas station, is thrown by the force of the explosion into the seat next to J-Kwon.”

“Dogs in the car, blast through the wall, it explodes, they’re alive, it was a hologram, they go out the back door never to be seen again.”

BRENNAN LEE MULLIGAN YOUR BRAIN IS INCREDIBLE

[audible301]

“There is an exploded Shell gas station. JKwon and Bad Bunny are nowhere to be seen.”

What the hell is this show?

[ariadnelives]

Dokkaebi Fire - A Short Story

Author's Note: The bulk of this story takes place during the events of "Force Majeure," directly between chapters 8 and 9, during the crew's time in hiding in Xiagu. It is not intended to be read in sequence. If you'd like to catch up on the series so far, you can do so on ao3 or tumblr.

“Cookie?” Pilar called into the flat as she entered, not waiting to be let in. “It's me today. Ariadne's making final preparations for her surgery tomorrow, but she'll be by as soon as she's back on her feet.”

Aoibheann sat on the armchair in the living room, pointed at the television which appeared to be carrying a local news broadcast from one of Saturn's other moons. She had a blanket draped over her lap, and she watched the news broadcast idly, taking in none of it.

“Remember, starting tomorrow, Ariadne won't remember anything beyond the six-month point in our stay here, and we have to keep it that way, so, be careful what you say around her.” Pilar laughed without joy.

Aoibheann did not.

“You know,” Pilar tacked on, “I'm a complete liar. You could dime out the whole plan and I'm pretty sure me and Ari would absolutely leap for joy as long as it meant you were talking again.”

Aoibheann glanced over at Pilar wistfully, dark circles under her eyes, but said nothing. These little responses indicated their old friend could still hear them in there, that they could get through to her, even if she couldn't muster the strength to respond. She'd barely spoken since they lost the station. She was usually a tightly-wound powder keg, full of fire and passion, and she had to direct it towards her purpose or else she’d explode. Now, it was like all that fire inside her had gone out, and all that was left of her was an exhausted shell of a woman.

She seemed able to move around on her own, but rarely found the motivation to do so. She had grown somewhat thin and gaunt, as she only ate when fed, so every day, Pilar or Ariadne or one of her apprentices would stop by to see her and make sure she ate. Sasha had been spreading herself far too thin on Ariadne's project, but still found time to check in on her and monitor her physical health. Her apprentices had removed all sharp objects, belts, and shoelaces from the premises, but Pilar thought that was overkill. She had known Aoibheann long enough to know she would never physically harm herself. Still, it didn't make it easy to watch her torture herself like this.

Pilar sat next to her, and gently took her hand.

“I hate having to feed you this stuff, Cookie,” she said, opening up a small gray package she'd brought with her. “Replicated MREs. No wonder Baltimore and Beam went to a convenience store twice a week when they were in the army.”

Aoibheann looked with disdain at the lump of meat before her, served with a mush that could only be described as “prepared grain.” She hated eating it as much as Pilar hated serving it to her.

In their small hidden town of Xiagu, all of the food came out of the replicators. Xiagu had a surplus of energy, with its passive solar collection and years of nobody to use the stored power, so nobody was worried about the expenditure of creating food and water from reserves.

Back on the station, they had only managed to earmark power for replicator use two years previously. Like most spacecraft, all of the water fixtures were powered by replicators, generating as much water as needed from a stored bank of energy, which was in turn refilled by a device in the drains which converted waste-water into energy. The food replicator could make prepared meals, but crew members would only be allowed to use it if they could make up the energy cost. This happened pretty naturally, as everybody had to use the bathroom regularly and could credit this to their account, and had the handy benefit of encouraging people to clean up after themselves-- every time you emptied your trash into the energy-reclamation chute, you added replicator energy to your canteen account.

However, back home, most people didn't bother to use the replicators, because truly, Cookie's food was better fresh than anything they could produce, and she loved making it. Here in Xiagu, however, the replicators had nothing but military-grade “Meals Ready to Eat” and raw ingredients programmed into them. When the town was alive, there had been gardens to produce the vegetables, and people to tend them, harvest them, and cook them in the many small restaurants. Now, all that was left was replicators.

Cookie's star apprentice, Yellow, had been put in charge of the replicators while Cookie was indisposed, and had very few requests for anything other than the prepared MREs since they'd been there. Everyone on the crew was required to learn to cook, from Cookie, and nobody particularly felt up to trying to fill her shoes. Everyone had pretty much accepted meals of nondescript lumps of meat, vegetables, and starches on the firm belief that any day now, Cookie would be back on her feet, doing what she loved.

Yellow was the one in charge of food distribution, and had desperately been asking Ariadne to authorize them to reopen Cookie's kitchen, with her at the helm, until Cookie was well enough to resume her post. It's what Cookie would want, she insisted, but Ariadne was taking Cookie's condition unusually poorly, and had refused to allow the kitchen to operate without Cookie present. Yellow was frustrated, but understood. Nobody would feel right about having communal meals like before without Cookie.

Pilar carefully cut up the packaged meal and fed bites to Cookie, who halfheartedly complied with each bite. She offered her a cup of tea, which Cookie held for warmth but wouldn't drink without prompting.

“Look, Aoibheann...” Pilar said, “I know you're not well. I know this has been harder on you than anyone.”

Cookie met her gaze.

“But I don't...” Pilar began, and choked. “I don't think Ariadne will go through with this with you in this condition. She cares about you too much. You know what you mean to her. To me. She's not going to put herself at risk until she knows you're okay.”

Aoibheann looked downcast.

“She needs you,” Pilar whispered. “I need you. Please come back to us.”

****

Aoibheann's mind drifted back to when she’d met Ariadne and Pilar, thirteen years previously. She had been living on the streets for two years and had only passing contact with Pilar. She had been homeless since the Hanguk-Éire massacre, when Susan Weaver’s bombs had incinerated her family’s house and restaurant, left her and her mother destitute, and claimed her father’s life. Her mother had turned to drugs to cope with the loss, and ultimately found herself bleeding out in the gutter after an altercation with a pusher who she couldn’t pay for her latest fix.

She had distrusted the new girl at first. In her experience, another new person living under the overpass was another person who might get to the good scraps before her. She didn’t need any more competition. There was, however, a certain unspoken respect between her and the Aguilar girls. They were the only kids living on the streets of that particular block, and they had to look out for one another. They didn’t talk much, but they had struck up an arrangement. Pilar needed to go foraging to keep Sasha fed, and knowing that she would have to dig through trash bins and steal from loosely-guarded shops to make this happen, she felt it was too dangerous to bring her nine-year-old sister along with her.

So, she struck up an arrangement with Aoibheann: if she kept Sasha safe while she went out on runs, Pilar would try and steal a little extra food so Aoibheann could eat as well. Pilar and Sasha had been squatting in an abandoned house on a nearby side-street, and Aoibheann could crash there in exchange for keeping an eye on Sasha. It was shelter, and food, and it was a better deal than she was getting anywhere else. Under normal circumstances, Aoibheann would’ve developed a mighty crush on Pilar, but crushes were the sorts of things normal girls got to have. Aoibheann needed to focus on staying alive.

The new girl had been Racquel when they met. She had been raving about how the world was going to end, a secret conspiracy to reign atomic hellfire onto the bio-domes. It was the standard fare of the doomsaying lunatic, so nobody paid her much mind, but she’d named Ramos and Ramos specifically in her raving, and that caught Pilar’s attention. Nobody hated the Ramoses like Pilar, although Aoibheann didn’t yet know why.

So, Pilar and Racquel started going out on runs together. Suddenly, they were bringing back more than enough food, not only for the four of them, but they even got to share it with the others under the bridge. One day, they came home clean, wearing fresh clothes, and carrying a bundle of new clothes under their arm. They told her that Racquel’s name was Ariadne now, and that they would be needing her help a lot more often. They’d found some sort of mentor, who would “get them out of here,” but they’d need to spend hours, even days, with her at a time.

Aoibheann wasn’t a fool. She knew that if they succeeded in getting out of here, that she would be left behind. She couldn’t, however, risk being thrown out on the street. She’d watch Sasha and crash on the floor of this abandoned townhouse as long as they’d let her.

Sasha seemed like such a little kid then, although Aoibheann knew on a logical level that she was only three years older.

“If you could be anything in the world when you grow up,” Sasha had asked her one day, while the other girls had been away at their mysterious mentor’s for a few days, “what would you be?”

“I’m just trying to grow up,” Aoibheann said, “if I can make it that far, I’ll see what I can get.”

Sasha scrunched her nose. “You’re not playing the game right.”

“I’m being realistic,” Aoibheann said.

Sasha breezed past this. “I’m going to be a doctor when I grow up.”

Aoibheann considered pointing out that Sasha had a third-grade education and no money, but thought better of it, and instead just sighed. “Well, it’d be a crying shame if you starved to death before then,” she said. “Let’s see what your sister left us.”

Aoibheann looked at the handful of scraps Pilar had left on the table. Pilar had stolen them an entire rotisserie chicken, which Aoibheann had admonished her for-- the abandoned house did not have a working refrigerator, she pointed out, so she’d have to use the meats straightaway or they would quickly spoil and attract flies-- and several cans of diced white potatoes, which Pilar figured would keep Sasha’s stomach full, but Aoibheann pointed out had very little nutritional value. This was, of course, in addition to the six chocolate bars Pilar had, being thirteen years old, been sure to nab on her little excursion.

Aoibheann had nothing in the way of seasonings, except for a variety of salt and pepper packets she’d taken from a loosely-supervised outdoor seating area at a nearby restaurant, as well as, on one extremely lucky day, three sets of cheap silverware and a bottle of hot sauce.

She did, however, have access to a small metal trash can with a lid, water from a neighbor’s hose spigot-- Aoibheann felt bad about this, because water was so tightly regulated on Mars and the owner would surely be steeply charged for the waste, but this was a low priority compared to their survival-- and an old gas stove that the new girl had rigged up to illegally supply them with heat.

Aoibheann had cut the meat off the bones of the rotisserie chicken and plopped the bones into the cold water with all the fat and gristle, and opened up a few of the salt packets into the mixture. She put it on the stove and let it heat up to a boil, then turned down the gas and watched as the mixture turned a translucent yellow. She eventually fished out the bones with her knife, and dumped all the potatoes, and the meat from the chicken, into the broth.

After it had stewed for a while, Aoibheann took a taste. It was thin, watery, and somewhat bland, but it would do for the time being. Using the now-empty potato cans, she scooped out two servings of soup and handed one to Sasha.

“Now, we just have to keep it just hot enough,” Aoibheann said, “and it won’t go bad. We’ll be able to eat this until your sister gets back.”

Sasha took a taste. “It’s…” she had been taught, if she had nothing nice to say, to say nothing at all, so she didn’t finish her sentence. Aoibheann had spent enough time with her to know what she meant.

“It’s a tick bland like this,” Aoibheann shrugged, passing her the hot sauce. “Give it a dash of this, it’ll be a sight better.”

Sasha complied, tasted it, and her face made it clear that while it was in fact a sight better, it still wasn’t quite tasty.

“My mom used to make potatoes with a cheesy sauce,” Sasha said sadly. “They were really spicy. Pilar’s favorite food.”

“My dad was more of a cabbage man,” Aoibheann said. “My mom handled the meats, him the veggies. Hanguk-Éire cuisine is… all about things coming together in the pot.”

Sasha added a little more hot sauce to her soup.

“I wanted to be a cook,” Aoibheann said. “Like my folks, before, all this. My dad was a cook. His dad was a cook. His dad was a cook. And so on and so on, all the way back to our homelands.”

“You could still be a cook,” Sasha said, eyeing her soup. “...someday.”

“Well, we’ll have to get your sister to scrounge us up some quality ingredients, then, won’t we?” Aoibheann said.

The two of them finished their soup, and Aoibheann noted that it was getting late, and insisted that Sasha go to bed. Sasha refused without a story, and Aoibheann tossed back a “tough titties” which was met with an infuriatingly irresistible pout.

“FINE,” Aoibheann groaned, and improvised a story.

“Once upon a time, there was a kingdom,” Aoibheann began. This was how all her stories began, they all took place in this kingdom. “The kingdom, you see, had been through every horror you could put a kingdom through. It had been invaded. It had been burned. It had been taken over and torn in half and put back together again more times than you could count. Every evil overlord you could name had taken the place over, at one time or another. So the people in the kingdom, they were always sad, and they started to wonder, would they ever be free? And then, one day, they found out, there was another kingdom, just like them, halfway round the world, and they decided to join forces. But then, after a few decades of unity and prosperity, the entire world fell into darkness, and the people of the two kingdoms had to run. They ran far away, and found a new promised land in the desert, and built a home there.”

“Then, one day, in the new kingdom, there was a little girl who lived in a little house with her ma’ and her da’, and she loved her life. The dark creature from the old world, it caught up with them. It took her da’, and burned down her house, and she and her mother had to go out into the woods.”

Sasha looked scared. “The woods?”

“Aye,” Aoibheann said, “and her mother dear didn’t last long. There were these flares of Dokkaebi Fire, the goblin lights, and mother dear thought surely she could follow them to safety… Pretty soon, the little girl was all on her own.”

“I don’t like this story,” Sasha said, trying not to betray how frightened she was.

Aoibheann sighed. “Neither do I. But see, the story has a happy ending.”

“Happy?” Sasha asked.

“Happy enough,” Aoibheann replied, “for now. See, the little girl knew not to follow the goblin lights. She ran into the dark, and there she found… a brave, dashing adventurer. A gorgeous girl, noble and good, who’d been lost in the woods herself.”

Sasha’s eyes brightened at this. “Did she have a sword?”

“A little one, aye,” Aoibheann laughed. “And she was on a quest, to find a way out of the woods. But the problem was, she had to look after a sweet, wee little baby, and couldn’t leave it long enough to make any real progress. So the little girl, she’d faced all the darkness in the world. She could handle a wee little baby! She agreed to take care of the baby while the adventurer looked for a way to save herself and the little one.”

“Did she find a way out?”

“Someday she will,” Aoibheann said, “but all she found so far was… a sorceress.”

“This story has everything,” Sasha said.

“The sorceress was as beautiful as the adventurer, and sharp as a tack, but she was untrained. Powerful magic, but she didn’t know how to use it.” Aoibheann explained, “so, together, they managed to track down the Baba Yaga, a wise but crafty old witch, who could teach the sorceress and adventurer how to find the way.”

“And the little girl?” Sasha asked.

Aoibheann thought about this. “The little girl gets to spend time with the sorceress, and the adventurer, and that sweet wee little baby,” she said, “and she appreciates the time she has with them. Someday, they’ll find their way out, and she’ll still be in the woods, but she’ll always be glad to have met them. The end.”

Sasha crinkled her nose. “That’s a bad ending,” Sasha said bluntly. “The little girl should just leave the woods with them. Then find the creature that took her house, and kill it.”

“And how’s she gonna do that?” Aoibheann laughed.

“The adventurer and the sorceress will help her!” Sasha said. “Maybe the Baby Yaga can tell her some spells!”

“Baba Yaga,” Aoibheann corrected. “Okay, so say she does. Say she tells the adventurer and the sorceress everything that happened, and they go slay the evil creature. What happens next?”

Sasha thought about this. “Maybe they fight another creature,” she said. “An octopus?”

“Why are they fighting an octopus?” Aoibheann asked, still chuckling.

“It’s guarding a treasure,” Sasha said as though it were the most obvious thing in the universe. “You have heard a story before, right?”

“Fair enough,” Aoibheann said. “And then, say, they beat all the creatures. What then?”

“Happily ever after,” Sasha said triumphantly.

“Well, you’re a sight more deft at this than I am,” Aoibheann said. “Let’s get you to sleep, I’ll do better next time.”

Aoibheann swaddled Sasha in the dirty, tattered blanket that they’d found a few weeks earlier, sat out in the hallway, and began to cry.

In the present day, Aoibheann thought back to her sobbing in the hallway. At the time, she was convinced that Ariadne and Pilar would surely abandon her when they finished training with Blue. When they started building their first spacecraft in an alley under the bridge, she’d defended it from thieves and scrappers at knifepoint, even thinking that they would use it to leave her behind. When, against all odds, Ariadne had built a spaceworthy craft, she was stunned into silence when they invited her along.

“Don’t be dumb,” Pilar had said, extending a hand to her “of course we’re taking you with us. We started this crew to keep Sasha fed. How are we gonna do that without a cook?”

And so, Cookie had been born. As the goblin lights lit the way to ruin, Pilar’s hand pulled her onto the right path.

****

Now, Pilar’s hand was busy cutting up bites of nondescript meat and placing them into Aoibheann’s mouth.

“Do you remember… back in our street urchin days,” Pilar asked, “Me and Ariadne would come home from Blue’s, put Sasha to bed, and then you, me, and her would stay up late gossiping. We’d show you all the cool stuff Blue had taught us in our lessons, and you’d take the ingredients we’d stolen for you-- better ones, after you started giving me lists-- and you’d teach us how to cook like you.”

Aoibheann almost smiled, and Pilar saw it.

“Alright, you’re right,” Pilar said, cutting her another bite and placing it in her mouth. “Nobody can cook like you. Don’t let it go to your head. But you taught us to cook better than most people.”

Aoibheann accepted another bite wordlessly.

“You know, Ariadne used to use Blue’s tricks to fix up that abandoned house, Alan’s house, and I used to show you all the martial arts tricks, and you’d be rapt with attention,” Pilar said. “When me and Ari started dating, we had a friendly debate about it. See, I thought you had a crush on her, and she thought you had a crush on me. Joke’s on us, turns out you were more than capable of having both.”

Aoibheann came close to smiling again.

“Funny, that’s a fond memory now. Back then, it was the worst year of our life,” Pilar said. “Wonder what we’ll remember fondly from now, when we’re older.”

Aoibheann’s fractional smile faded away. She couldn’t imagine anything worth cherishing from this time. But then, she couldn’t back then, either.

“And we don’t have to talk about…” Pilar cut herself off. “I mean, the… what we’ve had together… The unspoken closeness between the three of us. Rare as it might be that we’ve acted on it, it’s still special to me. To us.The problem has never been that we don’t feel about you, the way you feel about us. If you wanted... what’s between the three of us... to be more, it’d be yours in a heartbeat.”

Aoibheann looked down at her lap.

“We’ve always loved you, Cookie,” she explained. “And don’t get twisted up on the definitions. Every sense of the word. Whatever you’re thinking I surely can’t mean… I mean it. I don’t know what’s going on in your head. I just hate to think that… I mean… we’re going into the most dangerous time we’ve ever faced. If something happens, to me or to Ari… I just want to know you know what you mean to us. To me.”

Pilar gave her another bite, and Aoibheann didn’t fight her on it.

“Do you remember our wedding?” Pilar asked, and laughed. “Of course you do. Hard to forget something like that. Do you remember how angry you were that we wouldn’t let you cook us a grand feast?”

There was a spark in her eyes that demonstrated that she had not, in fact, entirely let this go.

“We stole the supplies for hamburgers from a local grocery store, and made Beam cook them,” Pilar said. “We actually almost got caught, pulled over for speeding on the way home. Ariadne told the cop her name was Ariadne Baltimore. Small town, local cops, everybody knew their parents, they figured they’d just miscounted the sisters, and let her go. Idiots.”

Pilar sighed.

“You weren’t allowed to cook because Ariadne needed you by her side,” she explained. “You were her maid of honor for a reason, Cookie. Our crew, our marriage, our family… where would we be without you? Would we even be us?”

Pilar offered Aoibheann another bite, and she didn’t take it. Pilar looked concerned. She hadn’t eaten nearly enough to be satisfied yet.

“What is it?” Pilar asked.

Aoibheann opened her mouth, thought hard, her eyes darting back and forth as though she was trying to make sense of something she couldn’t put words to.

“Aoibheann, are you… are you alright?” Pilar asked. “Should I get Sasha?”

Aoibheann shook her head vigorously. She had been lost in her depression for months, wondering if she was really better off waking up in the morning, but suddenly, the floodgates had come open, and she couldn’t wait one more second to let out what had been eating at her and destroying her soul ever since they’d lost the station.

Her voice was dry and raspy. She had not spoken more than two consecutive words in weeks, and her body vehemently protested the sudden change in this policy.

“Was it my fault?” She asked, thinking back to a conversation she'd had with their tormentor years ago. “Did I do this to us?”

****

“Excellent work today, everyone,” Cookie’s voice boomed through the kitchen. “The festivities went off without a hitch. This is an anniversary our captain won’t soon forget.”

“Thank you, Chef,” her crew echoed back.

“Dismissed,” she said to the assembled kitchen staff, and then quietly approached one of the greener pirates who’d recently started the galley rotation that was mandatory for the whole crew. “Libby, a word?”

Cookie ushered Libby into a small room at the back, which she used for prep when she was working on more intimate, personal projects. This was the room where she prepared birthday meals for Spacebreather, Ariadne, and Sasha. This was the table on which she’d painstakingly crafted Ariadne and Pilar’s wedding cake. The small walk-in freezer was the one where she’d had a brief, clumsy tryst with Blue on a rare visit to the station, after Cookie had enraged her by challenging her to a contest to see who could make a better mole negro oaxaqueño sauce, and then winning it.

Libby had been invited into the inner sanctum, and the look on Cookie’s face made it absolutely clear that it was not an honor.She was in deep trouble. Worse still, there was a salt shaker on the table in front of her.

“Do you think this is funny, lass?” Cookie asked. “Is this a fun game to you?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Chef,” Libby said, actually looking somewhat convincing.

“The cap of the salt shaker was unscrewed. One shake, and dinner would’ve been ruined.” Cookie said. “It was your responsibility to set the table in the captain’s quarters.”

Libby got immediately defensive. “Anybody could’ve done that,” she said, “I didn’t do it, it’s totally unfair that you--”

“Anybody could’ve,” Cookie said. “But I gave you a responsibility. You were responsible for the Captain’s table. You signed off on a table with an unscrewed salt shaker on it. That makes you responsible for the salt shaker, whether you placed it there or not.”

“How is that fair?” Libby replied indignantly.

“Lass, why do you think Ariadne requires all crew to complete a rotation in my kitchen before they’re cleared for field service?” Cookie asked.

“She needs someone to cook for her?” Libby asked derisively.

Cookie sneered. She did not care for Libby, and never had. The girl seemed to attract drama. How, she wondered, could someone with so few friends be so perpetually in the middle of a falling out with a group of them? “And why do you think my standards are so meticulous?” Cookie asked.

Libby declined to answer, because she knew her honest answer would get her in trouble, but her face betrayed what she wanted to say: “Because you’re a huge bitch?”

Cookie answered her own rhetorical questions. “The skills you need to be successful in here, will be invaluable to you out there. You didn’t go over your loadout with a fine-toothed comb. You didn’t take the responsibilities you were trusted with seriously. You allowed your crewmates to operate with faulty equipment, that, had I not intervened, would’ve caused the mission objective to fail.”

“To be clear,” Libby said, “the ‘mission’ was serving them dinner.”

“IN HERE IT’S DINNER,” Cookie bellowed, her eyes full of all the rage and fire that she kept tamped down in her heart every second of every day, and slammed her fists on the table, knocking down the salt shaker. The chrome lid clattered off, and salt spilled onto the teak countertop. Cookie wordlessly grabbed a pinch of it and tossed it over her left shoulder. “In here, you fail in your duties and it means dinner isn’t very good that night. Out there, you fail in your duties and your sisters in arms die. That’s why Ariadne makes you work with me before you’re allowed to work for her. You can’t be trusted to handle the stakes out there if your team, and your commanding officer, can’t even trust you to do your job correctly when the stakes are only whether tonight’s chicken will be a little dry. Is that crystal clear?”

Libby looked as though she was about to protest, or accuse Cookie of being melodramatic, but Cookie cut her off. “Think very carefully about what you say next,” she said, “and if you’re lost as to what answer I’m looking for...” She pointed at the band that she kept tied around her head, so that even if one of her brilliant red hairs slipped out of its tight bun, it would still not fall into her face. It was white, and said, in bold black text, “YES CHEF.”

Libby grumbled. “Yes, chef,” she said. “next time, I’ll check the table settings more carefully.”

“Glad to hear it,” Cookie said. “But I think it’s important that you know… I know you put the shaker on the table.”

“What?!” Libby snapped.

“If the Captain, or her first mate, were to be poisoned, I would need to be able to verify who’d done the deed.” Cookie said. “Every step of my meal preparation is accounted for. There is a record of every action taken in this kitchen, cupboard-to-table. If something goes wrong with a meal, within seconds I will be able to identify the point of failure and exactly who was responsible for preventing it. Of course, it helps to have a private video feed into the captain’s quarters.”

Cookie tossed her communications device onto the table, and hit play. It projected a small, but surprisingly clear, hologram of Libby setting the table, smirking as though struck with an idea, and unscrewing the cap of the salt shaker.

“You have… a security camera… in their quarters?!” Libby asked.

“I’m the only person in the system they trust with it,” Cookie said. “I trust them with my life, and they trust me with theirs. Now, I gave you a chance to confess to your little prank, and you decided to lie, to pass the buck onto someone else. I’m afraid I can’t let that slide. I’ll have to fail you for this rotation. Come back at the start of the next one and you can reapply.”

“What?!” Libby snapped again. “I’m two days away from finishing! I have to start my galley rotation over again just because you caught me playing a harmless prank on your little pervy peep-show?”

“Call it pervy if you like,” Cookie said dismissively. “The nature of my relationship with the captain and her first mate is enthusiastically sanctioned and is, frankly, none of your concern. The behavior you showed in here, would’ve only spoiled Captain Ariadne’s dinner. If you showed the same level of carelessness and irreverence out there, it might’ve gotten someone killed. ‘Harmless’ indeed. You’re not responsible enough for field work until you can prove you can handle kitchen duty.”

“This is bullshit,” Libby said, gathering up her things to storm out of the room. “Like it even matters whether that bitch’s little dinner is ruined.”

Cookie slammed her fists on the counter again.

“Captain Ariadne is the greatest woman who ever lived,” Cookie growled, “and if I hear you speak of her like that in my presence again, you’ll lose a hell of a lot more than your galley rotation.”

Libby moved to storm out, but Cookie rushed the door and held it shut.

“Now, you listen to me, you little twerp,” Cookie said, jabbing a finger into Libby’s chest, shaking with anger. “That woman pulled me out of the gutter-- pulled all of us out of the gutter. There is nothing more important than the work she does, and we are the beating heart that allows her to do it. So if you want to be a part of this crew, you’ll show her some goddamned respect and start taking your work fucking seriously.”

Libby looked furious.

“What do I want to hear?” Cookie asked pointedly.

Pilar was astonished. “You think… because you were hard on the Nameless in her galley rotation… that she went totally off the rails, tried to kill us, and drove us out of our home?”

“Yes, chef,” Libby grumbled after a beat, and Cookie allowed her to pass.

****

“She tried to say we were like a cult,” Cookie said weakly. “That we were just minions blindly following Ariadne’s orders. That we turned against anybody who didn’t fall in line.”

“Is any of that true?” Pilar asked rhetorically. “Does the crew actually act like that?”

Cookie let the tears come. “I do,” she said. “What if she… how do I know she isn’t holding my devotion, my zeal, against the entire crew?”

“You… blindly follow Ariadne’s orders?” Pilar asked, entirely rhetorically. “That’s a surprise, I thought you really believed in our mission.”

Cookie was taken aback. “I do!’

Pilar smiled. “There’s some of that fire,” she said. “I’ve missed it. Aoibheann… when is the last time Ariadne actually gave you an order?”

Cookie had to think about this, but came up short.

“Exactly,” Pilar said. “This is what’s been eating you, all this time?”

Aoibheann looked afraid to reply, so she just asked what she’d wanted to ask, ever since they were driven out of their home.

“Do you forgive me?” She asked. “Does she… does she forgive me?”

Pilar looked Aoibheann square in the eyes. “Cookie, you’ve never needed our forgiveness. An insane terrorist attacked our home. There’s nothing you could’ve done to prevent that.”

This was not what Aoibheann wanted to hear.

Pilar sighed. “Of course we forgive you, Aoibheann,” she said in a voice that sounded entirely earnest, but using words that betrayed how sarcastic she was being: “for not allowing someone who turned out to be a sexual predator and an actual serial killer tamper with our food and ruin our anniversary. We forgive you for being the most devoted friend we’ve ever had. Because someone else mistreated us, it must’ve been wrong that you treated us right. We will always forgive you for loving us, Aoibheann. You will never lose our forgiveness for that.”

Aoibheann was struck speechless again.

“Don’t go quiet on me,” Pilar said affectionately, “I just got you to talk again! I’ve missed your voice.”

“I appreciate your taking care of me,” Cookie admitted, “while I’ve been… not myself.”

Pilar gently put her hand on Aoibheann’s, and gave it a squeeze, and then told her the most reassuring truth she had.

“The Nameless is a user,” she said. “She wants a bunch of people who act like puppets and put her well-being first. Ariadne spends every second of every day encouraging her crew to think and act for themselves, and to put each other’s well-being above all else. That’s why she thinks Ariadne’s a tyrant. Not because you defended her honor after a sociopath tried to ruin her anniversary and then called her a bitch.”

Aoibheann felt as though she’d just received absolution for something that had been dragging her through the muck for months. How could she not believe Pilar, of all people? She began to cry openly.

“Hey, hey,” Pilar said, “it’s okay! I got you.”

“I’ve let the crew down,” she said, “had them eating this flavorless mush for however many months. I’ll be back at a stove first thing in the morning, don’t you worry--”

Pilar laughed. “Aoibheann… Cookie, I’m glad you’re back but… don’t push yourself too hard, okay? Let your apprentices handle it for a bit. Besides, you haven’t walked by yourself in a pretty long time. It’ll take a bit before you’re seaworthy again, let alone fit to run a kitchen.”

Aoibheann looked downcast. “Well, I’ve spent enough time sitting around like a lump being no good to anybody,” she said indignantly.

“You’re plenty good to us,” Pilar said flatly, “just by being here. We love you, Cookie. You don’t need to… justify your existence by being a devoted servant.”

Aoibheann was uncomfortable with this sentiment, and it showed on her face. This was, after all, how she showed her affection for Ariadne and Pilar. How could she show them her love and devotion without being able to cook for them?

“I don’t know how to…” Cookie began. “Please… Please, just… tell me what to do.”

Pilar sighed. She knew Cookie was far too devoted to her duties to go completely without orders. “She and I will be back in a few hours, for dinner. Let her hear your voice. Tell her you love her, and wish her luck on her procedure. If you have the strength, give her a hug. And, most importantly, just… please, be okay. Be kind to yourself and take all the time you need to get back on your feet. We’ve only got the one Cookie, so take care of her for us, okay?”

Cookie smiled, and squeezed Pilar’s hand back with what little strength she could muster.

Pilar picked up the now-empty tray that the MRE had been on. “Now that you’re back, do I have your permission to start up the kitchens? Let your apprentices do some real cooking?”

Cookie nodded her head.

“Then I guess this is truly an event worth of celebration: you’ve had your last Meal-Ready-To-Eat,” Pilar laughed. “I’ll see you tonight, Cookie. I want to put some meat back on your bones, so I’ll be cooking, and I expect you to be looking over my shoulder and barking orders at me the whole time.”

Cookie looked at her and smiled, and Pilar’s heart melted. It had been a long time since anyone had seen that.

****

Cookie’s apprentices stood in a straight line at the back of the Hotpot Spot, an abandoned restaurant that Sweettalk had identified as her childhood favorite. Cookie, wearing the chef’s coat she’d fled the station in, freshly laundered, and her trademark “YES CHEF” headband, limped into the restaurant, supported by a cane that Sweettalk had fished out of her childhood home, and said had belonged to her grandfather.

Cookie was still not back to full strength, but her apprentices could see the fire they’d come to fear and love had returned to her eyes.

“As you may have noticed,” Cookie announced, the natural loudness of her voice undiminished by her time indisposed, “I have been… unwell, of late. As such, I am unable to resume my duties at this time.”

Her staff turned to her chief apprentice, Yellow, for guidance. Yellow remained silent, so the rest of them did as well.

“It’s alright, kids,” she said, stamping the cane on the ground loudly. “You don’t have to pretend. I’m not my old self yet. It’s fine. I wouldn’t feel right resuming my post here anyhow. This isn’t my kitchen. I’ve called you all here because you are the apprentices most equipped to run a kitchen of your own.”

Yellow nodded in assent.

“As such, I have a new directive for each of you, until such time as we’ve retrieved my kitchen, and I’m back to my usual vim and vigor, each of you is to select one of the defunct restaurants in this town, take your pick of the remaining staff and any available volunteers, and you will run your kitchens to the standard I have taught you.”

Cookie sighed.

“I know what you all think,” she said. “I know what you’ve said to me, in the past. You think your best is only a pale imitation of my cooking. But I need you all to know that… isn’t true.”

“Chef?” Yellow asked.

“I was the fourth person on this crew, lass,” Cookie said. “The first person to join, after the founding members. At the beginning, we had one mission: Keep Sasha Fed. There is nothing I value more highly than that mission. I live for it, and if I’m blessed with the chance, I will happily die for it. We may have expanded the definition of ‘Sasha’ to include everyone we love, but this mission is and will always be my life’s labor. Food doesn’t just sustain us. It is love, in physical form. The Captain and the First Mate have been very gracious to me, in the time we’ve known each other, by allowing me to show them my love and devotion in the way I’m able to offer. Over the last nine months, they have shown me the devotion was not one-sided, and given me the love I was able to accept. So your mission is, as it always has been: get in the kitchen, and show your love to the crew. Fill their bowls with it, in the way only you can, with or without me. And when your cup is empty…”

Cookie choked up a bit, and did a halfway decent job masking it.

“...When your cup is empty, allow those who love you to fill it back up, until you’re ready to pour from it again.”

After a long, uncomfortable beat, her crew shouted back “Yes, Chef!”

“I have been derelict in my duties,” Cookie said. “I let you go this many months without loving one another properly, because you wouldn’t do it without me.”

“Chef, permission to speak freely?” One of her younger apprentices, a quiet young boy who specialized in pastries, piped up.

“Granted,” Cookie said.

“You never ordered us not to run the kitchens without you. In fact, before…” He paused carefully, then opted to leave it unsaid, “before, you always taught us how to take the lead for the rest of the crew, when you had to cook for the Captain’s table. We wouldn’t run the kitchens without your say-so because…”

“It’s okay, lad, no need to be scared of the likes of me,” she reassured him.

“We were ordered not to,” he told her. “The Captain was very clear: ‘There’s no crew without Cookie.’”

Cookie leaned on her cane and looked a bit sad.

“She couldn’t handle it, Chef,” Yellow explained. “Knowing somebody else was doing your work, while you were suffering the way you were.”

Now Cookie could feel her heart melt. “She said that, did she?”

The young baker boy winced. “She said that there’s nothing more important than the work you do, and that everything the crew does, is just so you can do it,” he said. “She said… well, she said she was derelict in her duty to you, and that she couldn’t replace you until she’d made it right. Until you’d forgiven her for letting you down.”

Cookie laughed. “We’ve known each other a long time, indeed,” she said. “The captain is a sentimental one, I’m afraid. She blames herself for all this. For my condition. Don’t tell her I said this, but she’s still more Catholic than she’d like to admit.”

Everyone’s eyes flared at this. Of course none of them would tell her she’d said that, as they all valued keeping their heads attached to their necks too much. Cookie was one of the only people in the system who could get away with saying something like that in front of Ariadne.

“She could never let me down if she tried,” Cookie said, “and even if she did, I will always forgive her. That you can repeat to her. Now, that’s enough prattling on from an old fool. You all have restaurants to open. To work!”

“Yes, Chef!” Her apprentices all shouted, and broke formation to claim their restaurants.

“And remember,” she shouted after them. “If you talk to the Captain, this was her idea!”

She had, in fact, passed her forgiveness along to Ariadne the previous day, before her surgery, and assured her that she didn’t need forgiveness, the same way Pilar had done to her. After her procedure, Ariadne wouldn’t remember Cookie giving her consent to reopen the kitchens, but she was delighted that when she came out of it, she seemingly remembered, on some level, that she had been absolved of all wrongdoing.

She was relieved when, during the fight Alicia staged with her, Ariadne had suggested they put her apprentices to work in the kitchens. Despite being set back several months, she was done punishing herself, and letting everyone else punish themselves with her. It was a do-over many were not fortunate enough to get, and after all she’d lost, Aoibheann was not one to turn her nose up at a second chance.

****

Months later, when all this was over and Sasha’s medicine and a lot of good eating had restored her muscles into mostly proper working order-- she still felt uneasy at times, and preferred to keep the cane on hand, just in case-- they were repatriated to their home, the Nameless had been defeated, and the station had erupted into a celebratory frenzy. Yellow and the kitchen staff had burned the candle at both ends to supply enough party snacks to keep anyone from drowning in all the wine. Two former crew members, Baltimore and Beam, had returned to the station to join in the celebrations. Sweettalk and Sasha had, believing themselves slick, pulled Ghostrunner and her new girlfriend Vigil back to their quarters. Alicia had brought Blue back to the station and, in the haze of wine, loudly announced her intention to start a relationship with her, before disappearing back to her own quarters. Cookie and Blue had, despite their past rivalry, a deep, abiding respect for one another, and Blue was one of the few people who was authorized to do as she pleased in the kitchen. Cookie knew firsthand that after Blue’s enthusiastic and athletic lovemaking, she would likely need something to eat, and a bit more wine, so she’d set a bottle of red and a bowl of fresh mozzarella in conspicuous locations in the hopes that she would find them. Cookie was, uncharacteristically, not in the kitchen that night.

If she had learned anything from the past year, it was that she had to sometimes set the weight of the world down, and allow the people she loved to take care of her as much as she took care of them. So, as had become tradition, once per month, she would retire to the Captain’s quarters instead of her own, and allow her friends to show them how much they loved her. Pilar spent the day marinating meats, just the way Cookie had taught her, and Ariadne had built a heating element into her personal dining table so that Pilar could cook them some of Cookie’s favorite foods.

They would then retire to the bedroom for a night of passion-- Ariadne always had some new device she’d built and wanted to show off. Being married to Spacebreather, she was in the unfortunate position of being a bit of a pillow princess, but not on pillow principle, and so never had anyone else to use it on, and Cookie was the only person other than Ariadne who Spacebreather was willing to touch. They would spend this time laughing, and experimenting, and making sure not an inch of her, or the captain, went unkissed, and then they would fall asleep in each other’s arms, all the while gossiping and reminiscing the way they had back on Mars.

Sometimes, on these nights, Cookie would think back to what Spacebreather said to her, during her episode, about how if she ever wanted something more between them, she could have it.

The thing was, she didn’t want something more. She treasured these nights they had together, but as far as she was concerned, nothing had changed about what they were to her. They were her best friends, and they were her calling in life. She would, to the best of her ability, serve their mission with almost religious zeal. Even unto her death, she would prioritize keeping her loved ones happy and healthy. She had already loved them, more, she believed, than she could ever love anyone else, even when they had started an exclusive relationship with one another, and she was just a heartbroken teenager pining after them both. How could she want something more, when she couldn’t even imagine something better than what she already had?

The first time the three of them had ever fallen into bed together, years after Ariadne and Pilar had made it clear they were soulmates, they had been a ball of teenage hormones, propelled by a raunchy party game that had gotten a bit out of hand. Aoibheann had awoken mortified and furious at herself for daring to succumb to her own desires like this. Her whole life, whenever she’d allowed herself to love something, it was taken away, and that only when she accepted that something was beyond her grasp, would she stand a chance of being lucky enough to attain it. She was sure that by admitting to her wants, and acting on them, she had ruined everything. Except, Ariadne and Pilar noticed her embarrassment and simply chose to behave as though nothing had changed. It had happened only occasionally in the past, and each time, Ariadne and Pilar would wait for Cookie to bring it up. Otherwise, it was completely unspoken.

The one crucial difference was, now, Aoibheann “Cookie” Gyeong, once the saddest girl on Mars, had finally accepted that it was okay to want, and to act on those wants, that this was not following the goblin lights to her death as her mother had. She, who loved her life so much that she shut down for the better part of a year when she feared it had changed irreparably, spent most of her time refusing to acknowledge what she loved about it. She did her job, showed her love, and asked for nothing in return except for the ability to keep doing it.

“You know,” Ariadne said, running her fingers through Aoibheann’s long, smooth, bright red hair, as a sleeping Pilar cradled them both in her arms, “we don’t do any of this for you. We do it because we like doing it. It’s fun for us.”

Cookie laughed. “Oh, I hadn’t noticed,” she quipped.

Ariadne smiled, and told her something she’d waited years to be sure Cookie would be ready to hear. “Thank you,” she said, “for being my friend. For loving me. For making what we do worth it.”

Aoibheann shot a smile right back. “I could say the same to you.”

[atinylittlepain]

Of Saints and Sinners - Chapter 4

Joel Miller x f!reader/f!oc

masterlist

warnings | 18+ dark themes, angst, canon-typical violence

a/n | this one is tough, y'all. we find out how our girl got all those scars...

It’s been five days since the men left Jackson. There’s been no sign of anything, no clickers, no bandits. They’ve made it through the mountain pass and are left in the eerie silence of the crumbling highway, on the edge of Idaho crossing into Oregon. Steve has taken some of the steel out of his attitude, becoming at least civil with Joel. Alex is much kinder, much more open, and he and Joel often make decent conversation.

Alex and Steve have both been slowly providing Joel with information about her, about this group called the Washington Liberation Front. A militia that was able to overthrow FEDRA, claiming Seattle first as its own and slowly spreading outposts across the state of Washington. Way before that happened, when everything went down, she had been at Whitman College, quickly shuttled into the Seattle QZ. Steve had shared a freshman seminar class with her, a passing acquaintance, so when she saw him in the triage center in Seattle, they both grabbed onto each other and never let go. They were both young, and smart, and had easily inserted themselves into the growing resistance that became the WLF, securing minor leadership positions as FEDRA fell in Washington state. 

“I still remember when we figured out that she was immune. We were out on a raid mission, got completely swamped by clickers. Our team got split up, I lost track of her. Got back to base and when I found out she hadn’t returned, I figured she was gone, another devastation.” They’ve set up camp for the night in a shelled-out gas station as Steve whispers these memories, hanging his arms over his knees as he sits against a wall. 

“Imagine my surprise, my relief, when she comes stumbling back to the gates four days later. They had to hold me back from hugging her while they tested her for infection, it felt like my heart exploded when the scanner went red.” He takes a deep breath, “but she swore up and down that she had been bit that first day she was out there, and she still hadn’t turned three days later. She showed us the bite on her shoulder and it was unlike anything we’d ever seen. It was healing.”

Joel thinks of the scars she had shown him, the glaring evidence of violence endured and rejected.

“They put her in solitary immediately, under observation. The Front had cobbled together a de facto medical team, former doctors and scientists. They kept her there, in the hospital, for two weeks. No one would tell me what was going on, just that she was still her but that they couldn’t let me see her, couldn’t let her back out among us.” 

Steve stops, shudders. Alex dips his head towards his chest, closing his eyes.

“And then, at the end of those two weeks, they let me in to see her. She was fine, the bite was fully scabbed over, no infection. She told me they were gonna release her the next day so she could get back to work, that they’d bring her in for more testing later on.”

“They didn’t release her though. When I didn’t see her at breakfast or lunch, I went to the hospital looking for answers. They hadn’t released her, they had moved her. Said that her body was too valuable, that she needed to be placed under full medical observation. Not that she was too valuable, her body was too valuable.” Joel feels sick to his stomach hearing this all too familiar story.

“They told me it wasn’t my place to be asking these questions, that I needed to remember my position before they reminded me themselves. Those were still early days for the Front. Someone said the wrong thing and suddenly you’d never see them again. I was terrified, I didn’t fucking know what to do. I figured she was too valuable a fighter, too valuable a soldier for them to kill her. That they’d get whatever they wanted from her and release her.”

Steve’s hands are shaking as he huffs out an exhale. “Months went by. They knew that I was worried, that I hadn’t just dropped it. I’d get a message every few weeks from a higher up, letting me know she was safe, that they still needed to keep her under observation. It had been ten months when I finally started to lose it. I couldn’t keep my head down any longer.”

“There had been a raid by the Seraphites, at the hospital. My team had been sent to pacify the situation. I was by myself, clearing out the top floor and I found a doctor, one of the doctors, bleeding out.” Steve’s staring straight ahead as he tells this story, fists clenched now, voice resolute.

“He had a gunshot wound in his left side. I dug my thumb into the puncture, twisting the bullet deeper, and I told him to tell me where they were keeping her. And he sang. I shot him in the head.”

“It was easy to get people to help me find her. She was well-liked by most, a natural leader and a good friend. They were keeping her in an enclosure in the old Woodland Park Zoo. The fucking zoo. It was an off-limits area for civilians.”

Steve pauses, wringing his hands, glancing at Joel beside him. “It wasn’t hard getting her out. I had the best of the best with me when it came to fighting, but when the others saw what had been done to her, they abandoned us. I guess they were scared of her, or scared for her, I don’t really know. But I had a car ready, packed up. I hid her in the back and we got the hell out of Seattle before anyone was the wiser. Never looked back.”

“I remember I stopped the car the minute we crossed state lines, asked her to let me treat her wounds. I think it had finally sunk in, what I had seen. When we found her, she was chained at the ankle in a plexiglass cage –” Steve hiccups and Joel can see he’s now silently crying, shaking in both sadness and rage. “N-naked from the waist up, a-and all over her back–” he takes a sharp inhale, “well, she showed you the scars. That’s nothing compared to what it looked like fresh.” 

“All these years, I’ve thought about it, and I still can’t figure out what they were trying to do with her, why they did that. Were they just trying to see how many infections it’d take before she succumbed to it? Trying to figure out how her body fought the infection by exposing her to it over and over and over? Or were they just using her as some sort of perverse entertainment? The miracle woman who gets back up everytime.” Steve takes a shuddering inhale, letting his shoulders slump.

“She was fucking terrified. Didn’t even really trust me, kept asking me if I was gonna have to take her back soon.” He scoffs, “I guess I understood that, after she’d been betrayed by so many. I just kept promising her and promising her that I’d– that I’d never let her get taken back there again.” Steve’s taking shuddering breaths, eyes squeezed shut.

Silence descends. Alex is crying. Joel is speechless. Steve mumbles, “I don’t wanna say anymore right now. I can’t.”

Joel tentatively rests his hand on Steve’s forearm. The younger man squints at him through the dim light. “We’re gonna find her. We’re not gonna let it happen again.”

He’s not sure where those words come from. He’s not sure if they’re even true. But it’s all that he can offer this shivering man. 

“We gotta get to them before they’re back in Washington. The minute they hit home turf, we’re screwed.” Alex wipes his nose with his shirt sleeve, looking at Joel, “we’ve got all of Oregon to find them then.”

The three men resolve themselves to silence in the aftermath of these words, each stuck in his own mind, replaying what’s been said, what’s been lived.

Little do they know about two miles further up the highway, she’s waking up after having been drugged endlessly for the last week, and she has no intention of going back under anytime soon.

[eyeswithnohope]

They are not idiots to start a full invasion.

24.02.2022

They are not idiots to violate international conventions

Shell the agreed humanitarian corridors and kill volunteers and journalists. Destroy cultural, and educational institutions, medical centres and critical infrastructure.

They are not idiots to shell the largest nuclear power plant in Europe. (The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station)

Shell it.

They are not idiots to explode the Khahovka Damn

Exploded it.

They are not idiots to explode The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Station.

Or they are?

[waltwhitmansbeard]

did not have bad bunny flying off of a shell gas station that has exploded bc a tank rammed into it on my nsbu bingo card and honestly that’s on me

[mariacallous]

At 3 o’clock on a Monday afternoon in October, 2017, a car driven by Daphne Caruana Galizia – Malta’s most famous and influential journalist, and my mother – exploded. She had barely made it out of the lane leading to our house in Bidnija, a lonely hamlet in northwest Malta, when a bomb detonated from under her seat. She was 53 years old.

Everybody read Daphne. She was the first woman in the country to write a political column, and the first person to sign their own name to one. Over 30 years, she investigated presidents, prime ministers and opposition leaders. In a country of around half a million people, her personal blog received as many visits a day, and more than a million during election campaigns – a greater number than the combined circulation of Malta’s daily newspapers.

And for her efforts to expose corruption, she became increasingly demonized and isolated. My two brothers and I grew up thinking it was normal for her to be sued and slandered, to have police officers stationed at the gates of her garden haven of olive and citrus trees, either to guard her or to arrest her. It became part of our daily routine to watch her check the underside of her car for explosives before taking us to school.

The first attempt on her life happened when I was a teenager. I was out with friends and came home at 2:30 in the morning to find the house on fire with her inside it. At school the following Monday, I was told that it was irresponsible of my mother to have let me stay out so late. I remember thinking: There’s a problem in Malta, and it isn’t my mother.

As the Maltese officials she wrote about went from taking bribes from drug traffickers in old Malta to soliciting them from oligarchs in our rapidly globalizing country, my mother graduated from reporting on low-level graft to covering corruption on an international scale. The sums multiplied into the hundreds of millions, with the criminal networks stretching from Panama to post-Soviet states – and under the strain of these illicit inflows, Malta fell apart. Its rickety institutions, never properly reformed since decolonization from the United Kingdom in 1964, nor since its accession to the European Union in 2004, left my mother completely vulnerable in a culture of virtually unchallenged impunity.

At the time of her murder, she was in the midst of reporting on how Malta’s energy minister and the prime minister’s chief of staff had opened shell companies, registered in Panama, within days of their party’s election in 2013. After her death, a group of journalists, working under the banner of the Daphne Project, pursued her work, reporting that the shell companies were set to receive €150,000 a month through a corrupt energy deal between Malta’s government, Azerbaijan and a Maltese businessman. Six years after her death, however, there have been no convictions of any of the people my mother exposed; most haven’t even been prosecuted. The institutions that were meant to enforce the law in Malta have been systematically underresourced, cowed and subjected to political interference.

In the face of international pressure, enough police work was done to arrest four men in connection with carrying out her assassination. All have since confessed; three are serving time and one was pardoned in exchange for giving evidence. Yet it has taken years of campaigning by my family, activists and ordinary civilians outraged by her death to get Malta to mount its first public inquiry, which concluded that the state was responsible for her death. As of this writing, another four men, including the Maltese businessman, are awaiting trial for her murder – but no one has been prosecuted over the corrupt energy deal, nor over any of my mother’s other major stories.

My mother’s assassination wasn’t just a tragedy for my family; it was also a bellwether. After her death, I became a journalist in Britain, a place that has long prided itself on its democratic, rules-based order. But from the vantage point of my own reporting, which mainly focuses on fraud and political corruption, I can see that there’s a problem that goes well beyond Malta. Boris Johnson – with his cronyism and patronage, with his polarizing effect on the electorate, with his moneyed politics and hollowing out of Britain’s ancient institutions, and with his officials’ treatment of journalists – was just one example pointing to a worrying picture for democracies everywhere.

The malfeasance in tiny Malta, which my mother devoted her life to bringing to light – and which ultimately killed her – reflects emerging rot in Western democracies. When a country’s institutions are deprived of their independence or starved of resources, and when the journalists who expose corruption are harassed, intimidated and abused, that country’s democracy will vanish. In Malta, six years ago, it took the car bombing of the country’s most famous journalist in broad daylight to start to turn the tide. I hope it will not take more death to awaken everyone else to this growing threat around the world.

[allthecanadianpolitics]

Firefighters in Yellowknife quickly brought a blaze under control near the airport after a fuel truck reportedly exploded Friday morning.

Airport manager Randy Straker said the explosion happened at the airport's Shell fuel station, metres away from several large fuel tanks.

The Yellowknife Fire Division (YKFD) received a call for service for a fuel truck fire at the refueling station at 124 Bristol Avenue, the city said in a news release issued Friday afternoon. When crews arrived on the scene, smoke and flames were visible on and around the fuel truck.

The airport's fire department, along with city firefighters, responded to the explosion at around 9:30 a.m. and were able to bring the fire under control in about 15 minutes. [...]

Continue Reading.

Tagging: @politicsofcanada

[cherrybombfangirlwrites]

Flash Fiction Friday: Fool Me Once

I saw this prompt and just HAD to do The City is Ours and the reveal of Nickelle’s little secret :)))) this prompt sent me into such a frenzy i was typing incredibly fast for an hour, so thanks @flashfictionfridayofficial !

Wordcount: 1219

Kylee discovers the true identity of the Snow Queen. This is worse than any of them could’ve ever imagined. Plot, character, and dynamic exploration/speculation. Draft Zero for Book 4 of The City is Ours series: The Snow Queen.

(in case there's any confusion, Kylee uses She/They pronouns, I tried to even it out as best I could)

Kylee zipped through the building, past thugs that were patrolling throughout the base. This was the Snow Queen’s main base of operations, they was sure of it. She found Boss Lady barking orders over a large room where thugs were assembling or loading weapons, and her suspicions were almost confirmed.

Now she just had to find out if the Snow Queen was giving orders from here as well.

They checked every room until she found one in the back of the warehouse with opaque grayish blue ice crawling out of it.

“Bingo,” she whispered to herself with a smirk.

Using the small pen shaped device Chase had given her, she used it on the lock and pin pad on the door.

The heavy metal door, coated in the ice, creaked open and hit the wall with a loud boom. She winced a little, turning invisible as she looked around.

No one was nearby to hear it.

Kylee entered the room, gently closing the door behind her.

A ghostly cyan glow was the only light in the room. The side she’d entered from was dark, and the other end filled with the glow.

The glow came from the ice, and from the frost covered monitors and control panels and keyboards on the other end of the room. Some of the monitors were dark, some of them were on and had video surveillance throughout the city- the city hall, some banks, a couple police stations, and a few traffic cameras.

Kylee pulled out the flash drive Chase had given her, and turned on one of the monitors. She found plans and blueprints, and some unmarked video footage- this she deemed most important. Just like Chase had shown her, she started copying the data, then putting the copy onto the flash drive.

She was about halfway through putting all the data on the drive when the door slammed shut with a loud boom.

A distorted voice spoke. “You can’t hide from me. Stop now and I’ll let you go.”

Kylee let their invisibility drop, and turned. “Aw, but already halfway done. Don’t make me waste all my hard work.” 

The source of the voice was the one Chase had caught in blurs for split seconds on video cameras. A black shell covered their face, completely hiding their profile. They wore a sheek black leather jumpsuit complete with a cape- the outside was black, and the inside was white and cyan, with cyan racing stripes up the sides of their torso.

This was The Snow Queen that they’d been trying to find for months now.

“And don’t make me hurt you,” The Snow Queen said, and Kylee could almost feel their cold glare through the black shell that completely covered their face. “That’s the last thing I want to do, but I must stop anyone that gets in my way. I have to stop people in this city from hurting each other.”

The gray-blue opaque frost started to crawl across the floor from their shining black boots. The frost crackled as it started to crawl rapidly across the floor.

Kylee said, “I don’t think so.”

The Snow Queen flicked their wrist, and the flash drive exploded in a shower of icy sparks.

Cursing under their breath, Kylee backed into the control panel as the frost crept towards her feet. Just as the frost touched her toes, she zipped towards The Snow Queen.

The Snow Queen sidestepped, Kylee’s fist grazing their cape.

Before she could crash into the wall, Kylee’s foot shot out, and she bounced off the wall, pinballing towards The Snow Queen again.

This time, Kylee’s fist connected with the black shell covering their face. Kylee’s super speed made the punch that much harder, and the hard black shell shattered and cracked under her fist.

The Snow Queen flew back into the control panel, half of their face mask falling away.

Their face turned back to Kylee straight on, and Kylee froze. “What?-” she whispered.

They recognized the face under the mask, but- it couldn’t be. She wouldn’t-

Kylee whispered in horror, “Nickelle?”

Nickelle panted, using the control panel to pull herself up. “Damnit Kylee,” she said, shaking her head, “Now I really can’t let you go back to the others.”

She lifted her hand, but before she could freeze her to the floor, Kylee pulled her invisibility back up.

Nickelle cursed loudly, hitting a button on the control panel. A low, very loud alarm started to ring throughout the building like a tornado or air raid siren, paired with red flashing lights.

Kylee moved for the door, throwing it open before Nickelle- The Snow Queen could freeze it shut.

Mind racing and body still reeling from what she just saw, Kylee zipped through the warehouse. She was so occupied by it that she didn’t really look where she was going, throwing herself through a door-

And she crashed into a thug carrying a load of weapons. Kylee crashed to the floor, invisibility falling away.

The whole huge room where thugs were assembling and loading weapons froze.

Boss Lady, from up on her balcony overlooking the workers, bellowed, “GET HER!”

Kylee jumped up as Boss Lady jumped down to the factory floor, shaking the entire building with her huge hulking form.

Zipping through the tables, Kylee unloaded all of the ammo onto the floor. When she got back to the side she came in, all the ammo was spilling across the concrete and thugs were scrambling to get it.

The ground shook violently and she turned just in time to see Boss Lady next to her.

There wasn’t even time to think before Boss Lady’s huge fist collided with Kylee’s ribs and threw her into the wall.

There was a series of sickening crunches and a snap, followed by an agonized scream that Kylee was pretty sure was her own.

Collapsing to the floor, Kylee’s whole body ached as her leg spiked with agony with the tiniest movement. Some of the thugs had gotten hold of ammo, and were loading their weapons, while Boss Lady stomped over to her, shaking the whole world.

Boss Lady grinned. “Nowhere to go now, little hero.”

Kylee smirked, something warm and sticky starting to drip from her nose and a metallic taste touching her mouth. Her hands were shaking but she managed to form the words she needed. "Now you see me…” She didn’t finish as she turned invisible again, and zipped outside.

So much quick movement at once was overwhelmingly painful, and she just managed to keep it in until she was outside the building.

Once outside, she couldn’t hold it in anymore and let out an agonized yell of pain as their whole body throbbed, her bad leg trembling under her. Kylee winced, leaning against the wall, every movement was so painful it hurt to think.

She pulled out her phone to call or text Chase what had just happened, but then the screen flickered to black, and white text started to crawl across the screen.

I can’t let you leave, Kylee.

They quickly shut down her phone in horror, hoping that the cutoff of signal would be enough. She covered their mouth, stifling a sob of- well, a lot of things.

Then she mustered up as much strength as she could, and zipped back to the base as fast as her powers would go. It hurt like hell and she almost collapsed a few times, but she couldn't afford to stop or slow down.

They had to warn the others.

[weirdmarioenemies]

Name: Walking Shell

Debut: Rayman 2: The Great Escape

Hello! This is not a pencil. I know it looks very much like one. Please try to keep pencil thoughts to yourself until the reception after the post, where we WILL be serving tiny hot dogs. If you didn't think this looked like a pencil before, I'm sorry that now you'll only be able to see a pencil. But this is a missile! Shell, like a bombshell! Get it? Yeah! Ok.

It is a very cute and lovable missile, too! This is what Mario does to us. It makes it normal for missiles and bombs and bullets to be cute. This missile even has a skull-style emblem of the Bad Guy on its back... but it has legs! It is Walking Shell, after all! And that's not even the best and most precious part...

It has a DOGHOUSE!!! What the heck! This missile is literally an animal. Someone makes little houses for these missiles to sleep in. I think they are beloved! Even if they are just sort of like guard dogs, being Enemies stationed at certain points, I love to see such in-universe appreciation for a dawdling deathtrap.

When a Walking Shell senses Rayman (I think it should have the ability to Smell), it becomes a Running Shell, and really books it with those funny little legs it has! And with every footstep a lovely tock-tock-tock sound. They're gonna getcha! Gonna getcha! Until they get tuckered out. They stop running and just stand there, bobbing up and down, like they're panting!

I'm sure you're familiar with the classic All Animals Are Dogs trope, where regardless of species, an animal in a piece of media acts like a dog instead of its actual species (unless it's a cat, I guess). And boy, does that get tiring. I love dogs! But they are the only animals that act like dogs, because they are the animals that are dogs!

Anyway, Walking Shell acts like a dog, but THIS is a missile with two legs and no other features whatsoever! It's such a novel thing to act like a dog! A real innovation in the Thing That Acts Like A Dog department! With its two legs and pointed front, I would think if anything it would act like a chicken, and "peck" the ground as an idle animation, or something. But don't worry, farmheads! Look!

After it gets tired, Rayman can mount the Walking Shell, and it will rear up and neigh like a horse! Real dogs do not become horses. Yes, I do know many animal facts, why do you ask? Walking Shell will then cheese it and run over any terrain at high speeds! Sadly, the goal of these sections is to guide it into a wall so that it will explode on impact and destroy the wall. And that's so sad!!!

Yeah, this is a missile, it's destined to explode, but they also made a point of portraying it as an animal, a creature, one that can even be befriended. It's almost like if the Yoshi Dismount Jump was necessary to end every level where Yoshi was found. I think Rayman should adopt a Walking Shell, and walk it on a leash, and literally just let it be a dog. But be careful it doesn't bump into anything too hard!

Welcome to TOY CORNER. Toys are an important part of Walking Shell's history! Rayman is, obviously, a nightmare to design toys of. You could have strings to represent his floaty hands and feet, but then he doesn't look like Rayman, he looks like Ol' Strings Fer Arms Raym'n, who is not real! So, they had to get creative. And it worked, I think! In toy form, Rayman is always accompanied by some kind of prop that his hands and feet can be directly attached to. It may limit play possibilities, but it's better than the alternative, which is nothing. I hope you are getting excited reading this tangent on a post about Rayman's funny steed...!

Here it is! Walking Shell McDonald's Toy, for you to enjoy! The legs are sort of sticking straight out, but it is still unmistakably our friend. The exhaust pipe can be turned to make it go forward and occasionally turn in circles!

Gee. What a great concept. They get to put Rayman's hands and feet somewhere secure, and we get to know there are Walking Shell toys out there! It would be great if they did this again.

Wow! They did this again! This time in plush form! Walking Shell is truly just a creature so nice you gotta make a toy of it twice. This plush fascinated me for a few reasons. First, it's from Rayman 3, and Walking Shell is only in the GBA version of that game, which is absolutely not the Main version, and yet it gets toy spotlight again (this is a good thing). Second, it is directly modeled after the McDonald's toy, with the legs in the exact same position. I am intrigued by this, like, translating a McDonald's toy into a more "real" toy, if that makes sense.

Would you let Walking Shell sniff your hand? Be careful!