#companion!ed gamble

[wowpindrop]

Unavoidable | Doctor!James Acaster (& others)

For: anon

Request:

Basically for this first request, gonna be a little strange but I had a dream that James Acaster was Doctor Who and his companions were Josh Widdecombe and Ed Gamble and I was the Doctors child and was wondering if you could write something including fluff based on it? But instead of me it’s the Teen!reader obviously, I’m 18 and Gender-Fluid and use all pronouns, any and all pronouns would be great in regarding the reader.

Notes:

Hi anon! I'm so srry this has taken me so long to do, but I lost the first draft so I had to redo it :[. But it's finished now! I literally love the idea sm, James as the doctor would be so hectic I cannot. I've decided to keep Ed and Josh's names the same so it isn't confusing but James is obvs referred to as the doctor. I hope it's alright. Also if you wanna be tagged in future fics that i post, dm me n ill add u to the list. Happy reading!

Tags:

@frankieray

Summary:

The doctor makes a foolish mistake leading to you getting injured on an adventure, he is quick to make sure you're alright and to assure you it won't happen again.

TW: SLIGHT BLOOD AND INJURY (BUT ITS ALL FLUFFY AT THE END)

It was unexpected when you heard the bullet go off behind you. Yes, you knew the aliens you were currently facing weren't cowards- it wasn't as if they were too scared to shoot.

It was just surprising that they shot you.

You weren't in their direct line of fire, it would've been simpler to maybe shoot Josh, or even the Doctor, but yet here you were.

The Doctor. Your doctor.

He had found you on one of his adventures, complete coincidence. It just happened that he was your biological father, not that you has any idea.

The gangly man had a very different personality to your more serious, stoic nature. You wouldn't have guessed, not by looking at you both anyway.

His, happy, bubbly nature. Constantly bouncing around the TARDIS, occasionally bumping into the control panel, and swearing under his breath, much to the enjoyment of Ed and Josh, the two men who the Doctor had decided to travel with as companions.

That's why it was so surprising that the aliens didn't shoot the Doctor, the amount of attention he was bringing to himself on the deck of the spaceship anyway.

The ringing in your ears began to subside.

You looked down.

Your raised a shaking hand to eye level, to see it coated in a dark shade of your blood.

Your breathing quickened as you realised.

Then your legs gave way.

The last thing you saw before the darkness was the Doctor swearing loudly before yelling orders at Ed and Josh, flailing his limbs frantically.

You could feel the blood slowly oozing out of your wound as your eyes began to close. The Doctor rushed to your side, kneeling. His hand finding the side of your face.

"Stay with me. Fucking hell please stay with me."

Your eyes fluttered open to bright white lights. They made you squint as you began to sit up, wincing at the pain in you side. You leant on your elbows as you looked around the infirmary of the TARDIS, somewhere you had gotten acquainted with after dangerous adventures with your father.

None had been as severe as this.

They were usually minor things: cuts, grazes that sort of thing.

Ever still, the Doctor would stress, worrying about every tiny injury you had. Long slender fingers plastering up even the slightest paper cut.

You turned to your left, to see the Doctor asleep in a chair. Messy auburn hair covering his eyes as he snored, out of place. The outfit he wore was dirty with dust and grime.

He was snoring lightly, his mop of hair shaking slightly with each inhale. Just another one of his many quirks.

You attempted to stand, throwing your legs over the side of the hospital-esc bed. As you did the Doctor stirred, waking.

He saw you trying to get up and started to panic a bit.

"No, you have to lie down, you took a heavy blow out there man."

You huffed and lay back down, looking up to see his blue eyes laced with concern and worry.

"Dad I'm fine. Its only minor."

"Minor? You were bleeding out, you were lucky you didn't end up with any more damage that was already done."

You rolled your eyes in defeat as the Doctor began to check the gauze that covered the wound.

"I don't know what I would've done if you didn't make it back kid." He said after a while, slender fingers pulling back down your shirt, which now had a fairly large red rimmed hole in it.

"Well I'm fine aren't I." You responded with a slight smile.

"It should've been me, I wasn't paying attention, I put you in danger I'm so sorry-" he began to reel off apologies until you grabbed his hand to make him look at you.

"Dad! I'm ok. It wasn't your fault. None of us could've guessed that would've happened. Don't blame yourself."

A little while later, Ed and Josh entered, worry plastered on their faces. They were relieved to see you awake.

"Bloody hell y/n." Ed chuckled darkly "you got pretty banged up."

"Yeah well, I'm good as new now." You responded, chuckling.

"And im so glad you are." The Doctor whispered, squeezing your hand.

[penelopepitstopp]

another 32 minutes of ed gamble making the others laugh quite a lot on mock the week (and occasionally disappointing them (mainly dara))

A sequel/companion piece to the little shit one.

I wonder if Ed will somehow accidentally watch this one too lol

[imintheairconditioning]

OK BUT IMAGINE THE 16TH DOCTOR GOING BACK TO THE LOSER SPIRIT 10 AND 11 EMULATED

Ladies, gents and everyone else may I present

JAMES ACASTER

He is attractive lower eccentric energy, exhibit a)

Exhibit b) a few very doctor esque lines he has spoken

i become a different person when i have my shades on, cool james

I'm not a very adventurous person i onky use one side of a cheese grater

Hey every triangle is a love triangle when you love triangles

I love to manger in preta manger

I AM too good for a free banana

Also his companion should be Ed gamble :]

[tellthemeerkatsitsfine]

I'm into March 2011 of the Peacock and Gamble podcast, and Ed Gamble's been off as tour support with Greg Davies' show Firing Cheeseballs at a Dog. In the podcast they mentioned that Ed had just been filming something for Dave involving Greg Davies, which I assume would be this episode of Dave's One Night Stand that has a couple of little clips of the stand-up on YouTube. It also has this weird little clip that seemed to have been filmed as a sort of companion to the episode:

That podcast bit also reminded me that YouTube contains a documentary of that tour, mainly consisting of Ed Gamble "interviewing" Greg Davies, which was released as an extra on the DVD of that show. A show I have downloaded but have never actually watched, maybe I should spend a day watching the Greg Davies stand-up specials sometime soon. Seems like the sort of thing I should have watched by now. As it is, I'm a big fan of all of Taskmaster and the scraps of We Are Klang that can still be dug up (including their entire sitcom that's on YouTube), no experience with Greg Davies from in between (pun genuinely not intended, but I have also seen The Inbetweeners). Except with this DVD extra of Greg Davies travelling around the country in 2011 and Ed Gamble following him with a camera:

I found it slightly annoying this week when the Taskmaster Class thing turned out to be exactly what it was always likely to be, just a clip show with Greg and Alex commentating while being completely in character and therefore adding nothing new. I mean, it can be funny when they read their in-character jokes off an autocue, but you sort of hope for something that's meant as an added extra to feel less autocue-y and more behind the scenes. If anyone else is slightly annoyed about that (even though that's what the Taskmaster Class thing was always going to be), the above is a YouTube video that's the opposite of that. I mean obviously things like that are also contrived to some extent, but certainly less so. Ed Gamble had learned his documentary-making skills well.

Anyway, someone who's heard the Peacock and Gamble podcast before told me that the professional jealousy starts kicking in when Ed Gamble does that fake royal reality show (a thing I didn't recognize by its title, Almost Royal, but I did recognize it when I looked it up because it's something I've heard Ed Gamble reference in interviews and things, it seems very odd, also has Tom Neenan), but this is several years before that.

Though really, this isn't the beginning of anything either. About seven episodes into the first season of The Ray Peacock Podcast, a 21-year-old Ed Gamble went to the 2007 Edinburgh Fringe Festival and missed a couple of podcast episodes, and Ray Peacock had a whole rant while he was gone about being upset that Ed was off hanging out with comedians who weren't him and doing comedy without him, and I thought, "Well that's not destined to end well. Even if that rant was 98% exaggerated for comic effect, which I assume it was, if that was based on a 2% kernel of reality, then if you don't like him performing at a university revue in Edinburgh for a few weeks, just wait until you hear what else is coming up in Ed Gamble career news."

Anyway, the main point of this post is to say most of the Peacock and Gamble stuff should stay buried forever, but there is a sizeable Greg Davies fandom on Tumblr that would probably enjoy the above audio clip, if you like hearing people speculate with wild comedic overstatement about Greg's sexual exploits. And I know that speculating with wild comedic overstatement about Greg's sexual exploits is right up Tumblr's alley.

[swanno-arts]

👀 🤲 any details about your fallout au gamer

GRIPS YOUR SHOULDERS. can i talk about cygnus and formes' downfalls? can i talk about them being what they once HATED???

okay so this got WAY TOO LONG, I have to splice this into two so here's Cygnus' bit under the cut first!! I'll reblog this and add Formes' after!!

[CW mention of gun violence/injuries and suicide]

Cygnus and The Balancing Act SO, Cygnus! He's the sixth courier from the Mojave Express tasked to deliver packages to Mr. House. Only he has the actual package, the Platinum Chip and because of that he got fucked over by Benny and his gang and was almost left for dead. Thankfully Doc Mitchell saved him even though he has to live with losing one eye and a dreadful amnesia.

Cygnus goes on a wild goose chase to retrieve the package he lost and ends up later in New Vegas. Though he HATED New Vegas as someone who had to survive the hard way and see people die just trying to live while these people are getting high off their asses gambling everything the have. Meeting Mr. House did not make anything better. Distraught and overwhelmed, he told Swanno and Axon (his companions, Swan once being a thief in Primm and Axon being Courier Two) that he'd need some time alone to walk off the stress and that he'll deal with Benny when he's in the right mind to talk things through.

Though, on his lonesome, Cygnus just ends up stumbling into MORE problems. Such as having his entire spine, heart and brain swapped with cybernetics in Old World Blues (though he did get a cool new cybernetic robot eye just because one of the Think Tank guys didn't like an empty face hole?). Got in an entire argument with his own brain and decided to LEAVE it. He's growing more and more distraught and exhausted. My GOD he just want to get this all over with.

THEN, the big kicker, Lonesome Road. Cygnus stumbled into the Divide, and although the place seemed familiar to him, his amnesia just couldn't pin it down. Though, you can IMAGINE the amount of emotions going on in him when he learned that the entire destruction and the creation of the Divide was HIS FAULT. He gave birth to its community, he kept the community alive and YET, it was also him to bring it to its demise. He caused so much hell and he WALKED FREE AWAY FROM IT. Cygnus grew so distraught that he couldn't convince Ulysses to not fire the missile without going down in a fight. As if killing a fellow courier wasn't enough, having to see ED-E sacrifice itself to stop the missile just broke him entirely. He fled the Divide a changed man completely. With the Old Glory in his hands, he decided he'll right the wrongs.

Cygnus returned to New Vegas and stormed into The Tops. Getting access to Benny's room, he waited before he ambushed the poor guy and starts to beat him up senselessly. When Benny begged for mercy, Cygnus shot him twice, on the forehead and on the eye. Snatching the Platinum Chip (and one fun little encounter with Yes Man) he returned to House, demanding his pay (curse his People Pleaser perk, he can't bargain beyond 1000 caps). When House elaborates his plan with the chip, Cygnus simply did as told as he later activated the Securitons (and maybe fuck over Caesar while he's at it). Returning to New Vegas however, he betrays both Yes Man and House, killing House with the strike of the Old Glory. Manipulating his cybernetics, he gains control to House' systems and uses it to control his securitrons in the Battle of Hoover Dam. New Vegas, now independent... sike! Manipulating his cybernetics even more, Cygnus literally wires himself into the system ala House, taking over completely. He enacts what he calls The Balancing Act, a rule for all of New Vegas and the Mojave that EVERYONE is going to live an equal life. There won't be a poor nor a rich, SOMEHOW, everyone has to be in the middle grounds of it. He though YEAH that'll fix everything and everyone's gonna live happily ever after!

Except, no, it can't work that way. The act was so vague and this imaginary middle ground is even vaguer. The Balancing Act was a complete failure and people were MAD about it, but Cygnus... ahem, Mr. Six, had grown oblivious about it while he played dictator and House Part 2. The more people protest or slightly go off the balance, Six would sic a bot on them. Swanno and Axon got wind to the whole crap and when they learned it was CYGNUS that's behind all this, oh boy what the HELL and HOW THE THE HELL did that happened. They tried confronting him once, and Six was kind enough to offer them to stay in the Lucky 38 for several months because hey we're friends and I love you both dearly wanna be my second and third in commands? No? After everything I did for you two? Get out. They both got booted out and oh boy this cannot go on. So both Swanno and Axon planned to confront Six once more.

Axon created a rouse to distract the securitrons while Swanno sneaks his way back into the Lucky 38. Fucking around with the terminals, he finally gained access to where Six was expecting him. Six will threaten Swanno to back out, saying it was for her own good. After debates of the Balancing Act's failure and lots of emotional hell, Six decided that if Swanno won't listen, she can just try to kill him if that's what she wanted so badly. From here, there would be several options.

First Bad End, Swanno chooses to attack Six, initiating a fight. Swanno kills Six and severed his connection to the system, bringing New Vegas and the Mojave back to independence. ... Though, with Six dead, so was Cygnus.

Second Bad End, Swanno tries to reason with Six but failed to pass the needed checks. This will end up with a fight that would also end in Six's death.

Through difficult checks, Swanno manages to reason with Six and convince him to see what he had brought upon. Seeing the reality of the Act, Cygnus snaps back and drops the Six facade. Falling back, he broke into a break down, completely distraught that he was (once again) bringing destruction, this time by his own choice. Swanno attempts to comfort him, but Cygnus insisted that she shouldn't be near him as he tries to sever himself off the system - tripping the security systems as it registered himself being attacked. After disarming the security (through combat), Cygnus finally severs himself off the system, cutting off his control over the securitrons. Swanno attempts to comfort Cygnus once more as he broke down into a sob. Cygnus mentions that what he had done cannot be fixed and he should pay for what he had done. There was no righting his wrongs anymore. Again, Swanno would be given several options to end Cygnus' dilemma.

Third Bad End, either by allowing him or failing to convince him otherwise, Cygnus would commit suicide, claiming death was the only way he could repay everything he had done (referring to not only The Balancing Act, but to the Divide as well).

The Good End, Swanno convinces Cygnus not to take his own life. Instead, he tells him that if he really wanted to disconnect himself to his deeds he could leave (read: exile himself from) the Mojave altogether. Cygnus takes the suggestion but tells Swanno that he'll be going alone, unable to bear the possibility of hurting them again. Swanno refuses and insist that she and Axon would travel with him. Cygnus finally relents and the three of them would make their escape out of New Vegas and the Mojave completely. (Who runs New Vegas now? Who knows, maybe Yes Man came around lol)

The three would end up as wanderers in the greater wastelands with no real destination in mind. Cygnus still finds it hard to disconnect himself from what happened... but he's trying. Really hard.

On their mile long journey across what's left of America... they encounter a peculiar man with his Mr. Handy companion... and a strange feeling of an always lurking gaze.

[sinswithpleasure]

Series Masterlist

Series

All covers to the respective series were edited by the wonder @panchatea.

—————————————

Bucket List (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon)

Im Nayeon, Seoul U’s It Girl—rich, beautiful, intelligent, and confident, hides a burning secret and desire, and with her graduation from university coming at the end of the school year, she has requests that aim to fulfil the burning desires she keeps within her heart.

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Interlude—Experiment Five.5

Interlude—Workout Five.8

Interlude—Five.Six [Queen & Princess]

——————–

Queen (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon)

The Queen-Imperial Im Nayeon demands your presence in her Throne Room privately and for reasons unknown. With your close involvement in her past, just as she is with yours, what could be her motivations?

Queen (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon) || Companion Short: Queen’s Past

Queen (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon) - [Part 2]

Queen [Part 3 - Reminiscence] (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon)

Queen (ft. TWICE’s Nayeon) [Part 4 / Finale]

——————–

Gamble (ft. TWICE)

An ill-fated gamble lands you into the worst position you could have in life—delegated as the new fucktoy for use by the Student Council, led by Hirai Momo and her counterparts.

Gamble (ft. Momo)

Gamble (ft. Momo & Sana) [Part 2]

Gamble (ft. Dahyun) [Part 3]

Gamble Part 4 (ft. Jihyo)

Gamble Part 5 (ft. Chaeyoung)

Gamble Part 6 (ft. Mina) [Finale]

———————

The Playgirl (ft. LOONA’s Yves) [Female Reader]

When you’re forced to tutor the bane of your existence/your seatmate/the campus fuckgirl, you naturally expect the toughest of experiences. After all, she is your polar opposite—she gives no fucks, and you give a lot. When she offers you a deal you cannot refuse after testing limit after limit of yours, she takes you on a journey where you learn how opposites attract, how shared experiences form strong bonds, and how she can become a lover from an enemy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

——————

Caught In 4K

A collaboration between me and the wonderful @worldsover.

Im Yeojin—student by day, camgirl off hours for fun. You're her best friend, secretly in love with her, and very aware of her side job she has. This is your story as much as it is hers—the journey that leads the both of you closer together.

Chapter 1

—————————————

JHJX-(CODE)

A collaboration between myself and the wonderful @midnightdancingsol.

Interrupted during your self-love session by the very target of your fantasies results in a sexually filled weekend between yourself and the Class President Jeon Heejin.

[JHJX-210] "My Class President Caught Me Masturbating, But Instead of Stopping Me, She Made Me Touch Myself So Hard That I Came All Over Myself!"

—————————————

Worth Your X

One unfortunate (well, maybe fortunate) encounter between you and Council President Jo Haseul results in your new role as the Student Council’s new boy toy.

Worth Your While (ft. Haseul)

Worth Your Time (ft. Kim Lip)

Worth Your Risk (ft. Kim Lip)

—————————————

A Family Affair

‘Taboos meant to be broken.’

You’re well aware of the more-than-familial sisterly bond between your girlfriend and your sister, but when Kim Chaewon brings you into that relationship and into her family, you soon learn that her entire family has no qualms with breaking the incest taboo.

Sisterly Bonding (ft. Chaewon & Winter) 

Parental Guidance (ft. Taeyeon & Winter)

Familial Ties (ft. Taeyeon, Chaewon, Yeoreum, Karina)

—————————————

To-Do List

Minju is an angel that really likes sex.

To-Do List: Cream & Coffee

—————————————

After School Sex-Ed

The After School "Student Entertainment" Club is officially the school Gaming Club, but unofficially, it's not that at all—it's more of an excuse for certain students to have a room for sex at all times in school.

This collection details the world and relationships that the club members have with each other.

The After School "Student Entertainment" Club [ft. aespa's Karina & Giselle]

The After School "Student Bonding" Experience [ft. aespa's Winter & Ningning]

[ground-zero-idiocies]

The Official Ground Zero Idiocies Masterlist

It’s here! I’ve divided the posts into a few categories for ease and convenience. Enjoy!

Companion Switch Dialogue: Jack Cabot Scribe Haylen

Headcanons: F4 Companions’ Favorite Meat Dishes F4 Companions’ Favorite Musicals F4 Companions’ Favorite Modern-ish Bands F4 Companions’ Favorite Movies F4 Companions’ Favorite Pets F4 Companions’ Opinions on Furbies F4 Companions’ Favorite North American Cities F4 Companions’ Favorite Star Wars Movies Random Nick Valentine Headcanons Random Piper Headcanons

Companion Reacts: Fluff Lightning Round F4 Companions Encounter a Dinosaur F4 Companions go to IHOP F4 Companions Meet the Mysterious Stranger F4 Companions Teach a High School Class F4 Companions Tell Their Favorite Jokes F4 Companions Play Minecraft F4 Companions go to College F4 Companions React to a Terrible Battle Plan F4 Companions Get Pranked F4 Companions get Nicknames  F4 Companions get Insulted F4 Companions Act Their Age F4 Companions Witness a Stampede F4 Companions Get a Drink F4 Companions go to McDonalds F4 Companions on an Airplane F4 Companions React to ‘Glimpse of Us’ by Joji F4 Companions React to ‘Something Stupid’ by Frank Sinatra F4 Companions React to ‘Bad Habits’ by Ed Sheeran F4 Companions find the Treasure of Jamaica Plain NV Companions React to the Courier’s Deadliness NV Companions React to the Courier’s Gambling Super Mutants Talk about the Institute

Superhero Nora Series: Nora is Captain America Nora is Iron Man Nora is Black Widow

Fallout Short Fiction: Preston Hosts Boy’s Night Companions go Bowling Vault 112 Pitch Meeting The Strange Case of Nora and the Pip-Boys James, the Man Who Saved Danse’s Beautiful Ass Dad An Extended (Synthetic) Family Put Some Damn Clothes On! Let’s Take his Coat!

My Fallout Opinions: My Biggest Problem with New Vegas Gary is Dumb Response: Gary is *Still* Dumb What I Hate About Every Fallout Game Why House Would Probably (Unfortunately) Win Fallout Hot Takes Fallout Hot Takes, The Second Fandom Overlap: Fallout and Star Trek Racist Parts in Every Fallout Game My Problem with Fallout 4 Companion Reacts Changes I Would Make to Fallout 4 Not Romancing Valentine is Good, Actually Honest Hearts is a Waste Things we Forget About Companions Danse and his Magic Armor Fallout Fans Don’t Support Genocide for 5 Minutes Challenge (Impossible) Fallout TV Show Anxieties Best/Worst Fallout Ships Every Fallout Game and DLC, Ranked

Random Posts: Super Mutant Baseball Power Armor Warranty President Eden is Dumb Longfellow is not Old The Sole Survivor Goes to Diamond City Companions Get Vaccinated NFT Shenanigans pt. 1 NFT Shenanigans pt. 2 Stop Simping I Love Jack Cabot I Love Klamath Bob Infinite Monkey Cage Fallout Movie Fancast pt. 1 Fallout Movie Fancast pt. 2 Fallout Movie Fancast pt. 3 How are Catholics Real What Grocery Store is X6? I ranked the Star Wars Movies(?)

[nightingaelic]

Fnv Companions react to Fem Courier being trans girl (sorry feel abit of self projection today hahah)

Don't feel sorry for wanting to see yourself reflected in the world around you, we all want to know that we belong.

The Forecaster frowned, and his eyes moved rapidly from left to right as if scanning some hidden radar. "Your face does the thinking... two to the skull, yet one gets up," he said.

The courier who stood before the boy nodded and touched her fingers to her temple, almost reflexively. "That's me."

"Odds are against you," the Forecaster went on, squinting. "But they're just numbers after the two-to-one. You've changed suits once, clubs to diamonds, and now you're playing the hand you've been dealt."

At this, the courier stiffened suddenly. "Um..."

The Forecaster went on, unaware of his customer's discomfort. "But you don't let it rest, you shuffle and stack, and a gamble... a gamble that may pay off? But how? Forecast: Rapidly changing conditions."

"Um... thanks." The courier counted out the caps and handed them over to the boy, then beat a hasty retreat from beneath the overpass.

Once back atop Highway 95, she took her traveling companion aside. "Before you think I worked for some Mojave faction and deserted, that thing he said about changing suits... I didn't think he'd... what he meant was... I wasn't always..."

She sighed and ran a hand over her head. "Hell, it's about time I told you anyway. I'm trans."

Arcade Gannon: Arcade stopped her before she could stumble into an over-explanation. "It's, uh, it's okay. I... may have already known."

"You..." The courier's eyes widened. "You did? But who told you?"

"I, um..." Arcade straightened his glasses and looked up at the sky, avoiding eye contact. "Oh boy. Doctor Usanagi..."

Immediately, the courier's eyes narrowed. "... doesn't betray doctor-patient confidentiality, but I was in one of her medical clinics that day you came in for the NEMEAN sub-dermal armor," Arcade finished hastily. "She, uh, asked me and a couple of the others to help her close you up."

"Oh." The courier relaxed her stance a bit. "Oh yeah, I remember. I mean, I don't remember you, but I do remember signing the form that said I was okay with med student assistance. Why didn't you say anything, when I first asked you to tag along?"

Arcade shrugged. "I don't betray doctor-patient confidentiality either. Usanagi hammers that into you pretty hard on day one. Besides, something like that doesn't matter much outside of a doctor's office."

Craig Boone: Boone shrugged. "Okay."

The courier's eyes darted around his countenance, looking for some kind of stronger reaction. "Nothing? Not even a 'congratulations' or a disapproving grimace? Who are you, Boone?"

"Unconcerned," he shot back testily. "Unless it affects your aim somehow, it's not a problem. If that's what you're asking."

The courier sighed. "No, it's... you're fine. I guess I'm still pretty defensive about it. Especially around NCR types."

Boone nodded. "There were a few officers that Manny and I operated under who weren't the open-minded sort. They didn't last long."

Lily Bowen: Lily looked positively stormy. "Did that young man just air your personal business for the whole trading post to hear without a care in the world?" she thundered, with all her grandmotherly might. "Let's go back, dearie, I need to give him a piece of my mind."

"Lily, no," the courier protested, grabbing the nightkin's arm before she could stomp off toward the overpass again. "He probably doesn't even know what he said, it's just part of his gift. And no one's going to put two and two together unless I tell them outright, like I did you."

"If you say so, pumpkin." Lily smiled and settled herself. "But I can always ask Leo for a little help if anyone has cross words for you about this."

The courier sighed and patted her companion's arm. "No need for that, Lily. That reminds me, you should take your medication today."

Lily wrapped her up in a hug. "You take such good care of Grandma, my sweet girl."

Raul Alfonso Tejada: "Mija." Raul smiled. "How long you been holding onto that for?"

The courier let out the breath she'd taken, and her shoulders sank back to a normal level. "Well not everyone takes news like that too well. I didn't know if you would... mind."

"Mind?" Raul shook his head. "Oye. I've lived a long time, out here in the desert. It's a lonely place, even if you're surrounded by a crowd on the Strip. You can lose yourself pretty easily, lose sight of what you want, what you are. I'd know better than most. If you held onto who you want to be, then that's a victory, in the Mojave."

"Um..." The courier's eyes were shiny with tears, but before Raul could comment or pull out a handkerchief, she'd enveloped him in an unexpected hug. "Thanks, viejo."

Rose of Sharon Cassidy: "Well, I'll be a gecko's uncle." Cass grinned. "You're serious? All this time on the road together, and you didn't think you could tell me that? I'm wounded, Six."

"Hey now, you were slow to trust me, too," the courier pointed out with a growing smirk. "I was gonna tell you after the Silver Rush situation, if we made it out alive, but then we did and you were riding so high at the Atomic Wrangler that I didn't want to dampen your memory of that day."

"Dampen my..." Cass chuckled and clapped the courier on the shoulder. "Better fix your metaphor there, Six. Rain in the desert is a good thing. And trust between friends would never dampen my day."

She held up a hand before the courier could protest. "I know, I know what you were worried about. Trust me, I'm not the type to froth at the mouth over propriety or 'family values.' Thought you'd've picked up on that, with my smart mouth and wanderin' eyes."

"Wandering..." The courier ducked out from under her arm and danced away, laughing. "Uh-uh. I helped you with your vendetta, now you help me with mine. Then we'll buy a drink at the Tops and talk, whiskey rose."

Veronica Santangelo: "You..." Veronica's eyes went as wide as the Mojave's full moon. "Oh. Oh."

Slowly, the Scribe sank into a sitting position on the cracked asphalt. "That explains a few things, I suppose."

The courier sat down next to her. "Like what?"

Veronica started ticking things off on her fingers. "Both that guy in Primm and the bartender in Goodsprings called you by a different name, but they were the same name and it sounded kind of like yours so I wrote it off as a coincidence. Benny didn't recognize you right away, even though he shot you in the head. And Arcade locked us all out of your room that time you took some shrapnel to the torso and were laid up in the Lucky 38 until you weren't covered in bandages."

"Oh yeah." The courier grinned. "Surprised you didn't piece it together sooner, then."

"I sometimes forget that's something people can do," Veronica admitted. "Remember when I said that some in the Brotherhood don't look too kindly on those who choose relationships that don't produce new children? Well, ditto and worse for those who want to transition. Most of the ones brave enough to do it anyway don't stay Brotherhood for long."

ED-E: The eyebot beeped in mock surprise, then whizzed around the courier three times playing triumphant music. She giggled and swatted the bot away playfully. "Go on then. I have no idea how you could've known, but there it is."

ED-E beeped quizzically once it came to a stop.

"Why hide it?" the courier responded. "Well, unlike robots, some people think it's strange to change your... parts. Or even just your classification. Honestly, it's old-world thinking, no clue."

The eyebot beeped long and low, almost like a coo of affection and reassurance.

"Thanks, ED-E," the courier said with a smile. "I'll try to remember that."

Rex: Rex cocked his head to the side. The courier knelt down to his level and scratched his ears, inspecting his new brain and cybernetic limbs as she did.

"I don't know why I'm telling you this," she murmured, increasing her attentions as Rex leaned into her. "You probably already knew, with that amazing nose of yours. I think your owner knows, otherwise why keep spouting that line of his whenever I come around?"

Rex whined, and the courier smiled. "You know. 'Do what's right for you, so long as it don't hurt no one.' Got that seared into my brain as surely as that bullet, thanks to him. I bet that king he's worshipping never even said that."

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

HASO, “Contract Killer.”

Hope you guys have a great day!

The room smelled horrible, though that would only be readily noticed by those species that had any acute sense of smell. Though for most everyone, that fact went largely unnoticed, or if it was noticed, the occupants of the room didn’t really care. The walls of the cramped room were lined in rust streaked metal, and large metal crates served as tables and chairs for the assortment of rough and tumble visitors who graced the blackmarket under A136. Human music rolled through the room as a constant background to the din as a beautiful, but rough and tumble woman sang a mournful sea shanty about an astronaut blasted out the airlock freezing to death in his space suit as he looked on at the beauty of the universe.

At the bar two tall Drev bartenders used all four of their hands to prepare drinks for their waiting customers ranging anywhere from, Human, to Kree, to Celzex. Rockus laughter filtered up into the air as men and women gambled with ten sided dice,, and strange glowing chips. The floor below their feet was stained and mottled with unknown substances which had likely never seen mop. When they moved it wasn’t uncommon for them to flash mechanical enhancements, a hand here, or an eye there, some clearly lost to accidents, others…. Perhaps replaced on purpose.

In the throng it wasn’t even uncommon to see alien/human couples blatantly and proudly interacting with one another without garnering so much as a sideways glance from those around them

Drinks poured, staining the bar till the metal rusted and the wood ran dark.

At the side of the room a table sat raised slightly away from the others surrounded by stained and rotting curtains, and at that table sat A Drev. The armor she wore was half Drev and half of medieval human make. One of his shoulders was covered with a metal pauldron and armor that went all the way down one arm. Leather straps criss-crossed her chest. Next to her sat a woman, with beautiful, wavy, honey-blonde hair and bright red lips. She wore mostly black, and a long leather coat.

When she leaned back she rested her large boots on the table spinning a playing card between two fingers.

The Drev looked on into the crowd, her eyes scanning over the people that thronged before her, people and aliens alike, an unwashed mass, looking and waiting for her target, and AH, there he is, just the person she had been told to expect.

He was tall, though the clothing he wore blended so seamlessly into the crowd, he wouldn't have garnered much attention, especially not here.

He wore a dark brown jacket with a grey cowl pulled low over his face. He kept his head down, though she noted the slight bulge at either hip where he likely concealed two weapons.

Which he reached forward, she saw the glittering of a metal gauntlet, either that or a metal hand.

On his shoulder rode a furry little Celzex, though it’s once bright fur had been stained mostly grey and black, probably from some horrible accident.

Beside her Beatrice leaned forward, her red lips parting in a smile, “That him?”

“Yes it appears it is.”

She went to stand, but the Drev pushed her back down, “I already have men on it.”

Beatriss frowned, her full red lips puckering down into a pout, “You never let me have any fun.”

“There will be time for you, yet.”

They watched as the figure pushed his way through the crowd and took a seat at the back of the room. Without, it seemed, any prompting a waitress scurried form the darkness and set a drink down before him. Credits exchanged as the woman vanished back into the crowd. 

Two fingers moved forward from the edge of the room, pushing their way through the crowd.

They would have been impossible to pick from the crowd if it wasn’t for their purposeful strides forward.

The figure took a sip from his drink, only the bottom of his chin visible under the hood and part of his right cheek covered in a mechanical mask.

Behind him, the two figures had moved into position. One man reached out to rest a hand on his shoulder, but fast as a striking snake the stranger grabbed the man by the arm tugged him forward and slammed his head painfully into the tabletop knocking him cold almost immediately before snapping to the side blocking a punch by the second man, and then elbowing him directly in the throat.

The two men hit the ground in seconds.

“Not bad.” The Drev muttered in open admiration, and Beatrice looked up at her with an open expression of jealousy. The Drev smiled slightly, the corners of her mouth turning up in the familiar human expression. She liked when Beatrice got jealous.

The sudden brawl had hardly stopped the debauchery taking place around the rest of the room . That was until the Drev, Jeea, rose to her feet and clapped once.

All around her, the entire room seemed to part like the red sea, and at the very end of that part was the man and the two prone bodies.

He did not flinch, barely even seemed surprised as he stood, and walked into the center of the room.

“We can do this the easy way, or we can do this the hard way.”

The man raised his hands, “That depends entirely on you Jeea.” his Drev accent was impeccable, that surprised her.

“Captain Kall, your skills as a warrior impress me,”

The man smiled under his hood, “Than you are easily impressed.”

Jeea snorted slightly, “Come, sit.”

He hummed deep in his chest, not dissimilar to the sound of pleasure so common among her people, “Pity, I was so looking forward to the hard way.”

She waved the otters away, and the music began to play again as the man crossed the room and slid into the booth next to her and Beatrice: who was still pouting, her arms crossed, two long knives held in either hand.

Geea leaned forward and took a better look at the man, with half his mechanical face, mechanical hand and plunging hood.

“You don’t make yourself as difficult to find as I would have assumed.”

He leaned back in his chair as his Celzex companion hopped onto the table. Beatrice ed it with some measure of malice, but even she knew not to mess with a Celzex. It was more than likely the thing had friends, and if it had friends, it also had pirated Celzex weapons.

“Kall…. That is a Vrul name isn’t it.”

The man shrugged, “Could be, though I thought Vrul names tended to have five letters and not four.”

Geea grunted, either way, “Your reputation precedes you, Captain, which is strange considering you haven’t been on our radar long.”

THe man waved over the waitress for another drink, “I make it a habit of keeping off people’s Radar, but you would know all about that.” he glanced around at the bar, “Aren't you concerned that holding operations here will get you noticed by the GA? Last I heard the UNSC had done some operations on this planet.”

Beatrice snorted.

Geea shook her head, “A day long visit by the UNSC’s favorite pet Admiral hardly counts.”

Beatrice spat at the floor making a face, “The GA’s little pet, i would like to cut off h-”

Geea held up a hand, “Now, now Beatrice, it’s not the Admiral we are angry with. He is simply a figurehead, a representation of everything that is wrong with the GA. As far as I know he isn’t so horrible.” She reached out a hand and placed it atop the other woman’s, “He did advocate for a cause near and dear to our hearts.”

Beatrice Made a face, “Still don’t like him.” 

The man across from them shifted in his seat, “I hardly see what this has to do with me. Me and my crew try to keep a low profile. GA or Anti-alliance doesn't matter either way. We just want to make money and keep to ourselves.”

“And is piracy generally part of keeping a low profile?”

The man crossed his arms and leaned back in his seat, “I would hardly consider it piracy…. I like to think of it as…. Liberating materials already doomed to be misused.”

“That sounds like piracy but with more steps.” Beatrice muttered.

Geea held up a hand, “No need to get defensive here friend. It’s not like the rest of us are law abiding citizens.” A couple more waiters and waitresses moved forward to refill their drinks, one of them trailing her hand suggestively across the captain’s shoulders.

“We are just here to speak to you, and maybe hire your crew.”

Captain Kell leaned forward slightly in his seat, the mechanical face plate glittering in the light above, “Alright, and what is this job of yours.”

“I want you to Kill Admiral Vir.”

There was a pause the silence between them filled with the rolling conversation from the rest of the room.

“You want me to what!”

“You heard me clearly the first time.”

The man stood nearly tipping over his chair in the process, “That’s it, this conversation is over.”

Beatrice grabbed him by the arm and forced him roughly back into his seat. At That moment, the people sitting at the nearest tables turned around, throwing back their coats to reveal  large, and surely illegal submachine guns.

Captain Kell took a seat, hands raised slightly.

Geea leaned forward, “Just hear us out.”

“I’m not a hitman or a mercenary. And the last thing I want to do is put that kind of heat on my people especially not Admiral Fucking Vir, do you think I am insane! I’ve never even done that sort of job. I steal shit, that’s it. I am no killer.”

Geea waited for the man to finish his little tantrum before she continued, “And that is precisely my point isn’t it. No one knows who you are, no one knows who your ship is. In fact, your ship doesn't have a beacon, which means you are not properly registered with the UNSC or the GA, meaning that they cannot track, find or know where you are.” Captain kell began to laugh, “Are you fucking serious. Killing him while he is on-world is one thing, but killing him while he is off-world is a completely different can of worms. You would have to be able to board his ship, the motherfuking OMEN, the most advanced spaceship known to man or alien with Celzex weapons, and Vrul shields. Oh yeah, and let’s not forget that he has an entire fucking clan of Drev onboard, a shitload of marines, oh and lets not forget one of those drev is a SAINT.”

Geea leaned forward, “Someone does their homework.”

Captain Kell laughed, “Does my homework, more like reads the news. He’s got the media crawling up his ass half the time. If it isn't a picture of his dumbass on a magazine cover, than its a viral video of some asshole marine on his crew showing off all the dumb stuff they get to do onboard.”

“See, that is exactly the sort of thinking we need, and we know your ship. We know it has the most advanced boarding capabilities in the known universe regardless of whether you are trying to hide that fact or not. If anyone can board his ship and take care of his men, then it’s you.” She pointed at the Celzex on the table, “Powerful friends, and with our help, I have no doubt that we could do it.

He shook his head emphatically and crossed his arms over his chest, “I don’t understand, I thought you said earlier that you liked him. He did help the LFIL.” he glanced between the two of them suddenly unsure that he had read them correctly. He had, but she did enjoy watching him squirm.

“I like the man as a person. He honestly does seem like a nice guy, funny, charming, awkward in an endearing way. But this isn't about my personal feeling of the man, this is about my beliefs as a Drev, this is…. Political, and sometimes good people have to go to make way for something better.”

Captain Kell held out his hands, “I guess I just don’t see your vision, business is going very well for me right now. I doubt I would profit from the collapse of the GA. I can really only see this getting worse for me.”

Geea frowned, “The GA has taken over my homeworld to mine our holy battlegrounds. It has taken away the traditions of my people.”

“Didn’t the traditions of your people recently change.”

Behind them, the room had sprouted into a rocus crowd of dancers as the woman began singing about the queen of Pirates. 

Geea crossed her arms, “This isn’t about the saint, she is doing what she can for our Drev in the way she believes is best, but I believe there is a better way. I will follow her religious traditions as I believe in the old ways, but I also believe that our home planet should not have been desecrated by the GA in the first place.” She waved a hand around the room, “The GA has too much power and far to much influence, one of these days the idea of a democracy is going to fade away until they take all the ower for themselves, and, I for one, will not be ruled by a tyrant.”

Captain Kell didn’t seem impressed by her argument, “The GA has existed as a democratic republic since long before the Drev and the humans were involved. What makes you think that they are going to change so rapidly.”

“Because I know humans.”

Even though she couldn’t see his face, she could almost guess at the slight raise of his eyebrow, “Oh really, you know humans do you? How fascinating, tell me more.”

Beatrice snorted.

Geea glowered at him.

Beatrice smiled “Se not wrong.” She grinned slyly, “She really does KNOW humans rather well.”

Kell tapped his fingers on the table, “Knowing someone in the biblical sense is hardly knowing humans. Admiral Vir is likely helping to keep the democratic nature of the GA against humans and otters who might try to change that, so forgive me if I See nothing good that can come of this.” He stood again this time doing his best to ignore the armed men and women on the next table over.

“How about enough money for you and your to retire to a small moon on the other side of the galaxy.” he paused and turned to look at her.

“And I should believe you because?”

Beatrice reached under her chair and pulled out a holopad sliding it across the table so he could see, “Take a look for yourself, Half of that upfront, and then half after we take out Vir, payment drops if you hurt the Saint.”

Eyes still obscured, she had trouble seeing his face, but after a moment he nodded, “Alright, I can take you up on that offer, but if you fuck us over, I will make you reget it.” he turned to look at her one last time, “Meet me at the dock when you’re ready. If I am going to do this, you better be damn straight that I am not going to do it alone.

[wowpindrop]

Bonsouir!!!

This is basically 2 requests in 1 if that is okay :)

But basically for this first request, gonna be a little strange but I had a dream that James Acaster was Doctor Who and his companions were Josh Widdecombe and Ed Gamble and I was the Doctors child and was wondering if you could write something including fluff based on it? But instead of me it’s the Teen!reader obviously, I’m 18 and Gender-Fluid and use all pronouns, any and all pronouns would be great in regarding the reader. (I have dreams / maladaptive daydreams like this all the time, where people, fandoms and shows cross over it’s unreal, if you ever want me to send some in regarding a few that I remember let me know)

Second request is a BBC Ghosts one. Can it revolve around the Captain being a father figure to the reader, the reader passed and became a ghost in the mid-late 80’s some how and he’s taken them under his wing (I’m in dire need of some Dad!Captain rn, I’m not doing okay) the reader’s signature look is a leather jacket, black corduroy trousers and a pink long sleeved T-Shirt with an undercut and a septum ring, holds punk values close to their heart and loves Queen and David Bowie. Their pronouns are He/She/They but uses He or They the most. And it’s just them being the Captain and his Punk Teenage Kid while doing whatever they do round the house

Hi!

Omg I love both of these ideas and I'd be more than happy to write them for you.

College is pretty stressful atm so it may take me a while to write both but I'll definitely get them done!

I'll probably do the James dr who child one first then the father figure cap second.

Thanks sm for requesting!

[dumbfuck-mojave]

FNV Companions React to Someone Being Aggressive Towards Rex.

@spidester basically came up with this idea.

TW: Mentions of violence against humans and animals. Some sexual flirtation. Swearing is the norm at this point

Fucking IDEK if these are out of character anymore we just roll with it. Also, shitty and inconsistent writing and react length ahoy. Also yes I lied and said this was going to be out last night but I got sick please understand-

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Arcade: Six had dragged him into Ultra-Luxe because once again, they were being stupid and trying to beat some sort of goal they had set for themselves earlier that day at the gambling tables. Rex had also come in with them, but had wandered off with his snout up in the air towards the kitchens. While Six was focusing on the Blackjack table Arcade heard a sudden yip and bark behind him and turned to see two people laughing and kicking the poor dog. They weren’t dressed like the people that would usually gamble here and they certainly weren’t a White Glove, so Arcade just assumed they were some travelers that didn’t know Six’s reputation and love for their canine companion. Also angry at the situation unfolding, Arcade briskly made his way over to them.

“Excuse me-”

“Fuck off.” 

Now, that made Arcade very unhappy. Honestly, he expected them to be rude, but was still a little surprised at how quickly they shot him down, not even trying to start an argument or anything. Yet.

“Listen, gentlemen.” Arcade said sharply, “I suggest you leave now because you’d much rather deal with me telling you how vile of people you are than for my friend over at the Blackjack table getting word of what you’ve been doing to their dog.”

“Oh, tough guy, eh? Well guess what, we don’t give a shit about what you or your idiot friend have to say!” The taller of the men sneard, getting right up in Arcade’s face. “Fucking forget it, the dumb dog isn’t worth our time. They ran out of booze a while ago anyway.”

Arcade gave them a look of disinterest as the semi-stumbled out the door. He made….. eye contact?..... with one of the masked servers when he looked away from them, who also seemed relieved that the two men were gone, probably because they had trached dust and mud throughout the entire main room.  Making his way back to Six, Arcade was going over scenarios in his head about what Six would do once he told them. Turns out one of his guessed scenarios was true. He did know Six very well after all. Unfortunately for the men, they had decided to sleep naked that night and Six had found out where they were staying through a few connections. A few hours later the men’s clothes were strung up on and lit on fire in the middle of Freeside, with the neat edition of shoving several hungry geckos into the men’s hotel room. The men ran out into the Mojave, naked and with a few flesh chunks missing from their body, while Rex gnawed happily on his Brahmin Steak in the Lucky 38. 

Boone: A Legion party had ambushed them just outside of Red Rock Canyon as they were making their way towards Vegas from Goodsprings. The system they had was working well enough, Boone had managed to climb his way up on the hill to the right of the road and was sniping them from afar while Six was up close with their ripper. It was hard to get solid damaging headshots on them since they were those dumb helmets, but if he got lucky Six would get close enough to rip one of their helmets off so he could get a clear shot through their skull. Usually, there were 4 Legionaries in a party but Caesar must have really wanted Six dead at this point, so they were currently being surrounded by at least 12, possibly even more. As Six drop-kicked two legionaries into each other, Boone noticed one of the other Legionaries targeting Rex and backing him up against the Canyon wall. Luckily for Boone and unfortunately for the Legionnaire, there was no helmet in sight. Boone lined up the shot and it entered the target’s head with a whiz and a squish. As the now-corpse fell to the ground, the group of three reorganized amongst the carnage. Rex sat down at Boone’s feet and looked up at him, mouth open and panting. 

“Don’t look at him like that.” Boone said in a monotone voice, making the Courier laugh beside him.

“Boone, you’re talking to a dog.” The Courier started on their way once again to Vegas, looking down at the dog now trotting beside them.

“You want to go see the King Rex?”

*Bark*

“Look who’s talking to the dog now.” 

Veronica and Cassidy: The girls had decided to hang out together today, without the Courier. They also had Rex in tow and were currently sitting at the Atomic Wrangler’s counter. Both of these women were at least three bottles in each already and their laughter poured through the casino as Veronica slouched over and snorted at one of Cass’ merchant stories.

“There is *snort* there is no way he did that.” Veronica wheezed out, falling into another fit of laughter.

“He did! He just grabbed that fucker by his-”

Their conversation was cut off when a man walked over to them. Much too confidently, I might add. They both looked up at him in disgust and annoyance. 

“So, what are two beautiful ladies doing out here all alone. You know, why don’t we all go upstairs and have a little *fun* together. ” The man leaned in so far he almost touched noses with Veronica. Rex had been sitting idly with his head in his paws on the floor until this moment. When the man leaned in, Rex growled and stood up, brisling at the man. 

“Dumb dog.” The man grumbled, swinging out his hand and hitting Rex in the head. Now no one knew if the man had meant to hit Rex so hard that he slammed his glass dome into the counter, but it didn’t matter now. Veronica pushed up off the counter and shoved the man back.

“Who do you think you are?! First, you come up to two ladies who are CLEARLY disinterested in you, interrupt their good time, then you have the audacity to hit our dog?!” Veronica practically yelled, drawing attention from several others in the room. Two people in particular had the look in their eyes that was almost begging to see a fight.

“Listen, girlie, I do what I want, ok?” The man growled, cut off by Veronica shoving his back against the counter, “Oh, girlie, you want to start right now?” 

“She doesn’t want to do anything with you. Nobody would.” Cass said as she finally stood up, looking over Veronica’s shoulder.

“Now come on ladies, no need to fight over me.” The man slurred, the beginnings of a wolfish grin on his face. 

Now, Ronnie may be small but she has a power fist and can fuck some people up. In a flash, the man was on his knees with both arms straining behind him, courtesy of Cass. Veronica unveiled her power fist and a spark of fear appeared in the man’s eyes as she swung it dainlity near his temple.

“I could swing my fist sideways right now.” She started swinging faster and more aggressively, “And give you a good lesson about how to treat others around you with an indent on your head to remind you.” 

“N-No!”

“Oh, come on. I’m sure it would be no trouble for my friend here.” Cass sneered, tightening her grip on the man’s arms, making him squeal out in man. 

“Please, please! No!” 

As the once confident man was damn near sobbing just at the prospect of getting hit, Veronica and Cass looked up at each other and grinned. Dragging the man outside, Veronica used her unarmored fist to hit him into a puddle of… something. The man stumbled to his feet and looked back in fear at the doorway. Then sprinted off. 

“DAMN! NEXT TIME YOU START A FIGHT YOU BETTER BE ABLE TO FINISH IT!” Cass yelled after him before they retreated into the casino once more.

. On their way back in, two figures walked out the door, following the now out of sight man. Sometimes, if you want to see a fight, you just have to start one yourself. 

Ed-E: *Pulls out laser canon* “Beep beepbeep bop'' Translation: “You bitch ass motherfucker”. Even if Rex sometimes drools on Ed-E or accidentally whips a ball at it’s shell, Ed-E will still protecc and attacc. 

Lily: Ok no but honestly and sorry to disappoint but any scenario involving her reacting to this is just them fighting, her calling the Courier Jimmy, then absolutely rocking the perpetrators shit. Like, tear that person in half grandma. I wanted to write a longer thing out….unless

Raul: He and Six had decided to stop at 188 Trading Post for the night instead of attempting to walk all the way back to Vegas. They were low on supplies, tired and hungry, and Raul’s back was acting up again. Samuel was nice enough to let Raul lie down for a bit on one of the mattresses behind the bar while Six was focusing on cleaning their weapons and bartering. Just as he was about to drift off, he heard Six’s voice speak up above the radio.

“Don’t touch my goddamn dog like that!” 

“You don’t get to tell me what to do you fucking piece of shit! Oh fuck-” 

Raul stood up and peered around the corner to see a rather interesting sight. Six was straddling some random man and aggressively slapping his hands away when he tried to reach for them, all while screaming every obscene thing they’ve ever been taught, even some things in Spanish thanks to Raul. Samuel was looking very concerned at the bar, not wanting to get directly involved in this mess while Rex was barking his head off in the man's face. After Raul managed to drag Six off the man, he found out the man was an associate of Alexander and was talking about making a deal with him when Rex came up to him to sniff his hand. Agitated, the man reached down and put his fist around Rex’s muzzle, yanking him up on his back to legs. Nothing escalated past that point as Six had entered the picture by then. They eventually decided to just walk back to Vegas that night and extend their break home, but damn if Raul wasn’t impressed and kind of flattered at the way they gracefully told a man how they were going to cut out this tongue and feed it to rats. Raul is dad.

(The insult thing was definitely a nod to one of @nuclear-reactions posts)

Thank you for reading! Requests are open!

[pikapeppa]

Fenris/f!Hawke and the Inquisition: The Breath of Winter

Chapter 53 of Lovers In A Dangerous Time (i.e. Fenris the Inquisitor) is up on AO3! In which the crew fight a dragon. A really, really big fucking dragon. 

Fun fact: In the two-odd years that I’ve been writing Dragon Age fic, I’ve managed to avoid writing a dragon fight until now. I HATE WRITING FIGHT/BATTLE SCENES UGH. I hope it’s okay!

Only an excerpt here (the chapter is ~8800 words); read the whole thing on AO3. 

********************

As soon as they stepped out of the Tevinter fortress, Cole appeared beside them. “She’s at the lake,” he said. “She’s turning the water into winter, icy with rage, reaching and ravaging, kill or be killed.” He blinked at Fenris with his big blue eyes. “She’s very angry, and so is he.”

“Great,” Varric said. “An angry spirit in an angry dragon. Always a winning combination.”

Fenris frowned at Cole. “Where on the lake?”

“Near the fishing camp,” he said. “I helped the fishermen escape. They’re safe.”

“Good,” Fenris said. “Let’s move.” He looked around at his companions. “What is the fastest way to get there?”

Blackwall frowned thoughtfully. “Back through Stone-Bear Hold, I believe.”

“It might actually be through the swamp,” Bull said.

“No,” Dorian said loudly. “No more of that damned swamp.”

“He’s right,” Fenris said. “We’re avoiding the swamp – too many wild beasts. We can’t afford to fight anything else along the way.”

Hawke laughed. “I suspect that’s not what Dorian’s complaint was about.”

Her tone was cheerful and light, and she was twisting her rings around her finger. Fenris squeezed her arm reassuringly. “Through Stone-Bear Hold, then,” he said. “Let’s go.”

They took off at a brisk jog, taking care to pace themselves and to preserve some stamina for the battle to come. For some time, the only sounds were their panting breaths and their pounding footsteps as they hurried to the Avvar settlement at a brisk but measured pace. But the silence was heavy and grim, and Fenris didn’t know how to break it.

Eventually, inevitably, Hawke spoke up. “So,” she said brightly. “Shall we sing a song to pass the time?”

Varric snorted. “Depends on what song you had in mind.”

Sera looked at Hawke in alarm. “Anything except for–”

Hawke interrupted her. “How about the Sera song?” she suggested.

Sera made a retching noise. “Ugh, no!”

Hawke grinned at her, then launched gustily into song. “Sera was never an agreeable girl: her tongue tells tales of rebellion. But she was soooo fast and quick with her bow, no one quite knew where she came from…”

Blackwall chuckled, then joined in with Hawke’s singing, and to Fenris’s mild surprise, Dorian joined in as well. Varric and Bull laughed, and Sera loudly groaned. “I hate this creepy song!” she complained. “Why’s that minstrel thingy got to pick on me...”  

Fenris shot Hawke a grateful glance, and she winked at him as she continued to sing. 

It wasn’t long before they were entering Stone-Bear Hold. The settlement was bustling after the battle, with families reuniting and healers hurrying back and forth to tend the wounded, but the Avvar who noticed Fenris and his companions called out to them in hearty tones.

“Oi, Inquisition! Lady guide your blades and bows!”

“Give Hakkon a good death, Fenris!”

Hawke laughed and called back to them, which Fenris was thankful for; he could barely think about anything at this moment but the pressing need to kill the Avvar dragon so he could be done with at least one horrible task.

Svarah was outside of her cave speaking with some of her people, and she waved Fenris over as he and his companions approached. “My boys told me you need mages,” she said. 

“Yes, if you can spare them,” Fenris said. “I apologize for yet another–”

She cut him off with an impatient wave. “They’re already down by the lake, as are my warriors with arrows and fire.”

Fenris raised his eyebrows. “They weren’t afraid to face the dragon?”

“They’re facing a god,” Svarah replied. “Honoured is what they are.” 

“I see,” Fenris said blankly. “Then you have our thanks.”

She nodded briskly. “We will ready a celebration for your return.”

“Oh,” Fenris said in surprise. “No, there’s no need–”

“A party?” Hawke chirped. “Oh, that’s fantastic! Isn’t that fantastic?” She elbowed Fenris and beamed at Svarah. “Sera and Dorian and I will dance for you! That’ll be sure to rouse everyone’s constitutions.” She wiggled her eyebrows salaciously.

Svarah gave her a rare smirk. “A wild one, you are. Fly true, Hawke. Lady keep you all.”

They resumed their route to the fishing camp at a faster pace, and true to form, Hawke resumed her usual routine of pre-battle banter to buoy everyone’s mood. “Anyone want to put bets on who will land the killing blow on our lovely friend Hakkon?”

“I will,” Blackwall said. 

Hawke patted his arm as they jogged along the cliffside path. “I knew I could count on you.”

Bull grinned at him. “You enjoy losing your coin, don’t you?”

Blackwall scoffed. “That’s a bit unkind.”

“S’true though,” Sera said. “You never get the pot!”

Blackwall shrugged affably. “I don’t mind, I enjoy a good gamble. And you should hope I win this time, Bull, seeing as my bet is on you.”

Hawke fanned herself playfully. “Ooh, such flattery.”

“It’s not flattery,” Bull said. “It’s an intelligent move. Which is why I will also bet on myself.”

Dorian tsked. “Of course you will.”

Bull patted Dorian’s bum. “Aren’t you betting on me, kadan?”

Dorian smacked his hand. “No,” he said. “I’m betting on Fenris.”

“Why me?” Fenris asked.

“Because you’ve landed the most killing blows thus far,” Dorian said. “That’s the intelligent move.” He made an apologetic little moue at Bull. “Sorry, amatus, I’m simply following the numbers.”

Blackwall frowned. “Wait, that’s not right.”

“Yes it is,” Dorian said. “Fenris has landed the kill on the most dragons.”

“I swear that’s not right,” Blackwall insisted. “It was Bull, wasn’t it?”

“You’ve both got it wrong,” Varric said. “It’s a tie.” 

“A tie between Fenris and Bull?” Dorian said. 

“Nope,” Varric replied. “Between Fenris and Cassandra.”

Sera cackled and clapped her hands, and Blackwall’s eyes widened. “How did I forget that?”

“Because you weren’t there every time,” Varric said. He jerked his head at Bull. “And neither was Tiny here.”

“That is true,” Bull said. “Otherwise I would have gotten the highest count.”

Fenris smirked at him. “Whatever helps you sleep at night.”

Bull elbowed Fenris playfully as the others chuckled, and Hawke tapped Varric’s shoulder. “What was the actual tally of killing blows for dragons, then?”

“Fenris and Cassandra had three each,” Varric said. “Bull landed two–”

Bull chuckled. “Those were good.”

Varric smirked at him. “Blackwall had one…”

“I am proud of that,” Blackwall put in.

“And the last one was Solas,” Varric finished.

“What!” Sera squawked. “He never!”

Hawke clapped her hands. “Oh Maker, he did! That’s right! He punched it in the face with the Fade!” She laughed. “Oh, Solas. All that subtlety and careful magic, and then boom, he punches a dragon in the face with a fist made out of the Veil.”

Sera wrinkled her nose. “Can’t be true. Too funny.”

“It is true,” Dorian said. “I couldn’t believe it either.” He sighed musically. “Ah, Solas, our enigmatic elven friend. How are you going to be depicting him in your book, Varric?”

“You’ll find out when you read it,” Varric said patiently.

Dorian pouted. “You aren’t any fun. Well, I think he’d want to be remembered as the most intelligent man in Thedas. Unfortunately for him, that title is already taken.”

Varric smirked up at him. “Aw, Sparkler, you flatter me.”

Dorian laughed heartily. “Oh, Varric, what a fine jest. No no, I meant myself, of course.”

Sera snorted, then poked Varric.“Two things: Bald head. Boring.”

“Being boring is how you get forgotten, Buttercup,” Varric said.

“Yeh, I know,” Sera said pointedly. “I wish I could.”

“Bare-faced but free,” Cole said. “Frolicking, fighting, fierce. He wants to give wisdom, not orders.”

Dorian shot him a funny look. “I don’t think Solas is really the frolicking sort, Cole.”

Then Hawke spoke up. “I think he’d want to be remembered for his knowledge. For trying to teach us what he knew.”

Varric gave her a sardonic look. “You’re the only one he tried to teach, Hawke.”

Hawke batted her eyelashes. “It’s hardly my fault that I’m so charming I can win over a spirit of wisdom.”

“A spirit of pride, my dear Hawke,” Dorian said.

Hawke waved her hand dismissively. “Ah, same thing.”

Bull scratched his chin. “I think he’d want to be remembered as–”

“Can we speak of something else?” Fenris interrupted.

The others fell silent, and Fenris immediately regretted his outburst. He shouldn’t have said anything, he knew, but he didn’t want to be reminded of Solas right now, not when they were about to walk into a major battle.  

It wasn’t even really the talk of Solas that was irritating him per se. Rather, it was the reminder of yet another worry that was waiting for him when he returned to Skyhold. In the nearly two years since Corypheus’s death, Leliana’s entire network of spies had failed to turn up anything of note regarding Solas’s sudden disappearance. In Fenris’s opinion, the complete and utter lack of information was the most damning evidence of all that Solas’s final words hinted at something ominous to come. 

Something ominous that Fenris might have been able to prevent, if only he’d pushed Solas a little harder about his strange and anachronistic ways.

Yet another thing that history may eventually vilify me for, he thought. Either that, or history would forget about him completely, just like it had done to Ameridan and Telana. All that sacrifice, that pain and heartache to save a nation that barely remembered they’d existed…

Not that Fenris cared about the recognition. He was already far more famous and recognizable than he’d ever wanted to be. It was the futility of his role that was rubbing him so raw. Everyone had always spoken of Fenris as being the natural choice for this role, the person who had fallen into the leadership position because it was meant for him, with the mark on his hand and his survival of the Conclave. Cassandra had always insisted that Fenris was exactly who they’d needed right when they’d needed him the most. And perhaps he had been needed when this had first started – when the Inquisition was new and struggling to find its footing after the attack on Haven. 

But Fenris wasn’t needed in that capacity anymore. The world no longer needed a symbol of hope in a time of terror, and Fenris was no longer the sole voice of authority in a world devoid of leaders. Cassandra was there to lead the Chantry, and the Empress of Orlais was cautiously cordial now with King Alistair and Queen Anora. The Free Marches were relatively stable, Sebastian having backed down from his untimely march on Kirkwall thanks to Leliana’s quick thinking as well as Fenris’s friendship. It had been months since they’d gotten a report of any Fade rifts that needed closing. In fact, the only thing that remained unchanged since all of this had begun was the anchor that was still buried in Fenris’s hand. 

The reasons that the Inquisitor had once been needed were no longer valid. Yet here Fenris was, still fulfilling a role whose value seemed to have run its course.  

Take moments of happiness where you find them, Ameridan had said. The world will take the rest. The problem was this: Fenris didn’t want just the moments. He didn’t want to lie back and allow the world and its endless demands to swallow him whole. All this time, ever since Corypheus had died, he’d ceded to Leliana and Josephine’s statements that he was needed more than ever. He’d ceded to the inevitability of his role as the Inquisitor, never questioning that his decisions and his judgment were necessary to foster the rebuilding of the world. It had never really occurred to him to question his place in all of this. He had fantasized about leaving the Inquisition, certainly – about taking Hawke’s hand and leaving all of this behind without a second glance. But he had never truly considered it in any real way.

Now, having seen how things had ended with Ameridan, Fenris was really thinking about it, and what it would mean if he… if he stepped down from the Inquisition.

Read the rest on AO3. 

[kaile-hultner]

Dialogues With A Dreg, Part Four

Spoilers for Destiny and Destiny 2 ahead.

Hello, Guardian.

Let’s drop the allegory for a while. I don’t think it was working to begin with, and I prefer to speak plainly instead of in prose.

I love the game you serve as the protagonist in, at least mechanically. Part of the reason I’ve put nearly a thousand hours in piloting you around and clicking on enemy heads is because I’m chasing that satisfying “pop” when something’s brain explodes after I get them with a linear fusion rifle. I guess it’s better than being addicted to drugs or alcohol or video games with gambling mechan- oh shit god dammit wait, fuck, there’s Eververse here, I forgot.

Anyway, Destiny 2 has my full buy-in when it comes to gameplay, as I think it’s grabbed many folks in its three-year lifespan. I’m not as big a fan of the many modes to choose from in the game, and I think the story – when looked at holistically – is more-or-less a wash. But one aspect I can’t ignore is one I’ve tried to reason out in these Dialogues: Bungie, the game’s developer, wants me to live at least part-time in this world, and there are certain ramifications that come with that.

I first noticed these ramifications during the Faction Rallies in D2Y1, when it asked me to pick a faction and fuck shit up across the solar system. I picked what I thought was the coolest-looking faction, a group of (it turned out) thanatonautic, neoliberal warmongers calling themselves Future War Cult. They basically killed themselves over and over to see the future, and as a result they want Guardians everywhere to become absolute war machines. But as far as I could see, they were a “better” option than the other two factions: Dead Orbit, who just wanted to get the fuck out of the solar system and away from the Traveler, our slumbering charge, and New Monarchy.

New Monarchy is the MAGA hat gang of Destiny 2. They want to keep humanity safe by locking them inside the Last City, forming an eternal Guardian-led kingdom, and ruling with an iron fist. Yeesh.

In my first Faction Rally, I fought hard for FWC. I liked the gear they were giving me, not to mention the guns I could earn from them. They had an aesthetic I liked, and the story of thanatonautics is interesting enough for me to want to know more about how all that worked. But I didn’t like the insistence that we “reclaim” the far-flung reaches of the solar system, as if they belonged to us inherently. I didn’t like the ramping-up, constant drumbeat for war they were throwing out. Even if Lakshmi-2, FWC’s leader, seemed like the eye of a hurricane – calm, yet clearly still dangerous – the hurricane she was the center of was starting to irk me.

I’m sorry to say I didn’t drop FWC in subsequent Rallies, even if I wasn’t as enthusiastic about them as I was initially. If I could pick again, though, I know now I’d pick Dead Orbit. They had it the most right, plus Peter Stormare plays Arach Jalaal, the faction’s leader, which is just cool.

But the winner of pretty much every rally was New Monarchy. I couldn’t see the appeal, even if you stripped the clear trump-ass bullshit away. But a LOT of other Destiny 2 players fought for them, and they were the victors constantly. Bungie took the Faction Rally away in D2Y2, but it basically put me on an inexorable thought track to where we are today.

Simply put, I think the world that Destiny 2 is advocating for is at best a fascist one. At worst, we’re talking about reinstating the divine right of kings. Not only does mortal humanity lose in this bargain, but every other living creature inhabiting our solar system suffers for it as well.

Now, Guardian, I can see that this is an unwelcome statement to hear. I get it. After spending the entire five years of your existence thanklessly putting around the solar system and killing gargantuan, god-level threats to humanity and life itself, watching some nerdy, doughy writer cast aspersions on everything you do probably extends past irritation and into wishing you could shoulder-charge me into Glimmer particles. But I want to be clear: yours isn’t the only video game world – or even the only sci-fi world in general – that does this. As Nic Reuben (the original Destiny 2 fascism warner) put it in his 2017 post on the subject, Bungie writers are “blindly following a set of culturally encoded science-fantasy tropes”:

“‘True leaders are born. It’s genetic. The right to rule is inherited.’ Any time you play as a really, really ridiculously good looking person killing mobs of ugly things for a vaguely defined reason, you’re witnessing this kind of ideology first hand.”

One thing I would like to point out, though, before we continue: Guardian, I know you personally. I’ve fought as you across the stars. I know you don’t inherently want to rule over anything. You are intentionally a blank slate, you never voice your own desires except for that one time when a possessed Awoken prince killed your best ramen bud, and I want to believe that the only thing you want — which is the only thing I want — is to race Sparrows on Mars. But the version of you I play as is not the only version of you that exists. There are over a million of you. And aside from that million iterations of you that exist in this game world, there are others who absolutely want to rule. It’s high time to interrogate this world.

Fantasy Space Fascism: The Game

In his book Against the Fascist Creep, freelance journalist and Portland State Ph.D candidate Alexander Reid Ross defines fascism as “an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for the ‘new man.'” He continues:

“Fascism is also mythopoetic insofar as its ideological system does not only seek to create new myths but also to create a kind of mythical reality (ed. emphasis mine), or an everyday life that stems from myth rather than fact. Fascists hope to produce a new kind of rationale envisioning a common destiny that can replace modern civilization. The person with authority is the one who can interpret these myths into real-world strategy through a sacralized process that defines and delimits the seen and the unseen, the thinkable and the unthinkable.

“That which is most commonly encouraged through fascism is producerism, which augments working-class militancy against the ‘owner class’ by focusing instead on the difference between ‘parasites’ (typically Jews, speculators, technocrats, and immigrants) and the productive workers and elites of the nation. In this way, fascism can be both functionally cross class and ideologically anticlass, desiring a classless society based on a ‘natural hierarchy’ of deserving elites and disciplined workers. By destroying parasites and deploying some variant of racial, national, or ethnocentric socialism, fascists promise to create an ideal state or suprastate – a spiritual entity more than a modern nation-state, closer to the unitary sovereignty of the empire than political systems of messy compromises and divisions of power.”

Ross, A. R. (2017). Against the Fascist Creep. AK Press.

The Destiny franchise begins with you, a freshly-reborn Guardian, shooting and punching your way through a hive of vaguely-arachnid aliens your Ghost companion calls “Fallen.” You find a decrepit jumpship deep in the heart of the Old Russia Cosmodrome, which your Ghost fires up and uses to take you to the “last safe city on Earth,” a walled metropolis underneath the Traveler. You first meet with the Vanguard triumvirate, Titan Commander Zavala, Warlock Ikora, and Hunter Cayde-6, and then, after completing some tasks for them, you are granted an audience with the Speaker (voiced by Bill Nighy):

“THE SPEAKER: There was a time when we were much more powerful. But that was long ago. Until it wakes and finds its voice, I am the one who speaks for The Traveler.

“You must have no end of questions, Guardian. In its dying breath, The Traveler created the Ghosts to seek out those who can wield its Light as a weapon—Guardians—to protect us and do what the Traveler itself no longer can.

“GUARDIAN: What happened to it?

“THE SPEAKER: I could tell you of the great battle centuries ago, how the Traveler was crippled. I could tell you of the power of The Darkness, its ancient enemy. There are many tales told throughout the City to frighten children. Lately, those tales have stopped. Now… the children are frightened anyway. The Darkness is coming back. We will not survive it this time.

“GHOST: Its armies surround us. The Fallen are just the beginning.

“GUARDIAN: What can I do?

“THE SPEAKER: You must push back the Darkness. Guardians are fighting on Earth and beyond. Join them. Your Ghost will guide you. I only hope he chose wisely.”

Bungie. Destiny. Activision Entertainment, 2015.

This introduction to the world of Destiny is… shockingly reductive. Even playing the campaign when this happens, my first thoughts were, “wait so we’re not even smart or good enough to hear the children’s scary stories about the history of this world? what the fuck?” But over the course of years, we find out more and more about the so-called Golden Age of Humanity, the tools humans built with implied assistance from the Traveler, the various rich families and corporate megaliths that consolidated power over people across the solar system in the years and decades leading to the arrival of the Darkness and the ensuing Collapse.

Not only that, we start to get a pretty clear image of what life was like immediately following the Collapse. Humanity was almost driven to extinction, and the people left alive after this apocalypse soon wished they were dead. The Traveler “defeated” the Darkness but in the process put itself into something similar to an emergency reboot mode. It deployed the Ghosts, who resurrected people who could, as the Speaker put it, “wield its Light as a weapon,” but the first of these “Risen” were nothing short of horrific. They used their Ghosts’ regeneration and resurrection powers to become regional warlords, subjugating what few mortal people remained, draining the desolate wastes of what few resources they had, and basically sealing the deal on the “Dark Age” brought on by the Collapse. It wasn’t until the advent of the Iron Lords that these warlords were defeated and the “age of Guardians” could begin, but even the Iron Lords did some pretty heinous shit – like use a whole town of mortals as bait to lure in a band of warlords on the run.

But when it comes to creating a mythical reality, the Speaker has his formula down pat. Don’t get too bogged down with details, paint the conflict in stark good vs. evil, literal “Light vs. Darkness” broad strokes, and mythologize the actions of Guardians (but most importantly, our Guardian). And oh, what fodder for mythology we are.

By the end of the first campaign, we’re the hero who severed the connection between the Hive, the Vex and the Traveler and tore out the heart of the Black Garden. By the end of The Taken King, we’ve slain a god-king. In the Rise of Iron expansion, we stop the spread of a virulent nanoparticle with murderous intent called SIVA in its tracks, using nothing but our fists. In Destiny 2, we become the Hero of the Red War, the one who put an end to a Vex plot to sterilize all worlds, and who killed a Hive Worm God. We avenge our fallen Hunter Vanguard, we kill a Taken Ahamkara. We are the hub on which the spokes of history are turning.

In terms of video game power fantasies, I really truly can’t imagine a better-feeling one. It’s basically pure uncut dopamine being transmitted directly to the pleasure centers of the brain, one Herculean feat at a time. And if we were the only Guardian, if we were not part of a larger world, if everything around us was in a vacuum, I don’t know if I would be writing this article. But Bungie has been very clear about wanting to make a world where our actions do materially affect our surroundings. As such, we are essentially a walking propaganda tool for the Consensus, a pseudo-democratic government over the Last City, consisting of faction leaders, the Vanguard and the (now-presumed-dead, hasn’t been replaced) Speaker.

The Consensus wants badly to declare the advent of the New Golden Age, a time in which Humanity can finally emerge from under the shadow of the Traveler to pick up where it left off prior to the Collapse. The problem we supposedly face is the never-ending onslaught of Enemies. Four alien species showed up on our doorstep after the Collapse, all seeking to finish us off (according to the Speaker): the Fallen, the Cabal, the Hive/Taken, and the Vex.

Of the four-ish races of enemy, only one can said to be truly, deeply “evil” in the sense the Speaker intends: the Hive and Taken, led by Taken King Oryx and his sisters Sivu Arath and Savathun, the only force in the galaxy more fascist than the Guardians. The Vex are a race of machines whose only focus is on making more of themselves, a threat similar to SIVA. The other two alien forces, the Fallen and the Cabal, are certainly antagonistic toward Guardians but our initial reasons for fighting them are, frankly, butt-ass stupid. Basically, we fight them because they’re there. They have the audacity to land on planets that “belong to us” and scavenge resources from them. Until the Red Legion showed up on Earth, we basically only ever fought Cabal on Mars, and there’s really no reason as to why.

The Fallen, or Eliksni, on the other hand, end up coming off more as the tragic victims of our flippantly rampant genocidaire practices than actual “enemies.” They’re probably the weakest alien species we come up against. Their backstory involves them living in peace under the Traveler before their entire society was caught up in a Collapse-like “Whirlwind” and destroyed. Rather than give them Guardians, like it did with us, the Traveler instead just up and peaced out, leaving the Eliksni for dead against the maelstrom of the Darkness. The surviving “Fallen” got in their skiffs and desperately chased the Traveler across the heavens, stratifying the remnants of their society into “houses” and developing religious devotion to machines like Servitors in the process.

They tried to take the Traveler back at the Battle of the Five Fronts and Twilight Gap, and lost. Their armies were shattered, and we’ve been nonchalantly killing them en masse ever since. They are the “parasites” our Guardian must exterminate, along with the Hive, Cabal, and Vex. When we make friends with, or even simply allies with, a Fallen (like Variks the Loyal, Mithrax the Forsaken, or the Spider), it is made clear almost immediately that this 100 percent doesn’t change the relationship we have with the Fallen as a group. Variks is absolutely subservient to Mara Sov and the Awoken. Mithrax wants to create an Eliksni House that bows down to Guardians and Humanity for being “better stewards” of the Traveler than the Eliksni was. The Spider makes it clear that he only wants to grow his crime syndicate, but that we can help him out if we want. Never once does the Vanguard or the Consensus reach out to these allies and try to broker peace. And in-game, we simply don’t have an option but to fire on and kill Eliksni in droves. Kill or be “killed,” right?

When it comes to Humanity itself, while we never get a chance to actually leave the Tower and walk through the streets of the Last City, there are at least hints as to the deep class stratification at work here. You can’t get much more on-the-nose than an ivory tower of immortal beings overlooking an enclosed human race. Guardians atop humanity, the Speaker above the Vanguard over the Consensus over the people, and you, the very fulcrum on which history pivots, functionally over everything else. But in the mythical reality of this game, it’s really the Traveler über Alles, and humanity underneath the Traveler has become a wonderful, diverse melting pot without class, without fear. An ideal state where the walls keep Darkness at bay and humanity can discover the joys of tonkotsu ramen yet again.

A Light Story Vs. Lore Steeped in Darkness

Destiny has a reputation, unfairly earned, for being an okay game with a bad story, or at best a nonexistent one. The story isn’t really all that bad, it’s just poorly implemented up front, and I think my willingness to engage with the game’s world to the extent that I have is a testament to how powerful and evocative some of the beats in Destiny’s writing truly are. If we dissect the game we can separate the writing of the “story” from the writing of the “lore,” and in watching the plot develop over the past few years, we can see a gradual unification of these two areas start to occur.

This is helped greatly by third-party resources like Ishtar Collective, and by mechanical decisions Bungie made in D2Y2. Adding the lore back into the game with Forsaken was a good idea; choosing to fully integrate the lore into the world starting with Season of the Forge was a great one.

A side-effect of this lore-plot unification is a dismantling-in-real-time of some of the game’s most beloved and widely-spread legends, like the legend of Shin Malphur and Dredgen Yor. Even our personal legend is challenged in this way, and it’s a really neat way that Bungie writers new and old are critically engaging with their work. But it also really throws into stark relief some of the issues I’ve laid out in this article so far.

Take, for example, the lore book “Stolen Intelligence.”

Presented to us as intercepted secret Vanguard transmissions, “Stolen Intelligence” shows us exactly what the Vanguard really thinks of our actions, and what their goals really are. It was part of Season of the Drifter, which overall had a “trust no one” vibe to it, but some of the entries here are BLEAK, y’all.

Here’s an excerpt from the first entry, titled “Outliers.”

“Fallen armed forces continue to fall back from active fronts across Terra. Factions of House Dusk remain active in the European Dead Zone. Throughout the rest of the globe, refugee attack incidents have dropped by more than 70 percent since the conclusion of the Red War – largely attributable to depressed Fallen and human populations rather than any significant change in interspecies relations.

[…]

“The recent trending emergence of so-called “crime syndicates” (cf. report #004-FALLEN-SIV) is emblematic of the continuing destructuralization of Fallen society. Likely an artifact of multi-generational colonization of human strongholds, this agent believes that because these syndicates have no relation to indigenous Fallen culture, young Fallen are appropriating and imitating human mythology in absence of a strong cultural heritage of their own.

[…]

“VIP #3987, another former confederate of the Awoken, is a lesser-known personality known as Mithrax. Scattered field reports suggest that like #1121, #3987 styles himself a Kell of the so-called “House Light,” an otherwise unknown House apparently founded by #3987 himself. We have secondhand accounts that Mithrax has engaged in allied operations with Guardians in the field, though we have not as yet been able to corroborate these accounts with any degree of veracity. This agent is inclined to treat these reports with a healthy degree of skepticism until otherwise confirmed, as they may be propaganda from Fallen sympathizers in the Old Russian and Red War Guardian cohorts. We have requested intelligence records from the Awoken which may further clarify the matter.

“In addition, whatever the findings of said intelligence records may be, it should be stressed that one or two sympathetic outliers cannot be relied upon to erase the wrongs of past centuries, nor should their good-faith efforts to correct the sins of their forbears be taken as sufficient symbolic reparation.

[…]

“We have come too far to pull our punches now.”

Bungie. Destiny 2: Forsaken – Season of the Drifter. Lore Book: Stolen Intelligence. Outliers. Activision Entertainment, 2019.

Here’s another piece of “Stolen Intelligence,” about our relationship with Cabal Emperor Calus:

“Related to the above, #3801’s aggressive propaganda campaign appears to have been successful. Despite #3801’s recent inactivity, sentiment polls captured in the Tower at regular intervals over the last several months indicate that he has successfully swayed a significant percentage of the Red War cohort to believe that he may be a potential ally. Given our history with the Cabal as well as the events of the Red War itself, this is shocking and perhaps attributable to a case of mass traumatic bonding.

“It is my strong recommendation that the Vanguard pursue a reeducation curriculum before #3801 invites any Guardians of the City to defect to his service, a possibility which we have documented in multiple previous reports.”

Bungie. Destiny 2: Forsaken – Season of the Drifter. Lore Book: Stolen Intelligence. Passivity. Activision Entertainment, 2019.

Other entries detail the efforts of the Vanguard from keeping ostensible “conspiracy theories” from being published in the Cryptarchy’s journals; show the apparent oddity of mortal-Guardian “integrated neighborhoods;” and discuss the ongoing surveillance of the Drifter, a rogue Lightbearer who has survived since the early Dark Ages and who uses Darkness-aligned technology to run a PVEVP game called “Gambit”.

There are many other stories like these, scattered throughout the lore. Stories of Cryptarchy students being banished for making fun of New Monarchy’s leaders, of Guardians messing with Hive technology being burned alive and killed fully by the Praxic Order for their crimes of experimentation. Stories like these wouldn’t happen – couldn’t happen! – to our Guardian, because they’re too important, but are seemingly everyday occurrences to less consequential members of this society. In the real world, we’d call that an increasingly oppressive police state. In Destiny 2, it’s just flavor text.

There was a degree of narrative complexity added to Season of the Drifter that hadn’t been in the game prior. The entire season was essentially boiled down to “which side are you on, the Drifter’s or the Vanguard’s,” and in our path to make a choice, we heard from various bit players in our world. The Drifter told us his story in greater detail than perhaps we needed (and how much of it is true is debatable), but his story is also the story of a less morally-pure Guardian class. Everyone from the warlords to the Iron Lords did heinous shit to humanity while the Drifter watched, and it hardened him. The Praxic Warlock Aunor goes all in on her adherence to the City’s propaganda and ideology, trying to show us how untrustworthy the Drifter is. She ends up revealing more of her order’s goals than perhaps was wise.

This narrative complexity is nice, but it still betrays the game in a fundamental way. We now have the documents. We know what Guardians are actually about, and how they’re not exactly shining beacons of unwavering good like the Speaker would have had us believe. Regardless of declining Fallen activity, of a shift in Fallen culture, of actual living Fallen who want to ally with Guardians, the Vanguard is still adamantly pursuing “extirpation,” which is a fancy way of saying genocide (I’m not kidding, it literally means “root out and destroy completely”). We know the Vanguard and the Praxic Order have a hard-on for exile, reeducation and information suppression.

On top of everything, the narrative complexity was not met with any kind of mechanical complexity. Even with proof that the Vanguard wants to kill every Eliksni in the system, conscientious objectors don’t get to opt out. The narrative path that forks between the Drifter and Aunor converges again by the end of the quest. The “conspiracy theorist” that has been trying to publish paper after paper detailing exactly how the Nine worked with Dominus Ghaul to sneak his fleet into City airspace undetected was proven right by lore WE FIND IN THE GAME, but that doesn’t change our combat relationship with the Cabal remnants anywhere in the system, and homeboy still gets his papers rejected.

Ikora and Zavala, our remaining Vanguard members, insist repeatedly that Guardians are not a warfighting force, that the Vanguard and the Consensus is not an authoritarian organization. But everything we do says otherwise.

“A peace born from violence is no peace at all.”

Guardians do not get to choose their paths in the world of Destiny 2. The paths laid out before them lead to a life of warfare, of pain, of endless murder. Ostensibly, they are agents of good, trying to beat back the forces of evil, but if you look too close you see that really they’re just a bunch of indiscriminate killers with a mandate from the Orb God. Desperate to get out from under the heels of warlords, the Guardians created a fascist society, and adding insult to injury they pretend it’s a democratic, free one. Killing the Fallen is genocide, but you can literally never stop killing them because the game won’t let you. The only right way to play at that point is to turn off your console and go outside.

Destiny 2 isn’t the only video game to fall into this trap. As Nic Reuben said in the follow-up piece to his first story on how Destiny 2 is fascist, “I’m not saying Destiny is propaganda, just reliant on some of the same narrative tricks that make propaganda so powerful. At the same time, I don’t think that it’s too much of a stretch to say that games like Call of Duty make certain assumptions about what is justifiable, righteous slaughter and what is terrorism. Replace modern military hardware with future tech, replace terrorists with alien races that have traits synonymous with cartoon portrayals of traditionally marginalized social groups, and you’re effectively playing through the worst aspects of Call of Duty with a new coat of a paint.”

There is one glimmer of hope in the game. One sliver of lore that gives us pause and helps make the game bearable in its current state. It comes in the form of Lady Efrideet, former Iron Banner handler, youngest member of the Iron Lords, and a Guardian in self-exile from the City, the Vanguard, and its fascist dogma.

Lady Efrideet is one of the most fearsome Hunters in the Destiny universe. She is known as one of the best marksmen, if not the best one. She is impossibly strong, having once thrown Lord Saladin bodily off a mountain into a Fallen Spider Walker, destroying it. And she is also one of the only named pacifist Guardians who isn’t a member of the Cryptarchy. Her story is the story of the fall of the Iron Lords, as well as the beginning of the SIVA crisis, many years before our Guardian’s rise is documented.

But it isn’t SIVA or the Iron Lords that we’re interested in. Instead, we know that after SIVA was sealed away, Efrideet snuck away from Earth. She saw the deaths of everyone she knew and her will to fight was shattered. If this was the result of fighting for the Traveler, she didn’t want any part in it. So she took to the stars. In doing so, she ended up in the far reaches of the solar system, beyond even where we currently roam. It turns out, a small enclave of other Lightbearers, hesitant or unwilling to use their powers to kill, had also fled to this part of the system and had established a colony. It’s there that Efrideet resides, and it’s there I’d like to go.

Unfortunately, our Guardian is too “important” to the vast tidal forces at work in the Destiny universe for us to be able to leave for the outer reaches whenever we want. Because we are the hub on which the wheel of history turns, and there is no escaping that now, if ever we could. We are death, the flattening of a complex and intricate universe into one of simple shapes, the sword logic in a human/Awoken/Exo body. We are needed for the plans of the Nine/Mara Sov/Hive Queen Savathun to come to fruition. When or if the Darkness ever does come back, we will be the force that faces it and, win or lose, shape our future afterward.

Sometimes it’s nice having a video game place your character on a linear track. Games like Half-Life or Titanfall present to us simple choices in otherwise-complex story environments: progress, or die. Our characters are not immortal, but they have help from the technologies around us, are tenacious, are resourceful, are quick to adapt to changing situations. In Destiny, we simply exist. We can’t truly die. Even when it comes to the rules of the game, our immense “paracausality” causes us to shrug Darkness Zones off as mere inconveniences where other Guardians have died their final deaths. Because we are necessary. The Vanguard and Consensus need us to justify their horrific fascist policies. The great forces at work in the background need us to work as a pawn. Even Bungie itself needs us, powerful, trapped beings with a sense of right and wrong but no agency to actually act on those ethics, to continue its game.

I haven’t preordered Shadowkeep yet. For once I’m glad we’re not focusing on the Fallen or the Cabal. Going to the Moon means we’ll pretty much just be dealing with Hive, to say nothing of the unreal Nightmares we’re supposed to face. But I’m still undecided as to whether I even want to order Shadowkeep in the first place. If Lady Efrideet can go to the edge of known space and live peacefully with other pacifist Guardians, maybe I can put my controller down and step away, once and for all. It would be nice to have the extra space on my Xbox One’s hard drive. Other games exist to be played, and having the time and energy to do so would help me here, with No Escape.

But even then. I’m not expressing agency as a Guardian, but rather as the person who controls you, Guardian. While I go off to play other games, you sit and wait in stasis. Even if I don’t play, there are a million iterations of you willing to commit genocide daily for cheap rewards (shoutouts to the sixtieth Edge Transit drop in my inventory this month alone). Sure, it’s just a game. But this is what having a dynamic world means in practice. There are consequences to your actions. There always have been.

There is no reason why Humanity couldn’t share the Traveler’s gifts with, at the very least, the Eliksni. There is no reason why we couldn’t just ignore the Cabal in a state of mutually assured destruction, given how small a faction the Red Legion was relative to the Cabal army’s full size. Of the two remaining enemies, the Vex are less evil than they are simply a thing that wants the universe to be like it, and that’s threatening to diverse life throughout the universe, not just Humanity. The Hive/Taken are the true enemies in the game, but even they are directed, pawn-like, by their Worm Gods.

There is, likewise, no reason why the Risen had to organize in the fascist context they did. They could have created a society in which everyone could come and go freely, where ideas and actions could be given and received absent interference, where a true “golden age” could have sprung up naturally simply by living together harmoniously and using the Light the Traveler gave them to create, rather than destroy.

But that’s not how this story shakes out.

[killforyouliveforme]

Oswald Cobblepot/Reader Imagine: “Show Me a Magic Trick”

Oswald was not interested in magic tricks. He neither cared for the illusions nor did he pay much attention to the fascination behind the eye tricks...that was until he started running his own casino.

Magicians, he thought. Congenial, conventionally one in the same, and not a single one was worth payment.

That was until he saw you.

You worked in the casino, but that was not to say he had hired you himself. A general did little in recognizing every foot soldier, and thereby, you had only caught his eye as if by happenstance.

Like his other associates that worked for him, you were dressed in the black-and-white uniform, imitating much like his original sense of extravagant fashion while still appearing like a common part of the rabble. Your hair was dolled up, makeup on just ‘so’ and you worked at a table, primarily Black Jack.

That was your table. It was your game.

Penguin’s Casino was no more corrupt than some of the slime balls that came to play; so naturally, you played your crooked tricks as you had been trained except your tricks were less obvious. Flirting and playing distractedly coy wasn’t your game; you liked magic tricks.

Slip an ace out from the deck when you knew the gamblers were counting cards; put out a random King of Hearts when they were expecting a ten of Spades or even a two of Diamonds.

They wanted to play the system? They were better off cheating on their taxes than tangling with the likes of you.

Every now and then, a wisecracker would come in and try to outsmart you; but you were always one step ahead.

And penguin noticed.

You came out with the most tokens, you saved him the most pennies; that was something eye-catching; your beauty was just a second-baller.

Just as you had called the Bouncer to kick another Counter out of your game (and therefore out of the building), you were graced with Penguin’s presence not a second after.

He approached you. Raven hair, a slight fringe that was combed back and stiffened with a combination of mousse, gel, and hair spray. Wearing a black suit, gold and ocean blue tie that bedazzled the moment he approached you under the high beams of the fluorescent lights.

Oswald Cobblepot was beautiful.

You knew that.

Did he?

“What does that bring you to?” Oswald asked, smiling at you.

“Sorry?”

He gestured to the cash counter behind your desk center, a small tap of his cane against its wooden undercarriage.

“‘Bout six figures,” you answered dutifully. With a small sly smile, “and about fifty cents.”

“It is very seldom I have change.”

“He spent his parking meter change—thought that would buy him extra time, but really it cost him the game, and what likely will be more important, his car.”

“Sounds more like a loss.”

“Only if you look at it in his perspective,” you stated apathetically.

Your lack of empathy for the card-counter’s overall loss and what was ultimately his gain struck a pleasant chord in Oswald, so much that he genuinely smiled.

Amused.

“What’s your name?” He asked.

“Does that really matter?”

“To me, it does.”

You tell him your name.

He smiles again: *Flattered*.

“How long have you been working here?”

“At this post?”

“In this establishment,” he corrects you almost immediately.

“About two months.”

He frowns. He’s only *now* recognized you for your impressive feat. Now he seems more or less embarrassed for asking, but you smile, unabashed.

“I’ve noticed your magic tricks,” Oswald cares to change the subject, to avoid any further humility on his part.

As a point, you shuffle the deck and pull out an Ace of Spades, handing it to him. He takes it, more or less to appease you for his previous humiliation and hope that this small gesture will do.

“Why did you give me this?” He asks.

“That’s me,” you tell him, pointing at the card.

“Pardon?”

“I’m your Ace in the Hole. Metaphorically speaking.”

“In what other way could it be?”

“Physically speaking.”

He blushes bright pink at your blunt, however, brave pass at him. It isn’t often that he receives such straightforward attention; every now and then he gets a small gesture or a eye looking at him a certain way, but yours is the most direct.

Embarrassed, although in a way he prefers more, he hands you the card.

“Show me a magic trick.” He says.

“What type do you want to see?”

“Whatever it is you use against my clientele.”

“That would require you to play a game. My game.”

He is humbled by your business-like response, even more puzzled by the slight retraction of your flirtatious behavior. He noticed you didn’t retract the pass itself; and that titillates him.

He sits in front of your table, cane placed against the wooden centerpiece, hands folded over the other as you lay one card down after the other.

The game is played like any other. Innocent, for the most part. Until you notice that he has stopped playing for amusement and started playing for certain.

He starts counting cards.

You’re onto him.

“Hit me,” he says.

He’s up to 19. He’s expecting an Ace or a 2. You do your thing; unknown to him, you’ve already slipped the cards under the deck, rather than up your sleeve as most movie and tv show enthusiastic gamblers try to protest.

When you reveal the card as a Jack of Clubs, you tap your forefinger on its suit and say politely, “That’s a bust, sir.”

“And where are they?” He asks.

You reveal to him that the cards have been in the deck this entire time.

“Subtle,” Oswald notes, smiling at you. “I was watching for it.”

“I’m very subtle,” you tell him.

“How subtle are you in other games?”

“Russian Roulette is a gamble in itself; I don’t play ‘craps’ myself, to be honest.”

“What games, then?”

“I have a handy trick when it comes to ‘War’ and ‘Old Maid’.”

He stares at you for a whole minute before realizing that you were joking.

“That’s quite a magic trick.”

“Thank you.”

He takes his cane from the table, fully entertained. Then he admits to you that he is not particularly fond of magic.

“Then why did you do all this?” You ask him, referring to his time spent with you rather than going to one of his monotonous meetings or attending a one-on-one riddle-thon with one of his more extraordinary companions.

“You have me all wrong,” Oswald reassures. “I have no interest in magic—in fact, for the most part, it bores me. Magicians on the other hand” (you smile as he nods admirably in your direction) “are quite a different subject, altogether.”

He holds out his hand; you take it, and he kisses the back of your hand as soft as subtlety can allow it. There’s a small spark in your heart and a flicker of his own appeal gleams from his eyes.

“I’ll play another game this afternoon.” He reassures you. “But this time, I intend to win.”

“I’ll be sure that you won’t.” You return challengingly, and he chuckles as he leaves.

But as you continue to befuddle your players and watch the bouncers escort angry customers out from your table and the casino, Oswald glances back in your direction.

Never a riddle has ever intrigued him more than when Ed Nygma came into his life. Never a magic trick ever bedazzle him more than when he noticed you.

Fate had her way of bringing people into his life in ways he never considered before.

[ground-zero-idiocies]

Hey, could you do max luck couriour telling the nv companions that they got all of their money via blackjack?

Indeed I can! I also included some other friends from the Mojave.

Fallout New Vegas Companions React to the Courier being a successful Gambling Addict

The courier and friends are reclining at the top of the lucky 38. All chat as the re-opened casino bustles below them. The courier tosses each companion a cap, and states

"I earned all of this gambling. 'Till I basically owned the Strip, I was banned from every Casino in the Mojave. I even got banned from a Ghost Casino in the North."

Arcade: "Look mailman, I like believing you and your crazy stories, but I refuse to believe that gambling, in Vegas no less, ever did any good for a common guy. I just don't buy it!"

Boone: "Like shit you did. Now I'm not one to judge where people get their earnings, but I don't buy the fact that you just pulled fifty thousand caps out of these casinos collective ass."

ED-E: Disbelieving beeps

Mr. House: "Don't pretend like this was some stroke of luck. My securitrons watched you at the Blackjack tables - you're a card counter, and a genius one at that, but don't go selling your story as just blind luck. Remember, without God-like computer chips in the brain calculating probabilities on the fly, the House always wins.

Raul: "Look Boss, I'm not gonna say I don't believe you, but I really don't believe you. There's no way you made that much by betting right every time. I just don't buy it. Still, I've learned not to question it."

Rex: Proud Barks

Tabitha: "GRANDMA ALWAYS RAISED A SMART LITTLE KID. I BELIEVE IT. DON'T EVER DOUBT THE COURIER EVER AGAIN. THEY ARE ONE IN A MILLION."

Veronica: "I knew you didn't actually run ten thousand caravan jobs! Man, a professional gambler? That's really cool. I can see you in my mind: hands touching your head, psychic powers predicting the next card...or just what ol' Computer Man said. Still cool!!

[askfreddiemercury]

I walk southeast out of Goodsprings then take another road heading south to Primm. I need to figure out if Johnson Nash can help me find the men (or the one guy) who shot me. The trail is long but luckily I'm used to how hot the day can get, even in the summertime. It makes me wish for nuclear winter.

~~~~~

Soon enough I finally make it to the famous gambling town of Primm, but I’m not allowed to survey the area just yet as I’m attacked by two people who don’t last very long against me.

Freddie: What a welcome party that was.

I reload my shotgun and take a look around. I see the Mojave Express first, the very place that hired me to be a courier, there’s also a man in front of the office, dead. Those people must’ve killed him some time ago. I rush over to him.

Freddie: Daniel Wyand huh. What’s this?

I pick up a note from his body. “Mojave Express Delivery Order (4 of 6)?” Guess this guy was a courier like me, looks like he made his delivery but must’ve been shot up by those people. His order is very similar to mine but he had to make a delivery of “Two (2) Oversized Dice, composed of fuzzy material.”

Freddie: Odd.

Leaving the note with the man, I turn to see “Vikki & Vance,” a pretty popular casino in Primm. Obviously. If people would hide anywhere from whoever is attacking the town it’s got to be in there.

~~~~~

As soon as I walk in an older man takes me aside.

Johnson: I don’t know what it was brought you to Primm, youngster, but you might want to rethink your plans. Town’s gone to hell.

Freddie: Uh, do you know where I can find the courier office?

Johnson: Sure do. I run the courier office out of my shop. Leastaways I did before things went to hell around here.

Freddie: I’m a courier with the Mojave Express.

Johnson: Well, I don’t got any work right now, sorry to say.

Freddie: I’d hate to say this, but I lost a package I was supposed to deliver.

Johnson: I’ll tell you whatever I can. Do you have a delivery order you can show me?

I pull out my order and hand it to him, he takes a look in which his expression changes.

Johnson: Oh, so you’re talking about one of them packages. That job had strange written all over it. But we couldn’t turn down the caps.

He hands the paper back to me.

Freddie: What was strange about it?

He places a finger over his chin.

Johnson: That cowboy robot had us hire six couriers. Each was carrying something a little different. A pair of dice, a chess piece, that kind of stuff. Last word I had from the office, it looked like payment had been received for the other five jobs. Guess it was just your chip that didn’t make it. First deadbeat we hired to do the job canceled. Hope a storm from the Divide skins him alive. Well, that’s where you came in.

A cowboy robot?! Could he mean Victor? If so, just what the hell is Victor up to? I also find it strange that my package was the only one to gone astray, even Daniel managed to deliver his before coming back to Primm and getting shot up while going to collect his bonus.

Freddie: You wouldn’t happen to know anything about the people who stole my package, would you?

Johnson: Well, now that you mention it, a few nights back one of the townies was out scavenging for supplies. He said he saw a fella with a daisy suit come through with some of them Great Khan misfits. They was talking about a chip.

Freddie: One of those men shot me. I need to know the best way to get to them.

Johnson: Well for that your best bet is going to be talking to Deputy Beagle. Since they came to town he was keeping a good bit of notes on them, and he was slinking around Bison Steve when your pretty-boy friend came through. He may have heard where they were going.

Freddie: Where might I find him?

Johnson: Last I heard he was locked up inside the Bison Steve. Those escaped convicts must’ve done so.

Freddie: Thank you. I’ll take care of any other convicts I see.

Johnson: Don’t go getting yourself shot now.

Nice joke, Nash, a bit too late for that now.

~~~~~

I head on over to the other casino, taking out other convicts I see along the way. Once I’m inside and I move around a counter, I see a man with his hands tied, kneeling on the floor.

Deputy Beagle: I don’t suppose you came here to recuse me? I’d cross my fingers but my hands are numb.

Freddie: You must be Deputy Beagle.

Deputy Beagle: Why, yes I am. It’s pleasure to meet you.

I’m in a bit of a predicament here. I’d be most appreciative if you’d set me free.

Freddie: I hear you may have information on some khans that came through here with a guy in a checkered suit.

He nods.

Deputy Beagle: My good sir, I believe I may have some information that would prove useful. If you would just untie my hands I’d be more than happy to share that information I have with you.

I untie the man and he stands up to stretch his hand around. What a relief that must be.

Freddie: So, what can you tell me about those guys?

Deputy Beagle: I overheard them saying that they are on their way to Novac. If you want to follow them I strongly suggest that you follow the road through Nipton. There are a lot of dangerous things out in the desert, and you won’t have me with you to protect you, as I need to stay here and keep Primm safe.

Freddie: Don’t you worry, Deputy, I can handle myself just fine. It’s going to take a lot more bullets to put me down.

I say proudly and with much confidence like I can definitely hold my own out there. I’m a simple mailman. I might as well not set my standards too high.

~~~~~

After helping around Primm for awhile and even getting my first companion, a friendly little eyebot named ‘ED-E’ like the rusted license plate on the side of its body says, ED-E and I head east towards Nipton. But as soon as I see the town, I see smoke rising from many buildings! What’s going on?! I rush forward and see a man running towards me, but he seems, happy?

Oliver: Yeah! Who won the lottery? I did! Smell that air! Couldn’t ya just drink it like booze!

Freddie: What sort of lottery did you win?

Oliver: What lottery? The lottery, that’s what lottery! Are you stupid? Only lottery that matters! Oh my god smell that air!

Freddie: Alright, time for me to go.

Oliver: Later.

I get hit with whiplash on how calmly he said that but what lottery? Does it have something to do with why the town is burning? I look over a flag, it has a bull on it. I walk carefully into town and see a big pile of tires in middle burning away with a bunch of burned skeletons too. What is happening?

Walking towards the town hall I spot people that have been crucified on crosses, who would do such a thing?! I walk closer and these people in crimson armor walk towards me. One has the head of a wolf around his head, he must be the leader here. We stop a good distance from each other, he smiles.

Vulpes Inculta: Don’t worry, I won’t have you lashed to a cross like the rest of these degenerates. It’s useful that you happened by. I want you to witness the fate of the town of Nipton, to memorize every detail. And then, when you move on? I want you to teach everyone you meet the lesson that Caesar’s Legion taught here, especially any NCR troops you run across.

Why did he say Caesar like that? It sounded more like ‘Kai-sar.’ Also, who the hell does this guy think he is? Telling me what to do.

Freddie: What ‘lessons’ did you teach here?

Because putting someone on a cross to die sure is a lesson.

Vulpes Inculta: Where to begin? That they are weak, and we are strong? This much was known already. But the depths of their moral sickness, their dissolution? Nipton serves as the perfect object lesson.

Huh? The hell is he talking about?

Freddie: What exactly happened here?

While I can’t see his eyes I know he’s looking at me like I’m stupid by the way his mouth turned into a frown.

Vulpes Inculta: Nipton was a wicked place, debased and corrupt. It served all comers, as long as they paid. Profligate troops, Powder Gangers, men of the Legion such as myself - the people here didn’t care. It was a town of whores. For a pittance, the town agreed to lead those it had sheltered into a trap. Only when I sprang it did they realize they were caught inside it, too.

Is this guy even speaking English? What is this very old world tone?

Freddie: You captured everyone?

Vulpes Inculta: Yes, and herded them to the center of town. I told them their sins, the foremost being disloyalty. I told them that when Legionaries are disloyal, some are punished, the others made to watch. And I announced the lottery. Each clutched his ticket, hoping it would set him free. Each did nothing, even when “loved ones” were dragged away to be killed. We must go now, but be reminded that there will be more lessons to learn. Head the warning.

Vulpes and his men turn east and start walking. I have the choice to put an end to these guys but something is stopping me from pulling out my shotgun. These are bad people with bad intentions, what’s going on?! Maybe it’s fear, but of what I don’t know. Could be that there’s too many of them or maybe I’m just scared of Vulpes himself. Whatever the reason I must continue on my journey by heading northeast to find Novac.

Freddie: Let’s hurry, ED-E, before these guys decide to shoot us when we’re not looking.

He makes some beeps and boops conforming that we should go.

~~~~~

As I headed northbound, killing any wild creature that dares to attack me, I see what seems to be a large T-Rex statue. You don’t see that every day. This must be Novac. I get closer and see that it is, the sign out in front has gone from ‘No Vacancy’ to ‘Novac.’ I love that. I walk a little closer to admire that statue I see.. Victor?! I see him from the corner of my eyes and I can’t believe it! What’s he doing here?!

Victor: Well butter my butt and call me a biscuit, if it ain’t my old friend from Goodsprings!

Charming.

Freddie: What are you doing in Novac?

Victor: Don’t rightly know - I just got the notion to make my way to New Vegas. Reckon I’ll find out when I get there.

Freddie: Quite a coincidence us meeting like this.

I laugh nervously.

Victor: Seeing how this is the only road around, I’d be a sight more surprised if we didn’t run into each other from time to time.

Freddie: Just stay out of my way, robot.

Victor: I’ll let that slide seeing how you gotta mind full of vengeance for that no-good polecat and all.

He then carries on like normal, I better watch out for him in the future. ED-E and I walk into the main office of Novac.

Jeannie: Well. Welcome to you. You look tired from the road. Why don’t you relax a spell, let this fine town take care of you?

Freddie: I’m looking for a man in a checkered coat. Have you seen anyone like that?

Jeannie: Well he might’ve been wearing a fancy outfit, but he wasn’t any kind of a gentleman to me. Had his nose stuck so high in the air, you couldn’t see it above the clouds. City folk, they always think they deserve better than what they got. Those hoodlums he was with seemed to know Manny for some reason. He’s our daytime sniper, up in the dinosaur’s mouth.

So, those Great Khans know this Manny fellow, best have a talk with him.

Freddie: Thanks for the information, and yes I’ll be renting a room for tonight.

~~~~~

I tell ED-E to wait for me in the motel room, he beeps and floats off while I make my way into the dinosaur to talk with Manny, I walk into what seems to be a shop then walk some stairs to the sniper’s nest. As soon as I open the door, Manny turns around.

Manny: What’s going on, man?

Freddie: I’m looking for a man in a checkered coat.

Manny: Sure I know him. What do you want with him?

Freddie: I have a score to settle with him.

Manny: Doesn’t surprise me. Guy seemed like he’d do whatever it takes to get what he wants. Probably makes a lot of enemies. Well listen, I can definitely help you find him, but I’ve got problems of my own. Maybe we can do a trade. You need my help. There’s something I need, too.

Freddie: What do you need?

Manny then goes on to tell me a story about scavengers and ghouls, he goes on to ask me if I can go and clear out the nearby REPCONN test site from all the ghouls that sometimes like to wander a little too far from the test site. Alrighty, if I’m gonna get information out of him I need to do this job. I agree to help, so I go on and get ED-E to help me take these ghouls out.