#like both of those things Really escaped orbit in completely different directions

[mumblesplash]

haunted by the minuscule but nonetheless real possibility that i one day go to some sort of mc fan convention and meet someone with a hope poem tattoo drinking out of a minecraft bloodsports mug who has no clue they were both created by the same person

[gumnut-logic]

Gordon the Octopus

I finished one of the WIPs on my list. Admittedly, this is an older one amd I had a good chunk of it written, but I found an end to it tonight :D

Totally @godsliltippy​ ‘s fault. She sparked the idea back in August last year, I just took a long time to see it through.

Marks & Wings AU, lots of Virgil and Gordon, complete fluff, silliness and self indulgence. The first bit has been posted before, but that was ages ago and it works better as a whole rather than in bits so I’ve reposted the whole thing. 2332 words.

Thank you to all the kind Thunderfam who commented on my WIP list ::hugs you so much:: You guys continue to be amazing.

I hope you enjoy this :D

-o-o-o-

The sun touched the horizon and lit up everything in gold.

Virgil closed his eyes and let its waning warmth soak into his skin.

The breeze was gentle, little more than a tease. It caressed his cheeks, lingered in his hair and tantalised the tracings of his mark across his bare back.

He shivered.

He was wearing only an old pair of cut-off jeans between himself and the warm rock. His feet were bare and dangling in the cool water, his toes teased by the ebb and flow.

His soundscape was filled with that water. The ripples of the lagoon splashing against the rock he was sitting on, the distant surf outside the safety of the caldera.

The squabbles of the petrels on Mateo as they argued about roosts for the night.

It was home.

The day had been a good one. No rescues. A moment to relax and sit back. Each of them had disappeared to their own corners, dabbling in their own pastimes in order to wind down.

Alan had taken to the air in the morning. He hadn’t managed to escape a cautionary word from Scott about staying close to the Island, but that was nothing unusual.

Scott said that to all of them.

Their youngest hadn’t been gone long, choosing only to stretch his golden wings with a few loops of their tiny volcanic rock in the middle of nowhere. Virgil had taken the moment to look up and watch his little brother swoop and dive, golden wings quite a sight in the early morning sun.

Scott and John, of course, were all about catching up on work. Virgil had to intervene at about midday and demand they eat. John was yanked down from orbit with a little extra threat from Grandma.

Virgil had been so happy to see his space brother. A little math and he realised he hadn’t seen him in the flesh for over two weeks.

John indulged him a hug as he knew Virgil craved a physical connection to ground him. Virgil was gentle, knowing that those two weeks in zero gravity would make his brother sensitive to touch.

But he had to.

The spark of connection as their minds reacted was like a tension release. Virgil sighed into his shoulder with relief.

John held him.

But after that, it was all Grandma and eat something, kid. Fortunately, lunch hadn’t relied on her cooking. Virgil had done a supply run on the way back from a minor situation just the day before and the larder was stacked with lazy day goodies.

It was a good meal. For once, everyone was there.

They had spent a good part of the afternoon just lazing about the comms room talking. While they lived most of their lives together, it had become rare being together all at once with no dire emergency needing attention.

There had been sun, conversation and rest.

John. John, of all people, had fallen asleep on the couch.

That had prompted a number of things. Lots of quiet. An interrogation of Eos from the kitchen regarding their brother’s sleep schedule.

This was promptly followed by grounding him for a week to play catch up.

Grandma was not happy.

And no doubt, John would be even less when he woke up.

But hey, the man needed to take better care of himself.

A blanket had appeared.

Virgil may have snuck in a medical monitor and gently clipped it to his shirt to boost the basic vitals his gravity wear provided.

John slept on.

So, they left him there and returned to doing their own things in other parts of the house.

As always, Gordon gravitated towards the sea as late afternoon rolled in. This time Virgil followed him to the water’s edge.

His fish brother’s forays out into the ocean always made Virgil just that touch nervous. There had been times where the aquanaut had gotten himself into trouble…alone, out in that vast wilderness under the surface.

It wasn’t that Gordon didn’t know what he was doing. It was just…Virgil couldn’t reach him.

And he worried.

But Gordy was as much a part of the sea as it was part of him and while the brat respected his concerns, he was still a brat. When he leapt up, morphed into his favourite eagle ray form, and made a splash large enough to soak his engineer brother, it was not unexpected.

There was a reason why sting rays always looked like they were smiling. At least this one thought he was funny.

The smart ass.

A flicker of shadow beneath the surface and Gordon was gone.

Virgil felt him grow distant, only to have a sun shower of mental energy thrown in his direction.

Clearly a ‘cheer up, Virg, I’ll be fine’.

Virgil grunted as he stared out at the water that had swallowed his brother. Gordon would be gone a couple of hours at least. Virgil would occupy himself for the rest of the afternoon, but he knew that come sunset, he would be down by the shore, waiting for him.

And here he was.

Staring out at the sea and the sunset, waiting for that little spark to return.

It wasn’t a chore. It was just something he felt he had to do.

Part of him wished he had brought his sketchbook or his tablet, but the risk was too high. Gordon wouldn’t intentionally soak his stuff, but accidents did happen.

And besides, he didn’t mind taking a moment to just...be.

The sun’s warmth was a caress on his skin and he revelled in it. He let his eyes close and just felt and listened.

Sun.

Water.

Wind.

Birds.

A wet touch on his shoulder.

He couldn’t help it, he flinched. Instinctively he knew what was happening, he knew his brother was being a little shit, but evolution tagged human receptors with flight response for a reason.

Suckers grabbed at his skin.

He stumbled on the rocks as he flung himself to his feet.

The tentacle did not go away.

It had friends.

Virgil suddenly found himself wrapped in several long, wet, suckered appendages.

“Gordon, what the hell are you doing?”

But then cephalopods weren’t the greatest of listeners since they didn’t really have ears.

Gordon, fortunately or unfortunately, did have the ability to transmit emotion to his brother, despite the muffle of transmutation, and the laughter sparkled across Virgil’s mindscape like a rain of sunny stars.

The evening was still golden and warm, but just a touch less relaxing. Virgil stood amongst the rocks with a giant Pacific octopus wrapped around his torso.

He idly stared at the flickering colours of laughter strobing across the chromatophores he could see.

“Gordon, you’re a shit.”

That, of course, only increased the mirth.

Virgil settled his mind and came to terms with the fact he was currently wearing a cephalopod and instead turned to problem solving.

The giant molluscs were quite fascinating. If there was one thing Virgil shared with his fish brother, it was a fascination with life in general, and because his brother spent so much time underwater, Virgil had done his fair share of reading on the topic. Unbeknownst to Gordon, Virgil found cephalopods quite fascinating, both in their communication methods and for painting subjects.

But then, this kraken was a whole different kettle of shellfish.

Virgil stood still for a few moments, waiting to see what his brother would do and, if he was honest, see if his brother would simply let him go.

The mental snickering pretty soon negated that response, so Virgil had to look for a more proactive retaliation.

He prodded a tentacle wrapped around his belly. It wriggled back at him.

Virgil was ticklish. He stifled the thought that his brother might take advantage of that while possessing eight arms.

He could lift. That would bring eight metres of black feathers into the equation, but Gordon was physically in contact with his mark, the feathers would likely phase through him like a piece of clothing.

A tentacle caressed his ribcage and he shivered.

He felt Gordon’s outburst of glee and before he knew it, all of those tentacles were moving, suckers puckering along his ribs and belly, a riot of tickle and tease. There was even one in his hair, its tip dangling in front of his eyes.

His brother’s maniacal mental laughter was all consuming.

Swearing, Virgil spun and leapt into the lagoon, the drop-off immediate enough to take the dive.

His world became a rush of bubbles.

Several tentacles came loose in the chaos and Virgil twisted in the water, hoping to dislodge the rest.

But the water was Gordon’s native environment, and the engineer didn’t have a hope.

The giggling was obnoxious.

Breath soon became an urgency and Virgil pushed towards the flickering light above. He surfaced with an octopus head bopping his nose. Somehow Gordon had slithered around to hang off his front instead of his back.

Virgil glared at his brother through the hair dripping in his eyes.

The head tilted and squirted water into his face.

“Gordon!”

Damnit, Kayo needed to show him some self-defence skills against cephalopods.

The thing was octopuses were strong, but their bodies were somewhat fragile and part of Virgil was worried he might hurt his brother.

Knowing Gordon, he knew that and was playing it to his advantage.

“Why are you doing this?”

Because I can.

Virgil didn’t need telepathy to answer that.

But there was a spark of something beyond the humour. Beyond the rain of sunshine sparkles there was a deep red, a welling of emotion his brother was reluctant to share.

A frown and Virgil reached out mentally to his little brother just that little bit more.

The octopus scrambled up his torso, over his face – to Virgil’s muffled protest – and perched on his head like a turban.

Virgil spat into the water and rubbed his face with both hands. “God, Gordon! Why?!”

But the answer wasn’t built with words, it was built with emotion and it suddenly washed over him.

An overwhelming need to touch, to hug and to feel.

But…?

Virgil reached for his cephalopod hat, but Gordon slipped off into the water with a splash and darted away.

Virgil dove to follow.

He didn’t have a hope in catching up, no matter his brother’s form, but it didn’t stop him from trying.

But Gordon had disappeared.

Damnit!

Oxygen became a necessity far too quickly and, yet again, Virgil cursed his inability to follow his fish brother.

Surfacing dragged his hair into his eyes.

How had he missed it? Gordon could be as in need of touch as Virgil was at times. How had Virgil not seen that his brother just needed a hug?

He mentally kicked himself.

“Virg, it’s not a thing. Don’t tie yourself in knots.”

He spun to find his little brother in human form treading water quietly behind him.

“Why didn’t you tell me you needed a hug? Hell, why didn’t you just give me one?”

Gordon snorted. “Is that a prescription, bro? You dispensing brotherly hugs?”

“I’m dispensing whatever works, Gords.” His head tilted just a little as he stared at his brother. “C’mere?” He held out his arms, his legs doing the best to keep him stable in the water.

Gordon rolled his eyes. “Don’t drown yourself.”

“Gordon…”

When his brother didn’t respond, Virgil took matters into his own hands and dove at him. The fact he was successful in grabbing a flailing leg proved that Gordon didn’t really want to escape.

A little manhandling and Virgil had his brother in the biggest hug he could manage. It was complicated by the fact that hugging was not conducive to swimming and if Virgil didn’t surface soon, he was going to start losing brain cells, but it was the best he could do with a wriggling fish brother.

Ultimately, it was Gordon who threw them to the surface with a spark of exasperation.

“Virg, I’m fine! What the hell?”

But the emotion bouncing across their connection told the truth. There was little but fondness and love for his silly brother.

“I’m not silly.” Virgil wrinkled his nose.

“Never said you were. However, you did nearly drown yourself trying to give me a hug.”

“Did not.”

“Did too.”

“Not.”

“Too.”

“Gordon!”

“What?”

Virgil glared at him.

Predictably, Gordon just smirked at him.

It was Virgil’s turn to be overwhelmed with fondness and love.

Gordon groaned. “Oh god, you are so soppy.”

“What? You’re my brother. I’m allowed to care.”

Gordon fell silent, and for a moment, those brown eyes just stared at Virgil.

Then he found his arms full of brother again. “Love you, bro.”

Surprised, but touched, Virgil’s arms tightened around Gordon and again they dipped below the surface.

Hugs were really conducive to drowning.

And disturbing to sleeping brothers as John startled awake with a rain of confused midnight stars.

Oops.

Virgil made to kick back up to the surface, but suddenly found his arms full of cephalopod again.

Damnit, Gordon.

The sparkling sunshine giggles were back and it was with resignation that Virgil kicked towards the surface.

Perhaps Gordon had a reason for the change and for the cling because when Virgil walked back to the villa and into the comms room wearing his rather heavy cephalopod brother wrapped around him, it brought Scott’s tirade of lecturing John to a sudden halt.

Both brothers stopped and just stared.

Virgil stared back. “What?”

“Is that Gordon?” Scott pointed with both hope and a little fear at the octopus back-pack headwear combination.

A tentacle poked at Virgil’s nose from his forehead. He ignored it and shrugged. “Gords wanted a hug.” He turned away. “I’m going to go have a shower.” An absent wave of a hand.

If his brothers stared as he walked out, he could only smile to himself.

The rain of sunshine laughter from his hat just turned his smile into a grin.

-o-o-o-

FIN.

[beevean]

Sonic and speed: are we misunderstanding them?

This article was originally written in Spanish by @latin-dr-robotnik​ on his blog - you can read it here!

Today on SHP, I’d like to bring attention to a topic that I keep noticing being discussed everywhere (especially now during quarantine), and that somehow worries me: are we misunderstanding Sonic and his characteristic speed?

During these last few weeks there has been a new, relatively unusual explosion of videos and comments on the Internet regarding Sonic and, relevant for today, what is the best game or the best level. The simplest reason has to be the lockdown we’re going through, and which is leaving us with more time to play or think about those games we want to play, or never will. On the other hand, the most cynical side of me believes that this boom of Sonic-related content is because Game Apologist’s video about S3&K and Sonic in general was so popular, it sparked the “interest” of other creators (the video itself is great, and I elaborated my opinions on it here). Whatever the case, there is a greater discussion about Sonic going on right now, and I feel like it’s not directed where it should be.

Before starting: there are a bunch of videos that helped me shape a good part of the opinions I’m going to explain today. You don’t need to watch all of them, and they’re not mandatory to fully understand this article, but if after reading it you’re left wanting for more, or you’d like to hear different options, I’d recommend you watch these:

1.     Sonic and Speed (Errant Signal)

2.     The First Levels of Sonic Games (Super Bunnyhop)

3.     SONIC the HEDGEHOG: How Level Design Can Break a Game (Broken Base Gaming)

4.     How Sonic Mania Makes a Level (RelaxAlax)

5.     City Escape is Peak Sonic Game Design (ZoomZike)

6.     Lost Valley Is Not Peak Sonic Game Design (ZoomZike)

What is the problem?

In a series as big and ever-changing as Sonic’s, there is a wide repertory of formulas and possible answers to the question “how to design a game?”. In some cases we’re still looking for an answer, in others we’re looking for alternatives (I talked not too long ago about the accessibility of Sonic Mania and 2D Sonic in general – Spanish only!), and most of the time, the answer has already been given in the past.

This looking for answers in the past has taken us in many directions, like constantly looking back to Sonic Adventure to solve the great enigma that is 3D Sonic; but I’d add that the recent retrospectives about Sonic and its first 2D games have raised some criticism and questions that, while valid, end up muddling a formula that has proven itself to be effective and crucial in the design of everything related to Sonic.

What really worried me is the criticism about Sonic’s speed and the levels that are considered “slow”, and we’re going to delve into this.

The basic Principles of Sonic

Speed. Platforming. Exploration. These are Sonic’s basic Principles and have always been, from its beginning until today. These three concepts are at the core of not just the level design, but the games themselves as well. The best levels in the series know how to balance these aspects, and the best games are those that can keep a balanced flow, preventing the game from going too fast, and losing its exciting component along the way, or from going too slow and becoming boring, causing the player to lose interest. Naturally, in these games there have to be all sorts  of levels: faster, more relaxed, more open and more labyrinthine, all coexisting in harmony and without going too far in one direction. Ignoring these Principles puts the quality of the levels at risk, and even our understanding of the character.

I would have put my own examples here, but just before starting to write this section I got some wonderful ones from Beevean. If you don’t remember her, she helped a lot with the article about the music of Classic Sonic, and I already warned her that if she kept posting examples this good, I would have had no choice but to feature her again. The discussion started from this post, and she says:

If you approach Sonic thinking its only characteristic is “gotta go fast”, the game you’re gonna get is Advance 2. The very flat, boring, “there’s no way to put normal obstacles in these levels so we’re gonna throw bottomless pits at the player until they get sick of them” Advance 2.

Some fast levels can be awful - Stardust Speedway is a disaster from a level design standpoint and the whole level seems to work against you. Some slow levels can be super fun - you rarely run in Lava Reef and you spend most of the time dodging obstables, but that doesn’t stop it from being one of the most beloved levels in S3&K. There’s no arbitrary reason that separates “good” levels from “bad” levels, it’s an amalgamation of many factors - plus of course your personal enjoyment.

And in her tags (because we both include more information in our tags than in our posts) she adds:

The levels that are widely considered bad usually put too much focus on one of the factors you mentioned.

Marble Zone is too slow and linear.

Luminous Forest is too fast and linear.

The Doom and Lost Impact are too labyrinthine.

And so on.

My personal example is Sonic Mania and its progression during the mid-game, from Flying Battery to Mirage Saloon:

Flying Battery is a long level, filled to the brim with speed and emotions, especially during Act 2. After beating the boss, the player is likely going to feeling exhausted after being thrown left and right, and so…

The following level is Press Garden. Act 1 is a relatively closed and relaxed level, but still moving at a reasonable pace. If the player is familiar with the level they can finish it quickly, but they still can take their time appreciating the view of the printing and the machinery of the zone. Act 2 enhances this, with an absolutely lovely view and an active but still relaxed flow…

Then there’s Stardust Speedway, which is divided into two completely opposite acts. Act 1 is a relatively fast level, but very relaxed and almost a Zen-like experience when the player lets himself be carried away by the starry night sky, and with a relative absence of lights or discomfort on the screen (enemies and obstacles aside). Act 2 is the other way around, a largely colorful, explosive, fast level (to the point that I, anything but a speedrunner, managed to finish the level in 31 seconds, 2:10 minutes if you include the fight with Metal Sonic), culminating in one of the longest, most intense bosses in the game that marks the halfway point of the adventure…

After such an exciting journey, the next level is Hydrocity, once again split in half with a calmer, more exploration-oriented Act 1, and an Act 2 that, similarly to the original level, is one of the most adrenaline-filled water levels in the series. The boss is intense as well, but verging on being tedious and not nearly as fast as the level itself…

And finally, Mirage Saloon. Every version of Act 1, regardless of the quality, are there to set up Act 2, a largely open, fast-paced level.

In short, the Mania experience is made of peaks and valleys of emotions and adrenaline, keeping the game to a reasonable pace and with a good dose of speed, exploration and platforming. The player can break the flow anytime to look for Giant Rings and other hidden goodies, and that doesn’t ruin the charm of the level. In the same way, the faster levels require the player to be familiar with them and to know how to platform to get the best results, without giving you free speed like it’s not worth it (looking at you, Advance 2).

Even the worst levels have the chance to redeem themselves, like for example Labyrinth Zone in the “Misfit Pack” Mania mod.

 Breaking the Principles.

When a level or a game breaks the balance for too long, it might become too easy (the infamous “hold right to win”), too boring (the most common argument against Sonic 1 because of levels like Marble Zone and Labyrinth Zone), or too obtuse (the criticism against Sonic CD). The key word is “for too long”, as Beevean already explained how levels that prioritize one thing over the others can still be considered good stages by the majority of the fandom (example: Lava Reef, and I’d add Spring Yard and Final Egg).

As I said before, Mania shows us how there are levels that prioritize certain aspects, but only for a few minutes at a time. Mirage Saloon Act 1 for Sonic and Tails may be a slow, boring level, but it’s only 3 minutes long in a game that lasts 2-4 hours. Same goes for Carnival Night Act 2, a long, tedious level, but that is still a 4-9 minutes long interval before getting back on track with Ice Cap and Launch Base.

3D Sonic is a much more complicated situation, as every game has its pros and cons. Adventure 1 is one of the games that experiments the most with the Principles in a 3D plane, but it breaks the flow of the stages with the plot and hubs worlds to explore (which are pretty divisive even to this day; for the record, on this blog we’re pro hubs). Adventure 2 gets rid of the time-wasting hubs but each character focuses on one Principle at the time: Sonic and Shadow focus almost exclusively on speed with some platforming, Tails and Eggman on action and platforming, and Knuckles and Rouge are all about exploration (and RNG…). Sonic Unleashed does pretty much the same, just reintroducing the hub worlds, while Sonic Generations is at its core a balanced mix of speed, platforming and exploring (plus a much smaller hub between levels), and… well, I think I made myself clear. 3D Sonic is a mess of ideas that orbit around the fundamental Principles, but that for some reason are never kept consistent between games.

Going back to utterly breaking the Principles, there’s one level above all that destroys every one of those extremes, never taking the middle road and without worrying at all about what players might think of it. This level is…

Eggmanland

If Sonic Mania is a clear example of a relatively balanced flow, in its mid-game at least, Eggmanland may be the biggest example of what happens when each and every one of the Principles is taken to its extremes. Let me explain:

Speed: Eggmanland can be both too fast for the player to react, between QTE and super quick jumps that may lead to your death if you’re not fast enough (and you rarely will), or too slow of a slog to navigate (the long Werehog sections).

Platforming: Eggmanland can have too much tricky precision platforming, made even harder due to a lack of a drop shade (the second Werehog section is infamous for this), or it can throw stretches where you do almost nothing but hold X and maybe go through a QTE, which if failed lead to your death once again; at worst you have to wait, which sends us back to our previous point.

Exploration: Eggmanland can be a giant, confusing labyrinth (there is no shortage of stories of player getting lost in this behemoth of a level), and at the same time it can have some long linear room to room progression, separated by doors about as fast as Big the Cat.

I should say that, despite all of this, I love Eggmanland a lot, and same goes for Beevean; but this is something that has to do with what we mentioned before, personal preference. From a technical standpoint, and according to many players, Eggmanland is an absolute nightmare.

Are we misunderstanding Sonic?

Going back to the central topic of this article, I believe that I put enough emphasis on the importance of balance in Sonic, so let’s go back to the previous question: what is the problem?

In short, I disagree with the voices that call for redirecting Sonic towards “fast”, adrenaline-filled stages. These people, with their own retrospective, are doing some sort of revisionism with Sonic levels, automatically branding levels that aren’t as fast as others as “bad”. We’re ignoring the true value of platforming and exploring the levels, and the perception of the character is at risk.

Like Beevean said, looking at Sonic just as “gotta go fast” is, plain and simple, absurd. Sonic is much more than this restless teenager that, just like that movie with the bus, if he doesn’t run at speeds higher than 90 mph his heart will stop. Yes, going fast is a big part of his initial appealing and his way of life (“My stories only end when I stop running”); but when Sonic’s speed is brought up in these discussions, the rest of what makes the character is left outside: how much he admires nature and how much he likes to take a rest every now and then before the next adventure. Sonic OVA, Sonic Adventure, Sonic X and even Sonic Lost World’s ending show that Sonic is not just speed, but also rest, curiosity, exploration. There are even cases where the journey and the friends and memories made along the way are much more important than the destiny itself (Sonic Heroes, Sonic Unleashed), and on several occasions it’s been shown as an actual weakness of the character the fact that he would act recklessly and under the influence of the fateful “gotta go fast”. This aspect of Sonic’s attitude might probably be product of the aggressive marketing campaigns this character endured (ever since the Genesis “Blast Processing”), but it doesn’t tell the whole story, and it’s unacceptable to enforce this line of thought over everything we know about the character.

And to end this long section where I was hinting at one of the most important points of one of the most thoughtful games of the series, let’s not forget that Sonic is pretty aware that everything has a beginning and an end, because that’s the Nature’s way of things and we have to live life at its fullest, for it is finite. Running at top speed is just one of many ways Sonic lives his life, and his eyes will forever be filled, not so much with speed, but with curiosity.

Conclusions

To recap this long article, let’s remember that

Speed, Platforming and Exploration are the three basic Sonic Principles. The momentum in the games comes from the interaction between these elements.

Speed is not something that’s delivered for the sake of being delivered: it usually is a reward or an incentive to keep the player interested, engaged and excited for what’s to come.

Breaking the Principles impacts the experience of the game in many aspects… unless you’re Eggmanland and you’re breaking every single Principle in one level anyway.

To narrow Sonic down to just “speed” is to ignore everything else that this character represents. “Gotta go fast” is a facet of his design and personality, but not the only one.

Starting from this, we can sit down and discuss about “good” and “bad” levels in the series all day long, but I don’t think it’s necessary. Now that we’re about to discover what’s next for the series, I believe it’s important to clarify what Sonic represents in every stage, so that with some luck we can see better consistency and quality in his future adventures.

Speaking of this last point, I just remembered The Geek Critique’s series of Sonic retrospectives, another series of videos that inspired me and I found enlightening. Do you guys remember the videos I linked to at the beginning? Well, it’s time for you to watch them :P (if you want to, of course)

(I’d like to thank Beevean again for suggesting the best examples I could have needed. Seriously, she helped much more than it looks)

What do you guys think? What is the ideal Sonic level, and why? Do you agree that Sonic is much more than a speedy blue hedgehog? In the meantime, we’re hopefully going to see each other very soon. See you next time!

I feel this theme is strangely fitting to conclude this article, lol

~

After the Spanish article was posted, I reblogged with this:

To add something more, I was chatting with a friend of mine who pointed out that, for all the talk in the fandom that we want to see less linear levels, most of the fan favorites are pretty linear - Ice Cap, Speed Highway, City Escape, Rooftop Run… I told him that yeah, linearity isn’t a synonym of bad level design because linear levels can still be enjoyable: with these particular cases, what makes them different from a random Lost Valley is that they have other elements that make them stand out (snowboarding, running down a skyscraper, skateboarding through San Francisco, climbing the Big Ben…). Plus they have something to compensate for the linearity, like fluid platforming.

In the case of Ice Cap and Speed Highway, there’s also a contrast between their halves: IC Act 1 is cramped and heavy on platforming, while Act 2 is much faster and without many obstacles, almost as a reward; Speed Highway starts out as fast and exhiliarating, with little platforming getting in the way of running, but the At Dawn section is a short open space, to let the player catch their breath, to the point that even the music and the aesthetic are much more relaxed. So, as you said, the balance is kept, and when you add a memorable setting and music, you have a great level in your hands.

Thank you @latin-dr-robotnik​ for giving me the permission to post this! I just had to translate this fascinating article to share it with everyone :>

[buck-nialled]

Teenage Dream - N. Horan Imagine

bc why work on my werewolf!shawn fic when I can procrastinate and write a 3.5k word Niall imagine instead? btw this was inspired by the video of Niall and Lewis singing the song “teenage dream”. If you haven’t seen it I would highly recommend watching below eargasms are a guarantee okey ready here we go:

     Touring with Niall was…to put it in one word…tricky. Feeling all of the world going beneath your feet could make someone feel as though they were flying. From potholes to speed bumps to road bumps, the only thing about flying forty miles an hour across the continents that you loathed was the bruises that littered your body in the oddest of places; the side of your left foot that was stubbed against the leg of the couch, a red-angry right hip after being jostled into the counter, a small nick on your cheek that the damn paparazzi and their nice-ass cameras tried utilizing as—the one and only piece—of evidence that Niall was abusing you. If only they knew that he was the one who’d helped you ice it after your run-in with the door frame upon entering back into the bus from one of Niall’s longest shows. The crowd was so wild and hyped up that Niall fed on their adrenaline and gifted them with two encores, with Lewis and Fletcher joining him on stage. Still, he was there for you when he could be. Even at midnight, icing your cheek and holding back snickers at your small whines and pleas to kiss the wound better.

You could add the “helping when he could part” to the small list of loathing too, but that was selfish to even think about. You have admitted to yourself multiple times on the bus, day and night, alone on the beds or couches or even to yourself as you drowned out to a movie with the comforting arm draped around your waist and one of his hands tied to yours, that Niall was more distant on this tour than his last.

He did grow confidence, you knew. But that was far from a bad thing, and surely not the root of his dismissive behavior. His first album came out, he was a little rocky being by himself in his process for the first time. He did not need approval from three or four other people or even nineteen thousand of them. Now that his second solo album was out, he was like a mom with your fourth child. He knew more about the in and outs of interviews. How to pose just right, alone in front of a camera. Before, he was all too vulnerable. But now, he felt as though he could lasso the world around his finger by playing a few strums of his guitar.

You were proud of him, so very much that you made sure to remind him every night. Sometimes it was a long spiel which left both of you red and other times the only words that came out were slurred gibberish and moan-language that became muffled into one another’s sweaty shoulders.

But these past few weeks have felt different. You’ve missed that small thing—whatever it was—a spark, a flicker? Okay, now that was totally unintentional but you got your point across—something was missing. And you were missing it badly, like a child with your favorite blanket or snack your parents’ always stuffed away in your lunchbox that made getting through the first day of kindergarten a little easier. Where was that comfort? Where has it gone?

Well, little did you know you weren’t the only one feeling this way. In fact, Niall felt it too, and had he known you had been feeling it just as much, he would have argued he felt it ten-fold. But his lips stayed together, and his eyes continued observing your face. The curvatures of your nose he always adored kissing the button off, the way your eyelashes seemed to fall perfectly, high on your cheeks he seemed to always keep dry and if not that than wet with tears of joy. “Only joy, always joy,” he remembers you telling him once after you began absolutely sobbing upon his first single, alone, being shared over the radio.

Your eyelids slowly fluttered and cracked open, and what lies beneath them--God, he could go on for hours about those beauties. The small flecks and twinges that orbit your pupils, he swears your mind is a whole solar system he only knows a few planets of and man, how lucky he is to know it will take light years to explore them, and even more lucky to know that it will probably be longer than that. A small part of him hopes it’s actually an infinity.

“You know stranger, it’s rude to stare without me knowing your name…” you turns your body to face the completely opposite direction before sitting yourself up. Your bare upper half was splayed for Niall’s viewing before an even more captivating one eclipsed it: the familiar cloth of his tee-shirt he had planned on wearing to bed the night prior. But if he was being honest with himself, he did not mind this view much either.

“Well then allow me to introduce m’self,” His glorious morning voice crackled through the air like an old speaker, and it made your body nearly quiver in its wake. His forearm, not super-model muscular was still nimble when it needed to be snaked around the girl’s clothed torso and tugged your back right where he needed your to be and where you wanted to be. A squeal was elicited from the playful snare of his arm as you were plunged back to his bare chest. “I happen to be the love of your life.” He jokes with the bare of his teeth. The same ones that probably left a multitude of marks along your body. Places that nobody but the both of you could see but still…how could you be upset with this man gazing down at you as though you were the speculated eighth wonder of his world? He was the “love of your life”, after all.

“Well, then Karma must have finally noticed me.” You quip in reply. Niall quirks one of his brows at this statement and only tugs you closer as he begins speaking in that deep, sexy, melodic tone his voice has that just seems to captivate you. “No, actually I think—I think it might’ve been me that noticed you.” He leaned his head down farther down towards yours until your noses bumped against one another’s. He kissed the tip of your pert one which cued it to crinkle up, and him to only laugh aloud.

And you could feel it again. He could too. The spark, the flicker. Your soft hand lifted from the comforter beneath the two and traveled upward to graze the side of his stubbled jaw. He noticed you admired him too, in the moments he was awake because God knows if he was not sleeping beside your today and the two and a half years prior, you would’ve rolled over onto the cold sheets and dreamt until the afternoon about a hot cup of coffee instead of actually being woken by the aroma of the blend filling your home. Whether your home was on the road, or in a hotel overseas, far from your hometown. You knew one thing about your home upon falling in love with the man before you; he wasjust that for you. He was your home. You loved him.

Love. The word felt so foreign though it seemed like just last night they were whispering it into one another’s ears. It seemed like more often they were calling each other mindless pet names like “petal” or “Ni” or “princess” or “babe.” God, babe? You two were really back to the “babe” level now? You couldn’t stand even a second more of that thought. And now at this point, it seemed like the words were just crawling out of your throat, begging to be said.

“I—“ and right before they could, of course, Karma seemed to come to pay you a visit. But this time it bit you in the ass when the door to the room slid open and into the wall beside it, revealing Lewis there, fully dressed. “Hey, mate. Sorry to interrupt, but we’re stopped here for about an hour and there’s a lil’ diner joint just outside if either of you is up for breakfast.” He glanced between you and Niall, still half-naked and still between the sheets and still with the same thought on your mind of how you’re supposed to remind him how much you freaking love him with Lewis standing in front of you probably thinking of what kind of eggs he’s gonna order.

“Sure mate, just give us a minute to get ready.” Lewis nods and presses a button beside the doorframe again, and letting the sliding door eliminate him from your view. Niall turned to you, about to speak up, but you didn’t let him.

“I’m gonna go shower.” Without further hesitation, you lifted yourself off of his chest and off of the bed, before gathering a change of clothes and towel from the small closet in the back room. You departed from him and ventured into the small bathroom located right outside. Upon the door clicking shut, you leaned your head against the cool wood of it. Despite the tears of frustration yearning to escape your eyes, you let a downtrodden sigh fall past your lips instead. Your sex life was amazing, as always. You still felt an intimacy with him personally. Nothing had changed. So why are you feeling as though everything has?

You shook your head as though you were hoping your doubts would fall out of your ears. It did not work, obviously, so your next plan of attack was to fill good things inside of it. Good moments with Niall when both of you were younger and still hopelessly in that puppy dog-honeymoon phase of love where all the both of you wanted to know was one another. Yeah, that just only made you sadder. You resorted to your phone and its shuffle method, instead of while you were twisting the shower knob to just the right temperature. Your favorite musicians and their songs quietly flowed through your ears, their poetic words reverberating throughout your cranium. But when the opening notes of flicker echoed against the tile of the shower, your hand flew to your phone in an instant and pressed “skip.” You really hoped Niall was too caught up in his own thoughts to hear a different tune interrupt his own. You knew it would hurt him if he did hear it. But you also knew that you would come out of the shower with water still running down your face, had you let the song resume.

You let yourself stand beneath the steaming water and let it cascade down your body as a lighter tone filled your ears. It was an old song, and man did it bring back some old memories.

Niall, on his first solo tour with you in the passenger seat as the two of you, drove to the airport. It was eight am and the sun peeking through the windshield and screaming for your attention with its hot blindness would have made you groan. But with the heart-shaped sunglasses taking over almost a quarter of your face and Niall beside you with one of his hands on the wheel, the other taking purchase on your thigh and your stomach ready to combust with all of the joy it contained for the man sat next to you, it was impossible to feel any sadness at times like that. The radio host had just finished playing his song, which Niall did not hesitate to give you a live version of between the windows of his convertible, and was now clueing the next one coming up. “An oldie but a goodie,” hinted the upbeat voice emitting from the car’s speakers, before the familiar notes flooded your senses once again. And for the next three minutes, you serenaded Niall with the biggest smile on your face, and a similar one overcame his features as you did so.

Now every time that song comes on, no matter where or with who, it was just a habit to sing it aloud. Hell, you remember singing it just the other day as Lewis strummed the chords on his guitar. Niall was sat next to you just admiring your profile the whole time. He mumbled something afterward that you were not really paying attention to, but it must have been a good thing since his lips locked with yours not too soon after.

“I know you get me, so I let my walls come down…down….” You begin singing, while that spark begins building in you again. You covered the song with a slowed-down, more heart-felt version than the original. And between the tiles with that same feeling imbibing your chest and the images of you and Niall in the car that morning playing like a slideshow in your mind, it felt right. “You make me feel like I’m living a teenage dream the way you turn me on…….don’t ever look back, don’t ever look-“ A distinct chime left your phone and intercepted the current song. It was a snippet of the Stranger Things theme, a ninety-nine cent identifier for when Niall texted you and made your heart pick up its pace each time your ears picked it up from the other room. But this one gave you a different feeling. Like your heart was being clutched into a tight fist that would not let up and left you, in return, gasping for fresh air.

You stopped the shower after a few more minutes and flipped the phone back up to face yourself. You read the text slowly and carefully as if trying to decode the clearly innocuous message on the screen.

🍀❤️

left with Lewis to breakfast place. no need to rush getting ready, we got plenty of time

But now you could not help but dress as rapidly as possible. Because, as coy as guys are when talking about their love life. You had an itching feeling Niall and Lewis had plenty of time with you “taking your time” to talk about you.

Niall set his phone on the table face-up with a sigh. Lewis did not let that go past his ears and perked up a little at his friend’s somber expression. “What’s up, mate?” Niall chewed his lip, debating on using his good friend as a  temporary therapist while on the road. Lewis did not deserve to have all of Niall’s woes put atop of his shoulders. “Come on, tell me what’s going on, Nialler.”

“Something just isn’t right…” He admits, stirring his fork about on the plate, but never taking a pick at any of the options that were dispersed on it.

“Well, what is it? I’m sure if the eggs or bacon is bad we can ask for a new batch—“

“No, no not with the food. It’s Y/N…We’ve just been distant, lately.”

“Is that so. I could’ve sworn last night you two were going at it like rabbits.” Lewis remarks, taking a sip of his clear plastic glass of orange juice.

“No, not in that way,” Niall grumbled. “Just…I’ve felt like we have not given each other enough personal affection. Like, I can’t remember the last time we told each other ‘I love you.’”

“I can.” Lewis snickers, which earned him a considerate slap to his shoulder.

“I mean not in bed, ya piece of shit.” Lewis hums during another hearty sip of his OJ. “That’s easy.” He mumbles “It was uh…the other night, yeah? We were all shit-faced and she was singing that Katy Perry song. How’s it go…you make me something, something—“

“Teenage Dream. Yeah, that’s right…I did tell her I loved her after that. And…”

“Yeah, you two spit-swapped in front of me, probably led to some other stuff I really don’t want to think about…” Lewis says as he shovels a forkful of food into his mouth and starts munching.

“I have an idea. How about—“ the bell above the door jingled as another patron: just his luck. It was you, about to walk in on his genius idea.

“How about, what?” Lewis shrugged through his mouthful of hash browns and toast as you only neared closer, unsure of what conversation you had stumbled into.

“How about…” Niall sat up and grabbed your hands, sitting you down on his side of the booth, “I go order for you.”

“Okay…” you agree through a nervous laugh, a little unsure. It was not what would be on your plate, Niall knew you well enough by this point to know your breakfast preferences. It was how…quick he was to attend to you and leave Lewis completely neglected in what looked like an important conversation.

“Is he okay?” You ask while furrowing your brows, as he was up ordering at the counter.

“Don’t ask me. You’re the one with him.” Lewis says, having Y/N’s eyes divert to her hands and a sigh leaves her lips. “Hey.” Lewis reaches his hand over to cover yours as a sense of comfort. “I’m only kidding ya, love. He’s doing fine. Just jitters from bein’ on the road every day are all.” You nod at him, his words easing you slightly.

Once breakfast ended, the rest of the day usually consisted of Niall and his two opening acts running around from backstage, to soundcheck, to their designated meet and greet areas, and so on. What you did in the meantime was all up to you. At first, you would sit through their soundcheck and just follow them around as if you were a lost puppy. It then occurred to you one day that you were traveling across the freaking world and all of the sightseeing you could be doing made you feel like you were taking these experiences for granted. But with the loss of sleep lately, all you really needed today was a nap. And that was exactly what you did in preparation for tonight’s concert.

“Okay, what was your idea?” Lewis asked Niall after finally ending their soundcheck. Niall could not decipher if the day was passing by slow or fast, but he was just nervous about how Y/N would react to his idea. That is if he had time to talk to Lewis about it.

“The song, Teenage Dream. You know the chords right?” He asks as both men make their way to the dressing rooms prior to their meet and greet.

“I mean, yeah kind of. Not totally—“

“Teach me the song. And then we’ll sing it tonight. Have her in the front row...” Niall’s voice drifts off, awaiting Lewis’s approval.

“Mate, that’s a brilliant idea. But we already had soundcheck, a meet and greet. Will we have time?”

“We’ll make some. Somehow.” He looked at Lewis with a look of confidence, while Lewis still seemed unsure. “We will.”

And they did. Admittedly, the bathroom was a strange place to meet up and play guitars, harmonizing to a Katy Perry song. But the acoustics were amazing and in half an hour, Niall was stood in front of thousands, Lewis beside him, now ready to serenade the love of his life.

“We practiced this in the bathroom and had no soundcheck. So, God knows what happens in these next three minutes.” A light chuckle breaks through his lips as he speaks, and the audience does not hesitate to laugh along with him. Both Niall and Lewis count down together before the soft strumming of their guitars fills the entire stadium. You were nestled in the front row of the entire show and let your eyebrows furrow at the notes the two began to play. You knew Niall’s setlist for this tour front-to-back by now, but for some reason, you could not recall this opening being played.

Your thoughts were tuned down the moment his voice echoed through the stadium.

“You think I’m pretty without any makeup on….”

And just like that, your mind was flooded with all of the good memories. Every happy moment you seemed to have with this beautiful man singing in front of you. He was the love of your life, indeed. When he and Lewis begin harmonizing, that was when the emotional effects start to kick in. Your eyes developed a shield of gloss without your consent and a familiar feeling embraced you like an old friend who could not stop reminding you how much they have missed you. That spark, that feeling that you have been missing just as much. The one that you will never let go of again, it was back.

During the bridge of the song, you connected eyes with Niall and very dramatically mouthed “I love you” in order for him to make out each syllable. He let a smile overcome his face and a rush of adrenaline took hold of his body just as quick. While strumming the final notes, his eyes never left yours.

“I know you get me so I let my walls come down…down.”

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[duhragonball]

[FIC] Luffa: The Legendary Super Saiyan (136/?)

Disclaimer: This story features characters and concepts based on Dragon Ball, which is a trademark of Bird Studio/Shueisha and Toei Animation.   This is an unauthorized work, and no profit is being made on this work by me. This story is copyright of me. Download if you like, but please don’t archive it without my permission. Don’t be shy.

Continuity Note: About 1000 years before the events of Dragon Ball Z.

[14 November, 233 Before Age. Nagaoka.]

Moments ago, Rehval III Trismegistus, King of the Saiyans, had declared victory. Large swaths of the galaxy didn't know it yet, to say nothing of the rest of the universe, but his victory was absolute nonetheless. In a telepathic address to Luffa's allied fleet, he announced that their attack on his planet would be futile, and he demanded their unconditional surrender.

Luffa didn't understand Rehval's power completely, but she had learned enough to get the basic idea of it. Even a middling Saiyan had enough fighting power to destroy a planetary body. As the Super Saiyan, Luffa had assumed she could annihilate Nagaoka with ease, wiping out Rehval's Jindan cult in a single stroke. But the planet had resisted her, like a mighty warrior blocking an offensive technique. It was like the planet was a living thing, and according to Rehval, it now was. He had merged his life essence with Nagaoka. The way he explained it, planets possessed a tremendous energy of their own, but they lacked the consciousness to wield it like a Saiyan. Now, he controlled Nagaoka like an extension of his own body. As long as he remained on the planet, both would be indestructible.

If that were all it was, then Luffa might have been tempted to leave him trapped on the prison he had built for himself. But Rehval had other abilities. His followers had traveled to other planets, seeding them with an alchemical potion of his own creation. Once activated, the elixir gave Rehval partial control over the mass of those planets as well. He could mold a large chunk of earth into a monstrous figure, one powerful enough to destroy the planets' inhabitants. Luffa had fought these "rock-Rehvals" before, but she had no idea that he could operate so many of them simultaneously, and now there were hundreds of them scattered across the galaxy, each one holding a different planet hostage.

The only way to stop them all was to destroy the man who controlled them, but Luffa had just tried that and failed. She had fired a ki blast down to Nagaoka's surface, only for the energy to be absorbed and then fired back in multiple directions. Rehval claimed he had gained that ability by studying genetic samples from Luffa's wife. Zatte could do similar tricks with ki, but on a much smaller scale. Each of Zatte's people were born with a unique power. The idea of Rehval simply duplicating it for himself was galling, even after everything else he had done.

Rehval claimed that everything he had done was for the good of the Saiyan species, but Luffa knew the truth: He was a small, petty man, frustrated with his own lack of importance. He couldn't stand the idea that Saiyan history would carry on without him, and so he had turned to alchemy and treachery to cheat his fate. He had promised his followers greater power, but his Jindan potion only bound them to his cause, just as he had bound himself to Nagaoka. Now, he demanded that every Saiyan in the universe join his cult, so that he could fulfill his mad dream of converting their once-proud race into nothing but a hive, interdependent upon their immortal king.

What sickened Luffa the most was how eager her fellow Saiyans were to accept this. Guwar had defected from the Jindan Cult when he realized how depraved it really was. It was Guwar who revealed the location of Nagaoka to Luffa, so that she could destroy it and save the Saiyan people. But at the first sign of adversity, he resigned himself to returning to Rehval on bended knee. Luffa left Guwar's dead body in the cargo bay of her ship.

As she made her way back to the bridge, she could send the ki of the crews of her fleet. All around her, the allied fleet seemed to struggle with what had just happened. They had surrounded the planet to ensure that no one could escape. Now, they began to break formation. The Federation ships moved away from the planet, perhaps fearing an attack, while the Saiyan Free Company seemed to fall apart completely. A handful of ships descended into the atmosphere, their crews apparently not willing to wait for their leaders to make up their minds. One of them broke orbit, only for another SFC ship to open fire on it. The commanders were probably trying to contact Luffa for further instructions. She wasn't sure what to tell them.

Stepping out of the lift onto the bridge, she found Zatte rocking back and forth in the pilot's chair, her hands clutching at the red hair on either side of her scalp. Once she noticed Luffa, Zatte looked up at her with dread. "This is all my fault," she said, her voice trembling with remorse. "Luffa, I'm so sorry..."

For a moment, Luffa worried that Zatte had been hurt somehow, but there was no sign of an injury. Luffa almost wished there had been. It would be far easier to treat a physical wound. She put one arm around Zatte, then leaned over her to reach the computer terminal. There was no time to comfort her now, not while the fleet was still in a combat zone. Satisfied with the ship's status readouts, Luffa opened a channel with the Saiyan Free Company's flagship.

"Get control of your people, Princess," Luffa said as Seltiss' image appeared on the viewscreen. "I see SFC ships trying to land on the planet, fighting each other..."

"We're going to surrender," Seltiss said.

"What?!" Luffa shouted.

"You heard what my father said," Seltiss replied. Luffa could tell that Seltiss was upset. The teenage Saiyan was doing her best to hide it, but it wasn't enough. They had all come to this planet expecting to take Rehval completely by surprise, and he had turned the tables on them all.

"I don't give a damn what he said," Luffa growled. "We came here to kill your father. It's just going to take longer than we thought, that's all."

"He took your best shot and bounced it back at us," Seltiss said. "It's over, Luffa! He's too strong for you. For... any of us. All we can do now... is admit defeat."

"You fool!" Luffa shouted. "He doesn't give a damn about any of you! He just wants you to take that potion of his, and then you'll under his thumb forever!"

"And how is that any different from what you wanted?" Suddenly Xibuyas stepped into view and stood beside Seltiss. He was Luffa's son, though Rehval had acquired the boy and somehow matured him to an age of sixteen. Another piece of the family that Rehval had stolen from her.

"Katem, listen to me," Luffa began, even though she knew he wouldn't. She wanted so badly to believe that he belonged to her, at least in some small way. She wanted him to see her with something other than hate and envy, but it was hopeless.

"Listen to you? Or what?" Xibuyas demanded. "You'll attack us? Kill us? We only joined forces with you because of your power, and now it looks like Rehval has beaten you at your own game! It's not the way I wanted this to end, but at least you've been exposed as the fraud you are! As if any mere woman could be a 'Super Saiyan'."

"You're wrong," Zatte mumbled to herself, so quietly that only Luffa could hear. "It's not her fault. It's mine..."

"That's enough, Xibuyas," Seltiss said before he could say any more. "Luffa, I'm sorry it turned out like this, but he's right. You didn't mind bossing everyone around when you were the one on top. I have to do what's right for my people. If we don't surrender to him now, he'll just hunt us down later and destroy us. There's nothing else we can do."

Luffa said nothing. She just stared at them in disbelief. After a few seconds, Seltiss closed the channel.

"It's because of me," Zatte said. "Luffa, I never meant for this--"

"It's not you're fault," Luffa insisted. "He got ahold of a sample of your DNA, and he studied it until he found a way to replicate your powers. It's not like you gave it to him."

"He never would have known about me if I hadn't been with you!" Zatte protested. "I was so stupid. I could have just died on Dorlu Prime when the Tikosi invaded, or you could have killed me on the Makyo Star... Then he never would have been able to stop you--!"

"That's enough!" Luffa said. She pulled Zatte up by her shoulders and lifted her out of her chair. "You're a survivalist, aren't you? I need you to focus. He can manipulate energy the same way you can, and he's got a whole planet powering him, but that doesn't make him unstoppable! We can still come up with something, we just need to regroup!"

Before Zatte could say anything, Luffa noticed a flashing light on the console, indicating a priority transmission. With an irritated grunt, she lowered Zatte to the deck, then turned to answer the call.

"Booth," Luffa said when she saw the man on the viewscreen. They had left him and a reserve force at the Gelbo System, halfway between Nagaoka and Federation space. Like Seltiss, he appeared to be troubled, but determined not to show it.

"Luffa," Booth said. "I'm surprised to see you're still alive. I suppose this proves what Rehval said earlier. He really doesn't see you as a threat."

"Don't tell me his telepathy reached you all the way on Gelbo," Luffa said.

"Telepathy?" Booth asked with surprise. "No, I was contacted by Prester Ganzut back home. One of Rehval's rock monsters appeared there, and informed him what was happening on Nagaoka."

"Good, then it saves me the trouble of briefing you," Luffa said. "We need to regroup and link up with your forces so we can plan a new attack. The Saiyan Free Company has switched sides, and--"

Booth knit his brow before he spoke. "Luffa, there isn't going to be a new attack. Not while Rehval is holding Federation planets hostage."

"I can destroy those rock creatures in a few minutes!" Luffa protested.

"Yes, I know," Booth said. "But it would take you two weeks to get back from Nagaoka, and Rehval has promised to destroy Despye before you even get close enough to save it."

"Then I'll defeat him on Nagaoka, and solve the problem from this end!" Luffa insisted.

"And how will you do that?" Booth asked. "If you had the power to destroy his planet, you would have already done it. What else does that leave? A surface attack? Our troops wouldn't last an hour against a hundred Saiyans, and I'm guessing he has a lot more than that waiting down there. Not to mention the entire Saiyan Free Company has joined him, so we'd need to fight them as well. Just what exactly were you planning to do, Luffa? Besides getting yourself killed?"

"What I won't do, Marshall," Luffa snarled, "is bow my head and beg for mercy like a sniveling coward."

Booth sighed. "Right, your honor. I had forgotten what we were really fighting for out here. Somehow I got it in my head that we were trying to protect the lives of Federation citizens. Thank you for reminding me."

"Don't hand me that, you pompous little despot!" Luffa shouted. "You never gave a damn about anyone! All you ever fought for was a chance to seize more power for yourself! Well how many planets can you rule with Rehval lording over you for the rest of your life?"

"More worlds than I'll rule as a corpse, I should think," Booth said quietly. "At least this way, I'll live long enough to find out. I've already contacted the rest of your fleet, Luffa. I'm recalling them to Gelbo, and then we return to Federation space to await Rehval's orders. You're welcome to return along with them, but I had a feeling you wouldn't leave Nagaoka quietly. What happens next is up to you. It was an honor serving under you, Madam Federatrix. Have a splendid death."

He cut off the transmission, just as Luffa was drawing a deep breath to continue shouting at him. The viewscreen returned to its default display, which showed the planet Nagaoka below them. Whatever harsh, defiant words she had in mind never materialized. There was nothing to say, and no one to hear.

Then she felt a slight shudder in the deckplate beneath her feet. The ship had begun to move. Luffa glanced over at the pilot station and saw that Zatte had entered a new course.

"What are you doing?" she asked.

"I'm taking the ship out of orbit," Zatte said. She made a pathetic sniffle, then looked back at Luffa and offered a slight smile. "Not to retreat, of course. I just don't want anyone shooting at the ship while you figure out your next move."

But there was no next move, and Luffa knew it. What infuriated her most about Marshall Booth's words was that they made a lot of sense. The only way to beat Rehval was to fight him in the heart of his stronghold, and there wasn't enough power to make that work. Even if Seltiss and the Federation had stayed with her, the odds seemed impossible.

"Sorry for how I cracked up back there," Zatte said meekly.

"Don't be," Luffa said. "Right now you're all I've got left."

"I want you to know," Zatte told her. "Whatever you decide, I'm with you all the way. You can still save them, Luffa. I know you can do it."

She was referring to the Saiyans. Zatte was convinced that Luffa could redeem the Saiyan people from Rehval's control. She wanted Luffa to be accepted by her own kind, and this had fit in neatly with Zatte's other beliefs: that Luffa would change the universe for the better, that Luffa was destined to achieve some great thing, that Zatte was destined to support that holy mission at all costs. But now, Luffa was beginning to think none of those things would come true.

The realization was painful, but it finally lifted the mental block that had kept Luffa from deciding what to do next. There would be nowhere to run, and her pride refused to surrender, so her only choice was to go on fighting, even if there was no realistic chance of winning. Even if that meant disappointing the one woman in the universe who still believed in her. It was a grim admission to make, but with each moment, Luffa felt that it was the only option that made sense.

"I want you to take the ship out of the system," Luffa said to her. She kept staring at the viewscreen as she spoke. "Not too far, but make the jump to superluminous speed, so they'll think we've left."

"Okay," Zatte said. There was a glimmer of hope in her voice. As the ship moved away, Luffa switched the monitor to display the view from the stern of the star-yacht. Nagaoka quickly receded, and when Zatte activated the faster-than-light engines, the entire system quickly shrank into an unusually bright point of light among the stars. Luffa never took her eyes off of it.

"That... that should be far enough," Zatte said after several minutes. "Now what?"

"Set a course for some friendly planet," Luffa said. "It doesn't matter where, but outside of Federation territory. We can't trust them anymore."

You've got it," Zatte said. "But... what do we do when we get there?"

"I'll drop you off," Luffa said. "Then I'm coming back to Nagaoka to finish things. One way or another."

"What?!" Zatte shouted. She leaped up from her seat and grabbed Luffa by the shoulders. "Luffa that's insane. You'd be trapped there. Even if you made it to the surface, what would you do when you got there?"

"There's only one thing left to do," Luffa said. "They have to die. All of them."

"Luffa, no--"

"All of them," Luffa said. "Every last Saiyan. The whole stinking species. It ends here. The lies, the treachery, the cowardice. I'm going to kill them all."

She was trembling with rage. She hadn't noticed it until Zatte put her hands on her arms, but now there was no mistaking it. For Luffa, it only confirmed that this was the right decision.

"Luffa, please, stop and think about what you're saying! How many Saiyans are down on that one planet right now? If they all die, will there be enough left to keep the population going? You'd be driving your own people to extinction!"

Luffa finally looked away from the viewscreen and stared into Zatte's eye. "You know I'm right!" she shouted. "You've seen what Saiyans are capable of. You've seen the depths they'll stoop to. Rehval doesn't care how many people he has to kill to get what he wants. And the rest of them don't care what happens as long as they get to be on the winning team. Nothing matters to them, Zattie!"

She pulled away from Zatte's arms and began to pace angrily around the bridge. "Dammit to hell, nothing matters to them at all! It's all a lie! It's all been lies!"

Zatte rushed to her side and put her arm around Luffa to console her. She tried to speak, to say something comforting, but she couldn't find the words. There were no words. Luffa knew it, and perhaps Zatte was beginning to realize it too.

"Saiyan pride," Luffa said between short, angry breaths. "It's worthless. They'll abandon everything they have just to get a little glory. Freedom doesn't matter to them. Honor is nothing. Rehval's turning them all into... into livestock, and they don't even care."

"You're not like them," Zatte said. "Please, listen to me. I'm begging you. Whatever happens, it doesn't change what you are. You're my wife and I love you."

"I love you too," Luffa said. "But you know I'm exactly like them. I've let you down before. I've betrayed you. I've been more interested in puffing up my ego than in things that really matter. I've just gotten more self-conscious about it, that's all."

"Luffa, no..."

"They have to die," Luffa said. "My species is a cancer on the whole universe. I see that now. This is what I was born to do. I have to destroy my own race for the good of everyone else. Tell me I'm wrong, Zattie. Tell me you don't believe what I'm saying right now."

They looked at each other for what felt like several minutes. At last, Zatte hung her head and sighed. "If he wins... no one will be safe," she said. "And you can't beat him without going down there and beating his followers."

"There it is," Luffa said. "I'm the only one who can do this now."

"He forced you into this!" Zatte said. "If this is how the Saiyans are supposed to end, then it's his fault, not yours! He's the one that tied all of the others to his own fate! He's forcing you to kill them all!"

"Maybe so," Luffa said, "but I think it would have come to this eventually anyway. What else could I do? Where else could I go for a worthy fight? I think this might be how it ended up for Chanisp, or Old Darbock, or the other old heroes. The Saiyans had to rise up and find a way to bring down the Super Saiyans, or else they'd surely be destroyed themselves. Well, this time I'm breaking the cycle, once and for all. The universe will just have to learn to get along without us."

"Okay," Zatte said. There was a long pause, and then: "Okay. If this is what you have to do, then I'll go along with it. All I ask is that you take me with you."

Luffa shook her head. "You know I can't do that. You've seen how powerful Rehval is now. You wouldn't survive. I don't know that I'll survive this."

"I don't care!" Zatte said. "I can't just stay behind while you do this. I have to be there, with you. You're the xan-nil'Dor. If this is your purpose in the universe, then I have to do everything I can to help you see it through."

"I know about all of that," Luffa said. She couldn't bear to look at her. As a child, she might have dreamed Saiyan suitor offering to die alongside her in a glorious battle. But Zatte was no Saiyan, and Luffa was no child. "It's not worth getting you killed," she said as she turned away from her.

"Yes it is!" Zatte pleaded.

Luffa stopped and slowly turned back to face her again. "What are you saying?" she asked.

"I'm saying that if you can't survive this battle, then I... I want to die with you." Zatte said.

The words shook Luffa to the core. "How can you say that? You're a Dorlun," Luffa reminded her. "A survivalist. Staying alive is what you do best."

"None of that matters anymore!" Zatte said. "Right now, I'm not a Dorlun, and you're not a Saiyan, okay?"

She walked towards Luffa and threw her arms around her. "Right now, you're my best friend and my lover and my wife, and I would do anything to be with you for as long as I can. If it costs my life, then so be it."

"Zattie, this isn't like you. You're not thinking straight."

"No, I'm not! I'm thinking that all I want to do is show you just how much you mean to me. Let me die for your cause, xan-nil'Dor. Let me burn with you. Isn't that the way you want it? The two of us dying together in an epic battle?"

Of course it was. The thought of it was too tantalizing to ignore. Luffa had imagined such a glory back on Dorlu Prime, when it was just the two of them against the Tikosi hordes. The last several months of their marriage had been marinated in a fascination with death. Even now, Zatte was caressing the hair on the back of Luffa's head, the way she always did while they talked about how dangerous their last combat mission had been.

Zatte hadn't always been like this. She had changed so gradually that Luffa hadn't really noticed until now. Perhaps she was right. Maybe Zatte wasn't a Dorlun anymore.

And that was what made up Luffa's mind.

"All right," Luffa finally said. "We'll go together."

Zatte looked up from Luffa's shoulder. "You mean it?"

"Of course I do," Luffa said. "You're right. About me, about us. Leaving you behind... well, it just doesn't seem right."

Zatte stepped away from Luffa and took her hands in her own. She was still crying, but the look on her face was joyous. "I... can't tell you how much this means to me," she said. "To be with you, right up to the end. The end. This is it, isn't it?"

"You never know, we might survive this," Luffa said. "But... I doubt it."

"It doesn't matter anymore," Zatte said. "You're going to save the universe, and I'll be with you every step of the way. I won't let you down... I... I... Oh, come here."

She pulled Luffa in and embraced her, cradling the back of her head with her hand.

"I love you," Zatte said. "I know it's awkward for you, but if this is the last chance I get to say it, then I want to say it. You're everything to me. Ha ha, I'm shaking like a leaf right now. I'm actually excited, you know? I never died before. It sounds funny to say it. I'm going to die. I'm frightened, but I don't even care anymore, because I know I'll be with you for the rest of my life. You know what I mean?"

"Yeah," Luffa said. "I'm... I'm scared too. I don't think this Super Saiyan business turned out the way I had in mind. I hope I didn't screw it up too badly."

"You didn't," Zatte said, her breath hot against Luffa's ear. "You won't. You're perfect just the way you are."

Luffa swallowed hard and made a strange sound, almost like a stifled howl. Zatte held her tightly. She sounded like she was hyperventilating.

"It's okay," Zatte said between rapid breaths. "It's okay. Shhhhh. You don't have to say it. I know how you feel. I've always known. My dear, dear Luffa."

"I know that you know. That's not good enough," Luffa said. "I gotta get this out."

She leaned into Zatte's embrace and took in the fragrance of her hair, of her neck, of the sweat in her clothing.

"You're my wife," Luffa said. "I didn't know what marriage was before you. Every day you've put up with me has been an honor that I don't deserve. You inspire me to push myself to be a better Saiyan... no. A better person. You've even saved my life. I owe you a debt that I can never repay."

"Luffa..."

"I wish it didn't have to be like this," Luffa went on. "That you and I could just stay here forever and hold each other, just like this. But it just can't be that way."

"I know. It's okay."

Luffa kissed her, and for what seemed like a millennium, there was only the two of them, no wars, no legends, no divine plans. When they finally separated, they each wiped the tears from each other's eyes.

"Look at us," Zatte said as she wiped her nose with her arm. "We're about to go off to war and we're bawling like a couple of toddlers."

"Yeah," Luffa said with a sniffle. "Well, I won't tell anyone if you don't."

"Deal."

"I love you, Zattie," Luffa said. "More than I can say. I just want you to remember that."

"Of course," Zatte said.

Luffa embraced her again.

"I love you. And... I'm sorry."

Zatte opened her mouth to ask what she was sorry for, but she never got the chance. Faster than Zatte could react, Luffa had charged her hands with ki, and channeled it into Zatte's body. The resulting shock rendered her unconscious. She gasped, and her left eye widened with surprise, and then she went slack in Luffa's arms.

The enormity of this suddenly hit Luffa, and the tears flowed freely down her face. She wanted to wait for her to wake up so she could explain all of this to her, but of course that made no sense. She would never hear this woman's voice again. Despite the tears Luffa's expression remained stoic, however, as she cradled Zatte in her arms, and carried her the captain's chair.

"I'm so sorry," she said as she lowered Zatte into the chair and adjusted the seat to make her more comfortable. "I really did want you to come with me on this. It'd be even better than you made it sound. I don't deserve what I have in you."

She went to the navigation console and programmed the ship to wait several minutes, and then fly itself along the course Zatte had entered earlier.

"But you can't go," Luffa continued. "No matter how much you want to be there beside me, I can't let that happen. I can't let you die."

Once the autopilot was set, she entered codes to lock out the computer. Then Luffa got up from the seat and knelt down beside Zatte. She ran her fingers along Zatte's cheek, stopping at the edge of the patch that covered her wounded right eye.

"It's because of me and my rotten family that you lost the colony," she said. "Dorlu Prime. My father betrayed you all, and I was too late and too weak to stop the Tikosi. You and Keda were the only survivors, and then we lost her too, because I was too late. And too weak."

Luffa pressed her eyes into the crook of her own arm to dab away the tears. "The Saiyans have to pay for what they've done," she said. "But I can't let you die because of that. You're the only one left from the Dorlu Prime colony. If you die too, because of my weakness... Well, I won't let that happen. You're supposed to want to live dammit. Dorluns are survivalists, and all. But you're ready to throw your life away for me. For me! But... I'm only a Saiyan..."

She stood up and watched the rise and fall of Zatte's chest for a moment, then somehow found the strength to turn away and head for the door. "It's not worth it," Luffa said. "And even if it is worth it... I still won't let it happen. If Providence wants me to do this, then it'll have to settle for my death. No more Dorluns die because of me."

Luffa stood in the doorway and hesitated for a moment. She wanted to take one last look at her beloved, but decided against it.

"G-goodbye, Captain," she said. And then she let the door close behind her.

*******

The star-yacht was large compared to many of the ships Luffa had seen in her life, but the walk to the cargo bay wasn't that long. This time, it felt like hundreds of miles. With each step, she felt the urge to turn back, to return to her wife, even if it was just to take one last look at her. Each step forward was a reminder of everything she was leaving behind, forever.

But she refused to turn back. She allowed herself to feel the grief and sadness, but only so that these emotions could stoke the fires of her rage. The thing within her burned yellow-hot, demanding release. The Saiyans would pay. Jindan would be destroyed. Rehval would die. The universe would be spared their blight forever. It had to be this way. Perhaps one day Zatte might understand that, and forgive her.

As she reached the entrance to the bay, the service droid met her in the corridor. She had nearly forgotten about it.

"PB-2," she said.

"Yes, mistress?" the robot asked. It had come with the star-yacht. PB-2's main function was to roam the ship, tidying up where it could and basically making its former owner feel a bit richer than he would have felt without a mechanical butler. Luffa knelt down to be at eye-level with it.

"I've set the ship on an automatic course. No one's at the controls, so just keep an eye on things and make sure it doesn't hit anything for the next couple of weeks, okay? Zatte's on the bridge. She'll be upset when she wakes up, because I've locked out the controls. Just take care of her for me, would you?"

"Very good, madam," it replied. "When shall I expect your return?"

"I won't be coming back," she said. "Fifteen days from now, I want you to transfer all command codes to Zatte," Luffa said. "The ship will belong to her, is that clear?"

"Perfectly clear, mistress," PB-2 said. The authorization of this was actually a much more complicated than it appeared. In the moment after hearing Luffa's order, PB-2 had silently scanned the sound of her voice, her life sign readings, and her retinal patterns, along with a number of other factors to confirm her identity. These features hadn't originally been part of PB-2's design, but Luffa had paid for the upgrades some time ago, in order to maintain absolute control of the ship.

"Good," Luffa said. "Yeah, good."

She walked into the cargo bay, past Guwar's fresh corpse, and began preparing the small pod for launch. Zatte had acquired this vessel on Ristet IV, and had joked that it was an anniversary present for Luffa. Luffa hoped that, in the future, Zatte wouldn't look back on this gift with too much regret. As Luffa ran through the pre-flight checklist, she noticed PB-2 had followed her inside the bay. For a moment, Luffa assumed that it was going to start disposing of Guwar's body, but instead it followed her to the pod.

"What is it?" she asked the machine.

"Will there be anything else, mistress?" it asked. It's tone was professional and cordial, the same as it had always been. And yet, Luffa couldn't help but hear a touch of sadness in its voice, as though it wanted an excuse to be with her for a moment longer before her final departure.

"I don't know if you can understand this," Luffa said after a heavy sigh. "I sort of hope you can't, because if you do, then I've been treating you like an object this whole time. But... thanks for looking after the place. You've handled a lot of stuff that you were probably never meant to deal with on a yacht, but you performed well. I'm... uh... honored by your service."

"As you say, madam." PB-2 replied. There was no indication that her words meant anything special to it.

"Yeah, I'm probably wasting my breath here," Luffa said. "Take care of yourself, PB-2."

"As you wish," PB-2 replied.

It stood in the corner of the bay, near the door, while Luffa boarded the pod and launched it through the force-field airlock that led into space. Luffa set her course for Nagaoka, and the pod streaked onward to its destination.

Inside the bay, PB-2 waited for a moment, until the bay doors closed. It waited a few minutes more, and then it rolled off to attend to its other duties.

*******

NEXT: No Way Out.

[gaiatheorist]

Atypical/Elliptical.

There was a tweet highlighted yesterday by one of the Neuro-Divergent accounts I follow, building pace on the back of a compare/contrast photo of an autistic female, and an autistic male. If you haven’t seen it, you can guess how it went, she’s all cute and ‘sailor suit’, he’s in a cluttered room, overweight, in food-stained clothing. Lazy stereotyping at best, offensive and dangerous in reality. The dangerous tweet I reported was one from a contentious incel, stating that females don’t have autism, further down the page of “Would you like to report any other tweets?”, we have that other old favourite “Autism isn’t real.” Yes, I’m shaking my head.

I’m not going to go into in-depth analysis of incel beliefs and values, I’ll just hover over the suggestion that this particular variant was whipping up his followers that ‘Women don’t have autism’, based on his interpretation that the female whose picture he was using was conventionally attractive, and neatly presented. If you tell someone the sun’s 93 million miles away, they accept it, but if they see a sign saying ‘wet paint’, they feel compelled to put their finger in it to check, then complain that they have paint on them. (I know, I don’t touch wet paint, I lick it, it keeps life interesting.) ‘Everybody knows’ that a common feature with autism is the special interest, that we will fixate obsessively on a certain topic, or subject, and woe betide any mere mortal who can’t escape before we get into full flow, what with us not always picking up on non-verbal cues, like snoring. It’s entirely possible that the ‘girl’ had a special interest of dressing and presenting herself in a certain way, even ‘normal’ people do that, hanging their entire identity on presenting a certain way, designer clothes, certain styles of dress, Angry Bird eyebrows. Step back, and absorb that, the girl wasn’t ‘properly’ autistic because she didn’t have food in her hair, wasn’t wearing a Star Trek uniform, looked ‘normal’. Specifically, she looked the kind of ‘normal’ that incels have experience of being rejected by, because they expect to have nice-things handed to them on a plate, and then blame everyone else when they’re denied. There’s a certain example of a petulant, pouty individual, who sulks when they don’t get their own way floating to mind.  

Using the newfangled terms neuro-divergent, and neuro-typical, and pausing just for a second to point out that no, we’re not ‘all a bit autistic’ any more than we’re a ‘bit vegetarian’ or a ‘bit left-handed’, neuro-typical people are assumed to be the norm, anything else is deviant. I’ll hold my hands up to that, I don’t iron my laundry, or peel my vegetables, you can stop clutching your pearls, I’m not going to steal them, what would I want pearls for? People with neurodevelopmental disorders are atypical, outsiders, outliers, ‘other’, and it’s more than a little annoying that ‘everyone knows’ that, specifically autistic people, have a tendency to see themselves as different from others. (You started it, telling us we were wrong and weird for our plethora of sensory aversions, and routines, just because they don’t make sense to you.) We’re atypical, whether that’s because we’re genuinely distressed if our ‘usual’ brand of socks, or cereal, or soap is discontinued, or because we won’t cross the road if the light isn’t green, even if there’s nothing coming. Other examples are available. 

I’ve spent vast chunks of my life being bounced between “Why are you doing it like that?” and “HOW do you do that?”, I don’t have any savant-skills, but I’m on an elliptical axis, I do some things differently. (The axis isn’t just elliptical, it’s occasionally highly irregular, I have multiple other medical issues, autistics are often blessed like that, to the untrained eye, it might appear I’m neurotic, or hypochondriac, or do my shopping on NHS direct. I’m an unfortunate combination of chromosomes and chronology.) You neuro-typical types bimble along happily enough on your spherical orbits. Yes, you have spikes, too, I know, but it seems that they’re the exception rather than the rule, your orbits appear far more regular than mine. I’m deviating from all-autistics, to ‘me’, there are common factors, but we’re not a one-size-fits-all contingent, I don’t get upset if different types of food touch on my plate, but I can’t use oven-gloves, and I’ll go all day without a drink of water rather than share a drinking vessel, we’re all different. 

I’m sometimes envious of the spherical orbit, the regularity of being able to remember to prepare and eat three meals a day, not being afraid of bridges, being able to choose a direction and travel in it without sensory overload, it might as well be necromancy or Olympic level athleticism, it just isn’t ‘there’ for me. When my orbit is within ‘yours’, I’m highly efficient, that’s the “HOW do you do that?” phase. I just do. There isn’t really much of an alternative, but it’s not very healthy, I have all of your weird scripts and rules tumbling around my head, like that stage where you’re learning a new language, everything has to be double-processed, and checked, it’s clunky, not fluent. I’m 43, and I still don’t dream in your language, I can concentrate for periods, but remembering all of the verb endings tends to kick the tenses out of the window, we’re no longer congruent, and I don’t make sense to you. 

When I’m within your orbit, I take short-cuts, as verbose as I am here, I omit the unnecessary, because I don’t have the cognitive or physical energy for all of it. I’m a flat-pack item of furniture, I don’t need ‘all’ those screws and fixings to be functional, do I? I unintentionally infuriate and antagonise, because I don’t want to stop for a cup of tea, or chat about TV programmes, I want to complete the task set, before I run out of energy. (I know, but the externally imposed sanctions for non-completion generally have a ripple-out impact on others. My intense bursts of activity alienate other people, because they want to slow down, and chat, but that’s not the task in hand, and I know that my brain and body are temperamental, I *need* to finish within time, and properly, in case I’m less-functional the next day, I always stacked/banked work to make sure I was ahead of myself, to avoid letting other people down if I was ill.) 

When our orbits converge, it’s phenomenal, on a ‘work’ level, a life-admin level, or, that holiest of Grail, an interpersonal level, those brief instances are stellar, apart from me freaking people out by my intensity sometimes, I’m an acquired taste. I’m really good at some things, a large proportion of which have yet to demonstrate a particularly useful potential, but there’s time yet. I’m steering very firmly away from the lazy stereotypes of ‘special talents’, I’m resilient and resourceful because I have to be, I often view things from an alternative perspective, and connect-the-dots that others don’t. I still can’t use oven-gloves. 

When my orbit swings outside yours, it’s difficult, sometimes impossible for aims to be reconciled, That’s the kick in the teeth on a regular basis, last week, or last month, or yesterday, or earlier today, I might have been functional, or even brilliant, then, all at once, I’m not. “You were fine yesterday!”, yes, I know, I was there. 

Chromosomal and chronological factors sometimes spin me out of orbit. I might have been able to walk to Tesco one day last week (Coincidentally, I wasn’t, but that’s not the point.), that doesn’t mean I can do it every day, it’s a cross-over complexity with my telephone directory of other ailments, as well as the autism. When I’m out of orbit, whether it’s sensory overload, burnout, or just my day-to-day ‘wrongness’, I process differently. A ‘normal’ action, like parking a car (I don’t know why I use driving analogies, I’ve never taken my test.) becomes a pantomime of a driving test, where the instructor speaks a foreign language, it’s an unfamiliar car, on unfamiliar roads, and the car’s on fire, and full of wasps, with an angry pig in the back seat. I don’t have muscle memory, or subconscious competence for a lot of functions people take for granted, not just oven gloves, sometimes events conspire to throw me out of spherical orbit, and everything becomes far more complicated than it needs to be. The elliptical orbit makes ‘just’ my ultimate four-letter word, and I know plenty of others. Some instances of being out-of-orbit are predictable, sensory overloads, other illnesses, compounded difficulties around other life-events, my toe having poked through my sock, and being strangled in my boot, it can feel like being an adult-sized toddler, and the temptation to throw down and scream on the supermarket floor because I’m tired is an unwelcome, but regular occurrence. 

“Oh, we all get like that sometimes! Can’t you just...?” If I could have ‘just’, I would already have ‘just’, wouldn’t I? 43 years of having been chastised for being difficult, or ruining everyone else’s picnic feed very firmly into the ‘masking’ phenomenon. Charlatans and snake-oil sellers, and Gwyneth Paltrow, as well as even more insidious practitioners are always trying to promote some thing or another that will make us fitter, healthier, more productive, then, to continue the Radiohead theme, many medical types throw back “You do it to yourself.”. 

Autism is a lifelong developmental disorder. I can’t consistently ‘try to be less like that’ any more than I can try to be less right-handed, or biologically female. (Yes, I *could* attempt to alter both of those, but to what end?) I’ve had a lot of medical interventions since the brain aneurysm ruptured, and 99% of them have tried to un-autistic me. That’s normal, because autism is abnormal. It’s also normal because autistic females broadly present differently to males. Broadly, I have observational experience from working in education, the ‘old’ perspective was that boys were more frequently autistic than girls, and, more-autistic. Slight tangent on the common misconception of the autistic spectrum, if I may? “We’re all a bit autistic, haha!”, no, no, we’re not, any more than we’re all a bit epileptic. The autistic spectrum isn’t a continuum-spectrum, from 0-100% autistic, while it is clear that some people are severely autistic, and others are not, it isn’t actually a point-scoring exercise, unless you’re UK benefits agencies.

Males and females are conditioned and socialised differently, after millennia of girls-do-this-boys-do-that, humanity is cautiously asking why. I’ll leave my wonky femininist soapbox under the desk, apart from the fact that females are ‘supposed to’ be quiet, and kind, and compliant, and all the gubbins that the incels say. I’m 43, I was raised pink-for-girls-blue-for-boys, there were a lot of things Girls Didn’t Do, it’s OK, I’ve done most of them now, don’t tell my Dad. Much like left-handed children in days gone by were forced to write with their right hand, there has been, and still is, to some extent, pressure on males and females to behave differently, as if keeping our reproductive paraphernalia in a more-or-difficult-to-kick location is an absolute-for-everything. I don’t think it is, but we’ve already established I’m atypical. Not all 40-something-year-old people, with, or without autism had the same childhood experiences I did. There’s no place for detail here, some of the embedded lessons weren’t kindly taught. That Pavlovian response system stuck, be quiet, be pleasant, be demure and train that flinch into a smile. (Various parties ought to apply for funding for having ‘tamed’ this particular shrew. I’m not tamed, I’m barely even domesticated, but I have a shed-load of coping mechanisms.) 

Females shouldn’t feel the need to be less-than, to defer to males, but, in a disturbing number of arenas, that’s the norm. I spent the largest part of my life being afraid of men, because of what some men had done, and hating myself for holding a belief that was anathema to the absolute core of my being. (Chapter whatever, fundamentally knowing that males were not ‘better’ than females, but feeling obliged to concede, to avoid disturbing the peace.) The #MeToo disclosures and discourse picked that metaphorical scab, I’ll never go back to that half-life.

I’m atypical because, after decades of excruciating path-of-least-resistance masking, I’ve managed to mask proficiently to a point where I can ‘act normal’ for short stretches. I shouldn’t have to. I’m not suggesting I should be allowed to climb on top of the curtain poles, and throw things, but I don’t see why not-acting-feminine should be seen as disturbing or threatening. It hurts, not just the bras, and the stupid shoes, and the sitting-all-cramped-up, but the emotional and physical toll of carrying oneself ‘female’. When I had the full spectrum cognitive functioning assessment after the brain injuries had settled, the neuro-psych pointed out that a consideration was always ‘At what cost?’. The popular analogy for physical or cognitive energy is a ‘battery’ (A cell, doofus, a ‘battery’ is a number of cells together- behold, I’m reaching my cranky-pedantic cut-off stage.) In order to do anything at all, you need enough ‘charge’ to complete the task. Yes, given, BUT, with autistic masking, there isn’t just the ‘charge’ for the task, there’s the additional charge involved in keeping everything else running, without breaking down, or burning out, the energy overdraft. I’m virtually constantly in my ‘overdraft’, and it’s a bitch to pay back. 

I’m elliptical because I frequently swing inside, or outside a typical orbit, I can be ‘miles ahead’ at some points, but ‘miles behind’, and struggling to keep up at others, it’s not a reliable pattern, I can’t predict all of it, and I am SICK of well-meaning “Oh, don’t be so hard on yourself!”. I’m rarely being ‘hard’, I’m usually being practical, if I do x and y on one day, I won’t be able to do z as well. (”Don’t call yourself disabled!” can be a blog for another day.) 

This has been an attempt for me to shake myself out of a fog of not-writing. Autism is opaque and oblique, it can be brilliant at times, when things ‘click’, but it’s almost-always difficult to articulate in a way that’s palatable, let alone digestible, I know, it sticks in my own throat enough. The ‘experts’ trot out their theories, sometimes without consultation, and the organisations that set out to ‘cure’ us are pedaling the myth that autism is a disease. It’s not, it’s a divergence. Take this as ‘A Portrait of This Autist’, I can’t speak for anyone else, but I do think it’s important to speak.                

[whostheblondegirlwriting]

Hi! So I freaking love everything you write! Seriously you’re insanely good! I came here to ask you if you could further break down Bucky and Rumlow’s relationship and how it’s developed through his years as his handler? Please and thank you!!!! Keep up the amazing work!

Now for the ““Wow. This turned in to a way bigger answer than I expected and I don’t know if you wanted” answer to your ask. 

So, I’ve always used two moments from TWS when I considered my Brock Rumlow: 1) the “You totally saw them! You’re looking right at them, right now!” escalator scene 

and 2) this quote from the man himself, Frank Grillo.

Brock was 22 when he was recruited by HYDRA. He was immediately selected for a deep cover assignment inside SHIELD and placed in the STRIKE Division. He had the opportunity to train with the Asset in his position with STRIKE Team Delta, who covered the Soldier on ops as his support team.

In Echo and Jack Rollins, you do get some flashbacks to Rumlow’s interaction with Bucky that hint around at his sympathy for the Soldier. But it wasn’t always the case. Brock initially fulfilled his duties as Handler following the “order through pain” model of “asset handling”.

He knew who the Soldier was, but it wasn’t really that important. It would be years before anyone found Cap in the ice and gave Bucky a living connection to the world again. The Asset was a tool that needed supervision, or it could breakdown. That was all. On his introduction to the Asset as his new Handler, Rumlow was directed to leave an impression on the Asset about who was in charge. In his own words: “I let him know I was not the mother fucker to test. Beat him down so bad, I fractured his orbital socket. And that’s how he met me. He knew I was a brawler and, from then on out, I was in charge.”

That was the nature of their relationship, for the next couple of years. But there was a turning point for Brock. More than just a ghost in the machine, Brock realized there was still a soul there. After the river, Rumlow realized, somewhere along the line, the Asset had become a part of his team. Brock considered the man and not the Asset, wondering what it was like to be him; having his life and memories taken from him, over and over again, pressed in to service for the enemy. He saw firsthand that Bucky could remember who he was and what his life was like before HYDRA. And, frankly, it fucking unnerved him.

With the horrifying scenarios of being in the Soldier’s place in the back of his mind, his resolve softened. He began to delay reports or make omissions, when the programming would begin to fail on missions, leaving Bucky a few precious hours with his memories or away from the torturous machines the Program doctors used to “fix” the Asset, when he could. No prisoner deserved the hell Bucky was living, to be repeatedly stripped of his life and imprisoned in a cryochamber. No man did. And certainly not a national hero like Bucky Barnes. It was the least he could do.

When the program expanded and additional Soldiers began training with the Asset, Brock realized the danger Bucky faced against HYDRA’s new weapons. He fought and filed complaints against the Winter Soldier Program staff, reporting their mishandling and “damaging” of the Asset and their disregard for his safety, under the guise of keeping the Asset mission ready, but the reality was, it was all he could do help Bucky survive.

In 2010, Brock was removed as the Asset’s handler, after going too far to intervene on Bucky’s behalf. But the experience had already begun to change him. Resentful of how the situation had been handled and his dismissal from the Program, Brock formed a plan to put himself in a stronger position of power, determined to get back in to a place of influence. He took command of the Division, but he never regained direct access to the Program. He could only ever look in from the outside, but at least he knew Bucky was able to endure, after he was left on his own.

A year later, Capt. Rogers would be found in the Arctic ice. A year after that, Brock found the love of his life. With the influence of her good heart and his unanticipated friendship with Cap, Rumlow’s disillusionment with HYDRA continued to grow. Events aligned and as Brock learned the details of Project Insight, he had found his breaking point. Although the original plot to unmask HYDRA failed, Rogers and his friends’ dismantling of SHIELD did what Brock had tried to do. Had Brock’s plan not been discovered and had it succeeded, Bucky’s existence would have been revealed, he would have been rescued and reunited with Rogers, and, hopefully, Brock’s conscience been eased a little.

It was only after Allison resurfaced with Bucky that Brock began to feel any animosity toward him. When Bucky went to speak to Rumlow, Brock recognized instantly the attachment Bucky had to Allison. It wasn’t so much that Rumlow was jealous. Suspicious and worried, that maybe Allison had moved on in the year they were apart, yes. Angered that Bucky had put her in danger by taking her with him, while he took his revenge on HYDRA, you’re god damn right he was. Brock had done everything he could to keep her away from HYDRA and safe. He was incensed at the idea that he could have lost her, without ever having a chance to make things right with her. And, yeah, he was a little insulted to see Bucky didn’t recognize what he had done to help him those years ago. Regardless, Brock always figured, that if his memories kept coming back after all the wipes and years, that Bucky could still the good and honorable man he’d heard and read Bucky Barnes had been. And, at the very least, that was worth his respect.

Brock had seen Bucky protect Allison. He trusted him for it. To him, that said he’d been right about Bucky all along. Brock couldn’t blame him for any hostility or resentments he may have toward Brock from his time with the Program. It wasn’t as if Rumlow hadn’t imagined the rage and hatred he would feel in his position, to have so much taken from him and be helpless to fight it. He even hoped somewhere down the road, the two of them might reach an understanding about all that happened those years they were both part of the Program and put it behind them, for Allison’s sake.

But for Bucky’s part, he never understood why Rumlow changed. He didn’t understand why Brock had begun to treat him differently than he had been before the river, than any other handler he had known had. As the Asset, his short term memory was practically nonexistent. It was the long years of mistreatment, of beatings and machines that always came back to him when he came out of cryo. Those painful and scaring experiences, somehow, always stayed with him. And that’s how each meeting or mission with Rumlow began, with the worst memories.

He never trusted Brock, or the others on STRIKE Team Delta, because of it, but somehow he became almost comfortable with them. Familiarity, he figured it had been, after DC, when his mind began to heal and he began to recover more and more of his memories. Delta’s camaraderie reminded him of the Howlies. Even the little bit of it they showed to him in the field, keeping an eye on him seemingly more for his safety, like their own, than for making sure he didn’t try to escape and taking an interest in his well-being, as they routinely checked in with each other. Deployments with Rumlow and his men were the closest thing to being treated like a human being, and not a science experiment, that he had known since the fall. When Delta was permanently replaced by the SpecOps team HYDRA kept in auxiliary for when the STRIKE Team was unavailable, he lost that sense of belonging and safety, and he inwardly mourned it.

Rumlow had been an enigma. Bucky knew two versions of one man, while Brock had been with the Program, and he couldn’t understand how he could be both. Bucky was always suspicious of Brock’s motives for not reporting some of the minor breakdowns in the programming. He assumed it was because the incident didn’t cost them the mission’s success or any team casualties. At first he was fearful of the intentional oversights, thinking Brock was piling up ammunition to use against him; that it was part of some large punishment to come all at once, instead of the immediate and brutal “corrections” in the field he used to receive from Rumlow and always got from the handlers before and after him.

As time went by, and Brock “permitted” the breakdowns and never used them against him, Bucky privately reveled in those fleeting hours he had to remember himself and his life before the fall, afraid to acknowledge the small gift Brock seemed to be giving him. He began to consider maybe they were a reward for a job well done, despite the lingering fear in the back of his mind that at any moment Brock would take them away and go back to the old ways.

He saw Brock questioned and criticized by Program staff, for his “oversights” and carelessness when their programming would begin to wear off or fail. He saw him argue with and challenge the doctors and techs, on his behalf, present to watch procedures and tests no other handler had ever come or stayed to see. One time, he saw Brock Rumlow turn a gun on his own people to protect him when a “training exercise” had once again gone wrong and Bucky was too injured to defend himself anymore. It was the last time he saw Rumlow, before that night in the woods in Pennsylvania.

That night in Pennsylvania, Rumlow’s face was one of only a few he knew. He was giving the orders again and he said the words to put Bucky back under his control, and HYDRA’s. Brock was the face of HYDRA and the Program again. Since DC, every moment had been about finding him and completing his revenge on everyone who’s had tortured him for decades.

He could never have considered helping him, if Rumlow hadn’t been the only way to save Allison. For all she had done and been willing to sacrifice for Bucky, he would have done anything for her. It sickened him, every time he heard Rumlow’s voice. He was wary, to be following Rumlow’s plan to rescue Allison. The earth disappeared from beneath him, when he realized who Brock was to her and the half-truths and omissions that she had made.

But he couldn’t argue the facts, when he saw and heard for himself what Brock had done to subvert the will of the Program and do what little he could to help him. He could sympathize with the lengths people would go to for the ones they loved, remembering what Allison had done to help him was more than she ever meant to do to hurt him. Eventually, Bucky began to realize those small intuitions those years ago, that Brock wasn’t like the others, were right. They didn’t excuse anything, but he could finally start to understand. And he needed to understand, if he was going to be able to move on. He still had his life, in some ways, because of what Rumlow had done for him. He could let Brock have his. After all, and if for nothing else, to let Allison have him.

[bxwtothefirstorder]

Not Alone Anymore

My shortie to @propertyofpoeandbucky‘s Mystery Writing Challenge. Hope you like it! Also, happy birthday, @propertyofpoeandbucky! [Read on AO3 if you wish.]

Title: Not Alone Anymore Chapter/One Shot: One shot Author: @bxwtothefirstorder (main: @yoursaviourhasarrived) Rating: M Warnings: Graphic depiction of physical injury Prompt line: "I don't know how I've dealt with not having you in my life for so long."

"General Hux is hot."

Liz eyed you in a way if she asked if you were sane or have you lost your mind as you munched on your food.

"No", she replied in a way that you had to giggle.

"But he is. I mean, I get all tingly when he orders me around."

Liz furrowed her brows at your reddening cheeks and flashed a sly smirk at you.

"Bet you'd even kneel for him if he asked, huh?"

You blushed further and occupied your mouth with more food to avoid answering.

"Would you polish his blaster?" Liz now giggled, and you shoved her playfully in the shoulder. "Do you think he'd fire too quickly?" You couldn't help but giggle with her. As others were talking around you two in the canteen, nobody paid much attention to what you were talking about. Or so you thought. "He does look like he has a lot of pent up stress..."

"He could use a massage or two", you agreed.

"Massage."

Both of you giggled and totally missed the fact someone was sitting in the row behind you and actually heard every word. A moment later he got up and faced you — but you both still showed your backs to him and didn't notice a thing.

"What do you think, would he have an O-face when he, you know", Liz wondered.

"Nah, I bet he'd try to control himself. He's all about control."

"Do you think he has a Daddy kink?"

"More like Master and servant", you figured.

"Would you like to play along?"

"Oh, yes. I would. I think I'd be a very good girl."

You raised your glass and drank when suddenly a voice boomed from above and behind you.

"Are you two having fun?"

You spat out the water in front of you and Liz squealed, drawing a lot of attention to the — now — three of you. You glanced at Liz and she stared back at you, mortified, your thought written all over her face: he's going to kill you both. He killed people for less, according to legend.

"My office, now!"

You heard a certain long gaberwool coat swish and fine boots clicked away on the durasteel floor, and you quickly cleaned up the table where you spat your water before whipped your head to the direction where he went, your face burning like a sun, shaking from head to toe.

Knowing better than to keep up the General, you quickly got up on your feet and followed Liz who appeared to be a lot calmer than you. You never had demerits, she did. You never got into trouble, she did. This wasn't something you wanted to get written up for and you didn't want to scrub toilets twice a day for a month, before and after your work at your unit. Liz checked where his office was — neither of you've been there before —, and while you both waited for a lift to arrive, your friend took your right hand.

"It's going to be fine", she tried to calm you down, "it was just a funny discussion. We did no harm."

"But he sounded so mad!" You squealed out, on the verge of tears.

"I'd bet he also felt flattered. I mean, there's no one on this ship, except you, who'd find him attractive."

"Ha-ha, very funny."

You didn't laugh, though. Still shaking, you both approached Hux's secretary's desk – you didn't even know he had a secretary. She didn't look different from you, though; same uniform, same unit settled before his door. Although she had some authority about her character, and you felt like a knot forming in your throat when she instructed Liz to go in first, instructing you to sit down and stay quiet while you waited for your turn.

When you finally put yourself down on the chair you buried your face in your hands and tried to force back the tears. You were somewhat successful; you were under constant pressure due to the fact you served an organisation which was at war, and any and all added stress made you an anxious, shaky mess.

You wondered what would the consequences be; Liz was right that this was really just a harmless discussion, it wasn't even a gossip, but replaying the entire thing in your head it sounded very inappropriate and you cursed yourself over and over again how could you be so stupid to talk about things like that in a place like the canteen, where anyone could hear you. You really didn't mean any harm; you just wanted to emphasise you've found the General… well… sexy. There were quite a few other officers Liz used to talk to you about; and you always had a lot of giggle-time while you were at it. Of course, most of the time, you had those discussions in the privacy of either your or Liz's quarters, but sometimes, while you sat at your units at work, she'd make a funny noise when a handsome officer would walk by and you couldn't help but react to it.

And now, here you were. General Hux heard you, and he sounded so angry at both of you. You couldn't see his face in the canteen, as he walked away, but his ears were red with – you figured – fury, and that could not mean good. Suddenly, the door opened and Liz walked out. You shot to your feet but before you could walk over to your friend who was very pale and smiled a trembling smile at you, you've heard your own operation number being shouted from the office.

Without having any other choice, you entered the room without hesitation. You were loyal and obedient enough not to make things worse for yourself. Hux's office was barren; save for the desk and single chair reserved for him and the huge First Order banner hanging behind him. You stopped a few meters away from his desk and stood at attention; there was no sign of him telling you 'at ease'. He leaned back in his fine leather chair and had his datapad in his hand, a leg drawn across the other; you were pale until now, but being in a room like this with him and seeing him sitting like that, his green eyes focused on his datapad's screen made you blush.

Damnit. Whatever you said, you meant it. He was irresistible.

"What do you have to say for yourself?"

That caused your heart to sink. He didn't sound mad; he was completely calm, and he didn't even look up at you to see your reaction to his words. You didn't move, didn't flinch; but wished the durasteel floor of his office would swallow you whole.

"I'm sorry, sir. I meant no harm."

Your voice sounded very quiet and very submissive. A thought of how much he'd heard crossed your mind. You tried to swallow your nervousness when his eyes suddenly moved up and stared in yours. He slowly set the datapad, face down, on his desk. Your heart raced in your chest and you could've sworn he heard it. You definitely did.

"What should I do with you now?"

For some reason the naughty thoughts spiraled back in your mind and you had a hard time thinking of an appropriate answer now.

"I don't know, sir", you decided to say quietly, hoping giving the authority over you back to him would please him.

"I honestly have no idea how to deal with this situation, [Y/L/N]." He paused. This didn't mean you weren't in trouble, but maybe, if he was as flustered as you thought he was, maybe you had a way of wriggling out of this without, well, permanent damage. To your record, or yourself. "I never thought you even noticed me."

Stars, what?? Did you hear that right? Was this honestly – what was this? A confession? Did he just— you stared at him and he waited for you to answer, the silence nearly crushing you, your heart beating even faster in your ears.

"Sir?" You managed to push through your shock and confusion and he intertwined his fingers in his lap.

"Is it true?" He asked back and slightly furrowed his ginger brows as he tried his best to read you. "Do you think I am, quote, hot?"

If your face was red until now, you thought it'd set ablaze at his question. You closed your eyes for a few moments to escape his gaze, but you didn't dare to do this for long, you felt it was inappropriate. You owed him this much, didn't you?

"Yes", you sighed, and prepared yourself for complete annihilation.

He observed you for quite a few seconds before he let out a sigh and finally got up from his seat. Walking over to you, he stopped – his boots only a few inches from yours, he towered over you. You suddenly felt even smaller than you originally were. You never noticed he was so lean. Your eyes widened with awe, and now you were completely aware of the fact just how dangerous he was; he could make you cease to exist, but for some reason, for some very weird reason, you didn't feel fear.

After the battle of Crait you sought him out, finding him in his old quarters on the Finalizer. In the past few weeks you've been travelling with him; to the base, to the Supremacy, to Crait, and now you both were back at the start.

"Tage", you whispered as you approached him. He was sitting on the edge of the bed and had his face in his hands. "Are you okay?"

He lowered his hands and stared forward, not answering for a few seconds as you approached him and slipped a hand on his shoulder. His pain distorted and you withdrew your hand.

"No", he whispered back.

"What happened?"

You weren't allowed on Ren's command shuttle where Hux was, but you were near, on a remaining ship orbiting near the planet, waiting for him to return. But ever since he did, he didn't reach out for you. Was he ashamed of the failure? You've gathered it wasn't his fault. You moved to kneel in front of him, your hands gently resting on his knees, but he still avoided looking at you. Without answering you, he reached for his uniform jacket and started to get it off. You gasped when you saw the bruises all over his shoulder where you touched him a moment ago.

"I'm not feeling well", he murmured and you reached up to cup his face as softly as possible.

"I'll get the medkit", you softly kissed his lips, and you were glad he kissed you back.

Pulling away, you hurried to the refresher and brought a box back with you. You sat next to him again, and he already removed his tank top, too. You fought back your tears when you saw the state his back was in. He was covered with black, blue and purple bruises. As gently as you could, you started to apply a cream which helped with brusies like this and healed them in a matter of a few hours. Hux remained silent for a while as you worked and didn't move; he didn't give a sign that he felt anything of your touch, so even if you accidentally hurt him, you didn't know. Nevertheless, you were as careful as possible. Finishing with that, you retrieved a glass of water and a painkiller for him and knelt before him again, giving him the pill.

"Everything will be okay", you promised him, "you're stronger than anyone else."

He never said, but you knew your words always made him feel better. His green eyes grew softer.

"Thank you, [Y/N]", he said after he took the pill. You watched him swallow it with some water, settling the glass on the nightstand before he got a hold of your hands. "I don't know how I've dealt with not having you in my life for so long."

You smiled.

"I don't know either", you teased softly, moving his hands on your face, kissing him again.

[fandom-heaux]

Can you do a triple treble as kids story. where one of them Goes to live in the same street the other two live in and they become realy good freinds that can lead to so much more I would love that so much :)

Of course anon. I might have strayed a little…

You’re Cool, I Guess

Rating: G

Words: 2350

AO3

“Come on Beca, you don’t really have a choice. You might as well go into this with an open mind, for once.”

Beca and her father were sitting outside of Liberty Middle School while he tried, and failed, to convince her that this was a good situation they were in.

The grip Beca held on her book bag strap tightened at her father’s words. Its like he just wanted to brush over the fact that she was entering this stupid school in the middle of the year. Or that she had to leave her friends behind to come here and start over. Granted she didn’t have many friends back at home, but now she had none, so she hoped her dad was happy.

Beca was fuming, but she didn’t want to waste her breath trying to explain why this whole situation sucked for her. It’d be like talking to a brick wall. So she rolled her eyes and exited the car without a word to her father.

“Psst..”

Beca side eyed the red haired girl that sat next to her in her third class and furrowed her brows. She looked like one of those popular girls that were super mean to anyone that didn’t worship them. People like that didn’t exactly want to talk to her. (Okay, maybe she drew that conclusion a little quick, but she really didn’t have the best experiences when it came to pretty girls). Besides, Beca’s steely disposition had kept a number of people away from her today, so she really couldn’t figure out why it didn’t work on this girl. After a bit of silence (that was maybe used to try and see if the girl was crazy) Beca answered her, “What…”

“Hey, I’m Chloe. You’re new right?”

“Um… yeah?”

The girl, Chloe, started to giggle. Oh, she was one of those people. “What’s your name?”

Beca really wasn’t one for small talk, but it’s not like she had anything better to do as they sat in class waiting for the teacher to do something. “Beca.” Chloe’s smile grew, if that was even possible.“Hm. You really don’t talk much do you? Well that’s okay. You’re cute Beca. And I really like your earrings.”

This made Beca blush and look down. Cute? No one’s ever called her cute. Then she reached up and touched her left ear fondly. Of course she had both lobes pierced, but without her dad’s permission she had snuck off to get an orbital piercing. It was just after she found out they were moving, when things had seemed to be falling apart rapidly. What her father saw as a careless act of rebellion was actually a move to make Beca feel like she had some kind of control over what happened in her life. And right now, it was her favorite thing about herself.

A breathy laugh escaped Beca’s lips. “Thanks.” Chloe scooted her chair a little closer to Beca, and unlike any other time in her life, the shorter girl didn’t move away. Something kept her rooted in her spot. Okay, not just something, it was definitely the girl’s bubbly charm and possibly the bluest eyes the world has ever known.

“So, What lunch do you have?” Beca tried to remember what she’d seen on her schedule. “Third, I think.” Chloe looked like she was going to pop from her excitement, but before she could say anything else, their teacher told everyone to quiet down so she could start teaching. Chloe leaned close to Beca and whispered, “I have third lunch too! You should totes sit by me and my best friend Aubrey, she’s going to love you.”

Aubrey totes did not love her. Quite the opposite actually. When she saw Beca for the first time, she and Chloe were walking toward the booth that Aubrey and Chloe usually shared alone. The first thing she thought?  Who the heck is that and why is she coming over here with my best friend? A look of confusion and disgust crossed her face. You see, young Aubrey wasn’t very good at hiding her emotions.

What Aubrey didn’t know was that Beca had actually spotted her far earlier, when she had just entered the cafeteria. She was looking around for Chloe when her eyes landed on a blonde girl sitting alone with a notebook in front of her and a low bun that looked so tight it made her eyes water. But now, as she walked towards the girl with Chloe by her side, the unfriendly gaze in her direction cased her steps to slow down. Beca could feel her defences coming back stronger than before, already thinking of a million ways this could go wrong for her. She wasn’t very great at making friends, and it seemed a first day at a new school didn’t change that fact.

Chloe, however, was completely oblivious to the conflicting emotions her best friend and new friend held towards each other. She just kept walking with that spring in her step that Beca (and Aubrey) couldn’t help but admire. When Chloe slid into the booth beside Aubrey, Beca noticed a few things. First, she saw the withering look in Aubrey’s eyes soften almost immediately as they landed on the bubbly redhead. Second, she saw how Chloe easily slipped her arms around the girl and hug her as if her life depended on it. Suddenly, Beca felt awkward and out of place.

Obviously these two meant a lot to each other and she really didn’t want to intrude. Beca had already made a plan to give them some lame excuse and see herself to a dark corner somewhere when she felt a soft hand gently grab her wrist. Chloe was looking up expectantly at her, pleading with her eyes, but Beca looked down at the ground.

“Um… I really should get going.”

“What? No, you just got here. You haven’t even met Aubrey yet!” Aubrey snorted at that, like she didn’t care to meet Beca anyway. That just further convinced Beca that she was not wanted in their little circle. “Yeah, see? I don’t want to get in the way, so i’ll just go.” She tried to get her arm back from Chloe’s grip, but it was tightened. “Beca stop. I want you here…Bree tell her.” Chloe turned her pleading eyes in Aubrey’s direction. After a beat, the blonde girl’s hand waved across from her to the empty seat of the booth, as if wordlessly giving Beca permission to sit with them.

Beca hesitantly dropped her bag from her shoulder and slid into the booth across from the two girls with a sigh. Chloe’s look of unbridled joy almost made the painfully awkward situation worth it. Beca and Aubrey then went through formal introductions at Chloe’s request. Things seemed to be going smoothly for a little while (well, as smooth as strained conversation can get), until Aubrey asked about Beca’s piercing. She had a feeling this girl wouldn’t admire it the way Chloe had, so she kept her cards close to her chest.

“I just got it ‘cause I felt like it.”

Aubrey tilted her head at Beca, like she was challenging her. “Well Beca, I just don’t understand how your parents let you go off and get that ridiculous piece of jewelry in your ear.”

Beca leaned forward, her eyes squinting. “Would you believe that I didn’t get permission? I’m sure something like that is hard for you to understand, miss goody two shoes.”

Aubrey had the audacity to huff, mocking offense. “That’s probably more than anyone can say about you.”

Beca tried to stop the smirk that was forming on her face. If she didn’t know any better, she’d say that Aubrey was actually enjoying this. “Well if you took that stick out your ass then I’m sure you’d think different.”

“Oh my goodness, stop! You two seriously need to knock it off.” Beca and Aubrey stopped bickering, but kept staring at each other. Chloe had no idea where all of that arguing came from, but one thing was painfully obvious to her; these two girls pretty much did whatever she asked them to. So she came up with a plan.

“I’ve decided that i’m gonna have a sleepover at the end of this week… and you two are coming.” That immediately got the other girls’ attention.

“WHAT?”

“We’re not gonna play spin the bottle are we?”

Beca grimaced as she and Chloe walked hand in hand into the red haired girl’s bedroom. Chloe giggled and kept dragging her along. Aubrey was already seated on the floor beside Chloe’s bed. Beca, ever observant, noticed Aubrey glance down at their joined hands as they entered the room. She tried to subtly let go, but Chloe wouldn’t budge until the pair slipped down to the ground to form a circle.

Beca could immediately tell the difference between school Aubrey and the girl she saw in front of her right now. She was ten times more relaxed and wow, her hair looks beautiful when it’s down like that.

“No silly. I mean as much as I love cliches, we aren’t gonna do any of that. Well not yet anyway.” Chloe then winked at Aubrey, who blushed and looked to the ground. Beca decided she liked this Aubrey a lot better than school Aubrey.

“We are just gonna talk. Beca, you just moved here right?”

Beca hated being put on the spot, but she tried to relax. For some reason she actually wanted this to work out.

“Um, yeah. I did. Like, right down the street from here actually.” Chloe started to giggle (again) and Aubrey groaned loudly. The two of them looked at each other and bursted out laughing, Chloe clutching her stomach and rolling onto her back. Beca definitely felt left out. This obviously wouldn’t work out if she wasn’t even let in on their inside jokes. Beca let out a sigh. “Um…. what’s so funny?”

Aubrey looked over at her, still laughing. “Oh. well, Chlo predicted that you had moved into our neighborhood, but I figured the universe couldn’t possibly keep giving her everything she wished for. So we made a bet. Turns out you do live here and now she gets to have my favorite sweater.” Aubrey saying it out loud made Chloe laugh even harder.

Oh. So it wasn’t bad. Beca let out a breath she didn’t know she was holding. Then it dawned on her. Aubrey said that Chloe had wished that she moved into their neighborhood. Did that mean they actually did want her here? That was definitely new.

“Oh.” A breathy laugh escaped Beca. Maybe she should stop assuming the worst of everyone.

Chloe had finally gotten herself together and sat back up. “Okay, Okay. Let’s be serious.” When Chloe looked at beca her eyes were shining, and the tenseness in Beca’s shoulders disappeared.

“Alright. I have a question, Beca. Why in the world did you move here so late in the school year?” Aubrey’s tone was teasing, but her face showed that she was actually curious. Beca really wanted to do this, but that didn’t mean it would be easy.

So she told them. She told them that her parents got divorced and her dad decided to leave, and if that wasn’t enough he had to drag Beca along with him. She told them the real reason why she got her ear pierced and that it was very special to her. She told them that she and her dad had moved to the neighborhood the week before and how she hated the idea of going to their school. Then she mentioned that it wasn’t all that bad because she had met the two of them and they were slightly less annoying than everyone else. Beca talked until there was nothing left to say.

Beca finally looked up from the ground, where she had been staring while practically telling her life story, to see tears in Chloe’s eyes and appreciation in Aubrey’s. They were quiet for a while, making Beca feel like she had been oversharing. But suddenly she saw a flash of red and was knocked to the floor, trapped in a bear hug from Chloe. “Thanks for telling us Beca.”

“Yeah Beca, that was probably really hard.”

Beca laughed a little. “Yeah it was. But i’m glad I got that out…” Chloe reluctantly let Beca go after Aubrey tugged gently at her shirt. The three girls sat quietly for a while just thinking about what Beca had spilled.

Beca couldn’t possibly believe that she had opened up that much. What was it about these girls that just made that so easy?

Chloe was so full of emotion that she would need a full night to process it. It was a little overwhelming, the things she felt for this new girl that had entered her life. It was almost as if the three of them were destined to be together; to be here, in her bedroom right now, solidifying their relationship. It was almost like… Wait wait, I need to think about all this tomorrow.

Aubrey was full of understanding. She knew what it was like to live in a harsh environment, being that her father was a military person and her mother was extremely strict. She knew what it was like to not want to open up to anyone for fear of judgment and rejection. But she also knew that there was something about her red haired best friend that just made you want to be open and honest, and she was kind of honored to be apart of that experience for Beca.

“Oh my god, let’s stop being sappy and move on, yeah?”

…

At the end of the night, the three girls had grown closer. Beca learned more and more about them and grew fonder as the night dragged on. By the time they were ready for bed, all huddled up in a pile on Chloe’s bedroom floor, a question was burning on Beca’s brain.

“Did we all just become friends?”

“I think so.”

“Ew.”

[ncfan-1]

Getting the Hint

Atris had recently decided to take a leaf out of a certain Echani book. A pity Kalani wasn't getting the hint. [Written for Femslash February 2018.]

[Also on AO3]

----------------------

Atris had been a child when her family gave her to the Order, though not so young that she could remember nothing of her home, her family, her people. The Echani considered it a great honor for one of their children to become a Jedi, provided that child was allowed to learn of their ways as well. Truthfully, Atris considered herself ‘Jedi’ well before she considered herself ‘Echani’, but she knew the ways of the Echani. Even if the Echani did not request that the Jedi among their number know of their history and culture, the Order hardly discouraged its members from exploring their pre-Order cultural heritage.

Atris knew the ways of the Echani, though she did not often practice them. She had recently decided to take a certain leaf from a certain Echani book, being at a loss for how to go about it otherwise.

Unfortunately, the other person evolved lacked the framework necessary to take a hint.

“You’ve been very interested in sparring with me lately,” Kalani remarked as they passed over the last hill before the Enclave was out of sight, obscured by rolling hills and grass that swayed gently in the breeze. She tilted her head and peered searchingly into Atris’s face, her bright brown eyes gleaming with curiosity. “I don’t remember you ever being interested in sparring with me until a couple of weeks ago; I don’t remember you being very interested in sparring at all.”

“I am hardly uninterested in lightsaber forms,” Atris retorted, feeling her face grow slightly warm and praying that Kalani wouldn’t notice the way her face had doubtless flushed. Though she knew there was no one within sight, she still found herself surveying the countryside, checking to make sure there were no homesteads in sight, no farmland in sight. No, nothing, not even a dirt road. “I could scarcely call myself a Jedi if I did not apply myself to fighting with a lightsaber.”

Kalani laughed, that sweet, almost musical laugh that made Atris ache with longing, from her head to her fingertips. “Then why is it that up until a couple of weeks ago, if I wanted to spend time with you I had to drag you away from the Archives?” She raised an eyebrow. “At least once, literally?”

A Jedi was not supposed to be ruled by base urges, was not supposed to be ruled by attachments to others. Atris was master of herself; she allowed no base urges to master her. But this was different. She could still be master of herself and do this. “If I have been neglectful, please forgive me,” she murmured. “And I don’t wish to spar with lightsabers today. I thought we might do something different.”

Though Kalani was determinedly not getting the hint, she still seemed to grasp at something significant about the request. She looked away briefly, tucking a stray lock of fine black hair behind her ear, before meeting Atris’s gaze. The sun was starting to go down, and her smooth, fallow-colored face glowed gold in the fading light, like a fire had been lit beneath her skin. “And what is that?” Kalani asked softly.

Here it was—not the moment of truth, not yet, but the gate that must be opened to reach it. Atris was silent, resisting the urge to fidget with her sleeves. “I thought we might spar hand-to-hand today; it would be something out of the ordinary for both of us.”

A soft huff of a laugh escaped Kalani’s mouth. “It’s not really new to me, but I’m always ready to try new things.”

Atris nodded stiffly, her blood singing with nervy anticipation. Soon, now, very soon. “Very well. Take a position over there. We’ll begin shortly.”

As the two of them bowed to each other, Atris thought that it would be just her luck if one of the other Jedi from the Enclave came looking for them at just this moment. It wasn’t as though Jedi weren’t ever allowed to leave the Enclave; certain among the Dantooine council actually encouraged the Padawans to go out into the local farming community to cultivate good relations with the people of Dantooine. But there were also those among the Jedi who worried when their youngest went out into the plains without a Knight or a Master to join them.

Please, just an hour. Just an hour with no one to interrupt.

For now, Atris’s luck held; as the sparring session began, she could see no one in any direction. There was only a herd of iriaz far to the west, and a brith flying lazily overhead. Good, she thought almost feverishly. She had no desire to cheapen this with an audience.

The Echani believed that combat was the only true way to know someone. They believed that it was the purest form of expression. Apparently, when you did battle with someone, either seriously or just to spar, vain words and pretenses would be swept away, and all that remained would be the combatants’ true nature.

From the outset, Atris could see the flaw in this philosophy. It was understandable, considering it had been formulated by those who could not wield the Force, but still, surely the best way to understand someone was through the Force, rather than through combat. Still, Atris would hardly deny that there were some things a person only revealed about themselves in battle.

As they sparred, matching blow for blow, Atris found her attention drawn more to the hard muscle under Kalani’s clothing more than the nature of her heart, the way her face flushed and her eyes shone like stars. Given her small size, Kalani was at a disadvantage during hand-to-hand combat against almost any possible adversary, but this never seemed to discourage her. She plied all her strength to the fight, just as she did with any other.

When had it started? They had grown up together here, in this place—and Atris found she did not like to contemplate a galaxy where they were raised in different Enclaves, or one of them was never found by the Order, and they simply never knew each other. When Atris’s feelings had… changed, she did not know. The ambiguity bothered her. Did she not know herself better than this? Could she not define her own feelings more clearly than this?

Whenever it had happened, it had happened. And she was certain that whatever she felt, Kalani felt it too. She would not have proceeded as she had if she wasn’t sure. But oh…

You’re like a star. You draw everything into your orbit, and you shine so brightly that night seems as day when I am with you.

The light was fading. The sky was fired gold and scarlet, the thin clouds painted dark as night edged closer and closer. As for Atris and Kalani, their shadows stretched before them, dancing wildly at the slightest movement, mingling so completely that it was as though they had never been separate.

Kalani demonstrated the same determination she always showed inside of the Enclave. Even when Atris started gaining ground in earnest, she still pressed forward, watching Atris closely in an attempt to guess what move she would make next. Always trying to stay three steps ahead of her sparring partner, but this time it would not avail her.

At last, Atris knocked Kalani flat on her back, but it wasn’t as clean as she had thought it would be. As she fell, Kalani reached out for anything she could grasp to try to right herself, and her hand found the front of Atris’s shirt; Atris landed gracelessly on top of her, spitting hair out of her mouth and thankful for a whole new reason that there was no audience to this spar.

“So,” Kalani wheezed when she pushed Atris up just enough that she could breathe. “Are you finally going to tell me what this is all about?”

She still didn’t understand. Atris stared down at her, utterly at a loss for words, for anything that could properly express the knot of mingled frustration and despair in her chest. Kalani quirked an eyebrow, her eyes glimmering with something like a silent laugh, and finally Atris just did what she had wanted to do for what felt like an eternity now, and kissed her hard, teeth raking her lower lip. Her mouth was harder than Atris had imagined, less pliant, but that did nothing to dim the cathartic thrill that rang so loud in her heart that she was deaf to anything else.

“Oh,” Kalani breathed when at last Atris pulled away. She smiled widely, her eyes narrowed to slivers of reflected starlight. “You know, you could have just said something.” She wound her arms around Atris’s neck and pulled her back down for another kiss.

“I suppose I could have,” Atris admitted. “I think this way was more instructive, though. Don’t you?”

Kalani let out a startled laugh. “Oh, yes, very!”

[ilovelocust]

Three Shiros and A Keith (Part 2)

Note: Nearly broke this chapter up into separate parts, but I’m glad I decided to keep it together. I know normally the stuff they are talking about would be revealed later in the story, but really, when an alternate universe you shows up, you start comparing notes.

Constructive criticism and questions are always welcome.

<< First

The Champion is the first to scramble out. Keith follows, and as soon as his head clears the floor, he’s greeted by two separate metal hands. He can already see the dirty looks forming between Shiro and the Champion, so he cuts it off at the pass and grabs them both. It does not escape his notice, that his hand is the only one offered to help Takashi out.

Shiro hails the Castle to plan an extraction, while Keith sends calming stay put thoughts to Red. She’s wanted to come down since the first confrontation with Lotor’s men in the temple. Keith’s been having to constantly tell her no, every free moment he gets. Despite being the smallest of the lions, she’s still far too big to fit in the narrow over built streets of this city. Even landing would cause major structural damage to the densely packed buildings and possibly hundreds to thousands of deaths depending on the area. Besides, he’s not terribly fond of the idea of dying to a piece of falling debri from Red trying to rescue him when he doesn’t need it.

Takashi and Champion, with nothing better to do, are just kind of staring at each other. Their matching disturbed expressions while they size the other up, is honestly one of the funnier things he’s seen in a while. No wait, he takes that back, their synced raised eyebrows of confusion is way better. Keith waves them off and tries to get his smile under control. They probably wouldn’t appreciate the humor right now.

“Frick!” Shiro shouts. Keith spins around to see what’s wrong. Shiro points towards his ear, “Comms cut out, while we were talking. We’re being jammed.” Keith flips on his own comm, and tries to hail the Castle himself. Static.

“Can they track us through those?” Takashi asks. Looking between the two of them in worry.

“No.” Keith answers. There is a whole long technical explanation why, but he doesn’t really understand it in the first place and he’s busy. He flips through a couple more channels, no change in results.

“Are you certain?” Takashi hasn’t seemed to wrap his head around space technology working different than what they have back on Earth yet. He’s only had about an hour to adjust, but it’s still a little annoying. Keith gives up on his search. Everything is static. They aren’t getting through.

“Yes, we’re certain.” Shiro says, then directs himself to Keith, “I updated Allura on our situation. She’s going to contact the planetary government and try to talk them into letting us go.”

“In the meantime, I assume we’re going to try and get off planet.” Champion butts in. It’s not a bad idea. No offense to Allura’s negotiation skills, but they stole an item the local religion credits with keeping them safe from the Empire for thousands of years. He really doubts they are going to just let them go.

“In the meantime,” Shiro’s tone is too aggressive. His patience is far too thin for this early in the conversation. Keith’s never seen anyone short of Slav get under Shiro’s skin this fast just by being in the area, “We are going to sit tight and give her a chance to work. Any route to escape we take has a high chance of us having to fight our way out.”

“If every guard on this planet is the same quality as the ones we’ve seen so far, that shouldn’t be a problem.” Champion says confidently. He’s not wrong. Keith could fight his way out on his own if he had to, and he’d actually try not to kill anyone unnecessarily.

“The problem is we’re not going to risk anyones lives unless we absolutely have to. We’re going to stay here. If you don’t like that, you know where the door is. No one is forcing you to stay.” Shiro replies.

Champion and Shiro stare each other down for a moment. Shiro wins. Champion looks over to Keith instead, “How about it, you want to blow this popsicle stand with me?” He asks. They’ve just met. He may be a Shiro. That comes with privileges, but not enough that he’s abandoning his Shiro. Keith shakes his head, “Guess I’m staying then.”

That’s that. Apparently they get to stick together, and Keith doesn’t need to feel guilty about dragging someone into a universe only to abandon them.

Also, now none of them have anything to do…Boy is this awkward.

Takashi shifts uncomfortably from foot to foot, then grimaces when that jostles his burn. Damn, he’d forgotten he was injured, “Do you want me to take a look at that? I’ve got some tweezers if anythings stuck in it.” That was a problem with burn wounds right? Damn, his first aid class had been the semester he and Shiro started dating. He’d memorized everything long enough to pass, and then completely forgot it in favor of things like how best to make the hot boy blush.

Takashi gives him a small amused smile, “Do you actually remember how to treat a burn?” Keith scowls at him and Takashi laughs. Calling him out was completely unnecessary, thank you very much.

“I’ll handle it.” Shiro says, walking forward and taking his younger self by the shoulder. At least, Keith thinks Takashi is the youngest, “Come on, there’s a bathroom a little ways down that might have running water.” He starts guiding him out the hall, “Keith you come too. I’m sure you’ve squirreled something away in those pouches of yours that might be handy.” Definite maybe, things did tend to accumulate in his belt pouches, but they never seemed to be the things he needed.

They all relocate, and thankfully the bathroom does have clean running water. He doesn’t ask why, he just accepts his good fortune.

Shiro works on caring for the wound, while Champion and Keith stare on. The only acknowledgment Shiro gives to the former is a quick snipe to stop standing in his blind spot.

“So,” Takashi breaks in when the silence finally gets too oppressive for him, “Is this some sort of bad future, or just generic time shenanigans?”

“What makes you think its bad?” Keith asks. Sure they’d done a bit of running from the law, but really nothing too terrible had happened around him yet.

“Well I mean…” Takashi looks down meaningfully at Shiro’s prosthetic. Shiro’s back muscles go tight, but he doesn’t stop what he’s doing.

“I doubt it’s just time. I have no memory of this happening, and I doubt I’ll choose to downgrade back to flesh in the future.” Champion gestures towards Shiro’s left arm.

Shiro stops and glares up at him, “Are you done.” His voice is clipped. Champion scoffs, but doesn’t reply. Shiro looks back at Takashi. He is looking sheepish in the appropriate situation, “You’re from an alternate universe. We accidentally activated a device meant to gather information from multiple universes, and it apparently does so by bringing doubles like you here. We’ll send you home, as soon as we get back to the Castle and figure out how it works.”

“So this isn’t my future.” Takashi says in relief. Shiro starts wrapping the wound up. Turns out for once Keith did have something useful in his pouches. Who knows how old the gauze is, but it’s cleaner than someone’s shirt.

“Don’t know.” Shiro says, then adds, “Are you going to Kerberos?”

“In a couple months,” The look of pride that flashes across his face is painful to see. He remembers when Shiro looked like that. Dragging Keith out on his hover bike. Taking him on a spin through the desert just the two of them, then telling him under the stars that he’d been selected. Did Takashi do that for his Keith? Looking so happy that Keith almost forgot he was going to alone for nearly a year.

“Maybe, then. That’s where all this happened for me.” Shiro says quietly. He glances up at Champion, “Was it the same for you?” The Champion doesn’t meet his eyes, but nods stiffly. Looks like Takashi is the only one still capable of thinking of Kerberos as a good thing.

“Are you saying I shouldn’t go?” Takashi is looking between Shiro and Champion. Eyes flitting to the obvious bad things written on their skins.

“You might as well,” Champion says, “You stay behind and you’ll just die with everyone else at the Garrison, when the Empire glasses it.” Wait what?

“What are you talking about? When the Galra glass the Garrison?” Keith asks, in a mild panic. Do they need to be heading back to Earth with the lions?

“They conquered Earth, and bombed the Garrison from orbit shortly after I became a gladiator.” Champion’s eyebrows knit together as he looks at Keith. Confused by his confusion.

Keith lets out a sigh of relief, “That didn’t happen in our universe. It was over a year before Shiro came back, and the Garrison was still there when we left.” He explains.

“So go and lose an arm, or stay and risk dying? Wonderful options, you’re giving me,” Takashi cuts back in.

“Or you could just get the lions early, and skip the whole being a gladiator thing.” Shiro says. Keith likes that plan. He’s sure Takashi’s Keith would like that plan too.

“Lions?” Takashi asks, quirking his head to the side.

“They’re…” Keith starts, then stops. How do you describe flying around in magical space lions without sounding like an idiot, “I’ll show you when we get out of here. Easier than explaining.” They looked much more impressive in person, than they sounded in theory.

“Done,” Shiro announces, and with that, their one source of entertainment evaporates. The conversation dies an untimely death as they move out of the cramped bathroom…

“Anyone got any cards?”

Next >

[sleepymarmot]

MEA liveblog #7

Spoilers!

Multiplayer

This interface is a mess. I move my mouse onto "exit lobby" and it turns into "kick player". Buttons just jump around and transform all the time.

And the APEX mission shit needs to be fixed. When you select a mission to play, don't direct me to lobbies who play the same enemy/map/difficulty but not as the mission! Join lobby, see "custom", exit lobby, select "custom game", re-select mission, join, end up in the same lobby, rinse, repeat...

At least I can end up second when I join on wave 5 as a human vanguard lol

F Human Vanguard card!

Tempest

Non-custom weapons of different rank shouldn't exist as separate items in the inventory! Unlocking a higher rank should upgrade the old item like in ME3! This stupid inventory system exists solely because of crafting! If you need inventory limits so much, let them apply only to the crafted items! I've already complained about rewards being lost with no warning if the inventory is full and it's still bullshit! 

I crafted the N7 chestpiece! 25% shield on kill (of course), 5% damage resistance, 2% shield restoration, 2% health&shield regen speed, 2% max shield. I called it "N7 Slayer X". And turns out, it was dad's armor...

Oh right, it needs a new color scheme!

Havarl

I like this ex-STG, he's talking properly.

I don't like the sound effect from Annihilation -- it's like water in my ears!

Hey Peebs, how do you immediately know where the next piece is as soon as we pick the current one?

Kadara

Here's the bar fight. Animation is not bad but has no energy.

Told the asari dancer that I'm done here and she needs to talk to the dude herself, but the quest still sends me back to him -_-

Tempest

So, Kesh was adopted?

Okay, Kalinda is 100% Marjolaine. Peebee's personal storyline is even more copy-pasted from Leliana than Drack's is copypasted from Wrex.

Aya

So many sidequests again!

The Moshae's words about the definition of victory! That's the smartest thing I've heard in this game in hours.

It's really weird to hear her talk so sweetly to me... When we first met she didn’t seem to like me.

When Vetra said people were staring at her, I couldn't resist suggesting they're just all in love...

I suggested taking people who sold their Aya slots onto the Nexus. That's not even charity -- the same ambassador gave me a task to convince angara to come there anyway! So this would kill two birds with one stone.

For the visitor who wanted contact with his family, I had to reload. The options didn't even seem too different... Got it right for the other two: gave an honest professional answer about health issues, and a confident casual answer about finding work.

Great, now I have to head back into the city to buy stuff... This is literally a fetch quest lol

Eos

Omg, the Architect is in orbit now!

The Roekaar fight in an old settlement was very chaotic and fun with Flamethrower/ED/Lance, though it'd probably be easier to just charge

Tempest

Aaaand Jaal gives me his loyalty mission. It's funny that I'm going to do my own love interest's mission last...

Jaal's LM

I continue to be unimpressed with the Roekaar being pure antagonists. :/

Didn't shoot the guy, told Jaal he was badass.

Why are loyalty missions so short?

BTW Ryder just looks wrong in N7 armor... She's not Shepard, that's not her allegiance or her story.

Tempest

Jaal, just as we're leaving Havarl you decided to invite me for a visit down there?

Turian ark

Avitus has very stylish armor

For fuck's sake, Bioware, why do you hate gay men so much?

I convinced Avitus to take the mantle. It was a very sentimental decision for Ryder -- because her situation is very similar. Her SAM and the connection he had with her father are unique, but she didn't think of that in that moment.

Nexus

"Better to find your wings as you fly" Easy for you to say, Sarissa, your predecessor wasn't a loved one

Tempest

I'd agree with Peebee about relationship and baggage, but of course I felt obligated to take the romantic option

(I don’t think there’s an option to agree with her, though, so it’s only for the best)

Voeld

Liam, Vetra, don't fight!

Whoops, sorry for leaving you to die in the purification field, Vetra

...I liked the old color scheme better. Green light looks more alien, but less pretty.

Nexus

Final memory -- here we go!

My theory was that the Archon was somehow Ellen, but that made so little sense I didn't even write it down :D This is simpler.

BTW there's finally Shepard's gender we had to select in the beginning -- in translated subtitles :D Didn't hear it even once in the audio -- could it be Bioware actually took their foreign audience into consideration? :O

Honestly, it's weird that the Reapers info is so secret... From the OT I got the impression that Shepard was yelling about it to everyone at every opportunity...

Fine, fine, you made me emotional with Liara's message.

Shit, I was expecting this decision...

I feel pretty sad now. That's all?

Peebee's LM

Oh, so that's why she lives in an escape pod :D I thought this was only a characterization thing, not a Chekhov's gun!

I said I wasn't mad, though I was a bit. But I mean Ryder *is* mad but also having the time of her life so...

Shit I just shot Kalinda instinctively lmao

Ok I replayed the entire sequence and Idk. This is really the hardest choice in the game...

I'm tempted to say "Yes, literally" :D

Since it's so hard to reaload, it's fair game to watch videos before deciding for myself. Okay, "Yes, literally" is way too harsh.

Alright, this Ryder is not going to make Peebee sad, but I've already planned a Renegade-ish playthrough with a Ryder who values knowledge over everything, so... :D

(Btw, I love that MEA's brand of a more ruthless protagonist is not "uncontrollable brute" but "intellectual snob". As tedious as this game is, I'm already super eager to play character who has those values & takes urgency of tasks seriously.)

This mission is enjoyable and the choice feels maybe the most meaningful... But it has all the classic Mass Effect problems. Kalinda sends a shitload of people to murder us, we murder them, but when she's helpless and we have a finger on the trigger all of that suddenly doesn't matter. Sidonis all over again. Sure, murdering people begging for help is bad in a lot of ways, but she did just try to kill us, a lot of times... Plus, why the fuck can't Ryder jump over and catch the Remnant thing?! That needed to be a second, Paragon interrupt after the Renegade "shoot her." And Ryder is a goddamn biotic, as is Peebee, as is Kalinda! Peebee, Pull is your first goddamn skill! It'd actually be completely plausible if the artifact had shields and/or armor and therefore immune to Pull or Singularity -- but not giving the characters even an idea to try is just stupid!

Tempest

Inviting Peebee to live with together made me revisit my room and inspired me to make some changes. You know what, I'm going to play music in my quarters and change into the short-sleeved pajamas. It's my own ship, why do I walk around it in street clothes? The jacket is stylish but too much to wear at home. I wish we had a "formal" outift for Nexus/Aya/other hubs in addition to the "casual" clothes we wear on the ship.

Shit I went to read someone's post about Peebee's LM and caught a spoilers about the romance post-LM

Addison is right, getting pregnant in that situation was irresponsible

Ah the continuity in this game. "Found more outposts"? I have every possible outpost and all planets at 100%!

"On hold: Place an outpost" bitch where

Voeld

What, there's still a cold hazard?! What was the point of the vault, then?!

Whoa, so the angara believe exaltation not just kills their people but destroys their immortal souls? Wow! That should have been said by a major character during the main story, not by an easily missed NPC!

Oh great, I died and the game refuses to load the last autosave

Dear game. Why did you create four autosaves for the same second. All glitched. Half hour of gameplay lost... God please let the last manual save work. I was sure I saved in between, but just now my PC decided that we still have daylight savings clock change when we do not, and the timestamps on all recent saves are messed up. This especially sucks because I'm trying to rush Peebee's romance because I don't know when the sex scene comes up but I want to make sure it's not when my mom is home while I play it on her PC lol

Tempest

Fuck, that was cute! And Peebee did tackle Ryder, as promised! :D I wonder what she says through Zap in the platonic version...

Addison please don't say the baby screams "like a banshee". I fucking jumped.

"Before you say anything: no PDAs" :D

Level 50! Time to craft myself a powerful new Dhan. I've been running with rank three all this time...

I love that whenever you ask about Kalinda and then return to the general dialogue tree you say "Let's talk about something else" and Peebee responds "YES. Please."

Voeld

Alright, so: the kett leaders are dissatisfied with the Archon because he hasn't reported to them recently, the communication with the kett homeworld(?) might be disrupted in general and the Scourge might be to blame.

Tempest

Damn, SAM has a pretty insightful speech about death! The only thing that can't be rationalized after experiencing it, which is why it fascinates. I actually haven't heard it explained this way before.

My movie night quest hasn't progressed since I brought Jaal his device...

Eos

Ryder watching and playing football with two giant guns floating near her hips... omg

Elaaden/Kadara

What? I'm completely confused by all these identical salarians.

I don't understand this choice. He promises to give us the intel if we let him go... what proof do we have besides his word? And how would arresting him stop us from getting intel from his computer etc?

Reloaded to see both options, chose to arrest him

Havarl

I'm not hugging Jaal's mother wtf

Ryder has surprisingly good facial animation when Jaal shows his mementos

In theory Ryder should like Jaal for being such a nerd but the only thing he makes me feel is mild irritation. His interest in "taking things apart" is an informed quality just like his supposed emotional openness. It's not reflected in his dialogue or storyline at all.

And now I'm finished with all quests in the ally category. I wanted to finish the game asap, but now that we know the patch is coming on Thursday, I'll wait for it.

Multiplayer

Extracted from Silver for the first time as Human Vanguard (level 8, rank IV)! It was against Remnant, so Observers and Destroyers were the only problem. Nullifiers are ridiculously easy for a melee character -- like Ravagers, but without acid.

Got Krogan Vanguard from a pack. Will I have to tolerate the Rage overlay?

The first game with Kroguard was going well, he's got a stong melee even though he's slow... and then wave 6/upload/Kett killed us all :(

Completely unrelated to anything, but I just realized that if you pick the romantic option in the escape pod with Peebee, they don't actually have sex. Call me stupid because that's what Peebee's initial condition is, but I thought Ryder's response changed her mind! When Ryder said "Let's not rush things" I interpreted and meant it in the emotional sense, as "It'd be dishonest to hide that I have a crush on you, but you don't owe me anything, and if you don't ready for a Serious Relationship and Grand Romance yet that's fine because I'm not either, so let's just hook up and leave reflection for later" -- which I thought was pretty sweet and interesting? Because this whole relationship to me was built on the fascinating contrast between Peebee's emotional reservations and casual/flirty attitude, and conversely, on Ryder very consciously respecting Peebee's emotional space. Maybe I just fundamentally don't understand sex and romance lmao. But if character A propositions character B, character B says they have feelings for character A, and the scene promptly fades to black, I assume they do the do because that's how these things are filmed? Only in comparison with the other option, which is actually pretty explicit, it became obvious to me that's not what the director meant. I'm pretty disappointed because I thought it was a good subversion of Jack's "either sex or romance" thing in ME2. And it messes with my headcanon/characterization... I guess I'll have to retcon it into one of the two options. I'll probably go with casual, not romantic in that case. But I just read that Peebee will tell you she's glad you said no, so... :/

Multiplayer

Failed a Silver APEX mission agains the Remnant as a human vanguard :(

Got an asari sentinel!

The patch is here, but I can't launch the game now :( This needs some work.

Ugh, I stop playing for two days and have no motivation to pick the game up again...

[writingandsleeping]

Everyone always assumed aliens would be far superior to humans, either scientifically or militaristically.  Christine never understood that. Why couldn’t aliens be equal? Maybe even lesser? Did everyone want to feel inferior and uneducated?  They were aliens after all, not gods. Honestly, she didn’t mind if aliens were superior – didn’t care. All she asked was for some diversity of thought.

Maybe, if there had been some open-mindedness, they wouldn’t have fallen into this mess.  Maybe she wouldn’t be laying on a table with a tube pumping a baby blue liquid into one arm and another pumping a translucent white liquid out the other.  Maybe she wouldn’t be desperately trying to examine the room so she could forget that the same thing was happening to everyone else on the International Space Station, too.  Just the thought of her fellow astronauts in the same position she was upset her enough; she didn’t need to see the campers, the young kids entrusted to her, in the same horrible position, too – food for aliens.

(~5000 words, part of my WIP)

They had hijacked the ISS two days before the campers’ mission was scheduled to end.  Their ship was incompatible with the Station’s landing dock, so they locked onto it with some kind of giant claw.  Michael, a Canadian astronaut the campers called Moose because of his height and accent, had been explaining how Whipple shields protected the Station from floating debris.  Dimitri, meanwhile, had glided to the controls to make sure those shields were working. All four professional astronauts knew the force rocking the ISS was far too harsh to be a standard asteroid.  In the interest of keeping the teenagers calm though, they followed basic routine without so much as a worried glance at each other. No matter how much training they received, scared kids were still scared kids.

Christine was the first to notice the shadow on the side of the Station that should have been illuminated by the sun.  She nudged Kei and directed his attention to the enormous object pulling up next to the window. His mouth dropped open, and he rubbed his eyes.  Without tearing his gaze away, he fumbled his hand along the table, groping for some kind of instrument. Christine couldn’t even begin to guess which instruments to use.

“Is that…”  She didn’t know how to continue.

“I think we’re being boarded,” Dimitri said softly behind her.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” Kei hissed back.  “It’s just an–”

A rhythmic banging on the wall next to the door stopped him.  Dimitri hesitantly pulled himself toward the noise as Michael ushered the campers into their sleeping cabin.  It wasn’t any more protected than the rest of the Station, but at least they would be out of the way there. As Michael activated the air-tight door-lock to protect the campers at least a little, a tap on the door echoed throughout the main chamber of the Station.  Then the hiss of escaping air pierced the silence, and Dimitri backed away as fast he could flail. Alarms blared, and Christine threw helmets to Dimitri and Kei. Michael got to his before she could toss him one, too. As she was securing her oxygen, Christine looked into the sleeping cabin to make sure the campers had fastened their emergency gear as well.  Not surprisingly, they had finished faster than the professionals. One or two kids were panicking, but the others were helping them calm down, and Christine felt a flush of pride for her crop. She couldn’t bask in the feeling for long, though, before the door burst open, and she had to prepare herself to examine the damage to the Station.

Except, there was no damage.  There were aliens. Tall, orange aliens.

Humanoid in stature, they wore what Christine could only describe as white spandex overalls, like work-out clothes found in local department stores.  The legs disappeared into thick hiking boots, and the multitude of excess material at the collars folded over between their shoulders, which rose like small mountains after leveling off from their squat, thick necks.  Their faces were mostly dominated by three huge owl-like, black eyes, with one centered just above the other two, and long, silvery beards streaked with black, though the tops of their heads were bald. In the very center of the faces, beneath the eyes, were slits that Christine assumed were snake-like noses.  The tall, bony shoulders only began one of their two sets of arms. The first pair were long and thin with elbows that were almost as bony as their shoulders. All three of the aliens were holding these arms behind their backs. The other pair grew out of their midsections so that the obviously muscular arms wrapped directly around their waists.  The aliens’ legs were also stocky and long, with two knee-joints each, resembling the knuckles of human fingers. A long lion-like tail was draped over the shoulder of the alien in the front of the group, though Christine couldn’t see a tail on either of the two behind it.

“Amazing,” Michael whispered.  Christine wouldn’t have heard him over the Station’s alarms without the microphone in her helmet.  “They exist. I… Where?”

“I agree,” Kei said, as serious as a funeral.

“Um,” Christine paused to track down all of her thoughts, “if they ripped our door off, why haven’t we been sucked into the vacuum of space?”  She couldn’t actually see if the door was really ripped off. The aliens were too tall and broad-shouldered to see past. However badly the ISS was damaged, Christine couldn’t see it.  Regardless of how damaged the door was, the important thing was that it was damaged at all, and they should be dead because of it.

“You always think critically before beautifully, Chris?” Michael asked.

“Not dying is a beautiful thing, Moose,” she responded.

“I agree with Christine,” Dimitri said from the middle of the Station.  “Given their method of entry, we should be floating corpses.” He turned off the alarms with the control panel nearest him, and Christine blinked a few times in relief.

“We took great precautions to ensure your safety.  It is not our intention to harm you.” The voice that shattered the welcome silence was clearly robotic.  It shared qualities with a seriously gruff Siri who had a bad sinus congestion.

“Who said that?” Dimitri demanded, his attention jolting away from the controls before he could adjust the emergency lighting.

“None of them moved,” Kei stated.

“Maybe we just can’t see their mouths behind the beards?” Michael suggested.

“Both Earthlings are correct,” the voice said.  “My translator is communicating for me.”

Dimitri flinched and floated a few feet backward as the forwardmost alien unwrapped one large arm from its midsection to brandish a metal wrist strap with holograms flashing and whirling above its face.  Christine noticed that spandex suit extended uninterrupted over the hand like a glove. Then her jaw dropped slighting when she realized the alien’s hand had six fingers, two of which resembled thumbs.

“Your technology can translate a new language as we speak?” Michael asked in clear awe.  He shared none of Dimitri’s nervousness, looking as if he wanted to shift even closer to the aliens.

“No,” it responded as it wrapped its arm back around its waist.  The tone of the technological voice was strictly dry. “We have been in your orbit for quite some time.  We waited to make contact until our translators had fully decoded your languages.”

“Why does one tiny planet need so many languages?” a different robotic voice asked.  It was deeper than the first but had more of a technological, tinny shriek.

Before the question was completed, another alien hissed, and the forwardmost alien thrust the bushy tip of its tail through the beard of the alien to its left, though the rest of its body remained rigid.  The interaction fascinated Christine, and she decided it was safe to assume that the alien in front was the leader. She also thought the second alien sounded younger, which she quickly admonished herself for since it was ridiculous to compare the ages of robotic voice.

“I apologize for the unwarranted comments,” the first robotic voice said.  “We do not mean to criticize. It is simply surprising to some of our younger stock.”  Christine thought the eyes of the alien to the right dilated. She hadn’t noticed initially that there was a faded purple pupil within the black, which apparently was just an enormous iris rather than the whole eye like she initially thought.

“Does your entire planet speak the same language?” Michael asked.

“It,” the alien hesitated, “does.”  The alien to the right shifted, and the air in front of its face shimmered slightly, but Christine figured that the light was playing tricks on her eyes, especially with the low, red emergency lights still flashing.

Dimitri, Kei, and Christine exchanged glances.  Dimitri clearly shared Christine’s unease at the hesitation.  Kei mostly looked excited, like a ten-year-old who was offered a trip to the North Pole in Santa’s sleigh – eager but prepared for disappointment.  Michael, however, wouldn’t take his eyes off the aliens. Maybe it was because she grew up in a big city where “stranger danger” was practically a religion, but Christine was concerned about his excessive excitement.  As a scientist, she was elated that they were in the presence of alien life, too, but the way the aliens boarded the Station like pirates gave her the worst feeling of foreboding. Additionally, aside from the leader’s small movements of its arm and tail, none of the aliens moved at all.  Their rigid stance and robotic voices gave the situation an extra eeriness that Christine really didn’t think it needed.

“So, why are we still standing in perfect gravity?” Christine finally asked, breaking the momentary silence.  She couldn’t hold back a gasp when Michael glanced back to roll his eyes at her.

“Before we cut into your starbase we constructed an attachable ante-chamber that would preserve your preferred conditions,” the seeming leader answered.

“Our conditions,” Dimitri noted.  “Do you not need oxygen and steady gravity as well?”

“We are not oxygen-dependent as you are.  We require a carbon-nitrogen mixture,” it explained.  “Gravity does not always concern us. We utilize anti-gravity work boots at all times.  They instinctively adjust to relative gravity so that we always feel steady and secure, as we do in our preferred gravity state.”

Dimitri shared an astonished look with Kei.  The head engineer and physicist, they were marveling in such technology.  If Dimitri could get past his trepidation, Christine was sure he would be at the alien’s feet, taking in as many features and specifications of the boots as he could.

“Then how are you breathing in here if you matched our conditions rather than your own?” Michael asked.  He sounded absolutely breathless, and Christine’s peripheral glance at him confirmed that his eyes were blown wide with exhilaration and his mouth was hanging open.  His excessive enthusiasm made sense since he specialized in astro-biology and -botany, but she couldn’t help wondering how dignified they looked as a group and whether it was well-reflective of Earth as a planet.  Michael’s childlike wonder, Kei’s guarded excitement, and her and Dimitri’s skepticism made an odd combination at the very least.

“Like you, we are wearing safety helmets,” the aliens’ leader said.  The one to its left must have muttered into the tail still covering its mouth because the hair around its face and the bushy tail fluttered.

The lead alien raised one of its long, skinny arms and prodded the air in front of its eyes.  Christine didn’t know if she was more entranced by the air shimmering in response, evidence of a force-field helmet, or the alien’s delicate hand that only had three smooth fingers which looked like suction cups, two inches long and barely a quarter-inch in diameter.

“That is the absolute coolest thing I have ever seen!” a voice behind all of them shouted.

“Hella!” another answered.

“Aliens are standing in front of you, but you think their invisible helmets are the coolest part?” Daisy scoffed.  “Grow up.”

“Patrick’s right though!” Jake said.  “We all know there had to be aliens somewhere, but that technology is bomb.”

“Yeah, somewhere,” Tim argued, “not on the damn ISS!  This is incredible!”

“Besides, technology can always be invented and improved upon,” Lizzie agreed.  “You don’t meet aliens every day.”

“What are you doing here?  Get back in the cabin!” Dimitri ordered.  If the kids were afraid of his red-faced Russian rage, they didn’t show it.  Only two of the ten campers so much as flinched, and none of them made the slightest move to safety.

“You can’t hog aliens,” Patrick stated, crossing his arms over his thin chest.  “We get to be a part of this – this discovery as much as you.” Christine wanted to cry to him that it’s not a discovery when you’re the one commandeered.

“We deserve it after training for almost five years straight,” Daisy added.

Those two had established themselves as the leaders of their year long ago, and their arrogance drove every counselor and professional astronaut crazy.  It was true the kids trained for four and a half rigorous years before the top ten percent was taken on a real trip to space, but that did not give them the right to undermine authority like this.  Christine knew she should have barred Patrick from the trip when she caught him strapping into the pilot chair instead of the main cabin seats with the rest of his classmates. The lift-off countdown had already begun though; forcing him to disembark would have sent the camp and NASA both into hysterics and disarray.  Instead she made him watch as she lowered his official ranking and reported a black mark on his record. Until now, that had been enough to keep him in line.

“Let them stay,” Michael agreed without turning around.  He hadn’t taken his eyes off the aliens for even a second.  “This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. As long as they stay quiet in the very back of the Station, there’s no reason they shouldn’t be part of this.”

Kei made sounds of disbelief but didn’t actually protest, and Dimitri simply growled.  Christine grumbled to herself about stereotypical Canadian niceness but didn’t say anything argumentative either.  Now was certainly not the time for in-fighting. She fixed one more glare on Patrick before returning her attention to the aliens.

All three now had wide eyes with huge purple pupils.  The alien to the left had dropped into a crouch, both knees bent and leaning forward.  The alien to the right was now standing with both of its stocky arms wide, looking ready to bear-hug or restrain someone.  The lead alien’s tail was thrashing behind its head, and it’s forcefield was shimmering like water affected by vibration. It seemed to be holding the other two in place behind it.  Suddenly, Christine’s foreboding was a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach.

After that, it was a terrifying blur.

Despite their leader attempting to – or seeming to – hold them back, the two flanking it from behind dove forward and grabbed Michael and Kei.  Dimitri raised a wrench or something, but the leader’s tail flicked it from his hands as easily as if it was a slicked bar of soap. Christine backed up to guard the children, but before she could even imagine how to defend herself or the campers, the two aggressive aliens knocked her to the ground.  Dimitri and Kei were nowhere to be seen anymore, and she could only watch through heavy eyes as they pulled the campers away from her, each taking two in their stocky arms and one in their sleek arms. She tried to make a desperate attempt to get up and save them, but her elbow and knee throbbed, and she couldn’t move.

The next time she opened her eyes, she found herself strapped to a table with a gag shoved unpleasantly deep into her throat.  Breathing through her nose tickled the back of her incredibly dry throat, and swallowing irritated the gag, making her feel like she was drowning.  Christine was restrained too tightly to even shift around on the table much, and any movements she attempted irritated her skin. She was no longer wearing her spacesuit, so the straps were directly against her skin, causing a sensation like rubber-burn.  She could only see directly in front of her and what rolling her eyes could fill in for her periphery. Christine couldn’t remember being strapped down or even moving from the floor of the ISS. She was here though, in a chair that felt stiff but plushy like a leather-cushioned doctor’s examination chair.  What her hands felt of the material along the sides was fuzzy like suede and too solid to squeeze. The scientist in her was desperately curious about what it was made from. Was it some kind of manufactured animal hide like leather on Earth or a material humans had never heard of before?

Distracting herself from the chair, she examined the wall in front of her.  It was the only thing she could see clearly since she didn’t have to strain her eyes to look at it.  There was a porthole that she judged to be eight feet off the ground, which seemed the right height for the aliens.  Christine’s neck had begun to hurt from looking up at them on the ISS. The rest of the wall was smooth and shiny, a large charcoal expanse with no seeming disfigurations or blemishes.  No nail holes or screwheads or seams, no evidence of construction. Clearly, these aliens knew how to metal-work if their spaceship – Christine assumed – was any evidence or the way the aliens had so quickly and effortlessly sliced and spliced the ISS.  What Christine could see of the ceiling was just as well-made. There wasn’t even a seam between the wall and the ceiling. It was as if the entire section of the room was one perfectly smooth piece of material.

The strain of rolling her eyes to their limits was starting to blur her vision, so she snapped her lids shut before the fuzziness gave her a migraine.  With her eyes resting, Christine strained her other senses instead. There was a thrumming in the air that also translated into a small vibration in the chair.  Christine guessed it was the ship’s engine and was more intrigued by the mechanical whining that pierced the air every seven – she counted several times – seconds exactly.  Another rhythm of the engine? Were the aliens working on something? Was it another example of their metal-working? Christine could only hope she would live to find out.

To be fair, Christine would settle with just living, especially since her nose was suddenly registering an increasingly acrid stench.  Something near her was burning, something uncomfortably close. Her eyes snapped back open, and she fought to twist her head and find the source.  One of the aliens had soundlessly entered the room through the wall in front of her. The porthole was a window on the door that was slowly sliding shut.

But there were no seams!  Not even a hinge!

The miraculous wall rivaled the alien for Christine’s attention, but she focused on the alien when she realized it was smoking.  The burning stench was coming from the fish tank contraption around its head. This time, the helmet was perfectly visible and full of fog so thick Christine could barely see the alien’s face.  There was a scuba-style mouthpiece that breathed in a liquid and filtered out the fog. With a jolt, Christine realized the liquid was the same color and consistency as what was coming out of her arm.

Dragging her eyes away from the alien’s mouthpiece, Christine began squirming relentlessly in her bonds as the alien approached her.  It unfolded its thin arms with the three-fingered hands and held them open, extended straight downward. Christine stopped wriggling but remained rigid, wondering if this was some form of proving itself unarmed, like how humans held their hands up.  If it was, she would have preferred to see that its enormous arms were accounted for, not the thin, delicate ones. After her sudden movements, Christine was feeling sharp pain in her knee, and she realized that it was wrapped tightly in slimy but warm bandages.  Had the aliens attended her injuries from being thrown across the ISS? Christine had no idea what to think anymore -- as if she ever did.

“I do not mean to harm you,” it said.  A tail lazily draped itself over the alien’s shoulder, and Christine assumed it was the leader from the ISS invasion party.  With the gag still firmly lodged, she could only glare and growl.

Slowly, the alien reached forward and delicately removed the gag with one suction-cup hand.  Christine angled her face as much as she could and spit in the alien’s direction. To her satisfaction, her disgusting glob landed at its feet.  “That’s what you said last time,” she finally retorted.

The alien’s eyes dilated to the widest state Christine had seen them.  Unlike the pupils she first noticed on the other alien, this alien had much brighter purple in its eyes.  They were a bright, violet color rather than the greyish periwinkle Christine had first examined. Why hadn’t she noticed on the ISS when all three were dilated?  She was probably too terrified, which she supposed was a decent excuse. Now Christine couldn’t help wondering if the third alien had violet or periwinkle eyes. Or were its eyes a third color?  Could it be individualized like humans’ eyes?

“I apologize for the actions of my workers.”  The translator was as drawl and emotionless as before, interrupting Christine’s stream of unspoken questions.  “I told them we would be strictly peaceful, but when we realized how many life-giving sources were on your ship, they could not contain themselves.”

After a moment, Christine repeated, “Life-giving sources?”  There was a lot to explain about the alien’s explanation, but she decided to start there.

The alien, however, did not reply.  Instead, it placed the gag on a table beside the chair and began to unhook the tubes in Christine’s arms.  The pinpricks gushed a few drops of blood as the needles were extracted, and the alien placed fuzzy adhesives on them.  With the utmost care, it capped each tube, turned off the machine Christine didn’t even notice behind her, and fetched containers from beneath Christine’s cushions.  A cross between a mason jar and a petri dish, it took two of the squat containers to save all of the white liquid Christine had unwillingly surrendered.

“As I explained on your starbase, we require a combination of carbon and nitrogen to survive,” the alien said when it was done.  It held a container in each stocky hand as it surveyed Christine again. “We have yet to find another world that can support us. Until then, we will require your donations.”

“Donations?” Christine exclaimed.  “This isn’t donating. This is stealing!”  The alien stared back through the haze of its helmet silently with wide purple pupils.  Christine took a deep breath and repeated her initial question. “What life-giving sources am I providing you?”

“There is a chemical in your body that is largely composed of carbon and nitrogen.  It is not an exact match to our atmosphere, but it is as close as we will find anywhere.  Our tests have shown that it is not a necessary component to your sustenance. Since you do not need it, but we do, we thought the donations only fair.”

“Why do you need to take it at all?” Christine argued.  “Why don’t you just go home or manufacture more? Clearly you have advanced technology and intelligence.”

The alien’s tail twitched on its shoulder, and its pupils retracted to almost nothing.  It walked to an area of the room Christine couldn’t see, and her muscles tensed voluntarily.  There was a faint scraping sound, like a hatch opening, and then the alien was in her sights again but without the jars of Christine’s so-called life-giving donations.  After a moment’s hesitation, the alien approached Christine again and began to loosen her bindings, beginning with Christine’s head and moving down to her elbows, hands, thighs, and ankles.  Christine remained still despite her freedom, unsure why she was being set free.

“We do not have such,” it said.  Then it began to walk away.

“Wait!” Christine called after it.  “What do you mean?”

The alien paused halfway between her and the wall with the porthole.  It turned around again, tail thrashing, and studied Christine more intensely than before.  “We do not have the technology to manufacture it. We no longer have a home. Some of us do not have intelligence.” The words flew from the translator so fast, the anger was clear to Christine without the usual emotional inflections.  “Why have you not yet moved? I set you free to…” It trailed off.

Christine narrowed her eyes and studied the alien just as intensely.  “Did you want me to attack you? There’s no point in that, is there?”

“I suppose not,” the alien admitted.  It’s tail returned to its shoulder but continued to twitch.

Christine finally sat up, moving as slowly as possible so not to startle the alien or hurt herself.  She still wasn’t sure what they had extracted from her body, but she didn’t feel pained or woozy. Even sitting in the straighter position with no support for her back, she wasn’t dizzy or lightheaded.  Her vision wasn’t blurred. Her mouth wasn’t dry. Her ears weren’t ringing. Maybe the aliens really weren’t trying to harm her. The appendix was an example of extra components in the human body, and life was possible with just one kidney.  Christine didn’t know of any liquid components humans didn’t need, but perhaps the aliens really had found one. Her specialty was mechanical parts, not human parts. Moose would have known if the alien was telling the truth, but she never would.

Moose!  How could she have forgotten about the rest of the crew?  Her campers? How had she not asked about them yet? They were probably in the same position she had been, scared out of their young minds.  Christine needed to ask about them, but she was more concerned with something the alien had said.

“What did you mean you no longer have a home?” she asked.

The alien’s tail stopped twitching and dropped low over the alien’s chest.  Its pupils retracted yet again, and it carefully clasped its hand behind its back.  Christine enjoyed comparing its actions to humans as they tried to compose themselves or gather their thoughts.

Finally, the alien began to say, “This is a –”

“This is a war ship,” a new voice boomed in the background.

An alien Christine hadn’t seen before was standing in front of the porthole now.  Although shorter than the alien she was painstakingly becoming acquainted with, it was larger in almost every other way.  Its shoulders and waist were broader, its high shoulders pointier, its lower arms stockier. Its eyes were the dull, greyish periwinkle shade.  Its voice was deeper and more commanding than Christine had ever heard before from any human or other creature. Instinctively, Christine leaned back in the chair again, moving as far from the new alien as she could.  Its stature and expression made it far more intimidating than the one she was already talking to, even than the two who had boarded the ISS.

“Why have you stopped draining it?” the new alien demanded.

The original aliens hissed.  “Because we have drained it as much as I dare.  We are not to harm these creatures, Shorlok.” Its voice was far more forceful that Christine had heard so far.  “As I decreed –”

“The people no longer care what you decreed, Merza” the new alien interrupted.  “They have been made to see reason. We will continue to drain the Earthlings for as much as possible.”

“Who do you think you are to give orders to me?”

“I am your replacement,” it stated.  Then it turned to fully face Christine for the first time.  “This is a war ship,” it repeated. “If you and your stock do not comply with our orders, we will destroy your planet.  Our ship is equipped with blasters that have three times the force needed to obliterate your ridiculous, puny world.”

The original alien, who was apparently just deposed, tried to speak again – its eyes almost pure purple, barely a sliver of black ringing the outside – but before a syllable could escape its mouth, the new alien sent a swift, fisted stocky lower arm into its stomach.  The hit sent the alien flying into the far wall where it had earlier deposited the jars of white, life-giving donations. Christine heard herself shriek, but her eyes glazed over, and she suddenly felt like she was no longer in the room. Rather, she was standing behind a glass, viewing but not engaging.  She allowed the aggressive alien to shove her backward onto the chair again and didn’t fight when he lifted her legs back onto the stiff cushion. Had she tried to rush to the other alien? She didn’t even realize she had moved, aside from flinching. With rough, utterly uncaring force, the new alien jarred her face forward so she was stuck staring at the porthole once again, strapped too tightly in place.  The gag was shoved further past her tonsils than the first time, and the tubes were re-inserted.

Once again, Christine found herself straining her eyes to take in the side of the room, but this time, she was concerned about the well-being of an alien, rather than fearing the arrival of one.  Vaguely, she knew there was something else she should be worrying about, but as the white, goopy liquid began streaming from her arm again, she found it harder and harder to focus on anything except that new alien walking through the ruins of her hometown and the desperate, despairing loneliness of being millions of miles away in an impossible position to help.

She finally closed her eyes, feeling the steady tears roll down her cheeks.

[theincidence-blog]

New Post has been published on http://theincidence.com/theincidence-10-stellar-facts-about-nasas-mission-to-the-sun/

#THEINCIDENCE @10 Stellar Facts About NASA’s Mission To The Sun

Sometimes, NASA is forgotten in the midst of exciting space news from private companies. The government organization that has not been to the Moon since the 1960s can seem insignificant next to ambitious goals to travel to Mars set by companies like SpaceX. But a new probe has NASA back on the front page of the space news section.

The Parker Solar Probe is designed to travel millions of miles and get closer to the Sun than any spacecraft in history. Along the way, it will receive gravity assists from Venus, become both the fastest and most autonomous object ever made by humanity, and virtually carry more than a million passengers.

Here are 10 stellar facts about NASA’s mission to the Sun.

10. Goal To ‘Touch The Sun’

The Parker Solar Probe has a mission to do what no other man-made object has ever done—namely, to probe the outer atmosphere of the Sun. An official NASA summary reads, “This summer, humanity embarks on its first mission to touch the Sun.” The probe is designed not only to uncover the mysteries of the Sun but also to develop a better understanding of how the Sun affects the magnetic field of the Earth. The importance of this is difficult to overstate as technologies influenced by the Sun become more prevalent. The mission will even enhance our ability to explore the solar system. This first-ever visit to a star will answer outstanding questions while creating new questions of its own.

9. 50-Year Effort

The August 2018 launch marks the culmination of more than 50 years of theorizing and planning. The scientific community learned of the corona’s million-degree temperature in the 1940s and verified the existence of solar wind in the 1960s. However, there were no answers for why the corona’s temperature is so hot or what causes solar wind to accelerate. The answers to these questions can only be obtained through actual contact with the corona. The idea of taking an actual measurement was first proposed in 1958. Several spacecraft have approached the Sun in the years since then, but none have come close to the targeted destination of the Parker probe. Several other planned missions have been scrapped over the years due to budgetary constraints, and the current effort has been postponed multiple times. More than half a century of work will be realized by the Parker Solar Probe.

8. First Spacecraft Named After A Living Person

NASA has named spacecraft after planets, Greek gods, and even a demon from Lord of the Rings. But it has never bestowed that honor on any living individual—until now.Born in 1927, Dr. Eugene Parker pursued a career in physics that has resulted in numerous awards. His scientific trophies include the National Medal of Science, the Gold Medal of the Royal Astronomical Society, the Kyoto Prize, and many more. In addition to his overall excellence, Parker was a driving force behind several important theories about the Sun.[3]In the 1950s, Parker developed a complex theory about how stars give off solar energy. He coined the term “solar wind” to describe the cascade of energy given off by the Sun and developed a theory for why the corona of the Sun is hotter than the surface of the star. His research has been instrumental for scientific understanding of the complex relationship between the Earth and the Sun. NASA will often rename missions after successful launches but made a decision in the case of Parker to honor him before takeoff. The Parker Solar Probe will be the first spacecraft bearing the name of a living person to leave Earth’s orbit.

7. Solar Wind

Solar wind plays a key role in the purpose of the mission. This wind that originates in the Sun’s corona flies through space at varying speeds of up to 1.6 million kilometers per hour (1 million mph).Unlike wind on Earth, the high temperatures of the Sun’s corona affect gravity in such a way that the wind escapes the star and continues into space. By the time the wind reaches Earth, it is poised to cause significant damage. The primary scientific objectives of the mission are almost entirely centered on issues related to solar wind. In particular, scientists hope to discover how the Sun’s corona is heated and what causes solar wind to accelerate. Just as there are things that cannot be learned about tornadoes without going inside them, the Sun holds mysteries about solar wind that can only be found at the source. NASA scientists hope that solar wind will be far less mysterious when the probe’s mission is completed in 2025.

6. The Sun Is Really Hard To Get To

Despite the incredible science behind the Parker Solar Probe, the mission will have significant difficulty getting to the Sun. A mission to Mars will be difficult to accomplish, but the energy requirements for getting to the Sun are 55 times greater than the relatively easy interplanetary voyage. The Sun is an average distance of 150 million kilometers (93 million mi) away from the Earth, but distance alone is not the problem. Speed is not even the main culprit—at least not in the way you might think. The Earth travels at around 108,000 kilometers per hour (67,000 mph) and is almost always lined up sideways with the Sun. A probe from Earth launched toward the Sun would continue moving sideways and entirely miss the target. The solution is to eliminate the sideways motion, but that requires launching the probe backward as fast as the Earth is moving forward. The navigation requirements are only half the battle as entering the Sun’s outer corona also requires immense heat shielding. The Parker Solar Probe addresses both of these quandaries.

5. Gravity Assists From Venus

NASA scientists will solve the problem of the probe’s sideways speed relative to the Sun in increments. To get the job done, the mission team has devised a solution that is actually out of this world.In addition to using powerful rockets, the Parker Solar Probe will receive gravity assists from the planet Venus. As the probe nears Venus, it will use the planet’s gravity to slow down and move closer to the Sun. This will be done seven times over seven years until the probe erases enough sideways speed to allow it to reach the Sun. The necessity of using Venus for the voyage even governs the launch date—a daily two-hour window that lasts for approximately two weeks during the summer when the two planets are in close alignment.

4. Fastest Man-Made Object In History

The gravity assists provided by Venus will decrease the probe’s sideways speed but increase its overall velocity. The final speed is nothing to scoff at. In fact, by the end of its voyage, the probe will be traveling at 692,000 kilometers per hour (430,000 mph)—faster than any object ever built by humans. For the sake of comparison, the fastest man-made object to date is the Juno space probe that has a maximum velocity of 266,000 kilometers per hour (165,000 mph). The Voyager 1 probe that has left the solar system after a 35-year journey is traveling at approximately 61,000 kilometers per hour (38,000 mph). The Parker Solar Probe will reach a top speed more than twice that of Juno and 11 times that of Voyager 1. To make a more Earthly comparison, that is fast enough to travel from Philadelphia to Washington, DC, in one second.

3. Heat Shield

The heat shielding on the probe is no less impressive than its top speed. A shield measuring 2.4 meters (8 ft) in diameter is placed at the front of the probe to protect the instruments and reflect heat in the opposite direction. The shield consists of an 11.4-centimeter-thick (4.5 in) piece of carbon foam surrounded on both sides by specially designed panels made of superheated carbon–carbon composite. Altogether, the shield weighs only 73 kilograms (160 lb).The difference between temperature and heat is also essential to understanding how the heat shield works. Temperature refers to a measurement, while heat is the transfer of energy. The temperature in the Sun’s corona is 1.1–1.7 million degrees Celsius (2–3 million °F), but the heat can be survivable because of the loose spacing of plasma particles. “Those are very hot, but we’re not touching a lot of them,” said lead engineer Betsy Congdon. “It’s kind of like when you put your hand into an oven and the oven might be at [204 or 260 degrees Celsius (400 or 500 °F)], but your hand isn’t.” The heat shielding will enable the probe to fly into the Sun’s outer corona without melting.

2. Most Autonomous Spacecraft Ever

One reason the shielding can handle the heat of the corona is because of highly automated software. The Earth and Sun have a one-way communications gap of approximately eight minutes, and yet the probe will have only tens of seconds to make the needed real-time corrections. Automation programming enables the probe to safely make adjustments during this critical time period. The probe is programmed with every scenario that scientists have been able to conceive. As a result, the probe’s heat shield should be able to rotate as needed and even change the direction of the probe on its own. Nicola Fox, a project scientist with the Applied Physics Laboratory of Johns Hopkins University, calls the Parker Solar Probe “the most autonomous spacecraft that has ever flown.”

1. Unique Cargo

A mission like this cannot be undertaken with a great deal of weight, and yet the Parker Solar Probe will be transporting human cargo—virtually. In March 2018, NASA invited the public to submit their names to be included on a memory card on board the probe. William Shatner, the actor who played Captain Kirk on Star Trek, got in on the action as a spokesperson and created a video inviting the public to submit their names. When all was said and done, more than 1.1 million people—including Shatner—requested and received their virtual tickets on board the probe.“It’s fitting that as the mission undertakes one of the most extreme journeys of exploration ever tackled by a human-made object, the spacecraft will also carry along the names of so many people who are cheering it on its way,” said project scientist Nicola Fox.

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