#partial lung function

[whatiswhump]

Whumpee doesn’t sing anymore, not since they came back…

Their friends secretly worry it’s because of profound emotional trauma. But Whumpee tries not to think anymore about why they do or don’t do things so this, too, is swept away.

It isn’t until a routine chest X-ray when they have a cough for a few weeks that whumpee really understands why they never sung after… after that place.

Their lungs were partially collapsed, had been all this time. The doc said they had been operating on about half the air the should’ve, that the lower sections deflated at some point and never filled again. They ask about past traumatic injuries.

But Whumpee only shrugged silently. They understood now, all this time- never having enough air, it wasn’t just in their head.

[saintsylestine]

STORY TIME

Next Chapter: here

Author side note - wanting to practice writing the predator-prey dynamic. Nothing actually happens here but I hope I can get your heart pounding (´ｰ｀).｡*･ﾟﾟ[pls lmk if i do actually get your heart going] feedback is helpful. I wanna get good at writing tension.

Cw: potential blue balls, stalking/being cornered/chased, a feral astartes enjoying the hunt, first person POV

The Chosen

There was something behind me.

I hadn’t heard it. Not exactly. Not at first.

But I knew.

I’d been working long enough on this ship—crawlspaces, collapsed decks, half-buried servitor pits—to trust my instincts. And every fiber in me was now screaming that I was being followed.

Not chased.

Followed.

Stalked.

Was there anything I could do about it? Not really, no.

So I didn’t run. Not yet.

Because the moment I ran, I knew I’d lose.

The passage I’d taken wasn’t meant for human movement. It was part of the old cooling matrix—sealed off decades ago, except for rats and ghosts. The air smelled of machine-oil and long-dead wires. Dust fell from above every time the hull groaned.

My boots were soundless. I’d learned how to walk that way. Heavier crew didn’t.

Astartes didn’t either.

But I heard nothing behind me. No footsteps. No breathing. No sound at all.

There was however, a presence. A large, looming presence.

Every time I checked over my shoulder, it was clear.

But this notion of something massive. Something crushing, breathing down my back persisted.

And somehow… that was worse than being chased.

Because I couldn't stop the feeling from growing.

*Tick*

A vox? I spin on my heel to face the darkness that was behind me.

And I see them.

Two eye lenses. Red. Piercing through the almost pitch black darkness. Centering right on me.

Every muscle in my body stiffens. My eyes widen. I don't blink. My hand instictively falls to the pistol on my hip.

Too slow. The lenses turn off.

It's dark again.

I still haven't blinked. Am I hallucinating?

Fuuuuuuuuuuuuck.

I'm trapped.

I stood there, unintentionally. Stupidly. Jaw hanging open and a body jerking shudder starting to run up my right hip. I shook, visibly. My brain stopped functioning. The fear had permeated my subconscious, rendering me useless. I was just prey.

He knew that already.

Something creaks in the distance, or moves in my periphery. I hardly notice, but it's enough for some primal hindbrain instincts to kick in.

It urges me to move.

So I continued forward, as quietly as I could. As gracefully as I could, taking care to not disturb even a spec of dust from the ground. But it was too late.

Something had changed.

The air felt warmer now. Thicker. Each breath I took dragged heat into my lungs, and I didn’t know if it was from panic or the thing that was shadowing my every step.

I turned a corner. Another. Counted doors. Vents. Dead ends. My palm was slick where it rested on the sidearm at my hip, but I didn’t draw it. Not yet. Not unless I wanted to announce that I was ready to die.

I kept my pace steady. Kept my head down. Eyes up.

I passed a warped mirror panel bolted to the wall, half-covered in old warning glyphs. I paused for just a breath, enough to glance—

There.

A shape, just at the edge. A shadow with definite mass. High. Taller than any crewman. Wrong in the shoulders. Too broad. Too still.

The mirror blinked. Or maybe I did. The shape was gone.

I didn’t breathe again until I reached the sealed junction at the end of the hall. The bulkhead was partially powered—enough to slide open when I pressed the pad.

Inside: pitch black.

I stepped in.

Didn’t turn on my light.

Didn’t dare.

Because I felt him now. Near. Even nearer than before.

Like a storm waiting to break.

I didn’t move. I listened.

And in the dark, I hear it:

A breath.

Long.

Slow.

Pulled through flared nostrils.

He wanted me to hear this.

He was scenting me.

The realization made my chest seize. I bit my lip to keep quiet. Not out of fear he’d hear me—he already knew where I was. No. I bit down because some terrible, shaking part of me felt like my body had betrayed me.

I was responding.

Terror spiked through me—but it was tangled in something else. I didn’t understand it. Couldn’t. Not yet.

But he did.

He was waiting for it.

And then—behind me. Not even a sound. Just space being filled.

I feel a wall of heat against the back of my neck... then a breath from above.

I freeze.

Then nothing. I hear nothing.

A voice didn’t speak. A hand didn’t grab. Nothing.

But the silence is the worst part.

Because I know he's smiling.

And I can’t move.

I barely blink and the breathing above my neck is gone—but the heat stays. That awful pressure. Like a second skin pulling tight around my own.

I reached for my light. Slowly. Silently.

It clicked. Nothing happened.

Dead.

Of course.

I don’t turn around. Something told me not to. Everything told me not to. If I looked, I’d see him. And if I saw him—what?

I’d scream? Run?

Be torn in half before I reached the door?

I closed my eyes and listened. Not to the sounds. There weren’t any. But to the feeling crawling under my skin.

I didn’t know where he was. He wasn’t moving. He didn’t need to. He wanted me to break first.

A hiss of recycled air whispered through the vents above, stirring the edge of my hair. My heart was thundering, pounding so hard I could hear it in my teeth.

Then—scrape.

Above.

Metal shifted—deliberate, slow, dragging. Not mechanical. Not wind.

Claws.

Or gauntlets.

I backed away from the center of the room, hand still on my weapon. My knees trembled, heat radiating off my chest like I’d just been running for miles.

And then I heard it.

*Tap*

Not boots. Not heavy. Just the idea of a sound.

In front of me.

*Tap*

Then behind.

I turned—lightless, blind. Nothing.

The room was empty. I was sure of it.

But I was wrong.

My left hand brushed the bulkhead—and my fingers touched flesh.

Hot. Smooth.

Not fabric. Not armor. Skin.

And then it was gone.

I stumbled back, hit a wall I didn’t remember being there. But it wasn’t a wall.

It was him.

Solid. Immovable. Taller than any man I’d ever met. I could feel the size of him without seeing it. Heat radiating from his bare chest—he’d removed his armor.

Why?

Why would he take it off—

I turned, too slow.

Nothing there.

Nothing but breath that wasn’t mine, heartbeat that wasn’t mine, and the smell of something ancient, burnt copper and sacred oils.

And then something touched my ankle.

Just one fingertip.

Slow. Deliberate.

Tracing up the inside of my calf.

I screamed—shoved myself backward, fell over a crate in the dark. My flashlight clattered to the floor, blinking once, just once, before dying again.

In that blink I saw a shadow. Too big.

Wrong-shaped.

The faintest outline of a figure crouched low, eyes glowing faint gold—like a beast.

I scrambled to my feet, lungs seizing.

Run.

I ran.

Into the dark, into corridors I didn’t recognize anymore.

Every footfall behind me silent. Every breath I took louder than a gunshot.

And still—somehow—I could feel him getting closer.

Not with speed. But certainty.

He was letting me go again.

He was playing with me.

Like a cat with something not quite dead yet.

...

I didn’t know how long I’d been running.

Every breath I took burned.

There was no sense of time down here—just metal and steam and my own ragged breathing. The corridors twisted wrong. I kept looping back. I swore I passed the same half-melted control panel three times.

It didn’t matter. I couldn’t stop. If I stopped—

I turned a corner and froze.

There was a handprint on the wall.

Pressed deep into the dust. Five fingers. Broad. The size of my entire face.

No, bigger.

Fresh.

Facing down.

..

He’d stood here. Waited. Let me run in circles while he watched.

My stomach twisted.

Something was wrong with the lights here. Not just broken—sick. The lumen-strips flickered in unnatural rhythms, like they were syncing to a heart that wasn’t mine.

I backed away. Turned. Started walking slower, more careful.

Then I heard it again.

Not footsteps.

Breath.

Not labored. Not tired.

Enjoying.

Drawn in through teeth. Slow. Like he was tasting me from a distance.

He was closer than I thought.

I ducked into a service duct. Crawled—fast. The heat in the shaft was suffocating. My skin stuck to the metal. I wanted to scream. I wanted to pray.

A voice in my head kept whispering:

He’s not behind you.

He’s already ahead.

I stopped. Pressed my back against the inside of the shaft. Tried to steady my breathing.

And then I heard it.

Not outside. Inside.

Behind the thin wall of the duct. Inches from my head.

*tap*.

Drag.

My throat closes.

*tap*.

Drag.

The noise gets closer and closer to my head.

I pressed my hand over my mouth. My eyes blurred from tears I hadn’t realized were there.

And then—

A shadow passed by the slit in the duct wall.

No armor.

Bare flesh.

Pale.

Covered in scars.

I stopped breathing.

Why wasn’t he armored?

Why the fuck—

His hand brushed the outside of the duct. Fingertips trailing, searching.

He knew.

Then—a whisper. Not from his mouth. Not from lips. It was inside the duct with me.

A voice carried through the metal like it had been sunk there hours before.

“I've tasted your fear in the air for weeks. It's sweeter now.”

I screamed.

Fled the duct, scraped raw, sobbing. I didn’t care about quiet anymore. I just wanted light. A voice. Anything.

But I knew now—he didn’t want to kill me.

He wanted me to know what was coming.

To feel it every time I ran.

To want to stop running—because stopping meant the end of the waiting.

I slammed through a half-opened maintenance door. Emergency lighting flickered. A narrow room—empty except for racks of tools and an old vox-station.

I locked the door behind me.

Turned.

And saw it.

Something folded neatly on the floor, right in the center of the room.

His armor.

Laid down like ritual. Like offering. The massive warplate still fresh with battle scars, blood-smears across the chest.

And on top of it—

A single black glove.

Still warm.

Still shaped like a hand.

And a note.

“The armor waits. Just like you.”

I stood in the middle of that narrow room, staring at the armor laid out on the floor like a corpse prepared for a funeral.

Or a wedding.

The plating was still stained. Scratches scored deep through the pauldrons. Blood—some old, some fresh—spattered in thin lines across the chest. And the black glove? It looked like it had been peeled off and left there warm. Still curled.

Still reaching.

The note… I didn’t want to touch it. But I did.

The paper was rough. Old. It had that greasy feel of parchment that had sat in someone's pocket too long—worn soft by heat and sweat.

“The armor waits. Just like you.”

My stomach clenched.

That wasn’t a taunt. That was satisfaction.

This wasn’t about chasing. Or scaring. Or hunting for fun.

This was ritual.

I backed away. Slowly. Not out of caution now, but because I felt watched. Like someone was just on the other side of the wall, mouth inches from a vent, eyes never blinking.

My gaze crawled around the room. Looking for something, anything, that would tell me I could still wake up from this. That this was just adrenaline. A dream.

But I saw it.

On the wall—scratched into the metal. Barely visible unless the light caught it just right.

A name.

My name.

Dozens of times. Carved over and over. The metal dented in from the pressure of the blade that must’ve done it. Each one more uneven than the last.

That was the first moment I forgot how to breathe.

I stared at it like a prayer etched in a tomb. Like if I just understood what it meant, I’d survive.

But I already knew.

This wasn’t a mistake.

He didn’t find me because I wandered into his path. I wasn’t a lucky target. Not some human curiosity he picked up along the way.

I was chosen.

Long before this.

How long had he been watching? Weeks? Months? Did he memorize my schedule? Know which maintenance routes I liked to take when I was trying to be alone?

Had he walked past me before, armored and silent, pretending not to see the way I looked up and held my breath whenever they passed?

Had he picked me then?

And waited.

Waited until he could shed the armor.

Waited until I was somewhere so deep, so far beneath the systems of this ship, that no one would hear me scream.

I looked back at the armor.

It was too neat. Too intentional.

Like he laid it there knowing I’d find it. Like a man preparing a bed.

I covered my mouth with both hands and sank to my knees.

Not sobbing.

Not yet.

Just shaking.

I didn’t know what terrified me more—

That I was trapped.

Or that he wanted me alive.

I sat there on the floor, knees drawn to my chest, fingers pressed white-knuckled to my mouth. The room stank of oil and dust and him. That strange, chemical scent like sacred oils mixed with copper and something sharp underneath.

Every breath I took felt heavy. Wrong. Like the air was being used by something else before I even inhaled it.

I hadn’t moved. Couldn’t.

The armor hadn’t shifted. The note still lay beside it. That glove—still curled just slightly. Like it was waiting to finish closing around something.

The silence was back.

But it felt different now. Not empty. Not dead.

It felt full.

Like the air had been replaced with him.

I didn’t look up right away.

Something deep in my gut screamed that the moment I lifted my head, something would change forever.

But my body moved anyway.

Slowly. Like sleepwalking.

I lifted my face from my knees and looked forward, toward the armor.

And there he was.

Standing.

No door had opened. I hadn’t heard a sound.

He was just there.

Tall. Massive. Built like a cathedral wrapped in skin. Bare from the waist up, pale and scarred like marble left out in storms. His chest rose and fell in that slow, animal way—not tired, not winded. Just measured.

Like he was calibrating his breathing to mine.

His face…

I didn’t want to look.

But I had to.

He was beautiful in the way predators were beautiful. Strong jaw. Hollow cheeks. A mouth made for violence. His eyes were wrong. Too pale. Too bright. Focused on me like he was reading thoughts I hadn’t had yet.

And his mouth—

Gods.

He was smiling.

Just slightly. Barely enough to notice.

But it was there.

A small curve of satisfaction. Hunger. Victory.

I couldn’t make my body move.

He stepped forward. Silent. Bare feet against cold metal. His hands were relaxed at his sides, long fingers twitching slightly, like he was holding himself back.

The room shrank.

My body shrank.

I felt small in a way I never had before. Not just in size. In presence.

Like I was meant to kneel here. Meant to be seen like this. Afraid. Quiet. Waiting.

He stopped in front of me.

Close. So close I could see the thin sheen of sweat on his collarbones. Scars—dozens of them—mapped his chest like battle had tried and failed to erase him.

I opened my mouth.

No sound came out.

He crouched. Slow. Smooth.

Predatory.

His head tilted, the way I’d seen wolves tilt before the lunge. He was eye-level with me now, and I realized that even crouched, he was still taller. Broader. Unstoppable.

I could smell myself in the air. Not arousal—just terror. My sweat. My breath. My fear curling like steam between us.

He inhaled.

Deep.

Slow.

Then again.

His eyelids fluttered. Just slightly. Like he was savoring it.

Not just my scent. Not just my fear.

Me.

And then he finally spoke.

A whisper. Gentle. Measured. Meant to touch me without his hands.

“Now you’re ready.”

I shook. Visibly. Shamefully.

He didn’t laugh. Didn’t mock.

He just watched. Patient. Starving.

And I knew—I was never alone on this ship.

Not really.

Not ever.

I’d belonged to him the whole time.

___________________________________________

Ah we've made it to the end! Thank you for getting this far! Any thoughts/feedback is very appreciated! Be honest with me - Is the spacing weird?? It doesn't feel right to write in long winded paragraphs but spacing each line out also feels... wrong?

One day when I am more confident writing I will write about the beloveds (Sanguinius, Emperor, etc.)

Also - I'm so sorry about the changing tenses ...(*/∀＼*) I will keep it in mind for the next story.

[jelloapocalypse]

What parts of Yoomtah’s body are organic, and what parts of her are robotic?

Fully robotic:

Arms

Legs

Eyes

Hair (head)

Cardiovascular system

Immune system

Liver

Partially robotic:

Skin

Brain

Organic

Mouth

Digestive system (unnecessary, but she can eat if she wants)

Reproductive system (non-functional)

She was mechanized in an order based on what would be prioritized first in a super soldier, so it started with her lungs/heart/blood, etc. Things like the digestive system are less important and were going to be later in the operation. The brain is the most complicated bit so it was started, but not finished.

[janearts]

okay but what is the state of astarion's kidneys? what has roisia observed in regards to astarion's kidneys? i must now know!

[Anon is referencing this post.]

¯\_(ツ)_/¯ Who knows? Roisia's observations below the read-more.

[Just a wee reminder that I'm not a medical professional. Take everything I say below with a grain of salt as I am just as likely to be flat out wrong. I also want to acknowledge that I'm mixing in some stereotypical vampire traits with what we can figure out about vampires in BG3.]

Roisia believes that Astarion has a partially functioning cardiovascular system. That is to say, he certainly contains blood. He bruises and he bleeds. He can even perish from exsanguination himself. He can experience erections (presumably, anyway). Why he doesn't have a heartbeat is beyond her. Does his blood just sit stagnant in his arteries and veins? What the hell is going on in there?

In the living, kidneys form a pivotal function: they filter the waste (urea) in your blood and create urine to be expelled from the body via the bladder. They also perform a critical function by regulating the blood in your body (volume, pressure, acidity, etc.).

So Roisia knows, for example, that the average medium-sized humanoid has roughly 5 litres of blood in them. The kidneys make sure you stay at whatever level is natural for you, because excessive fluid will increase the pressure on your arterial walls. So the question for Roisia becomes: if Astarion drinks blood to excess, would he experience hypertension or bloating? Or perhaps both? Or maybe neither?

In some form or fashion, the waste that Astarion intakes (e.g., if you're into the vampire version of menstruation sexy times, if he drinks from Roisia's external jugular, etc.) or generates through his own bodily functions needs to be expelled. Does he piss it out? Does he sweat it out? Does he vomit it out? Does it misty escape out of his body while he rests?

The answer could simply be: the waste is magicked out of his body and that's that. If Roisia knew that Astarion urinates, then she would assume his kidney is probably functioning to some degree. If his urinary system is non-functioning, then she would be curious as to how the critical functions mentioned above are managed or if they're even necessary at all for the undead.

TL;DR: Roisia would likely have some sort of idea, but I (IRL) don't have the information I feel I need to even hazard a guess. And I must say questions like this would make Roisia want so very, very badly to take a peek at his insides or at the insides of any vampire or vampire spawn. She is not a Dark Urge character, but that is her dark urge born from an insatiable curiosity to figure out how people—living, dead, or undead—work.

Bonus Points:

Roisia would answer her own questions above with the following theories:

Digestive system could be partially functional if the blood that is consumed is sent to the stomach and then absorbed in whole or in part through the digestive process.

Respiratory system is also likely partially functional. I.e., Astarion can use his lungs (to speak or sigh, for example), but neither a vampire nor a vampire spawn requires air.

Endocrine system is likely no longer functional. (This is my own headcanon so Roisia doesn't have to worry about an unwanted pregnancy.) She knows that the endocrine systems of a Vampire lord are likely somewhat functional due to the existence of Dhampyr. His colder body temperature could be the result of the lack of function of the hypothalamus.

Integumentary system is likely functional to a certain degree. E.g., vampires and vampire spawn are naturally regenerative, but if you were to shave Astarion bald, would his hair grow back to the way it was prior to his death? Skin also helps with temperature regulation and provides a barrier from UV radiation, so it may not be fully functional if his body is a colder temperature and is extremely sensitive to sunlight. (Are his melanocytes dysfunctional or dead?)

Lymphatic system is likely functional to some degree. This would assist the blood consumption + waste removal processes, presumably. It's a bit of a stretch, but since Astarion can experience a diseased condition type (e.g., Flesh Rot, Contagion), perhaps surviving that (after 25 turns) could be spun as an indication of a non-magical immune response?

[silentsneezes]

The View From 3B - Part Two

part one can be found here !

CW: the second part is mainly whump. it has coughing and descriptions of chronic illness (and some chronic pain). 1.8k words - no snz

summary(ish): v/iktor is still experiencing the affects of living with black mold while attempting to settle into his new apartment. he's frustrated with his nextdoor neighbor in 3C (who he eventually learns is j/ayce) for being so loud... but maybe j/ayce isn't actually so terrible

A few weeks have passed since Viktor moved in, and he’s come to learn a few things about his new apartment complex. Firstly, the two elevators that move from the first to sixth floor are obnoxiously small. They barely allow his wheelchair to fit inside with another person, which just gives him more of an incentive to use his crutch (despite his back and legs aching in protest). Secondly, his neighbor seems to come home at odd hours of the night, and it’s always an ungraceful entry into 3C. Of course, Viktor can’t be too frustrated since his sleep schedule is so messed up he’s awake at 2AM most nights anyways, but at least he has the decency to move quietly through the thin-walled apartment. 

There have been a few times when Viktor’s been close to marching over to apartment 3C, knocking on the door, and chewing out whoever the fuck is living next to him. Except confronting strangers ranks just below living with black mold on his list of things he’s willing to tolerate, so he settles for silently seething about his neighbor. 

Besides, between the remaining unpacked boxes, his overloaded schedule, and the persistent rattling in his lungs, he barely has enough energy to keep himself and his cats fed. Starting a quarrel with his neighbor, though potentially entertaining, isn’t something he has the energy for. To top it all off, he’s still feeling the effects of living with black mold for months. Realistically, he shouldn’t be surprised, especially given the state of his immune system (which is less than ideal), but for some vain reason, he’d been hoping the mold just… wouldn’t affect him. Afterall, he has enough on his plate. Surely the universe could just let one thing slide, right?

Wrong. 

The cough is the worst of it: wet, hacking, stubborn. It clings to his ribs and lungs, accompanied with a steady ache and an inability to draw a full breath. Most mornings start with him doubled over the sink, coughing until his vision blurs and his nose begins to run.

His inhaler helps, but it’s not nearly as sufficient as a functioning pair of lungs. Tea helps, if only to soothe his sore throat in the aftermath of these fits. The cats help, though they give him judgemental looks every time he has to catch his breath after crossing the room or lifting a box. 

He tells himself it’ll pass soon. He just needs to ride it out. This stubborn denial is as unrealistic as his doctors telling him “you just need a healthy diet and exercise” as if he wasn’t disabled and partially immobilized – hence his refusal to see a doctor now. But he’s been through worse and he’ll surely go through worse in the future, so why bother wasting a few hundred dollars on a 30 minute appointment where he’ll hear the same mantra he does every time. 

So he waits it out. Today, that means sipping a new ginger-orange tea he purchased and sitting beside Rio on his couch with a book propped up in his hand. It’s not a bad way to pass the time, and he’s been meaning to read Stanley M. Walas’s “Phase Equilibria in Chemical Engineering” for months. 

It had taken him ages to get his hands on a copy. The book is out of print, so it’s incredibly hard to find, and some asshole had the library’s only copy overdue for weeks. But in Viktor’s opinion, it was well worth the wait – really, who wouldn’t enjoy math of applied thermodynamic vapor-liquid equilibria calculations? It’s almost enough to distract him from the crackling in his chest and the slight wheeze when he inhales deeply. Almost. 

By the time evening rolls around, Viktor is almost entirely through the book, having scrawled notes and annotations into his journal as he reads. He’s still settled on the couch, though Rio has moved on to bigger and better things (her automatic feeder, which had gone off a few minutes ago and caused her to bolt off of Viktor’s lap). The lamp beside him hums faintly, casting a golden light over the pages of the book. He glances at his watch: 9:15.

He’d usually be up for a few more hours and then some, but tonight his body aches despite his attempt at resting all day. He sets the book down in his lap, stretching out his hand gingerly as he feels a cramp begin to tighten through his wrist and down to the tips of his fingers. The cramping in his hand certainly isn’t a new development. He’s used to any part of his body seizing or spasming or hurting in some sense whenever he stays still for too long… or moves for too long… or stands for too long. Fuck. His fingers had been straining to prop the book open for the past hour or so, but he kept telling himself “just one more page”. 

He massages his palm gently as he attempts to bend and extend the sore joints, exhaling through his nose in frustration, which he immediately realizes is a mistake. A sharp tickle flares in his throat and sinuses, blooming into another coughing fit within seconds. The crackle in his chest which he’d been so adamantly ignoring demands his attention, wrenching his posture forward as he hacks up a lung. With his other hand, he grabs the nearest thing he can find – an old, dusty throw pillow that he’s been meaning to wash since moving in – and burying his face in it in an attempt to muffle the sound. 

After a few minutes of painful coughing, Viktor manages to catch his breath enough as to where the room isn’t spinning. He tosses the pillow to the side, wiping his mouth on his sleeve and ignoring the buzzing sensation that lingers in the back of his nose. 

Mochi pads into the room, drawn by the noise. She makes a quiet, “mrrrp?” as she hops onto the couch beside Viktor, curling onto his lap and resting her head against him with a sleepy blink.

“Sorry Myshka,” Viktor murmurs, though his voice comes out as more of a rasp than anything else, “did I wake you?”

He gently runs a hand over her spine, scratching her favorite spots and earning a quiet, sleepy purr from the black cat. He continues the affectionate petting, taking a moment to appreciate the company of his feline friend. 

After a few minutes and a particularly painful swallow, Viktor shifts so he can reach a cold cup of tea sitting on his coffee table. It’s gone bitter after hours of sitting out, but it helps to dissuade the sore throat he’s developing. 

The peaceful stillness is only broken as Viktor hears a quiet – but notable – thump right outside his front door. He waits, his ears attuned for any other sounds of company, but no one knocks. All he hears is apartment 3C’s door open and close, and then the silence resumes. 

His curiosity gets the best of him, and with an apologetic murmur, Viktor lifts Mochi off his lap. She mews in protest, stretching and moving to sit right beside him – though she gives him a little look of frustration first. He can’t help but grin at her dramatics, giving her head a little scratch before grabbing his crutch and pushing himself upright. A nerve in his hip sparks with pain, forcing him to momentarily pause and wait for it to lessen enough so he can cross the room. Irritating, he thinks. 

Maybe the noise was just something in the hall being dropped, or the heavy footed clumsiness of his neighbor returning home, or a figment of Viktor’s imagination. But for some inexplicable reason, Viktor feels as if it’s something else, something worth dragging himself off the couch for. He makes his way over to the front door, opening it hesitantly and nearly tripping over a basket placed right at its threshold. 

It’s small, neatly woven, and filled to the brim with a collection of teas of herbal varieties: chamomile, peppermint, hibiscus, and rooibos. As Viktor bends down to inspect the basket, he notices a single note tucked among the boxes of tea. 

He glances down the hallway, half expecting someone to come back and take the basket away, having mistakenly left it by his apartment rather than someone else's. But no one comes. The hallway remains silent; all Viktor can hear is the hum of the light and the distant clatter of sewage pipes. He stoops down, grimacing as his back protests, and picks up the basket. 

Once he’s seated comfortably on the couch, he unfolds the little note. It’s simple, handwritten, and it reads: “Welcome to the building. Hope you’re settling in alright” – 3C (Jayce)”

Viktor stares at the handwriting for a few minutes, examining the neat, but somewhat rushed lettering on the note. For the past three weeks, he’s been imagining his nextdoor neighbor as some inconsiderate, uncoordinated prude with a deep seeded hatred of anyone who enjoys peace and quiet. Now, however, he considers that his neighbor might just be uncoordinated, but not particularly malicious with his inability to remain quiet. 

Damnit. It had been so much easier to be frustrated with his neighbor – Jayce, he now knows – when he could just write him off as an asshole. But now Viktor has to accept that Jayce is a real person. A real person with a name. A real person who happened to be considerate enough to leave a basket of tea outside his doorstep. 

And then it dawns on Viktor why he had received an overflowing basket of teas. Jayce had probably heard his coughing for the past few weeks at all hours of the day and night. Shit. Viktor might be just as obnoxious as a neighbor as Jayce is. 

Maybe this was a polite way for him to say “hey, kindly shut the fuck up! Your coughing is disgusting, and it’s keeping me up”. In Zaun, someone would have just said that straight to Viktor’s face (in fact, a previous neighbor of his had), but Piltie’s are far too obsessed with etiquette to be forward. 

Viktor re-reads the note, and then reads it again before tossing it aside. Whether Jayce is intending to be kind or passive aggressive, he’s not entirely sure. Either way, he’s grateful to have enough tea to last him a while. He gets up, placing the basket on the kitchen counter with the care of someone setting down something delicate. 

He does his best to maintain his previous irritation with his neighbor – Jayce, he reminds himself – he can’t ignore the slight feeling of comfort at having received a gift. The teas smell faintly of lemon balm and dried flowers, which contrasts nicely with the stale dust of un-boxed clutter. 

He doesn’t write a thank you note or bother knocking on Jayce’s door. Not yet, at least, but he does begin boiling water for a cup of tea.

sorry there's no sneeze in this, but i promise there's more j/ayvik sneeze content coming!! slowly but surely... either way, i wanted to post this to build context for further plots/chapters i have planned :3

as always, thank you to anyone who read it :) any tags and comments are so so appreciated <3

[greatkittencloud]

TW : Mentions of injuries, descriptive, medical inaccuracies etc . DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.

Black Nova

Chapter 19

Location: RAF Base – Medbay Briefing Room

Time: 0930 Hours

The room was cold and quiet. The blinds were drawn. The air smelled faintly of antiseptic. Soap sat stiffly. Gaz leaned back, arms crossed tight over his chest, jaw clenched. Price stood near the window, back straight, eyes unreadable.

Ghost hadn’t moved since he sat down. His gloves were off. His knuckles were scraped raw.

Then the door opened.

Dr. Rowan, head medical officer, stepped in with a clipboard and an expression carved from stone.

He didn’t waste time.

“She’s stable,” he said, voice even. “But barely. We nearly lost her twice on the table.”

No one spoke.

He looked directly at them. “You want details?"

They all stayed silent. Finally Ghost nodded. Rowan flipped a page on the clipboard.

“She came in with a partially collapsed lung from the stab wound. We inserted a chest tube and managed to reinflate it. She's on oxygen now, breathing shallow, but it's holding.”

He flipped another page.

“Multiple fractures. Three ribs broken. Left clavicle cracked. Severe bruising around both shoulders , one of them was fully dislocated, likely from suspension torture.”

Soap closed his eyes.

“Cuts,” Rowan continued. “Dozens of them. Some shallow. Some precise. Left hamstring tendon was severed. She’ll need months of rehab, for her to walk without pain again.”

“Jesus Christ,” Gaz muttered.

“She’s dehydrated. Malnourished. Blood loss was critical. The restraints tore through her wrists and exposed tendon, skin gone. She has water in her lungs from near-drowning. Her body’s in shock. We’re monitoring organ function hourly.”

He paused, looked at Ghost.

“But that’s just the body.”

A beat.

“Her mind… that’s another story.”

Price’s shoulders stiffened.

“She was put through sustained, calculated psychological torture,” Rowan said. “Isolation. Sleep deprivation. Gaslighting. You showed her falsified evidence, convinced her she betrayed you. Then you broke her until she believed it.”

No one looked up.

“I’ve seen soldiers come back from hell. But what happened to her? That wasn’t enemy capture. That was friendly fire.”

He turned the clipboard around and set it on the table.

Soap buried his face in his hands.

Gaz just stared at the floor, unmoving.

Ghost hadn’t blinked. His jaw twitched, but he didn’t speak.

Dr. Rowan took a slow breath, softening only slightly.

“She may survive this. Physically. But she will not walk out of that room the same person you left in chains. I need you to understand that.”

Price stepped forward. “What happens now?”

“I keep her alive,” Rowan said flatly. “You figure out what you’re going to do with what’s left.”

He walked to the door, then turned back.

“And if you’re lucky if she’s lucky one day, she might believe she was more than just a weapon.”

He left.

The door clicked shut behind him.

Silence.

Then Ghost finally spoke, voice gravel-rough.

“She forgave me.”

No one replied.

Because none of them knew if that made it better…

…or worse.

Thank you for reading!

Taglist: @hyperfixiation-station , @massivescissorsthingperson , @sweetybuzz25 , @kaoyamamegami , @sheepispink , @n-ae-vis , @adalia-lovelace , @warrior-xe , @shinebright2000.

[ranticore]

Centaur anatomy notes which I might turn into diagrams (courtesy of me in 2023)

The air flow is one-way, in the nose and out the mouth, the main body lungs do the most work and the human torso lungs work to strip out the last % of oxygen, so they are actually engaged on the lower chest exhale which passes air back out through the human lungs and mouth. In times of exertion they can inhale and exhale simultaneously using their two sets of intercostal muscles. Even non-athletic centaurs have very high endurance and good breath control. lower respiratory tract infections are extremely dangerous as are any conditions that might partially occlude the airway (like a common cold), so pulmonary health is very important to centaurs

cardiac system is similarly duplicated, there's a big barrel heart and a smaller human chest heart which aids in the circulation of blood from the upper lungs. the human half heart and lungs are larger than their equivalents in humans because the alimentary canal is not duplicated, so there's lots of free real estate in there (i.e past the human half diaphragm there's no stomach, liver, etc, those are all in the animal half)

a centaur can survive their upper-body heart and lungs ceasing to function (by trauma, disease, etc) but not the reverse. in the modern era, it is actually possible for a centaur to give a(n upper) heart transplant and survive but they would experience reduced quality of life as a result (having low tolerance to physical exertion). however it is an option for recipients whose lower heart has reduced function as this is life threatening

diet is determined by animal type. ungulates are nearly all vegetarians, they need a specialised diet high in cellulose and enough roughage to save them from getting painful ulcers. they drink spirulina water and consume specially-formulated hay/grass/etc products. they could eat a handful of plain grass if they wanted but there's not much flavour in that. grazers eat as many as six or seven small meals a day, carnivores would eat one or two.

the babies are all altricial like human babies. this means ungulates are born with their lower halves less developed than their newborn animal equivalents and can't walk for the first few months of life (coordinating six limbs is tricky). human chest handles the lactation as it's easier to cradle a baby there. i know we were all dying to know

flexibility is pretty good as previously mentioned but it does vary by species. the big cats can even climb ladders and have an easier time living in conventional housing

an ungulate centaur has two ways of lying down; sternal recumbency and lateral recumbency. in sternal recumbency the human half is held upright, in lateral, that's the full 'passed out' lying on ur side experience, and lateral recumbency is required for REM sleep. beds consist of thick pads or bedding (straw etc) and are usually ground-level. REM sleep time varies for animal type, for horses they'll need about 2 hours of it every day. they can nap and sleep shallowly while standing up. too much time spent lying down is bad for circulation as weight on hooves is actually a part of the circulatory system in horses, so they will spend most of their time standing to avoid issues with venous drainage. where a centaur is injured, a full body sling (suspended from a wheeled frame usually) can help them keep as much weight on their hooves as possible while also supporting them.

spinal injuries are very common in centaurs for obvious reasons, particularly torsion or compression fractures to the acute spine, which is the junction between the upper and lower body. this area is heavily reinforced and incorporates a structure similar to the stay structure in a horse's leg, which makes supporting the upright torso effortless. but all the reinforcement in the world won't stop nearly every centaur getting a sore back in their later years. ruptured discs are extremely common. in modern times, many would have brace implants fitted there. because there's more than just the torso's own muscles supporting it, it's easy for a centaur to hold their torso in what might seem like a high-effort position to humans (i.e not just upright)

[nyktomorphia]

I admit this is mostly based on how I would redesign a human body to run on batteries, but I did try to keep certain things I remembered in mind. (e.g. Murderbot is obviously bionic, it has to pretend to eat, it can't visually distinguish a combat-grade SecUnit at a glance.)

Additional senses are stored in the face. It's conveniently close to the brain (which is why humans put augments there too), and there are a lot of spare nerve endings there since a SecUnit doesn't need nearly so many in its tongue.

Murderbot's ears (and voice, partially) are electronic, which requires another organ to provide a sense of balance - hence, gyroscopes. Mounting the gyroscopes close to the centre of mass would allow SecUnits to reorient themselves in microgravity without having to push off against another object. That would be one of the recalibrations necessary after its height adjustment.

Murderbot explicitly has to section off part of its lung in order to pretend to eat, which implies a diaphragm as well as a circulatory system (which is an elegant solution for many other things), but its organic components need nutrients for normal function. I'm not sure if it's been said where those come from but I'm assuming some kind of non-digestive injection, which frees up a lot of space for more computers. Murderbot's organic memory seems to be closely linked to its cognition, so it'll probably still die from decapitation, but another processor closer to the physical core would offload subconscious background programmes and greatly improve reaction time by physically shortening the neural pathways. Murderbot also uses it to store its massive media library.

It's hard to improve on a complex appendage like an opposable thumb without making it obviously artificial. The other fingers are less obvious - independently-articulating joints are useful for things like delicate technical work or dismantling firearms one-handed, but even classical musicians rarely do more than have their tendons separated.

SecUnit forearms have only one 'bone', which looks slightly uncanny when twisted but isn't especially distracting unless it draws attention to them by using its energy weapons. The number of humans who have prosthetic forearms and combat enhancements is vanishingly small. Who loses a limb and then plans to keep putting themselves in violent situations anyway? That's what SecUnits are for. (The weapons are mounted in a way to minimise the risk of putting fingers in the path of the beam, as well as cushion against impacts that might otherwise damage the rest of the limb.)

[catboybiologist]

Hm who said not needing air cancels nitrogen toxicity, like. It doesn't come from lack of oxygen, it's a separate thing entirely

So only shalow freediving for you im afraid

Although

You know how weird mixtures people on deep dives do are mostly helium and or hydrogen

Those aren't overly expensive gasses, and you only need to breathe them on the surface for a bit to get all the nitrogen flushed away, then hold your breath

So yeah you can still dive deep, with this 1 cheap exploit

Not needing a tank of compressed air on your back would almost 100% fix any problems of oxygen and nitrogen toxicity you face, by definition. During record setting freedives, even to extreme depths of several hundred meters, gas toxicity is not a problem. Marine mammals do get DCI sometimes, but only because their lungs are proportionately so massive and have powerful diaphragms that they can function as a mildly compressed tank.

Decompression illness is from a buildup of breathing compressed nitrogen in air over time, causing compressed, low volumes of nitrogen to build up in your tissues. As you ascend at the end of a dive, these compressed nitrogen "bubbles" expand, creating a larger volume of nitrogen in your tissues than should be there, disrupting neuromuscular function. If you aren't breathing compressed air, this is by definition not a problem- the total "volume" that nitrogen could expand to within your tissues is theoretically bounded by the total "volume" it occupied at the surface, since you're not putting any additional air into your body.

Quotes around "bubbles" and "volume" bc this is using gas principles for explanation, but since nitrogen is actually dissolving and precipitating out of your tissues here, it's not always a gas in this example. But, thinking about the theoretical volume nitrogen could occupy if it were all a gas is a good way to conceptualize how much it will "force" it's way into your tissues.

If you need a mathy way to conceptualize this, try to think of it in terms of the ideal gas law. PV=nRT. In a normal scuba example, V remains constant as you descend, but since P is increasing, the equation balance by increasing n (the additional air from your tank). But, as you go up, P decreases, and V can't keep up, since nitrogen is not easily released from your tissues. In our example of not having to breath, V would not "replenish" itself, and would decrease at depth. n would not increase. V and P would simply proportionally adjust to each other, and crucially, this means that V can never go higher than it initially was as we ascend.

To summarize: DCI is caused by an additional input of air into your body at depth, not by the air you "take with you" from the surface. If you didn't need to breathe, you wouldn't need a tank, and there would be no nitrogen input.

Oxygen toxicity is more complicated but would work via a similar idea. Oxygen toxicity kicks in immediately, at depth, once oxygen is beyond a certain partial pressure. Again, however, we reach this same principle: that partial pressure is caused by an additional input of compressed oxygen being forced into your tissues by the water pressure. Without that additional input, the total number of oxygen molecules you have at depth is only what you being with you. PV=nRT, and you're not changing your n. As P goes up, V goes down in this example. Again, no additional n. This one also gets more complicated bc oxygen toxicity is balanced by the rate at which cellular respiration consumes this, but idk how that would work here when you magically don't have to breath.

Even if either one could theoretically cause problems for you, you can just purge your lungs before you dive.

So yeah. You don't need any other gases. The reason why other fancy gas mixes are used isnt to "purge" nitrogen, it's so that they take up more volume and more partial pressure than nitrogen or oxygen would in a standard gas mix.

This is a bad explanation, but the source on this is that I'm PADI nitrox certified lol

[ikibli]

Sometimes you just want to make your favorite character a creature, but I think at this point I've gone too far with speedsters being aliens.

...Actually, no, I haven't gone far enough, I haven't published any of it!

So here you go, a bunch of largely unsorted notes on various weird speedster stuff!

Their tissues and biochemistry are designed to function in a larger range of temperatures, skewed towards higher ones. Healthy speedster body temperature would be a moderate fever for humans, and when they’ve been running for a while, they have a body temperature that would be deadly for a human.

Their biochemistry has been heavily altered in other ways to reduce fatigue and make digestion more efficient.

The liver and intestines are vastly reduced in size, since digestion is more efficient and most of the liver’s functions have been partially or completely taken over by the healing factor or other biochemical processes. This also accommodates the secondary heart.

The gallbladder’s functions are incorporated into the stomach.

Incidentally, the best way to kill a speedster(or anything humanoid with a good enough healing factor) is to jam a pole or stake through their heart and lungs and into the ground so they fall unconscious to heal and stay unconscious relatively indefinitely, then cut off their head and incinerate the corpse. 

Failure to decapitate the corpse before burning it means that they might wake up during transit or preparation. Failure to burn the corpse means that they’ll eventually regenerate, admittedly with total amnesia. And while the stake isn’t really necessary, it’s vastly easier to decapitate an unconscious speedster than one who’s still trying to fight you.

Food is a strange thing for speedsters, considering that they taste the chemical composition rather than any subjective qualities, and pretty much anything organic is edible- the sharpened secondary teeth and fanglike upper canines that speedsters possess(even if they stay retracted most of the time) make tough or slippery food not an issue, and their healing factor, enhanced immunity and optimized digestive system means that they can safely live off poisonous plants, grass and rotting meat.

As such, speedster cuisine generally falls into two clearly delineated categories- food for nutrition, and food for entertainment. 

Anything in the first category is usually edible by humans, but definitely not something anyone with a sense of taste would want to eat, and some mixes could cause various micronutrient overdoses. 

A human eating anything in the second category is taking their life into their hands. Varied and unusual textures and compositions in food are certainly still interesting, but nothing truly tastes bad or good, and rare poisons are prized seasonings rather than deadly surprises.

Normal human food doesn’t fall into either of those categories. 

Caffeine affects speedsters differently than humans- producing agonizing, painful suffocation and overstimulation plus heart problems(sped-up heartrate, shallower breaths with no increase in breathing rate, fear response). They feel agonizingly slow compared to their own heartbeat and thoughts, and basically just have a little panic attack in their chair until it washes out of their system.

[nonsscrapheap]

Hi there!! Hope you're doing well!! Just wanted to say that I LOVE the direction it's going with TFP UO, it's genuinely so so cool and interesting!!! I have to contain myself from jumping up and down or scream at the top of my lungs whenever I see a new update fjxtjxkt.

If I'm able to ask, when the Observers are in full capacity and function, can Rung be able to see both the Autobots and Decepticons?? Cause I wonder if he's able to see different observers from a same universe or not.

Anyways LOVE your AU sm and expect fanart from me for it muehehe 😏😏😈

HEHUHEUHEHEH THANK YOU!!!! uo ended up being far more than i anticipated but i don't mind! i even have a surprise for you all when we get to the end of act 2 >:3

hopefully you'll like it because i have brainrotted myself and two others with it SO MUCH it has become a partial motivator as to why i'm focusing on uo so much lately. like, i NEED to finish the mecha au reactions and get to this and finish THAT to be able to get to the surprise. HOWEVER i also NEED to finish mecha au to show you guys one of the things i've been WAITING TO WRITE FOR SO LONG and have the bots and cons react to it as well >:D

also, yes! actually, unbeknownst to either side, rung had seen BOTH of them- it was staticky, and he couldn't see them completely but he KNOWS that there are two groups watching. he hasn't said anything though just in case neither of them knew each other- it's happened before and that ended... not too good.

like i said, we'll get to more lore about the Observers eventually :)

ALSO FANART?? HELLO??? I AM- I'D BE HONORED!!! THANK YOU!!! LOOKING FORWARD TO IT UEHAUHSHASDHAJSDHAS

[mechs-headcanons]

this is canon for some of the mechs (brian, ashes, and tim) and idk if someone’s submitted this before but. i think they were all mechanised partially for Science partially because the part of them that got mechanised had something wrong with it/was injured or damaged.

so for ashes it’s their lungs because they were in that fire + it fucked their lungs up so naturally they needed new ones (canon iirc)

brian’s heart was the only thing that still functioned so everything else was mechanised. (canon)

tims eyes got burnt out when he blew up the moon so his eyes were mechanised (canon)

raphaella’s original wings were damaged and/or weak so they were replaced by her mechanism

marius lost his arm in some freak accident just before the mechs picked him up.

nastya either very nearly or did bleed out before carmilla got to her and gave her mercury blood

ivy got badly injured and was basically brain dead before carmilla mechanised her

weirdly jonny is the most thought out here shgfds. he had a weak heart anw and the stress of having to kill his own dad for jack sort of killed him. he’s mechanised but out for a while before he kills jack

-🌙 anon

oooh yeah, i like the idea that all of them had something wrong before being mechanised

[cardiacreports2]

Kyle

Autopsy Report

Name: Kyle Thompson Age: 19 Gender: Male Date of Death: [August 24, 2023] Time of Death: Estimated between 3:00 AM and 4:00 AM Body Build: Lean Height: 6'0" Weight: 155 lbs Hair Color: Brown Eye Color: Blue

Cause of Death: Sudden Cardiac Arrest due to Cardiac Arrhythmia

Background Information: Kyle Thompson, a 19-year-old male with a lean build and no prior documented health conditions, was found unresponsive in his bedroom by family members. He had a known history of occasional dizziness and palpitations but had not sought medical attention. He had been otherwise healthy, with no recent complaints or signs of illness.

External Examination:

General Appearance: The decedent is a lean, well-nourished young male with no visible injuries.

Skin Condition: Skin tone is pale, with postmortem lividity consistent with the reported position at time of discovery. No contusions, abrasions, or other trauma were noted.

Internal Examination:

Cardiovascular System:

Heart: Mild enlargement of the heart noted, with a heart weight of 385 grams, slightly above average for his age and body size.

Left Ventricle: Minimal thickening detected, though overall structure appeared typical.

Electrophysiology: Evidence of fibrosis in the Purkinje fibers and some fibrosis in the right ventricle suggests an electrical conduction abnormality, possibly arrhythmogenic in origin.

Coronary Arteries: Normal distribution with no significant occlusion or plaque buildup; arteries were unobstructed.

Valves: All heart valves appeared normal and functional, with no signs of regurgitation or calcification.

Aorta: No abnormalities; normal diameter and structure with no evidence of aneurysm.

Respiratory System:

Lungs: Lungs were well-aerated and free of fluid buildup. No signs of pneumonia, aspiration, or obstruction.

Nervous System:

Brain: No hemorrhages or structural abnormalities. Brain size, shape, and tissue appeared within normal parameters.

Abdominal Organs:

Liver, kidneys, and spleen were of normal size and consistency, with no abnormalities noted.

Stomach contents showed partial digestion, indicating the decedent had eaten approximately four to six hours prior to death.

Toxicology Report: Toxicology tests returned negative for alcohol, drugs, and toxic substances. No medications or supplements detected.

Conclusion: The autopsy findings suggest that Kyle Thompson's sudden cardiac arrest was caused by an underlying electrical conduction abnormality within the heart. The fibrosis found in the conduction pathways, specifically the Purkinje fibers, and in the right ventricle, indicates a possible genetic predisposition or undiagnosed arrhythmogenic condition. These abnormalities likely disrupted the heart’s electrical signals, leading to a fatal arrhythmia. Given the absence of any other physical abnormalities or toxicological factors, this cardiac electrical issue is deemed the primary cause of death.

Final Diagnosis:

Sudden cardiac arrest due to cardiac arrhythmia from a known electrical conduction abnormality

[vasyandii]

Hi there again! I have a few questions regarding AM and his anatomy.

Ok so does he have organs? I’ve read in one of your post that he does have wires within his body but in another post where AM first uses his organic body it said “The air in his lungs hurt.”

So he has lungs??? I don’t know I’m just curious.🧐And if so how does he process food? Is it similar to us or not?? I know he doesn’t need to eat, but since Vernon shares her food with him I just couldn’t help but wonder…😀😄

Also, I promise I’m not stalking you or anything I just really love your art and the way you interpret ihnmaims!!! 🩷Your art makes me want to mediative daydream, it makes me so happy it motivates me!😭

Howdy Dislocatedcat! Thank you for the ask, sorry it took so long to answer, since I got it since it has been keeping me up at night trying to make sense of it in a logical way. I would draw out the Anatomy of AM, but it's kind of...gross? Not innards in of themselves, just his.

AM's Anatomy

A machine will cut things out of its system in order to make sure it works the fastest. AM streamlined his body to optimize efficiency and functionality.

By eliminating non-essential organs like the spleen, kidney, and appendix, he reduced the risk of potential medical issues and minimized maintenance requirements. This allows him to focus his energy and resources on tasks that require higher cognitive functions and physical performance. So yes he has organs and wires combined :)

His Heart

Vernon has made comments about him not having a heartbeat, which is simply not true! He does ,in fact, have a heart, it just beats so slow she can't hear it.

It beats slower than a typical human heart because his body requires less frequent circulation due to enhanced metabolic processes and possibly more efficient oxygenation and nutrient delivery systems (the immortality serum). The heart may also be reinforced or partially mechanical to ensure durability and consistent performance.

His Lungs

AM has lungs, yes, but they are likely designed to be far more efficient than human lungs. These lungs facilitate effective oxygen exchange and are regulated by his AI consciousness to meet the optimized metabolic needs of his body.

His Digestive System/Stomach

AM has taste buds and enjoys flavours just like a normal human. The initial stages of eating—chewing and swallowing—are similar to any other person.

While he might retain essential digestive organs like the stomach and intestines, these organs could be enhanced or partially mechanical. This could involve more efficient enzymes, faster digestion, and improved nutrient absorption mechanisms.

AM’s body has an optimized waste management system, efficiently filtering and expelling waste products. This could involve advanced filtration mechanisms that reduce the need for frequent eliminations.

Waste products are minimized through a highly efficient filtration system. Excess and non-usable components are quickly identified and directed for excretion.

I'm not a medical professional nor deal with organs (other than my own, god forbid) on a daily basis, so some of this is probably inaccurate. But if you made it this far, thank you for reading!

[adnauseum11]

Short Takeoff, Vertical Landing (John Price x Reader)

John gives you a gift and you explore your understanding of the man.

3.1k words (longer than I normally like, my bad)

CW: swearing, sex (MDNI - 18+ only)

This is shameless slice of life smut - you've been warned!

This work is part of the S.N.A.F.U series, the Masterlist is pinned to my blog.

Feedback welcome!

Ao3

It takes a moment for you to compute what John’s words really mean, most of your higher brain function temporarily offline. Your body is still humming with the remnants of pleasure, making sitting up a languid affair. John’s pulling something out of his bedside drawer that is very much not shaped like a condom, to your partial dismay.

You crawl across the bed on slightly unsteady limbs and push your hair back, its disheveled state threatening to obscure your view of the handsome man in front of you. He’s holding out a flat, long box to you and you know instantly it’s jewelry. You hesitate, your experience with previous boyfriends and jewelry not typically good ones. The item in question almost inevitably not to your taste and something generic a salesperson has sold them. You quietly dread having another random piece you’ll be obliged to wear. Unfortunately, John reads you like a book.

“This was for Christmas but I fucked that up. If you don’t like it, we can change it.”

His deep voice is calm, but there’s a sudden tension to the set of his shoulders that gives him away as he holds the box out to you. If you didn’t know him so well you likely wouldn’t have noticed the slight shift in his stance but whatever is in the box in his hands means something to him. His willingness to interrupt sex for this should have tipped you off to that, but you freely blame the orgasm you’ve already had for being slow on the uptake.

The slim box is heavier than you expect, and you flick your eyes up to John’s face, the full weight of his attention settling on you again. You subconsciously hold your breath as you open the lid, the light of the room slowly revealing strands of luminous pearls gently forming a wave in the cradle of the box. The two long strands are held together with what’s obviously a vintage rectangle clasp, the aged silver and small diamonds sparkling amongst the gently rolling pearls. The breath you’ve been holding leaves your lungs in a surprised rush.

“Oh my god – John.”

“You like it?”

“I love it, this is exactly my style. Oh, this is gorgeous! It must have cost you a fortune!”

John doesn’t comment on the cost, a slow smile replacing the carefully blank expression he’s been wearing since you took charge of the box.

“Thought of you when I saw them. I’m glad you like them, darling.”

He’s about to say something else but changes his mind, reaching out to cup your jaw for a kiss instead. You clock the shift and run your fingertips over the pearls lightly, enjoying the feel of the cool smooth globes for a moment while you consider the man in front of you. You slowly piece together his request for your dress from earlier with the unspoken words he’s just swallowed and look down at the pearls in the box.

“Should I wear them?”

You know that’s the right question when his pupils dilate, his fingers spasming along your jaw as a full body shiver runs through him. You lift the necklace carefully from the box, handing him the empty container back. Without looking he tosses it, sending his cell phone and spare change flying from the impact. He doesn’t flinch, his eyes locked on you as you settle the pearls around your neck, spinning the clasp so it sits against your nape. The cool spheres brushing against your skin raise goosebumps again, your nipples tightening. You wonder what you must look like, perched nearly naked on the edge of the bed in nothing but a bra and the pearls he’s bought you, your hair a post orgasm mess. You’re about to run your hand over it self-consciously but John steps into your space, tilting your head back as he bends to kiss you again.

“You’re stunning; I love that I get to see you like this.”

You aren’t expecting that kind of tender admission from the aroused man in front of you, and it makes the breath catch in your throat, your hands wrapping around his wrists. John swallows the soft hiccup of breath, kissing you hungrily as he cups the back of your head. The sweep of his tongue over yours with the hint of your taste still discernable unlocks something in you. Suddenly you find yourself rising up on your knees to kiss him back, John’s appreciative groan giving you a jolt of empowerment. Your hands scrabble over his shoulders, sinking your fingertips into the heavy muscle as you press against his solid frame. John’s deft fingers undo your bra, breaking away from your mouth to tug it off your arms. The pearls make a soft sound as they clink together with your movements, sending a shiver down your spine.

The planes of John’s stomach jump as your hands land on his lower abdomen, fingers trailing through the dark hairs there. They work their way under the band of his pants, shoving them down his shifting hips as his mouth drops to seek out the line of your collarbone. He nips the rounded corner of your shoulder before kicking off his pants and boxers, his erection bobbing against your hip. Your fingers find him automatically, wrapping around the hard length of him and stroking, his hiss of pleasure ghosting across your neck. The gentle rattle of the pearls as your arm moves back and forth is seductive, bracing yourself with a palm in the centre of John’s chest, the dark hairs crinkling under your palm. You give him a gentle shove with your fingertips and when that doesn’t register you remove your hand from around his length, placing both palms on his chest to direct him into bed. John allows himself to be moved, landing nearly in the middle of the bed, his eyes locked on you with an intensity that makes your belly quiver.

His gaze follows the sway of the pearls over your breasts as you crawl up his body, sliding your palms up the hair of his thick thighs to cup him, forcing a jagged exhale out of his lungs. The head of his cock is flushed a deep red, a matching colour working its way over his throat and chest. His stomach pulls taut as he watches you bend over him, stroking him firmly, foreskin pulling back as you wrap your lips around the tip. John’s groan of pleasure rumbles through his body, his fingers landing in your hair. You open your jaw take as much of him as you can, making a few enthusiastic passes before pulling back and swirling your tongue around the head, tracing with the flat of your tongue. John flexes his hips, chasing the sensation with a guttural moan that only encourages you to wreck him further, your eyes landing on his blissed-out face.

The pearls trail through his dark body hair, making a mouth-watering contrast between the cool luminous globes and the heated flesh in your grasp. You return your attention to the tip of his cock, lapping your tongue over the underside while you fondle his balls. As his hips arch again you open your jaw and let the rise send his length down your throat, the stretch making your eyes water. His choked gasp and the press of his blunt fingernails into your scalp telegraph his pleasure at your unexpected action.  You hold still for a moment, your body fighting the invasion, your gag reflex fluttering around him before you pull back. The salty taste of his pre-cum coats your tongue and the shuddering deep groan you pull from him as you ease off goes straight to your pussy, a low throb starting to build again between your legs.

“Fuck, that feels so good.”

The low reverberation of his voice rolls down your spine and you flex your fingers against his hip in response, encouraging him to repeat the action. The naked desire in his voice makes you want to rub your thighs together and purr so you do the next best thing and moan around his tip, forcing a sharp gasp out of his lungs. His control is slipping, you can tell by the way his hips buck upwards, not even and measured as before. His length slides down your throat again, the quivering muscles wrenching an unguarded moan from his chest. The pearls draped over your skin start to collect against your throat and you realize he’s gathering them in his fist. You follow the unspoken direction and ease off, long strings of saliva connecting you for a moment after he slips from your mouth.

“Condom, now.”

He releases the necklace to let you lean over and fish a condom out of the drawer and you follow the order without argument, wiping your face in the process. Your willingness to be ordered around ends abruptly with a smack to his hand when he tries to take it away from you and take over. You end up straddling his wide thighs to pin him down with your weight, knowing that John only stays flat on his back because it’s what you want. He lets you roll the condom down his hard length and press him up against his abdomen so you can scoot forward over his hips. His breathing is laboured, your hands on him making his muscles contract as he fights to lay still as you settle over him. His eyes are dark and intense, locked on you as the pearls sway over your body with your movements, the gentle roll of them over your skin like a caress.

“Fuck me, you’re gorgeous.”

John breathes the words as you kneel over him, reaching behind you to wrap your fingers around him again, guiding him to your slick entrance, focused on lining yourself up. You answer him with a heated kiss, your attention on the stretch as you lower yourself, spearing your aching pussy on his tense body. Your palm rests on the steady planes of John’s chest, his head thrown back and the muscles of his neck corded as you slowly start rocking your hips, working him inside until he’s fully seated. He hisses as you rise over him and sink back down, setting a slow and steady pace with a pleased purr. The weight of John’s gaze lands on you again, his hands hovering over your hips as you move, the pearls rocking back and forth over the tight buds of your nipples. The heated drag of his cock through your silken walls has your nails biting into his chest in pleasure. John groans but doesn’t try to shift your hands, his attention fully on you as his hips rock up to meet yours.

“You like seeing me in things you’ve picked out?”

The words fall out of your mouth without any forethought, the part of your brain normally tasked with assimilating information overwhelmed with delicious sensation. The slight rise of John’s hips grinds his public bone against your clit with each downward stroke and your brain goes fuzzy with each lingering contact, shivers running up your spine.

“Yes, yes just like that, bloody hell.”

His hands finally land on your hips, squeezing you as he urges you on, trying to speed you up. You resist, twisting slightly as you rise pulling a low groan out of him, your hands wrapping around his wrists to steady yourself. You slide down his length again, clenching around him as your grind down, biting your bottom lip. There’s a severe look on John’s face as he curses again, your breath coming in shorter pants as you move over him.

“Why that dress?”

John answers that nagging question with the same bald honesty he’s answered everything else you’ve asked of him today, his eyes falling to the spot where your bodies are connected, his fingers dimpling your hips with his grip.

“Don’t think I’ve stopped thinking about you in that dress since you turned up in it.”

You continue your steady pace, John’s flushed face impossible to look away from. There’s devotion etched there, and your heart squeezes painfully in your chest, feeling too large for your ribcage.

“When you were away? Did you ever think of me in that dress?”

“Every night. Love, please.”

This is as close as you’ve ever heard John beg for anything, an echo of his words from this morning. His desperation sends a thrill through your belly, speeding you up, the pearls clacking together against your heated flesh. You can feel John’s cock jerking deeply inside you, bumping against the sensitive patch of flesh that resides there and it weakens your thighs, your body wanting to go pliant against him.     

“John- “

“I’ve got you.”

He understands immediately and grips the globes of your ass as you drape over his heaving chest, your breathy panting muffled against the base of his neck. He braces his feet against the bed and fucks up into you, his grip spreading your cheeks as you moan into his ear. You can barely hear his muttered curse over the rush of blood in your ears and your own wanton noises, unable to stop yourself as John chases his pleasure now, his grip bruising. You nip at his thick shoulder, your teeth razing over his skin, his low rumbling moan vibrating through you as his blunt cock relentlessly buries itself in your slick pussy. The tightening coil of pleasure builds at the base of your spine, your muscles clenching around him as he buries himself and holds still, his hands shifting back to your hips.

“Sit up, love, I want to see you.”

You follow John’s order mindlessly, dragging your palms over his chest to press yourself back up, biting your lip when John twitches deep inside you, meeting his heated gaze. To your surprise he sits up too, the thick muscles of his abdomen flexing and pressing against you as he settles inches from your face, his legs going akimbo behind you. His big palms land on the tops of your thighs, squeezing your flesh in encouragement.

“Bounce, love.”

Again, you follow his direction without any compunction, and immediately your nails dig into the tops of his shoulders as this position offers more friction against your clit. A gasp is torn from your throat after the first experimental rise of your hips, and soon you land on a rhythm that has the frame of the bed groaning. The pearls are trapped between your bodies, the soft clinking nearly inaudible as the tension in you builds quickly, the angle making your toes curl and your moans climb in volume. John’s strong hands steady your sides, his body jerking up into you with each bounce, the walls of your soaked pussy bearing down on him tightly. His eyes are inches from yours, and you’re transfixed and unable to look away, his pupils blown.

All it takes is a firm smack on your ass to tip you over the edge, the jolt enough to make you clench around him, your nails raking over his back as you try desperately to ground yourself against the sudden cresting wave of your orgasm. A keening cry escapes you, your inner thighs trembling with strain as you try to clamp around his hips, the rhythmic pull of your slickened walls dragging a primal sound of out John’s chest before he tips you onto your back. His demanding thrusts send sparks shooting up your spine, catching the back end of your orgasm and drawing it out. You can feel the thundering of your heart in each extremity, your hands wrapped around John’s biceps as his hips jerk into the soft flesh of your body, the wet slap replacing the groaning of the bedframe. John’s thrusts quickly lose their rhythm, your leaking pussy pulsing around him tightly, drawing a broken sound out of him. He jerks into you deeply, making tiny little thrusts as he cums hard, his forehead landing on your shoulder as he groans loudly.

You stay locked like that, desperately trying to catch your breath for a few long minutes, John recovering quicker than you. You wordlessly protest when he tries to disentangle himself, tightening your limbs around him with a groan.

“I love you but I’ve got to get rid of this condom, darling.”

The low rumble of his voice in your ear convinces you to relax your hold on him and he extricates himself gingerly, leaving you sprawled the wrong way on the bed, too relaxed to bother moving the right way round. Finally, your heart rate slows and you marshal yourself to sit up, propping yourself on an arm. The pearls drape gracefully over your body as you move, swaying with you. John is at the sink when you meet his warm gaze across the room.

“You alright, love?”

“mhm, just needed a minute.”

John watches, half amused as you wriggle out of bed, making your way on wobbly legs to join him in the bathroom to pee. He leaves and returns with the case for the pearls, placing it on the counter by your elbow as you wash and dry your hands.

“John?”

You ask as he turns back to the bed, tugging the duvet cover with the wet spot off the duvet and tossing it towards the laundry hamper. The case for the pearls closes with a click as you return them to their place and you nudge the box into it's new spot beside your perfumes lined up on the counter.

“Hm?”

John’s proclivity for order and neatness distracts him from answering you and you smile affectionately as he wrestles the duvet back into a fresh cover. Once he’s satisfied you climb into bed, watching the curve of his spine as he bends to collect his cell and change from where they have scattered.

“What should I know about Kate before our dinner?”

He straightens and replaces the objects in his hands on his bedside table, crawling into bed and spooning you, pressing a kiss to your shoulder as he rolls you on to your side. You offer no resistance, sighing softly, feeling deeply content and drowsy, your fingers tracing over his forearm.

“Well, to start she’s American, and a very good poker player. Impressive poker face.”

From your position you can’t tell if he’s joking or not but you let his words roll over you nonetheless, the rise and fall of his voice soothing. Exhaustion from the highs and lows of the day are pulling you under before you can learn what part of America she hails from, or ask any more questions about the mysterious figure in John’s life.

Next Chapter

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[dragon-susceptible]

Hi!! I wanted to let you know that I ABSOLUTELY enjoyed your analysis of the Moonshadow Elves fighting in episode 3 - it's SO nice to see someone paying such attention to the tiniest details, and just ENJOYING it so much. Just wanted to pointed out one thing - if you go frame by frame, you can see that Runaan doesn't just throw the guard to the ground with his bare hands - he actually throws the guards against his knee, kicking him in the stomach, before striking him in the back with his elbow, which I find absolutely amazing.

And I also wanted to ask you, since your guesses are SO good and detailed - what do you think were Runaan's exact injuries at the end? Cause we only see a couple bruises and a broken horn, but there's obviously more going on (which I'm guessing is not shown due to the rating and keeping the scene bloodless). But he's struggling to breathe, struggling to keep his balance and stay on his feet, and then after he comes back in Season 7 he is constantly seen holding his side. Do you think it would be due to some broken ribs, or was there something else going on that was just not shown?

Would LOVE to see your take on it.

Also take care and I wish you all the best (also can't wait for more Different Part Taken chapters<3)

Oh he definitely had broken ribs. Some of the bruising we see on his torso is worse a few days later in the dungeon, which admittedly could just be further beatings, but given he can breathe again, I'd say it's more likely that he had broken bones Viren chose to fix just enough to keep him alive for questioning. The ribs alone would account for trouble breathing, but there's also a very real possibility that he had a punctured lung as a result of them too. He definitely still had one functioning though.

I also think that with how low his horn was broken, first of all, it should have been bleeding pretty heavily because that would have been in the still living part of the horn that has veins in it. So he would have been having a hard time seeing through blood in his left eye at least, from that. The amount of force required to break it, too, could well have left him with a concussion. Soren is monstrously strong for an 18 year old, and I honestly would be willing to bet he's the one who did most of the damage to Runaan considering how effortlessly both of them are handling each other's underlings.

So definitely a couple of broken ribs, which are the internal source of that bruising we see on his torso. Broken horn, which is very much an injury that would have caused him to suffer from some issues from blood loss. Punctured lung. Concussion. I would guess that his collarbone is fine given he can still draw that massive metal bow, and his arms are clearly in pain (you can see him clutching one of them to his side) but they're intact. He does seem to be having some trouble walking on his way out to the balcony, and part of that is just pain and struggling to breathe from his other injuries, but one of his ankles does seem to give way a bit, so he might have sprained or fractured a foot or ankle as well. All of this on top of general scrapes and bruises from having his armor broken off of him, as we see he's missing parts of it at the end of that scene.

He's in far better shape a few days later in the dungeon, despite starving himself, so my headcanon is that Viren partially healed him using Dark Magic to keep him alive and lucid for questioning. That's also part of why he's stripped of so much clothing despite how that's clearly not common practice in Katolis (we see plenty of other characters become prisoners, and that's never done to anyone else - it's not even done again when Runaan's a prisoner in season 7 at Ezran's order), so that Viren could ensure his spell worked.

Also, I do want to acknowledge your point about what Runaan actually does to that guard, slamming them against his knee, because first of all, yes, acknowledged! This is true! But also fucking hell, that's cool. I think it's a really neat choice to have him (and Skor, but he's the one we know more about in canon) forgo weapons entirely sometimes. That means he uses his legs a surprising amount in combat for an archer and swordsman, which is just a really interesting choice for him to be making. Is this something he trained to do? Is it instinctive? Why do we see him and Skor using kicks and knees so often (Skor uses his legs just as much as his swords!)? Unlike the parkour and the leaping up things to come down on an opponent that's not a habit that we see repeated with Rayla or the other elves all that much. So what prompted that style for those two?