#written on the bus

[thefloatingstone]

Appleseed PDA montage to save you from reading endless pages of unimportant politics that don't amount to anything

also because I have nothing better to do, I'm bored, I'm moody, my gaming laptop is still broken so no BG3, and it's too late at night to start drawing after doing animation clean-up all day.

[the-ace-with-spades]

The year is 1995 and Mav disappears off radars on a mission overseas. He's declared MIA and then when satellite pictures of an F-14's wreck show up, declared KIA.

It's a hot August evening when Ice opens his front doors to see a Navy officer with a precisely folded flag in his arms and a JAG lawyer with a suitcase full of documents. Baby Goose should be already sleeping upstairs, preparing for their planned camping trip the day after.

Ice lets them in without a word.

They walk past the living room where Ice had been checking their tent for rust, straight to the kitchen table. They don't sit down.

"On behalf of the President of the United States, the United States Navy—"

"Spare me the bullshit."

He's still holding the flag, letter on top of it, seal unbroken.

"Why are you even here? I'm not his—" Loved one. Ice was just—there. A close friend. A wingman. It doesn't matter whether he loves Mav or not, he will always be just someone in his life, not his loved one. "I'm just his best friend."

"Commander Mitchell stated this address as Bradley Bradshaw's main residence during deployment."

Jesus Christ. He can't—Bradley. What was he going to tell Bradley?

"Commander Mitchell's sole beneficiary is Bradley Bradshaw, and since he's a minor, we need to execute his will alongside our condolences." Bradley lost another parent. And all he has left is a will. "You've been named as Bradley Bradshaw's legal guardian if Commander Mitchell was—unable to take care of him."

"He's never told me that."

He didn't. Not even a word. He knew Mav had a will, they all did. But he never thought enough to make sense of the details.

It couldn't be Ice. He couldn't exist on paper in Mav's life or in Bradley's life.

"You can refuse—"

Ice phases out the words that come after — Mav can't be gone, Mav couldn't have left Bradley to him, Mav couldn't have thought he would be able to care for Bradley alone, without Mav's help and guidance. He couldn't have left them both there with broken hearts.

Ice doesn't believe this. It can't be true. If he stares long enough, the two officers in front of him are going to disappear and he will get a late night call from Mav from the ship and will wake up Baby Goose so they could chat and—

"Ice, I know I should be asleep but can we check if we got enough jars for bugs? I really want to—"

Ice finally comes back to the surroundings.

Bradley stands in the kitchen door, noticing the two people in there, in uniforms. "I'm sorry, sirs, I didn't know—"

At that exact moment, Bradley notices the flag and the unopen letter. He can see it nice and clear — his face falls and he doesn't look at anything but the goddamn flag and the stupid letter made on behalf of the President.

Ice stops breathing. "Bradley—"

"No," he says, shaking his head, so quiet. "Not again, no—"

Before Ice can say anything, Bradley is running back up the stairs.

[bu-blegh-ost]

What Chip's current condition may possibly mean for both him and the crew (a theory of sorts)

Spoilers for ep. 109 and 110. Heed the warning.

Okay, so ever since ep. 109 came out I've been frantically reading about undead and what does it mean for your pc to be undead. I stayed silent about it, cause I wasn't sure if Nik could fix this, but now that ep. 110 is out I'd like to share some of the things I found, for folks like me, who do not know much abt DnD yet.

So, in a long list of features the undead have, most prominent problem is how hard it is to heal them. None of Jay's or Gillion's spells can heal Chip now, we'd need a spell that normally damages people, like necromancy spells, since they have a reverse efffect on the undead, and none of them has access to that currently. Not only that, once Chip's health reaches zero at this state, that's it. No death saves, no going unconscious or going down. That's it, which is why the moment he turned undead, Jay started spamming the temporary HP canon. So Chip doesn't lose any of his core health pool. If he did die in this state, from then on, only a spell called Wish (if I'm not mistaken a lvl 9 Sorcerer wish, so Gillion could do that if he cranked up three more levels in sorcery real quick) or True Ressurection could save him. But these two spells would also bring Chip back to life as a regular person, not the undead, so it would be cool to seek out someone who could do that for them at the most convenient time.

To balance it out, Chip is resistant to a shit ton of attack types, including poison, physical, necrotic and many other. To top it off with Chip's evasion skills, I'm giving him good chances to either minimalize or negate most damage in this form. And well, considering everything, he'd be wise to take every opportunity to do so, joke damage taking is no longer an option, I think. Also Gillion needs to be very careful with radiant damage around Chip, cause it's very effective on the undead. Chip getting hit by Gillion's strike may damage him greatly, and the two need to be very careful around each other from now on :(((

And the most interesting thing I found is the Undead Hunger variant. Some undead can just live on for centuries and be fine without a need to feed on something. But some, even the intelligent ones like Chip, may need a bit more than that, and given that very ominous intelligence check Grizzly made him roll at the end of the day, I'm thinking he's implementing the hunger rule on Chip. Lemme tell you a bit about it.

So Undead Hunger is a Variant Rule that DMs use on player characters that are undead sometimes. And that means that once in a while Chip would have to feed on some sort of specific type of morsel to satisfy his craving, or suffer the cosequences. There are two variants of undead that can make roll for this: Inescapable Craving or Diet Dependent. The player in that case rolls for willpower, which DMs usually make a wisdom or intelligence check. In our case Grizzly chose intelligence, and Chip passed with a 19. The DC for Inescapably Craving Undead is 25, but the DC for Diet Dependent Undead is 15. So from that I deduced that Chip would be a Diet Dependent Undead, since he passed the roll.

Hunger for the Undead is like addiction to the living. This means that unless Chip can resist it with a succesful roll, he may become more agressive, anxious, violent or even self-destructive the longer he is denied a preferred meal. If he can't eat, he'll have to roll for keeping himself at bay every three days. He doesn't have to roll if he eats.

So you may ask now: what happens if he fails one to many times? This is the interesting part. So if Chip fails his once per three days intelligence check, the DM will make him take ability damage. That means that one of his stats (wisdom, strength, dexterity etc.) will reduce by a whatever number Grizzly sees fit (Chip can get all the lost points back the moment he eats). In the guide I've read it says that wisdom is the most crucial ability score to lose, tho I'm unsure if the DM takes away only from wisdom or if he can take any of the stats, I may need to read more on that. But the thing is, the more rolls Chip fails, the more wisdom he may loose, and please note, Chip does not have much wisdom to begin with (but he does have high intelligence so thank the gods for that at least).

The less wisdom Chip has, the more desperate he gets when it comes to eating. He may start seeking out more risky ways to get fed or do things he normally wouldn't to get it. Hunger can't kill him though, it may just make him lose himself (hence that comment of Grizzly's about him needing to hold onto his sense of self, at least that's what I think that is). Once Chip reaches wisdom score 0, Bizzly actually loses control over him, and Grizzly takes over Chip and he plays Chip as he was a wild enemy beast. In that state Chip can throw himself on anyone or anything that can provide him food, his mind completely lost. He can hurt others, attack his crew. He can do anything the DM determines a starved mindless beast would do.

He can come back to his senses once more, when he does feed on whatever is decided his preferred meal is, all his wisdom regained and all, but the consequences of his actions, when he was not himself, the dreadful realisation that he is now a monster, who needs to be kept in check so he doesn't hurt the people he loves...This may be a lot for Chip to take. If this were to happen, he'll need a lot of his crewmates' support and reassurance, and a lot of honesty will be demanded from Chip. He'd have to warn people around him and make sure everyone knows how he's feeling, if he needs help in finding food. Casue hiding this hunger may result in tragedy.

And of course, it doesn't help that they are where they are now. In any case, if Grizz decides that Chip's favourite meal is humanoid flesh (beyond cruel is what that would be), they are fucked, basically. If it is the flesh of any other creature or animal, well they are also fucked, because they are in a motherfucking Black Sea, so good luck finding anything consumable like this either way.

But hey, of course do remeber that in the end these are just my conclusions based on what I read. Grizzly might not be even using any of these rules, cause he's the DM and he can do whatever he wants. I just thought that based on what we saw, this is very likely to happen (consider it a theory of mine for the time being). If you would like to read more about it, I'll leave you the link to this one really good website that I found most of the information on. I can't confirm its relaibility, but it looks very informative, comprehensive and thought out, and thus far was the most thorough source I found, so I'm personally willing to trust it. But please do find out for yourself. That'll be it, see you and I hope you had fun reading!

Link to the website: https://www.realmshelps.net/monsters/aboutundead.shtml#undeadhunger

UPDATE!!!!!!!!!!!

Tags written out by the wonderful @dinzeeyz !!! They explained here what is ACTUALLY happening to Chip, not a theory, facts from the boys themselves! Please make sure to read them!!!

Well, there it is folks! Of course, I do not mind that I was wrong! The fun part in theorizing is not being right or wrong, but the journey one takes to find out the truth! And the truth is SO much more horrifying than I could ever think! You see, I was kinda thinking abt ways for Chip to still function while undead, but there is NO FUNCTIONING WHATSOEVER APPARENTLY. Grizzly's not playing, and the prospect of losing Chip forever is real oh dear OMG, that's absolutely insane!!! Please feel welcome to discuss this, I'll be definitely making more posts about this once I have a little more time but holy shit guys. We need to fix that boy up F A S T. If we lose Chip, I'm not recovering-

[otomes-world]

"Under fantasy disguise" part Pomefiore (1)

Fantasy AU “Under fantasy disguise”: world lore (prologue) heartslabyul savanaclaw octavinelle scarabia trigger warning: some self hate, reader in really bad state (but there is nothing grafic), barrely edited text.

At some point, the clouds flying past completely erased the idea of time and space. Slowly brightening sky marked the beginning of a new day. The lump in throat, the approaching nausea and self-loathing merged into one large layer, settling like a burden in your chest. A heaviness that radiates unpleasantly throughout the whole body.

You wanted to pry open chest if only it could give at least a little peace of mind.

However, the much-desired peace would not come. The subconscious told you, or maybe you yourself understood that you couldn’t let go of the situation. Frankly, what happened - all at once - was not your fault. It wasn’t, but selfishness and the banal desire to survive stuck needles into such a subjective concept of conscience, which you didn’t even suspect. When you live in a world of technology - when you don't have to make tough decisions - the world seems simpler.

You didn’t know where the carpet was going. Perhaps it was simply obeying your unspoken impulse to get away. Anywhere. To a place where it will be at least a little easier.

However, during the time you spent in this world, you managed to come to terms with the thought: it won’t get better. The further you plunged into unfamiliar lands and got to know its inhabitants, the harder the blow to your mental health. At some point you thought that the happiest time of your forced journey was wandering in the mountains.

Taking a shuddering breath, you froze abruptly, noticing movement out of the corner of your eye. Something flew past at incredible speed. Glancing briefly at the sleeping cat, you clenched your fists, your nails - or what was left of them - digging into the skin of your palms. The pain helped calm down a little and focus on my surroundings. A moment and something flew by again, this time very close.

It didn't seem to you.

Waking Grimm up with your left hand, you tried to look down. The carpet did not slow down, and therefore it was difficult to try to see anything. The barely brightening sky did not help at all. Suddenly the fabric shook and you felt something cold millimeters from your other hand. Imagining the worst, you looked down, noticing the thin scratch on your skin and the arrow.

Everything inside you suddenly stopped.

Heart began to beat sharply, making already labored breathing difficult. The mind tried to come up with a solution, an escape, something, but apparently the third arrow was the last warning. The last one before something incomprehensible collided with the carpet, paradoxically sobering and frightening at the same time. Intuitively stretching out your hands towards the sound of meowing, you realized in horror that you were falling down. The carpet, which had saved your life several times, was flailing in the air, trying to extinguish the flames that were engulfing the fabric faster and faster.

You closed your eyes and prepared to fall. The sharp blow, it felt like it, knocked out the remaining oxygen on the branch, as did a further fall onto the wet grass. The pain darkened vision. You wanted to scream, but you didn’t have the strength to unclench teeth and utter even a sound. Bent over, you still clutched Grimm to your chest, simultaneously trying to think about something good.

Heartslabyul still caused waking nightmares, but there were incredibly beautiful roses there. Flowers. Pleasant baking aroma. The softly shining sun.

A slow, careful breath literally created a storm inside. The lungs protested, the muscles tensed to the limit. It would be so easy to close your eyes and plunge into darkness if it weren't for the adrenaline still flowing through your veins. Your attacker was still somewhere nearby.

Sitting up with an effort of will, you could hardly resist so as not to fall back. Your side was burning, and the notorious stars were flying before eyes. What kept you from giving up was the realization that the breathing of the cat, limp in your arms, was becoming weaker. The fear of being alone in this world turned out to be enough of an incentive to go against everything: fate, a tired body and, possibly, broken bones.

A rustling sound came very close, and you tensed, preparing for the worst. Having spotted a dry branch nearby, you wondered how much time and effort it would take to grab it. There was a rustling sound again, and this time the steps took him by surprise, but a child appeared from behind the bushes. Even in the semi-darkness, you noticed his light gray hair and pointed ears. Gradually, two more appeared behind him: one with burgundy strands sticking out to the sides and a gloomy expression on his face, and the second, ready to fall asleep at any moment.

The very first, apparently the main one of the trio, took a step forward, raising his hands in a calming gesture, "How are you feeling? How many fingers am I showing?"

You just shook your head, closing your eyes. The voice of reason insisted that you had to run, but fear for Grimm did not allow you to take even a step..

"Us.. can.. help.. you.. "you didn’t recognize your own voice. It sounded so quiet and muffled that you doubted whether you were heard. Your throat burned, but you opened your mouth again to repeat the request as many times as necessary.

"Dominic, it’s not a good idea to bring someone you don’t know home, is it?" The gloomy child spoke, and for a second you again started to panic. "If we bring everyone we meet and cross, we ourselves will soon become the King’s target."

King? That's all you needed. Previous territories also had heads, but facing the “royal family” sounded much more terrible and problematic

"..only a night.. I can.. stay in the forest.. only Grimm.." It seemed like torture to pronounce every word. Your vision was blurry, but you were obliged to hold out.

“Another guest won’t be such a problem,” Dominic answered. "Can you get up?"

No. Even if you wanted to, you wouldn't be able to get up. You couldn't even lie to yourself. You didn’t even have to answer, the main one came up and extended his hands to the cat. With trembling hands, struggling not to pull them away, you allowed the cat to be taken away

"Groom, stay and look after last one. Shelpi and I will go get Neige"

The one who was called Groom grumbled without ceasing, but still approached you. Watching the children disappear among the greenery, you allowed yourself to relax. At least Grimm was safe.

"Hey. Hey! Come to your senses!"

You felt someone shaking your shoulder, but you couldn’t make out anything else. Only at some point did you hear someone’s worried voice, but you couldn’t make out what exactly he was saying.

You came to your senses, then fell into oblivion again. Voices, sounds, light caused dizziness and rejection. The only thing you remembered throughout the entire chaotic state was that pleasant voice and someone’s warm hands.

"You woke up!" Someone voiced it before you even realized it yourself. It’s just that at some point you stopped distinguishing between reality and a dream, but it seems that this time you were definitely in reality. "Wait, I'll call Dominic"

Closing your eyelids, you tried to focus on the present. You weren't abandoned in the forest, that's a plus. The attacker didn't show up yesterday, or maybe you just weren't found. The questions “Who” and “Why” remained unanswered. It would be possible to close your eyes and not chase your tail, as before, but your intuition suggested that this time it would be different. That this was just the calm before the next storm. But you no longer had the strength to look for shelter so as not to be carried away to the mercy of fate.

This name fluttered familiarly in memory. That's right, that was the name of the bright child. Following with an unfocused gaze the young man - although now in your eyes he was just a colored spot - who quickly rushed off somewhere, leaving you for a minute.

A quiet knock brought you back to reality. It was strange, the young man didn’t seem to lock the door. Opening your eyes slightly, you squinted, trying to make out the newcomer. As you thought, it turned out to be the same child. Next to him stood someone your age - maybe a little older or younger - with a friendly smile. The corners of your lips slightly twitched upward, but they couldn’t become the same full-fledged smile.

"Are you feeling better now?" Asked the child, who continued speaking after a nod from you. “You’re probably still confused, so I’ll try to speak more slowly. My name is Dominic, my dwarf brothers and me have been living in this forest for a very long time. And this,” he pointed at the young man, “is Neige. Although you may already know him. Let me know what happened to you?"

"…if.. I knew.. someone attacked us while we were flying on the carpet.. we turned over and fell, Grimm.. Grimm! Where is he?" An attempt to sit up abruptly was unsuccessful, causing more circles under the eyes and weakness. A brunette who appeared next to you prevented you from turning over and falling out of bed

"Your friend is okay!" The dwarf immediately answered hastily. "He, like you, needs to rest. But you need to do this first. During the fall, you broke a rib" you immediately touched your burning side. “It will take time to heal.”

Having given a short thank you to him and the boy, as a sign that you were already feeling better, you began to hastily rebuild your plan of action. It was impossible to linger, but on the other hand, going in the current state was no less stupid. You understood that the fall could not have happened without something - there was a limit to luck and the capabilities of the human body - but the awareness did not brighten up what was happening.

"Do you know who could have attacked you?“ The young man asked softly, holding out a glass of water that had come from nowhere. However, you weren't complaining.

“No.. No, this is my first time in these lands,” after a couple of sips it became easier to speak. “We were flying… yes, we were flying,” you strained your tired memory. "…someone shot! I remembered the arrow!" Looking hopefully at Dominic, you saw a worried look. As if he realized who exactly attacked you and the Grimm. For some reason, you doubted whether it was worth finding out the truth. "This is not someone from the royal family, right?"

You tried to laugh, but it sounded pathetic even to your own ears. For some reason, the duo didn't appreciate your joke.

“It might have been Rook,” you frowned, another new name. “He works as a hunter and serves Vi,” the young man tried to keep the conversation going with the same light laugh, which came out better than yours. However the impression he made was the same - he did not inspire confidence.

“Vi?” You asked carefully, afraid to confirm your fears.

"Exactly, you don’t know. That's what I call Vil, he is the king of these lands. We saw each other quite often at the castle!"

You were doomed. You could see the world literally crumbling before your eyes. This is exactly what was needed for happiness. Purely to confirm what you already suspected, you turned to Dominic, "What is the probability that… how did you call him, Rook?.. Reported everything to the king?"

Silence was a convincing enough answer.

Despite the chance of being discovered, you remained in the dwarves' house. It was inspired by the hopelessness and persuasiveness of Neige, who took upon himself the responsibility of your personal doctor. Although this was too strong a word, the process was still more led by the chief of the dwarves. Gradually you got to know the others.

Groom and Shelpi were part of the company that day. Although the first one was rude and hot-tempered, you couldn’t call him bad. It just took some getting used to. Shelpi was his opposite. A dwarf with a perpetually sleepy look, although you could understand him. In your current state, all you wanted to do was sleep.

There were four more gnomes: Timmy, Toby, Snick and Hop. You saw Timmy only from afar and only in someone else’s company. Perhaps he was just nervous around strangers. Toby was a sweetheart whose memory failed him more often than usual. Hop was a classic example of a cheerful child, and Snick's specialty was his perpetual allergies.

Watching their noisy but cheerful routine was a pleasant change from the nightmare that was happening in your life before. Nevertheless, you remembered Heartslabyul’s experience and were in no hurry to relax.

The more time you spent in their friendly company, the stronger the feeling of guilt grew. Understanding that they would come for you. Now or a little later didn't matter. Just like how many troubles befell the cat’s head for the company. Asking to take care of Grimm was another breaking through the ceiling called “selfishness,” but… that incident made it clear that problems were pouring down on your head more and more often. Their consequences were becoming increasingly difficult to correct.

Living with guilt was unbearable.

So much so that you were unable to look into the eyes of your faithful friend, who has literally gone through thick and thin with you, and you decided to leave him.

You didn't even hope for forgiveness. Deep inside you understood that this was just an attempt to come to an agreement with yourself, a struggle for the opportunity to hate yourself a little less. Looking at the recovering cat, this thought took root more firmly in consciousness.

The pathetic excuse “it will be better this way.”

Gradually you were allowed to take short walks. Your side still hurt, as did the wounds on back, but the fresh air helped to distract you and not drown in self-flagellation. The only activity for which you always had the strength.

Hoping to find your things, you tried to find the crash site from memory. It was stupid, especially since those trinkets were of no value. To some extent, they simply gave an imaginary sense of belonging. Reminders of your home world, which seemed farther and farther away day by day.

Moving aside the branches, you were finally able to find the desired clearing. It was like all the others, but some internal awareness did not allow you to pass by.

Check and leave.

Simple plan - simple implementation. Searching among the bushes without bending down was another challenge. Having sat down, you rose to your feet again with great difficulty, the shooting pain in your lower back made itself felt every time you tried to find your treasured things.

Breathing heavily, you leaned your hand on the trunk of a nearby tree. A little break won't hurt anyone, that's for sure in your condition. Taking a deep breath, you glanced around the clearing once again, making mental notes of where the bag might have been thrown.

There was not a soul around, or at least it seemed so. Perhaps over time you became too suspicious, but at the moment you could not leave the feeling of being watched, no matter how stupid it may sound. Who could be in the deep forest, right? Unless… who attacked you and the Grimm that day. You tsked and took another breath, trying to calm down.

It was dangerous to return to the house: you didn’t want to let Neige and his friends down. Trying to escape in an unknown direction was reckless. You didn’t know these places, one wrong turn and Robinson Crusoe will appear in this forest. Although you doubted that this world had heard of him. The possibility of becoming a discoverer was not encouraging.

"Ma cheri! What a rarity it is to find such a beautiful creature in such a dense thicket,” a voice that came out of nowhere took you by surprise.

Turning towards the sound at a speed you didn’t know you were capable of, you saw a strange blond-haired young man.

“Are you… talking about me?..” You asked carefully, simultaneously looking for a way to escape. Now the suspicions no longer seemed groundless.

He spoke a lot and not very clearly, sometimes you lost the thread of the story. In your best times, you didn’t like such conversations, let alone today. However, this was a good opportunity to look at the blond. He was wearing a cream-colored tunic, loose pants and a hat with a fluffy white feather.

"Oui! Yes and yes! A triple "yes" is not enough to prove the sincerity of my words. How brave and reckless are walks in the wilds, where every animal and people poses a danger. I had already decided that knowledge, Fata Morgana, which had darkened my mind and revealed such a fragile angel in human form!"

It was necessary to come up with an excuse and as quickly as possible. Perhaps you would be able to wander around, wait for him to leave, and return home without consequences. However, this would be too loud a statement. If there's one thing life has taught you, it was not to think ahead of time.

"Thank you, I guess?.. Did you want something?" You decided to ask directly.

"Oh, that's right. Wandering among the flora and fauna, I found one interesting little thing,” he sadly shook his head while you did everything to prevent doubts from showing on your face. "Obeying the will of my heart, I am trying to find the owner."

Emphasizing the last word, he smiled, narrowing his eyes. The nature of the emotion that flashed through them made you shiver.

"Well, I wish you good luck in your search, sir.."

"Hunt! But you can call me by my name, just Rook,” digging your nails into the palms, you kept a friendly expression on your face through an effort of will. The blond raised his hands in a surrendering gesture, and then also calmly began to close the distance. "I don’t dare to hope that you have heard of me. However, like me about you. His Majesty, Roi du Poison, has been wanting to meet you for quite some time, and who are we to refuse him."

Looking ahead at the outstretched hand and the unshakable figure of - as Neige said - the hunter, you doubted that you had any chance of escape.

[buwheal]

eeeyyyy, got bored and tried to draw you from memory.

how good is my memmory?

[olibensstuff]

I’m not gonna be able to draw much today so have this 2012 au i made pre tumblr 🥺

[raticalshoez]

And I'd hope that if I find the strength to walk out, you'd stay the hell out of my way.

Just finished the fic You Could've Applied Online and it permanantly altered my brain chemistry...

Versions without text:

[houseofborgia]

the borgias is my favorite show and i think it's the best show ever made and all. however, there's just this one aspect that is genuinely hilarious to me and i mostly criticize the show for. the writers suddenly trying to make the viewers massively despise juan by turning against him and disingenuously writing him in his final moments so the watchers won't miss him or sympathize with him by making him a walking danger as an excuse to kill him off and prop up cesare's character. they wanted the audience to root for cesare at juan's expense and make his death seem necessary lol. they truly thought they served with this one, like maybe juan's character was shamefully abandoned by the writers (as well as his family except for rodrigo) but david oakes had many people sold with the way he played him to perfection, improvising and making juan remarkable, tremendous, and humane. the show is obviously a classic masterpiece, but in my opinion about the juan part, simply rushing the writing of a tragic dying character on a show for weak reasons is pure disrespect.

[keenadraws]

oh he's so awful... I love him

[thecrimsonjaguar]

i think when it comes to the F+C finale it's important to see where the writers were coming from. And it's easy to do that, the lesson/moral they gave simon is fairly clear: Simon needs to appreciate his life because Betty sacrificed so much to get him here. alright, cool, that's good on paper.

I do Also think that the execution was poor.

up until this point, the crown has represented/could be viewed as many things. Alzheimer's, substance abuse, and anything else people have called it. In this series, a newer interpretation has arose: Suicide. And I'm certain the writers were aware of this. Depression and suicidal ideation are such strong themes in this series that they can't NOT be purposeful.

So their attempt at teaching Simon to appreciate Betty's sacrifice can ALSO be read as: Simon, the suicidal, on the verge of a relapse-man, gets put into a body of a child, (and that is very powerful imagery that does not help, actually) and is told nearly expressly that he fucked up in his relationship with the love of his life. He is told he should have sacrificed more for betty. And he says to himself: "Maybe i wouldn't have even found the crown". Basically it's simon pinning the blame on himself for his 1000 year curse on his mistakes with Betty. Which of course can be read as Simon's self loathing but the show does nothing to refute his statement, which i also have issue with. Simon putting on the crown was stated to be a Mistake. it was an accident. No matter what, the crown cursing him Was Not His Fault. Ever. It's not Betty's fault, it's not Simon's, it. was. a. Mistake.

regardless on if they should or should not have introduced these new flaws into simon's character, having simon learn his mistakes like This feels. icky. to me.

[milf-harrington]

For the made-up fic title prompt:

"Just another normal doomsday"

♡

Just Another Normal Doomsday

Hawkins, 1987.

"I'm just saying, punk rock gay sex is different to hippy gay sex."

"How?"

Robin shrugged, stirring her straw through her milkshake before lifting the whole cup to her mouth to drink it. "It's sexier."

She was sitting with her legs crossed underneath her, back leaning against the bus window so she could face where he was sitting across the aisle. The bus was pleasantly dim, but watery sunlight streamed through a gap on her side and bathed her face in blue shadows while her hair lit up with bronze at the ends.

Steve snorted, leaning sideways with one leg stretched over the aisle, muddy sneaker propped up on the edge of Robin's bench. A cardboard tray filled with chips was nestled in his lap, the corners darkened with grease and grainy with salt.

"You're just saying that because your parents are hippies."

From Steve's backpack, their walkie (one they shared, with masking tape scribbled over in colourful markers stuck to the back, their names written in each others handwriting) crackled to life, codes carried out in a cloud of static that made them both sigh in unison.

Robin burped, dropping her empty milkshake cup back into the bag their food had come in. "No," She protested, milk lining her upper lip before she wiped it away. "I'm saying it because it's true."

"They're both gay!"

"But being punk rock is gayer!"

He flicked a chip crumb at her when she reached for her bag, watching it dodge her flailing attempts at a block and get stuck in her hair. "I'm telling Eddie you called him gay."

She blinked at him, face scrunched up in the same expression she used to give him whenever he opened his mouth at Scoops. "Eddie is gay, and I'm telling him that you called him punk rock-"

Something outside shrieked, high and rattling like broken glass against a sheet of metal. They shared a look like the ones they used to share at Family Video, when customers were being unreasonable and they couldn't say anything about it or they'd get fired.

Steve leaned down to grab his bat from the floor, wiping the grease off of his hands onto his jeans as Robin stood and stretched. There was still a deep purple bruise tucked into the inner corner of her eye from a demo-bat attack on patrol a few days ago, and Steve felt the matching one on his shoulder twinge when he hauled the nail-bat over it.

"He won't do anything," He told her, stepping in front to take the lead as they moved towards the front of the bus. The windows were still sloppily boarded up from a night that felt like a hundred years ago, just Steve and a bunch of kids who were in over their head. "I call him punk all the time, I think he's grown immune to it."

They stopped at the door, Robin squeezing past to stand on the other side, where the controls were. They stayed quiet, peering through the dirty glass to get a grasp of the how many and where. Dustin's code said three, but they'd been wrong before.

"Yeah, but if he hears you've been spreading that around?" Robin whispered, reaching behind her to wrap bandaged fingers around the lever. She whistled low, mostly breath, and Steve rolled his eyes. "You won't have to worry about demodogs, is all I'm saying."

"Yeah, yeah." He muttered, tightening his grip on the bat as the door shuttered open and a gust of warm air hit his face.

He crept outside, second-hand work boots crunching lightly on the gravel as he listened to Robin hurry up the ladder to the roof. She was going to yell directions and throw molotov cocktails while he did the actual hard shit. Technically the lookout part was supposed to be Eddie's job, and Robin was meant to be at Steve's back with her axe, but apparently they were at a crucial stage of the campaign and he "couldn't miss it".

Part of Steve hoped he'd get eaten, if only to get his boyfriend to reorganise his priorities a bit.

A half hour later, Steve leaned against the side of the bus, sweaty and panting while Robin offered him her water-bottle. She reeked of cheap alcohol and the sharp smell of burning, glittering shards of glass caught in her fringe. Gore dripped from the nails in his bat, and one of the dogs had gotten a good swipe at his shin, but he remained mostly un-grievously-injured. He still hurt everywhere though, body complaining about all the diving over and around and behind random bits of junk and machinery.

"Metal gay sex is probably gayer than punk rock gay sex." He decided, and Robin hummed thoughtfully.

"You'd know."

He shrugged, tilting his head with an ehh. "I've never slept with a punk so I can't be sure, but you've met Eddie."

"I have indeed. Speaking of- are we having dinner at Wayne's tonight?"

Steve groaned - not in complaint, it's just that his everything hurt and he'd forgotten about their dinner plans - and ran a hand through his hair. It was greasy and damp with sweat and monster blood. Overhead, a flock of demobats shrieked and weaved among each other, not bothering with the two of them as they headed off towards the quarry.

"Yeah, I said we'd pick up mince for that chuck-in he makes, but that was before the butcher got eaten this morning and I don't think Melvald's is open today."

Robin sighed, scooping up her bag and shrugging it over her shoulder. She held out a hand, fingers spread and wiggling expectantly, and he grinned as he clasped their hands together.

The headed off towards the tracks, a short-cut to the trailer park, and swung their hands back and forth between them.

"I could make that pasta my mum taught me?" Robin offered. "Pretty sure the Munson's will have all of that."

He groaned, this time in delight, and swung their hands a bit higher like a kid on the swings excited to touch the clouds. "God yes, please."

[womp-womp-waa]

Ashlyn held Aiden's body close, holding his head underneath her chin. She could feel his body growing colder by the second, she could feel the ground shake, she could feel as the table covering them started to break undet pressure. She could feel Aiden's blonde curls become dyed crimson red from his blood. She didn't let go, she couldn't. She never got to say goodbye. Or apologise for how she treated him before they were friends. It didn't matter though, because they will all wake up and Aiden will already be awake and laughing at their shocked and relieved faces.

If she doesn't say goodbye, then he's not really gone. Just sleeping

[the-ace-with-spades]

I have the urge to write a seven-season-long medical drama, so here is a concept for Top Gun Hospital AU with ER hate-to-love hangster AU that no one asked for.

as a warning: this is a bit incohesive and silly

All the aviators are doctors and all the WSOs are nurses. With the exception of Bradley (but there’s an explanation for it).

Mav — cardiothoracic surgeon; Ice — former neurosurgeon and Chief of Surgery, current Head of Patient and Medical Services (so, entirely admin). I imagine they have the same kind of relationship as House and Cuddy in this, including Ice keeping an entire legal team for Mav’s unconventional practice methods. They've met during med school and had been rivals up until they both finished general surgery residency. Slider is an OR nurse turned anesthesia nurse. Goose was an ER nurse and met Mav during his rotation as a med student and died after an incident in the ER during Mav’s residency (that was the moment he switched from emergency medicine to surgery).

Phoenix — emergency, but she managed the impossible (like Mav) and switched from obgyn residency after the first year (only chose obgyn in the first place because of her mom, a renowned obgyn in Oregon), she's still really passionate about the obgyn field but didn't enjoy the work enough to do it for the rest of her life; Javy — general surgery; Payback — emergency with sub-spec in pediatrics; Friz — respiratory medicine; Omaha — oncology; Yale — ortho surgery.

Bob — a former OBGYN nurse, left because of a toxic work environment, working in the ER six months now, Phoenix's favorite nurse now, duh; Fanboy — started in peds oncology, had to switch because it was too hard on him mentally and is now peds emergency; Halo — started as a palliative care nurse, switched to oncology after a few years; Harvard — OR nurse, switched from general team to ortho

Hangman is the new trauma surgeon starting in their ER. Born and raised on a ranch, was expected to take over the ranch but never wanted to. Thankfully, he had too perfect grades to not send him to college — his parents wanted him to be a vet, which obviously didn’t happen, so he could stay close to the family business. He moved to California for his MD. He has terrible bedside manners with patients and patients’ family, but is surprisingly decent with kids, has lost respect for nurses sometime during his first residency year, and had a terrible case of Ego hit him during his trauma surg fellowship.

Now, about Rooster:

Bradley got into a pre-med program, Mav (who had set up Bradley’s college fund) said he’s not going to pay for it since he doesn’t want Bradley to be a doctor (long hours, lack of work-life balance, burnout, high stress, etc. It was more complicated because Mav still has the Goose trauma). So they had the fallout, Bradley moved out and deferred college to find a way to pay for it and, wanting to gather hospital experience, started working as a CNA in Peds ICU at a children’s hospital which accidentally was having a new CNA intake at the time. He liked it, actually loved it, and started hesitating whether he should continue with pre-med and be like Mav or go for nursing, like his dad. Year after, he got an offer from the hospital that said hey, we’ll fund some of your BSN as long as you work for us while you study and then work for us for another four years after getting your license. So he became a nurse, got certified as peds nurse after working two years in PICU and after another three, switched to the Pediatric Rapid Response Team, where he stayed for another two years before getting a spot as a senior nurse in adult/peds ER in a different hospital.

His relation to Mav and Ice only came to light a few months after the hiring process, as Bradley didn’t even know they worked there when he applied and it’s still a hash-hash topic in the ER. He’s been in the ER for almost three years now and has become an unofficial second-in-command as one of the few with substantial experience.

I imagine he’s definitely one the best nurses you could have as a patient — he’s honest but in an empathetic way, he’s worked in the most demanding environments with the most complex patients (ICU and RRT), he’s skilled and experienced in most procedures. Because he is one of the few male nurses, he’s the one dealing with inappropriate patients, aggressive patients, patients that need restraint, frequent flyers, etc. and he genuinely doesn’t mind — he is the perfect mix of calm and firm that makes him very reliable in most difficult situations. He is absolutely most reassuring and guiding with new stuff, be it new nurses or med students that don’t know what’s happening, and he doesn’t judge. It does help, too, that he was partially raised by two very cocksure surgeons and therefore knows how to deal with doctors that turned a bit too arrogant.

Before I go to the hangster part of this shit, I want y’all to know it all started because I found this Rooster-coded scrubs:

I imagine that he buys most of his scrubs since the work-issued scrubs don’t fit well on men (most unisex ones are very much just female fit stamped with unisex label) and peds nurses can have lots of cute ones so the kids feel less nervous around them

Also, this is a warning that yes, Bradley is trans in this scenario, too, because I said so. It's relevant to a few scenes, I think?? and there's tw for transphobic OC

Now, a bunch of scenarios I can see for this AU:

On the first day at his new workplace, Jake makes a reputation for himself. He confuses Nat, in her hospital-issued scrubs and with her doctor tag clearly on display, for a nurse and literally talks over her in front of a patient. Same thing happens with Billy because he’s Filipino and there is a large number of Filipino nurses everywhere and he’s stereotyping. Then he makes another patient’s parents agitated. This is when he meets Bradley — he takes over to talk to the parents and calm them down before it can escalate, basically shushing Jake out of the room. Jake doesn’t clock he’s a nurse at first — he’s a big, very fit, very well-built, very handsome dude with a questionable mustache who looks comical in a pastel pink scrub top with a teddy bear pattern and a matching headband on his forehead, but also the sheer shock of how different to all the nurses he looks gives Jake a pause  — so he doesn’t say anything even if it pisses him off a nurse just forced him out of the room.

*

It starts innocently with Bradley though — Bradley comes up and asks, “Jake, can you put the narcotics order into the system for Lily?” and Jake scoffs and corrects, “Doctor,” tapping his full tag with Dr. Jacob Seresin.

Bradley, as the nurse’s tag says, raises an eyebrow and says, “Doctor Jake, can you put the narcotics order for Lily?”  Natasha, standing behind him, snorts. Jake doesn’t even have the time to tell him off because he’s already gone when his brain processes.

*

Natasha drops off a patient on him — a taxi driver who had a stroke while driving and had been in a car accident, that had been thrombolysed but might need emergency surgery because of a suspected GI bleed. He’s stable, so they're going to check if he can be admitted to neurosurg and wait for his turn there or if Jake will need to take over before that.

Bradley hands him a tablet the minute he walks into the room.

“What’s that?”

“Results,” he supplies before going back to setting up an oxygen cylinder at the bottom of the bed.

“I didn’t order that,” he notes. The blood and urine panels are what he would order with suspected operable GI bleed but he’s barely looked at the patient’s case before he walked in there.

“I did,” Bradley tells him as he switches the oxygen from the wall socket to the tank supply. “Faster this way.”

“No,” Jake says, blood boiling. “You do exactly what I tell you to do and only that.”

Natasha raises her eyebrows, high on her forehead. Bradley doesn’t hesitate — waves on Bob from behind the glass wall and they both grab each side of the bed.

“I supposed you want to put the CT order yourself then,” Bradley says as Bob takes the small back monitor and attaches it to the frame. He steps on the bed brake and rolls out the bed, straight into Jake and Nat, fast enough that he moves out of the way on instinct. “Better do it fast because it’s free now and I’m going.” *

“Did you see that? Who the heck does he think he is?” Jake asks Nat.

“Better put that CT scan order,” is all Natasha replies as she walks away.

*

It’s Reuben’s patient, an eleven years old boy with blunt trauma, and Jake makes a verbal order to Bradshaw, who is the boy’s nurse. “I understand but I think that—” and Jake goes, “If I want your opinion, I’ll ask for it.”

The whole room gets quiet and everyone looks to him — Reuben, Mickey, and the technician are wide-eyed.

Bradley just says, “Alright,” in a perfectly leveled voice and leaves the room.

 Mickey is not making eye contact as he quips under his nose, on his way out of the room, “You do realize he basically runs this ER, right? You’re making your life a lot harder.”

*

Jake orders IV fluids for one of his patients which is also in Rooster’s section that day and he bleeps the order info to Rooster. Fifteen minutes later he sees that it hasn’t been filled and is like, hah, I knew there is a reason I hate that guy. Finds him when he passes Jake in the corridor and is like, “I want you to start the IV for room 7. Now,” and Rooster  just tells him, “No, do it yourself or find someone else.” 

They have a little back and forth as Jake follows him down the corridor which ends with another, “No.”

There’s still no charge nurse in the ER (she’s on medical leave that will most likely end with her leaving employment, from what Jake gathers) so he makes a datix and the ER nurse manager (Warlock) following up is apprehensive because obviously, he knows Bradley, and hears about what actually happened — Bradley was getting an igel for a toddler from the peds side and deemed it more important than starting a bag of saline to bust someone's blood pressure.

Jake feels like an idiot.

*

Jake and Reuben are charting next to each other and Reuben gets bleeped his patient’s lab results. Jake, who is also waiting for lab results, complains about how he sent a pod to the lab before Reuben. Reuben just gives him a look and says, “Yeah, that’s because I asked Bradley to put my request in.”

And Jake is like, “What does he have to do with anything?”

Reuben looks at him like he’s dumb and says, “He has more sway with the lab,” and walks away with his tablet.

*

Javy is doing a consult for Nat and stops to chat to Jake (they know each other from residency days) and Bradley comes by and says, “Maggie’s becoming hypotensive again,” and Javy observes as Jake looks at the nurse that came, gives him a very long, very detailed look and licks his lips.

He manages to think Oh before Jake asks, “Maggie?”

The nurse looks seconds from rolling his eyes. “Mrs. Lawrence? Room 5?” 

“That's Margaret.”

“She prefers Maggie.”

And it goes on, with Jake standing there rigid, puffing up his chest and cocking his hip out. “Did you start the fluids?”

“Finshed already.”

“Start another bag.”

The nurse looks unimpressed and instead of confirming says, slowly, like he’s talking to a child, “Her fluid balance is positive. She’s usually on pressors.” Jake’s face gets red and he goes, “Then put an order for her.”

It’s kind of funny to observe and to be fair, the nurse does give Jake a minute to go over what he said, leaning his elbow on the counter, eyebrows raised, before he points out, in that damn slow, unimpressed tone, “I can't put orders for things like pressors."

He hands Jake the closest tablet and starts walking away.

Jake calls after him. "What, you're not even going to draft it for me?"

He doesn't even turn around and Javy is silently shaking from the laughter he's holding in, "I thought I wasn't allowed to do that, doctor."

*

Mav comes down to the ER to talk to Rooster on a slower day — about how they’re about to sponsor a new CRNA for the cardiothoracic surg unit and maybe he could put a good word for their development team for Bradley and yada yada.

It happens like that: Mav comes down, Bradley is charting next to the monitors station, Jake is going over a scan on the opposite side when The Dr. Mitchell himself comes down and stops next to Bradley. He gives Bradley and his pink Paw Patrol scrubs a look and clears his throat a couple of times before Bradley raises his gaze toward him, turning away a second later and ignoring him again.

Jake is freaking out — this is The Dr. Mitchell and one of the reasons Jake wanted to work in this exact hospital, along with the rumored to-be-announced cardiothoracic surg fellowship under Dr. Mitchell he had his eyes on. He’s been thinking about how to make contact with Dr. Mitchell since he started in the ER and here he is, telling unresponsive Bradshaw, “I heard you’re looking to go back for your Master’s in the near future.” Bradshaw doesn’t say anything and Dr. Mitchell adds, “We have a CRNA development spot for—” and Bradley tells him, not turning away from the screen, “I’m not an OR nurse,” and then taps his card on the computer’s reader to log out and walks away.

Dr. Mitchell is a fucking legend, a VIP of this hospital, so Jake just stands there, contemplating how the heck Bradshaw could do that and hears him mumbling under his breath, “Really slick, Mav,” and jumps on the opportunity to say, “I’ll be talking to his supervisor about this, his attitude is unacceptable, Dr. Mitchell.”

And Dr. Mitchell turns to him, raises an eyebrow and asks, “Excuse me?” 

“The nurse you were talking to. He might be senior in here but his attitude’s been horrible and I’ll personally step in. This won’t happen again.”

Dr. Mitchell gives him a look before slowly saying, “I suggest you mind your own business, Dr. Seresin,” and walks away.

Nat is silently laughing a few feet away and Jake asks her what’s so funny. His heart dead-ass stops when she says, “You do know Dr. Mitchell is Bradley’s dad, right? They might not be on the best of terms but that’s still his son.” And Jake has the urge to bang his head on the keyboard in front of him. 

* 

TW for transphobia.

There’s a new nurse practitioner to be (graduated, about to get her cert) that's rumored to be a candidate for the charge nurse position. Izzy. She’s quite young for that, younger than Bradley for sure, must have barely worked in the clinical area before going for her Master’s. Jake doesn’t know if it’s on purpose but the nurse manager and Bradley keep on putting her in his section.

She’s—well, she’s a bit too in his face. She agrees with everything Jake says and doesn’t roll his eyes at him, which is boring, and she’s, for an NP, not that knowledgeable. She doesn’t argue with him, which is a change, and Jake starts to hate it after about five hours. Her voice is saccharine sweet, she keeps on standing a bit too close to him at all times, and she’s decent with patients, but she keeps on asking him about the smallest of things.

Jake’s section is less busy, usually, since he deals primarily with trauma in the ER, but she never bounces off to help others when she is free, like Bradley did. She’s clinging to his section, a little bit, and he doesn’t get why. It’s not like he is any nicer to her than to Bradley or any other nurse.

She is busy taking bloods and Bradley finds him when he has a second alone, finally, and enlightens him about why.

“If you don’t believe me, you can just ask any other nurse. Everyone noticed.”

“If you really think that then why do you keep putting her in my sections?”

“I don’t. She’s senior as an NP, she’s taken over allocation from me now.”

Jake’s mind only focuses on one detail. “You were allocating yourself to my sections?”

“Only because no one wants to work with you and because I’m actually certified in trauma.” That makes sense. It’s not like Bradley would work with him voluntarily. “Look, all I’m saying, you watch out — you fool around with her and then reject her and she’s going to HR. I know the type.”

“The type?”

“You know, the girl that thought she’ll become a nurse, snag a rich doctor and never work again? Well, it’s not always women, there are guys who do that too, but in this case, she’s very much the type.”

“And you think she’s trying to—snag me?”

“She’s certainly not going after the residents that are getting paid twelve bucks an hour or Reuben who is married,” he points out. Which, again, fair, even if he didn’t know Reuben is married prior to this strange conversation.

Jake stares at him, processing, until he blurts out, “I’m gay.”

“Then you’ve got nothing to worry about,” Bradley says after a second, eyes barely noticeably a bit wider, before he walks away.

“Was he bothering you, doctor?”

She calls him doctor, always, and it honestly makes him grit his teeth. Now even more. He’s got a bad feeling about it.

It gets confirmed later when Jake is taking care of a six-year-old girl who had fallen down the stairs. She’s dehydrated and Izzy’s just tried to put a cannula on her three times before Jake told her to grab the bedside ultrasound and not make the girl cry even more.

Bradley passes by the room and Jake’s learned that he can’t leave a distressed child alone, so he comes in and gets the parents and the girl relaxed. He’s about to go in and tell him to leave it alone until Izzy brings the ultrasound when Nat grabs him by the arm and tells him, “He was in a Rapid Response Team, I’m pretty sure he can put a cannula in blind. Just let him do it.”

And he does let him. Watches, expecting the girl to burst into tears at any moment but she never does. Bradley’s literally been in the room for less than ten minutes and it’s all back to calmness.

Izzy comes back with the ultrasound. It should not have taken her so long to grab it. “What is he doing there? That's my patient.”

"He said he can put the IV line without the ultrasound.” Well, Nat said so. Jake can’t believe he’s saying but, “He’s a peds nurse, he’ll be fine.”

“I’m sure the girl's parents wouldn’t want him anywhere near her.”

This sets alarm bells in Jake’s head. “What do you mean?”

"People like him shouldn't be around kids," she says, to his horror. She leans in, way closer than needed, and conspiringly whispers, "Dr. Seresin, haven't you known that he is, you know, a she in disguise?"

He’s dumbstruck. "I'm sorry?"

"He's actually a woman, just pretending to be a man because he's mentally—You're the doctor, I'm sure you know better than I how the brains of people like them work. He shouldn't be around that girl, is what I'm saying. I certainly wouldn't like him around my child, if I had one."

Jake didn’t know this about Bradley but he understands what she means, even with how awful she is about it. This, however, should not be a piece of information thrown around in public if Bradley didn't wish to disclose it, and certainly not in such a manner. "And how do you know that, exactly?"

"Nurses share a locker room, it's not hard to notice how she, you know, mutilated herself."

Jake doesn’t say anything out loud but mentally he is preparing datix report in his head. He catches the ER’s nurse manager before he goes home, too, because that’s some shit he doesn’t stand for. He might be an asshole but he’s not a bigot.

Next time he comes to work, Bradley is back in his section and Izzy is no longer employed.

“Thanks,” Bradley says, when they’re at the station, next to each other, in a relatively slow moment. “If I went on my own, we’d have a weeks-long investigation that would probably end with her or me moving to a different unit.”

“She said this shit to your face?”

“Kept calling me she in front of patients,” Bradley admits after a moment. “I think most of them thought they misheard but—I knew.”

“Well, good riddance then.”

Bradley snorts, but he’s looking down at the tablet in his hands, smiling, and wow, the apples of his cheeks are so round and his eyes so bright and Jake can't breathe for a second.

---

(there might be a second part coming because I meant seven-season-long medical drama literally-- including Jake realizing he's an idiot, Mavdad drama, Jake having his hands inside Bradley (in the literal, surgical sense) and jealousy that could rival the McDreamy/Dr. Grey drama)

[donnatroyyyy]

Good Talia characterization and good Damian characterization can co-exist easily, they are not mutually exclusive whatsoever. Good Ra’s characterization along with good characterization for either Talia and Damian cannot coexist eight out of ten times, they are mostly mutually exclusive.

[milflewis]

🎤 Telepathy au unless you’ve forgotten about it, then Pacific rim au

1.

George is really nervous about the whole becoming teammates and connecting their minds together. If only Senna and Prost were able to keep their crap together for one bloody day.

He’s being cool about it though. Proper suave. No one can tell. Probably. Maybe.

“Mate, can you stop your knee for, like, one minute, yeah? It keeps shaking the table.”

George does not stop his knee. It stays bouncing. It is not shaking the table.

Alex rolls his eyes at him. “It’s going to be fine.”

“Shut up,” George tells him because he has yet to learn how to tell Alex Albon to go away. And nothing Alex says here will help.

His foray as a teammate in Formula One does not inspire any feelings of relaxation in George. Having Max Verstappen in his head might possibly be the worst thing George has ever heard of in his life.

2.

It is somewhat comical that one of the things that makes George feel good about the bond in his head is bloody Nico Rosberg.

It is just — Lewis is so. So.

Lewis is so quiet. And not only as he moves around in the world, physically like. That, George is used to. That, he understands. Has seen before.

But he is so quiet and silent and not fucking there in George’s head, he could have died and George isn’t sure if he would’ve even noticed.

That, possibly, might be an exaggeration. There is a sea in George’s head, and it is still and calm and deep and, the water looks so warm, and it scares George to bits. He wonders if Lewis knows he is the sea.

Valtteri is so in tune with Lewis, even now. Yuki likes to watch them, pointing out when one unthinkingly kicks someone out of the seat next to them right before the other arrives, or when they turn, not seeing yet but knowing who it is that taps their shoulder. George thinks he does it to rile Pierre up. George wishes he would stop. Or at least, do it where George cannot hear.

George has not asked Valtteri what having Lewis in his head was like. If he was quiet for him too. He thinks he would rather chew off his own foot.

And then, Lewis talks with Nico Rosberg. In public. It doesn’t even last five minutes. Rosberg is lit up from within, blond and plastic and smug. The internet breaks.

The sea stays still and calm and deep. Lewis is quiet. It no longer looks warm.

George is cold to his toes.

Lewis takes one look at him when he is back in the garage, all bundled up in a huge coat and shivering, and frowns deeply. Bono hovers at his shoulder.

There is a twist to Lewis’s mouth that George does not recognise.

“Here, man,” Lewis says after he pops back up from wherever he disappeared to. Not that, you know, George is tracking him or anything. “Drink.”

The mug he pushes into George’s hands is hot to the touch and steaming. He breathes it in.

“Thanks, mate.”

Mouth twisting, Lewis says, “Yeah, yeah, well, like. Yeah. Least I could do, right? Sorry. About that.”

And he’s walking away then, shoulders broad, steps light. Lewis is never small, but there is a strange little misery slope to his neck. George swallows. His finger itch with warmth, tingling.

3.

“What’s he like?” Sebastian asks, leaning against the railing beside him. He waggles his eyebrows and taps at his forehead like Lewis didn’t understand what he was asking. He looks ridiculous.

Bet he drives you crazy, Valtteri had said, weeks earlier. He had been smiling. He was letting his hair grow out, freshly tan. He had looked good.

Lewis had ignored him and turned away to talk to Guanyu, Valtteri laughing. Guanyu had perked up at the mention of fashion, content to not get involved in whatever Lewis and Valtteri were going on about.

Lewis looks around. The camera and microphone is down at the other end of the parade.

“Skittish,” Lewis tells him quietly. He leans forward, elbows on the metal railing. It is cool and slick with the mornings rain. “Spooks easy.”

“Lewis.” Sebastian is using his Serious Voice with his Serious Face. Lewis squints at him suspiciously. “You do know that he is a person, right? Not a horse. Or a dog.”

Lewis rolls his eyes. “Funny.”

Sebastian grins at him, bright. His hair is pushed back by a headband, curls loose. “I try.”

“Not hard enough,” Lewis mutters, and Sebastian ignores him, chattering away about the recent Fernando-and-Jenson drama.

4.

George tries very hard to keep any Valtteri Bottas thoughts locked away around Lewis.

None of Lewis’s friends dislike Valtteri. At least, not openly. Not where George can see.

This feels important.

Sebastian — is easier. Even with the depth of history that he and Lewis and the whole world only ever hint at.

5.

George shows up with a slight black eye one race weekend. It is not a sex injury.

None of the reporters actually ask that question, though they get close, eyes smirking. Lando, unfortunately but not surprisingly, has no similar inclinations to keep the joke to himself.

“Mate,” he calls out when he walks into the driver’s briefing. “You know you’re doing it wrong if she kicks you in the face, yeah?”

George flushes bright red. His mouth opens but nothing comes out.

Normally, he can deal with Lando. Normally, he even enjoys. But he didn’t prepare himself this time and the room is full with drivers and Lewis is looking at him, face unreadable, and Valtteri’s eyebrow is raised and, and, and.

“Speaking from experience?” Alex asks Lando, cool as anything. He is leaning back in the chair beside George.

There is not a ripple in the sea. It could be a windless day.

Lando laughs, flipping him off, and drops down in the seat next to Daniel.

It is not a sex injury. But it does involve Lily and Alex, and Lily throwing the dildo with the number 44 written messily across it in Sharpie at Alex after George opened his birthday present and, promptly, swore. George cannot say this, for obvious reasons, the least of them being he cannot ever ever say anywhere Lewis might hear that Alex have him a sex toy and made it Lewis-personified.

Furthermore, George has a sneaky feeling that telling people Lily and Alex were involved with whatever happened would just make the rumours worse.

Lewis sits down across the room, next to Yuki and Pierre. He catches George’s eye, the opposite one to George’s injury, and winks slowly.

George looks quickly away, grinning. His neck is terribly warm.

[sneaky-geeky]

What if everyone in Limited Life felt their time differently. Lives not measured only in minutes and seconds, but in something else. Something unique. Something that had followed them though all the games before, and now counted down to their next death.

(4,283 words)

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For Grian, it’s the sun. He has a sundial, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and whilst he knows how to read it, he’s not exactly clear how it’s meant to show him how many hours he has left. As far as he’s aware, and he double checks just to be sure, the sun is moving just as it always has, and under a cloudless midday, there should be only the smallest sliver of shadow. But that’s not what he sees when he pulls it out to check. The shadow is long and dark and tells him that it’s barely past dawn. He triple-checks the sun again, just to be sure, but it remains high in the sky, and so he turns instead to the horizon. There, only visible when he squints, is another sun, smaller and coloured a deep, dark red.

It rises quickly as his hours tick by, and soon he doesn’t have to pull out the sundial to locate it, hanging ominously in the sky. Even at night it burns, its harsh light a counterpoint to the moon’s cold glow, and a constant reminder of his times slow passage. By the time he turns yellow it’s nearing its height and begins to burn almost as bright as the other sun which had continued its normal rotations through the sky. And then it begins to descend and as his final life approaches, he gets to witness the most beautiful sunset. This small red sun which represents each moment of his life lights the very sky on fire, a blood-coloured glow which dominates the sky through night and day. There’s no escaping it, with each passing moment it sinks further below the horizon, and the sundial he now holds in blood-coloured hands shows him precisely how little time he has left. His own mortality hangs above his head in glorious colours, but he knows the rules better than anyone and he will break them however he has to to extend that sunset a little longer.

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For Scott, it’s the stars. During the days he can almost force himself to forget that now more than ever before, they are all doomed to die, but as the night closes in he has no choice but to face reality. During the first hours of this game, he notices no change, the night sky remains as illuminated as it ever was. His first sign that something is wrong is as he idly traces a constellation, but his eyes are caught up short as he notices that a star is… missing. He tells himself that it can’t be right, he must be looking at them wrong, or there’s some cloud blocking his vision, but no matter how he squints the star is just gone, and it only gets worse from there.

Each night the deep black of the sky stretches further, with fewer and fewer stars to break up the unending void. With each passing minute, another one blinks out of existence. He even sees it happen a few times, his heartbeat beating in time with the ticking clock inside him causing another star to burn away. As the hours pass and even he, once known for his mercy, is forced to do whatever he must to hold on a little longer, Scott realises that he no longer recognises the sky above him. The stars have become few and far between, leaving only the unkind void watching over him. He fights under unfamiliar constellations now, and as his time reaches its final gasping breaths, those last stars abandon him too. When his time at last runs out, above him hangs only the unknowable.

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For Pearl, it’s the moon. From the moment this new world began she knew that. The first night, before even an hour had passed, it hangs heavy and full and bright above her head. Nights like this one always made it hard for her to sleep, when the clear moonlight illuminated the world in silvers, and she chose to not even try and rest, instead lying in dew-soaked grass soaking in the light. For a second it brings her back to nights far up in a tower, alone save for the furred warmth of a dog by her side, watching the skies for any sign that she was not to blame, but that was another world. Here it’s a fresh start, and despite knowing otherwise she can manage to convince herself that she has all the time in the world as a full moon hangs above her.

It’s only because she was watching the moon so carefully that first night that she notices the changes so quickly. Even as her first hours slip away from her, the moon does too. No longer does it light up the world quite so brightly, and she can only watch as each night it wanes further. Under a dull half-moon’s glow she reaches her yellow life, and her minutes begin to tick dangerously low. She no longer has the time to lie back and simply relax, and her nights are no longer a time of pale light. Instead, she hunts for extra minutes through half-cast shadows, trying to slow the waning of the slender crescent she sees above her. As her final hours approach its light abandons her too, only a new moon left to watch over the same old story of their struggle against the inevitable. As her final death approaches, she is left with only memories of the full moon’s glow, and the knowledge that she will do whatever she must to return it to its full glory.

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For Scar it is, ironically enough, scars. He’s never exactly been great at staying alive, and that fact is clear for all to see through the reminders of those deaths which mark his skin. He’s not ashamed of them though. He knows his strengths, and he’s an expert at spinning the most dramatic tales of how he got each wound. It’s a surprise then, when he opens his eyes in this new world and finds only smooth, unmarked skin. The others notice, but don’t seem to think too much of it so Scar trie s not to let it bother him either. “New world, new me”, he thinks to himself, mind already spinning with potential schemes. Only as the first hours begin to pass does he realise what it means.

The first one to reappear is a blast mark down his left side from a creeper which had caught him completely unaware. Next, as time continued to tick, was a jagged mark on his right calf, the remnant of a broken leg gained in a sandy ravine a long way from here. Every few hours it’s another one: the mark of an axe slashing across his back, burn marks across his chest, claw marks down his forearms where the zombies had scratched at him. He knows what the final one will be when his time has all but run out; a scar over his heart where the line which once connected him to a soulmate had been ripped away. His scars are a sign of what he’s survived, but as each one comes back he knows that they’re also a reminder. No matter how fast he talks, what alliances he makes, his time is running out, and he’s never been good at avoiding death for long.

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For Jimmy, it’s feathers. He’d always hated when the others had made fun of him, called him cursed, or doomed, the canary of these death games. Every time he swore it would be different, but every time he died first, and every time it got a little harder to convince himself that it was just bad luck. He finds the first one before an hour had passed, a pale-yellow feather, almost golden in the sun. It’s caught in his hair, and as he flicks it away he manages to convince himself that the colour was just a trick of the light and he’d simply gotten a little careless whilst killing chickens. They come more frequently after that though. In his hair, landing softly on his arms, a flurry of them when he shakes out his jacket to put it on. Once there’s a trail of them, beckoning him into the woods and the fact that he decided to spend that day safely within his base is entirely unrelated. At least he can ignore them when his time is plentiful, but as time slips away, the reminder of his curse becomes more obvious.

When he awakens on his yellow life, he is greeted by a pair of wings upon his back, the feathers as vibrant as the name above his head. He can’t fly, of course, but the wings remain, a symbol of his role that’s clear for all to see. For a while he almost thinks that that could be the end of it, he has become the canary and he never needed a timer to beckon him towards his doom. But then the feathers start again. They don’t appear from nowhere this time, every golden plume which drifts past him now comes from his own wings. With each step, each passing minute, he loses more, and each yellow feather he sees is only a reminder of his own tragic fate. By the time he becomes red, his bedraggled and bloodied wings are those of a bird caught in a net, destroying itself in its own desperate struggle to find freedom. Every time he swore it would be different, but now more than ever time was not on his side, and his struggles will only quicken his own death.

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For Tango, it’s… nothing at first. He hears the others muttering about it at the beginning, in between the chaos of gathering resources and making alliances: the changes they can feel coming over them as the clock begins to tick, the constant dread of feeling time slipping between their fingertips. He feels nothing of the sort though, if anything he feels good! He’s got friends, supplies, and at least part of a base. Maybe, he thinks, this time it will be different, and something good will come out of these games.

Or maybe that optimism at the start was the cruellest part of it all. Without that joy, he wouldn’t have been able to notice the creeping anger which began to replace it. He tried to reign it in, to laugh and play along with the rest of them in pretending that nothing was wrong, but with each passing hour his control slipped away. Old hurts he’d thought forgotten rose unbidden to his mind. Time begins to slip away from him and the desire for revenge gets harder to ignore, the urge to find all those who’d betrayed and destroyed and left him for dead grows stronger. He finds himself seething with anger, remembering the people he’d thought of as friends turning their backs on him, the slash of an axe against his back, a home in flames before him. He can control it for now, but he knows that by the time his name is as red as the mist which begins to cloud his vision, there will be nothing left of him beside the rage.

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For Etho, it’s fire of course. It’s always haunted his steps in these games, and it’s only natural that it continues to do so. They all knew that their time was running out from the very first second, but no one else seemed to feel it the way that Etho did. Even at the start he couldn’t stay still too long lest the heat got too intense, and he tried to stay close to the team he’d found in the hopes that the babble of their voices would drown out the crackling of the flames. At least in the Nether he could pretend the heat was natural (and if he flinched at the sound of the popping lava at least no one noticed), but as the hours slipped by it got harder to ignore.

The warm tropical water of this place could do nothing to cool the fire which seemed to creep up his veins, and sometimes he found himself wishing for the familiar press of cold snow walls against his back, if only to give himself a moment of comfort. As green slipped into yellow what was once an uncomfortable heat across the back of his neck, would become a constant burning that was far too familiar. Even through the mask, every gasp would become like breathing in smoke. The pink light of a sunrise on the waves would appear, just for a moment, like a flaming inferno reaching towards him. He could hardly bear to enter the forest when every other tree seemed to burst into fire as he passed by it. He’d learnt the hard way that when the flames began, they would only spread, and with each passing minute they would only burn hotter. He could run from it all he liked, but when the timer got low, he knew that everything would burn.

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For Bdubs, it’s a clock. This comes as a surprise to no one, and he happily shows it off to anyone who’ll listen. It’s little more ornate than the one he usually carries, the gold bright and polished with delicate creeping vines and fragile flowers engraved around its edges, but this too is no surprise. The clock had always been a gift to buy his loyalty after all, and his loyalty is a beautiful thing. He soon realises that a clock is all the others see, however. Just a clock, with no strings attached.

As his time begins to tick, it is only Bdubs who sees the blood. The stains which begin to mar its edges as time runs down, the scrapes and dents and scratches. It continues to tick despite the damage, each movement bringing him a little closer to death. He finds himself holding it even closer than he normally would, almost hypnotised by its steady and relentless movements. He can’t wipe away the blood, can’t fix the damage that his love and betrayals have done but at least he can track the passage of his time and know how much he has left to devote to another. When his name is green, and even as hours pass and it turns yellow, he will give whatever he can, but he knows that one day that clock will shatter. When the hour gets late, he will do as he always has. His loyalty is a beautiful thing but just as fragile as a delicate clock face and when the clock stops ticking, he will be alone. He knows time better than anyone but now it’s not on his side, and he knows from bitter experience that loyalty alone will not save him.

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Joel doesn’t care what his is. He’s never been in these games to win, not really, and if anything he’s just waiting for his timer to get low enough that he can shed these false pretences. He makes alliances, builds bases, pretends to be civil, but he knows that it won’t last. He’s only here to fight, to kill, to feel the thrill of the hunt once more. The first time he went to grab his shovel and looked down to find a sword in his hand instead, it was almost funny. As the time passed, and it happened over and over again, however, he began to get an idea of just how his minutes were being measured.

After a few hours it became a challenge to swing his axe into the trees, to not take a few steps over and swing it right into his teammates’ unsuspecting backs instead. As time wore on it only got worse. In every passing moment he saw opportunities to kill, and something deep within him ached to see so many chances not taken. With the descent into yellow he gained some freedom at least, finally had the ability to strike back, to sate the biting hunger inside him. But as the time continued to tick it would never be enough, each kill would only hold it back for a time and even as his own death drew closer he would have no choice but to hunt for one more kill.

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For Martyn, it’s eyes. At the start, it’s more a creeping feeling of being watched than anything else, but at least he can blame that on the general feelings of paranoia which accompany these games every time. But as his time gets lower, with each minute taking him closer to yellow, it gets worse. Peering eyes become leaves or clouds or simply nothing at all when he turns to look at them properly, but he knows what he saw, and these days his own eyes are the only ones he can trust. He’s played many parts over these games: the loyal hand, the ally in the shadows, the spurned soulmate, but through every life they have watched and as time ticks lower, they stop even attempting to hide it.

Eyes watch him from the darkness of each restless night, and his every day is haunted by the peering eyes of figures he can’t quite make out. He still struggles against his fate, pointless though it might be, but soon even the eyes of his allies flash purple as he passes them by and he knows that everything he’s doing is only entertaining them more. When the sky itself seems to blink at him he feels his time running out fast, knows that the show is almost over. He could kill, draw their gaze away from himself a time as they go instead to watch the suffering of another, but they will always return. When his time runs out, he knows he will be surrounded by eyes uncountable, and he will have no choice but to perform.

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For Cleo, it’s flowers, and the rot which inevitably destroys them. For the first few hours they bloom wherever she goes, blossoms of blue and orange which follow in her footsteps. They find them creeping through the cracks in the makeshift base they’ve created, leaves and vines finding any gaps in the foundations and pushing inside. As their hours decrease, the flowers only increase in number. Trees seem to come into blossom as she passes, and if she spends too long in one place it becomes a riot of multicolour petals. She knows these games though, and from what she’s seen there are only two constants: decay and death. Alliances rot, leaving behind only hurt and thoughts of revenge, but even those teams which stand the test of time will eventually crumble as death claims them. There is no escaping the slow and steady passage of time.

As their name turns yellow, so too do the flowers which follow them, a sickly yellow which spreads across each petal. A creeping rot which withers the vines and eats away at everything it touches now follows her. Within just a few hours the flowers which still manage to grow in their path crumble like ash at even the softest touch, and instead of the colours, in her wake she leaves only grey decay. Time slips through her fingertips, life turns to death, and it is no longer only the flowers they created that decay away, but the entire world. Now the trees are brittle beneath their hands, a dark rot pressing up from beneath the bark, and when they stand still the ground rots away beneath their feet. By the end she is as grey as the dead world in which she finds herself, only her heart still beating a bright vibrant red. But whilst all else has decayed away, they still stand strong, and will continue to do so until the final hour.

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For BigB, it’s the shadows. The days are bright in this world, and it’s certainly warmer than any of the other times they’ve played these games, but even from the first day he can’t shake the feeling that it’s not quite as bright as it should be. Beneath the thick cover of the dark oak forest the dappled sunlight hardly seemed to reach him, and even out in the open fields there are shadows where there shouldn’t be. In another life he would have welcomed them, the shade providing cover for clandestine meetings and secret soulmates, but here it’s like the shadows are beckoning him and he doesn’t want to know what would happen if he listened to their call. If anything, the night is a relief, at least then he can convince himself that the darkness is natural, but each dawn the sun rises, his time ticks lower, and the shadows get a little darker.

As the hours pass, he realises that it’s not just in his imagination. Not only are the shadows deeper and blacker than they should be, they really are reaching out towards him, trying to pull him into their void. It doesn’t matter where the sun is, the shadows always lean his way and even down in the caves torches are no longer enough to banish the darkness. He knows his time is really running out when they begin to move. Shadows begin to writhe along the ground, cutting through the light like ink as they try to reach him. There’s nowhere left to run where they will not find him, and with the final minutes passing him by, he hasn’t got the time to left to search for another solution. It’s a familiar feeling, killing out of desperation to save his own life, but it’s a decision he’s made before and will make again if it buys him another few minutes in the light.

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For Impulse, it’s a pocket watch. He’s almost insulted when he first sees it. At first glance it’s a little too similar to a golden clock, glinting in the sunlight as he’s betrayed yet again, but as he inspects it again he realises that the similarities are only superficial. The face is beautiful in its own right, a delicate design of brass and a soft ticking noise which accompanies each movement of the second hand, but he’s more interested in what lies beneath it. When he finally manages to get some time alone and unscrew the back, however, the redstone inside is like nothing he’s ever seen, and even with his impressive talents, he can’t make heads nor tails of the miniature moving pieces. He spends some time fiddling with it, trying to understand the inner workings and figure out a way to quietly wind it back every now and then to give himself a little extra time, but whatever he does, the minute hand continues to move steadily forward.

For a while he thinks that’s the end of it, a complex little pocket watch that he always keeps close at hand, but as the time begins to pass, he realises that the ticking he can hear doesn’t originate from that at all and it’s only getting louder. It comes from all around him, the ticking of a life slowly running out, and soon it's impossible to ignore. With each tick, all he can think about is everything he has left to do: the allies he will leave behind, the plans left unfinished, the old enemies who still walk unpunished. He can’t die yet, but still the seconds pass him by. As the pocket watch he can hardly bear to put down draws closer and closer to its final chime, the ticking in his ears sounds more and more like a heartbeat, drowning out all else. It’s never been clearer to him that his time is limited, but he has never been one to leave things unfinished, and there are still things that must be done before the end.

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For Skizz, it’s only being able to watch as he is quietly and slowly abandoned. It’s something which has become all too familiar to him through these games. An army behind him, standing back and watching him charge in alone. A team he created, led, and then died for refusing to help him. But he was nothing if not an optimist, and at the start it was easy to convince himself that this time it would be different. As his friends gathered around him, announcing themselves his bodyguards, and promising to protect him he couldn’t help but laugh along, and even as he died again and again, he didn’t blame them. Their good intentions didn’t last long though, the good things never did in these worlds.

As his first few hours were stolen, he could see their attentions slipping away from him, leaving him unguarded once again. They weren’t doing it on purpose, he was sure, but as his time got lower it was like all memory of the alliances they’d once had begun to slip away. Even by the time his yellow life began, it was like the friendships he’d tried so hard to maintain were eroding, and he could only watch from the sidelines as the others fought to protect one another. He had never betrayed, had always given everything he could to his team, yet this was apparently his reward. Left behind by the very people who’d once promised to save him, his hours run down faster and faster. Then he really is alone, the others apparently forgetting that they’d ever been allied at all. Abandoned and afraid, he realises that there’s no one else he can rely on.