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earworkinggroup · 5 years ago

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Hand-Antennas: Protocols from Extrasensory Aesthetics | 2017

20/10–19/11 2017 Exhibition @ Josef Sudek Studio, Prague Part of Fotograf Festival 2017

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How to understand each other without words? How to perceive without the senses? How to change something from the inside? How to move someone remotely?

HAND ANTENNAS

When Vilém Flusser – in his book Do universa technických obrazů (To the Universe of Technical Images) – says that today, when the world has disintegrated into abstracted points, we do not take things in our hands but rather control them by pressing buttons and keyboards, he actually describes new manual economics and a new attitude toward the world booming with the expansion of digital technologies. Hands represent a model of simple tools. They are extended by the form and function of these tools. But what if some devices are similar to hands, whether morphologically or functionally? The RUKA (Hand) antenna, whose name is an abbreviation of the names of its Czech inventors, František Kahuda and Aleš Rumler, resembles a hand not only with its name. As its creators say: “All psycho-energetic experiments prove that the head and hands–palms are parts of the human body emitting the most radiation [...].” Under certain circumstances, “a hand with outstretched fingers acts like an antenna”. For “psycho-energetics” or “psychotronics”, the special relationship between the biological and the technical is symptomatic. Like Flusser’s buttons, psychotronic technologies and devices ask for a different way of dealing with things. The materialistic approach to seemingly immaterial phenomena brings unprecedented possibilities for communication and manipulation. In a way, the dreams of telepathy, telekinesis and telegnosis or clairvoyance come true in technical apparatuses available today. From the perspective of psychics, however, the current state does not mean meeting their goals, but rather a new challenge.

METHOD, DISCOURSE, INSTITUTIONS

Psychotronics is trying to establish itself as a new science and meet the methodological, discursive and institutional requirements to do so. In Czechoslovakia, the most ardent promoters of psychotronics included František Kahuda and Zdeněk Rejdák. The local parapsychological tradition adapted to new conditions, absorbing many ideas from the USSR. The very term of psychotronics expresses the intention to take a “more scientific” approach to the studied phenomena. While similar phenomena were historically explored mostly by curious individuals or interest groups, new professionalism reached official institutions as well. Since the late 1960s to the early 1990s, there was a number of psychotronic institutions in Czechoslovakia, including the Coordinating Group for the Research of Psychotronics, the Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL) at the Technical University (ČVUT) in Prague and later at the Institute of Chemical Technology (VŠCHT) in Prague (headed by Kahuda), the Research Institution for Psychotronics and Juvenology at the same institution (headed by Rejdák), the Section for the Research of Psychotronics at the Committee of Applied Cybernetics of the Czech Science and Technology Society (ČVTS), the Department of Experimental Psychotronics at the Research Institute of Animal Production, the Commission of Psychotronics of the Gerontological Society of the Slovak Medical Society, the Commission of the Slovak Council of the Czechoslovak Scientific and Technological Society for Psychotronics, and more. Since 1973, there were also conferences of the International Society for Psychotronics. The first edition was held in Prague on 18–22 June 1973.

In Czechoslovakia, the term psychotronics is promoted by Zdeněk Rejdák who refuses the term parapsychology. According to Rejdák, psychotronics includes telepathy, telekinesis and telegnosis. Rejdák also refers to his French colleague Fernando Clerc who says: “We already have electronics, cybernetics, stereotronics – and what do we still lack? We can suggest the term psychotronics for the phenomena using the energy emitted during the thought process and the energy carrying the impulse of the human will.” According to Clerc, “every one of us has the ability of certain, though extremely weak action at a distance. It will not be long before we can focus our will, safely protected from external influences, to run relays and servo motors.” František Kahuda distinguishes between the Western psychotronics, which tries to explain the phenomena studied with “known forms of energy”, and the Czechoslovak and Soviet psychoenergetics, which assumes the existence of a distinctive psychic or mental energy. However, Kahuda did not maintain this distinction consistently and even he later resorted to the concept of psychotronics. The idea of the specific nature of the Eastern concept of mental energy compared to the Western one is somewhat misleading: although the Soviet scientist N. I. Kobozev came with the theory of bio-energetic particles, the so-called psychones, the Soviets generally concentrated on physically explainable psychotronic phenomena (such as electrostatics and electromagnetism) and explored the relationship between parapsychological phenomena and the known types of radiation. Kahuda resonates with the Leninist theory of reflection, which sees the psyche “as an image (projection) of the objective reality”, as “the supreme product of the matter organized in a special way” which is “the result of the transformation of the energy of an external stimulus into to the fact of consciousness.” Moreover, Kahuda, referring to V. M. Bechterew and P. P. Lazarev, assumes that “the interactions in the process of thinking in the human nervous system energetically manifest themselves also outside the human brain”, as attested by cases of telekinesis or telepathy. The theory of mentions is supposed to complement scientific knowledge: it describes the “third signal system” (in addition to the two signal systems defined by I. P. Pavlov), “the fifth type of interaction” (in addition to the four types of interaction – nuclear, electromagnetic, weak nuclear and gravitational – studied by physics), and “the sixth sense” (called “temp” by Kahuda). Kahuda’s belief in the material mention character of mental energy is still a subject of disputes among those who are interested in psychotronics, as can be seen chielfy in the discussion about the nature of the telepathic transmission.

Rejdák describes psychotronics as an interdisciplinary discipline and puts it into the context with other sciences studying the aspects of psychotronic phenomena: physics, communication science, mathematics, cybernetics, psychology, psychiatry, medicine, neurophysiology, physiology, anthropology, geology, cosmobiology, sociology, and bionics. The “limit” nature of the studied phenomena asks for a certain interdisciplinary approach as the interdisciplinary dimension of research is emphasized both by Rejdák and Kahuda. Kahuda frames the discipline by the Marxist notion of “one science”, which includes physics, psychology and psychophysiology, biology and sociology. Like his Soviet colleague P. K. Anochin, he believes that the research on the brain must combine the findings of neurophysiology and behaviourism. He finds the “systemic approach” particularly suitable.

STR AND SHR

According to its proponents, psychoenergetics will substantially influence the ongoing scientific and technological revolution. Kahuda predicts “that the first half of the twenty first century will be the age of a new, yet unknown, though existing mental energy. Its control as the highest value of man should have the form of an active intervention into the confident shaping of mental processes to form the human for the benefit of the future society in a more rational way than ever before.” Scientific knowledge and rational application of this mental energy will then ensure “not only technical and economic development, but also the elevation of interpersonal relationships in the advanced socialist society to the highest attainable level. The scientific and technological revolution also and, perhaps above all, concerns the man and all workers who make it possible.” A different view is held by Břetislav Kafka, sculptor and hypnotist from Červený Kostelec, in his book Člověk zítřka (The Man of Tomorrow, 1947): “Technical sciences take the man away from the human. They confirm his notion that progress is about having more perfect machines, not about being better today than we were yesterday.” According to Kafka, “the aim of humanity” is “material and spiritual well-being. Industrial civilization defers this aim. Modern civilization sacrificed the sense to the matter. The man had become accustomed to his life by repeating the same movement every day, by processing one element.” Zdeněk Rejdák, who used to visit Kafka like many others, later speaks of the need for a “scientific and human revolution”, which should complement and counterbalance the ongoing scientific and technological revolution if we do not want to “flood the world in the next century with mechanical and human robots and enhance the alienation and social decay”. In Rejdák’s model, the man and mankind stand in opposition to the dehumanizing technology although they are complementary with it. Kahuda’s psychoenergetic dialectical materialism and Rejdák’s psychotronic socialist humanism are quite similar.

PSYCHOTRONICS, INFORMATION SCIENCE AND CYBERNETICS

Most generally speaking, psychotronics deals with unusual or unexplained types of information transmission. According to Valdemar Grešík, the last director of the Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL), closed in 1991, psychotronics “is based on the assumption that man is able to acquire and transmit information in other, so far unknown ways or paths. [...] To a great extent, diagnosing and looking for various objects and healing, all represent kinds of information transmission – in an energetic form, of course.” In this context, Kahuda speaks of “mental information science” which “lies in decoding the information encoded in substances. Such use of mental energy emitted by a psychic as a subject of an information process, when the energy has a similar role like the quanta of electromagnetic energy broadcast by an antenna in short wavelengths (radio microwaves) to the target subject, from which the wave is reflected and received in intermittent broadcast by an image tube which then receives the information about the observed object [...]. In this process, the quanta of mental energy function as a mental radar while the emitted clusters of mental energy are qualitatively directed to the object of the process, i.e. contain the required information in the form of instruction and query on the way to the target, and in the form of feedback response on the way back to the source (brain). The detection of the target during the mental reflection is not only about a mere physical reflection, but also about finding the qualitative characteristics of the detected object.” Moreover, according to Kahuda, the mentions – unlike the known particles – can penetrate any obstacle, which makes them suitable for the “action at a distance”. Before Kahuda, the striking parallelism of telepathy and radiocommunications was mentioned also by Upton Sinclair in Mental Radio (1930) and B.B. Kazinskij in Biological Radio communications (1962). The effort to clarify the physical nature of parapsychological phenomena and the recurrent recognition of similarities between these phenomena and technological apparatuses is also noteworthy.

Kahuda says that “the use of a variety of devices for contactless communication with both the living and nonliving matter, using a psychophysical method, will certainly be very important one day”. According to Kahuda, the role of mentions is to transfer “quality-oriented information in various types of nonverbal mention communication”, including communication with animals and plants. Mental energy is supposed to be useful “especially in the area of communication, control, management, influencing various events”. This statement is strikingly reminiscent of the definition of cybernetics by Norbert Wiener as a science of control and communication in living organisms and machines. Besides the contemporary fascination with cybernetics (developed in the Easter Bloc since the late 1950s), there is also a certain structural similarity attracting the psychics. If hands in the eyes of psychics resemble antennas, the second key part of the human body, the head – and namely the brain, is obviously associated with computers. This comparison often occurs in the texts. Kahuda concludes that “man is not [unlike computers] only a ‘product’ of the social environment, a passive object of the internalized (interiorized) effects of the external environment, but uses its own self-regulatory system to create and change the external stimuli, to exteriorize them with ideas and work, thus actively influencing the world and acting as an active creature”. At the First International Conference of Psychotronics, Rejdák presented his paper “Psychotronics reveals new possibilities for cybernetics” which concluded that psychotronics “can help cybernetics solve one of the most difficult tasks – to help teach machines to create”.

The context of psychotronics and cybernetics can be detected at multiple levels, as shown by American researchers Lynn Schroeder and Sheila Ostrander who described the state of Czechoslovak psychotronics in the late 1960s in Psychic Discoveries behind the Iron Curtain, describing the Czech experiment whose executors decided to “think of telepathy as a channel with such a high degree of noise that it almost drowns the entire message. Information theory knows the means to overcome the problem of noise, such as calculations indicating, among other things, how many repetitions of one bit of information is necessary for proper reception. The Czechs used these calculations when they asked two people to try to telepathically send messages in a binary code back and forth while the computer found the necessary formula according to information theory.” In the experiment, telepathy reportedly proved to be more reliable than a field radio.

PYRAMIDS AND GENERATORS

Although psychics announce the immense impact of their discoveries in the near future, the practical application of the research is limited to relatively marginal cases. In 1959, one of the most important representatives of Czech psychotronics, radio engineer Karel Drbal won a patent for the “method for maintaining shaving knives and razors sharp” using small pyramids, made from for example, cardboard or plastic. To achieve the desired effect, it was necessary to orient the pyramids of certain shapes with respect to the Earth’s magnetic field. Drbal’s repeatedly applied for the patent which was allegedly granted to him only after the sceptical director of the Patent Office successfully used the invention himself.

The present results exceed the expectations and concern. The most attention is raised by the possibility to use mental energy for military purposes. Psychotronics seems to be a very strategic weapon for the cold war. A CIA report says that psychotronic weapons would mean a “serious threat to the military, diplomatic and security functions of the enemy. Transmitted energy would be quiet and hardly detectable by electronics (although the Soviets claim to have developed efficient sensors of biological energy) and the only needed source of energy would be a human operator.” Given the scarcity of available information, the US agents took the East European psychotronic research very seriously.

In this regard, CIA reports and the StB (Czech state police) were considerably interested in the so-called psychotronic generators produced by Robert Pavlita in his workshop in Lázně Bělohrad since the 1940s. These are mostly metal objects of various sizes and shapes that can be charged with biological energy under certain conditions. The efficiency of the generator depends on the form and material. Pavlita sees his generators as a kind of bioenergetic batteries that can be effectively controlled and regulated thanks to this technical extension. Using the generators, he can, for example, magnetize wood in a scientifically inexplicable way. Pavlita, who works as a textile technician, suggests that the generators can be used to purify water heavily polluted, among other things, during the production of textiles. Pavlita and his daughter Jana demonstrated the generators at the First International Conference of Psychotronics in Prague in 1973 as part of the lecture titled “The inductive effect on the human body mass”.

DOWSING RODS AND COAL

In 1991, physicists Luděk Pekárek and Milan Rojko published an article where they wrote: “In the past few years, the promotion of dowsers on TV and the radio, in daily press and entertainment and popular magazines in our country has caused that the national committees issue trade licences even to dowsers. Recently, geopathic zones on land and in flats are marked not only by individuals but also cooperatives and private companies. During the First Republic, dowsing was not even listed as a recognized craft by the Trade Chamber.” Since the late 1970s and 1980s, The Psychoenergetic Laboratory (PEL) conducted research on the possible use of dowsers in coalfields, and carried out projects like “Research of non-traditional methods of searching of anomalies in the mining front and quarry foothills and non-traditional forms of care for people in the North Bohemian brown coalfield” (for the North Bohemian brown coal mine in Most) or “Research on the protection of people in difficult mining conditions using mental energy” (for the Research Institute in Ostrava-Radvanice). These projects reportedly belong to the most successful PEL projects. Based on one of Kahuda’s suggestions to “implement the psychoenergetic research in the 8th Five-Year Plan”, a “scientific and production telesthesic association Ostrava Most, with a joint scientific council and specialized workplaces in the Research Institute in Ostrava-Radvanice (VVUÚ) and the Research Institute of Brown Coal in Most (VÚHU)”, was supposed to be established. The attitude of psychics to dowsing is still far from clear and depends on its application, as evidenced by Zdeněk Rejdák who joined the discussion in the Education Club of the Revolutionary Trade Union Movement (ROH) on physics and modernized superstition, held on 16 February 1989 by the Prague branch of the Union of Czechoslovak Mathematicians and Physicists. He said that marking “pathogenic zones in flats and prefabricated houses is for absolutely ‘untrustworthy and nonsensical’ and he thought that such activities should not be allowed and one should against protest against their authorization.”.

AUTOGRAPHY AND ELECTROPHOTOGRAPHY

The techniques deployed in psychotronic research also include photography. Attention is also paid to various forms of autography and electrography that makes invisible forms of radiation visible. In the Czech society, there were some prerequisites for such an interest, as evidenced by references to the pioneer of autography, Bartoloměj Navrátil, who discovered the “New kind of electrical patterns” (published in Časopis pro pěstování matematiky a fyziky in 1889). A special place belongs to Kirlian photography, which was the subject of lectures of many speakers at the First International Conference of Psychotronic in Prague in 1973, including the Kirlians themselves. According to Kahuda, to explain the Kirlian effect, though proven in many experiments, one needs the “materialistic mention theory of fundamental material radiation”. Kahuda’s materialism, however, still pays attention to the social dimension, stating that the intensity and colouring of pictures of human organs depend on the mental state of man and vary “particularly according to the function of the man in nature and the society”.

One of the PEL research groups attempts to capture the mysterious radiation from Pavlita’s bio-generators on photosensitive material and experimentally prove the existence of mentions. These experiments are inspired by the research led by psychiatrist Jule Eisenbud in the Colorado Psychiatric Hospital in Denver in the 1960s. Eisenbud worked with psychic Ted Serios who used his psychic powers to create “thoughtography” on Polaroid film. Milan Smrž describes a series of experiments trying to capture mental energy on photosensitive paper in his research report for the project entitled “Physical chemical detection of mental energy” carried out by the PEL in 1980. On some photographic materials, there were strange spots, including “characteristic colons”. Although the report, written by Milan Smrž, mentions a number of inconclusive tests and does not provide a definite conclusion about the origin of the mysterious patterns, Kahuda summarizes the experiment in the darkroom in the following way: “To avoid doubt that it is the interaction of aura, existing in the space around the head of the psychic, with the film emulsion, and not a direct contact of the emulsion with the head surface, a film strip was inserted into a ‘crown’ made of stiff/drawing paper and deposited in the emulsion to the outside circumference of the crown, so that the fundamental primary mention radiation first passed through a strong paper barrier, then ionized the air in the gaps before the film emulsion, and continuously exposed the film emulsion with the resulting secondary photon radiation. This action took place simultaneously in the space around the head of the emitter. Different colours in different places of the film strip indicate various actions and functions of the human brain tissue at the time of exposure under the psychological and medical condition of the emitter. This function of the human aura could also be used in practice to distinguish between different kinds of the brain activity, similarly to the AG and EG [...].”

Vojtěch Märc

#exhibition

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it-may-be-dull-but-im-determined · 5 years ago

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raspberry and kiwi for the ask meme?

Ah so I answered raspberry here :)

kiwi: what’s something that fascinates you?

So so many things! But especially things like psycho-geology and the notion of deep time and how vast everything else is outside of humans existing? Oh, and sharks :)

Thank you so much for the ask! ❤️

#ask meme #djeli-beybi

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pantstomatch · 6 years ago

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slightestcomplication said: If you're inspired, request for more of your teen wolf /stargate atlantis fics? (bleep0bleep's fic prompt generator kicked out Setting: Laboratory; Genre: Romantic Comedy; Trope: Doppelgangers)

So you know I can’t resist an SGA au! ENJOY.

"I don't see it," Stiles says, frowning, because he definitely sees it.

He jabs at his tablet maybe a little more forcefully than necessary, scrolling through the latest findings in the P7 caverns that Greenberg had forwarded him. "That guy's a psycho."

"Well, I mean." Scott squints at him. “Yeah.”

Stiles can see him squinting, even though he's definitely not looking up or around, because then he'd have to see Dr. Derek Hale freaking smiling at Captain Rapp. Derek Hale doesn't smile. Derek grumps and glowers all over the lab and yells at Stiles about leaving mugs everywhere and propping his feet up on the delicate ancient equipment. It's lasted thousands of years, Stiles is pretty sure it can handle his rubber soles.

Scott says, "It's basically you with a beard, of course he's evil."

Good old Scott, Stiles thinks, still not looking. "How is that even regulation?" he says. He knows the troops get a little lax when stationed in another galaxy, but face shaving is at least the norm. Captain Mitch Rapp looks like a hobo. With, like, fantastic arms. Geez.

He's tragic, too, which apparently is Derek's kryptonite.

Stiles can be tragic. Stiles has depths.

Maybe not the kind of depths that can relate to having his fiancé gunned down in front of him, but look. Stiles isn't trying to take away from Rapp's pain here, but before he beamed down from the Daedalus, Derek was down to only yelling at Stiles sixty percent of the time, and twenty percent of their remaining lab shifts were spent giving Stiles looks that he's almost certain were fond. Any smiles Derek is throwing around should be for Stiles, not a dude who’s probably carrying at least ten hidden knives on his person.

Stiles has the kind of past that involves werewolves, but does anyone sympathize with that? Nope. Never mind the fact that nobody but the government is supposed to know about all that—he’d still maybe like a slice of the good pie every once and a while.

Rapp apparently has these sad eyes that always trick Private Hicks into giving him extra pudding.

And make Derek dip his head and laugh softly, Christ.

Stiles's chest tightens.

This is so unfair.

Rapp has kind of a reputation for being a crazy, heartless assassin, and it's both hard and easy to remember that when he's got a dude twice his size pinned up against a wall for checking Stiles so hard in the commissary that Stiles clocked his temple against the doorframe.

Rapp says, "Watch yourself, Graves," with his bulging forearm leaning into Grave’s windpipe, and he doesn't let go until Grave's lips tinge blue and he taps him weakly on the wrist.

Then Rapp helps Stiles upright with serious eyes and says, "You're alright, Stilinski," and is it weird that they're the same exact height? That Stiles sees his mother's eyes looking back at him, sees the little tight half-smile his dad always gives him when he's working off a migraine? That's weird, right?

Stiles shakes it off, though, and says, "Thanks, man," and wishes, with all his might, that Derek hadn't seen all that.

Derek, standing behind Rapp, frowning at Stiles like this is all Stiles's fault.

Derek follows him through the food line, hovering like a weirdo until Stiles flails a hand and says, "What?"

"What was that about?" Derek says.

Stiles looks at him, brow furrowed. "What was what about?"

At Derek's glare, Stiles goes on: "Oh, Graves, he's an ass." Isn't that common knowledge? Graves doesn't like Stiles. Graves hasn't liked Stiles since Scott got him stuck on the cleaning crew for tripping him in the hallway when he was struggling with a box full of rocks.

Derek looks adorably concerned, and Stiles doesn't even think about it before patting his arm lightly and saying, "Don't worry, big guy. He's too afraid that Rapp will murder him now to retaliate."

"I wasn't… I didn't…" Derek flushes, mouth pinched, and then he turns on his heel and stalks away.

Stiles spends eighty percent of his time in the geology labs. Mostly because of Derek—he’s a grump, but he’s a hot, adorable grump—but also because the tiny little paleontology nook where he and Greenberg are stationed doesn't have enough room to do basically anything other than write reports. They have two desks squished face-to-face, for maximum annoyance, and a little bent cart with an ancient coffee machine in the corner that doubles as a filing cabinet.

While the number varies between Daedalus runs, currently there are five geologists. There's a big sign on the far wall reminding scientists not to lick alien rocks. There's a giant red geode in the middle of the room with a nametag that reads FRANK.

Any rocks that have fossils get tossed in a big plastic bin, and every Monday morning shift, Stiles sits on the floor with a tablet and deems which ones are worthy of extraction.

Monday morning shifts are the best, because usually it's only him and Derek and sometimes Marni, who listens to music too loud with her earbuds in, and can't hear Stiles's frankly delightful attempts at flirting.

This Monday morning, however, Derek is back to being a full-fledged sourwolf, and arrives at the lab minus Stiles's usual cup of coffee and glares at Stiles's regular Monday morning piles of Maybe, No, and Awesome all over the floor with a faint snarl.

Stiles graciously doesn't comment on the lack of caffeine sharing—it's not like he promised to bring one, it's just that that's their routine, but Stiles isn't going to be a baby about it—and goes back to his bin.

Marni sings if you wanna be my lover, you gotta get with my friends lightly under her breath, a hunk of something starlight navy pressed up close to her nose.

The light clinking of rocks and Derek’s huffy breaths are the only other sound.

The lab doors slide open moments later, and Stiles glances up to see Rapp and his tragic face—he's leaning into the doorframe, holding up a clear plastic bag.

He says, "Hey, Doc—" Stiles makes a face, Doc, ugh, "—as promised, weird lumpy green rock we picked up during yesterday's mission." Rapp holds the bag up, gives it a little shake with a small, quirky smile. He flicks an unreadable look toward Stiles, smile still holding, and then back to Derek again.

Stiles bites his lip and burns hot with jealousy as Derek beams back at him. God.

"Great," Derek says, breathy, and Stiles wants to die.

He could be just excited about the rock, Stiles has seen how the geologists get about alien sediments, but Derek stands there and gazes at the door once Rapp leaves. Stiles would bet all his money that Rapp isn't even interested, he's got the worst kind of love-lost past, but Derek has his thinking face on, and it only falls into a scowl when he notices Stiles looking.

It's pure stupidity and the fact that Stiles wants to prove he's got one up on Rapp that makes him say, "So does Rapp know about—" He makes a growl face and claw hands, because he's an idiot.

Derek stares at him. "What."

"You know," he leans over his bin, glances at Marni to check and make sure she's still bobbing her head to old pop tunes, and says, "werewolves."

He expected maybe an annoyed, pissed off look, or a hissed, "Shut up," but the one thing Stiles does not expect is for Derek to lunge at him.

Stiles says, "Whoa," and scrambles to his feet, knocks over a chair to his left and manages to make it halfway across the room before Derek is on him.

"How do you know that?" Derek growls, twisting a fist into Stiles's shirt and dragging him up close and personal with rapidly sharpening teeth.

"Uh." Stiles winces at the sound of tearing—he's got limited shirts here, god, it's not like he can pop on down to the nearest clothing store for a new one. "I'm best friends with Scott!"

Derek's eyes narrow even further. "So?"

"So? So! I've been best friends with Scott since we were five. I grew up in Beacon Hills! Please don't eat my face!" Stiles hasn't been afraid of Derek since he proved himself to be the most mild-mannered alpha Stiles has ever known—maybe his scale is a little skewed, since devil alphas were pretty rampant around Beacon Hills growing up, but Derek wears soft sweaters in his off time and talks to rocks.

Stiles has been on Atlantis for six months, though, and apparently Derek Hale hasn't even thought enough about him to check his records and references. Beacon Hills has a goddamn Nemeton.

Derek's grip finally softens, then slips, and Stiles absently checks his shirt seams with a huff, willfully ignoring the heat in his cheeks.

Derek sounds like he's biting a lemon when he finally says, "So you're in Scott's…" he trails off, and Stiles rolls his shoulders.

"In Scott's pack, yeah." What there is of it, at least. Their families and Lydia—there's a distinct lack of wolves, which is why Stiles thinks this stint in Atlantis had so much appeal. "I mean, you actively recruited him, didn't you think to…" check me out, he doesn't say, because contrary to popular belief he has some self-control.

Someone loudly clears their throat and Derek stiffens and Stiles turns wide eyes on Marni, who has her earbuds hanging around her neck, now, and one eyebrow arched at them. She stands up, hands clutching her coffee cup, and says, "If you guys are gonna have sex in here, maybe give me a heads up next time."

Derek practically trips over his feet to get away from Stiles. "We're not… I mean…" His eyes are sort of insultingly wild when he looks at Stiles, pleading with him to back him up.

Stiles presses his lips together. Deal with THAT, he thinks.

"Sure," Marni says, walking toward the door. "Remember Paul's shift starts at ten."

Derek groans into his hands when it swishes closed behind her. "Why?" he says.

"Why what?" Stiles says stubbornly.

Derek pinks up so damn easily, Stiles is pretty sure he uses the facial hair to help shelter all his delicate emotions. "Why would you let her think that?"

Stiles crosses his arms over his chest. "Is that the pinnacle of embarrassment for you, Hale? That she thinks you're sleeping with me?"

"No, I…" Derek frowns, hunches his shoulders. "This is a sterile environment!"

Sterile is stretching it. Paul spilled soup all over one of the lab tables just yesterday. "Right," Stiles says. "Whatever." He stares down at his half-finished piles. He needs a break. He takes a deep breath and says, "I'm gonna go get coffee."

"Oh, I…" Derek glances over at his own cup on his desk, almost startled, like he didn't realize he hadn't brought one for Stiles, like usual.

Stiles manfully refrains from digging his palms into his eyes in frustration. Has Derek always had this much trouble finishing sentences? How has he not noticed that before?

"I'm going," Stiles says.

Derek visibly deflates, it's so freaking confusing, and Stiles swallows down a groan and leaves.

"Okay," Scott says. "But, like, they're not having sex."

Stiles scowls and stabs at his spaghetti with his fork. "You don't know that."

"They don't smell like they're having sex," Scott says, and Jared at the other end of the table scoots back his chair and says, "C'mon guys," with a whine.

Stiles ignores him and says, "They could shower."

Scott, like a bro, taps his nose with a grimace and says, "The nose always knows."

Stiles stuffs a meatball in his mouth and says, "But they're, like, weirdly close, right?" There's just too much standing together, silently smiling at each other for anything to be normal.

"I don't know, I kind of feel like neither of them know how to be regular people, and when you put them together it just… amplifies, you know?" Scott's eating ice cream for dinner. He still eats like he's sixteen, because he doesn't have to worry about cholesterol, and sometimes Stiles hates him for it. He says, "Did you know that one of Derek's old girlfriends burned almost his entire family alive?"

This sounds like something Stiles should know about, but in fact does not. He sits back in his chair, stunned. "How did I not know that?"

"Kira told me," Scott says. "She's dating Derek's cousin."

The only thing Stiles knows about Derek's pack here on Atlantis is that most of them had to cycle out for a tour on earth, and that Kira and Isaac stayed. It was supposed to help Scott acclimate, particularly because Kira isn't a wolf.

"Huh," Stiles says, drumming his fingers on the table. "So a sharing of their crap pasts?" That could be a thing. Doesn’t really explain all the palpable pining, though. And the way Derek looks like the moon shines out of Rapp's ass. Ugh.

Scott is nodding, though, and scooping chocolate and peanut butter into his mouth like a five year old at a birthday party.

Stiles says, "All right, buddy. So what should I do now?"

* Clearly six months of subtle wooing have not worked on Derek at all. According to Scott, Stiles really needs to up his game.

Scott's entire romantic life is comprised of a single girl when they were teenagers whose family had honed the craft of killing werewolves, though, so despite Stiles’s complete faith in Scott as a diehard friend and alpha, he's understandably wary of his advice about love.

Stiles knows Derek's lab schedule by heart. Usually, he carefully plans to be there at the same time just enough to not be totally accused of stalking. He's got a four-day rotating system that repeats only every three weeks, every other month, but since Rapp arrived Stiles is pretty sure he's figured him out.

He's got a scarily blank face when he thinks no one is looking, and winks cheekily at Stiles whenever he catches him out on it. Like they're sharing secrets. Like Stiles can relate.

If Derek wasn't a werewolf, Stiles might be more worried about his well-being than how much sex he's hypothetically having with this handsome sociopath.

Anyway, Stiles has to scramble to reroute some of his geology lab days, which is why he finds himself scrolling through an ancient bestiary in the lab at eight pm on a Thursday with Paul and Junior for company instead of snuggled up with Scott in his room watching The Burbs.

The door is stuck half open because Derek, who is supposed to be off shift for the night, is hovering there with Rapp, whispering. Neither of them seem like the type to whisper like that. It's making the back of Stiles's neck itch.

They probably didn't expect to see him there. Is he making this awkward? Should he just graciously bow out of the way while Derek fucks his heavily muscled doppelganger? Stiles hates how normal that sounds, he's been stuck in another galaxy with eerie space tech too long.

The main thing that Stiles is going to take away, right now, hunching his shoulders up around his ears, is that Scott was super wrong.

He's concentrating so hard on his Very Important Business—he's looking at birds—that he misses the hiss of the door finally closing, and startles a little when Derek steps over to the station he's currently commandeering and says, "Here."

Stiles glances up to see a weird green rock being held in front of his face. It's a very familiar rock. A gifted rock. Stiles wants no parts of that rock. He slouches lower in his seat. "No, thanks."

Derek makes a strangled noise, and Stiles looks beyond the rock to his constipated face. "It's for you," he says, like he didn't just try to give it to him, and Stiles didn't just freaking refuse to take it.

Stiles doesn't want Rapp's fucking rock. This is torture.

Derek isn't moving away, though, and finally Stiles huffily snaps on a new pair of latex gloves and reaches up for it. "Is this—" he stops, mouth dropping open, and brings the rock closer. It's big enough to take two hands to hold it, and he spins it in his fingers, swipes thumbs along the tiny, amazing bones along one side and says, words heavy with awe, "Is this a dinosaur?"

"Isn't that your job to figure out?" Derek says, but he sounds so happy with himself that Stiles maybe wants to kiss him.

Really wants to kiss him. Which would be inappropriate, given Rapp and all, so Stiles definitely doesn't do that. For very long.

When he pulls back, Derek has his palms flat on the lab table from where Stiles had pulled him forward, and looks a little like he's been slapped.

"Crap," Stiles says. He presses his hands over his mouth. "Oh my god, Rapp is going to murder me."

Derek's eyebrows go from popped to deep v and he says, "Why would Mitch murder you?"

"Oh my god," Stiles says, pushing back his chair to stand. He's going to die. "You call him Mitch. He lets you call him Mitch!"

"Are you…" Derek cocks his head. "Is this some kind of…?"

"Oh my god. Finish a damn sentence, Derek!" Stiles rounds the lab table, debates making a run for it, but FRANK is in the way on one side, and the other has Paul, staring at him like he's an alien, and a tray full of rocks.

Derek is bright red. He says, "Hey, you kissed me!"

"Yeah," Stiles shoves his hands in his hair and then rips them out, he's feeling super crazy right now, "and now your assassin boyfriend is going to slit my throat in my sleep!"

Paul snorts, Junior gasps, "NO," like the giant drama-queen he is, and Derek says, "Wait, my what?"

Stiles is still holding the amazing green alien dinosaur rock and would consider whipping it at Derek's dense head if it wasn't as precious to him as a baby.

"I," Stiles announces grandly, "am going to wrap this rock up in blankets and then find some duct work to hide in."

In retrospect, hiding in Kira's room was probably a bad idea. Not because she'd rat him out to Rapp, but because she's Derek's beta, and is apparently on his goodnight rounds, which is honestly adorable and makes Stiles want to scream.

Derek says, "Stiles," and Kira flutters her hands and says, "I'll just, uh, slip across the hall for a sec," and flees like a coward.

Stiles pulls the afghan from Kira's couch over his head.

Derek says, "Stiles," again, coming further into the room. "Why do you think I'm…?" The way he crosses his arms makes his biceps bulge—he's a geologist, for god's sake—and he does some sort of half-shrug that Stiles has trouble interpreting.

He silently pulls the afghan further over his head, so he can only see Derek through the quarter-sized holes.

Derek's mouth twitches. "I can still see you, you know."

Maybe if Stiles flattens out completely Derek would think he melted from total embarrassment. The responsible thing to do here, if Derek had any heart, would be to just leave Stiles alone for his last few hours alive.

Kira suddenly pops up behind Derek, peeks around him, looks from Stiles and his blanket to Derek and back again. "Please don't have sex in here," she says, and then she's gone again.

Stiles groans and Derek squares his shoulders and drops his arms.

"Stiles," Derek says for the third time, "I don't know why you think I'm, uh." He rolls his eyes. "For the record, Mitch isn't my boyfriend."

"Okay, so you're fuckbuddies, it doesn't matter. He's still going to kill me." Rapp has Issues and knife skills and has managed to snag a werewolf, why would he want to ever give that up?

"Are you kidding me right now?" Derek never gets screechy. He gets lower, when he's really angry, and has this roar in his voice when he yells, but right then Derek's voice kind of… breaks… in the middle. "Stiles. Mitch and I are friends."

Stiles waits a beat. He shifts, and the afghan slides off his head to puddle on his shoulders. Static crackles through his hair, he's sure he looks fantastic. "With benefits?" he says.

"No," Derek says, slowly taking a step toward him. "Just friends."

Stiles can't believe this. "You realize he's like… me, only dangerous. With extreme hair. And thighs."

Derek's eyebrows look confused. "You have thighs," he says, dropping that bombshell casually like he didn't just admit to looking at Stiles's thighs, wow. "He's nothing like you."

"Nothing like me," Stiles says. He comes up on his knees on the couch, watches as Derek moves warily closer. "But I think our mouths match. And our moles. We're talking clone here, not mirror image. You don't think that's weird?"

Derek's only a little taller than him, from where Stiles is kneeling on the couch. Stiles leans into the back cushions, rests his hands on them, lets the afghan fall all the way off to tangle in his feet.

"I don't see it," Derek says, staring into Stiles's eyes like he's mesmerized. "Will you kiss me again?"

"Is this some sort of see with your nose type of thing," Stiles says, heart beating up into his throat, but he's bravely leaning up into Derek's space, and Derek's leaning down.

Derek's hands hover over his upper arms, like he wants to hold him. "Don't make dog jokes."

"Oh my god, it is."

"I hate you."

"No," Stiles says softly, and Derek is definitely sniffing him now; their noses are touching and it's beautiful. "No, I don't think you do."

Derek finally smooths his palms over Stiles's arms, and Stiles reaches out to grip Derek's afterhours soft shirt, a Henley with two buttons undone, there's chest hair, and if Kira wouldn't kill him he'd totally try to wrestle Derek out of it. He tilts his head up, licks his lips, and Derek makes a sound that Stiles will make fun of forever and kisses him.

Graves gives Stiles a wide berth in the commissary now, which is gratifying and also wigs him out. He doesn't get how Derek can't see how batshit crazy Rapp can be.

He's maybe a good guy, Stiles honestly doesn't know, but it's just alarming to see Derek sharing a cupcake with him.

Stiles takes his tray over to their table with only a little sliver of envy that dissipates when Rapp says, "Here," and hands him a piece.

"It's Paul's birthday," Derek says, by way of explanation, and then leans over and kisses Stiles with icing all over his mouth.

Stiles is fine with this, beyond fine, but there's a still that tiny part of him that's waiting for Rapp to shoot him between the eyes. When Derek shifts back, though, a small smile and blush on his face, Rapp just winks at him.

It's bizarre and familiar and makes Stiles's skin crawl a little, but he takes it, because apparently Derek and Mitch are best friends. He's Derek's sociopathic wingman. That Derek still doesn't think looks like him.

Stiles isn't going to push him about it, though, because Stiles gets kisses and eventually—fingers-crossed—sex, and it better be true love. It better be till the end of the line with him, because Stiles has a feeling neither his heart nor his body will survive if he somehow fucks this up.

Rapp nudges the piece of cupcake toward him again. This is somehow a metaphor for his life now, probably, but Stiles isn't going to overanalyze it. Anymore.

A tray suddenly clatters onto the table across from Rapp. "Heyyyyy," Scott says, grinning widely. "Oh, cool, birthday cupcake! Are we sharing?"

Stiles says, "Scott, no—" just as he swipes a finger through the icing on the piece in front of Rapp, and everything slows down.

Scott freezes with his hand in the air, like he just realized who's at the table with them. "Oh, shit," he says.

Rapp's eyes narrow.

Scott says, "Sorry?" hunched up like a small, little puppy.

Stiles knows he shouldn’t be worried, because Scott’s an alpha werewolf with sharp teeth, claws, and an enhanced healing ability, but there’s still that flash of panic. Rapp isn’t the flipping tables, throwing grenades kind of dude. He waits.

The look he gives Scott is calculating.

Scott swallows hard and whisper-shouts to Stiles, “Is it bad that that’s turning me on?” before pressing both hands over his mouth.

Rapp grins, slow and wide, pushes the rest of his cupcake over to Scott and says, “Here. Have some more.”

#sterek #tumblr prompt #slightestcomplication #mitch rapp is stiles's doppelganger #sga au #scientists!#not sure if this qualifies as a romantic comedy #sorry

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universal-kitty · 6 years ago

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So I’m thinking about Borderlands again... Listening to music used in Borderlands... So I thought, why not go for it again? Explain my SI in one, comprehensive post, make another tag-series out of it (to go with my BnHA Edition one), and make it easier on us all, huh?

So here we go! Borderlands, the Self-Insert Edition! Featuring my SI, Rena “Gremlin” Marlow...and co.

Rena Marlow, a daughter of a brilliant scientist of their galaxy and a mother known- if lesser- by her photography of various planets and stars.

Brown hair parted down the middle with strands of brown hair that fall next to her face, in later years; in childhood, she just has fringe. Dark green eyes and wears glasses.

A happy, oblivious kid growing up. Liked to believe in fairytales, love at first sight, superstitions... A whole bunch of things. Very imaginative, in that sense.

Idolized her father. People seemed to adore him and knew him wherever he went. He spent long hours in his lab, making Rena daydream of all the cool things he was inventing back there. She was never allowed back there, usually, so she stuck to waiting around and staring at his lab door.

Eventually, he did invite her in, one day. Wanted help. The idea was so cool! Helping her dad with a project?! Wow!!! What cool thing would she get to work with?

...It wasn’t at all as pleasant as she’d hoped.

What he needed help with is all she’d ever know as “The Machine”. A smooth, pure white, helmet-looking contraption with lots of cords going into it, during the early days of her father hammering out the details of it.

It hurt then, too. Not being fully worked out, it tended to shock her a lot. Strapped down to a chair, she couldn’t go anywhere... Her father would carry her back to her room and- at some point- the process would begin again.

Carried on for a few months until it didn’t hurt anymore; it started...teaching her things. Suddenly, she knew all about oceanic life and could speak of it at a college level. Write her own studies on plant life. Her father was proud of her, The Machine didn’t hurt anymore, and even her often space-case mother praised her. It felt...amazing!!

Eventually the testing stopped, though. Her father brought in a guy to help and Rena was growing up, as the years passed.

In about junior high, she met a guy. Absolutely starstruck by him and settled on them being “soulmates” within a month or two... Not that it was just her saying this, mind you; her boyfriend certainly encouraged it.

Her friends were cautious, but supportive. Be chill, girl. Still a lot more in life, you know? Besides, considering who her dad is...?

Rena didn’t pay it much heed. Instead, more plans for the future! More dreams and secrets and quiet moments...

Well, until another few years later. Wandering the town at night, heading home...and spying that- just down the street- her supposed “boyfriend” was being sweet to some other girl, said he loved her, and kissed her.

It destroyed her. Her home life had never been stellar and she’d been hoping that with him...she’d be able to get out. They’d be a “happily ever after”.....

Rena instead decided to run away. That night. Get as far away from here as possible. Pack her bags, slip as much money and a little more as seemed necessary...and as a final knife to the back, steal The Machine.

It’s no secret it’s been killing other people, anyways. They can’t handle their minds being fed so much information, so it tends to backfire and rapidly destroy their mind... Rena’s never had that issue, though. Likely for growing with it as it evolved...so hers now.

Books it off-planet that night and goes as far as she dares within the next solar cycle or two.

Stays on another planet for a few months. Fakes an ID and goes to a local college... Who calls her out for being a daughter of Dr. Marlow anyways and practically sweeps her in with excitement.

Ends up acing everything far too easily, thanks to The Machine. But it all gives her a good starting point into the world ahead and a fancy piece of paper that basically says, “congrats, you understand what a Science is.”

At this point, understands: biological science (biology, zoology, oceanology), botany, geology, chemistry, ecology, and physics. And she’s just getting started!!!

Keeps running once more ‘til the funds are running low...and that’s when she finds Hyperion.

Initially joins under Tassiter, still recruiting people for Hyperion. He’s...doubtful of her true age, but accepts upon seeing what she can do when he allows her a trial run of things he wants to see done. Fast and experienced despite her face, he lets her join.

Enters R&D from that point on, at first as an on-hand assistant...before rising up to earn her own private lab and assisting with bigger and better projects. Rena proves herself worthy of it, and Hyperion bends a little to allow her, when possible.

It’s around this time, as they move into Helios and continue to set up, that an old crew hunts down Rena. They force her to accept their black-market deals or they report her back to her father... After all, they work for him, too, but are always lookin’ to cut a deal with the better side. Rena gives in.

The events of the Pre-Sequel go down. Rena largely keeps herself locked inside her dark laboratory, hiding away in one of her cabinets. It’s a terrifying, defining moment for her...and one that also helps survive the inevitable Jack takeover.

Honestly, that goes over like day to night for her. One minute, it’s still a “Tassiter” owned company, then before she knows it, Helios is complete and “Handsome Jack” owns the place. Well, okay then. Let her have her coffee as usual, oh Jack sir, and we’re all good.

Honestly, barely leaves her lab. Too much work going on. If not a Hyperion-issued project, then one of her own designs. She’s got a lot of room to work with and she’s gonna make the best of it, dammit!

Still manages to make a friend or two; meets Leah around this time. A very cheerful young woman who’s somehow dug ABBA out of their grave and is fond of “Dancing Queen.” Helps Rena keep in touch with her “feminine side” not that she sees much point to it...

They hang out a bit, anyways. It’s the only time Rena is guaranteed to sleep. Especially in a proper bed.

(Doesn’t sleep in the employee-issued rooms. Gives her paranoia of being alone; she’d rather be close to her work than stuck in a near-permanent panic attack.)

Her first pet project? Lizards. With a whole process of breaking down other key DNA sequences from other species. Why? Lizards....into dragons.

Silverstreak is her “main” partner. Silver dragon, with blue eyes. Incredibly bossy and sassy to the others; easy to assume their leadership position.

Other dragons include:

Apophis: Big male dragon, slightly bigger than Silver. Purple and gold scales, with four eyes total. An absolute jerk who tries to harass Silver, but they have none of it. Would kill a family for a cornchip, probably. And he doesn’t even like them!!

Dymri: Forest green dragon, with brown horns and a streak of fur down his back, with tufts on the bend of his forelegs and hind legs. Is now missing his left wing, due to Apophis ripping it nearly entirely off. (It ended up being amputated.)

Munda: Dymri’s mate. Ended up sprouting a lot more fur than he did, but in a more unusual color: green. Looks like a dappled forest with blue eyes and an attitude.

Poseidon: Blue, serpent dragon. Fairly big, though not as much as Apophis. Likes hanging out in water... That with his scale color, thus, the name.

Firestorm: A red, wyvern dragon. No arms, just wings, only hind legs. Red scales with bright green eyes. Truly a charmer.

Smokey: Firestorm’s mate. Dark scales that give off a black-grey color, which inspired her name. Red eyes. Has a tuft of fur at the end of her tail.

Sugar: Another female dragon named for her brown and cream-colored scales. Also a wyvern, with her hand-wings. Very sweet and friendly to anyone she meets. Small streaks of feathers from head to her tail.

Little Angel: One of the G2 dragons, along with three others of her nest. Has a broken horn on her right side. Black and white-splotched scales. A little trooper and totally not named after a certain siren...

.....Along with many more who are still unnamed to this date. From the first set (G1s) to the babies some pairs have had (G2s).

Cue the events of Borderlands, as Rena continues to raise dragons and serve Hyperion. Depending on who-what-where, this may be where some romances start their growth...but we’ll get to that later.

People continue to bother her. A nickname surfaces... “Gremlin.” Because she’s pretty short (at 5′2″ without her trademark heels), tends to be more active when most people would feel the need to sleep, and creeps around with a hunched back, more often than not. Truly, a gremlin among them.

Nothing really happens in this time period up ‘til BLands 2, in which Rena decides to perfectly time a trip to Pandora with a small group of scientists. Nobody’s really gotten personal with studying the Pandoran landscape, have they? So... Guess Rena will do it, then!

Only to find out why nobody has ever done that; raiders and bandits. Infiltrating the camp barely a week in.

Everyone is murdered. Rena escapes with the briefcase that holds The Machine, but is otherwise alone and stuck on Pandora.

Ends up trying to blend in, after a few weeks. There’s only so much an intelligent woman could do here...but how about one who acts like your typical psycho? Worth the shot, at least.

Slowly, the good scientist slips away into a woman masquerading madness while seeping into it, at the same time.

Pops is one of her first friends on Pandora. Someone she trusts...and a father figure to her. He’s a big man who knows hacking and coding, so she learns a bunch from him. They build robots together! It’s awesome.

From there, she gets introduced to this eye-guy waaaaaaayyyyy across the way over a call from Pops to that other guy. Rena ends up making him “Fly Boy” to do deliveries without leaving home.

Said guy looks out for Rena now, getting her new glasses whenever she breaks hers.

Made a few other bots in her time. One that only screamed “fuck” at the top of their lil’ volume, a fixed Claptrap unit with no sense of direction, and a bot named Sparky. But bandits destroyed him a few days into life. RIP, Sparky....

That nickname Helios gave her? Gremlin? Others call her that, now. All know of Gremlin!! ....Well, not all, but a lot.

Including Pyrotech and Meowzer. They run a small gang of bandits and are probably dating...? Gremlin still doesn’t know, either way, but she survived meeting them, so that’s cool.

Met another person who calls himself Scabbs. Largely because he’s got CIP (can’t feel pain; a marvel that he’s still alive when Pandora is your home planet) and so has a fair amount of scars and scratches... Ever since meeting up with Rena, she’s essentially adopted him and makes sure he’s got no life-threatening injuries.

Which is lowkey hilarious, considering Scabbs has made it 17 years without dying, so he’s not exactly in need of a parent, but... He likes Rena, so it’s cool.

Stocks up on weapons, clothes, and masks. All looted from dead bodies and washed up a little. Rena herself as taken to wearing a black tank top, torn up into a crop-top look, a Marauder jacket, and altered, brown pants. Has boots for shoes. Where she got ‘em, nobody knows.

Is stuck on Pandora all the way ‘til Tales... In which she tends to join up in an attempt to get back to Helios and get all of her shit back.

With that covering the basics... Let’s get down to the AUs, then the shipping verses after that, ey...?

AU 1- AI Rena: There’s two verses for this AU. (As long as this post already is.)

Verse 1: Rena owns the Wildlife Exploration Preserve shortly before the events of Tales. However, she didn’t realize one of her pet projects wasn’t bonding to her properly. While going in for feeding and check-ups, the beast killed her and activated a failsafe that resulted in an AI version of herself being activated.

Rhys, having no concept of safety, jabs a port into his head to try and get information on more pieces for Gortys. Just like a time before with Nakayama, Rhys instead downloads a whole ‘nother AI into his noggin.

Now he’s got an Asshole and a Know-It-All Scientist taking root in his skull. The good news is Rena is much nicer to him than HJack is. The bad news is the two bicker a lot because of it.

Where Jack is blue with yellow eyes, Rena is a green holo with- at first- light, green-yellow eyes. Over time, her eyes shift to yellow, however. Nobody is sure why, but Rhys and Rena agree to blame Jack for it. (Who is proud at her matching him, but less thrilled to be blamed for something he didn’t do... Intentionally.)

Lots of Rena snarking Jack. He can touch her, being another hologram like he is, but he can’t hurt her. Turns out her processing power comes from The Machine itself, so she can easily overpower his cruddy design from Nakayama.

Has a side path where she can enter a basic, non-perfect android body to reboot the systems at the Preserve, but later needs to transfer in another, more humanlike model to function better.

....HJack is not pleased with her upgrades, considering she’s getting the better end of the deal than he’s got. Rhys isn’t impressed with that tone, either. >:/

Verse 2: The Machine takes it’s toll on Rena. Her mind could better withstand it’s power, having being an unwilling subject in the early days of it’s development, but... Even her mind can’t keep this up forever.

It starts with forgetting her name. Won’t answer to Rena, but Gremlin works.

Forgetting her nickname.

Slowly, everything she’s ever learned starts going away. Bit by bit, losing what memories The Machine gave her. Rage sets in around here, recognizing her memory is no longer perfect and putting her into a panic of self-awareness.

Memories of people slip away now. Often cries for her ex or where her parents are.

Eventually is confined to bed, where her brain is failing to the point it can’t remember to continue to make the organs function. It’s around this point that she finally dies.

Her personality and memories were embedded into The Machine; her final goodbyes to friends and loved ones. Her AI keeps people from using it after her and requests that it be destroyed soon.

Just like in the first verse, her eyes start out a yellow-green. Then a yellow... If not destroyed, AI Rena’s eyes will sometimes flicker to red, showing how deeply the corruption has started effecting her.

Either way, The Machine will be unusable. Just as how Rena believed it should’ve been.

Siren AU: An AU in which Rena was instead born a Siren. She sports green tattoos on her right side and often made them glow when she was younger, for her amusement and not understanding who she was...or her powers.

Not that her parents helped any. Her mother was just completely confused and arguments over what to do with her were had a lot. Rena’s mother wanted to get her checked out at a hospital. Her father believed she truly was a Siren and wanted to experiment on her.

The arguments eventually drove Rena away and- living on Elpis at the time- Rena began the first dip into her powers: summoning her Siren wings (in a light green tinge) and flying away...off Elpis! Taking a trip to Pandora in order to hide from her fighting parents.

Phasecommand- Her main Siren ability. When executing, her eyes roll back and it summons Pandoran beasts/animals to her side to control and fight her enemies. However, any creatures that don’t disperse afterwards can be considered enemies to her allies or her, if she accidentally hurts one.

When using Eridium, her tattoos will change into more of a teal color and glow more.

Likes the idea of people, but prefers the animals and Guardians. People are too much for her to handle...

Somehow still summoned little dragons...? Is only ever seen with ones the size of cats or lizards, but it’s presumed that- like her main verse- they’ll one day mutate to full, dragon-of-legend glorious sizing.

Dragon AU: In one of two paths, with either Rena being one of the dragons of Eridian times OR having accidentally turned into one of her own dragons.

Either way, her dragon form typically looks a little something like this.

The first verse has her being more curious and prone to friendliness...but ready to snap if she senses ill intent. Still, tries to be optimistic, at least. Rests within a cave near one of the vaults.

About the size of a two-story home, if not a little bigger.

Rena speaks Eridian, but has the capacity to learn present day English, if given the time to learn.

The runes on her body allow her to safely use Eridium. By using it, her systems can filter it properly into a variety of uses, from specialized fire to shape-shifting!!

Verse two is just...Rena being done with this bullshit. All these years of science, for what? To be stuck as a dragon?!? The only useful thing that comes of this is not only does she now understand the world through a dragon’s eyes, but their language, as well.

Turns out, the language of the dragons is actually original Eridian and not whatever mumbo-jumbo you hear most present day speakers go for. It’s an interesting bit to learn, however it’s debatable if the cost was worth it.

(Will eventually return to normal with an understanding of Eridian, but I like just putting my SIs through nonsense, too.)

otp; Science and Violence (Rena/Jack): As literally pulled out of the RP @punk-opossum and I did a few months ago!! Cause I basically consider that “canon” for this ship, now. (Okay, with a few bits I’ve added in, but LARGELY pulled from our RP.)

They’ve been around each other since the beginning, really. Rena oblivious and never noticing Jack, but he’s seen her around. Quiet, nerdy gal who bothers nobody and does her job. Is kinda cool, but no other opinions.

Then, we truck over to the events during Borderlands 2...and things get tossed around like pizza dough. [Note: Nisha and Angel are dead at this point.]

Starting with Jack bothering her workspace. Shooting her head of department and declaring her in charge of Literally Everything R&D now. Rena is just trying to fucking work, ohhhh my god.

Not only that, but Jack casually shoves the Destroyer project from Nakayama right into her hands, as well. Rena has never been more overwhelmed in her life....!

And that’s BEFORE all of the innuendos and Jack’s husky voice getting way too close to her ears!!

...So yeah, it definitely starts as what should’ve been a fling, but attachments get all sorts of muddled. Rena’s the sort of balance Jack finds himself craving and, well... He’s fucked, but giving her the little things she thought she lost when her ex cheated on her. So maybe...it’s okay?

Lots of Jack being thirsty while Rena’s trying to work. Or him being clingy when she wants to go back to work... Far as Jack’s concerned, his job is full of free time and is so boring without her around. However, Rena can actually prioritize her work and keep this company’s science division flowing, soooo.... Hmm.

Rena has the struggle of a lifetime, but she still ends up getting her trip to Pandora to do on-planet research...much to Jack’s paranoia and displeasure. (Which ends up being right on the money, despite his best efforts.)

Can’t believe Rena would be dead. They can’t find her body either, so like... Far as Jack’s concerned, she isn’t dead. Doesn’t mean he’s any more pleased or sane about the whole situation, though.

Jack goes full-tilt into madness, sending people hunting through Pandora to try and find Rena. Hilariously, they’re always close, but either she just left her camp or they pass right by her hiding spot.

They don’t find each other until a few years later, when Handsome Jack himself is personally tearing a town apart on Pandora, still engulfed in his hatred for the planet and presumably taking Rena from him.

He aims his gun at a kid, but freezes. Something about her little tanned face, dark brown hair, and...hetrochromatic eyes....has him frozen in his tracks. Then her mother comes running up, their eyes meet, and Jack nearly roars in realization.

She’s dirty as hell, hair messed up and toting new scars from Pandoran life, but that’s Rena...!! Who’s... Who’s the kid, though?

He nearly has another freakout at her assurance this little girl- Carina- is his daughter?????

He’d want to not believe it, but Rena consistently swears off having messed around with anyone else. Oh, and the fact Carina happens to have eyes like her papa. (But unlike his heterochromia, hers is central; a different color surrounding the pupil.)

With this, they kicked off most of Jack’s thoughts for the Warrior, instead Jack now focusing a large chunk of time for the fact Rena’s back, not dead, and was badass enough to raise and protect a baby on Pandora. Mother of the Year award?? Y’all know who it’s going to.

Carina ends up being Jack’s lil’ princess. The only reason she’s not a spoiled brat is cause Pandora does shit to ya and also Rena knows the limits of taking care of kids; so really, she’s mothering both Carina and Jack.

THOUGH BEFORE I FORGET!!! There is a subset of this verse where also Angel is alive, didn’t have to keep being treated like she was, and- while it was a bit late- still managed to get a better mother figure. Oh, and Carina still happens later in this same verse, so her mood improves even more to have a little sister.

...Jack is totally a little salty that Rena and Angel get on so well. He’s an ass, but does love his daughter, so he’s like a sulky cat, knocking stuff over and hovering around, hoping for attention and acknowledgement.

Rena keeps Jack in line those days, so...eventually Angel and her father get on a better foot than before and he’s very okay with everything and clingy to his family.

otp; Rulers of Pandora (Jack/Rena/Nisha): In which Jack and Nisha take in one of the local Hyperion nerds to spice things up... Only to decide, “naaahh, she’s a keeper.”

Took her into their fray around the early events of Borderlands. Where things are fun, but could be more fun... You know?

Jack’s seen Rena around before, but never gave her much thought... His mind is simply too here-and-there to keep notice for long when he’s trying to pick at more shallow aspects to bring in.

Nisha catches her eye, though, and decides she’s curious when Rena immediately looks away, blushing up a storm.

Turns out, Rena can’t handle Nisha. At all. Immediately turns into a klutz around her. Nisha finds it fucking hilarious and proceeds to drag her off to show Jack...who also realizes how hilariously awkward Rena is. They’ve taken her in, since.

Primarily still spends a lot of time up on Helios, but on occasion, will go down to Pandora to spend time with Nisha once HJack gives her Lynchwood.

Is definitely the little “pet” of the trio and is mercilessly teased by them for it, but anyone else messes with Rena? You’ve now got two of the six galaxies most lethal minds on your ass. Start running.

Nisha: I don’t like cute things. I kill cute things. Rena: cooing over some baby skag bc she’s an idiot Nisha: .........For fuck’s sake--

In other words, both Nish and Jack both soften up a bit for Rena. Which is a mistake for anyone else to see, cause while they’ll let their favorite nerd frolic in a field of baby animals, they’d still sooner shoot an annoying pest.

Nisha and Rena are the only ones to know about Jack’s true face under the mask. Nisha doesn’t really care, but Rena? Loves it.

Two Murderers and the Embodiment of Sunshine. That’s how you sum them up.

otp; love like fools (Rena/Rhys): I don’t know what Imma do with this anymore, but it exists as a verse, so I’m gonna heckin’ include it.

Met around the events of BLands/BLands 2. Rena had overworked herself on a project and was hiding in a break room. Cup of orange juice in hand and staring at it. Rhys couldn’t sleep, so he came in... They had an awkward conversation, but not much else.

Curious, Rhys starts stopping by the R&D department more and starts realizing the issue: she never takes a break or seems to get much rest. Work, work, work, day and night. Isn’t that exhausting??

So Rhys takes it on himself to get her food and drink. Mostly snacks, but whatever works. He also tries to ask about her projects, but it largely goes over his head when she starts doing her usual round of science talk.

He tries, though. So that’s nice.

His crush is obvious as shit as time keeps going on. Even his friends notice. Leah notices. Rena? Does not. She is oblivious as heck. Rest in pieces, Rhys.

Literally nothing happens there. Just Rhys doing his best to get Rena’s full attention with no luck. Right up to her eventual trip-and-trap to Pandora.

They don’t meet again ‘til the events of Tales! While wandering around the landscape, Rhys bumps into “Gremlin”, realizes she looks familiar and...

Rhys: ...Are you Rena? Dr. Marlow? Gremlin: Who...? WAIT A MINUTE!!! YOU?!? Rhys: Y-YEAH!!! YOU’RE ALIVE?!?

Everyone else is confused, but Rhys and Rena proceed to catch up. Meanwhile, HJack is making comments that are making Rhys’ face pink and trying to mentally shut the AI up before he says something embarrassing to Rena.

Which basically happens anyways, cause he excuses himself to walk away, thud his head into the caravan, then walk back trying to act like nothing happened. Where were we? #Concern from Rena.

She joins the troupe for fun times, being surprisingly okay when Rhys admits that HJack’s AI is like...inside his head. Just chillin’ there. Well, when not being usual Jack, but you know.

(In some variations of this, AI Jack was programmed to know Rena, so he’s twice as insufferable as usual. However, this isn’t often the case.)

It takes Rhys forever and plenty of nagging from HJack before he even tries to smooch Rena. And even when he does, it was still a terrible idea, cause Jack wouldn’t shut up. Thankfully, Rena’s still pretty chill about the whole thing.

Fiona and Sasha warm up to Rena over time, Vaughn’s heard about her from before, so they all pal up while Rhys has a crisis over HJack ruining his romantic life. It’s a nice break from freaking out around other people, at least.

Joins them on the trip to Helios. She needs to check up on her babies... It’s been so long....

An expert at sneak, a duck around cameras and back up to the old employee living quarters... It’s amazing what a brush, hot water, and a change of clothes can do for a person. (Gotta readjust to heels again, though.)

While Rhys and Fiona are taking over Helios to get the next piece for Gortys, Rena makes her way back to her lab. Not everyone is gone, but... A lot of the G1s have passed away and even a few G2s. Silver and Apophis stay strong, but have been slowly getting bigger in Rena’s absence.

Encourage the trope into an old, cleaned out nesting box and start figuring out her escape plan from there, trying to get in contact with Rhys and Fiona. Only for an eerily familiar voice to pour out around Helios...and announce Rhys the new leader of Hyperion?!

Shit. Shit, shit, shitshit- Now what? She didn’t think Rhys was gonna be in cahoots with Jack! I mean, yeah, he idolized the guy.... Jack embarrassed him a lot, but he still seem to think it was pretty neat...... Awh, hell. Still! Gotta get outta here!!

Ends up smoothly making her escape in a ship with some of her more friendly co-workers: Dan [the Man] (a pilot who used to fly HJack’s private ship; trans, demisexual with a preference for men who is a coffee addict) and Leah.

...And then Helios crashes not too long later. Dan is...less than impressed (internally freaking out, however) and Leah is basically having a panic attack.

Rena tries giving them advice for surviving on Pandora, but Dan later finds Atlas (now being rebooted by Rhys) and decides with Leah that they’ll join up.

SURPRISE, SURPRISE, Rhys owns the place. Dan is brought on as his personal pilot (”Sweet. So, where’s the coffee machines around here?”), Leah is hired for PR, Cassie (a blonde lesbian who’s only ever done secretary jobs most of her life) joins later as his secretary...and Rena? .....Shit, Atlas doesn’t really...have an R&D department, do they...?

Rena nervously points out that- if he finds the muscle, they could retake the Wildlife Exploitation Preserve. Take over, do some rebuilding and remodeling... Make it not only into Atlas’ new R&D, but also a way for Rena to continue her penchant of creating dubious creatures. Also because the dragons are only getting bigger as their generations continue.

Pyrotech and Meowzer decide to join in, along with Pops calling in a few favors. Bandits v. bandits to clean out the place and serve as muscle while WEP is getting remodeled. (Also, they’re getting paid, so other bandits looking for a handy buck hop on for the more beneficial side.)

Rena gets a new look to symbolize her Atlas change (a black, long cloak with a hexagon pattern on the inside, black tights, black heels, and an ombre, orange-red-to-yellow, turtleneck dress; hair is also pinned up)! Power couple of Atlas, basically everyone agrees. And kind of like in another verse, Rena keeps him in line....when he’s not having to do the same for her!!

Rhys: I’m not sure....making a monstrous, three-headed dog is a good idea, babe. Rena: I didn’t come here to make wimpy science, Rhys!! I came here to kick ass, take names, and do SCIENCE! But thank you for your opinion~ Rhys: ......oh no.

6-legged to 8-legged cats are realized under Rena’s flourishing arms. A three-headed dog. The dragons prosper and return to Pandora, honoring Rena as their Mother, as Silver- and later Apophis himself!!- have done.

She even creates an android in secret. Names them Aria and they have learning software. Everything about life, they must learn on their own. Starting with the Preserve, and then one day... Leaving home to formulate their own experiences.

Later in life, Rhys and Rena have a daughter, naming her Vela. (A reference to the trio of constellations that Carina is also a part of.)

Has about as much common sense for safety as her mother does. Rhys is terrified for her safety on the daily. Because of their lack of fear, Rhys tries to keep Vela with him at Atlas HQ more than at the preserve with Rena.

otp; nerdperion (Rhys/Rena/Vaughn): ...I mentioned it once. Then the idea snowballed from the initial idea and the “what ifs”.

Look, I can’t deny it. It’s the nerd trio that most only dream of. In their Hyperion days, you had the money man, middle manager, and the top scientist.

By the time of Tales, you have a bandit leader in his own right, an Altas CEO, and woman who is held back by only her set-in-stone morals.

Vaughn and Rena going on raids out on Pandora, protecting people and the Children of Helios. Perhaps even with the dragons as backup...?

Rhys constantly has to worry for these two dorks, but that’s why he has a steady wing in Atlas for healing stuff. A fair bit of research passed on from Rena, to be fair, but still.

Vaughn takes lessons from Rena how to ride beasts. Like dragons! Was it a good idea? Not really. But nobody got hurt, at least!!! And Rena also solidified the saddle designs for them, so that’s pretty cool, too.

Rhys is a little more boring on that side of the coin in the regard he’s mostly just running a company, but still. Vaughn helps out from time to time and Rena’s running the entire R&D division of Atlas, so.....

otp; scientific haikus (Rena/Zer0): In which my first crush from Tales lives on...and it’s a rather unlikely couple, honestly.

Starting right off the bat with the fact she never really knew about them until one of her Pandoran raids? They showed up to kill some people and then just kinda...disappeared.

That first meeting bothered Gremlin for weeks. Who?? Who????

Meeting them again...and again..... Never getting the courage to confront them out of fear. (What if they slice and dice her up, too?? She’s lived too long to get struck down now...) But despite that, she eagerly daydreams about the oddity...

Also, isn’t as sly as she thinks; Zer0′s been knowing, they’ve just been waiting for Gremlin to go first. Though, she hasn’t been...so that’s a bit of an issue.

Eventually, they make sure that their next target will be in an area they know Gremlin frequents. When she shows up...Zer0 finally gets the chance to introduce themselves.

Zer0: Finally, we meet / Finding you was difficult / My name is Zer0; pleased. Gremlin: .....Did... Are you speaking in haiku?! Zer0: :) Gremlin: ...holy shit; nice.

They strike up an odd sort of friendship from there. Meetings become random again, though Zer0 takes time to listen. They actually are able to call her Rena in private which is...nice. Kinda easy to forget that was her name before the whole “stranded on Pandora” bit.

Zer0 ends up enabling her collecting habits, too; brings back not-too-bloody clothes and trinkets they find while out and about on jobs. She gains quite the collection, thanks to that!!

Actually wanted to offer assistance when Zer0 took on the Gortys hunt, but joined up only later on and... HOLY SHIT, HYPERION EMPLOYEES!!!

It’s wild, seeing familiar faces and talking about the past. Zer0 has...some concerns, but otherwise trusts the group with Rena.

This includes their plan to invade Helios, in order to get the final piece Gortys needs to access the Vault of the Traveler. They’re not thrilled about her involvement in the plan, but Rena still knows a lot about Helios and the Hyperion system. Her going with ensures things will go even more smoothly, so... Who are they to deny their crush friend from helping others?

....And then they hear it all went to shit. Though they showed up, trying to find Rena among the wreckage... There was no luck. They get upset over this for quite some time, but without a body... Zer0 keeps a metaphorical ear out. Won’t believe she’s dead yet. Not yet.

Eventually, when Rhys gets in contact with Zer0 for help with the vault, they meet up again. Rena is ecstatic to see him again- having since become the head of Atlas’ R&D and gone hunting to assist with this, too- and Zer0 is just happy to be right; she didn’t die back then after all...

Is surprisingly handsy from there on out, flashing the smile or heart emoticons, a hand on Rena’s waist, etc.

Everyone else catches on to Zer0′s affections far faster than Rena herself does, that’s for sure.

Rena: It’s nice... I’ve never really had a lot of platonic affection, you know? Fiona, sighing: N-No, that’s not... How do you not see what’s going on, here?? Rena: .........what? Everyone: s i g h s Rena: ????????

They do eventually ask her out when nearly everyone on the team has them to spare them the oblivious misery, cause- once again- Rena sure ain’t gonna do it.

Also cause Gortys has been trying to ask about them dating anyways, so-?? Just do it???

Zer0 still takes a while longer to get the right words to say that fit their haiku format, but the actual confession...? Well, at least it feels like the right note to end an adventure on; seeing her eyes light up, smile breaking free, and hugging the other tight around the waist was good. Great, even!

...Though with Fiona and Rhys temporarily disappeared...who runs Atlas?

Thankfully, Rena knows Cassie personally and has her and another person- Dan, a pilot for Rhys’ personal ship (and once worked under Handsome Jack, as well)- back her up on heading Atlas for a temporary period of time.

Zer0 sticks around for a time, just to make sure a mutiny doesn’t rise up and try to take Rena down. They only back off once her guard-friends from R&D make their way over... Again, just in case.

Zer0 goes back to work not long after that, though makes sure to visit more often. It not only makes them anxious to not know how Rena is doing (if she’s still alive), but also because they’ve started getting used to her touch. Touch starved? Zer0? ....A little.

Starts even exposing her face around her, Rena admits. What they look like? Well, pffftt, she’d never tell~!

otp; i ruv you (Rena/Timothy Lawrence): Oh, it started as a joke...then I was in too deep and now it’s never been better~

Thanks to both of them being workers under the Hyperion brand, they end up meeting sooner rather than later.

Much like Jack, Tim noticed Rena around: sitting in the Hub and people-watching, walking by her lab... Things like that. Didn’t pay too much mind, but then...he got hurt. On his face.

Rena, being the oldest lasting employee not killed off yet by Handsome Jack, is given the old papers for the build of Jack doubles and given some people to work with by HJack himself in order to fix up Tim right.

It’s love at first appointment; she’s gentle, knows what she’s doing, and eventually he’s looking back to the usual. The little smile she gives as he left? ...His heart was racing for an hour after, he swears by it.

He starts visiting her more, after that. Whether because he allowed himself to get hurt or it’s after a mission and he’s got some extra free time before his next one... He hurries to that lab of hers in order to chat.

Befriends the dragons she creates happily. Silver doesn’t bond to him in the same way, but they tolerate him and will let Tim hold them. It’s so cool!!!

Then Rena admitted to him one of her other projects...wanting to create multi-legged cats. Tim was thrilled at the trust, nervous over the project, but Rena assured all would be well. The dragons have done wonderfully, so that will go well, too!

He got the chance to kiss her when she was patching him up again. He’d tried to lean forward, but she stopped him a moment to finish up...then, shyly, asked if he wanted to try that again...? He lit up and they both got into a hasty, messy kiss that had them giggling in delight.

...With that, their unofficial dating started! (Which HJack quickly knew about and considered doing something to one of them to end it, but overall decided if any news got out, he’d actually take Rena as his own and make his doppelganger regret getting into a relationship behind Jack’s back; capiche? Tim nervously agreed.)

Still... Her move to Pandora made him nervous. Especially since his next assignment was on Elpis, so if anything happened...!

Rena kissed his cheek and assured him she’d be fine. It would be very in and out; no need for worry!

When even Jack was troubled by the report that came in later, Timothy was up in arms ready to shoot down some psychos.

HJack: Like, nobody reported her body. Which could be a sign she’s not dead? But it’s Pandora; who knows? Tim, sweating and shaking: Please...just fucking shut. Up.

Backtalking the boss is bold, but Tim is all kinds of done with this news and needs to ditch for Pandora in order to find Rena. HJack allows this more out of interest for the “game” than anything else.

Timothy ends up- more or less- a sort of permanent presence on Pandora while trying to find Rena. Doesn’t much notice or care when Jack’s insanity summons the Warrior...or when he’s taken down. Besides, people spook more easily to hear Handsome Jack died, but see his masked face even still on Timothy’s own.

Not getting answers on where Rena is...stresses him out, though. Makes him bitter, that maybe someone did kill her... He expresses his anger in a bit of murder and then sulks more over how this is turning him into a lesser Jack after all... Makes the guy almost sympathetic.

But with a few years passing, Atlas suddenly rises up out of the crashed ashes of Helios...and if Tim has any hope left for the lost Rena, might as well go there, right?

He scares the shit out of Rhys, walking in looking like Handsome Jack in the flesh. (Not even his secretary tried to stop him, looking like he did; dirty and murderous.)

...Though it’s actually just some resting bitch face and determination. Tim ends up explaining everything and Rhys even more hurriedly explains that she’s not dead!!! In fact, he just sent her over with a group of hired bandits to the WEP! She’s going...to be heading his new R&D department, you know...

Tim almost doesn’t want to hope, but he jolts out of there faster than Rhys or Cassie can stop him and is rushing to the Preserve in hopes to catch her there and maybe help out in the firefight.

Ends up finding her in a car just outside, all tanked up and safe as she directs everyone to where they need to go...but oh shit, handle that on your own for a bit; there’s a guy outside the car. She walks a little closer...and screeches, stumbling back.

Tim: No, no!! Rena!!! It’s me, it’s Ti- Jimothy!!!! It’s me, not Jack! Rena: ......Timothy?

She hesitantly lets him in and Tim at least proves that- despite his appearance- he is definitely not Jack by patting her over, realizing she’s alive, and then kissing her breathless.

Rena explains her situation having gone by “Gremlin” up to this point and pretending to be a psycho on occasion in order to live. The new friends she’s made up until that point. Tim tells her about the years he spent trying to find her, hoping she wasn’t dead.

As self-promised, he cuddles her in his lap for a little while longer, then kisses her again and joins the firefight outside to clear out the preserve.

Hyperion’s fallen, Atlas is a rising venture... Why not? Student loans sure don’t matter anymore.

He largely stays with Rena at R&D; her personal bodyguard and more-official-than-in-the-past boyfriend.

She also makes good on the multi-legged cats, as mentioned in the past. Tim decidedly loves them just as much- if not more- as regular cats.

ot3; ??? (Maya/Rena/Krieg): So hear me out... I will never learn. This will be neverending. I’m just as disappointed in me as you are. Also, Tumblr removing line breaks is the bane of my existence. Fuck this website. ANYWAYS!

Rena...met Krieg, first. In passing. He was a part of the slag experiments, Rena works R&D.... You hear about this sort of thing. She did, with her sharp ears and too-caring-attitude, despite working for the most monstrous corporation in the six galaxies.

Still, she was never able to help him or anyone else... Despite desperately wanting to. Despite catching his eyes once, guilt eating her up from the inside. (A pity-look from another one of them, Krieg used to think.)

They didn’t meet again until much later, during the events of Borderlands 2: Gremlin stuck on Pandora while Maya and Krieg were deadset on dethroning Handsome Jack. Y’know. Her old boss?

Krieg almost doesn’t recognize her when he’s out wandering, but it’s seeing her dirty face that strikes a chord in his sensible side. He remembers her! One of Hyperion’s own... What’s she doing out here? Alone and without company...?

Not that Krieg cares; seeing someone who was in any way involved with hurting him sends him into a fit of rage, trying to attack her with all he’s got! Rena dodges, not understanding...until she realizes who this psycho is...

It’s the worst first meeting- putting his first interaction with Maya in the dirt- as she eventually bursts into tears trying to apologize to him. It startles Krieg to stop, listening to her as she’s pitifully curled up in the dirt, hands up in a show of surrender, apologizing to...him.

“I’m sorry! I’m so sorry I couldn’t help you back then!! I wanted to, I really did, but I... I couldn’t! I’m sorry, Krieg, I’m so, so sorry!!!!”

Maya returns to this scene unimpressed, giving a Look to Krieg before helping the still-sobbing Rena. They both take her back to her shambling little base...and Krieg stares at the coat on the wall. The last reminder of who she was...

It occurs to him, then, that they’re in a similar spot. He lost his mind to slag, becoming a psycho, his mind barely together...and Rena is losing her sense of self, too. Going by Gremlin to blend in, faking insanity to blend in...but how long of that before it all becomes too real? Before she changes for good, even without influences like he’d gotten...?

Maya is more than content to help and leave, but Krieg...feels guilty. It’s a rare show of clarity and kindness from the big guy...and that’s when Maya realizes she’s lost the battle before it’s even begun.

They do take down HJack eventually, but frequently stop by to check in on Rena from there on out. Krieg likes poking around and laying on the stolen mattress she has. Maya finds out she’s actually super smart...and it’s fun. It’s nice.

You grow to like- even love- Krieg for his lucid moments. Appreciating his more violent ones for the defense they provide, as well as the enemy-sweeping he can do. Her powers work well with his might.

Add Rena into the mix, it’s brains, balance, and brawn. It works out even better than Maya could’ve predicted....and yeah, she kinda ends up falling for the scientist, too. Would’ve never pegged herself as the polyamrous type, but... She and Krieg share the sentiments.

Rena and Krieg keep each other balanced. Maya doesn’t have time to baby anyone; she keeps going at her own pace. Anyone who wants to keep up has to pull their weight...but Rena is a natural nurturer. When she’s a little loopy, they use a language only they can really understand. (It takes Maya some time to adjust to.) When Krieg gets frustrated, she helps him through it. To get back in touch with his old self. It’s comforting. Very comforting.

Maya and Rena, on the other hand, share a lot of conversation about....anything and everything. Maya talks about her Siren powers and pieces of her life. Rena talks about her own life- a lot more openly- and the science she used to do on Hyperion. How proud she still is of those times. Maya’s endeared to those moments.

It also later comes in handy... When Maya needs to depart from Pandora to go back to Athenas some time later, wanting to further underside her Siren lineage. Pandora only answered so much, after all...

Won’t let Rena or Krieg join, but the two keep each other company in the meantime. Waiting for Maya to come back home.

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