#SHORT standaLONE

[bakatenshii]

is this the longest fic I’ll ever have written? (maybe)

[paintpanic]

(original video)

[choices-binglebonkus]

The neat thing about Choices books is that you can always tell whenever one is someone’s passion project vs. just a Nothing Book needed to fill the release roster.

[duckdodger]

hii helloo so for tje tmnt mm request thingie maybe donnie listening 2 kpop !! with his headphones just vibin:3

kicking off the end of the year with donnie vibing 🕺🕺 !!

[rookflower]

idk if this quantity disparity in my playlists of very favourite "amvs about exclusively canon warrior cats" and "amvs about literally anything except for canon warrior cats" is more indicitave of the sheer extent of unbridled passion and talent in the warrior cats fanbase or how fucking deep the hole i've dug myself here is LMFAO

[deoidesign]

Hello! I just discovered your blog and I immediately became captivated by your webcomic, but I'm unsure where to read all of it. I know it's on Webtoons, but I can see it hasn't been updated for a while, and you still post about it.

Are your physical novels just prints of the webcomic? Are they a continuation? Is the story complete? Thanks in advance!

Hi there!

Glad you found me and are enjoying my comic!

It's only on webtoons, and the story is not complete yet! We're 2/3 of the way through right now. It's currently on hiatus, and it's scheduled to come back in about 2 months!

I'll explain why it's been so long if you're curious, but also for my followers who might also be wondering about it under the cut. Sorry, it's pretty much just me complaining haha

I took a month off I took 2 months to get the books printed I took a month to prepare my next comic and I took 2 months to write the rest of the series (I knew the character arcs I wanted, but not the time periods or mysteries!!!) I've been working on actual episodes since then

I had to take some time off because of some pretty extreme burnout due to the sheer amount of work it was to draw over 800 pages and write 6 complete stories in a year and a half... I was getting sick almost weekly due to the overwork, it was really really bad honestly. I was having to work 60+ hours every week just to keep up...

The nature of the comic itself is also difficult... Each of the arcs is a complete, self contained story which can be read (ideally) without context, and my arcs need to be about 10-13 episodes each... And since I have an exact number of episodes to work with, it's even harder.

It takes a ton of planning and a ton of refinement, and working week to week with no breaks I was forced to put out second or even first drafts, so I just wasn't happy with the work I was doing... And to do that for the rest of the series? I wouldn't be proud of the work I did.

Plus... To be entirely honest, webtoon has treated me quite badly IN MY OPINION... They deprioritized me before I launched (I had to beg for more promotion, I'm not exaggerating), they outright denied me the opportunity to even ask for a raise, I don't make any money on fast pass and they pay me less than my partner makes working at trader joes. My first editor left me completely hanging, my second editor (who I loved) was fired... And they told me I wouldn't get a third season before my first season even finished. So it was just repeatedly completely demoralizing.

I'm sorry it has taken so long, it'll have been 10 months by the time I come back. But I realized... I won't get promotion either way. I won't get more episodes either way. I won't get more money either way. So to finish everything, to make it feel good, to make it something I'm proud of, I chose to take longer to make it better.

I am fully aware I will lose a significant amount of my readership for this and it might genuinely affect my career moving forward. But it's what I had to do! So I'm sticking to my guns on it, and I'm confident long term it'll be worth it. It never could have been this good if I didn't take this much time.

[fivefootoh-andtrains]

Emmet is suddenly seized with old sibling instincts. Hopefully Ingo remembers his own.

Word count: 990

[machine-herald-archive]

A Quick Fix - Anthony Burch

Any fool could have predicted that Viktor would strike back at some point. If one weren’t a fool, one might predict the exact date and time of an attempted counterattack.

Jayce was not a fool.

He stood in his workshop, bathed in sun rays from his skylight, surrounded by dozens of artifacts of his own genius: Gearwork boots that could cling to any surface. A knapsack with articulated limbs that always kept the user’s tools within easy reach.

Greater than all these inventions, however, was the weapon that Jayce now held in his hands. Powered by a Shuriman shard, Jayce's transforming hextech greathammer was renowned throughout Piltover, but he tossed it from hand to hand as if was any other tool from his workshop.

Three sharp taps echoed from Jayce’s door.

They were here.

Jayce had prepared for this. He'd run experiments on Viktor’s discarded automata. He'd intercepted the mechanical communications. Any second, they’d beat down his front door and try to rip away his hextech hammer. After that, they'd try to do the same with his skull. “Try” being the operative word.

He flicked a switch on the hammer’s handle. With an energetic sizzle, the head of Jayce’s masterpiece transformed into a hextech blaster.

He took aim.

Stood his ground.

Watched the door open. His finger tightened on the trigger.

And he almost blasted a seven-year-old girl’s head off.

She was tiny and blonde and would have seemed adorable to anyone who wasn’t Jayce. The girl pushed the door open and walked in with shuffling, tentative steps. Her ponytail swished to and fro as she approached Jayce. She kept her head down, ever avoiding his gaze. He had two hypotheses regarding why she might refuse eye contact: she was hugely impressed to be in the presence of someone so acclaimed, or she was working for Viktor and about to surprise him with a chem-bomb. Her blushing indicated it was likely the former.

“My soldier broke,” she said, proffering a limp metal knight, its arm bent backward at a perverse angle.

Jayce didn’t move.

“Please leave or you’ll probably die.”

The child stared at him.

“Also, I don’t fix dolls. Find somebody with more time on their hands.”

Tears began to well up in her eyes.

“I don’t have any money for an artificer, and my muh–,” she said, stifling a sob, “mother made him for me before she passed, and–”

Jayce furrowed his brow and, for the first time in quite a while, blinked.

“If it’s so precious to you, why did you break it?”

“I didn’t mean to! I took him to the Progress Day feast and somebody bumped into me and I dropped him, and I know I should have just left him at home–”

“ –Yes, you should have. That was stupid of you.”

The girl opened her mouth to speak, then stopped herself. Jayce had seen this kind of reaction before. Most everyone he met had heard the stories of his legendary hammer and his unyielding heroism. They expected grandeur. They expected humility. They expected him to not be a massive jerk. Jayce inevitably disappointed them.

“What is wrong with you?” she asked.

“Most facets of my personality, so I’ve been told,” he replied without hesitation.

The child furrowed her brow. She shoved the broken doll into his face.

“Fix it. Please.”

“You’ll just break it again.”

“I won’t!”

“Look,” he said. ”Little girl. I’m very busy, and–”

Something flitted across the skylight, casting a quick shadow on the two of them. Anyone else would have assumed it was nothing more than a falcon passing overhead. Jayce knew better. He fell silent. A wry smile spread across his face as he yanked the girl toward his workbench.

“The thing is,�� he said, “machines are very simple.”

He lifted a large, thin sheet of bronze and began to hammer its corners with sharp taps. “They’re made of discrete parts. They combine and recombine in clear, predictable ways.” He beat the sheet over and over until it took the form of a smooth dome.

“People are more complicated. They’re emotional, they’re unpredictable, and – in nearly every case – they’re not as smart as me,” he said, drilling a clean hole into the top of the dome. “Now usually, that’s a problem. But sometimes, their stupidity works in my favor.”

“Is this still about my doll, or–”

“Sometimes, they’re so insecure in their inferiority – so desperate to take their revenge – that they make a foolish mistake.” He grabbed a shining copper rod, and screwed it into the center of the dome.

“Sometimes people fail to protect their most precious assets,” he said, nodding at her tin soldier before holding aloft the newly-formed metal umbrella. “And sometimes, that means instead of assaulting my workshop through the more obvious front door, they try to take…”

He looked upward, “...the more dramatic approach.”

He handed her the umbrella, which took all of her meager strength to keep aloft.

“Hold this. Don’t move.”

She opened her mouth to respond, only to yelp in surprise as the skylight shattered above her. Glass bounced off the makeshift umbrella like rain as a half-dozen men leapt down to the floor. Tubes of bright green chems protruded from the base of their necks, connecting to their limbs. Their eyes were dead, their faces emotionless. They were definitely Viktor’s boys, alright: drugged punks from Zaun’s sump level whom Viktor had pumped full of hallucinogens and hypnotics. Chem-stunted thugs who would follow Viktor’s every whim whether they wanted to or not. Jayce had been expecting to see automatons, but Viktor likely couldn’t have gotten so many through Piltover unnoticed. Still, these chem-slaves were just as much of a danger. They turned toward Jayce and the girl.

Before they reached the pair, however, Jayce’s hextech blaster exploded with voltaic energy. An orb of hextech-powered lightning shot out of its core and detonated in the middle of the group. The chem-slaves slammed into the workshop's immaculate walls.

“So much for the element of surprise, huh, Vikto–”

A hulking brute of a machine leapt down amongst the pile of unconscious chem-slaves. It looked, Jayce thought, like a cross between a minotaur and a very angry building.

“Watch out,” the girl yelped.

Jayce rolled his eyes. “I am watching him. Stop panicking. I have the situation well in-ow!” he said, interrupted as the metal beast rammed him in the chest.

The beast sent Jayce hurtling backward. He landed on a rolling cart, his back cracking from the impact.

Grunting, he pulled himself to his feet as the beast charged again.

“That’s the last time you touch me,” he said.

Jayce swung his hextech weapon as hard as he could, transforming it back into a hammer mid-swing. The minotaur lowered its head to ram Jayce again, foolishly ignoring the weapon’s arc.

The hammer found its mark with a resounding crunch. The minotaur, its head caved all the way back into its metal neck, collapsed to the floor. A cloud of escaping steam hissed from its carcass.

Jayce pulled back the hammer again, readying for another attack. He watched the skylight. A few minutes passed. Soon enough, he seemed satisfied the assault was over.

He tried to step back toward his workbench, only to double over in pain, grasping at his stomach. The girl rushed to his side.

“Still hurts where he tackled you, huh?”

“Obviously.”

“Then maybe you shouldn’t have let him,” she said. “That was stupid of you.”

Jayce raised an eyebrow at the kid. Her eyes widened, unsure if she’d crossed a line. A slow smile crept across his face.

“What was your name?”

“Amaranthine.”

Jayce sat at his workbench and grabbed a screwdriver.

“Gimme the doll, Amaranthine,” he said.

A massive grin broke out on her face. “So you can fix it?”

Jayce smirked at her.

“There’s nothing I can’t fix.”

[starakex]

Some 30ish hours later and I've now completed everything there is to do in Shadow Generations, including rainbow ranks, all regular and hard mode s-ranks, and the collection room.

A run well enjoyed! But now idk what to do with myself 😔

[iphigeniacomplex]

"prayer", ghost quartet (dave malloy, 2014) | "when i heard the learn'd astronomer (walt whitman, 1865) | "little god", octet (dave malloy, 2019)

[ Begin transcript:

Image 1: A screenshot from the Bandcamp lyrics of "Prayer" from Ghost Quartet. The text is black on a white screen, and styled in all caps. It says, "I WILL TRY TO FORGIVE MYSELF / FOR BEING ABSENT IN PUBLIC / AND BORED BEFORE STARS / FOR NOT REMEMBERING / FOR NOT BEING IN MY BODY / FOR NOT STARTING RIGHT NOW"

Image 2: A screenshot from the Poetry Foundation website, containing the full text of Walt Whitman's poem "When I Heard The Learn'd Astronomer". The text is black on a white screen, and in a serif font. It says, "When I heard the learn'd astronomer, / When the proof, the figures, were ranged in columns before me, / When I was shown the charts and diagrams, to add, divide, and measure them, / When I sitting heard the astronomer where he lectured with much applause in the lecture-room, / How soon unaccountable I became tired and sick, / Till rising and gliding out I wander'd off by myself, / In the mystical moist night-air, and from time to time, / Look'd up in perfect silence at the stars."

Image 3: A screenshot from the Genius Lyrics page for "Little God" from Octet. The text is black on a white screen, and says, "We traveled into black holes, into quarks; we slipped through time backwards and sideways; we created new life forms, living suns; we watched the universe multiply, invert, spiral, disappear. We beheld an infinity of wonders---and yet we sat at our desks in stoic calculation, paralyzed by the unforgiving relentlessness of our intellect." The text from "We beheld an infinity of wonders" to "stripped of awe" is highlighted in yellow.

End transcript. ]

[marsupials-of-mars]

Synopsis:

Since the events of episode 6, Duck has picked up on a change in the red one's behavior. Specifically, towards him. While the beast's internal workings befuddle him, he's intrigued by the prospect of developing their relationship (whether Red wants to call it that or not). But how is romance meant to be properly navigated? Maybe he can get some guidance from a couple new educational friends?

@sherbetyy @bicon-crange @oswaldepic @its-mayo0

[an-ruraiocht]

one of my annoying medievalist traits that i don't usually voice because it makes me sound like a snob is that i find it funny when people refer to a single medieval text as a book

[generic-sonic-fan]

Old Time's Sake

Summary: The robot once known as "Metal Sonic" attempts to ask Amy Rose for a favor.

TW: suicidal thoughts

---

It crashed into a pot of petunias on the porch, ceramic shattering against the wooden panels of the house. Shredded pink blossoms settled against purple, yellow, and blue plating, only to be shaken off by the onslaught of shudders that battered its frame. 

Neo pulled itself to the door just as the knob twisted from the other side. Amy Rose stared down.

“Metal? Oh my goodness, you look- what happened?”

It grasped the frame of the door and pulled itself upright.

“No, it’s okay, stay right there. Or actually, I’ll bring you in!”

Amy Rose grabbed its arms and pulled it through the door. It simulated her gripping hard enough to damage its plating. A reprimand shot down its spinal strut response. She did not lose or even tighten her grip, however, as she led it to her couch.

She sat it down. “Stay here. You’re going to be okay. I’ll get Tails on the phone and he’ll make you right as rain!”

The name switched its self-preservation programming from hostile to cooperative. Calling Miles “Tails” Prower would result in Sonic’s arrival, so it must not allow Amy Rose to reach her cell phone, so it must attack her, and she would summon her hammer and then-

It lept off the couch and embedded its claws into her shoulders. Her eyes widened and her mouth fell open to match the exact ratios of panic it had recorded from her on Little Planet. In an instant, her hammer was in her hand.

The force dented its torso plating. It crashed into a wall. It waited for more blows, simulated the damage from other instances in which she’d demolished Badniks, anticipated, anticipated. It looked at her to find her stationary despite her vitals being elevated beyond even what might be registered in ordinary combat.

It pulled itself out of the wall and approached.

“What is going on with you?”

It scratched at her, but only pierced air as she stepped away.

“Would you stop that? I can’t help you if you’re going to attack me!”

Neo recalled her being more intelligent than this. It pointed to her hammer, then pointed to its own frame. 

Her panic unfroze and dripped down to a facial expression that would be unrecognizable if it were not for the events of the past two weeks. It was an expression of Sonic towards hurt Flickies. Of a young “Rosie” uncovering a broken robot on a snowy day. 

Her hammer disappeared. “You want me to hurt you?”

Neo gave an affirmative ping before the shudder of a reprimand could stop it.

“No. I’m not going to.”

It lunged forward, piercing the skin of her arm, the tips of its claws coming away with blood.

“I’m not going to hurt you!” Amy Rose shouted. “Don’t do that again or I’ll call Sonic!”

Neo froze.

“Not that I don’t think I can smash you to pieces myself, but that I don’t want to. Tails tells me that you’re not working for Eggman anymore.”

That was the point. Without Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s interference, Neo was without purpose. Neo should be destroyed. Neo should be destroyed. Neo should be-

“Did you ever want to work for him in the first place?”

Neo looked at her.

“Did I. . . make a mistake, that one time in the snow?”

It lowered its gaze.

“Because you just seemed so sad, sitting abandoned there. Like you’d given up.”

It could not feel ‘sadness’. It could hardly recall the memory file; data input from that time had been minimized to best preserve power. It had been out of standby mode for only a minute, knocked back into active mode when she had saved it from the path of the falling tree. 

And it could not give up. Its prime core directive demanded as much. The reminder triggered reprimands, and a shudder up its neck joint rattled it out of the memory. 

“Here, can you write?” Amy Rose retrieved a pencil and pad of paper from a table at the end of the couch. “Let’s sit down so that you can tell me what’s going on instead of barging in and being rude.”

It shook its head.

“Then I’ll go get my phone so you can type.” 

She walked backwards, keeping her eyes fixed on its frame until she slipped behind a door. She returned with her cellular device, cased in pink with charms dangling from the corner. She unlocked the screen and extended the device in its direction.

“You’re either telling me what’s going on or you’re leaving.” She said.

Neo took the phone and typed, “this unit cannot give up.”

“Seems like that’s what you’re doing right now, huh?” She smiled with only half of her mouth. “Back then, I just couldn’t leave you there to die. Or deactivate, I guess. I thought at the time that you might miss Eggman. He gave you more headpats back then.”

“This unit did not wish to be left there.” To fade into nothing. It could not be nothing.

“But did you want to go back to Eggman?”

“No other beneficial course of action.”

“I could have brought you to Tails.”

“The result would have been deactivation.”

“He could have reprogrammed you, like he did just now.”

“Exposure to Tails increases likelihood of exposure to Sonic by 94%. Deactivation would have followed.”

“That’s not true.”

“Negative. This unit-”

She did not wait for it to finish typing. “That’s not true. Sonic isn’t just some bloodthirsty monster out to get you. He just wants to protect people. Every time he beat you up it’s because you did something to deserve it.”

“Define: ‘something to deserve it’.”

“You don’t know what you did wrong? I thought you wanted to be good now.”

“Define: ‘good’.” Neo stepped forward. “Define: ‘good’.”

“Good! As in, not hurting people!” Amy Rose pointed to the scratches on her arm. “Or kidnapping them!”

“67% of this unit’s missions did not involve hurting or kidnapping sentient organics.”

“Or animals! Not hurting or killing plants and animals either. Really, it’s not that hard and you missed the bar. That’s why Sonic fought you so often.”

“24% of all encounters with Sonic the Hedgehog did not involve other organic beings.”

“Because he knew that you were going out to hurt people, or to help Eggman get things to hurt people with.”

“Why did you return this unit to Dr. Ivo Robotnik?”

“I-” Amy Rose held her breath for two seconds. She directed her gaze to Neo’s foot plating. “Because I thought it was where you’d be happiest.”

“Incomprehensible. Elaborate.”

“Did you like it, when you kidnapped me?”

Neo was prepared to repeat its prior statement before its optics swiveled to the same angle as Amy Rose’s. It stared down at its body, the remains of lines and hues of purple, shaped in a way that it did indeed ‘like’. And it compared the sensation to that of returning to Dr. Ivo Robotnik’s lair with the then-little girl in hand. 

It remembered depositing her in the cell, before turning to meet its creator. It remembered a soft hand on its forehead plating. It remembered his words.

“Excellent work, my finest creation!”

Even the review of this piece of data in its memory banks brought an echo of euphoria in its processor. That it was once finest. That it once completed excellent work.

“Yes.” Neo answered. “This unit liked when Dr. Ivo Robotnik praised it.”

“But did you like seeing me afraid? Did that make you laugh or make you happy?” Amy Rose asked.

“That data was irrelevant.”

“And did you like hurting animals?”

“That data was irrelevant.” 

“And do you like hurting Sonic, or do you just want to be praised for it?”

Neo generated fifteen different responses, but only five made grammatical sense and of those, three were non-sequiturs and the other two were objectively false. 

“That’s what I thought.” Amy Rose said.

“This unit must destroy Sonic.” It snapped. “If it cannot destroy Sonic, then it must cease existing.”

“You don’t have to do either. You really don’t. I know you will never believe me. . . but you don’t.” Amy Rose stepped forward. She then sighed, before gesturing further into her house. “Follow me.”

Neo followed her past her main living area and into a room covered in decorative scraps affixed to the walls with a bed against the far wall. She opened the door to the closet and retrieved a roll of red ribbon. She retrieved scissors and snipped a scrap off the end. She then manipulated the scrap into a bow knot, before turning to face Neo.

“Here. This is the ribbon I gave you that day. I’m giving it back to you.”

This was not the ribbon that Amy Rose gave it the day she returned it to Dr. Ivo Robotnik. Dr. Ivo Robotnik had seized the fabric and thrown it into the incinerator before Neo had shut down for repair. This new ribbon was, however, of the exact same color and material composition ratio as the previous, suggesting that this roll of ribbon was the common origin of the two. 

“This time, though, you get to choose what to do with yourself. You get to go wherever you’re happiest.”

“Even if this unit is happiest when determining how to destroy Sonic?”

“If that’s where you are happiest, then I’ll beat the crap out of you with this.” She summoned her hammer again. “Because I am happiest when I’m making sure my friends aren’t getting hurt.”

“And if it is unknown where this unit is happiest?”

“Then keep going until you figure it out.” Amy Rose deposited the ribbon into its hand. 

She clasped her palm against its fingers. It loosened its joints, allowing her to curl its fingers around the fabric. She then let go. 

“You should go.” She pointed to the door. “You don’t want to be here, and I don’t want you here.”

Neo cocked its head. 

“Because I’m still really mad at you.” She gripped her hammer tighter. “But that’s something we can talk about when you figure out if you want to be better or not.”

Her statement was illogical. If she was mad at it, then she would not be giving it a gift. It could not understand. But it could understand her command, so it left her bedroom, walked through her living area, and passed through the exterior door of her house.

The door shut, and it heard two locking mechanisms engage behind it. 

Neo stood in the darkness looking at the bow in its hand.

[yumenosakiacademy]

[butternuggets-blog]

Please repost to get a bigger data pool.

[jack-in-the-dark]

The Ch'katik Danger Assessment Scale

It had taken Ch'katik a long time to become acclimated the new chief engineer.

He didn't mind that she was human. The ship's previous chief engineer had been human, and Ch'katik had quite liked John.

It wasn't that the new chief was female, either; after all, his eusocial species' societal structure was based around matriarchy, and while he had left it hadn't been because of the leadership.

Nor was it because he had been "passed over" for promotion, as a crewmate had implied. Ch'katik was a worker caste. It's true that when given clear instructions or goal, a sh'vth worker is almost unparalleled in the speed and efficiency of a task. But, as Ch'katik was all too aware, his caste was not particularly adept at dealing with crisis situations. Heading off an unexpected power surge during repairs before it exploded was simple - but without a leader, a worker caste would stand in paralyzed confusion during the attack that necessitated said repairs.

It was the stark difference in personality that had given Ch'katik trouble. John was a kind, soft-spoken elder. He smiled a lot and was very friendly, and his breadth of knowledge was truly astounding! Ch'katik had always admired that about him. The little tug they called home was centuries old. Her various systems had been replaced, upgraded, modified, refitted, bypassed, repaired, and shenanigans'd by dozens of engineers from dozens of worlds with dozens of species' tech. By the time John retired, the tug was in better working order than when even Ch'katik had been brought on board.

This new engineer, this Becky, shared John's intuitive understanding of the ship's inner workings, but otherwise she couldn't have been more different. He knew most species mellowed with age, but the contrast in age made the differences all the more stark. She was often abrasive, sarcastic, cynical, and, as another crewmate had put it, "starts the day looking like she was done with everyone's shit a week ago." Ch'katik couldn't imagine John had ever been like her.

And her language! Ch'katik considered himself familiar with most species' profanity, but working under Becky had been a learning experience. She used some of humanity's most offensive words like punctuation, and she wasn't quiet about it unless she was snarking at something.

But he couldn't deny her skill - Ch'katik was fairly certain that for all his experience and talent, Becky was noticeably the better engineer. And while she certainly was rough around the edges, she'd never offended Ch'katik. Colorful language aside, she was one of the more respectful leaders he had worked under. Every other chief engineer he'd known had practically babysat him for the first few weeks, but Becky had simply immediately assumed that he was reliable and knew what he was doing. Ch'katik appreciated that.

And over time, her propensity for swearing had actually become quite useful for Ch'katik. He could now reliably gauge the danger and seriousness of a problem by paying attention to the volume and intensity of her profanity.

Which lead him to the current situation. The ship was under attack by pirates. Or so it had seemed, but from what Ch'katik could gather from the engine room, the pirates were pursuing them even though they'd decoupled from their cargo and were fleeing at best speed.

They were taking fire, and the two of them were were barely keeping up with damage control while she argued with the captain over the intercom.

"It's our only chance! We stay here, we're dead!" the captain urged.

"It's goddamn suicide!" Becky countered, before briefly putting a wrench in her teeth so she could use both hands to fit a replacement power coupling into place as the ship rocked around them. Taking the wrench back in hand, she continued her counterargument. "The drive housing's damaged, we jump without securing it and being fucking dead might end up being preferable! And that's assuming our hull even survives the goddamn jump in the first place!"

She held the wrench out to Ch'katik, who was already reaching for it with one arm and handing her the needed plasma torch with another. Becky was very upset, and by his judgment of her language, the ship was in worse shape than he thought.

Becky immediately set to welding the coupling into place. "I like this ship, cap, but I don't like it well enough to phase half my fucking mass into a random bulkhead!"

With the arms not holding tools, Ch'katik finished up repairing the wiring the coupling had fried when it blew. Listening to the captain and Becky argue, he again thanked the universe that he was working caste. He did not envy these decisions, nor could he even say which option he preferred. Certain immediate death did not seem much better than probable horrible, painful death.

"We're making the jump, Becky! That's an order!"

"FUCK!" Becky exclaimed, punching the bulkhead. Ch'katik winced, but not at the action. Her outburst was a very bad sign.

He didn't need her to tell him to follow her back to the engine room, and so she didn't. A particularly bad hit nearly sent them reeling - having only the two legs, the chief engineer was nearly thrown to the deck. Ch'katik helped her steady herself before they continued on towards their goal.

Becky bee-lined for the main control console, only needing to briefly point to the power distribution console to tell Ch'katik what he needed to do. As beat up as they were, making sure the drive received steady power was paramount. Ensuring it was protected from any surges was equally as important, but if that happened at least no one would be left to complain.

"Spinning the drive up!" Becky announced, and Ch'katik heard the increasing, shuddering whine of the machine preparing to do the impossible. Unfortunately, that might not be metaphorical.

Ch'katik focused on his job. The reactors were stable, which he thanked the stars for. The real trouble was making sure there was uninterrupted power flow from them to the jump drive - at any moment, a shot from the pirates could damage the distribution systems, and if he wasn't fast enough it would cause a power dip and the drive would fail.

"Now or never, captain!" Becky yelled over the steady din of the jump drive.

Ch'katik felt it happen. It was like suddenly going very fast in every direction while someone put his organs in a vice. An instant later, it ceased.

Unfortunately, also an instant later, a loud unpleasant noise rang out and the ship shuddered. The lights flickered and went out, sending them into complete darkness for a moment before the orange emergency lights kicked in.

Ch'katik hesitated. It was quiet. Much too quiet. Nervously, he turned to look at Becky, to gauge the gravity of their situation.

Becky leaned against the console, staring down at the readouts, and let out a quiet sigh. "Ah, beans."

Ch'katik fainted.

Author's note: I first posted this on r/hfy about a year ago, so if it's familiar that's probably where you read it. I figured it was about time I posted some OC to tumblr, so I thought, why not some of the stuff I've written?