#a softer dbda

[shamelesslymkp]

sometimes an apology just makes things worse.

[e-vasong]

36 for the prompt?

SOME BORGWIN FOR YOU, NIC!!! May not make sense if you haven't read my Star Trek AU for DBDA.

TW: Attempted suicide

36 - Total Control

….

On the fourth day, Edwin tries to kill himself.

If he were more resilient, if he were stronger, his assimilation would be nearly done. But he isn’t. His body takes poorly to the implants, and at this rate, the process could take weeks.

Edwin is the sort of inferior specimen that the Borg would otherwise cull. He knows that. But he also knows the precise location and relative distance of almost every populated planet in this system and the next, including several who have only made First Contact in the past few years. He’s the one who mapped them after all, and that is the sort of knowledge that makes him worth assimilating.

He waits for an opportunity to escape, at first. Then when one does not present itself, and when his condition begins to deteriorate, he waits to die. Except he doesn’t. He begins, very slowly, to get better. To become only more conscious as his limbs and organs are taken one by one. Some are replaced immediately, others left as open and empty wounds for now. 

The Borg are with him always. They’re physically all around him, of course, some hanging limply from their wires like cadaverous marionettes and others jammed gracefully into the walls in perfectly compact tangles of limbs, dim-eyed and still in their stasis.

There is a terrible moment on the third day where they crack open his skull and reach inside. He feels nothing at first, then a strange, mushy sort of give and—

They’re inside him now. A colony of ants crawling through the folds of his brain, a second set of neurons that he can feel, marching in perfect lockstep to the beat of a silent drum. 

And Edwin knows that he’s a bit of a coward. His family had expressed that very clearly when he shied away from a more glorious role in command, then again when he declined riskier field science roles so he could make star maps instead.

But he is not quite such a coward that he would let the Borg kill millions with the knowledge he possesses.

It should be simple, really, to unplug himself—he hasn’t fully taken to his artificial lungs yet, so they have him on a ventilator. One simple tug, and that will be it. He’ll suffocate, and it will no doubt be terrible beyond description. 

A worthy trade, if it saves all those lives.

He has to stretch an arm across his body to reach the machine. The other has already been amputated — the port in place but the mechanical prosthetic not yet installed. It takes three halting tries for him to close his hand around the wire.

And then he goes no further. His fingers freeze, every muscle and nerve locked into place. Even his trembling stops. 

The Borg’s awakening to his plans is quiet, mildly confused. In this moment, Edwin feels less like he’s been caught and more like a flyaway hair, noticed by chance then tucked neatly back into place. 

THIS DOES NOT BENEFIT THE COLLECTIVE. 

His hand uncurls. 

RESISTANCE IS FUTILE, say a hundred hundred thousand minds as they brush up against his own, but the words are softer than Edwin remembers. Kinder. Countless glowing eyes peer from the walls, from the ceiling, all unblinking in the dark. YOU WILL GIVE UP TOTAL CONTROL TO THE COLLECTIVE. WE WILL ADD YOUR DISTINCTIVENESS TO OUR OWN, AND YOU WILL ADAPT TO SERVICE US.

And when his arm lays itself back down, he sees himself for the briefest moment as the Collective does. Prone. Disassembled. A mess of flesh and blood that may yet be salvaged. The watchers and the watched, reflected endlessly back upon each other.

The lights around him flicker out one by one. Stars and planets consumed, wiped off the map as the Borg turn their gaze once more outward, into endless darkness.

[shaylogic]

DBDA Season 2 Wishlist Part 3

another anthropomorphized animal love interest or two for Edwin

deep Cat King lore and maybe even a whole Case on him. are there other cat kings in other towns? when he loses his last life, does another random cat become king and know how to shapeshift suddenly?

both Tragic Mick and Cat King are directly involved in helping Niko get back

Cat King's next crush is Niko but he takes a softer, sweeter approach to it. He learned from Edwin's conversation with him at the end of season 1, and Niko's recovering from being dead(?). Maybe he guides her through whatever shared supernatural experience he and she may have

Halloween episode

I know they wanna do a winter holiday special, which I'm sure could be very fluffy. But in the comics, at least, the winter holidays is also exactly when Charles died, so we could have some angsty hurt/comfort about how different this year with friends is

Child actors hired to portray younger flashbacks for our core four (Niko, Crystal, Charles, Edwin) in their living childhoods with their families of the past

More on Tragic Mick's involvement with supernatural goings-on... where do all the items in his shop come from? Is he a trans-dimensional being, and how? (He is in the comics). What's his deal with neutrally providing items to the heroes and villains alike?

Full blown Kashi episode/case

Another love interest for Crystal as other relationships are shifting around?

Adaptation of Crystal's comic story of losing a friend (Rosa) to a spirit in the Neitherlands (probably proxies onto Niko in the show)

Live Girl Detectives on their own case without the boys (like we got a bit of in s1e8)

Animal companion/pet for the office. The actors said in an interview they'd love that (could just be Monty tbh)

Dream sequences for our protags that have nods to The Dreaming and may even have a glimpse of Morpheus in it backround

Jenny is swayed by a cute and badass Londener to give dating another shot

While traveling through a mirror, it shatters/cracks, and one of our ghosts gets stuck!! (Also a comic event)

The gang is able to interrogate more information about how the afterlife works from the Night Nurse

Feel free to add your own wishlist in the reblogs/comments! <3

[shamelesslymkp]

just saying.

[draco-malfoy-is-fruity]

That’s fucking sick

"Dying Is an art, like everything else. I do it exceptionally well.

I do it so it feels like hell." -Sylvia Plath, Lady Lazarus

[shamelesslymkp]

"As he read, I fell in love the way you fall asleep: slowly, and then all at once." -John Green, The Fault in Our Stars | inspired by a softer world

[shamelesslymkp]

freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose

[shamelesslymkp]

let's hang out to the DEATH END

[shamelesslymkp]

and the guilt I expected never came

[shamelesslymkp]

this, at least, is up to me

[shamelesslymkp]

heartache to heartache we stand

[shamelesslymkp]

alternatively, puppies

[shamelesslymkp]

then we'll go back to real life

[shamelesslymkp]

and anyways your kisses were stupid

[shamelesslymkp]

there's not a word yet for old friends who've just met

[shamelesslymkp]

“All witches are selfish, the Queen had said. But Tiffany’s Third Thoughts said: Then turn selfishness into a weapon! Make all things yours! Make other lives and dreams and hopes yours! Protect them! Save them! Bring them into the sheepfold! Walk the gale for them! Keep away the wolf! My dreams! My brother! My family! My land! My world! How dare you try to take these things, because they are mine! I have a duty!” -Terry Pratchett, The Wee Free Men | inspired by a softer world