#and the stupid AI function just worsens it

[spaghetticat3899]

I’m getting so annoyed with google lately

NO I didn’t ask about salvia, I asked about saliva, I asked if any animals had saliva that could effect mental processing via bacteria or whatever.

Reword the question? NO I’M NOT TALKING ABOUT ANIMALS GETTING HIGH!

Reword it again? Ugh, NO I’m not talking about dogs having rabies!

Are there any animals with non-venomous saliva that would cause behavioral changes? GOOD GOD, IM NOT TALKING ABOUT DOGS, PLEASE

[sos-amchespin-sendhelp]

SOS CQ DE 40.4166N; 3.7038W? = TRAPPED IN ALTERNATE REALITY FOR 2 YR APPROX SFR; AM CHESPIN SEND HELP

Let me elaborate.

I presumed, for a good while, that my name was Alger.

The conditions on Zero Isle, and indeed most of the ocean, have worsened such that spacetime is strangling itself. I suppose it won't be long before the whole island is one colossal Mystery Dungeon and Magnagate latitude compressors cease to function. But before and therein lies a brief window of opportunity:

The small scraps of internet that leak through to this world from the one where I previously lived. Just enough for, say, an empty Rotom Phone from another world to send and view messages.

One of the first things I tried was to look up what little I remembered about myself, and discovered that I'd inadvertently stolen the name of a fictional rodent. But while my old identity is still lost to me, I have thankfully had two years to process that reality and friends to help me do so.

(Pictured: Leland, an Oshawott (♀) who I am half-convinced was randomly generated and unleashed upon the world like Mr. Bean descending from the heavens, and myself. Not Pictured: Auburn, the long-suffering Pikachu (♂) who figured out how to work the phone camera.)

There exists an alternate universe inhabited only by Pokémon, with an Earth quite like yours. Approximately 43% of its surface no longer exists.

It's difficult to describe — or even measure — something whose fundamental property is the degradation of properties: physical, epistemological, temporal. That, ultimately, is what is referred to as the Mystery Dungeon phenomena. Affected areas break down and warp in a process akin to AI image generation losing the plot and dissolving into incoherence. The simularities are uncanny.

I don't know why I'm here or why I'm not human anymore — assuming there's a reason to begin with — and to be frank I am very much freaking the fuck out about pretty much everything (also apparently this is a problem others have dealt with? wtf?). This blog/log/slog is primarily to call attention to the fact that, yes, "Fallers" (stupid name) are not just delusional. and the world they've fallen to is unraveling before my eyes. Also to figuring out who the hell I am would be nice i guess.

Ask me anything!

UPDATE: INTRODUCTION ACT 2

Until I can get a hold of a more consistent internet connection, expect transmissions of wildly fluxuating quality. There will be a lot of BARE-BONES MORSE CODE TRANSCRIPTIONS since that's the only thing that can fit through edgewise most of the time, interspersed with longer posts that I shall publish when the opportunity (and bandwidth) arises.

--- ((Yo waddup its yo boy @glassesfreekjr, This is a hybrid pokemon irl / askblog that may gradually spiral into its own plot. Ask me anything, send me anything, whatever you'd like. I'm dipping my toe in the water. He/Him.

((Potential Content Warning: for future character death and intense descriptions of dysphoria, mental illness, body horror, and/or cosmic horror. Depending how things go.

((I tend to mashup pre-existing artwork into original compositions. I will try to give credit wherever I can.))

[teacup-crow]

Maybe, Maybe, Maybe

Fun bit of survivors’ guilt for @badthingshappenbingo, based pretty heavily off Don’t Poke the Bear and Variations on a Theme. Post-finale.

They take it in turns to keep watch for when he wakes up: Doug, Reneé, Isabel, first names still such a novelty. Just his luck, he opens his eyes to the impassive face of Captain Lovelace.

“Hi, dickbag. Sore head?”

“Unnnnhh…” he whines as if he’s lying under a ton of rocks rather than a cosy quilt on Renee’s living room floor. His face is a patchwork of bruising. “Aspirin?”

She takes pity, and passes him two and a glass of water. The sitting up takes longer than he thought it would.

“You look terrible. Lucky for you, Renee makes a mean chilli con carne. Never would have guessed she could cook.”

“No thanks, I should, should be going-”

“You need food in your system, that’s non-negotiable. First thing’s first, though, you’re having a shower, and you either go willingly or get dragged bodily, because you goddamn stink. Do I make myself clear?”

“Yes, sir,” he mumbles automatically, and he remembers the Colonel - Warren? Was it on a day he could call him Warren? - once saying something similar and his head pounds. ((“mr jacobi, of all the irresponsible, stupid shit i have seen from you this really takes the-“))

“Bathroom’s on the second floor, just past the master bedroom. Dominick put a pile of clean clothes in there before he left for work. And it’s Isabel, okay? Not sir. Not Captain. Never again.”

***

“Who did this to you?”

He grips his mug of sweet tea like it’s thousand dollar whiskey. He’s still ashen. “I did this to me.”

“You beat the shit out of yourself? Okay, yeah. Don’t buy that one.” Isabel repeats the question. “Who did this to you?”

“Just some guys I pissed off. I don’t know how many. I don’t know who. Happy now?”

The room goes silent. Isabel continues:

“And did you go provoking them deliberately?”

Not for the first time, Renee wonders whether they should have included Doug in this little intervention. He’s been through so much just like the rest of them, but he doesn’t know it, and he’s clearly freaking out at the situation.

“Why would he want something like that to happen? He looks terrible!”

“I don’t know, Doug,” Isabel says levelly. “Care to answer, Jacobi?”

He’s not on a first name basis, apparently.

“Not… I didn’t... no. No, no, no. I was too drunk and… picking fights, but suddenly there were too many of them, okay? But I got out. And if I want to drink then that’s my own problem, so thank you for the hospitality but-“

Renee cuts in there. “When you drink yourself into a stupor, get attacked by a gang in a back alley, and stumble into my doorway at 0300 hours after six months of radio silence, it becomes our problem.” Her look of pity makes his stomach churn even more than the chilli did. He breathes in, hold, out; in, hold, out; in-((alana’s breathing technique and why why why is she everywhere in everything why does he have to see her out of the corner of his eye when it’s been so long he can’t properly remember her face-))

“Fine. What do you want from me?”

“You are a good man and you saved every single one of our lives and we need to understand why you’re so intent on throwing yours away.”

Jacobi starts laughing then, guttural laughs that worsen the ache in his head and bones but he can’t seem to stop them. “...me? I’m a good man? Oh my God, Lieutenant, that’s hilarious. Give us another.”

“You need to take this seriously! This is a form of self harm! You could have died!” Isabel is pacing up and down. She and Renee do good cop, bad cop like it’s a professional sport.

“Boo fucking hoo. And the world would forever be worse off for my passing.”

Isabel stops, and turns back towards him with some heat in her gaze. “I have lost too many crew members who deserved to die far less than you do. Okay? Is that what you want to hear? Do you need me to reconfirm that you are a an asshole? Do you need to hear about how Fisher, and Hui, and Fourier, and Lambert were all far better people than you will ever, ever be? Or will you accept that you are good in there? That deep down you’re on the right-“

“We burned their letters.” He’s staring at the duvet he’s wrapped in, running his finger over the flowers on the pattern. “Okay? Still think I’m a good person?”

“...wait. What?” She laughs a little, in shock perhaps. “But you told me…”

“I told you what I needed to tell you to make you trust me. We burned your crew’s letters. Lambert’s… I remember those especially. His hands were shaking really hard when he wrote them, weren’t they.”

It’s not a question.

Isabel stops pacing, and Jacobi grins again but it doesn’t reach his bruised eyes when he looks up at her. “More than mine, even. You could tell he was sick. They didn’t make any sense. We laughed at them. The irony of a Communications Officer who can’t communicate. Are you listening to me? We read their letters and we burned them and we laughed about it-“

Renee loses her softness. “Jacobi, that is enough!”

Isabel has a hand on her chest as if something has hit her there. She counts to ten in her head, ((fisher’s technique to try and stop her fighting with sam, never worked but still stuck in her head, or this copy of her head, or whoever she is now-)) and leaves the room.

They hear her slamming drawers in the kitchen.

Doug glances at Jacobi and shakes his head, before hurrying after her.

“How could you,” Reneé says. “How could you.”

“I don’t know. Will you let me go and ruin my own life now?”

“Never,” she replies. “Because, God help me, you’re still a member of my crew.”

At that, his eyes prick with tears he can’t explain. He rolls over on the air bed, and closes them.

***

“Lovelace?” Jacobi finally makes himself walk into the kitchen, grimacing like each step is on hot sand. The words are monotone. “I’m so sorry. What I did and said is... inexcusable.”

“Nope. That’s too large a word for your vocabulary. Come back to me with an apology Renée didn’t script,” Isabel snaps, going back to scribbling in a sketchbook.

“Look, I’m not much good at this-“

“You’re telling me.”

“I’m… really used to people yelling at me and hitting me until they feel better. Or you can shoot me if you like!”

“Jesus. Well, I am not about to do that to ease your guilt. You look like you’d snap if one more person poked you. So apologise properly.”

“I’m sorry…”

“For?” Isabel prompts over the top of her book.

“I’m sorry for burning your crew’s letters.”

“You did what you were ordered to do. It is what it is. I’m not condoning it.”

There’s a moment of silence, and Jacobi realises she’s waiting for him to continue. “And… I’m sorry for bringing it up. That was… needlessly cruel. It sucked.”

“It really did,” she replies, putting the book down. “Tell you what: that sounded somewhat genuine, and Goddard brought out the shit in all of us. You look so pathetic, I’m going to forgive you. Not because you deserve it, but because I don’t bear grudges. Not anymore.”

She holds out a hand, and he shakes it. “Thank you.”

“Wow. That actually hurt for you to say.”

Jacobi nods. He sits down across from her at Renée’s huge darkwood table, and thinks about how she and Dominick must have bought this when they moved in together with plans to have people over for dinner every other night. Maybe even plans to have kids.

He wonders if Dominick ate at it alone while his wife was gone.

“So, you gone on that holiday yet?”

“No, actually. I’ve legally been dead for about seven years, so getting a passport is proving pretty tricky.”

“I can imagine.”

“Where have you been, anyway? We tried to get into contact with you. We drove down to your old apartment - got your address from the Goddard database - but it was cleaned out.”

Jacobi looks sheepish. “Yeah, well, I’d mostly been staying at Alana’s for the last few years or overnight at… yeah… so I’d not been a very good tenant and turns out they took ‘lost in space’ as the perfect opportunity to kick me out. So I’ve been sofa to sofa, on the streets a bit-”

“For heaven’s sake, Jacobi. We would have helped you, you stupid asshole! All you had to do was ask and you could have stayed here! Renee and Dominick would probably even let you have a cheese collection or whatever the fuck it was.”

“Guess the amount of drinks it takes for me to lose my pride is somewhere over eighteen?”

“How do you have a functioning liver?”

They sit in an almost comfortable silence for a few minutes, Isabel reopening her sketchbook.

“I never knew you drew.”

“You never knew me outside of a life-threatening situation.” Isabel sighs, twists the pencil between her fingers. “I don’t think I did. Before. The old ‘me’, I mean. But I was bored and I can’t get a job because of the ‘being dead’ issue, so I thought I should take up a hobby or something. Might be therapeutic. I’m not very good at it…”

“Can I see?”

“I, uh,” Isabel suddenly looks uncertain. “I drew her. Maxwell. I drew everyone, actually. Are you sure you want to look?”

“Yes.”

He leafs through the pages, at first simple doodles before branching into full portraits. Eiffel, upside down and smoking a cigarette. Hilbert, looking troubled at a shadow behind him he can’t quite see. Two ghostlike figures in lab coats staring out at the star, the man with a prophetic terror etched on his face - must be Isabel’s old crewmates. Mr Cutter smiles up at him with far too many sharp teeth in sharper lines where the pencil was pressed far too hard and he turns the page quickly. There’s Kepler, mid-whiskey speech and it almost stops his heart. He pauses. Maxwell.

In the picture, her eyes are shining as she stares at Hera’s console, fingers nothing more than a blur - the three-day stint she spent trying to get the AI online. Aside from the orange and blue of Wolf 359, elsewhere in the book Isabel has barely used colour, but here the room is bathed in a serene green light from the screens. Behind Maxwell, Jacobi sees himself, little more than a stocky, sketchy outline, waiting for her to finish.

He looks so proud of her.

He looks so… content.

After staring for a long moment, Jacobi closes the book and hands it back. “Thank you.”

“You can keep the pictures of them, if you like,” Isabel offers, but he doesn’t know whether he would like, so he says:

“Tell me about your crew.”

“What?”

“Your old crew. Tell me about them. Was Lambert the one staring at...?”

“No. No. No, that was Kuan Hui, our senior astrophysicist. He was whipsmart and funny and fearless, until the time Goddard Futuristics played around in his brain, stretched out his perception of time. He was completely alone in the dark for two weeks. His smile never really reached his eyes after that.”

Jacobi sips tea awkwardly, even though it’s cold.

“Something like that, it stays with you. At least he had Fourier, though.”

“That’s the woman behind him?”

“Junior physicist. Victoire Fourier had eyes like stars. Cleverest person I’ve ever met. She played six instruments, spoke four languages and she had the most gentle soul. She used to read to Hui when he got sick with Decima. Coughed up every organ in his body. I thought it would break her, but she was made of stern stuff. She vanished off the space station in the final days and I still don’t know what exactly happened to her-”

“I… do. If you want to know, I mean.”

Isabel shakes her head. Then pauses. Then shakes her head again. “I get the feeling whoever is to blame is long gone.”

Jacobi shrugs. “Who else?”

“Well, there was Mace Fisher. Fisher… Fisher died because of me, not Goddard Futuristics. Asteroid shower tore him from my hands. He had a boyfriend waiting at home. He was sensitive, sensible, grounding. A real older brother type. I- I didn’t deal particularly well with his death. Well, you know that much.”

((Pill popper!)) Jacobi gulps more cold tea.

“And Lambert?”

“Sam Lambert. Officer Samuel Lambert had a stick up his ass. He was whiny, and authoritarian, and he treasured his copy of Pryce and Carter more than Reneé and Kepler combined did. He drove me nearly insane, and I drove him likewise. The best second in command you could ask for. A damn good man. Sam got sick after Hui, so we knew what was coming. What it meant. He was brave, though. At first.”

((“C-Captain, please shoot me, please, it hurts, it hurts, Captain, please, I just want it to-”)

She falters.

“Lovelace?”

“Yup?”

“You know, it’s not even really about the Hephaestus. I keep… it’s insane, but I keep thinking about… I was an explosives guy for the Air Force. Before Goddard. A trigger failed and two men died. Andrews and Sullivan. I haven’t thought about them in years and suddenly-“

“They’re everywhere?”

There’s a sudden understanding between them.

“They’re everywhere. Them and Maxwell and Kepler. They’re in mirrors, in the back of my brain, around corners.”

“Flashes of them.”

“And if you just reach out far enough, maybe-“

“Maybe-“

“Maybe.”

((let’s go be monsters)), Jacobi’s brain echoes. He grits his teeth.

“Did it stop for you? When does it stop?” He finds himself asking. Isabel doesn’t answer.

[allee-e-writing-blog]

First One-Shot

“If you’re going to die, at least do it quieter.” They were the wrong words to say to Jo as she takes things far too literally and personally. Tony had said it out of anger, the two in a constant state of clashing from the moment they met. They both liked control and neither wanted to give it up, but Tony was regretting the snarky comment now.

“Sir?” Tony looked up from his work at the call of Friday, raising an eyebrow. “Jo’s passed out in the kitchen.” He dropped the plan for his newest tweaked suit, running for the kitchen.

“What do you mean passed out? Is she alright? Did something attack her?” Tony asked as he opted for the stairs. While the elevator was fast, it was nowhere near the proper floor to handle getting him to the unconscious woman as fast as he needed to.

“She was attacked earlier sir, she tried to tell you, but you didn’t respond well.” Friday informed him.

“She,” He paused, trying to think back to what he had said. “What did I say to her?”

“If you’re going to die, at least do it quieter.” The words spat back out at him hurt, but it hurt worse in his own tone. He hadn’t thought the wound was that serious; hell, he wasn’t even supposed to have her out of tower from what her team said, but he needed to stop Frostbite from escaping and she was on hand.

“She got blasted by him into that wall Tony, she isn’t made of iron.” The AI chided and he sighed as he opened the door to the kitchen. Jo was on the ground with her eyes closed, looking quite peaceful despite the situation she was in. A broken cup of hot tea was beside her, Tony quickly moving her to save her from any more burns she may have gotten from the scolding liquid. He placed a hand over her forehead, frowning at the temperature he felt.

“Friday, give me a reading of her temperature.” He started to pick her up, the girl much lighter than he expected her to be.

“97.1 sir.” Tony’s frown only worsened like his concern, the man making a beeline for the infirmary.

“How long till her team comes back again?” He glanced down to the sorceress as he listened to the rambling of the AI, her calculations pointing to a few days at most. “Well kid, seems I’m gonna be Nurse Tony for a little while, huh?” He laid her in the bed, going over to the supplies that Bruce had organized. He grabbed an IV, using that to get her the proper fluids she needed. He looked down to her with a sigh with her situated, grabbing a few blankets to cover in. He dragged a chair to be by her bedside, sitting beside her. “It shouldn’t be that bad, I mean, it was just a little cold, right?”

*******************************************************************************************

It was bad.

It was very bad.

Despite the constant care and checking in on her every ten minutes or so, Jo’s temperature continued to reduce and Tony was even more worried now. He definitely did not want to call her team for help and Clint was out of the picture unless he wanted to watch his back for the next few weeks for letting his daughter get this hurt - he had no idea who else to turn to. He called up his emergency, hoping that he would actually respond.

“Tony?” He looked over to the door to Doctor Stephen Strange, unable to help the slight smile that came to his face at the prospect of an actual doctor being there. “You called?”

“Yeah, Jo’s sick and it’s only getting worse.” He turned his eyes back to the girl, Stephen easily crossing the room to check on the girl. He felt at her forehead, mumbling a few technical terms under his breath before glancing back to Tony.

“I can tell she’s been around some cold temperatures; how long was she exposed to them?” Stephen asked and Tony blinked, replaying the fight in his head. She had went in after him, but that was only because Frostbite froze him in place and his heaters hadn’t melted the ice yet. She got blasted by him a few times, but nothing too extreme.

“Maybe ten minutes at the most?” Tony posed it more of a question and Stephen nodded, looking over the girl once more.

“I need you to get me as many blankets as you can and to have Friday start to increase the temperature in the room.” He said as his cloak moved to help cover the girl.

“Why?” Tony asked, already on his feet to get what was requested of him.

“I think she has hypothermia.”

*******************************************************************************************

“What are you doing now?” Tony was seated further from her at this point, Stephen in his element of doctorhood. The wizard had put something on the bag of blood he was putting back into Jo’s body after taking it out, the millionaire watching the whole thing puzzled.

“Well Mr. Stark,” Stephen started with his name to ensure his attention, glancing back to him as he kept working. “I’m heating up the blood within her system so that it could help return her temperature to normal. Her temperature was far too low and her healing abilities barely kept her together.”

“It, it was that bad?” Tony couldn’t help the slight stutter in his tone, Stephen just nodding.

“She doesn’t do well in cold extremes Tony, but she’ll be fine. I’ve gotten her temperature a lot higher, as long as you keep the oxygen mask on her and keep a very close eye on her, she’ll return to normal before you know it.” Stephen pointed out as he went to go wash his hands.

“You aren’t leaving me, are you?” Tony asked faster than he wanted to, Stephen smiling to himself as he dried his hands.

“What? You unable to keep an eye on a teenage girl?” He turned to keep teasing him, his smile falling at the guilty look on Tony’s face. “Tony, she’s going to be okay.” He quickly moved over to him, a bit startled at seeing him look so upset about the whole thing. “You didn’t know how bad it would affect her, you can’t predict the future.”

“What if it had been any of the others that I was so careless with?” Stephen went to speak, but Tony continued. “What if it had been Peter? If he was in as bad a shape as she was, I couldn’t forgive myself for being so careless. I said things to her I shouldn’t have and she didn’t tell me because I was stupid and told her that if she’s going to die, at least do it quieter.” Stephen closed his eyes as Tony continued his worried ramble. “I hadn’t meant it seriously, I thought she was just goofing around and was faking a cough and the chills because the guy we fought was related to ice. I…” He trailed off, looking over to her. “I messed up big time and I don’t know what I would do if it was any worse.”

“Probably cry in a corner and think of even worse what-if scenarios if your past couple minutes say anything.” Jo spoke from the bed, making both men jump. Stephen went into doctor mode, checking over her temperature and her motor functions while Tony took a well-needed sigh of relief.

“Her temperature is 96.9 and rising sir.” Friday informed Stephen and he nodded.

“Within the next hour, her temperature should level out and she should recover just fine.” Stephen looked over to Tony who just numbly accepted the information.

“I think I died a little loudly with all the attention I got, huh?” She joked and Stephen rolled his eyes.

“What happened out there?” Stephen asked and she explained about a blast of ice she had shot at her.

“It like, froze over my magical system. I could move and talk normally, but the ice shut down every other aspect of me and made my healing factor much weaker, but that always happens when I exert myself too much.” She was cross legged, the oxygen mask barely remembered as her temperature was near normal. “I didn’t think it was that bad, that’s why I was just going to get some tea and stay under the blankets and all that. It was a lot worse than I thought it was and frankly, I’m glad Tony called you; I was getting a bit worried there.”

Stephen nodded and ruffled her hair as Tony approached. “I’m sorry about my comment Jo, I thought that you were joking and-”

“And if I wasn’t actually dying, I would have laughed my ass off Tony. I’m not one to complain; the boys and Clint can second that. Even if you did pry, I wouldn’t have said cause it’s not who I am. It’s not your fault; I’m not angry at you or your comment so don’t be angry at yourself.” He smiled a bit at her words, nodding. “Now, if you aren’t done sulking, can you do it quieter?”

P.S - I also don’t know how this is formatted on computer vs mobile, so I’m sorry if this looks funny or the keep reading thing doesn’t work