#and their style guide ONLY mentioned writing it as [uh] so i assumed that's how they did all filler noises and was wrong UGGHHHGG

[yessu]

honestly I'd love to get paid to transcribe podcasts/fix auto subtitles and stuff like that but my understanding of grammar apparently isn't enough to apply to any companies that'd accept freelancers because they have hyperspecific style guidelines o|-< please. i Like checking things for accuracy and copying things down. i would love to make a money doing it.

[rattyoakenbitch]

youtubers: “don’t touch her” ₊˚ ⸝  corpse husband x reader

❝i don't wanna think about, think about you. drink up, drink up i'm so fucked up, all i want is you.❞

gif credit: n/a song: lykke li - sex money feelings die

˚₊· ͟͟͞͞➳❥

pairings: corpse husband x reader

warnings: angst, cursing, drinking, smoking, violent language, and minor mentions of anxiety.

summary: i can’t make summaries rn hhh just read it (:

“Sean, there is no way in hell I’m going!”

“Oh, come on, Y/N. It’ll be fun!”

“That’s what you always say!”

“Ugh, you and Corpse are so stubborn. At least I was able to convince him to show up! You know what you need? To get out of the house more often and come hang with us.”

“Uh huh, yeah, y’all have fun, I got some stuff to finish.”

“Yeah? Like what? Your ten hour nap?”

“HEY! Excuse me -”

“7PM, [club address], you’re showing up.”

“Sean - !”

With that, Sean hung up. You let out an exasperated huff, crossing your arms and pouting like a toddler who was just denied a toy. You were invited, or more accurrately forced to celebrate whatever the hell Sean and his friends achieved. With lives like theirs, it seemed like there was always something to celebrate. 

You, on the other hand.. Well, you were just little old you. You met Sean by mere chance. It’s a very long story, but you shared some things in common, like your love for video games. However, that was about the only thing you could relate to with Sean and his little friend circle. You were more passionate about writing, as well as reading short horror stories. 

Now, that’s where you clicked with Corpse Husband. 

He was an underrated YouTuber, whose main uploads were narration videos on creepypastas and horror stories. That’s until he blew up with his Among Us gameplays, collaborating with big names like PewDiePie, Jacksepticeye, and CrankGamePlays (EEF!!!).

You met over an Among Us stream with said YouTubers and immediately hit it off. You shared a dark sense of humor, love for horror, and music. You knew of Corpse before, but only then did you discover that he produced music, which you absolutely enjoyed (and blasted in your house for days on end).

When you found out you lived not even twenty minutes away from each other, you’d occasionally meet up, mostly at his house considering he only went out once in a blue moon. You’d sometimes even spend the night at his place, staying up late, gazing up at the stars, getting deep into conversation and opening up about things you never blurted out to people. But when you were with Corpse, everything just came naturally. You felt safe with him, and hopefully, he felt the same. 

Night approached, the clock striking 5PM. You figured you’d get ready since Sean was dead set on you coming to the party. You showered, did a minimalist glossy makeup look, and chose an outfit, which consisted of a half neon green and black skirt that stopped mid thigh, and an oversized distressed band tee which you tucked into your belt. You slipped on a pair of ripped, striped thigh-highs with mismatched colors, (white stripes on one and neon blue on the other), and your platform boots that made you look like a Bratz Doll. You didn’t bother with your tangled hair. You teased it with a brush but didn’t put any effort into styling it, since it’d get messy anyways. To finish your look, you clipped on a choker and dangled a couple of layered chains around your neck.

Corpse would tease you, saying you had a “dog collar”, but you knew he secretly liked it.

All dolled up and ready to go, you hopped into your car and followed the GPS to the address Sean sent you. Drunk couples stumbled out of the club, dates headed inside, and old wasted guys were thrown out. Oh boy, you were not ready for this.

You were the anxious, anti social type. Not because it was edgy or cool, but you simply didn’t know how to handle social situations. However, it comforted you to know Corpse would be there by your side so you didn’t need to chat and flirt with strangers. 

It’s not like you wanted to meet anybody new, anyways. Though nobody was aware of it, you had feelings for Corpse. Cliche, right? You knew you shouldn’t have, but you developed feelings for him. It made you feel strange and weird, considering you haven’t caught feelings in a while.

You came up with the bright idea of slowly drifting away from Corpse to maybe help de-escalate these feelings, but you were going to run into him at the club, so what the heck.

You headed inside, your eyes scanning the crowd and pushing through, searching for your friend group. You spent a couple minutes cluelessly looking around the club, but to no avail. Then, it was as if a light bulb clicked on over your head; you never thought to phone Sean.

“Ugh, I’m so stupid.” You reached into your purse to get ahold of your phone when a pair of strong, manly hands and cold metal which you assumed to be rings wrapped around your shoulders, gripping you tightly. 

“Boo!” 

You felt your heart stop and ran out of the man’s grasp, spinning around to look at who it was.

“Oh, did I scare you?” 

The man’s deep, monotone voice rumbled above the sound of the music and shouts. Then you recognized that unique and distinctive voice. 

“Corpse!! What the hell?”

His nose and jaw was covered by a black mask, with a print that looked like Frank from Donnie Darko, which was also Corpse’s signature look, seen in his channel art. 

Despite Corpse being a faceless YouTuber, only very few people have seen his face, including you and Glam&Gore who he featured in his narration videos. You thought he was very handsome, his baritone voice matching his appearance. You had to admit, you were a little disappointed he chose to wear a mask. You loved seeing his facial expressions, especially his precious smile that would light up the room when he’d let out little fits of laughter. But you got over it and respected the fact that he wanted to remain anonymous.

“You dickhead,” you scoffed, smacking Corpse lightly on the shoulder. Corpse towered over you, looking admittedly both intimidating and seductive. If you were a stranger, you’d probably be running off, but you weren’t scared of Corpse. He was a big softie and a teddy bear.

Corpse chuckled lowly, slinging his arm over your shoulder and leading you to Sean’s group. He was protective like that, even if you were just friends. Now you could see why Sean, at one point, speculated that you and Corpse had a thing going on. 

“So, Sean forced you to tag along, too?”

“Pfft, yeah, that’s Sean for you.”

“Hey, there’s my favorite couple,” Sean joked, patting your shoulder. You rolled your eyes at his drunk antics.

“Shut up, don’t make me choke you like I hate you,” you mocked in return, eliciting a fit of laughter from the group. 

“Remind me to never hang out with you losers again,” Corpse mumbled sarcastically under his breath.

The night went by in a flash. Sean, Thomas, Felix, and everyone else was blackout drunk. Luckily, Mark was there to assist them. Since Mark couldn’t drink, he would be the designated driver that night. Corpse hung out by himself, sometimes getting approached by women who he politely turned down.

You, on the other hand, were downing alcohol like your life depended on it. For you, it would take more than the average number of drinks for you to get wasted.

“Y/N, don’t you think you should slow down?” Corpse questioned cautiously, resting a hand on the small of your back.

“Does it really look like I’m thinking right now?” you drunkenly slurred, following with a giggle. You waved to the bartender, calling for another shot, which he slid over to you, but not without hesitating after noticing your state. You pushed Corpse off of you, probably more harshly than you intended, and took the shot. 

“Okay, Y/N, fuck this, I’m taking you to my place. We can’t stay here and you certainly can’t drive back home when you’re drunk,” Corpse scowled, stepping closer to you. Again, you shoved him back.

“No.. No..” You sighed, holding your pounding head in your hand. “Don’t do that.”

“Do what? Y/N, you’re drunk -”

“I’m not letting you of all people take me.”

Corpse blinked. “What does that mean?” He knew you were drunk, of course, and you were probably just blurting nonsense.

All of a sudden, tears escaped your eyes, racing down your blushy cheeks.

“No.. I’m so sorry. It’s my fault.” You began to shake and tremble as tears started to uncontrollably spill down your face. Corpse didn’t waste another second to take you in his arms, hushing you. “Your hugs are so warm.. I hate it. I hate feeling this way. It’s all my fault.”

“What did you do, sweetheart? You can tell me.”

Your heart ached when you heard his pet name for you.

“I think I may like you more than you like me.. I-I didn’t mean to! Please don’t leave me. You’re all I have,” you sobbed into his white tee, clinging onto him. “I love you so fucking much, it hurts. I shouldn’t have!”

Corpse stopped for a moment, processing your words.

You.. felt the same?

Corpse had to tell you. You were drunk, but he needed you to know. 

“Y/N, I -”

Suddenly, you had a moment of clarity. Realizing how close you were to Corpse, you backed away, wiping away the mascara tears under your eyes.

“I - I think I had too much to drink.. I just need a smoke..” 

Without giving Corpse the chance to protest, you ran off into the crowd, struggling your way through. 

Corpse began to get worried when you didn’t come back. He waited impatiently on the barstool where you left him, anxiously playing with his rings.

He was just about to get up and look for you, when he caught a glimpse of you stumbling out the exit with another man who guided you, gripping your arm tightly.

Corpse fumed, his face going red and heartbeat speeding up. He went after you, knowing damn well you didn’t know this man. 

The man took you to his car, placing you atop the trunk, your legs dangling over the edge. He stepped in between your legs, caressing your face. Everything was a blur. If your mind was clear, you wouldn’t be stupid enough to trust this random guy, who was probably ten years older than you. 

“You’re too pretty to be crying,” he whispered, leaning in closer to your face, until a yell stopped him from proceeding any further.

“Hey, asshole, she’s drunk! Don’t you fucking touch her!”

“C-Corpse?” You hiccuped, hopping off the trunk to get a look at the approaching figure. It was indeed Corpse. His eyebrows were pressed together angrily at the sight.

“You know this dude?” the man said loudly and smugly, just to get a reaction from Corpse. “Relax, my man, I’m just tryna take this pretty girl home.”

“Well this pretty girl happens to be mine, and I won’t let you take advantage of her,” Corpse growled. 

You stood by the stranger, clinging to him as you watched Corpse’s face twist into an expression of heartbreak when you didn’t budge. He then noticed the bruises around your arms and wrist, supposedly from the man’s strong grip. He was unbelievably furious. 

“Ha, doesn’t look like she’s your girl anymore.” The man’s lips twisted upwards into a devilish smirk, only pissing Corpse off some more. Oh boy, was he ready to snap. He reached into his pocket, when..

“Wait,” you managed to slur out, breaking up the argument. You reached out towards Corpse like a child. His facial expression immediately softened. He gave you a loving smile and immediately took you into his arms, holding you protectively. 

“Now, I suggest you get in your car and never come back,” Corpse threatened.

“Oh, yeah? Or what? I’ll kill you and take your girl, you motherfucker!”

Without hesitation, Corpse took out his switchblade, looking the man in his eyes.

“Say that again?”

You watched as the stranger’s whole tough act fell apart. Without another word, he ran to the driver’s side of his car, fumbling with his keys. 

“Yeah, that’s right,” Corpse mumbled, not taking his eyes off the man until he reached his own car. You held his hand the whole way, processing what had just happened. Corpse noticed your distant expression. You got into his car, shutting the door and slumping back into your seat. He tore off his mask, taking in deep breaths to calm himself. Then he looked back to you. 

“Princess?”

You looked to Corpse, your eyes teary. “Hey, Corpse.” You didn’t seem to be as drunk, your mind a lot clearer after the incident. “D-Did you mean anything you said back there? About the..”

“About you being my girl?” 

Corpse took your hand in his, squeezing it comfortingly. He leaned forward and cupped your face with his free hand. “Absolutely.” 

With that, you leaned towards him, hesitantly pressing your lips to his. Your lips tasted of alcohol, but Corpse didn’t care. He was admittedly taken back, his breath hitching, but he released the tension from his body and kissed you back, pulling you over to the driver’s seat atop him. There wasn’t much space, forcing you to press closer to Corpse, deepening the kiss. 

Still being a bit drunk, you were clumsy and kind of ‘out of it’. 

“I’d hold onto something if I were you,” Corpse mumbled, breaking the kiss momentarily to guide your hands to grip his shoulders. But you were impatient and reconnected your lips with his, no doubt causing him to blush even more than he already was.

You couldn’t help yourself and giggled into the kiss, causing Corpse to chuckle along with you, departing from the kiss again and resting his forehead against yours.

“I’m sorry, you’re just so fucking adorable when you giggle.” 

You hummed in response, offering Corpse an innocent grin as you pecked all over his face. 

“I’m so glad you’re mine.”

[djarrex]

Countermeasures || 1

Archives

Fives x ofc!reader

x | next chapter ->

| main masterlist | series masterlist | read on ao3 |

Rating: 18+

Word Count: 3.6k

Warnings: mentions of lust? is that a warning? otherwise, nothing yet ;)

chapter summary: Renna (you), an intern who spent the entirety of her internship thus far filing paperwork in the archives of Tipoca City’s medical wing, finally is able to work with a real patient - that patient just so happens to be Fives.

note: Renna will basically be taking the place of AZI-3 in the Conspiracy arc. A lot of the dialogue I wrote is from the episode, and of course I added more to dig deeper into Renna and Fives as characters. When this idea came in my head I was only planning on writing it as a oneshot. As I starting writing this, however, I realized there was so much more that could be done with it since this arc is both a good one and a sad one. If you’re ready to go on this journey with me, then keep going under the cut! <3 Also, I wanted to add that there will be POV changes in this chapter. I don’t know if I’ll stick with that going forward, but we’ll see.

* tbh special thanks to @bvcketfvcker for coming up with the series title and being da Best™ 

***

The archives of the medical wing in Tipoca City, the capital of the watery planet Kamino, were always so cold and lonely. Every single day of your internship thus far has included you being nearly drowned in paperwork, no real field experience to show for it.

You’ve been on Kamino for your medical internship for what, close to six months now? You were still stuck doing paperwork. Maybe at the six month mark you’d be moved up to sterilizing all the medical equipment, which would seem terrible to anyone else, but at least you’d be in proximity to anything remotely “medical”. You were longing to get your hands dirty, to start real field experience, to learn how to heal. You wanted to help people, to help anyone in need. You wanted to learn the practices for saving someone’s life. Everything you wanted, you could not get if you were stuck in the archives with paperwork as your only companion. 

You decided within your first month that you would not let the paperwork and lack of real purpose get to you. So, you made your situation better by wearing - to the best of your ability - a positive attitude. On the day that marked the end of your first month here, the Kaminoans told you that music can be played in the archives as long as it’s not too loud, so you brought in a small radio the very next day. The start of your second month was a little better than the day before. You hummed to the music playing on the radio as you tried to make a game out of filing the paperwork. Turns out, not even a simple game could be made out of something so boring and tedious as filing paperwork.

You lost count of the days you’ve been in Tipoca City, within the archives shelled by the stilted dome structures, after your second month. Every day was exactly the same; you filed and shredded paperwork, organized reports, and finished filling out medical reports that the Kaminoan doctors didn't even want to bother with. Every day you woke up early, headed to the archives, and spent your entire day there in solitude until it was time to head back to your quarters for the night. Lunch was always dropped off to you by a couple of guards from the Kamino Security Team. The guards were always in full grey and white armor but you already knew what they looked like; they were clones, and you’ve seen their face in every file. They were handsome, sure, but there were literally hundreds of thousands of them out there. 

You were pretty sure you were coming up on month six of your monotonous internship. Waking up and getting ready was a routine ingrained in your bones. You were taking the regular route to the archives from your quarters when you were stopped by a couple Kaminoan doctors on the way. To your surprise, they asked you to follow them, which you were hoping translated to you not having to work in the archives anymore. Maybe month six was the lucky number.

You walked behind the tall and slender creatures through unfamiliar halls. You had no idea where you were following them to, but anywhere was better than where you were originally heading. 

They kept walking, with you in tow, when you passed by the only Jedi you’ve ever really spoken to - Master Shaak Ti, a calm and collected Togruta who was known to have a soft spot for the clones here on Kamino. The Jedi nodded in greeting to the Kaminoans in front of you, then over at you. With no words spoken, you were now following the Jedi through the halls, still unsure of the destination. 

Just around the corner, you saw two very decorated troopers coming towards you. They donned blue and white armor with a ton of other accessories. As they got closer, the one trooper removed his helmet and carried it at his side. This trooper had the usual dark brown hair and kept the common clone cut style. The way this clone walked with his helmet pressed to his hip had awoken something in you, though you couldn't put your finger on exactly what that something was.

“General Shaak Ti.” The other clone removed his helmet as he greeted the Jedi. He was blonde and sported a closely shaved cut; despite having the same face and body, the two clone troopers looked completely different. They were unlike any clones you’ve ever seen.

That’s when you noticed another trooper laying on a stretcher behind them; his hair was long enough to be worn in a bun, a tear drop was inked underneath one of his closed eyes. He was also unlike any clone you’ve ever seen - especially since he appeared to be unconscious, He was hooked up to oxygen, you also noticed, as two guards pushed his floating stretcher right by you and around the corner, out of sight once they went down the hall.

You realized how zoned out you were and quickly snapped back to reality - only for only a second, though - as you became transfixed on the clone in front of you on the right, the one with dark hair. You scanned his features a little more now that he was closer; he had a dark goatee that framed his chin and his right temple had the number “5″ inked on the skin. His armor was crazy different from the armor the guards here wore. He looked... good. Uh oh. 

For just a brief moment, the “good looking” trooper’s eyes broke away from his conversation with the Jedi and met yours. Slightly embarrassed, you snapped your head forward and glued your eyes to the Kaminoan’s ankles in front of you.

Just as you started listening in on the conversation, the two clones, the Jedi General, and Dr. Nala Se broke away and turned the corner in the same direction they took the unconscious trooper.

Kriff. You missed the entire conversation. The Kaminoans started moving forward, and you assumed you were still supposed to follow them, so you did. You still had no clue where you were going, but you’ll get there eventually. 

***

Fives’ POV

Fives walked to the left of Rex, a long-neck doctor in between them, while Tup’s unconscious body was guided by two Kamino guards behind them. 

“You will have to say goodbye to your friend now.” The long-neck broke the silence. Fives was worried for his friend. No one, not even Kix, could figure out what was wrong with him. Why would Tup shoot and kill General Tiplar? Fives noticed Tup was acting somewhat strange right before it all happened, but didn’t think too much of it at the time, Now, he’s racking his brain, trying to understand what set Tup off. He’s a good soldier, a good man. He’d never do such a thing in his right mind. 

It was suggested that Tup be sent to Tipoca City, to Kamino, back to his roots, for a better chance of figuring out what was wrong with him. Fives gladly accepted the offer to escort his friend there, and was overjoyed that Rex came along with them.

General Shaak Ti came into view, and the troopers came to a halt. Captain Rex greeted the General, and she turned her attention over to Fives.

“Fives, am I correct?” He nodded. Tup was being pushed from behind them and then around the corner in front of them, quickly going out of view. The General spoke again, her eyes glued on the unconscious trooper being led down the hall. “You’ve served with Tup?”

Fives was desperate to be by his friend’s side right now. “Yes.”

Then he saw you. You, a foreign species to Kamino. What were you doing here? It had been a while since Fives was last on Kamino, but he was sure there weren’t any others like you here before unless they were Jedi - but the only Jedi known to hang around Kamino was General Shaak Ti.

He had noticed you tailing the long-necks before you had even come entirely into view. Fives let his eyes flicker over to you as Tup was being taken away, only to have locked eyes with you for but a second. He noticed you blushed right before you snapped your head forward, obviously embarrassed that you’d been caught staring. General Shaak Ti’s voice broke Fives’ trance - didn’t even notice he was losing focus once he caught your eyes - and it was all over in less than five seconds. 

“You must come with me.” 

Fives quickly snapped his attention back to General Shaak Ti, “with... all due respect, General, I can’t just abandon him now.” The Jedi General smiled reassuringly, and turned to lead Fives and Rex down the hall in the same direction Tup was taken. 

Fives knew where his undivided attention should be, and that was on Tup - his friend - his friend that for some reason just gunned down a Jedi in the heat of battle in the space station just outside of Ringo Vinda, only to come to with no memory of what he had done. Fives cursed himself for thinking of you when his friend was about to be strapped to an exam table, being poked and prodded like some kind of lab scurrier. 

***

Renna’s POV

Dr. Nala Se, the Chief Medical Scientist on Kamino, approached you once you had gotten to the head medical lab and informed you that you’d be the one who would start procedures on a clone trooper who had potentially been exposed to a virus of some kind. You nodded, all too giddy as you gladly accepted the task.

You were escorted by two guards to where you’d be working with the patient. When the door whisked open, you slowly made your way into the quiet room, the door shutting quickly behind you. You glanced to the right, noticing the window that would normally allow you to see into the room next door was blacked out - put into the privacy setting. Strange. 

“You?” The deep voice - a voice that sounded like honey in your ears - put a halt on your thoughts about the darkened window. You knew it was the voice of a clone; the only voices you ever heard were either the slow, drawn out words of the Kaminoans or the clones’. Of course a clone would be in that room, of course a clone would be the subject of your testing.

Who you didn’t expect to see was the clone trooper you saw in passing not even a half hour ago - the one with the dark goatee and number 5 tattooed on his temple - the one who made you blush when he caught you staring. 

You felt yet another blush heat your cheeks before you even registered it was happening. What the hell were you blushing for? He’s a clone, and you’re here to take blood samples and body scans to make sure he’s okay. You knew you were staring at him like a fool, and for way too long. You shook your head slightly in an attempt to reorganize your thoughts. 

“You ok, Miss... miss?” He stood up from his seating position on the cot, and cocked his head to the side with his arms folded across his chest. You nodded your head slowly.

“Renna,” you nearly whispered your name to him - the words almost came out choked - for some reason you had forgotten how to speak in Basic for a moment. 

“Look, Miss Renna, I am not a threat. Neither is Tup.” 

Your brow raised as you studied the clone’s expression. It was hard; his eyes were piercing and his brows were furrowed. Crossed arms flew to his sides, hands tightening into fists. No doubt he was feeling angry and confused.

“T- Tup?” Was that the name of CT-5385? “You’re referring to CT-5385?”

“Tup! The trooper in that room right there?” He pointed over to the darkened window, “He’s a good soldier, my friend, and he’s in the room next door getting - getting tortured by those long-necks.” A beat. “None of us clones go by numbers anymore, by the way.” You closed your eyes for just a moment, trying to think about what to say next. You inhaled deep through your nose, then slowly out through parted lips, watching as his expression went from angry to more... afraid? Worried?

“Trooper, I promise Tup is in good hands. I’ve been briefed on his- his condition... they - we - just want to find out what made him kill Jedi General Tiplar, that’s all. They’ve asked me to do a couple of procedures on you, take some notes, since you were close with Tup. Maybe we can find something in you that will help your friend.” 

The trooper’s expression changed again, softening as his fists unclenched at his sides. Surely he had to understand the gravity of the situation; when you were briefed, it was mentioned that no one on Kamino had any idea why CT-53 - Tup - shot a Jedi General in cold blood, or why he keeps floating in and out of consciousness, murmuring things like “kill Jedi”. Clone trooper Tup seemed to have no memory of what he had done; and so far, no scans were showing anything wrong with him, though his health was deteriorating.

You walked over to the counter where the sterilized needles and scanners resided and started to prep the equipment, reading over notes to see what it is you needed and what you were supposed to be testing him for. Reading through the notes, you realized this trooper’s designation was ARC-5555, and the tattoo “5″ on his temple made sense now. It was actually kind of... cute.

It was silent for a couple minutes while you were getting everything ready when a loud, airy sigh coming from behind you made you turn around to face ARC-5555.

“The name’s Fives.”

***

Fives’ POV

Fives was getting more worried for Tup by the minute. His rising frustration didn’t help, either. General Shaak Ti had engaged the privacy setting on Fives’ only view of his unconscious friend, leaving him in the dark as to what the long-necks were doing to Tup in the room next door. 

Fives sat in the room in silence, alone with his worries and doubts. You were out of his thoughts at this point; the worry and fear he felt for Tup swallowed him whole - until you were the one walking through the door. It could have been any Kaminoan, any droid, yet you were the one they had sent. 

His eyes wide, he watched you slowly walk in as you immediately set your attention to the darkened window to the right side of the room. Fives wanted to know if you knew what they were doing to Tup, why they were hurting him, why Fives wasn’t able to be there by his side. He had a million questions, almost all of them relating to Tup, except for the ones he had about you. 

Fives was sitting on a cot on the other side of the room, and you hadn’t noticed him yet. What is she doing here? Who is she? She definitely isn’t a long-neck. He wanted to ask you all kinds of questions, a mix between wanting to know more about Tup and wanting to know more about you, but all he could muscle out was one word. 

“You?” Fives shook his head in disbelief as the first word he said to you left his lips. It did manage to get your attention, though, because you turned away from the dark window and were now staring directly at him. Fives felt his heart beat just a little harder when he could finally take in your whole figure in more than just a quick glance. You were beautiful - more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen, and wearing the same thing he saw you in earlier; a tucked-in dark grey skin-tight top that came up your neck like clone under-armor blacks did, a white lab coat that came down to your ankles, hugging your curves in all the right ways along the way. The coat was open in the front, save for the one buttoned part right at your waist, just barely keeping the coat together. Your black boots were knee-high, your black leggings tucked into them. You stepped closer to Fives and his heart started racing; he was completely in awe of you, but there was something else, and it made warmth head straight to his groin.

***

Renna’s POV

Fives. That was his name. Not ARC-5555 , just like Tup wasn’t CT-5385. “No clones go by numbers anymore,” he had informed you. Being waist-deep in paperwork all the time never gave you an opportunity to actually work with the clones. All you knew about the clones were their designations, along with whatever the paperwork was filed for. It didn’t occur to you that they had names. 

“Look, is Tup gonna be alright? Have they found anything out?” Fives’ eyes were pleading, begging for some kind of reassurance. 

“Please, sit down.” He huffed, but obeyed. “We’re using hyper level tests, so we should get the results fairly quickly.” He nodded his head, thankful for any little crumb you could give him. “I’m gonna need to get started now, okay?”

Needle in hand and ready to go, you preemptively apologized. 

“Wh- ow!” You jabbed the needle into the side of his neck, a sympathetic smile on your lips. 

“I said I was sorry!” You chuckled quietly. Fives rubbed at his neck and you made you way back over to the counter, inserting the needle into the port next to the computer. 

“Well?” His hand still rubbing at his neck, you squinted your eyes to read the results displayed on the screen. 

“Everything... seems normal.” You weren’t exactly sure what to expect, but you were happy your very first patient wasn’t immediately dying on you.

“Oh, great! That means you can let me out, right?” The excited tone in his voice made it quite difficult to relay the next part to him.

With an apologetic smile, you walked back over and sat on the cot across from him.

“Actually... I’m afraid that’s not possible right now, Fives. I was instructed to keep you in quarantine until we’ve pinpointed the exact cause of Tup’s breakdown. We can’t risk any further casualties.” You couldn't bear to look at him now, so you glued your eyes to a fresh scuff mark on the toe of your boot.

“Like I told you before, I am not a threat, and neither is Tup!” You looked back up at him when his voice raised. Fives wasn’t angry, or at least it didn’t appear that way. He was worried for his friend. 

“I- I believe you, Fives. Unfortunately, I’m not the one to make those kinds of calls. I’m just- just an intern. This is my first day not filing paperwork in the archives. I don’t- I don’t want to mess this up. You’re my first real patient.” You stood up to leave the room, letting your hand rest on his shoulder for just a moment in an attempt to comfort him. Something you never thought you’d be doing - comforting a clone. You told him you’d be back later to check up on him and to perform any tests the doctors deemed necessary. Then you left.

***

As you headed for your quarters for the night, you couldn’t help but think back on your introductory meeting with your very first patient. You replayed your short conversation over and over in your head; you transfixed on his voice, the raw emotion in it that went straight to his facial expressions, and the way he looked at you. You’ve seen his face many, many times in the files you were doused with daily, but most of the clones on Kamino didn’t have anything significant to mark them apart from one another - no scars, tattoos, different hair styles, and were generally clean-shaven. When you first saw Fives, his tattoo and facial hair was what did it for you. You hated to admit it, but you may have just accidentally gotten a crush on the ARC Trooper.

This was all new to you. You never realized clones had such... emotion. Or capable of such emotion, for that matter. You were kept in the dark for the entirety of your internship on Kamino, and now you understood why. You weren’t Kaminoan, you weren’t a Jedi, you were just an intern. In their eyes, there was no reason as to why you should engage the clones, so they kept you busy with paperwork every day. You wondered if you were physically kept away from the clones because you were also human, and therefore were able to share the same emotion and ideals as them. That idea wouldn’t have made sense to you if you thought about it earlier today, but now that you met Fives, it made sense.

Maybe the Kaminoans were fearful that you would be a distraction to them, or them to you. 

***

Tags: @bvcketfvcker @deewithani @chromia7567

[votederpycausemufins]

for the longest time my brain just did not want to write. but then two scenes came to mind and bam, chapter!

and as always

@petrichormeraki​

Wilbur showed up like he was arriving at a party. In a sense he was since Dream was taken down and he was going to see Tommy again. Dream may have revived him, but even that wasn’t going to convince Wil to help the tyrant. When he reached Philza and Techno, he was surprised to see no sign of Tommy. “So, where is he?”

“Tommy? He’s showing off his base to Tubbo.” Grian spoke up, making Wilbur notice him. His parrot wings were folded tightly so they couldn’t be seen, which was perfect for him. "Hey, you got something in your hair.”

Wilbur patted his head. “What, my hat?”

Grian shook his head and put a blue feather there. “It’s right there.”

“I can feel you put something there.” Wilbur pulled the feather out. “Don’t need you-” He stopped talking once he actually looked at the feather.

“Hey look, I’ve got one too.” Techno said pointing at the yellow feather placed behind his ear.

“No.” Wilbur sounded dumbfounded and looked back at Grian, who now had a red feather stuck in his own hair.

“Alright, let’s go see Tommy.” Grian spoke nonchalantly before Wilbur grabbed him.

“Oh no you don’t! You don’t just get to drop that bombshell on us and walk away!”

Grian laughed. “What, missed me?”

“Yes! Where the fuck were you?”

“Oh, here and there. How are you doing being alive again.”

“Less violent than I was before dying I suppose.”

“Good! But I’m still not letting you near Tommy.” When Wilbur tried to say something, Grian stopped him. “Nope, you can’t argue. I’m oldest now.”

“What the fuck to you mean, I’m a minute older than you bird boy.”

“Not anymore, I’m now in my thirties.”

“Wh- How?!”

Philza put a hand on Wilbur’s shoulder. “We can talk more when we meet back up with Tommy.”

“Yeah, we can visit his base hermit cribs style. I’ll grab my backup elytra and some rockets!” Grian ducked into a shop to use their ender chest. “Oh yeah, are you guys okay with rockets? Because Tommy told me Tubbo doesn’t like them. They won’t explode or anything, they’re just to help you with flying. Obviously dad and I won’t need them, but uh, you guys don’t have wings.”

“I’ll take them.” Wilbur said. Techno was less eager, but did also accept the elytra.

As Grian was about to take off with his family, Scar cleared his throat to get their attention. “Now Grian, while I am glad that you have found the family you lost, I am still very serious about that paperwork. I have different forms for if they’re planning to stay permanently or if they’re just going to visit often. I can send the paperwork to your mansion if you want though if you just want to come to town hall right now, we can do it there.”

“Scar, right now I want to talk with my family and figure out what we’re doing. We can’t really sign paperwork if we don’t know which paperwork to sign, right?”

Scar nodded in agreement. “Alright, I’ll send it to the mansion then. Also about the other people visiting.”

Grian flapped his wings to quickly get into the air. “Sorry Scar too far away can’t hear you byeeeee!”

On the ground, Phil sighed, though he was smiling. “I guess this means we better start flying. Let’s get up higher for an easier take off.”

Though it took an attempt or two, the avian lineage seemed to help Techno and Wilbur get the hang of using elytra extremely fast. Though in the air, Grian hadn’t flown too far and the others easily caught up with him. He guided them to the south west towards where Tommy’s base was. 

As it came into view, Grian couldn’t help but laugh as he heard a gasp from behind. They landed in front of the arch acting as a doorway on the ground floor to find Tommy leaning against it. “Took long enough dickheads.”

Grian was about to jokingly scold Tommy when Wilbur went to hug and or lovingly bully his younger brother. Tommy waved his arms in an attempt to get Wil to stop, but he kept running towards Tommy. Just before he could reach the blond, he was tackled to the ground from the side by Grian.

“Grian! I was joking! It was going to be fine!” Tommy complained, helping to pull the avian off Wilbur. “You don’t have to keep mothering me! Stress does that plenty!”

“It’s not my fault I wore the chicken mask that long.”

“That is entirely your fault! And wearing a mask that long doesn’t change anything.”

Tommy and Grian continued to playfully argue until Philza caught their attention. “Oh right, forgot we had meetings to get to. Hey Tommy, which floor do you think is best for talking about all this.”

Tommy put a hand on his chin. “Hmmm, how about the sixth floor? I mean, that one is based on the smp.”

“Sounds great!” Grian said before flying up there, leaving the others behind.

“Hey! No fair!” Tommy shouted up. “Some of us have to use rockets to fly! Ugh fine we’re taking the bubble stream.”

Entering the tower, the first floor was just completely made of cobble. It was his favorite block and all, so if he was going to mainly use the first floor, that was the design he wanted. There were also a number of chests placed around to the point that it had become a bit of a chest monster. Wilbur couldn’t help but be curious and opened one chest, eyes widening at the contents. “This is filled with diamond tools and armor! You’re just leaving it here?”

Tommy looked over to what Wil was referring to. “What? Oh, that’s from endbusting. It’s all cursed gear. You should have seen the time I caught Joe afk and gave him a set of binding diamond armor. I’m not sure how he didn’t notice right away, but the moment I mentioned I liked his armor, he jumped in the nearest lava pool.”

“Really? Other than the curses, this seems like it’s pretty good?”

“Not really. No one is really stealing from each other so everyone’s got great gear. Besides, part of the prank was giving Joe diamond gear. He apparently said he wasn’t going to use diamonds this world and burns them when he gets them.”

“He just burns diamonds?!”

“Yeah.” Tommy shrugged, then walked over to one of many bubble columns. “Here, this one goes to the sixth floor. You guys go first. I want to make sure you go in it and not the others. I’ll show off my shit hermitcribs style later.”

When they got off the bubble elevator, it was something that was recognized immediately. The floor was made of grass and one wall was missing and looking right at the now setting sun. In the middle of the room was a simple bench and a jukebox.

“Your bench.” Wilbur spoke up, making Tommy nod.

“Yeah. There’s also one in the shopping district. That’s for more public stuff. I’ll just be hanging on the bench and other hermits can show up to talk about shit. This one’s for more private stuff like this.”

“Or for letting me cuddle with you.” Grian poked his head up from the other side of the bench. 

Tommy’s face turned a shade of red. “We do not cuddle!”

“Then what do you call what we do when you’ve had a long day and need me to come over so you can use my wings as a blanket.”

“Hanging out. Cuddling makes it sound weird.” Tommy crossed his arms.

Grian just tackled Tommy and wrapped him in his wings. “You’re not allowed out until you admit it!”

“Never bird bitch!”

He rubbed the feathers against Tommy’s face. “Say iiit!” Tommy just plucked a feather out making Grian pull back. “Ow! You didn’t have to do that!”

“I thought you wanted us to talk as a family or some shit.”

Grian rolled his eyes, but did nod. “Yeah, you’re right.” And then he sat down on the ground across from the bench. The others found their own places to sit and just sat there in silence for a few moments before Wilbur started the conversation.

“So, you changed your name then huh? Everyone’s calling you Grian.”

Grian nodded. “Yeah, I started using it back when I was in the orphanage and legally changed it when I was eighteen. Though it took a while with the criminal record.”

“I’m sorry, your what?” Philza asked sternly, but Grian just shrugged.

“Yeah I sort of murdered some people. I probably could have found a way around it, but at the time, it was the best answer I had. And I didn’t really have a good support system. I mean, I had friends, but how are you supposed to tell them you have voices in your head telling you what to do when they’re already not the best people themselves.”

Philza rubbed his forehead. “How bad?”

“Well…”

“No, nevermind. I don’t want to know.”

“So, you’re a Watcher?” Techno spoke up in a monotone voice.

Grian used enough of his power to make a third eye appear for a second before making it disappear again. “Yeah, whatever took me from you guys happened again and dropped me off in a world that was like, so many years in the past. I actually got dropped there with a lot of people and the Watchers sort of played around with us. Nothing as bad as what Dream seemed to be doing, just puzzles and cryptic clues and portals everywhere to push us forward in time when they saw fit. Eventually they convinced me to join them.”

“Just like that?” Techno raised an eyebrow.

“Nah, I was a real pain in their side for loads of time before they finally asked me to join. I’m pretty sure it was because it was because that was the one way to get me to stop messing around.” Grian laughed at his own joke before looking sadly at the floor. “First thing I did was start looking for you guys. I assumed you would still be in the castle or somewhere nearby, but the place was abandoned. And it’s harder to find someone when you don’t know what world they’re in.”

Philza started to reach for Grian, but the younger avian’s wings started to puff up in agitation. “You know, I don’t know if I should be happy that I found you or upset. I could have never figured out where you guys were unless I got lucky peering into worlds. Only reason I found out was because Tommy came here. And he only came here because he ended up in a dangerous world with no family helping him. And you nearly took him back there.”

Tommy put a hand on one of Grian’s wings, making him puff up even more. “Hey, calm down Big G. You made sure they couldn’t do that. And if they do try, just knock some sense into them.”

Grian calmed down, though there was still tension in the room and no one spoke. The first thing that broke the silence was a yell from above them. “Tommy! How do you get down? I don’t have a water bucket on me!”

Tommy jumped up from where he was sitting. “Oh shit! I’ll be right there Tubbo!” And Tommy jumped out the window. Grian waited a moment before asking the others to look behind them, which they did just in time for all of them to see Tommy making a face at them all as he went up the bubble stream. A few moments later, Tubbo was going down a different bubble elevator and then Tommy glided in through the window. “Sorry, I keep the down one closed off so the bees don’t wander their way into it on a suicide mission. Tubbo couldn’t find it and obviously he’s not flying around.”

“Can you actually ask him to come up here? I want to say something that involves him.”

“Got it.” Tommy leaned out the window. “Hey Tubbo! Come back up here! Use the one with green glass!”

A moment later, Tubbo exited onto the floor. Tommy pushed Wilbur off the bench to make room for Tubbo to sit. “Hey! How are you so strong!”

Tommy gestured at the room around them. “I mean, I got help from some of the hermits for the interior, but the exterior was all me. I mined tons of shit looking for diamonds and I used it for here. I mean, I also got some help with the flag on top, but otherwise, all seventeen floors were built by me.”

“Seventeen floors?!”

“I know, they’re all as tall as this one so it’s small as fuck. Only big one is the top since I didn't waste an extra ceiling with the roof there.”

“You should do what Tango did last season and add a dragon or two.”

“Nah, might just start making a castle to pair up with it.”

“Tommy! What the fuck!” Tubbo said suddenly. “How did you get so good?!”

“It’s just sort of how we do stuff here on Hermitcraft.” Grian answered. “You were at Iskall’s tree right? That’s his base. He got us to help collect the leaves, but he’s been placing it all.” Tubbo just looked like his head was about to explode. “Anyway, I wanted Tommy to call you here because I didn’t get the chance to tell you. You’re the admin of the smp now.”

“I’m what?!”

“I figured after all I’ve heard about you from Tommy, you would be safe to turn into the admin. Obviously it can be moved to someone else, but you were the first choice.”

“I can’t be the admin! What if I end up like Dream?! I already wasn’t the best at being president! What if I screw up and they put me in pandora’s vault too!”

Tommy hugged Tubbo. “You were a great president, you just had to deal with bad people. And they’re not going to put you in some stupid fucking vault for a mistake.”

“And if they do, we call in Mumbo. Speaking of him, I should call him over.” Grian pulled out his communicator and hit the call button for Mumbo, putting it on speaker for the fun of it. When the redstoner answered, Grian spoke in a dramatic and joking tone into the microphone. “Mumbo. Babe. Light of my life. Father of our children.-”

Though Grian sounded like he was going to continue, a tired sounding Mumbo came through to stop him. “What do you need Grian?”

“We’re at Tommy’s base. Can you come over and meet everyone?”

“I was already planning on finding you. I’m of course on Grian watching duty after that stunt you pulled. I would have already shown up but the redstone blocks finally needed replacing.”

“Remember to bring scaffolding. You know water and redstone don’t mix.”

“I’m well aware. Bye Grian.” And Mumbo hung up.

Grian and Tommy explained more of everything on Hermitcraft and answered more questions while they all waited for Mumbo. Finally there was the distinct noise of scaffolding being placed and they saw a tower appear in front of the window and then keep going up. From below, they could hear Mumbo talking to someone else he had brought along. “You don’t need that much. Grian said they’re only on the sixth floor.”

“But I want to see Tubbee! Tubbee Tubbee Tubbee!”

“You can see Tubbee later. C’mon, let’s see Grian first.”

After the talking stopped, up the scaffolding came what looked to be a small child. Behind them was someone a bit taller, but obviously still young, and last was a man in a black suit and a mustache.

“Dad!” The smallest one ran over and jumped at Grian. Wilbur looked between Grian and the kid.

“Wait, so that wasn’t a joke. You actually have kids?”

“Well you have Fundy. I have these two. Meet Grumbot and Jrumbot.” 

Wilbur opened his mouth again with a sly smirk. “Is he any good?” and then added in a wink.

When he realized what was being implied, Mumbo’s face turned a bright red and he tried talking but it was all flustered stuttering. Grian has a similar though not as pronounced reaction to the question. Jrumbot looked between his dads confused while Grumbot looked at Wilbur. “My brother and I were merely built and are powered by redstone. We have no organic parts. Our dads are not together and thus have not had se-”

“GRUMBOT!”

[scripttorture]

I have a character who was a slave but was rescued and freed after about 2 years in slavery and eventually goes on to rescue other people in slavery. While in slavery, he was punished often with denial of food as well as being whipped and beaten when he refused to work. He also had his tongue partially cut out as a punishment. I already have a good idea about the psychological effects he is going to have, but I’m struggling with the physical effects and how long it would take to recover

Part of the answer here depends on this character’s age because while adults can generally make a good recovery from periods of starvation the effects on children (especially young children) are a lot more long lasting.

 The best places to start for the effects of starvation on adults are probably the Minnesota Starvation Experiment and the World Health Organisation (WHO, general link here, 1999 pamphlet on malnutrition in all ages here).

 Recovery is generally pretty quick unless someone’s at the point where they’re near death.

 Refeeding syndrome can be an issue in some cases (especially famine or forced labour camps) but it doesn’t have to be one here. If the character is eating normally (as opposed to being fed by IV for instance) then refeeding syndrome is less likely. My understanding is that this is because the body suppresses appetite during starvation so that it only takes in what it can manage (appetite recovers quickly as the patient regains weight.)

 There’s a detailed NHS guide to refeeding in adult here. It should give you an idea of how at risk your character is and how much food he’ll be able to handle in his first few days of recovery.

 A physical recovery period of around 1-3 months depending on the degree of starvation is reasonable. In this case by ‘recovery’ I mean being able to do normal physical activity, a return to previous healthy weight, or higher weight, return to normal appetite and nutrient levels.

 Recovery can be delayed by additional illness: it’s easier for starving people to contract diseases or infections and it takes longer for them to fight them off.

 There’s also a difference depending on whether you’re talking about a character who is consistently under fed and forced to work versus a character who is usually provided with enough food but sometimes denied food completely/on very reduced rations for periods of a few days. Consistent starvation and malnutrition is much more usual in slavery and… much more likely to be fatal.

 A character that has short periods where food is denied them (no more then two days) and is then allowed to eat as much as they want is probably not going to need hospital supervision/treatment for starvation. If that doesn’t sound like your character then the procedure is usually just to let the person eat as much as they want of whatever they want. The difficulty for people at this sort of stage is more about organising giving out food then it is about keeping doctors on hand to monitor them.

 Now I know less about this but I think there is some evidence that this sort of pattern of intermittent starvation (ie periods where the character is starved, then allowed to eat and this is repeated) can cause some pretty serious health effects. It can also make disordered eating behaviour more likely.

 On a cosmetic level it’s also linked to weight gain.

 Which ever option you’re picturing the following effects are all likely:

loss of muscle mass

lack of coordination

weaker bones

higher chance of hypothermia or heat exhaustion

fainting

poor circulation

higher chances of disease and infections

longer recovery time and more difficult recovery from disease and infections

 A survivor can get to a point where they’re no longer at immediate risk before they’re back to full health. It takes time to recover bone and muscle mass. It takes time for the internal organs to get back to normal. It takes time for enough fat to build up so a person’s body can regulate heat properly.

 There’s also a difference between someone being at peak physical fitness and getting back to average. My understanding is that if someone’s survived significant periods of starvation they’re… unlikely to reach peak physical fitness. If this character was an athlete or a super hero or otherwise had a physically demanding profession, they’re likely to notice a difference even when they’re ‘better’.

 They could improve with time and practice but they may never get back to their prior ability level.

 There’s evidence of epigenetic effects; the children of people who recover from starvation are likely to be shorter then the children of people who have never starved.

 The Minnesota Starvation experiment theorised that after a successful recovery there were few long term effects of starvation. There’s some evidence now that this was an optimistic conclusion but it’s difficult to get a clear picture because of the ethics around studying starvation.

 For young children starvation results in an adult who is:

physically weaker

less intelligent

more prone to illness

less able to fight off illness

has a shorter life expectancy

is physically smaller

 Starvation of children represents a blunting of potential: they will never reach their full strength or intelligence even if they may be stronger/smarter then some individuals. And there is really nothing that can be done to treat that. They needed food over a crucial period and did not receive it. The damage is done and can not currently be treated or healed.

 Beatings over a long period of time and forced labour both have a tendency to cause chronic pain in the joints. Shoulders and knees seem particularly common.

 There are a lot of possible causes for this sort of chronic pain. Ligament and muscle damage s possible. Beatings with objects can cause bone fragments to uh break away and lodge in soft tissues. Soft tissues around joints can be damaged.

 And there are also psychological causes or combinations of both physical damage and psychological causes.

 For instance this is something I saw in an account from a survivor of child abuse. The survivor had been punished using standing stress positions and he found as an adult that he got shooting pains in the backs of his legs while stressed at work. With the help of his doctors he found that when he was stressed he leaned forward on to his toes, mimicking part of the stress position he’d been subjected to as a child. This put more strain on his legs and caused the pain.

 These kinds of responses can be very difficult to stop.

 What I’m trying to illustrate here is that disabling pain is really common in survivors and you don’t necessarily need to know a specific cause for it.

 Chronic pain can cause long term problems to do with mobility and performing everyday activities. Most often it means that survivors need to rest more often, they may have less stamina and they might need to do things in ‘odd’/unusual ways in order to comfortably perform the activity.

 For instance someone with chronic pain in their shoulders might struggle to hang wet clothes on a line that’s above their heads. So they might get in the habit of lowering the clothes line, attaching the clothes and then raising it by pulling on the cord at waist height. They might have trouble moving their shoulder to put on jackets, so they could use their body weight to ‘flip’ the arm joint to the correct position without involving the muscles of the shoulder.

 Someone with knee pain would probably be more particular about the height of chairs in their house. They may stop keeping things in low drawers or shelves.

 Consider where your character might have pain, what activities might make it worse and life style adaptions you can work in to your story.

 These can actually be a great world building/character detail. Especially because healthy people have a tendency to assume these adaptions are eccentricities rather then necessity, prompting conversation between characters.

 There is one part of this scenario that worries me: mutilating the tongue.

 Cutting out tongues is one of those things that comes up a lot in fiction and is generally… less survivable then people assume. Tongues are not just for verbal communication: they’re a pretty essential part of how we swallow food and water, not to mention detecting whether said food/water is edible and they contain a lot of blood vessels. There’s a reason things like tongue splitting and tongue piercing don’t tend to show up as traditional body modification practices.

 The process of partially removing a tongue is life threatening in and of itself. Victims can drown in their own blood. Inflammation can block the airways causing suffocation. Infection can make breathing, eating or drinking impossible (increasing the chance of death from infection.)

 If the victim survives (some definitely did) they’d have trouble eating and drinking for the rest of their lives. This means malnutrition is likely, leading to shorter life expectancies and higher chances of disease (apart from the conditions malnutrition itself causes.)

 It also means recovery from starvation would be significantly longer. Which means a longer period when the character’s more at risk from infection and disease as well as the general uh ‘problems’ starvation causes.

 I’m not saying you’ve created an unsurvivable scenario. We know from history that some people have gone through stuff like this and survived.

 What I’m saying is the survival rate is low. Those survivors (and your character) got lucky.

 Keep that in mind when you write this scenario.

 In terms of long term recovery I honestly have no idea how a removed tongue is treated, I’m not a medic. I can guess at some lifestyle adaptions though.

 Because it makes eating more difficult I think it’s likely a survivors would have smaller meals and more frequent meals rather then large portions that might be cold/unpleasant by the time they’ve finished eating. They’d probably learn to cut their food into smaller pieces and might avoid tougher foods that require more chewing. Their sense of the taste and texture of food would be impaired which might effect their enjoyment of food which could in turn effect their motivation to eat and their recovery.

 Overall I think the take away message here is that while most of the physical long term effects of slavery are not immediately life threatening they have a massive effect on long term quality of life.

 A lot of survivors of modern slavery come out of similar time frames to this disabled by a combination of chronic pain, joint problems and untreated injury or disease.

 One of the recurring themes in Kara’s interviews with slaves is that slavery physically ages people. The combination of extreme distress, physical abuse, overwork, sleep deprivation and malnutrition makes survivors appear much older then they are.

 But the reasons why, the injuries and marks of abuse are often not immediately obvious.

 I hope that helps :)

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[idjitlili]

Carol’s cookies

Lindir x reader

Request: @ifitaketwomoresteps​  said:

Hmmmm another request for a certain chestnut haired cinnamon roll named lindir? I really need some lindir fluff, not feelin too great.

I hope you are feeling better, I myself am not sleeping at all lately ,and my stomach is always upside down,it is horrible.

Summary:Being an elf that lived in the forests with your parents ,until they decided you need to get out ,by delivering some of your mothers pottery's to Rivendell, only to meet some dudes.

Word count:2058

Translations: ellen=female elf ellon=male elf nana=mother nin meleth=my love

You had been traveling to Rivendell for the past two days,with your horse and wagon,and in honesty ,you wished that your mother hadn't sent you. Do you realise how horrible it is to pee in a bush ,and you have to rush ,just in case someone steals your horse and your shit? It is terrible ,I tell you. You really disliked talking to other people especially people you did not know. Your mother had recieved a letter from Lord Elrond of Rivendell informing her that he would like some her pottery work.

You see your mother,father and Elrond used to been very close,your mother being one of the finest clay moulders he had ever seen in all his years, and your father being apart of the guard. Unfortantely your mother and father fell in love ,however there families forbid it ,so the left ,your mother already pregnant with you,she was young for an elf too, they eloped quickly.

Therefore you were brought up with barely any contact with others, your father would take you hunting for your dinner ,he had taught you how to defend yourself. Your home was small,but it was all you needed as afamily of three. Plus it was all you knew, so yeah,anyways you were indeed nervous to meet other elves.

It's not like you hadn't met anyone else apart from your parents ,they would take you one their delivery trips ,but you rarely talked to anyone. Though once when you were very young you had brought to Rivendell,to meet your grandparents. Uh yeah it didn't go well bringing your two sets of grandparents together ,however when you were just alone with your mothers parents they adored you ,but their hatred for your fathers parents were still clear.

Anyways this visit allowed you to meet an elfling like you,though with long chestnut hair,shy as were you. JUst a pair of introvets. You had been sat near a tree in the gardens ,with a bunch of cookies ;that you had baked with your father before the trip,looking at the clounds ,munching on your cookies. When a figure had approached you ,you hadn't even heard them approach you.

"oh..uh.hi.I didn't mean to disturb you,sorry" the acorn haired elf had stuttered nervously ,infront of the cute girl he had stumbled upon,you had looked up to see a cute elf turning to leave,you really did want to make friends , like your parents wanted. "oh you didn't- do you want to sit and have a cookie I m-mean you don't have to if you dont want to.."  the elf had  turned slightly around with a big grin on his young face ,nodding eagerly,before sitting down with you.

Thus began your life long friendship with Lindir.

You would write letters back to each other ,due to you living far away ,plus rarely visiting Rivendell.

By the time you were arriving at Rivendell with your mothers pottery, the last time you had seen Lindir was 400 hundred years ago ,you were now 600 years old still young ,but now was considered an adult. So when you arrived at Rivendell and Lindir had greeted you not recognising you,it was understandable you had grown into your looks ,well elf puberty hit you basically.  Lindir had grown two feet taller at least,his cheekbones much more defined ,his hair now neatly styled.

"Lindir?" you had whispered ,as he had welcomed you into Rivendell,his eyes searched your face ,brightening and widening when he had realised that it was indeed you."y/n?" he had questioned ,with that you had placed the crate of vases ,plates and cups on the ground carefully before embracing Lindir into a tight hug. In which he returns instantly ,you stayed like that for a few minutes before you both pull away. "i almost didn't recognise you,my lady,you have grown into a fine ellen." he had spoken smoothly taking in your figure,making a small blush appear on your face.

"as have you grown into a handsome ellon,but please ,just y/n, we have been friends for centuries.",youu had spoke grinning at your bestfriend, it was no lie as you grew , you had developed feelings for the shy elf. Even if you both rarely saw each other,those feelings were there for both of you ,even if the other didn't know."why have you journeyed to Rivendell" Lindir had spoken trying to act as if he hadn't blushed at you comlipment. "apparently I needed to get out more, thus here I am with the pottery that Lord Elrond had requested from my mother."Lindir had chuckled lighty ,picking up the crate of pottery,carefully in on arm,offering you the other.

In which you had taken ,looping your arm in his ,as he guided you towards where ever Lord Elrond was. "So that you are aware, Lord Elrond has guests..small ones." you didn't even get to question his words, soon you were upon them. Your eyes widen in surprise ,as they catch the sight of a bunch of dwarves, Elrond dinning with them and wizard , and one wearing no shoes and big hairy feet? Yet soon Elrond had risen from his feet ,approaching you and Lindir ,with a polite smile on his face. "Ah , Lady Y/n,It is lovely to see you again ,I assume you have brought your mothers beautiful pottery work?" you had nodded shyly with a small smile,gesturing to the crate Lindir held in his arms.

"Thank you for delivering them for me ,the items for your mother while be loaded in your wagon by the morning. Now if you will be so kind ,Lindir, will you take these to my study ,then accompany Lady Y/n to her room , and maybe give her a tour of Rivendell ,it has been a long time,since her last visit." he had spoken quickly , not wanting to keep the unpatient dwarves,that were already eyeing you up. "Yes ,it would be my pleasure ,my Lord."  Lindirs words quiet ,as your arm was still tightly clutched onto Lindir ,you didn't like the attention the dwarves were giving you at all.

"It was a pleasure to see you again ,my lady." he had bowed his head at you , in which you did the same '' as to you my Lord." and with that Lindir had lead you away from the glawking dwarves  to drop off the pottery.  Another elf had already dropping your backpack off ,with your overnight supplies  in them.

Lindir had opened the  pine door leading you into a room ,in which sat your bag at the end of the bed. "If you want to settle in have a bath and such ,I shall be back in an hour with dinner, I could have dinner with you ,o-only that is if you want,so you don't dine alone..?" blush painted on his cheeks,as did yours,looking into his bark coloured eyes . "Yes, I would love that." Lindir had smiled brightly ,turning to leave ,only for you to turn him back around hugging him tightly ,head in his chest.

"I have misssed you.." you had muffed into his shirt,he had stroked your h/c hair with his soft palm,before replying "As have I missed you...Nin Meleth" he had whispered my love ,so quietly ,like 110% more quietly than normally. Before he had pulled away ,to go get you some food ,while you bathed.

In fact you had finished much earler than expected ,so you had decided to take a walk in the gardens. Only for two dwarves,one brunette the other with hair like an lions ,to approach you almost straight away,they were handsome indeed ,but at least a head shorter than you. You was only wearing trousers and blouse type shirt nothing special.Before you could even say anything that had.

"Fili.."

"Kili"

"at your service." the blond one had joined in with his younger brother in before they both bowed to you,you just stared but quietly responding "Y/n .." you weren't sure what to say in honesty,their grins were large,you were nervous you hadn't had a personal experience with dwarves. "y/n? that is a beautiful name for a beautiful elf maiden." you had blushed ,at the brunettes words,Fili had chuckled. "as are KIli and Fili, let me guess your dads name is vili." you had sassed you really was hungry, just wanted to find Lindir and you didn't some dwarves trying to bed your or fall in love.

Their eyes had widened gasping in shock " how did you know?" the blond one had finally spoken up ,"shes obviously psychic,brother." you had giggled at them ,and King Thranduil said dwarves were terrible.  Father wasn't right about that , okay so he wasn't your actually father ,forgot to mention, your father had been slaughted horribly infront of you ,so your mother and you had seeked safety with Thranduil for a while ,until it turns out your father survived and finally found you 5o years later. Thus you moved to a different forest a safer one ,mirkwood wasn't the shit.

"awwwe brother ,isn't she a beauty?"

"Indeed ,Kili." you had flashed with a blush ,staring at your feet again "thank you." you had whispered ,still looking at the floor until a hand touched your shoulder,making jump ,tripping over your feet only to be caught,looking up to see a certain chestnut haired elf,you had blushed again,as he set you back on your feet."Why do you wait so light,,its clear I do not have the hearing nor the grace of an elf ,it is clear that you do." you spoken still in shock  from him scaring you to death. "that is not true,I just came to find you to take you for dinner." he had smiled down to you whilst the dwarves watched intensely. "I think they are  courting first she flirted with him then he has made her dinner in that balcony ,too bad  the other dwarves have already eaten it.." Kili had mentioned catching both elves attention.

"the food is gone..?" Lindir had quietly replied in disbelief ,he had made the food himself ,your favourite food aswell.. Kili had nodded harshely,Lindir's face dropped,you had placed your hand on his fore arm. "hey..Its fine ,I brought cookies , we can go eat them where we met as elflings.." you had resurred your bestfriend,who's eyes had brightened up as well as the dwarves eyes.

"Miss Y/n? Could we have a cookie?" Fili had asked with puppy dog eyes ,in which kili had joined in you had nodded pulling two cookies out of your bag passing them to them ,wishing them well on their journey. IN fact they hadn't left they had hid in a bush while you had sat with Lindir in the grass,eating cookies ,holding his hand.

"you know they are right?" you had broken the silence catching Lindirs attention,his eyes searched your face in confusion.

"about what?"

"me flirting with you.." and with that you had pressed your lips to Lindirs soft ones,pulling your hand out of his ,to place it on his ,as he kissed back.

"only been waiting 200 years to confess my love for you ,then two dwarves turn up,and i finally get guts." you had spoken again as you both pulled away for air.

"I love you too nin meleth ,your nana is going to be surprised ,when she finds out." you had giggled at his words while kili handed his brother five gold coins.

Any chance for eomer requests...

[cleighwrites]

Hott Yoga

SPN Fanfic

Characters - Sam, Dean & Castiel, Donna (mentioned)

Summary - Sam drags Dean to a hot yoga class, and Dean ends up liking it a lot more than he thought he would!

Word Count - 1,878

A/N - this fic was inspired by this tweet!! It was too great to not write!! There will be more to come!

Warnings - sexual thoughts, blatant male objectification, it’s just fluffy crack!

There were quite a few things that Sam did that Dean just could not get in to. Listening to music dated post-1978 (with very few exceptions), waking up at ungodly hours of the morning, even trying to eat turkey bacon, insisting that garnish was a food group, running (not even from anything), and yoga.

That being said, there were a few little brother tricks Sam held up his sleeve for when he really, really wanted Dean to do something. Today, what he really, really wanted was for Dean to go to a hot yoga class with him. Dean had adamantly refused until Sam had volunteered to do the dishes and laundry for two weeks. How bad could a little stretching be?

That was how Dean found himself in sweatpants and a wife-beater, sweating his ass off in a 100-degree room, trying to bend in ways his body was not built to bend in. The only thing that was keeping him there was their instructor.

He was a tall, well-built man with relatively short sweat-spiked black hair. He had broad shoulders that led down to slightly slimmer hips. He was not a small man; the fact emphasized by the leggings he was wearing.

Yes, the man that was talking them through the poses was wearing leggings and a tank top that was about five sizes too small for him, but that was somewhat excusable in this heat. The leggings, that Dean was not staring at while the man bent into another pose to grab his ankles, had angel wings on them. Big, giant wings that spread across his tight, round ass, expanded around his thick muscular thighs and trailed down his calves.

Dean was feeling flushed, from the humidity, obviously, and the exertion of trying to contort himself like a human-pretzel. Sam snickering beside him caught him off guard while he was attempting to be a tree; he lost his footing and slipped on his sweat covered mat when he tried to regain his balance. After he shot a deadly glare at his brother, he turned to see a hand in his face, presumably there to help him up.

When he looked past the very strong and capable-looking offering, he found strikingly blue eyes laughing at him. They belonged to the angel-winged-ass yoga instructor. Not that he needed the assistance, he grabbed his hand and hauled himself into a standing position then swiped the sweat from his brow.

“May I?” the man asked.

“Huh?” Dean was not distracted by the sweat pooled above the man’s collarbones, nor the seemingly perfect way his hair happened to swoop.

The man laughed and dipped his chin before looking him in the eye, not something very many people were comfortable doing. “I can help you with this pose, if you’d like. If it’s okay to touch you.” He nodded toward Dean’s entire body with a seductive quirk of his eyebrow.

Dean couldn’t think of anything he’d like more than to have this man’s hands on him, so he just nodded and put his arms up over his head. The man walked around behind him and put one hand on his lower back, then grabbed his shoulders and maneuvered him into a more upright position. After he was satisfied with that, he wrapped a hand around his left hip then put his other hand on Dean’s right thigh, gently guiding his leg to turn out while holding his hips still.

With his mind in a fog, Dean stood there with his right foot on his left calf and his arms raised above his head, thanking whoever would listen to his pleas that no one was paying him enough attention to see the massive hard-on he was sporting for their yoga instructor. The man kept ahold of his thighs and put his mouth tight against Dean's ear and told him to take in deep breaths and to look skyward. He was able to inhale twice, but when he went to look up, he began to lose his balance again.

He only wobbled a little bit before he abandoned the pose altogether and stomped his foot down. Sammy would just have to find another yoga buddy because Dean was not cut out for this hippy, wanna-be workout shit. He got all the workout he needed hoisting transmissions into vehicles at work. He had planned to apologize to the super-hot hot yoga man and duck out early, but the second he turned around, the man’s smile short-circuited what was left of Dean’s brain.

“It's not as easy as it looks; is it? With some practice, you’ll get it.” The man’s smile was so genuine Dean really had no choice but to agree with what he hoped was a self-assured grin. The man smiled a little wider then announced to the class, “Let’s finish this up in lotus pose.”

It was then that Dean realized that one of the man’s hands was still on his hip. He applied a little pressure, so Dean got the hint to sit down along with the rest of the class; everyone else seemed to know what a lotus was. After a quick glance around, carefully avoiding the angel wing-framed bulge in front of his face, he sat cross-legged and put his hands on his knees.

Sammy snorted beside him, and when Dean turned to shoot him a look he felt hands on his, flipping his palms to face up.

“Palms up and put your fingers together,” the blue-eyed angel man corrected him. “And, if you can, tuck your feet in above your legs, like Donna, over there.” He motioned to a cute blonde woman who kept her eyes closed, but smiled a dimpled grin at the mention of her name.

Dean tried his best to get his feet up, but only managed to angle them so that his toes were favoring upward. After an approving nod, the man went back to the head of the class and assumed the same position with ease, then motioned for Dean to take a deep breath and close his eyes.

Considering that he was sweating his literal balls off, and was sporting an almost painful boner at being manhandled by this gorgeous legging-clad dude, Dean was the most relaxed he’d been in a long time. Within moments his body was no longer sore, he was hardly registering the sweat dripping from his face, and he felt… peaceful.

Far too soon, the man announced the end of the class with the sound of a small gong, and everyone fell into hushed chatter. Plans for lunch, after showering, or meeting up at some other time or for some other class were being made. Sam offered Dean his hand to stand, which he begrudgingly accepted, trying not to moan as he extracted himself from the floor.

“See,” Sammy smiled down at him, “that wasn’t so bad, was it?”

Dean chanced a glance over his shoulder to where the yoga-man was talking with the cute girl, Donna. “Yeah, I can see why you come here.”

Sam laughed and made a face that Dean knew only preceded an observation he knew he wasn’t going to like. “I thought you might find something here worth coming back for.” Dean just nodded and grabbed a towel to wipe his face off. Sam leaned in and whispered, “He’s single, I checked.”

Dean balked for a moment before Sam leveled his stupid, little brother, you-can’t-lie-to-me face, then he huffed. “Whatever, Jolly Green Giant, get out of here, you’re cramping my style.”

He shot his brother a smirk and a wink, then made his way over to intrude on what he was sure was a conversation about the newest juice cleanse. Smiling at both of them he waited patiently for an opening in the conversation to interject an apology.

“Sorry to interrupt; I just wanted to say thanks… for, um, helping me out earlier. Yoga isn’t really my thing.” Dean laughed, and the woman excused herself to the showers.

With a pointed look at the other man, she left.

“That’s what I’m here for…?”

“Dean. And you are?”

“Castiel,” he responded, offering his hand once again.

Dean shook his hand like his father had taught him, thumbs shoved together, fingers gripped tight, but not squeezed. Castiel was only caught off guard for a moment before returning his firm handshake; commendable. They stood there for a moment, definitely not holding hands and staring into each other’s souls.

“I’m going to need that back, at some point.” Cas, which was what Dean had resolved to call him, joked.

“Oh, yeah.” Dean laughed and took his hand out of Cas’s grasp.

If Cas could stop smiling at him like he was, Dean could probably have said something really cool, maybe asked him out for drinks sometime. As it was, all Dean could think about was not looking down at the bulge in those God-forsaken, not-so-angelic, leggings.

“So, will I be seeing you next week?” Cas laughed at what must have been the face Dean was trying not to make, then added, “for another class, I mean.”

Dean ran a hand along the back of his neck and answered honestly. “I’m still not sure yoga is the thing for me, especially if it involves this much sweating!”

“That’s just for the hot yoga class… if you’d prefer, I do have a standard class on Tuesdays and Thursdays; same time.”

How could Dean say no to this man, especially when he’s looking at him like that? “That sounds awesome.”

“Does it?” Cas was asking honestly, who is this man? Dean decided right then and there that he would find out who this attractive, strange man was.

“Well, I mean. Sure.” There was a slight pause where Dean probably should have resolved to stop talking. “Don’t knock it till you try it, right?”

As Dean rolled his eyes and mentally chastised himself, Cas laughed. A full-bodied, eye-crinkling laugh that Dean noticed showed the gums over his top teeth; he was terrifyingly attractive, in a dorky, unconventional sort of way. Dean was so screwed, hopefully literally.

“How would you like to grab a smoothie with me?” He was still laughing, which made Dean feel equally off balance and a little giddy.

He blinked a couple of times to bide his time while he processed what exactly Cas was asking him. “Uh, sure.”

“Great. Meet you out front in fifteen minutes? Gotta wash all this sweat off.” He motioned to his entire body.

As if it were beyond his control, Dean openly checked the man out, marveling once again at his thick thighs, somehow encased in those damn feathered tights. He bit his bottom lip to keep from voicing his inner thoughts and shook his head, laughing at himself.

“Or maybe, I’ll just stay in this.” The heat behind Cas’s eyes left little room for interpretation.

“Or…,” Dean could not believe he was about to say this, “maybe I could help you out of those.”

Dean took a shot and rested a finger on the waistband of the leggings. They were soft and warm and pulled taut over Cas’s hipbones. The too small, to call it what it was, crop-top, perfectly showcased that well-shaped ‘V’ that dipped teasingly into his bottoms.

“I would like that.”

To be continued...

Read part 2, Steam Shower here!

Please reblog if you liked it! Feel free to ASK for anything else you may like to read or if you would like to be added to my tag list!

All the tags:

@amanda-teaches​ @waywardbaby​ @impala-dreamer​ @ericaprice2008​ @whimsicalrobots​ @evansrogerskitten​ @chloeaacole​ @danica-queen-of-hell​ @holyfuckloueh​ @andkatiethings​ @dean-winchesters-bacon​ @mogaruke​ @super-fan-of-all-things​ @speakinvain​ @adoptdontshoppets​ @superlightalternateuniverse88​ @kittenofdoomage​ @myxtina​ @babypink224221​ @just-another-busyfangirl​ @81mysteriouslyme​ @brewsthespirit-blog​ @closetspngirl​ @death-unbecomes-you​ @mrswhozeewhatsis​ @pretty-fortune​ @tardis-impala-221b-junkie​ @bunnybaby121115​ @cutebutnotinorcent​ @mtngirlforever​ @joseyrw​ @drakelover78​

Dean tags:

@deangirl7695​ @pisces-cutie​ @bangtasticbobby​ @akshi8278​ @shamelesslydean​ @heyitscam99​

[petitprincess1]

They Have Such Great Chemistry

Summary: Flug ends up noticing that Slug has gone silent for a while and decides to check up on him…by breaking and entering, of course! How else would you do it?

Words: 1,568

Characters: Flug, Slug, White Hat (briefly), Clemencia (briefly), Demencia (probably shouldn’t even count from how brief she is)

Warnings: …Puns…and I guess obsessive behavior.

This was spawned from a little fun thing @emile-hides and I did with these two and I had even more fun writing it. So, consider this a gift, Emile. Love ya!

Flug stood outside of White Hat’s mansion at midnight- yes, mansion because the idiot probably thought he was too good to have a hat-styled house like his Jefecito. -and walked around the perimeter of the outside gate, messing with his backpack straps. Yeah, he wasn’t really trying to be stealthy or anything for two reasons. First, anyone who would dare try to stop him would be on the very top of his laundry list…not like actual laundry list- I mean, he actually has that since nobody else does their damn clothes because it must be soooo hard to- you know what? The point is that they’ll be dead. All of them. Dead. Secondly…Flug wanted to check up on somebody.

He took a remote out from his pocket and pressed a button. A soft beep came from it as mechanical spider limbs deployed from the backpack, allowing him to easily leap over the gate and land on the lawn. Unlike with his ingenious overlord, White hadn’t bothered to install a security system outside of his home. “It takes up too much energy and time for something I can easily make disappear with a snap of my fingers,” yeah, sure. You can just say your lazy. It’s okay. No one will judge, except Flug. He definitely will. Greatly.

Flug shook himself out of his thoughts as used the robot limbs to circle around the house, looking for a specific window. As he was searching, a loud explosion boomed above him, making him quickly hide in a nearby bush. He then groaned loudly as he heard White Hat shouting, “Clemencia! What did I say about blowing yourself up!?”

Clemencia then shouted back to him, “Demmie sent me a bomb, Whitey! That means she loves me!!”

“I…no, Clem. No, I don’t think that’s how that works.”

Flug rolled his eyes at the two imbeciles, wondering how someone as glorious- but not as glorious as Black Hat -Slug could deal with such asinine people. A loud sigh came from nearby and after hearing the sound and length of the breath, it made Flug’s heart leap to his throat. He quickly disengaged the spider limbs and ran over to the nearby bay window, smiling widely and staring longingly. He stared at the other scientist that wore a dark brown bag over his head, a black, loose sweater that read “I’ve always liked one-liners. That’s why I’m a fan of monorails.”, dark grey sweatpants, and just socks. It was very minimalist and it made Flug almost melt. However, gazing at Slug was not what he was here for…he can do that tomorrow.

Flug quickly took out a laser and cut a circle into the glass, tapping it so the small piece could come out easily and grabbed at it so it wouldn’t shatter on the wooden floor. He crawled through the small hole and silently got onto the floor, tiptoeing over to Slug. White’s scientist had been very quiet for a long while, considering that he hadn’t seen him move around on the cameras that he had secretly installed. He had just been staring quite vehemently at a piece of paper for several hours. Luckily, White Hat’s Hatbot often brought him food or else Flug most likely would’ve broken into his house a long time ago, force feeding Kaiser raw eggs. 

Once Flug got close, he peered over his shoulder and saw that Slug had scribbled a bunch of equations and ingredients onto a few sheets of paper. There also was candy scattered about near the papers. One of which that was in a container that read “HIGHLY VOLATILE! DO NOT TOUCH, CLEM!” Seems like his windbeutel (cream puff) was having a bad day. Although, he didn’t know that candy and baking needed math in order to make anything, even though baking is said to use chemistry. Don’t you just throw everything in a pot or bowl and it just somehow becomes something? …And this might be why 505 does majority of the baking in the house.

Flug sighed sadly, “Poor, Slug.”

Slug then jumped, turned around, and then punched Flug in the throat, causing the scientist to make disgusting retching/choking sound and grab at his neck. The taller scientist stood up quickly and frantically apologized, red pupils in his goggles moving quickly, “Fuck! Shit! Flug! No! I’m so…wait. Why am I apologizing? Why the fuck are you in my room!?”

Flug coughed a few times before hoarsely saying, “I…I can’t b-believe…you just…punched me…i-in the throat!”

“What the f- You snuck into my room…and through the window, apparently!”

“Well, how else was I supposed to get in? Geeze!”

Slug took a deep breath to calm himself and then rubbed at his temples, sighing, “Why…Why are you here?”

The other scientist rubbed at his neck some more before answering Slug, “Well, you weren’t moving around all that much, so I thought that it would be best to come and check up on you.”

He blinked down at him and knew that he would probably regret asking this, but his damn curiosity got the better of him. Slug took another deep breath and then questioned, “Okay…so, what made you come over here? What made you think that there was something wrong?”

Flug grabbed at the papers scattered on his desk and started reading them over, while explaining, “Well, considering that I hadn’t seen you move from the camera I installed in your bedroom to any of the others like in your closet, second lab, bathroom- audio only, of course. I’m not a perv. -the kitchen, or anywhere in the halls, I assumed that something must be wrong. Plus, I hadn’t heard a single sound from you. You can’t tell me that’s not worth me breaking and entering for.”

A dork. Yeah, Slug could, probably should, be thinking that this man is clearly unhinged and needed to be apprehended right now, but no. Sure. Let’s just say that this is just dorky behavior. He gave a small chuckle and explained, “It’s nothing really. I always get silent and quietly curse everyone who ever lived whenever I’m stuck on a problem. Also, don’t bother trying to figure that out. I saw you try to cook a frozen casserole…with the paper on.”

“The directions didn’t say not to.”

“I think common sense says not to,” Slug gave a cheeky grin before grabbing the sheets of paper and then reading them over, going silent once more as he his brows furrowed in concentration. Flug couldn’t help but pout at him going silent once more and really wanted to help. Although, he was unfortunately right about him not being able to help him with his work. He probably would just make things worse in that regard.

He rubbed at the back of his neck and shuffled on his feet, wondering what to do, and then gasped at a thought. Flug smiled at him under his bag and called out, “Hey, Slug, the guy next to me asked if I had any hypo bromide, I said NaBrO.”

Slug shuffled a bit where he sat, but didn’t really have that much of a reaction. Still, Flug persisted, “So, Demencia threw sodium chloride at me the other day and I told her…that’s a salt!”

Again, nothing. He kept going, chuckling slightly, “Are my chemistry jokes too basic for you? Is that why there’s no reaction? Also, you must be an exothermic reaction because you spread your hotness everywhere!”

He heard a slight puff of breath come from Slug, that was a bit of progress. He almost could see a smile practically underneath there. So, he continued, “Is it getting hot in here or is that just our bond forming? If I could rearrange the periodic table, I would put Uranium and Iodine together. ….Uh….I must be a diamond because you gave me a hardness of 10!”

That made Slug choke and then bark out, laughing, “Pffffttt! What!? Flug, you’re such a dork!”

Flug gave a small sigh and mentioned, “Oh, good, you finally laughed. I was running out of chemistry jokes. All the good ones argon.”

Slug gave a small snicker as he got up and lifted up both of their bags to give Flug a quick kiss before pulling his down quickly, making Flug whine. The taller scientist chuckled, “Don’t worry. You’ll see it soon. Also, I guess you’re staying here tonight, considering that you are fixing my window, right?”

Flug gave an embarrassed chuckle, but then stopped when he saw Slug about to look at his papers again. He lowered his hands and then shook his head, “Slug, it’s not going to get fixed just by staring. You’re incredible…don’t worry about it. You’ll figure it out. Plus, it’s the middle of the night.”

Slug was gonna mention that it was odd that the man who has stayed up for 72 hours is telling him to sleep, but he didn’t want to ruin the moment. He just nodded at him and guided Flug over to his bed before suddenly stopping. He looked over his shoulder and said, “Hey, Flug. Are you my appendix? Because I have gut feeling that I would love to take you out.”

Flug’s goggles had stars in them as he opened his mouth to say something, just for it to be interrupted by Demencia in the vents, shouting, “NEEEEERRRRDDDDSSS!!”

[mobius-prime]

96. Sonic the Hedgehog #58

Friendly Rogues & Foul Villains

Writer: Ken Penders and Clayton Emery Pencils: Art Mawhinney Colors: Ken Penders

The crediting for this issue is all wonky. For some reason, the credits for the second story appear on the first page of the first story, while the actual credit for the first story appear right at the end. You can tell easily, because the first set of credits lists Manny Galan with the second being Art Mawhinney, but the art style of the first story is very clearly that of Art. I've just fixed it and credited them appropriately for convenience here. Also, strangely enough, the writing for this issue seems very rushed and almost unfinished. The writing is choppy, lines cut themselves off abruptly, and sentences don't make as much sense as they should. I can only assume this is because Kenders was busy writing for the KtE issues and didn't have as much time to spare making this one polished, but even then, you'd think the editors would catch it. Ah well.

So as you'll recall, we ended on Sonic and Tails meeting Yanar as he's thrown into the dungeon they're trapped in. After a brief period of surprise at seeing an echidna that isn't "Rad Red," a couple Robians, acting evil as though they were still under Robotnik's control, come in and detach Tails from the wall, dragging him away despite Sonic's protestations.

Meanwhile, despite having a bead on Knuckles with his arrow from the beginning, the Sonic clone in the forest instead jumps down to yell at him to "Stand and deliver, varlet!" and name himself as Rob o' the Hedge, basically revealing himself to be the hedgehog version of Robin Hood, complete with cheesy medieval-style dialogue. Knuckles immediately responds by flipping him into the water.

I like how everyone's responses in this arc so far to being knocked onto the ground is to immediately look up at the attacker and be like "You know what, I respect you. Let's team up."

Back in the dungeon, Sonic explains to Yanar how he and Tails ended up here. They tried to fly too soon after the Day of Fury rainstorm, resulting in their plane crashing and them being taken captive by a group of hostile robots mistaking him for Rob o' the Hedge. Gee, I wonder how that happened? Shortly thereafter, the robots come back in, this time to take Sonic away for questioning, but Yanar notices the shiny golden key they're holding to Sonic's shackles, and tackles one of the guards, grabbing the key in the chaos without them noticing.

As he's dragged out the door, he flings the keys back to Sonic, who easily catches them on the toe of his shoe and begins unlocking his shackles. Freedom!

In the forest, Rob takes Knuckles to a treehouse hideaway while explaining to him how his "merry band" were all captured and roboticized in the past, leaving only him to carry on the fight - and what's more, during the maybe one whole hour Knuckles and Mari-An were away, these robots already managed to enslave the entire tribe Knuckles was supposed to be leading to safety. Good job, buddy!

With that, the two form a partnership to get their combined friends back. Back in the dungeon, Sonic waits patiently until the guards come back to open the door, then bashes them up a bit before racing down the corridors to find Tails. And oh no, it's a horrific sight! Tails is strapped to the rack, and is being tortured for information by t- …uh… t-tickling his…

Ken Penders, I swear to god, you can't even deny that this happened, okay? I know you drew that one Lien-Da picture for a fan with her feet all out and being tickled by Eggman. Far be it from me to judge someone for drawing art for a fan, or for having a fetish that they want to draw art for, but for goodness sake Kenders, you can't pretend like it was all business when you specifically write this kind of stuff into your plotlines. I was so shook by Tails' feet being tickled all up in our faces like that that I almost missed the reveal in the last panel above that the interrogator is none other than General D'Coolette, Antoine's own father roboticized ten years ago in the war against Robotnik!

Sonic rushes down and quickly frees Tails, then tries to reason with the general, mentioning his son, but the roboticized general states he has no memory of the names Sonic gives him and begins to attack. Sonic dodges and refuses to fight, stating that he can't hurt him as "he's sick," which really just adds to the insight into Robotnik's frankly genius strategy behind the roboticization. Not only did it give him a growing supply of free, mindless labor, but it ensured that those lucky enough to escape would be reluctant to fight against their former family and friends, rendering them easier in turn to capture. I suppose the early comics were too goofy to go into ideas like the use of psychological warfare, but despite how serious that phrase sounds I can assure you the later comics were not at all afraid to get deadly serious at times, something which I genuinely appreciated. Anyway, enough of my rambles here - Tails merely unties a light fixture above General D'Coolette while he's distracted with Sonic, causing it to crash down onto his head and allowing the two to escape.

Back in the forest once again, Knuckles and Rob are walking along when they encounter a suspicious robed figure coming towards them. Rob steps forward to challenge the figure, who immediately takes offense to his words and whacks him right back into the water, impressing him once again. The figure is, as you might have expected… Mari-An!

Geddit? Rob and Mari-An? Like Robin Hood and Maid Marian? Hoho, so clever! They head toward the fortress where everyone is imprisoned, as Sonic and Tails run circles around that same fortress looking for a way out. Naturally, as Rob shows Knuckles and Mari-An a secret tunnel to the inside, the two groups bump into each other, allowing them to join forces.

However, as they reach the fortress' main courtyard, they encounter a horrible sight - Yanar on the hangman's platform ready to be strung up, with the echidna tribe being forced to stand and watch as the roboticized general makes an example of their leader! What a nail-biting cliffhanger! I'm sure there's no way they'll come up with a rescue in time starting next issue!

The Living Crown

Writer: Ken Penders Pencils: Manny Galan Colors: Ken Penders

Now that the king is back to full health, Dr. Quack decides to give him a very thorough checkup, something which the king is a bit grumpy about. Hilariously, Dr. Quack's first name is revealed to be Horatio, which is about the funniest name you could possibly give a cartoon doctor duck. I'm just waiting for Yorick to show up at some point now. For some reason, the king decides to explain why their country is ruled by a monarchy, which, okay, despite this line of conversation kind of popping up out of nowhere, I'm interested. I mean, I've complained enough about this world's system of monarchy and how it's only hurt more than helped, so it'll be nice to find out the why, right?

Well, as it turns out, when little Maximillian (because that is revealed to be the king's name, though it's still not anywhere near as hilarious as freaking Horatio) was ten years old, his father took him to a secret chamber underneath their castle, where he was amazed to see a pool in the center of the room that looked like it was filled with liquid gold and silver.

…this sounds disturbingly like a cult. Like, terrifyingly so. The king explains how the Source of All is basically the Force from Star Wars, and once one bonds with it they can see into the future to limited degrees and be guided by it like some kind of spiritual divination force. The king's sword and crown are linked together, and when he sent Rosie away with his sword during Robotnik's coup the crown "merged with" him, which I can only imagine as some hilarious scene where the crown just melts and goes into his head pores or something. Without the sword and crown's power to protect him, the king was captured and exiled into the Zone of Silence, but now that he has the sword back, his crown has returned as well, sitting atop his head this very moment. He begins to get a little unnervingly excited - it's not played off as such, but to an outside reader like me, yeah, it feels very cult-like, as he essentially declares that he wishes to put Sally through the same ritual even if she doesn't like it, something we're promised to see the next Sonic the Hedgehog issue. Oh, boy…

[anistarrose]

A Morning at Sea (GF Stanuary Week 2 - Travel)

Summary: Stan has woken up in plenty of unfamiliar places before, but waking up in a boat out in the middle of the ocean is a new one. Especially in a boat that seems so… welcoming.

Word Count: ~2200

Warnings: very brief mention of alcohol and drugs

For @stanuary Week 2: Travel! (I technically did already write something for this week already, but that was pretty short and spur-of-the-moment, while I’ve had this fic as a WIP for over six months now, so I feel like it’s about time I posted it.)

When Stan woke up, there was a brief moment for which he didn’t feel like anything was wrong. Hell, he felt happy, which should have made it obvious that something was very wrong, but for about a minute, he just stayed where he was, and listened to the waves strike the side of the boat.

Then he realized: he had no idea why he was on a boat.

“Shit,” he whispered under his breath, body going stiff beneath the blankets of an unfamiliar bed. He’d known the hotel he’d checked into last night had been shady, but he didn’t think he’d get fucking kidnapped. And that had been in Oklahoma, hours away from any decent-sized body of water — how the hell had they had they even managed to bring him here, wherever here was? Had they drugged him? He was pretty sure he’d drank a little alcohol last night, but nowhere near enough to sleep though getting dragged out of his room and onto a boat, right?

And why would they go this far? Stan had plenty of people who wanted him dead, and maybe even a couple who might have wanted a longer, more drawn out revenge, but there had to be easier ways doing that than throwing him into a cramped — but actually kind of cozy — bunk on a random ship.

He laid still for a few more seconds, and once he was sure no one else was in the room, he finally stood up and took a second to look around. Dirty clothes were in a pile on the floor, about half T-shirts and half sweaters. There was a small nightstand crammed between his bed and the side of the boat, with an empty mug, a pair of glasses, and a picture frame on it. The mug smelled of chocolate, but the stains at the bottom suggested it had been used for coffee too in the past.

He figured that his kidnappers must have stolen the boat and been too lazy to get rid of the stuff they found in it, because he definitely hadn’t drank anything from the mug, he didn’t even own a pair of glasses anymore, and it wasn’t really the style of any of his serious enemies to keep a picture of their family lying around. The clothes didn’t seem like the type that any self-respecting revenge-bent criminal would own, either — too many colorful sweaters, and they looked hand-knitted at that.

For a second, though, he thought the kids in the photo looked vaguely familiar — a boy and a girl that were about the same age and had the same fluffy brown hair, as if they were twins. But the next moment the feeling was gone, and Stan realized he must have imagined it.

This whole cabin was throwing him off. It was just too… welcoming. Too caring. Too full of the mementos of some stranger’s loving family.

Stan didn’t belong here.

He sat back down on the bed and rested his head in his hands. How the hell was he going to get out of this one, even if he could get off the boat without anyone seeing? He was an okay swimmer under normal conditions, but the waves had sounded pretty rough, and if he was too far from the shore —

Stay calm, Stan, he told himself. He’d improvised his way out of worse things before. He just had to figure out what the hell was actually going on, and then he’d be able to bullshit his way through it.

The only door was just past the foot of the bed. He put his ear to it for a moment, and when he couldn’t hear anything over the sound of the waves, he reached for the handle.

He’d expected it to be locked, which was why he hadn’t worried about leaning up against the door as he turned the knob. What kind of kidnapper didn’t lock up their hostage? But no, it swung right open under his weight, letting out a creak that had to be loud enough to hear over the waves. Fuck.

The room it opened into must have been a kitchen — it contained a tiny square table and two chairs on one side, and on the other side, a stove and a few other appliances. Facing towards that stove, his back to Stan, was a man who wore a red turtleneck sweater and had… gray hair? There were elderly people after him now?

“Morning, Stanley,” he called without turning around, and a chill went up Stan’s spine. The man knew his real name, even though he hadn’t used in years. The stranger had to have been at least in his fifties, maybe even older, but if he’d managed to track Stan down through all the fake identities… Stan wasn’t sure if he liked his chances up against this guy.

“I assume you’ll want coffee?” he asked, and for a second Stan thought that there was someone else named Stanley on the boat and that was who the man was talking to so casually, but no one else replied, and the stranger turned around to face him. “Stan, is everything alright?”

“What the fuck,” Stan whispered.

The old man’s expression turned into what Stan could have sworn was fear — except that didn’t any make sense. He slammed the mug he was holding onto the table and rushed towards Stan, reaching out with his left arm to grab Stan by the shoulder. “Stanley, are you —”

Stan caught the man’s hand, barely. His reflexes felt slower than they should have been.

“Don’t touch me,” he growled. “Tell me who the hell you are or I swear I’ll take you up on the deck and throw you off the fucking boat.”

For a moment, the old man just stared at him, and Stan wondered if they’d met before, even though he was pretty sure he’d remember if someone this old was after him. There was just something familiar about that confused, shocked expression, the way those eyebrows raised…

Then the man’s face crumpled. If Stan hadn’t been gripping his wrist, he might have collapsed to the floor.

“You don’t remember,” he whispered. “All this progress, and…”

He tried to gently pull his hand away, but Stan held it tight.

“Explain, old man!” Stan shouted. “You heard what I said about throwing you… I — I’ll…”

Looking at the man’s heartbroken expression, Stan found he couldn’t finish the sentence. Why was it that he cared so much about this stranger? Why did seeing him upset made Stan feel like punching something?

“Hey,” Stan said, letting go of the man’s wrist and taking him by the shoulder instead, if only to keep him from collapsing. “I, uh… I’m sorry. I still want you to explain what’s going on, ‘cause I sure don’t know, but I’m — I’m not gonna fight you.”

“Don’t apologize,” the man whispered, his head hanging low in defeat. “It’s not your fault — it’s mine. All mine. I thought… I thought that we’d escaped any lasting consequences, but… oh, if only I had the scrapbook here, maybe I could —”

“Hey, uh, don’t worry.” Stan awkwardly patted the man on the back. “I don’t actually know what’s wrong, but… but I’m sure we can figure out something…”

The man made eye contact with Stan, a short but painful shared glance, but he didn’t reply. He kept talking, but he wasn’t speaking to Stan anymore, not really — just talking to himself, berating himself.

“This is all my fault. I had to do this to you, because I was such an idiot I had to correct your grammar of all things —”

He raised a hand to the side of his face — and Stan finally got a look at his fingers. All six of them

“Ford?!”

Lightning-fast, the man grabbed him by the shoulder, and this time Stan didn’t stop him.

“Stanley? What do you remember?”

Stan didn’t answer. He couldn’t answer.

Of course it was Ford. He had the same glaringly large nose and ears, the same Pines cowlick, hell, even the same style of glasses as the ones he’d worn in high school. But his hair was dark gray with a lighter gray stripe running through it, and his face was worn and creased — perhaps by smiles, but more likely by frowns.

“W-what the hell happened to you, Stanford?” Stan stammered. “How did you — how did you get so old?”

Ford seemed to relax ever so slightly, as if some realization had dawned on him. “All right, you’ve only forgotten… this is alright. You’ll be okay, Stan.”

His voice was oddly comforting — or at least, it might have been, had Stan not been bracing himself for it to turn resentful and betrayed.

But Ford guided him towards the table, gently and without incident. Stan almost protested that he didn’t need help, but just at that moment, a sudden, throbbing pain began to emanate from the side of his head, and he bit his lip. It dulled after a moment, but as Ford helped him ease down into the chair, he still felt feverish.

He knew he had some kind of amnesia; even he could put that much together. But everything else made so little sense — how long had it been, why was Ford with him again…

“You said I was… forgetting things,” he began, and Ford nodded, a guilty look on his face. “I don’t remember anything past ‘78, but… you’re older than — it’s later than —”

Ford nodded again, and this time he gently squeezed Stan’s shoulder too.

“Part of me doesn’t even wanna know,” Stan went on, “but… how old am I? How long — how much of my own life did I miss?”

Ford looked away for a moment, like he was pondering how to break the news most gently.

“It’s 2012,” he finally said. “September 27th, 2012. We’re sixty-one.”

There was something about the way he said we’re that felt so different from the last Ford that Stan remembered, the why would I want to do anything with the person who sabotaged my entire future?! Ford from that horrible night after the science fair. This Ford did want something to do with Stan, it seemed — but he was different in other ways, too, like the way he gave off such a… such an atmosphere of regret and self-blame, so tangible that you could practically suffocate in it. This was a Ford that had taken something for granted and lost it, with the jury still out on whether he would ever get it back.

For the second time that day, Stan found himself blurting out: “Ford, what happened to you?”

“What happened to me?” Ford repeated incredulously. “You’re the one who’s —”

“Fine. What happened to us?”

Ford sighed. “That’s the million-dollar-question, isn’t it?” He shook his head. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t be making light of any of this. But if… if you think you’ll be alright on your own for a moment, I might be able to grab something that could help bring some of those memories back.”

Stan nodded. “Yeah. I’ll be fine.”

Ford gave him a suspicious look, like he was skeptical of how fine Stan would really be, but he got up and headed towards Stan’s room in the back of the boat —

Stan had completely forgotten they were on a boat. Had… had Ford really forgiven him so much that he…

A bolt of pain ran down the back of his skull, and he shuddered and raised his hands to cover his ears. But it didn’t stop words that were unfamiliar and familiar at once from echoing around him he was plunged into darkness, strange glowing blue symbols providing the only source of light.

“Take this book, get on a boat, and sail as far away as you can! To the edge of the earth! Bury it where no one can find it!”

He gasped for breath, and suddenly everything was different, everything was lighter and warmer. Birds and insects were chirping all around him, as he stood outside a cabin — no, a shack.

“I don’t just want someone to come with me, Stanley; I want it to be you. Will you give me a second chance?”

Then someone was shaking him by the shoulder, and the same voice was speaking to him, sounding so much less distant all of a sudden —

“Stanley? Stanley, are you alright? Can you…”

The voice trailed off for a moment. “Are you crying?”

“Ford?” Stan asked slowly.

“I’m here,” Ford replied, quietly and slowly. In his hand was the picture from Stan’s room, the one of the two kids. “I’m here, Stanley.”

“Ford, what’s the name of this boat?”

For the first time that morning, Ford smiled. “We called it the Stan O’ War II.”

“Yeah,” Stan said. “That’s what I —”

(Guessed? Hoped? Thought, but was afraid to say, because he wouldn’t have known what to do if Ford had told him he was wrong?

...but as afraid as he’d been to put it to words, he’d known it was an irrational fear. He’d known he was right.)

He finally returned Ford’s smile. “That’s what I remembered.”

***

Thanks for reading, feedback is appreciated as always!

[gamearamamegathons]

Trauma Center: Second Opinion: Noob Surgery

[It probably goes without saying, but we’re gonna be talking about surgery here, in as graphic detail as necessary to describe, like, doing it in a video game. So please take care if that might bother you!]

Circe here! We’re getting right into the first Trauma Center game. I’m emulating this on the Dolphin emulator, which is worthy of mention because wrangling Wii emulation into something usable on a PC is a bit more complex than NES emulation. I’ve actually configured the Wii pointer to the mouse and the buttons to the keyboard, which is a fucking godsend. I can’t imagine playing this game with a real Wii remote. If anyone’s interested in playing along at home, I can write up a more detailed post about how I configured the controls for Trauma Center.

Anyway, moving on! I need to get a feel for how I’m going to approach writing about these games, but I think I’m gonna go light on plot, because my Dragon Quest posts are getting really plot recap-heavy and that takes a long time. Let’s focus more on bonkers surgeries!

Admittedly, the first few aren’t that bonkers. We’re playing as Derek Stiles, newbie surgeon. In-between surgeries, the game has kind of a visual novel style, where a sort of medical drama plays out. Despite being medical professionals, the characters swing wildly between being very supportive of each other, shockingly unprofessional, and snippy and mean. I assume this is just par for the course for medical dramas, I dunno, but I’d feel nervous about getting surgeried on by this lot.

The other characters are Angie the nurse, veteran surgeon guy, and older hospital head guy. I, uh, don’t remember their names, I’m sure it’ll stick with me after I play for a while. There’s another nurse who’s on for a bit, but she leaves after the first few surgeries.

It might be weird to think of gameifying surgery, but it works out pretty smoothly, I think. In each surgery, you’re given a tool wheel that lets you access things like a scalpel, forceps, antibiotic gel, stuff like that, and you’ll be presented with things that require consistent inputs to deal with. Like, cuts require stitches and antibiotics, blood pools require the...blood..vacuum? Yeah. The game always starts you off on the outside of the patient’s body, and may require you to make incisions and automatically zooms inside the patient’s body to wherever we need to go.

The first surgery is pretty simple. A guy got all cut up and there’s glass in him, so we gotta take the glass out and stuff. Stitching up cuts involves drawing a zigzag over the cut, and then we just smear antibiotic gel all over it, and it’s totally good. We also have to remove shards of glass with the forceps, which involves sliding the glass away from the cut, kinda like that board game Operation. Which makes sense, I don’t think this guy needs any more glass scraping against his body. We also have to make an incision on his arm to remove glass *inside* him, which seems improbable, but hey, no time for questions, only surgery. Once we’re done, we stitch up the incision and slap a bandage on that sucker. Done.

Next up, we gotta remove a tumor from a guy's, uh...I dunno, do I look like an organ expert? It's one of those. We get introduced to a lot of tools here, since we gotta find the tumor with an ultrasound, then cut it open and use the blood vacuum to get rid of all the...bad liquid...stuff. Then we just cut that sucker out and forceps it onto a bad stuff plate. No sweat. The surgery after that is more of the same, except this time you're guided less, so it's basically just to make sure you understand all the stuff you've learned from the first two tutorial surgeries.

The next surgery is for a singer guy who's got polyps on his throat, and he's freaking out that his career is going to be ruined. Angie yells at us for not calming him down right, I guess, so I suppose anytime a patient's upset it's going to be Derek's fault. Got it. Aaaanyway. I'll admit, I'm a bit squeamish about making an incision on a guy's throat, but I'm sure I'll get over that pretty quick. We've got a lot of body parts to cut open in this game. Luckily, this is the part where we get introduced to LASERS. Apparently the polyps are too small to cut out, so we're just going to BURN THEM OFF. With LASERS. Oh, but first we have to use the blood vacuum 'cause he's bleeding. And we ought to be careful here, 'cause overlasering can, uh, hurt the patient?

Oh yeah, another important element is that the patient has a life bar. Screwing up will hurt the patient more, but their vitals also slowly drop, and stuff like incisions or lasers will also damage vitals, even though they're necessary. The solution there is that we can use the syringe to inject green healing stuff into the patient. Again, it's best not to ask questions. The important part is that, as long as you stay on top of the patient's vitals, it's going to be a while yet before we hit anything that will seriously threaten to kill the patient.

So anyway yeah, that's our start on Trauma Center: Second Opinion. We've fixed, like, three entire organs! And an arm. I might end up making pretty frequent posts here, 'cause these go by pretty fast, so we'll see. I'm sure I'll figure out a rhythm that works here.

[ourlittlebitofnothinguniverse]

All for the video game ask. (do I need to mention only if u r comfy w/ it at this point). Love you!!

alright u done done it now bitchhhhhhhh are u READY 4 THIS SHIT (dshfa;lkj thamk i am so pumped ur my biggest enabler) i already answered a couple of these for anon but i’ll go ahead and answer them here as well

1. First game you played obsessively?hmmmm i wanna say the legend of spyro the eternal night? i played it so much i could beat the whole game in four hours. i’ve heard lots of ppl actually hated the legend of spyro trilogy but honestly they can suck my ass i loved them

2. A game that has influenced you creatively? Writing, drawing, etc.uh besides my answer for anon of skyrim not many games have actually just straight up influenced my art style but i’ve been playing this game called Fe (not fire emblem just Fe) and i really want to draw fanart for it bc it’s super cute if that Counts as influence?

3. Who did you play with as a kid?if this is meant in terms of co-op games nobody bc we didn’t have anyif just in general, my sister for the most part. i’d watch her play things like resident evil and she’d help me with the hard parts in medievil and crash bandicoot warped (read: racing levels)

4. Who do you play with now?myself lmao i don’t rly like co-op and multiplayer games and i prefer to play most games by myself

5. Ever use cheat codes?like i told anon, no bc i don’t know how they work and i’d probably only use them for the sims anyways

6. Ever buy strategy guides?not really? once we bought the collectors edition for diablo II when i was little and it included the strategy guide which i stayed up all night to read (bc i had run out of other reading materials in the house) but like i don’t really use them idk

7. Any games you have multiple copies of?the sims three and i know you know the reason why but in case anybody else wants to know: i didn’t know they had actually completely changed the game since i had played it last probably a decade ago so i bought it @ walmart this year and then i got mad bc it apparently SUCKS ASS now so in search of a copy of the original version i bought a second one from amazon bc the Image being used WAS of the original case but it really was the new version so now i have two SHITTY SHITTY VERSIONS of a game i used to love that i will never play bc it’s shit except maybe i will bc apparently it has real life music in it just replaced with sims language which is amazing and this response is far too long for the question but i asked u if u were ready so u signed up 4 thisi also have an xbox version of it tht i got for like christmas or smth years ago and a,,,,,, ds version??? that i got last year bc somebody was selling “the original version of the game including every expansion pack” for only like $30 and it definitely said disk version but when i got it it was this Pre-owned Dirty Ds Cartridge Covered In What Looked Like Strawberry Jelly and when i tried to contact them they shut their page down so there’s that which equals four shitty shitty copies of the sims three and i will never be more mad about anything than i am about this

8. Rarest/Most expensive game in your collection?uh well back when i had a job i spent A Lot of money (to me it was a lot) to get the collectors edition of the last guardian so that would be my most expensive. other than that i would have to say one of the hardest to find (maybe not rare but not common)games i have currently is medievil for ps1 bc it took me like a week of searching to find a copy in good condition online for sale bc i rly wanted to own it again since we had to sell all my old games when we moved to oregon which sucked bc we had a Bunch of cool games (mostly early ps era)

9. Most regrettable purchase?did you see my rant about the sims three for answer 7? yeah

10. Ever go to a midnight game release or stand in line for hours?never lived in an area where that is A Thing

11. Have you ever made new friends from playing video games?i wanna make a homestuck joke here (srsly probably not like i said i don’t rly do any type of co-op or multiplayer games so)

12. Ever get picked on for liking games?not really?? is that a Thing?

13. A game you’ve never played that everyone else has?uh idk literally any COD game, basketball games, Fallout games, overwatch, anything that’s co-op, shooter games or sports related etc idk i’m a simple fellow these types of games don’t appeal to me

14. Favorite game music?idk what this means? like genre-wise??? idk abt stuff like that i just like good game music but i’ll tell you the fuck what, hiveswap music fuckin SLAPPED

15. If it was a requirement to get a game related tattoo, what would you pick?fuck shit idk man i don’t rly want a tattoo maybe uhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh smth that could be vague

16. Favorite game to play with your friends IRL?idk rip lmao

17. Ever lose a friend over a game?Nah man i can’t even imagine smth as dumb as that unless they’re screaming racist or sexist slurs bc then friendship is terminated but otherwise like wtf it’s just a game,,,

18. Would you date someone that hates gaming?i mean?????? sure????????????? they don’t have to game with me??????????? unless they tell me I can’t game bc they don’t like it in which case Bye u controlling piece of shit

19. Favorite handheld console?u kno those games that used to come in sonic happy meals? yah (jk uh i don’t have much experience w/ handheld consoles besides nintendo ds-es and they’re cool)

20. Game that you know like the back of your hand?like i said i played spyro the eternal night so often i could beat it in four hours so probably that one.

21. Game that you didn’t like or understand as a kid but love now?the only games i didn’t like as a kid i p much still don’t like now

22. Do you wear game related clothing/accessories?i am Poor

23. The game that you’ve logged the most hours into?currently skyrim or stardew valley

24. First Pokemon game?I didn’t get to play any pokemon games until this year actually but i got myself pokemon y and ultra sun so those are my first two! although you Could technically say pokemon go bc i played that for the first time like One month before i got y and ultra sun but like idk if tht counts so *shrug emoji*

25. Were you ever an arcade game player?i never lived where arcades were a thing tbh

26. Ever form any gaming rivalries?Why

27. Game that makes you rage?there’s this absolutely adorable and INFURIATING game called so many me that’s a puzzle platformer but the controls are so ridiculously precise that it’s absolutely the WORST to play bc unless you do it just right at just the right millisecond you will die over and over and over

28. Ever play in a tournament?nah

29. What is your gaming set up?the livingroom tv and my mom’s xbox one or my bedroom with my ps4 i got for my birthday and my xbox 360 that i got like 7 years ago

30. How many consoles do you own?alright so If ds-es count i own,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, roughly seven? i have my new ps4 i got for my birthday last year, my 7 year old xbox 360, another xbox 360 i bought from a kid @ school, a ps1 i bought last year for the Nostalgia that’s in rly good condition, a rly old ds lite a rly old 3ds and my new pokeball 2dsxl. i would also say that the ps3 my aunt left when she died is mine bc my mom never used it and she had bought most of the games For Me and Her to play together anyways so the idea that she left it to my mom is,,,, Weird but my mom claims it was left to her so Shrug emoji

31. Does the 3DS and/or Virtual Boy hurt your eyes or give you headaches?“virtual boy” i love it omg. uh not really i don’t use my ds-es that often bc i don’t have a just wild amount of games but when i do use them it doesn’t rly mess w/ my brain or eyes too much

32. Did you ever play a game based on your favorite show/cartoon/movie/comic?probably not?

33. Did you ever have any bootleg games or plug-n-play games?i don’t think so tbh

34. Do either of your parents play video games?my mom does but she really only plays like three games (the newest assassins creed, skyrim, and stardew valley)

35. Ever work in a game store? Or do you have a favorite game shop?nope

36. Have you ever shed actual blood, sweat or tears over a game?man have u ever heard of brotherhood a tale of two sons? mom told me abt it and she didn’t warn me abt how it ended and i had to leave the room and cry bc it broke my heart

37. Have you played E.T. for the Atari 2600? Do you think that’s the worst game ever, or do you have another nomination?i didn’t know that was a thing

38. A game you’re ashamed to admit that you like?i can’t think of any tbh. oh wait i take that back sonic unleashed it’s terrible but i love it

39. A sequel that you would die for them to make?maybe not a sequel but they rly need to come out with another stardew valley type thing or maybe expansions or smth so that you can talk to and befriend more ppl and stuff

40. What to you think of virtual reality headsets or motion controls?never been able to try them but they look super fun and i can’t wait to see how they improve the technology

41. A genre that you just can’t get into?multi-player games period. also first person shooters and sports games. there’s more but i can’t remember the title of the game bc i don’t know what genre it would be lmao

42. Maybe it wasn’t your first game, but what was the game that started you on your path to nerdiness?i assume this means game related nerdiness not just my inherent nerdiness in general so probably the very first spyro game

43. Ever play games when you really should have been concentrating on something else?all the time my dude

44. Arcade machine that has consumed the most of your quarters?none

45. How are you at Mario Kart?probably shit i’m not good @ steering in games

46. Do you like relaxing games like Animal Crossing or Harvest Moon?i love them! i have like 100+ hours logged into stardew valley and i only got it in like november of last year

47. Do you like competitive games?not really

48. How long does it take your to customize your player character?so long. i either have to make them gorgeous or beautifully hideous

49. In games where you can pick your class, do you always tend to go for the same type of character?yah tbh lmao. i have like eight thief stone khajits in skyrim rn

50. If you were a game designer, what masterpiece would you create?i have a Lot of ideas and not all of them are good

51. Have you ever played a game for so long that you forgot to eat or sleep?forgetting to sleep, yes. forgetting to eat? no 

52. A game that you begged your parents for as a kid?i was a very sheltered kid i didn’t know about new games coming out when i was little bc we didn’t have any way for me to find out About Them. i’m making up for it by begging as an adult for ni-no-kuni II and the new spyro trilogy remastered

53. What’s your opinion on DLC these days?depends on the game tbh some of it is good and a lot of ppl who make mods are rly talented but sometimes the big companies just make dlc to make more money so it can be rly shitty so it’s kinda a 50/50

54. Do you give in to Steam sales?heck yes rn i’m waiting for house flipper to go on sale bc i’ve been waiting for it to come out since i found out abt it

55. Did you ever make someone you hated in the Sims and did mean stuff to them?no my style of playing the sims was more along the lines of make a hundred houses that are all P Much The Same House and making a hundred familys and never playing literally any of them hadflskja;sdfjdslkhja i just liked building stuff and that’s why i’m pissed abt how much they changed the sims three bc it used to be Way Better

56. Did you ever play Roller Coaster Tycoon and kill off your guests?we didn’t have it but i did have zoo tycoon and i’d release the dinosaurs sometimes

57. Did you ever play a game to 100% or get all of the achievements?legend of spyro the eternal night

58. If you can only play 3 games for the rest of your life, which ones do you pick?uh!!! that’s too much pressure and i would get so bored playing them for the rest of my life even if i loved them so i will not choose

59. Do you play any cell phone games?sort of? i’m big into abyssrium and i like viridi if those Count?

60. Do you know the Konami Code???????????????????????? guess not

61. Do you trade in your games or keep them forever?keep them forever!

62. Ever buy a console specifically to play one game?i got the last guardian before getting the ps4 does that answer ur question? (jk that is not the only reason i wanted and got the ps4 but it was One big reason)

63. Ever go to a gaming convention or tournament? nah

64. Ever make a TV or monitor purchase based on what would be best for gaming?not really? i just use whatever i currently have bc i am lame

65. Ever have a Game Genie, Game Shark or Action Replay? Did it ever mess up your game’s save file?nope

66. Did you ever have have an old Nokia with Snake on it?not a nokia but we had this one handheld thing that had a bunch of games in it that included snake i just can’t remember what it was it had like letters and numbers and it needed like regular batteries and you could only play the games that came programmed on it 

67. Do you have a happy gaming-related childhood memory you want to share?i cannot think of any right off the top of my head even though i know i played a lot of video games and loved them when i was little. hm it might not count as like a gaming-related childhood memory and more of just a memory of a game but we did have one really interesting little game that i absolutely loved i think we only rented it but u were a scientist who could turn into a mouse and it was absolutely amazing i loved it i have no idea what it was called hm

68. Ever save up a ton of tickets in an arcade to get something cool?not really we didn’t have arcades around where i grew up

69. In your opinion, best game ever made? there are a lot of rly good ones i can’t choose a best game

70. Very first game you ever beat? like i told anon i’m p sure it was crash bandicoot warped

WHEW this was rly fun thank u for enabling me it took me like two hours to answer this i’m so happy. ilu 2 man hope ur day has been rad!

[ghostportals]

Rejet’s Star Revolution: Starting the game

Uh yeah idk if there’s already a guide out but I haven’t seen one? so i figured i’d post a bit of one

keep in mind if you’re reading i can’t actually read japanese, a lot of this was done with google translate lol. but it can still be helpful to make things quicker till a proper guide comes out (if there. isn’t already one)

Menu stuff is at the very bottom of the post ! The stuff before the menu takes you through the tutorial and the basics that aren't covered in that.

edit before you click: warning that there’s currently irl blood on my desktop theme (won’t be soon tho)

Welcome to the Starevo tutorial! Lines with an * at the beginning aren’t in the tutorial, but are stuff I’m mentioning for the later gameplay.

1. Joining

Enter your Player name. Last name, then first name, Japanese style.

2. Intro

The school’s stuco VP will talk to you for a while. I’d like to tell what he says, but I’m not quite confident enough in my jp listening skills to do so lol. He does call you “president-chan”, though. You’re given a dialogue option:

It doesn’t matter what you say, but the top says “I’m not very confident” and the bottom basically says “I’ll try to do my best.” Both are not very confident sounding either way, which is understandable considering you’re suddenly being thrust into a position of power in a dang idol school, lol.

3. Lives - require LP

If you’re used to mobile rhythm games, the gameplay is pretty easy to get from just the images. There’s only one “button” and it doesn’t matter where you tap.

*Select a song, select a friend or guest as support, select a team, and click the pink button to begin (out of tutorial).

Small pink circle: Regular tap.

Blue circle with trail: Tap and hold.

Green circle with shine in the middle: Swipe.

Big pink gradient circle: Tap with two fingers (or double tap real fast, if you’re lazy.)

Star shaped: Tap A Lot Real Fast. You need to get a certain amount to get a perfect; continuing after the star fills gives you bonuses.

*After a live, you’ll see your results and get rewards. If your support was a guest, you’ll get a popup prompting you to send a friend request; you can send it (blue) or not (gray).

4. Lessons - require AP

You can increase affection(?) degree in lessons. Select the lesson type by selecting one of the colored circles. Keep an eye on the characters condition-- how effective the lessons are is directly proportional to how in shape the character is! (Just like real life wow)

Tap twice on a lesson type (circle) to begin. You’ll need to tap through several lesson types to complete a whole session, and can give items to the characters to increase how much they gain in a certain attribute by tapping on the orange button with a coffee cup.

Sometimes characters will be too tired, or moody, to participate in a certain lesson. Keep an eye on their mood, especially if you’re thinking about using an item. Sometimes they’ll sleep, which means they don’t participate in that bit of the lessons. However, letting them get rest can up their FEVER gauge and their tone. When the FEVER gauge is filled, the effectiveness of the lessons increases greatly.

*You can give presents during the lesson to make something good happen. Try to give what the character likes! When a character participates in a lesson, their affection goes up! Let’s become good friends with everyone!

*Lessons are done by unit. Outside of the tutorial, when you click the lesson button, you’ll choose a unit to train.

5. Story

The tutorial will next take you to the story page. After the introduction (which you already read), the stories will no longer be fully voiced. *You need to spend star/story keys to read most chapters. The mechanics work like any mobile vn; if you don’t want to sit through it, you can expand the menu in the upper right and click the skip button to fast fwd through.

*If you’ve played Enstars, the stories are similar to that. They’re organized by unit.

6. Units

Time to choose your boys! The screen shows you pura.net at first; switch between them by swiping, not by tapping the arrows. When a unit catches your fancy (or you find the one you’re already dedicated to), tap the pink button. It will then ask if you’re sure you want to start with this unit; click OK.

7. Gacha

Time to scout. You’ll automatically be taken to the gacha page in the tutorial, where you’ll be given a card of one of the members of your chosen unit. This ends the tutorial.

*Not in tutorial: the actual gacha function. If you’ve played other mobage, you know this. If not, it’s simple: The regular gacha (at the time of writing, only one, but there will probably be more) requires the little rainbow star stones. Spent 15 stars, get one card. Spend 150, get 10 cards. Getting 10 cards ups your chances of a better card! The point gacha (lower card rarities) requires 5000 points(?) for a 10 pull, and 500 for 1.

The tutorial ends after you get your card. The game will give you a couple messages and then prompt you to let it restart so it can complete more downloads (shouldn't take long). Upon starting the game again, you’ll receive login bonuses and be thrown into the fray.

8. Other stuff tutorial mentions

Cards can be strengthened using items. These are what you obtain from playing lives and completing lessons. You require a story key (blue star key) to read story chapters.

9. Cards

The top button on the card menu is your team organization. There are 5 team slots. Clicking the rightmost button on the bar that shows the cards will show the active skills in the team.

You have two types of teams: live teams, and lesson teams. When you open it, you’re on live teams. Click the other button above the card images to switch. There’s a bunch more buttons on here, but at the time of writing this idk what they are, I’ll. fix this later.

Second button is to level up your cards. Select a card (I have to tap them twice? sometimes more lol) to level. I’d like to add more but I can’t do anything there yet so I’ll fix this later;

Third button is awakening. I assume this is like idolizing/changing/blooming/ect. It looks to require items rather than a second copy? Will update later as well.

The bottom button lets you view a card’s stats. Level, specific stats, and skills. Click the middle button under the card to see the character’s profile. The third button will bring you to the unit pages, where you can look at any character’s profile by tapping them.

10. Menu stuff!

The main menu can be accessed from most pages by clicking the arrow in the bottom left. It’s shown across the bottom, and is showing by default on the home page. You can full screen your character/cg with the button in the left.

Left to right: Home, live, lesson, story, characters, gacha, friends, more menu menu.

10a. Friends

The rightmost button on the menu lets you view friends. It begins as a desolate and barren wasteland of loneliness. Right side buttons, top to bottom: Friends list, friend requests, pending approval from the other person, and search (find some friends!) The search page looks a bit glitchy atm but nothing gamebreaking. Click the button next to their name to view their profile, or the rightmost on their little bar to send them a request.

10b. More Menu Menu

Left to right:

Profile, settings, storage/inventory (items) Shop, friends, Transfer data, help, contact us Opening movie, terms of service, back to title.

10c. Settings

System options -> Live options -> Story options

System options top to bottom: music volume, sound effects volume, voice volume, lightweight mode (makes it run better).

Live options top to bottom: music volume, SE volume, voice volume, lightweight mode, timing calibration, movie (animations), cut-ins (the character popups when skills activate).

Story options is just text speed.

10d. Welcome menu

...This should probably be first but whatever.

Tap the bottom left button to access. Left to right (to bottom): OP movie, takeover/transfer/”inheritance”, clear cache, contact us.

In all honesty I don’t understand the transfer stuff myself... It looks like you can put an account on for sure, but I don’t know how to assign an email and password to your current account.

And that’s all I’ve got! When I figure out how to assign transfer codes I’ll add that in.

[scripttorture]

Your National Styles post is very helpful! I was wondering though if you could talk about what kinds of torture were common in pre-modern India? I don't have a specific time period in mind, I'm just after inspiration for a fantasy setting that's loosely inspired by India. Thanks.

This made me smile. Thank you Anon, any excuse to read more Indian history is a gift.

 I don’t have good sources for the entire sub-continent. Most of what I have focuses on the north. I’m also not 100% sure what you mean by pre-modern so I’m going to try to describe as much as I can, adding rough areas and time periods. That way you can pick and choose things that suit what you’re going for in your story. :)

 I’m not going to try with the Harappans. Partly because their writing system still hasn’t been deciphered but mostly because I intend to continue imagining they created an egalitarian utopia. Until such a time as some one finds proof of kingship or other crimes. We all have our stories we like to cling to.

 I actually started out with Keay’s India: A History (imaginative title isn’t it?) because the local library had it. It actually turned out to be a pretty good sign post for other sources.

 India has an incredibly rich history, but much of that history wasn’t written down until hundreds of years after the events took place. Which is something it has in common with most northern European countries, although most European countries have less thorough oral histories.

 India is quite interesting as a case study in the depth and accuracy of oral history. The presence of separate oral records for the same events and separate strands of written records- well it builds up an interesting picture. Apart from pure historical interest it’s also interesting to see what people remember, attempts to change records and how (with the right systems in place) oral history can be remarkably resistant to change.

 I digress.

 The point is Arthashastra is available in full online here. It’s a kind of guide to the organisation of a state. We don’t have exact dates for it (it was probably written by several people complied over quite a long period) but it’s probably mostly from roughly 200 AD. It is focused on the Mauryan empire dated as beginning in roughly 320 BC.

 It was pretty damned big. Conservative estimates have the empire stretching across the north of the Indian peninsula from ocean to ocean, from Pakistan, Punjab and Nepal all the way across into Bangladesh and south into Orissa and Maharashtra. Just looking at a global map, we’re talking conservatively of an area the size of France, Germany, Poland and Italy.

 The translation I’ve linked to has some issues that I can see from a casual read. For instance the references to ‘eunuchs’ were probably rendered in the original as a domination of tritiya-prakriti; literally ‘third kind’. The closest English translation is probably ‘queer’ as the term encompasses homosexual, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming and intersex people as well as people who can’t naturally conceive. Some of the subtleties in the original are probably lost in translation and there may well be references I’m missing.

 Now like most historical cultures the Mauryans tortured and tried to impose legal limits on torture. We know from modern analysis that legal restrictions on torture don’t work: torturers will always ignore them.

 So it’s highly unlikely that the tortures the Mauryans allowed by law were the only tortures that happened in the Mauryan empire. But we can be pretty confident that the tortures they listed as legal were used through their empire.

 Arthashastra describes torture as a punishment and torture as an attempt to force a suspect to confess. At the same time the text acknowledges that torture can force false confessions and appears to cite a named legal case where this happened.

 I feel it’s also worth stressing that the vast majority of punishments the text suggests are fines. Apparently in ancient India you could get fined for almost anything.

 Arthashastra’s description of tortures starts with a list of people who can not legally be tortured. Now torturers will generally ignore this but I feel it’s worth including for some cultural context:

 ‘Ignoramuses, youngsters, the aged, the afflicted, persons under intoxication, lunatics, persons suffering from hunger, thirst, or fatigue from journey, persons who have just taken more than enough of meal, persons who have confessed of their own accord (átmakásitam), and persons who are very weak,--none of these shall be subjected to torture.’

 ‘Those whose guilt is believed to be true shall be subjected to torture (áptadosham karma kárayet). But not women who are carrying or who have not passed a month after delivery.

 Torture of women shall be half of the prescribed standard. Or women with no exception may be subjected to the trial of cross-examination (vákyanuyogo vá).

 Those of Bráhman caste and learned in the Vedas as well as asceties shall only be subjected to espionage.

 Those who violate or cause to violate the above rules shall be punished with the first amercement. The same punishment shall be imposed in case of causing death to any one by torture.’

 Now I know this is a little dense so in case that’s not clear the second passage is saying that women should be tortured less then men and pregnant women or women who recently gave birth shouldn’t be tortured at all.

 The last paragraph states that the punishment for a torturer for violating the rules, or for killing someone while torturing them is a fine. And not a particularly steep one. (Based on modern research I’d say it’s unlikely these limits were enforced, consistently or at all).

 The text describes whipping, beating with canes, suspension and ‘water-tube’.

 It particularly talks about beating the thighs, palms of the hands, soles of the feet (I refer to this as falaka) and the knuckles.

 It states there are two kinds of suspension but doesn’t describe them. Most suspension tortures involve hanging a person by their arms in some manner, but not all. I honestly can’t tell from the text what sort of suspensions were used.

 ‘Water tube’ could mean- well a lot of things. It could mean pumping, which is forcing someone to swallow liquid until their internal organs are painfully swollen (often causing vomiting and diarrhoea). It could mean waterboarding. It could mean the ‘Chinese water torture’ (incredibly misleading name), continual dripping of water on to someone’s eyes, which is actually a form of sleep deprivation.

 There’s also this ‘the hands being joined so as to appear like a scorpion’ which sounds like a form of finger milking. That’s bindings around the hands or arms restricting circulation and causing the hands to swell painfully.

 The last three things acknowledged as torture in the text are these ‘burning one of the joints of a finger after the accused has been made to drink rice gruel; heating his body for a day after be has been made to drink oil; causing him to lie on coarse green grass for a night in winter.’

 I honestly haven’t a clue what the significance of the rice gruel might be in this context.

 The combination of drinking oil and heat sounds like a strange combination of tortures. Drinking oils can uh- basically give someone diarrhoea. Oil can also be flammable but I don’t think this is implying immolation. I think it might be indicating a combination of pumping, dehydration, starvation and a temperature torture.

 Because forcing a prisoner to drink something that would make them sick would quickly make them dehydrated. Subjecting them to extremely hot temperatures would then be even more painful and dangerous.

 The final description seems to a straightforward form of exposure. It’s exposing a victim to cold winter temperatures. The implication is that this also involves sleep deprivation. The ‘grass’ may or may not be significant. There are plenty of plants you wouldn’t want to lie down on for a night but I’m unsure whether the ‘coarse’ description indicates something that could cause pain.

 The text also describes beatings, branding the face (of Brahmans specifically) and amputation as punishments. It describes death by ‘torture’ but the particular torture is not specified. It describes capital punishment in general terms ie ‘those who commit this offence shall be put to death’. A few offences called for beheading specifically. It also describes the use of jails.

 The amputations I could find listed were: a finger, a hand, a nose, a leg, ears, male genitalia. There’s also a description of blinding by the application of chemicals.

 As a final note before we move on there’s an interesting passage on sudden death and signs to look for on a corpse that could indicate the cause of death. It’s pretty interesting as an example of how people conducted investigations into murders before we had forensic labs.

 You can probably assume Ashoka is broadly covered by what I’ve described. His ethical pronouncements including prohibits on torture but nothing suggests a complete and enforced ban on the practice so it’s likely to have continued under his rule.

 Now I tried to find some sources on the southern Indian empires, like the Chola but I couldn’t find anything I felt was a clear description of the criminal justice system. Similarly I didn’t find anything clear on the Sangam period.

 I’m honestly not sure if this is because sources don’t exist or because there are less translations from Tamil.

 There is a lot of Tamil poetry from the Sangam period that’s available in translation and touches on Tamil history and wars. These might well serve as a good source of inspiration but I don’t think they’re necessarily a good indication of common practice.

 I am, admittedly, making assumptions based on epic poetry from other countries. My impression though is that these kinds of literary pieces tend to record unusual practices rather than common ones. When they mention common ones they don’t always give the full context of what terms mean. So for instance the Norse Eddas describe several unusual (for the culture) methods of execution and torture, but references to more common ones are usually a word or two without explanation. The Eddas mention blood eagles but don’t actually tell us what they were. This kind of description seems common in the epic poetry I’ve read and as a result I’m assuming the Tamil poetry will be similar.

 The next thing I went to was a couple of Chinese sources recounting travels to India. These were from Buddhist pilgrims so remember that bias while readings their accounts.

 Faxian (Fa Hian) wrote an account that’s available in translation here. I only had a quick flick through but from what I can see it’s more useful for establishing the wider historical context of the countries and the religious climate at the time then it is figuring out ideas about justice and torture.

 The next thing that really stood out is the famous Record of Western Lands, the inspiration for The Journey West by a monk whose name is Romanised in about half a dozen different ways. Hsuan Tsang and Xuanzang seem to be the most popular renderings with the former used predominantly in Indian studies.

 Now the first volume is relatively easy to find but I’ve had difficulty getting access to the other 11.

 Hsuan Tsang periodically recounts stories of Indian history, some involving ideas of punishment, justice and torture. Now a lot of these probably don’t show common practice and some of them seem to have been misinterpreted by Hsuan Tsang (I think the account of voluntary castration is more likely to be describing a queer Indian identity then a punishment) but they’re useful nonetheless.

 Generally Hsuan Tsang seems to be confirming that the practices described in the Arthashastra were still in use while he was travelling. As well as fines he describes imprisonment and social shunning of criminals which may amount to isolation/solitary confinement.

 He describes amputations as punishment, of the nose, ear, hand or foot. He doesn’t describe castration as a punishment per say but it seems likely this continued even if it was rare.

 Hsuan Tsang claims that torture wasn’t used to force confessions but then describes torture being used to force people to plead when they ‘refuse to admit their unlawful activities ashamed of their faults’. Which sounds to me like torture used to force confessions and/or something analogous to the historical English custom of being ‘pressed to plead’ (ie people who refused to plead guilty or innocent were tortured until they pleaded one way or the other).

 The tortures described are a form of near (or likely actual) drowning by putting a person in a weighted sack and throwing them in a river. He also describes a burning torture using hot iron. The other descriptions in this section sound more like ways of divining a person’s alleged guilt and I’m going to ignore them.

 He describes blinding as a punishment. And also a vampire story that I wasn’t expecting.

 As we get into the 700s there’s increasing Arab contact, which at this point is mostly via traders and pirates. My initial notes include some questions about whether this is when falaka was introduced to India but going by the Arthashastra it seems likely falaka was in use long before the Arabs arrived. In fact the spread may have gone the other way.

 It’s also possible that Ancient India and Ancient Egypt both hit upon similar practices separately due to the simple nature of torture. I digress-

 Writings by Arab scholars and travellers about India start becoming more prominent from the 900s onwards. Most of these recount hostile encounters between Muslim forces and Hindu or Buddhist groups. The accounts are a lot less interested in the history and politics of the region then the Chinese travellers three or four hundred years earlier.

 The most easily available one is probably Chach Nama which was written in the 1200s-1300s and claims to be a translation of an earlier work on Arab conquests of Pakistan and north western India during the 800s. However- it’s accuracy on several points is disputed. A lot of people don’t think it’s a translation but an original work combining and re-imagining earlier historical documents. Some of the older accounts, such as those of Al Baladhuri and Al Biruni, contradict it.

 Personally I have slightly more faith in the accuracy of the Chinese accounts then the Chach Nama. I think it’s likely it was constructed to justify conflicts of the 1200s by creating a supposed historical basis for those conflicts. I think it also displays a vested interest in making conquered people appear uncivilised, a pattern that’s common in a lot of historical accounts of foreign countries by the people who conquered them.

 In light of that- I think Al Biruni’s A Critical Study of What India Says, Whether Accepted by Reason or Refused, a better bet. Especially since he seems to have been more interested in Indian society then Indian rulers. (Though take into account my personal biases here; I think Al Biruni is a nice example of how Islamic scholars influenced scientific and historical thought. I think our modern philosophy of science owes a lot to the ideas of truthfulness (al-haqq) Al Biruni and people like him championed. I’m going to own my academic admiration.)

 This looks like your best bet for an easily accessible copy.

 I feel like I should stress, having recommended a bunch of foreign scholars as sources on Indian history, that throughout this period we’re pretty sure Indians were writing their own histories. However not many of them have survived. That’s thought to be because of a combination of the climate and the way things were commonly recorded. The theory I see repeated is that Indians were commonly recording things by carving on wood. This almost invariably rotted away. Similar things have occurred in other countries as well: much of England’s early history literally went up in flames during the Great Fire of London when one of the principal libraries burned and Alexandria’s destruction is generally cited as the reason we don’t have a lot of important classical Greek works, like first hand accounts of Alexander’s conquests or say more Sappho.

 Aaaaand that was the point where my friends staged an intervention and the library demanded financial restitution for my kidnapping of their books.

 Spoil sports. The rest of this is from my general knowledge.

 European forces and settlements in India would probably have introduced more tortures. The Dutch regularly used waterboarding, but I can’t find any indication that this became common practice in India.

 However the British army’s combination of stress positions and exposure did. A punishment the British called ‘crucifixion’ was used throughout India. It involved tying the victim standing with their arms outstretched in a T shape in full sun.

 The stress position itself is incredibly painful, combined with the climate it was likely to cause dehydration and possibly heat stroke as well.

 I couldn’t find any other instances where it seemed like part of a European National Style had been adopted by Indians.

 I found historical references to murgha stress position in India, including an illustration from the early 1800s. I’m not sure how far back the usage goes but that could be because it was generally used against children. Punishments towards children are not generally recorded as torture historically and it can be difficult to trace their usage.

 I couldn’t find any historical references to pepper (putting irritating substances such as pepper or chilli into mucous membranes, eyes, nose, genitals etc). That doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t practiced historically. Again, this is a form of torture that seems to have been associated with abuse of women and children in the home, rather than legislative punishments.

 I think you could use both in a story set in historical India without it appearing out of place. It might not strictly be historically accurate but both would have been possible.

 Judging by the Arthashastra falaka has been in India for a very long time indeed. I couldn’t find enough sources to confidently state it was in continuous from the late BC until today- but virtually every period I could find records of torture in India for included falaka. I think it’s likely that it was used continuously; I can’t prove it.

 Blinding turns up continuously throughout India history as a punishment aimed at people of high social rank or power.

 I’ve read some accounts of burning people alive as a punishment, but these are from later on in Indian history; the 1700s and 1800s. The particular account that springs to mind is Farzana’s ordering a group of arsonists to be burnt alive. The context for this is that they set fire to a group of buildings housing women who lived in purdah and that if the fire hadn’t been put out these women would have burnt alive rather then leave the building. Farzana’s punishment was interpreted as ‘an eye for an eye’.

 I feel like I should probably also briefly mention ritual suicide. There are a lot of historical Indian accounts of people killing themselves rather then renouncing a particular principal. One of the things that shows up repeatedly is women killing themselves when their husbands die. Sometimes this appears to have been voluntary. In other cases it seems as though the women were given no reasonable choice.

 I don’t think this fits the modern legal definition of torture, but it’s certainly an abuse of human rights aimed particularly at women. Starvation, burning on the husband’s funeral pyre and being thrown off tall buildings are the methods I see cited most commonly.

 The position of women in India is- well it’s a couple of books worth of material in itself. And I’d like to stress going in to this that there are very few countries/cultures that treated women well historically. Keep in mind when I describe the position of women and Dalits that the position of women and slaves or ‘barbarians’ in Greece and Rome was not any better.

 There’s a long history in India of confining women and limiting who they can interact with. The Arthashastra describes curfews inflicted on women and recommends barring women from leaving the home without an escort. It also legally limits the people women can invite to their homes.

 In historical Indian society it seems as though- it looks to me as if it would have been very easy for family members to isolate individual women in conditions akin to solitary confinement. This would probably have been unusual but from what I can see of the law and custom it wouldn’t have been seen as illegal or immoral.

 I’ve seen recent pieces claiming that the caste system is a recent invention. But I find this difficult to believe when the caste system is repeatedly cited in historical sources before European colonialism reached India. It’s cited by Al Biruni, Hsuan Tsang and in the Arthashastra.

 Yes there are historical incidences of people taking up occupations that were associated with different castes. Indian farmers and merchants did become Kings. But showing there was some social mobility and that caste was more (or less) flexible at different periods of time isn’t the same as showing that people were in no way limited by their parentage.

 Al Biruni describes the treatment of Dalits as ‘untouchable’ and describes different castes eating and washing separately as well as society relegating Dalits to work that was deemed dirty or unsafe.

 The Arthashastra describes different punishments for different castes (analogous to Old English law ascribing different punishments to different social classes). Unsurprisingly the rulers and ‘pious’ men are usually let off with a fine, while the poorest and the Dalits are supposed to be maimed, tortured or killed for the same transgression.

 It’s more then possible that living conditions and treatment of people at different levels of society was- perhaps not legally torture but certainly inhumane. I can’t find any clear indication that Dalits were made to live separately in the past. But if they were, judging by how the sources say they were treated by law, it seems likely their living conditions would have been worse. They may have had poor access to water, food and adequate shelter.

 I feel it’s also worth noting that Rejali talks about law enforcement targeting these kinds of minority groups for torture as a punishment for social transgressions. Things like- homeless people daring to walk down the streets of a ‘good’ neighbourhood.

 This sort of behaviour is typical of torturers, even when it’s not supported by the law. It occurs today, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen in a hierarchical historical society.

 Slavery was present in India. I can’t say for certain that it was present throughout all of Indian history, and it certainly does not seem to be as prevalent as it was in Greece or Rome but it occurred. I’ve seen more accounts of it in the Mughal period then prior to that but this might be due to better record keeping.

 Many of the Black Indian groups around today are descended from freed or escaped slaves brought to India by Arab traders. Beyond that I don’t know much about slavery in historical India. I’m unaware of any one particular industry slaves were funnelled into or of particular punishments (alla the bleeding Romans-).

 If you’re thinking of using slavery in your story I’d suggest sticking to the most common global tortures used against enslaved people: starvation, exposure, lack of medical treatment, beatings, dehydration and over work.

 From what I’ve read I’d say that India generally fits in with my pet theory about changing torture practices over time. I think that it’s only relatively recently that people have thought of torture as primarily a way to ‘get the truth’ (see here for why this idea is bullshit).

 What I’m interpreting from these sources is that in India, like most of the world, torture was used as a punishment, people were sentenced to it. It was also used to force confessions. And although there was an idea that torture could be used to find the truth, this was not seen as it’s primary purpose.

 And I think that’s probably where I’m going to have to leave this. At four thousand words it’s actually shorter/less detailed then I’d hoped. I blame my mates for insisting I have a social life.

 I think it should be enough to get you started though. :)

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