#dead space 2033

[crisicsgames]

DEAD SPACE 💀 REMAKE CROSS E L' ENZIMA 💉🎮 XBOX SERIES X

[hardcoregamer]

If you’ve ever played a game with a setting that made you feel uncomfortable, unnerved, or just unwelcomed, then it’s done its job in creating a creepy atmosphere. Of course, there have been so many places that fit that description, that it’ll be hard to narrow down the top best. So, make sure to pack extra maps, because it’s time to get lost in some of the creepiest locations in gaming.

[denimbex1986]

'Well gosh, that was nice, wasn’t it?

More than anything, I’m just delighted that Davies bothered. Like, the three specials structure could have been all big ones. This slot could have been a big scary Cybermen one or something, and the Fourteenth Doctor era would still feel complete and varied across the three. By most reckonings that would have even been the better idea. But no, instead he decided that this should actually feel like a season of Doctor Who and have a weird one in the middle. There’s something absolutely decadent about spending a third of your big Tennant-Tate reunion trilogy doing something that feels as though it’s overtly striving to be described as “proper Doctor Who.”

I remember, way back on the Forest of the Dead podcast commentary, which is legitimately one of the best forty-five minutes it is possible to spend on being terminally That Sort of Fan, Davies, Tennant, and Moffat enthusing about the first episode of The Ark in Space and how you could just shoot it with no changes to the script and it would still sparkle. And now here we are, with Davies doing an episode that begs for comparisons to Heaven Sent and Listen in its “a cheap one proving I can still write” ostentation—a weird spooky two-hander on a spaceship.

Well. “Cheap.” Obviously this continues to luxuriate in the stupidity of its budget from the moment they step out into that corridor set, which of course looks fantastic. The CGI body horror is genuinely startling. You suspect it still did come out cheaper than The Star Beast, but it’s still being ostentatious in its quality across the board. There’s ambition and confidence in every shot of this, and like Isaac Newton it’s frankly sexy as fuck.

What shines for me is the character work. The parallel scenes of the Doctor and Donna trying to figure out who the fake is (and note the very sly decision to do a deceptive shot-match so that the fake Donna comes out of a green corridor like the one we just saw Donna in) in which Donna gets it and the Doctor doesn’t, which sets up the subsequent beat of the Doctor IDing the fake Donna based on the fact that she volunteers to insult her own intelligence. Or even just the ways in which the not-things (as the subtitles charmingly call them) work—the grinning sadism with which Tennant delivers “when something is gone it keeps existing” is beautifully chilling. Davies has always been strong when he lets his nihilistic streak shine, and he uses it here—along with two phenomenal leads—to make cosmic horrors feel at once convincing and charismatic.

It feels significant, then, that it’s the not-thing version of Donna that relates so emphatically to the devastation Flux. And I don’t mean that as snark about Chibnall. For all that I deadpanned “yeah man, I felt that way about the Chibnall era too” during the Doctor’s frustrated tantrum, the thing that’s really striking about Davies astonishingly gracious salvage job on the emotional desolation of his predecessor’s tenure is the not-thing’s awed “you have owned it” and the way it sells the horrified tumult of this new version of Tennant, reeling from a trauma to rival the Time War. It works, right down to giving the Doctor a reason to seek the comfort of returning to this face. And it’s a point that’s clearly going to carry through into The Giggle given the precise structure of the cliffhanger, the TARDIS landing just in time to get the Doctor out of talking more about it. You can just about see the precise contours of the line that’s being drawn under all of this. More to the point, the ones that aren’t quite clear yet feel terribly compelling.

Which brings us back to the sense of relief that Davies is actually trying. The thing about the late career Moffat stories this is trying to edge out in the 2033 Doctor Who Magazine poll is that they’re the creative renaissance of a man who’s decided that he has something to prove. And frankly, that remains the only reason any of this would be worthwhile. For all that I’m insistent that Doctor Who should be forward-looking, that’s never only meant new voices, and it’s never precluded skilled veterans. I mean, for heavens’ sake, that kind of thinking would have meant no Caves of Androzani. Fifteen years is more than enough time to become a new person with new ideas on a topic. I’m certainly not the same person I was when I started writing about this show, and that wasn’t even thirteen years ago. Once the hazy bliss of novelty fades away and it’s not enough to just have competence again, what this is going to come down to is whether or not Davies is still hungry for it. And frankly, this isn’t the episode you make if you’re here to fuck around. If Davies is willing to push himself this hard during the big frothy nostalgia tour—the part of his return that’s aimed at a BBC One audience that fondly, if vaguely, remembers Journey’s End (where it’s a smash hit, btw, with overnight ratings on The Star Beast rival the +7s for Power of the Doctor)—then one shudders to imagine what he’s going to do when he’s aiming for a Disney+.

* If you’re not one of my Patreon backers, the bonus podcast on The Star Beast has gone up for them. This one’s got Sean Dillon and Ritesh Babu, and is a good time. We manage to get off topic and into Phineas and Ferb so early on that it might be in the five minute preview. Next time I’ll be joined by Christine and Jack, who should be a grand old time for this one.

* Obviously the “superstition at the edge of the universe” thing is about letting the Toymaker in, which will also surely hinge on the fact that Rose makes toys. And I assume they’re going to pay off the otherwise inscrutable “Wild Blue Yonder” thing. But I honestly can’t tell whether “mavity” is supposed to be setup for something or is just Davies shitposting, nor can I decide which one I hope.

* I can’t say I’m especially persuaded that a non-white Isaac Newton is meaningful or productive representation, but it’s hard not to enjoy the trolling. And I suspect that making “Doctor Who is woke now” old news before Gatwa shows up is a savvy approach.

* Speaking of the promotion of the show, interesting that this is the episode where Davies adopted a sharp no-spoiler policy—something I’m on record as not usually being a fan of. In one sense there wasn’t actually anything to hide, and there’s surely a chunk of jilted fans upset that we didn’t get Matt Smith or whatever. (Which, of course we didn’t—David Tennant is the past Doctor here.) But there wasn’t anything to promote either—none of the headlines are here. Knowing it’s a two-hander with evil doppelgangers wasn’t going to bring anyone new to their television. More to the point, this is an episode about exploration of a mysterious place—one where real effort has been expended on the procedural aspects of the Doctor and Donna figuring it out. It invites the viewer to play along—to see when they notice that something’s wrong with the Doctor that’s just come in to talk to Donna, or that the Doctor’s real plan is to get the TARDIS back. That’s one of the things that actually does benefit from secrecy. The opening sequences would be robbed of something if the entire audience knew that the thing peering at the Doctor and Donna through the grate is a shapeshifter from outside the universe. Which is to say, hats off to Davies for writing something that was actually worth avoiding spoilers for.

* I quite liked the way the episode follows the by now cliche “no sonic screwdriver this time” as a way of flagging “the Doctor and Donna are on their own with nothing but their wits” with taking the TARDIS translation away too.

* Hats off to Chrissie at chakoteya.net—a resource I have used countless times for countless things—who is going to have an absolute time of it getting the transcript of this together tonight.

* Delightful to see that, however poorly he may have been faring, Cribbins was still clearly sharp and able to play his character to a tee. It sounds like this is all we get of him, alas, but it’s a solid use of him—a comforting delight that goes eerily wrong, nicely setting up next week. * Which… so, we’re the Toymaker. I note that we’ve dropped “Celestial” from his name in all the promotion, along with the Mandarin trappings. I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t curious what Davies is doing with him. And, for that matter, if I said “evil clown played by Neil Patrick Harris” wasn’t a compelling option. But more on that next week.

* We all knew Davies was adapting “The Star Beast,” but who saw “Tlotney Throws a Shape” coming?

Rankings

1. Wild Blue Yonder

2. The Star Beast'

[podvalya]

WARNING, THERE IS A LOT OF TEXT

Before that, I thought about creating a list of fandoms known to me, but as it turned out, the list was not particularly accurate, so I decided to change it a little. I'll bring you up to speed: Green, these are the fandoms that I am currently a member of. Orange is something I haven't gotten to yet. and I also want to add that at the end of each game I will add how many endings I have passed. why? I don't know.

TV series (maybe???):

— Transformers Prime (+movie); Transformers G1;

— madness combat

Manga and comics (I've really read a lot of them):

— transformers G1

Games (I have a LOT of time for them);

— Deltarune (1; 2)

— Hotline Miami (1,2,3)

— S.T.A.L.K.E.R. (1,2,3 and several mods)

— Coffee Talk (1,2)

— Spec ops the line

— Katana zero

— ULTRAKILL

— Cry of fear 1/4

— Woifenstein (2009 and everything else :(

— Pizza tower

— Dragon age (1,2,3)

— Dark souls (1,2,3)

— Metro (2033 2/2, Last light 2/2, exodus)

— Outlast (1, Whisteblower, 2, trials)

— Dead space (1,2,3)

— Buckshot roulette 2/2

— Fear and Hunger (1,2)

-- Clap clap

-- Amnesia - the dark descent 3/3

-- No one lives under the lighthouse 1/6(?)

-- IMSCARED 2/2

-- Transformers fall of Cybertron

-- Dead and road

-- Transformers war of Cybertron

-- Transformers Devastation

-- Interior worlds

-- Soma

-- Srygian - regin of the old ones

but in general, what kind of fandoms am I interested in now?

-- Transformers

-- Backrooms

[cherryplasmids]

so i took a little breather from dead space bc chapter 5 is too hard for me and i decided to play metro 2033. girl wtf

[caeruleophile]

💙 hii i'm Alkene!! 💙

Hii my name is Alek, but you can call me Alke, Alkene or Chemical Eater! I'm a young artist from Russia 💙 I decided to make this post just to introduce myself.

I have this awesome pic with some random facts about me.

TRANSLATION:

- my pronouns are HE/HIM (please)

- square pictures in the upper right are my fav music albums

- these characters are my KINS!! this is my small kinlist!!

- my height is 157 cm

- i weight about 90 kg (FAT FAT FAT)

- these are my mbti types

💙more info under the cut💙

My music taste (from left to right from top to bottom):

Melanie Martinez - Crybaby

Of Montreal – Skeletal Lamping

half•alive – Now, Not Yet

Аквариум - Дети Декабря

sitcom - Be The One You Love

Научно-технический рэп - 10

Дайте танк - Глаза боятся

Bo Burnham - Inside

My highest kins (from left to right from top to bottom):

Richard Hendricks (Silicon Valley)

The Narrator (Fight Club)

Blue (Dick Figures)

Abe Lincoln (Clone High)

Boy (Boy Dog Girl Cat Mouse Cheese)

Kevin (3 out of 10, a playable sitcom on epic games)

Barney (Ron's Gone Wrong)

Jerry (Code Monkeys)

What I like to draw:

Fan art (I often take inspiration from different media).

People (Beautiful creatures, I love people)

Humanoids (If you're not human, but you look like a human, YOU're COOL and I love you. Aliens are especially respected by me.)

Stickmen (Humanoids, but cooler!!)

Robots, mechas (I don't really know how to draw them, but I love to do it)

Cyberpunk (AESTHETIC AND GENRE, not the game)

Landscapes (For relaxation~)

Objects (The ones from different object shows youknow)

Angels, demons, well, religious stuff, hahah

Graphic design!!

I PREFER DIGITAL, I draw traditionally in rare cases when there is no computer nearby!!!

List of all the fandoms I've ever been a part of:

Mario franchise

Cartoon series "Wishfart"

Videogame "No Straight Roads"

Videogame "Mad Rat Dead"

Anime "Ingress The Animation"

Movie "Split"

"Zoolander" / "Zoolander 2" films

TV series "Malcolm in the middle"

TV series "Breaking bad"

Animated series "Grojband"

TV series "The IT crowd"

Animated series "Code Monkeys" (2007)

Playable sitcom "3 out of 10"

MMORPG "Tower of Fantasy"

Mobile 18+ game "Nu:Carnival"

Games "Lucius" / "Lucius 2" / "Lucius 3"

The movie "Fight Club"

The movie "Children of the corn"

The mobile game "Cookie Run Kingdom"

Anime (or animated series idk) "All Saints Street"

Web series "Dick Figures"

Animated film "The Road to El Dorado"

The TV series "It's always sunny in Philadelphia"

Games "OLDTV"/"Plasma TV"/"Back of Space"

YouTuber FЯED (true legend)

Games "Give Up" / "Give Up 2" / "Never Give Up"

Animated film "Ron's Gone Wrong"

The series "Squid Game"

The comic book series "Resident Alien" (including the TV series)

The game "Spore"

Animated series "Boy Girl Dog Cat Mouse Cheese"

The book-trilogy "Escape Book" by Ivan Tapia

Books and animated series "The Last Kids on Earth"

The game (not yet released) "Worship"

The game "Struggling"

Animated series "Clone High"

Mobile games "Vector" / "Vector 2"

TV series "The Office"

TV series "Silicon Valley"

TV series "Bates Motel"

All "Psycho" movies

A series of games "Five Nights at Freddy's" and everything related to it (even some fan content)

The game "Dialtown"

TV series "Society"

TV Series "The Good Doctor"

TV Series "Black Mirror"

Anime "Black Rock Shooter"

Object Show "Battle For Dream Island"

Object Show "Inanimate Insanity"

The game "Pony Island"

The Game " The Stanley Parable"

"Ingress" Mobile AR game

DC Universe, Teen Titans

Web series "Camp Camp"

The film and the book "Clockwork Orange"

Web series "This is Bob"

The book "Metro 2033"

The game "Bendy and the ink machine"

Web series "Eddsworld"

The game "Undertale"

Animated series "Gravity Falls"

Animated series "Adventure Time"

My Main OCS

The last two OCs are aliens :p And all my OCs represent me in some way, I still call them my other personalities tbh :>

Some of my artworks~

noooo my artstyle is so inconsistent .·´¯`(>▂<)´¯`·.

💙 Well i hope now you know a little more about me 💙

Have a nice day, stranger! Thanks for visiting my blog :з

[gdadp2]

PEGI ratings of similar games.

Alien: Isolation

18. The game was rated PEGI 18 for some occasional strong violence and strong bad language.

Amnesia

16. The game was rated PEGI 16 for sustained depictions of death or injury and the use of an expletive.

Metro: 2033

16. Contains frequent moderate violence, strong language and scenes of alcohol use.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R.: Shadow of Chernobyl

16. Violence and drugs.

Dead Space

18. This rating has been given because it features graphic violence and use of strong language.

[niqhtlord01]

Humans are weird: Video Games

Alien: What is this game about? Human: It’s about being a soldier in a war that reduces you to nothing more than a cog in a larger machine ever churning onwards regardless of any personal dilemmas the characters have. Alien: And the chainsaw guns? Human: Oh those are just frickin bad ass. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: I feel this game’s title is misleading. Human: Why do you say that? Alien: Because every enemy and character you meet in game is either screaming, shouting, or loudly yelling. Human: How does that make it misleading? Alien: This is clearly not a silent hill. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: I feel terrible for this pac-man. Human: Why do you say that? Alien: He must keep devouring pills to keep the ghosts of his past from getting him and destroying any semblance of a hopeful future. Human: .......... Human: On one hand I think you’re reading way too much into it, and on the other you’re about to make me feel sad for pac-man which has never happened before in my life. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: This commando is amazing! No wonder you’re military is so good when you have augmentations such as this. Human: Yeah. It’s even more impressive when you take into account his robot arm is made out of his wife. Alien: *Drops controller* Alien: WHAT?!?! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: I challenge you to a battle with this game! Human: *Sees game, smiles* Human: A classic for sure, but I’m the best at it. To be fair I’ll let you pick first. Alien: I pick Oddjob. Human: You son of a- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: This game is too complex! Human: Why do you say that? Alien: You must manage your resources, military, population capacity, and research all while fighting other player’s armies! Human: It’s easy once you get the hang of it. Alien :Only the insane would play these strategy games! Human: Well why do you think we keep winning every space war!? ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: How do you play this “minesweeper”. Human: It is a secret my people have long since lost. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: Would you like to play some Mario? Alien: No. Mario is a terrible person and I hate them. Human: That’s a bit harsh. Why do you think that? Alien: He’s a plumber that never does their job! When was the last time you saw him unclog a pipe? --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: You sure you don’t want to play? It’s a great game.  Alien: *Watches in horror as they play Halo: CE*  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: So this is a team based survival game? Human: Correct. Alien: And everyone is trying to escape their terrible situation. Human: Indeed. Alien: What if one of them can’t keep up? Human: Then I guess they’re *lowers sunglasses* left for dead.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: Why do animals like dogs and horses hardly ever die in your games. Human: In video games they only have one weakness. Alien: What is that?  Human: The plot.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: How are you enjoying the game. Alien: It is nothing more than an alien dating simulator.  Human: So...... Alien: It is wonderful! Human: Thought you might like it. Human: Fair warning though. If you make Tali or Garrus cry I will break your spine.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: How are you en- Human: (sees alien not touching the controller) Human: What’s wrong? Alien: I do not like this. The bad humans won the war.  Human: (sees game. sits down next to them.) Alien: The things they do to people that look different....that don’t believe what they think.... Human: I know buddy. They did terrible things.  Human: But that’s part of the reason you can’t stop playing.  Alien: (looks at human) Human: The game is about fighting the bad people. If you stop fighting them, then they will win and do even more terrible things.  Human: (puts hand on alien’s should)  Human: And you don’t look like the kinda person that’d just sit back and let that happen.  Alien: (nods, picks up controller) That’s not me.  Human: (Smiles) Damn right. Now go kill some fucking nazi scum.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: What is the point of having a gun in this game if the enemy can kill you with a simple kitchen utensil!?  Human: You got it all mixed up. The frying pan is the most powerful weapon, not the gun. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: Are all you subway tunnels filled with giant monsters?!?!? Human: Only the ones in Jersey.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: Did you win the war yet?  Alien: I haven’t even started it. Human: but it’s been three hours. What have you been doing? Alien: I’m trying to get my knight to fall in love with my mage but the stupid archer keeps getting in the way.  Human: I see you’ve discovered the real enemy then.  Human: Love triangles.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: You sure you’ll be able to play this alone and in the dark? Alien: I’ve been to your offspring entertainment areas. I have nothing to fear from them at night.  Human: Suit yourself. (Leaves) (Next day) Human: So how’d it- Alien: KEEP THE DOORS CLOSED! THEY CAN’T GET IN IF THEY’RE CLOSED! Human: (under breath) probably shouldn’t tell them about the forth game when they pop out of the closet..... --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: You don’t seem surprised by the fighting game.  Alien: In truth most of the universe thinks you humans actually hold such death tournaments.  Alien: The only surprise was coming here and finding out you actually don’t.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Alien: Friend human! I have discovered the secret to beating your video games! Human: Really? What is it? Alien: They are called “Loot Boxes”. Human: Mother-of-god; they’ve gotten you too! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Human: What do you think? Alien: I think you humans have it backwards? Human: How so? Alien: Most of your games have aliens attacking your planet. Human: And? Alien: Do you realize how many planets you human’s have invaded in the last month alone?  Human: (ponders, then realizes something) Human: So did you cut us open as well for research on how to defeat us? Alien: At first we did, but then stopped when we realized you are either indestructible or killed by slipping on soap. It was one or the other and was very frustrating. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------  Alien: Help! I’m being chased and don’t know what to do! Human: Just sit on that bench. Alien: How will that help!? Human: Trust me. Alien: (Has character sit on bench, watches in amazement as pursuers pass by) Alien: How did that work?  Human: We humans are often blinded from what’s right in front of us.  Alien: You can not be serious. Human: Yesterday I spent a whole hour looking for my keys before I realized they were on a bungee cord on my wrist. You alien’s give us too much credit. 

[songue85]

[halo-2]

Favorite Horror Games

Celebrating the month of horror.

[crisicsgames]

DEAD SPACE 💀 REMAKE FERMARE IL REGENERATOR 🎮 XBOX SERIES X

[mechanicalinertia]

STMPD Recommends Bubblegum Crisis Fanfiction: Chris Davies' Best Of All The Years 2

I have been doing this for over a year, now. I'm certain of it. It hasn't exactly attracted big traffic, but it's been... funny. Cathartic. Entertaining to me, at least? Look, doing pointless things tied to Crisis is sort of my default mode, and it's not a good default mode, but it's my default mode so I'll cling onto it beyond reason.

Of course, I've been doing a lot less of these. One runs out of interesting fics to review when the fandom is basically a few dozen people on a Discord, a few hundred people on a subreddit, and some ageing Gen Xers who use neither (most of the fiction writers who I've cited, like Shawn Hagen, Bob Schroeck, etc). Or, well, there are still interesting fics to review, but reviewing them would not be a fun process for me. YT2032, Meat Jacket, the usual suspects. Obviously I wrote a well-received post about a common thread in a lot of those fics, but that doesn't exactly mean I reviewed a given fic completely, did I? Well, I'll get to them. Eventually. Someday. Maybe I'll transition to recommending various things that I read? Ranma fic, Edgerunners fic... sky's the limit at that point. Have I talked about doing that before? I have, haven't I? Well, to hell with that.

It's time to talk about Best Of All The Years 2, arguably the fic that got me into the concept of Priss x Sylia being a couple.

Now, look. BoatY 2(oh my god that is the funniest acronym ever that's incredible holy shit what the hell) isn't just a sequel to BoatY 1, it's a sequel to Together Again: 2937 Chapter, Davies' gigacrossover involving pretty much every big anime that ever was popular in America in the 90's. That means not just Sailor Moon is mixed in, but Tenchi Muyo, Dirty Pair, Ranma, Patlabor, Ah My Goddess, Gall Force, and a bunch of other things which are referenced in the story's gigatimeline. I mean, Together again 2937 is like 350 pages of script-format fic (I recommend downloading as a PDF and reading it that way), and then there's the 1996 chapter which is Ranma-centric (450 pages, I think), and then there's the incomplete Silver Millennium chapter - yeah, the stories move backwards in time compared to the order Davies wrote them in - and as such, if you think I'm reviewing that shit, prepare to be very fucking disappointed. Maybe in some later year, when I can explain everything that goes on in it without sounding like a Pepe Silvia-grade nutcase.

For now, though... well, Davies helpfully provides a summary of 2937 on the first part of the story, and the only thing that's really plot-relevant from Together Again is that, after saving Queen Serenity from an elaborate plot involving the Dirty Pair as puppets, Sailor Pluto allows Priss to save Sylia from the suitcase nuke she sets off inside GENOM Tower around 2040, dragging her back to the present. That's it, that's pretty much all you need to know (Well, besides the fact that Nene's dead, but that's not really important). That's it. I swear to god.

After that... Well, Priss lies that she's a clone because she's pissed at Sylia once it turns out Sylia was cyber-enhanced the whole time, and is nervous about having lost most of her memories past 2033 or so, there's a lot of relationship angst, a ghost intervenes, they make up, they make love, and Priss stays on as a hardsuited warrior while Sylia retires to be a detective. I don't know what else to tell you, other than Priss is drinking buddies with Sailor Mars and Ayeka from Tenchi - and was buddies with Shampoo from Ranma until she fucked off into deep space, but again, that's Together Again material. Oh, and Rally Vincent was Sylia's mother. Not sure if we're talking about blonde Rally from Riding Bean, or tan Rally from Gunsmith Cats, but I would have to assume the former considering that Sylia isn't, y'know, of dark complexion.

Yeah, it's kind of hard to talk about this one, isn't it? Mostly because there's not a whole lot there, it's over and done with in I'd want to say under twenty thousand words. And what is there doesn't quite reach the heights or depths of emotional heft that I want from PrissxSylia fanfic, because Davies seems to have decided that Shakespearian-level misunderstandings are key to their relationship troubles (Priss sings a song from ADP Files in recollections during Together Again 2937, and Sylia literally assumes that the song is about how much she sucks and gets all self-loathe-y about it). I want to say I've at least tried to base Priss and Sylia's friction in deeper-rooted misunderstandings about the other woman based off of warped things in their own worldviews, though whether or not I succeeded is really not up to me.

But BoatY 2 still has one good card to play, namely seeing from both Priss and Sylia's perspective what happened once Priss travelled back in time to bail her lover out, there in the bowels of Quincy's kingdom. There are some... interesting revelations on Quincy's part as to the true nature of the conflict Sylia has been waging. I won't spoil them beyond saying that they resemble Bubblegum Crusade's ideas about Quincy's ties to Sylia, and that you can just read part 1 and get them. For that, and that alone, flip through this fic.

[unhinged-summer-fun]

oasis

flunktober Day 1: winning the other a teddy bear, bound, and masks

Boba Fett x GN!Reader x Sarlacc (Pit of Carkoon) (22+ only)

Summary: You fall into the Sarlacc Pit with Boba Fett. It’s up to you to get you both out.

Warnings: uh everything. Tentacles. Dubious consent because of tentacles. Forced orgasms. Anal. Having no respect for the dead.

Word count: 2033

A/N: this was a gift for a friend’s wife. I’m so sorry (affectionate)

Also on AO3 if you’re insane. | full flunktober list here.

“R-remember when you g-got me that stuffed tooka toy on Alzoc-IV?” you asked, trying not to move. The shimmering walls around you made you nauseous, so you closed your eyes. You were at least grateful he’d insisted you wear full-armor, even on a simple execution day.

A grunt came from the other side of the space. You felt something running along your hip, too solid to be liquid, or any of the acid you’d been warned about.

“And I-I kept it on the control panel of my ship until it blew up? Because you spent e-eh-oh fuck. Oh fuck, no no…”

“Talk to me!” Boba barked, shifting sharply to take any peripheral brain attention from you to him. “How much did I spend, mesh’la, how much?”

You closed your eyes and tried to remember, the distracting feeling of the sarlacc’s inner esophageal tentacles trying to pull you down deeper from where you’d clawed your knives into the side of its throat. Boba had been caught in a tangle of tendrils just across from you. It may have been twenty feet, but he felt an ocean away from you now.

“Eight-hundred and fifty credits. You spent e-eight-hundred and fifty credits because you wouldn’t listen to me that the game was rigged.”

“I still won, didn’t I?” he said, hand slapping something wet and fleshy. You fought to keep down your lunch. That pre-execution drink wasn’t doing you any favors now. “I’ll win you another one. Next claw game I see, I’ll get you another.”

It was a nice sentiment, though you knew you were going to die anyway.

“You have your jetpack, go,” you pleaded, giving a full-body flinch as a tentacle slithered up the side of your boot and into your open pants leg. A high-pitched whine ripped from your throat. You couldn’t move, fear grabbing you like it hadn’t on the job in years.

“I’m not leaving you!” he shouted angrily. “I’m thinking. I’m thinking.”

You were both in the sarlacc, the Pit of Carkoon, after dumb luck had Boba smacking into the pleasure skiff, and you diving in after him. By that same dumb luck, you hadn’t made it down one of the sarlacc’s several digestive tracts. All those thoughts and facts and figures which had come from idly browsing the holonet were coming back to bite you in the—

“Ass! Boba it’s going for my ass!”

“Just, just relax, mesh’la, pretend it’s me if you need to.” Your face burned hotly behind your mask, the winking light of day above you growing darker as the suns started setting over the Dune Sea. “I’m-I’m in the same boat.”

You jerked your head over to look at him. Sure enough, Boba was spread-eagled in the air, suspended by five different thick tentacles with his pants shoved down around his thighs. One of the tentacles was wrapped around the base of his cock, and another was slowly disappearing between his legs, pulsing wetly. Your breath caught in terror for a moment, remembering things like acid and burn and pain, but then—

Boba moaned.

You’d never expected him to be so disheveled in your whole life. He writhed around like a man possessed, more tendrils pushing their way up his top, inside his armor, and obviously playing with his nipples. Boba never liked to admit how much he liked it when you did that, but you knew.

And apparently, the sarlacc knew.

“Pr-pretend it’s me, too,” you stuttered, as the tendril you’d yelped about ghosted its wet tip over your hole. It stole your breath and made your jaw go numb when it blurted out some kind of lubrication, before pressing in.

Fuck, buy me dinner first. No manners on Tatooine.

You held that sharp noise in the back of your throat, teeth grinding together as you forced your legs and ass to relax. You couldn’t reach down and bat it away without letting go of your knives, and you couldn’t let on how… affected you were.

Though, by the little whorish sounds Boba was making to the side, you weren’t sure you had a scrap of dignity left between you two.

“You better get me the biggest fucking t-tooka they have,” you panted, the wet slide of a tentacle over your visor making you gasp in shock.

Boba made a wet gagging noise, and you shook your head to get the tentacle off so you could see. The thick, ridged edge of the sarlacc’s esophagus had knocked his helmet askew, and revealed another hole to fuck. You could only pray you kept your own mask on.

But all thoughts of prayer and thankfulness and worry went to the wayside when the tentacle in your asshole became two tentacles in your asshole, the second pressing in behind the other in a cyclical exchange of thrusts, making you lose your entire mind in a matter of moments. You would later be embarrassed about the noises you made, about the cries of ecstasy as it brought you over the edge, as it had you cumming in your pants and weeping, but for now, you gave yourself wholeheartedly to that pleasure.

Boba was choking on the tentacle in his mouth, plush lips wrapped around it like they were always meant to do this. You could see the bulge forming in his throat around it, knew it was fucking him deep on both ends. The one tendril wrapped around his cock was stroking him in a facsimile of a handjob. But sarlaccs don’t have hands. Or. You weren’t sure.

You weren’t honestly sure if you had hands right now, grinding your hips down into the sensation of the tentacles fucking you harder and harder. You shuddered through another weak orgasm, the stimulation just not where you needed it.

Boba obviously had his mind elsewhere, so your rescue plan fell to you. You looked back up at where you’d fallen in. Night had fallen between the last time you looked up and now. How long had you been down here, at the whims of a debauched tentacle monster?

How long would it take for you to starve, knowing nothing but the pleasure singing in your veins and—

That’s three. Okay. Plan. Plan. Need a plan.

The sarlacc’s lubricant slithered down your leg in a mockery of a retreat. You saw Boba sag in the sarlacc’s hold, having passed out from one too many orgasms. You’d made him do this a few times before, gotten him so past the point of overstimulation he forgot to breathe, and you filled with righteous anger. No one could out-top you with Boba Fett. Not even this damn sarlacc.

You remembered hearing the barge crash into the side of the Pit, before the world above had gone silent, and the world down here had gone lewd. The barge was outfitted with some kind of magnaretrieval system, on a crane. If you could get up to that, you could repair it, and magnetize Boba out of the sarlacc’s clutches with physics.

You grabbed another knife, and stabbed it higher. Your legs screamed as you wriggled your way up the slimy, pulsating wall. You were lucky that there were less nerve endings here than in the mouth, which you weren’t looking forward to escaping. At least you still had your fibercord whip on your vambrace, which could be used as a last resort.

“I’ll come back for you!” you shouted tearfully down at Boba, and it was with breathless luck that you were able to catch his shoulder, harpooning him to the side of the wall where he wouldn’t be pulled down any further.

You’d apologize later.

The mouth of the sarlacc smelled just as bad as the esophagus, but at least there was a slight breeze passing over. Sand sprinkled in your mucus-covered face and hair as you climbed.

You realized you were stuck, and that you could hear the moans building again behind you, tempting you to go back and stick it out with your partner. But Boba was made of tougher stuff, he was a survivor like his father. You had to believe he would be alive when you returned with your crane ex machina, there was no other option.

The barge was still a flaming mess when you finally saw it. The fact it was still on fire probably meant there were still systems operational inside. Probably. Hopefully. Hope was stupid, but in the event of being fucked silly, you could allow it just this once.

The sarlacc nearly blew out your eardrums as it screeched, feeling you plant a boot on its tongue. The tentacles had slipped out of you a hundred meters ago, leaving you achingly empty, a hollowed-out feeling you knew was more than physical. That lubricant was fucking strange, for certain.

As you finally cleared the teeth and snapping jaws, you tucked your feet in and shot the whip at the barge edge. It caught in the soft siding, and you felt your shoulder scream at you as it rappeled you upward. The elation of freedom, of overcoming that fearsome beast, was short-lived, when you heard Boba scream down in the pit again.

Crane. Magnets. Boba.

You navigated the capsized barge as if in a dream, smoke billowing and belching from the walls and over the bodies of pleasureseekers no more innocent than yourself. When you found the maintenance control room, the most likely place for the crane controls, you sagged in relief against the door. When it opened, you were met with two dead controlmen whom you leaned around to better see the waning light on the HUD. You looked at the controls with a frown.

“This one goes left and right, right?” you asked the corpses. “And this one goes up and down?”

You made one of the corpses nod, before shoving him out of the chair. You were due a bit of humor in this most un-funny day. You keyed in the chemical symbols for beskar, durasteel, plasteel, anything that Boba could have been wearing. It was with a wince that you keyed in the magnetic frequency for your harpoon dart as well, and slowly lowered the crane edge down into the pit. The whole barge creaked around you as the machinery whirred, but your concentration was unshakeable.

“C’mon, c’mon, let me in,” you urged the sarlacc, before blasting the most powerful magnetic field you could, making it shrink back in shock, stunned still. The cranepiece dropped, and you flicked on the alternate frequency.

DEBRIS ACQUIRED.

You screamed in joy, giving as gentle a tug as you could as you brought the crane arm up. When it cleared the sarlacc, you swung it as hard as you could, before releasing the magnets.

DEBRIS LOST.

You could only hope Boba had crested the edge of the Pit.

As it was, you felt the barge slipping down into the Pit, and it was time for you to go. It took you two minutes to evacuate the barge, diving into the cold, gritty sand like it was a warm embrace. As the thing exploded against the sarlacc, you sighed, looking up at the stars. You fucking hated Tatooine.

But your work wasn’t done yet. “Boba!” you called, getting on your feet.

A flare went up, on the opposite side of the erstwhile Pit of Carkoon. You ran though your muscles felt like jelly, your bones like flimsi. The flare just died out when you sank to your knees beside the shivering, wet form of Boba Fett.

Somehow, all of his armor had made it out on him, though his blaster and several of his thermal detonators hadn’t survived the trip. Magnets were fickle. You tore off his helmet, and your mask. His eyes were dazed but open, his pulse reedy but still there. You wanted to cry, wanted to wake up from this dream.

But his laughter stopped your melancholy spiral. “What?” you rasped, pleasure-hoarse.

“Thought you said—” he broke off to give a wet cough. “Thought you said those crane games were rigged.”

This time, tears did shine in your eyes, as you fixed him with a grin. “I had my eyes on the prize, is all.”

[casxmorgan]

Books Books Books

100 Years of Solitude

11.22.63

120 Days of Sodom

1491

1984

A Brief History of Time

A Canticle for Leibowitz

A Child Called It

A Clockwork Orange

A Confederacy of Dunces

A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters

A Land Fit for Heroes Trilogy

A Little Life

A Naked Singularity

A People's History of the United States

A Scanner Darkly

A Series of Unfortunate Events

A Short History of Nearly Everything

A Song of Ice and Fire

A Storm of Swords

A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again: Essays and Arguments

A Thousand Splendid Suns

A Walk in the Woods

A World Lit Only by Fire

Accursed Kings

Alice in Wonderland

All Quiet on the Western Front

All the Light We Cannot See

All the Pretty Horses

America, the Book

American Gods

American Psycho

And then There Were None

Angela’s Ashes

Animal Farm

Animal, Vegetable, Miracle

Anna Karenina

Anything Terry Pratchett, But, Mort is My Favorite

Anything Written by Robin Hobb

Apt Pupil

Artemis Fowl

Asimov's Guide to the Bible

Asoiaf

Atlas Shrugged

Bartimeaus

Batman: the Long Halloween

Battle Royale

Beat the Turtle Drum

Behind the Beautiful Forevers

Belgariad Series

Beloved

Berserk

Bestiario

Black Company

Blankets/habibi

Blind Faith

Blindness

Blood Meridian

Blood and Guts: a History of Surgery

Bluest Eye

Brandon Sanderson

Brave New World

Breakfast of Champions

Bridge to Terabithia

Bury My Heart at Wounded Knee: an Indian History of the American West

Calvin and Hobbs

Candide

Carrie

Cat's Cradle

Catch 22

Cats Cradle

Chaos

Child of God

Choke

Chuck Palahniuk

City of Ember

City of Thieves

Cloud

Collapse

Come Closer

Complaint

Confessions of a Mask

Contact

Conversation in the Cathedral

Cosmos

Crime and Punishment

Dan Brown

David

Dead Birds Singing

Dead Mountain: the Untold True Story of the Dyatlov Pass Incident

Delta Venus

Die Räuber (the Robbers)

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep

Don Quixote

Dragonlance

Dune

Dying of the Light

East of Eden

Educated

Empire of Sin: a Story of Sex, Jazz, Murder, and the Battle for Modern New Orleans

Enders Game

Enders Shadow

Escape from Camp 14

Ever Since Darwin

Every Man Dies Alone

Everybody Poops

Everything is Illuminated

Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

Fahrenheit 451

Far from the Madding Crowd

Faust

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas

Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas by Hunter S Thompson

Feet of Clay

Fight Club

First Law

Flowers for Algernon

Flowers in the Attic

Foundation

Foundation Series

Foundation Trilogy

Frankenstein

Freakonomics

Fun Home

Galapagos

Geek Love

Gerald’s Game

Ghost Story

Go Ask Alice

Go Dog Go

Godel, Escher, Bach: an Eternal Golden Braid

Goldfinch

Gone Girl

Gone with the Wind

Good Omens

Grapes of Wrath

Great Expectations

Greg Egan

Guards! Guards!

Guns Germs and Steel

Guts (short Story)

Half a World

Ham on Rye

Hannibal Rising

Hard Boiled Wonderland

Hatchet

Haunted

Hawaii

Heart Shaped Box

Heart of Darkness

Hellbound Heart

Hellraiser

Hell’s Angels

Helter Skelter

His Dark Materials

Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

Hogg

Holocaust by Bullets

House of Leaves

How to Cook for Fourty Humans

How to Win Friends and Influence People

Huckleberry Finn

Hyperion

I Am America, and So Can You

I Am the Messenger

I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream

I Was Dr. Mengele’s Assistant

In Cold Blood

In Search of Our Mother's Gardens

Independent People

Infinite Jest

Into Thin Air

Into the Wild

Introduction to Linear Algebra

Invisible Monsters

Ishmael

It

Jacques Le Fataliste

Jane Eyre

Jaunt

Job: a Comedy of Justice

John Dies at the End

John Grisham

Johnathan Livingston Seagull

Johnny Got His Gun

Jon Ronson

Journal of a Novel

Jurassic Park

Justine

L'histoire D'o

Lamb

Last Exit to Brooklyn

Les Miserables

Lies My Teacher Told Me

Life of Pi

Limits and Renewals

Little House in the Big Woods

Lockwood & Co.

Lolita

Looking for Trouble

Lord Foul’s Bane

Lord of the Flies

Lyddie

Malazan Book of the Fallen

Maldoror

Manufacturing Consent: the Political Economy of the Mass Media

Man’s Search for Meaning

Mark Twain’s Autobiography

Maus

Meditations

Megamorphs (series)

Mein Kampf

Memnooch the Devil

Metro 2033

Michael Crichton

Middlesex

Mindhunter

Misery

Mistborn

Moby Dick

Mrs. Dalloway

My Side of the Mountain

My Sweet Audrina

Nacht über Der Prärie (night over the Prairie)

Naked Lunch

Name of the Wind

Neuromancer

Never Let Me Go

Neverwhere

New York

Next

Night

Night Shift

Norwegian Wood

Notes from Underground

Nothing to Envy: Real Lives in North Korea

Of Mice and Men

Of Nightingales That Weep

Ohio

Old Mans War

Old Mother West Wind

On Heroes and Tombs

On Laughter and Forgetting

On the Road

One Flew over the Cuckoos Nest

One Hundred Years of Solitude

One of Us

Painted Bird

Patrick Rothfuss

Perfume: the Story of a Murderer

Persepolis

Pet Sematary

Peter Pan

Pillars of the Earth

Poisonwood Bible

Pride and Predjudice

Ready Player One

Rebecca

Red Mars

Red Night (series)

Red Shirts

Red Storm Rising

Redwall

Replay

Requiem for a Dream

Revenge

Riftwar Saga

Ringworld

Roald Dahl

Rolls of Thunder, Hear My Cry

Round Ireland with a Fridge

Running with Scissors

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes

Sapiens, a Brief History of Humankind

Scary Stories to Read in the Dark

Scary Stories to Tell in the Dark

Schindler’s List

Sein Und Zeit

Shades of Grey

Sharp Objects

Shattered Dreams

Sherlock Holmes

Sho-gun

Siddhartha

Sisypho

Skin and Other Stories

Slaughterhouse Five

Smoke & Mirrors

Snow Crash

Soldier Son

Sometimes a Great Notion

Sphere

Starship Troopers

Stiff, the Curious Lives of Human Cadavers

Storied Life of A.j. Fikry

Stormlight Archives

Story of the Eye

Stranger in a Strange Land

Surely, You're Joking

Survivor Type (short Story)

Suttree

Swan Song

Tale of Two Cities

Tales of the South Pacific

The Alchemist

The Altered Carbon Trilogy

The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier & Clay

The Art of Deception

The Art of Fielding

The Art of War

The Astonishing Life of Octavian Nothing, Traitor to the Nation

The Autobiography of Henry Viii

The Autobiography of Malcolm X

The Beach

The Bell Jar

The Bible

The Bloody Chamber

The Book Thief

The Boy in the Striped Pajamas

The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao

The Brothers Karamazov

The Call of Cthulu and Other Weird Stories

The Cask of Amontillado (short Story)

The Catcher in the Rye

The Chronicles of Narnia

The Clown

The Color out of Space

The Communist Manifesto

The Complete Fiction of H.p. Lovecraft

The Count of Monte Cristo

The Curious Case of the Dog in the Night Time

The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime

The Dagger and the Coin

The Damage Done

The Dark Tower

The Declaration of Independence, the Us Constitution, and the Bill of Rights

The Devil in the White City

The Dharma Bums

The Diamond Age

The Dice Man

The Discworld Series

The Dresden Files

The Elegant Universe

The First Law Trilogy

The Forever War

The Foundation Trilogy

The Gentleman Bastard Sequence

The Geography of Nowhere

The Girl Next Door

The Girl on the Milk Carton

The Giver

The Giving Tree

The God of Small Things

The Grapes of Wrath

The Great Gatsby

The Great Gilly Hopkins

The Hagakure

The Half a World Trilogy

The Handmaid’s Tale

The Heart is a Lonely Hunter

The Hiding Place

The History of Love

The Hobbit

The Hot Zone

The Hunchback of Notre Dame

The Hyperion Cantos

The Jaunt

The Jungle

The Key to Midnight

The Killing Star

The Kingkiller Chronicles

The Kite Runner

The Last Question (short Story)

The Lies of Lock Lamora

The Little Prince

The Long Walk

The Lord of the Rings

The Lottery (short Story)

The Lovely Bones

The Magicians

The Magus

The Martian

The Master and Margarita

The Metamorphosis of Prime Intellect

The Monster at the End of This Book

The Moon is a Harsh Mistress

The Music of Eric Zahn (short Story)

The Name of the Wind & the Wise Man's Fear

The Necronomicon

The New Age of Adventure: Ten Years of Great Writing

The Night Circus

The Nightmare Box

The Odyssey

The Omnivore's Dilemma

The Orphan Master’s Son

The Outsiders

The Painted Bird

The Perks of Being a Wallflower

The Phantom Tollbooth

The Picture of Dorian Gray

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Plague

The Prince

The Prince of Tides

The Princess Bride

The Prophet

The Queen’s Gambit

The Rape of Nanking

The Red Dwarf

The Republic

The Rifter Saga

The Road

The Satanic Verses

The Screwtape Letters

The Secret History

The Secrets of the Immortal Nicholas Flamel

The Selfish Gene

The Shining

The Shrine of Jeffrey Dahmer

The Silmarillion

The Sirens of Titan

The Six Wives of Henry the 8th

The Solitude of Prime Numbers

The Speaker of the Dead

The Stars My Destination

The Stormlight Archive

The Story of My Tits

The Stranger

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck

The Suspicions of Mr. Witcher

The Tao of Pooh

The Things They Carried

The Time Machine

The Time Traveller’s Wife

The Tin Drum

The Unbearable Lightness of Being

The Unthinkable Thoughts of Jacob Green

The Wasp Factory

The Wind Up Bird Chronicle

The Wind-up Bird Chronicle

The World According to Garp

The Yellow Wallpaper

Their Eyes Were Watching God

Things Fall Apart

Thirsty

This Blinding Absence of Light

Tiger!

Time Enough for Love

To Kill a Mockingbird

To Say Nothing of the Dog

Toni Morrison

Too Many Magicians

Traumnovelle

Tuesdays with Morrie

Tuf Voyaging

Undeniable

Under Plum Lake

Universe in a Nutshell

Unwind

Uzumaki

Various

Village Life in Late Tsarist Russia

Walden

War & Peace

War and Peace

Warriors: Bluestar’s Prophecy

Watchers

Water for Elephants

Watership Down

We Have Always Lived in the Castle

We Need to Talk About Kevin

Wheel of Time

When Rabbit Howls

Where the Red Fern Grows

Where the Sidewalk Ends

Why I Am Not a Christian

Why People Believe Weird Things

Wizards First Rule

Wool

World War Z

Worm

Wuthering Heights

You Can Choose to Be Happy

Zen & the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance

[nightcoremoon]

oblivion/skyrim and fallout 3/4 have done permanent and irreparable damage to the RPG playerbase, and it’s why so many people think that dark souls is hard. yes, I am serious.

now, here’s the thing. the games themselves are fine. in fact, they’re fucking revolutionary. arena was fine, daggerfall was phenomenal but too overly ambitious for the technology at hand, morrowind is one of the greatest RPGs ever made, oblivion was really good for its time and it’s still serviceable today (it’s completely broken but hey so is Vampire and New Vegas), and skyrim… is fucking skyrim. it’s one of the best games ever made, hands down. fallout 1 was great, fallout 2 was amazing, and fallout 3 was very very good for its time. which is good because it is now literally unplayable since the steam version doesn’t work, the gog version barely works, the windows game center version no longer exists anymore. but even if it was, it’s still a mess of bad design decisions.

let me get this out of the way. there are worse games. this is the nickelback argument. nickelback is not the worst band in the world. it’s just the most popular band in the “worst good bands of all time list”. there are a dozen worse bands than nickelback I can think of off the top of my head (for proof: dommin, buckcherry, hinder, puddle of mudd, creed, sugar ray, oasis, four non blondes, simple plan, all time low, the all american rejects, and the plain white Ts. I don’t think these bands are BAD per se, they’re just not as good as nickelback is). the issue is that, like nickelback, bethesda’s RPGS are massively overrated. there are bad bands out there: every grindcore band is bad (since grindcore is bad on purpose), blood on the dance floor is bad, brokencyde is bad, the medic droid is bad. myspacecore exists so there is not a snowball’s chance in hell that nickelback is genuinely at the bottom of the barrel. same with skyrim and Fo4. bubsy 3D, postal 3, charlie’s angels, afro samurai 2, leisure suit larry (the really bad one), ride to hell, big rigs, action 52, desert bus, jekyll and hyde, ET atari! NOW THOSE ARE SOME GENUINELY SHITTY GAMES. skyrim is cohesive. functional. has good elements. lots of content, lots of variety, depth in places. it is not a “bad game”. but it’s definitely one of the worst good games ever made. and here’s why.

there is literally zero difficulty.

yes there is a slider available that adjusts how much damage you deal and receive. I am aware. acolyte novice master and legendary, whatever, THAT DOESNT COUNT. adjusting the numbers isn’t real difficulty. it’s imaginary. it’s artificial. it’s not real. the difference between easy and hard should not be “you shoot the bad guy three times instead of two times” because that’s just fucking stupid. it’s a complete waste of time, and it doesn’t require any actual skill. memorization, diligence, patience, focus, sure, but spending four hours on memorizing left right left right up down up down b a select start BOOM win! is dumb. good difficulty, real difficulty, is a lot more in depth and involved. take metro 2033: its hard difficulty is removing the HUD, forcing you to keep a closer eye on the more immersive bits of the interface, because every single piece of information on your hud is visible somewhere on artyom’s body, like the rig in dead space, which changes how much ammo enemies drop. resident evil 4 has different enemy spawns on professional than it does on DA1 normal (or easy), and enemies move faster on pro. mass effect 2 has multiple different layers of enemy armor which forces more tactical decision making skills- this has the unfortunate side effect of rendering most of the other characters useless (only miranda zaeed garrus grunt are good on higher difficulty) but it’s still a tangible difference that’s not just “give the bad guy more meat on his bones”. resident evil madhouse/hardcore move items around and limit saves. silent hill (the good ones) changes the puzzles. fallout new vegas hardcore adds food water and sleep to the game, plus it enables NPC and companion permadeath, and alters the way healing is done (stimpaks are HoTs instead). guitar hero adds the number of note frets used on the board.

fallout 3? you shoot the bad guy more times and then spam more stimpaks afterwards.

skyrim? you stab the bad guy more times and then eat more cheese wheels afterwards.

people have grown complacent playing these games this way, save scumming for better results and more favorable outcomes, abusing the ill thought out merchant systems, selling everything they find that wasn’t nailed to the floor just to buy more cheese and stims because you can brute force your way through the whole game with just the 10mm pistol or the flaming poisoning raging sword of doom if you just spam more stimpaks and cheese wheels. just press X on every npc, let the game record the quests you get and put it on your map so you can blindly follow the flashing blinky light, press r1 a hundred times until the bad guy dies, pick up everything, sell it to whoever, buy a billion more cheese and stims, lather rinse repeat. you don’t even need to think. just press the button and get the corn. just press the button and get the corn. just press the button… and get… the corn.

god forbid you have to actually look around, god forbid you have to actually read, god forbid you have to actually listen to the NPCs, god forbid you need to follow directions and landmarks and hold a 3d space in your mind without the use of a physical map or a flashy blinky light in the corner. god forbid you have to actually learn the boss moveset and time your dodges to not get hit because you only have 5 heals because you’re too stupid to figure out the kindle system. god forbid you can’t save scum because there’s only auto save and you actually have consequences for your actions. god forbid you have to read the description of your keys so you don’t just shit yourself crying to twitch chat WHERE DO I GOOOOOO???????? I DONT UNDERSTAND THIS GAME IS SO HAAAAAARRRRRRDDDD T.T

the most hilarious part is that, within minutes of beating the tutorial, you can literally suicide run to the graveyard and get the zweihander which kills almost every burg hollow in one hit, definitely two hits. it does 140 damage, everything else does maybe 80, 90 if you’re lucky. and when every enemy had a defense stat of like 50, that’s well over a 200% maybe even 300% damage increase. every enemy telegraphs their attacks so far in advance you can literally walk away, walk around to their backs, and you don’t even need to get a backstab, you can just swing and the counter damage will kill them instantly. you have to think spatially & critically. you have to actually use your brain to beat each encounter.

skyrim and fallout 4’s popularity has enabled complacent play styles in far too many people, so the moment they find a game that you actually need to respect and pay attention to and develop actual tangible skill to progress, clearly the game is just too hard because the devs are trolls and miyazaki hates you. it can’t POSSIBLY be that you just suck.

it’s absurdly easy to git gud. it just takes more than 30 seconds of thinking it’s dynasty warriors, getting your ass kicked in, then punching a hole in your monitor.

and, dark souls does have an easy mode. it’s reach the credits once then put the game down forever. that is easy mode. new game IS easy mode, because the REAL game is new game plus. that’s what the game was actually built around. new game is just the tutorial. one long tutorial. I don’t wanna hear one more person whine and complain that taurus demon is ~too hard~ when I’m going toe to toe with artorias NG+ because he’s the only enemy that gives me any trouble whatsoever. you just need to stop asking the internet how to play and then seeing “learn to parry” as “hide behind a shield forever and then act shocked when you die to an unblockable attack that you should have learned to roll from 20 hours ago. you need to stop googling “how do I beat X” every time it takes you more than one try. you need to stop expecting it to hand you everything on a silver platter like skyrim and fallout 3 did. because this is not skyrim or fallout. this is dark souls. it’s not devil may cry, which is ACTUALLY really fucking hard. it’s not hard. it’s literally just… different.

[wingsofhcpe]

whumptober day 6- collapsing/definitely just a cold

fandom: shadow & bone

pairing: fivan [ivan x fedyor kaminsky]

rating: T+

additional warnings: possible main character death (but not really)

other notes: METRO 2033 AU (book-canon)

you can also read here: https://archiveofourown.org/works/34208404/chapters/85572847

Upon their return to the tunnels that evening, Ivan notices Fedyor has been lagging behind, stumbling at the back of their group as if struggling to keep up.

“Are you okay?” He asks, falling into step with his husband and holding out an arm to steady the other man’s gait. Fedyor smiles and nods, the filter of the protective mask making his breathing sound heavy and ragged.

“Perfectly fine, lyubov. I’m just tired.” He assures him, although there’s something in his voice Ivan cannot quite decipher. Still, it’s not unheard of for the rangers that venture to the surface to catch a cold in the nuclear winter that has befallen their city, and even underground, the cold and humidity result in even the healthiest, most robust of the survivors to sport a nearly constant sore throat and a permanently runny nose. He and Fedyor had been lucky enough to not have fallen sick for the better part of the last five years, but if it happens now it’s not like it’s going to be the end of the world. That, Ivan thinks to himself, has already kind of happened anyway.

They walk the rest of the way in silence, eyes careful to remain glued to the ground while they pass by the vicinity of the Kremlin tower- the rumours of soldiers falling into a trance and disappearing into the depths of the ruined building, as if drawn to it by some sinister power (or most likely a mutation of some kind, Ivan thinks), never to be seen again, are enough to keep even the most reckless of them from testing their luck. Ivan very much doesn’t want to become the dinner of some oversized mutated horror to which radiation has granted some supernatural hypnotising power, so he keeps his eyes low, watching the rubble and dirty ice crunch below his heavy boots. Fedyor, next to him, is following the same old habit. They trudge ahead, soldiers following a familiar path home. Whatever that word means for each of them; safety, warmth, the welcoming arms of each other.

It feels like hours, but it is only a few more minutes until the group reaches the safety of the tunnels. They scutter back under the ground like rats, the old automatic staircase long since dead and creaking ominously beneath the soles of their boots. Aleksander and Zoya do a quick sweep of the first level- the most dangerous one, as it’s completely exposed to the wild, inhospitable world above. Monsters may be lurking in every little shadow, or a trap may have been laid by the peculiar bandits who ally themselves with none of the Moscow Metropoliten, and live within the bowels of the tunnels themselves, without ever coming in contact with what’s left of civilisation. Ivan didn’t know that when he first became a ranger, a soldier who ventures outside in look of supplies or lost artifacts of civilisation, and his first mission to the surface would have ended with him in pieces inside the oesophagus of some otherworldly beast, had Aleksander and his shotgun not intervened on time. He hasn’t made the mistake of brazenly striding across the open space ever since; in fact, he’s usually among the ones that help scan the front before allowing the rest of the group to pass, but tonight he’s made an exception, staying at the back with Fedyor.

“I really am fine.” Fedyor says quietly as soon as everyone has crossed to the true underground, and the protective metal doors have slid shut, keeping monsters and radiation away from the civilians that live in the station-towns below. “You don’t need to fuss.”

“Mhm.” Ivan hums. “I believe you.”

Still, he’s got a strange, nagging feeling about it. It’s not the first time he’s seen Fedyor struggling- most soldiers do, in fact. Their equipment is heavy, and roaming the wasteland aboveground takes a vastly emotional toll on them as well; having to constantly keep an eye out for dangers, the slightest noise causing panic among even the most seasoned of them. And then, there’s the distance they must cover- it grows longer every day, as the supplies and leftovers that can be found near the entrances to the Metro diminish each year. Ivan prefers not to think of the inevitable- of the time when all of it will eventually run out, and no matter how far they go, how many dangers they face, there will be nothing left to salvage. He thinks that only then, will the old world truly be gone. But you don’t get far in life if you keep thinking of the future, distant or otherwise. You take one step after the next, thinking only of the now, of today, of survival. This is something all of them know. Those of them that refused to adjust to the rule, perished long ago.

“What’s the matter?” Fedyor asks, nudging him with his elbow to draw his attention and thus jostling him out of his thoughts. “You look troubled.”

“It’s nothing.” Ivan says carefully. He can tell Fedyor is tired, and he doesn’t want to burden him with his own miserable musings. Fedyor has always been the optimist between the two of them- the one that has always believed that, sooner or later, the radiation outside would fade. The world would become habitable again. They’d reclaim their previous lives, whatever that meant, since both of them had barely been in their teens when the apocalypse struck. Ivan himself doesn’t remember much of it, but Fedyor does, and even after so many years together Ivan doesn’t know whether he’s jealous or not. Half of him wishes he could remember his mother’s face; the other half is glad to be blissfully unaware, every time Fedyor wakes up crying quietly, face buried in Ivan’s chest. He doesn’t often talk about what reduced him to this state, but Ivan knows. Fedyor remembers everything about his family -his parents and all six of his sisters-, including the way all of them died. He has never told Ivan how, or even when, and Ivan hasn’t pressured him to do so. He knows well enough how gruesome and traumatic it must have been, so he focuses on comforting instead of asking. “Just wondering what’s for dinner tonight.”

Fedyor makes a face, one that Ivan can see now that they have all removed their gas masks. “The same as every night, probably. Rotten carrot stew and mushroom tea.”

Yeah, well. It had been the same for twenty whole years, and still Ivan still can’t fathom how he’s stomaching it every night. He makes a disgusting noise, and Fedyor bursts out laughing- only to stop abruptly and cough loudly into the crook of his arm.

“Fedya?” Ivan’s heart skips a beat again, this stupid nagging feeling rekindled upon hearing the rough, dry sound that comes out of his lover’s mouth. Still, Fedyor just sucks in a deep breath and laughs again.

“Calm down, you mother hen.” He teases with a poke on Ivan’s shoulder. “Just choked on my own spit. Happens to the best of us, believe it or not.”

“I suppose.” Ivan rolls his eyes and doesn’t prod the issue further. They fall back to joking and conversing about the strange book in another language Fedyor found buried under the rubble, about the mutated butterfly that scared their latest recruit -poor Alina, she’s a child really, compared to veterans like them- so bad she almost tumbled into a hole in the ground, about the myth of the Kremlin, about the songs Zoya shared with them every night while David strummed an old, ragged balalaika. It’s not until well after debriefing and dinner, when they’re both huddled safely together in the little barricaded, tent-covered alcove that has become their home, furthest from the tracks, that Ivan’s worry resurfaces.

“You’d tell me if you weren’t feeling too great, right?” He asks quietly, voice softer than anyone other than Fedyor ever hears it. Fedyor hums and nods, nuzzling his face into the crook of Ivan’s neck. He’s already half-asleep, making tired, adorable little sounds as he clumsily cuddles Ivan.

“Course I would…” He murmurs, words slurred to the point Ivan barely understands them. He smiles fondly and places a kiss on Fedyor’s forehead.

“Good. Sweet dreams, my love.”

He has nothing to worry about- he can trust Fedyor. He would know if the latter was lying. Besides, a cough shouldn’t be enough to worry anyone, even with the medical progress of humanity has somewhat regressed after the apocalypse. And Fedyor would never lie to him. Ivan is sure of that.

-

It turns out, however, that Ivan was wrong about Fedyor for the first time in their shared lifetime. Because Fedyor lied.

It’s only a week after that they’re sent to the surface again, one of the scouts having brought back concerning information about a nest of mutated amphibians thriving too close to the station’s entrance for comfort. They should be exterminated at the earliest possible convenience and that is, of course, a job for Aleksander and his trusted, courageous rangers. So out they go again, masks and guns and all. None of them is as talkative as they usually are during an exit, though; a direct confrontation with a nest of irradiated monsters is no easy feat even for the best of the best, and it’s not rare for encounters such as that to go terribly wrong. Entire squads of rangers have been wiped out like that, and although Aleksander’s group is heralded as the elite, the ones who have never suffered a single loss even when facing up to flying terrors, it’s still not something to be taken lightly. The soldiers are quiet, and only Zoya’s voice echoes among them as she directs them to where the scout had pinpointed the location of the nest.

It’s tough work, as expected; none of them dies, but one of the younger soldiers damn near loses her entire arm when one of the senior beasts chomps down on it. Ivan is the one that shoots the thing right between the eyes at just the right moment to prevent the girl from suffering a debilitating injury, but she is still quite shaken, and he cannot find it in him to blame her. Luckily, however, most of the amphibians are hatchlings or juveniles, the nest having only been briefly established. It makes for an easier job than it would have been, had the nest been populated mostly by adults, and Ivan has learned to count his blessings. He’s about to order one last sweep of the area before they leave, just to be certain, but then he hears Zoya shouting.

“Fedyor? Fedyor!”

Her voice is dangerously close to panicking, and Ivan swerves around so fast that he nearly trips over the mutilated carcass of a juvenile amphibian. His eyes are scanning the area before him before he’s even done fully restoring his balance, eyes searching frantically for Fedyor. He detects him eventually; curled up on the ground, rifle haphazardly discarded a couple of feet away from him as if it slipped out of his grasp. Zoya is kneeling next to him, her hands pressed onto his chest as she presumably checks for a pulse. It’s only a few seconds until Ivan throws himself to the ground next to the younger woman, hands reaching out to assess Fedyor’s vitals himself.

“Is he injured? Did you see him fall?” He asks breathlessly, and Zoya shakes her head.

“He was with me the whole time. I didn’t see any of the creatures attack him directly, but he just… he just collapsed. I don’t know what happened to him.”

Fedyor is indeed uninjured, at least externally. There are no visible tears or damage in his protective equipment, his mask and filter are intact, but his heartrate is erratic, and the thermometer attached to his uniform is showing his temperature to be abnormally high, even for someone being winded from the battle. His breath is coming out shallow and heavy, fogging against the glass of his mask. Upon closer inspection, Ivan realises that it’s also speckled with blood.

“It’s on the inside,” Zoya says, having detected it herself “so it can’t have come from the mutants. I don’t understand.”

Cold, unbridled fear laces Ivan’s insides like the permafrost of Siberia, stealing his breath to the point where he nearly starts to wheeze.

“It’s- he’s been coughing for the past week.” He hears himself say, tongue twisting and stumbling over the words. Under any other circumstances he would have been ashamed for Zoya, his fellow second-in-command, to see him undone is such a manner, but presently he cannot be bothered with it. “He told me it was just a cold so… we just left it at that.”

“A cold doesn’t warrant passing out and spitting blood.” Zoya says, voicing the exact thought that had taken root in Ivan’s mind, but he had still been too afraid to voice. “Has he been having any signs of a fever this past week?”

Ivan racks his brain, trying to think. Fedyor might have been a bit warmer than usual to the touch, every night when they fell asleep cradled in each other’s arms. But his body temperature had always been a little higher than average -to the point where Ivan often called him a living, walking furnace-, so none of them had made a comment about it. That, Ivan belatedly realises now, regret filling his every pore and bursting from his skin, had been a mistake. He should have asked. He should have pushed more. He should have told Fedyor to rest or to see a doctor.

He shouldn’t have trusted Fedyor to watch over himself; he was the type of person to watch over everyone else, his Fedya, but never took care of himself in the same manner. Ivan shouldn’t have believed him, when he’d said he was fine.

“What’s going on?” Aleksander’s voice brings him back to the present, out of his guilt-riddled musing. The steady, familiar sound of it grounds Ivan, if only for a moment.

“He passed out, sir.” He says quickly, getting up on one knee. “We think he’s sick. He needs a doctor.”

Aleksander’s cold, lightless eyes inspect Fedyor’s unconscious body for a few seconds, then eventually he nods. “Ivan, can you carry him? I know of an entrance that leads to Komsomolskaya Station. It’s abandoned, but we can get through it we’re careful, and it’s shorter than the way back home. There’s a sub-unit of rangers in Komsomolskaya, so they’ll have a doctor ready to examine him.”

Ivan’s mind makes a quick mental sketch of the map of the Moscow Metropoliten; their home base is located at Kurskaya station, which is where they got out of on their way here. However, they have moved quite far from their entry point. If his intuition is correct, they must be somewhere near Semyonovskaya, which belongs to the Baumansky Alliance, a group of stations that are less than friendly towards the rangers of the Hanza Ring, the wealthiest and strongest section of the Metro. So they cannot get in from there, but if the entryway Aleksander is suggesting is closer to  Komsomolskaya than the way to their home station, then Ivan is ready to follow no matter the risks. They can’t risk being out in the open with one of their soldiers unconscious and defenceless, and whatever may hide at an abandoned entrance to the underground can’t be worse than the mutated night terrors that roam the ruins of Moscow upon the descent of darkness. They have to risk it- it’s far from ideal or completely safe, but then again, nothing is these days. Between Scylla and Charibdis, they have to choose something. Besides, there’s no real reason for a group of flesh-eating monsters to have made a nest in an abandoned station- these creatures moved to wherever they smelled the largest amount of warm-blooded food, and so they couldn’t have possibly inhabited the old entrance.

“Are you sure you can you lead us here, sir?” He says decisively after a moment, and Aleksander nods with a little bit of disdain in his dark glare.

“I wouldn’t have suggested it if I couldn’t, Ivan.” He says harshly, and Ivan’s shoulders tense. He has spoken out of line, that much is obvious even to him. Worry over a fellow soldier being hurt doesn’t normally excuse it, but Aleksander knows of the relationship between him and Fedyor; perhaps he will be forgiven as soon as they’re back under the safety of the ground. For now, Ivan cannot preoccupy himself with that, too. Worrying about his husband is enough.

He hoists Fedyor up on his shoulders, arms lodged under the other man’s thighs to keep him steady. They’ll both be sitting ducks if something attacks them, but Ivan trusts Zoya and the rest of the squad to cover for them in case the worst comes to pass. As if to assure him of it, Zoya slings her rifle off her shoulder and tucks it under one arm with a finger poised near the safety, ready to open fire at a moment’s notice. Ivan gives her an appreciative nod, which she returns. And with that, they start marching.

Just as Aleksander promised, the way to the abandoned entrance isn’t long. It’s filled with debris, however, as no group of rangers had bothered to maintain the path in many years. It would have been a treacherous landscape to navigate under the best of conditions, and Ivan stumbles awkwardly under Fedyor’s dead weight, certain he would have fallen a dozen times by now had it not been for Zoya grabbing his arm and steadying him. It doesn’t get easier when Fedyor shifts a little, groaning and coughing and making Ivan’s heart convulse with worry. He’s still unconscious, but it’s obvious by the sounds he’s making that he’s in a considerable amount of pain. Ivan wants to stop, he wants to cradle Fedyor in his arms and kiss his brow and tell him it’ll all be alright, but he knows it’s not possible. It would be suicide to stop now, and barring anything but the most pressing of emergencies, they must continue onwards until they’re safe again.

In the end, they make it. The old entrance is deserted, just as Ivan had predicted; no reason for predators to lurk around a passage that no living creature of considerable size and nutritional value uses anymore. There are other forms of life clinging to it still; a giant spider waiting patiently on its net near the furthest corner; a group of mutated rats watching them from the shadows with their hackles raised and eyes glowing ominously; and a slimy sort of shapeless biomass clinging to the right side of the wall, its tentacle-like appendages shifting curiously and prodding the air in the group’s direction. But none of these life forms is worrisome enough if you know they’re there- they do not attack and they do not chase you, and as long as you stick to a clean path away from the walls, there is nothing to fear from them. Besides, a lonely giant spider and a group of rats are easy to deal with a round of rifle fire or with a grenade, mutations or no. The biomass is another matter entirely, and Ivan isn’t even sure it can be permanently exterminated, but so long as they stir clear from the surface it occupies, it’s unable to harm them. So, in they go.

The way through dark, abandoned tunnels seems even less welcoming than the world on the surface, but Ivan consoles himself with the fact that in there, at least, nothing can swoop on them from above… probably. He wouldn’t like to test that theory, and apparently neither would anyone else, because they hurry past the rusty tracks and rubble-strewn ground as fast as humanly possible. Finally, after what seems like hours, the lights of the outpost to Komsomolskaya wink at them from the depths of the tunnel, and with a last burst of speed, they’re finally back to true safety (or as true as that can be, in the world they live in). The soldiers keeping watch at the outpost recognise Aleksander by the mere sight of his face as soon as he removes his gas mask, and let them through without a fuss. One of them is kind enough to point them directly to the infirmary wing as soon as her eyes fall on Ivan and his load. The watchmen keep a safe distance from them, however, and Ivan cannot find it inside him to blame them- nobody knows what’s wrong with Fedyor, and it’s not unheard of for mysterious epidemics to break out nowhere and ravage entire stations in mere weeks. These days, people trust only what they know. Everything else is seen as immediately and irrevocably dangerous.

The infirmary wing is more of an open space strewn with cots, and less of a proper wing. It’s stationed in the middle of the tracks, under one of the more impressive archways that had once been the pride of the Russian Underground. The tiles that make it up are cracked and mouldy, but their colours still shine dimly under the light of the electric bulbs that are strung everywhere. It’s one of the few places of real beauty left in the world, and Ivan allows himself to feel a little soothed by it. His worry returns tenfold, however, when a nurse dressed in white sprints up to them with a concerned expression on their face.

“What’s the matter?” They ask, eyes traveling nervously from Aleksander -clearly a superior officer- to Ivan, to Fedyor’s unconscious form. He’s fallen silent again during their trek through the tunnels, and Ivan doesn’t know whether that’s a good or a bad thing. He supposes he’ll find out soon enough.

“One of my soldiers passed out while we were on the surface.” Aleksander, clearly the only one with his wits still about him, explains briefly. “We were sent to eliminate some monsters, but he doesn’t have any visible injuries. He just collapsed.”

The nurse cringes a little and takes a step back, much like the watchmen at the outpost did earlier. Ivan’s empathy has just about ran out, however, because he glowers at them.

“He’s not infected with anything, for fuck’s sake.” Then he reconsiders, and ads, “nothing out of the ordinary, at least. We’re thinking it might be a bad bout of pneumonia. You deal with that here all the time, right?”

The nurse, clearly intimidated out of their wits, nods rapidly and mutters a string of desperate apologies before gesturing them to the nearest cot.

“Put him here, and remove his equipment.” They instruct, and Ivan bites down whatever annoyance he might be feeling and does as told. When the outer layer of Fedyor’s uniform is gone, he removes his own gloves and places a hand on his husband’s flushed face; he’s burning up, and he seems to have difficulty breathing.

Just pneumonia, Ivan tells to himself as he moves back, allowing the nurse and the doctor they had summoned examine the patient. It’s just a cold gone very bad, because Fedyor is an idiot with the self-preservation instincts of a rotten beetroot. He’ll be fine after a couple of weeks of bedrest, that’s for sure. And he’ll appreciate the time off. Doesn’t he always talk about needing a break?

The terrible feeling is still there, however, choking Ivan. Because there’s one thing worse than pneumonia when you’re a ranger- something that awaits all of them, sooner or later, albeit it’s usually later. Still, accidents happen, and exceptions are known to exist. If that’s the case, then…

…don’t think about it. Don’t think about it. It’s not the radiation. He’s fine. Aleksander has been venturing outside ever since he was thirteen and he’s still as healthy as they come. Fedyor is fine.

He feels a strong hand clasping his shoulder, and he doesn’t need to look to know it’s Aleksander. For all his strict, intimidating exterior, Aleksander cares for his soldiers greatly and he’s been shown to be extremely perceptive when it comes to their emotions. He’s not a man of many words, but then again neither is Ivan. That gesture between them is more than enough; Ivan nods thankfully and closes his eyes, leaning against the nearest wall while the doctor examines Fedyor.

It’s minutes, hours, years before the man in the white robe finally looks up and clears his throat. Ivan jerks up, shoulders straight and face impassive even as his heart is about to burst right out of his chest and hit the doctor straight in the face. He braces himself and looks up- and the pity he sees in the doctor’s eyes yanks the floor right out of his feet.

“I’m very sorry, sirs.” The doctor is saying quietly, looking between Ivan and Aleksander. “Your comrade… he’s in an advanced stage of radiation-induced lung decay. There is nothing we can do other than try and make him as comfortable as we can, for whatever time he has left.”

A dim ringing noise is sounding in Ivan’s ears. His vision is blurry, and while part of him is aware the doctor is still speaking, he cannot decipher the words. All he can see is Fedyor, his Fedya, lying pale and wheezing in that stupid, bedraggled cot, with a threadbare white blanket pulled over his legs and chest. His Fedya, sick with radiation poisoning. His Fedya, dying.

Aleksander’s hand is on his shoulder again, and Ivan realises with a start that he’s fallen on his knees, staring at the stained, cracked floor tiles. Aleksander is in the middle of saying something to him, but Ivan doesn’t wait to listen to his superior. He’s back on his feet a moment later, fingers curling around the doctor’s robe and eliciting a terrified squeak out of the nurse, who scuttles away as if afraid they’re going to be next. The doctor tries to push Ivan away, but his grip is a vice.

“You will save him.” Ivan hisses between gritted teeth, staring right into the doctor’s terrified eyes. “I don’t care if you have to fight the Devil himself to do so, you will save Fedyor.”

“There’s not enough medicine in the whole Metro!” The doctor fires back, standing his ground despite his fear. “Only potassium iodide can help him now, and stocks have been rapidly diminishing. Ever since the accursed atomic bombs fell on Moscow, demand of it has skyrocketed, and most stashes were lost when the whole world aboveground went up in flames, in case you didn’t notice, sir. So unless you can pay me thrice your weight in bullets or consumables, there’s no way I’ll be able to procure enough to treat him.”

Bullets, the form of currency used in the Moscow Metropoliten. One of the things the rangers are primarily focused on scavenging whenever they go aboveground. A ranger’s pay is good, but it’s nowhere near that good. In fact, Ivan is aware that even if his whole unit scrounged up their monthly wage of bullets together, it wouldn’t be enough to procure the medicine. Not when it was, quite literally, more precious than gold in their society. With so many people becoming contaminated by radiation each year, potassium iodide had become just as essential as potable water in most stations.

Ivan lets go of the doctor and steps back, suddenly aware of how fickle this hope is. How truly rotten the world they live in is. There’s nothing he can do to save Fedyor, his husband, his only family. There’s no hope. Fedyor’s kindness, his smile, his optimism is going to be extinguished like so many others that die within the bowels of the Metro every damn year. It was only a matter of time before death’s ever-present hand came for one of them, too. Ivan had just believed they’d have a little more time. That maybe Fedyor’s naïve daydreams about one day returning to the surface, to life as it once was, weren’t all that unrealistic and unachievable.

But they had been. Even Fedyor himself must have known that, in the end. Even someone as sweet and radiant as Fedyor will eventually be broken by their grim reality. Perhaps that’s what saddens Ivan more than anything else; not the prospect of death itself, but the fact that Fedyor will die knowing he’d been wrong. That there is no hope for any of them. That he wasted his time on silly dreams of a future none of them ever really had.

Fedyor deserved better. So much better. But there was nothing Ivan can do for it now. He can only stay, until the very end. A selfish part of him hopes that the end won’t come too soon. That there’ll be some time for him to try and find the medicine his beloved so desperately needs to survive. But deep inside him he knows it’ll be for the better, if Fedyor’s end comes quickly and painlessly. If his suffering isn’t prolonged until there’s nothing left of him but the memory of pain and sorrow. Ivan might have not been able to save Fedyor, but he wants him to at least go as painlessly and peacefully as possible. Even if his death will leave Ivan himself broken, without hope of ever recovering from it.

Aleksander and the doctor leave him after exchanging a few quick words, and Ivan is thankful for it. He wants to be alone right now, excluding the presence of his still-unresponsive husbands. He settles in a rusty metal chair by Fedyor’s bedside, and takes the latter’s hand into his own. It warm and clammy with sweat, but Ivan lifts it up and kisses the knuckles. Finally, he lets the tears fall.

“I’m sorry. I should have known you weren’t okay. I should have said something. I should have tried to save you.”

Words won’t be of any help, not at this point. But Ivan hopes, at least, that Fedyor knows he’s loved, cherished. That his death won’t go unnoticed. That he’s important, so important to Ivan. That if he could, Ivan would reverse their positions in less than a heartbeat.

He hopes Fedyor knows how much Ivan truly loves him.

It’s hours before Fedyor finally regains consciousness. During that time, Ivan has cried until he has no more tears left to spare, until his eyes burn and his mouth is dry and sticky with nothing but bitterness, until the only thing he can do is press Fedyor’s hand against his forehead in a pitiful attempt to just feel him there.

“…Vanya?”

Ivan nearly jolts out of his seat, heartbeat skyrocketing. For a moment, he’s not sure what’s happening. He’s not sure whether or not he’s dreaming, and he dimly wonders if part of him believed Fedyor was never going to wake up again.

But here his dumbass of a husband is, looking at him through fever-glazed eyes, his cheeks flushed with fever and his mouth speckled with dried flakes of blood, and Ivan is suddenly so angry he could have torn a flesh-eating mutant beast in half with his bare hands, without breaking a sweat.

"Why?” He barks, voice breaking in despair, and thick with bitterness as more tears he didn’t know he still possessed spring up to his already-reddened eyes, choking onto the regret of not having seen the signs right in front of him. “Why did you hide it? Why didn’t you tell me, Fedyor?"

Fedyor's eyes flutter a little with exhaustion, but his blood-speckled lips twitch into a weak, tired smile. The same smile that made Ivan fall head over heels for him so many years back.

"What good would it have been, moya lyubov? It would only make you sad. There's nothing..." Fedyor pauses, coughs; his face twists with pain that drives shards of ice into Ivan’s heart, fresh blood bubbling up in his mouth. "... nothing anyone could have done. If my time's up, it's up..." "Don't say that!" Ivan grits his teeth, fighting the losing battle of keeping his tears in check. "I'll find a way. I’ll sell my soul if I have to. I won't let you die!"

"I'm glad..." Fedyor sighs, a trembling breath coming out of him as if even talking exhausts him beyond words, as if it’s an effort to keep his eyes open, "I'm glad I got to spent so much time with you, my Vashenka... I have so many fond memories of us. I’ll take them with me… I won’t be lonely, whatever awaits me on the other side."

“No.” Ivan chokes back a broken, pitiful sob as he moves from the chair, kneeling to the floor next to Fedyor’s bed. He bumps his head against Fedyor’s shoulder as if jostling him hard enough will wake them both from this awful nightmare. “Don’t talk like that, my heart. There’s still hope. Isn’t that what you always say to me? That there’s always hope, even in the darkest places? Well, you’re my hope, Fedyor! So- you can’t die! I won’t let you!”

He knows he’s sounding very much like a spoiled child whose parents won’t get him what he wants, but he’s past caring. And why should he, after all? The world has taken everything from him- his family, his city, his home, any hopes for a normal way of life. Why shouldn’t he be pissed and angry and terrified and broken, that he’s losing the one thing that made this foul existence worth living?

Belatedly, Ivan realises Fedyor’s shoulders are also shaking as he, too, cries.

“I’m sorry, Vanyusha.” Fedyor chokes out, tears gliding down his flushed cheeks. “I’m sorry, I-I wanted to… to see the world with you. I wanted to live to see the day when we could go back. When all of this would be nothing but a distant nightmare… but- but I… I was stupid…”

“No- No, Fedyenka-“ Ivan cups Fedyor’s face on both his own large, calloused hands, bringing their foreheads close, “You’re not stupid, you were never stupid. That light, that hope you always had within you, that’s what kept so many of us alive. You can’t give it up now, my love. Don’t decide to be a realist now- not now, of all times. God damn everything, Fedyor, you made me believe there’s still something worth fighting for even in the ruins of a nuclear holocaust. You can’t let yourself wither away now.”

Fedyor sobs and lifts up a hand, using whatever strength he still possesses to drag Ivan in for a desperate, hungry kiss, as if it will be their last. And it might as well be- Ivan doesn’t know how much time they have, until Fedyor’s lungs cease to function. So, Ivan kisses back as if that’s his last chance to do so. He tastes the copper tang of blood on his beloved’s lips, slips his tongue into Fedyor’s mouth as if his kiss alone can heal his husband. Only when Fedyor starts to struggle for breath, chest heaving with another bout of coughing, does he draw back. His fingers tangle themselves in Fedyor’s dark brown hair, and he caresses the latter’s head until the fit has passed.

“Ivan…” Fedyor rasps tiredly after a few heavy, painful breaths. “Will- Will you forgive me…? For lying to you?”

“Of course.” Ivan sniffs, swallowing back another sob. “I will forgive you anything, my heart, so long as you promise not to give up. Not yet. I’ll find a way to scrounge together enough for the medicine you need, even if it’s the last thing I’ll ever do.”

Fedyor smiles a little again. His face is tired and haggard, but that smile is as genuine and loving as it has always been.

“I… I’ll try. For you.” He whispers, and Ivan forces himself to accept that for now, that is enough. It’s better than nothing, it’s better than Fedyor surrendering himself and waiting for death to come and claim him. It might not be much, but it’ll have to be enough.

It’ll be alright, it’ll be alright, it’ll be alright.

Suddenly, Ivan realises why Fedyor clung to his naïve optimism for so many years. Because without it, one loses one’s mind.

“…Rest.” He whispers, forcing himself to believe that his hopes won’t be for naught. “You need to conserve your strength, Fedyenka. I promise I’ll stay with you.”

“You should rest, too.” Fedyor murmurs, his voice hoarse, and Ivan lets out a sigh- really, of all the times for Fedyor to worry about everyone other than himself. Still, it’s true that Ivan is exhausted, too. The battle with the mutants, however brief, the trek to the old entrance while carrying Fedyor’s weight, the grief and fear and despair, it’s all taken a great toll on him.

“Lie next to me?” Fedyor whispers before Ivan has time to assure him that he can last a bit longer. Ivan tenses a little, throwing careful looks around; unlike the Russia they used to know, relationships between the same gender aren’t exactly rare in the Metro, and they’re certainly not illegal, but they’re largely frowned upon. How are you going to help repopulate the human race if you can’t have children with your significant other? Both he and Fedyor have had to deal with a lot of nasty comments and even a physical assault or two- or rather, attempts on physical assault, because no matter how much of a macho straight male you consider yourself to be, going up against two fully trained military rangers isn’t going to end up in your favour, even if said soldiers are gay (or in Fedyor’s case, bisexual). The infirmary is an open space with nothing to hide them from prying eyes, but Ivan realises that he doesn’t give a flying fuck. Let them come and yell at them and try to push them apart. See how that works out for them. Ivan isn’t going to deny his husband the simple pleasure of lying next to him, not when they’re both losing everything anyway.

So he does as asked of him, and crawls under the pitiful excuse of a blanket. He wraps Fedyor in his arms to keep him warm even if the blanket doesn’t, murmurs sweet nothings to him and kisses his brow until Fedyor succumbs to a deep, fitful slumber. Ivan holds him as he coughs and whimpers in his sleep, ever-vigilant. And he doesn’t let himself lose hope.

Hope that, no matter what, he’ll find a way to save Fedyor.