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thebigbadbatswife · 4 years

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One Single Thread Of Gold Tied Me To You

Summary - Everyone is tied to their soulmate with a red thread tied to their wrist. All except Y/N’s, who’s thread is gold. Tired of waiting for her soulmate to come and find her, she decides to go and find them. It doesn’t go quite how she expected it to.

Warnings - A little angst

[A/N] - This is a soulmate au where you and your soulmate are attached by an unbreakable red thread (or, in this case, gold), tied to your wrist. This was inspired by the song 'Invisible String' by Taylor Swift.

Word Count - 4k

As the early morning sun slowly filtered into your room, through your blinds, you carefully examined the thread attached to your wrist. Everyone had one; it was your link to your soulmate. Yours was different to everyone else though. While everyone had red, yours was gold. As you turned your wrist, it caught the sunlight and glistened a little.

Everyone you knew had always been fascinated by it. As was nearly every stranger you met. Why was it gold? What exactly made you and your soulmate so different to everyone else’s? Questions you had often asked yourself as well. Why were you two so different?

Your family had a theory that whoever it was, they were rich. Very rich. That was surely the reason it was gold. Nothing else made sense to them. Meanwhile your friends were completely convinced that your soulmate was some kind of God.

“Come on, Y/N! It’s the only thing that makes sense!” Tracey said before taking another sip of her third glass of wine. Her usually bright emerald eyes were glazed over from all of the alcohol. “Why else would it be gold?”

“You gotta admit, Tracey might be drunk right now, but she has a good point!” Skylar joined in. She took her brown eyes off the blonde and looked over at you before continuing. “Oh! What if your soulmate is like Wonder Woman or Superman or something! How cool would that be?”

You rolled your eyes and took a sip of your own glass of wine. “Stop it. You’re both being ridiculous,” you had told them because they really were being ridiculous. There was no way your soulmate was a member of the Justice League, let alone an Amazonian Princess or the Man of Steel.

You were, of course, curious of your soulmate yourself. Who wouldn’t be curious of the person they’re destined to end up with? But you didn’t think up the crazy theories your friends and family liked to come up with. Instead you wondered things like, what kind of hobbies do they have? What’s their favourite colour? What type of music do they listen to? Were they a cat person or a dog person? And other things like that.

Another thing about the thread that tied you to your soulmate was that, while everyone could see the thread around your wrist, only you and soulmate could see where it led. While you had always wanted to follow it, you had decided that it would be better to focus on having a decent job and place to live first.

During that time a small part of you had hoped that maybe your soulmate would come looking for you, but since they clearly weren’t, maybe you should? After all, you had a well paying job and a great apartment, so why not? Every job was legally required to allow people time off to go search, so that wouldn’t be an issue. It was paid time off as well so you didn’t have to worry about money. You also had a car so you wouldn’t have to spend a shit ton of money on travel. At least, you hoped you wouldn’t. In truth, for all you knew, your soulmate could be in a completely different country. Now that would certainly complicate things.

Shaking that thought away (because there was no way fate could be that cruel), you got out of bed and set about putting the wheels in motion that would allow you to start following your thread

‘ Welcome to Gotham City! ’ the sign read as you drove past it. When you had told those close to you, your plan, they had been super supportive. Now, if they knew where your thread had lead you, you doubted they’d be as supportive. Hell, even you were rethinking things now. Out of all the cities for your soulmate to be in, it just had to be this one.

How did you know it was this city that they resided in and it wasn’t just another stop along the way? It was hard to explain, but you had a feeling deep within your gut, almost like a sixth sense that just yelled “Yep! This is the place!”.

You felt extremely uneasy as you drove through the city. It was night-time as well which did absolutely nothing to help. Honestly, of all the times to arrive in Gotham, night-time was definitely the worst. Well, there was nothing you could do about that now, you just had to keep on going, so you did.

The golden thread snaked through the gothic city and went from the “posh” part of the city all the way to the worst part of the city. The buildings were run down and most of the windows were boarded up. Each turn you took there were shiftier and shiftier characters on every corner. You started to get the feeling that you really shouldn’t be here. Plus you were starting to wonder if you really wanted to know who your soulmate was if they were hanging out in neighbourhoods like this.

You brought your car to a stop in front of a particularly dark and sinister looking alleyway. A particularly dark and sinister looking alleyway that your golden thread lead straight into. Coming to this part of this city was already a bad idea. Continuing to follow that thread to what had to be your certain doom was even worse. Yet, at this point in your mission, you were pretty much committed.

You couldn’t help out a quiet and very nervous laugh as you climbed out of your car. ‘ This is fucking insane ,’ you thought as you stepped out of your car. Before shutting and locking it (though you doubt that would do much to protect it in this area), you grabbed your pepper spray. ‘ I really hope your worth all this .’

As you followed the thread down the alleyway, you heard a sudden loud bang. A gunshot. You stopped in your tracks and you could feel your heart pick up its pace. Your thread lead in the direction the shot had come from. ‘ I really hope you weren’t involved with that .’ Taking a deep breath, you continued down the alleyway.

The alleyway lead out onto another street. There was a small crunching sound as you stepped out onto the street. Taking a step back, you looked to the ground to see what you had just stepped on. The ground was littered with small shards of glass. Looking up, you figured the shards of glass were from the bulbs from the streetlamps. Something had broken them. It didn’t take you long to figure out what, or rather who ,was responsible.

Further down the street, taking on group of ten men, was none other than Gotham’s Caped Crusader. The Batman.

You quickly ducked back into the alley you had just left. You then carefully peered around the wall, so you could watch the fight. You were well aware of the fact that your thread was leading straight toward the fight. Which meant that your soulmate was involved.

You watched the fight intensely, both intrigued and terrified to figured which one of the men was on the end of your thread. There was a voice in the back of your head praying hardcore that it was the hero in the centre of the fight.

Batman was a blur of black and dark grey as he rapidly made his way through the group of men. With a variety of different punches, kicks and gadgets, he made short work of them. During his combat flow, you followed your thread with your eyes and a small gasp left you as you realised who the other end was attached to.

Holy fuck. You’re friends had, kind of, been right. While your soulmate wasn’t Wonder Woman or Superman, like they had suggested, he was apart of the Justice League’s ‘Big Three’. Your soulmate was Batman . At least now you knew why he hadn’t come looking for you. He’d been busy saving the world.

Now you had to figure out how to approach him before he ended up disappearing into the night.

Exiting your cover, you took your thread between your finger and thumb and gently tugged on it a couple of times.

Batman looked at his end of the thread curiously as your tugs had gotten his attention. Then his head drifted upwards, following where it lead till his eyes settled on you.

If he was shocked, he didn’t show it. He just stood there, his eyes never leaving you. Part of you wanted to cower away from the intense stare, but you willed yourself not to. He was your soulmate, and you weren’t a criminal, you had no reason to be afraid.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said, finally ending the silence between you. His voice was deep and almost robotic sounding. Probably some sort of voice modulator to help hide his identity, you figured.

“In Gotham? Yeah, this place really sucks,” you replied, thinking about all the things you had heard about this city, “but I came here to find my soulmate; to find you.”

“You shouldn’t have.” His voice was sharp and serious as he spoke. He also sounded irritated at your sudden appearance, which caused you to frown. That couldn’t be right… could it?

“What?” You hated how meek and pathetic your voice sounded, but you couldn’t help it. Wasn’t this supposed to be a happy moment? One of the happiest in your life in fact. Instead you felt like you were being scolded rather than meeting the person who was supposed to be your other half.

“I didn’t want to meet you. Now I suggest you go home. It’s not safe here.”

What? You couldn’t believe what you were hearing. There was pressure behind your eyes and your throat tightened. You took a shaky breath as you took a step backwards away from him. It quickly sunk in that the man you’d been destined to be with, the man you had thought about since you were old enough to understand the concept of a soulmate, wanted nothing to do with you.

“I-I’m sorry I disturbed you.” Your voice broke as you fought back the tears that threatened to fall. You weren’t going to give him that satisfaction. You then turned around and ran back toward where you had left your car.

As fast as you could, you started your car up and made your way to a safer part of the city. It didn’t take you long to find a somewhat empty parking lot to park in. Once the engine was off, you screamed and aggressively slammed against the wheel as you let the tears freely fall.

You felt like a complete and utter fucking idiot. Of course he didn’t want you. You’d probably just get in the way of him saving the world or something like that. Besides, what was that article you had seen a few months ago? Something about Catwoman and a relationship between the two? While it happened very rarely, some people in the world had been known to reject their soulmate because they had found someone they deemed better. Is that what had happened? Whatever the reason, you could feel your heart breaking.

You had used to think that, out of all the members of the Justice League, Batman had been one of the cooler members. Now all you could think was that he was a massive jerk.

Maybe it was your own fault for romanticising the whole thing and thinking that your meeting would be something out of a fairytale. Apparently fate was far crueller than you could have ever thought it to be.

Bruce watched as she ran away from him, back down the alleyway she had come from. A small voice in the back of his head told him to go after her. To grab her, hold her close and apologise, tell her that he hadn’t meant it. He ignored it and headed off in the opposite direction, back to where he had left the batmobile.

Over his comms, he heard a barely audible sigh and he could easily picture his butler and lifelong friend shaking his head in disappointment. No doubt he was going to get an earful once he got back to the batcave. Well it certainly wasn’t the first time.

As the batmobile pulled up in the batcave, he could see Alfred waiting for him. ‘ Here we go ,’ he thought as he got out of his car and removed his cowl.

“I don’t want to hear it,” he stated as he walked past him and toward the batcomputer. He set his cowl down on the desk. Even as the words left his mouth he knew he had wasted his breath. If there was one thing that Alfred had done consistently since Bruce had started down this path, it was letting him know when he disagreed with something he did.

“Was that really necessary Master Bruce? She’s come all of this way…” Alfred started, but ended up trailing off. There was a small moment of silence before he continued. “You know, I remember a small boy who couldn’t wait to go out there and find…” Before he could finish what he was saying, Bruce promptly cut him off.

“What would you have me do, Alfred?!” His voice echoed off of the cave’s walls and disturbed some of the bats still hanging on the ceiling. Bruce gestured toward his equipment and the display cases that held some rather badly damaged batsuits. All of them testaments to injuries that had come far too close to killing him. “Would you really have me force this life on to her? The dangers, the no guarantee I’ll come home…” He took a deep breath and rested both his hands on the surface of his desk. “She deserves so much better.” His voice was quiet, but still easily heard in the, almost, silent cave.

“With all due respect, sir, I believe she should be allowed to make that decision, not you,” Alfred replied before leaving the batcave, not giving Bruce a chance to respond.

He looked in the direction of the stairs that lead up into the manor. The direction that Alfred had headed in. Was he right? Should he be leaving it up to her to decide what she wanted? But with all the dangers he faced nightly… No, it was better for him to stay far away from her.

Over the following week Bruce found himself distracted. It didn’t matter where he was, what he was doing, he couldn’t focus. And considering what he did once night fell over Gotham, to say being unfocused really wasn’t good was a complete understatement of the situation. He had been having far too many close calls recently.

He couldn’t get it out of his head. The way she had looked at him as he told her he didn’t want to meet her, that she should leave. Alfred’s words echoed in his mind and he found himself questioning the decisions he had made that night. Something that Bruce rarely, if ever, did. Everything he did was meticulously planned and there was never any doubt when he made a decision. Was this what happened once you met your soulmate and rejected them?

Bruce was sure that the rest of the Justice League had taken notice. With how off beat and slow to react to certain things, it would be hard not to. Of course, if they had, none of them had mentioned it to him. Apparently they knew better. For the time being, at least. He was sure it wouldn’t be long before they did try to pry into his personal life.

Which lead him here. On the roof of the building opposite of Y/N’s apartment building. He hadn’t needed to do any extensive research to find her, or learn her name, because he had been in this exact spot a couple of years ago.

Two years ago Bruce’s own curiosity had gotten the better of him. He blamed Clark and his soulmate, a reporter by the name of Lois Lane, for it. He had seen them one too many times in the Watchtower together and had found himself wondering who exactly his soulmate was and what they was like. As a result, he had gone looking for them. Not because he wished to finally meet them, but so he could make sure his soulmate was safe and happy. And she was, so he had left. Only ever checking up on her every now and then to make sure she had stayed that way.

He looked down at the golden thread that came out of his gauntlet and lead down toward the apartment he’d been watching. Both as Bruce Wayne and Batman he had made sure to keep it well hidden. With its unique colouring he couldn’t allow anyone to see it. It would be all too easy for his enemies to find her if they did see it.

He knew that by being here he was easily undoing everything he had done to keep her safe, but, then again, had she not done exactly that when she had tracked him down in Gotham? Besides, and while he would never say it out loud, Alfred had been right. It should be up to Y/N to decide whenever or not she wanted all the baggage that came with him being in her life. Baggage that had driven more than one person from his life…

He shook that thought from his head and got up from his crouched position on the roof. Bruce then leapt from the roof and allowed himself to fall for a couple of seconds before opening up his cape and let it catch the wind that was rushing past him. He silently glided over to her apartment’s balcony.

Y/N was in her apartment alone. She was sat on her sofa, the light from the tv was the only thing illuminating the room.

Bruce was unsure of how exactly to go about this. Back in Gotham he had originally thought of approaching her as Bruce Wayne, but quickly discarded it. Bruce Wayne showing up at an out of the way apartment building was sure to garner attention. As would Batman using the front door, so the balcony had seemed to be the best option. But now that he was here, he wasn’t entirely sure it was.

Should he just knock? That seemed like the best way to go about this. It was going to scare the everloving daylights out of her, but he could deal with that.

He gently rapped the glass of the balcony door with his knuckles. As he had expected, Y/N leapt up from her seat. A bowl and the contents of the bowl followed her and scattered across her carpeted floor. She spun around and when she saw him, the look of shock on her face quickly turned to anger. Her eyes narrowed and he swore that glare would be enough to make even the toughest of Gotham’s thugs would cower at its intensity. Maybe she would deal with his life better than he thought.

After a minute of glaring at him, she turned around and walked toward the lightswitch. At the same time, she gestured for him to enter.

“What the fuck do you think you’re doing here?” she demanded as soon as he had entered the apartment and shut the door behind him. The rage in her voice was evident and Bruce was sure he could cut the tension in the room with a batarang.

“I came to apologise,” he said, his voice gentle despite how distorted his modulator made it sound. Y/N scoffed immediately. He didn’t blame her. If he was in her shoes, he wouldn’t believe him either. After all ‘Batman’ wasn’t exactly known for making apologies.

“Yeah right.” She rolled her eyes and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I’m being truthful. I… I shouldn’t have said what I said. It wasn’t right.”

“Then why did you say it?” A fair question and one he had an answer to. Before he even said it, Bruce was aware how cliché it sounded.

“I wanted to keep you safe. This life isn’t for everyone.”

“So without even meeting me, you decided that it wasn’t for me.” She shook her head. “That’s not your decision to make!” she yelled at him.

“I know. It’s been pointed out to me before.” In fact that night in the cave wasn’t the first time Alfred had told him that. “But that’s why I’m here now. To give you all the information you need to make that decision.”

You listened intently as Batman explained the dangers of the life he was leading. The dangers that effected the people in his life in one way or another. He also made it a point to reiterate the fact that when he left at night or was summoned by the Justice League there was no guarantee he would return. You asked the occasional question, but for the most part you just listened to him to talk and let his words sink in.

You got it. You understood the very clear concerns that Batman had about this whole thing, they concerned you as well, but you weren’t about to let it deter you. You wanted to know your soulmate. Even if it ended horribly, like he was saying it would, you felt it in your core that you would regret not knowing him, especially if the worst truly did happen. And you told him so.

“Even if you’re not wearing a mask, this life is dangerous. Anything can happen.”

“Anything could happen to me when I leave my apartment each day.”

The superhero life wasn’t special in that regard. As you spoke, your voice was a lot calmer than it had been earlier. In fact, as he had spoke and explained you had found your anger slowly fading. You still wanted to slap the jerk superhero before you, but that was a considerable downgrade from your overwhelming need to deck him when you first saw him standing on your balcony.

“It won’t be easy.”

“I’ve never backed down from a challenge before.”

You admired his commitment to deter you, but it wasn’t going to work. You were too stubborn to let it. Something you were positive he was learning very quickly.

“There’s nothing I can say to convince you that this is a bad idea, is there?”

“Nope.” You made sure to pop the ‘p’.

Batman sighed deeply. You watched as he looked away from you and toward the golden thread that linked the two of you together. You could almost hear the gears in his brain turning as he thought. Then he was looking back up at you.

“In that case then.”

You watched as Batman brought his hands up to his cowl. Your eyes widened and you couldn’t help the small gasp that left you as he removed the cowl and revealed his identity to you. Bruce Wayne. While you didn’t live in Gotham City, you were well aware of Gotham’s favoured son. You would’ve had to have lived underneath a rock to not know who he was.

And apparently your family had been right on the money, literally. Not that you cared about the money, you weren’t superficial like that. Personality was far more important than the material items someone may or may not have. In your eyes, at least.

You both stood in silence, his blue eyes studying you, probably trying to gauge how you were going to react. To be truthful, you weren’t entirely sure how to react. Except maybe…

“Well, it’s… it’s nice to meet you Bruce Wayne. I guess this is the part where we forget about what happened and start over?”

“If that’s what you want.”

“It is.”

Yeah, sure, this was probably going to end horribly, but you were looking forward to the adventure that lie ahead.

#bruce wayne #batman #bruce wayne x reader #batman x reader #bruce wayne x fem!reader #batman x fem!reader #bruce wayne imagines #batman imagines #soulmate au #my writing

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the-mercurial-star-o-vesper · 4 years

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TEN OUTTA TEN 1010

Welp, its happened. I’m into No Straight Roads, and the boys with the K-Bop in their step has got me hooked.

So I’m gonna celebrate (for the moment) with lots of gathered info I’ve found, seen, or heard speculated, regarding the Top Boy Band of Vinyl City... 1010. [Possible OCs to come later]

Some of this stuff might be common knowledge, some is already on the wiki, but hey, no shame in having a consolidated list.

But for now...

The Names of 1010 were deciphered by out of universe fans. They are Rin (White), Haym (Yellow), Eloni (Green), Purlhew (Blue) and Zimelu (Red).

An old placeholder model for 1010 had Black Hair and different tron lines.

1010 in binary is... literally just 10.

Eloni does not get fan letters; He’s the “Funny Band member”, and Funny Band Members don’t get fan letters.

1010 wears Sailor uniforms (The US Navy would call them Dress Blues, so think... Popeye. But no hat.) In fact, their flying limo is a god damn Tron-lined Battleship. Even the Cannons dance to the music.

They’re a parody on K-Bop bands or Boy Bands to the West. And while they’re listed as Funky, they’re technically Synthpop. (Haha, Synth)

In the background of their fight, when the Battleship Limo stops for pictures, you can see that there is a set of pictures of 1010. Rin the White has a Fuschia or Purple Background, while all the others have a background matching their aesthetic colors.

1010 have common powers... ... Firing Lasors. ... Levitation (Or small time Flight; as they rush to the side to meet the Cameras) ... “Taking to the Sky”, or just really powerful jumping. ... Being powered by Cheers. ... There’s a reason I left Shield off in a moment.

1010 are both outrageously tall (Mayday only comes to their waist when they stand up properly), and outrageously heavy (did you hear them walk backward in their intro cutscene? How heavy are these guys!?)

It could whatever kind of AI they have, but they are waaaay insynch, almost preemptively. Perhaps 1010 are directly linked to each other?

In most of their appearances outside of battle, they all have the same colored eyes as their aesthetic colors. But in Battle, they all have White eyes. Mind that in their Show Stopper picture, they’re back to having their aesthetic eyes again. Take that as you will.

1010 has associated attacks, when you’re in the Phase facing the Factory and Neon J. ... Yellow has Missiles or Splash Damage explosions. No literally, the yellow droid is the missle. ... Green has Bombs. HIS HAIR IS A BOMB. ... Red has Saws. He-He literally uses Red Droid as the Saw. ... Blue has some sort of Staffs or Whirlwind strike. They are staffs made of Purl-Hew. ... Because of his Picture’s Purple Background, White’s likely isn’t an attack but is, in fact, the Shields that occured early in the battle. Which is probably why they’re never deployed, because how the hell can you make a shield out of Rin Bots.

It was pointed out in one of the many Youtube Comment Sections that 1010′s hairstyles match their respective attacks in some form or fashion. ... Zimelu’s Mohawk indicates his associated Saws. ... Haym’s hair looks like a missile. ... Eloni’s hair looks line a Grenade Pin. ... Purlhew’s flat top hair could indicate the fact that he’s literally used as a Staff End. So basically he’s Blue. That’s his attack. [Hah] ... Rin’s the sexy one. Look, for a Band of Robots with fancy hairdos and attacks, he’s not considered remarkable.

As they are a parody of Boy Bands across the World, they may follow the boy band “archtypes” ... Rin is the Leader, and the Heartthrob (He doesn’t have a weird hairstyle, and he does the most flirting / talking; as well as the most promoted) ... Eloni, as already established, is the Funny Guy, or the Comedian. ... Purl-Hew is the Cool Guy, (consider his Sunglasses) ... Zimelu is the Bad Boy (Mohawk, his ANGRY EYES AARGH) ... Haym’s is apparently considered a Pompadour. Maybe he is also a Bad Boy? Consider his name, he may be the Smart Guy. ... There is no known “Shy Guy” or “Cute Guy (Technically, the Second Heartthrob, but isn’t a threat to first Heartthrob’s position). So, go forth and create.

Fun Consideration on my part. Since Names can have meaning in No Straight Roads and meaning in personal names... ... Rin is a japanese name, and boy can it mean a lot of stuff depending on the Kanji (Some of the meanings are “Dignified” “Compassion” “Cold”). He’s probably coolly impassionate off stage. ... Purl-Hew is apparently a pun on Pearl Hue (cos I guess blue Pearls). Perhaps he likes puns. ... Zimelu is an ooold fortress in Lativa apparently. Perhaps he has a warish personality. Or I guess knows very Niche military history. (Perhaps, in-universe, it was the name of a base Neon J served at?) ... Haym is the name shared by a few people, but in the themes of music, its probably Nicola Francesco Haym (Italian Poet, Opera Librettist, Composer, Manager, Editor and Numismatist (That’s uh, a guy who studies Currency)). Perhaps our Haym is quite the Nerd. ... the name Eloni means Lofty. Which can me “Of Imposing Height” (They all are), “Noble or Exalted Nature” (Possibly?) “Proud, Aloof or Self-Important” (They all are that too, yes), or in regard to Lofty Wool “Thick and Resilient” (I mean, if you look at those thighs-- Ahem). So basically Eloni’s name defines all the group... Wow, poor fella. No wonder he’s the Comedian, he’d have to pull anything to get noticed (when its not about his hair) [THE DUDE DABS]

If Battledroids all have background memories to be more efficient in combat... Does 1010 have backup memories from Neon J?

Metro Division shows other kinds of Robots, and the progression of 1010′s Mark Models (1 looks like your typical Sailor, 2 looks a bit like our 1010 but more droid, jointed and blocky, and our 1010 is currently mark 3... There are 4 known Types of Droid, so a 4th Mark may be on the way)

Neon J, Manager and Creator, is a Vetren of Vinyl City’s Navy (It only has a Navy); and his District is literally a Theme Park mashed with a Ship Yard.

Neon is the 10th element of the Periodic Table, and J is the 10th letter. Dude loves his 10s.

Considering how he replaces the bots in battle, or even outright uses them as weapons... Perhaps his “Troops” are not the Bot bodies, but the AI possibly hosted inside? 1010 has more personality out of battle after all, and Neon is seen fervently protecting 1010 when their eyes share their hair color. (As their eyes are only white in battle...) Hm, mayhaps the HC is, that when their Eyes have color, the AI is truely present.

Neon is a Cyborg, note that his body appears to be the same kind of droid as 1010′s, with a Radar head. His brain is apparently in his radar, and as we saw post-battle, that head was smashed to hell. Perhaps the reason he was reminiscing so much and though that BBJ was really after him, was because of some serious onset head or brain trauma.

Apparently, Vinyl City has or has had Border Wars. This could be a reference to the Korean DMZ Conflicts (As 1010 does distinctly include Korean K-Pop, and South Korean men do have to serve 2 years in the military forces by law), but there have been hundreds of different Border Wars throughout the world. [ I wonder what war Vinyl City was in. Perhaps against the Artist Capital of the World, Canvas City ] [ Oh take me down to the Canvas City, where the grass is green and the pics are pretty--]

Neon’s passion is Dancing.

Neon J and DJ Subatomic Supernova do seem to be in a lot of pictures together. No wonder everybody ships them.

Neon J used to make toys, as seen by the collectibles you can get. Done by hand too. Though if each toy found is a stage in his life... I wonder who the doll with the violin is.

Think maybe Neon J has direct control over 1010? I mean they share the same voice, they have a passion for poses and dancing, he does directly command them...

Are Cyborg parts cheap? Or was Neon J someone important enough in the Vinyl City Navy to actually become a cyborg? Military doesn’t do expensive prosthetic surgeries for random grunts without reason.

Okay, regarding what the Azkar faction is. Its probably suppose to be Askar. Azkar is a type of Islamic Prayer. Askar is actually Arabic for Army. So it’d be The “Army Faction” (which makes more sense for a nation city-state that only has a Navy)

The place he called “Kewan” is not a real world place. Its either Persian for “Saturn” (What, is he... Is he a SAILOR SCOUT!?) or Kurdish for Mountains (He does mention mountains).

Possibly more as information arises.

#no straight roads #1010 #nsr 1010

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georg-prime · 4 years

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My Time at Sandrock, an RPG/crafting/sandbox game.

Hello people. I don’t think this will do anything but just in case that at least one person sees this and could be interested, it’ll be worth it.

MTaS by Pathea Games, takes place in a post-apocalyptic world, but like in a cute, colorful, and community focused one.

This is the second game in this franchise, first being My Time at Portia, and both story will apparently be taking place more or less at the same time if I understood correctly.

Btw, MTaP is currently 66% off on Steam, seriously get it it’s great (game is also on other plateforms, here on Switch, the game isn’t updated on them yet, but it should be eventually, not Pathea’s fault though).

In this universe, humans coexists with mutants and robots, and several city-states are collaboring with each other to survive what is still mostly a harsh environment. And people are from all kind of ethnies and don’t seem to care bother with exclusive heterosexuality. Meaning you can romance some of those characters, and all of them would be responsive regardless of the gender of the player ;) (there’s even Esmeralda and Aladdin, look at that).

You get a house that you can fix, furnish, personalize, and install machines and farm, get a mount, a robot... and pets \O/

Like this cute exclusive one if you’re a backer:

or normal pets:

(we don’t know yet exactly what kind of pets will be available in game, in addition to farm animals like mutant camels, but in Portia we could have living in our home a big fluffy pink cat, and/or a weird but cute little dog, and/or a friendly piglet)

They’re revemping the combat system from what we had in My Time at Portia, to make it more interesting/complex but still keeping it at a level that people who just want to play in a chill way, focusing on story and building/crafting, can play the main plot without suffering.

The art team is doing some beautiful work imo, and if the music by Claude Ruelle is as nice as it was on Portia it’ll be great.

In these games you can party & celebrate special days with the townfolks, explore lost civilisation ruins, go fishing, play mini-games, recycle, have/adopt children, work on sustainable agriculture....

The Pathea’s dev team in general is diverse, and for Portia they’ve been really good at answering questions, fixing bugs as soon as possible, adding lots of content even long after the game was out, and just generally clearly did their best and stayed active & chill. Really think they deserve support in any ways so that they can keep making nice diverse cute & interesting games for me forever.

There is only a few hours left for the crowdfounding (which was already a success the very first day, I’m proud of us), you can still back the game so that you can play the beta without having to wait like 2 years before it’s officially out, or get the game for cheaper than it’ll be then, or get some exclusive content like exculsive weapons or fency wedding clothes. Take a look!

#video game #diverse games #Pathea Games #My Time at Portia #My Time at Sandrock #kickstarter #(I am NOT a fan of KS but unfortunately there are still a lot of creators who use it)#I played hundred of hours on Portia #did not hapen to me in a LONG time #it is a bit awkward on some things like voice acting or some part of the UI #but they clearly learned from their mistakes and got experience to make a better game #and are hiring more people to help with the hard stuff #give this a chance :)#long post

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thegame-r-boy · 3 years

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A New World Awaits: A Short Review Of The Commercial Success, Called PlayStation Virtual Reality (or PSVR)

As many as you know, Virtual Reality (or VR in short) had it’s hayday in the middle of the 90’s of the previous century. It was tried out by many companies, but it failed very miserable - I’m talking about you, Virtual Boy! It gave you serious headaches and nausea when you were using your VR for a longer time. Hence, therefore came the saying “Don’t play too long or you will strain your eyes!” Yeah, right ...

It took us almost more than two decades to wait before companies tried it for a second time with VR. Occulus, Microsoft and Sony. These three companies are the first that come to my mind when I’m talking about something that is not real. The Sony PS VR came out in 2016 and was sold for about 400 $. It wasn’t cheap for the time, nor it is today, in 2021, but in the store where I got mine (it’s the same store I’ve got my Nintendo Switch in 2017!) it was selled for roughly 300 €. That’s almost as much as my PS4 Pro costed me in 2020. I’m going to tell you how I got this device and review it for you, so you get a feeling of if it’s worth it or not.

So on Saturday, the 24th of April 2021, my and my GF @aquamoon33 went from here living place in southern part of Slovenia to our capital, Ljubljana or specifacally the industrial zone, near BTC. First, we went to IKEA, were there was a lot of things to see, and then we went further to the Big Bang store.

We first got our eyes on the new PlayStation 5. It looked absolutely massive! But unfortunately, we had no clue on how to use this kind of device. We were playing the new Astro Robot game on it, and after almost 10 minutes found out, that you have use your motion skills to actually move your character! Can you believe it?! I felt so ashamed, almost like a boomer or such. But after that, we went further to the PS4 stand, where there was a VR machine on it.

My gf was brave enough to use it first. There was a game, called Drive Club VR and the game was quite fast. You have to make fast turns from left to right. Before there was a huge right turn, she did not only used here hands, BUT also her body, which would’ve meant she would have to fall directly down, on the floor - if it wasn’t for me, who stood directly by her side, so I could block her fall before she even touched the ground.

She looks like a movie prop from a music spot, where Daft Punk is playing xD

After she was finished, I’ve put the glasses on. And OH MY GOD - WHAT A RELIEF! First, I was a bit “woody” while playing Drive Club VR, but after a while, when I got the hang of it, I was quite good. Indeed good! Okay, I wasn’t first, but still, I felt WIDELY awake from that moment on. In contrast to my girlfriend @aquamoon33 , I had no headaches, nausea or other akward feelings. Keep in mind that a night before our trip, I had a hard time falling asleep, just because the matress had a big hole in it (her brother, who was quite fat for thath time period, made it’s tool I guess). Because of that sensation, I was immidiately so impressed, that I just had to buy it! I know, It was an impulse buy, which doesn’t happen often in my life, but still, it was definetely worth it!

Fast forward to two/three days later, and I’m telling you, how this system looks like. I’ve bought it in separated cash, costed me almost as much as my PS4 Pro, but still, every cent was definitely worth it. When I got home at the end of the weekend, I wanted to connect it to my PS4 Pro and TV. And that was the time I wasn’t thinking so much about. There are exactly 12 cables around my devices. That’s is A LOT! But on the other hand you have to understand that this device was made in 2016, when cables were something more common than by todays standards. Here’s what I got:

The whole package

Picture taken from top (it was from a dusty warehouse, therefor don’t mind the scuffs and dust)

What the headset looked like

And how it looked like from the front.

This is how I managed to stick that little device for the VR set onto my PS4 Pro. Great, isn’t it?

And this is the bill I had to make - luckily I’ve bought it in times of Spring Sale - in order to get the 6 games for this device (Superhot VR, Gran Turismo VR, Dirt Rally VR, Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Tetris Effect and Job Simulator). I’ve also got a PlayStation VR Worlds digital bundle included, but apart from the game London Heist, there is really nothing special to it. That’s how less of a price I’ve paid:

This is all I had to pay. Quite cheap, ain’t it?

The first game I started on my PS4 Pro was Farpoint, which I got for free on a Playstation Now subscription service and - OH MY GOD, IT BLEW ME AWAY!! It didn’t take that long, but after about 5 minutes while I was playing, my hands started to sweat. Really sweat! Now I know exactly how @aquamoon33 must’ve felt when she’s nervous while gaming. The graphics are really impressive. And the planet you are onto is just gorgeous!

In fact, I got a bit carried away - and inspectively ANALysed too much! xD

But when it came to combat, there was no time for having fun! In fact, I shrieked a bit when the first “headcrab” got onto me! :S

And then I’ve played some London Heist and had some fun with my brothers, who are not gay or they just don’t like my cigarrette! xD

I’ve also played with some Dirt Rally VR, which is BY MY FAVOURITE GAME OF THIS YEAR SO FAR!

Here is a glimpse of my second, more serious playthrough:

Overall, I’m quite happy with the PS VR that I’ve bought. Nevertheless, the PS4 (Pro’s) aren’t current gen anymore, so to find peripherals that’s aren’t as common as they were in the time when this system was current gen (this is the PS5 by now). I was literally over-the-roof- excited to try this thing out. And my expectations were met. Some, at least. Okay, the graphics aren’s as sharp as they are with the Occulus Rift, there are quite a bit of cables laying around, the headset could be tirring at time. But the fact that you feel like you are directly in the game, the quite reasonable price and the ammount of fun you get by playing a huge selection of games you have on offer (they’re still making games for this system, today!) are worth IMO.

Virtual Reality is a good thing to get to know better. It’s a gateway of finding your true inner feelings and conceptions. And for a long time, I’m just really greatful to be a part of it.

9.0 / 10

The Good:

- Reasonable price

- A huge selection of games to play

- Some exclusives (Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Astro Bot, etc.)

- If you are like me and don’t feel any nausea, headaches, etc.

- A new way of playing your favourite games

- A good device to expand and forfill your driving skills

The Bad:

- Quite a lot (twelve, to be exactly!) of cables laying around your PS4 (Pro)

- Isn’t that cheap as it could be

- Not so great graphics

- Get’s kind of sweaty after some playing time

#thegamerboysays #gaming #console #slovenian #VR #PlayStationVR #PlayStation4 #PlayStation4Pro #Feedback #Review

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mostlysignssomeportents · 4 years

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All the books I reviewed in 2020

I know it's a little late for Xmas shipping, but I'm FINALLY getting around to publishing a roundup of all the books I reviewed in 2019!

Part 1: FICTION FOR ADULTS

I. AGENCY by William Gibson: A sequel to The Peripheral for the Trump years, about seductive bitterness of imagined alternate timelines, filled with cyberpunk cool and action.

https://www.latimes.com/entertainment-arts/books/story/2020-01-24/agency-william-gibson

II. RIOT BABY by Tochi Onyebuchi: An incandescent Afrofuturist novella that connects the Rodney King uprising with contemporary struggle, pitting supernatural powers against dire politics.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/04/23/riot-baby/#Tochi-Onyebuchi

III. OR WHAT YOU WILL by Jo Walton: A metafiction about the desperate attempt of a character to pull his writer into a fictional world to save the both from human mortality.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/07/little-bro-with-snowden/#metafiction

IV. A BEAUTIFULLY FOOLISH ENDEAVOR by Hank Green: Sequel to An Absolutely Remarkable Thing - a madcap and sometimes brutal tale of social media influencers, alien invaders, disinformation, and runaway capitalism.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/08/absolutely-remarkable-thing/#carls

V. FAILED STATE by Christopher Brown: A legal eco-thriller that imagines the end of capitalism without imagining the end of the world - cyberpunk meets ecotopianism, with anarchist jurisdictions, show-trials, and rewilding.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/12/failed-state/#chris-brown

VI. AFTERLAND by Lauren Beukes: Eerily well-timed road-trip novel set after a prostate-cancer plague wipes out nearly every man on Earth, except for the protagonist's teenaged son, who is now being hunted by the (all-female) US government.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/28/afterland/#XY

VII. BALLISTIC KISS by Richard Kadrey: Sandman Slim confronts the worst demons of all - his own trauma and self-doubt.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/25/anxietypunk/#bk

VIII. SQUEEZE ME by Carl Hiaasen: Hiaasen was writing comedic whodunnits about improbable Florida Man types decades before the memes, and his Mar-a-Lago gator plague novel is a hectic and hilarious tale for our times.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#disappearing-act

VIII. The Ministry for the Future by Kim Stanley Robinson: KSR says it's his last novel and I say it's the book he's been training to write all his life. If you like your climate fiction wrenching but still uplifting enough to move you to tears...

https://pluralistic.net/2020/12/03/ministry-for-the-future/#ksr

IX. SET MY HEART TO FIVE by Simon Stephenson: An absurdist robot-romp in the mold of Kurt Vonnegut about a robot who catches the disease of emotions and tries to treat it by moving to Hollywood to write screenplays about robots.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/01/cant-pay-wont-pay/#robot-rights

Part 2: NONFICTION FOR ADULTS

I. A PUBLIC SERVICE by Tim Schwartz: An incredibly practical, detailed guide for would-be whistleblowers (and journalists who work with them) to staying safe while spilling the beans.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/08/a-public-service-a-comprehensive-comprehensible-guide-to-leaking-documents-to-journalists-and-public-service-groups-without-getting-caught/

II. THE MONSTERS KNOW WHAT THEY'RE DOING by Keith Ammann: A sourcebook for RPG game-masters explaining how different kinds of monsters can use a variety of combat tactics that add depth, texture (and challenge) to your games.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/10/the-monsters-know-what-theyre-doing-an-rpg-sourcebook-for-dms-who-want-to-imbue-monsters-with-deep-smart-tactics/

III. SNOWDEN'S BOX by Jessica Bruder and Dale Maharidge: The incredible, true tale of how trust among friends allowed Snowden's leaks to safely transit from his home in Hawai'i to the hands of Laura Poitras and the journalists who reported the story.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/03/31/snowdens-box-the-incredible-illuminating-story-of-the-journey-of-snowdens-hard-drive/

III. ABOLISH SILICON VALLEY by Wendy Liu: A personal journey from a fully bought-in believer in Silicon Valley's meritocracy to a ferocious critic who demands tech to serve humanity, not a human race in service to the tech industry.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/04/14/abolish-silicon-valley-memoir-of-a-driven-startup-founder-who-became-an-anti-capitalist-activist/

IV. THE CASE FOR A JOB GUARANTEE by Pavlina Tcherneva: A fierce little book setting out an economic program to rescue the nation and the planet from a system that insists we can't even hope for a better world.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/22/jobs-guarantee/#job-guarantee

VII. SUBPRIME ATTENTION CRISIS by Tim Hwang: What's worse than having our lies destroyed by surveillance to manipulate us with ads? Having our lives destroyed by surveillance in order to fuel a fraudulent market in ad-based manipulation.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/05/florida-man/#wannamakers-ghost

VIII. MONOPOLIES SUCK by Sally Hubbard: There are plenty of *great* books about monopolies and the resurgence in antitrust, but Hubbard's is the most practical, providing the reader with excellent advice for actually *doing something* about monopolism.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/27/peads-r-us/#sally-hubbard

IX. BREAK 'EM UP by Zephyr Teachout: The most lucid, readable, infuriating, energizing book on the rise of monopolies. Teachout never loses sight of the systemic nature of the problem, even as she uses individual stories to tell the tale.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/29/break-em-up/#break-em-up

X. BOUNDLESS REALM by Fox Nolte: There has never been a better book about the Haunted Mansion (indeed, this is one of the best books ever written about environmental design in general). Nolte goes *way* beyond trite wisdom about "storytelling."

https://pluralistic.net/2020/11/09/boundless-realm/#fuxxfur

PART 3: GRAPHIC NOVELS

I. YEAR OF THE RABBIT by Tean Viasna: A graphic memoir of Viasna's harrowing boyhood during the rise of the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. It's a tale we've rarely seen through the eyes of a child, and brilliantly realized.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/01/22/year-of-the-rabbit-a-graphic-novel-memoir-of-one-familys-life-under-the-khmer-rouge/

II. FEMALE FURIES by @misscecil: Castellucci uses an obscure and anachronistic all-woman cast of DC Universe b-characters to tell an incredible, smart, pitiless story about #MeToo, comics, solidarity and betrayal.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/29/female-furies/#apokolips-now

III. LONELINESS OF THE LONG-DISTANCE CARTOONIST by Adrian Tomine: A memoir of intensely felt impostor syndrome, a forceful reminder that comparison is the thief of joy - and that the traits that keep an artist going at first go toxic over time.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/21/the-thief-of-joy/#tomine

IV. CONSTITUTION ILLUSTRATED by R Sikoryak: The Trump years were an unhappy crash-course in Constitutional law, but Sikoryak's genius adaptation of the Constitution in the style of dozens of cartoonists is a pure delight.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/07/27/ip/#r-sikoryak

PART 4: KIDS AND YA

I. SEND PICS by Lauren McLaughlin: A YA novel that's a thrilling revenge-play about "revenge porn," a cyber-heist novel that's also a sneaky and forceful book about teen girls' sexuality.

https://memex.craphound.com/2020/04/21/send-pics-ripping-brutal-amazing-novel-about-teens-sextortion-revenge-and-justice/

II. IMPOSSIBLE MUSIC by Sean Williams: A YA novel about a music-obsessed kid who loses his hearing is the frame for a book about ability, adaptation, music theory, family, Deafness and what dreams are really for.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/06/30/deafhood/#impossible-music

III. HARD WIRED by Len Vlahos: A 15 year old discovers the truth behind bizarre dysfunction of the world around him: he's an AI in a sim, and the guy he thinks of as his long-dead father is actually the research scientists who created him.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/08/31/ai-rights-now/#len-vlahos

IV. ADVENTURES OF A DWERGISH GIRL, by Daniel Pinkwater: Like every Pinkwater novel, it defies description, it is brilliant, and it is his best to date. Ghosts, Revolutionary War fleshbots, papaya juice, and supernatural beings from the Catskills!

https://pluralistic.net/2020/09/25/dwergish-girl/#you-are-a-pickle

V. WITCH by Finbar Hawkins: A beautiful debut novel about a pair of 17th century sisters who avenge themselves against the witchfinders that murdered their mother. A superbly told historical.

https://pluralistic.net/2020/10/01/the-years-of-repair/#witch

FINALLY: I published *four* books in 2020!

I. POESY THE MONSTER SLAYER: My debut picture book, about a little girl who turns her toys into weapons and torments her parents by hunting monsters all night, with wonderful art by Matt Rockefeller:

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781626723627

II. LITTLE BROTHER/HOMELAND: My multibestselling YA novels were reissued last summer in a gorgeous package with a (fantastic) new introduction by Snowden.

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250774583

III. ATTACK SURFACE: A standalone, adult sequel to Little Brother and Homeland. The New York Times called it "vocal and unflinching" and "ultimately optimistic"; the Washington Post called it a "riveting techno-thriller."

https://us.macmillan.com/books/9781250757531

IV. HOW TO DESTROY SURVEILLANCE CAPITALISM: A long pamphlet/short book that makes the case that Big Tech manipulates us and spies on us because they have monopolies - not because they've developed devastating, data-driven mind-control.

https://onezero.medium.com/how-to-destroy-surveillance-capitalism-8135e6744d59

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ronnytherandom · 4 years

Text

I forgot to watch content all week so i wrote about games ive been playing

9/2/2021: The Truman Show

You should fear your fears but embrace them and use them to guide you into the unknown, to explore and experience what life has to offer. Fear stands between you and the fullest experience of life so you must pass through it to better yourself. Heed not the walls built about you and the chains made to hold you. Though the architects insist it will preserve your life, containment is anathema to life. Do not take in faith the benevolence of powers that be; instead trust those who would support and liberate you, guide you through fear and into life.

As best I can lay it out, I think this is the philosophy of the Truman show but there is so much more to read into it also. There is critique of systems of commodification and celebrity (i.e. capitalism) reducing human beings to a consumable good as well as encouragement to find and pursue your goals despite adversity and even sensibility which is also tied to the illusion of economic responsibility. You can’t put a camera inside a human head, you can never “know” them without being an active and intrinsic part of their life, but also there is need for reciprocation. If one half exists with ulterior motive then the entire relationship is rotten; sincere humanity is what creates real connections. Without such your world is fake. A world built around one person is a world where no one can truly live. All these actors have given up basically their entire lives for the sake of watching Truman have his life built around him by outside forces, have allowed themselves to be commodified and dehumanised for the good of one man, Christoph. The man at the top has delusions of grandeur and thinks only of his own bottom line, he cares not for his subjects but simply wants them to do as he tells them because it benefits him to commodify their lives and interactions. Even then he cannot stand to lose control and in seeking to demonstrate Truman’s “realness” he structures his life so thoroughly that eventually there’s no reality left, only a script and adverts. But the people watching still empathise with Truman because everyone in the working class understands what it is to be trapped because real life is our own Truman show and one day we must all pass through fear, step out of the dome and create a real life for ourselves outside of the system of commodification which consumes everyone’s life and removes all realness and sincerity and emotional catharsis from it.

I unreservedly love this film.

14/2/2021: Assorted Game Reviews

Horizon Zero Dawn (Unfinished due to technical issues, 45 hours inc. parts of Frozen Wilds): This game is really cool and really fun. I think it is defined by its incredible setting which somehow creates a fresh feeling post-apocalyptic environment. Said environment creates intriguing alt-future lore and some very interesting environments to explore. I love the machine designs (especially tallnecks!) and was very sad to hear one of their contributing artists passed away recently but I’m glad their work lives on in this visually stunning game. I’m a sucker for Ubisoft-style open world games simply because it tickles a certain kind of itch and somehow this non-Ubisoft game has outdone Ubisoft on their own formula, which is hilarious, but also good for me as running around this world exploring and clearing map markers is engaging fun. Not least because of the combat. I have a minor criticism here that the combat feels slightly awkward on mouse and keyboard, the arrows never seem to go where I’m aiming, but aside from that the experience of fighting is a grand one. Enemies never lose their threat and I love the weak spot system the game employs which makes every tool useful in niche circumstance and rewards curiosity. It specifically manages this in a way that I feel the Witcher series could learn from if it ever returns; by making head on assault less viable and encouraging tactical hunting. I do feel this system makes hunting robots so fun that by contrast hunting humans becomes a chore however, though I noted this improves in the dlc with the addition of humans with elemental weaknesses limited in number as they are. I cannot speak for the story in entirety but what I encountered was pretty good, though I feel as if it was only just really getting going at the point where I could not continue. I find Aloy to be a compelling and well portrayed protagonist and though I can guess about her origin and the ultimate end of the alt-future apocalypse I still want to see how it plays out on screen, so will return to this as soon as I’ve fixed it.

Rimworld (122 hours. Familiar with but do not own Royalty Expansion):

Rimworld is one of those super special games that I don’t think I have a single problem with. Fair warning it can be brutal and is heavily dependent on RNG but this allows it to create truly unique and interesting scenarios on a constant basis. In the wider perspective it could be described as formulaic, with regular cycles of managing the settlement between raids and random events, but the devils in the details. Colonist traits, health and skills dictate how you play and sometimes you’ll be forced to adapt as some colonists simply refuse to perform some tasks. The depth of health particularly amuses me, in that each little part of someone’s body is modelled in a way. If you’re in a firefight you may take a single bullet which grazes your finger and you’re fine. Alternately it could pierce your human leather cowboy hat, your skull and kill you instantly and the game will tell you exactly what happened. The risk/reward element is addictive enough, and that’s without accounting for just how cool it is to see your colony slowly expand. Establishing more and more options for crafting is fun and shows off the full range of different items in the game which is fucking extensive. Between clothing, weapons, armour, sculpture and drugs to name only a few you have the opportunity to create many varied production lines either for your colonists or to trade for money and there is a lot of fun to be had here as well as it is quite satisfying to see psychoid you have grown personally become the cocaine your colonists snort to help them stay awake on limited sleep. From an archaeologist’s perspective it is especially cool to look back over your base and see the hints of how and why structures were built and remember the history of your limitations and development through structure. I think the lore of the universe is really cool too, a very 40k-esque kind of place except with far less order, somehow. But the universe does an excellent job of feeling alive and moving constantly on both a planetary and interstellar level. You can fully believe that while you build wooden shacks to shield yourself from terrifyingly low temperatures there are simultaneously rich pieces of shit living it up on the glitterworld that’s one system over. The music does an excellent job of creating the wild west frontier atmosphere the game cultivates to great effect. Ultimately, for just being a grid with a series of different numbers attached, this game does a fantastic job of creating a compelling, brutal and very real colony management experience. I dont think I can properly put into words the grandness and scope of this one. I didnt even mention the modding scene, which is expansive and tailors to basically any need you could have. The Rim is a terrifying place but theres so much fun to be had.

Factorio (86 hours, mostly 1.1): Having completed a game of Factorio I can tell you reliably that this is one of the best games ever made, thoroughly addictive and fun. If you like numbers, logistics, TRAINS, its gonna be your thing. Not to mention its probably the only documented case of a game with no bugs (so far as official forums are concerned). Strictly speaking this games combat is not the most engrossing thing but good lord do you feel it when you acquire a flamethrower. The way each aspect of the game (production, research, logistics, combat, upgrades for everything therein) feeds into the next is a really well constructed balancing act such that you must experience the full game in order to complete it and I always appreciate this kind of design. I think its one of the best tenets of factory game design especially as its something present in Satisfactory too. Beyond all of this generalised good the game is also excellent in its intricacies, the architecture necessary to build a maximum efficiency base, the level of planning and organisation that can be employed is mind-blowing. Not to mention the mod community, factorion is already an extensive experience and some mad bastards have seen fit to complicate it further, hats off to them. This really is a great moment in gaming.

Destiny 2 (198 hours, all expansions, played some post Forsaken release, mostly Season of Arrivals onwards, spent roughly £20 on microtransactions):

This is a very interesting and enjoyable experience, but I must say it can be a bit controversial at times. What its does particularly well is moment to moment gameplay and design in all aspects. The game is stunning; between environments, cosmetics, shaders ships and ghosts there’s a vast range of incredible things to see, all rooted in the “pseudo-magi-science” aesthetic it’s got going on. The class design is excellent and you really do feel like you embody this rampaging madman / agile gunman / space wizard archetype, whichever you choose to play. The abilities, especially supers, are very satisfying. Everything has heft and power behind it which can be felt in all aspects of design; sound and animation is top notch. Movement is cool, you can feel how fast you move both on foot and in vehicles and the navigation has a little fun subtlety depending on your class jump, even if you can bounce unpredictably occasionally. But for the love of god why is the wall kick in there? It has only ever served to push me from a ledge into a bottomless pit. You're looking to remove antiquated content? Start there. Some guns are not so good to shoot but there’s such a great range of guns that are fun its like complaining about one drop in an ocean; and enemies are fun to shoot at, each faction distinct in meaningful ways and presenting an effective challenge. Speaking of oceans, that’s one way to describe the lore. I haven’t dived too deep but it keeps going down forever and everything I’ve read is intriguing. As a former Elder Scrolls lore nut this is something I could definitely sink my teeth into, though its much more of a pulpy sci-fi vibe than a pure nonsense vibe. I do think the game has a bit of a loot problem, primarily in regards to the conflict between high stats and looking good. This should never be a conflict, and yes you can apply ornaments to any purple gear but that’s not enough when I spend the entire time grinding power levels and thus must change armour and weapons on a constant basis to progress. This game needs a true transmog system and if not that, rethink how gear power level works. Perhaps rather than earning new instances of gear you always possess a version of it and the loot you acquire in missions just upgrades your instance to your current overall power level? This would serve to do away with the current upgrade system which I think is a needless additional grind. Perhaps it could be retained in using enhancement cores to empower gear as present but necessitating a whole upgrade module to keep your favourite weapon on hand is kind of painful honestly. There is also at present the issue of sunsetting gear, mildly controversial to say the least. If it’s necessary to streamline the game and make it function moving forward so be it but surely loot pools should be adjusted so you can actually get useful loot from older locations? And why sunset personal instances of gear which can be acquired at the regular power level anyway? I had to throw away my favourite bow and hunt down a new version of the exact same weapon for… what reason? I do think destination navigation leaves a little to be desired also. I get that having a physical hub world is meaningful but Destiny does not have a very extroverted community; I can count the times someone noticed me in the tower on one hand. And its not even like there’s fun activities to be found in the same sense as say Deep Rock Galactic, which really does take advantage of its hub. Perhaps for players who simply want to go about their business all of the vendors could be set into a menu system where just clicking an icon takes you to their menu from anywhere in the system rather than, per se, having to go through an entire loading screen (Which takes you to orbit and back) to reach a location which serves simply as the front for four menus. These are established player problems. As a dedicated PvE player I can say that this game is immensely fun in combat and growing in power does feel really good. It’s something I recommend getting into, there’s just some very large creases that need ironing which the Bungie should really take the time to address rather than pushing out new in game content every three months.

#the truman show #horizon zero dawn #rimworld #factorio #destiny 2 #d2 #film #movies #video games #i dont know what im doing #hzd #opinion

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darkdevasofdestruction · 4 years

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Fluffy Days ~ Jumin Han x Reader

Everyone, when they looked at Jumin, they saw him for his position as the Director and future CEO of one of the top 5 biggest, wealthiest companies in South Korea, so it was needless to say that, before thinking of how much he worked to perfect himself to be the best version of a professional director as he can, despite the title being given hereditary, people would still think of all the riches he was blessed with.

Many, like Zen and Yoosung, would envy him for having so much money and being able to do anything he could even dream of, including any weird fantasy like creating a wine line specifically for cats, or a cat brand...

And only he knows what else he thought of, but never tried to give form to.

However, very few ever looked at him for being a hard-working man, business-orientated, rational, logical and always putting the benefit of the company above all else.

But...

Was Jumin truly happy the way he was?

That question was answered one day, when a certain maiden called Y/N found a weird phone on the ground, and somehow found herself joining this charity organisation called RFA, and given her profession as a Vet, and having enough money for herself, and obviously not being a materialistic gold-digger...

Well, the brunet man of the RFA found himself completely entranced by this mysterious woman, who, in time, will end up being his girlfriend, and even more, his fiancee.

In due time, though, there is no rush.

The other important question that even fewer people ever ask themselves was...

Was Jumin never stressed out or over-worked?

And the answer goes pretty obvious that yes, he was, rather often, but he masks that and tries to cope with it by retorting to his childish self that has been long locked away, and yet, sometimes resurfaces when needed, so he does silly cat projects.

Now that he has a lover, however, he can allow himself to go on dates, that began rather fancy, but upon her protest, became more relaxed and casual, preferring peace and content to extravagance and luxuries.

They would go on a picnic in the forest nearby, take impulsive trips to what-ever place they felt like, sometimes throwing a dart on a world map on the wall and going wherever it lands, or going on shopping sprees for whatever self-care items they felt like, doing skin care routines together from time to time, cuddling together in the cinema room, eating commoner cinema snacks that he has to admit, aren’t too bad (although he won’t trade the ‘Melanin’ stake for popcorn).

There are, however, some days when he would just want to stay at home and cuddle with Y/N and Elizabeth the 3rd - Those days are definitely the most stressful and he needs to calm himself down before he bursts with weird emotions, which is something he prides himself to never do, and yet, he acknowledges the fact that it is not impossible, and he is still just a human, not a heartless robot as some claim he is.

As soon as he got home, Jumin sighed, going to his room, threw his blazer on the chair nearby, and folding up his sleeves, he let himself fall on his bed, looking at the ceiling with an exhausted and annoyed expression, before closing his eyes altogether, taking a few deep breaths to calm down.

Sighing at the deplorable state her beloved was in, she went to the bathroom and drew hot water, putting in some lavender bath salt, lighting up some incense sticks, some scented candles with lavender, vanilla and cinnamon, made the lights be dim, put bubble solution and waited until it was hot and steamy in the bath, as she searched for some calming Lo-Fi music, choosing some mountain sounds that had soft bird chirping and forest sounds included.

When everything was perfect, she threw in a Lush northern lights bathbomb, loving how great the purple and blue blended together, and went out, sitting on the side of the bed next to Jumin, gently brushing away the hair from his face and kissing his forehead.

“Come on, darling, I drew you a bath. Let’s help you relax a bit...Shall we?” she spoke in that soft voice that could always sooth his worries away.

He didn’t have the power to say much, but humming positively, he sluggishly followed Y/N to the bathroom, where his eyes widen and how aesthetically pleasing and relaxing the bathroom became.

It was almost like he never had any idea how relaxing a bath can be, and not as much of a ‘chore’ as he felt it was.

Y/N told him to take his clothes off already and get in the water before it gets cold, which seemed to make him chuckle in amusement, but did so without any protesting, and he found himself sighing at how good it felt having his sore, tense muscles tended by the hot water.

She pushed him gently down by the shoulders until he was up to his chin in water, then went to pour a glass of his favourite red wine for him to enjoy.

“Is this how you always take baths?” he asked in a lower voice. “Most of the time, yes. I make this ritual whenever I feel the need to properly relax, and it sort of became like a Pavlovian reflex, y’know?” she snorter in amusement, sitting on the ground next to the bathroom. “I see...Now I understand why you were always looking forward to them.” he nodded slightly in agreement. “I’m happy if it can help you as well. I haven’t seen you this stressed since the whole Sarah and Elizabeth the 3rd problem.” she gave him a sad smile, which made him look deep into her eyes with a pondering look. “I don’t appreciate too many unexpected things coming up all at once.” he nodded, leaning back once again. “What kind of music is this?” “Oh, this! It’s called Lo-Fi, and it’s mostly for relaxing. It has all sorts of genres and types, but this, in particular, is a mountain Lo-Fi. Do you like it? I know it’s different to the classical music you always had, but I thought maybe a little change wouldn’t hurt. I-I can change it back to Debussy and Vivaldi if you don’t like it!” she blinked, her eyes widening at the realisation that she messed up, but he could only chuckle at her cute reactions. “I don’t mind this. It’s pretty nice. Perhaps, as you said, a change in the usual routine wouldn’t hurt once in a while.” he gave her a soft smile, which left her weak to her knees. “Sweet. Let me pamper you up a bit, then.” she grinned, as she started applying a hydrating face mask, putting two big cucumber slices on his eyes. “Why...Are you doing all this for me, Y/N?” he asked, unsure of himself. “Why? Because you’re stressed out an you need to relax, obviously.” she spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. “Yes, I know, but...Why...?” he asked again, putting emphasis on the last world. “Ohh, I think I get what you mean. Because I love you, of course. I want to spoil you because you love me, and you care about me, and you make me happy, so of course, I want to do anything in my power to reciprocate and make sure you know how much I love you.” her words were so sweet and innocent that Jumin felt the burning need to throw away those stupid cucumber slices and look at her beautiful face, but decided against that impulse, so he won’t upset her and her thoroughly prepared routine.

After that, she took away the slices and gently washed away the cream-mask, in circular motions, as he massaged his face, and he truly felt in Heaven for the first time in ages.

If this wasn’t bliss, he had no idea what else could be.

And if that wasn’t enough, the shower gel she put on the sponge smelled like home-made chocolate, and as she gently rubbed his shoulders, arms and neck, he had to use all the self-restraint he had not to grab her arms and get her in the tub with him so he can hold her tightly to his chest and kiss her until he forgot to breathe altogether.

It lasted for at least an hour, but Jumin got a bit bored and restless of staying in the bathtub, and told the girl he’s done for now, she brought him his bath robe and told him to get in his sleeping wear while she cleans and organises stuff around the bathroom, as it was one of her little quirks, to have everything in order, which always amuses him since he does the exact same thing all the time, going as far as to scold Assistant Kang for not putting the folders on his desk at the exact millimeters specified.

As soon as she was ready, Y/N did a short night time skin care routine and went to her lover, cuddling with him and bringing out the laptop and putting on his favourite movie on the huge plasma TV that he only ever turned on thanks to her.

Jumin wasn’t even sure if he was paying attention to the movie, as he let Y/N hug his head to her chest, gently playing with his hair in a way that made him almost sleepy, yet very warm and content, his past stress and worries being long eradicated.

He remembered her saying that since she was very little, and even now, when she’s all grown up, she always loves crawling in her mum’s arms in bed and letting her play with her hair, as it was one of the few things that can combat her insomnia and help her sleep peacefully...

And now, she was doing it to him, and he felt more than honoured to be subject to such personal, intimate and comforting act of pampering.

That is the kind of privilege he would do anything to achieve, and it was happening to him, as the angel that his girlfriend is was always the one person who could somehow make him feel happy by merely existing.

Outside was a gorgeous night, and Jumin’s dormitory was illuminated by nothing more than the twinkling stars and the glorious silvery light of the moon that was looking over the two lovers holding each other under the covers of the master bed, while faint jazz music played in the background, as it was one of their little before-sleep rituals, still feeling the little euphoria from the movie they just watched.

“Jumin...I love you. And I’m really grateful for everything you’ve done for me. Never forget that, okay?” the h/c girl spoke in a gentle voice, as the man ran his fingers through her long locks, just as he would play with his cat’s fur, and she’d start purring. “I won’t forget, Y/N. I’m glad you were able to convince me to meet up with you, despite the circumstances, back then when we barely knew each other. No, actually, I am glad that you found that phone.” Jumin’s velvety voice spoke out, ringing in her ears. “Want to go out tomorrow? I have a free day tomorrow at the clinic. We can go have a walk through the forest or the park, if you want.” Y/N suggested, drawing shapes on the man’s chest absent-mindedly. “I don’t see why not. Elizabeth the 3rd is at V’s and I’ll have Assistant Kang erase everything from tomorrow’s schedule. I believe I had some meeting with another business with a group of women...Not something I’m too fond of.” he groaned slightly, making the girl chuckle and raise slowly, resting her form on her elbow. “What, you don’t want to throw around too many compliments and sickeningly sweet sugar-coated words in just one day?” she chuckled, a teasing smirk on her face. “The more I look at you, the more you remind me of a vixen. I don’t see any reason why I should carelessly throw around compliments to thirsty women who are only in it for my money and looks, when I could direct them all to that one person who holds my heart.” Jumin shot right back, making the girl dramatically put her hand over her heart, mimicking that she got shot by Cupid’s arrow. “Mon Dieu, my ears can’t believe what they’re hearing, are you sure you’re not trying to charm me again?” she leaned down to plant a soft kiss on his lips, as one of her hands gently brushed away the fringe from his face. “There is no end line to the path to someone’s affections. I believe that once you found the special someone, one should continue to show their appreciation towards said person.” his words soothed her heart like a nice glass of rose syrup as he snaked his hands around her waist and brought her back into an embrace, her head resting on his shoulder. “You always know how to make my heart beat like crazy.” she nuzzled her face in the crook of his neck, giggling softly, making the man shiver slightly. “Just like a fox.” he muttered, chuckling lightly.

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just-dreaming-about · 4 years

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Big Hero 6

This time I come with a Big Hero 6 fanfic because I'm in the mood for this guys. Also I'm trying with (Y/N) because I couldn't find a good name for this one and you could imagine her/him whatever you want. I just love this movie and I hope you enjoy this!

Starting a new life it's always hard. You only had twelve years when your dad came to home with the news: "They give me the job!" You celebrated with your parents, both happy and excited, and you were happy because they were happy -you didn't had any idea what those words implied.

The first few weeks were very hard, unpacking and accommodating but luckily your parents made the job easier for you; music and laughs sounded throughout the house. Then, the day you were finishing painting the living room, the only place in the house that hadn't yet suffered your artistic attack with the brush, someone knocked on the door. You peeked down the hall without caring that there was paint all over your clothes, face and hair to see how your two parents opened the door to a stranger. That woman introduced herself as Cass Hamada and had brought her nephews to introduce herself to the new neighbors. It was weird. Where you lived, the neighbors ignored each other or yelled at each other because they annoyed each other.

One of this woman's nephews was your age, with messy black hair and a gesture of discomfort as if he preferred to be somewhere else. The other, the one who caught your young and easily impressionable heart, was tall, probably older than seventeen, wearing a baseball cap and preventing his little brother from running away from the situation. Still, no one was surprised that your parents were two men. One of them, the one who had gotten the job as journalist and for whom you had moved to that city turned to the hallway looking for you.

-We have a (girl/boy) your age, Hiro -said the one who hadn't turned.

-Wow, Hiro! An opportunity to make friends! -Mrs. Hamada was excited.

-It has to be around here... (Y/N)!-yelled the one turned.

You hid yourself and took a look in the mirror; it was when you realized how you looked. Your head was a chaos of negative thoughts and your hands tried to fix your hair. Your father shouted your name again and you took a deep breath, your two parents didn't mind going out with a paint mess, you shouldn't care either. Gathering all the confidence you were capable of, you went out into the hall and let them see you. Hiro looked annoyed, Tadashi just smiled and Mrs. Hamada looked like she was about to jump out of excitement.

-Aren't you the most adorable thing in town? -smiled Mrs. Hamada- Hiro, say something.

-I don't wanna to say anything -said Hiro crossing his arms.

-Then I'll say it -said Tadashi, bending down to be at your height- Hi, I'm Tadashi. This is my aunt Cass and he is the stupid, grumpy and immature of my brother -Tadashi was still smiling, although Hiro was complaining behind him, and extended his hand towards you- How are you?

In that moment you decided that Tadashi was the perfect boy.

From that day on, you became inseparable from the Hamada. They lived across the street and you always had fun being at their home. When you couldn't get out of your house because you were sick or punished, Tadashi made funny gestures out of his bedroom window -which looked at yours- while Hiro just looked at you wrongly or stuck his tongue out at you.

Trying to be friends with Tadashi was very easy, he was a person with whom you could talk about all subjects and who never laughed at your concerns. When you turned thirteen, a classmate invited you to the movies -your first date- and your response was to run to the Lucky Cat Cafe and tell Tadashi while you were dying of shame because Hiro was laughing at you.

Trying to be friends with Hiro was something else. Hiro was only interested in robotics and robo-combat and building robots. It was boring. The worst thing of all is that Tadashi started university and almost all his free time was spent at the university or working on his project so you had to spend time with Hiro. Now the routine was go to the Lucky Cat Cafe when finish class, grab some candy and interrupt Hiro in anything he was working on until Tadashi came home and played with you or your dads came to pick you up, whichever was earlier. Sometimes you stayed in his room or in the garage with Hiro while he worked and you did homework, both in silence until you had a doubt and Hiro tried that you find the answer by you alone because you wouldn't learn anything if he simply gave it to you.

The days went by while Hiro graduated from high school and rubbed it in your face, Tadashi continued to be an older brother to you, Aunt Cass prepared her delicious sweets, one of your dad entered as a professor at the University of San Fransokyo and the other entered as a journalist in one of the most important newspapers in the city. Things were going well.

The holidays passed quickly, Tadashi spent a lot of time in his laboratory, Hiro ignored you while working on his new robot and your young person of fourteen fantasized about Tadashi who was now your great crush.

-You know you will never be together, right? -said Hiro without looking at you.

-Excuse me? -you stopped sketching Tadashi's face on you notebook. You recently discovered that painting was one of your qualities and that you really enjoyed drawing everything you saw.

-Nothing, don't worry -he said with that tone that he always uses to make others believe that he doesn't care but you knew very well that he was dying to say something else.

-What do you know about this things?

-He is four years older than you, it is silly that you continue with that.

-It is none of your business if I have a crush for your brother.

-You are wrong about that. My favorite activity is seeing how you look at Tadashi, really expecting him to notice you like that. Do you know that that would be pedophilia? But what do I know about these things?

Finally, Hiro turned his chair to look at you with his sly smile plastered on his face until he saw your pained-angry expression and realized that you were about to cry. You ran out of there without saying a word, Hiro screaming your name running after you, you almost collided with Aunt Cass before leaving and crossing the street to go up to your house. You didn't open your bedroom door even to Tadashi when he came to see what had happened between you and Hiro. After three days without showing up at the Hamada's house, Hiro tried his luck with a drone that carried a message for you. At first, you were surprised to see that weird robot but when you looked behind it -towards Hiro's window- you saw the boy with the drone controls and with a nervous smile on his face. You shot him an angry look and closed the curtain, which didn't open all week.

One night after dinner, Aunt Cass appeared at your house, your dads were trying to calm her in the living room, she seemed about to break. Apparently, Hiro had disappeared and Tadashi had gone looking for him, Aunt Cass thought he would be here with you but he wasn't there -she didn't know that you and Hiro had fought. You sat with your parents in the living room, waiting for news from Tadashi while Aunt Cass was debuting the cookies your parents had brought, a feeling of anguish tightening your chest. Then Aunt Cass received a call from the police station and ran to find her nephews, your parents sent you to bed, it was very late and you had class tomorrow but you couldn't sleep: when Aunt Cass's car appeared on the street, you stuck to your bedroom window to see how the Hamadas were arguing with each other before entering the house. You sighed in relief to see that Hiro was safe and reacted late when the light in the brothers' room came on. Hiro had sat at his computer and looked out the window -out of habit- and saw you there with a worried face. He gave you the most sly smile and you show him your middle finger before closing the curtains again. Now you could sleep.

When missing your friends won over your pride, you showed up in the Hamada's garage to see Hiro and Tadashi very focused on something they were working on, Tadashi first became aware of your presence and gave you one of his kind smiles before leaving you with Hiro to fix whatever had happened between the two of you. Hiro was very bad asking for forgiveness and talking about feelings but you were honest with him; you told him that in your old city you didn't have many friends, so Tadashi behaving so well with you was a great change for you. You also told him that you weren't in love with Tadashi, not really you thought, you were in love with the idea of Tadashi: an attentive, smart and funny boy who cared about making you feel welcome in his house because he knew you didn't know anyone and you needed friends. You ended up accepting Hiro's apology and hugging him even though he had never liked this kind of display of affection.

But he also hugged you.

Now you were in context; Tadashi showed Hiro his university and introduced him to his friends and Hiro had marveled at everything and was now trying to carry out a huge project to let him study there as well. You also met Tadashi's friends since they started coming to the Hamada's house to cheer Hiro and help him advance his project, you became good friends with Honey Lemon and Fred, you even went to eat with all of them because they invited you. Your parents were concerned that your friends list was practically much older than you but they couldn't say that they were a bad influence on you, quite the opposite actually. While Hiro was developing his project, you kept him company simply by being there with him; you talked to him about how the classes had gone, who you had a fight with, which teacher you thought was against you because you didn't pass the last exam and you drew. You spent hours talking and talking while you drew. Sometimes Hiro would go for hours and hours without answering and you thought he wouldn't listen to you and you were silent but then he interrupted his work and asked you what happened next. You smiled broadly at him and kept telling him the story. Sometimes he would ask you for help with the most important task; give him gummy bears. He would leave his mouth open and you would put the sweets.

Until the day you fell asleep at the Hamada's garage. It wasn't planned, you were really having fun with Hiro throwing gummy bears to his mouth and sketching Hiro's hands while he worked. At some point in the night Hiro realized that you had fallen asleep in the couch over your sketches but didn't wake you up, he looked for a blanket and put it on you before continuing to work. The next morning the laughter of the others woke you both up, Tadashi had taken a picture of you both sleeping together in the couch and Fred was starting to sing a song about you two sitting under a tree. From that day on, the atmosphere between you and Hiro changed. You wouldn't know if it was your negative reaction, the panic on Hiro's face or the fact that Hiro shouted that you liked Tadashi, you only knew that that day you felt very bad, a pressure in your chest that you wouldn't know how to define. Tadashi went to talk to you and you both sat down on the stairs in front of your house to talk; he told you that he was honored to have been your first love but he also told you that he felt bad for being the first to break your heart. You, to Tadashi's relief, told him that you weren't in love with him. You confessed that you didn't understand your own feelings but it was true that you took references from him for the idea of your type of boy: cool, smart and who cares about your well-being. He said, mysteriously, that you would end up realizing it. What did you have to realize? You had no idea and Tadashi wasn't going to make it easy for you. The Hamadas were obsessed with you learning by yourself.

-I thought you promised to keep my secret -you said entering the Hamada's garage- I thought you were my friend.

Hiro was sitting at the computer but his head rested on his hands and his elbows on the table, he seemed to be overwhelmed by something. When he turned to see you, it looked like he hadn't slept in days.

-I'm your friend, (Y/N).

-Friends keep secrets.

He signed, seemed really bad.

-Is the idea of dating me so bad?-you didn't know where those words came from but once they were said there was no going back. The tension between you two seemed to increase.

Hiro mumbled some things you didn't understand before sighing again and running a hand through his hair.

-What did you said? -you asked a little more abrupt than you intended.

-Can we become friends again?-he repeated a little louder- I miss you...

Something inside you stirred restlessly and perhaps it was his pleading look or that you missed your friend but you ended up smiling defeated. This time it was Hiro who hugged you, whispering another apology.

The day before the convention where Hiro was supposed to prove himself to Callahan, you spent the evening trying to calm Hiro who was on his nerves pacing from one side of the garage to the other checking that everything was perfect. Since it was an impossible task, you let him be while you made new sketches in your new sketchbook. So you spent several hours until Tadashi appeared and stood next to you to see your sketches.

-You never cease to amaze me with every drawing, (Y/N).

-Miss Trainor has taught me to focus more on how light moves -you commented absentmindedly looking at Hiro to erase a line from your sketch and draw it again.

-What are you drawing? -Hiro asked coming closer to look too.

You panicked for a few seconds and closed the notebook. This had been going on for a couple of weeks; when you started drawing you showed all your sketches, then when you started drawing Tadashi it didn't bother you that Hiro saw you draw but lately when you drew Hiro you didn't let him see your sketches. A feeling of urgency and shame arose within you every time he asked to see your notebook.

-Why can Tadashi see and I can't?

At Hiro's insistence that he was beginning to get upset and your denials that you were starting to get angry, Tadashi ended the discussion.

-Because I am a human being who stays neat and rests well. Have you seen your face? Did you even take a shower yesterday? What impression will you make tomorrow if you fall asleep in your own talk?

Embarrassed, Hiro fled to shower, slamming the door behind him. You and Tadashi laughed at the situation and then he started to go over the same details that Hiro had been perfecting.

-You care about him a lot -you said, storing your things in your shoulder bag.

-He is my little brother, for me it is natural to worry -he shrugged his shoulders closing one of the containers of microbots.

-I'm jealous... You have each other. I am always alone at home when my dads aren't around.

-You have us, (Y/N) -Tadashi approached you and put a hand on your shoulder and gave you that smile that was reserved for Hiro- You are one more and you know it.

-Thanks, Tadashi.

You hugged Tadashi with all your might, partly because you didn't want to cry and that he called you corny, and partly because you wanted to show him how grateful you were for accepting you into his family. After you broke up, Tadashi asked you to come upstairs to check that Hiro had showered and to see if you could get him to get some sleep, he was going to finish the last checks.

In other circumstances you wouldn't have minded entering Hiro's room without calling and yelling at him to do what Tadashi had asked but now every step that brought you closer to the room made you blush more. For some reason it took a lot of courage to knock at the wall to advise him that you were there, to your relief, a freshly showered and already dressed Hiro peeked down to see who was there.

-Since when do you knock? -Hiro asked, yawning and stepping aside to let you in.

-Since when do you not sleep?-you changed the subject bluntly but Hiro didn't seem to care.

-As the date gets closer I find it harder to sleep -he confessed with a shrug- I review things in my head all the time, I want it to be perfect.

-You will be better off if you rest properly - you scolded crossing your arms.

-I can't, okay? I can't sleep. Does it matter? My technology will speak for me.

-Of course it matters! Ugh. Sometimes you're impossible.

Full of rage and without saying another word you took Hiro's hand and dragged him to bed, laying you down with him. Hiro was a chaos of stammering, complaining and blushing but you imposed yourself and forced him to lean his back against the bed, you ordered him to close his eyes and you stayed with him looking at the ceiling. After a few minutes Hiro opened his eyes and turned his head towards you to tell you that he was still not sleeping. You completely turned around and looked at him angrily.

-I will stay with you until you fall asleep.

And he didn't try anything to make you leave.

The next morning both Hiro and you had to put up with comments from Tadashi, Fred, Gogo... Even Aunt Cass made a comment!

One of your dads as a professor at San Fransokyo University was helping to organize the event and the other had to be there to do an article about the event for the newspaper so Aunt Cass offered to take you with Hiro and Tadashi. Even you could see perfectly well that Hiro was pretending not to be nervous when he was actually about to have an attack so you spent most of the way holding his hand to cheer him up. You gasped when the convention doors opened and it had to be Hiro who pulled your hand in order for you to move forward. Before everyone scattered around the room to hand out the containers that guarded the microbots that Hiro had built, Honey Lemon took a selfie of the group where, to your surprise, it was Hiro who pushed you into a surprise hug so in the photo you came out looking at Hiro, smiling and if you looked closely you were a little flushed. After that you were going to go with Aunt Cass to wait for Hiro's exposition turn, but Hiro didn't let go of your hand.

-All right, bro. This is it -said Tadashi trying to bump fists with Hiro but he was distracted- Come on! Don't leave me hanging -Tadashi looked at me and then to Hiro to realize that Hiro was worried- What's going on?

-I really want to go here -he said frankly at the time he squeezed your hand.

-Hey, you got this -reassured Tadashi putting a hand on his shoulder.

Hiro looked at you one last time before releasing your hand and walk to the scenario. Tadashi and you shared a worried look but he put his arm around you and took you with him searching for aunt Cass, your two dads and the gang: they actually found the best place where they could see Hiro but when people started noticing Hiro exposition and they started to approach to see better you were too small to see through them so Wasabi sit you on his shoulders. Hiro started shyly and you thought he was so cute when he started talking with new confidence. That was the Hiro you knew and you were so proud of him. The exposition finished and you were left behind with aunt Cass and your parents and when you did it to where Hiro and the gang was, a men was already leaving them and you freaked out that this men was Alistar Krei from Krei Tech and Callahan was giving Hiro his acceptance card. Hiro seemed so freaked out and you take advantage to run and surprise him with a big hug.

-That was amazing! Why did you so much drama last night?

-What happened last night? -asked Fred with that tone that made you and Hiro blush and broke the hug.

-Nothing you should care -you crossed your arms and frowned to him.

Your parents called you and you thanks them for that, perfect timing. They told you that they should stay for the party because of their job so you had to go with the Hamadas, that didn't bother you and you found the gang going out the building. Actually, Hiro and Tadashi were leaving behind after a big hug from aunt Cass.

-Eh, where's going everyone?

-They're over there, we'll meet them at the cafe -answered Tadashi with his big smile.

-Aren't you coming?

-I want to talk with Hiro, would you save us a place with you in the cafeteria?

You smiled to Tadashi, nodding, and them looked at Hiro to hug him again.

-That was really amazing, Hiro.

He hugged you too and broke when Tadashi took a photo of you hugging.

-I'll send this to everyone!

You simply blushed again but Hiro started to chase his brother yelling at him. Laughing, you tried reach the gang at the parking but then you heard people yelling and when you noticed it the exposition building was on fire. You were so worried about your dads that you started running without care if aunt Cass shouted you don't. Your two dads were good, they could go out the building fine but then, the building exploded and when you looked you could see Hiro at the ground yelling Tadashi's name. Either your two dads could stopped you when you run to him, you stumbled and skidded on the floor in your way but you made it to him and took his face so he could look at you.

-Hiro, where's Tadashi? What happened!? Are you listening me!? What happened!?

But he didn't tell you anything. In fact he didn't tell you anymore since that day. He closed up to you, to everyone, and didn't care if there were people worried about him. You didn't know what you could do or say, your dads insisted that you only had to be there for him but you felt like you weren't welcomed in his room anymore. You tried a lot but you couldn't reach him and the person who you go when you need advice wasn't there anymore. It was frustrating and you were almost depressed as Hiro but you thought you had to be strong for Hiro and Tadashi so you still go to school and then to the Lucky Cat Cafe, you went to Hiro's room and helped him with cleaning and trying to get him out but he didn't want you there. You still trying showing him a new painting you did in Art Class but he didn't care. You thought that painting was horrible anyway, since Tadashi's death you didn't draw anything good. When it was time for you to go to your house, Aunt Cass hug you and said that you were doing good, but you didn't believe it. Took you a few weeks to stop trying. You didn't know what to do either the gang didn't have any idea.

And then, one night, your phone ring with a message from Baymax. You didn't remember what a Baymax was but the message said that Hiro needed you so you didn't hesitate, you dressed up and were careful to not wake up your dads, crossed the street and stopped when a car park next to you. Wasabi, Gogo, Honey Lemon and Fred were there, and all of you saw how Hiro with a big armored thing escaped to the streets. Gogo take you on the car and Wasabi drives following Hiro to the bay where they were spying something. He freaked out when all of you go out from the car.

-Dude, what are you doing out here? -asked Wasabi saying what everyone was thinking.

-Nothing! Just out for a walk. Helps my pubescent mood swings.

-Pubescent? -you asked as he was regretting said that.

-You have to go! -Hiro yelled at all of you stopping the questions about Baymax.

-No, don't push us away again, Hiro. We're here for you -said Honey Lemon- That's why Baymax contacted us.

-Those who suffer a lost, require support from friends and loved ones -said Baymax- Who would like to share their feelings first?

You looked at Hiro crossing your arms, after all those days without say nothing he were here playing around? You were angry and Hiro could feel that. And just when Fred was starting sharing his feelings a kabuki masked man with Hiro's microbots tried to throw you a container but Baymax stopped it. All of you run to the car but Gogo had to took Hiro because he was this stupid that he was staying there. Once in the car, Baymax broke the car ceiling with his butt so Wasabi drives you out of there.

-Hiro, explanation. Now! -said Gogo.

-He stole my microbots! He started the fire! I don't know who he is!

-And you were trying to go for him you alone!? -you freaked out taking him from the arm- You're crazy!

The whole chase took all over the town, Fred freaking out about this Kabuki man was a super villain, Honey Lemon stay at the positive part and Gogo lost all his patience and sit in Wasabi's legs to drive. Baymax saved Hiro's life and you were about to suffer a heart attack almost at every turn. Honey Lemon and you hugged while the car fell at the water and Baymax take all of you out of there.

-I told you we'd make it! -said Honey Lemon.

-Your injuries required my attention. And your body temperatures are low -said Baymax.

-We should get out of here -pointed Hiro.

-I know a place -Fred was so strange again.

While Fred took you to his house, Hiro looked at you with a feeling you couldn't say what was but you frowned at him and hugged Honey Lemon looking some warm. Fred house was ridiculously big and any of you could believe it was Fred's house. The conversation with the gang ended up suspecting about Alistair Krei was that Kabuki man, Hiro was so strange when he said he would upgrade all of you and you all agreed that someone had to catch the one who started the fire where Tadashi died. All of them worked on what skills they have and you heard them on the design on theirs suits, Hiro was the last word on the design because only him knows what he can do on his lab and you feel like old times. It was refreshing and inspiring and the fact that Hiro and you could talk again was the best part. And when everybody had their suit you looked at Hiro waiting for yours.

-What are you looking at? -he laughed a little nervous, you even said he blushed.

-Where's my suit? -you were so excited about it, you can't wait.

-Oh, your suit -Hiro didn't look at you, he was evading your eyes- I didn't do it.

-What? We were working on it! You said... -and then you realized it- You don't want me here.

-What? (Y/N) That's not true.

-You're pushing me away, again -he tried to denied it but you cut hum- You did this all the time! Why I still believing in you?

-(Y/N), I don't... You don't understand.

-I understand everything. You just were my friend because of Tadashi -you can feel tears forming on your eyes and your voice broking- You don't want to be my friend anymore?

-I don't said any of that! You're getting me out of context. Let me explain...

He tried to approach to you but you pushed him away from you and hugged yourself.

-No! I don't want more lies! I tried everything, Hiro, to cheer you up but you ignored me and when I thought we started being friends again... I don't want you to hurt me anymore.

You were crying now and Hiro looked terrible because of that, he didn't know what to do to calm you and was looking around to think something.

-I... I didn't want to hurt you.

-I wish Tadashi were here, not you.

You know from the moment those words escapes from your mouth that you will regret that forever. Hiro looked hurt first and then angry.

-Get out of here! I don't want you in my house! Never!

-I hate you! -you shouted leaving the garage but you could heard Hiro's last words.

-I wish aunt Cass never took us to your house! I wish I never met you!

That words hunted you all day and night. Your parents didn't know why you spend those days crying in your room, you were hurt and heartbroken and you knew perfectly that you have the fault. Also you knew that Hiro and the gang were busy with that Kabuki man so you thought you shouldn't bother them. You were alone, again, and you thought you deserved it. You received a message from Honey Lemon telling you to call her and when you did it, you were surprised.

-And Hiro just left you there?

-Don't worry, Fred called Heathcliff to pick us but we're worried about Hiro. Could you check if he's at his house?

-I don't know if I should... He don't want me there anymore.

-Look, I don't know what happened between Hiro and you -that was Gogo voice- But I know something about you. You two are the best friends I've ever seen, ok? And no matter what problem you have between you, you are always there for each other. Ok? So go there and check him because he wasn't himself and he needs you even if he didn't know it yet. Got it?

-But...

-Stop whining. Woman up -she said before hanging up.

At that moment you heard a noise at the street and saw how Hiro and Baymax landed and went to the garage. You took all the courage you have and send a message to Honey Lemon "I got him". When you reach the garage you were hesitant until you heard them.

-Yes! No! I don't know! Open you access! -that was Hiro's voice.

-Is this what Tadashi wanted? -and that one was Baymax's.

-It doesn't matter!

-Tadashi programed me to aid and...

-Tadashi's gone!

You were crying when you stopped hiding and called him.

-Hiro?

-(Y/N)? -he was crying too.

Neither of you moved, just stare at each other in silence. Then Baymax said:

-Tadashi's here.

-No -mumbles Hiro looking at the floor- He's not here.

Then Baymax started to reproduce a video about Tadashi building Baymax and his failed tries. He was so optimistic, and excited and tired but he never give up. You were crying again at the sight of your friend and approached to Hiro who was looking at him too.

-Oh, man. Wait till my brother and (Y/N) see you. You're gonna help so many people, buddy. So many. That's all for now. I am satisfied with my care.

The video stopped with the image of Tadashi smiling and Hiro took his hand to his brother face.

-I miss him -he said.

-Me too -you whispered looking at him- He was like a brother to me.

-He was my best friend -he didn't looked at you.

-I know... And you're mine -you surprised him and now he looked at you when the image switch off- And I hurt you and I know I said things and I am so sorry for that. I was so frustrated and upset and only thinking on me but you were suffering too and... -you stopped yourself because you were crying so much that you can't speak.

-I'm sorry too. I should talk to you before but I was scared that you would be angry with me and... -he signed- I don't regret aunt Cass forced me to go to your house to meet you, (Y/N). Actually I'm grateful.

-I... Do-don't hate you -you said between cries.

Hiro smiled at you and hugged you and you cried in his arms.

-Those who suffer a lost, require support from friends and loved ones -said Baymax.

You both laughed at this and break the hug to look at each other.

-I didn't build you a suit because I don't want you get hurt. I was trying to protect you because I can't lose you too, (Y/N).

-I understand now -you nodded smiling but then punch his arm- Next time, talk to me! Got it? I'm here for you, you stupid genius butt!

-I don't get it -he rubbed his arm- I'm a genius or a stupid?

-You're impossible!

-But you love me!

He started tickling you and you hopped he didn't notice your blush or at least think it was for the laughs.

-I knew you'll make it -Gogo voice stopped both of you.

-The all team again! -celebrate Fred.

They show you a video that they get on that spooky island and then explain to you what you discovered there. Callahan was that Kabuki man and he was taking revenge of his daughter.

The gang prepared for his next move and you helped them, givin to Gogo her bubblegum, her bag to Honey Lemon and when Hiro took his helmet you took it from his hands.

-You're gonna be careful, right?

-I promise -he smiled to you and you believe him so you put him his helmet.

-I'm trusting you, Hiro. Just come with me again.

-I will always come to you, (Y/N).

He seemed like he would say something more but Wasabi called him so he smiled at you one more time and went with the guys. You were left on the garage and use Hiro's computer to use the satellites that Hiro had hacked when he was working on Baymax scan to see what was happening. You were so proud of then when they make it to trick the bad guy and left him without the microbots. But when you saw Hiro and Baymax going on that weird portal thing you freaked out and couldn't take it anymore more. You run to your house, it was your dad free day but you needed him.

-Dad! I know it's your free day but I know where you can get a big new.

-What are you talking about?

-I'm talking about the biggest new your newspaper have never seen. Believe me.

And he believed you so he take you on his car to Krei Tech just in time to see Hiro getting out that portal thing. Your dad started to interrogate to Krei and Callahan and the police and ambulance were starting to park so you take advantage of that to run to Hiro without anyone noticed it.

-Hiro! -you jump to hug him- You made it! You came back.

-I... I promised you, didn't I?

He hugged you with a arm but he sounded sad so you looked around and that's when you noticed it.

-Where's Baymax?

He just looked at the ground without answering.

-We need to take you out of here.

The gang hides away and Heathcliff took them away while you came back with your father.

After a few days things went to normal or at least as normal as they can be. Hiro went to university with the guys and you were so proud of him while you still were going to high school but now you pass all the afternoon and evening with them at the university, Fred said you were the new pet of pet's university and you didn't complain him because it was funny. And then one day Hiro came running to the gang with a chip in his hand: it was Baymax's chip, the original! And he was so excited about it so you help him with whatever he needed, even if was only giving him gummy bears.

-I think I get it! -shouted Hiro waking you up from his desk.

You fall asleep on your sketchbook again. Since Tadashi's death you didn't draw anything good but now Hiro helped you drawing again. He worked with you and now you didn't care that his head suddenly appeared on your shoulder when you were drawing, in fact you blush and feel this weird thing because he was so close to you.

-What? -you rubbed your eyes approaching to Hiro.

-Let's try! Ow?

With that, the robot go out his container and said:

-I am Baymax, your personal healthcare companion. Hello, Hiro.

He was so freaked out that he jumped and screamed. You both were celebrating til Hiro took you by your arms and kissed you. On the lips. Your lips just touched but that was enough. He pushed himself away, blushing hard and mumbling excuses while you were so surprised that you didn't do or said anything.

-(Y/N)? I'm sorry? We can forget about this if you want.

That's when you wake up and blinked looking him like he was an alien.

-You're crazy? -you were blushing while you speak- There's no way I'm forgetting my first kiss. Furthermore when I like it.

-You did? -he smiled his eyes full of hope and excitement again.

-I like you.

-You do?

-Stop asking, you stupid brain of circuits...

You have more things to say to Hiro but he interrupted you with another kiss and then smiled you with that sly smile that you really loved.

-I knew you loved me.

-No, you didn't, you little bastard.

-You're spending so much time with Gogo -he laughed while you throw your tongue to him just for him to catch your mouth with a deepened kiss- I love you.

You blushed abruptly because of the kiss and his words.

-I... I said I like you -you mumbled.

-I know but I love you since last year -he simply said with his sweet smile- That's why I was so mean with you. I was jealous of Tadashi.

-You're a weirdo, you know?

-But you love me, just you don't realize it.

You were feeling that thing again, the blush doesn't go away from your face and you suspected Hiro was delighted with that fact.

-I'm going to kill you.

-Death is a thing I can't take care of-said Baymax pointing with his hand.

-It's just an expression, buddy-answered Hiro, smiling.

-Don't be so sure about that.

#bh6 wasabi #bh6 fred #big hero 6 #big hero six #tadashi hamada #bh6 tadashi #hiro hamada #hiro hamada x reader #hiro x reader #tadashi hamada x reader #tadashi x reader #disney #fanfic #Y/N #hiro x y/n #hiro hamada x y/n #tadashi x y/n #tadashi hamada x y/n #hiro and tadashi

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ravenvsfox · 4 years

Text

klance holodeck fic 1/2

Lance is gone. Lost in the plunging gaps between astral bodies, sewn into an invisible seam in spacetime. Missing, for two long years. It’s impossible, to think of the time he's already lost with him. Time passes strangely in a war, and stranger still in space. Stars gasp their dying breaths and ripe dust clouds give birth to whole planetary systems. Some light reaches them with its centuries-old fingers and some can’t weather the journey. So many beings shiver and die. Lance would be twenty now. He tries not to think about it.

Keith can't bring himself to grieve when he knows Lance is still out there. Instead, he follows versions of him down holographic rabbit holes, trying to pry closure out of his memories, and losing himself to an obsession with the simulated landscapes where Lance was never lost.

(Read on AO3)

At first, it’s a french restaurant.

Slate grey and stationery white, sunlight drooping over the tablecloths like curling petals on calla lilies. Keith presses the knot of his tie into the hollow of his throat and swallows against his fingers. The get-up is ridiculous—grey suit, red tie, cufflinks, Italian leather shoes.

He’s never worn anything so expensive or well-tailored in his life, and he can already picture the precise geometry of Lance’s expression when he sees him: badly suppressed smile, like a slipped disc, his cheeks puckered.

Keith seats himself next to the window, fiddling almost immediately with the circlet of his napkin ring. The trees outside rustle and drizzle shade over buskers and vendors across the street. His designer watch has both hands folded over the twelve. A waiter breezes past and lays a rectangle of cardstock in front of him, smiling conspiratorially. As soon as he’s out of view, Keith has forgotten his face.

He looks at the menu, and the transition from the burbling restaurant to the cramped typeface is disorienting, like a cut scene in a video game. When he puts the menu down again, his head is swimming sickly with words like bordelaise and remoulade. And then, like a sweet apparition from a terrible dream, Lance drifts through the doorway.

For a moment, the sight of him is impossibly painful.

Keith’s fingers go again to the knot of his tie, and he makes an involuntary noise, gulping air as if surfacing from extreme physical exertion.

“Lance,” he chokes.

Lance smiles, quicksilver. “Hello.”

“You’re here,” Keith says, staggering to his feet. He crosses the bistro to take Lance bracingly by the wrists. The napkin holder is still in his hand, and the circle of it presses into Lance’s forearm so tightly that his skin bulges through it a little. “Do you—do you know where you’ve been?”

Lance should be defensive, or sly, or angry, or bashful. He should be telling a story that Keith can barely follow at a pitch that he can barely stomach, bragging about all the stupid things and downplaying all the impressive things.

Keith knows that’s not how this works, but still. It’s the Lance he knows.

He focuses on the brittle warmth of his body, the details that are just right. His heart breathes into the paper bag of his chest.

Lance just keeps smiling wanly. His hair is styled wrong—there’s too much volume, and it swoops down too close to one eye. His tie is robin’s egg blue. “No need to get up for little old me.”

Keith shakes his head, off-balance. “What?”

“I’m here to spend time with you! Why don’t we take a seat?”

Keith swallows painfully. It’s like looking at an animatronic figure of his friend—a jolting uncanny robot at an amusement park. “Lance, look at me.”

“How could I not?” he says cheekily, and winks. But his eyes haven’t quite settled into the same groove as Keith’s.

“Tell me—“ Keith starts. “Tell me what you remember. Tell me who you are.”

“Oh, you know me,” he says. “Name’s Lance ‘Loverboy’ McClain, blue paladin, sharpshooter extraordinaire, and defender of the universe.”

“Please.” It’s meant to be derisive, but it ends up falling somewhere closer to desperate. His hands slide up from Lance’s forearms to his shoulders. The napkin ring clatters pointedly to the floor. In a wide, embarrassing moment of weakness, Keith says, “you have to--be him. At least try.”

Lance chuckles.

Keith shakes him, and his shoulders jitter unnaturally.

“Come on. What’s the point if you can’t even act like him? Who would fucking buy this?”

“I don’t—“

“Stop using his voice,” he warns. His hands have crept up to Lance’s neck, and abruptly he lets go, repulsed at the almost-familiar feel of him.

“I would also be pretty overwhelmed to meet an intergalactic celebrity,” Lance assures him.

He’s starting to breathe too fast. He keeps seeing the real Lance—craned into the three-dimensional spread of a star map, brow furrowed, freckled hand curled loosely in the handle of whatever hot drink he found planet-side—superimposed over this stranger’s weird, unblemished face.

“Who am I?” Keith demands.

Lance grins. “My date.”

Keith pushes him hard in the chest. He nearly topples into a neighbouring table, and it’s unlikely, how he keeps his gangly legs underneath his body.

“Easy, sweetheart,” Lance says. “This isn’t the place for roughhousing.”

It’s the wrong cadence, but it’s so like something Lance would say that it’s debilitating. Keith stumbles through the momentum of another graceless shove.

“I told you to stop using his voice,” Keith snaps. “This is cruel.”

“Didn’t you want to meet me here?” Lance asks innocently.

“Of course I did. But you’re not—not—” Suddenly, he’s so fatigued with disappointment that he can’t speak.

After a long moment, he feels an ephemeral hand on his shoulder. And with the help of the ghostly waitstaff, the false Lance maneuvers him back to his place at the table. “Just tell me where to look and I’ll go there,” Keith begs, half-stumbling, half-dragged into his seat. “I swear. I know I can find you, I’ve faced bad odds before.”

“How about a drink?” Lance is saying, apparently unfazed.

“I thought that if you thought like Lance, maybe I could talk an answer out of you,” Keith says. Lance cocks his head, pleasantly receptive. “But really I thought I would look at you and I would feel better. Or at least I would feel angry. But you’re worse than a punching bag.”

“Red?” Lance says, and Keith’s heart is—airborne.

“What?” he asks sharply.

“Wine,” Lance explains. “Red or white?”

His whole body caves in. Rockslide. Catastrophic. He looks into Lance’s wide, earnest eyes, feeling uncomfortably like he’s levelling a shotgun at a newborn. “Neither. End simulation.”

The bistro melts instantly into the oily blackness of the Paladin Simulator.

His jaw is clamped tightly with shame and grief, and as the dark presses in, he folds his arms self-consciously over his chest. He’s ending his session an hour early, and he’s grateful, now, for the uninterrupted quiet.

He shouldn’t have let himself do this.

It should have been obvious what a bad idea it was when he didn’t tell any of the other paladins what he was planning; he was already falling back into his old, knee-jerk isolation, trusting only himself with his secrets.

He just couldn’t take any more of their pity. It was constant, wide-eyed, confused—why would the person who got along with Lance the least feel his absence the most? Sometimes, Hunk looked at Keith exactly the same way he looked at an old clunker of an engine that was in need of replacing.

Keith had heard tell of the simulators years ago, they all had. Liberated planets with the tech (and the admiration) had started building little cyber shrines to Voltron. Like a hyper-advanced arcade game, you could plug in your specifications, step into the simulator, and play out your wildest fantasies.

He’d gathered that tittering fans, unexceptional nerdy types, and bright-eyed kids were the most common customers; the lettering on the swinging board out front promised all kinds of adventure and celebrity:

Join Voltron! Become one of the gang, fighting Galra scum and saving the galaxy from tyranny!

Enjoy a candlelit dinner with the paladin of your choice, and get up close and personal with your hero!

Pick up your very own bayard, and spar with living combat legends! Who will win?!

Although it’s more advanced than the training room controls on the castle of lions, the programming still has its limits. The likenesses aren’t really supposed to stand up to the scrutiny of someone like, say, a paladin himself, but the experience is still sensory, impossible, the science fiction daydream of someone on Earth.

Lance used to love the idea of it, joking that it was the Star Trek filler episode he always wanted. He said he would win every game, romance himself, and beat up holo-Keith without feeling bad about it. He said he could finally stop pulling punches when Keith was just, like, light particles and shit.

In his grief, Keith convinced himself it was right and just and necessary to believe in a false lead. He told himself that the coat rack in the dark looked enough like a person that maybe he could hang all his hopes on it.

And so he had sought out the small, ever-bright planet of Seachmall, where night lasted for twilit months, and massive outdoor markets boasted every good and service you could possibly think of. Continent to continent there were melting, zipping lights, sky-high neon encircling tall buildings like bangles, and criss-crossing lanterns—buoyant in the low gravity—coasting up towards their celestial cousins.

In the capital, the local population joyfully shared liquor and arm-clasping greetings, speaking in the fast creole dialect of a port city, dancing to reality-bending music that haunts every forking path in a dizzying labyrinth of market stalls. Every single day on Seachmall was a feverish, luminous midnight that raged unceasingly past its breaking point.

And every step in the springy too-dark soil, every halting conversation in common, every sizzling technological spectacle that borders on nightmarish, Keith thought that Lance would have eaten this experience alive.

But Lance is gone.

Lost in the plunging gaps between astral bodies, sewn into an invisible seam in spacetime. Missing, for two long years.

It’s impossible, to think of the time he's already lost with him. Time passes strangely in a war, and stranger still in space. Stars gasp their dying breaths and ripe dust clouds give birth to whole planetary systems. Some light reaches them with its centuries-old fingers and some can’t weather the journey. So many beings shiver and die. Lance would be twenty now. He tries not to think about it.

Often, he resents those years he spent on a space whale, cresting out of his teenage years faster than he could track, trying to staunch the flow of memories with the paladins before he lost them all. He gets double vision looking at his mother, thinking of what he knows about love and struggling to apply it to this stranger.

When Lance disappeared just months after Keith returned to the castle of lions, he understood, finally, that loss is the bitter shrapnel of love.

In an alternate universe, Keith would have threaded Lance’s difficult needle, held his jaw, sharp and slight as a paring knife, and told him every wriggling, guilty, breathless feeling he’s inspired in him since they were sixteen.

In that universe, he stepped out of the time warp and into Lance’s embrace, and they were never parted again.

But that’s not what happened. Instead, Pidge started to refer to Lance in the past tense. Allura took over piloting Blue full-time, and Keith Red. The castle, already barren with the loss of Altea, became even more eerily quiet. Keith’s guilt swelled up and took any of their remaining teamwork hostage.

Space is so massively large and radiantly indifferent, but Lance is out there, surely, or Keith would have felt Voltron’s current being disrupted, as it had been when Shiro blinked out of the Black lion. But time stretched on, and he felt nothing at all.

When Lance disappeared it was from the middle of a battle for a nothing quadrant of space, and he was practically teleported out of the fray. They recovered his lion on a smalltime Galra ship within the hour, no sign of a struggle, no sign of Lance.

It was eery. Impossible. They interrogated sentries and hacked systems, combed entire light years of space using Allura’s wormholes. They waited for a distress signal, an apology, a triumphant return. But he just—vanished.

Keith ripped through the galaxy for any scrap of him, a blue flash, those bright ringlets of laughter, the flush of his skin tone in a kaleidoscope of different species.

Allura and Shiro joined him on the ground at first; Pidge, Coran, and Matt worked tirelessly to devise a tracking system, while Hunk took Red apart, hoping to unlock the moment that she and Lance had detached—but it was like her memory had been wiped clean. All they could feel was the panicked thrum of her loose bond with Lance, Keith more than anyone.

Romelle and Krolia hadn’t known Lance for long, but they always came when called. More bodies in the search party, more hands in the alliance. Once, he caught Romelle’s lip wobbling during a debrief, and he remembered the way that Lance had dragged an extra chair in for her first team meeting, winking, and then laughing himself to stitches when Romelle tried to wink back and couldn’t.

In pieces, Keith understood that he loved Lance, and as always, he was processing an obvious truth too late. His grief was swollen purple, and even as he told himself that no one would ever, ever understand, he knew they did. All around him they did, loudly and at length, hurting at such a frequency that Keith was scared it would drown out Lance’s return.

He left the castle of lions more frequently, turning over whole populations, infiltrating Galra ship after Galra ship, singularly driven—but also callous and unbalanced without his team, participating in more violence in six months than he had in five years of war and survival.

Once, Keith stumbled into Lance’s abandoned room and pulled clothes and trinkets out of his closet, stirring up the smell of him and crying like a child. He picked fights with his mother, because she had been a terrible absence once, too. In the artificial light of castle dawn, he sparred more than his body could sustain, and when he found a planet full of unmarked tombstones in his search, he ripped at the ground with his bare hands until his fingernails tore.

The longer he looked, the more he found that the whole universe was exquisite with death, every piece of it burnt out and drifting into expanding blackness. He was so tired of feeling like space rock himself, fast, deadly, and aimless, waiting to burn up in the atmosphere somewhere. So, heart striving ahead of his body like an eager dog, pockets full of tokens, he wandered Seachmall until he found the flashy booth where he would waste the next eight months of his life.

He leaves the simulated french restaurant that first time fully believing that he’ll never be so weak again, but it’s barely twenty vargas before he’s back, trembling all over.

He finds Lance in a simulation of battle, and in the rush, it’s much easier to forget that he’s a fake.

“Not this time, amigo,” Lance crows, looping around an enemy ship and blasting ice the whole time, showing off. Keith is shocked to find a smile bruising his own face. His hands close over fake-Red’s controls. It’s so strange, not feeling her at all while he’s piloting. It’s as impersonal as a Garrison sim, but eons more advanced, nearly authentic. He can feel the heat of battle through Red’s visor, and as always, his calloused thumbs creak against the wheel when he turns too sharply.

“On your right,” Keith warns.

Lance dodges dutifully. “Thanks!”

I know, Lance groans, in his memory. I’m out here flying too, Keith, this isn’t one of those drills where I’m fucking blindfolded—

“Red Paladin,” Allura’s voice cries, weirdly high and operatic. “The evil lord Zarkon is moving in for the kill. You must help us form Voltron!”

“Yeah, right,” he huffs.

The forming itself is so stupid, obviously programmed by an outside observer who’s never felt the itch of unity, the reverse detonation of an impossible bomb, where every scattered thing fits back together to be whole again.

There’s a silly bit of choreography, and fake-Red goes on rails, like a carnival ride. And then, without feeling anything concrete, Voltron pulls in around him.

“Hooray!” Pidge says, sounding like a munchkin from The Wizard of Oz.

“Nothing can stop us now!” Shiro says, sounding like Shiro.

“Can we get back to putting Zarkon in a second grave now, please?” Keith says.

“Always the fighter, Red,” Lance says. Keith blinks.

“I love you,” he blurts.

“Aw,” Hunk says. “I love you guys too.”

“Lance—“

“Use your sword? Exactly what I was thinking,” Lance says.

“Let’s do it,” Shiro says. “Use your bayard, Red.”

“I know,” Keith snaps.

It’s obvious that the simulation has programmed Red in as shorthand for whatever player is in his spot. It would be the same no matter what lion was chosen, but hearing Lance’s nickname for him out of Shiro’s mouth is just—stunningly wrong.

The world trembles from the impact of a Galra bogey, uncomfortably real, and his instincts press him into action.

He turns his bayard in its slot, and the sword shimmers into reality. He watches at a remove as Voltron slices at Zarkon’s craft.

It’s actually starting to get to him, the memory of this battle, the reality of which was a lot more challenging, and much, much uglier. He remembers his frenetic pulse in his fingertips, the threat pressing endlessly past their defences, the damage to Green’s hull, and the awful discovery of Black’s empty cockpit afterwards.

He shudders.

“End simulation.”

In the dark, the adrenaline eases its panicked hands from his throat. You’re alive, he reminds himself. You survived. So did Shiro. So will Lance.

______

The next day, he goes back again.

He spars with himself, out of curiosity, and then with Shiro and Lance, but the holo-paladins are uninspired, easily blocked, programmed to strut and preen through choreography more than they are to improvise and adapt. Lance doesn’t play dirty even once, and Keith shuts down the simulation again, gutted. He wishes there were different difficulty levels, like the bots in the castle. You could program almost anything into—

He stops, midway back to his cruiser, the braid of market-goers loosening around him.

He taps twice on his communicator, and hastily opens a channel with Pidge.

After the long, peculiar swish of the line connecting, she answers, “‘sup?”

“I need you to do something for me.”

“Urgently?” she asks, distracted. He can hear the clatter of keys and the beep and whir of her latest project.

“It’s about Lance.”

The clatter stops. She doesn’t speak for long enough that Keith feels truly bad about himself. And then, “well Jesus, Keith. Isn’t it always?”

He breathes out. “How comfortable are you with the holodeck interface?”

“Very,” she says, no hesitation.

“And do you still have those files from a couple of deca-phoebes ago? That user profile thing you tried to instate, the uh—“ he dodges a Seachmallian waving a kebab in his direction.

“Yes, Keith,” Pidge drawls. “What, do you think I burn data when my projects don’t pan out?”

He shrugs, though she can’t see him. “I would.”

“Forgot who I was talking to,” she says flatly. He’s paused at the ice-cold entrance of a shop selling edible soap bubbles, light and iridescent.

“Do you think you could put together a—a simulation, compatible with a more advanced operating system?”

There’s a throb of silence. “What exactly are you asking me to do, here?”

He closes his eyes, still ducked under the awning of the store, feeling the cold move through him. “Don’t make me say it.”

“You want Lance,” she says. “On a fucking USB.”

“I want to find him,” he growls. “Remember when you wanted that too?”

“That’s low,” she says, deadly. “I’m not the one who’s trying to sleep with a hologram of my dead friend so I don’t have to grieve him.”

He cuts off communication. He feels feverish with embarrassment, and completely sick to his stomach. Candy bubbles breeze past him, over the apron of the booth across the way, which is advertising robot fights—both in Seachmallian and blocky common.

He remembers Lance, a lifetime ago, saying, when I go, I want all the stuff in my brain stored in a giant ship.

His comms ding, and he jabs the accept button on his wrist.

“Fuck you,” he says.

“I’m sorry,” Pidge says. “I don’t know why I said that.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” he says fiercely.

“I know.”

“I just need to know if it was premeditated, if he ever had a safe house or a code in case we got separated, something we could look for.”

“It’s not the worst idea,” Pidge says thoughtfully.

“I know.”

“But I do think it’s a pretty terrible idea for you to do it.”

He grits his teeth, upset in a directionless kind of way. “I can handle it.”

“I know you’re on Seachmall,” Pidge says, “and I already thought that was going to get pretty gnarly. All they’ve got is, like, the mythology of us. Can you imagine what the information in the Altean databases could do to that kind of tactile VR experience?”

“Sort of,” Keith says.

“It would be like if all the OG broadway actors showed up to participate in a high school production of Cats, comprende?”

“No,” Keith says, waspish. “Less.”

“It’s the next step for Altean hologram technology for sure. It would probably revolutionize AI. It’s also not real, Keith.”

“I don’t need it to be real,” Keith snaps. “I need a lead.”

“Well,” Pidge says slowly. “You know I can do it. Can you wait a few quintants?”

He sets his jaw, and against the deep blue horizon, a billboard gleams so brilliantly yellow that for a moment, he thinks it’s the sun.

“As long as it takes.”

______

Keith meets Pidge when she touches down on Seachmall, windswept and gaunt, and although he doesn’t really understand what she intends to do, he dutifully distracts security as she futzes with the control panel.

It’s barely fifteen minutes before she beckons him into the alley adjacent to the simulator room, a sample platter of bolts and wires spread out around her knees.

“Alright chief, it should be compatible, now.” She pulls a stray length of cable from where she’s been holding it between her teeth and pockets it. The little nib of her ponytail bobs as she stands.

“So it’ll be him this time?”

“I mean, almost exactly. I programmed his profile into the grooves set into the existing simulation, but I softened the edges a little so he’s not too self aware. I don’t want him realizing he’s a projection, I’m not that cruel.”

“Right,” Keith says, uncomfortable.

“If you don’t find what you’re looking for and you have to go back in, all you’ve gotta do is punch in this code.” She jabs him in the chest with a folded piece of card, as close to paper as they’ve been able to find out here, and twice as durable. She could have sent him the info, but they both know this transaction is better left under the table. “The system should wipe itself automatically when you’re done. And Keith—“ Her hand flattens on his dark chestplate, and her eyes are troubled. “Please don’t forget why you’re doing this.”

He nods, and puts a gloved hand over hers. “I won’t. I’ll figure this out, and I’ll find him.”

She nods back, a wobbly smile rolling over on her face.

“Okay,” she says. “Okay, I gotta go. I can’t—I wish I could see him, but.”

“Yeah,” Keith agrees sadly.

She smiles again, fleeting, and gathers her kit. “We can’t spare another paladin,” she says, quickly, like it doesn’t matter. “Don’t get lost in there.”

He opens his mouth to reply, but she’s already putting her visor down, and walking out into the crowd.

______

This time, he finds himself on a boardwalk during a powder pink sunset. The air smells blisteringly of salt and roasting meat, and faceless people mill over the beach: parents holding hands with kids, couples sharing shaved ice, a galloping golden retriever in a red bandana.

The leftover scorch of the day blows in off the coast to meet him, like the wave from an open oven door.

He walks purposefully onto the sandbar, craning in circles, trying to catch a glimpse of a familiar face. He feels—pre-heartbroken, caught in the final moments of a long walk to an open casket.

“Where’ve you been?”

He whips around, and Lance is pulling one earbud out, squinting into the sun at him.

“Lance?” he asks, through what feels like a mouth full of marbles.

“Uh-huh,” he says, eyebrow quirked. “The one and only.” He settles back into the shade of his umbrella.

Keith shakes his head to clear it. There’s a red and white striped towel set out next to Lance’s, and he sinks down onto it, overcome. Is this Earth? Did Pidge program this specifically? Is it one of the date settings on the simulator? He can’t remember. He can’t see past the illusion at all.

Lance offers him an earbud. “Come on, Red, will you relax? Pretend you’re not the kind of person who sleeps with a knife under your pillow.” He accepts the bud, numb, and tucks it in his ear. He’s expecting synth pop, but it’s an old R&B song, smoky and familiar. “No overthinking on the beach.”

He can’t stop looking at him. It’s uncanny—the dusky chapped lips, the mole next to his mouth, the cowlick over his ear. His eyes are intelligent, laser-focused on Keith. “Where are we?”

“Dear sweet Keith. Senile at age twenty. So sad.”

“Shut up.” He has to look away, to mask the full-colour magazine spread of conflicted feelings on his face. It all feels a bit like a lucid dream that he shouldn’t jostle too hard. “I’m not used to this.”

Lance’s expression softens. “Hey man, I get it. Being home is weird. Sometimes it’s like—I can’t even remember how we got here.” He shakes his head. “But also I’m so happy to be back, I’m like—screw PTSD.”

His chest aches, badly. “I don’t think it works like that.”

“Rich coming from you, Mr. repression,” Lance says, rolling his eyes.

“I’m not doing that any more,” Keith says. “I’m working through my shit.”

“How admirable.” His mouth twitches. He produces a Palm Bay from his slouchy little backpack, tossing it from hand to hand as if testing its heft. “I’m drowning my sorrows in coolers, personally.”

And then he lunges, spritzing the can open in Keith’s face.

“Jesus, Lance,” he sputters, smacking it out of his hand. They scuffle, briefly, and that helpless, ebullient laugh blows past him like candy bubbles.

“Your—face—“

“You’re so immature—“

“Easy, cowboy, don’t you remember what team bonding looks like?” He pinches Keith’s cheek teasingly, and Keith grabs his wrist.

A pulse flutters under his fingertips.

He scrambles backwards, clothes dragging against the sand, a stray sandal popping off. The heat and grit is so real. If he focuses hard enough on the smell of meat coming off the boardwalk, his mouth waters. Lance looks at him incredulously.

“What? That’s too far for you? I barely touched you!”

“You touched me,” Keith repeats. He can still feel that pulse, like a second heart in his own body. He stands up, shedding sand, and Lance looks up at him, mild expression tinted with hurt. Keith sways, sidelined by a wave of vertigo. He can’t be here right now. “End—“

“You’re being so weird. Like Kuron all over again.”

He stops. “You think I’m a clone?”

“Obviously not really,” Lance says, getting up on his knees. “But that is the level of weird we’re dealing with here. You’re looking at me like you’re about to cry.”

“It’s just—home.” He gestures awkwardly. “Tandem bikes. Coconut sunscreen. Seagulls eating fries out of the trash. The ocean. Earth reminds me of you.”

"Birds eating garbage reminds you of me?" Lance quirks a skeptical expression at him. “Maybe you are working through some shit.”

He reaches for his abandoned sandal, dusting sticky sand from the straps. “You can’t even imagine.”

“Try me.”

Keith looks across at Lance’s calm, determined face, and the words rise up in him like a groundswell.

“I know I haven’t earned it, and I know it doesn’t make sense to you, but I miss how things used to be. And the worse everything gets the more I keep wondering what you would say, or do, and I hate that—god,” he breaks off, and presses his palms briefly to his eyes. “I mean, you would’ve had no way of knowing how I felt. I didn’t even know. But I should’ve—I just thought we would have more time after the war, or I would die and it wouldn’t matter. And I guess I assumed you were always going to be there, because you always were, even when I didn’t want you to be, and now—I don’t know, Lance, I don't know how I’m supposed to go to the castle, or pilot Red, or look at the planet I grew up on without remembering how much you loved it, and how much I love you—“

“Keith, what?” Lance says, alarmed. “You’re freaking me out.”

“Where are you?” he frets.

“I’m here.” He crawls closer, but Keith can't look at him. He watches the fussy waves coming in off the shore instead. “I’m right here.” He rests his hands on Keith’s ankles, and he has to steady himself on Lance’s shoulders when his knees go loose. “Man, I shouldn’t have joked about PTSD. I mean, I feel like this sometimes too.”

Keith looks down into his face. “What?”

“You know, like I’m back there. Like—time doesn’t even exist. Being off-planet was such a bitch sometimes. You feel like you can disappear in all that open space. And sometimes you want to.”

“Lance,” Keith whispers. “You wanted to disappear?”

“Yeah, sometimes,” Lance says, serene. “Just for a while. Let someone else defend the universe for a bit, preferably an adult. Hey, don’t look at me like that, I didn’t do it!”

“You would have told us,” Keith says, through bloodless lips.

“Sure,” Lance offers.

“No. No. You would’ve said something.”

Lance takes his hands away uncertainly.

“I wouldn’t have done it,” he says flatly. “I’m just telling you that I understand being pissed off, and I understand wanting to—hit pause.”

“What about hitting stop?” Keith asks. “What about disappearing so thoroughly that whole galaxies full of alien technology can’t find you?”

Lance’s face is a spinning wheel; he cycles through all manner of confusion, impatience, and worry before settling on defensiveness. “What the fuck are you talking about? Are you out of your mind?”

“If I am, it’s your fault,” Keith snaps. “How could you leave us?”

“How could I leave?” There’s no question now, that this is data from his Lance. His tetchy, self-conscious anger is unmistakeable. “You’re the one who ditched us for the Blades right when we were at a tipping point. You’re the one who wadded two years up and threw them in the trash. You didn’t have to care about us but you absolutely should’ve talked to us. We were a team.”

“You think I don’t care about you?” Keith laughs. “That’s fucking hilarious.”

“I’m really laughing,” Lance says sarcastically. “I don’t know what sort of crazy pills you took that made you think that I’m the deserter out of the two of us. I wish I could be that delusional. I may have wanted out once or twice, but I would never, ever leave the people who need me.” He’s fuming, and the wind is blowing through his curls like it’s trying to placate him.

Keith’s anger wobbles. It hurts, to hear Lance talking this way after so long. It’s not the reunion they deserve.

“I know. I know that.”

Lance sits back on Keith’s towel, frowning. He brushes the drained cooler away, and the remnant dribbles out and darkens the sand. “I don’t know why you always have to ruin everything.”

Keith’s throat aches, and he crosses his arms protectively over his chest.

“Me neither.”

Lance glances up, surprised. And then his gaze slides purposefully beyond Keith, considering. After a moment something comes over him, and his whole demeanour changes. “Keith,” he says softly. “Did you say you loved me?”

Keith screws his eyes shut. After a moment he hears Lance moving closer, reaching out, fingertips barely grazing the back of his hand—

“End simulation. Please.”

He crouches in the dark. “Please.”

______

“Oh, fuck you,” Lance crows. He ducks out from under Keith’s staff, and then grabs the end of it, using the momentum to slide through Keith’s wide stance.

He spins around, and Lance is five feet away, holding his own staff up to his eye like a sniper rifle.

“Bang,” he says.

“This is close combat,” Keith reminds him. He throws his weapon like a spear at Lance’s ankle, and he yelps when it makes contact.

“How is that close combat? You javelin wielding motherfucker. You should be disqualified, and jailed for your crimes.”

He watches Lance shake out his foot like it really hurts, testing his weight and pretending to stumble, falling forward—and then whirling around in time to clash staffs with Keith.

“Shit,” Lance laughs, up close, hot with exertion, putting the pressure of his body weight on the cross they’ve made between them. “Thought I had you.”

“Do you want to surrender?”

“Do you want to kiss my ass?” Lance retorts.

Keith steps out of the way, and Lance’s momentum sends him tumbling head-first to the floor.

“Sure,” he says coolly. “Turn over.”

“What the hell,” Lance says, rolling onto his knees, flustered.

“You lost.”

“Yeah, whatever, like six to five.”

“Six to four,” Keith corrects, and offers him his hand. Lance pretends to spit into it, then flops back onto his hands instead.

“If we were duelling with pistols, I would humiliate you. You would have to drop out of Voltron.”

“By that logic, you should be packing your bags right now.”

Lance throws his head back and laughs. “I’m going to fucking kill you, Kogane.”

“Try me.”

Lance shrugs, but just as Keith starts to look away, he throws himself at him. It’s so unexpected that Keith actually goes down, wrists slammed to the mat on either side of his body, wind knocked out of him.

Lance laughs breathlessly, looming messy and sweaty above him. “Wow, that was embarrassing for you. Your arrogance is your downfall.”

“You’re my downfall,” Keith says, a little too flat and sincere across the top, and Lance purses his lips.

“You’re taking this too seriously, dude.” He lets go easily, and rolls out on his back next to him instead. He flexes his wrist in the air above them both, and Keith watches his fingers work. “Why does it feel like it’s been forever since we sparred?”

“It has,” Keith says simply.

“I guess,” Lance yawns. “I can’t even remember the last time.”

His heart is still pounding from the first serious, sustained training he's done in months. When Lance goes to sit up, Keith puts a staying hand on his chest.

“Hey, Lance," he says. Lance hums. "If you got separated from your lion for any reason, would you—what would you do?”

He frowns. “I dunno. Alert you guys. Rescue mish.”

“What if you couldn’t contact us?”

Lance looks sideways at him. “Not loving this thought experiment. Why are you being so weird?”

“Please,” Keith says, taking Lance’s sore wrist, feeling for the artificial thud of his pulse. “Just—answer.”

“Uh. I don’t know, am I captured? Or planet-side?”

Keith swallows. “Planet-side.”

Lance nods, considering. “If the locals are part of the alliance, I would get their intel, and find a way to reach you. If not, I guess I would lie low. Wait for a friendly ship and signal them.”

“That could take years. It might never happen, depending on where you ended up. Like—alien vessels aren’t cruising over Earth very often.”

“Says you,” Lance jokes. “The truth is out there.”

“You could die waiting,” Keith insists, dropping his hand. “What if the atmosphere wasn’t compatible? The flora and fauna? What if your suit was compromised?”

“I would heroically overcome all obstacles, whistle for my trusty lion, and ride off into the cosmos,” he replies sardonically, “what do you want from me?”

“I just think we should have more rescue protocols in place in case something goes south.”

“Right,” Lance says slowly. “Well, I mean—and I’m going to try and get through this without gagging—I have your back, man. And if we get separated, I’m pretty sure you can take care of yourself.” He gestures at their discarded staffs. “Not as well as me, of course,” he sniffs, glancing sidelong at Keith to see if he’s cheered him up.

Keith feels the phantom weight of Lance’s body crushing him to the mat, a window of weakness pried open, broken and entered. He breathes out. “Yeah. You’re too good for that.”

______

He asks Pidge for more scenarios, and more user profiles. For fleshing things out, he tells her. For recreating the circumstances under which Lance was lost, testing his reactions to different situations, and introducing as many variables as possible.

Slowly, inevitably, he starts to lose control of it all.

He’s still a correspondent to the Blade of Marmora, and he’s on call as a paladin, but they haven’t been able to form Voltron in years. He’s perpetually out of sync with the rest of the universe, living more and more like a washed-up casino-goer, existing only for the market stall where he can plug his friends in and relive the past.

He pays off the owner not to ask questions, and gets an apartment on Seachmall, barely the size of a lion cockpit, just a sparse kitchenette and a twin cot. He spends hours in the simulator and crashes on his bare mattress, bathed in the constant, spectacular glow from the street lights.

Every time he staggers away from the market he has to remember that the real Lance is rotting somewhere, and he’s here playing dress up with shadows.

It’s all easier, in the holodeck.

He loads the original paladin line-up into battle, relives their victories and rights their wrongs. He finds himself in the kitchen of the castle of lions, in a ballroom overlooking a fathoms-deep canyon, curled in Lance’s bed so he can finally sleep. He takes his friends to Earth a hundred different ways.

There’s always a fog, a strangeness about them when they think too hard about where they are, but he knows it’s a mercy. He ends each simulation on the verge of spinning out, functionally pulling the trigger on his dearest friends.

Reality sags out of his grip. Pidge and Hunk call sometimes, and often Kolivan or Allura will give him status reports, scattered missions, and lectures that walk the line between morally superior and deeply, uncomfortably worried. When Shiro starts up daily check-ins, he understands that they all know what he’s been doing, lost on Seachmall for so long.

“You’re taking care of yourself, right?” Shiro asks.

“Yes,” Keith tells him. He’s staring at the empty wall across from his bed, absently sharpening his knife. “I’m just killing time.”

“We really miss you around here. It’s too quiet.”

He tests his blade, rolling his shoulder. “I’m not exactly bringing the party when I’m out there.”

Shiro hums. “I don’t know, you certainly keep things interesting.”

Keith snorts.

“I’m serious!” He can hear the smile in his voice. “There’s only so much quantum mechanics and ancient magic I can take before I want to hit something. I want my sparring partner back.”

They lapse into silence, and Keith traces patterns in the air, enjoying the fine metallic sound of a weapon without a target.

“You know we’re still looking, right?” Shiro asks. Keith stops cutting the air, and puts his knife down on the bed beside him.

“Are you?”

“Yes,” Shiro says. “Of course we are. Allura and I are visiting every contact she has, and Hunk and Pidge are working—overtime. We’re picking up a lot of slack here.”

The back of his neck prickles with guilt. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Shiro sighs. “I’m telling you this because you’re my brother.” But he has his diplomat voice on, which Keith has always hated. “And I don’t know if you’re thinking about what it’s going to do to the rest of us if you don’t come back from this.”

“From a simulator?” he asks, incredulous.

“From grieving,” Shiro corrects. “I would never tell you to stop looking, but I think you know you’re not going to find him in those projections.”

“I could,” he says stiffly. “He tells me things—every day he gives me clues and he doesn’t even know it.”

“He doesn’t tell you anything,” Shiro says gently. “Because it’s not him. Do you remember when Allura had to let go of her father? It was so easy for her precious memories to be corrupted, and even easier to get swept away in the illusion. Everything in a simulator is finite, Keith, but you can’t be. You have to grow, and change, and move on.”

He thinks of every different shade of Lance he’s seen, every secret door that gives and leads to another wing. “You don’t get it.”

“Of course I get it. If Adam—“ he cuts himself off, and his breath shudders over the line. “You’re not the only one to be feeling this loss, or to be struggling.”

“But I never even got to love him," Keith argues. “I never got close enough to put any of these feelings anywhere, and now they’re everywhere. No one ever gives me the chance to love them before they—“ he swallows, and when he goes to speak again he finds there’s nothing else to say.

“I know how hard it’s been for you,” Shiro says sadly. “But Keith, understand—we all love you. No matter where we are or what we’re doing. We don’t have to verbalize it to feel it.”

“Okay,” he says, numb.

“We love you,” he reiterates. “Lance did too.”

“Thanks for checking on me Shiro,” he says, and hangs up.

______

“No way, no way, no way,” Lance crows. “This is slander.”

“It can’t be slander if all of us were there to see it,” Hunk says, but he can’t look at Lance without cracking up.

“You’re remembering wrong,” he says. “She asked me to give a speech.”

“She asked you not to,” Pidge says, rolling her eyes. “Begged you, even.”

“Boo,” Lance laughs. “I was just trying to have a good time at alliance banquet number five zillion.”

They’re clustered on blankets between the yellow lion’s hulking paws, in the soft local vegetation of one of the last planets they liberated as a team. They were buzzed, when this conversation actually happened, but Keith hasn’t been able to replicate that particular feeling through the simulator.

“I don’t know why you always have to lie to these people,” Keith says, just as he did on the actual occasion.

“Embellish,” Lance protests. “I live by the principle that everyone wants to hear the best possible version of the story, and you owe it to them to tell it.”

“But the best version is almost never the real version,” Hunk says, exasperated.

“I dunno man, what’s real anyway?” Pidge says, easing back into the blankets. “Our lives are such a clusterfuck as it is. The line of what’s actually impossible gets farther away every day.”

“Yeah,” Lance says. “What squidge said. Lying is cool.”

“Ugh, don’t call me that,” Pidge complains.

“What, I’m agreeing with you,” Lance says, grinning. He leans over to give her a big-brotherly hair-pull that she intercepts with a karate chop.

“People deserve to know the truth,” Keith says mechanically, following the script, but then feeling flushed and hypocritical all at once.

“Okay, here’s a truth, universally acknowledged: Keith sucks,” Lance says.

“Hm. Sounds like another lie to me,” Hunk says, and Lance reaches up to steal his headband in retaliation. Hunk rolls his eyes and lets him have it, like he’s appeasing an overactive puppy.

Something skitters in the dark, beyond the dunes of Yellow’s paws.

“Don’t you have a rebuttal, Keith?” Pidge asks, sitting up on her hands.

“Why are you encouraging them?” Hunk groans.

Keith shrugs and stays silent; Lance’s gaze narrows shrewdly.

“You aren’t one of those weepy drunks, are you?”

Keith picks at a loose thread in their shared blanket. “No, I just changed my mind,” he says, veering off-book. “I don’t know why I was acting like it was ridiculous that you like telling stories, when it obviously makes people feel better to believe them.”

“Oh. Well. Glad you came to your senses,” Lance interrupts, overly loud. He always seems to hate it when Keith gets sincere like this. He begs for attention but recoils when he gets too much.

“Most of these alliance parties happen after a long period of unrest. So… what, you helped grieving people by acting like a superhero? To them, you are a superhero. God, I couldn’t stand that you took so much credit for our victories, but I should’ve given you more.”

Lance blinks at him.

He remembers with fire-bright clarity how this scene actually played out, the way Keith kept needling at Lance’s hero complex, accusing him of making things up so he could pretend he’d been helpful. Lance had dialled his bravado to a screaming pitch so he could hide the soft, spoiled look in his eyes where Keith had lodged a cruel sword that he couldn’t pull out.

Now, Lance purses his lips so he doesn’t have to figure out what to do with his expression.

“Huh,” Pidge says, chewing on a pseudo-protein bar from their rations. “That’s some unexpected character growth.”

“Are you… feeling okay?” Hunk asks.

Keith looks miserably down at his own crossed legs until Lance says, “not that I don’t appreciate it, but you did just do kind of an impressive one-eighty.”

He looks up. “Yeah, sorry. I don’t know what the fuck I’m talking about.”

Lance smiles a little, relieved. He waggles the flask they’ve been sharing in his direction. “You just need to drink more.”

“No,” Keith disagrees, shaking his head. “I want to remember this.”

______

He opens his eyes to the world on its side, gritty endless flatlands sprayed out against a hazy auburn sky.

He rolls, putting his arm over his face, a visor against radiant twin suns.

He doesn’t have to look to remember the architecture at his back, a cubist explosion of edges and colours, each shape squared off and set into the hills. When the paladins liberated Imedemaa, they were offered accommodation in homes that corresponded to their lions: terracotta red, cobalt blue, mustard yellow, foliage green, and a brown so dark it could pass as black.

It’s his favourite place to visit: brilliant views, kind people, warm bed, privacy and proximity bumping shoulders comfortably.

Keith rolls again, sitting up. He feels heat-sick, and if it were real, he knows he would be bruised tan in the coast-to-coast sunshine. He’s spread out on the same outdoor palette where he fell asleep nearly three years ago. His apartment is warm, dull red, nearly orange. The shimmering public baths sparkle with activity just below his balcony.

“Yoo-hoo, neighbour.”

Keith squints over the waist-high wall and finds Lance clambering from his own balcony onto Keith’s.

“You’re going to fall to your death.”

“Nah,” Lance says, swinging a leg down over the railing and sitting contemplatively with one foot dangling over empty space and the other brushing the floor. “There’s a pool down there. Worst case scenario I perform an exceptional and history-making canon-ball.”

Keith watches him climb the rest of the way over, staggering and sitting heavily on Keith’s palette next to him.

“Oof,” he says. Lance's skin is dazzling in this climate, dark and freckled like granite. The simulation reminds him that he smelled like lotus, this day, fresh from the baths, warm shoulder and drizzling wet hair. “Are you ready to absolutely blow this popsicle stand?”

“And do what?” Keith asks, a little breathless from proximity.

“Did you seriously forget? It’s racing day!”

“Oh,” Keith says faintly. “Right.” They used to rent speeders for fun sometimes; the whole team participating at first, and then Keith and Lance alone when they surpassed friendly competition into bet-making and sabotage.

They would sneak back whenever they could swing the time off, careening around dusty corners and ramming one another’s speeders into hysterical tailspins. They would sob with laughter and then spritz their canteens all over each other, tussling in the dirt, so coordinated that it was almost an embrace.

The thought of it had driven him out of bed this morning, but he felt sick and shaky as he typed Pidge’s code into the simulator, setting the modified location of Imedemaa and rolling into a memory so fine and warm that it reminded him of death itself.

“Woah. easy, Red,” Lance says, his voice sharp with concern. Keith comes back to himself to realize that he’s angling into a panic attack, holding his own head in his hands. He can’t spoil this memory. Not this one.

“I—I—“ He can’t speak. Lance makes a dismayed noise, his entire demeanour turning inside out.

“Can I hug you, man?”

Keith jerks his head ‘no’. “I—can’t—you—“

Lance gets to his feet, and Keith grabs at him, hooking fingers in a belt loop, a fistful of shirt, whatever his hands find first.

“Hey, shh, it’s cool, I’m just getting you some water.”

Keith shakes his head again. “Don’t leave me.”

“Will you tell me what’s wrong?” Lance asks softly, sitting back down. “We don’t have to go racing today.”

Keith huffs this weird cartwheel of a laugh, and scrubs a hand over his eyes and nose.

“I think I dreamed you were dead,” he tells him. He doesn’t look up into his face, but Lance’s chest is steady in front of him, rising and falling evenly with each breath.

“Who, me? I’m fine, Keith, look at me.”

“It felt real.”

“Pretty sure it wasn’t,” Lance says, laughter tucked into his worry like a concealed weapon. Keith looks up at him, and Lance beams under his full attention. He wipes the tears from Keith’s cheeks with his thumbs.

Abruptly, he can’t stand it.

“You’re a hologram,” Keith whispers. Lance’s smile falters.

“What?”

“Do you remember how Pidge took our mental blueprints?”

Lance nods quickly. He’s not brushing Keith off, he’s not slow with disbelief. He’s clear and sharp and his face is increasingly overcast with fear.

“I’m using your data in a simulation. This holiday on Imedemaa, it was years ago. You’re not the real Lance.” It hurts, to admit it, but it’s clear that it hurts Lance much, much more.

“No,” he chokes. “No, I feel real.”

“I know you do,” Keith says, reaching for his hand.

But Lance jerks away, standing and reeling backwards, hands splayed out on red paint, which could be gore, really, bleeding out from Lance’s palms like that. “I was so fucking scared of this.“

“I’m sorry,” Keith says, watching this shade of Lance shaking through self-awareness, and feeling the weight of the words that could end it in his mouth.

“Why—where—“

“He’s gone,” Keith whispers.

“Gone as in gone?”

“Gone as in I can’t find him.”

“So why the fuck are you wasting time on this Black Mirror shit, and not out there looking for me?” he demands.

“I’ve looked everywhere.” The agony of his failure slides home all over again. “The search party is a million strong by now. I’ve talked to a hundred versions of you looking for an answer.”

“A hundred,” Lance says. “So what, when I tell you what you want to hear, you delete me?”

“I’m not wiping the data or anything, I—I don’t know how it works,” he admits.

“Jesus. Jesus Keith, this is fucked up.”

Tears start to well up, and he wipes them away furiously. He never used to cry like this. He never used to feel so constantly ravaged by guilt and fear. It used to live in his gut and press at his throat, but he could keep it wrapped and sealed inside his body.

“I miss you,” Keith tries, and Lance’s face twists with despair.

“I really wish it didn’t take this horror show to make you say that.”

Somewhere, something splashes and someone shrieks with laughter. Lance looks at him miserably, hunched in the shade from the terrace, brow damp with terrified perspiration. He absolutely shouldn’t have told him. He remembers Pidge laughing darkly, I’m not that cruel.

“What do you want me to do,” Keith asks quietly.

“What choice do I have?” Lance asks. “I’m a fucking video game character. I’m a dead man walking.”

“Do you want to do anything? Before I end this session.”

Lance swallows, considering. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I do, actually.”

______

They race.

What feels like all day, ripping in circles under arching rocks and through clinging, dragging sand, until the suns are setting, twin flames set into the desert like jewels.

Lance is extra reckless, gorgeous, perched high on his speeder and arched forward to reach the controls. His face, below the goggles, is streaked with mud, and he keeps crying out when he tips over too far or pulls triumphantly ahead of Keith, cathartic, unfiltered.

“One more lap,” he shouts, over the thrum of noise from the speeder.

“I’ll beat your ass,” Keith calls, trying for normalcy, but they’ve both kind of been crying on and off all day, and this is the last thing this Lance will ever do, and really, he’s not that cruel.

“Fucking try,” Lance says, pulling his bandana up over his mouth and taking off.

“Hey!” Keith laughs. “No countdown?”

“I think I deserve a head start,” he calls over his shoulder, but most of his voice is whipped away by the wind.

The speeder rips sideways, sliding over a natural boulder ridge that drops off into nothingness. Strange gravity keeps him on the right side of the cliff, and he hoots with joy, galloping metres and metres ahead as Keith eases through the same turn.

“You’re gonna—“ get yourself killed. He bites his tongue. Lance can’t hear him anyway. He zigzags through natural obstacles, glancing back in disbelief when Keith pulls up behind him. His face is red with the effort of staying upright.

“Can’t you let me win for once,” Lance cries, slamming on the thrusters and stirring up a fog of dust behind him. Keith coughs and dodges, feeling on the very edge of an awareness too big to name, like being able to feel one stage of grief ending and another beginning.

Sometime during Lance’s luxurious lead he’s taken off his helmet, and now the desert wind is whipping his hair straight.

He takes the next corner much too fast, and Keith’s heart is in his throat as he inevitably spins out, in smooth little frictionless circles at first, weightless as a bumper car—and then the rear of the speeder catches on a jutting rock and he’s ejected altogether. He topples out into the sifting dunes, rolling half a dozen times and stopping himself so abruptly that Keith can hear something snap.

He pulls up hard, tumbling off the speeder and throwing his helmet out into the sand, running as best he can to where Lance landed.

When he reaches him he’s cradling a severely broken arm to his chest, and the bone is piercing through the skin. There’s blood everywhere, weeping through his fingers, streaked high on his hairline, staining his shirt and the tawny sand beneath him.

“Would’ve been great if you could have programmed me not to hurt,” Lance wobbles. Stiff upper lip, terribly pale.

“Didn’t know you were going to throw yourself off a speeder.”

“Yeah, well. Me neither.” He hisses as Keith takes his wrist in his hand, unfathomably gentle, turning it this way and that.

“This looks terrible.”

Lance snorts. “Thank you doctor Keith.”

“I don’t think we brought any first aid,” he mutters, frowning, digging through the pack at his hip.

“I don’t need it.”

“Are you kidding me? You’re—“

“Keith.” He looks up at him, smudgy and sweaty and splashed with five kinds of red in the fading light. “I don’t need it.”

Keith trembles, still searching for a bandage or a stopper or an answer of any kind. “No. I hate this.”

Lance smiles grimly. “I don’t love it that much either. But hey, maybe there’s a way to bring me back. This exact version of me. From the ether somewhere. Doesn’t feel quite as permanent as capital D Death.” His eyes narrow. “As long as you don’t lose me, Red.”

“I won’t,” he whispers, parched and grief-torn. “Never again.”

“Okay. Okay.” He makes himself comfortable, stretched out on the sand, arm folded over his chest. “Hey, Keith?”

“Yeah?”

“Can you not—raise me from the dead again? I don’t think—I mean. A hundred versions of me and you haven’t found what you’re looking for.”

“But I have,” Keith says fiercely. “I always find what I’m looking for, because I’m looking for you.”

Lance laughs, coughs, squeezes his eyes shut. “That’s real romantic.”

Keith’s mouth twitches. “I’m glad you think so.”

Lance cracks an eye open. “Just find me the old fashioned way, will you? No more beautiful Lance casualties.”

“I—don’t know if I can promise that,” he says. “I miss you,” he reiterates.

“Yeah. More, I bet, when you’re looking right at me. Ever wonder why that is?”

Keith shakes his head fast.

“Dumbass,” Lance says fondly. “It’s literally always gonna hurt, trying to live in the past. Makes you feel like you don’t have a future.”

“Maybe I don’t.”

“That’s a pretty insensitive thing to say to a dying guy.”

Keith laughs wetly. “You’re being melodramatic.”

“When can you be melodramatic if not on your deathbed?”

Keith brushes the sticky hair from Lance’s forehead. He turns his face and Keith’s hand softens and cups his cheek comfortably.

“Pidge can do anything,” Keith tells him. “All your ones and zeroes will be safe somewhere until she can figure out somewhere for you to go.”

“Yeah, okay,” Lance says, like he barely heard him. He’s determined, heroic. Fucking heartbreaking. “I hope the real me gives you hell.”

Keith nods jerkily. “He always does.”

“I hope he—I hope he’s good to you, too.”

Keith’s face crumples, and he puts his forehead to Lance’s, feeling him wince when his chest grazes his broken arm.

“Sorry, sorry,” he sniffs, holding his face, wiping the blood and muck and tears back.

“It’s okay,” Lance says, starting to slur. “It’s okay, Red, just end it, quick.”

“You’re the last one,” Keith promises.

“Good,” Lance says, “because you’re not gonna do better than me.”

Keith laughs, putting their foreheads together again, and then kissing the place where a tear has rolled down into his hairline.

“See you soon,” he whispers. Lance leans up, golden, bloody.

Keith shudders, and says “end simulation” into his mouth.

Imedemaa winks out, and his whole world narrows instantly to a pinhead. He’s huddled on the floor over nothing at all, caught in the throws of fantasy, like a sleepwalker. When he licks his lips though, he swears he can still taste salt.

______

He leaves the simulator into the whiz and pop of another Seachmall night. The owner nods at him, looking vaguely troubled, possibly by the amount of time that Keith has been locked in his simulator today, and by the look on his face now, which he can only imagine is ripped in half by loss.

The market is busier than usual, stranger, overfull with alien tourists, so much so that the paladin simulator has accumulated a long line-up.

He sidesteps their stares, slipping soundlessly into the alley, already dialling Pidge on his communicator. She said the system would automatically wipe after each use, but he’s certain she can retrieve whatever information would be inaccessible to the public. She said herself that she doesn’t burn data.

He waits through the suck of the empty line, feeling antsy and keyed up, aching from a day of racing but incongruously clean and dry.

“Come on, Pidge,” he mutters.

Somewhere in the market, there’s a great clamour of voices. Something clatters to the ground, and someone apologizes profusely in common. Keith chews his lip distractedly, waiting for a thief to run by, a sheepish tourist, or scuffling rival business owners.

The line connects and disconnects in quick succession, and Keith kicks a trash disposal chute so hard that it dents.

He frets, thinking of Lance’s final moments, the wilting fear on his face, his mouth split open like fruit.

A hoverbike rounds the corner, and Keith only steps barely out of the way, nearly clipped by a wide fender. It crashes to a stop, making a thin, rumbling sound, and then its rider has whipped all the way around to stare at Keith. Achingly humanoid. Cobalt blue Motorcycle helmet. Rippling with motion even while sitting still.

They swing a leg over the seat of the bike, staggering closer, and Keith knows. He knows when a slender, gloved hand reaches for the visor, and when twin pistols clink and gleam from their holsters. The helmet falls, rolling into the dirt.

“Keith,” Lance breathes.

#vld #klance #voltron #klance fanfic #mine #alcohol mention #injury tw #I promise I'm working on my tfc wips but I took a hiatus to write a 20k voltron fic bc..... i felt... like it #long post #I know this might flop due to it being voltron lmao but hit me up if you want chapter 2!!

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