#my mind went back to my bioshock days

[textingtroublesanswers]

(･ω･*)ｰ *uh oh*

Not particularly? Only sometimes to vomit... Even then I have a pretty sturdy constitution.

Why?

-🦖

Ludwig looks away & clears his throat, "Well, a side effect of my work on the medigun is that my, well, my body fluids have healing properties. It's a function of my body that I have linked to my self-heal, which has only gotten stronger over the past thirty years since I first devised the formula I later reused for the medigun."

[playstar]

A couple of theories about chapter 2 of Double Exposure and Max herself.

Finished chapter 2 of Double Exposure on Saturday morning and my mind could not stop thinking about it. Shared my ramblings on Twitter already and thought this would be a good place to post them here too.

Double Exposure theories - What the hella hell is happening?

1) There's a shapeshifter/evil Doppelgänger running around. Evidence: Lucas' son talked to another Lucas, there's footage of another Gwen selling drugs to students, maybe there's even a Doppelganger-Safi that pissed off Gwen so much that she got Safi's book canceled. Only problem with that theory: Why would the shapeshifter want to discredit or even hurt those people? 2) The different timelines/dimensions are bleeding through. No shapeshifter, but people seeing different versions of people they know and even of themselves. Evidence: Reggie seeing himself at the overlook trying to solve the Abraxas puzzle box and the collectable polaroids that Max can find. 3) Some truly wild time travel shit à la Donnie Darko is happening. A lot of characters went back in time trying to change the timeline, including Max murdering Safi. But why? Is another storm coming or even something more apocalyptic? Maybe time is about fall apart like in Quantum Break? The questions that will hunt me in the next two weeks: - Why did Max or somebody who looked like Max murder Safi? - What's up with the field of flowers looking like Safi's body? That could be straight out of Annihilation. - Is Safi... secretly an asshole?

The Max is Dead Theory

I believe the other Max is dead in the Living timeline (the irony!). Evidence: - We never really get to meet the Max from the Living timeline. - At the end of the first chapter the Living timeline Max is late for her meeting with Safi. Only our Max from the Dead timeline appears. - Amanda in the Living timeline says to our Max that she hasn't written back for two days (I think). - Near the end of chapter 2 our Max comments that her apartment/huge goddamn house looks like it wasn't visited for a couple of days. It pretty much looks like it did when Safi and Max went to the abandoned bowling alley. - She's barefoot on the cover of Abbey Road.

In the (non-canon) Life is Strange comics Max travels, similar to Double Exposure, to another dimension. At the end of the comic series we learn that she was only able to do that because the Max of the other dimension died. That's a concept very similar to the Amazon show The Man in the High Castle: People can only travel between parallel worlds if their counterpart in the other world died. So, when did the other Max die? Remember at the beginning of the game when Safi rescues Max from the falling planetchandelierdecorationwhateveritis thing? What if she didn't? Maybe because Safi wasn't there with Max in the first place to be able to rescue her. Yuuuup. Oooof. There's a dead Max rotting in that abandoned bowling alley and nobody knows she's dead because our Max keeps appearing in their timeline, making them believe their Max is still alive. Dark. BioShock Infinite Burial at Sea levels of dark. Man, I should replay that game. Ignoring all that, there's the possibility that the other Max is still alive! Maybe she isn't dead, but disappeared somehow. Maybe she herself hopped to another timeline, who knows! Lingering questions: - Who's Gun Holding Meme Max from the end of chapter 2? Is she the Max from the Living timeline? Or a completely different timeline? - Why does Gun Slinging Max want to murder Safi? It's the hideous jacket, isn't it?

[screwtheprinceimtakingthehorse]

Top of the Stack, Issue 26

Greetings friends,

just a quick hello from me before the month is out! February was rough in so many ways. I only posted a few updates on Twitter and kept folks up to date through the discord server, so if you’ve been wondering why I’ve been kinda quiet, here’s a sign of life!

I’m ok! My family’s been put through it this month, with first my godfather passing away, then my dad suffering a stroke just three weeks ago, and now my mum’s apartment being uninhabitable thanks to a broken heater that the landlord isn’t really fussed about repairing. In the middle of winter. There’s other stuff going on I won’t go into here, but these next few months will be eventful. Something something unprecedented times.

The good news: after three weeks in hospital, receiving genuinely excellent care, my dad is back home! He’s made a remarkable recovery. Thankfully, mum can stay with him while she looks for a new place to live — it means she’ll worry less, and he can help her with the paperwork. It’s very German of him, I think. Give a man paperwork to do and he learns to walk again.

I took a break from streaming and everything throughout all that because there was no way I could have even pretended to be a functional human being. My sister and I also both stayed with our mum for the first week after dad’s stroke, and every single day was so exhausting, emotionally and physically. As healing as it was to have all four of us together, and see how much it helped my parents to have us show up like that and be present, there’s still a cost to it. You’re running on survival mode — the three of us had to remind each other to eat, to drink enough, to take sit down — and at the same time there’s a want for normalcy. To enjoy the time together, to dig for another silly joke, another laugh. For my dad, it was a huge part of his early recovery: to know that this was not the end.

Once I came back home and things were looking so much better than the week before, I just let myself rest. I went back to work, but the remainder of the time, I played video games. I’d torn through Horizon Zero Dawn the first weekend to distract myself, and then it was straight on to Forbidden West. The right amount of game, at the right time. (I really mostly played it to turn my brain off, but it turns out I caught thoughts in spite of myself: there’s a blog and video essay coming about knowledge as an objective and theme in both games’ narratives.) I’ve slowed it down now, but I still sit down nearly every evening to play more. I can enjoy it for what it is, and playing it doesn’t bring anything back up. But it really helped.

Can a video game save a life? Yes. Without that distraction, my mind would have turned itself inside-out with grief. It is grief, even when you’re not (yet) bereaved. Only time will tell how we all process this. Thus far, the relief over my dad’s quick progress has bolstered us, I think. But there’ll be more to deal with, as there always is.

I’m back to streaming and making videos and writing now, after taking time to adjust to everyday life and recalibrate my energy. I did a recording session for Bioshock first; sort of as a practice run for to-camera stuff and interacting at least with an asynchronous audience. This gave me the added safety net of being able to just stop at any point without having to manage any (even positive!) reaction in the moment. That went well, however, so I felt confident in streaming again on Friday. I enjoy it so much, and I knew that taking a break was the right choice precisely when my feeling switched from being glad I had nothing on on a Friday night for a while to being excited to stream again.

Now we’re heading into March and I hope that it will be a kinder time for all of us. Be gentle with yourselves 💜

[give-grian-rights]

HERMITCRAFT 8 LIVEBLOGGING

fifteen hermits worth of liveblogging. i am losing my mind. LONG POST AHEAD.

JOE HILLS (First HC8 Video)

Mumbo did the speech. he forgot everything he was supposed to say <3

Pearl and Gemini were just .in a pit . having stuff thrown onto them

Every Hermit is staying on the same continent !!

FIRST DEATHS VERY QUICKLY, Iron Golems took out Tango and Etho (maybe more?)

Joe seems to be the only one looting the chests

Evil Jevin !!

Evil Xisuma appearance on Jevin’s 60 second video!

Pearl has something planned for an “archeticual wonder” for a resupply area upon death?

Stress, Xisuma and Joe are capturing villagers and starting up a resupply debut.

Bdubs is killed by Cleo and is now OUT FOR BLOOD

First death counts- Etho, Tango, Bdubs, Cleo?

Cleo was killed by Keralis

Joe has now supplied Cleo with weapons and food . She left but not before saying “Time to kill BDubs again!”

Gemini was killed by Bdubs! They both died and are now at spawn.

Pearl was killed by Cleo

Pearl is planning a respawn inn !!

Cleo was killed by Iskall

Cleo was killed by Pearl

False, Stress, and Gemini team up??? AA!!! they brought a delivery of supplies to Joe <3

i wish i knew what was happening on that end .

APPARENTLY XISUMA IS ONTO MAKING THE SECOND VILLAGER BREEDER ALREADY ??

Iskall is the first with Diamonds??

Breathe in that ash !

WAIT IS TANGOS EYES LIKE THAT RN BECAUSE HES TEAMED WITH KERALIS AND BDUBS ???

KERALIS, BDUBS, AND TANGO TRIED TO DO A SHAKEDOWN ON JOE. HE TRIED TO DROP LAVA, GOT HIMSELF ONTO TWO HEARTS BECAUSE HE PLACED IT ON HIMSELF, AND IS NOW SWIMMING OUT INTO THE SWAMP

the big eyed trio are now off to shake down Gemini

Joe fell in Lava in the Nether

Joe Death To Lava Two: Electric Boogaloo

Joe drowned trying to kill a glowsquid

WATCH JOE’S VIDEO OH MY GOD SEAN HILLS RECAP RAP??? MY BELOVED????? i am gonna be streaming this unironically later LIKE OH MY GOD THIS SLAPS. ALSO THE CREDITS AT TEH END IS HILARIOUS

Zedaph Episode Recap

Zed gave us a recap of the continent every Hermit will be living on !!

Wouldn’t recommend Zedaph as the first video for the season, he skips the intro/speech but it’s Zedaph and hes making it fun!! Lots of nice editing :)

~SCIENCE TIME !~

Zedaph.. why is your starter base made out of concrete ?

There are no sheeps whatsoever on his mountain

Hes calling his lab an icecream sandwich..yeah i see it

Zed tried to make a portal underater...f

Scar died to a creeper </3

Zedaphs base is gonna be tracking how long hes there/someones loading the chunk!

XISUMA LIVE BLOGGING

A cool cinema scene of him becoming an axolotl!! <3

NOW I CAN SEE IT, GRIAN WAS THE FIRST DEATH!! Death by Iron Golem!!

XIsuma’s baseplans need over 45 THOUSAND BLOCKS TO BE PLACED

He’s also planning on making a shulkershell farm!!

i’m not gonna lie ! talking axolotl X is horrifying ! thanks !

Day one Villager Breeder... chaos.

Xisuma Derp! looked straight at a buncha wool and said how badly he needed beds and then walked away

THE GIRLS CAME OVER AND CONVINCED HIM HE NEEDS TO MOVE THE DESIGN OVER MY FIVE BLOCKS FOR SWAMP VILLAGERS..

THE GIRLS ARE JUST LAUGHING AT HIM AND HIS VILLAGER TROUBLES

day one and Xisuma has got his axolotl!!

Very pretty starterbase!!

XB’s

..I’m not gonna lie theres not much to say!! He’s very calm :) he says hes going into it without a plan, and htat last season was the only time he had any thought of what he was gonna do.

He made a real nice starter house and thats about it!

Cleo’s

Bdubs: “She ain’t gonna hurt me!! i’m invincible, babey!”

Cleo learnt that BDubs will never hurt her even if she deserves it . I am starting to realize why she kills him

SHE DECIDED SHES GONNA BE A PROPER CHAOS GREMLIN THIS SEASON...

AISDJASID CLEO GOT PAID TO KILL BDUBS?? HDUIAIHSI SCAR WHY

“Alright I found my mission for the season! Murder.”

Cleo, Mumbo, Grian, and Scar are all holed up in a cave together!

..Scar died from a skeleton !

Cleo has now split from Grian and Mumbo! Scar is missing in action

CLEO FOUND A GOAT

SHES KILLING THE GOAT???

she got a HORSE <3 and Joe gave her a saddle! I think her name is..Widget?

She LOVES the candles for shamboo n waterbottles and bits n bobs for her armorstands!!

Got her Armorstand stickgod book <3

Geminitay POV

NEW HERMIT NEW HERMIT NEW HERMIT!!

She has a LOVELY voice!!

The pov of her in a hole . being surrrounded . is kinda hilarious

It might’ve been Etho who was first death?? I GENUIENLY CANNOT TELL BECAUSE OF EDITING

All the murder was just for heads!

Seriously her voice is. wow

WE LOVE A QUEEN WHO KNOWS HOW TO CRAFT A SHIELD WITHOUT USING THE GUIDE <3

False, Gemini, and Stress are on the great journey for MOSS !

Gem just blew their minds with the moss.

TANGO KERALIS AND BDUBS ARE BACK Keralis: “Show the diamonds show the diamonds show the diamonds!” Gem: “Keralis. This is not how you make friends.”

The boys suecessfully recieved a diamond each

Etho n Iskall are travelling together!! You dont see those two together often

Etho got a glowsquid head!!

Gem: “Etho doesn’t share, is what i’m learning..?”

Etho hooked her with a fishing rod and said she has to do what he said .

In order to get the diamonds, Tango, Keralis, and BDubs placed down a sign saying “Gem is Great!” and Gem used a glow inksack on it.

Etho: “So..What is this? Do you have an ego, or this a motivational thing, or..?” He said, while laughing

Iskall: “I think its really funny that you have set your base up in the middle of a birch forest.” Gem: “I love birch forests! Do you not like my birch forest? Iskall: “I love it, yeah.” Gem: “This is the best biome in the game, Iskall.” Iskall: “Mmmm..” Etho: “I’m pretty sure I heard Iskall talking earlier that like, of all the biomes in the game, there was one he hated more than anything. Gem: “Oh really? And what was that one?” Iskall: “..Taiga.” Gem: “Taiga.. That’s true, thats a good one, thats a good one.” Iskall: “Don’t like Taiga.” Gem: “Mhm.” Etho: “Which one do you hate more than anyone?” Iskall: “..Diorite fields. Thats a bad one.” Etho: “Yeah thats a bad one.” Gem: “Didn’t know about that one. Well make sure to avoid’em. Birch forests are really good.” Iskall: “I’m a big fan of birch forests.” Gem: “Yeah, me too, me too. I’m glad we’re on the same page :) This is so beautiful! All the white and- and the like zebra stripes! is fantastic.” Iskall: “I..Um.. Yes.”

OH SHE’S CANADIAN,, ETHO HAS A FRIEND /j

She’s still in college :O SHE’S A SCIENTIST?? SHES WORKING AT A HOSPITAL?? POG!!

She accidentally found an enchanted golden apple in a mineshaft!! she thinks its the first she ever found in survival!!

She has a cow, sheep, and a few crop farms set up!! Her starter house has INTERRIOR!

SHE CHANGED HER SKIN AND ITS SO PRETTY AND HAS OVERALL AND I LOVE IT!!

shes doing a cottage core inspired base!

WOAHH!!! SHE MADE HTE MOST GOREGOUS CUSTOM TREE I’VE EVER SEEN ??

BDUBS IS HERE and he is so so so impressed by the tree ?!

also hes carrying a clock.. :(

He’s here with a present!

HE BROUGHT BAMBOO!

she thinks its so funny that he stops conversations to sleep AOIDHFEAUI\

SCARS

WE GOT A TRANSITION SCENE!! the canonical reason for the bed in his old village always being occupied is because underneath it, was his wizard portal!

Bdubs: “It’s a new season! You’re the little guy now!”

They are all very amused by that ^

they’re rubbing the fleece of bdubs jacket .

Bdubs: “Have a nice rub :)” PLEASEAHSIOJDIUASLDHIASDA

His starter base is gonna be a wagon and he wants the end game to be a bioshock esque skyscraper!

he confused a horse for a player . flashback to iskall thinking mumbo was a mob

PEOPLE THINK MUMBO DOESNT HAVE PANTS ON.... </3

Scar, Mumbo, and Grian.. have NO braincells. at all. THey just placed a crafting table with a boat on top with a bed on top with a boat on top .

this is what BROS FOR LIFE looks like.

BOATEM POLE !

SCAR IS STUCK UNDERGROUND IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT IRL AND HAS NO PICKAXE..

AND HE DIED TO A CREEPER .

it seems like Grian, Mumbo, and Scar are working together !!!! HOLY SHIT !!

THERES SO SO SO MANY FARMS???????

he died several times trying to catch a skeleton with a sword

FIRST CHEST MONSTER OF THE SEASON <3

SCAR JSUT TOLD BDUBS HE LOOKS LIKE OSCAR THE CROUCH... BDUBS CANNOT EVEN ARGUE

OH NO.... GRIAN WENT AFK IN A HOLE . WITHOUT A HELMET .

THEY PUT A  GLOWSQUID HEAD ON HIM

OH MY GOD MUMBO MADE A NOTEBLOCK SONG?? AJUDA

SCARS BUILTING IS SO SO SOOS GOREGOUS SERIOUSLY GO WATCH THE VIDEO OH MY GOD ITS HUGE

its a giant ass house boat wagon . its pulled by a llama . that killed him . so now its trapped, pulling hte agon, forever

Grian: “..Thats a very big house, for a very little hat.”

GRIANS SUPER SPECIAL EGG??

SCAR PUNCHED IT..

they really came out here . and killed the egg already.

Scar: “..I touched the thing”

TANGO POV

We see the three big eyed boys forming <3 they interrupted Tangos intro

THEY’RE BULLYING HIM ABOUT HAVING SMALL EYES AHIDUIASUHDWIS

HE TRIED TO CALL THE TRIO TEAM BUG EYE... THE OTHERS ARE VERY OFFENDED

they found an axolotl and Bdubs was TERRIFIED just screaming “WHAT IS THAT YELLOW THING?!”

BDUBS IS ATTACKING IT ???

okay nope Bdubs caught one and Tango lost it

Bdubs is naming his axolotl Idiot

AMAZING HOUSE. WHY IS TANGO SO GOOD AT BUILDING AND REDSTONE??

Impulse POV

MUMBO TRIED TO PLACE DOWN A BERRY BUSH TO HURT IMPULSE . HE FORGOT HOW BUSHES WORK..

I DIDNT EVEN NOTICE THAT IMPULSE WAS IN THE BOATEM POLE

so it looks like those four are hteo nes who grouped up together

PEARL BROKE THE CONSTITUION SHE GOT IN THE WRONG BOAT SMH

THIS IS SEASON EIGHT! FIVE BROS !

So its gonna be about five people in the same area!!

YOO!! Fantasy build for Impulse!!

G gave Impulse a spyglass, they had a fun moment of zooming in on eachothers face and complimenting eachother IHAUDIHAW

Grian and Impulse worked on an xp farm!

ASHDUIWAHISD GRIAN JUST LOGGED ON INFRONT OF HIM

a pillager stole his boat . not just any pillager . the one with a banner. </3

he has to live with Mumbo tuning a song .. </3 haha

Mumbo POV

it took fifteen seconds until Grian ran in during Mumbos intro

CONFIRMED? GRIAN WAS FIRST DEATH?

SECOND PERSON TO THINK MUMBOS PANTS ARE SKIN COLOR. GRIAN..

Grian: “Can you..Briefly explain why you’re just wearing a hawaiian shirt?” Mumbo: “Uh- what do you mean ‘just wearing a hawaiin shirt? I have shorts on as-well, dude”

FOLLOWED BY

Mumbo: “Can you explain why you’re wearing a red jumper?” Grian: “You know- you know i was born with this!”

MUMBO AND GRIAN STOLE THE BOAT LOOT FROM RENDOC

I THINK RENDOC JUST STOLE THE DIAMOND MUMBO THREW??

Grian: “Is that Scar?” Mumbo: “I can’t see past your giant waffle!”

DSFSDFJIOA they did an edit where they placed down a boat, both Mumbo and Grian got in, they made noises and then bopped up on top of the ravine they were in <3

THEY HAVE NO BRAINCELL THEY JUST PLACED DOWN A BENCH AND SAID “THIS IS THE MARK OF OUR VILLAGE!” and then placed a torch and a boat and a bed and aANOTHER BED..

..Mumbo is trying to be a pacifist this season!

Grian’s taunting him with beheaded things

And obviously part of being pacifist means he’s gonna be vegetarian in minecraft!

..he cannot use monster farms because pacifisim..

Mumbo was in the middle of reading the magical Timmy shack that Tango made (did i remember to mention that? who knows) and IN THE MIDDLE OF GETTING TO THE PART ABOUT IF YOU REMOVE STUFF FROM THE CHEST, NOTHING WILL BE ADDED IN IT AGAIN. Grian opened the chest . Mumbo SHOUTED HIAUDHUW Grian jumped man

They renamed it “Cave of Do Not Enter” HIAUEDUH

Mumbo and Scar BOTH did not know- at least Mumbo didn’t, Scar forgot,  that podzol spawns from two-by-two spruce..

him and his guitar song to be played underneath his house.. it goes with the aesthetic i suppose

MAN HE NEEDS SO MUCH HAYBALES I FORGOT THATS NEEDED FOR THE TUNE HE WANTS

Mumbo: “What.. On Earth.. Scar, it’s meant to be a starterbase, buddy! What is this? This is many things, many many things, a starterbase is NOT one of them!”

HE LITERALLY DIDNT KNOW THAT THE DRAGON EGG TELEPORTS... WHEN YOU TOUCH IT...

BDUBS

nothing special we havent seen yet!! just him screaming about axolotls.

He was working in the Mesa in his intro, skipping the “speech” from Mumbo

He released Idiot the Axolotl and lost it .

Him SCREAMING “Gemini” is HILARIOUS

While Gemini gave away those three diamonds, Keralis got so excited he won a bet with Tango and Bdubs, that he gave back . two of the diamonds . and none of htem released until well after they left

Bdubs: “That’s why i have my mwoss skin!” PLEASE I LOVE THE WAY HE SAYS IT.. make the moss hood.. REAL..

it took me a while to figure out what his base is but i LOVE IT so so much!!!

Nothing much new to add !!

Stress pov

please i love her . very good !! False seems to have joined her sheerly because Stress sounded like she knew what she was doing. she does not.

False felt peerpressured and asked Stress for permission to fight her because everyone was killing eachother .

It ended up with Stress following False. they found a village!

ISKALL only saw him one other time today!!

JEVIN APPEARS AGAIN !

XISUMA FELL INTO HTE BREEDER AND IT WAS SO FUNN IUAHHYIAUSD

Ren: “Ya look goregous, Stress!” Stress: “Thanks! Don’t murder my dog!”

She’s so proud of herself for caving!! (with False n Gem

Iskall blew up!

..Iskall fell from a high place

Stress has a LOVELY ravine base!!

False

False wants to become pirates with Stress <3

gatekeep gaslight girlboss

BIG OL MUSHROOM HOUSE !!

it looks like a mushroom church and i LOVE IT.

Nothing new we didn’t see from Gem. She does want to come up with a banner design for her base, though!

Grian

..Mumbo just thought Grian had a purpose so decided to follow him <3

ALSO HIS INTRO, AS HE JOKED ABOUT IN THE OTHERS VIDEO, WAS, IN FACT, THE BOATEM POLE

Grian is SO PROUD of the fact taht they got good loot from a treasure map. Ren and Doc are NOT IMPRESSED

Grian: “Lets go, potato boy!”

Mumbo: “I don’t have to replace everything I break! Peace Love and Plants- are these plants..?” He says, mining amethyst

pants

he who controls the egg, controls the server... Grian.. you’re doing great sir

...He decided.. his goal.. is to make his OWN..caves and cliffs update... HELLO..?

Grian was the first one to kill the enderdragon, MAN. Speedrunning career WHEN? /j

Grian: “And now [Mumbo] is flexing on my bed!”

he might not have a base. but he has an egg.

It is now 2am. i cannot do this anymore. This will be continued.. tomorrow!

[trashboatprince]

The anniversary for the Bioshock au was just this weekend (actually on the official anniversary for the game Bioshock, what a coincidence!), and my friends and I decided to do something for it today!

While they have chosen to redraw some of their original art for the au, I had planned to rewrite something I had written ages ago, but then an idea came to me!

So, you guys get a new fic!

Warning: mentioned experiments, mentioned body horror, sad thoughts

As always, Henry belongs to @inkspottie, Ross belongs to @thedobermutt, and Delta is my Henry! 

On with the fic!

--

Henry, Ross, and Delta made their way around the old lounge bar that they had broken into, with Henry looking for supplies, Ross scouting the area for any splicers or searchers hidden about, and Delta was securing the door, making sure no one got in.

Once the coast was clear and the door secured, they could finally relax, which Delta was so thankful for. They had gotten into another big fight and he needed to check to see if his suit was still in good order. He had only just changed into this one earlier in the the day since his other one was damaged beyond repair, he had to make sure this one was still good to go.

Trudging over with tired feet, he sat himself down on the floor by the large floor-to-ceiling windows, the glow of the city in the ocean illuminating the room for them. “Bendy, a little help?” He asked the Li’l Devil, who had been helping Henry look about. 

Bendy perked up and ran over, knowing exactly what to do. He started to help with unhooking the large tanks on Delta’s back as the Big Daddy worked on the suit. He needed to get out of it to make sure his examination was thorough.

Ross looked up from where he was sitting on a sofa, raising an eyebrow at the other man. “Delta, what are you doing?”

“Checkin’ my suit.” He replied, like it was the most obvious answer in the world. He hissed, shuddering when Bendy got the tanks disconnected from not only his suit but from the ports in his back. Never a pleasant feeling, uhg.

“Are you... getting out of it?” Henry frowned, walking over, his arms carrying the items he had picked up before depositing them on a table nearby. 

“Kinda have to.” Delta replied as he worked to get himself out of the suit. “Not for too long, not like when I was panickin’ earlier when I was, ya know, sorta dyin’.”

It had been an emergency, he needed a new suit, new tanks, he was sadly stuck with these things to live, due to what had happened to his body.

He stepped out of his suit, luckily wearing pants and a shirt under it, he wasn’t one for being indecent even in his own gear, but he knew the other two could see his arms, his neck.

They saw it earlier, when they helped him get into his new suit, all the scars and damage done by the Big Daddy project. He didn’t think much of it at the time, but Delta felt a little self-conscious now.

Oh, they had seen what INK did to the splicers, the damaged skin and minds, but Delta’s had all been controlled. He had been tested on, his face left normal for reasons he had never been told, but the rest of him was a mess.

And with his healing abilities due to the splicing projects, his wounds healed quickly, but still scarred, over and over again.

“Is...” Henry started, but shut his mouth.

“You’re fine to ask.” Delta replied, sitting down, letting Bendy hook the tanks back into his back, he held back a yelp at the sensation. He picked up one of the sleeves of his suit, looking it over, avoiding eye contact.

Henry coughed, before speaking again. “Is it... painful? The scars?”

“Stopped bein’ that way years ago, kid.” Delta replied, frowning at the cut he found, asking for the sewing kit he knew Bendy had stored in his hammerspace. 

“Is it from battles?” Ross asked. “Or from what Joey had done to you?”

“Both, mostly the latter.” The tallest of the trio sighed as he got to work on repairing the cut. “Nasty effects, splicin’, INK. I used to be a scrawny thing, ya know? About as skinny as you, Henry. But that wasn’t for long, had to be built like a damn tank for this work!”

He kept his eyes on his task. “I was normal for maybe a week? Just health exams, Norman told me, nothin’ serious, had to make sure everythin’ was in workin’ order. Then they started injectin’ INK. It was fine at first, felt healthy, even stronger and faster, then... it got worse.”

He still remembered when the effects finally kicked in, the horrible pain and heat of his body changing, too fast, too slow, broken bones and damaged skin. Delta looked at his hands, they were trembling, but he pushed on. “It sucked, I don’t know how long it was gonna keep goin’ for, I thought that it would destroy me before anythin’ could really happen. And then...”

He looked at Bendy, who was happily looking out the windows, watching the fish go by. “And then they had me meet Bendy and it was worth it, cause I had a purpose cause of all that.”

“It still wasn’t right.” Ross spoke, a deep look of concern was painted on his face. “You shouldn’t have been forced into this, you didn’t even have a choice.”

“None of us did.” Delta sighed. “Henry didn’t, I didn’t, and you sure as hell didn’t either, Ross. Drew did whatever he wanted to us because everyone here’s his plaything.”

He finished the repair and moved to look for more.

“It’s still not right.” Henry frowned, reaching for a candy bar on the table. “But when we get you up to the surface, you won’t have to worry about this stuff anymore.”

Delta looked up, then looked towards the windows. His eyes drifted to the tanks behind him, and he shook his head. “Guys, I know you want me to come with you when we’re done here, but... I’m not made for the surface anymore, I can’t even go an hour with my tanks off, I need the INK and PAINT. I need my suit.”

Ross shook his head, standing up. He walked over to Delta, looking down at the man still seated on the floor. “Delta, you have to have some faith in us, in Norman. We promised you that we’d get you to the surface, no matter what. Why do you doubt us?”

The Big Daddy blinked, then looked ashamed, rubbing at his bare arms. “I’m... not made for the surface, for a normal life. I dunno what Norman can do to help me survive up there, but what became of me... that’s impossible to change, I can’t go up there with these scars, I’ll look like a monster or somethin’.”

The older man sighed softly. “Look, I know it seems bad, but you’ll have us to help you, to be there for you. Yeah, some people will stare, but that’s on them, not you.”

“We’ll be there with you every step of the way.” Henry smiled a little. “And Norman said he’ll do whatever he can to help you survive without your tanks! You’ll be as normal as you can be! And besides, I’m not all that normal myself, we’re clones, and we’ve got...” He flicked his wrist, bolts of lightening came from his palm, before vanishing. 

“Yeah, after all of this, we’re in a similar boat with you, even if it isn’t exactly cosmetic.” Ross chuckled.

Delta looked at the two men he called his friends, a small smile coming to him. “You guys are so weird, but... alright, I mean, I dunno about this, but I would like to finally leave this place, there’s a sun I wanna see.”

“That’s the spirit, Delta.” The smallest of the trio smiled a bit more. “Now, no more of this, let’s just take the break we really need. I am not built for running around like this.”

“I hear that.” Ross sighed, sitting back down.

The Big Daddy looked at them once more, still smiling as he went back to work on checking for damage to his suit, listening to the others talk to each other. He’ll hold them to this, he wasn’t sure how confident he was that he’d get to leave Rapture, but it didn’t hurt to have a little hope. 

[pabsterthelobster]

Sorry for not posting anything as of late. I've been thinking of what I could post on here that I haven't already, but recently I've been thinking about my past on this site, most notably prior to making my account.

When I first found Tumblr, I mainly just scoured whatever blogs I thought were neat and asking whenever I could as an anonymous greyface. I did try to make a Tumblr blog once before (specifically an ask blog for Lego Dimensions' Lord Vortech), but it never went anywhere, and I mainly just stayed as a regular old anon.

However, when I saw instances of people role-playing and holding conversations while asking anonymously, I got interested in doing the same, and so I started to do so with any blog I thought I could spice up.

Most of the times I remember doing it, I would try to instigate interactions between fandoms to an annoying degree. I even remember the time I pretended to be a Peridot blog via an anonymous ask to provoke an interaction with an Eggman blog. (BTW, it didn't go anywhere.)

However, the way I did this that most sticks out in my mind is when I tried to use this character I created named Eriphram. In my head, he was a shadowy humanoid with bright red eyes wearing a maroon, face-obscuring cloak, with a lime-green runic symbol resembling an ahnk on his chest. He was supposed to be my interpretation of the ultimate evil conquerer despite his otherwise generic warlock appearance.

I also made a good brother counterpart for him named Arnon so I could do "big good" moments, giving him a navy blue cloak and a yellow-and-white body made of light with blue eyes and no runic symbol. I don't remember using him as actively, but I annoyed people using him alongside Eriphram.

The blog I most remember annoying with these guys was @thehouseofivo, a multimuse blog that focuses primarily on an alternate version of Ivo Robotnik as based on the Archie comics who, after nearly destroying the world, has tried to rebuild it himself to make amends.

Being as I wasn't really educated on the lore of the blog at the time, I used Eriphram to try and stoke his evil tendencies for reasons I don't even remember. I also used Arnon a bit when I realized that he wouldn't budge, but that ended up annoying him too. I remember this one time Ivo was injured and bedridden because of something, and being the young egotist that I was, decided to have Arnon show up to offer him a deus-ex-machina to get him back to full health. He didn't take it, and I think I egged him on about it through Arnon, being nothing but cringe that day.

But what I also remember doing with this blog in particular was when I tried to insert MYSELF into the narrative for a time, whether it was as an employee at Ivo's company, or as self-inserts in mini-AUs that I sometimes feel responsible for bringing into the world, like his BioShock one.

It's been many years since I stopped pulling this kinda stuff, but I still think about it from time to time due to how cringe-inducing it was. I've also thought about using Eriphram and Arnon in more constructive, maybe self-aware ways since then, though I am somewhat reluctant to do so because of my history of using them. I'm sorry to those I've bothered with my antics. I know it may be years late, but I hope you can forgive me.

[fanfoolishness]

Interview with a Fic Writer

Tagged by @novantinuum, thank you!

__

How many works do you have on AO3?

242 works. The actual fuck??? Wow, me. Of course, this does span about 9 years, so I guess that's not that insane?

What’s your total word count on AO3

549,737! But that averages out to only 2271 words per story, haha. You got me! I think I have less than 10 fics that have more than 1 chapter. I love one-shots, what can I say?

How many fandoms have you written for and what are they?

Oh, you want to get into this? All right. We'll get into this:

The X-Files, proto-fandom, ur-fandom, first OTP ever... yeah, 15-year-old me went. WILD. Many horrible Mulder/Scully stories, and some Doggett/Scully and character study stories as well. Mostly not very good, but with occasional flashes of decent writing. Really had a difficult time writing romantic feelings between 30+ year-olds given a) I did not date in high school and b) was 17 and not an emotionally stunted FBI agent.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer - not a huge volume of stories, but definitely some very angsty Spuffy and Spike tales.

Harry Potter - just one published fic (Lupin grieving Sirius), and one with Snape and Harry having a heart to heart I could never quite get right.

Then came the dark times (vet school) where I was exhausted and hard at work for a few years and I thought, horribly, I might have outgrown fandom. Thank god for...

X-Men First Class and the undying love of Charles Xavier and Erik Lensherr! I'd never fallen for a slash ship before but my god I fell hard for this one and wrote my first fandom smut and my first real AU (mutants with zombies) that I never finished.

Then.... let's see...

Quantum Leap drabbles!

Two Avatar the Last Airbender fics!

Agents of SHIELD fics, mostly focused on Coulson and FitzSimmons, and super angsty.

Bioshock Infinite sads (god I love writing the sad bad dad)!

And then the juggernauts of Mass Effect (my longest fic to date with 30 chapters!) and Dragon Age, which were endlessly productive and are still productive given the variety of different protagonists you can create, different choices, and different relationships to canon characters. I'm still working on a Hawke/Varric fic in the back of my mind here.

There's one random Gravity Falls fic (wish I could have got a little more obsessed with it, or gotten into it while it aired) of Stan sads, and one tiny Avengers ficlet of a sad Tony and Peter.

There's one Wheel of Time fic! Dammit I wanted Rand and Tam to reunite so much sooner than they did.

40-odd Steven Universe fics! So many SU fics!

One random Schitt's Creek fic of David and Patrick!

And finally, The Mandalorian, with 47 fics. Phew!!!

What are your top 5 fics by kudos?

1. The Invitation, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin finds himself in dreams that seem realer than real, reminding him of his loss, but he begins to find a sense of hope again. A promise is kept.

2. The Outstretched Hand, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin is a man of action, but sometimes, the quiet finds its way in. Din reckons with the aftermath of the events of Chapter 14, the Tragedy. (My very first Mando fic!)

3. Not the Sentimental Type, Steven Universe. Priyanka Maheswaran has long prided herself on keeping her emotions in check. But a mother's love can only grow, and sometimes it expands to people she never anticipated. Like the Universe boy.

4. Translation, The Mandalorian. Din Djarin was a man of few words, but many languages. Some might have thought the Child had no language at all. Din Djarin and the Child grow to understand each other.

5. Full Disclosure, Steven Universe. Just as the world begins to recover from Spinel's attack, Steven starts having nightmares. The more he ignores his fears, the worse they become, until he's left with no other choice but to ask for help. (My thoughts on what would drive Steven Universe Future, and I wasn't far off.)

Do you respond to comments? Why or why not?

I really try to! Even sometimes years later if I realize I've missed some. I appreciate each and every one, and have definitely made friendships through comments <3

What’s the fic you’ve written with the angstiest ending?

Oh, hell... I'm too lazy to link these but if anyone wants to read them let me know or find them on my AO3!

A Stopped Clock from Bioshock Infinite has Booker DeWitt ravaged by Korsakoff's amnesia from his long-standing alcoholism. Is Columbia real or imagined? Hard to say.

The Viscount's Way shows Varric Tethras having become his parent, and a cruel, hard viscount of Kirkwall.

Songs in the Key of Red shows how Cullen fared under the dark future in Redcliffe in DAI, and they write happy endings, don't they? shows what happened to Varric. Both horribly depressing in different ways!

Two by Two, Hands of Blue shows a not unexpected end to lyrium addiction :( Poor Cullen, he got a lot of angsty developments, didn't he?

Do you write crossovers? If so, what’s the craziest thing you’ve ever written?

Never really got into crossovers or AUs. Just... meh for me!

Have you ever received hate on a fic?

No, I don't think so.

Do you write smut? If so, what kind?

Charles/Erik, Shepard/Garrus, Shepard/Liara, Shepard/Tali, a mess of different f/f femShep drabbles, and most of my Dragon Age pairings have gotten sexytimes. On the other hand I helped start the NoRomo Mando tag for the Mandalorian to help find non-pairing Mandalorian content. Depends on the pairing and the fandom, for sure.

Have you ever had a fic stolen?

Nope, thank goodness!

Have you ever had a fic translated?

I think so! There used to be a Spanish-language wiki linking to some of my old X-Files stories XD

Have you ever co-written a fic before?

No, but friends and I definitely will beta each others' things to help with sticky points.

What’s your all-time favorite ship?

ALL-TIME? Just, why? So many ships I loved in years past turned out to have pretty damn problematic elements I didn't see at the time, so it's hard to say... Mulder/Scully actually has a ton of issues, Buffy/Spike obviously has issues... so maybe Hawke/Varric (except not canon!) or Garrus/Shepard or Brosca/Alistair.

What’s a WIP you want to finish but don’t think you ever will?

Still need to finish my Hawke/Varric fic for after Adamant! I have 3 chapters written that I haven't posted. Maybe posting them will help inspire me....

What are your writing strengths?

Dialogue and POV writing from different characters; I feel fantastic writing Steven and Greg, though totally at sea trying to write from Connie's POV, randomly. But I think my dialogue and emotional beats are what people tend to tune in for. When I do write romance, it's usually very sweet and silly and pulled from life. I also love writing nature scenes and settings to help establish mood. Mood and emotion and catharsis are my bread and butter, and I like my poetic prose.

What are your writing weaknesses?

What the hell is a long, well-thought-out plot? Like what even is that???? My longest fic with 30 chapters is basically "Shepard has PTSD and hangs out with her crew. They have some funerals." THAT'S IT. How the heck people actually come up with plot that ties into the lore of a fandom I genuinely have no idea and it's the biggest thing that's held me back from finishing original work. I can come up with a setting and characters and then trying to make them do stuff that's more than just talking to other characters and deepening their relationships with them... how the fuck???

I also definitely have 10-20 words that I am in constant danger of reusing like every other paragraph, LOL!

What are your thoughts on writing dialogue in other languages in a fic?

I don't speak any other languages so I always avoid it as much as possible. I've seen people describe sign differently in fics and picked one way to depict it that made sense to me for Grogu, but that's about it.

What was the first fandom you wrote for?

The X-Files, of course!

What’s your favorite fic you’ve ever written?

Towards Another Day, the tale of how Cullen went from being a templar in Kirkwall to commander of the Inquisition, is definitely up there.

Reverberations is one of my rare multi-chaptered fics and one of my favorite for the catharsis at the end. It makes me tear up every time. 5 times Din and Grogu encounter the Dark Side, and one time they find the Light.

Either a world for the birds (Steven develops a closer relationship with his Uncle Andy, learning birdwatching along the way) or on the subject of rocks (Steven and Jasper finally reach a peace) might take the prize for favorite SU fic.

__

Tagging (if you’re super bored and would like a fun thing to do) fellow writers:

@lastwordbeforetheend, @runrundoyourstuff, @honestlyhufflepuff, @art3mys, and @fake-starwars-fan if you would like to play!

[cosplayinamerica]

Spiderman from Marvel 1602 // Cosplayer: kammospark

Tell us about Spiderman1602, I’ve seen many versions of Spiderman but  thiis is a new one to me! What led you to this concept of this version of Spiderman?

Well I've always had an appreciation for lesser know outfits of popular heroes. Looking through many wardrobes and outfits, the obscure ones always stood out to me, "Wow, I've never seen this one before!" I'd think to myself, and I figured others who know the characters well would love to see them brought to life too, or even people curious about the stories of them would enjoy seeing it. I feel everyone has a love for Spider-Man; he's such an iconic superhero and has so many suits, and even though they can be quite diverse, they still feel recognizable as one of the Web-slinger's costumes.

While I was looking at different Spiderverse characters for inspiration on a new Spider-Man cosplay, I saw Marvel 1602 and it immediately caught my attention; I thought it was such a fun looking design. Definitely away from a modern or futuristic look, it's charm won me over, and I had to put it together. And as a fan of the fantasy genre in general, thanks to many years as a GM from D&D as well as other media, I also enjoy Ren-faires and wanted something to wear to show my love for Superheroes and Renaissance.

When you wore it out to conventions, what was the response? Obviously they knew you were Spiderman because of the mask but were they confused about the rest of your outfit? What were some of their guesses?

Oh people certainly get a kick out of seeing the outfit. Some people have called Me 'Lord Spider-Man', 'Ren-Spidey', 'William Spider-Speare', a lot of creative names for it that never fail to make me smile as much as it does for them. Whenever I wear a Spider-Man cosplay, I always want to try and take pics with as many Spider-Men as I can find, and most of the time it's the other Spiderman cosplayers that recognize who the character really is. I love having people laugh and get excited over the character, it's part of that Con Magic where people just can't help but feel like a kid when they see something that fills them with joy; its my favorite part of this fun hobby, just making someone's day memorable, even for a moment.

Besides conventions , I see you wore the costume to a Renaissance Fair. What was responses there? Was it different from conventions?

Ren-faires in general are a great time! And when I started this costume, I was excited just thinking of the reactions from people and how happy they may be. I've taken 1602 to quite a few Ren-faires: Central Coast Ren Faire, NorCal Ren Faire, and Kingsburg Renaissance of Kings.

The first place I ever debuted it was as CCRF, and I was stopped by about 20 people before I could make it past the first 3 booths. It really does feel like a different environment going to faires. D

uring them, I'd be a bit more 'theatrical' and introduce myself as Peter Parquagh, and try my best to make people smile or laugh. I've gotten the opportunity to meet many wonderful people and people with stunning and gorgeous Renaissance outfits. Kids come walk by amazed that they actually got to see a Spider-Man at a Ren Faire.

One instance, a bard played the spider-man theme song on a lute as he traveled around me. At two different faires my presence was requested by the Queen, and I was escorted to her, one even knighted me! Everyone just has a blast role playing and getting caught up in the fun, the energy is so infectious and delightful! 

Take us through how the outfit was put together?

Well, I cannot take full credit on the cosplay. My mother was actually a large part of it. Growing up, my mom was always really involved and loved making costumes for Halloween for me and my sister. And one of her favorite aesthetics is period piece era fashion and she loves Jane Austen.

As I was looking for ideas for a new cosplay and showing her, she was drawn towards 1602 and offered to do as much as she could to help create it, and she loved helping putting it together. The suit is a handmade outfit following a 14th century cavalier pattern. The design called for detachable sleeves and very baggy slops, but we decided to have the sleeves attached and slim down the slops slightly, to give it a mix of authentic and Spider-man's sleekness.

We went looking online and found this wonderful blue velvet fabric with Fleur De Lis imprinted onto it and thought it'd really help the outfit pop! We had to make sure we kept the fabric in the same direction: it has a difference in shimmer if facing a certain way, and we wanted the Fleurs facing the same way as well, so we tried to be mindful of that. We pleated the red fabric in the front and it was quite stubborn, but we tried our best to make it look similar on both sides of the torso. The back has a spider and has legs that lead unto the front; we cut out red fabric and hand-stitch embroidered on, and was quite meticulous.

Me and my mom kept an eye out online for just the right buttons we wanted for the costume. Something antique and era appropriate but also thematic, and after a while, we stumbled across a web-designed antique gold button set. We also looked for a thick ruff rather than the costumes original thin look. The original costume look also called for the mask to have open eye holes, but I opted out of that, and felt that a traditional mask look better complemented the costume. After that I acquired socks and shoes and then it was finished! 

How did you discover cosplay?

As mentioned earlier, my mom loved making mine and my sister's costumes growing up. She's a seamstress as a hobby, and is so creative and artsy. Halloween was probably my favorite holiday growing up, and I was so happy I got to wear something made with much love from my family. Some of my favorite notable costumes growing up was a knight, an astronaut, and Pikachu.

As I got older, around high school, I still liked the idea of costumes, even bought a cheap Captain America outfit for The Avengers premiere night, but I mostly dropped off on dressing up. I grew up in a very small town, but eventually, after I moved out to the city, I heard about 'conventions' and I was interested and wanted to try and wear something to one. I decided to make a classic Punisher costume, and wore it for the con. It was a small venue, but even then it finally hit me, 'This is a thing people do. People love to dress up, go make friends, bring smiles and show their love for their Fandoms and interests. THIS is what Cosplay IS'. I finally understood what this little hobby of mine was, and I embraced it.

Have you discovered something about yourself through cosplay?

I've always thought of myself as a people pleaser. I'm someone who really only want others to be happy. I'm also someone who loves to share their interests and engage with others about things that we can share and discuss and geek out over.

When I was young, I often felt left out from social circles, due to my often eccentric personality. I found it really hard to make friends, and I am forever grateful for the friends that I have made and been with me for years.

Cosplay has opened up another avenue as far as friends and socializing. My first couple of cons I was initially intimidated, but I have to say that I'm so glad I got into this hobby, for I've met many people with interesting stories and wonderful personalities, and people I still talk to often. It's really helped me feel like I can make good friends and memories, and I'm sure that others have felt similarly and that's something I treasure.

What are your future cosplay goals?

As with most cosplayers I'm sure, I have way too many projects in my head with very little work on a lot of them. I suppose my current goal is to rework the headpiece of a cosplay I finished last year, my Bioshock Big Daddy Doll. The head was massive and too cumbersome so it needs to be redone.

As far as new projects, I would very much like to do a Prince Link cosplay, inspired by the creation of theLostSindar. Another idea would be to do more superhero variants and make a Blue Lantern Flash that 8ve been eyeing for a couple of years.

One thing I definitely want to get good at is working with foam. I am massively inexperienced with foamsmithing, and I strive to learn how to be good at it and learn how to make wonderful things with it. It's just like when I first went to cons; starting off can be a bit scary or even overwhelming before we really get it going, but that exposure to things we really desire is all we need to get hooked and make it our passion.

https://www.instagram.com/kammospark/

[beardycarrot]

I, lying awake in bed because that’s how it always is the day before you have something important to do... am going to try to guess what the plot of Bioshock Infinite is, based on what I’ve seen in the first few hours and with knowledge of the other two (and a half?) games. Spoilers for the entire Bioshock series, except maybe Infinite, but I intend to knock it out of the park.

So. The first Bioshock is set in a futuristic (by 1950’s standards) city at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, created by a hardcore libertarian named Andrew Ryan as a way to once and for all live in a society free of government regulation. I won’t get into all the “sea slugs that produce a gene-altering wonder drug” and “child slaves brainwashed to drink corpse blood” stuff; very interesting, very important to the plot, but if I tried to explain the world of Bioshock I’d be lying here typing on my phone until the sun comes up. That stuff aside, the major plot points are that you’re not actually a guy who just happened to crash-land near the entrance to the city but are, in fact, Andrew Ryan’s son, and the guy who’s been guiding you through the city was actually using a Manchurian Candidate-style activation phrase to manipulate you into doing whatever he wanted. It’s a big, mind-blowing reveal (as is the realization that your character is actually about four years old... science fiction, man).

Bioshock 2 didn’t really have any big plot twists... or plot, for that matter ...but it was developed by an entirely different team, while the original’s team also did Infinite, so I’m expecting a return to form. Just as an aside, Bioshock 2 had a short DLC campaign called Minerva’s Den, which had a fantastic story, and a twist that the player can figure out on their own if they’re paying attention. Your goal is to get a very smart computer (for 1968) out of the underwater city and back to the surface so you can use it to cure all the victims of the slug-borne gene manipulation, and you’re guided over radio by the computer’s creator. At the end, you learn that the one guiding you was actually the computer itself, and that you’re its creator, slowly recovering from brainwashing. For the record, the endings to all three of these have made me cry.

So! With those kinds of twists in mind, what am I expecting from Bioshock Infinite? Well, I went into the game only knowing the names of the protagonists, that rather than underwater it was set in a floating sky city, and that there was some kind of religious theming but also a lot of old-timey Americana. As it turns out, the people of this city worship— no, have DEIFIED the founding fathers, and are lead by a man called Father Comstock. I’m pretty sure that name is a reference to the Comstock Act, similar to Andrew Ryan being named after Ayn Rand... but he could actually be called Father Cornstalk and I just haven’t been paying attention.

Anyway. Just a few minutes into the game, I noticed that a statue of Comstock looked suspiciously similar to my character... before deciding that I didn’t actually have that clear of a mental image of my character, they wouldn’t pull the “secret son” thing twice, and as much as I love it there probably isn’t going to be any time travel. Le sigh.

UNTIL!

So, your goal is to get a girl named Elizabeth out of the city, and there is some legitimately weird stuff going on with her prison. Like, they have some of her personal possessions from various points in her life in containment: a teddy bear, a diary, and a bloody cloth labeled “menarche”. Gross. Why would you keep that. Well, when an electric current (or something visually similar) is applied, the bear and diary change color, and the blood disappears from the cloth. The reason I’m not sure if it’s electricity is that there’s some kind of siphon system set up, it looks like a bunch of subwoofers, and it’s absorbing... something? When she sings, maybe? Is the energy being siphoned what changed the quantum states of those objects, or whatever was happening? There was also a chart showing that when she hit puberty... something, really spiked, which is what forced them to build the siphon. I can’t claim to know what’s happening here, but when I finally saw her she was day dreaming about Paris, and.. I guess opened some kind of portal, TO Paris? But then a bus or something barreled towards her, so she quickly closed it. In the couple seconds that the portal was open, I saw the marquee on a movie theater that... well, was in French, but I’M PRETTY SURE said “Return of the Jedi”. I should probably mention that this game is set in 1912. That smells like time travel to me, baby!

So, this is where it gets interesting, and confusing, and complicated. I think Elizabeth is Comstock’s daughter, from various signs and posters about Comstock’s seed being their salvation, and The Lamb of God being locked in the tower, and such... and signs about a “false shepherd” who would try to take her away (again, lots of weird divergent Christian sect stuff). One sign showered the false shepherd’s hand as having the initials AD branded on the back, which the protagonist Booker does indeed have. Before rescuing Elizabeth, Comstock confronts you, and seems to know all about Booker’s past, including his wife Anna (who died in childbirth), and claims to know his future as well. Being a prophet and such. Thing is, the way it’s presented, that whole thing could’ve all been in Booker’s head...? Shortly after rescuing Elizabeth, you run into someone who mistakes her for someone named Annabelle. Hmm HMMM. I’ve also run into a diary by someone named Rosalind Lutece (I think she’s one of the creepy twins who keep popping up everywhere) talking about physics and what sounded like the concept of quantum superpositioning, as well as a little informational kiosk in which she claims quantum mechanics are what enable the city to float. There were also a couple diaries that seemed to imply Elizabeth came from... somewhere else, and a part of her might still be there, or something?

SO. Finally, we get to the part where I theorize on what’s going on. In short... iunno.

Okay, well, I feel like my idea should be obvious by now. I think Comstock might be a future, or ALTERNATE REALITY FUTURE, version of Booker, and Elizabeth is... either a past version of his wife, before she went back in time and married him, or an alternate-reality version of his daughter? But then who is the Annabelle that the girl thought Elizabeth was? Did Booker’s child not die along with his wife, and was secretly wisked away to skytown? Comstock’s wife is consistently referred to as Lady Comstock, but what if her name is Annabelle too? Maybe it’s the same concept as the Heinlein story By His Bootstraps, with the protagonist only realizing that he IS now the old man from the beginning, and has to get his younger self into this weird time loop in order to live the life he’s lead?

I might be going a little off the rails; I mean, I’m pretty sure that the statue of Comstock I saw earlier actually reminded me of Handsome Jack, a character from another game I haven’t played who happens to wear an outfit similar to Booker’s. That said, there’s DEFINITELY some kind of time travel or dimension-hopping shenanigans going on here. There are good writers on this game, and I refuse to believe the Annabelle/Anna thing is a Batman v Superman-level coincidence.

The weird part is that in the tower where they were keeping Elizabeth, they have documentation of her dating back to one year old, so she was clearly exhibiting... something, unusual, even as a baby. The game also has yet to explain Vigors, its versions of the Plasmids from the first two Bioshock games, which were basically superpowers granted by the substance produced by those sea slugs. If I had to guess, Vigors are... a result of some kind of quantum something-or-other, which they made from whatever it is they were siphoning off of Elizabeth? Maybe it’s a Scarlet Witch kind of thing... you don’t actually change yourself, you just find yourself in an alternate reality where everything else is 100% the same, except you’re a version of yourself who can shoot crows out of your hands.

Right, so. My... official theory is... that... I have no idea what’s going on. Yeah, sorry, something in that mess up there is bound to be close, but when you get into time travel and/or dimension-hopping, all bets are off the table. Or all bets, a literally infinite number of bets, are on the table. Which is a lot to try to comprehend.

[baconsoupforthesoul]

The Ink Demonth - Day 25 - Sunshine

A New Dawn

A/N: Spacy continues her au craze with another piece for the Bioshock au. However, this one is for the Bioshock au offshoot called Silver Linings. In this version, things happened a little differently in Rapture Studios, and I enjoy this version of the au just as much as the original. If you want to learn more about it, I suggest looking through the Silver Linings tag on one of the amazing creators’ blogs. So, without further ado, Henry belongs to @inkspottie, Ross belongs to @doberart, and Delta belongs to @trashboatprince. I hope you all enjoy~

Henry can feel himself nodding off. His eyelids were heavy as he started to slump forward, before jerking himself back awake. He knew he should sleep. After what happened, his body could use the rest. But he just couldn’t.

He looked down at Ross laying in the hospital bed. He looked rough, covered in bruises and scratches, and that horrible gash in his legs that he’d had to bandage up multiple times. He was so thankful that they had finally gotten the man proper medical attention. Goodness knows the nurses here did a much better job than he had.

It almost didn’t seem real. After spending his entire life in Rapture, both as an experiment and slave to Joey Drew… he was finally free. They all were. It had been shocking when the bathysphere had come up and he had seen the sky for the first time. The moon had been full in the sky, and if Henry hadn’t been too busy helping him and his friends to the nearest hospital, he’s sure he would have been memorized by it.

He had yet to see the sun though. That was what he was looking forward to the most. To be honest, it was both his worry for Ross and his unquenchable need to see that sun, the first sunrise he would ever see, that kept him from his slumber.

He thought back to what Ross had said to him, after that awful fight in that colosseum where Joey had forced Delta to fight Ross. When the three of them had been getting what little rest they could, planning their next move. 

“So save those tears for when we see the sun. Yeah?”

“Til we see the sun,” Henry murmured to himself, lost in the memory as he looked out the hospital window.

He supposed he was lucky to see the sun at all. Henry’s hand reached up to his right eye, feeling the scars running across it. An eye he would never see out of again. It still hurt to think about it. That day when Joey had forced him to stay still with his “Would you kindly” phrase as he clawed at Henry’s eye. He had done his best to push the memories back while he had been in Rapture, he had enough to worry about as it was. But it was starting to hit him a little more now that he was stuck like this now, half-blind.

It could have been worse though. Henry glanced over at Delta, asleep on another hospital bed that had been rolled in here. The three of them didn’t want to be separated, not after everything they went through. The big daddy was snoring away, Bendy curled up in his lap. The crystals though, poking out of his side, his drill, his head... it made Henry wince just looking at it. It wasn’t that he was disgusted by it, but he knew how uncomfortable they must be. How painful it must be, to be spliced up like that. Hopefully, Norman could find a way to reverse the process.

They were lucky to have Norman with them, the man who had done everything he could to help them down there in that forsaken city. And even more lucky to have reached the surface on Halloween night. While Henry had only a vague knowledge of the holiday, it was apparently a day where people dressed up in costumes, so the three of them hadn’t turned too many heads when they reached the hospital. But Henry knew upon closer inspection, it would become clear that Delta’s crystals were very much not fake. Thankfully Norman had managed to pull aside the nurses caring for them, a kind woman named Linda and a… beautiful red-head named Lyra, and had somehow managed to explain at least some of it to them. The two of them seemed to be taking the whole thing in stride. Perhaps, even as unbelievable as their tale was, when looking at the raw evidence of what happened, one would have no choice but to believe it.

As Henry sat there, lost in his thoughts and memories, a light caught his attention out of the corner of his eye. He looked out the window and his eyes widened.

He could see it. The light beyond the horizon. The sun rays had just managed to peek through the clouds, making a halo in the sky. Henry stared in wonder as he saw the sun’s light illuminated the sky for the first time. He knew it would be beautiful… he knew it would be breathtaking… but he hadn’t been prepared for how magnificent it truly was. He sat there in complete silence, unable to pull his gaze away. The sun lit up the clouds, painting them in red, orange, and yellow. It was like the sky was ablaze, a fiery spectacle of light. A single tear slipped down his cheek as he was transfixed by the promise of a new day. A new day in the light.

“It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

Henry startled, looking down to see that Ross had finally woken up. The white-haired man looked up to him with a warm, albeit tired smile on his face.

“Sorry,” He murmured softly. “Didn’t mean to startle you, Henry.”

“No, it’s fine,” Henry assured him. “Are you…. Are you feeling okay?”

“Physically? I feel like I got run over by a truck,” Ross told him honestly. “But right now,” Ross glanced up at the window, watching the sun rays poke through the window pane. “Seeing that sunrise… I feel pretty good.”

“Yeah, I understand,” Henry said, turning his gaze back to the window. Even as exhausted as he was, even feeling the pain from his own injuries… he honestly had never felt better. Seeing that sky, that sun… it made all the pain worth it.

“Heh, it’s even got me crying,” Ross let out a dry chuckle as he wiped tears from his own eyes.

“Hey, we did say we were going to save our tears till we saw the sun,” Henry reminded him, wiping away a few tears of his own.

“I suppose we did,” Ross said, his eyes misty but filled with so much joy. “It was worth it. How can you not get a little teary-eyed, seeing something as beautiful as that?”

“Mmhmm,” Henry hummed in agreement. 

“And I suppose… it’s actually my first time seeing it…” Ross realized, his voice taking a more solemn tone. Henry frowned, remembering the revelation Ross had learned down there. That he was a clone too, that the memories he had of the surface were someone else’s, remnants of a dead man, the original Henry Ross.

“Well, it’s my first time seeing it too. It’s a first for all of us. So… we can all enjoy our first sunrise together,” Henry told him and Ross smiled at that.

“I suppose you’re right,” Ross agreed, returning his gaze to the window. As the two of them continued gazing out the window, a thought suddenly struck Henry.

“Wait a second… Delta’s missing this!” He realized, quickly getting out of his chair and stumbling over to the big daddy.

“Delta,” Henry shook his brother’s shoulder gently. “Delta. Hey Delta. Wake up, you have to see this!”

“Huh?” Delta said groggily, his eyes only half opened. “What is it? I’m tryin’ to sleep here.”

“So, you didn’t want to see the sunrise then?” Henry asked, trying to sound innocent but he couldn’t keep the cheekiness out of his voice.

“What?!” Delta’s eyes shot open as he tried to sit up. “The sun’s coming up?”

“Hmmmm?” The little devil in his lap stirred, blinking his eyes slowly. “Mr. Sun’s come to play?”

“Yeah, come on little buddy. Let’s go see the sun,” Delta grinned down Bendy.

Henry carefully helped Delta stand up, being mindful of his sharp crystals, and helped him walk up to the window. Bendy crawled up onto his dad’s shoulder, wagging his tail excitedly. 

“Wow…” Delta stared out the window in awe, the sun lighting up the green in his eyes. “Would ya look at that…”

“It’s so pretty!” Bendy exclaimed, his eyes practically sparkling. “Look, daddy, look! It’s coloring the sky!”

“It sure is buddy,” the big daddy smiled as he reached up to rub the little devil’s head. “It sure is…”

A couple of stray tears rolled down Delta’s face as the sun slowly made its way up through the clouds, brightening up that blue sky. After all the tears of pain and despair they all had wept, they finally were crying tears of joy. They had made it through the darkness and into the light, free of the chains that had once shackled them. And as the light chased away the night, the three of them stayed there for some time, enjoying the warmth of the sun for the first time.

[platypanthewriter]

Nostalgia

Harringrove April day 16, Nostalgia!  Steve finds himself walking an underwater city, where everything feels familiar...except Billy.  A Bioshock AU, but I had a friend who hasn’t played the games check it, and I'm assured it makes sense!

The ocean poured inside the plane, and Steve swam for the hole blown in the side, trying to keep his bearings in the plumes of bubbles from the seats and the murky darkness of oil.  He gasped for breath when his head broke the surface, and breathed in smoke, his lungs aching.

The lighthouse was a beacon, the only safe haven in a sea of wreckage.

It felt nostalgic.

He opened the door into it and found the bathysphere, and the controls were intuitive, like he’d used them before.  All those times I crashed at sea, he thought with a snort, glancing around warily.

He emerged miles below the surface, in a world of glass walls and ceilings, flickering lights, to crackling saxophone on a jukebox.  The nostalgia was so strong it was almost metallic in his mouth, and he kept trying to remember the name of the sunken city, though as far as he knew, he’d never been there before.

The first person he saw was a little girl, tucking her dirty, frilly dress out of the way to bend over a mutilated corpse.  She was singing a little song—the made-up kind children always sang, starting and ending nowhere—and she stabbed a huge syringe into the dead man’s back.

It was strange, Steve thought, how strange it wasn’t, to him.  He watched her drink from the syringe, her eyes glowing, and the radio he’d been carrying—the radio he figured had died, in the crash or the swim—crackled to life.

“Don’t kill her,” came an urgent voice.  “They’ve worked their worst on her, but she’s still a just a kid.  Don’t kill her, I can—I can help you—”

“Ssh,” Steve whispered, as a huge, armored mechanical man—or mechanical armor?!  It was hard to tell—lumbered up to the little girl, and scooped her up onto its shoulder.  She cackled with glee.  

“That’s a Big Daddy,” said the radio, more softly.  “They—” 

The voice was cut off by the noise of screaming, as a band of people in ragged evening wear jumped down on the guardian and the shrieking little girl.  Steve aimed his .45 at the one swinging a whiskey bottle at her head, forgetting it’d been drenched and wouldn’t fire.

“Would you kindly not kill my sister,” hissed the radio, and Steve would have rolled his eyes, but the Big Daddy had grabbed the guy with the whiskey bottle and drilled through him with some kind of huge prosthetic, swinging his body to knock the other assailants away.  Steve held very still, because the little girl seemed to be protected well in body, if not in mind.

She seemed unbothered, though, by the showers of blood and viscera, and Steve watched her skip off hand-in-hand with the armored beast with the same aching nostalgia.  “Who are these people,” Steve whispered.

“Splicers,” said the voice.  “They made themselves faster, stronger—some of them can shoot lightning.  But it has other effects.”

Steve nodded slowly, bending to scoop up the whiskey bottle and take a swig.  “I wouldn’t have hurt your sister,” he whispered, keeping a wary eye out as he inspected the fallen attackers for weapons.  “There was a guy trying to knock her block off with a bottle.”

“...good.  Don’t,” said the voice.

The dead people were wrong—grown strangely out of their own clothing and shoes, bent recently so that a knee here or a deformed elbow there were skinned from having to suddenly support their weight.   

One of the women had had a revolver, and he grabbed it, then a shotgun lying nearby.  There was water pouring through part of the ceiling onto a grand piano, and Steve’s heart panged, a little, to see the destruction of somewhere that felt like...home.  

“Who are you?” he asked, and listened to silence.  The lights flickered inside to show the dimly glowing helmet of another of the lumbering, armored men outside, and Steve ducked into the hallway, keeping his movements quick and low.  He could see into another glass domed hallway nearby, where a woman threw a grenade at what looked like a machine gun turret, and everything went dark.  When the lights flickered back on, the part of the ocean where the other hallway had been was dark.

“I can help you get back to the surface,” the voice over the radio said, and Steve wondered how to explain that he felt right here, even with the violence and the water pouring in around him.  “Help me get my sister, and I’ll show you how to get out.”

I don’t want to leave yet, Steve thought of saying, but he grimaced instead, watching his boots sink into the plush, patterned carpet, with the feeling he’d watched it before.  Not until I know what’s going on.  “Where are you?” he asked.  “And what d’you need me to do?”

The voice laughed.  Through the radio crackle, it was hard to tell much, but now that Steve wasn’t distracted, he thought it sounded like a man, youngish.  “I’m not telling you where I am,” it whispered.  

“I don’t know how I can help you, then,” Steve told the voice, and it laughed.  

“I need you to kill a Big Daddy,” it said.

 The voice explained how to fool the security turrets, and as Steve wandered around the district, he began to get a feel for what the voice at the other end of the radio could see, what he couldn’t, and where he might be.  

Steve found a man with a molotov cocktail and bad conversational skills outside the pump room, and when he tried the key from the man’s corpse’s belt in the door, it turned.  The vent from there was wide enough for his shoulders, and Steve reckoned they must need it big, pumping so much air around down here.  He crawled through, listening to the voice say “...I lost you.  Where are you—” before coming up right behind the person talking.

He whipped around, panting, and stared down the barrel of Steve’s revolver, dropping an enormous wrench and raising his hands.  Steve was right—he was about Steve’s age, his curls wild where his rabbit half-mask was tied over them.  He was shirtless in ripped coveralls, with the top off and tied around his waist.  He was smirking, wide-eyed, as he licked his lips.

“Who are you?” Steve asked, again.

“I’m Billy, Billy Hargrove,” he said, leaning in, and Steve registered he was a splicer too—the veins all along his left arm were black, and that hand was twisted and elongated.  He had blood on him, like the others, but some of it looked like his own, from his split lip, and from the flesh still seeping where the bones in his hand had warped.  “I’m helping you,” he hissed, his grin widening.  “Would you kindly not shoot me.”  

Steve hadn’t really intended to, but he’d just had someone clamber across the ceiling with ice hooks—singing a hymn—and then drop on his head and try to murder him, so he was a litle twitchy.  “I probably won’t,” he said.

The guy’s mask was white and gold, an odd contrast to his filthy work clothes, and Steve glared through the eyeholes to see blue eyes, wide and red-rimmed.  “Anything I can do to shift your opinion?” Billy asked, his muscles gleaming with cold tension sweat.

“Can you shoot lightning?”

Hargrove shook his head, slowly.  “I know the way out,” he whispered, licking his lips again.  “I can do some things.  Not that.”

“What things,” Steve hissed, and Billy lowered his hands, slowly.  

“I just wanna find my sister,” he said, reaching up and pushing Steve’s gun away from his face.  “Just help me find her, she’s one of those little girls out there.  They took her.”

“They...steal children?” Steve asked, somehow more shocked than he’d been by anything else so far.  Billy just nodded, watching his face.  “Who stole her, those...armored monsters?”

Billy laughed.  “The scientists that made the armored monsters,” he said, “...and other things.”

“...the splicers,” Steve realized.  

“What the splicers used,” Billy agreed, shrugging, with a rueful glance down at his malformed hand.  “In the end, pretty much the same.”

“What else?” Steve asked, and Billy stared back at him for a long second, and then smiled.  His split lip left blood on his teeth.

“The little girls help gather it, now,” he said.  “They made little girls able to gather what will let you shoot lightning.”

“...is that what she was doing with the body,” Steve asked, his gorge rising, and Billy smirked.  

“If I don’t find my sister first, she’ll drink me after I’m dead,” he said, lightly, and Steve shuddered, for the first time uninterested in the mysteries of the city hidden away under the ocean.

“...can you use a shotgun?” he tried next, and Billy nodded, then stumbled as Steve shoved it into his hands. 

 Around then another voice came on Steve’s radio, and told him about a family in danger, a woman and a small child, and asked, trembling over the radio waves, whether Steve would kindly help save their lives.  The words felt familiar and right, and Steve tried to remember the city, remember their words, as he agreed.  

Billy just sighed.

 They wouldn’t have started trouble with the first Big Daddy, but a splicer clonked it on the head trying to steal the little girl, and it attacked everything, after that.  Steve ran out of ammo, once, and Billy chucked his wrench at it and ran up a pile of packing crates.  He yelled as the thing knocked them aside like they were ABC blocks, until Steve could draw its attention back with a tommy gun the splicer had dropped. 

They took it in turns to rewire the security turrets, and Billy still nearly died, the drill grazing his jaw as Steve emptied their shotgun into the thing’s kidneys.  Billy fell as it fell, slumping to his knees and staring straight ahead, and Steve threw the gun down and checked him for injuries, then cupped his face.  “Billy.  Billy,” he whispered.  “Are you hurt?”

“...you killed it,” Billy whispered back, laughing unsteadily, and then he leaned in and kissed Steve, his lips cold and shaking, but his mouth warm.  “You killed it,” he whispered again.  “We can do this,” he mumbled against Steve’s lips, his voice breaking.  

Billy’s shivering arms around Steve’s neck were the first time something had felt new, down here, and he sat for a long second, thinking it out.  “...we’ll find her,” he said, and Billy laughed, wide-eyed behind his mask, and then ran his tongue over his teeth, grinning.  

“You’re sold, huh,” he said, and Steve snorted a laugh, and helped him up.  

 The little girl clung to the charred hulk of the Big Daddy, sobbing, and Steve lifted her away guiltily as she kicked and screamed, and then, when he didn’t hurt her, clung to him.

“...that’s not her,” Billy whispered.  “Damn it.”

“All right,” Steve said, “—hup!” and picked her up, letting her sing her creepy little song as her eyes glowed. 

“Kill her,” said the other voice, over the radio, and Steve and Billy stopped, glancing at each other, as the little girl climbed up to hug Steve’s head.  

“Don’t,” said a voice close by, and Steve turned to see a woman half-hidden behind one of the crates.  Her German accent was as familiar as almost everything had been since he’d arrived, and he squinted under the little girl patting his hair, her weight making him stand crookedly.  

“I wasn’t going to kill a child,” he said, and the woman stepped forward, a little.  

“If you help her, she can help you,” she said.

“We’re trying to help her,” Steve said, and Billy leaned to whisper in his ear.

His breath was warm.  It was a new sensation, and Steve shivered, distracted.  “That’s the doctor that did this,” Billy told him.

“And I know how to undo it,” she said sternly, ignoring Billy’s snort.

“How?” Steve asked, trying to ignore the weight of Billy’s chilly shoulder leaning against him, and she tossed him a syringe.  

“Take that,” she said.  “It’ll let you save them.”  She glanced at his radio.  “...or kill them.  Children.”

“I will save them,” Steve reiterated, annoyed, and Billy watched his face warily, but helped him push the syringeful of glowing liquid under his own skin.  

The little girl yelped and squirmed as Steve laid his hand on her stomach and drew the glow out of her eyes and skin, and Billy’s tense fingers left bruises in his arm, but when he sat her down, she clutched at Steve’s hand.  “Thank you, mister,” she said, and Billy gave a throaty gasp, swallowing hard.  

“We’ll save her,” Steve told him, squeezing him close, and Billy leaned up for another soft kiss, lingering this time.  He tasted of blood, and salt from the tears leaking down through his mask.

“Yeah,” he said, pulling away and grabbing the tommy gun.

 He ran with Steve to try and save the voice’s family, and they watched the bathysphere they’d tried to save get overwhelmed by splicers, and sink.  “Damn it,” Billy whispered, as the voice sent them hunting someone else.  

He called the city Rapture, and it fit like a puzzle piece in Steve’s mind, the beginning of a complete picture.

“You don’t know where your sister is, do you?”

Billy grimaced, shaking his head.  “I can’t fit through the vents,” he admitted.  “Wo—would you ki…” he grimaced, and swallowed.

“We can look for your sister while helping him,” Steve said, and Billy nodded, his shoulders relaxing a little.  Steve grabbed his hand—the whole one, so as not to hurt him—and pulled him along, and Billy laughed, smiling sidelong over at him whenever they came to a stop.  When Steve pushed him into cover to avoid one of the ceiling-clinging splicers, Billy pulled him close, sliding his hands up and under Steve’s shirt, another new sensation.  Billy’s skin under his fingertips was yet one more.  

 It felt odd, but good, chasing something that he was clumsy at, that didn’t fall into place.  Even as Steve slid his fingers into Billy’s sweat-warm hair, he couldn’t help thinking that everyone seemed to know who he was.  The doctor had waited for him.  The new voice on the radio called him by name, and Billy had asked for his help as soon as he came down in the bathysphere.  

The sounds of splicers screaming and bombs detonating sank into a comforting hum in the background, and Steve had missed it, somehow.  The air smelled right, down here, he thought, where even the air in the lighthouse, unpolluted as yet by the smoke from the plane, had smelled empty and strange.

 They saved another little girl, Steve drawing the glowing stuff from her and grimacing down at his arm as she ran off and clambered into a vent.  The radio voice told him how to hook himself up to a machine in the wall, and Billy leaned around him, poking the controls.  

“There,” he said, sounding a little sad.  It was hard to read Billy, Steve thought, bending to kiss under his jaw.  “Now you can throw lightning,” Billy said, with his odd, crooked smile.

“...I won’t hurt you, you know,” Steve told him, taking a guess, and Billy’s eyes widened behind his mask.  

“...I’m sorry,” he said, but he wouldn’t explain.

 The other voice led them through more and more splicers, and finally Billy screamed as they were nearly overwhelmed, and rats poured from the walls, climbing and biting.  Billy drew Steve away, panting, as the horde of splicers screamed, eaten alive.  “I can’t do that very often,” he whispered against Steve’s shoulder, his mask knocked crooked against Steve’s head.  “I’ll end up like the rest of them.  And it’s no good against the big Daddies, not through that armor.”

Steve squeezed him tightly, and then retied his mask for him, gently tugging his hair free of the knot.

 When they found the labs, Billy found his sister, and Steve took the glow from her eyes.  She tagged along after them, holding both their hands, and when attacked, using the flamethrower Billy had found for her.

Her name was Max.

Steve was horrified by the labs,  bythe recordings of the scientists experimenting on the little girls—and on a little boy, too—though Billy grabbed him and pulled him from that room quickly, and Max set it on fire.

“You don’t want to see in there,” Billy told him, staring into Steve’s eyes, and running his thumb over Steve’s cheek.  “...there’s no fixing it anyway,” he added hoarsely, turning and kicking the wall, hard.  “Damn it,” he whispered.  

“Come on,” said Max, and Billy twined his fingers through Steve’s..

 The voice kept telling Steve to move on, to find the maker of the city, to get revenge, and Steve’s skin crawled with urgency even as he met Billy’s expressionless eyes behind the mask.  “...we’ll meet you at the bathysphere,” Billy said, watching Steve warily like Steve hadn’t proved himself, finding Billy’s sister.

The voice came on again, and Billy shoved Max behind him, his eyes on Steve, as the voice said, “Would you kindly hurry up, before the whole of Rapture floods,” and Steve shuddered.  

“Th-that’s safest,” Steve managed, watching Billy turn away and not look back.  It felt familiar again, cloyingly nostalgic, to follow the voice.  

He thought he’d seen tears dripping along Billy’s chin as he’d turned away, but it could have been sweat—or water, from the holes the splicers kept blowing in the walls.  

 Steve faced the maker of the city alone, his hands shaking as he tried to follow every directive the voice made, and still hear the man in front of him, speaking words.  When he left, trembling and bloodied, the voice told him where to go next—it didn’t even explain why, anymore, in an endless train of ‘Would you kindly’s, as Steve tried to tell it he was done, he wanted to find Billy, he wanted to go.  

When he finally found the voice, his head hurt.  Everything echoed, and the lights had halos, and he couldn’t think, his fingers twitching as his feet stumbled.  

He could hear rats.  The voice screamed and screamed, and then Billy was back.

“Shit,” he whispered, his fingers rough against Steve’s face.  “Harrington—Steve—can you—can you hear me?”

Steve nodded, grabbing him close and wondering wildly as his vision whirled whether it was Billy at all, or whether he’d lost his mind—but Billy smelled like Billy, like machine oil, and sweat, and the cheese snacks he carried to feed the rats that answered his call.  Unfamiliar, and good.

“The other girls are in the bathysphere,” Billy whispered, “—but I—” He laughed, shaking his head.  “I had to see if you were still...here.”

“The voice stopped,” Steve breathed into his shoulder.  “Was that you?”

“I didn’t know what else to do,” Billy said.

“...can I leave here?” Steve asked.  “I think I...belong here.”

“That’s horseshit,” Billy said.  “You may have come from here.  But you—you get to—decide.” He bit his lips.  “...I wish you’d come with us.”

“...I’ll come, then,” Steve said, kissing him and letting his fingers slide over the edges of the mask, curious.

Billy raised his hand, hesitated, and then reached back and untied it, lifting it away to show a stubbly, mustached face with black veins running up the left side and into his eye.  He smiled, then looked up to see Steve’s face, and Steve embraced him again, cupping Billy’s face and pressing their foreheads together.  

“...you’re the only thing here that doesn’t feel right,” Steve whispered, and Billy flinched, turning his head away to hide the black veins, but Steve pulled him back.  “It means I want you...all on my own,” he whispered, and Billy huffed a soft laugh, yanking Steve upright, and hauled him along to the bathysphere.  

It was just as well.  The route to the bathysphere was just as nostalgic, and the controls came to Steve like he’d been born with them in his hands, while the girls and Billy shouted, pressed to the window.

“Get us out of here,” Billy called back.  “Thank god you can drive this thing.”

Steve took them to the surface, and they watched the bathysphere sink.  He counted the children, found they were all there, and took a deep breath into Billy’s hair.  

The air smelled new.

The other Harringrove April prompts I’ve done

[lulusoblue]

this isn’t me vagueing or anything, or I’m not intending to because people have previously expressed the same of what I’m about to rant on, and I don’t want to @ or refer to any blog specifically for reigniting my bafflement of this take because this isn’t a personal grudge match against anyone, just a general *what* of this concept, but

jesus h christ on a stick, why do people want BioShock Infinite’s Elizabeth to have been a racist?

I get an AU fic of another timeline where Comstock’s motives weren’t messy as fuck and he didn’t just plan to force his messiah with a spinal shock collar from the word go, like “what if” stuff, but like saying she should have been racist in the original game and actually wanting this change because it would “improve” her character?

like, disclaimer because I am a white woman who may not have a say in things like this anyway, but honestly the racism angle was a huge mistake in Infinite in the first place, and should never have been done in this game because the lead writer is a white man and I can bet my bottom dollar he most likely did not consult anyone on race or racism beyond what historically accurate heinous racist acts to not depict in the game so players could “sympathise” with the flying racists getting their dues post-Finkton.

You know how important the racism of Columbia is to him? How relevant is it to the ending of the game? Answer: it isn’t. BioShock 1’s ending has the failings of Rapture relevant to the ending regarding the player’s choices. The ending of Infinite, however, focuses on Elizabeth, Booker and the multiverse, where nobody mentions the Vox or how Columbia was a failure or anything. Nothing with the Vox Populi or Columbia’s hubris is linked to the game’s ending. Both are left feeling superfluous. It was just something to stick into the background rather than be a story element that properly tied in with the story’s real focus. If you wanted Levine to write a better racism story I would have to ask you why??? Do you trust him to?????

What reason was there that we switched from extreme nationalism and its consequences in the demos as late as 2012 to “racism bad but the victims of it are also bad if they fight back” in 2013? Who fucking knows. Probably shock value, because I don’t see how time and resources would cause such a change from what Irrational put out there in interviews leading up to release. Given how Levine tried to retcon Daisy’s story in Burial at Sea (and keep in mind Black Lives Matter didn’t start as a movement until a few months after Infinite’s release and before BaS Episode 2 was released) he certainly didn’t commit to “Daisy and Comstock are the same”. If he had conviction for his “both sides” story, he wouldn’t have tried to rewrite it to Daisy choosing to play monster as a necessary sacrifice for her cause (which itself is its own can of worms with how it now plays out).

Considering as well how we had that article revealing how long it took to get a playable build out of Irrational thanks to Levine’s lack of solid direction, as well as the recent revelation that he had never read Ayn Rand when making a game about a city BUILT ON HER IDEOLOGY, I’m pretty sure the poor writing around Columbia’s racism and the Vox Populi in the final game was just made up as he went along to push out a finished product, because it had been five years at that point and 2k was piiiiiiissed.

Then we have how Elizabeth is your companion character, your escort mission. Friends, do you know how escort mission characters were viewed back pre-2013? Bad. The AI could just look at a player funny and they’d draw a 5 page comic on how awful a character they were and post it to deviantart. One of the worst levels in BioShock was when we had to escort a very killable Little Sister with a fishbowl filter on our FOV, and one of the major complaints people had with BioShock 2 was how they had an OPTIONAL escort mission to get more mutation juice. We didn’t start getting games with escort characters like Elizabeth or Clementine or Ellie, characters people actually cared about and WANTED to protect, until around 2012-2013.

You think the people creating Elizabeth, the escort mission character built to be a likeable, enjoyable to be with and empathise with her character, who can never get hurt or kidnapped in combat and actively helps the player, should have had her been a racist??? In a post-Mass Effect world??????

Ashley Williams is a woman from a military family. She is a proud member of the Alliance military who has concerns on working with aliens after having had no prior experience working with aliens. However, you can ease those concerns and help her warm up to building alliances in the first Mass Effect game. Ashley grows to trust alien squadmates, and even without your character’s influence will regard two anti-alien groups with disgust for their outright racism and human centrism.

And here’s the kicker, even with that nuance to her character, in a game of plenty of other more overtly racist and prejudiced characters? ASHLEY IS STILL THE BUTT OF THE SPACE RACISM JOKES. She had flaws, she developed, she proves her loyalties to the point of refusing to work with you when you’re forced to join one of the human centric groups, AND SHE’S STILL MOCKED FOR SPACE RACISM. EVEN IN PROMOTIONAL MATERIAL SHE’S RETROACTIVELY REGARDED AS BEING DIFFICULT TO WORK WITH. THAT IS HOW MUCH THE FANDOM AROUND MASS EFFECT HAS AFFECTED HOW ASHLEY IS SEEN.

And you want Infinite to have Elizabeth be very obviously racist with real life racism? (which is the vibe i’ve been getting) Like, you think all the people behind Elizabeth’s design, her game functionality, her interactions and personality, would give players ammunition to hate a character you’re supposed to enjoy having around on purpose? You think they’re going to give the actual racists and bigots and nazis of the internet a mascot????? Because we already had the facebook header image debacle for a Columbian propaganda poster, you KNOW they would.

And personally I don’t think it would make great character development, because the game is not in the format for that kind of exploration of character’s story. BioShock Infinite is not an RPG with you making dialogue choices with squadmates where you feel like you really influenced them to see the error of their ways. Infinite is a linear shooter. There is no real sense of the passage of time in a linear shooter, the player will experience it like it really doesn’t happen in the span of 20 hours.

Unlearning racism and religious brainwashing is not a quick fixit, and a quick fixit is how it would feel in the 20-40 hours you take to play through the entire game. If Infinite had had Elizabeth going from “I’m racist” to “*sees a black person suffering* maybe racism is wrong???” to “i am no longer racist, I see the error of my ways, you can like me now” in the span of what feels like less than a day to players in a linear game, people would be super critical of the pretty white girl getting cured of her bigotry way too quickly and how the game makes it like we’re supposed to applaud her for being so brave and mature and open-minded, and how much Levine really doesn’t understand nuance or anything about how internalised racism works.

BioShock Infinite’s final release proved that the Vox Populi should not have been handled the way they were. Yes, more media should be discussing and making audiences aware of what is racist, and how irrational it really is when you get down to it, but BioShock Infinite should not have been that media. It was originally written for two opposing sides in a city built on extreme nationalism, much like how BioShock was for objectivism, and then changed relatively last minute. It was written by a white man who’d already written the franchise’s only gay named character as a horrific monster of a man (Cohen) and has expressed how autism is what made a person evil (Tenenbaum). It was written with Elizabeth in mind, a main character who was literally designed to be an escort mission players would actually enjoy, most likely from Day 1 given how much behind the scenes stuff we know of her.

I wouldn’t trust someone like Levine to write a story of a character unlearning racism over the course of a game’s story, i don’t think he should ever have touched a story where racism is a such a prominent element with a 100 foot pole.

[sunflowerheartsandstarryskies]

Land on the Same Shore- Chapter One- A Din Djarin X Reader Story

Author’s Note- Hey y’all this story was inspired by the Tangled AU @pedropascallovebot wrote and I fell in love with it but I also drew a lot of inspiration from the Bioshock videogames as well because there was also some rapunzel vibes with that. (Y/f/c) stands for your favorite color

The title is from the quote: “We swim in different oceans but land on the same shore” from the Bioshock series

Warnings: subtle mentions of abuse, mentions of gaslighting and manipulation

The Mandalorian wasn’t sure why he accepted the job in the first place, it wasn’t something he’d do, but he figured, a job is a job. A mother had asked him to find her daughter who had run away from home, and the mother sounded frantic to get her back safely. The Mandalorian had a bad feeling about this job, mostly because of the mother. She had worn a deep red, velvety cloak and had deep-set charcoal eyes, she was very pale.

 The mother wore herself as she could be in her sixties but looked like she could be no more than in her thirties. There was an odd aura around the woman and the frantic way she asked for Mando to get her daughter wasn’t in the way a mother would be desperate to see her child safe and well, but as if she was a commodity, a precious treasure that was robbed from her.

Mando shook his head as he carried the fob with him to pick up on the tracker that’s on the daughter, there is no reason to be thinking about that, he had a quarry to pick up. The fob brought him to a quaint looking cantina, it was made of wood and had some intricate carvings on some wooden posts on the inside. When he went inside it was bustling with activity, tables have been moved aside and music playing loudly, while many of the patrons seem to be dancing and singing along to the music. 

In the center of the stage was a beautiful girl in a spaghetti strap, corset dress in a beautiful (y/f/c) but the rest of the dress seemed to be made of loose, tulle that seemed to be ripped and dirtied in some areas. What caught Mando’s eyes was how bright-eyed she was and how happy she seemed to be in this rundown cantina dancing with strangers, doing a country line dance it seemed. The fob seemed to point towards her being the quarry and so he went towards her, but as he seemed to move forward all the music and warmth in the cantina was gone. The girl looked up at him and seemed to cower inwardly and a lot of the men there picked up on what is going on.

“I’m here to take you back to your mother,” Mando stated gruffly. The girl looked around fearfully with tears in her eyes, and one of the men stood in front of her and said, “Why? We won’t let you, it seems to us that she doesn’t want to go back.” Mando sighed and shook his head, he wasn’t being paid enough for this, but before he can push the man out of the way the girl jumped on to one of the benches nearby and yelled, “I have a dream to be able to go see the stars, to have adventures, that is why I went out on my own. I am an adult, I am 25 years old, I just want to see the galaxy! Surely all of you have dreams of your own, even you,” She pointed at Mando. The monologue made the Mandalorian hesitant in multiple ways, one was that the quarry was 25, she is a grown woman, why was the mother being so overprotective, and two no one had ever considered if a Mandalorian had dreams. 

That speech had set off a ripple effect in the cantina with multiple people spewing their life and what their dream was to be, and there seems to be a sort of warmth brought back to the people there. The girl had such kind spirit and seemed to radiate this warm light to those around her, even the Mandalorian feels it. However, Mando had a job to do so he kept walking to the girl and put a hand to her shoulder and said, “We can do this the easy way or the hard way to get you back.” 

There were many people who started to protest, but the girl raised her and shook her head as she tells everyone, “Thank you, everyone, for your kindness and generosity I will remember you, I hope you guys will remember your dreams, maybe I’ll be able to pursue mine another time,” she looks up at him and says more softly, “I will come with you quietly I don’t want to make more of a trouble for anyone then I already have.” He nods and puts the cuffs on her as he leads her out of the cantina.

When he was leading her back to his ship, the Razor Crest, he noticed she wasn’t wearing any shoes. “Do you not have any shoes?” Mando asked. She shook her head and replied, “I don’t have many things but what I do have I am reminded to be grateful for what I have every day.”

Moments passed and they reached the cockpit of the Razor Crest and she sat down in the co-pilot’s seat as they took off he punched in the coordinates and spun around to face her. He is going to hate himself for this, he remembers the endless rules and policies that he followed to ensure that each quarry would end up as a successful job, but something about her is making him soft and he doesn’t understand. “If you are a grown woman, why is your mother so protective of you?” The question slipped past his lips and the woman looked up at him. “She does not care about me, only for what I provide her, I am not blind to that but she is afraid that I may be too naive to be out on my own as she is made me quite aware of all the dangers and nightmares of the galaxy. I practically live in a library, that is how I escaped, I learned how to lockpick from reading a book. She keeps locked up in the basement, it is not a dungeon it is spacious and has lots of books to read and paper for me to draw on, but I feel like I have been made to do something much more.” 

Silence fell into a comfortable place between them and the Mandalorian had cocked his head to the side as he listened to her story. He had an urge to help her and not take her back there to her mother. She spoke up again but this time her voice was just above a whisper, “I don’t want to go back to her. She says awful things to me, and she says that she is the only that knows me best and that if I didn’t want to be where I was then I shouldn’t have been born at all,” she pauses and starts to shrink back further back in the chair, “one day she would say she can’t live without me and in the next second say that no one would know if I died in that room. All of her words start to weigh heavy on my mind more than anything else that I know of. Why is that?”

The girl didn’t look up until a hand was placed on her knee and she looked up to see the beskar helmet staring at her, even though she can’t see his face she feels worried energy coming off of him. She lowered her head again and took a shaky breath in to say, “I’m sorry you probably don’t want to hear this. You don’t care, I am sorry to put my worries on you.” There was a pause between them before she heard, “What is your name?”

“My name is (Y/N).”

[dirthavarens]

Birthday Variables [Bookerbeth]

Fandom: Bioshock Infinite Characters: Booker Dewitt, Elizabeth Comstock Relationship: Booker/Elizabeth Rating: Explicit Warnings: SMUT AHOY.  Word Count: 5,499 Notes: This started as an Anonymous ask for the “send me a ship and a prompt” and I got a LITTLE carried away. It’s the night before Elizabeth’s birthday and she finally get what she wants

READ ON AO3

or read below;;

New York City, October, 1912;;

It had been months since they discovered the truth of their connection, since his death, and his revival. The Lutece twins may have been able to take her away from Booker, but they could not take Booker away from her. Not again. 

Not ever again.

With infinite wisdom and foresight came a price, one that she would pay time and again if it meant her first and only friend was still planted at her side, protecting her. She knew when tears would appear, when she would close them, what would happen in them, and yet she still held a sense of wonder and adventure very close to her heart. He brought a unique perspective into her life and made decisions entirely of his own volition since she brought him back on the shore of his betwixt. 

The weather in New York was far different from that of Columbia, even more so was the filth that lined the streets, but Elizabeth paid no mind. They only stopped by his rundown one-bedroom every so often to pay the bills enough to keep the lights on and occasionally sleep off whatever adventure they had gone on. Though, Elizabeth had brought in a personal flair to breathe life into the dust covered hazy room.

A love seat, a dresser, some of her personal art, and some of the more prominent necessities, were all brought into through the tears she created. Of course, she had access to libraries aplenty, but she kept those in her tears, bringing through whatever book she wished and devouring it before Booker could even begin his. Not one for the books, that man.

The first week they were in New York, Booker insisted on sleeping on the floor or passed out at his desk, cigarette often still in-hand. He had been working non-stop to put the pieces together, to track down any signs of the Lutece twins, specifically Rosalind, and her connection to a debt collection agency. Although, at the time, with Annabelle gone, he had been too far into the bottle to remember much of anything, let alone care. 

They maintained more than a comfortable friendship and Elizabeth found herself aching for him to be at her side in the middle of the night. She would lay awake and silently watch him nurse a glass of bourbon as he read the newspaper. Her fingers would ache and her heart would pound at her ear. She knew nothing terrible would come of it, there was no fear of rejection, but a barrier needed crossing.

And one night she crossed it. A nightmare had her screaming into the air and she scrambled to sit upright in bed. Booker reacted before she managed to get up, his hand cannon in one hand, her wrist in the other, ready to pull her behind him. When she admitted it had just been a nightmare, he offered her a drink and it was enough to loosen her tongue. She spilled more truth than she had wanted. That she loved him, that she felt too far from him when he slept ten feet from her, that he was her only friend. 

From that night on, she fell asleep cradled in Booker’s arms, tucked squarely against his interminable warmth. She had loathed it in Paris, the late August sun bearing down on them as they stood atop the Eiffel Tower and her own excitement kept her warm enough, but Booker was still there at night to hold her close to him. Though, his warmth had proven itself useful as of late as she learned the first snowfall came terribly early and it was to be an unbearably cold winter. 

They had shared their first kiss atop the Tower, in a cliche moment of romance, and Elizabeth could nearly feel herself plummet to the ground while soaring on the wind. From then, she sought to steal a kiss whenever she could. She adored the way his unchecked stubble felt against her cheeks and always pulled from him with a smile. 

Kisses were nice, but she could see something more in his eyes. More than that, even. She saw her own desires reflected plainly, but neither took the initiative to make the first move, to take their relationship to that point. For all intents and purposes, they were a couple. The fact of their relation lost to them as they had never known the other as father or daughter, but as friend and something approaching lover. 

She could feel his arousal from time to time, as she would sit in his lap, panting between pairs of parted lips. In their shared breath, he would mutter profanities before he put his hands at her hips and gently rocked her against him until she picked up the motion on her own. Elizabeth was far from naive. She knew of his desires and could hear him in the bathtub, her name falling from his lips in a voice she wished to hear at her ear. Oftentimes, her hand would wander between her thighs and stroke at the sensitive bundle of nerves before sinking into her entrance. She felt a voyeur, a sinner, but if she could not have him physically, she would at least find pleasure in knowing she is the focal point of his arousal.

“Hey, thought you’d be in bed by now.” Booker’s voice broke through her thoughts as he walked into the apartment. Elizabeth noticed him carrying a small parcel bag in one hand and a bottle of bourbon in another. His drinking had slowed significantly since they had started traveling and not running for their lives. But when Booker found some time, he’d sniff out a bottle. 

“I have too much on my mind and can't sleep,” she explained with an experimental tone. Perhaps tonight she could talk him out of his clothes and into their bed. After all, Booker didn’t seem the prudent type.

He gave a knowing hum and nodded his head, grabbing at two glasses from atop the icebox after setting the bag down where she could no longer see it. With her curiosity piqued, Elizabeth wanted to use her omnipotence to peer inside. However, gestures such as these, she knew, were uncommon coming from him. He preferred his sentimentality to come from protecting her and doing what he could physically to please her. 

Well, almost physically. 

He waved her over to his desk with but two fingers and she crawled from the sheets. Her nightgown was from another time in the future, shorter and thinner than any she had seen in any store in 1912. The ivory silk-like material floated over her form, but complemented her shape, giving credit where credit was due. 

She caught sight of Booker eyeing her up from the corner of his eye while she cleared a space for her to sit on his desk. His jade eyes trailed her form as though he was looking at meal and she awarded herself a small, satisfied smirk that she withheld from his gaze. Not that he was looking anyway, his sights homed in the points of her nipples against the fabric of her sleepwear. 

“Same stuff as before?” Elizabeth asked, amusement edging her voice, as she sat atop his desk, legs crossed. 

“Nah, I was gettin’ tired of Jim Beam and decided to go with Old Crow. A bit smoother, but not by much. Might help you sleep,” he returned roughly, like a man caught in the middle of a drink.

Good.

When he regained his composure, Booker poured each of them a drink, Elizabeth’s considerably lesser than his own. She slowly inched closer to him and brushed against his leg with her own as he took a slow sip. She had grown tired of dancing around the subject. And tonight was as good as any because tomorrow they would be off to Paris as the tower was being built and then from there, it was her choice. Her twenty-first birthday would be the first she spent as a free woman. 

She grabbed the glass he offered her and took a sip, the alcohol immediately making her recoil until she remembered how he showed her how to drink it. Open her throat and let it slide back, the burn wouldn’t be so bad that way. Just like drinking medicine. 

They sat in silence for a moment before Booker’s curious green eyes looked up at her. 

“You know what you’re wearing is lingerie? Might be from another time, but I know lingerie when I see it.” His words were plain, matter-of-fact, but she saw behind the apathetic veneer was an interest she wanted nothing more than to expand on. He leaned forward and rested his forearms on the desk, the chair creaking as he shifted his weight towards her.

“I saw it in a store and thought it was worth buying. Do you like it?” She slid closer to him, her foot resting along the inside of his leg. 

He glanced down at her foot then back to her and took a drink. Subtlety was gone from her mind. “Yeah, I do. Why?”

They met in July, formed an inseparable bond by August, fell in love shortly after. She knew marriage was the first step, but in their precarious situation, such things could not happen on paper. She didn’t care if she’d be marked as a harlot or a heathen for the rest of her days. Not when she had Booker. 

She took another sip from her glass and cleared her throat when the burn settled in her stomach. Warmth spread through her body as the alcohol quickly went to work. 

“Booker, why haven’t we made love?” she asked abruptly. 

He raised a brow at her, eyes wide as he set a pack of cigarettes back down on his desk, and cleared his throat. Elizabeth felt the air around them grow dense with tension, but she needed to know without having to use her gifts. Booker collected himself and took another sip before he stood, positioning himself between her legs. 

“I didn’t think you’d be interested,” he replied and left his glass to the other side of the desk. Her breath hitched when he placed his hands on either side of her. “But if that’s what you want for your birthday...”

“How’d you kn--” she began then remembered. “Oh.”

“Hard to forget dates like that. They stay with you no matter how much time passes.”

There was a forgotten emotion that flitted in his gaze but it disappeared before Elizabeth could place it. In its breadth came a much more germane state, one that she welcomed with open arms. 

“What brought this on?” he asked after a moment of silence. 

“Nothing. It’s something I’ve wanted for months. Ever since that day. Ever since I watched you come back to life.” Her confession was honest and said with her eyes bounding between him and the amber liquid in her glass. “I figured that if I don’t initiate it, then it will never happen and I’ll never...” 

He leaned in and stole a slow kiss that tasted of alcohol and cigarettes on her tongue as she opened her mouth to his. The first time he kissed her, Elizabeth hated the sense of burnt tobacco in her mouth and carried mints on her to erase the taste. But as was in many cases, she adapted with ease and found the taste to be enjoyable at times. It was befitting of him, as rugged and weathered as his palms. 

“I know you’re interested, Booker,” she started again when he pulled his lips from hers. His breath played against her mouth and she had to keep herself from leaning back in. “I know you want this, and now you know that I do, too.” 

He placed his hands on her hips and pulled her against him, barely giving her enough time to set her drink down. She prepared herself for a kiss but was left empty as his lips found her neck. “All you had to do was ask.”

Nervous giddiness built within her and she held to his shoulder and wound a hand into the short hairs on the back of his head. Booker had explored her with similar kisses before, but none ever had such prominent intent. They had been lackadaisical and playful. His teeth raked against her jugular, drawing a gasp from her and sending warmth to pool in the pit of her belly as her excitement grew. 

“Aren’t you all-knowing?” he asked against her skin and pulled a strap of her nightdress over her shoulder. “Why did you wait?” 

Elizabeth pressed into him as he ran his mouth over her clavicle, a mixture of tongue, teeth, and lip as he explored the expanse of her chest. A low moan served as response when the hand at her hip scooped her up. Her legs wrapped around his broad form as he easily carried her over to the bed. She shrugged the other shoulder strap off and the silken fabric hung loosely from her nipples as he held her above the mattress. 

“I don’t use my omnipotence for my own sexual gain, Booker.” Her lips found his, her hands at either side of his face, and showed him that she was in the mood to talk no longer.

With the message having been received, Booker deepened the kiss, his tongue sliding against hers while a low groan sounded in his throat. He lowered her to the mattress and positioned himself above her. Elizabeth’s breath hitched when he ran a hand down her torso, over the swell of each breast, and down to her abdomen before bringing it up to rest at her cheek.

There was a familiar pressure at her core. It was the same sensation she got while she pleasured herself to hearing his moans and pants when he thought she slept. Though, it felt urgent and she felt a slickness start to ease its way from between her folds. 

Her hands moved to his belt and slipped it through each loop with ease after unbuckling it. She threw the leather to the floor and grabbed at his button-up. For a moment, Elizabeth considered tearing it off of him, leaving the buttons to land where they would. But Booker beat her to the punch. 

He leaned back on his knees and unfastened each button with intentional slowness. His chest was not something she hadn’t seen before. In fact, she had seen in so many times she knew the exact number of scars he had, but that information was not prudent as he pressed his knee against her core. 

The contact sent a zip through her that crackled with more electricity than Shock Jockey ever could, and she shuddered. Her eyelids fluttered as he shifted his knee, working on the last couple of buttons quicker than he had the first three. She reached up, pushed the fabric out of her way, and placed her fingers into the band of his slacks.

The forming mass within his pants had not escaped her when she unclasped the button. With an eagerness that she never experienced, she pressed her palm against his erection. Elizabeth glanced up to see Booker looking down at her with approval, his hips swaying into her touch. Admittedly, he was larger than she had expected, though she wasn’t sure why she was surprised.

He dwarfed her when it came to size. Booker stood just over six feet and she came in an entire foot shorter. Not to mention he was broad and muscled, while she was sleek and slender. The two couldn’t be more opposite.

Elizabeth shook the thought from her mind, not wanting to intimidate herself too much. She was intent on enjoying her first time having sex, especially with Booker. Her safety and comfort were not in question on his part. He always moved at her pace, but was leaping the second she said jump. 

She ran her hand along the length of his erection and gently squeezed when she reached the top. The sensation was unlike anything she had ever felt before. Hard but pliant, though not by much. 

Booker rocked into her touch as he shrugged his shirt off and tossed it across the room. Her fingers hesitated for a moment at his zipper, noticing that he wore no undergarments. The tuft of sand-colored curls that lined down to his pelvis was left uninterrupted and Elizabeth ran her fingers along the straight patch. In response, Booker took it upon himself to pry her legs open further and place his hand where his knee had taken residence. 

Another hitched breath escaped her mouth when his thumb lightly traced over her clit through her underwear. He teased her nub enough to make her hand falter for a moment longer before she regained composure. Her grip was quick at his zipper and she pulled it down to reveal the flushed tip of his cock. His pinstripe pants hung loosely at his hips for but a moment because he was leaning forward over her and kicking them off.

Elizabeth caught his lips in a kiss and found herself moaning at the sensation of his erection bouncing against her. Booker smiled against her mouth and tugged at the hem of her clothing, a silent demand for her to remove it. 

Without hesitation, she adjusted herself and peeled the silk from her body. There was nothing but her underwear now, and Booker’s hand was working its way between her skin and the fabric. His middle finger slipped between her folds and both of them shuddered in time when he was met with an abundance of her juices. 

“Fuck, Liz...” 

The nickname rang at her ears as he sank the digit into her core. So far was the feeling of his finger inside of her as opposed to her own, Elizabeth thought it was something entirely different. She let out a breath as she adjusted to the girth of his finger. Again, she thought of how she was going to fit his erection within her body, but this time with desire instead of fear. 

“God, you’re so...” he breathed and leaned down to take her breast into his mouth. She lifted into his mouth and rocked against his finger, her body writhing in opposing directions as she let out a string of breathy moans. “I’m afraid I might break you.”

Her hands moved to her underwear and she peeled them off. Admittedly she did not care that they were essentially ruined for the night as she heard them fall against the floor. His finger continued to work in and out of her, prodding and curling within her. Her thoughts clouded and Elizabeth was abuzz with crashing waves of warmth and shocks of something she had only experienced in privacy. 

Though, Booker had been the cause of most--if not all--of her orgasms since they escaped Columbia. 

His lips moved from her breast, touched her chin, then left her entirely. The loss of contact caused her eyes to shoot open and search for where he had gone. She saw him hovering over her abdomen and thought she might go mad at the sight. 

His dusty blond hair was mussed and there was a glint in his gaze as he met her eyes that left her dizzy and full of need. Elizabeth held back a moan as his lips returned to her skin, his kiss at her hip rougher than any kiss before. It sent her reeling, her head falling back to the pillow as she released a strangled gasp.

“Oh, if you’re enjoying this, darling, just you wait,” he chuckled and she glanced down to see the look of a predator in his eye. Booker gave her wink before crawling from the bed and knelt on the floor. “Put your legs on my shoulders.”

Her thoughts too cloudy to question, Elizabeth obeyed and positioned herself squarely in front of him, knees bent over his shoulders. She caught sight of his hand slowly working his shaft and shivered at the soft glistening coming from his cockhead. He removed his hand from himself after she was situated and pulled her to him until her thighs rested against his collarbone and his mouth was directly at her core. 

“Relax, Elizabeth. I have to get you as ready as I can. I don’t wanna hurt you if I can avoid it.” Booker’s reassurance touched a soft spot within her and she pushed herself up on her elbows to watch. 

Without another word, he experimentally traced up between her folds with his tongue and rounded her clit. Elizabeth nearly collapsed from the electric pleasure that shot to and fro in her spine before it crashed directly into her core. Her eyes stayed fixed on him as best they could at the combination of sensation and focus as he swept his tongue over her again. 

When Booker met her eyes and flicked her clit with the tip of her tongue once, twice, one more...

Elizabeth groaned, her head falling back against the mattress and reached for his hair. She squirmed beneath him, relishing the heat between her legs as he lapped and sucked at her core, his stubble scratching and tickling between her thighs.

He was driving her closer to the edge of cliff she never knew could be so high. Her hips jutted and rolled against his mouth, lifting into the air, but Booker only held tight to her, letting her writhe against him as his tongue focused entirely on her clit, striking the nerves just right...so incredibly right...her world plummeted into darkness and reemerged with bursts of blinding light.

“Booker!” His name split into the air, loud enough to ring through to the neighbors above, beside, and below, but she didn’t care. She couldn’t care when Booker’s tongue was working such magic on her. And when he pulled back, Elizabeth caught sight of him licking his lips with his jaw glistening with her juices. 

“This might be uncomfortable at first.” Booker pressed a gentle kiss to her inner thigh before he sank and worked his forefinger into her. What? What could possibly be--

She watched as his middle finger squeezed beside the other and ease into her. The sensation of being stretched by him, his fingers working in tandem to prime her, was unlike anything she could imagine. He took his time with his preparation. On occasion, he would hit a spot that made her moan or curse and every time, he would chuckle, his eyes never leaving her face. 

“Boo--” she panted, voice hoarse and heady with arousal. “Booker, please.” 

He removed his fingers from her and crept over her, his lips meeting hers in a kiss so desperate Elizabeth thought she might cry. She tasted her own release on his mouth, thinking the flavor strange. However, the permanent taste of bourbon and tobacco backed the taste enough for it to heighten the ecstasy driving her. Her body was shaking as he led her up until her head was back at the pillows, her form crying out with overwhelming desire. 

“I’ll go slow, alright? I don’t wanna hurt you,” he ushered against her lips as his hand grabbed at his cock to align it with her entrance. “Try to stay relaxed.” 

Elizabeth tried to follow instructions, but he was running his dripping erection against her entrance and it had her shivering and rocking her hips against him. Instead of stopping her, he moved in synchronicity with her, meeting her peaks and nearly dipping into her when she ground her hips down. 

“Elizabeth.” Booker whispered her name with such reverence, she thought it might be a prayer. He bent over her, his forehead pressed to hers as he prodded her entrance with his cockhead. “I’m going to start now.” 

She nodded and locked her attention on his features. Slowly, he pushed into her and Elizabeth did her best not to wince, but tears pricked at the edges of her eyes all the same. He was hard and pulsing and too snug inside of her and she clung to his back, digging her nails into the already scarred expanse.

“God, Booker...” she cried, burying her face into the sweat-coated nape of his neck. He had prepared her, but she had not anticipated such a different feeling. “It hurts...”

He brought a hand to the back of her head and carded his fingers through her hair. “I know. Give yourself time to adjust. I want you, but if you want to stop, we can.” 

The thought of stopping snapped something in her and she pulled back, shaking her head wildly in disapproval. Booker was inside of her, ready to make love to her and she wasn’t going to stop because of a pain she was slowly growing accustomed to. “No. I want to keep going. It’s like you said, right? I just have to give myself some time to adjust.”

There was a smile forming on his lips that gave her some reassurance and the finger that came up to wipe at the tear at the edge of her eye settled some of her nerves. She gave a breath and scrambled for something that might help. 

Distractions always aided in pain. Her rage had blinded her to the hole in her back, too many bullets whizzing by her had kept her focused on Booker. A distraction was what she needed.

“Booker,” she began softly, swallowing the pain, “...kiss me. Kiss me and keep going.” 

He obeyed. He met her mouth with abandon and the world returned to the haze it had been before. Elizabeth groaned into the kiss when Booker sank further inside of her and slowly filled her an inch at a time, withdrawing slowly before sinking deeper. 

A groan escaped from him and she drank it in with fervor as the pain began to subside. She still felt too-full, but the pressure released a ravenous hunger in her for him to take her, and she wanted him to know. She pushed down on him as he rolled into her and sent his cock deeper into her, pressing against something within her that caused another cry to split into the air. 

“More,” was all she managed to say between the steady thrusts of his hips. And he happily gave her more by sinking into her until she could feel his skin against her own. 

“Tell me if I hurt you,” he muttered against her mouth and grabbed at her hips. Before Elizabeth realized what he meant, Booker had her in a steady hold and drove himself into her, faster and more forcefully than before.

An instance of pain dissolved into a fire that resided deep inside of her, burning up and making way for the pleasure that seized her. He met her lips in sloppy, haphazard kisses as he repeated the motion again and again. They held a steady tempo, each thrust brushing somewhere deep in Elizabeth that had her breathless, her mouth dry, and crying out for more. 

Pressure built with every motion, her lower half trying to escape his hold, but each movement brought her walls clenching around his cock. And every time she constricted around him, a near feral grunt would sound in his throat. With every noise he made, the pressure built higher, her pleasure increasing with his own. 

Then something changed, he lifted her hips and pushed her legs back until her knees were level with her face, his dick falling from her for a moment. The sudden loss of him inside of her left her aching painfully with need. She had been so close...

But Booker kissed her forehead, realigned himself, and thrust into her without the tenderness of the start. Elizabeth muffled another cry as he filled her completely, their skin slapping together. 

“Elizabeth, don’t hold back. Let it out. I want to hear you come for me,” he urged with a strained growl, his pace erratic but hitting something inside of her and beyond that made her unable to hold out. She twisted and writhed against him, seeking purchase anywhere she could with her lips, her teeth, any part of him.

In the midst of blissful chaos, Booker wiped her hair from her face, and Elizabeth looked up at him through blurred vision. Despite her body nearly thrown from a mountaintop and the ache deep within her, she felt tender warmth spread throughout her. “I...love y-you...Booker DeWitt...”

“I love you,” he returned, his words nearly drowned by the sound of their sex. 

Each point of contact was met with a cry from her lips until her head was numb and the pressure was too much to take. She reached her peak in stunned silence at first, her eyes opening wide before her entire body clenched in around him, legs shifting to find purchase, nails digging into him, her walls trapping him inside of her.

With a deep groan, Booker’s hips jutted against her; and as she felt his seed spill into her, Elizabeth’s final note was a strangled cry, tears pricking at her eyes. Every nerve of her body was overloaded with too much stimuli as she collapsed back onto the mattress.

Her chest heaved, her lungs burned, her mouth was terribly dry, her every muscle ached, but she had never felt so satisfied in her life. She wiped at the tears falling from her eyes before Booker could get a negative impression, if that was even possible.

She felt his spent cock pulsing and softening inside of her while he collected his faculties. His exhaustion brought a pleased grin to her lips and Elizabeth sighed contentedly when he pulled out of her with a wet pop. 

He pressed a kiss to her forehead and then to her lips before he fell to the bed beside her. She laughed as he stretched out like a satisfied cat, his body covered in a sheen of sweat, and cheeks flushed from exertion. 

Elizabeth felt like she was made of batter, nearly too exhausted to move, but she forced herself to roll over and set her forearms on Booker’s torso. Her grin was permanent as she kissed his jaw. 

Booker glanced at the wristwatch he left on the end table beside the bed. 

12:05 AM. 

“Hope that was a good enough start to your birthday,” he hummed with a breath of laughter.

“It was...” Elizabeth paused as she searched for the words. In all of her infinite knowledge, she found herself scrambling. “It was incredible. Does it always feel so good?”

Booker thought for a moment, as though unsure of what to say. “Depends on the person. If you’re compatible, it’s usually something like this.” 

“But not exactly?” 

“No,” Booker returned and leaned forward to kiss her. “That’s the difference between fucking and making love. Sex is usually great, but there’s more to it when you love the person.” 

The sentiment was strange coming from his mouth, but Elizabeth found herself beaming and curled up beside him. They laid there for a few moments, both content with the silence surrounding them. 

Booker was the first to rise from the bed, pulling his pants up and moving to lean against his desk. He grabbed his cigarettes and lit one with his vigor, taking a hard enough drag for Elizabeth to hear the crackle of the tobacco burning. He exhaled with an air of satisfaction she hadn’t seen from him before and her inquisitive nature must have been reflected in her expression because Booker was already preparing an answer.

“A smoke’s always tasted great after sex. Don’t know why, but it does,” he explained as he grabbed her glass and went to the bathroom. She heard him rinsing and filling the glass, and when he came out, Booker handed it to her. 

“Thanks,” she started as she sat up to take a drink.

Something slid out from between her legs and Elizabeth immediately clenched them together, her eyes wide as she looked to Booker, who was biting back a smirk.

“That’s normal,” he said as he put out the cigarette and offered her a hand. “C’mon, we’ll get you cleaned up.” 

She slipped her free hand into his and finished her glass in one gulp before setting it on the nightstand.

Elizabeth watched--no, marveled--at the sight of Booker being so caring and dare she say it, domestic. The man who killed with his bare hands and had a body count higher than she ever needed to know, was showing her a tenderness that she could never fathom, but knew to be true. 

She thought then of everything that she would have deprived herself, deprived him, had she left him drowned in that river. 

There’s always a man.  There’s always a lighthouse. There’s always a city.

But that didn’t mean it had to end the same way each time.

[comicgeekscomicgeek]

Their Hero Academia – Chapter 78: Conversations and Revelations

Presenting the next installment of my on-going, nextgen, MHA fic! Earlier chapters can be found here

Katsumi was absolutely not tired.  And she was definitely not worn out and exhausted from pushing her body and her Quirk all day.  She was definitely not spent from using her explosive Quirk on bigger and bigger objects, infusing the liquid she generated into greater and greater objects.   And she really wasn’t already sick of Windbag and his high and mighty friends from his fancy-pants Hero school.  She absolutely wasn’t going to end up beating the shit out of the muscle girl by the end of things.  

Which, for some reason, Izzy had tried to warn her off of doing.  Izzy was typically very direct and this had been no exception.  She’d been extremely explicit that Katsumi stood a very good chance of getting her ass beat if she tried to fight her.  Of course, Izzy had couched it in slightly politer terms, worrying that she might get hurt and emphasizing the damage to her pride if she lost.  Izzy, of course, had expressed every confidence in her abilities, but still didn’t want her to get hurt.

Even with Izzy’s direction suggestion that she not fight the Shiketsu girl, there was something more going on there.  Katsumi didn’t like that, not at all.  And Izzy hadn’t been more forthcoming beyond that.  

It wasn’t damn frustrating, not at all.

As if she’d ever lose a fight.  Not counting her hard-fought loss against Izzy during the Sports Festival.  Which wasn’t going to happen the next time.  The bigger they were, the harder they were going to fall.

At least her old man seemed happy.  Dad was always happy when he was yelling at people, and he’d gotten to do a lot of that today.  Apparently, he’d even lit into Toshi for being predictable and unimaginative with his Quirk.  Good.  It was about time someone tried pounding some sense into his green-haired head.  The guy was a damn good fighter when he put his mind to it, but there was considerable distance in how he fought with his Quirk and without it.

“Okay people,” she heard Katsuma—Bioshock, she had think of him and Mahoro by their Hero names when they were in teacher mode—call out.  “You’ve all had a long day and tomorrow’s going to be even longer.  You’ll be rising at 0500 and we’re going to be spending the whole day putting you through your paces.”

“And we aren’t going to listen to any whining about you being tired!” Mahoro—Vanish Veil—added.  “So if you’re sluggish, it’ll be your own damn fault!”

Bioshock sighed.  “Thank you for that,” he said.

“You’re welcome.”

“But she is right!  You’ve got twenty minutes before lights out.  Make the most of them, then get a good night’s rest!  Sleep is vital to a growing body!”

“Stop talking like a health class video! Why are you such a dork?!”

Katsumi just shook her head, getting up to head to the barracks.   A voice from behind stopped her.

“Pardon me, but you and I have unfinished business.”

***

She’d been expecting, maybe even anticipating, a confrontation with Tatsuma, the overgrown Shiketsu girl.  So Katsumi hadn’t strictly been paying attention to who the voice had belonged to.  When she spun to face her attacker, her punch went high.  A good blow to the face or throat would disable most people very quickly.  

In fact, if she hadn't been so sure Tatsuma was going to be the one picking a fight, she'd have registered that the voice came from about a foot lower. As things were, her blow sailed right over Monoma’s head.  She’d given him a little credit though.  He only barely flinched.

A smug grin spread across his lips.  “Quite the hair trigger you’ve got there, Kirishima-Bakugo,” he said.  He eyed the extended arm as if to say, “Really?”  She let it fall to her side, then crossed her arms.

“You want something, Monoma?” she asked.  Of all the things she needed today, he was way down on the list.  He’d mostly been leaving her alone lately, but his audible smugness was more than making up for it.  “I’ve probably got enough time to deliver an ass-kicking if that’s what you’re looking for.”

He chuckled at that, gesturing dramatically.  "Oh I'll happily offer you the chance to try," he commented with a smirk, "but I don't think this is the time.  I do want to make time for your gauntlet throwing, though, at some point in the near future.”

“Delayed ass-kicking, got it,” she said.  She cracked her knuckles noisily in a show of intimidation.  This time, to his credit, he didn’t flinch.

He frowned, eyes narrowing as his shoulders relaxed.  “Look…  May I speak plainly?” 

She narrowed her own eyes, setting her mouth in a hard line.  “Get on with it.”

“I was… very broken, after the Sports Festival,” he told her.  There was an earnestness in his eyes that surprised her.  A raw level of emotion she hadn’t expected of him.  “I wanted to succeed so badly, to show you that I was worthy and to show the world that my class was worthy.  But I screwed it all up. I focused too much on showboating and spectacle.  Midoriya and the rest of your class… you had it figured out.”

He looked down.  “I gave as good an accounting of myself as could be expected against Kocho.  It was simply a bad match-up for my skillset.  And I am glad to see the Hero course recognized her abilities.”

Monoma pinched the bridge of his nose, his eyes flickering downward and flashing a shade of displeasure before he continued.  “And then there was my failed confession.  I’m not sorry I did that—don’thitme—and I think you may have said some things I needed to hear, although your delivery may need some work.  And then, during my Internship with your father and Uncle Tetsutetsu… I froze up when the Nomu attacked.  My Quirk isn't something I can turn off, and... Everything I was seeing of the creature was just so profoundly wrong that I couldn't take it. I shut down.  I had to be carried away by Shoji, like a child.”

Okay, that one she hadn’t heard about.  Papa definitely hadn’t mentioned it.  Of course, gossip about anyone like that wouldn’t have been manly, so it was not a surprise.  

“And from there, I just fell apart,” Monoma said.  He wasn’t looking at her now.  Instead, he was looking into the distance.  “I can admit that now.  I was certain I had a weak, worthless Quirk and that I had no place in the Hero course.”

“Now wait just a damn minute,” she snapped, pointing aggressively at him.  “You’re a bastard, but your fancy pants flippy Quirk is still useful.  No reason you couldn’t kick a moderate amount of ass.”

Dammit, she was not feeling sorry for the Copycat Bastard.  But she remembered her own Internship, how useless she’d felt watching that man die right in front of her, while her Quirk, even her muscles, couldn’t do anything…   Aunt Ochaco and Izzy had talked her back from that edge.  She didn’t think about it too often.  Hadn’t had the nightmares in a while.

“I’ve come around to that line of thinking,” Monoma said.  “But I appreciate the vote of confidence.  Especially from you.  But I was ready to quit after the Final Exam.  Just long enough not to leave my class in the lurch.  But Midoriya said some things about success and helping each other that stuck with me.  And we passed.”

He stopped, actually smiling and looking more than a little proud.  She’d give him some credit.  If 1-B’s exam had been anywhere near as challenging as theirs—and Kana assured her it was—then he deserved a little pride.

“And then for reasons I’m still not entirely sure I understand, I ended up speaking with Kaminari and she got me looking at my Quirk in a bit of a different way.  Trying to string my moves together better, weaving a whole song out of them, rather than single shots to be fired and discarded.  So I stayed.”

“Is that why you’ve been making goo-goo eyes at her?”

He sputtered, turning red and avoiding her gaze.  “I thought we were being more discreet than that.”

“Oh, please.  Your dramatic ass wouldn’t know discreet if it bit it,” she told him.  She tapped her wrist, as though checking a watch, giving him a glare.  He got the hint.

“Regardless of mine and Kaminari’s situation,” he said, quickly, as though eager to move away from discussing it, “I want you to know I still want to prove myself against you.  Not for any romantic pursuits anymore or even in some attempt to prove I’m better than you.” 

Monoma shook his head.  “I want to prove I’m your equal.  That I deserve my place here.  You’re one of the fiercest, most skilled fighters in our school.  We’ve had an adversarial relationship since we were big enough for you to put me in a headlock.  You’re the mark I need to challenge myself against.”

Okay.  She definitely hadn’t been expecting that.  But for all she could erupt at a moment’s notice, Katsumi could occasionally control her expressions enough not to show surprise.  She knew she was tough and talented, but hearing him admit it, not in some kind of lovey-dovey star-eyed sort of way, but in actual respect, with none of his usual barbs, well, to say it was a surprise was putting it mildly.  

“So, what do you actually want?” she demanded.  “Get to the point already.”

Monoma looked her straight in the eye, a steely determination there she hadn’t seen before.  “When the camp is over, when we’re back at school, I want to fight a match against you.    A true test against one another. Bring whatever support items you like, and, as the challenged, the right to choose time and place is yours. I'll make the arrangements with our respective homeroom teachers that it will be a sanctioned training exercise. May the better person win."

It was a more respectful challenge than she would have expected out of him, all things considered.  It looked like Monoma had found his spine after all.  And besides, she could go for bouncing him around the ring like a basketball for a few rounds.  “You know what, Monoma?” she said.  “You’re on.”

***

Akaya had the distinct impression that she was being watched.  Not maliciously, she didn’t think.  She certainly didn’t feel like she was threatened, but she was also fairly certain that someone was paying more attention to her than usual.  Over in one corner of the room, she could see Kaminari, Mika, and Anime whispering together in a fashion that seemed almost conspiratorial.  

Her opinion of the matter did not improve when she saw Ojiro go over and join the group.  But even with counting several of the girls among that group as dear friends, she certain, somehow, that they were discussing her. She wasn’t completely unused to being talked about behind her back, the girl with the strange religion and stone-skin, but she would not have expected it of her friends.

“They’re talking about you.”

Akaya looked over to her left, where Chiasa Kamakiri, her vaguely mantis-like friend from 1-B, was standing by her bunk.  Chiasa held up a hand, showing that she was missing two joints from her smallest finger on her left hand. Her Quirk allowed her to split apart her body segments and transform them into tiny duplicates of herself that shared a hive mind.  Very useful for espionage.

Chiasa’s face split into a grin.  “Do you want to know what they’re saying?” she asked, playfully.  

“I do not traffic in gossip,” Akaya said simply, though she was also feeling a little hurt.  Why were her friends talking about her?  She didn’t think they had any ill intent, but…

Chiasa continued as though she hadn’t spoken.  “They’re trying to set you up with Aoyama!”  She giggled with delight, clapping her hands.

Ah, of course.  Their usual romantic pursuits.  She wasn’t surprised, especially now that Ojiro was involved.  The invisible girl was nothing if not committed to the idea of “shipping” people she knew.  It had only become worse since she and Anime had become friends.  Still, she hadn’t thought that Mika particularly liked Aoyama, so why was she…

Wait.

Akaya mentally replayed that sentence again.

“What?”

Chiasa nodded rapidly. “Mineta is leading the pack. Sounds like it might be her idea. They haven’t noticed my mini-me’s yet.”

She was clearly missing something here.  Akaya frowned in confusion.  “I must have heard you wrong.”

“Nope,” Chiasa said. “They’re gonna set you and Aoyama up. They don’t have a plan yet. Fukidashi and Ojiro are fighting over which tropes to use.  Mineta’s encouraging all of it.  Kaminari is telling them they’re all insane.”

None of this made any sense. Aoyama had certainly never displayed any kind of interest in her.  Oh, of course, he did seem far more civil with her than almost any of their other classmates.  And he never had any cross words for her like he did for almost anyone else.  So what if he always made an effort to speak to her? What difference did it make that he always seemed to respect her opinion, even if he didn’t listen to anyone else?  And, of course, he had reacted more violently than everyone else when he’d found out she’d been the target of Quirk discrimination…

But certainly none of that meant he was interested in her!  Not when he was traditionally good looking, prettier than even some of the other girls, and could have easily had his pick of anyone, if he’d just let his guard down around them the way he often did around her…

“Akaya?” Chiasa asked, mouthparts clicking together.  “You okay? You kind of zoned out on me while I was talking.”

She managed a nod. “I’m all right,” she said.  “Just taken by surprise.”  She looked over to a corner of the room that had been partitioned off with a curtain.  Petal Princess had told her that they’d set it up so that she could have a private place to pray, if she so desired, being unsure if she was comfortable praying in front of others.  Akaya appreciated the consideration.   “Though I do need to say my prayers before I turn in.”

It would give her a moment to think, at the very least.

***

As Akaya entered the small, privacy curtained space, she realized that it was already occupied. It was one of the Shiketsu girls, the one whom she had overhead a few times speaking to Tatsuma in a foriegn language that she couldn’t properly identify.  

“Oh,” she said, “my apologies.  I didn’t realize anyone else was here.”  Though it varied from individual to individual, the average person in Japan was not especially religious or deeply spiritual.  And the number of people who were any variety of Christian was smaller still.  

The girl though, seemed as surprised to see Akaya as Akaya was to see her.

"It is no trouble," the girl assured her, her Japanese flawless. "I was finishing up anyway." As she stood up, a necklace with a familiar cross could be seen hanging around the girl's neck.

Well, that was indeed surprising.  She had heard there had been some additional friction between some of the Shiketsu students and her classmates and the others.  Perhaps she could help ease that by finding some common ground with one of them?

“Please forgive my forwardness,” Akaya said.  “But you are Christian?  I rarely encounter anyone who shares a faith with me.”

That seemed to surprise the girl for a moment, before she looked at her necklace as if remembering it was there.

"My parents are practicing Presbyterians," she answered, somewhat shyly. "I would not go so far as to say I am, but there is much about Christianity I admire. It's comforting to know there's an all-powerful being that actually gives a damn about you out there."

“My mother’s family is Catholic,” Akaya explained, “as am I.”  Her father and little brother, Rikido, were not, but it had never been an issue in their family.  Both she and her brother had been allowed to explore faith options and choose for themselves.

“It is reassuring.  It is often a troubling world.  Having somewhere to turn to often helps me to ground myself.”  She offered the other girl a small smile.  “I am Akaya Koda.”

The other girl seemed to think a bit, as if wondering if she should say anything. Her face softened as she appeared to make a decision.  "My name is Seung Park. It is...nice to meet you." She tensed a bit after saying her name.

The same sounded Korean to Akaya’s ears, though she couldn’t say for certain.  Though Park was not Japanese, that much was apparent.  She knew that foreigners didn’t always have easy lives in Japan, but given how flawless her Japanese was, Park had to be at least second generation.  Which did come with its own issues, of course…

“It is nice to meet you as well,” she said.  “How are you finding the camp so far?”

"So far I do not see what can be done here that we can't do elsewhere," Park admitted with a stern frown. "I can only assume the teachers are likely going to make us do something to pit us against each other for some ‘clever’ reason. Why else would Shiketsu be invited, given the asinine rivalries that are encouraged."

“Not an impossibility,” Akaya agreed.  Park, it seemed, was not afraid to be a bit bold in her declarations. Would that she had such confidence. “But I have been told that the Rookies are among some of the best trainers in the country, so I trust in our teachers’ judgements. Perhaps they simply mean to push us all. A little bit of rivalry can be healthy… though there are those among my fellow students who take it to an extreme.”

Shiro, for example, had already declared that the rivalry between Class 1-A and 1-B was in a temporary state of truce, until they had proven U.A. to be better than Shiketsu. She wasn’t certain if that was a sign of maturity on his part or not, but at least he was trying to channel his energies in semi-positive directions.

"I have considerably more faith in Our Lord than I do in "Hero instructors.’" Park stopped, took a deep breath, said something in Korean, and then let it out. "I apologize. I am not as good a Christian as I would like to be."

There was a sore point there, Akaya was certain.  For a Hero student, Park did not seem to have much faith in Heroes themselves.  Or at least, not the ones running the camp, she wasn’t sure.  That seemed to be a bit of a paradox, but she did not wish to deny the truth of whatever experiences Park had lived.

She shook her head and held up her hands in an apologetic gesture.  “No apologies necessary.  Even if I don’t agree, I won’t deny you your feelings.”

Park looked surprised at Akaya's response. Clearly, she was not used to people giving her point of view any kind of credence. "I appreciate that." Her eyes seemed to be looking elsewhere, as if she were looking at a place completely different from where they were. She shook her head, actually forming a small smile. "I do not wish to hold up your talk with God. I hope you don't aggravate him as much as I likely do.”

Akaya offered the girl another smile as she left, before kneeling down to begin her own prayers. She would need much of His grace and guidance to get through this camp.

***

Takiyo tapped a few keys on the control panel built into his sleeping pod, causing the hatch to open with a slight hiss.  Inside, it looked comfortably padded and had a control panel built into the other side of the hatch as well, so that he could open it when needed.  It would be one hundred percent light proof.  It was good of the Rookies to provide it, though he would have expected nothing less.  U.A. had been very good at meeting his unique needs to far.  

His cursed, cursed needs. His damn Quirk that caused him to absorb light constantly, necessitating that he discharge it in regular intervals, that he keep himself covered to minimize absorption, that his dorm room and his room at home be equipped with blackout curtains and more.  It required him to be aware of his state of being every second he was awake.

His damn Quirk that had caused him too…

No.

His Quirk that he was going to use to be a Hero.  To make up for…  what had been done.  No matter the costs to him.  It was suited for it, where unleashing dazzling light, pushing back the darkness, or projecting devastating lasers.  He would make it a Hero’s Quirk.

He had actually exhausted his light-stores under the Rookies’ training today, focusing on both his output and control.  It was rare situation.  Usually, he had to purposefully discharge it by the end of the day, just for the sake of discharging it.  He had started to absorb more light immediately afterwards, but for the moment, he was just barely glowing, a faint sparkle outlining his skin.

“Ahem.”  A voice shook him from his introspection and he looked up to see Monoma standing next to the sleeping pod.

He’d barely spoken two words to Monoma that he could recall, in his entire time at U.A.  The other boy was vain, arrogant, obsessed with his looks, and not especially self-aware.  He was, somehow, friends with Koda, which confused Takiyo greatly. Mineta, he could understand, but he thought Koda was better than that.

“Yes?” Takiyo asked.

“<Can we speak French?>” Monoma asked.  Takiyo had been vaguely aware that the Monoma family had some French ancestry, much like his papa also did.  He himself was only culturally French to some extent, but the language came easily enough.  Monoma cast a significant glance over in the direction of Sero, Sato, and Tsuchikawa.

“Oui,” he replied.  The secrecy was puzzling, he had to admit.  What could be so important that Monoma did not want anyone overhearing?

Monoma nodded. “<Let’s be clear,>” he said, pointing.  “<I don’t like you and you don’t like me.  That’s fine.  But no one deserves what’s headed your way.”>

Takiyo raised an eyebrow at that.  “<Pardon?>” he asked.  A threat to his person?  Was that insufferable Tsuchikawa planning something?  But why would Monoma warn him about that?

“<Mika, Yoarashi, and Fukidashi are planning to set you and Akaya up.  Kaminari knows about it to.  I don’t think she can stop it.>”

They were going to… what?

Monoma went on. “<Mika claims that it’s obvious you two are very sweet on each other, but that neither one of you would be willing to make the first move.  I don’t know if that’s true, but with Mika and Fukidashi teaming up, it’s bound to be a ‘zany scheme.’>”

Koda… who was always kind to him, even when he let his anger and irritation get the better of him. And who forced him to be civil and interact with others, even when he wasn’t doing a particularly good job of it. Koda, who was a sweet, kind girl, who did not deserve the cruelties she had recently endured and seemed to still carry with her.

“<So as someone who has been pulled into many of Mika’s well-meaning, but disastrous schemes, I felt you deserved a warning,>” Monoma added.  But his expression turned hard as steel.  “<But rest assured, should you still chose to pursue a relationship with Akaya… You will treat her properly, or I will break every bone in your body.>”

With that, Monoma turned on his heels to walk to his own bunk, leaving Takiyo standing there, still trying to process what had been said.

“Hey!  Aoyama!”  He turned and saw Sero giving him a wave.  “Didja loose the blond pretty boy contest or something?  Looked pretty serious there!”

Takiyo’s lip pulled back in a snarl.  “SHUT UP!”

***

While the barracks for the kids had been relatively Spartan, the facilities in the main compound of the Rookies’ complex were surprisingly nicely appointed.  Most of them had gone to bed already.  Lady Luminous and Bezoar were in charge of waking the kids up for the next morning’s training session, but they’d all have to be up fairly early. It was late, eleven p.m., long past when Katsuki usually went to bed.  At least he’d been able to slip away earlier and call Eijiro and Tai. It’d been a long time since he hadn’t at least called to say goodnight to his son.  He wasn’t going to allow himself to miss it for a ‘good’ reason. Because he if he missed it for a ‘good’ reason, then it was a short trip to missing it for a bad reason.

And he was never going to be that kind of parent.  His parents had never been truly neglectful—though it had taken a lot of therapy to overcome and course correct his sometimes-toxic relationship with his mother and his enabling father—but they had often been gone.   He’d been left in the care of babysitters or ‘Auntie’ Inko as a child more often than he cared to remember, including one particularly disastrous time when he’d been ten and left in the care of his then-teenage shitty cousin Yu, and later to his own devices, when they’d been gone on some photo shoot or modeling expo.

Katsuki had been in a lot of fights over his life.  But his toughest fight was the one he fought every day to be a better parent than his own had been.  Thank whatever gods existed for Eijro.  It was easier to be the better person when you had someone who believed in you that much.

The damned hobo had already gone to bed, but Katsuma, Mahoro, a Rookie he didn’t recognize, and Fujii were still up in floor’s kitchen.  And damn did it make him feel old to see people he’d known when they were children as fully-fledged adults and Heroes in their own right.  They’d both done good, he admitted, with Katsuma working with Deku for a time and Mahoro training with Camie and even working as one of his Sidekicks for a time.  And sure, he hasn’t that much older than either of them.  He had less than ten on Katsuma and only five on Mahoro…

But even with their own experiences with that bastard, Nine, he’d had a lot more years of hard living than them.  It added up. He certainly felt older than his forty-one years.  Now, more than ever.

“So,” he said as he entered the kitchen, “one of you want to tell me why we’ve got Shiketsu students here? Was the Hobo right?  Are they dropping their problem kids on us?”

The Rookie he didn’t recognize spoke up.  He was a dark-skinned man with his hair in tight cornrows and seemed a bit younger than the rest.  He had a red and yellow uniform, with a key-shaped insignia on his chest. “They’re a little rough around the edges, but they don’t seem like problems to me.”

“You haven’t been doing this as long as the rest of us, Takagi,” Katsuma told him. “And you haven’t seen the complete files.”

Mahoro let out a laugh. “You say problem children like your kid isn’t one, Katsuki.”

Katsuki shot her a glare. Katsumi…  He was proud of his daughter, loved her more than almost anything in the entire world.  She’d gotten some of the best of him.  But she’d also gotten some of his worst too.  Her anger, her reluctance to properly grapple with her feelings or complex emotions.  She might have finally resolved her long-standing hang-ups around Izumi, and she definitely had a better relationship with Toshi than he’d had with Deku, but he still saw some of his school-age self in her.  “You take that back, brat.”   But he also wasn’t going to let anyone else point it out.

“You going to make me?” She gave him a glare of her own, as though challenging him.

“How have you not matured any in twenty-five years?” he shot back.

“Should… should we be stopping this?” Fujii asked, looking vaguely panicked.  The rubber-bodied Hero looked over at Katsuma as though to say ‘please, stop this.’

Katsuma pinched the bridge of his nose.  “Mahoro, please stop antagonizing Katsuki.  If you two wreck the kitchen, it’ll take forever to get it repaired. And Hiyori will pitch a fit if she can’t have her waffles.”

He pushed back from the table and stood up.  “I already had conversations with All Might and Aizawa about this, but you’re not far off, Katsuki.  It’s not a random delegation of students.  We were asked to take them on specifically.”

Katsuki just rolled his eyes.  “Of fucking course.”

“Hey,” Katsuma said. “No need for that kind of language!”

“Yeah, you better listen to him, dammit,” Mahoro said.  “We’ve got a swear jar and everything.”

Katsuki wanted to yell, to pop off a few explosions that would rattle Katsuma into realizing what a mistake he’d made in not telling him this immediately.  But instead, he sucked in a breath and shook his head, grinding his teeth. He didn’t like being blindsided like this, but anger wouldn’t do him any good.  Keeping track of the thirty-three U.A. students was enough of a challenge, even if he hadn’t known some of them since they were in diapers.  (He’d changed so many diapers.  His shitty-haired husband had a bad habit of offering to babysit for their friends without consulting him first.) He didn’t need any surprises, especially not in his first few days on the job.

What could be so bad that Shiketsu was dumping their kids on U.A.?  Sure, the dragon kid was angry, but he’d been worse. And that didn’t explain the rest, especially Windbag’s kid.

“Tell me everything.”

***

Katsuki took a seat at the table, as did Fujii, and Katsuma sat back down.  Takagi remained standing, leaning against the kitchen counter.  He crossed his arms and set his face in a scowl. To their credit, neither Katsuma nor Mahoro flinched.  Mahoro even copied his gesture and expression, the scowl looking only slightly silly on her face.  Takagi, though, definitely flinched at the scowl and impending sense of doom both he and Mahoro were giving off.

Good.  It was good to see that even hobbled as he was, he could still be intimidating.  Still, he felt a little bad.  The guy probably didn’t deserve it.  

“Okay,” Katsuma said, “so where do you want to start?”

“Tatsuma,” Katsuki said. “I can already tell she’s walking around with a hell of a chip on her shoulder.  What’s up?”

“Chie Tatsuma,” Katsuma went on, “daughter of the Dragoon Hero: Ryukyu.  Her Quirk allows her to transform into a humanoid dragon form.  Class Representative, winner of their first year Sports Festival.  Scary strong Quirk.  I’ve looked at her file and her scores in the Shiketsu entrance exam were off the charts.  They had to recalibrate their threshold because she scored so many points everyone else in her testing area was below the cutoff.”

“Kind of reminds me of you, Blasty,” Mahoro said, jabbing him in the side with her elbow.  Katsuki had to admit, she wasn’t wrong.  Not that he’d let her have the satisfaction of knowing that.  

“Okay,” Katsuki said. “She’s powerful, she’s arrogant. I can work with that.  What else?”

Katsuma frowned. “She’s also got a small but building disciplinary record.  She’s extremely dissatisfied with the Hero Rankings and the whole ranking system in general.  Of which she tends to me very vocal about.  Not a lot of respect for most of the top ranked Heroes.”  

Fujii tapped a finger against his chin.  “Didn’t Ryukyu drop in the rankings really quickly?  I remember when I was a kid, just after All Might retired, that she dropped a spot…”

That was putting it mildly. Once a young and rising star, Ryukyu had never been the same after the incident with the Shie Hassaikai.  Round Face had said it was like she’d suffered a crisis of faith, lost a step somewhere.  She’d slipped pretty steadily, year after year, ranking after ranking.  And so people had stopped believing in her.  You hear that kind of bullshit enough, you internalize it, and it just feeds a vicious cycle.

“And, of course, she’s got the kids of a shit ton of high ranked Heroes with her here,” Katsuki growled. “Wonderful.  Let me guess… wants to make a name for herself and redeem her mom, but hates the system that’d make that happen?”

“Got it,” Katsuma said. “Think maybe you can help direct her anger some?”

“I’m the Number Four Hero,” Katsuki snapped.  At least until the next Billboard Chart ranking.  Not something he was looking forward to.  It was only a “leave of absence.”  Best Jeanist had been the same ranking as he was when he’d suffered a nearly career ending injury too.  That had turned out all right for his old mentor, but he wondered if he’d be able to say the same.  He was going to file that under things he wasn’t going to think about.  “She won’t listen to me.”

“Aizawa said he’d talk to her,” Mahoro said.  “Underground Heroes don’t get ranked at all.  Maybe he’ll get through.  And besides, he managed to focus you.”

Katsuki let her have that one.

“Let’s see,” Katsuma went on.  “I assume you’re familiar with Shinji Yoarashi?”

“You really want to ask stupid questions?” he shot back.  “I’ve known Windbag’s kid for ages.  I’m guessing his being here has something to do with his unauthorized rescue mission back during the Nomu mess?”

The kid had likely saved Katsumi’s life, Round Face’s too, with that stunt.  Even if it’d been technically illegal and on extremely dubious grounds, Katsuki couldn’t blame him too much for that.  Sure, he was as annoying and loud as his dad, but his heart had been in the right place.  Sometimes, intent mattered more than the rules.

“Pretty much,” Katsuma said with a nod.  “His teachers want us to focus in on following the rules and proper procedures.”

“Does that include knowing when to break them?”

“No,” Katsuma said.

“Yes,” Mahoro said at the same time.  The two exchanged glances.

“Got it,” Katsuki said.

“Good,” Fujii added. “…Explain it to me?”

Katsuki did not dignify that with a response.

“Okay,” he said, “what about Tsuchikawa?”  He still couldn’t believe Pixie-Bob had a kid.  Apparently, she adopted him after stopping his villainous parent.  Word around the rumor mill, or wherever Pikachu got his nonsense from, was that she was still just as promiscuous and flirtatious as ever, having made the complete transformation into a full on cougar. She was supposed to have a daughter too, he recalled, though the father wasn’t known.  

He shuddered at the memory of the woman at Class 3-A’s graduation, sitting front row, giving him, Deku, IcyHot, and Glasses looks he never wanted to see again.

“Ego and lack of teamwork skills mostly,” Mahoro told him.  She gave him a pointed look.  “Definitely your department.”

“Ooooh, she’s got you pegged,” Fujii said.  The rubber-bodied man grinned for a second, before wilting under Katsuki’s glare.

“How has Aizawa not killed you yet, you glorified gacha prize?”  His former teacher didn’t suffer fools gladly and neither did Katsuki. And yes, while he was relatively young, Fujii did have an impressive career as a Pro-Hero behind him already. Never more than a “friendly neighborhood Hero”, he was nevertheless liked by many and had saved a lot of lives. And very popular with children to boot. Tai had an action figure of him that actually bounced.

He was just damned annoying.

“I’m pretty much indestructible!”

Katsuki growled.  “You want to put that to the test?”

“…No.”

“What about Park?” he asked, rather than get drawn into anything else with his fellow teacher.  “Korean, right?”  Something tugged at his memory and he frowned as he tried to place it.

“Another one with a lot of anger,” Katsuma admitted.  “And even more distrust for Heroes than Tatsuma.  Tatsuma, at least, only disagrees with the ranking of Heroes and the spectator sport part of that.  Park isn’t entirely convinced in the Hero system at all.  Impressive Quirk though… uses bioenergy to enhance her physical attributes.  Short bursts of power or speed.  She’ll make a good Hero if she can get past her issues.”

He looked a little defeated by the prospect of it.  Katsuki remembered what he’d been like on Nobu Island, a lot like Deku had been at the same age.  So full of love for Heroes and faith that they could solve everything.  He’d even admit he’d been like that at one time, before he’d been kidnapped and forced to reckon with his own limitations.  Before he’d seen so much of the seedier side of the world, and the problems that punching something or unleashing an explosion in its face couldn’t solve.

“Any idea what caused it?” Fujii asked.  “Everybody likes Heroes.  It’s kind of Japan’s thing.”

“The Ignition Incident,” Katsuki said, as the memory floated itself up into his mind.  Up until Endeavor’s public confession, it had been the biggest scandal in Hero history.  

“The what now?” Fujii asked. His rubberized features twisted up in confusion.  “I don’t remember any Ignition Incident.”

“Then you either weren’t paying attention or had a crappy Hero History teacher,” Katsuki growled. What the hell were they teaching in schools these days?  That American idiot, Skyline, taught Hero History at U.A.  He’d maybe he’d have to sit in on a few classes to make sure they were getting it right.

“Wait,” Takagi said. His eyes went wide. “I know about that one.  Shit.”

“Anybody going to clue me in here?” Fujii asked, looking furtively from face to face.  “I seriously don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“So this was about twenty years ago,” Katsuma explained.  “Ignition was Suguru Dian, a U.A. grad from the class behind Deku and his friends, with a powerful flame Quirk that basically let him set anything on fire.  He went from Sidekick to full on Pro in almost no time at all.  People called him the second coming of Endeavor.”

Katsuki remembered the guy, having worked with him a few times, both professionally and when they’d been students and the then Class 2-A had done joint training with the new 1-A. Arrogant as all get out, but with the talent to back it up.  Of course, Aizawa and Deku had ended up having to pry him and Katsuki apart…

“So Ignition is half-Chinese and a rising star,” Mahoro said, taking over from her brother.  “And being a rising star like that, the HPSC, in its infinite wisdom, thinks it’s got an “in” to help better police some of the Chinatown communities, especially with the Rising Sons Triad starting to fill the void the Shie Hassaikai left behind.  Unfortunately, he’s got daddy issues, on account of his Chinese dad abusing him and his mom.  Which boils over into some pretty self-hating racist stuff too.”

“Okay,” Fujii said. “I’m getting some ideas here, but Park’s Korean, not Chinese.”

“We’re getting to it,” Katsuma said.  “So Ignition is made a part of an anti-Triad taskforce, and ends up investigating a Triad owned restaurant.  The community there is already pretty involved in self-policing, so there’s a lot of resistance, insults, pretty much all his buttons getting pushed.  But something inside him snaps, total breakdown. He thinks he’s taking down Triad agents, and instead he’s fighting innocent civilians with an extremely dangerous Quirk.”

“People died, man,” Takagi said.  “Dozens more injured, massive property damage, the works.  Public relations nightmare and international scandal.  Global news for months.”

“There was a big show trial,” Katsuma added.  “Ignition was stripped of his license.  As far as I know, he’s still locked away somewhere.  The HPSC made a big show of providing additional sensitivity training for Heroes, better psych screening, community outreach, all the kinds of things that would reassure the public.”

Katsuki remembered it all well.  He’d only been solo a year or two at that point, not long after a stint sidekicking under Beast Jeanist.  His late mentor had been appalled by what had happened.  He’d been disgusted too.  Especially by the way the HPSC reacted.  

“It was all smoke,” he snarled.  “They didn’t prohibit it, but they did stop specifically assigned Heroes to “ethnic” neighborhoods. And sure, plenty of Heroes still went in and did their damn jobs.  But it broke a lot of trust.  They left a lot of people to fend for themselves, instead of cleaning up their own act.”

Even Deku had wanted to do more, but he’d been too new still, too hamstrung by the rules and regulations.  He’d done more than any of them though.  Deku was one of the few Heroes pretty much beloved across all communities in Japan.

“Things got better, eventually,” Katsuma said.  “Political winds shifted, Commission members turned over, policies got reversed, and we started working with people better.  But there’s still a lot of people out there who remember or who felt the effects of being abandoned.  The general consensus in a lot of those communities is still not to trust Heroes or have any faith in us being able to get the job done.”

“Well… shit,” Fujii said. “How did I not know about this?”

“Because you’re an idiot?” Katsuki suggested, but his heart wasn’t in the barb.  The man seemed genuinely shocked by the news and even a bit sobered by it.

“That’s really only about half of it,” Katsuma said.  “She was born here, but her parents were immigrants, seeking to escape the anti-Mutant Humanist groups in Korea.  Of course…”

Right, Katsuki thought. That was a whole mess of politics and cultural issues he didn’t even feel remotely qualified to untangle.  But the government tended to lump all members of an ethnic group together, in this case not sparing much distinction between new immigrants and culturally assimilated Zainicihi Koreans.  With crime and politics and all that… it didn’t leave a lot of faith in the supposed chosen protectors.  And when you’d seen the government turn on you once…

“So we’ve got to undo generational trauma,” he groaned.  “Great. They came here, expecting the same protection from heroes Japanese citizens get, and instead they arrive into a hornet's nest due to uncaring bureaucrats desperately trying to save face while not rocking the boat.”

He let out a frustrated noise.  What about the last one?  Shida? The spider-girl.  What’s her damage?”

“Oh, her,” Mahoro laughed. “She just wanted to be with her friends, apparently.  And no one told her why the others were being sent.”

That was…  that was…  pretty par for the course for absurdity, where things in his life were concerned.  Katsuki let out a laugh, long and loud.

“Make it stop!” Fujii wailed.  “He’s scaring me!”

[rainbowdonkee]

With 2019 coming to an end, I wanted to make a list of my personal top 10 video games that came out this decade. I was 12 in 2010, and now being 21 video games have always been important to me! Many of the games that are the most dearest to me sadly came out before 2010 (HG/SS barely made the cut with the NA release). I tried to not make recent releases be part of my bias (FE3H lol), plus there were many games such as Bioshock 2, Fallout New Vegas, DA2, ACNL, and many more that I love but this list would have been too long! 

1. Dark Souls (2011)

2. The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (2017)

3. Pokemon HeartGold/SoulSilver (NA 2010)

4. NieR Automata (2017)

5. Final Fantasy XV (2016)

6. Bloodborne (2015)

7. Fire Emblem Echoes: Shadows of Valentia (2017)

8. Astral Chain (2019)

9. Granblue Fantasy (2014)

10. Deemo (2013)

Dark Souls: Although I haven’t really completed the game personally, I’ve seen many playthroughs and videos about the story and characters. Hidetaka Miyazaki is absolutely awesome in creating those fantasy worlds and characters, everything that Dark Souls ended up influencing was pretty groundbreaking. And the OST is always enjoyable to hear again.

Breath of the Wild: This game took quite a long time for Nintendo to release, and when it finally came out on the final year of the WiiU and the birth of the Switch... it was pretty emotional. Also to realize that Iwata-san never made it to see the rise of Nintendo’s success after the failure of the WiiU gets me everytime, but I hope he sees all the smiles and joy BOTW has brought since its release. The game changed not only what is a LOTZ game but what is an open world, I’ve played it twice and each time I picked it up was a new experience.

Pokemon HG/SS: This game was released around Fall 2009 in Japan, but for NA it was out in March 2010. I still remember the anticipation for Spring Break to arrive in order to spend all my week playing it! I never had the chance to play the original Gold/Silver, so everything was new to me. My 12 year old mind almost exploded when I ended up finishing the Johto League only to find out we were ALSO traveling to Kanto!!! I was shook! This game is amazing, and I’ll forever wait for them to somehow add our Pokemons following us around, that mechanic was so cute! And of course the OST is golden, and I can always listen to it and be brought back to those days.

NieR Automata: I never played any of the past NieR games (although I was aware of their existence). The first trailer I ever watched had the “Become as Gods” song so I was hooked from the start! And learning that PlatinumGames and Square Enix both developed the game made me hyped for its release. I love everything about it, the characters, story, music, themes. By the time I finished the game, it had brought me into a journey of questioning so many heavy topics about life...I really wasn’t expecting that about a game. Not going to lie it may or may not have brought me a mini existential crisis but with a game made my Yoko Taro can’t be too surprised.

Final Fantasy XV: The game I so often heard fabled tales since as back as 2009 and the hype was just building up for this game! I remember going to the movie theater when they were having special screenings for the Kingsglaive movie (I dragged my friend, little brother, and mom lol). The game went through so much, many cuts and changes were made but I personally ended up liking what we got. Still super sad that many unreleased DLC’s were cut off, but the love I have for the characters and music will always stay.

Bloodborne: Hey another Miyazaki game, what can you say...the man just makes brilliant games. He took everything I love about gothic, victorian era, and Lovecraftian esque and made this extraordinary game. I’m here hoping that maybe this 2020 we can hear a slither of news of Bloodborne 2, the theme for this game is too good for them to leave it as only one game.

Fire Emblem Echoes SoV: After the train wreck that was Fates, I literally was not expecting for us to get another FE title so soon! Japan waited 2 years for Echoes but thanks to localization giving us Fates in 2016, we got SoV a year later. I never heard of Fire Emblem Gaiden, before this game I never played any of the Japan only FE games, so when news was coming out about this title I tried 100% to AVOID it. Why? Because this was the first time I could start a FE game without personally knowing anything about it, and when I first played it, right from the start it felt so different, it didn’t felt like a Fire Emblem game (which isn’t bad at all). With the new art direction it also felt like a whole new world, I love Hidari and I hope we get to see them more in future FE games. The game had a simple plot which I didn’t held it against them, I knew this was a remake, and personally I’m glad they didn’t added things like an Avatar or S-Supports. They stayed true to its original source, and SoV will stay as my personal favorite FE game. Also Heritors of Arcadia will be the best vocal theme we got in FE series.

Astral Chain: Oh snap another PlatinumGames IP? This developers are just too good! Astral Chain came out of nowhere although I’ve heard it was worked on for a long time, supposedly even before NieR Automata was developed. I really enjoyed the game very much, from all the 2019 games that came out it caught my eye and I went in with not too many expectations but I had a good time. The story took a crazy turn and I could see some similar themes as NieR Automata but it held its own ground to become unique. The fighting mechanics were so much fun to play and the music was also awesome! I wish more people talked about this game since it is Nintendo’s new IP. I hope we can get the twins for Smash Ultimate!

Granblue Fantasy: I first new anything about Cygames back in 2016 when I saw the OP for Rage of Bahamut. After Seeing the OP for season 2, seeing Azazel in all his glory I knew I had to watch the anime! Luckilly Rage of Bahamut season 2 was continuing in 2017 so I was able to catch up just in time for its final 10 episodes. I LOVE Azazel and Kaisar and of course ROB Lucifer! Then to my surprise I found out about GBF, and I was dumb and thought the app was unavailable in the west which is technically true since you need a Japanese account to download the app which has an ENG text option. So it wasn’t until 2018 that I downloaded the game and started my journey through the sky. This gacha game literally changed what is a gacha game to me, the developers listen to fans, the community is fun, and just everything about this franchise is so great. I’m not a hardcore player so I’m not too worry about grids, I’m here for the cute husbands. (Lancelot, Sandalphon, Albert, Grimnir I lov u).

Deemo: I love this game, one of the best app games I’ve ever had. Back in the day I used to play TapTap Revenge and that was my first taste of rhythm games, Deemo brought me back to those types of apps. Whenever I was anxious I could always play this game and pass the time while keeping my mind busy. Plus without Deemo I would have never known artist’s such as Mili. The game is on the Switch which I’m so happy because I was able to just get all the songs without flooding my tablets storage space.