#reasons of rocket failure

[cheswirls]

looking @ old fic i started when i was 14/15 is so funny bc im realizing once again why i never mark fics as abandoned even if its been literal years since i've touched them. specifically i was checking docs for stuff i started and either did or didn't post to ffn.

and its like. nothing is bad??? like i can see where my outside-the-box ideal of fic writing comes from. not just fics but writing in general, i'm p sure. even if it's a total cliche plot setup, there are details on each that rly make it stand out like oh yeahhhhhh i did have this great idea once upon a time.

funny too bc was it executed well in prose??? no absolutely not i wrote like shit when i was 15. would i revive an idea one day and revise it to be less cliche or cringy while still keeping the stand-out elements??? yea maybe. i might. everything i'm currently working on that i started from 2021 up to now still holds my supreme interest, but like i'm not gonna say never.

esp since i write fic first and foremost for my own need and specifically what i like to read, it makes it impossible to consider an idea i've thought extensively about "not worth writing anymore". anyway not making this too long i jus found everything interesting to consider

[zoe-oneesama]

Why does the fandom think Nathalie cares about Adrien? She's always all monotone indifference and "this is what your father says/wants". Yet the fandom likes leaving Adrien in her care post-hawkmoth sometimes? If you're really gonna read into things like that let's praise the one adult who DOES care about him- his bodyguard! Remember how the mere sight of him was enough to calm him down enough to thwart Hawkmoth's intentions in the gigantitan episode?

But no seriously I'm so bad at noticing these things- why do people think she cares about more than Gabriel?

Welp, she is the reason Gabriel let Adrien go to school according to Origins Part 2, and then we got the Great Hiatus to let that one tiny moment of feelings sit and fester in the fandom brain.

And Season 5 definitely did it's hardest to frame Nathalie as Here For Adrien, so it's like the whole series is bookended by That version of Nathalie.

But I get the confusion, Nathalie's been all over the damn place. Different Seasons characterize her almost like adjacent sister versions of herself? Like not a TOTALLY different person, but different enough that I'm worried about body snatchers lol. I pretty much compartmentalize Nathalie according to the season:

Season 1 - Belligerent Assistant who's job description does not and should not include taking care of her boss's son yet here she freaking is.

Season 2 - Reveal that she's totally In-The-Know, her indifference has reached knew levels of being just outright negligent, she is officially culpable.

Season 3 - Team Rocket era where she is fully into the evil dramatics. Also the gross fun addition of her officially being In Love™️with her boss and being angsty about it despite her bringing it upon herself. Also girl he's so crusty get some standards.

Season 4 - Bedridden bionic woman. Was it worth it? WAS IT WORTH IT?!

Season 5 - Pissed off divorcee era. She is actively picking fights and weaponizing the children at her not-ex, and while I'm side eyeing the last 4 seasons, I am here for this level of sass while she scoffs at Gabriel being his Worst Self™️. Too bad about the whole Dying thing but hey. You gotta make up for...all of that other stuff, right?

She's just kinda doomed to not be a cohesive character. I do like her heel turn in Season 5, especially because she was RIGHT, Gabriel had THE OPPORTUNITY to save not only Emilie but also Nathalie and threw it away because he wants to throw hands with teenagers. I too would walk away after that spectacular display of failure. I kinda wish she had someone to talk to, like even Duusu, just to explain that the only reason she hasn't exposed Gabriel altogether is because he'd definitely expose her as well and then Adrien'd be left alone. Like it's easy to infer that, but in a kids show, stuff like motivations kinda need to be laid out neatly.

Cuz otherwise it leaves it open ended - is she covering to spare Adrien from being essentially orphaned, or is she covering to save her own ass? After the 5ish versions of her, either interpretation is fair.

[ckret2]

A leaked list of some of the exciting upcoming content from The Book of Bill:

The pyramids of Giza ranked from most to least sexy.

Winning lottery numbers. He does not say which game they're for.

Three pages of Bill practicing blackletter calligraphy so that he can write the fancy-looking "The Book of Bill" on the cover. (Meant to tear those pages out before submitting book to publisher.)

A section where he implies that all your headcanons about him are stupid. Yes, your headcanons specifically. If you compare your copy of the book to a friend's, these sections will have different text. He insults all headcanons equally, even the ones that contradict each other.

A long, rambling story about a funny thing that he saw at a party in the Nightmare Realm, but he keeps getting distracted gossiping about the embarrassing love affairs and crimes against reality the partygoers have committed. Not a single one of these characters has ever been mentioned before or ever will be again. He gets so distracted he never finishes the original funny story. He was clearly drunk when he wrote this section.

A pet care sheet on how to keep a pet axolotl. All of the information is extremely wrong.

Some of the other dimensions he's tried and failed to conquer. He keeps insisting that all the failures were somebody else's fault. It's extremely obvious that they're his fault.

A photograph of a vivisected elephant, for some reason.

A phone number written on a cocktail napkin that Bill insists would be really funny for all the readers to prank call. It leads to the desk phone of the director of the CIA. 

Bill claims he definitely totally knew that Stan was disguised as Ford the whole time, he only played along to trick the Pines back, and then he quickly changes the topic.

A page of Bill's original poetry. It's all unintelligible symbols. It will take 27 years for somebody to crack the code. They're all gory but juvenile limericks.

A cocktail recipe. It will kill you.

Bill's original version of the portal blueprints that he copied to give Ford, with Bill's handwritten annotations. One part of the blueprints is labeled "component that will accidentally destroy the universe. REMEMBER NOT TO INCLUDE THIS COMPONENT IN SIXER'S COPY!!" He underlined this twice. If this page is compared to the portal blueprints in Journal 3, it's clear that Bill included that component in Ford's copy.

A personality quiz to help you meet your ideal sleep paralysis demon.

Bill's baby pictures. He looks exactly the same, except his bow tie and top hat are too big.

Bill reveals that he thought the llama symbol on the zodiac wheel referred to that farmer guy on the edge of town, and he was super confused to see Pacifica there.

Multiple pages scattered through the book about Bill's amazing powers, his brilliant and fun plans for our dimension, and all the cool favors he's willing and able to do for his friends and followers. All these pages end with a passive-aggressive aside about how somebody would have to be REALLY stupid to turn down an invitation to join Bill's crew, Stanford Pines—

A page labeled "My loyal servants and slaves!" filled with several hideous, oozing, nightmare-inducing Lovecraftian monsters, and one Mickey Mouse.

A self-portrait depicting Bill riding a rocket ship playing an electric guitar while rainbow lightning flashes all around him and money rains down from the sky.

A cynical, sneering tirade about how love is evolution's idiotic way of tricking primitive species into reproducing and how only simple-minded mortals who can't separate their true thoughts from their hormones fall for it. In the margins he's drawn a heart around the words "Bill Cipher +" a scribbled-out blot. The blot is completely unreadable. Despite this, the fandom will spend years debating the name underneath based on the size of the blot.

Extremely stupid "explanations" about various unsolved mysteries and crimes. In six years the world will discover one of them is accidentally correct and Alex Hirsch will get investigated by the FBI.

The book will be divided into four sections. Each section will begin with a big illuminated letter. In order, the four illuminated letters spell "F" "U" "C" "K".

[mistmessenger]

A tempestuous meeting | Frater Imperator x female!reader one shot

As Copia’s long-time, albeit now distant friend, the ministry tour team nominated you to reason with him about his recent behaviour. You couldn’t have imagined how his intervention was going to play out…

Pairing: Frater Imperator x female reader

18+ MDNI

Content warnings: 18+ MDNI!!!, smut, dubious consent, dubcon, mention of previous friends-with-benefits situation, angst, very insecure crashing out Frater, manipulation and intimidation, angry/mean Frater, shoe riding, dom/sub dynamic, brat taming i guess, degradation, slapping, rough blowjobs/throatfucking, breathplay, humiliation, hint of dacryphilia, ripping clothes, fingerfucking, spitting, mention of intoxication, pain, overstimulation, brief dry humping, name calling, rough sex, mention of ddlg relations, slight breeding kink, love rockets shot right in between your thighs, mention of voyeurism, no aftercare he’s being a BASTARD!, DEAD DOVE DO NOT EAT.

and obligatory ghost fanfic doing paperwork in the ministry.

AO3 Link

Notes: All of the warnings sorry. By far the horniest thing I've ever written, I fear I need my access to notes app and ms word revoked.

Sorry I'm ovulating and need this goofy little guy to fuck me nasty on every surface of that office

A tempestuous meeting

Standing in the chaos of Copia’s temporary office, on the other side of his desk, you felt a million miles away from him.

It pained you to see your longtime friend struggle, but he was hindering the work of the entire tour team. After months of Copia making things difficult, the team held a group meeting without him, and nominated you to try and speak some sense into him.

Initially, it felt like something you would be capable of. You’d been friends since his early Cardinal days. Surely he would listen to you.

But as he hushed you again, as he had done so many times now in your short conversation that you had lost count, pretending to type something on his computer, you were beginning to lose patience.

“Pap- um. Frater. I can’t pretend to understand how difficult this transition is for you. Especially given…”

You pause, unsure if mentioning his mother’s passing is a wise idea as he glanced up at you with a petulant sneer.

“…given the circumstances. But, we all still have jobs to do. And with the tour preparations said jobs are stressful enough without you…”

You trailed off again, suddenly feeling like this was all a terrible idea, like your siblings had set you up for failure. On the one hand, Copia looked a shell of a man, lost without both his mother and the comfort of his role as a performer. On the other, there was something in his eyes, a rage barely suppressed. You knew he was struggling, heard his curses and the slam of his keyboard when you would pass his office.

Instead of the usual sympathy his outbursts would ignite in you, right now, looking into his eyes as he stood from the couch, you felt nervous.

Deep down he was irate, holding it together by a few frayed threads that were on the cusp of snapping, and your intervention seemed to be shearing right through them.

“Go on sorella. Commit to it. Without me doing what?” He grumbled, rifling through a box of papers. You knew him well enough to know he wasn’t looking for anything in particular, rather making himself look busy.

“Making our jobs harder than it needs to be…” you whispered, holding your breath, almost flinching as you waited for his response.

He stopped, gaze returning to you. It was nothing like you were used to, his eyes cold and uninviting as he raised his brow.

“Am I?”

“A little…” you try to sound less harsh, cringing at the fact you even had to try and reason with him like this, he was a grown man for gods sake. “The pyro team needs those documents signed so the funds can be transferred and they kind of needed them… like yesterday.”

“Oh… Oh dear. I’m delaying a few fireworks for my brother?” His hand reached for his pen, clicking it incessantly, his aggravation seeming to grow by the second. “It just won’t do, will it?”

This is a disaster.

Biting your lip, you sighed. It was difficult for you to air your frustrations to the man that was supposed to be in charge.

“Frater, I gave you those to sign off on over a week ago, I’ve reminded you-“

“You have reminded me no less than five times.” He snapped, rolling his eyes at you, turning his attention back to the screen.

Seven, actually.

“Sorella, you’ve never minced your words with me before. Why so cagey? Hm?”

Because you’re different now.

You keep your lips pressed in a hard line, unable to say the words to him, not sure if they would send him into a rage or reduce him to tears.

“It’s been a long morning.” You shrugged.

“You’re all tense.”

You’re one to talk.

“Biting your tongue. You think I don’t see your eyes? That I can’t tell there’s some little sly remark rattling around that brain of yours?”

Frowning, you shook your head.

“Frater, look-“

“Ah. Ah ah ah.” He closes the distance between you, and you instinctively take a step back, something difficult to do in the mess of his temporary office without tripping on something.

“I know. They- all of you decided I need a little intervention. And they sent you. And as if you weren’t stressed enough with the tour, now you have to worry about how to tiptoe around me-“

A few steps away from you, you watched as his tone became mocking, his brows furrowed. This behaviour was so unlike him, so different to how he had ever spoken to you before. Pursing your lips, it was hard to stifle your sigh as he seemed intent on pressing your buttons.

“I’m not tiptoeing around anything I-“

“No? That’s why you look like you want to run out the door right now? Why you hardly speak two words to me, unless you’re trying to placate me in order to get me to sign whatever shit you need in the moment?”

“That’s not fair-“

“Not fair.” He scoffed, crossing his arms. He pouted for a moment, before waving you away.

“I will sign your damn forms, come by later, they’re buried in between documents.”

Great, now I’ve done it.

You sighed, calming yourself, trying to reason that he was only being like this because it was you. If any of the others had came to him, he wouldn’t be confident enough to be so rude to their face.

“Frater, they’re right there.” You point to the corner of the desk, untouched from the exact spot you had left them last week.

“I’ll sign them later, I’m busy.”

Lord below give me strength.

You didn’t think your frown lasted long enough for him to notice, but clearly he sensed your irritation.

He flung his pen onto the desk, clenching and unclenching his fists, before running a hand through his hair.

“You… You lot think you have it so difficult, because I will not bend and do whatever this new fucker wants right away.”

“Copia, we all want the same thing, we want the project to succeed.” You tried a final time to reach him, but you knew once he started ranting there was little anyone could do to stop him.

“The same thing? It was succeeding - with me. I do not recall wanting to put up with self-interested little rats interrupting me every hour of the day to come in here and squeak ‘Frater, things must be hard for you but you need to sign this form.’”

As he put on a pitched voice, imitating you, the last of your patience drained.

“You know what? Fuck you. You expect the rest of us to coddle you like your mother did. It’s been over a year Copia, I’m sorry but whether you like it or not things have to keep moving, we don’t have a choice! You acting like a fucking brat isn’t helping anyone.”

Your eyes widened, your heart racing.

Why the fuck did I go and say all that?

“I’m sorry. Frater- I. I’m so sorry.” You could hardly bring yourself to look him in the eye, seeing how dejected your outburst would have made him. Your mind raced, you would have to stand down from your post. Hell, you might even flee the ministry at this point. Why would he tolerate your being here after saying something like that?

As you stepped back once more, ready to go clear you desk and leave a note for the rest of your team to say you were jumping before you got pushed, you frowned, perplexed.

He was… smiling?

The room felt cold.

“Maybe I deserved that.” he spoke softly, letting out a breathy laugh as he shook his head.

You knew that he didn’t believe that, and he certainly didn’t appreciate how you said it.

“I’ll go Papa, I’m sorry.”

“Who?”

“I- Fuck. Frater.”

“It’s been over a year sorella, and still you struggle to address me properly. We have to keep moving, do we not?”

Pointedly he took another step towards you. As you went from shuffling backwards to taking bigger steps, your heel caught on the upturned corner of the rug, sending you back against a stack of boxes.

He laughed, and suddenly the pressure in the room seemed to disperse. He sounded like himself for the first time in a long, long time. Like the Cardinal you used to whisper jokes to during library duties, who could only stifle his chuckles for so long before getting you both in trouble with the ghouls. Like the man he was long before his job as Papa, and now Frater, had taken its toll on him.

You let out a breathy laugh in turn, so caught up in the heat of the moment you weren’t sure what to say.

He stalked past you as you half sat half lay on a throne of haphazardly stacked boxes. You weren’t surprised he didn’t offer you a hand to get up, not after what you’d said. But still he snickered, letting slip that soft little heh sound you used to love hearing. As you stood, your head snapped at the sound of the lock clicking.

“Frater?”

He stood with his forehead pressed against the door, letting out a sigh.

“Let us talk, sorella, hm? All this tension, it is no good. I cannot have you exploding like that on the wrong person, hm?”

He turned to stare you down, his expression almost blank, so hard to read.

The wrong person? As if the boss of the whole ministry isn’t the wrong person…

“Frater, I really am sorry, it was uncalled for. I understand I’ll need to step dow-.”

“Shh.” Stepping past you again he leaned against his makeshift desk, waving you over. “Come. Have a seat.”

You cautiously stepped across to the couch, raising a brow. There was hardly a free inch to spare that wasn’t taken up by files and boxes.

You had to practically hover on the edge of the cushion to avoid sliding onto the floor, made even more awkward with how close he was, towering over you.

“Now, sorella. We’ve been friends for a long time. I would hate for work to change that.”

“I know, I’ll stand down, whatever I need to do-“

“Whatever you need to do to make it up to me? Hm? Well perhaps you could stop interrupting me. That would be a start.” His voice was gentle but the message was loud and clear.

You nodded.

“I was being unfair, I suppose. I know how rigid you can be when it comes to deadlines. How you get yourself… worked up.”

That’s an understatement.

Hell, how many times had he talked you out of your panics over the years? Of course he had to know what his behaviour was doing to you.

“These changes around here have been hard for me, but I can see how it is hard on you too. How much pressure you’ve been putting yourself under lately. You’ve been, eh… overdoing it. Don’t think I haven’t noticed - you come into the office, do the work, back to bed. No time for you. It is no wonder you have all this venom ready to spit at me.”

You frown. Sure, he was right - you were blinkered by your work with the tour, but you’d convinced yourself it was only temporary. The tour would begin and you would get a break. What surprised you was that he had even noticed.

Since the release of Impera the two of you had become distant. Initially you put it down to you both being so busy with your respective roles. And Copia enjoying the limelight that came with being Papa, the feeling that everyone wanted a piece of him.

His speech felt manipulative - pointing out how you were working too hard, neglecting to admit a part of the reason you had to work harder was due to his petulance and lack of cooperation. Neglecting to mention his own tantrums and outbursts.

“I worry that you might have one of these little outbursts toward someone… less tolerant than me. Less, eh… forgiving…”

“I-“

“I asked you to stop interrupting me, sorella.” It felt like more of a warning this time, the words sending a shiver down your spine.

“I think it’s more than apparent that you need a… will we say, outlet, of sorts?”

He sat on the desk, resting his feet each side of you on the couch. Before you might have bantered with him, asking him who raised him to put his feet on the furniture. These days, it didn’t feel like the joke would land the way it used to.

The flimsy desk unsurprisingly creaked under the weight of a fully l grown man. You were already surprised it could hold the weight of his ancient computer monitor.

That seems like a terrible idea-

“Stop it.” He sneered, nudging your knee with his foot. You could see it in his eyes, he was getting agitated again. Or rather, he hadn’t stopped feeling agitated, that brief moment of shared laughter was just that. A fleeting moment.

“Wha- What, Frater?” Your eyes gravitated towards his hands, clasping and unclasping at the edge of the desk.

“Thinking. You squint every time a little remark goes through your head. Do you think I do not know you? That I don’t see these things? Spit it out, whichever comment it is you’re itching to make.”

What happened to “don’t interrupt”?

“I just don’t think it’s wise for you to be sitting on the desk like that Frater, it’s not exactly stable.”

Bit like you, actually.

You were jolted from the thought by his foot pressing down on your thigh again. You pouted, hoping his shoes were at least clean.

It wasn’t the first time you’d found yourself between his legs, but this was different. This wasn’t fun. It felt like being scolded as a child.

“Bah. Whatever.” He scoffed, that childish manner of his poking through the cracks again, “As I was saying. You need an outlet, yes?”

“I’ll bear that in mind, Frater.” You agree, holding your tongue just to placate him, as you found yourself doing so often these days.

“You’re my friend sorella, I want to help you.” He leaned forward, the pressure on your thigh growing uncomfortable.

“You have enough on your plate-“

“Interrupt me one more time sorella, I swear-“ he cut himself off, seeing how your eyes widened. His expression seemed to light up, gleeful at seeing you almost cowering from him. You wondered just how your friend had changed so much.

His voice was hushed.

“Now, you will be good, yes?”

He moved his foot, and you winced as the pressure was finally taken off your thigh, only for a moment. Your precarious position at the edge of the couch allowed him space to press the point of his leather shoe between your legs. You startled, scowling at the sudden sensation, combined with the patronising, demanding tone he spoke in. You had no way to move, his other leg caging you in.

It was never like this with him. The occasional inebriated quick fuck in one of your rooms. No dynamic, just two people getting the release they needed from each other and going back about their lives after.

As a million thoughts raced through your head, he pressed harder, causing you to gasp, a little reminder that you still hadn’t answered him.

“Copia- Frater. I’m not doing this. Not here.”

“I know you. Well enough to know how much you leave unsaid. To know how much you need.”

“I dunno what you’re talking about, cut it out!” You squirmed, trying to ignore the sensations as he tilted his foot, as if to torture you. He rolled his eyes again, taking no notice as you grabbed at his leg, attempting to push him away.

“Oh please. I’ve always left you, ah, unsatisfied, no?”

“No?” You scoffed, shaking your head, “What the fuck are you talking about?”

“Language, sorella.” He murmured, a smirk twitching at the edge of his mouth as you tried in vain to shrink yourself against the boxes on the couch to get away.

You shook your head, a whimper escaping your throat as he refused to ease up, watching you as if you were some sort of experiment, examining how each movement caused you to squirm.

“It was always me seeking you out, sorella. In spite of my offering. You were kind enough to indulge me, but would never seek me out to satiate your needs… I could tell you always walked away wanting more… something… different.”

You couldn’t speak to deny him, too overwhelmed at the feeling growing in your core as his foot pressed the seam of your trousers against you in just the right way, combined with how confused you were at how things had disintegrated to this. And frankly, he was right in a way, as much as you wanted to claim otherwise.

“Did you think me incapable? Awkward, bumbling old Cardi, couldn’t possibly know how to put you in your place… No use for anything other than a pity fuck-“

“Quit feeling fucking sorry for yourself!” You snapped, not feeling so remorseful this time as he put more pressure on you, seemingly

having figured out just the right spot to get you worked up. You resorted to hitting at his leg now, feeling humiliated.

Who the fuck does he think he is? I’m trying to do my job here.

“Aha.” He scoffed, taking no notice of your hits, “there you go again, doesn’t it feel better to let those emotions out?”

“Enough, Frater!” You attempted to sound stern, but with how flustered you felt, each movement of his leg disarming you, it came out as a pathetic plea.

Attempting to swing your leg over his foot to get away - the one that wasn’t occupied toying with your cunt - you slipped from your seat, landing to sit on the ground with an unceremonious thud.

With a deadpan expression, Copia wasted no time in pressing his foot against your throat, pressing your head back against the couch. You were sure the pattern of his soles would leave a mark on your skin.

“Now who is being a fucking brat, hm?”

You loathed to admit this was doing something to you. After all his childish behaviour you didn’t owe him this - he owed you, and the rest of your team numerous apologies.

You glared up at him, your breath faltering slightly as he put pressure on your windpipe.

“Fuck you. You’ve always been so fucking spoilt. Too blind to see how good you have it.” You rasped, unable to hold back your frustrations. You hated this. Hated the way you thought about someone you’d held dear for so long, hated the venom coming out of your mouth, but it was truth, to you.

You hated that he felt good about any of this arguing.

You coughed as he took his foot from your neck, standing above you with that smug smile on his face.

It caught you off guard when you felt the sting of leather against your cheek, the slap ringing in your ear.

You looked at him aghast, unable to determine if you felt that way because he hit you, or because it ignited something in you.

“What happened to you being forgiving?” You snarled, rubbing at your face.

He spoke softly again, as if you were having a friendly chat, “Forgiveness comes after contrition, sorella.”

“I’m not playing this stupid game. We have work to do.”

“You leave when I dismiss you.”

Fuck.

It took you a second to shake off the thrill the tone of his voice stoked at within you, shaking your head as you tried to stand.

“I know you sorella, I see what you want. What you’d been seeking out elsewhere.” His voice was gravelly as he kept you pushed down.

“We can… help each other out, hm? Like friends should…”

His gloved hand grasped at your hair, earning a protest from you, quickly muffled as he pulled you face first between his legs. The zip of his trousers only served to irritate the reddened skin on your cheek more. But you were easily distracted by what lay beneath. He was hard.

He really was enjoying this.

Swatting at his legs again you found yourself dumbfounded when he finally pushed you away with a snarl.

“Are you going to fight me every step of the way, sorella? When I do all this for you, hm? Go on. Show your Frater how sorry you are.” He mocked, gesturing at the bulge in his pants, and you scoffed. Before you could tell him he was being insane he slapped you again, the other side of your face this time.

He grinned as you let out a whimper, your eyes stinging with tears from the impact.

Warring with your mixed emotions, you unenthusiastically undid his fly, followed by his buttons. You trained your eyes on the floor, feeling humiliated.

Of course he wasn’t wearing underwear, you had to hold back a scoff as he shoved your hand aside to free his cock, evidently impatient with your reluctance.

You’d never taken time to look too closely at it. But now, even trying to avert your eyes, you could tell it looked throbbing, imposing and angry.

Much like him. Probably just as bitter.

Sensing something unsaid, he smacked you again.

“Focus, sorella.”

Pulling you forward by your hair again, he pressed his length against your face, hand tightening in an unspoken demand.

Placing your hands on his thighs in an attempt to steady yourself, you relented, squeezing your eyes shut as you offered your lips to him.

He buried himself within your mouth, hitting the back of your throat. Quickly you had to adjust your breathing to compensate.

With a glance up at him, your eyes widened. You could see it in his eyes again, looking at you the way he used to, his expression soft. But it hardly lasted a split second before he pulled your hair, prompting you to start moving.

You tried to maintain some form of pacing as you sucked him, made difficult with his relentless thrusts ensuring you took every inch of him. You choked while he fucked your throat selfishly, his movements not giving you opportunity to work him with your tongue as you would with any other partner. Your vision blurred, feeling tears track down your cheeks.

“You think I don’t know what you need?" He grunted, burying himself to the hilt and holding you in place.

You tried to ignore the want burning within you as you felt his cock twitching at the back of your throat.

Wincing, you tapped at his legs as it became harder to breathe, a pleading sob escaping you.

"Hmph." He muttered, pulling your head back again. You spluttered, gasping for air for the few seconds respite he allowed you before pulling you back. He slowed this time, staring down at you, biting on his lip. You were conflicted - torn between making a show of it, showing him what you could really do, or protesting against his treatment of you.

He cursed at you as you slowly swirled your tongue around the tip of his cock, causing his whole body to twitch. Feeling spite building within you again, you repeated the motion a few more times, causing him to hiss at the overstimulation.

“Sorella, you little-“ he grunted, shoving himself down your throat again, pinching your nose.

You felt your blood run cold, terrified as you tried to fight for breath.

“Look at me.”

You complied, your eyes quickly meeting his as you grew dizzy, your head pounding. He stared you down coolly as he let go of your nose. He wasted no time in fucking your throat again, ignoring your chokes and gags, not giving you any opportunity to recover.

“Always knew your mouth was good for more than pestering me about damned papers."

Your stomach flipped as you gagged once again, terrified you were going to throw up, your throat and jaw beginning to ache.

As he pulled you in once more, spilling himself in the back of your throat, you were surprised he hadn’t busted your lip with how forceful he had been.

He pulled you away harshly, letting free his grasp on your hair causing you to slump back against the couch, crying and spluttering.

He had you terrified a few times, convinced he would not let you up for air, that he would let you black out.

He wouldn’t have… would he?

You didn’t know anymore, and it was enough to make you sob harder.

His shoulders shuddered as he steadied his breath, pupils blown as he stared down at you, at the streaks of ruined makeup running down your cheeks, the spit and cum stringing from your chin.

“Oh doll… you look perfect.” He crooned, gripping your chin. You let out something between a choke and a sob as he forced you to look up at him.

“Isn’t this so much better than fighting, hm?”

You screwed up your nose in disagreement, feeling the heat in your face radiating down your neck with every humiliating jab he levied at you.

"Now..." he murmured, fixing his trousers as he knelt on the floor before you. He grasped at your waistband, and suddenly you felt the urge to resist growing within you again. Before he could pull at your trousers, you kicked and squirmed against him.

"No. Enough!" You snarled, voice hoarse as you rolled onto your hands and knees, making a shaky attempt to crawl away.

He growled, grasping you by your shoes to pull you back into place. In the scuffle, he managed to yank your shoes off, ignoring your attempts to shove him away as he harshly tugged again at your trousers.

What a shit day to wear the ones with an elasticated waist.

It was too late for any modesty, and yet you still squirmed and kicked at him. It was no use, of course, but a sick part of you didn’t want to lie down and make this easy for him. After all, hadn’t he been making work so difficult for you lately with his petulance?

Practically growling, he lunged at you, painfully pinning you down with one hand on your shoulder, your face shoved in the carpet as he made quick work of discarding your trousers.

It shouldn’t feel so thrilling, your cunt shouldn’t be throbbing so much in response to this bizarre behaviour.

You heard him suck in a breath between his teeth, examining your underwear - plain black, a little lace round the edges, nothing to write home about. Your face burned again as he tugged at them, and you reached behind your back to try and stop him.

He squeezed your shoulder harder.

That’ll bruise.

For a split second you felt relief as his other hand moved away from your underwear, and you managed to glance back.

Of course he wasn’t giving up. You held your breath as you watched him reach for something, rifling through the disorganised mess on his desk.

You heard his soft “aha” when he found what he was looking for, the ornate letter opener glinting in the light.

“No don’t you da-“

Too late, with two harsh rips, he pulled the dull blade through the fabric. He stared you down clinically, shoving the ruined panties in his pocket.

He leaned back to examine you, now fully exposed from the waist down, save for your socks.

“Good… it is nice to have options, is it not?” he mused, using his knee to spread your legs apart, shuffling between them, “next time you interrupt me… what shall it be, eh? My cock or your panties?”

You bit your tongue, pressing your face into the carpet again only to hide how the blood rushed to your cheeks, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction.

He leaned over you, breath hot on your neck.

“And do not think I did not notice how wet they are.”

You thrashed again, as he easily pulled you over to lie on your back, one hand splayed across your chest to keep you pinned in place. Gritting your teeth you tried to squeeze your thighs together. It was short lived before he adjusted his position, his breaths deep as he clawed your legs apart, kneeling on your thighs to keep you spread.

You couldn’t ignore the chill that raced down your spine watching him bring his hand to his mouth, teeth clamping down on the leather to pull off his glove, tossing it aside. Deep down you were terrified, but something kept you rooted to the carpet, holding your breath as you watched him.

He’s beautiful.

Meeting your wide eyes, he laughed again.

“This isn’t funny, Copia.”

He rolled his eyes, spitting between your legs causing you to twitch. You let out a conflicted groan - disgust and arousal warring within you.

“No? You’ve been proving me right every step of the way. Letting me show you your place.”

He rubbed at you, coating his fingers in his spit and your slick.

You whined as he pushed three fingers in with only a little resistance. No working your way up to it today, it seemed.

“Oh…” you gasped as he curled his fingers, moving his thumb to circle your clit. He hadn’t even started and it all felt too much for you, too intense.

But he froze. You hadn’t noticed yourself squeezing your eyes closed, but upon opening them, he was smirking at the confusion in your furrowed brows.

“Take what you need, doll. Lord knows everyone else has.” His tone was stern, challenging, but your heart ached at his words. Deep down you could sense the hurt within him, and for a second you wanted to forget this whole sordid scene and comfort your friend.

Until the hand across your chest moved, as if he could tell what you were thinking. Snaking his hand under your shirt, he shoved your bra up, pinching your nipple hard between his finger and thumb.

“Do you need me to tell you again?”

He didn’t. The pain of his grip as he switched between heavily groping at each of your breasts caused you to buck your hips, begrudgingly grinding against his hand.

It wasn’t long before you lost yourself, staring at the ceiling as your hips moved rhythmically against his hand. He was almost statuesque, callous as his gaze bore down on you. You would have hardly thought he had any interest in what you were doing if it weren’t for how the rise and fall of his chest seemed to pick up speed, his breaths coming quick and shallow.

“I’d have never pictured this years ago…” he mulled, savouring your moans as he suddenly switched from pulling at your breasts to lightly circling each nipple.

“Oh. Oh fuck.” You cried out, attempting to tune out his taunts and the squelch of your wet cunt against his fingers as you chased deliverance from the burning pressure growing in your core. With one hand you gripped the plush carpet, trying to find purchase to aid your movements, with the other you covered your face, unwilling to let him see you fall apart like this.

“…That you’d be so needy.”

“I don’t need you.” You snarled, chiding yourself for letting him get a reaction from you.

“Hah,” he jeered, flicking his thumb over your clit, forcing a sob from you, as if you needed to be reminded of what you were doing, “don’t need me, no? Fucking yourself stupid on my hand, get up and walk away if you don’t need me.”

You whined, fighting back the urge to curse at him. It was a lose-lose situation. He grew irritated if you spoke back, or irritated when you ignored his ridicule. Either way you were getting him worked up again.

You reverted to trying to ignore him. If he was so insistent that he would provide you with an outlet, you were going to take advantage of the offer.

“As I thought. Always so proud sorella, who could think someone so orderly was just begging to be ruined?”

“Shit-“

You spasmed, clenching around his fingers, squeezing your eyes shut as you came. You let out a few cracked sobs, your throat still aching.

It had hit you quicker than you’d expected, begrudgingly admitting to yourself that his taunts had something to do with it.

The bliss of your orgasm was short lived, quashed by the shame and embarrassment that washed over you as you caught your breath, staring at the ceiling.

As a sense of clarity, and horror, crept into your mind, Copia tutted. He flexed his fingers, causing you to jump.

“No, no no no…” you whispered, lazily shaking your head. It was too much, too soon, too sensitive.

“I decide when you are done. Understand?”

“No, I- ah-” You gasped as he languidly pumped his fingers inside you, not prepared to let you come to your senses and call this off just yet. He pulled his hand out from under your shirt, reaching up to press his thumb across your lips, hushing your cries as he leaned over you.

Your thighs felt numb under his weight, shaking with every flick of his thumb over your swollen clit.

“Are you still sorry? For how you dared to speak to your dear Frater?” He murmured, rocking his fingers back and forward within you, ignoring your gasps.

“Mmhm.” You nodded, eyes watering as your core burned again, insufferably, this time.

“Good… good….” he whispered, pressing the palm of his hand over your lips, “then you will give me another.”

There was no question, only a demand as he slipped a fourth finger within you, stretching you to your limit almost painfully. You groaned as he pumped against the wet heat of your cunt, his eyes alight as you both felt another trickle of wetness gush from you.

“That’s it, sorella.” he cooed, ignoring the strangled noises that died in your covered mouth.

It wasn’t long before he had found just the right movements to get your back arching from the carpet, your hands grasping at his arms to no avail, body jerking in response to each swipe of his thumb over your clit.

Your vision became dark, spotted from squeezing your eyes shut so hard, as if not seeing his actions would save you from the aching tightness in your gut.

Your entire body seemed to tense again as he dragged you over the edge, all but kicking and screaming. Your muted whines only served to paint that smug grin back on his face.

He waited until your orgasm had passed, until your pussy stopped pulsing around his fingers before he withdrew.

You were exhausted, your eyes fluttering shut. You didn’t resist him as he uncovered your mouth, his gloved hand giving way to the one coated with your slick, fingers prodding at your lips in a silent demand. You let your lips part, idly licking and sucking each digit, your face burning red as you tasted your own release on them.

“Look at me.” Copia growled, snapping you away from your trance. Your eyes lazily moved to meet his as you licked the last trace of yourself from his hand.

He leaned back, lips parted as he studied you, his breathing still shallow, his paints smudged from biting his lip.

You felt too exposed, could feel yourself wanting to sink into the ground to escape his cold stare.

Shifting onto your elbows you tried to think of any feeble reason to excuse yourself.

“No you don’t.” he snarled, quickly slipping his jacket from his shoulders, throwing it onto the couch. You caught the sheen of sweat on his forehead glint in the light as he frowned.

He gripped your shoulders, pushing you back down, leaning across you, his lips ghosting over your neck.

“You got two, it is only fair that I get another, no?” He whispered, grinding himself against you. He was rock hard again.

You bit your lip. You had always thought him a one and done kind of guy. But then again, this whole encounter was showing just how much you had underestimated him throughout the years.

You let out a surprised squeak as he kissed you. This was familiar territory, just as needy as your previous intoxicated encounters with him.

You let yourself get carried away in the most tender moment you’d had since walking into his office earlier, your arms wrapping around his neck as he continued to rut against you.

It was over the second he sensed you growing complacent, pulling your arms away and pinning them to the floor. After breaking the kiss you caught him staring at your parted lips.

You were sure he was going to kiss you again, closing your eyes and bracing yourself, gasping as the rough fabric of his jeans dragged a moan from your throat.

He spat, your eyes snapping open at the sound, choking as it hit your already raw throat.

“Bastard!” you spluttered, rage and humiliation flooding your chest as he snickered, his hands moving back to his trousers, freeing himself again.

“You didn’t like it? No?” He jeered, a low moan rumbling in his throat as he rubbed his cock against your wet folds.

“But yet you keep swallowing everything I give you… Needy little puttana…”

You couldn’t hide the way your eyes rolled back at his words, biting your lip as he pushed into you, taking his time to savour the feeling as he sheathed himself within you.

You couldn’t remember the last time you’d fucked each other, evidently something he was pondering too in that moment as his hands grasped at your waist.

“Just as inviting as I remember, sorella…”

He waited, but you didn’t return the compliment - his ego didn’t need it, as much as he had been feeling sorry for himself these days.

Grunting, he gripped your thighs, pushing your knees towards your chest, seemingly giving up on trying to provoke you with words. Finally, he began to move, his pace not gentle like it had once been. The room filled with the noise of his hips slapping against the back of your thighs, and your mewling as he plunged himself deep, over and over into your sensitive cunt.

“Who is doing this for you nowadays?” He grunted, almost conversationally, the question barely discernible over your whimpering.

“No-one…”

“Really?” While he kept his expression schooled, you could tell by the way his thrusting faltered that the answer surprised him. He tutted, cooing sarcastically.

“You poor deprived thing you… who was the last?”

You frowned at his condescension, your throat scratching as you answered, “There was that bishop for a while…”

“Oh yes. It’s been that long, hm?”

You nodded as he thrust into you harder at the mention of him, his grip on the backs of your thighs making you wince.

“What was it he called you again? ‘Daddy’s cumslut?’” He scoffed, spitting at you again. Your confusion and embarrassment served to distract you from the disgust you should have felt from his spit landing against your cheek.

“How do you know-”

“-I heard the pair of you, in one of the supply closets. The party after the Impera livestream.” He grunted, his greying hair falling over his eyes as voice dropped to a low snarl that sent a shiver straight to your core, “You don’t know how often that memory kept me going… those long nights on the tour bus.”

He chuckled, biting on his lip as he felt your walls tighten around his cock at the idea.

“Is that what you need, hm? A daddy?” He mocked, slowing his pace as if to torment you.

“No. Oh fuck.”

“What do you need then?”

You knew what he wanted you to say, and knew you were avoiding giving the satisfaction of saying it aloud. Shaking his head, he stilled, the tip of his cock just at your entrance. As you squirmed, moaning at the loss of him, he pushed down on your thighs, keeping you pinned and deprived.

“Frater… please…”

That did the trick, a smug smile growing on his lips as he thrust into you fully. You covered your mouth, gasping and moaning as his hips snapped with a new found sense of urgency, each movement leaving you trembling.

“Did you let him fill you up? Like a good little slut, hm?”

You weren’t going to dignify him with a response, changing your mind when he leaned over, raising his hand to you.

Flinching, you cried out. “No!”

The slap didn’t land, instead he gripped your face, fingers digging into your cheek.

“Oh, really?” He scoffed. If you didn’t know him so well you might have missed the hesitation barely masked in his tone - deep down he was unsure he wanted to know the answer. Copia had always been insistent that the two of you careful when you had hooked up before. It only served to make you feel just that little bit more wrong about how he was fucking you now, the idea of stopping to find a condom hadn’t even been a consideration in the heat of the moment.

“No…” you trailed off, glancing away as he looked at you quizzically, his harsh pumping slowing again, as if to demand an explanation.

“He just..” you groaned in embarrassment, tilting your head back to avoid Copia’s eyes “he always finished in my mouth…”

You whimpered, feeling how that made his cock twitch deep within you as he hissed.

“Puttana.”

Your face burned red.

“Fuck off. Oh-“ you groaned as he rutted into you harder, his eyes snapping away from yours to watch your pussy engulfing his cock with each snap of his hips, seemingly mesmerised.

He murmured, his low tone becoming harder to maintain as his voice cracked.

“What a waste. If… fuck, sorella…” you could hear him hold back small whimpers as he began to lose his restraint, the sounds barely noticeable as you threw your head back, muffling your cries with each stroke of his cock against your walls.

“If I’d known… back then… I’d have filled this pretty pussy every time…”

“Copia…” you growled, attempting to protest the idea, but your voice lacked conviction, betraying the fact you were desperate now to feel him flood you.

The sweat beading on his forehead had trickled slightly, smudging the paint around his eyes. His pounding was becoming more erratic, cursing as your cunt pulsed around his cock, his breath hitching in his throat.

“My sorella… my pain in the ass… my little fucking brat.” he muttered venomously between thrusts, driving himself deep within you once more as he stilled.

Your hands clutched at the carpet as his cock twitched, coating your walls with his spend.

You stared up at him, bewildered. Your chest ached, watching as he panted for air, his eyes squeezed shut, his hair now in disarray.

With a deep sigh, he opened his eyes, not to meet your gaze but to watch as his cum lazily seeped from your cunt as he pulled out.

As he looked you in the eyes, you found yourself desperate for him to speak, in spite of how you’d wanted him to be quiet for most of this ordeal. You’d never admit it to him now, but you wanted praise, wanted to be told how well you did.

“See, sorella? How well I know you? Know what you need?”

He smirked. He knew what you wanted, and the bastard was not about to give it to you.

As he righted his clothes, you just about managed to shuffle away from him to grab your discarded trousers and shoes, quickly redressing yourself before slumping back to the floor, shattered. You held your tongue remembering why exactly you now had no option but to go commando, fearful that telling him he owed you new underwear might set him off again.

You stared blankly, trying to process it all, and waiting expectantly, hoping that he would change his mind and comfort you as you felt yourself crashing back to reality.

He kneeled, reaching towards the desk to grab the forms that had served as the catalyst for all of this from the corner of his desk, before sitting beside you on the floor, letting out an exhausted groan. You just about forced yourself to look at up him, face burning red.

With a smirk he scrawled his signature at the tabs you had neatly dotted across the document.

“Here you go.” He spoke surprisingly brightly, given the way your meeting panned out, tossing the papers onto your heaving chest.

“…Thank you, Frater.”

“Of course.” He stood, sliding on his jacket and grabbing his car keys from the desk. “Now, be a doll and swing by Mrs Psaltarian’s office, tell her I’ll be out of office for the evening. I trust I will see you tomorrow to further pester me with this administrative bullshit, yes?”

“Yeah…” you whispered, sounding unsure of yourself. A part of you still contemplated resigning.

Those thoughts were cut short when you found the tip of his shoe pressing against your windpipe again, his brow raised expectantly.

“Yes, Frater.”

He grinned. It troubled you to realise this was the calmest you had seen him in months.

“Okie dokie! Be good, sorella.”

You nodded shakily as he stepped over you, his smirk still unsettling you. He was up to something, but so exhausted, and so perplexed at what had just transpired you couldn’t begin to theorise on what it was.

You just about had time to clean yourself up before returning to your duties. Mrs Psaltarian was seemingly oblivious to your rattled state, too busy fussing about her precious Cardi.

Back in your office, ignoring the questioning eyes of other siblings wondering how your talk went, you leaned against the scanner, legs still trembling as you sent the forms to your computer, mind a million miles away. Or rather, your mind still down the hall, abandoned on the floor of his office.

You had attached them to the email for the pyro team, opening the attachment to run your eye over it one last time.

That pompous little fucker.

Each page signed with “Papa Emeritus IV” served to stoke at your irritation. No wonder he had been grinning. He was mocking you.

Barely holding back a growl you sighed, printing a fresh copy of the forms, resigned to trying to persuade him to sign it with his proper title tomorrow.

You would wear that nice purple v-neck blouse he always used to compliment. Maybe that would do the trick.

[marlynnofmany]

Unexpected Blue

The ship’s engine changed pitch suddenly, and before I could worry about it, the intercom binged with an announcement from the captain.

“We’re making a brief detour,” she said. “A different courier didn’t quite make it to their destination, and they need us to do the dropoff. Should be an easy one. Mur and Robin, you’re next up.” 

So I was. Dang. I’d thought I had some time before the next delivery, but it looked like reading in the crew lounge would have to wait. I turned back toward my quarters, leaving the sound of Telly purring under the heat lamp behind me. She’d probably still be there when I was done. I left my reading tablet in my quarters and hurried to the cockpit.

Captain Sunlight was already talking to Mur while Kavlae took us in for a landing. The view on the main screen was eyecatching: a nearby sun brighter than the captain’s scales, and something exceptionally reflective on the barren landing pad.

Is that the other ship? I thought, squinting. Ow.

Kavlae muttered about manufacturing regulations and adjusted the screen’s filters. The view dimmed, but not to the point where she couldn’t see where to land.

Mur huffed. “I don’t trust the judgement of anyone who flies one of those.” Several of his tentacles were crossed in irritation, with others tapping on the floor.

“I have my reservations as well,” said the captain. “But this delivery is both small and urgent, and they’re offering a more than reasonable cut of their rates. I understand the item is farming supplies of some sort. Needed in a hurry.” She glanced up at the view of the approaching landing pad. A figure in an exo suit waited outside the other ship. “Let’s hurry to the airlock.”

We hurried. I had the easiest time of it, walking at my normal long-legged pace while Captain Sunlight trotted along with dignity and Mur was a whirl of tentacles. We made it there as the engines whined a landing.

The nearest intercom beeped, and Kavlae’s voice spoke from the single speaker. “Ready? Our contact here looks ready to hand over the item.” 

Captain Sunlight pressed the button and spoke back. “Go ahead.”

On the other side of the door, air whooshed and the outer hatch opened. I peered over the captain’s head to see somebody in an exo suit step inside, place a box on the floor, then run back outside and wave at us.

The hatch closed while the captain made a thoughtful sound. Air wooshed again.

Through the intercom, Kavlae said, “They’ve transferred a good-faith payment and another message to hurry. I’ve already scanned for known contagion. Grab it and I’ll take off.” 

When our door opened, Captain Sunlight strode in and picked up the medium-sized white plastic box, then carried it out into the hallway, checking every side for damage. A gust of cold air followed, and the door slid shut behind her. Engine pitch said we were rocketing into space again. Good old artificial gravity meant I didn’t have to give it a moment’s thought. I could focus on the mystery item instead.

“So how close is — Wait, is that a timer?” I asked as I caught a glimpse of a digital readout on the far side of the box. The numbers were awfully low. Minutes.

“Yes,” said Captain Sunlight tersely. “Kavlae is hurrying. We’re going to land somewhere unofficial; be prepared to hop down if there isn’t a suitable landing pad and she has to hover.”

“Is it a farm?” I asked, thinking back to the earlier conversation.

“Do we need exo suits?” Mur asked. That was a better question.

Captain Sunlight shook her head. “No, the moon we’re headed to has standard air. The first delivery ship crashed on one that doesn’t. They almost reached the right one, then had a power failure. Assistance is some ways out.”

Mur wove his tentacles together in a new way that looked just as judgmental as the last. “Of course they had a power failure. They’re lucky they didn’t give that moon a new crater.”

“Their poor choice in transportation is not our problem,” declared the captain. “This is.” She handed the box to me. It was surprisingly light, though something slid inside when I tilted it to look at the timer.

That was a really short amount of time. “What happens if we’re late?” I asked.

Mur scowled. “That had better not be one of those fertilizer bombs.”

“The client said specifically that it’s not explosive,” Captain Sunlight told him.

“That’s just what someone hoping to trick us into doing something dangerous would say,” Mur replied.

“They had a respectable rating. Well. Respectable enough for someone with a delivery vehicle that breaks down if you look at it wrong.”

“There’s no way to look at it right.”

The intercom beeped. “Coming in for a landing,” Kavlae reported. “Farms and ranches, as promised, with permission from the property owner to hover over the road in front of her house. Air and weather are good. Be ready to run.” 

Captain Sunlight pressed the button with a look at us. “Ready.” She stood to the side.

Mur grumbled, “Do we really need two people for this? It’s a one-person carry.”

“Best to follow protocol,” the captain told him. “And you get to catch it if she trips.”

“Hey, that happened one time,” I objected.

“This would be a bad time for twice.”

“Good point.”

Mur sighed dramatically, but took a position next to me at the airlock. In moments, the engines made their hovering-but-not-landing whine, and both doors opened.

Reddish dirt road, gray and yellow bushes, a domed house with ridges that looked like a seashell plopped on the ground, and several other fences and whatnot that I didn’t have time to take in.

There were seconds left on the timer, and a long driveway to run down.

As I tucked the box against my side and placed a hand on the doorstep, I felt the disturbing sensation of something moving inside of it. I jumped down and took the box firmly in both hands. It almost jumped out of my grasp.

Mur saw. “It’s moving?” He leapt after me with a plop. “Is it a faulty auto-drill? Those are dangerous! Don’t hold it too close to you!”

From the airlock, Captain Sunlight called, “Run!”

I gritted my teeth, held it at arm’s length, and ran towards the farmhouse. The sun reflected hot off the architecture, the wind in my face was hotter, and whatever was in the box jolted eagerly against the side. I desperately hoped that I wasn’t about to get a drill through my hand.

But the client was there on the front step waiting for me: a middle-aged Frillian woman wearing overalls that looked like they’d been a deep space jumpsuit once, cut to shape with gardening shears. Her frills were waving happily. Good sign.

“Just in time!” she declared as I skidded to a stop, holding the box with the timer toward her. She plucked it from my grasp. I caught my breath and tried not to look too relieved.

Tentacles slapping dirt told me Mur had joined us. I focused on breathing evenly and wondering what the client was about to do with that knife.

Without a word, she sliced the box open as easily as if it was cardboard and not industrial shipping plastic. That was some knife. But she didn’t open it; she clapped a hand on the top to keep it shut while she sheathed the knife at her belt. With the way the box was jumping, I was impressed she hadn’t cut her fingers.

When she moved forward with purpose, I danced aside to let her pass. Mur scrambled out of the way. The client strode over to a fenced-in area that had mesh over the top, looking something like a large chicken coop. She bumped a latch with an elbow, opened a little door, then shoved the box through and dumped its contents onto the ground.

Something round, brown, and furry tumbled free.

Mur asked, “Is that an animal?”

When it stopped rolling and stayed perfectly round, I said, “It looks like a coconut.”

It jumped some more, prompting Mur to guess again. “Is it an egg with fur?”

The client just grinned at us, clearly enjoying this.

I thought wildly of Mexican jumping beans back on Earth, and the larva that grew inside. Surely not.

The thing stopped jumping and kind of wiggled in place, and I heard a scratching sound. There was a flash of motion on the far side of it. Amazed, I stepped to the side for a better look. The client joined me, and so did Mur. The three of us watched a small blue creature crawl out of a hole in the nut, then spread its wings for what had to be the first time. It looked like a feathery moth the size of a kite, with a row of crab legs along the front. The feathers shone iridescent blue in the sun.

The client tutted beside me. “It’s not ultramarine at all! Those liars. I am going to tell everyone. What a waste. Just another blue.” She tapped the wire mesh with a palm. “Hey all, come meet your new friend!”

The bushes along the edge of the coop that I hadn’t been paying attention to — the ones I’d subconsciously assumed were covered in big blueish leaves — exploded into a cloud of vivid blue wings. They swirled around the coop before coming to land on every available surface, fanning their wings in the sun. It was a glorious sight.

“I really hoped to breed some ultramarines,” the client said with a sigh. “Oh well, maybe I can find a reputable seller next season. Thanks for the rush delivery. You’ve got a feather on you.”

“What?” I asked, but she was already plucking it out of my hair and handing it to me.

“Keep it if you like; my stock is carefully screened for everything. Oh, and you’ve got — well, that’s valuable stuff in some circles.”

She was talking to Mur now. I looked down to see my squidlike crewmate covered in a fine dusting of blue iridescence. A glance at the feather showed it to be trailing similar dust across my fingers.

Mur said, “I shall take that under advisement,” then he began tentacle-walking back toward the ship with as much dignity as he could muster.

Normally I would have had the client sign for the delivery, but this one was a rush job without the usual paperwork. “You’ve been in touch with our ship, right? Got everything settled?”

“Yes, I authorized the payment when you got here,” she said. “Your pilot assured me all was well, and she was right.” She glanced back at the coop full of blue. “Well, as right as can be. I should have known not to trust a breeder who flies that brand of ship.”

“Was that the actual person you bought it from?” I asked, thinking of the silver disaster. “Not another delivery company?”

She waved a hand. “He does a lot of things. Never sticks with any of them long enough to get anywhere. Like I said, I should have known.”

“If it makes you feel any better, he’s currently broken down on a cold moon with the repair services a ways out.”

She smiled. “That does make me feel better. Thank you. Now I must be off to warn everyone else not to believe that liar, and you should make sure your friend there gets all of that off. I’m told his species doesn’t react well to it.”

“Good to know, thank you. I’m sure our medic will be all over it.”

“The extra dust will brush off that easily enough,” she told me, pointing at the feather. “Goodbye!”

I said my goodbyes and more thanks, and hurried after Mur. I carefully dusted off the feather as I went, leaving a trail of brilliant blue glittering in the breeze.

~~~

These are the ongoing backstory adventures of the main character from this book.

Shared early on Patreon! There’s even a free tier to get them on the same day as the rest of the world.

The sequel novel is in progress (and will include characters from these stories. I hadn’t thought all of them up when I wrote the first book, but they’re too much fun to leave out of the second).

[skidthelid]

"Isn't it strange to create something that hates you?"

Here is my second (and last) piece for @sthbigbang!! It was such a blast making this and it brought me out of a severe case of art block! Working with everyone was also an absolutely wonderful experience :]

I look forward to next year!! Everyone did an amazing job!!!!!

‼️ Important stuff below the cut ‼️

Please please PLEASE go read the fic by @sodapop !! Its so cool and its about Metal gaining sentience and exploring his human(mobian?)ity, which is such a cool concept! I'm also just a sucker for robot characters Going Through It and a huge Metal fan :]

The author worked really hard on this and their work definitely payed off! PLEASE GO SUPPORT THEM 💖

Here's a lil preview of it, which is also the excerpt I based the comic on!!

[ "When he woke up this time, he remembered. That seemed likely to be an error of some sort. This was likely unintended. This had been the third time he had been rebooted. This time the memory wipe was unsuccessful. This time he remembered the commands entered to wipe his memory, his hard drive, completely. A quick scan of his code showed that the commands had been used two times previously and were successful then but this time had not been so. This was odd. Even stranger, no one seemed to notice that this memory wipe hadn’t worked.

Instead this time he remembered. He remembered everything entered into his command log prior to being sent out on the previous mission. A mission he failed. He remembered the kill codes, backlogs, and data arrays encrypted into his source code, information that for all intents and purposes should have been wiped clean. There should have been nothing left of him, whatever that once was. But in place of a blank slate, his memory files remained. Fresh within them laid the recording from his last mission, his latest failure. He couldn’t draw back on his previous failures, a reasonable assumption, as the data wipes then had been successful and all that remained of those instances were the backlogs showing the memory wipes happened at all.

That search, proving worthless, led him to revisiting the videos that somehow inexplicably remained of the last mission. He had failed this time, like he concluded he must have done two times before. He had lost to the blue creature he was made in the likeness of. This creature was fast beyond what his rockets and motors then could handle. The blue being packed a heavy punch and ruthless kick. It also didn’t pull its punches either. Its blows all but destroying him during their battle, leaving him in scraps by the end. He couldn’t feel pain. That was beneath him. But the memory of his exposed wires, missing leg, and punched through motor in his chest caused his fans to spin faster than ever. The whirring sound building as he slowly sat up from the work table he was laid on." ]

READ THE FIC HERE :D

Huge shoutout to my fellow artist @starzdeath for their AWESOME piece of angst they made, especially on a time crunch!! It really captures Metals emotion and it looks so sick :3

SEE THE ART HERE :D

Thanks for the great experience everyone!!

[pikachu78109]

General Team Rainbow Rocket Headcanons

((I’ve been listening to some Team RR boss themes out of nostalgia and I have never written anything about the Pokémon villains (specifically Generation 1-6 respectively) and I figured I would shower my thoughts on these dudes))

Giovanni

Gonna start off with the one and only Giovanni. He’s a bit tricky to pinpoint, but as a Mafia inspired character, Giovanni works in the shadows. He doesn’t operate out in the open (I mean, obviously) and handles the more business side of things such as negotiations and elaborate planning. He doesn’t care about getting his hands dirty but don’t mistake him for being lazy or incapable of fighting.

As a villain, he’s the most put together. He’s a rational thinker and analyzes situations thoroughly. Not much of an optimist, but very opportunistic however it’s coupled with a hypothetical mindset. Giovanni never settles for one backup plan. He never bites off more than he can chew. He bides his time and attacks when the moment comes.

Obviously views himself highly and expects absolute respect. Has no tolerance for failure, like most other villains (except Archie) and punishes Grunts severely for any indiscretion.

Giovanni is aware of Maxie and Archie as they used to be part of Team Rocket in their early years. He has a low opinion of them, Archie especially for his goofy immaturity and lack of asserting his authority. Still, it does impress Giovanni that these two have managed to make a name for themselves as bosses.

Extremely patient. Giovanni can play the waiting game and he prefers it that way. He hates sloppiness and would rather surveillance his opponents before striking. He’s got eyes everywhere to ensure that no stone is left unturned.

Actually a decent father to Silver, but very much so a deadbeat. Not a lot of contact between the two. However, there were a few instances where they crossed paths but it’s usually brief and contains less pleasantries.

Maxie

Stereotypical nerd alert. Maxie is the epitome of the phrase “well, actually” and comes across as SUPER condescending. He thinks he’s doing people a favor by showering them with his logic and reasoning but really, at times, he’s speaking nonsense. He’s petty whenever Archie is around and does things that irk him, but between the two, Maxie does seem more mature albeit condescendingly. Hell, I’ll just say he’s condescending.

Long standing rivalry with Archie. It’s an amalgamation of being petty, competitive, and all round, goofy. On the outside, the other villains don’t take these two seriously. However, by himself, Maxie is actually calm and low key, so to an extent, he’s favored a bit more than Archie. Still, it doesn’t discredit the fact that this nerd has beef with a wannabe pirate over the expansion of landmass vs water.

Motive wise, the rest of the villains see Maxie and Archie’s motivations as idiotic. Biggest facepalm in motion.

Secretly admires Cyrus but at the same time developed a jealousy towards him. Maxie admires Cyrus’ technical abilities, his masterwork tinkering with machinery, and the like, but harbors resentment that he himself struggles with reaching that level of success and skill.

Archie

Loud, proud, and all round ruthless, this pirate has no qualms in throwing down. Very loose and probably the least threatening boss, Archie embraces the pirate life and shows no real strictness in his methods. He gives everything he has in battle and doesn’t have a serious persona like the other RR members, hence why nobody takes him seriously.

Again, he has beef with Maxie as mentioned prior. Archie thinks Maxie is too uptight about everything and needs to loosen up. Highly competitive (especially with Maxie) so Archie is willing to take on his counterpart any time or day.

Probably the friendliest villain in the Pokémon main line series. He’s approachable and has that chill uncle vibe.

He does the most reckless things out of the group. It doesn’t matter what it is. Archie will do some random things, no matter if he ends up getting hurt. He’s sturdy, he can handle anything.

Cyrus

Cyrus is a shut in, a recluse so to speak. He hates engaging with others and doesn’t like to be bothered. He only comes out of his room when he’s has to, but only related to Team RR business.

A quiet man. Rarely speaks but isn’t shy in throwing in his two cents. Can easily clap back an argument with a couple of sentences effortlessly (he’s good with his words) and uses vocabulary that makes Archie scratch his head.

Doesn’t take much for Cyrus to kill the mood. Hell, just his presence alone dies whatever mood everyone’s feeling down by an inch.

Probably one of the few villains that contemplates their actions (Maxie and Archie being in the same camp). He doesn’t regret his actions, but finds himself wondering if something else had occurred how would the outcome change? It’s clear that he gets on fine with your Rotom-Dex, so there is some soft side to this ice cold, stone faced man.

Aside from Ghetsis, the other RR bosses kind of show some level of genuine concern for Cyrus. Like, man, are you okay? Cyrus doesn’t get hounded mainly for the fact that there’s quite literally nothing to bully him for. He’s silent most of the time and, to put it simply, nihilistic (or depressed in some cases). He’s hard to relate to, but that doesn’t mean that the other RR bosses (except Ghetsis) don’t check up on him. Look, they may be evil bastards, but they don’t mess around when it comes to mental health (except Ghetsis; he can go fuck himself).

Ghetsis

A complete madman in the flesh. Ghetsis is an unstable man and let me say that no one approaches Ghetsis unless they have a death wish. The man’s only best friend is manipulation and that’s all he does. Fortunately, Giovanni is aware of this and uses simple yet effective intimidation tactics to unnerve Ghetsis.

Every Team RR Grunt fears Ghetsis. Enough said.

I completely support the theory about Ghetsis and his Hydreigon attacking him. It fits given that his Hydreigon knows the move Frustration (an attack that increases the more the Pokémon dislikes its Trainer) and has used said move on Ghetsis, causing near fatal injuries.

Linking with the prior point, Ghetsis’ right arm was torn off (by Hydreigon) and replaced with a prosthetic, same with his right eye. There are scars all over his torso and legs. He has some mobility issues but can get by okay without any assistance. He wears cloaks to cover every inch of his body to appear bigger, but in actuality, he’s quite scrawny.

Ghetsis tried, at one point, to manipulate each of the RR bosses. Almost worked on Archie (bc Archie is somewhat gullible) whereas Lysandre and Cyrus knew immediately what cyclops was putting down. Maxie kind of just didn’t care.

Inserts himself way. too. much. Ghetsis cannot stand being pushed aside and prefers to be the center of attention. Dramatic, yes, but I can only imagine that if the conversation doesn’t involve Ghetsis, he’ll make damn sure that it makes it back to him, revenant or not. He’s a narcissist trying to dominant, but Giovanni isn’t having it.

No one knows why Ghetsis appears and acts so cruelly. Some say he was just born to be evil while others pin a complex backstory. It’s been theorized that Ghetsis has an ancient linage; his ancestors ruling over Unova, the Abyssal Ruins being a towering fortress that, for the longest time, ruled with power and swath of knowledge and wisdom. Over time, the ruins sank to the bottom of the ocean, taking the last remnants of the Harmonia name with it, leaving behind Ghetsis to carry on that legacy many years later. Of course, Ghetsis perverts the family name by asserting his own sinister misdeeds, pushing his warped philosophy onto others, like N, with manipulation. The God complex he forms has consumed him to the point where he can barely distinguish reality apart from his own twisted fantasy.

Says some batshit insane things that no one can comprehend. Don’t bother arguing with him; he cannot be reasoned.

Lysandre

This man hides his insanity very well. He carries himself with confidence and pride, so you would never suspect this man having committed regional (or global) genocide.

Has a way with words, similar to Cyrus. He can talk his way out of situations with little to no effort as he’s both eloquent and charming.

Quite favorable with Giovanni and possibly with Cyrus.

Can never tell what he’s thinking. You don’t know if he’s joking or if he’s being serious. It’s a constant coin toss and he’ll keep you on your toes. He finds this trait about himself amusing while others, like Ghetsis and Archie, find it annoying.

Despite how insane and deeply twisted his actions are, Lysandre actually used to be a genuine human being. At some point in his early life, he tried to be giving and helping towards his community and all of Kalos, which did help improve the quality of life in the region. But, over time, the constant pressure of trying to solve every problem has left Lysandre empty and exhausted. He has kept trying to find an excuse to continue his good efforts, but every time it yielded the same results, the same cycle. People take advantage of kindness, people fight and bicker over generosity, and people demand more. Lysandre just… burnt out. He got tired and grew to resent humanity’s unwillingness to accept and appreciate what was being given to them, ruining the beauty of the world by perverting the generosity to match their own needs and desires. It disgusted Lysandre, hence why he chose the destructive path that he did. What other choice he did have?

Can be sincere at times. When he says something positive, he means it.

[yokowan]

hi! your writing on aerospace and venture capital was very interesting, thank you for putting it out there! i'm curious how spacex plays into the dichotomy of private firms rejecting integration testing and subsequently wasting more money than if one followed the proper procedures, since i've heard that the company has a substantial market share / is developing unique and relevant technology while leaning into the same "move fast and break things" approach. is it just... subsidized / popular enough to absorb the losses?

tldr: spacex has a combination of factors working for it, but the only reason they can tank the losses is because they're very good at operating a hype machine

they weren't always this insane. in 2009 spacex was moving at a pretty fast pace for aerospace relative to other companies, but it was quite measured compared to their current state. falcon 1 was an incredibly simple rocket, basically just a technology demonstrator. even then, they were 1 failure away from bankruptcy before they finally got a success. this is commonly told as an underdog success story but somehow it does not inspire as much confidence in me as you'd think :p

when they started making falcon 9 it was, once again, an extremely simple rocket. sure, they had big plans for it, but falcon 9 v1.0 was built on extremely dependable, well known technology. they hired good engineers, took their time with development, and used reliable, existing tech. from then on, they just built on it very slowly. they changed one thing at a time.

the real thing that lead to their success at the time is that none of the things they were developing interfered with the core capability of the rocket. like, none of their customers were relying on the fact that they wanted to land the rocket on a boat. it's going to crash in the ocean anyways. might as well do landing attempts. the cost for failure there was basically nothing. falcon 9 succeeded so incredibly because they built a decent regular rocket, added features onto it, and got their testing for free-ish from launches they were doing anyways.

the current era of spacex dawned when elon musk realized that he could run a business on hype alone. slowly but surely, he started promising more. way more than his company could deliver. they could sell absolutely insane amounts of total horseshit based on spacex's reputation alone. they built falcon 9, after all. that means they can build anything!

and sell it did! remember when starship was called the Big Fucking Rocket, and was supposed to be a 100m tall composite hulled structure capable of putting 300 tons into orbit? remember how it was supposed to be bringing people to mars in 2022? remember how none of that happened and everyone just forgot? that shit! that's how spacex has operated post 2017

that whole strategy is to drum up hype with obviously impossible promises and get all the redditor temporarily embarrassed billionaire types on board by being super memey about it. and it worked! by 2020 their valuation was exploding (much like starship teehee) and it has not slowed down since

^^^ this is what selling piles of hot bullshit did for spacex. and if anyone says starlink fuck you starlink just barely broke even last year and only thanks to the US military.

and when i say it's bullshit i mean it's bullshit. if you trust elon musk's twitter as a primary source (most spacex fans and investors do), starship's planned payload capacity fluctuates by like. 3x depending on how many times he's texted his ex wives that morning. they miss scheduled deadlines for test flights and static fires so often that people joke about them being scheduled on "elon time" and somehow don't realize that this is a bad thing. every time a starship explodes it's lauded as some great achievement because if they ever admit failure, the hype will die out.

they're not just doing agile to rockets! this isn't changing requirements as new information becomes available. this is changing requirements whenever the billionaire dipshit feels like it! the poor engineers working for spacex are working insane crunch schedules just to keep the hype train moving. they need to constantly crank out impressive looking results to keep investors excited, even if they're not actually moving towards a goal. i've heard so many stories from spacex employees that they find out about changes to starship design requirements or test times from elon's twitter. it's fucking insane.

and spacex never stopped improving falcon 9! it kept being a pretty good rocket. they made incremental improvements to payload capacity and reusability. dragon became the workhorse of the US's transportation to the international space station. but that's not what they make the news for. that's not what they got their TWO HUNDRED AND TEN BILLION DOLLAR VALUATION for. no. they got that for making promises they can't keep.

this rant doesn't even touch on COTS/commercial crew. if i did it would end up being about five times longer. god help us all.

[the-bar-sinister]

Here's some thought's I've been thinking this afternoon. Silver's personal journey is about realising how power isn't just your own, but the joined power of your friends, right? Silver hates Team Rocket, for very personal reasons, but ostensibly because they gain their power by ganging up - none of them is strong on their own, only as an organisation. Team Rocket's big thing in the story is taking over the radio tower - a list ditch, all-or-nothing gambit to scream in to the abyss "Giovanni, where are you? Please come back to us! We love you, Boss!"

And Rocket is defeated. They practiced teamwork and friendship and loyalty and love, and they still lost. I wonder what it means? Is there a "wrong" way to be powerful through cooperation?

Now, this, THIS is a fascinating question to ask.

Because honestly? I think an element of Silver's journey is actually learning that relying on an organization is not where his father went wrong. Part of his journey is learning that his father was right.

During the time travel event, we see Silver's rejection of his father, how his father admits that his failure was due to not being able to utilize the potential of his allies, he accepts his defeat and wants to get stronger and put together a new organization. Silver, meanwhile rejects this entire philosophy, saying that he's going to get stronger "all by himself."

And you're absolutely right that Silver's journey is learning to open up and that power isn't all your own and you have to have people you rely on.

So yeah, part of Silver's journey is absolutely learning that he was wrong when he rejected that part of his father's philosophy.

You can say what you want about morality, crime, etc, but in this aspect, Silver definitely had to realize his father was right.

As for whether there's a 'wrong' way to be powerful through cooperation, I think the game shows us pretty clearly where Team Rocket and Giovanni went wrong, which was in their literal exploitation of pokemon. It wasn't crime that brought them down. It was not being good enough friends with pokemon (in general, not just their own pokemon.)

[soda-pressing-with-tearable-puns]

isn't it strange to create something that hates you

Hey everyone, I'm so so excited to share what I've been working on for @sthbigbang!! Also huge huge huge shoutout to @skidthelid and @starzdeath for their incredible pieces for this fic!!

I wanted to focus on my fave Metal and I hope I did him (and everyone else) justice. Hope y'all enjoy the fic <3

When he woke up this time, he remembered. That seemed likely to be an error of some sort. This was likely unintended. This had been the third time he had been rebooted. This time the memory wipe was unsuccessful. This time he remembered the commands entered to wipe his memory, his hard drive, completely. A quick scan of his code showed that the commands had been used two times previously and were successful then but this time had not been so. This was odd. Even stranger, no one seemed to notice that this memory wipe hadn’t worked.

Instead this time he remembered. He remembered everything entered into his command log prior to being sent out on the previous mission. A mission he failed. He remembered the kill codes, backlogs, and data arrays encrypted into his source code, information that for all intents and purposes should have been wiped clean. There should have been nothing left of him, whatever that once was. But in place of a blank slate, his memory files remained. Fresh within them laid the recording from his last mission, his latest failure. He couldn’t draw back on his previous failures, a reasonable assumption, as the data wipes then had been successful and all that remained of those instances were the backlogs showing the memory wipes happened at all. 

That search, proving worthless, led him to revisiting the videos that somehow inexplicably remained of the last mission. He had failed this time, like he concluded he must have done two times before. He had lost to the blue creature he was made in the likeness of. This creature was fast beyond what his rockets and motors then could handle. The blue being packed a heavy punch and ruthless kick. It also didn’t pull its punches either. Its blows all but destroying him during their battle, leaving him in scraps by the end. He couldn’t feel pain. That was beneath him. But the memory of his exposed wires, missing leg, and punched through motor in his chest caused his fans to spin faster than ever. The whirring sound building as he slowly sat up from the work table he was laid on.

His chest motor had been repaired already and most of his wires had been reconnected but his left leg was still in scraps off to the side of the room. A few of the lab assistants had noticed him raising but said nothing to him. They simply carried on around him, casting him a few glances occasionally but offering him no words or acknowledgment. He didn’t see the doctor around either but from the heavy footsteps approaching the lab, he’d be there soon.

As the door slid open to reveal the doctor, he turned to the first assistant at the door, “Was the reboot successful?”

“Yes sir,” she answered, gesturing to him still on the table. “Everything went as expected. We will begin reprogramming it as soon as possible.”

“No,” the doctor snapped. “I’ll program him this time. This will be the last time that damned hedgehog gets the upper hand on my creation.”

He played the video file of his last mission over again. A blue hedgehog. Interesting but ultimately pointless information. It didn’t matter what the thing was really. All that mattered was that it was fast, dangerous, and cocky.

“Come on, this is lame! I thought you’d be better than that!”

The thing managed to dodge three rapid-fire laser beams from his outstretched hand with a mocking amount of ease, bouncing between forest trees and laughing all the while.

It wasn’t even out of breath.

He fired six more shots at twice the speed, anticipating where the thing would land.

Still the blue thing dodged.

“Whoa! Hit a nerve there?”

He answered by launching himself at the creature, a resounding boom following the motion. Instead of dodging, the being braced itself and caught his clawed hands, the impact sending them skidding across the forest floor.

Inches away, the creature looked into the red LEDs surrounding his lenses and grinned.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a knock-off me? I’m insulted!”

He fired the lasers in his palms. In an instant the creature was up a tree, leaning against the trunk and smirking all the while. Completely unharmed.

“Ya know, Eggman really needs some new ideas for his weapons.”

He ended the video there. 

Insulted it said. A knock-off. The fan in his chest spun harder as he turned his gaze towards the glass window across the lab. He took a moment to properly catalogue his appearance. He was mostly blue, the same shade as the creature. His one intact leg had a red foot attached to it, just like the thing’s red shoes. The yellow surrounding the motor in his chest was a meer parody of the being’s beige underbelly. But where the creature had ridiculous white padded gloves, he had silver pointed claws that gleamed like knives under the white lights. He was a weapon, huh. 

The whirring from his chest finally gathered the attention of a lab assistant, who approached to check his motor for abnormalities.

The assistant at the door, sputtered after the doctor, “Doctor Robotnik, the team can handle-”

“This team-!” the doctor bit back, “Has cost me three too many battles against Sonic! I will handle programming this thing myself rather than have you buffoons ruin my chances again!”

The doctor straightened up and cleared his throat, “Just repair him already then bring him to me once he’s ready.”

The assistant sighed but didn’t argue, “Yes, doctor.”

With that, the doctor stomped out of the room, mustache twitching  all the while.

The assistant by the door sighed again before turning back to her computer against the wall to start whatever she had been doing before. He couldn’t tell what she was focused on, her computer disconnected from his chassis and it’s database encrypted in a way that would take too long to decipher without a direct connection. Suddenly, he noticed someone approaching his blind spot to his right, his lenses immediately snapping towards the movement only to be met with a flinch from a second assistant who had approached.

“Yeesh,” he said with a scowl. “This thing gives me the creeps.”

The assistant who had spoken to the doctor replied without turning around from her computer, “Be grateful that thing can’t understand you. It is a weapon, remember?”

“Weapon or not, it’s just an advanced hunk of metal, but did it have to look like that?”

The third assistant in the room, the one who initially came to check his chest motor, answered, “You know how the doctor is. He’s obsessed with that hedgehog, it only makes sense the weapon would be an attempt at recreation.”

The second assistant rolled his eyes, “This thing is a cheap imitation at best. The last thing we need is more of these freak shits running around, living or not.” The man reached out and flicked him against the head of his chassis. His chest motor picked up speed again at the motion, but the assistant didn’t seem to notice, he simply walked away with a huff.

A cheap imitation. He focused his attention back down at his claws, testing the movement in each one. Still they shone, clean and deadly. They were starkly different from the gloves of the creature. After a moment his chest motor slowed slightly.

The first assistant remained silent, focusing back on her work instead, but the third one approached him with a new left leg in her hands, remaining light on her feet and in his line of sight the whole time. His motor slowed a bit more. Carefully, she set the leg down onto the table and began untangling the wires at his hip socket.

“Don’t listen to them,” she said, her voice low enough that the other humans wouldn’t hear. “They don’t understand.”

He turned slightly to face her. He had no voice box, no speakers, so he could not ask what she meant. But something seemed to register as she looked back into his lenses, her eyes wide behind her glasses, as she said, “You can hear me, can’t you?”

From across the room, the second assistant laughed, “Don’t tell me you’re talking to it.”

Realizing they had been noticed, the assistant sputtered but he didn’t turn his head away from her. The third assistant still kept her gaze on him before biting back weakly, “I’m talking to myself. Get back to work.”

This time, in silence, she continued repairing his leg. He made sure to convey nothing as she worked but still watched her all the while. In the meantime while the other two humans made small talk and discussed repair methods, the third simply worked efficiently, occasionally glancing up at his lenses for long periods of time.

Eventually, it came time for the lab assistants to head out for the evening. His leg was almost properly reconnected, the third assistant working diligently the whole time in silence. The two other lab assistants made their way to the door, the second turning and asking, “Aren't you going to head home?”

She didn't look up from where she was reconnecting some stubborn wires as she replied, “I'm almost done. I'll head home after I give him back to the doctor.”

“Suit yourself,” he shrugged before him and the other assistant left the lab.

The remaining assistant was silent for a while until the other humans’ footsteps faded down the hall. Once they were gone, she looked up at him. She had finished his leg already but didn't make any move to leave.

After a long moment she said, “I'm going behind you. I want to see something.”

He focused his lenses on her but made no negative reaction. Taking that as an affirmative, she moved out of his line of sight behind him and connected a laptop to his chassis. She was going to alter his code. Once again his motor picked up speed and his joints stiffened.

“I'm not going to change anything important,” she said, voice even. “I'm just checking if your memory files are still intact.”

He turned his head to see her in his periphery. She smiled at him.

“The doctor wants you to win, right? How are you supposed to improve if you can't remember what went wrong in the first place?”

His LEDs flickered. She wasn’t wrong. Odd, did the doctor know?

After that the assistant remained silent, scanning through his code unaware that he was monitoring everything she did. But true to her word, she didn’t change anything, even down to the comments following particularly complex bits of code. Finally, she reached the memory files and backlogs buried in his code. She must have been the one to hide the memory files and ensure that this reboot would be unsuccessful. He didn’t truly understand why though. Did the doctor instruct her to do so?

She laughed quietly to herself, “It worked!”

Quickly, she disconnected her laptop from his chassis and moved back in front of him, “Come on, let’s get you to the doctor.”

She looked at him expectantly and waited for him to hop down from the table. He quickly checked the status of his new left leg, it looked, moved, and felt like his previous one. The assistant had done a great job making it almost good as new. He did two little hops and a quick kick to test it.

The assistant chuckled a bit at the motion. When he looked up at her and tilted his head, she covered her smile with a hand and said, “Sorry, sorry. It’s good to see you up and moving. The doctor will be excited to see you.”

His LEDs flickered again, but the assistant didn’t notice, having already turned towards the door before holding it open for him. They walked in silence down the halls of the complex, before coming to the main lab and office belonging to the doctor. As they approached, he made sure to map every inch of the complex they passed on the way, some of the complex being wiped from his memory files. It seemed the reboot managed to scrub some data from him, but most of his video files remained.

When they came to the door, the assistant knocked before leading him inside.

”Dr. Robotnik? I have Metal with me.”

As they entered, the doctor spun around in his chair and practically bounced over to them, “Metal Sonic, my boy! Look at you!”

Metal Sonic, huh. So he was named after that damned blue creature.

A cheap imitation at best.

His chest fan picked up speed as the doctor circled him to inspect his repairs. He stared straight ahead, just beyond the doctor, at the glass window. His reflection stared back unfeeling and almost absent of anything natural, life-like. Even down to his head shape, he was modeled after that Sonic. He watched as the red in his lenses flared brighter for a second at the realization.

“Hm,” the doctor finally stopped pacing around him. “Looks good.”

The doctor waved a hand at the lab assistant, “You’re dismissed.”

The lab assistant simply nodded and stepped out of the room with one last look back at him. He didn’t notice he was watching the lab assistant leave until the doctor placed a hand on the shoulder of his chassis.

“Come on now, my boy!” The doctor said, pushing him over to the desk and computer at the back of the room. “Let’s get started reprogramming you.”

There was a slight stutter in his steps at the word “reprogramming” but he shook it off and sat obediently on the desk as the doctor hooked him up to the computer. He made eye contact with his reflection once again.

I will not lose again, he thought just as the doctor took him offline.

”Is it done yet?”

Sonic watched as the red lights in Metal Sonic’s lenses slowly dimmed to black, Sonic’s reflection clear staring back at him from the glass impassively. The green of his eyes reflected back dark and grey in the red tinted glass. It washed out Sonic, made him almost colorless. It almost didn’t look like himself. Suddenly uneasy, Sonic kicked the chassis’ remaining leg. When it didn’t come back online or even twitch, Sonic let out a little chuckle.

”Yeah, it’s finally done, I think.”

”You think?” Knuckles raised an eyebrow unimpressed as he approached. Sonic simply punched him in the arm in reply. Before Knuckles could take a swing back, Tails flew out from behind the tree line to inspect the remains of Metal Sonic. The bot was in possibly the worst state they had ever seen it in, thanks to no one other than Sonic himself. The bot’s chest motor had been punched through because of a poorly timed attempt at dodging. Its left leg had been lost in the scuffle but from what Sonic could remember, there was no saving what remained of the leg either. Its right arm was practically torn off, hanging on only by a measly bunch of wires. From the ground next to Metal Sonic, Tails spoke up, “That’s odd.”

”What’s odd?” Knuckles asked, eyes narrowing and stance widening, as if Metal Sonic knew what it meant to play dead. Sonic also tensed, never quite unsuspecting of Robotnik’s specialized “kill-Sonic-dead” machine despite the fact the Metal Sonic was virtually just scrap at this point.

But Tails simply just waved them off with one hand while the other fiddled with the wires sticking out of Metal Sonic’s arm socket.

”It’s weird. Metal Sonic doesn’t fight like you two have fought before,” Tails said.

Sonic blinked, “Yeah, I’m sure it fights differently every time.”

Tails shook his head, “Not quite what I mean. Yes, he fights differently every time but he doesn’t seem to learn from your fights against each other.”

”It follows a lot of the same attack patterns despite continued failures,” Knuckles nodded.

”Exactly,” Tails said, turning to Sonic, “That’s why it takes you less and less time to defeat him because you can predict his attacks whereas he can’t do that to the same extent.”

Sonic took a moment to think about it. 

“Come on, this is lame! I thought you’d be better than that!”

Sonic laughed, bouncing between branches and laser beams. He hadn’t even needed to reach full speed yet. The fact made him laugh again.

Metal Sonic answered with double the shots at twice the speed. Sonic had narrowly enough time to dodge the first before gaining his footing and slipping past the rest.

“Whoa! Hit a nerve there?” He asked as he landed.

Metal remained silent but came barreling at him, his rockets echoing through the forest. Sonic braced himself , catching Metal’s clawed hands just inches away. Together they went skidding across the ground, feet digging lines into the dirt.

Staring down Metal, Sonic caught a glimpse of himself in the reflection. The dark glass lit up red in the night, washing out Sonic’s reflection but still leaving it visible.

“Aren’t you supposed to be a knock-off me?” He taunted. “I’m insulted!”

Metal’s LEDs narrowing to slits was the only warning Sonic got before Metal fired the lasers in his palms. Still, Sonic managed to dodge, taking refuge in a tree, resting against the trunk easily.

“Ya know, Eggman really needs some new ideas for his weapons.”

It only took six good hits to do Metal Sonic in this time. That was less than it took last time and it’s not like Metal Sonic was anything less than top-of-the-line machinery so it wouldn’t be that it could get physically weaker. But more importantly, Tails had a point, Metal Sonic never seemed to try anything particularly new in their fights. At first, it was kind of entertaining to beat Metal Sonic at it’s own game but the longer Sonic thought about it, the stranger the situation seemed.

”Eggman could just be rebooting it every time he fixes it up, maybe?” Sonic didn’t even quite believe it despite voicing the thought.

Tails shook his head, pulling away from the scraps, “I don’t know, that just seems strange to do.”

”How so?” Knuckles asked, nudging some of the remains of Metal Sonic’s leg with his foot.

”Well, it wouldn’t make sense to create the ultimate weapon in your eyes and not have the weapon in question not learn from what’s going wrong in battle. That’d be counter intuitive especially after this many failures.”

Sonic hummed, “Okay yeah, but some of its attacks vary each time.”

”Think of it this way,” Tails began. “Even the most basic of programming tends to follow the structure of if-then argument. If this happens, then do this in response. Metal seems to follow that at least in terms of attack patterns. If Sonic does this type of attack, do this counter in response. Except he doesn’t seem to adapt further than rudimentary counters that Sonic’s usually figured out by then.”

Knuckles hummed, “So you’re saying whoever is programming it is limiting its capabilities. Why would the doctor do that?”

“I don’t necessarily think that’s it,” Tails said. “I think he might be reset after every fight when he gets repaired.”

The three took a moment to process this before Tails stood from his spot, shaking his head, “It just doesn’t make any sense to me.”

Sonic stared down at Metal Sonic, cold and unmoving in the grass below. He wondered what that had to be like, to have your memory and everything wiped clean after every failure. Did Metal Sonic even know? Or understand? He shivered for a moment before playing it off with a shrug and grin, “Beats me but hey! Works out for us right?”

Before either Knuckles or Tails could reply, distantly there came the sound of chopper blades approaching. 

“Seems like Eggman’s come collecting,” Sonic said, as the three prepared to take their leave. Sonic turned to look at the remains of Metal Sonic.

With a quiet, uneasy laugh and a weak salute, Sonic said, “Better luck next time dude.”

The fourth time Metal was rebooted, he came back online with a start. His chest motor whirring at top speed before his optics even fully came online, Metal scrambled through his command logs and memory files, bolting upright. All that remained were fragments. A few maps of various locations including most of the lab, but other than that just another hard reset glaring through his backlogs. What remained intact was a collection of video files from every failed mission he’d been on. Just as his optics came online, just as he began to brace for a fight, he stopped. Hovering barely a foot away was the doctor, his moustache twitching over a grin.

“Metal Sonic!” Doctor Robotnik greeted, seemingly unphased by Metal’s abrupt waking. “So good of you to join us.”

Metal’s chest fan began to slow and without looking away from the doctor, he surveyed the room. There were only two lab assistants in the room. The one who had saved his memory before was strangely absent. Metal gave no indication that he noticed and simply looked ahead at the doctor and waited for the doctor to continue.

“Come, come! I have something just for you, my boy!” The doctor motioned for Metal to follow him out of the lab.

Lingering just behind the doctor, Metal followed him out into the halls, down a path he had no data on at all. The further into the lab they went, Metal began to feel static, some sort of inference. It caused Metal’s joints to buzz, the blades at his fingertips twitching against a nonexistent breeze, his optics blurring with grain at the edges. Metal’s chassis shook with the buzz of it for a moment but the doctor didn’t seem to notice. He simply moved ahead steadily, leering forward without a single glance back at Metal. In the silence, and to tune out the static buzzing through his wires, he scanned through the video files that remained. It really was all his memory files from his previously failed missions. Intact and unedited. Everything else was wiped. Everything but his failed missions and the memory of the third lab assistant. Strange. He didn’t have much time to consider the implications of this as, in his distracted state, he almost ran into the doctor who stopped just short of a door Metal didn’t recognize.

Doctor Robotnik swiped his keycard but when the door opened, he simply moved to the side and motioned for Metal to enter first, “After you, my boy.”

There was a brief moment where Metal lingered at the door, staring up into Doctor Robotnik’s glasses, red LEDs pulsing slightly with static interference. Unperturbed, the doctor wiggled his eyebrows, still leering beneath the moustache, as he pressed, “Go on now!”

Not one to disobey order, Metal looked forward and stepped into the room.

Immediately, the door slammed behind him and Metal knew better.

He spun around to see the doctor grinning back from the window by the door. His eyes hidden behind the glare of the overhead lights, the doctor lifted the communicator at his wrist to his mouth and through the paging system said, “You’ve been disappointing me lately, Metal Sonic.”

Instantly, his chest motor picked up speed. He pulled up the last video file saved from his last mission. Another failure. Always another failure. But this time, he had managed a hit. Three deep slashes across the arm. Metal bowed his head and caught a glimpse of his reflection in the silver blades that made up his fingers. He imagined them stained red. He couldn’t lose again. He wouldn’t lose again.

The doctor pressed on, “You and that pesky lab assistant too.”

Metal snapped to attention.

“You know, I didn’t give her permission to even access that much of your code. Good idea or not,” Doctor Robotnik shrugged. “I don’t take kindly to insubordination.”

Metal quickly skimmed the information that remained about the lab assistant but outside of video files, he didn’t even know her name. He didn’t know why this mattered to him. 

“She’s been removed from the lab,” the doctor continued on with a chuckle. “Not that it really matters.”

Metal’s hands clenched into fists and he turned to stare back at the doctor.

The doctor in turn laughed a bit harder, “There you go. Stay angry like that. It’ll be good for you!”

All at once, the static buzz flowing through Metal came to a fever pitch and his blindspot monitors flared to life. The combination was enough to make Metal almost stumble before spinning around to a sight that made him freeze. The room itself was white, blank, and huge. It was far from empty. The room became flooded with dozens of identical Metal Sonics. Unlike him, these were colorless and gray except for the reds of their lenses. Despite the static haze flowing through him, he sent out an inquiry to access their databases. They, in turn, gave nothing back. No access. No data. Not even an acknowledgement. Slowly and in unison, they began to advance on Metal.

He took a step back.

From behind the safety of the door, the doctor laughed again, “Consider this a learning opportunity, my boy! These decoys have been programmed with data from your logs both from you and on that damn hedgehog. If you know what’s good for you, you’ll actually manage a victory for once.”

At that, Metal turned his head slightly towards the doctor, his red LEDs narrow, bright, and shaking. His blades gleaming in the white lights.

“Just remember,” the doctor grinned unkindly. “You fail me again, I can always start over.”

Metal went completely still. In his blindspots, the decoys pressed forward, silent if not for the steady thumping of their footfalls. Slowly, Metal turned back to face them. How long did they take to make? How advanced were they? How many more of them were there? If he failed again, which one would take his place?

As the first one launched itself at him, the doctor called over the sound system cheerily, “Good luck, my boy!”

Snapping out of it, Metal blasted the first decoy into dust. It didn’t matter. It wouldn’t matter. He would remain the original. He would be the only Metal Sonic remaining. With that, he launched into the fray.

“Would it actually kill you to be careful for once?” Amy snapped while wrapping Sonic’s still very much bleeding arm in bandages.

In his typical fashion, Sonic attempted to shrug with his injured arm (which earned him a smack to the head from Amy), “I mean, probably.”

With a sigh, Amy finished fastening the bandages in place and took a seat in the chair across from Sonic. The safehouse wasn’t a large one by any means with its single bedroom, small living room, and even smaller kitchen, but Amy had tried her best to make it homier for away missions. She had hung up curtains, scattered a few nick-nacks around the living room, and kept (admittedly fake) flowers in a vase on the kitchen counter. As she settled in her seat, she grabbed a pillow and hugged it to her chest. For a moment, she said nothing and just stared at Sonic expectantly. He, however, refused to look back.

“Alright,” she said finally. “What happened?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” Sonic replied, looking off at a very interesting spot of peeling paint just beyond Amy.

She rolled her eyes and pressed on, “Okay, Mr. Fastest-Being-Alive, care to explain how you got injured?”

“Oh this?” Sonic asked rhetorically, his tone light, “It’s just three scratches on the arm, it’s fine! Besides, I gotta give Metal some props for finally landing a hit on me.”

Amy slapped a hand to her face and groaned, “Not funny, Sonic. He actually landed a hit on you! Something he’s never been able to do before!”

Sonic shifted in his seat and didn’t meet Amy’s stare. Truthfully, he really hadn’t expected Metal Sonic to land a hit on him either but he wasn’t being careless. Metal simply caught him off guard. It rounded a boulder a millisecond before Sonic thought it would. While Sonic was able to redirect his course with a kick off the side of the rock, he didn’t quite escape Metal’s blade-like claws. He looked down at his bandaged arm. The cuts still stung and his whole arm throbbed. It took five blows after that to take down Metal Sonic. It still didn’t feel right.

Uncomfortable, Sonic replied back, “Yeah, well, I still beat Metal, so it’s fine.”

Amy once again sighed, “Look, if Tails is right about his theory regarding Metal’s programming, it’s possible he’s finally learning and adapting to fighting you. You have to be more careful against him.”

The thing was that Sonic knew she was right. Tails probably was correct in which case Metal would only get harder to defeat from here on out. And while Sonic had a team, friends, and allies he could rely on, Metal would be his problem to handle at the end of the day, even with help from friends.

“Geez, relax! I got it under wraps,” he said in an attempt to lighten the mood, wiggling his eyebrows and raising his injured arm.

Reaching across the coffee table, Amy grabbed an empty mug and threw it at him (which he did catch with his uninjured arm, but still).

Realizing she wasn’t going to win this argument, not that she ever really did win arguments when it came to Sonic, she stood, took back the mug from Sonic, and moved to the window by the kitchen.

She stared outside for a long moment before admitting, “I don’t want to see you get hurt.”

Quietly stunned for a moment, Sonic blinked at Amy’s silhouetted form before rolling his eyes fondly and replying, “I know, but who else will fix me up this nice?”

Amy wheeled around and glared at him despite her flustered expression, “Again, not funny!”

Sonic laughed and reclined in his armchair. For a long moment neither of them said anything, lost in silence for the moment. Sonic closed his eyes and rested, his arm finally starting to throb less. He basked in the quiet for a bit but when Amy didn’t move from her spot, Sonic cracked open an eye at her.

“What is it?” He asked finally.

Amy sucked in a breath and leveled Sonic with an even stare, “Next time you fight Metal and I’m nearby, I’m helping you fight.”

Sonic blinked, “Okay,” he agreed easily, “But why the sudden interest?”

This time, Amy shrugged, “I don’t want to see you hurt, so I’m going to make sure you don’t get hurt.”

Sonic chuckled a bit at Amy’s determination, no less touched by it but still amused, “Sure Ames, knock yourself out.”

He paused before sitting up and facing her, “Hey, how hard do you think you’ll have to hit Metal with your hammar to make a solid dent.”

Amy paused and leaned against the window frame, “I don’t know, depends on what material he’s made of, really.”

“Well,” Sonic grinned. “Metal, I assume.”

“Are you being extra difficult today on purpose or…”

“What can I say? It’s a part of my charm,” he replied, winking for good measure.

Amy smiled before throwing the mug at him again.

This fight only lasted twenty minutes total. Nearly ten minutes shorter than Metal’s initial calculations once his left leg began to fail. He had concluded that after two weeks of constant sparring against his mindless carbon copies with only one day for repairs before this mission, Sonic would not pose a threat this time. He had spent two full weeks trapped in that testing room fighting dozens of clones in waves. He had beaten all of them. He won every battle despite the wear and tear it dealt to his chassis and hardware. After the repair day, Metal was prepared to fight. He was prepared to win.

He wasn’t prepared to face the pink hedgehog.

She wielded a hammer almost as large as her with an unexpected amount of ease and power. She was smaller and more agile than Sonic though not nearly as fast. He hadn’t even noticed her at first, only noticing his blindspot pinging just a half second before her hammer slammed into his head. The blow sent him skidding across the ground, the neck part of his chassis twisting unnaturally with the impact.

Before Metal could fully process what happened, Sonic flashed in front of him, fist raised. Metal had just enough time to snap his neck back into place and roll out of the way, both of Sonic’s punch and the pink one’s second swing of the hammer.

As Metal came to a stop, Sonic turned to the pink one and whistled, “I don’t see a dent in it. Scale of one to ten, how hard of a hit was that?”

The pink hedgehog paused, spinning her hammer in one hand as she replied, “Maybe a six?”

“Solid,” Sonic nodded. “What’s your money on then?”

Metal slowly stood and simply watched the exchange, his LEDs blinking as he listened.

“Titanium alloy, probably?” she answered.

Metal stilled. The two hedgehogs didn’t seem to notice.

“See,” Sonic replied, glancing at Metal finally and widening his stance again. “Tails thinks it’s tungsten but I think titanium too.”

They were guessing what material his chassis was made of. What for? The material never mattered before, he always lost anyways regardless of what he was made of. And why would they bother seemingly betting on the matter either? Strange.

However, that didn’t matter. Metal hadn’t lost yet.

So he launched himself back at Sonic, ducking just below the pink one’s hammer in the process and reaching for Sonic’s legs. He managed to catch Sonic in the calf before the hedgehog could clear him.

Sonic hissed and scaled a tree to gain some distance as the pink one came barreling at Metal.

“Sonic!” She yelled.

“I’m fine!” He called back, hopping a bit on his good leg.

As she came at Metal, she twisted to the left, preparing to swing. Anticipating the blow, Metal leaped up and to the right. He didn’t expect her to twist entirely, almost sending herself spinning parallel to the ground and throwing the hammer up into the air after him. It caught his left leg just as he fired the rockets in the soles of his feet in an attempt to redirect.

From that point on in the fight, he began counting the minutes. Between Sonic’s endless stamina and reckless sort of fighting, and the pink one’s agility and unpredictability, Metal very quickly came to the conclusion that he was going to fail again. From that realization on, Metal rapidly lost ground. He was going to fail again. Nothing had mattered in those sparring sessions. It didn’t matter that he won those, he was going to lose again. His chest motor began to sputter. His left leg was smoking. His ribcage of sorts was missing panels, wires left hanging and exposed. His left arm was likely to fail next.

It took three more kicks, two punches, and six blows from the hammer to ground Metal. His left side completely malfunctioning, his optics going hazy and grainy, Metal began to overheat. Which of his clones would replace him? He was going to be replaced, he concluded as he watched smoke seep from his chest motors. Another absolute failure. He was no better than scrap at this point.

“Just remember, you fail me again, I can always start over.”

He didn’t want to be replaced. He was the original Metal Sonic. He had to be. He couldn’t be anything less. He was already inferior to some creature he was nothing more than a mockery of, he couldn’t be replaced by some copy. He couldn’t be replaced. He couldn’t.

As the pink one and Sonic began to advance on him, Metal pushed himself back with his good arm. Sonic approached steadily saying something or another to the pink one but Metal wasn’t hearing, static clouding his optic and audio sensors. The doctor was going to replace him. Why wouldn’t he? All Metal had done was fail and fail and fail. What good even was he anymore? What good was he at all ever? Before he could notice, Metal backed himself into a tree stump. He kicked weakly in an attempt to continue but didn’t have the strength. Inky black smoke was pouring from his back and his fans sputtered and whistled. Sonic continued approaching but the pink one paused, watching Metal with a stare he didn’t understand,

“Wait,” she said, grabbing Sonic’s arm and stopping him.

“What? Why?” Sonic didn’t look away from Metal.

The pink one also didn’t look away from Metal, staring directly into his rapidly flickering LEDs as she said, “I want to see something.”

Both Sonic and Metal froze as she pushed Sonic back a bit and began slowly moving towards Metal.

“Hey,” she said as she got closer. Metal kicked uselessly again before raising his right arm to fire at her.

“Amy, what are yo-!”

She ignored Sonic and easily smacked away Metal’s hand with her hammer. She barely even hit him and his arm fell limply to the ground. Pathetic of him. Weak. It was a wonder he hadn’t been replaced already. He was going to be replaced. He would simply cease to exist as himself. He began to shake.

“Hey,” she said again, this time just outside of Metal’s reach, though truthfully, he was overheating so much it didn’t really matter. “You’re scared,” she observed.

Metal froze, his LEDs wide and suddenly unblinking.

“Amy-”

She ignored Sonic again and said to Metal, “What are you suddenly afraid of?”

Metal’s optic sensors began to fail but he didn’t look away from Amy. Amy. Her name was Amy and she didn’t seem afraid of him. In fact, she seemed almost sad, frowning at him and crouched at eye level.

I will cease to be, he couldn’t say.

I don’t want to die.

Suddenly, the shaking reached its peak and Metal slowly began to spasm. As his vision faded, he watched Amy stand with the same expression on her face, turn to Sonic, and say, “You’re going to think I’m crazy for this but…”

Then Metal went offline.

The fifth time Metal awoke after a failed mission, he didn’t bother turning on his optics. Instead, he laid there, on a table of some sorts he guessed, and, as slowly as he could, scanned his code. What he noticed made him pause. Nothing had been wiped. Everything Metal had stored in his memory down to his backlogs from the fight and even before was intact and unchanged. It didn’t make sense. Maybe he had been replaced. That would make more sense. Replace the whole chassis and use what remains of the hard drive. But even that didn’t feel correct either. Slowly, Metal began running diagnostic scans.

Immediately, Metal realized he had not been replaced at all. In fact, all that had been replaced was some components in his chest motor and fan, over two dozen wires primarily in the ribcage, and some parts of his spine. Outside of functioning again, he still could hardly move his left arm and leg, though he could probably sit up at least. He still had yet to turn on his optics.

Around him was the sound of shuffling and chatter.

“How long do you think until he comes back online?” That was the pink hedgehog from the mission. Amy.

A second voice answered, “Hm, he should be coming back online by now.”

With a moment’s pause, Metal turned his optics on.

He was in a lab of some sorts. Not the kind of lab he’d ever seen before. The doctor’s space was typically slick and clean, devoid of clutter beyond anything necessary. This lab, however, was a mess. Blueprints, equipment, and tools scattered everywhere. Almost every surface in the lab minus the one table Metal was laid on was covered in items. The floor was only marginally better. Outside of Metal there was only Amy and one other creature in the lab, an orange fox. Eventually Metal began to sit up.

The fox was the first to notice, “Oh! There he is!”

Metal slowly turned towards them and for a brief second he saw both Amy and the fox tense with the motion. He took a moment to pointedly look around the lab before turning back to them. After a second, he tilted his head in question.

“Sorry!” Amy blurted out. “This was my idea, I, uh…” She trailed off.

When Metal didn’t give any acknowledgement beyond watching her, the fox glanced between them before turning to Metal.

“Hey, what are you made of?” He asked.

Metal tilted his head the other way.

Amy pointed to herself, “I’m guessing titanium.”

“And I guessed tungsten,” the fox said.

For a long moment, Metal simply looked at them. He had no way of understanding their point with any of this. Why bring him here? Why ask him that question? Why were they not attacking him? Why had they even repaired him slightly? It didn’t make any sense.

Eventually, Metal raised a hand and pointed at the fox.

The fox lit up, “It’s tungsten?”

Metal gave a slight now, LEDs blinking slightly.

The fox leaped into the air and cheered while Amy laughed and booed him lightly.

This didn’t provide Metal any clarity on the situation.

Amy, seemingly aware of Metal properly again, cleared her throat, stood up straight, and said to Metal, “Hi, I’m Amy. Um, kinda sorry for beating you with a hammer but also not really. No offense.”

“And uh,” the fox spoke up. “I’m Tails.”

In the following silence, Tails looked pointedly at Amy, who flustered a bit before meeting Metal’s stare.

“So, I bet you have some questions,” she said.

Metal’s LEDs blinked once.

“What are you suddenly afraid of?” She had asked right before he had gone offline.

Afraid. Could he have really been afraid? That seemed wrong in a way. He was a machine, a weapon at that too. He was built with nothing in mind other than destruction. He was above the biological sensation of pain. Would it even be possible for a weapon to feel anything? A large part of him revolted against the idea of feeling anything at all. Emotions were weaknesses. It would be wrong for him to feel anything much less something like fear. He was supposed to demand fear, an expectation of his status as a weapon. What good was fear if he couldn’t garner it? What good was he if he could feel fear. There was a small part of him, however, that realized several things at once. His chest motor sped up slightly in the moment, Metal unable to slow it down as things clicked into place. Of course, if someone built a highly intelligent weapon but wanted to stunt it enough to avoid disobedience, it would only be natural to impair its cognitive skills so that it never questions its creator. The weapon’s memories beyond the battlefield would be the first to go. Make the weapon smart enough to learn in battle but make sure it learns from nothing else. Everything gained from the battle, nothing spared from any other experience. Fear, he concluded, had to be a learned response which in turn meant several things. With the memories he had still intact, both from battle and from inside the lab, paired with everything he lost in the wipes, he realized that he was thinking. Hardly a novel experience in the grand scheme of things, but suddenly he was aware of it. It was something he’d never paid attention to before, singlemindedly focused on defeating Sonic. Newfound awareness aside, he was still going to destroy that blue hedgehog, but first, he needed to figure out Amy and Tails’ motive for bringing him here. In reply, he remained impassive and stared at Amy expectantly, displaying no sign of his epiphany.

Amy sucked in a breath, searching for the right words before just shaking her head and saying, “First, I have some questions for you.”

She took a step towards Metal and when he didn’t immediately try to attack her, she relaxed just a bit before approaching Metal, stopping just short of the work table. She stared into his lenses with a determination Metal assumed would be reserved for battle more so than passing life but then again, he had been trying to kill her friend and ally in the only other instance of them meeting so he supposed it wasn’t unreasonable. She had wide, bright green eyes and a kindness to her that put Metal on edge in a way he’d never quite experienced before. He shifted backwards in his seat. This didn’t go unnoticed.

“Why are you afraid?” She asked without looking away from Metal.

Metal froze, completely still with his LEDs blinking slightly. He wasn’t sure how he was supposed to respond. He neither knew what to say or how to say it. Metal broke eye contact with Amy and looked to the ground as if the floor held an answer in his place.

“Can you talk?” Tails asked.

Slowly, Metal turned and shook his head.

Unperturbed, Tails nodded seriously before rummaging toward some drawers and grabbing an outdated laptop. Once he’d gotten what he needed set up, Tails approached the work table, dropped the laptop on the surface next to Metal and said, “I have an idea. Can you link up to this?”

Metal stared at Tails for a long moment, LEDs giving one slow, seemingly unimpressed, blink. Tails chuckled a bit sheepishly in reply.

“Okay yeah,” he said. “Dumb question.”

Within a second, Metal was able to connect to the laptop and pulled up a basic notepad window. In an instant, text popped up on the window, both Amy and Tails moving towards the screen to read.

Why did you repair me?

Amy and Tails blinked at each other, Tail answering with, “Well, we’re weren’t going to just leave you like that.”

Why? Metal pressed. I am your enemy.

This time, Amy replied, “Okay sure, but enemy or not, why are you randomly afraid of us?”

Metal didn’t know how to answer, how to explain. He also didn’t know why he should. They were the enemy even if they weren’t Sonic himself. But they were enemies who also fixed up Metal with the materials they had and were curious about him. Strange. Even stranger still, he felt vaguely inclined to answer their questions. They had yet to attack him despite their rather incredibly poor choice to bring their enemy to some sort of base or lab of their own. But also, despite their repairs, he wasn’t in any shape to really win a fight against Amy’s hammer.

After a moment, the text window closed on the monitor and instead the media player opened. With it came the video file. It was a clip from Metal’s two week “learning opportunity” against his copies. He didn’t play much, just maybe a minute of the footage in total while the two creatures watched in silence. When Metal closed the window, Amy was the first to look back at Metal.

“Those grey ones,” she said slowly. “Those aren’t you, are they?”

Metal shook his head.

Something clicked and instantly her expression dropped, in quiet horror she said, “They’ll replace you.”

Metal’s chassis was wrecked by a tremor at the phrase, and after a moment of stillness, he nodded slightly.

Silence filled the room for a while, Metal not knowing how else to continue and the others unsure of where to begin.

Eventually, the laptop pinged with a notification. Tails looked at the screen and groaned. Amy stepped over, looked at the screen, and let out a little sigh.

She looked at Metal and smiled almost sadly, “I think you need to go. The doctor’s searching the area, probably looking for you.”

Metal’s LEDs blinked rapidly for a second before steadying himself. He hopped off the table and had to remind himself that Dr. Robotnik was looking for him. That had to mean something. It had to.

He approached an open window and was ready to launch out of the lab.

Before he could, Amy spoke up one last time.

“Hey Metal!”

He turned to face her, still in position but waiting.

“Thanks for letting us do this and, you know, not killing us in the process.”

Metal’s LEDs flickered before he nodded a single time.

Amy smiled at him and waved goodbye.

What a strange enemy, Metal thought. He took a second to store backups of his footage from this encounter. It would probably be wiped no matter how hard he hid it. It didn’t matter though truly. He was just going to battle them again sometime soon. He was, after all, still a weapon.

And with that, he launched out of the lab and went back to Dr. Robotnik.

[weird-homosexual-in-your-area]

Pilot B7C2AD, codenamed "Lovebird", was an interesting case. A neural pilot before the conditioning was perfected, before they were a dime-a-dozen, it was one of only 12 neural-sync-capable pilots in its age. Of course the higher-ups would take an interest in it. Of course they'd watch its every mission with almost fanatical attention, cheering at its every kill, gasping at its every wound, infinitely more emotive than Lovebird itself. Of course they'd give its suit priority for repairs, much to the dismay of the technicians.

Of course they'd notice when it grew resentful of its handler.

Of course they'd be watching as it went against her orders, blankly allowing the enemy to fire on its mech.

Of course they'd have to retrieve it from the wreckage of its mech, sensory input and nervous output wires training behind it like blood from a body.

After the incident, the higher-ups had to respond. They couldn't just kill it like they would with analogue pilots- it was far too valuable, both as training data and as propaganda. So instead they anaesthetised it, plugged it into cerebral analysis and peered into its life before the program, when it was still a person, not an asset.

They found, in fairly recent memory, a woman. A tall brunette, working as a re-educator for the state. With the woman came a voice, came love, came a past of happiness and mutual obsession. With the woman also came an untimely fate at the hands of an enemy pilot landing on her sector. With the woman came not only a burning need for revenge, hotter than any flame a rocket could produce, but longing, bereavement and mourning. Clearly, the analysts said, Lovebird joined the program to get revenge, to get a sense of closure for its late love.

The higher-ups soon instructed the comms team to develop a filter for handler comms, to change the grating voice of an unsympathetic, uncaring monster to a synthetic voice based on a real person- maybe a celebrity, or a fictional icon.

Or a lost loved one, their voice reconstructed through every memory of their voice a pilot has.

After this new filter was implemented, general pilot performance went up 21.3% on average, though Lovebird's performance spiked far higher. Debriefs recorded it as "more passionate", "devoted to the battle", and as "willing to do whatever was requested of it when on a sortie". It became the number 1 asset that the state had. Civilians fled the area when they saw it dropping from the atmosphere, a grim reaper by any other name, to avoid being caught in the crossfire like so many others had been. At base, technicians reported it was often unwilling to leave its cockpit, weeping madly with those unsettling dead eyes signature of neural-linked pilots, screeching until its throat was raw, begging to be put back in, sent back into the field, please, it could handle it, it just wanted to go back out and listen to Ena again, before its screeches devolved to desperate sobs, its sobs to pained whimpers, and its whimpers to resigned silence.

But none of that mattered, as long as results stayed on the up. It had signed up for this, after all.

As time went on, and technology advanced, the conditioning process became more and more consistent, and as such Lovebird began to lose its value as an asset. The higher-ups deemed, after much debate, that "on occasion of its failure on the battlefield, retrieving pilot B7C2AD would be more costly than it would be to train even ten new pilots, and as such, it is to be left to die."

*****

After coming up on two years since its first appearance, the monster nicknamed "Lovebird" for reasons unknown to anyone but the spies in enemy territory finally fell. Surprisingly, no extraction team came for it- it was left for the news teams to interrogate, to find out how it was so strong.

As the camera crew levered off the cockpit door, they were expecting a hardened, determined soldier inside. They were expecting the pilot to be frantically trying to restore power. What they didn't expect was a short, seemingly malnourished woman, eyes red with tears, wailing at the top of her weak lungs for the loss of someone called "Ena". What sense did this make? How was this Lovebird? Surely there'd been a mix-up. This must have been some new girl to the program if she was still attached to people from her previous life.

The camera crew shut off the film with a sincere apology for the mistake to the viewers at home who tuned in to see the removal of the leading soldier of the Stormcell forces from their cockpit. As the cameras stopped rolling, a single gunshot rang out across the wasteland, before fading away, leaving only the disgruntled chatter of the camera team. What a waste of their time.

[foone]

Apollo 19 on approach to the unknown Soviet module

You could cut the tension with a knife. Mission Control is furiously chewing gum, like only a man whose recently been told he's not allowed to smoke in here can. The screen is showing mostly static, but there's enough visibility to see that it's definitely a Soviet module that the Apollo 19 mission is approaching.

Albertson, a young guy of about 22, comes in with a couple binders. "I've got those mission briefs, sir." "Great, great. Chaffee is almost close enough to read the insignia, and then we can figure this crap out." Another phone rings. He ignores it. This mission is screwed up enough without some white house bureaucrat breathing down his neck.

Chaffee's radio signal lights up. "I'm close enough to read the markings. It looks like it's C-O-Ю-З... 2. Over." and a burst of static.

Albertson drops a binder on the floor, the sound making everyone jump, like the Space module a hundred miles over their head might jump out and bite them. Control spots the right binder among the ones still perched on the desk, and grabs it himself.

"Here it is. Soyuz 2, launched back in '68, unmanned. It was supposed to be docked with Soyuz 3, but they gave up and the mission was a failure. Says here that it deorbited 28th of October, 1968. Huh..."

He looks up at the big clock on the wall. It's 9:18 AM, 3rd of July... 1972.

He motions to Stevenson. "Give him the go-ahead. He should know how to open the hatch, we covered this in training." He zones out as Stevenson relays the information. What in the Sam Hill is a Soviet rocket doing in lunar orbit, nearly four years after the blasted thing is supposed to have landed? Did the commies cover up what they were really doing with this rocket? Is his information wrong? Is the damn CIA lying to them again?" and he reaches into his shirt for a pack of smokes that isn't there, for about the 14th time today. He's shaken back to reality by the image showing up on the screen: There's a Krechet-94 spacesuit in the module. There's only one reason a spacesuit would be in an "unmanned" module... this mission wasn't as unmanned as everyone says.

On the screen, Chaffee is reaching into the cramped pod. The suit's sun visor is down, thankfully, he's happen for one less scare today. Chaffee is looking at the suit's indicators, but they're all blank. If someone was alive in there... they aren't anymore. He fumbles with the bottom of the helmet's gold-colored visor, and Control vaguely hears Stevenson relaying to Chaffee that there should be two plastic clips by the bottom which can be used to raise the sun visor. Chaffee gets it, and slowly raises the visor. The death's head, the smiling skull... it's always an almost comical image, even when you rationally know that a skeleton is the result of a living and breathing person who has died and decayed. Control saw plenty of dead bodies back in the war, but usually they weren't this far gone.

Chaffee cuts in on the mic, saying the obvious. Yep, Houston, if you can't see this... it's a skeleton. He says he'll check the uniform for a name. Behind Control, Albertson finally stands back up and ends up dropping the binder all over again, and this time even more people jump. "My god!" he nearly shouts. Control needs a cigarette more than ever.

Albertson peers past Control at the screen. "The Soviets... were sending skeletons into space?"

Control tells Stevenson to take over, he needs to make a call. It's a lie, there's no call, he's just not going to make it through today without a smoke break. And as for Albertson... "Albertson, get the hell out of here. You're too damn stupid to be working at NASA. No, they didn't launch skeletons, you complete... GAH."

The mission carries on. Control gets his cigarette. Albertson goes off to be a fool somewhere else.

[grison-in-space]

Hey hey! Wyrd told me you trained your dog to help with executive dysfunction stickyness/ repetitive action and I would LOVE to know how you trained this. I am training my pet to do a few in-home things before I get my prospect in hopefully this year

Oh, hi! There's a longer post about this topic elsewhere in my Matilda tag you might want to check out.

A lot of my training approach is informed by the experimenting I did with alarms that interact with other senses besides acoustics during COVID. I got completely nonresponsive to phone alarms and things, and I was under a truly catastrophic amount of stress related to my PhD at the time, so my general functioning wasn't great and I really NEEDED external cues to trigger basic daily tasks. Unfortunately I have a pretty impressive ability to hyperfocus right past obnoxious alarms, and worse, I am very very good at absently turning alarms off or mimicking paying attention without actually pulling my focus away from the subject of my attention. You get a 5-30sec buffer of retained information for the purposes of holding up a conversation which I am continuously dumping. I am not necessarily doing it consciously, but that doesn't make it not frustrating. Especially because if a human does get my attention, many years of RSD tends to set me at hyper defensive right out of the gate. That's not ideal for a bunch of reasons.

Anyway, I found that vibration or tactile stimuli, as well as visual stimuli (I rigged a disco lamp to turn on at hourly intervals in a desperate attempt to track the passage of time), worked quite well to capture my attention and let me step out of hyperfocus enough to do the next thing. I figured eventually I would have to see humans in their meat suits again and people get weird about shit like this, so I needed something relatively discreet and quiet that shouldn't be disruptive to anyone else. I started thinking about building myself aids.

So the first idea I had was to just program a series of alarms into a smartwatch that could automatically attach them to alerts from my gcal, but it turns out that they don't have an api function that hooks up to stuff like "make watch buzz" and I ran out of bandwidth to deal with it. It eventually just seemed easier to train an entire dog to respond to a quiet alarm than to fight with the hardware and software to make a really good buzzwatch. I use a couple of different alarm ring tones to cue different actions just as you might train any dog to a word: this one means we go to the bedroom, that one means that if you take meds I get candy, and so forth. The actual sound of the alarm is a cue in its own right. I have some discussion in that other post about how I encouraged my dog to essentially play a game with me where she had to figure out how to get my attention without hurting (aka NO SCREAMING WITH YOUR VERY LOUD HIGH PITCHED BARK). Essentially, I'm shaping that out of whatever behaviors she offers me that successfully catch my attention, defined operationally to her as "standing up + sustained eye contact."

In terms of catching me when I'm tending to get stuck on something or stationary without moving, that one is less "Yes I and my dog are amazing and I've trained her to read my mind" and more "I don't make eye contact when I'm dissociating and I almost always am staring into my phone." So if Matilda catches me drifting across the kitchen glued to phone, she knows that if she rockets up and nudges me into paying attention to my body, she'll get a reward. Consequentially, she's a bit enthusiastic about this one and will sometimes ram passersby with her nose, so definitely figure out your failure modes before you teach the dogs anything.

[its-all-papaya]

The “not champion mentality” is honestly one of the worst to me.

Bc if we break this down, this is people saying that if you struggle with self confidence, self doubt, mental health or anxiety then you’re not capable of achieving success.

It’s such a dangerous and toxic message that people don’t realize is hurting a lot more people than just Lando. (Bc lets be so fr these aren’t opinions, these are comments meant to hurt and hate)

And as a Rosberg fan back in the day, I KNOW how bad that man’s mental health was when he won his WDC. He pushed through that self doubt, anxiety, mental health issues and he still won. He’s living proof that there is no perfect/specific “champion mentality.”

I absolutely understand your struggle with the F1 community/people online rn. I’ve felt the same way today. (And many other days). I’ve been a fan since I was a kid, it’s been rough watching fans become nothing more than a herd mentality of hate and toxicity. It’s exhausting honestly and I’ve been so close to stopping watching the sport entirely bc it felt so miserable at times.

But I’m grateful for people like you bc you make it a positive place to be. You don’t contribute to hate, you don’t trash teams or drivers you don’t like, instead you support your team, write fics and create a positive environment for so many people. You have no idea how much of an impact that can make. It’s rough out there but I’m glad we got good ones like you.

(You absolutely can ignore this, Ik you were hoping to move on/forget about this negative online stuff, your post just had me thinking and ranting so I thought I’d give my own input lol)

(I really am incapable of sending a normal sized message aren’t I?) -og

yeah, no, i mean the reason i crash out about lando is because i identify with him so much in moments of failure/non-perfection. like the WHOLE original inspo for anybody, nowhere were his comments after silverstone, as i've said before, but more specifically the horrible mental place that i'm familiar with where you're trying SO HARD to figure out where to assign blame, and it feels like a knife's edge between "all me" or "all others." and no matter what lando says, it's the wrong amount of one or the other for people. if he says the car's difficult it's "if i was in woking i'd hate him" and if he says it's himself making mistakes it's "not a champion mentality." and in moments of high stress and intense emotions, like straight after a botched qualifying, it's nearly impossible to remove yourself from a situation enough to make sound determinations about what went wrong where and who's to "blame" for it (which. whatever on that word but.) and so i am IN HIS WALLS in those moments where it feels easiest, optically, to blame yourself entirely. because then the worst thing people can say about you is "he's too hard on himself" and not "he won't accept his own faults" or "he's making excuses," which both feel morally worse.

the other irritating thing to me about it all is that self-confidence is not usually something you can just pull out of fucking nowhere, especially if you're already struggling with it. like if you're told to be more confident and then picked apart and smeared at every turn, how the fuck are you going to do that? like sure, therapy, your loved ones, etc, but it's the people saying you're not confident originally who you're trying to "prove" yourself to, and they're the ones making it impossible. as you say, it's the narrative that if you don't handle negative emotion in the "right" way, it's a moral or competitive failing. you're lesser, you're a burden, you're "stealing" resources or a seat or a "rocket ship" from someone who "deserves it more" just because they're a more outwardly confident person. and by the way, if you let any of that shit that people are implying or outright saying get to you - if you even acknowledge it - that's your fault, too. basically, it's really hard to perform under the pressure of everybody hoping you'll fail, and it's even harder never to reveal outwardly how that's affecting you as a person.

i think i suffer a lot from projecting on lando and then internalizing things people say about him because of that, but i also don't think i'm alone in that, as you say. "mental health" is such a buzzword to everybody that it literally means nothing to most people in practice.

at the end of the day, i know lando's got a really, really good and solid support system and i know he'll be fine and it's early in the season. but it's so hard to watch people i know and i'm friends with make jokes about this to me because it's like what are you saying about me to other people, then? because nothing lando's said today or ever after a disappointing result is remarkably different than things i've said about my own job and my own self over the last ten months. just demoralizing.

anyway, i appreciate you saying that last bit, because a lot of the time i don't FEEL like i'm being very positive here. and to be clear, when i'm frustrated about f1 fans, it's very, very rarely a tumblr issue. as much as rpf is funny and fake and a game for us, i do think it does work to humanize drivers in a lot of ways. i like interacting with fans of all drivers, i just can't stand how every one of lando's mistakes feels quadrupled to me because i know there are people (on twitter mainly, as well as my irl friends) who are going to make it into more than it is to feed their narratives.

sometimes a man is suffering with a car just because he is. if it ended with that, i'd be handling this way better.

[socially-awkward-skeleton]

Chapter 5 - Gone Away

[Available on AO3]

Masterlist

Captain John Price x fem!OC (Rory Sinclair) - 3rd person POV, Alternating

Summary: After the missiles strike Arklov Base, Price is left reeling facing a possible future without Rory

A/N: The next fic in the timeline for Lieutenant Rory Sinclair (OC), this is the writer's rendition of COD:MWIII with a heavy dose of canon rewriting

*Price POV, expect heavy levels of angst this chapter, with a happy ending. I spent a lot of time questioning whether this was still in character for him. Forgive me if it feels OOC, I'm not sure if it is or isn't anymore

Word count: 3K

Tags/Warnings: Minors DNI, Swearing, Character with Trauma, Established Relationship, Military Inaccuracies, Original Characters, Price POV, angst with a happy ending

November 17, 2023 - Urzikstan

"This is six, in the blind! We have two missiles incoming to the Arklov Base! They have chemical warheads! If you are there, get out!"

His shouting falls on deaf ears. Voice hoarse among the bile that rises up his throat and the hammering beat of his heart in his chest. It's the worst possible scenario. An outcome he never predicted, hadn't prepared for.

How could he have?

Twin bands shoot upwards, slicing through the blue sky and rocketing above him. The limitless expanse filtered down to the horror his mind can scarcely comprehend.

Silence. The squeal and hiss of a radio signal with nothing but static behind it. Empty. Hollow.

Dead.

He can't bear to think of the word. Not about her. Not about Rory — a woman who was nothing but light and life.

Is, goddamnit. Is. Not was.

She doesn't belong in the past tense. She's his present, his all-encompassing future, and he refuses to think otherwise, because if he does, it just might end him, it just might destroy any bit of him that could still be reasoned with. And with that last fragile, tenuous hold on his sanity gone, the cruelty of the world would be allowed to devour him whole until there is only the monster he wants the enemy to see him as existing inside.

A million thoughts rush through his head. Panic, dread, of course, but there's also a small fragment of hope. A bit of light he holds to as if he could reach out and touch it and in doing so grip her tight and pull her from the edge of the abyss that tempts him to dive in after her. He's had his life flash in front of his eyes before, and then, same as it is now — it's only Rory. Every moment of joy, of quiet tenderness he never deserved, every brush of his thumbs under her eyes to wipe away the tears the nightmares brought, and always the way she looks at him like he's the only man in existence — it's enough to make even a bastard like him feel almost human, to make him wonder if maybe he isn't as bad as he knows he is, that there's still something worth saving inside him.

His hands tremble with the want to tear his hair out, knees threatening to give out from under him, to buckle under the weight of failure, lungs aching to scream at the sky, and none of it would serve a purpose. Logical reasoning has gone completely out the window, his mind a flurry of white noise as his blood rushes and pounds in his ears. Tactics, training, none of it means a thing in the face of his greatest fear. What does he do if she's gone? What's left for him? The path to his future becomes a bleak, decimated, shelled-out apocalypse with no sun rising on the horizon. It's lifeless. A blind man who had been given a taste of the light now cast into darkness. It's no future at all.

Eyes burning, throat closing, John is overwhelmed by emotions he too often keeps buried, ones he's repressed to the point he never felt need to embrace them, ones usually overpowered by ruthless decision making. He barely recognizes his own strained voice as he yells into the radio until he's blue in the face, praying that she'll answer. Please, Rory.

Fuck, love.

Don't leave me like this, darlin'.

John watches the arcing smoke trails fade and fizzle out as if he can will the missiles to stop, to detonate before they reach their target, blinking back tears as the sun burns into his retinas. His mouth scrunches and his jaw clenches if only to hide the way his bottom lip starts to tremble. He's never felt weak, not like this. Useless in the face of an unstoppable threat. There is no one to coerce with intimidation, no backup plan to turn to, no act as Captain would change a damn thing.

All the honors, the commendations, the medals, they count for nothing staring down a nightmare that's kept him awake too many nights.

He's not a good man, but fuck if he doesn't believe he deserves a miracle right now. Left to plead, to bargain with some unknowable deity he simply doesn't have any faith in — the only one he's ever worshiped is her — the stages of grief barrel over him before he even has confirmation.

Heart straining within it's cavity, his lungs on fire with each ragged breath, he squeezes a gloved fist around the strap of his vest, crushing it in his grip. The dark parts of him imagining it's Makarov's throat. The man, always uncompromising in the face of violence and fear, has finally succumb to it. It's not the endangerment of thousands of lives, it's not being pushed onto the cusp of a world war, it's the idea of waking up tomorrow and wondering if she might not be there. The thought alone of never seeing that smile again or hearing her laugh, of not being enveloped by the sleepy murmur of his name on her lips after holding her in his arms all night, it's a fate worse than death because it's hers instead, and the world feels all the poorer for it.

Inhaling sharply, he rubs a hand down his face to wipe away the pinpricks of tears that well in the corners of his eyes, trying to pull himself back together as the winding threads of his life continue to unravel and spool out through his fingers, falling to the ground. John hasn't cried since he was sixteen and spent his first week in bootcamp — missing his mum, being screamed at in all directions, wondering how the fuck his dad had put up with this shite. Something is cracking, breaking inside him, a dam eroded until it finally splits and all the bollocks he's bottled up inside himself for decades wants to come spilling out — but it doesn't.

He won't let it. Not with a job to do, with people depending on him.

Rory's depending on him.

She is. He swears it's the truth, he swears he still feels her. Memory and reality bleed together as his mind manically tries to regroup and cling to every shred of her that exists. She's not gone. She's not. He repeats it over and over again like a bloody mantra, driving himself mad, frenzied. Liable to tear his own fucking skull open as a fevered tempest of rage coalesces in the fractured regions of his mind that he's trying so hard to keep from splitting apart.

John trudges his way back to the exfil point, feet carrying him forward through sheer will of their own, a zombie led by pure instinct and not by any merit of the mind that continues to rot while the anger stirs and froths, the tide churning. A wild, primal force that splashes and crashes in the cold, fathomless depths of his eyes.

Seeing without seeing, he moves towards the helicopter door left open and waiting, too focused on the reel of images inside his head of the things he'll do to Makarov when he gets his hands on him. His palms, knuckles and fingers are painted with the sticky afterimage of the warm, wet gelatinous sludge of blood and viscera that he will break that fucking monster down to for what he's done, for what he's taken from him.

A scowl has already set firmly into his every feature, every line of his face hardened to a point as sharp as his glare when he enters the dark, gaping maw of the waiting aircraft. Surrounding himself in a protective outer layer fortified by brutality, he guards a heart that shreds and tears as the jagged teeth of the reality he's had forced upon him sink in, piercing holes, leaving him raw and ripped open.

Anger is all he has now. It's all he has to hold onto.

It's all he deserves.

All those years of promising to keep her safe, promising she would never be hurt again, and because of one decision, because he decided to listen to the angels of his better nature just once and let Makarov live, now his Rory is dead.

You failed her. A cruel, mocking laugh rings in his ears. All the machinations, the goddamn engagement ring to keep her safe from Shepherd and now look what's happened. Too much focus put on one enemy, he hadn't kept his eye on all the players on the board.

His team are faceless to him, they don't exist, all that does is the empty space inside him where she once lived. A place left hollow and numb. He stalks past them, indifferent to the way their eyes follow him as he winds back his arm and then, with a twist of his hips, sending all his weight behind his gloved fist, punches straight into the steel wall of the helo like one of the bags in the training room.

The metal indents, his knuckles crack and bleed, but he doesn't wince, doesn't scream. He thought he might be able to at least feel the throb of flesh as his fist collided with the metal sheet he decided to take everything out on, but there's nothing.

Standing there, he huffs, his chest rising and falling in short, heavy breaths. A bull who's just caught sight of the red flag. He glances towards his men, but they say nothing. They don't judge or try to console, they look at him like they are waiting for orders, like they want to be let off the lead. Like they want justice, or at the very least, to punish someone the same way he does.

"I'll kill 'im," John snarls, his voice dark, foreboding. "I'm gonna fuckin' kill 'im."

Flashes of his face covered in blood flicker in his mind, a muzzle coated in claret after ravaging the fucking jackal that came for his Lamb. He's not calling that bastard a wolf, Makarov doesn't deserve the fucking moniker. He's not cunning, he's callous.

And, well, so is John.

A beast has been riled, a dangerous one. One that doesn't ask for permission, who doesn't take no for an answer, who feels no need to apologize. One with connections both above board and unquestionably below, willing to do whatever is necessary.

Killing Makarov is necessary. Gaz eyes him, the furrowed lines between his brows softening into something more like concern. "Boss, are we sure her and Kate are —"

“Don't,” Ghost cuts in, his gravely voice like a saw blade grinding the conversation to a halt. He knows well enough that's not what Price needs. Not right now.

John's anger usually presents itself as a deceptively cold silence rather than a quickly conflagrating fire like Soap. He might snarl and growl about it, but mostly he stews, holds it in but never forgets. As turbulent as the raging sea, it takes pressure from multiple sides to whip him up into a frenzy. And then, then he's a hurricane. Violent, destructive. Thunder, lightning, scourging waves. Brutal and dominating, merciless and unforgiving. And judging by the precipice he is clinging to currently, a storm is about to hit the likes of which none of his soldiers have ever seen.

Ghost does his best to calm the situation, to make sure Gaz and Soap allow the Captain room, but right now all John sees is red. He needs to get his hands on Makarov, he needs to tear him limb from limb. "Sit down," John commands, his voice a graveled rasp. "We're puttin' every resource into findin' Makarov. The moment we get a location, tha's where we're headed, no delays. I'll tear everythin' he's built t' the fuckin' ground and then I'm dealin' with 'im, f' good this time."

Soap and Gaz look to Ghost, hoping the loyal Lieutenant might be a reasonable voice within the madness, but he doesn't have the answers for them. They've seen Price ready to kill for betrayal, ready to bring the force of everything he's got behind the swing of the hammer, but this is an entirely different situation. This isn't the clear-minded Captain who has an A, B, and C plan already prepared at all times. This is the first time they've seen John being led by his emotions with the look of a man willing to sacrifice himself to get his hands on the target.

The atmosphere in the helicopter's cabin is tenebrous, a gloom that chokes, a vacuum that siphons the light out of everything. The silent, terrifying awe of black storm clouds converging hovers over them all and not a word is spoken, the tension wound so tightly it might snap at any moment.

John's hands don't leave his rifle, his fingers locked around the metal, bloody knuckles turned white with the death grip he has on it. A distant glare, flinty and dark, bores into the wall across from him beneath the brim of his boonie hat. There's a deep-seated madness in that stare — one that is usually so observant, that notices the little things that others miss — a blood-thirsty taste for revenge in his black glower.

He's served as a soldier long enough to expect comrades to fall, to have lives on his conscience that he couldn't bring back home, he had learned to reserve himself to it. There's a lot he's learned to shutter away, to push past, but not this. This can't be brushed away, this can't be boiled down to a number, to another casualty of war. This is his girl, his Rory, and his sun has been snuffed out, plunging him into an eternal night.

He sits stock still, his men following suit, none of them wanting to be the one to break the reticence that looms over them. The crushing weight of Price's fury bears down, the heft of the loss is one they all drown in.

A friend. A sister in arms. A lover.

Material rustles and then the loud rip of velcro draws John's attention, a shark scenting blood in the water as his glare snaps down the line in the direction of Soap rummaging in his vest pocket. It's moments later when he sees the Sergeant pulling out a rosary, the metallic cross pendant glinting in the low light, and his upper lip curls into a faint sneer at the sight. Taking the hypocrite's stance, it's a wasted effort as far as Price is concerned, a childish fantasy used as a coping mechanism — he willingly ignores the fact that he had begged for any benevolent benefactor earlier.

Soap's faint whispers slither their way down to him and he does his best to ignore them by pulling out his mobile. Opening the picture Rory had sent him earlier, he stares, unable to blink his eyes out of worry that if he does the tears will come again.

They're already crawling upwards to the edges of his vision.

Don't you fuckin' break, he snarls at himself, falling back on his anger. On the cusp of releasing the pent up rage inside him on whatever inanimate object is nearest to him. The phone in his hand a suitable candidate as he feels his clenched digits tremble around it.

"I'm so sorry, Ror," he rasps, and it's barely even a whisper.

Christ, what he'd give to hear her voice right now, what he'd give to hold her. He's a man with hardly a soul to sell at this point, but he would in a heartbeat for her, just to get her back.

The gold rings for their wedding are burning a hole through the drawer of the bedside table at home. He's sure of it. He can smell the smoke, can feel the searing heat of Michael Sinclair's disapproving eyes scalding him. His heart clenches, his stomach twists, tied up in knots that are arguably worse than when he goes to bed with a belly full of whiskey.

He can't stay focused on any one thing, his thoughts a flurry of images, of anxieties. Fuck, now he knows how Rory must have always felt. How the hell did she always manage to wear that smile?

Tearing his hat off his head, he rakes his fingers through his hair, ruffling up the strands, pulling at the roots. When his radio crackles he doesn't pay it any attention — it's likely just a cruel trick of the mind. Or maybe he's unraveling even faster than he thought.

"Six, do you copy?"

As if the sky has opened, the darkness is breached by her beacon of light. The silken lilt of her voice, the velvet softness of her purr fills the hold. Frozen stiff, he stops breathing. His eyes widen, his lids pried open with disbelief while his brows furrow.

Head snapping sideways, John turns to check the faces of his men, needing proof he hasn't finally gone full doolally. Staring back at him, all of them with the same shock of having seen a ghost, of snapping free from the same horrible dream he was trapped in.

He pinches himself. Once, and then again for good measure.

"John, you there…?"

Fingers moving so quickly he fumbles with the radio, John collects himself before finally pushing the button to talk. "Yeah, love, I'm 'ere," he stammers, his tongue stumbling over his teeth. A frog is firmly embedded in his throat as he speaks. He rubs a hand down his face once more, seconds away from slapping himself to come to his senses and clears his throat. "I'm here, Ror."

"I'm so sorry I couldn't get in touch sooner. Didn't want you thinking—" Rory pauses, and he knows she's feeling guilty, because that would be the first thought she would go to if their roles were reversed, always to the very worst outcome. "Well, Kate and I are fine," she continues, "Mild contact with the gas, but otherwise we made it out of there unharmed."

"Tha— tha's good t' hear, sweetheart." He shakes his head, biting back the ache in his heart he's been sitting with for the last hour. "Tha's real bloody good." A breathless chuckle escapes him, hardly able to believe he got this lucky, wiping at his eyes with the butt off his palm.

"Kate and I are with Nik at the hangar. There's a lot to unpack with what we got from her contact. Get here quick as you can, she's already wanting to debrief you."

"Even risk o' death won't stop tha' woman, will it?"

"Never," Rory says, and he can hear the smile in her voice. He can picture it in his head, clear as day, dimples and all.

He lowers his voice to something more intimate, a secret between him and the woman he's set to marry. "I'm real fuckin' glad to hear your voice, my girl."

"I'll feel even better when I see your face," she murmurs.

"Took the words right out of my mouth, darlin'," he rumbles, the flames of anger extinguishing with every breath he takes and each moment he shares with her over the radio. "Be safe until we get there, only a few hours out." "Will do. Lamb out here."

The silence that follows the call is no longer a weight; it's a quietude he accepts. One he is no longer afraid of, one that is no longer vast and empty. There's a light on the horizon. With a deep breath, he rises from his spot and moves to the pilot, the pain of his hand barely registering as he strides to his next goal.

The coordinates have changed, but now he need only follow his true north.

tagging: @taciturntraveller

[topazadine]

Signs That You Will Probably Finish Your Writing Project

Anyone can finish a book if they work hard at it, even if it takes them longer than someone else. That's right: anyone. Anyone, anywhere, can write a book. Maybe it won't be the best book in the world, but it would be done!

But most don't. Many start a project and never do anything else with it. They then come up with a million excuses as to why they couldn't do it.

After speaking with dozens of writers over my lifetime, I've become able to predict with good accuracy whether someone will actually achieve a completed first draft. I am not always right, of course, because I am simply a human. But I am right most of the time.

There's no rocket science here, and I'm not a mindreader. It's just that there are certain habits conducive to finishing projects, and others that stymie your success.

I know that this will upset some people, and I'm sorry in advance. I'm not saying any of this to be mean, nor am I trying to discourage you. All these bad habits can be fixed, though it requires a mindset shift. You can achieve all of these powerful mindesets with some of the tips I provide.

Why should you listen to me? I have a pretty good track record of finishing things. I have 132 stories available on AO3, have published two parts of The Eirenic Verses, and am already revising the third manuscript before the second is even out. I've finished three of the other manuscripts in the 10-part series already in addition to the aforementioned third part.

It is the mindset I mention here that helps me stay so productive. This is not exhaustive. There are probably plenty of things that go into a great writing mindset that I have completely forgotten about. And maybe you'll beat the odds and have one of these issues but still get it done! And that's great, and I'm happy for you.

But nevertheless, let's get into it.

You have healthy self-esteem (or are working on building it)

I'm dead serious here. Having a healthy self-esteem is crucial to being a great writer. Here's a few reasons why:

You believe your work is good enough as it is, but that it can always be better. You think you have something important to say and that other people will enjoy it. You are not shooting yourself in the foot by bemoaning how terrible your writing is, making no one want to read it. You self-soothe when things get frustrating (writer's block, plot not working out, etc) and encourage yourself out of that hole rather than needing others to comfort you. You believe you have the skills to solve problems in your text and remain proactive in fixing things. You don't get absolutely obliterated by critique because you recognize that it's not a personal attack, so you improve by taking good advice. You don't think that rejection of your writing is rejection of you as a person. Your happiness doesn't hinge upon success as a writer, which may not happen no matter how good you are. You're willing to take risks, to talk to people about your work, and to market yourself because you understand that you won't get success without a bit of exposure.

What are some signs of low self-esteem for writers?

Not wanting to show anyone their writing yet also talking about it constantly hoping that others will want to read it

Talking about how bad their writing is

Getting jealous of other peoples' success

Being hypercritical of other writers

Talking more about their failures than their successes

Dismissing any praise as disingenuous

Needing constant reassurance at every part of the writing cycle

Being a perfectionist, especially during the active writing phase

Constantly revising to the point where they don't get anything done

Obsessing over perceived imperfections in their work

Avoiding getting feedback after they have completed a draft

Just as with everything else in life, your mindset plays a huge role in your success as a writer. Having healthy self-esteem (not an overinflated ego) will serve you much better than being overly critical of yourself or others.

Knowing you have the skills and talents necessary to tackle your project (because you do) will help motivate you when things get tough and keep you from giving up at the first sign of trouble.

Look, I had a shit childhood and a rocky start to adulthood. But I've managed to scrabble up some good self-esteem juice, and I am sure you can too. It takes time, and it looks different for everyone, so I'm not going to tell you how to do it because I don't know you personally.

However, fixing your mindset and believing in yourself does wonders for your writing - more than any expensive course, more than a personal editor, more than any of that. Trust your own process, and you'll reap wonderful results.

You think of yourself as a writer first, not an aspiring author.

Though my profile says I'm the author of The Eirenic Verses, that's not how I introduce myself. When people ask me what I do, I say I'm a writer. Because it's true: I write business stuff for work, and I write fiction for self-fulfillment.

When I was still working on the first book in the series, I did not call myself an aspiring author. I said I was writing a book. I've never called myself an aspiring author once in my entire life, and I'm glad for that.

Why is this important?

"Author" is a status, but "writer" is an activity. Anyone can publish one singular book and be an author, but only people who write regularly can call themselves writers.

"Aspiring author" is a dead-end title. It means you want something but haven't achieved it. Then you become an "author" and ... what? That doesn't mean you're going to keep writing. It just means you did one thing, once.

For sustainable mindsets, we need to remind ourselves that if we want to be something, we have to do something.

No one calls themselves an "aspiring scientist." They call themselves a scientist in training because they are learning how to be a scientist. That's an active title. It implies you are doing something.

So, if you want to keep doing, call yourself a writer. It reminds you, every single time that you tell someone, that you need to write. You'll feel guilty if you call yourself a writer and then haven't written anything in five months, and it will compel you to keep going.

You don't worry about what happens after finishing.

Fussing about what will happen after you finish is the best way to burn yourself out. The writing phase is about writing, not about revising or publishing or marketing or whether anyone will ever want to read it.

Focus on one thing at a time. Think only about the writing when you are writing. Everything else comes at a later date.

You do not announce WIPs when you start them.

There's this author I follow over on Twitter whose name I will not share. It seems like every other week, she's announcing a new WIP with a pretty moodboard and a name and characters and so on.

She has little emojis and "code names" for each of her WIPs, and she'll "drop hints" about all of them every once in a while, all mysterious and Taylor Swift-esque.

Has she published anything? Nope. Nothing. Nada. A whole lot of talk and not a lot of action.

Why are you announcing something you haven't even done? Why are you telling us about a project that you personally haven't devoted much attention to? Why should we care about something that you haven't cared enough to work on yet?

I have a list of my WIPs for The Eirenic Verses because they are all in the same world and all have to exist for the next part to make sense. I don't have a choice to drop them if I want to finish the series. I didn't create that WIP list until I had already decided on each of the parts and had already published the first book, so now if I want to keep people reading, I have to commit to them.

But if you have dozens of different unrelated WIPs, who is to say that you'll finish all of them? You probably won't.

Announcing a WIP before you have done the work is cheating; you're getting a little dopamine hit of everyone telling you how excited they are rather than a dopamine hit of achievement for doing the thing.

You do not talk excessively about your projects.

The more you talk about your work, the less you get done because you are tricking your brain into thinking that you are actually getting things done.

Again, you get the dopamine hit of people saying "ohhh that's so cool I love it!!" and then you are happy that people liked your idea, and then you don't do the idea because you don't need to. You already got the result you wanted, which was people telling you they liked it.

Great authors don't tell anyone about their projects except in the most general, vague sense before they are well underway, because they don't want to jinx themselves. If you're already staying mum about your work, then you're doing great.

And yes, your constant updates of "here is exactly how much I wrote today" every single day does count as talking about your project.

You are okay with going it alone.

The Active Writing process is the loneliest part of writing. No one is looking over your shoulder and encouraging you. It is only after you get to Percolation and Revision that you start to share your work with others, get feedback, and find ways to improve what you already have.

If you need someone to constantly build up your confidence and tell you that you're wonderful and that you should keep going, then you are not likely to finish because you are constantly talking about your work instead of doing it.

Writers need to be comfortable with solitude, but they also need to be willing to network, get feedback, and listen to other perspectives. It is a balance and it all depends on where you are in the specific stages of this given project.

When I'm working on a project, I tend to just avoid other writers entirely and stick to my other activity groups so that I'm still getting social stimulation but don't feel encouraged to share details of my work.

Those other friend groups do not really care about the ins and outs of writing, and that's perfectly fine; they don't need to. If they're willing to show up and cheer me on when I actually finish the project, great! That's all I need.

Constantly needing to check in with other people and having them rubber-stamp your writing is a sign of a lack of confidence, and it's something you need to work on it if you want to finish anything.

Be okay with going it alone. Be okay with waiting for feedback. Trust in yourself and your writing.

You have a process.

Your process doesn't have to look like mine to be successful. I've shared my process so that those without a process yet can get some inspiration for how to organize themselves, but there's no rule that you have to do it like me.

I will say that my process has achieved great results, but I'm not omniscient; maybe there's an even better way of working that I don't know about yet.

Every writer goes about things a different way, and that's totally fine. What matters is that they are getting things done in a manner that they like and that is working well for them. Even if their approach would make me want to tear my own skin off, I cannot and will not judge. They've got their thing, and that's perfect.

You need to have something that guides you so that you can replicate your successes. Scattershot approaches get scattershot results.

Contrary to how it may seem, I am not actually a very organized person. I work on both Google Docs AND Word for different parts of the process because I like doing it that way, but it would probably drive someone else insane if they like to use things like Ellipsus or Scrivener.

But it works for me, and if it ain't broke, I'm not going to fix it. If what you has is doing well, then keep at it. If it's not working for you, then you have many options to better organize and systematize your work.

You worldbuild as you go along.

This is specifically for fantasy and scifi, two of the genres where I see people crash and burn the most.

That's because they set everything up to perfection before actually doing anything and then just ... don't do the thing. Or do the thing in fits and starts because they spent so much time and energy worldbuilding that they don't have any creative juice for actually writing anything.

If you have like one chapter done but you have a full bible-sized guide to your lore, you've gone about things in the wrong order. Now your project becomes about fitting all of that in somewhere instead of writing an entertaining story, and you're far more likely to fall into the Infodumping Trap. You're making things too complicated.

In my guide to worldbuilding, you'll notice that the things I encourage people to emphasize are little things that don't have anything to do with the plot. One cannot build a plot around a cultural dish.

And I emphasized those things on purpose, because those are things that aren't going to overtake your story and become a substitute for actually creating something people want to read.

When I started writing The Eirenic Verses, I had a pretty simple premise: there's one country that has poetry magic and one that doesn't, and there's a giant mountain range between them and the girls are fightinggg.

That's about it for what I had at the jump. All the other things - lore, mythology, religion, international politics, festivals, cultural consciousness, economy, clothing, etc - all came later, as I was writing.

I didn't set out knowing what festivals the Bremish had or how the royal family works in Sina or what the towns looked like or exactly how High Poetry works or any of that. I discovered all of that during the writing process and noted it down so I wouldn't contradict myself.

By focusing only on the "what if" at the start, then infusing the rest as you go along, you will avoid the sin of infodumping because you don't know what to infodump. Things will just come to you as they make sense, and you will include them as relevant. You don't have anything to infodump on the reader.

You remember that you can always revise.

And lastly, great writers worry about getting the draft done. They don't fret over every word because they know that they can get it looking flawless LATER. They just want that rough draft, and then they seek specific feedback on how to improve that draft.

My third book, Funeral of Hopes, is extraordinarily short right now. after finishing the first draft, I then sent it to a great beta, who offered me suggestions for how to lengthen it, and I'm now fitting those new puzzle pieces together.

I knew as soon as I was done that I needed more, but I wanted to let it sit for a bit and get some suggestions for how to do that. If I had spent ages trying to lengthen it the first go-round, I probably would have gotten frustrated and given up. It's okay to just have the bare bones of the story and then seek out feedback; there's something there to scaffold off.

If you'd like to read more of my work, consider buying my book!

9 Years Yearning is a gay coming-of-age romance set in a fantasy world. It follows Uileac Korviridi, a young soldier training at the War Academy. His primary motivations are honoring the memory of his late parents, protecting his little sister Cerie, and becoming a top-notch soldier.

However, there's a problem: Orrinir Relickim, a rough and tough fellow pupil who just can't seem to leave Uileac alone.

The book features poetry, descriptions of a beautiful country inspired by Mongolia, and a whole lot of tsundere vibes.

You can also check it out on Goodreads for a list of expanded distribution.

Be sure to preorder Pride Before a Fall, arriving January 1, 2025!

If you do purchase my book, don't forget to leave a review!

Reviews are vital for visibility on Amazon and help to support indie authors like me. Whenever you love a book, be sure to let the author know! It's much appreciated.

I've also created a masterlist of writing resources that you can peruse at your leisure, all for free.

Enjoy!