#salty plays eos

[waywardsalt]

back to explorers of sky!

[astranite]

WIP the-Wednesdays-just-keep-coming-dont-they?

Havent done one of these in a while, mostly because I havent had the brainspace to write much with my life being very much on fire.

So, have some fun, fluff, all the Tracies (including Kayo!) and siblingly banter!!! It's all very silly, not at all scary and rather on theme for spooky season!!

-----

--Set after the Ghost Ship episode!

John really hoped that Scott and Kayo had forgotten about his and Alan’s whole ‘maybe, possibly, just a tiny bit absolutely terrified of ghosts,’ slip up on the comms. 

He really thought they had. Until the next family movie night. 

To set the scene: it was a cool, pleasant evening on Tracy Island. John was down from Five and the fresh breeze was a welcome change from recycled air. All the family was piled onto couches, well except for Grandma and Brains who were in his lab making enthusiastic upgrades to the already far too overpowered oven. 

Gordon and Virgil were squabbling over whether sweet or salty popcorn was the better flavour, while eating from a bowl mixed of both, like they did every time. Gordon preferred salty, likening it to the unfortunate comparison of celery crunch bars despite the two bearing little resemblance. Virgil vehemently argued for sweet ever since he had discovered coffee caramel popcorn.

Scott attempted to mediate without getting kicked by Virgil’s feet on his lap as the family tank lunged to get the fish in a headlock. Alan egged all parties on. Kayo delicately plucked the popcorn bowl from amid the fray and joined John where he watched from the relative safety of the other sofa.

He took a handful of kernels from Kayo, shaking his head at the antics of the others. Every time. The same argument played out, when the two of them actually preferred both flavours mixed in the same bowl. Why, John didn't know. He tolerated it for the free pre-movie entertainment though.

 Finally, everyone got settled. Scott sat between two pouting brothers who before the end of the movie would be snuggled up together, half falling asleep. Alan fetched frozen peas for what John suspected was more likely for Virgil’s bruised pride than injury from Gordon’s lumpy elbows, while Gordon was consoled over the indignity of being sat on at one point by the heavy lifter. Then more popcorn for reparations, when they noticed the missing bowl and Kayo’s smug expression. 

John stretched out on the couch, while the others were crowded on the next one. Kayo was perched above him, in reach of their bowl of popcorn. They all would move about through the movie, because no one round here could sit still for a whole hour-and-a-half minimum, and the hugs had to be shared around.

“So, what are we watching?” John asked, completely in ignorance of the forthcoming answers.

“Nemo! Or Moana! Blue Planet!” Gordon screeched, because he always quick to suggest marine themed ones at every turn in hopes someone would fall for it.

“It’s not even his turn,” Alan grumbled. “What about something with zombies? Not more boring fish.”

Gordon gasped, “An affront upon my friends! The kraken will have you for that!”

John rolled his eyes at the typical tinies dramatics. 

“Alan, you picked last time,” Virgil said, totally reasonably except for his stage whisper to Gordon of, “Get him, Squid!”

Aaand they were back in kahoots. Not even a record for the timing. 

Alan appealed to Scott to protect him with big, blue puppy eyes, and got away with it because he was still the baby of the family. Despite how he complained about ‘smothering older brothers,’ he was very happy to use the privilege when it suited him.

Long suffereringly, Scott said, “Gords, you can’t drag Alan down to the watery depths, you’d be bored without your partner in crime.”

John watched on. Very well behavedly, without starting any fights or causing any trouble, he’d like to add. Because he was the sensible, responsible one of this bunch.

“Eos,” John asked his comm, “Who’s turn is it to choose what we watch?” 

Then he added, “You did say you wanted to watch the next Star Trek, like we talked about.” He didn't quite wink at her, but only because that wouldn't have been very subtle.

“It’s your turn to choose, of course, John,” Eos replied, loud enough everyone would hear, “Star Trek would be, as you put it, awesome.” 

John struggled to keep a straight face. “Then Star Trek it is,” he said with all the authoritative gravitas of Thunderbird Five.

Scott face palmed. 

John shrugged. “Worth a try.” 

Everyone’s voices rose to argue with him. 

“Really, Eos?” Virgil questioned the AI, staring foolishly at the ceiling.

Gordon protested,“We just had Star thingy, the week before Alan’s Zombie Apocalyspe Twenty or whatever.”

“Hey!” Alan came to defend the merits of Zombie Apocalyspe Twenty or whatever.

Scott looked betrayed by his supposedly second eldest brother. “Are you an adult or are you eight?”

John huffed, “I totally could have pulled this off when I was eight.” 

“Awww, clever ickle Johnny,” Gordon heckled. 

“Don’t call me Johnny, plankton.” The fish would soon be fish food if he kept trying it.

“Did I upset itty bitty baby Johnny?” 

“Joooohnyyyy,” Alan joined in, because he wanted to be causing trouble. 

John was one more mangled rendition of his name from tackling them both, gravity be damned.

“How many times do we have to say that using Eos to back up your claims does not make them any more valid when she can’t be objective about it?” Scott interjected, in an attempt from stopped things from getting out of hand.

“Few hundred more at least.” John grinned. He hadn't forgotten certain remarks though. 

General groans followed all round. And another face palm. Few more grey hairs and a red forehead for Scott was in order.

“This time happens to be my choice,” Kayo stated. Out of the blue and right on target.

In the shadow of those innocuous words, John missed the mischievous look his sister and eldest brother shared. How the very atmosphere changed.

In synch, they burst out together, “Ghost Busters!” 

They sung it. Loudly. Complete with catchy jingle.

Alan and John looked at each other in horror.

Ghosts.

[spotsupstuff]

If the iterators played dungeons and dragons, who would play and who would be the dungeon master?

you are asking someone who's never in her life played dnd uhhhhh... -squints- i can see any Iterator bein a dungeon master, i think. especially in the Eo group, choosing which one would be the DM is like choosing the genre of the whole game. Zeph would give ya some freedom fighting revolution story, Boreas smth about surviving in dystopian city (last post of today will explain), Fish either smth to do with a seaside location or uncovering religious secrets, Euros fighting against mythological creatures (proper fantasy oh thank fuck at least Someone), Notos some goth dark shit and with Haboob it would be smth Very multi-locational that starts off as a delivery mission and morphs into a detective story

the canon Iterators would prolly be the same except Pebs would wanna go back to work the whole time, Moon would be lowkey salty about it if this wasn't a game between strictly Iterators and Suns....... actually i take it back not every Iterator would DM Suns could Not. the best DMs outta 'em would be Nish n Wind cuz of their excitement about it. Innocence would try to somehow make it about her

[cyhaino]

Mass Effect Romance Opinions

Kaiden | he’s ok I like him just fine he usually dies in my playthrough though because my youngest sister is named Ashley and I feel weird letting someone with her name die does it make sense no but who cares I’m playing

Liara | You’d think I would love an alien archeologist and for the most part I do but when I’m not actively romancing her I find her a bit too much and I get annoyed in me3 with her whole planet being taken and her attitude about it as if Earth wasn’t the first planet taken

Ashley | I don’t romance her because of the name reason but I do like her. Also she was right about the council seeing humans as dogs.

Miranda | again I should like her but honestly prefer friendship over a romance just let her be with her sister

Tali | honestly see her as more of a a sister

Jack | love her, one of the few characters who actually has character growth but I’m still salty over not being able to romance her as female Shepard

Jacob | If you ignore the weird flirtatious tone when you go to talk to him, you’ll find he’s not that bad. He’s supposed to be the level headed character and he is for the most part. He does suffer from bad writing though and it’s pretty obvious too. Still I do like the me2 romance so I go through the pain but I do still get annoyed in me3

Garrus | nice voice but that’s it and I do like the tango dance in the dlc but honestly most of the time it felt like I was yelling at him. When I was younger he was my favorite but now that I’m older some of the stuff he says and does doesn’t sit right with me.

Thane | never romanced him because personally I would never ask someone out after they trauma-dumped like what the hell was up with that option??? Still I understand the appeal because hello??? Assassin???A distant dad who still wants the best for his son??? And he’s dying??? Why do I find all of this hot what does this say about me

Kelly | No

Samara | love her I want to marry her she deserves so much probably written by a man because hello we could have just adopted children why put her through that misfortune

Morinth | I love her mom

Steve | this man lost his husband fairly recently so no

Samantha | <3 favorite romance shes gay I’m gay what more do I need to say

Diana | she’s there I guess???

Javik | y’all say Garrus has a nice but nah Javik’s voice is way better I wish he was an actual romance option. Is he perfect? No but I doubt any of us would be in his situation. 10/10 would still bang

James | yes but no because I would have loved having him as an actual romance option but what bioware gave us was shit!!! Like what the hell!!! Thank god for fanfiction because what the hell!!!

Avela | I didn’t even know she was a romance option whoops

Cora | this woman screams lesbian romancing her as male Ryder feels weird

Gil | I hate his best friend

Liam | oh I love him he was the first romance I did his little wave his flips! And his loyalty mission is one of the best ones to do so much fun and ahhhh when he takes you out on Eos for that date!!!! I love Liam

Suvi | she’s cute but eh that’s it

Peebee | one of the more fleshed out romances in my opinion however romancing her as male ryder feels weird and I think it’s better to romance her as female ryder.

Jaal | yeah I’m a Jaal girlie my ao3 history will attest to that. He tried so hard to come across as cool and mysterious but he’s just a bisexual disaster like me and ahhh the forehead touch!!! And of course his voice???

Vetra | you give me hot turian girlfriend and I give you all my money. Also she’s an eldest daughter and as an eldest daughter myself, yeah I’m gonna gravitate towards her. Her romance feels really short though

Reyes | bioware made sure he wasn’t a full romance option because they wouldn’t be able to handle two bisexual Latinos

[kairunatic]

Have you ever heard of World Flipper? It seems its a gacha that is going EOS and it has some furries but not sure if it was LGBT. Honestly I never played this one, but people are kinda salty on twitter about it "dying", which is a shame, but there are some that are complaining about Housamo still going and not WF, and i'm like, why do you want Housamo to close??? It was one of the first LGBT games for many furries and gays like me! I want it to keep going strong for even more years :/

Uhh no I haven't heard of WF I did I see people talk about it on Discord.

But yeah it seems to be going EOS

As for housamo still ongoing it's cause LW is just a small company so they don't need that much revenue to survive compared to WF which may be run by an even bigger company

Plus Housamo has still content to released and that's another thing that keeps it alive

[rahleeyah]

I am as devastated as I said I would be in my ask. Like, fuck, the fact that Barba is clearly going to know how this is going to hurt Liv and does it anyway just makes my heart hurt. I’m also genuinely thrown they would do this to his character.

i do think we're gonna get an explanation for this. there is the question of how much does rafa know, really - does he know that they suspect wheatley was behind the car accident, when he hasn't actually been accused of anything and that's just internal scuttlebutt between svu and oc that didn't seem to go anywhere? he does know that he's defending the man who is ultimately responsible for killing kathy stabler, but does he know, really, how much elliot means to liv? she doesn't mention him to rafa, ever. we know rafa knows a little bit about him, enough to know who he is, but he wasn't there in the immediate aftermath of elliot's departure. he doesn't know that's elliot's badge on the butt of liv's gun. he doesn't know what liv said to lewis about elliot, and lewis is a liar. he doesn't know how much time liv has been spending with el since he came back, how hard she's been trying to hold elliot and his family together. and he was around for Anthony Edwards's episode, so he's seen her interact with an old partner before and it was nothing like eo, he doesn't have a frame of reference for what this relationship really is. so what if he knows it's going to make liv angry and he gives her the head's up as a courtesy, but he doesn't actually have any idea the extent of the betrayal, and by the time he tells liv what he's doing it's too late to back out? he can't just abandon his client in the middle of a trial.

the thing is like. lawyers defend bad guys sometimes. rafa understands that. it isn't what he left svu to do, but there are a lot of different ways they could explain him having made this choice, and i'm interested to see their take on it. i'm really, really invested in seeing elliot + rafa + liv, especially with this extra layer of tension. i don't think tptb at svu are gonna implode the rafa/liv relationship for the sake of eo; rafa is a 2.0 creation and they are protective of their characters (not so much with the 1.0 characters; yes i am still salty about dana lewis why do you ask). i feel like whatever happens, they're gonna salvage liv and rafa's friendship. so i'm interested to see how that plays out.

[shaheenarnitipsyart]

Trapped in eternity

This is the 35th time joining @flashfictionfridayofficial​! Thanks for the very challenging prompt. 

Word Count: 1006

T/W: non

Lethe/Galan (they/them): demigod 

Eos (he/him): Lathe’s friend. Used to be a demigod

*italic as Lethe’s inner thoughts

Lethe was wandering in the old fortress, half crumbling and buried under the ivies. They stumbled on the roots of overgrown trees again. They sighed and looked at their scarred bare feet and then took eyes away from the swollen feet and looked at a blue ocean beyond the ruin. The waves reflected the harsh sunlight, glittering like a scattered mirror. Lethe felt a strong urge to dive into the sea however, they knew they could not. They had tried thousands of times,  but they always ended up at the starting point somehow.  

How many times had they wished to break free from this prison? Days and years did not have any meanings here - Lethe was trapped in eternity, left all alone. The salty wind from the sea was the only companion.  

Lethe pulled out a long hairpin from their messy bun and gazed at the cracked surface. It was missing the top half. This was a symbol of an unfulfilled promise. But what promise? Lethe felt bitterness in their mouth. It was something so dear to them, yet they could not remember anything. It was like catching a moon - seemingly close yet very far. Their desperately stretched hands would reach nothing but block the moonlight. 

It doesn’t matter now.  I forgot so many things, even my face. I have no idea what I look like now… 

Lethe closed their eyes, trying to recall what happened before they were bound to this doomed place. However, nothing came back to their mind. 

They opened their eyes slowly, gazing at the pale blue sky. They watched the pure blueness turning into purple and gold, and honey-coloured clouds melting into the orange horizon. 

The wind sang an ancient lullaby, so familiar but incomprehensible to Lethe. Nonetheless, Lethe liked to play a reed flute with the elegy of wind. They felt that simple yet poignant melody cleansed their exhausted soul. Lethe dozed off for a few minutes - or hours, or years? It did not matter to them. When they woke up, they would find themselves trapped in the same old ruin again. 

Suddenly Lethe heard a rustle - then a voice. In the world filled with the ethereal golden light of the setting sun, that voice sounded so unearthly. 

‘Finally.’

The voice came from behind the wall. 

Thunder-struck, Lethe was unable to utter a single word. Nobody had ever spoken to them for a long time. 

‘Finally. I found you.’

The mysterious person said it again, this time louder.

‘Who… are you?’

‘You don’t remember? Well.. fair enough. I came here to fulfil our promise.’

‘Promise…?’

Lethe murmured. Promise meant a lie, a pain, and nothing more. Lethe felt that person leaning on the other side of the wall. Only crumbling piles of stones were between them. So close, yet so far. 

‘Let me tell you a story, then.’

The person said softly. Lethe did not say anything, but the stranger carried on. 

‘Once upon a time, there was a brave, demigod warrior. They were not of noble birth, yet they won gods' trust and respect through their own effort. They would go a thousand miles to save their friends and allies. But that virtuous nature of the warrior led to a tragedy. They sacrificed themselves to save their foolish friend who broke the taboo.’

His voice quivered a bit. Lethe unconsciously touched the broken hairpin again, still listening.

‘The warrior was punished for the sin they did not commit. But that’s not the end of the story. The gods were merciful as they were touched by the braveness of the warrior.’

Lethe heard the stranger stand up.

‘Lethe - no, Galan, my old friend, please show yourself.’

Galan - that was the forgotten name of Lethe. They slowly turned towards the wall and saw the familiar face of his old friend, Eos, through the cracks. Strangely, Eos looked much younger than they remembered. Also, the clothes he was wearing were very strange. As their eyes met, memories came back to Lethe like a violent storm. 

‘Eos…’ 

Hundreds of years ago, young Eos spared the life of a mortal human who was lost in the world of immortals. That was forbidden - yet, Eos could not bring himself to kill a little human child. When it was discovered, Galan took the blame on themselves. They still remembered the cold gaze of the divine judges. The judges declared that Galan would lose status as a divine guard, and their memory was taken away with their name. 

‘Now, you live as Lethe ‘Oblivion’ for thousands of years, until your friend finds you.’

That was the last thing they heard. 

‘Come closer, Galan.’

Eos stretched his arm to reach out. In his hand was a broken hairpin - the missing half of Galan’s.

‘I lost immortality and… now I’m a human, living in the mortal world. I searched for you - not only in this life but also in the previous lives. I tracked the faint melody of your flute. You used to entertain the immortals with your flute, Galan.’

Galan nodded slowly. Hesitantly, they stepped towards the wall, also reaching out.

‘Take this piece of the hairpin. If you put both of them together, you’ll be free from this prison of eternity.’

Galan looked at the smiling face of their old friend. With trembling hands, they put them in one piece. Suddenly, the whole world vibrated, and Galan lost balance. Eos caught them before they hit the ground, but there was no need for that - Galan’s body was becoming translucent like a mist. 

‘Return to your world, my dear friend. Immortals and mortals cannot live among each other.’

Eos sadly looked at Galan. He could see the orange waves through Galan. 

‘Then, it’s my turn to find you, Eos.’

With this word, Galan melted in the air. Only the flute was left on the grass. 

Eos picked it up and carefully ran fingers on its smooth surface.

'Yes, find me, Galan, even if it takes another hundred years.'

@flashfictionfridayofficial​

[carewyncromwell]

Hello Tory! I hope i chose interesting questions for your characters, and also i'm hoping it's not too much for 1 ask :"D

Can i have 8, 43 and 50 for Carewyn; 26 and 37 for Jacob; and also 15 for both Lane and Jacob and 66 for Carewyn and Lane?

I wish you good day!🤍

Whew! These are all fantastic, sweetheart! 😘 Let's see now...

8. What is MC's weakness?

Carewyn has several, but the two big ones that tend to get her in trouble the most are her pride and her perfectionism, which often end up playing off each other in unpleasant ways. Carewyn has a lot of difficulty both accepting help from others and acknowledging that she needs help to begin with, and yet she also expects herself to do everything she tries perfectly. When she falls short of her own expectations, she then precedes to beat herself up about it forever, meaning she has a lot of unresolved self-loathing toward herself that she then feels all the more determined to mask and mitigate by doing things perfectly all on her own. And as you can imagine, that can become a cycle unless someone she loves steps in to remind her that everyone makes mistakes and it's not right that she abuse herself simply for being human.

43. What's MC's favorite summer activity?

Carewyn loves the ocean. When she was little, Jacob took her to the beach one summer, and she fell absolutely in love with the smell of the salty air and the sounds of the waves crashing upon the shore, and she spent most of the day with her shoes off, wading in the water. Now as an adult, it's one of her favorite places to visit with Orion and/or Erik and Eos.

50. What would MC think of you?

*chuckles darkly* I think Carewyn wouldn't love having anyone writing her story or the stories of the ones she loves, so she would definitely be uber mistrustful of me. If we're just talking personality-wise, she would probably be more okay with me -- I could see her being reminded of her other half Orion interacting with me, since both Orion and I are dreamy, philosophical, live-one-day-at-a-time INFP types. Plus we share a lot of musical interests in common.

26. What's MCs favourite part of the Creature Reserve? (Grasslands, Forest, etc.)

I could see Jacob liking the Dark Forest best -- a lot of the most dangerous and rarest creatures are there!

37. What is MC's most frequently used spell?

Reparo. Although Jacob's area of expertise is Transfiguration, he ends up using the Repairing Charm a lot, both because of things he fixed and otherwise -- he likes solving people's problems.

15. What is MC's element?

Jacob is fire, while Lane is air! I actually once did a set of ATLA-inspired moodboards for Carewyn, Jacob, and Lane delving into this.

66. Does MC have some habits?

Carewyn organizes her closet by naming every single piece in it and grouping them together with like-minded pieces. It's something both Jacob and later Bill tease her about.

Lane has books in just about every room in her house, which she'll leave in that room and only read in that room and in that specific spot. Her most infamous "book spot" is on the window ledge next to her armchair -- that book usually tends to be longer than the rest, since Lane loves reading by natural sunlight more than lamps and so will spend her days off reading in that chair for an hour at a time.

MC Ask!

[mithrifer]

I realize that what I'm going to write is only tangentally related to your post but I HAVE to talk about it now that I recall.

Okay, so, when I first played PMD EOS I was around 11 years old and had a charmander as my Hero. And to go with the lizard pals theme, I picked a treecko as my Partner.

After the reveal that Grovyle is from the future, my 11 year old mind, ignoring the contradictions, basically went: Oh, Grovyle is Partner from the future. And so I created this narrative in my head where Partner lost Hero thrice and that returning the time gears didn't actually heal the future, but instead allowed the special episode with Grovyle and Dusknoir to do so by the end. In essence returning the gears only made it so that time was fixable at all, and it still froze due to the damage to Temporal Tower, only being fixed in that very frozen future.

Which meant that Grovyle:

-Lost Hero right before descending from Temporal Tower.

-Reunited with him on the beach and rejoiced, only to lose him some time before the temporal freeze.

-Met Hero as a human in the frozen world, and realized that he is Grovyle.

-Adventured with Hero, knowing full well he is going to lose him.

-Lost Hero despite all his efforts in the storm.

-Had to be hunted by himself and Hero in the past.

-Was replaced by his own past self, and had to face that Hero remembered nothing in his life as a human, and knew nothing of the adventures they'd have in the future.

-Had to say farewell to him on hidden land for the very last time, knowing full well he'll never see him again.

There are a lot of glaring contradictions in this story, I didn't even know there was a proper post game, but it fucked me up when I was a kid. I still remember the saltiness I felt when I realized it completely flops whenever you pick another partner, lol. Still, despite everything this is still a very real version of the story to me, even if it's hardly the canon one. It's kind of poetic to meet and love and lose someone over and over again, each time proving to you how much you truly care about them. This Partner lost Hero so many times, and eventually, forever, but he knew he would fight tooth and nail for the sake of the world, so he carried on anyway, the love for life and his best friend held true in his heart.

so did grovyle and hero stay like this for whichever time partner was gathering information. was grovyle staring at the ocean while hero looked at the door, waiting for partner???

wow the best friend-ship is really over huh

[waywardsalt]

I finally finished Bidoof’s Wish. Only took a few hours

[askthechaoticcharacters]

Mod Kou’s Intro~

Hihi all!! My name is Kou (also been called Crimson/Crispy), and I’m one of the mods of this lovely little chaotic blog! 

A little bit about me, I am a tiny, anxious fire bunny who loves music, drawing, and worldbuilding! (eh,, I’m always really bad at listing likes and dislikes lkgfgfk) I am very very terrified of spiders and I cannot, for the life of me, confront people. My main blog is @crimsonsolace and my art blog is @bunny-arts !!  I’ll most likely be answering asks with drawings and stuff ^^

Anyways, enough about me... Time to meet my characters! I’m gonna put them under a read more (which I just figured out how to do, yay!) so you don’t get floodedkdfslk 

Uh. be prepared for a lot of text. I’m so sorry. I got carried away. 

Earth Chat

Crimzon - A guardian Demon, born with only the reason to protect others in war. She came to Earth with no clear purpose, worried her illness would take her over and kill her before she found someone to serve. But, thankfully! She found a child, Willow, out on the streets with no caretakers! Despite being awful with children, she took matters into her own hands and now protects Willow as she searches for proper parents for the child! 

Trilis - Riil’s ‘mother’, having fled to Earth after their family was killed by a group of vampires. Though not actually their mother, Trilis is Riil’s Mom’s cousin, and they took it as their responsibility to care for the child, even though they have a deadly illness that will soon take their life. Unfortunately, Riil knows nothing of their dead family nor Trilis’s illness.. Oh! They also have an adopted child, Melody, and are good friends with Eos! They are,,, the Mama Demon that you NEVER mess with. terrifying.. uses a spear with a leaf etched on its blade.. other stuff,

Teen!Riil - The teenage version of Riil, a salty demon whose best friend is Beep! They refuse to go anywhere without either their mother (Trilis) or Beep with them unless they’re horribly upset, and can tend to get jealous when they see another child with their mother. They’re also very willing to throw down for their bestie, even if they wont admit he’s their best friendkfflkkfjgfd 

Universe - The goddess of the universe, a tall, joyful, kind woman! Married to Eos, her child is Osiris, she lives a happy life with her family and works at a lab! I dunno if there’s much to say on her, honestly,, 

Teen!Osiris - A teenage version of Osiris! Child of Universe and Eos, she’s like.. 16 here? They are very playful, still curious as ever, but is terrified of learning how to fly and sort of procrastinates on learning her magic and stuff. They’re a very childish life god ^^;

Faura + Ufio - FAURA! The, uh. Meme master and fourth-wall breaker of my bunch- She’s a witch who came to Earth to break free of her chains back home, and now runs Faura’s Bakery! She has a special interest in tech, after finding her best bud Ufio- which is a small UFO that she’s been fixing up ever since she found him in a junkyard! She’s also really, really clumsy,

Helroe + Gaser - The parents of Ainara, who brought her to Earth to punish her for attempting to run away. Both are magic users who force the same profession on Ain, despite the fact she’s always had difficulties with magic. They are cold, harsh, and often would refuse her food if she couldn’t study properly. They are bastards(tm) 

Earth!Ainara - This Ain is a mouse, and extra tiny! She’s also a magic user instead of an axe user, and is much more easily startled than the normal Ain. Thankfully, she was rescued and taken in by Axis, and now she lives with him sorta! Oh also she can turn into a littol mouse,

DnD Chat

Elyscia - An Elf bard who plays harp, violin, and piano! She’s elegant, glittery, and very charismatic! Has an adopted child, Connor, and a girlfriend, Nathala :> She’s... probably one of my most sane characters ngl. Oh also she’s 7′5-

Shizue - A Mermaid sorceress, doomed to be lost in the woods forever... The silly Mermaid has a very low attention span, and gets distracted by anything and everything very quickly! She’s seen with her big pet guinea pig, Chonk! 

Ainara - A Gnome barbarian wielding a giant axe, two handaxes, and a boomerang axe! Ran from her abusive parents and met her master Faerghis, who took her in and taught her how to use her weapons! However, they died, and she ended up in the forest of the DnD chat where she met her current best friend, Axis, and her adopted child, Willow! She is Feral Gnome.

DnD!Riil - Less than a year old, this Riil lost most of their family in an attack, found and saved by Roisin, their new mother. The small demon has made a dragon friend who they named Xilr, after their late brother, and a friend named Beep! 

Aav - The only other member of Riil’s family that survived, Aav is a sorrowful demon who only misses her siblings and her parents. She stays with Riil and Roisin, rarely speaking- but she’s a fast and silent demon with a gun, so don’t mess with her or her new family! 

DnD!Osiris - A young life god, the daughter of Universe and Eos! They are curious, love hair, and hates the fact their mom tries to cover their inhuman features with a cloak- but really, that’s only for their safety. Their token baby phrase is “BWBWBWBWBWBWB” and that is all you need to know 

DnD!Universe (Hevasrra) - The goddess of the universe, yet here she’s very disguised- hiding her normal godlike features under a more humanlike appearance. She also goes by her ‘true’ name rather than the one she prefers. Her wife is Eos, her child is Osiris! She’s a,, lot more on edge in this chat

Space Chat

Crimson - A nervous human(?) who came to the ship to escape her step-father, Crimson is sort of... Like a persona? But honestly, not really ^^; Her (best? Maybe?) friend is Tone (it is an important rule to know that if she dies, so does he,) and her enemy is Impo!Riil, who keeps trying to attack her! yay.. 

Impo!Riil - That’s right- an Imposter version of Riil! This is a version of them who found out about the fact Trilis was not their real mother, and they flew into a rage and killed them. Due to this, they turned to delusions, calling and talking to their spear as if it were “Mom”. It’s quite easy to tick them off, and once you do, they’ll become blinded by rage and try to attack you,, According to Blue. They need therapy badly

[achaosfilledworld]

Mod Kou’s Intro~

Hihi all!! My name is Kou (also been called Crimson/Crispy), and I’m one of the mods of this lovely little chaotic blog! 

A little bit about me, I am a tiny, anxious fire bunny who loves music, drawing, and worldbuilding! (eh,, I’m always really bad at listing likes and dislikes lkgfgfk) I am very very terrified of spiders and I cannot, for the life of me, confront people. My main blog is @crimsonsolace and my art blog is @bunny-arts !!  I’ll most likely be answering asks with drawings and stuff ^^

Anyways, enough about me... Time to meet my characters! I’m gonna put them under a read more (which I just figured out how to do, yay!) so you don’t get floodedkdfslk 

Uh. be prepared for a lot of text. I’m so sorry. I got carried away. 

Earth Chat

Crimzon - A guardian Demon, born with only the reason to protect others in war. She came to Earth with no clear purpose, worried her illness would take her over and kill her before she found someone to serve. But, thankfully! She found a child, Willow, out on the streets with no caretakers! Despite being awful with children, she took matters into her own hands and now protects Willow as she searches for proper parents for the child! 

Trilis - Riil’s ‘mother’, having fled to Earth after their family was killed by a group of vampires. Though not actually their mother, Trilis is Riil’s Mom’s cousin, and they took it as their responsibility to care for the child, even though they have a deadly illness that will soon take their life. Unfortunately, Riil knows nothing of their dead family nor Trilis’s illness.. Oh! They also have an adopted child, Melody, and are good friends with Eos! They are,,, the Mama Demon that you NEVER mess with. terrifying.. uses a spear with a leaf etched on its blade.. other stuff,

Teen!Riil - The teenage version of Riil, a salty demon whose best friend is Beep! They refuse to go anywhere without either their mother (Trilis) or Beep with them unless they’re horribly upset, and can tend to get jealous when they see another child with their mother. They’re also very willing to throw down for their bestie, even if they wont admit he’s their best friendkfflkkfjgfd 

Universe - The goddess of the universe, a tall, joyful, kind woman! Married to Eos, her child is Osiris, she lives a happy life with her family and works at a lab! I dunno if there’s much to say on her, honestly,, 

Teen!Osiris - A teenage version of Osiris! Child of Universe and Eos, she’s like.. 16 here? They are very playful, still curious as ever, but is terrified of learning how to fly and sort of procrastinates on learning her magic and stuff. They’re a very childish life god ^^;

Faura + Ufio - FAURA! The, uh. Meme master and fourth-wall breaker of my bunch- She’s a witch who came to Earth to break free of her chains back home, and now runs Faura’s Bakery! She has a special interest in tech, after finding her best bud Ufio- which is a small UFO that she’s been fixing up ever since she found him in a junkyard! She’s also really, really clumsy,

Helroe + Gaser - The parents of Ainara, who brought her to Earth to punish her for attempting to run away. Both are magic users who force the same profession on Ain, despite the fact she’s always had difficulties with magic. They are cold, harsh, and often would refuse her food if she couldn’t study properly. They are bastards(tm) 

Earth!Ainara - This Ain is a mouse, and extra tiny! She’s also a magic user instead of an axe user, and is much more easily startled than the normal Ain. Thankfully, she was rescued and taken in by Axis, and now she lives with him sorta! Oh also she can turn into a littol mouse,

DnD Chat

Elyscia - An Elf bard who plays harp, violin, and piano! She’s elegant, glittery, and very charismatic! Has an adopted child, Connor, and a girlfriend, Nathala :> She’s... probably one of my most sane characters ngl. Oh also she’s 7′5-

Shizue - A Mermaid sorceress, doomed to be lost in the woods forever... The silly Mermaid has a very low attention span, and gets distracted by anything and everything very quickly! She’s seen with her big pet guinea pig, Chonk! 

Ainara - A Gnome barbarian wielding a giant axe, two handaxes, and a boomerang axe! Ran from her abusive parents and met her master Faerghis, who took her in and taught her how to use her weapons! However, they died, and she ended up in the forest of the DnD chat where she met her current best friend, Axis, and her adopted child, Willow! She is Feral Gnome.

DnD!Riil - Less than a year old, this Riil lost most of their family in an attack, found and saved by Roisin, their new mother. The small demon has made a dragon friend who they named Xilr, after their late brother, and a friend named Beep! 

Aav - The only other member of Riil’s family that survived, Aav is a sorrowful demon who only misses her siblings and her parents. She stays with Riil and Roisin, rarely speaking- but she’s a fast and silent demon with a gun, so don’t mess with her or her new family! 

DnD!Osiris - A young life god, the daughter of Universe and Eos! They are curious, love hair, and hates the fact their mom tries to cover their inhuman features with a cloak- but really, that’s only for their safety. Their token baby phrase is “BWBWBWBWBWBWB” and that is all you need to know 

DnD!Universe (Hevasrra) - The goddess of the universe, yet here she’s very disguised- hiding her normal godlike features under a more humanlike appearance. She also goes by her ‘true’ name rather than the one she prefers. Her wife is Eos, her child is Osiris! She’s a,, lot more on edge in this chat

Space Chat

Crimson - A nervous human(?) who came to the ship to escape her step-father, Crimson is sort of... Like a persona? But honestly, not really ^^; Her (best? Maybe?) friend is Tone (it is an important rule to know that if she dies, so does he,) and her enemy is Impo!Riil, who keeps trying to attack her! yay.. 

Impo!Riil - That’s right- an Imposter version of Riil! This is a version of them who found out about the fact Trilis was not their real mother, and they flew into a rage and killed them. Due to this, they turned to delusions, calling and talking to their spear as if it were “Mom”. It’s quite easy to tick them off, and once you do, they’ll become blinded by rage and try to attack you,, According to Blue. They need therapy badly

[starman-john-tracy]

Radiation Poisoning | Chapter Four

by @starman-john-tracy and @asteria-star

In which John Tracy gets exposed to uranium and nearly dies, The Hood is evil, and Star generally freaks out a lot.  

[Chapter One]  [Chapter Two]  [Chapter Three] [Chapter Five]

Once they’re inside the airlock, everything gets loud. The second they’re sealed in the station an alarm starts blaring, warning about radiation Star is more than aware of, and EOS is yelling something at her she doesn’t even bother listening to.

John’s heavy and useless, and he can’t even find his own arm to raise it to cut off the blaring alarms that are making his headache so much worse. He feels like he’s slipping, though Star’s hold on him never wavers.

“Call Virgil,” Star snaps at the AI, stripping John of his space suit before they’ve even left the airlock. He starts to shiver the second his pale skin meets air, but then Star has him up and is hauling him towards his room. “EOS, get me Virgil, now.”

She manages, by some miracle, to get John onto his bed. Okay, okay, okay, is running on repeat through her mind. Get out of your suit, get his face clean, get him oxygen, get him Virgil- how the hell do I get him back to Earth? Star wasn’t entirely sure John would make a trip down in the elevator, not like this. Her hands are visibly shaking as she stands and looks down at him for a blank, frozen moment, before managing to kick herself into gear.

Lose the suit. Star strips off in the hallway until she’s left standing in the too-big shirt of John’s she’d stuffed under her spacesuit, leaving a pile of radioactive uniform bundled up against the wall.

Clean him up. She fills a bowl with warm water and grabs a handful of soft towels.

Oxygen. She drags the tank along behind her. Not yet, not until he’s clean.

The metal floor is cold when she bangs to her knees beside John’s head, her haul laid out around her. She soaks one of the towels in water and starts wiping across John’s raw face, through his hair, fighting not to flinch every time he cringes. The tears are back, blurring her vision into abstract shapes, or maybe they’d never stopped.

“How you doing, buddy… you still there?” she murmurs softly. Then, more loudly over her shoulder, “EOS, where’s Virgil?!”

John’s conscious, but it’s only tenuous, as she wipes over his face and does her best to clean his hair. His skin is a brilliant blood-infused red where he’d been exposed directly to the radiation, like an awful sunburn. There’s a ring of white meeting pink around his throat where his spacesuit had protected him and his helmet couldn't. Where The Hood had slid his greasy little fingers over the young man’s pulse and ripped away his oxygen supply.

Hazy, half-open eyes are struggling to focus on her, a sliver of fever-bright blue-green the only familiar colour on him. His chest heaves, bare and thin, and he seems too weak to do anything but watch, the weight of his head heavy against her palm as she cradles it to clean him up. His skin is ever so tender, like it’s been rubbed raw, not burned. He winces, more obvious in the convolution of his throat than anything, but doesn’t protest.

“Patching Virgil Tracy through now.” Eos’ voice is smaller and scareder than Star has ever heard it. The young woman has been ignoring her demands to know what’s happened, what’s wrong with John, why his vitals are all over the place, but she can put two and two together faster than the best calculators in the world and the radiation readings the station was getting off her John weren’t exactly anything good. “Radiation levels minimal, though deep clean of irradiated material is recommended.” She means their spacesuits, but she might as well mean John himself, with how meticulous Star is being.

He’d smile gratefully at her, if only he had the cognitive ability to do so.

“Star?” Virgil sounds breathless, as if he’s just run all the way down to the lounge. “Eos says there’s an emergency, something about John. A-Alan’s scrambling Three.” He sucks in a deep breath, trying to control the panting, “Scott’s with him. What’s going on?”

“Why aren’t you with them?” Star snaps, forgoing all pleasantries. She fumbles the cloth, drops it on the ground, and gives up in favour of hooking the oxygen cannula under John's nose. A few strands of damp orange hair have fallen across his glassy eyes, giving him a wet smile. She’s hyperventilating, she realises almost as if from a distance, panting worse than Virgil.

“John’s been exposed to radiation.”

She probably could have broken that fact a little gentler. John’s shivering, so Star reaches over him to hook a blanket up over his bare skin, steering well clear of his sensitive neck. She’s got an arm around his shoulders, like she’s going to hug him or start rubbing his back or doing something to comfort him, only to pull back like she’s been burned.

“I don’t know what to do Virgil, I don’t know how- what the hell do I do?”

"What?" Virgil's holographic mouth shapes, pale and blue. He takes a moment to absorb her anger, the tension flowing off him with the kind of well practiced ease that comes with the job, water off a duck's back, and he shakes his head, apologetic but unrelenting. "Scott and Alan are as much trained in Field extraction as I am." He explains, keeping his voice impressively level considering he can see his irradiated brother quiet and limp in her arms. "I'm sure you'd much rather have me coming up there but they both have field medicine qualifications and I'm not a space operative, I'd just slow them down. I…" He sucks a breath in through his teeth, "I get the impression that John doesn't have the time for me to fumble around in orbit." There's a warm smile ready and waiting for her with that, and it's deeply reassuring.

"Take a breath for me now Star," He prompts her, ever so gentle, trying to stave off the lightheadedness that hyperventilation could give her, "One good one, in and out. That's it. Good, now another. In through your nose, out through your mouth. Count to twenty for me, aloud if you can. You've got this." It's a soft, reassuring litany designed to slow her breathing and heart rate and pull her back to the present, to the situation. He's used it on hundreds of panicking rescuees before, and more than once on his brothers, when things have just gotten too much, out in the field. "Now I need you to keep calm and explain to me what we're dealing with, so that I can be ready down here with whatever he's gonna need when they get him home. What exactly happened?"

John can hear her short, hashed breaths somewhere above his head, but his brain feels full of thick grey fog and he can't quite work out where it's coming from. Something wet hits his cheek like a raindrop, only, he lives in space. He can feel the reduced gravity to prove it. It doesn't rain in space.

"F'rves leakeeng…?" It's definitely not the most eloquent sentence he's produced in his life, and it's followed by a short, harsh half-breath that makes him choke. "Whasss…?"

There's a flow of blood, deep red, that begins leaking rapidly out from around the oxygen tube at his nose. His eyes go wide.

"Clamp it!" Virgil barks. "Get pressure on the bleed!"

Calling Star’s breathing calm was a bit of an exaggeration, but at least she doesn’t sound like she’s choking on air. That is, until Virgil asks her what happened? Because the one thing about that she is certain of is that she left John. She left John and now he was dying and his life shouldn’t be in her hands because she is nothing but a criminal more versed in murder than rescue. She’s going to be sick, her breathing picking up again, the salty taste of tears on her lips-

Fives leaking. Star almost laughs again. It’s got to be the most beautiful sentence she’s ever heard come from John’s mouth.

“Hey baby,” she crouches back down to John’s level, forcing a smile to her lips. Her hands almost goes to his cheek -red and raw- as he chokes, before she catches herself and diverts to his shoulder, thumb rubbing gently on the bare skin there. “Five’s not leaking, sweetheart, you don’t have to worry about that. It’s o-”

A thick, viscous drop of blood oozes from his nose. It doesn’t stop, and Virgil is yelling in her ear even as she pinches his nose, bringing the abandoned towel up off the floor to deal with the mess. John must realise what’s going on, his eyes gone wide, and Star just shushes him gently.

“Ok, ok.” Virgil’s voice is tight, his shoulders tense, as he’s forced to watch the scene play out. “Keep that pressure on.” He advises, keeping a close eye on the shallow rise and fall of his brother’s ribcage. “Does he feel hot to the touch? Like, feverish?” It’s hard to get a gauge on how bad an exposure they’re looking at from holoscreen alone, but John’s chest is flushed red from the centre out and there’s a thin sheen of sweat building on his skin. There're the smudges of what could be a bruise beginning to purple on the side of his stomach. Star’s got the cloth pinched tightly across his nose, obscuring most of John’s face from the camera. “Any headache or sickness?” Virgil prompts further, “Fatigue? Dizziness and disorientation? What kind of cognitive responses are you getting?” It’s a whole flood of questions, and they seem to wash right over John like he can’t even pick out the sound of his brother’s voice. “What did you say he was exposed to?”

“Uranium,” she tells Virgil over her shoulder, and it's as if the word is the tap to her waterworks. She angrily scrubs her eyes against her arm, against John’s shirt. “John said it was uranium, and he was exposed… and he had his helmet off out of atmosphere twice and I… I’m so sorry John.”

“Uranium? On that old war station?” The pointed peak of his hair bobs as Virgil shakes his head, things not quite adding up, “Bloody military savages. But... John’s not dumb enough to, just... to go take his helmet off and go sit in a room full of… of radiation!” He frowns, sharp and worried and almost disbelieving, “He was fine when he called it in earlier, made it sound like it was just gonna be a quick in and out. Just how much radiation did he get exposed to anyway? And how long was he without his helmet?” Virgil’s big hands throw themselves up into the air, desperate for more answers. “What happened out there?”

“John,” Star is close to his face, in his space, right where he can’t ignore her. She keeps her voice loud and firm, the same tone she uses when bullying him into eating, in the hopes it’s something he’ll latch onto. When his glassy eyes finally land on her, there’s a slight tinge of recognition, so Star gives him one of her hands. “John, I’m going to ask you some questions, and all I need you to do is squeeze my hand if it's a yes, okay?”

There’s no movement in his hand.

“Okay?” She prompts again, finally feeling the weak twitch of fingers.

“Does your head hurt?” She asks. Fingers twitch. She translates the yes to Virgil.

“Do you feel sick?” yes.

“Dizzy?” yes.

“Tired?” yes.

“Do you know what’s happening?” No response, which is fitting, because not only does the answer to that question seem to be no, but John doesn’t seem to be able to hear her anymore.

Star almost wishes she didn’t have to ask, that the answers were all no. Even though she can see from his face and the way he holds himself, the person she has spent every waking minute of the past handful of years with, that he has every symptom Virgil is scared of.

It keeps her mouth busy, keeps her from having to tell the other Tracy what happened.

“Thunderbird Three is at thirteen thousand feet.” Eos’ little voice chips in, dull with worry. “ETA eight point four minutes. Hold on John.” She says it for his benefit, but John doesn’t give any sign that he’s actually heard her, remaining soft and still in Star’s arms, his eyes vacant and blood smeared across his cheek. If not for the rise and fall of his chest one would almost think... Oh. What was that about cognitive responses? “John’s suit readings report exposure to eight point four greys of radiation…” Eos continues, somewhere above her, “I… that’s a lot right?” Who knew a few lines of carefully crafted code would sound so scared.

“That’s… not good.” Virgil tells her thickly, his voice choked with an unwillingness to explain just how ‘not good’ eight point four greys of nuclear radiation really is. “But, I… he’ll be ok.” Virgil takes a second to focus on his own breathing, shoving false optimism into his voice. “John’s not gonna go out like this.” It’s completely unthinkable, however much the scientific knowledge Virgil has has stacked the odds against it. “Come on Alan, hurry up…”

John’s eyes have gone roving again, not focused on anything, but she gives him a smile anyway, just in case he can see her. Her bottom lip trembles.

“He said something about The Hood.”

She doesn’t look away from John, but she can practically feel Virgil stiffen. It even seems like EOS and gasped, a very human response to shock and fear. They’re waiting for an explanation, Star knows they are, just not the explanation she has.

Almost as if the words have forced themselves from Star’s mouth against her will, she blurts out, “I don’t know how much radiation he was exposed to. I don’t know how long he was without his helmet. I wasn’t there.”

"You… weren't there?" Virgil stares, for a long moment. There's a silence in the small, familiar space of John's bunk room, save for the slightly wheezy lilt to his breathing. "You, what?" Thick, dark eyebrows scrunch, "You left him there?" Virgil’s voice rises in pitch and volume, "With The Hood?" He’s got a bad taste in his mouth, his stomach feels unsettled. "Alone?"

“Yep,” Star pops the ‘p’ on the end of the word. Her eyes are still hot and wet, but she’s not sobbing any more, just looking very firmly not at Virgil. She’s still got John’s hand in hers, and its just then she can see a smear of his blood on her fingers. They’re all going to hate her anyway, might as well get it over and done with. “He was sealing canisters of uranium and there was a noise. I went to check the noise, when I came back he didn't have his helmet on, and when I got him back he was asking about The Hood. Now, you are International Rescue, can you please hurry up.”

“Three minutes.” Eos admonishes her, her tone just that little bit hostile in a way that Virgil and John have experienced before, a long time ago now, but Star would be wholly unfamiliar with. “Alan is a very good pilot.” She almost sounds sniffy about it, like she’s offended that Star doesn’t realise they’re already doing all they can. The young AI feels anger flare, hot and bright in her processors. “Thunderbird Three is at full ion engine capacity.”

“Geez, he’s really gunning it.” Virgil’s mouth is dry, hoping that the kid isn't pulling some kind of crazy stunt up there to get his ‘bird to go faster. Crazy stunts in space are likely to get you killed. “Star…”

Virgil takes a second to compose himself, so that he can bring a calmer approach than Eos’ to the table. It’s almost dangerously calm. His voice comes out low and thick with upset as he does John’s usual job and casts a holographic chart into the air where Star can see it.

“Here’s Three and her trajectory,” He slides a hand through the data, building a map, “And here’s what we’ve got on John’s condition from his biosuit.” Numbers littered with red light up in the air between them. It’s not a lot. Desperately not a lot. “Do you think you can get him rigged up to a vital signs monitor to give us some more information?” He requests, before sis tone slides into something clipped and precise, “I… What happened out there doesn’t matter now.” He says, “What’s done is done, and we can… we can go over it later.”

If Eos had sounded threatening, it’s nothing to the soft promise behind that.

Star wants to curl up and disappear beneath Virgil’s precarious calm. Her single most powerful instinct has always been that: run. Run away from the mistake, from the lives she ruined and the people she hurt, but she can’t. She wouldn’t leave John, even if she could… and there’s a sick stab of terror that goes alongside the fear that he’s going to die…

That if he doesn’t, if she keeps him alive until his brothers get there, and then they save his life, they’re going to take John away from her anyway.

But Virgil’s watching for himself just how tentative and afraid Star is, curled as she is over their spaceman, begging his brothers to help him, and the family softie can’t quite bring himself to believe that this young woman, so desperately protective of his brother, could really have meant him any harm. Scott’s gonna take a lot more convincing of that though, if he finds out she abandoned John. Virgil, however, wants to wait to hear the whole story, before he slams judgement down on her. Later though. There're other priorities right now.

John’s head thrashes against Star’s palm, obviously sliding back toward awareness. He blinks, lashes weak and fluttery and his mouth opens and closes for a moment without any words coming out. The bleed from his nose seems to have stopped, for now at least, but there’s red, sticky across his lips and cheek. His brows scrunch, and there’s a twist of his wrist, his fingers clawing at his stomach. The redness of his face slides toward a greenish-grey.

“T’rrr…” There’s a small, sudden struggle under Star’s hands, and what could be a butchered attempt at her name from John. There’s a rolling, unsettled nausea building in his stomach and it’s burning a path up his oesophagus, and he realises, with startling clarity, that it’s got to go somewhere. “St’r! M’ gonna…!” The sentence doesn’t make it to the end of itself before he chokes. There’s a spasm somewhere in John’s middle, followed by a sudden flurry of movement as he jerks violently onto his side, abruptly heaving up what little he’s had to eat in the past 24 hours all over his perfect, glass floor. One arm curls tight around his middle, where pain is blooming, hot and sharp, and his shoulders shake uncontrollably.

The red streaks in it look almost like blood.

[hedwigstalons]

FabFiveFeb - John

And so the series concludes.  Thank you @gumnut-logic for the prompts and the challenge.  I was impatiently awaiting the space boy but maybe you were just saving the best brother until last.  

This offering uses the prompts of ‘concrete’, ‘paper’ and ‘soft caress’

xoxoxox

It was meant to be a simple evacuation exercise. Ordinarily Thunderbird Three would not be sent up single-manned but with Scott, Virgil and Gordon all out at various rescues already, and Kayo off on a mission for the GDF, they hadn’t had much choice.  An asteroid mining rig was malfunctioning, as was the crew’s shuttle, and so Alan had been dispatched to play taxi service.  A quick round trip to the rock to pick up the stranded crew.

 Easy.  

The crew was evidently resourceful at making repairs and by the time Thunderbird Three had arrived the shuttle and her crew were making a hasty retreat from their malfunctioning and volatile machinery. He hailed them cheerily over the comms and received thanks and apologies for his own wasted trip in return.  That should have been the end of it.  One more false alarm marked up in the log book.

 There was one problem.

 The mining rig should have had a mandatory minimum operational crew of six but only five personnel were in the shuttle.

 Alan touched down on the surface of the asteroid. Years of dedication and devotion to saving lives meant that he couldn’t trust it was just an administration error. His conscious wouldn’t allow him to head for home if one poor soul was stranded somewhere on that inhospitable rock. He radioed his intent to John and received acknowledgement of his plan in return.  After giving his assurances that of course he would be careful, and of course he knew the call out what because the equipment was malfunctioning, Alan headed over to the machinery housing.

 Alan cautiously made his way through the mining complex.  It was a small affair; aside from the drill room there was just a crew bunk house and life support facilities giving small comfort to the personnel who called that asteroid both home and work for six months at a time.  He called out as he went but any response would have been drowned out by the hideous noises being made by the drill.  The crew had been unable to shut the equipment down before departing.  

 It was easy to see that the living quarters were empty. The rooms were sparse and the comforts minimal.  The operating company evidently didn’t think much to investing in the welfare of their staff.

 He headed cautiously into the drill room.  

 It seemed there hadn’t been much investment here either. The equipment was archaic and in a poor state of repair.  Parts crunched together and groaned ominously.  In one area repairs had been attempted by holding parts in place with zip ties.  

 Seriously, who used zip ties on a mining rig?

 Alan skirted cautiously round the machinery, not prepared to leave until he was sure there was no one else left.  The drill was making tortured screams.  Gears and coils strained under the pressure of operating out of alignment.  Emergency shut down had failed as the operation fought back against years of neglect and running on a shoestring.  

 Speaking of shoestrings, was that pipe held in place by a boot lace?

 The screams were replaced by a guttural juddering sound as cogs meshed together.  Banging and clanking indicated parts locking then slipping past each other again.  The drill rig was now shaking ominously and Alan realised the time had come to evacuate.  There was no sign of a sixth crew member and Alan doubted one had ever been present.  Yet another space code violation to add to the list.

 Shoddy record keeping.

 Shoddy maintenance.

 He never made it back to the door.  The overloaded system could no longer contain the increasing pressure and the machinery failed in spectacular fashion.  Chunks of metal were ejected violently from the drill rig. The air became filled with deadly projectiles.  Cogs flew through the air with enough force to smash through concrete.

 Just as well Alan’s chest plate was stronger than concrete.

 Silence fell.

 “Come in Thunderbird Three.  What is your status?”

 The explosion then ominous silence had been clearly audible over the open comms line.

 John tried reaching his brother again.

 “Alan!  Alan, talk to me!”

 It felt like an eternity before the weak voice answered his hail.

 “ ‘m…ok…John.  Just…a bit…battered.”

 A bit battered was an understatement.  His arms and legs felt bruised but his biggest concern was the pain in his chest.  One particularly aggressive missile had hit his left side and slammed him into the wall. The chest plate itself had buckled under the impact and was now pressing into him in a way that could only mean broken ribs.  He knew he should feel lucky.  Without his armour plating the impact would certainly have killed him.

 He didn’t feel lucky.

 All he could feel was a world of pain.

 He tried to move but the intense stabbing sensation in his side issued a firm warning that moving was a bad idea.  He settled back against the wall into which he had been thrown and tried to regain his composure.

 Deep, steadying breaths to help push through the pain.

 Except he couldn’t.

 Inhaling felt beyond his abilities.  He could only manage short, ragged breaths that brought no relief.  Oxygen, so precious in the voids of space, felt to be in short supply.  He found himself panting rapidly but each breath was too shallow and the waves of dizziness and nausea just increased.  He was alone with no one to help him.  Tears rolled down his cheeks, a salty mix of fear and pain.

 xoxoxox

 Some people might think that operating Thunderbird Five was the easiest of the International Rescue roles.  

 Those people would be wrong.

 Coordinating rescues could be hard.  

 Hearing brothers injured and in pain and not being able to a thing about it.  Immersed in the action yet removed and isolated.  Helpless.  Impotent. A bystander looking at the devastation from the outside.  Unable to reach out.  Unable to turn away.  That was the hardest job of all.

 “John.  I’m registering a deterioration in Thunderbird Three’s vital signs.”

 He didn’t need the observations of the AI to know that Alan was in a bad way.

 “I know, Eos.”

 “Thunderbirds One, Two and Four have returned to base.”

 “I know, Eos.”

 “John, you are showing signs of distress.  Your heart rate, blood pressure and cortisol levels are showing significant elevations.”

 “I know, Eos!”

 He didn’t mean to shout.  He knew she was only doing the job she was programmed to do; keeping a watching eye on himself and his brothers.  It was so deeply ingrained into her subroutines.  A permanent watch that always occupied a portion of her processors no matter what else she was doing.  But at the moment her observations were not helpful.  He was all too aware that one sibling was hurt and the others had no way of reaching him.

 He pinched the bridge of his nose and screwed up his eyes slightly.  

 It didn’t help.

 “Eos, plot the course to asteroid JX387.”

 The AI knew better than to point out that Thunderbird Five was not designed as a long range ship.  She had the capabilities to complete the journey and that was all that mattered.  The usually dormant thrusters sprang into life and commenced the task of propelling the satellite toward her stranded sister craft.

 When the admission of fear came through the comms from his youngest brother, in a voice that was wavering and betrayed his tender years, John’s heart broke.  It was one thing to provide reassurances to strangers but quite another when your own flesh and blood were involved.

 Flesh and blood.

 The words conjured up vivid imaginings of what he might find when he finally reached the asteroid.

 “Alan, I need you to stay with me.”

 “John?”

 “I’m here Alan.”

 “I’m…scared.”

 The voice over the comms was strained and week. The shallow, laboured breathing picked up clearly by the sensitive microphone built into Alan’s helmet.   The life signs being monitored by Eos were registering an accelerated heart rate.

 “I know, Allie.  I’m coming for you.”

 John wasn’t normally one for pet names but there was something about that voice, so raw and vulnerable, the reminded him of the five year old that used to seek him out after a nightmare to be soothed by stories of the stars that now surrounded them both.

 Determination flooded his system.  Concentrating on the task in hand he piloted Thunderbird Five over to the part of the solar system currently occupied by his youngest sibling.

 xoxoxox

 Once in range of the asteroid and it’s now failed mining operation John donned his exosuit and exited Thunderbird Five.  The rock was bleak and the facilities on it were uninviting.  Thunderbird Three stood near the drilling base, cold and still.  Her striking red hull providing the only splash of colour in that grim landscape.

 He cautiously entered the complex and headed for the drill rig where the vital signs monitor was registering the presence of a brother who was thankfully still alive.  All caution was abandoned and John broke into as much of a run as the exosuit would allow when he spied the blue suited figure on the floor.

 “You…came.”

 “I promised I would.”

 “Gonna…need…new…suit.”

 John took in the damage to the armour plating and inwardly winced.  The whole of Alan’s left side was now a concave hollow.  Broken ribs were a given and the shallow, laboured breathing suggested a punctured lung too.

 “Don’t try to talk.  You can put your uniform order in to Scott when we get home.”

 Speaking of getting home that was going to be easier said than done.  Moving Alan was going to be a painful business and his condition suggested that a transfer to Thunderbird Five would be too risky.

 A new voice over the comms intruded on his thought.

 “John, status report.”

 Big brother, his own rescue on Earth now concluded, had evidently been appraised of the situation by Eos.  

 “I’m with Alan now.  He’s…”  John racked his brains for the right way to phrase things.  He wanted to be honest but he also knew Alan could hear every word he was saying.  “He’s taken a significant impact but he’s conscious and responding well.”

 “Hey…Scott…I’m…a…tough…nut…to…crack.”

 “You sure are, kid.”

 “I’m going to bring him home.  The sooner he gets medical attention the better.”

 “Five then the space elevator?”

 “No, the med-bed on Three will be more comfortable.”

 “Hmm.  When was the last time you flew Three?”

 “Simulated or solid state?”  This was the last thing he needed.  Alan had enough to worry about without doubts being cast on his piloting abilities.  “Look Scott. Trust me on this.”

 “Not…leaving…my…rocket…behind.”

  John couldn’t help but smile.

 “See, even Alan agrees.  I’ll see you back at base.  You can prepare the infirmary.”

 “FAB”

 John cut the connection to Tracy Island and instructed Eos to keep that line as receive only.  He didn’t want to shut Scott out completely but transferring Alan was going to be a painful business. Without knowing the state of his lungs John didn’t want to risk administering the wrong dose of painkiller and he didn’t want the inevitable cries from Alan being broadcast to an already worried smother hen.

 “Time to get moving kid.  Now I’m really sorry but this is going to hurt.”

 Alan gave a slight nod of acknowledgement and gritted his teeth for the inevitable.

 The choked back whimper as Alan was lifted into a bridal hold cut John to the core.  The kid was being so damn brave.  

 It was time to complete the painful journey back to Earth.

 xoxoxox

 The damaged chest plate lay discarded at the side of the infirmary.  The misshapen armour a chilling reminder of the dangers they faced every time they launched.

 John ran his fingers through his youngest brother’s hair in a soft caress.  It was about the only part of the young astronaut that wasn’t bruised, thanks to his helmet which he had wisely kept on while on the asteroid.  Eyes flickered open at the touch.

 “See…”  The voice was still breathy and strained.  “Tough…nut…to…crack.”

 The damage scans and x-rays had revealed three broken ribs and a lung that was partially collapsed but thankfully not punctured. He would heal in time but it could easily have been a lot worse.  John made a mental note to personally thank Brains for designing Alan’s uniform with such tough shielding.  He also made a note to throw the book at the drill operators; the whole set-up had been a disaster waiting to happen with corners cut and rules broken at every opportunity.  The company wouldn’t be operating in space for a very long time once he and Eos had finished.

 He became aware of Scott hovering in the doorway.

 “Eos had returned Five to low Earth orbit.  She’s back in place over the island.”

 John gave a subtle nod of acknowledgement.  He knew there was no longer a need for him to stay Earth-side; Alan was out of danger and would be well looked after by his terrestrial siblings.  He didn’t move away from the bed.

 “You did good out there, John.”

 A slight shrug.  He shouldn’t have been out there at all.  On days like this he wondered whether Alan should be out there either. Wondered why they had launched a child into such a dangerous role.  Was it selfish of them?  Did they expect too much?  The doubts always came crowding in when one of them got hurt.  His job was to monitor and assess after all.

 With a final run of his fingers through Alan’s hair and a “See ya, Al.  Don’t make me come fetch you again” John turned and headed back to his habitual home.

 xoxoxox

 The ride back up to Thunderbird Five was a silent affair.  Eos, now better attuned to his moods, correctly surmised that he needed to be left alone.  Only once he was back inside the station did he briefly acknowledge her.

 “Eos, turn on the gravity ring.”

 It was an unusual request for him and one that betrayed his current depth of emotion.  John was generally most comfortable in microgravity but in some circumstances gravity was necessary.  

 He had to write and submit his report on the mission but first he had to write his other report.  The one that would never be uploaded to the servers.  His own private record of events that dealt in more than just the facts of the matter.  

 Reaching the sanctuary of his room he withdrew the notebook and pen from their concealed spot.

 The book was a thing of beauty.  Heavy, slightly creamy pages encased in soft calfskin; the leather a deep midnight blue.  Each page unmarred by lines.  A special commission to his exact specifications.  For a man so immersed in the digital world a notebook seemed an odd luxury to choose.  After all, paper was expensive; an environmentally unsound product that had all but been phased out.  But the physicality of a book was sometimes necessary.  Hard evidence.  A disconnected node in an interconnected world.

 The pen was perfectly weighted.  A sleek, undecorated tube of brushed titanium that was simultaneously both functional and elegant..  The ink flowed in in a smooth stream, pouring out his soul in blue blood across the page. Each letter was perfectly formed, each word a thing of beauty.  The precision with which John lived all aspects of his life was evident in this act of meditation.  Line after line of fear and anger appeared across the paper filling the sheets in calligraphic hurt.

 Not every mission warrants an entry, only those that he knows will haunt his dreams and leave him doubting the wisdom of their cause. The close calls.  The near-misses.  The times when he realises just how far away he is from those he holds dear.  This is his therapy.  The book playing counsellor to his troubled soul with utmost confidentiality.  

 Only when the turmoil is quelled, the ink as dry as the tear tracks on his cheeks, does he replace volume.  A secret testimony to the sacrifices made for the world by a few individuals who shared their love and care around the whole planet and beyond.

[catherea]

Mass Effect Andromeda

I recently re-downloaded the game after like 3 years of stopping cold turkey during the story, at around 80% completion.

I started a new game yesterday, did the prologue, got the Nexus going and started on Eos. Today was 12+ hours of gameplay completing Eos and doing a bunch of stuff on the Nexus, and finally went and got Jaal, and starting Voeld.

The game starts off great but gets bland fairly soon, and there's still a lot of things that could be fixed in the base game. Animations, facial expressions, textures looking really blurred/taking a long time to load, and the really rare T-pose. I know the team stopped working on the game after a big patch in 2016-2017(?(it's been a while..)) but the parts that aren't really polished still shine through.. I also know that the main Bioware team didn't work on the game because Anthem (which I still need to play at some point.)

The story after completing the prologue just kind of goes ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ and the pacing feels really off for a Mass Effect game, not to mention that like everything was setup to be like a B-rated sci-fi, mystery/horror adventure, that doesn't know where to actually stand.

Companions, well, Cora we get it you're a trained Huntress and salty about not becoming Pathfinder, Liam is the chad that wants to keep the team together, Gil the gay engineer. Vetra the awkward smuggler, Lexi trying her best. Kallo an awkward pilot who helped design the Tempest, Drack is legit a discount Wrex, but still lovable. Suvi the religious scientist, and the reclusive Peebee who has one foot in the escape pod ready to jump ship.

Starting over again hoping to see the game in a different light so far just.. isn't happening. I'm going to keep playing, but it all just feels out of place for a Mass Effect game. However, I really do enjoy the combat loop and movement. That feels like it should be there.

I'm really hoping that the next ME game that comes out has a better story, better big bad, and really something that compliments the trilogy.

[leorugiet]

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