#sam yao is my operator

[scorrigan]

The Zombies Run Black Friday sale by the numbers

So if you get the emails you should see the ZR sale, which ends 12/3. Lets break down the numbers A ZR subscription with no discounts is $50 and VIP (with virtual races) is 90. Theyve indicated with the latest VR that they probably will be selling virtual races individually again, so $50 may be your best buy. If you like zombies run, the subscription is essentially endless. It has some incentive to rerun the missions, especially the first several seasons. With 500 episodes and over 100 New adventures, $50 is still a decent price. If you bought every VR that was offered under individual purchase, the VIP includes at the least 9 VRs you can only buy that way, so at an extra $40, each VR run comes out to $1.11 which is so-so. If youre buying VIP to run all 18 VRs offered, the value shoots up to about $0.50 per run. At the current discounts, VIP is $60 for one year and standard is $35 for one year. Marvel Move breakdown below.

Now Marvel Move. Marvel Move was dissed for being expensive, being a sell out, and perhaps interfering with regular ZR production. Ive run about half of MM, and there was guaranteed content for two years. We are currently about a year and a half into that commitment, so there will probably be an additional 10 mission story before the end of year two. Maybe another race. For me, the Marvel Move runs have proved entertaining, but not especially re-runnable. More like youre less favorite Venture runs; you did them, theyre done, but likely wont return. So for me, I wont buy again till they have at least another 40 missions I havent played, IF Marvel decides to keep making episodes. Even if you chose not to run the Thor and Loki 5k trainer, and did not run the 10K version of the three races offered, its still 63 runs. With the thor and loki trainer and 10k races there are 90 runs, with more coming for at least half a year. Four of the stories have a radio mode, just like ZR. In that spirit, a Marvel move year long subscription at $40 sale price is not a bad buy. I found Daredevil and Hulk entertaining, and am looking forward to Blade. Theres also an XMen saga and captain america and black widow protecting Dr Doom, which could be good. The website claims that a Marvel Move sub MUST be activated by mid May, though.

[scorrigan]

Has anyone written a Sam Runner 5 fan fic The ship is called 5am Its the main ship honey

HAS ANYONE WRITTEN SAM X RUNNER FIVE FANFIC I NEED TO KNOW

[drowsystarlight]

Hello everyone i have a new blorbo!! This is my take on Sam Yao from Zombies, Run!, he’s the radio operator and he’s my awkward radio skrunkle,,,,,

[joggerfive]

Almost

Re-listened to the Season 1 side missions "The Brunswick Incident" as part of the community run and immediately latched on to Sam and Haley, so I've written a lil fic about them!

Also the beginning is influenced by Firewatch because these two being in radio contact from different towers gave me Henry and Delilah vibes

Link to read on AO3 here if you prefer!

Summary: An interaction between Sam and Haley in their own radio shacks as they get to know one another (and poke fun at their bosses in the process).

----------

“What do your eyes look like?”

Sam startled at the sudden voice crackling through his headphones, unused to someone talking to him on his own radio frequency. 

“What?” he replied as he finished a mouthful of dry toast, swallowing it down thickly then pushing the plastic plate further away on the desk.

“I’m drawing you.” Haley elaborated, her tone light and bubbly, “I’ve done a basic body, but I’m on the face now-”

“You’re… drawing me?”

“Yeah,” she said, as if it was the most obvious activity in the world, “I’m trying to develop new habits while I’m stuck here. I tried knitting last night but Miranda snatched it off me, saying it was a waste of supplies, so now I’m trying art instead. So, like I said, what do your eyes look like?”

Sam paused, considering his answer, “Chinese?”

Haley laughed so loudly directly into the microphone on her end that the volume made him wince. But he immediately wanted to hear it again. 

“I meant more like… Happy? Sad? Tired?”

“Oh! Uh, right.” He thought again, trying to remember the last time he saw himself in a mirror that wasn’t either partly shattered or very smudged, “Um… Happy? I think? Or at least I’d like to think. Maybe tired too. Happy tired.”

Haley hummed in accordance, “Happy, tired, Chinese eyes. Got it.”

Sam heard the pencil scribbling against paper on her desk, the sound almost therapeutic. He twirled the wire of his headphones around his index and middle finger as he waited for her to say more. 

“What about your hair? Dark? Short?”

“Yeah. Very very dark brown, basically black. And it’s… I don’t know… just a regular length. Though it’s too long right now, it’s bugging me.” 

She seemed amused at the grumpiness threaded through the last sentence, “What does ‘too long’ entail?”

“It gets trapped at the back of my neck when I put a shirt on, and it feels all itchy there-“  He reached up to scratch at the nape of his neck just at the explanation, the phantom feeling creeping up.

She was quiet for a moment, long enough that Sam wondered if fiddling with the wire had caused his headphones to disconnect. 

“Can I offer some advice?” Her voice sounded quieter as it came through, like she was shy.

“Other than a haircut?”

“If it gets stuck when you put a shirt on, maybe you just shouldn’t wear a shirt.”

Sam was suddenly very glad that their shacks were miles away as a blush crept up his cheeks at the slightest inkling of flirting.

“I- Uh- I’m not sure Janine would like that.” He replied, wincing as he overthought his words, “Not very professional.”

“Oh,” she stretched out the syllable in a lower tone, “Miss Janine ‘Best Electrician Left in England’ you mean?”

“That’s the one.” He sat up in his chair, straightening his spine to get into character as he began to talk in her clipped tone, “Mister Yao, being a radio operator should be treated as your occupation in Abel Township. Even being a university student with no experience in a formal workplace, I would assume that you’d know better than to perform under such conditions. The fact that you wear a brightly coloured hooded sweatshirt is already informal enough.”

“She sounds like a hoot.” Haley replied, the words dripping with sarcasm.

“Oh, absolutely.” 

There is a miniscule part of him that feels guilty for poking fun at Janine, since she’s the primary reason he’s still alive and all, but teasing their superiors seems to be the main correlation between him and Haley so far. It’s practically coworker bonding. That’s what he’d tell Janine if she truly had bugged the microphones. 

He continued, “What about Mr Jones?”

“What? Would he let me do my job with my little mosquito bites on show?”

Sam was suddenly even more grateful that she couldn’t see him, even though she could definitely hear him clearing his throat.

“No,” he emphasised, willing his voice to stay neutral, “What’s he like? Boring and professional like Miss Second Best Electrician Left In England?”

“Ah, putting yourself in first now, are you?”

“Putting you in first.”

There was a moment of silence, and Sam couldn’t help but wonder if he’d finally managed to fluster her in return. 

“Ben’s alright. A little bossy, sure. But I know he has the best interests of Brunswick at heart. I used to think he was an uptight arse, but I’m not sure I could ever think of him as fully professional after karaoke night.”

“Aw, man!” Sam chuckled, leaning back on the desk chair, the headphones pulling slightly, “I remember our last karaoke night! Jack and Eugene, the guys I told you about, put it on for us! Me and Alice tried to sing Breaking Free from High School Musical, but we couldn’t remember the lyrics to any of the verses, so we made them up instead. There were a lot of basketball references.”

Another moment of silence, this time tinged with awkwardness.

“Who’s Alice?” Haley’s voice was smaller again, as if she’d retreated in on herself.

Sam winced, rubbing his forehead, “Shit, sorry-”

“No, no!” She quickly interjected, trying to add levity, “We’re not dating. You can bring up the ex-”

“She wasn’t an ex,” He corrected, then felt a small pang in his chest as the words left, “Well, not really. She was…” A heavy sigh. “An almost.” 

He wanted to explain further, but didn’t know how. Luckily, Haley seemed to understand completely.

He heard a sigh in return, staticky over the microphone. “Almosts are sometimes worse, aren’t they? You’re always thinking about what could’ve happened. What they would’ve said if you’d just… stuck your head out of your arse and been brave enough to ask.”

Sam fidgeted with his hoodie sleeve, then used it to wipe at his eyes before any tears could fall, “You sound like you’re speaking from experience.”

“Yeah. Gwen from my sixth form days. I always wanted to say something, but thought it would be awkward if she said no, since we sat next to each other every day in Biology. Then she went to uni in Aberystwyth and I stayed home, and then the whole world went to shit.”

Sam waited for a beat to make sure he wasn’t cutting her story short, “I’m sorry.”

She sighed, “Is what it is.”

He knew it might be insensitive, but he had to ask. “I didn’t realise that you… you were a uh… That you liked…” He cringed at himself, unsure how to word it.

Haley was quiet for a moment, then chuckled as she understood, “Don’t worry, you’re still in the catchment area. I’m what some people would call greedy.”

He wanted to say he was too, but he wasn’t really sure. He’d never had a chance to be sure. It was living under his family’s roof with his disapproving dad, then being at university but being too stressed to consider long term dating, then it was the damn apocalypse.

“Promise me something.”

Her gentle voice snapped him out of his thoughts, “Okay.”

A small laugh came through, “You don’t even know what it is yet.”

“Is it related to me being shirtless?” He teased, wanting to get back to the playfulness to undo the knot forming in his chest.

“We won’t be an almost.”

His breath caught in his throat. It sounded too concrete for someone he’d never actually met before. A whole myriad of emotions mixed through him. Fear, guilt, anxiety. Hope, excitement, giddiness.

Haley’s voice came through again, louder and faster, “Sorry, that was too much. Maybe this cabin fever is getting-”

“Promise.” He cut off, placing his hand on the base of the microphone as if reaching out to her.

“Really?” The word was higher than her usual tone.

Sam nodded, even if she couldn’t see it, “We’ll get this exchange program in order, and I’ll come over and wait on you hand and foot while you’re recovering. And you can draw me while I do it.”

“Like one of my French girls?” 

“If you’re lucky.”

Haley laughed loudly, the sound melodic, “You’ve got yourself a deal. Now, speaking of drawing, what does your nose look like?”

A few days later, when he’s tentatively rubbing circles on Janine’s back as she cries with her head in her hands after hearing the two gunshots, he absently wonders if she ever finished the picture. 

[m-der-teufel]

First pics of my Runner Five cosplay <3 I really enjoyed coming up with my own design of them and it was so much fun looking badass and ready to kick some zombie butts :3

[katzenkrieg]

Took 10 minutes and slapped this together last night because I wanted it to exist. Sam Yao is a cutie, and I love him. 

It’s over on Redbubble. 

[wubbelwubbwubb]

A long mission and a warm summer evening in the comms shack.

[samyaoismyoperator]

Hi Fellow Fives! I’ve seen a couple of these, and I finally made one of my own! I love it and am proud of this! It’s also extremely motivating on days when I don’t feel like getting up early to go run. (I have it hanging in my bedroom.) Now I’m working on getting more medals and ribbons! Bam! I do love that the first ZR medal was from the Halloween 2017 VR. I love Halloween, so it was a great way to start off for me!

[scorrigan]

Sam Yao: *earnestly and genuinely talks over the head set even though he thinks I'm dead and tells me about his life before the zombie apocalypse and all the people he's lost and then turns on the beacon just in case I'm alive so I have a way to find my way home*

Me:

[artist-issues]

what do you MEAN my escape routes are cut off

[drowsystarlight]

In regards to your headcannons list:

Sam Yao 16

HIII THANKS FOR SENDING AN ASK ehem okay here goes (this got long sorry)

16. Dark secrets/‘skeletons in the closet’

I have 4 things I think of in here so I’ll expand them >:) Some zrs2 and zr5k spoilers!

1. Sam gets attached to Runner Five because of his ties to the old Runner Five, Alice Dempsey. I feel like it starts like that at least. But the seasons and missions in it stretch out for months, so by the time the middle of s2 swings around I feel like Sam has worked that out (specially before the Little Lies mission in the s2 finale—his anger feels different there because it somehow really feels like it’s reserved for love and protectiveness of OUR Runner Five, and not just their number.) Don’t get me wrong though, he’s not the type to take rebounds and other people as replacement for his loss, and in zr5k i know he takes the time to heal and grieve (it’s heavily implied in there lol)—but Sam is a really emotionally driven character and I feel like him feeling affection for our runner five will be overshadowed by him losing Alice.

He’s also the type to not notice this until someone points it out. After that, he’ll think about it a lot. He won’t tell ANYBODY though. Not even whoever points it out for him (I’m thinking Maxine). He won’t elaborate and he’d rather fix it on his own instead of asking someone else and sounding like a fucking asshole since there’s really no nice way to say Hey, I think I’m starting to like this person but I keep seeing my ex in them bc of their designation so what do i do?

2. Feelings. Really deep feelings. I guess it’s not really dark but I think Sam would also hold off on telling Runner Five what he feels as long as he thinks he’s only infatuated because of Alice. Even after that—he takes a long time to show the mere tip of its iceberg. In my personal headcanon of events, Sam gets an inkling of “oh shit maybe I do like Runner Five and this isn’t just a silly infatuation anymore” when they get kidnapped in the Tightrope mission in s2. The Athena mission was honestly a shit end of that little arc bc the tone is ODD and Sam threw a fit in A Voice in the Dark but he’s knitting all chill and cool after they got tortured by Van Ark?? LMAO?? Also I was told the knitting is a reference to Odysseus’s wife waiting for him to come home and I’m just here like Hahaha s2s are you Saying he is the malewife YOU AINT SLICK

Anyway. That. And then he gets the scare of his life in the s2 finale when Sara is revealed to be the traitor—like, you can HEAR him sound so angry but also so so worried. He’d been friends with Eight longer than he knew Runner Five so Sam is well-versed with what Sara is capable of. He’d also seen it in the moments prior to this event. I personally think that when Sara cut him off of comms, his brain just went wild with worst case scenarios (haha here’s a song that makes me think of this) and it’s when he gets this dawning realization that he DOES have feelings. It’s real and oh so horrifying because it’s not that Sam doesn’t want to lose them, it’s that he can’t. He can’t afford to. Because god knows he’s hanging on a thin thread and if he loses another person he loves, he doesn’t know if he can keep going.

But he can’t say that for a million reasons; he can’t let Five know he depends on them that much, can’t let anyone know he originally started feeling this way because of their number, can’t let anyone know he’s not as optimistic and strong as he likes to seem. Apart from his affection for Runner Five, Sam keeps most of his emotions hidden under wraps because there’s rly no time to feel things in the apocalypse. I think he’d lie about it even if his actions and words betray him all the time. He doesn’t want to be seen as soft either and has somehow fooled himself into thinking that not outwardly showing his feelings equates to bravery or strength.

3. He feels alive as a Radio Operator and feels useless otherwise. I know he mentions this in AVITD but I wanted to expand on it! Sam forces himself to operate in the comms shack even when he was sick (this was a side mission in s2) and I think it’s because he sees this as his only purpose. Y’know how people say Everyone in Abel pulls their weight? And how some runners probably resent radio operators because of how they’re guiding them in safety while runners are out endanger their lives in the field? Yyyyeah. This guy probably overworks just to prove he’s pulling his own weight.

Basically; that thing that Sara said about feeling the most alive when running away from zombies, and that’s probably horrible or something? I think Sam is like that too, as a Radio Operator. He feels pride and confidence when his runners get home safely. He feels euphoric when he manages to help them evade a horde or an obstacle. And when he fucks up, he takes it twice as hard because it proves that he sucks at his job and isn’t doing enough. But he’s also afraid that if anyone knew that he feels this—like he said to Runner Five, that he loves what he does—everyone would think he’s a psychopath playing video game dolls with real people’s lives whatsoever and likes it.

4. Lastly, he would kill if it meant he could keep his loved ones safe. Sam is generally a kind-hearted person but he goes ruthless and CRUEL when it comes to people who betray his own. Y’all remember Ephraim? Yeah? He told Eight and Five to dump his ass to die since he betrayed them before. He was especially fucking cruel to Nadia for trying to kill Five. Yeah. I deadass think this guy would stab someone a billion times if it means his friends would make it. And catch this; the someone also includes himself.

[dorkylittleweirdo]

Okay I offer y'all Sam but make him fancy

[scorrigan]

Real Sam Yao Hours

“The new Five is…they’re brilliant. But oh Alice, they aren’t you.”

Sam remembers Alice. This is probably sometime in the 5k or season 1?

[runner5ive]

Sam's about to get a face full of snow ❄️

Needed to draw a wintery scene because it COLD

[pixeldinostorytelling]

been running (/mostly walking) for 3 days in a row after a long-ish break, and I consistently improved my average pace every time! 9:07/km to 8:19/km to 7:50/km

I like to think Sam would be proud 😌

[abeltownshipslittlebitch]

Sam, just fucking around: 51 looks like SI, which is short for Stark Industries.

Sam: So Area 51 is actually owned by Tony Stark.

My American Five: Somehow you made a correct assumption on a wildly unscientific method.

Sam: I’m good like that.

Sam: Wait, WHAT?