#so was the lobotomy even necessary to begin with?

[harrowing-of-hell]

Didn't wanna reblog the post because it had a message in it that I thought was very important for people to hear and I didn't want to detract from that, but...

I'm very surprised some people think HTN ended with Harrow being vindicated for her lobotomy, or that the narrative is saying what she did is correct in any way. Especially when literally every character except Dulcinea, from Ianthe to Abigail to Magnus and even Alecto (when we only knew her as The Body), was telling Harrow to turn around and accept Gideon's death; from the very beginning of the book no less!!! Even then, unless I'm misremembering, Dulcinea didn't even tell Harrow what to do with the information she gave her! Dulcinea wasn't even sure it was Gideon, just that there was someone in Harrow's body moving it around.

But Harrow, being who she is, obviously was never going to listen to that advice. I made a post tangentially related to this, but Harrow's lobotomy before the beginning of HTN and then Harrow's soul going to sleep in the tomb at the end of HTN are actions that are pretty in-line with her character thus far. And this is why her being in the river-bubble-dream-thing with John in NTN is so important, because she's forced to directly confront what it means to be someone who's incapable of letting go.

After we saw what exactly became of Gideon in NTN, I was definitely of the opinion that things are unequivocally worse now because Harrow could not accept Gideon's sacrifice.

Harrow was trying to avoid consuming Gideon's soul, but as a consequence of her self-lobotomy Gideon is a revenant who's been stuffed into her own corpse, and her experiences during her short unlife have probably been worse than her actual life.

I do not read that as Harrow being rewarded for her suffering. And yeah sure, she may actually get Gideon back in the final book, but we know jack shit about what's actually going to happen in ATN. She may be resurrected, but I personally think it's just as likely that Gideon may stay dead. As it stands right now I think whether or not Harrow was "correct" to do the lobotomy is a heavily debatable question, and I'm heavily leaning towards the answer to that question being no.

[justcallmealt]

Second part of the analysis of my OCs, this time it's only about Fau. And long

First part: here

The last one I would like to end this analysis on is Fau.

Warning: it's very long, contains my cringe and different media (some spoilers might be)

Turning to his story, let's start from the beginning, as i like to say. The basis from which it all began lies not in the world of project Moon, but in the world of the Worm (a book by Wildbow, more than a million words and written in the first person view, but worth reading if anyone is interested in gray morality in the world of superheroes and supervillains Warning: reading may not be very interesting at first, but later it will become interesting again, and I recommend reading at least up to Leviathan to understand what's what).

Story

And finally getting to the point after an unnecessary introduction: to begin with, his family was dysfunctional, and taught him to always be on the lookout, to be sceptical, to hide well despite his appearance, and finally, to be quiet and attentive, not to mention learning how to run away (he's quite good at it. And fast).

I will note the Fau's so-called "trigger event", which occurred later: locked in a shelter with other people, but the Endbringer broke into this shelter, namely Leviathan (yes it's not Project Moon Leviathan, it's... Let's say monster for now. Almost abno). And knowing its nature, victims followed.

Fau (then still preferring his full name Fausto) survived by sheer luck, hidden behind broken glass, too close for comfort, forced to watch people die, unable to do anything at the age of seventeen. Without further ado, when Leviathan was driven off, Fausto noticed a strange part - the first manifestation of his powers. According to Worm's classification, his powers can be classified as Thinker.

After the city gradually began to recover from the ruins, Fausto was offered a deal that he could not refuse even if he wanted to, and ended up working for Coil out of fear. It is also worth mentioning that at that time Fausto did not treat parahumans very well, and the fact that he himself became one hit his pride hard.

The second highlight is when he lost an eye and got facial scars... Let's say without spoilers, in a mass attack.

In theory, he was supposed to die there due to the fact that his powers are made in order to see the connections between things and / or people through glass, and the attack took place with the help of glass. Traumatic shock is not very pleasant for the body, and this is one of the reasons when he was close to death for the first time. However, he survived thanks to outside help (ahem, I'm literally stole name of this my oc who helped Fau then. And later), but even with this help and further help from professional doctors, his eye was lost (he could not see a doctor for parahumans because: firstly, he still did not treat parahumans very well, and this includes himself Secondly, it wouldn't have worked out due to canon events.), and he was left with some pretty bad scars on his face.

The third particularly significant event was at the end, 2 years later, when after defeating (edited to avoid spoilers); barely seeing due to eye strain and a migraine as a side effect of his powers, Fausto (already changed for the better as a character), was close to death, but due to outside help (Alt, my main character and haunting Fau's story like Carmen haunting the Project Moon universe. Well, not that strong haunting, but kind of close), he escaped death, and was transported to the Project Moon universe, where, with a little help, he obtained the necessary documents and all needed for the first time. But it also became the fourth major event: the loneliness of losing everything familiar, even the universe.

Some time later, he was able to get a job at the Lobotomy Corporation, and was assigned as an agent somewhere in the middle of the journey to the day 50.

I will only note that Fau (he adopted this name because most of his colleagues could not say Fausto correctly) has really good Temperance, which allowed him to avoid most of the problems and come up with a story so as not to stand out too much. In the end, he was really close to the level of the captain: not completely, but knowing how to work with the team and documents. And also personally acquainted with some of the captains and trying to help those Juniors who were with him in the department. When the White Nights and Black Days came, he tried, along with other agents, to contain the anomalies, holding out until the onset of the Black Days, in the end trying to at least let some of his Junior Colleagues go to safety (which did not work out, but he did not know it then), after which his second trigger, under similar conditions to the first happened, allowing limited interaction with connections, albeit with pain. But as expected, he also died because of the abnos.

After Day 50, when the events of Library of Ruina had already begun, he was the last librarian to wake up on the Social Sciences floor. At the same time, until a certain point, everything went according to the plot of the Library of the Ruina, until receiving the Purple Tear, where she realized that this "little anomaly" was not so simple, no matter how quietly Fau tried to be with his abilities, trying to gain a small advantage (gain [i forgot how this things called, but let's pretend it's called gifts for now] glassesfrom receptions of the guests and lying that they are needed for sight, although it was worsened by excessive use of his powers).

After receiving her with some troubles, other librarians who had already noticed enough flaws in the Fau's story decided to get answers, but it didn't work out very well, due to not very good choice of words, causing the Fau to panic and try to hide. (Well it's not only team's fault, but also Fau's.)

Thus, his belief that he could find the slightest sign of the safety in this world was shattered, bringing Fau to the brink of Distortion. Which ended up happening and almost ended badly, but in the end he was accepted, undistorted, told his story, and got his ego resonating with ability (I'm not telling too much or this'll be a wall much more).

But because of this, everything went wrong as it could, and Roland's ending was obtained, where Fau once again died, but thanks to the help of Alt (who is not even a human and is capable of much, not to mention his reasons for helping Fau once again), was transferred to another universe, for the moment remaining at the crossroads.

Fears

Moving from history to fears, I note that the Fau has a lot of these fears, and one of the conditions for obtaining an ego, in addition to accepting the fact that safeth, like his lost things, cannot be achieved. The second condition was the Fau's acceptance of the fact that he still remained a coward.

Fau's first fear can be called the fear of his family, from his father who abandoned them, to his mother, who left a deep scar on his childhood, and taught him to be quiet.

The second fear is the most common human fear - the fear of pain, even more powerful due to the injuries that Fau was able to survive. Of course, he developed a certain tolerance for pain and the ability to go through such difficulties with clenched teeth and hissing, albeit on the verge of death. However, that doesn't make the fact that the pain is still quite unpleasant any less significant.

The third fear is the fear of being different from other, "normal" people, which eventually became a fear of standing out from the people of the City due to the fact that Fau appeared here against his will. This fear played a part in getting the e.g.o..

Another fear that will not be acknowledged out loud by him is that Fau is afraid of never finding a safe place where he can take a break and be himself even for the smallest amount of time. Even if this place is temporary, it greatly reduces his stress, so working in the main facility in lobcorp was also quite difficult for him because of this.

And the last, main fear is that Fau is afraid to be completely alone, even if he does not understand this on a conscious level. Fear of not being understood by anyone, losing everything more or less familiar again because of the carpet pulled out from under the feet by fate, the feeling of free fall and the trembling of the heart before the inevitable blow.

But that's not all, since another fear follows from this main fear, namely the fear of being caught in a lie, that his unconscious reservations will lead to terrible consequences for him, which can be described in simple words as the unknown. This fear causes Fau to doubt the future, leading to more fear of the possibilities, although he tries not to think too much about the possibilities himself.

Sins

And finally, moving on to the sins of Fau.

The sin around which one could build his personality is Gloom. This gloom came from becoming a cape and realizing that parahumans are much more difficult than what was written about them on the forums (it's 2011-2013 in that time), losing everything familiar in Fau's life, including people, and more than once. Understanding that he cannot change this due to lack of the required amount of power, and even if he reaches this kind of power, he will not be able to return back and redo things. Recurring nightmares of loss, from Leviathan's attack to the deaths of those he knew in Lobcorp. Or when he survived without his will (the destruction of the Library, he was unbooked with Alt's help after Roland killed everyone on the Social Science floor.)

The second aspect I can highlight is Sloth, the reaction of forced apathy in order not to feel emotional pain. Making a facade about not being hurt by other people's deaths (just because he's seen them before from a distance doesn't mean he can get used to it), even when he was beginning to fear that the clerks were merging into a gray mass every day, causing Fau to think about it, covering himself goosebumps from such realization. But also to keep this facade and in order to avoid suspicion as well.

The third aspect will be a little controversial, since two sins had the same power at creation: Envy and Wrath.

Envy suits Fau because of his feelings, the desire to be like other people and not stand out, the desire not to know those problems and keep his pride then, perhaps even preventing a worsening condition because of his past. Seen from the Fau's point of view, his envy is directed towards both ordinary people and people with enough power to be left alone (or the power to protect those on his team, since he was close to the rank of team captain for good reason). Also, I'll cut off his thoughts about Yin, "I know what it's like to be considered a villain, how it is to be just don't having a choice," which... Not exactly true, since anomalies are inexplicable, but are concepts from human feelings. And this concept isn't fully can be understanded by him, Fau can only see some similarities and don't see difference.

Wrath. From the outside, it looks like Fau's scathing comments to others, a tactic to piss off the opponent enough to take advantage; but this tactic can be used on allies under uncomfortable conditions, such as when trying to find out the Fau's past. And as he himself admits, Fau knows that he does not have the best character.

Seen from the outside, anger is expressed in resilience, when on the verge of death he survived out of spite, gritting his teeth and barely audibly hissing in pain, but rising. Either when trying to suppress an anomaly that had red damage in order to give the Juniors time, or if the suppression was done alone, then let the Manager know with this behavior that he is here, and will not leave so easily.

Potential abnormality

Starting to extract the abno. My assumptions are that this anomaly would most likely be associated with water in the form of tears from repressed emotions, and also that this anomaly would look like an inanimate object (when considering his Distortion, it looked like a statue with a cracked hexagon crystal instead of a head that oozes red salty water). Also, this anomaly most likely would be associated with Trauma or would be able to see connections between [things].

And if we consider the timeline when he worked in lobcorp, then the abnomality extracted from Fau could only see, but not interact with connections. But after the second trigger, this anomaly could interact, thereby leading to unpredictable results. Also, this anomaly would have black damage.

Otherwise, this anomaly would be related to defense, but to a much lesser extent, something related to the restoration of Sp, but not Hp, up to a point, but not like Thearesia. Or it could be an anomaly related to childhood trauma, as this is a very important theme in the Fau story.

Ending

On this, I ask you to consider the analysis completed.

But. If someone is interested, I will try to write an analysis of the distortion and e.g.o. Fau, touching in more detail on his superpowers and their interaction with the Light.

[raymondebidochonlifechoices]

Are you confident Bughead will be endgame on this show? That’s literally the last strand I’ve been holding onto, but the thread is weakening. I really can’t believe that they would take this ship, their absolute most popular and loved one, and just end it like this forever. I am so angry with the writing!!

Hey there, anon! It is unbelievable, isn’t it?

What a tricky question you ask! confidence + prediction + the Riverdale writers ... As Jughead would say: yikes!

The thing with these writers is that they use a lot of words without knowing their meaning. “Endgame” is one of them. “New” is another. “Exciting”. “Darkness”™. “Adult stories”. “The message”…

Dangling the bughead “endgame” carrot at the end of one or two seasons of no bughead or -worse- of b*rchie and j*bitha f.e. is not an endgame. The general definition of endgame -outside of chess- is: the last stage of a process. If the process (i.e. the season’s content) isn’t about bughead, then bughead coming together at the very end is not an endgame, it's a peripeteia i.e. a sudden or unexpected reversal of circumstances.

In shipping, endgame is a couple that will inevitably end together (for ever and ever and ever). In order for something to be inevitable, you have to create that sentiment, you have to build the couple up.

There’s an article about the misappropriation of the word “endagame” that I find particularly funny, as it starts by mentioning Riverdale!

Anyway, this is a long-winded way to say that, yes, I do believe that the show will end with bughead and varchie as their main canon couples. It’s just that, like you, I’m so very tired with these story lines. There is satisfaction to be had at the notion of endgame but a seasonful of investigative bughead would be infinitely preferable. For me (and I can only speak of myself) the journey is more important than the destination -even if for the simple reason that -in TV show time- it lasts longer!

Why do I think bughead is still … that word? Everything’s under the cut, so as not to clutter your dash!

1. A lot of people have been theorising that what happened in 5x18 was not the original plot. I agree.

Let’s start with 5x18 varchie.

Their break up came completely out of left field. Its unexpectedness is reminiscent of 4x17. I make fun of how s5 is a reboot of s1+s2’s leftover ideas, so another copy-paste shouldn’t feel out of place, and yet … really? Another repetition? To what end? If the season’s goal was not varchie, b*rchie was already there waiting at the beginning of the time jump! Why abandon that plot? In terms of romantic varchie time, that was extremely limited, since after their kiss in 5x7, Veronica’s divorce kept them apart until 5x17 … Why have Archie being extremely jealous of Chad, Veronica getting involved in all of Archie’s schemes (firefighters, bulldogs), Archie getting involved in Ronnie’s (rescuing daddykins) or Veronica telling her father she chooses Archie over him in 5x17? Also, for those who remember, there was this by the-writer-who-shall-not-be-named.

The reason of the break up is as ludicrous as Veronica moving into Archie’s childhood bedroom (with its effing slanted roof!) on the premise that long term the Andrews’ residence has more room! (By the way, I don’t know what surprised me more: that Veronica thought that Archie and uncle Frank would know who Ina Garten is or that Jughead didn’t.) Why is Veronica astounded by Archie’s involvement in the same activities he has been involved in all through the season?! For f***���s sake, she’s the one that gifted him the fire truck!

Ok. Now let’s give 5x18 j*bitha a try.

For me, 5x18 could either have gone bugheadwards or j*bithawards. J*bitha had some heartfelt talks, a hand touch, a hallucination and a kiss. Bughead had one unfinished heartfelt talk (the only one in the whole season for Betty), two shoulder touches, two hallucinations and Jughead attempting to reconnect with Betty (without specifying what his intent was, it's true).

While I do think that j*bitha is a ship that has been adequately teased, the way they were explored in 5x18 was … not underwhelming exactly (after all, they’re not my ship, so I didn’t have any expectations about them) but … maybe lukewarm is the word? They had but minimal dialogue, only enough to establish that Tabitha’s parents were in town. Then a song where Tabitha initially rejects Jughead, although she had been supportive before. Then another song, where the lyrics were heavily altered and didn’t make much sense anyway (we hadn’t been properly introduced to the Tates) but where the original lyrics were very compatible with Bughead’s history and state of being as of 5x17. The kisses were ok, I have no problem with the actors’ chemistry. But -and this is strictly a personal opinion- Jughead’s flirting scenes (not the make-out ones, you perverts!) with Cora were better and so was the j*bitha kiss in 5x10. For the 5x18 j*bitha to flow, more dialogue and more flirting was necessary (always a persona opinion). So, no, I don’t think j*bitha were supposed to sing what they sang in 5x18.

Production for s5 wrapped up one week after the official announcement of the 5 special episodes for Riverdale and The Flash: “we expect it will take us until Fall 2022 to get back to a regular schedule” was the official quote. Re-organising the cw’s overall schedule didn’t happen overnight. Yes, more likely than not, the writers knew about the specifics of s6a before shooting 5x18-5x19 and had time to re-write them.

2. The couples spoilers for s6 do not make sense plot-wise.

If the end-goal for 5x19-6x1 had been b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie all along, these were pairs already happening (except from v*ggie) at the beginning of the time-jump. As for v*ggie, last time we saw them, Veronica pulled a face when she heard that he had had (still has?) an affair with Hermosa. And what about Nana Rose?! (ok, that was a joke! ... or was it? 👀)

The majority of both the fans and the general audience are bugvarchie shippers. Teasing b*rchie and j*bitha as a means of maintaining the viewers’ interest in a will they/won’t they way, only works if the audience finally gets what they want. In this season. Not the next one! There is so much trolling one can take after all. In the space of 1.5 year (4x17-5x19) b*rchie will have been teased ... THREE times (and still lacking build-up)!

I cannot myself see b*rchie, j*bitha and v*ggie as endgame couples. For the audience to invest in them after 4 years of bugvarchie, the writers have to a) give j*bitha an absolutely incredible development that will surpass bughead and the cinematography to go with it (good luck with that) and b) undo Archie’s character (highly unlikely) and/or give Betty a lobotomy (at which point a lot of people will quit en masse, because Archie as The One All The Girls Want just doesn't resonate with the majority).

I have no idea if s6a is an AU or not. But if it’s not, no one will be left to watch 6b.

Can I guarantee a bughead endgame? Of course not. I have no idea how the minds of the Riverdale writers work. But I do think that Jughead and Betty getting back together is more than wishful thinking.

Fervently shipping Jughead/Betty, Jughead/his book and Betty/therapy, sincerely yours, @raymondebidochonlifechoices

I hope you have fun with the Riverdale universe regardless, dear anon. Riverdale has given us one of the most beautiful getting-together stories in s1 and lots and lots of beautiful canon bughead afterwards. Here's to many more! Much love to you!

[adsosfraser]

The Stone’s Toll - Chapter Four

Read on AO3

cw: medical trauma/abuse

They stripped her to the bone and prodded her towards the corner with the spigot about a metre above her head. Their eyes were focused intently on her every move, calculating each misstep. One of her guards called out into the hall and the water surged down in high pressured spurts. She had been naked with strangers before. Had been dressed by them. Bare and vulnerable. Mrs. Fitz came to mind. But this was not anything like that, it felt demeaning, dehumanising. It was intended to humble her. 

 The other guard threw a bar of soap which Claire fumbled with and fell to the floor. The grime on the floor had built up for years and mould dotted the edges of the shower. She scrunched her nose at the thought of picking the soap up from such an environment, but the stares of the guards burrowed deep into her skin.

 “Two minutes.”

Claire carefully traced the spot above her heart. It stung less than before when she was weaned off of the pain medication. Claire was heavily sedated for those six days in hospital. She felt like she had when she returned through the stones, a crushing weight bearing down on her body. And she was all alone. Her injury was monitored until she could be properly transferred to Danvers State Hospital, or rather the Danvers Lunatic Asylum, where they placed her unceremoniously in her cage-like room. The pounding force of the shower left a dull pain, almost opening the wound on her breast again. She scrubbed the dirt, the pain off of her skin until she felt she had no skin left. 

 Claire was soon in the plain cotton uniform they provided everyone. Her hair flew wildly above her head because she was unable to comb through her curls. They at least deemed her safe enough to not need restraints on top of the guards that flanked her. How kind. Those were reserved for the more violent afflictions.

 She watched as her tangled curls floated down to the tiled floor around her feet. Her hair was shorn to about her chin to conform with the other patients. 

 The institute had yet decided what to do about her condition, which they concluded was melancholia and the hysteria which accompanied it. All unnecessary consequences of her female persuasion. 

 “I assure you, sir, I am perfectly fine. Now if I could just speak to my husband.” She forced herself to put out the last word.

 “He is still considering the terms of your release and treatment. You gave Mr. Randall quite a shock.” Doctor Lionel Brown quirked his eyebrows at his patient, placing the pairs of his pointer and middle finger against his lips in thought.

 “I know. Now if you’d just-“

 A knock sounded at the door.

 “Mr. Anderson you may come in.”

 “Mrs. Randall, this is Mr. Anderson, our specialist in mood disorders. He’s shed some insight with me earlier about what may be best in order for you to be released. If you don’t mind, Mr. Anderson.” 

 “I think our electroshock therapies would be very conducive for her recovery. When repeated twice a week, these treatments help ease pain and reduce memories that are hard to pass on their own.” Anderson glanced at Doctor Brown and continued. “Another option if the treatments are unable to hold and improve your condition is the transorbital lobotomy which is guaranteed to permanently improve it. I can assure you ma’am this avenue has been thoroughly researched and our patients report a calm demeanour within weeks of the operation. 

 “I highly doubt that’s necessary sir.” Claire scoffed. 

 Claire slumped in her chair and considered for a second. She could be free of the pain, of the man who haunted her every waking moment. She could stop mourning her husband, her family at Lallybroch, and her children. Maybe she would forget and finally be able to return to Frank as Jamie had intended. But she could never forget Jamie, no matter what happened to her. Her mind may forget but her soul would always keep him within her. 

 It was four doors later that she reluctantly followed one of the nurse’s in the ward down the dreary halls. No matter her reluctance to it, her treatments would begin according to the doctor’s schedule. 

 Claire was instructed to take off her shoes as she entered the room. She glanced around the room only to be met with unfamiliar faces. She had comforted the woman who went before her who was convulsing and writhing on the treatment table. Claire tried to soothe her and soon her breathing evened out and a dazed look took over her face. There was no fighting this. If Claire refused to comply, it would be much worse. The woman slouched to the floor and began her walk away from the machine. 

 The orderly wiped off the metal table from the woman’s sweat and perhaps even a small amount of urine: the reactions to the terror. He sighed and wrote on the chart, detailing exactly how the patient’s body handled the treatment. He pointed to the table, not even sparing a glance at Claire. One. Two. Three. She thought as she forced each step. Her back and limbs arched away from the shocking cold of the metal and her muscles tensed reflexively. 

 The nurse placed a flat wooden stick in her mouth and instructed her to bite down. Her arms and legs were strapped down before she could change her mind and start thrashing against her jailer. Two firm ovals suctioned to her temples and a strap ran around her head securing the device to her head. 

 Perhaps it was her indifference that led them to choose this method of torture. She would be sure to smile and have all the warmth of a womanly countenance when she next met with Doctor Brown. Her fate depended on her first husband, and the doctor that held her hostage within the suffocating walls of the institution. She had made her feelings quite clear to Frank, and perhaps he was enacting his vengeance this way.

 As the first wave of electricity passed through her body straight to her heart and mind, her body convulsed under its strain. After the base time of thirty seconds for her treatment, her body slumped back down onto the cold surface that sent chills down her spine. She was left disoriented and stupid, waiting to gain back her senses. 

 “Who’s this, Smiley?” Claire’s mind could barely discern the shape of the figure hanging on the doorframe before her. The glum nurse who was addressed was the farthest thing from smiley. 

 “Mrs. Randall, your newest neighbour.”

 “Oh, how exciting!” The girl who couldn’t be more than fourteen slipped something into the nurse’s pocket. “I think I’ll call you Miss Curly Wig.” She grinned and eyed the mess of curls fanned out around on the silver surface enviously. 

 The orderly nonchalantly slipped a lollipop into the girl’s waiting hands and a piece of gum, payment for whatever she had smuggled in for him. 

 “You’ll be just fine Miss Curly Wig.” The girl who was barely a teenager patted her shoulder in comfort. Claire couldn’t do more than stare blankly at the girl, no words appearing on her tongue. “Sure the first one is a bit of a shock. But you get over it. Your brain is like cotton the first few days, and you look as dumb as ever, but if you comply, they shorten it to every three weeks instead. I haven’t gotten the shock in four weeks now because I’ve been on my best behaviour. Haven’t had the urge to steal in months. Isn’t that right Smiley?”   

 Smiley grunted affirmatively in a way that reminded her of Murtagh while he put away the equipment from the day’s treatments. Her heart ached along with her head and tears pricked at the corner of her eyes.

 “Can I escort her back to her room Smiley? You are done here for the day, aren’t you?” 

 “Yes, Miss Emily.” The nurse clearly was uncomfortable straying from protocol. 

 Claire walked back in silence to the plain white room, filled with only a white metal bed and mattress. Emily patted her hand on the sheets and Claire plopped down on them. The rambunctious child flitted out of the room, excited to find a new face in the dreary and tedious schedule of the ward. 

 Claire laid back against the stiff pillow of her twin bed. It was impossible to get comfortable here. Her brain was buzzing and her fingers felt tingly, like the static from the radio. In the night, when the other patient's cries filled her mind, she traced the fading scar on her palm where he cut her. The rings, sgian dubh, pearls and her old clothes were the only physical proof it had been real. Now she had none of them. No tangible proof in her grasp. The only reminder was the memory of the slight pain when he marked out the flesh into a J.

 “Milady!” Fergus screamed into the empty air of the great room. His body curled up into one of the velvet chaises by the fire and his whimpers woke Jamie, who rested his eyes on the floor beside the inconsolable child. Jamie had almost drifted off to sleep himself, but his mind buzzed with thoughts of his wife. He rose and gathered Fergus in his arms, hushing the boy. 

 “Milady.” The tears renewed themselves and tumbled without end down his cheeks. Jamie stroked the hair from his son’s face and cursed when his hand felt the hot and sweaty skin. 

 Claire woke up shaking on the sweat-soaked sheets. “Fergus.” Her guilt of leaving him, her family was insurmountable. But she felt deep in her bones something terribly awful. A dread that squeezed at her heart. Just like any other person could feel the earth shift under their feet, before possessing the actual knowledge of what happened to their loved one. A fellow war nurse once told her of her premonitions, and the next day she was sent an impersonal letter declaring his death in battle.

 She pressed the pillow against her ears, trying to block out the vivid visions of the young French boy. 

 Emily became an ally to Claire in the short amount of time she had been in the B ward. She followed her constantly like a lost puppy and accompanied her to the electroshock therapies every week. Claire supposed the girl had deemed her the sanest out of their fellow patients, so she must have felt more at ease in her presence. The girl had even taught Claire a neat trick, how to pretend to swallow her medicine and then spit it out later. 

 At night, the faces in the flecks of the popcorn ceiling above taunted her. Every move of the shadows was a demon reimagined in her mind. Of her family and those who wished her harm. They all played an equal role in the play stretched out before her. Two straight lines and a curve mixed together into one evil, Black Jack Randall and her husband. Her mind drifted to the sight of her son, curled up and shivering in his sickbed. She was stuck between the tormenting images in the ceiling or the all too real feel of Fergus’ small body pressed against her in a tight hug. 

 “Miss Curly Wig!” It took her a moment to recognise her young companion, the thoughts seeped slowly through her mind like molasses. 

 “Where on earth did you get these?” 

 “I filched them from Doc B when I was snooping through your files. I was going to trade them to Smiley, but I thought better. Hide them in your bra, they never look there.” The child winked at her. 

 “Thanks for the advice.” She slipped the silver down her shirt and was about to scatter the gold across the wooden boards of the floor when she thought better; it was a valuable chunk of money. “What do you want in return?” 

 “Nothing yet. But those locks of yours sure are pretty.” 

 “You want a lock of my hair?” 

 She stared at the child dumbfounded. Hers easily rivalled Claire’s, the fiery red waving around her ears and growing slowly towards her shoulders. What harm was there in giving a child a piece of a muddied brown curl? She gripped a strand of her hair from the base of her head and held it taut. Claire ripped the piece just below the hold her hand had on it so it wouldn’t be plucked directly from her scalp. Her palms opened, gifting the rare thing to the adolescent. Her face visibly brightened and she snatched it immediately. She tucked in safely within her shirt like Claire had done with her rings and skipped down the hall towards the dark wood staircase. 

 Claire plastered a sickly sweet smile as she sat on the plastic chair. Dr. Brown shuffled some papers on his desk and ignored her. He licked his finger to card through the pages and pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose. He cleared his throat before finally acknowledging her.

 “Ah, Mrs. Randall. And what, might I ask, lead me to the pleasure of seeing you in my office today?”

 “As you can see, Dr. Brown, the treatments have worked splendidly and I would very much like to return home now. I see no need to be kept here further.” 

 “I’m sorry ma’am it’s just not how- oh looky here! Your husband signed for your release when he visited me yesterday.” 

 “Great, so now this has all been sorted.”

 “Just hold on Mrs. Randall.” He emphasised her proper name. “Yes, he’s clearly signed your release here, but we’ll need to keep you here for an observation period of at least three more days. Make sure you’ll do no more harm to yourself or others. But, you’ll be glad to know we have seen an improvement from your treatments, and your last one will be this Friday, a day before your release.” 

 She bit her tongue to hold back the avalanche of defiant words and insults she wanted to fling at the man who held her fate in his hands. Finally, she settled for a simple, “thank you,” and left back to the empty halls. 

 The bastards in the hospital had made zero progress in truly helping her. If she was asked, Claire knew she wouldn’t be able to recall any detail at all about the last few months of her life. If she could call it that, she was dead living. The therapies only added to her already failing memory. Emily was the only bright part of her day, and now she was leaving the poor girl in the hands of these people alone. 

 Her final night, when her brain sludged forward through its thoughts, a consequence of her treatments, she finally allowed herself to relax back into her bed fully. But that was a mistake. Fergus sat before the fire at Lallybroch, playing soldier with some chess pieces. The sight of the son of her heart pierced through her chest. He turned around and smiled at her softly. 

 “Come back, Milady, please. Milord needs you. I miss you maman.” He had never called her maman before, only Milady. 

 On closer inspection, his eyes were wide with fear at the apparition before him. He knew Milady would never harm him, but there was something otherworldly about her appearance now, much different than her usual strange demeanour. Sensing his trepidation, she kissed his forehead gently, taking the pain and fear into herself from that small point where her lips met his curl that dangled there. A tear dripped down the edge of her nose to his cheek. A flash of red and blue entered the dream, but by then she was already awake.

[realm-sweet-realm]

A Worthwhile Investment, chapter 3

Please enjoy this Grant x Shawn story. Yes, I split it into two short chapters. Apparently I can’t be succinct with these two... hopefully I made the right choice!

Next is Thomas x Allison!

Time went by. The studio worsened in most respects. Though its installation was nothing out of the ordinary, it felt as though the ink machine was creeping through the halls, its long pipes growing into new areas. Wherever it went, it left the scent of sickly rubber ink and stained through the walls, like a creeping, musty black mold. That alone would have brought down morale, but it was nothing compared to the financial crisis. Every department was operating on a slashed budget, and yet Joey refused to lower his demands on any of them. Whenever someone quit out of anger, there was relief- it meant that those who remained would be less likely to be laid off. The studio was a rotting body, ravaged by the parasite of the ink machine and struggling to move its massive weight now that so many of its workers were gone.

Grant was not handling it well. His department understood that it the studio’s financial problems weren’t his fault, but he didn’t blame anyone else for hating the man who had decided how much to slash their budget, or who told them, while they were already underpaid, that their paycheck would be late because there simply was no money to pay them. It was his job to prevent this from happening. But with Joey spending more and more on Bendyland and the ink machine, and refusing to downsize anything when it was really overdue to do so, it was proving impossible. It was soul-crushing.

Things weren’t easy on Shawn, either. Fewer staff for the same amount of plushes meant having to work longer and faster, and making plushes out of cheaper materials meant that there was less room for error before the cheap, delicate things they’d been reduced to selling simply fell apart. Shawn was getting screamed at more than usual nowadays.

At least they had each other. During better times, their relationship had been on and off. There were periods when one of them just couldn’t handle the other’s issues or couldn’t handle being in a relationship at the moment, and they’d break up, only to get back together after a while. Shawn had even dated other people during their temporary breaks. Neither of them were especially serious about their relationship, so it worked for them. Now, they were together for the foreseeable future. There was little time or energy for romance anymore, but they stole the moments they could and hoped that things would eventually improve. Shawn had even moved into Grant’s house at the time. This was good for both of them- living with someone else made things easier domestically during this busy time, and it was good to come home from a difficult day at work and meet up with someone who loved you and brightened your mood.

“Ah think we should quit,” Shawn said one day over dinner. “None-a this is healthy. I’m sick of it, you certainly ain’t yourself, and anyhow, yer always saying the company won’t last another year.” Shawn saw Grant hesitate. “Well, Ah’m quitting. Join me or don’t, Ah don’t care.”

“I have a feeling that things will improve once Bendyland opens. It’s supposed to open in three months,” well, it was supposed to open over a year ago, but hopefully they could reach the new deadline, “so, let’s see where the studio is in five months. If we’re not having a much better time at work by then, let’s do it. Or you can quit sooner- please, don’t let me hold you back. But that’s when I’m doing it.”

“Five months sounds great! I’ll mark it on the calendar. To a chance at a better life!”

Grant forced a smile. “To a chance at a better life.” He honestly wished Shawn would just quit so that he didn’t feel like he was holding him back.

There were a few reasons that Grant didn’t want to quit. It wasn’t about money (he had some saved up), or fear that he couldn’t get another job (he had the experience to land another). Mostly, it was about pride. Grant might be the financial manager of a failing massive company, but still, he was the finances manager of a massive company- with a department working under him and his own secretary. This could be the highest-profile job he would ever have. He also worried that the next job would be just as miserable. He recognized, though, that he couldn’t stay in an awful work environment for those reasons, let alone keep Shawn in one. And no matter what, the studio would be dead in a few years, so he’d have to leave it eventually. And heck- maybe Shawn was right. Maybe it would be better.

---

It was while Grant was walking down one of the Joey Drew Studios hallways that it happened, though it had seemed rather insignificant at the time. A burly, blond GENT worker deliberately loosened a bolt on one of the ink pipes as he passed, spraying a cloud of ink fumes into his face.

“That’s for getting my buddy laid off,” the man grumbled as Grant coughed on the fumes.

“Hey!” another GENT worker, shouted, “pull another stunt like that, and you’ll be the one leaving for good!” The GENT worker ran over to Grant. “You alright, sir? I can pay for the dry cleaning if you want.”

“Don’t bother,” Grant snapped, “just teach your men some respect.”

Grant looked down at his thoroughly stained suit and dress shirt and weighed whether to arrive at his next meeting late or drenched. He decided on the former and turned for the exit. As he left, he heard one of the GENT men telling the other, “that’s how you get our budget cut even more!” It was rather strange to be such a frightening creature nowadays.

By evening, Grant was feeling sick- as though he had a flu coming on. He spent a few days laying around before returning to work, feeling just as badly. He couldn’t afford more time off if he didn’t want to end up entirely buried by work. Shawn was mildly concerned when it was a few weeks in and the illness didn’t seem to be going away- and that Grant was intent on working through it- but all he could do was support Grant through it and give him the space he needed. Even in the beginning, it was extremely frustrating that his boyfriend was suffering and unable to do much of anything outside of work, but to an extent it was nothing Shawn wasn’t used to- Grant had had bouts of depression nearly as bad as this. As time went on, Shawn noticed some more disturbing changes.

It was about two weeks in that the voice emerged and the hallucinations began. Grant had been in his office when he’d heard a pained scream- seemingly from right outside of it. He rushed out, expecting to see an injured person or an emergency of some sort. Instead, he found only his secretary, perfectly calm and looking at him as though he was an alien. “Do you know where that came from?” Grant asked.

“Where what came from?” Oh, that judgmental stare.

“The scream? You heard the scream, right?”

“No.”

Grant cringed and closed the door to his office.

The headaches, the brain fog, the fatigue, and now the hallucinations, a voice said. It was a voice that sounded as real as the scream had, but it wasn’t one he’d heard before. Do you want to know what’s causing it? There was a pause, as though Grant would answer and let his secretary think even worse of him. You’re losing your mind. You know what they do with crazy people, right? An image of an electric chair flashed through Grant’s mind, followed by an image of locked insane asylum doors and tools used for a lobotomy. Just carry on. Try to act normal, and don’t let anyone know about this. I’ll be here when you need me. Grant sat back down at his desk, taking a look around the room as though he could find where the voice was coming from. Finding nothing, he returned to his paperwork.

A few weeks later, Grant decided to coax some answers from the voice. It was absurd- if it was right, and it probably was, the voice came from him, and couldn’t know anything he didn’t. But he had few options. His symptoms were becoming glaringly obvious. Shawn had noticed that he was spacing out during conversations, and his department was noticing that he couldn’t keep track of time and was making mathematical errors he never would have before. Shawn had even seen him react to hallucinations a couple times, and it frightened him. Grant knew he needed to figure this out before it hurt his professional life, or hurt his relationship any further.

It was a cold winter’s night. Grant returned home after work- thankfully Shawn wasn’t home yet- and went to his room to interrogate.

“Alright,” he said, facing the wall. “Tell me what I have. If there’s a way to fix it, I’m going to.”

Shawn had been unable to sleep that night, so he heard Grant’s voice. It didn’t bother him, though, until Grant started yelling. Shawn got up and went to investigate. The house was totally dark except for the light coming from Grant’s room. Shawn creaked open the door. Grant was facing a wall, shifting his weight as though he might spring on his invisible adversary if it proved necessary.

[braincoins]

for DA Shallura

I’ve been doing a series of posts about basic Dragon Age canon for my DA fic series, Dragon Age: Schism. HOWEVER, my Dragon Age AU for Shallura has slightly different background (it takes place before DA:O, and thus before any of DA:S) and I include headcanons and whatnot for DA:S in those info posts. 

So I thought I’d make One post with all the info that @tybalt-tisk​ or anyone else could need to make sense of what’s going on in that fic specifically. Some of this will be copy-pasted from what I’ve already done for DA:S because c’mon why write it twice? But everything here should give the necessary bgd for that fic. If you want/need to ask me other questions, feel free!

With credit, as always, to @yslanam​ who started this by first suggesting a DA AU for Shallura. And if you make it to the end, there’s pretty Mitz art! (Or you could skip to it, I know, but... be good, hm?)

Our story takes place in the country of Ferelden on the continent Thedas. Ferelden is basically Fantasy England (though not an island and not shaped that way), and is about the same size and climate (though it’s south of the equator, not north of it).

Shiro was born Takashi Shirogane in a small village where everyone knew everyone else and he liked it there. Loved it there, really. He signed on to be in his bann’s (the noble who ruled the land and its village) army, as did another young man from his town (whose name Shiro rarely speaks now). They served honorably and well and fell in love. 

And then they were called to battle. Shiro survived: plus a scar and some new white hair, but minus his right arm, which was too badly injured and had to be amputated. Shiro’s lover didn’t make it, though. Shiro was discharged with pay and a small bonus, but that money would run out eventually. He’s not sure what to do with himself, and he overhears people talking about what a shame it is, such a young man now destined to just wither away because, well, he’s basically worthless now. Can’t work a farm, can’t fight in wars. It hits him hard. He wants to prove himself worthy of... of something, anything, just to prove them wrong.

That’s what brings him to the Grey Wardens. 

Allura is a city elf. Elves are second-class citizens - at best - amongst humans, and the city elves live in ghettos called “alienages.” Her father was the Elder of the Highever (a city in Ferelden) Alienage: the man in charge, basically. That didn’t mean Allura behaved though; even as a child, she would rant about how elves were people just like humans and they deserved better treatment. This didn’t win her a lot of friends; most city elves learn quick that yelling about the truth just draws a whole lot of unwelcome - and often armed - attention.

But then it was discovered that Allura had magic, and she was taken off to the Tower of the Circle of Magi to be trained... and supervised. If there’s anything worse than being an elf in Ferelden, it’s being a mage. Mages, if they aren’t careful, can basically be possessed by demons and then they kill a bunch of people and it’s a bad scene. Therefore most people fear mages, and the Chantry - the main religious organization on the continent and damn near the only one in Ferelden - has created Templars to watch over the mages of the Circle. 

The Templars are also known as “mage-hunters” because that’s one of their main duties: running down mages who try to flee their gilded cage. They also kill any mage suspected of being demon-possessed. And they’re posted all throughout the Tower, watching... always watching...

Allura liked learning magic but hated that this is how it’s done. She’s just been moved from one cage to another, and she wasn’t silent about that either. Things came to a head after she became an official mage; she saw a Templar about to force himself on a fellow mage, who was terrified of the man. She got angry and killed the man, straight out. She should have been killed, made Tranquil (basically magical lobotomy) or sent to Aeonar, the mage prison, but Duncan, the Warden-Commander, was there visiting and recruited her away, instead. 

That’s what brings her to the Grey Wardens.

And that’s where she meets Shiro.

So, really now, what is a Grey Warden? Well, that depends on who you ask. To most people outside the order, the Grey Wardens are a glorious order of noble heroes! And why is that? Well, they’re immune to the darkspawn taint (which usually kills people) and so they can safely slay darkspawn! They’re also the only ones who can stop Blights!! …though this last bit of information is often forgotten, given that Blights happen once every few centuries.

If you ask me, the Grey Wardens are the biggest dick move in Thedas, which is actually part of why I love them. Here’s all the downsides to joining this “glorious order”:

First of all, the Right of Conscription. Ferelden has it; not sure if other nations in Thedas do? Anyway, it means that Grey Wardens can recruit anyone at any time. In practice, they have to be careful how they wield this tool (especially in Ferelden), but the RoC has been used to save people from hangings or other deadly fates… on the condition that they become a Warden Recruit. So… didn’t want to be Warden Recruit? TOO BAD, YOU ARE NOW. And no, you don’t get a say in the RoC. (Allura was RoC’d, to keep the commander of the Templars from killing her.)

Second of all, there’s the Joining. It turns out that, in order to become a Grey Warden, you have to drink darkspawn blood. And a bunch of other stuff in there, but really now, DRINKING DARKSPAWN BLOOD. You might recognize this as a stupidly dangerous thing to do, given that darkspawn blood KILLS THINGS. But your options are drink it or die, because the Grey Wardens present at the Joining will kill you if you try to back out after learning about this. If you drink from the Joining chalice, you also might die, but your name will be remembered as a Grey Warden at least? Even though you’re dead. And hey, if you live, you… become “immune” to the darkspawn taint, which is to say you’re already fucking tainted so it’s not like it can get worse. Want to know why the Grey Wardens don’t tell people they’re gonna make them drink darkspawn blood? Well, if they did that, people wouldn’t want to join, and we need Grey Wardens.

Supposing you survive the Joining, there’s the shortened lifespan (10-30 years depending on your sources) and the nightmares (that maybe you can learn to tune out). Again, they don’t tell you this until afterwards. Why? Because then people might not want to become Grey Wardens… yadda yadda. (Shiro might not speak Adam’s name anymore but he sure does yell it some nights, jolting out of a night terror and back to reality.)

Oh, and forget about having kids! It’s very difficult if not impossible to have children as a Grey Warden! (Not like they let mages have kids in the Circle. And Shiro’d been in love with a man, so he was okay with not having biological children anyway.)

At some point, even if you were able to tune the nightmares out, they’ll come back and there’ll be nothing you can do about it. That’s the first sign of The Calling. Because it turns out that the Joining is really just turning you into a ghoul, except very, very slowly. You’re getting close to Ghoul-dom now. Most Grey Wardens choose to die in battle against the darkspawn rather than waiting to be turned. It’s tradition.

And if there’s a Blight going on? Oh, well, it turns out that the only way to kill an Archdemon is to sacrifice a Grey Warden. Why didn’t they tell you? DO YOU EVEN HAVE TO ASK NOW?!

The motto of the Grey Wardens is “In war, victory. In peace, vigilance. In death, sacrifice.”

So what I’m saying is that Grey Wardens are SUPER TRAGIC BADASSES. They also wind up pretty cut off from their former lives, so the Wardens become their family. So, basically, SUPER TRAGIC BADASS FOUND FAMILY. 

Shiro and Allura get close because it turns out they work well together as a fighting pair: he as a warrior, she as a mage. Even with only one arm, Shiro can at least protect Allura as she takes shit out. They’re quickly a unit, just the two of them, always sent out together. It’s no wonder it starts to blossom into love.

But Allura sees that Shiro wants to do more than just protect and shield bash, so she starts trying to figure out how to make him a prosthetic: one worthy of a Grey Warden. One... worthy of him. 

There are different schools of magic: Creation is the healing branch, and it seems natural to try to work with that some, but in the end, Allura has to also dip into a forbidden school: Blood Magic. Blood Magic has the reputation of being evil because you’re using people’s blood - people’s life forces - to power your spells. After growing up in the Tower, she’s understandably nervous about using it.

But she talks about it with Shiro, and although he might otherwise be scared of Blood Magic, she tells him she doesn’t need a lot of it, it won’t kill him, and... well, it’s her. He trusts her. And she works hard to be worthy of that trust, she goes over this spell she’s created several times. It should work to attach the arm - made of silverite, a very powerful and durable metal - to him so he can use it.

She just forgot about the darkspawn taint coursing through him. His blood is not normal. And there are some... side effects from messing with it.

I do recommend reading this post (it’s kinda 1/2 meta, 1/2 fic) but if you don’t want to, the short version is that Shiro has trouble controlling his arm at first and so he pushes Allura away because he’s afraid of hurting her. She takes that as a well-deserved rebuke because she did this to him. 

Eventually they scream it all out at each other: he loves her, he was afraid for her, she feels guilty and is so afraid he’ll leave her, etc. They settle down and start working together on figuring out how Shiro can better control this thing. At the beginning of this fic, he’s gotten the hang of it now.

I’ll put up pictures of their uniforms when I can, and other than that, you should be good to go! I know this was long, sorry. Here, have some pretty @mitzoco​ art:

[hermankopusortizorsumshite]

Field Nurse Cora: Bucky Barnes fanfiction

Bucky Barnes Fanfiction. Disclaimer I don’t own Bucky or any Marvel characters. I only own my original character. TRIGGER WARNING: mind control, violence, mentions of blood, probably a lot of warnings, so be warned I suppose. But anyway, enjoy. Chapters will be posted on Sunday or Monday(normally) by 11:30PM. 

Thank you for your support and enjoy some drabble into the Marvel Universe.

Chapter Two: Waking Up a Supersoldier Nurse

Upon waking up, she finds herself strapped to a gurney, hands cuffed to the edges of the bed. Wriggling back and forth, she finds it impossible to move and starts to scream. “Help me! Help me! Help!” She shrieks over and over, to no avail. A short man appears out of no where, carrying a small metal case and wearing a lab coat. “Doctor! There must be some kind of misunderstanding. I’m a healthy person. I’m never sick.” She reasons, almost begging for her life. The small man looks at her with a sick smile and shakes his head.

“You may be healthy my dear, but when this is over you’ll be my first superhuman machine.” He cheers, shaking his fists in the air.

“Superhuman machine? You have the wrong person sir.” She tries to reason, praying he’d let her go.

“Oh, I have precisely the right person. You’re the right woman. Don’t you worry. I asked your charge nurse in the hospital, she said you were very good and proficient at training the new hires at the hospital; the best trainer, in fact.” The small man sneers.

“Doctor Zola, the serum is ready.” Another man steps out of the shadows of the laboratory equipment.

“Alright my dear, you’re going to be injected with a super soldier serum. You’ll be my soldier nurse and trainer to the men I’m going to create. They’ll need a trainer and nurse with superhuman strengths. A regular nurse will be too breakable.” He explains, giving her a gross smile.

“No! Please I’m not even strong! I’ll die!” She shrieks, thrashing back and forth, yanking on the the restraints with all her might.

“After observing you in the field, you were the one I wanted for my newest project.” He crows, taking the vile and twists towards the metal case, only to return with a long-needled syringe.

“Oh please, no.” She breathes out, feeling lightheaded and then passing out. Zola proceeds, sticking her with the needle and emptying the contents of the syringe chamber into her arm. She lay there unconscious for another ten to twenty minutes. As she awakens, her body felt as though it was pumping fire through her veins, or maybe straight gasoline. Grunting in pain as her veins pulse harshly, she writhes back and forth as the serum courses through her veins.

“Now, as my first project, I don’t expect you to die but I’ve only seen this executed on one other person. So without further ado, let’s get started.” A man cuffs her wrists and ankles with thick steel shackles before transporting her another room where a table lay with a fresh, white sheet across it. They force her onto the cold, metal surface where she shivers a moment. Pulling out the anesthetic apparatus and sitting it on the table next to them, her eyes wander over the shimmering yet horrific tools that lay perfectly set out on a tray. A drill, a scalpel, a clamp, her mind sinks as she realizes they are going to perform a lobotomy.

“Doctor, do you find a lobotomy necessary?” She stammers, sweat running down her face and mixing with the tears that leaked from the corner of her eyes.

“I do, if the lob doesn’t work we’ll do electromagnetic shock therapy after you recover. I have plans for you, young lady. Miss Cora Winston, you’re going to be the world’s second and Soviet’s first supersoldier.” He grins, cheering and clapping as he washes his hands they set her up for surgery. With clean hands and her on the cusp of dreamland, Doctor Zola begins his procedure on his newest subject.

 A couple days into her traumatic new life as a nurse supersoldier, she was healing nicely, though Zola left a small opening for tweaking just in case. He put, essentially, a plug into the opening to keep it clean and safe; her hair falling over both sides to hide her port, as he called it.

“Morning Miss Winston! How are we feeling?” He cheers, handing her a cup of coffee and a file folder. “Mister Barnes, there, is our newest addition to the supersoldier company. You’ll be training him, I have a series of words in the red notebook there for you. He has a one time shut off code ‘Sputnik’. But other than that, all of his information is in there for you. Mister Barnes and Captain America were best friends, a shame they’ll become enemies. Mister Barnes will be the most highly trained assassin in the world if we do this right. That Mister Barnes isn’t the same man who so bravely tried to protect you from is it?” He asks, a cheap smirk on his lips as he gives her a knowing glance. She stays silent, staring at the face that sits before her on the file: James “Bucky” Buchanan Barnes.

“I believe so, though I’m not sure. I can’t remember much.” She stares darkly at him, and his evil grin falters for a second.

“It’ll come back to you, my dear. All in due time.” He pats her shoulder. Stepping a couple paces from the door of her cell room, he turns to look at her over his shoulder, hand on the cool knob. “Also, we start the serum on the hundred-and-seventh infantry in one hour.” With that, the man slips from the room. The hour passes like many and soon she finds her feet carrying her to the keyed door that leads into Exam 1: Subject Injections.

“Welcome back! Doctor Zola will be here momentarily.” The head of security waves to everyone as they pile in, all standing against the wall. Unwelcome eyes burning into the hundred-and-seventh infantry men standing before them like lab rats. Her eyes land on Bucky, his meeting hers in a silent cry for help.

“Welcome! Welcome! These simple American soldiers are destined to become something so much more powerful. They’ll be highly trained assassins. Killing machines with no remorse or second guessing. A platoon of highly skilled and easily controlled supersoldier hybrids.” He gives the go-ahead for each doctor working under him to administer the serum to each soldier simultaneously. “If you’ll direct your attention to your left, Cora, my lovely assisstant will be joining me for the next part.” His eyes meet with hers and she nods, heading towards him. Her hand sneaks a grip of Bucky’s in attempt to console him. Jerking from left to right, Bucky gives a yell and she winces for him. “Miss Cora will be training these soldiers and turning them into the killing machines they are destined to be. You may be thinking, a woman as a trainer of soldiers, but women are the future. Miss Cora will prove that in the next couple hours!” Just as he starts to hook one of the other soldiers to the electroconvulsive shock machine, a crash above them is heard.

“Quick! Secure the soldiers and the nurse!” The security guard shouts, directing the soldiers down a corridor away from her. Bucky glances over his shoulder as they shove him away, giving her one last look. Restraints are placed on her hands and feet and she’s put into a chamber and frozen. Her pulse so low it’s undetectable, she drifts into a weird state of purgatory; not dead, yet not quite alive.

TAGLIST: @angel-grace1997 @princessinwonderland23 @vicmackeybullshxt

[bae-science]

⬤,#,ʃ

⬤: being called soft things like baby, sweetheart or honey

#: shaky hands

ʃ: fingers running through sweaty hair

Vanessa sleeps with her phone under her pillow, at first.

The default alert noise made by the Dexcom G6 sensor when detecting high blood sugar is the highest E note possible on an electric keyboard, chosen specifically to wake up the wearer even in REM so the high can be corrected. Vanessa would know. It’s the single most annoying fucking sound in the entire fucking world, and no matter how many times she’s heard it over the years, it never fails to pull her from a good night’s sleep to blearily stumble out of bed and stab herself at two in the fucking morning. The precise, ear-splitting pitch that automatically plays at full volume is the absolute bane of her fucking existence, and Newt better hurry his ass up and develop an artificially grown pancreas, or one of these nights, she’s gonna throw something. Other than her pen. And that’s usually on accident. Usually.

She didn’t get her hands on a CGM until she, Karla, and Hermann were bunking up together, and even then Hermann had turned the study into a bedroom, so she and Karla took the real ones. Waking someone else up during the night with an alarm was never a problem.

Then, of course, she and Karla began sleeping together (both in the sense that they shared a bed, and Vanessa was finally getting to top both of their brains out), and suddenly Vanessa had a whole other person’s night’s sleep to think about.

The solution ended up being to place her phone squarely under the center of her pillow, then sleep directly on it so any noises were only audible to her ears. She would hear the telltale beeping of a high or low alert, carefully extricate herself from the bed, and deal with the problem while steadfastly praying it didn’t wake Karla. She and Hermann had already dealt with enough issues sprung from her diabetes. What kind of a girlfriend would Vanessa be if she dragged Karla awake every time her blood sugar decided to ruin her beauty sleep?

It was already a small miracle Vanessa had somehow managed to get Karla as her butch. She wasn’t pushing her luck.

It’s of course the first one in years that dips into the forties that Karla wakes up for. Obviously.

Vanessa is living just her best possible life, braced against the kitchen counter with one eye screwed shut as she tries to steady her hand enough to measure out exactly 1/4 a cup of orange juice. She wants an entire bag of pretzels dipped in an entire tub of Nutella so badly she could cry. Or just a soft pretzel. Or salt and vinegar chips-- actual fucking potato chips, not french fries with British language disease. Although actually fries would do in a pinch.

She swallows hard and tries to get the numbers on the side of the measuring cup to swim into focus. This is not a productive line of thinking. Yes, Vanessa’s at like 45 right now, and yes it feels like she’s about to pass out and/or scream if she doesn’t clean out the backroom of a Dunkin’, or possibly a grain silo, but she’s still going to try and go back to sleep after this, and lying in bed unconscious with more than ten grams of uncovered carbs in her system is going to wake her right back up in two hours at 238. And that will just top this night with one helluva fucking cherry.

Vanessa remembers without a hint of fondness the lecture on insulin sensitivity she had been given by her endocrinologist back at sixteen. Oh, regular exercise makes a little hit you harder? Well you won’t believe what hiking through jungles and climbing through the ventilation systems of people who thought the Trail of Tears was a soft solution will do!

She fumbles for her phone and slides open the Dexcom app. There isn’t even a number anymore, just the word “LOW” in all caps. Vanessa does actually want to cry now. Her limbs feel like they’re made of melting jello, sweat pouring down her back in waves of heat. The inside of her chest feels like it’s shaking alongside every other part of her body, hands refusing to stay still long enough to make an accurate pour.

A bit of juice sloshes out of the bottle and onto the counter, and Vanessa winces at the thought of having to clean that up as well. A whore in church would offer her a fan right now. 

The strange, cottony feeling in her ears muffles the footsteps from the doorway until a hand on her shoulder makes her jump. Or, at least, she would jump if the idea of any sort of movement were a remote possibility.

“Nessa, darling, are you alright?” Karla asks, her fingers cool and dry against Vanessa’s burning skin. Language, English or German, doesn’t feel doable right now, but she gives it a go.

“‘M good, jus’ low,” she says in what’s probably heavily slurred, but her tongue feels like it weighs a hundred pounds and her brain resembles the state that arrives only with six consecutive shots of tequila. She gives the measuring cup another squint and misses the rim by several inches. Fuck.

“Your blood sugar?” Karla guesses, voice pitched low and blessedly soft. Vanessa nods. 

“We are not living, laughing, or loving tonight. I would kick so many fuckin’ babies square in the goddamn chest for an entire cylinder of cookie dough. I want a lobotomy.” These three sentences don’t make sense following each other, but Karla seems to understand anyway. She moves her hand to guide Vanessa’s into setting down the orange juice, then away.

“Please, love, let me; we’ll need a towel anyway at this rate.” She takes the carton, nodding and interrupting with, “One fourth a cup, I know,” when Vanessa begins to speak. 

Karla hands her the cup and Vanessa gulps it down, coughing slightly as some of it gets caught in her throat. Her hands are still shaking as she lets it drop back onto the counter, but Karla encircles her arms around her and carefully helps her to the floor.

Without thinking twice, Vanessa leans her head on her shoulder, letting out a long, pinched breath through her mouth as Karla winds her fingers through her hair. Her nails, blunt and neat, scratch lightly at her scalp, the other arm tight around her shoulders, one hand splayed across her arm.

“I know it’s rather necessary, but I quite like it when you don’t wear a bonnet to bed,” Karla murmurs into the top of her curls. “It’s like your hair is perfect for short nails.”

“Hhng,” Vanessa manages, the sweat on her skin beginning to cool. She shivers and leans in closer to Karla’s warm, blissfully average body heat. The words force themselves out on instinct. “Sorry I woke you up. It’s s’posed to be quieter.”

Karla turns her head to look at her quizzically. “What do you mean? You were gone for almost twenty minutes, and the bed was cold, so I got worried. Your alarm’s never woken me before.”

“Well I sure hope so. I know it’s, like. Annoying.”

Vanessa feels something twist in her stomach, and even though she knows Karla of all people would never pity her, perhaps only succeeded by Hermann, this admission of her limitation’s existence still fills her with discomfort. It’s unspoken, but known just under the surface, like a persistent itch. Acknowledging the negatives of this-- that the prevailing ideas it’s “not a huge deal” and “thriving not despite but because” are utter fallacy and crafted lines-- feels like a betrayal of some sort. That she’s doing it all wrong.

“What’s annoying,” Karla says gently, “is waking up to a cold bed and my girlfriend stranded in the kitchen over 1/4 a cup of orange juice, when I could quite easily and willingly help her. Have you been doing all this yourself this whole time?”

Vanessa nods, tracing her bare toes back and forth across the faux-wooden flooring. “I mean. Yeah.”

“Oh, darling.” Karla pulls her closer. “Please, please don’t take this as patronizing, but you always could have asked. I know how unpleasant these things are for you, and if there’s anything I can do to make it easier, I want to know. I’d be quite a dreadful girlfriend if I didn’t.”

Vanessa turns her head further into Karla’s shoulder, breathing in the clean, ginger scent of her soap; the warm pillow-smell from a few hours of sleep. “You don’t, like, have to. Like I said, I’ve been doing it myself.”

“But you don’t have to. I’m here; I’m willing. More than that, actually-- if, or I suppose when, this happens again, I want to know so I can be there for you.” She brings a hand to Vanessa’s cheek and cups it, turning it up to look her square in the eyes. “Please, Vanessa?”

Vanessa can’t last two seconds against Karla’s huge, brown doe eyes. She gives a tiny sigh. “Okay. If you want to.”

“I do.”

“Then I want measuring cups with bigger numbers. You always leave your glasses on the bedside table.”

Karla ducks her head and chuckles into her hair. “Yes, yes, you’re right. Leave your phone next to them, then. Then we won’t forget.”

Vanessa doesn’t. She also doesn’t sleep with her phone under her pillow anymore. Bad for your sleep habits, actually. And, y’know. Karla asked her not to.

[starr-fall-knight-rise]

Humans and Traumatic Brain Injury

Hey everyone, sort of wanted to hop on the “Humans are Space Orcs” Bandwagon and give it a shot. Was thinking about all the crazy things that happen to humans that they shouldn’t survive.

 Krill had never actually met a human. Of course he had heard about them. As a trauma doctor at the second largest medical facility in the quadrant, they received many visitors, and their stories, from far across the galaxy.  

. The humans weren’t a new topic of discussion, they had been around for a while, and were slowly beginning to spread outward from their homeworld.

Every day more and more species were bringing stories of the strange predators. It used to be the stories were told second hand, a friend of a friend sort of thing, but more and more were coming in with supposed stories of personal encounters.

While the humans weren’t a new topic of discussion, they were certainly a popular one. Every week it seemed another visitor was bringing them another thrilling story of the crazy deathworlders. 

Krill doubted many of the stories. As s medical professional he relied on hard science fast and was not prone to flights of fancy.

But one faithful solar cycle he witness something that would change his opinion forever.

It was a slow day, most transports and stock ships had transferred out the day before taking crews and accidents along with them.

Krill floated aimlessly through the halls checking on patients and occasionally sending a memo to a colleague. All this was easily done with four independent limbs and four separated cortical hemispheres.

The lights in the building flashed suddenly red. Radio signals pulled against his lateral receptors as he turned to race down the hallway. The radio signals morphed into a voice, “Doctor, we have an emergency SOS from the USS Stabby requesting immediate medical assistance.”

The words used were unfamiliar to Krill as he took the next hallway at speed. 

“Species?”

“Scans indicate it is a human freelance ship.”

If it weren’t for his medical training, he might have stopped in shock, “Repeat?”

“Humans. I’m sending a biological map now.”

The radio signals morphed, and the lateral cortical zone of his right posterior unit decoded the image. The human was an odd creature. Ten unit tall bipedal endoskeleton with two attached cortical hemispheres heavily carbon based running by a circulatory pump and a complex set of smooth muscle tubes. With advanced medical training and four cortical hemispheres, he knew enough at that moment to preform most any emergency medical operation necessary.

 Upon seeing the biomap, he was almost 100% sure those stories had been false.

 Floating to a stop in the main medical unit he waited with two supporting staff as they listened to the roar of the ships engines approach from the sky.

 Sanctum’s rings! Their engines were loud.

 The doors ahead burst open, and three of the creatures rushed in pushing a fourth in a wheeled chair. Long waves of electromagnetic radiation indicated a burning red color painting the front of the fourth creature.

 As a second thought he quickly flipped on his universal translator.

 “It’s gonna be alright captain, you’re going to be fine, just don’t move your head.”

 Krill quickly noted the universal medical patch on the human’s right upper limb. It must be an emergency if they were forced to bring him planeside, but blocked as he was, he could hardly see the fourth figure painted in slow wave’s neck immobilized by a stiff foam collar. A figure beside was helping to hold the creature in an upright sitting position.

  Stopping in the center of the room, the two men moved to make way.

 He had never seen a sight so gruesome….. or if he had it had only been during postmortem examinations. He hoped the humans were not capable of picking up the high amplitude shrill he let off upon sight.

 The human male sat very still on the chair head tilted slightly back. Blood had dripped from his right ocular socket around the edges of a sharp metal rod protruding from its center.

 Around him the other humans were frantic letting out terrified little wales as they looked on.

 A couple quick calculations.

 The rod would have pierced cortical tissue

 The human should be dead.

 He had to be. If medical school had taught him anything, it was that brain injury was impossible to survive

 Quickly Krill threw off his horror and moved forward expecting to find the human’s circulatory pump nonfunctional, but a quick scan showed the organ to still be pumping and doing so at a slow rather of 66 beats.

 How could this be?

 “Hey doc?”

 Krill nearly leaped from his skin as the human spoke tight lipped and very still other eye opening to roll towards him blurry and out of focus.

 Another squeak of horror

 “Could you help me out here, I think I got something stuck in my frontal lobe.”

 He suddenly didn’t know what to do with his hands. What madness was this! Not only was the human NOT dead, but he was SPEAKING!

 Impossible!

 “Captain, please, don’t talk.” The other human begged

 “Just listen to me for a sec….. and stop freaking out, I’m the one with this damn thing sticking out of my brain….”

 The group around him grew quiet.

 Krill moved forward. Doing a slow examination.

 “Do you feel pain?” He asked in shocked curiosity.

 The human’s one good eye squinted thoughtfully, “Um….no.”

 “How can….”

 The other doctor looked at him, “The human brain can shut off pain when needed. He will feel it more when the shock wears off.”

 “You can shut off pain?”

 “Thank the Lord.” The eyeless human muttered quietly.

 “How did….”

 “How did I get an accidental lobotomy?”

 “What is a lobotomy?”

 “Um we will talk about it later.”

 ***

           Turns out Krill would rather not have known what a lobotomy was…. Barbaric humans.

           But still he was fascinated. Never had he met a species that was capable of surviving a brain injury, and surely not one to this magnitude. Any species other than a human would have perished on the instant. The shock of such a trauma alone would have been enough to kill, but instead the human’s brain had shut down the pain and calmed the human even despite the damage.

           After treating the wound, Krill had performed a complex surgery to remove the object. The amount of brain damage would have been extensive in any other species, but their ship’s medic seemed relieved upon seeing the images.

           The eye socket had been broken, the eye had been mutilated, and the optic nerve had been severed. The human would lose use of that eye, but that didn’t seem to bother the human, it was already functioning with a robotic leg.

           Who would have thought the stories were true, who would have thought he would be shipping off with a group of humans in the next week.

           Who would have thought the ability of a human to survive traumatic brain injury?

[canyouhearthelight]

Sneak Peak!

I have decided to give you all a sneak peak of my longest (time wise) work in progress.  This story was intended to be my first novel, some 6 or 7 years ago.  Back in January, I decided to go back to it and take another swing.  This is nothing like The Miys, and doesn’t even take place in the same universe.

That said, I would be deeply honored if my followers could give me their feedback on this portion of it.

Silas Rask woke to the cold wind whipping across his body, the gray sky backlit by the early morning sun. Briefly, he tried to remember the last time the sky had been clear, giving the train of thought up a heartbeat later as a lost cause.  Maybe it had always been covered in a blanket of clouds, and what he thought were memories of clear and bright skies or starry nights were instead memories of pictures in a text.  Then again, he was trying to find the memory through what felt like a partial lobotomy done by a rat.  It was an all-too-familiar feeling, a constant companion for the past several years.

Groaning, he sat up and inspected himself in an attempt to get his bearings.  Coat and clothes were present and accounted for, that was a plus. However, his shoes were gone.  Again. Fortunately, his credits and keys were still in his pockets, along with all the miscellaneous junk that had managed to manifest itself in every coat he had ever owned.  That would probably be courtesy of the fact he had been lying on top of it; mornings like this were becoming entirely too common if he could remember to lay on top of his stuff to protect it, but could not manage to remember how to get home.

Speaking of home, Rask looked around to figure out where exactly he was and how to get back to said residence, but he saw nothing but open, grassy field.  His heart sank as he realized what this could mean – it certainly was not a good sign if he was where he thought he was.  Trying to prove himself wrong, he stood to get a wider view, only to see the field stop abruptly in a drop-off about a hundred yards to his left. Other fields floated in the distance on all sides, covering the tops of enormous structures.

“Bloody hell,” he muttered, rubbing his face and jaw in disbelief, “I’m on top of a damned Tower.” The incredible structures known only as ‘Towers’ made up the vast majority of the stronghold now known only as the Citadel.  They functioned like self-contained cities within their isolated nation, each owned by a different corporation, with the employees both living and working within.  Most of the massive buildings had carefully maintained parks that served double duty as recreation areas and filters for the air that was drawn into the building via strategically placed vents beneath the surface.

And somehow, Silas Rask had gotten on top of one of them.

While drunk.

Taking a deep breath, Rask muttered a prayer to any listening deities – plus a few he probably made up on the spot – as he looked around at his surroundings, squinting to make out the nearby structures more clearly.  To one side, he saw the sigil of Dapevoro Amusements, and he relaxed slightly when he saw to the opposite side a stylized badger – Letelm.  That confirmed that he was, in fact, on top of his home tower, Zilacen Industries.  The breath he was holding exploded from his lungs in relief.

“Thank the gods,” he sighed to himself. “I’m home. Kinda.”  Which explained how he had gotten to such a high level filter park: he worked with corporate security with Zilacen, so he had access to all public spaces throughout the entire building.  His panic calmed somewhat as it occurred to him that it would be both easier and less necessary to come with an excuse as to what he was doing up here than if he had managed to get on top of, say, the Tower where he had started his drinking binge the night before, for example. Waking up in an awkward location was a situation that had happened more often than he cared to admit, and was never one he cared to repeat.

He braced himself as he headed for the edge of the field to begin the journey back to his quarters in the heart of the Tower, and suppressed the trickle of fear that struck his spine as he looked over the edge to locate the staircase.  In the twenty years since he had come to the upper tiers, he had never gotten used to the view.  Specifically, he had never adjusted to the openness and the fact that he could not even see the mist that always swirled around the lowest tier and the power plant – give him tight, closed spaces any day, thank you. However, there was no other way to get down from the top of the tower. With this in mind, he very carefully found the walkway that wrapped around the outside of the structure, and made his way inside at the first opportunity he could.

The filter park where Rask had woken up was over a hundred levels away from his quarters.  It would have been a daunting enough distance if there had been a direct route.  Unfortunately, he also had to navigate the distances between public lifts along with the teeming crowds he was forced to wade through to make his way.  By the third lift, he started to hunker in on himself, conscious of just how badly he smelled and regretting more and more the loss of his shoes.  Apparently, nobody paid attention to whose feet they may be stepping on. Two more lifts, and Silas arrived to the level where his quarters were located, albeit he was on the wrong side.  He ignored the glide walk that would have been faster in exchange for the opportunity to stretch his legs as he walked the remaining distance to his quarters.  As he cut through the crowds, he took in the boisterous noise and the mingling scents of the population of his tower.  He could not deny that on any other day the sheer amount of life around him would have made him smile.

Today, it just gave him a bigger and bigger headache.

Finally, Rask made it inside his quarters and was able to close out the noise and crowds he had just spent nearly two hours enduring.  He took a calming breath, removed his coat, and tossed it over the back of his couch.  He loosened his tie and shirt from the night before as he walked toward his room, the lights automatically coming up to the dim levels he preferred.  Once he reached his bedroom, he tossed the shirt and tie, plus his slacks, into a pile of similarly dirty laundry that had taken over one corner of the room.  He finally managed to shuffle into his bathroom, and more importantly his shower, in hope of washing away most of his hangover.

When he felt reasonably human again, Rask dug a not-too-filthy pair of sleep pants from a pile closer to his bed and shuffled back out of his bedroom for a little hair of the dog.  The lights in the apartment followed him, dimming in one room as he entered another, shining brightest in the kitchen.  Selecting the cleaner glass of the two that he owned, he briefly contemplated a shriveled lime on the counter before deciding to let it die in peace and just drink his whiskey on the rocks.  He paused briefly in the door between the kitchen and living room to take a sip of his drink, feeling the last tension leave his body as the warmth of his drink radiated from his stomach.

Looking into his living room, Rask told himself (not for the first time) that he needed to clean.  It was not so much that his apartment was dirty - he did not own enough for that, frankly.  But every smooth surface was coated in a film of dust and short, dark hairs. Rask assumed the hairs were his, and fortunately the furniture that was bolted in place when he was assigned the space was something between gray and tan and looked cleaner than he knew it was. In fact, all the furniture in the apartment came with it.  The only color in the living room was a plant Jynx had given him, “to brighten the place up.” Even it was starting to turn brown to match everything else.  He could have sworn it was a bright, vibrant green when it had taken up residency on top of a bookshelf, but it was certainly more brown than green now.

Having finished his first glass of whiskey, Rask poured himself another and then resigned himself to checking the alerts on his console.  The indicator had caught his eye as he came through the room the first time, but a shower had been infinitely more important.  Unless he wanted to actually clean – like he swore he would at least twice a week – he had run out of excuses to avoid it any longer. As expected, most of the alerts were unimportant, mostly just local news. Since he was in security, he was usually pretty ahead of any alerts sent out to the general populace.  One message made him drop his head back and groan loudly at the potted plant: in his absence, Jynx had left him a message. His best friend, drinking companion, and personal pain in the ass loved to nag him when he got lost while on a bender.

“Hey, just checking to see if you’re still alive.  Since I’m talking to your console, I’m pretty sure you passed out in an alley somewhere - again.  Get in touch with me when you get this, and don’t worry, I promise to send your liver straight home if I run across it wandering around on its own in protest.  Later, bitch!”  Rask smiled despite himself.  It had, in fact, been Jynx’s fault he had gotten so drunk the night before, to begin with.  Something about her latest project being done, she needed to celebrate, along those lines if remembered correctly.  For her, “celebrate” meant “get Silas Rask just drunk enough that he will drink anything I hand him so long as he doesn’t have to pay for it”, unfortunately.  Of course, Jynx also loved to find the most disgusting concoctions she could, just to see if he would drink them anyway.

The last such ‘drink’ – he used the term loosely – he could remember from the night before was a vibrant purple, obscenely named liquid that smelled like used hydraulic fluid and probably tasted worse. He would have to taste used hydraulic fluid to be certain.

Rask took the time to send a response to Jynx, letting her know that he did make it home and had not, in fact, passed out an alley. He left out the part about waking up on top of Zilacen Tower.  Then, he resigned himself to getting caught up on his backlog of cases.  Most of what he did was low-level grunt work: breaking up fights, chasing petty thieves, and just generally being a visible presence of security within the crowded populace.  Sometimes, this led to him stumbling across a small part of a larger problem, and those cases were currently lined up in a rack within arms’ reach of his console. Ordinarily, those cases would have been assigned to a detective and he would never see them again until someone was apprehended.  In more recent months, however, Rask had decided to hold on to them and try to find those responsible himself.  He did not want to be low man on the totem pole forever, and he considered this an effort to better himself in hopes of moving up the chain of command.

He started with the oldest case from the rack.  Someone at work told him when he first started that case files had once been large, sloppy stacks of paper, held together by various means, and prone to losing vital information.  However, nearly a century ago, Security Command had started using more secure pencil files to store cases on, and for that Rask was grateful.  Otherwise, instead of a rack of long, thin, crystalline rods, he would have shelf upon shelf of flammable, unreliable paper files in his apartment. No, thank you.  Instead of digging through a mountain of paper to review the case, he only needed to grab the crystal, and set it point-down into a hole in his console designed to read and display the information.  No chance of pieces falling out and getting lost.

This file was one that had been pulling at the back of Rask’s mind for nearly a year, and it was the reason he started paying more attention to these cases, if he was honest with himself. The day of the initial arrest, which had been the beginning of the whole thing, he was patrolling a level in Middle Tier.  Rask had walked past a food vendor only for a small child to run into him so hard that it knocked them both to the ground and sent the bag in the child’s hand skidding across the sidewalk.  As he had helped the child up, he saw a look of sheer terror on the boy’s face and heard someone shout from inside the store.

“Come back here you little furball! You have to pay for that!”

The boy had tried to run at that point, only for Rask to hold him firmly but gently.  A man – who later turned out to be the owner of the food stall – marched up to Rask and shouted that the boy had stolen from him, that it was not even the first time, and that he wanted the little creature arrested immediately along with damages paid for the merchandise he had lost.

Rask gritted his teeth every time the words ‘furball’ and ‘creature’ had come out of the man’s mouth, but put on his most professional demeanor, offered to pay for the food the boy had stolen along with lunch for himself, and promised to talk to the boy. The disgruntled vendor had agreed, but as he handed Rask the lunch he had ordered, the man made it clear that he still wanted to press charges against the child later. Rask had not argued, simply promised to take a statement as soon as he finished eating, and pointed to a table where the vendor could watch and make sure he kept his promise.

Rask had then walked the now-shaking and confused child over to the table, opened his bag of food, and promptly handed half of it to the boy before starting to eat his own share. The boy had eyed him skeptically, but the food had still disappeared long before Rask had finished his own. As he ate, Rask used the opportunity to look at the boy.  He had not noticed at first, in the chaos of everything going on, but now saw that the boy did, indeed, have fur.   It was not uncommon, as many denizens of the Citadel were not completely human. Further observation showed that the boy was a feline of some sort, with blondish gold fur, ringed spots, and distinctively cat-like ears.

Suddenly Rask was glad he had ordered a tuna sandwich, especially since he had been considering something vegetarian.

“So,” he said to the boy, leaning back and stretching, “Did you actually steal from him?”

The boy looked down and kept silent.

“I’m going to take that as a yes,” Rask sighed with genuine reluctance.

The boy just mumbled something at his lap.

“Can’t hear you,” Rask leaned forward, straining to hear.

“I was hungry,” the boy replied, so quiet that Rask could still barely hear him.

Rask chuckled, which made the boy snap his face toward Rask and scowl angrily. “It isn’t funny!”

“I’m laughing because I already knew you were hungry.  Why do you think I bought you lunch?”

The boy’s face softened slightly and his ears twitched a little.  Rask knew that was generally a sign of interest, so he continued. “Whether you bought the food or stole it, no one goes to a food vendor unless they are hungry. And if you stole to food like the man says you did, then you had to be very hungry to do that. So, did you steal it?”

The boy looked down again. “Yeah.”

“If you were hungry, why didn’t you tell your parents?”

“They’re gone,” the boy had whispered.

They’re gone.  Those words had convinced Rask that this was not a simple case of sending the kid to juvenile lock-up for theft.  As they had continued talking, he found out that the parents were not dead, did not pack up and leave, they had just vanished.  The boy, Tyn, had been scared to report it because he had not wanted to become a Ward of the Tower.  Rask could not even bring himself to blame the boy: the entire Citadel tended to treat non-humans as something between a child and a pet.  It had bothered him his entire life, and it had bothered him when he sat in front of a scared, starving boy who had just been repeatedly called a speciest slur in front of a security officer, because it was considered perfectly normal behavior.  While it was bad enough for human children to become wards, Rask could not imagine how much worse it would have been for Tyn.

[belzinone]

How would Bel treat someone who was diagnosed with Anxiety Disorder and Depression? In both medical and everyday senses?

// OMG OK I LOVE THIS QUESTION ; soz i took awhile, i wanted to do some big thinks on this one~♡

// i feel like mental health isn't something people think too much about in the SnK world, it being more of a modern thing or a quack-like practice if it existed at all since the technology to physiologically map the differences in brain function wouldn't be a thing yet. that being said, Bel did get her hands on progressive medical practices from her childhood mentor's contraband knowledge, so she'd at least have some awareness of neurodivergence if she didn't already empathize with people who showed symptoms of depression and anxiety, which she would.

// though knowledge / awareness wouldn't be very common in the universe, it would be almost rampant within the Scouting Legion as well as the Underground, i'd think, almost exclusively compared to the other branches / other more affluent areas of Paradis. since anxiety disorder and depression are circumstantial as well as genetic, i can see intergenerational trauma and inheritance persisting and growing throughout higher impact populations, especially thise who lack the ability to improve their circumstances. in this sense, Bel's probably grown up around very many people who suffered from those things. witnessing the effects of anxiety & depression first hand (and probably experiencing some bouts of her own) from birth very likely does a lot to foster her empathy on the matter as a future healer. she also probably read a lot about it on a superficial and highly speculative level, too, along with case studies of early, primative practices first used in attempt to treat neurodivergencies, such as lobotomies, drilling holes into the skull, etc. as well as Phineas Gage-like phenomena that were documented. (imagine if something like that happened during Paradis railroad construction though oh my god)

// i highly doubt she'd ever put brains under the knife (or drill), opting to try and help people through counseling and MAYBE psychiatrics in desperate situations. she'd "treat" these things for the most part just by being a friend: learning the signs, providing support by any means she can (physical, emotional, even sexual if she was close enough to them and they responded well to the distraction), doing what she can to limit uniquely triggering scenarios, as well as putting necessary words in with Erwin if she thinks a soldier isn't ready for an expedition. everything she does around this field would be a learning experience, though a lot moreso than her more physically tangible practices.

// if any of her soldiers begin to severely succumb to the debilitations of anxiety / depression, she definitely would kick into gear and start searching for more information / resources. after the battle of Trost, her mother is hospitalized in an institute for a number of neurodivergencies written off as hysteria, so mental health would be a really personal issue for her. instead of using her days off for herself, she'd use them to visit the hospital / asylum (whatever they'd call a mental health institute in the SnK world) to do more research and maybe even talk to Erwin about directing some Scouting Legion funds into medication to help soldiers recover. in especially severe cases, she'd do her best to be there for her soldiers every step of the way, maybe even to the point of staying behind with them during expeditions if they didn't have family to care for them. as she learned things, she'd share them with other officers.

// other simple things she'd do to help soldiers struggling with depression would be helping them maintain, such as bringing them food when they can't manage to leave their bunks in the morning, helping them with hygeine, etc. if they're having a panic attack, she'd help ground them, guide their breathing, give them something to do with their hands if that'd help, etc. there are a lot of little things she could do and she'd do as many as she could, but above all she'd want them to recover. Bel's painfully aware that there's a lot in the world she can't control or fix, but for sure she'll do her damndest to make life with anxiety disorder and depression at least bearable, even if it means insisting they retire as a soldier and adopt a more comfortable lifestyle.

[scripttorture]

This might be a bit out of your territory, so I'm sorry about that. My question has to do with operations done to the brain (corpus callosotomy, hemispherectomy or even a lobotomy): If they were done on an unwilling patient (who doesn't have the issues necessary to warrant that surgery in the first place) would it be considered torture, according to you? Could this result in trauma? If yes, do you think this trauma would look different from others due to what's been done to the brains?

Idon’t know anything about brain surgery at all.

Thatsaid- I can answer the question of whether unnecessary non-consensualsurgery is counted as torture and whether it’s traumatic. Anythingspecific to brain surgery I’m afraid I’m going to have to leavethough. Including the bit about whether the trauma would lookdifferent: I just don’t know.

Thelegal classification of non-consensual surgery (remember ‘torture’isa legally defined term) varies depending on a lot of things.

Sofor example a common non-consensual operation is sterilisation andthat’s actually put into a separate legal category to torture. Itis traumatising once the victim becomes aware of the procedure butmany victims are not aware of what’s been done. A common way it’sdone is by targetting pregnant women, telling them they need acaesarian delivery and then cutting the fallopian tubes or removingthe uterus after delivery.

I’vegot a post on forced sterilisation here that you might find useful.

Anotherexample would be procedures performed on children. In a lot ofcountries the consent of a child is not deemed necessary for surgery,just the consent of the parents, even if the child is old enough tounderstand and give consent. Cosmetic surgeries are sometimesperformed on children without their consent.

Genitalmodification on children is almost always performed without consent.It is often incredibly damaging and traumatising.

Intersexchildren are often operated on to ‘correct’ their genitalia. Thisis usually medically unnecessary and generally performed at such ayoung age that children can be unaware of the procedure. Sometimesparents aren’t told what was done to their child either.  

Aswith forced sterilisation this is traumatic when the victim findsout. In the case of intersex children this generally happens aroundpuberty when their body begins to develop in ways that are unexpectedor considered ‘abnormal’.

Intersexpeople can also become aware of what happened to them by observation,ie growing up enough and finding out enough about human anatomy torealise their genitalia doesn’t look ‘normal’ even aftersurgery. They might also observe that they have a lot of scar tissuein that region. Some intersex people are subjected to multiplesurgeries throughout their childhood and can remember this happening.They’re usually told the surgeries are essential for them to lead anormal life.

Thisis usually not true.

I’mnot an expert in intersex conditions and I’m not intersex myself.That- might be confusing to some of the people who’ve read that I’mthird gender but while third gender can include intersex people notall third gender people are intersex.

Theup shot is I don’t want to speak for anyone and the best source onthe trauma, unnecessary, non-consensual surgery causes the intersexcommunity would be the intersex community.

Otherforms of non-consensual surgery are rarer or harder to pin down.

There’sa debate to be had about where exactly the lines for ‘unnecessary’and ‘non-consensual’ should be drawn.

Alot of fat people are put under immense pressure to have gastric bandsurgery and that pressure may mean that ‘consent’ is not alwaysfreely given.

Iranexecutes gay men but gives trans people easier access to surgeriesand hormone therapies then many countries. And some gay men falselyidentify themselves as trans women to avoid execution. These men willhave signed consent forms with a (metaphorical) noose around theirnecks.

Here’sthe thing- nothing I’ve described, as traumatic as it is, islegally counted as torture. Some of them aren’t even illegal.

Pressuringa patient to consent to surgery isn’t illegal in a lot of countriesand where it is illegal it’s difficult to prove.

Unnecessaryoperations on intersex children are not illegal in most countries. Ina lot of countries genital modification of children is not illegaland in many places where it isthese surgeries usually happen anyway.

Forcedsterilisation is illegal but is classified as a separate crimeagainst humanity.

Non-consensualcosmetic surgery is, so far as I’m aware, completely untestedlegally. I don’t know if anyone has ever brought a case to anational or international court over it.

Thisdoesn’t mean your villain character couldn’t be prosecuted butthat prosecution may not be under anti-torture laws.

Forsomething to count legally as torture it must be:

Deliberately done

Painful or traumatising

Performed by a public official

Motivated by one of the following; obtaining a confession, punishment, obtaining information, intimidation

Unnecessarysurgery inarguably meets the first two points but could easily failon the other two. A privately employed doctor performing this surgerycould not legally be deemed a torturer and would be prosecuted underother laws. A state doctor couldbe deemed a torturer, but only if the prosecution could prove thesurgery was performed as punishment or to inflict fear in the victimor others.

Ithink treating the resulting trauma and the survivor’s recoveryprocess as analogous to a torture victim is probably reasonable.

Butlegally and more generally I’m not sure treating the person whoperformed the surgery as a torturer is the best idea. The situationis markedly different to the ‘norm’ for how torturers wouldoperate. I’m not sure the abusive doctor would develop the kinds ofmental illnesses that torturers generally suffer from as a result ofthe differences in these situations.

Thekind of injuries you’re talking about and the broader context ofthe scenario makes me think that sources on non-consensual surgeriestoday probably aren’t the best place to look. As I outlined thekinds of surgeries and the context of them is very different to yourscenario.

Ithink your best bet would be looking up abuse in mental healthfacilities and care homes. That would probably be a lot closer towhat you’re trying to write in terms of context and day to dayoperations.

Ibelieve @scriptautistic have made some posts on this. So has @scriptlgbt. Looking up lobotomies in their historical context wouldprobably also give you a lot of good sources; many of theseprocedures were performed without informed consent.

Ihope that helps. :)

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[motherwasapapafucker]

Señor 105 Meets The Exterminating Angel

She stands alone, an endless expanse of sand and sky spilling out before her. Behind her sits the town, a crisscrossing network of homes and workplaces raised above the blistering heat of the sand atop four massive pillars. It’s not terribly notable, its industry centred around slow, laborious mining projects that appeal to no-one but the corporations who make small fortunes off of the rare minerals acquired beneath the planet's surface. Its scant population -comprising of a few thousand of the galaxies vulnerable and desperate-  could vanish overnight and no-one would notice, and even if they did they wouldn’t care. She refuses to allow that to happen.

Her breath mists the visor of the environment suit and she makes a conscious decision to slow her breathing. She has brought little with her beyond the suit; A handful of wrist-mounted tools that will aid her in the coming fight and, of course, the mask. She rarely removes it, its sleek surface as natural as any other part of her body, it says more about who she is and what she stands for than anything else she owns.

Firming her footing in the soft, burning sand she begins to meditate, visualising the array of tattoos that cover her body. As she pictures each symbol the mask changes, the number at its centre steadily increasing with each vibrant new design. Behind her, the town will be beginning to rise, its people weary at the prospect of another day’s toil. If she doesn’t succeed, doesn’t stop what is about to happen, then they will all be dead before the morning is over. Her wrist device pings and she readies herself, here they come; Invaders from Another Time. 

The ship arrives with little fanfare, a sleek, featureless thing that appears in the air as if it has always been there. Its sudden arrival would unsettle her if she hadn’t seen it before, now the only fear she possesses is the knowledge of what its crew will do to this world if she doesn’t stop them. It is already in motion, sliding towards the town with no visible sign of propulsion. By now they will have scanned the surrounding landscape for any signs of defence and finding nothing but her, will go to high-alert.

A perfect circle forms in the side of the ship and a trio of guardsmen riding small disks ringed with controls descend towards her. The lead guardsman wields a lance-like device that throbs with energy, sending a jet of green-tinged plasma towards her. She dives to the side, dodging the attack and rising immediately, charging towards the lead disk, zigzagging as more blasts rain down around her. As the disk passes overhead, she squats and lunges towards it, visualising the symbol for hydrogen she soars through the air,  wrist device pointed directly at its underside. The device emits a shrill noise and the disk’s smooth surface liquefies, its pilot toppling through it with a yelp of fear. She takes a moment to savour the man’s look of bewildered indignation as he slips past her and plunges towards the ground, snapping a mock salute as she glides through the liquid. Deactivating the device she lands on the disk, surface solidifying beneath her.

The controls are far in advance of anything she uses, however they betray an inherent simplicity that suggests a lot about the disk’s pilots. Turning it sharply, she watches as the remaining guardsmen swerve to avoid her, one toppling from his disk as it spirals madly through the sky. The other is more successful, turning his disk and coming up directly behind her. He fires his weapon, narrowly missing her. She leaps from the disk, crashing backwards into her pursuer with a satisfying thud. Stunned, the guard stumbles backwards attempting to draw his pistol, she slaps it from his hand and drives her knee into his abdomen sending him crashing over the edge of the disk with a resigned groan. 

Seizing the disk’s controls she twists it towards the ship, the door that the guardsmen emerged from already closing. Pushing the disk to the limits she braces herself against the controls and launches across them, hurtling through the closing gap at the last moment. She lands with a roll, the faint noise of the disk crashing against the side of the ship barely audible behind her. The hangar is all but empty, a few stunned technicians in form-fitting, grey coveralls watching her in stunned silence. 

She greets them with a brief ‘hola’ and dashes deeper into the ship.

The Exterminating Angel drove a sharp, precise punch into Señor 105’s chest, it was the sort of punch that made him feel his age. The Angel, resplendent in a golden uniform and ornate, beetle-like mask emblazoned with a single unblinking eye at its centre, cackled and lunged at him, offering the Señor no respite from his opening attack.

Señor 105 had been pursuing this mysterious figure for months, following a trail of broken, near-dead wrestlers throughout Mexico. He believed he had finally caught up with the Angel at the villa of Professor Cristaldi, a former wrestler known as El Pugilista who had retired from the sport to teach history at the University of Nuevo León. Unfortunately, the Señor had instead found himself lured into a trap; The Angel having already killed Cristaldi and subjected the villa’s staff to a peculiar cybernetic lobotomy. With too many innocent lives at stake, he had allowed himself to be captured and taken to the caverns beneath the villa. 

If...when he escaped this place he would ensure The Angel’s victims received the best possible treatment. 

As the lobotomised staff led him through the caverns Señor 105 could hardly believe what he was seeing. They were in the midst of a strange transformation, a sleek metal-like substance covering entire passageways, the material seemingly used for both this and any furniture he saw. Hallways dotted with men dressed in form-fitting black uniforms and helmets that recalled the Angel’s own mask passed by as he was forced deeper underground. Clearly, the Angel had used the villa as a base of operation for some time, but this didn’t strike the Señor as the lair of a garden variety madman, something about the entire operation left him with a deep sense of unease. The journey climaxed in a vaulted chamber that held the oddest sight he could imagine, a wrestling ring shaped from the same material seen throughout the caverns, surrounded by spectator seats. The Exterminating Angel was waiting for him, pacing the centre of the ring like a caged wolf, he glanced at the procession drawing Señor 105  towards the ring and smiled.

“So, you finally came.” The Angel says, a shrill, mechanical edge to his voice presumably provided by a device in his mask. Señor 105 glanced up at his foe, remaining silent for the moment as he stepped into the ring. Offered a better look at the man, the Señor immediately recognised someone who did not truly understand lucha, the Angel’s ornamented mask clearly serving as a status symbol rather than a performance piece. This was a man who believed his own hype and was all the deadlier for it.

“I was offered little choice,” Señor 105 replied stripping his suit jacket and shirt, there was going to be a fight regardless of what he said to the man, and he would prefer to be ready. “What you’ve done here is monstrous.”

“My actions were necessary to bring you here.” 

“You’ve killed many people, and scarred more trying to what? Lure me here for a fight, you could have simply contacted me via legal channels if that’s what you wanted.”

“I’m sending a message, correcting things. Putting you in your place!” There was hate visible behind his mask, a burning personal thing that the Angel clearly struggled to contain. The Señor had seen this anger in many of his long-term foes but he had never encountered the Angel as far as he knew. 

“I imagine we have different notions of my ‘place’.” 

“I’m going to show how weak you really are.” The Angel snarled, moving to his side of the ring. Around them the room began to fill with the uniformed figures he had seen on his journey down, silently taking up their role as spectators. Señor 105 noticed that many of them were haggard, their uniforms showing signs of wear and tear that had never been properly addressed. The Angel reached into his outfit, flinging two bloody organs onto the ring’s floor. 

“The remains of Cristaldi.”

Before he could question the Exterminating Angel’s understanding of basic anatomy Señor 105 found himself under attack, his foe leaping at him with startling speed, precise punches coming at him from all directions. “What, no bell?” The Señor spat as he blocked the Angel’s next attack, he was clearly someone who understood the art of the fight and decided a long time ago that he did not care for the rules.

“Only funeral bells!” The Angel stepped back laughing at his own joke. Señor 105 rolled his eyes -making a mental note to donate the money he had been saving every time he had heard this line- and used the Angel’s brief respite to launch his own attack, leaping forward with a double kick that ended the Angel’s laughter with a sickening wheeze. His foe was stunned, stepping backwards in a daze, he jumped, wrapping his arms around his thick-neck in an attempt to bring him to the ground, the Angel held firm using the Señor’s momentum to send him crashing across the ring.

Señor 105 was certain a number of his ribs were broken, a painful stabbing already building in his chest, the gathered crowd watching the fight with a near-reverent silence as he attempted to stand. The Exterminating Angel stepped towards him slowly, savouring his pain with unhidden glee. “Strength means nothing when you don’t know how to use it.” Senor 105 felt the Angel wrap his arms around his neck, lifting him off the ground effortlessly, he hung painfully in the air fighting the urge to scream. The Angel swung violently, flinging the Senor across the ring and into the ropes at its far side.

“You seem to have a problem with me,” The Señor felt the tang of blood in his mouth as he stood, awkwardly doubled over trying to lessen his pain. “But I had no idea who you were until a few months ago.” 

“We’ve never met, but I know you.” 

“If you think I don’t know the importance of strength,” the Señor stepped forward raising his fists. “Then you don’t know me.” 

“You ruined me!”  The Exterminating Angel jabbed at him, the Señor ducked and drove a series of punches into his chest. “Your ideology is a mockery of strength, you do not command the respect of those weaker than you, you don’t give them a function in your society, they do not fear and love you.”

“That’s not strength.” Señor 105 felt his ire build and headbutted the ranting fool, the Angel snarled tearing at his mask revealing a bloodied, broken nose. The man’s skin was almost bronze, with close-cropped blonde hair and blue eyes that the Señor wouldn’t even pretend to be surprised by. 

“You defend the undeserving,” The Angel shrieked, the now damaged mask adding a warped, inhuman edge to his voice. “Coddling their weaknesses, allowing them to refuse the natural order.” He couldn’t move fast enough and was forced back by the man’s attack, painfully slamming into the ropes. The Angel punched him in the face, lifting him overhead and slamming him into the ground. He took a moment to regard his fallen foe and then began to rain heavy kicks down on him, the Señor crawling away in an attempt to escape the onslaught.

“Worst of all, people follow you. They believe your ideology, believe that strength should be used only to defend, they follow your example and fight fights they never should. It spreads, and spreads and never stops, all because of you.” Senor 105’s body seethed with an agony he hadn’t felt since his fight with Mr. 105, his anglicised double from a sinister counter-world, but he had survived that and he knew he could survive this. The crowds were standing, chanting along with the Angel’s brutal assault, the Señor struggled to focus on what they were saying, all too aware of the injuries now covering his body, but eventually, the word became clear. 

“EXTERMINATE!” 

“I’ll change it, I’ll stop it from happening.” The Angel said stepping back, turning his attention to his followers. “I’ve beaten you here, I’ve stopped the idea before it can ever spread, you’ll become a lesson, just another fool that would let chaos reign rather than let those who should lead do so.” He kicked the Señor in the chest forcing him onto his back, a deathly silence falling across the audience. “You die here alone, broken, surrounded by the pageantry you define yourself by.” The Exterminating Angel raised his foot, ready to drive it into the Señor’s skull. “Your world view revealed for the lie that it is.”

“You friend,” Senor 105 said grabbing his leg with both hands, twisting it sharply sending the Angel crashing to the floor with an agonised shriek, “talk too much.” He stood, controlling the shaking pain that swept across his body via the mental recitation of a calming mantra. “Now get up, you believe you’re strong? Prove it.” 

The Angel stood, looking around the ring with something approaching panic, his mask was all but gone and the face underneath was covered with blood. “You, you can’t do this to me again,” he said, his true voice a small, quiet thing, “I’ll still win.” 

The Señor raised an eyebrow under his mask and readied himself. “How does the song go? Hit me with your best shot.” The Angel lunged forward, spittle foaming at his mouth in a manner that Señor 105 couldn’t help but compare to the strange, plant-like hounds that had patrolled the grounds of the vila when had first arrived. A few punches connected, hurting him more than he would like to admit. The Señor jumped backwards, ducking the Angel’s flailing punches, he returned the gesture and riddled his chest with a series of heavy jabs directed towards key pressure points throughout the man’s body. The crowd watched in stunned silence as the Exterminating Angel staggered backwards, a blank numbness spreading across his body,  the Señor crouched, bracing himself against the floor. He leapt forward with a double kick that connected with the Angel’s chest and sent the man flying from the ring, crashing on the floor with a heavy, definitive thud that echoed around the now silent chamber. 

He turned to the crowd, all staring blankly up at a man they never thought would win, and at a loss for anything better to say he regarded them with an extravagant bow and a single word that felt right given the present circumstances.

“Exterminar.”

Señorita 1207 is on a mission to save a world that no-one cares about, plunging through a ship from the future intent on strip-mining its resources for their own benefit. She knows that she doesn’t have long to stop them, to stop them from killing off the planet’s population simply to get them out of the way. The people doing this don’t care, the planet’s people are an afterthought to both them and the corporation that has cheerfully sold the world off to them. When she’s dealt with the immediate problem she’s going to ensure they face justice as well. 

Her arrival on the ship has created the perfect opportunity for its slave population to rise up, and while she’s happy to help, this new complication has added yet another element to her already hectic schedule. She could have made a direct byline for the control room, destroyed the ship from there, but in doing that she would have doomed people who had no choice in the matter. Some would call them tragic, but ultimately acceptable losses. Señorita 1207 refuses to accept that, to even entertain the notion would betray everything she stands for. 

Her mentor, the second woman to call herself Señorita 1207 had been the one to teach her the code, the idea they all lived by. It was a remarkably simple one. Stand up against injustice, take the hit for people who can’t, and be seen doing it. She’s been evacuating the slaves, evacuating anyone who is willing to stand against the people controlling them, leading groups through the ship to hangers filled with disks that will ferry them down to the planet below. She smiles as the last group, all of who had volunteered to help her, vanish through the wall.

Guards in black beetle masks pour into the room, five or six at a guess, she dives as blasts of energy sear into the wall behind her. She’s fast, faster than them, they go down easy and she’s out of the hanger before the last one falls to the ground. She plunges through an endless succession of identical corridors, she could have spent hours wandering them but a few brief conversations with people who have been forced to spend their lives in the ship has given her a clear idea of where to go. 

She turns a corner, knocking-out the two guards stationed there as she passes. Another two guard the door at the corridors far end, they barely have time to unsling their weapons before she’s on them. The first doesn’t put up a fight, collapsing after a brief scuffle, the second fires two shots, one grazes her side and she uses the sharp burst of pain to push herself forward, colliding with the guard and forcing her way through the door. 

She flings the guard over her shoulders and turns her attention on the men stationed in the room. They look at her in stunned silence, the commander in charge of the operation half-raised from his chair, unsure what is happening to what should have been a simple mission. The man who will one day become The Exterminating Angel is about to experience the defeat he will spend the rest of his life reliving.

Señorita 1207 grins, ready for the fight.

[itsbenedict]

No Driver’s License: Session 41

No Driver’s License is a Madoka Magica game I’m running for five players, using a homebrew of Yaruki Zero’s Magical Burst system. It follows five magical girls as they deal with an upheaval in the world’s magic system caused by some strange new three-eyed Incubators. They have to figure out what’s going on, who to trust, and how to put a stop to the cycle of despair.

I post session logs and omakes weekly sporadically, both as a reference for the players and for anyone who wants to follow along with the party’s misadventures.

[adventure log- read from the beginning]

[session 40]

Last time, the party dealt with that one witch that’d been burning a hole in their pocket for ages. It was a lot of consecutive witch fights, but ultimately it wasn’t too big of a deal- what with their numbers and their access to overpowered magic items, they managed to make Sokoko a lot less murderously insane.

So... that’s pretty much it for rogue magical girls menacing the players! With all the relevant immediate threats dealt with, it’s time to decide what needs to be done about the long-term situation. To that end, everyone meets up in Sakura’s aunt’s apartment to discuss plans for the future, and for also maybe hacking magic itself.

(Pictured: the last big crisis rearing its head)

So, Sakura managed to convince Tama-chan it was worth trying to fix magic again, sort of. She’s still a little fuzzy on the specifics of the plan.

Tama-chan’s big question is... what do they all actually want to do to magic? What should the new system actually be, once it’s been “fixed”?

Tama-chan defends the “lobotomy” thing, on the basis that purifying a track isn’t a side-effect, but rather something she deliberately added. Apparently, having all potential suffering across multiple timelines concentrated into your brain such that it causes an uncontrolled expression of magical anguish known as a wish... is not something that leaves you mentally healthy afterwards. Being able to feel the emotion that’s been witched on... is super horrible, so the numbing patch allows you to remain functional.

Sakura’s next idea is to point out that, hey, there’s loads of suffering out there in the world that isn’t being captured and used for power generation. Why don’t they just collect that instead of only focusing on magical girls?

Basically, the suffering of magical girls exceeds that of... the normal suffering of everyone, ever. There’s a lot of potential timelines in which you suffer! Like, more than millions, more than billions! Even if they could perfectly capture ambient grief, it would be kind of a drop in the bucket.

In order to meet quotas, producing more total suffering than would happen naturally is sort of unavoidable. The question is- who suffers, and how? Who do you pick to power Omelas, when you can’t walk away from it?

Tama-chan points out that she sort of... tried this, and that it really didn’t go over very well. The less she says about what happened in America, the better. It apparently went bad enough that a mass brainwashing campaign was necessary. 

A bunch of different ideas are floated as to how to spread it around a little, reduce the burden on magical girls in particular by expanding the contract pool to more people. Unfortunately...

Parceling it out over time was sort of the whole idea of what Tama-chan did in the first place, despite the glitches involved. The question of directly experiencing the witching, though... that’s a good one. Sure, someone has to experience suffering to harvest grief, but who says the source of the suffering needs to be the medium for the suffering?

Then... Sakura has a terrifying, brilliant, or brilliantly terrifying idea.

So- shit, wow, the plan is to take demons- semi-conscious expressions of the Devil’s being- and make them experience suffering for us? If you love suffering so much, why don’t you marry it? That’s... a ballsy move.

Well, Yukari, you don’t have to be such a Negative Nancy all the time! Maybe it’ll work!

There’s a lot of risky ideas flying around- Tama-chan gets a little anxious about the idea of doing this much hacking to the system again, considering how she got burned last time.

What, the one who refuses to inhabit her old human body and prefers to be a cute cat and insists on being referred to as Tama-chan, trans? Where’d you get that idea?

Anyway, this plan they’re going with is very risky. And what do we do when something is very risky?

So... Yukari does this, and it’s pretty much what she expects, with an extra helping of vaporwave mindfuck in her brain to get across how outside of the norm this course of action is. 

Also, when you reach into the future to measure the odds as they pertain to the Devil, a creature very much of the odds of the future, you sometimes, uh, draw its attention, especially on a crit.

The Devil is concerned about these plans to do big risky things that could negatively impact the odds of Madoka existing, and the team fails to coordinate their lies about whether they are planning to do a big risky thing.

Ibara tries to salvage the situation by framing it as reducing risk- surely, IBARA in the Hell Engine is a volatile situation, right? They need to deal with that right away!

...Which might’ve worked, if Homura weren’t capable of seeing how likely something is to affect the probability of Madoka existing, especially parts of her own Devilhood. She says it’s fine.

The Devil only cares about a single thing, and Ibara is not that thing.

Her Heart roll on this attempt to convince her, unfortunately, is very low.

So- side effects of recruiting the literal Devil, inhuman final boss who is the source of all magical suffering: sometimes she is not nice! The best she’ll offer is to just kill the IBARA demon, and put it out of its misery. She says some very intimidating things and attempts to make everyone understand that it’s her way or the highway.

(Not that this is necessarily true- she’s not actually all-powerful, her only real influence is her ordinary magical girl powers plus the ability to flee the timeline and turn off grief power entirely. She’d only do that if they really fucked it up, instead of just threatening to do that.)

The party starts asking some questions about the specifics of her relationship to IBARA and the demons. Does she feel the pain that they do?

The answer is “hypothetically, if she was paying attention to that tiny fraction of her universe-spanning being”. Typically, she ignores most of it.

Other questions are floated, such as what her favorite sweets are.

Sakura offers some delicious candy to the Devil, which she, uh... 

Sakura’s extremely clever and completely intentional gambit to gross out the Devil until she disappears to avoid the social awkwardness of the situation succeeds flawlessly.

With that... the energy to discuss magic-altering plans dies down a little. There’s too much that can go wrong for them to rush into it, so it’s looking like they’ll be biding their time and waiting to be done with the Devil before doing any magic hacker heisting.

As they’re wrapping up, though... crisis strikes!

And the crisis is...

Ibara rolls great on that, so...

Next time on No Driver’s License... which is to say, the very last time on No Driver’s License: we’ll be wrapping up! All the big exciting disasters are resolved, so now we’re going to be using an alternate ruleset to fast-forward over the next few years of their lives, and see how things end up for them. It’s epilogue time!

[lovelawactually]

In The City

Tori sat with her feet kicked up on the edge of the desk - one foot bouncing along with the music that blared in her earbuds.   This was the part of her job that she loved the most - working solo meant she could operate in complete solitude - nothing and no one to interface with.  It was just her, a laptop, and a backpack filled with various tools used for ethical hacking.  As far as she was concerned, ethical had a loose interpretation.  With great power comes great responsibility, right?  Her philosophy was that the concepts of good and bad was completely relative - at least where cyber security and information was concerned.  

The code had already been written, and it was a masterpiece - if she were to say so herself.  All that was left to do was wait and watch it work - a timer ticked away to denote the execution time.  The goal to beat was 10 minutes - that was the amount of time it took her to crack the last network and control the databases that her latest client had given her as a target.  The intel she had received was good on a suitable entry point - that would reduce the time significantly - she was feeling confident she would set a new record.  This job was of the not-so-ethical variety, but as the suit who handed her the envelope said - it was for the greater good.  She would be the judge of that once she got a better look what they were after.  

She picked up the paper coffee cup and gave it a shake, sighing when she found that it was empty.  Lame.  It would not be too long before she could roll out and get another - it was still early, and she averaged at least 4 cups a day, give or take.  It could not be just any coffee either, Tori was a self-prescribed coffee snob.  The screen on her laptop flickered, and a welcoming sight was displayed.  A shit-eating grin stretched across her lips.  Six minutes, Doug E. Fresh - we’re in.  

She stood up from the chair and executed the command to begin the download - as she pressed the enter key, she broke out into a celebratory dance.  This job was going to pay handsomely, with little effort.  She was certain that this was not what her grandfather had in mind when he shipped her off to the United States to attend M.I.T - but what the old man did not know, wouldn’t hurt him.  He had been disappointed when she did not come back to Japan to pursue a career in Robotics - she started hacking her freshman year and had not looked back since.  She loved it almost as much as she loved the renowned poet Keats - or coffee.  

Her chosen profession - for lack of a better term - paid a hell of a lot better than writing poetry, and that would have been her second choice for work.  It also afforded her the freedom to live the lifestyle she wanted, and to be able to send money home as well.  She had worked hard to get into school - to be the dutiful granddaughter and become an engineer - but one of her professors said something that changed her perspective on everything.

“You have to do what you love, because life is not a dress rehearsal - you get one shot at it - so live a life doing things that make you happy. You were born to do more than just pay taxes and die.”

Tori thrummed her fingertips on the desk, waiting for the last 3 percent of the progress bar to hit completion - she looked at her watch.  She pumped her fist in the air when she saw the time - she would have time to hit the bookstore and the coffee shop before she was scheduled for a meeting with a new client.  As soon as the download was complete, she packed her laptop into her backpack - she slung on her jacket and grabbed her helmet from the hook on the wall as she walked through the doorway.  “Hey Jeans - I am gonna head out.  Ping me if the suits come sniffing around, would ya?”

Jeanine - or Jeans, who was Tori’s awesome assistant - nodded her head and hummed.  “Sure.  I got a date tonight though, so I am going to leave a little early.”  Tori stopped before the door closed behind her, “It’s not with that same douchebag, is it?  I fucking hate that guy.”  Jeanine shook her head, “No - a new guy I met last weekend.  He’s got a cute friend too.”  Jeanine’s tone implied that she was looking to try to set up another shitshow of a double date.  Tori groaned, she had absolutely no interest in the smarmy friends of the guys Jeans was into. She’d given it a try once, and that was enough.  “I’d rather get a lobotomy.  Good bye, Jeans.”

Tori sped down the street, zipping between cars - she loved that she could roll through traffic practically unhindered on her motorcycle.  It was the first purchase she made after being paid for a big job - a black Triumph MY17 Bonneville Bobber.  It was custom made, and equal parts iconic and quality engineering.  It also made her feel like a proper badass.  She pulled into her usual parking spot in front of her favorite coffee shop in the neighborhood - it was a mom-and-pop run joint, and she loved the ambiance there - she probably spent too much time there.  Not probably.  Definitely.

She took off her helmet, strapped it to the seat of her motorcycle and strolled toward the door - it was a crisp day, so she found it odd when she noticed that someone besides herself would opt to sit outside - and she had never seen the man there before.  She glanced at him as she walked past - dark messy hair, glasses - a tattooed hand flipping a page on the book that was laid out on the table in front of him.  The door tinkled when she opened it, followed by the employees shouting their customary greeting.  “Ay!  Tori!”

After getting caught up on the neighborhood gossip and acquiring a very large cup of coffee, Tori made her way back outside - to sit at her favorite table.  She slung her backpack onto the chair next to her and pulled out a worn, black leather-bound journal.  The stranger that sat across from her caught her eye again - his attention focused onto the page he was reading, fingers slowly scrubbing the hair on his chin.   She raised an eyebrow as she noticed  the letters tattooed on his fingers.  Interesting.  

Tori pulled her phone out of her pocket and placed it on the table and queued up the next song in her playlist - ‘In the City’ by The Jam - and plugged the headphones into her ears.  She opened the journal and began to scribble notes into it, bobbing her head with the music - designs for a new RFID hacking device that made use of a mini drone - controlled by a program on her phone.  She chuckled as she thought of all the fun she would have with it.  She paused to take a sip of her coffee, making eye contact with the stranger this time - his eyes were a golden, almost amber color - she continued to stare even after she sat her mug down - she wondered if it was the light of the sun that caused the effect, or if his eyes were actually that color.  There was no change in the man’s expression - it was one of an almost clinical inspection - as she continued to stare at him.  When Tori’s phone rang, he nonchalantly turned his attention back to the book he had been reading.

Tori swiped her finger across the touch screen of her phone, “Talk to me, Jeans.”  There was a longer than necessary silence, “Jeans?  You there?”  Tori heard what sounded like a phone being dropped followed by a string of profanities - after a few minutes of fumbling - Jeanine’s voice came through.  “Shit.  Sorry.  Where are you?”  Tori sighed, “At the coffee shop.  I’ve got a little over an hour before the meeting.  Why?”  More silence.  Tori’s eyebrows furrowed, her voice lowered to nearly a growl.  “Jeanine.  Why?”  Jeanine stuttered, “W-w-well, you see - I might have entered in the details into your calendar wrong.  The meeting  is actually an hour earlier than what it says.”  Tori sighed more heavily this time, “If I am late for this meeting, Jeans -”  Jeanine interrupted her, “I will make it up to you, I swear.”

With a growl, Tori hung up the phone - she began shoving her belongings back into her backpack and slung it onto her shoulder - her eyebrows knitted together, muttering to herself about the various ways in which she would murder Jeanine, should she be late.  She hated being late.  She stopped and popped her head inside the door of the coffee shop, “Oi!  I’m off!  See you guys later!”  As she turned to head to walk away, she heard the employees shouting their goodbyes - she jogged over to her motorcycle and plopped down onto the seat, quickly pulling her helmet on.  She turned the key, starting the engine - she took one last look at the time on her phone before cranking up the volume and shoving it into her pocket.  

Music blared in her ears.  With a bad attitude and a short time to make it to her destination, Tori quickly sped off.  She had been so pissed off that she did not notice that the handsome stranger’s eyes had been fixated on her from the moment that she stood up from the table - following her until she was out of sight.  

[newmillennia]

Ernest “Doc” Fitzwilliam-Smythe

Ernest “Doc” Fitzwilliam-Smythe FACS (Fellow of the Athena College of Surgeons)

Born: 10 September, 1967.

Kingston, New Millennia

Nationality: British

Alma mater: Athena College

Occupation: Orthopaedic Surgeon, Politician

Years active: c.1989 - 1995

First Appearance: Tales of New Millennia: The Forgotten Nation

Last Appearance: Tales of New Millennia: The Lost Dream

Canon age:

38 (TFN)

45 (TWI & TLD)

Associated Groups:

Athena College of Surgeons (1989-1995)

The Brethren (1996 - 2006)

The Alabaster (2006-2013)

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Origins

Ernest Fitzwilliam-Smythe was always destined for the medical profession. He was born into a world where the New Millennia Civil War was at its most fierce, but it was spared emotional torment in being too young to remember the worst of it.

He grew up in the domesticity of the Housing District with his mother, a skilled battlefield nurse of the National Army; his father, one of Kingston’s premier butchers; and his older brother, Maxwell. From the age of ten, he was aiding his brother and father at the butchers, being put in charge of sewing meat together with string. A familiarity with the suturing process and an obsession of with biology (due to the slaughtered animals) sewed the seeds of aspiration for young Ernest - he wanted to be surgeon.

Like his brother, a similarly aspiring pharmacist, he spent his teens shadowing his mother and building up the qualifications necessary to pursue an education in medicine. He followed in Maxwell’s footsteps in being accepted into Athena College under the tuition of Prof. R. Valerie. Alas, unlike his brother, Ernest struggled with the workload and practical experience of surgery and soon found himself ostracised by a cohort of a greater intelligence and an abundantly of apathy. During examinations, Ernest would often get so nervous his hands would shake and his suturing would become misplaced. Then he discovered smooth jazz and alcohol remedied this stress, putting him at ease, and soon elevating him to the standard of his classmates.

Just when things looked to be getting better, the fighting started again. His father’s butchers was targeted by a series of rebel raids, and after a failed attempt to seek retribution, Ernest’s father was killed and his body buried at sea. Working alongside his widowed mother and brother, he began getting real surgical experience in the battlefield hospitals, specialising in amputations to starve off the spread of gangrene. All the while, Ernest was becoming increasingly engrossed in psychiatric science, believing that if alcohol and jazz could calm his nerves there must have been other scientific ways in which one could alter their personality and actions. His alcoholism was becoming an addiction, and what’s worse, he was becoming desensitised to its effects. When breakthroughs in his psychiatric work failed to materialise, Ernest became addicted to greater and greater substances.

Then finally a eureka moment. After a few tests on the rats that infested his apartment, Ernest discovered that he could alter the traits of animals through trans-orbital lobotomies; he had commandeered his brother’s silver hammer to preform the procedure. The battlefield hospital gave him plenty of human subjects to test on, most of them too delirious and unaware what was going on. He noted his findings as he managed to transform docile men and women into angered zombies of their former self - it was an outstanding success. And Ernest had good reason to celebrate - he had fallen in love.

The woman was a pharmacist student, two years his senior. Each night he’d write her poetry, rephrase what he was going to say, and how it would boast his playing God in his tweaking of people’s minds. But one day his brother attended a family dinner with his new girlfriend, and to Ernest’s dismay, it was the one he wanted. The younger brother was distraught, experiencing a stint of depression before coming to a realisation: if he could alter the minds of his patients, maybe he could persuade her to fall in love with him, and not his brother.

Ernest made plans to alter her mind. On frosty night he consumed every stimulant he could find to calm his nerves, and set forth to her house. When he knocked at the door, his brother answered. Overwhelmed by anger and his inhibitions quelled by a cocktail of drugs, he took to his brother with his own silver hammer; two clangs knocked him out, another two knocked him dead. His love watched the whole thing pan out. She tried to run, but Ernest pinned her down. She pleaded for her life, offered him sexual favours in exchange for it, but he wouldn’t budge - he wanted her, not her body. The lobotomy took place shortly after, although under the strength of straddling her to the ground, Ernest pushed too hard and forced his lobotomy needle too far into her skull. In one night, he had killed his crush and crushed his brother.

Ernest’s skills were in his ability to evade detection. He claimed he found his brother dead on arrival, and managed to swap his cell evidence with that of a bovine tuberculosis patient. Maxwell Fitzwilliam-Smythe was to be buried soon after, cruelly struck down in his prime by the respiratory disease. The girl was a bigger issue, as upon news of her death, her family wanted a full enquiry. When they found evidence of lobotomisation, and tied it to Ernest, and he was stripped of his practicing license and banished from Kingston.

In the W.U.F, Ernest found swift employment as a battlefield medic, although this time for the Rebel side. As the insurrections of the mid-90s came to a close, Ernest rose to prominence as the foremost doctor for the cause. He was given his own hospital in the ruins of an ammunition factory, naming it The Sanatorium, and began training medical hopefuls once the fighting had stopped. One of his patients would be the future chancellor-nominee of the W.U.F, the war-hero Troy Ferron. Ernest’s connection with Ferron enabled him to gain the trust of the burgeoning resistance group, The Brethren, being indoctrinated by Aran Shrimp and given operation under the codename, Doc.

In the group, Doc made close ties with the ex-smuggler Zachariah Wardley, as given his old profession, he was able to provide him with all the luxuries of his old life in Kingston including (among other things), prime beef, jazz records, and a shedload of drugs. Wanting to stay on his good-side, Doc started attending Zachariah’s meetings with a zealous reformist group, the last bastion of the extremist sect, The Alabaster.

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Tales of New Millennia: The Hidden Nation

Upon Nathan’s arrival into The Brethren, Doc takes a particular interest in him, spotting his potential for violence and seeing him as another mule for his drug addiction. He shows Nathan an uneasy among of preferential treatment, reaching climax when he’d rather cater to Nathan’s flesh wounds than save a dying Aran Shrimp from a gunshot to the abdomen. Shrimp is saved and put into a lengthy recovery process.

When the group plans for a raid on Beeding to free the captive Jonathan Reeve, Doc takes the opportunity to confide in Nathan a hidden agenda - for him to either find a way to synthesise the Dutch Courage stimulant, or to bring him some to ease his cravings. Doc finds a connection with Nathan as he can see a lot of his younger self in him - they bond over the deaths of their brothers, but neither is aware that they each killed them. To aid the mission, Doc gives Nathan placebos under false-pretences that the tablets are morphine. In Beeding, Reeve is poisoned and the morphine proves to be a decoy, so Nathan feeds him Dutch Courage to stem the pain instead. When they return, Doc becomes frustrated that the needs of Reeve involve the consumption of what he sees as his Dutch Courage and privately debates about letting the old man die.

A week later, after rations are hampered and the group is left starving, Doc begins to get agitated. When Aran Shrimp is killed in a riot, Doc processes his corpse into meat and feeds it to the guests attending his funeral. After the cannibalism is uncovered, Doc is shunned from the group and sent out to the wilderness, with his protege, Raymond, taking his place as senior practitioner.

Doc materialises in Beeding some time later, having been camped out there to try and get some Dutch Courage. He gets into a fight with Nathan, who’s there to destroy the generators and cut power to the arms manufacturers. When Nathan plants the bomb, Doc attempts to see what he was doing, inadvertently getting involved in the ensuing explosion. His hearing is damaged, and he goes mad out of an inability to listen to both the jazz and the screams of his patients. Nathan believes Doc is killed when a steel beam falls on him, but unbeknownst to everyone else, Doc escapes.

Dapper Gambino, leader of The Brethren, leads the Rebel army into victory in the Second New Millennia Civil War, although his victory comes at a price - he led hundreds into a bloody ambush at the doorstep of Davenport Manor. The next day, Doc remerges, and aided by his associates from The Alabaster, systematically kills the remaining expendable witnesses to the Manor Massacre. He takes to the public forum and presents a narrative of betrayal, suggesting that Dapper knowingly killed his own men for a better grasp of power following the war. He even claims that Nathan, by that time a certified war hero, was killed by Dapper, and that his martyrdom should be preserved in the ascension of The Alabaster as a political organisation. He, and his Alabaster cronies, demand obedience through displays of public violence against dissenters, and gradually Doc is accepted as the new ruler of the island of New Millennia, as chancellor of The Alabaster