#trying out the theory that the simulations got worse over time. seeing how i feel. | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

ilguna · 3 years ago

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Anteric - Chapter Eight (f.o)

summary: secrets have more worth than you gave them credit for.

warnings; swearing, blackmail, mention of underage drinking, BURIED ALIVE IN DETAIL, GORE, DEATH, SPIDERS, mild CLAUSTROPHOBIA

wc; 14.1k

NOTES; I give reader a last name to fit the world.

–

The hallway’s silence is deafening, filled with only your breaths. Bodies are lined up against the wall on each side, all sitting. Across from you are the Dauntless-born initiates, and on both of your sides are your fellow transfers. The person that stares at you through the darkness is Blaire, who twists the end of his shirt around his finger, stretching it and leaving wrinkles.

He’s obviously distracted, eyes not seeing you, but the space beyond it. It’s the exact same look that a few others have. It’s gone quickly, though, all with a simple accidental bump from Nestor. A smile spreads across Blaire’s face, eyes immediately going to his friend to give a gentle push back, ultimately starting a shoving match.

Down the line, from left to right, is Sydney, Nestor, Blaire and Ameer. As for Mirza, Horace, Cass and Lennox, they’ve already been called into the room with Laurel. She takes each of you one by one, in no particular order. You originally thought it was alphabetical, the theory was gone as quickly as it came when she called Thyme first. Her last name is Tattrie.

To your left is Trink, she twirls a strand of her blonde hair around her finger, laughing at Blaire and Nestor. To your right is Finnick, with Eytelle on the very end. There’s a large gap between you and Finnick, and that’s because Allio and Thyme were there before they were called in.

For the first stage of initiation, your two groups were ranked separately. The real challenge begins here, now that you’ve been combined. You had started with eighteen, but with four being cut in the last stage, there are now fourteen. On the way here, Laurel told you not to stress out, no one will be getting cut this time around. The next stage, the final stage, is when all final decisions will be made. This is just the preparation.

You watch as Nestor bounces against Sydney too hard, sending her to the side. Her hand slaps against the ground, stopping her from hitting the floor. Instantly, her hair flies out of her face as she glares at the back of Nestor’s head, “Can the two of you stop it?”

Blaire is laughing too loudly, causing Nestor not to hear. He knocks into Sydney, she doesn’t waste time making her point known. She shoves Nestor from behind, sending him flying into Blaire.

You crack a smile, watching as the two boys then go to gang up on her. In no time, the hallway is filled with screeching giggles, kicking to get them off. For a moment, Blaire turns his attention to you, eyebrows and hands raised as a challenge. If he even dares...

You back away from him, sitting flush against the wall, “Unlike Sydney, I’ll aim for the face.”

Trink lets out a noise that’s closest to a laugh, “Oh! That’s true, and she’s brutal.”

No one responds to what she says immediately, until Ameer is leaning forward, barely coming out of the shadows and into the soft blue light, “Brutal?” he challenges, “What did you rank, again?”

Sydney and Nestor are beginning to relax now, interested in the conversation that’s about to be had. You accidentally catch a glimpse of their hands intertwining, and end up forcing yourself to look at Ameer for a distraction. You can already feel the judgement rolling back on. After what happened during breakfast, you’re not sure if you want your friends to catch on again.

In Abnegation, relationships happen, obviously, but they are not physical and out in the open like this. They are supposed to be private and to keep others from feeling uncomfortable. Your parents had been married for years and there’s not a single time you can recall them kissing. Hugging, maybe, but all the intimate movements would have to be saved for private.

This is different, new and something you have to overcome before it’s recognized as a weakness by others.

Your eyes lock with Ameer, “Second.”

Something flashes across his face, disbelief, you think it is, “How many wins did you have?”

“Two.”

The doubt is settling in, you can tell by the way he squints his eyes, mouth puckering as he watches you carefully, “Who was first?”

“Allio, he had three wins.” your hands find each other, fingers intertwining. He’s going to come to the same exact realization that the rest of you did. That there is foul play and you are undeserving of your title.

Ameer’s eyes break contact with yours to find Finnick. His head is tilted in your direction, listening in on the conversation like he’s anticipating his turn to be the topic. But he doesn’t say anything, only waits patiently.

“I thought Finnick was leading?” Ameer asks, eyebrows drawing in.

“Not anymore,” your words are crisp, “He’s third, with three wins.”

There it is, the questioning look from Ameer. He doesn’t have to tell you that it doesn’t make sense, you’re already nodding. You know, Finnick knows, everyone else in your group knows. There is nothing you can do about it, not that you would want to anyway.

“I’m brutal,” you give him a smile, like that statement alone is enough to erase his questions. You won’t leave him hanging, it’s hard not to brag with the next sentence, “Who do you think did that to his face?”

Ameer doesn’t respond at first.

Since yesterday, you’ve decided that you shouldn’t let the others know that you’re semi-friendly with Finnick. On the off-chance that they let Thyme know, or she somehow finds out, you’ll automatically be fucked. However, it doesn’t matter that much, anyway. You were stopped in your tracks when you realized that this is the fastest that Finnick has ever turned around. It’s a red flag.

And it could be because of a number of things you’ve said to him. It could be because you’ve known each other since forever, since you were infants. To him, you are the last thing he has from home. He is almost the same to you, except you have someone to fill that gap of homesickness.

His name does not start with an F.

What you know for sure, is that you don’t want to head into things blindly regarding Finnick, not with Thyme around.

Ameer glances at Finnick again, the gears turning in his head. You watch his eyebrows raise slightly, “You have to be kidding. Finnick’s like a whole foot taller than you.”

You cross your arms instead, it feels more natural this way, “So?”

“So,” he mocks your tone, “You couldn’t possibly reach up that far, right?”

There’s a few things wrong with what Ameer is saying, and the first thing is that Finnick is not a whole foot taller than you. You and Finnick have got distance, but it is a much easier gap to close than what Amos had against Eytelle. The second, is that he’s suggesting that you’re not good enough. And you’re not sure if he wants to head down that path with you.

You can feel your face darken, teeth pressing into each other, “Would you like to test that theory?”

Ameer opens his mouth, going to speak, but nothing comes out. He closes his mouth, shakes his head, and falls back against the wall like he’s trying to escape the door he had just opened.

It’s too bad for him, because you still have more to say, “I’m not sure if you’re one to talk, anyway.” you lift your head back up, eyebrows in, “If I remember right, you placed fifth. Which is kinda embarrassing, considering you’re the son of one of the leaders.”

His eyes narrow, mind changing again, “At least we know I didn’t cheat.”

You smile, “Ameer if it’s a fight that you’re looking for, all you have to do is ask.”

He stares at you, jaw clenching and unclenching. It’s pretty obvious to you that whatever minor friendship that had been forming between the two of you, is now gone. Which means that you can probably go ahead and assume that Mirza is off the table too.

It’s a shame because Ameer isn’t all that bad to be around, but the timing of all of this is wrong. You’ve been walked on too many times in the past couple of days and it’s starting to get irritating. You’re not about to bite your tongue with him, especially since you don’t know him all that well, anyway.

In the end, this could all be reversed, you’re sure. A little spout like this won’t stick in Dauntless. Not when initiation ends and all of you have met the end of the tunnel. It’ll be like water under the bridge, a memory you can laugh at.

The door at the end of the hallway opens, making you all look over. Laurel is the one standing in the doorway, leaned up against the frame, “(Y/n).”

You rise from the floor, making a point to avoid Ameer’s extended legs, just in case he gets any bright ideas. Unfortunately, you think you’ve had more than your fair share of tripping during school. After Erudite started releasing the reports, it just got worse.

Laurel moves back and out of the way, allowing you to come inside. You only get a few steps in, looking around the room before you stop. Laurel has already reached out, pulling the door shut behind the two of you. She slips by as if your stillness isn’t a surprise.

In the middle of the room sits the same exact chair that you had sat in during the aptitude test. Beside it is the machine that looks a lot like the one that was used to measure your decisions for your future faction. However, in this room, there are no mirrors for you to stare into. There’s barely any light, and the only other object in the room is a computer sitting on a desk in the corner, emitting a small amount of light.

“Go ahead and sit.” Laurel says, standing in front of the machine, you slowly make your way over.

If the chair is here, it means that you’re going to be subjected to another simulation, there’s no question about that. What you’re really worried about is the results and whether or not they’re going to be reported. Laurel and Caspian might be okay with it, but they’re just two out of the several hundreds of people in Dauntless.

If Laurel has to report the results, there’s no way she’s going to be able to manually insert them like last time, not without seeming suspicious.

You slowly slide into the chair, “What simulation do I have to go through today?”

“You’ll be facing one of your fears today,” her eyes meet yours, “your results will be sent to the administrators for review.”

You press your lips together, wanting to ask her if there’s danger in doing this. But you don’t even have to ask, you already know the answer, and it’s yes. Mox told you plainly that this would be easy for you, which is basically a red flag, especially after how hard the first stage was. This should be just as, maybe more, difficult.

“Okay,” you say, as if you’re agreeing. You don’t really have much of a choice.

“Stay still, I have to inject the serum.” she says, coming around the chair. In her hands is the syringe, tinted orange because of the liquid. She has her thumb against the plunger, ready to go. The needle looks longer than what you’re used to at the doctor’s office.

With a shaky hand, you move your hair behind your shoulder so that she has easy access to your neck. You wonder why they can’t just make you drink the liquid instead of injecting it. Sometimes needles aren’t a bother with you--you’re sure that it won’t show up during the simulation--but it’s bigger than usual.

Either way, you sit as still as possible when Laurel presses the needle into your neck. The pinch is much more painful this time around, the ache begins before it’s even been removed. You stare straight ahead at the door, wondering what the others are talking about now that you’re gone. It might even include Finnick.

It’s an instant relief when the needle is removed, “You have sixty seconds before it kicks in,” Laurel sounds like she’s standing behind you, probably next to the machine again, “To put this stage simply, we’ll be training you to get over your fears--or at least make them manageable. Just in case you were to come across a situation that would involve it in the real world.

“The serum induces a hallucination, and I’ll get to monitor what you’re doing the entire time. After, this will all be submitted to the administrators, as I told you before. You will stay in the hallucination until you can calm yourself down by lowering your heart rate and controlling your breathing.”

While she talks, you can feel your heart start pounding in your chest, hands automatically gripping onto the arms of the chair. They slip against the metal because of the sweat, making it impossible for you to feel stable. When you realize this, you try taking deep breaths, desperate to know if you can end the simulation before it begins.

Laurel gently places her hand on your shoulder, coming around the chair and into your line of sight, near the door. Your eyes flicker to her.

“Take your time, you’ll be okay.” she smiles.

You fall back against the headrest.

And jolt awake hard enough to hit your head on the ceiling above you. A groan leaves your lips as you press your head back down against the floor beneath you. Wherever you are, it’s dark and it’s going to take you a second to adjust to see.

You run your fingers against the floor, eyebrows knit together as you try to figure out what it is. It’s not cold or grooved, so you’d like to confidently say that it isn’t concrete or wood. It feels smooth, almost soft against your fingertips--silk? You move your hand to touch your forehead, still aching from your initial wake, when your elbow hits a wall.

You lift your head now, staring down at your feet through the darkness. When you extend your toe, you can feel another wall. The final one sits behind your head, which has to mean that you’re boxed in somewhere. You press your hands firmly against the top, pushing as hard as you can. They don’t think that you’re claustrophobic, do they?

You could sit in this box for the rest of your life if it weren’t for the elements. The problem is that Laurel said she’s just monitoring, she’s not actually picking and choosing the scenes you go into, unlike the aptitude test. She might be able to end the test early if needed, but you think that would be the extent of it.

The top of the box isn’t budging, and you’ve got your arms locked out straight, shoulder blades pressing into the fabric beneath you. You don’t know what’s locking you in here, maybe steel or wood, but you’re pretty sure you’re not going to be able to get out. Even a solid half-kick doesn’t break anything, only sends pains shooting through your toes.

Well, for a fear-facing simulation, it really missed the mark. A box with no escape doesn’t really have any effect on you, which means that with a couple of deep breaths, you’ll be out of here in no time.

Resting your head against the box again, you close your eyes and try to focus on your breathing. Even a couple of seconds later, you feel much better. You can see yourself waking up in the chair, with Laurel standing two feet or so away.

The silence is disturbed by a thudding sound on the other side of the ceiling. You stare, mouth turned into a frown, “Hello?”

As you wait, you press your hand to the ceiling in front of you again, wanting to know if it’s going to come loose now, but it’s just as stuck as it was before. There’s no vocal response that you can hear, just another thud, except it sounds like rocks raining down on the other side, dirt that sounds like sand.

Maybe you weren’t loud enough, “Hello?”

Still nothing, besides the rock sound.

Actually, there’s a faint murmur, you have to strain to hear what’s being said. Even then, you can make out only half of the words. You think you hear ‘dead’, ‘coffin’ and ‘dirt’ all in the same sentence. Which is ridiculous, right? You’re not dead, so there would be no reason to bury you. But it would explain the rock sound.

“Hey!” You scream, face twisting as you slam your hands against the lid. If this is a coffin, then the lid should’ve budged by now. It isn’t moving, though, not as far as you can tell.

You keep screaming, slamming the toe of your shoe in the same place over and over, hoping that you can kick a hole through the wood. Unless it isn’t wood, which would explain why they can’t hear you, concrete absorbs sounds like they don’t even exist.

They’re going to leave you down here if you don’t find a way to catch their attention. Then you’ll be left to starve, your family mourning even though they don’t have to. You scream louder, your throat becomes sore, tears appear in your eyes. You pause, huffing out air, making you realize just how warm it is in here, and how limited your air is.

“Help!” you fall back against the floor, breathing through your mouth, “please!”

The thudding on the other side of the coffin is much softer now, not as prominent before. You can already picture the dirt encasing you, ensuring that you won’t escape. It’ll look exactly like when your parents had been buried, one after the other. You remember thinking that you’ll never see them in person again.

You grit your teeth, letting the tears roll down the sides of your face and into your ears. You need to get out of here, and the only way you can do that is if you let this go.

Your nails dig into your palm, trying to ignore the music that’s playing above you. Laurel told you that the trick to this is deep breaths and slowing your heartbeat. It’s just a hallucination, you’re not actually buried underground. You’re in the chair, you’re in the chair, you’re in the chair…

You open your eyes, only to be blinded by the one light in the room. Without being prompted, you get to your feet, arms wrapping around your upper body as a hug. You don’t care what happens next, all you know is that you can’t be laying down anymore. The way that the chair is angled is too similar to how you were inside of the coffin.

Laurel is pulling wires off of her face with a neutral expression. Her eyes find yours briefly, before she heads over to the machine, which is clearly more important than your wellbeing.

A gust of cold air from a vent makes you remember the tears on your face, and you work quickly to wipe the wetness off with your shirt. You sniff and readjust and rub your knuckles, the feeling of pounding on the lid won’t go away. It’s a phantom feeling, the sister of the pain in your feet from trying to kick free.

“Well,” Laurel drags out the word slightly, “In comparison to the other initiates I’ve seen today, you were, by far, the quickest to come out.”

You have to ask, “Is that good or bad?”

“If you keep it up, you’ll be number one when the rankings come out.” She doesn’t say it outright, but her eyes do. If you’re in and out then you’ll definitely attract attention, something that you don’t want.

“What’s the average time?”

“Sixteen to eighteen,” she presses her lips together, “You were out in a little less than four minutes.”

Oh.

Oh, that is not good at all.

“Okay,” you say, but it’s not, you feel like screaming. You need to find a way to purposely spend more time in the hallucinations. But you’re not sure how to do that, because what felt like ten minutes inside of the hallucination, was only four minutes for you.

“You can leave the same way you came in.” Laurel gives you a smile, “Don’t worry about it too much, okay? I’ll see you later.”

“Thank you.” you murmur, slipping out of the door and back into the hallway’s darkness.

Unfortunately, on the way out, you have to pass by your friends. When all of the others had come out of the room, you weren’t paying attention to their faces. Most of them, like Horace and Cass, you didn’t really care for. But now it matters, especially since it’s only friends that are left. And they’re definitely going to want to look at you.

Their laughter quiets the closer you get. The first person to look up is Finnick, eyebrows together as he looks over your face. You force a quick smile, passing by him while being careful to avoid Ameer’s feet again. No one speaks, until Blaire grabs your hand.

“Any advice?”

You place your hand over his, “Focus on your breathing.”

He lets you go, just in time for the need to hug yourself comes back. You carefully wrap your arms around your upper body, before taking the next corner.

You wait in that hallway for a while, leaned up against the wall to blend in. You don’t know who you want to see first, Blaire or Trink? Or maybe Finnick? You’re hoping it’s not Ameer, but you really wouldn’t mind hanging out with only Sydney and Nestor again.

The person that rounds the corner first is Finnick, you reach out to grab his arm, ultimately scaring him. When his eyes land on you, you can see that he’s already pretty shaken, so maybe this wasn’t the best move. You’re not sure standing in the middle of the hallway would have been much better, though.

“Hey,” you say, “Are you busy?”

He shakes his head, you go ahead and readjust your grip on his arm, pulling him along with you. You make sure to take the hallways that won’t bring you to the dormitory, or anywhere near it. If there’s a chance that Thyme is waiting for him nearby, you’d rather take the long route to the chasm.

The silence isn’t as uncomfortable as you thought it would be. However, you are surprised that Finnick doesn’t try to start a conversation on the way. You guess that since you’re the one taking him somewhere, you should be the one to talk. But it’s always been Finnick that can’t stand the silence, you know how to sit through it.

He’s lucky that the chasm isn’t a far walk. As soon as the roaring of the rushing water comes into earshot, you release him and let him decide how close he wants to get. The first couple of times you came out here, you didn’t want to get near the railing, unsure of how sturdy it was. Now you know it can hold your bodyweight, doesn’t tilt or come loose or anything.

“I would’ve talked in the dorm but I thought I’d show you where I disappear to all the time,” you say, turning to face him while practically sitting on the railing. You can feel the breeze blow against your back, reminding you not to lean too far, “I don’t want to argue, Finnick, so please just bite your tongue for a minute.”

He’s making his way towards you at his own pace, “Okay.”

You watch his face for a moment to make sure that he actually is calm this time, because every time the two of you talk, it always seems to end in an argument. It doesn’t help that the irritation is already high because Thyme is trailing him. But for once, with her not here, you feel good.

“I want to tell you everything, but I would rather do the meaningless stuff first.” you can be honest with Finnick, you know this. You’re just afraid of creating a problem that doesn’t need to be made.

Finnick stops across from you, leaning against the rock wall. He hums out a response.

“You also can’t tell Thyme I’m talking to you,” your words pick up pace, “I’ll explain it all later, she just can’t catch wind of this.”

A crease appears between his eyebrows, “Okay.”

You begin picking at your nails, feeling smaller than him. This shouldn’t feel like a confession, but it does, “It was mostly during the first stage, because we were fighting the others. And kinda during the gun training too, actually.” you shrug, “I don’t like it when you brag.”

His face relaxes, a smile peeking at the corner of his mouth, “That’s it? That’s why you were going off alone?”

“I told you it was meaningless.” you roll your eyes.

He’s not hiding his smile anymore, “Anything else while you’re at it?”

You shrug, “You should probably get back to the dormitory before it looks like you got lost in the halls,” you smile, “After all, I disappear all the time.”

“Right,” he says, standing up fully, “I’ll talk to you later, then.”

“Yeah, remember what I said about Thyme.”

Finnick winks, takes a couple of steps to leave, and then pauses. When he turns to you, his eyebrows are raised, “Can I ask you a question real quick?”

You grip onto the railing, “Shoot.”

He’s no longer smiling, “Did Thyme say something to you?”

Finnick sits across from you in the hallway, patiently waiting to be called into the fear facing room like the rest of you. There’s a noticeable distance between him and Thyme, an unmistakable glare in her eyes. You’re not sure what he said to her yesterday evening, but it’s made her sour. Not enough to push her away, though, she’s still sticking pretty close to him. Still, the distance between them is satisfying.

Much to his annoyance, you couldn’t tell Finnick everything. The root of the Thyme problem starts with you, and you can’t just outright tell him you’re Divergent. You know you keep saying that the two of you have known each other since you were kids, but if a person like Thyme can come in and wreck shit within a week…

You told him what you could, specifically what Mox and Keely said about her. You couldn’t go into great detail, mostly because they didn’t give you anything to go off of in the first place. However, the moment you told Finnick that Mox was dead serious, he seemed to sober up and believe you.

If there’s one tell tale sign that Mox isn’t lying, it’s when he’s completely serious. It’s such a stark contrast to his normal lighthearted demeanor, and he never abuses the look. Unlike Reed, who’s had the same expression on his face ever since your parents died. It’s like the joy was sucked right out of him.

Anyway, you and Finnick are definitely making progress. He might not know all the details just yet, but at the pace you’re going, you two will be back to normal in no time. He knows that Thyme isn’t what she appears to be, and that she said something to you after your family left.

Thyme’s blackmail will end as quickly as it started.

“What was your fear?” Lennox asks Trink, fixing the laces on his shoe.

Trink half-shrugs, “Something stupid, I’m not even that scared of it.”

You resist the urge to contradict her. No one got a full night of sleep last night, which isn’t her fault. Everyone was stuck in their own personal nightmare as soon as they fell asleep. Sucked into a world they thought was under control and torn to shreds immediately because they didn’t make the rules in there.

Let’s just say you didn’t sleep in your bed for long after realizing that you might as well have been back in that coffin. Hard bed, dark room, only your thoughts to accompany you. There’s a sick feeling in your stomach each time you think about going back to bed.

“You don’t have to act tough,” you murmur, causing Lennox, Trink and Blaire to turn in your direction, “I couldn’t even sleep last night.”

“Yeah, we know,” Thyme says, not missing a beat, “You’re so fucking loud.”

You look at her, “Are you sure it wasn’t the sound of your own sobs that woke you up?”

Her face twists, “Don’t you forget--”

“Thyme!” a voice shouts, it’s Laurel. She’s a few steps out of the doorway, “Are you fucking deaf? Let’s get going!”

Thyme shoots you a glare, not finishing her sentence. She gets to her feet, shuffling down the hallway and vanishing behind the Door of Hell.

It’s quiet for a moment, Trink is the one to break the silence, “Forget what?”

You wave your hand, trying to come up with some excuse. Trink will pry, and Lennox will go with it to add peer pressure. You’ve seen it too many times now, with Sydney and Nestor. They are purebred Dauntless, and they will raise the stakes to get what they want.

You need a pacifier, a sacrifice that’s small and insignificant to keep them from pushing later on.

A laugh peels from you, “She found out the fear from yesterday, and she thinks that she’s going to use it against me,” your eyes find Finnick’s, hoping that he catches the subtle hint, “But if I tell you guys, it’ll have no effect, right?”

Trink nods, bobbing her head right next to Lennox. The two of them are so hungry for drama that it hurts. You’re glad to know that you have one humble friend, Blaire tells you that you don’t have to tell them if you don’t want to.

“Oh, it’s okay. I don’t think any of you will get the chance to bury me alive.” you wink at Blaire, who smiles shyly back at you, “It’s one of those things that are ridiculous.”

Trink keeps nodding, “Yours makes me feel so much better about mine,” her face is turning a slight shade of red, “Like, public humiliation is the least of my worries, honestly. Not getting into Dauntless is my big number one.”

“Isn’t it everyone’s?” Blaire sighs.

Lennox lets out a scoff that sounds like a snort, “Not mine, I’m going to trump you losers in the next ranking round.”

You press your lips together, because unless he’s going to magically beat four minutes, he’s not trumping anything. You’re sure that it’s important to be confident in Dauntless, but you can’t imagine how many times people have to eat their words.

And that gives you an idea.

You turn to Lennox, “I bet the remainder of my points that you won’t be number one.”

Blaire sucks in air through his teeth, “Are you sure that’s a good idea? Lennox is the epitome of perfection when it comes to Dauntless standards.”

Lennox smirks a little, you know that he won’t turn down the challenge, “How many points?”

“I’m sporting nineteen right now.”

The smirk widens into a grin, “I have twenty.”

You hold your hand out, he takes it without a hint of hesitation. He’s going to get his ass kicked, and he doesn’t even realize. The two of you shake, and when you fall back against the wall, Finnick has a smile too.

“What do you even need twenty more points for?” Trink asks.

“A new wardrobe.”

She lets out a dreamy breath, “Okay, I approve.”

You let out a laugh, which the others join in on.

About fifteen minutes later, Laurel opens the door, letting Thyme out and calling you in, “(Y/n).”

You take your time getting to your feet, thanking your friends when they wish you luck. You’re sure you’re not going to need it, it’s them who will have to worry about the rankings when they come out. You slip past Thyme, the door clicking shut behind you.

“Good afternoon,” you say, heading over to the chair.

“Same to you.” Laurel murmurs, “The needle will go into your arm today.”

You’d prefer that, anyway. Having needles go into your neck is just wrong somehow. All the shots that have ever been delivered to you, have been through your arm. It’s less of a risk of doing permanent damage, besides scarring.

You slip in the chair, face twisting when you realize how warm it is.

“She was sweating,” Laurel comes around the side, syringe in hand, “You’re lucky that I could wipe it down.” You give Laurel a look, and after a moment she cracks a smile, “Sit still and stop mean mugging me.”

You let your head lay against the headrest, curling your toes when her needle breaks skin. The ache in your arm is a lot more forgettable this time, compared to your neck. The pinch is gone quickly, and you watch as she goes to tend to the machine. Once again, you’re left to stare into the empty room.

“You have sixty seconds before it kicks it.”

You don’t bother to tell her that you know already, and the fact that you can feel the effects begin to kick in around fifteen seconds. Unlike yesterday, today your throat squeezes tightly as if you’re having an allergic reaction, making it difficult to breathe. It doesn’t help that the urge to run is beginning to settle in, you grip the arms of the metal chair to keep yourself grounded.

“Remember to breathe,” Laurel’s voice is sounding faraway, a whisper compared to the rapid beating in your chest, “And take your time.”

You want to tell her that you will, but your teeth are glued to each other, mouth dry, and you’re drifting. Once again, you find yourself trying to hold on through the little things. Like how the metal is digging into your palm, and there’s sobbing coming from somewhere.

You fall, head slamming into the ground beneath you. Your face immediately twists, eyes squeezing shut. When you reach to rub the spot, you notice that you’re not confined in a coffin this time, but it is dark enough for you to feel like you’re blind. So, you take it easy while trying to sit up.

The floor beneath you is wood, you can tell because of the paneling. It feels worn, like it hasn’t been replaced in years. And a little uneven, some will dip in the middle, gaps between wood, drop offs that’ll catch the tip of shoes. Almost like the rock flooring in Dauntless, except wood is rare here. Besides the dormitory, the only other place is the training room.

With that, a single light floods the dark room as a reward for cracking the code. The light is on you, once again blinding you. You cover your eyes as you look around, you can see the door to leave is on the right, so you must be sitting where you used to stand during the fights. And if that’s right, then the circle is in front of you.

The light shifts as you raise to your feet, trying to squint through the white. You don’t know what fear this correlates to, but the sick feeling rising in your stomach is telling you not to underestimate the situation. Everything was fine in the last simulation up until you started to become aware of your surroundings.

You shuffle forward, being careful not to snag your shoes on the floorboards. As you get closer to the circle, there’s a familiar smell in the air. The stench is strong, though, enough for your stomach to hurl, pushing you to the edge. You cough to ease the tension in your throat, but it ends in a gag.

Sucking in air through your nose just makes it worse. The smell of blood is normally manageable for you, since it’s always been small or in adrenaline-fueled hazes, but this is different. This is all you can smell, all you can think about. You need to find the source, find who’s bleeding and stop it.

A few more steps, and you come crashing to the world. You slip hard, falling on your ass. The pain in your tailbone is enough to bring tears to your eyes, but you’re more concerned about the pool of blood you’re sitting in. And the person it’s coming from.

His face is tilted away from you, blood soaking his brown hair. You get on your knees so that you can lean over him, hands trembling. He’s pale, his green eyes are staring into the darkness. They quickly flicker to you when you accidentally let out the shaky breath you were holding.

Finnick Odair is bleeding out in the training room.

And you don’t know what to do about it.

His black shirt is stuck to his skin, riding up slightly. You think that the source is his stomach, but there’s no holes or anything. Which makes you think it’s his back, you shouldn’t move him though, right?

“I…” you whisper, he’s waiting on you, he wants you to save him, “I don’t…”

He looks exactly like he did after the fight, when you beat him to near unconsciousness. You can picture the way his head rolled to the side once he was on the wheelchair, Cleo pushing him out. How his eyes stuck with yours until he couldn’t look anymore.

Except, this time he’s bleeding out.

“Okay,” you breathe, even though it’s not, “I’m going to--I’m gonna help.”

You sniff, hands gliding through the air to grab the end of his shirt. You carefully pull it up, trying your best to avoid the red, even though your jeans are already soaked in it. If you took off your clothes, you’d be stained, permanently tinted.

No. No, only temporarily.

The wound is on his stomach, a slit that mimics the one of a knife, making you freeze.

This is what your dad looked light, bleeding out in the factionless streets, all by himself. Hurt, pale, the grey clothes of Abnegation selflessness soaked the angry shade of maroon. And he was dead, curled up and clutching to his wedding ring.

You sob, throat still swollen, the back of your hand pressed to your mouth. You tilt your head back, white light shining in your eyes as you cry. You try to suck in air through your mouth, but the revolting smell of metal and dirt has infiltrated your senses, and you can’t without violently gagging.

A gentle touch startles you out of your train of thought, reminding you that he’s there. Finnick gives you a closed-lipped smile that reaches his eyes. He breathes in through his nose too sharply, triggering him to cough, sending blood out. His face is twisted in pain, you jerk forward to help him lower his head back to the ground.

You need to focus.

“Okay,” you breathe again, tilting your head to the side, “This will hurt.”

And it does. You press your hands to the wound on his stomach, hoping that will be enough to stifle the blood. There’s not much you can do in the first place without a doctor, and that job is normally dedicated to the Erudite. In the meantime, you need to get out of here.

The moment you start breathing deeply, a new problem arises. A second hole that you didn’t see before, further up his chest. But the more you move his shirt, more appears, like the simulation is trying to keep you from saving him. You have to, though, and you will.

You move to take off your shirt, placing it on the--what you now recognize as--bullet holes. You press down on the area with the other hand, since it’s separate from the first. You try to give Finnick a comforting smile, it’s hard to because you don’t know what you’re doing. The pool of blood is just widening, reaching the circle’s white line.

It gets worse, some pain in his leg appears, and then his arm. You can hear him moaning in pain, but there’s only so much you can do. You try to cut off the blood flow, and a wound will appear above it, defeating the purpose, getting you more wet. You’re sure that he should be dead by now.

It’s like he’s a test dummy, seeing how many injuries they can rack up on him. And instead of torturing him, it’s torturing you. You’ve used your belt, and your shirt. His shirt is too risky to take off, and Finnick doesn’t normally wear a belt. And you have both of your hands stopping blood, both of his barely pressing hard anymore, and a leg draped over his thigh as if you’re fucking helping anymore.

All the while his eyes are drooping, and you think he’s saying something to you but you can’t hear him, can’t read his lips through the tears in your eyes. Not to mention, you can’t breathe, can’t speak, can’t keep him awake. You can’t fucking help. Why was it you that found him? Why couldn’t someone else have walked in?

“Finnick, please,” your voice is scratchy, throat incredibly sore from the sobs, “Please don’t go, please stay with me.”

His head is rocking from side to side, is he shaking his head? You don’t know, you don’t understand. He can’t leave you, Finnick can’t leave you, not like this. He’ll hate you forever because you can’t fucking save him. All you want to do is save him.

You rock forward, hands sliding when you press your forehead to his collarbone. All you can do is apologize as you clutch onto his shirt. You can feel his arm shift from beneath you, rubbing up your back. You can’t do it, it’s a simple task and you can’t even do it.

“It’s okay.” Finnick’s voice is small, but it cuts through the silence. You raise your head to look at him, he’s got so little time left, “Breathe.”

You let out a sob, hand over your mouth. You don’t think it’s you controlling your body anymore. You think it’s autopilot, because you reach forward and cup his cheek in your right hand. A tear rolls down, creating a streak of cleanliness in a sea of blood on his face.

“Let go.” he whispers.

You jerk forward, suddenly awake in the fear facing room. Your hand is clamped over your mouth to make as little noise as possible, but you can’t help the cry that comes out.

“Three and a half minutes.” Laurel says.

You slide out of the chair, wanting to scream because you don’t care. Five minutes, thirty minutes, one minute, it all feels the same! It feels like you’ve been holding onto dying Finnick for days, pleading for him not to leave you. You’ll be living this woken nightmare for the next few months, and you’re supposed to care that it took you three and a half minutes to get out?

You can’t shake the look that Finnick gave you at the end, the look of knowing. He knew that his time was up, and he opted for you to leave. And the worst part of it all is you don’t even know what fear that was supposed to encompass.

“I’m done,” you say, “I can’t fucking do this anymore, I’m done.”

Laurel lets out a quiet noise, when you look at her, she’s shaking her head, “It gets easier.”

“Easier?” You ask before yelling, “Easier?! I just watched Finnick bleed to death in my arms, how does it get any easier?”

She hushes you, setting the face wires off to the side, “That’s one of your fears, something you need to come to terms with.”

You grit your teeth, “When is Finnick ever going to bleed out? Chocked full of bullet holes with no origin?”

“Fears are typically irrational, you have to know this already.” She reaches for the sleeve on her arm, yanking it up to reveal the mannequin tattoo, “I work with mannequins all day, so tell me why I would feel afraid of them if I already know that they’re harmless?”

You don’t know, how are you supposed to know?

She must not like your silence because she lets out an annoyed sigh. One that you’re all too familiar with, it sounds just like Reed’s sigh. The lecture is coming, “Haven’t you noticed the pattern so far? It’s been two days and I can already tell what you’re afraid of.”

“So tell me.” your voice is hoarse, a side effect from the simulation.

“Maybe you should spend some time trying to figure it out by yourself.”

The problem is that you don’t want to. You’ll already suffer later on tonight, so why should you bother torturing yourself right now? So much is on your plate, and more keeps getting shoved on.

First it’s Caspian finding out that you’re Divergent, second it’s Thyme blackmailing you with it. Then Finnick crawls out of hell and decides that he wants to be friendly again, and you can’t even get help from Caspian because he’s been interfering too much already. And now you’re suffering through your own fears just so you can stay in a faction that--surprise, surprise!--is more ruthless than you initially thought.

And she wants you to spend your time thinking it over.

No. No, if anything, you think you need to get away from here.

You wave your hand, heading for the exit.

“Take the other door, you won’t be disrupted.” she says.

You spin around, heading for the door she’s talking about. It’s on the left wall, in the back corner. Compared to the right, which has the computer that contains your escape from Finnick’s demise.

You shove the door open, letting it slam against the wall on your way out. The hallway is a straight path for a while, there’s no side paths that you can take and it’ll magically bring you back to the others. Not that it matters much, it’s not like you can talk to any of them about it.

Your feet know where to bring you, straight to the same place you go every time there’s a dilemma. You don’t sit against the railing today, there’s no reason to. Finnick’s not here to talk to you, and you’re pretty sure that he’s not going to be out of the simulation for a while. And that’s under the assumption that he’s next.

You close your eyes and rest your head against the wall. The sound of the water is similar to the noise of static, making it easy to numb the mind. You need to seriously make a dent on Finnick before Thyme finds a way to draw him in again. The two of you are tugging at each of his arms, trying to get him to stay long enough to hesitate on going back to the other.

It’s been three days since the final fight, and two days since Thyme has blackmailed you. You want to think that it’s too soon to start pulling harder, especially since the peace has only been recently established, but you also don’t know how much time you have before Thyme comes in.

Plus, it’s not like Finnick has given up on you completely, right? There’s been a few instances where you’ve hit a chink in his armor, and all of them start with you. It’s never been the surface stuff, like the fact that you came from the same place. That can be easily forgotten, the saying ‘faction before blood’ doesn’t come from nowhere.

As soon as you told him that you left your family for him, he broke. And you’ll bet it’s because he knows how much family means to you. After everything that’s happened in your life, the one thing you had going was family, something that you would have never traded, but you did it for him.

It happened again later on, during the fight too. It was the vulnerability of your voice that made him hesitate. He also trailed you into the bathroom that morning, despite being tired. And you’ll bet that he wanted to talk to you, not use the toilet or whatever.

You think you’ve done it, finally cracked the code.

He lives for the real moments, and you’re not talking about the heat of the moment when the two of you are arguing. It’s the softness, no secrets, no guards in front of the palace. The second it all started falling apart was the second you were told you were Divergent.

You and Finnick have never really had a reason to keep secrets from each other.

The sound of someone clicking their tongue fills the air, making you jump slightly. When you open your eyes, you’re met with Sydney and Nestor, both of them staring down at you. Sydney’s pulling her hair into a ponytail, Nestor has his hands shoved into his pockets, leaning back with a ruined posture.

“Are you crying?” Sydney asks, the words are slightly muffled because she doesn’t move her teeth. You think you can see a hair tie in her mouth, which is probably why.

“No,” you say.

The tears dried themselves on the way here.

“Are you sure? Because you’re sitting out here all by yourself.” Sydney speaks normally.

“Looked like you were having a moment.” Nestor agrees.

“Haha.” you roll your eyes, getting to your feet, “What do you two want?”

Nestor half-shrugs, “Banding together a party. Ameer found some alcohol in the kitchen.”

You press your lips together, not sure which part of this story you don’t like, “Found it?”

“Ameer has sticky fingers, Mirza knows how to get in,” Sydney says, “If it helps, Maarja and a bunch of other older siblings will be there.”

You tilt your head, a sour face coming on, “Are you sure that Ameer wants me there?”

Nestor lets out a laugh, “Ameer doesn’t care, he’s probably forgotten about your argument already. Same goes for Mirza, the two of them don’t get hung up. They give it up, forget, and forgive. It’s their whole motto.”

“Which is lucky for you, because Maarja knows how to throw bomb ass parties.” Sydney says, “We just need to know whether or not Finnick should come.”

“Thyme’s already out of the question, no one wants to deal with her.”

“She’s going to know something’s up.” you say.

Sydney shrugs, “So? What’s she going to do about it?”

They’re right, as long as your name isn’t connected to the party in any way, you can’t be blamed for the fact she wasn’t invited. However, Finnick is another story. She might think you’re the one that wanted him there.

“Finnick is okay to come, but I can’t be the one to invite him. It has to be Blaire or something.”

“We gotcha covered, we’ll pass on the message.”

Sydney grabs your upper arm, pulling you with them, “In the meantime, we’re gonna drop you off with the others.”

“The others?” you ask.

“Maarja and them, they think that you’re going to help out and get shit done since you’re from Abnegation,” Sydney says, “And we tried to tell them it was a stereotype but they said it’s worth a try.”

You can’t help but laugh, this is exactly the type of behavior that you’d expect from them. Pick at the stereotypes and hope for the best, they never really think things through. Yet, they’re in charge of important jobs like security and the entire army.

God, is Dauntless ridiculous.

“I mean, I guess they were right.” You laugh, Sydney cracks a grin.

She slaps your upper back, “That’s the spirit! The more people you please, the more people will like you.”

“Or they’ll keep going to you for help, one or the other.” Nestor shrugs.

“And by the way, we were going to invite you either way, help or not. Maarja just wanted to push her luck.”

“I don’t mind, seriously.”

And you don’t, because this is what Dauntless is all about. The ziplining, the fighting, facing your fears, and going to parties. You rinse and repeat the next day, and it’s just like this, over and over for the rest of your life. This is why you’re here, this is why you can’t quit.

Your two friends bring you down a series of hallways, straight to a single door. Sydney pushes it open with her hip, opening out one of your arms, as if she’s telling you to marvel. There’s not much to be amazed at, so you shoot her a questioning look.

She cracks, her laughter echoing through the large room. She catches the attention of the older siblings, they turn their bodies so that they can see. Sydney holds up a hand, “It’s just us, (Y/n) said she’d help out.”

Maarja cheers.

The floors in this room are wood, the walls rock and stone. Basically like the training room, except this room is much smaller, brighter, and there’s only one exit. You guess that makes it an easy way to lock up, but it’s definitely a fire hazard. You can’t imagine the last time anyone has been in here, though.

“I knew you’d help,” she smiles, “Do you think your Abnegation friend will too?”

“He hasn’t even been invited yet, Maar.” Sydney says.

“And he’s not exactly the selfless type, anyway.” you slide your hands into your pockets, “Hated it there.”

She shrugs, “Whatever, bring him anyway.”

You crack a smile, “So what do you need help with?”

“Everything, but shit will start coming in one at a time. We should be done before dinner.” Maarja looks past you, “Keep taking people, will you?”

“Sure.” Sydney begins backing up, “Good luck, (Y/n).”

You don’t need luck, because spending time with Maarja and the others isn’t nearly as bad as Sydney and Nestor makes it out to be. They’re fun to be around, they know how to break someone out of their shell if they’re shy. In no time, the lot of you are laughing, tears in your eyes as you change lightbulbs and set up speakers for music.

You can definitely see the resemblance between Sydney and Maarja, they’re sisters through and through. Of course, they look a lot like each other, but they also have the same laugh, the desire to be on the edge of danger all the time. Sydney had stood on the edge of that building, and Maarja stands at the top of her ladder on her toes, with no one to steady the bottom.

They playfully fight, as all siblings do in Dauntless, and bounce back as if hurtful words were nothing. If you tried half of this with Reed, you would have been scolded. Mox might have been easier, but it would have never been this fun. Mox and Reed are alike in most ways--more than you will ever know, according to Caspian--but you and Finnick are closer.

You guess it’s the age gap that does it. Mox and Reed are only two years apart, Maarja and Sydney are one and a half, you and Finnick are the same. Compared to Mox, who’s three years older, and Reed who’s five. It doesn’t seem like a gap, but it really is. Plus, all three of you have managed to have different childhoods, you can’t imagine what’s in store for Alyssum.

It’s weird to picture you and Finnick as siblings, though. The two of you don’t fight like that, don’t talk to each other like that. You wouldn’t exactly call each other polar opposites, either. However, you guess that definition fits better. You see the things he doesn’t, and he sees the things that you don’t.

“You know what they say about polar opposites,” Daziel says, he’s Lennox’s older brother.

He’s got the exact same looks as Lennox, with the brown hair and brown eyes. He’s taller than Lennox, but shorter than Horace. When he laughs, it’s childish, yet there’s an edge to him. He leans forward as he talks, like he’s always delivering some sort of threat.

Because of him, you’ve noticed that there’s two ends to Dauntless. The first side is like Maarja, carfree, party hard, laugh as loudly as you can and have fun because this is your youth. On the other side is Daziel, intense, scary, probably guards the walls or patrols the factionless areas, and he talks quietly because he knows that the room will fall quiet to hear. Everyone else, besides them, falls somewhere in-between.

If you were to put Daziel and Lennox together, you’d go ahead and say that they’re siblings. Their personalities don’t come close to each other--although, you do have a suspicion that Lennox looks up to Daziel, which explains the behavior--but they aren’t the same person. And yet, they were born a year apart, which contradicts what you said earlier.

You suppose that every statement has an anomaly to make it false, right?

“What do they say?” you ask. You’re currently crouched down to the floor, opening a water bottle. You’ve been trying to get the speaker to work for five minutes now, you’re sure that Trink would be better at this than you.

Torrac, Nestor’s brother, says, “They attract.”

It doesn’t take a genius to decipher that one.

You roll your eyes, drinking the water. Like Daziel, Torrac looks a lot like Nestor, except he’s shorter. He doesn’t have that same bad posture either, and his voice is a whole lot deeper. On the spectrum that you made, he’d be closer to Maarja than Daziel.

“No, I’m serious.” Torrac stops, “It happens a lot. Sydney and Nestor weren’t always dating--”

“Much less, friends.” Maarja mutters.

“--but suddenly they came to some middle ground and started dating. Now there’s almost no difference between them. They balance each other out.” Torrac finishes.

There’s a long silence between you all, allowing actual work to get done. You get the speaker to work, and after that Daziel thinks it’s funny to speak into the mic and not help out. It’s a little annoying at first, but once Maarja cracks, you and Torrac aren’t that far behind.

“You know, you talk about Finnick a lot.” Maarja says, “Are you sure you don’t have some sort of crush on him?”

“Are you kidding?” Daziel doesn’t give you a chance to answer, “Lennox says Finnick talks shit about her all the time.”

You were right when you said that Lennox is hungry for drama.

“I think you missed the part where she said that they were like this--” she crosses her fingers, one over the other, “--besides, a lot of people hate each other and then get together. Torrac literally said that ten minutes ago. Do you have cotton for brains?”

Daziel, who still holds the microphone, says, “You are the one that nearly killed yourself because you didn’t know how to harness yourself correctly. Please, keep talking.”

Maarja points her finger at him, which quickly changes into the middle finger. After that, she looks over at you, “Anyway, do you have a crush?”

You shrug, shaking your head, “No…?”

“Oh, she’s unsure!” Torrac says, he’s smiling.

“It’s official, (Y/n) has a crush on Finnick.” Daziel’s words echo loudly, “A stiff likes a stiff, why am I not surprised?”

“It’s not like that,” you say, looking to Maarja for help.

“You’ve just never thought about him like that before?” she says, you nod, “Well, congrats on your awakening, good luck.”

You open your mouth for a sarcastic response, but the door opens. The four of you look up and over to see Finnick, Ameer, Blaire and Horace. They’re all carrying different objects, with the exception of Finnick, who looks like he just came from facing his fears.

“We brought the goods.” Ameer says, holding two bottles of alcohol by the neck.

“Over here.” Torrac says, motioning them over, “Finnick, you can join (Y/n).”

You don’t like the wink that Torrac sends you, but the wolf whistle that Daziel lets loose into the microphone is worse. You cap the water bottle in your hand before hurling it at him. He has enough time to dodge, laughter filling the air.

“Hey, Finn.” You stand, he’s coming into the room, heading towards you, “Maarja is the one on the ladder, she’s Sydney’s older sister. Torrac is the one setting up the tables, related to Nestor, and,” you shoot a glare at Daziel, who gives you a bright smile, “the dumbass on the mic is Lennox’s monkey brother, Daziel.”

“They’re all older siblings?” Finnick asks.

“Yeah, they’re cool. Daziel’s on thin fucking ice.”

“I can tell,” he smiles, “Have you been here all day? Trink’s looking for you.”

“Yeah, Sydney and Nestor found me. Did Trink say what she needed?”

He shrugs, stopping next to you. He takes a look around the room, “Doesn’t look like much of a party.”

“We still have a long way to go,” Maarja agrees, she’s coming down the ladder again, “I think we just need to remove a few more bulbs and cover up the windows. Torrac can set up the tables with Blaire…” she trails off for a moment, looking at Ameer, “Hey, that’s not all you took, right?”

Ameer scoffs, “Of course not. Mirza’s taking more and he’ll be over with Lennox. I have to find a way to get us snack food, though.”

“We’ll have some chocolate cake, I know that for sure.” Horace says.

Maarja snaps, “That’s right. Okay, so snacks won’t matter, just drinks.”

“And we’ve got that covered.” Ameer is heading towards the door with Horace, “See you guys in a few.”

“Thanks!” Maarja says, she then turns towards you and Finnick, “You two work together to pull out lightbulbs.”

“Sure,” you push Finnick forward, “He’ll be the one on the ladder, though.”

“I thought you got over your fear of heights?” Maarja asks, Blaire briefly looks up from his table.

“Chicken shit.” Daziel says.

You ignore him, “I don’t feel like risking my life today.”

And you’re not lying, because you honestly don’t feel like standing on the top of the ladder like Maarja was. But the moment you see Finnick start going up, you begin picturing him standing at the top, falling, cracking his head and bleeding out on the floor, and you change your mind.

You grab the end of his shirt, “Get down.”

“What?” he asks, his face twists as he looks you over.

“Get down, I’ll go up,” you say.

“I can do it, if you don’t want to. It’s not a problem for me.”

“I know that, just... get down, please.”

He gives you a weird look, getting down. You head up the ladder, ignoring the screaming in your head. If you fall, Finnick will probably be able to catch you, but not the other way around. And you’d much rather take the chance, anyway, because he’s still recovering from the beating you gave him.

Finnick holds the ladder while you unscrew the light bulbs. When you ask Maarja how she expects all of these to get back in, she shrugs and says it’s not her problem. They plan on leaving the bulbs in a box by the door. You don’t bother to mention anything about someone stumbling along and turning on the colored lights.

Finnick does, and he’s immediately met with Daziel’s criticism.

“You know, the older siblings are typically the smarter ones,” Finnick starts, he has to look over his shoulder to see Daziel, “It’s nice to know that you’re helping Lennox break the standards.”

You can see the sarcastic smile Finnick gives Daziel, you can’t help the giggle that leaves you. Daziel mocks it into the microphone, “Shut up and work.”

“You should be on one of these ladders, actually,” Maarja says, “You’re the tallest out of us.”

Daziel shrugs, not moving from where he sits.

“What did Daziel place in the final rankings?” Blaire asks.

“Like, fifth or something,”

“That’s not hard to believe.” Finnick mutters.

The room slowly comes together, with the lightbulbs out and the windows covered, the atmosphere is already setting in. There’s a row of tables along one wall that’s covered in the food that keeps coming, and Daziel gets up to start mixing the alcohol into other juices with Torrac and Lennox.

At some point, the only job left is to wait for the cake and start retrieving the only people that don’t know how to get to the room--Trink, Eytelle and Allio. Everyone else is on their own time schedule, and they look right at home when they enter. It’s always in clusters of three to four, with brightly colored hair and piercings that catch the light.

Maarja takes the microphone from Daziel and hides it somewhere. Then, she starts to play music somehow, none of which you and Finnick are familiar with. Music is typically only for enjoyment, so that was out of the question in Abnegation. Plus, you thought it was supposed to be an Amity-exclusive thing to listen to, anyway.

The tempo is typically upbeat, and if the artist isn’t screaming the words, then you can understand it fairly well. It isn’t long before Finnick has blended into the crowd, singing along to the repeated chorus and bouncing around. You watch him for a while, standing off to the side with Maarja as she watches the scene she created.

“Have you ever been to a party before?”

“Dinner parties with the neighbors.” you tell her.

“Dinner what?” Daziel shouts, leaning forward.

“Dinner parties! You guys probably don’t have those very often,” the looks on their faces makes you stop, “or at all, I guess. We all eat in the same room so it’s a foreign concept to you.”

“Not to me! I know what you’re talking about.” Trink nods, “Normally you invite someone over from a different house and cook for them. Sometimes they bring food so that they don’t feel awkward.”

You motion to Trink, “Except, in Abnegation it’s a custom to bring a few dishes. To let the entire other family cook would be extremely rude.”

Maarja and Daziel look vaguely horrified, “Okay, what do you do at those parties?”

“Eat, but you can’t talk about yourself. And typically gossip is rude, unless you know the family you’re eating with, really well.” you say, “You could always run the risk of someone else hearing, and reputation is very important.”

Trink’s twirling her hair around her finger, “Intelligent conversations, mostly. My family would have competitions to see who could come up with inventions that could improve lifestyle. I always won.”

Daziel stands up straight, “You two are incredibly boring.”

“How are your factions not getting along? Like, seriously?”

“Power.” you say, Trink’s bobbing her head in agreement.

Somewhere in the middle of the crowd, you spot Finnick motioning to you. You tilt your head, beginning to shake no, but Daziel shoves you forward, “Go get him!”

“I don’t dance.” you say, “It’s self-indulgent in Abnegation.”

“It’s a good time to learn, you’ll be doing a lot of it in Dauntless.” Maarja says, she then leans forward on your shoulders, talking in your ear, “Have a drink, if you’re really that nervous.” She pats you once or twice as encouragement, letting go.

You sigh, dragging your feet as you go to find Finnick. He’s easy to lose in the crowd, since he’s just as tall as the rest of them. Still, you manage to catch a glimpse of his hair in the purple light, eyes locking with his. He moves forward slightly, hand extended to you. You slip your hand in his, and instantly get yanked forward.

It’s too loud to just speak normally here, so he leans down, “I figured out the trick, it’s just a bunch of jumping.”

He backs away, joining the crowd’s rhythm, a smile on his face. You stare at him, not moving at first, so he grabs a hold of your hands and starts moving them like a puppeteer.

“Come on, (Y/n)! Feel the music!” he laughs, forcing you to twirl.

You want to tell him no, but you’ve already done a lot in Dauntless that you never pictured yourself doing. You’ve broken so many boundaries, disobeyed everything you’ve learned in Abnegation, and you’re refusing to dance? You ziplined off a building, hung hundreds of feet in the air, and you can’t do this?

You know, there’s a lot of things that you couldn’t do today, but this is something you can do. As long as it keeps that smile on Finnick’s face. If it stays, then you think you can do this.

“Okay!” you agree, waiting a beat or two before beginning to bounce too.

Finnick’s laughter fills the air, and for the first time in your life, you finally notice the butterflies. Light, swarming, and suffocating. You laugh too, holding onto his hands a little tighter. This is how it should be between you.

You’ve got a hold of Finnick again, and you’re never going to let go. Thyme can try to get in the way, but she won’t succeed. Finnick’s yours, he’s always been yours. By the time the rankings come out, she’ll be gone. Finnick will know your secrets, and he’ll help make sure that they don’t get out.

His smile fades a little, hand tilting your face up, “What’s wrong?”

You hadn’t even realized that you stopped smiling, “Nothing.” you grab his hand, squeezing it, “I’ll tell you later.”

Finnick gives you a look, “Promise?”

You won’t ruin tonight. You’ll tell him tomorrow if you can.

You beam, “Promise.”

It’s so painfully obvious that something went on last night. Every single initiate, with the exception of Thyme, is dragging their feet. A few people act like they turned into vampires overnight when they wince at bright lights and loud noises. Others are just in irritable moods in general, hungover from the alcohol.

Thyme is still sour from yesterday, you think, so there’s that. However, when you all came into the dormitory at three in the morning, she exploded. She didn’t yell, she managed to keep her voice level, but it was like all of you were in an interrogation.

One of the Dauntless-borns had said something to her along the lines of, “Shut the fuck up, this is why you weren’t invited.” and it worked. Thyme just glared daggers at the back of their head as they trudged their way to the bathroom. Now that you think about it, it might have been Lennox.

You also may have forgotten to mention an important detail about the dormitory now--it’s now occupied by the Dauntless-borns too. As it’s been said a hundred times before already, your groups had been kept apart. Now they’re combined, there’s four new bunk beds, and you get the pleasure of listening to Lennox and Sydney bicker in the mornings.

Anyway, Thyme went to bed after making a fuss with Finnick. He didn’t say much to her at all at first, then she wore on his patience--as she always does--and he snapped and told her to leave him alone. He was just invited to it, it’s not like he controlled the guest list. It was run by a bunch of the older Dauntless siblings.

And Thyme went, “Like who?”

Which made, literally everyone, point to either Sydney, Nestor, or towards the bathroom, where Lennox had disappeared inside of. Three people she doesn’t know, and therefore had no chance to actually build up some sort of friendship. It did raise the question on how Finnick got in, which was quickly answered by Blaire.

And, as if the salt wasn’t already bad enough, Cass went ahead and said, “Just face it Thyme, you’re fucking unlikable.”

A line with such irony, since the Amity are supposed to be the most liked. Yet here, she’s the most hated. Anyone could go ahead and say that Dauntless just hated Amity, and by default, Abnegation too. But then they’d have to explain why, especially since a former Abnegation is helping lead Dauntless, and you and Finnick are good in the books too.

Anyway, you can confidently say that Thyme is pissed. She’s been giving you a few looks every now and then, which is your fault because you’re the only other person that hasn’t been a complete asshole today. It’s weird to see, you came back with the rest of them, a little buzzed too. You shouldn’t be as on-top of it as you have been this morning.

You think it might have something to do with the adrenaline. To be completely honest, you don’t remember falling asleep, and each time you think of talking to Finnick, your stomach flips. Most of it has something to do with the fact of telling him you’re Divergent, but the other…

“Thyme.” Laurel says, hanging out of the door.

Thyme doesn’t move from her spot in the hallway, eyes on you, “Can you call someone else in?”

“No.” Laurel says, “You’ve had a shitty attitude all day, I want you over with. Get in here.”

Today also happened to be the day where gun training resumed. So, the first thing you got to do this morning was shoot. A lot of people complained, namely the ones who drank too much, but Caspian and Laurel were thoroughly enjoying themselves. You guess that the party was no secret, and you can’t really be surprised. The music just seemed to get louder the more time went on.

Not to mention when Maaja started playing popular songs, and the sing-alongs started. You swear that you’ve never heard a crowd yell that loud, drinks protruding into the air, swaying, harmonious. You and Finnick didn’t know what to do besides watch in awe.

Thyme gets to her feet, purposely kicking your ankle. You dig your nails into your palm, staring after her. Once the door swings shut, conversation takes over, forgetting her immediately.

“Does anyone remember how we got back?” Sydney asks, her hair is tied up messily, it looks like she got dressed in the dark.

“We walked back in a crowd.” you say, Cass immediately nods.

“Yeah, that’s right,” Cass agrees.

“I wish someone could tell me how much I drank.” Lennox groans, leaning his head back onto the wall.

You could probably tell him, but you think you stopped counting after three. Plus, you think he likes the attention he gets from Trink in response, how she immediately leans into him with a coo.

“We have to plan another party, right after initiation,” Ameer says.

Mirza nods, “We probably won’t be able to get as much alcohol as we did, but if we start taking some now…”

“I wouldn’t push it, we’re lucky we got any at all. Caspian had to pull some real strings.” Nestor says, earning two agreements from Sydney and Lennox.

“Wait,” you say, “Caspian helped?”

“Yeah!” Cass sits up straighter, “He’s the one that started the tradition, after all.”

You share a look with Finnick, “Why am I not surprised?”

“Caspian would start something like that.” Finnick laughs, you join in.

“Is Thyme always like that?” Horace asks.

There’s a lot of nodding, “Yeah, pretty much.”

“It’s a good thing she wasn’t invited, then.” Cass says.

“You can thank (Y/n) for that,” Sydney tucks some of her hair behind her ear.

Finnick gives you a glance, and for some reason, you remember that you need to talk to him. The only problem is that Thyme is obviously on your tail, so it might not be the smartest idea to talk to him just yet.

While the others talk about the party, you lean to the left, into Finnick. He leans back, already knowing what’s going on. He tilts his head a certain way, offering his ear to you. It’s a habit for the two of you, never listening to the Abnegation ideals. Abnegation says not to disturb others, which is typically interpreted as silence, Finnick finds a way to speak quietly. It took a couple of weeks for you to master, but you’re just as good as he is.

“I think we should cool it for a little while.” you watch his face, the crease appearing between his eyebrows, “I don’t want to upset Thyme, and after last night, she’s definitely pissed.”

“So when?” he asks back, it’s his turn to watch you.

You press your lips together and shrug, “A couple of days?”

A warning look.

“I promised.” you remind him.

He nods, sitting up. It doesn’t look like any of the others noticed the brief conversation. Which would be good, but it’s not like it matters anymore. Everyone saw you with Finnick last night, and you two hardly left each other’s sides. You’ll be lucky if they don’t say anything to Thyme, especially since you haven’t told them what’s happening between you and her.

Slowly but surely, one by one, you all get called into the room, with the previous person coming out. When Thyme comes out again, you criss-cross your legs, and watch as she gets to Ameer before his leg shoots out to trip her. She barely catches herself, and doesn’t even dignify Ameer with a look.

However, you all know she’s fuming when the laughter starts.

About eight people later, the only people left are you, Sydney, Lennox, Cass and Blaire. The conversation isn’t so much about the party anymore, and more so about what you think of their siblings. You had been left with them for four hours by yourself, you got the authentic experience.

Honestly, they aren’t all that bad. For Dauntless members, they’re pretty chill. The only intense one was Daziel, but it wasn’t all the time. Blaire is glad to know that he’s not the only one that thinks that. You go ahead and tell them about the microphone and most of the things that he said while he was in control. And then you inflate Lennox’s ego a little bit by saying he’s definitely the smarter one.

Sydney is proud to know that you think she has a cool older sister. She says that she’ll pass on the word, because there’s no way in hell that Maarja hasn’t grown attached to you in some way. As for Torrac, there’s not much to say, besides he was the most level-headed one, and he shares a close resemblance with Nestor.

“But would you hang out with them again?” Lennox asks.

“Oh yeah, for sure.”

Ameer comes out of the room, keeping you from going any further. Laurel points at you, gives a big motion for you to go after her, and then disappears into the room.

“We’ll see you later.” Cass says.

You give them a smile, rising to your feet. Ameer looks like a zombie when you pass him, you wouldn’t be surprised if he was in some sort of autopilot mode. You gently push the door shut behind you, heading toward the chair. Laurel lets out a breath of air.

“How’d you like your first Dauntless party?” she says, you can see her preparing the syringe.

“It was exactly how I expected it to be.”

She laughs, “Yeah, but I’m pretty sure I saw you having fun.”

Your eyes flash to her, “You were there?”

“In the corner, I was there for Caspian. He couldn’t make it.”

“Leader business?” you guess, sitting in the chair.

“Something like that,” she comes around the side. You offer up your arm for her, she slides the needle in and slowly presses down on the plunger. “I need you to focus for a moment, okay?”

You nod.

“Let’s say you have twelve fears, about four to six of those will come out in the second stage, and the other half or so will stay hidden until the final stage. There’s a good chance that your fears will start repeating, since we still have a week and a half of initiation left.”

You don’t have the heart to tell her that you can’t focus on her face for more than a second. You know that the simulations are hallucinations, but this is a pre-hallucination hallucination. There’s little black objects zipping across her body, and the urge to reach out and grab one is strong.

You are hearing what she’s saying, though.

“You’re going to get a lot of practice in with the fears that do repeat, but you’ll be left in the dark when the final stage comes around, because all those hidden fears will reveal themselves.”

“Sounds like a nightmare,” you murmur, you think you’re going to be motion sick. The jolt from setting your head against the headrest, is enough to make you want to puke.

“It is. There are advantages, especially for people like you.”

“That’s phrased like an insult.”

Most families in Abnegation are religious, it’s part of the traditional family roles stereotype. It was never that way for yours, and after your parents died, the idea was buried with them. You like to think that hell isn’t real, then shit like this happens. You’re staring face to face with Laurel, who no longer has eyes, just black holes and tiny black dots coming and going as they please.

With that, you’ve decided that you won’t try and fight off the simulation.

You think you hear Laurel say something back. The words don’t sound like they’re in your language, much less coherent. And really, that is the least of your concerns, mainly because you blink and the scenery changes around you. You’re inside of an empty tank, which is, of course, inside of a dark room.

You let out a huff of air, getting to your feet, “I’m not afraid of the dark.”

There’s no one around you this time, no dirt to come raining down. You shift on your feet for a while, calves incredibly sore from all the jumping. Torrac had set up no chairs, claiming that no one would want to sit down, anyway. He must’ve forgotten that he had six inexperienced partiers inside of the room.

Needless to say, getting down from the top bunk was, most certainly, your own personal nightmare.

A tickling sensation ghosts over your ankle, making you absentmindedly lift your other foot to itch through your jeans. The feeling leaves for a few seconds, before quickly returning. It’s not just your right leg anymore, though, it’s both, and it kinda hurts. When you look down to see where it’s coming from, you see why.

A scream rips through your throat, loud and raw. It’s been less than a second, and tears have already appeared in your eyes. You can’t escape this box, yet you slam your hands against the walls anyway.

Spiders coat the floor, hundreds of them, of all different sizes, climb up anything possible, including your jeans. On top, underneath, the floor, the walls. You slap a shaky hand over your mouth, sobbing through your fingers, struggling to breathe.

You try to dodge them, kick them off. In an adrenaline rush, you try brushing them off your jeans but end up making it worse when they hang off your arms. They jump, attach themselves to your shirts, staring up at you.

“No!” You scream, stomping to get them off, “No, please!”

A strike of pain goes through your arm, a red welt immediately forming. You can hardly see, hardly breathe, anymore as you brush them off. This is worse, this is so much worse. You brush off the spiders that you can’t, and you’re forced to watch them crawl up your body in front row seating.

The lightheadedness only gets worse with the hyperventilation. You lean against an empty part of the wall to keep yourself upright. You need to get out. You need out. You need to leave.

You close your eyes and grit your teeth hard enough for them to squeak. With your head leaned up toward the ceiling, you try to breathe normally. You’re going to get out now. You don’t care how quick it is, you want out immediately. It hurts, the spiders bite, and you think it’s starting to itch.

“Please.” you moan, the inhales through your nose are full of snot. A shudder runs down your spine when you feel a spider coming up, “Please…”

And just as it comes up your neck, heading straight for your chin, you wake in the metal chair.

“One minute--”

Your scream cuts her off.

ANTERIC IS A SPIN-OFF DIVERGENT AU //MASTERLIST//

add yourself to the TAGLIST

@amixedwitch / @justthatfangirloverthere / @fnnshelbys / @neenieweenie / @vxntae / @liaaacantwrite / @terezasworld / @i-dumb-bitch

#ilguna #finnick odair #finnick odair imagine #finnick odair oneshot #finnick odair fanfic #finnick odair x reader #finnick odair anteric #anteric chapter eight #anteric

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potatosoldier · 4 years ago

Text

Are you still there?

/ Part 3 /

Later in the chapter, the medic names are made up from the fact that what names were common!

The following morning was interesting indeed. Lewis had been very productive and gotten me PT gear and my WAC dress greens, which included a hobby jacket, “garrison” cap and a pretty skirt. I was extremely grateful, until he gave me my OD’s, which of course were made for men. The issue of being unhappy didn’t come to place until he saw me in them. And he laughed so loud it startled the men who wear near our barrack.

“Oh my, my, you look like you’re gonna spread your wings and take off like a flying squirrel”, he snorts coming over to me and playfully flaps the sides of my jacket. I look at him very unimpressed, and then quickly slap his hands away. But then sigh. “I should’ve kept the skirt”, I giggle. But all in all it isn’t so bad, I have my medics patch and good pants. They are a little tight on the hips, but nothing unbearable.

And off we went, him escorting me to my first field exercise with Herbert Sobel. Oh boy.

------------------

“Nurse Winters, what is the meaning of this, you look more unpresentable then any of these men!”

The screaming of Sobel starts straight away as I stand with the men from the second platoon. “No excuse, sir”I say knowing he was commenting on my jacket. He looks ready to snarl, once again. “I’ll let you off, since you are only a woman after all, find a belt for tomorrow, or I will have to find an adequate punishment.” I just look ahead my eyes cold, so that’s how it is. “yes, sir.”

I feel like he assigned me with the second platoon just to torture my husband. And me. He was in for a surprise, if there was one thing me and Dick would not waver from, that was our duty.

-------------------

I quickly started learning that I already had some knowledge to the matters we were going through. Enough for me at least. My main job for now was keep up with the men and when needed, have a plan on how to transport the “wounded” and if that was not possible, how to make a good long term plan for their health and the stamina and safety of the other men.

I was thinking and whispering with Eugene Roe as two of our men: Joe Toye and “Popeye” Wynn were “wounded”. Joe had a shoulder wound and Popeye had an upper thigh wound. Both we’re now patched up with Popeye having a syrette tied to his jacket.

“We have to take one man off the line, to help Popeye near the Jeep, and once we drag Joe far enough he can start walking. One of us has to stay here, in case there comes an urgent need for a medic”, I whisper.

Roe looks at me little uncertain, but nods. “We’re gonna need to call the jeep towards the edge of the woods, but still near enough, we can’t wait too much, since Popeye’s wound is a heavy bleeder”, he backs up with his Louisiana drawl.

We report our plan, and luckily, we get the knowledge that we just saved more than two men, we the good decision of one of staying near the line.

“But Winters, Roe, next time call for back up, we need all the good men in the line, when someone needs to be carried, try and get help along with the jeep. Even if it feels obvious, remember clear orders”, Dick says nodding as he looks over our work.

I feel pride swell up in my chest, not because we did surprisingly well, but because I got good objective critique. Learn, Sonja, learn everything you can.

--------------------

When the maneuver is over, everyone looks more or less annoyed. Sobel turned out to be the epitome of good in theory, terrible in practice. My thighs were also on fire, even if I had good physical training, the crouched running in high speed for surprisingly long distances is rough.

“So, how does it feel now?”, Skip asks as we sit together to eat. I was once again chatting with Skip. It felt good to have people who actually reacted well to my arrival.

Joe was apprehensive still, but yesterday when we talked, he realized that I was just a proper farm girl from Minnesota. Nothing fancy even I used pretty words, I was just a curious soul.

I shrug: “I was scared it was going to be worse, with all you told me yesterday. Apart from the reprimands I got for my height and lack of muscle tone, I feel like I got very just treatment”, I smile and take a mouthful of the food on my plate.

Skip snorts and looks at me like I had gone crazy. “The man screamed at you, because you aren’t able to carry a man thrice your size, but instead you dragged him, come on “, he shakes his head. I shrug once again.

“I’m here to do a duty, I’m assigned with you because I was deemed fit, and if I want to be fit enough I have to work for it. He cannot let me off”, I explain my side. Sobel had yes screamed at me for dragging Denver Randleman when he was wounded, but Christ I was happy I was even able to move him. I knew I should do better, but for now I just need to work harder.

Bill shakes his head : “You’re a fucking skirt, ain’t no man carrying Bull from this company either” And continues to shovel down his food.

Skip grins at me. “you see Nurse Winters, we fight your corner, even if you are green and weak”. I glare at him playfully. I know that’s what most of the men thought, but Skip was not one of them. He really had been there for me today on the field. Him and Penkala. If I did something wrong, they quickly did something to make me correct it.

But when it comes to others, it had been a tough day. Joe Liebgott was constantly on my neck, I heard the way he spoke about me, I heard the way him and some of his friends said I did not deserve my place here. In all honesty, I couldn’t blame him. I was a woman, it was easy for them to think that I was just some hussy who crawled up the right thigh. I needed to deserve my place here, i needed them to see that I was more then just big doe eyes and pinned up hair.

“What will you do when we are jump training?”, he asks suddenly. I was not jumping into Normandy, so I was not taken in for the parachute training. I swallow quickly and answer: “I’ll be doing PT or then preparing at the hospital. I cannot believe how big that hospital is, it truly is wonder”

Skip smiles at my happiness. It was easy for me to talk to him like this. One-on-one. I was still too nervous to open my mouth when I was in the middle of all the men. “You really like helping people, huh”,he chuckles.

I nod and continue eating quietly.

------------------

Couple weeks later, I was a new woman. I knew my routine and I was dedicated to make it perfect. I still had very few friends, but they all seemed to have accepted my presence at least. Skip was still my safety blanket among the men. Me and Richard had made the decision of being very chaste and professional, even in private. Lewis decided it was a good reason to tease us for being the epitome of purity, but we saw it as a fair and responsible thing to do.

The men did not know about him being my husband either, for the record the army had so many people with the same name, that it was not surprising that they didn’t even suspect it. Although it was harder and harder for me every day to hear one nameless sergeant keep pestering people about my husbands calm and correct ways.

Today was my day, well it was a field exercise designed for medics. Many simulated casualties so that we could practice our bandaging, improvising and so forth.

“Come on, I’m wounded plant me just a little one”, George tried pursing his lips as I bandaged his leg, making a improvised splint. I shake my head and bring two of my fingers first onto my lips then plant them on his.

“There you go”, I say as I finish the bandage. He looks at me in mock horror, “You just put your dirty fingers into my mouth!”, he gasps. I roll my eyes smiling.

“I put them on your mouth, you’re wounded, you have bigger worries”, I reason and look at him like a mother would look at a misbehaved child. He just mouths words mockingly and pats my head like I was his best dog to torture.

Then what I see next makes me freeze, some of the medics truly sedating Sobel. Oh Christ no. I stand up and job over to them. “What do you think you are doing?”, I ask sharply at the two medics, Webb and Jackson, who are now trying to pull down Herbert’s pants.

“Fuck of broad”, they snort and try to keep going. I purse my lips and kneel next to them. “I may be a nurse, but I am a part of this company. You are risking this mans health, which goes against every vow you’ve made. You may think I am just an ignorant woman, who wants to play a soldier, but I’m here to do my job. You might not care about him, but this is not the way to go”, I quietly advice them.

They look at me raising their eyebrows as if they had to care what I’m saying. Webb then shakes his head and snorts grasping the front of my collar to bring me closer.

“Oi, hands off the lady Webb!”, comes a raspy voice. Behind us comes Joe Toye with a makeshift sling. Webb doesn’t move at first not thinking Joe could be series.

But once Joe stands behind us and growls “What did I just say?”, the hand comes off right away. “Nurse Winters had the balls to tell you off. I don’t care the fuck you are doing to that on the floor, but you ain’t disrespecting her”, he says seriously while looking at Webb and Jackson both.

“Sorry Winters”, they both mumble. I sigh and stand shaking my head. “Just don’t hurt him”, I whisper and go to help with the evacuating.

Joe stops me before I can go. I smile at him tenderly “Thanks for that Joe, it means a lot.” He shakes his head and one corner of his mouth raises up: “Just fighting for your corner, Bambi”

I walk to the litters with a smile on my face. The nickname is ridiculous, but hey, I was finally fitting in.

--------------------

“So no one reported?”, Nixon asks as we sit on our bunks. I shake my head: “Nope, I tried to tell them off Lew I really did”, I sigh and look at my hands.

He chuckles: “Don’t say that anywhere else, they’ll ask you to identify”. The door opens and Dick steps in. Straight from the latrines. I smile at him in my PT gear. It felt nice, the shorts. I was not really a fan of anything restricting me from the waist down. Oh no Sonja, do not phrase things like that ever again.

He smiles at me too and then does something surprising, he walks over to me and lays a kiss on my forehead. “You really impressed the men yesterday, I heard what you did”, he whispers. I shrug, it was nothing he wouldn’t have done.

“Wanna plant one on me just as congrats?”, I ask in a tender whisper. He chuckles and gives me a sound kiss. I grin widely and take a look at my book Seitsemän veljestä. The Seven brothers, a Finnish novel. My brother send it to me one Christmas. Now the spine looked torn, Sobel had had his fun looking at it while throwing our things all over the place. When I saw the state of my books I almost cried. Luckily one of the soldiers from F-company, David was his name, was able to tell me where to get some cheap books.

“You sicken me you know, ever since she came in you’ve become a freaking dog”, Lewis throws from his bed. Dick once again rolls his eyes and starts to neatly fold his clothing. “She is my wife, Nix. And we have been perfectly professional, you of all people know that”, he grunts taking his boots off.

Nix chuckles, the sound a strange thing on it’s own. “I hit a nerve”, he sings and happily plops down once again.

And once again thank you @iilovemusic12us ❤️

#lewis nixon #joe toye x reader #joe toye #richard winters x reader #dick winters x reader #dick winters #richard winters #herbert sobel #george luz #skip muck #warren muck #band of brothers imagine #band of brothers #band of brothers oc #band of brothers imagines

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cadomoisspokenfor · 3 years ago

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Legion Rewatch Notes,

Chapter 7:

The King In Yellow

Walter’s really putting his all into that whistling.

Kerry ended up losing Walter eventually. But I guess she was chased out of her hiding place by the zombies.

Theory: Much like how David feels most stable and confident when Syd’s around, Kerry feels most stable and confident when Cary’s around. She’s much less likely to lose a fight or get scared if Cary is in the vicinity. This would also explain why she feels so betrayed that Cary left her in Mental Clockworks. She works best when he’s around (power of love and all that) so when he’s not around she constantly feels like she’s on the ropes. Maybe only subconsciously though.

Lenny says “Hey” a lot.

So Farouk... actually seems distressed here. This is him at his least chill. He’s just shoved a person he actually cares about into a corner of their mind cause he just couldn’t understand them, the dream he’s created is collapsing and he has no plan on how to deal with it (rare for Farouk), and the location of his own body (his temple) is still lost to him after all this time.

Also, there’s apparently no specific place it could be. Farouk’s body could be anywhere on the globe. I guess he and everyone who knows about is aware that he could come back to his body if he knows where it is?

Even though it’s pointed out a lot I’ll also note that Charles is in his wheelchair in Amy’s flashback. And given future/past events (confusing, I know) this either means Farouk is the one who put him in a wheelchair, or whatever caused it happened between defeating Farouk and giving away baby David. And there’s... really not a lot of time in between those 2 events.

As we’ve seen before, while Farouk can probably see into Oliver’s ice cube residents, he can’t actually go inside or do anything to Oliver (or his guest) while he’s in there.

Farouk doesn’t want the dream to end until he’s located his body.

Cary is used to finishing Oliver’s sentences.

Cary and Oliver think very alike. The biggest difference between them I suppose is Oliver’s reality bending powers.

David never agreed to the barbershop quartet but Oliver put his name down anyways.

I never caught this before, but the thing that makes it obvious to Cary is the fact that the parasite called itself “King”. Before when watching this I thought “it’s just a name,” but I guess the point is... what other villain would be so hubris filled as to advertise who they are so openly. It speaks to the brazenness of Farouk. If Charles had ever checked back and found out David was talking to some invisible friend named “King” Farouk woulda been discovered then and there. I can only assume this means the name “King” was taunt of sorts. A joke only Farouk was in on. Not to mention, Farouk probably would never have settled for a name any less dignifying.

Oliver doesn’t remember any of his past friends, but he does remember Farouk. I wonder, did him and Cary hear about Farouk before or after Charles defeated him? Farouk hasn’t been publicly doing things for 30 years, and the only event that could reasonably be linked to him is Meiser Sunday. If they knew about him before Charles defeated him then that would just speak to his prolificness as a villain, I guess. “The Shadow King”, an unstoppable force for years until a random prodigy mutant gets him on his first try... or so they thought. I believe that’s how it happened in the comics too.

I’ll also note, Charles is an important figure in the mutant community, but it shouldn’t be discounted that the mutant community still existed and had a whole rich history before Charles even stepped on the scene. It seems like either Xaviers School doesn’t exist in this timeline, or they just don’t know about it. And given that, Summerland seemingly founded itself off the same general ideas of the Xavier School, but completely independently. Like 2 people coming up with the same idea on different sides of the planet.

Farouk’s weakness as Oliver puts it is, “He puts all of his energy into tricking David. Didn’t think to watch his six.” I wonder... is this a consistent weakness of Farouk’s? Could this be what Oliver means when he says he found his weakness in s2?

Oliver admits Farouk is too powerful for him. It’s not like he’s one to have a power complex, but it is interesting how shameless he is about it. He doesn’t really philosophize about that kind of thing, he’s matter of fact about it. Farouk’s got more measurable power than me, we need to find another way around him. He also notes though that *David* could defeat Farouk if need be. Everyone recognizes David as the top of the food chain.

Small note: I guess this is how it works between omega lvls. Always thinking of ways around each others raw abilities. Farouk knows David is too strong for him in s2, so he finds away around it. David knows he might not be able to hold out against Farouk’s built up experience, so he finds away around it. Brains over brawn every time, it would seem.

Cary feels really really bad for David. Seeing him screaming his brains out in a locked box knowing full well how much David hates small space. It’s very sweet. But also, 2 episodes Cary seemed a bit more standoffish about David. Knowing what he knows now recontextualized all those past events. David is a victim of something incomprehensibly terrible. He sees that now.

My boi Dan’s gonna need a lozenge after this one.

“We’re gonna need everybody.” They never get Ptonomy :/

I didn’t pick up on any of the other times, but Syd’s job here is to be a distraction. Sure, she has to protect the others in the process, but freeing them from the dream is the job of Cary, Oliver, and Melanie.

Still though, David is the victim who needs help here. He’s not the hero who saves them, he’s the one in need of saving. And Syd takes charge in the plan to do so and is tasked with protecting the others, making her once again closer to the hero archetype than David is. In the moment at least.

Syd’s talking fast cause they don’t exactly have all the time in the world here.

The zombies vanish but the architecture remains. There are “degrees” of real in the astral plane.

“Just thought it’d be interesting.” She’s over the whole “jumpscare haunted house” thing by now.

Silly me, the Melanie scene took place after Cary went to gather people. So it’s definitely Cary in the suit.

Melanie’s glad to see he’s back but she’s not completely love struck. Probably both cause he doesn’t remember her, and cause lovestruck Melanie was a result of her mind being altered to fit the delusion. Cary is guiding them out of the delusion so she’s back to her old self basically. Rational, and concerned with the mission.

This isn’t important, I just like how Melanie wakes him up here. It’s sweet, and bitter, cause it’s too late for him anyways.

Why does Farouk simulate this whole process for Rudy? What’s the use in tricking him if he already can barely do anything? We know Rudy gets him eventually, but it’s just surprising that Farouk recognizes him as being a potential threat.

Cary neglected to inform Syd who else he was personally waking.

Is Walter seeing the zombies too? Unclear. But he’s less chill about his tormenting now.

David starts using humor to cope. From what we’ve seen he’s been non-stop screaming for a while. It seems like he stops panicking as much specifically because his mind is fracturing to help him cope.

His first alter (that we see). Rational Mind.

RM says the coffin is just an “idea.” Very specific word choice there.

Rm tells him to forget all the “lies” he learned in memory work and the MRI. That was all Summerland stuff, though. “It’s your mind.” Essentially, trust yourself. You know who you are, don’t let anyone else tell you otherwise. Not even your new friends. Very reminiscent of, “You decide what is real and what is not.”

David doesn’t want to call his adoptive parents his parents anymore.

David’s happy to finally contextualize Farouk as a mutant and not a mental illness. It all starts making since to him, his whole life.

RM’s the first one to say “boohoo,” and it’s in response to David’s sadness over his bio-parents giving him away.

“I am pretty, I am loved.” “Good, keep going.” This mindset David’s falling into is specifically encouraged by his alters. In fact, it’s RM that pushes him down this path in the first place. David (non-Shadow King possessed David) has been avoiding this thought all season.

David’s a bit wrong here, and I think the difference tells us something important. David assumes Farouk possessed him after he was already living in the Haller’s house. But, we know it seemingly happened before Charles even got back from Morocco. So, given that Gabrielle’s mental health was already bad from post-partum depression (alternatively, it’s just the depression she already had) and Charles leaving her alone to go to Morocco, Farouk coming in and haunting the house probably sent things over the edge. David was most likely given away because Gabrielle wasn’t well enough to care for him like he needed, and Charles... 🤷🏾‍♀️ tbh. Might just’ve not wanted to raise David without Gabrielle. They both said they didn’t ant him to turn out like them. In s3 it’s made to seem like the house haunting was a combination of David and Farouk. David’s haunting time travelly presence probably made things worse, but Farouk would’ve gotten to the baby much sooner if not for him, and without David in the way Farouk probably would’ve upped his own intentional torments. The goal was revenge after all.

David assumes Farouk’s goal is revenge upon the whole world. Makes sense since that’s what Farouk’d been encouraging David to all season. And what he’ll continue to encourage him towards throughout s2 & 3.

Syd “woke him up.” She makes him more stable and sane. She grounds him in reality.

“I was sick, but I’m not sick anymore.” A moment of quiet deliberation with his alter and then he awakens with newfound confidence and a plan. This will repeat in a very tragic way later on.

Kerry, Syd, and a damaged comrade in a wheelchair. If I had nickel for every time this happens I’d have 2 nickels. Very weird it happens twice. Unless... mental clockworks and the end of s3 are supposed to parallel each other.

I assume the astral-plane diving suit protects whoever’s wearing it from psychic threats, much like the ice cube. At the moment, no one’s wearing it.

Sometimes psychics powers require a bit of miming to manifest. Oliver can’t just wave his hand and make a shield, not a strong enough one at least. Similarly, Farouk can’t just expand his mind into the future, he needs to go through a whole time machine building process in the astral plane.

Cary and Melanie seeing Walter get killed must hit hard for them considering he used to be a student of theirs. Sure, he turned against them, but still...

They juxtapose Walter dying with Rudy fully waking up. I wonder if that means it was his powers that were keeping Rudy docile and not necessarily the stab wound.

David is the one that wakes them all up, destroys the dream, and puts them back in their real bodies. And just in time for Cary to place the halo on his head. This is I think the first time David does a real act of super-heroism. The only potential one previously is saving Amy and he wasn’t really the one in control there. This is his first win against Farouk.

David’s not only got control of his powers, but control of himself for the first time, too. And it’s to the point where he’s perceiving things at lightning speeds and moving fast enough to catch bullets. Along with whatever power he’s using to halt the bullets momentum too. For now at least, this is our hero.

They play sinister music whenever he does the bright white light teleport. He does it again at the end of s2. Is it a specific kind of teleport, or is he just adding flair?

David didn’t teleport them directly to the base.

Kerry sadly looks at Rudy’s body.

Melanie looked around for Oliver but in doing so missed him meeting up with the others.

Everyone’s relaxing after their long fought for victory. David and Syd seem really happy. They find Oliver funny/charming.

When Cary’s talking to Kerry, in the background I can barely make out everyone else talking about potatoes.

David’s fine with Amy apologizing, just not in front of the others.

Instead of “The Poor Woodcutter and His Wife” Oliver calls it the “The story of The Lady and the Crane.”

Farouk doesn’t like small spaces either. Ha.

#legion fx

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elyvorg · 4 years ago

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Hypothetically speaking of course due to one of Monokuma’s logic defying motives. If everyones favorite space man was ever turned into an actual tooth and fang monster, taking his issues on NEEDING to be a hero into acount how do you think something like that happening to him, being twisted into a beast like that would affect him? My apologies if this is a odd question I’ve just been thinking up story stuff lately and thought it would be interesting for the hero to become a literal monster in a sense.

Hey, no worries! I'm always up for running my mental simulation of Kaito through interesting scenarios and rambling about the fun ways he responds, and this one's a juicy one. Thanks for the prompt!

(Heck, I hope you don't mind me having gone into so much detail here, because if this is a story idea of yours then I don't want to step on your toes and make you feel like you can't use any of these ideas if you'd been thinking something similar.)

Basically, this would depend a lot on exactly how Kaito “being a monster” worked. Since you left it vague, I decided to just take multiple possible variants of this situation and talk about all of them, because they're all fun in their own way.

Scenario 1: he's still mentally entirely himself, and he can still speak.

If this were the case, Kaito would be basically fine! No problem! Sure, it's kinda freaky to suddenly be in a body like this, but he knows that doesn't change the fact that he's still himself. Kaito has a very strong sense of identity and conviction in who he is, and even this wouldn't shake that. (See also: that one AU of mine in which he found himself in a different human body.) Being physically a "monster" doesn't magically make him a worse person if his mind's still the same.

The only potential issue would be whether or not everyone else would understand that, since Kaito also cares a lot about how other people see him. But if he can still speak, then it should, in theory, be fine, because he can just reassure everybody that it's still him. Communication is important! He might be just a little strained and desperate at first upon seeing everybody freak out at him, but it'd be okay once they got it.

Shuichi and Maki would believe him straight away, because they know Kaito well enough to be able to recognise the way he talks and acts even from a different body, and because they want to trust him. Shuichi would maybe be a bit instinctively freaked out by Kaito's appearance, but he'd also know how much it would hurt Kaito for his sidekick to be afraid of him, so he'd be determined to push that aside and show Kaito that he trusts him.

Maki... Maki gets it. She knows exactly how it feels to be seen as a monster by everybody, to be afraid that the whole group is going to ostracise you and dehumanise you because of something about yourself that you can't help. Kaito has been teaching her to understand that she's not actually a monster despite all appearances and despite how long she believed it herself. She knows Kaito isn't a monster either, no matter what. Maki would never not extend that same compassion and trust back to him.

(Kaito reflects that this is helping him understand Maki Roll's struggles even more, so he can help her even better! So in some ways, this is a good thing, really!)

The rest of the group... some of them might just try to write Kaito off as a monster at first, even after he explains to them that it's still him. Not naming any names, but I think we all know who'd be the worst offender with this. Still, over time, and seeing Shuichi and Maki stand up for Kaito and treat him like they always do, most of the group would get used to it and accept him. They all got used to and accepted Maki within the space of pretty much one chapter; it might even happen quicker for Kaito since he'd still be acting just as trustworthy as ever. Keebo in particular should be good with this, since he can relate to feeling othered just because his body happens to be different from everyone else's.

That said, this is all on the assumption that Kaito gets turned into a monster at some point in the middle of the killing game, which actually kind of makes things easier. He's surrounded entirely by people who already know him and can easily recognise that it's still him once he communicates that to them. It might be harder in the outside world where there'll always be new people, people who'll just see the monster on the outside and might not be willing to listen to him for long enough to realise he's still a good person beneath that. That'd kinda sting a bit, since other people's image of him is so important to Kaito – even if not in quite such a literal way.

Still, given there's nothing Kaito can do about the monster body, he'd be determined not to let it get him down and see this as a challenge to overcome. He'd do everything he could to show the world he's a hero anyway. Hey, maybe this body has cool powers and he could be an actual literal superhero! That'd be awesome, right!?

(oh boy, what if he could fly, he'd be so excited at being able to fly you know he would, he'd give his sidekicks rides, it'd be great)

So in the end, this scenario wouldn't actually set off Kaito's hero issues that badly at all. He knows he hasn't failed anyone in terms of being a hero and still isn't going to, and Shuichi and Maki at least know it's still him and so he can still inspire them just as well like this.

The only thing really relating to his hero issues here would be the fact that finding himself in this body is kinda freaking him out a bit – not in the sense that being a "monster" matters to who he is in any way, but just in the sense that anyone would be freaked out at being trapped in an unfamiliar body that isn't even humanoid, let alone human. But no, of course Kaito isn't freaking out about anything! He's fine, everything's good, he is totally 100% chill with this situation. It'd be a similar flavour of his hero issues as in the canon story: just insistently hiding that something's bothering him and being afraid that he couldn't be a hero any more if everyone knew about it.

In fact, what I think this would set off the most isn't Kaito's hero issues, but Kaito's friendship issues. He's not less of a hero because of this, but this is making people see him differently and be more likely to just not want to trust him or spend time with him in the first place. Kaito already had some subtle insecurity and awkwardness about whether anyone would want to be regular friends with him because of how larger-than-life he always is; this'd set off a similar kind of feeling to that, but much worse.

Like, surely Shuichi doesn't actually want to hang out and be friends with a weird creepy monster? Surely he's even more definitely only sticking around out of still needing Kaito's heroic support and wants to be done with him the moment he's grown independent enough to be able to stand on his own? So, if anything, this'd make Kaito amp up his hero deal more than usual, not because he's worried he's not a hero, but because he's even more afraid that this is all he's got to offer.

Scenario 1b: he's still entirely himself, but he can't speak.

Only a slight variant on the previous scenario. Kaito would still feel the same about himself, but it would be a lot harder for him to communicate this to everybody if his monster form wasn't capable of human speech.

Let's assume everyone would be able to tell it's Kaito anyway. Maybe he's all purple and spiky and recognisably him, or maybe they just use process of elimination in that he's the only one missing. People would be bound to assume at first that he's just been turned into a mindless beast, but Maki and Shuichi, the ones most primarily viewing this situation as something awful for Kaito rather than a potential danger to the rest of the group, are less convinced. They'd be able to spot that he looks more confused and desperate than hostile.

Kaito, of course, wouldn't let the lack of a voice stop him and would do everything he could to communicate that he's still himself and still cares about supporting everyone. He could at least nod and shake his head to answer yes/no questions, and he'd figure out other ways to communicate, too. Maybe he'd lead Maki and Shuichi to the training spot and do push-up motions to get across the fact that he remembers their training sessions and still sees them as his sidekicks. That'd be adorable.

I bet he'd also figure out motions or noises to communicate the most important sentiments such as “I'm here for you”, “I believe in you”, “the impossible is possible!” etcetera, all so he can keep supporting his sidekicks the best he can. In some ways, his hero role doesn't even really need him to communicate anything that complex; he just needs to be there for his sidekicks and give them the nudge they need.

Kaito is so good at communication, after all. It'd be a challenge to learn to adjust and find new ways to communicate without a voice, but Kaito never backs down from challenges!

(All of the issues from the previous version of this scenario with Kaito freaking out about this body and worrying about how others see him would still be here, of course, and probably a good bit worse – but at the same time, it'd also be easier for him to hide those problems from everyone else. It's not as if anyone's going to be expecting him to talk about how he's feeling here.)

Scenario 2: having the body of a monster comes with disturbing violent urges.

The first scenario was a fun exercise in Kaito's self-conviction and determination to overcome any challenge, but what if we did try and make him really question whether or not he can even be a hero any more like this? So let's imagine that, while he is still mostly mentally himself – because if it wasn't really Kaito any more there'd be no point in this – monster-Kaito also has to deal with the intrinsic urge to do monstrous things.

Like, imagine Kaito's there fervently explaining to the group that it's still him, he's still himself, he's not actually a monster in any real way – except then his words die on his tongue as he's suddenly hit with the thought of tearing out Shuichi's throat. Uhhhhhh.

How this goes would really depend on exactly how strong these urges are and whether or not Kaito can control them. (And let’s also assume that he can speak in these scenarios, just for simplicity’s sake.)

Scenario 2a: they're entirely controllable.

In this one, Kaito is sure that he's perfectly capable of ignoring the urges and not acting on them, making them just really annoying and disturbing intrusive thoughts.

Naturally, Kaito would act like nothing's wrong and not tell anybody about this at all and continue to be Fine like he usually is. It'd jab at his hero issues, but not in terms of him actively failing at being a hero for having these thoughts – just in terms of the fear that he might end up failing them if anybody learns about this (or if he did somehow end up acting on them even though he's pretty sure he won't). So, you know, basically like Kaito's hero issues are in canon with him hiding everything he's going through and being terrified of it coming out anyway. But it's all okay so long as he doesn't let anybody see that he's not a perfect invincible hero, right?

Kaito might reflect during this – entirely to himself, of course – that this must be a little bit like what it's like to be Maki. She probably has similar thoughts all the time about all the many ways she could kill the person she's having a friendly conversation with, because her training has ingrained that mindset into her. But that doesn't meaningfully change who she is as a person just because she's been given these disturbing thoughts against her will.

(Maybe, even though Kaito is trying to hide his intrusive thoughts from everyone, Maki would be able to pick up on it a little bit, because she knows the feeling.)

Scenario 2b: the urges are very clearly uncontrollable and Kaito knows it.

If he was able to recognise from the beginning that the violent urges are so strong that they're going to overwhelm him and take control of him sooner or later, Kaito wouldn't take any risks. He'd just shut himself away the moment he realised this, to avoid hurting anyone. It'd basically end up looking a lot like this, except with a very different-looking Kaito.

(This wouldn't even necessarily be that specific to Kaito's hero issues, because any decent person would be terrified of losing control of themselves and hurting someone else like this. I guess it'd just be more amplified for Kaito than it would be for most, because his hero thing is such a big deal to him and he's so scared of failing everyone.)

This scenario might end with Kaito accepting there's no way he can keep safely supporting anyone any more and shifting tactics to do the next most heroic thing he can do – seeing if this new body will help him fight and take down Monokuma while he's still somewhat in control of himself. Even if he'll only end up being killed for breaking the rules, he doesn't exactly have much left to lose.

Scenario 2c, the most fun one: if Kaito thinks he can ignore the urges well enough to be safe around others but turns out to have misjudged his self-control.

(This seems like quite a plausible scenario, really. Even as a human, Kaito is not very self-aware about his difficulty controlling his impulses or his tendency to get riled up easily and potentially lash out at people when he's frustrated or upset. He presents himself as a person who always has himself together and always acts exactly the way he wants to, but that really isn't actually all that true about him.)

Imagine, with Kaito already more on-edge and stressed than normal because of the whole monster thing and the disturbing violent thoughts he keeps having to push down, somebody says something to him that happens to really hit a nerve and set him off. (Not that there's aaanybody in the group who'd be stupid enough do this kind of thing on purpose, not at all.) One moment Kaito's vaguely irritated but in control, the next moment a haze of anger grips him and he's pinned them down with his teeth at their throat and Maki Roll's screaming at him to stop—

—and Kaito does manage to stop himself just in time, but oh god—

—and as he's frozen in horror, still fighting the urge to finish the job, the rest of the group acts. A profusely apologetic Gonta wrestles Kaito down and clamps his jaws shut, rendering him unable to speak to defend himself or apologise – not that he'd even know how to if he could. Others pile on, restraining him, finding something to tie him up with, talking with frantic certainty about how he's a threat and a monster and can't be allowed around anyone.

Through it all, Kaito is using every ounce of his self-control to let it happen, forcibly suppressing the instinct to fight back and maul them. Being manhandled and restrained and talked about like he's not even a person would make him viscerally feel like nothing but a dangerous beast – but after what he almost did, and how much he felt a part of him wanting to do it... aren't they right?

Shuichi and Maki are too shocked to try and defend him in the moment, but they're the only ones standing back and not helping to restrain Kaito. They're the only ones that can see the fear and guilt and pain in his eyes.

(This would absolutely stab right at Kaito's hero issues, with him very openly failing everyone right in front of them all, doing something so undeniably monstrous and proving that he can't possibly be a hero at all. I came up with this specific variant of the scenario basically out of an attempt to find one that'd jab at his hero issues as much as possible.)

Later, as Kaito's tied up alone in a room hating himself and thinking over and over about how he's a failure and the exact opposite of a hero, someone enters the room for the first time since he's been locked away in here. It's Maki. He flinches away as she approaches, terrified of hurting her.

She's here to talk to him, but Kaito can't even speak with a rope roughly tying his jaws shut. So Maki begins to untie it, despite him cowering away and shaking his head and eventually growling at her in desperation to try and get her to stop (what if he hurts her?). She is undeterred, freeing his jaws and then moving to sit a safe distance away, calmly telling him that she knows he won't hurt her, that she's not afraid of him. (She... she really isn't, is she. Why not? She should be.)

Again: Maki gets it. If anyone can help Kaito become less afraid of himself in a situation like this and learn to control these urges that he now knows are capable of overcoming him – but only if he lowers his guard! – it's her, using everything she's learned from him. She's been there herself, more or less. She knows what it's like to be terrified that you're going to end up killing someone. Despite Kaito fervently insisting that she shouldn't have come here at all, Maki eventually convinces him to trust himself and his own desire not to hurt her for long enough to just... talk to her.

The biggest obstacle to Kaito opening up here is just reassuring him that he's not going to hurt Maki while they talk, because that's the only thing he's really got left to lose at this point. He'd actually be surprisingly willing to talk about his failure otherwise, not even bothering to try and insist that he's fine, because everyone's already seen him fail and so there's no point trying to hide it any more. There'd definitely still be a lot of Kaito talking like how he feels about all this shouldn't matter, not when he's a monster who nearly killed someone and still could – but Maki would know what that feels like, too.

Helping talk Kaito through this would also help Maki a lot with her own issues. The biggest argument to make that Kaito isn't a monster here is that he doesn't want to hurt anyone, despite the urges he can't help having. Neither did Maki, ever, despite her orders and her training forcibly instilling a killer's instincts into her. Talking Kaito into accepting this and giving himself a second chance might also end up being the first time Maki properly accepts any of this about herself.

Shuichi is outside the room for the whole conversation, listening in. He's just as worried about Kaito, but Maki knew that Kaito would feel less afraid of hurting someone if there were fewer people there, so she told Shuichi to let her go in alone, at least at first. Eventually Maki manages to help Kaito trust himself enough that he feels safe having Shuichi there as well, and Shuichi makes it equally clear that he still believes in Kaito no matter what. They are friends.

#danganronpa v3 #danganronpa v3 spoilers #kaito momota #maki harukawa #shuichi saihara #training trio #friends #kaito's hero issues #v3 aus #my buttons #intrusive thoughts tw #thanks again for the prompt!#and for caring about my thoughts on your idea!#winntersnow

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fimflamfilosophy · 4 years ago

Text

“Is DnD Still Popular?”

To some of you giant nerds, the question, “Is DnD still popular,” is probably one of the stranger things you’ll read today, but within a specific context it makes a lot of sense. Speaking of, the show “Stranger Things” presented a popular, physical look at what DnD beasties might feel like, even if it didn’t present an honest view of what DnD games really play like. Along with more online media referencing the game and sites like Roll20 making it easier to join a group, it makes sense. Is this a temporary boom or has the roleplaying community seen a lot of permanent additions to its nerdy hobby?

I wouldn’t have numbers to say, myself, but for what it’s worth, roleplaying is always a very personal experience. And for a few of us, the question isn’t, “Are people still playing DnD?” Of course they are - it’s all anyone plays! The question is, “Can you get anyone to play anything else?”

What Is DnD?

For some people, Dungeons & Dragons has become so intertwined with the concept of roleplaying that people think DnD and roleplaying are synonymous. If you roleplay, you play DnD. Originally, this had a kernel of truth. There are articles about the history of the system, and during its inception the game had a hard time taking off. Fundamentally it was asking people to play make-believe, but with a system of mathematical rules and designs. We know now that this type of thing is like catnip to massive dork-faced neckbeards, but at the time it wasn’t expected to have much appeal.

Eventually it did get off the ground, and it became the standard for the entire concept of a roleplaying game. And as with all “firsts to the market”, there have been many competitors and copycats, but it’s difficult to pry the audience away when you need everyone to use the same system. In economics they call this “network utility value” - that is, a fax machine is useless if only one person owns one. You can only send faxes to other people with fax machines, so if another company tries to invent their own offshoot of the fax machine, they’ll never get anyone to adopt it because everyone is already using the existing fax machine network. Everybody knows DnD, which means that if you go to a convention or look for games online, you know you’re going to find more players for that system than any other.

Why Does DnD Continue to Work?

In early editions of DnD, there were a lot more rules, and as a result more freedom to design your characters. When I first started roleplaying, it was during the 3rd edition of the system, where you could still allocate skill points to become better or worse at specific skills like lying, climbing, forgery, or crafting. This meant that with good planning, you could play a sub-optimal wizard and make up for it somewhat by investing a lot in your “persuasion” skills to rely on talk more than magic.

But being the system that everyone has to learn isn’t enough to stay on top forever. Other systems like GURPS have taken hold by now, and some types of popular nerd media have introduced their own completely unique systems designed to simulate their specific media universes. The owners of DnD had two choices: either make the game more open and try to eat the lunch of other companies, or make all of DnD easier to play in general to capture a broader audience.

So they released 4th edition! We don’t talk about 4th edition. And then they quickly released 5th edition (and a few mumbled apologies), which streamlined a lot of things about the game to the extent I’m not sure why they even let you control your character stats at all now. Skills became baked in with your level, and most of the game is about choosing abilities when you level up. It’s become very similar to playing an MMO, and I believe that’s the point.

One of the big things you always see in a complicated roleplaying system is players spending hours putting together a character. For your experienced player, this is a labor of love. You really care about the small details and want to make sure you get it right, or you’re a Win-At-All-Costs type who wants to make sure you’re rolling the biggest numbers. Either way you’re familiar and know what you’re doing, but it presents a hurdle to new players, and that hurdle has been largely done away with in 5th edition.

No matter how old you are, how experienced you are, how creative you are (or aren’t), or how much you know about any aspect of the game, you can play 5e DnD. I think you could play as young as seven years old and have minimal problems, because all you have to do is choose a job and virtually everything else is filled in for you, as if by a program, as if a video game. An experienced player can help a new one whip up a character within fifteen minutes, and that new guy will be rolling dice at the dragon about as well as everyone else.

DnD is the Worst System

But DnD’s accessibility is also its greatest downfall. Because everything is sort of programmed out, you find a lot of players eventually growing bored with the same-old, and they try to find ways to inject new life into the system. They invent new races, new classes, new abilities, and so on - they call this “homebrew”. yet many people are bad at creating balance and fairness for something they personally intend to play, and DnD recognizes this problem. It has a lot of supplemental books telling you all you need to know about other races and classes you might want to play, and in theory they are as fair and powerful as anything in the base system.

Yet no amount of homebrew or supplementary material will solve DnD’s core problem: it’s rigid. If you want to play, you need a battle mat, because every spell, every action, can travel or act within a certain number of squares and you always need to know exactly where you’re standing. Players are expected to be able to take a certain number of actions per turn based on their level, and do an expected amount of damage. Monster encounters are built loosely around the concept of “Challenge Rating”, which is meant to imply a group of four players will find a CR of 5 suitably challenging if they are all level five. Basically it plays like “X-Com”.

And as you lock people in these mechanical, video game-styled designs, you find people champing at the bit. Not everyone wants to choose their abilities at level up or have their skill proficiencies dictated by what level they are. Some people want to express truly outlandish concepts, or play something that isn’t specifically designed around the idea of walking room to room blasting monsters. You’ll see people in roleplaying communities often asking, “Does anyone have any good ideas to homebrew [this idea] and make it work?”

Fans of DnD argue the homebrew approach works. Yes, it’s complicated and frustrating to invent entirely new classes and races for a single game where you don’t know how long you’ll play or what level you’ll reach, but DnD’s strict rules and design philosophy is a perk to those people, not a drawback.

Yet a fact of note is that a quote from a game I run got into a popular “Out of Context DnD” blog. The quote was, “ Mecha-Jesus unleashes a barrage of flames from his palms, but the train-snake martially dodges out of the way!”

It received 337 notes, and I was a little surprised by that. The game is a post-apocalyptic Road Warrior setting where the team boss decided to kill God as revenge for one of the gang members dying. Also featured in that day’s session was a battle between two men operating bucket cranes in a duel to the death above a giant grain silo, among eight other equally implausible events based loosely on Dante’s Inferno. For me, Mecha-Jesus is not a 300 notes event - it’s literally every other Friday.

What Do You Want to Play?

In my view, DnD often poses the question, “Are you even roleplaying?” I mean really. A lot of players feel like they are because they do an accent and come up with a backstory, but if you set yourself next to another player who has the same character stats and you’re playing together in the same game, has the system really given you the tools to solve problems all that differently? And the answer is is broadly, no.

I understand the counter-argument. Every player is unique. But in their way each Paladin in “World of Warcraft” is unique too. They have different gear, different competencies of player, and may take different abilities, but fundamentally they’re expected to crash dungeons and use what they’re given to kill monsters. The only advantage DnD has is that the GM can allow his players to interact with scenery items or talk to things, and you’ll see debate on exactly how much leniency a GM should give his players to act outside DnD’s base mechanics.

That’s a mentality. Some people like the safety of the system. They like to know what all the monsters are, what the risks are, what the rewards are, and have it all neatly lined up where you can see it. They want to join an Adventuring Guild that will bureaucratically assign a dungeon for them to attack so they always have something to do and a sure reward for doing it. The GM went through the trouble of drawing that dungeon out, after all. DnD is extremely safe.

And then there’s the alternative. I actually learned to roleplay among theater nerds who were already big into the concept of improv and narrative. One of them used to joke, “If you think DnD is the best system for the game, you know it’s not character-driven,” because any time you’re fine with trying to build an actual human around a set of level-up choices, you’re probably not designing the strongest possible personality.

Going back to media making DnD more popular, the first televised introduction to DnD I can personally recall is an episode of “Dexter’s Lab” where they address exactly this conflict. In it, Dexter runs a game where he forces his friends to play by his rules, where he wins. When Dexter rolls poorly, he turns the dice over to a better number and declares his evil wizard “fried” the team of adventurers. Then his sister, Dee Dee, takes over, and with no knowledge of the game’s rules at all, embarks on an improvised session of pure roleplaying where the guys tell her what they do and she tells them what happens. The sheets are just guidelines for them, and if they say they can do something Dee Dee accepts it.

Dee Dee’s roleplaying is open. It’s a void, and for some people, when you look into the void it looks back. How do you control everyone when they can do anything? It requires a certain level of trust that some players have a difficult time not abusing, yet weirdly everyone I’ve ever known who would lie and cheat during a roleplaying game actually preferred DnD, and I think I know why.

Rules Can Be Broken, but the Suspension of Disbelief is Immutable

The grognards that break the rules in DnD do so because the rules are so strict that they ironically can be easily broken. If the system says people take a certain amount of damage when they fall, and you find a way to throw to them that elevation consistently, by gum they’ll damn well take that damage. It’s in the rules! A friend I know combats this by saying if his players exploit the rules, then the monsters will start exploiting them too, to discourage arms races of bullshit.

What I’m describing is often called “rules lawyering”. So named because it involves finding a rules passage, interpreting the rule so the wording sounds like it favors an exploit, and then leveraging that into a powerful ability players were not meant to have. Because DnD requires you to know absolutely everything about your relative locations and words like “Attack” can have important diverging meanings depending on context, it’s a system extremely vulnerable to lawyering.

But with a more open system based on narrative and characters, it becomes harder to lawyer something you shouldn’t. In an open system, you build what the game calls for without consulting a bunch of charts and level guides. If you’re super heroes, you build super heroes. Cyborgs are cyborgs, Orcs are orcs - it’s whatever, and if you try to do anything outside the believability of the game, the GM tells you no. He has more authority in a more narrative game because the GM leads the narrative.

I’m personally fond of the Hero System, which ascribes massive ranges to all forms of weapons (a gun or eye laser can reach you down a long hallway) so the only general questions that need to be asked are, “Are you close enough to punch a guy?” and “Are you bunched up close enough to all be hit by this grenade?” You don’t need battle mats and the games play a lot more intuitively. There are two books of rules in Hero and they can be specific, but most of the rules revolve around character design rather than how to play, and fiddly things like physics or bursting through walls are meant to be decided depending on the type of game, at the GM’s discretion. There are guidelines, but they’re only that.

So if someone tells you they can punch through a wall in your noir investigator game, you tell them no, because the rules are just guidelines and in this game you can’t just drive your fist through a concrete brick even if you can find figures in the book that say maybe you can, because the book also says maybe you can’t - you’re expected to play the narrative, not the game. You can punch through walls in the super hero game where that’s typical, but not in this one.

From DnD to Anything Else

Of course, the open systems also present an opportunity for players to be very different in skill sets and abilities. You could imagine DnD is like “Power Rangers”, where everyone’s a different color and has different weapons but they’re basically all pretty much on the same level. An open system will wind up more like “Avatar the Last Airbender”, where one player is going to be Toph and someone else is going to be playing Sokka.

It’s important in DnD that everyone be the same, because a lot of the game is spent in a 20ft x 20ft room full of skeletons (or Putties) - Toph would single-handedly dominate every challenge. Whereas in a narrative-driven game the ability to crush everything with a rock doesn’t actually solve half your problems and whoever’s playing Sokka probably winds up more active than the person playing Toph.

At the end of it all, that’s why the question for me is whether you can take the players out of DnD and take DnD out of the players. Everyone plays DnD, but can you get people to play Sokka and have a good time if Toph is in the party? Personally I think it helps to start people on systems other than DnD, and then they can go into DnD if they like being in small rooms full of skeletons.

Of course, trying to start people on anything but DnD is usually defeated by the network utility! Everyone knows DnD! It’s THE system synonymous with the hobby! A few too many times I’ve seen people play a DnD game and say roleplaying just isn’t for them because it’s boring. All you do is wait for your turn and then roll dice at goblins.

But all I can say to that is, you never roleplayed, man. You joined a pen-and-paper video game. I agree, throwing dice at goblins sucks. I used to have a friend who would compulsively roll dice when he got bored waiting for turns in games like that, and when asked what he was rolling for, he’d joke, “I’m killing the dragon! I’m killing the dragon!” Him, enjoying the experience of DnD combat in between other people’s turns.

In many groups that’s all DnD is, silly accents and go-nowhere backstories aside. Acting is hard. But if you’re very lucky, and you know just the right people, it’s possible to land in a game that is pure story and character, and those things are a rare treasure and a real blast.

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parachutingkitten · 5 years ago

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The Process of Shattering: A Next Gen Fic - Ch 4

Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3

Aaaaaaaand this is where stuff gets real. Also, this chapter has some shameless self referencing, go check out Good Morning, Mr. Borg. It’s good stuff. Anyway, let’s keep Birthday Week rolling!

Happy Reading!

“Hey! This is Daniel. You know what to do after the beep.”

I sighed. It’s fine. Infact, maybe it’s better this way.

“Hey, it’s Sierra. I’ve got a doctors appointment today, so I won’t be seeing you in English. But I’ll be back later, so we can still walk home together. I, um… I’ll see you then.” I hung up as I walked through the doors of the building, swinging my backpack around to drop my phone in the side pocket.

“Circuit?”

My head shot up to find a familiar face I wasn’t expecting to run into. Drew had worked here since the beginning of time as far as I knew. Helped build me actually. She’s my grandpa’s right hand woman, started out as his personal assistant, but has since risen to be head of company communications.

“What are you doing here? Shouldn’t you be at school?”

“Technically droids aren’t allowed to enroll in public school to begin with,” I shrugged.

Drew rolled her eyes, grabbing my arm and tugging me to the side. “Look, the tower isn’t a hang out, it’s a workplace.”

“I just want to talk to my grandpa,” I pleaded. “Maybe you could hook me up with an elevator?”

“Does this have to do with why your uncle hasn’t come in today?” She crossed her arms.

“We… had a bit of a family emergency last night with my dad,” I explained. “Cryptor volunteered to look after him while the team went to try and figure out what happened. It’s weird that he didn’t tell you. I figured he would have called you about it by now.”

Drew’s eyes grew distant as she thought. “Cry and I… aren’t on the best terms right now.” Her expression had sunken from anger into melancholy in a matter seconds. “It’s complicated. Look, let’s just get you to the top floor, huh?”

“Thank you!” I smiled, following her as she led the way to the elevator. She swiped her id card on the left before pressing the call button. It arrived only a moment later as we both boarded.

“I’ve got some time sensitive stuff going, so I’m getting off on the 83rd floor, but I trust you can ride to the top by yourself.”

“I’m not 7 anymore, I think I’ll be alright.” I ran my fingers along my backpack straps. The elevator rides are always the most awkward part of any trip to Borg Tower. No matter how fast it is, a hundred floors is quite a height to cover.

“Is your dad… doing alright?”

“He’s recovering pretty quickly,” I sighed.

“Still, I know how scary that kind of stuff can be.”

She turned towards me, sharing a kind look for the first time since I had gotten here.

“Try not to let it get to you too much. I’m sure he’ll be alright,”

The doors opened, Drew stepping out before I could respond.

“Hey, thanks!”

She spun around, sending me a quick smile before the doors closed again. Drew was a strange person. I always got the sense that she had way too much stress on her shoulders. I imagine working in one of the most targeted and at risk locations in Ninjago for over a decade can do a few things to your head. Let’s just say… she’s been through a lot. I’ve always wondered what she’s like once you get to know her. A lot of people seem to like her quite a bit. There has to be a reason my grandpa has kept her around all these years, right?

The elevator doors opened once again as I reached grandpa Borg’s office, and I cautiously stepped into the room.

“Whose that?” He asked from his computer at the other end of the room.

“It’s Circuit,” I announced, walking over to him.

“Circuit!” he turned around to see me as I swung off my backpack, placing it on the floor next to his desk. “How are you, sweetie? I’ve missed you! You really should visit more often.”

I leaned over to hug him, a warmth filling my body as I spoke with him. “You’re not mad that I’m ditching school then?”

He rolled his eyes. “You and I both know you don’t need that place.” He smiled, both of us laughing a bit. “I heard about your father…” His expression faded. “Is that why you're here?”

I was caught a bit off guard. My head just sunk as I thought. “I don’t really know why I’m here to be honest. Just… needed to get away”

He studied my face for a moment, a gentle smile spreading across his complexion. “Your father has faced some rather intense consequences during his time as a ninja.” He bagan wheeling himself over to the window. “He’s been through much worse than even you’ve ever seen.”

“I know,” I sighed.

“He’s lost a lot over the years, and he doesn’t want to risk adding you to that list.” he paused for a moment, turning back around to read me. “I’m sure he’ll begin training you once things are safer. He doesn’t want to push you into the field before you're ready.”

Grandpa could always tell what was bothering me. I guess it makes sense, he did a lot of my programming. “I get it,” I repeated, plopping down on one of the waiting chairs. “I really do get it. It’s better for the team if I wait. In the back of my mind, I know it’ll probably even be better for me in the long run. It just… gets hard to wait sometimes.”

“Time can be a difficult foe to face,” he agreed.

“I’ve just felt so… restricted lately, you know? I can’t go on missions, I can’t start training, I can’t help mom, I can’t talk to Daniel, I can’t-”

“What’s this about Daniel?” he moved closer.

“It’s not that I can’t,” I corrected myself. “But I can’t talk to him how I want to, you know? I’m mean, I’ve never really been able to, but it’s catching up to me now, and… It’s just, it’s the end of senior year, and everything feels so final, but the only thing that isn’t going to end is this whole… lie that I’m living! I mean he’s my best friend, I’ve known him for years, and he still doesn’t even know my name.” I could feel my eyes beginning to water as I spoke. “It’s stuff like that. It hurts. And I don’t think anyone else realizes it. And Daniel is a great guy! He deserves so much better than what his parents are giving him! It’s like they don’t trust him! It’s not fair for them to try and hide his potential from him like this!”

“...Did they ever tell you why they were having you monitor Daniel?” his hand on mine snapped me out of my daze as I quickly cleared the water from my eyes.

“Well… yeah, they wanted him to have a normal life before getting dragged into all this elemental stuff. They’re worried he won’t be ready for his power if he ends up inheriting his mother’s.”

A sad smile crept onto his lips as he watched me explain. “There’s a bit more to it than that.”

“What… what else? Why would they not tell me if there was something else?”

He started rolling over to his computer screen, his movement beckoning me to follow. “It was… a few months after the both of you were born that I started doing some research and tests to try and better understand the different elemental powers. I was sure that if I studied them, I would find information to help their holders utilize them better.” He pulled up a screen filled with rows of complex data all arranged by element. “We found quite a bit. Strong bonds between certain elements, keys to the elements’ lineages, and qualities specific to the creation elements. Now, when elements are passed to a future holder after reaching their true potential, there’s at least a brief period where the previous holder retains their powers as well, and the element is split between them. My prevailing theory is that the elements do this in order to allow a training period for the older generation to assist the newer one. Of course, none of this applies if the previous holder dies before the next one reaches their true potential.” I already knew most of this, but I could feel the tension in his voice as he continued.

“Now, amber is by far the most powerful element. Strangely enough though, in all my research, I haven’t been able to find a record of it having a training period. It’s users consistently die before they can see their power passed on. Additionally, because amber’s power comes from combining the energy of other elements, it is structurally much different than the rest. It is extremely dense and concentrated. It’s strength comes from entirely existing within one location. And it’s because of these unique qualities that my simulations for a potential amber training period find that it doesn't... function properly.” As he scrolled through the data for amber the numbers grew exponentially bigger, highlighted in red. “Because the element demands to exist in only one place, attempting to split it for a training period would have one of two outcomes; it either destroys the element… or it destroys it’s users.”

I looked at the data, his words ringing through my brain. “...meaning-”

“Meaning over the course of about a month, the element actively corrodes, poisons, and corrupts the bodies of one or both of it’s users…

...to the point of death.”

#ninjago #ninjago next gen #the process of shattering #OC: Circuit #OC: Daniel #writing #birthday week

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dancer-cotillion · 5 years ago

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Oumota Week Day One: Stuck in a Small Space

For Oumota week hosted by @oumota-events

The elevator doors opened with a soft ding. Kokichi paused mid-step towards it. It was small, most elevators were but this one was extra small. Why though? Yes, it was the back of the hospital but would a normal sized elevator – which would already be bad enough – have been all that much more trouble and expensive to install instead?

“Would you rather take the stairs?” Kaito said from beside him. His voice had a grimace in it; he knew. Which well, of course he did, it was hard to keep that kind of thing from one’s roommate and romantic partner. That didn’t mean he needed to acknowledge it so much though. “I wouldn’t mind.”

“No, it’s fine,” Kokichi lied flawlessly as he stepped on. It wasn’t like it was a closet or a really small space, he’d survive. And smaller hopefully meant faster so they could get to their appointments – which would hopefully end with prescription sleep meds because the over the counter stuff had stopped working properly months ago and had never been that great to begin with – quicker and then go home. And then once home they could go back to pretending to be normal functioning human beings.

Kaito hesitated before stepping on too just before the doors closed. Kokichi, already by the buttons, pressed them and the elevator jerked into motion almost as soon as the doors finished closing, taking away any chance of changing his mind.

The elevator seemed even smaller while standing inside it. It was made of metal too which made it worse. Kokichi had never liked small spaces but having been crushed by a giant hydraulic press even if was in a VR simulation made them far worse. He wasn’t going to let this defeat him though, he’d survive and endure it out purely out of spite. Kaito being right next to him made it a bit better. And better yet, he didn’t say anything when Kokichi took his hand, only giving a small reassuring squeeze in response. So everything would be fine.

Except it wasn’t. When they were about half way to their floor, a loud screech came from above them and the elevator car jerked to a halt. Dead silence followed as the lights flickered but thankfully didn’t go out.

“Uh… what was that?” Kaito asked, looking up. It gave Kokichi enough time to still his initial urge to panic, allowing him to reply almost instantly.

“I don’t know, it seems like the elevator’s stopped,” he said in a nonchalant tone that didn’t hide his fear quite as much as he would’ve liked. And how tightly he held Kaito’s hand was a dead giveaway. But he needed to pretend he wasn’t scared. “Maybe it’s like that movie with the devil in the elevator.”

“Are you implying one of us is secretly the devil?”

Kokichi gave him an evil smile. “Maybe. Or maybe an evil vengeful ghost has stopped the elevator to haunt us. I saw that in a movie once too.”

Kaito flinched. “Don’t fucking talk about that kind of shit man. The elevator just like… stopped or something. There’s nothing to be afraid of, stuff like this happens all the time, we just got to get it going again.”

He reached towards the control panel – the elevator was so small that even when standing in the middle of it he could easily reach it – and pressed the button for their destination again. Nothing happened. After a second or two, he pressed the button next to it. Still nothing. Next, he pressed the ‘OPEN’ button. The elevator doors buzzed angrily but nothing happened.

“I don’t think it’s going to start again,” Kokichi said, frowning at the panel. Of course the elevator would decide to get stuck when he was inside it because his life had been going far too good since he and Kaito had gotten their own place a few months ago, something bad had to happen again eventually.

“Um… it��ll be fine though,” Kaito said, the poorly concealed nervousness in his voice doing little to help Kokichi feel better. “We just have to press the help button and then they’ll come get us out. It’ll be over in no time.” Hopefully.

It buzzed when he pressed it followed by a lady’s voice coming over the intercom. “What kind of assistance do you require?”

“Uh… we think the elevator’s stuck,” Kaito answered. “So could you come get us out please.”

“I’ll send maintenance over right away. So just…”

“How long will it take?” Kokichi interrupted.

“Probably no more than an hour. So just sit tight and don’t panic.” And with that she hung up.

“You going to be okay for that long?” Kaito asked, again bringing up something that didn’t need to be brought up. But… it was because he cared and was concerned, Kokichi could appreciate that.

“Yeah, I’ll be fine.” He wasn’t going to let this defeat him. He’d been through worse than being trapped in an elevator for an hour.

He was already starting to feel the pressure though. It felt like the walls might be closing in on him which considering the source of his claustrophobia was a sickening mental image.

“So… what do we do while we wait for them to get us out?” Kaito asked.

“We could tell ghost stories.” Scaring Kaito would be a good distraction and was always fun.

“No, let’s not.”

“Are you sure? Because I know some really good ones.” A lie, he was too busy trying to not look at the walls or even worse the ceiling, to check to see if they were closing in to think of a good ghost story. They weren’t of course, that was impossible; they were in a small elevator not in the Hangar under the press even if the metal ceiling did bare an uncomfortable resemblance to the press if one squinted at it.

“Yes, I’m sure. Let’s just… chill out for a bit.” Kaito sat down on the floor, back against the rear wall.

Kokichi sat with him. It’s not like he had anything better to do. And it put more space between him and the ceiling, which was not lowering and he was not going to look at it to make sure of that. He wasn’t going to check the walls to make sure they weren’t closing in on them either. The wall behind him was uncomfortably cold though, he could feel it through his shirt. It was uncomfortably reminiscent of another time only a single piece of clothing lay between his back and cold metal. So he leaned forward, away from it.

He wasn’t going to let himself panic because of this. He couldn’t let what Team Danganronpa had done to him to continue to control his life and his feelings so much. He needed to move past it. … But that was so hard sometimes especially when he was literally trapped in a small space, unable to get out and lacking even a tiny amount of control. In theory he could be trapped in here for forever, left to die. Would his real death be celebrated the way his fake one was in the show? Or would no one care? No one would be sad, that was for sure.

Kaito put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him close to kiss his cheek. “I love you,” he whispered.

Kokichi turned his head to look at him. “Is now really the time to be sappy?” he asked as he reached a hand up to touch Kaito’s. Neither of them acknowledged just how shaky his hand or voice was.

“I don’t know but we don’t have anything better to do so… we might as well cuddle and make out, right? It’s just the two of us here after all so… you know, we can do whatever we want.”

Kokichi pressed himself closer, pulling himself halfway into Kaito’s lap. No part of him was in danger of touching the back wall now. “I love you too,” he said, looking directly into Kaito’s eyes before kissing him on the mouth. He’d never meant those words more than he did now. As long as he had Kaito here with him, everything would turn out fine.

#danganronpa #danganronpa v3 #Oumota Week #Kokichi/Kaito #VR AU #claustrophobia

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agemarkus · 5 years ago

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A second life

A short story about a sci-fi writer who gets trapped in an afterlife of her own design.

They took what was left of her body and reconstructed her digitally. A full simulation that simulated the chemical reactions of every cell and synapse in her body down to a molecular level. In theory, a perfect recreation. But the technology had flaws. And if anyone knew that, it was her.

She was a sci-fi writer, and in one of her novels (a critical success that failed to pay the bills) she had detailed a digital afterlife. She had done her research, and as a result there were certain excerpts from the book that turned heads in several offices and penthouses. In her will she had jokingly left an instruction to upload her to an Emulator, but the technology was catching up now and an interviewer would point out that soon she could actually get uploaded just like in her book. Wouldn’t that be something? This was all by design, of course. She, like many of her peers, was afraid to die. And when she shook hands with business partners and investors her first joke would always be about her will. She would encourage her rich friends to invest in the right tech companies. This was her contingency plan.

And one day her plan paid off. While the paramedics scraped her off the asphalt, her friends made phone calls. Then they wheeled her hospital bed to the only company that had the technology, signed the contracts, and then they never saw her again. Trade secrets, they would say, before hanging up. The blinds were always closed.

When she opened her eyes she saw darkness. Her eyes, having looked up at the California sun only moments before, took time to adjust. They were intact, but she had nothing to look at but herself. That’s how she knew. She always had the worst timing.

“...by the way, could you tell more about this machine I’m in?” “The emulator” the voice boomed. A forgettable voice, one of the researchers. The pitch wavered ever so slightly. Most likely a recording that was played back at simulation speed, failing to match the constantly changing framerate of the simulation. Something about the acoustics in the voice felt artificial, unlike her breath and the ruffles of her clothes. The fictional company in her book had transmitted system sounds like this by manipulating the eardrums directly. Did they lift that too? “Yes… please tell me more about the emulator” she sighed.

“The emulator simulates the entire human body down to the molecular level, creating a 99% accurate simulation of the human body, gut flora, and brain activity. This is the most accurate simulation model on the market, but due to the processing costs of such a large-scale simulation each step takes… several cycles to complete.” “How many cycles?” No response.

Whatever. She already knew. She knew everything they’d told her. She had practically invented it. Their description of the emulator sounded like a press release, and it irked her. She didn’t want her life to be in the hands of another wannabe start-up stuck cutting corners to impress investors with half-baked technology. She was supposed to be a pilot project, not a prototype! But then, she didn’t have much of a choice. The important thing was that she was alive. Again.

“I’m happy to be alive and all, but I’m in a completely empty room. And I do mean empty. It’s a void. Any chance you’ll set up some, uh, enrichment items for me?” “We’re working on it. But simulating the body takes enough processing power as is. We’ll let you know.” “All right, sure.” She ground her teeth. Enrichment items. God, what was she, a fucking hamster? That reminded her. “I get food, right? By the way?” No response. Yeah, she’d get food. Probably. Eventually. Just had to get hungry first.

So she paced around in the void again. No footsteps because there was nothing for her feet to step onto. Only hard air. She could smell her own sweat, and her thighs were chafing. Judging by her current state; sweaty, slight acid reflux, two bad emails away from a panic attack, she would estimate her image to be constructed from about 40 minutes before death, around the time she left the office to go home. Makes sense. You don’t win any awards for simulating a bucket of meat. If only they’d gone another 40 minutes back so she wouldn’t be itching for a smoke right now. But oh well. There are worse times to be. Worse hers. She’d had cramps just the day before.

But she shouldn’t worry. It was in their best interest that she was happy and stable. And therefore, it was in her interest too. She didn’t want them to consider this project a failure and pull the plug early. So she had to not worry. Not even think about not worrying, because her thoughts didn’t just belong to her now. She had to calm down.

She recalled the meditation techniques she’d learned at one of the workshops. The only reason she had gone to the workshop was to chase down a potential business partner, casually bump into her on her way out, grab a coffee, get her to sign a contract. She had paid just enough attention to remember the basics. She needed them now.

Breathing exercise, a single halfhearted yoga stretch, embarassment, more pacing. Suddenly, another voice. Nasal, hurried. A monotone. “Could you lift your right arm? Quick synchronization test.” “What? Sure. Is this goo-” “Thank you.” Silence.

Pacing pacing. Biting her nails. Taste: as to be expected, if a little clean. Stretch. Try not to think about her death. Pace back to the hairband she’d left to signal the spawn location. New voice, feminine. “We noticed you’re hungry, so we, uh, got you some food.” “Great! Where, though?” “It’s already being digested, actually.” “Oh.”

She patted her stomach. She hadn’t really noticed, but she wasn’t hungry anymore. Great. Pacing, standing still, digging through her clothes, lying down on the floor. The nasal voice was back. But it was no longer a monotone. “Hey. It… it’s John.” “Who?” “You don’t know me, sorry. I’m one of the researchers, I was assigned to monitoring your vitals. I just… I just wanted to tell you how much you mean to me. I’m retiring, and keeping you alive has been… all this time I’ve been...“ he stammered while she just laid there. “This job is the best thing that has happened to me. I just had to tell you. I had to say goodbye. And, well, goodbye. Thank you.” Silence.

When she was 15 she had gone in for stomach surgery. A birth complication that they hadn’t caught until it nearly killed her, something wrong with her intestines. She did not remember what it was exactly. What she did remember was waking up early, the anaesthetics failing. Two masked surgeons looming over her, the light illuminating them just enough for her to see shadows of smiles behind their masks. One scalpel had perforated a piece of misshaped intestine. He was waving it back and forth, and then flicked one end with his finger. He cracked a joke, and they both laughed. They were laughing at it. She stared in horror at the guts splayed out of her stomach, and she tried to scream. Her mouth opened, but there was no sound. They looked over at her. The man with the scalpel frowned and rolled his eyes at her as he lobbed the wet chunk into the trash without even looking.

She had told the story at interviews a dozen times, and every time she looked into the cameras she would angle it a little differently. The body horror. The unprofessionalism. The humour. But what she had relived every time was the desperation. Not being able to move. Being heard, but not being listened to. Being trapped. She was a rat and this was her box and above her were scientists in lab coats scribbling notes into their clipboards while she sniffed around her cell. There was no maze, no levers to pull. She was an experiment. All this time they had monitored her every thought, ever bodily impulse, every anxiety. But when John had spoken to her, there was no sympathy in his voice. Only attachment. Like falling in love with a patient journal. Lovestruck enough to break protocol and unload his inner thoughts on her. But not enough to help her in any way.

She had to keep walking, keep herself distracted. Maybe they would upgrade the servers and grant her a more liveable space soon. Maybe the void fog would lift. She walks in silence for a couple minutes, waiting for something to happen. She attunes her mind to the rhythm of her footsteps, footsteps she can’t hear, only feel. As she does, funding runs out and the research complex surrounding her virtual body begins to bleed out. There are lay-offs. An administrator throws a pitcher of water at the wall in the middle of a meeting, frustrated that the investors want to pull the plug. They can’t just take a life. But the emulator has not seen any breakthroughs in years, it has long since been considered an outdated form of brain uploading. Researchers move on to better jobs and the power is cut. Her second life ends as abruptly as it began. She was still walking.

#my writing #me #hey i wrote another story please read it ok thanks bye

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detroitbecomehumanwritings · 6 years ago

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Virtual Love (3/?)

Co-Writer: @500shadesofblue Pairing: Connor/DFAB!Reader (Gender is unspecified) Rating: T (Chapter), NC-17 (Entire Fic) Chapters: 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 Summary: Virtual reality is becoming the next great evolution of technology: some say on-par with Elijah Kamski’s breakthrough design of the first modern-day android. It has immeasurable potential; to enhance, to assist, and to completely break the bounds of our reality.

You, as a member of the team spearheading the technology in a branch within Cyberlife, have developed a working prototype. It’s finally finished; all that’s left is a series of trials to check if it’s functioning properly.

On the first test run, however, you find an android named Connor standing in the middle of your virtual kitchen.

The next morning, you spend precious work time investigating RK800. (It’s not like you have much to do, now. As a part of the Virtual Reality branch, your whole department is just… trying to develop addendums to the program. Troubleshooting any issues they find. And you’re still getting paid. Cyberlife really is a trillion dollar corporation, and their paycheck shows it.)

So you’re at your desk, typing furiously away on your high-tech work-issue computer for any snippet of information that could give you some sort of background for the android that had been plaguing (visiting?) your test sessions.

And when you look, you find a lot.

In regards to Connor, a simple google search reveals so much. A highly-televised gesture of goodwill, sent by Cyberlife to the Detroit Police Department (and how the hell haven’t you heard of this? You work at Cyberlife!). The most advanced model ever produced, created for the purpose of keeping deviancy in check. You knew that newer, better models were constantly in development, but a detective android?

Well, it’s very like Cyberlife to attempt to contain its own mistakes. Cyberlife has wealth, and it intends to keep it. So, as a publicity stunt and a concerted effort to reign in its own malfunctioning tech, Connor’s existence makes sense.

But still. Deviancy. You’d never even heard of the word before it left Connor’s mouth, but now it seems to be everywhere. Like when you learn a new word, and people are using it constantly, when before, you swear you’ve never heard it used. Obviously, it can’t be true that the word ‘deviancy’ has only now appeared… but you’ve never seen it before. So obvious, but so ugly in its implication.

As a Cyberlife employee, you have a little clout. You know your way around a computer. So it takes comparatively little effort to find out everything the public knows and then some about deviancy.

John Phillips. Murdered by a deviant. Emma Phillips, taken hostage, successfully retrieved via the efforts of a Cyberlife android, titled ‘the Negotiator.’ Model RK800, first test run.

Connor.

And just recently - and this one is much harder to find, but you already know the victim’s name, so it’s doable - Carlos Ortiz, murdered by a deviant in his own home. Stabbed twenty-eight times.

Your stomach rolls in both sympathy and horror at the implications. How long have androids been murdering their owners? What sort of horrific bug is causing this violence?

At least Connor exists. Connor - or rather, Cyberlife, via Connor - is making an effort to correct its mistakes.

Thank god. You already know the theories about androids observing purchases, personal conversations, etc., but if you owned a machine that could straight up murder you? You’re not sure what you’d do, at this point.

Eventually, you’ve had enough. Your thoughts are ruminating, now, festering with doubt and a tinge of fear. You’re not getting anywhere.

So you exit out of your tabs, returning to your actual work.

Gotta earn that paycheck after all.

That night, in your third-ever VR test, when you come to, blinking your eyes open, reclining on your couch, someone’s waiting for you.

You jolt, half turning at the figure beside you- but no, it’s just the persistent android that frequents your virtual-reality. It’s seated on the other end of your overstuffed couch, sitting primly, knees close together, hands in its lap, staring blankly ahead. It’s perhaps the least human thing you’ve seen it do so far.

“Hello,” it says politely, turning to look at you.

“Hi,” you say, torn between wariness and acceptance. This is the third time you’ve run into this particular android- and after the conversation last time, and the deal you made, you figure you can afford to relax.

Plus, you can’t keep yourself on guard anymore. It’s too stressful.

So you sigh, relaxing back into the soft plush of your couch.

“Guess you’re here again,” you finally say, eyes drifting closed. “Got waylaid again?”

“...Yes,” it says, after some hesitation.

You breathe slow, letting the silence drift. You’re so comfortable that-

Your eyes shoot open as you feel something moving beside you.

You turn your head to look and- oh. It’s your cat. Fluffy, tail waving high in greeting and good-spirits, eyes wide, whiskers twitching. You brighten. “Hey, baby,” you coo, patting your lap. “Heyyyy. C’mon.”

Your cat mews, slinking over. You smile as it parks itself on your lap, starting to knead your thighs. You scratch the side of its chin and it purrs.

“I see you have a pet,” Connor says, jolting you out of your happy-moment. Connor’s looking at your cat, interested. “I don’t really see the merits of owning a cat over owning a dog.”

I didn’t know androids had opinions , you want to snap, but that’s rude, even for you. “Keep your negative opinions away from my cat,” you say instead, comfort and warmth making you conversational. You pet the fluff on your cat’s belly as it flops over, purring. “My cat can sense negative emotion.”

“It’s not an observation based in emotion,” Connor says. “Merely an objective one. Dogs are more friendly, energetic, and defensive of the home. Felines are smaller, more independent, and less capable.”

“Cats are great,” you say, more than a little incensed. “If you’re looking at things objectively, you might see it that way. But it just depends on what you prioritize. Me…” you stroke your cat. “I like having a small, fluffy animal that loves to cuddle with me. And cats can be extremely loving! They’re just pickier than dogs. Now dogs… dogs give their affection to everyone!”

“What’s wrong with that?” Connor says, quizzical.

“I like feeling special,” you reply matter-of-factly, settling back into your couch. “My cat loves me, and me only.”

“If I might point out, this isn’t actually your cat,” Connor says.

You pause in your stroking. Your cat mrrps its dismay.

“...You got me there,” you finally say, resuming your rhythmic pets. “But it’s based on my cat, and my cat’s behavioral patterns. If I wanted it to be different, I’d have to change it in the virtual-reality settings beforehand.”

There’s a comfortable silence.

“Plus,” you say, “cats may be independent, but that just makes their love even more special. And you don’t have to take a cat for a walk.”

“Exercise is beneficial for the body and mind,” Connor says.

For humans. It’s not like androids exercise to maintain their bodies.

“Sure, sure,” you say, ignoring your snide mental hiccup. “I mean, I’m not saying I don’t like dogs. I do like dogs! I’ll pet any animal, as long as I know it’s friendly to being petted. I just like cats better.”

“Your rationale is based in personal preference,” Connor says. “Not facts.”

“Uuugh,” you say, feeling cornered. “Just let me love my cat in peace .”

A comfortable hush falls over the two of you. You relax, petting your cat, reclining on your couch. If you had a good book, you’d be golden.

What even happens if you doze off in virtual reality? Do you wake up in the real world?

So many questions, and so few answers. You suppose this is why you’re testing the module before it’s released to the public.

Testing…

That sparks a small curiosity in your mind. Your eyes dart over to the android, eyeing the way it sits so politely to itself. You feel pressured to fill the silence.

“And hey,” you finally say. You can see Connor blinking into attention in your peripheral. “Sometimes, what we like isn’t based on how it benefits us. Sometimes, it’s just based on what we like, y’know?”

“I can’t say I do,” it says. “Perhaps it is an aspect of humanity that I will never understand.”

Sheesh.

There’s a spot of silence, but now you feel an urge to fill it. For better or worse, when you run into certain situations, you can’t leave them alone. Whether that situation be an awkward silence with an acquaintance-android or something else.

“...What kind of things do you enjoy?” you say. Yep, let’s hammer through that silence.

I mean, there’s gotta be something, right?

Connor blinks and turns to look at you. It looks obviously caught off-guard, and the look in its eyes give you a mild, almost smug satisfaction for having a similar surprising question asked of you the last time it visited.

“Enjoy…?” Connor asks, LED flickering. “I...don’t think I follow what you’re asking.”

“I mean what things do you like?” You take a breath and look back down to your cat, virtual as it may be but cute all the same. “Your favorite things, maybe. Colors, music, hobbies….”

You are curious to see how it would respond to the question. And more than a bit smug to see how it reacts, caught off-guard. A little test, you suppose, if only to sate the curiosity that has been growing in the back of your head. Does Connor even have an answer to it? Such an advanced prototype, the most advanced android created by Cyberlife… does it have preferences?

After a moment, you feel your lips quirk, just a hair.

“I mean, you asked me the same things last time I saw you,” You say, sly. “Seems only fair to ask the same of you.”

The android rubs his hands together--a habit you had began to notice when it felt...nervous? Unsure? If it’s some sort of simulated response to a stimulus or particular pattern of speech, it sure looks real enough to you.

“I do not enjoy things personally,” Connor says at last. “Though if you desire the most appropriate answer to your question, I... enjoy completing my missions. It satisfies the programming for which I was created with. Working with my partner is... challenging. He is a difficult man to negotiate with at times, but nothing I am ill-equipped to handle.”

“Hm,” you say. Interesting. Connor has a partner . “Challenging… is he fine working with an android?” You take a stab at the dark at the possible gender of Connor’s partner.

When you glance over to check Connor’s face, his expression is just a bit sour. Judging by that, you got it right.

“He can be challenging to work with,” Connor repeats, mouth flattened.

Yikes. “Didn’t mean to step on your toes,” you say, stroking your cat absentmindedly. “Just curious.”

“Curiosity,” he muses. “What a human idea.”

“Are you telling me,” you say, incredulous, “that you’re never curious? Not about anything?”

“Well,” he says, and if he looked flustered earlier, he looks like he’s really under pressure now. “‘Curiosity’ as you understand it, wanting to know for the sake of wanting to know… it’s not so different from my programmed purpose. To solve cases, I must observe, analyze, and connect ideas into concrete pictures. That being said, seeking information is… within my purview as an investigator.”

Your lips part, tilting up ever-so-slightly at the corners. He’s babbling .

“Mhmm. Got it,” you tease, and why is it so easy to banter with this robot? It acts more mechanical than any android you’ve interacted with, and yet…

It acts more human, too.

“For your information,” it says curtly, “I recently located and apprehended a deviant. Any behavioral patterns that may indicate ‘curiosity’ are… assisting my programmed purpose.”

Okay, alright, you don’t want him to get defensive. Though you also wonder what happens to the deviant after it’s ‘apprehended.’

“Doesn’t matter to me,” you say, offhanded. “You’re just the android that popped up in my virtual reality tests. Whether you’re curious or not is just conversation.”

“Okay,” he says, and his expression is slightly softened, but still a bit wary, clouded with an emotion you can’t identify. “I’m sorry to cut our conversation short, but would you mind logging out now? I’m in a hurry to get where I need to go.”

“...Alright,” you reply, taken aback. You try not to be offended at his abruptness. A thought strikes you, and without permission, leaves your mouth. “It’s not because I’m horrible conversation, right?”

“No,” he says, lips twisting ruefully. “You’re fine conversation. But right now,” and his face darkens again, “I need to go.”

“Okay,” you say, soft. You make eye contact, and without breaking it, you log out.

The next session, Connor isn’t on your couch.

Nor is Connor in your kitchen, outside in the meadow (at least not within seeing distance), or anywhere else around the house.

You pass the session by cooking, taking items that you know aren’t in your real-life fridge out of your refrigerator. You remember the conversation you had at work, earlier, with Helen about willing things into existence in VR, pulling them out of thin air with willpower alone. You figure you’ll give it a try, in a future session.

You make stir-fry, and though you know how well you’ve spiced it, each bite sits bitter in your mouth.

The next night, Connor’s back.

In fact, he’s not only back, he’s very back, if such a thing were possible. You’d know exactly how back he is, because when you open your eyes in VR for the first time, he’s about three inches from your face.

You shriek, involuntary and stilted, recoiling, but he’s already straightening up, taking a step backwards. He’s standing in front of you, now, eyebrows raised at the expression on your face. His face - which you’re suddenly very familiar with - is just barely colored in amusement, but it quickly fades in favor of a professional veneer.

“Sorry,” Connor says finally, breaking you out of your inspection of his face. “I didn’t mean to scare you.”

“Didn’t scare me,” you mumble. “Just…” you look down, avoiding his gaze. “Just surprised.”

“My apologies,” he repeats. “However, you’ve had your eyes closed for approximately two minutes and forty three seconds. It’s very odd.”

“Do I not do that usually?” you say, straightening up. As if there’s a usually. But still, VR knowledge. For free .

“No,” Connor replies. “In the few times I’ve seen you, you… phase in, appearing first with some transparency, solidifying rapidly over a period of approximately four seconds. Upon full opacity, you open your eyes.”

You try not to think about when he would’ve seen you phase in, seeing where you found him each time. Nope. Nope, not thinking about it.

“...But not this time,” you sigh.

“No,” he says. “This time was different.”

“Hey, wait,” you say, almost childishly excited. You spring to your feet, bouncing on your toes, and you’re standing a bit too close, but whatever.

You concentrate, because you want to pull this off. You curl your fingers over your palm, you concentrate, and you- twist-

In a twist, you open your hand, and sitting there, innocuous, is a coin.

Connor - who’s been peering at you, curious - his eyebrows shoot up. His eyes are flickering from the coin to your face. His brows furrow, and he looks torn between being impressed and asking a lot of questions.

“Voila,” you grin cheekily, raising the coin a bit closer to his face. He peers down at it, lips pursed. “Behold! The power of Virtual Reality conjuration!”

“Why a coin?” he says, expression inscrutable, rolling with the subject change, and for the life of you, you have no idea why the coin is the important thing.

“I don’t know,” you say impatiently. “Coins are typical for magic tricks, aren’t they? Y’know, pulling a coin from behind someone’s ear, and all that. What about the trick, though? Aren’t you impressed?” You grin. Even if Connor is just an android, he’s a captive audience.

“May I?” he asks, hand outstretched, and okay, you’re starting to feel the personal space thing. Connor is maybe a foot away, holding out his hand, palm up.

“Sure,” you mumble, “lemme just…” you sidestep, backing up a step. “Alright,” you say, breathing out in a sigh, “do your worst.” You position the coin in your hand, and with a sharp flick of your thumb and a clear-sounding ping , the coin goes shooting into the air in an arc, spinning and glittering silver.

Unblinking, Connor’s hand darts out, snatching the coin out of the air as it hits its zenith and begins to fall. The coin is clasped neatly between thumb and forefinger.

A corner of your mouth quirks. You can’t help but be a little impressed.

“Observe,” he says, one corner of his mouth quirking up in a half-smile. And before your eyes, the coin-

Oh, wow.

It’s flying from hand to hand, rolling over Connor’s knuckles before disappearing into his cupped palm again and again. It’s entrancing, spinning and glittering, a clear sign of hand-eye coordination. Or maybe just coordination, because he’s not even looking at his hands. When you glance up at his face, tearing your eyes away from the coin-tricks that seem more at home in a circus tent than your living room, his eyes are intently trained on your face, cataloguing your expression of wonder.

You flush and look back at his hands.

He’s spinning the coin on his fingertips now, seemingly defying gravity as he pops the coin in the air, short hops from fingertip to fingertip. Your lips part as you watch, enthralled.

“How are you doing that?” You can’t keep the amazement out of your tone.

“I learned,” Connor says simply, and as you watch, he catches the coin in one hand. You glance back up at his face. “During my testing, it was used to calibrate. Now, I just… I use it to check my physical reaction time and dexterity.”

“That’s...useful.” Not thrilling, not exciting, not even impressive--just ‘useful’, if only because you think it’s the word he would appreciate more. “What other sorts of things can you do with the coin?”

Connor’s eyes lift to meet yours for a moment.

“Nothing that I’m aware of,” he says, though a subtle smirk pulls at the corner of his lips. “Though I hear some people like coins in exchange for goods and services.”

“Oh my god,” you say, rolling your eyes at the absurd not-joke.

It still manages to make you smile.

You chatter for a bit longer, light conversation. You tell Connor how you made the coin appear - I willed it into existence, that’s how things work in VR - and he hmms and tells you he’ll have to try it later. You have no doubt he will.

Shortly after that, you logout, a smile on your face.

That night, you sleep peacefully.

Dammit, you’ve been calling Connor ‘he’ again.

#readershot #dbh #detroit: become human #connor #virtual love #virtual love chapter #connor readershot #readerinsert #reader insert #connor readerinsert #connor reader insert

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starlightsoulwriting · 6 years ago

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Chaos Theory

Chapter Two - Cycnus

A/n: another week another chapter! I hope you all enjoy this installment. Things are still being set up here but they’ll get exciting soon I promise.

Masterlist

Crossposted on AO3

Liana was cold again. Stupid fucking Perkins - why did he always make everything more difficult than it had to be? They had been sitting in the cold for hours, and while she’d been through worse during her time in the air force, she was still pissed as all hell to be stuck out in the snow. She would shoot the man herself if that didn’t mean getting everyone on the ground killed. At least Josh had been kind enough to help her build a fire for herself out of old shipping pallets before joining the rest of Jericho.

Putting down her binoculars, Liana reached into her pack and pulled out a meal bar. She checked her watch as she ate the poor excuse for proper nutrition.

She looked at her watch. 10:45 PM. Thirty minutes to showtime. Hopefully, the androids (or herself) wouldn’t get fucking shot again. However, considering the public reaction to Markus’ past transgressions, it was unlikely they would make it out of this alive.

Shitheads.

Simon and North were noticeably absent; however, Liana wasn’t overly upset at their death. She was more bitter over the fact that it ruined her plans, and made her life harder. Things really never went her way these days.

She wished that after the revolution was over the rest of androids would become a bit more independent in their thoughts, but hey, she couldn't fault Jericho for trusting their leader, Markus. she was from the Air Force, she could relate. Her Major was unconventional, though (like her entire division, actually) and appreciated officers who had their own brains. She had actually had to override him a time or two - if only to prevent someone or something from exploding, disintegrating, or for counteracting the rare weaponized black hole, of course. He wasn’t a scientist and sometimes needed a kick in the ass from someone with the right knowledge base to make a proper decision. Her Colonel was an astrophysicist though, so it balanced out.

It was times like these, though, that she wished she had never joined the military. Would’ve made getting past this day a whole hell of a lot easier. But as she waited for the clock to hit 11:26 PM so she could speak to Connor, all she could do was wait.

It seems like that was the one thing she was good at recently. she pulled out a clear tablet from her overstuffed bag and began to write in an encrypted journal file.

November 11, 10:53 PM

Mission Status: Failure. North and Simon dead. Public opinion negative.

Only hope is Connor. Hope my advice kept him alive somehow. God knows he can be bullheaded when he was to be. If he dies again I’m going to lose my shit.

And she wrote as the clock ticked on.

Cyberlife Tower, 10:58 PM

Naturally, Connor had made it past the elevator - no one could expect anything else from Cyberlife’s finest strategist.

But as he walked through the rows of blank-face androids, Connor began to find himself distracted. He couldn't shake the feeling that he had done this before, in a dream he couldn't even have.

His thoughts drifted to the strange woman who had confronted him earlier. He hadn’t taken his jacket off when he got off the elevator like Lt. Haywood had told him to, but he had been sure to disable the security cameras in the elevator. It was only common sense. Still, the prickling of nerves and curiosity pooled in the back of his mind. So far the things Lt. Haywood had said could be written off as coincidence. He had no reason to listen to or trust her.

A voice called out and another Rk800 reveals himself, holding Hank at gunpoint.

He wouldn't let anyone hurt Hank.

So, of course, like any sane person would do, Connor dropped kicked his twin, leading to an infuriating mirror match with neither android gaining the upper hand.

And then Hank had the gun trained on them. Connor would be fine as long as Hank could parse out him from the fake.

Easy.

Suddenly he could see the advantage of not wearing identical clothing as his imposter.

But there was no way anyone but Cyberlife could have known that the other Connor would be waiting for him, a thoroughly pissed-off Hank in tow. He had to silence the whispers and warnings of ‘spy’ that ran through his head. Even if they could know, he couldn't fathom how someone would know it would come down to telling the two of them apart.

Connor forced his racing mind to still. He had to focus on the present, not mull over the words of a crazy person and whether or not they were engaged in espionage.

Connor obviously knew Sumo’s name - the fact he had learned it himself, instead of having it uploaded to secondary memory, gave him a distinct time advantage over Connor-60, even if only by milliseconds. He just hoped Hank would notice that.

Then Hank opened his mouth, gaze hard, skeptical - everything in his turbulent human mind focusing on deducing who the impostor was. “My son, what’s his name?”

And just like that, Connor’s processors were firing at a million miles a minute again. He managed to spit out the name he learned a mere hour and a half before, and he told Hank things the man already knew, and, from everything he knew from his research, that it wasn’t his fault that Cole had died.

Apparently, the emotion in his voice and words convinced his friend who was who, because he shot Connor-60 promptly, ignoring his protests that he would have said the same as the deviant. However, Connor was busy just trying to make sense of the information he had received from Lt. Haywood. There was no scientific evidence for any form of clairvoyance to exist. Did the Air Force order one of the new Oracle computers? What do they care about him, specifically? Were there even variables as small as him and Hank in those simulations, full with personality and motivations?

No, there weren’t. The Oracles worked on a larger scale than that, global events and disasters.

Connor’s only possible reaction to conflicting conclusions could only be summed up along the lines of ‘what the fuck’ - Hank was perhaps rubbing off on him too much. But still, he couldn’t come up with an explanation for the Doctor’s supposed, unexplainable foresight. He certainly looked forward to their next conversation, if only to get answers out of her. He just hoped that he wouldn’t fry his circuits overthinking before then.

He had a mission to finish.

Elsewhere, on a rooftop overlooking Recall Center number 5, Liana Haywood watched helplessly as the last forces of Jericho were cornered by the National Guard. So many were already shot or blown and all she could do was either stand by and watch or get shot herself.

The soldiers backed them against one of the crates of the barricade, the androids holding their hands up and waiting to die.

“Stay hidden,” Josh’s voice rang out through the radio, surprisingly even. He stood next to Markus on the ground, shoulders back and head high.

And they just stood there as they got shot.

“Fuck,” She hissed, launching her radio at the wall in frustration. They were gone. Do not pass go, do not collect 200 dollars.

Fucking Perkins.

The sight of bodies and the thirium soaked pavement had long since stopped being upsetting to her, though. She had seen it too many times before. But for some reason every time she expected it to end differently than she knew it would - that some butterfly flapped its wings in Africa and they wouldn’t be gunned down.

At least they hadn't nuked Detroit though.

As the bodies of her friends were rounded up into trucks and hauled away, she moved to lay herself face-up on the concrete. Her glassy hazel eyes gave a thousand-yard stare at the cloudy night sky, she had to force her mind away from her angry, hopeless, depression riddled thoughts. Wind still blew her hair. Cold still stung her cheeks. Snowflakes still fell on her sallow face and clung to her lashes. But for now, she would lay and wait.

That was all she could do.

11:18 PM

Tags: @rk800downloading oolallama1398

#detroit become human #dbh connor #dbh #dbh oc #dbh connor x oc #chaos theory #liana haywood

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sage-nebula · 7 years ago

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sweetchcolate replied to your post: Every single time I see one of those “theories”...

Part of this fandom has a serious confirmation bias: they select the hints that fit with their theory, and tend to discard/forget the other facts. A LOT of people are mixing up Original Story Saeran with his Another Story traits (even though the latter is more of an AU than a true “1 ½ year ago” flashback), and to an even greater extent, mix Saeran’s personality with Saeyoung’s, interchanging them and their roles. I miss Original Story/post secret ends Saeran ._. I’m also seeing quite a few posts about how the reset theory/“x” character loves you in every route/“x” character is the wizard would apply to Saeran and like… y'all are just copy-pasting this stuff from one twin to another, as if they were the same character.

“and to an even greater extent, mix Saeran’s personality with Saeyoung’s, interchanging them and their roles. [. . .] y'all are just copy-pasting this stuff from one twin to another, as if they were the same character.”

YEP! YEP YEP YEP!!! I’m seeing so much of this and, to be honest, it’s really infuriating!!

Like, sometimes it’s something small, such as portraying Saeran with a space aesthetic / space related things (space is not Saeran’s thing and never has been; Saeran has flowers, and Saeyoung has space). That’s annoying, because it honestly feels like people enjoy Saeyoung’s space aesthetic and so they want to give it to the twin they prefer / feels deserves it more, but at least it’s something small that can be mostly ignored.

But honestly? The problem runs far deeper than that. You have no idea the amount of fics or “Imagines / headcanons” I see in the tags where the twins’ personalities are just swapped. It’s like all of Saeyoung’s good or “desirable” qualities are stripped from him and given to Saeran, and all of Saeran’s flaws are stripped from him and given to Saeyoung. Saeyoung is left with everything undesirable (the inexplicable lashing out, the insecurity, the inability to take care of himself), while Saeran is given everything to make him The Perfect Boyfriend™ (being protective, able to offer great comfort, stability). It feels as if people prefer Saeran, for whatever reason, but they still like certain qualities that Saeyoung has, and so they take the aspects of Saeyoung’s character that they like and transfer them to Saeran so that he’ll be Perfect™ in their eyes. And you know, whatever, people can do whatever they want, but what I absolutely loathe about these instances of blatant mischaracterization is that it’s often done to denigrate Saeyoung, to make him look worse in comparison to Saeran, so as to “justify” MC ending up with Saeran instead. Saeyoung is an incredibly important character to me, and to see him so blatantly misrepresented all the goddamn time in this fandom (not just by Saeran fans, but lately moreso by them) is really, really upsetting.

And yes, the recent upsurge of people trying to prove that Saeran is actually the protagonist of Mystic Messenger / that Saeran is the “true route” is just . . . more of the same. I literally saw someone try to claim that the “I’ve been watching you from the start” lyric in the original OP is evidence that Saeran is the true protagonist / true route, despite the fact that the entire song is from Saeyoung’s point of view (confirmed in game!), and that “I’ve been watching you from the start” does apply to Saeyoung considering that he had to have tapped into the CCTV during the prologue chat to be able to identify that MC is “a cute girl.” The amount of reaching is ridiculous---but again, it’s done in an attempt to take desirable qualities from Saeyoung and copy-paste them over to Saeran. Like, I’m sorry to disappoint anyone, but while Mystic Messenger is an ensemble cast and it is therefore difficult to pin down who the protagonist is supposed to be, if there is any character who can be identified as the protagonist (i.e. the character that drives the plot forward, the character the story centers around), it’s Saeyoung. It’s his search for the truth that drives the narrative forward, that brings the mysteries to light, that ultimately culminates in the true ending of Original Story. His perspective owns the opening song, and hell, he’s even the face of the icon for the app, for crying out loud. I do not like telling people that Saeyoung is the “true route” because I don’t want to diminish anyone else’s feelings for their favorite character (and more on that in a second), but if you’re really determined to identify a protagonist for this story, that protagonist is Saeyoung. The core plot is very much about him and his family, he’s the one the Secret Ends follow, and he’s the one that drives that plot forward. Even when we get to Secret End 02, which is in Saeran’s perspective, it’s Saeyoung’s actions that drive the action along. He’s the one that breaks Saeran out of the hospital, he’s the one who stops Saeran from committing suicide, he’s the one that organizes the party at the end. Choi Saeyoung is the character who drives the action in Mystic Messenger, at least as far as Original Story is concerned (because Cheritz butchering him in Another Story is another conversation altogether). And Saeran? Saeran is an antagonist, because his goals run in opposition to those of the protagonist. This does not change until the very, very end of the Secret Endings. He’s a sympathetic antagonist, but he’s still an antagonist. No amount of reaching is going to change that.

(And it is reaching, and it’s also---I remember that this theory that “Saeran always loved you” originally cropped up even before Saeran’s Route released, and the person who posted it literally said that “since Saeyoung loves you, Saeran must as well” and it’s just---they’re twins, and I know that Saeyoung likes to say that Saeran is his other half, but they are not the same person! Not at all! They’re individuals! Maybe try using some critical thinking to treat them as such, ffs!)

But on that note:

“I’m also seeing quite a few posts about how the reset theory/“x” character loves you in every route/“x” character is the wizard would apply to Saeran . . .”

I’ve seen that, too, and honestly . . .

Like, I’m going to be upfront: I don’t think that Reset Theory is actually canon for any character, Saeyoung included. I think that if it was intended to be canon, it would actually come up as a concrete part of the story that would be unable to be skipped or ignored, much like the player’s ability to SAVE and LOAD is treated in Undertale. The fact that it isn’t says, to me, that Reset Theory was never meant to be a canonical part of the storyline. So while it’s absolutely a fun thing to play with, and while I myself like to play with it (though I like to think of MC as the one who carries over memories, personally), I don’t believe that it’s actually factual, even though, yes, if there was one character who would most likely remember things across timelines, it probably would be Saeyoung since, from an objective narrative standpoint, he is the protagonist.

But with that said, I also think that sometimes people in this fandom take things like Reset Theory and Wizard Theory (which is one which, if I understand it correctly, I actually really hate) too far. What I mean by this is, there are people who try to use Reset Theory to prove that their fave is objectively the best, while all others are inferior---or people who try to use Wizard Theory to prove that a character they don’t like as much can’t / doesn’t actually love MC. (Again, from my understanding, the Wizard is a Cheritz character who exists beyond the realm of the games, but doesn’t actually / is incapable of actually loving the players. If I’m wrong, I’m sorry, but that’s how I’ve understood it.) In my opinion, pushing things like Wizard Theory, or trying to prove that only your fave fits Reset Theory and that none of the other characters could possibly love MC for real is . . . mean. Like, there’s no other way to describe it, it’s just mean. I mean, obviously this is a dating simulation game, and all of these characters are fictional, and none of them could ever actually love the players for real, but the fact remains that a lot of people do turn to this game for comfort. They honestly feel better about themselves when these characters that they adore say sweet things to them. They know it’s not really real, but the nature of the game is immersive enough so that it still does make them feel better when they feel that, say, Jumin, or Zen, or Jaehee really and truly loves them. So to that end, why would you want to make them feel as if their preferred character doesn’t---or is incapable---of feeling that way about them? Why would you want to take that away from them? What do you gain from it? I think that things like Reset Theory are tons of fun to explore in fic, but when you post lengthy meta about how only one character is valid, then that sort of invalidates the experiences of every other character. And I know it might sound weird for me to say that, because I just got through explaining how Saeyoung is the central character of the narrative and how it would make the most sense for him to fit Reset Theory if any character did, but you’re still not going to catch me telling people, “He’s the only real endgame option,” because that’s not true. The Secret Endings are part of his route, yes, and you’ll only find out the actual plot by following his route therefore (since Mint Eye isn’t exposed in any of the other routes, et cetera), but just because his route is the true route for me doesn’t mean that others won’t prefer, say, Yoosung’s or V’s Routes. Maybe for someone else, Zen is the true endgame. Maybe for someone else, it’s Jumin. Their experiences are valid, and there’s no reason to try and make them feel any differently.

So tl;dr, while I think that Reset Theory is a fun thing to explore in fanworks, I feel that it---and especially Wizard Theory---can be very easily used to make other fans feel bad, and that’s not cool. Saeyoung is my favorite, and his is the true route for me, and obviously he does own the Secret Endings. But that doesn’t mean that he’s “canon,” even if he’s the implied love interest, because ultimately the player decides who MC ends up with. If the player puts MC with Saeyoung, great! If not, that’s valid, too. There is no “canon” route, especially for those who care more about the dating than the mystery (which is a valid way to play, since this is, after all, a dating simulator).

And note, before anyone comes @ me: No, my pointing out that Saeran doesn’t love MC in Original Story is not a case of invalidating people’s experiences. It’s a case of pointing out that abusive behaviors and threats =/= love, as well as the fact that Saeran was never intended as a love interest in Original Story (hence why every single Saeran ending in Original Story is a Bad Ending). Rika doesn’t love MC in Original Story, either. Neither does Vanderwood. Neither does Driver Kim, and so on and so forth. The only time Saeran develops feelings for MC is in Another Story, and even then, I’d argue only on his route, since although he says his love was real in V’s Route, he was still in his obsession stage. So no, I wasn’t invalidating, I was just pointing out that he was never in love with MC in Original Story. The RFA members are, but Saeran is not.

Anyway, this is a super long essay, but tl;dr, my space boy deserves better than this fandom and Cheritz so often give him, and it makes me tired. Hopefully someday things can get better. Hopefully.

#sweetchcolate #//#///#////#/////#mm discourse #mystic messenger discourse #god seven #choi saeyoung #unknown #choi saeran #meta #each day the MM fandom makes me dislike Saeran more than I did previously #it's incredible #or like . . . it's not that i dislike him per se #it's just that i very strongly do not care for him

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bladesmcn-blog · 6 years ago

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MASSIVE MULTIPLE HEADCANON DUMP UNDER THE CUT

Please keep in mind these were all written BEFORE season 6

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Keith started pulling away from his role as the pilot of the black lion as soon as they had Shiro back. He never once wanted to be in this position because he knows that he isn’t meant to be a leader. He’s a natural born loner that’s always cared about only himself in a lot of situations. While being part of a team has granted him the needed growth.

He has never once called himself the black paladin and will never accept that title because it was one that was forced on him by Shiro. Never once did Shiro asked if Keith wanted to lead Voltron, he shoved it down his throat. Which most likely causes a rift between Keith and Shiro because as much as Keith trusts Shiro having something that he doesn’t want shoved down his throat kills Keith.

Keith never meant to cause the rest of his team harm by missing performances or throwing the team that became his family in danger because he hates himself for doing it. Yet he knows that the blade is where he truly belongs. The blade has the secrets to his past hidden in their walls and for once he’s ready to find himself. He’s not just the boy in the shack anymore he’s Keith, a boy who wants nothing more than to find his place in the universe.

What happened with the delivery ships that forced Shiro’s hand into becoming the black paladin again makes Keith feel so guilty it tears him up inside. He didn’t mean to cause that kind of harm to his team. Yet there’s some gratification when Shiro does get the black lion to respond to him only confirming that he has no place as a paladin of Voltron.

Keith loved being a paladin and flying his lion but he knew that his time as a paladin was up the second Allura got the blue lion. He knew the second Shiro was back that he’d hand the reins back over to their rightful owner. He was willing to make that sacrifice for himself.

The lecture with Allura saying that the blade could go on without him but Voltron can’t was a slap in the face because Keith knew that Shiro was just letting him lead a team he was never good enough to. Keith was a bad leader to put it lightly. He knew his flaws and he could never call the shots on his own. He knows that he isn’t meant to be a leader when his instincts tell him to only protect himself.

Once Shiro is back in command and when he tells the team about the mission he wants to go on he knows that it’s finally time. He knows that no matter how bad his mistakes were that things finally worked themselves out in his favor for once in his life. He made his choice the second he joined the blade. He knows where he belongs and he knows it isn’t as a paladin. He made that choice and was willing to make it right no matter the cost.

Keith has grown so much and the trust he holds in his team will always be there, but he knows that he isn’t meant to be in the paladin armor anymore. He hates to leave the family that he’d grown close with behind but he knows that he needs to find himself to really live up to what the expect from him.

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I want to explain something about Keith and his team dynamic because I’ve been talking about this to a few people, and they support this theory.

Now we all know that Keith get’s ‘attacked’ a lot in the show by the other team members because of his mistakes, and yes this does negatively affect Keith I’d like to take a stance from the teams perspective.

This isn’t some high school football game or some dumb playground for them to play in space. This isn’t a simulation this is war and I’d like to make it very clear that some of Keith mistakes could lead him and any other member of the team do their death.

A perfect example is when Keith tried to fight Zarkon in S1 ( I think idek ) and everyone kept yelling at him to stop. They aren’t saying that to break Keith, they don’t want Zarkon to get the red lion and then get himself killed.

Another example is in season 2 when Keith threatens that leader by putting his sword around his neck, of course everyone else got mad because his outburst did nothing but put everyone in danger. They know Keith can’t be stopped but they want to drill it into his head that his decisions often lead the rest of the team to be in danger.

My biggest example is on Thayserix in season 3 whenever Keith just went after Lotor without letting Pidge examine the atmosphere, and letting Allura get shot off and nearly caught by Lotor. In that moment Lance reaches out to him and instead of ‘bullying’ ( He’s never bullied Keith he’s called him out on his shit because again this is war ) Keith he said he was going to help him fix what he’d done. Because everyone knows that Keith doesn’t want to be their leader and they know he isn’t fit to lead them, so instead of lashing out at him and making things worse they help him, because he’s no longer just another paladin he’s in charge.

Before Keith was their leader they’d call him out because they need him to see where he makes his mistakes and need him to try not to do it again. A lot of the time Keith doesn’t do the exact same thing over and over again, but he still causes trouble.

Now moving on to Keith’s perspective.

He’s used to looking out for just himself and not 4 other people. He acts on himself because he’s selfish and cares about himself. He’s hard wired that way, so of course he’s the one who gets in those kinds of situations the most. Pidge, Hunk, and Lance were on a team together in the Garrison and Shiro is a natural born leader so of course they are a team oriented bunch. Keith dropped out of the garrison and was alone for a year, and even in the garrison he struggled with is ‘disciplinary issues’ which I’m assuming revolved around his lack of communication with his team and how he couldn’t be a team oriented person.

Now before you start screaming ‘BUT HE CAN LEARN THEY SHOULDN’T HAVE TO YELL AT HIM’ He can’t relearn something that’s been hardwired in his brain in the course of a few months, they’ve probably been in space 2 years at most, and he can’t reteach himself all the things he’s known because he doesn’t know he’s doing it half the time. He relies solely on instinct and his instinct protects himself and only himself.

Keith isn’t perfect, he’s flawed and broken and desperate to fix himself but he’s too scared to ask for help because he knows everyone on the team already has this high opinion of him and he doesn’t want to disappoint them yet again by showing that he’s not all he’s claimed to be outside of the battlefield.

He’s weak and he doesn’t want to admit that to anyone, because he already knows he’s fucked up enough and he doesn’t want to add to it. I’m not saying the team have made him feel this way because he’s always felt like this. He was at the top of his class at the garrison so god forbid he be anything less than perfect.

TLDR Keith isn’t bullied by his team mates because this is war and it’s not bullying if you speak up when someone fucks up in those situations because everyone’s life is on the line and Keith isn’t fucked up mentally because of what the team does or whenever they call him out. Sure it hurts and it doesn’t help him but he’s not broken from the team doing this to him.

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Keith in season 4 shows a lot of growth ( even though he was only in 3 episodes ) because it’s offering the idea that Keith isn’t meant to be directly involved with Voltron. That he might not truly be meant to hold a paladin role, but a role outside of it with the blade. He joins the blade because he wants to further himself outside of voltron and wants to see where he really belongs. I’m not trying to say he doesn’t belong in voltron but maybe that he feels like to really be a paladin he needs himself to grow. Ever since he was forced to pilot the black lion he hasn’t felt like he really belonged in that position. Lance replaces his role in red and he knows that deep down lance has grown into that role and deserves it, but he knows that he’s not really ready to pilot black yet. He sees himself as more of a place holder for when he forces Shiro to reconnect with the black lion.

Watching Lance grow into the role of the red paladin further solidified his thoughts that he might be that ‘one to many paladins’ Lance mentioned in season 3. It made him realized that maybe he’s not meant to be apart of voltron but still be able to help through the blade. He realizes that maybe he’s not meant to pilot a lion, which is a hard thing for him to swallow because he’d just gotten used to the idea of voltron being his real family and now he feels as if it’s time for him to move on. Joining the blade is a way for him to really grow as a person and find out more about himself away from voltron and away from the people he’s grown to call his family.

Now moving on to how Keith copes with the realization that he isn’t meant for voltron. It’s a hard thing for him to swallow because those people are his family. It’s hard for him to think that he has to take a back seat and watch voltron from the outside because he wants to be a paladin and he wants to be a part of the team but he doesn’t want to shove lance out of red and therefore shove allura out of blue because he feels like those are the roles they’re truly meant to play. He slowly has to accept the fact that he might never get to fly a lion ever again, yet he doesn’t get angry at anyone and doesn’t try to take out this realization out on anyone he keeps it to himself and waits for the moment to present itself that he can be with just the blade and not have to keep going back and forth with being the pilot of the black lion and the blade.

I also want to touch on how Keith has never and probably will never view himself as the black paladin. He knows he’s not meant to hold that role and knows that once Shiro gets back he’ll have a huge weight lifted off his shoulders that he just isn’t ready for. People might call him the black paladin but he’ll never see himself as such.

I’m also a firm believer that Keith connected with people in the blade and talked to them and they helped him rely less on instinct and control his emotions. They’re really helping him grow as a person and that’s something he didn’t fully have in voltron. He’s put himself in a complete 180 environment to what voltron was. It’s not about saving everyone it’s about the mission, and that’s helping him realize how cold some people in life can be.

At first Keith will probably resent the team for not fully understanding why he wants to join the blade and why he forced Shiro to take action and reconnect with the black lion but once they watch him grow and learn and see him change as a person they’ll slowly see that Keith wasn’t trying to run away he was trying to find himself, and that meant he had to leave voltron. Yet he has a whole lot to learn from the blade and that will really help him develop as a character and into the person he really wants himself to be. He wants to be more open with people and wants to be able to not get angry all the time and he really believes the blade is a place where that will teach him what he wants to know.

Now for the big thing. The big stupid instinctual thing Keith did. This is probably going to be super long but whatever here we go, his sacrifice.

In the moment thousands of people were at risk by the planet exploding and crippling the coalition or he can sacrifice his own life and save them all. He knows that since he’s not a paladin anymore his sacrifice won’t directly cripple voltron, they’ll still have all their paladins and still be able to take down Zarkon. They’ll be able to do what they’ve always wanted, and he knows that if he gives himself up to save everyone that he won’t be forgotten. His memory will live on with Voltron and he knows that his death will only give them the strength to take action, he’s willing to give himself up to protect his family.

At this point he’s spent weeks with the blade and their slogan ‘the mission or death’ and all that jazz. He knows that in this moment his life is worth less than the mission they’re trying to complete. He’s just another blade member that is willing to put their life on the line to save everyone else around him. He knows people will be upset, he knows that maybe giving up his life isn’t the best thing to do but it was the only option at that point. They had ticks left before the planet exploded and their weapons weren’t making a dent in that shield but he knows that crashing his ship into it would be enough to at least give them the edge they needed to stop the ritual going on and stop the planet from exploding.

In that moment he recalls his whole life up until that moment and he’s happy with everything he’s done. He was apart of something so much bigger than himself and he knows that even without him around that voltron will still be able to defeat Zarkon and that they’re going to do what they need to do.

In that moment Keith lets everything go and he’s willing to die for the sake of thousands and for the sake of voltron. He’s not dying because he’s impulsive or because he wants to die. He gives himself up knowing that if he doesn’t then everyone that he loves and everyone that he cares about is going to die along with him and he can’t stand that thought. He protects the people he cares about and he’ll give himself up over any of the other paladins in a heart beat because they’re so much more important that he is. He can’t let voltron die so he decides to take a risk that would’ve costed him his life.

He doesn’t regret what he tried to do because there were literally no other options at that point and nothing else was working. He doesn’t think that what he tried to do was dumb or stupid because he’s not a paladin anymore, his worth isn’t greater than any of the other paladins because he hung up his armor and he moved on. Now he’s just a blade member and they’ve died to save voltron before so what’s the difference in that moment?

The blade of marmora are willing to lay down their lives for the sake of voltron and that’s exactly what Keith tries to do. His sacrifice wouldn’t have been in vain and he knows that. He’s just another member of the blade that nearly dies for voltron and he’s sound in his decision.

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Time for me to meta about everything the Keith video touched on. PSA it’s a long read. It’s just over 2k words. Also psa DO NOT REBLOG.

I’d like to start off this with a song lyric that I feel really resonates with keith.

Have you ever felt like nobody was there? Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear? Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

I’m going to start from the beginning of Keith’s life because frankly, that’s where all of his problems started. Keith has never canonically mentioned his father other than in the blade episode so there’s not much to go on there. BUT now that he’s mentioned his mother leaving him we can infer that Keith has abandonment issues. He blames the way he is now on the fact that his mother left him. His biggest question is WHY she left him. What did he do wrong? Why didn’t she love him? It’s all these questions that he’s asked himself for years now.

The next point I’d like to move on to is the abandonment issues that came along as a result of his mother leaving him. Now while I hc that his father died ( the show could prove me wrong but whatever ) and then Keith was shipped off to the Garrison instead of going into foster care that’s another issue of Keith being alone. His father left him by himself, no other family to contact. Instead they shipped him off to the Garrison where he tried to bust his ass to make something out of himself. He needed to prove to himself that even with all the shit he’s gone through that he could be more than his parents deaths.

I’d also like to point out how Keith is never taught any coping mechanisms on how to deal with loss or anger or anything that could make him uncomfortable. He’s literally been shown to lose his cool and get angry the second he feels uncomfortable. Why? Because he doesn’t have any other way of dealing with. It’s not like he wants to get angry all the time he just doesn’t know how to control it. He gets worked up and then can’t stop himself until it’s too late and then whenever someone such as Shiro or Lance call him out and ask him to calm down he’s calm almost immediately, why? Because he never intends to get that angry in the first place. After being called out about it it’s just another slap in the face that he can’t control himself or his emotions because he never had someone there to teach him.

This is where I wanna bring Shiro into the picture. They obviously knew each other through the Garrison ( my ships aside here ) they were most likely friends before Shiro went off to Kerberos. So not only had Keith finally made a friend, but he then had to watch them go off into space and then be reported missing. There’s another instance of loss in his life and he doesn’t know how to cop so what happens? He drops out because of disciplinary issues. Aka he couldn’t keep his temper in check because again, he bottled his feelings until the point where he was a human catalyst and exploded.

After dropping out Keith had basically no where to go so he found himself in an old shack. Where he got to stew on his feelings alone for a few months. This is when the realization that everything in his life as amounted to nothing hits him. His parents are both gone, his one and only friend is presumed dead in space and he dropped out of a top flight school where he was at the top of his class only to end up ALONE. Out of the 3 canonically relevant people he’d ever been close to in his life, all of three of them had left him. That’s when the depression hits him harder than before. He struggles waking up every day he struggles taking care of himself. His hair grows out he forgets how to interact with people. He doesn’t know how to function as a person anymore.

After awhile it was too much for him. He feels like he never deserved a chance to be born with in the first place because whatever high being there is out there ( I personally don’t think Keith is religious ) gave him this sort of life even after he busted his ass to try and become someone. Yet there he was, thrown out in the dirt once again.

Another thing I’d like to touch on is how Keith actually views himself because that’s super important to me and how I write him.

Keith doesn’t view himself in a good light at all for all the reasons I’ve already listed. Keith doesn’t see himself as the ‘number one pilot’ the rest of the team might see him for. He’s flawed. He can’t deal with most social situations without getting aggressive or awkward because honestly he’s had more interaction with people in the first two episodes of voltron than nearly his entire life prior to him finding Shiro again. So of course he’s awkward and quiet unless provoked. ( which honestly isn’t a hard thing to do BUT i digress ) He also has a hard time grasping a lot of social concepts that many people think are second nature. ( insert the i say vol you say tron example here ) The reason why he’s so hung up on the whole i say voltron deal is because to him, it makes more logical sense to just say voltron than to say something that, while yes it’s supposed to be humorous, just doesn’t make any sense to him. Keith isn’t one for humor that isn’t direct/blunt because a lot of the time his brain can’t wrap itself around the concept.

I also want to touch on his the relationships he holds with the paladins themselves and how he views their input.

I’d like to start this off with the beginning of season three whenever they were all deciding who was going to pilot the black lion. Their aggression towards him confessing that Shiro kept being like ‘i want you to lead voltron’ but having never mentioned it to anyone else, not even to coran or allura is like a huge kick in the face to the little confidence he had in himself. One because he hates being rejected because that’s all he’s ever been his entire life. Two, is because he thought the team thought more highly of him than just the loner and yet there they were calling him out and making him feel like he was at the bottom of the barrel. The only talent any of them ever acknowledge is his piloting skills. Nothing else about him shines, he’s just a good pilot to them.

Moving on to whenever they all actually go in the black lion. Keith was the LAST to attempt and honestly he probably only attempted because everyone else was pressuring him to. He had to try right? Except he never wanted to lead voltron in the first place. He doesn’t have the skill set to lead he doesn’t have the qualities of a leader. Even after the black lion responds to him he wants to deny it, he wants to let someone else do it because he can’t have such a big responsibility placed on him whenever he knows he’s going to fail.

That’s when everyone starts to congratulate him and he feels like he’s just been kicked in the teeth. He knows their true feelings, he knows that know of them really value his ability to pilot over him and yet there they were being like ‘oh you’re going to be a great leader.’ Yet he wasn’t. He almost got Allura killed. They wanted him to lead so he did, and he failed.

Once again he’d failed. He failed his mother’s love, his fathers legacy, and how he’d failed Shiro. That only made the depression worse.

Moving back all the way to season 1 I want to talk about the famous ‘bonding moment’ that was humorously touched in the show.

The reason ( I feel at least ) Keith is so upset about Lance not remembering it is because for the first time since Shiro, Keith had found someone that had seen him in a good light. Someone that had complimented him. Even after all the headassery that Lance had started with Keith he thought they made a good team, and this good team work is shown time and time again throughout the show and yet the fact that Lance forgets it just solidifies to Keith that nothing he does is worth remembering.

This is the time where I put my little blurb about Lance and Keith and their interactions

So Lance starts basically everything in the rivalry between the two of them. Literally within the first five minutes of meeting Keith, Lance is already shoving his superiority down his throat. At first Keith didn’t understand why Lance was like this and why Lance kept pushing it on him. ( he even finds it somewhat annoying and like Lance has a problem ) Yet as time goes on the rivalry turns into a more competitive nature that Keith starts to play back with. At first Keith really just wanted Lance to get off his case, and now it’s like their rivalry has brought them closer together by the time season 3 rolls around.

My last few little blurbs before I close off this novel of a meta

Keith deals with anxiety and depression that’s almost without a doubt 100% canon in my eyes. The way he acts and the way he carries himself and how he speaks and the way he words things and all this stuff is clearly a sign that he’s struggling with it and he doesn’t know how to control it, yet he also doesn’t want to admit that he has a problem because he doesn’t want to fail everyone on the team yet again.

Keith also values everyone on his team way more than what he lets on. He protects Allura from the arusian that comes to the castle asking why the lion goddess is mad. He catches Pidge from being thrown and all the times he’s thrown his sword to protect Lance and everything else he’s done. He wants to protect the team because they’ve become almost like his first real family. Yet he’s also terrified that this new family will drop him too, just like everyone else.

Keith struggles with his galra side. He struggles taking in the fact that he’s not what he thought he was his entire life and that just makes him not know who he is even more. Sometimes whenever he looks in the mirror he doesn’t see himself, but instead Zarkon or Lotor because that’s where part of him is from. He hates the term ‘galra keith’ because it’s like the fact once everyone knows that he’s galra he’s instantly not himself anymore but instead this evil abomination that’s wiped out entire systems with his army. Him being Galra is just the nail in the coffin that once again, he’s a huge disappointment to everyone.

He fears rejection big time. Because all anyone has ever done from the get go is reject him. His mother rejected him by leaving, he rejected himself from the garrison. Lance rejects him by throwing all of his flaws in his face. He can’t catch a break. He tries so hard to prove to everyone that he’s more than the broken parts of him that he hides away. He wants to try and prove to everyone ( including himself ) that he can be more than just some socially awkward teenager.

In closing I’d like to bring up the song lyric I put at the top of this post

Have you ever felt like nobody was there? Have you ever felt forgotten in the middle of nowhere? Have you ever felt like you could disappear? Like you could fall, and no one would hear?

This is basically how Keith views himself. He honestly thinks he’s replaceable. They could find someone else in the galaxy with his piloting skills. They could find a new red paladin that wasn’t the loner emo brooding hot head. He feels like everyone on the team has forgotten that hey, he’s a person with feelings too. Not just some teenage kid who gets angry all the time for the hell of it. He feels like if he died, he’d die alone. If he died no one would care because he never really amounted to anything in life. He never changed anyone’s life or impacted others the way some have done for him. If he died no one would miss him because he doesn’t even have a family on earth to go back to. He thinks that if he died, everyone would just keep on living and forget about him.

And being forgotten is his biggest fear.

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#≪ ☆.｡.:*　 Headcanon .｡.:*☆ ≫

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